National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 19th July 2019

Anti Defection Law

Topic: Indian Polity

In News: Anti-defection law is in focus again due to the Karnataka political crisis.

More on the Topic: 

• The anti-defection law sets the provisions for disqualification of elected members on the grounds of defection to another political party (Eg: If elected MPs of Congress shift their allegiance to BJP or vice versa).
• The main intent of the law was to combat “the evil of political defections”. However over the years there have been criticisms over the disqualifications and several issues in relation to the working of this law which need to be discussed.

About Anti-Defection Law:

• The Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution in 1985 by the 52nd Amendment Act.
• It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.
• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

Features of anti-defection law :

Disqualification

• If a member of a house belonging to a political party,Voluntarily gives up the membership of his political party, or Votes, or does not vote in the legislature, contrary to the directions of his political party. However, if the member has taken prior permission, or is condoned by the party within 15 days from such voting or abstention, the member shall not be disqualified.
• If an independent candidate joins a political party after the election.
• If a nominated member joins a party six months after he becomes a member of the legislature.

Power to Disqualify

• The Chairman or the Speaker of the House takes the decision to disqualify a member.
• If a complaint is received with respect to the defection of the Chairman or Speaker, a member of the House elected by that House shall take the decision.

Exception

• A person shall not be disqualified if his original political party merges with another, and:
• He and other members of the old political party become members of the new political party, or
• He and other members do not accept the merger and opt to function as a separate group.
• This exception shall operate only if not less than two-thirds of the members of party in the House have agreed to the merger.

Anti-defection law and Judicial review:

• Speaker/ chairman of the house is the authority to decide on defection cases. Speaker sits as a tribunal while deciding on defection cases. All proceedings in relation to any question on disqualification of a member of a House under this Schedule are deemed to be proceedings in Parliament or in the Legislature of a state. No court has any jurisdiction. However, the decision can be brought to court after Kihoto Hollohan case of 1992.
• The law states that the decision is final and not subject to judicial review. The Supreme Court struck down part of this condition. It held that there may not be any judicial intervention until the presiding officer gives his order. However, the final decision is subject to appeal in the High Courts and Supreme Court.
• The Speaker of a House does not have the power to review his own decisions to disqualify a candidate. Such power is not provided for under the Schedule, and is not implicit in the provisions either
• If the Speaker fails to act on a complaint, or accepts claims of splits or mergers without making a finding, he fails to act as per the Tenth Schedule. The Court said that ignoring a petition for disqualification is not merely an irregularity but a violation of constitutional duties.

Anti-defection law and Right to freedom of legislators:

• The law impinge on the right of free speech of the legislators:
• This issue was addressed by the five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in 1992 (Kihoto Hollohan vs Zachilhu and others). The court said that “the anti-defection law seeks to recognise the practical need to place the proprieties of political and personal conduct…above certain theoretical assumptions.” It held that the law does not violate any rights or freedoms, or the basic structure of parliamentary democracy.

Doubts regarding “voluntarily” resigning from a party:

• According to a Supreme Court judgment, “voluntarily giving up the membership of the party” is not synonymous with “resignation”.
• It has interpreted that in the absence of a formal resignation by the member, the giving up of membership can be inferred by his conduct.
• In other judgments, members who have publicly expressed opposition to their party or support for another party were deemed to have resigned

Whips:

• Political parties issue a direction to MPs on how to vote on most issues, irrespective of the nature of the issue.It restricts a legislator from voting in line with his conscience, judgement and interests of his electorate.
• Such a situation impedes the oversight function of the legislature over the government, by ensuring that members vote based on the decisions taken by the party leadership, and not what their constituents would like them to vote for.

Other Concerns regarding Anti defection Law:

• Constitution drafters didn’t intend to give the control of members to political parties. Interestingly, it’s only in the 10th schedule, which was included in 1985 that political parties are mentioned in constitution. (Also chief whip).
• Many members speak up their mind and conviction –more discussion and thus better debates and solutions in parliament. Anti-defection law is against this.
• In a diverse country like India, members also represent their constituencies. Hence, every member needs to be given voice to give voice to all regions and sections of the population.
• No incentive for MPs/MLAs to research and understand on policies as they merely follows the party’s decisions.
• The law doesn’t touch on the time period for the speaker to decide on disqualification.

Should Speaker be the final decision maker?

• The Speaker has been assigned the role of an impartial arbiter. But the conduct of speakers has left much to be desired. There are instances speakers have invariably allowed themselves to be used for gain of their party or leader.

Way Forward:

• Anti-defection law should be applied only to confidence and no-confidence motions (Dinesh Goswami Committee on electoral reforms, 1990) or only when the government is in danger. (Law Commission (170th report, 1999).
• The rationale that a representative is elected on the basis of the party’s programme can be extended to pre-poll alliances.
• Instead of making Speaker the authority for disqualification, the decision should be made by the president or the governor on the advice of the Election Commission. This would make the process similar to the disqualification procedure as given in Representation of Peoples Act (RPA).
• There can be additional penalties for defectors as well.

Source: The Hindu, Rajyasabha TV and PRS

International Solar Alliance

Topic: Important international Organisations

In News: Palau became the 76th country to sign the ISA Framework Agreement, which till date has been ratified by a total of 54 of the 76 countries.

More on the Topic:

• The International Solar Alliance (ISA) is an alliance of more than 122 countries initiated by India, most of them being sunshine countries, which lie either completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, now extended to all members of UN.
• The Paris Declaration establishes ISA as an alliance dedicated to the promotion of solar energy among its member countries.
• The ISA’s major objectives include global deployment of over 1,000GW of solar generation capacity and mobilisation of investment of over US$ 1000 billion into solar energy by 2030.
• As an action-oriented organisation, the ISA brings together countries with rich solar potential to aggregate global demand, thereby reducing prices through bulk purchase, facilitating the deployment of existing solar technologies at scale, and promoting collaborative solar R&D and capacity building.
• When the ISA Framework Agreement entered into force on December 6th, 2017, ISA formally became a de-jure treaty based International Intergovernmental Organization, headquartered at Gurugram, India.

Role of India in the International Solar Alliance?

• International Solar Alliance (ISA) is the first international organization that has secretariat in India. ISA will increase the stature of India at the international level
• India; aims to produce 100 gigawatt solar energy (which will be one-tenth of ISA’s target) by 2022.India will produce 175 GW of electricity from renewable sources.
• Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and Solar Energy Corporation of India (SECI) announced contribution of US $ 1 million each to the ISA corpus fund.

Source: Hindu, Wikipedia

Internet Saathi Programme

Topic: Social Justice

In News: Internet Saathi’ programme will be expanded to Punjab and Odisha.

More on the Topic:

• It is a Google India-Tata Trusts’ initiative that aimed at facilitating digital literacy among women in rural India.
• Launched in July 2015, the Internet Saathi programme has so far, trained 70,000 ‘Internet Saathis’, who have in turn impacted 2.6 crore million women in the country.
• Internet Saathi has contributed towards bridging the digital gender divide in rural India – female to male ratio was 1 in 10 in 2015 and in 2018, it has increased to 4 in 10.
• Women trained under this initiative have started their own micro-business such as stitching, honeybee farming, and beauty parlours.
• Many under programme are also driving awareness for issues like girl child education, menstrual hygiene and more within their communities.

Model Mains Question: Evaluate the contribution of technology in women empowerment.

Source: Hindu Business Line

NAVIC

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Bengaluru-based Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) is in talks with processing chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm to substitute the existing Global Positioning System (GPS) with the Indian version of satellite navigation. The Indian positioning system is called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).

More on the Topic:

• The GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system that is owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force. Apart from GPS, there is GLONASS of Russia, Galileo of the European Union and BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (or BDS) of China.
• India got its system with the launch of the IRNSS 1-G satellite, is the seventh member of the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), in November 2017.
• Its launch completed a constellation of satellites in geosynchronous and geostationary orbits that gave Indian civilian and military users, and their partners, access to a dedicated satellite navigation system that was not be dependent on foreign governments or suppliers.
• All 7 satellites are configured identically. Three of the 7 satellites are located in suitable orbital slots in geostationary orbit; remaining four are in geosynchronous orbits with the required inclination and equatorial crossings in two different planes.

Applications of IRNSS:

• The IRNSS can provide Standard Positioning Service (SPS) to all users, and an encrypted Restricted Service (RS) to authorised users.
• The IRNSS has a position accuracy better than 20 metres in the primary service area.
• It can help in terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation; disaster management; vehicle tracking and fleet management; integration with mobile phones; precise timing; mapping and geodetic data capture; terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers; visual and voice navigation for drivers.
• The regional navigation satellite system can provide accurate position information service to users in India and the region, extending up to 1,500 km from its boundary, which is its Primary Service Area. Beyond that lies an Extended Service Area.

Significance:

• Having a global navigation system bolsters the ability of a nation to serve as a net security provider, especially through the guarantee of such assurance policies. It can also play a significant role in relief efforts post disasters such as the tsunami in the Indian Ocean region in 2004 and the Pakistan-India earthquake in 2005.

Source: Hindu, NCRB Website

Jalan committee report

Topic: Economy

In News: Jalan panel report on surplus RBI reserves ‘finalised.’

More on the Topic:

• It was set up to review the economic capital framework of the RBI.
• According to Section 47 of the RBI Act, profits of the RBI are to be transferred to the government, after making various contingency provisions.
• The contingency provisions includes public policy mandate of the RBI, financial stability considerations etc.
• The committee proposes transfer of RBI reserves to govt in tranches over 3-5 years.
• It recommended transferring of funds from both contingency and revaluation reserves to the government.
• The panel has also sought a ‘period review’ of the RBI capital framework.
• In the past, the issue of the ideal size of RBI’s reserves was examined by three committees,V Subrahmanyam (1997) Usha Thorat (2004) and Y H Malegam (2013).
• At present RBI continue with the recommendation of the Subrahmanyam panel.The RBI board did not accept the recommendation of other committees.
• For the year ending June 2018, RBI had total reserves of Rs 9.59 lakh crore.It comprises mainly currency and gold revaluation account (Rs 6.91 lakh crore) and contingency fund (Rs 2.32 lakh crore).
• The government was seeking Rs 3.6 lakh crore from the RBI.The transfer of surplus capital may help the government meet its fiscal deficit target.

Source: Times of India

Solar Charkha Mission

Topic: Government Policies

In News: The Ministry of MSME has launched the Mission Solar Charkha for implementation of 50 Solar Charkha Clusters across the country with a budget of Rs. 550 crore for the year 2018-19 and 2019-20.

More on the Topic:

• In order to promote the production of Khadi, the Indian Government has launched a scheme called as Solar Charkha Mission under Solar Spindle Mission. The scheme supports Khadi production by offering five crore employment opportunities.
• The scheme is envisaged to generate direct employment for nearly one lakh persons. Solar Charkha units have been classified as Village Industries.
• The scheme is being implemented by Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC).

Objectives

• To create awareness about Khadi by bringing up the sales from Rs. 26,000 crores to Rs. 1 lakh crores.
• To have an eco-friendly environment.
• To revitalize the cotton industry.
• To extend self-employment in rural and urban areas.
• To make cotton generation a reliable and profitable business.

Features of the Scheme:

• An innovative way of cotton production by using solar energy thereby saving the electricity.
• Over 5 crore jobs will be given exclusively to women.
• In addition to this, the scheme provides 1,100 jobs to every panchayat.
• 20% of procurement is required by the government agencies from MSMEs.
• An investment of Rs. 40,000 crores in every Lok Sabha constituency has been proposed.
• 1 lakh women will be employed in every parliament constituency through the Social Security Scheme.

Source: PIB, Indiafillings