Daily Current Affairs : 17th January 2024

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Tenth Schedule
2. Light emitting diodes
3. National Essential Diagnostic List
4. Unruly passenger behaviour
5. Facts for Prelims

1 . Tenth Schedule

Context: The Maharashtra Assembly Speaker has refused to disqualify 40 MLAs of the Eknath Shinde faction after recognising it as the real Shiv Sena. He held the appointment of whip by this group as valid. He also did not disqualify 14 MLAs of the Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray (UBT) group due to technical reasons under the Tenth Schedule. 

Why was the Tenth Schedule made? 

• The defections of legislators during the 1960s and 70s from their parent parties created political instability in many States, bringing down elected governments. Therefore, to ensure the stability of elected governments, the 52nd constitutional amendment introduced the ‘anti-defection’ law through the Tenth Schedule in 1985. 
• This Schedule provides that a member of a House of Parliament or State legislature who voluntarily gives up the membership of their political party or votes against the instructions of their party in a House are liable for disqualification from said House. This instruction with respect to voting is issued by the ‘whip’ of a party. 
•  A ‘whip’ is a member of the ‘legislature party’ in a House who is appointed as such by the respective ‘political party’. 
• The ‘political party’ is the entire organisation of a party including the legislators, while the ‘legislature party’ is only the members of a political party in a House of Parliament or State legislature. 
• The Tenth Schedule originally provided for two exceptions that would not render the members liable for disqualification. First, one-third members of the ‘legislature party’ splitting to form a separate group. Second, merger of their ‘political party’ with another party that is approved by two-third members of its ‘legislature party’. However, considering the need to strengthen the ‘anti-defection’ law, the merger provision was omitted in 2003. 

What are the issues involved? 

• With the deletion of the merger exception , there have been instances of two-third members of a legislature party ‘practically’ defecting but claiming to be the original political party in order to escape disqualification.  
• There have also been instances where more than two-third members of a State ‘legislature party’ of a national political party merged themselves with another political party to escape disqualification. This happened in September 2019, in Rajasthan, when all six Bahujan Samajwadi Party MLAs merged themselves with the Congress Party and in September 2022, in Goa, when eight out of 11 Congress MLAs merged themselves with the BJP. 
• The authority to decide on the disqualification of members is vested in the Speaker of the House. While they are expected to perform this constitutional role in a neutral manner, the past instances have hardly inspired confidence with Speakers favouring the ruling dispensation. 
• The Supreme Court in K. M. Singh versus Speaker of Manipur (2020), recommended that Parliament amend the Constitution to vest these powers in an independent tribunal headed by judges. 

What happened in Maharashtra? 

• In June 2022, a faction of the Shiv Sena headed by Eknath Shinde moved with 37 of the 55 MLAs and claimed to be the real Shiv Sena. It appointed Bharat Gogawale as its whip. However, the UBT faction claimed that they were the original political party and that Sunil Prabhu of its faction will continue to be the whip. 
• The Speaker has now recognised the Eknath Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena and held the appointment of whip by this group as valid. This was based on the strength of members of the Shinde faction and the party’s 1999 constitution. 
•  The Speaker based on this ruling refused to disqualify 40 MLAs of the Shinde faction. He also refused to disqualify 14 MLAs of the UBT group as the whip instructions from Bharat Gogawale could not be physically served on them. 

What are the reforms needed? 

• The Supreme Court in Sadiq Ali versus Election Commission of India (1971), laid down the three-test formula for determining which faction is to be recognised as the original political party by the Election Commission. These are aims and objects of the party; its affairs as per the party’s constitution that reflect inner party democracy; and majority in the legislative and organisation wings. 
• The first test is subject to competing claims by rival groups. But it is lack of inner party democracy that results in most of these defections. In fact, the Election Commission in February 2023, recognised the Eknath Shinde faction as the real Shiv Sena, solely based on votes polled by legislators supporting Eknath Shinde in the Maharashtra Assembly elections of 2019. 
• An authoritative Supreme Court judgment in these matters and setting up of an independent tribunal to decide on disqualification of members will reduce the ambiguities surrounding the Tenth Schedule. 
• The real reform required is institutionalising internal democracy through regular inner-party elections in our political parties with strict monitoring by the Election Commission. 

2 . Light emitting diodes

Context: In 2014, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences issued a statement in which it said, “Incandescent light bulbs … lit the 20th century; the 21st century will be lit by LED lamps.” 

What are diodes?

• A diode is an electronic component about 5 mm wide. It has two points of contact, or terminals, called its anode and cathode. A diode’s primary purpose is to allow current to flow in only one direction. It achieves this using a p-n junction. 
• A p-n junction is made of two materials laid next to each other. One material is a p-type material: its primary charge-carriers are holes. 
• The other is an n-type material: its primary charge-carriers are electrons. Electrons are ‘places’ inside atoms that carry negative charge. A hole denotes a ‘place’ in an atom or a group of atoms where there could be an electron but isn’t. Thus, a hole is an electron placeholder but without the electron, so it has a positive charge. 
• A p-n junction is an interface where the surface of a p-type material and the surface of an n-type material meet. At this interface, electrons can pass easily from the n-type material to the p-type material but can’t go the other way. This asymmetry creates the diode’s ability to allow current to pass in only one direction. A wire attached to the p-type material is called the diode’s anode; that attached to the n-type material is the cathode. These are the diode’s two terminals. 
• When the two materials are first placed next to each other, some electrons move from the n-side to the p-side until there is a layer, between the two sides, where there are neither (free) electrons nor holes present. When a suitable voltage is applied across the diode, more electrons flow from the n-side to the p-side, implying an electric current flowing from the p-side to the n-side, that is from the anode terminal to the cathode terminal. But if the voltage is reversed, current won’t flow in the opposite direction. 

What is an LED? 

• An LED is a diode that emits light. Inside the diode’s p-n junction, the electrons have more energy than the holes. 
• When an electron meets and occupies a hole, it releases energy into its surroundings. If the frequency of this energy is in the visible part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the diode will be seen to emit light. The overall phenomenon is called electroluminescence. 
• The energy of a wave is proportional to its frequency. So making sure the light emitted by an LED is visible light is a matter of making sure the electron-hole recombination releases a certain amount of energy, not more and not less. This is possible to achieve due to the band gap. 

What is the band gap? 

• Particles like electrons can only have specific energy values. They can occupy only particular energy levels. When a group of electrons comes together in a system, they’re required to follow some rules. One of them is that no two electrons can occupy the same energy level at the same time. 
• These electrons generally prefer to have lower energy, and thus prefer to occupy the lowest available energy level. If that level is taken, they occupy the next available level. Sometimes they can acquire more energy, tear free from their atoms, and flow around the material. In these circumstances, we say the material is an electrical conductor. When the electrons don’t have enough energy to flow around, the material is an insulator. 
• Electrons can acquire such extra energy when an electric field is applied to the material. The field will accelerate the electrons and energise them, and the electrons will be ‘kicked’ from lower to higher energy levels. In some materials, there is an energy gap between these lower and higher levels — that is between when the electrons can’t and can flow around the material. An electron can’t have an amount of energy that would place it in one of these levels. It’s the reason why electrons in these materials can’t conduct an electric current unless they receive a minimum amount of energy — the energy required to jump across this gap. This gap is called the band gap. 
• In LEDs, the energy emitted when an electron and a hole recombine is the energy of the band gap. 
• By carefully choosing the materials that make up the p-layer and the n-layer, researchers can engineer the composite p-n junction to have a band gap that corresponds to visible light. Electron-hole recombination can be triggered by passing an electric current through the diode, which creates the electric field that ‘kicks’ the electrons. 

What colours can an LED produce? 

• Since LEDs can produce all three primary colours , red, green, and blue, different LEDs can be combined on a display board to produce a large variety of colours.  
• This said, scientists were able to create red and green LEDs more than 40 years before they created blue LEDs. The reason: scientists had identified a compound, gallium nitride, that was electroluminescent and whose band gap could yield blue light, but they didn’t know how to create crystals of this compound with the precise physical, electronic, and optical properties. Gallium nitride was also fragile, quickly becoming a powder in the process used to create crystals.  
• Inventing the blue LED eventually required a series of breakthroughs in epitaxy, the process by which p-type and n-type materials are built layer by layer. 
• In the late 1980s, three Japanese researchers, Isamu Akasaki, Hiroshi Amano, and Shuji Nakamura, led teams that produced a bright blue LED with gallium nitride. For this feat they received the physics Nobel Prize in 2014. 

What are the advantages of LEDs? 

• According to Moore’s law, specified by American engineer Gordon Moore in the 1970s, the number of transistors on a chip would double every two years. Similarly, improvements to LEDs since 1970 have followed Haitz’s law. Named for scientist Roland Haitz, it states that for a given frequency of light, the cost per unit of light of an LED will drop 10x and the amount of light it produces will increase 20x every decade. 
• But even before Haitz’s law, researchers prized LEDs because they were more efficient than incandescent bulbs and fluorescent lamps. Per watt of power consumed, LEDs can produce up to 300 lumen (amount of visible light emitted per second) versus incandescent bulbs’ 16 lumen and fluorescent lamps’ 70 lumen. Together with their greater durability and light contrast, LEDs’ advantages translated to higher cost savings and less material waste. 
• LEDs have several applications in industry, consumer electronics, and household appliances: from smartphones to TV screens, signboards to ‘feeding’ plants light in greenhouses, barcode scanners to monitoring air quality. 
• Today, LEDs can also produce a variety of colours or emit energy at higher and lower frequencies; LEDs can be ‘embedded’ in skin; and organic LEDs emit more light (albeit by a different mechanism). Researchers are also exploring more efficient LEDs made of materials called perovskites. 

3 . National Essential Diagnostic List

Context: ICMR starts revising current National Essential Diagnostics List for first time.  

About the news

• The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has begun the process of revising the current National Essential Diagnostics List (NEDL), saying that considerable time has passed since the first list was released in 2019. 
• The council has invited relevant stakeholders to offer suggestions on adding or deleting diagnostic tests to the current list by the end of February. 

About the list 

• The NEDL lists the essential and most basic tests that should be available at various levels of healthcare facilities in the country, including at the village level, in sub-health centres, health and wellness centres, and primary health centres. 
• It has been developed by ICMR. 
• Separate lists have been prepared for each type of facility – subcentre/HWC, primary health centre/HWC, community health centre, sub-district hospital, and district hospital. 
• A list of tests has been prepared with following description of each test: 
• Test category: The category/discipline to which the test belongs, e.g. haematology, microbiology etc. 
• Specimen type: The types of specimen (s) that can be used for the test. 
• Product/equipment: The product/equipment on which the test is best conducted. 

4 . Unruly passenger behaviour

Context: IndiGo has initiated the process of putting on the no-fly list a passenger who assaulted a pilot after the flight was delayed for several hours amid heavy fog in Delhi on Sunday. 

How are airlines supposed to respond to incidents of unruly passenger behaviour? 

• The airline should first inform the passengers concerned that in case their behaviour is deemed unruly as per the guidelines, they could be arrested. 
• Unruly behaviour includes (but is not limited to): consuming liquor or drugs resulting in unruly behaviour; smoking; not obeying the pilot’s instructions; using threatening or abusive language against crew or other passengers; physically threatening and abusive behaviour; intentionally interfering with discharge of duties by the crew; and endangering the safety of the aircraft and those on board. 
• In the incident that took place at Delhi’s IGI Airport recently,the aircraft was still on ground, so the passenger was handed over to airport security immediately. In cases of unruly behaviour in the air, the pilot is required to quickly assess if the cabin crew can control the unruly passenger, and accordingly inform the airline’s central control on the ground. 
• If the pilots and the airline’s central control believe that the unruly passenger cannot be brought under control by the cabin crew, they must land as soon as possible at the nearest available airport and Upon landing the airline representative shall lodge FIR (First Information Report) with the concerned security agency at aerodrome, to whom, the unruly passenger shall be handed over. 

What is the procedure to be followed after the incident is over? 

• When an airline receives a complaint of unruly passenger behaviour from the pilot-in-command, it must refer the complaint to an internal committee, which must include (i) a retired district and sessions judge as chairman, (ii) a representative of a different airline and, (iii) a representative of a passengers’ association, or consumer association, or a retired officer of a consumer disputes redressal forum. 
• The internal committee is required to decide the matter within 30 days, along with the categorisation of the incident in one of three defined category levels. The committee shall also decide the duration for which the unruly passenger will be banned from flying. The committee’s decision shall be binding on the airline. 

What are the category levels of disruptive passenger behaviour? 

• The levels define behaviour ranging from verbal harassment to murderous assault. 
• Level 1: Unruly behaviour, including physical gestures, verbal harassment, and unruly inebriation. 
• Level 2: Physically abusive behaviour, including pushing, kicking, hitting, and grabbing or inappropriate touching or sexual harassment. 
• Level 3: Life-threatening behaviour, including damage to aircraft operating systems, physical violence such as choking, eye gouging, murderous assault, and attempted or actual breach of flight crew compartment. 

What penalties can unruly behaviour by a flight passenger attract? 

• The airline can ban the unruly passenger for up to 30 days immediately after the incident. 
• In case the Internal Committee fails to take a decision in 30 days, the passenger will be free to fly. 
• Airlines are required to maintain a database of unruly passengers and share it with the DGCA and other airlines. The DGCA maintains a No-Fly List based on the data shared by carriers. 
• In addition to the airline on whose aircraft the incident occurred, other carriers also have the option of banning such passengers from flying for varying durations based on offence levels. For Level 1 and 2 offences, the ban on flying can extend to three months and six months respectively. For a Level 3 offence, the minimum ban should be for 2 years, with no upper limit. 
• An individual who is banned from flying can appeal within 60 days to an Appellate Committee constituted by the Ministry of Civil Aviation, and headed by a retired judge of a High Court. An appeal against the appellate panel’s decision shall be made to a High Court. 

What has been the DGCA’s message to airlines? 

• DGCA said that it had noticed incidents of smoking in aircraft, consumption of liquor resulting in unruly passenger behaviour, altercations between passengers, and incidents of inappropriate touching or sexual harassment by passengers “wherein post holders, pilots and cabin crew members have failed to take appropriate actions”. 
• The regulator underlined that norms must be followed, and advised the heads of operations of all airlines to sensitise pilots, cabin crew, and other concerned officials on handling unruly passengers. 
• Training programmes should be held to ensure effective monitoring, maintenance of good order and discipline on board the aircraft so that safety of aircraft operations is not jeopardised in any manner.  
• Airline personnel should also “carefully monitor” the behaviour of passengers who are “likely to be unruly” and, if deemed as posing a threat to flight safety or safety of crew and other passengers, they should not be taken on board. 
• All airlines shall establish mechanism to detect and report unruly passenger behaviour at check-in, in the lounges, at the boarding gate or any other place in the terminal building in order to prevent such passengers from boarding.  
• The rules note that unruly passenger behaviour could stem from “an event of unsatisfactory service/ condition or effect of a series of such events that build up” (which appears to have happened in the recent case in Delhi), and state that in such cases, airline staff should watch out for early signs of “potential unruly behaviour”. 
• Airlines shall focus and act on these early signs, rather than dealing exclusively with escalated events. At no stage, the airline staff/ crew member shall show discourteous behaviour during redressal of genuine passenger rights. 

5 . Facts for Prelims

Khanij Bidesh India Ltd. (KABIL)

• It is A Joint Venture Company among NALCO, HCL and MECL formed in August, 2019. 
• Target of the company is to identify, acquire, develop, process and make commercial use of strategic minerals in overseas locations for supply in India. 
• KABIL is focusing on identifying and sourcing battery minerals like Lithium and Cobalt.  
• Engagement with few companies/ projects is underway in Australia and Argentina. 

World Economic Forum

• The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.  
• The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. 
• It was established in 1971 as a not-for-profit foundation and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. 
• It is independent, impartial and not tied to any special interests. The Forum strives in all its efforts to demonstrate entrepreneurship in the global public interest while upholding the highest standards of governance. Moral and intellectual integrity is at the heart of everything it does.