 Welcome to the Hindu News Analysis by Shankar Reyes Academy, displayed on the list of news articles taken for today's analysis and their page numbers in different editions of the newspaper. The link for the handed notes in the PDF format and the time stamping of the discussed articles are provided in the description box and also in the comment section for the benefit of mobile phone viewers. Now let's move on to the analysis of first news article. This editorial article is with reference to rights of victims of crime and changing the current discourse on victim jurisprudence in our country. See, in Indian criminal justice system, it is mostly about criminals rather than about victims. Our nation has three criminal laws, Indian Penal Code, Code of Criminal Procedure, Indian Evidence Act, but we still do not have a law for victims and their protection. So, mostly a criminal is seen in the center stage, but a victim who suffered victimization at the first place or a victim who suffered primary victimization is often sidelined. In this article, the authors talk about rights of victims and what should be done to protect them and how the current discourse has to be changed. The syllabus relevant for the analysis of this editorial is highlighted here for your reference. See, whenever an offense happens, it is the state or the government which plays a crucial role in ensuring that the accused or the particular offender will be punished through the court of law. So, we can say that state is in driver's seat of our criminal justice system. It is often criticized that while the state is the driver, it takes on board the accused, the criminal justice agencies and the associated functionaries, but not victims. The role played by victims is very limited. See, the primary victims are just seen as witnesses in the eyes of the law and they are sidelined and left to their own resources. So, the victims for no mistake of their own are frequently left without remedy. Therefore, authors say that any reform and criminal laws would be incomplete if they are brought in without accounting for the victim's concerns. So, there is a need to reconceptualize the institutions of criminal justice system so as to account for victims both at the pre-crime level and also post-crime level. Here, a pre-crime conceptualization of victimization is focused towards prevention of crime. Post-crime conceptualization will be towards punishment for the crime. While we generally talk about punishment for the time, we fail to talk about victim assistance to the victim. Now, in criminal justice system, crime prevention is a frequently referred aspect but least studied and examination of crime prevention from the victim's perspective is very, very rare. So, this also should be reconceptualized to pay progress for criminal justice where there could be prevention of victimization. At the same time, there will be adequate victim support. Now, the author comes to rights of victims. See, in a post-crime scenario, there is a need to move from the image of the victim as just a witness and to institutionally recognize entire gamut of their rights and requirements. For this, we have to bring a victim law where various suggestions given by this author has to be brought in. That is why the author uses the term a legislative recognition of the various aspects is required. First, the access to justice for victims must be seen more under fundamental rights, Article 14 and Article 21 and not just in terms of directive principles of state policy under Article 39 capital A. And access to justice also requires the creation of victim-friendly procedures which are aimed at reducing inconvenience to the victims. Victim-friendly procedures are important as they will prevent secondary victimization at the hands of criminal justice agencies like police and courts. Imagine a child victim of sexual assault being interrogated by a male police officer in the absence of a psychologist. Now, this is opposite of victim-friendly procedure. Inappropriate repeated questions further aggravate the trauma of the victim and finally, the victim may become hostile and non-cooperative due to various factors like fear, lack of protection, secondary victimization, etc. And this leads to difficulty in convicting the offender. The less the convictions, the lesser the deterrence to commit crime. Next, it is very important to recognize the need for effective victim participation. This is very important. Currently, the victims and their lawyers are entitled to extremely limited participation. Now, in line with the global trend, there is a need to recognize rights of victims to be heard at all appropriate stages right from the stage of filing complaint till the end of trial. And access to justice also requires access to legal aid. And this legal aid has the potential to maximize victim participation. In this regard, the principles outlined in the United Nations Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for victims of crime and victims of abuse of power becomes very important. And victims are also entailed for their right to information. They must be informed about their role in the criminal justice process, what they can expect from the criminal justice system, the status of the trial, the release of the accused in bail, and various other information. And since these information are not being provided normally by our police, we need a position called as victim protection officer at all police stations who will take care of this responsibility. See, the right to information also results in securing the right to protection. It also plays a very important part in that. The victim must be kept aware of all developments in the trial process. Some development may potentially affect or compromise the victim's security. For example, if an accused is released on a bail or if a convict is released on a parole or for lock, the victim should be intimated immediately. These tasks have to be done professionally. One framework for such intimation we already have with reference to specific victims. We could find that framework in the Schedule Caste and the Schedule Tribes Prevention of Atrocities Act 1989. Then other measures of witness protection and victim protection like relocation and change in identity must also be reviewed and enforced effectively. In the concept of assistance that is the victim assistance as envisaged in the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice for Victims of Crime and Abuse of Power of 1985, this UN Declaration have to be necessarily recognized and whatever the assistance mentioned there have to be recognized as a right not just for few victims or select victims. For example victims of rape or victims of acid attack this has to be extended for all victims of crime just how the international human rights standards is there as in the UN Declaration of Basic Principles of Justice. The state must play a role of facilitator in providing to the victims all such assistance that is necessary. Here when we say assistance it is not just financial assistance in terms of compensation or restitution. It should also include medical intervention, psychological assistance and also financial, material assistance and rehabilitation. Next the author talks about right to compensation and right to restitution. See right to compensation is recognized in our current laws is lacking in many respects. Mainly the political will for this enforcement at the state level has not been satisfactory. Also there are differences in the maximum limit for compensation for victims of various offenses at the level of states. For example if you take Tamil Nadu for a victim who has lost foetus that is miscarriage as a result of assault or loss of fertility. Here minimum compensation limit in Tamil Nadu is 2 lakh and upper limit of compensation is 3 lakh. However if you take Uttar Pradesh there the maximum compensation itself is rupees 50,000 only. So these numbers have to be rationalized and have to be kept in favor of the victim. Then the author states that the right to restitution must be separated from the right to compensation. Restitution is provided to the victim according to a order of the court where the amount comes from the labor of the offender or the convict. Whereas compensation is provided by the state government. Despite the difference both terms have been used interchangeably in our Tamil justice system that leads to large degree of confusion. However if the scheme of 1985 UN declaration is adopted restitution has to be differentiated from compensation. So right to restitution has to be separated from compensation. And a victim is entitled to both right to restitution and compensation. So these are some of the important information presented by the author with reference to discourse on victim jurisprudence. The author concludes the article by saying that so far two values are being focused in a criminal justice system. One is crime control that is through prevention and action then due process to convict an offender. There has always been a need to have a third value which is called as victim participation. Here it also includes victim protection etc. So without victim participation the aim of justice remains unfulfilled. So these are some of the important aspects provided by author in this editorial. The author is a professor and chairperson of the center of criminology and victimology at the National Law University in Delhi. So these are some of the aspects which have to be necessarily incorporated into our criminal justice system to secure complete justice to the victims and also to serve as a mechanism for crime control. Now let's move on to the analysis of next news article. This news article is about findings from a field study by Asim Premji University on online education in India. In this context in this analysis let us see some important findings of this study titled as myths of online education. The syllabus relevant for the analysis is highlighted here for your reference. The study tries to improve the quality and equity of school education in our country. We know that COVID-19 pandemic forced educational institutions across the world to look for alternatives source to ensure continuity in school learning. Across the world several digital or ICT based learning options have been explored but most of these options have proved to be suboptimal pedagogically unsound and have become inadequate substitutes of face-to-face interactions which happen in school. So in this context the study aim to understand the challenges experienced by children and teachers in the implementation of online learning solutions within the public school system. Now let's see some of the important findings. Firstly online learning opportunities were found to be ineffective in providing any actual education. More than 80% of the teachers who participated in the study expressed the impossibility of maintaining an emotional connect with children in the online mode. Also more than 90% teachers responded that no meaningful assessment of children's learning was possible in online classes. The survey revealed the minimalist nature of engagement in online classes. Only around 50% of the teachers were found to engage with children daily in online mode while the rest engaged with online classes at a much lesser frequency only. As we know online classes are mostly one-way communication and this makes teachers unable to motivate children according to the special interests on particular subjects. And promoting critical thinking is an important aspect of education for which debate deliberation is necessary. However maintaining a debate in online platform is very difficult unlike a debate held in physical presence of children. Now the next finding is that almost 60% of children could not access online learning opportunities. Now there are several reasons for this lack of access. One is absence of smartphone. Then multiple siblings sharing a single smartphone. Then difficulty in using mobile applications for online learning. A lot of technical issues do prop up at times. For example, the school would have announced a test. Some of the classmates might have logged in but some students even could not log in because of some technical issues. Then there could be issues with seamless internet and power connectivity. Now the accessibility challenge is more exacerbated particularly with children with disabilities. It is found that more than 90% were unable to participate in online classes among the children with disabilities. Some teachers even responded that half of the class is wasted in organizing the class itself and in that time it is found that children complain about poor internet connection and associated challenges. Another major issue is maintaining attendance and many children have the option to use their parents mobile only. Their parents may go to work. Some parents may be driving automobiles based on mobile applications like Ola for whom mobile is necessary for work. So it is difficult for children to access the content because parents go for work in the morning and may come back in the evening or late night. And many parents do not give mobile phones to children as they think it is not a good idea for children to have mobile phones and it may hamper their value system. The study also aimed to understand parents attitude and concerns towards interrupted learning which is caused because of the pandemic. Parents are overwhelmingly supported the reopening of schools however with the necessary safety protocols. It is found that almost 90% of parents were willing to send their children to school with necessary health safeguards. Another most important finding is that teachers are ill-prepared for online learning platforms. In the pre-pandemic period online learning platforms and modes of online teaching they were not a regular future of the public school system in our country. So more than 50% of the surveyed teachers they said that their knowledge and their experience of such platforms and modes of teaching were inadequate. So these are some of the important findings that were found in the study titled as Myths of Online Education conducted by the Asim Premji University. So we can say that the study has revealed the sharpening inequalities that could result from the indiscriminate adoption of ICT in school education. So it is clear that inaccessible online teaching learning solutions would further or would exacerbate the existing inequalities in education. So the study therefore points to the urgent need to reopen schools however in a faced manner with adequate provisions for the health and safety of both children and teachers. It also suggests the need to adopt context-based direct teaching learning solutions with the physical presence of teachers with children during the transition period of opening the public schools. So these are some of the important information with reference to the analysis of this news article. You can take various points from this study to use them as disadvantages of online education whenever such a question appears in GS paper two or in essay paper. Now let's move on to the analysis of next news article. This editorial is with reference to the inordinate delay by constitutional authorities who are president and governor in taking decisions in the context of their pardoning pause. The topic pertains to the pardoning and release of convicts of assassination of former prime minister Rajiv Gandhi. The governor of Tamil Nadu is found delaying the decision on these petitions. In this regard in September 2018 the supreme court had observed that the governor should take a decision on this matter. In this context let us have a brief discussion about the constitutional provisions related to pardoning power of the governor and we'll also see some of the important points mentioned in this editorial. See article 161 of Indian constitution mentions the power of governor to grant pardons and to suspend remit or commute sentences in certain cases. It says that the governor of a state shall have the power to grant pardons reprieves respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offense against any law relating to a matter to which executive power of the state extends. Here when the governor pardons the convict is completely absolved from both the sentence and the conviction but we should note that she or he cannot pardon death sentence and she or he cannot pardon a punishment under court martial. Here the term respite refers to avoiding a lesser sentence in place of a sentence that is originally awarded to the convict and reprieve refers to staying the execution of a sentence particularly that of death sentence for a temporary period. Now this gives times to the convict to seek pardon or commutation from the side of president or governor. Now remit refers to reducing the period of the sentence. Here the character of the sentence will remain the same for example 10 years of rigorous imprisonment could be reduced to 7 years of rigorous imprisonment. The character rigorous imprisonment remains the same. Commutation of a sentence refers to the process of substituting the sentence with a lesser or lighter sentence. For example commutation of death penalty to life imprisonment. So in this regard we should also know that article 72 deals with power of president of India to grand pardons reprieves respites or remissions of punishment or to suspend remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offense. There are some differences in the powers of the president and the governor. Now we should know that the scope of the pardoning power of the president under article 72 is wider than the pardoning power of governor under article 161. The president's power extends to the cases where the sentence or punishment has been awarded even by a court martial. However governor's power prescribed under article 161 does not provide so. This is because the supreme command of the armed forces vests in the president of India. The second difference is that president can grant pardon in all cases even death sentence. Whereas the pardoning power of governor does not extend to death sentence. And remember with regard to their powers under article 72 and 161. Both president and the governor are required to act on the advice of appropriate government that is the central and state government respectively that is on the advice of council of ministers and the advice of the appropriate government is binding and this is even discussed by the author of this editorial where the author mentions the verdict given by a five-judge bench of the supreme court in the case law of Maru Ram versus Union of India in 1981. So though article 72 confers on the president the power to grant clemency or pardon in the exercise of these powers the president or as the case may be the governor is not supposed to act on her own judgment but is mandated to act in accordance with the aid and advice of the government in terms of article 74 of the constitution or appropriately as for the state government the advice of the government is binding on the president so therefore the power to pardon is a part of the constitutional scheme and not a private act of grace on the part of the president in this regard the president is expected to work as part of the constitutional scheme and the word president is mentioned as an abbreviation for the central government and note that the president or governor can either accept or reject the mercy petitions as per the advice by the council of ministers but the constitution does not provide for a specified time limit to accept or reject the mercy petition this means the president or governor can keep the petition in abeyance for an indefinite period if she or he wishes to and here is where the issue exists in the current case with reference to the governor of Tamil Nadu so the author of this editorial is of the opinion that the inaction by the governor on the petitions has given rise to constitutional fault lines within the execution of the government here the author takes many examples where supreme court had examined the inordinate delay by president or governors in deciding on mercy petitions recently in the case of Shatrugan Chauhan versus union of India the court laid down principle of presumption of dehumanizing effect of such delay it pointed out that delays in deciding mercy petitions are against due process guaranteed under article 21 and this due process under article 21 is available to each and every prisoner till his last breath so many a times to give justice to the person supreme court had to resort to judicial activism or using its powers under article 32 and has also interfered when delays in deciding mercy petitions were noticed by it so by this supreme court has also clarified that the constitutional functionaries like president governors and speakers they are not exempt from judicial scrutiny in this editorial also the author in the current case calls the attention of the supreme court on the matter so these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this open article now let's move on to next part of the discussion this news article is with reference to asian development bank the news is that asian development bank has allocated 20.3 million US dollars in aid to developing member countries to access COVID-19 vaccines and to establish systems to enable equitable vaccine distribution in this context let us have a brief discussion on this asian development bank see the idea to have asian development bank was conceived in early 1960s so as to have it as a financial institution that would be asian in character and to promote economic growth and cooperation in asia which was one of the poorest regions in the world it has been modeled on the lines of world bank so in this regard a resolution was passed at the first ministerial conference on asian economic cooperation this conference was held by united nations economic commission for asia and the far east in the year 1963 the bank was opened in 1966 with headquarters in the capital of pilippines which is manila initially there were 31 members now the membership has grown to 68 members around 49 are from asia and pacific region remaining 19 are from the rest of the world this means that the membership is not just limited to asian countries though the name of the bank is asian development bank the highest policy making body of the bank is called as the board of governors it comprises of one representative from each member nation now let's see five largest shareholders of the bank first comes japan united states followed by china india and australia now you should not confuse asian development bank with asian infrastructure investment bank see ai i b is a multilateral development bank with a mission to improve social and economic outcomes in asia it is headquartered in bijing it began its operations recently in 2016 has now grown to around 103 members in the world china is the largest shareholder with more than 25% voting share and this is followed by india with around 7.6% voting share and this is followed by russia and germany with this we come to the end of analysis of this news article in this article we discussed about asian development bank and also few facts related to asian infrastructure investment bank now let's move on to next part of the discussion this opad article talks about t-cell immunity and its relevance with reference to covid-19 pandemic see human immune system responds to virus infections with a first line defense which is called as innate immunity and this is followed by second line called as adaptive immunity here the adaptive immunity has two arms antibodies and t-cell immunity today let us focus on t-cell immunity see t-cell is a type of lymphocyte and we say lymphocyte it refers to a type of white blood cell that is part of the immune system there are two types of lymphocytes one is B lymphocyte or B cells then T lymphocytes are T cells here B cells they have the ability to transform into plasmocytes and they are responsible for producing army of proteins which are called as antibodies these antibodies are used to attack the invading bacteria or viruses or other toxins know that humoral immunity or antibody mediated immune response depends on B cells here humor it refers to body fluids like blood the humoral immune response is mediated by antibody molecules which are secreted by blood plasma now because these antibodies are found in the blood the response is called as humoral immune response now let us come to T cells see these are cells that destroy the body's own cells which have been taken over by viruses or which have become cancerous the immunity offered by T cells is called as cell mediated immunity see T cells have the potential to recognize diverse antigens from pathogens tumors and environment and they also maintain immunological memory that is the ability of the immune system to respond more rapidly and effectively to those pathogens that have been previously encountered by the human body now coming to the opiate article author says that COVID reinfections are mild asymptomatic this is presumably due to the protection afforded by T cell immunity the author also cites few studies that say that immune T cells had stem cell like characteristics that is these T cells have long term survival and they have potential of quick multiplication in other words we can say that T cell immunity is durable and lasts for more than six months and studies have also proved that those who are exposed to COVID-19 virus they have generated T cell immunity even without a detectable antibody response therefore in countries with high population densities and in countries with quick spread of infection in these regions there might be a higher proportion of population exposed to COVID-19 and in these countries the impact of pandemic is relatively lesser in terms of number of cases or in terms of deaths per million population which was observed in countries like India and other low-income countries generation of T cell immunity is used to explain this lower impact of pandemic in these countries all these underlines the need to study the immunity offered by T cells therefore the author states that Indian scientists should work more on T cell immunity and should develop T cell immunity tests this is required because when COVID-19 vaccine is developed those individuals with T cell immunity may need not require vaccine or may need only very few doses so this will help us to reach out more priority groups who have lesser or low immunity that is why the author calls for developing T cell immunity tests so these are some of the information with reference to the analysis of this article now let's move on to next part of the discussion we have come to the last session the practice questions discussion now this question is with reference to human immune system two statements are given which of the above statements are correct first statement the core of human immune system is the red blood cells known as B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes now this statement is incorrect see both B lymphocytes and T lymphocytes are white blood cells while RBCs transport oxygen to bodies organs and tissues WBCs help the body in fighting infections second statement while antibody mediated immune response depends on B cells cell mediated immunity depends on T cells now this statement is correct correct answer is option B two only this is a three statement question first statement the membership in asian development bank is limited only to the countries of asia-pacific the statement is incorrect second statement asian infrastructure investment bank was established in 1966 to foster economic growth and cooperation in asian countries this is again incorrect ADB was established in 1966 asian infrastructure investment bank was established in 2016 third statement united states of america is a shareholder in both ADB and asian infrastructure investment bank this again is incorrect though us is a non-regional member in asian development bank it is not a member in asian infrastructure investment bank all the three statements are incorrect therefore the correct answer is option D one two and three see this question two statements are given in the exercise of powers under article 72 the president is not supposed to act on her or his own judgment now the statement is correct we know that article 72 confers the power to grant clemency on the president however in the exercise of the pardoning powers the president is not supposed to act on her own judgment but mandated to act in accordance with the aid and advice of the central government so the first statement is correct second statement the constitution of india provides for a specified time limit for the president and governors with reference to accepting or rejecting the mercy petitions the statement is incorrect correct answer is option B2 only because the question asks for incorrect statement only second statement is incorrect see these two mains practice questions in gs paper 2 you may write answers for these questions and post it in the comment section with this we come to the end of today's the hindu news analysis if you like the video click the like button comment share and subscribe to shankarae's academy youtube channel for more updates and content on civil service exam preparation