UPSC 2017: Comprehensive News Analysis - December 02

A. GS1 Related
B. GS2 Related
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Deregistration of Political Party
2. Road Safety in India
HEALTH ISSUES
1. National Nutrition Mission
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS/BILATERAL RELATIONS
1. Maldives-China FTA
2. Role of Japan in India and Asia-Pacific
C. GS3 Related
ECONOMY
1. The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill
2. Relaxation in Auction Rules for Mining
D. GS4 Related
E. Prelims Fact
F. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
G. UPSC Mains Practice Questions 

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

 In news

• The Supreme Court agreed to examine whether the Election Commission of India should be empowered to de-register a political party on the ground that a convicted person has either formed it or is a crucial party office-bearer.

What does the petition say?

• The petition says “If a convicted person could be banned from contesting elections, he or she should also be debarred from heading a political party and controlling other elected members of his or her party”.
• The petition names leaders like Rashtriya Janata Dal chief Lalu Prasad, who was convicted in the fodder scam.

Background Information

•  On 10 July 2013, the Supreme Court of India, in its judgement of the Lily Thomas Union of India case ruled that any Member of Parliament(MP), Member of the Legislative Assembly (MLA) or Member of a Legislative Council (MLC) who is convicted of a crime and awarded a minimum of two year imprisonment, loses membership of the House with immediate effect.
• This is in contrast to the earlier position, wherein convicted members held on to their seats until they exhausted all judicial remedy in lower, state and supreme court of India.
• Further, Section 8(4) of the Representation of the People Act, which allowed elected representatives three months to appeal their conviction,was declared unconstitutional.

 In news

• The death of 1,50,785 people in accidents in 2016, which represents a 3.2% rise over the previous year, indicates the scale of the challenge in road safety in India.

Challenges in Road Safety

• Enforcement of rules with zero tolerance to violations is a big challenge.
• Supreme Court guidelines in a public interest case, Dr. S. Rajasekaran v. Union of India , have not produced any change in the official attitude.
• In spite of the court setting up the Committee on Road Safety and appointing an amicus curiae to help implement its recommendations, it is mostly business as usual for the police in enforcing road rules, for engineers tasked with forming roads and pavements, and transport officials in charge of licensing.
• The absence of a scientific approach to accident investigation in India remains a major factor in fixing responsibility. This was pointed out by the Sundar Committee of the Ministry of Road Transport in 2007,

Way Forward

• Governments should be called to account on these, and civil society must ensure that they act without compromise.
• The most important among these is the Road Safety Action Plan that each State and Union Territory must announce by March 2018, and roll out after giving due publicity.
• The orders of the Supreme Court provide a road map, and the direction to States to form a District Road Safety Committee headed by the Collector before January 31, 2018 should ensure that someone is accountable when citizens file complaints on hazardous conditions.
• The court-appointed Committee on Road Safety has written to States on the need to prosecute every case of driving under the influence of alcohol and drugs, seeking imprisonment and fine, and to treat driving on the wrong side of the carriageway as an offence under Section 279 of the Indian Penal Code, which can lead to imprisonment, and not merely under the Motor Vehicles Act.
• Stringent penalties have a lower chance of being imposed, compared to fines that are proportionate to the offence.

 In news

• The Union Cabinet approved the launch of National Nutrition Mission

What is National Nutrition Mission(NNM)?

• NNM aims to reduce malnutrition and low birth weight by 2% each year.
• The mission targets to bring down stunting in children. As per the National Family Health Survey, 38.4% of children in India have stunted growth. The mission plans to bring this down to 25% by 2022
• It also aims to bring down anaemia among children, women and adolescent girls by 3% every year.
• More than 10 crore people will be benefited by this programme.
• All the States and districts will be covered in a phased manner; to begin with, the worst-affected 315 districts will be targeted this financial year.
• The government has budgeted Rs. 9,046 crore for the mission for a period of three years.

Convergence of All Schemes

• The core idea behind the mission is to converge all the existing programmes on a single platform.

 In news

• Maldives signed an FTA with China recently.

What is the implication?

• This FTA is the second FTA in the Indian Ocean region after an FTA between Pakistan and China.
• The Maldives-China FTA might not do well for the Maldives economy because of the huge balance of trade that is in favor of China.
• India has maintained silence over the FTA between these two countries.

Areas of cooperation between India and Japan

• Japan and India have announced an Asia-Africa Growth Corridor, aimed at creating sea corridors linking the countries of the Indo-Pacific to Africa.
• Japan is cooperating with India in third country infrastructure projects such as Iran’s Chabahar Port, Sri Lanka’s Trincomalee port, and the possible joint development of the Dawei port along the Thai-Myanmar border.
• Japan has bagged the $17 billion contract to build India’s first high speed railway line, linking Mumbai and Ahmedabad.
• Tokyo is also investing in development projects in the Northeast and the Andaman and Nicobar islands.
• Japan-India civil nuclear energy deal has been approved by the Japanese Parliament earlier this year.
• The possibility of purchasing Japanese submarines and search-and-rescue planes to help the Indian Navy is being discussed.

India-Japan-US-Australia Quadrilateral

• A free and open Indo-Pacific is an idea being advocated by Japan in conjunction with the U.S.

Why this Quadrilateral?

• This is a response to concerns over the expansion of the Chinese navy and Beijing’s territorial claims in the South China Sea, waters through which a huge majority of Japanese energy supplies transit.
• It is against this background that Tokyo’s championing of the Quadrilateral dialogue with the U.S.,India and Australia aimed at creating a community of democratically oriented interests in the region must be understood.
• Tokyo wants to use the bilateral ties it is developing to create a multilateral architecture in the region.

 

C. GS3 Related

 In news

• Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance (FRDI) Bill of 2017 is a proposed new law for resolving financial entities’ bankruptcy

What is Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill?

• It also proposes scrapping the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation (DICGC) that guarantees repayment of all bank deposits up to Rs. 1,00,000 in case a stressed bank is liquidated.
• Instead of the DICGC, the Bill envisages a Resolution Corporation under the Finance Ministry with representatives from the stock market and banking, insurance and pension fund regulators.
• Lenders, which have to pay a premium to the DICGC for insuring deposits of up to Rs. 1 lakh, would have to pay a sum to the Resolution Corporation as per the proposed Bill.
• The Corporation shall, in consultation with the appropriate regulator, specify the total amount payable by the Corporation with respect to any one depositor, as to his deposit insured under this Act, in the same capacity and in the same right
• The Corporation will be given a year’s time to resolve problems facing firms in trouble.

 In news

 

The Centre significantly eased the mining auction rules in a bid to rekindle investor interest .

Implications of the new rules

• While 33 blocks of minerals have been successfully auctioned since May 2015, when the mineral auction rules were introduced, as many as 60 auctions have flopped for lack of interest.
• The development assumes significance as the Centre is looking to auction more than 100 blocks over the next 15 months with a potential value of about Rs. 2 lakh crore.
• States can now allocate blocks even if there are less than three bidders in the fray during the second round of auction, as opposed to the existing rule that requires the process to be annulled if there are less than three bidders in the first three rounds.
• Rigid end-use conditions on minerals excavated from a block, have been done away with. Miners can now dispose of 25% of unused low-grade ore.
• The Centre aims to spur increased interest in the upcoming auctions — 34 mineral blocks are in the pipeline for the rest of 2017-18. The new norms also have a clause to discourage miners from ‘squatting’ on mine leases.

 

D. GS4 Related

E. PRELIMS FACT

F. Practice Questions for UPSC Prelims Exam

GS Paper II

 

1. Japan is seen as a significant substitute for China and US in the region of Asia Pacific. Discuss with special reference to cooperation between India-Japan.

2. National Nutrition Mission aims to revamp the whole approach to improve the levels of Nutrition in India. How different is the new mission from the previous mechanisms to the problem of under-nutrition in India.

Also, check previous Daily News Analysis

 

 

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