Simultaneous election

Context: During recent consultations with the Law Commission of India, as many as nine parties expressed their reservations while four parties supported holding of simultaneous elections.

Why we need simultaneous elections?

• The main criticism for conducting separate elections is that it is wastage of tax payers’ money. If the elections to the local bodies are included there is no year without some elections taking place. This vicious circle of continuous elections needs to be broken. Doing away with the several separate elections every year is likely to reduce expenditure substantially.
• Secondly, it’s not only costly but also human resource intensive as conducting elections in India are one of the biggest management exercise. Simultaneous polls would free central armed forces and manpower that is deployed at regular intervals for election duty.
• Elections lead to imposition of Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in the poll bound State/area. The imposition of MCC puts on hold the entire development program and activities of the Union and State Governments affecting the normal governance. Frequent elections lead to imposition of MCC over prolonged periods of time leading to policy paralysis and governance deficit.
• Also the frequent elections force political parties to be in election mode perpetually. There is also an apparent problem of taking populist measures before elections such actions eventually hurt the socio-economic and political fabric of the country and disturbs the harmony of the society.
• The politicians waste one whole year in election speeches, and rallies. If all elections are held in one particular year, it will give a clear four years to the political parties to focus on good governance.
• Besides all these aspects there are some concerns related to normal day to day life of the people and that is,the frequent elections lead to disruption of normal public life and impact the functioning of essential services.
• Holding of political rallies disrupts road traffic and also leads to noise pollution. If simultaneous elections are held, this period of disruption would be limited to a certain pre-determined period of time.

Cons

• Critics of simultaneous elections argue that people are well adopted to the present system of elections and given the prevailing illiteracy a new measure can create confusion among the masses but this argument doesn’t hold any sense though whenever a new system comes into an existence that causes some confusion among the masses but with time masses get used to with the new system so for the short term inconvenience we can’t overlook the long term benefits and one thing should also be considered that the concept of simultaneous polls isn’t new to the country.
• Background: The first general elections to the Lok Sabha and all State Legislative Assemblies were held together in 1951-52. This practice continued in the three subsequent general elections held in 1957, 1962 and 1967. But with the premature dissolution of some State Assemblies in 1968 and 1969, this cycle was disrupted. It is noteworthy that during that time illiteracy was even more higher than what it is today.
• Critics also say state and national elections are often fought on different sets of issues — and in simultaneous elections, voters may end up privileging one set over the other in ways they might not have done otherwise. This could lead to national issues being ignored, or, conversely, local issues being swept away by a national ‘wave’.
• But this speculation also holds a little base as citizens have become quite aware and political enthusiasts, media has played crucial role in making people politically aware. Also mass awareness programmes can be run by the election commission to guide the people for the new system.
• Another speculation is that there can be unhealthy competition between the National parties and state parties which is not good for our democracy. So it depends on the nature of our politics. Unhealthy competition to some extent still exists in our country. We can’t deny from its possibility.
• What happens if a state government falls within a year of coming to power? Would the state continue to be under President’s rule for the next four years? Second, if two different parties with contradictory ideologies are at the Centre and the state, then in case of President’s rule, the Centre’s ideology could prevail in governance.

• That would mean a large section of the voters would have to do with policies that they did not vote for. Such a situation would definitely be against our democratic tradition and representative form of governance.

Conclusion

• These are some other concerns related to this issue but these can be work out with some legal moves and the ECI on its part has suggested some ways to the Parliamentary Standing Committee for the conduct of simultaneous elections.
• Thus we see that despite several speculations having simultaneous elections will be a win-win move for public treasury and effective governance as it will not only reduce cost incurred on conducting elections substantially but also lead to economic growth as on one hand the huge human resource involved in delivering election duties periodically would be released and they can give more time to their particular job or profession.
• On the other hand stable and healthy political environment will be created as the chance for politicians to involve in malpractices will get reduced as we see that separate elections keep the politicians always in election mode and thus they involved in malpractices as a part of their winning strategy and also all the parties get diverted periodically as a result governance suffered which leads to policy paralysis.

Law Commission of India

• Law Commission of India is an executive body established by an order of the Government of India.
• Its major function is to work for legal reform. Its membership primarily comprises legal experts, who are entrusted a mandate by the Government.
• The Commission is established for a fixed tenure and works as an advisory body to the Ministry of Law and Justice
• The first Law Commission was established during the British Raj era in 1834 by the Charter Act of 1833. After that, three more Commissions were established in pre-independent India. The first Law Commission of independent India was established in 1955 for a three-year term.

Formalin

 Context: Fish samples in Chennai test positive for formalin

A low-cost formalin detection kit developed by researchers of the State-run university was used to test the samples purchased by The Hindu  for ascertaining if they contained the carcinogen that is used widely as a preservative and disinfectant.

Who test for formalin content?

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) officials have been undertaking tests at fish markets and harbours across the State to test for formalin following a scare in neighbouring Kerala that fish sourced from here were chemically contaminated.

Why Formaline is used?

• Fish industry experts said formalin or formaldehyde is sprayed on the fish or injected into the fish or the fish is dipped into the solution. This helps keep the fish fresh for a longer time.
• Usually people who buy fish check the gills for freshness, if it is red it denotes freshness, when formalin is used the gills remain red for longer periods. In some cases, fishermen also apply kumkum to retain redness.

Formaline

• Formaldehyde (systematic name methanal) is a naturally occurring organic compound.
• In view of its widespread use, toxicity, and volatility, formaldehyde poses a significant danger to human health.In 2011, the US National Toxicology Program described formaldehyde as “known to be a human carcinogen”.

Effect on health

• Formalin causes irritation in the eyes, throat, skin and stomach. In the long run continued exposure causes harm to the kidneys, liver and can even cause cancers.

Currency derivatives segment

Context: The Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), the country’s largest commodity bourse in terms of market share, plans to enter the currency derivatives segment.

What is currency derivative segment?

• A currency future, also known as FX future, is a futures contract to exchange one currency for another at a specified date in the future at a price (exchange rate) that is fixed on the purchase date.
• On NSE the price of a future contract is in terms of INR per unit of other currency e.g. US Dollars. Currency future contracts allow investors to hedge against foreign exchange risk.
• Currency Derivatives are available on four currency pairs viz. US Dollars (USD), Euro (EUR), Great Britain Pound (GBP) and Japanese Yen (JPY). Cross Currency Futures & Options contracts on EUR-USD, GBP-USD and USD-JPY are also available for trading in Currency Derivatives segment.

Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd

• Multi Commodity Exchange of India Ltd is an independent commodity exchange based in India.
• It was established in 2003 and is based in Mumbai. It is India’s largest commodity derivatives exchange where the clearance and settlements of the exchange happens
• MCX offers options trading in gold and futures trading in non-ferrous metals, bullion, energy, and a number of agricultural commodities (mentha oil, cardamom, crude palm oil, cotton and others).
• From September 28, 2015, MCX is being regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). Earlier MCX was regulated by the Forward Markets Commission (FMC), which got merged with the SEBI on September 28, 2015.

BSE is the largest player in the currency segment followed by the NSE with the Metropolitan Stock Exchange of India (MSEI) having small share.

Just like the equity segment, the commodity market is dominated by two entities — MCX and the National Commodity & Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX). While MCX mostly has energy, bullion and metal contracts, NCDEX has created a niche for itself with agri-contracts.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity

Context: A study published in Nature saw Einstein’s theory of general relativity proven correct even in a massive three-star system. The experiment showed that the scientist was right about gravity even at the most extreme scales.

This research shows how routine and careful observation of distant stars can give us a high-precision test of one of the fundamental theories of physics.

What is Einstein’s theory of relativity?

Einstein’s theory of relativity indicates that all objects fall the same way regardless of mass or composition. However, some scientists have speculated that in certain conditions, such as cases of extreme gravity, the theory may no longer apply.

Observation

The researchers observed gravitational behavior in a three-star system known as PSR J0337+1715. The massive system located 4,200 light years away consists of two white dwarfs and a neutron star, an ideal example of an extreme scale.

Kepler space telescope

Context: Scientists at NASA are preparing to download the latest bit of data stored in its plant-hunting Kepler space telescope as the spacecraft is now running “very low” on fuel.

The US space agency has placed the spacecraft in a no-fuel-use safe mode to save the remaining fuel so that data extraction can be completed

Kepler space telescope

Launched in 2009, the Kepler mission is specifically designed to survey our region of the Milky Way galaxy to discover hundreds of Earth-size and smaller planets in or near the habitable zone and determine the fraction of the hundreds of billions of stars in our galaxy that might have such planets.

RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata)

Context: NASA has recently announced it would give funds to a California-based 3D printing company for finding ways to turn asteroids into giant, autonomous spacecraft, which could fly to outposts in space.

What is RAMA?

• Made In Space’s project, known as RAMA (Reconstituting Asteroids into Mechanical Automata), could one day enable space colonization by helping make off-Earth manufacturing efficient and economically viable
• The company plans to use 3D printing to turn the asteroids into self-flying vehicles by 2030. The concept received funding through NASA’s Innovative Advanced Concepts programme, which will provide $100,000 for feasibility studies.
• The Seed Craft would harvest material from the space rocks, then use this feedstock to construct propulsion, navigation, energy-storage and other key systems onsite with the aid of 3D printing and other technologies.
• Thus transformed into autonomous spacecraft, the asteroids could be programmed to fly to a mining station in Earth-moon space, or anywhere else they’re needed.
• This approach would be much more efficient than launching a new capture probe (or probes) to every single space rock targeted for resource exploitation.

Application of RAMA on earth

Project RAMA could also have applications on Earth, machines similar to Seed Craft could do a variety of jobs around the planet.build infrastructure in remote locations somewhat autonomously, and convert resources into useful devices and mechanical machines. This actually could solve some pretty big problems on Earth, from housing to construction of things that make people’s lives better.