DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS 02 JANUARY
POLITY
Assembly has its rights: Kerala Chief Minister
A Rajya Sabha member has filed a petition with the Chairman seeking to initiate breach of privileges and contempt proceedings against a Chief Minister. However, Kerala CM responded that Assembly grant special protection and it could not be violated.
About Parliamentary Privileges:
- The Constitution of India, under Articles 105 and 194, provides for powers, privileges etc. to the Parliament and the State Legislatures and their members.
- The idea behind these privileges is to protect freedom of speech and expression in the Houses and to shield from undue influence or pressure of external factors such as the media.
- These also save the members/ participants in the Legislature from judicial scrutiny w.r.t. anything said or any vote given or other proceedings in the House.
No documents need to be produced for NPR: Union Home Ministry
The Union Home Ministry clarified that no person needs to submit any documents during the house-to-house survey for updating the National Population Register.
Government clarifications:
- Information provided by the individual would be accepted and recorded accordingly.
Details sought by NPR:
- The Government has decided to update the NPR database along with House listing and Housing Census phase of Census of India 2021 during April– September 2020.
- Updating the existing NPR database by verifying the details of all residents by conducting a house-to-house enumeration by the enumerator (designated Government official).
- Collecting Aadhaar number from each resident voluntarily.
- Collecting mobile number, Election Photo Identity Cards (EPIC) or Voter ID Card number, Indian Passport number and Driving License number, if available with the residents.
- Inclusion of all new resident(s)/new household(s) found in the local area (HLB) during the fieldwork.
About NPR:
- The National Population Register (NPR) is a register of the usual residents of the country.
- Usual resident of India: Is a person who has resided in a local area for the past six months or more, or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next six months
- It contains information collected at the local (village/sub-town), sub district, district, state and national level under provisions of the Citizenship Act, 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
- The process of updating NPR will be carried out under the aegis of the Registrar General and ex-Officio Census Commissioner, India.
Swachh Bharat Mission has thrown up six guiding principles, which can be applied to any large transformation scheme
Governments have always focused on designing the right policies and development schemes. However, over the years, many such well-designed schemes failed to make a significant dent on the lack of access to basic services that a large proportion of our population faced.
There was lack of focus on implementation of policies.
Journey of Swachh Bharat Abhiyan has thrown up six important guiding principles, which can be applied to any large transformation scheme — the ABCEDF of implementation.
Align:
- Goal congruence has to be achieved across the administrative ecosystem.
- The Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation ensured that the same message percolated down to the chief ministers, 700 district collectors and 2,50,000 sarpanches.
- Team SBM-Grameen visited each state multiple times and engaged directly with district collectors through learning workshops, informal gatherings and WhatsApp groups, ensuring that sanitation remained on top of everyone’s agenda.
Believe:
- Building a team of people who believed that the goal is achievable.
- The SBM brought in a unique blend of young professionals and experienced but driven bureaucrats, at the centre and in the states and each person quickly became a believer.
Communication:
- An army of trained grassroots volunteers called Swachagrahis were created, who went from door to door to communicate the message of swachhata.
- SBM attempted to make sanitation glamorous by engaging extensively with the media, leveraging popular culture, and associating Bollywood stars, sportspersons and other influencers to promote the message of sanitation.
- The PM was our Communicator-in-Chief.
Democratise:
- It nudged people to realise that sanitation is not an individual good, but a community good, as its full benefits accrue only when it is universal.
- People constructed their own toilets and motivated others, communities planned activities and monitored progress, villages declared themselves open defecation free (ODF).
Evaluate:
- Organisations such as the World Bank, UNICEF, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and WHO conducted various assessments of sanitation coverage and usage, successes and areas of improvement, as well as the health, economic and social impacts of the SBM.
- Lessons from these studies were incorporated into the programme in real-time.
Follow-through:
- There is a strong focus on not declaring, “mission accomplished” and continuing to work towards sustaining the ODF behaviour and ensuring that no one is left behind.
- released a forward-looking 10-year sanitation strategy, articulating the goal of moving from ODF to ODF Plus.
- It is to ensure that the change becomes the norm and that things do not reset to what they used to be in the past.
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
Protesters end siege of U.S. Embassy in Baghdad
Pro-Iran demonstrators left the besieged U.S. Embassy in Baghdad after the Hashed al-Shaabi paramilitary force ordered them to withdraw a day after their dramatic incursion.
Details of the event:
- Thousands of Iraqi supporters of the largely Iranian-trained Hashed had encircled and vandalised the Embassy compound.
- They were outraged by U.S. air strikes that killed 25 Hashed fighters over the weekend.
- Iraq’s caretaker Premier Adel Abdel Mahdi called on the angry crowd to leave the Embassy but most spent the night in dozens of tents set up outside the perimeter wall.
- Security personnel inside responded with tear gas, wounding at least 20 people.
- The Hashed called on its supporters to leave the Embassy and regroup outside the Green Zone “out of respect for the state”.
Demand of the Protestors:
- Revoke the legal cover for 5,200 U.S. troops to deploy in Iraq.
Reasons behind the protest:
- It was due to spiralling tensions between the U.S. and Iran since Washington abandoned a landmark nuclear deal with Tehran in 2018.
SCIENCE
Gaganyaan, Chandrayaan-3 in mission mode, says ISRO
Preparation of Gaganyaan:
- Four pilots from the Indian Air Force (IAF) will be trained as astronauts in Russia for Gaganyaan.
- Gaganyaan is the ₹10,000-crore Indian human space flight scheduled for 2022.
- It is designed to have 3-7 crew members spend 3-7 days in space in a 400-km orbit.
- The first of the two pre-Gaganyaan flights with a humanoid will be launched this year-end.
Preparation for Chandrayaan-3:
- It will be of 600 crore mission.
- It will be almost a repetition of the July 2019 Chandrayaan-2 mission in the configuration of spacecraft, the landing spot on the moon and the experiments to be conducted on the lunar surface.
- The third mission will be ISRO has bid to realise for itself the difficult technology of soft-landing on another planetary body.
- Landing module of the second mission crashed barely five minutes before it was to have landed on the lunar surface.
- The Chandrayaan-3 lander and rover are estimated at ₹250 crore and will go to moon on a propulsion model.
Second Launch Port:
- The Tamil Nadu government has started acquiring 2,300 acres of land in Thoothukudi district for ISRO’s second launch port.
- Currently satellites are launched from the Sriharikota launch centre in Andhra Pradesh.
- The new port will handle mainly the small satellite launch vehicle (SSLV) that is under development.
- SSLVs are meant to put a payload of up to 500 kg in space.
Satcom technology being used for learning
Rajasthan has started using satellite communication technology in a big way to enhance the learning outcome in educational institutions and generate awareness about social welfare schemes.
SatCom Technology:
- The Science & Technology Department has taken an initiative to provide the facility of receive only terminals (ROT) and satellite interactive terminals (SIT) for getting the services of subject experts in the government schools and colleges and propagate various schemes in the remote areas with no internet connectivity.
- Satellite communication, in telecommunications, the use of artificial satellites to provide communication links between various points on Earth. Satellite communications play a vital role in the global telecommunications system. Approximately 2,000 artificial satellites orbiting Earth relay analog and digital signals carrying voice, video, and data to and from one or many locations worldwide.
About the Initiative:
- The technique would be used during the first phase in approximately 2,000 institutions coming under various departments, such as education, higher education, social welfare, minority welfare, woman and child development and tribal area development.
- The students studying English and science subjects in the government educational institutions will get services of subject experts through ROT and SIT.
- The state government is hoping that the level of English and science subjects would be increased among students of Class VI to XII .
- The institutions with the shortage of teachers will especially benefit from the geostationary satellite uplinking facilities.
- Under the initiative, people going for Haj pilgrimage, who were earlier required to come to Jaipur for training, would be trained at the district level .
- The special focus of the initiative will be laid on the five aspirational districts selected by NITI Aayog — Karauli, Dholpur, Baran, Jaisalmer and Sirohi.
- Along with this, the eight community radio stations run by the S&T Department would publicise education-related schemes in these districts.
SECURITY
Peace on Line of Actual Control can help solve India-China border issue: Army chief
Maintaining peace and tranquillity on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) with China can set the stage for an eventual solution to the border issue.
Army Chief’s comment:
- We have made a progress in maintaining peace and tranquillity along the borders.
- The border question is yet to be settled.
- India and China have different perceptions on the over 3,400 km-long border and have held several rounds of Special Representative talks in an attempt to resolve it.
Guidelines to army:
- The Indian Army should be ever ready for any challenge and be operationally prepared at all times. This could happen only through modernisation.
- The Army should continue to build up its capabilities, especially in the north and northeastern regions considering the twin threat perception from Pakistan and China.
- Army is now going in for capability enhancement on our northern borders, which includes the northeast parts.
- There should be emphasis on improving the security awareness among the rank and file with special attention to the issue of human rights.
Situation not good enough to repeal AFSPA: Manipur CM
Manipur Chief Minister N. Biren Singh has said the law and order situation in the State has improved in recent years, but it is still not conducive to repeal the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
Statement of Manipur CM:
- Insurgency-related violence has decreased in the State during the last three years.
- We need to wait for a better situation so that the AFSPA can be repealed.
- It was imposed in Manipur in 1980 when the State was a hotbed of insurgency.
- Total of 233 insurgency-linked incidents were reported in 2016, which came down to 167 in 2017 and 127 in 2018.
About AFSPA:
- It allows armed force personnel to search, seizure or arrest of anyone or any premise without a warrant.
- No inquiry against the members of armed forces for violation of human rights without the permission of central govt.
- Gathering of more than 5 people can be dispersed by armed forces using the force. (peaceful or violent: non-mention of it).
- People residing in the Afspa enacted areas need the permission of central govt in order to approach SC for constitutional remedies under art 32.
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