Current Affairs 17 March 2021
- The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill 2021
- The new bill will seek to render the office of the chief minister a vestigial organ in the name of simplifying administration
- The bill will snatch away from the residents of Delhi the accountability and answerability they sought from the elected representatives and hand them to a nominated official, which is Lieutenant Governor
- Contrary to the spirit of the constitution – From federal form of government towards centralization
- The new bill gives power to the LG to act without the advice from his ministers
- All legislative actions need the assent of LG and the new bill give LG the pocket veto powers
- The new bill makes the LG as the Government and not the democratically elected MLAs including Chief Minister.
- Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019
- Amended Citizenship Act 1955
- providing pathway to Indian Citizenship for persecuted religious minorities from 3 neighboring countries – Afghanistan – Bangladesh – Pakistan
- 6 Religions – Hindus – Sikhs – Buddhists – Jains – Parsis – Christians
- For migrants entered India by 31st December 2014 were eligible to get citizenship through the process of Naturalization
- Resident requirements relaxed for them from 12 to 6 years
- Criticism – discriminating based on religion
- IN NEWS – All Assam Students Union (AASU) has asked all political parties in the poll bound states to clear their latest position on CAA
- CAA is in conflict with Assam Accord, which signed by the Rajiv Gandhi Government in 1985
- Assam Accord prescribes detection and deportation of immigrants irrespective of faith, who entered Assam after the mid night of March 24,1971
- 24 March 1971 was also the cut-off date for updating NRC ( National Register of Citizens)
- Assam Accord is to protect the Assam’s Language, Culture and Literature and also to save the indigenous community from immigrants
- NRC – 1951 – its purpose is to document all the legal citizens of India so that the illegal immigrants can be identified and deported
- It has been implemented for the state of Assam starting in 2013-2014
- The government of India plans to implement it for the rest of the country in 2021
- Census interim data by 2024
- The provisional data for latest census and National Population Register (NPR) will be available before the Lok Sabha election in 2024
- The Previous census was conducted in 2011
- This year’s census data collection was indefinitely postponed due to COVID-19 pandemic and the lockdown followed by it
- Mobile Application has been developed for collecting the census details and NPR details and Residents can also self-enumerate the details
- The App will be available in 16 languages
- The Aadhaar number is being collected voluntarily
- Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Bill
- MTP bill passed by Rajya Sabha
- Currently, abortion requires the opinion of one doctor if it is done within 12 weeks of conception and two doctors if it is done between 12 and 20 weeks
- The new bill allows abortion to be done on the advice of one doctor up to 20 weeks and two doctors in the case of certain categories of women between 20 and 24 weeks
- For a pregnancy to be terminated after 24 weeks in case of substantial foetal abnormalities, the opinion of the State-level medical board is essential
- The bill was passed in Lok Sabha March Last Year
- The original bill was framed in 1971
- Development Finance Institution (DFI)
- The Union Cabinet approved a Bill to set up DFI
- DFI – A DFI also known as a Development Bank of Development Finance Company is a financial institution that provides risk capital for economic development projects on non commercial basis
- Primary objective of DFI is the development of the country
- DFIs does not accept deposits from people
- DFIs raise funds by borrowing funds from governments and by selling their bonds to the general public
- It also provides a guarantee to banks on behalf of companies and subscriptions to debentures and shares
- DFIs provide underwriting facility to companies
- Underwriting a financial institution guarantees to purchase a certain percentage of shares of a company that is issuing IPO if it is not subscribed by the public
- Some important DFIs
- SIDBI
- IFCI
- ICICI
- IDBI
- IRCI