In Focus by The Hindu

Five states go to the polls this month – Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Telangana, and Mizoram. Political analysts have taken to describing them as the ‘semi-finals’ before the finals, the 2024 Lok Sabha elections. Part of the reason for this characterisation is that in three of the states – Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh – the elections will see a direct face-off between the BJP and the Congress.

How do the contesting parties stack up in different states, and what is the significance, if any, of these elections at the national level?

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi said earlier this month that India will leave no stone unturned in its bid to host the 2036 Olympics. While India has hosted major multi-nation, multi-discipline sports events --- the Commonwealth Games of 2010 and the Asian Games of 1982 come to mind – the Olympics is of an altogether different order of magnitude.

Several questions pop up as India aspires to host the Olympics. How does the bidding process work? What are the costs likely to be? Can India afford it? And what is the scale of infrastructure that India would have to create in order to be able to pull it off? 

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Earlier this month, a married woman, who was 26 weeks pregnant, approached the Supreme Court, asking to be allowed to terminate her pregnancy. This was the woman’s third pregnancy, and she told the Court that she did not want to have the baby. She also said she was suffering from post-partum depression and other health issues. She did not know of her pregnancy until quite late, as she was breastfeeding, which can temporarily prevent pregnancies. The Court first agreed to allow her to terminate. But subsequently, following a hospital report that said the foetus was viable and had a heartbeat, and a medical board report that said the pregnancy was not causing an immediate danger to the woman or foetus’s life, the Court rejected her plea to abort the foetus.

The case has sparked a pro-life vs pro-choice debate. Only last year, in a landmark ruling in a case known as X vs NCT the Supreme Court had said it is the woman alone who has the right over her body and was the ultimate decision-maker. But this apart, the case has also thrown into spotlight the laws surrounding abortion in India . So what do the laws, including the Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act say? Why do women need to approach the Courts for a termination? Why is it that women across the country still find it hard to access safe and legal abortion services?

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In Part 1 of this series, we looked at the origins of this conflict, which began with the steady influx of Jewish settlers in Palestinian territories and culminated in the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

In the second part, we explored the key developments of the conflict from 1948 to the present – the wars that took place in 1948, 1956, 1962, 1982, the First Intifada, the Second Intifada, the Oslo process, the rise of Hamas, and so on.

In this final episode of the three part series, we will explore the key factors driving the current explosion of conflict in the region and its potential fallout over the medium term.

Listen to all three parts of this podcast series here.

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In the first part of this series, we looked at the origins of this conflict, which began with the steady influx of Jewish settlers in Palestinian territories and culminated in the founding of the state of Israel in 1948.

In this episode, we explore key developments from 1948 to the present – the wars that took place in 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, the Camp David agreement, the First Intifada, the Oslo process and reasons for its collapse, the Second Intifada, the rise of Hamas, and other aspects of the conflict.

Listen to all three parts of this podcast series here.

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When it comes to taxes, there is one definitive trend in all countries: the wealthiest entities, be it billionaires, or multinational corporations, enjoy the lowest effective rates of taxation. And this is in a context where governments around the world are cutting down on welfare programmes because they ostensibly can’t afford the resources to sustain them. To reduce inequality, fair and effective taxation is absolutely critical, and yet, largely missing.

The European Union Tax Observatory (EU Tax Observatory) has come out with a report on this subject, titled ‘Global Tax Evasion Report’. It summarises the work of more than 100 researchers worldwide and quantifies the magnitude and dynamics of tax evasion.

We discuss this report and its findings.

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The Israel-Palestine conflict has turned into a giant humanitarian crisis over the past week, with thousands of civilians, including women children being killed. Many of them were killed when hospitals were bombed. The UN Security Council’s attempt to pass a resolution calling for a humanitarian pause in the bombing campaign by Israel was blocked by the US and its allies.

International public opinion has become sharply polarised into two camps – those defending Israel’s right to do whatever it wants to wipe out Hamas, and those calling for an immediate ceasefire, humanitarian aid to Gaza, and a peace process premised on ending the Israeli occupation of Gaza and West Bank.

While this conflict dates back to the 19th century, if not earlier, a lot of the background and nuances are often lost in the polemics of the present. This episode is the first in a three-part series on the Israel-Palestine conflict where we seek to detail the history, context, and developments around this conflict from the beginning till the present.

In this episode, we trace the origins of this conflict: What was the nature of historical Palestine? What was the Balfour declaration? And how exactly did Palestine become the chosen homeland for Jews from around the world? 

Listen to all three parts of this podcast series here.

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The Supreme Court, in a judgement this week refused to give legal recognition to same sex marriages. The court had heard a series of petitions asking for same-sex marriage to be allowed under the Special Marriage Act of 1954 which provides a civil form of marriage for couples who cannot marry under their personal, religious laws.

The question before the Court was this: is there a right to marry under the Indian Constitution and is preventing same sex/queer couples from marrying, discriminatory?

A five-judge Bench of the Court held that that the SMA was not unconstitutional and could not be read down.

The petitioners had also questioned the Central Adoption Regulatory Authority, or CARA’s regulations that prevented persons in live-in relationships from adopting a child. Here again, the majority three judges, refused to strike down these regulations.

The Central government, had stiffly opposed any judicial recognition of same sex marriages and had said that this was an issue that needed to be resolved by the legislature and not the judiciary.

The Court has now shifted the burden to the government, and has directed that a committee be set up to examine the concerns of same sex/queer couples and to see whether the existing legal framework can be amended.

In effect, the Court has accepted that the issue needs to be dealt with by the government.

What are the key takeaways from the judgement? How did the Court rule on marriages of transgender persons? Given this setback, what are the next steps that can be taken?

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The Dussehra festivities are here, and so are Dussehra processions. In Mysore, like every year, this time too, the elephant Abhimanyu will carry the 750-kg Golden Howdah and lead the procession. Abhimanyu is 59 years old and this could be one of the last times he performs his annual duty.

While people love temple elephants and pachyderms like Abhimanyu are an integral part of religious rituals, it is, nonetheless, a fact that elephants are wild animals, and their transition to life in captivity is rarely without distress.

In this episode of InFocus, we look at the life trajectory of Abhimanyu, and the larger issues around human-elephant conflict in the context of captive elephants. 

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It has taken the country over 25 years to pass the Bill, after it was first introduced in the Lok Sabha in 1996, by the then Deve Gowda-led United Front government. At that time, it was heatedly opposed, and subsequently, despite being reintroduced several times, the Bill was not passed, until this year.

In 1993 however, then prime minister P.V. Narasimha Rao brought in Bills which reserved one third (33%) of all seats and chairperson posts for women in rural and urban local bodies. These Bills were passed and became laws. Today, the country has nearly 15 lakh elected women representatives in panchayats and other local bodies.

The representation of women in our Parliament however, is dismal – just about 15%, lower even than Pakistan and Kenya.

Why is women’s reservation in Parliament and State Legislatures important? What has been the experience of elected women’s representatives in local bodies and what are the changes they have managed to bring about? What are the barriers to women entering the political sphere? And how will this Bill, which is not going to be implemented in the immediate future, pan out?

Tune in.

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