UPSC Daily Current Affairs- 22nd October 2022 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly PDF Download

GS-I

Context

The Supreme Court has expressed concern over growing incidents of hate speeches in the country and directed the governments and police authorities to take suo motu action in such cases without waiting for lodging of formal complaints. 

• There has been rising incidents of hate speeches targeting a particular community in India.

What is ‘Hate Speech’?

• There is no specific legal definition of ‘hate speech’.
• The Law Commission of India, in its 267th Report, says: “Hate speech generally is an incitement to hatred primarily against a group of persons defined in terms of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religious belief and the like …
• Thus, hate speech is any word written or spoken, signs, visible representations within the hearing or sight of a person with the intention to cause fear or alarm, or incitement to violence.”
• In general, hate speech is considered a limitation on free speech that seeks to prevent or bar speech that exposes a person or a group or section of society to hate, violence, ridicule or indignity.

How is it treated in Indian law?

• Provisions in law criminalize speeches, writings, actions, signs and representations that foment violence and spread disharmony between communities and groups and these are understood to refer to ‘hate speech’.
• Sections 153A and 505 of the Indian Penal Code are generally taken to be the main penal provisions that deal with inflammatory speeches and expressions that seek to punish ‘hate speech’.
• Section 153A: Promotion of enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony’, is an offence punishable with three years’ imprisonment.
• [II] Section 505
  • 505(1): Statements conducing to public mischief– The statement, publication, report or rumour that is penalized under Section 505(1) should be one that promotes mutiny by the armed forces, or causes such fear or alarm that people are induced to commit an offence against the state or public tranquillity. This attracts a jail term of up to three years.
  • 505(2): It is an offence to make statements creating or promoting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes.
  • 505(3): Same offence will attract up to a five-year jail term if it takes place in a place of worship, or in any assembly engaged in religious worship or religious ceremonies.

Why curb hate speeches?

• Creates social divide: Individuals believe in stereotypes that are ingrained in their minds and these stereotypes lead them to believe that a class or group of persons are inferior to them and as such cannot have the same rights as them.
• Threat to peaceful co-existence: The stubbornness to stick to a particular ideology without caring for the right to co-exist peacefully adds further fuel to the fire of hate speech.

Issues in regulating hate speech

• Powers to State: Almost every regulation of speech, no matter how well-intentioned, increases the power of the state.
• Hate speeches are Political: The issue is fundamentally political and we should not pretend that fine legal distinctions will solve the issue.
• Legal complications: An over-reliance on legal instruments to solve fundamentally social and political problems often backfires.

GS-II

Context

The Maharashtra CM has restored general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to investigate cases in Maharashtra. 

General Consent to CBI

• The CBI is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act.
• This makes consent of a state government mandatory for conducting an investigation in that state.
• Generally, the CBI has jurisdiction only over central government departments and employees.
• However, it can investigate a case involving state government employees or a violent crime in a given state only after that state government gives its consent.

When is Consent needed?

• There are two kinds of consent: case-specific and general.
• General consent is normally given to help the CBI seamlessly conduct its investigation into cases of corruption against central government employees in the concerned state.
• Almost all states have given such consent.
• Otherwise, the CBI would require consent in every case.
• For example, if it wanted to investigate a bribery charge against a Western Railway clerk in Mumbai, it would have to apply for consent with the Maharashtra government before registering a case against him.

Withdrawing General Consent

• It means the CBI will not be able to register any fresh case involving a central government official or a private person stationed in these two states without getting case-specific consent.
• Withdrawal of consent simply means that CBI officers will lose all powers of a police officer as soon as they enter the state unless the state government has allowed them.

Under what provisions general consent can be withdrawn?

• Section 6 of the Act says nothing contained in Section 5 shall be deemed to enable any member of the Delhi Special Police Establishment to exercise powers and jurisdiction in any area in a State, not being a Union Territory or Railway, area, without the consent of the Government of that State.
• In exercise of the power conferred by Section 6 of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946, the government can withdraw the general consent to exercise the powers and jurisdiction.

Context

Last month, the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) conducted searches across States and Union Territories as part of a pan-India operation, “Megh Chakra”. The operation, against the online circulation and sharing of Child Sexual Abusive Material (CSAM) using cloud-based storage, was supposedly based on inputs received from Interpol’s Singapore special unit, in turn based on the information received from New Zealand.

Current system of detecting CSAM

• Help of foreign agencies: As the public reporting of circulation of online CSAM is very low and there is no system of automatic electronic monitoring, India’s enforcement agencies are largely dependent on foreign agencies for the requisite information.
• Operation carbon: In November 2021, a similar exercise code-named “Operation Carbon” was launched by the CBI, with many being booked under the IT Act, 2000.

American Model of fighting CSAM

• NCMEC: The National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), a non-profit organisation in the United States, operates a programme called Cyber Tipline, for public and electronic service providers (ESPs) to report instances of suspected child sexual exploitation.
• Mandatory reporting for Internet service providers (ISPs): ISPs are mandated to report the identity and the location of individuals suspected of violating the law. Also, NCMEC may notify ISPs to block transmission of online CSAM.
• In 2021, the Cyber Tipline received more than 29.3 million reports (99% from ESPs) of U.S. hosted and suspected CSAM.

UK Model of fighting CSAM

• Internet Watch Foundation (IWF): In the United Kingdom, the mission of the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a non-profit organisation established by the United Kingdom’s Internet industry to ensure a safe online environment for users with a particular focus on CSAM, includes disrupting the availability of CSAM and deleting such content hosted in the U.K.
• ISPs may be held responsible: The IWF engages the analysts to actively search for criminal content and not just rely on reports from external sources. Though the U.K. does not explicitly mandate the reporting of suspected CSAM, ISPs may be held responsible for third party content if they host or caches such content on their servers. In 2021, the IWF assessed 3,61,062 reports, (about 70% reports had CSAM) and seven in 10 reports contained “self-generated” CSAM.

Efforts of Global community

• INHOPE: A global network of 50 hotlines (46 member countries), provides the public with a way to anonymously report CSAM. It provides secure IT infrastructure, ICCAM (I- “See” (c)-Child-Abuse-Material) hosted by Interpol and facilitates the exchange of CSAM reports between hotlines and law enforcement agencies. ICCAM is a tool to facilitate image/video hashing/finger printing and reduce the number of duplicate investigations.
• Removal of illegal URLs: In 2021, the number of exchanged content URLs stood at 9,28,278, of which 4,43,705 contained illegal content. About 72% of all illegal content URLs were removed from the Internet within three days of a notice and takedown order.

India’s Efforts so far

• ISPs are exempted from the liability: In India, the Supreme Court of India, in Shreya Singhal (2015), read down Section 79(3)(b) of the IT Act to mean that the ISP, only upon receiving actual knowledge of the court order or on being notified by the appropriate government, shall remove or disable access to illegal contents. Thus, ISPs are exempted from the liability of any third-party information.
• In the Kamlesh Vaswani (WP(C) 177/2013) case: The petitioner sought a complete ban on pornography. After the Court’s intervention, the advisory committee (constituted under Section 88 of the IT Act) issued orders in March 2015 to ISPs to disable nine (domain) URLs which hosted contents in violation of the morality and decency clause of Article 19(2) of the Constitution. The petition is still pending in the Supreme Court.
• Aarambh India: a Mumbai-based non-governmental organization, partnered with the IWF, and launched India’s first online reporting portal in September 2016 to report images and videos of child abuse. These reports are assessed by the expert team of IWF analysts and offending URLs are added to its blocking list. Till 2018, out of 1,182 reports received at the portal, only 122 were found to contain CSAM.
• National cybercrime reporting portal: The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) launched a national cybercrime reporting portal in September 2018 for filing online complaints pertaining to child pornography and rape-gang rape. This facility was developed in compliance with Supreme Court directions with regard to a public interest litigation filed by Prajwala, a Hyderabad-based NGO that rescues and rehabilitates sex trafficking survivors. As not many cases of child porn and rape were reported, the portal was later extended to all types of cybercrime.
• National Crime Records Bureau (MHA): The National Crime Records Bureau (MHA) signed a memorandum of understanding with the NCMEC in April 2019 to receive Cyber Tipline reports to facilitate action against those who upload or share CSAM in India. The NCRB has received more than two million Cyber Tipline reports which have been forwarded to the States for legal action.
• The ad hoc Committee of the Rajya Sabha: In its report of January 2020, made wide-ranging recommendations on ‘the alarming issue of pornography on social media and its effect on children and society as whole’.
• Widening of the definition of ‘child pornography’: On the legislative front, the committee not only recommended the widening of the definition of ‘child pornography’ but also proactive monitoring, mandatory reporting and taking down or blocking CSAM by ISPs.
• Breaking of end-to-end encryption: On the technical front, the committee recommended permitting the breaking of end-to-end encryption, building partnership with industry to develop tools using artificial intelligence for dark-web investigations, tracing identity of users engaged in crypto currency transactions to purchase child pornography online and liasoning with financial service companies to prevent online payments for purchasing child pornography.

What needs to be done

• Mandatory reporting of CSAM by ISP, s: According to the ninth edition (2018) report of the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children on “Child Sexual Abusive Material: Model Legislation & Global Review”, more than 30 countries now require mandatory reporting of CSAM by ISPs. Surprisingly, India also figures in this list, though, the law does not provide for such mandatory reporting.
• Establish liability of legal persons: The Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child that addresses child sexual exploitation encourages state parties to establish liability of legal persons.
• Convention on The Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse: The Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime and Convention on The Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse also requires member states to address the issue of corporate liability.
• India should join INHOPE: It is time India joins INHOPE and establishes its hotline to utilise Interpol’s secure IT infrastructure or collaborate with ISPs and financial companies by establishing an independent facility such as the IWF or NCMEC.

Conclusion
India needs to explore all options and adopt an appropriate strategy to fight the production and the spread of online CSAM. Children need to be saved.

Context

Recently, the Chhattisgarh government had launched Lok Adalat in jails for the speedy disposal of cases for the prisoners of the state.

• These courts will be held every working Saturday and provide relief to undertrials, and in some cases convicted prisoners, by explaining their rights and legal options such as plea bargaining and settlement.

What is Lok Adalats?

• About
  • The term ‘Lok Adalat’ means ‘People’s Court’ and is based on Gandhian principles.
  • As per the Supreme Court, it is an old form of adjudicating system prevalent in ancient India and its validity has not been taken away even in the modern days too.
  • It is one of the components of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system and delivers informal, cheap and expeditious justice to the common people.
  • The first Lok Adalat camp was organized in Gujarat in 1982 as a voluntary and conciliatory agency without any statutory backing for its decisions.
  • In view of its growing popularity over time, it was given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. The Act makes the provisions relating to the organization and functioning of the Lok Adalats.
• Organization
  • The State/District Legal Services Authority or the Supreme Court/High Court/Taluk Legal Services Committee may organize Lok Adalats at such intervals and places and for exercising such jurisdiction and for such areas as it thinks fit.
  • Every Lok Adalat organized for an area shall consist of such number of serving or retired judicial officers and other persons of the area as may be specified by the agency organizing.
    • Generally, a Lok Adalat consists of a judicial officer as the chairman and a lawyer (advocate) and a social worker as members.
  • National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) along with other Legal Services Institutions conducts Lok Adalats.
    • NALSA was constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 which came into force on 9^th November 1995 to establish a nationwide uniform network for providing free and competent legal services to the weaker sections of the society.
  • The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 was amended in 2002 to provide for the establishment of the Permanent Lok Adalats to deal with cases pertaining to the public utility services.
• Jurisdiction
  • A Lok Adalat shall have jurisdiction to determine and to arrive at a compromise or settlement between the parties to a dispute in respect of:
    • Any case pending before any court, or
    • Any matter which falls within the jurisdiction of any court and is not brought before such court.
  • Any case pending before the court can be referred to the Lok Adalat for settlement if:
    • Parties agree to settle the dispute in the Lok Adalat or one of the parties applies for referral of the case to the Lok Adalat or court is satisfied that the matter can be solved by a Lok Adalat.
    • In the case of a pre-litigation dispute, the matter can be referred to the Lok Adalat on receipt of an application from any one of the parties to the dispute.
  • Matters such as matrimonial/family disputes, criminal (compoundable offenses) cases, land acquisition cases, labor disputes, workmen’s compensation cases, bank recovery cases, etc. are being taken up in Lok Adalats.
  • However, the Lok Adalat shall have no jurisdiction in respect of any case or matter relating to an offense not compoundable under any law.
• Powers
  • The Lok Adalat shall have the same powers as are vested in a Civil Court under the Code of Civil Procedure (1908).
  • Further, a Lok Adalat shall have the requisite powers to specify its own procedure for the determination of any dispute coming before it.
  • All proceedings before a Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be judicial proceedings within the meaning of the Indian Penal Code (1860) and every Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a Civil Court for the purpose of the Code of Criminal Procedure (1973).
  • An award of a Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a Civil Court or an order of any other court.
  • Every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the dispute. No appeal shall lie to any court against the award of the Lok Adalat.
• Benefits
  • There is no court fee and if court fee is already paid the amount will be refunded if the dispute is settled at Lok Adalat.
  • There is procedural flexibility and speedy trial of the disputes. There is no strict application of procedural laws while assessing the claim by Lok Adalat.
  • The parties to the dispute can directly interact with the judge through their counsel which is not possible in regular courts of law.
  • The award by the Lok Adalat is binding on the parties and it has the status of a decree of a civil court and it is non-appealable, which does not cause the delay in the settlement of disputes finally.

Conclusion
Lok Adalats can be functional at larger levels if people are willing and aware of its advantages. Further, more provisions and innovative utilisation is needed that could empower permanent lok adalats and are made supplementary form of litigation for people who cannot or should not resort to courts.

Context

Recently, the Union Education ministry launched the National Curriculum Framework for foundational stage education of children in the three to eight years age group.

What is the National Curriculum Framework?

• The NCF has four sections:
  • the National Curriculum Framework for School Education
  • the National Curriculum Framework for Early Childhood Care and Education
  • the National Curriculum Framework for Teacher Education
• National Curriculum Framework for Adult Education
• The framework focuses on the 'panchakosha' concept - the ancient Indian emphasis on the body-mind connection.
• The NCF says its five parts are physical development (sharirik vikas), development of life energy (pranik vikas), emotional and mental development (manasik vikas), intellectual development (bauddhik vikas) and spiritual development (chaitsik vikas).
• It is an important step taken to implement the New Education Policy-2020.

What are the Constitutional Provisions and Laws related to Education in India?

• Constitutional Provisions
  • Part IV of Indian Constitution, Article 45 and Article 39 (f) of Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP), has a provision for state-funded as well as equitable and accessible education.
  • The 42^nd Amendment to the Constitution in 1976 moved education from the State to the Concurrent List.
    • The education policies by the Central government provides a broad direction and state governments are expected to follow it. But it is not mandatory, for instance Tamil Nadu does not follow the three-language formula prescribed by the first education policy in 1968.
  • The 86^th Amendment in 2002 made education an enforceable right under Article 21-A.
    • Article 21A of the Constitution makes it obligatory on the State to provide free and compulsory education to children between the age of 6 and 14 years.
• Related Laws
  • Right To Education (RTE) Act, 2009 aims to provide primary education to all children aged 6 to 14 years and enforces education as a Fundamental Right.
  • It also mandates 25% reservation for disadvantaged sections of the society.
• Government Initiatives: Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Mid Day Meal Scheme, Navodaya Vidyalayas (NVS schools), Kendriya Vidyalayas (KV schools) and use of IT in education are the result of the NEP of 1986.

GS-III

Context

A lush, highly detailed landscape- the iconic "Pillars of Creation" has been caught by NASA's powerful James Webb Telescope.

What is Pillars of Creation?

• About
  • It is a vista of three looming towers made of interstellar dust and gas.
  • These iconic Pillars of Creation is located in the centre of the Eagle Nebula (it is a constellation of stars), which is also known as Messier 16.
  • The images show vast, towering columns of dense clouds of gas and dust where young stars are forming in a region some 6,500 light-years from Earth.
  • At the ends of several pillars are bright red, lava-like spots. These are ejections from stars that are still forming, only a few hundred thousand years old.
  • The pillars were made famous by the Hubble Space Telescope, which first captured them in 1995 and then again in 2014.
• Significance: The new image will help researchers revamp their models of star formation by identifying far more precise counts of newly formed stars, along with the quantities of gas and dust in the region.

What is the James Webb Space Telescope?

• About
  • The telescope is the result of an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency which was launched in December 2021.
  • It is currently at a point in space known as the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
    • Lagrange Point 2 is one of the five points in the orbital plane of the Earth-Sun system.
    • Named after Italian-French mathematician Josephy-Louis Lagrange, the points are in any revolving two-body system like Earth and Sun, marking where the gravitational forces of the two large bodies cancel each other out.
    • Objects placed at these positions are relatively stable and require minimal external energy or fuel to keep themselves there, and so many instruments are positioned here.
  • It's the largest, most powerful infrared space telescope ever built.
  • It's the successor to Hubble Telescope.
  • It can see backwards in time to just after the Big Bang by looking for galaxies that are so far away that the light has taken many billions of years to get from those galaxies to our telescopes
• Objectives
  • It will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evolution of our own Solar System.
  • The goals for the Webb can be grouped into four themes.
    • The first is to look back around 13.5 billion years to see the first stars and galaxies forming out of the darkness of the early universe.
    • Second, to compare the faintest, earliest galaxies to today’s grand spirals and understand how galaxies assemble over billions of years.
    • Third, to see where stars and planetary systems are being born.
    • Fourth, to observe the atmospheres of extrasolar planets (beyond our solar system), and perhaps find the building blocks of life elsewhere in the universe.

Context

India has successfully test-fired indigenously-developed new generation medium-range ballistic missile Agni Prime from the Odisha coast. 

About Agni-Prime Missile

• Agni-P is a new generation advanced variant of the Agni class of missiles.
• It is the sixth missile in the Agni series of ballistic missile.
• It is a two-staged canisterised missile with a range capability between 1,000 and 2,000 km.
• Many advanced technologies including composites, propulsion systems, innovative guidance and control mechanisms and state-of-the-art navigation systems have been introduced.
• Significantly, it weighs 50 per cent less than the Agni 3 missile and has new guidance and propulsion systems
• The missile strengthens India’s credible deterrence capabilities.

Context

The recent sighting of three Great Indian Bustards (GIBs) deep in Pakistan’s Cholistan desert has given rise to speculation that the endangered birds might have flown across the international border from India. 

About Great Indian Bustards

• GIBs are the largest among the four bustard species found in India, the other three being MacQueen’s bustard, lesser florican, and the Bengal florican.
• GIBs’ historic range included much of the Indian sub-continent but it has now shrunken to just 10 percent of it. Among the heaviest birds with flight, GIBs prefer grasslands as their habitats.
• GIBs are considered the flagship bird species of grassland.

Protection accorded

• Birdlife International: uplisted from Endangered to Critically Endangered (2011)
• Protection under CITES: Appendix I
• IUCN status: Critically Endangered
• Protection under Wildlife (Protection) Act: Schedule I

Threats

• Overhead power transmission: This has resulted in the electrocution of the bustards.
• Poor vision: Due to their poor frontal vision, can’t detect powerlines in time and their weight makes in-flight quick maneuvers difficult.
• Windmills: Coincidentally, Kutch and Thar desert are the places that have witnessed the creation of huge renewable energy infrastructure.
• Noise pollution: Noise affects the mating and courtship practices of the GIB.
• Changes in the landscape: by way of farmers cultivating their land, which otherwise used to remain fallow due to frequent droughts in Kutch.
• Cultivation changes: Cultivation of cotton and wheat instead of pulses and fodder are also cited as reasons for falling GIB numbers.