Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – Polity,Post Independent India

Context: On June 25th, India entered the fiftieth year of the imposition of the Emergency, an extraordinary 21-month period from 1975 to 1977, which saw the suspension of civil liberties, curtailment of press freedom, mass arrests, the cancellation of elections, and rule by decree.

Background:-

• The Emergency refers to the period from June 25, 1975 to March 21, 1977, during which Indira Gandhi government used special provisions in the Constitution to impose sweeping executive and legislative consequences on the country.

Key takeaways

• The declaration of Emergency converts the federal structure into a de facto unitary one, as the Union acquires the right to give any direction to state governments, which, though not suspended, come under the complete control of the Centre.
• Parliament may by law extend the (five-year) term of Lok Sabha one year at a time, make laws on subjects in the State List, and extend the Union’s executive powers to the states.
• Under Article 352 of the Constitution, the President may, on the advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister, issue a proclamation of emergency if the security of India or any part of the country is threatened by “war or external aggression or armed rebellion”. In 1975, instead of armed rebellion, the ground of “internal disturbance” was available to the government to proclaim an emergency.
• This was the only instance of proclamation of emergency due to “internal disturbance”. The two occasions in which an emergency was proclaimed earlier, on October 26, 1962, and December 3, 1971, were both on grounds of war.
• This ground of “internal disturbance” was removed by The Constitution (Forty-fourth Amendment) Act, 1978 by the Janata government that came to power after the Emergency.
• Article 358 frees the state of all limitations imposed by Article 19 (“Right to freedom”) as soon as an emergency is imposed. Article 359 empowers the President to suspend the right of people to move court for the enforcement of their rights during an emergency.

What were the political and social circumstances in India in the months leading up to the Emergency?

• Early in 1974, a student movement called Navnirman (Regeneration) began in Gujarat against the Congress government of Chimanbhai Patel, which was seen as corrupt. As the protests became violent, Patel had to resign and President’s Rule was imposed.
• Navnirman inspired a students’ movement in Bihar against corruption and poor governance, and the ABVP and socialist organisations came together to form the Chhatra Sangharsh Samiti.
• The students asked Jayaprakash Narayan, a Gandhian and hero of the Quit India Movement, to lead them. He agreed with two conditions — that the movement would be non-violent and pan-Indian, and aim to cleanse the country of corruption and misgovernance. Thereafter, the students’ movement came to be called the “JP movement”.
• Meanwhile, in May 1974, the socialist leader George Fernandes led an unprecedented strike of railway workers that paralysed the Indian Railways for three weeks.
• On June 5, during a speech in Patna’s historic Gandhi Maidan, JP gave a call for “Sampoorna Kranti”, or total revolution. By the end of the year, JP had got letters of support from across India, and he convened a meeting of opposition parties in Delhi.
• JP’s rallies invoked the power of the people with the rousing slogan, “Sinhasan khaali karo, ke janata aati hai (Vacate the throne, for the people are coming)”.
• On June 12, 1975, Justice Jagmohanlal Sinha of Allahabad High Court delivered a historic verdict in a petition filed by Raj Narain, convicting Indira Gandhi of electoral malpractice, and striking down her election from Rae Bareli. On appeal, the Supreme Court gave the Prime Minister partial relief — she could attend Parliament but could not vote.
• As demands for her resignation became louder and her aides in the Congress dug in their heels, JP asked the police not to follow immoral orders.
• Late on June 25 evening, President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed signed the proclamation of Emergency. The Cabinet was informed about the decision the next morning.

What happened to opposition leaders, mediapersons, and political dissenters during the Emergency?

• Almost all opposition leaders, including JP, were detained. About 36,000 people were put in jail under the Maintenance of Internal Security Act (MISA).
• Newspapers were subjected to pre-censorship. UNI and PTI were merged into a state-controlled agency called Samachar. The Press Council was abolished.
• Indira’s son Sanjay Gandhi pushed a “five-point programme” that included forced family planning and clearance of slums.

What legal changes were pushed through by Parliament and in the courts during the Emergency?

• With the opposition in jail, Parliament passed The Constitution (Thirty-eighth Amendment) Act that barred judicial review of the Emergency, and The Constitution (Thirty-ninth Amendment) Act that said the election of the Prime Minister could not be challenged in the Supreme Court.
• The Constitution (Forty-second Amendment) Act made changes to a range of laws, taking away the judiciary’s right to hear election petitions, widening the authority of the Union to encroach on State subjects, gave Parliament unbridled power to amend the Constitution with no judicial review possible, and made any law passed by Parliament to implement any or all directive principles of state policy immune to judicial review.
• In the famous case of ADM Jabalpur vs Shivkant Shukla, 1976, a five-judge Bench of the Supreme Court ruled that detention without trial was legal during an emergency. The sole dissenter to the majority judgment was Justice H R Khanna.

What prompted Indira Gandhi to lift the Emergency, and what happened afterward?

• For no apparent reason, Indira decided to lift the Emergency early in 1977.
• As it happened, the elections of 1977 led to a comprehensive defeat for Indira. The Janata Party, formed by a merger of the Jana Sangh, Congress (O), the socialists and Bharatiya Lok Dal, emerged as a formidable force, and Morarji Desai became India’s first non-Congress Prime Minister.

What efforts were made by the Janata government to undo the damage caused by the Emergency?

• The Janata government reversed many of the constitutional changes effected by the 42nd Amendment Act of 1976. It did not do away with the provision of the emergency, but made it extremely difficult to impose for the future. It made judicial review of a proclamation of emergency possible again, and mandated that every proclamation of emergency be laid before both Houses of Parliament within a month of the proclamation. Unless it was approved by both Houses by a special majority, the proclamation would lapse.
• The 44th Amendment removed “internal disturbance” as a ground for the imposition of an emergency, meaning that armed rebellion alone would now be a ground, apart from war and external aggression.
• The Shah Commission, constituted by the Janata government to report on the imposition of the Emergency and its adverse effects, submitted a damning report that found the decision to be unilateral, and adversely affecting civil liberties.

How did the Emergency change Indian politics?

• The Janata experiment gave India its first non-Congress government, but its collapse also demonstrated the limits of anti-Congressism.
• The Emergency gave India a crop of young leaders who would dominate politics for decades to come — Lalu Prasad Yadav, George Fernandes, Arun Jaitley, Ram Vilas Paswan, and many others.
• The post-Emergency Parliament saw the coming together of the social forces behind the Jana Sangh and the socialists — Hindutva upper caste, and the Lohiaite agrarian and artisanal castes — and increased the representation of OBCs in Parliament.
• The Janata government appointed the Mandal Commission to look into OBC quotas, which would go on to make the rise of the OBCs in North India irreversible.

Source: Indian Express

Syllabus

• Prelims & Mains – CURRENT EVENT

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi will not attend the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit this year. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar is set to lead the Indian delegation to Kazakhstan capital Astana.

Background:

• The summit will take place from July 3-4 in Astana. Kazakhstan took over the SCO presidency from India, which was the president last year. India hosted the SCO summit virtually in July 2023.

About Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)

• TheShanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) is a Eurasian political, economic, international security and defence organization established by China and Russia in 2001.
• It is the world’s largestregional organization in terms of geographic scope and population, covering approximately 80% of the area of Eurasia and 40% of the world population. As of 2021, its combined GDP was around 20% of global GDP.
• The SCO is the successor to theShanghai Five, formed in 1996 between the People’s Republic of China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and
• In June 2001, the leaders of these nations andUzbekistan met in Shanghai to announce a new organization with deeper political and economic cooperation.
• In June 2017, it expanded to eight states, withIndia and  Iran joined the group in July 2023. Several countries are engaged as observers or dialogue partners.
• The SCO Secretariat is located at Beijing (the People’s Republic of China).
• The SCO is governed by the Heads of State Council (HSC), its supreme decision-making body, which meets once a year. Its headquarters is located in Tashkent, the Republic of Uzbekistan
• The organization also contains the so-called Regional Antiterrorist Structure (RATS).

The main SCO goals and tasks according to its charter are::

• strengthening mutual trust, friendship and good neighborliness between the members;
• development of multifaceted cooperation in the maintenance and strengthening of peace, security and stability in the region and promotion of a new democratic, fair and rational political and economic international order;
• joint combating terrorism, separatism and extremism, fighting against illicit narcotics and arms trafficking and other types of transnational criminal activity, and also illegal migration;
• encouraging efficient regional cooperation in such areas as politics, trade and economy, defense, law enforcement, environment protection, culture, science and technology, education, energy, transport, credit and finance, and also other areas of common interest;
• facilitating economic growth, social and cultural development in the region through joint actions on the basis of equal partnership aimed at steady increase of living standards and improvement of living conditions of the people;
• coordinating approaches to integration into the global economy;
• promoting enjoyment of human rights and fundamental freedoms in accordance with the international obligations of the member States and their national legislation;
• maintaining and developing relations with other States and international organizations; cooperating in the prevention of international conflicts and their peaceful settlement;
• jointly searching for solutions to the problems that would arise in the 21st century.

Decisions-Taking Procedure

• The SCO bodies take decisions by agreement without vote and their decisions shall be considered adopted if no member State has raised objections during its consideration (consensus), except for the decisions on suspension of membership or expulsion from the Organization that shall be taken by “consensus minus one vote of the member State concerned”.

Source: Indian Express

Syllabus

• Prelims – Geography

Context: Russia’s Defence Ministry has ordered officials to prepare a response to U.S. drone flights over the Black Sea, signalling potential forceful action to deter American reconnaissance aircraft.

Background:

• The ministry cites an “increased intensity” of U.S. drone presence. This situation reflects heightened involvement of the U.S. and NATO countries in the Ukraine conflict.

About Black Sea:

• The Black Sea, also known as the Euxine Sea, is one of the major water bodies and a  famous inland sea of the world.

• This marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean, located between Eastern Europe and Western Asia.
• It is surrounded by the Pontic, Caucasus, and Crimean Mountains in the south, east and north respectively.
• The Turkish straits system – the Dardanelles, Bosporus and Marmara Sea – forms a transitional zone between the Mediterranean and the Black Sea.
• The Black Sea is also connected to the Sea of Azov by the Strait of Kerch.
• The bordering countries of Black Sea are: Russia, Ukraine, Georgia, Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania.

Additional Information

• The Black Sea is the world’s largest water body in which the bottom waters never mix with shallower waters (a condition known as “meromictic”). As a result, the deeper waters are completely anoxic (devoid of oxygen).
• Seawater flows into the Black Sea basin from the Mediterranean via the Straits of Bosporus, while freshwater enters from several European rivers including the Danube.
• As a result, salinity gradually increases with depth from about 18 ppt at the surface to about 22 ppt in deeper waters. A water mass known as the Cold Intermediate Layer (CIL) separates surface waters from deeper waters, and is the major reason for deep-water isolation.
• Below about 200 m, bacterial decomposition of biomass sinking from shallow water consumes all available oxygen, while the anaerobic metabolism of other bacteria causes the formation of hydrogen sulfide.
• While such conditions are not favorable for many biological species, they are excellent for preserving human artifacts from normal processes of degradation.

Source: The Hindu

Syllabus

• Prelims – GEOGRAPHY

Context: Five army personnel died early Saturday morning while de-inducting or withdrawing from a military training activity that involved crossing the Shyok River at the Daulat Beg Oldie (DBO) area of eastern Ladakh.

Background:

• Their Russian-origin T-72 tank got swept away by the Shyok River due to a sudden increase in water levels.

About SHYOK RIVER

• The Shyok River originates at the Rimo Glacier in the Karakoram Range in the Indian-administered union territory of Ladakh.
• It is a tributary of the Indus River.
• Its alignment is very unusual, originating from the Rimo glacier, it flows in a southeasterly direction and, joining the Pangong range, it takes a northwestern turn, flowing parallel to its previous path.

Tributaries:

• The Nubra River, originating from the Siachen glacier, is a significant tributary of the Shyok River.The Nubra River,also behaves like the Shyok. The southeasterly flowing river Nubra takes a northwest turn on meeting the river Shyok. The similarity in the courses of these two important rivers probably indicates a series of paleolithic fault lines trending northwest-southeast in delimiting the upper courses of the rivers.
• Other tributaries include the Chang Chen Mo River, which empties into the Shyok, and the Galwan River, which originates in the southern part of Aksai Chin and joins the Shyok.

Additional Information

• The Shyok Valley is the valley of the Shyok River. It is near the Nubra Valley. Khardung La on the Ladakh Range lies north of Leh and is the gateway to the Shyok and Nubra valleys.

Source: Indian Express

Syllabus

• Mains – GS 3

Context: The Ministry of Labour and Employment has joined the PM Gati Shakti portal to identify and bridge gaps in social security coverage.

Background:

• Investment in social infrastructure is a pre-requisite for inclusive growth and employment.

Social Infrastructure:

• It is the set of organizational arrangements and investments in society’s systems, relationships, and structures that enable us to generate a just, equitable, more resilient, and sustainable world. It comprises social, economic, environmental, and cultural assets.
• It is a combination of tangible and intangible assets that facilitates the development of society.
• It includes the physical Infrastructure, human resources, and intellectual capital needed to render social services.

Significance of Social Infrastructure in India:

• It promotes inclusive growth by reducing incidents of poverty and cases of inequality.
• It enhances human resource productivity by improving education and skill levels, which in turn maximizes the chances of utilizing India’s demographic dividend.
• It encourages upward social mobility and enhances social well-being by improving a person’s socio-economic situation.
• It helps in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by adopting eco-friendly practices such as reducing carbon footprints and promoting resilience to climate change.
• It reduces the sense of alienation among citizens by creating liveable and inclusive settlements where social and economic benefits.

Issues/Challenges faced in developing Social Infrastructure in India:

• The key social sectors such as education and health face inadequate public funding which in turn leads to low learning outcomes.
• Social infrastructure faces low private sector participation due to low returns on investments.
• There is a lack of human resources such as an absence of trained teachers, a lack of highly skilled health professionals, planning, etc.
• There is an inequality in access due to affordability issues in marginalized communities, especially in lower-income groups.
• There is a lack of awareness among citizens about the importance of social infrastructure.

Source: Economic Times

Q1.) Who among the following declared a state of emergency on 25th June following advice from Prime Minister Indira Gandhi ?

1. Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed
2. Giani Zail Singh
3. Neelam Sanjiva Reddy
4. R. Narayanan

Q2.) With reference to the Shyok River, consider the following statements:

1. The Shyok River originates at the Rimo Glacier in the Aravalli Range.
2. It is a tributary of the Yamuna River.
3. The Nubra River is a significant tributary of the Shyok River.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1. 1 only
2. 1 and 2 only
3. 3 only
4. 1,2 and 3

Q3.) Consider the following countries:

1. Russia
2. Ukraine
3. Georgia
4. Turkey

How many of the above-mentioned countries share a border with the Black Sea?

1. Only one
2. Only two
3. Only three
4. All four

Comment the answers to the above questions in the comment section below!!

ANSWERS FOR ’  1st July 2024 – Daily Practice MCQs’ will be updated along with tomorrow’s Daily Current Affairs.st

Q.1) – b

Q.2) -d

Q.3) – a