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The Supreme Court rapped the Returning Officer who conducted the recent Chandigarh mayoral polls, observing it is obvious he defaced the ballot papers and that he should be prosecuted, adding his action amounted to "murder” and “mockery" of democracy.
An “appalled” Chief Justice DY Chandrachud, who headed a three-judge Division bench, said it will not allow democracy to be murdered like this and that the apex court will order fresh elections if not satisfied with the purity of the poll process.
Asking whether the Returning Officer (RO) is an officer or a fugitive, the court also ordered preservation of ballots and the video of the poll proceedings besides seeking his personal appearance during the next hearing in the Chandigarh mayoral polls case on February 19.
In Parliament
Water pollution curbs” Bill allowing exemption to industrial units tabled (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Centre on Monday introduced a Bill that would enable it to prescribe the norms for nominating chairpersons of State Pollution Control Boards, exempt certain industrial units from restrictions, and decriminalise “minor offences” related to water pollution.
The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Amendment Bill, 2024 was introduced in the Rajya Sabha by MoS for Environment Ashwini Kumar Choubey.
It would be applicable to Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan, and any other state that passes a resolution under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
Currently, the Act prescribes imprisonment of up to three months for not informing the State Board about abstraction of water from a stream or well in a substantial volume and not providing information about construction, installation or operation of disposal system. The Bill amends it to a fine between Rs10,000 and Rs15 lakh.
The Act states the chairman of the State Pollution Control Board will be nominated by the State government, to which the Bill adds “in such manner as may be prescribed by the Central Government”.
Express Network
Zakir hussain, Mahadevan, Chaurasia, Selvaganesh win big at 66th Grammys (Page no. 8)
(Miscellaneous)
This Moment, an eight-track pandemic project by Indo-jazz super group, Shakti, created by exchanging audio files over the Internet and discussing them through a WhatsApp group, has won the Grammy for Best Global Music Album at the 66th Grammys.
The famed outfit, currently comprising ace percussionist Ustad Zakir Hussain, British guitarist John Mclaughlin, kanjira player V Selvaganesh, violinist Ganesh Rajagopalan and vocalist Shankar Mahadevan, all of whom live in different parts of the world, has attempted to create an ethos that cuts across all cultures through intertwining of music from the East and West, dextrous improvisations, enthralling solos and massive precision.
India, we are proud of you,” said an emphatic Mahadevan while accepting the award with Selvaraj and Rajagopalan in a dazzling ceremony held at crypto.com arena in Los Angeles.
The discovery, each time you sit as a group to play and perform, is like climbing Everest from different angles. Every time, it is a whole different point of view, marvelling at how you do the same but it’s not the same,” Hussain had said in a statement about the album that attempts to intermingle Eastern and Western sounds and North Indian classical music with Carnatic classical music.
Editorial
Demography and destiny (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In her speech, while presenting the 2024 budget, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman promised a committee to study India’s population growth to ensure that the nation is on target to meet the Viksit Bharat goal by 2047.
Coming nearly 50 years after the brutal implementation of the population control programme in 1976, I hope this move reflects a shift in public discourse regarding the course of India’s demographic transformation.
India is and will remain the world’s most populous nation for the foreseeable future. Nonetheless, it does not appear to be the fearsome prospect it once appeared to be.
Fertility has steadily declined to a level where two parents are being replaced by two children and all segments of the society have begun to adopt family planning.
Moreover, India has learned not to let the burden of a growing population pose an obstacle to its continued economic growth. However, we have yet to adapt to the changes that population transformation brings.
I hope this committee will focus on reshaping the policy agenda that rides the inevitable demographic wave and not be mired in the old discourse of population bomb. This will require focusing on several priorities.
Explained
What’s in bill to stop cheating in job exams (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Public Examinations (Prevention of Unfair Means) Bill, 2024, was introduced in Lok Sabha on Monday (February 5), and passed on February 6. The Bill aims to prevent “unfair means” in order to “bring greater transparency, fairness and credibility to the public examinations system”.
Section 3 of the Bill lists at least 15 actions that amount to using unfair means in public examinations “for monetary or wrongful gain”.
These acts include: “leakage of question paper or answer key or part thereof” and colluding in such leakage; “accessing or taking possession of question paper or an Optical Mark Recognition response sheet without authority”; “tampering with answer sheets including Optical Mark Recognition response sheets”; “providing solution to one or more questions by any unauthorised person during a public examination”, and “directly or indirectly assisting the candidate” in a public examination.
Snow leopard count: Why this Himalayan feat is the first step in securing the cat (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Snow Leopard Population Assessment in India (SPAI) has estimated a population of 718 in Ladakh, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Sikkim and Arunachal Pradesh. Carried out between 2019 and 2023, this study is a major leap in our understanding of the keystone species.
Snow leopards are believed to occupy around 1 lakh sq km of the higher Himalayan terrains in India. As recently as 2016, the cat’s status was unknown in as much as one-third of its range.
This went well with the legend of the ‘ghost of the mountains’ built around the elusive cat’s mastery of stealth and camouflage.
But for this ‘ghost’ to have a future — and since the future of most species is increasingly determined by human actions — knowledge of the cat’s status across its range was necessary for framing the right policies.
This was also a question of securing our future because the snow leopard’s habitat is where all major Himalayan rivers that sustain life across much of India spring to life.
Economy
A 50 fold increase in imports of gold findings trigger for pre budget duty hike (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
JUST A week before the presentation of Budget 2024-25, the Finance Ministry hiked import duties on a specific, relatively unheard category of the jewellery segment called gold findings, which are small components such as hooks, clasps, clamps, pins, screws used to hold the whole or a part of a piece of jewellery in place. Reason: a sharp surge of over 5,000 per cent in the imports of the gold findings this year.
The value of imports of gold findings rose to Rs 5,212 crore this financial year (up to January 6), over 50 times higher than imports worth Rs 102 crore seen in the previous year till January 31.
This prompted the ministry to raise import duty on gold and silver findings, alongside coins of precious metals, to 15 per cent, even as the import duty on the broader segment of gold and silver bars was kept unchanged.
The duty on gold findings was raised as a sharp increase in their imports was recorded over the last two months, which reflected the misuse of the duty arbitrage with other gold items. There were concerns about evasion, so the duty was changed.
RBI MPC: Why repo rate may remain unchanged (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC), which is scheduled to meet from February 6 to 8, is likely to keep the repo rate – its key policy rate – unchanged for the sixth consecutive time at 6.5 per cent to meet the 4 per cent consumer price-based inflation (CPI) target. The committee is also likely to retain the monetary policy stance as ‘withdrawal of accommodation’.
The rate-setting panel of the RBI is expected to keep the repo rate – the rate at which RBI lends money to banks to meet their short-term funding needs — steady at 6.5 per cent in the policy decision which will be announced on February 8.
If the RBI maintains the status quo in the upcoming policy, it would mark one full year of the repo rate remaining steady at 6.5 per cent.
The central bank last increased the repo rate by 25 basis points (bps) on February 8, 2023, to 6.5 per cent. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
The central bank is also likely to maintain the monetary policy stance as a ‘withdrawal of accommodation’, economists said.
The RBI’s monetary policy will be announced a few days after the US Federal Reserve announced its monetary policy decision in which it left the benchmark interest rates unchanged at 5.25 per cent – 5.5 per cent and suggested that there was no hurry to change rates. Markets earlier anticipated that the US central bank may start cutting interest rates from March this year.
World
Blinken returns to West Asia as Hamas weighs ceasefire deal (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken met with Saudi Arabia’s crown prince at the start of his fifth visit to the Middle East since the outbreak of the war in Gaza, hoping to press ahead with a potential cease-fire deal and postwar planning while tamping down regional tensions.
But on all three fronts he faces major challenges: Hamas and Israel are publicly at odds over key elements of a potential truce.
Israel has dismissed the United States’ calls for a path to a Palestinian state, and Iran’s militant allies in the region have shown little sign of being deterred by U.S. strikes.
In Gaza, meanwhile, Hamas has begun to reemerge in some of the most devastated areas after Israeli forces pulled back, an indication that Israel’s central goal of crushing the group remains elusive. Video footage from the same areas shows vast destruction, with nearly every building damaged or destroyed.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said the military would continue to conduct operations in northern Gaza for many months and press ahead with its main offensive in the south, where it has been locked in heavy fighting for weeks, until it has “full reign” over the entire territory.