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The high-level committee set up by the government to draw a roadmap for holding simultaneous elections is expected to submit an eight-volume report, running into 18,000 pages, to President Droupadi Murmu.
The committee, chaired by former President Ram Nath Kovind, is likely to recommend a concrete model for one nation-one election — as opposed to suggesting options — for synchronising the different poll cycles.
The committee is reported to have deliberated on a number of options for ensuring continuity of simultaneous elections.
According to sources, it also debated the German model of constructive vote of no-confidence — where a no-confidence motion against the incumbent can be brought if there is a positive vote of confidence in a successor — but decided against recommending it. The panel found it to be “against the tenets of Indian democracy.
Editorial
Suitable citizen (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constituion)
The enactment of the Citizenship Amendment Rules is a perfect embodiment of a polity where rulers are utterly cynical, and their supporters increasingly credulous.
The enactment of the rules was inevitable after Parliament passed the Citizenship Amendment Act in 2019. But it is worth recounting the progression of aspects of this issue to understand where we are at.
First, on the CAA itself. The government could claim, quite rightly, that it was something of a scandal that persecuted refugees from neighbouring countries who had been residing in India for years had not been given a pathway to citizenship.
No one ought to be opposed to granting citizenship to groups covered by the Act. But it cynically downplayed two important facts.
First, the Citizenship Amendment Act was not necessary to grant refugees a pathway to citizenship. Second, the purpose of the Act was not to clear a pathway for groups persecuted on grounds of religion from neighbouring countries residing in India.
Ideas Page
A fact sheet, a sheet anchor (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
“Every Giffen good is an inferior good. But every inferior good is not a Giffen good.” Every undergraduate textbook on microeconomics will have this statement while discussing consumer behaviour. I wonder whether we would have remembered Robert Giffen had it not been for Alfred Marshall’s influential (at the time, in 1890) Principles of Economics.
Most students read contemporary textbooks, not what are known as classics. Marshall wrote, “For instance, as Sir R Giffen has pointed out, a rise in the price of bread makes so large a drain on the resources of the poorer labouring families and raises so much the marginal utility of money to them, that they are forced to curtail their consumption of meat and the more expensive farinaceous foods: and, bread being still the cheapest food which they can get and will take, they consume more, and not less of it.”
Had they read the classics, they would have known that farinaceous means something with starch, based on the Latin for ground wheat, or flour. If the price of a good goes up, we consume less of it.
The reverse also holds and this is known as the law of demand. A Giffen good violates this principle. When the price goes up, we consume more and vice-versa. This is explained by breaking up what happens into an income effect and a substitution effect.
Govt & Politics
President clears Uttarakhand UCC (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The Uniform Civil Code Bill, passed by the Uttarakhand Assembly has become a law with President Droupadi Murmu giving her assent to it. Uttarakhand is the first state in the country after Independence to adopt the UCC.
"It is a moment of great joy and pride for people of the state that the Uniform Civil Code Bill passed by our government in the Uttarakhand Assembly has been approved by the Honorable President Smt Droupadi Murmu," Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami said in a post on X.
The President gave her assent to the Uniform Civil Code, Uttarakhand, 2024 under Article 201 of the Constitution of India on March 11, a gazette notification by the government of Uttarakhand said.
With the implementation of the Uniform Civil Code law in the state alongside providing equal rights to all citizens, the oppression of women will also be curbed.
"#UniformCivilCode will play an important role in promoting harmony by proving the importance of social equality," he said.
The state government is determined to protect the interests of citizens and maintain the essential character of Uttarakhand in accordance with the vision of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
News sharing service by Prasar bharti launched, content to be free of copyright (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Ahead of Lok Sabha polls, public broadcaster Prasar Bharati launched a news-wire-like service to offer free content across mediums, which will be free of copyright or credit obligations.
Unveiling PB-SHABD (Prasar Bharati-Shared Audio Visuals for Broadcast and Dissemination), in Wednesday, Union I&B Minister Anurag Thakur said it will be offered as a “free service for one year to all news organisations registered with the ministry”.
This may include newspapers, periodicals, TV channels and even social media news channels registered with the I&B Ministry, and the content provided will include newsfeed, videos, audio, text and images, available on the websites of DD News and Akashvani News as well as updated News on Air mobile app, as per officials. However, the content won’t be available to end users.
World
Nepal PM wins vote of confidence (Page no. 21)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Nepal Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal ‘Prachanda’ on Wednesday won a vote of confidence in Parliament, as the country struggled to maintain political stability.
Prachanda, 69, a former guerilla leader from the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre) — the third largest party in the House of Representatives (HoR) — received 157 votes in the 275-member House of Representatives.
The vote comes days after the Maoist leader dumped the Nepali Congress and forged a new alliance with the Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist-Leninist).
This is the third time that Prachanda sought a vote of confidence in the House in less since he assumed prime ministership in December 2022.
According to constitutional provisions, a prime minister has to take a vote of confidence after an ally withdraws support to the ruling coalition.
Express Network
Top court agrees to hear plea against law dropping CJI from committee to select CEC ECs (Page no. 22)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Supreme Court agreed to take up on Friday an application seeking directions to the Centre to fill the two existing vacancies of Election Commissioners in the Election Commission of India (ECI) only as per the recommendation of a panel that would also include the Chief Justice of India.
The matter was mentioned before a bench presided by Justice Sanjiv Khanna. In March 2023, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the court had ruled that the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) and Election Commissioners (ECs) shall be appointed on the advice of a committee comprising the Prime Minister, Leader of Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Chief Justice of India.
Following this, Parliament brought the Chief Election Commission and other Election Commissions (Appointment, Conditions of Service and Term of Office) Act, 2023, leaving out the CJI from the panel.
The Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) and Madhya Pradesh Congress leader Jaya Thakur filed petitions against the Act in the Supreme Court. However, the Supreme Court had refused to stay the new law while hearing these pleas earlier.
Explained
FBR and energy security (Page no. 26)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The vital second stage of India’s three-stage nuclear programme got a boost with the commencement of ‘core loading’ at the country’s first indigenous Fast Breeder Reactor (FBR) at Kalpakkam, Tamil Nadu, earlier this month.
Core loading is the process of placing nuclear fuel assemblies inside the core of a nuclear reactor. The initiation of the process was witnessed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on March 4.
The completion of core loading will effectively mark the first approach to ‘criticality’ — the initiation of a self-sustaining nuclear fission reaction that will eventually lead to the generation of power by the 500 megawatt electric (MWe) FBR.
Pi day (Page no. 26)
(Miscellaneous)
March 14, or 3/14 as per the American convention, is celebrated as Pi Day worldwide as an ode to the most well-known approximation (3.14) of the mathematical constant Pi.
The tradition was started by physicist Larry Shaw of the Exploratorium museum in San Francisco in 1988, and has since seen global popularity.
On the day, mathematicians try to raise awareness on their subject among lay persons, through lectures, museum exhibitions and pie (sic) eating competitions.
In 2019, UNESCO’s 40th General Conference designated Pi Day as the International Day of Mathematics.
Pi, often represented by the Greek letter π, is the most famous of all mathematical constants. It represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference (boundary) to its diameter (a straight line between two points on the circle’s boundary, passing through its centre). Regardless of the circle’s size, this ratio always remains constant.