The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 17th September 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 19th September 2022

• Better regional connectivity is only possible if members grant each other “full transit rights”, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Friday, referring to the refusal by Pakistan to give India transit trade access by land to Afghanistan and Central Asia.
• Russia understands India’s “concerns” over its war in Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin told Prime Minister Narendra Modi, promising to try and end the nine-month-old conflict and blaming the Ukrainian government for prolonging it, in the first meeting between the two leaders on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit here.

• An average of three persons were killed every day in the Capital in road accidents over the last two years, states Delhi Traffic Police’s Delhi Road Crash Report 2021.
• The police data also showed an increase in the number of total road crash victims — 1,239 persons were killed in 2021, while 1,196 died in 2020.
• Brasilia Declaration on Road Safety (2015):
  • The declaration was signed at the second Global High-Level Conference on Road Safety held in Brazil. India is a signatory to the Declaration.
  • The countries plan to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 3.6 i.e. to halve the number of global deaths and injuries from road traffic accidents by 2030.
• Decade of Action for Road Safety 2021-2030:
  • The UN General Assembly adopted resolution “Improving global road safety ” with the ambitious target of preventing at least 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030.
  • The Global Plan aligns with the Stockholm Declaration, by emphasizing the importance of a holistic approach to road safety.

• A below replacement level fertility rate would mean a smaller dividend window than expected
• Though the global population, in terms of numbers, has been steadily increasing — some reports suggest that it could grow to around 8.5 billion in 2030 — there is an interesting aspect to this: average global fertility has been consistently declining over the past 70 years.
• The average number of children per woman in the reproductive age group has declined by 50%, from an average of five children per woman in 1951 to 2.4 children in 2020, according to the World Population Prospects 2022 by the United Nations population estimates and projections, and prepared by the Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat.
• The Indian setting is no different, with its fertility rate falling below the replacement level for the first time to 2.0 in 2021, according to the latest National Family Health Survey (NFHS).
• At the time of Independence, India’s fertility rate was six per woman, and it had taken 25 years to reach five, with the government launching the first ever family planning programme in the world in 1952.
• As reported by the NFHS 2021, only five States have a fertility rate above the replacement rate: Bihar (3), Meghalaya (2.9), Uttar Pradesh (2.4), Jharkhand (2.3), and Manipur (2.2).

What is Contempt?

• While the basic idea of a contempt law is to punish those who do not respect the orders of the courts, in the Indian context, contempt is also used to punish speech that lowers the dignity of the court and interferes with the administration of justice.

Contempt of court can be of two kinds:

1. Civil, that is the willful disobedience of a court order or judgment or willful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
2. Criminal, that is written or spoken words or any act that scandalises the court or lowers its authority or prejudices or interferes with the due course of a judicial proceeding or interferes/obstructs the administration of justice.

Relevant provisions:

• Article 129 and 215 of the Constitution of India empowers the Supreme Court and High Court respectively to punish people for their respective contempt.
• The Constitution also includes contempt of court as a reasonable restriction to the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19, along with elements like public order and defamation.
• Contempt of Courts Act, 1971.

What is Section 375 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC)?

• Section 375 of the IPC defines the acts that constitute rape by a man.
• The provision, however, lays down two exceptions as well.
  • Apart from decriminalising marital rape, it mentions that medical procedures or interventions shall not constitute rape.
  • Exception 2 of Section 375 states that “sexual intercourse or sexual acts by a man with his own wife, the wife not being under fifteen years of age, is not rape”.

• As part of efforts to reduce its carbon footprint, the Indian Air Force (IAF) is looking to fly an AN-32 transport aircraft modified to operate on 10% blended biodiesel for 200 flight hours in the next six months, Air Vice Marshal S. K. Jain, Assistant Chief of the Air Force (Maintenance Plans), said on Friday.
• The aircraft took flight on biodiesel blended with aviation turbine fuel (ATF) for the first time in December 2018.
• The global aviation industry is one of the biggest emitter of greenhouse gases that cause global warming. The fuel consumption of the IAF for 2021-22 was 6.2 lakh kilo litres, which contributed 15 lakh tonnes of carbon dioxide.

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