Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Please read each of the following instructions carefully before attempting questions:
[These questions are part of A. A. SHAHs CURRENT AFFAIRS QUESTION BANK INITIATIVE uploaded on the
website www.aashah.com daily. You may refer the website for sources and content prepared to answer
each of these questions]
Date of Assignment:
All questions carry 12 1/2 marks. Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the
answer is more important than its length.
1. The Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 largely addresses consumer interests, but
2. Small island nations threatened by rising sea levels require immediate remedies.
Elaborate.
3. 1. What is OBOR? Should India join the OBOR initiative? Clearly state your stand with
justification.
4. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
5. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
6. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
7. The triple talaq case rests on the question whether personal law can be subject to the
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8. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative reflects global trends and a new paradigm which India can
9. Should we do away with capital punishment? Clearly state your stand with justification.
10. The Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation states, Every physician should prescribe drugs
with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a
11. The high command reorganisation of defence forces in India (integrated command versus joint
12. Triple Talaq has become a contentious issue presently before the Supreme Court. What is the
13. An internationally harmonized carbon tax is essential to address climate change. Discuss.
14. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the worlds largest publicly-funded health insurance
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1st MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
GS II : POLITY BILL/ACT
15. The Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 largely addresses consumer interests, but
some creases are still to be ironed out. Elaborate.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/real-estate-act-reining-in-the-sharks/article18344256.ece
As one of the largest job creators, the real estate sector contributes almost 6% towards the GDP.
The much awaited Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act is now in effect. The Ministry of
Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation recently notified 69 out of the 92 sections in total, which set
the ball rolling for States to formulate, within six months, rules and regulations as statutorily
mandated.
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7. Notably, non-registration of projects is a serious matter. If there is non-compliance, RERA has the
power to order up to three years imprisonment of the promoters of a project.
8. Importantly, it requires developers to maintain separate escrow accounts in relation to each project and
deposit 70% of the collections in such an account to ensure that funds collected are utilised only for the
specific project.
9. The Act also requires real estate brokers and agents to register themselves with the regulator.
Builder grievances
While consumer interests have been protected, developers find provisions of the Act to be
exceptionally burdensome on a sector already ailing from a paucity of funds and multiple regulatory
challenges.
1. The builder lobby has been demanding industry status for the real estate sector as it would
help in the availability of bank loans.
2. Real estate companies say that most delays are because of the failure of authorities to grant
approvals/sanctions on time.
3. While the Act addresses some of this, it does not deal with the concerns of developers regarding
force majeure (acts of god outside their control) which result in a shortage of labour or issues
on account of there not being a central repository of land titles/deeds.
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3rd MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
1. Small island nations threatened by rising sea levels require immediate remedies.
Elaborate.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/refuge-from-the-sinking-islands/article18358413.ece
The 52 low-lying vulnerable island nations sustain 62 million people and emit less than 1% of
global greenhouse gases (GHGs), yet are among the first victims of climate disruption.
Tuvalu is a small island nation in the South Pacific and home to about 10,000 people. It is likely
to be under water in less than 70 years.
Due to the rising sea level caused by global warming, other low-lying island nations such as Kiribati,
Fiji, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Nauru are destined to suffer the same fate.
These island nations require immediate remedies, including migration, compensation and
reduction in GHG emissions.
1. Migration:
More people are likely to migrate due to slow-onset processes of environmental degradation
such as inundation, desertification, soil erosion and changing coastlines than sudden-onset
events like storms and cyclones.
A sea level rise of 0.5 to 2 m could leave between 1.2 and 2.2 million people displaced from
the Caribbean Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This will set off domestic as well as
cross-border migration.
High sea levels have already resulted in displacement of people in several small island
nations.
The international community does not yet realise its responsibility to enable such migration. For
example, on request from Tuvalus Prime Minister, New Zealand agreed to allow a meagre
75 Tuvaluans to relocate annually to their country, a migration that should stretch over 140
years. Australia refused to make any offers when approached similarly.
2. Compensation:
There is a need for a wide range of varied remedies, mostly adaptive, such as coastal
protection, population consolidation, rainwater harvesting and storage, alternative methods
of growing fruits and vegetables, human resource development and research and
observation.
The cost of adaptation is bound to be exorbitant. The capital cost of sea level rise in the Caribbean
Community countries alone is estimated at $187 billion by 2080.
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The Pacific Possible programme of the World Bank predicts the cost of adaptation to be
$18,500 per person for Marshall Islands and $11,000 for Solomon Islands over a period of 30
years from 2012.
Legal analysts are considering the possibility of an international compensation commission
which could address the burden of adaptation expenses on the island nations through an
international fund.
A single-purpose forum
The only practical way to attain these remedies seems to be to reinvigorate political pressure and
negotiate globally to arrive at a forum that could deal with the issue.
The forum must enable negotiations regarding the legal status of migrants and develop adaptive
strategies in the destination country to guarantee and to protect dignity and cultural identity of
the displaced in the destination country.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) obligates countries to provide
finance to resist global warming. By extending such existing obligations through political pressure and
diplomacy, the forum could ensure compensation to the island nations in the form of contributions
from party countries by managing a fund created in this regard.
Lastly, the forum would require a tribunal to assess the case presented by each island nation and to
decide whether help from the international community is required. The tribunal could then invoke
appropriate measures such as multilateral negotiations or directions that enable migration,
compensation and other remedies that could save the people of the sinking small island nations.
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4th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
1. What is OBOR? Should India join the OBOR initiative? Clearly state your stand with
justification.
(Repeat Question from 12 January 2017 Question Bank)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Missing-the-Asian-tailwind/article17024081.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/chinas-one-belt-one-road-programme/article8179870.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-dragon-beckons/article18379037.ece
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Chinas intent under BRI/ OBOR
BRI is a rich mix of economic, developmental, strategic and geopolitical motives. It is also the most
ambitious global infrastructure project ever envisaged by one country.
Among Chinese objectives of the BRI/ OBOR are :
1. finding outlets for excess capacity of its manufacturing and construction industries,
2. increasing economic activity in its relatively underdeveloped western region,
3. creating alternative energy supply routes to the choke points of the Straits of Hormuz and
Malacca, through which almost all of Chinas maritime oil imports pass.
Political objectives include:
4. strengthening Chinas influence over swathes of Asia and Africa,
5. buttressing its ambitions to be a maritime power
6. developing financing structures parallel to (and eventually competing with) the Bretton
Woods system.
Connectivity and infrastructure development are unexceptionable objectives. Much of Asia lacks them
and the finances required to develop them.
China argues that connectivity provided by the BRI would enhance economic cooperation and promote
peace.
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Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF)
It is being hosted by China in mid-May 2017.
The declared purpose is to review progress of the BRI, obtain perspectives of stakeholders and
plan new trajectories of cooperation.
China is working towards ensuring high-level global attendance at the BRF.
Whatever its other objectives, the principal role of the forum is to showcase international
endorsement of President Xis strategic vision of economic cooperation for peace.
Indias objection:
Officially, India says it cannot endorse the BRI in its present form, since it includes the CPEC, which
runs through Indian territory under illegal Pakistani occupation (Gilgit-Baltistan).
Some analysts have argued for the more pragmatic approach of a partial endorsement: as the
initiative rolls out in various countries, India can engage with them (and with China) to promote
projects that would be of benefit.
However, Chinas argument, that India would be isolating itself by staying out, is a pressure
tactic: roads, ports and railways are public goods, which cannot be open to some and closed to
others, based on nationality.
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8th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
GS III: DEFENCE
1. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece
The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.
The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.
Further, while acknowledging that the possibility of a conventional war under a nuclear over-hang
recedes with attendant political and international compulsions, the doctrine notes that training of
Special Operations Division for execution of precision tasks needs no reiteration.
Factoring in the escalation potential of a conflict due to such actions, it states: The possibility of sub-
conventional escalating to a conventional level would be dependent on multiple influences,
principally: politically-determined conflict claims; strategic conjuncture; operational circumstance;
international pressures and military readiness.
The doctrine also reiterates the basic tenets of the Indian nuclear doctrine, no-first use (NFU)
and minimum credible deterrence, contrary to recent calls to revise the NFU and speculation in
the West that India would resort to a first strike.
It adds that conflict will be determined or prevented through a process of credible deterrence,
coercive diplomacy and conclusively by punitive destruction, disruption and constraint in a
nuclear environment across the Spectrum of Conflict.
Special Forces units will be tasked to develop area specialisation in their intended operational
theatres to achieve an optimum effect.
Another important pronouncement under the National Military Objectives is: Enable required
degree of self-sufficiency in defence equipment and technology through indigenization to achieve
desired degree of technological independence by 2035.
The various objectives open up an entire gamut of capability addition and process optimisation for the
Indian military to be able to enforce it.
Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.
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Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of Defence
Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-service
theatre commands.
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
GS III: DEFENCE
2. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
(Repeat Question from 8 May 2017 Question Bank)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/joint-doctrine-of-armed-forces-the-single-service-
syndrome/article18410953.ece
The Joint Doctrine, 2017 was released to the public (the first edition written in 2006 remains
classified).
surgical strikes
The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.
12 | Page
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The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.
Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.
Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-
service theatre commands.
13 | Page
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9th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
GS III: DEFENCE
3. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
(Repeat Question from 8 May 2017 Question Bank)
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/joint-doctrine-of-armed-forces-the-single-service-
syndrome/article18410953.ece
The Joint Doctrine, 2017 was released to the public (the first edition written in 2006 remains
classified).
surgical strikes
The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.
The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.
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Special Operations Division
Further, while acknowledging that the possibility of a conventional war under a nuclear over-hang
recedes with attendant political and international compulsions, the doctrine notes that training of
Special Operations Division for execution of precision tasks needs no reiteration.
Factoring in the escalation potential of a conflict due to such actions, it states: The possibility of sub-
conventional escalating to a conventional level would be dependent on multiple influences,
principally: politically-determined conflict claims; strategic conjuncture; operational circumstance;
international pressures and military readiness.
Special Forces units will be tasked to develop area specialisation in their intended operational
theatres to achieve an optimum effect.
Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.
Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-
service theatre commands.
15 | Page
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11th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(2 Questions)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
1. The triple talaq case rests on the question whether personal law can be subject to the
Constitution at all. Elaborate.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/triple-talaq-and-the-constitution/article18420742.ece
The Supreme Court begins hearing arguments in Shayara Bano v. Union of India, which has
popularly come to be known as the triple talaq case.
This case, in which the constitutional validity of certain practices of Muslim personal law such as
triple talaq, polygamy, and nikah halala has been challenged, has created political controversy across
the spectrum.
The court will have to decide first whether to adjudicate the case in a narrow manner, which stops at
assessing the relationship between triple talaq and Muslim personal law, of whether to undertake a
broader approach, and ask whether personal law can be subject to the Constitution at all.
The choice
There is no doubt that triple talaq violates womens rights to equality and freedom, including freedom
within the marriage, and should be invalidated by the Supreme Court.
The larger question, however, is whether the court will stick to its old, narrow, colonial-influenced
jurisprudence, and strike down triple talaq while nonetheless upholding a body of law that answers not
the Constitution, but to dominant and powerful voices within separate communities; or will it, in 2017,
change course, and hold that no body of law (or rather, no body of prescriptions that carries all the
badges and incidents of law) can claim a higher source of authority than the Constitution of India?
2. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative reflects global trends and a new paradigm which India can
support and shape. Comment.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/navigating-the-new-silk-road/article18420757.ece
Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprise everyone and participate in Chinas Belt and Road
Forum for International Cooperation which begins on May 14?
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Coordination between the major powers is emerging as the best way of global governance in a
multi-polar world. Despite their territorial dispute, strategic differences and military deployment in
the South China Sea, China and Japan have just agreed to strengthen financial cooperation.
The BRI seeks complementarities between a countries own development strategy and that of
others, though its goals have yet to be formalised, and India would lend a powerful voice to a
strategy and structure that ensures common goals will not be neglected.
QUESTION BANK
(2 Questions)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
1. Should we do away with capital punishment? Clearly state your stand with justification.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/should-we-do-away-with-capital-
punishment/article18429160.ece
GS III: S&T
2. The Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation states, Every physician should prescribe drugs
with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a
rational prescription of drugs. Discuss the efficacy of this rule?
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/whats-in-a-generic-name/article18429047.ece
The Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a circular on April 21, 2017 drawing attention to
clause 1.5 of its regulations regarding the professional conduct of doctors: Every physician
should prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she
shall ensure that there is a rational prescription of drugs.
Further, the circular said, For any doctor found violating clause 1.5 of Ethics Regulation, suitable
disciplinary action would be taken by the concerned SMC/MCI.
This has caused considerable unease among medical professionals.
It appears that the MCI has responded to the statement by the Prime Minister on April 17 that
the government intended to ensure that doctors prescribe medicines by generic names only.
Generic drugs:
Nearly all drugs have three types of names:
1. the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC),
2. the non-proprietary or generic, most commonly the International Non-proprietary Name (INN)
administered by the World Health Organisation (WHO),
3. the brand name.
Once patents have expired, companies other than the original manufacturer can produce and
sell the drug. This usually results in significant reduction in costs.
These off-patent drugs are called generics internationally.
The term generic has a different meaning in Indias pharma trade.
Medicines marketed exclusively with INN names are called generics or generic medicine.
The WHO advocates generic prescribing as part of an overall strategy to ensure rational medical
treatment and prescribing tailored to local conditions.
Issues unattended:
In India, there are a bewildering number of fixed-dose combinations (FDCs), the vast majority of
which have no therapeutic justification. These FDCs account for about 45% of the market (about
Rs.45,000 crore).
Successive governments have taken very few initiatives to reduce drug costs and promote
manufacture of only rational medicines.
The current method of price control legitimises margins of up to 4000% over the cost of the
product.
Way ahead:
The most effective way to maintain quality is to have periodic testing and stringent disincentives
for poor quality. The best insurance for good quality is good regulation.
The core issues are affordable access to medicines and their rational prescription and use. These
objectives require an enlarged list of essential and life-saving medicines under price control,
elimination of all irrational FDCs, no brands for drugs off patent, and briefer officially approved
names to make it easier for doctors to prescribe generics including the rational FDCs.
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15th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
GS III: DEFENCE
1. The high command reorganisation of defence forces in India (integrated command versus joint
command) needs to be carefully considered. Comment.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/getting-the-model-right/article18452095.ece
If the three single service chiefs all agree on the need to have a Chairman or Chief of Defence, the
debate in India over further high command reorganisation (integrated command versus joint command)
poses tough questions for military theorists.
The issue of a Joint Doctrine for the Indian Armed Forces in April touches on this issue.
A clear division of responsibility between commanders has been widely regarded as a progressive
model that mitigates the critique of inter-service rivalry.
The seams and boundaries between commanders are always an area of weakness and
competition between commanders. Adversaries have been known to exploit these in the past.
Careful agreement about coordination between commanders is critical to avoid leaving a vacuum of
control in such areas.
If there are scarce military resources, centralised prioritisation is the key with subordinate commands
having ownership of the right assets to accomplish their mission.
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16th MAY 2017
QUESTION BANK
(3 Question)
Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.
1. Triple Talaq has become a contentious issue presently before the Supreme Court. What is the
progressive way forward on the matter?
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/triple-talaq-not-fundamental-to-islam/article18459424.ece
Divorce in Islam
As per the Koran, only after four serious attempts at reconciliation (which includes arbitration) is a
Muslim husband permitted to utter the first divorce, which is followed by a three-month waiting period
called iddah.
If within iddah the marital dispute gets resolved, conjugal relations may be resumed without
undergoing the procedure of remarriage.
But after the expiry of iddah the husband can either re-contract the existing marriage on fresh and
mutually agreeable terms or irrevocably divorce his wife in the presence of two witnesses by
pronouncing the final talaq.
This is the only method of divorce mandated in the Koran.
Other forms such as talaq-e-bida, talaq-e-hasan, talaq-e-ahsan and talaq-e-tafweez are concepts of
Hanafi jurisprudence. They find no mention in the Koran.
Talaq-e-bida
Instant talaq (talaq-e-bida) has no basis in the Koran and, therefore, is not fundamental to
Islam.
Muslim theologians must understand that concepts not sanctified by the primary source of Muslim
law, the Koran, cannot be declared as essential parts of Islam irrespective of where they draw their
legitimacy from.
All sources of Islamic law, be it hadees, ijma or qiyas, are subservient to the Koran.
Thankfully, it was the Koranic procedure that the apex court endorsed in 2002 when in the Shamim
Ara v. State of U.P. case it invalidated talaq not preceded by arbitration or reconciliation attempts
between the husband and the wife.
It may be pointed out here that the pronouncement of three talaqs in one sitting does not constitute
even one divorce as held by the Ahl-e-Hadees sect.
In the Koranic view, first divorce becomes effectual only after the parties have gone through the
process of reconciliation and arbitration. Divorces uttered without exhausting these options have no
legal validity in Islam.
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The way forward
Given the reluctance of Muslim religious bodies in India to give up their sectarian conformism and
delegitimise talaq-e-bida, the Supreme Court will be well within its rights under Articles 141 and 142
of our Constitution to resort to, in consultation with progressive Islamic scholars, a neoteric
interpretation of the terms talaq and Shariat mentioned in section (2) of The Muslim Personal Law
(Shariat) Application Act, 1937, and lay down the procedure of divorce in accordance with the
egalitarian and gender-just principles of the Koran.
In pursuance of this, the Constitution Bench may, without putting the Muslim personal law to the test
of Article 13 (1), further clarify, elaborate and enlarge the scope of the Shamim Ara judgment and
make the Koranic procedure of divorce ratified in that ruling common to both men and women. This
would render the law gender-just by eliminating the need for khula, wherein Muslim women seeking
divorce are required to get the concurrence of their husbands or the qazi to get the marriage
dissolved.
GS III: ENVIRONMENT
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/putting-a-global-price-on-carbon/article18459472.ece
Way ahead:
Some countries and regions such as the U.S. and the European Union already have fairly
successful carbon pricing regimes in place in the form of carbon taxes and emissions trading
schemes.
Some other countries have introduced general taxes on energy consumption instead of direct taxes on
carbon content.
The political consensus in favour of a direct carbon tax will be difficult to achieve in low- and
middle-income countries that have developmental priorities and lack the capacity to administer
such regimes.
A general tax on energy consumption combined with a technology-centric policy that promotes
entrepreneurs and investors who develop low-energy intensive products can be a good starting
point from where they can gradually move towards a direct carbon tax.
Another near-term approach can be a cap-and-tax which combines the strengths of both quantity
and price approaches. Cap-and-tax might also address the concerns of environmentalists that a price-
based approach does not impose hard constraints on emissions.
7. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the worlds largest publicly-funded health insurance
(PFHI) scheme, needs greater attention. Comment.
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-public-in-public-health/article18459627.ece
Issues involved:
Even nine years after its implementation, it has failed to cover a large number of targeted families
almost three-fifths of them.
Their exclusion has been due to factors like the prevalent discrimination against disadvantaged
groups; a lack of mandate on insurance companies to achieve higher enrolment rates; and an absence
of oversight by government agencies.
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True, there has been a substantial increase in hospitalisation rates. However, it is unclear if it has
enabled people to access the genuinely needed, and hitherto unaffordable, inpatient care.
Often, doctors and hospitals have colluded in performing unnecessary surgical procedures on
patients to claim insurance money.
For instance, hospitals have claimed reimbursements worth millions of rupees for conducting
hysterectomies on thousands of unsuspecting, poor women.
Indeed, in the absence of regulations and standards, perverse incentives are created for empanelled
hospitals to conduct surgeries.
Though it is a cashless scheme, many users are exploited by unscrupulous hospital staff.
The card is also of no real value if beneficiaries do not know how to use it.
Way ahead:
There is a need to bring the public back into the discourse on public health to highlight its present
culture.
The conversation needs to move beyond a top-down approach specifying budget allocation and
administrative and technical efficiency.
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