CURRENT AFFAIRS
06 February 2021
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Massive farmers meeting in Shamli; Unions instruct farmers to keep tomorrow’s ‘chakka jam’ non-violent.
Thousands of farmers turned up for a meeting in Shamli district in western Uttar Pradesh on Friday amid a growing clamour against the Centre’s agri-marketing laws in the region. People from Shamli and nearby districts started reaching Shamli’s Bhainswal village on tractors, two- and four-wheelers and on foot for a ‘kisan panchayat’ being held there by the Rashtriya Lok Dal (RLD). The people gathered there despite the Shamli administration denying permission for the meeting and imposing prohibitory orders under section 144 of the CrPC. This is the fourth major farmers’ meeting in western Uttar Pradesh after Muzaffarnagar, Mathura and Baghpat, besides some in Haryana, to support the ongoing stir against the farm laws. Scores of regional ‘khap’ leaders, Bharatiya Kisan Union members, and RLD vice president Jayant Chaudhary, among others, attended the event, even as security personnel were deployed in large number in the area. Chaudhary had on Thursday tweeted that there are 144 reasons why he will go to Shamli tomorrow, attaching to it a news article on the denial of permission for the event by the Shamli district administration. The RLD has already extended support to the ongoing peasants’ demonstrations at Delhi’s borders and in parts of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana and Rajasthan. The party’s farmer outreach programmes, which began Friday in Shamli, are further scheduled to be held in Amroha, Aligarh, Bulandshahr, Mathura, Agra, Hathras, and Pilibhit in Uttar Pradesh, and at a couple of places in Rajasthan during the February month. Meanwhile, the Samyukt Kisan Morcha leadership has asked all protesting farm unions to ensure that chakka jam, or road blockage, from 12 noon to 3 pm, is a peaceful and non-violent protest. The SKM guidelines added that there will be no blockades within the entire National Capital Region of Delhi, except where protest sites are already located.
B) Comedian Munawar Faruqui, arrested for a joke he did not make, gets bail from Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court on Friday granted bail to comedian Munawar Faruqui in a case registered by the Madhya Pradesh police for hurting religious sentiments. Interestingly, the police had argued that he was arrested because he was about to make a joke that would have offended religious sentiments. In a brief hearing, the three-judge Bench, led by Justice Rohinton Fali Nariman, also stayed a production warrant issued by the Uttar Pradesh government against Faruqui in a separate case based on the same facts. Noting that the allegations against him were vague, Justice Nariman said police had not complied with the lawful procedure prescribed under Section 41 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) before arresting the comedian. Justice Nariman pointed out that the Supreme Court, in a scathing judgment in Arnesh Kumar versus State of Bihar in 2014, had warned State governments and their police from depriving personal liberty without following due process of law. Arrest was not a tool for harassment, the court had warned. Tell us, Mr. Kirpal, did the police follow Section 41 before they arrested him, Justice Nariman asked Faruqui’s lawyer. No, My Lord not at all, irpal replied. Then that is all is needed for granting bail, Justice Nariman said, before immediately issuing notice to the Madhya Pradesh police to explain their actions. The procedure under Section 41 was not followed despite the Supreme Court having adumbrated the necessity of it in the Arnesh Kumar judgment of 2014, Justice Nariman observed, before granting Faruqui ad-interim bail. On January 28, the Madhya Pradesh HC had refused bail, forcing the comedian to appeal to the top court. In the Arnesh Kumar judgment, the Supreme Court had delved into how arrest brings humiliation, curtails freedom and cast scars forever. The police had not learnt its lesson or shed its colonial image despite decades of Independence, the court had observed.
C) Govt’s U-turn on UPSC exams.
The Union government on Friday informed the Supreme Court that it is agreeable to giving UPSC aspirants who had exhausted their last chance in the last October 4, 2020 preliminary exam but are not age-barred, another crack at the exam this year. The move marks a virtual U-turn from the government’s earlier position, when it informed the Supreme Court on January 22 that it would refuse to give the aspirants, including last-attempters, another crack at the exams. An affidavit filed by it in the court a month ago argued that any additional attempt or relaxation in age for some candidates would amount to extending differential treatment. It would lead to an un-leveling of the playing field. The aspirants who moved the court had pleaded for another chance, saying their exam preparations for and performance in the October 4 exam floundered due to the innumerable, inevitable circumstances suffered due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The government said the leeway was an ex-gratia, one-time, restricted relaxation to those who appeared in the Civil Services Exam-2020 as their last permissible attempt. Appearing before a Bench led by Justice A.M. Khanwilkar in a virtual court hearing, Additional Solicitor General S.V. Raju read out from a note, which said that the candidates given the leeway should not be age-barred. The note observed that candidates whose number of attempts had not been exhausted cannot avail of this one-time relaxation. The Bench asked the government to circulate the note. This relaxation for the candidates, and to the extent as prescribed shall be a one-time relaxation only and shall apply only for appearing in CSE-2021 and shall not be treated as a precedent. The relaxation shall not create any vested right whatsoever or any other purported right on ground of parity or otherwise, in favour of any other set/class of candidates at any time in the future, the note said. The case has been further scheduled for Monday.
D) One nation, one ombudsman: RBI to integrate consumer grievance redressal scheme.
The RBI has announced that it will be integrating consumer grievances redressal under a single ombudsman as against the three schemes working at present. There are dedicated ombudsman schemes devoted to consumer grievance redressal in banking, non-bank finance companies, and digital transactions respectively, at present. To make the alternate dispute redress mechanism simpler and more responsive to the customers of regulated entities, it has been decided to implement, inter alia, integration of the three Ombudsman schemes and adoption of the ‘One Nation One Ombudsman’ approach for grievance redressal, Governor Shaktikanta Das said on Friday. The move is intended to make the process of redress of grievances easier by enabling the customers of the banks, NBFCs, and non-bank issuers of prepaid payment instruments to register their complaints under the integrated scheme, with one centralised reference point, he said. The RBI is targeting to roll out the e-Integrated Ombudsman Scheme in June 2021, he said. Das said financial consumer protection has gained significant policy priority across jurisdictions and the RBI has been taking a slew of initiatives on the same. In line with global initiatives on consumer protection, RBI has taken various initiatives to strengthen Grievance Redress Mechanism of regulated entities, he said. The RBI had operationalised the complaint management system (CMS) portal as a one stop solution for alternate dispute resolution of customer complaints not resolved satisfactorily by the regulated entities.
E) India is ‘Internet shutdown’ capital of world, says Anand Sharma.
Congress leader Anand Sharma today described India as the Internet shutdown capital of the world. He attacked the government in the Rajya Sabha over the recent spate of internet bans to black out coverage of the farmers agitation in the border areas of Delhi. The country had seen seven Internet shutdowns in the New Year, five of which were at the farmers’ protest site in Delhi-NCR. India is the largest democracy of the world. But today we have become the Internet shutdown capital of the world, Sharma said during the motion of thanks debate. The constitutionality of the farm laws was questionable since agriculture figured only in the state list, giving the State the sole power to legislate on the subject, he stated. He questioned the delay by the Supreme Court in disposing of the petitions in this regard. When constitutional matters demand urgent hearing and decisions, delays and kicking the bucket down the road create tension, distrust and conflict. Parliament should take notice of this, he said. Petitions regarding the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) were also pending before the apex court. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut slammed the government for branding farmers as anti-nationals and Khalistanis. He also criticised the heavy fortification of Delhi’s borders. If you would have built such barricades at the international borders, as those put up at Delhi borders, China would not have dared to come into Indian territory, he said. Satish Chandra Misra (BSP) wanted to know what was stopping the Centre from repealing the farm laws if it was ready to put their operation in abeyance for 18 months. You keep saying that you will give MSP [minimum support price] to farmers, what we don’t understand is then why not put it in writing, he said.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Hundreds protest in Myanmar amid arrest of key Suu Kyi aide.
Several hundred teachers and students protested at a Myanmar university on Friday as the military widened a dragnet against officials ousted in a coup that has drawn global condemnation and the threat of new sanctions. The rally took place after the arrest Win Htein, a key aide to de facto leader Aung Sang Suu Kyi, who has not been seen in public since be ing detained along with President Win Myint. A representative of Ms. Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy said on Friday she was being held at her residence in Naypyitaw, the country’s capital, and was in good health. As far as she know, she’s under house arrest and has not been taken to another place yet, NLD press officer Toe told AFP. Monday’s putsch ended the country’s 10-year dalliance with democracy that followed decades of oppressive junta rule, and sparked outrage and calls by U.S. President Joe Biden for the generals to relinquish power. On Friday, around 200 teachers and students at Yangon’s Dagon University staged a rally, where they displayed a three-finger salute borrowed from Thailand’s democracy movements, and sang a popular revolution song. Students chanted Long live Mother Suu and carried red the colour of Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) party. A similar protest took place across town in Yangon University. In Naypyitaw, dozens of employees from several Ministries posed for group photographs wearing red ribbons and flashing the democracy symbol. According to the Assistance Association for Political Prisoners, more than 130 officials and lawmakers have been detained. Social media restrictions Twitter services experienced disruptions in Myanmar on Friday, with some saying it could not be used even with a VPN service. Twitter is now being restricted in #Myanmar on multiple network providers, said NetBIocks, which monitors Internet outages around the world. It also confirmed that other Facebook products Whatsapp and Instagram were facing disruptions.
B) Beijing warns off U.S. warship in S. China Sea.
China on Friday warned off a U.S. warship sailing near contested islands in the South China Sea, Beijing said, the first such encounter made public since the inauguration of President Joe Biden. The USS John S. McCain broke into China’s Xisha territorial waters without the permission of the Chinese government, Beijing’s military said in a statement, using its name for the disputed Paracel Islands. The People’s Liberation Army organised Naval and Air Forces to track, monitor and warn off the warship, the Chinese military said, blasting the U.S. for seriously violating China’s sovereignty and harming regional peace. The Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer on Thursday also conducted a routine transit through the waterway separating the Chinese mainland and Taiwan, which Beijing says constitutes part of its territory. Washington has argued that such exercises are in line with international law and help defend right of passage through the region amid competing claims by China and other governments. China lays claim to nearly all of the South China Sea, including the Paracel Islands. Taiwan, the Philippines, Brunei, Malaysia and Vietnam also claim parts of the region, believed to hold valuable oil and gas deposits. The U.S. Navy in late January sent an aircraft carrier group into the South China Sea.
