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5th Nov Current Affairs News Analysis | Prelims & Mains 2021

SC : Guidelines for matrimonial cases
HEADLINES:
SC lays down guidelines for matrimonial cases
WHY IN NEWS:
Deserted wives, children entitled to alimony from date of application, says court
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 2 : SC
ISSUE:
- Women deserted by husbands were left in dire straits.
- They are often reduced to destitution, for lack of means to sustain themselves and their children.
SC : ON DESERTED WIVES AND CHILDREN
- SC laid down uniform and comprehensive guidelines for family courts, magistrates and lower courts to follow while hearing applications filed by women seeking maintenance from their estranged husbands.
- It is based on the rationale that the primary object of maintenance laws is to protect a deserted wife and dependent children from destitution and vagrancy.
- If maintenance is not paid from the date of application, the party seeking maintenance would be deprived of sustenance, owing to the time taken for disposal of the application, which often runs into several years.
- The court said a violation would lead to punishment, such as civil detention and even attachment of the property of the latter.
DISCLOSURE OF ASSETS
- The plea of the husband that he does not possess any source of income ipso facto does not absolve him of his moral duty to maintain his wife, if he is able-bodied and has educational qualifications.
- Any earlier case filed or pending under any other law should also be revealed in court.
- The expenses of the children, including their education, basic needs and other vocational activities, should be factored in by courts while calculating the alimony.
- Other factors such as “spiralling inflation rates and high costs of living” should be considered
- The wife should receive an alimony which fit the standard of life she was used to in the matrimonial home.
IASbhai WINDUP:
- The judgment was based on a matrimonial plea from Maharashtra on the question of payment of maintenance by a man to his wife and son under Section 125 of the Code of Criminal Procedure.
- The case had been dragging on for years.
SOURCES: THE HINDU & PIB DownToEarth | 5th Nov Current Affairs News Analysis
MP Migrant Worker Project
HEADLINES:
56% migrants who went back to M.P. unemployed: study
WHY IN NEWS:
- ‘90% did not receive monetary relief promised by govt.’
- A survey was undertaken by two law graduates, an engineering student and Zenith Society for Socio-Legal Empowerment, Shivpuri, with the aid of 50 volunteers.
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 1 :3 : Migration : Unemployment
ISSUE:
KEY TAKEAWAYS
- Further, 67% of the 1,500 respondents who returned in May and June across Madhya Pradesh demanded urgent relief to support their families.
- While 43% said they are engaged in some kind of work, around 22% were employed in agriculture-related work or farming in their own fields.
- “In some cases, the entire family works on a single field resulting in cases of disguised unemployment,”.
WHAT IS DISGUISED UNEMPLOYMENT?
- Disguised unemployment is unemployment that does not affect aggregate economic output.
- It can refer to any part of the population that is not employed at full capacity.
IASbhai WINDUP:
The report identifies pressing issues being faced by the workers and approaching authorities with solutions.
SOURCES: THE HINDU | 5th Nov Current Affairs News Analysis
U.S. formally exits Paris pact
HEADLINES:
U.S. formally exits Paris pact on curbing climate change
WHY IN NEWS:
- The United States on Wednesday formally left the Paris Agreement, a global pact forged five years ago to avert the threat of catastrophic climate change.
- The move, long threatened by U.S. President Donald Trump and triggered by his administration a year ago, further isolates the U.S. in the world.
- The US exited the pact after a mandatory year-long waiting period ended on Wednesday.
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 3: Climate Change
ISSUE:
- The U.S. is the world’s second biggest emitter after China of heat-trapping gases such as carbon dioxide.
- Its contribution to cutting emissions is seen as important, but it is not alone in the effort.
- Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has said he favours signing the U.S. back up to the Paris accord.
PARIS CLIMATE PACT
- Some 189 countries remain committed to the 2015 Paris accord.
- A further six countries have signed, but not ratified the pact.
- Scientists say that any rise beyond 2 degrees Celsius could have a devastating impact on large parts of the world, raising sea levels, stoking tropical storms and worsening droughts and floods.
- The Paris accord requires countries to set their own voluntary targets for reducing greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide.
IASbhai WINDUP:
- The US is the only country to withdraw from the global pact.
- It can still attend negotiations and give opinions, but is relegated to observer status.
SOURCES: THE HINDU | 5th Nov Current Affairs News Analysis
Kafala system
HEADLINES:
Saudi Arabia on Wednesday announced labour reforms.
WHY IN NEWS:
Saudi Arabia will abolish some key restrictions tying millions of low-paid and vulnerable migrant workers to their employers in conditions that have been rife with abuse and exploitation.
SYLLABUS COVERED: GS 2 : DPSP
ISSUE:
KAFALA SYSTEM
BACKGROUND
- The Kafala (Sponsorship) System emerged in the 1950’s to regulate the relationship between employers and migrant workers in many countries in West Asia.
IMPLEMENTATION
- It remains the routine practice in the Gulf countries and also in the Arab states of Jordan and Lebanon.
CRITICISM
- Under the Kafala system a migrant worker’s immigration status is legally bound to an individual employer or sponsor (kafeel) for their contract period.
- To provide temporary, rotating labour that could be rapidly brought into the country in economic boom and expelled during less affluent periods.
- Often the kafeel exerts further control over the migrant worker by confiscating their passport and travel documents, despite legislation in some destination countries that declares this practice illegal.
- The power that the Kafala system delegates to the sponsor over the migrant worker, has been likened to a contemporary form of slavery.
IASbhai WINDUP:
- The need of the hour is a comprehensive migration management system for countries that send workers as well as those that receive them.
- No South Asian country except Sri Lanka has an adequate migration policy.
SOURCES: THE HINDU | 5th Nov Current Affairs News Analysis
DISCOVER MORE : Important Daily Current Affairs for UPSC PRELIMS 2021
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