The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 15th September 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 16th September 2022

• Union Home Minister Amit Shah said on Wednesday that only 6% of the children received education in English and a large majority who did not speak fluent English were deprived of a platform at the national and State levels.
• They depend on each other for their growth, says Minister.

Rashtriya Hindi Divas is observed across India every year on 14^th September.

• The Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in Devnagari Script along with English as the official language of the country on September 14, 1949, under Article 343(1).
  • Initially, English was granted the official language status for only 15 years since the adoption of the constitution. During these 15 years, Hindi’s reach was to be promoted for official purposes as well as in the education sector so that English would fade out, giving ground to Hindi.
  • Imposition of Hindi was contested in many non-Hindi states, especially in the southern state of Tamil Nadu. Violent protests broke out in southern India leading the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, to introduce the ‘Official Languages Act’ in 1963, which assured the continuation of English along with Hindi as the official language of the Union of India.
• Anti-Hindi protests of 1965 marked an important turn in India’s official language policy. The ‘Official Languages Act’ was amended in 1967 guaranteeing the “virtual indefinite policy of bilingualism” for all official purposes of the Union.

Constitutional Provisions

• Article 343(1) states that the Official Language of the Union government shall be Hindi in Devanagari script.
• Article 351 gives power to the Union Government to issue a directive for the development of the Hindi language.
• The Hindi language is one of the 22 languages of the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution of India.
• The first world World Hindi Conference was organized in Nagpur on January 10, 1975. To commemorate the occasion, the government of India since 2006 is celebrating 10^thJanuary as World Hindi Day.

• The Union Cabinet under the chairmanship of Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the addition of four tribes to the list of Scheduled Tribes (ST), including those from Himachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh.
• The Hatti tribe in the Trans-Giri area of Sirmour district in Himachal Pradesh, the Narikoravan and Kurivikkaran hill tribes of Tamil Nadu, and the Binjhia tribe in Chhattisgarh, which was listed as ST in Jharkhand and Odisha but not in Chhattisgarh, were the communities added to the list.
• Article 366(25) of the Constitution only provides process to define Scheduled Tribes: “Scheduled Tribes means such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this Constitution
• .”342(1): The President may with respect to any State or Union Territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor, by a public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within tribes or tribal communities as Scheduled Tribe in relation to that State or Union Territory.
• The Fifth Schedule lays out provision for Administration and Control of Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in states other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.
• The Sixth Schedule deals with the administration of the tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

• Life expectancy in India has more than doubled since Independence — from around 32 years in the late 1940s to 70 years or so today.
• Over the same period, the fertility rate has crashed from about six children per woman to just two, liberating women from the shackles of repeated child-bearing and child care.
• The share of the elderly (persons aged 60 years and above) in India’s population, close to 9% in 2011, is growing fast and may reach 18% by 2036 according to the National Commission on Population.
• If India is to ensure a decent quality of life for the elderly in the near future, planning and providing for it must begin today.
• Among persons aged 60 and above, 30% to 50% (depending on gender and age group) had symptoms that make them likely to be depressed.
• The hardships of old age are not related to poverty alone, but some cash often helps.
• India has important schemes of non-contributory pensions for the elderly, widowed women and disabled persons under the National Social Assistance Programme (NSAP), administered by the Ministry of Rural Development.
• Alas, eligibility for NSAP is restricted to “below poverty line” (BPL) families, based on outdated and unreliable BPL lists, some of them are 20 years old.
• “Targeting” social benefits is always difficult. Restricting them to BPL families has not worked well: there are huge exclusion errors in the BPL lists. When it comes to old-age pensions, targeting is not a good idea in any case.
• For one thing, targeting tends to be based on household rather than individual indicators. A widow or elderly person, however, may experience major deprivations even in a relatively well-off household.

• The UNESCO United Nations World Water Development Report of 2022 has encapsulated global concern over the sharp rise in freshwater withdrawal from streams, lakes, aquifers and human-made reservoirs, impending water stress and also water scarcity being experienced in different parts of the world.
• In 2007, ‘Coping with water scarcity’ was the theme of World Water Day (observed on March 22).
• The new Water Report of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) sounded a note of caution about this silent crisis of a global dimension, with millions of people being deprived of water to live and to sustain their livelihood.
• A NITI Aayog report, ‘Composite Water Management Index’ (2018) has sounded a note of caution about the worst water crisis in the country, with more than 600 million people facing acute water shortages.
• Whatever be the source, surface or groundwater, cities largely depend on rural areas for raw water supply, which has the potential to ignite the rural-urban dispute.

• The latest disengagement along the LAC is a welcome step, but the border crisis is not over .
• Moreover, China has neither agreed to resolve stand-offs in Demchok and Depsang, suggesting they pre-dated the current tensions, nor shown any intent to de-escalate, instead continuing to build forward infrastructure aimed at permanently housing a large number of troops closer to the LAC.

• Recently, a controversy bubbled up regarding the marketing strategies of Micro Labs, a Bengaluru-based pharmaceutical company. Micro Labs, the maker of Dolo-650, was charged of having bribed medical doctors with freebies worth ₹1,000 crore in one year to promote Dolo-650.
• Dolo is an analgesic and antipyretic — a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory medication to help with fever and mild pain. It can be purchased from a chemist without a medical prescription.
• The paracetamol API is mostly imported from China. There has been significant upward pricing pressure, mostly because of the difficulty of ensuring regular supply from China.
• The Uniform Code of Pharmaceuticals Marketing Practices explicitly prohibits gifts, payments and hospitality benefits to doctors on the part of medical representatives.
• Pharmaceutical firms have been declaring their compliance with, and adherence to, this code since 2015, if not earlier.
• This code has been fully voluntary since 2015. There is also no enforcement mechanism. The Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance, which is meant to “enforce” the code, has promptly given Micro Labs a ‘clean chit’.
• There’s more. Para 1.5 of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002 states that every physician should, as far as possible, prescribe drugs with generic names.
• a move to prescriptions without brand names should be the default practice.

• Missing from the freebie debate are power subsidies, which constitute a significant share of the subsidy expenditure of many States
• Chief Justice N.V. Ramana said, “We are not just looking at this as just another problem during election time… We are looking at the national economic well-being.”

• The Election Commission of India (ECI) in the Supreme Court has said that due to the lack of a specific law against hate speech and rumour mongering during polls, it has to resort to the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Representation of the People (RP) Act to ensure that members of political parties do not make statements which can create disharmony in society.
• It referred to several Supreme Court judgments, among them the Abhiram Singh case, which had held that “any appeal to vote or refrain from voting for a candidate on the grounds of religion, caste, race, community or language by a candidate or his agent to the electors would amount to corrupt practice under the 1951 Act”.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO):

• SCO is a permanent intergovernmental international organization.
• It’s a Eurasian political, economic and military organization aiming to maintain peace, security and stability in the region.
• It was created in 2001. The SCO Charter was signed in 2002, and entered into force in 2003.

Genesis:

• Prior to the creation of SCO in 2001, Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan were members of the Shanghai Five.
• Shanghai Five (1996) emerged from a series of border demarcation and demilitarization talks which the four former Soviet republics held with China to ensure stability along the borders.
• Following the accession of Uzbekistan to the organization in 2001, the Shanghai Five was renamed the SCO.
• India and Pakistan became members in 2017.

• “The Ministry would continue to operate the helpline 1098 in strict compliance with the provisions of Juvenile Justice Act 2015,” the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) said.
• The helpline 1098 used to be referred as Childline, which has now been referred as Children Helpline.

Childline India Foundation:

• Childline 1098 is a service of Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• Childline India Foundation is a Non-Government Organisation (NGO) in India that operates this telephonic helpline, for children in distress.
• The Childline 1098 is a 24-hour a day, 365 days a year, free, emergency phone service for children in need of aid and assistance.

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