What to Read in Indian Express Editorial( Topic and Syllabus wise)

EDITORIAL 1: All parties should welcome SIR

Context

It is heartening to see the Election Commission of India (ECI) stand firm on its now-complete Special Intensive Revision (SIR) of the electoral rolls in Bihar ahead of the upcoming elections to the state legislature.

Elections in India

• India opted for universal adult franchise at the time of Independence,which was not so common even in Western countries.
• The US reached that stage only in 1965 through the Voting Rights Act.Full suffrage became a reality in the UK through the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act, 1928.
• Learning about India’s decision, Britain’s then-Prime Minister, Clement Atlee, found it appropriate to warn Jawaharlal Nehru that the Asiatic republics are few and of recent establishmentand their record is not very encouraging. They tend to degenerate into dictatorships or oligarchies.
• But the Indian leadership had decided, while drafting the Nehru Report in 1928, that every eligible citizen aged 21 years or above would have the right to vote.
• B R Ambedkar was insistent that it should be a fundamental right. However, in its wisdom, the Constituent Assembly decided to incorporate it not as a fundamental right under Part III of the Constitution, but as a constitutional right under Article 326.

The importance of SIR

• This distinction is important to keep in mind because too much is said about the burden of proof being shifted onto citizens under the SIR.
• The right to vote, being a constitutional right,is subject to scrutiny from time to time for the eligibility of a given individual.
• In fact, the Representation of the People Act clearly stipulates several disqualificationswith respect to the right to vote.
• They include non-citizenship, being of unsound mind, convictions for certain offences, non-residency, and being in prison.
• It is in exercise of these provisions that the ECI sought to undertake this SIR. It concluded the first phase of door-to-door verification with the help of thousands of Block Level Officers (BLOs) and other officials.
• Setting aside criticisms, the ECI declared that 99 per cent of electors had been covered through this exercise and that it had helped the ECI identify 2.16 million voters who were dead.
• Another 3.15 million were found to have permanently migrated while one lakh people were untraceable.
• This number constitutes around 8 per cent of the total 72.1 million voters in Bihar. There shouldn’t be any controversy over those who are deceased or have migrated.
• Less than 1 per cent of voters failed to submit their formsabout whom both the political parties and the ECI should seriously bother.

Electoral reforms

• Electoral reforms are never easy. It took four decades and an officer like T N Seshan to attend to booth capturing, bogus voting and impersonation.
• Seshan, a courageous officer, faced innumerable challenges when he attempted to clean up electoral rolls, introduce voter ID cards and force leaders to religiously follow the Model Code of Conduct, which was otherwise considered just a piece of paper by them.
• Attempts were made to impeach him in Parliament at least twice. Two additional election commissioners with equal powers were added, making the Commission a three-member body to curtail Seshan’s authority.
• Seshan’s efforts resulted in major reforms. More importantly, they gave teeth to the Commission, which was until then seen by the political class as a paper tiger.
• Subsequent election commissioners upheld the majestic and independent role of the Commission in conducting elections in a fair and transparent manner.
• Over the past few decades, India’s electoral system, despite being of humongous size with 960 million voters and one million polling stations, has proved to be one of the most successful and efficient systems, one that several countries wish to emulate.

Conclusion

The occasional revision of electoral rolls is a mandatory practice in any country. Given the large-scale migration happening in our country, the Commission’s decision to undertake an intensive revision of the rolls in the entire country, starting with Bihar, must be welcomed by all parties.

 

EDITORIAL 2: Why coconut oil is on fire

Context

India’s annual retail food inflation rate fell to minus 1.06% in June, the lowest since January 2019. But consumers continue to feel the pinch from high prices on some items.

Vegetable oils

• Among them is vegetable oils,where the year-on-year price increase reached 17.75% in June, according to the National Statistics Office.
• The all-India average modal retail price of palm oil is currently Rs 132 per kg, compared with Rs 95 a year ago, data from the Department of Consumer Affairs show.
• The prices of soyabean, sunflower, and mustard oils have risenover the same period.
• But the increase in prices of these oils is nothing compared to what coconut oil has seen.

Nothing compared to coconut oil

• Even in Kerala — the state that derives its name from Kera or the coconut tree — the annual consumption of coconut oil is just 2 lt, estimates COMA’s Mahmood.
• From being the top producer of coconut, Kerala has now slipped to third place, behind Tamil Nadu and the No.1 producer, Karnataka.
• Since the beginning of this year, the wholesale price of coconut oil at Kerala’s Kochi market has zoomed from Rs 22,500 per quintal to Rs 39,000 per quintal.
• At the retail level, the oil is selling for around Rs 460 per kg, close to double its early-January price of Rs 240-250.
• This makes coconut oil more expensive now than even sesame(or gingelly) oil, a traditionally premium oil that is retailing for about Rs 425 per kg.

Global factors

• Irinjalakuda (Kerala)-based KSE Limited, India’s largest solvent-extracted coconut oil producer, attributes the unprecedented price rise mainly to output in the Philippines and Indonesia falling due to El Niño-induced drought.
• These two countries are the world’s top producers-cum-exporters of the oil that is extracted from the dried white flesh or kernels of coconuts.
• The El Niño event, which lasted from July 2023 to June 2024, affected the growth of coconut flowers and fruit development during the 2024-25 marketing year that began in October.
• The impact is being felt now, as it takes roughly a year for a single coconut to go from flowering on the tree to a fully mature fruit that is ready for harvesting.
• The weather disturbances, on top of aging coconut plantations in the two countries, have led to global supply tightness, and to buyers scrambling to stock up.
• No immediate supply response to high prices is expected because coconut trees – even the improved dwarf and hybrid palm varieties – start bearing fruit only in 3-5 years.
• The price sentiment has been further boosted by reports of the Indonesian government planning restrictions on the export of raw whole coconuts, amid concerns over the shortage of the fruit for local processors.
• Meanwhile, the government of the Philippines has introduced a 3% mandatory blending of coconut oil-based CME (coco-methyl ester) in diesel sold in the country from October 2024.
• The blend could go up to 4% from October 2025 and to 5% from October 2026, which would reduce the exportable surplus of coconut oil further.

A marginalised oil

• Of the 5.7 lakh tonnes (lt) of coconut oil produced in India, only about 3.9 lt is used for food (cooking and frying).
• The rest goes into the manufacture of hair oil, cosmetics, soaps, and in other industrial applications.
• Like other indigenous cooking oils (mustard, sesame, groundnut, cottonseed), coconut oil has lost market share to the predominantly imported oils – palm, soyabean, and sunflower.
• The three imported oils accounted for about 72% of the almost 260 lt total domestic edible oil consumption during the year ended October 2024.
• The only indigenous oil that has held out is mustard; coconut is low down the list.

Conclusion

On the whole, the record high prices of coconut oil may not hurt that much, given the extent of its marginalisation. If anything, it may accelerate the shift to other oils, particularly imported oils.