Moral dimension in International arena
- UN Security Council Resolution 2593, adopted at a meeting chaired by India, emphasising that Afghan soil should not be used for terror activity is a good beginning internationally.
Moral dimension in international arena
- Moral questions governing the behaviour of states cannot be divorced from the geopolitical power and location of those states.
- While all states use moral arguments in the pursuit of their respective national interests, it is the moral logic used by the powerful states or coalitions that tend to win over the weaker ones, thereby becoming the standards of behaviour.
- Put differently, morality is often a product of power even though there are other sources of morality than just power.
- Arguments stemming from moral universalism should, therefore, be challenged not only because they are patronising, but also because crude national interests often masquerade as moral universalism.
- The point of diplomacy, after all, is also to engage with the undesirables to try and change their positions.
- As a matter of fact, entities, individuals and states do change as a result of sustained negotiations.
Context of Taliban
- Moral choices are a product of geopolitical contexts and the historical location of a country.
- For India, located where it is amidst a geostrategically challenging environment, its ability to make a ‘morally perfect’ choice vis-à-vis the Taliban is rather limited.
THE HINDU
Judicial role in lawmaking
- Ambiguities and gaps in laws passed without meaningful deliberation trigger avoidable litigation.
- While the CJI suggested that lawyers and intellectuals enter public life to improve deliberation, the judiciary can also play crucial role in improving the lawmaking process.
Parliament and law making
- It is in the legislative organ that diverse interest groups find representation.
- Deliberation in such a forum ensures that the views of persons who are adversely affected by a law are heard and actively engaged with.
- Rushed lawmaking, rendering Parliament a rubber stamp, sacrifices two core ideals of a constitutional democracy, namely, equal participation and respect for fundamental rights
Judiciary Role in law making
- Enforcing the text and spirit of the constitutional provisions governing legislative procedures.
- The Constitution contains certain detailed provisions laying out how laws are to be passed by Parliament and the State Legislative Assemblies.
- Bills are certified as Money Bills to bypass the Rajya Sabha even where they do not meet the specific description of Money Bills provided under Article 110.Judiciary need to check the procedure followed.
- Judiciary to make deliberation a factor in evaluating the constitutional validity of laws.
- In exercising judicial review, the court’s role is to call on the State to provide justifications explaining why the law is reasonable and, therefore, valid.
- While doing so, the court can also examine whether and to what extent the legislature deliberated the reasonableness of a measure.
- The judiciary can also make deliberation a factor in choosing whether to employ the doctrine of “presumption of constitutionality”.
- This doctrine requires the court to exercise restraint and defer to legislative judgments on the reasonableness of a law.
- When laws are passed without deliberation and without examination of the empirical basis on which they are premised, the State usually finds it more difficult to explain why such laws constitute a reasonable restriction on rights and, therefore, heavily relies on the doctrine of presumption of constitutionality to resist close judicial scrutiny.
- By extending this doctrine to such laws, the judiciary undermines the guarantee of judicial review provided to protect fundamental rights.
- Striking down laws on procedural grounds also mitigates concerns of separation of powers in certain respects.
THE HINDU
National monetisation scheme
- The government’s announcement of the National Monetisation Pipeline (NMP)
- A scheme to transfer the rights to operate public infrastructure for a fixed period.
- A significant criticism of the NMP is that the transfer would end up creating monopolies, leading to a rise in price.
- Rajiv Kumar, Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog, has emphasised that the price would be regulated and any increase of it capped in line with inflation when the government signs the contract with the concessionaire.
- Most infrastructure comes in the form of a public good, even when it may not be a natural monopoly.
- India’s infrastructure has not expanded precisely because the assets generate too little revenue for even their maintenance, leave alone upgradation, due to pricing practices in the public sector. This has held back growth of the economy
- The important consideration in an evaluation of the NMP would be the volume of funds expected to be generated.
- The government has announced an indicative value of ₹6 lakh crore accruing over four years
THE HINDU
Logistic agreement
- Logistics agreements are administrative arrangements which help to facilitate the replenishment of fuel, rations, spares (where required), and berthing and maintenance for the other nations’ warships, military aircraft and troops during routine port calls, joint exercises and training carried out in each other’s countries as well as during humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HADR).
- These agreements simplify the bookkeeping during such events and ensure that the forces of the visiting countries are benefited by using the host nation’s existing logistics network, which additionally reduces overall costs and saves on time.
- These agreements feed into the Indian Navy’s requirement to maintain round-the-clock and round-the-year presence in its primary areas of interest, the Indian Ocean Region (IOR) and, going forward, the Indo-Pacific.
THE HINDU
Prelims Facts
- Krishna Nagar secured a second gold medal in badminton, after Suhas Yathiraj claimed a silver, on a super final day for the Indian contingent at the Tokyo Paralympics here