Table of Contents
ANS
- Paramount Group
- Sinosoar-Etechwin Joint Venture
- Amazon
- Italy
- Pravind Kumar Jugnauth
Q.) According to a study by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), which city recorded the least winter pollution spike in 2020 over 2019?
- Mysuru
- Visakhapatnam
- Indore
- Kochi
Q.) Name the first country to receive coronavirus vaccine under COVAX initiative
- Moldova
- Sudan
- Ghana
- Kyrgyzstan
Q.) In 2008, the constitution of Myanmar was amended to create 25% reservation for?
- LGBTQ+
- Speciall Abled
- Military
- Tribal
Q. ) Who is the new Chairman of National Commission for Scheduled Castes?
- Satyanarayan Jatiya
- Balwant Singh Ramoowalia
- Thawa Chand Gehlot
- Vijay Sampla
Q. ) Education was shifted from State Subject to Concurrent List in which year?
- 1958
- 1963
- 1976
- 1984
Vaccine inequities
- To vaccinate people older than 60 years and those above 45 years with comorbidities – from 1st March – 20,000 private hospitals will be on board
- Target is 270 million people
- At 13 million at the end of six weeks since the vaccination programme began, only a little over a third of health-care and frontline workers have been covered.
- The hesitancy to available vaccines among health-care workers, who are one of the most informed and also at greater risk of infection, cannot be overlooked.
- Crucial to increasing vaccine uptake in private hospitals will be the cost of vaccination, especially when it is available for free at government sites.
- Make it easy, make it available.
- One in three adults in India has hypertension but only about half are even aware of it.
- It is one in 10 in the case of diabetes; awareness is about 50%.
- The trend is the same for a few other diseases that make a person eligible for a vaccine.
- That less than 10% of people have opted for Covaxin nationally is proof that vaccine uptake is directly related to availability of trial data.
The absurdity of the anti-defection law
- The absurdity of the anti-defection law
- In what has now become the standard operating procedure, several MLAs from the treasury benches resigned, lowering the numbers required for a no-confidence motion to succeed.
- This formula has been seen recently in other States such as Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.
- The anti-defection law was included in the Constitution as the Tenth Schedule in 1985 to combat the “evil of political defections”.
- The main purpose was to preserve the stability of governments and insulate them from defections of legislators from the treasury benches.
- The law stated that any Member of Parliament (MP) or that of a State legislature (MLA) would be disqualified from their office if they voted on any motion contrary to the directions issued by their party.
- The provision was not limited to confidence motions or money bills (which are quasi-confidence motions).
- It applies to all votes in the House, on every Bill and every other issue.
- It even applies to the Rajya Sabha and Legislative Councils, which have no say in the stability of the government.
- Therefore, an MP (or MLA) has absolutely no freedom to vote their judgement on any issue.
- They have to blindly follow the direction of the party.
- This provision goes against the concept of representative democracy.
- MPs/MLAs are agents of the voters and are expected to vote according to the wishes and for the benefits of their constituents.
- The other is that their duty to their constituents is to exercise their judgement on various issues towards the broader public interest.
- For example, in the recent vote on the impeachment of former U.S. President Donald Trump, seven members from his party in the U.S. Senate, the Republicans, voted to convict him.
- Such a decision does not have any legal repercussion. Of course, the party may take action (it did not).
- In India, this chain of accountability has been broken by making legislators accountable primarily to the party.
- This means that anyone from the party having a majority in the legislature — which is, by definition, the party forming the government — is unable to hold the government to account.
- While introducing the draft Constitution, Dr. B.R. Ambedkar outlined the differences between the presidential and parliamentary forms of government.
- He said that the presidential form (such as in the United States) had higher stability but lower accountability as the President is elected for four years, and cannot be removed except for proven misdemeanour.
- In the parliamentary form, the government is accountable on a daily basis through questions and motions, and can be removed any time it loses the support of the majority of members of the Lok Sabha.
- The drafting committee believed that India needed a government that was accountable, even at the cost of stability.
- What is more, it does not even provide stability.
- The political system has found ways to topple governments.
- To sum up, the anti-defection law has been detrimental to the functioning of our legislatures as deliberative bodies which hold the executive to account on behalf of citizens.
News is different, treat it differently | ET
- New rules on regulating
- Digital News portals
- Social media
- Streaming entertainment services
- ……….have one fundamental flaw
- they put news in the same regulatory basket as the other two
- This is not just illogical, because news is completely and self-evidently different.
- It also potentially casts a huge shadow on media freedom.
- Digital news media is now under the Information Technology Act, which is plain wrong.
- Grievance redressal mechanisms are similar for news portals and sites that host user-generated content, which is again just wrong.
- An oversight authority manned by government officials will be at the apex of the regulatory pyramid, under it will be a self-regulation body headed by a retired judge.
- The oversight body will draft a code and it will have suo motu powers to call for hearings.
- To apply this to digital news portals is to change the very notion of press freedom as commonly understood.
- The notice says Press Council of India rules should be followed by digital news media.
- A detailed consultation with stakeholders is a must before rules are finalised on news.
- Regulation should not kill that new spirit.
- India is a creative fertile ground now for streaming entertainment services.
- On streaming services, there are genuine worries whether the oversight authority comprising bureaucrats will have sufficient tolerance for creative content that is edgy, and also whether it will be biased in favour of ruling party sensitivities.
- More compliance requirements from the hitherto unregulated social media is welcome.
- Social media can’t host all manner of dodgy content and then say it has no responsibility.
Social security for economic resilience | ET
- Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry: Shaktikanta Das expressed confidence that the economy is poised for a take-off, and that the central bank would support the recovery process, while maintaining financial stability.
- He touched upon many sectors of the economy, apart from some macroeconomic concerns.
- What did not receive the attention it deserved was a social safety net.
- What the pandemic has revealed is that resilience of the economy depends not just on financial stability, macroeconomic management and corporate flexibility but also on a functional social safety net, besides effective healthcare.
- The lockdown had crippled the livelihoods of daily wage earners, and, in the absence of any institutional arrangements for their food and the shelter they were no longer able to pay for, the migrants were forced to go back home to their natal villages, to take refuge in farm work, rife with elastic underemployment, and the traditional obligations of kin.
- The government planned and executed free food distribution in villages, as well as enlarged rural employment schemes, to offer some relief.
- But, in urban areas, but for voluntary help from some religious and civil service organisations, there was little succour for those whose livelihoods were taken away by the pandemic.
- Designing some form of institutional relief that would automatically kick in, in times of stress, is a vital challenge that has to be taken up.
- No economy can become resilient with creaky health infrastructure, a sector that did receive Das’ attention.
- This, too, must be built new from ground up, with new emphasis on data management and sophisticated testing, including gene sequencing.
NEWS
- PM Modi to address Tamil Nadu Dr. M.G.R. Medical University’s convocation today
- PM to inaugurate 2nd Khelo India National Winter Games at 11:50 AM today
- President’s Rule imposed in Puducherry following collapse of Congress-led govt
- Retirement age of Tamil Nadu govt employees raised to 60 years
- WHO thanks India and PM Modi for sharing Covid-19 vaccine worldwide
- IWAI inks pact with MOL for transportation of LPG through inland waterways
- India, Ireland hold consultations on UN Security Council issues
- Central govt putting in due diligence in developing bamboo sector: Agriculture Minister
- Nearly 95.81 lakh farmers benefitted from ongoing Kharif Marketing Season procurement operations
- PM Modi to inaugurate India Toy Fair 2021 tomorrow
- FATF decides to keep Pakistan on its Grey List till June this year
- Australia passes law aimed at making Google and Facebook pay for news content on their platforms
- Global rating agency Moody’s ups India’s growth projection for FY22 to 13.7 per cent from 10.8 per cent estimated earlier
- Sri Lankan media report causes fluster saying, 99 year lease of Hambantota port is extendable
- Covid vaccination crosses 28 lakh in Bangladesh
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