11 June 2024

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – All About Parliamentary Privileges: GS II – Parliament-related issues

Background of the PV Narasimha Rao Case:

• In the 1993 P V Narasimha Rao case, some MPs from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) were accused of taking bribes to vote against a “No-Confidence” motion.
• This case brought up claims of corruption in the political system, which made people worry about the fairness of the legislative process and the responsibility of elected officials.

What the court said in the 1998 case:

• In 1998, the Supreme Court said that MPs and MLAs could not be charged with bribes as long as they kept their end of the deal.
• The Supreme Court said that the people who took bribes to vote against the motion of no-confidence could not be charged with a crime because of Parliamentary Privilege (Article 105(2)).
• This ruling showed how important it is for government to be stable and for parliamentary democracy to work.
• The court said that the stability of the government was more important than holding individuals accountable. This means that charging lawmakers with bribery could possibly make the government less stable.

What the court saw in the 2024 case:

• The Constitution Bench of 7 judges reversed the decision of the 5 judges in the P.V. Case of Narasimha Rao v. State, 1998.
• It was decided that Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies were immune to prosecution if they voted in the House after being paid to do so.
• The Supreme Court made it clear that bribery hurts democracy and good government.
• The court made it clear that taking a bribe is a different crime that has nothing to do with the main jobs of lawmakers in the Parliament or legislative assembly.
• It is against the law for a public worker to be bribed, according to Section 7 of the Prevention of Corruption Act.
• Because of this, the protections in Articles 105 and 194 of the Constitution do not apply to cases of bribery.
• In order to uphold the ideals of a responsible, responsive, and representative democracy in India, this choice marks a shift towards putting accountability and integrity in government above stability alone.

What are the privileges of the Parliament?

• There are special rights, exemptions, and immunities that Parliament members and their committees receive. These are called “parliamentary privileges.”
• Article 105 of the Indian Constitution spells out these rights.
• Article 194 says that members of the Legislative Assemblies of states have the same rights.
• Because of these protections, MPs are not legally responsible for anything they say or do while doing their jobs. They are only legally responsible for criminal offences.

Parliament hasn’t passed any special laws to list all of the benefits in detail. Instead, they come from five places:

• Provisions in the Constitution
• Several rules that Parliament made
• Rules for each House
• Conventions of parliament
• Interpretations by the courts

Benefits of being an individual member:

• Article 105 (1): Freedom of Speech in Parliament
• Article 105(2) says that a member is immune from action in any court because of what he or she said or voted in Parliament or any of its committees.
• The publication of any report, paper, votes, or actions by or under the authority of either House of Parliament does not subject the person to any court proceedings (Article 105(2)).
• Courts are not allowed to look into the legality of any actions in Parliament because they think there were mistakes in the way they were done. That’s Article 122(1).
• As per Section 135A of the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, members of the House or a Committee of the House are not allowed to be arrested in civil cases during the meeting and for forty days before and after the meeting.

Collective Right to Own a House:

• The House has the right to know right away if a member is arrested, detained, convicted, jailed, or released.
• Power to avoid being arrested or served with court papers inside the House without the Chairman or Speaker’s permission.
• Keeping the details of a secret meeting of the House from being made public.
• Before they are put on the Table of the House, the evidence presented to a Parliamentary Committee, as well as its report and proceedings, cannot be shared or sold to the public.
• Members or staff of the House cannot testify or present in court documents that relate to the work of the House without first getting permission from the House.
• In the State of Kerala Vs. K. Ajith Case, 2021, the Supreme Court said, “Privileges and immunities are not an easy way to get out of following the general law of the land, especially the criminal law that everyone has to follow.”
• The Kerala government asked the Supreme Court in July 2021 to drop all charges against its MLAs who were charged in the assembly, but the court said no.

What are the norms for parliamentary privileges around the world?

UK:

• The Parliament at Westminster has the same rights, such as the freedom to speak out, not being arrested, and the power to control its own procedures.
• Laws, common law, and past cases have all worked together to make these rights possible.

In Canada:

• The Parliament of Canada has also given its members rights, such as the freedom to speak their minds, the right not to be arrested, and the power to punish people who break these rights.
• The Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act spell out these rights.

Australia:

• The Parliament of Australia follows similar rules, and its Constitution protects certain rights. Members are free to say what they want, can’t be arrested, and can control how their meetings go.

Why do we need to write down parliamentary privileges?

Parliamentary privileges need to be written down:

• Clarity and Accuracy: Codification would make the meaning of parliamentary privileges clear and accurate. It would make it clear what a violation of rights is, clearing up any confusion.
• If there is a law, it would set a clear limit above which privilege violations can’t be punished.
• Better Accountability: If there were clearer rules for parliamentary privilege, there would be better accountability mechanisms. This way, lawmakers could use their privileges responsibly while also being inspected and watched over properly.
• Modernization and Adaptation: Writing down parliamentary privilege would allow old laws to be updated and made more in line with modern ways of running the government and social norms. This would make sure that legislative privileges are still useful and effective in a political world that is changing quickly.
• Checks and Balances: Codification would add checks and balances to rights, which would stop people from abusing them. It would stop press freedom from being limited for no reason.

Parliamentary privileges don’t need to be written down:

• Risk of Encroachment on Parliamentary Autonomy: Making parliamentary privilege official could mean that the legislature’s independence is threatened by giving the courts or the government more power to oversee parliamentary business.
• Article 122 says that judges can’t look into what Parliament is doing, which goes against the Constitutional Mandate. The law also says that any procedures in Parliament cannot be called into question because of a supposed problem with the way they were done.
• Loss of Flexibility: Codification could make parliamentary privilege less flexible, making it harder to react to surprise events or shifting political dynamics that might call for a more nuanced approach to legislative matters.
• Complicated and Lengthy Process: Making parliamentary privilege official could be hard and take a long time. It would need a lot of discussion and agreement-building between lawmakers, legal experts, and civil society groups.
• Members of parliament are given special rights to make sure things run smoothly. But these benefits must be in line with basic rights, since MPs work for the people.
• If these rights are harmed by privileges, democracy loses its core. MPs should be careful not to abuse their powers.

Source – The Hindu

2 – Growth of the Chalukyan Empire: GS I – Indian Culture

Context:

• The Public Research Institute of History, Archaeology, and Heritage (PRIHAH) has found two old temples from the Badami Chalukyan period and a rare inscription in the village of Mudimanikyam in the district of Nalgonda in Telangana.

What are the most important parts of the recent dig?

• Shrines: The two shrines at the end of the village were built between 543 AD and 750 AD, during the time of the Badami Chalukyas.
• In the Rekha nagara style, they show off unique building styles that combine Badami Chalukyan and Kadamba Nagara styles.
• It has been found in the inner sanctorum of one temple to be the base of a Shiva lingam.
• In another, a statue of Vishnu was found.
• writing: Another thing that was found is a writing from the 8th or 9th century AD that is called “Gandaloranru.”
• Significance: The Jogulamba temples at Alampur and the submerged sites of Yeleswaram were once thought to be the farthest Badami Chalukya impact.
• The new find greatly increases the size of the known Chalukya kingdom.

What are the most important facts about the Chalukya Dynasty?

• From the sixth century to the 12th century, the Chalukya family ruled over large parts of southern and central India.
• The Chalukyas of Badami, the Eastern Chalukyas, and the Western Chalukyas were its three separate kingdoms.
• From the early 6th century to the mid-8th century, the Chalukyas of Badami ruled from Vatapi, which is now called Badami in Karnataka. Pulakeshin II was their greatest leader.
• The Eastern Chalukyas were a separate kingdom in the eastern Deccan after Pulakeshin II’s rule. They were based on Vengi, which is now Andhra Pradesh, and lasted until the 11th century.
• In the 8th century, the Rashtrakutas rose to power ahead of the Chalukyas of Badami in the western Deccan.
• But their heirs, the Western Chalukyas, carried on their traditions. They ruled from Kalyani (now Basavakalyan in Karnataka) until the late 12th century.
• Foundation: Around 535–566 CE, Pulikesin I is said to have fortified a hill near Badami, which set the stage for the Chalukya dynasty’s rise to power.
• Kirtivarman officially created the city of Badami between the years 566 and 597. It was the centre of Chalukya power and culture.
• Polity and Administration: The Chalukyas set up an organised administrative system by dividing their lands into political units. This made for good government.
• Vishayam, Rastram, Nadu, and Grama were some of these regions.
• Support for Religion: The Chalukyas were important supporters of both Saivism and Vaishnavism.
• Along with mainstream Hinduism, the Chalukyas supported non-Hindu sects like Jainism and Buddhism, which shows how much they cared about religious variety.
• Ravikirti was the poet laureate of Pulikesin II. He was a teacher of the Jain religion.
• Hiuen Tsang, a traveller, said that there were many Buddhist centres in Chalukya land, where more than 5,000 people from the Hinayana and Mahayana sects lived.
• Architecture: In the past, the Chalukyas in Deccan were the first people to use soft sandstones as a building material for churches.
• There are two types of their temples: those that were built on top of caves and those that were dug out.
• Badami is known for both built and discovered cave shrines.
• People often build churches in Pattadakal and Aihole.
• Literary: The Chalukya rulers used Sanskrit for formal writing, which showed that they valued classical literature and language.
• Even though Sanskrit was the most important language, the Chalukyas also saw regional languages like Kannada as important and called them “the language of the people.”
• Painting: Chalukya artists used the Vakataka style to paint. In Badami, there is a rock temple dedicated to Vishnu that has paintings inside it.

Source – The Hindu

3 – Rising Obesity Rate in India: GS II – Health-related issues

Context:

• A new study in The Lancet shows that the number of overweight and obese children, teens, and adults around the world has grown alarmingly over the past few decades.
• The NCD Risk Factor Collaboration (NCD-RisC) and the World Health Organisation worked together to do this thorough study.
• Body mass index (BMI) was used to look at how overweight and obese people have changed around the world from 1990 to 2022.
• NCD-RisC is a group of health scientists from around the world who work together to give all countries accurate and up-to-date information on the main things that put people at risk for noncommunicable diseases.

What are the most important parts of the study?

The numbers for India:

Being overweight:

• According to The Lancet, 12.5 million children in India between the ages of 5 and 19 were severely overweight in 2022. This is a big jump from 1990, when only 0.4 million children were considered overweight.
• India was placed 174th in the world in 2022 for the number of overweight and obese girls and boys.
• The rate of obesity among people rose from 1.2% in 1990 to 9.8% in 2022, and it rose from 0.5% in 1990 to 5.4% in 2022 for men.

Lack of food:

• India has also kept a high rate of undernutrition. As a result, India is now one of the countries with a high “double burden” of malnutrition.
• 7% of women and 12.5% of men were too thin.
• Indian girls are the most likely in the world (20.3% of them) to be thin, which is a sign that they are underweight.
• It happened to 21.7% of Indian boys, making them the second most likely to have it.

Around the world:

• There are now more than a billion overweight or obese children, teens, and adults living in the world.
• 159 million kids and teens and 879 million adults were overweight or obese in 2022.
• In most countries, the number of underweight and obese people has gone up because more people are becoming obese. In South Asia and some parts of Africa, however, underweight and thinness are still common.
• The number of underweight and obese people was highest in island states in the Caribbean (Polynesia and Micronesia) and in the Middle East and North Africa in 2022.
• In 2022, Polynesia, Micronesia, and the Caribbean had the highest rates of both being thin and being overweight for both men and women. For boys, Chile and Qatar had the highest rates.
• The overall rate of being thin was also high in some South Asian countries, like India and Pakistan, where it stayed common even though it had gone down.

Things that lead to obesity:

• Women tend to gain weight more than men because they don’t have time to exercise and put their family’s health before their own.
• They also tend to sleep less because they have to do things around the house.
• Also, unhealthy junk food is cheaper and easier to get than healthy choices. This makes more people overweight, even in places like Tamil Nadu, Punjab, and Goa where people don’t make a lot of money.

What does it mean to be overweight, thin, or obese?

• BMI is a ratio of weight to height that is often used to tell people whether they are underweight, overweight, or obese.
• To find it, divide the weight in kilogrammes by the square of the height in metres (kg/m²).
• A person who is 1.70 m tall and weighs 58 kg will have a BMI of 20.1 (BMI = 58 kg / (1.70 m * 1.70 m).

Being overweight or obese:

• Being overweight or obese means having an abnormally high amount of fat that is harmful to your health.
• Being overweight means that you have too much fat, and being obese is a long-term problem that happens when your body stores extra calories as fat.
• Being overweight or obese greatly raises the chance of getting long-term illnesses like heart disease, diabetes, joint problems, and some types of cancer.
• Childhood obesity is linked to major health problems and a higher chance of getting related illnesses earlier.
• Not getting enough food can lead to both being overweight and being fat. Currently, more people are overweight than underweight in all regions except South-East Asia.

Being too thin or underweight:

• Being thin or underweight means having a lower-than-normal body weight for your height. It’s often caused by not getting enough calories or having a health problem.
• Not getting enough food can come in four main forms. One of them is being underweight.
• Having a BMI of less than 18 kg/m2 means an adult is underweight. Kids and teens in school are considered underweight if their BMI is two standard deviations below the mean.
• There are four main signs of undernutrition: wasting, stunting, being underweight, and not getting enough micronutrients.
• Being too thin can cause many health issues, such as osteoporosis, problems with the skin, hair, or teeth, frequent illnesses, tiredness, anaemia, periods that don’t come on time, early births, slower growth, and a higher chance of death.

What steps does India take to improve nutrition?

• Mela, eat right.
• The Fit India Movement
• The Eat Right Station is certified.
• Go on Mission Poshan 2.0
• Plan for a Midday Meal
• Posh Vatikas
• The Anganwadi
• ICDS Scheme for Integrated Child Development Services
• The Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana
• Obesity and underweight should not be looked at separately because the change from underweight to obesity can happen quickly, making the total cost of both conditions the same or higher.
• Targeted cash transfers, food aid in the form of subsidies or vouchers for healthy foods, free healthy school meals, and nutritional interventions based in basic care should be the main focus.
• Helping obese people lose weight is something that needs to be done right away.
• Because the age at which obesity starts has gone down, prevention and treatment are even more important. This is because people are exposed to them for longer periods of time.

Source – The Hindu

4 – About the GI Tags GI tag: GS I – Indian Culture

What are the most important things about Narasapur Crochet Lace Craft?

Narasapur Lace and Crochet Craft:

• Crochet lace was first made in 1844, and it has been around through hard times like the Indian famine (1899) and the Great Depression (1929). By the early 1900s, more than 2,000 women in the Godavari area were making lace, which shows how important it is to the culture.
• Using fine crochet needles of different sizes, the craft involves making detailed things out of thin cotton threads.
• Craftspeople use a single crochet hook to make loops and stitches that fit together to make delicate lace patterns.
• Lace is used to make a wide range of clothing, home decor, and items in Narsapur. These include Doilies, Pillow covers, Cushion covers, Bedspreads, Table runners, Table cloths, hand purses, caps, tops, stoles, lamp shades, and wall hangings.
• Products made from Narsapur’s crocheted lace are sold all over the world, in places like the UK, USA, and France.

Tag for Geographical Indication (GI):

• The craft was put on the Geographical Indications Registry (GIR) by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), which is part of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. This shows that it can only be made in 19 mandals in the West Godavari and Dr. B.R.Ambedkar Konaseema districts in the Godavari region.
• Narsapur and Palacole are the main places where lace goods are bought and sold in the West Godavari area. People from Razole and Amalapuram in the Konaseema area are known for their craft.

Problems that Narasapur artisans have to deal with:

• Since the COVID-19 pandemic, the craft market has been flat, which means there aren’t any new sales and production has gone down.
• There are more than 15,000 women who work with the craft, but only about 200 are regularly involved in regular production.
• The market is mostly made up of machine-made lace items from China, which is a big problem for Narasapur lace goods.

How do you describe Majuli masks and Majuli Manuscript Painting?

Masks of Majuli:

• Majuli masks are very detailed masks that are made by hand using old methods.
• Masks made by hand are typically used to show characters in bhaonas, which are religious forms of entertainment, or devotional plays in the neo-Vaishnavite tradition, which was started by the reformer saint Srimanta Sankardeva in the 15th and 16th centuries.
• Masks can show animals, birds, demons, gods, goddesses, and even birds and animals. Masks of Ravana, Garuda, Narasimha, Hanuman, and Varaha Surpanakha are just a few examples.
• The masks are made from bamboo, clay, dung, cloth, cotton, and wood, among other things. They can be as small as covering just the face or as big as covering the whole head and body of the artist.
• Majuli mask-making is becoming more modern as traditional artists move out of sattras (Monasteries) and into modern settings.
• Srimanta Sankardev and his followers started the Sattras to be places where religious, social, and cultural change could happen.
• Majuli, with its 22 sattras, is a place where these things happen. The practice of making masks is mostly found in four sattras: the Samaguri Sattra, the Natun Samaguri Sattra, the Bihimpur Sattra, and the Alengi Narasimha Sattra.

Painting of a Majuli Manuscript:

• Majuli’s manuscript drawings are a type of religious art that is closely connected to the Vaishnavite culture of the island, which is based on worship.
• Srimanta Sankardev is thought to have made one of the oldest works of this art form, which is an Assamese drawing of the Adya Dasama from the Bhagwat Purana. This ritual is still done in all of Majuli’s sattras.
• This style of painting called Majuli Manuscript Painting comes from the Pala school of painting.
• Pala art is a style of Buddhist art that grew in the eastern Indian Pala Empire (8th–12th centuries). It stands out because of its bright colours, intricate designs, and focus on holy themes.

Source – The Hindu