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Following a meeting on Friday (February 23) evening, it was announced that the state Cabinet has decided to repeal the Assam Muslim Marriage and Divorce Registration Act of 1935. In the meeting, the Cabinet approved the ‘Assam Repealing Ordinance 2024’ which will repeal the 89-year-old Act.
Here’s why the state government took this step, and the political climate in which it was taken.
Enacted in 1935, the Act lays down the process for registration of Muslim marriages and divorces. A 2010 amendment replaced the word ‘voluntary’ in the original Act with ‘compulsory’, making registration of Muslim marriages and divorces compulsory in the state of Assam.
The Act authorises the state to grant licences to “any person, being a Muslim” to register marriages and divorces, with Muslim registrars deemed to be public servants.
It lays down the process through which marriage and divorce applications can be made to the registrar, and the process for their registration.
Front Page
Indians spending more on milk, fruits and veg than foodgrains (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The latest Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES) for 2022-23 does not only point to a continuing decline in the share of food items in the total spending basket of Indians.
Equally revealing is a shift in the composition of food expenditure itself — from foodgrains and sugar to animal and horticulture products. In other words, from foods basically delivering calories to those rich in proteins and micronutrients.
The data from the HCES, conducted by the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), shows the share of food in the average monthly per capita consumption expenditure (MPCE) dipped to 46.4% in 2022-23 for rural India, from 52.9% in 2011-12, 53.1% in 2004-05, and 59.4% in 1999-2000.
A similar, but not as sharp, drop was recorded for urban India too — from 48.1% in 1999-2000, to 40.5% in 2004-05, 42.6% in 2011-12, and 39.2% in 2022-23.
Editorial
In a corner of its making (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Amidst “informed guesses” that the coming parliamentary election will be easy for the BJP, one would have expected spirited efforts by the Opposition to mobilise the electorate and corner the ruling party on key developments such as the Supreme Court ruling on electoral bonds or the farmers’ agitation. Instead, what we witness is an aggressive BJP poaching the Opposition, in north and south, and openly waging a war against farmers.
This stark asymmetry between the approaches of the ruling party and the Opposition cannot be understood merely in the framework of anti-democratic manoeuvres of the ruling party — they are a given in a polity that tilts towards upholding sub-democratic politics as democracy.
This asymmetry also needs to be understood in the context of the political failure of the Opposition. A very different, more mature and silent coalition-making would be needed for such a change.
Ideas Page
In poll year, a data question (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The big data economy — powered by massive datasets and unprecedented levels of personal information — has fundamentally altered how a country conducts elections, and how people vote. The benefits to companies and political parties are as clear as the harms to people’s privacy.
With greater access to data, comes greater power to influence. Candidates contesting elections can bolster their campaigns through micro-targeting.
They can choose from a range of engagement options like bulk SMS, audio call, social media. Voters are in the dark about such databases of personal information and their ability to consent to the collection and disclosure of data, and control how it is used, is out of the question.
The network effect is at the core of social media as we know it. It signifies the increase in the purported benefits to each user with the addition of more users.
For instance, you are likely to join a platform that has a larger user-base to connect with more people and access more content. Such platforms will probably have better interactive features, and curation of services, shaped by analysis of a larger pool of users’ data.
Enhanced collection of personal information makes business sense for social media platforms. Currently, it is practically impossible for an individual to know what information about them is being collected, discerned and used, and why.
Economy
WTO meet : India to push for permanent solution to public stock holding of grains (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A draft text ahead of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO’s) 13th ministerial conference (MC13) has proposed to “agree and adopt” a permanent solution to public stockholding for food security until the next ministerial meeting.
This means a permanent solution India has been negotiating hard for may be pushed back by another two years, since the conference is generally a biennial meet.
The other option mentioned in the draft is to adopt a permanent solution in MC13, expected to start from February 26 in Abu Dhabi.
G33 group of developing countries in a statement urged all WTO member nations to make a concerted effort to agree and adopt a permanent solution on the matter since public stockholding for food security purposes is of ‘critical importance’ to developing countries.
The G33 co-sponsoring members reiterate the importance of the proposal submitted with the African Group and the African, Caribbean, and Pacific Group, and invite other members to engage constructively with the elements contained therein, as a basis to achieve outcome on public stockholding for food security purposes in MC13,” according to the G33 ministerial statement on agriculture trade negotiations.
RBI asks NPCI to consider Paytm’s request for TPAP : What is it and how will it benefit customers? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has asked the National Payment Council of India (NPCI) to examine the request of One97 Communications’ (OCL), which owns Paytm, to become a Third-Party Application Provider (TPAP) for continued Unified Payments Interface operation of the Paytm application.
A TPAP approval is mandatory to provide UPI-based payment transactions to customers. Currently, all UPI transactions on the Paytm app are being routed through Paytm Payments Bank (PPBL), an associate company of OCL, which is registered as TPAP.
As the RBI has asked the PPBL to shut its operations by March 15, 2024, there will be no TPAP registration for the Paytm app to be able to provide UPI payment services.
A Third-Party Application Provider is an entity that provides the UPI compliant app(s) to the end-user customers to facilitate UPI-based payment transactions.
These applications could be mobile wallets, merchant apps, or any other platform that utilises UPI for payments.