📰 IISc, IIT-D chosen for special grants
Institutions of Eminence list released
•Six higher education institutions, including the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru, the Indian Institutes of Technology at Mumbai and Delhi, and the proposed Jio Institute of the Reliance Foundation, have been named Institutions of Eminence (IoE) by the Centre.
•The Jio Institute in Maharashtra — which has been chosen in the greenfield category — is among three private institutions to be granted the status; the Manipal Academy of Higher Education and BITS, Pilani, being the other two.
•An empowered committee, under former Chief Election Commissioner N. Gopalaswami, recommended these institutions.
Three-year window
•Mr. Gopalaswami told The Hindu that the greenfield category institutions will be issued letters of intent for three years within which they have to commence academic operations for the notification declaring them IoE to be issued. If they fail, he said, the committee can recommend cancellation of the IoE status. This sets them apart from other institutions. He added that institutions not given the IoE status in this round could apply again till the committee finalised 10 public and 10 private institutions.
📰 The good and the bad in Bengal’s primary education
Report, to be released by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen today, reveals a mixed bag of achievements and failures
•In one of rural Bengal’s schools, a girl, whose identity has not been disclosed, had learning problems. Her teacher reported that she had no idea about counting and used to gaze at the field outside during her arithmetic classes. One day, she saw a man on stilts in the field during one of her classes and shouted: “Ran-pa, ran-pa, ami chorbo(Stilts, stilts: I’ll ride on them).” The teacher later arranged for a stilt and voila!
•“I would bring [the ran-pa] and ask her to count the steps she took. What a surprise! Her progress in counting was unbelievably quick. In a few months she met all the requirements of her course,” the teacher said.
•A few years ago, discussions on such anecdotes from parents, teachers, educationists, students and field notes from researchers brought together a group which sought to understand the achievements and failures of the primary education system in Bengal.
Collective efforts
•“These collective efforts constitute Shiksha Alochana,” says Nobel laureate Prof. Amartya Sen, who will release the findings of these efforts in Kolkata on Tuesday in the form of a report titled “Primary Education in West Bengal: The Scope for Change” brought out by Pratichi Inistitute and Shiksha Alochona. The report marks the high points of the Bengal government’s achievements in the area of primary education, while underscoring the failures.
•One achievement that the report of Pratichi Institute, founded in 1999 by Prof. Sen, unequivocally indicates is that access to primary education in West Bengal “has increased substantially”. Besides, the average pupil-teacher ratio has “dramatically improved” to 23:1. “…the State required a total of 217,320 teachers, whereas the actual number, including para-teachers and instructors, is 235,445. In other words, there are almost 8.3% more teachers than the minimum requirement…” the report notes. Yet, the ratio of teacher to students ranges from 1:14 to 1:44.
•“Administrative failure in rationalising their distribution has resulted in shortage of teachers in almost 20% of government primary schools,” the report notes. Even worse, the proportion of single teacher schools “increased from 3.3% in 2014-15 to 4% in 2015-16”.
•The other key problem, noted by the report, is access to schools. The government’s guideline suggests that the distance between a student's residence and school has to be one kilometre in rural areas and 0.5 kilometre in urban areas.
•“However, in West Bengal, and perhaps in many other States, these aspects seem not to have been considered while establishing new schools,” the reports notes. The reason, as explained by a senior Education Department official, is alarming. The decision to establish a new school “depends more or less on what the political leaders, across party affiliations, want. They like to establish a school in their own backyard.” As a result, 847 villages in the State “do not have a government-run primary school”.
Midday meal
•Regarding the midday meal, the report notes that while “a decent meal would cost at least ₹₹ 7.17 per child per day, the present allocation is only₹₹4.13. “There is thus a deficit in conversion cost of ₹₹3.04 per child per day,” the report notes.
•The report highlights another half-a-dozen serious problems ailing the State’s primary education, including severe inadequacy of fund for schools to “feeble academic planning” and the “menace of private tuitions”. Additionally, there are “constraints” in public participation and “uneven distribution of resources”.
•But Prof. Sen is hopeful. “The progress of primary education in West Bengal gives us grounds for some satisfaction, but we cannot escape the diagnosis of a number of serious gaps, telling us about additional things that have to be done,” he says and concludes with his trademark caution: “Much would depend on the involvement and commitment of the teachers and their sense of confidence, and here we could not but observe a wide variation.
📰 The problem of being a left-hander
A study reveals a new bias in mental health treatment
•A new study, “Approach motivation in human cerebral cortex”, in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences highlights a new kind of bias in mental health: left-handedness. While door knobs and car ignitions drive home the point that the world revolves around right-handers, Daniel Casasanto, associate professor at Cornell University, argues that a left-handed bias in mental health treatment may actually be “detrimental”.
•The textbook wisdom is that each hemisphere of the brain is home to a specific type of emotion. Emotions linked to negotiating and engaging with the world (like happiness, pride and anger) live in the left side of the brain, while emotions associated with avoidance (like disgust and fear) are housed in the right. However, these studies were conducted almost exclusively on right-handers. In left-handers, emotions like alertness and determination are housed in the right side of their brains.
•Casasanto’s theory, called the “sword and shield hypothesis”, challenges this dogma and argues that the way we perform actions with our hands determines how emotions are organised in our brains. Emotion isn’t always located in specific halves and can be spread out across the hemisphere. To explain that, he speaks of medieval sword fighters who would wield their swords in their dominant hand to attack the enemy (approach action) and raise their shields with their non-dominant hand to fend off attack (avoidance action). Thus dominant hands — and not left or right — determined the location of the emotion of engagement and fear.
•The work has implications for a current treatment for recalcitrant anxiety and depression called neural therapy. Similar to the technique used in the study and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, it involves a mild electrical stimulation or a magnetic stimulation to the left side of the brain, to encourage emotions related to approach actions.
•Based on experiments, Casasanto claims that the treatment could be damaging for left-handed patients. Stimulation on the left would decrease life-affirming approach emotions. Giving left-handers the standard treatment will probably make them worse, he says. “And because many people are neither strongly right- nor left-handed, the stimulation won’t make any difference for them, because their approach emotions are distributed across both hemispheres.”
📰 SC says it is ready to go live, Centre moots a TV channel
This will be an extension of the open court system, says Chief Justice Misra
•The Supreme Court said on Monday that it is ready to go live on camera while the government mooted a separate TV channel for live-streaming court proceedings.
•A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices A.M. Khanwilkar and D.Y. Chandrachud said a livestream is only an extension of the ‘open court’ system, where the public can walk in and watch court proceedings. However, with court proceedings beamed live on air, litigants, law students and the public can watch them as they happen.
Spared from travel
•Chief Justice Misra said a livestream would help litigants follow the proceedings in their case and also assess their lawyers’ performance. People from far-flung States such as Tamil Nadu and Kerala do not have to travel all the way to the national capital for a day’s hearing.
•Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal proposed a dedicated channel like the Rajya Sabha TV and the Lok Sabha TV for the Supreme Court. He agreed that a livestream would keep a check on lawyers’ conduct inside the courtrooms. With the entire country watching them, there would be fewer interruptions, raised voices and adjournments from the lawyers. Mr. Venugopal compared the scene inside the courtroom to the sober atmosphere in the British courts, where proceedings are live-streamed.
•He, however, expressed reservations about live-streaming cases involving national security concerns, matrimonial disputes and rape cases. A public viewing of marital dispute and rape case proceedings would seriously affect justice and amount to a violation of the fundamental right to privacy.
•Senior advocate Indira Jaising, who filed the petition in the court in person, cautioned that agreements with broadcasters should be on a non-commercial basis. No one should profit from the arrangement. She also submitted that there should be no unauthorised reproduction. The Bench asked Mr. Venugopal to address it on the issue of framing guidelines for live-streaming proceedings. The next hearing is scheduled for July 23.
•Ms. Jaising said citizens have the right to information and matters of constitutional and national importance can be live-streamed. If livestream of the top court’s proceedings is not possible, alternatively the video recording should be allowed, she argued.
•“This writ petition is filed as pro bono for enforcement of public interest, to advance the rule of law and to bring accessibility and transparency in the administration of justice,” her plea said.
📰 Living in uncertain times
India needs strategic cohesion, and Government-Opposition dialogue is vital for this
•Given the uncertain times we live in, nothing can be taken for granted. Much of the world seems to be in a state of bewildering confusion. Across the spectrum, people appear euphoric, angry, fearful or confused. Many do not even want to think of what lies ahead. Therein, perhaps, lurks the biggest danger. Not wanting to understand what is taking place has its own perils.
Age of disruption
•Disruption is the dominant sentiment today. It is leading to major political upheavals. It has resulted in escalating levels of violence. Technology is the biggest disruptor of all. Many large firms are being challenged by start-ups. Artificial Intelligence is threatening everything that we are aware of. This breeds uncertainty, apart from confusion.
•How else can anyone explain the extraordinary spectacle of a U.S. President effecting a meeting with a North Korean leader. Till very recently, North Korea was seen by the U.S., and much of the West, as the principal part of the “axis of evil”. Not only has this been exploded with the leaders of the U.S. and North Korea meeting in Singapore in June, but the U.S. has announced that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat, nor is it the “biggest and the most dangerous problem” for the U.S. No diplomatic rigmarole, no joint communiqué on the details and guarantees, just a simple endorsement that North Korea would eschew the use of nuclear weapons and dismantle its nuclear arsenal is considered enough.
•The rest of the world, meantime, is in various stages of disarray. Russia’s Vladimir Putin is pitted against almost the entire Western world, and is being blamed for an array of human rights violations. Several regions of Asia are akin to powder kegs waiting to blow up. Afghanistan is rocked almost daily by terror attacks by the Taliban, the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, or the Islamic State. West Asia is embroiled in several wars. Syria is the worst-affected and has almost ceased to be a state. Tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia have intensified. Tensions between Israel and the Muslim world have peaked. The war launched by the Saudi Arabia-led alliance of Arab States against Yemen is turning into a war without end. In South Asia, even tiny countries like the Maldives are challenging bigger neighbours like India.
•Europe may not be convulsed with the same degree of violence, but political uncertainty is the prevailing order. Germany, which appeared the most stable of European countries till recently, is in deep crisis politically and Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government hangs by the proverbial thread. In France, despite President Emmanuel Macron’s reassuring presence, strong undercurrents of political disruption are evident. A fluid political situation prevails across much of southern Europe.
Stable dictatorships
•In a topsy-turvy world, it would appear that autocracies or dictatorships remain more stable, while democracies seem increasingly dysfunctional. Under President Xi Jinping, China, for instance, is making steady progress, despite the occasional dip in economic forecasts. The party remains in tight control of affairs. Mr. Xi and the Chinese Communist Party have on their radar milestones such as ‘wiping out poverty and becoming a moderately prosperous society by 2021’ (100th anniversary of the founding of the party); a ‘Made in China target to be completed by 2025’; and turning ‘China into a fully developed nation by 2049’ (100th anniversary of the founding of the People’s Republic of China). No hiccups are in sight.
•Russia is, again, not constrained by contrarian pulls and pressures. It has entered into a strategic relationship with China, is seeking to consolidate its influence in Eurasia, and has been able to stand up to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the West. Its economy is also on the mend. Other dictatorial regimes, such as Turkey, are proving more resilient than democratic regimes across the world, and better able to manage turmoil within and outside their borders.
•Most democracies, on the other hand, reveal a far from homogeneous state of affairs, with ruling and opposition parties increasingly working at cross purposes. Germany’s plight today is largely due to Ms. Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union and coalition partner, the Christian Social Union, pulling in different directions. Such trends are a common occurrence today.
•Equally disconcerting is the plight of political parties themselves in many democracies. Many act in a manner that appears like an indictment of democratic politics. In the U.K., for instance, the Conservative and Labour parties face serious internal divisions. In the U.S., both Republicans and Democrats appear in poor shape. Political parties in France are hardly better situated. What all this presages for the future of democracies is a matter of conjecture.
•Indian democracy, unfortunately, is not an exception. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) currently projects an image of a strong centralised party. Most other parties are riven by internal dissensions. Yet, the BJP has been unable to ensure the smooth functioning of Parliament. The BJP’s inability, despite its brute majority in the Lok Sabha, to ‘manage’ a determined Opposition is a serious chink in its armour. More unfortunate, it has resulted in a paralysis of informed discussion and debate. Absence of a debate of this nature in Parliament has a direct impact on the conduct of affairs of state.
•For example, there had existed for a long time a broad consensus among parties in Parliament about the conduct of foreign affairs. Today, the consensus appears to have broken down. This has happened precisely when India’s external policies have come under strain. The nation, however, has the right to know the correct state of affairs, which is possible only through a detailed discussion in Parliament. The ruling party seems in no hurry to restore the consensus.
Friction in ties
•Without this, it will be difficult for the nation at large to discern why India-U.S. relations, after more than a decade and half of steady improvement, seem to be slowing down. It was only early this year that U.S. President Donald Trump had announced suspension of military aid to Pakistan, and pointed an accusing finger at it for backing terror. All of a sudden, whether due to U.S. imperatives in Afghanistan, or some other reason, there are signs of renewed engagement between Pakistan and the U.S. This cannot but adversely impact India’s position in the region. Simultaneously, the U.S. has of late taken to upbraiding India on trade issues, lecturing it on reducing military ties with Russia, and insisting that it abide by U.S. sanctions on Iran. It also peremptorily postponed the 2+2 dialogue. Without a serious debate in Parliament, it would be difficult for the government to reach a consensus on how to deal with this situation.
•This applies in equal measure to the state of India’s relations with China. Despite the Wuhan summit, our relations with China remain equivocal. There has been no give by China on contentious issues such as the border. The Doklam stand-off has yet to be resolved. Further, China continues to aggressively cultivate countries in India’s neighbourhood to India’s detriment. Nepal and the Maldives are conspicuous examples. It is little understood, again, why many of our neighbours seem to be drifting away from India.
•A debate in Parliament would be even more critical to understand where our relations with Russia stand today. On the surface, India-Russia relations remain unaffected, but there are enough signs that the nature of the relationship has undergone a change, even though defence ties may be unaffected. If the U.S. continues to insist that India resile from its commitment to buy the Triumf missile defence systems from Russia, we will have a first-rate crisis on our hands. India needs a national consensus to tide over the crisis and withstand U.S. pressure, since succumbing to it would be detrimental to our claims to ‘strategic autonomy’.
•Some of the policy imperatives of recent years, including possibly the current transactional nature of India’s foreign policy, may well need to be reformulated, given the present state of affairs. This cannot happen without a detailed debate in Parliament. The time has, hence, come for the government to seek out the Opposition to debate some of these issues inside Parliament, so that foreign policy, at least, remains on an even keel and is not buffeted by the cross-winds of adversarial party politics in the country.
📰 In need of a practical plan: on judicial appointments
The stage-wise and uniform timeline for lower judicial appointments is problematic
•Recruitment to the lower judiciary has been under public scrutiny due to its failure to fill almost a quarter (23%) of vacancies that persist. The recruitment process of district judges is now the subject matter of a public interest litigation filed in the Supreme Court. The matter has now come to a standstill given opposition by States to a centralised selection mechanism for judges.
•This is not the first time that the Supreme Court has tried to streamline the examination process for the lower judiciary. In Malik Mazhar v. U.P. Public Service Commission (2008), it highlighted the importance of a prescribed time-schedule for judicial service examinations and laid down stage-wise time lines for lower judicial appointments — for civil judges (junior division) and district judges (direct recruitment) in 321 days and 183 days, respectively. An examination cycle is calculated from the date of notification to the last date for joining.
•However, such a benchmark has three problems. First, the rationale behind arriving at this timeline is unclear. Second, it is an inaccurate benchmark to measure performance as it does not consider different sanctioned strengths and State resources in conducting such exams. Third, strict adherence to such timelines affects aspirants.
No coherent rationale
•A clear timeline does ensure greater accountability. However, the Supreme Court offers no substantial justification for determining these timelines. From the order, it appears that these were based on suggestions from States and the amicus curiae in the case. With no clear, scientific principle or methodology offered, it ends up being a ‘one-size-fit-all’ timeline, which forces a comparison of States that are not similarly placed. This leads to the second issue.
•A report by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy on ‘Ranking Lower Court Appointments’ collated publicly available data on recruitment cycles undertaken by States (2007-2017). The study covered direct recruitment of district judges and civil judges (junior division), and measured the performance of States in terms of the number of days taken (‘timeliness’) to complete a cycle, and the percentage of vacancies potentially filled.
•But this timeline applies uniformly to States, regardless of sanctioned strengths. The timeliness measure in the report, when compared with data on sanctioned strengths in the lower judiciary, illustrates why this benchmark is inappropriate in measuring State performance.
•To elaborate, States with lesser sanctioned strengths also see lower numbers of applicants and have a natural advantage in adhering to the timeline. Take the case of Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra for example. For civil judges, Himachal Pradesh and Maharashtra have a sanctioned strength of 62 and 1,118, respectively. Both must finish their recruitment cycles within 321 days. The study found that while Himachal could complete its cycle within an average of 178 days, it took 443 days for Maharashtra. When benchmarked against the prescribed timeline, Himachal performs better than Maharashtra, but the comparison is unfair, given the wide variance in sanctioned strengths, and, therefore, the number of applicants.
•The study also showed that of the top five jurisdictions on the timeliness metric for civil judges, Nagaland, Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh (States) and Puducherry (Union Territory) have a sanctioned strength below 70. These States are quickest in completing recruitment cycles. Evidently, the sanctioned strength influences the timeliness of the recruitment process.
Logistical difficulties
•Clearly, this court-stipulated timeline does not account for the structural and functional capacities of States. While one assumes there is greater capacity in larger States, there is no reason to persist with this assumption without empirical verification. More importantly, there is no methodological justification in prescribing a uniform timeline without accounting for different capacities in States.
•Finally, the prescribed timeline does not register potential problems for candidates. If the timeline is strictly implemented, aspiring candidates will find it impossible to appear for examinations in multiple States, potentially harming the career opportunities of candidates who are otherwise eligible for judicial service in multiple States.
•While the idea of a definite timeline is undisputedly a good one, it should be flexible to suit the administrative and resource capacities of different States. The Malik Mazhar guidelines could have easily ensured this by prescribing a standard which could be subject to State modifications rather than making them fixed. Currently, States can deviate from this timeline only by making an application to the Supreme Court. This curbs their flexibility. Further, and more importantly, the court needs to adopt a more data-driven, methodological basis for such a timeline.
📰 SC questions female genital mutilation
‘Can’t violate woman’s bodily privacy’
•No one can violate the integrity and the bodily privacy of a woman in the name of religion, the Supreme Court observed on Monday.
•The observation, from a Bench led by Chief Justice Dipak Misra, came after the Centre condemned the practice of female genital mutilation performed by some communities on children as a religious practice.
•Chief Justice Misra said such practices on children was an offence under the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act.
•“Why should anyone have the authority to touch the female genital... no one can use religious practices to touch the female body,” Justice Chandrachud observed orally.
Directions sought
•Attorney General K.K. Venugopal urged the court to issue directions against the practice. The international community had condemned it.
•Mr. Venugopal submitted that female genital mutilation is punished with seven years’ imprisonment.
Bohra community plea
•However, the court also decided to hear an application for impleading filed by the Dawoodi Bohra Women’s Association for Religious Freedom.
•Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, appearing for the group, said “khafz/female circumcision as practised by the Dawoodi Bohra community is not female genital mutilation.” It was an essential part of their religion and protected under the Constitution.
📰 The measure of tests
Allowing students to take JEEand NEET twice a year is logical
•In an ideal system, admission to higher education courses would be based on assessment of aptitude and suitability, and a testing process that is transparent, accessible and fair. India’s policymakers have struggled to create a credible national admissions apparatus for professional degree programmes that accommodates the diversity and plurality of the country. The two-level Joint Entrance Examination (JEE) for admission to technological institutes such as the IITs, NITs and IIITs, and the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) for undergraduate medical courses are steps in this direction — although much work remains to be done to make them accessible, especially for rural students who suffer from various handicaps, not the least of which is a shaky school education system. Viewed against this background, the decision of the Centre to form a National Testing Agency to conduct these and some other examinations is a progressive move. A professional agency would look at nothing other than the suitability of the candidate to pursue a particular programme. Of course, there will be those that contend that the better-run States could have their own agencies perform the same task, but the expertise of a national agency is preferable. The objective of aptitude testing in a populous country should be to enable mobility, and access to courses offered in any State. Peer-reviewed standards and curbs on commercialisation can help expand higher education. In the case of medical courses, a common test such as NEET should make it possible to attend any of about 350 medical colleges, of which 175 are run by private entities.
•The idea of multiple opportunities to take a test in a single year, which the Centre has now adopted for JEE (Main) and NEET, is not really new, and is familiar to students entering universities abroad, particularly those in the United States. In fact, the Ashok Misra committee set up by the Human Resource Development Ministry to review the JEE three years ago recommended that an online aptitude test be offered two or more times a year. The move to make both JEE (Main) and NEET available twice a year is consistent with that advice. However, a computer-based test should not turn into a barrier for students from rural backgrounds, and impose additional expenditure on candidates for preparation, travel to a testing centre and so on. The reservations about online testing on such grounds should be overcome with good planning and allocation of sufficient funds. Equally important is the issue of regulation of coaching institutes — a sector worth about Rs. 24,000 crore a year, according to the Ashok Misra panel — in order to ensure that the changes do not result in further exploitation of students. Ultimately, any process of reform at the level of entrance examinations can be meaningful only if the school education system is revamped, and learning outcomes are improved.
📰 Don’t blame it on WhatsApp: on rumours and lynch mobs
WhatsApp cannot and should not perform the duties of a democratically elected government
•A ‘serial killer’ painted in a luminescent green is on the loose and travels in the pockets of more than 200 million people in India. As per public commentary, it is WhatsApp that has caused the loss of more than 20 lives in the past two months alone in the country. Rumours on WhatsApp that there are child kidnappers and cattle traders roaming around have led to mob lynchings. Such rumours are posited as incontrovertible facts. Consequently, a debate has been framed around the growing use of technology by the “ignorant” masses and the responsibilities of a technology platform. This is a shallow understanding that distracts us from the harder, vexing questions on the sectarian discourse set by our political leadership, a deepening divide that is damaging fraternity within society, and the structural reforms necessary to restore law and order.
•We are made to believe that in the age of social media, facts have become fungible. There is little distinction left for many between established media outlets and websites that incessantly broadcast propaganda and hate speech. A messaging application such as WhatsApp, with a large user base and an ability to instantly and widely share information, has been arraigned as a co-conspirator to these tragedies. It is easy to get swept in this wave of social panic and draw neat narratives which ignore factual complexity. Hence, before we delve into the technology aspect, it is important to take a step back and examine three facts and the existing narrative. This is important as many public policy responses that are being suggested will ultimately weaken the features of encryption that promote privacy, and may even bring in forms of pre-censorship on justifications of security.
Three facts
•The first fact is that the government maintains no central data on public lynchings. As per parliamentary responses provided by the Ministry of Home Affairs, there is no record keeping, or even plans to keep records periodically by the National Crime Records Bureau. Hence, a common response in many of these answers provided to legislators is: “It is not possible to draw any conclusion regarding the trend.” The legal framework in India does not have any anti-lynching offences either. While some may oppose a special law for public lynchings, most scholars like Paul Brass, who have studied such riots which often involve public lynchings in India, term them to be “organised political productions” in which there is an element of group identity and politics with the desire to establish “dominance of one community over another”. This is well understood by some activists, such as those who began a campaign last year for the drafting of an anti-lynching bill named the Manav Suraksha Kanoon. Despite such civic action, parliamentary replies reveal bluster and indifference, with the Central government stating that there is no proposal to bring a law against lynchings.
•The second fact is that in the absence of official data or a substantive law, media reports which quote the police become the principal source to build a public narrative. As many of us crave simplicity and clarity in facts, opinion writing has often homogenised incidents into a factual straightjacket. In the lynching cases this year, it is claimed that the common factor is the use of WhatsApp to spread rumours relating to the abduction of children, ostensibly for the purpose of forcible organ harvesting. These grotesque details underplay and ignore the fact that the victims of mob lynchings are quite often members of nomadic tribes and religious minorities. They ignore pre-existing social tensions, asymmetry of social capital and power among groups, past instances of mob violence and killings, and the efficiency of policing. For instance, as per media reports, on May 18, 2017, seven people were lynched in two separate incidents in Jharkhand. Of them, four were Muslims. In June this year, in Aurangabad district’s Chandgaon village, two pastoral tribals were lynched. In July, in Dhanbad village in Jharkhand, a mentally ill man was tied to a tree and assaulted. In Dhule, Maharashtra, the five people who were lynched recently were nomadic tribals. Thus, some of the identities of the victims demonstrate that their distinction from the local communities and lack of power, their “othering”, and absence of state protection were significant factors in the distrust which rose to the level of organised mob violence. However, due to the framing of the instant problem as primarily technological, the onus for policing and public broadcasting has been primarily placed on WhatsApp.
•The third fact is that these lynchings are not removed from the trend of mob lynchings spurred by cattle preservation laws. A fact-finding report, “Lynching without end”, which collated data from 2015 to 2017 and was published last year, documents 24 instances of lynching and vigilante violence resulting in the murder of 34 persons and the rape of two women. It reveals that 94% of these were organised instances of violence by vigilante groups and 91% were bovine related. The report indicates severe structural faults — from a deficiency of laws to the absence of long-pending police reforms. There is only one solitary instance of WhatsApp in which the originator is clearly identified as the leader of one of these vigilante groups. These findings, the result of research by several organisations, is a meaningful benchmark.
Escaping accountability
•Taken together, these three facts indicate our willingness to reach for quick and easy fixes which are harmful public policy prescriptions. We ignore the problems within our legal framework and law enforcement and prescribe policy choices with the same ease with which we install applications on our smartphones. Such framing is leading to WhatsApp being made the principal offender in designing a technical architecture which offers security, privacy and has expanded the avenues of free expression and political organising for masses of Indians. This is not to say that WhatsApp does not need to act with greater responsibility in supporting fact-checking or making technical, product choices which would stem the tide of misinformation without compromising on digital rights. But WhatsApp cannot and should not perform the duties of our democratically elected government. Our problematic framing is leading to public officials and police departments escaping accountability as they continue to place the onus of governance on a private corporation for maintaining an ordered and democratic society. As Paul Brass notes, it is the duty of public commentary to “fix responsibility and penetrate the clouds of deception, rhetoric, mystification, obscurity and indeterminacy.”
📰 High on atmospherics: dealing with Punjab's drug problem
Punjab needs a sober, well-thought-out strategy to deal with drug abuse
•During the campaign for the Punjab Assembly elections last year, Amarinder Singh, then the Congress’s chief ministerial candidate, had pledged to eradicate the State’s drug problemwithin four weeks of coming to power. Given the complexity of the issue, hardly anyone took his pledge seriously but it did convey his concern. After coming to power, Capt. Singh took little time to set up a Special Task Force (STF) to tackle the problem. The STF claimed to have arrested about 15,000 drug peddlers. It also claimed that the supply line of drugs had been choked.
Cascading problems
•However, with the tightening of supply chains, many turned to cheaper and spurious drugs. The last one month witnessed a spurt in deaths due to overdose or usage of spurious drugs. Although the government maintains that there were only two such incidents, the local media reported over 25 deaths during the period. The subsequent outcry has triggered knee-jerk reactions by the State government.
•The Punjab Cabinet has asked the Centre to amend the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act of 1985 to include the death penalty for even first-time offenders. It followed this up with a declaration that all 3.4 lakh government employees would have to undergo a dope test.
•The recommendation of the death penalty for first-time offenders in NDPS cases is a dangerous overreaction. Currently there are about 15,000 convicts and undertrials in jails. Most have been booked for carrying minuscule quantities of drugs or banned substances. Besides, the courts have already described as unconstitutional an amendment introduced in 2001 providing death penalty for repeat offenders under the NDPS Act. The Act was amended in 2014 to remove the provision.
•Even before the ink dried on the proposal sent to the Centre, the State government came out with the absurd announcement that all its employees would be put through a dope test. This degenerated into a farce when demands were put forth to the Cabinet, including the Chief Minister, through a dope test.
•For one, the test cannot establish whether a person is an addict or not. The test can only confirm the presence of narcotics in samples. For instance, a regular user of heroin may test negative if he or she has abstained for three-four days. In any case, there has never been any allegation that a significant number of government employees are drug addicts.
•The government is clearly aiming at the wrong target. It is well-known that the vast majority of drug addicts are unemployed youth. It is this segment of youth who need to be targeted for proactive and preventive measures. This can be done by involving volunteers and elders from localities and villages. Families and teachers need to be put through counselling to identify potential victims and to watch for early signs of trouble. Such action requires an understanding of the situation, sincerity and patience.
Need for a survey
•Shockingly, for a State that is well-known for substance abuse, there is no empirical study on the extent of the problem. The previous Akali Dal-led government remained in denial, claiming that Punjab’s youth were being “defamed”. Now in the Opposition, the party is blaming the Congress government for its failure to contain the problem. Some surveys have been conducted with small sample sizes. What is needed is a extensive survey and a well-thought-out strategy to tackle the problem.
•The problem also lies in the poor handling of drug-related cases by police and prosecution agencies. This was brought to the notice of Capt. Singh by a High Court judge last week when he was appearing in an election-related case. The judge said she would take the opportunity of the presence of the Chief Minister in the court to point out that challans were being presented in drug cases even when crucial forensic reports were pending, and added that false drug cases were on the rise. An embarrassed Chief Minister said he would personally look into the issue.
•Punjab has gone through several periods of crisis, including militancy during the 1980s and 1990s when thousands of lives were lost, and is currently in danger of losing too many youngsters to drugs. It requires sensitive handling rather than knee-jerk reactions which can be counterproductive.
