UPSC 2017: Comprehensive News Analysis - October 16

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

Context:

• Supreme Court’s guidelines: a lawyer should have fought a certain number of cases pro bono or free of cost in order to be designated as a senior lawyer

In news:

• Government’s decision: a lawyer’s pro bono record should be considered while elevating him or her as a judge.
• Idea needs to be approved by the collegiums:
• Judges to higher courts are appointed by the Supreme Court collegium, — made up of the top five judges of the apex court — and the Law Ministry only has to give its concurrence.
• So, the idea has to be first approved by the collegium before it can be implemented.

Context:

• The Central government is planning to amend the Representation of People Act to provide proxy voting right to Non-Resident Indians (NRIs).
• The Central government will have to tackle a series of challenges in States with a relatively significant NRI population.
• Statement issued by External affairs minister: NRIs could cast their votes by issuing an authorisation letter to their kin.

In news:

Issues:

• The Election Commission of India would have to evolve a mechanism to ensure that he or she is voting as per the desire of the NRI.
• The Voter Verifiable Paper Trail would be insufficient to address such concerns. Having a foolproof verification system is not an easy task either.
• The commission would have to define whether the proxy could be an immediate family member, wife, husband, ward or parent of the NRI.
• It would also have to fix the number of votes a proxy could cast in an election.
• The Centre might be planning to amend the Act to incorporate such provisions. At present, the Act permits a person to cast only one vote and that needs to be rectified.
• Safeguards against impersonation need to be put in place.

Key Fact: Kerala, Punjab, and Gujarat are the three States that have a major expatriate population and the experiment would have considerable impact on the election process in these States.

3. Supreme Court to hear plea against linking Aadhaar to bank accounts, phones

In news:

• Pakistani authorities withdrew terrorism charges against Hafiz Saeed and his group Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), paving way for the possible release of the UN, US and Indian designated terrorist for his involvement in 2008 Mumbai attacks.

Key Fact:

• Saeed and JuD were already banned by the UN while U.S. has put $10 million bounty on his arrest.
• Saeed challenged his detention in the Lahore High Court alleging that his arrest was due to U.S. pressure and that he had never been charged for any crime.
• No formal charges have been filed against Saeed so far by Pakistani authorities.

C. GS3 Related

Context:

• With only over 15.50 lakh businesses out of 98 lakh registered under the GST regime opting for the composition scheme, the GST Council decided to set up the GoM to examine ways of making it more attractive.

In news:

• Within a week of being set up, the group of ministers (GoM) on making the GST composition scheme more attractive held its first meeting.
• Tasks assigned to the GoM:
• The GoM has also been tasked with revisiting the tax structure of different categories of restaurants with a view to rationalising or reducing the rates.
• The GoM will examine whether the AC restaurants pass on the benefit of cost reduction under GST to consumers and if they are not, whether they should be disallowed input tax credit claims
• To make the composition scheme more attractive, the GoM would look into whether turnover of exempted goods can be excluded from the total turnover threshold for levying tax under the composition scheme.
• It will also consider whether the scheme can be extended to taxpayers dealing in inter-state supplies of goods.
• The panel will look at whether the manufacturers opting for the scheme can be given the benefit of input tax credit.

Key Fact:

• Businesses with turnover of up to Rs 1 crore can opt for the composition scheme and they can pay taxes in the range of 1-5 per cent and file returns quarterly.
• Currently, GST is levied at 12 per cent on non-AC restaurants while it is 18 per cent for air-conditioned ones.
• The tax rate for traders of goods in the composition scheme is 1 per cent, while it is 2 per cent for manufacturers and 5 per cent for restaurants.

Context:

• National e-Governance Services Ltd (NeSL) became India’s first information utility (IU) for bankruptcy cases under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016.
• NeSL is owned by State Bank of India and Life Insurance Corporation Ltd., among others.
• Recently, the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) eased ownership norms for setting up such utilities.

What is an information utility?

• Information utility is an information network which would store financial data like borrowings, default and security interests among others of firms.
• The utility would specialise in procuring, maintaining and providing/supplying financial information to businesses, financial institutions, adjudicating authority, insolvency professionals and other relevant stake holders.

Why is it important? How useful is it?

• The objective behind information utilities is to provide high-quality, authenticated information about debts and defaults, as per the report of the Working Group on Information Utility published by the Ministry of Corporate Affairs.
• Information utilities are expected to play a key role as they allow storage of financial information of registered users and expeditiously process and verify information received.
• Moreover, the database and records maintained by them would help lenders in taking informed decisions about credit transactions.
• It would also make debtors cautious as credit information is available with the utility.
• More importantly, information available with the utility can be used as evidence in bankruptcy cases before the National Company Law Tribunal.

What are the key challenges for these utilities?

• While the onus is on financial creditors, operational creditors and corporate debtors to provide the required information, procuring authentic information might be a challenge due to the sensitivity involved. There may also, be resistance in sharing information. Since it is a digital database, there is the risk of exposure to data piracy and data theft.

Context:

• Over the years, the dramatic meltdown of ice in the Arctic Ocean has received great attention and is easy to observe through satellite images.
• Scientists from Aarhus University in Denmark have unveiled the long-term impact of the melting of the Greenland ice sheet.

Study highlights:

• Melting ice is causing coastal waters in Greenland to become less saline, which may in turn affect marine life as well as the global ocean currents that keep Europe warm.
• Impact on fjords: The observed increase in freshwater content will affect the conditions in all Greenland fjords.
• Kay fact: glaciers have been observed to melt and retreat and the researchers know that today’s meltdown of the Greenland ice sheet has more than doubled compared with the period 1983-2003.
• Clear tale: Now, unique annual measurements made within the framework of the ‘Greenland Ecosystem Monitoring Program’ since 2003 in northeast Greenland tell a clear tale — fresh water from the ice sheet accumulates in the surface layers of the surrounding sea and flows into the Greenland fjords.
• Measurements show that the surface water layers became up to 1.5 per mill less saline. This equivalent to an increase in freshwater content from about one metre in 2003 to almost four metres in 2015.

D. GS4 Related

E. PRELIMS FACT

F. Practice Questions for UPSC Prelims Exam

G. UPSC Mains Practice Questions