6 July 2023

• Polity: The Supreme Court examined whether High Courts can direct the Centre to invoke Article 355 to intervene in a state.
• Society: The Supreme Court continued hearing pleas for extending Scheduled Caste status to Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam.
• SCO Summit: India chaired its first Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. Iran joined as the ninth permanent member.
• Labour: Manual scavenging deaths persist despite the 2013 Prohibition Act. The NAMASTE scheme targets 100 per cent mechanisation.
• Finance: SWAMIH Fund was making progress in completing stalled affordable housing projects.

GS area: Polity (Centre-State relations, emergency provisions)

The Madras High Court ruled that it cannot issue directions compelling the Centre to invoke Article 355 in response to mob attacks on income-tax officials. The ruling clarified the limits of High Court writ jurisdiction in this context.

• Article 355: Imposes a duty on the Union to protect every state against external aggression and internal disturbance. It is a duty, not a justiciable right that any party can demand be exercised.
• Article 226: Grants High Courts the power to issue writs to "any person or authority, including in appropriate cases, any Government." Courts have held that this does not extend to ordering the Centre to exercise discretionary constitutional powers.
• Article 356: Allows the President to impose President's Rule if a state government cannot function in accordance with the Constitution. Article 355 is often treated as a necessary precondition for invoking Article 356.
• S.R. Bommai case (1994): Established that the President's exercise of Article 356 powers is subject to judicial review and is not absolute.
• Article 32: The Supreme Court's writ jurisdiction for fundamental rights. This sits alongside Article 226 but operates from a different level.

The distinction between 355 and 356 is a perennial UPSC trap. Article 355 creates a Union duty; Article 356 grants a power contingent on that duty being unfulfilled.

Static linkage: Emergency provisions, Centre-State relations, writ jurisdiction.

GS area: Social Justice, Governance

About 58,000 people were estimated to be working as manual scavengers in 2018 data. In 2022, 48 deaths occurred from hazardous sewer and septic tank cleaning.

• Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and Their Rehabilitation Act, 2013: Made manual scavenging a cognizable and non-bailable offence. Employers must provide protective equipment where sewer work is done by hand. Despite this, enforcement remains weak.
• NAMASTE scheme (2022): Aims for 100 per cent mechanisation of sewer and septic tank cleaning across India's urban areas. Targets elimination of hazardous manual entry into sewers.
• Bandicoot robot: An Indian-made robotic scavenger deployed in some cities for sewer inspection and cleaning under the Make in India initiative.
• Data discrepancy: Only 520 districts had been officially declared free of manual scavenging at the time of reporting, while 22,000 workers were linked to skills training programmes.

Static linkage: Dalit rights, social justice, labour law, sanitation.

GS area: International Relations, Internal Security

India chaired the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in a virtual format. PM Modi hosted the meeting under India's rotating presidency.

• Iran joins as the 9th member: Iran's admission as a full SCO member was formalised. The existing eight members are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
• 2024 as SCO Year of Environment: Declared at the summit.
• New cooperation pillars: Startups, traditional medicine, youth empowerment, digital inclusion, and Buddhist heritage.
• Varanasi: Declared the first SCO Tourism and Cultural Capital.
• Belt and Road: India abstained from endorsing China's Belt and Road Initiative language in the joint declaration, consistent with India's longstanding position regarding sovereignty over territory in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
• India's SCO stance: India participates in SCO for counter-terrorism and trade connectivity while maintaining a separate track with Quad partners.

Static linkage: International organisations, India's foreign policy, counter-terrorism.

GS area: Polity, Social Justice

The Supreme Court continued hearing petitions challenging the restriction of Scheduled Caste status to Hindus, Sikhs, and Buddhists.

• Constitution (Scheduled Castes) Order, 1950: Originally limited SC status to Hindus. Sikhs were included in 1956, Buddhists in 1990. Christians and Muslims are excluded.
• Scheduled Tribe distinction: ST status carries no religion test. A Christian or Muslim tribal can hold ST status. This asymmetry is the basis of the constitutional challenge.
• Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission (2007): Recommended extending SC status to Dalit converts to Christianity and Islam, without any time limit on conversion.
• G. Balakrishnan Commission (2022): A new three-member commission was set up to re-examine the question. It had completed its report by mid-2023.

Static linkage: Scheduled Castes, affirmative action, constitutional orders, minority rights.

GS area: Economy, Urban affairs

The Special Window for Affordable and Mid-Income Housing (SWAMIH) Investment Fund addresses the problem of stalled residential projects.

• Capital raised: 15,530 crore rupees.
• Focus: Last-mile construction financing for stressed and stalled residential projects that are mid-construction. Priority goes to affordable and mid-income housing.
• Fund manager: SBICAP Ventures, a subsidiary of SBI Capital Markets.
• Structure: Classified as a social impact fund under SEBI regulations.

Static linkage: Housing, real estate regulation, financial inclusion.

GS area: Economy, Governance

India's digital economy, projected to reach 1 trillion US dollars by 2025-26, sits across two regulatory bodies.

• MCA (Ministry of Corporate Affairs): Oversees competition issues and anti-competitive behaviour under the Competition Act, including in digital markets.
• MeitY (Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology): Handles sector-specific and technical regulation of the internet, data protection, and technology platforms.
• The gap: Neither ministry has comprehensive real-time oversight of anti-competitive conduct specific to digital platforms. A single-window digital regulator has been debated.

Static linkage: Regulatory bodies, competition law, digital economy.

• Quasar time dilation: Scientists used observations of distant quasars to confirm that in the early universe, 12.3 billion years ago, time was passing at one-fifth the current rate. This is a direct observational test of Einstein's cosmological framework.
• EU Nature Restoration Law: The European Union passed a law requiring member states to restore at least 20 per cent of their land and sea areas to healthy ecosystems by 2030 and all degraded ecosystems by 2050.
• Taiwan's representative office: Taiwan announced plans to open a third representative office in India, in Mumbai, reinforcing trade and technology ties. Taiwan produces 92 per cent of the world's advanced logic chips.
• Zaporizhzhya Nuclear Plant: Remained in the Russian-controlled zone in Ukraine. The plant uses VVER-1000 reactors with post-Fukushima safety upgrades.