SC moots panel for farmer-govt. talks
Paper:
Mains: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News?
A Supreme Court Bench, led by the Chief Justice of India (CJI) has proposed the setting up of a committee of farmer leaders from across the country and government representatives to resolve the issue on the three controversial agriculture laws.
Key Details:
Government’s Stand:
- The Acts intend to maximize the options available to farmers in the output markets.
- MSP system will be unaltered and public procurement shall continue to exist.
- The government points out that there is no mention of either MSP or procurement in the Acts, thus the fear is unfounded.
Protests intensified in Punjab and Haryana:
- The Public Distribution System (PDS) is the backbone of the agrarian set up in Punjab and Haryana.
- Public procurement via MSP is very significant to the farmers of these two states especially.
- This is highlighted by the statistics. Close to 88% of the paddy production and 70% of the wheat production in Punjab and Haryana have been accepted by the public procurement.
- Compare this with other states concerning rice public procurement, only as far as 44% of rice production in Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha is absorbed by public procurement. The percentage slumps further for wheat public procurement as a share of production.
National Food Security Act (NFSA)
- The NFSA entails the government to procure foodgrains to be distributed as entitlements to close to 80 crore beneficiaries. Add to this another 8 crore migrants who need the foodgrains under NFSA.
- Punjab and Haryana are the major suppliers of wheat and paddy to the Government to sustain PDS.
- If the data of the previous three years is to go by, close to 40% of the total paddy produce and 32% of wheat production have been procured by public agencies to meet the PDS obligations.
- The COVID pandemic and the migrant crisis has meant additional beneficiary allocation, meaning additional procurement.
- The MSP led procurement via public agencies protects the farmer as well as the Government. The Government cannot afford to procure these huge quantities of wheat and rice from the open market, especially in the present scenario where the stock limits under the Essential Commodities Act has been removed, paving way for large scale hoarding.
Concerns
- Parliament passing the farm bills that have a significant impact on the agrarian sector without much deliberation in the Legislature has raised questions about the lack of political consensus and the need for such hastiness.
- Agriculture sector employs more than 50 percent of the total workforce in India and is the backbone of India’s rural sector, but the farmers and the agriculture trade unions have been kept out of the loop and their views hadn’t been elicited while drafting the bill.
- Electricity (Amendment) Bill 2020
- Farmers have expressed their displeasure over this amendment and want an immediate withdrawal. Farmers believe that this amendment will spell an end to the subsidized electricity.
India goes down two ranks in Human Development Index
Paper:
Mains: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News?
United Nations’ Human Development Index (HDI) 2019.
Key Details:
- India dropped two ranks in the HDI standing at 131 out of 189 countries.
- However, if the Index were adjusted to assess the planetary pressures caused by each nation’s development, India would move up eight places in the ranking, according to the report.
- For the first time, the UNDP introduced a new metric to reflect the impact caused by each country’s per-capita carbon emissions and its material footprint, which measures the amount of fossil fuels, metals and other resources used to make the goods and services it consumes.
- India’s gross national income (GNI) per capita on the basis of purchasing power parity (PPP), too, fell.
- India’s HDI value for 2019 is 0.645, which put the country in the medium human development category.
- Norway topped the index, followed by Ireland and Switzerland. Hong Kong and Iceland complete the top five.
Additional Information:
HDR – Human Development Index
It is human’s development indicator which ranks countries by combining measures of the three dimensions given below:
- Long and Healthy Life
- Knowledge
- Decent Standard of Living
Objectives of the Human Development Report
The UNDP’s HDR focuses on human’s development approach that entails people and their opportunities and choices. The objectives behind publishing the report are:
- Advancement of human development
- Expansion of opportunities, choices and freedom of people across the globe
- Introduction to the innovative ideas concerning human development
- Advocation of practical policy changes
- Challenging the policies and approaches that hinder human development
Indices of Human Development Report (HDR)
UNDP annually released HDR with 5 composite indices:
- Human Development Index
- Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index
- Gender Development Index
- Gender Inequality Index
- Multidimensional Poverty Index
Plea in SC for uniform divorce, alimony rules
Paper:
Mains: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News:
The Supreme Court while expressing great caution has agreed to examine a plea to frame uniform guidelines on divorce, maintenance and alimony for all religions.
Key Details:
- The petitioner argued that divorce, maintenance and alimony laws in certain religions discriminated and marginalised women.
- The anomalies, varying from one religion to another, were violative of the right to equality (Article 14 of the Constitution) and right against discrimination (Article 15) on the basis of religion and gender and right to dignity.
- The petitioner called for the laws on divorce, maintenance and alimony to be “gender-neutral and religion-neutral”.
- The petitioner also made references to Uniform Civil Code.
Concern:
- The bench opined that framing uniform guidelines could also mean the destruction of personal laws itself.
U.S. puts India on ‘currency manipulators’ monitoring list
Paper:
Mains: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News:
The U.S. Treasury has added India in its Currency Manipulator Watchlist.
Key Details:
- It has labelled Switzerland and Vietnam as “currency manipulators”.
- It said that in the year through June 2020 Switzerland and Vietnam had intervened heavily in currency markets to prevent effective balance of payments adjustments.
- It now added India to its watch list.
- The watch list comprises countries it suspects of taking measures to devalue their currencies against the dollar.
- With three new additions, the watch list has hit 10.
- They are Taiwan, Thailand, India, China, Japan, Korea, Germany, Italy, Singapore and Malaysia.
- The U.S. said that India and Singapore had also intervened in the foreign exchange market in a sustained, asymmetric manner but did not meet other requirements to warrant designation as manipulators.
- India breached the first and the third benchmarks.
- On the second, on a four-quarter basis, the country’s current account surplus remained below the threshold level