Society & Social Justice: February 2022 Current Affairs | Current Affairs & General Knowledge - CLAT PDF Download

1. Interfaith Marriages

About Interfaith Marriages

• Interfaith marriage is a marriage between spouses professing different religions. In India interfaith couple generally solemnize their marriage through the Special Marriage act, 1954 (SMA)
• SMA is a civil law enacted in 1954 that allows the solemnisation of marriages between any two individuals without religious customs, rituals, or ceremonial requirements.
• SMA creates provisions for the marriage of interfaith couples without religious conversions — a requirement for marriages under personal laws such as the Hindu or the Muslim marriage acts.
• Being a secular Act, it plays a key role in liberating individuals from the traditional coercive requirements of marriage. However, many of its provisions are inconsistent with its objectives.

Issue with Special Marriage Act (SMA)

• The conditions such as the 30-day notice period, the requirement for an extra witness, and the need to inform families breach the right to privacy of the parties and exposes the couple to fear of hate crimes like honour killing and religious persecution as well as to social ostracization.
• Similar conditions are not applicable to intra-faith marriages held outside purview of SMA doesnt justify these conditions for interfaith marriages.
• These conditions violate against the right to equality given under Article 14.

Currently, Supreme Court is considering a plea challenging certain provisions of Special Marriage Act,1954.

Impact of Anti -Conversion Laws on Inter Faith Marriages 

Recently Karnataka Legislative Assembly passed The Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, commonly referred to as the ‘Anti-Conversion Act’. Similar laws were also passed by UP. MP, Gujarat legislative assemblies etc. These laws included “conversion by marriage” as one of the illegal forms of conversion and criminalised inter- faith marriages by treating them as a means to convert one of the parties from one religion to another.

These laws violate the values of secularism and liberty enshrined in the constitution. They are also in contravention with the Supreme Court judgement in Shafin Jahan Vs Ashok KM (2018), which has upheld the right to marry a person of one’s choice as a part of Article 21.

Law commission Recommendations

• Process of registration of marriage should be expedited by removing the time gap between marriage notice and registration.
• A legal framework should be established that could address the issue of interference of caste assemblies, councils, religious groups or any kind of group of assembly that threatens the couples or interferes with their right to marry.
• Acts such as social boycott, discrimination, or anything that endangers the liberty of the couple because of their decision of getting married under SMA, shall be addressed by certain penal action and prescribed punishment.
• There shall be a provision on preventive action and the same powers shall be granted to SDM or DM to protect the couple from any such unlawful assembly.
• The offence shall be made cognizable, non-bailable and non-compoundable to have strict action against people involved.

2. Marital Rape

Delhi High Court is hearing a petition challenging an exception in IPC Section 375 that protects men, who have forced non-consensual intercourse with their wives, from criminal prosecution.

About

• Marital rape refers to the act of sexual intercourse with one's spouse without the spouse's consent.
• Marital rape is not a crime in Indian Jurisprudence. However, there has been growing demand to criminalise marital rape in India.
• According to NHFS-4 survey, 5.4% women experienced marital rape in India.

Reasons for Marital Rape

• Economic independency: Lack of economic independence often deters married women to report Marital rape.
• Lack of awareness: Women often do not even realise that they are the victims of marital rape, as sex without consent is taken for granted in the marriage.
• Patriarchy: Sexual offence is a weapon of male domination, and it is manifestation of patriarchy.

IPC under Section 375

This section defines rape as follows A man is said to commit “rape” who has sexual intercourse with a woman under following circumstances

• Against her will
• Without her consent
• With her consent, but the consent has obtained because of
  (i) Putting her in the fear of death
  (ii) When the man knows that he is not her husband, but she believes that he is her husband
  (iii) Unsound mind or intoxication
• With or without consent, when she is under 16 years of age
• However, the same section gave an exemption
  Exemption: Sexual intercourse by a man with his wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape.

Arguments for Criminalisation of MArital Rape

• Against the individual rights of the married women (Article 14 and 21): A married woman should have the same rights over her body as much as an unmarried woman does. (Marital Rape thus, is against the principle of equality)
• Victims of marital rape undergoes same trauma as in case of rape by strangers: Studies show that rape victims, either married or unmarried, undergoes PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder)
• A form of domestic violence: Sexual offence against the wife is a form of domestic violence. India has already enacted the Domestic Violence Law that enables complaints against physical and sexual abuse. The IPC also holds cruelty to be an offence in a domestic context. Thus, the argument that criminalising marital rape will ruin the institution of marriage is unlikely to hold any more than a complaint of domestic violence or cruelty would.
• Inconsistent with other laws and Judgements:
  (i) A husband separated from his wife (though not divorced) may even be tried for rape (Section 376B).
  (ii) Section 377 of IPC penalises carnal intercourse against the order of nature by any man (including husband).
  (iii) This exemption indirectly admits that wife is a property of Husband, which is in conflict with the opinion given by SC in Joseph Shine Case (2018).
  (iv) Rape is criminalised in live-in relationships between couples which have been seen as legally equivalent to marriages by courts in India.
  (v) The Supreme Court held that the offence of adultery was unconstitutional because it was founded on the principle that a woman is her husband’s property after marriage. Thus, the underlying idea behind exemption to marital rape which treats women as property of husband is unfounded.

Arguments Against  Criminalisation of Marital Rape

• Threat to the institution of marriage: Criminalisation of marital rape is often viewed as a threat to the institution of marriage, in which both the spouses have conjugal rights over each other. However, Marriage as an institution evolved over the period. New forms of marriage emerged like Cohabitation, Live-in, same sex marriages etc. where individual choices are given primacy. Institution of marriage is no more primitive in nature, where conjugal rights took precedence over individual choices.
• Conjugal rights: Section 19 of the Hindu Marriage Act gives either spouse in a marriage the legal right to "restitution of conjugal right.” But recognition of conjugal rights to have sex with spouse does not give a licence to rape.
• Misuse of law: Laws to protect women are often misused just like section 498 A. It is also a challenge to prove the offence. However, Misuse of a law is not a defensive argument to not to enforce it.

Conclusion: Justive Verma Committee report on reforms in criminal laws recommended removal of exception given to marital rape as protection pointed towards an outdated notion of marriage that treated the wife as the husband’s property. The idea of treating wife under the husband’s authority always should be changed and the dignity, autonomy and self-respect of

females should be upheld.

3. Gender Neutral Laws 

At a recent consultation organised by National Commission for Women on amendment to criminal laws, the need for gender neutral rape laws came into focus. Rape is defined under section 375 of the IPC. Following the December 2012 gang-rape in Delhi, after consultation with

the Justice Verma Commission (JVC), Parliament expanded the meaning of rape. Yet, the rape laws in India have remained far from being gender neutral.

About
The idea behind is that policies, language and other social institutions should avoid distinguishing roles according to people’s sex or gender. This is to avoid discrimination arising from the impression that there are social roles for which one gender is more suited than another.

Need for Gender Neutral Rape Laws

• Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2013 recognises that both boys as well as girls can be victims of sexual assault. But there is no such provision for adult male.
• Though the Supreme Court decriminalise consensual sexual acts between men (section 377), but for non- consensual acts of sexual violence between two men, the section continues to apply. However, unlike rape laws, the burden of proof lies with the complainant.
• The existing rape laws are inadequate to do justice to the LGBTQ sections since they are not Gender neutral.
• Gender biased laws reinforces the existing gender stereotypes and helps in sustaining patriarchy.
• There are certain laws that have been framed in India which accord more protection to women as compared to men. These laws have been framed as women were often considered the weaker gender and thus need protection by the state. However, these laws have also been often misused by females for their vested interest. This has demand for gender neutral laws.

However, some sections of civil society were vocal against these gender-neutral provisions,  highlighting the high probability of double victimisation of women wherein complaints of rape, sexual harassment and assault could be met by counter-complaints to build pressure to withdraw their cases. They thus advocate for special provisions in favour of women.

4. Education Emergency 

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted education and learning as much as any other sector of the economy and civic life. As per UNESCO in April 2020, over 1.5 billion students worldwide were affected by school closures – with over half of those students facing economic and technical barriers to access education via other means. In India, over 250 million students faced the prospect of learning recession due to school closures across the country. This created a situation of “Education emergency” and calls for efficient adoption of Digital education in India.

Need for Enhancing Digital Education

• Improving learning outcomes: Multiple ASER reports have shown that basic learning outcomes are very poor in Indian primary education sector. Blending online learning with face-to-face teaching generally produces better outcomes than traditional classrooms.
• Imparting 21st century skills: The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 recommends leveraging digital in education to improve learning outcomes and imparting 21st century skills to students. These 21st century skills include- Critical Thinking, Creativity, Collaboration, Curiosity, Communication.
• Impact of COVID-19 pandemic: COVID induced school closures resulted in learning loss to many students who couldn’t attend classes.

Challenges with Digital Education

• Digital access divide:
  (i) Device access: Urban areas and higher socio- economic groups have adequate access to devices, whereas public schools and rural communities lack access to basic ICT infrastructure such as projectors. Also, the access to smartphones, electricity which are pre-requisite for digital learning are very low in poor households. o Internet penetration: Low internet access in rural areas, with only 32% of people aged 12+ having access to internet versus 54% in urban areas, hampers the ability to adopt digital in education.
• Access to the content in vernacular languages- Most of the digital content is not available in vernacular languages.
• Shortage of trained teachers: A major obstacle in the use of digital education in rural area is the lack of knowledge and skills among teachers. There is a shortage of teachers, formally trained on digital technology. Lack of digitally trained teachers accentuates the skewed learning outcomes.
• Poor maintenance and upgradation of digital equipment is a challenge in rural areas. Digital education projects in rural schools are not self-sustainable. At initial stage various projects have been launched by government for development of digital education, but later, they have not been taken due care & maintenance of digital equipment which is affecting digital education development in rural areas.

Way Forward

• Increasing expenditure by government on making digital infrastructure such as computers, internet connectivity available in particularly in government schools.
• Inviting Corporate Social Responsibility participation in digital education.
• Partnership with innovating ed-tech firms to make digital learning available to vast majority of students.
• Nation-wide teacher training in digital education.
• Regulation of EdTech firms to comply with rules of government and make digital education widespread. Initiatives to boost Digital Education

National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR): In the Union Budget 2021-22, the Indian government established the National Digital Educational Architecture (NDEAR) to strengthen digital infrastructure and support activities related to education planning. The NDEAR aims to offer distinct education ecosystem architecture for advancement of digital infrastructure in the country and guarantee autonomy of stakeholders, especially states and UTs.

• PM eVIDYA Programme: The government introduced the PM eVIDYA programme in 2020 to make e-learning more accessible for Indian students and teachers and promote & strengthen digital education in India. The programme aims to converge all activities related to online/digital education and is expected to benefit ~25 crore school students. Under this, top 100 universities were permitted to begin online courses, provide better learning prospects to 3.7 crore higher education students and enhance e-learning by relaxing regulatory framework for distance/open/online education.
• DIKSHA: In 2017, the government introduced DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing), a national portal for school education, to offer school curriculum-based engaging learning materials to students, teachers, and parents. The portal supports >18 Indian languages and has been implemented by 35 states/UTs.
• SWAYAM: In 2017, government launched Study Webs of Active Learning for Young Aspiring Minds  (SWAYAM) to offer an integrated platform for online courses at affordable costs to all citizens, especially underprivileged section. The portal hosts Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) to offer quality education on various subjects for students (from Class 9-12 to Under Graduates and Postgraduates).
• NISHTHA: In FY21, the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA)- Phase II was launched at the secondary level to tailor modules for online education. As per the Union Budget 2021-22, ~5.6 million teachers will be trained under the NISHTHA training programme in FY22.

5. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojna

National Food Security Act promised to give lactating mothers a provision of Rs 6,000 to take of their health and nutritional needs. After much delay, the union government enacted the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) which promises Rs 5000 as cash support to women and only for the first child. Experts have advised for reforming the scheme for better health outcomes of mothers and reducing IMR and MMR.

Context for the Scheme

• As per the Sample Registration System (SRS) report by Registrar General of India (RGI), Maternal Mortality Ratio (MMR) of India is 113 per 100,000 live births and IMR is 30 per 1000 live births. According to UNICEF, India accounts for 1/5th of world’s annual child births.
• As per NFHS-IV, 2015–16 report, over half (53%) of Indian women of reproductive age and 58.6% of children were estimated to be anaemic.
• Owing to economic and social distress many women continue to work to earn a living right up to the last days of their pregnancy. Furthermore, they resume working soon after childbirth, even though their bodies might not permit it, thus preventing their bodies from fully recovering on one hand and impeding their ability to exclusively breastfeed their young infant in the first six months. This impacts nutritional health of Mothers and infants.
• To address these challenges, PMMVY is being implemented.

Objective of PMMVY

• To provide partial compensation for the wage loss in terms of cash incentives so that the woman can take adequate rest before and after delivery of the first living child.
• To improve health seeking behaviour amongst the Pregnant and Lactating Mothers.

Benefits under the Scheme

• All eligible Pregnant & Lactating Mothers would receive a Cash incentive of Rs 5000 in three instalments for first childbirth.
• Conditions attached to these instalments are
  (i) Early registration of pregnancy at the Anganwadi Centre (AWC).
  (ii) Receiving at least one ante-natal check-up (ANC).
  (iii) Registration of childbirth and vaccination of first cycle vaccines (BCG, OPV, DPT and Hepatitis-B).
• In addition, a pregnant woman also receives the cash incentive of INR 1,000 when she opts for an institutional delivery, under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY).

Issues with PMMVY

• Inadequate coverage of intended beneficiaries: While the estimated eligible population of pregnant and lactating mothers in India was 128.7 lakh for 2017-18, the target set by the Government was 51.70 lakh beneficiaries which is only 40% of the eligible population.
• Restricted to first birth: Of the total live births in India, 49.5% comprises first-order births and 29.9% are second-order births, as per SRS 2018. It is imperative to include second live birth under the maternity benefit cover particularly for women in the unorganised sector who are more vulnerable to economic shocks and nutrition loss for all child births.
• Insufficient compensation: The cash entitlement is insufficient to compensate the wage loss of pregnant and lactating women. The current entitlement of Rs 5,000 provided over 1-year amounts to merely one month’s wage loss, as per the MGNREGA wage rate.
• Implementational challenges: Lack of awareness within the intended beneficiaries about the scheme and cumbersome process to get the benefits made its implementation a challenging task.

Way Forward 

• Increase the amount of cash transfer to at least 12 weeks of wage compensation, amounting to about INR 15,000. This is especially important in the current context, as the lockdown has led to income loss not just for women, but for others in the household as well. Also, 95% of the female workforce in India is employed in the informal sector, and does not have access to maternity benefits like paid maternity leave.
• Expand the benefits to women giving birth to second child as well.
• Simplify the process to receive the benefit as the current requirements for submission of multiple documents like mother child protection card (MPC), husband’s Aadhar card, bank passbook, registration form etc. act as barriers to access the benefits.

6. Regulation of EdTECH 

UGC and All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) have warned their recognised varsities and institutions against offering courses in distance learning and online mode in association with Ed-tech companies, saying no “franchise” agreement is permissible as per norms.

Status of EdTECH

EdTech is a shorthand for Educational Technology. It is combined use of computer hardware, software and educational theory to facilitate learning. EdTech industry particularly boomed in India during the COVID-19 pandemic as physical classrooms were shut. Many large firms such as BYJUS, UNACADEMY have come in this space. Many traditional educational institutions also used technologies such as Zoom etc for education. Indian EdTech industry was valued at US$ 750 million in 2020 and is expected to reach US $4 billion by 2025. This growth is due to growing internet penetration in India. As per the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) 2020, smartphone ownership among government school student families increased from 30% in 2018 to 56% in 2020, whereas smartphone ownership among private school student families rose from 50% to 74%. The Covid-19 pandemic accelerated the adoption of technology in India’s education sector.

Self -Regulation 

The EdTech companies have formed a collective — India EdTech Consortium — under the aegis of the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI). This consortium has adopted a code of conduct for their businesses. However, the Government has already hinted at formulating a policy to regulate the EdTech sector.

Need for Regulating of EdTECH

• Monopoly: Being heavily venture capital funded, EdTech platforms can offer their services at low or no charges (predatory pricing) and heading towards forming monopolies.
• Exploitation of students: There are reports that some education technology companies are exploiting students with loans for fee-based courses.
• Data safety concerns: EdTech companies aggregate data to get a 360° view not only of the child’s academic context but also of the psycho–social– economic behaviour of households to make personalised products to the customers. But the safety of this immense data is a huge concern.
  Example: In May 2020, firewalls of one of the biggest EdTech companies of India was breached by cyber threat groups and put up personally identifiable information of the users for sale on the dark web.
• Algorithmic bias: As most of these platforms run on AI based tools, there are chances of Algorithmic biases which will have long-term consequences for a child’s academic career.
  Example: Recently, students in the United Kingdom (UK) were graded by an algorithm. This caused an uproar when students from disadvantaged backgrounds received lower scores than White students, reflecting the implicit bias in the process. In Indian context, reliance on AI tools can create a situation where students from traditionally marginalised castes are driven towards vocational training, as the data will suggest that they are better off here, while their upper caste/class peers are directed towards professional courses.
• Lack of emphasis on social skills: EdTech platforms can’t replace traditional school system. Beyond classroom instruction, school environment serves a variety of developmental functions for young individual like important life skills, such as ability to collaborate, play, deliberate, and disagree.

Way Forward

Data about students and teachers and their learning transactions must belong to the school and the parent community, although these may be hosted by data platforms. As per the Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019, the data fiduciary (EdTech company) shall, before processing any personal data of a student, verify their age and obtain the consent of their parent or guardian.

• Regular auditing of Artificial intelligence tools that are used by these platforms to avoid any bias.
• Platform businesses must have no say in the curriculum, pedagogy and assessment.
• Setting up a separate institution to look into grievances of victims.
• Expansion of free educational services via existing platform like Swayam MOOC.