Context
Application of the UAPA in certain cases has caused concerns regarding its alleged “misuse”, and the rational answer would be to find ways to check “misuse”.
Issues with UAPA
- The police often use Section 13 in conjunction with other sections of the law.
- Vague and undefined terms: Besides the usual inventory of well-defined verbs in S.13(1), such as “commits”, “advocates”, “abets”, “advises”, “incites” or “takes part”, there is S.13(2) which reads: “Whoever, in any way, assists any unlawful activity of any association declared unlawful… shall be punished.”
- What does “in any way” mean? S.2(o), which defines “unlawful activity” does so in even more vague terms, as anything done by a person, whether as an act, or words, verbally, through signs or otherwise.
- What does “otherwise” mean? Likewise, S.39 criminalises support to a terrorist organisation, where “support” is not even defined!
- Wide and arbitrary powers: The semantic slippages are politically convenient as the UAPA vests extremely wide and arbitrary powers in the government to label something an “unlawful activity”.
- The political “use” of UAPA is scripted into the law itself, and the question of “misuse” does not arise.
- Application of UAPA triggers a host of draconian procedures effectively barring bail, reversing burden of proof.
Conclusion
The conviction rate of 2.2 per cent testifies to how the UAPA enacts the process as punishment. It is time for political parties to eschew their blinkered approach and make an effort to repeal this unlawful law.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Urban floods
Context
Flood in Chennai has revived memories of the devastating Chennai floods of 2015, a collective trauma that its residents are yet to outlive.
Role of climate change
- In August this year, as monsoon floods raged across the subcontinent, IPCC’s 6th Assessment Report (AR6) was published.
- The report noted the increasing frequency of heavy precipitation events since the 1950s and inferred that they were being driven by human-induced climate change.
- The climate crisis, is here.
- It has made extreme rainfall events more severe and unpredictable than ever before.
Role of poor planning and encroachment
- In 2015, the National Green Tribunal in India formed a committee to report on the status of natural stormwater drains in Delhi.
- On inspection, out of the 201 “drains” recorded in 1976, 44 were found to be “missing.
- Geospatial imaging established that 376 km of natural storm drains — encroached on and paved over — had disappeared from Bengaluru.
- In both cases, these “missing” waterways were either encroached and built over or connected to sewage drains.
- Poor design and corruption significantly contribute to urban floods.
- By violating environmental laws and municipal bye-laws, open spaces, wetlands and floodplains have been mercilessly built over, making cities impermeable and hostile to rainwater.
Way forward
- We need to move away from land-centric urbanisation and recognise cities as waterscapes.
- We need to let urban rivers breathe by returning them to their floodplains.
- The entire urban watershed needs to heal, and for that to happen, we need less concrete and more democracy and science at the grassroots.
Conclusion
Ever since concretisation became shorthand for urbanisation, rainfall in a changing climate no longer finds its way towards subterranean capillaries or surface water bodies.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Privilege Motion
Mains level: Various reasons to move Privilege Motion
A chief whip of the largest party in opposition in the Rajya Sabha has moved a privilege motion against Culture Minister over the appointment of the chairperson of the National Monuments Authority.
What is Parliamentary Privilege?
- Parliamentary privilege refers to the right and immunity enjoyed by legislatures.
- The legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties.
- They are granted so that the MPs/MLAs can effectively discharge their functions.
- The powers, privileges and immunities of either House of the Indian Parliament and of its members and committees are laid down in Article 105 of the Constitution.
- Article 194 deals with the powers, privileges and immunities of the State Legislatures, their members and their committees.
What is a privilege motion?
- When any of the rights and immunities are disregarded, the offence is called a breach of privilege and is punishable under law of Parliament.
- A notice is moved in the form of a motion by any member of either House against those being held guilty of breach of privilege.
- Each House also claims the right to punish as contempt actions which, while not breach of any specific privilege, are offences against its authority and dignity.
What are the rules governing privilege?
- Rule No 222 in Chapter 20 of the Lok Sabha Rule Book and correspondingly Rule 187 in Chapter 16 of the Rajya Sabha rulebook govern privilege.
- It says that a member may, with the consent of the Speaker or the Chairperson, raise a question involving a breach of privilege either of a member or of the House or of a committee thereof.
- The rules however mandate that any notice should be relating to an incident of recent occurrence and should need the intervention of the House.
- Notices have to be given before 10 am to the Speaker or the Chairperson.
What is the role of the Speaker/Rajya Sabha Chair?
- The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion.
- The Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.
- If the Speaker/Chair gives consent under Rule 222, the member concerned is given an opportunity to make a short statement.
What is the privileges committee?
- In the Lok Sabha, the Speaker nominates a committee of privileges consisting of 15 members as per respective party strengths.
- A report is then presented to the House for its consideration. The Speaker may permit a half-hour debate while considering the report.
- The Speaker may then pass final orders or direct that the report be tabled before the House.
- A resolution may then be moved relating to the breach of privilege that has to be unanimously passed.
- In the Rajya Sabha, the deputy chairperson heads the committee of privileges, which consists of 10 members.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.With reference to the Parliament of India, which of the following Parliamentary Committees scrutinizes and reports to the House whether the powers to make regulations, rules, sub-rules, by-laws etc. conferred by the constitution of delegated by the Parliament are being properly exercised by the Executive within the scope of such delegation?
(a) Committee on Government Assurances
(b) Committee on Subordinate Legislation
(c) Rules Committee
(d) Business Advisory Committee
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Maharashtra-Karnataka Boundary Dispute
Karnataka has renamed the Mumbai-Karnataka region, consisting of seven districts, as Kittur Karnataka.
What is the Mumbai-Karnataka Region?
- The erstwhile Mumbai-Karnataka region consisted of Uttara Kannada, Belagavi, Dharwad, Vijayapura, Bagalkote, Gadag and Haveri districts.
Reasons behind renaming
- The Karnataka government has meant to dissociate itself from any ties with the erstwhile Presidency or colonial-era nomenclature in regions that came under the newly formed state of Karnataka in 1956.
- The renaming is also to detach itself from any ties with Maharashtra.
Claims made by Maharashtra
- Maharashtra has staked claim to an area of over 7,000 sq. km along its border with Karnataka.
- It comprised 814 villages in the districts of Belagavi, Uttara Kannada, Bidar and Gulbarga, and the towns of Belagavi, Karwar and Nippani.
- Maharashtra wants to annex all these areas.
- The erstwhile Bombay Presidency, a multilingual province, included present-day Karnataka districts of Vijayapura, Belagavi, Dharwad and Uttara Kannada.
- The States Reorganisation Act of 1956 made Belagavi and 10 talukas of Bombay State a part of the then Mysore State (which was renamed Karnataka in 1973).
A case pending in the Supreme Court
- Successive governments in Maharashtra have demanded their inclusion within the state– a claim that Karnataka contests.
- In 2004, the Maharashtra government moved the Supreme Court for a settlement of the border dispute under Article 131(b) of the Constitution.
- It demanded 814 villages from Karnataka on the basis of the theory of village being the unit of calculation, contiguity and enumerating linguistic population in each village.
- The case is pending in the apex court.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Char Dham Project
Mains level: Environmental issues with the project
The needs of defence and environment have to be balanced and a “nuanced” approach is required, said the Supreme Court while hearing an appeal against the widening of roads in Uttarakhand hills for the “Char Dham project”.
What is Char Dham?
- The Char Dham is a set of four pilgrimage sites in India.
- It is believed that visiting these sites helps achieve moksha (salvation).
- The four Dhams are, Badrinath, Dwaraka, Puri and Rameswaram.
The highway project
- The Char Dham highway project connects the four himalayan shrines of Gangotri, Yamunotri, Kedarnath and Badrinath in Garhwal Himalayas.
- It has 899-km road which the Centre wants to broaden near Dehradun.
What is the controversy?
The Supreme Court formed a high-powered committee (HPC) to examine the issues. In July 2020, the HPC submitted two reports after members disagreed on the ideal width for hill roads.
- Deforestation: In 2018, the road-expansion project was challenged by an NGO for its potential impact on the Himalayan ecology due to felling trees, cutting hills and dumping muck (excavated material).
- Terrain damage: It was observed that a wider road requires additional slope cutting, blasting, tunnelling, dumping and deforestation.
- Increasing vulnerability: All of this will further destabilise the Himalayan terrain, and increase vulnerability to landslides and flash floods.
Criticism of the Project
- Work without clearance: Project work and felling of trees on different stretches, adding up to over 250 km, has been continuing illegally since 2017-18.
- Misusing old clearance: Work started on stretches adding up to over 200 km on the basis of old forest clearances issued to the Border Roads Organisation during 2002-2012.
- False declaration: The work began by falsely declaring that these stretches did not fall in the Eco Sensitive Zones of Kedarnath Wildlife Sanctuary, Rajaji National Park, Valley of Flowers National Park etc.
The defence angle
- Even as the project grappled to come clean, it garnered support from the MoD seeking a double-lane road to meet the requirement of the Army.
- The project always had a strategic angle to it as the highways would facilitate troop movement to areas closer to the China border.
- Suddenly, this became the sole justification for building wider roads.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Emergence of landmass on Earth
Mains level: Not Much
A new study has challenged the widely accepted view that the continents rose from the oceans about 2.5 billion years ago.
About Singhbhum
- Singhbhum district of Jharkhand is part of the Chhota Nagpur Division.
- It is one of the leading producers of copper in India.
First landmass to emerge
- The study suggests that the earliest continental landmass to emerge may have been Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region.
- Scientists have found sandstones in Singhbhum with geological signatures of ancient river channels, tidal plains and beaches over 3.2 billion years old.
- They somewhat represent the earliest crust exposed to air.
Studying the sandstones
- The research studies a sedimentary rock, called granite. They tried to find their age and in which conditions they have formed.
- They found the age by analysing the uranium and lead contents of tiny minerals.
- These rocks are 3.1 billion years old, and were formed in ancient rivers, beaches, and shallow seas.
- All these water bodies could have only existed if there was continental land.
- Thus, they inferred that the Singhbhum region was above the ocean before 3.1 billion years ago.
How did they analyse?
- The researchers studied the granites that form the continental crust of Singhbhum region.
- These granites are 3.5 to 3.1 billion years old and formed through extensive volcanism that happened about 35-45 km deep inside the Earth.
- This process continued on-and-off for hundreds of millions of years until all the magma solidified to form a thick continental crust in the area.
- Due to the thickness and less density, the continental crust emerged above surrounding oceanic crust owing to buoyancy.
Back2Basics: Emergence of Landmass
- In the beginning, more than 4.6-billion years ago, the world was a ball of burning gas, spinning through space.
- It took hundreds of millions of years for the first land masses to emerge.
- About 250-million years ago, long, long after the Earth had formed, all the continents of the time had joined together to form a super-continent called Pangaea.
- This super-continent broke up about 200-million years ago to form two giant continents, Gondwana and Laurasia.
- Gondwana comprised what is now Africa, South America, Australia, Antarctica and India.
- The Indian sub-continent lay off the east coast of Africa, before it broke off and moved north rapidly.
Isostacy
- Huge plates of crustal and upper mantle material (lithosphere) “float” on more dense, plastically flowing rocks of the asthenosphere.
- The “depth” to which a plate, or block of crust, sinks is a function of its weight and varies as the weight changes.
- This equilibrium, or balance, between blocks of crust and the underlying mantle is called isostasy.
- The taller a block of crust is, the deeper it penetrates into the mantle because of its greater mass and weight. Isostasy occurs when each block settles into an equilibrium with the underlying mantle.
- Blocks of crust that are separated by faults will “settle” at different elevations according to their relative mass.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Birsa Munda
Mains level: Tribal movement in Colonial India
The Union Cabinet has decided to declare November 15 as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Divas’ to mark the birth anniversary of revered tribal leader and freedom fighter Birsa Munda.
Who was Birsa Munda (1875-1900)?
- Birsa Munda was an Indian tribal freedom fighter, religious leader, and folk hero who belonged to the Munda tribe.
- He spearheaded a tribal religious millenarian movement that arose in the Bengal Presidency (now Jharkhand) in the late 19th century, during the British Raj.
His legacy
(A) Birth and early childhood
- Born on November 15, 1875, Birsa spent much of his childhood moving from one village to another with his parents.
- He belonged to the Munda tribe in the Chhotanagpur Plateau area.
- He received his early education at Salga under the guidance of his teacher Jaipal Nag.
- On the recommendation of Jaipal Nag, Birsa converted to Christianity in order to join the German Mission school.
- He, however, opted out of the school after a few years.
(B) New faith ‘Birsait’ against religious conversion
- The impact of Christianity was felt in the way he came to relate to religion later.
- Having gained awareness of the British colonial ruler and the efforts of the missionaries to convert tribals to Christianity, Birsa started the faith of ‘Birsait’.
- Soon members of the Munda and Oraon community started joining the Birsait sect and it turned into a challenge to British conversion activities.
- The Mundas called him Dharati Aaba, the father of earth.
(C) The Ulgulan
- The Great Tumult or Ulgulan was a movement started by Birsa Munda against the exploitation and discrimination against tribals by the local authorities.
- Although the movement failed, it did result in the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act which forbade tribal lands passing to non-tribals, protecting their land rights for the foreseeable future.
(D) Death
- On March 3, 1900, Birsa Munda was arrested by the British police while he was sleeping with his tribal guerilla army at Jamkopai forest in Chakradharpur.
- He died in Ranchi jail on June 9, 1900, at the young age of 25.
(E) Creation of Jharkhand
- Birsa Munda’s achievements are known to be even more remarkable by virtue of the fact that he came to acquire them before he was 25.
- In recognition of his impact on the national movement, the state of Jharkhand was created on his birth anniversary in 2000.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2020
Q. With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?
(a) The Revolt of 1857
(b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921
(c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60
(d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mineral Conservation and Development (Amendment) Rules, 2021
Mains level: Not Much
The Ministry of Mines has notified the Mineral Conservation and Development (Amendment) Rules (MCDR), 2021.
About the Amendment
- The MCDR have been framed under section 18 of the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957.
- It aims to provide rules regarding conservation of minerals, systematic and scientific mining, development of the mineral in the country and for the protection of environment.
Key highlights of the amendments:
Digital aerial imaging of the mines
- Digital mapping: All plans and sections related to mine shall be prepared by combination of Digital Global Positioning System (DGPS) or Total Station or by drone survey.
- Drone Imaging: Lessees having annual excavation plans of 1 million tonne or more or having leased area of 50 hectare or more are required to submit drone survey images of leased area and up to 100 meters outside the lease boundary every year.
- Satellite imaging: Other lessees submit high resolution satellite images obtained from CARTOSAT-2 satellite
This step will not only improve mine planning practices, security and safety in the mines but also ensure better supervision of mining operations.
Penalty Provisions
Penalty provisions in the rules have been rationalized. Amendment in the rules categorized the violations of the rules under the following major heads:
- Major Violations: Penalty of imprisonment, fine or both.
- Minor Violations: Penalty reduced. Penalty of only fine for such violations prescribed.
- Decriminalization of Rules: Violation of other rules has been decriminalized. These rules did not cast any significant obligation on the concession holder or any other person
Financial Assurance
- Amount of financial assurance increased to five lakh rupees for Category ‘A’ mines and three lakh rupees for Category ‘B’ mines from existing three and two lakh rupees, respectively.
- Provision of forfeiture of financial assurance or performance security of the lease holder added in case of non-submission of final mine closure plan within the period specified.
Employment Opportunity
- Allowed engagement of a part-time mining engineer or a part-time geologist for small mines which will ease compliance burden for small miners.
- Diploma in mining and mine surveying is added in qualification for full-time Mining Engineer.
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