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The Election Commission of India said that it has developed a prototype for a Multi-Constituency Remote Electronic Voting Machine which would enable remote voting by migrant voters.
Remote Electronic Voting Machines (RVM) can handle multiple constituencies from a single remote polling booth.The ECI said that it has invited all recognized 8 national and 57 State political parties on January 16 to demonstrate the functioning of the multi-constituency prototype Remote EVM and has already shared a concept note with them on legal, operational, administrative and technological challenges.
The commission has solicited written views of recognised political parties by January 31 on various related issues including changes required in legislation, changes in administrative procedures and voting method or RVM technology, if any other, for the domestic migrants.
This means that if the pilot is successful then in the 2024 general elections voter portability can be fully implemented.Migration-based disenfranchisement is indeed not an option in the age of technological advancement.
The voter turnout in General Elections 2019 was 67.4% and the Election Commission of India is concerned about the issue of over 30 crore electors not exercising their franchise and also differential voter turnout in various States/Union Territories.
The commission said that a concept note has been circulated amongst political parties highlighting the challenges of defining domestic migrants, implementation of Model Code of Conduct, ensuring secrecy of voting, facility of polling agents for identification of voters, process and method of remote voting, and counting of votes amongst other issues.
Among the laws and rules which would need an amendment to implement remote voting is The Representation of People’s Act of 1950 and 1951, The Conduct of Election Rules, 1961 and The Registration of Electors Rules, 1960.
The definition of migrant voter would also need to be reworked with respect to retaining registration at the original place in the context of the legal construct of “ordinary residence” and “temporary absence”.
City
Boost for green energy: Delhi govt. clears draft solar policy (Page no. 2)
(GS Paper 3, Energy)
Aiming to increase the share of the city’s annual electricity demand met by solar energy from 9% at present to 25% by 2025, the Delhi government on Thursday cleared the draft Delhi Solar Policy 2022.
The draft, which targets a total installed solar capacity of 6,000 megawatt by 2025, has been put in the public domain for 30 days for comments from stakeholders, after which it will be tabled before the Cabinet for final approval.
Deputy Chief Minister and Power Minister Manish Sisodia said the policy provides a host of benefits through Generation Based Incentives (GBI) and capital subsidy for residential and commercial consumers to adopt solar energy, besides introducing innovative models of solar deployment.
Community solar will enable consumers who do not have a suitable roof for installing a solar set-up to be owners of a part of a larger solar energy system set by a developer within an available land parcel, while P2P trading of solar energy will enable owners of solar energy systems to sell their excess generated electricity in real-time via a P2P energy trading platform, the government said.
The policy has been prepared by the Dialogue and Development Commission of Delhi (DDC) after stakeholder consultations with the industry, consumers, government entities, financing institutions, and clean energy think-tanks.
Along with increasing solar energy consumption, the policy also aims to generate over 12,000 green jobs, the government said in a statement.
It also encourages discoms, power distribution companies, to increase the share of solar energy procured from outside the NCT of Delhi.
DDC Vice Chairperson Jasmine Shah said the policy will prove to be a landmark in Delhi’s efforts to fight air pollution and climate change.
States
Kalasa-Banduri drinking water project gets Centre’s nod (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The Centre on Thursday accepted the detailed project reports (DPRs) for implementation of the decades-old Kalasa-Banduri drinking water project in the inter-State Mahadayi river basin.
This comes months ahead of the Karnataka Assembly election in 2023 and hours before Union Home Minister Amit Shah’s arrival in the State to attend a slew of programmes and poll-related meetings.
While the Central Water Commission (CWC) has approved the DPRs, the implementation is now subject to other mandatory approvals, including forest clearances and the final judgment of the Supreme Court.
The demand for this project had led to massive protests by farmers and was one of the poll promises of the BJP in 2018.
This approval of hydrology and inter-State aspects, as per the guidelines of CWC, is subject to the decision of the Supreme Court on special leave petitions of riparian States — Maharashtra, Karnataka and Goa.
Editorial
Leveraging voice technology to combat cyber-fraud (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Cyber Security)
Bank and cyber frauds in India are on the rise. According to data by the Reserve Bank of India, frauds have cost the country an estimated ₹100 crore a day over the last seven years.
The frauds reported in 2021-22 were 23.69% higher than in the previous year (9,103 cases reported compared to 7,359 in 2020-21), although there was a decline in the amount involved.
The main reasons for the rise in fraud include greater use of digital payments, telephone banking, and online banking services. Growing fraud also means rising losses for financial institutions and increasing cases for law enforcement to solve.
One way to reduce losses is by adopting Voice Technology (VT), which encompasses voice biometrics or voice/speech recognition technology. The global adoption of smartphones has led to a dramatic increase in biometrics for security. However, these methods are cumbersome, not entirely secure, and vulnerable to deep fakes.
With banks and establishments looking for ways to reduce fraud and identity theft risks, one of the best ways to do this is through the use of voice biometrics.
An emerging technology, it uses the unique characteristics of a person’s voice as identification. The technology creates a digital voiceprint and compares it to a caller’s voice.
Voice authentication can significantly improve security over knowledge-based authentication methods, which fraudsters have exploited to scam people.
Compared to other biometrics, voice use is the cheapest technology, and does not require a reader or special device. It is also non-invasive, portable and affords remote identification.
Although banks have traditionally relied on the use of passwords, passwords are the weakest link in security (81% of hacking-related breaches involve weak passwords).
Opinion
Should India review its position on the Taliban? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
By issuing decrees banning girls/women from school, gyms and public parks, and from working at NGOs, the Taliban regime controlling Afghanistan seems to have made it clear that it does not intend to keep the promises it made of protecting women’s rights.
It also seems to be reneging on its other assurances, such as ensuring an inclusive government, the safety of minorities, and disallowing terror groups to operate from Afghanistan.
India’s policy is based on a hard dose of realism, an understanding that you don’t get to choose what government is there in other countries; you deal with whoever is there.
That’s always been, and should be our policy. After all, the Taliban are Afghan and India has been saying we want an ‘Afghan-led’ government. If we are committed, as Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, to the people of Afghanistan, and if we want to make a difference to the people of Afghanistan, we have to work to some extent through the Taliban.
Remember, neither is it business as usual with the Taliban nor do we recognise them. We are just working through a technical mission in Kabul to channel aid. If we want to help the people, there is no other way. That is what all the other countries are doing.
India’s policies over the last 20 years were based on supporting the Afghan people and the democratic government, and trying to build Afghanistan as a nation-state.
However, what we are doing today is about pragmatism driven by a fear of missing out, as if the Taliban is the only option there. In the process, we have ditched not only our friends, but even Afghanistan as a nation.
Of course, everybody is acting in the name of the people of Afghanistan. But it is the people of Afghanistan who are suffering the most under the Taliban, their repression and their denial of basic, fundamental rights.
Explainer
The Karnataka-Maharashtra border row (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The border town of Belagavi has been a part of Karnataka since boundaries were demarcated along linguistic lines under theStatesReorganisationAct, 1956.
But theinter-State border dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra erupts every now and then.The decades-old dispute flared up again in 2022when Karnataka Chief Minister BasavarajBommaisaid the Karnataka government was considering laying claim to Jath taluk in Maharashtra,evoking a strong response.
The Karnataka Legislative Assembly, on December 22, unanimously passed a resolutionto protect its interests andcalled the dispute a “closed chapter”.On December 27, the Maharashtra government retaliated by passing aunanimous resolution in itsAssemblyto legally pursue the inclusion of 865 Marathi-speaking villages from Belagavi, Karwar,Nipani, Bidar,Bhalkiand others in Karnataka into the State.
The raging boundary dispute between the two States dates back to thereorganisationof States along linguistic lines. In 1957, unhappy with the demarcation of boundaries, Maharashtra demanded realignment of its border with Karnataka.
It invoked Section 21 (2)(b) of the Act, submitting a memorandum to the Union Ministry of Home Affairs stating its objection to Marathi-speaking areas being included in Karnataka.
It filed a petition in the Supreme Court staking a claim over Belagavi.
Karnataka has argued that the inclusion of Belagavi as part of its territory is beyond dispute. It has cited the demarcation done on linguistic lines as per the Act and the 1967 Mahajan Commission Report to substantiate its position.
Karnataka has argued for the inclusion of areas in Kolhapur, Sholapur andSanglidistricts (falling under Maharashtra) in its territory.
From 2006, Karnataka started holding the winter session of the Legislature in Belagavi, buildingthemassiveSuvarnaVidhanaSoudhain the district headquartersto reassert its claim.
News
Need patriotic citizens in border villages for national security: Shah (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Government Policies and Interventions)
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said that borders can be permanently secured only when border villages are populated by patriotic citizens who are concerned for the country, asking the border-guarding forces to use the Vibrant Village Programme (VVP) for the same.
Mr. Shah said boots on the ground and fencing were necessary but borders can be truly secured when “we create villages with people who are concerned for the country”.
Mr. Shah while speaking at an event to launch the Prahari app for the Border Security Force (BSF) said the border-guarding forces should strengthen VVP on the ground to achieve the objective of securing the borders.
Mr. Shah said the scheme was still in the works but it should be used by all border-guarding forces to encourage tourism in border villages, to make them self-reliant and vibrant.
The Budget provisions of the scheme has been sent to the Expenditure Finance Committee for its approval and it will be presented before the Union Cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi for approval.
The Minister informed all senior officers of BSF that it is necessary in the border districts for all the welfare programmes run by the Government of India and State governments to be 100% implemented with the help of the district Collectors.
Mr. Shah said in the past six months, the BSF has shot down 22 drones/Unmanned Aerial Vehicles along the Pakistan border.
We have succeeded to a large extent in countering drones from across the border. There are two aspects — to observe, jam and shoot them down and second is to keep a watch through radars. We have achieved 100% success in the first category.
He said fencing could not be done at some places due to difficult topography, however construction of 140 km of fencing and 400 km of roads has been completed in difficult places along with construction of 120 border outposts.
‘ICHR now publishes only papers of those playing second fiddle’ (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
Professor KesavanVeluthat, the president of the 81st session of the Indian History Congress, which concluded in Chennai on Thursday, shares his views on the functions of the Indian Council of Historical Research and on whether there was democracy in ancient India. Excerpts:
The ICHR was founded in 1972 when Mrs. Indira Gandhi was the Prime Minister and Professor R.S. Sharma was made its Chairman.
As a counter to this kind of imperialist representation, the ICHR started a major project “Towards Freedom” and Professor S. Gopal was its Director and a large number of volumes were published bringing out documents from the last years of the British in India.
The ICHR was promoting a kind of historical research which was secular in character and was also scientific wherein the methodology was transparent...
But, in the 1990s, when the BJP government came to power, it found many of these findings difficult and embarrassing. One of the basis for the RSS and the BJP politics is the hatred of minorities.
Muslims, Christians are all non-Indian, anti-Indian and any history which speaks about anything good that is done during the period of the Sultanate of Delhi or the Mughal Empire is unacceptable to that kind of ideology.
The ICHR’s support of archaeology was injurious to the theory that the original home of the Aryans was India. The latter half of the 1930s and early 1940s, etc., were periods when the RSS was hand-in-glove with the British.
The documents relating to that were being published and it was embarrassing to the BJP naturally. The BJP, which is playing the cards of nationalism, found this past very embarrassing.
The Vajpayee government stopped publication of this “Towards Freedom” series. After 2014, when Mr. [Narendra] Modi became the Prime Minister, the term of Dr. BasudevChatterji as the ICHR Chairman was terminated and Y. Sudershan Rao with no visibility in the academic world was made the chairman.
IAF test fires extended range BrahMos cruise missile (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Indian Air Force (IAF) successfully fired the Extended Range (ER) version of BrahMos air-launched supersonic cruise missile against a ship target from a SU-30MKI fighter aircraft.
The missile achieved the desired mission objectives in the Bay of Bengal region. With this, IAF has achieved a significant capability boost to carry out precision strikes from SU-30MKI aircraft against land/sea targets over very long ranges.
The extended range capability of the missile coupled with the high performance of the SU-30MKI aircraft gives the IAF a strategic reach and allows it to dominate the future battle fields.
The current air-launched missile weighs 2.65 tonnes, which will come down to 1.33 tonnes with the BrahMos-NG (Next Generation) that is under development.
With this, a SU-30MKI will be able to carry up to four BrahMos-NG missiles, while the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) will be able to carry two missiles.
BrahMos is a joint venture between the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Russia’s NPO Mashinostroyeniya and the missile derives its name from Brahmaputra and Moskva rivers.
The missile is capable of being launched from land, sea, sub-sea and air against surface and sea-based targets and has been long inducted by the Indian armed forces.
The range of the missile was originally capped at 290 kms as per obligations of the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR). Following India’s entry into the club in June 2016, DRDO officials had stated that the range would be extended to 450 km and to 600 km at a later stage. The ER version has been tested several times both by the Navy and IAF.