General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - September 2015

Sep 2015

Dec 18, 2019

India Rejects Pakistan's Resolution on CAA

India rejected a resolution on the Citizenship (Amendment) Act adopted by Pakistan's National Assembly, saying it amounted to interference in the country's internal matters and justification for backing cross-border terrorism.
New Delhi also dismissed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan's remarks at the Global Forum on Refugees in Geneva that millions of Muslims could flee India due to the restrictions in Kashmir and the new citizenship law and accused him of peddling familiar falsehoods at a multilateral platform.
Pakistan's National Assembly, or lower house of Parliament, passed a resolution condemning the CAA on the grounds that it discriminated against minorities, especially Muslims, in India. Khan said at the meeting in Geneva that the law and the lockdown in Kashmir could create a refugee crisis that would dwarf other crises and even lead to a conflict between the two countries.

UIDAI Revokes Tender for Social Media Surveillance

The Unique Identification Agency of India (UIDAI) dropped a contentious and controversial plan to set up a social media monitoring hub, attorney general of India K. K. Venugopal informed the Supreme Court.
UIDAI, in May 2018, floated a tender for hiring an agency for social media management services through Central Public Procurement (CPP) portal, but put the process on hold after Moitra filed a public interest litigation in the Supreme Court in July 2018.

Opposition Parties Urge President to Advise Centre to Withdraw CAA

Leaders of twelve Opposition parties met President Ram Nath Kovind at Rashtrapati Bhavan and urged him to advise the Central Government to withdraw the Citizenship Amendment Act.
A delegation of these parties led by Congress President Sonia Gandhi submitted a memorandum to Mr. Kovind in this regard.

Andhra May Have 3 Capitals

Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy hinted that Andhra Pradesh could have three capital cities for the north coastal Andhra, central Andhra and Rayalaseema regions as part of a decentralised development plan.
Taking part in a discussion on the state capital issue in the legislative assembly on the last day of the winter session, Jagan said that Visakhapatnam, which has infrastructure, can be considered for the executive capital without much investment, while the present (capital) Amaravati can be retained as the legislative capital and Kurnool can be considered as the judicial capital. This will give a balanced development.

Govt. Aims to Provide Broadband Access to All Villages by 2022

The government said that all villages in the country will have broadband access by 2022, as it launched the ambitious National Broadband Mission entailing stakeholder investment of Rs. 7 lakh crore in the next three to four years.
The mission will facilitate universal and equitable access to broadband services across the country, especially in rural and remote areas.
The mission unveiled by Union Telecom Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad will also aim at significantly improving the quality of mobile and internet services in the country.
The broadband mission aims to fast-track growth of digital communications infrastructure, bridge the digital divide, facilitate digital empowerment and inclusion, and provide affordable and universal access of broadband to all.

Dec 17, 2019

AGP Moves Top Court against the Amended Citizenship Act

The Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), a National Democratic Alliance (NDA) ally, filed a petition in the Supreme Court challenging the amended Citizenship Act.
AGP legislator Ramendra Narayan Kalita filed a petition on behalf of the party in the apex court and said that they were "misled" by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) on the issue.
"As part of the NDA, we were politically compelled to do certain things. We will now take up this fight legally," Kalita said. The AGP had voted in favour of the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill in both Houses of Parliament.

Delhi Leads in Filling Lower Court Staff Vacancies

Some states, including Delhi and Tamil Nadu, have managed to narrow the gap between sanctioned strength and working strength in lower courts, although, in general, most state governments and their respective High Courts continue to drag their feet over filling up vacancies in the lower (or subordinate) judiciary, with almost one in every four posts remaining vacant in courts that account for around 17 of every 20 pending cases in the country.
According to data available on the national judicial data grid (NAJDG), collated by the union law ministry's department of justice (DOJ), Delhi has progressed considerably in the last two years, bringing down vacancies in the trial courts from 316 (in 2017) to 119. The sanctioned strength in Delhi is 799.
Tamil Nadu has reduced the vacancies from 341 in 2017 to 129; the state's sanctioned strength is 1216. Punjab, which has a sanctioned strength of 695 has also shown improvement, reducing the vacancies from 136 in 2017 to only 93 now. Odisha has done well too, bringing down the vacancies from 2017 to 60 (of 917 posts). Madhya Pradesh has filled 211 posts over the past two years but still has 517 positions vacant.

Monitor Fake News: MHA Issues Advisory to States

As protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act continued to spread, the Union home ministry issued an advisory to state governments, asking them to closely track fake news and social media messages that have the potential to incite violence.

Panel to Fast-track POCSO Cases

Chief Justice of India S. A. Bobde set up a two-judge committee of Justice Subhash Reddy and Justice M. R. Shah of the Supreme Court of India to monitor, supervise and make suggestions for expeditious trial in cases relating to rape and POCSO across the country.
The committee initially will ask for all details of all first information reports (FIRs), charge sheets and trials pending in trial courts and give a report to the Chief Justice of India.
The setting of the committee comes in the backdrop of a series of heinous crimes against women, including the rape and brutal murder of a 26-year-old Hyderabad veterinarian by four men last month. The suspects were killed in a police encounter.

Centre Releases Rs. 35K crore GST Compensation

The central government released Rs. 35,298 crore to compensate states for revenue losses for two months, August and September, 2019 addressing fears that it would not honour the Goods and Services Tax regime's federal compact, although some states said they would still raise the issue at the coming meeting of the GST Council, and also demanded that the compensation for October and November be released.
The move comes two days ahead of the meeting of the GST Council.

Appoint Info Commissioners in Three Months

The Supreme Court directed the Centre and state governments to appoint information commissioners within three months in the Central Information Commission (CIC) and the State Information Commissions (SICs), and said that there was a need to evolve guidelines to stop misuse of the Right to Information Act. It also directed authorities concerned to put on website the names of members of the search committee, meant for selection and appointment of CIC's information commissioners (ICs).
A bench headed by Chief Justice S. A. Bobde took note of the submission of lawyer Prashant Bhushan, appearing for activist Anjali Bhardwaj, that the Centre and various states have not complied with the February 15 judgment of the apex court asking them to appoint ICs in the CIC and the SICs within 1-6 months in a transparent manner.

Dec 16, 2019

ITBP Launches Matrimonial Site

In a unique approach, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) started a dedicated matrimonial site for its staff.
The website started last week will be managed by ITBP and only the staff will be able to access it.
This is the first-ever dedicated and well-managed matrimony portal among the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF) started by ITBP on December 9. There are more than 25,000 unmarried men in the Force while more than 1000 women personnel are also unmarried. Keeping in view their duties and engagements after joining the service, finding suitable matches becomes an uphill task for the serving personnel.

Dec 15, 2019

I-PAC to Help AAP in 2020 Polls

According to Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, I-PAC, a political consultancy firm led by Prashant Kishor, joined hands with his party.
The move comes in the run up to the Delhi Assembly elections, which is scheduled to take place early next year (2020).
Indian Political Action Committee (I-PAC) was one of the main strategists in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's general election campaign in 2014, and the Bihar assembly election campaign in 2015 which brought Janata Dal (United) leader Nitish Kumar to power.
Kishor is the national vice president of Janata Dal (United), which is an ally of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the main opposition in Delhi Assembly.

Farooq's Detention Extended by Three Months

The detention of Farooq Abdullah, a three-term Chief Minister of erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and National Conference president, was extended by three months under the stringent Public Safety Act (PSA).
Abdullah was among a host of leaders and activists to be detained in August when the Centre moved to abrogate Article 370 and divided the state into two Union Territories of Ladakh and J&K.

FASTag Guidelines Relaxed

The Union government relaxed its rules for the rollout of the mandatory FASTag mechanism of paying at national highways, allowing more collection centres to accept cash payments instead of the previous directive that limited it to 1 – amid fears of traffic chaos once the new rule came into force from December 15, 2019.
In order to incentivise cashless payments and reduce wait times at toll booths, the Union Road Transport and Highways ministry (MoRTH) ordered that all but one booth at National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) facilities must soon be converted to accept only FASTag, a contactless payment device typically pasted on the windscreen of a vehicle.
The NHAI, in a letter sent on December 12, cited a lack of availability of FASTag for new users to seek a 45-day extension to the December 15 deadline, which itself had been pushed from December 1 after authorities noticed a huge rush for new tags – suggesting many had still not bought one.

Dec 14, 2019

Centre Effects Major Bureaucratic Reshuffle

The government affected a major bureaucratic reshuffle appointing senior Indian Administrative Service officer T. V. Somanathan as the expenditure secretary, Ravi Mittal as the I&B secretary, and shifting higher education secretary R. Subrahmanyam to the social justice ministry.
Senior bureaucrat Amit Khare was appointed the new higher education secretary.
The change in the higher education department came against the backdrop of a prolonged agitation over an increase in fee at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

SC Notice to EC over Plea on Election Data

The Supreme Court issued a notice to the Election Commission of India (ECI) on the pleas of two NGOs seeking a probe into alleged discrepancies between voter turnout and the number of votes counted in 347 constituencies during the 2019 Lok Sabha polls.
A bench headed by Chief Justice S A Bobde tagged the plea of the two NGOs along with the pending matters and listed it for hearing in February 2020.
The plea filed by Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Common Cause sought a direction to the Election Commission to formulate a robust procedure to investigate discrepancies in the data in all future elections.
Citing the data of a research conducted by a team of its experts, the ADR said there were serious discrepancies between the number of voters in different constituencies, that is the voter turnout data collated and provided by the EC and the number of votes counted. It claimed that findings of the research revealed several discrepancies, including those in the master summary of 542 constituencies. Discrepancies were found in 347 seats.

Kejriwal Urges Maliwal to End Hunger Strike

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal appealed to Delhi Commission for Women chief Swati Maliwal to put an end to her hunger strike.
Maliwal had started an indefinite hunger strike in December 2019 in the aftermath of the gang rape and murder of a veterinarian in Hyderabad.
The DCW chief had written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, urging him to bring legislation to ensure that those individuals accused of rape are convicted and hanged to death within six months of committing the criminal offence.

India, Maldives to Work on Financial Cooperation

India and the Maldives signed an agreement for cooperation between their financial intelligence units and discussed ways to streamline the recruitment of Indian nurses to bolster the Indian Ocean archipelago's healthcare sector.
External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and his Maldivian counterpart Abdulla Shahid co-chaired the first Joint Commission Meeting (JCM) between the two sides since 2015 and reviewed progress achieved in implementing the agenda for bilateral cooperation.

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