1) Need for UCC in India: Indian Prime Minister in his recent address expressed his support for the implementation of a Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in India, stating that India cannot function efficiently with a system of “separate laws for separate communities”.
Arguments in Favour of UCC:
- It will promote national integration and secularism by removing the distinctions and contradictions based on religious personal laws and creating a common identity for all citizens.
- It would ensure gender justice and equality by abolishing the discriminatory and oppressive practices against women in various personal laws, such as polygamy, unequal inheritance, etc.
- A UCC would simplify the legal framework by consolidating and harmonizing various laws into a single code.
- A UCC is the sign of a modern progressive nation implying that it has moved away from caste and religious politics.
Arguments against the UCC:
- India’s strength lies in its diverse society, and personal laws have been developed to accommodate these diversities.
- India already faces a significant backlog of cases, and implementing a UCC could exacerbate the situation.
- Goa’s implementation of a UCC has been praised by the Supreme Court in 2019. However, the ground reality reveals complexities and legal pluralities within the state’s UCC.
2) Greedflation: Recently, there has been an increasing consensus in Europe and US that Greedflation is driving the rising cost of living rather than just Inflation.
- Greedflation refers to the situation where corporate greed drives inflation. Rather than a wage-price spiral, it is a Profit-Price Spiral where companies exploit inflation by raising prices excessively, going beyond covering their increased costs, and aiming to maximize their profit margins. These further fuels inflation.
- During crises like natural disasters or pandemics, prices often surge as businesses raise them due to increased input costs. However, in some cases, businesses exploit the situation by making excessive profits through significantly higher price mark-ups.
- Greedflation disproportionately impacts low-income and middle-class individuals, reducing their consumption and lowering their standards of living.
3) India Removed from the Report on Children and Armed Conflict: First time since 2010, the United Nations Secretary-General has removed India from the 2023 report on Children and Armed Conflict in view of measures taken by the Indian government to protect children.
- 25 years ago, in December 1996, the UN General Assembly (UNGA) took the unprecedented decision to create a mandate to protect children from hostilities and adopted resolution 51/77 which created the CAAC mandate.
- Objective: Strengthen the protection of children affected by armed conflict, raised awareness, promote the collection of information about the plight of children affected by war and foster international cooperation to improve their protection.
- Recent Observations: Among the various types of violations, the highest numbers were reported for the killing of 2,985 children and the maiming (wound or injured) of 5,655 children, totaling 8,631 affected children.
