In this section, we are presenting our readers/aspirants compilation of selected editorials of national daily viz. The Hindu, The live mint,The Times of India, Hindustan Times, The Economic Times, PIB etc. This section caters the requirement of Civil Services Mains (GS + Essay) , PCS, HAS Mains (GS + Essay) & others essay writing competition.
1.Income and quotas: On creamy layer
Supreme Court lays bare the limits of using economic criterion to determine reservation eligibility
The Supreme Court’s ruling that economic criterion alone cannot be used to classify a member of a Backward Class as belonging to the ‘creamy layer’ adds an interesting nuance to the jurisprudence of affirmative action. There was a time when backwardness was primarily related to the inadequate social and educational advancement of a group. Ever since the Court, in Indra Sawhney (1992), introduced the concept of ‘creamy layer’ — a term describing the well-off among the Backward Classes — and declared that this section should be denied reservation benefits, the original idea of including groups based on social backwardness was matched by a parallel exercise to exclude the more advanced among them. This position has crystallised into law. Many support the formulation that once caste is accepted as a basis for determining backwardness, there is nothing wrong in excluding the affluent among the eligible castes. The Union government has unreservedly accepted the ‘creamy layer’ rule, and formulated criteria for identifying those who fall under the category. The proponents of economic criteria feel that genuine social justice means reservation benefits should be restricted to the poorer among the backward; while sections championing Backward Class assertion disfavour any dilution of the social basis for reservation.
The Court’s latest judgment in a Haryana case corrects a grave error by the State. It has struck down a notification fixing an annual income of ₹6 lakh as the sole criterion to identify whether a family belongs to the creamy layer. It was contrary to Indra Sawhney that had spoken of different criteria, including being the children of high-ranking constitutional functionaries, employees of a certain rank in the Union and State governments, those affluent enough to employ others, or with significant property and agricultural holdings and, of course, an identified annual income. The Court has found that the Haryana criterion based on income alone was contrary to its own law that specifies that the creamy layer would be identified through social, economic and other factors. The Constitution permitted special provisions in favour of ‘socially and educationally backward classes’ through the first Amendment, as well as reservation in government employment for ‘backward classes’. Judicial discourse introduced a 50% ceiling and the creamy layer concept as constitutional limitations on reservation benefits. However, the 103rd Constitution Amendment, by which 10% reservation for the ‘economically weaker sections’ (EWS) has been introduced, has significantly altered the affirmative action programme. With the current income ceiling being ₹8 lakh per annum for availing of both OBC and EWS quotas, there is a strange and questionable balance between the OBC and EWS segments in terms of eligibility, even though the size of the respective quotas vary.
2.Dissension in the ranks: On crises in Congress State units
Crises in the Congress can be attributed to its leaders’ lack of ideological commitment
With their backs up against the wall and in a crisis, resilient organisations are expected to run a tight ship. But in politics, if the organisation lacks a strong glue, there are enough malcontents to weaken it from within. The Congress finds itself in such a situation today. Beleaguered and limited to power on its own in only three major States — Rajasthan, Punjab and Chhattisgarh — the Congress should have focused on utilising the period in power to provide good governance and to inspire successes elsewhere. Since nothing succeeds like success, working together to achieve a functioning government is an imperative. But far from backing the respective Chief Ministers to the hilt, leaders in the Congress have tried to take on the mantle of rebellion to varying degrees of success. In Rajasthan, Sachin Pilot’s rebellion against Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot was managed last year, but no viable compromise between the two has been reached yet. In Punjab, despite being an import after a stint in the BJP, former cricketer Navjot Singh Sidhu managed to wrest the position of the Punjab Pradesh Congress Committee president by mobilising enough discontent against Chief Minister Amarinder Singh. Now chafing, Capt. Amarinder’s allies have sought their utmost to undermine Mr. Sidhu’s leadership in another round of internecine strife. In Chhattisgarh, Health Minister T.S. Singh Deo’s claim that he was supposed to get the Chief Minister’s post as “promised” to him halfway into the government’s tenure, has not yet been accepted by the party high command which, however, seems unwilling to back the incumbent, Bhupesh Baghel.
In none of these instances can a claim be made that the incumbent government’s performance has warranted a change. The rebellions, therefore, can be attributed to the personal ambitions of three leaders and not even to traditional factional politics related to ideological differences. There has been a lot of focus on the party’s national leadership and a concentration of power in the Nehru-Gandhi family, but the more pressing problem it confronts is the absence of a clear ideological commitment that draws leaders and cadre into closer coordination and camaraderie. By drawing from its history as the party that led the country to freedom and helped work out a constitutional consensus and a liberal democratic polity, besides its legacy since the 1990s as the party that pushed for economic reforms and welfare-based governance as the twin pedestals for progress, the Congress can still lay a strong claim to power. For that it must have a committed cadre that is willing to selflessly work toward that aim rather than rely upon self-seeking leaders professing vapid centrism, and for whom power is the overarching motive.
3.Will October see a brutal third wave?
Cases of the Delta-plus variant have now crossed 100 in Maharashtra even as the early days of the festive season have already sent infections north in Kerala. It is against this worrying backdrop that we are reading the alert from the committee of experts constituted under the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM), in their report, ‘Third Wave Preparedness: Children Vulnerability and Recovery’. The biggest vulnerability for children is that they are unvaccinated.
But the report also refers to specific general projections, such as the one that India can witness 6 lakh cases per day in the next wave. Compare this to the peak of around 1 lakh in the first wave and around 4 lakh in the second wave just in the sudden spike of a highly-infectious variant but also in poorly followed safety precautions and lack of preparedness in terms of healthcare infrastructure.
Not repeating these mistakes is critical. The report points out that Tamil Nadu for example has begun building up infrastructure in pediatric wards and sensitising pediatricians to Covid treatment protocols. Such advance preparation on multiple fronts, from masking to oxygen and medicines, will make all the difference when infections surge again.
‘Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it,’ the report rightly reminds. If we do things right its direst warnings for October will not come to pass. Let’s do things right.
4.Afghan fallout: India must work with US and G7 to secure its strategic and security interests
As uncertainty continues to loom over Afghanistan after Taliban’s takeover, India has been focussed on evacuating its citizens, Afghan Hindus and Sikhs and other Afghans fleeing the Islamist group. However, it would soon need to firm up a strategy to deal with the new dispensation in Kabul. Admittedly, India has no easy options here given Pakistan’s links with Taliban. It would also rue the ebb in its relations with Iran. The latter has significant influence in Afghanistan and hosts an estimated 3 million Afghan refugees. Plus, Tehran has developed contacts with Taliban over the years with the Afghan group even expressing affinity for the Iranian Islamic governance system.
In fact, Iran was part of India’s Afghanistan strategy only a few years ago. India’s development of Iran’s Chabahar port and interest in completing the rail link to Zahedan on the border with Afghanistan were aimed at providing an alternative trade and transit route to Kabul bypassing Pakistan. But the erstwhile Donald Trump administration’s reimposition of US sanctions on Iran after exiting the Iran nuclear deal in 2018 put a big spanner in New Delhi-Tehran ties. And given the changed geopolitical scenario with an increasingly assertive China, New Delhi was left with little choice but to strategically be close to Washington’s position.
Add to this Iran’s recently inked 25-year strategic cooperation pact with China. With Russia and China drawing strategically close, and with Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi currently on a tour of regional countries including Iran with the aim of building a common approach to Afghanistan, India is looking at a potential Iran-Pakistan-China-Russia axis. Hence, India must continue to work with the US and other G7 democracies to safeguard its strategic, security and economic interests that can be threatened by the Afghan situation. A good move would be for India to shore up its democratic credentials to be more in sync with Western democracies. Attracting censure over human rights and treatment of minorities will undermine the country’s national interests. In the emerging global battle between autocracies and democracies, India must be firmly in the democracy camp.
5.Words and the law: Ministers who get arrested for remarks get bail fast. Who protects ordinary citizens targeted by cops?
Unmindful of Supreme Court cautioning just days ago that arresting a person merely because it is lawful doesn’t justify the arrest, Maharashtra police, almost certainly egged on by the state government, lodged multiple FIRs and arrested Union MSME minister Narayan Rane for remarks against CM Uddhav Thackeray. Rane’s reported statement was in terribly poor taste but, sadly, quite in line with contemporary political polarisation and general crassness of discourse favoured by politicians across parties. But each barb is likely to be met by nastier ones, and sometimes violence on streets, as seen since Rane’s remarks. It’s time parties recognise the futility of unparliamentary discourse – voters don’t get impressed by it.
The other, even more alarming lesson from the Rane arrest is that if the politician-police combination can put Union ministers in jail for making a remark, what chance do India’s ordinary citizens have when authorities deem something they have merely said to be offensive – and therefore reason enough for an arrest? The brutal reality is that citizens seem to have no chance at all.
Some days ago, 62-year-old YouTuber Manmohan Mishra was arrested by UP police from Chennai for alleged derogatory remarks against the Centre over Covid management. Such investigative zeal over mere words – words that didn’t trigger any violence – prompting cops to travel nearly 2,000 kilometres is remarkable. Contrast that to the otherwise “ramshackle” criminal justice delivery system. Recall also 29-year-old Delhi resident Roshni Biswas summoned over a Facebook post critical of the TMC government by Kolkata police last year.
It was this tendency of pleasing political masters that finally led to a famous PIL and then to the landmark judgment that junked Section 66A. It is the same reaction to regular and increasingly absurd police excesses that informs the growing chorus for repealing sedition. Without police reforms, cops cannot hope to become neutral intermediaries in free speech cases. And political establishments nudging state police to pursue dissenting voices means there has to be greater vigilance from the judiciary. Sometimes, cases present infernal complexities – as demonstrated by the example of the assaulted Indore bangle-seller who was also arrested for an alleged offence under POCSO Act. Only courts can fight these battles.