Government Forms Expert Panel to Curb Lynching

The Ministry of Home Affairs has set up a high powered committee to deliberate on all issues relating to mob lynching and to formulate appropriate measures to deal with such incidents.

• The committee will examine the issue of establishing mob lynching as a separate offence. It will also examine the legal framework under which this can be done.
• The four-member committee will be led by Union Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba and will also include the secretaries of the Department of Justice, Department of Legal Affairs, Department of Social Justice and Empowerment and the Legislative Department of Ministry of Law and Justice.
• The committee will submit its recommendations to the government within four weeks (i.e by the end of August or early September 2018).
• The recommendations of the panel will be examined by a Group of Ministers led by the Home Minister Rajnath Singh (Union ministers Sushma Swaraj, Nitin Gadkari, Ravi Shankar Prasad and Thawar Chand Gehlot are believed to be the other members of this GoM) which will then submit its report to the Prime Minister.
• The formation of the committee comes in the wake of Supreme Court’s directions to the Union government to draft a special law against incidents of lynching.
• Supreme Court held Central and State governments accountable for mob violence and directed them to enact a special law establishing lynching by mobs as a separate offence with separate punishment. The court had called for preventive, remedial and punitive measures to deal with lynching and mob violence.

Read more on SC's guidelines...

New Rules to Allow Appeals on NRC

The Union Ministry of Home Affairs has clarified that people who are not part of the draft National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam will not be automatically declared foreigners. They will be given a month’s time to file claims and objections, besides subsequent judicial recourse.

• The amended rules (rules in the Foreigners Tribunal Order, 1964) would enable residents whose names don’t feature in the National Register of Citizens (NRC) to file an appeal before the Foreigners Tribunals in Assam.
• Under the existing law only State or Police could move the Tribunal against a person suspected to be illegally staying in Assam.
• As per directions of the Supreme Court, the Registrar General of India (RGI) is to publish the final draft list on July 30 to segregate Indian citizens living in Assam from those who had illegally entered the State from Bangladesh after March 24, 1971.

National Register of Citizens

• National Register of Citizens, 1951 is a register prepared after the conduct of the Census of 1951 in respect of each village, showing the houses or holdings in a serial order and indicating against each house or holding the number and names of persons staying therein.
• Assam is the only state where NRC is being updated to identify illegal migrants.
• Under Assam accord which was signed between the leaders of AASU (All Assam Students’ Union)- AAGSP(All Assam Gana Sangram Parishad) and the Government of India in 1985, all the parties agreed that all foreigners who had entered Assam between 1951 and 1961 would be given full citizenship. However, those who entered the state after 1971 will be deported.
• The NRC of 1951 and the Electoral Roll of 1971 (up to midnight of 24 March 1971) are together called Legacy Data. Persons and their descendants whose names appeared in these documents are certified as Indian citizens.

PM Modi in Rwanda

The Indian Prime Minister is on a 5-day visit to Rwanda, Uganda and South Africa. The visit to the three-nations is meant to further strengthen India’s relations with the African continent.

Key Highlights of PM’s Visit to Rwanda

• The visit to Rwanda will mark the first-ever visit to the African nation by an Indian Prime Minister. 
• India is set to establish an Indian high commision in Rwanda to enhance better communication between the respective governments and to enable facilities for consular, passport, visa and others.
• India will gift 200 cows as a part of Rwandan President Kagame's flagship Girinka program, in which the poorest get cows from the government and gift the first female calf to a neighbour to promote brotherhood.
• She has also extended $100 million for development of industrial parks and Kigali special economic zone (SEZ) in Rwanda and another $100 million for agriculture.

Why is Rwanda Important?

• The Prime Minister's visit to Rwanda is historic as Rwanda is an important gateway to Eastern Africa. India had elevated its bilateral relations with Rwanda to the level of a strategic partnership.
• Rwanda has left behind memories of a horrific genocide in 1994 which saw majority ethnic group of Hutus target the minority Tutsis, leaving hundreds of thousands dead. However, since 2000, Rwanda has attained a growth rate of 8% a year, making it one of the fastest-growing economies in the world (though still one of the poorest).
• Rwanda is also increasingly playing an important role in African affairs. The Rwandan President is the current Chair of the African Union. In March, Kigali (Capital of Rwanda) hosted the Assembly of the African Union where the African Continental Free Trade Agreement (AfCTA) establishing the African Continental Free Trade Area was signed.
• Rwanda is the third largest troop contributor for peacekeeping in Africa and plays an important role in the UN Mission in the Central African Republic.
• Despite the ramping up of high-level visits, various studies and statistics show that Indian interest in the Africa growth story has not kept pace, and even declined through most of the period.
• According to the “World Investment Report for 2018”, issued by UNCTAD, Indian FDI in Africa in 2016-17 was at $14 billion while China has increased its investment levels to a massive $40 billion in 2016-17. Hence, India has to encounter increasing challenges of Chinese competition as well as declining Indian trade and investment figures.

Karnataka Sees 300% Jump in FDI Inflows

According to RBI data presented in Parliament, Karnataka received $8.58 billion FDI in 2017-18, which is an increase of about 300% from the $2.13 billion in the previous fiscal year.

• Tamil Nadu witnessed a 56% increase from the $2.22 billion in the previous period.
• Notably, the investment had halved in 2016-17 owing to assembly elections and political uncertainty in the wake of then Chief Minister J. Jayalalithaa’s hospitalisation and untimely demise.
• Other major states Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh saw a dip in FDI inflows.
• The sector-wise investment data show that computer software and hardware gained from a 68% jump in FDI last year to $6.15 billion.
• The services sector which comprises finance, banking, insurance and outsourcing among others, remained the top recipient of FDI despite seeing a 23% decline in inflows.
• Defence industries have attracted a meagre  $10,000 (about Rs seven lakh) FDI in 2017-18. In 2013-14, 2014-15 and 2015-16 defence industries received  $0.82 million,  $0.08 million,  $0.10 million foreign inflows, respectively. In 2016-17, the defence industries failed to attract any foreign direct investments.
• Sectors such as coal production, ports, dye stuffs and coir industries, have failed to attract any foreign direct investments during the last financial year.

Lok Sabha Passes Bill on Cheque Bounce Cases

The Lok Sabha has passed the Negotiable Instruments (Amendment) Bill. The Bill seeks to amend the Negotiable Instruments Act, 1881.

• Negotiable instrument is a signed document that promises a sum of payment to a specified person or the assignee.
• It is transferable in nature, allowing the holder to take the funds as cash or use them in a manner appropriate for the transaction or according to their preference.
• Promissory notes, bills of exchange, and cheques are categorised as the negotiable instruments.
• The Bill specifies penalties for bouncing of cheques, and other violations with respect to such negotiable instruments.
• The Bill is expected to help bring down litigation and provide credibility to cheques and banking system. The Bill aims to reduce inordinate delays in cheque bounce cases.
• The amendment is in line with the government’s push to make India a less cash economy.

Key Highlights of the Bill

• It allows a court hearing a cheque bounce case to direct the drawer (the person who wrote the cheque) to pay interim compensation to the person who filed the complaint.
• The interim compensation which is to be paid within 60 days of the court’s order can be up to 20% of the value of the cheque.
• The interim compensation may be paid under certain circumstances, including where the drawer pleads not guilty of the accusation.
• The Bill specifies that if a drawer convicted in a cheque bouncing case files an appeal, the appellate court may direct him to deposit a minimum of 20% of the fine or compensation awarded by the trial court during conviction.
• This amount will be in addition to any interim compensation paid by the drawer during the earlier trial proceedings.

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018

The government has introduced the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (Second Amendment) Bill, 2018 in the Lok Sabha.

• The bill replaces the Ordinance on the same, which was approved and promulgated in June, 2018.
• The bill brings about significant changes to improve the insolvency resolution framework in the country.
• The changes are based on suggestions made by a 14-member Insolvency Law Committee chaired by Corporate Affairs Secretary Injeti Srinivas.
• The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC) was initially introduced in 2016 when the banking sector was going through a serious crisis because of indiscriminate lending by banks between 2008-2014. The debt recovery laws prevailing at that time were weak and hence loan recoveries could not be made from big industrialists.

Key Provisions

• Recognises homebuyers as financial creditors - thus giving them due representation in the Committee of Creditors (CoC) and making them an integral part of the decision-making process.

Committee of Creditors (CoC) The CoC is comprised of all financial creditors of the corporate debtor. The voting share in the CoC is proportionate to the extent of financial debts owed to such creditor.

• Further, home buyers would be able to invoke Section 7 of the IBC against errant developers. (Section 7 allows financial creditors to file application seeking the insolvency resolution process.)
• Reduces the minimum voting threshold for the CoC to 66%, from 75% for key decisions. For routine decisions, the voting threshold is fixed at 51%.
• Assent of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) will be needed before the Committee of Creditors (CoC) finalises a resolution plan. Currently, the winning bidder approaches CCI for clearance before formally taking over the asset.
• Allows promoters of micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) to bid for their companies in any insolvency process. It also empowers the Centre, in public interest, to exempt MSMEs from the application of any other provisions of the Code.
• Corporate houses can bid for multiple distressed assets under the insolvency process without getting themselves disqualified under Section 29A of IBC. (Section 29A specifies the parties ineligible to be a resolution applicant.)
• The bill amends the criteria which prohibits certain persons from submitting a resolution plan. For example, the Code prohibits a person from being a resolution applicant if his account has been identified as a non-performing asset (NPA) for more than a year. However, the bill provides that pure-play financial entities (pure-play refers to a publicly traded company that is focused on only one industry or product) like banks would be exempted from this disqualification provision on account of holding stake in or acquiring stressed firms under the IBC, 2016. A grace period of three-years has been provided from the date of such acquisition.
• The amendments allow the promoter to bid for his enterprise undergoing Corporate Insolvency Resolution Process (CIRP) provided he is not a wilful defaulter and does not attract other disqualifications not related to default. 
• Insertion of a new section - Section 12A - that permits the withdrawal of application admitted for initiation of insolvency resolution process to the National Company Law Tribunal. Such withdrawal would be permissible only with the approval of the CoC with 90% of the voting share voting in favour.
• The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India’s (IBBI) will be given a “developmental” role similar to other regulators such as IRDAI and PFRDA. It will also be given the power to regulate the working and practices of certain professionals under the IBC.
• The Limitation Act 1963 will apply to the proceedings or appeals under the IBC.

Impact

• The move is likely to enable homebuyers to take builders defaulting on their obligations to a bankruptcy court and decide their future along with their lenders’.
• At a time when many homebuyers are facing hardships on account of delayed and incomplete real estate projects, this will infuse confidence in the homebuyers to invest their money - helping revive the stagnant real estate market.
• By allowing MSME promoters to submit their resolution plan in insolvency cases, it will also help MSMEs sector - which is key to job growth in India.

Pact to Resolve Stressed Assets

Seventeen public sector banks, five private sector banks and two other financial institutions have signed the inter-creditor agreement (ICA) that aims to fast-track the resolution of bad loans.

• The agreement was framed under the aegis of the Indian Banks’ Association and is part of Project Sashakt, a five-pronged strategy to resolve bad loans, proposed by a committee led by Punjab National Bank non-executive chairman Sunil Mehta.
• The ICA is applicable to all corporate borrowers who have availed loans for an amount of Rs. 50 crore or more under consortium lending / multiple banking arrangements.
• The lender with the highest exposure to a stressed borrower will be authorised to formulate the resolution plan which will be presented to all lenders for their approval.
• The decision making shall be by way of approval of ‘majority lenders’ (i.e. the lenders with 66% share in the aggregate exposure). Once a resolution plan is approved by the majority, it shall be binding on all the lenders that are a party to the ICA.
• Dissenting lenders will have an exit route, i.e they can either sell their exposure to another lender at a 15% discount or buy the entire exposure of all the banks involved, at a 25% premium.
• The clauses of “decision by majority lenders” and “exit route for dissenting lenders” will address one of the major issues of lack of consensus among the lending banks on a common resolution plan.
• This agreement will be terminated in case there is any guidance or prescription from the RBI or any other regulatory or governmental authority to terminate it.

NASA Set to Launch ‘Parker Solar Probe’

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is scheduled to launch ‘Parker Space Probe’ for a planned seven-year mission to study the Sun closer than any human-made object.

Key Highlights 

• The Parker Solar Probe is a robotic spacecraft the size of a small car and is named after American solar astrophysicist Eugene Newman Parker.
• It is set to fly into the sun’s corona within 3.8 million miles from the solar surface, seven times closer than any other spacecraft.
• The probe is capable to endure wicked heat while zooming through the solar corona to study this outermost part of the stellar atmosphere that gives rise to the solar wind.

• The probe is set to use seven Venus flybys over nearly seven years to steadily reduce its orbit around the sun, using instruments designed to image the solar wind and study electric and magnetic fields, coronal plasma and energetic particles.
• The probe has been outfitted with a heat shield designed to keep its instruments at a tolerable 29 degrees Celsius even as the spacecraft faces temperatures reaching nearly 21,370 degrees Celsius at its closest pass.

Importance of the Study

• The Sun is far more complex than meets the eyes as it is a dynamic and magnetically active star.
• The Sun’s atmosphere constantly sends magnetised material outward, enveloping the Solar System far beyond the orbit of Pluto and influencing every world along the way.
• The corona gives rise to the solar wind, a continuous flow of charged particles that permeates the solar system.
• Unpredictable solar winds cause disturbances in our planet’s magnetic field and can play havoc with communications technology on the earth.
• The findings of the probe will enable scientists to forecast changes in the earth’s space environment.

Important Facts for Prelims (24th July, 2018)

Krintafel

• Krintafel (tafenoquine) is a one dose medication produced by GlaxoSmithKline and has been approved by US regulators as a simple, one-dose treatment to prevent relapses of Plasmodium vivax malaria.
• The one-dose treatment will treat the recurring form of malaria, caused by the parasite plasmodium vivax, to which around 8.5 million people fall prey to every year.
• The medication is considered as a significant advancement in malaria treatment in the last 60 years.
• A single 300mg dose of drug blocks the dormant form of P.vivax, that affects the liver, transferred by infected mosquitoes to human beings.

VAHAN & SARATHI

• Recently, an inter-ministerial task force has recommended to integrate e-way bill database with VAHAN and SARATHI.
• The e-Way bill, currently gives only details of the value of goods being transported.
• Vahan allows access to all details related to vehicles such as registration number, chassis/engine number, body/fuel type, colour, manufacturer and model and provides various online services to citizens.
• Vahan has been mandated by the Central Motor Vehicle Act 1988 as well as State Motor Vehicle Rules.
• Driving Licence and related data are automated through a separate application called ‘Sarathi’.
• National Informatics Centre (NIC) has been entrusted with the task to standardize & deploy the software VAHAN for Vehicle
• Registration and SARATHI for Driving Licenses along with compilation of data with respect to Vehicle Registration and Driving Licenses of all the states in State Register and National Register.

Tribal Atlas of Odisha

• Odisha has unveiled the ‘Tribal Atlas of Odisha’, a compilation of demographic and cultural information of the tribal population in the state.
• The state government has claimed that the compilation is the first-of-its-kind in the country.
• This book will help to provide comprehensive data on tribal population.
• The atlas displays the salient features of the tribal population of Odisha with a series of maps, charts and diagrams.
• The atlas has been prepared by the Scheduled Castes (SC) and Scheduled Tribes (ST) Research and Training Institute in collaboration with the Academy of Tribal Language and Culture.
• As per Census 2011, Odisha has the second highest tribal population in the country after Madhya Pradesh.
• It will help in policy decisions and development of tribes of Odisha.

Bharat Stage-VI

Recently, the central government has said that the sale of the vehicles, which follow non-compliant BS-IV, will be stopped by Apr 2020, but registration of these vehicles can continue till May-end.

• Bharat Stage Norms
  • Based on the European regulations (Euro norms), introduced in the year 2000, the Bharat stage norms are emission control standards put in place by the government to keep a check on air pollution.
  • These standards set specifications/limits for the release of air pollutants from equipment using internal combustion engines, including vehicles.
  • The higher the stage, the more stringent the norms.
• What is BS VI’s Key Improvement in Fuel Quality Over BS IV?
  • BS VI norms seek to cut down sulphur content to 10 parts per million (ppm) from 50 ppm
  • Sulphur in the fuel contributes to fine particulate matter emissions.
  • BS VI norms seek to reduce the level of certain harmful hydrocarbons in the emissions that are produced due to incomplete combustion of fuel.

Horn of Africa

Recently, Qatar and its ally, Turkey, are building ports in Sudan, and Saudi Arabia is in talks to set up a naval base in Djibouti.

• The Peninsula Of Northeast Africa is called the Horn of Africa or sometimes called the Somalia peninsula. It lies opposite of the southern Arabian Peninsula.
• It is the easternmost extension of the African continent separating the Gulf of Aden from the Indian Ocean.
• It mainly includes Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia and sometimes even including parts of Sudan and Kenya.
• The Horn of Africa has been at the centre of global attention for several decades because of protracted armed conflict, severe food crises and large-scale displacement.
• The Horn ports are near the Bab al-Mandab strait, a vital choke-point at the mouth of the Red Sea.