📰 Employer can reject candidate acquitted of serious crime: SC:
Context:
•The Supreme Court has held that a public employer can reject a candidate as unsuitable if he had, in the past, been acquitted of a serious crime merely on the benefit of doubt.
What has the court said?
1.The mere fact of an acquittal would not suffice but rather it would depend on whether it is a clean acquittal based on total absence of evidence or in the criminal jurisprudence requiring the case to be proved beyond reasonable doubt, that parameter having not been met, benefit of doubt has been granted to the accused.
2.An acquittal on the benefit of doubt is quite different from an honourable acquittal. A person should be honourably acquitted of a heinous crime to be considered eligible for public employment.
3.Besides, acquittal in a criminal case does not automatically entitle a candidate for appointment to the post.
Honourably acquitted:
•An accused who is acquitted after full consideration of the prosecution evidence and prosecution has miserably failed to prove the charges levelled against the accused, it can possibly be said that the accused was honourably acquitted.
Background:
•The case concerned a man acquitted of murder after witnesses turned hostile in Rajasthan in 2009. He was part of a group of people who ran a tractor over a woman and later knifed people who tried to resist them.
Fund support from government is vital for continual treatment of those with rare diseases
•It is binding on a welfare state to take care of every single citizen. Securing the wellbeing of every one, particularly those unable to help themselves, irrespective of whether they constitute a critical mass or not, is important. The recent notification of the National Policy for Rare Diseases 2021 after various interventions, including the court, is pegged on this principle of inclusion. A good start, it offers financial support for one-time treatment of up to ₹20 lakh, introduces a crowdfunding mechanism, creates a registry of rare diseases, and provides for early detection. In its final form, however, the policy has left the rare diseases lobby sorely disappointed on a crucial note. Rare diseases are broadly defined as diseases that infrequently occur in a population, and three markers are used — the total number of people with the disease, its prevalence, and the availability/non-availability of treatment options. WHO defines rare disease as having a frequency of less than 6.5-10 per 10,000 people. As per an estimate, there are 7,000 known rare diseases with an estimated 300 million patients in the world; 70 million are in India. According to the Organization for Rare Diseases India, these include inherited cancers, autoimmune disorders, congenital malformations, Hirschsprung’s disease, Gaucher disease, cystic fibrosis, muscular dystrophies and Lysosomal Storage Disorders (LSDs).
•Much of the effort in the sector, from the medical side, has been to evolve formal definitions, in the hope that it would support the development of and commercialisation of drugs for treatment, and improve funding for research on rare diseases. Patient support groups have worked towards drumming up funding assistance for the treatment — one time or continual. The notification of the Policy comes as a logical conclusion to a long-fought battle, and yet, stops short of delivering the complete mandate. As per the Policy, diseases such as LSD for which definitive treatment is available, but costs are prohibitive, have been categorised as Group 3. However, no funding has been allocated for the immediate and lifelong treatment needs, for therapies already approved by the Drugs Controller General of India. Experts point out that the costs to help already-diagnosed patients might be in the range of ₹80-₹100 crore annually. If the Centre can extend the cost-sharing agreements that it has worked out with Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, with other States too, its share of the annual costs will be halved. The Centre can, however, still set aside a substantial corpus to fund life-saving treatments, even as it rolls out the policy. Doing so will not only complete a job well begun — even if not yet half done — but also cement its commitment towards the welfare of every single citizen in India.
📰 A walk-back: On the expiry of H-1B visa ban
Biden shows intent on reworking immigration rules by not extending H-1B visa ban
•President Joe Biden allowed a ban on issuance of H-1B visas for skilled workers to lapse at the end of March 2021, a move signalling his intent — articulated as a campaign promise last year — to pull the U.S. back from harsh immigration rules imposed by his predecessor, Donald Trump. Mr. Biden’s action will have a significant and favourable impact for Indian nationals seeking employment with U.S. tech firms, given that they were the largest demographic to benefit from this visa annually; they garnered approximately 70%.of the 65,000 H-1B visas annually made available to private sector applicants other than students. By some estimates, H-1B visa applications of up to 219,000 workers were likely blocked as a result of Mr. Trump’s proclamation last June, halting the processing and issuance of non-immigrant work visas of several types. The stated aim was to prevent foreign workers from cornering jobs in the context of the economic distress associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet, this raised genuine questions about whether such rules would set back the U.S.-India relationship by impacting Indian IT services exported to the U.S. These totalled approximately $29.7 billion in 2019, 3.0% ($864 million) more than 2018, and 143% greater than 2009 levels. Not only did the CEOs of Silicon Valley tech titans protest the clampdown on a key source of skilled labour driving their core operations, but some universities also filed lawsuits challenging a subsequent student visa ban last year, leading to a partial walk-back on the rules for the latter.
•In allowing the ban on H-1B visa issuance to expire, Mr. Biden has walked a fine line between restoring the inflow of skilled workers into the U.S., a source of productivity increases for its labour force, and not being seen as aggressive in unwinding Trump-era immigration policies. On the one hand, Mr. Biden clearly recognises that there are limits to the Trumpian dogma of economic protectionism — especially during a period of economic crises such as the present — where there will be fewer jobs to reserve for Americans if the size of the pie is not increased through economic growth momentum built on a diverse and skilled workforce. Nevertheless, the Biden White House has clearly not forgotten the nearly 74 million votes for Mr. Trump in the 2020 presidential election, a fact that perhaps makes it unwise to explicitly reject the ‘America First’ ideology, even if that motto is no longer alluded to on Pennsylvania Avenue. It would in this regard be reasonable to expect that the Biden administration will continue to push gradual reforms that nudge the U.S. economy and global strategic position back toward an ethos of multilateral cooperation and bilateral progress with countries such as India, while however retaining a sharp emphasis on policies that further U.S. national interest in a dramatically transformed post-COVID world.
📰 A road map for tolerance
Racism will not be overcome with mere professions of good faith but with anti-racist action
•Every year on March 21, a global movement gathers to fight prejudice and intolerance by marking the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. This provides an opportunity to explore the nuanced causes and consequences of modern racism, and renew an important commitment to combat discrimination. Racial discrimination, beyond being a breach of human rights, has harmful effects on human health and well-being, and risks wider disruptions to social cohesion. The words of former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan remain pertinent: “Our mission is to confront ignorance with knowledge, bigotry with tolerance, and isolation with the outstretched hand of generosity. Racism can, will, and must be defeated.”
Forms of racism
•Current forms of racism and discrimination are complex and often covert. Public attitudes to anti-racism have improved, as expressions of racist ideology have become less socially acceptable. Yet, the anonymity of the Internet has allowed racist stereotypes and inaccurate information to spread online. At the onset of the pandemic, traffic to hate sites and specific posts against Asians grew by 200% in the U.S. In India and in Sri Lanka, social media groups and messaging platforms were used to call for social and economic boycotts of religious minorities, amid false information accusing them of spreading the virus. Structural forms of discrimination, including micro-aggressions and everyday indignities, remain widespread. The use of new technologies and artificial intelligence in security raise the spectre of ‘techno-racism’, as facial recognition programmes can misidentify and target racialised communities.
•Prejudiced attitudes and discriminatory acts, whether subtle or overt, aggravate existing inequalities in societies. A study published by The Lancet drew attention to the social dimension of the COVID-19 pandemic and the greater vulnerability of ethnic minorities, who have been disproportionately affected. The World Health Organization has cautioned on the dangers of profiling and stigmatising communities that can lead to fear and the subsequent concealment of cases and delays in detection. Women and girls also carry a double burden of being exposed to racial and gender-based prejudices. Racial discrimination deepens and fuels inequality in our societies.
•To contribute to this important discussion and signify the need for urgent work, UNESCO’s headquarters in Paris hosted a Global Forum against Racism and Discrimination on March 22, 2021, in partnership with the Republic of Korea. The Forum gathered policymakers, academics, and partners to initiate a new multi-stakeholder partnership on anti-racism. The new proposed road map to tolerance calls for a multisectoral effort to tackle the root causes of racism through anti-racist laws, policies and programmes.
The way forward
•UNESCO’s actions against racism through education, the sciences, culture, and communication offer an example of a way forward. UNESCO promotes the role of education in providing the space for young people to understand processes that sustain racism, to learn from the past, and to stand up for human rights. Through new approaches to inter-cultural dialogue and learning, youth and communities can be equipped with skills to eradicate harmful stereotypes and foster tolerance. UNESCO also offers master classes to empower students to become champions of anti-racism in their schools and communities. The International Coalition of Inclusive and Sustainable Cities provides an additional platform for city-level planning and a laboratory for good practices in the fight against racism.
•Recent and new manifestations of racism and discrimination call for renewed commitments to mobilise for equality. Racism will not be overcome with mere professions of good faith but must be combatted with anti-racist action. A global culture of tolerance, equality and anti-discrimination is built first and foremost in the minds of women and men.
📰 The Kerala Model at the crossroads
The role of planning and social oversight in the economic development of the State needs to expand further
•Will the CPI(M)-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) be re-elected in the upcoming polls in Kerala, or will the Congress-led United Democratic Front (UDF) return to lead the government? The election results will have a major bearing on the path of development that the State would take in the coming years.
•While Kerala’s achievements in human development are well-known, there is a widespread misconception that Kerala has not had much economic growth.
•The ‘Kerala Model’ showed that a country or a region need not wait till it becomes rich to bring about significant improvements in people’s material conditions of living, and that people’s movements can be the driving force of such changes by forcing governments to adopt redistributive measures and other programmes.
When growth picked up
•Economic stagnation in the 1970s and 1980s led many observers to predict the collapse of the Kerala model. They argued that the slow-growing State would not have the money to continue financing its welfare programmes.
•But a fundamental change occurred by the late 1980s — Kerala’s economic growth picked up. Growth in agricultural incomes and in remittances provided the spur for a ‘long boom’ in the subsequent decades. While services grew the fastest, the secondary sector (which includes manufacturing, construction, etc.) also experienced significant growth; the proportion of the workforce engaged in the secondary sector, which was 20% in 1987-88, grew to 32% in 2018-19.
•While Kerala’s per capita income was almost 10% lower than the all-India figure in 1989-90, it was 65% higher than the all-India figure in 2019-20.
•During this period, Kerala’s education and health indicators continued to improve, and its social security programmes continued to expand. But public schools and public hospitals often fell into disrepair, with inadequate facilities forcing many people to turn towards private service providers. The number of students enrolled in public schools fell steeply.
Investments in infrastructure
•However, the last five years have seen major investments to build up infrastructure in public schools and public hospitals. More than 45,000 classrooms in 4,752 public schools have been turned ‘hi-tech’, while new, bigger and better buildings have been constructed for public schools. These efforts have had a major impact: the number of students in public schools began to increase from 2018-19 onwards. This was taking place for the first time in more than 25 years. Similar infrastructural upgrades have been made in the case of public hospitals too, which was an important factor that allowed Kerala to fight the novel coronavirus pandemic relatively well.
•Investments that came in through the Kerala Infrastructure Investment Fund Board (KIIFB) provided the most crucial element which made these investments possible. Apart from schools and hospitals, KIIFB funding is being used to build economic infrastructure such as roads, bridges, industrial parks, the massive public sector Internet project K-FON, or the Kerala Fibre Optic Network, and TransGrid 2.0 — a project to improve the power transmission network in the State
New funding arm
•All these constitute a major change from the earlier scenario when Kerala found it difficult to fund capital expenditure that is necessary to upgrade its infrastructure. Continuous assaults on fiscal federalism, and the Centre putting harsh limits on States’ borrowing have made things very difficult for State governments. The Goods and Services Tax has dealt a terrible blow to the ability of the States to tax commodities according to their own specific conditions and development priorities. It is in this context that the KIIFB was brought in as a major funding arm of the Kerala government.
•The KIIFB raised funds from the financial market and made them available to the government to finance infrastructure projects which otherwise would have taken decades to materialise. Repayment of the loans is ensured by the government legally committing to pay a portion of its revenue from the motor vehicle tax and the petroleum cess to the KIIFB every year. The idea is that higher capital investments would help stimulate economic growth, which would in turn lead to higher tax revenues as well.
The real risks
•Concerns have been raised whether Kerala is taking on unsustainable levels of debt. The KIIFB loans are not part of public debt, and even if they are included, they would make only a marginal difference to the stock of outstanding debt. Data show that there have been several years during the past three decades when the ratio of Kerala’s outstanding debt to gross State domestic product (GSDP) was higher than it is today (36%). Those years followed a period in the late 1990s when there were serious setbacks to the commodity-producing sectors of the economy (prices of major cash crops had crashed).
•The current period is also similar, with the State having had to endure severe floods in 2018 and 2019, and the pandemic-induced worldwide recession. These led to huge unforeseen expenses, even as economic growth and tax revenue growth suffered.
•Rather than debt, therefore, the real risks are likely to be associated with shocks to the economy — such as natural disasters, job losses in the West Asian countries where a lot of Keralites work, or contractionary fiscal policy by the central government — which could adversely impact economic growth. Even then, Kerala will be better prepared to face the eventualities if it has better infrastructure, and a better-educated, more highly skilled and healthier workforce.
Competing visions
•The Left Democratic Front’s ambitious vision of the future of the Kerala economy is reflected in its manifesto. It lays much emphasis on substantially raising enrolment in higher education along with improving its quality, and on fostering the systematic application of science and technology in a range of sectors. How the benefits of the growth that will occur would be distributed across different sections of society will depend, among others, on the intervention of various organised sections of the working people, particularly to support and expand the role of the public sector and cooperatives.
•The United Democratic Front has also come up with its manifesto, and it has not fallen behind in promising a number of welfare measures. But a coherent strategy regarding the path that Kerala should take is yet to be articulated by the UDF. If past experience is any indication, the UDF at the helm would mean less planned intervention by the government in the sphere of the economy and less attention to the public sector. That approach, however, is likely to be inadequate to meet the challenges that lie ahead. Apart from considerations of equity, the added risk of climate change which brings with it phenomena such as more frequent extreme weather events point to the need for an even greater, not lesser, role for planning and social oversight over the process of economic development in the State.
