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The Maharashtra Assembly unanimously passed a Bill granting 10 per cent reservation in education and jobs to the Maratha community.
Chief Minister Eknath Shinde presented the Maharashtra State Reservation for Socially and Educationally Backward Classes Bill 2024, drafted on the basis of a Maharashtra State Backward Class Commission report that identified the Marathas as socially and educationally backward.
The principle of creamy layer will be applicable and reservation under this Act will be available only to those in the Socially and Educationally Backward Classes who are not in the creamy layer category.
The report submitted to the government last week by commission chairman Justice (retired) Sunil Shukre said “exceptional circumstances and extraordinary situations exist” and this warrants granting reservation to Maratha community in excess of 50 per cent.
SC quashes mayor poll results (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court quashed and set aside the result of the January 30 mayoral polls for the Chandigarh Municipal Corporation in which the presiding officer had named BJP’s Manoj Sonkar as the winner, and instead declared Kuldeep Kumar, the AAP-Congress coalition candidate, as the validly elected candidate.
It also issued a show cause notice to Anil Masih, the presiding officer, on why steps should not be initiated against him under Section 340 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973.
A three-judge bench presided by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud perused the ballot papers and said that the eight ballots on which Masih had made a marking, and were later counted as invalid, were duly cast in favour of Kuldeep Kumar. Kumar had approached the Supreme Court against the outcome of the election.
Govt & Politics
WHO launches digital health platform agreed upon in India’s G20 presidency (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Achieving one of the three priority areas agreed upon during India’s G20 presidency in 2023, the World Health Organization (WHO) launched the Global Initiative on Digital Health (GIDH) virtually, a platform for sharing knowledge and digital products among countries.
At the launch of GIDH, Union Health Minister Mansukh Mandaviya and India’s representative to the UN Arindam Bagchi addressed the gathering.
The initiative will be a network of networks with four main components — country needs tracker, country resource portal (a map of resources available in a country), transformation toolbox that will share quality-assured digital tools, and knowledge exchange.
Calling it a “momentous day”, Mandaviya said, “we have achieved the vision of establishing an institutional framework for digital health.
This was a key deliverable of India’s G20 presidency that was agreed upon in the Gandhinagar meeting in the presence of Dr Tedros (WHO director-general). This is a testament to our shared goal of digital health.”
Editorial
The minimum support (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In the last two years, nothing concrete was done by the central government on the agreement it had reached with agitating farmers’ unions, who had protested near the national capital.
The government should have had the wisdom to act and take a decision on a legal guarantee for Minimum Support Price (MSP) and other demands with alacrity, lest they become the basis for a renewed agitation. This lack of action is the reason and justification for farmer unions launching the current agitation.
The purpose is to press the government to fulfil its promises. This time too, the debate is around the feasibility of their primary demand — the legal guarantee for MSP.
Let’s frame what the demand actually is. It has two parts. First, MSP should be based on the comprehensive cost of production (C2), as determined by the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), plus 50 per cent, as recommended by the Swaminathan Commission.
This was also promised by the BJP and articulated several times by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The second part of the demand is that the 23 crops for which MSP is thus announced should be legally purchased at or above the MSP price by anyone who “willingly enters” the market.
Ideas Page
Why are we falling ill so often? (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
There is a growing concern over the escalation of respiratory diseases, particularly Influenza A (H1N1), in India. The most recent data from the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) suggests a resurgence of Influenza A (H1N1) cases in Kerala, Maharashtra, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Chattisgarh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and West Bengal, with a few states also reporting deaths related to influenza.
An NCDC report highlighted the presence of A(H1N1) pdm09, A(H3N2), and Type B Victoria lineage strains in India.
These flu viruses in India are similar to the ones found worldwide and are of the same type that the World Health Organization (WHO) recommends vaccines for, specifically the Southern Hemisphere 2024.
Clinicians have advised people with cough and cold symptoms to get tested for both flu and Covid-19, as there has been an increase in chest infections and hospital admissions.
In response to a rise in influenza infections in the country, the NCDC has recommended the prudent use of the Southern Hemisphere’s 2024 quadrivalent influenza vaccine.
Economy
Small scale fishing should be exempted from WTO talks (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Ahead of the WTO’s inter-ministerial meeting in Abu Dhabi later this month, the National Fishworkers Forum (NFF’s) has written to the commerce and industry ministry asking it to protect the interest of small fishermen by pushing World Trade Organization (WTO) to keep small scale fishing out of fisheries subsidies negotiations later this month.
Commerce Ministry officials maintain that India will push against any form of curbs on its subsidies to poor fishermen at the WTO and also seek a moratorium on fishing subsidies from advanced countries including the US and EU during the upcoming inter-ministerial.
“India is the only country where small-scale fishers fish in large numbers and we hardly have deep sea fishing. Over 70 per cent of the fishermen are below the poverty line and for us, fishing is a livelihood issue.
Fishermen are not responsible for decline in fish. It is because of other factors like industrial pollution, global warming and coastal degradation which has affected the fishers,” Olencio Simoes, General-Secretary – National Fishworkers’ Forum (NFF) said at a press briefing.
World
US vetoes UN resolution demanding Gaza ceasefire (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The US has vetoed a UN security council resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza for the third time, arguing that it would undermine negotiations over a hostage deal.
The US was the lone vote against a ceasefire resolution put forward by Algeria. The UK was the sole abstention, with 13 votes in support, including those of close allies of Washington who insisted the humanitarian needs of Palestinians outweighed any reservations over the Algerian text.
Washington was widely lambasted for using its veto again at a time when nearly 30,000 Palestinians have been killed and more than 2 million people are under threat of famine.
“A vote in favour of this draft resolution is a support for the Palestinians right to life,” the Algerian envoy to the UN, Amar Bendjama, told the council. “Conversely, voting against it implies an endorsement of the brutal violence and collective punishment inflicted upon them.”
Explained
Art 142, Why SC quashed Chandigarh mayor election why it matters (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court has quashed the result of the January 30 election for the Mayor of Chandigarh after finding that presiding officer Anil Masih had deliberately invalidated eight ballots cast in favour of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-Congress candidate Kuldeep Kumar ‘Tita’.
The Bench, comprising Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud and Justices J B Pardiwala and Manoj Misra, while setting aside the result as “contrary to law” and declaring Kuldeep Kumar as the “validly elected candidate”, refused to quash the election process itself.
The court used its power under Article 142 of the Constitution to do “complete justice” and protect the sanctity of electoral democracy. “Allowing such a state of affairs would be destructive of the most valued principles on which the entire edifice of democracy in our country depends.
The Bench said it was evident that “while the petitioner is reflected to have polled 12 votes, the eight votes which are treated as invalid were wrongly treated to be so”, and “each of those invalid votes were in fact validly cast in favour of the petitioner”.
Defining forests, saving them (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court has directed governments to follow the “broad and all-encompassing” definition of forest as laid down in its 1996 judgment in the T N Godavarman case until a consolidated record of all kinds of forests across the country is prepared.
A three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India (CJI) D Y Chandrachud passed the order on Monday (February 19) on petitions that challenged the 2023 amendments to the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980 (FCA) on the ground that the modifications had “substantially diluted” the definition of forest, and had reduced the ambit of the Act.
In the Statement of Objects and Reasons for the Forest (Conservation) Amendment Bill, 2023, passed by both Houses in July-August last year, the government said that applicability of the FCA had been widened by the judgment of the Supreme Court in T N Godavarman Thirumalpad v. Union of India (December 12, 1996).