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Calling for urgent reforms and transparency in the process of sovereign credit rating, the office of the Chief Economic Advisor in the Union Ministry of Finance, has said that methodologies used by agencies Fitch, Moody’s and S&P, are heavily loaded against developing countries like India due to an “over-reliance” on non-transparent and subjective qualitative factors.
In an essay ‘Understanding a Sovereign’s Willingness to Pay Back: A Review of Credit Rating Methodologies’ — which is one of five essays in a book called Re-examining Narratives, the CEA’s office pointed out that perception and value judgements end up weighing much more than the countries’ actual macroeconomic fundamentals.
The preface for the book has been written by V Anantha Nageswaran, Chief Economic Advisor, and Rajiv Mishra, Senior Advisor, Ministry of Finance.
Parliament
Criminal law bills clear Rajya Sabha: Shah says made by India for Indians (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The three criminal law Bills are going to usher in the most modern criminal jurisprudence in the world which has been framed by Indians and for Indians, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said as the Rajya Sabha passed the Bills by a voice vote in absence of the Opposition.
The three Bills — Bharatiya Nyaya (Second) Sanhita, 2023; the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha (Second) Sanhita, 2023; and the Bharatiya Sakshya (Second) Bill, 2023 — will replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), 1860; The Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 (originally enacted in 1898); and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872.
“After 75 years of Independence, this law has been framed by Indians, for Indians and through the Parliament of India. It has the aroma of Indian soil, Indian culture and Indian philosophy.
This is going to be the most modern criminal jurisprudence in the world. This will bring to the ground ancient Indian philosophy of quick justice.
These laws have been framed on the basic sentiment of justice rather than punishment,” Shah said during his reply to the debate on the three Bills.
Telecommunication bill gets Rajya Sabha nod, Vaishnav defends spectrum reform (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
A day after Lok Sabha passed The Telecommunications Bill, 2023, Rajya Sabha cleared the Bill by voice vote to bring in a range of structural changes to current regulatory mechanisms in the telecom sector.
The Bill, which the Centre said will replace colonial-era archaic laws that need reforms, seeks to allow the government to temporarily take control of telecom services in the interest of national security, and provide a non-auction route for the allocation of satellite spectrum.
Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw once again defended the provision of administrative spectrum allocation in place of auction.
The provision in this Bill says that spectrum will be given through auction only except for a narrowly defined category of Schedule 1 which has 19 items, which deal with public utility and such spectrum that cannot be auctioned because of technical reasons.
A significant spectrum reform is being brought which will pull the telecom sector out from the dark ages of corruption and scams like the 2G. Those responsible must answer how they made a pious resource a medium of their corruption.
Bill on appointment of CEC, ECs passed; in line with direction of SC, says Minister (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The Lok Sabha passed the Chief Election Commissioner and Other Election Commissioners (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Bill, 2023, close on the heels of the Rajya Sabha clearing it with some official amendments.
The Bill provides for a panel comprising the PM, the Leader of the Opposition and a Cabinet Minister proposed by the PM.
Responding to the debate, Union Law Minister Arjun Ram Meghwal said though Parliament had passed a law relating to the Election Commission in 1991, it was “half-baked” as it did not deal with the mechanism of appointments.
He said the Bill was in line with the Supreme Court’s direction rather than against it. The direction, he said, was that until a law is enacted, a three-member panel — headed by the PM and comprising the Leader of the Opposition in Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India — will select the CEC and ECs, rather than the appointment being done directly by the President on the advice of the government. The panel that the apex court verdict talked about was, thus, supposed to be a stop-gap arrangement, said the minister.
Express Network
CISF to be brought in for Parliament security (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, International Security)
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) to take security charge of the Parliament building from the Delhi Police. The CISF will first conduct a survey of the premises prior to the deployment of its security and fire wing.
This comes a week after the December 13 Parliament security breach, in which two individuals jumped into the Lok Sabha chamber from the visitors’ gallery, and opened canisters emitting yellow smoke.
Here are 10 things you need to know about the CISF.
In June 1964, a devastating fire had broken out in Ranchi’s Heavy Engineering Corporation plant, with reports suggesting sabotage.
This led to the appointment of the Justice Mukherjee Commission which recommended the establishment of a dedicated industrial protection force. Thus, the CISF was set up by an Act of Parliament on March 10, 1969.
ISRO to usher in New Year with launch of XpoSat
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is likely to usher in the New Year, with the launch of its first polarimetry mission XPoSat likely on January 1, according to persons in the know of the matter.
It will become the country’s third space-based observatory after the recently launched solar mission Aditya-L1 and AstroSat launched in 2015.
The mission is meant to study the “polarisation” of astronomical X-rays, which can provide insights into the processes that resulted in its emissions.
It is a method of studying astronomical phenomenon, in addition to imaging them, studying the fluctuations in light from a source, and the energy radiated by the celestial bodies.
The observatory can help in understanding the emission mechanism from sources such as black holes and neutron stars (collapsed core of a massive star). The planned life of the mission is five years.
Editorial
Constitutional collapse (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
It is a monumental tragedy that the government’s suspension of more than 140 MPs is still being seen merely as a political contest between the government and the Opposition.
It is rather the latest expression of a radical change in the type of regime we inhabit: The collapse of parliamentary democracy.
The biggest challenge we face in acknowledging this fact is that we are still bewitched by the pseudo constitutional façades of our Republic — as if the forms and processes of Parliament, rules of procedure, legal redress, constitutional morality, institutions or even the terminology of parliamentary democracy can save us.
The recourse to this formal language of democracy serves increasingly to provide a constitutional veneer to what is in effect, an unconstitutional concentration of power.
The Chief Justice of India can give almost a daily lecture on constitutional morality, even as the Supreme Court loses any will to stand up for it.
The ruling dispensation can, without a trace of irony, speak of parliamentary decorum, even as Parliament is effectively dead as an institution.
The media speaks of this as a contest between the government and the Opposition, even as the government puts chains on the wrists of Opposition members and silences them.
Ideas Page
Innovation, atmanirbhar (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
The history of the IIT system dates back to 1946 when a committee was set up by Jogendra Singh, member of the Viceroy’s Executive Council, to consider the setting up of higher technical institutions.
The committee headed by N R Sarkar recommended the establishment of four institutions on the lines of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. With this recommendation, the first Indian Institute of Technology was born in May 1950 in Hijli, Kharagpur. The institute started its journey in the old Hijli detention camp where some of our freedom fighters had sacrificed their lives.
In 1951, when the first session started, there were 224 freshers and 42 teachers. Seven decades later, it is now home to 16,630 students, more than 746 faculty members and 887 employees.
It has 20 academic departments, 12 schools, 18 centres (including 10 centres of excellence), and is engaged in several international and national mission projects.
Explained
IPC to BNS, what has changed (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
From bringing terrorism and organised crime under the ambit of ordinary criminal law, introducing gender neutrality for offences pertaining to children, to repealing Section 377 that criminalised homosexuality, the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita Bill, 2023 makes several key departures from the Indian Penal Code it seeks to replace.
The BNS introduces Clause 69 that seems to ostensibly tackle the “love jihad” narrative by criminalising “deceitful” promise to marry.
The phrase “sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape” essentially criminalises consensual sexual activity too.
Whoever, by deceitful means or by making promise to marry to a woman without any intention of fulfilling the same, has sexual intercourse with her, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to ten years and shall also be liable to fine,” the provision reads adding that “deceitful means” shall include the false promise of employment or promotion, inducement, or marring after suppressing identity.
What are volcanoes and why do they keep erupting in Iceland (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
Lava flows from a volcano in Iceland were slowing down, although new vents could open at short notice, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office.
The volcano, which is known as Fagradalsfjall and located on the Reykjanes peninsula in southwest Iceland, erupted on Monday (December 18) after weeks of intense earthquakes and tremors.
In the first two hours of the eruption, hundreds of cubic metres of lava per second flowed out of the volcano. The authorities anticipated the eruption due to the seismic activity and evacuated nearly 4,000 people last month from Grindavik, a fishing town threatened by the lava flow. So far, there have been no reports of injury but some houses have been damaged, according to the BBC.
This is the third time that the Fagradalsfjall volcano has erupted in the past two years. It had been dormant for over 6,000 years but became active in March 2021.
Notably, Iceland is one of the most volcanically active regions on the planet. It witnesses an eruption every four to five years. However, since 2021 the frequency has spiked to almost one eruption per year. Here is a look at what volcanoes are, their different types, and why Iceland is so volcanically active.
Economy
Centre considers compensation for exporters hit by UK, EU carbon tax (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre is exploring a range of relief measures to soften the blow of the carbon tax introduced by the European Union and the UK, which includes offering compensation to exporters affected by the tax to help them remain competitive in the global markets.
The carbon border adjustment mechanism (CBAM) or carbon tax is expected to have an impact on India’s iron, steel, and aluminum exports worth $8-$9 billion headed into Europe and the UK.
However, CBAM has provisions to include more products with high carbon footprint going forward which could mean greater impact over the years.
There are various options on the table to tackle carbon tax such as seeking longer transition time and repatriation of the duties.
We are also looking at other collaborative mechanisms where we devise a way to come out with supportive measures to make the product more competitive. We are discussing and deliberating along these lines,” the official said.
China bans export of tech to process rare earth minerals (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
China will halt the export of a range of rare-earth technologies, potentially making it harder for the US and its allies to bolster Western supplies of strategic raw materials.
While Beijing already had some limits in place, it has now widened a list of technologies that cannot be transferred overseas to include the processing of rare-earth metals and magnets, according to a document from the Ministry of Commerce.
The move by the world’s dominant supplier — arguably the most significant rare-earth move from China in over a decade — puts the vital materials front and center as a tit-for-tat trade war on technology worsens. China is flexing its muscle,” said Alicia Garcia Herrero, chief Asia Pacific economist at Natixis SA.
Over the past three decades, China has built a dominant role in mining — and especially in refining rare earths, a cluster of 17 elements used in everything from wind turbines to military hardware and electric vehicles.
The nation accounted for more than two-thirds of mined rare earths last year, and is home to as much as all global refining capacity, according to US government figures. The country also dominates the supply of rare-earth magnets, the main product deployed in manufactured goods.