The Lok Sabha yesterday passed ‘the Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024. The bill is a ray of hope for lakhs of aspirants who prepare day and night for a government job but their all-purpose gets defeated when the examination question paper is leaked by miscreants and organised rackets. By bringing a bill against paper leaks, the government is trying to deal sternly with malpractices and irregularities in government recruitment examinations and competitive entrance tests. The bill covers exams conducted by the UPSC, and Staff Selection Commission and entrance tests such as NEET and JEE. The paper leak issues have been hurting the students and government jobseekers in key states like Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar.
In the absence of a proper law against the leak cases, the accused used to get bail and indulge in the activity once again. The new law will steeply hike the punishment for malpractices which could go up to imprisonment of 10 years and penalty of Rs one crore. The offences are likely to be non-bailable.
In the last Parliament session, the NDA government passed the Nari Shakti Vandan Adhiniyam or women’s reservation bill which will be implemented after the nationwide delimitation exercise. But the government has successfully done headline management ahead of the polls and showed its resolve that it’s committed towards women’s welfare. While the Modi government has been running various schemes for the welfare of women and youth, these two are significant given the Lok Sabha polls where these two categories will play an important role. In her interim budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharama has also said that the Modi government’s focus is on ‘GYAN’ – Garib (poor), Youth, Annadata (farmer) and Naari (women).
According to reports, India’s 66 per cent population is below the age of 35 – this includes men and women. Women alone account for the country’s half of the population and thus they are the key focus of all political parties, be it Congress or the BJP. This is one of the reasons that Congress announced financial assistance for women in not only Karnataka but even in Madhya Pradesh and Telangana as well.
Also, by distributing job offer letter during several rozgar melas, Prime Minister Modi has already reached out to youth. The saffron party is likely to use these two issues as poll planks during the upcoming Lok Sabha elections to take the youth and women voters into confidence. In the 2019 polls, the BJP’s vote share was around 37.76% while the NDA’s combined vote share was 45%. Now, the BJP wants to take its vote share above 50 per cent with the help of youth and women voters. The BJP is hopeful that besides other schemes, these two will serve as icing on the cake and help the party in its mission of winning 400 seats.
Bureau Report
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