General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

Jul 23, 2019

Two Skill Centres of Excellence to be set up in Uttar Pradesh

In a strategic meeting between Dr Mahendra Nath Pandey, Minister of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship and Yogi Adityanath, Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh, in Lucknow, a joint decision was made to set-up two Skill Centre sof Excellence (CoE) – one in Greater Noida for plumbing and one in Varanasi for the services sector.
The two centres will be international state-of-the-art infrastructure which will be created under joint collaboration between the state and the centre, where the state will provide the land for setting up the two buildings.
The infrastructure and training delivery will be supported by the respective sector skill councils and the industry partners.

Plea to Give Equal Status to Vande Mataram

A plea has been filed in the Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Centre to give Vande Mataram equal status like the national anthem—Jana Gana Mana. The plea filed by BJP leader and advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, has sought that 'Vande Mataram', written by Bankim Chandra Chatterjee, be equally propagated like the national anthem.
In his plea, Upadhyay has said that the national song played a vital role in the Independence movement and was first sung in a political context by Rabindranath Tagore at the 1896 session of the Indian National Congress.
"Both the 'Jana Gana Mana' and 'Vande Mataram' have to be equally respected. The sentiments expressed in 'Jana Gana Mana' have been expressed keeping state in view…… the sentiments expressed in 'Vande Mataram' deserves similar respect," the plea read.
The petition sought that a declaration be made that 'Vande Mataram' shall be honoured equally with the song 'Jana Gana Mana' and shall have equal status with it.

Central Govt Gets Power to Decide Salaries of CICs and ICs

The Lok Sabha passed a bill to amend the Right to Information (RTI) Act to give the central government the power to set the salaries and service conditions for Chief Information Commissioners (CIC) and Information Commissioners (IC), even as opposition parties protested the changes and activists argued that the alterations would weaken India's sunshine legislation.
The changes will apply to information commissioners at the Centre and also the states. The bill still has to be cleared by the Rajya Sabha before it becomes a law.
The current law, passed in 2005, says information commissioners will have a five-year tenure or serve until the age of 65; the new one says the Centre shall prescribe their term.
The current law says the salaries for the CIC and information commissioners at the Centre will be the same as those of the Chief Election Commissioner and Election Commissioners, and that those of state CICs and Information Commissioners.

Jul 20, 2019

Rajasthan Likely to Shift Tigers to New Locations

The Rajasthan government is considering introducing tigers at nine locations spread over four districts in the state over the next 10 years in an effort to reduce humanwildlife conflict and provide new homes for the big cats.
The forest department was looking at the possibility of introducing tigers in forest areas such as Ramgarh Vishdhari, Shergarh, Kumbhalgarh, Rawli Toadgarh and Jhiri in Dholpur district, Khetri Bansiyal in Jhunjhunu district, Sultanpur (Bundi) and Shahbad (Baran).
The move was to avoid the possibility of human-wildlife conflict in existing tiger habitats and relocating excess tiger.
A workshop was held in May 2019 at which the possibility for distribution of excess tigers through self dispersal, environment improvement and relocation was discussed.
Rajasthan has three tiger reserves with at least 85 big cats, of which 66 are at Ranthambore Tiger Reserve, 15 at Sariska Tiger Reserve and four at Mukundra Hills Tiger Reserve.
Eight tigers have been relocated to Sariska from Ranthambore since 2004, and four to Mukundra in 2018 to decongest Ranthambore.
A tigress was sent to Sariska from Ranthambore in January 2019 to improve the skewed sex ratio in the habitat, but it died in June 2019 after being tranquillised.

World Bank Pulls Out of Amaravati Capital City Project

The World Bank said it had pulled out of the Andhra Pradesh government's Amaravati capital city project following the withdrawal of request by the Government of India.
World Bank's lead external advisor (special projects) for India Sudip Mozumdar said the Government of India had withdrawn its request to the bank for financing the proposed Amaravati Sustainable Infrastructure and Institutional Development Project.
The state government had not agreed to the World Bank's proposal to inspect the work undertaken so far as they had been taken up with loans obtained from other lending agencies.
The ruling YSR Congress Party and Telugu Desam Party are indulging in a blame game for the World Bank backing out of the Amaravati project.

SC Seeks Attorney General's Aid

The Supreme Court sought attorney general KK Venugopal's assistance in dealing with a plea that wants minority communities to be defined on the basis of state-wise population instead of national data.
A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and justices Deepak Gupta and Aniruddha Bose took note of the public interest litigation (PIL) filed by Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay and asked him to send a copy to the top law officer's office.
The PIL challenges the validity of the Centre's 26-year-old notification declaring five communities — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis — as minorities.
Upadhyay's plea has sought to declare as unconstitutional the section of the National Commission for Minority Act, 1992, under which the notification was issued on October 23, 1993.
It has asked for guidelines to be laid down to define the word "minority" based on state-wise population of a community.
In the petition, Upadhyay said Hindus are a majority community as per national data but a minority community in some North-eastern states and in Jammu and Kashmir.
However, the Hindu community is deprived of benefits available to the minority community in these states.

Jul 19, 2019

NCP, CPI, TMC Get EC Notice on Status

The Nationalist Congress Party, the Trinamool Congress and the Communist Party of India face the prospect of losing their national party status following their performance in the Lok Sabha elections with the Election Commission (EC) issuing them a show cause notice.
The EC has asked them to explain why their national party status should not be revoked, sources said. They have been asked to respond to the notice by August 5.
The CPI, the BSP and the NCP were facing losing the national party status after the the 2014 Lok Sabha elections as well.
But, they got a reprieve when in 2016 the EC amended its rules, where it said that the status of political parties would to be reviewed every 10 years instead of five.

Alpesh Thakor and Dhaval Singh Zala Join BJP

Former Gujarat Congress MLAs Alpesh Thakor and Dhaval Singh Zala joined BJP in the presence of Gujarat BJP president Jitu Vaghani.
Both Thakor and Zala had quit as MLAs, just ahead of the Rajya Sabha elections. Thakor who had been vocal about his differences with the Congress quit the party before the Lok Sabha elections in April-May 2019.
A prominent OBC leader and a former MLA from Radhanpur in Gujarat's Patan district, Alpesh Thakor said that he was ignored and insulted in the Congress. Zala was the MLA from Bayad.
Both the leaders had earlier met Gujarat Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel that led to speculations that they might join BJP.
The BJP has 104 MLAs in the 182-member Gujarat assembly. The Congress has 71 MLAs.

India and Sri Lanka Sign Agreement to Upgrade Rail Track

Sri Lankan government signed an agreement with IRCON International for upgrading of a railway track with Indian concessional financing of around 91.26 million US dollars.
The agreement is for up gradation of over century old track of 130 km located between Colombo and Jaffna in Tamil -majority northern province.
The contract agreement was signed by Sunil Kumar Choudhury, Chairman & Managing Director, IRCON International Limited, and L. P. Jayampathy, Secretary, Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation of Sri Lanka.

Jul 18, 2019

TMC, NCP and CPI May Lose National Status

The Mamata Banerjeeled Trinamool Congress (TMC), Sharad Pawar-led Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) and the Communist Party of India (CPI) could lose their national party status with the Election Commission of India preparing to issue them show cause notices highlighting their ineligibility for this tag as established after the recent Lok Sabha elections.
As per the EC rulebook, Election Symbols (Reservation and Allotment) Order, 1968, 'national status' is conferred on a party if its candidates secure at least 6% of the votes polled in a state in a Lok Sabha election, or if four of its MPs get re-elected from any state, or if it wins at least 2% of the seats in the Lok Sabha in the last general elections, or if the party is recognised as a state party in at least four states.
However, this time, it is gathered that the Commission may not take a lenient view again, like after the 2014 polls, when it allowed political parties to retain the status. This may bring down the total number of national parties to five from eight, if effected.
There are currently eight national party status holders –– Congress, BJP, CPM, CPI, BSP, NCP and AITC.
The latest entrant is the National People's Party –– a recognised state party in Manipur, Meghalaya and Nagaland.
The three political parties (TMC, NCP and CPI) and Mayawati's Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) were issued show cause notices in 2014 on their ineligibility.
However, following representations from the parties concerned, the EC decided to take a less stringent view and amended the rules to assess the national party status eligibility over two elections rather than just one.
However, only BSP is not in the red this time, having marked its presence in several other states, as required.
The remaining three parties are once again ineligible for the national party status in terms of the proportion of votes earned and state-wide presence.

Govt Extends Finance Commission's Term

The government tasked the 15th Finance Commission with suggesting ways to provide "assured allocation of resources" for defence and internal security and examine if a separate funding mechanism was required.
The move came along with a decision to extend the constitutional body's term by a month to November, 2019.
The move comes at a time when the defence establishment has been complaining of lack of funds and the Centre's commitment to social sector schemes, many of which are in the domain of the states, has increased, creating pressure on resources.
The panel headed by NK Singh will have the task of working out a mechanism and how it can be operationalised to ensure that the country's sovereignty is not compromised for want of funds.

Green Signal to Dibang Dam

The Centre has given a green signal to the Dibang dam — set to be the largest hydropower project in India at 278 metres — which was put on hold during the United Progressive Alliance regime due to environmental concerns.
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) on Wednesday approved Rs. 1,600 crore for pre-investment activities and clearances for the Dibang multipurpose project in Arunachal Pradesh, which is estimated to cost Rs. 28,080.35 crore to build, and once completed, will generate 2880MW power.
Union environment minister Prakash Javadekar hailed the hydro-electric multipurpose project as a "major contribution of India" to the world which is battling climate change. This project will produce 2880 MW of power but not use any coal.
The project has received statutory clearances, including the environment clearance, forest clearance (stage l) and defence clearance. Only forest clearance (stage II) remains, for the project to seek investment sanction from Centre.

Jul 17, 2019

End to Manual Scavenging

The Centre cited rising deaths during hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks while directing states and union territories (UTs) to urgently stop the undesirable practices of manual scavenging.
The ministry of housing and urban affairs has advised them to set up Emergency Response Sanitation Units (ERSUs) in major cities on the lines of fire stations in capital cities of each state and major cities.
A letter, written by ministry of housing and urban affairs' secretary Durga Shanker Mishra to all state chief secretaries directed all state Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) to set up ERSUs in cities having a municipal corporation and a water & sewerage board with population of more than one lakh.
ERSUs will also be responsible to meet sanitation emergency requests from all smaller towns within a cluster of about 75 km radius.
Union social justice minister Ramdas Athwale told Rajya Sabha that the states have until June 30, 2019 reported 620 deaths of sanitation workers while cleaning sewers or septic tanks since 1993 while 88 were reported in the past three years.
Hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks is banned under the Prevention of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act (PEMSRA), 2013.
The law bars individuals, local authorities or agencies from engaging or employing directly or indirectly anyone for hazardous cleaning of sewers or septic tanks.

Govt. Names AAP Leaders to Metro Directorial Board

In a first, the Delhi government nominated members from the ruling Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) as directors of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), instead of bureaucrats.
This came at a time when the Arvind Kejriwal-led government locked horns with the BJP led central government over offering free rides on the metro to women, the metro's phase-4 expansion plan and, previously, over fare hikes.
The Delhi government and the Centre have equal stake in the DMRC, and equal representation of five directors each on the 17-member DMRC board of directors.
The Delhi government nominated prominent AAP leaders Raghav Chadha, Atishi, party Rajya Sabha member ND Gupta's son Naveen Gupta, and Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDCD) vice-chairperson Jasmine Shah.
Chadha and Atishi had fought and lost the recent Lok Sabha elections in Delhi, while DDCD is a policy think-tank of Delhi government.
Delhi government's directive was issued by transport minister Kailash Gahlot in which he had asked the DMRC to appoint the four new directors to the corporation's board with immediate effect.

BJP Appoints New Chiefs

The Bharatiya Janata Party named Swatantra Dev Singh and Chandrakant Dada Patil as the presidents of its Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra units, respectively.
Samajwadi Party leader Neeraj Shekhar, who quit as the party's Rajya Sabha member, also joined the BJP.
Son of former Prime Minister Chandra Shekhar, Neeraj Shekhar was purportedly upset with the SP president Akhilesh Yadav after he was denied ticket to contest the Lok Sabha election from Ballia.
Maharashtra public works minister Patil takes charge of the party ahead of the state assembly elections which are due in September-October 2019.
Mangal Prabhat Lodha, BJP legislator from Malabar Hills, was appointed to lead the party's Mumbai unit.
Swatantra Dev Singh, another backward classes (OBC) leader who hails from Mirzapur, is UP's transport minister.
He replaced Mahendra Nath Pandey, a Brahmin who was inducted into Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers in May 2019 as the skill development minister.
The decision came a day after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath met party chief Amit Shah and working president JP Nadda in Delhi.

President Appoints new Governors

President Ram Nath Kovind appointed senior BJP leader Biswa Bhusan Harichandan as the Governor of Andhra Pradesh and Anusuiya Uikey as the Governor of Chhattisgarh.
Harichandan began his political career in 1971 as a member of Bharatiya Jana Sangh (BJS). Later, he went to become BJS' national executive member and its state general secretary.
The new Governor of Chhattisgarh Anusuiya Uikey is a member of the BJP and was an MP in the Rajya Sabha from Madhya Pradesh.
Uikey previously held the post of Minister for Women and Child Development in the Madhya Pradesh government.

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