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Here are the topics covered for 01 September 2023: Progressive UCC must protect the Child’s Best Interest,  Statehood of J&K, A special session of Parliament, Are Natural Disasters Manmade?, Core Sectors of Economy, Open Network for Digital Network.

 

Table of Contents:

GS Paper- 2:

1. Progressive UCC must protect the Child’s Best Interest
2. Statehood of J&K
3. A special session of Parliament

 

GS Paper- 3

1. Are Natural Disasters Manmade?
2. Core Sectors of Economy.
3. Open Network for Digital Network.

 

GS-2

Progressive UCC must protect the Child’s Best Interest

What is UCC?

1. A Uniform Civil Code is conceptualized as a set of laws that govern personal matters, including marriage, divorce, adoption, inheritance, and succession, for all citizens regardless of their religion. It aims to replace the existing diverse personal laws that vary based on religious affiliations.

 

Examples of Different Personal Laws:

1. The rights of women regarding inheritance differ based on their religion in India. Under the Hindu Succession Act of 1956, (which governs the rights of Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs) Hindu women have equal rights to inherit property from their parents and have the same entitlement as Hindu men.
2. The rights of married and unmarried daughters are equal, and women are recognized as joint legal heirs for ancestral property partition.

 

Constitutional Provisions:

1. Article 44 of the Constitution, one of the Directive Principles of State Policy, states that the State must seek to ensure for people a uniform civil code across India\’s territory. However, as Article 37 states, directive principles are guiding principles for government policies and are not enforceable by courts.

 

Special Session:

1. The government aims to bring the UCC bill in an upcoming special session of Parliament in September 2023.

 

Scope of UCC:

1. Polygamy, divorce, father, and a natural guardian also need to safeguard the interests of a child in the custody of dispute.
2. It must deny the absolute rights of biological parents vis-a-vis adoptive parents.

 

Important acts regarding protecting child’s interest:

1. The Guardian and Wards Act of 1890 considers the welfare of a child as a prime consideration in the determination of custody.
2. The Guardianship Act of 1956 declares the father as the natural guardian and after him mother. Mother will have custody till 5 years of age.
3. A person will lose custody if he/she ceases to be Hindu.

 

SC judgment:

1. In Gita Hariharan\’s case, SC said that the term after him does not necessarily mean after the lifetime of the father but instead the absence of a father.

 

Child Custody and Biological Link:

1. Under Islamic law custody is a child’s right and the father comes in 8th number to take custody of the child.
2. Under the Maliki school, the mother gets custody of the male child till puberty and the female child till marriage. Thereafter child can make the right choice.

 

Issue of Biological and Adopted Parents:

1. The claims made by biological parents after adoption or accused of rape of biological father.
2. Courts in India give importance to biological parents without considering the best interests of children.
3. For example, recently Bombay High Court judgment ordered to give child to biological parents.
4. In another case (Nasrin Begum) Allahabad High Court gave custody of the girl child to her biological parents in preference to the rights of adoptive parents.
5. The court gives importance to the right of the child to know her real identity and the right of her biological parents to her custody.

 

Progressive UCC:

1. The progressive UCC should not emphasize more on biological ties.
2. It needs to protect adoptive parents\’ rights otherwise no one will adopt children in India.
3. Need to make provisions of guardianship for single parents, surrogate parents, and for queer parents.

 

Statehood of J&K

Context: The Supreme Court of India’s five-judge Constitution bench has asked Centre restoration of the statehood of J&K.

 

More on News:

1. Centre is unable to give a time frame for when will be the statehood restored for J&K. But said that J&K is ready to conduct elections.
2. The Election Commission of India has been doing hard work to conduct the election, three-tier elections will be held in J&K after 2019. This will include pols in Panchayat, municipality, and Assembly elections.

 

Reogranization J&K:

1. The erstwhile state of J&K and Ladakh re-organised into union territory. But the Ladakh will continue to be UT unlike that of J&K.
2. Now Centre is progressively looking forward to giving it statehood via investing more than 28400 crore.

 

Positive outcomes after the abrogation of Statehood of J&K:

1. Terrorism and infiltration, stone-throwing, and casualties among the security forces.

 

What SC said:

1. Chief Justice of India asked constitutional challenge to the abrogation of A-370 would have to be answered by the center on constitutional grounds.

 

A special Session of Parliament

Context: Recently Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs said that in the month of September 2023, a special Parliamentary session will be concluded.

 

More in News:

1. It will have 5 sitings for fruitful discussion and debate in Parliament.
2. The government may bring special bills such as Reservations for Women in Parliament and Assembly, Uniform Civil Code legislation, and a bill synchronizing national and state elections.

 

Previous instances of Special Sessions:

1. last convened a special session of Parliament on June 30, 2017, to mark the rollout of the Goods and Services Tax (GST).
2. A special sitting was convened on November 26, 2015, to pay tribute to the Constitution and Dr. B R Ambedkar.
3. In 2002, the then BJP-led NDA government got the Prevention of Terrorism Bill passed at a joint sitting of the two Houses on March 26 since the ruling alliance did not have the majority to get it cleared in Rajya Sabha.
4. A midnight sitting was called on August 9, 1992, for the 50th anniversary of the ‘Quit India Movement.

 

Session of Parliement:

1. The power to convene a session of Parliament rests with the government. The decision is taken by the Cabinet Committee on Parliamentary Affairs.
2. India does not have a fixed parliamentary calendar. By convention, Parliament meets for three sessions in a year.

 

GS-3

Are Natural Disasters Manmade?

Context: The recent heavy rains in Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand damaged roads, highways buildings, etc.

 

Cause:

1. The warming Arctic is said to be the main reason behind unusually heavy rains.

 

How did the intensity of disasters?

1. The haphazard planning and construction have multiplied this tragedy.
2. The scale of natural disasters is mainly caused due to man-made activities.
3. Anthropogenic activities have played a major role in the increased frequency and intensity of natural hazards.
4. Humans have built on floodplains, encroached water bodies, and unsustainable city planning contributing to this problem.

 

City Planning:  Need of change:

1. Rising population pressure and tremendous pressure on the carrying capacity of the cities have resulted in increased loss and damage.
2. The failed planning of cities to understand the importance of keeping critical ecosystems alive, mainstreaming natural ecosystems in core urban life.
3. Need to make wise and inclusive planning of city development.

 

Sustainable City development:

1. Sustainable development pathway which includes emphasis on economics, society, and environment. Till now city development has been done through the economic perspective such as land holdings, finding cheaper land, filling water bodies, removing paleochannel (deep underground stores of groundwater), and destroying natural drainage systems.

 

Associated Issues:

1. Lack of awareness and poor data availability for planners for upcoming disasters etc. for example poor understanding of Himalayan territory due to the poor oberservational capacity in the region.

 

Solutions:

1. Adoption of sustainable development goals, implementation of careful urban planning, and creation of roads and streets. Long-term risk assessment, vulnerability, and understanding of how socio-economic drivers are worsening the problem of certain communities compared to others in cities.
2. Preserving, conserving, and building stronger relationships with nature.
3. Bringing private and public experts in planning for very good solutions on the table.

 

Core Sectors of Economy

Context: Core sectors grew 8% in July 2023 but output shrank 2.2% from June’s level.

 

More in News:

1. All of India’s eight infrastructure industries logged year-on-year growth in 14 months.

 

What are these 8 core sectors?

1. Coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertilizer, steel, cement and electricity.
2. All these items comprise 40.27% of weighted items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP)
3. IIP is an indicator that measures changes in the volume of production of industrial production. released monthly by the CSO
4. The base year of IIP 2011-12

 

Open Network for Digital Commerce

Context: According to the Deloitte India report India’s ONDC will be the primary force behind enhancing India’s digital commerce sector and it is expected to touch to $350 billion by 2030.

 

About ONDC:

1. It was launched in 2021 under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade as part of Digital India.
2. It is a network interconnected e-marketplace through these sellers, brands can directly sell their products to the consumers without middlemen.

 

Opportunities:

1. ONDC framework building on digital public platforms offers opportunities for all types of businesses to connect and transact seamlessly.
2. Helps in empowering consumers and SMEs. It will also help in establishing connections between farmers buyers and sellers via Farmer\’s producer organisation.
3. It will offer optimizing value chains, facilitating trade among the stakeholders.
4. Currently, e-commerce represents 4.3% of the retail commerce in India.