📰 India ranks 135 out of 146 in Gender Gap Index
Country is worst performer in the world in ‘health and survival’ sub-index: report
•India ranks 135 among a total of 146 countries in the Global Gender Gap Index, 2022, released by the World Economic Forum on Wednesday. The country is the worst performer in the world in the “health and survival” sub-index in which it is ranked 146.
•The Global Gender Report, 2022, which includes the index, says it will now take 132 years to reach gender parity, with the gap reducing only by four years since 2021 and the gender gap closed by 68.1%. But this does not compensate for the generational loss between 2020 and 2021 as the trends leading up to 2020 showed that the gender gap was set to close within 100 years.
•India ranks poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126). Only the performance of Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) was worse than India in South Asia. In 2021, India ranked 140 out of 156 nations.
•The Global Gender Gap Index benchmarks gender parity across four key dimensions or sub-indices — economic participation and opportunity, educational attainment, health and survival, and political empowerment. It measures scores on a 0-to-100 scale, which can be interpreted as the distance covered towards parity or the percentage of the gender gap that has been closed.
Other scores
•India ranks 146 in health and survival, 143 in economic participation and opportunity, 107 in educational attainment and 48 in political empowerment. The report notes that India’s score of 0.629 was its seventh-highest score in the past 16 years.
•India also “recovered” ground since 2021 in economic participation and opportunity, though the report goes on to add that the labour force participation shrunk for both men (by -9.5 percentage points) and women (-3 percentage points).
There is much potential for Seoul to become the fourth pillar in New Delhi’s Indo-Pacific strategy
•Indo-Pacific turbulence has reached an all-time high, to the point where it rivals the diverse foreign policy challenges across the United States and Europe. At a time when the international rules-based order is getting increasingly contested, the options available to governments in the foreign, economic, and security policy areas (including maritime security), are under serious stress.
From drift to a shift
•During the past five years, India and South Korea have experienced considerable divergence in their respective national objectives. There was a clear drift by South Korea away from multilateral security initiatives led by the United States, such as the Quad (the U.S., Australia, India and Japan); meanwhile, India has been actively participating in them.
•The newly elected Korean President, Yoon Suk Yeol, has brought about a paradigm shift in South Korean foreign and security policies. He has proposed that South Korea should step up to become a “global pivotal state, anchored in liberal values and a rules-based order”, that “advances freedom, peace, and prosperity through liberal democratic values and substantial cooperation”. South Korea’s new willingness to become a global pivotal state and play an active role in regional affairs is bound to create multiple opportunities for a multi-dimensional India- Korea partnership.
•In the last few years, India and South Korea have faced serious blockades to their economic ties. Trade between the two countries was sluggish and there was no major inflow of South Korean investment into India. India and South Korea were also trying to upgrade their Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) agreement, but to no avail.
Correcting a China tilt
•South Korea’s strategic policy shift to correct its heavy tilt towards China is bound to bring new economic opportunities for both countries. Both nations will now be in a better position to understand and accommodate the other’s trade investments and supply chain needs. The trade target of $50 billion by 2030, which looked all but impossible a few months ago, now seems within reach.
•The emerging strategic alignment is creating a new convergence of capabilities and closer synergy in new areas of economic cooperation such as public health, green growth, digital connectivity, and trade, among others.
•In 2020, India and South Korea signed a Roadmap for Defence Industries Cooperation between the Republic of India and the Republic of Korea (ROK) deal. However, due to the lack of political and strategic alignment, nothing came of it. With the strategic shift in South Korea’s defence orientation, new doors of cooperation for defence and security have emerged. Advanced defence technologies and modern combat systems are the new domains for the next level of defence cooperation between the two countries.
Indo-Pacific outlook
•South Korea’s participation in additional maritime security activities in the Indian Ocean, such as the annual Malabar and other exercises with Quad countries, will further strengthen India’s naval footprint in the Indo-Pacific region. During the Moon Jae-in presidency in Korea, Japan and South Korea were at loggerheads. There was little scope for strengthening the trilateral security dialogue in the region between India, South Korea and Japan. The shift in South Korean policies will enable a strong India, South Korea and Japan defence policy coordination that could effectively forge new joint regional security policies.
•India has evolved excellent strategic partnerships with Japan, Vietnam and Australia. Unfortunately, so far, South Korea has not received the same level of attention from the Indian establishment. This needs to change. South Korea could be the fourth pillar in India’s Indo-Pacific strategy along with Japan, Australia, and Vietnam. This can bring about a paradigm shift in India’s position and influence in the region.
•The time has come for the Indian and South Korean bilateral partnership to be strategically scaled up at the political, diplomatic and security domain levels. With South Korea’s emergence as a leader in critical technologies, cybersecurity and cyber-capacity building, outer space and space situational awareness capabilities, South Korea can contribute immensely to enhance India’s foundational strengths in the Indo-Pacific.
•However, the current emerging alignment between India and South Korea, which has the potential to bring the two countries closer together, may prove short lived if proper attention is not paid to the multi-dimensional challenges it faces. The Chinese leadership is adversely impacted by policy changes brought in by the Yoon administration. The real challenge for global geopolitics is this: can South Korea withstand the inevitable Chinese pressure and stick to its new alignment?
The U.S. factor, North Korea
•As Republicans are gaining strength again in domestic politics in the U.S., we need to consider what will happen if the former U.S. President, Donald Trump, returns to power in the next elections. Mr. Trump was unconvinced about the relevance of the U.S.-Korea partnership and had discussed withdrawing U.S. forces from South Korea.
•The threat of Mr. Trump at one time to abandon the relationship with South Korea was real. This situation was prevented by Mr. Yoon’s dynamism that encouraged all major powers to support South Korea’s stand for stability and peace.
•South Korea’s peace process with North Korea has completely collapsed. In the coming days, as North Korea conducts more missile and nuclear tests, it may lead to regional tension. Any breakout of hostilities on the Korean Peninsula can derail South Korea’s Indo-Pacific project.
•During the Moon presidency, South Korea was forced to sign the “three no’s” agreement with China. Under this agreement, Korea agreed to: no additional Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) deployment; no participation in the U.S.’s missile defence network, and no establishment of a trilateral military alliance with the U.S. and Japan.
•India can help South Korea withstand Chinese pressure and North Korean threats. An independent, strong, and democratic South Korea can be a long-term partner with India, that will add significant value to India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This new partnership can have a long-term positive impact for both countries and the Indo-Pacific region. It is an opportunity that neither country can afford to miss.
📰 ‘India has achieved clean energy targets 9 years before deadline’
We have installed 162 GW of renewable energy capacity, says Power Minister
•India has achieved clean energy targets nine years ahead of schedule, Union Power Minister R.K. Singh said at the Sydney Energy Forum in Sydney on Wednesday.
•India has installed 162 GW (1 GW is 1,000 MW) of renewable energy capacity, which is 41% of the 402 GW of electricity installed.
•“We reached this target on November 2021 and what our Prime Minister did was ask us to raise our ambition and so in Glasgow (at the UN COP-21) our Prime Minister committed to installing 500 GW of renewable energy by 2030, which would then be 50% of the installed capacity. Despite having among the lowest per capita emissions in the world, we have invested in this energy transition because our traditions teach us to respect and care for our environment. We are not doing this for economic reasons,” Mr. Singh said.
•In 2015, India committed to ensuring that 40% of its energy would be from renewable sources by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).
•Ministers from the United States, Japan, India, Indonesia, and the Pacific Island nation of Samoa are attending the forum along with leaders of major companies that are committed to low emissions technologies.
•The forum, said a statement from the Australian government, will “foster connections between investors, business and government with a focus on innovations in key clean energy technologies such as solar, hydrogen, critical minerals and batteries”.
•The energy crisis that has gripped the world has been “some time in the making” and not only due to the Russia-Ukraine war but because of the “cartelisation in the fossil fuel industry.”
•He said that renewable energy promised to break these cartels though it was possible that there would be newer such cartels forming in manufacturing and equipment and the world would have to take steps to ensure that these do not coalesce.
📰 The President is not a mere rubber stamp
It is possible for a President to intervene on behalf of the citizenry against the tyranny of the executive
•India is going to elect its new President on July 18. The new President will be sworn in on July 25. Choosing the presidential candidate is an intensely political exercise. Deep political calculations go into it. It is for this reason that the country is often taken by surprise by the choice the ruling party makes. But once the President is elected, the excitement subsides and for the next five years not much attention is paid to the Rashtrapati Bhavan.
An issue of importance
•Nevertheless, in the prevailing political atmosphere, the question ‘what kind of President does India need?’ assumes great significance. It is true that the nominee of the ruling alliance is going to be the next President. Still, the stature, the moral standing and the level of acceptability of the person are important considerations when the country chooses a new President.
•Let us first take a closer look at the President who emerges from the Constitution. There was a great deal of debate in the Constituent Assembly on the President. The main question debated therein was whether India should have a directly elected President or an indirectly elected one. The Assembly opted for an indirectly elected President. There were members such as Professor K.T. Shah who strongly argued for a directly elected President. He asked a rhetorical question, which was whether the Assembly wanted the president to be a “sort of mere gramophone of the Prime Minister.” Dr. B.R. Ambedkar said: “Our President is merely a nominal figurehead. He has no discretion; he has no powers of administration at all.”
•But is the President of India a mere figurehead? Article 53 of the Constitution says that “the executive power of the Union shall be vested in the President and shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him in accordance with this Constitution.” It means the President exercises these powers only on the aid and the advice of the Council of Ministers. So, it makes sense for the people to ask why we should have a President who signs on the dotted line. The way some of our Presidents have acted in the past reinforces that public perception. But we must not forget that some of our Presidents did live up to the implications of the office of the President of the Republic. So, we come back to the question of how crucial this office is to the governance of the country.
Poll method, people’s role
•To answer this question, we need to first take a closer look at the method of election of the President. It is an indirect election in the sense that the people do not directly elect the President. Under Article 54, the President is elected by an electoral college consisting of only the elected members of both Houses of Parliament and the elected members of the State and Union Territory Assemblies.
•However, a matter of importance in this context is the vote value of Members of the Legislative Assemblies (MLAs) and the formula for its computation. The vote of an MLA, though one, is assigned a certain higher value. This value is calculated by first dividing the total population of the State (as per the 1971 Census) by the total strength of the Assembly, and then the quotient is divided by one thousand. The result is the value of a vote. Calculated this way, the vote value of an MLA in the State of Uttar Pradesh, for example, is 208.
•The point is that in the computation of the value, the population of the State figures in a significant way. In other words, the population of the country is a crucial factor in the election of the President, which means the people’s presence in the process of electing the President is very much visible. This gives a wider base to the President than a mere vote by the legislators on the basis of one member, one vote. This also gives the President a greater moral authority. So, the Indian President is not and cannot be a mere rubber stamp. He does not directly exercise the executive authority of the Union, but he can disagree with the decision of the Council of Ministers, caution them, counsel them, and so on. The President can ask the Cabinet to reconsider its decisions. It is another matter that if the Cabinet, after such reconsideration, sends the same proposal back without any change, the President will have to sign it. That is because under the Cabinet system of government, it is the Cabinet which is responsible for the government’s decisions. The President is in no way personally responsible for those decisions which he or she approves.
•But the point to note is that the President can disagree with the decisions of the Cabinet and ask the Cabinet to reconsider them. The Constitution of India wants the President to be vigilant and responsive, and gives the freedom to him or her to take a broader view of things uninfluenced by the narrow political view of the executive.
•This point becomes clearer when we take a look at the oath the President takes before entering office. The oath contains two solemn promises. First, the President shall preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. Second, the President shall devote himself or herself to the service and the well-being of the people of India. A President who makes the above promises under oath to the people cannot act, in the words of Professor K.T. Shah, as a gramophone of the Prime Minister.
•But how does a President preserve, protect and defend the Constitution? It is an extremely tricky area. Experience shows that our Presidents do not normally think about their oath when the executive moves to bulldoze the rights and the liberties of citizens. There are very few democratic countries in the world where the executive has concentrated so much power in itself as in India. This trend started in the 1970s, and over the years the executive has grown into a behemoth.
A perspective
•So, when the omnipotent executive moves to crush the liberty of citizens, the people do not, in the normal course, think of approaching the President who is otherwise oath-bound to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution. The reason is that Presidents are not normally found interceding on behalf of aggrieved citizens even when there is an egregious violation of the rule of law and constitutional guarantees given to the citizens. There were Presidents such as Rajendra Prasad and Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan who openly differed with the government on certain policy issues and could exert tremendous influence on the government. Thus, it is possible for a President to disagree with the government or intervene on behalf of the citizenry against the tyranny of the executive and persuade it to give up its ways. The solemn oath the President takes requires him or her to do it. Such persons alone can rise to the level of the President; others can only be presidential office holders. India needs Presidents, not presidential office holders.
📰 In high-res: unfolding mysteries of the night sky
With the release of its first five stunning images, the James Webb Space Telescope has demonstrated an acute observational capacity and revealed aspects of the cosmos hitherto hidden from other telescopes
•As light travels with a velocity of about 3,00,000 km per second, light from a distant object will take time to reach us on Earth. Hence, when we see a distant stellar object, we see it as if it were far back in time. To collect more light we need giant infrared telescopes. JWST is the biggest infrared telescope ever built.
•The first five images released are — the deep field image of the SMACS 0723 cluster of galaxies which date back to times when the first stars were born, the Carina Nebula vividly showing the birth of new stars, the Southern Ring Nebula which details a dying star, the Stephan's quintet where we can see the cataclysmic cosmic collision of galaxies and finally the WASP-96 b, an exoplanet (a planet orbiting a distant star).
•The spectroscopic observation of JWST reveals that there is a considerable amount of water vapour in the WASP-96 b's atmosphere. However due to the blistering heat, WASP-96 is unlikely to host life.
•On November 30, 1609, Galileo turned his telescope towards the night sky. This singular act revolutionised astronomy. Until then, scholars held that celestial objects were without any kind of blemish. Galileo showed that the Moon had craters and mountains. All celestial objects, including stars, were thought to go around the Earth. The telescope, by observing phases of Venus firmly established that planets go around the Sun and not the Earth. The Milky Way, a haze in the dark night teemed with hundreds of stars, established that the cosmos is immense and beyond our imagination. Galileo revolutionised astronomy using a crude telescope which by today's standards is merely a toy.
•The first five images released by NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) on July 11, captured by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is no less momentous in the history of astronomy than the day Galileo turned his telescope toward the heavens.
•The deep field image of the SMACS 0723 cluster of galaxies has images that date back to times when the first stars were born. The images from Carina Nebula vividly show the birth of new stars. In contrast, the Southern Ring Nebula image details a dying star. In Stephan's quintet, the JWST has captured the cataclysmic cosmic collision of galaxies. By analysing the spectrum of the radiation from WASP-96 b, an exoplanet (a planet orbiting a distant star), the telescope has shown conclusively the presence of water vapour in the atmosphere of this hot, puffy gas giant planet orbiting a distant Sun-like star. With its sharp vision, more light-collecting area and ability to see in the invisible infrared regions, the JWST is sure to expand our understanding of the cosmos.
Peering back in time
•About 13.8 billion years ago, through the Big Bang, our Universe emerged. The first stars and galaxies were born around 300 million years after the Big Bang. To know more about the formation of these stars and galaxies, we do not need a time machine or time travel. As light travels with a velocity of about 3,00,000 km per second, light from a distant object will take time to reach us on Earth. Hence, when we see a distant stellar object, we see it as if it were far back in time. Powerful telescopes are therefore, like time machines.
•However since objects far away are dim, we need giant telescopes to collect more light. Further, light from distant objects is stretched out by the expansion of our Universe, driving the radiation from the visible range into the infrared. Therefore, to look deep back into the early phases of the Universe, we need a giant infrared telescope. JWST is the biggest infrared telescope ever built. With a 6.5-metre primary mirror, the JWST infrared telescope collects more photons than Hubble. It can see even the faintest flicker from the most distant regions of the cosmos.
Cluster of galaxies
•The SMACS 0723 is a noted cluster of galaxies around 5.12 billion light-years away. Situated in the direction of the southern constellation of Volans, the image is as it appeared 4.6 billion years ago, about the same time when the Sun and the Earth evolved. The cluster has been previously studied by Hubble, Planck and Chandra space telescopes. But the rich details and features of the JWST's Near-Infrared Camera (NIRCam) are unmatched.
•With a sharper vision than Hubble, many of the galaxies seen clearly in this image appear as mere blobs in Hubble's telescope. SMACS 0723 galaxy cluster is massive, which, as Einstein's general relativity theory predicts, distorts the fabric of spacetime. Like the refraction of a ray of light passing through a lens, the light from behind bends through the massive cluster. Due to this ''gravitational lensing'' effect, we notice that some galaxies appear distorted in an arc shape, some are split into multiple images, and some are magnified.
•The kaleidoscope of colours in the image captured by the JWST's Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) are false colours (false colour refers to colour rendering methods used to display images which were recorded in the visible or non-visible parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, in colour) corresponding to a radiation wavelength. Galaxies that appear blue in this image contain stars but very little dust. The cosmic objects enveloped by dust appear red. Objects rich in hydrocarbons and other chemical compounds are green.
•“A couple of galaxies are found to be at a redshift of eight, corresponding to a lookback time of ~ 13.0 billion years, a mere ~800 million years after the Big Bang. These are some of the oldest galaxies ever known” says Manoj Puravankara, Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Mumbai.
Where stars are born
•Stars and star clusters are formed inside giant gas clouds. Typically the massive interstellar clouds where new stars are formed are huge with diameters of about 100 light-years and holding nearly six million solar masses. There is enough material for making hundreds of stars out of this. Nonetheless, the density of these clouds is just 100 atoms per cubic centimetre. Stars typically have about 10^22 (one followed by 22 zeros) atoms per cubic centimetre. While various theories explain how the dispersed mass aggregate and stars evolve, hard evidence is still lacking. The visible light is obscured by the thick dust that goes into the making of these stars and render it opaque. Shrouded in thick dust clouds, these star forming regions remained hidden to even powerful telescopes, until now.
•One such stellar nursery booming with new stars is a giant interstellar gas cloud in our galaxy called NGC 3324, located in the direction of the Carina Nebula. The stunning image of an edge of the NGC 3324, dubbed Cosmic Cliff, located approximately 7,600 light-years from Earth, is home to many massive and young stars than our Sun. With the giant gas cloud condensing into new stars, this is an active star-forming region. Hot gas and dust emit infrared light. By steering its NIRCam and MIRI instruments into the highly-dense dust clouds, the JWST has revealed rich details of this star formation region.
•The striking image shows many exciting features in the innards of the star-forming regions. Hundreds of baby stars, previously invisible to telescopes, shine through the dust cloud. Thin gas pervades the space between the stars called the interstellar medium. When the infant stars begin to shine, they blow away the interstellar matter. The region devoid of gas appears in the image in the shape of bubbles and cavities. The mountains and valleys in the interstellar medium shaped by the radiation from the budding stars are visible, while the stars located in the centre of the bubble are off the frame. Other phenomena that one sees in the image include ionised gas and hot dust wafting away due to radiation from young stars, casing turbulence and eddies and dust swirling in the surrounding gas. What appears as a golden comet in this image are actually jet outflows from the newborn stars.
•Two Indian astronomers are slated to use the JWST data to study star formation. Manoj Puravankara will be using the data obtained from Near Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and MIRI instruments to study the earliest phases of star formation, that is the protoplanetary disks — the birthplaces of planetary systems. “JWST's unprecedented sensitivity, angular resolution, and spectral resolution allow us to study various mass flows that shape and regulate the formation of stars and planetary systems” he says.
•Jessy Jose, Assistant Professor from the Department of Physics, IISER Tirupati will be part of an international collaboration to study the very massive, dense molecular cloud within the central molecule zone of our Milky Way in order to understand the young stellar objects within it. “The NIRcam and MIRI instruments of JWST which broadly covers the wavelength range from 0.6 to 28-micron meter will enable us to characterise the very early phase of star formation” she says.
A star on its deathbed
•The Eight-Burst Nebula, also known as the Southern Ring Nebula or NGC 3132, is a well-known planetary nebula in the constellation Vela, located approximately 2,500 light-years from Earth.
•Despite their name, planetary nebulae have nothing to do with planets. They are gas shells formed from the cast-off outer layers of a dying star. Intermediate mass stars with a mass of 0.8 to eight times the mass of the Sun end their lives with drama. They do not die in one big explosion but go through a cycle of fits and starts. The dying star will expel its outer layer and expand, while simultaneously, its core will contract. The contracting centre will once again start to emit energy, and the star will have a lease of life. The expelled shell is pushed by this radiation and expands in space like a ring around the central star. After some time, the central star again sheds its outer layer while the remaining core contracts. Over time successive waves of expelled outer shells surround the central star-like concentric rings. The remaining core of the star ultimately becomes a faint glowing white dwarf. After trillions of years, they cool down and no longer shine, ultimately becoming black dwarfs. The near-infrared light is false coloured blue, and the mid-infrared light is red in this impressive image by the JWST. The consecutive waves of expelled shells can be clearly seen. If you look closely at the central region, a redder star shining next to a bright blue one can be seen. Astronomers knew that the Southern Ring Nebula was a binary star system. For the first time, we can clearly see the second star hidden behind the dust clouds.
•Out Sun, an intermediate-mass star, will undergo a similar fate.
Cosmic waltz
•Situated in the direction of the constellation Pegasus, around 290 million light-years away from Earth, is the clutch of five galaxies, each bound with the other called the Stephan's Quintet. Four of these close-knit galaxies are in a sort of dangerous waltz dance. Two of them are currently in the process of merging into one another. Studying such cataclysmic galactic interactions will help us understand how these lead to star formation, evolution, and central black holes in galaxies.
Hunt for the extra-terrestrial
•Located around 1,150 light-years from Earth, WASP-96b is an exoplanet (a planet that orbits another star) orbiting a star named WASP-96. The planet has a mass half that of Jupiter and goes around the central star every 3.4 days. The light from the central star will pass through the planet's atmosphere when its edge is in the line of sight of the Earth. The molecules present in the atmosphere will first absorb the light entering the atmosphere. Then it would be remitted. By comparing the star's spectrum and the starlight passing through the planet's atmosphere, astronomers can discern the molecular composition. The spectroscopic observation of JWST reveals, for example, that there is a considerable amount of water vapour in the WASP-96 b's atmosphere.
•With blistering heat, WASP-96 is unlikely to host life; However, astronomers will use the same technique to examine other exo-planets, particularly those in the habitable zone of the central star. Finding water vapour, hydrocarbons, methane, and other atmospheric elements could indirectly indicate life.
📰 Assessing juvenility a ‘delicate task’: SC
Two-judge Bench calls for ‘meticulous psychological investigation’ before arriving at the decision
•The “delicate task” of deciding whether juveniles aged between 16 and 18, accused of heinous offences such as murder, can be tried like adults should be based on “meticulous psychological investigation” rather than be left to the discretion and perfunctory “wisdom” of juvenile justice boards and children’s courts across the country, the Supreme Court held in a judgment on Wednesday.
Initial assessment
•Section 15 of the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act of 2015 requires a “preliminary assessment” to be done of the mental and physical capacity of juveniles, aged between 16 and 18, who are involved in serious crimes.
•The assessment is meant to gauge a child’s ability to understand the consequences of the offence and the circumstances in which he or she allegedly committed the offence.
•If the Juvenile Justice Board is of the opinion that the juvenile should not be treated as an adult, it would not pass on the case to the children’s court and hear the case itself. In that case, if the child is found guilty, he would be sent to juvenile care for three years.
•On the other hand, if the Board decides to refer the case to the children’s court for trial as an adult, the juvenile, if guilty, would even face life imprisonment.
‘Mental capacity’
•“The report of the preliminary assessment decides the germane question of transferring the case of a child between 16 and 18 years of age to the children’s court. This evaluation of ‘mental capacity and ability to understand the consequences’ of the child in conflict with law can, in no way, be relegated to the status of a perfunctory and a routine task. The process of taking a decision on which the fate of the child in conflict with law precariously rests, should not be taken without conducting a meticulous psychological evaluation,” a Bench of Justices Dinesh Maheshwari and Vikram Nath observed.
•The court discovered that there were neither guidelines nor a specific framework in place for conduct of the preliminary assessment.
Guidelines needed
•“It appears expedient that appropriate and specific guidelines are put in place… We leave it open for the Centre and the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the State Commission for Protection of Child Rights to consider issuing guidelines or directions in this regard,” Justice Nath, who authored the judgment, ordered.
•The court said the Board which conducts the assessment of the child should have at least one child psychologist. It should further take the assistance of experienced psychologists or psychosocial workers.
•The apex court’s judgment came while dismissing the appeals filed by the CBI and the relative of a Class 2 child who was allegedly found murdered in the washroom of his Gurugram school in 2017.
•The suspect, a Class 9 student of the same school, underwent a preliminary assessment in which it was decided that he should be tried as an adult. The Bench found that his assessment was limited to an IQ test. The apex court upheld the High Court’s decision to reverse the assessment and refer the case back to the Juvenile Justice Board for a fresh ‘preliminary assessment’ of the now 21-year-old.
