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  • Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

    Tweets against CJI amounts to Criminal Contempt

    A three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court has found a famous civil rights lawyer guilty of criminal contempt by ‘scandalizing the court’.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.What is Contempt of Court? Discuss, how free speech can lead to the contempt of courts?

    Contempt of Court

    • According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
    • Civil contempt means willful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or another process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
    • On the other hand, criminal contempt means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which
    1. Scandalizes or tends to scandalize, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
    2. Prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
    3. Interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.

    What did the court rule in this case?

    • The tweets had the effect of attempting to destabilize Indian democracy.
    • A defamatory publication concerning “the judge is a serious impediment to justice”.
    • The court could not ignore the disrespect and disaffection created by the “scurrilous” tweets.
    • If such an attack is not dealt with a requisite degree of firmness, it may affect the national honour and prestige in the comity of nations.

    A suo motu action

    • The prior consent of the Attorney General (AG) of India is not required to suo motu initiate the inherent contempt powers of the Supreme Court.
    • The Contempt of Court Act of 1971 cannot limit this power of the court. The statute only provides the procedure in which such contempt is to be initiated.
    • The suo motu contempt powers of the top court are drawn from Article 129 of the Constitution, which says the Supreme Court, as a court of record, has the power to punish for contempt of itself.

    What would be the penalty?

    • The Contempt of Court Act of 1971 punishes with imprisonment that may extend to six months or fine of ₹ 2,000 or both.
    • This is provided in case the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of the court.

    Also read:

    Explained: What is Contempt of Court?

  • RBI Notifications

    RBI’s Positive Pay system

    The new ‘Positive Pay’ mechanism was recently introduced by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

    Try this PYQ:

    With reference to digital payments, consider the following statements:

    1. BHIM app allows the user to transfer money to anyone with a UPI-enabled bank account.
    2. While a chip-pin debit card has four factors authentication, BHIM app has only two factors of authentication.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2018)

    a) 1 only
    b) 2 only
    c) Both 1 and 2
    d) Neither 1 nor 2

    What is the move?

    • Issuers will be able to send all details to their bank, thereby ensuring faster clearance of cheques above Rs 50,000.
    • All cheques will be processed as per the information sent by the account holder at the time of issuance of cheques.
    • This will cover approximately 20 per cent of transactions by volume and 80 per cent by value.
    • It will make cheque payments safer and reduces instances of frauds.

    What is Positive Pay Mechanism?

    • Positive Pay is a fraud detection tool adopted by banks to protect customers against forged, altered or counterfeit cheques.
    • It crosses verifies all details of the cheque issued before funds are encashed by the beneficiary.
    • In case of a mismatch, the cheque is sent back to the issuer for examination.
    • By following such a system, a bank knows of a cheque being drawn by the customer even before it is deposited by the beneficiary into his/her account.

    How does the mechanism work?

    • Under Positive Pay feature, the issuer will first share the details of the issued cheque like cheque number, date, name of the payee, account number, amount and the likes through his/her net banking account.
    • Along with this, an image of the front and reverse side of the cheque is also required to be shared, before handing it over to the beneficiary.
    • When the beneficiary submits the cheque for encashment, the details are compared with those provided to the bank through Positive Pay.
    • If the details match, the cheque is honoured. However, in the case of mismatch, the cheque is referred to the issuer.
    • In this way, any cheque where any sort of fraud has happened cannot be cleared at all and hence, a depositor’s money can be protected.
  • Disasters and Disaster Management – Sendai Framework, Floods, Cyclones, etc.

    In news: Mauritius Oil Spill

    A Japanese ship recently struck a coral reef resulting in an oil spill of over 1,000 tonnes into the Indian Ocean near Mauritius.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Recently, “oil zapper’’ was in the news. What is it? (CSP 2011)

    (a) It is an eco-friendly technology for the remediation of oily sludge and oil spills.

    (b) It is the latest technology developed for undersea oil exploration.

    (c) It is a genetically engineered high biofuel-yielding maize variety.

    (d) It is the latest technology to control the accidentally caused flames from oil wells.

    What caused the Mauritius oil spill?

    • A Japanese vessel struck a coral reef resulting in an oil spill of over 1,000 tonnes into the Indian Ocean.
    • The ship was carrying an estimated 4,000 tonnes of oil.
    • The accident had taken place near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue Bay Marine Park Reserve, which is a wetland of international importance.

    How dangerous are oil spills?

    • Oil spills affect marine life by exposing them to harsh elements and destroying their sources of food and habitat.
    • Further, both birds and mammals can die from hypothermia as a result of oil spills.
    • For instance, oil destroys the insulating ability of fur-bearing mammals, such as sea otters.
    • It also decreases the water repellency of birds’ feathers, without which they lose their ability to repel cold water.

    Some major incidents

    • Some of the world’s largest oil spills include the Persian Gulf War oil spill of 1991 when more than 380 million gallons of oil was poured into the northern Persian Gulf by Iraq’s forces.
    • The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is also considered to be among the largest known accidental oil spills in history.
    • Starting April 20, 2010, over 4 million barrels of oil flowed over a period of 87 days into the Gulf of Mexico.

    How is the oil spill cleaned?

    • There are a few ways to clean up oil spills including skimming, in situ burning and by releasing chemical dispersants.
    • Skimming involves removing oil from the sea surface before it is able to reach the sensitive areas along the coastline.
    • In situ burning means burning a particular patch of oil after it has concentrated in one area.
    • Releasing chemical dispersants helps break down oil into smaller droplets, making it easier for microbes to consume, and further break it down into less harmful compounds.
    • Natural actions in aquatic environments such as weathering, evaporation, emulsification, biodegradation and oxidation can also accelerate the recovery of an affected area. But these occur differently in freshwater and marine environments.
  • ISRO Missions and Discoveries

    [pib] Sarabhai Crater

    The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) has named a crater captured by Chandrayaan 2 Orbiter after Vikram Sarabhai.

    Try this PYQ:

    What do you understand by the term Aitken Basin? (CSP 2012)

    (a) It is a desert in southern Chile which is known to be the only location on earth where no rainfall takes place

    (b) It is an impact crater on the far side of the Moon

    (c) It is a Pacific coast basin, which is known to house large amounts of oil and gas

    (d) It is a deep hypersaline anoxic basin where no aquatic animals are found

    Sarabhai Crater

    • “Sarabhai” Crater is named after Dr Vikram Sarabhai and around 250 to 300 kilometres east of this Crater is where the Apollo 17 and Luna 21 Missions had landed.
    • The crater captured in 3D images shows that the Crater has a depth of around 1.7 Kms taken from its raised rim and the slope of Crater walls is in between 25 to 35 degree.
    • These findings will help the Space Scientists to understand further the process of the lunar region filled with lava.

    Who was Vikram Sarabhai?

    • Sarabhai was an Indian physicist and astronomer who initiated space research and helped develop nuclear power in India.
    • He is internationally regarded as the Father of the Indian Space Program.
    • Known as the cradle of space sciences in India, the Physical Research Laboratory (PRL) was founded in 1947 by him. He was the founder of ISRO.
    • He started a project for the fabrication and launch of an Indian satellite.
    • As a result, the first Indian satellite, Aryabhata, was put in orbit in 1975 from a Russian cosmodrome.
  • Forest Conservation Efforts – NFP, Western Ghats, etc.

    Myth of the pristine forest

    • The COVID-19 pandemic has driven migrant workers back to their villages, including many situated inside or on the fringes of forested areas, including sanctuaries and national parks.
    • Even as they seek to remake livelihoods there, a new battle has emerged between the forest department (FD) and these local communities.
    • It pertains to the declaration of a Critical Wildlife Habitat (CWH), which a PIL in the Bombay High Court seeks to get the department to urgently notify.

    Try this question for mains:

    Forest dwellers are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem. Analyse.

    What is Critical Wildlife Habitat (CHW)?

    • CWH is a provision under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA).
    • The Act primarily focuses on recognising the historically-denied rights of forest-dwellers to use and manage forests.
    • The CWH provision, however, is an attempt to assuage concerns of wildlife conservationists.
    • It allows for the possibility that in protected areas (PAs) — wildlife sanctuaries and national parks — these rights could be attenuated, and, if absolutely necessary, forest-dwellers could be relocated in the interest of wildlife conservation.

    Forest dwellers vs. Wildlife

    • Conservationists believe that wildlife needs absolutely “inviolate” areas — those devoid of humans and human activities.
    • Many others believe human-wildlife co-existence is generally possible and must be promoted if we are to have “socially just conservation”.

    Achieving balanced conservation: The FRA provisions

    • A careful reading of the CWH provisions in the FRA shows that it is open to both possibilities, as long as they are arrived at through a rigorous and participatory process.
    • It requires setting up a multi-disciplinary expert committee, including representatives from local communities.
    • It also requires determining — using “scientific and objective criteria” and consultative processes — whether, and wherein the PA, the exercise of forest rights will cause irreversible damages.
    • It then requires determining whether coexistence is possible through a modified set of rights or management practices.
    • Only if the multi-stakeholder expert committee agrees that co-existence or other reasonable options are not possible, should relocation be taken up, again with the informed consent of the concerned gram sabhas.
    • For any such process to commence, the Act requires that all forest rights under the FRA must first be recognised.

    Issues with the FRA

    (1) Concerns of eviction

    • Hardline conservationists took FRA as a great opportunity to complete its agenda of evicting forest-dwellers from PAs.
    • It has been observed that many villages were resettled when they had rights claims pending, others had their claims illegally rejected or incompletely granted, and several had not even applied to this controversy erupted.
    • However, there are settlements in some of these PAs, and of course, people in villages adjacent to all the PAs are likely to have customary rights.
    • In spite of the court ordering rapid completion of the rights recognition process, there has been almost no progress on this front.

    (2) Issues with expert committees

    • The constitution of the expert committees is faulty. They do not contain expert social scientists familiar with the area. Wildlife enthusiasts are sometimes substituted for experts in life sciences.
    • Many members have challenged the very constitutionality of the FRA, making a travesty of the idea of “objectivity” in the process.

    (3) Criteria judging the damages

    • The criteria being used by the committees to determine the threat of “irreversible damage” to wildlife are quite extreme and are not supported by any consensus even among ecologists.
    • There are no objective criteria decided yet by these committees.

    Conclusion

    • The FRA begins by recognising that forest dwellers “are integral to the very survival and sustainability of the forest ecosystem”.
    • In that context, the CWH provision should not be seen as simply a tool for evicting forest-dwellers to create so-called “inviolate” spaces.
    • It is an opportunity to rigorously and participatorily explore all avenues of co-existence.
    • Such co-existence is indeed possible. In general, forest-dwellers harbour both the knowledge and the attitudes needed for conservation.
    • Co-managing PAs is, therefore, the most effective and socially just long-term solution, and relocation should be seen as the absolute last resort.

    B2BASICS

    Forest Rights act

  • Citizenship and Related Issues

    Census 2021 and the long-pending reforms

    • In all likelihood, the February 2021 Census will have to be rescheduled to ensure comparability with earlier censuses.
    • This will also affect the National Sample Surveys and others that use the census as the sampling frame.
    • The delay can, however, be used to introduce much-needed reforms to this gigantic exercise whose roots go back to the late 19th century.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.The Census of India needs a basic overhaul beyond its procedural digitization. Critically analyse.

    Background: Census of India

    • The decennial Census of India has been conducted 15 times, as of 2011.
    • While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under British Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881.
    • Post-1949, it has been conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.
    • All the censuses since 1951 were conducted under the 1948 Census of India Act.
    • The last census was held in 2011, whilst the next will be held in 2021.

    Census 2021

    • The Census 2021 will be conducted in 18 languages out of the 22 scheduled languages (under 8th schedule) and English, while Census 2011 was in 16 of the 22 scheduled languages declared at that time.
    • It also will introduce a code directory to streamline the process
    • The option of “Other” under the gender category will be changed to “Third Gender”.
    • There were roughly 5 lakh people under “other” category in 2011.
    • For the first time in the 140 year history of the census in India, data is proposed to be collected through a mobile app by enumerators and they will receive an additional payment as an incentive.
    • The Census data would be available by the year 2024-25 as the entire process would be conducted digitally and data crunching would be quicker.

    Issues with the Census

    (1) Data quality issues

    • The past four decades have seen a decline in the quality of data and growing delays in its release despite technological innovations.
    • The use of census data in delimitation and federal redistribution has been questioned on grounds of poor quality, while the Covid-19 pandemic revealed the obsolete and poor quality of data on internal migration.

    (2) No major reforms

    • The legal foundation of the census has remained largely unchanged since newly independent India enacted permanent census legislation in 1948.
    • Despite sustained problems, the census has not seen any major reform after 1994 when both the Census Act, 1948 and Census Rules, 1990 were amended.

    (3) Old methods and questionnaire

    • The methodological core – extended de facto (synchronous) canvasser-based enumeration – too has remained intact even though the length and layout of schedules changed quite a bit.
    • The Household Schedule, for instance, grew with the footprint of the state, from 14 questions in 1951 to 29 questions in 2011.

    (4) Workforce issues

    • Data collection has not kept pace with improvements in data processing technology due to the lack of motivated and adequately trained enumerators.
    • Given the high salaries of school teachers, the modest honorarium paid for census work does not cover the opportunity cost of conducting the door-to-door enumeration.

    Understand the ‘purpose’ of the census

    Reforms should begin with the design of schedules based on a clear understanding of two essential functions of the census:

    (a) Resource allocations

    • First, census facilitates the rule-based distribution of power and resources through constitutionally mandated redistribution of taxes, delimitation of electoral constituencies and affirmative action policies.
    • It is also used in routine policy-making across tiers of government.

    (b) Population projections

    • Second, census serves as the sampling frame for surveys and is also the basis of population projections.
    • Other routine policies require distribution of the headcount by households, marital status, age, sex, literacy, migrant status, and mother tongue.
    • Put together, these variables are sufficient for choosing representative samples for surveys.

    What can be done?

    1.Cut the questions

    • Nearly half of the ‘Houselisting and Housing Schedule’ of the census is devoted to questions on household amenities and assets.
    • These questions can be dropped because the information can be more appropriately collected through sample surveys and administrative statistics.

    Why put fewer questions?

    • Cutting down the length of unwieldy schedules has several advantages.
    • First, it will improve data quality by reducing the workload of enumerators.
    • Second, it will also free up senior census officials and help revive the earlier tradition of producing detailed administrative and other reports crucial for understanding the context of data.
    • Third, shorter schedules will seem less invasive and assure respondents uncomfortable with sharing too many details.
    • Fourth, it will cut down processing time and help in reducing delays in the release of data.

    2.Dealing with data manipulation

    • There is poor accounting of migrants that distorts estimates of urbanisation as well as the inter-state distribution of the population.
    • There exists grassroots manipulation of data-driven by political and economic considerations.
    • There is a need to demystify census operations and build trust in the impartiality of the exercise, better scrutiny of electoral records and welfare schemes to weed out bogus beneficiaries.

    Conclusion

    • These reforms are essential to ensure that the census exercise is able to fulfil its constitutional, policy and statistical obligations and also clear the ground for debates on the future of census in the digital era.
  • The Crisis In The Middle East

    UAE, Israel reach agreement to establish diplomatic ties

    The United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state.

    What is the deal?

    • The deal halts Israeli annexation plans, the Palestinians have repeatedly urged Arab governments not to normalize ties with Israel until a peace agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state is reached.

    Significance

    • The announcement makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state to do so and only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties to Israel.
    • For Israel, the announcement comes after years of boasting by Israeli PM Netanyahu that his government enjoys closer ties to Arab nations than publicly acknowledged.

    West Bank  and its annexation plan

    • The West Bank is located to the west of the Jordan River.
    • It is a patch of land about one and a half times the size of Goa, was captured by Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
    • Israel snatched it back during the Six-Day War of 1967 and has occupied it ever since.
    • It is a landlocked territory, bordered by Jordan to the east and Israel to the south, west, and north.
    • Following the Oslo Accords between the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) during the 1990s, part of the West Bank came under the control of the Palestinian Authority.
    • With varying levels of autonomy, the Palestinian Authority controls close to 40 per cent of West Bank today, while the rest is controlled by Israel.
  • North-East India – Security and Developmental Issues

    Sixth Schedule of Indian Constitution

    The revival of the demand for two autonomous councils has made political parties and community-based groups call for bringing the entire Arunachal Pradesh under the ambit of the Sixth Schedule or Article 371 (A) of the Constitution.

    Try this question from CSP 2015:

    Q.The provisions in Fifth Schedule and Sixth Schedule in the Constitution of India are made in order to-

    (a) protect the interests of Scheduled Tribes

    (b) determine the boundaries between States

    (c) determine the powers, authority and responsibilities of Panchayats

    (d) protect the interests of all the border States

    What is the Sixth Schedule?

    • The Sixth Schedule consists of provisions for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, according to Article 244 of the Indian Constitution.
    • Passed by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, it seeks to safeguard the rights of the tribal population through the formation of Autonomous District Councils (ADC).
    • ADCs are bodies representing a district to which the Constitution has given varying degrees of autonomy within the state legislature.
    • The governors of these states are empowered to reorganize boundaries of the tribal areas.
    • In simpler terms, she or he can choose to include or exclude any area, increase or decrease the boundaries and unite two or more autonomous districts into one.
    • They can also alter or change the names of autonomous regions without separate legislation.

    Autonomous districts and regional councils

    • The ADCs are empowered with civil and judicial powers can constitute village courts within their jurisdiction to hear the trial of cases involving the tribes.
    • Governors of states that fall under the Sixth Schedule specify the jurisdiction of high courts for each of these cases.
    • Along with ADCs, the Sixth Schedule also provides for separate Regional Councils for each area constituted as an autonomous region.
    • In all, there are 10 areas in the Northeast that are registered as autonomous districts – three in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram and one in Tripura.
    • These regions are named as district council of (name of district) and regional council of (name of region).
    • Each autonomous district and regional council consists of not more than 30 members, of which four are nominated by the governor and the rest via elections. All of them remain in power for a term of five years.

    B2BASICS

    Try this question from AWE Initiative:

    The Sixth Schedule of the Constitution is often referred to as a charter for autonomy of a wide magnitude, but it has failed to decrease the tension between different stakeholders at the ground level. Elaborate. (150 W/ 10 M)

  • Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

    Story of our National Flag

    The final design of the Indian National Flag, hoisted by PM Nehru on August 16, 1947, at Red Fort, had a history of several decades preceding independence.

    Note various personalities involved in the development of our National flag. It may be no wonder to accept a personality-based question on such topics.

    Story of our National Flag: A timeline

    (1) Public display for first time

    • Arguably the first national flag of India is said to have been hoisted on August 7, 1906, in Kolkata at the Parsee Bagan Square (Green Park).
    • It comprised three horizontal stripes of red, yellow and green, with Vande Mataram written in the middle.
    • Believed to have been designed by freedom activists Sachindra Prasad Bose and Hemchandra Kanungo, the red stripe on the flag had symbols of the sun and a crescent moon, and the green strip had eight half-open lotuses.

    (2) In Germany

    • In 1907, Madame Cama and her group of exiled revolutionaries hoisted an Indian flag in Germany in 1907 — this was the first Indian flag to be hoisted in a foreign land.

    (3) During the Home Rule Movement

    • In 1917, Dr Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak adopted a new flag as part of the Home Rule Movement.
    • It had five alternate red and four green horizontal stripes, and seven stars in the saptarishi configuration.
    • A white crescent and star occupied one top corner, and the other had Union Jack.

    (4) Final version by Pingali Venkayya

    • The design of the present-day Indian tricolour is largely attributed to Pingali Venkayya, an Indian freedom fighter.
    • He reportedly first met Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa during the second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), when he was posted there as part of the British Indian Army.
    • Years of research went into designing the national flag. In 1916, he even published a book with possible designs of Indian flags.
    • At the All India Congress Committee in Bezwada in 1921, Venkayya again met Gandhi and proposed a basic design of the flag, consisting of two red and green bands to symbolise the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims.

    (5) During Constituent Assembly

    • On July 22, 1947, when members of the Constituent Assembly of India, the first item on the agenda was reportedly a motion by Pandit Nehru, about adopting a national flag for free India.
    • It was proposed that “the National Flag of India shall be horizontal tricolour of deep saffron (Kesari), white and dark green in equal proportion.”
    • The white band was to have a wheel in navy blue (the charkha being replaced by the chakra), which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Ashoka.
  • Indian Ocean Power Competition

    Greater Male Connectivity Project (GMCP)

    India will fund the implementation of the Greater Male Connectivity Project (GMCP) in the Maldives with $500 mn packages.

    Try this question from 2014:

    Which one of the following pairs of islands is separated from each other by the ‘Ten Degree Channel’?

    (a) Andaman and Nicobar

    (b) Nicobar and Sumatra

    (c) Maldives and Lakshadweep

    (d) Sumatra and Java

    About Greater Male Connectivity Project

    • The GMCP will consist of a number of bridges and causeways to connect Male to Villingili, Thilafushi and Gulhifahu islands that span 6.7 km.
    • It would ease much of the pressure of the main capital island of Male for commercial and residential purposes.
    • When completed, the project would render the Chinese built Sinamale Friendship bridge connecting Male to two other islands, thus far the most visible infrastructure project in the islands.
    • At present, India-assisted projects in the region include water and sewerage projects on 34 islands, reclamation project for the Addl island, a port on Gulhifalhu, airport redevelopment at Hanimadhoo, and a hospital and a cricket stadium in Hulhumale.

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