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Nepal President Bidhya Devi Bhandari appointed Pushpa Kamal Dahal, leader of the parliamentary party of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), Prime Minister of the Himalayan nation.
A communication from the President’s Office in SitalNivas said Mr. Dahal, better known as ‘Prachanda’.Seven parties and three Independent MPs led by former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli of the Communist Party of Nepal (UML) came together in a dramatic move for a post-poll alliance and wrote to the President proposing the name of Mr. Dahal as the prime ministerial candidate of the Left-dominant coalition.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi has congratulated Mr. Dahal. Mr. Dahal and his CPN (Maoist Centre) have the support of 169 elected members in the Pratinidhi Sabha, the Lower House, representing the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist Leninist), the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP), led by Ravi Lamichhane, the pro-monarchy Rashtriya Prajatantra Party, the NagarikUnmukti Party, the Janata Samajwadi Party of Madhesi leader Upendra Yadav and the Janamat Party of former secessionist leader C.K. Raut.
Congratulating Mr. Dahal, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, “The unique relationship between India and Nepal is based on deep cultural connect and warm people-to-people ties. I look forward to working together with you to further strengthen this friendship.”
Officials, however, said New Delhi would watch the development closely, given that the RSP, one of the key constituents of the Leftist coalition, has criticised India for building an embankment along the Mahakali River at Dharchula, that has led to protests by Nepalese on the other side.
This will be the third time that the former Maoist rebel leader will be the Prime Minister of the Himalayan nation. He served in 2008-09 when he had to step down because of a political crisis over sharing of power.
His second stint came in 2016 when he took over from Mr. Oli against the backdrop of an economic blockade of Nepal during 2015-16 by the Madhesi agitators.
Among the surprises on Sunday was the decision by the newly formed RSP led by former TV anchor Mr. Lamicchane, whose campaign pitch for a “clean, anti-establishment” party had led some to assume that the party would remain in the opposition for now.
Editorial
Constitutional silences, unconstitutional inaction (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
When the Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly, the founders left deliberate gaps in it to enable a future Parliament to modify and amend the Constitution that was in accordance with the aspirations and the will of the people. This ostensibly gave birth to a constitution with glaring misses.
One of the silences in the Constitution is in Article 200 which does not prescribe a timeline for the Governor to provide assent to Bills sent by the Legislative Assembly.
This has been used to advantage by the Governors of various Opposition-ruled States to obfuscate the mandate of democratically elected governments.
The examples range from the Tamil Nadu Prohibition of Online Gambling and Regulation of Online Games Bill, 2022 (passed by the Tamil Nadu Assembly) to the Kerala Lok Ayukta (Amendment) Bill, 2022 (passed by the Kerala Assembly).
In Tamil Nadu alone, almost 20 Bills are awaiting assent by the Governor. The situation is no different in Telangana and West Bengal as well. Can the Governor just sit on Bills endlessly?
When the draft of Article 200 was discussed in the Constituent Assembly, Prof. Shibban Lal Saxena rightly highlighted how there is no time limit prescribed for the Governor to act.
In Purushothaman Nambudiri vs State of Kerala (1962), a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court clarified that the Constitution does not impose any time limit within which the Governor should provide assent to Bills.
Interestingly, the question as to whether the Governor can sit on Bills indefinitely did not arise before the Court; the Court too had no occasion to provide an authoritative ruling on it.
However, the Court has maintained that the Governor must honour the will of the Legislature and that the President or a Governor can act only in harmony with their Council of Ministers.
When a Governor, a central government-appointee, withholds assent to a law validly passed by the Legislature, he is undoing the will of the Legislature through unconstitutional devices, thereby directly attacking the federal edifice of the Constitution. Causing delay to assent Bills will be an arbitrary exercise, which in itself is constitutionally abhorrent.
The additional issue of the President not acting swiftly to grant assent to the Bills reserved by the Governor for the consideration of the President cannot be missed.
A welcome move (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Food Security)
The Government has decided not to extend the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana, (PMGKY), a scheme that ran between April 2020 to December 2022 (except for a short period in between), and provided additional allocation of food grains, i.e., rice or wheat from the central pool at five kilograms a month free of cost to beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
PMGKY absorbed the shock of the pandemic for the extreme poor and also brought in political dividends for the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in many States that had elections this year, including Uttar Pradesh in particular.
While discontinuing the scheme, the Government has said that it will bear the expenses of food grains under the NFSA for 2023 and ensure free ration under the Act for the estimated 81.35 crore beneficiaries for that year.
In other words, ration card holders can now avail 5 kg of wheat or rice per month for free rather than at a subsidised rate, while Antyodaya Anna Yojana cardholders will receive 35 kg of free foodgrains.
As the estimated number of 81.35 crore beneficiaries is still based on Census 2011 numbers and Public Distribution System entitlements have been limited to ration card holders and quotas framed by the Union Government, some States have gone on to expand benefits to others through the NFSA and other schemes.
By taking on the burden of the expenditure for this distribution, the Union government, which has estimated an additional amount of ₹2 lakh crore for the scheme, has provided limited but welcome relief in monetary terms for States.
While the expenditure numbers on food distribution and subsidy provisions seem fiscally expensive, the schemes have provided distress relief to the most needy, helped the Government control its food buffer stocks better, and also reduced wastage of procured food grains at a time when procurement figures for rice and wheat by the Food Corporation of India remain high.
The PDS and the PMGKY have not only enabled basic food security but have also acted as income transfers for the poor by allowing them to buy other commodities that they could not have afforded if not for the benefits.
Opinion
Forest rights and heritage conservation (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, Population and Associated Issues)
Of the 39 areas declared by UNESCO in 2012 as being critical for biodiversity in the Western Ghats, 10 are in Karnataka. Before recognising areas as world heritage sites, UNESCO seeks the opinion of the inhabitants on the implication of the possible declaration on their lives and livelihoods.
This author interacted with different stakeholders in the gram panchayats located close to the world heritage sites in Karnataka. The primary stakeholders were Scheduled Tribes (STs).
Other traditional forest dwellers include Scheduled Castes (SCs), Other Backward Classes, minorities and the general category. An overwhelming majority said that they were not aware of the process that leads to the declaration of UNESCO heritage sites.
The rejection rate of the other traditional forest dwellers was two times more than the STs. In the case of the STs, the reasons were attributed to fresh encroachments; the claimants not living on the lands claimed; claimed lands being on ‘ paisaribhoomis’ (wasteland and forest lands which have not been notified as protected forests or reserved forests) or revenue lands; and multiple applications made in a single family.
In the case of other traditional forest dwellers, it was mainly failure to produce evidence of dependency and dwelling on forest land for 75 years.
The officials said the FRA is good law which recognises the rights of the STs because of their overall backwardness. However, most felt there should be a closure to this Act; and that the process cannot go on forever with new claims emerging on a regular basis.
Presenting the declaration of the world heritage site in a positive light, they said that illegal tree-felling and poaching have come down following the stringent implementation of rules in the ‘protected areas’. Most forest dwellers acknowledged this fact.
The people in the villages falling under eco-sensitive zones said they had started experiencing severe restrictions on their entry into the forest.
Development activities like road repair has been stopped. Farming is not allowed in a normal way, a slight sound is demurred, the use of fertilizers is banned, and even a small knife is not allowed to be carried into the forest.
Explainer
The emerging Omicron sublineages (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Since the initial outbreak in 2019 in Wuhan, China, the world has seen multiple repeated waves of COVID-19 infections over the past few years, largely driven by the emerging variants of concern (VOCs) of the causative virus, SARS-CoV-2.
However, until recently, China remained successful in containing the spread of the disease owing to its zealous “zero-COVID” policy, which included mass quarantines, lockdowns, and early vaccination programmes. As a result of the abrupt lifting of the policy, the country is now facing a surge of COVID-19 cases.
Over the course of the pandemic, genome sequencing of the virus and rapid sharing of data has been key to tracking the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 and early identification of emerging variants.
SARS-CoV-2 sequencing data previously submitted from China to GISAID, a globally accessible repository of SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences, shows that over the months, the country has seen isolated cases linked to multiple variants of the virus seen previously.
These include Delta and its sublineages in 2021, and Omicron and its sublineages in 2022. Only 30 sequences of SARS-CoV-2 collected between October-December 2022 are available on GISAID from China.
These belong to 14 different lineages of SARS-CoV-2, all of which are Omicron sublineages, including BA.5.2, BQ.1.1, BF.7, BF.5, BA.2.75 and the recombinant lineage XBB.
Of the 14 genomes from China available on GISAID for the month of December, two genomes each belong to the Omicron sublineages BF.7, BF.5 and BA.2.75, while one genome belongs to the recombinant lineage XBB.
Lineages BF5 and BF.7 of SARS-CoV-2, while first detected in January 2022 in France, have also been previously detected in India in May and July 2022, respectively, while lineage BA.2.75 was first detected in India as early as December 2021.
The recombinant lineage XBB has also been previously detected in early 2021 in multiple countries in Asia, including India and Singapore. With the limited number of genomes available corresponding to the ongoing outbreak, we are still in the dark about the variants driving the wave in China.
Owing to the large-scale spread of Omicron and its sublineages across the world, the World Health Organisation (WHO) has added another category of variants referred to as ‘Omicron subvariants under monitoring’.
Currently, the Omicron subvariants being monitored under this category include BA.2.75, BA.4.6, XBB, BA.2.3.20 and sublineages of BA.5 including BF.7 and BQ.1.
While the first sample belonging to lineage BA.4.6 dates back to December 2021, lineage BA.2.3.20 was detected in multiple countries recently in August 2022.
Text & context
Dark patterns’ on the Internet: how companies are tricking their users (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Some Internet-based firms have been tricking users into agreeing to certain conditions or clicking a few links. The unsuspecting users would not have accepted to such terms or clicked urls (uniform resource locator), but for the deceptive tactics deployed by tech firms.
Such acceptances and clicks are flooding inboxes of the users with promotional emails they never wanted, making it hard to unsubscribe or request deletion. These are examples of “dark patterns,” also known as “deceptive patterns.”
Such patterns are unethical user interface designs that deliberately make your Internet experience harder or even exploit you. In turn, they benefit the company or platform employing the designs.
By using dark patterns, digital platforms take away a user’s right to full information about the services they are using and their control over their browsing experience.
The term is credited to UI/UX (user interface/user experience)researcher and designer Harry Brignull, who has been working to catalogue such patterns and the companies using them since around 2010.
Social media companies and Big Tech firms such as Apple, Amazon, Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, Microsoft, and Google use dark or deceptive patterns to downgrade the user experience to their advantage.
Amazon came under fire in the EU for its confusing, multi-step cancelling process in Amazon Prime subscription. After communicating with consumer regulators, Amazon this year made its cancellation process easier for online customers in European countries.
In social media, LinkedIn users often receive unsolicited, sponsored messages from influencers. Disabling this option is a difficult process with multiple steps that requires users to be familiar with the platform controls.
As Meta-owned Instagram pivots to video-based content to compete against TikTok, users have complained that they are being shown suggested posts they did not wish to see and that they were unable to permanently set preferences.
Another dark pattern on the application is sponsored video ads getting scattered between reels and stories users originally opted to view, tricking them for several seconds before they can see the small “sponsored” label.
Google-owned YouTube nags users to sign up for YouTube Premium with pop-ups, obscuring final seconds of a video with thumbnails of other videos— a way of disrupting what should have been an otherwise smooth user experience.
News
CPCB report shows fewer polluted river stretches, but the worst ones remain unchanged (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The number of polluted stretches in India’s rivers has fallen from 351 in 2018 to 311 in 2022 though the number of most polluted stretches is practically unchanged, according to a report from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) in November but made public this week.
The CPCB network monitors water quality at 4,484 locations in 28 States and seven Union Territories including rivers, lakes, creeks, drains and canals.
Bio-chemical Oxygen Demand (BOD) exceeding 3.0 mg/L (milligram per litre) are identified as polluted locations. Two or more polluted locations identified on a river in a continuous sequence are considered as a “polluted river stretch.” A BOD less than 3 mg/L means the river stretch is fit for ‘Outdoor Bathing.’
Further, stretches with a BOD exceeding 30 mg/L are considered ‘Priority 1,’ meaning, the most polluted and thus needing the most urgent remediation.
There are five such categories with ‘Priority 2’ indicating a BOD of 20-30 mg/L and ‘Priority 5’ indicating 3-6 mg/L. The success of river-cleaning programmes are measured by the number of stretches moving from 1 to 2, 2 to 3 until those in 5 (requiring the least action) too reduce.
In 2018, when the CPCB published its report (after analysing stretches in 2016 and 2017), there were 45 stretches categorised in Priority 1, 16 in Priority 2, 43 in Priority 3, 72 in Priority 4 and 175 in Priority 5.
The latest report counts 46 in P1, 16 in P2, 39 in P3, 65 in P4 and 145 in P5. All of the improvement thus, were in river stretches that required relatively lesser intervention.
No change/ slight change in Priority I & II category of polluted river stretches indicates that further stringent actions are required for control of organic pollution from various point sources of pollution including development of infrastructure and its proper operation for treatment of wastewater before discharge into recipient water bodies.
While Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh had the maximum number of ‘Priority 1’ river stretches (6), Maharashtra had the maximum number of polluted river stretches i.e. 55, followed by Madhya Pradesh (19), Bihar (18), Kerala (18), Karnataka (17) and Uttar Pradesh (17).
Following a report published in The Hindu in 2018, the National Green Tribunal had passed orders that the CPCB and the Jal Shakti Ministry monitor river pollution and ensure that all acts of river pollution were dealt with.
Every State had to ensure that at least one river stretch was “restored” to the extent that it was at least fit for bathing. States were also directed to implement ‘Action Plans’ detailing how they were addressing different stretches of their rivers.