DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Nikah Halala

A recent Public Interest Litigation (PIL) was filed to have polygamy and halal marriage declared invalid.

Details about the news

The PIL:

• The PIL aimed to have Section 2 of the Muslim Personal Law (Shariat) Application Act, 1937, declared invalid and in violation of the Constitution's Articles 14, 15, 21, and 25.
• The claimant asked the court to make sure that all Indian nationals are subject to the requirements of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
• She claimed that under IPC Section 375, nikah halala constitutes rape.

What is Nikah Halala?

• The nikah halala law states that in order to reconcile with her first spouse, a woman must wed and have sex with another man.
• In Islam, the word "halala" refers to something that is permissible and so "lawful" and has its roots in the word "halal."
• Therefore, in the context of marriage, it denotes that following the completion of nikah halala, a divorced lady might once more be considered "halal" (legal) for her husband.

The steps are:

• Islam forbids a Muslim man from divorcing and remarrying the same lady twice.
• The same woman can only be remarried to the same man if she first weds another man, consummates the union, and only if the second husband passes away or voluntarily requests a divorce if he decides to end the marriage for the third time.
• Typically, quick triple talaq is where nikah halala begins and ends.
• Halala, as it is described in the Koran, gives women the freedom to make their own decisions.
• It protects women against volatile husbands who annul their divorce after an outburst, then file for divorce once more, starting a never-ending cycle of marriage and divorce.

Global scenario:

• No halala cases have been reported in Saudi Arabia, where divorce rates are rising.
• Yemen, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates have also not reported any cases.

Nikah Halala and Indian Law:

• The Muslim Women's Protection of Rights on Marriage Act in India, which was passed after the Supreme Court struck down triple talaq, makes no mention of nikah halala.
• The Act criminalised quick triple talaq, but it avoided halala, which occurs as a result of triple talaq.

Issues:

• Nikwah Halala has been abused and twisted in contemporary India.
• Rape: There have been incidents of keens using the name Halala to rape women.
• Websites that facilitate halal marriage: In the middle of this, a number of websites and social media pages have appeared that assist women who have been divorced by their first spouses in arranging halal marriages.

Extortion and blackmail

• Many of the women who use these services are either victimised or subjected to blackmail.
• Large payments are demanded of many.

About Triple Talaq

• The Arabic word for divorce, talaq, was said three times by a Muslim man to formally divorce his wife. This practice was known as triple talaq.
• The announcement may be made orally, in writing, electronically—via phone, SMS, email, or social media—in recent years, or all three.
• The husband did not have to give a reason for the divorce, and she did not need to be present when it was announced.
• The divorce became final after a time of iddat, during which it was determined whether the wife was pregnant.
• Prior to each proclamation of talaq, in the prescribed practice, a waiting period was necessary, during which reconciliation was sought.
• However, it's now customary to make all three declarations at once.
• Although the practice was despised, it was not against the law.
• If a divorced woman wanted to remarry her ex-husband, she had to wed another man first, a procedure known as nikah halala.
• Position in the Quran: The Quran makes no reference to triple talaq. Muslim legal scholars also mainly disapprove of it.
• Scenario: Pakistan and Bangladesh are among the several Islamic countries that have outlawed the practice.

Authenticity in India:

• Triple talaq is no longer permitted in India thanks to the Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Act of 2019.
• It states that instant triple talaq (talaq-e-biddat) in any format—spoken, written, or via electronic channels like email or SMS—is prohibited and void, and the husband might spend up to three years in prison.
• A woman who feels wronged by a man has the right to request support for her dependent children under the new rule.

Way Forward

• Religious rules have frequently been unbalanced in patriarchal civilizations, favouring men.
• Triple talaq and nikah halala are two outdated laws that Muslim women must abide with since they are crippling.
• Such laws need to have their legitimacy contested and then repealed.

Moral Problems Caused by Weather Modifications

• Between 2002 and 2012, China carried out more than 500,000 weather modification operations.
• China stated plans to expand its weather modification program in 2020, covering an area larger than 5.5 million square kilometers (more than 1.5 times the size of India), including artificial rain or snowfall.
• To address the problems of water scarcity, ecological collapse, and food security, many nations have studied and used cloud seeding.

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How does weather modification work?

• The deliberate manipulation of the weather, commonly referred to as weather control or weather modification, is a form of geoengineering.
• Cloud seeding, the most popular method of weather modification, increases rain or snowfall, usually in order to improve the local water supply.
• Weather modification can also be used as a tool in economic or military combat, such as Operation Popeye, when clouds were planted to extend the monsoon in Vietnam. It can also be used to prevent harmful weather, such as hail or hurricanes, from occurring.

What moral issues are caused by weather modification?

The Commons' tragedy:

• The phrase "tragedy of the commons" describes a scenario in which reasonable individuals acting in their own self-interest collectively act foolishly by irreparably exhausting a resource that is owned in common.
• China's move could serve as a global illustration of "the catastrophe."

Skewed Vulnerabilities:

• For many of the world's most vulnerable nations and populations, China's actions on weather modification appear to be seriously unfair and cast a significant shadow over those who fight for environmental justice.

Ethics across generations:

• The question of whether modern humanity has a moral duty to work toward environmental sustainability for the benefit of future generations is investigated by the field of ethics known as intergenerational ethics.

What effects do weather modifications have?

Can Affect the Monsoon:

• When sulphate aerosols are introduced into the stratosphere above the Arctic to simulate volcanic clouds, for instance, the monsoons in Asia are disrupted and droughts are exacerbated, especially in Africa, putting the food and water sources for two billion people at risk.
• Additionally, excessive snowfall brought on by cloud seeding might cause fatalities, resulting in a calamity brought on by humans.

Interest Conflicts:

• Although technological modernisation is thought to be the greatest way to address environmental issues, in the absence of data, the technology really serves as a warning before man-made calamities.
• All scientists' opinions are subject to regulation by the authoritarian government in China.
• Geoengineering is seen as a rapid fix for climate change by some. There is nothing wrong with considering weather modification to be a development of geo-engineering, but additional research is required to clarify this.

Geoengineering: What is it?

• According to the Oxford Geoengineering Programme, geoengineering is an intentional, extensive intervention made in the Earth's natural systems to mitigate the effects of climate change.
• This entails strategies for cooling the earth by physically altering the climate.

Categories:

These methods mostly fall into three categories:

• Management of solar radiation (SRM): Solar geoengineering, sometimes known as "dimming the sun," involves spraying sulphates into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight back into space, brightening clouds by blowing saltwater into them to make them more reflective, and other techniques.
• Carbon dioxide removal (CDR) involves fertilising the water or discharging iron or urea to encourage phytoplankton growth and increase carbon absorption.
• To attain "net zero" emissions, CDR technologies like carbon capture and storage (CCS), direct air capture (DAC), and bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) are being proposed.

Way ahead

• Need for an International Organization: To oversee weather-modification initiatives, an international onnnnnnnnnnn is required.
• There are no borders in the air, where weather manipulation takes place. We need more creativity to address geopolitics because this has an impact on global politics.
• It is not like conducting research in a lab, thus more study is required. Therefore, more study is required to improve its accuracy.
• Moral and ethical concerns should also be highlighted more, in addition to societal repercussions.
• A greater degree of creativity is required to deal with geopolitics because weather modification happens in the air, where there are no boundaries.

Breakthrough Agenda Report 2022

• The UN Climate Change High-Level Champions, the International Energy Agency (IEA), and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) have launched The Breakthrough Agenda Report 2022, which focuses on international cooperation to accelerate greenhouse gas emission reductions.

What are the Report's Key Points?

• It evaluates the status of efforts to cut emissions in five important industries: steel, agriculture, road transportation, hydrogen, and power.
• The world's top leaders asked for this first-of-its-kind annual progress report during the UN Climate Change Conference COP26 in November 2021 as part of the introduction of the Breakthrough Agenda.
• The Breakthrough Agenda, which has the support of 45 international leaders, including those from the G7, China, and India, currently spans more than two-thirds of the global economy.
• Findings include an anticipated rise in worldwide renewable capacity of 8% in 2022, pushing beyond the 300GW barrier for the first time and enough to powering almost 225 million homes. There has also been progress in installing the technologies required.
• Together, the five industries examined in the report represent almost 60% of the world's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and they may provide the majority of the emission cuts required by 2030 on a trajectory that would significantly lower global warming to a maximum of 1.5°C, in line with the Paris Agreement goals.
• The world is already experiencing the first really global energy crisis, which will have disastrous knock-on effects on the global economy, particularly in poorer nations.
• The oil, gas, and electricity markets have experienced an energy crisis, which has been made worse by the pandemic, rising oil prices, and the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
• The limitations and vulnerabilities of a system that is mainly dependent on fuels from the 20th century have been made apparent by the energy and climate crisis.

Recommendations:

• Showcase and test adaptable low-carbon power systems to broaden the scope of available options and raise the proportion of variable renewables.
• In order to promote the trade of low-carbon energy, decrease emissions, improve energy security, and increase system flexibility, new cross-border super grids should be built this decade.
• Create new worldwide centers of excellence to help coal-producing nations shift by using financial and technical support
• Establish a uniform definition and deadlines for all new road vehicles to be net zero by, aiming for 2035 for cars and vans and the 2040s for heavy-duty vehicles.
• Increase spending on charging infrastructure, prioritise aid to underdeveloped nations, and harmonise international charging standards to encourage spending and speed up adoption worldwide.
• In order to lessen dependency on precious metals like cobalt and lithium, standards to improve the recyclability of batteries and accelerating research into alternate battery chemistries are needed.
• Government initiatives, private sector purchases, and international trade regulations all work together to increase demand for low-carbon and renewable hydrogen.
• Investment in agricultural technologies and techniques that can reduce emissions from livestock and fertilizers, increase the availability of substitute proteins, and hasten the development of crops that are more tolerant to climate change

Read Also: Getting India to Net Zero

Saturn’s Mysterious Rings & Extreme Tilt

A recent analysis concluded that the pre-existing moon Chrysalis likely fled Saturn because of its brilliant rings and unusual tilt.

What are the Study's Key Highlights?

• Significant Tilt: Saturn has a tilt of 26.73 degrees and it is improbable that it tilted during the stages of its development.
• Neptune, Uranus, and Saturn all currently exhibit a significant tilt, indicating that this trait did not develop throughout the stages of creation.
• Reason for Tilt: According to a number of theories, gravitational interactions between Saturn and its neighbour Neptune are what caused the planet to tilt.
• However, the current study contends that Neptune's gravitational pull is no longer acting on Saturn
• Furthermore, it mentioned that findings from NASA's Cassini probe, which orbited Saturn from 2004 to 2017, suggested that Titan, Saturn's largest satellite, may have actually been to blame.
• Titan's Migration: Titan is departing Saturn at a rate of around 11 centimetres each year, which is 100 times quicker than predicted.
• Saturn's gravitational pull from Nepturn was lessened as a result of Titan's swift migration and subsequent increase in tilt.
• Role of Former Moon (Chrysalis): Researchers ran simulations of the planet's axis of rotation and how it has evolved over time. The results showed that a former moon may be implicated since, according to the model, removing the moon causes Saturn to tilt.
• Approximately 160 million years ago, after perhaps orbiting Saturn for many billion years, Chrysalis became unstable and approached its planet too closely.

How well do we understand Saturn?

• The second largest planet in our solar system, Saturn, is located six planets from the Sun.
• Saturn stands out among the planets due to its countless lovely ringlets.
• Although other planets have rings formed of ice and rock fragments, none are as magnificent or intricate as Saturn's.
• In the solar system, Saturn has 82 satellites, making it the body with the most moons.
• Saturn, a gas giant like Jupiter, is a large globe primarily composed of hydrogen and helium.
• Pioneer 11, Voyagers 1 and 2, and Cassini, which orbited Saturn 294 times from 2004 to 2017, were the few spacecraft to visit Saturn.

Read Also: What caused the tilt to Saturn’s rotation axis?