Key Supreme Court verdicts on LGBTQ rights

GS Paper - 2 (Polity)

The Supreme Court continued to hear a batch of pleas seeking legal recognition for same-sex marriages. On the second day of the hearing, the court heard arguments on the changing legal landscape on LGBTQ rights and the evolution of the right to choose one’s partner.

NALSA v Union of India

1. Months after a two-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in ‘Suresh Koushal v Union of India’ upheld the constitutional validity of Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code, another Bench in April 2014 affirmed the constitutional rights of transgender persons under Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 of the Constitution.
2. In ‘NALSA’, the Court agreed with virtually the same arguments it rejected in Suresh Koushal.
3. The court upheld the right of transgender persons to decide their gender and directed the Centre and state governments to grant legal recognition to their gender identity, such as male, female or the third gender.

KS Puttaswamy v Union of India

1. In 2017, a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right under the Constitution.
2. In doing so, the verdict overruled a “discordant note which directly bears upon the evolution of the constitutional jurisprudence on the right to privacy” — the 2013 ‘Suresh Koushal’ ruling.
3. The view in Koushal that the High Court had erroneously relied upon international precedents “in its anxiety to protect the so-called rights of LGBT persons” is…in our view, unsustainable.
4. The expression “so-called” seems to suggest the exercise of a liberty in the garb of a right which is illusory.

Shafin Jahan v Union of India

1. The SC in March 2018 set aside a Kerala High Court judgment that annulled the marriage of a 24-year-old woman who converted to Islam and married a man of her choice.
2. The ruling recognised the right to choose one’s partner as a facet of the fundamental right to liberty and dignity.

Shakti Vahini v Union of India

1. A three-judge Bench of the SC in March 2018 issued directives to prevent honour killings at the behest of khap panchayats and protect persons who marry without the approval of the panchayats.
2. In the ruling, the Court recognised the right to choose a life partner as a fundamental right.

Navtej Johar v Union of India

1. In August 2018, the SC heard a curative petition against the ‘Koushal’ ruling. A five-judge Constitution Bench struck down IPC Section 377 to the extent that it criminalised homosexuality.
2. The ‘Navtej’ ruling essentially said that the LGBTQ community are equal citizens and underlined that there cannot be discrimination in law based on sexual orientation and gender.

Deepika Singh vs Central Administrative Tribunal

1. The SC in August last year decided in favour of a woman who was denied maternity leave for her first biological child on the ground that she had already availed the benefit for her two non-biological children.
2. The ruling recognised “atypical” families, including queer marriages, which could not be confined in the traditional parenting roles.

Offsetting is not easy being green

GS Paper - 3 (Environment)

Offsets have come under fire as a way for companies to compensate for carbon emissions through eco projects elsewhere. Research recently published in the Environmental Science & Policy journal has challenged this “net-zero” logic. By buying “offsets”, the chain does not actually need to reduce actual carbon emissions to fulfil its net-zero claim.

How does offsetting work?

1. Buying offsets is a way to “compensate” for environmental damage. Companies make a financial contribution to projects that reduce the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and in exchange can keep polluting themselves.
2. Examples of projects include planting trees and rewetting peatlands — which store huge amounts of carbon in their soil.
3. In recent years, the carbon offset industry has boomed. It is worth $2 billion (€1.87 billion) annually and is expected to grow five times that size by the end of the decade.
4. After the concept’s invention in 1987, some international treaties such as the Kyoto protocol have let industrialized countries use carbon credits, each of which is worth one ton of carbon, to keep within emissions limits.
5. That market –— where carbon credits are traded to meet government regulations — is much bigger, about $261 billion a year. However, experts have warned most of the credits on the voluntary carbon market aren’t effective.

Offsetting in practice

1. Offset projects can be broadly split into two categories: removals and avoidances.
2. Removal describes actions which actively take carbon out of the air and store it permanently, such as by planting trees or direct air capture — which is not a technology available at scale.
3. Currently carbon dioxide removal represents just a small percentage of the carbon credits in circulation.
4. Avoidance offsets are from projects that stop the release of greenhouse gases, such as protecting trees from being logged.
5. For example, the asset management arm of the US bank JP Morgan Chase has bought 250,000 acres of forest for more than $500 million “for carbon capture and timber.”

Critical minerals supply chains

GS Paper -1 (Geography)

A working paper from Centre for Social and Economic Progress (CSEP) extends the earlier minerals assessment for 23 minerals by assessing the criticality levels of 43 select minerals for India based on their economic importance (demand-side factors) and supply risks (supply-side factors) through the evaluation of specific indicators.

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Critical Minerals:

They refer to mineral resources, both primary and processed, which are essential inputs in the production process of an economy, and whose supplies are likely to be disrupted due to the risks of non-availability or unaffordable price spikes.

Why the Assessment?

• To tackle supply risks, major global economies periodically evaluate which minerals are critical for their jurisdiction through a quantitative assessment.
• Minerals such as antimony, cobalt, gallium, graphite, lithium, nickel, niobium, and strontium are among the 22 assessed to be critical for India.
• Many of these are required to meet the manufacturing needs of green technologies, high-tech equipment, aviation, and national defence.
• While India has a significant mineral geological potential, many minerals are not readily available domestically. Hence, India needs to develop a national strategy to ensure resilient critical minerals supply chains.

Challenges involved:

At International level:

• China, the most dominant player in the critical mineral supply chains, still struggles with Covid-19-related lockdowns. As a result, the extraction, processing and exports of critical minerals are at risk of slowdown.
• The war between Russia and Ukraine has implications for critical mineral supply chains.
• Russia is one of the significant producers of nickel, palladium, titanium sponge metal, and the rare earth element scandium. 
• Ukraine is one of the major producers of titanium. It also has reserves of lithium, cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements, including tantalum, niobium, and beryllium.
• Due to the balance of power shifts across continents and countries, developed countries have jointly drawn up partnership strategies, including the Minerals Security Partnership (MSP) and G7’s Sustainable Critical Minerals Alliance, while developing countries have missed out.
• The transition to electric vehicles would require increasing amounts of minerals, including copper, lithium, cobalt, and rare earth elements.
• India does not have many of these mineral reserves, or its requirements may be higher than the availability, necessitating reliance on foreign partners to meet domestic needs.

At Domestic front:

Many critical and strategic minerals constitute part of the list of atomic minerals in the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) (MMDR) Act, 1957, the present policy regime reserves these minerals only for public sector undertakings. Some of these are minerals and ores bearing beryllium, lithium, niobium, titanium, tantalum, zirconium, beach sand minerals, and rare earth group minerals containing uranium and thorium.

Way forward:

• There is an imperative need to create a new list of such minerals in the MMDR Act, the list may include minerals such as molybdenum, rhenium, tungsten, cadmium, indium, gallium, graphite, vanadium, tellurium, selenium, nickel, cobalt, tin, the platinum group of elements, and fertiliser minerals such as glauconitic, potash, and phosphate (without uranium).
• These minerals must be prospected, explored, and mined on priority, as any delays may hinder India’s emissions reduction and climate change mitigation timeline.
• The reconnaissance and exploration of minerals must be encouraged, with particular attention given to deep-seated minerals. It requires collective effort by the government, ‘junior’ miners, and major mining companies.
• India requires a critical minerals strategy comprising measures aimed at making the country AatmaNirbhar (self-reliant) in critical minerals needed for sustainable economic growth and green technologies for climate action, national defence, and affirmative action for protecting the interests of the affected communities and regions.
• India must actively engage in bilateral and plurilateral arrangements for building assured and resilient critical mineral supply chains.
• The assessment of critical minerals for India needs to be updated every three years to keep pace with changing domestic and global scenarios.

India-UAE cooperation for regional food security

GS Paper -2 (International Relation)

India, the world’s second-largest food producer, is an essential partner in the UAE’s ambition to strengthen food security. The India-UAE food security partnership stands to benefit from multiple points of convergence.

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The United Arab Emirates (UAE), whose food security has been built on imports from global markets, is now focusing on the twin objectives of food access and readiness to confront supply chain crises.

India’s booming food sector:

• India has built its status as a global agri-export powerhouse using its vast tracts of arable land, a highly favourable climate, and a large and growing food production and processing sector.
• In recent years, India’s food market acted as a humanitarian provider of food to developing countries, demonstrating awareness of its evolving role in advancing regional and global food security.
• India has also made major budgetary outlays towards setting up massive food parks, with due emphasis on modern supply chain management spanning farm gate to retail outlet.
• These investments has placed its food sector to benefit from bilateral trade agreements, reflect the country’s strong and sustained intent to make the most of its agri-capabilities in the global food marketplace.
• In parallel, India runs the Public Distribution System, the world’s largest food subsidy programme, providing nearly 800 million citizens with subsidised grains, providing its people with the reassurance of daily, affordable meals.
• India’s laudable Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition (POSHAN) Abhiyaan’, the world’s largest nutrition programme for children and women.
• As a part of its G-20 presidency, India is promoting the consumption and farming of millets such as nutritious, drought-resistant, sustainable, crops that demonstrate the resilience focus that India offers to the global food security dialogue.

How convergence with UAE brings to table:

• During the I2U2 (India, Israel, the United Arab Emirates and the United States) summit in July last year, the UAE committed $2 billion in investment towards constructing food parks in India (in Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat).
• With the signing of a food security corridor on the Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA)’s side-lines (with logistics partner DP World) has taken forward India’s envisioned presence on the global food value chain, beyond the UAE.
• The corridor could potentially commence a route for foods made and processed in India, beginning their outbound journey on the Indian coast of the Arabian Sea, passing through the UAE, and towards major international markets.
• The corridor stands to emerge as a world-class template of successful agri-trade for India, while also unlocking greater productivity, efficiency and growth for its millions of workers and employees.
• For the UAE, the benefits go beyond maintaining and diversifying its food reserves, and trade linkages could enable the Emirates to leverage its strategically placed location between Asia and Europe to serve as India’s food export gateway to West Asia and the Africa region, and further beyond.
• Given the food corridor’s incredible commercial potential, several UAE-based companies have expressed interest in constructing a supporting logistics and infrastructure pipeline to accelerate trade and reinforce the food corridor.
• The Dubai Multi Commodities Centre, the UAE’s largest free trade zone, launched Agriota, an agri-trading and commodity platform to link Indian farmers to food companies in the UAE.
• A consortium of UAE-based entities is investing up to $7 billion in mega food parks, contract farming and the sourcing of agro-commodities in India. The initiative will include mega food parks, logistics and warehouse hubs, and fruits and vegetable hubs.

The benefits:

• India stands to gain from the UAE’s private sector projects spanning its agricultural and food processing sector. Those projects will generate lakhs of non-farm agri-jobs, while enabling farmers to discover better prices for their products.
• India’s G-20 presidency offers an opportune moment for both India and the UAE to showcase viable strategies and frameworks that can forge the basis of food security in the Global South.