29 October 2022

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – UAPA: GS III – Topic Internal Security of India:

Context:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi claims that the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) has improved the system’s ability to combat terrorism.

About UAPA:

• In 1967, it was made into a piece of legislation.
• The Act lays out guidelines for dealing with terrorist activity, among other things.
• Regardless matter whether it occurred inside the Republic or outside of it, before or after the passage of this Act, engaging in illegal or unlawful behavior is recognized as having occurred.
• A “terrorist act” is punishable by imprisonment for a least five years and a maximum of life under Section 15 of the UAPA. The punishment for a terrorist act that results in death is either death or life in prison.
• The Act grants the central government broad authority, enabling it to publish a formal gazette outlining the legality of a certain action.

Difficulties with UAPA:

• Ideas are becoming criminalized, which makes even the most fundamental forms of political protest, such as those against the government, unlawful. Both the individual right to free expression and the collective voice of groups like labor unions are under attack.
• Fundamental Rights Ignorance: This could be used as a handy justification for disregarding laws and fundamental rights. For instance, the maximum penalty for those who are detained under the UAPA but no charge sheet has been filed is 180 days. It plainly violates Article 21 of the Constitution as a result.
• High Discretion: It allows the creation of special courts with the ability to call secret witnesses and hold secret hearings, and it gives the executive branch a wide range of discretionary powers.
• Since harassment and intimidation are being used to silence resistance, press freedom, freedom of speech, and the enjoyment of one’s civil rights are all in danger.

Taking Charge:

• India needs strict anti-terrorism laws, but if it were to be put in place, it would inevitably cause major issues, such as the arrest of activists.
• The current UAPA has effective anti-terrorist (cognizable offense) provisions, but there are also issues and gaps that need to be closed if the law is to be effective and efficient in preventing and combating terrorism.
• Because some defendants were imprisoned for more than ten years before being ruled not guilty, the UAPA has been demonstrated to have abuse potential even though it was designed to handle some extremely challenging situations.

 Source The Hindu

 2 – Police Reforms: GS III – Topic Internal Security of India:

Context:

• On Friday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi proposed the phrase “one nation, one police uniform.” He was speaking to state home ministers in Faridabad, Haryana, about internal security challenges.
• Modi argued that while it was a concept worth considering, he wasn’t pressing the States to accept his viewpoints. He said police uniforms should be subject to a brand recall akin to that for the nation’s red-and-black post boxes.

Indian law enforcement’s past:

• Following the uprising in 1857, the British established a police force with the primary objective of defending their imperial interests.
• During the liberation war, they mostly deployed the police to repress and detain revolutionaries and freedom fighters.
• Following Independence, the police began to be viewed as an elite force that was supportive of authority rather than as a people-friendly force.

Excessive Police Action:

• Thousands of people were imprisoned under the emergency, including all of the ruling regime’s political adversaries, and human rights were abused without consequence.

Initiatives taken by the Indian government include:

• The Indian government has put in place a variety of initiatives to improve policing, including
• Decriminalization of transgressions and infractions
• the proposal to update the more than century-old Identification of Prisoners Act of 1920.

The Prime Minister supports a SMART police force, which consists of:

• both forceful and diplomatic,
• contemporary and portable,
• being aware and responsible,
• responsive and trustworthy,
• intelligent and tech-savvy
• The administration’s principal objective is to progressively integrate technology into routine police activities.
• The Indian Police Foundation is trying to execute internal reforms, technical adaption, digital transformation, and training to elevate the professional and ethical standards of the police in order to realise the vision of a SMART Indian Police.

The following adjustments were suggested by the NITI Aayog:

Legislative changes at the state level:

• The “Model Police Act of 2015,” which refreshes the police’s mandate, should be promoted by the states with financial incentives.

concerns with the police department:

 National Law:

• Colonial law continues to serve as the foundation for India’s police system.
• Our honorable government is currently using the police in a similar way to how the British have periodically done to stifle public dissent and further their own goals.

massive vacancies

• For every lakh citizens in 2016, 181 police personnel were authorized; however, only 137 police officers actually showed up.
• When compared to the United Nations’ recommended cutoff value of 222 police per lakh people, this is noticeably too low.
• The significant number of open positions in the police force makes the issue of overworked officers even worse.

Taking Action:

• In order to sustain India’s economic progress and the general feeling of peace and order in the nation, police reforms must be implemented.
• States must spearhead the effort for police reform because they are in charge of policing.
• modernizing police infrastructure to meet the needs for policing. The police officers’ accommodation options need to be improved.
• assisting local police departments, who are frequently the first to respond.
• In order to keep the public’s faith in the judicial system, criminal accusations brought against prominent figures and politicians must be swiftly addressed.

 Source The Hindu

 3 – Death Penalty: GS II – Topic à Indian Judiciary:

Context:

• It is often believed that the conservative Supreme Court of India will follow judicial precedents and written laws because of this. Because of innovative leadership or the burden of extremely difficult criminal justice operations, the agencies rarely feel free to disregard the restrictions that keep them inside a conservative framework. This once-in-a-lifetime chance was made available by the valiant efforts made by Justice U.U. Lalit, the 49th Chief Justice of India (CJI), addressed the serious problems that had persisted in the interpretation of the execution statute.

What penalties are there for crimes in India?

Five different categories of penalties are listed in Section 53 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860. This comprises:

• When someone is given the death penalty, they are hanged until they pass away. Murder (Section 302) and declaring war on the Indian government are two additional IPC offences that carry the death penalty (Section 121). A variety of offences covered by other Acts, including as the Army Act (1950), BSF Act (1968), Defense of India Act (1971), NDPS Act (1985), POCSO Act (2012, as revised in 2019), etc., also call for the death penalty. Only in the “rarest of rare instances” is the prize awarded.
• In this statement, the phrase “life in jail” refers to the offender spending the remainder of their natural life in a cell.
• (Strictly Easy or Easy) Simple detention: A straightforward jail sentence puts the offender in a cell. He doesn’t perform any difficult work. In a rigorous prison, inmates must perform challenging tasks like clearing brush and cutting wood, among others.
• In a property forfeiture, the government seizes a criminal’s belongings. Property can be forfeited, whether it is mobile or immovable.

What is the state of the death penalty in India right now?

• By the end of 2021, there will be 488 persons on execution row, a 17-year high, according to the Death Penalty in India Report. The paper claims that even while trial courts handed out 144 death sentences overall in 2021, the High Courts only decided 39 cases throughout that year. Despite adding cases involving death sentences to its list of priorities in September of the preceding year, the Supreme Court only decided six cases in 2021 as opposed to 11 in 2020 and 28 in 2019.

What is the law’s stance on the execution of criminals?

• In the State of Andhra Pradesh v. Ediga Anamma case from 1974, the Supreme Court (SC) established the norm that life in prison without the prospect of release is the conventional punishment for murder offences and the exception that enables the death sentence in certain circumstances. The judge also said that in order for a defendant to be put to death, a specific defence had to be made.

Bachan Singh v. Punjabi State (1980)

• The SC argues that the death sentence should only be applied in exceptionally rare circumstances. When the offender’s excessive causation and their significant level of guilt in the murder are both present, the case becomes one of the rarest of the rare. The Supreme Court determined that it should only be granted in situations where receiving a life sentence is “unquestionably precluded.” The mitigating and aggravating factors should be considered before imposing the death penalty.

 Source The Hindu

 4 – Cuban Missile Crisis: GS II – Topic International Relations:

Context:

• Generals and other military officials frequently shout, “Tell me how it ends!” when a conflict is in progress. The Ukrainian conflict is comparable to prior wars. Neither Russian President Vladimir Putin nor Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, nor any of their Western allies, can foretell how the war will turn out.

History of the Cuban Missile Crisis:

• The Cuban Missile Crisis, commonly known as the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, was a 35-day standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union during which American warheads were stationed in Turkey and Italy and Soviet missiles were stationed in Cuba.
• It is common knowledge that the standoff marked the period in the Cold War when a nuclear exchange was dangerously on the verge of taking place.

Importance of the Cuban Missile Crisis

• During the Cold War, the US and the Soviet Union engaged in a serious and dangerous dispute known as the Cuban Missile Crisis. A nuclear exchange between the two countries was the scenario that seemed most likely at the moment.
• The parties’ estimates and errors, their outward and covert dialogues, and additional unusual characteristics of the case were present. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the most tense period in US-Soviet relations.
• It had a crucial impact on both Nikita Khrushchev’s fall and the Soviet Union’s quest for nuclear parity with the United States.

Immediately after the Cuban Missile Crisis:

• Cuba’s president, Miguel Diaz-Canel, blamed the US for the disaster.
• Fidel Alejandro Castro was a politician from Cuba. Fidel Castro was shocked by the Soviet Union’s swift retreat in response to the US threat, but he was unable to halt it. Cuba was governed by Fidel Castro from 1959 to 1976. He held the position between 1976 and 2008.
• One result of the crisis was Nikita Khrushchev’s demise. The Cuban Missile Crisis also convinced Kennedy of the dangers of international nuclear brinksmanship.
• A Moscow-Washington hotline was set up to encourage unrestricted contact between the political leaders of the Soviet Union and the United States.

 Source The Hindu