UPSC GK: What is the S.R. Bommai case, and why is it quoted often? (POLITY)

Who was S.R. Bommai?

S.R. Bommai was the Chief Minister of the Janata Dal government in Karnataka between August 13, 1988 and April 21, 1989. His government was dismissed on April 21, 1989 under Article 356 of the Constitution and President’s Rule was imposed, in what was then a mostly common mode to keep Opposition parties at bay. The dismissal was on grounds that the Bommai government had lost majority following large-scale defections engineered by several party leaders of the day. Then Governor P. Venkatasubbaiah refused to give Bommai an opportunity to test his majority in the Assembly despite the latter presenting him with a copy of the resolution passed by the Janata Dal Legislature Party.

What happened then?

Bommai went to court against the Governor’s decision to recommend President’s Rule. First he moved the Karnataka High Court, which dismissed his writ petition. Then he moved the Supreme Court.

What did the Supreme Court do?

The case, which would go on to become one of the most cited whenever hung Assemblies were returned, and parties scrambled to for a government, took almost five years to see a logical conclusion. On March 11, 1994, a nine-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court issued the historic order, which in a way put an end to the arbitrary dismissal of State governments under Article 356 by spelling out restrictions.

What did the judgement say?

The verdict concluded that the power of the President to dismiss a State government is not absolute. The verdict said the President should exercise the power only after his proclamation (imposing his/her rule) is approved by both Houses of Parliament. Till then, the Court said, the President can only suspend the Legislative Assembly by suspending the provisions of Constitution relating to the Legislative Assembly. "The dissolution of Legislative Assembly is not a matter of course. It should be resorted to only where it is found necessary for achieving the purposes of the Proclamation," the Court said.

What happens if the Presidential proclamation is not approved by the Parliament?

"In case both Houses of Parliament disapprove or do not approve the Proclamation, the Proclamation lapses at the end of the two-month period. In such a case, the government which was dismissed revives. The Legislative Assembly, which may have been kept in suspended animation gets reactivated," the Court said. Also the Court made it amply clear that a Presidential Proclamation under Article 356 is is subject to judicial review.

What is the significance of the S.R. Bommai vs Union of India case?

The case put an end to the arbitrary dismissal of State governments by a hostile Central government. And the verdict also categorically ruled that the floor of the Assembly is the only forum that should test the majority of the government of the day, and not the subjective opinion of the Governor, who is often referred to as the agent of the Central government. "The Chief Minister of every State who has to discharge his constitutional functions will be in perpetual fear of the axe of Proclamation falling on him because he will not be sure whether he will remain in power or not and consequently he has to stand up every time from his seat without properly discharging his constitutional obligations and achieving the desired target in the interest of the State," the Court said.

When was the verdict’s impact was first seen?

In one of the first instances of the impact of the case, the A.B. Vajpayee government in 1999 was forced reinstate a government it dismissed. The Rabri Devi government, which was sacked on February 12, 1999 was reinstated on March 8, 1999 when it became clear that the Central government would suffer a defeat in the Rajya Sabha over the issue.

And later whenever the case of a hung Assembly, and the subsequent exercise of government formation, came up, the Bommai case would be cited, making it one of the most quoted verdicts in the country's political history.

Credit: The Hindu Explains (http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/what-is-the-sr-bommai-case-and-why-is-it-quoted-often/article23929119.ece)

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UPSC GK: What is the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016? (POLITY)

In recent weeks, Assam has seen many protests over the proposed Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

The Bill has been termed “Anti-Assam” by BJP's ally Asom Gana Parishad, and similarly criticised by other regional parties.

And, earlier this month, when the Joint Parliamentary Committee on the Bill visited Assam and Meghalaya to hear from the locals, it did so amid protest voices which said the move would make Assam a “dumping ground for Hindu Bangladeshis”.

What does the Bill aim for?

With The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016, the government plans to change the definition of illegal migrants. The Bill, introduced in the Lok Sabha on July 15, 2016, seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955 to provide citizenship to illegal migrants, from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who are of Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi or Christian extraction. However, the Act doesn’t have a provision for Muslim sects like Shias and Ahmediyas who also face persecution in Pakistan.

The Bill also seeks to reduce the requirement of 11 years of continuous stay in the country to six years to obtain citizenship by naturalisation.

When did this idea gain stream?

The BJP had promised to grant citizenship to Hindus persecuted in the neighbouring countries during the 2014 General Election. In the party's election manifesto, the BJP had promised to welcome Hindu refugees and give shelter to them.

Who are illegal immigrants?

According to the Citizenship Act, 1955, an illegal immigrant is one who enters India without a valid passport or with forged documents. Or, a person who stays beyond the visa permit.

Why and who all are opposing the Bill in Assam?

BJP's coalition partner Assam Gana Parishad has threatened to cut ties with the party if the Bill is passed. It considers the Bill to work against the cultural and linguistic identity of the indigenous people of the State. NGOs such as The Krishak Mukti Sangram Samiti and students' organisation All Assam Students’ Union also have come forward opposing the Bill.

All Opposition parties, including the Congress and the All India United Democratic Front, have opposed the idea of granting citizenship to an individual on the basis of religion. It is also argued that the Bill, if made into an Act, will nullify the updated National Registration of Citizenship (NRC). The process of updating the NRC is currently underway in Assam.

What is NRC?

The National Register of Citizens (NRC) is meant to identify a bona fide citizen. In other words, by the order of the Supreme Court of India, NRC is being currently updated in Assam to detect Bangladeshi nationals who might have entered the State illegally after the midnight of March 24, 1971. The date was decided in the 1985 Assam Accord, which was signed between the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the AASU. The NRC was first published after the 1951 Census in the independent India when parts of Assam went to the East Pakistan, now Bangladesh.

The first draft of the updated list was concluded by December 31, 2017. The second draft is yet to be released.

How will the Bill affect the updated NRC list?

While Bill is designed to grant citizenship to non-Muslim refugees persecuted in neighbouring countries, NRC does not distinguish migrants on the basis of religion. It will consider deporting anyone who has entered the State illegally post-March 24, 1971, irrespective of their religion. Currently there are six detention camps for illegal migrants in Assam but it’s still not clear how long the people will be detained in these camps. The process of deportation or duration of detention is not clear as it has not been stated by the government. But if the Bill becomes an Act, the non-Muslims need not go through any such process, meaning this will be clearly discriminating against Muslims identified as undocumented immigrants.

Other than Assam, what are the States likely to be affected?

States sharing borders with Bangladesh, Pakistan and Afghanistan are likely to be affected.

The Meghalaya Democratic Alliance (MDA) government, an ally of the BJP, has opposed the Bill. Calling the bill "dangerous," the Meghalaya government said that they don't agree with the idea of non-Muslims acquiring citizenship after six years of living in the country.

What's the status of the Bill now?

The Bill after been discussed in the Lok Sabha, was referred to a joint select committee in August 2016. The members of the Parliamentary Committee visited Barak Valley, the Bengali-majority area of Assam, and Meghalaya to discuss it with various organisations. They reportedly spoke to about 200 organisations.

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UPSC GK: Women empowerment can be an effective electoral strategy. Discuss (POLITY)

WHILE many poor and marginalised OBCs, SCs and STs have borne the disproportionate brunt of Nitish Kumar’s prohibition crackdown — accounting for, as an investigation by The Indian Express (editions of May 28 and 29) has shown, a higher share of their population inside prison than outside — the Bihar Chief Minister has, by this action, succeeded in carving out for himself a distinct new political constituency: women.

In village after village, The Indian Express reported in its Wednesday editions, a common refrain among women is that prohibition has led to a decline in the incidents of domestic violence, and left families with more money in hand at the end of the month. Many women, especially those married to alcoholics, say they feel empowered like never before.

An indicator that Nitish Kumar has been able to tap into this spring of goodwill lies in the fact that the participation of women in Assembly elections in Bihar surpassed that of men in 2010, when the Chief Minister sought re-election at the end of his first full term.

Election Commission data analysed by The Indian Express show that while the turnout of women in the elections of February 2000, February 2005, and October 2005 lagged behind that of men, this gap narrowed from 17.43% to just 2.53% over this period. The inflection point was reached in the elections held in October-November 2010, when the turnout of women voters was 3.37 percentage points more than that of men (54.49% to 51.12%). And in the elections of October-November 2015, the voting percentage among women was a significant 7.16 percentage points higher than among men (60.48% to 53.32%). 

The prohibition law, which Nitish’s government brought within six months of coming to power in 2015 was only one, though perhaps the most potent, of the elements of his strategy to create and nurture a political constituency among women. In 2006, in the early part of his first full term, the Chief Minister had reserved 50% seats in panchayat and local body elections for women, broadening the scope for their political training at the grassroots level. In that same year, he launched a bicycle scheme for schoolgoing girls — a decision to which is credited the manifold jump in the enrolment of girls in secondary (from 1 lakh in 2007 to 7 lakh in 2017) and senior secondary (from 70,000 in 2007 to 3.5 lakh in 2017) education, and which has since been replicated in several states across the country. And before the 2015 elections, Nitish promised — apart from prohibition — 35% reservation for women in state government jobs.

Prohibition had seemed an odd move, given that Nitish had actually liberalised the liquor trade to boost the state’s revenues during his first full term in power. As the network of licensed liquor shops spread, revenues zoomed from Rs 500 crore in 2005 to about Rs 4,000 crore in 2014-15. But this greater access to alcohol not only invited criticism from his political adversaries, it also appeared to directly impact rural poor women, increased drinking by whose menfolk started to eat into meagre household earnings.

According to people close to Nitish Kumar, prohibition was the Chief Minister’s response to the concerns of the constituency of women that he had so carefully built up in his first two terms from 2005. It was subjectively assessed that the enhanced access to liquor, especially among the lower caste poor communities, was turning into a social menace of which women were the silent, helpless victims.

Unlike Nitish, however, Lalu Prasad’s RJD was never comfortable with idea of the liquor ban — in significant part because Yadavs, the party’s core base, make up a large chunk of liquor licencees. But the RJD, desperate as it was to defeat the BJP in the Mahagathbandhan with the JD(U) and Congress, did not oppose the Chief Minister’s plans ahead of the 2015 elections.

With Nitish back in the NDA, the political situation now is completely different. While the Chief Minister continues to talk about prohibition as his core agenda, he is believed to be increasingly concerned about a potential backlash from the Scheduled Castes, some of whom have traditionally earned their living by brewing and selling country liquor. Recent defeats for the NDA in the byelections for the Araria Lok Sabha seat and Jehanabad Assembly seat indicate that a section of Mahadalits, a constituency that Nitish created, may be drifting away.

The Chief Minister has made his choice of prohibition at the cost of a substantial loss of revenue for his resource poor state. It is a testimony to the importance of liquor revenue that states did not allow it to be brought under the Goods and Service Tax (GST) regime when Parliament passed the law in 2016.

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/prohibition-in-bihar-why-nitish-kumar-says-no-to-liquor-5197752/)  

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UPSC GK: Outline options that death row convicts have in India beyond Presidential Pardon? (POLITY)

President Ram Nath Kovind has rejected the mercy plea of Jagat Rai who, along with accomplices, was convicted of killing a woman and five children by setting their house on fire while they were asleep in 2006, at Rampur Shyamchand village in Bihar. His death sentence was upheld by the Supreme Court in 2013. There have been precedents that show judicial options remain for a death-row convict even after rejection by the President.

When it reaches President

The sentence of death passed by a trial court has to be confirmed by a High Court. The convict can then move the Supreme Court. In September 2014, a Constitution Bench of the SC held that appeals against HC rulings confirming the death sentence will be heard by a Bench of three judges. Once the SC dismisses such an appeal, the convict can seek a review (to be heard in open court) and subsequently, file a curative petition. If all these are dismissed, the convict has the option of a mercy petition. There is no time limit within which the mercy petition has to be decided.

Power of pardon

Under Article 72 of the Constitution, “the President shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence where the sentence is a sentence of death”. Under Article 161, the Governor too has pardoning powers but these do not extend to death sentences.

The President cannot exercise his power of pardon independent of the government. Rashtrapati Bhawan forwards the mercy plea to the Ministry of Home Affairs, seeking the Cabinet’s advice. The Ministry in turn forwards this to the concerned state government; based on the reply, it formulates its advice on behalf of the Council of Ministers.

In several cases, the SC has ruled that the President has to act on the advice of the Council of Ministers while deciding mercy pleas. These include Maru Ram vs Union of India in 1980, and Dhananjoy Chatterjee vs State of West Bengal in 1994.

Although the President is bound by the Cabinet’s advice, Article 74(1) empowers him to return it for reconsideration once. If the Council of Ministers decides against any change, the President has no option but to accept it.

After President decides

In October 2006, in Epuru Sudhakar & Another vs Andhra Pradesh and Others, the SC held that the powers of the President or Governor under Articles 72 and 161 are subject to judicial review. Their decision can be challenged on the ground that (a) it was passed without application of mind; (b) it is mala fide; (c) it was passed on extraneous or wholly irrelevant considerations; (d) relevant materials were kept out of consideration; (e) it suffers from arbitrariness.

Can a High Court review the President’s rejection of a mercy petition? The question is pending before the SC. Sonu Sardar, a murder convict from Chhattisgarh, was sentenced to death in 2008 for killing five members of a scrap dealer’s family, including two minors, in 2004. After his mercy pleas to the Governor and the President were rejected, Sardar moved the Delhi HC in 2015 challenging the rejection citing “delay, improper exercise of power and illegal solitary confinement”.

On June 28, 2017, the High Court commuted the sentence to life imprisonment.

The Centre challenged this, and the Supreme Court issued a notice in November 2017. The government contended that only the Supreme Court should entertain petitions against the President’s decision to reject a mercy petition.

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/ram-nath-kovind-what-is-mercy-petition-death-sentence-supreme-court-5197771/)

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UPSC GK: Why Shimla is thirsty this tourist season? (ECOLOGY)

Himachal Pradesh High Court Monday gave the state government and Shimla Municipal Corporation 24 hours to explain the unprecedented shortage of water that has crippled North India’s most visited hill station for the past eight days. Acting Chief Justice Sanjay Karol repeatedly asked the government whether the city’s water resources were sufficient to cater to its ever-growing population.

Shimla has witnessed extraordinary scenes this past week — on Sunday night, residents frustrated after a daylong struggle to fill buckets from municipal corporation tankers, tried to march to the residence of Chief Minister Jai Ram Thakur, who described the crisis as “really, really bad”. Protest dharnas and rallies have been held, and pictures of people with buckets in long queues have gone viral on the Internet. The absence of Mayor Kusum Sadret, who left Shimla for China in the middle of the crisis, has fuelled the anger.

Some neighbourhoods, especially those at the tail end of supply lines, haven’t received a drop of water since the beginning of last week, throwing day-to-day living out of gear. Educational institutions, private and government hostels, especially those for girls, hospitals, and offices have been badly hit. In Shimla’s peak tourist season, many hotels have shut for the lack of water.

So how did Shimla run into the crisis whose magnitude, the Chief Minister conceded to The Indian Express, the civic body had completely failed to anticipate?

The fundamental problem, Chief Secretary Vineet Chawdhry says, is a dramatic decline in the availability of water at the two main supply schemes that have long fed Shimla. The Giri scheme, which has an installed capacity of 20 million litres per day (MLD), has been providing only 9.75 MLD, and the scheme at Gumma, the city’s oldest, has been giving the corporation about 10.6 MLD against its installed capacity of 21 MLD.

Total availability from all the six schemes feeding Shimla crashed to 22 MLD Monday, almost half the installed capacity of 42 MLD. While demand goes up 25-30% in summer, the shortfall has never been this much: average supply in April-May 2016 was 32 MLD, and in April-May 2017, 35 MLD.

In the peak tourist season, an average 15,000-20,000 tourists visit the city every day, adding to the load of its 2.2 lakh resident population on the city’s resources. Daily tourist arrivals are estimated to reach 25,000-30,000 over the weekends.

But what is the reason for the lower availability of water?

“Water sources have been depleted,” Chawdhry said. “There isn’t enough water to pump at the stations. The dry spell with less rainfall and very little snowfall appear to be a factor. But, we will need to study the reasons,” he said. In a note submitted to the state government, the municipal corporation has attributed the crisis to adverse weather/climatic conditions which it has said has led to the drying up of water sources.

What is obvious is that a significant amount of water goes waste due to old, leaky pipes. The civic body is often arbitrary in distributing water, giving VIP localities preferential treatment. Many hotels draw excess water, leaving common people facing shortages almost every year. Illegal constructions have mushroomed across the city, and water is frequently pilfered for use at these sites.

A large number of farmers upstream of the Gumma source grow vegetable crops, to irrigate which they have cut at least three khuls (traditional water channels) from the stream. On Monday, Deputy Commissioner Amit Kashyap got the farmers to stop drawing water. Officials acknowledge, however, that this can only be a temporary solution.

Again, the Irrigation and Public Health Engineering (IPH) Department has allowed more than 150 farmers to use pumps to draw water from the Giri river. Almost double this number are likely to be using illegal pumps. Officials on Monday rushed to plug the illegal pumping, and the IPH department withdrew its NOCs.

An important scheme, Ashwani Khad, which supplied 8 MLD of water, was shut down after an outbreak of jaundice in the city in 2015-16. A sewage treatment plant upstream was found to be discharging untreated sewage into the rivulet.

Hoteliers say an explosion of homestays around Shimla has added to the crisis.

“Most of us now have private tankers in addition to normal commercial supplies,” Sanjay Sood, president of the North Zone hoteliers body, said.

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/why-shimla-is-thirsty-this-tourist-season-water-shortage-5194799/)  

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UPSC GK: Is there a case of bringing petrol, diesel under GST? (ECONOMICS)

With the prices of automobile fuels surging, Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Dharmendra Pradhan said in Bhubaneswar Monday that bringing petroleum products under the ambit of the Goods and Service Tax (GST) was being considered by the government as part of a “holistic strategy” to address the issue. Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari, too, favours such a move — and Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has said that his state was fine with petroleum products being brought under a single rate countrywide, and that a Task Force was working on it. Chief Economic Advisor Arvind Subramanian had earlier this year made out a case for bringing petroleum products under GST.

The trigger for all this is rising oil prices — the benchmark Brent crude crossed the $80 per barrel mark earlier this month — and the daily revision of prices of petrol and diesel.

How will this help?

When India moved to the GST regime last July, petroleum products were excluded, along with alcohol, real estate and power. In the current structure, both the central and state governments levy a tax on petrol, diesel, crude, and natural gas. The Centre charges excise duty, while each state has its own Value Added Tax (VAT). Added to these are the dealer commissions, all of which inflates the price that consumers pay at the retail pumps. (On Tuesday, petrol was Rs 86.24 per litre in Mumbai, Rs 81.43 in Chennai, Rs 81.06 in Kolkata, and Rs 78.43 in Delhi.)

Bringing petroleum products under GST would mean a single rate — 18% or 28% — in place of excise duty and state VAT, and lower pump prices. It will take the political heat off the government, and is likely to lead to lower transport costs for industry, with benefits in terms of boosting production and competitiveness. It will also be in keeping with the idea of a ‘single nation, single tax’, which is aimed at improving production and employment while taxing consumption.

Because these products are excluded from GST, many firms are at a disadvantage: they cannot set off inputs costs like transport, logistics, services, spares, or claim input tax credit. They miss out on productivity gains as well.

But there’s a flip side

For both the federal and state governments, petroleum products, like alcohol, are huge revenue earners. The Centre mopped up Rs 1.60 lakh crore in excise duty from petroleum products in FY18, and Rs 2.42 lakh crore in FY17, even as global oil prices fell from 2014-15 through 2016-17. Between 2013-14 and 2016-17, the central government collected Rs 2,79,005 crore in excise duties alone — a windfall that helped it show a better fiscal position. Similarly, states earned Rs 1.66 lakh crore in VAT on these products in FY18; Maharashtra, for example, currently makes close to Rs 22,000 crore.

Revenue considerations, therefore, are likely to drive the decision on bringing petroleum products under GST. The decision will have to be taken by the GST Council, in which states have a major say.

Even if they agree to having petrol, diesel and other products under GST, they will still have the autonomy to levy an additional or top-up tax, which can vary across states. This surcharge can be in the nature of a “sin tax” — a way for states to discourage consumption of certain products like liquor or tobacco — and to reduce vehicular pollution.

Even the Centre will have reasons to worry — not only because of the huge revenue petroleum products bring, but also because it is committed to compensating states for any shortfall in revenues for five years.

There are other considerations, too. The decision will have to take into account larger questions such as those of equity, given the consumer profile of those buying fuel for personal vehicles, and the issue of an efficient public transport system.

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/auto-fuels-under-gst-petrol-price-hike-diesel-5196291/)  

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UPSC GK: How knowing English helps? (ECONOMICS)

Last week, the Delhi government announced the launch of a spoken English course for students of government schools. Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal tweeted: “Government school students mostly come from economically poor backgrounds… This was their biggest demand — sir, hame English bolna sikhwa dijiye.” MANISH SABHARWAL, co-founder and chairman of human resources firm TeamLease Services, explains what drives this demand, and how learning English helps the backward classes climb up the social ladder.

Is there really a clamour to learn English among India’s poor?

Absolutely. And this clamour is not just among the economically backward, but also among the socially backward — e.g., the Dalit agitation for government schools to move to English in Andhra Pradesh and in many other parts of India. This represents the recognition of English as a vocational skill.

What is the reason? Is it economic benefits or a desire to climb socially?

Think of English as an operating system, like Windows. In a country with multiple languages, labour mobility is much higher for those who speak the link language of English. This is amplified by the reality that India’s farm to non-farm transition is happening to services and sales — unlike China’s, which happened to manufacturing. English is now a vocational skill. The wage premium for people who are comfortable with English is higher than 100% for the same job — e.g., a security guard who can handle Reception at lunch, or a driver who can use GoogleMaps, or a plumber who can use WhatsApp. Also, these people fish in different ponds — thus, a migrant from UP often gets a salary of Rs 8,000 per month with us because they start as packers/loaders while a migrant from the Northeast will get Rs 20,000 because they start in the front office. I think there is some social signalling value, but the bigger value is the wage premium and higher odds of formal employment.

For what kinds of jobs is this true?

The contours and details of India’s five ongoing labour market transitions — farm to non-farm, rural to urban, subsistence self-employment to decent wage employment, informal enterprises to formal enterprises, and school to work — mean that the fastest growing formal jobs in India are sales, customer service and logistics by function, and healthcare, education and retail by industry. All these jobs and industries require extensive human and computer interfaces. Since we can’t take jobs to people, we will have to take people to jobs through migration, and migrants need the link language. Also given that 90% of the Internet and the world’s software interfaces are in English, people aspiring for current areas of job growth have an unfair advantage.

And in what ways does the knowledge of English open the doors for people to rise higher in the social hierarchy?

My sense is that the social signalling value of English is a consequence of the wage premium and higher labour mobility for English-speaking people. Just as English fluency may be replacing the lazy filtering for graduates by many employers, the marriage market is starting to become more discerning about filters. The divergence between demographics and economic success between the South/West and North/East of India also contributes to this in hard-to-measure but real ways. Signalling value is a complex and real issue in labour markets; Michael Spence got his Nobel for suggesting that one of the primary upsides of college may be signalling value. More recently, Alvin Roth and Lloyd Shapley got their Nobel for suggesting that while financial markets clear on price, labour markets clear on information. I would not rule out the value of English as resume signalling for both employers and prospective in-laws.

How do other countries and academic research think about multilinguism?

Research suggests that multi-linguilism generates diversity and drives innovation, which in turn stimulates economic growth; people have demonstrated its value in building more entrepreneurial societies. This motivation is complemented by initiatives like the Salzburg Statement for a Multilingual World whose objective is “to go beyond valuing languages but to harness them and cultivate them, to do justice to the cultural treasures they represent”. Of course, language is fundamental to national identity, but bilinguism has demonstrable cognitive benefits — higher exam scores, positively correlated with college performance, improves memory, and seems to offset age-related memory loss. Research also suggests that students who acquire another language tend to be more successful problem-solvers (since they have to learn how to look at any given issue from multiple perspectives). The Flynn Effect — a global rise in IQ over the last few decades — has many causes, and one of them could be the rise of multilinguilism.

Why then have state governments long pushed for the use of Hindi or other languages to the exclusion of English?

Governments have often confused the demand for English with the complex issues of mother tongue and loss of heritage. But demands for English in India are about being bilingual, not about substituting something — remember that both Harivansh Rai Bachchan and Firaq Gorakhpuri were professors of English literature at Allahabad University. We don’t have to be Western to be modern, but perhaps sometimes politicians do not give Indians enough credit for their cultural self-confidence. Some worry that more than 400 of the 780 languages spoken in India are at risk of dying in the next few years, but we can’t really predict the future. Lyricist Gulzar once said that Urdu was saved as a language by Hindi cinema; similarly, many things could have happened because Indians were clear that learning English is not a dangerous or a zero-sum game.

Is running summer camps the best way to improve English skills of children? What else can be done?

Literacy can be defined to include the skills of reading, writing, listening and speaking. The English camps proposed by the Delhi government target spoken English for kids after Class X and are a great idea; they will improve employability and, therefore, employment outcomes. This is a great place to start but a longer-term solution that could be considered would be to introduce English as a second language in all government schools starting the early grades. Becoming fluent in any language takes time, and we need to give teachers time across many years. English learning is more about schools than college because it is hard to get adults fluent in a language later in life or in a few months (even though you actually only need 272 English words for a job in retail). The politics of regional languages will always be complex but my sense is that the rising aspirations of our youth — there were 100 million new voters in the last election and there will be 100 million new voters in 2019 — will change if not mute the traditional politics around this issue. Policymakers should consider the connections between aligned standards, sequenced curriculum, instruction, and assessment. We know that effective instruction starts with assessment; assessments have a dual purpose — to know where a child’s learning level is, and looking at trends in student data based on the same assessments used over time with all children to throw light on areas for instructional improvement. Harvard research suggests we need to be strategic about curricular approaches to language — play-based in early years, escalating to phonics, word recognition, thematic language, and then comprehension.

***

The states: English in government schools

CLASS I: Govt schools in most states, including Punjab, Haryana, Himachal, Maharashtra, UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Assam, TN, Kerala, introduce English at primary level. In Delhi, students start as soon as they enter a govt school at any level, including pre-primary.

LATE START: In Odisha govt schools, English begins in Class II. In Gujarat, it was taught from Class V until 2013-14, when it was advanced to Class III — but without textbooks in the first two classes. In West Bengal, the LF had stopped English before Class VI; it began the subject from Class I in 2004.

EARLIER: Among the states that have English from Class I, most introduced it only in recent years. 

Punjab had English from Class VI until the current academic year, Haryana from Class VI until 2004, Maharashtra from Class V until 2001, and Bihar from Class III until two years ago. ENS

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/spoken-english-course-govt-school-delhi-jobs-unemployment-5193790/)  

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UPSC GK: What do you know about elusive Planet Nine that scientists talk about? (SCIENCE)

It has been described as hiding in plain sight, a planet 10 times as massive as Earth and orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune. Predicted in a series of studies over the last few years, Planet Nine of the solar system — if it exists — continues to elude, and yet intrigue, with clues suggesting that it is indeed out there.

The latest pointer comes from another object in the outer Solar System, called 2015 BP519. This one is certain: it was discovered during the international project Dark Energy Survey. In a paper on a preprint archive reporting the discovery, a large team of scientists has concluded that 2015 BP519 “adds to the circumstantial evidence for the existence of this proposed new member of the Solar System”.

The object orbits the Sun at an extreme tilt — its orbital plane is inclined at 54° to that of the eight planets. This, the researchers believe, is probably because of the influence of the gigantic Planet Nine. Otherwise, the extreme inclination of the BP519 orbit did not make sense in simulations of the known Solar System.

“The computer simulations we use takes all objects in the Solar System and evolves them forward or backwards in time, and looks at how the orbits of the objects change over time,” lead author Juliette Becker, a PhD student at the University of Michigan, told The Indian Express by email. “When we ran a simulation without Planet Nine, we found it was very hard to make objects like BP519. When we ran a different simulation including Planet Nine, we found that it was very easy to make objects like BP519,” she said.

Over the years, scientists have sought to explain other puzzling aspects of the solar system by attributing these to the influence of Planet Nine. In a 2016 paper in The Astronomical Journal, California University of Technology researchers Konstantin Batygin and Michael Brown made out a case for the existence of the planet by arguing that it could be responsible for the peculiar alignment of objects in the Kuiper belt, an expansive field of icy debris on the outskirts of the Solar System.

The same year, another Caltech team attributed a well-known feature of the Solar System to Planet Nine. The Sun’s equatorial plane is aligned six degrees off from the orbital plane of the planets, something that had long puzzled scientists. According to the Caltech team, it is not the Sun that is out of alignment but the eight planets; Planet Nine’s mass has caused their orbital plane to wobble.

Batygin and Brown had predicted that Planet Nine’s gravity would push Kuiper belt objects into higher inclinations. Asked about the latest findings, Batygin said by email: “The discovery of Becker et al is a fantastic result — they have detected the first highly inclined Kuiper belt object that securely resides in the Planet Nine-dominated domain of the Solar System. I could not be happier about their detection.”

All the evidence, however strong, does not prove conclusively that Planet Nine exists. How much longer will that take? Batygin said: “The false-alarm probability with the current set of objects is about 0.1%. Additional findings will lower this value even further.” But Becker felt: “The only way to prove the existence of Planet Nine is to directly detect it (to take a picture and see it there). All these pieces of indirect evidence will help us figure out where to look for it, though!”

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/planet-nine-new-evidence-strong-but-not-proof-solar-system-5193774/)  

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UPSC GK: How Copper smelting pollutes? (ECOLOGY)

Protests OVER the expansion of a Sterlite Copper smelting plant in Tuticorin, Tamil Nadu, which led to police firing that killed 13 people, have been over pollution concerns. How do copper and smelting of the metal pollute?

Dr Purnendu Bose of the environmental engineering faculty in IIT Kanpur explains that copper, while an essential nutrient, is toxic to animals and humans in high concentrations.

The main pollutants are released by the process of smelting. Most copper ores are sulphur-based and smelting releases sulphur dioxide, an air pollutant known to have many harmful effects. Sometimes, depending on the quality of the ore, the concentration of sulphur dioxide is so high that industries are forced to convert it into sulphuric acid, which itself is a water contaminant.

The other byproduct of smelting is slag, the waste matter separated from metals. This slag may leach heavy metals (arsenic, cadmium, lead or mercury depending on the composition of the ore) into groundwater reservoirs. Water which has a high heavy metal content is very toxic to humans.

Slag may also increase the concentration of other, less harmful salts in water resources, which may change the taste of water.

The proper disposal of these byproducts can restrict the pollution caused by these factors to within the limits permitted by the government and other regulatory bodies.

Credit: Indian Express Explained

UPSC GK: How to deal with ecological problems posed by Vilayati Kikar? (ECOLOGY)

For decades now, tree lovers and environmentalists across the country have been campaigning against a tree species. The vilayati kikar, Prosopis juliflora, allows no other species to thrive. The Delhi government recently gave its nod to clearing the Central Ridge of the non-native tree in the hope that the area’s original flora — which are called the lungs of the city — as well as fauna can be restored.

Vilayati kikar and its weedlike properties — fast growth in arid conditions, killing any competition and water-table depletion —have been documented by several scientists and activists in Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat, as well as Tamil Nadu, where it is called karuvelam and is used as firewood. The Madras High Court, in 2016, passed an interim order clearing removal of these trees as they were depleting the water table in areas already struggling for water. In 2017, the court started monitoring the removal of the kikar.

Delhi’s fight against the tree gained ground in the 1990s with court cases, representations to government, and research papers. The transformation of the Yamuna Biodiversity Park in Wazirabad, however, is what gave the forest department faith that the plan could work.

According to C R Babu, who heads the Centre for Environmental Management of Degraded Ecosystems (CEMDE), the organisation that will conduct the first phase of the removal over 100 acres between Dhaula Kuan and Chanakyapuri, the tree was brought to Delhi by the British in the early 1930s. By the end of the decade, it had taken over the Ridge completely, killing the native acacia, dhak, kadamb, amaltas, flame-of-the-forest etc. Along with the trees disappeared the fauna — birds, butterflies, leopards, porcupines and jackals.

The removal

Cutting down vilayati kikar and waiting for the other plants to grow is a counterproductive move for two reasons. First, the tree can regenerate from the root; second, leaving the Ridge barren and waiting for native species to grow will leave the city with barely any green cover, and invite encroachers.

In a plan made for Delhi but one that could well be replicated elsewhere, CEMDE has taken the stumbling blocks into account.

“The first step is to cut the trees’ branches and reduce the foliage cover so that sunlight can reach the ground. This cuts the tree’s capability to produce food and it starts to wither. Alongside, it gives enough sunlight and water to saplings,” Babu said.

Another method being used to expedite the process is planting parasitic, but native, vines that will cut the access of vilayati kikar to sunlight while taking away nutrients.

“The vines are native to Delhi. They quickly spread across the foliage and cut off the tree’s access to light, slowly killing it,” a senior forest department official said.

The replacement

Replacing the vilayati kikar, a crucial part of the project, will have to be a scientific exercise to make sure Delhi gets the Ridge of the early 1900s. “We have identified 30 tree communities such as butea, Sterculia, and Acacia and others that are all native to India. Some of these have a canopy that is three storeys tall and will dwarf any remaining kikars when full-grown. We will plant the saplings when they are 3 to 6 feet tall to give them a good chance of survival,” Babu said.

Sourcing the saplings is another challenge. Since many of these species have been eradicated from the wild in Delhi, the city is looking to communities in Haryana and Gujarat for help. “Once the trees reach fruit-bearing age, propagation will be unassisted,” Babu said.

The precedent

A reassurance is the similar model that has yielded results already, although on a smaller scale. Work started on developing the Yamuna Biodiversity Park in Wazirabad in 2002. Spread over 457 acres, the park is home to native tree, shrub, and creeper species, and houses several small water-bodies and boasts a healthy water table. Its most famous visitor, perhaps, was a young leopard that was spotted in November 2016.

For the scientists who run the park, it was a sign that what they had set out to do was being achieved. The leopard stayed for close to a month. Leopards only stay in an area for long if they find a suitable habitat — enough prey, water resources and some anonymity.

While the leopard was shifted out, the biodiversity remains — something CEMDE hopes can be replicated on the Ridge.

Credit: Indian Express Explained (http://indianexpress.com/article/explained/delhi-government-vilayati-kikar-removal-order-environmental-impact-5194797/)

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UPSC GK: How a peasant uprising in Naxalbari triggered a pan India political movement? (POLITY)

In the summer of 1967, a tiny village on the foothills of the Himalayas was making headlines. Located in the Darjeeling district in West Bengal, Naxalbari lit a fire that would spread across large parts of India and burn till today in the form of the Maoist movement. The peasants of Naxalbari, who mainly worked on tea plantations and at large estates, had for centuries been exploited by the landowning classes and the moneylenders. On March 25, 1967, when one of the sharecroppers in the village tried to till the land from which he had been illegally evicted, the landlord got him brutally beaten up and took away his belongings. Exasperated by the exploitation of the landlords, peasants across the village got together and rose in rebellion.

In the two years before 1967, the seeds of rebellion in Naxalbari were being nurtured by the cadres of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) (CPI-M). A splinter group from the Communist Party of India (CPI), the CPI-M was convinced that a real socialist revolution was possible only when the workers and peasants would launch an armed uprising against the moneyed classes. After the March 25 incident at Naxalbari, they were convinced that the moment had arrived. Charu Mazumdar, one of the leaders of the CPI-M, is believed to have held that “there was an excellent revolutionary situation in the country with all the classical symptoms”. On May 25 that year, he along with the two other key leaders, Kanu Sanyal and Jangal Santhal, launched the peasant uprising in Naxalbari. The movement was quick to face the wrath of the state government with the police dealing with protesters with an iron hand. Nonetheless, in the next few days, months and decades, the Naxalbari uprising would go on to determine the very nature of armed revolution in India.

The movement in its current form has altered significantly, both in its nature and objectives. In the late sixties and early seventies, the Naxalbari uprising ignited a fire in the hearts of both the urban youth and the rural masses. In the next few months, similar movements became common in pockets of Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal, in parts of Odisha, all the way till Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra. “For the first time in post-independence India the movement asserted the demands of the poor and landless peasantry in a way that shook the then atrophied Indian political scene,” writes historian Sumanta Banerjee. Also significant was the way the movement appealed to the urban youth, particularly students, from some of the most esteemed universities of the country, for whom the movement exemplified the precise way in which the establishment could be challenged.

Naxalbari and the restless urban India youth

“People are reacting. Naxalbari is an inspiration. It’s an impetus for change,” says Udayan, the fictionalised character of Jhumpa Lahiri in her book “The Lowland.” A student of Presidency University, Udayan’s euphoria at the outbreak of the uprising was evident in the way he challenged his family and joined a group of simmering revolutionary intelligentsia in supporting the Naxal cause. Lahiri’s protagonist set in the background of Calcutta in the 1960s is a reflection of a similar character set in Delhi in Sudhir Mishra’s “Hazaron Khwaishein Aisi”.

Mishra’s protagonist Siddharth Tyabji (played by Kay Kay Menon) was a student in Delhi University. A firebrand Naxalite of the seventies, he decides to leave his life of luxury to move to a village in Bihar in the hope of bringing revolution against the oppressive tendencies of upper caste landlords. Both the characters of Lahiri and Mishra are reflective of a generation of young people, affected beyond measure by the Naxal movement, despite being far removed from the site in which the uprising primarily took place.

In the immediate aftermath of the Naxal uprising, the urban youth of India, several among them being from the privileged sections of society, were remarkably inspired to rise in revolution. Descendants of a generation that had seen Independence, for those in their twenties in the 1960s and 70s, Naxalbari was their moment of bringing change in the way in which their parents’ generation had risen against the colonial state. It was not uncommon to see posters of Naxalbari hanging across the walls of colleges in Calcutta and Delhi. Many students left college to join the Naxalites.

Charu Mazumdar took a number of steps as well to entice students into joining the Naxal movement. He declared that the revolution was not just for the rural masses but rather a fight against everyone who was a ‘class enemy’ which included University teachers, businessmen, police and, of course, the government. Naxalites took over Jadavpur University and Calcutta University. Presidency College in Calcutta and St. Stephens in Delhi became hotbeds for Naxalite activities.

The state, too, could not remain immune for long from the ‘disruptive’ activities of the students and went after them. Reportedly, it was at the house of Congress MLA Somen Mitra where students were held up illegally by the police and government officials. Till date, several upper-middle-class families belonging to these urban centres narrate tales of family members and friends who had to be flown outside the country, or somehow suppressed, in order to escape the wrath of the state.

Naxalbari and the agitating rural masses

The real achievement of the movement, however, lay in the way it shook up rural India. “It continues to arouse them to protest and take up arms against their feudal oppressors, and even take on the Indian state whenever it sends its police to protect these feudal interests, whether in the villages of Bihar or the tribal hamlets of Andhra Pradesh,” writes Banerjee.

In the days immediately following the Naxalbari uprising, a similar uprising took place at Srikakulam in Andhra Pradesh. Believed to have its roots in the Telangana rebellion of 1946, the uprising at Srikakulam in October 1967 is said to be inspired by the Naxalbari episode. Two men associated with the communists, Koranna and Manganna, were killed here by the local landlords. In retaliation, the tribal population of the village rose up in arms, looting the landlords of their land and grains. The movement escalated by 1968 when groups of tribal peasants organised themselves into guerilla squads to attack police officers.

Bihar was influenced as well. Movements modeled along the lines of Naxalbari sprung up in the Mushahari region of Muzaffarpur district in north Bihar, in parts of Bhojpur and Patna districts in central Bihar, and in Hazaribagh, Ranchi, Singhbhum and Dhanbad districts of south Bihar. Kerala saw a period of time when the movement was backed by students and resulted in a violent crackdown by the authorities.

Fifty-one years later, the movement is mainly operating in parts of Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa and Andhra Pradesh. It was dealt with severely, particularly during the Emergency period under the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi. In the ensuing decades, despite a strong surveillance by the Indian police, the movement managed to remain alive although in a significantly altered form.

“The programme of agrarian revolution and anti-imperialist mobilisation have acquired a fresh appeal in the era of globalisation and economic reforms seen in the past two decades and also since the US-led ‘war on terror’ that began in 2001,” writes political scientist Manoranjan Mohanty in his article “Challenges of revolutionary violence: the Naxalite movement in perspective.” He goes on to say that in such an atmosphere tribal people increasingly find themselves distressed by shrinking access to forest resources and large-scale displacement by mega-mining projects. Sumantra Banerjee adds that “if the movement is still surviving, the credit is due not so much to prescience of its leaders, as to the Indian state which, with its abysmal failures in socio-economic areas, persists in nourishing the soil for the continuation of the Naxalite movement.”

Credit: Indian Express Research (http://indianexpress.com/article/research/51-years-of-naxalbari-how-a-peasant-uprising-triggered-a-pan-india-political-movement-5191046/)  

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UPSC GK: Who was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and what were his ideas? (HISTORY)

UPSC GK: Who was Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and what were his ideas? (HISTORY)

Ever since Vinayak Damodar Savarkar coined the term “Hindutva” and wrote his famous ideological treatise, “Hindutva: Who is a Hindu?,” scholars and politicians have been divided over the interpretation of his ideas of what the Indian nation constitutes. Written and published in the 1920s, while Savarkar was in jail, the pamphlet was path-breaking in the sense that it promoted the idea of Hinduism being a political and cultural identity, invested in all those who lived in India regardless of the faith they followed. Well over half a century since Savarkar’s death, and especially at a time when the country is being ruled by the right wing, the revolutionary politician’s views have over and again been held up to a debate over Hindutva and its resonance in India.

Born on May 28, 1883, to a Marathi Brahmin family, Savarkar had been attracted towards the radical arm of the Indian nationalist struggle since his college days. It was during his time as a law student in England that Savarkar began organising radical political activities for which he was imprisoned. He widely read Indian and world history and wrote aggressively on the oppressive British rule in India, his admiration for fascism and his views on Muslims and Christians.

Towards the end of his life, Savarkar was particularly noted for his detestation for Mahatma Gandhi and was one among those arrested for the assassination of Gandhi, though later he was acquitted. On Savarkar’s 135th birth anniversary, here are five lesser-known facts about him.

His book, ‘The history of the war of independence’, on the 1857 rebellion, was banned by British authorities.

As Savarkar got involved in radical activities while in London, he actively read up on the history of India and decided to organise anti-British activities on the lines of the 1857 revolt. He was so deeply moved by the mutiny tales of 1857 that in 1909, when the British held the 50th commemoration of the 1857 uprising to celebrate their own victory, Savarkar came out with his work “The first war of independence” in which he described the episode as being almost at par with the French and American Revolutions. In the book, Savarkar propounded that the 1857 mutiny was a well-organised and a collective uprising aimed at wiping out foreign power from India. “The seed of the revolution of 1857 is in this holy and inspiring idea, clear and explicit, propounded from the throne of Delhi, the protection of religion and country,” he wrote.

The book was first published in Marathi. However, considering it to be inflammatory in nature, the British banned it across India even before it could be published. They even pressured the French press to not publish it. Over the years, however, the book has earned the scorn of Indian intellectuals as well who believe that it advocates an aggressive form of Hindu nationalism. “Savarkar’s account of 1857 has served to legitimise retributive violence in the name of Hindu nationalism,” writes political philosopher Jyotirmaya Sharma.

Savarkar admired Hitler and thought that he was best for Germany

Savarkar was president of the Hindu Mahasabha from 1937 to 1942. This was the most important period in international history and it was during this period that Savarkar repeatedly voiced his views on Indian foreign policy, particularly towards Germany and Italy. Speeches made by Savarkar, during this period, as collected by Italian researcher Marzia Casolari, show his deep admiration for Hitler and his Nazi philosophy. “The very fact that Germany or Italy has so wonderfully recovered and grown so powerful as never before at the touch of Nazi or Fascist magical wand is enough to prove that those political ‘isms’ were the most congenial tonics their health demanded,” Savarkar is believed to have said.

Further, Savarkar publicly criticised the Jews for failing to absorb into the German national fabric and compared them to Muslims in India as well. In 1939, at the 21st session of the Hindu Mahasabha, he is noted to have said that “the Indian Muslims are on the whole more inclined to identify themselves with Muslims outside India than Hindus next door, like Jews in Germany.”

Savarkar supported the establishment of Israel as he saw in the Jewish state a bulwark against Islamic Arab world.

A staunch supporter of the view that Hindu identity was part and parcel of the Indian nation-state, Savarkar held the opinion that Muslims were to be kept outside the country’s social and administrative fabric. In his writings, he often held the colonial view of Muslim men as being aggressive and tyrannical in India. “Intoxicated by this religious ambition, which was many times more diabolic than their political one, these millions of Muslim invaders fell over India century after century with all the ferocity at their command to destroy Hindu religion which was the lifeblood of the nation,” he wrote in his work, “Six glorious epochs of Indian history.”

Consequently, while Savarkar admired Hitler and Mussolini for their fascist views towards the Jews, he still supported the establishment of the Jewish state of Israel. “This was not only in accordance with his theory of nationalism, but he also saw in the Jewish state a bulwark against the Islamic Arabic world,” write Subho Basu and Suranjan Das in their article, “Knowledge for politics: Partisan histories and Communal Mobilisation in India and Pakistan.”

He fiercely opposed the Quit India movement launched by Gandhi

Savarkar was severely critical of Mahatma Gandhi and saw his methods as pretentious. He also criticised Gandhi for his appeasement of Muslims during the Khilafat Movement. Further, he also rejected the Congress’ claim of representing the interests of all Hindus in India. When Gandhi launched the Quit India Movement on August 8, 1942, Savarkar urged all members of Hindu Mahasabha to boycott it. He instructed Hindu Sabhaites who are “members of the municipalities, local bodies, legislatures, or those serving in the army…to stick to their posts across the country”. Though members of the Sabha boycotted the movement, they are believed to have still sympathised with the Congress’ struggle.

In 2015, Shiv Sena demanded Savarkar be posthumously awarded the Bharat Ratna

In 2015, the Shiv Sena wrote a letter to PM Narendra Modi asking him to “rectify mistakes” by posthumously honouring the revolutionary leader with the Bharat Ratna. The Sena believes that despite the patriotic ideologies propounded by Savarkar, the Indian government has continued to neglect him and that needs to be changed now.

The matter was brought up once again more recently during the controversy over Jinnah’s portrait in Aligarh Muslim University. “In the new regime, Deen Dayal Upadhyay gets honour, his portraits are installed on government walls. But there is no place for Savarkar’s portraits… it (the government) should immediately announce a Bharat Ratna for Savarkar. Otherwise, it should declare that its Hindutva is limited to politics,” Sena MP Sanjay Raut wrote in his column titled Rokthok.

Credit: Indian Express Research (http://indianexpress.com/article/research/vinayak-damodar-savarkar-135th-birth-anniversary-he-admired-hitler-and-other-lesser-known-facts-about-him-5194470/)

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