Comprehensive News Analysis - 31 August 2016

A. GS1 Related

Category: social issues

Topic: social-security

Key Points:

• The Left-affiliated central trade unions planned to go ahead with the one-day nationwide strike on Friday, even after announcement of sops in a bid to placate the unions, by Centre on Tuesday
• Offering includes a hike in the minimum wage for unskilled non-agricultural workers in central PSU’s from Rs. 246 to Rs. 350 a day and formation of a committee to look into extending benefits under the Employees’ State Insurance Corporation Act to unorganized sectors, including anganwadi, mid-day meal workers  and Asha volunteers.
• The RSS-affiliated Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh sees it as a “historic victory for labours” and decided not to participate in the decided strike, while the others were dissatisfied and refused to drop the strike plan. The Finance Ministry also issued notification on higher bonus to government employees for 2014-15 and 2015-16.

Category: Indian society

Topic: Secularism, Regionalism related issues

Key Points:

• Incidents of rioting remained almost the same in 2015 compared to previous year, but as communal riots decreased, big increases were seen in other categories of riots– agrarian riots, sectarian riots, student riots and caste conflicts, states the data from the “Crime in India” report for 2015 released by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) on Tuesday show.
• Recorded incidents of agrarian riots saw a 327 per cent increase from 628 in 2014 to 2683 in 2015.
• The number of people arrested also increased nearly three fold from 3540 to 10353. Sectarian riots — defined as violence between different sects of the same religion not considering caste conflict — showed a 2,700 and 9,000 per cent jump in incidents and convictions from a low base in 2014 (31 and 71 in 2014) to 884 and 6,642 in 2015. Much of these incidents occurred in U.P (Uttar Pradesh)
• The decrease in communal riots incidents recorded by NCRB — from 1,227 in 2014 to 789 in 2015 — however does not match with data released by the Ministry of Home Affairs in response to a parliamentary question in July 2016. Ministry data showed a slight increase from 644 incidents in 2014 to 751 in 2015.

B. GS2 Related

Category: Governance & Administration

Topic: Federal structure of governance & taxation

Key Points:

• Telangana Legislature, in a special convened session , unanimously ratified the Constitutional Amendment Bill pertaining to GST.
• Chief Minister and leader of the floor K. Chandrasekhar Rao moved the resolution for the Bill (GST) which proposes unified tax system in the whole country by merging 17 Central and State taxes. Mr. Rao also said the Bill, will benefit the State by devolving 15 per cent share of service tax revenue to the State
• Rao also mentioned, ”clarity will evolve only when the GST Council is formed and tax slabs are determined, Mr. Rao said, and promised that either way, the Centre will compensate for the losses suffered by States for the next five years.
• In upper house, Deputy Chief Minister Kadiyam Srihari introduced the Bill in the House with the permission of the Chairman and said the Bill passed by both the Houses of Parliament was sent to the States for ratification by their legislatures. Members of all political parties including the Congress, BJP and MIM who spoke on the Bill, extended their support

Category: Governance

Topic: schemes & programs

Key Points:

• Aimed at sanitising six cities of the NCR Delhi, the Ministry of Urban Development is coming up with a new campaign named ‘Asli Tarakki’ (real development), which will be replicated in other States if it succeeds in NCR. About 450 young men and women with “communication skills and leadership qualities” have been selected as “lead motivators” to spread awareness on Govt’s flagship Swachh Bharat Mission.
• An MoU was signed by the Nehru Yuvak Kendra (NYK) in the presence of Minister of Urban Development Venkaiah Naidu. “As per the MoU, NYK will deploy 50 enthusiastic and motivated youth experienced in public speaking for 52 days in each of the five municipal areas of Delhi [New Delhi, North Delhi, East Delhi, South Delhi and Delhi Cantonment], for a mass awareness movement for successful implementation of the Swachh Bharat Mission,” the Ministry spokesperson said .

C. GS3 Related

Category: Internal security

Topic: Terrorism & Organized crime

Key Points:

• The U.S. backed India on its demand that Pakistan should act against terrorists operating from its soil, with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry asserting that his country “stands in strong partnership with India” against all sorts of terrorism.
• Terrorism, that emanating from Pakistan, figured prominently in talks between Mr. Kerry and External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj, who briefed him on the “continuing problem of cross-border terrorism that India and the other countries of the region facing from Pakistan”..
• At a press conference after the Second Indo-U.S. Strategic and Commercial Dialogue, Ms. Swaraj said: “We reaffirmed the urgent necessity for Pakistan to dismantle safe havens for terrorists and criminal networks including Lashkar-e-Taiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and D Company.
• “Secretary Kerry also agreed on the need for Pakistan to do more to bring the perpetrators of the 2008 Mumbai and the 2016 Pathankot terrorist attacks to justice quickly.”
• Swaraj said they agreed that nations must not maintain double standards, and categorise as good and bad terrorists, nor must they act as safe haven for terrorist organizations
• Kerry said, “I made it very clear that United States stands in strong partnership with India against all terrorism. & reiterated, there is no good terrorists, bad terrorists. Terrorism is terrorism. “We stand fully behind the Indian demand that there be justice with respect to the Mumbai attacks.

D. GS4 Related

E. Important Editorials: A Quick Glance

Category: Internal relations

Topic: International &regional organisation

Key Points:

• signing of the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) during Defence Minister ’s visit to Washington is a significant step  for both India and the U.S. The agreement, which comes after more than ten years  of negotiations, puts an automatic approvals process  for the militaries of both countries to share each other’s bases for various operations. These include port visits, joint training, joint exercise, and disaster relief efforts and humanitarian assistance; other  area’s  of cooperation to be discussed on a case-by-case basis.
• This will benefit from easier access to America’s network of military bases through out the world. The pact will also enhance the capability of both partners in military & other partenerships,  at a time when Indian interests are distributed in the world. The U.S., too, has required the help of India and its resources, as it did when emergency planes were landed and refueled in Delhi during the Nepal earthquake relief operation. As India and the U.S. explore plans for maritime cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region LEMOA is going to add value to this
• LEMOA is also has its own limitations, however, as is evident from the fact that it took so many years to agree and take concrete shape. Even after the Centre had cleared it as “foundational agreement”, A major reason for this was that although India embarked on closer defence ties with the U.S. since last year, there was no consensus or support within the establishment for an alliance of any kind, which the LEMOA had  symbolise in future
• Parrikar pointed out during his joint appearance with U.S. Defence Secretary, the finally negotiated text has nothing to do with setting up U.S. bases in India, and there is no “obligation” on either side to carry out any joint activity he also mentioned a need to explain to the people the importance of the agreement by bringing it into the public domain before the government considers discussions on the other issues in foundational agreements

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn:

• Minimum wage
• NCRB
• LEMOA
• Swacch Bharat campaign
• GST Bill

H. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

Question 1: Minimum wages act enacted in india in which year?

Question 2: Recently NCRB reported that there was rise in which type of the riots?

Question 3: Consider the following statements,

Question 4: which of the following program started by government under swacch bharat mission to spread awareness in NCR?

Question 5: LEMOA is agreement between which of the following pair of countries?

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