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Bill to allow voluntary use of Aadhaar ID introduced
It is in compliance with SC verdict, says Law Minister
Law Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Wednesday introduced a Bill in the Lok Sabha that
will provide legal backing for voluntary seeding of biometric Aadhaar ID with mobile
numbers and bank accounts after the Supreme Court barred mandatory use of the 12-
digit unique identifier by private firms.
• The RBI has appointed an eightmember expert committee headed by former SEBI chairman U.K. Sinha to comprehensively review and propose long-term solutions for revival of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSME) sector.

• Double whammy
• The MSME sector has been facing stress due to the demonetisation exercise and implementation of GST

Cabinet approves ‘The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2018’ for revision in list of Scheduled Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the introduction of a Bill namely The Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order (Amendment) Bill, 2018 in the Parliament for certain amendments in the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 so as to modify the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) of Arunachal Pradesh. The following changes will be made in list of Scheduled Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh:
1.Deletion of ‘Abor’ in serial No. 1, as it is the same as ‘Adi’ in Serial No. 16.
2.Replace Tai Khamti’ instead of ‘Khampti’ at serial No. 6.
3.Inclusion of ‘Mishmi-Kaman’ (Miju Mishmi), Idu (Mishmi) and Taraon (Digaru Mishmi) in serial No. 8.
4.Inclusion of Monpa, Memba, Sartang, Sajolong (Miji) in serial No. 9 in lieu of ‘Momba’.
5.Inclusion of ‘Nocte’, “Tangsa’, Tutsa’, ‘Wancho’ in lieu of ‘Any Naga Tribes’ in serial No. 10 in list of Scheduled Tribes of Arunachal Pradesh.

Cabinet approves firstever three way merger in Indian Banking with amalgamation of Vijaya, Dena and Bank of Baroda

▪ Bank of Baroda as the transferee bank and Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank as transferor banks.
▪ The amalgamation will be the firstever three-way consolidation of banks in India, with the amalgamated bank being India’s second largest Public Sector Bank.
▪ The scheme shall come into force on 1.4.2019.
▪ The PRC has consistently claimed sovereignty over Taiwan and asserted the ROC is no longer in legitimate existence.
▪ Under its One-China policy the PRC refuses diplomatic relations with any country that recognizes the ROC.

▪ Today, 17 countries maintain official ties with the ROC but many other states maintain unofficial ties through representative offices and institutions that function as de facto embassies and consulates
▪ The ROC was a founding member of the United Nations, and held the seat of China on the Security Council and other UN bodies until 1971, when it was expelled by Resolution 2758 and replaced in all UN organs with the PRC.
▪ Each year since 1992, the ROC has petitioned the UN for entry, but its applications have not made it past committee

▪ The island of Taiwan, formerly known as Formosa, was inhabited by aborigines before the 17th century, when Dutch and Spanish colonies opened the island to mass Han immigration. After a brief rule by the Kingdom of Tungning, the island was annexed in 1683 by the Qing dynasty, the last dynasty of China.
▪ The Qing ceded Taiwan to Japan in 1895 after the Sino-Japanese War.
▪ While Taiwan was under Japanese rule, the Republic of China (ROC) was established on the mainland in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty.
▪ Following the Japanese surrender to the Allies in 1945, the ROC took control of Taiwan.
▪ However, the resumption of the Chinese Civil War led to the ROC’s loss of the mainland to the Communists, and the flight of the ROC government to Taiwan in 1949.
▪ Although the ROC continued to claim to be the legitimate government of China, its effective jurisdiction had, since the loss of Hainan in 1950, been limited to Taiwan and several small islands, with the main island making up 99% of its de facto territory.
▪ As a founding member of the United Nations, the ROC represented China at the UN until 1971, when it lost its seat to the PRC.

Most of this loss occurred on the mountain tops of the Nilgiri, Palani and Anamalai hill ranges, which comprise more than half of the Ghat’s sholagrassland ecosystems, primarily due to the expansion of exotic trees (pine, acacia and eucalyptus). Even though no plantations were established between 2003 and 2017, Broadly, shola-grassland ecosystems in Tamil Nadu showed the highest rates of invasion
Sholas in southern western ghats. These are the tropical and sub-tropical montane forest.

Editorials

GST shortfall As the tax collections remain below target, it may be time to recalibrate expectations
▪ Between April and December, GST collections have averaged about ₹96,800 crore, and have not even once met the monthly target of ₹1,06,300 crore, going by the Union Budget math for 2018-19.
▪ Now in order to achieve the year-end target, GST collections over the next three months will have to reach an average of ₹1,34,900 crore.
▪ But given the spate of tax rate cuts announced by the GST Council in December that kick in this month and Prime Minister Narendra Modi hinting at further rationalisation of rates for construction materials soon, the pressure on revenues is likely to persist.
▪ government looks to woo traders and small businesses back to its electoral fold, the Council is considering a relaxation in the GST norms for micro, small and medium enterprises by raising the annual sales threshold for compulsory GST registration from ₹20 lakh to over ₹50 lakh.
Sabarimala temple closure after women’s entry triggers heated debate
World was about to end but priest saved humanity by doing purification rituals.
In a classic essay written in the 1990s, at the peak of the Ram Janmabhoomi movement, historian Sumit Sarkar marked the stages of the evolution of Hindu nationalism in two distinct phases:

first from the use of the word Hindu as a geographical marker to ‘Hinduism’, an attempt to codify the cultural and religious practices,
and then to Hindutva.

Swami Vivekananda was the seer of the first shift. “Of the Swami’s address before the Parliament of Religions, it may be said that when he began to speak it was of the religious ideas of the Hindus but when he ended, Hinduism had been created,” wrote Sister Nivedita, the Swami’s closest disciple. Three decades later Veer Savarkar, who invented Hindutva, did not merely seek to unify Hindus, but tried to achieve it by imagining the other as those who do not consider India their sacred land. While secular nationalism’s adversarial image was imperialism, the edge in Savarkar’s Hindutva was against Muslims and Christians. Vivekananda’s Hinduism had no enemy figure.
Any equivalence between Hinduism and Hindutva, conversely, is taken to mean that any criticism of Hindutva is an attack on Hinduism
The political rise of Hindutva has been directly proportionate to the success of its proponents’ attempts to equate itself with Hinduism.

On December 18, the Union Ministry of Power issued a seemingly anodyne memo that set the rules for the flow of electricity across South Asian borders.
the new guidelines are a startling departure from India’s previous stance.
In an atmosphere of regional intrigue and mistrust, it is a rare and recent example of political pragmatism
It is important not only because it leads South Asian electricity trade in progressive directions but is also a concession to India’s neighbours in an area of political and economic importance.

This course correction is a return to a trajectory of incremental, hardearned progress developed over the decades.
Ideas of tying South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries together with cross-border energy flows

The revision is a response to two years of intense backroom pressure from neighbours, particularly Bhutan and Nepal, to drop trade barriers put up in 2016
India has thus signalled that it is serious about working with neighbours on the issues that should undergird 21st century South Asian regionalism, such as electricity trade.
The apotheosis came in 2014 with the signing of the SAARC Framework Agreement for Energy Cooperation and the India-Nepal Power Trade Agreement in quick succession
Two years later, the union ministry of power released guidelines that imposed a slew of major restrictions on who could engage in crossborder electricity trade.
There was a strong undercurrent of defensiveness in the guidelines of 2016. They seemed to be a reaction to perceptions of increased chinese investment and influence in the energy sectors of south asian neighbours.
The guidelines prevented anyone other than indian generators in the neighbouring country, or generators owned by that country’s government, from selling power to india
Excluded were scores of privately held companies, particularly in nepal, that had hoped to trade with india
Bhutan was worried about a clause that required the exporting generation companies to be majority owned by an indian entity
Bangladesh had sensed an opportunity to partially address its power crisis with imports from bhutan and nepal routed through indian territory but the guidelines complicated this by giving india disproportionate control over such trade.
After two years of protests from neighbours, the new guidelines resolve all these issues and restore the governance of electricity trade to a less restrictive tone
India’s buyer’s monopoly in the region actually give it ultimate leverage

Tool for a greener grid

A liberal trading regime is in India’s national interest. As India transitions to a power grid dominated by renewables, regional trade could prove useful in maintaining grid stability.
Harnessing a wider pool of generation sources, particularly hydropower from the Himalayas that ramps up instantly as India turns on its lights and appliances after sunset, could be an important instrument in achieving a greener grid.
Nepal and Bhutan have long recognised that their prosperity is tied to the sustainable use of vast hydropower reserves.

It has been universally recognised that the sole justification for having nuclear weapons is their deterrence value.
If ever a nuclear bomb has to be used, it has destroyed its raison d’être.
The initiation of a nuclear attack would mean utter destruction, not just for the two parties involved but also for regions far beyond.
The Americans got away with their bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, however controversial it was, because they had a monopoly of nukes at the time.
Today, the situation is vastly different and far more dangerous. If nuclear weapons fail to deter the outbreak of war involving use of such weapons, they have disastrously failed in their deterrence mission.
Pakistan has rejected the nofirst-use policy and has in fact said that it would not rule out using nukes if it felt compelled to do so in a war.
All along the coastline
Breaking down the new Coastal Regulation Zone Notification
▪ The Cabinet has approved a significant relaxation of development controls along the coastline through the Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) Notification 2018, as part of a plan to encourage construction of buildings and launch tourism activities in areas that are closer to the high tide line
▪ a decision has been taken to permit current Floor Space Index (FSI) or Floor Area Ratio (FAR) in urban areas coming under CRZ-II — which governs the size of buildings
▪ For rural areas, the newly approved notification adds a subcategory to CRZ-III. The new provision, CRZ-III A
▪ However, for tourism expansion, the new scheme will allow temporary facilities such as shacks, toilet blocks and changing rooms, maintaining only a slim margin of 10 metres from the high tide line.
▪ States will have the authority to approve proposals for urban (CRZ-II) and rural (CRZ-III) areas.
▪ The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change will grant clearances for ecologically sensitive areas (CRZI), and areas falling between the low tide line and 12 nautical miles seaward.