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The City
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered an FIR against seven people, including former Delhi deputy chief minister Manish Sisodia, under the Prevention of Corruption Act in connection with a snooping case related to the ruling Aam Aadmi Party’s alleged ‘Feedback Unit (FBU).’
Reacting to the development, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal alleged that this was PM’s plan to keep Sisodia in jail for a prolonged period of time. “PM’s plan is to slap several false cases against Manish and keep him in custody for a long period.
The CBI registered an FIR on March 14 – days after the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) gave sanction to prosecute Sisodia.
They have been booked on the charges of criminal conspiracy, dishonest misappropriation of property, criminal breach of trust by a public servant, forgery for the purpose of cheating, using as genuine a forged document, falsification of accounts, and criminal misconduct by a public servant.
A written complaint on March 9 was received from Vijay A. Desai, inspector, CBI (anti-corruption branch). A case has been registered against Manish Sisodia, the then Deputy CM of Delhi, Sukesh Kumar Jain, the then Secretary Vigilance in Delhi government, Rakesh Kumar Sinha, retired DIG of CISF – the then Special Advisor to the Chief Minister and Joint Director (FBU), Pradeep Kumar Punj, retired Joint Deputy Director of Intelligence Bureau – the then Deputy Director (FBU), Satish Khetrapal, retired Assistant Commandant of CISF – working as Feed Back Officer, Gopal Mohan, Advisor Anti-corruption to the CM of Delhi and unknown others,” the FIR states.
In Parliament
Govt: first test vehicle demonstration under Gaganyaan likely in May (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Space)
The first test vehicle demonstration (TV-D1) under the Gaganyaan mission is likely to take place in May this year, with the first uncrewed mission to be undertaken only after the success of two such demonstrations, according to the reply of Minister of State for Department of Space Jitendra Singh in Parliament.
Two more test vehicle demonstrations will be undertaken before the second uncrewed mission, which will carry a pressurised crew module unlike the first uncrewed mission.
As per the current schedule, the first uncrewed mission may be attempted by the end of the year, another uncrewed mission by mid-2024.
The first crewed mission has been scheduled for late 2024 or early 2025. However, this will all depend on how the tests go,” said an official from the space agency.
The test vehicle demonstration has been designed to test the processes for aborting the mission mid-air, the parachute system that will bring the crew module down to sea, and the recovery of crew members from the module after splashdown.
The demonstration will use a single liquid propellant-based rocket stage to carry the crew module to sub-orbital level.
Although helicopter based air drop tests have already been carried out, a helicopter – or any airplane for that matter – cannot go to an altitude of say 10 km from the surface of the earth. The test vehicle missions will test all systems and processes at a much greater height.
Govt & Politics
Wrong claims to ex-staff accessing systems: Panel flags NAAC lapses (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Internal systems can be accessed by employees who are “no longer its employees”; temporary “consultants” have been given powers rather than regular staffers; universities issued A+ grades despite “wrong claims” in Self Study Reports (SSRs) which are alloted to only certain empanelled Data Validation and Verification (DVV) firms.
These alleged irregularities in the functioning of the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC), which grades colleges and universities, could just be the “tip of the iceberg”, observed a committee set up by Bhushan Patwardhan who resigned as the council’s chairman on March 5 over the UGC “ignoring” the findings.
The report by a panel led by J P Singh Joorel, who is is the Director of Information and Library Network (INFLIBNET) which is involved in modernising university libraries, was prepared after the team of experts camped in the NAAC’s Bangalore campus between August 23 and 26 last year.
Apart from Joorel, the members were Director Inter-University Accelerator Centre Prof Avinash C Pandey, Former NIT Surathkal Director Prof Sandeep Sancheti and Prof Madhulika Kaushik of the Usha Martin University in Jharkhand.
Among the serious lapses flagged by the committee in its report, one relates to the allocation of higher educational institutions, which have applied for NAAC accreditation, to DVV partners, which are empanelled by the NAAC through a tendering process.
The committee, sources said, found that “allocation of SSRs to DVV partners is neither sequential, nor round robin/random”.
Ideas Page
Betting on national champions (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Infrastructure)
Thirty years back my aunt was visiting America as part of her first tour of the West. After she had taken in the sights and sounds for a couple of days, I asked her for her first impressions.
Her response was “the roads feel like they are paved with butter, no power cuts, and running water in the taps at all times… it seems like heaven”.
While some of her sense of awe could be attributed to the state of the Indian economy in 1993, providing functional and efficient infrastructure has always been a struggle for developing economies.
Infrastructure in emerging economies has taken on aspects of a magic bullet. It simultaneously works as a national aspiration good, a barometer of national progress, a mechanism for job creation, a vehicle for crowding in private investment, and more.
Infrastructure has seemingly become both a demonstration good and a necessity. That is a heavy burden. The two biggest constraints on infrastructure provision are: One, it needs to be built to a minimum scale, which makes it expensive; and two, it often has a public good component which makes the social value of infrastructure higher than its private value to individual users. Hence, private investors tend to find such investments relatively unprofitable.
The traditional approach to financing infrastructure has thus relied on tax revenues or government borrowing. But this introduces elements of a vicious trap: Poorer economies generate less tax revenue, which limits infrastructure investment.
This reduces returns to private investment with further spinoffs that affect the growth of the economy and keep the country poor. Attempting to break the cycle by increasing public borrowing domestically tends to crowd out private investment.
Two sets of rules in the house (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Privilege motions have been in the news recently. The Union Minister of Communications, Railways, and Electronics and Information Technology, opened himself to a breach of privilege motion when he divulged the details of what transpired in the parliamentary standing committee meeting on the Personal Data Protection Bill.
Then there was the case where the Congress MP from Wayanad had a privilege motion moved against him in the Lok Sabha.
A privilege motion was also sought against 12 MPs for supposedly disorderly conduct in the first leg of the Budget Session.
A Rajya Sabha MP was suspended and a privilege motion was moved against her because she allegedly recorded proceedings on her smartphone inside the House.
As per the Rajya Sabha bulletin published in the public domain, the Rajya Sabha chairman has also sought a privilege motion against an MP from Aam Aadmi Party for a bizarre reason — repeatedly submitting identical notices!
What is a privilege motion? The Constitution guarantees for certain privileges (rights/immunities) to both Houses of Parliament and their members, to allow them to discharge their functions efficiently.
When any of these rights/immunities are violated, it amounts to what is known as “a breach of privilege”. Parliament has the right to punish any such breaches by moving a privilege motion.