Daily Hindu Editorials

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 tak...

👉As violence and mistrust take over, citizens are no longer encouraged to connect with others and nurture solidarity👈 Democracy establishes a conversation between citizens and the power elites they have elected into office. Citizens initiate and sustain various conversations with each other through associational life in the space of civil society. Associations bring people together in different projects, enable them to speak back to power, and protect them against arbitrary exercise of state power. For these and related reasons, associations are considered indispensable for democratic life. 👉Modern angst There is more — associational life tempers the anomie of modernity. The individual certainly has more freedom in modern society compared to pre-modern ones. But she is also rootless. She is certainly very lonely. The quintessential modern being is a bit like Howard Roark, who in Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead sits atop a metaphorical mountain condemned to view life from a dis...

👉The murder of Shujaat Bukhari is aimed at silencing the middle ground in J&K👈 The death of Shujaat Bukhari in a terrorist attack at close range in Srinagar has taken away a journalist who held bold and independent opinions on the conflict in Kashmir and how it should be resolved. In the choice of target and the timing of the murder, the attack sends out a chilling message: that on the eve of Id-ul-Fitr and in the closing days of the government’s Ramzan ceasefire against militants, there are forces determined to gut the emerging consensus for extending the cease-ops and preparing the ground for dialogue. Bukhari, given the credibility he had painstakingly built with reportage that conveyed the complex reality of life in the Valley, was a prominent advocate of the ceasefire and the need to extend it. Whichever terrorist group chose to kill him would have been aware of the consequences of his death. This has been a dark week in Jammu and Kashmir. Two security personnel with Buk...

👉The bailout package for sugarcane farmers does little to fix structural flaws in the sector👈 A little over a month after the Centre proposed a special cess under the GST to help alleviate distress among sugarcane farmers, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs approved a ₹7,000- crore package for the sugar sector last week. This package, with a mix of assured minimum pricing and special incentives for increasing molasses and ethanol production to gainfully mop up the glut of sugar in the country, is independent of the cess proposal that was expected to raise ₹6,700 crore. To put this in perspective, sugar mills’ dues to farmers stand at ₹22,000 crore. Under the proposed bailout scheme, the government will procure sugar from mills at a fixed minimum price to help them clear dues to farmers, and also offer them other financial assistance. Only about ₹1,175 crore, however, will be used towards procurement of refined sugar from mills to create a buffer stock of 30 lakh tonnes. Th...

👉How the seeds of secularism were sown in India, and why the state came to play a part in religious institutions👈 During colonial rule in India, England was not a secular country with a Jeffersonian wall of separation between church and state. Instead, the Church of England was the established church. The “Act of Supremacy” enacted in 1534 declared that the monarch was the “Supreme Head of the Church of England”. The Archbishop of Canterbury and other high-level church officials were appointed by the government. New monarchs were crowned by a senior member of the clergy, and senior bishops were represented in the House of Lords. Much of this remains true today. How, then, did the idea of secularism take root in India, which derives many of its institutions and practices from England? Initially, the East India Company (EIC) got itself intricately entangled with the administration of religious institutions. Temple employees were appointed by government officials. Royal salutes ...