General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

May 11, 2019

Over 110 Declared Foreigners Sent to Detention Camps

The police in Assam have sent more than 110 declared foreigners to detention camps as it looks for more than 72,000 such people, who remain untraceable.
According to a letter sent to the Border Organisation of Assam police, the state government has also directed that people who are absconding and declared foreigners must be booked by the police.
It has also reached out to the office of the state coordinator of the National Register of Citizens (NRC) for details of around 11,000 declared foreigners who have been traced as they tried to enrol in the register.
This rush by the police's special task force to detain declared foreigners comes in the backdrop of the Supreme Court hearing a petition on the abysmal condition of detention centres in Assam.

August 15 Deadline For Ayodhya Mediation Panel

The Ayodhya mediation panel, tasked with exploring the possibility of an amicable settlement of the decades-old issue, has been given time till August 15 to find a solution.
After chairman of the mediation panel, Justice FM Khalifullah sought more time to reach a solution, Rajeev Dhavan, advocate for Muslim parties, said that they support all attempts at mediation if a conclusion can be reached.
The other members of the mediation panel are the Art of Living founder Sri Sri Ravi Shankar and senior advocate Sriram Panchu, who is a trained mediator.

May 10, 2019

Supreme Court Pushes for Full Strength

The Supreme Court Collegium, led by the Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi, recommended the names of two judges to the court and rejected the Union government's disapproval of the elevation of two others.
If the four judges are elevated without delay, the Gogoi Court would reach the full sanctioned judicial strength of 31 judges by the time it re-opens in July after the summer vacations.
The Collegium refused the government's request to reconsider its April 12 recommendation to elevate Jharkhand High Court and Gauhati High Court Chief Justices Aniruddha Bose and A.S. Bopanna as Supreme Court judges.
The Collegium said their names were recommended after all parameters were considered.

Smaller Parties Field More Women

Smaller political parties, both regional and national, have shown the way in this Lok Sabha election by giving ticket to a higher percentage of women candidates, while big parties with a much larger number of contestants fared poorly in doing so.
As a result, the number of women candidates is a mere 8.82%, according to numbers available for the first five phases.

AAP Punjab Manifesto

The Aam Aadmi Party released its manifesto for Punjab for the Lok Sabha election. Senior party leader and MLA Aman Arora said that the elected representatives would prioritise the issues and concerns of the people and raise their voice to redress the grievances.
The issue of the beleaguered farming community would be taken up with the Union government for the implementation of the recommendations of the Swaminathan Commission.
The manifesto bats for setting up of agro-based industry to boost the farmers' income to stop the unending trail of suicides committed by them and the farm hands.
The party would fight for 'One-country-one-tax'.
The manifesto sought to reduce and simplify the GST, offering relief to traders and industrialists. To generate employment opportunities, the party would focus on large-scale PSUs.

Government Denies Perjury Charge

Rubbishing the charge of perjury, the government said that the contents of briefs and responses made in the Supreme Court in the Rafale fighter purchase case were finalised after extensive deliberations at the highest levels in government after a series of meetings.
In a reply affidavit filed in the court, the Centre said that its averments in court were based on the final decisions taken by the Cabinet Committee on Security.
The submissions were based on the final decisions of the Defence Acquisition Council, the Defence Minister, provisions in the Defence Procurement Procedure and inputs received from the Air Force and the Ministry of Defence.
These had endeavoured to bring out the final conclusions of the process, which led to the signing of the Inter-Governmental Agreement with France.
The government played down the mismatch between the December 14, 2018, judgment of the court, upholding the deal on the basis of a non-existent Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) report, and unsigned confidential notes filed by the Centre in the court.

May 09, 2019

No Talks of Pact with KCR

As per senior BJP leader Muralidhar Rao, the Bharatiya Janata Party has not held any discussions on a post-poll alliance with the Telangana Rashtra Samithi or the YSR Congress as the party was confident of winning a clear majority and forming a government at the Centre.

Can Back Rahul for PM

Chief Minister and the Aam Aadmi Party's national convener Arvind Kejriwal said that he would support Congress president Rahul Gandhi as prime ministerial candidate if the latter backed full statehood for Delhi.
As per Mr. Kejriwal, whichever party forms the next government, excluding the BJP, will have AAP's support only if it supports AAP on the issue of full statehood for Delhi.

Stick to July 31 Deadline for Final NRC

The Supreme Court asked Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) Co-ordinator Prateek Hajela to act with "wise discretion" while dealing with people who had failed to appear for scheduled hearings on their objections filed against exclusion from the draft NRC.
Mr. Hajela reported to a Special Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Rohinton F. Nariman that objections' hearings have started but objectors are not appearing in most cases.
The Chief Justice told Mr. Hajela to take whatever action was necessary in the cases of the absentee 'objectors'. The decisions taken should be free and fair, keeping the law in mind. "But whatever you do, do it by July 31".

Re-polling in One Polling Booth in Puducherry

The Election Commission of India declared "void" the polling held in the second phase at polling station no-10, Kamaraj Nagar assembly segment of the Puducherry Parliamentary constituency.
The EC issued an order saying that the re-polling will be held on May 12 between 7 am to 6 pm.

Re-poll in 13 Booths

The Election Commission has ordered re-polling in 13 polling booths in various districts across the State on May 19. On the same day, by-polls to four Assembly constituencies are to be held.
Besides the eight polling booths in Dharmapuri district and one each in Cuddalore and Tiruvallur districts where re-polling had been recommended, two polling booths in Theni district and one in Erode district would also go for re-polling.

May 08, 2019

AAP's Specific Manifestos for Delhi

Combating pollution and access to higher educational institutions were two key promises highlighted by the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in their area specific manifestos for South Delhi and North West Delhi Lok Sabha constituencies released on Tuesday.
Lok Sabha candidates from South Delhi, Raghav Chadha, and North West Delhi, Gugan Singh, released separate poll manifestos in the presence of party's Delhi convener Gopal Rai in central Delhi.
While Chadha focused on "tackling pollution" and "better access to water" in his manifesto, the North West Delhi candidate Singh assured construction of new education institutions and improved connectivity in the rural belt in his poll manifesto.
Chadha said that if his party wins all Lok Sabha seats it will coordinate with relevant ministries to create new congestionfree connectivity corridors and implement a sustainable model of pollution control, which will be funded by "Raghav Young Environmentalist Fund".

SC Rejects Plea for 50% Voting Slip Verification

A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi refused to entertain a petition from 21 opposition parties that asked for matching the counts of at least half the electronic voter machines used with the output of VVPAT (voter verifiable paper audit trail) machines.
The opposition parties wanted the court to review its April 8 order increasing physical verification of VVPAT machines from one to five electronic voting machines (EVMs) in each assembly segment of a Lok Sabha constituency.
The court dismissed the review petition in minutes.
Though the exercise of matching EVM results with paper trail machine slips was being held in various assembly elections, this is the first time it will be undertaken in Lok Sabha polls.

May 07, 2019

Fifth Phase Ends amid Violence

The fifth phase of the Lok Sabha election across 51 constituencies in seven States witnessed several incidents of violence in West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir.
The overall tentative turnout stood at 63.26% as against 61.75% in 2014.
More than 81% of the polling stations in this phase were located in rural areas. With the conclusion of this round, 78% of the Lok Sabha election is now over.

CJI Gets a Clean Chit

The Justice S. A. Bobde in-house committee has found no substance in the sexual harassment allegations levelled by a former Supreme Court staff member against Chief Justice of India Ranjan Gogoi.
A statement issued by the Supreme Court said that the committee's report would be kept confidential. As part of the in-house procedure, the report would not be placed in the public domain.

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