SECURE SYNOPSIS: 13 SEPTEMBER 2019
NOTE: Please remember that following ‘answers’ are NOT ‘model answers’. They are NOT synopsis too if we go by definition of the term. What we are providing is content that both meets demand of the question and at the same time gives you extra points in the form of background information.
Topic:Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out oftheir design and implementation.
Mob lynching is a form of violence in which mob under the pretext of administering justice, takes laws into their hand and tries to inflict punishment on the President of India without due process of law. Mob lynching is often fuelled by ideological political for class hatred.
In some cases it is fuelled due to the sudden arousal of mass due to their social and political attitudes towards the matter.
Example – rumours of child lifters have led to mob rising and taking laws into their hand to punish the child-lifter and protect the society against evil without any trial.
Effect of mob violence
- It is against the constitutional value of Liberty equality and fraternity.
- It creates a reasonable restriction on the fundamental rights (right to life and right to freedom of expression).
- It weakens the law and justice system on which democracy functions.
- Life of civil servants, who do not affiliate themselves to the ideology of mob, itself is in danger. E.g. SHO investigating Dadri lynching case was also lynched by the people.
- It creates the atmosphere of fear and threat to security in the society.
- These cases promote communal hatred and kill the character of mercy and tolerance inside a person.
- It drives the society towards majoritarianism.
- Mob violence itself is a crime and it also facilitates other crimes to be committed in the veil of mob. For example – burning alive of a woman on a superstitious presumption of her being indulged in witchcraft and black magic.
Mob violence does not have any respect for law it creates unbearable damage to the democracy.
Reason for rising mob violence-
- The ineffectiveness of police department that lacks cohesion, critical mass, and political support to make a difference.
- In several cases, the accused get away scot-free through the support of the political system. It shows that mob-lynching has become a premeditated act and not an expression of public outrage.
- The lackadaisical attitude of the police is responsible for shoddy investigation in handling the cases which are given various names: cow smuggling, road rage, rash driving, and animal cruelty.
- The unholy nexus between politicians and the perpetrators even leads to registering of cases against the victim itself. It adds insult to injury.
- Police officials are either too late or they are outnumbered to save the innocent as his killing unfolds.
What needs to be done?
The apex court, while hearing the case of Tehseen Poonawalla vs the Union of India on 17 July 2018, gave a detailed order addressing the issue of mob lynching. The court observed, “Mob vigilantism and mob violence have to be prevented by the governments by taking strict action… Rising intolerance and growing polarisation expressed through [a] spate of incidents of mob violence cannot be permitted to become the normal way of life or the normal state of law and order in the country.” The court issued guidelines to be followed by the state governments to curb mob lynching.
The court formulated a three-pronged approach to putting an end to mob lynching:
- The first step requires states to take preventive steps to ensure that lynching does not occur.
- The court’s guidelines mandate the states to identify regions where lynching could occur.
- In every district a senior police officer should be designated as the nodal officer to take measures to prevent lynching. They specify that the nodal officer should take steps to prevent the creation of a hostile environment against any community or caste.
- The officer is also required to prevent the spread of messages or videos that could incite mobs.
- Also, regular situational review and coordination meetings between police and state administration are part of the preventive approach prescribed by the court.
- The guidelines categorically state that every police officer shall be duty-bound to disperse a mob which may cause lynching.
- So far, three states have given legislative backing to the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court. Manipur was the first state to do so followed by Rajasthan and West Bengal.
Way forward:
- Implementation of the Supreme Court judgment in Prakash Singh case: a police establishment board has to be constituted for internal transparency and accountability.
- Distinguishing the core functions of police from the functions at the periphery as per the Malimath committee report.
- Use of latest technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) for remote monitoring of the identified sensitive areas. It can save the time of the police.
Conclusion:
The dastardly act of lynching has no easy solution. The responsibility of state legislatures should not be limited to enacting a law providing strict punishments. State legislatures need to be continuously involved with the issue. Their involvement should extend to an in-depth discussion with respect to budgetary requirements of police and judiciary and a continuous holding to account of the state administration for every unlawful act of lynching in the state.
Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out oftheir design and implementation.
Ans:
In India, 147913 people have died in road accident only in 2017. It shows something is wrong with road transport system. According to ministry of road transport 78% of road accidents happens due to negligence of the driver.
Therefore, to attend the target of 50% reduction in road accident by 2020 under Brasilia declaration government has introduced amendment to motor vehicle act.
Provisions of the Act:
- Increased penalty for violation of traffic rules.
- Penalty for Juvenile driving and making the owner of vehicle accountable.
- Provision of double fine for violation bye police and traffic inspector.
- Good Samaritan rule inculcated.
- Tight RTO rule for granting license.
Role of increased fine
- Most of the accidents are due to driver’s negligence of traffic rule.
- Increased penalty will act as a deterrent for those who violate the rule
- It will take juveniles off the roads as it has very high penalty in this case.
- There will be all over awareness, improvement among the masses about the traffic rules.
Importance of Transport Infrastructure –
- Scientific construction of road improve is of driving such as proper turn over bridges etc. Other Infrastructures such as traffic lights signals etc. to tell drivers about what lies ahead. Hence give him enough time to take proper actions.
- Emergency services such as dedicated ambulance, phone booth, availability of first aid reduces the impact of an accident and contribute in saving life.
- Automatic sensors to detect traffic violation provide another layer of deterrence for violating traffic rules.
Way forward
- Adoption of the bill by all the States. In theory, heftier fines should act as a deterrent for speeding but in practice, this may not happen. Higher fines could mean more rent-seeking as drivers pay off authorities to avoid fines or simply abscond.
- According to TRIPP, the global experience with imposing stricter penalties has not proven to change driver behaviour and has even decreased overall enforcement of penalties. A better strategy, then, could be to ensure that speed limits are enforced more regularly.
- The WHO’s global report, which measured enforcement levels across the world, rated India’s enforcement as fairly weak. One way to address this could be through technology such as speed cameras and in-vehicle sensors.
- Rather than concentrating only on fine for behaviour change other methods of persuasion should also be used side by side.
- Attention should also be paid on curbing corruption because in Christ find also opens a new Avenue for corruption by traffic officers.
Conclusion
To have effective curbing of road accident behaviour change of driver is necessary along with proper infrastructure because without enabling infrastructure traffic violation is bound to happen. In paucity of infrastructure citizen of fun things government is is transfer in their responsibilities on the shoulder of general people. However, better enforcement alone may not be enough. The United Nations’ prescription for road safety policy is that it should focus on five key areas together: improving road safety management capacity; developing safe infrastructure; rolling out safer cars; changing road-user behaviour and improving post-crash care.
Topic:Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, IndianDiaspora.
Ans:
When the migrating people sideline the migration law of destination country or migrate without valid document then they are called undocumented migrants.
Reason for migration:
- Trade liberalization, Rapid opening of domestic market had led to massive unemployment of Agricultural and unskilled workers they then see to get better life by migrating to more opportunistic place.
- Poverty – people in less developed country tend to skip the poverty by migrating to more developed countries or to the countries where they can find better living. example Migration of mexicans to America.
- Overpopulation – when the population exceeds the carrying capacity of an area and results in extreme competition then migration to other area act as a “relief valve”.
- Wars – war creates extreme hardship for people living in the country it is very strong push factor for migration. example Syrian Refugee crisis ongoing war between ISIS and Army of Syrian government supported by various other Nations, along with the demands of Kurdish people has created an in human condition there people are escaping to European Nation in order to save their life
- Persecutionor diprivation of citizenship – whenever the minimum rights are denied and people are left stateless in their own country it become necessary for them to seek Asylum in other countries. example- rohingya Refugee crisis : rohingya Muslims were denied citizenship right in Myanmar which is predominantly Buddhist majority country.
Why it is a concern for destination country:
- Excessive stress on the resources.
- Law and order issues due to conflict between migrants and native people. example Assam movement use flow of Bangladeshi Ye people in Assam during Bangladesh Liberation war has created tensed situation in Assam and resulted in Assam movement against Bangladeshi migrants.
- Threats to internal security – migrants do not find regular jobs in destination countries making them vulnerable to be used by crime network. Threat of migrants getting radicalized and joining any terror network is always lingering over them.
- Degraded health and sanitation hygiene condition in the area where migrants generally resides. Migrants are made to settle on degraded lands outside the city the generally develop slum settlement for their living.
- Burden on government purse – Government cannot leave any person in its jurisdiction to die government spends money for safeguarding the human right of the migrants.
- Huge flow of migrants can change demography of a region. Example demography of Assam has been changed due to huge influx of undocumented migrants from Bangladesh.
Why to open the borders?
- As a peace and humanitarian gesture – undocumented immigrants due to war, ethnic cleansing and etc. can get Asylum example rohingya Muslims from Myanmar has been settled in in India and Bangladesh; Libyan and Syrian people took Refuge in Europe.
- People from becoming stateless – stateless people can enjoy any human right. This is very unjust for any civilized society.
- To save lives of migrants- undocumented migrants tend to use any means of communication without evaluating its safety in order to get to the destination where they can have a peaceful life again. Example– 111 people died in Mediterranean Sea while migrating from Syrian War zone.
- Migrants can add to workforce of the destination country. Hence they can be asset for development
Conclusion
Though, it is duty of every Nation to have good Jester with other and make humanitarian add so that basic human rights can never be violated. At the same time economic and regional security are also important. If the undocumented migration is on considerable scale then that may in endanger the similar rights of native people. Therefore it is correct to say a every Nation has right to protect its border from huge volume of immigrants.
Topic: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments of the Government;
Ans:
In 2017, a nine-judge bench of the Supreme Court in Justice K. S. Puttaswamy (Retd) Vs. Union of India unanimously held that Indians have a constitutionally protected fundamental right to privacy that is an intrinsic part of life and liberty under Article 21.. This judgement acted as prerequisite for deciding on constitutional validity of Aadhaar act.
It held that privacy is a natural right that inheres in all natural persons, and that the right may be restricted only by state action that passes each of the three tests:
- Such state action must have a legislative mandate;
- It must be pursuing a legitimate state purpose; and
- It must be proportionate i.e., such state action — both in its nature and extent, must be necessary in a democratic society and the action ought to be the least intrusive of the available alternatives to accomplish the ends.
Intended effect of judgment:
- This landmark judgment fundamentally changed the way in which the government viewed its citizens’ privacy, both in practice and prescription.
- It requires governments to undertake structural reforms and bring transparency and openness in the process of commissioning and executing its surveillance projects, and build a mechanism of judicial oversight over surveillance requests.
- It demands from the authorities to demonstrate great care and sensitivity in dealing with personal information of its citizens.
- It requires to legislate a transformative, rights-oriented data protection law that holds all powerful entities that deal with citizens’ personal data (data controllers), including the state, accountable.
- Highest court safeguard for privacy of citizens.
- State could no longer monitor citizen’s data online offline Phone tapping for ambiguous region.
- It is the way for recognition of rights of LGBT community.
- Citizen could directly appeal to court under article 32 for safeguarding their privacy.
Effect of the judgment was very little:
Following are few examples –
- DNA bill for storing and using BSNL data for solving crime the major concern is DNA has lots of other personal and sensitive data like information about allergic conditions, any genetic complications, complexion, body type etc.
- National Health stack for storing and collecting medical history of a person.
- Ministry of Home Affairs in December 2018 authorized 10 Central Agencies to intercept monitor and decrypt any information stored or generated in any computer in the country
- Government planning to create National data grid regarding personal information such as biometric fingerprint health status, this action certainly disregards the right to privacy.
- Ministry of Information and Broadcasting floated a tender in July 2018, for social media monitoring hub to snoop on all social media communication.
- Similar proposal was floated by UIDAI in August 2018.
- The Income-Tax department has its ‘Project Insight’ which also has similar mass surveillance ends.
- Economic survey of 2019 commends government to sell and monitor vehicle owner’s data in Vahan database.
- Newly floated idea of automatic facial recognition system threatens individual’s liberty and privacy.
Data use Vs. Privacy:
The government has shunned a rights-oriented approach in the collection, storage and processing of personal data and has stuck to its ‘public good’ and ‘data is the new oil’ discourse.
This is evident from this year’s Economic Survey as it commends the government for having been able to sell and monetize the vehicle owners’ data in the Vahan database and exhorts it to replicate the success with other databases.
The Draft Personal Data Protection Bill that urged for a ‘free and fair digital economy’ has the digital economy as the end and the notion of privacy merely being a shaper of the means.
Way Forward
- adequate measures to ensure public trust in government institution proper detailed rules and regulation to access data of the citizen provision of prior permission to access citizen data and disclosure of reason for the same unless danger is immense
- Golden Triangle article 14 19 and 21 should only be breached if sufficient public purpose is served
Conclusion
Data in today’s digital world has become new oil. Invasion of privacy of citizen through any medium threatens their right to life and liberty which the government tries to safeguard. For the privacy judgment to fulfill its true promise, it needs to go beyond spirited dissents to firm, binding judgments that keep the political executive within clear, limited constitutional boundaries.
Topic: Information sharing and transparency in government
Ans:
There are four pillars of good governance – transparency, accountability predictability and participation. Without transparency other pillars become dysfunctional. Transparency, as one of the basic principles of good governance, implies the public insight in the work of Public Administration Bodies. Citizens should be enabled to inspect the work of the public administration as well as the availability of instruments for monitoring the decision-making process. Also, citizens should be familiar with the regulations applied in the procedure for exercising their rights, in a clear and understandable way.
According to the transparency International report 2018, India ranks 78 out of 179 countries in corruption index. Transparency in Indian governance system is decreasing day by day.
As rightly said, “Lack of transparency results in distrust and deep sense of insecurity” – Dalai Lama. Transparency keeps the system accountable.
For example, when National judicial data grid was launched it was found 70,000 cases were pending for more than 30 years. These data mean nothing unless someone ask judiciary to account for the delay. This shows that the flow of information between public and government is essential for transparency.
For the purpose of facilitating free flow of information between Government and the people of India, Right to Information Act was enacted in 2005.
There are two types of transparency and accessibility of Information of Public Importance. The first is proactive transparency, which involves the publication of Information of Public Importance before the public requires them. Basically this assumption is the belief that all Information of Public Importance belongs to the public, and that they are only in the possession of a Public Administration Bodies. It is a belief that there is a general right of the public to know and pro-active transparency is a mechanism for exercising this right. The application of the concept under this title is advocated by Public Administration theorists and international associations like the World Bank. The second type is reactive transparency. It is also about the public’s right to know, but in this case it is carried out on popular demand.
How to enhance transparency as a civil servant?
- Use of technology and graphic design to make government data easily and instinctively understandable.
- Use of official handles on social media to share accurate information in real
- Strict implementation of all mandatory disclosures under Right to Information act 2005.
- All the state governments and union government should proactively take measures to disclose data under Section 4(2) of RTI. Example of Rajasthan to implement Jan Soochna portal.
- Open data management system harnessing new technologies such as block chain, where data cannot be altered by anyone but can be read by everyone.
- Creation of public service center where people can easily acquire information about their eligibility for schemes in Rahul for schemes and collect their benefit in one place.
- Digitization of key government records.
Conclusion
To conclude, Information sharing and transparency are vital components for any government to enhance the living of society. Information is valuable for every citizen to participate in the life and governance of society. The greater the access of the citizen to information, the greater would be the responsiveness of government to community needs. Transparency is considered imperative to procure the support and participation of citizens in management of public services.
Topic:Human Values – lessons from thelives and teachings of great leaders, reformers and administrators;
6) “When the mind is without borders, the world will be without borders.” Discuss.(250 words)
Primarily, a system of borders is a system for controlling resources, it’s a system for controlling people, and it’s particularly a system for excluding other people from access to those resources. It protects some sort of privileges that have accrued in a particular place—whether that’s control of the resources, wealth, or a set of cultural or political practices in that place—and it excludes other people from the ability to have access to it.
History has witnessed that physical boundary is nothing but conversion of mental boundary on physical dimensions. To analyse, following are few examples of the past –
- Partition of India was result of division of Ideas of political future of independent India between Muslim League and Indian National Congress.
- Formation of nation’s boundary on the basis of language France, Germany China, Japan etc. Even the other languages are also spoken there but it is mental borders that people created in their mind to justify the political border.
- In India in fifties, states were created to fulfill the demand of state reorganization on the basis of language.
The separation of Idea also affects interaction between Nation States. Example– there is long tussle going on between capitalism of west and communism of the east, Vietnam War was a clear example of such a conflict between the two ideologies.
Not every place in the world is equally well-suited to mass economic activity. Nature’s bounty is divided unevenly. Variations in wealth and income created by these differences are magnified by governments that suppress entrepreneurship and promote religious intolerance, gender discrimination, or other bigotry. Closed borders compound these injustices, cementing inequality into place and sentencing their victims to a life of penury.
The overwhelming majority of would-be immigrants want little more than to make a better life for themselves and their families by moving to economic opportunity and participating in peaceful, voluntary trade.
No moral theory justifies using wire, wall, and weapon to prevent people from moving to opportunity, No moral theory justifies using tools of exclusion to prevent people from exercising their right to vote with their feet.
No standard moral framework, be it utilitarian, libertarian, egalitarian, Rawlsian, Christian, or any other well-developed perspective, regards people from foreign lands as less entitled to exercise their rights—or as inherently possessing less moral worth—than people lucky to have been born in the right place at the right time. Nationalism, of course, discounts the rights, interests, and moral value of “the other,” but this disposition is inconsistent with our fundamental moral teachings and beliefs.
Freedom of movement is a basic human right. Thus the Universal Declaration of Human Rights belies its name when it proclaims this right only “within the borders of each state.” Human rights do not stop at the border. Today, we treat as pariahs those governments that refuse to let their people exit. I look forward to the day when we treat as pariahs those governments that refuse to let people enter.
Therefore, it is possible that if we succeed in removing limits from our mind and start giving the equal value to other ideologies. The virtual border which keeps us separate from one another will vanish. This will surely get projected in political dimension and the whole world wouldn’t have any borders which will restrict people from exchanging their Ideas, cultures, feelings etc. with one another. Whole world will turn into one single entity.
This certainly will lead to realization of Idea from Hindu mythology “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” meaning whole Earth be the home.
