(Current Affairs For SSC Exams) National Events | April , May 2014

(April + May) 2014

New MGNREGS wage rate

  • Minister for Rural Development Jairam Ramesh said that the wage rate of UPA’s flagship MGNREGA will be increased from April this year due to inflation. The notification will be placed before Parliament in the coming session scheduled to begin this week.

  • Addressing the 9th MGNREGA Divas, the Minister said MGNREGA wage rate has already been linked to Consumer Price Index and the yearly revision follows from it. Mr. Ramesh acknowledged that there is need for parity in the MGNREGA wage rate and the minimum wage in nearly 14 States including Bihar and Jharkhand, where the rural job wage is lower than minimum wage.

  • The Minister also encouraged the officials to motivate and help small and marginal farmers to undertake land levelling and irrigation schemes on their land under MGNREGA and lamented that only 10 per cent farmers have so far benefited from this provision.

  • Minister of State for Rural Development Pradeep Jain Aditya said that MGNREGA has brought about a revolution in rural India and stopped distress migration from rural to urban areas. He noted that this year more than 3 crore 80 lakh families have benefitted so far. While Mr. Jain acknowledged that fighting corruption in its implementation is a big challenge he asserted that it is the responsibility of the State governments.‘High dignitaries’ term is undemocratic: SC

  • The Supreme Court has agreed to review the list of ‘high dignitaries’ who can use red beacons. The apex court noted that the term high dignitaries appears contrary to democratic ethos.

  • The motor vehicles carrying high dignitaries specified by the Central government and their counterparts specified by the state, may be fitted with red lights. But the red lights with or without the flashers can only be used when the specified high dignitary is on duty.

  • Amicus curiae in the case Harish Salve said that in a republic everyone is public and except for security reasons, no one should be allowed to use the beacons. He also added that the beacons indicated a sense of symbolism which is not correct in a republic.

  • The matter has been posted for hearing after two weeks in the SC.

North-East community’s protest over Nido Taniam’s death

  • Is India in need of a strong anti-racism law? The recent attack on a young Arunachal boy and the alleged sexual assault on two Manipuri women make it seem like the demand is justified.

  • Student organisations from the northeast have been protestingover the death of Taniam. The alleged sexual assault on the two Manipuri women and the alleged police apathy towards them has only added fuel to the fire.

  • According to them India is in need of a strong anti-racism law.

  • The northeastern student groups say they are not protesting merely to demand justice for Taniam. It is for those thousands of people from the northeast who daily face some or the other form of harassment.

  • They are fighting the collective failure of a system and society that they actually belong to.

Bharat Ratna

  • Legendary cricketer Sachin Tendulkar and eminent scientist Prof. C N R Rao were conferred with the country’s highest civilian honour, the Bharat Ratna, by President Pranab Mukherjee.

  • The President presented the honour at a brief function at the Rashtrapati Bhavan’s Durbar Hall attended by Vice President Hamid Ansari, Union ministers, Sachin’s wife Anjali, daughter Sara and a host of dignitaries.

  • Master batsman Tendulkar, who retired from international cricket on November 16 last year, is the first sportsman to be bestowed with the honour.

  • Tendulkar (40) and Rao (79), both of whom are recipients of Padma Vibhushan — the country’s second highest civilian honour, will join a list of 41 eminent personalities who have been conferred with the award that is given in recognition of exceptional service of the highest order, since it was instituted in 1954.

  • An outspoken scientist, Prof Chintamani Nagesa Ramachandra Rao is a well recognised international authority on solid state and materials chemistry who has published over 1,400 research papers and 45 books.

  • He is the third scientist after C V Raman and former President A P J Abdul Kalam to be conferred with the Bharat Ratna.

  • The Bharat Ratna was announced after a gap of four years with Hindustani music doyen Bhimsen Joshi being the last recipient in 2009.
    50% quota for women

  • Making out a strong case to formulate a National Policy and Action Plan to end violence against women, a government-appointed panel has recommended 50 per cent reservation for women in all decision-making bodies and an overhaul of the criminal justice system to ensure justice for women.

  • Suggesting that a separate panel be appointed by the government to study the status of Muslim women in the country, the High Level Committee on the Status of Women in India, in its preliminary report, said upgrading the Minister of Women and Child Development to Cabinet rank would reflect the government’s concern on women’s issues.

  • Calling for an increase in resources, the panel said a large amount of resources was being directed towards child development in the Ministry.

  • It said the Parliamentary Committee on the Empowerment of Women must examine the gender implications of all proposed legislation and the National Commission for Women, as an apex body responsible for and answerable to 50 per cent of the population, must go beyond ‘reactive interventions’ to fulfil the proactive mandate of studying, recommending and influencing policies, laws, programmes and budgets to ensure full benefits to the stakeholders.

  • Focussing on the need to bring about major changes in the criminal justice system, the report suggests initiatives ranging from a more gender sensitive enforcement machinery to greater awareness of different legislation and their inter-connectedness, along with accountability for securing women’s rights.

Illegal migrants to be identified using Aadhaar

Months after ordering that Aadhaar cards based on unique identification number could not be linked to social welfare schemes to deprive its benefits to those without the cards, the Supreme Court looked at the flip-side and said it could be a useful tool to identify illegal migrants.

  • Examining the benefits of Aadhaar cards from a national security aspect, a bench of Justices B S Chauhan, J Chelameswar and M Y Eqbal said, “As on date, illegal migration to India continues unabated. By collecting personal details for Aadhaar cards, at least there can be some basis to identify an illegal migrant.”

  • Justice Chelameswar, who was the chief justice of Gauhati High Court from 2007 to 2010, spoke about the illegal migrant problem in north-eastern states.

  • In Sarbananda Sonowal case-I and II, the apex court had directed identification of illegal migrants by setting up tribunals under the Foreigners Act, acknowledging that the state of Assam and its culture was in the throes of getting swamped by rampant and unabated illegal migration from Bangladesh.

Latest evidence in Union Carbide case

  • Plaintiffs in the case brought against the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC) for the 1984 poison gas disaster in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, released new evidence that was said to demonstrate the company’s “direct role in designing and building the pesticide plant” in question.

  • The Bhopal gas tragedy, considered India’s worst industrial disaster, occurred on December 2 1984 at the UCIL pesticide plant and in its wake, many thousands of people were injured from exposure to methyl isocyanate gas and other chemicals and several thousands were killed.

  • Evidence was submitted to the court in January in Sahu II v. UCC, a federal class-action lawsuit filed by residents of Bhopal whose land and water remain contaminated by waste from the chemical plant.

  • This evidence demonstrates that Union Carbide was intimately involved in every aspect of designing and building the Bhopal plant, including the waste disposal systems.

Helpline for rail passengers

  • With increased instances of molestation on trains, the Indian Railways has decided to launch an all-India security helpline number for passengers .

  • The railways has informed the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Railways, which enquired into the security of women passengers in suburban trains, that the process of launching the four-digit number 1322 at a cost of Rs. 4.7 crore is on.

  • Although it will be managed by a professional call centre, complaints will be monitored by a DIG and four inspectors. They will be transmitted to the zones concerned for action.

  • The report noted an increase in the incidents of molestation of women on suburban trains. The committee chairman, T.R. Baalu, said during the members’ visit to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminal, Mumbai, women complained of unauthorised entry of male passengers in reserved compartments, molestation and harassment, and snatching of chains and handbags. The Railways claimed that 6,400 men had been prosecuted for entering ladies’ compartments.

Majithia wage board

  • In a victory for working journalists and newspaper employees, Supreme Court upheld the validity of the Majithia wage board, saying that its recommendation are based on genuine consideration.

  • It also dismissed newspaper organisations’ challenge to the constitutional validity of the working journalists and newspaper employees act.

  • An apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P. Sathasivam also upheld the procedure adopted by the Majithia wage board, holding that the variations pointed out in procedure was not grave in nature.

  • The court also upheld the independence of the two members, holding that their mere association to the government did not attribute any bias or independence to them.

  • The court held that the wage board will be implemented from Nov 11, 2011 when it was notified by the government and the arrears from Nov 11, 2011 to March 2014 will be paid to the employees in four equal installments spread over a period of one year and the revised pay scales under the recommendation of Majithia wage board comes into force from April 2014.

SC says that nude picture of woman not obscene

  • A nude or semi-nude picture of a woman cannot be called obscene per se unless it is designed to excite sexual passion or reveal an overt sexual desire, the Supreme Court has held.

  • Quashing a case against a newspaper for publishing a nude photo of German tennis legend Boris Becker with his fiancee in 1993, a bench of justices K.S. Radhakrishnan and A.K. Sikri said only those sex-related materials can be held to be obscene which have a tendency of exciting lustful thoughts.

  • A picture of a nude/semi-nude woman, as such, cannot per se be called obscene unless it has the tendency to arouse feeling or revealing an overt sexual desire.

  • Obscenity has to be judged from an average person point of view as the concept of obscenity would change with the passage of time and what might have been obscene at one point of time would not be considered as obscene at a later period.

  • The bench said the photograph, in which Becker had posed nude with his dark-skinned fiancee Barbara Feltus as a mark of protest against the practice of apartheid, wants to convey message to eradicate the evil of racism and to promote love.

Sanitation target achieved in Sikkim

  • Sikkim has become the only state in the country to achieve 100 per cent sanitation in rural and urban households, schools, sanitary complexes and Aanganwadi centres.

  • All 6,10,577 inhabitants in Sikkim have latrines with high sanitation and hygiene standards.

  • The Himalayan state has constructed 98,043 individual household latrines against the target of 87,014 till January, thus achieving 112.67 per cent target under Nirmal Bharat Abhiyan scheme implemented by Union Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.

  • The state has also sensitised people to adopt a holistic approach to improve sanitation and hygiene in a clean environment while accelerating its overall development.

  • According to a survey conducted in 20 gram panchayats by Planning Commission, 17 village councils of Sikkim were declared as ‘best performance panchayats’, which is highest in the country. Sikkim also topped the list among all states of the country in net performance indicators.

Disabilities rights Bill

  • The Rights of the Persons with Disabilities Bill, 2014, tabled in the Rajya Sabha, has evoked sharp reactions from disabilities rights activists across the country.

  • The government had tabled, in a hurry, an older version of the Bill in the Rajya Sabha as the amendments approved by the Cabinet late could not be incorporated in the draft.

  • The Chennai-based Disability Rights Alliance (DRA), a conglomerate of disability rights activists, says the Bill is “regressive and retrograde,” and does not adopt the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disability (UNCRPD) in its true spirit.

  • The DRA and several other organizations said Section 110 of the Bill provided that its provisions shall be in addition to, and not in derogation of, the provisions of any other law in force, which effectively meant that all laws which actively discriminated against persons with disabilities remained untouched. This violated the State’s obligation under the U.N. convention to take all appropriate measures, including legislation, to modify or abolish laws, regulations, customs and practices that constituted such discrimination.

  • In this Bill, the Right of Equality is curtailed under Section 3(3), which says the right against discrimination exists ‘unless it can be shown that the impugned act or omission is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim.’”

  • The terms “proportionate means” and “legitimate aim,” it said, are highly subjective and can perpetuate discrimination.

  • Further, the statement said, the UNCRPD lays down specific obligations of the State while discussing multiple discrimination faced by women with disabilities. States are obliged to take measures to ensure that they enjoy fully and equally all human rights and fundamental freedoms.

130 pending Bills

  • With only two Bills introduced in the middle of commotion in the Rajya Sabha and one in the Lok Sabha, the number of Bills pending before Parliament has climbed to 130.

  • Key social sector legislation, including the Grievance Redressal Bill and the Whistleblower Protection Bill, will lapse if they are not passed in the next 10 days.

  • At the beginning of the last session of the 15th Lok Sabha, 126 Bills were pending before both Houses, the oldest among them dating back to 1987, according to data compiled by PRS Legislative Research, an independent, non-partisan parliamentary research group. Another five date back to 1990-2000 and 30 to 2001-2010.

  • Some Bills have been passed by one House but not the other, one of the most notable of them being the Women’s Reservation Bill, passed in 2010 by the Rajya Sabha. Bills introduced in the Upper House will survive the end of this Lok Sabha, but those introduced in the Lok Sabha will lapse if not passed in this session.

  • Important pending Bills include the Disabilities Bill and the Judicial Appointments Bill.

  • Congress vice-president Rahul Gandhi appealed to the Opposition for cooperation in the passage of six anti-corruption Bills, with the Bharatiya Janata Party insisting that it is keen to pass legislation if the government is able to get the House to run.

  • The 15th Lok Sabha has passed only 165 Bills so far, making it the least deliberative full-term Parliament ever.

  • In the five sittings since the beginning of this session, the Lok Sabha has lost 95 per cent of its time to disruptions, while the Rajya Sabha has lost 91 per cent of its time. The session ends on February 21.

Pepper spray incident in the Parliament

  • The use of pepper spray inside the Lok Sabha by a member recently  has prised open the issue of security within Parliament House, the country’s most closely guarded building.

  • MPs and senior government officers are exempt from frisking or checking. Even their bags and cars are not thoroughly checked.

  • Security arrangements in Parliament House were beefed up in anticipation of trouble over the introduction of the Andhra Pradesh Reorganisation Bill, 2013, which has held up proceedings for several sessions now.

  • Watch-and-ward staff and security personnel were on alert and extra fire extinguishers, ambulances and blankets were kept ready in case MPs took to extreme measures. But the surprise came in the form of a pepper spray that L. Rajagopal sneaked into the House.

  • The incident has prompted demands from some members for screening legislators.

President’s Rule in Delhi

  • The Union Cabinet has approved the imposition of President’s Rule in Delhi.

  • It also accepted the recommendation of Lieutenant-Governor Najeeb Jung for keeping the Assembly under suspended animation.

  • The President’s Rule will come into effect with the promulgation of a notification.

  • In his report to the Centre, Mr. Jung did not favour dissolution of the 70-member Delhi Assembly as recommended by the Council of Ministers headed by Mr. Kejriwal who decided to quit after being defeated in the Assembly over introduction of the Jan Lokpal Bill.

  • The LG’s move keeps the option open for any political party or a combination of parties to try and form a government in future.

Right to die with dignity

  • The Supreme Court reserved verdict on a public interest litigation (PIL) petition seeking the “right to die with dignity” for terminally ill patients who are likely to go into a vegetative state.

  • In its petition, Common Cause, a non-governmental organisation, said that when a medical expert opined that a person with a terminal disease had reached the point of no return, the patient should be given the right to refuse life-support systems. A three-judge Bench, comprising Chief Justice P. Sathasivam, Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Shiva Kirti Singh, reserved verdict.

  • Appearing for the petitioner, counsel Prashant Bhushan submitted that those at the end of their life and likely to go into a state of terminal illness or permanent vegetative state were deprived of their right to refuse unwanted treatment, such as being fed through tubes and kept on ventilator and other machines to prolong their life artificially. A person whose life was ebbing away should be allowed to die.

  • Opposing the petition, Additional Solicitor-General Siddharth Luthra said doctors would be going against the Hippocratic Oath if they removed life support. The 16th Law Commission was against the proposal as it was liable to be misused in India.

Welfare of ex-servicemen

  • Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh has recently promised to pursue the “one rank, one pension” demand of ex-servicemen.

  • He said his government was committed to welfare of every section of society irrespective of region and religion, and had adopted the policy of zero-tolerance towards corruption.

  • According to the CM , the 13th Finance Commission had grossly underestimated the committed liabilities of the state which “has adversely affected the development”. The expenditure on salary was capped at 35 per cent of revenue expenditure and liability on account of interest payment and pension was also grossly underestimated.

Graft cases on IAS officers

  • A single-window clearance system has been started by the government to avoid inordinate delays in dealing with corruption cases related to Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officers.

  • The Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) has also come up with a checklist for authorities handling corruption cases involving bureaucrats and sought mandatory compliance with the same as part of the new system.

  • As many as 4,737 IAS officers occupy various state and central posts in the country.

  • Inordinate and inexplicable delays in the conduct of disciplinary proceedings are seen to vitiate the exercise, sometimes leading to litigation.

Relief to Rajiv Gandhi killers’

  • In a landmark verdict, the Supreme Court has granted relief to the three convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case — Murugan, Santhan and Perarivalan — by commuting their death sentence into life term on the grounds of inordinate delay in disposal of their mercy petitions by the President.

  • A three-judge Bench headed by the Chief Justice P. Sathasivam rejected the contention of the Centre that the three convicts did not deserve any mercy as they never showed remorse for the killing of the former Prime Minister and they enjoyed their prison life.

  • Considering the fact that the convicts were languishing jail for nearly 23 years, the Bench also gave a ray of hope for their release by saying that the State government could exercise its remission powers under Section 432 and 433 and following the due procedure in law.

  • In May 2012, the apex court had transferred to itself the writ petitions filed by three convicts in the Madras High Court challenging the rejection of their clemency plea by the former President Pratibha Patil after 11 years. The High Court on August 30, 2011 stayed their execution.

Modernisation of 1.55 lakh post offices

  • Union Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said in his interim Budget speech that Rs.4,909 crore was being spent on modernisation of all 1.55 lakh post offices, and the project would be completed by 2015.

  • In the budget estimates for 2014-15, of the total plan outlay of Rs. 800 crore, Rs. 506 crore has been allocated for information technology induction in and modernisation of postal operations.

  • Approved by the Cabinet Committee of Economic Affairs in November 2012, the modernisation has to be implemented through eight projects. All rural post offices will be provided with handheld devices for financial transactions, a solar panel for charging it, a biometric reader for immediate identification and a thermal printer.

‘Mehendi Lagao’ campaign

  • In an attempt to strike a chord with women voters ahead of the general election, the woman’s wing of Jharkhand Bharatiya Janata Party has launched a Mehendi Lagao (apply henna) campaign in the pilgrim town of Deoghar.

  • It is a door-to-door campaign and mehendi is applied  in the form of lotus, the party symbol, on the palms of women voters since last week to garner support for the prime ministerial candidate, Narendra Modi,” Mahila Morcha president Usha Pandey said. The mehendi campaign would continue across the State under the supervision of district committees.

Juvenile justice law for Muslims

  • The Supreme Court has said that Muslims can adopt a child under the juvenile justice law as its enforcement could not be impeded by the Muslim personal law.

  • The apex court bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said that the rules framed under juvenile justice law were an enabling provision which is applicable to all religions and communities and the same could not be frustrated by personal religious beliefs.

  • The court said this on a petition by a social activist Shabnam Hashmi who had sought the framing of guidelines by the adoption of children by the people belonging to all religions and communities.

Odiya to be the sixth “classical language’’

  • Odiya became the sixth language of the country to get “classical language’’ status after the Union Cabinet conceded a long-pending demand for putting it in the same league as Sanskrit, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada and Malayalam.

  • Odiya is billed as the first language from the Indo-Aryan linguistic group and the case for making it a classical language was also premised on the fact that it has no resemblance to Hindi, Sanskrit, Bengali and Telugu. The proposal was moved by the Culture Ministry.

  • Once a language is declared classical, it gets financial assistance for setting up a centre of excellence for the study of that language and also opens up an avenue for two major awards for scholars of eminence. Besides, the University Grants Commission can be requested to create – to begin with at least in Central Universities – a certain number of professional chairs for classical languages for scholars of eminence in the language.

  • The criteria for declaring a language as classical mandates high antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1,500-2,000 years, a body of ancient literature/texts which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers and a literary tradition that is original and not borrowed from another speech community. Also since the classical language and literature is distinct from the modern, there can also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots.

7,200 km of new national highways

  • The government decided to convert 7,200 km of state roads into national highways.

  • With this the total length of the state highways converted into National Highways during the UPA regime would reach about 17,000 km.

  • About 10,000 km of state highways were declared national highways during the last 10 years.

  • These roads  are spread across states including Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh besides bordering areas such as Leh and Laddakh regions.

  • The present length of the National Highways in the country is about 80,000 km.

President’s rule in Andhra Pradesh

  • Two days after Parliament approved the division of Andhra Pradesh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi set in motion internal consultations on the creation of separate party units for Telangana and Seemandhra.

  • After Kiran Kumar Reddy resigned as Chief Minister, the Congress discussed the option of forming a government with a Chief Minister from the Seemandhra region, but at the time of writing, it looked unlikely.

  • The Congress’s top priority is either to persuade the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) to merge with it or forge an electoral alliance. Of the 17 seats in Telangana, the Congress currently holds 10 .

Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill

  • A Bill to set up a regular mechanism to encourage persons to disclose information on corruption or wilful misuse of power by public servants, including Ministers, was passed by the Rajya Sabha.

  • The Whistleblowers’ Protection Bill also seeks to provide for “adequate protection to persons reporting corruption or wilful misuse of discretion which causes a demonstrable loss to the government, or commission of a criminal offence by a public servant.”

  • The Bill sets forth the procedure for inquiring into the disclosures and provides for safeguards against victimisation. At the same time, it provides punishment for false or frivolous complaints.

  • The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha in 2011 and was taken up by the Rajya Sabha in 2012. However, it could not be passed because of the death of Union Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh.

Legalising euthanasia in India

  • The Supreme Court has  referred the issue of legalising euthanasia in the country to a five-judge Constitution bench, saying there has been “inconsistent” opinion in its previous verdicts on withdrawing medical support to terminally ill patients.

  • A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam said that it is extremely important to have a clear enunciation of law on this issue and referred the matter to a larger Constitution bench.

  • The court said that the Constitution bench will go into all aspects of the issue and take a final decision on framing guidelines.The Bench also comprising justices Ranjan Gogoi and S K Singh passed the order on a PIL to allow a terminally ill person not to continue with artificial medical support.

  • The Centre had vociferously opposed the plea terming it as “suicide” which could not be allowed in the country.

  • The PIL filed by NGO “Common Cause” had contended that when a medical expert opines that the person afflicted with terminal disease has reached a point of no return, then he should be given the right to refuse being put on life support system as otherwise it would only prolong his agony.

  • The petition was filed in 2008 when the apex court had issued notices to the Union Ministry of Health and Law and sought their response on the issue.

National Lok Adalat

  • Taking note of pendency of a large number of cases, the District Legal Services Authority is organising a National Lok Adalat at Nagpur on April 12.

  • The mechanism of Lok Adalats available for disposal and resolution of disputes will be used to clear pending cases at the earliest by sorting out suitable ones. The National Lok Adalat will be conducted at all levels right from the Supreme Court, High Courts, it benches upto the Taluka Courts.

  • Various cases in the courts at various levels will be taken up for disposal at the National Lok Adalat including criminal compoundable cases, negotiable instrument act Cases U/S 138, motor accident claim petitions, accident information report (AIR), state transport cases and matrimonial and family courts cases.

Highest infant Mortality rate in India

  • The National Capital had the worst Infant Mortality Rate (IMR) among the four metropolitan cities between 2010 and 2012 with 30 newborns dying for every 1,000 live births, a new report has said. A substantial 64 per cent die within the first 28 days of their birth.

  • Though the IMR has come down to 25 per 1,000 live births in the past months, the progress in reduction of neo-natal mortality rate (NMR) has been slower, according to ‘Save the Children’ global report ‘Ending newborn deaths, ensuring every baby survives’ .

  • In 2012, three million babies died within the first 28 days of their birth and a million babies died within the first 24 hours of their birth, it says. Comparatively, Chennai recorded the lowest IMR of 15 per 1,000 live births and in Mumbai and Kolkata it was 20 per 1,000 live births.

  • However,  there has been significant progress on ensuring child survival in India, the fact that nearly 40 per cent of neo-natal deaths occur on the 1st day of birth in India is stalling progress on achieving Millennium Development Goal- 4 (reducing IMR).

  • India accounts for an astounding 29 per cent of the global deaths of newborns on their very first day of birth. About half the first-day deaths around the world could be prevented if every mother and baby had access to free and quality health care and skilled birth attendants.

PIL against Sachin

  • The Madras High Court Bench dismissed a public interest litigation (PIL) petition filed by a lawyer challenging the nomination of cricketer Sachin Tendulkar as a member of the Rajya Sabha.

  • The petitioner had accused the cricketer of having dishonoured the national flag by cutting a cake containing the imprint of the tricolour in Jamaica in 2011.

  • A Division Bench of Justices R. Sudhakar and V.M. Velumani held that it did not find any reason to issue a writ of quo warranto directing the Deputy Chairman as well as the Secretary General of the Rajya Sabha to show cause on what authority they accepted the nomination of Mr. Tendulkar.

  • The judges said the petitioner had not submitted authenticated materials to substantiate his accusations.

150 workdays for tribals under MGNREGA

  • In a bid to woo tribals ahead of Lok Sabha polls, the government has raised the workdays under its flagship Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MNREGA) from 100 to 150 for tribals, a move that will benefit 14 lakh families. The Union Cabinet decision will come into effect from April this year.

  • Those tribals who have received land rights under the Forest Rights Act, 2006, will be eligible for additional 50 days of wage employment under the rural job scheme. The beneficiaries would be those who have completed 100 workdays in that particular financial year. They will be given a job card of a different colour to distinguish them from other MGNREGA workers.

  • Around 14 lakh individual and community titles have been distributed under FRA 2006. Of these around 8 lakh individual titles have been given in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Orissa.

  • The additional person days through MNREGA will allow the households to undertake additional work on their own land. This is one among the several initiatives taken by the Rural Development Ministry for the uplift of the tribals.

Notice served on railway safety

  • The Supreme Court has served notice on the Railways on a public interest petition seeking direction that sleeper coaches being manufactured conform with international safety standards.

  • A Bench of Chief Justice P. Sathasivam and Justice Ranjan Gogoi issued the notice, returnable in four weeks, on the writ petition filed by advocate Abhay Singh.

  • Pointing out that materials at present used in cushions, cushion covers, curtains, flooring and wood partitioning are substandard and do not comply with safety standards, the petitioner sought a ban on the use of these materials.

  • The materials used in the railway coaches emit toxic gases much beyond the permissible limit.

Exhumation of 1857 martyrs

  • While the Union and the State governments have failed to act, the management of a gurdwara in the border town of Ajnala in Amritsar district claimed to have exhumed the remains and other articles of at least 282 persons who were executed by the British authorities for participating in the 1857 mutiny.

  • They now await allocation of a suitable site by the State government to carry out cremation and build a memorial for the martyrs.

Lok Sabha polls

  • Polling in the upcoming Lok Sabha elections is most probably going to commence in the second week of April and may be spread over seven phases, the longest so far.

  • The probable dates for the commencement of polling are between April 7 and 10.

  • As of now, the plan is to have voting, involving over 81 crore voters, in seven phases but efforts are on to reduce that to six phases. The 2009 polls were held in five phases from April 16 to May 13.

  • The Model Code of Conduct for governments and political parties will come into force from the date of announcement.

  • However, the Election Commission has ruled out advancing the schedule or compressing it to avoid the summer heat, a demand put forward at the all-party meeting convened by the Commission last month.

  • The term of the current Lok Sabha expires on June 1 and the new House has to be constituted by May 31.

  • Along with the Lok Sabha polls, Andhra Pradesh, including the regions comprising the newly-carved out Telangana, Odisha and Sikkim will go to polls to elect new assemblies.

Tropex war drills

  • The Navy has successfully completed one of its largest war drills spread over Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal region and involving its frontline assets such as INS Chakra and 75 combat and surveillance aircraft.

  • The Navy’s major annual exercise Theatre Level Operational Readiness Exercise (TROPEX) was concluded recently involving large scale naval manoeuvres in all three dimensions surface, air and underwater, across the Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).

  • The month-long exercise was aimed at assessing the operational readiness of naval units, validate the Navy’s war fighting doctrine and integrate newly included capabilities in its ‘Concept of Operations’.

  • Around 60 ships and submarines along with 75 aircraft took part in this exercise, which saw participation of units from Air Force and Coast Guard.

  • The exercise also saw the maiden participation by the newly acquired P 8I Long Range Maritime Patrol aircraft and the nuclear submarine, Chakra.

  • The exercise also provided the Navy with an opportunity to validate its network centric warfare capabilities, with effective utilization of its recently launched satellite GSAT-7.

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