Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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Nagaland to frame RIIN norms after consultation

News

• The Nagaland government has said guidelines for implementing a localised version of the National Register of Citizens being updated in Assam would be framed in consultation with civil society groups and traditional tribal bodies.

Beyond News

• The decision follows remarks from organisations such as the Naga Hoho, the apex body of all Nagaland’s tribes, that the Register of Indigenous Inhabitants of Nagaland (RIIN) was premature and could have serious ramifications.
• The RIIN exercise was launched with designated teams surveying people living in every village and urban ward to prepare a list of indigenous inhabitants who would be provided a certificate.
• The government has also assured the people that it will not take any hasty decision.
• December 1, 1963, the date on which Nagaland attained statehood is the base year for determining an indigenous inhabitant of the State.
• The State government claimed that RIIN was being undertaken to prevent outsiders from acquiring fake indigenous inhabitant certificates for seeking jobs and be beneficiaries of government schemes.

Draft model tenancy law proposes cap on security deposit, appointment of rent authority

News

• The Centre has proposed a model tenancy law that States and Union Territories can enact in order to regulate renting of premises, including setting a maximum of two months’ rent as security deposit, a three-months’ notice for hiking rent and appointment of rent authorities.

Beyond News

• It [model law] will enable creation of adequate rental housing stock for various income segments of society including migrants, formal and informal sector workers, professionals, students etc. and increase access to quality rented accommodation, enable gradual formalization of rental housing market.
• It will help overhaul the legal framework vis-à-vis rental housing across the country.
• According to the draft, a grievance redressal mechanism in the form of a Rent Authority, Rent Court and Rent Tribunal would be set up. Advance security deposit for residential properties would be capped at two months’ rent and one months’ rent for non-residential properties.
• After coming into force of this Act, no person shall let or take on rent any premises except by an agreement in writing. Within two months of executing the rental agreement both landowner and tenant are required to intimate to the Rent Authority about the agreement and within seven days a unique identification number will be issued by the Rent Authority to the both the parties.
• If not covered under the tenancy agreement, a revision in rent would have to be communicated to the tenant three months in advance. The District Collector would appoint an officer of the rank of Deputy Collector and above to be the Rent Authority in the area.
• The existing rent control laws are restricting the growth of rental housing and discourage the owners from renting out their vacant houses due to fear of repossession. One of the potential measures to unlock the vacant house is to bringing transparency and accountability in the existing system of renting of premises and to balance the interests of both the property owner and tenant in a judicious manner.

More Foreigners’ Tribunals in Assam

News

• The Assam government will establish 200 Foreigners’ Tribunals (FTs) for handling cases of people to be excluded from the final National Register of Citizens (NRC).

Beyond News

• These FTs would be in addition to the existing 100 and are part of the 1,000 that the Centre had decided to help Assam set up in view of the pressure anticipated in disposing of cases of people to be left out of the NRC.
• The new FTs would be distributed among six districts. Kamrup (Metropolitan) district, which covers Guwahati and outskirts, would get 67 of these, followed by Nagaon with 39, Jorhat with 31, Bongaigaon with 22, Sonitpur with 21, and Cachar with 20.
• Apart from the cases of people left out of the NRC, the new FTs will deal with the regular cases of D-voters [doubtful voters].
• Organisations representing Bengali-speaking Hindus and Muslims feel more FTs will bring more misery unless the tribunals are made fully judicial bodies. More than 80% of the 41.09 lakh people put in the two exclusion lists belong to these two groups.
• Those left out, however, were provided windows to get back in the NRC after re-submitting admissible citizenship papers.

India urges Commonwealth to readmit Maldives as member

News

• India has urged the Commonwealth to expedite readmission of the Maldives as a member country.

Beyond News

• External Affairs Minister conveyed India’s stand at the 19 Commonwealth Foreign Affairs Ministers Meeting in London.
• The Maldives withdrew from the Commonwealth during the tenure of President Abdullah Yameen in 2016 after the Commonwealth expressed serious concern over the deteriorating human rights situation in the country.

Lok Sabha gives nod to arbitration Bill

News

• The Lok Sabha cleared the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre Bill, 2019.

 Beyond News

• The Bill, which replaces an Ordinance promulgated in March this year, provides for the incorporation of the New Delhi International Arbitration Centre (NDIAC) for creating an autonomous regime for institutionalised arbitration.
• The Bill, moved by Union Law Minister, has a provision to declare the NDIAC as an Institution of National Importance.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

 ‘Facial-recognition system will not violate privacy’

News

• The Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS) would not violate privacy of citizens and is only being developed to help the law enforcement agencies to identify criminals, missing children and unidentified bodies in a scientific and speedy manner.

Beyond News

• The AFRS, being implemented by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB), is a component of Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS), a national database of crimes and criminals.
• The data will only be accessible to law enforcement agencies.
• The NCRB had last week invited bids for AFRS that would even “capture face images from CCTV feed and generate alerts if a blacklist match is found,” triggering privacy concern.
• At present, there are 7.71 lakh cases of missing persons in the CCTNS database that includes 98,000 children, the official said.
• Just as fingerprint matching is used in investigation by the police by matching fingerprint found in crime scene with the fingerprint database, the AFRS will add another information layer to investigation by allowing matching photograph of suspect or missing person with the photo database of CCTNS.
• With this tool, in case an unidentified child is recovered, the police can match the photo of child with the missing children data base for quick identification and restoration to their family.
• In case a person is suspected or arrested for crime during investigation, his photo can also be matched over the CCTNS data base for previous criminal records. This will ensure that criminals and terrorists will no longer be able to hide behind fake identities. Presently, police undertake manual search for matching photographs on CCTNS data base.

Floods displace over 4 lakh in Assam

News

• More than 4.23 lakh people have been displaced by floods that affected 17 of Assam’s 33 districts.
• Torrential rain wreaked misery elsewhere in the northeast, claiming the lives of two 10-year-old girls in Arunachal Pradesh’s Tawang after a wall collapsed on their hostel.

Beyond News

• The rising waters of river Brahmaputra and at least six of its tributaries made 4,23,386 people abandon their homes and move to shelter on higher grounds.
• But only 1,834 people, including 281 children, have moved into 53 relief camps that the local administrations have opened for the flood-affected people.
• Officials estimated crop damage on 16,730.72 hectares of farmland, breaching of five major embankments in as many districts, and river erosion threatening the existence of 19 villages. As many as 64 roads and a dozen bridges have either been damaged or submerged.
• In Tawang, bordering Tibet, local officials reported the death of two girls after a wall collapsed on their school hostel.

Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe makes touchdown on asteroid

News

• Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe made a “perfect” touchdown on a distant asteroid, collecting samples from beneath the surface in an unprecedented mission that could shed light on the origins of the solar system.

Beyond News

• Confirmation of the landing came only after Hayabusa 2 lifted back up from the asteroid and resumed communications with the control room.
• The brief landing on Thursday is the second time Hayabusa2 has touched down on the desolate asteroid Ryugu, some 300 million kilometres from Earth.
• The complex multi-year Hayabusa2 mission has also involved sending rovers and robots down to the surface.
• Touchdown was intended to collect pristine materials from beneath the surface of the asteroid that could provide insights into what the solar system was like at its birth, some 4.6 billion years ago.
• Hayabusa2’s first touchdown was in February, when it landed briefly on Ryugu and fired a bullet into the surface to puff up dust for collection, before blasting back to its holding position.
• The second touchdown required special preparations because any problems could mean the probe would lose the precious materials already gathered during its first landing.
• Scientists are hoping the probe will have collected unidentified materials believed to be “ejecta” from the blast after landing briefly in an area some 20 metres away from the centre of the crater.
• The touchdown is the last major part of Hayabusa2’s mission, and when the probe returns to Earth next year to drop off its samples, scientists hope to learn more about the history of the solar system and even the origin of life on Earth.
• Hayabusa2 is the successor to JAXA’s first asteroid explorer, Hayabusa Japanese for falcon that returned with dust samples from a smaller, potato-shaped asteroid in 2010. It was hailed as a scientific triumph despite various setbacks during its epic seven-year odyssey.
• The Hayabusa2 mission was launched in December 2014, and has a price tag of around $270 million.

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