Punjab Seeks Special Category Status

The State government of Punjab has asked the Centre to grant it special category status under the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Swasthya Suraksha Mission.

• The State government has pointed out that the State, which shares international border with Pakistan, has become a victim of a proxy war waged by the neighbouring country using drugs as its silent weapon.
• Putting Punjab under the special category States would make it eligible for higher grant from the Centre.

What is Special Category Status (SCS)?

• Special category status is a classification given by the Centre to assist development of states that face geographical and socio-economic disadvantages.
• This classification was done on the recommendations of the Fifth Finance Commission in 1969.
• The parameters for SCS were -
  • hilly terrain;
  • low population density and/or sizeable share of tribal population;
  • strategic location along borders with neighbouring countries;
  • economic and infrastructure backwardness; and
  • nonviable nature of State finances.
• SCS was first accorded in 1969 to Jammu and Kashmir, Assam and Nagaland. Since then eight more states have been included (Arunachal Pradesh, Himachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Sikkim, Tripura and Uttarakhand).

Benefits to States with SCS

• The Centre pays 90% of the funds required in a centrally-sponsored scheme to special category status states as against 60% or 75% in case of other states, while the remaining funds are provided by the state governments.
• Unspent money does not lapse and is carried forward.
• Significant concessions are provided to these states in excise and customs duties, income tax and corporate tax.

14th Finance Commission on SCS

• The 14th Finance Commission has done away with the 'special category status' for states, except for the Northeastern and three hill states.
• Instead, it suggested that the resource gap of each state be filled through ‘tax devolution’, urging the Centre to increase the states' share of tax revenues from 32% to 42%, which has been implemented since 2015.

Breach of Privilege

Recently, Congress has given notice for breach of privilege against the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister in Lok Sabha.

What is Parliamentary Privilege?

• Parliamentary privilege refers to rights, immunities and exemptions enjoyed by Parliament as an institution and MPs in their individual capacity, without which they cannot discharge their functions as entrusted upon them by the Constitution.
• When any of these rights and immunities are disregarded, the offence is called a breach of privilege and is punishable under law of Parliament.
• A notice is moved in the form of a motion by any member of either House against those being held guilty of breach of privilege

What are the Rules Governing Privilege?

• The Constitution (Article 105) mentions two privileges,i.e. freedom of speech in Parliament and right of publication of its proceedings.
• Rule No 222 in Chapter 20 of the Lok Sabha Rule Book and correspondingly Rule 187 in Chapter 16 of the Rajya Sabha rulebook governs privilege.
• A member may, with the consent of the Speaker or the Chairperson, raise a question involving a breach of privilege either of a member or of the House.
• The rules mandate that any notice should be relating to an incident of recent occurrence and should need the intervention of the House.

What is the Privileges Committee?

• In the Lok Sabha, the Speaker nominates a committee of privileges consisting of 15 members as per respective party strengths.
• A report is then presented to the House for its consideration.
• The Speaker may permit a half-hour debate while considering the report.
• The Speaker may then pass final orders or direct that the report be tabled before the House.
• A resolution may then be moved relating to the breach of privilege that has to be unanimously passed.
• In the Rajya Sabha, the deputy chairperson heads the committee of privileges, that consists of 10 members.

What is the Role of the Speaker/Rajya Sabha Chair?

• The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion.
• The Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.
• If the Speaker/Chair gives consent under Rule 222, the member concerned is given an opportunity to make a short statement.

Government’s Stand on Lokpal Appointment is Unsatisfactory: SC

The Supreme Court has stated that the government’s stand on not being able to complete the appointment of a Lokpal has been unsatisfactory. The court has been constantly urging the government for the past several months to complete the Lokpal appointment.

Background

• The court was responding to a contempt petition against the government for not appointing a Lokpal despite an April 2017 judgment by the court.
• The Lokpal and Lokayukta Act of 2013 had not been implemented all these years because of the absence of the Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the current Lok Sabha.
• The 2013 legislation includes the LoP as a member of the selection committee for appointment of Lokpal which comprises of the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Speaker, along with an eminent jurist appointed by them among their ranks.
• In April, 2017, the Supreme Court clarified that the Lokpal appointment process need not be stalled merely due to the absence of the Leader of Opposition.
• The judgment dismissed the government’s reasoning that the Lokpal appointment process should wait till the 2013 Act was amended to replace the LoP with the single largest Opposition party leader in the selection committee.

Lokpal and Lokayukta

• The Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) of India (1966– 1970) recommended the setting up of two special authorities designated as ‘Lokpal’ and ‘Lokayukta’ for the redressal of citizens’ grievances. The concept of an ombudsman was borrowed from Sweden.
• A Lokpal is an anti-corruption authority or ombudsman who represents the public interest.
• The Lokpal has jurisdiction over all Members of Parliament and central government employees in cases of corruption.
• The Lokpal is responsible for enquiring into corruption charges at the national level while the Lokayukta performs the same function at the state level.

Leader of Opposition (LoP)

• According to the rules, the LoP post is given only to a party which has at least 10% of strength of the House. Considering the strength of 542, a party must have at least 55 members to get the LoP post.
• Since the Congress, despite being the single largest opposition party in the House, falls short of the required numbers, the government had denied it the LoP post.

PM Modi Visits Uganda

As part of the three-nation African tour, PM Modi is on a two-day visit to Uganda. It is the first bilateral tour by an Indian Prime Minister since 1997. Also, it will be the first time an Indian Prime Minister will address the Ugandan Parliament.

Key Highlights of PM’s Visit to Uganda

• India has announced two lines of credit worth nearly $200 million in energy infrastructure, agriculture and dairy sectors.
• India and Uganda signed four MoUs in the areas of defence cooperation, visa exemption for official and diplomatic passport holders, cultural exchange programme and material testing laboratory.
• India will assist Uganda in training, capacity building, infrastructure development, IT and development initiatives.
• As Uganda seeks assistance from India to improve healthcare facilities, India will provide a cancer therapy machine to the cancer institute in Kampala (capital of Uganda).
• India unveiled a bust of India's first home minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel at the Indian community event they addressed in Kampala.

Importance of Uganda

• The visit marks the 25th high-level bilateral visit from India to Africa in just four years—underlining a significant build-up in India’s ties with the continent.
• India’s engagement with Uganda is at three levels viz. at the African Union (AU) level, at the level of the Regional Economic Communities (RECs) and at the bilateral level.
• India is looking to expand markets and promote Indian trade and investment in Eastern Africa for the mutual growth of India-Eastern Africa economies.
• Indian exports to Uganda narrowed to $736 million at present from $1.2 billion in 2015, while Ugandan shipments to the subcontinent increased to $44 million from $24 million during the same period.
• Uganda is currently chair of the East African community and the country has rich potential in resource base including its oil and gas sector, its agriculture, its minerals including rare earth minerals as well as renewable energy.
• Besides resources and markets, India also needs to closely watch China’s progress in building up constituencies around the world, including Africa. Support from such constituencies helps strengthen its international position and in the process, Chinese ambitions for global leadership gets a boost.

Aluminium as Ninth Core Industry

• Recently a report by V.K Saraswat (NITI Aayog member) has recommended that the government should consider classifying the aluminium sector as India’s ninth core industry.
• Currently, there are eight core industries viz. coal, crude oil, natural gas, refinery products, fertiliser, steel, cement and electricity.
• The aluminium sector contributes to nearly 2 percent of manufacturing GDP. Most of the aluminium plants are generally based in the hinterlands of the country and aid in generating peripheral employment and economic development of the region. It is a direct and an indirect employment multiplier creating close to 800,000 jobs.

Core Industries

• Core industry can be defined as the main industry which has a multiplier effect on the economy.
• In most countries, there is particular industry that seems to be backbone of all other industries and it qualifies to be the core industry.
• The Eight Core Industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP).
• The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) is an index which details out the growth of various sectors in an economy such as mineral mining, electricity,manufacturing, etc. It is compiled and published monthly by the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation six weeks after the reference month ends, i.e a lag of six weeks.
• The Base Year of the Index of Eight Core Industries has been revised from the year 2004-05 to 2011-12 from April, 2017.
• According to the Index of Eight Core Industries, March 2018, the maximum and minimum contribution to the IIP was from the Petroleum & Refinery production and Fertilizers production respectively.

Industry	Weight (In percentage)
Petroleum & Refinery production	28.04
Electricity generation	19.85
Steel production	17.92
Coal production	10.33
Crude Oil production	8.98
Natural Gas production	6.88
Cement production	5.37
Fertilizers production	2.63

Aluminium

• From an economic point of view, the third-most-important base metal is Aluminium (with an annual $90 billion industry). First being Iron-ore, followed by Copper.
• India is placed at 7th position in the world in terms of bauxite reserve base. Bauxite is the basic raw material for aluminium production. The largest producer is China, followed by Russia, Canada, and the United Arab Emirates.

Oxytocin Ban

The US generic drugs major Mylan has approached the Delhi High Court challenging the notification issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

The notification placed restrictions on private companies from producing Oxytocin and allowing only the public sector unit - Karnataka Antibiotics & Pharmaceuticals Ltd (KAPL) to make the drug.

What is Oxytocin?

• Oxytocin is a natural hormone that causes the uterus to contract.
• Oxytocin is used to induce labor or strengthen labor contractions during childbirth, and to control bleeding after childbirth.

Widespread Misuse

• The move to ban has been necessitated by its widespread misuse in the dairy and poultry sector, where it was used to increase milk secretion and production.
• It is misused on young girls to induce puberty.

Concerns Related To Ban

• The proposed ban on private production raised an alarm on the possible shortfall of Oxytocin supply if only one company was permitted to make this drug.
• The proposed ban could exacerbate the inflow of illegal versions of the drug makings its way into the Indian market from China and also drive out legitimate companies.

Origami-Inspired Underwater Trap to Study Marine Creatures

Researchers have developed an origami-inspired sampler, named Rotary Actuated Dodecahedron (RAD) that uses folding polyhedral sides that can trap deep-sea soft creatures without causing them any harm.

Key Highlights

• Studying soft-bodied deep sea creatures like jellyfish and squid has been a difficult task for marine biologists as existing underwater tools cause damage or even kill them.
• Origami, the Japanese art of folding, was used as an inspiration to develop Rotary Actuated Dodecahedron (RAD).
• It can be attached to any remotely operated vehicle (ROV) that uses cameras to position the sampler near a sea creature of interest and to entrap it.
• The device can be modified to withstand higher pressures at increasing depths in the ocean.

Important Facts for Prelims (25th July, 2018)

Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail

• The Election Commission (EC) is struggling to meet the deadline to procure 16 lakh voter-verifiable paper audit trail (VVPAT) machines for the Lok Sabha elections in 2019.
• The Supreme Court of India  directed the EC in 2013 to introduce VVPAT in Lok Sabha Elections.
• VVPAT machines are used during election process to verify that the vote polled by a voter goes to the correct candidate.
• A VVPAT produces a printout of the vote cast using an Electronic Voting Machine (EVM), which can be shown to the voter to dispel doubts.
• The printout is then deposited in a box and can be used to resolve any dispute regarding the poll results.
• VVPATs are a second line of verification and are particularly useful in the time when allegations around Electronic Voting Machines’ tampering crop up.

Strait of Hormuz 

• The Strait of Hormuz which is located between Oman and Iran, connects the Persian Gulf with the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea.
• Bahrain, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates depend on this narrow passage to supply of its crude oil.
• About 30 percent of the world’s seaborne-traded crude oil passes through the strait of Hormuz.
• Across the Strait,there are a myriad of mountains and rocks forming several islands such as Salamah Wa Banatiha Island, Musandam Island and Birds Island .

Bandipur Tiger Reserve

• Bandipur Tiger Reserve formerly known as the Bandipur National Park came into being in the year 2007.  The name is derived from a village called Bandipur where the administrative unit of the Tiger Reserve is located.
• It is located in Karnataka.
• Together with Mudumalai Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu, Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary in Kerala and Nagarhole National Park in the North, it creates the India's biggest biosphere reserve popularly known as the ‘Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve’.
• Major Rivers : Moyar River, Noolpuza/Nugu hole, Kabini.