GS – 2
The need of the hour is to implement the existing recommendations for anti-torture law of various commissions. Explain in detail.150 Words
In the News:
- Torture is not defined in the Indian Penal Code, but the definitions of ‘hurt’ and ‘grievous hurt’ are clearly laid down. Though the definition of ‘hurt’ does not include mental torture, Indian courts have included psychic torture, environmental coercion, tiring interrogative prolixity, and overbearing and intimidatory methods, among others, in the ambit of torture.
- Voluntarily causing hurt and grievous hurt to extort confession are also provided in the Code with enhanced punishment. Under the Code of Criminal Procedure, a judicial magistrate inquires into every custodial death.
Vague, harsh & retributive:
- A fresh draft of the Prevention of Torture Bill was released in 2017 for seeking suggestions from various stakeholders. The Bill was not only vague but also very harsh for the police to discharge its responsibilities without fear of prosecution and persecution. It was inconsistent with the existing provisions of law.
- It included ‘severe or prolonged pain or suffering’ as a form of torture but that was left undefined. The proposed quantum of punishment was too harsh. Though the 262nd Law Commission Report recommended that the death penalty be abolished except in cases of ‘terrorism-related offences’, the Bill provided for the death penalty for custodial deaths.
- Overall, the proposed Bill was not a reformative one. It was vague, harsh and retributive in nature. The need of the hour is to strike at the root cause of the problem and implement recommendations of various commissions to bring in necessary reforms.
Those who did not consider an anticipated pandemic as a reason to have a good public health care system were insouciant. Comment.250 Words
In the News:
- Human beings have two remarkable traits, the second of which we had little reason to suspect that we possessed until the rise of new technologies such as the Internet.
- The first is the capacity to anticipate events and tendencies, map their future in the short, mid, and long term, and act accordingly. The second is a trait which we do not know we possessed until a few decades ago. It should be ‘cognitive generosity’.
Combination of two traits:
- Now, if these two traits are combined, the remarkable capacity for decisions and actions on the basis of anticipatory knowledge’s and the disposition to be generous and share the knowledge’s.
- The striking genomic similarity of the novel corona virus with SARS is now well known and many who had studied SARS had anticipated the inevitability of more contagious pandemics than SARS in the offing and had sounded the alarm for the whole world to know and act upon the knowledge.
- There is no quick profit in public health issues of this preventive kind. If one tenth of the anticipatory gifts are to be exploited for immediate private gain on the part of corporations and investment bankers were put to use in the preventive domain of public health, not only would the crisis will be swiftly contained, it might even have been pre-empted by suitable medical safeguards.
An arcane distinction:
- There is a distinction between 1) Effectively controlling the spread of a pandemic is one of the many reasons we would and should consider for proposing a good public health care system, and 2) Were there a good public health care system, it would effectively control the spread of a pandemic.
- But given the highly detailed warnings that were given by scientists after SARS of its anticipated offshoots that would be both highly contagious and lethal (a combination of properties that was not standard true of the influenzas and other viruses of the last many years) and the urgent need to prepare for it — again with highly detailed suggestions about the development of cluster vaccines, production and distribution of medications, hospital equipment such as respirators, accessories such as masks, etc. — the distinction is academic and arcane.
Future Officers 