Civil Service Bytes

The Centre is going to introduce a Bill in the upcoming Budget session of Parliament to amend two electoral laws that will give voting rights to people who became Indian citizens following the exchange of enclaves between India and Bangladesh. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to amend Section 11 of the Delimitation Act, 2002, and Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, that will allow this limited exercise of delimitation of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal following the exchange of 51 Bangladeshi and 111 Indian enclaves in July last year. Following the delimitation, the people residing in these areas will be made voters of their respective Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. In a historic pact between India and Bangladesh, 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (Chhitmahals) in Indian territory and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh territory were exchanged with effect from July 31, 2015. The move altered the

Sedition is an offence defined in Sec 124 A of the IPC. As per this definition anyone who brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the Government by words spoken or written or by signs or by visible representation or otherwise is guilty of the offence of sedition. The definition is so exhaustive that it does not leave out of its purview any possible mode of self expression, simply by using the words “or otherwise”. The punishment for the offence of sedition is life imprisonment but lesser punishment can also be awarded. Out of the three explanations added to the Section, two seek to clarify that expressing disapprobation of the measures of the Government or administrative action is not an offence. But any attempt to excite contempt, hatred or disaffection will definitely make such permissible disapprobation also liable to be punished. It is the ordinary police constable who will in the first person decide whether a bri

Developing a vaccine First, the good news: the Zika virus is a flavivirus, the family of viruses to which the eponymous yellow fever virus belongs (‘flavus’ is Latin for ‘yellow’). Vaccines have been developed against several viruses of this family, such as chikungunya, Japanese encephalitis and the tick-borne fever. This means these viruses are vulnerable to vaccines unlike, say, the fast-changing human immunodeficiency virus (HIV). But one flavivirus that has flummoxed vaccine-makers in the past is dengue.   That’s because of   dengue’s four serotypes, or the four variations of the virus that cause illness. Each serotype typically has a different antigen: the molecule on the viral surface, which the human body recognises and responds to by producing antibodies. So, the ideal dengue vaccine had to work against   all four serotypes . Any less, and there’s a chance that the vaccine itself could be deadly. When a person vaccinated against one serotype of dengue becomes exposed to an

The story of agriculture, which is the backbone of the country in terms of livelihoods, has not been good in the past two years. Agriculture GDP (gross domestic product) grew at (-)0.2% in 2014-15 and 1.1% in 2015-16. The distress in agriculture is due to two factors—first, the crash in global commodity prices and, second, deficit rainfall for two years in a row; 10 states have declared drought this year. These two factors have affected farmers’ incomes. Low agriculture growth also affects the prospects of manufacturing and services due to forward and backward linkages. For example, tractor sales have declined. In this context, a big push for the agriculture sector is needed in the forthcoming budget. A two-pronged strategy is required for agriculture: raising productivity and incomes of farmers and coping with risks due to climate change and the crash in commodity prices. The following measures are needed in the budget to revive the sector. First, increase in productivity can be

The Centre is going to introduce a Bill in the upcoming Budget session of Parliament to amend two electoral laws that will give voting rights to people who became Indian citizens following the exchange of enclaves between India and Bangladesh. The Union Cabinet on Wednesday gave its approval to amend Section 11 of the Delimitation Act, 2002, and Section 9 of the Representation of the People Act, 1950, that will allow this limited exercise of delimitation of Assembly and parliamentary constituencies in Cooch Behar district of West Bengal following the exchange of 51 Bangladeshi and 111 Indian enclaves in July last year. Following the delimitation, the people residing in these areas will be made voters of their respective Assembly and parliamentary constituencies. In a historic pact between India and Bangladesh, 51 Bangladeshi enclaves (Chhitmahals) in Indian territory and 111 Indian enclaves in Bangladesh territory were exchanged with effect from July 31, 2015. The move altered the

The utopian ideal of smart cities anchored by futuristic technologies such as robots and flying cars has been replaced by the idea that technology should be used to enrich society and the lives of people in ways that are practical and relatable. Global engineering, consulting and construction services firm Black and Veatch’s  2016 Strategic Directions: Smart City/Smart Utility Report , released this month, underscores the growing popularity of data analytics in which hardware and software enable important changes. A hallmark of smart systems is the union of data and action. Information gathered by sensors and smart devices is sped across high-speed networks and crunched by sophisticated software, it notes. The result is information that spurs cities, utilities and customers to knowledgeably take action. Fortunately, technology advances are making it easier for governments, municipalities and utilities to engage with their constituents and stakeholders on their terms. Not only can t

Pluto’s largest moon Charon once had a subsurface ocean which has frozen long ago and expanded, pushing and stretching the natural satellite’s surface like ‘Hulk’ while causing massive fractures, a new NASA image has shown. The new image from NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft suggest that Charon’s tectonic landscape shows that, somehow, the moon expanded in its past, and — like the fictional superhero Bruce Banner tearing his shirt as he becomes the Incredible Hulk — Charon’s surface fractured as it stretched, researchers said. ‘Pull apart’ tectonic faults The side of Pluto’s largest moon viewed by NASA’s passing New Horizons in July 2015 is characterised by a system of “pull apart” tectonic faults, which are expressed as ridges, scarps and valleys — the latter sometimes reaching more than 6.5 kilometres deep. The outer layer of Charon is primarily water ice. This layer was kept warm when Charon was young by heat provided by the decay of radioactive elements, as well as Charo

It is now clear that the markets were right. They never believed the PSB numbers and thus refused to recapitalise them. Ultimately, the RBI had to force the banks to come clean. Having been lied to for years, it is but natural that investors don’t believe the government’s contention that after fully recognising all asset impairments no significant bank will breach its minimum core capital requirement. Nobody believes that the capital the government has already committed to the PSBs will be enough to get them through the Basel changes, recognise their asset impairments and fulfill their growth needs. If the authorities are so confident of their numbers they should disclose their assumptions. What is the true extent of asset impairment, and based on what stress assumptions? How much is this hidden capital, property etc that the banks have? What are they assuming for loss given default? How much of the restructured and SDR book are they assuming goes bad? What are the commodity price

The Jat community agitation for government reservations on Friday again disrupted major highways and rail traffic in large parts of Haryana after protestors took to the streets against government inaction on their demand. An earlier round of disruption had invited censure from the Supreme Court. Taking strong exception to the Uttar Pradesh and the Haryana chief ministers' support to Jats' demands, an SC bench in March last year said: "We make it clear that while citizens have the right to protest, resorting to such steps should not lead to disruption of supply of essential commodities." Here’s a quick look at key facts that explain how and why the hullaballoo around the Jats and their agitation campaign became a mainstream news. The current situation Five days into the agitation for reservation, Indian Railways has lost almost Rs 100 crore due to the blockade across Haryana which has affected 206 trains. Nearly 100 trains were cancelled and 70 diverted as Jats o

Police stop demonstrators during a protest against the students of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) outside the university campus in New Delhi, on 15 February, 2016. The University’s Students’ Union President  Kanhaiya Kumar  was remanded to judicial custody for 14 days after being charged under India’s 156-year-old, colonial-era  sedition  law. India’s 156-year-old, colonial-era sedition law–used against arrested Jawaharlal Nehru University Students’ Union President Kanhaiya Kumar–has been discarded by the UK (where punishment once included chopping ears), Scotland, South Korea and Indonesia. Among the countries that hold on to sedition as a criminal act: Saudi Arabia, Malaysia, Iran, Uzbekistan, Sudan, Senegal and Turkey, as this  report   pointed out. The US also has a sedition law , promulgated 218 years ago but with many parts   struck down   over two centuries. Germany keeps a sedition law on its books largely because of post-Nazi sensitivities. Kumar was   remanded   to j

In a major boost to Indian science research, the Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved a proposal to establish a state-of-the-art gravitational wave observatory  in India in collaboration with the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the US. The "in-principle" approval for the  LIGO-India  project for research on gravitational waves -- a discovery that is regarded as the breakthrough of the century -- is piloted by the department of atomic energy (DAE) and department of science and technology (DST), a press release said. The project will bring unprecedented opportunities for  scientists  and engineers to dig deeper into the realm of gravitational wave and take global leadership in this new astronomical frontier. The LIGO-India project will also bring considerable opportunities in cutting-edge technology for the Indian industry which will be engaged in the construction of the 8-km long beam tube at ultra-high vacuum on a levelled terrain. Confirmin

The cabinet’s approval of the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA) on Wednesday is, on the face of it, a relatively innocuous development. As WTO deals go, this is low-hanging fruit. The agreement is to reduce administrative barriers at ports and customs, reducing transactional costs of international trade and consequently—according to various studies—increasing global gross domestic product by $1 trillion. This has found greater consensus between developed and developing economies than most WTO issues manage. But India has played spoiler—until now. The link between the TFA and India’s food security that led to New Delhi using the former as a bargaining chip may have been broken, but the underlying issue remains. India’s stance across the previous and current administrations has been incoherent. The core issue is India’s public stockholding programme for food security. The price support mechanism this entails falls into the WTO’s so-called ‘amber’ box