National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 19th August 2019

India Bhutan Relations

Topic: India and Neighbor-hood Relations

In News: India and Bhutan inked 10 MoUs in the fields of space research, aviation, IT, power and education to infuse new energy in their ties during the visit of PM to Bhutan.

More on the Topic:

Importance of Bhutan for India:

• Bhutan in a buffer state between India and china. Bhutan shares a 470 km long border with China. Traditionally, the Himalayan kingdom acted as a buffer state between the India and China.
• Strategic importance: The Chumbi Valley is situated at the trijunction of Bhutan, India and China and is 500 km away from the “Chicken’s neck” in North Bengal, which connects the northeast with rest of the country.
• To contain insurgency in North-East: Bhutan has in the past cooperated with India and helped to flush out militant groups like United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) and National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB) from the Himalayan states.
• To check Chinese inroad in Bhutan: China is interested in establishing formal ties with Thimphu, where it does not yet have a diplomatic mission. Bhutan is strategically important for both India and China. Chinese territorial claims in western Bhutan are close to the Siliguri Corridor.
• India’s Border Roads Organisation has completed construction of a strategically key road in Bhutan, linking the neighbouring country’s border town of Phuentshogling with its capital city of Thimphu.

Concerns and Way Forward:

• Its time to revise India’s Bhutan policy and address several issues that have come up in the past few years — for example, the hydropower projects where delays in constructing and commissioning in Bhutan by Indian companies have led to the country’s burgeoning national debt.
• India’s power-surplus status and the advent of other renewable energies like wind and solar power will make it more difficult for Bhutan to ensure that its hydropower sector becomes profitable.
• Unless India finds ways to help, it will be accused of the same sort of “debt-trapping” that China is accused of today.
• India also needs to focus on policing cross-border trade The goods and services tax still hurts Bhutanese exporters, and demonetisation has left lasting scars on the banking system.

Conclusion:

• India’s effective neighbourhood approach will prove conducive towards building a cohesive and durable relationship with Bhutan in the coming days.
• Our bilateral political relations with Bhutan have matured over the years and are characterised by close trust and understanding and extensive cooperation in the field of economic development, particularly in the mutually beneficial sector of hydroelectric power.
• Despite Bhutan’s assertion of sovereignty and democracy, which is viewed by others a turning away from India, Indo-Bhutan relations will continue to prevail on good note in the coming days.
• As such, India is known for its devotion to democracy and its contribution towards a democratised world. Empirically, India has advocated and supported sovereignty and right of self-determination of nations across the world.
• The hydropower projects, where delays in construction and commissioning by the Indian companies took place, have led to the Country’s increase in the national debt.
• The tariffs need to be re-negotiated. Moreover, in India advent of wind / solar makes it more difficult for Bhutan to ensure that its hydropower sector becomes profitable.
• Considering this legacy of Independent democracy, India should refrain from interfering in sovereign matters of Bhutan.

Witness Protection Scheme

Topic: Government Policies

In News: The recent accident in Rae Bareli in which a rape survivor’s two aunts died, and which left her and her lawyer in a critical condition, has drawn much attention towards witness protection scheme in India.

More on the Topic:

• The apex court gave its assent last year(2018 December) to the Witness Protection Scheme, which was drafted by the Centre in consultation with the Bureau of Police Research and Development and the National Legal Services Authority.
• The Centre was to implement the scheme after circulating it among all States and Union Territories and obtaining their comments. However, the scheme was meant to be a measure in force only till the government brought out its own law on the issue. Though the Centre is scheduled to bring an Act on the subject by the end of this year, it has not made much progress.

About the Witness Protection Scheme:

• The types of protection measures envisaged under the scheme are to be applied in proportion to the threat and they are not expected to go on for infinite time.
• The scheme envisages that there should be safeguards that witnesses and accused do not come face to face during investigation or trial and adequate security measures should be there for the safety of the witnesses.
• The scheme provides for identity protection and giving a new identity to the witness.
• The scheme shall extend to the whole of the India.
• As per the scheme, police escort will be provided to witnesses who are threatened and, if needed, they would be relocated to a safe house. The scheme also says mails and phone calls of the witnesses would be monitored to trace the person threatening them. It said a separate witness protection fund will be created in each state to meet the expenses incurred under the scheme.
• Witness deposition complexes will be set up in all district courts by the states and union territories within a year where the witnesses could fearlessly depose against the high and mighty without coming face-to-face with the accused.
• It has three categories of witnesses based on the threat perception.

Concerns:

• As regards the existing measure, though its objective is to ensure the safety of witnesses, its implementation on the ground leaves much to be desired. The Unnao matter would have been hushed up but for the fact that the survivor attempted to immolate herself in front of the Chief Minister’s residence.
• Though the scheme provides for police personnel to be deployed to protect the witness on the basis of threat perception, it is silent on the punishment to be given to those policemen who, while being charged with providing security, themselves threaten the witnesses.

Why to have a witness protection law:

• Victims and witnesses of serious crimes are particularly at risk when the perpetrator is powerful, influential, or rich and the victims or witnesses belong to a socially or economically marginalised community. Girls and women who report sexual violence are often even more vulnerable and face extreme pressure or direct threats from the accused.
• Also, witnesses need to have the confidence to come forward to assist law enforcement and prosecutorial authorities. They need to be assured that they will receive support and protection from intimidation and the harm that criminal groups may seek to inflict upon them in attempts to discourage or punish them from co-operating. Hence, legislative measures to emphasise prohibition against tampering of witnesses have become the imminent and inevitable need of the day.
• In 2003, Justice V Malimath Committee on criminal justice system had recommended enacting a separate witness protection law and in 2006, the Law Commission of India, in its 198th report, provided for a draft witness protection law.
• Besides, countries such as USA, United Kingdom, China, Italy, Canada, Hong Kong and Ireland have witness protection scheme.

Conclusion:

• What emboldens the criminals the most is the support they get from the police. The shadowy politician-police nexus is so strong that no policeman, at the mercy of political leaders for his career progression, dares take any action against his ‘master’. As long as this nexus continues, the delivery of criminal justice in India will remain a casualty.
• The Witness Protection Scheme calls for more elaborate and stricter laws to be incorporated so that criminals find no loopholes that can be exploited to their advantage.
• The sooner the Centre comes up with a legislation codifying the protection to be given to witnesses, the better it is for India’s criminal justice system.

Model Mains Question: Analyse the provisions of witness protection scheme and it’s need.

Source: Hindu

Manual scavenging: Draft plan

Topic: Social Justice

In News: The draft plan for betterment of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act will be operationalised following approval from the Prime Minister’s Office.

About Manual scavenging

• Manual scavenging refers to the practice of manually cleaning, carrying, disposing or handling in any manner, human excreta from dry latrines and sewers.
• The practise of manual scavenging is linked to India’s caste system where so-called lower castes were expected to perform this job.
• Manual scavengers are amongst the poorest and most disadvantaged communities in India.
• Frequent deaths occur as manual scavengers don’t even have adequate tools and protective gear to clean the manhole. It often involves using the most basic of tools such as buckets, brooms and baskets.

Highlights of the Draft Plan:

• Mechanisaton Plan: All urban local bodies will have to adopt mechanised cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.The National Safai Karamcharis Finance & Development Corporation (NSKFDC) will soon extend loans directly to municipalities at four per cent interest for a period of 15 years so that they can invest in machines.
• Until now, the NSKFDC was loaning directly to people engaged as manual scavengers or their self-help groups so that they would be rehabilitated in alternative occupations. But it was found that it was beyond the capacity of the workers to take a loan up to Rs 20 lakh.
• Every urban local body will be required to stock machines of all sizes that can be used for cleaning sewers under their jurisdiction or that can be hired by private households for cleaning septic tanks since only 40 per cent of urban India is covered by sewage networks.
• Legal Responsibility of Authorities: The authorities will be held legally responsible both in cases where the deaths have occurred owing to the urban local body contracting the cleaning to a private firm which hires a person to enter the sewer, or even in cases where private households hire such persons to get the septic tank cleaned.

What lead to new plan:

• In the first six months of 2019, as per conservative estimates available with the National Commission for Safai Karamchari, 50 people have died cleaning sewers and septic tanks in urban India. The Social Justice Ministry has now suggested that the law be amended so that sanitation inspectors could be held culpable for the deaths.
• Despite the practice pf manual scavenging being outlawed in 1993, it could not be eliminated since it was always dealt in a silo by the Ministry of Social Justice instead of involving ministries dealing with sanitation, urban and rural development.
• It’s for the first time that four ministries have come together to draft an action plan for elimination of manual scavenging through a mechanisation drive: Social Justice, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Affairs, and the Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation in the Jal Shakti Ministry.

Concerns:

• Mechanisation of sewer cleaning will initially be made mandatory in all cities with a population over one lakh people. However, the Urban Affairs Ministry has not yet committed to allocating any funds for the mechanisation in their budget or in their schemes such as Smart City Mission or Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT).
• This is required for extending grants to municipalities, especially for funding higher-end machines since NSKFDC has limited funding and can extend loans of only between Rs 20 lakh and Rs 40 lakh(some mechines cost around 3 crores).

Source: Hindu, Wikipeida

Common Service Centres (CSCs)

Topic: Governance

In News: Data show that between 2014 and 2019, that the total number of transactions at Common Service Centres (CSCs) have grown from 4.5 crore to 17.4 crore and, in terms of value, they have gone up from Rs 1,560 crore to well over Rs 28,000 crore.

More on the Topic:

• CSC is an initiative of Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY). It is strategic cornerstone of the Digital India programme.
• It is pan-India network catering to regional, geographic, linguistic and cultural diversity of country, thus enabling Government’s mandate of a socially, financially and digitally inclusive society.
• They are mostly ICT enabled front end service delivery points at village level for delivery of government and private services.
• These CSCs serve as access points for delivery of essential public utility services, social welfare schemes, financial, healthcare, education and agriculture services, apart from host of B2C services to citizens in rural and remote areas of the country.

Recent Initiative:

• CSC has partnered withHDFC bank to give some new products to rural India. There is a card, called the HDFC card, which can be given to any small and medium enterprise based on one-year bank statement.
• The bank will calculate the credit limit and give the person a credit card. It will benefit six crore small and medium business. It will be able to do more business and create more employment.

The future potential of CSCs:

• Education: The rural urban education divide can be reduced by providing online courses through CSCs.
• Making every CSC a banking, insurance and pension service provider: Atpresent, about half of them are not covering these areas. The effort is to use every access point to deliver banking services.
• Telemedicine: The technology can be used to avail the specialist doctor service to the rural area.
• It is proven that 10 per cent enhancement in internet usage will increase about two per cent of GDP. There will be phenomenal growth potential for the rural economy if we can try to maintain and improve the internet penetration through BharatNet system.

Source: Indian Express, Vikaspedia

New species of freshwater fish

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Scientists of the Zoological Survey of India have discovered two new species of freshwater fish from the north-eastern and northern parts of the country.

More on the Topic:

• Glyptothorax gopii, a new species of catfish was found in Mizoram’s Kaladan river. Garra simbalbaraensis was found in Himachal Pradesh’s Simbalbara river. Both fish, measuring less than seven centimetres, are hill stream fauna and are equipped with special morphological features to suit rapid water flow.

Source: Hindu

Know India Programme

Topic: Government Policies

In News: A group of Indian Origin youth visiting India under ‘Know India Programme’ (KIP) called on the Union Minister of State (Independent Charge).

More on the Topic:

• Know India Programme is a flagship programme of Ministry of External Affairs for engagement with Indian origin youth (between 18-30 years) to enhance their awareness about India, its cultural heritage, art and to familiarise them with various aspects of contemporary India.
• Eligibility: Minimum qualification required for participating in KIP is graduation from a recognized University /Institute or enrolled for graduation and ability to speak in English. The applicant should not have visited India through any previous Programme of Government of India. Those who have not visited India before will be given preference.

Source: Hindu and Wikipedia

KONKAN bilateral exercise

Topic: International Relations

In News: The exercise is currently underway off the South Coast of UK.

More on the Topic:

• It is an annual bilateral exercises between Indian Navy and Royal Navy of Britain.
• It aims to promote mutual understanding, provide exposure to operating procedures, communication measures and best practices.
• INS Tarkash, the Indian Navy’s stealth frigate is exercising with the Royal Navy’s, HMS Defender with integral helicopter Wildcat.
• The thrust of this year exercice is on Anti-Air warfare, Anti-Surface Warfare, Flying Operations and Seamanship Evolutions of varying complexities

Source: Hindu

New Geographical Indication Tag (GI)

Topic: IPR

In News: The GI Tag under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) has recenly registered new GIs.

New GIs are:

• ‘Tirur Betel vine’ from Kerala: It is valued both for its mild stimulant action and medicinal properties. It is commonly used for making pan masala for chewing.
• ‘Tawlhlohpuan’ of Mizoram: It is a medium to heavy, compactly woven, good quality fabric. It holds high significance in the Mizo society, is produced throughout the state of Mizoram. Aizawl and Thenzawl town are the main centre of production.
• Mizo Puanchei of Mizoram: It is a colourful Mizo shawl/textile, which is considered as the most colourful among the Mizo textiles. It is also the most commonly used costume in Mizo festive dances and official ceremonies.

Source: PIB