Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Yada Yada
Mains level: NA
A new virus detected in Australian mosquitoes has been provisionally named the Yada Yada virus (YYV).
Yada Yada
- It is an alphavirus, a group of viruses that the researchers described as small, single-stranded positive-sense RNA viruses.
- It includes species important to human and animal health, such as Chikungunya virus and Eastern equine encephalitis virus.
- They are transmitted primarily by mosquitoes and (are) pathogenic in their vertebrate hosts.
- Unlike some other alphaviruses, Yada Yada does not pose a threat to human beings.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2-Protection of vulnerable section and mob lynching.
Context
The spate of incidents of lynching over the past few years has led to a heightened sense of insecurity among the marginalised communities. The Centre should specify penal action against officials and doctors accused of dereliction of duty.
2018 Supreme Court Judgement
- In 2018, the Supreme Court described lynching as a “horrendous act of mobocracy”.
- The Court exhorted the Centre and State governments to frame laws specifically to deal with the crime of lynching.
- The SC laid down certain guidelines to be incorporated in these laws including
- Fast-track trials.
- Compensation to victims, and
- Disciplinary action against lax law-enforcers.
The State laws
- Manipur bill for the law against lynching: The Manipur government came up first with its Bill against lynching in 2018, incorporating some logical and relevant clauses.
- Provision of nodal officer: The Bill specified that there would be nodal officers in each district to control such crimes.
- Compensation to the victim: The law provides for adequate monetary compensation to the victims or their immediate kin.
- Punishment for failure to enforce the law: Police officers who fail to prevent the crime of lynching in their jurisdiction are liable to be imprisoned for a term that may extend from one to three years with a fine limit of ₹50,000.
- No concurrence of state for the prosecution of the police: No concurrence of the State government is required to prosecute them for dereliction of duty.
- Rajasthan bill: The government has accepted only a few guidelines issued by the apex court.
- No action against police officers: The bill is also silent on any action to be initiated against police officers who may be accused of dereliction of duty.
- West Bengal bill: Most other guidelines of the Supreme Court have been adopted by the State.
- Stringent punishment: Punishment for lynching to death is punishable with the death penalty or life imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹5 lakh.
What the Centre can do
- Adoption of the SC guidelines: The Centre should adopt the guidelines provided by the SC to deal with the crime.
- Action against doctors: Centre would do well to incorporate sections in the law for penal action against doctors who stand accused of-
- Dereliction of duty.
- For delay in attending to victims of lynching.
- For submitting false reports without carrying out a proper and thorough medical examination of the victims.
- The compensation scheme for victims: Under the compensation scheme for the victims, the amount to be paid to the victims should be recovered from the perpetrators of the crime.
- Collective fines: Collective fines should be imposed on the villagers where the lynching takes place.
- Punishment for a political leader for inciting the mob: Centre could even provide for punitive action against political leaders found guilty of inciting mobs.
- Punitive action against police: Punitive action to be taken against police officers accused of dereliction of duty, as incorporated in the law enacted by Manipur government, could be replicated in the Central law too.
- Punitive action as a deterrent: It would deter police officials acting in a partisan manner in favour of the lynch mob.
Conclusion
Until a zero-tolerance attitude is adopted in dealing with mob lynching, this crime will continue to show a rising trend.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Threat of Left Wing Extremism and ways to deal with it.
Context
When much is made of peace talks with rebels in Northeast India, avoidance of peace talks with Maoist rebels is strange.
States left to deal with the Maoists
- Scale and extent of the problem: Officially in 2019, there are 11 states and 90 affected districts.
- State subject: This is because policing and maintaining law and order are matters devolved to states.
- The approach adopted to deal with the problem: According to MHA-
- Capacity building: Primarily by capacity building of the state governments.
- Areas of capacity building: Capacity building is to be carried out in areas of security and development. This will continue with the-
- Better police training.
- Better intelligence gathering.
- Reinforcing police stations in conflict zones.
- And recruiting locals into auxiliary forces.
- Support by MHA: MHA will continue to provide the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and other paramilitaries under its command.
- Support of NTRO: Intelligence gathering outfits such as the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO).
- NTRO has in the past year increased drone surveillance over the densely forested Abujhmad area in southwest Chhattisgarh, which remains the main rebel hub.
The success achieved so far
- Influence reduced to 90 districts: The policies so far has certainly contained the rebels across 90 affected districts.
- Surrender and rehabilitation policy: Most Maoist-affected states in India have a surrender and rehabilitation policy.
- Surrender policy along with search and destroy : Surrender policy rides in tandem with search-and-destroy missions that police and paramilitaries provide.
- This pincer has massively depleted rebel leadership and ranks with regular killings, arrests, and surrender of its leaders and cadres.
Return of conflict displaced people
- It is crucial for the conflict-displaced to return to their homes.
- Issues related to return of displaced: Agencies discourage those returning from going back to their old home and instead are offered state-mandated enclaves.
- No or little economic imperatives: Those returning are offered little economic imperative besides daily wage labour and scrambling for government handouts.
- Some government jobs: For some, jobs are offered in
- That is, in any case, the present for much of the 50,000 or so who did not manage to escape to Telangana and elsewhere.
Conclusion
- The central government would do well to focus here and in beginning negotiations for peace.
- The Left-wing rebellion, a reality for over 50 years, is difficult to end until poor governance is improved.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Inflation targeting by RBI, and other mandates of RBI.
Context
The RBI’s responsibility to regulate the financial sector may have taken a back seat after the adoption of inflation targeting as the main objective. Has a fixation with inflation rate made the RBI take its eyes off the loan books of the banks?
Evolution of the role of the Central Banks
- Maintaining financial stability: The establishment of some of the world’s oldest central banks was inspired by the goal of maintaining financial stability.
- Harm to the depositors: It was recognised that when private commercial banks fail, whether due to malfeasance or misjudgement, they harm their trusting depositors.
- Harm to the entire system: But when banks fail they not only harm the depositors they can also take down with them the rest of the financial system.
- Banks lending to one another: The entire financial system also gets harmed when banks have lent to one another, which is not uncommon.
- The collapse of credit: In the crisis that ensues, there is a collapse of credit which, in turn, leads to a downturn in economic activity.
- Lender of last resort: To avoid this, the central bank was conceived of as the lender of last resort.
- Prevention of run on the banks: Lender of last resort is the one that could pre-empt a run on banks and give them time to put their books back in order.
- Regulation of banks: However, this was to be accompanied by the adoption of a tough regulatory stance.
- Whereby the central bank would stay hawk-eyed towards the activities of banks, particularly risky lending.
- Rise of neo-liberalism and change in a role: With the rise of neoliberalism, the central tenet of which is that markets should be given free play, the regulatory role of central banks took a back seat.
- Inflation control as primary role: The Central banks came to be primarily mandated with inflation control.
Inflation targeting and regulation of the financial market by RBI
- Multiple indicator approach: In India, the RBI had earlier pursued a ‘multiple indicators approach’.
- What was the multiple indicator approach: The approach involves concern for outcomes other than inflation, including even the balance of payments.
- Discouraging the approach: Developments in economic theory discouraged ‘multiple indicators approach’.
- It was argued that having economic activity as an objective of monetary policy leads to higher inflation.
- Favouring low inflation over lower unemployment: Discouraging the ‘multiple indicator approach’ encouraged low inflation over low unemployment.
- Inflation targeting as the sole objective of monetary policy: The Indian government also instituted inflation targeting as the sole objective of monetary policy.
- The fixed target for the RBI: The RBI was permitted to exceed or fall short of a targeted inflation rate of 4% by a margin of 2 percentage points.
- But have the RBI’s original mandate as a central bank been met?
- IL&FS crisis: In 2018, within three years of the adoption of inflation targeting goal, a crisis engulfed IL&FS, a non-banking financial company in the infrastructure space.
- Not a small player: It operated over 100 subsidiaries and was sitting on a debt of ₹94,000 crores.
- Effects of default: Given this, IL&FS default had a chilling effect on the investors, banks and mutual funds associated with it both directly or indirectly.
- PMC bank crisis: In 2019, a run on the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative Bank had to be averted by imposing withdrawal limits.
- Outright fraud in PMC case: While in the case of IL&FS, some part of the problem may have been caused by a slowing economy, outright fraud underlay the crisis at PMC Bank.
- Raghavendra Sahakara Bank case: In early 2020, curbs have had to be placed on withdrawals from the Bengaluru-based Sri Guru Raghavendra Sahakara Bank.
- Pertinent question
- Regulatory sector at the backseat? It is not too early to ask if the RBI’s responsibility to regulate the financial sector may have taken a back seat after the adoption of inflation targeting as the main objective.
- Has a fixation with inflation rate made the RBI take its eyes off the loan books of the banks?
The recent rise in inflation and shortfall of currency notes
- Inflation at 7%: At over 7%, the inflation rate in December is the highest in five years.
- Not cause of concern: This may not be the reason to panic, for the price rise could be seasonal and may well abate.
- Question on inflation targeting: But it does raise a question on the efficacy of inflation targeting as a means of inflation control.
- Reason for moderate inflation so far: If the inflation rate was within the intended range so far, that may have been due to both declining food prices and, for a phase, oil prices.
- The shortfall of notes: The central bank has a monopoly on the issue of notes.
- There is an absolute shortage of small denomination notes in the bazaars of India.
- Small-denomination notes are mostly unavailable.
Conclusion
While focusing on the inflation, the Central bank also needs to keep the other mandates especially the regulation of the finance sector in check.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bru/Reangs
Mains level: Tribal issues in the NE
The Ministry of Home Affairs has presided over the signing of an agreement between Union Government, Governments of Tripura and Mizoram and Bru-Reang representatives to end the 23-year old Bru-Reang refugee crisis.
Who are the Brus?
- Reangs or Brus are the second largest ethnic group in Mizoram.
- Their exodus in 1997 was spurred by violent clashes in Mamith subdivision, a Reang-dominated area, when they demanded creation of an autonomous council that was vehemently opposed by Mizo groups.
- Around 34,000 people were forced to live in sub-human conditions in tents in Tripura. No solution could be reached all these years.
- These people were housed in temporary camps at Kanchanpur, in North Tripura.
Highlights of the Quadripartite Agreement
- Under the new agreement around 34,000 Bru refugees will be settled in Tripura and would be given aid from the Centre to help with their rehabilitation and all round development.
- These people would get all the rights that normal residents of the States get and they would now be able to enjoy the benefits of social welfare schemes of Centre and State governments.
- Under the new arrangement, each of the displaced families would be given 40×30 sq.ft. residential plots.
- This would be in addition to the aid under earlier agreement of a fixed deposit of Rs. 4 lakhs, Rs. 5,000 cash aid per month for 2 years, free ration for 2 years and Rs. 1.5 lakhs aid to build their house.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Relevant sections of the CrPC and the Telegraph Act
Mains level: Right to internet access and various issues
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: WBL index
Mains level: India's poor performance and reasons behind
The Women Business and the Law (WBL) 2020 index to measure the economic empowerment of women was recently published.
WBL Index
- The WBL report released by the World Bank.
- It is based on the countries’ formal laws and regulations that have a bearing on women’s economic participation, covering eight areas (eg, parenthood, equality of pay).
- It tracks how laws affect women at different stages in their working lives and focusing on those laws applicable in the main business city.
India’s poor performance
- India placed 117th among 190 countries on the index.
- India, the world’s most populous democracy scored 74.4 on a par with Benin and Gambia and way below least developed countries like Rwanda and Lesotho.
- The global average was 75.2 — a slight increase from 73.9 in the previous index released in 2017.
Global Performance
- Only eight economies scored a perfect 100 — Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Latvia, Luxembourg, and Sweden.
- Those countries have ensured equal legal standing to men and women on all the eight indicators of the index.
- No economy in ‘East Asia and the Pacific’, ‘Europe and Central Asia’, or ‘Latin America and the Caribbean’ were among top reformers, the report claimed.
- Countries in ‘Middle East and North Africa’ and ‘Sub-Saharan Africa’ accounted for nine of the 10 top progressing countries on the WBL Index:
- Saudi Arabia
- The United Arab Emirates
- Nepal
- South Sudan
- São Tomé and Príncipe
- Bahrain
- The Democratic Republic of Congo
- Djibouti
- Jordan
- Tunisia
Significance of the Index
- Legal rights for women are both the right thing to do and good from an economic perspective.
- When women can move more freely, work outside the home and manage assets, they are more likely to join the workforce and help strengthen their country’s economies.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Right to Business
Mains level: Various mover for the MSME sector
The Punjab Cabinet this week gave its approval to a Punjab Right to Business Bill, 2020, a law aimed at ensuring ease of doing business for the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) sector.
Punjab Right to Business Bill, 2020
- Under the law, an MSME unit can be set up after ‘In-Principle’ approval from the District Bureau of Enterprise, headed by the Deputy Commissioner, working under the guidance of the State Nodal Agency, headed by the Director, Industries.
- Approval for units in approved Industrial Parks will be given in three working days.
- For new enterprises outside approved Industrial Parks, the decision on the Certificate shall be taken by the District Level Nodal Agency within 15 working days, as per the recommendations of the Scrutiny Committee.
What is the timeframe for unit owners to comply?
- Unit owners will have three and a half years after setting up the unit to obtain seven approvals from three departments: the sanction of building plans; issuance of completion/occupation certificate for buildings; registration of new trade licences.
- The industries involving hazardous processes will have to obtain a Fire NOC and get approval for the factory building plan before setting up the unit.
- All units will have to get environmental clearance from the Pollution Control Board beforehand.
Why was a law needed, rather than an executive order?
- According to the government, the Act will have overriding powers over various Acts of different departments that make approvals necessary before the setting up of small and medium units.
- This purpose could not have been achieved by an executive order.
- How the law actually works on the ground remains to be seen, however.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GSAT-30 and its applications
Mains level: Not Much
India’s first satellite of 2020, the GSAT-30 was successfully launched. The launch vehicle Ariane 5 VA-251 lifted off from Kourou Launch Base, French Guiana.
GSAT-30
- GSAT-30 derives its heritage from ISRO’s earlier INSAT/GSAT satellite series and will replace INSAT-4A in
- In the days ahead, orbit-raising manoeuvres will be performed to place the satellite in Geostationary Orbit (36,000 km above the equator) by using its onboard propulsion
- During the final stages of its orbit raising operations, the two solar arrays and the antenna reflectors of GSAT-30 will be
- Following this, the satellite will be put in its final orbital . The satellite will be operational after the successful completion of all in-orbit tests.
Utility of the satellite
- GSAT-30 will provide DTH Television Services, connectivity to VSATs for ATM, Stock-exchange, Television unlinking and Teleport Services, Digital Satellite News Gathering (DSNG) and e-governance applications.
- The satellite will also be used for bulk data transfer for a host of an emerging telecommunication
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Assam Inland Water Transport Project
Mains level: Inland water transport in India
India and the World Bank signed a loan agreement of $88 million for Assam Inland Water Transport Project.
Assam Inland Water Transport Project
- A majority of Assam’s more than 361 ferry routes cross the Brahmaputra or serve its islands, providing a crucial means of transport to thousands of commuters in both the urban and rural areas of the Brahmaputra Valley.
- The project will draw guidance from ‘working with nature’ principles that aim to design new infrastructure or rehabilitate existing infrastructure in a way that works with natural river processes.
- The terminals will have better access, lighting and signage while the new vessels will allow for individual seats, and separate toilets. Moreover, a strengthened regulatory regime will ensure reduction in overloading, adherence to time schedule and better crew standards.
- The Project will help Assam improve the passenger ferry infrastructure and its services and strengthen the capacity of the institutions running the inland water transport.
Significance
- Inland Water Transport is also a more sustainable mode of transport. And Assam has the largest network of navigable waterways in India.
- It provides low-carbon and low-cost options when compared to the cost of constructing and maintaining flood-resilient roads and bridges across the long stretches of the Brahmaputra river.
- Technically better-designed terminals and energy-efficient vessels (both new and retrofitted) will make the ferry services more sustainable with least disruption to nature.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- Adoption of policy of auctioning of resources and periodic review of the policy.
Context
Governments regulations and restrictions in the markets, believing that policies could artificially restrict either supply or demand, or both, often results in unrealistic or unworkable prices.
Adoption of the auctioning process to allocate resources
- Design of process makes the difference: While auctions may be the cleanest way to allot scarce natural resources to private parties, their design makes all the difference.
- Three things needed to get the desired results from auctions:
- Clear policy goal: Define clear policy goals for the allotment of the resource whether coal blocks, spectrum or land.
- The proper process of periodic review: Define a proper process for periodic review of the design itself, since it may not be possible to get everything right in the first instance.
- Make the process non-partisan: Make the political oversight process as non-partisan as possible, so that regime changes do not keep upending policies.
What went wrong in spectrum allocation case?
- Arbitrary tweaks in policy: Arbitrary tweaks were made in the telecom licence and spectrum allocation policy.
- Which is what forced the apex court to intervene and cancel those licences.
- The claim of revenue loss: Cancellation followed a claim by the CAG that the “presumptive” revenue losses may have been as high as ₹1.76.
- Result of the two events-policy of revenue maximisation: The net result was that all subsequent auctions were designed to maximize spectrum bids.
- Winner’s curse: The policy finally ended up becoming a winner’s curse, evident in the pile of debt incurred by the telecom sector.
- Why did this happen? This happened because of the absence of a clear policy goal.
Real estate sector
- High land prices: The same goes for real estate, which is struggling right now due to high land prices because the bureaucracy prevents price reduction in land.
- Unaffordable to middle-income buyers: That make most properties unaffordable for middle and lower-middle-income buyers.
- Low FSI issue: Urban land prices are high due to artificial constriction of supplies through the fixing of low floor space indices (FSIs) even in land-scarce localities.
Technology and periodic review of policy
- Technology can lower costs: Spectrum or land or coal mines are not always in short supply, for new technology lowers costs.
- Efficient spectrum use: The same spectrum can, with the use of newer technology, be used more efficiently.
- 3D printing in construction: Better infrastructure and improved building technologies (even 3D printing techniques for mass housing projects in non-urban areas) can lower housing costs enormously.
- Automated coal mining: Automated coal mining can lower coal production costs, enabling higher profitability even with relatively high auction bids.
- Need for periodic policy review: Technology can reduce the prices of the resources and hence the periodic review of the prices at which the resources are allocated need to be taken to for balanced pricing.
Conclusion
- Policies on the allocation of scarce resources need to evolve based on actual experience and changing technologies and processes.
- The success or failure of a specific policy cannot be judged purely from a revenue or transparency point of view.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3-Indian power sector-Problems faced by the Discoms and their solutions.
Context
Five years after the launch of UDAY, power-sector once again seems to be going deep into the troubles.
Where the Discoms stand now?
- Losses increased: The losses of state-owned distribution companies (discoms) risen.
- Dues increased: Discom’s dues for power purchases have also surged.
- Dues owed by discoms to power producers, both independent and state-run entities, stood at Rs 80,930 crore.
- Of these, Rs 71,673 crore extends beyond the allowed grace period of 60 days.
- Rajasthan leads the states with the most dues, followed by Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh.
Components of UDAY and progress made
- The UDAY scheme, which involved state governments taking over the debt of discoms, had three critical components
- First-Reduction in AT&C losses: While progress has been made on some of these fronts, it hasn’t been in line with the targets laid out under UDAY.
- AT&C (Aggregate Technical and Commercial) losses have declined in some states, but not to the extent envisaged.
- Under UDAY, discoms were to bring down AT&C losses to 15 per cent by FY19.
- Second- Timely revision of tariffs: While some states have raised power tariffs, the hikes have not been sufficient.
- In tariff revision decisions political considerations prevailed over commercial decisions.
- Third- elimination of the gap between per unit of cost and revenue realised: The gap between the average cost per unit of power and the revenue realised has not declined in the manner envisaged.
- Because of this discoms were forced to reduce their power purchases and delay payments to power producers.
Way forward:
- The new plan, being formulated by the government reportedly, aims to address these issues by-
- Reducing electricity losses.
- Eliminating the tariff gap.
- Smart metering.
- Privatising discoms.
- Having distribution franchisees.
- Altering incentive structure: Along with the above, the Centre should also look at altering the incentive structures of states in order to ensure compliance.
- Provision of penalties: Stiff penalties need to be imposed for not meeting the targets laid out in the new scheme.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Socio-economic upheaval in Indian economy and its consequences for the Indian economy.
Context
With the Indian economy caught in the middle of a socio-economic upheaval, the government needs to make its focus on the economy clear and pronounced.
India in the middle of a socio-economic upheaval
- Weakening economy: The economy has been weakening for a couple of years now.
- Social upheaval: The social upheaval is new but its seeds have been fermenting for a while.
- Consequences of the two: The social and economic sides of an economy are not divorced from each other.
- Each influences the other and the current quagmire threatens to unleash the worst type of feedback between the two.
Consequences for the employment
- Most severe consequence due to the interaction between the social and economic sides is unemployment.
- Rising unemployment disproportionately affects the young.
- India’s job market: India whose median citizen is in the 30s and which is inducting 10 million new young people to the job market every year.
- Demographic dividend turning into a curse: This dynamic, popularly hailed as India’s demographic dividend, can rapidly turn into a demographic curse if the employment situation doesn’t improve.
Falling investment rate, increased risk perception
- Where will the jobs come from? The job creators are entrepreneurs, conglomerates, and multinationals.
- It is in their nature to take investment risks as long as the returns are high enough.
- Investment rates below 30: In India, investment rate fell well below 30 per cent a while back.
- Falling returns: The returns on investment were not compensating entrepreneurs for the risk.
- The recent social upheaval is only adding to the perceived risk.
- Wait and see approach: The more investors adopt a “wait-and-see” approach, the worse the job situation will become.
Way forward
- Structural reforms: The government needs to announce a clear plan and timeline for structural reforms.
- Prioritising domain competence in staff: The government has to start staffing technical positions by prioritising domain competence and empowering these hires with policy relevance.
- Maintaining the integrity of institutions: The government need to maintain the integrity of institutions tasked with the regulation of corporations and banks, monetary policy management, data collection/dissemination and law enforcement.
- Accommodate dissent: The government also needs to desist from trying to drown out protesting voices with state muscle power.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NIA Act
Mains level: Policing Issues with NIA
The Chhattisgarh state govt. moved the Supreme Court against the 2008 National Investigative Agency (NIA) Act, stating it is violative of the Constitution. In its civil suit, the government told the apex court the NIA should have no power over state policing matters.
What is the NIA Act, 2008?
- The NIA Act, 2008 governs the functioning of India’s premier counter-terror agency.
- It was introduced by then home minister P Chidambaram in the wake of the 26/11 Mumbai terrorist attacks and was passed in Parliament with very little opposition.
- The Act makes the NIA the only truly federal agency in the country, along the lines of the FBI in the United States, more powerful than the CBI.
- It gives the NIA powers to take suo motu cognizance of terror activities in any part of India and register a case, to enter any state without permission from the state government, and to investigate and arrest people.
Objections made by CG
- In its petition, the Chhattisgarh govt. said the Act is “ultra vires the Constitution” and “beyond the legislative competence of the Parliament”.
- According to the state, the 2008 Act allows the Centre to create an agency for investigation, which is a function of the state police.
- ‘Police’ is an entry in the State List of the Constitution’s 7th Schedule.
- The petition says the 2008 Act takes away the state’s power of conducting an investigation through the police, while conferring unfettered, discretionary and arbitrary powers” on the Centre.
- The provisions of the Act leave no room of coordination and pre-condition of consent, in any form whatsoever, by the Centre from the State govt. which clearly repudiates the idea of state sovereignty as envisaged under the Constitution.
Changes made to the NIA’s powers last year
- The 2019 NIA Amendment Act expanded the type of offences that the investigative body could investigate and prosecute.
- The agency can now investigate offences related to human trafficking, counterfeit currency, manufacture or sale of prohibited arms, cyber-terrorism, and offences under the Explosive Substances Act, 1908.
- The amendment also enables the central government to designate sessions courts as special courts for NIA trials.
- The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment (UAPA), also passed in 2019, allows an NIA officer to conduct raids, and seize properties that are suspected to be linked to terrorist activities without taking prior permission of the DG of Police of a state.
- The investigating officer only requires sanction from the Director General of NIA.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IOT
Mains level: Citizenship issues of Indian origin Tamils in Sri Lanka
Recently an MHA spokesperson wrote on Twitter that about 4.61 lakh Tamils of Indian origin were given Indian citizenship during 1964-2008. The reference was to the Indian Origin Tamils (IOTs) of Sri Lanka, and the Lal Bahadur Shastri-Sirimavo Bandaranaike Pact of 1964.
The Indian Origin Tamils
- Different from Sri Lankan Tamils who live predominantly in the North and East, the IoTs are descendants of indentured Tamil workers.
- The British had shipped them to the island in the mid 19th century to work on tea estates in the five hill districts of the Central and Uva provinces.
- These people now call themselves Malayaha (hill country) Tamils — because of the historical stigma attached to being “Indian” Tamils.
- At the time of Sri Lanka’s independence, the IOTs numbered around 800,000.
- They were the backbone of the tea industry, politically active, and keen to ensure their rights in independent Sri Lanka through strategic alliances with unions and left parties.
- Determined to blunt their political rights, the ruling parties described IOTs as “birds of passage” with no loyalty to the country, as India’s fifth column in Sri Lanka, and as people who stole the locals’ jobs.
SL’s 1948 Citizenship Act
- Sri Lanka’s Nov. 1948 Citizenship Act was the first in a series of divisive moves by the Sinhala rulers to consolidate their political base in the majority Sinhalese (Buddhist and Christian) community.
- It was aimed at excluding IOTs — then as now, the predominant workforce in the upcountry tea estates — whose numbers and growing association with leftist parties were proving to be politically inconvenient.
- The IOTs that India accepted through the 1964 agreement were not “fleeing” Sri Lanka.
- Most were, in fact, reluctant to leave the country in which they had lived for three generations or longer.
- Those that remained, were stateless in Sri Lanka for decades until their status as citizens was settled ironically because the ruling party now wanted their votes.
What did the Act provide?
- Under the Act, citizenship could be only by patrilineal descent or registration.
- For citizenship by registration, umarried persons had to show 10 years of uninterrupted stay in Sri Lanka from the date of application; married persons had to show 7 years.
- Most IOTs were unlettered and poor, with no documents. Effectively an entire community was rendered stateless.
- Soon afterward came the Indian & Pakistani Residents’ Act of 1949, which opened a window for those above a certain income level.
- Only 1,40,000 had been granted citizenship under the Indian & Pakistani Residents’ Act, and 2,50,000 were accepted by India as its citizens.
- Finally, the 1949 Ceylon (Parliamentary Elections) Amendment was passed, under which only citizens could vote.
- The IOTs were stripped of voting rights, and the fallout was immediate: in 1947, there were 7 Indian Tamils in the legislature; in 1952, there were none.
Issues with the Act
- This Act sharply delineated ethnic differences, and distorted the political system to weight it in favour the Sinhalese majority.
- This created an intractable dynamic of ethnic outbidding between the two major Sinhalese-dominated parties to attract Sinhalese voters at the expense of the Sri Lankan Tamil minority.
- This directly contributed to the latter’s alienation, support for secessionism, and the outbreak of ethnic violence and civil war in the 1970s and 1980s.
India’s response
- The treatment of Indian Tamils had cast a shadow on India-Sri Lanka relations even before independence; post-independence, the citizenship laws became a major irritant.
- They were denounced in India, and the Madras legislature passed a resolution against them.
- In 1947, PM Nehru had tried unsuccessfully to persuade Senanayake to give citizenship to all Indian Tamils who had lived in the country for 7 years prior to January 1, 1948.
- The two countries corresponded on this issue until Nehru’s death in 1964.
- Nehru rejected the Sri Lankan position that the “stateless” IOTs were automatically Indian citizens, and would have to be shipped to India.
Repatriation of IOTs
- After the 1962 war with China, PM Shastri was eager to mend fences with Sri Lanka. He gave in to Bandaranaike’s demands, and it was agreed that Sri Lanka would accept 3,00,000 IOTs and their natural increase, while India would accept 5,25,000 IOTs and their natural increase.
- The status of the balance 1,50,000 IOTs was to be decided later.
- Some 4,00,000 reluctantly applied for citizenship of India; 6,30,000 applied for Sri Lanka’s.
- By the time the window agreed upon in 1964 closed, only 1,62,000 IOTs had been given Sri Lankan citizenship. In the same period, India gave citizenship to over 3,50,000.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: India-China Relations in context of Tibet
The People’s Congress of Tibet passed a law that makes ethnic unity in the region mandatory, reflecting the significant role that the autonomous Himalayan region plays in its economic and social development.
About the Law
- The law makes it clear that Tibet has been an inalienable part of China since ancient times.
- It states that it is the common responsibility of the people of all ethnic groups to safeguard national reunification and take a clear stand against separatism.
Ethnic Unity in China
- This is not the first time that the phrase ethnic unity has been mentioned by China.
- In October 2019 the Communist Party of China published a guideline for enhancing ethnic unity.
- It stressed on efforts to improve the governance of ethnic affairs, guaranteeing the legal rights and interests of citizens of ethnic groups.
- It called for cracking down on “criminal acts” that sabotage ethnic unity or cause ethnic separation.
- Before this, in 2016, China began a campaign in the autonomous territory of Xinjiang to promote ethnic unity and called for people to respect the cultures of the minorities who call the region home.
Why such Law?
- There are more than 40 ethnic minorities in the region, which account for 95 per cent of Tibet’s population of over three million.
- Like Tibet, Xinjiang is another region of China that houses multiple ethnic minorities.
- A similar legislation was passed there four years ago and in recent times, China has faced criticism for detaining at least a million Uighur and other Muslims, along with some ethnic Kazakhs and Uzbeks.
- China has began “re-education camps” in Xinjiang, a region that has been claimed by China since 1949.
- China has denied these allegations and maintains that the facilities where the detainees are housed are vocational training centers.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: About the Index
Mains level: Global visa policies for Indians
The Indian passport is closer to the bottom, ranked 84th in the world, according to the 2020 edition of the Henley Passport Index.
Henley Passport Index
- According to Henley & Partners publishes the ranking and the Index of the world’s passports “according to the number of destinations their holders can access without a prior visa”.
- The ranking is based on data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA), a trade association of some 290 airlines, including all major carriers.
- The index includes 199 different passports and 227 different travel destinations.
- The data are updated in real time as and when visa policy changes come into effect.
India’s performance
- Since the index began in 2006, the Indian passport has ranked in a band of 71st to 88th. (The number of passports ranked has, however, varied from year to year.)
- The Indian passport’s 2020 ranking of 84th translates into visa-free access to 58 destinations, including 33 which give Indians visas on arrival.
- It ranked higher in both 2019 (82, with visa-free access to 59 destinations) and 2018 (81, with visa-free access to 60 destinations).
- Twenty of the 58 visa-free access destinations in the 2020 list are in Africa, and 11 each in Asia and the Caribbean.
- Serbia is the only European country to which Indian passport holders can travel visa-free. There is no major or developed country to which Indian passport holders have visa-free access.
Global performance
- The top 10 most powerful passports this year are ranked in this order: Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Germany, Italy, Finland, Spain, Luxembourg and Denmark.
- Japan has been topping the Index for three straight years; according to the 2020 index, its citizens are able to access 191 destinations without having to obtain a visa in advance.
- Afghanistan at rank 107 is the weakest.
- Singapore, in second place (same as in 2019), has a visa-free/visa-on-arrival score of 190.
- Germany is No. 3 (same position as in 2019), with access to 189 destinations; it shares this position with South Korea, which dropped from the second place it held a year ago.
- The US and the UK have been falling consistently over successive Indices.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IDH
Mains level: Virtual and Augmented Reality, IDH
The Union Ministry of Culture and Tourism launched a month-long special exhibition titled Indian Heritage in Digital Space. This special exhibition showcases the adaptation and infusion of technologies being developed under the Indian Digital Heritage (IDH) initiative.
Indian Digital Heritage (IDH)
- This initiative is undertaken by the Department of Science and Technology (DST) in the cultural heritage domain of the country.
- The exhibition demonstrates the outcome of two flagship projects viz., A digital mini-spectacle to showcase the glory of Hampi and Augmented Reality based interactions with physical models of monuments.
- The goals of these projects are to create digital installations using 3D laser scan data, AR, holographic projections and 3D fabrication,to provide interactive and immersive experiences showcasing the glory of Hampi and five Indian monuments namely Kashi Vishwanath Temple, Varanasi; TajMahal, Agra; Sun Temple, Konark; Ramachandra Temple, Hampi ; and RaniKiVav, Patan .
- These projections are driven by cutting-edge technologies such as 3D fabrication, Artificial Intelligence, Augmented, Virtual and Mixed Reality, Holographic Projections and Projection Mapping etc.
ViRaasat
A special installation named ‘ViRaasat’, consisting of a scaled-down 3D printed replica shall provide a mixed reality experience to visitors for selected monuments, using laser-scanning, 3D modelling and rendering, 3D printing, computer vision and spatial AR.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ‘Saksham’ Campaign
Mains level: Fossil fuels conservation
‘Saksham’ Campaign for fuel conservation has been launched.
‘Saksham’ Campaign
- It is an annual one-month long, people-centric fuel conservation mega campaign of Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA) under the aegis of Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas.
- PCRA and Oil & Gas companies carry out various interactive programs during this month-long campaign.
- Activities like ‘Saksham’ Cycle Day, Cyclothons, Workshops for drivers of commercial vehicles, Seminars for housewives/cooks on adopting simple fuel saving measure.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: HSN Code
Mains level: India's Import regulation
No imports will be allowed without HSN code into the country clarified the Union Minister of Commerce & Industry.
What is HSN Code?
- HSN code stands for “Harmonized System of Nomenclature”.
- This system has been introduced for the systematic classification of goods all over the world.
- HSN code is a 6-digit uniform code that classifies 5000+ products and is accepted worldwide.
- It was developed by the World Customs Organization (WCO) and it came into effect from 1988.
- The main purpose of HSN is to classify goods from all over the World in a systematic and logical manner. This brings in a uniform classification of goods and facilitates international trade.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now