Smart Abhyas/October/2019€¦ · visit Kartarpur 9. Global Bio-India Summit 2019 2. RBI’s Monetary Policy Report 3. Department of Investment and Public Asset Manage-ment the nodal

Smart Abhyas/October/2019 1



Polity and Social Issues

1. The ‘right to be forgotten’ on the Internet

2. The Representation of the People Act, 1951

3. School Education Quality Index (SEQI)

4. Supreme Court recalls its order on SC/ ST Act

5. Code of Conduct for MPs and MLAs : A brief history

6. President commutes 20 death sentences in nine years

7. India’s first ‘corporate’ train Tejas Express launched

8. Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey (CNNS) 2016-18

9. Global Competitiveness Index

10. Mahabalipuram

11. 2019 Nobel Peace Prize

12. Nobel Prize in Literature

13. 2019 Nobel Prize in Economics

14. World Vision Report

15. Mizoram in trouble

16. Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey

17. National Blindness and Visual Impairment Survey of India (2015-19)

18. Global Hunger Index

19. State of the World’s Children report for 2019

20. NITI Aayog’s India Innovation Index

21. 20th Livestock Census

22. Global Tuberculosis (TB) Report

23. Legislative Council abolished in Jammu and Kashmir

24. National Milk Sample Safety Quality Survey

Geography. Ecology and Biodiversity

1. Scientists excavate ‘ancient river’ in Uttar Pradesh

2. How climate change affects habitat

3. Humans pollute more than volcanoes

4. Pangolin : The most trafficked mammal in the world

5. Poaching of turtles and tortoises

6. Global wildlife trade

7. New moons discovered

8. Gangetic Dolphin Annual Census

9. Great Nicobar Island

10. Asia Environmental Enforcement Award

11. Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB)

12. Tulagi Island

13. Snow Leopard population in India

14. Smallest ozone hole in decades

15. Carbon dioxide emissions of mountain streams

16. Global trade in amphibian pets

17. Fish and climate change

25. Crime in India Report 2017

26. 18th Non Aligned Movement(NAM) summit

27. World Health Organization (WHO) study

28. Naga peace talks

29. Global Mobility Report

30. 36 million Indians face flood risk

31. 14th National Health Profile (NHP) 2019

32. Postal ballot facilities for Absentee voters

33. Emerging Employment Patterns of 21st Century India


Science and Technology

Point Blank (Facts for prelims)

International Relations, Summits and Meetings

Government Schemes and Initiatives1. National Productivity Council : All you need to know

2. The Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Re-gion has started functioning

3. Informal Summits and India

4. C40 World Mayors’ Summit

5. Kurds, and why is Turkey attacking them in Syria

6. Interpol to hold general assembly in India in 2022

7. Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership

8. India, Pakistan sign pact to enable Indian pilgrims visit Kartarpur

9. Global Bio-India Summit 2019

2. RBI’s Monetary Policy Report

3. Department of Investment and Public Asset Manage-ment the nodal department for the strategic stake sale in the PSUs

4. One Nation One FASTag

5. World Economic Outlook

6. Financial Action Task Force

7. Definition of MSMEs

1. Surakshit Matritva Aashwasan

2. 17th meeting of the Maritime States Development Council (MSDC)

3. Food Safety Mitra Scheme

4. Defence Acquisition Council (DAC)

5. Jiyo Parsi scheme

6. Guidelines for Evaluation of Nanopharmaceuticals in India

1. Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus

2. India launches “Green Crackers”

3. Status of green crackers in India

4. TechSagar

5. INS Baaz

6. 2019 Nobel Prize for Medicine

7. Nobel Prize8. Nobel Prize in Chemistry

9. Nobel Prize for Physics

10. Stem Cells

11. Quantum supremacy

12. 2 out of 3 wild poliovirus strains have been eradicat-ed, says WHO

13. Organoids

14. IndiGen Genome project

15. Edge computing

1. Saraswati Samman

2. International Astronomical Union Names Asteroid After Pandit Jasraj

3. Rajasthan bans paan masala

4. India: 10th largest Gold Reserve in the World

5. Portal for monitoring coal supply to power plants

6. Indo-Mongolian Joint Exercise Nomadic Elephant 2019

Economy

1. Banks Board Bureau


7. Ganga Aamantran

8. Exercise Ekuverin

9. C40 World Mayors’ Summit

10. Exercise Dharma Guardian – 2019

11. Booker Prize

12. India ranked 82nd in the 2019 World Giving Index

13. Danx-19

14. Liver Transplant Registry

15. White Bellbird

16. Massive Galaxy Found in Cosmic Dust

17. Indo-French Joint Exercise Shakti-2019

18. Assamese Bhaona

19. BSNL, MTNL to be merged

20. Scientists excavate ‘Ancient River’ in Uttar Pradesh

21. Stations’ Cleanliness Survey Report’

22. The Gandhian Challenge

23. Him Vijay Exercise

24. Audio Odigos

25. e-Dantseva website and mobile application.

26. Malware Smominru

27. mHariyali

28. Shinyuu Maitri

29. Electronic Interlocking System

30. Nelloptodes gretae


Polity and Social Issues

Index

1. World Habitat Day

2. Waste Management and challenges

3. SIM Swap: What you need to know

4. Indian Air Force Day

5. International Day for Eradication of Poverty

6. UN Report on Nutrition in India

7. India Innovation Index 2019

8. Jammu & Kashmir: Grass root democracy

9. Ease of Doing Business – India’s rise

10. Chief Justice of India

11. History of Collegium

Geography. Ecology and Biodiversity

1. Climate Change and India

2. Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme

2. Rafale

3. Nobel Prize in Physics 2019

4. Exoplanets

5. Cosmology and Theories

6. Gemini – Aid to Fishermen

7. Stroke Map

8. Green Crackers

9. Nano particles to treat Snakebite

10. WHO report on Tuberculosis

11. India TB Report 2019

12. Blogging

13. Air pollution and Memory

14. Bisphenol

International Relations, Summits and Meetings

1. Economic achievements of China over the past 70 years

2. Mamallapuram and Chinese connect

3. Wuhan Summit

4. India and China relationship

All India Radio

Economy

1. Unified Payment Interface

2. Digital Economy

3. Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana

Science and Technology

1. Hackathon

1. A discussion on RBI’s Bimonthly policy review

2. A discussion on bilateral relations between India and Saudi Arabia


POLITY AND SOCIAL ISSUES

The ‘right to be forgotten’ on the Internet

What is the issue?

• Recently, the European Union’s highest court ruled that an online privacy rule known as the ‘right to be forgotten’ under European law would not apply beyond the borders of EU member states.

• The European Court of Justice (ECJ) ruled in favour of Google, which was contesting a French regulatory authority’s order to have web addresses removed from its global database.

• The ruling comes as an important victory for Google, and lays down that the online privacy law cannot be used to regulate the internet in countries such as India, which are outside the European Union.

What is the ‘right to be forgotten’ under European law?

• The right to be forgotten empowers individuals to ask organisations to delete their personal data. It is provided by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), a law passed by the 28-member bloc in 2018.

• According to the EU GDPR’s website, the right to be forgotten appears in Recitals 65 and 66 and in Article 17 of the regulation, which states:“The data subject shall have the right to obtain from the controller the erasure of personal data concerning him or her without undue delay and the controller shall have the obligation to erase personal data without undue delay” (if one of a number of conditions applies).

• Under Article 2 of the GDPR, “personal data” means “any information relating to an identified or identi-fiable natural person (“data subject”)”, and “con-troller” means “the natural or legal person, public authority, agency or any other body which… deter-mines the purposes and means of the processing of personal data”. According to the GDPR website, “undue delay” is considered to be about a month.

What was the case before the European court, and what did it rule?

• In 2015, the Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés (CNIL), an internet regulating agen-cy in France, required that Google go beyond its practice of region-specific delinking, and ordered the search engine company to delete links from its global database.

• Google refused to abide by the order, arguing that following the same would impede the free flow of information across the world. This led to the CNIL slapping a fine of EUR 100,000 on Google in 2016.

• Google challenged the CNIL’s order at the ECJ, and contended that implementing the online privacy law beyond the EU would hamper access to information in countries around the world, especially those ruled by authoritarian governments.

• Arriving at a landmark ruling, the ECJ has now restricted applying the privacy law beyond the EU. It has also observed that the EU cannot enforce the ‘right to be forgotten’ on countries which do not recognise such a right.


The Representation of the People Act, 1951

• Under Chapter III of The Representation of the People Act, 1951, a conviction for a wide range of offences can lead to disqualification for membership of Parliament and State Legislatures. Sections 8, 8A, 9, 9A, 10, 10A of the Act list these offences, with the period of disqualification varying from section to section.

• Here are the other offences under which the Election Commission can debar a candidate from contesting elections.

Offences relating to religion, untouchability

• Section 153A IPC: offence of promoting enmity be-tween different groups on ground of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony.

• Sub-section (2) or Sub-section (3) of Section 505 of IPC: offence of making statement creating or pro-moting enmity, hatred or ill-will between classes or offence relating to such statement in any place of worship or in any assembly engaged in the perfor-mance of religious worship or religious ceremonies.

• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 which provides for punishment for the preaching and practice of “untouchability”, and for the enforcement of any disability arising therefrom.

• Section 7 of the Religious Institutions (Prevention of Misuse) Act, 1988: offence of contravention of the provisions of sections 3 to 6.

• Section 6 of the Places of Worship (Special Provi-sions) Act, 1991: offence of conversion of a place of worship.

Offences against women

• Sub-section (1) or Sub-section (2) of Section 376 or 376A or 376B or 376C or 376D: offences relating to rape

• Section 498A: offence of cruelty towards a woman by husband or relative of a husband.

• The Commission of Sati (Prevention) Act, 1987.

• Any provisions of the Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961.

Offences relating to elections

• Section 171E of IPC: offence of bribery. Section 171F of IPC: offence of undue influence or personation at an election.

• Section 125 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951: offence of promoting enmity between classes in connection with the election.

• Section 135 of the RP Act, 1951: offence of removal of ballot papers from polling stations.

• Section 135A of the RP Act, 1951: offence of booth capturing.

• Clause (a) of Sub-section (2) of Section 136 of the RP Act, 1951: offence of fraudulently defacing or fraudu-lently destroying any nomination paper.

• Section 10A of RP Act, 1951: Disqualification for fail-ure to lodge account of election expenses.

Offences relating to terrorism

• Sections 10 to 12 of the Unlawful Activities (Pre-vention) Act, 1967: offence of being a member of an association declared unlawful, offence relating to dealing with funds of an unlawful association or offence relating to contravention of an order made in respect of a notified place.

• Section 3 or Section 4 of the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, 1987: offence of commit-ting terrorist acts, offence of committing disruptive activities.

• The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002.

Offences concerning unlawful trades

• Section 11 of the Customs Act, 1962: offence of im-porting or exporting prohibited goods.

• The Foreign Exchange (Regulation) Act, 1973.

• The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

• Any law providing for the prevention of hoarding or profiteering.


• Any law relating to the adulteration of food or drugs.

Offences relating to corruption

• The Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988.

• Section 8A of the RP Act, 1951: Disqualification on ground of corrupt practices.

• Section 9 of the RP Act 1951: Disqualification for dis-missal for corruption or disloyalty.

Offences relating to national symbols

• Section 2 or Section 3 of the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971: offence of insulting the Indian National Flag or the Constitution of India, of-fence of preventing singing of the National Anthem.

Association with the government

• Section 9A of the RP Act, 1951: Disqualification for Government contracts, etc.

• Section 10 of the RP Act, 1951: Disqualification for office under Government company.

Any other offence

• For all offences which are not mentioned above, a person convicted can be disqualified under Sub-sec-tion (3) of Section 8 of the RP Act, which provides that such a disqualification can take place if the person has been sentenced to imprisonment for not less than two years.

School Education Quality Index (SEQI)

About the index:

• School Education Quality Index (SEQI) was devel-oped by NITI Aayog to evaluate the performance of States and Union Territories (UTs) in the school education sector.

• The index aims to bring an ‘outcomes’ focus to the education policy by providing States and UTs with a platform to identify their strengths and weaknesses and undertake requisite course corrections or policy interventions.

Who topped the index and who didn’t?

• Kerala and Rajasthan have emerged as States with the best quality of school education in the country, with scores of 76.6% and 72.9% respectively, in the NITI Aayog’s rankings released on Monday.

• The Union Territory of Chandigarh, however, pipped them overall with a score of over 80%.

• Reflecting the huge differences in quality across the country, Uttar Pradesh scored the lowest among 20 large States with just 36.4%, although the small State of Arunachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Lakshadweep had even lower scores.

• Tamil Nadu was also the best performer in the category on access outcomes that measured enrol-ment, the rate of transition to higher classes and the percentage of out-of-school children mainstreamed into schools.

• Karnataka was the topper in the learning outcomes category, which looked at the language and math-ematics performance of Class 3, Class 5 and Class 8 students. This category had the highest weightage in the index, accounting for a third of the total.

More on the issue:

• In line with NITI Aayog’s mandate to foster the spirit of competitive and cooperative federalism, SEQI strives to facilitate the sharing of knowledge and best practices across States and UTs.

• Developed through a collaborative process, includ-ing key stakeholders such as Ministry of Human Resource and Development (MHRD), the World Bank and sector experts, the index consists of 30 critical indicators that assess the delivery of quality educa-tion. These indicators are categorized as below:

Category 1: Outcomes

1. Domain 1: Learning outcomes

2. Domain 2: Access outcomes

3. Domain 3: Infrastructure and facilities for outcomes

4. Domain 4: Equity outcomes


Category 2: Governance processes aiding out-comes

About the assessment and key takeaways

• Schooling should result in successful learning out-comes. A credible system of assessment in this re-gard is crucial to design necessary remedial actions. To ensure the system is geared towards learning, SEQI assigns almost half its weight to learning out-comes. This sends a strong signal across the nation to ensure the focus remains centred on learning outcomes.

• To facilitate a like-for-like comparison, States and UTs have been grouped as Large States, Small States and UTs. Within each of these groups, the indicator val-ues have been appropriately scaled, normalized and weighted to generate an overall performance score and ranking for each State and UT.

• States’ overall performance may hide variations in their performance on the underlying categories. Of the 20 Large States, 10 perform better on the Out-comes category, with the most noticeable perfor-mance differences observed in the cases of Karnata-ka, Jharkhand and Andhra Pradesh. The other Large States perform better on the Governance Processes Aiding Outcomes category, with the most noticeable performance differences observed in the cases of Odisha, Punjab and Haryana.

• Of the eight Small States, seven perform better on the Outcomes category, with the most noticeable performance differences observed in the cases of Manipur, Tripura and Goa. Sikkim is the only Small State that performs better on the Governance Pro-cesses Aiding Outcomes category.

• Of the seven UTs, four perform better on the Out-comes category, with the most noticeable perfor-mance differences observed in Dadra & Nagar Haveli. Delhi, Daman & Diu and Lakshadweep perform bet-ter on the Governance Processes Aiding Outcomes category

• States’ and UTs’ performance on Learning Out-comes is driven by their results on the National Achievement Survey (NAS) 2017. Their performance on Access Outcomes is primarily driven by enrolment ratios at the secondary level and transition rates from upper-primary to secondary level.

• Among the 20 Large States, 18 improved their over-all performance between 2015-16 and 2016-17.

• The average improvement in these 18 states is 8.6 percentage points although there is a lot of variation around that average in terms of the fastest and slow-est improving States. Due to this variation, many States that improved their overall performance score still show a decline in rank.

• Five Small States have shown an improvement in their overall performance score between 2015-16 and 2016-17, with the average improvement being around nine percentage points. However, as in the case of Large States, there is considerable variation between the fastest and slowest improving States. States such as Meghalaya, Nagaland and Goa out-paced the others, improving by 14.1, 13.5 and 8.2 percentage points respectively, thus improving their ranks in the process.

• All seven UTs have shown an improvement in their overall performance scores. The average improve-ment is 9.5 percentage points. Daman & Diu, Dadra & Nagar Haveli and Puducherry improved their overall performance scores by 16.5, 15.0 and 14.3 per-centage points respectively, which enabled them to improve their ranking on incremental performance.

• SEQI also included an analysis of States and Union Territories for each indicator under study. For in-stance, indicators such as the average score in Class 3, 5 and 8 for Language and Mathematics, Transition Rates from primary to upper-primary level, capturing equity in learning outcomes between general and marginalised sections of society, supply a wealth of data for future action and policy design for every State.

• States and UTs are ranked on their overall perfor-mance in the reference year 2016-17, as well as on their annual incremental performance (difference in the overall performance) between the reference year and base year (2015-16).

• The rankings present incredible insights on the sta-tus of school education across States/UTs and their relative progress over time.


A brief snapshot of the top and bottom performing States and Union Territories is as follows.

States/UTs Overall Performance Ranking (2016-17)

Large States

1. Kerala

2. Rajasthan

3. Karnataka

18. Punjab

19. Jammu & Kashmir

20. Uttar Pradesh

Small States

1. Manipur

2. Tripura

3. Goa

6. Sikkim

7. Meghalaya

8. Arunachal Pradesh

Union Territories

1. Chandigarh

2. Dadra and Nagar Haveli

3. Delhi

1. Daman & Diu

2. Andaman & Nicobar Islands

3. Lakshadweep

Annual Incremental Performance:

States/UTsAnnual Incremental Perfor-mance (Between Base Year: 2015-16 and Reference Year: 2016-17)

Large States 1. Haryana

2. Assam

3. Uttar Pradesh

18. Jharkhand

19. Uttarakhand

20. Karnataka

Small States 1. Meghalaya

2. Nagaland

3. Goa

1. Sikkim

2. Mizoram

3. Arunachal Pradesh

Union Territories 1. Daman & Diu

2. Dadra and Nagar Haveli

3. Puducherry

1. Lakshadweep

2. Chandigarh

3. Andaman & Nicobar Islands

• SEQI is envisioned as a dynamic instrument that will continue to evolve. Over time, the relevance of the existing indicators and the availability of data for new indicators will be factored into the index design. In particular, the linkages between policy actions and SEQI indicators will be analyzed to reflect the efforts made by States and UTs to improve school educa-tion.

Supreme Court recalls its order on SC/ ST

Act

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION Consider the following statements with reference to the School Education Quality Index

1. The first ever edition of the index was released by NITI Aayog

2. Among 20 large States, Kerala was ranked first for overall performance on the quality of school education

3. Among smaller States, Manipur emerged as the best performer, while Chandigarh topped the list of Union Territories

Which of the above mentioned statements are true ?

a) 1 and 2 b) 2 and 3

c) 1 and 3 d) All of the above

Solution: b

What is the issue?

• The Supreme Court recalled its direction pertaining toa2018verdictthathadeffectivelydilutedprovi-sions of arrest under the Scheduled Castes & Sched-uled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989. This was following a plea by the Centre seeking a review of that judgment.

What is a review of a judgment?

• ‘Review’ of a Supreme Court judgment is done by the same Bench. ‘Overruling’ means that the law laid down in one case is overruled in another case. When a higher court on appeal alters the judgment of a lower court, it is called ‘reversal.’


• Generally, a review is heard in the judge’s chamber, but maybe heard in open court in important cases.

Why was the SC/ST Act enacted?

• Since crimes against SCs and STs are fundamentally hate crimes, the Rajiv Gandhi government enacted the Act in 1989 in furtherance of the provisions for abolition of untouchability (Article 17) and equality (Articles 14, 15) in the Constitution.

• In accepting the review, the Judges relied on the Statement of Objects & Reasons of the Bill that stat-ed that “despite various measures to improve the so-cio-economic conditions of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes, they remain vulnerable. They are denied number of civil rights. They are subject-ed to various offences, indignities, humiliations and harassment. They have, in several brutal incidents, been deprived of their life and property”.

In what manner had the 2018 judgment diluted provisions for arrest?ANTICIPATORY BAIL: • Keeping in view the special nature of crimes against

Dalits in Section 18 of the Act, Parliament had laid down that the provision of anticipatory bail under Section 438 of the Criminal Procedure Code of 1973 will not be available to an accused under the Act. The provision of anticipatory bail was introduced for the first time on the recommendation of 41st Law Commission in 1973.

• It is a statutory right, not part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 of the Constitution, and thus there is no fundamental right to anticipa-tory bail. A few state amendments to Section 438 exclude anticipatory bail.

• In the 2018 judgment, the Supreme Court laid down safeguards, including provisions for anticipatory bail and a “preliminary enquiry” before registering a case under the Act. Recently, the Bench said Section 18 was enacted to instil a sense of deterrence and relied on Kartar Singh (1994) in which the court had held that denial of anticipatory bail does not violate Article 21.

FIR: • The Judges had observed that “liberty of one cannot

be sacrificed to protect another”, and added that the “Atrocities Act cannot be converted into a charter for exploitation or oppression by unscrupulous per-sons or by police for extraneous reasons”.

• It was ordered that neither is an FIR to be immedi-ately registered nor are arrests to be made without a preliminary inquiry by an SSP. An arrest can only be made if there is “credible” information and a police officer has “reason to believe” that an offence was committed.

• In the review judgment, it was that said public servants already have a remedy in false cases under CrPC Section 482 and can get such FIRs quashed by High Courts. It rejected the need of an SSP’s approv-al for arrest.

• Section4oftheSC/STActcastsaspecificdutyonpublic servants to record an FIR as per the infor-mation given. Non-registration of FIR is punishable. Section 22 protects public servants for actions taken in ‘good faith’, for which no legal proceedings can be initiated against them.

PERMISSION:

• In 2018, the court had said that even if a preliminary inquiry is held and a case registered, arrest is not necessary, and that no public servant is to be arrest-ed without the written permission of the appointing authority. The court extended the benefit to other citizens and said they cannot be arrested without the written permission of the SSP of the district.

• The review says that a decision on arrest is to be tak-en by the investigating authority, not the appointing authority.

Were other provisions diluted?

• It was observed that “interpretation of Atrocities Act should promote constitutional values of frater-nity and integration of the society. This may require ‘check on the false implication of innocent citizens on caste lines’.”

• Observing that the law should not result in caste ha-tred, the court overlooked the fact that the Act had to be enacted due to caste hatred. The review judg-ment said that such riders for registering a report are wrong and it would give an advantage to upper castes whose complaints can be registered without any such inquiry.

How frequently do SCs/STs face atrocities?

• A crime is committed against an SC every 15 minutes. Six SC women are raped every day on an average.


• Between 2007 and 2017, there was a 66 per cent growth in crimes against SCs. Data from the Nation-al Crime Record Bureau, which the 2018 judgment was based on, showed cases of rape of SC women had doubled in 10 years.

Were similar guidelines not issued by the SC in other cases?

• The Supreme Court can lay down guidelines only in cases of legislative gaps.

• For instance, it laid down guidelines on sexual ha-rassment, khap panchayats, lynching etc. But where thefieldisoccupiedbyparliamentarylegislation,the judiciary is bound by the text of law.

• It can, however, examine the constitutionality of such a law. The review order observed that the March 2018 guidelines encroached upon the field reserved for Parliament, and therefore recalled these directions.

Code of Conduct for MPs and MLAs : A brief

history

A Code of Conduct for Members of Rajya Sabha has been in force since 2005; there is no such code for Lok Sabha.

The background :

• Codes of conduct for high constitutional function-aries and representatives of the people have been discussed for long.

• A code for Union ministers was adopted in 1964, and state governments were advised to adopt it as well.

• A conference of Chief Justices in 1999 resolved to adopt a code of conduct for judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts.

• In the case of MPs, the first step was the constitu-tion of Parliamentary Standing Committees on Ethics in both Houses.

• The Committee in Rajya Sabha was inaugurated by Chairman K R Narayanan on May 30, 1997 “to over-see the moral and ethical conduct of the Members and to examine the cases referred to it with refer-ence to ethical and other misconduct of Members”.

Code in Rajya Sabha

• The First Report of the Ethics Committee was ad-opted on December 15, 1999, and its framework was reiterated in subsequent reports of the Committee.

The Fourth Report was adopted by Rajya Sabha on April 20, 2005, and a 14-point Code of Conduct for members of the House has been in force since then. These include:

• If Members find that there is a conflict between their personal interests and the public trust which they hold, they should resolve such a conflict in a manner that their private interests are subordinated to the duty of their public office

• Members should always see that their private fi-nancial interests and those of the members of their immediate family do not come in conflict with the public interest and if any such conflict ever arises, they should try to resolve such a conflict in a manner that the public interest is not jeopardised and

• Members should never expect or accept any fee, remuneration or benefit for a vote given or not given by them on the floor of the House, for introducing a Bill, for moving a resolution or desisting from moving a resolution, putting a question or abstaining from asking a question or participating in the deliberations of the House or a Parliamentary Committee.

• Rule 293 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States states: “There shall be maintained a ‘Register of Member’s Interests’ in such form as may be determined by the [Ethics] Committee which shall be available to members for inspection on request.” This is accessible to ordinary citizens under the RTI Act.

Code in Lok Sabha

• The firstEthicsCommitteeinLokSabhacouldbeconstituted only on May 16, 2000, when GMC Ba-layogi was Speaker.

• The issue has been raised in every Lok Sabha since then but has not been taken to its conclusion.

• The Report of the Ethics Committee, with regard to amendments to the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Lok Sabha, headed by L K Advani was presented to the Speaker on December 16, 2014, and laid on the table of the House on December 18, 2014.


• Its recommendations were included in the report of the Rules Committee of Lok Sabha tabled in Lok Sabha on August 5, 2015.

• It said that [the Ethics Committee] shall “formulate a Code of Conduct for Members and suggest amend-ments or additions to the Code of Conduct from time to time”. The matter has since been pending with the Ethics Committee, which is still headed by Advani.

• The report of the Rules Committee tabled on August 5, 2015, said that “the Rajya Sabha is already main-taining a register of their Members’ interests. In view of the above, the Committee recommends that the Committee on Ethics may examine and recommend the nature of Members’ interests to be declared and the form of Register of Members’ interest to be maintained for Members of Lok Sabha.” This matter, too, is under consideration of the Ethics Committee.

• While the Ethics Committee headed by Advani rec-ommended that “Any person or member may make a complaint relating to unethical conduct”, the Rules Committee, headed by Speaker Sumitra Mahajan, added the provision that the “if a complaint is made by any person, it shall be forwarded by a member (and)… shall be countersigned by the member for-warding the complaint to the Speaker”.

• This provision is different from that in Rajya Sabha, and is similar to the Ethics Committee rules of the US Congress, which says: “Information offered as a com-plaint by an individual not a Member of the House may be transmitted to the Committee, provided that a Member of the House certifies… that (he) believes the information is submitted in good faith and war-rants the… consideration of the Committee.”

Code of Conduct around the world :

• In the UK, a code of conduct for MPs was “prepared pursuant to the Resolution of the House of 19 July 1995”.

• The Canadian House of Commons has a Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner with powers to examine violations of the Conflict of Interest Code at the request of another Member or by Resolution of the House or on his own initiative.

• Germany has had a Code of Conduct for members of the Bundestag since 1972;

• The US has had a Code since 1968.

• Pakistan has a Code of Conduct for members of the Senate.

President commutes 20 death sentences in

nine years

What is the issue?

• The President commuted death sentences to life imprisonment in at least 20 cases over the past nine years, based on the recommendations received from the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).

• These commutations were based on the President’s exercise of powers under Article 72 of the Constitu-tion after the convicts filed mercy petitions.

Pardoning power

• In the Constitution of India, the power of Presiden-tial Pardon is found in “Article 72” of the Indian Constitution.

• It empowers the President to grant pardons, re-prieves, respites or remissions of punishment in all cases where the punishment is for an offence against any law to which the executive power of the Union extends.

• The same is also available against sentences of courts-martial and sentences of death. A parallel power is given to the Governor of a state under Article 161. A pardon may be absolute or conditional. It may be exercised at any time either before legal proceedings are taken or during their pendency or after conviction. The rejection of one clemency pe-tition does not exhaust the pardoning power of the President.

There are five different types

1. Pardon: Completely absolving the person of the crime and letting him go free. The pardoned criminal will be like a normal citizen.

2. Commutation: Changing the type of punishment given to the guilty into a less harsh one. For example, a death penalty commuted to a life sentence


3. Reprieve: A delay will be allowed in the execution of a sentence, usually a death sentence, for a guilty person to allow him some time to apply for Presidential Pardon or some other legal remedy to prove his innocence or successful rehabilitation.

4. Respite: Reducing the quantum or degree of the punishment to a criminal in view of some special circum-stances, like pregnancy, mental condition etc.

5. Remission: Changing the quantum of a punishment without changing its nature. for eg. reducing 20-year rigorous imprisonment to 10 years.

Difference between pardoning powers of Presi-dent and Governor :

The scope of the pardoning power of the President under Article 72 is wider than the pardoning power of the Governor under Article 161. The power differs in the following two ways:

1. The power of the President to grant pardon extends in cases where the punishment or sentence is by a Court Martial but Article 161 does not provide any such power to the Governor.

2. The President can grant pardon in all cases where the sentence given is a sentence of death but par-doning power of Governor does not extend to death sentence cases.

MULTIPLE CHOICE QUESTION Consider the following statements with reference to Pardoning Powers in India

1. The scope of the pardoning power of the Presi-dent under Article 72 is wider than the pardoning power of the Governor under Article 161

2. Power under Article 72 can be exercised by the Indian President on his own at his discretion

Which of the above mentioned statements are true ?

a) 1 only b) 2 only

c) Both are true d) Both are false

Solution: a

India’s first ‘corporate’ train Tejas Express

launched

What is the issue?

• TejasExpress,thecountry’sfirst“private”trainrun,was launched between Lucknow and New Delhi.

• Tejas Express is the first train of Indian Railways that will be fully run by its subsidiary Indian Railways Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC).

• Touted as the fastest train in the New Delhi-Lucknow route, the Tejas Express cover the distance between two cities in six hours 15 minutes.

More on the issue:

• The passengers of India’s first corporate train ‘Tejas Express’ will have a flight-like experience.

• IRCTC is offering free travel insurance of Rs 25 lakh to the passengers travelling on the train.

• The passengers will get a refund of Rs 100 in case the train gets delayed for an hour. If the delay is of more than 2 hours then Rs 250 will be given to passengers by IRCTC.

Comprehensive National Nutrition Survey

(CNNS) 2016-18

What is the issue?

• The first-ever comprehensive National Nutrition Survey has been conducted by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the United Nations Children Fund (UNICEF) to measure the level of malnutrition in India.

Key takeaways

• Malnutrition among children in urban India is char-acterised by relatively poor levels of breastfeeding, higher prevalence of iron and Vitamin D deficiency as well as obesity due to long commute by working mothers, prosperity and lifestyle patterns, while rural parts of the country see higher percentage of children suffering from stunting, underweight and wasting and lower consumption of milk products.

Documents

Smart Abhyas/October/2019€¦ · visit Kartarpur 9. Global Bio-India Summit 2019 2. RBI’s Monetary Policy Report 3. Department of Investment and Public Asset Manage-ment the nodal