Daily Current Affairs : 3rd & 4th November 2020

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Star Campaigner
2. Contempt of Court
3. Aricle -161
4. Fortified Rice Scheme
5. US Election Process
6. Facts for Prelims

1 . Star Campaigner

Context : The Supreme Court stayed the October 30 order of the Election Commission of India (ECI) revoking the ‘star campaigner’ status of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath.

Read More about : Star Campaigner

Background of the Case

• On October 30, the ECI found Mr. Nath guilty of violating the Model Code of Conduct (MCC) in place for the by-elections.
• The ECI revoked his name on the basis of a complaint from the BJP that Mr. Nath derogatorily referred to its candidate, Imarti Devi, as an “item” during a campaign rally at Dabra in Gwalior district.

Nath’s Argument

• According to the petition it was the prerogative of his party and not the ECI to remove his name as a ‘star campaigner’.
• “Section 77(1) of the Representation of People Act, 1951 read with Guidelines for Star Campaigners issued by the Election Commission, from time to time, makes selection/revocation of ‘star campaigners’ the sole prerogative of the political party”, the petition said.

Observation made by the Supreme Court

• Supreme Court stayed the decision of the Election Commission
• Chief Justice of India (CJI) Sharad A. Bobde, heading a three-judge Bench, said the Commission had no power to determine who should be ‘star campaigner’ of a political party.

2 . Contempt of Court

Context : Attorney-General K.K. Venugopal on Monday declined consent to initiate contempt proceedings against Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Jagan Mohan Reddy and his Principal Adviser Ajeya Kallam.

How did the concept of contempt come into being?

• In England contempt of court is a common law principle that seeks to protect the judicial power of the king, initially exercised by himself, and later by a panel of judges who acted in his name. Violation of the judges’ orders was considered an affront to the king himself.
• Over time, any kind of disobedience to judges, or obstruction of the implementation of their directives, or comments and actions that showed disrespect towards them came to be punishable.

What is the statutory basis for contempt of court?

• There were pre-Independence laws of contempt in India. Besides the early High Courts, the courts of some princely states also had such laws.
• When the Constitution was adopted, contempt of court was made one of the restrictions on freedom of speech and expression.
• Article 129 of the Constitution conferred on the Supreme Court the power to punish contempt of itself. Article 215 conferred a corresponding power on the High Courts.
• The Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, gives statutory backing to the idea.

What are the kinds of contempt of court?

The law codifying contempt classifies it as civil and criminal.

• Civil contempt is committed when someone wilfully disobeys a court order, or wilfully breaches an undertaking given to court.
• Criminal contempt consists of three forms:
  • (a) words, written or spoken, signs and actions that “scandalise” or “tend to scandalise” or “lower” or “tends to lower” the authority of any court
  • (b) prejudices or interferes with any judicial proceeding
  • (c) interferes with or obstructs the administration of justice.
• Making allegations against the judiciary or individual judges, attributing motives to judgments and judicial functioning and any scurrilous attack on the conduct of judges are normally considered matters that scandalise the judiciary.
• The rationale for this provision is that courts must be protected from tendentious attacks that lower its authority, defame its public image and make the public lose faith in its impartiality.
• The punishment for contempt of court is simple imprisonment for a term up to six months and/or a fine of up to ₹. 2,000.

What does scandalizing or lowering the authority of court mean?

• Scandalizing might manifest itself in various ways but in substance, it is an attack on individual judges in particular or the court as a whole, with or without reference to a particular case, by casting unwarranted and defamatory aspersions upon the character or the ability of the judges.
• Such conduct is punished as criminal contempt for the reason that it tends to create distrust in the minds of common people and thereby shatters confidence of the people in the judiciary.

Initiation of criminal contempt?

• The prior consent of the Attorney General is required for the Supreme Court to initiate criminal contempt action in a case.

What is not contempt of court?

• Fair and accurate reporting of judicial proceedings will not amount to contempt of court. Nor is any fair criticism on the merits of a judicial order after a case is heard and disposed of.

Is truth a defence against a contempt charge?

• For many years, truth was seldom considered a defence against a charge of contempt. There was an impression that the judiciary tended to hide any misconduct among its individual members in the name of protecting the image of the institution.
• The Act was amended in 2006 to introduce truth as a valid defence, if it was in public interest and was invoked in a bona fide manner

3 . Article 161 – Pardoning Power of Governor

Context : The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Multi-Disciplinary Monitoring Agency (MDMA) investigation into the “larger conspiracy” behind Rajiv Gandhi assassination in 1991 need not deter the Tamil Nadu Governor from deciding the plea for pardon of convicts like A.G. Perarivalan, who have been serving their sentence in jail for over two decades.

Article 161 : Power of Governor to grant pardons, etc., and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases

• The Governor of a State shall have the power to grant pardons, reprieves, respites or remission of punishment or to suspend, remit or commute the sentence of any person convicted of any offence against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the State extends.
• The Governor cannot Pardon a Death Sentence. (The President has the power of Pardon a death Sentence).
• The Governor cannot use its pardoning powers in respect to punishment or sentence by a court-martial. However, the President can do so.
• Pardon shall be exercised by the President and Governor on the advice of Council of Minister

Definition

• Pardon : Completely absolves the offender
• Reprieve : Temporary suspension of the sentence
• Respite : Awarding a lesser sentence on special ground
• Remission : Reducing the amount of sentence without changing its character
• Commute : Substitution of one form to another ie replace the punishment with less severe punishment. For example for Rigorous imprisonment with simple imprisonment.

4 . Fortified Rice Scheme

Context : Children in anganwadis and government schools could soon be eating rice infused with iron, folic acid and vitamin B-12.

About the News

• To combat chronic anaemia and undernutrition, the government is making plans to distribute fortified rice through the Integrated Child Development Services and Mid-Day Meal schemes across the country from next year, with a special focus on 112 aspirational districts

What is Food Fortification Programme

• Fortification is the addition of key vitamins and minerals such as Iron, Iodine, Zinc, Vitamins A & D to staple foods such as rice, wheat, oil, milk and salt to improve their nutritional content.
• These nutrients may or may not have been originally present in the food before processing or may have been lost during processing

About Fortification of Rice

• Fortifying rice involves grinding broken rice into powder, mixing it with nutrients, and then shaping it into rice-like kernels using an extrusion process. These fortified kernels are then mixed with normal rice in a 1:100 ratio, and distributed for consumption.
• As per the Food Fortification Resource Centre (FFRC) of the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, iron, Vitamin B12, and Folic acid are the mandatory nutrients for the fortification of rice.

About the Pilot Scheme

• The centrally-sponsored pilot scheme was approved in February 2019, and allocated a total budget outlay of ₹174.6 crore for a three-year period from 2019-20 onwards.
• However, only five States — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh — have started the distribution of fortified rice in their identified pilot districts.
• The remaining 10 States have only now identified their respective districts, and will soon start distribution, but less than one and a half years remain in the pilot scheme period.

Challenges

• Currently, there are only 15,000 tonnes of these kernels available per year in the country. To cover PDS, anganwadis and mid-day meals in the 112 aspirational districts, annual supply capacity would need to be increased to about 1.3 lakh tonnes. To cover PDS across the country, 3.5 lakh tonnes of fortified kernels would be needed.

5 . US Election Process

Background

• Unlike India’s Election Commission, there is no federal body in the US that runs the election or tallies the results. Each state runs the election according to its own rules.
• Although most states allow electronic methods, paper ballots are the norm across the country.
• Ahead of counting comes a stage called processing, which involves checking signatures, verifying documentation, and perhaps even scanning the ballots. Counting votes is a separate, and later, process.
• Each state has its own date for starting in-person or mail-in voting, deadline for receiving the mail-in ballots, processing the ballots, and tabulating votes. To take two examples: In Arizona, mailing of ballots started on October 7, they will be accepted until Election Day, and counting has been on since October 20; in Ohio, processing started on October 6, mail-in ballots can be received up to November 13 but they must be postmarked by November 2, and counting will start on November 3.

Eligibility

• The US constitution allows any natural born citizen, who is at least 35 years old and a US resident for at least 14 years, to run for president. This time, more than 1,000 candidates mostly obscure names, threw their hats into the ring, according to the Federal Election Commission. But there will be only two names on the ballot — Trump and Biden.

Primaries, caucuses choose each party’s nominee

• The two big parties pick their candidates through a nomination process, called primaries and caucuses – collectively called primaries – that whittle down the field to one candidate for each party.
• Primaries are state-level indirect elections in which candidates fight for delegates — individuals who represent their states at the national party convention, where the nominee is officially chosen. The objective is to collect as many delegates as possible over the course of the primaries, which are designed to democratise the process by which presidential candidates are selected.
• At the end of the primaries, delegates gather to choose their nominee at the party’s national convention event. By then, a clear nominee generally emerges resulting in a largely ceremonial national convention, where candidates with little support are expected to “release” their delegates to the leading candidate as a show of party unity.

Voter’s Eligibility

• Any citizen (natural born or otherwise) above age 18 can vote. In most states, prisoners are not allowed to vote, and residents of US territories, like Puerto Rico, despite being citizens, cannot participate in the presidential elections beyond the primaries.
• Voters choose their preferred candidate either on election day at a polling station, or by voting early via mail or in person
• US law requires election day to always be the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November, a date considered “most practical” in the 19th century.

Process of Election

• US citizens do not vote directly for the president. Voters choose electors in the electoral college, who in turn choose the president. As a result, the winner of the popular vote may not be guaranteed the presidency.

Electoral College

• In the US presidential election, the winner is decided indirectly by the electoral college.
• There are a total of 538 electoral votes, or “electors”. This means a candidate needs 270 votes to win the presidency. Each state has as many electors as it has representatives and senators in Congress. There are two senators for each state, but the allocation of seats in the House of Representatives varies based on population. Therefore, California, the most populous state, has 55 electors, while Wyoming, the least populous, only has three electoral votes.

Senator

• The senator is a member of the United States Senate – the upper chamber of the United States Congress, which, along with the United States House of Representatives — the lower chamber—constitutes the legislature of the United States. 
• The Senate is composed of senators, each of whom represents a single state in its entirety. Each state, regardless of its population size, is equally represented by two senators who serve staggered terms of six years. There are 50 states in the Union, therefore there are currently 100 senators.
• From 1789 to 1913, senators were appointed by legislatures of the states they represented; they are now elected by popular vote, following the ratification of the Seventeenth Amendment in 1913.

6 . Facts for Prelims

Skylark

• Skylark would be the first dedicated satellite constellation looking at managing the situation in space such as congestion, threats of collisions, and addressing space traffic management
• The constellation of 12 satellites would be equipped with optical sensors to monitor space objects including active and inactive satellites and debris that could pose a threat.
• Each satellite weighs about 200 kilograms and is equipped with a 60-centimetre long sensor. The set of three satellites form a spiral, so the constellation will have four spirals with different orbits, all of which will be circular and polar at about 575 kilometres from the Earth’s surface in the low Earth orbit (LEO).