29.04.2021 to a Bill envisioning laws to govern the China- Index backed $1.4 billion Colombo Port City. The Mains Value Addition Supreme Court recently heard a case on the matter, following some 20 petitions by Mains Analysis opposition parties and civil society Topic Topic Name Source organisations that challenged the Bill arguing No that it "threatened" Sri Lanka’s sovereignty. 1 Temples are not The Hindu fiefdoms of the state Govt leverage in Covid-19 vaccine pricing 2 The Dirty Truth Indian Syllabus-- GS 2: Health, Government Policy Express Analysis: - Mains Value Addition During the hearing on issues related to the pandemic on Tuesday, the Supreme Court flagged differential China pushes defence ties with Bangladesh, Sri pricing for vaccines, and directed the central Lanka government to clarify in its affidavit the basis and Syllabus-- GS 2 IR: rationale for pricing. Analysis: - How does the government regulate the pricing of drugs? China’s Minister of Defence Wei Fenghe, visiting Bangladesh and Sri Lanka this week, To ensure accessibility, the pricing of essential has called on countries in the neighbourhood to drugs is regulated centrally through The Essential resist “powers from outside the region setting up Commodities Act, 1955. Under Section 3 of the Act, military alliances in South Asia”. the government has enacted the Drugs (Prices Control) Order. The DPCO lists over 800 drugs as China on Tuesday also convened a six-country “essential” in its schedule, and has capped their South Asia dialogue on COVID-19 and prices. economic cooperation with the Foreign Ministers of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, The capping of prices is done based on a formula Pakistan and Sri Lanka. that is worked out in each case by the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA), which The senior Chinese official’s visit to Sri Lanka was set up in 1997. coincides with mounting resistance in Sri Lanka Can the government regulate the price of Covid- • “Aside from the lack of technical 19 vaccines through DPCO? capabilities, by calling ALKS automated our concern also is that the UK government is Regulation through DPCO is not applicable for contributing to the confusion and frequent patented drugs or fixed-dose combination (FDC) misuse of assisted driving systems that have drugs. unfortunately already led to many tragic This is why the price of the antiviral drug deaths,” said Matthew Avery, research remdesivir, which is currently in great demand for director at Thatcham Research, which has the treatment of serious cases of Covid-19, is not tested ALKS systems. regulated by the government. Last week, a • The dangers of drivers apparently notification by the Ministry of Chemicals & misunderstanding the limits of technology Fertilizers said that on the intervention of the has been an issue in the US, where government, major manufacturers/marketers of the regulators are reviewing about 20 crashes remdesivir injection had reported voluntary involving Tesla’s driver assistance tools. reduction in the Maximum Retail Price (MRP). Mains Analysis UK becomes first country to green-light driverless cars on its roads Temples are not fiefdoms of the state Syllabus-- GS 3: Science and Technology Why in News? Analysis: - Uttarakhand CM Tirath Singh Rawat on Friday, revoked the Trivendra Singh Rawat govt's • The UK government on Wednesday became 'Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam the first country to announce it will regulate Management Act', freeing 51 temples the use of self-driving vehicles at slow speeds on motorways, with the first such Syllabus-- GS 1: Indian Culture cars possibly appearing on public roads as • In a major setback to Hindutva arguments on soon as this year. the state’s control of Hindu temples, the • Britain’s transport ministry said it was Uttarakhand High Court on July 21 upheld working on specific wording to update the the constitutionality of the Uttarakhand Char country’s highway code for the safe use of Dham Devasthanam Management Board self-driving vehicle systems, starting with Act, 2019. Automated Lane Keeping Systems (ALKS) • All religious reforms are resisted. Thus the — which use sensors and software to keep Sabrimala judgment (2018) saw huge public cars within a lane, allowing them to protests similar to those after the Shah Bano accelerate and brake without driver input. judgment (1985). • From the bogey of ‘minority appeasement’, as the chairman and members to the temple's the nation has now moved to injustices boards for its management. against Hindus. • The Act was heavily criticised by the • The court held that Article 26 cannot be Opposition and aggrieved priests who invoked if the denomination never had the reportedly claim that they were 'kept in the right to manage temple properties. It merely dark' regarding the law. acknowledges the pre-existing right. • BJP's Subramanian Swamy had filed a PIL challenging the constitutional validity Colonial legacy claiming that it violates Articles 31 A(1) (b), • When the British government realised that a Article 25 and 26 of the Constitution. secular government should take no part in Various aspects of State and Religion: the management of religious institutions, it enacted the Religious Endowments Act (Act • A myth is trotted out to justify sovereign XX of 1863) repealing the pre-existing control of temples: that Hindu temples were Bengal and Madras Regulations. supervised and managed by kings, who • “habitually employed ministries to • Section 8 of the Act provided that the supervise temples and charitable bodies”. members of the committee to be appointed • Like many myths the colonials perpetuated, from persons professing the religion, for this too must be disabused: there is not a purposes of which the religious shred of historical source to support this establishment was founded or maintained claim. and in accordance with the general wishes of • On the contrary there are inscriptions, cast in those who are interested in the maintenance stone, that attest that temples were managed of the institution. wholly and entirely by local communities. State in religion Uttarakhand Char Dham Devasthanam • The state has assumed the role of religious Management Act? functionaries to determine who will be heads of Mutts and the authority to conduct poojas. • In 2019, the Trivendra Singh Rawat • For example, The Shri Jagannath Temple government had passed the Uttarakhand Act, 1954 entrusted the committee Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act appointed by the state with the task of in the Assembly taking over control of major ensuring the performance of seva pooja. Hindu religious institutions. • When the Act was questioned by the Raja of • The Act allowed the government to Puri before the Supreme Court, in Raja nominate MPs, MLAs, and representatives Birakishore vs The State Of Orissa, the Court made a revelation: the performance of • Thus, the control of secular aspects a puja is in fact a secular act and, therefore, associated with religion and the power to the state is justified in its regulation. throw open Hindu temples to all classes and sections of society are distinct. State Regulation of Religion and Supreme Secular aspects and social reform. Court: - • Viewed from this standpoint, the Hindu • The exercise of state regulation of secular Religious and Charitable Endowments aspects of religion was taken to extreme Department is not a “tribune for social lengths when the Court ruled that the state, justice” as argued in the article nor has it by appointing temple priests, was exercising ever guaranteed equal access to worship. a secular function (Seshammal & Ors, Etc. • Nowhere does the text of the Constitution Etc vs State Of Tamil Nadu). permit the state to assume ownership of • Whatever style of secularism we subscribe properties belonging to religious institutions to, surely the Indian state is not to tell the and treat them as state largesse to be believer how he/she is to offer worship to the siphoned off. deity nor is it to tell the custodian of the deity • The only vestige of authority under the how she will be appointed. Constitution empowering the state to take • Constituent Assembly framed the religious over property of religious institutions is liberty clauses keeping in mind the historical under Article 31A (b). prohibition of entry to certain classes and • The history of legislative practice of sections of Hindu society. endowment laws reveals the state prerogative in ensuring regulation of only Constitutional Obligation: - secular activities. • Article 25(2) grants power to the State to • As a matter of fact, the Shirur Mutt case, enact law on two distinct aspects. while upholding certain provisions of the • Article 25(2)(a) empowers the state to 1951 Act, struck down a major portion of the regulate “economic, financial, political or Act characterising the provisions as a other secular activities which may be “disastrous invasion” of religious liberty. associated with religious practice”. • In 1959, the Legislature ‘cured’ the defects • Article 25(2)(b) enables the state to enact pointed out by the Supreme Court, by law to prohibit the exclusion of ‘classes and inserting verbatim the very provisions that sections’ of Hindu society to enter into the Supreme Court had stuck down in 1954. Hindu temples of a public character and also Applicable to charities make law for social welfare and reform. • The Waqf Act justification for the considers the value of each religion and legitimacy of control of Hindu religious empathize towards the people to profess any endowments is misleading. religion of their choice. • A reading of the Act reveals that it applies to • In a country as diverse as India, there are charities and specifically excludes places of several religions and communal groups with worship such as mosques. various interests, belief and faith. There is a • In fact the scheme of the Waqf Act supports possibility of religious conflicts in India, the argument that the government should not since the interest of one religious group may regulate places of worship.