The Hindu Editorial Analysis- 12th October 2022 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

Blaming Technology for Deaths by Suicide is Misguided 

Context

• Recently, the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) released the “Accidental Deaths & Suicides in India Report 2021.”
• The report tabled figures for “Crime Against Women”, “Suicide” and “Crime Rates”.

What are the Report’s findings for Crime Against Women?

• National Figures:
  • The rate of crime against women (number of incidents per 1 lakh population) increased from 56.5% in 2020 to 64.5% in 2021.
  • 31.8%: Cruelty by husband or his relatives
  • 20.8%: Assault on Women with Intent to Outrage her Modesty
  • 17.6%: Kidnapping and Abduction
  • 7.40%: Rape
• State:

  

  • The highest rate of crime against women in 2021 was registered in Assam 168.3% followed by Odisha, Haryana, Telangana and Rajasthan.
  • Rajasthan showed a marginal decrease in the actual number of cases while the three other states (Odisha, Haryana and Telangana) marked an increase.
  • In terms of actual number of cases registered in 2021, UP tops the list followed by Rajasthan, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Odisha.
  • Nagaland stood out with the lowest number of crimes against women registered in the past three years.
• Union Territories: 
  • Among Union Territories, Delhi had the highest rate of crime against women in 2021 at 147.6%.
• Cities:
  • Jaipur had the highest rate at over 194%, followed by Delhi, Indore and Lucknow.
  • Chennai and Coimbatore (Both in Chennai) had the lowest rate.
  • In actual numbers among these cities, Delhi topped in 2021 (13,892) followed by Mumbai, Bengaluru and Hyderabad.
• Domestic Violence & Dowry Deaths:
  • Only 507 cases were registered in the country under the Domestic Violence Act in 2021 — 0.1% of the total cases of crime against women.
  • The highest number of cases (270) were filed in Kerala.
  • 6,589 cases of dowry deaths were registered in 2021 with the highest number of such deaths registered in UP and Bihar.

What are the Report’s findings for Suicide Rate?

• Daily Wager:
  • Daily wage earners remained the largest profession-wise group among suicide victims in 2021, accounting for 42,004 suicides (25.6%).
  • The share of daily wagers death by suicide has crossed the quarter mark for the first time.
  • At the national level, the number of suicides increased by 7.17% from the years 2020 to 2021.
  • However, the number of suicides in the daily wage group rose by 11.52% during this period.
• Farming Sector:
  • The overall share of “Persons engaged in farming sector” among the total recorded suicides stood at 6.6% during 2021.
• Profession Wise Distribution:
  • The highest increase of 16.73% was recorded by “self-employed persons”.
  • The “unemployed persons” group was the only one that saw a decline in suicides, with the number dipping by 12.38% from 15,652 in 2020 to 13,714 suicides in 2021.

Reasons for Suicide:

• 33.2%: Family Problems (other than marriage related problems)
• 4.8%: Marriage Related Problems
• 18.6%: Illness

State:

• Maharashtra topped the country in terms of the number of suicides reported in 2021 followed by Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh.
• Maharashtra contributed 13.5% to the total number of suicides registered across the country in 2021.

Union Territories:

• Delhi recorded the highest number of 2,840 suicides.

What are the Report’s findings for Crime Rates?

• About:
  • Registered violent crimes such as rape, kidnapping, crimes against children and robberies increased again across India in 2021.
  • Pandemic-related restrictions led to a decline in these severe offences in 2020.
  • Murders, which did not come down even in 2020, continued to increase last year too.
• Crime Wise Data:
  • Rape cases:
    • Increased by 13% (28,046 in 2020)
    • Rajasthan had the highest rate of rape for 2021 at 16.4% and topped in actual numbers with 6,337 cases registered in 2021.
  • Kidnapping:
    • Rose by 20% (84,805 in 2020)
  • Murder:
    • Increased to 29,272 cases in 2021 from 29,193 in 2020
    • Uttar Pradesh registered the highest number of murders followed by Bihar and Maharashtra.
  • Crime Against Children:
    • Crime against children surpassed the pre-pandemic levels after declining in 2020 due to Covid-related restriction.
    • In 2021, 1.49 lakh such cases were recorded, higher than 1.48 lakh in 2019.
    • Sikkim has the highest rate of sexual offences against children followed by Kerala, Meghalaya, Haryana and Mizoram.

Covid-19 Violations Dips:

• The decline in overall crimes in 2021 can be attributed to a sharp decrease in cases registered under “disobedience to order duly promulgated by a public servant (Section 188 of IPC).
• Such cases were registered mainly over violations of COVID-19 norms. They were also recorded under ‘Other IPC Crimes’ and ‘Other State Local Acts.’
• The number of cases filed under Section 188 of the IPC has almost halved from 6.12 lakh cases in 2020 to 3.22 lakh in 2021.

What is the National Crime Records Bureau?

About:

• NCRB, headquartered in New Delhi, was set-up in 1986 under the Ministry of Home Affairs to function as a repository of information on crime and criminals so as to assist the investigators in linking crime to the perpetrators.
• It was set up based on the recommendations of the National Police Commission (1977-1981) and the MHA’s Task Force (1985).

Functions:

• The Bureau has been entrusted to maintain National Database of Sexual Offenders (NDSO) and share it with the States/UTs on regular basis.
• NCRB has also been designated as the Central Nodal Agency to manage technical and operational functions of the ‘Online Cyber-Crime Reporting Portal’ through which any citizen can lodge a complaint or upload a video clip as evidence of crime related to child pornography, rape/gang rape.
• The responsibility of implementation of the Inter-operable Criminal Justice System (ICJS) has also been given to the NCRB.
• ICJS is a national platform for enabling integration of the main IT system used for delivery of Criminal Justice in the cuntry.
• It seeks to integrate the five pillars of the system viz Police (through Crime and Criminal Tracking and Network Systems), e-Forensics for Forensic Labs, e-Courts for Courts, e-Prosecution for Public Prosecutors and e-Prisons for Prisons.

Major Publications:

• Crimes in India
• Accidental Deaths and Suicides
• Prison Statistics
• Reports on Missing Women and children in India