The Hindu Editorial Analysis In English | Free PDF

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The anatomy of a police station

Bulandshahr district of Uttar Pradesh
The shock turns into dread as the ruling elite fails to condemn and punish the perpetrators.
Terrifying lawlessness: The police station was structured to perpetrate lawlessness in two ways.
Manned by 16 people in all, with six of its 22 posts vacant, and headed by a sub-inspector, it was expected to serve 83 villages across 2,680 sq km.
The thana was always short of money, and personnel spent from their pocket on stationery and other needs.
Interaction with the community showed that the village people feared and avoided the police.
One police personnel admitted that it was difficult not to be corrupt, because everyone was.
This problem was clearly systemic and not individual, as the police personnel themselves were not happy with their corruption.
It is out of this system of lawlessness that the more dramatic incidents like the death of Singh emerge.
Interaction with the community showed that the village people feared and avoided the police.
One police personnel admitted that it was difficult not to be corrupt, because everyone was. • This problem was clearly systemic and not individual, as the police personnel themselves were not happy with their corruption.
It is out of this system of lawlessness that the more dramatic incidents like the death of Singh emerge.

The fear of executive courts

Justice S.R. Sen of the Meghalaya High Court observed in a judgment that “anybody opposing… Indian laws and the Constitution cannot be considered… citizens of the country.”
“should … have been declared… a Hindu country” , and that “our beloved Prime Minister” ought to legislate to grant automatic citizenship to (nonMuslim) religious minorities “who have come from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan”.
“our political leaders” in 1947 “were too much in a hurry to get the independence… thus, creating all the problems today” , and that “nobody should try to make India as another Islamic country”.
Justice Mahesh Chandra Sharma of the Rajasthan High Court observed that peacocks don’t have sex.
We normally think about judicial independence as independence from the government.
It also means performing constitutional role independent of personal biases, political and moral beliefs, and partisan ideologies.
Accountability only to oneself is a very weak form of constraint.
Legal culture: a set of unwritten, but clearly established, norms that determine what is or is not acceptable in the process of adjudication.
1980s: there was a rapid expansion of judicial power
By the 1990s and the 2000s, under the misleading label of “judicial activism”, the court was beginning to engage in a host of administrative activities, from managing welfare schemes to “beautifying cities” to overseeing anti-corruption initiatives.
The first allows a judge to project her own social and political views as universally valid and beneficial; the second allows her to ignore the barriers that stand between her and the implementation of those views.
Executive court: a court whose moral and political compass finds itself in alignment with the government of the day, and one that has no compunctions in navigating only according to that compass

Idyllic no more

Solitude also means simplicity
Goa was attractive because of its picturesqueness, unspoilt beaches, the simplicity of the local populace, the slow pace of life, and low costs.
Goa shifted from an idyllic getaway to a party town.
Goa’s decline proves that no frontier can remain an untouched outpost of nature.
The sooner we realise this, the better it will be for India’s villages, mountains, forests and for us too.

Is it time to abolish the death penalty?

Most of the civilised world has abolished it.
No study has shown that the death penalty deters murder more than life imprisonment.
For deterrence to work, the severity of the punishment has to coexist with the certainty and swiftness of the punishment.
For over a century, stealing attracted the death penalty in England, where spectators at public hangings often had their pockets picked!
Between January 1, 2000 and June 31, 2015, the Supreme Court imposed 60 death sentences. It subsequently admitted that it had erred in 15 of them (25%). Can this system be trusted to take a life? And that too based on evidence collected, or fabricated, by a police force not known for its probity or efficiency?
Judges opposed to it never gave a death sentence; those in favour doled it out.
Should the killing of a human being depend on the philosophy of a particular individual?
Studies show that a more equal sex ratio has more to do with declining murder rates than killing murderers.
It is criticised mainly on three counts: arbitrariness, irreversibility and human rights.
India’s neighbourhood is not peaceful, unlike Scandinavia, and it does not form a supranational conglomerate of nations that facilitate common growth, unlike the European Union.
As noted by the Commission itself, cases of violent terror are constant reminders of the need to protect national stability by ensuring appropriate responses to such actions, and the death penalty forms part of the national response.
The hanging of Ajmal Kasab and Yakub Memon strongly affirms India’s commitment to the protection of life.
In 2007, the UN General Assembly passed a resolution calling for a moratorium on the administration of the death penalty by the 59 countries that still retained it.
India is one of them, even if it does not employ it as frequently as countries such as Iran, China, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S.
In 1962, the Law Commission supported the death penalty stating that India’s particular circumstances were such that it could not “experiment” with its abolition.
In 1991, the Supreme Court cited its use in defending law and order as the reason for its continuance.
In 1980, in Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab, a Constitution Bench articulated the “rarest of rare” threshold stating that “judges should never be bloodthirsty”.
In 2015, the Law Commission called for abolition of the death penalty for ordinary crimes, and activists continue to argue for abolishing it altogether.
Political will in India is still bound by populism

Important News

Kamal Nath to take charge in M.P.
Dissolution of House by Sirisena illegal: SC
Supreme Court verdict on Rafale probe today
A Supreme Court Bench, led by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, will on Friday pronounce its judgment on a batch of petitions for an independent court-monitored probe into the Rafale deal.
Fadnavis told to answer plea against election
The Supreme Court on Thursday asked Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis to respond to a petition for the annulment of his 2014 election to the Assembly for non-disclosure in his affidavit of two criminal cases pending against him.
Man held for rhino poaching wins poll
A Congress candidate arrested twice for alleged involvement in rhino poaching has won the gram panchayat president’s seat from Suwaguri in northeastern Assam’s Biswanath district.
Scientists step in to save Punganur cow
The Punganur cow, considered one of the world’s smallest breeds of cattle, is said to be on the verge of extinction due to cross-breeding conducted by farmers, according to livestock journals.
While R.W. Littlewood was the first to highlight the breed’s vulnerable status in his 1936 book Livestock of South India, the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) and the Animal Genetic Resources list the breed as facing extinction.
The Punganur cow is diminutive, with a height of 70 cm to 90 cm and weighing around 115 to 200 kg. In comparison, the famous Ongole bull stands tall at 1.70 metres and weighs 500 kg. Both breeds trace their origins to Andhra Pradesh.
Lack of basic rights for the aged a concern: SC
India, Russia to boost joint production in defence
How do you appoint CIC officials, asks SC
Bankers ask Das to ease PCA norms
India, China join hands to promote tea globally
Eye green, black tea consumption in Europe, U.S., Russia, West Asia
Come June, groundwater extraction will invite a fee