Latest News
13th April 2021
President appoints Sushil Chandra as Chief Election Commissioner of India
Recently, the President has appointed Shri Sushil Chandra, the senior-most Election Commissioner, as the Chief Election Commissioner in the Election Commission of India.
Election Commission of India
Recently, three labourers were killed and two others injured during an operation to douse a forest fire at Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR).
Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve
- The Election Commission is a permanent and an independent body established by the Constitution of India directly to ensure free and fair elections in the country.
- Article 324 of the Constitution provides that the power of superintendence, direction and control of elections to parliament, state legislatures, the office of president of India and the office of vice-president of India shall be vested in the election commission.
- The Election Commission is an all-India body in the sense that it is common to both the Central government and the state governments.
- The election commission is not concerned with the elections to panchayats and municipalities in the states.
- The Election Commission shall consist of the chief election commissioner and such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the president may from time to time fix.
- The appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall be made by the president.
- The president may also appoint after consultation with the election commission such regional commissioners as he may consider necessary to assist the election commission.
- The conditions of service and tenure of office of the election commissioners and the regional commissioners shall be determined by the president.
- The CEC and the two other election commissioners have equal powers and receive equal salary, allowances and other perquisites, which are similar to those of a judge of the Supreme Court.
- They hold office for a term of six years or until they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier.
- They can resign at any time or can also be removed before the expiry of their term.
- The chief election commissioner is provided with the security of tenure.
- He cannot be removed from his office except in same manner and on the same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court.
- He can be removed by the president on the basis of a resolution passed to that effect by both the Houses of Parliament with special majority.
- He does not hold his office till the pleasure of the president, though he is appointed by him.
- The service conditions of the chief election commissioner cannot be varied to his disadvantage after his appointment.
- Any other election commissioner or a regional commissioner cannot be removed from office except on the recommendation of the chief election commissioner.
- The Constitution has not prescribed the qualifications (legal, educational, administrative or judicial) of the members of the Election Commission.
- The Constitution has not specified the term of the members of the Election Commission.
- The Constitution has not debarred the retiring election commissioners from any further appointment by the government.
- To determine the territorial areas of the electoral constituencies throughout the country on the basis of the Delimitation Commission Act of Parliament.
- To prepare and periodically revise electoral rolls and to register all eligible voters.
- To notify the dates and schedules of elections and to scrutinise nomination papers.
- To grant recognition to political parties and allot election symbols to them.
- To act as a court for settling disputes related to granting of recognition to political parties and allotment of election symbols to them.
- To appoint officers for inquiring into disputes relating to electoral arrangements.
- To determine the code of conduct to be observed by the parties and the candidates at the time of elections.
- To advise the president on matters relating to the disqualifications of the members of Parliament.
- To advise the governor on matters relating to the disqualifications of the members of state legislature.
- It is a part of the “Amrut Mahotsav” to commemorate India @75.
- The other “75” related activities would be the imparting of training on “Bhavishya” (Online Pension Sanction Module) through 75 offices of the Government of India.
- The training of Bhavishya will be conducted in multiple sessions across the Central Government organizations.
- The Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) offices at different locations across the country will also be covered in this training.
- An online workshop on Pension Awareness Rules for senior government pensioners and family pensioners will be held for those above the age of 75 years.
- The Department of Pension and Pensioners Welfare will come out with digital publications of 75 “Anubhav” write-ups, including those already awarded or selected from the Anubhav Portal.
- It would be a highly innovative and creative method of observing the 75th year of India's independence by dedicating it to the cause of pensioners and elder citizens.
- It would personify the real essence of “Bharat Ka Amrut Mahotsav” by addressing the elder citizens through one of the youngest mediums of social platform.
- It is an online Pension Sanction & Payment Tracking System.
- It provides online tracking of pension sanction and payment process by the individual as well as the administrative authorities.
- It keeps retiring employees informed of the progress of pension sanctionprocess through SMS/E-Mail.
- Its goal is to ensure payment of all retirement dues and delivery of Pension Payment Order (PPO) to retiring employees on the day of retirement itself.
- It is a joint movement of Vijnana Bharati (Vibha) and Global Indian Scientists’ and Technocrats’ Forum (GIST).
- The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)’s Pravasi Bharatiya Academic and Scientific Sampark (Prabhaas) is also collaborating.
- It is a mission with the motto of 'Uttam Aahaar Uttam Vichaar' or 'Good Diet-Good Cognition'.
- The United Nations has also declared 2021 as the International Year of Fruits and Vegetables, which vibes very well with Aahaar Kranti.
- The programme will focus on training teachers, who, in turn, will pass on the message to the multitudes of students, and through them to their families and finally the society at large.
- It is designed to address the peculiar problem being faced by India and the world called 'hunger and diseases in abundance'.
- The root cause of the above strange phenomenon is a lack of nutritional awareness in all sections of our society.
- There is a need for a nutritionally balanced diet also in the context of the current COVID-19 pandemic.
- A healthy body would be able to handle the infection much better with greater immunity and higher resilience.
- The UN sustainable goal 3 (SDG-3) that emphasizes on human well-being reads, “Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages.”
- India has the unique advantage of having the knowledge of Ayurveda and it is time to also apply this rich knowledge of Ayurveda-based nutrition to practice.
- The movement proposes to address the current situation of hunger in abundance by working to rouse the people to the values of India’s traditional diet.
- It will renew the focus on nutritionally balanced diets (Uttam evam santulit aahaar) replete in locally sourced fruits and vegetables.
- The Vibha and GIST have aimed to set Aahaar Kranti as a model for the entire world to follow.
- It will seek to promote better awareness, better nutrition and better agriculture;
- The messages will be imparted through the curriculum in the form of `what’s and `why’s of nutrition, or through the forms of games or as instructions such as `how to’; and
- The content will be provided both online and offline and in all vernacular languages besides English and Hindi to reach out to as many as possible.
- It is an endeavour to provide single-window access to the energy data for the country.
- The energy data published/provided by Central Electricity Authority, Coal.
- It is an endeavour to establish a central energy database of the country.
- It is an initial step towards building a comprehensive, open, and freely accessible energy data portal for India.
- The IED provides time series data from FY 2005-06 until FY 2019-20;
- Enhanced data download: It enables easy downloading of data into convenient spreadsheet formats in a cleaner, more intuitive way;
- The IED provides data at sub-yearly frequencies as well which includes monthly data and API linked data from some portals maintained by the government agencies.
- The monthly data is sourced from the monthly reports that are regularly published for the electricity, petroleum and natural gas sectors.
- The API linked data from Saubhagya, UJALA, PRAAPTI, and Vidyut PRAVAH has been incorporated in the portal.
- A ‘Feedback and Suggestions’ forum for the engagement of energy data user community has been incorporated;
- A semi-automated workflow/ issue-tracking system for managing periodic updates to the IED.
- The workflow system performs basic checks and data validation, helping to avoid incorrect data entry;
- The addition of technical and financial data of electricity utilities available from the regulatory documents in the state of Maharashtra.
- The regulatory data specifically for the area served by the state-owned distribution utility MSEDCL has been added.
- The Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana ‘Saubhagya’ is a new scheme launched in 2017.
- Under Saubhagya free electricity connections to all households (both APL and poor families) in rural areas and poor families in urban areas will be provided.
- The Saubhagya web portal has been designed and developed to disseminate information about the Household Electrification Status, Household Progress as on date, State Wise Target vs Achieved, Monthly Electrification Progress, etc.
- It stands for Payment ratification and analysis in power procurement for bringing transparency in invoicing of generators.
- It is a web portal launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Power.
- It will reflect the invoicing and payment data for many long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs) from the generators.
- It will also benefit all the stakeholders by giving them month-wise data on the outstanding amounts of DISCOMs against their PPAs.
- The main features include dashboard for All India summary, link for each states from All India Map and state specific pages on single click.
- It provides a wealth of information pertaining to the current demand met, shortages if any, surplus power available and the prices in the Power Exchange.
- The app will empower common people to demand 24X7 power from the statesand will take transparency to the next level and make state governments more accountable.
- The Plant operator Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. (Tepco) will begin pumping out water in about two years after treatment in a process that will take decades to complete.
- Tepco has been struggling with the build-up of contaminated water since bringing three reactors under control after a 2011 earthquake and tsunami knocked out electricity and cooling.
- The company has been using a makeshift system of pumps and piping to inject water into damaged reactor vessels to keep melted uranium fuel rods cool.
- The water is contaminated as it comes in contact with the fuel before leaking into damaged basements and tunnels, where it mixes with groundwater that flows through the site from hills above.
- The combination results in excess contaminated water that is pumped out and treated before being stored in huge tanks crowding the site.
- Tepco plans to filter the contaminated water again to remove isotopes, leaving onlytritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen hard to separate from water.
- Tepco will then dilute the water until tritium levels fall below regulatory limits, before pumping it directly into the ocean from the coastal site.
- Water containing tritium is routinely released from nuclear plants around the world and releasing the Fukushima water to the ocean is supported by regulatory authorities.
- Tritium is considered to be relatively harmless because it does not emit enough energy to penetrate human skin.
- Tepco is engaging with fishing communities and is promoting agriculture, fishery and forest products in stores and restaurants to reduce any reputational harm to produce from the area.
- The environmental groups, including Greenpeace, say that government should build more tanks to hold the water outside the plant instead of choosing the cheaper option of ocean release.
- The fishing unions in Fukushima urged the government for years not to release the water, arguing it would undo work to restore the damaged reputation of their fisheries.
- The neighbouring countries have expressed serious concerns that the decision could bring a direct and indirect impact on the safety of our people and surrounding environment.
- The municipal councils in Busan and Ulsan, South Korean cities close to the sea, have called for the release plan to be scrapped.
- The Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant is in the town of Okuma, in Fukushima Prefecture.
- It sits on the country's east coast, about 220km north-east of the capital Tokyo.
- It was the first nuclear plant to be constructed and operated entirely by Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO).
- All the reactors at the Fukushima Nuclear Station were Boiling Water Reactors (BWR).
- In total, the station has six boiling water reactors which together have a power generation capacity of 4.69GW.
- All the reactors except Unit 3 continued using low enriched uranium (LEU) while Unit 3 was being fed with mixed-oxide (MOX) fuel since September 2010.
- They have a closed water-steam cycle.
- In the cooling water system, the coolant water flows through the reactor core, where the heat in the fuel elements, produced through nuclear fission, heats the water so that it boils in the reactor pressure vessel.
- There is relatively low pressure in the reactor pressure vessel.
- Boiling and evaporation of the coolant water in the reactor pressure vessel is the main feature distinguishing the BWR from a pressurised water reactor (PWR).
- Under the 1951 UN Convention on the Status of Refugees and the subsequent 1967 Protocol, the word refugee pertains to:
- Any person who is outside their country of origin and unable or unwilling to return owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.
- The stateless persons may also be refugees in this sense, where country of origin (citizenship) is understood as ‘country of former habitual residence’.
- The Indian government had allowed the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) to carry out verification and provide some of them with identity cards.
- In the Supreme Court, the Solicitor General of India has referred to them as illegal immigrants.
- The combination of refugees with public and political rhetoric about terrorism and communal slurs, there is a demand that they be “deported” immediately.
- India has welcomed refugees in the past, and on date, nearly 300,000 people here are categorised as refugees.
- India is not a signatory to the 1951 UN Convention or the 1967 Protocol.
- India does not have a refugee policy or a refugee law of its own.
- It has allowed India to keep its options open on the question of refugees.
- The Indian government can declare any set of refugees as illegal immigrants and decide to deal with them as trespassers under the Foreigners Act or the Indian Passport Act.
Recently, three labourers were killed and two others injured during an operation to douse a forest fire at Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve (NNTR).
Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve
- It was notified as the 46th tiger reserve of India in 2013.
- It is the 5th tiger reserve of Maharashtra.
- It is situated in Gondia and Bhandara districts of Maharashtra.
- Gondia districts shares boundary with the states of Madhya Pradesh on the north side and Chhattisgarh in the north-eastern side.
- It is comprised of notified area of Nawegaon National Park, Nawegaon Wildlife Sanctuary, Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary, New Nagzira Wildlife Sanctuary and Koka Wildlife Sanctuary.
- It has connectivity with major tiger reserves of Central India like Kanha and Pench Tiger Reserve of MP, Pench and Tadoba-Andhari Tiger Reserve in Maharashtra and Indravati TR in Chhattisgarh.
- The major forest type of Navegaon-Nagzira Tiger Reserve is ‘Southern Tropical Dry Deciduous Forest’.
- It includes dry mixed forests to moist forest type.
- These trees are of high economic value, medicinal quality, aromatic and some ornamental plant species like Team, Bhel, Bhor, Haldu, Jamun, Kawat etc.
POSTED ON 13-04-2021 BY ADMIN
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