GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Recently, K. Kavitha who is accused in the Delhi excise case has launched a six-hour hunger strike seeking early passage of the long-pending Women’s Reservation Bill in New Delhi.

Women and Political reservation in India:

• The issue of reservation for women in politics can be traced back to the Indian national movement. 
• The National Perspective Plan for Women recommended in 1988 that reservation be provided to women's rights from the level of the Panchayat to that of Parliament. 
• These recommendations paved the way for the historic enactment of the 73rd and 74th amendments to the Constitution which mandates:
  • All State governments to reserve one-third of the seats for women in Panchayati Raj Institutions and 
  • One-third of the offices of the chairperson at all levels of the Panchayati Raj Institutions, and in urban local bodies.

Highlights of the Bill:

• The Constitution (One Hundred and Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2008 seeks to reserve one-third of all seats for women in the Lok Sabha and the state legislative assemblies.  
• The allocation of reserved seats shall be determined by such authority as prescribed by Parliament.
• One-third of the total number of seats reserved for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes shall be reserved for women of those groups in the Lok Sabha and the legislative assemblies.
• Reserved seats may be allotted by rotation to different constituencies in the state or union territory.
• Reservation of seats for women shall cease to exist 15 years after the commencement of this Amendment Act.

Issues:

• The report examining the 1996 women’s reservation Bill recommended that reservations be provided for women of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) once the Constitution was amended to allow for reservation for OBCs. 
• It also recommended that reservation be extended to the Rajya Sabha and the Legislative Councils. Neither of these recommendations has been incorporated into the Bill.
• Opponents also contend that this policy diverts attention from the larger issues of electoral reform such as the criminalisation of politics and inner-party democracy.

Analysis of the bill:

• There are divergent views on the reservation policy. Proponents stress the necessity of affirmative action to improve the condition of women. 
• Some recent studies on Panchayats have shown the positive effect of reservation on the empowerment of women and on the allocation of resources.
• Opponents argue that it would perpetuate the unequal status of women since they would not be perceived to be competing on merit. 
• The reservation of seats in Parliament restricts the choice of voters to women candidates. 
  • Therefore, some experts have suggested alternate methods such as reservation in political parties and dual-member constituencies.
• Rotation of reserved constituencies in every election may reduce the incentive for an MP to work for his constituency as he may be ineligible to seek re-election from that constituency.

What hinders the inclusion of women in politics?

There are several factors responsible for the poor representation of women in Indian politics such as:

• gender stereotypes
• lack of political network
• financial strains
• unavailability of resources
• lack of political education among women in the country

The Union Home Ministry informed the Rajya Sabha that it has set up a task force to suggest remedial measures for the prevention of suicides and fratricides in the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF).

• As many as 436 CAPF personnel died by suicide in the past three years.

• A total of 135 personnel committed suicide in 2022, 157 in 2021 and 144 in 2020.
• It was also found that currently there are 84,866 vacancies in the CAPFs.

• Recruitment of 31,785 personnel in CAPFs has been done in the past five months.
• Major Vacancies: There were 247 positions for doctors that were lying vacant and the number of unfilled posts for nurses and other medical professionals stood at 2,354.

The function of the Taskforce:

• Analysing behavioural aspects: The task force will draw a plan to identify relevant risk factors and protective factors at the individual level; look at the existing and futuristic protective factors and study prevention strategies and also conduct research and interact with domain experts.
• To identify the reasons for Suicide: Most times the issues that lead to stress and instances of suicide among the troops are related to problems they face back home while some are related to service conditions and leaves.
• Suggestion asked for remedial measures: The task force has also been asked to find if any changes or modifications can be done in the deployment pattern of the troops and some way in which access to mobile phones can be limited during deployment phases to check instances where troops take the extreme step of ending their lives.
• Spreading awareness of consequences: The task force also looks into the aspects of improving awareness about suicide prevention, policies to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and drugs, the importance of mental well-being etc.

Government Interventions:

Various steps have been taken by the Armed Forces to create a healthy/appropriate environment for their Officers and Other Ranks.  Some of these steps are as under:-

• Provision of better quality facilities such as clothing, food, married accommodation, travel facilities, schooling, recreation etc. and periodic welfare meeting.
• Conduct yoga and meditation as a tool for stress management.
• Training and deployment of psychological counsellors.
• Institutionalization of projects ‘MILAP’ and ‘SAHYOG’ by the Army in Northern & Eastern Command to reduce stress among troops.
• A ‘MansikSahayata Helpline’ has been established by Army & Air Force to take professional counselling.
• Mental Health Awareness is provided during pre-induction training.
• Formation of Military Psychiatry Treatment Centre at INHSAsvini and establishment of Mental Health Centres in Mumbai, Visakhapatnam, Kochi, Port Blair, Goa and Karwar.

Under a recent development, the increase in minimum age of marriage for women to ‘21 years’ as provisioned in the Prohibition of Child Marriage Amendment Bill, 2021 would come into effect two years after the Bill is ‘notified’ following its passage in Parliament.

• The Ministry for Women and Child Development set up a task force to look into the correlation between the age of marriage with issues of women’s nutrition, prevalence of anemia, IMR, MMR and other social indices.
• The Bill, currently with the Parliamentary Standing Committee, envisions making the age of marriage of women at par with men.
• After examining all aspects pertaining to child marriages, including the recommendations given by the task force, the government has proposed implementation of the amendments after two years from the date of notification, in order to provide ample time to citizens to prepare for this momentous reform.

Jaya Jaitly committee and its recommendations:

• Aim: The committee was made to look at the feasibility of increasing the age of marriage and its implication on women and child health, as well as how to increase access to education for women.
• Recommendations Made:
  • Age of marriage to be increased: The committee has recommended the age of marriage be increased to 21 years, on the basis of feedback they received from young adults from 16 universities across the country.
  • Increasing access to schools and colleges for girls: The committee also asked the government to look into increasing access to schools and colleges for girls, including their transportation to these institutes from far-flung areas.
  • Sex education: Skill and business training has also been recommended, as has sex education in schools.
  • An awareness campaign: Undertaken on a massive scale on the increase in age of marriage, and to encourage social acceptance of the new legislation, which they have said would be far more effective than coercive measures.

Need for raising legal age:

• Gender-neutrality: The government decided to re-examine the age of marriage for women for a number of reasons which includes gender-neutrality.
• Impacts on overall health and mental wellbeing: An early age of marriage, and consequent early pregnancies, also have impacts on nutritional levels of mothers and their children, and their overall health and mental wellbeing.
• Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate: It also has an impact on Infant Mortality Rate and Maternal Mortality Rate.
• Empowerment of women: It affects the empowerment of women who are cut off from access to education and livelihood after an early marriage.

Issues:

• Based on religion: Personal laws of various religions that deal with marriage have their own standards, often reflecting custom.

• • For Hindus, The Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 sets 18 years as the minimum age for the bride and 21 years as the minimum age for the groom.
  • In Islam, the marriage of a minor who has attained puberty is considered valid.
• Illegal marriages: Experts have not been in favour of increasing the age of marriage for women on the basis that such legislation would push a large portion of the population into illegal marriages.
• Child marriages: Even with the legal age of marriage for women being kept at 18 years, child marriages continue in India and a decrease in such marriages has not been because of the existing law but because of increase in girl’s education and employment opportunities.
• Negatively impact marginalized communities: Law would end up being coercive, and in particular negatively impact marginalized communities, such as the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes, making them law-breakers.

Prohibition of Child Marriage Amendment Bill, 2021:

• The Bill amends the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 to increase the minimum age of marriage of females to 21 years.  Further, the Bill will override any other law, custom, or practice. 
• Under the 2006 Act, a person married below the minimum age may apply for annulment within two years of attaining majority (i.e., before 20 years of age).  
• The Bill increases this to five years (i.e., 23 years of age).

Supreme Court’s stand:

• The Supreme Court has ruled that marriage between adults is a fundamental right.   

As the June 2023 is set as the deadline for completing the Smart Cities Mission approaches, the government has asked 20 of the worst-performing cities — ones that have completed the fewest projects under the mission to make their participation  better.

• After the centre has given broad guidelines to the participating cities, the project proposals ranged from making certain stretches of roads more accessible and pedestrian-friendly to more capital-intensive ones like laying water pipelines and constructing sewage treatment plants.
• All 100 cities have also constructed Integrated Command and Control Centres to monitor all security, emergency and civic services. 
• During the peak of the Covid-19 pandemic, these centres were converted into emergency response units by many of the cities.

Guidelines proposed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban affairs:

• The purpose of the Smart Cities Mission is to drive economic growth and improve the quality of life of people by enabling local area development and harnessing technology, especially technology that leads to Smart outcomes.
• Area-based development will transform existing areas (retrofit and redevelop), including slums, into better planned ones, thereby improving liveability of the whole City. 
• New areas (Greenfield) will be developed around cities 7 in order to accommodate the expanding population in urban areas. 
• Application of Smart Solutions will enable cities to use technology, information and data to improve infrastructure and services. 
• Comprehensive development in this way will improve quality of life, create employment and enhance incomes for all, especially the poor and the disadvantaged, leading to inclusive Cities.

Smart Cities Mission:

• MoHUA launched Smart Cities Mission in 2015 to promote sustainable and inclusive cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of ‘Smart’ Solutions.
• The strategic components of the Smart Cities Mission are city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (Greenfield development) plus a Pan-city initiative in which Smart Solutions are applied covering larger parts of the city.
• Since the start of the Mission in 2015, the 100 Smart Cities have been developing a total of 5,151 projects with an investment of Rs. 2, 05,018 crores.

Two United States Senators, have introduced a bipartisan resolution in the upper chamber of Congress reiterating that they recognises the ‘McMahon Line’ as the international boundary between China and India in Arunachal Pradesh.

• The resolution reaffirms India’s well-known and established position that Arunachal Pradesh, which China calls ‘South Tibet’, is an integral part of India.
• The Senate has shown support as unequivocally recognising the state of Arunachal Pradesh as an integral part of India, condemning China’s military aggression to change the status quo along the Line of Actual Control.
• It is further seen as enhancing the US-India strategic partnership and the Quad in support of the Free and Open Indo-Pacific.

What is the McMahon Line?

• The McMahon Line serves as the de facto boundary between China and India in the Eastern Sector. 
• It specifically represents the boundary between Arunachal Pradesh and Tibet, from Bhutan in the west to Myanmar in the east.
• China has historically disputed the boundary and claims the state of Arunachal Pradesh as part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region (TAR).
  
  

How was McMohan line drawn?

• The McMahon Line was drawn during the Simla Convention of 1914, officially described as the Convention between Great Britain, China, and Tibet. 
• The McMahon Line delimited the respective spheres of influence of Tibet and British India in the eastern Himalayan region.
• The border in this region was undefined prior to the signing of the convention.

McMohan line vs. Line of Actual Control (LAC):

Current Areas of a dispute between India & China:

• In the Western sector: Here India shares a 2152 km long border with China, and territorial disputes over the Aksai Chin region of Jammu and Kashmir, with both countries claiming the region as their own.
• In the middle sector: Here India roughly shares about a 625 km long boundary with China with a few minor disputes regarding Tibet.
• In the Eastern Sector: The major dispute here is around the region of Tawang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, Chumbi Valley (Dokalam Tri-Junction) which India shares with Bhutan.