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Mains Examination: General Studies II: Indian Constitution
Key Points to Ponder:
• What ‘s the ongoing story? Over four years after Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) lost its special status following the abrogation of Article 370, and the state was reorganised into the two Union territories of J&K and Ladakh, the Supreme Court on Monday is scheduled to deliver its verdict on a batch of petitions challenging the constitutional validity of the Centre’s decision.
On September 5, a five-judge Constitution Bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud had reserved its judgment after hearing the petitioners, the Centre and J&K administration for 16 days. The Bench includes Justices S K Kaul, Sanjeev Khanna, B R Gavai and Surya Kant. Justice Kaul will retire on December 25 while the other three Judges are in line to be the Chief Justice of India.
The court heard a clutch of 23 petitions. These included some which were filed before the August 5, 2019 changes, challenging Section 35A of the Constitution that empowered J&K to make special laws for its permanent residents. What is section 35A?
• What is Article 370?
• What else you should know?
The Petitioners:
Some of the petitioners, who commenced arguments on August 2, submitted that Article 370 was meant to be temporary, only until the Constituent Assembly for the erstwhile state took a decision, one way or the other. But with the term of the Constituent Assembly having expired in 1957, the provision became permanent and could not be touched by any constitutional process whatsoever, they said.
The petitioners contended that there was no merger agreement signed between the Union of India and the then Maharaja of J&K but only an Instrument of Accession (IoA), and, therefore, there was no surrender of sovereignty. They argued that the IoA limited Parliament’s power to make laws for the state so as to ensure that its subjects would have a greater say.
The petitioners contended that the manner in which the special status was scrapped, by way of Presidential orders dated August 5 and 6, 2019, while J&K was under President’s Rule, amounted to a fraud on the Constitution.
The Centre and the J&K administration:
Rubbishing the charges, the Centre and the J&K administration maintained that due process was followed in making the changes. Countering the petitioners’ argument on how Parliament could assume the role of the Constituent Assembly, the government said the words ‘Constituent Assembly’ in Article 370(3) can be read only as “Legislative Assembly”.
The Bench too posed questions:
During the hearing, the Bench too posed questions on the claim of the provision becoming permanent and wondered why it was then placed in Part XXI of the Constitution which deals with “temporary, transitional and special provisions”.
The Centre contended that during President’s Rule, the powers of the J&K Assembly stood vested with the Parliament, which was, therefore, within its powers to legislate for the state.
They termed the changes made to Article 370 as “historic” and said it had “brought unprecedented development, progress, security and stability to the region, which was often missing during the old Article 370 regime”.
• For Your Information: (From Explained– What other decisions by the Center it will impact)
Re-organisation of Jammu and Kashmir: On August 5, 2019, the same day it made changes to Article 370, the Centre also reorganised the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir into two Union Territories — Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Ladakh was carved out as a UT without a legislature, while Jammu and Kashmir had a legislative body. With no elections having taken place in Jammu and Kashmir, both the Union Territories are being administered by the Centre-appointed Lt Governors.
Delimitation of parliamentary and legislative constituencies:With the re-organisation of Jammu and Kashmir, the Centre also formed the Delimitation Commission led by Justice (retd) Ranjana Prakash Desai in March 2020. The Commission embarked on a massive delimitation exercise to delineate the Assembly and Parliament constituencies in the Union Territory.
Jammu and Kashmir political parties objected to this, citing the petitions pending before the Supreme Court. In May 2022, the Commission notified its award. While major changes were made in the Parliamentary constituencies, the Commission awarded six more seats to Jammu region as against only one seat to the Valley. The Commission also reserved nine Assembly seats for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and seven for the Schedule Castes (SCs). J&K’s mainstream political parties termed this a “political” exercise to help BJP electorally in Jammu and Kashmir. They also described the Commission’s award as an attempt to “divide people on sectarian and social lines”. The Delimitation exercise was also challenged in the Supreme Court, but in February this year, the court dismissed the petition.
Voting rights to West Pakistan Refugees (WPRs): At the time of partition in 1947, many Hindu families from Pakistan migrated and settled mainly in Jammu region’s Kathua and Samba districts. While the West Pakistan Refugees are considered citizens of India and can vote in the Parliamentary elections, they couldn’t vote in the Legislative Assembly elections as they were not considered permanent residents of the state.
With the 2019 move, they have been given voting rights in Assembly elections as well. According to the Ministry of Home Affairs, there are 5,746 families of West Pakistan refugees settled in Jammu, while community leaders say the number of families has gone up to 20000.
Reservation of seats for Kashmiri pandits and displaced people from PoK: In a recent Bill in Parliament, the Centre reserved two seats for Kashmiri pandits and one seat for the displaced people from Pakistan-occupied Kashmir in the Legislative Assembly of the Union Territory.
EXPRESS NETWORK
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Mains Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Environmental Impact Assessment.
Key Points to Ponder:
• What ‘s the ongoing story? As the search for a mutually agreeable position on fossil fuel elimination continued at the COP28 Summit, negotiators at the climate meeting Sunday took a small first step on initiating greater action on adaptation.
• What you shouldn’t miss?
A draft text on identifying some “global goals” on adaptation emerged for the first time Sunday and countries agreed to use this as a starting point to negotiate for a more meaningful outcome on this track.
On other subjects, including the contentious issue of fossil fuel phase-out, negotiators were still engaged in informal discussions to look for common ground. COP28 President, the UAE, convened a Majlis, or an assembly, to facilitate these informal discussions at an open platform. The meetings are expected to continue late into Sunday night, and a new draft text, reflecting the progress made in these, is expected to come out Monday morning. Negotiators only have Monday and Tuesday to wrap up their discussions and forge an agreement.
On the adaptation front, the small breakthrough that emerged was the draft text on the Global Goal on Adaptation, or GGA, after two years of discussions. GGA is an attempt to identify a common global goal on adaptation, just like keeping temperatures below the 1.5 degrees Celsius threshold is a global goal on mitigation. It has been a long pending-demand of the developing countries, primarily to ensure more focus and resource mobilisation on adaptation.
However, identifying “global” goals on adaptation are not as straightforward as those on mitigation. Adaptation is essentially a local effort and yields local benefits. The planet benefits from emission reductions carried out anywhere in the world, but that is not the case with adaptation.
The draft text, therefore, talks about reducing climate-induced water scarcity, making food and agriculture production climate-resilient, strengthening resilience against climate-related health impacts and similar issues that are common points of interest for the world.
The text also asks countries to make an assessment of their risks and vulnerabilities, prepare and implement adaptation plans, and put monitoring and evaluation systems in place.
Developing countries made it clear that the adaptation draft fell well below their expectations and needed to be improved significantly. Right now, it only flags issues that are largely developmental in nature. Besides, there is no mention of how these objectives are to be realised or the mechanisms that will fund these efforts. The draft talks about launching a two-year work programme to develop indicators that would measure the progress being made on the adaptation goals.
It was at COP26 in Glasgow, in 2021, that countries had agreed to finalise a framework for GGA within the next two years. It is one of the deliverables at COP28 in Dubai.
• Do you know? India climate action fourth strongest, says report
• Important Read: How COP28 President’s remarks have rekindled fossil fuel debate
• For Your Information:
The climate pledges made by countries and corporate entities in the opening days of the COP28 climate meeting — which, according to host UAE, have already made this conference successful — are not enough to bridge even one-third of the emissions gap likely to exist by 2030, a new analysis from the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Sunday.
A pledge by more than 100 countries to triple global renewable energy capacity by 2030 and double the growth in energy efficiency, and a promise by about 50 oil and gas corporations to eliminate methane emissions from their production processes, were hailed as important breakthroughs — even though these were voluntary pledges made outside the formal COP process.
IEA, the global energy watchdog, said the pledges were welcome but, in themselves, not adequate to enforce the required emission cuts by 2030. “IEA analysis shows that the full delivery on these pledges — covering renewables, efficiency and methane — by the current signatories would result in global energy-related greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 being around 4 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent lower than would be expected without them,” the IEA said.
As of now, about 130 countries have pledged to triple global renewable power capacity by 2030 and double the annual rate of energy efficiency improvements every year till 2030. The pledges are only a way to provide greater momentum to climate action, and not expected to fulfil any climate objectives on their own.
Incidentally, all these issues — tripling of renewable energy by 2030, doubling of energy efficiency growth and methane emission cuts — are being discussed in the formal negotiations as well and are expected to be part of final outcomes at COP28. There is, however, no unanimity between the countries on these issues in the formal process which, unlike the pledges, would become legally binding.
Tripling of renewable energy has a greater possibility of being agreed upon by the countries, but methane emission cuts are extremely contentious.
According to the latest projections, the current scale of climate actions being taken by countries would reduce annual global emissions by just 2 per cent by 2030 from 2019 levels. Science says this must be at least 43 per cent if any hope of meeting the 1.5 degrees-Celsius threshold has to be kept alive.
• Make a note: What is IEA?
• Which country will host next year’s COP?
• From the Editorial:
COP 28 must give more urgency to resolving the impasse on fossil fuels. Another vaguely worded declaration will defeat purpose of global climate negotiations. Discuss.
Thought Process: A large part of the blame for the global failure to curb fossil fuel use gets laid at the doors of India and China. This is unfair and simplistic. A distinction must be made between the imperative of lifting large sections of the Global South out of poverty and the interests of oil cartels. As the negotiators fine-tune the Dubai declaration, a major challenge before them will be to lay down a clean development roadmap that has space for the aspirations of emerging economies and developing countries.
Earlier meets of the Global Stocktake – the section of the COP that reviews the progress on the goals of the Paris Pact – have reportedly brainstormed on how best to draft the section on fossil fuels in the Dubai declaration. Two GST drafts have persisted with the Glasgow meet’s usage — “fossil fuel phase out”. However, reports have also indicated the possibility of the issue being dropped from the COP28’s declaration. That would be a big climbdown. After the euphoria of Paris eight years ago, most COPs have concluded with compromises. Another vaguely worded declaration will raise serious questions about the UNFCCC’s relevance.
Parliament committee suggests allowing puja, rituals at ASI monuments of ‘religious significance’
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Mains Examination: General Studies I: Art & Culture
Key Points to Ponder:
• What ‘s the ongoing story?
A parliamentary panel has recommended the government to explore the possibility of permitting puja and worship at monuments protected by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) that have religious significance. The report on ‘Issues relating to Untraceable Monuments and Protection of Monuments in India’ was presented in both Houses on Friday.
If that happens, it will open a Pandora’s Box since many of the protected monuments include dilapidated temples, dargahs, churches and other religious sites. As of now, ASI only permits worship and rituals at monuments wherein such traditions were on at the time of the monument coming to the agency’s custody.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
In its recommendations, the committee — headed by YSR Congress Rajya Sabha MP V Vijaisai Reddy and including more than a dozen MPs from across political parties — said that “several historical monuments across the country hold immense religious significance to a large number of people and allowing pujas/worship/certain religious activities at such monuments can fulfil legitimate aspirations of the people”.
It recommended that the ASI may explore the possibility of permitting puja/worship/certain religious activities at Centrally Protected Monuments of religious significance, subject to the condition that such activities would not have any detrimental effect on the state of conservation and preservation of the monuments.
In its response, the Ministry of Culture said it had noted the recommendation and will explore its feasibility. It, however, said that as per the policy decision, revival of worship is not allowed where it was not in vogue at the time of protection (by the ASI) or has been abandoned since long.
In May last year, after prayers were held at the ruins of the eighth-century Martand Sun Temple in Jammu and Kashmir’s Anantnag, the ASI had expressed its concern to the district administration. The agency, which functions under the Ministry of Culture, deemed the incident to be a violation of its rules.
According to ASI rules, prayers are allowed at its protected sites only if they were “functioning places of worship” at the time it took charge of them. “No religious rituals can be conducted at non-living monuments where there has been no continuity of worship when it became an ASI-protected site,” an ASI official said. Sources say there has been a feeling among the regime that prayers should be permitted at significant ancient temples and sites even as they may be ‘non-living’ monuments technically.
Of the 3,693 centrally protected monuments and archaeological sites maintained by the ASI, a little less than a fourth (820) have places of worship, while the rest are considered non-living monuments where no new religious rituals can be started or conducted. The sites that have places of worship include temples, mosques, dargahs and churches.
Although the Martand Sun Temple was once a thriving place of worship, commissioned by Karkota dynasty king Lalitaditya Muktapida (725 AD to 753 AD) in the eighth century, it was destroyed by Sikandar Shah Miri in the 14th century. At the time the ASI took over the temple ruins in the 20th century for conservation, no puja or Hindu ritual was being held there. So, when puja was conducted on the temple complex twice last year — first by a group of devotees and then in the presence of J&K Lieutenant-Governor Manoj Sinha — it was a violation of ASI norms since the temple is considered a non-living monument, ASI officials said.
Meanwhile, the panel also lashed at the Ministry as it could provide action-taken notes on “only 21 of the total of 35 recommendations” made in its relating to “untraceable monuments”, which was made public in September 2023.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION:
Why prayers are held at some protected sites?
According to ASI rules, prayers are allowed at protected sites only if they were “functioning places of worship” at the time it took charge of them. The best-known example of a living ASI monument is the Taj Mahal where namaz is held every Friday. Other notable living monuments include three mosques in Kannauj, Roman Catholic Church in Meerut, Nila Mosque in Delhi’s Hauz Khas Village and several Buddhist monasteries in Ladakh. Many protected monuments also witness “unauthorised worship”, according to ASI records. These include Lal Gumbad, Sultan Ghari’s tomb and Ferozeshah Kotla, all in Delhi.
EXPLAINED
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.
Mains Examination: General Studies III: Developing new technology.
Key Points to Ponder
• What is the ongoing story? “Deal!” tweeted European Commissioner Thierry Breton just before midnight Friday (December 8) in Brussels. “The EU becomes the very first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI,” Breton declared on social media after officials reached a provisional deal on the world’s first set of comprehensive laws to regulate the use of artificial intelligence (AI) after a marathon 37-hour negotiation between the European Parliament and the EU member states. The European Parliament will now vote on the proposed AI Act early next year, and a legislation is likely to come into force by 2025.
The European Union’s legislative framework assumes significance given that the US, the UK, and China are also jostling for the lead to set the template for AI regulations and publish their own set of guidelines.
• KEY TAKEAWAYS
The European Union’s legislative framework assumes significance given that the US, the UK, and China are also jostling for the lead to set the template for AI regulations and publish their own set of guidelines.
The legislation includes safeguards on the use of AI within the EU, including clear guardrails on its adoption by law enforcement agencies, and consumers have been empowered to launch complaints against any perceived violations. The deal includes strong restrictions on facial recognition technology, and on using AI to manipulate human behaviour, alongside provisions for tough penalties for companies breaking the rules. Governments can only use real-time biometric surveillance in public areas only when there are serious threats involved, such as terrorist attacks.
Breton said the legislation was designed to be “much more than a rulebook” and that it’s proposed as “a launch pad for EU start-ups and researchers to lead the global AI race”. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the AI Act would help the development of technology that does not threaten people’s safety and rights. In a social media post, she said it was a “unique legal framework for the development of AI you can trust”.
In terms of details, the EU legal framework broadly divides AI applications into four risk classes: on one end, some applications will be largely banned, including the deployment of facial recognition on a mass-scale, with some exemptions for law enforcement. AI applications focused on behavioural control will be also banned. High risk applications such as the use of AI tools for self-driving cars will be allowed, but subject to certification and an explicit provision for the backend techniques to be made open to public scrutiny. Those applications that fall in the “medium risk” category can be deployed without restrictions, such as generative AI chatbots, but there has to be detailed documentation of how the tech works and users have to be explicitly made aware that they are dealing with an AI and not interacting with a human. Developers will need to comply with transparency obligations before they release chatbots into the markets, including details about the contents used for training the algorithm.
Different approaches
These developments come as policymakers across jurisdictions have stepped up regulatory scrutiny of generative AI tools, prompted by ChatGPT’s explosive launch. The concerns being flagged fall into three broad heads: privacy, system bias and violation of intellectual property rights. The policy response has been different too, across jurisdictions, with the EU having taken a predictably tougher stance that segregates AI as per use case scenarios, based broadly on the degree of invasiveness and risk; the UK is seen to be on the other end of the spectrum, with a decidedly ‘light-touch’ approach that aims to foster innovation in this nascent field. The US approach slots somewhere in between. China too has released its own set of measures to regulate AI.
India’s approach
New Delhi has pitched itself, especially to nations in the Global South, as a country that has effectively used technology to develop and deliver governance solutions, at a mass scale. These solutions are at the heart of what New Delhi calls Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) – where the underlying technology is sanctioned by the government and is later offered to private entities to develop various use cases. Now, India wants to take the same DPI approach with AI.
You must know: India is building its own ‘sovereign AI’. What does it mean?
For any queries and feedback, contact manas.srivastava@indianexpress.com
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