General Awareness

NATIONAL AFFAIRS - December 2018

Dec 2018

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.

Dec 13, 2019

Lotus on Passports as Part of Security Features

After Opposition members in Lok Sabha raised the issue of lotus being printed on new passports; the Ministry of External Affairs said that it was part of the enhanced security features to identify fake passports and involves using other national symbols as well on rotation.
As per Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar, this symbol is our national flower and is part of the enhanced security features to identify fake passports.
These security features have been introduced as part of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) guidelines.

Sena Gets Home, NCP Finance, Congress Revenue

After Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray and six ministers were sworn in, the Maharashtra Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government announced the allocation of portfolios.
Among key portfolios, the Shiv Sena got home and urban development departments, while NCP bagged finance. Revenue, energy and public works departments are with the Congress. The ministers said some changes are likely in the allocations between the three parties.
Thackeray did not retain any portfolio, although he may keep a few portfolios such as general administration and Marathi language.
The NCP bagged 16 ministerial berths, while the Shiv Sena got 15 and the Congress 12.

Indonesia Foreign Minister Arrives to India on 2-day Visit

Indonesian Foreign Minister Retno L. P. Marsudi arrived in Delhi on a two-day visit to attend the combined session of the Indian Ocean Dialogue and the Delhi Dialogue XI.
The visiting dignitary is scheduled to meet External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and the two ministers will also simultaneously attend the sixth Joint Commission Meeting between India and Indonesia at the Hyderabad House.

Indigenous Groups seek Strict Regulations

Meghalaya does not come under the Inner Line Permit (ILP) regimen -- as no government permission is required to enter the state -- but in November 2019, the Meghalaya Cabinet approved amendments to the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act 2016, which will lead to regulations that would require non-resident visitors to register themselves in the state.
The Act requires a visitor, who desires to stay for more than 24 hours in the state, to fill an online application and get permission for entry. This is ILP by another name. Some tribal communities believe that CAB would enable rights to outsiders in the state. On Tuesday, the Garo Hills of Meghalaya, which sent Agatha Sangma to Parliament, saw her effigies being burnt in several places.
While most of Meghalaya is covered under Sixth Schedule of Constitution and is outside the CAB's ambit, there is a large area (10 square km) within Shillong city called the European Ward, which will fall under CAB purview.

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