Weekly Current Affairs (15th to 21st October 2022) - 2 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly - UPSC PDF Download

RTI Exemption for Banks

Context: Recently, the Supreme agreed to examine a plea by various Banks for the exemption from RTI (Right to Information).

• Various Public and Private Sector banks want to be exempted from disclosing an array of financial information relating to Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), losses from trading operations, show-cause notices, and penalties.

What is the Issue?

• The legal battle for the disclosure of inspection reports and defaulters list started when RTI activist Jayantilal Mistry sought information under RTI Act, 2005 from the RBI about a Gujarat-based cooperative bank in 2010. The matter went up to the SC as Mistry’s appeals were not entertained by several layers of the RTI process.
• In 2015, the Supreme Court had come down on the RBI for trying to keep the inspection reports and defaulters list confidential, paving the way for the public disclosure of such reports of the RBI, much against the wishes of the banking sector.
• The SC had said the RBI has no legal duty to maximize the benefit of any public sector or private sector bank, and thus there is no relationship of ‘trust’ between them. It added that the RBI was duty-bound to uphold the public interest by revealing these details under RTI.
• The central bank then allowed making such reports public following the Supreme Court order.
• Now the SC says, the 2015 judgment did not take into consideration the aspect of balancing the right to information and the right to privacy, and thus, the court is duty-bound to give banks an opportunity to argue their case on merits.

What is the Argument Provided by Banks?

• As banks are involved in dealing in money, they fear any adverse remarks — especially from the regulator RBI — will affect their performance and keep customers away.
• Banks are driven by the “trust and faith” of their clients that should not be made public.
• Banks also argued that privacy is a fundamental right, and therefore, should not be violated by making clients’ information public.

What is the RTI Act, 2005?

About:

• Right to Information Act or RTI is a central legislation, which enables the citizens to procure information from a public authority.
• It provides the mechanism for obtaining information under the control of public authority so that transparency and accountability can be increased.

Sec 8 of the RTI ACT: Sec 8 deals with exemption from disclosure of information.

• Information which would prejudicially affect the sovereignty and integrity of India
• Information which has been expressly forbidden to be published by any court of law
• Information, the disclosure of which would cause a breach of privilege of Parliament or the State Legislature.
• Information including commercial confidence, trade secrets or intellectual property, the disclosure of which would harm the competitive position of a third party, unless the competent authority is satisfied that larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information
• Information available to a person in his fiduciary relationship, unless the competent authority is satisfied that the larger public interest warrants the disclosure of such information.

PM Kisan Samman Sammelan

Context: Recently, the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi inaugurated the PM Kisan Samman Sammelan 2022 at Indian Agricultural Research Institute in New Delhi.

What are the Key Highlights of PM Kisan Samman Sammelan?

• PM released the 12th installment of Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-KISAN) funds. Rs 16,000 crores were transferred to over 8.5 crore eligible farmers as part of the scheme.
• PM also inaugurated 600 ‘Pradan Mantri Kisan Samruddhi Kendras’ (PMKSK) under the Ministry of Chemicals & Fertilizers. Under this scheme, more than 3.3 lakh retail fertilizer shops in the country will be converted into PMKSK in a phased manner.
  • These Kendras will cater to several farmer needs like providing agri-inputs (fertilizers, seeds, implements); testing facilities for soil, seeds, fertilizers; generating awareness among farmers; providing information regarding various government schemes and ensuring regular capacity building of retailers at block/ district level outlets.
• The PM also launched the ‘Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Urvarak Pariyojana’ – One Nation, One Fertilizer.
  • Under this scheme, ‘Bharat Urea Bags’ are launched. These will help companies market fertilizers under the single brand name “Bharat
  • An e-magazine on fertilizer, ‘Indian Edge’ also launched by the PM. It will provide information on domestic and international fertilizer scenarios, including recent developments, price trends analysis, availability and consumption, success stories of farmers, among others.

What is PM Kisan?

About:

• It was launched on 1 Nov 2018 to supplement financial needs of land holding farmers.
• Financial Benefits:
• Financial benefit of Rs 6000/- per year in three equal installments, every four months is transferred into the bank accounts of farmers’ families across the country through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) mode.

Scope of the Scheme:

• The scheme was initially meant for Small and Marginal Farmers (SMFs) having landholding upto 2 hectares but scope of the scheme was extended to cover all landholding farmers.

Funding and Implementation:

• It is a Central Sector Scheme with 100% funding from the Government of India.
• It is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

Objectives:

• To supplement the financial needs of the Small and Marginal Farmers in procuring various inputs to ensure proper crop health and appropriate yields, commensurate with the anticipated farm income at the end of each crop cycle.
• To protect them from falling in the clutches of moneylenders for meeting such expenses and ensure their continuance in the farming activities.

PM-KISAN Mobile App: It was developed and designed by the National Informatics Centre in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.

Exclusion Criteria: The following categories of beneificiaries of higher economic status shall not be elligible for benefit under the scheme.

• All Institutional Land holders.
• Farmer families which belong to one or more of the following categories:
  • Former and present holders of constitutional posts
  • Former and present Ministers/ State Ministers and former/present Members of LokSabha/ RajyaSabha/ State Legislative Assemblies/ State Legislative Councils, former and present Mayors of Municipal Corporations, former and present Chairpersons of District Panchayats.
  • All serving or retired officers and employees of Central/ State Government Ministries /Offices/Departments and its field units Central or State PSEs and Attached offices /Autonomous Institutions under Government as well as regular employees of the Local Bodies (Excluding Multi-Tasking Staff /Class IV/Group D employees)
  • All superannuated/retired pensioners whose monthly pension is Rs.10,000/-or more (Excluding Multi-Tasking Staff / Class IV/Group D employees) of above category
  • All Persons who paid Income Tax in last assessment year
  • Professionals like Doctors, Engineers, Lawyers, Chartered Accountants, and Architects registered with Professional bodies and carrying out profession by undertaking practices.

Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems: Target G

Context: Recently, the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction (UNDRR) and the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) released a report titled Global Status of Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems - Target G, which warns that half of the countries globally are not protected by Multi-Hazard Early Warning Systems (MHEWS).

• The report has been released to mark the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (13th October).
• The analysis was made with data from the targets outlined in The Sendai Framework (2015-2030). The framework is a global blueprint for disaster risk reduction and prevention.
• Of the seven targets in the framework, Target G aims to “substantially increase the availability of and access to multi-hazard early warning systems and disaster risk information and assessments to the people by 2030.

What is International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction?

• The International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction was started in 1989, after a call by the United Nations General Assembly for a day to promote a global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction.
• In 2015 at the Third UN World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai, Japan, the international community was reminded that disasters hit hardest at the local level with the potential to cause loss of life and great social and economic upheaval.

What are the Early Warning Systems?

• Early warning systems are a proven means to reduce harm to people and damage to assets ahead of impending hazards, including storms, tsunamis, droughts, and heatwaves, to name a few.
• Multi-hazard early warning systems address several hazards that may occur alone, simultaneously, or cascadingly.
• Many systems only cover one type of hazard - like floods or cyclones.

What are the Findings?

Failure at Investment:

• The world is failing to invest in protecting the lives and livelihoods of those on the front line.
• Those who have done the least to cause the climate crisis are paying the highest price.
• LDCs (Least developed countries), SIDS (Small Island Developing States), and countries in Africa, require the most investment to increase early warning coverage and adequately protect themselves against disasters.
• Pakistan is dealing with its worst recorded climate disaster, with nearly 1,700 lives lost. Despite this carnage, the death toll would have been much higher if not for early warning systems.

Significant Gaps:

• Only half of the countries globally have MHEWS.
• The Number of recorded disasters has increased five-fold, driven in part by human-induced climate change and more extreme weather. This trend is expected to continue.
• Less than half of the Least Developed Countries and only one-third of Small Island Developing States have a multi-hazard early warning system.

Humanity is in the Danger Zone:

• As ever-rising greenhouse gas emissions are supercharging extreme weather events across the planet, climate disasters are hurting countries and economies like never before.
• Increasing calamities are costing lives and hundreds of billions of dollars in loss and damage.
• Three times more people are displaced by climate disasters than war and half of humanity is already in the danger zone.

What are the Recommendations?

• Called on all countries to invest in early warning systems.
• As climate change causes more frequent, extreme, and unpredictable weather events, investment in early warning systems that target multiple hazards is more urgent than ever.
• This is because of the need to warn not only against the initial impact of disasters, but also second and third-order effects. Examples include soil liquefaction following an earthquake or a landslide, and disease outbreaks following heavy rainfall.

What are India's Efforts in Managing Disaster?

Establishment of National Disaster Reaction Force (NDRF):

• India has increasingly mitigated and responded to all types of disasters, including with the establishment of its National Disaster Reaction Force (NDRF), the world’s largest rapid reaction force dedicated to disaster response.

India’s Role as a Foreign Disaster Relief:

• India’s foreign humanitarian assistance has increasingly included its military assets, primarily deploying naval ships or aircraft to deliver relief.
• In line with its diplomatic policy of “Neighbourhood First,” many of the recipient countries have been in the region of South and Southeast Asia.

Contribution to Regional Disaster Preparedness:

• Within the context of the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), India has hosted DM Exercises that allow NDRF to demonstrate for counterparts from partner states the techniques developed to respond to various disasters.
• Other NDRF and Indian Armed Forces exercises have brought India’s first responders into contact with those from states in the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO).

Managing Climate Change related Disaster:

• India has adopted the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction, the Sustainable Development Goals (2015-2030), and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change, all of which make clear the connections among DRR, Climate Change Adaptation (CCA), and sustainable development.

Report by RBI on Big Techs

Context: According to a new report by Reserve Bank of India (RBI), large non-financial technology firms, referred to as “big techs,” pose challenges to financial stability owing to their technological advantages, large user base, wide-spread use by financial institutions and network-effects.

What are the Big Techs?

About:

• Big techs include companies such as Alibaba, Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Tencent.
• They usually hold service licenses through subsidiaries or Joint Ventures with varying levels of ownership control and jurisdictional regulatory advantages.

Increasing Role of Big Techs:

• Big techs, given their pervasive adoption as third-party service providers, generally become the underlying platform on which a host of services are offered.
  • This uniquely positions the big techs to easily acquire cross-functional databases which can be exploited for generating innovative product offerings, making them dominant players in the market.
• The pervasiveness of big techs provides them with a large client base who are entrenched in using their platforms/ products with access to multiple facets of customers’ data, generating strong network effects.
• The entry of big techs into finance also reflects strong complementarities between financial services and their core non-financial services.
• Besides the technological advantages, the big techs typically also have the financial muscle to withstand the competitive pressures.

Related Steps taken by India:

• In India, efforts have been made for local storage of payment data and to bring critical payment intermediaries into the formal framework.
• Initiatives are also underway to increase the payment acceptance infrastructure and create a data protection law.

What are the Risks associated with the Big Tech Sector in Financial Services?

Complex Governance Structure:

• The complex governance structure of big techs limits the scope for effective oversight and entity-based regulations.
• Due to the adoption of big techs as third-party service providers, they have become the underlying platform on which a host of services are offered.

Barriers in Creating Level Playing Field:

• Big Techs are a barrier in creating a level playing field to promote innovation in the fintech space.

Data Privacy Issues:

• There is a lack of transparency in how tech companies process user data, which has raised serious and pressing privacy concerns.

What are the Suggestions?

Realign Framework to Facilitate a Level Playing Field:

• To facilitate fairness in the fintech space, regulators are realigning their regulatory frameworks while managing the possible risks posed by bigtechs.

Need to Keep up the Pace with Innovations:

• With the increasingly complex inter-linkages between financial institutions and tech-companies, the regulatory frameworks need to keep up the pace with innovations to contain the vulnerabilities that may arise from the new risk propagation channels.

Mindful of the New Linkages:

• The regulations in EMDEs (Emerging Markets and Developing Economies) need to be mindful of the new inter-linkages that bigtechs might create with the existing financial institutions.

Dr Dilip Mahalanabis

Context: Dr Dilip Mahalanabis, who pioneered Oral Rehydration Solution (ORS) treatment as a simple, effective remedy for dehydration has passed away.

What is ORS?

• ORS, a combination of water, glucose, and salts, is a simple and cost-effective method of preventing dehydration.
• It is an alternative to intravenous rehydration therapy for preventing and treating dehydration from diarrhea when intravenous therapy is not available or feasible.
• Oral rehydration therapy is calculated by the World Health Organization (WHO) to have saved the lives of over 60 million persons.

Who was Dr. Mahalanabis?

• Born on 12th November, 1934 in West Bengal, Dr Mahalanabis studied in Kolkata and London, and joined the Johns Hopkins University International Centre for Medical Research and Training in Kolkata in the 1960s, where he carried out research in oral rehydration therapy.
• Dr Mahalanabis was working in overflowing refugee camps during the 1971 Bangladesh Liberation war when he came up with ORS.
• From 1975 to 1979, Dr Mahalanabis worked in cholera control for WHO in Afghanistan, Egypt and Yemen.
• In the mid-1980s and early 1990s, he was a medical officer in the Diarrheal Disease Control Programme of the WHO.
• In 1994, he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.
• In 2002, Dr. Mahalanabis was awarded the first Pollin Prize in Pediatric Research for their contributions to the discovery and implementation of oral rehydration therapy.
• In 2006, he was awarded the Prince Mahidol Prize, for his role in the development and application of oral rehydration therapy.

Uniform Civil Code

Context: The Ministry of Law and Justice has told the Supreme Court that the court cannot direct Parliament to frame any law and it sought dismissal of PILs (Public Interest Litigation) seeking a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the country.

What are the PILs about?

• Petitioners sought uniformity in the personal laws regulating marriage divorce, maintenance and alimony (money that has to be paid by law to former wife or husband).
• The petitions sought steps to remove anomalies regarding laws for divorce and make them uniform for all citizens and uniform guidelines for adoption and guardianship of children.

What is the Government’s Stand?

• This is a matter of policy for the elected representatives of the people to decide and no direction in this regard can be issued by the court. It is for the legislature to enact or not enact a piece of legislation.
• The Law Ministry had requested the Law Commission to examine various issues relating to the UCC and make recommendations considering the sensitivity and in-depth study involved of various personal laws governing different communities.
• The 21st Law Commission had uploaded a consultation paper titled 'Reform of Family Law subsequently in August 2018. But the term of the 21st Law Commission came to an end in August 2018.

What is a Uniform Civil Code?

About:

• UCC is envisaged to provide for one law for the entire country, applicable to all religious communities in their personal matters such as marriage, divorce, inheritance, adoption etc.
• Article 44 of the Constitution lays down that the state shall endeavour to secure a UCC for the citizens throughout the territory of India.
• Article 44 is one of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP).
• The purpose behind Article 44 is to strengthen the object of "secular democratic republic" as enshrined in the Preamble of the Constitution.

Background:

• The origin of the UCC dates back to colonial India when the British government submitted its report in 1835 stressing the need for uniformity in the codification of Indian law relating to crimes, evidence, and contracts, specifically recommending that personal laws of Hindus and Muslims be kept outside such codification.
• Increase in legislation dealing with personal issues in the far end of British rule forced the government to form the B N Rau Committee to codify Hindu law in 1941.
• Based on these recommendations, a bill was then adopted in 1956 as the Hindu Succession Act to amend and codify the law relating to intestate or unwilled succession, among Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs.
  • However, there were separate personal laws for Muslims, Christians and Parsis.
• In order to bring uniformity, the courts have often said in their judgements that the government should move towards a UCC.
  • The judgement in the Shah Bano case (1985) is well known.
  • Another case was the Sarla Mudgal Case (1995), which dealt with the issue of bigamy and conflict between the personal laws existing on matters of marriage.
• By arguing that practices such as triple talaq and polygamy impact adversely the right of a woman to a life of dignity, the Centre has raised the question whether constitutional protection given to religious practices should extend even to those that are not in compliance with fundamental rights.

Status of Uniform Codes in India:

• Indian laws do follow a uniform code in most civil matters such as Indian Contract Act 1872, Civil Procedure Code, Transfer of Property Act 1882, Partnership Act 1932, Evidence Act, 1872 etc.
• States, however, have made hundreds of amendments and, therefore, in certain matters, there is diversity even under these secular civil laws.
  • Recently, several states refused to be governed by the uniform Motor Vehicles Act, 2019.
• As of now, Goa is the only state in India with a UCC.

What are the Implications of Uniform Civil Code on Personal Laws?

Protection of Vulnerable Section of Society:

• The UCC aims to provide protection to vulnerable sections as envisaged by Ambedkar including women and religious minorities, while also promoting nationalistic fervour through unity.

Simplification of Laws:

• A Uniform Civil Code will simplify the complex laws around marriage ceremonies, inheritance, succession, adoptions, making them one for all. The same civil law will then be applicable to all citizens irrespective of their faith.

Adhering to the Ideal of Secularism:

• Secularism is the objective enshrined in the Preamble; a secular republic needs a common law for all citizens rather than differentiated rules based on religious practices.
• Gender Justice:
• If a UCC is enacted, all personal laws will cease to exist. It will do away with gender biases in existing laws.

What are the Challenges?

Diverse Personal Laws:

• The customary practices among various communities vary a lot.
• It is also a myth that Hindus are governed by one uniform law. Marriage among close relatives is prohibited in the north but considered auspicious in the south.
• Lack of uniformity in personal laws is also true of Muslims and Christians.
• The Constitution itself protects local customs of Nagaland, Meghalaya and Mizoram.
• The vast diversity of the personal laws, along with the devotion to which they are adhered to, makes uniformity of any sort very difficult to achieve. It is very tough to find a common ground between different communities.

Communal Politics:

• The demand for a uniform civil code has been framed in the context of communal politics.
• A large section of society sees it as majoritarianism under the garb of social reform.

Constitutional Hurdle:

• Article 25 of Indian constitution, that seeks to preserve the freedom to practise and propagate any religion gets into conflict with the concepts of equality enshrined under Article 14 of Indian Constitution.

Way Forward

• The government and society will have to work hard to build trust, but more importantly, make common cause with social reformers rather than religious conservatives.
• Rather than an omnibus approach, the government could bring separate aspects such as marriage, adoption, succession and maintenance into a UCC in stages.
• The need of the hour is the codification of all personal laws so that prejudices and stereotypes in every one of them would come to light and can be tested on the anvil of fundamental rights of the Constitution.