📰 Fertility falls, obesity goes up in India , says National Family Health Survey
Women participating in decision-making and having bank account growing, says the survey.
•The Total Fertility Rate (TFR), an average number of children per woman, has further declined from 2.2 to 2.0 at the national level between National Family Health Survey (NFHS) 4 and 5. There are only five States in India which are above replacement level of fertility of 2.1 — Bihar (2.98), Meghalaya (2.91), Uttar Pradesh (2.35), Jharkhand (2.26) Manipur (2.17) — as per the national report of the NFHS-5, released by the Health Ministry.
•The main objective of successive rounds of the NFHS has been to provide reliable and comparable data relating to health and family welfare and other emerging areas in India. The NFHS-5 National Report lists progress from NFHS-4 (2015-16) to NFHS-5 (2019-21).
•The other key highlights of the survey include _ institutional births having increased from 79% to 89% in India and in rural areas around 87% births being delivered in institutions and the same is 94% in urban areas.
•As per results of the NFHS-5, more than three-fourths (77%) children age 12-23 months were fully immunised, compared with 62% in NFHS-4. The level of stunting among children under five years has marginally declined from 38% to 36% in the country since the last four years. Stunting is higher among children in rural areas (37%) than urban areas (30%) in 2019-21.
Sustainable Development Goals
•Additionally, NFHS-5 shows an overall improvement in Sustainable Development Goals indicators in all States/Union Territories (UTs). The extent to which married women usually participate in three household decisions (about health care for herself; making major household purchases; visit to her family or relatives) indicates that their participation in decision-making is high, ranging from 80% in Ladakh to 99% in Nagaland and Mizoram. Rural (77%) and urban (81%) differences are found to be marginal. The prevalence of women having a bank or savings account that they use has increased from 53% to 79% in the last four years.
•Compared with NFHS-4, the prevalence of overweight or obesity has increased in most States/UTs in NFHS-5. At the national level, it increased from 21% to 24% among women and 19% to 23% among men. More than a third of women in Kerala, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Sikkim, Manipur, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Puducherry, Punjab, Chandigarh and Lakshadweep (34-46 %) are overweight or obese.
•The NFHS-5 survey work has been conducted in around 6.37 lakh sample households from 707 districts (as on March, 2017) of the country from 28 States and eight UTs, covering 7,24,115 women and 1,01,839 men to provide dis-aggregated estimates up to district level.
•The national report also provides data by socio-economic and other background characteristics; useful for policy formulation and effective programme implementation.
•The scope of NFHS-5 is expanded in respect of earlier round of the survey (NFHS-4) by adding new dimensions such as death registration, pre-school education, expanded domains of child immunisation, components of micro-nutrients to children, menstrual hygiene, frequency of alcohol and tobacco use, additional components of non-communicable diseases, expanded age range for measuring hypertension and diabetes among all aged 15 years and above, which will give requisite inputs for monitoring and strengthening existing programmes and evolving new strategies for policy intervention.
•“NFHS-5 provides information on important indicators which are helpful in tracking the progress of Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the country. NFHS-4 (2015-16) estimates were used as baseline values for a large number of SDG indicators and NFHS- 5 will provide data for around 34 SDG indicators at various levels,’’ said the release. It added that NFHS-6 is scheduled to be conducted during 2023-24.
India’s new push for stronger ties with Europe comes at a crucial time for both
•Prime Minister Narendra Modi ended his tour to Europe this week by dropping in on French President Emmanuel Macron, who was re-elected recently. What was billed a simple “tete-a tete” during a “working visit” turned out to be a comprehensive discussion on bilateral, regional and international issues, with a 30 paragraph-long joint statement. As with his other stops in Germany and Denmark for the Nordic Summit, as well as the visit to India by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen the week before, the Ukraine war remained at the top of the agenda. The joint statement records their differences on the issue. However, they also discussed mitigating the war’s “knock-on” effects, and Mr. Macron invited India to cooperate with the Food and Agriculture Resilience Mission (FARM) initiative for food security in the most vulnerable countries, particularly in terms of wheat exports. However, as the severe heatwave has damaged India’s crops, the Government will have to do some hard thinking on its promises of wheat supply to the rest of the world at a time when fears of shortages are sending wheat prices soaring. Climate change was another key issue during the stopovers in Berlin and Copenhagen. France and India, that worked closely for the success of the Paris climate accord, and co-founded the International Solar Alliance in 2015, are ready to take it to the next level — setting up industrial partnerships to build integrated supply chains in solar energy production for markets in Europe and Asia. There was also a bilateral strategic dialogue on space issues, which will build on their six-decade-long partnership in the field of space — a contested area now with China, Russia and the U.S. stepping up hostilities in this frontier.
•India and France have decades of an unusually productive partnership given that neither has allowed other relationships to play a role in the bilateral. This has been the basis of their strong defence partnership. In 1998, France stood out as a western country that did not judge or impose sanctions on India for its nuclear tests; in 2008, it was the first country to conclude a civil nuclear deal with India after the NSG passed a waiver allowing India to access nuclear fuel and technology. It would be a fitting tribute to the consistency of the relationship if the French bid for six nuclear power plants in Maharashtra’s Jaitapur makes some headway now, more than 12 years after the original MoU was signed and a year after the French company, EDF, last year submitted an offer to the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. It is however disappointing that Mr. Modi’s visit did not give as much fillip to talks on the India-EU FTA (suspended since 2013) as seen in India’s other FTA talks. This was the second such tour where Mr. Modi travelled to Germany and France on the same visit — a significant gesture that he recognises the importance of both in India’s new push for stronger ties with Europe.
📰 Cowed down: On the need for strict anti-lynching laws
Strict anti-lynching laws and a legal rethink on cattle slaughter laws are the need of the hour
•In yet another disturbing and dastardly act that is now part of a pattern in much of North India, two tribal men were beaten to death by alleged activists of the Bajrang Dal in Seoni, Madhya Pradesh, on the suspicion that they were slaughtering cows. Apart from tribal people, Muslims and Dalits in particular have borne the brunt of these senseless acts of mob violence and murders. Reminiscent of the murder of a dairy farmer, Pehlu Khan, after he and his sons were attacked by self-described “cow vigilantes” in April 2017 in Rajasthan, the two men, Sampatlal Vatti and Dhansai Invati, were attacked by nearly 20 men; both died of injuries. The police have arrested 13 people for their alleged involvement; at least six of them were members of the Bajrang Dal, according to the family members. An insinuation by the police that one of the dead men was involved in a “cow slaughter” case has shown yet again where the priorities of law enforcement lie in such cases. In another pattern, there has been a certain acuity in the implementation of cattle slaughter laws which is missing in trying and bringing those involved in lynch mobs to justice. Stricter cattle slaughter laws have been implemented with a fervour that has less to do with animal preservation and more to do with appeasement of majoritarian impulses to garner political support.
•In 2005, the Supreme Court had justified the total ban on cattle slaughter by an expansive interpretation of the directive principles of state policy, and relying on Articles 48, 48A, and 51(A) of the Constitution, that seeks to preserve breeds used in agriculture and animal husbandry, explicitly prohibiting the slaughter of cows and calves and other milch and draught cattle, besides promoting compassion to animals. The judgment had overturned an earlier ruling in 1958 which had limited the ban only to “useful” cattle which are still engaged in agriculture and husbandry. This interpretation only laid the grounds for State governments — especially those led by the BJP and its alliance partners — to come up with stringent laws on cow slaughter, and in the public sphere, a stigmatisation of communities such as Dalits, Muslims and tribals for their dietary habits and their dependence on cattle products for a livelihood. Four States (Rajasthan, Jharkhand, West Bengal and Manipur) had passed laws against lynching after many such incidents but they were under various stages of implementation with the Union government taking the view that lynching is not a crime under the Indian Penal Code. While civil society in Madhya Pradesh must demand justice for the injured and dead tribal men and a return to the rule of law in which such murderous acts do not go unpunished, it is time for a judicial rethink on legislation around cattle slaughter.
📰 In rising heat, the cry of the wilting outdoor worker
With a large segment of its population dependent on outdoor work, India needs to initiate safety nets
•More asphalt-melting heatwaves driven by runaway climate change are on the way. The consequences for health and livelihoods are catastrophic, as a third of South Asia’s population depends on outdoor work. To get to grips with this predicament, India must initiate safety nets — a combination of targeted transfers and insurance schemes — to improve the resilience of outdoor workers. Transfers are best linked to the beneficiaries’ own efforts to build resilience, for example, adapting agricultural practices to the uptick in heatwaves. Disaster insurance schemes, far too few in India, should enable workers to transfer some of the losses from debilitating heat to public and private insurance providers.
A hotter future in South Asia
•The intensity and frequency of heatwaves have soared in South Asia and they are set to worsen in the years ahead. Extreme heat conditions have hit swathes of India, not only in the northern States of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, and New Delhi, but now increasingly also in the south. Following the India Meteorological Department’s (IMD) April forecast that maximum temperatures in some parts of Tamil Nadu would rise by 2°-3° Celsius, recorded temperatures hit 41°C in Vellore, Karur, Tiruchi and Tiruttani. Delhi this month suffered its second warmest April in 72 years, temperatures averaging 40.2°C, and Gurgaon in neighbouring Haryana crossed 45°C for the first time. Labour-intensive agriculture and construction have become near impossible during afternoons.
•Over the last 100 years, global temperatures have risen by 1.5°C and, at the current rate, could reach 4°C by 2100 — an unthinkable scenario. So far in the year, 2022 has been the fifth-warmest year on record. The prevalence of extreme temperatures around the world suggests that India’s warming is the result not only of local factors but also global warming. In fact, scientists have made clear how greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions exacerbate temperatures in the oceans, leading to soaring temperatures. The culprit in the current plight from intense weather is not Mother Nature but anthropogenic GHG emissions. Crucially, heatwaves and wildfires are ‘unimaginable’ without human-caused climate change, according to a study done by World Weather Attribution in July 2021.
High economic losses
•The impacts are dire across the world. Heatwaves are proving to be Europe’s deadliest climate disaster. India faces the largest heat exposure impacts in South Asia. One study finds that 1,41,308 lives were claimed by acute weather in India during 1971-2019, of which the loss of 17,362 lives was due to unrelenting heat, with mortality rates rising by two-thirds during the time period. Worldwide economic losses, by one estimate, could reach U.S.$1.6 trillion (₹1.6 lakh crore) annually if global warming exceeds 2°C. India, China, Pakistan, and Indonesia, where large numbers of people work outdoors, are among the most vulnerable.
•India’s outdoor workers, reeling under daily temperatures more than 40°C, are on the frontlines of the climate catastrophe. The well-being of outdoor workers will be fundamentally determined by the ability to keep the temperature rise to well below 2°C. Reversing climate change is predicated on leading emitters, including India, moving away from carbon-emitting fossil fuels, and replacing them with cleaner, renewable fuels. But such climate mitigation in India and elsewhere is painfully slow, because of a lack of political will in the major emitting countries for decisive action.
Adaptation is essential
•In the meantime, hotter temperatures are making outdoor work unbearable, in addition to other dire consequences. Climate mitigation or decarbonisation of economies on the part especially of the big emitters, such as the United States, the European Union, China, and India remains an imperative. But temperatures are set to rise regardless of mitigation, based on the emission damage already done. That means climate adaptation, or coping with the predicament, is as big a priority as mitigation.
•A crucial aspect of adaptation is better environmental care that can contribute to cooling. Heatwaves are rooted in degraded land and relentless deforestation, which exacerbate wildfires. Agriculture, being water-intensive, does not do well in heat wave-prone areas. A solution is to promote better agricultural practices which are not water-intensive, and to support afforestation that has a salutary effect on warming.
•Response to the current plight of outdoor workers can be linked to climate adaptation. Financial transfers can be targeted to help farmers plant trees and buy equipment better suited for the extreme weather. For example, support for drip irrigation can reduce heavy water usage. Averting slash and burn agriculture and stubble burning is not only key to cutting air pollution but also cooling temperatures. Urban green such as street trees, urban forests and green roofs can help cool urban areas. Workers in cities and villages can benefit from early warning systems and better preparedness as well as community outreach programmes during an episode.
Collaboration for insurance
•Insurance schemes can help transfer some of the risks of severe heat faced by industrial, construction and agricultural workers to insurers. Insurance against natural hazards is minimal not only in India but also Asia where less than 10% of the losses are typically covered. Government and insurers need to collaborate in providing greater coverage of losses from extreme weather events, including for calamities from brutal heat.
•For greater effectiveness, transfers and insurance payments can be tied to investments in resilience made at the local levels, such as restoring the urban environment that has a cooling effect. Delhi’s Aravali Biodiversity Park is a stand-out example that transformed a barren landscape into forest communities protecting greenery and biodiversity. Transfers could also be linked with mapping of the incidence of heatwaves across locations. The most severely affected areas are also likely to be the most poverty-prone and need stronger insurance packages, including guarantees for crop losses. Incentive schemes could also be tailored to annual changes in the intensity of the hazard.
•Studies warn of heat-stress inequalities where the poorer segments of the populations are especially battered by heatwaves. The projections of the IMD can guide future scenarios, which the Central government can use to develop subsidies and insurance schemes linked to State and district-level actions for building resilience to climate change. Insurance schemes require public and private sectors to jointly set out risk-sharing mechanisms that outdoor workers can avail of.
•Targeted transfers and insurance schemes can cushion financial hardships, for example, by improving crop resilience to heatwaves. Making them part of the Government’s economic programmes is one way to make these safety net policies sustainable and hard to reverse, as international experience with cash transfer programmes shows.
A priority
•India offers a range of food and fuel subsidies, but most of them are poorly targeted. For example, kerosene subsidies provide modest financial benefit to disadvantaged rural households, with only 26% of the subsidy value estimated to reach the poor directly. As the efficiency and the equity of existing subsidies are re-examined, the provision of transfers and insurance linked to building climate resilience should become a priority.
•Heatwaves, exacerbated by climate change, are embroiling regions of India in a downward spiral, and the situation is projected to get worse. Outdoor labourers are especially hammered by the relentless heat. Tying cash transfers and insurance schemes to State and local green investments will not only provide some financial cover for outdoor workers but also motivate small-scale investments in much-needed resilience to heatwaves.
📰 A new track for capital punishment jurisprudence
The Supreme Court of India’s intervention paves the way for reaffirming the fundamentals of the rarest of rare principle
•A recent trend in the evolution of jurisprudence around the death penalty in India may reset judicial thinking around sentencing and have long-term ramifications in the awarding of capital punishment. Over the last six months or so, while dealing with appeals against confirmation of the death sentence, the Supreme Court of India has examined sentencing methodology from the perspective of mitigating circumstances more closely. The Court has also initiated a suo motu writ petition (criminal) to delve deep into these issues on key aspects surrounding our understanding of death penalty sentencing. As such, it is clear that the present trajectory of judicial thinking will not only reaffirm the fundamentals of the rarest of rare principle but also lead a new wave of thinking in the jurisprudence around capital punishment.
Sentencing lapses
•Capital punishment once delivered by the court of sessions (“sentencing court”) is required under law, specifically Chapter 28 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, to be confirmed by the jurisdictional High Court (“confirming court”). The development of case laws on the point of sentencing has emphasised that sentencing cannot be a formality and that the sentencing court must make a genuine effort to hear the accused on the question of sentence. Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980), the leading case on this point, calls for mitigating and aggravating circumstances to be balanced against each other and laid down the principle that the death penalty ought not to be awarded unless the alternative of life imprisonment is “unquestionably foreclosed”. Subsequent cases have developed this position to that of the state (which is the prosecuting agency) having the onus to lead evidence to establish that there is no possibility of reformation of the accused for the sentencing court to impose capital punishment. It is also an equally well-established legal principle that in a sentencing hearing, the accused must necessarily be provided with sufficient opportunity to produce any material that may have bearing on the sentencing exercise. When read in conjunction with the ratio decidendi of the Bachan Singh case, it is incumbent upon the sentencing court and the confirming court to ensure that the question of reform and rehabilitation of a convicted person has been examined in detail for these courts to come to a definitive conclusion that all such options are unquestionably foreclosed.
•In spite of such judicial guidance developed over four decades, studies have shown that when a group of former judges was asked what it considered as a rarest of rare case, the judges gave personalised, subjective and divergent explanations. A report by the National Law University Delhi’s Project 39A (earlier known as the “Centre on the Death Penalty”) titled ‘Matters of Judgment’ found that there is no judicial uniformity or consistency when it comes to awarding the death sentence. In the report titled ‘Death Penalty Sentencing in Trial Courts’ (also authored by Project 39A), findings reported from a study of cases involving death sentencing between 2000 and 2015 in Delhi, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have showed that courts have been lax in assessing the aspect of reformation while undertaking the sentencing exercise.
Mitigation investigation
•On the back of such studies, the Supreme Court has begun to inquire into sentencing methodology with great interest. In Rajendra Pralhadrao Wasnik vs The State of Maharashtra (2018), the Court was open to bringing on record material pertaining to the convict “about his conduct in jail, his conduct outside jail if he has been on bail for some time, medical evidence about his mental make-up, contact with his family and so on”. Building on this, the Court, in Mofil Khan vs State of Jharkhand (2021), held that the “the State is under a duty to procure evidence to establish that there is no possibility of reformation and rehabilitation of the accused” and that “the Court will have to highlight clear evidence as to why the convict is not fit for any kind of reformatory and rehabilitation scheme.”
•Undoubtedly, the onus has been placed on the State to lead evidence to show that no reformation is possible and for the sentencing courts to be satisfied that a thorough mitigation analysis was done before the death sentence is awarded. For a complete mitigation investigation, professionals trained in psychology, sociology and criminology are required in addition to legal professionals. Taking cognisance of the value of a holistic approach to mitigation investigation, the Court in Manoj & Ors vs State of Madhya Pradesh (2022) issued directions to the State to place before the court all “report(s) of all the probation officer(s)” relating to the accused and reports “about their conduct and nature of the work done by them” while in prison. More importantly, the order also directs that a trained psychiatrist and a local professor of psychology conduct a psychiatric and psychological evaluation of the convict.
Suo motu writ petition
•On March 29, 2022, a Bench of the Supreme Court led by Justice U.U. Lalit (along with Justices S. Ravindra Bhat and P.S. Narasimha) was hearing an interlocutory application filed on behalf of a death sentence convict seeking permission for a mitigation investigator from Project 39A be provided permission to conduct interviews and access material pertaining to the prisoner. While doing so, the Court recorded a set of observations around the questions of what may constitute mitigating circumstances, the role of a probation officer in assisting the Court and the potential value addition of a mitigation investigator to the sentencing exercise. These observations now form the basis of a suo motu writ petition (criminal) which will be heard separately and comprehensively on these aspects. The views of the Attorney General representing the Union of India as well as those of the National Legal Services Authority have been sought in this matter; and this is now listed for hearing on May 10, 2022 for consideration of arguments. At this hearing, or soon thereafter, it is hoped that guidelines around best practices in death penalty sentencing will be framed.
Onus on courts
•Nevertheless, it is undeniable that there is a new wave of thinking in this hitherto underexplored domain of sentencing, which forms a key pillar of judicial work. The intervention of the Supreme Court of India in, hopefully, framing guidelines around incorporation of a mitigation analysis and consideration of psycho-social reports of the prisoner at the time of sentencing is timely and necessary. As a result, the responsibility of the sentencing and confirming courts will now be greater in ensuring that no death sentence is manually awarded or routinely confirmed. The entire judicial exercise that has culminated in the institution of the suo motu writ petition will only go to strengthening the doctrine of the rarest of rare, as laid down in the Bachan Singh case and, thereby, reinstating fairness in the death penalty sentencing exercise.
