GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) has declared that any person conducting the invasive ‘two-finger’ or vaginal test on rape or sexual assault survivors will be found guilty of misconduct, as checking the virginity of the rape victim or whether she is ‘sexually active’ or not, is irrelevant to fact whether she was ‘raped’ or not.

What is a Two-Finger Test?

• The ‘two-finger test’ or ‘per Vaginal’ is a regressive procedure that involves the insertion of two fingers into a person's vagina to gauge the laxity of vaginal muscles, thereby determining her 'virginity’.
• Doctors also check how habituated the woman who has been raped is to sexual intercourse and her sexual history.

Patriarchal norms in the society for medical examinations of Rape Victims:

• The Indian Evidence act: In terms of Section 53A in the Indian Evidence Act, the evidence of a victim’s character or her previous sexual experience with any person shall not be relevant to the issue of consent or the quality of consent in the prosecution of sexual offenses.
• Determining the Virginity of a Woman: Determining a women’s virginity as evidence against the character of the woman is a patriarchal norm and a societal barrier for Women.

Impacts:

What is Supreme Court's take on the issue?

• In May 2013, the Supreme Court banned the two-finger test on rape victims on the grounds that it violates their right to privacy. The court had asked the government to provide better medical procedures in order to confirm sexual assault.
• According to the Apex court, is faulty logic behind the test was that a woman cannot be believed when she said she was raped merely for the reason that she was sexually active.
• This test has no scientific basis and neither proves nor disproves allegations of rape. It instead re-victimizes women who may have been sexually assaulted.

Suggestive measures:

• Directions to Central and State governments: Ensure that the guidelines formulated by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare are circulated to all government and private hospitals;
• To Conduct workshops for health providers: to communicate the appropriate procedure to be adopted while examining survivors of sexual assault and rape; and
• Exclusion from the Medical studies: Review the curriculum in medical schools with a view to ensuring that the two-finger test examination is not prescribed as one of the procedures to be adopted while examining survivors of sexual assault and rape.
  

Recently, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Key-highlight of the Amended Rules

• Mandatory Grievance Redressal Mechanism

• The amendment paved the way for the setting up of one or more centrally appointed grievance appellate committees (GACs).
• The idea behind setting up of the committees is to give users of social media platforms, including Facebook and Twitter, recourse - other than approaching the courts - to settle complaints.

• Due Diligence to be followed by Intermediaries:
  • In case, due diligence is not followed by the intermediary, safe harbour provisions will not apply to them.
• Ensuring Online Safety and Dignity of Users:
  • The Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Amendment Rules, 2022, provide a shorter timeline of 24 hours to act on sensitive content, and require significant social media intermediaries to “respect all the rights accorded to the citizens under the Constitution, including in Articles 14, 19 and 21.”
  • They also give a breather to intermediaries on some aspects, such as due diligence.

• Additional Due Diligence for the Significant Social Media Intermediaries:
  • Appointments: Need to appoint a Chief Compliance Officer, a Nodal Contact Person and a Resident Grievance Officer, all of whom should be residents of India.
  • Compliance Report: Need to publish a monthly compliance report mentioning the details of complaints received and action taken on the complaints as well as details of contents removed proactively.
• Enabling Identity of the Originator:
  • Significant social media intermediaries providing services primarily in the nature of messaging shall enable the identification of the first originator of the information.
  • Required only for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation, prosecution or punishment of an offence related to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, or public order,
  • Or of incitement to an offence relating to the above or in relation to rape, sexually explicit material or child sexual abuse material punishable with imprisonment for a term of not less than five years.

• Removal of Unlawful Information:
  • An intermediary upon receiving actual knowledge in the form of an order by a court or being notified by the Appropriate Govt. or its agencies through an authorized officer should not host or publish any information which is prohibited under any law in relation to the interest of the sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign countries etc.

What was the need to amend the IT Rules, 2021?

• First, there was a need to ensure that the interests and constitutional rights of netizens which are not being contravened by big tech platforms.
• To strengthen the grievance redressal framework in the Rules
• The compliance with these SMIs should not impact early-stage Indian start-ups.

What are the amendments made?

A set of proposed amendments are can be broadly classified into two categories:

• The first category involved placing ‘additional obligations’ on the SMIs to ensure better protection of user interests and,
• The second category involved the institution of an appellate mechanism for grievance redressal.

What are the additional obligations placed on the SMIs?

• The obligation on the SMIs has now been extended to ensure that its users are in compliance with the relevant rules of the platform. Further, the SMIs are required to ‘make reasonable efforts to prevent prohibited content being hosted on its platform by the users. Earlier this was limited to merely informing its users of the “rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement” that governed its platforms along with the categories of content to the users.
• They are now obliged to Respect all the rights accorded to the citizens under the Constitution, including in articles 14, 19 and 21.
• SMIs are now obligated to remove information or a communication link in relation to the six prohibited categories of content as and when a complaint arises.
• They have to remove such information within 72 hours of the complaint being made. Given the virality with which content spreads, this is an important step to contain the spread of the content.
• Lastly, SMIs have been obligated to take all reasonable measures to ensure the accessibility of their services to users along with the reasonable expectation of due diligence, privacy and transparency.

Role of Grievance Appellate Committees:

• Prior to the IT Rules, 2021, platforms followed their own mechanisms and timelines for resolving user complaints.
• The IT Rules uniformed this by mandating that all social media platforms should have a grievance officer who would acknowledge the receipt of a complaint within 24 hours and dispose of it within 15 days.
• However, the performance of the current grievance redressal mechanism has been sub-optimal. To remedy this, the government has instituted Grievance Appellate Committees (GAC).
• The committee is styled as a three-member council out of which one member will be a government officer (holding the post ex officio) while the other two members will be independent representatives.
• Users can file a complaint against the order of the grievance officer within 30 days.
• Importantly, the GAC is required to adopt an online dispute resolution mechanism which will make it more accessible to the users.

The Tata Steel veteran and its former MD Jamshed J. Irani passed away on October 31, 2022, at 86 years of age.

• He was born on June 2, 1936, in Nagpur to Jiji Irani and Khorshed Irani.
  
  
  
• Irani completed his Bachelor of Science degree from Science College, Nagpur in 1956 and a Master of Science degree in Geology from Nagpur University in 1958.
• He started his professional career with the British Iron and Steel Research Association in Sheffield in 1963 but always yearned to contribute to the Nation’s progress.
• He returned to India to join the then Tata Iron and Steel Company (now Tata Steel) in 1968, as Assistant to the Director in charge of Research and Development.
• He went on to become the President of Tata Steel in 1985.
• He was a keen sportsman who played and followed cricket till his last and had a passion for stamp and coin collection.
• He was also the National President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) from 1992-93.
• He was conferred the Padma Bhushan in 2007 for his contribution to the industry.
• He was the recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Government of India in 2008 as an acknowledgment of his services in the area of metallurgy.

Recently, the Supreme Court (SC) decided to examine a petition challenging a provision in the election law that imposes a blanket ban on under trials, persons confined in civil prisons, and convicts serving their sentence in jails were deprived of their right to vote.

Background

• The latest National Crime Reports Bureau (NCRB) report of 2021 shows that a total of 5, 54,034 prisoners were confined as on December 31, 2021, in various jails across the country.
• A hike of 9%. Uttar Pradesh has the maximum number of under trials (21.2%, 90,606 under trials) in the country followed by Bihar (13.9%, 59,577 under trials) and Maharashtra (7.4%, 31,752 under trials) at the end of the year 2021.
• This growing number of under-trials and conviction rates leads to keeping a large section of society away from their right to cast their votes over a longer period of time.
  
  

Provisions related to Prisoners’ right to cast their vote:

• The right to vote is a constitutional right under Article 326 of the Constitution.
• Under Section 62(5) of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, individuals in the lawful custody of the police and those serving a sentence of imprisonment after conviction cannot vote. Undertrial prisoners are also excluded from participating in elections even if their names are on the electoral rolls.
• Only those under preventive detention can cast their vote through postal ballots.

Why undertrials should be given voting rights?

• The present voting ban is criticized on the ground that it makes no offense-based or sentence-based classification — that is, prisoners are debarred from voting irrespective of the gravity of the offense they have committed, or the length of their sentence.
  • It also makes no distinction between convicted prisoners, undertrials, and those in lawful police custody.
• Besides, a person is innocent until proven guilty by the law. Despite this, it denies an undertrial the right to vote but allows a detainee the same.
• The provision also violates the rights to equality, and votes (Article 326) and is arbitrary. It is not a reasonable restriction.

What are the concerns associated?

• Denial of Rights to people for un-proven convictions:  Denying the right to vote does not comply with the requirements for legitimate punishment.
• Lack of any Classification against the nature of Crime: The ban to vote, lacks reasonable classification based on the nature of the crime or duration of the sentence imposed unlike in countries like South Africa, the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Greece, Canada, etc.
  • This lack of classification is anathema to the fundamental right to equality under Article 14 (right to equality).
• Discrimination: It has been seen that a convicted person can vote if she is out on bail, whereas the same right is denied to an under trial who is not yet found guilty of a crime by a court of law.

On World Cities Days, the experts have highlighted that India is heading towards catastrophe in the next three decades unless tough policy decisions are taken.

About World Cities Day:

• The 31st of October is celebrated as World Cities Day.
• The first ever world cities day was observed on 31^st October 2014.
• The global observance day was co-hosted by UN-Habitat and the Government of the Arab Republic of Egypt and it places in Luxor, Egypt.
• The aim is to promote the international community’s interest in global urbanization and enhance cooperation among countries and cities in meeting opportunities.
• It is an attempt to address the challenges of urbanization, and contribute to sustainable urban development.
• The overall World Cities Day theme is Better City, Better Life.
• This year's theme of World Cities Day highlights how: 'Act Local to Go Global. '
• The theme underlines the importance of Agenda 2030 especially SDG11 and its focus on "ensuring access for all to adequate, safe, and affordable housing and basic services".

Key Highlights:

• Indian cities are lacking in many aspects, like construction, master plans, bylaws, drainage, water security, air pollution, and transit.
• According to the United Nations, seven of every 10 people in the world will live in cities by 2050.
• At present, around 55% of the world's population is living in towns and cities, with the level of urbanization projected to become around 70% by 2050.
• Much of the growth in urban populations will take place in Asia and Africa, especially China, India, and Nigeria, where the fertility rates are high.
• Haphazard development due to Urbanization is affecting many, most of them being extremely poor and from marginalized sections.

What is urbanization?

• Urbanization indeed is the process of becoming urban, moving to cities, changing from agriculture to other pursuits common to cities, such as trade, manufacturing, industry, and management, and corresponding changes in behavior patterns.

Status of India’s urban planning:

• Master Plans of only 1,500-1,600 of 7,000 census towns had been prepared.
• Master Plans, land use controls, and by-laws are the instruments to mitigate climate inequality.
• Legalized Master Plans may just be around 500 towns.
• The number of urban planners per capita is also short.
• There is no legal sanctity or power accorded to any institution to control or channel urban development.

India’s Global Commitments regarding Urban Development:

• The SDGs Goal 11 promotes urban planning as one of the recommended methods for achieving sustainable development.
• The UN-Habitat’s New Urban Agenda was adopted at Habitat III in 2016.
• The UN-Habitat (2020) suggests that the spatial conditions of a city can enhance its power to generate social, economic, and environmental value and well-being.
• Paris Agreement: India’s National Determined Contributions (NDCs) include the goals to reduce the emission intensity of the country's GDP by 33 to 35% by 2030 from the 2005 level.

Issues Associated with Urbanization

• Excessive Population Pressure
• Overflowing Slums
• Inadequate Housing
• Unplanned Development
• Non-Inclusive Welfare Schemes
• Sewage infrastructure

Schemes/Programmes Related to Urban Development:

• Smart Cities
• AMRUT Mission
• Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban
• HRIDAY
• Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Urban

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is going to commence the pilot launch of the wholesale digital Rupee Wholesale segment (CBDC) on November 1, 2022, and has also issued a concept note.

Details:

• The first pilot in the Digital Rupee, Wholesale segment (e Paisa-W) will commence on November 1, 2022.
• The use case for this pilot is the settlement of secondary market transactions in government securities.
• Nine prominent banks have been identified for participation in the pilot.
• Other wholesale transactions and cross-border payments will be the focus of future pilots.
• The first pilot in the Digital Rupee-Retail segment (e Paisa-R) is also planned for rollout in select locations in a closed user group.

Highlights of the Concept Note issued on CBDC:

• The purpose behind the issue of this Concept Note is to create awareness about CBDCs in general and the planned features of the Digital Rupee (e?).
• It explains the objectives, choices, benefits, and risks of issuing a CBDC in India. The Note also seeks to explain Reserve Bank’s approach toward the introduction of the CBDC.
• It discusses key considerations such as technology and design choices, possible uses of the Digital Rupee, issuance mechanisms, etc.
• It examines the implications of the introduction of CBDC on the banking system, monetary policy, and financial stability, and analyses privacy issues.

About Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC):

• A CBDC is no different from the cash that we hold in our wallets, except that it exists in a digital form.
• The CBDC will be held in a digital wallet that is supervised by the Central bank.
• In India, it will be the RBI that supervises the digital rupee although it may delegate some power to banks.
• RBI’s digital rupee will not directly replace demand deposits held in banks.
• Physical cash will continue to be used by banks, and people who wish to withdraw cash from banks can still do so.

Types of CBDC:

• CBDC can be classified into two broad types viz. general purpose or retail (CBDC-R) and wholesale (CBDC-W).
  • Retail CBDC would be potentially available for use by all viz. private sector, non-financial consumers, and businesses. Retail CBDC is an electronic version of cash primarily meant for retail transactions.
  • Wholesale CBDC is designed for restricted access to select financial institutions. Wholesale CBDC is intended for the settlement of interbank transfers and related wholesale transactions.

Advantages:

• The use of e?-W is expected to make the interbank market more efficient.
• Settlement in central bank money would reduce transaction costs by pre-emptying the need for settlement guarantee infrastructure or for collateral to mitigate settlement