Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Lok Sabha passes Bill to amend Aadhaar Act

News

• The Lok Sabha passed a Bill to amend the Aadhaar Act and two related laws which will allow individuals to offer voluntarily biometric ID as a means of identity verification for obtaining services such as opening a bank account and getting a mobile phone connection.

Beyond News

• The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill proposes changes in the Aadhaar Act, Indian Telegraph Act and the Prevention of Money Laundering Act to comply with a Supreme Court judgment pronounced last year, in which it upheld the constitutional validity of unique identification project with certain restrictions and changes.
• The compulsory use of Aadhaar-based KYC for mobile connections and bank accounts had been prohibited by the Supreme Court.
• The Aadhaar and Other Laws (Amendment) Bill also gives a minor the option to opt out of the 12-digit identity scheme on attaining the age of 18.
• It provides for stiff penalties for violation of norms set for the use of Aadhaar and bans service providers from storing core biometric information and Aadhaar number of individuals who voluntarily offer it as a means of authentication.

Vijay Mallya declared as fugitive economic offender under new law

News

• The special court declared absconding accused liquor baron Vijay Mallya as fugitive economic offender under the new law fugitive economic offender act.

Beyond News

• Mr Mallya is the first person to be declared a fugitive economic offender and the government can now confiscate his properties.
• Enforcement Directorate (ED)had filed an application at the PMLA court to declare Mr. Mallya a fugitive economic offender and sought orders to confiscate all his properties estimated to be around ₹ 12,500 crore. On June 30, the PMLA court took cognizance of the application filed by the agency.
• The ED has filed two separate complaints registered under PMLA for investigation of money laundering against Mr Mallya and Kingfisher Airlines Limited and United Breweries Holdings Limited and others.
• On November 19, 2016 and July 5, 2017, non bailable warrants were issued against him and on April 21, 2018, the Act came into existence.
• Mr Mallya left the country on March 2, 2016 and on April 18, 2017, he was arrested by the UK Metropolitan Police extradition unit.
• United Kingdom court issued orders that Mr Mallya should be extradited from Britain.

Illegal mining: NGT slaps ₹100 crore fine on Meghalaya

News

• The National Green Tribunal (NGT) imposed a cost of ₹100 crore on the Meghalaya government following a report submitted by an independent committee on mining in the State.

Beyond News

• A Bench, directed the government to deposit the amount with the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) within two months.
• The NGT directed that all the cranes present at the sites be seized. It also directed that the 2,700 trucks seized while carrying illegal coal to be released only after 50% value of a new truck is paid.
• The fine has been imposed to act as a deterrent for the State to stop mining activities.
• The NGT was hearing multiple pleas pertaining to the threat to life arising out of coal mining.
• The tribunal maintained that the “orders of ban on rat-hole mining will continue, subject to further orders by the Supreme Court.”
• The committee was directed to prepare a time-bound action plan pertaining to the restoration of environment and rehabilitation of victims.

Telcos fined ₹58 lakh for call drops

News

• Financial disincentives of about ₹58 lakh were imposed on telecom companies, including Idea and BSNL, for not complying with the benchmark to measure drop call rate.
• These penalties were imposed during the six-month period, from January 2018 to June 2018.

Beyond News

• As per the latest report of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India for the quarter ending September 2018, all telecom services providers are complying with drop call rate (DCR) benchmarks despite rapid increase in traffic volume and more stringent benchmarks.
• Idea was fined a total of ₹10.5 lakh in the quarter ended March 2018 while the penalty on BSNL, Tata and Telenor stood at ₹3 lakh, ₹22.5 lakh and ₹6 lakh, respectively.
• For the quarter ended June 2018, a fine of ₹12 lakh was imposed on Idea and ₹4 lakh on BSNL.
• In a separate reply, the Minister said to combat call drops, about 9.74 lakh additional base transceiver stations (BTS) for 2G/3G/4G-LTE services had been added by service providers since July 2015.
• This took the total BTS count in the country to about 20.07 lakh in November 2018. Additionally, about 9.59 lakh 2G/3G cells have been rectified or optimised during July 2016 to October 2018.
• Also, to get direct feedback from subscribers, DoT has launched an interactive voice response system wherein about 2.15 crore subscribers had been individually contacted since December 2016 of which 30.1 lakh subscribers had participated in the survey.
• The feedback is shared with the TSPs (telecom service providers) every week for taking corrective actions in a time-bound manner. As a result, about 85,000 individual cases of call drops have been resolved so far.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

RBI limits customer liability in fraudulent PPI transactions

News

• The Reserve Bank of India has decided to limit the liability of customers in case of unauthorised electronic payment transactions in Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs) issued by non-banks.

Beyond News

• Under new norms on customer liability, the regulator said frauds due to third-party breach where neither the customer nor the PPI issuer is at fault, there cannot be any liability for the customer, in case the incident in reported within three days.
• If the fraud is reported between three and seven days, customer liability will amount to the transaction value or ₹10,000, whichever is lower.
• For over seven days, the liability of the customer will be according to the board-approved policy of the PPI issuer.
• After the customer reports the fraud, the PPI issuer has to credit the amount involved in the unauthorised transaction to the customer’s PPI within 10 days.
• The burden of proving customer liability in case of unauthorised electronic payment transactions shall lie on the PPI issuer.
• There will be no liability to the customer if fraud is due to negligence or deficiency of the PPI issuer, irrespective of whether or not the transaction is reported by the customer.
• In cases where the loss is due to negligence by a customer, such as where he / she has shared the payment credentials, the customer will bear the entire loss until he / she reports the unauthorised transaction to the PPI issuer. Any loss occurring after the reporting of the unauthorised transaction shall be borne by the PPI issuer.

Tourists biggest polluters of beaches, finds survey

News

• A study on plastics in seven beaches in the country, including two in Tamil Nadu, has found that a large quantity of the waste was being brought in by tourists.

Findings

• The National Centre for Coastal Research (NCCR) here found that fishing activity was the second reason for the presence of non-degradable materials in beaches.
• In all, 71% of the waste found was plastic, 28% non-plastic and 1% was biomedical in nature. The last being found mostly on urban beaches.
• Litter, including paper/plastic bags, balloons, beverage cans, cigarette stubs, food waste, paper, food packaging, glass bottles, sharp metallic objects, clothing, toys, and alcohol bottles were found on the beaches.
• On Elliot’s Beach, 40% was due to tourist activity, 15% due to fishing activity, 38% due to other activities and 7% of the garbage found was biomedical waste. At Silver Beach in Cuddalore, 50% of the trash was from tourism, 28% from fishing, 11% from households and 6% was biomedical waste.
• Use of beaches for purposes other than walking or playing in the sand or in the waters made the problem worse. Solid waste from waterways too added to the garbage on the beaches.
• Lack of solid waste management facilities was a major issue at several beaches, adding that clean-up programmes alone would not be enough to keep the sands clean.
• A continuous information, education and communication programme for tourists, residents and fisherfolk was a must to reduce plastic usage at beaches.
• Marine litter posed a major problem with aquatic animals ingesting microplastics. It also called for a national marine litter policy that can control and manage garbage on land and prevent its entry into the marine environment to maintain its pristine nature.

NGT stays notification on groundwater

News

• Terming a notification issued by the Union Water Resources Ministry on the extraction of groundwater, as “unsustainable,” the National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked the Centre to “not give effect” to it as it had “serious shortcomings.”

Beyond News

• A Bench said, it is clear that rather than laying down stricter norms for extraction of groundwater for commercial purposes and putting in place a robust institutional mechanism for surveillance and monitoring, extraction of groundwater has been liberalised adding to the crisis, unmindful of the ground situation and likely impact it will have on environment.
• Bench said, the so-called regulation is illusory. The so-called conditions are incapable of meaningful monitoring as shown by past experience also. There is no check on injection of pollutants in the groundwater in the impugned notification.
• Taking into account the Ministry’s suggestion of levying a water conservation fee, it said,the fee virtually gives licence to harness groundwater to any extent.
• The NGT directed the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change to constitute a committee to examine “the issue of appropriate policy for conservation of groundwater”.

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