Insights Daily Current Affairs + PIB: 30 November 2019
Table of contents:
GS Paper 1:
- Who was Udham Singh?
GS Paper 2:
- Registration of political parties under Section 29A of the RP Act, 1951.
- The dispute between Britain and Mauritius over Chagos islands.
- Global Migration Report 2020.
- North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO).
Facts for prelims:
- India’s cold wave zone.
GS Paper 1:
Topics Covered:
Modern Indian history from about the middle of the eighteenth century until the present- significant events, personalities, issues
What to study?
For Prelims and mains: Udham Singh- legacy.
Context: A BJP MP recently mentioned about Udham Singh in Parliament.
Who was Udham Singh?
- Born in Sunam in Punjab’s Sangrur district in 1899.
- He was a political activist who got associated with the Ghadar Party while in the US.
- In 1934, Singh made his way to London with the purpose of assassinating O’Dwyer, who in 1919 had been the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab and unsurprisingly, Singh considered O’Dwyer to be responsible for the massacre.
- Instead of Dyer, who instructed his men to open fire at the crowd gathered in Jallianwala Bagh, O’Dwyer is considered to be the actual perpetrator, since Dyer could not have executed it without his permission.
- On March 13, 1940 Singh shot O’Dwyer at a meeting of the East India Association and the Royal Central Asian Society at Caxton Hill.
- He was sentenced to death and was hanged on July 31, 1940 at Pentonville Prison.
What is Ghadar Party?
The multi-ethnic party was believed to have communist tendencies and was founded by Sohan Singh Bhakna in 1913.
Headquartered in California.
It was committed to the ouster of the British from India.
Sources: the Hindu.
GS Paper 2:
Topics Covered:
Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act.
Registration of political parties under Section 29A of the RP Act, 1951
What to study?
For Prelims and Mains: Registration of political parties and provisions governing them, benefits of registration.
Context: Jannayak Janta Party of Haryana has been granted the status of a recognised State party by the ECI.
Registration of political parties:
Registration of Political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
A party seeking registration under the said Section with the Commission has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days following the date of its formation as per guidelines prescribed by the Election Commission of India in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Commission of India and Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
To be eligible for a ‘State Political Party,’ the Election Commission has set the following criteria:
For any political party to be eligible for recognition as a State Party in a state, it has to satisfy any of the five conditions listed below:
- Secure at least 6% of the valid vote & win at least 2 seats in an Assembly General Election.
- Secure at least 6% of the valid vote & win at least 1 seats in a Lok Sabha General Election
- Win at least 3% of the seats or at least 3 seats , whichever is more, in an Assembly General Election
- Win at least 1 out of every 25 seats from a state in a Lok Sabha General Election
- Secure at least 8% of the total valid vote in an Assembly or a Lok Sabha General Election.
Benefits:
- If a party is recognised as a State Party’, it is entitled for exclusive allotment of its reserved symbol to the candidatesset up by it in the State in which it is so recognised, and if a party is recognised as a `National Party’ it is entitled for exclusive allotment of its reserved symbol to the candidates set up by it throughout India.
- Recognised `State’ and `National’ parties need only one proposer for filing the nomination and are also entitled for two sets of electoral rolls free of cost at the time of revision of rolls and their candidates get one copy of electoral roll free of cost during General Elections.
- They also get broadcast/telecast facilities over Akashvani/Doordarshan during general elections.
- Political parties are entitled to nominate “Star Campaigners” during General Elections. A recognized National or State party can have a maximum of 40 “Star campaigners” and a registered un-recognised party can nominate a maximum of 20 ‘Star Campaigners”.
- The travel expenses of star campaigners are not to be accounted for in the election expense accounts of candidates of their party.
Sources: pib.
Topics Covered:
- Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
The dispute between Britain and Mauritius over Chagos islands
What to study?
For prelims: location of chagos islands, countries involved in the dispute.
For mains: what is the controversy all about, ICJ observations and the need of hour.
Context: Mauritius called the UK an “illegal colonial occupier”, after it ignored a UN mandated deadline to return the Chagos Islands, a small archipelago in the Indian Ocean, to Mauritius.
Background:
The United Nations had given UK six months to process the transfer, a move the UK and the US have bitterly resisted.
What’s the issue?
Britain detached the Chagos Islands from Mauritius in 1965, three years before Mauritian independence.
- From 1967 to 1973, some 1,500 Chagos islanders were gradually forced to leave their homes so that the largest island, Diego Garcia, could be leased to the US for a strategic airbase. Today, Diego Garcia hosts a major US military base.
- In 2016, after several judicial challenges, Britain extended Diego Garcia’s lease until 2036 and declared that the expelled islanders would not be allowed to go back.
- In 2017, Mauritius successfully petitioned the United Nations to seek an ICJ advisory opinion on the legality of the separation.
- Mauritius claims it was forced to give up the islands – now a British overseas territory – in 1965 in exchange for independence, which it gained in 1968.
What the ICJ said?
The UK should end its control of the Chagos Islands in the Indian Ocean as rapidly as possible. The islands are not lawfully separated from the former colony of Mauritius.
Arguments by Mauritius:
Britain has illegally occupied this region and only Mauritius has sovereignty over the archipelago.
Against the right of self-determination:
The separation of the islands from Mauritius was in clear breach of UN resolution 1514, also known as the Colonial Declaration. Passed in 1960, it enshrined the right of self-determination for colonial peoples and specifically banned the breakup of colonies prior to independence. This was intended to keep borders stable, and to prevent colonial powers from simply absorbing colonial territory into their overseas territory so as to retain their sovereignty.
Yet in spite of this resolution, a number of states (including France and the UK) kept possession of parts of their former colonies following the decolonisation process.
What happens now after UK missed the UN deadline to return Chagos Islands?
The UK is slowly finding itself more diplomatically isolated after its failures at the UN General Assembly concerning Chagos Islands. The shambles that is Brexit has also alienated the UK to a certain degree in terms of its relations with other EU members.
For now, the UK might possibly be searching for reassurance in the fact that the ICJ ruling is not binding and no immediate sanctions or adverse actions will be taken against it.
The next step at the UN General Assembly in 2020 would be the question of resettlement of and potential compensation for the displaced Chagos Islanders who faced homelessness, poverty and associated hardships after being forcefully removed from their homeland by the UK and the US.
Sources: the Hindu.
Topics Covered:
Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
What to study?
For Prelims: Key findings.
For Mains: Concerns and challenges posed by Migration and ways to address them.
Context: ‘Global Migration Report 2020’ has been released by International Organisation for Migration’s (IOM).
Key findings- India specific:
India accounts for the highest share with 17.5 million Indians living outside the country.
India is the leading recipient of remittances. International remittances in 2018 (2020 report) reached $689 billion, out of which India received $78.6 billion from the 17.5 million living abroad.
Remittances received by India have consistently increased between the 2005 and 2020.
The top migration corridors for Indians are the United Arab Emirates, the US and Saudi Arabia.
Highest number of migrants entering India come from Bangladesh.
Global scenario:
As compared to the 2000 Global Migration Report, the number of international migrants has nearly doubled in the 2020 report, from 150 million to 272 million.
India is followed by Mexico (11.8 million) and China (10.7 million).
Roughly two-thirds of international migrants are labour migrants.
The United States was the top remittance-issuer, at $68 billion, followed by the United Arab Emirates ($44.4 billion) and Saudi Arabia ($36.1 billion).
The top destinations for international migrants is the US where, as of September 2019, there were 50.7 million international migrants.
The US is followed by Germany, Saudi Arabia, Russian Federation and the UK.
The proportion of female international migrants has only marginally changed between the two reports, from 47.5% in 2000 to 47.9%.
The share of international migrants who were children has dropped from 16% in 2000 to 13.9%.
Oceania is the region with the highest proportion of international migrants.
The UAE is the country with the highest proportion of international migrants.
More than half of all international migrants (141 million) live in Europe and North America.
Reasons for migration:
- Economic conditions.
- Ongoing conflicts and violence.
- Impact of climate and weather disasters.
Sources: the Hindu.
Topics Covered:
Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO)
What to study?
For Prelims and Mains: About NATO- formation, members, objectives, significance and issues associated, latest members.
Context: The U.S. contribution to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s (NATO) operating budget has been cut down at the cost of an increase in Germany’s payments to the alliance. This move comes after repeated criticism of European members of the organisation by the U.S.
Impact:
Previously the US provided some 22% of NATO’s direct funding, which covers the cost of maintaining the NATO headquarters, joint security investments and some combined military operations.
It’s a largely symbolic move as NATO’s direct budget is relatively small, at about $2.5 billion, and is separate from national defense budgets that NATO recommends should stand at 2% of GDP.
About North Atlantic Treaty Organization:
It is an intergovernmental military alliance.
Established by Washington treaty.
Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.
Headquarters — Brussels, Belgium.
Headquarters of Allied Command Operations — Mons, Belgium.
Significance: It constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.
Objectives:
Political – NATO promotes democratic values and enables members to consult and cooperate on defence and security-related issues to solve problems, build trust and, in the long run, prevent conflict.
Military – NATO is committed to the peaceful resolution of disputes. If diplomatic efforts fail, it has the military power to undertake crisis-management operations. These are carried out under the collective defence clause of NATO’s founding treaty – Article 5 of the Washington Treaty or under a United Nations mandate, alone or in cooperation with other countries and international organisations.
Sources: the hindu.
Facts for prelims:
India’s cold wave zone:
India’s cold-wave zone covers the north Indian states of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh and also other states like Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar.
Context: India’s cold-wave regions to have warm winter this year as per IMD.
