Daily Current Affairs including static notes

Parties out of purview of RTI Act ( Polity)

The Election Commission has said in an order that political parties are out of the purview of the Right to Information Act.
This is contrary to the directive of the Central Information Commission (CIC) to bring six national parties under the law.

Details:

The order came on the appeal of an RTI applicant seeking to know the donations collected by the six national parties which were brought under the ambit of the law by the CIC in June 2013.

The Election Commission said that this is related to political parties and they are out of the purview of the RTI Act. They may submit information on donation/amount collected through electoral bonds in their contribution report for 2017-18 in the ECI, for which the due date is September 30.

Six of the seven parties — the BJP, the Congress, the BSP, the NCP, the CPI and the CPI (M) — for which information was sought were brought under the RTI Act by a full Bench of the CIC on June 3, 2013. The order has not been challenged in higher courts, but the parties have refused to entertain RTI applications.

Several activists have approached the SC against their noncompliance with the CIC’s order, and the matter is pending. As for the RTI Act, the CIC is the only appellate authority, which may declare a body public authority if it is convinced that it meets the criteria for being under the Act.

However a former CIC said that the June 2013 order of the CIC bringing six national parties under the RTI Act is in force even if the parties do not obey it. It has not been stayed or set aside by any court. Therefore, as far as the national parties are concerned, they are covered by the RTI Act.

About the Right to Information Act 2005:

Right to Information (RTI) is an Act of the Parliament of India to provide for setting out the practical regime of right to information for citizens and replaces the erstwhile Freedom of information Act, 2002. Under the provisions of the Act, any citizen of India may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within thirty days. The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

This law was passed by Parliament on 15 June 2005 and came fully into force on 12 October 2005. The first RTI application was filed at a police station in Pune by Shahid Raza Burney. The first RTI application in Delhi was filed to the office of President about article 370 in Jammu & Kashmir.

The Act covers the whole of India except Jammu and Kashmir, where J&K Right to Information Act is in force. It covers all the constitutional authorities, including executive, legislature and judiciary; any institution or body established or constituted by an act of Parliament or a state legislature. It is also defined in the Act that bodies or authorities established or constituted by order or notification of appropriate government including bodies “owned, controlled or substantially financed” by government, or non-Government organizations “substantially financed, directly or indirectly by funds”.

The RTI and Political parties:

The Central Information Commission (CIC) held that the political parties are public authorities and are answerable to citizens under the RTI Act. The CIC said that six national parties – Congress, BJP, NCP, CPI (M), CPI and BSP and BJD – has been substantially funded indirectly by the Central Government and have the character of public authorities under the RTI Act as they perform public functions. But in August 2013 the government introduced a Right to Information (Amendment) Bill which would remove political parties from the scope of the law. Currently no parties are under the RTI Act and there has a case been filed for bringing all political parties under it.

The Bill to amend the RTI Act, which was to be tabled in the monsoon session 2013 of the last Lok Sabha, witnessed strong opposition from the civil society and was referred to a Standing Committee. The Committee, in October 2013, agreed to the proposed Amendment, notwithstanding the public opinion. In the meantime, the Bill to amend the RTI Act has lapsed.

New election commission reforms ( Polity)

For the first time in West Bengal, the Election Commission (EC) will use Braille-enabled signboards carrying instructions for visually challenged voters.
It will be introduced at all the polling stations in the Maheshtala Assembly by-election.

Details:

The decision to use Braille-enabled signboards is a State-specific measure and will be used for the first time in West Bengal to ensure hassle free polling experience for visually impaired voters. The initiative was part of the drive to make elections more accessible to persons with disabilities.

The Braille-enabled signboards will be put up at the entrance of all the 283 polling stations.

Apart from the conventionally displayed instructions for voters on how to use the electronic voting machine and Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail, the signboards will also display such instructions in Braille.

The EC held consultations with officials of the State government departments such as Women, Child and Social Welfare, Youth Services and Sports to frame strategies on how to involve physically challenged voters in the polling process.

The EC also plans to let those not on rolls vote.

Details:

The Election Commission will soon examine the New Zealand model, which allows eligible people to vote even if their names are not on the printed roll for valid reasons. The concept of a confidential roll will also be discussed.

It was noted that in recent election thousands of people could not vote because they did not find their names on the list. Hence, they recommended the New Zealand model. The model will be studied and discussed with all political parties and the government. If there is consensus, the rules will have to be modified.

New Zealand’s Electoral Commission website says: “If your name isn’t on the printed roll at the voting place, you’ll need to fill up an extra form.” Listing the reasons for non-inclusion of names in the rolls, the website says it may be either because the person is not enrolled; the enrolment has been done after the roll was printed; the person is enrolled in a different electorate; or the voter is on the ‘unpublished’ roll.

The concept of ‘unpublished’ (confidential) roll may also be discussed by the Election Commission with the stakeholders. ‘Unpublished’ roll is for those who fear making their details available on the printed roll for security reasons.

Women’s health crucial to combat stunting(Gov)

A first of its kind study across all 640 districts of the country highlights the impact of women’s health on stunting of children.

Details:

According to the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) study, analyzing data from the National Family Health Survey (NHFS) IV, parameters related to women, including education and age at marriage, account for 50% of the difference between districts with high and low levels of stunting among children below the age of five.

Across the country, in 239 districts more than 40% of the children are stunted, while 202 districts record between 30% and 40 % of stunting. Only 29 districts have levels between 10% and 20%, most of them in South India.

India accounts for approximately a third of the world’s stunted children at 63 million.

While levels have improved in the country from 48% in 2006 to 38.4% in 2016, there are wide variations among different districts ranging between 12.4% and 65.1%.

The populous northern States account for more than 80% of stunted children at 52.6 million. In comparison, all of the southern States together have 8.1 million stunted children and the northeastern and island States account for nearly 2.4 million. Within the States, however, the levels vary with regions in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka recording high prevalence.

The research highlights the need for targeted policy intervention to combat stunting, with a focus on addressing critical determinants in individual districts.

The four crucial parameters in women that together contribute to a 44% reduction in stunting among children are levels of body mass index accounting for 19% of the difference between districts; education accounting for 12% of the difference; age at marriage contributing a 7% reduction and antenatal care adding 6%.

Among other important factors highlighted by the study are adequate diets for children (9%), household assets (7%) and open defecation (7%).

Blockchain being used in banking, contracts ( Eco)

A number of companies and banks are adopting blockchain technology to reduce documentation and increase operational efficiency.
This technology allows all stages of transactions to be securely shared by members in a network

Details:

Traditionally, trade finance involves complex documentation processes, high transaction costs, high settlement times and low authenticity rates with physical documents.

As a result, a bank’s customer is straddled with delays, high costs and risks. Blockchain technology allows all stages of transactions to be securely shared between network members, as opposed to each bank working independently, which is more expensive and increases the chance of error.

Cost reduction, risk mitigation, speed, traceability and security are among the multiple benefits the participants are seeing from the pilot. Infosys created India Trade Connect, which is being used to run a pilot of a blockchain-based solution developed specifically to address the trade finance process requirements of banks.

Another area of business where the distributed ledger aspect of blockchain technology is appealing to Indian companies is in contracts.

International blockchain companies looking to enter the Indian market, such as Indonesia-based Pundi X, say that the Union government could learn more about how best to regulate crypto-currencies and blockchain from smaller countries that have adopted the technology.

Blockchain is a very new technology and what one will see is that the use cases will principally come from smaller countries that are more receptive to adopting new technologies.

Blockchain technology can be used to digitize and authenticate currently complex records like land holdings. India, like many countries, has problems with land titles and ownership and this is where blockchain is developing.

The best use case is Sweden, which is putting all its land records on blockchain and it will quite quickly move towards doing land transfers and ownership verification using blockchain, which is a major issue in India currently.

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