1)Madras HC prescribes dress code at temples :-
- In a significant judgment, the Madras High Court Bench prescribed a dress code for men, women and even children wanting to visit temples maintained by Hindu Religious and Charitable Endowments (HR and CE) Department across the State.
- The judge also said that his order should be followed as an interim measure till the State government takes a policy decision as expeditiously as possible to prescribe a similar dress code in order to enhance the spiritual ambiance among devotees.
- The temples which are not coming within the purview of the Government shall enforce their own dress code.Police will not allow devotees inside any Hindu Temple of Tamil Nadu who wear dresses other than the one prescribed.
- Observing that the object of imposing dress code was to restrict devotees who visit the temple in “improper clothing,” the judge said that all religions, including Christianity and Islam, prescribe a decent, neat and disciplined dress code for worshiping their respective Gods.
Analysis :-
- Judgement of this kind has multiple facets :-
- Is this judicial activism or judicial overreach:-
- Because for one , the HC has no business to tell the people what to wear. To understand it better , Lets use another analogy when a minister has stated that improper clothing leading to eve-teasing and sexual harassment .Now the statement by the minister was essential to promote decency in clothing. However Decency varies according to people, place and socio-cultural milieu; hence there was a no. of protest against the particular statement of the minister .In the same vein we can argue that the HC should have restrained to prescribe on what to wear , instead it would have been better if the HC had directed the temple to form their own dress code (Should the temple prescribe dress code ?- argued later). In Padmanavaswamy Temple in Kerala there is a dress code which is prescribed by the temple itself and there is no interference of HC . Moreover , this is socio-cultural aspect hence response to this should have been a socio-cultural reform , not an interference by the hands of Law.
- Is there any merit in judgement of HC:-
- To understand this , we have to keep aside the “right to wear” and see what has gone wrong that led to intervention by the HC. The HC prescribes this order as the spiritual ambiance has been deteriorating in the places of worship. If we could get out of our denial mode, then the statement is broadly true; personally many of us would have come across this situation when clothing of others would have seemed improper to us. However, without being judgmental about it , people and their clothing should be left to their choice and their conscious decision.
- The use of Self-restraint:-
- Conscious decision and self-restraint are very much important in anybody’s life.An occasional alcohol drinker , without self-restraint may become addicted to it.However , in our society there are many occasional drinkers (Social-drinkers) who are not addicted to alcohol. So to say, this vindicates the point that people, by and large in our society exercise the self-restraint to live in harmony with the society and it’s values.If one does not exercise self-restraint, usually moral policing follows .But moral policing alienates people rather than reforming them . Hence in this scenario – it would have been best if HC would have asked the temples to form their own dress code, and prescription from temples would have helped people make conscious decision while visiting places of worship without deteriorating spiritual ambiance.
- Should we protest against this order:-
- Yes, we should protest against this order , but before doing that we should protest against the dress code of discos and clubs, dress code of certain luxury hotels, dress code in sports, dress code in Military, dress code in offices and wherever dress code is used .If we don’t protest against this dress codes then we must not protest against this order of HC.It is true that it was judicial overreach but what we forget while making judgement is that it was a social compulsion that led to this judicial overreach. If we don’t reform as society , we will be reformed by other means (judicial activism is one such tool)
- Is this judicial activism or judicial overreach:-
2)Time to abolish criminal defamation :-
Editorial:-
- The observation by the Supreme Court that political leaders should not take criticism as a personal insult highlights a particular kind of intolerance that is rarely referred to in the ongoing debate on the subject: the inability of public figures to tolerate criticism and their repeated resort to criminal defamation proceedings to stifle adverse comment.
- There are 100-odd prosecutions launched by the government of Tamil Nadu against politicians and the media.
- Criminal defamation has a chilling effect on free speech and undermines public interest by coercing the media to observe self-censorship and self-restraint.
- Sections 499 and 500 of the Indian Penal Code, which criminalize defamation in India, have been challenged in the Supreme Court, but so far there is little hope that the State will give up the use of this weapon against adverse coverage.
- Global Consensus:-
- Democratic opinion in many countries is veering around to the view that defamation should be treated as a civil wrong and should not be pursued as a criminal case, and that the state has no compelling interest to protect the reputation of its individual servants by prosecuting alleged offenders.
- In 2011, the Human Rights Committee of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights called upon states to abolish criminal defamation, noting that it intimidates citizens and makes them shy away from exposing wrongdoing.
Analysis of Editorial:-
- Mostly defamation is used against media houses by public figures and hence to understand the discourse of defamation , it is necessary to understand media vs public figure.
- It is true that criminal defamation has a chilling effect of freedom speech and is largely used against media houses to “coerce them to exercise self-censorship and self-restraint” – as per this statement media is coerced to exercise self-censorship and self-restraint – the question is – should the media not exercise these two in the first place ? If they exercise the two , then there is no need for forcing it upon them.
- Another dismal fact of Indian media house is that they survive on sensationalism. They have known to take statement of particular public figure and twist it around to generate viewership.There has been cases , where an alleged offender (emphasis on alleged , not convicted) has been persecuted by media – famously known as media trials. Media has influenced court proceedings and cases.
- This discourse of media is very true now in India.There are cases where the media has selectively defamed a person even before the court verdict is out , there by undermining the basic principle of our jurisprudence – “Innocent until proven guilty” . It has always taken a stand of “Holier than thou” and uses the bogey of “freedom of Speech” to get public empathy. However as per our constitution “Freedom of Speech” is not absolute and subject to reasonable restrictions.For eg- one has all the rights of freedom of speech but one cannot exercise the same freedom of speech rights while giving hate speech. Similarly, media can give constructive criticism , but it should stay away from becoming the police, the persecutor and the jury.
- These are the examples where the media in India is tagged as paid-news and lacks the self-restraint and unbiased reporting. Serious Journalism is nowhere to be seen. Hence defamation becomes a necessary tool for the person in concern , so as to safeguard his/her reputation and social standing .However Criminal defamation truly serves no purpose.Hence the defamation should be treated as civil wrong.
- The state of Media in India has been reflected in the statement of the President in his recent address to Press Club of India:-
- “It is said accusations appear in headlines, denial in small print and contradictions are hidden away amidst cheap advertisements. The media must realise that it remains always accountable to its readers and viewers and through them, to the entire nation”
Details of Presidents address :- http://upsctree.com/2015/11/16/16-nov-2015-2/
3)Global Initiative of Academic Networks (GIAN) scheme :-
- Scheme was launched to boost the quality of the country’s higher education through international collaboration.
- Aims at Tapping the talent pool of scientists and entrepreneurs to engage with the institutes of higher education in India to augment the country’s existing academic resources, accelerate the pace of quality reforms, and further strengthen India’s scientific and technological capabilities
- It will bring world-class educators from across the globe to teach in India.
- These lectures would be made available later to students across the country. A web portal gian.iitkgp.ac.in has been designed by IIT Kharagpur to allow electronic registration and online assessment.
P.S. – The Analysis is exclusive to UPSCTREE, kindly let us know if you have any concern and comment in this regard. We strongly believe in debate, discussion and deliberation and always open to it.
Question of the Day
To be answered in 150-200 words:-
- What do you understand by Judicial Overreach. Do you think since the oncoming of PIL (Public Information Litigation ) , the judiciary became hyper active ?
- Do you think it will be of any help for Indian students to bring world class educator to teach in India , especially when we don’t have the “world-class” infrastructure ,”World-class” curriculum and “World-class” quality programs.
- What do you understand by media trial ? Media can do both – strengthen a nation or weaken it . Comment.
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Steve Ovett, the famous British middle-distance athlete, won the 800-metres gold medal at the Moscow Olympics of 1980. Just a few days later, he was about to win a 5,000-metres race at London’s Crystal Palace. Known for his burst of acceleration on the home stretch, he had supreme confidence in his ability to out-sprint rivals. With the final 100 metres remaining,
[wptelegram-join-channel link=”https://t.me/s/upsctree” text=”Join @upsctree on Telegram”]Ovett waved to the crowd and raised a hand in triumph. But he had celebrated a bit too early. At the finishing line, Ireland’s John Treacy edged past Ovett. For those few moments, Ovett had lost his sense of reality and ignored the possibility of a negative event.
This analogy works well for the India story and our policy failures , including during the ongoing covid pandemic. While we have never been as well prepared or had significant successes in terms of growth stability as Ovett did in his illustrious running career, we tend to celebrate too early. Indeed, we have done so many times before.
It is as if we’re convinced that India is destined for greater heights, come what may, and so we never run through the finish line. Do we and our policymakers suffer from a collective optimism bias, which, as the Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman once wrote, “may well be the most significant of the cognitive biases”? The optimism bias arises from mistaken beliefs which form expectations that are better than the reality. It makes us underestimate chances of a negative outcome and ignore warnings repeatedly.
The Indian economy had a dream run for five years from 2003-04 to 2007-08, with an average annual growth rate of around 9%. Many believed that India was on its way to clocking consistent double-digit growth and comparisons with China were rife. It was conveniently overlooked that this output expansion had come mainly came from a few sectors: automobiles, telecom and business services.
Indians were made to believe that we could sprint without high-quality education, healthcare, infrastructure or banking sectors, which form the backbone of any stable economy. The plan was to build them as we went along, but then in the euphoria of short-term success, it got lost.
India’s exports of goods grew from $20 billion in 1990-91 to over $310 billion in 2019-20. Looking at these absolute figures it would seem as if India has arrived on the world stage. However, India’s share of global trade has moved up only marginally. Even now, the country accounts for less than 2% of the world’s goods exports.
More importantly, hidden behind this performance was the role played by one sector that should have never made it to India’s list of exports—refined petroleum. The share of refined petroleum exports in India’s goods exports increased from 1.4% in 1996-97 to over 18% in 2011-12.
An import-intensive sector with low labour intensity, exports of refined petroleum zoomed because of the then policy regime of a retail price ceiling on petroleum products in the domestic market. While we have done well in the export of services, our share is still less than 4% of world exports.
India seemed to emerge from the 2008 global financial crisis relatively unscathed. But, a temporary demand push had played a role in the revival—the incomes of many households, both rural and urban, had shot up. Fiscal stimulus to the rural economy and implementation of the Sixth Pay Commission scales had led to the salaries of around 20% of organized-sector employees jumping up. We celebrated, but once again, neither did we resolve the crisis brewing elsewhere in India’s banking sector, nor did we improve our capacity for healthcare or quality education.
Employment saw little economy-wide growth in our boom years. Manufacturing jobs, if anything, shrank. But we continued to celebrate. Youth flocked to low-productivity service-sector jobs, such as those in hotels and restaurants, security and other services. The dependence on such jobs on one hand and high-skilled services on the other was bound to make Indian society more unequal.
And then, there is agriculture, an elephant in the room. If and when farm-sector reforms get implemented, celebrations would once again be premature. The vast majority of India’s farmers have small plots of land, and though these farms are at least as productive as larger ones, net absolute incomes from small plots can only be meagre.
A further rise in farm productivity and consequent increase in supply, if not matched by a demand rise, especially with access to export markets, would result in downward pressure on market prices for farm produce and a further decline in the net incomes of small farmers.
We should learn from what John Treacy did right. He didn’t give up, and pushed for the finish line like it was his only chance at winning. Treacy had years of long-distance practice. The same goes for our economy. A long grind is required to build up its base before we can win and celebrate. And Ovett did not blame anyone for his loss. We play the blame game. Everyone else, right from China and the US to ‘greedy corporates’, seems to be responsible for our failures.
We have lowered absolute poverty levels and had technology-based successes like Aadhaar and digital access to public services. But there are no short cuts to good quality and adequate healthcare and education services. We must remain optimistic but stay firmly away from the optimism bias.
In the end, it is not about how we start, but how we finish. The disastrous second wave of covid and our inability to manage it is a ghastly reminder of this fact.