Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
GS PAPER 2
[1]Ban diesel vehicles in two phases, says NGT
Context
- National Green Tribunal has ordered Road transport offices (RTOs) in Delhi to deregister all diesel vehicles which are more than 10 years old. This news has been covered earlier Click Here
- Now NGT has ordered that this deregistration should happen in two phases.
News
- In the first phase only those vehicles which are older than 15 years old and are BS-I or BS-II vehicles should be de-registered.
- No NOC for transfer of such vehicles shall be issued.
- The remaining vehicles i.e 10-15 years old vehicle should be deregistered later.
[2]Governing the Governor
Introduction
Very recently a five-judge Constitution bench of the Supreme Court held the actions of governor of advancing the date of the assembly session and deciding the order of business as illegal.
Supreme Court held that the governor’s decision were violative of the Constitution. In the process, the Supreme Court has defined the contours of the discretionary powers of a governor with reference to basic structure doctrine.
By that decision SC aimed at:-
- Upholding the rule of law.
- Safeguarding the power of judicial review.
- Circumscribing the role that an unelected Governor could play in determining the future course of State politics.
SC view on Governor’s powers:-
- Governor has no power to unilaterally summon an Assembly session unless the government has, in his view, lost its majority.
- Governor cannot take steps relating to disqualification of the Speaker.
- Governor is barred from unilaterally sending messages to the Assembly on any matter.
- Governor is bound by the “aid and advice” of the elected Council of Ministers as the default rule.
- The matters in which governor has discretionary powers must be specified “by or under the Constitution”.
- Merely possessed the formal authority of state and could act as a safety valve in case there was a breakdown of constitutional machinery.
Was constituent assembly of the same opinion?
Analogous power of the colonial Governor had created great disaffection among the members of constituent assembly leading to a strong sentiment to remove discretion of the Governor altogether.
But assembly tried to create a balance that governor could exercise his discretion in a few matters which were either widely accepted or necessary in an emergency.
Original provisions of constitutions never envisaged judicial review to correct any such actions of the Governor.
Article 163 specifically provides that in determining which matters fall within the discretion of the Governor, the Governor’s decision will be final.
Governor could act on his own accord in relation to a matter or not, such decision would rest with the Governor as the highest constitutional authority in a State. It would not be the domain of the courts.
Could SC decision be fully justified?
It is not uncommon for Speakers to act politically, not allowing a no-confidence motion to be tabled and minority governments not summoning the Assembly are not uncommon.
In such situations, the Constitution envisaged a restorative power being responsibly exercised by the office of the Governor.
Discretionary appointments of the governors by the ruling party has been seen a root cause behind diminishing reputation of the governor as the dignified head of a state.
Although decision of SC can be justified with the above reality but what’s lost in the process is, the possibility of the Governor, acting as a bulwark against abuse of power by an elected State government.
Consequences of decision
- It reinforces the truly independent nature of the Indian higher judiciary.
- It causes a subtle shift in perception of the court from an apolitical institution to an intensely political one.
- It invigorates the demand of greater and more meaningful accountability for judges who exercise such immense power in India’s constitutional framework.
- The debate initiated by this judgement might end up in questioning the legitimacy of the basic structure doctrine.
[3]Empowering women through JAM
Context
A tweaked JAM i.e Jan Dhan, Aadhar and Mudra (instead of Mobile) is proving to be a great tool for women empowerment.
Analysis
- Rural women have always been constrained with credit availability as compared to urban women. However, due to Jan Dhan and Mudra accounts, things are changing.
- A lot of rural women have accessed Mudra loans, especially the Shishu category (upto Rs, 50000). Due to Jan Dhan, rural women have now opened bank accounts which is another step towards inclusion and empowerment.
- In fact, there are many women availing both Mudra and Jan Dhan scheme.
- 23% of total Mudra loans of SBI are availed by women and majority of these are Shishu loans. Data reveals that a major chunk of these loans are availed by states such as West Bengal, Odisha, Assam etc.. These states which have earlier lacked in economic growth are gaining more traction in women entrepreneurship.
- 35% of SBIs total inward remittance and 48% of cash withdrawals come from states with higher women literacy rates.
Conclusion
A trend of women entrepreneurs belonging to rural areas accessing Mudra loans must be encouraged further. States with high women literacy rates can be targeted more for Mudra Loans.
GS PAPER 3
[1]A.P. set to be country’s nuclear power hub
Context
With two major nuclear power projects decided to be stationed in Andhra Pradesh, A.P is all set to become the nuclear power hub of India.
Analysis
- Recently, it was decided by the government that U.S based Westinghouse’s nuclear power project will be shifted to A.P from Mithi Virdi in Gujarat.
- Now the sources reveal that even the Russian owned Rosatom will build its 6 reactors in A.P
- The reason for this preference to A.P is that many states like Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra have staged local protests over setting up on Nuclear Power Projects (NPP).
- If all the projects that are being considered to be set up in A.P go through, the state will be producing 30,000 MW of nuclear power installed capacity out of 63,000 MW envisaged for 20131 by the govt.
[2]Centre’s capital infusion in PSU banks inadequate’
Context
Although considered a good move, but the recent capital infusion (Rs. 22,900 crores) by the government in the Public Sector Banks (PSBs) is not really enough.
Analysis
- Some big rating agencies have termed this infusion insufficient to propel the lending capabilities of the bank.
- ICRA has estimated the tier-1 capital required by the banks to be in the tune of Rs. 40000-50000 crore. This requirement in itself is higher than what is announced by the government.
- On top of that 25% of total capital to be infused is performance linked, which does not do good to the already cash strapped banks.
- ICRA is of the view that the government will have to increase this capital infusion for FY2017-2019.
- As per Fitch, the government’s infusion of capital is less than half the losses incurred by the banks in second half of the fiscal year (ending March 2016)
Conclusion
Capital infusion is although a welcome step but such capital infused must be in line with the need of the banking sector. At present the government has a much better job to do than this to make the banks lend at a good scale again.
[3]Why the exchange rate is always subordinate to inflation
Context
Raghuram Rajan recently stated that devaluing rupee to increase exports may not necessarily lead to growth as import prices may be pushed up which can offset the benefits.
Analysis
- India’s exchange rate policy has always been a subordinate to inflation.When many emerging countries used their exchange rate policies to boost their manufacturing and build tradeable sector, India used a policy of overvaluing the exchange rate, so as to ward off import inflation. Thus, inflation was the big picture which was to be managed by a subordinated exchange rate.
- Over a period of time instead of managing domestic inflation through supply side reforms, India has used maneuvering of exchange rates to deal with the problem. This has been considered as one of the easiest options to deal with inflation.
- However these tactics have not yielded great results as can be seen from rising Current Account deficits of the past.
The problem however, seems to be increasing. In the present scenario, import dependencies have increased a lot, thus making exchange rate somewhat forever inferior to inflation.
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