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CHROME IAS ACADEMY

Daily News Analytica-The Hindu and

Indian Express

25th July

Prepared and Presented by Sahil Malhotra

Faculty of current affairs @ CHROME IAS

1 CHROME IAS ACADEMY

Lokpal Act, 2013

• Lokpal is an ombudsman to protect the common man from corruption in public service and power centres.

• The idea of creating an anti corruption ombudsman, in the form of a Lokpal, was first conceptualized in 1968 in the fourth Lok Sabha.

• Both the first and second administrative Reforms Commissions, and the Constitution Review Commission headed by M. N. Venkatachaliah recommended appointment of Lokpal and Lokayuktas (at State level).

• The Act creates a Lokpal at the centre which shall consist of a chairperson and up to eight members.

• Half of these members should have higher judicial experience and the other half should have experience in public administration, finance, insurance and banking laws, anti corruption and vigilance.


• It also provides that half the members of Lokpal shall be from amongst scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, other backward castes, minority communities and women.

• The chairman and members of Lokpal shall be appointed by a selection committee consisting of:

the Prime Minister,

the Speaker of Lok Sabha,

the Leader of Opposition in Lok Sabha,

the Chief Justice of India or a sitting supreme court judge as nominated by the CJI and

an eminent jurist to be nominated by the President based on the recommendations of the other members of the selection committee.

• The Act specifies that the office of Lokpal shall investigate and prosecute cases of corruption. 3 CHROME IAS ACADEMY

The jurisdiction of Lokpal extends to the:

Prime Minister,

Ministers,

Current and former Members of Parliament and Members of Legislative Assemblies,

Government employees and

Employees of companies funded or controlled by the central or state government.

• Lokpal shall also have jurisdiction over institutions receiving foreign donations in excess of ten lakh rupees per year or such higher limit as specified.

• The Act excludes, any allegation of corruption against a Member of Parliament in respect of anything said or a vote given in Parliament, from the jurisdiction of Lokpal.


• It specifies a time limit of 60 days for completion of inquiry and 6 months for completion of investigation by the Central Bureau of Investigation.

• This period of 6 months can be extended by the Lokpal on a written request from CBI.

• Lokpal is also required to hear the explanation of the public servant before ordering an investigation. This however would not interfere with any search and seizure required to be undertaken by any agency.

• The Act also specifies that any inquiry against the Prime Minister has to be held in-camera and approved by two third of the full bench of the Lokpal.

• The Act gives Lokpal the power of superintendence over CBI with respect to cases referred by it to CBI.

• It also specifies that CBI officers investigating cases referred by the Lokpal can only be transferred with the approval of the Lokpal.


• The CBI with the consent of Lokpal is empowered to appoint a panel of advocates, other than government advocates for conducting cases referred by Lokpal.

• The central government is entrusted with the responsibility of making funds available to CBI for conducting investigation into Lokpal referred matters.

• All expenses of Lokpal shall be charged to the Consolidated Fund of India.

• Though passed in 2014, the Lokpal and Lokayukta Act of 2013 was not implemented all these years because there was no Leader of Opposition (LoP) in the 16th Lok Sabha.

• The 2013 statute includes the LoP as a member of the selection committee.

• However, the Supreme Court, in a judgment, clarified that the Lokpal appointment process need not be stalled merely due to the absence of the LoP.


Scheduled Tribes

• Article 366 states that tribes mentioned under Article 342 are considered to be Scheduled Tribes for the purposes of this constitution.

• Article 342 prescribes the procedure to be followed in the matter of specification of scheduled tribes.

• The President may, with respect to any State or Union territory, after consultation with the Governor there, by public notification, specifies the tribes which shall, for the purposes of this constitution, are deemed to be scheduled tribes in relation to that state or Union Territory, as the case may be.

• These orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament.

• The Article 342 also provides for listing of scheduled tribes State/Union Territory wise and not on an all India basis.


• The list of Scheduled Tribes are notified for each State or Union Territory and are valid only within the jurisdiction of that State or Union Territory and not outside.

• The criterion followed for specification of a community, as scheduled tribes are indications of primitive traits, distinctive culture, geographical isolation, shyness of contact with the community at large, and backwardness. This criterion is not spelt out in the Constitution but has become well established.

• No community has been specified as Scheduled Tribe in relation to the State of Haryana and Punjab and Union Territories of Chandigarh, Delhi and Puducherry.

• While some tribal communities have adopted a mainstream way of life, at the other end of the spectrum, there are certain Scheduled Tribes, 75 in number, known as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs), who are characterised by: 8 CHROME IAS ACADEMY

pre-agriculture level of technology

stagnant or declining population

extremely low literacy

subsistence level of economy

• PVTGs are more vulnerable among the tribal groups.

• 75 tribal groups have been categorized by Ministry of Home Affairs as Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTG)s.

• PVTGs reside in 18 States and UT of A&N Islands.

• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs implements the Scheme of “Development of Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs)” exclusively for them.


Distribution of Tribes

• The Scheduled Tribes are notified in 30 States/UTs.

• The tribal population of the country, as per 2011 census, constitutes 8.6% of the total population.

• 90% of them live in rural areas and 10% in urban areas.

• The decadal population growth of the tribes from Census 2001 to 2011 has been 24% against the 18% of the entire population.

• The sex ratio for the overall population is 940 females per 1000 males and that of Scheduled Tribes 990 females per thousand males.

• Broadly the STs inhabit two distinct geographical area – the Central India and the North- Eastern Area.

• More than two-third of the ST population is concentrated only in the seven States of the country, viz. Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Orissa, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh.


• More than half of the Scheduled Tribe population is concentrated in Central India, i.e., Madhya Pradesh (14.69%), Maharashtra (10.08%), Orissa (9.2%), Rajasthan (8.86%), Gujarat (8.55%), Jharkhand (8.29%), Chhattisgarh (7.5%), and Andhra Pradesh (5.7%).

Page 7: Although India is already among the top five economies, and will soon be among the top three, the country doesn’t have a single university that is ranked among the top 100 in the world.

• The World University ranking, released by the Times Higher Education (THE), is the only global university performance table to judge research-intensive universities across all of their core missions: teaching, research, knowledge transfer and international outlook.

• This year too, no Indian university/institute made it to the top global list of 100.


• Further, a significant change in the Times' 2018 list was seen as the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), which was in the 201-250 band last year, has slipped further into the 251-300 band.

Page 8:

• A group of banks, including public sector, private sector and foreign banks, signed an inter-creditor agreement to push for the speedy resolution of non-performing loans on their balance sheets.

• According to the agreement, a majority representing two-thirds of the loans within a consortium of lenders should now be sufficient to override any objection to the resolution process coming from dissenting lenders.

• Minority lenders who suspect they are being short-changed by other lenders can now either sell their assets at a discount to a willing buyer or buy out loans from other lenders at a premium.


• The inter-creditor agreement is aimed at the resolution of loan accounts with a size of ₹50 crore and above that are under the control of a group of lenders.

• It is part of the “Sashakt” plan approved by the government to address the problem of resolving bad loans.

Page 8: Golan Heights

• Golan Heights, also called Al-Jawlān, is a hilly area overlooking the upper Jordan River valley on the west.

• The area was part of extreme south-western Syria until 1967, when it came under Israeli military occupation, and in 1981 Israel unilaterally annexed the part of the Golan it held.


‘Forward Defence’ doctrine

• Iran has adopted a ‘forward defence’ doctrine which involves empowering militias and proxies in other countries, such as the Hezbollah in Lebanon, mobilisation units in Iraq and Syria, and the Houthis in Yemen.

Page 9: Data Point

• Per capita power consumption is a good indicator of economic activity in States.

• States with higher per capita ‘net State domestic product’ consume higher electricity.

• Goa in India has the highest per capita power consumption among the States.


Prevention of Corruption (Amendment) Bill, 2018 passed

The key features of the Bill passed by Parliament:

• 1) Giving bribe is a specific and a direct offence.

• 2) Those convicted of taking bribes can be imprisoned for three to seven years besides being fined under the provisions of the Bill.

• 3) Bribe-givers have also been included in the legislation for the first time and they can be punished with imprisonment for up to seven years, a fine or both.

• 4) It makes a provision for providing protection to 'coerced' (forced to pay a bribe) bribe-givers if the matter is reported to the concerned law enforcement agencies within a week.

• 5) The Bill has removed the provision which protected a bribe-giver from prosecution for statements made by him/her during corruption trials.


• 6) The Bill also redefines criminal misconduct and will now only cover misappropriation of property and possession of disproportionate assets.

• 7) The Bill proposes a 'shield' for government servants, including those retired, from prosecution by making it mandatory for investigating agencies such as the Central Bureau of Investigation to take prior approval from a competent authority before conducting an enquiry against them.

• 8) However, it states that such permissions shall not be necessary for cases involving the arrest of a person on the spot on the charge of accepting or attempting to accept any undue advantage for himself or for any other person.

• 9) Another relief that the Bill provides to a public servant is that in any corruption case against him or her, the factor of "undue advantage" will have to be established.


• 10) According to the Bill, the trial in cases pertaining to the exchange of bribe and corruption should be completed within two years. Further, even after reasoned delays, the trial cannot exceed four years.

• 11) The Bill covers bribe-giving commercial organisations to be liable for punishment or prosecution. However, charitable institutions have been left out of its ambit.

• 12) The Bill provides powers and procedures for the attachment and forfeiture of a corruption-accused public servant's property.

Page 12: Recently, a state of emergency was declared in the tourist-friendly Attica region of Greece because of Wildfires.

Page 12: Bhutan does not has diplomatic relations with China


What’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting?

• The BEPS refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinational companies that artificially shift profits from higher tax locations to lower ones, eroding the tax base of the higher tax locations.

• The 2016 Union Budget announced an ‘equalisation levy’ of 6 per cent on such transactions.

• Equalisation Levy is a direct tax, which is withheld at the time of payment by the service recipient.

• The two conditions to be met to be liable to equalisation levy:

The payment should be made to a non-resident service provider;

The annual payment made to one service provider exceeds Rs. 1,00,000 in one financial year.

• Currently, not all services are covered under the ambit of equalisation Levy. 18 CHROME IAS ACADEMY

• The following services covered:

Online advertisement;

Any provision for digital advertising space or facilities/service for the purpose of online advertisement.

• India is the first country to impose such a levy, post the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) action plan.

• A tax panel has recommended expanding the ambit of this levy to cover a wide gamut of transactions including online marketing, cloud computing, website designing, hosting and maintenance, platforms for sale of goods and services, and online use of or download of software and applications.

Tax to GDP ratio in India is about 16%, including State taxes, whereas in many developed countries it is about 35%-40%.

It is imperative that India’s tax-GDP ratio also climbs substantially so that our public social investments can rise to the levels that are required.


It is the expansion of tax base which would enhance the Tax-GDP ratio, rather than higher rates of taxes.


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