Daily Quiz: UPSC Prelims Marathon (Polity & International relations) – July 5, 2020

On May 17, 2019 in a very short hearing, a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court (the Chief Justie of India Ranjan Gogoi and Justices Deepak Gupta and Sanjiv Khanna) decided a batch of 15 petitions under the title Abdul Kuddus v Union of India.

The case involved the status of an “opinion” rendered by a Foreigners Tribunal, as to the citizenship (or the lack thereof) of any individual. The issue arose because, in the State of Assam, there are two ongoing processes concerning the question of citizenship.

• The first includes proceedings before the Foreigners Tribunals, which have been established under an executive order of the Central government.
• The second is the NRC, a process overseen and driven by the Supreme Court. While nominally independent, both processes nonetheless bleed into each other, and have thus caused significant chaos and confusion for individuals who have found themselves on the wrong side of one or both.

In short, the petitioners’ case was that the two processes — that of the Foreigners Tribunal and of the NRC — should be kept entirely independent of each other, and without according primacy to one over the other.

Non-refoulement is a fundamental principle of international law. It prohibits states from forcibly returning refugees to conditions that caused them to flee their homes in the first place, where they would be likely in danger of persecution based on race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion.

The CGA is the Principal Accounting Adviser to the Government of India. The office is in the Department of Expenditure, Ministry of Finance. Controller General of Accounts derives his mandate from Article 150 of the Constitution. This statutory mandate as incorporated in the Allocation of Business Rules 1961.

• The office of the CGA has the mandate to establish and maintain a technically sound Management Accounting system.
• It also prepares and submits the accounts of the Central Government.

It is also in charge of the exchequer control and internal audits.

In response to mounting concern over money laundering, the Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering (FATF) was established by the G-7 Summit that was held in Paris in 1989.The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is the global money laundering and terrorist financing watchdog.

• The inter-governmental body sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
• As a policy-making body, the FATF works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.
• With more than 200 countries and jurisdictions committed to implementing them.
• The FATF has developed the FATF Recommendations, or FATF Standards, which ensure a coordinated global response to prevent organized crime, corruption and terrorism.
• They help authorities go after the money of criminals dealing in illegal drugs, human trafficking and other crimes.  The FATF also works to stop funding for weapons of mass destruction.
• The FATF reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and continuously strengthens its standards to address new risks, such as the regulation of virtual assets, which have spread as crypto-currencies gain popularity.
• The FATF monitors countries to ensure they implement the FATF Standards fully and effectively, and holds countries to account that do not comply.

The ICC is the world’s first permanent, international judicial body capable of bringing perpetrators to justice and providing redress to victims when states are unable or unwilling to do so.

• This represents a major stride for international justice. On July 17, 1998, at a diplomatic conference in Rome, the international community adopted the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
• The ICC can prosecute and bring to justice individuals accused of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity. These crimes are defined in the Rome Statute, and reflect existing international law.
• The ICC is located in The Hague, the Netherlands. The Court is composed of three branches: the judiciary, which is made up of 18 judges, the Office of the Prosecutor and the Office of the Registrar, which runs the administration of the Court.
• The ICC is a court of last resort. It acts essentially as a safety net when national courts are unable to prosecute, either because the criminal justice system is unequipped or collapsed, or because the perpetrators continue to wield influence over the government.
• The International Court of Justice (ICJ) is a civil court that hears disputes between countries. The ICC is a criminal court that prosecutes individuals.
• Other international criminal tribunals, namely the ad hoc tribunals for Rwanda and the former Yugoslavia, are similar to the ICC but are temporary and have a limited geographical scope. The ICC is a permanent court, and is global in its reach.

Umbrella movement is the first ever homegrown pro-democracy movement in Hong Kong (2014), which is the semi-autonomous Chinese city.

• The name has its origin from the use of umbrellas as a tool against the Hong Kong Police’s use of pepper spray to disperse the crowd.
• It was a British colony from 1841 until sovereignty was returned to China in 1997.
• Hong Kong is now part of China under the ― “one country, two systems” principle.
• Huge crowds had gathered to mark the fifth anniversary (September 2019) of the “Umbrella Movement”, the failed pro-democracy campaign that laid the groundwork for the massive protests currently engulfing the finance hub.

Brazil’s “dirty list” of employers that have engaged in slave labour is considered one the country’s best tools in its efforts to end slave labor.

• It is a registry of employers that have been found by the government to have engaged in slave labour.
• It gives transparency to a decision already reached by the Brazilian state.
• Created in 2004, it has been hailed by the United Nations as a key tool in Brazil’s anti-slavery drive.

Operation Peace Spring is a military operation launched by Turkey against the Syrian Democratic Forces in Northeast Syria.

• The Turkish Armed Forces together with the Syrian National Army launched this after U.S. troops pulled back from the border area last week.
• It is to prevent the creation of a terror corridor across border, and to bring peace to the area.
• It is to create a safe zone to ensure that Syrian refugees return to their home countries.

Yuelu Proclamation was adopted at the first international conference on language resources protection in Changsha, Central China’s Hunan province in 2018 by UNESCO. It is a document on protection and promotion of the world’s linguistic diversity.

The Yuelu Proclamation, says: “The protection and promotion of linguistic diversity helps to improve social inclusion and partnerships, helps to reduce the gender and social inequality between different native speakers, guarantee the rights for native speakers of endangered, minority, indigenous languages, as well as non-official languages and dialects to receive education, enhance the social inclusion level and social decision-making ability by encouraging them to participate in a series of actions to promote cultural diversity, endangered language protection, and the protection of intangible cultural heritage…”

The section 124-A deals with the offence of sedition, a term that covers speech or writing, or any form of visible representation, which brings the government into hatred or contempt, or excites disaffection towards the government, or attempts to do so.

• It is punishable with three years in prison or a life term. “Disaffection”, it says, includes disloyalty and feelings of enmity.
• However, it also says expressing disapproval of government measures or actions, with a view to getting them changed by lawful means, without promoting hatred or disaffection or contempt towards the government will not come under this section.
• Sedition was introduced in the penal code in 1870; a decade after the Indian Penal Code came into force. It was a colonial law directed against strong criticism of the British administration.
• Its most famous victims included Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi called it “the prince among the political sections of the IPC designed to suppress the liberty of the citizen”.
• Two high courts had found it unconstitutional after Independence, as it violated the freedom of speech and expression. The Constitution was amended to include ‘public order’ as one of the ‘reasonable restrictions’ on which free speech could be abridged by law.
• Thereafter, the Supreme Court, in Kedar Nath Singh v. State of Bihar (1962) upheld its validity. At the same time, it limited its application to acts that involve “intention or tendency to create disorder” or incitement to violence.
• Thus, even strongly worded remarks, as long as they do not excite disloyalty and enmity, or incite violence, are not offences under this section.