CURRENT AFFAIRS
06 December 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Farmers delegation observes ‘maun vrat’ during meeting, govt. seeks more time.
After four hours of discussion with Central Ministers on the tenth day of their ongoing protests on the borders of Delhi, farmer leaders ran out of patience. Refusing to speak any further, they went on a 25-minute maun vrat or silent protest. Holding up impromptu placards with a short scribbled message, Yes or No?, they demanded that the government declare whether it was willing to repeal the three contentious farm reform laws or not. According to farmer leaders who described the course of the meeting, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar then opted to buy more time for a response to their ultimatum, saying that further consultations within the government were needed in order to present a concrete proposal. The next round of talks has been scheduled for December 9, a day after the proposed Bharat Bandh. This was the fifth meeting between the government and farm unions since the agitation began in Punjab over two months ago, demanding a repeal of all three laws. Large groups of farmers from Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and representatives from other states have now joined tens of thousands of Punjab farmers in protest on the borders of the capital. Although the Centre was willing to meet again on December 7, farmer leaders suggested December 9. This will allow farmers to put on a show of strength through a Bharat Bandh call on December 8. Along with their allies, especially trade unions and a national truckers’ federation, the farmers groups plan to hold nationwide agitations, seal off entry into Delhi, and close down transport across northern India.
B) Former sportspersons to leave awards outside Rashtrapati Bhavan if President won’t meet them.
Several former sportspersons from Punjab, including Padma Shri and Arjuna awardees, left for Delhi today to return their awards in support of the farmers’ protest, PTI reported. They will join the farmers camping at the national capital’s Singhu border on Saturday before returning their awards to the president the next day. They have left for Delhi today and will join the farmers’ protest, said former wrestler Kartar Singh, who is a Padma Shri and Arjuna awardee. Many former players like Sajjan Singh Cheema, who could not join us because of health or other issues, have given their sports awards to us, he said. The sportspersons said they have sought time from President Ram Nath Kovind to return the awards. If are not allotted a time to meet the president, they will place their awards outside the Rashtrapati Bhavan on Sunday, said former hockey player Rajbir Kaur.
C) MPs raise concerns over exemptions in privacy Bill.
Ten members of the 30-member joint parliamentary committee on the Data Protection Bill, 2019, have moved amendments against the provision in the legislation giving power to the Central government to exempt any agency of the government from application of the Act. The members have said this clause makes the entire act infructuous. The Bill seeks to provide protection of personal data of individuals and was introduced in December last year in Lok Sabha. It was referred to the joint parliamentary committee, headed by BJP MP Meenakshi Lekhi, in February this year. Congress MPs Jairam Ramesh, Manish Tewari, and Gaurav Gogoi, Trinamool Congress MPs Derek O’ Brien and Mahua Moitra, along with Biju Janta Dal MP Bharatuhari Mahtab and Amar Patnaik, BSP MP Ritesh Pandey, Shiv Sena MP Shrikant Eknath Shinde and BJP MP Rajeev Chandrashekhar have moved amendments to this contentious Clause 35 of the legislation. Invoking sovereignty and integrity of India, public order, friendly relations with foreign states and security of the state, the legislation gives powers to the Central government to suspend all or any of the provisions of this Act for government agencies. Five of the MPs — Jairam Ramesh Derek O’ Brien, Mahua Moitra, Ritesh Pandey and Amar Patnaik — want the act to be suitably amended, vesting the power in Parliament instead of the Central government to approve any such exemption. Several objections have also been raised regarding Clause 26 of the legislation that deals with social media, with five members moving amendments. Tewari has moved an amendment seeking changes to make it mandatory for every social media intermediary to identify all its subscribers. He further has moved that if any social media intermediary fails to comply, then it should be liable for a fine “that shall not be less than 3% and not exceed 5% of its total global turnover and shall be punishable with an imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.
D) Two weeks after getting trial shot, Haryana Minister tests positive for Covid-19.
A little over two weeks after the Haryana Home Minister Anil Vij participated in the Phase 3 trial of Bharat Biotech’s Covid-19 vaccine Covaxin, he tweeted on Saturday morning that he has tested positive for the virus. Responding to the social media post, the Union Health Ministry said that antibodies against the infection build up in a human being only after a specific number of days pass after the second dose of the vaccine is taken, since this is a two-dose vaccine. The Minister in question has taken only one dose of the vaccine. Bharat Biotech said the clinical trials of Covaxin are based on a two-dose schedule, given 28 days apart. Reacting to the incident, the Hyderabad-based drug maker said the vaccine efficacy will be determined 14 days post the second dose. Covaxin has been designed to be efficacious when subjects receive both doses. Safety is our primary criteria in vaccine development, the company said in its statement. It added that one of the three Covid-19 vaccine candidates being tested in India, Covaxin, will be administered to 26,000 subjects across 25 sites.
E) Modi to lay foundation stone for new Parliament Building on Dec 10.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will lay the foundation stone for a new Parliament building on December 10, Lok Sabha Speaker Om Birla said on Saturday. The new building will have an area of 64,500 square metres and is being built at an estimated cost of ₹971 crore, he said. The existing temple of democracy is completing 100 years. It is a matter of pride for our countrymen that the new one will be built by our own people as a prime example of Aatmanirbhar Bharat, Birla said, announcing details of the new proposed building. The new building will showcase the cultural diversity of the country. Hopefully, in the 75th year of independence, Parliament session will be held in the new building, he said. Birla said the new building will be earthquake-resistant and 2,000 people will be directly involved in the construction of the new building and 9,000 indirectly. He said as many as 1,224 MPs can sit together in the building, while a new office complex for all MPs of both the houses would be built at the site of the existing Shram Shakti Bhawan. The existing Parliament building will be conserved as it is an archaeological asset of the country, Birla said. In September this year, Tata Projects Limited won the bid to construct the new parliament building at a cost of ₹861.90 crore. The new building will be constructed close to the existing one under the Central Vista redevelopment project.
F) Seven more arrested under anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh.
After arresting a youth in Bareilly and filing cases in Mau and Muzaffarnagar, the Uttar Pradesh police have arrested seven persons in Sitapur district under the newly promulgated ordinance against unlawful conversions. The FIR was filed against eight persons under the Tambor police station of Sitapur, police said. SP North Sitapur Rajiv Dixit said an FIR was registered (under kidnapping) by the family of a girl on November 24, alleging that a local youth had allured her into elopement. On November 27, on the basis of facts in an application submitted by the girl’s family, relevant sections under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 were added to the case, said Dixit. A 21-year-old man in Bareilly, Uwaish Ahmed, had become the first person to be booked under the new ordinance against unlawful conversion. He was arrested on Wednesday. The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, was cleared by the State cabinet recently and promulgated on November 27.
G) Covid Watch: Numbers and Developments.
The number of coronavirus cases reported from India stood at 96,32,004 with the death toll at 1,40,324. India is the world’s largest buyer of Covid-19 vaccines, having placed an order for 1.6 billion doses, according to a global analysis. Experts have said that this number could cover 800 million people, or 60 per cent of the population, and will be enough to develop ‘herd immunity’. India has purchased 500 million doses of the Oxford University-AstraZeneca vaccine candidate, one billion from the US company Novavax, and 100 million doses of the Sputnik V candidate from Russia’s Gamaleya Research Institute, according to the US-based Duke University Global Health Innovation Center. The ‘Launch and Scale Speedometer’ analysis, which is updated every two weeks, showed that India has confirmed 1.6 billion doses of three vaccines as of November 30, while the US and the EU have purchased doses of six candidates. According to the analysis, India is the top Covid-19 vaccine buyer followed by the European Union which has confirmed 1.58 billion doses, and the US, the worst affected country so far, which has managed to purchase just over a billion doses.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Amid virus challenge, Kuwait holds election.
Kuwait voted on Saturday for its National Assembly, the first election since the death of its longtime ruling Emir and as the oil-rich nation faces serious economic problems under the coronavirus pandemic. This tiny country’s hundreds of thousands of voters selected lawmakers for 50 seats in the parliament, the freest and most-rambunctious assembly in the Gulf Arab countries. However, Kuwait’s parliament has tamped down on opposition to its ruling Al Sabah family since the 2011 Arab Spring protests that saw demonstrators storm the chamber. Parliaments typically don’t serve out their full terms in the stalwart U.S. ally, but this one did. Kuwaitis voted across 102 schools in the nation, which is the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey. Authorities said masks and social distancing will be required due to the pandemic. Several schools will take those with active cases of the virus, with the sick first receiving permission from the government to vote. The vote came after the death in September of Kuwait’s ruler, the 91-year-old Sheikh Sabah Al Ahmad Al Sabah. Sheikh Nawaf Al Ahmad Al Sabah, 83, quickly took power without any opposition. The outgoing Parliament then approved Sheikh Nawaf’s choice for crown prince, Sheikh Meshal Al Ahmad Al Jaber, the 80year-old deputy head of Kuwait’s National Guard.
B) U.S. ends exchange programmes with China.
The U.S. State Department said on Friday it has ended five cultural exchange programs with China, calling them soft power propaganda tools. The Department said on its website it had terminated the Policymakers Educational China Trip Program, the U.S.-China Programme, the U.S. China Leadership Program, the U.S.-China Transpacific Program and the Hong Kong Educational and Cultural Programme. It said that the programmes had been set up under the auspices of the Mutual Educational and Cultural Exchange Act, a 1961 law signed by President John F. Kennedy and aimed at boosting academic and cultural exchange with countries. While other programmes funded under the auspices of the MECEA are mutually beneficial, the five programmes in question are fully funded and operated by the (Chinese) government as soft power propaganda tools,- the statement said. The Chinese Embassy in did not immediately return a message seeking comment on the move. Attempts to reach representatives for the programs singled out by the State Department were immediately successful.
C) Trump orders U.S. to pull out most troops from Somalia.
The Pentagon said on Friday it is pulling most U.S. troops out of Somalia on President Donald Trump’s orders, continuing a post-election push by Mr. Trump to shrink U.S. involvement in counterterrorism missions abroad. The Pentagon said in a statement that a majority of U.S. troops in Somalia will be withdrawn in early 2021. There are currently about 700 troops in that Horn of Africa nation, training and advising local forces in an extended fight against the extremist group al-Shabab, an affiliate of al-Qaida. Mr. Trump recently ordered troop drawdowns in Afghanistan and Iraq. General Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had said on Wednesday that the future structure of the U.S. military presence in Somalia was still in debate. The adjusted U.S. presence, Gen. Milley said, would amount to a relatively small footprint, relatively low cost in terms of number of personnel and in terms of money. He provided no specifics but stressed that the U.S. remained concerned about the threat posed by al-Shabab, which he called an extension of alQaida, the extremist group that planned the September 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. They do have some reach and they could if left unattended conduct operations against not only U.S. interests in the region but also against the homeland, he said. So they require attention. Noting that Somalia remains a dangerous place for Americans, he said that a CIA officer was killed there recently.
D) Moscow starts inoculating vulnerable workers.
Moscow on Saturday began vaccinating workers at high risk of becoming infected with the coronavirus at newly opened clinics across the city. Health officials said they had opened 70 coronavirus vaccine centres in the RusSian capital that would initially offer jabs for health, education and social workers. Citizens from the main risk groups who in connection with their professional activities come into contact with a large number of people can get vaccinated, officials said. Russia was one of the first countries to announce the development of a vaccine, Sputnik V dubbed after the Soviet-era satellite in August but before beginning final clinical trials. It is currently in its third and final stage of clinical trials involving some 40,000 volunteers. Sputnik V ‘s developers last month said interim results had shown the vaccine was 95% effective and would be cheaper and easier to store than some alternatives. The jab uses two different human adenovirus vectors and is administered in two doses with a 21-day gap. The vaccine will be free to all Russian citizens and inoculation will be voluntary. Health officials on Saturday said that during the initial rollout in Moscow the jab would not be available to workers over 60, those with chronic diseases, and pregnant or breastfeeding women. They did not say when the vaccine would be available to the wider public.
