Editorial 1 : Sense of uncertainty
Context
Amid doubt and fear, new criminal laws take over an unready system.
The three criminal laws
- The three new criminal laws have come into force in the country, amidst widespread fears that the policing and judicial systems are not yet ready for their introduction.
- Barring reports of some rudimentary training to station-house police personnel, some workshops here and there, and an upgrade to the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems, which will help ease the filing of complaints in electronic form, the exact level of preparedness among the upper and lower echelons of the police is unknown.
- Earlier the government had appointed July 1 as the day on which the three laws — the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita in place of the Indian Penal Code, the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita to supersede the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam, which has replaced the Indian Evidence Act — will come into force.
- It appears that the Union government decided that it is better to implement them and let the police, courts and lawyers fumble their way towards a rough transition than await a time when everyone involved in the administration of criminal law is brought up to speed.
Issues
- How much the initial period of possible confusion will last is anybody’s guess.
- There is little doubt that more time ought to have been given to the police and legal fraternity to prepare themselves before the codes were brought into force.
- The very names of the new laws appear obscure, with many questioning why there is no English equivalent for the new codes, and why they should bear unfamiliar Hindi names.
- There was no change in the name of the criminal procedure code when the 1898 original was replaced with a new one in 1973.
- There is also a persistent feeling that the laws were not fully debated in the legislature — even though a Standing Committee of Parliament went into the draft and recommended some changes — or widely discussed with civil society.
- There is a looming fear that some of the new provisions, especially the one relating to police custody that can be availed of in multiple tranches, will sharply empower the police to the citizen’s disadvantage.
- The inclusion of ‘terrorism’ as an offence in ordinary penal law in addition to the present special anti-terrorism law is bound to cause confusion.
- The Centre’s announcement that States are free to make their own amendments is fine, but there is no assurance that such amendments will get early Presidential assent.
Conclusion
Some procedural reforms such as registering FIRs regardless of jurisdiction and introduction of videography of searches and seizures are welcome initiatives, but there is a palpable sense of uncertainty over the overall impact of these new laws.
Editorial 2 : Glossing over unemployment, its high electoral price
Context
The Indian economy requires 25 million-plus jobs to be generated over the next five years in order to employ all those who are presently unemployed in this nation.
Unemployment on rise
- The current government has claimed that the Indian economy, judged by GDP, grew at an impressively rapid pace of 8% last year.
- But even if that claim is true, it has not created an adequate number of appropriate jobs going by the current unemployment in India.
- Using the latest official statistics, the unemployment rate for people aged 15 years or above may have dipped from 4.2% in 2021 to 3.1% in 2023, but this is not commensurate with the rapid GDP growth rate of 8%.
Inequality gap is widening
- The gap between the haves and have-nots has widened in the last two decades.
- Moreover, throughout the past decade under BJP central rule, official statistics reveal a sharp rise in wealth inequality.
- About 1% of India’s population now owns 40% of the country’s wealth. This is terrible for any democratic population and state, if not for the stability of the nation.
- This is what is graphically called “K-shaped” inequality in the economy, i.e., consumption/income for a few is rising, while for a large proportion of the less well-to-do population, it is sliding, i.e., it is decreasing ‘K’-wise.
- In public meetings, Prime Minister Modi has claimed that because of GDP growth in the last nine years of his tenure, the economy has lifted 25 crore people out of poverty by investing heavily in capital expenditure.
- In fact, the electoral outcome has raised questions about this claim which experts of the government vide news media had touted — that India is the “fastest-growing large economy in the world”.
Growth could slip
- India’s growth in the last two years has been pushed via a significantly large Budget deficit for funding the government’s massive capital expenditure.
- But this has not been done by structural investments in the industrial, agricultural, and service sectors.
- It may be recalled that the GDP growth rate in the fourth quarter of 2019-20, fell from 8% to 3.8%. GDP growth rate in 2015-16, i.e., April 1, 2015 to March 31, 2016 when compared to April 1, 2014 to March 31, 2015, was about 8%.
- Each financial year has four quarters, namely, April 1-June 30, July 1-September 30, October 1-December 31, and January 1-March 31.
- In the pre-COVID-19 quarter, January 1, 2020 to March 31, 2020, when compared to January 1, 2019-March 31, 2019, GDP growth declined to a 3.4% annual equivalent year.
Need for a new strategy
- During the last decade, this government’s economists have frequently called for the “next generation of reforms” to accelerate national economic growth.
- Moreover, in agriculture, 92% of the jobs are in the unorganised sector. In industry and services, 73% of the jobs created are in the small- and medium-informal sections.
- The government and formal private sector account for a mere 27% of jobs.
Conclusion
Thus, India now needs a new long-term economic strategy.
