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Weekly Current A�airs
DECEMBER 2020 (1st WEEK)
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S. No. Topics Page No.
01. PM PITCHES FOR ‘ONE NATION, ONE ELECTION’
2
02. CHINESE DAM PROJECTS ON BRAHMAPUTRA
4
03. FISCAL DEFICIT REACHES 120% OF ANNUAL TARGET
7
04. POSHAN ABHIYAAN NEEDS A BOOST
8
05. NAVY INDUCTS 2 DRONES ON LEASE FROM THE U.S.
10
06. MORATORIUM ON BANKS 12
07. ISSUE WITH REVISING SECTION OF KERALA POLICE ACT, 2011
14
1. PM PITCHES FOR ‘ONE NATION, ONE ELECTION’ Context Prime Minister’s suggestions on elections in India at the 80th All India Presiding Officers Conference. Details ● The Prime Minister pitched for ‘One Nation, One Election’. ● As per him elections taking place every few months hampered development
works. ● Simultaneous elections refer to holding elections to Lok Sabha, State Legislative
Assemblies, Panchayats and Urban local bodies simultaneously, once in five years.
● He advocated for a single voter list for all polls in the country. ● It is argued that the preparation of a separate voters’ list causes duplication of the
effort and the expenditure. ● In its 255th report in 2015, the Law Commission recommended a single electoral
roll. Need for Synchronizing the Elections ● For holding all elections on a particular day, the terms of the Lok Sabha and the
state legislative assemblies should be synchronized in such a way that elections can be held within a given span of time.
● Articles 83, 85, 172, 174, and 356 of the Constitution of India would need to be amended.
● The elections to some state assemblies have also been recently held, whereas some were held last year (2018), and some were held during the previous year.
● Thus, for the implementation of simultaneous elections in the country, the terms of some legislative assemblies should be extended, or in some cases, they must be curtailed.
Are Simultaneous Elections feasible on the ground? ● The Law Commission of India examined the constitutional aspects as well as the
legal aspects. ● If simultaneous elections are to be brought in, then the Constitution of India
would need to be amended. The Representation of People Act, 1951 would need to be amended. Also, Parliamentary procedures would need to be amended.
● It would also reduce the burden on the administrative setup and security forces. ● It would ensure timely implementation of the Government policies, and ensure
that the administrative machinery is engaged in developmental activities rather than electioneering.
● In 1951-52, simultaneous elections were held. But when a State assembly got dissolved in between, it posed to be an obstruction towards conducting simultaneous elections.
● India cannot afford to alter the basic structure of the Indian Constitution and go for a Presidential form of Government.
● It is important to note that even if India goes with the Presidential form of Government, it would also affect the federal structure of the country.
● Thus, synchronizing the elections of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha within the existing framework of the Constitution of India with a few amendments is something which can be done through consensus by all political parties.
● Thus taking the consensus of all political parties, and other stakeholders, including taking the judiciary into confidence would be the right way forward.
Challenges with respect to Simultaneous Elections ● Logistical problems would definitely be there. If we hold simultaneous elections,
the requirements for the EVM’s and the VVPAT’s will double. ● There would also be some additional requirement of polling staff as well. ● There would also naturally be difficulty in transporting all these materials to the
polling stations. Thus, the requirement of transport, polling personnel, and the requirement of central police forces as well would need to be augmented.
● Simultaneous elections would weaken the federal democratic structure of the Indian polity.
● Simultaneous elections would benefit larger national parties at the cost of state/regional parties in case of a “national wave in favor of large national parties”.
● Many jobs are created during elections, boosting the economy at the grass-root levels, which may not happen in simultaneous elections.
Conclusion ● The final solution may lie in either amending the Constitution and going with a
Presidential form of Government or fixing the tenure of the assemblies and the Lok Sabha.
● The issue would demand that apart from the 2/3rds majority in both the Houses of Parliament, it would require the ratification of at least half of the state legislatures.
● There should be a greater consensus within the country on whether the nation should have a “One Nation, One Election” system.
2. CHINESE DAM PROJECTS ON BRAHMAPUTRA Context China’s dam constructions on the Brahmaputra River in Tibet. About the Brahmaputra ● The 2,880 km-long Brahmaputra is a
perennial river which originates in Tibet, where it is known as the Yarlung Tsangpo.
● It flows eastwards through southern Tibet for a distance of 1,625 kilometres and at its easternmost point, it swings around to make a spectacular U-turn at the Shuomatan Point or Great Bend before it enters India’s easternmost state, Arunachal Pradesh. Here it is known as the Siang River.
Tributary: ○ Major Left Bank: Burhi-Dihing and Dhansari (South). ○ Major Right Bank: Subansiri, Kameng, Manas and Sankosh.
TRIBUTARY ORIGIN IMPORTANCE
SUBANSIRI Tibet It is one of the largest tributaries of the Brahmaputra.
DHANSARI South west corner of Nagaland, down the Laishiang peak
Forms the boundary between the Cachar, Nagaon and Nagaland districts.
TISTA North Sikkim, Himalayas
Largest river in North Bengal
MANAS Himalayas ● Transboundary river in the Himalayan foothills between southern Bhutan and India.
● Largest river system of Bhutan
KOPILI Saipong Reserve Forest, south east of Meghalaya.
Forms the border of Meghalaya and Assam.
Different Names of Brahmaputra: ● Tibet : Tsangpo ● China : Yarlung Zangbo Jiangin ● Assam Valley : Dihang or Siong, South of Sadiya: Brahmaputra ● Bangladesh : Jamuna River ; Padma River: Combined Waters of Ganga and
Brahmaputra ; Meghana: From the confluence of Padma and Meghna Issues faced by inhabitants along the river People living near the Brahmaputra region have to deal with two floods annually: One caused by the melting of the Himalayan snow in summer and the other due to the monsoon flows. ● Climate change has further intensified the frequency of floods in this region
which has posed a major threat to lower riparian countries like India and Bangladesh.
● The river Brahmaputra is in itself dynamic as frequent landslides and geological activity force it to change course very often.
Why is China constructing more dams on the Chinese side? ● China, which is home to close to 20 per cent of the world’s population, has only 7
per cent of its water resources. ● Rapid industrialization has polluted the surface and the groundwater. ● China’s northern part is water-stressed and its southern part is water-rich. ● China has an ambitious plan to link its south and north through canals,
aqueducts and linking of major rivers to ensure water security. In pursuit of these goals, China, being an upper riparian state in Asia, has been blocking rivers like the Mekong and its tributaries.
Impact of Dam ● It is affecting Southeast Asian countries like Thailand, Vietnam, Laos and
Cambodia. Dam construction has resulted in widely fluctuating river flow, threatening fish productivity, which is key to the region’s people and economy.
● It has caused immense damage to the environment. Why India is worried? ● India is severely water-stressed as well. ● In summer, a vast majority of urban areas face water shortages. India has 17 per
cent of the world’s population and 4 per cent of water. ● While a majority of India’s population reside in the Gangetic plains, the southern
and western regions experience harsh and dry summer and the rainfall is scarce and erratic in the eastern coast.
Concerns ● Construction of Dam will eventually lead to degradation of the entire basin as
massive amounts of silt carried by the river would get blocked by dams which leads to a fall in the quality of soil and eventual reduction in agricultural productivity.
● The location of the dams in the Himalayas poses a risk. Seismologists consider the Himalayas as most vulnerable to earthquakes and seismic activity.
● For the Chinese, water is a key weapon in their expansionist designs. China believes dam building on the Brahmaputra helps it assert a claim over Arunachal Pradesh.
● Dams, canals, irrigation systems can turn water into a political weapon to be wielded in war, or during peace to signal annoyance with a co-riparian state.
Way forward ● Both sides must cease new constructions on the river and commit to potentially
less destructive solutions. ● Building a decentralised network of check dams, rain-capturing lakes and using
traditional means of water capture have shown effective results in restoring the ecological balance while supporting the populations of the regions in a sustainable manner.
3. FISCAL DEFICIT REACHES 120% OF ANNUAL TARGET Context The fiscal deficit further widened to ₹9.53 lakh crore, or close to 120% of the annual budget estimate, at the end of October of the current fiscal (2020-21). Details ● The deficit widened mainly due to poor revenue realisation. ● The fiscal deficit or gap between the expenditure and revenue had breached the
annual target in July this year. Fiscal Deficit ● Fiscal deficit is the difference between the government’s total expenditure and its
total receipts (excluding borrowing). A fiscal deficit occurs when this expenditure exceeds the revenue generated.
● In India, the Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act suggests that bringing the fiscal deficit down to about 3 percent of the GDP is the ideal target.
● However, successive governments have not been able to achieve this target. ● For the financial year, the government had pegged the fiscal deficit at Rs 7.96
lakh crore or 3.5 percent of the GDP in the budget, presented by the Finance Minister in February 2020.
Fiscal Deficit Calculation Fiscal deficit is arrived at by calculating the difference between the total expenditures incurred by the government in a fiscal year and the total revenue obtained by it. Fiscal deficit = Total Expenditure – Total Revenue (excluding the borrowings). The fiscal deficit is usually expressed as a percentage of GDP. Components of Fiscal Deficit
The two components of the fiscal deficit are income and expenditure. 1. Income: the total income generated by the government can be divided into:
1. Tax revenue: GST, customs duties, corporate tax, etc. 2. Non-tax revenue: dividends and profits, interest receipts, etc.
2. Expenditure: this includes capital expenditure, revenue expenditure, grants for capital assets creation, interest payments, etc.
How is Fiscal Deficit Financed? There are two sources to finance the fiscal deficit. They are: 1. Borrowings: internally from a commercial bank, or from external sources like the
IMF, other governments, etc. 2. Deficit financing (that is, printing new currency): borrowing funds from RBI
against its securities (so, RBI prints new currency). The government meets the fiscal deficit by borrowing, so it can be said that the total borrowing requirements of a government in a year is equal to the fiscal deficit of that year.
4. POSHAN ABHIYAAN NEEDS A BOOST Context As per the report by NITI Aayog, the Poshan Abhiyaan must be stepped up to meet the targets set by the Centre to reduce stunting, wasting and anaemia by 2022. About POSHAN Abhiyaan ● POSHAN Abhiyaan is
also known as the National Nutrition Mission.
● The term ‘Poshan’ in the name of the programme stands for ‘Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition’.
● It is the world’s largest nutrition programme for children and mothers.
● The mission is a multi-ministerial initiative and aims at removing malnutrition from the country by 2022.
● It aims to reduce stunting and wasting by 2% a year (total 6% until 2022) among children and anaemia by 3% a year (total 9%) among children, adolescent girls and pregnant women and lactating mothers.
● The mission also encompasses mapping of various other schemes related to malnutrition and enabling synergies through ICT-based real-time monitoring system, robust convergence between the schemes, incentivising states and UTs for meeting the set targets, and optimising Anganwadi centres’ functioning, apart from conducting social audits. ○ These other schemes include the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana
(PMMVY), Janani Suraksha Yojana, Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG), Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan, PDS, National Health Mission, etc.
○ For Anganwadi centres, the mission envisages the following: ■ Giving incentives to Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for using IT-based
tools. ■ Elimination of registers used by AWWs. ■ Measuring the height of children at Anganwadi centres.
● Another component of the mission is the gradual scaling up of the interventions under the World Bank assisted Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) Systems.
Issues identified in the report ● More than a third of the children under five face stunting and wasting and 40%
aged between one and four are anaemic. ● Over 50% of pregnant and other women were found to be anaemic, said the
National Family Health Survey 4 released in 2016.
● India’s targets are conservative as compared to the global targets defined by the World Health Assembly (WHA), which is a prevalence rate of 5% of stunting as opposed to India’s goal of reducing stunting levels to 13.3% by 2022.
● The target of reducing prevalence levels of anaemia among pregnant women from 50.3% in 2016 to 34.4% in 2022 and among adolescent girls from 52.9% in 2016 to 39.66%, is also considered conservative.
Way forward ● NITI Aayog suggested strengthening the four pillars of the Abhiyaan and a
renewed focus on other social determinants in addition to addressing the governance challenges of National Health Mission (NHM)/Integrated Child Development Service (ICDS) scheme delivery mechanisms.
● It calls for a need to lay as much emphasis on complementary feeding as it does on breastfeeding, which it points out can help avert 60% of the total stunting cases in India.
● domestic producers further worsening the unemployment situation, which had led to fears of de-industrialisation in some sectors.
5. NAVY INDUCTS 2 DRONES ON LEASE FROM THE U.S. Context Recently Indian Navy has inducted two MQ-9B Sea Guardian unarmed drones procured from the U.S. on lease. Details ● The drones are on lease for one year. All planning, execution and operations will
be with the Indian Navy. ● The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) will play a support role for
maintenance as laid down in the agreement. ● Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 has introduced an option for leasing
military platforms. ● As part of its force restructuring to offset budgetary constraints, the Navy has
been looking to induct more unmanned solutions, both aerial and underwater. About Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP), 2020 ● The Defence Ministry has
removed the offset clause requirement in Intergovernmental Agreements (IGA).
● There will be no offset clause in government-to-government, single vendor and IGAs.
Why was the clause removed? ● It has been removed in order to bring down the additional costs in the defence
contracts. ● Vendors would load extra cost in the contract to balance the costs, and doing
away with the offsets could bring down the costs in such contracts. ● Also, there are administrative costs involved in discharging offset obligations,
which the vendors pay. Other features of Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP), 2020 ● It also introduces a new category for leasing of military equipment. ● Other proposed measures include:
○ Making after-sales support a part of the capital acquisition contract ○ Higher indigenous content in acquisitions ○ Incentives for local material and software and emphasis on product export
under offsets. ● Leasing has been introduced as a new category for acquisition in addition to the
existing ‘Buy’ and ‘Make’ categories. ● This would substitute huge initial capital outlays with periodical rental
payments.
● A new procedure has been included as a new chapter in Defence Acquisition Procedure and structured as an enabling provision for Services to procure essential items through Capital Budget under a simplified procedure in a time-bound manner.
6. MORATORIUM ON BANKS Context ● Lakshmi Vilas Bank financial position has deteriorated, the regulator placed it
under the Prompt Corrective Action (PCA) framework. ● As per the recommendation of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Central
government imposed a moratorium on Lakshmi Vilas Bank (LVB) for a period of 30 days, due to a high level of bad loans, lack of sufficient capital to manage risks, and negative return on assets for two consecutive years.
Prompt Corrective Action ● To ensure that banks don’t deteriorate, RBI has some trigger points to assess,
monitor, control and take corrective actions on banks which are weak and troubled.
● The process or mechanism under which such actions are taken is known as Prompt Corrective Action or PCA.
What will a bank do if PCA is triggered? ● Banks are not allowed to renew or access costly deposits or take steps to increase
their fee-based income. ● Banks will also have to launch a special drive to reduce the stock of NPAs and
contain the generation of fresh NPAs. ● They will also not be allowed to enter into new lines of business. RBI will also
impose restrictions on the bank on borrowings from the interbank market. ● The RBI move comes at a time when the Delhi Police Economic Offences Wing
has registered a complaint against the board of LVB alleging cheating and misappropriation of funds.
● RBI has also advised the bank on the restrictions put in place and the actions to be taken by the bank, which the bank has taken note of for necessary compliance, with progress to be reported on a monthly basis to RBI,
● For FY19, the bank’s net NPA stood at 7.49%, capital adequacy ratio was at 7.72% and its return on assets was (-) 2.32%. It had reported a net loss of ₹894.10 crore for 2018-19.
Details What is a moratorium? ● When a moratorium is placed on a bank’s operations for a specified period of
time, under such a situation depositors will not be able to withdraw funds at will. ● There would be a ceiling on the limits of money that can be withdrawn by the
bank’s customers. When does moratorium come into play? ● The RBI steps in with a recommendation of a moratorium if it feels that the
bank’s assets (mainly the value of loans given to borrowers) are declining below the level of liabilities (deposits) and senses the danger of the bank failing to meet its obligations to depositors.
Significance of a moratorium ● A moratorium helps prevent a ‘run’ on the bank by clamping down on rapid
outflow of funds by wary depositors, who seek to take their money out in fear of the bank’s imminent collapse.
● A moratorium provides much needed time to first take stock of the actual financial situation at the troubled bank and take corrective measures.
● A key objective of a moratorium is to protect the interests of depositors.
7. ISSUE WITH REVISING SECTION OF KERALA POLICE ACT, 2011 Context Kerala government decided not to put into immediate effect the ordinance revising the Kerala Police Act, 2011, seeking to empower the police to prosecute persons spreading defamatory content. Background ● Kerala Governor recently signed
an ordinance to amend the law which gives the police more powers to prosecute persons who exploit various communication platforms to slander fellow citizens.
● The ordinance has introduced a new provision, Section 118-A, to the Kerala Police Act, 2011.
● It proposes three years of imprisonment and a fine of up to ₹10,000 for those convicted of producing, publishing or disseminating derogatory content through any means of communication to intimidate, insult or defame any person.
About Ordinance ● An ordinance is a law that is promulgated by the President of India only when
the Indian parliament is not in session. President promulgates an ordinance on the recommendation of the union cabinet.
● Similarly, Governor of Indian states can also initiate ordinances only when a legislative assembly is not in session when it is a unicameral legislature and when legislative assembly along with legislative council both are not in session when it is the bicameral legislature.
Ordinance making power of Governor Article 213 deals with the power of the Governor to legislate through ordinances. His power of ordinance making is quite similar to the President’s power.
He can roll-out an ordinance for only those matters on which state legislature can make laws
His ordinances have the same effect on policies as state’s acts will have. If his ordinance legislates on matters which state government has no power on, the ordinance stands null and void
The ordinance introduced by him can be withdrawn anytime
His power to promulgate ordinance is not a discretionary power. Council of Ministers’ (headed by CM) advice is a prerequisite
Issues with Ordinance ● It is argued that
the amendment would reverse the course on media freedom, curb free speech and jeopardize civil liberties.
● The new offence is also defined and is made cognisable, whereas criminal defamation under the IPC is non-cognisable.
● Section 118A lays down a three-year prison term, which is two years under the IPC.
● By making defamatory statements cognisable and raising the prison term, the Kerala ordinance effectively amends the IPC and Cr.P.C., a move for which the Centre’s assent is mandatory.
Section 66 A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 ● In 2015, the Supreme Court struck down Section 66A of the Information
Technology Act, 2000, which gave the government power to arrest and imprison an individual for allegedly offensive online posts.
● The court ruled that as it did not distinguish between speech that was merely “offensive or annoying”.
● The same judgment also declared as invalid Section 118 (d) of the Kerala Police Act, which prescribed a jail term for those who caused annoyance to others by indecent statements, comments, calls or messages.
Conclusion ● Despite the guarantees in the Constitution, free speech, dissent and even
legitimate criticism is looked at as an exercise in bad faith and projected as an attack on democratically elected authority.
● As a result, existing laws are being weaponized to arrest journalists and citizens for a tweet or a slogan or a Facebook post.
● The ordinance decides to strike a blow against liberty and is a sign of an endemic intolerance to dissent, cutting across ideological lines.
President’s instructions on the following three cases are must: ● If a bill containing the same provisions would have required the previous
sanction of the President for its introduction into the state legislature ● If he would have deemed it necessary to reserve a bill containing the same
provisions for the consideration of the President ● If an act of the state legislature containing the same provisions would have been
invalid without receiving the President’s assent
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