(General Awareness For Bank's Exams) National Events
June- 2014

Super city

• In line with the principles of sustainable development advocated in the Medellin Declaration, Gravity 2.0 Research Foundation recommended that a capital city region be considered rather than a single urban agglomeration for the location of a new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh post bifurcation.

•  In a representation submitted to the Expert Committee on identification of location of new capital for the State of Andhra Pradesh , the Gravity 2.0 Research Foundation, suggested that the new capital be located in the Visakhapatnam-Rajahmundry-Vijayawada ‘Super City’ ensuring inclusive growth.

•  They also suggested that coastal shipping be promoted and the National Waterway 4 be extended to Visakhapatnam.

Mining ban issue

•  The Meghalaya Government has constituted a one-man Committee to guide the State Government prepare the compliance report to be submitted to the National Green Tribunal (NGT) on rat-hole mining ban in Meghalaya.

•  The Committee would be headed by additional chief secretary KS Kropha and the report and other points would be prepared before the NGT holds its next hearing in New Delhi on May 19.

•  The Tribunal, on April 17, in its interim order banned rat-hole mining and transportation of coal in Meghalaya in the interest of people working in the mines as well as for protection of the environment.

•  The order was passed after the Assam-based All Dimasa Student’s Union and DimaHasao District Committee filed a petition stating that the illegal rat-hole mining in Jaintia Hills is polluting Kopiliriver by turning its water acidic. They also placed before the Tribunal two survey reports of 2006 and 2010 in which pH level of the water in Kopiliriver showed considerable difference.

Constitutional validity of RTE Act

• The Supreme Court has upheld the constitutional validity of Articles 15(5) and 21-A of the Constitution in so far as it relates to unaided educational institutions to provide compulsory education for children in the age group of 6 to 14 years.

•  A five-judge Constitution Bench comprising Chief Justice R.M. Lodha and Justices A.K. Patnaik, DipakMisra, S.J. Mukhopadhaya and Ibrahim Kalifulla also upheld the provisions of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act, 2009, and the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Rules, 2010.

•  The Constitution 93rd Amendment Act, 2005, inserting clause (5) in Article 15 enables the State to make special provisions for members of the SCs, STs and socially and educationally backward classes, for admission to all educational institutions, including private unaided institutions, but except minority institutions. The right to education law was enacted by Parliament in 2009 by inserting Article 21A to provide free and compulsory education to children between 6 and 14 years.

•  It imposed obligations on the schools, which included privately-managed unaided educational institutions to admit at least 25% students from weaker sections. A three-judge Bench upheld the constitutional validity of this Act by a majority of 2:1. On a reference that the matter ought to have been decided by a Constitution Bench, it was heard by a five-judge Bench.

•  Writing the judgment, Justice Patnaik, however, said the minority unaided educational institutions could not be compelled to provide free and compulsory education to children belonging to weaker sections. To this extent the Bench overruled the three judges’ decision upholding the RTE law.

•  The Bench held that the 93rd Constitution Amendment inserting clause 5 in Article 15 to provide for reservation to weaker sections in admission to unaided private educational institutions did not violate the basic structure of the Constitution.

INS Vikrant’s another lifeline

• India’s first aircraft carrier INS Vikrant, which was headed for the scrap yard, got another breather from the Supreme Court as it blocked the vessel’s journey to ignominy.

•  The ship was due at the scrapyard on May 17 after it was sold for Rs.60 crore through an e-auction to the Mumbai-based IB Commercials Pvt Ltd.

•  Through the ‘Save Vikrant Committee’, Mr. Paigankar and other activists last month moved the apex court in a bid to save the vessel which saw action in the 1971 India-Pakistan war.

•  The imposing vessel, commissioned in the Indian Navy in 1961, was decommissioned in 1997 and has been kept anchored at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai.

•  During the hearing of Mr. Paigankar’s public interest litigation in January, the Central government informed the Bombay High Court that the 15,000-tonne ship had completed its operational life.

•  The Maharashtra government expressed its inability to preserve it as a floating museum owing to financial constraints, following which the Bombay High Court dismissed Mr. Paigankar’s PIL.

•  The 70-year-old vessel, purchased as HMS Hercules from Britain in 1957 and rechristened as ‘INS Vikrant’, helped enforce a naval blockade of East Pakistan — now Bangladesh — during the 1971 war.

Mother tongue in primary schools

• The Supreme Court recently held that the government cannot impose mother tongue on linguistic minority for imparting primary education.

•  The bench, also comprising justices A.K. Patnaik, S.J. Mukhopadhaya, DipakMisra and F.M. Ibrahim Kalifulla, was hearing the issue which had come before the apex court as two Karnataka government orders of 1994 making mother tongue or regional language compulsory for imparting education from class I to IV, had come under challenge.

•  In July 2013, a two-judge bench of the apex court had said its Constitution Bench will examine whether government can impose mother tongue or regional language as the medium of instruction at the primary education stage as it has a far-reaching significance on the development of children.

•  The court, which was of the opinion that it was a fit case for consideration by a larger bench, had said that the issue involved in this case concerns the fundamental rights of not only the present generation but also the generations yet to be born.

•  It had said that the issue had to be referred to a larger bench as a two-judge bench of the court in 1993 had refused to interfere with a Karnataka government order specifying mother tongue Kannada as the medium of instruction at the primary school level and making it mandatory for every child.

Saradha chit fund scam

•  In a setback for the West Bengal government, the Supreme court has handed over investigation into Saradha chit fund scam to the CBI.

• The court also asked the CBI to investigate ponzi scheme scams in Odisha, Assam and Tripura.

•  The West Bengal government, all through the hearing of the matter, had strongly resisted the plea for handing over the investigation to the CBI.

•  The apex court asked the West Bengal government to hand over all Saradha chit fund scam cases to CBI.

•  It also said that the CBI will investigate all cases against 44 chit fund companies in Odisha.

•  The SC said the state police have not yet been able to trace the money trails that clearly had an inter-state as well as possible international links.

•  The SC also asked the Enforcement Directorate to join CBI in finding the money trail. The ED is already conducting a probe into the scam.

•  The apex court said it wanted the chit fund scam in these states to be probed by an independent agency like CBI because of involvement of politicians and influential persons in the cases.

•  Saradha Group chairman SudiptaSen was arrested from Sonmarg in Kashmir on April 23,2013 along with two close associates.

Paid news scandal

• The Election Commission has asked the former Maharashtra Chief Minister Ashok Chavan and the former Jharkhand Chief Minister, MadhuKoda, to appear before it on May 23 for allegedly giving incorrect accounts of their 2009 poll expenses.

•  It is an ongoing case of alleged expenses made by him during the 2009 polls which were categorised as “paid news”. Mr. Chavan and Mr. Koda have been asked to attend the hearing here on May 23 “either in person or through their authorised representative or counsel.

•  The poll panel’s action comes a week after the Supreme Court gave it a free hand to inquire into complaints of paid news or incorrect expenses against a political leader. A Bench headed by Justice A.K. Patnaik had dismissed the plea of Mr. Chavan challenging the EC’s jurisdiction to inquire into such issues.

Indian Universities in Asia’s top 300

•  Seventeen Indian universities have made it to the Asia Pacific rankings of ranking agency Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) this year compared to 11 last year. Ranking agency QS released the rankings, which include Asia's top 300 universities, in association with non-profit organisation The Indian Centre for Assessment & Accreditation (ICAA) in New Delhi.

•  Six Indian institutes have made an entry to the list. Banaras Hindu University, Panjab University, Manipal University, Amity University, Birla Institute of Technology and Science, and the Indian Institute of Information Technology made it to the Asia rankings for the first time this year.

•  As in the previous editions of the rankings, the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) led the way. IIT Delhi held on to its 38th position like last year, ahead of IIT Bombay which was placed at 41. Five other IITs featured in the top 100, led by Kanpur and Madras just outside the top 50 at 52 and 53, respectively.

Whistle-blowers Bill

•  President Pranab Mukherjee has given assent to the Whistleblowers Protection Bill, 2011, which was passed by the RajyaSabha in February.

•  The law provides for an institutionalised mechanism to protect, and thus encourage, those who disclose information on corrupt practices or abuse of power by government officials.

•  The Bill was first passed by the LokSabha in 2011. The law makes a provision for inquiry into the disclosures and also prescribes punitive measures to curb frivolous complaints. According to the Centre, it supplements the Right to Information Act in fighting corruption.

•  In 2004, the government introduced a resolution to empower the Central Vigilance Commission for protecting whistle-blowers.

Entitlements in live-in relationships

• Women in live-in relationships and partners are entitled to payment of maintenance by their male partners since the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, 2005, recognises such relationships, according to the Madras High Court Bench.

•  The purpose of enacting such a law [the Domestic Violence Act] would only make way for maintenance not only to a legally wedded wife but also to a second wife or concubine.”

•  The judge made the observation, disposing of a writ petition filed by the estranged wife of a former Chief Educational Officer (since dead) against payment of family pension to his illegal second “wife” with whom he had lived for 47 years without obtaining divorce from the petitioner.

•  Though the case was filed to restrain the officials concerned from disbursing the pension to the second “wife” nominated by the deceased government servant, the two women entered into a compromise midway and informed the court that they wanted to share the monthly pension equally.

Modi’s win

•  NarendraModi trounced his Congress rival MadhusudanMistry by a staggering 5,70,128 votes in Vadodara but failed to break the record of highest margin of victory set by Anil Basu of the CPI(M).

•  The BJP’s prime ministerial candidate’s margin of victory in his first outing in the LokSabha polls is the second best after Mr. Basu, a seven-time MP, who scripted history winning the Arambagh seat in West Bengal by 5,92,502 votes, 22,374 more than Mr. Modi, in 2004.

•  The earlier record was held by LJP chief RamvilasPaswan, who as a Janata Dal candidate, had won the Hajipur seat in Bihar by a whopping 5,04,448 votes in 1989.

•  Mr. Paswan, whose party is now in the NDA, had then broken his own record set in 1977 when he had won the seat as BhartiyaLok Dal nominee by a margin of 4,24,545 votes.

•  After Mr. Paswan in 1989 and Mr. Basu in 2004, Modi is the third politician to have won a seat by a margin of over 5 lakh votes.

Landslide win for BJP

•  Although final results are not expected until later, the scale of the predicted victory is such that the ruling Congress party has admitted defeat.

•  BJP leader NarendraModi tweeted: "India has won. Good times ahead."

•  This is the most resounding victory for a political party in India for 30 years.

•  But many Indians still have profound concerns over MrModi because of claims he did little to stop the 2002 communal riots in Gujarat, in which at least 1,000 people died, most of them Muslims - allegations he has always denied and over which he was never charged.

•  The election result will be a crushing blow to the Congress party, which is led by the Nehru-Gandhi family and has dominated Indian politics since independence.

•  It reflects voter anger with Congress, which has been mired in serious corruption scandals andwhose leadership has been considered ineffective in recent years, according to analysts.

60 lakh NOTA votes

• Over 60 lakh None Of The Above (NOTA) votes were cast in the 16th LokSabha elections, the first time that this option was given, according to the Election Commission data. This accounts for 1.1 per cent of all the votes cast. The disproportionately high use of NOTA in reserved constituencies continues, a trend first identified by The Hindu after the 2013 Assembly elections.

•  The high use of NOTA in reserved constituencies could be on account of upper caste candidates preferring to vote for no one to voting for a Dalit or tribal candidate.

•  On average, over 10,000 votes were cast in every constituency. In 46 constituencies, over 20,000 NOTA votes were cast. All but one of the ten constituencies in which the most NOTA votes were cast were reserved constituencies, eight of them for the Scheduled Tribes (STs) and one for the Scheduled Castes (SCs).

•  The proportion of the negative votes was higher than the national average in Chhattisgarh (1.9 per cent), Gujarat (1.8 per cent), Jharkhand (1.5 per cent), with the highest of all in the two STconstituencies in Meghalaya. The number of NOTA votes was the highest of all in the SC constituency of Nilgiris in Tamil Nadu (over 46,000 votes), where the margin of victory between the AIADMK candidate and the DMK’s A Raja was over 1 lakh votes. In the Nilgiris, NOTA got more votes than the Congress candidate.

15th LokSabha dissolved

•  The formal process for constitution of the new LokSabha commenced with the full Election Commission handing over the list of members of the 16th LokSabha to President Pranab Mukherjee. The President also dissolved the 15th LokSabha.

•  The full Commission comprising Chief Election Commissioner V.S. Sampath and Election Commissioners H.S. Brahma and NasimZaidi approved the Section 73 notification under the Representation of the People Act, 1951, notifying the names of the members elected.

•  In the 2009 LokSabha polls, the “due constitution” list was handed over to President PratibhaPatil on May 18, two days after the counting of votes.

•  This election, which has given a clear majority to a single party for the first time in three decades, would go down as one of the most intensely fought in the electoral history of Independent India. In 1977 and 1989, it was a case of the Congress vs. the rest of the political opposition. This time it was NarendraModi vs. the Congress and the rest of the divided opposition.
  16th LokSabha: rich in monetary value as well as criminal charges

•  The 16th LokSabha will have the highest number of MPs with criminal cases against them. According to the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which analysed the election affidavits filed before the Election Commission, 34 per cent of the new MPs face criminal charges. The percentage in 2009 and 2004 stood at 30 and 24 respectively.

•  RashtriyaJanata Dal leads the table with all its four MPs facing criminal charges, followed by the Shiv Sena (15 of 18 MPs) and the Nationalist Congress Party (4 of 5 MPs). Over a third of the BJP’s new MPs are facing criminal charges and over a fifth face serious criminal charges. For the Congress, the proportion is lower at 18 per cent and 7 per cent respectively.

•  Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar have the highest number of candidates with criminal cases against them.

•  The average Congress MP is worth over Rs. 16 crore while the BJP MPs, on an average, have assets over Rs. 11 crore. The CPI(M) has the poorest candidates, with average assets of Rs. 79 lakh. Trinamool Congress’ Uma Saren is the poorest MP with assets under Rs. 5 lakh.

New PM appointed

• NarendraModi who steered the BJP-led NDA to a stunning victory will be sworn in as Prime Minister on May 26 at RashtrapatiBhavan.

•  Mr. Modi was appointed as the Prime Minister by the President and was asked to advise the names of others to be appointed Members of the Council of Ministers.

•  Stepping out after his meeting with the President, he addressed the media briefly and held-up the formal letter of appointment as Prime Minister.

•  MrModi’s call on the President came after he was unanimously elected leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party and later at a combined meeting of the BJP and its allies constituting the NDA as leader of the coalition.

•  Later, a RashtrapatiBhawancommunique said as MrModi has been elected leader of the BJP Parliamentary Party and BJP has majority support in the House of the People, the President appointed him the Prime Minister of India and requested him to advise the names of members of the council of ministers.

Gujarat's First Woman Chief Minister

• Anandiben Patel will be sworn in as Gujarat's first woman chief minister in a ceremony attended by her predecessor NarendraModi who will be the country's next prime minister.

•  After MrModi resigned as chief minister, a position he had held for 13 years, his party's legislators elected Ms Patel to be their leader. MrModi's close aide Amit Shah, who does not share the warmest vibes with Ms Patel, was among those who endorsed her name for the chief minister's post.

•  In Gujarat, Mr Shah and Ms Patel have often been described as MrModi's "left and right arms." Like Mr Shah, Anandiben Patel, 72, is said to enjoy MrModi's complete trust. During his long election campaign, while Amit Shah helped MrModi script his massive victory, Ms Patel, the revenue minister, held fort in Gujarat as the head of a group of ministers set up to run the state government.

Gender gap among voters

• According to data ,the rising tide of female voters in 2014 might have had a concrete impact on the outcome of these elections.

•  Despite the Election Commission’s efforts to get more women registered to vote, the number of female electors (those registered to vote) grew much slower than the number of male electors, between 2009 and 2014.

•  Men registered to vote outnumber women by over 40 million, giving the electorate a sex ratio of 908 female electors for every 1,000 male electors. This is even more adverse than the sex ratio of the general population, which stood at 943 in the 2011 Census.

•  Yet female turnouts (the number of women who actually voted, as a proportion of all those registered) have grown much faster than for men; the female turnout grew by nearly ten percentage points between the last election and this election,. As a result, male voters outnumber female voters by just 32 million, and the gender gap in voting is the closest it has ever been.

P-8I maritime patrol aircraft

•  Boeing has delivered the fourth P-8I maritime patrol aircraft to India, which the aviation company described as a milestone.

•  In all India has placed orders for eight P-8I maritime aircraft.

•  The latest state-of-the-art maritime patrol aircraft departed from Boeing Field in Seattle and arrived May 21 at Naval Air Station Rajali.

•  Based on the company’s Next-Generation 737 commercial airplane, the P-8I is the Indian Navy variant of the P-8A Poseidon that Boeing has developed for the US Navy.

•  The Indian Navy is putting the first three P-8Is through their paces operationally, and the P-8I delivered today will begin flight trials in the coming months.

•  The P-8I incorporates not only India-unique design features, but also India-built subsystems that are tailored to the country’s maritime patrol requirements.

Only witnesses in VVIP chopper case

•  The Central Bureau of Investigation, in response to a query from the Union Law Ministry on the ongoing probe into AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal, has reiterated that the agency would examine Governors M.K. Narayanan and B.V. Wanchoo as witnesses.

•  The Law Ministry had earlier denied permission to the CBI on the grounds that West Bengal Governor M.K. Narayanan and Goa Governor B.V. Wanchoo enjoyed Constitutional immunity. The agency then wrote to the President Secretariat seeking opinion, citing that the Secretariat would be in the know of the set procedures.

•  Mr. Narayanan, as the then National Security Advisor and Mr. Wanchoo, as the Special Protection Group chief, had allegedly attended a meeting in 2005 in which the tender specifications for procurement of VVIP helicopters were “tweaked”.

•  The CBI has alleged that during his tenure, former IAF chief S.P. Tyagi had approved reduction of the service ceiling of VVIP helicopters from 6,000 metres to 4,500 metres, a relaxation that allowed AgustaWestland to qualify for the tender.

•  Alleging that middlemen were hired and bribes paid on the pretext of engineering contracts to swing the deal in the company’s favour, the agency has named the retired Air Chief Marshal, his three cousins and several others in the case.
   

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