Editorial 1 : No Short-Cuts
Context: Lateral entry in bureaucracy
Recent Development
- The government decided to cancel an advertisement for recruitment of 45 mid-level specialists through the lateral entry route.
- The UPSC ad immediately stoked criticism and apprehensions both in ruling coalition and opposition, that by treating the 45 positions as specialised and designating them as single-cadre posts, the government was short-circuiting the system of reservation.
Need for Lateral Entry
- Lateral entry is desirable and it can ring in much-needed fresh ideas and energy.
- It is required to enrich state capacities to meet the increasingly complex tasks of governance.
- Lateral entrants can help fill the gaps of expertise and specialisation for specific durations and for well-defined objectives.
- Various commissions (Second Administrative Reforms Commission, 2005 and Sixth Pay Commission, 2013) and NIT Aayog have upheld on the need for induction of personnel at senior and middle management levels in government.
- Government has expanded the scale and ambit of the lateral hiring strategy.
Expertise and Merit vs Social Justice and Equality
- The problem arises when the demands of expertise and merit are ranged against the imperatives of social justice and equality.
- They are not antagonistic but are aligned and mutually reinforcing.
- Merit should be understood in terms of the social goods of equality and inclusivity
- The conflict is between haves and have-nots, and not between merit and distributive justice.
Way Forward
- With the return of coalition politics and a stronger opposition, government needs to remember that the new numbers demand a new listening.
- In a diverse country like India, this makes for better decisions and more responsive policies.
Editorial 2 : Despite the Laws
Context: Kolkata rape and murder and women safety across the country.
Laws provide insufficient deterrence
- Ever since the infamous gang rape that rocked the country in December 2012, much has been done to strengthen the laws on rape.
- Still the case like in Kolkata shows that laws fail to act as a sufficient deterrent.
- Laws on rape cannot be examined in isolation and be expected to regulate men’s mentality.
- Men’s brutalising of women continues to be rampant because of the laxity in laws surrounding other equally heinous crimes, which warrant immediate and equal attention as rape.
Dowry Deaths
- A dowry death is the unnatural death of a married woman who is murdered or commits suicide because of continuous cruelty by the husband and his family.
- Dowry deaths in India claim one victim every 90 minutes.
- The conviction rate in such cases is pitiably low.
Domestic Violence
- Domestic violence is the most underrated crime perpetrated against women across all socio-economic strata.
- The law provides a punishment of up to three years of imprisonment which gives the opportunity of bail to the accused.
Lax Bail norms
- Just like domestic violence other serious sinister crimes like stalking or harassment also have lax bail norms.
- These lax bail norms pose a serious impediment to correcting and curbing the criminal instincts of the accused before they graduate to committing bigger crimes.
- Condoning any act of violence against women or diluting its severity helps reinforce a culture where men are emboldened to believe they can get away with anything.
Way Forward: What needs to be done?
- A serious legal response to women’s safety must entail a review of the complete spectrum of crimes against them in order to truly inculcate society’s intolerance to any form of abuse.
- Graded penal provisions are required depending on the severity of the crime.
- A liberal bail regime cannot be sustained independent of other judicial reform.
- There is a need to develop a criminal justice system equipped to investigate and try cases of crimes against women in a fast-track mode.
- The Courts must crack down heavily on extra judicial compromises forced upon victims because of the tedious legal process.