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.Anti-Pakistan protests in Kabul: Islamabad must be held responsible if Afghanistan becomes a problem for the world
Anti-Pakistan rallies broke out across Kabul today with protesters denouncing Islamabad’s meddling in Afghan affairs. This comes after Pakistan military’s apparent help to Taliban to fight the Afghan resistance forces in Panjshir, and the weekend visit of Pakistan ISI chief Lt Gen Faiz Hameed to Kabul to mediate between various Taliban factions for government formation. Iran has already slammed Pakistani military presence in Panjshir and called for investigations into the foreign interference. Whereas young Afghan men and women who took to the streets of Kabul are calling for rejecting a Pakistan-sponsored government.
There’s no denying that Pakistan’s military-ISI complex has for years played a double game to support Taliban while superficially working with the US in its war on terror in Afghanistan. After all, Osama bin Laden was ultimately found hiding in Pakistan when he was taken out by American special forces. Therefore, Taliban’s return in Afghanistan has been scripted in large part by Pakistan’s deep state, which has always treated Afghanistan as strategic depth.
Given this scenario, Pakistan should be held squarely responsible for any chaos that now unfolds in Afghanistan. If that country again becomes a launchpad for international terrorism, the international community must not hesitate in hauling Islamabad over the coals. If Taliban persecutes Afghan minorities, journalists and women, Pakistan should not be allowed to escape blame. Taliban is Pakistan’s albatross. Islamabad must be put in the dock if Afghanistan becomes a problem for the region and the world.
2.Mother of all forms: Many official documents still don’t allow mother’s name to be a standalone marker of parentage. Change this
Society’s most regressive practices often don’t attract a second thought because they are so much a part of convention. Only individuals injured by a social convention usually raise the troubling question, which then, sometimes but not always, forces institutions to consider the convention’s implications. In the case of the ubiquitous primacy of the father’s name in official documentation, it is single mothers who have mounted a sustained legal challenge. Its most recent iteration saw Madras high court issuing notice to both central and state governments in a PIL seeking revision of all official documents that recognise only the father’s name, and offer no space for the mother’s name, whether as a standalone or as an additional option.
The heavy weight of convention is painfully slow to reform although some important identification documents like passport, Aadhaar and PAN have made the shift. SC directed in 2015 that municipal bodies needn’t insist on a father’s name for issuing birth certificates, but many still do. Likewise, despite various education departments’ circulars that a father’s name is not necessary to avail school admissions, ground reality is frequently otherwise. What mothers then find themselves battling is not a legal requirement, but an entrenched social prejudice clothed in ‘procedure’.
There’s a larger issue, of course. A mother is often the primary caretaker. Yet when a child grows up seeing her name missing from the official papers, as also perhaps from the home’s nameplate, patriarchy is smoothly perpetuated. A mother is understood to be secondary to father. These are not agenda-less conventions. They age from a period when single women or wives would not be property owners or sign most contracts. Hopefully, Madras HC will add fresh momentum to the hugely necessary reform of patriarchy in official documentation. And let’s be bolder. Nomination forms for elections have been revised to require father’s/mother’s/husband’s name. Let’s add wife’s/partner’s name to the mix.
3.Bankrupting reform: Vacancies in NCLT are undermining IBC. GoI needs to fill them soon.
The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was enacted in May 2016. It was rightly hailed as a landmark economic reform that would simultaneously lower exit barriers for firms and lending risks for financial intermediaries. IBC’s efficacy relies on a set of institutions that combine seamlessly to deliver. This aspect was foregrounded recently when the Supreme Court made its displeasure known in a hearing on the Tribunal Reform Act and vacancies across tribunals. Specifically, it brought the state of two key IBC institutions, National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) and its appellate body, NCLAT, into focus.
NCLT plays a central role at two stages of an insolvency process. At the very beginning it decides within a statutory deadline on whether a complaint can be admitted. Subsequently, it has to judge if a resolution package of a firm submitted by creditors satisfies the law. This body is underperforming as it’s short-staffed. Consequently, there’s a growing pile of unresolved cases, undermining IBC’s efficacy. A parliamentary standing committee report tabled last month said that of the sanctioned strength of 63 members across 16 NCLT benches, there are 34 vacancies, including that of the president.
The low point was in June. NCLT had four different acting presidents in the first 10 days of the month. In the case of NCLAT, the full time chairperson’s post has been vacant for almost 18 months. Consequently, there are 13,170 IBC cases involving approximately Rs 9 lakh crore pending before NCLT. Of these, around 71% have been pending for more than six months. Time is of the essence in resolution. IBC has been designed to prioritise resolution over liquidation. This aim can be achieved only if the resolution process sticks to timelines because it limits erosion of a company’s value.
A sense of the scale of the problem showed up in last year’s pile-up. The pandemic resulted in IBC being suspended for defaults arising on or after March 25, 2020. Even with this slack, of the 2,278 IBC cases filed between April-December 2020, only 176 cases had been disposed of by early February. Without NCLT and NCLAT functioning at full strength, IBC runs the risk of going the way of some other reforms. Off to a good start, but underperforming later because GoI dropped the ball on nurturing the relevant ecosystem. IBC is too important for this story to play out again.
4.Nipah amidst a pandemic
Quick development of vaccines for tropical infections is a success of the coronavirus era
India is far from being anywhere near the finish line with regard to the coronavirus pandemic, even as fears of a Nipah virus outbreak have surfaced in Kerala with one confirmed death in Kozhikode. While confirmed cases of the viral infection have been reported several times since 2001 in West Bengal and Kerala, it was the outbreak in 2018, in Kozhikode, that made headlines after 17 deaths and 18 confirmed cases, underlining the high infection-associated fatality. Outbreaks fanned by exotic viruses are not foreign to India: a glance at the weekly reports compiled by the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme shows the diversity of viral or bacterial outbreaks that flash by with barely a mention, unless they threaten India’s metropolises as outbreaks of dengue, H1N1, chikungunya or malaria sometimes do. However, the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic also draws attention to significant outbreaks that preceded it. Nipah in Kozhikode and Malappuram was the first outbreak where terms such as ‘contact tracing’, ‘RT PCR’, ‘antigen test’, and ‘PPE kits’ became part of the ordinary discourse in Kerala. The State’s public health system, earlier commended only for quality primary health care, earned appreciation for its ability to establish links between the infected and their contacts and to isolate them to prevent further spread.
If the virus spreads in Kerala with inferior surveillance, it could escalate into an epidemic. Nipah, in the time of Covid, should serve as a reminder to build up health infrastructure across the nation
The death of a 12-year-old boy in Kerala has brought back focus on the threat from the Nipah virus. Like Sars-Cov-2, it is zoonotic, having jumped from animals. The virus is carried by fruit bats and infection spreads typically when a person eats or drinks something contaminated by bat droppings. Nipah infections have a high fatality rate; 17 of the 19 confirmed cases in Kerala in 2018 died. The World Health Organization estimates 40-75% of the infections are likely to be fatal. Experts have warned of a high pandemic potential with a virus such as Nipah. Till now, cases of human-to-human transmission are few compared to infections via contact with animals or contaminated products. But a 2019 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine raised the possibility of the virus mutating to become more able to jump from person to person, making any outbreak a cause for significant concern.
This is of relevance to India. Kerala, except for 2020, has regularly reported Nipah outbreaks. After being seemingly caught off guard in 2018, the state put in place protocols to carry out widespread contact tracing and testing efforts. The following year, when a young student was found infected, 329 people who had come in contact were traced, potentially preventing more cases. No deaths took place that year. This year, the state has identified over 250 people, and 11 showing symptoms are being tested. The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated that not all Indian states have the resources or the expertise to mount a robust test-trace-treat campaign. If the virus spreads in a state with inferior surveillance, it could escalate into an epidemic. Nipah, in the time of Covid, should serve as a reminder to build up health infrastructure across the nation.
6.The future is at stake
Covid-19 has devastated education; it also affected teachers; while many tried to help students, most were out of touch with them. It may take years to compensate for the loss
The Covid-19-induced school closure, which began in March 2020 and continued till August-September 2021, has led to “catastrophic consequences” for underprivileged students, reveals a new report, Locked Out: Emergency Report On School Education. The survey, supervised by economists Jean Dreze, Reetika Khera, and researcher Vipul Paikra, was conducted in August and covered 1,400 students, from classes 1 to 8, across 15 states and Union Territories. About 60% of the sample households reside in rural areas, and close to 60% belong to Dalit or tribal communities. Only 8% of students in rural areas and 24% are studying online regularly, and 19% of children in urban areas and 37% in rural areas are not studying at all. Ninety per cent of parents in urban areas and 97% in rural areas want schools to reopen. This is understandable: Only 23% of urban parents and 8% of rural parents feel that their children have adequate online access. Both sets (76% in urban and 75% in rural areas) said that their children’s reading abilities have declined during the lockdown. The results of a simple reading test conducted during the survey confirm the assessment. Nearly half of all children in the sample could not read more than a few words.
The pandemic also affected teachers; while many tried to help students, most were out of touch with them. The pandemic-sparked job losses, which resulted in a severe drop in incomes of parents, also meant that a quarter of students, who were in private schools, have moved to government schools. The impact has not been restricted only to education. The suspension of mid-day meals has affected students, and put their nutritional development, mental health, and overall development at risk. While 80% reported receiving some food as a substitute, there have been frequent complaints of not receiving the entitled amount.
In August, a parliamentary committee report noted that the pandemic-induced learning loss has “weakened the foundational knowledge of the students especially in mathematics, sciences and languages at school level”, which is likely to impair their cognitive capabilities. These reports show that India is facing nothing short of an education emergency, and it will take years to repair the damage. With schools reopening, governments need to evaluate the nature and scale of learning loss, improve the quality of State-run schools, retrain teachers, formulate bridging courses, and invest in the psychological, social, and nutritional well-being of students. The future is at stake.