GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

The commission under former Chief Justice of the Delhi high court, G. Rohini, which is tasked with the sub-categorisation of the Other Backward Classes has been given its 14th extension by the President.

Background

• The commission under Justice Rohini was formed in October 2017.
• The commission was formed by the President under Article 340 of the constitution.
• Objective: to slot the nearly 3,000 caste groups that makeup India’s OBCs into categories. 
• The commission would then have to recommend how the 27% reservation for OBCs could be distributed among these sub-categories in a manner that was most equitable.
• It was first given 12 weeks to slot the nearly 3,000 caste groups that makeup India's OBCs into categories.

Need to make classification:

• To examine the uneven distribution of reservation benefits among different castes in the central OBC list.
• To work out the mechanism, criteria, norms, and parameters in a scientific approach for sub-categorisation within such OBCs.
• To take up the exercise of identifying the respective castes/communities/sub-castes/synonyms for comprehensive data coverage.

Attorney General R. Venkataramani submitted that he has "serious objections" to the Supreme Court hearing the pleas challenging state legislations, bypassing the High Courts.

The objection made by Attorney General

• These are State legislations and the State High Courts are hearing them.
• There are petitions pending there and the same petitioners have now filed petitions in the Supreme Court.

• The Supreme Court has been hearing petitions filed by Citizens for Justice and Peace, and other connected petitions, challenging the validity of the enactments in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand and Karnataka.

Which Indian states have special laws on conversions?

• In post-independence India, Odisha became the first State to enact a law restricting religious conversions in 1968.
• More than ten Indian States have passed laws prohibiting certain means of religious conversions —Arunachal Pradesh (1978), Gujarat (2003), Chhattisgarh (2000 and 2006), Rajasthan (2006 and 2008), Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019), and Tamil Nadu (a law was enacted in 2002, but repealed in 2004), Jharkhand (2017), Uttarakhand (2018), Uttar Pradesh (2021), and Haryana (2022).
  • The Karnataka Assembly also passed an anti-conversion Bill.

The News Broadcasting and Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) issued “guidelines for the prevention of hate speech”.

What is in the guideline?

• The guidelines direct editors, editorial personnel, anchors, journalists and presenters who are part of its member organisations to refrain from using “language and agenda-driven words”, “terms and adjectives” and “all forms of expression” which among other things advocate violence or engender hatred against individuals or communities.

• Incidentally, the NBDSA covers nearly 80% of all news and digital channels. 
• The Authority was originally set up by the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) 14 years ago as the News Broadcasting Standard Authority (NBSA). 
• The name was later changed to NBDSA as the body opened itself to digital platforms too.

What comes under hate speech?

• There is no international legal definition of hate speech, and the notion of what constitutes "hateful" speech is debatable.
• Hate speech is defined as any form of communication, whether spoken, written, or physical, that criticizes or discriminates against a person or a group based on their religion, ethnicity, nationality, race, colour, descent, gender, or other identity factors.

Legal Provisions of Hate Speech in India:

• Responsible speech is the essence of the liberty granted under Article 21 of the Constitution.
• Article 19(2) of the Constitution guarantees freedom of speech and expression to all citizens of India.
• Hate speech has not been defined in any law in India. However, legal provisions in certain legislations prohibit select forms of speech as an exception to freedom of speech.

An organisation representing the Chin-Kuki-Mizo communities living in India, Bangladesh and Myanmar has sought the help of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in ending the “policy of extermination” of ethnic minorities inhabiting the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. 

Who are Chin-Kuki-Mizo?

• Chin-Kuki-Mizo belongs to the same tribe with different names residing in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India with close geographical proximity along the border region between the countries. 
• This ethnic armed group is engaged in political and military endeavours to establish an independent state in the Chittagong Hill Tracts.
• Their political front, the Kuki-Chin National Front (KNF), also has an armed component known as the Kuki-Chin Army (KNA). 
• It emerged as a non-profit development organization, but since 2017, it has evolved into a separatist group.
• The Kuki-Chin is a geographical grouping of numerous Tibeto-Burman language-speaking ethnic communities that make up the majority in the Indian state of Mizoram and the Chin state of Myanmar. 
• Along with the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, they also reside in the hilly regions of the Indian states of Assam, Manipur, and Nagaland. 
• The KNF is made up of six members of the Kuki-Chin ethnic group: the Bawm, Pangkhua, Lusai, Khumi, Mro, and Khiang.

The location (Chittagong Hill Tracts)

• The Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) is an impoverished hilly, forested area that sprawls over more than 13,000 sq km of the Khagrachari, Rangamati, and Bandarban districts of southeastern Bangladesh, bordering Mizoram to the east, Tripura to the north, and Myanmar to the south and southeast.
• A significant portion of the population is tribal, and culturally and ethnically different from the majority Muslim Bangladeshis who live in the country’s deltaic mainland.
• The tribal population of the CHT has ethnic links with tribal populations in the adjacent areas of India, mainly in Mizoram. 
• Mizoram shares a 318-km-long border with Bangladesh.
  
  

Despite the tremendous benefits associated with millet, there are serious constraints to increased millet cultivation and consumption in the country.

• Millet is a collective term referring to a number of small-seeded annual grasses that are cultivated as grain crops, primarily on marginal lands in dry areas in temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions.
• Two groups of millets are grown in India.
  • Major millets include sorghum, pearl millet and finger millet
  • Minor millets include foxtail, little millet, kodo, proso, and barnyard millet
• Benefits: Millets have
  • special nutritive properties: they are high in protein, dietary fibre, micronutrients and antioxidants
  • special agronomic characteristics: drought-resistant and suitable for semi-arid regions

What are the real problems?

• The decline in the area under millet cultivation
• Low productivity of millet
• Changing food habits

Recent Government Interventions

• The Government of India and State governments, notably Karnataka and Odisha, have initiated Millet Missions.
  • Odisha already has a dedicated millets mission that undertook procurement of 32,302 tonnes worth Rs 109.08 crore, mainly of ragi, in 2021-22.
• Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, and Haryana might want to do the same in bajra, just as Maharashtra may for jowar, Karnataka for ragi, and Madhya Pradesh for Kodo/ kutki.

India is lagging behind in the targets to increase the number and quality of tree- and forest-cover plantations set in the Green India Mission, according to data accessed via the Right To Information Act.

The numbers

• From 2015-16 to 2021-22, the Centre - based on submissions from 17 States - had approved a target of increasing tree/forest cover by 53,377 hectares and improving the quality of degraded forest by 1,66,656 ha. 
• As per the Environment Ministry tree/forest cover had increased by 26,287 hectares and forest quality improved in only 1,02,096 hectares as of December 31, 2022.
• For executing these projects, the Centre had allocated ?681 crore but only ?525 crore had been utilised.
• States with significant shortfall in tree cover include 
• Andhra Pradesh, with a target of 186 ha but having only achieved 75 ha
• Uttarakhand with a target of 6,446 ha but only 1,505 ha achieved
• Madhya Pradesh targeting 5,858 ha but delivering 1,882 ha
• Kerala committing 1,686 ha but furnishing 616 ha
• Punjab, unusually committed to 629 ha but having delivered 1,082 ha

India’s Target to increase forest cover

• National Mission for a Green India (GIM) is one of the eight Missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change. 
• It aims at protecting, restoring and enhancing India’s forest cover and responding to climate change. 
• The target under the Mission is 10 million hectares (Mha) on forest and non-forest lands for increasing the forest/tree cover and to improve the quality of existing forest.

Need to improve tree cover

• Improving tree cover is critical to sequester carbon and bolster India’s carbon stocks as part of its international commitments to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions.