In Focus by The Hindu

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), in a recent order, has penalised the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and its former MD and CEO Chitra Ramkrishna for violating securities contract rules. Ramkrishna was the CEO from April 2013 to December 2016. The key violation seems to be her role in the appointment of Anand Subramanian as group operating officer and advisor to the MD. Along with Ramkrishna, her predecessor Ravi Narain has also been accused of violating the rules.Among the various findings of the SEBI investigation, the one that has garnered the maximum attention is that Ramakrishna, as the MD and CEO, had been guided in her decisions by a ‘yogi’ or spiritual guru sitting in the Himalayas. It was this same ‘yogi’ who made her appoint Subramanian on an exorbitant salary and allegedly made her keep increasing his compensation at regular intervals.While Ramakrishna and her associates are under further investigation, the whole saga has raised a lot of questions. Given that the yogi had been communicating via email, why is his identity still unknown? Did the NSE suffer material losses as a result of this breach of confidentiality rules? Apart from Subramanian, did any other entity enjoy material gain from the yogi’s apparent hold over Ramkrishna?Guest: Suresh Seshadri, Business Editor, The HinduHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Reenu Cyriac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s an ancient disease that has been mentioned in history across the world, but one that is now largely forgotten. Leprosy however, continues to exist in India. As per data, in 2020-21, the country saw 65, 147 new cases of leprosy, down from 1,14,451 cases in 2019-20 -- but whether this data is a reflection of ground reality is not known, as the Covid-19 pandemic hampered detection of cases, patients were unable to access healthcare services due to the lockdowns and almost all public health efforts were directed towards combating the pandemic.The disease, caused by the bacteria Mycobacterium leprae, primarily affects the skin and the nerves under the skin. It causes lesions, and if left untreated, leads to deformities and disabilities. Despite free treatment available across the country in the government health sector, leprosy continues to be stigmatised and patients discriminated against, often in their own homes and communities.In 2005, India officially eliminated leprosy as a public health problem -- as less than 1 in 10,000 people contracted it in a year. But some States in the country continue to have higher rates -- parts of Bihar, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, West Bengal and a few others make up a sizeable chunk of all cases in the country.So what happened to leprosy services in India after 2005? And what happened during the pandemic? Why does India still account for a significant proportion of the world’s leprosy cases?Guest: Dr. Joydeepa Darlong Head, Knowledge Management, The Leprosy Mission Trust IndiaHost: Zubeda HamidEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Delhi High Court, after hearing a case filed by table tennis star Manika Batra, has suspended the Table Tennis Federation of India (TTFI). It has appointed a three-member Committee of Administrators (CoA) to run the sport for the time being. In the absence of a regular federation to administer the sport, players face an uncertain future. The High Court order has also put the spotlight on the mismanagement that seems to plague many of our sports federations.So, why did the TTFI get suspended? And what is the likely effect of the High Court order on other sports federations?Guest: Rakesh Rao, Deputy Editor (Sports), The HinduHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With the dust yet to settle on the whole debate around the Aadhaar project, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeITY) has now proposed a new model of ‘Federated Digital Identities’. The idea is to link a citizen’s multiple unique IDs such as PAN, driving licence, passport and so on to one unique ID.This proposal is part of several digital governance initiatives that the government is considering under the India Digital Ecosystem Architecture or InDEA 2.0 framework. Why exactly do we need federated digital identities? What is the InDEA 2.0 framework all about? Does our digital governance architecture imbibe the constitutional principles that govern traditional governance? Are there any privacy or surveillance concerns that ordinary citizens need to worry about?We look for some answers to these questions in this episode.Guest: Srinivas Kodali, inter-disciplinary researcher with special interest in data standards, cities, cyber security, and the internet.Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Cricket’s Indian Premier League, known popularly as IPL, is valued at a staggering 50,000 crore rupees. In 2008, when the IPL was launched, not many would have thought it would not only be a mega commercial success but become a magnet for international players. Another round of player auctions has just been concluded with a top sale tag of over 15 crores for an individual cricketer. So, what makes the IPL tick and tick loudly? Guest: Joy Bhattacharjya, CEO of Prime Volleyball League and former Team Director of Kolkata Knight Riders. He is also an analyst for cricbuzz.com. Host: Amit Baruah, Senior Associate Editor, The Hindu Edited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In February 2019, a petition was filed in the Supreme Court, challenging Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955. This section, which deals with ‘restitution of conjugal rights’, essentially forces a wife who has left her husband, to return and cohabit with him. Although it is gender neutral (applying to either spouse), it is back in focus partly owing to the growing spotlight on criminalising marital rape.The petition challenging this law, titled Ojaswa Pathak vs Union of India, was last heard on July 8, 2021 and has been pending since then, with the Supreme Court website showing no further dates. Justice Rohinton Nariman, who led the Bench which heard the case, has also retired. Meanwhile, adding another twist to the discourse around sexual autonomy of the married woman in India, the Centre has conveyed to the Delhi High Court that India should not “blindly” follow the West in criminalizing marital rape.With the petition against Section 9 pending in the Supreme Court for so many months without a hearing, there is a growing clamour for an early resumption of hearings. What exactly do the provisions of Section 9 say? What has been their impact so far, and how did we end up with such a law in the first place?Guest: Arti Raghavan, practicing advocate at the Bombay High CourtHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The anti-corruption watchdog Transparency International (TI) has released the 2021 Corruption Perception Index, or CPI. This Index ranks 180 countries on their perceived levels of corruption in the public sector. Countries are evaluated on a scale from 0 to 100, where 100 is very clean and 0 is very corrupt.This latest CPI has revealed that globally, corruption remains at high levels, with the average score at 43 out of 100. Out of the 180 countries, 131 have made no progress against corruption, two-thirds scored below 50, indicating that corruption is a major problem, while 27 slipped to their lowest score ever.Although India’s rank improved from 86th to 85, its score of 40 is lower than the global average of 43, which seems to indicate that corruption in India is higher than in most other countries.The report also states that rising corruption is an enabler of human rights abuse and authoritarianism. For a better understanding of CPI, global trends in corruption, and what the report has to say about India, we speak to Venkatesh Nayak.Guest: Venkatesh Nayak, development sector veteran who has worked on transparency and public audit mechanisms, and is currently with the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI).Host: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Last week, the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights told the Supreme Court that close to 1.5 lakh children in the country are in need of care and protection after losing at least one of their parents to COVID-19 and other diseases during the pandemic period, while over 10,000 children have lost both parents.The pandemic and subsequent lockdowns not only pushed thousands of Indians into poverty, it also made services that generally safeguard children, unavailable in large parts of the country, leaving them vulnerable to exploitation. Thousands of migrant workers returned to their villages, schools have been shut for the better part of two years, and families, desperate to survive, have gotten into the clutches of money-lenders, which makes them easy prey for traffickers.In July last year, the Union Home Ministry issued guidelines for the urgent setting up of Anti Human Trafficking Units or AHTUs, and asked States to upgrade the infrastructure of existing ones. As per the National Crime Records Bureau, there are 696 functional AHTUs and 20 States/Union Territories have achieved their target of setting up AHTUs in all districts.In the meantime, children have been rescued from trains and buses, from workplaces across the country, from sexual exploitation and child marriage in the thousands by child rights organisations. Childline, a helpline for children in distress, received 1,92,000 distress calls between March and August 2020, most to do with cases of child labour.And yet NCRB's data from AHTUs recorded only 1,714 cases of human trafficking in 2020. What really happened to vulnerable children during the pandemic? How do the AHTUs work and are they effective? What happens to rescued children and how long does it take for the rehabilitation process to work? And what are the urgent gaps the government needs to fill to protect children in our country from being trafficked?Guest: Dhananjay Tingal, executive director, Bachpan Bachao Andolan, a movement for the protection of children that works with government agencies and policy-makers to strengthen the systemHost: Zubeda HamidEdited by Reenu Cyriac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

With elections coming up in five states, it was expected that the Union Budget for the financial year 2022-23 would focus on addressing the crisis of unemployment. One of the things that Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman needed to do in this regard was to increase government spending, and she appears to have done so, increasing the capital expenditure outlay by 35.4%, But will this be enough to draw in adequate amounts of private investment and ensure job creation on a massive scale?Also, how do we understand the logic behind the cuts in subsidies, with fertilizer, food and petroleum subsidies all witnessing a marked decline? While job creation remains a primary concern, the allocation for MGNREGA – which saw a surge in demand during the pandemic – has not been increased. How do we assess the Budget on the welfare front – in the domains of health, education and farmer welfare? In this podcast, we look to unpack the numbers of the Union Budget and get to the core of what it means for the common man.Guest: Arun Kumar, economist and Malcolm S. Adiseshiah Chair Professor at the Institute of Social Sciences, New DelhiHost: G. Sampath, Social Affairs Editor, The HinduEdited by Ranjani Srinivasan Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The National Commission for Women has said it had seen a 30% rise in complaints of crimes against women in 2021, compared to 2020.Nearly 31,000 complaints of crimes against women were received by the Commission for last year, the highest since 2014. Of these, over 6,000 were related to domestic violence and over 4,000 were to do with dowry harassment. In 2020 also, the Commission had received a record high number of complaints, one quarter of them related to domestic violence -- in just April and May of that year, during the nation-wide lockdown, 47.2% of the cases it received were of domestic violence, by comparison, barely 21% of cases received between January and March were to do with this.Domestic violence has sometimes been referred to as the 'shadow pandemic' -- as the world faced an unprecedented crisis and lockdowns became the norm in several countries, not only did women find themselves locked in with their abusers at home, they also lost access to support services outside. The economic distress faced by millions exacerbated the problem.In India, organisations working with women have reported a huge spike in cases -- men and women lost their jobs, many members of a family were forced to stay together often in small quarters -- not only did women have more household work than usual, they also had little access to the outside, and their support systems dwindled. At the same time, many girls and young women who would ordinarily have been in school and college, have been confined to their homes -- potentially increasing their vulnerability to violence and also to the threat of cyber crimes.Did we have any mechanisms in place to help support survivors of violence through the pandemic? What legal and social structures do we need to have? What happens when fewer women use public places, and will this have an effect on women's safety in the future? And how well has the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005 been implemented?Guest: Swarna Rajagopalan, founder of Prajnya, a non-profit that works in the area of gender equalityHost: Zubeda HamidEdited by Reenu Cyriac Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices