19 August 2023 : Indian Express
Indian Express
19-August–2023
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1. A DEATH TOO MANY
Topic: GS1-Society
Context:
- On the night of August 9, a first-year student fell or was pushed to his death from a hostel block at Jadavpur University, Kolkata, probably after being abused by his seniors.
- This horrific crime has aroused extraordinary public outrage, directed both at the administrative failure and at the sadistic cruelty masquerading under the obsolete euphemism, “ragging”.
Details of the case:
- It turns out that more or less everyone in the university community was aware of the bullying and abuse that routinely took place at the men’s hostel.
- The victim, a minor, had shared his fears with both family and fellow students, though without making a formal complaint.
- He received neither counselling nor advice from faculty, departmental seniors, or the university’s student welfare board, and was left to deal with the trauma of his first few days in the hostel alone.
Failure of the institution and society in protecting the minor:
- Jadavpur University failed in its duty of taking care it’s student. This criminal failure indicts an institution that has prided itself on excellent teacher-student relations and community spirit.
- It also indicts society’s neglect of a culture of torture and abuse in which its members were complicit, and the normalization of such behavior as a university coming of age.
Menace of Ragging in India:
- Fostered by official apathy or patronage, ragging is condoned by the gangland honour code of the student body.
- Despite official campaigns against the practice, ragging has never been an issue in campus politics.
- It does not even feature in the larger political arena, where ideological debates are similarly oblivious to gender discrimination, rape, domestic abuse, and hate crimes, all generated by the same psychopathology of violence linked to the exercise of power.
Recommendations of Raghavan Committee:
- The immense social toll taken by this culture of abuse had reached critical mass when in late 2006 the R K Raghavan Committee, set up by a Supreme Court directive, had recommended that “raggers” be treated as criminals, that a section on ragging, on the lines of the anti-dowry laws, be introduced in the Indian Penal Code, that the burden of proof be on the accused rather than the victims (as in the existing rape provisions), and that a national anti-ragging helpline be setup.
- On June 8, 2009, the Supreme Court directed that the Raghavan Committee recommendations be implemented immediately, that the UGC finalize its anti-ragging regulations, and that “freshers should be lodged in a separate hostel block, wherever possible, and that seniors’ access to freshers’ accommodation should be strictly monitored by wardens, security guards and college staff”.
Notable incident of Ragging in India:
- In March 2009, Aman Satya Kachroo, a 19- year-old medical student at Dr Rajendra Prasad Government Medical College, Himachal Pradesh, was beaten to death by hostel seniors. Initially, college officials passed off his death as suicide, and it was only after the autopsy revealed the extent of Aman’s injuries that his four assailants were criminally indicted by the Kangra police. They were sentenced by a fasttrack court to only four years of rigorous imprisonment, but even so, they were released in August 2012, like Bilkis Bano’s rapists, for “good conduct”. This leniency was denounced by Aman’s father, Rajendra Kachroo, who had initiated a countrywide anti-ragging movement in memory of his dead son.
- Rajendra Kachroo pointed out that in the three years since his son’s death, no less than 35 young students had died by “suicide” across the country as a result of torture and abuse in educational institutions.
- Like the December 2012 gang rape and murder, Aman Kachroo’s death, just another casualty in along and horrific list, caused a national outcry.
Statistics:
- The Aman Movement was subsequently charged with creating a national database to monitor incidents of ragging.
- Its reports indicate that the largest number of incidents are from Uttar Pradesh, closely followed by West Bengal.
- Over the past 50 years, horror stories of mental, physical, and sexual violence have reached us from premier residential institutions in West Bengal and elsewhere.
Way Forward: How to deal with the menace?
- There should be periodic attempts to break this cycle of abuse and silence.
- Anti-Ragging Committee must be set up in all institutions and strict action should be taken against students found guilty of ragging.
- Anti-ragging vigilance should be stepped up on campus, with the Anti-Ragging Squad making midnight visits to hostels to rescue victims and identify perpetrators.
- Ragging should be identified for what it is. It is not a culture confined to educational institutions, where students enact initiation rites in ‘protected’ spaces. Fundamentally, it is a perversion of power, the same kind of sadistic violence that is publicly or privately manifested through bullying, sexual assault, domestic abuse, rape, torture, or lynching. Only then we would be able to tackle the problem and find viable solutions.
- Such violence must be addressed by society as a whole, in terms of the human right to dignity, safety and freedom from assault.
As civil rights and gender activists have shown, institutional spaces are answerable to justice and law. Failing to safeguard them is to fail ourselves.
2. CARRYING HOPE
Topic: GS3-Economy
Context:
- At the end of this month, the National Statistical Office will release the GDP growth estimates for the first quarter (April-June) of the ongoing financial year.
Growth estimates:
- As per the most recent estimate by the RBI, the economy is likely to have grown at 8 per cent during this period.
- In the period there after, the economic momentum (on a quarter-on-quarter basis) is likely to have remained healthy even as the global recovery is slowing down as per the State of The Economy report by economists at the RBI.
- The report states that while the contraction in exports will drag down growth, merchandise exports declined by around 16 percent in July, falling to a nine month low at $32.25 billion while growth in private consumption and investment activity is expected to offset that. These are encouraging signs.
Sectors showing healthy signs:
- The study examines a range of high-frequency indicators for whom data is available for the month of July. Several indicators of both demand and supply show healthy signs.
- For instance, e-way bill volumes have registered robust growth.
- FMCG sales have also improved sequentially.
- Also cargo at major ports as well as railway freight traffic has picked up in July.
- Both steel and cement consumption have registered healthy growth.
Sectors showing weakness:
- Automobile sales, with the exception of three-wheelers, remains weak.
- Demand for work by households/individuals under MGNREGA is higher than last year.
- Non-oil imports are lower than last year indicating weak domestic demand.
Analysis by economists of RBI:
- Study by economists at the central bank, which looks at investment intentions financed through various sources, provides some indications.
- As investment intentions closely track actual investments (as measured by gross fixed capital formation of private corporates), this serves as a useful indicator of gauging the private investment cycle.
- As per this (limited) study, in 2022-23, investment plans were made for 982 projects with a capital outlay of Rs 3.5 lakh crore while in 2021-22, plans were drawn up for 791 projects worth Rs 1.96 lakh crore.
- Around 60 percent of these projects financed by banks and financial institutions are in the infrastructure sector—power, roads and bridges, SEZs, industrial biotech and IT park and most are for investment in green field projects.
- Five states, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Odisha, Maharashtra and Karnataka account for more than half of the total project cost. These indicators overall project a healthy sign.
Way forward:
- While greater clarity on the extent of a pick in the investment cycle will emerge in the months and quarters ahead, stronger bank and corporate sector balance sheets, improving demand conditions and rising capacity utilization rates as per the reports “bode well for the capital expenditure (capex) cycle”.
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