Daily Current Affairs including static notes - 15 JUNE
Couples in live-in relations cannot adopt (GS 2 Gov)
- CARA has barred partners in live-in relationships from adopting a child.
- This has been done on the ground that cohabitation without marriage is not considered a stable family in India.
Details: The Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) permits a single woman to adopt a child of any gender, while single men can adopt only boys.
In case an applicant is married, both spouses must give their consent for adoption and should be in a stable marriage for at least two years. Candidates must be physically fit, financially sound, mentally alert and highly motivated to adopt a child, as per the Adoption Regulations 2017.
It has been decided that the cases of single PAP (prospective adopting parent) in a live-in relationship with a partner will not be considered eligible to adopt a child and their registration through the AFAAs (authorized foreign adoption agencies) will not be considered for approval.
The decision was taken in a meeting of its Steering Committee last month as there were three to four applications pending because of a lack of clarity on the issue. All these cases involved foreign applicants and the status of their relationship came to the fore when a team from a partner agency paid them a visit to prepare a home study report to determine their suitability for adoption.
The Supreme Court has on several occasions said that a live-in relationship is neither a crime nor a sin.
Last month, the Supreme Court had said that adult couples have the right to live together even if they were not married. It said that even the legislature recognized live-in relationships through the provisions under the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005.
Under the Act, women in a live-in relationship have been accorded protection as it allows females living with a male person in a relationship in the nature of marriage to file a complaint of domestic violence.
About CARA: Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) has been set up as an autonomous body of the Ministry of Women and Child Development which functions as a nodal body for adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoption. CARA is designated as the Central Authority to deal with inter-country adoptions in accordance with the provisions of the Hague Conventions on Inter-Country Adoptions, 1993, ratified by Government of India in 2003. CARA interacts with State Governments and UT Administrations through regular training and orientation programmes as well as meetings, consultations and visits to the States/UTs. The implementation of the adoption programme in the States/UTs is reviewed in various consultations organized by the Ministry as well as meetings of the Project Approval Board to consider proposals received from States/UTs for release of grants under the Integrated Child Protection Scheme.
Construction workers and their rights (GS 2 Gov)
- According to a recent study by a group fighting for construction worker’s rights has found in a survey conducted by it that the cess collected from construction companies, which is meant to pay for such workers’ welfare, is abysmally low.
Details: This survey comes at a time when the government is preparing to finalize a model welfare scheme for construction workers. The National Campaign Committee for Central Legislation on Construction Labour (NCCCL) which has taken the Centre to the Supreme Court (SC) on the issue says that the average amount being collected per worker per year is only 477.10.
According to calculations by the NCCCL using data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) as well as affidavits filed by the Centre and States, only four States have collected more than 2,000 per worker per year.
In fact, more than 20 States have collected less than 1,000. The worst performers are Manipur (113.86), Jharkhand (134.82) and Tamil Nadu (135.84).
The committee also said that if we are paying more than this average amount to any construction worker in the form of incentives for children’s education, marriage assistance, pension or maternity expenses, it is at the cost of other workers who have been deprived of getting registered as beneficiaries due to the insufficient functioning of the Building and Other Construction Workers Welfare Board.
According to the Building and Other Construction Workers’ Welfare Cess Act, 1996, a 1% cess is to be levied and collected on all types of construction activities, whether by government, PSUs or private players.
If an average daily wage is 300, then the cess collected should be about 4,000 per worker per year. Instead, the national average is less than 500.
Last year, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Labour had said it was “astonished to note that no efforts have been made to compare the collected Cess figure with the total construction activities carried out in respective States.”
In fact, the Labour Ministry released a draft model welfare scheme last month which includes pension, health and maternity benefits, life and disability insurance, education scholarships, skill development and housing benefits. Having received feedback from various stakeholders, the Ministry is expected to finalize the scheme this month.
The NCCCL extrapolated the increase in construction workers as captured by NSSO data to estimate a nationwide total of 7.43 crore for 2016-17.
States with the largest number of construction workers are: Uttar Pradesh with 1.21 crore, Rajasthan with more than 73 lakh and Tamil Nadu with 59 lakh. However, these numbers are much larger than the number of workers who have been registered with the various State boards, and those eligible for benefits. Nationwide, only 2.77 crore workers were registered as of June 2017.
India calls UN report on Kashmir fallacious
- India on Thursday rejected a report from the UN that called for an international investigation into the alleged incidents of human rights abuse by Indian forces in Kashmir.
Details: A statement from the Ministry of External Affairs said the first ever UN report on human rights situation was fallacious.
In the report released on Thursday, the UN talked about alleged human rights violations in both “Indian-administered and Pakistan-administered Kashmir” and sought an international inquiry into these abuses.
The report also sought repealing of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, 1990 “urgently” and also “immediately remove the requirement for prior central government permission to prosecute security forces personnel accused of human rights violations in civilian courts.”
In the first of its kind report, the United Nations also talked about the gross violation of human rights in Pakistan Occupied Kashmir. Asserting that there was an “urgent need” to address the past and ongoing human rights violations, the UN rights body also urged for a political solution to the Kashmir dispute, which would entail accountability for past and current human rights violations.
It also talked about the killing of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen terrorist Burhan Wani by the Indian forces which triggered unprecedented protests in the Valley during this period. There has been documented evidence of these groups committing a wide range of human rights abuses, including kidnappings and killings of civilians and sexual violence.
Pakistan is yet to react on the report, but the Indian government has maintained that Indian democracy has all that is required to address legitimate grievances. There can’t be any comparison between Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir as “the former has a democratically elected government while the latter has seen a Pakistani diplomat arbitrarily appointed as its head.
This is for the first time the UNHRC has issued a report on the alleged human rights violations in Kashmir and Pakistan Occupied Kashmir.
Inter- ministerial task force on manual scavenging (GS 2 Gov)
- An Inter-Ministerial task force has counted up to 53,236 people involved in manual scavenging in India.
- This is a four-fold rise from the 13,000-odd such workers accounted for in official records until 2017.
Details: While the numbers are an improvement from before, when a majority of states denied the existence of the practice, it is still a gross underestimate as it includes data from only 121 of the more than 600 districts in the country.
More importantly, it does not include those involved in cleaning sewers and septic tanks, and data from the Railways, which is the largest employer of manual scavengers. Of the 53,000 identified so far through the national survey, only a total of 6,650 have been confirmed officially by states in keeping with the tendency to under-report the prevalence of this practice.
The task force is expected to submit its final tally on the National Survey of Manual Scavengers by the end of this month. The survey was to be undertaken in 170 districts of 18 states where the maximum number of “insanitary latrines” were demolished and converted into “sanitary latrines”. However, according to official records, only 121 districts in 12 states have been covered — Bihar, J&K, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Telangana and West Bengal are yet to participate in the survey.
The maximum number of manual scavengers — 28,796 — have been registered in UP. States such as Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttarakhand, which had earlier reported zero or about 100, have now upped their count.
Moreover, much of urban India has not been included. This is because while data on insanitary to sanitary toilet conversion has been made available for rural areas, the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, which is in charge of Swachh Bharat (Urban), has informed the Social Justice Ministry that such “data for is not maintained separately.”
Manual handling of excreta was outlawed in 1993. However, it was only after an amendment in 2013 that it’s more perilous form, cleaning of sewers and septic tanks, was recognized as manual scavenging. The amended legislation mandated a survey of all kinds of manual scavengers to be completed within two months.
In November 2017, the NITI Aayog convened a meeting following which a task force was set up to carry out a survey of manual scavengers on mission mode. The task force included members from the ministries of Social Justice, Rural Development, Drinking Water and Sanitation, and Housing and Urban Affairs, and the National Safai Karamchari Finance and Development Corporation. It also involved Bezwada Wilson’s Safai Karamchari Andolan and the Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan for field-level counting work.
The exclusion of septic and sewer cleaners is based on the argument that they use protective gear.
About manual Scavenging in India: Manual scavenging is banned in India. Any contact between excreta and a laborer employed to unclog a drainage pipe or sewage treatment plant is prohibited by law and the occurrence of such a trespass or the non-provision of safety gear or disinfectants to the laborer will lead to the prosecution of the contractor and the employer.
In March 2014, the Supreme Court declared that there were 96 lakh dry latrines being manually emptied. And as per reports received from the States and Union Territories in 2016, 12,226 manual scavengers have been identified so far.
According to a report tabled in the Rajya Sabha in 2016, 22,327 lose their lives every year due to manual scavenging. The Supreme Court had directed authorities to pay a sum of Rs 10 lakh to the affected families; however, the families had received only about Rs 60,000.
The Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 provides for the prohibition of employment of people as manual scavengers and the rehabilitation of manual scavengers and their families.
The Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment implements a “Self Employment Scheme for the Rehabilitation of Manual Scavengers” (SRMS). This provides the following:
- One-time cash assistance of Rs 40,000 each to the identified manual scavengers;
- Loan for undertaking livelihood projects up to Rs 15 lakh at concessional rate of interest;
- Credit linked capital subsidy up to Rs 3,25,000;
- Skill development training up to two years with stipend of Rs 3000 per month.
- The government aims for an India without manual scavenging by 2019.
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