General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2016

Dec 2016

Dec 19, 2018

Rural Electricity Bills and Farm Loans Waived

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) governments in Gujarat and Assam decided to waive rural electricity bills and farm loans respectively, to the tune of Rs. 650 crore and Rs. 600 crore.
The announcements came a day after the newly-formed Congress governments in Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh waived farm loans.
The new Congress government in Rajasthan is also expected to do the same shortly.

National Women's Party

The National Women's Party, which claims to be the country's first national level women's party, and which aims to ensure 50% reservation for women in Parliament, was launched in Delhi.
The party is headed by Swetha Shetty who heads a non-governmental organisation (NGO), Telangana Mahila Samiti, which boasts of 1.45 lakh members in Telangana.
As per Shetty, we need higher participation in the Parliament to amend laws for the welfare and progress of women.

Dec 18, 2018

Changes to Link Aadhaar with Mobiles and Bank Accounts

The government will ask parliament to change two laws to let private bodies such as banks and phone companies to access Aadhaar as one of the 'know your customer' (KYC) methods.
The move comes months after the Supreme Court struck down a section in the Aadhaar law that allowed private companies to demand that their customers provide their 12-digit unique identification number.
The proposed amendment allows banks and phone companies to seed Aadhaar number with bank accounts and mobile phone numbers.
A second provision allows a child who has been enrolled for Aadhaar through his/her parents will have an option to opt out of Aadhaar data base after attaining age of 18 years.

Dec 15, 2018

Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill Withdrawn

In the face of opposition from four Cabinet ministers, who represent urban constituencies, the Punjab Water Resources (Management and Regulation) Bill was withdrawn by the government at the last minute. Four other Bills were passed.
The Bill was aimed at regulating the use of groundwater. A Punjab Water Regulation and Development Authority was proposed to impose tariff and restrict construction of structures for extraction of groundwater for domestic, commercial and industrial use, except agriculture.
Other Bills passed were the Punjab Regulation of Compounded Cattle Feed, Concentrates and Mineral Mixtures Act, Punjab Goods and Services Tax (Amendment) Ordinance and the Punjab Good Conduct Prisoners (Temporary Release) Amendment Bill.

Clean Chit to Rafale Deal

In a big boost to the Narendra Modi government, the Supreme Court gave a clean chit to its decision to procure 36 fully-loaded Rafale fighter jets in flyaway condition from French company Dassault Aviation, and said it suffered no irregularity in the decision-making process , pricing or selection of Indian Offset Partner (IOP).
A bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and KM Joseph dismissed PILs echoing the Congress-led opposition's charge of corruption against the Modi government in the deal.
The opposition had accused the PM of pressuring Dassault to select Ambani's company for offset contracts.
The court further noted that the flurry of petitions were filed only after taking advantage of the statement by former French President Francois Hollande, regarding induction of Reliance Defence as the offset partner.
It noted that this was not a case to seek "clause by clause compliances" since "perception of individuals cannot be the basis of a fishing and roving enquiry by this court, especially in such matters".

Punjab Passes Resolution for Women's Reservation

The Punjab assembly passed a resolution urging the Centre to enact Women's Reservation Bill to provide 33% reservation for women in both Parliament and state assemblies.
Moving the resolution on day two of the winter session, chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh said his government has already reserved 50% seats for women in the urban local bodies and panchayati raj institutions.
Once enacted, 181 seats in Lok Sabha will be reserved for women along with 1,370 assembly seats (out of a total of 4,109) in 28 state assemblies in the country.

J&K Becomes the First in Country to Ban 'Sextortion'

In a historic decision to curb sexual exploitation of women, the J&K Government enacted a law explicitly banning such abuse in government offices, thus becoming the first state in the country to have such a legislation.
A new Section "E" has been added to the offences dealing with sexual harassment of women by men in authority in Section 354 of the Ranbir Penal Code (equivalent to the Indian Penal Code in J&K) that makes it a criminal offence and would entail three years of imprisonment for the offender.
The Bill was mooted after Chief Justice of the J&K High Court Justice Gita Mittal on October 23 had voiced concern over the sexual exploitation of women and had advised the government that there was a need to give a legal nomenclature of "sexploitation" to the illegal acts of unwarranted demands and inappropriate contacts.
The Amendments would be called "the Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2018, and Jammu and Kashmir Criminal Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2018).

Dec 14, 2018

Fewer Women MLAs in Rajasthan and MP Assemblies

A fewer number of women will join the newly elected assemblies of Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, as poll results indicate a dip in female representation since 2013.
This is because of a poor distribution of tickets by the main parties, as well as a false notion that women make weaker candidates.
This does not augur well for India, which ranks 149th among 205 nations in terms of women's representation in its national assembly.
Women make up for less than 8% of the legislators across all state assemblies.

Single Personal Accident Cover

As per a notification of insurance regulator IRDAI, from January 1, customers will not have to purchase separate compulsory personal accident (CPA) cover for each new vehicle they buy.
IRDAI has decided to unbundle the compulsory personal accident (CPA) cover and allow the issuance of a standalone (CPA) cover for owner-driver.
Currently, a vehicle buyer has to buy a CPA for every vehicle he or she purchases.

Dec 13, 2018

Time for NRC Claims Extended

The Supreme Court extended the deadline for submission of claims and objections for inclusion in the Assam National Register of Citizens (NRC) from December 15 to December 31.
A Bench of Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Rohinton Nariman also extended the subsequent date for starting the process of verification of the claims and objections from February 1 to February 15.

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