Governance Community

The Union budget will be presented at 11 AM on February 1, said sources. A day before, on January 31, President Ramnath Kovind will address the joint session of Parliament. In view of COVID-19 guidelines, the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha will be functioning in staggered timings. The Lower House will function from 4 PM to 9 PM in the evening and Rajya Sabha from 10 AM to 3 PM in the morning, added the sources. However, on January 31 and February 1, the timings will be from 11 AM for both the houses, stated the sources. The first part of the budget session of Parliament will be held from January 31 to February 11 and the second part of the budget session will take place March 14 to April 8, as per the sources. Meanwhile, the Economic Survey will be tabled at noon on January 31. Source: ANI

The Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate was merged with the eternal flame at the National War Memorial (NWM) here on Friday. The Amar Jawan Jyoti will be put out and people can now pay their respects at the eternal flame at the NWM, military officials said. After India defeated Pakistan in the 1971 war, the Amar Jawan Jyoti was constructed as a memorial for Indian soldiers who made the supreme sacrifice. It was inaugurated by the then prime minister, Indira Gandhi, on January 26, 1972. In a short ceremony on Friday afternoon, a part of the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame was taken and merged with the flame at the NWM 400 metres away. Chief of Integrated Defence Staff Air Marshal B R Krishna presided over the ceremony, the military officials said. Prime Minister Narendra Modi had on February 25, 2019, inaugurated the NWM, where names of 25,942 soldiers have been inscribed in golden letters on granite tablets. Ex-servicemen expressed mixed reactions on the Centre’s decision to merge the flames. Former Army Chief General Ved Malik supported the government’s decision, stating that it is “a natural thing” to merge flames now as the NWM has been established and all ceremonials related to remembrance and honouring soldiers killed in action are being held there. Former Air Vice Marshal Manmohan Bahadur, however, tagged Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Twitter and requested him to rescind the decision. “Sir, the eternal flame at India Gate is part of India’s psyche. You, I and our generation grew up saluting our brave jawans there,” he stated. While the NWM is great, the memories of the Amar Jawan Jyoti are indelible, Bahadur noted. The Congress on Friday morning accused the BJP government of “removing history” by extinguishing the Amar Jawan Jyoti at the India Gate here and merging it with the eternal flame at the NWM. Former Congress president Rahul Gandhi hit out, saying some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice, and added that the Congress will light the Amar Jawan Jyoti once again. “It is a matter of great sadness that the immortal flame for our brave soldiers will be extinguished today. Some people cannot understand patriotism and sacrifice – never mind…We will once again light the ‘Amar Jawan Jyoti’ for our soldiers,” Gandhi said in a tweet in Hindi. Government sources maintained there is a lot of misinformation on the matter, and said the flame of the Amar Jawan Jyoti is not being extinguished but is being merged with the flame at the National War Memorial. The government sources said it was an odd thing to see that the flame at Amar Jawan Jyoti paid homage to the martyrs of the 1971 and other wars but none of their names are present there at the India Gate. The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in the World War-I and the Anglo Afghan War and thus is a symbol of the country’s colonial past, the government sources said. They said the names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars are housed at the National War Memorial. Hence, it is a true homage to have the flame paying tribute to martyrs there, they added. Source: PTI

In order to promote inclusive good governance, strengthening of local institutions and effective implementation of government programmes, the National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) has signed a pact with the National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj (NIRDPR), Hyderabad. Both the national institutions signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Monday, the Ministry of Personnel said in a statement on Tuesday. “The main purpose of having this agreement is to focus on different collaborative activities by drawing upon the strengths of these two national institutions for bringing better good governance mechanisms into practice across all programmes and schemes,” the Ministry said. Both the institutions agreed to exchange knowledge and take up capacity building of functionaries at all levels of government, including Panchayat Raj Institutions (PRIs). The MoU will not only help in the application of good governance principles in true spirit but will also ensure their effective implementation in terms of transparency and accountability in the utilisation of public funds in an intended manner for delivering services to benefit rural communities. Many key mutual areas of interest were identified as actionable points, including leveraging e-governance at the panchayat level, documenting good governance models at the panchayat level, simplification of forms among others and best practices of rural governance. NCGG has suggested identifying the benchmark of the indexing of Rural Governance at the panchayat level. The MoU signing ceremony was held online between V Srinivas, Secretary, Department of Administrative Reforms and Public Grievances (DAR&PG) and Director-General, National Centre for Good Governance (NCGG) and Dr G Narendra Kumar, Director General (NIRDPR) with a team of officials – Prof Poonam Singh, Dr AP Singh and Dr BS. Bisht senior faculty from NCGG and Shashi Bhushan, Deputy Director-General, Dr Partha Pratim Sahu and Dr Srikanth faculty from NIRDPR. Source: ANI

The Republic Day celebrations will now begin every year from January 23 instead of January 24 to include the birth anniversary of freedom fighter Subash Chandra Bose, government sources said on January 15. This is in line with the Narendra Modi government’s focus on commemorating important aspects of India’s history and culture, they said, noting it had earlier started celebrating Bose’s birth anniversary as “Parakram Divas”. Other such days, observance of which have become a yearly affair, are August 14 as Partition Horrors Remembrance Day, October 31 as National Unity Day (birth anniversary of Sardar Patel), November 15 as Janjatiya Gaurav Divas (Birsa Munda’s birth anniversary), November 26 as Constitution Day and December 26 as Veer Baal Divas (a tribute to the four sons of Guru Gobind Singh), sources added. The Centre has drawn up plans to promote sites across the country associated with Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. Last year, in October, news agency PTI had reported that the Tourism Ministry was planning curated tours as part of events to commemorate the anniversary of the formation of the Azad Hind government, the provisional government that was announced by Bose on October 21, 1943. “Identification of such sites has been done and will include multiple routes. We have prepared curated itineraries that cover destinations connected to Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose. The itineraries will be given to tour operators to promote sites related to Netaji,” an official was quoted as saying by PTI. Source: PTI

Chennai: The third wave of the COVID-19 pandemic has arrived in the country with new super spreader variants. As various state governments are imposing restrictions in their respective states in the light of the rising cases, the Tamil Nadu government has issued an order to postpone the semester exams of all state universities. According to newly issued order on Monday, the semester exams will now be scheduled after January 20, 2022. Higher education minister K Ponmudy said the revised schedule for semester exams will be decided only after the situation calms down. He also added that the decision to postpone exams is not only for state universities it applied to all the deemed universities in the state as well. “Colleges have completed their syllabus for the previous semester. I request the students to prepare for the exams. The mode of exams will be decided later depending on the COVID situation.” According to the previous decision, the government had planned offline examination for students in the state after January 20, 2022. Now, keeping in mind the drastic spike in COVID cases, the government has decided to postpone the exams and has issued study holidays for students. Source: The Times of India

Mumbai: As the Omicron and COVID-19 cases are rising across the state, there are suspicions amongst the people that malls and theatres will be shut down for some time to curb the spread. For now, state minister Amit Deshmukh has told the people that there is no need to shut these places down at the moment. To relay the numbers across, Omicron has spread extensively spanning several districts of Maharashtra, accounting for as many as 797 cases so far. Besides, COVID cases are also rising across the state. Yesterday, the state saw 26,000 cases, while its Omicron variant breached the 100-mark, though deaths plummeted to a single-digit figure. Deshmukh told ANI, “At present, we don’t think that cinema halls or malls need to be closed. But if something is to be done in the larger public interest, State Cabinet will discuss these things & the CM will take a final call.” He told further, ““No consideration of lockdown as of now. Maharashtra government will consider a lockdown or lockdown-like restrictions after medical oxygen demand for the state goes beyond 800 metric tonnes/ day or more than 40% of Covid beds in hospitals are occupied.” Source: India.com

The Union government on Thursday extended the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) and declared Nagaland as “disturbed area” for six more months with immediate effect from 30th December, 2021. The deliberate move was taken days after the union government had constituted a high-level committee to scrutinise the probability of the revocation of the highly controversial AFSPA law from the entire Nagaland. “The Central government is of the opinion that the area comprising the whole of the State of Nagaland is in such a disturbed and dangerous condition that the use of armed forces in aid of the civil power is necessary”, notified by the Ministry. Albeit, in exercise of powers conferred under Section 4 of the Act, “The Central government hereby declares that the whole of the State of Nagaland to be ‘disturbed area’ for a period of six months with effect from 30th December, 2021, for the purpose of the said Act.” The High level committee has been constituted presumably in order to alleviate the exacerbating situation in Nagaland after an ambush by the AFSPA, security forces went  outrageously wrong in Nagaland on December 4 which resulted in the death of 14 Civilians in Mon which let went everyone berserk and the terrible killings of innocent miners has been denounced by national political parties, and the state government. The AFSPA gives unbridled power to security forces to kill anyone acting in contravention of law, and arrest anyone without any prior warrant and have immunity from prosecution. Protests for the withdrawal of the AFSPA have been going on in several districts of Nagaland after the tragic incident provoked anger and indignation.

Bangalore: The Karnataka Legislative assembly has passed the anti-conversion bill amidst heavy opposition from the Congress leaders. As per the process, it will now be sent to the council for approval. In the earlier discussions, Law Minister J C Madhuswamy had a tiff with the former Chief Minister and Leader of Opposition Siddharamaiah, Madhuswamy had alleged that the bill was conceived during the latter’s tenure. The Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021 is commonly known as the anti-conversion Bill. It has several provisions such as, maximum punishment of 10 years of imprisonment for forcible conversion of persons from Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe communities, minors and women, to another religion. Even as the House was debating the passage of the bill, news broke that a church in Karnataka’s Chikkaballapur district was vandalised by miscreants early Thursday morning. Source: The article has been published by the Indian Express with a few edits by the ArdorComm News Network Team  

Delhi: The whole nation is grieving the loss of the first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat. He died in a IAF helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu along with his wife. With a heavy heart, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh made a statement today in the Lok Sabha as well as the Rajya Sabha. He briefed the members about the crash of the military chopper which was carrying Gen Bipin Rawat and 13 others.  “Indian Air Force (IAF) has ordered a tri-service inquiry into the military chopper crash. The investigation will be led by Air Marshal Manavendra Singh. The inquiry team reached Wellington yesterday itself and started the investigation,” Rajnath Singh said in Lok Sabha. Group Captain Varun, the sole survivor of the crash, is on life support, he said.   Along with him, Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid his final respects to CDS Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and other 11 armed forces personnel who lost their lives yesterday in the unfortunate crash.  Yesterday, at the Palam air base, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh met families of Gen Bipin Rawat and the other 11 armed forces personnel who lost their lives in the crash.  Source: Business Standard, ANI

Amid the debate over the fate of cryptocurrencies in the country, a government document has recommended the setting up of a national blockchain framework for using it in e-governance by adopting the emerging technology. “This document provides an insight on strategies and recommendations for creating a trusted digital platform using Blockchain Technology (BCT), facilitating trusted service delivery to citizens and businesses and also make India a global leader in terms of research and development and harnessing the benefits of this emerging technology,” according to the National Strategy on Blockchain towards enabling trusted digital platforms report prepared by the ministry of electronics and information technology (Meity). It said that the potential of BCT may be explored in the proposed public digital platforms in various sectors like agriculture, health, energy and others for meeting enhanced security requirements. The report said that integration of the National Blockchain Framework with online Electronic Signatures (e-Sign), ePramaan and DigiLocker would be an added advantage. It said globally several countries have launched platforms and services using blockchain technology and many vendors are offering blockchain-as-a-service to customers. It cited examples from China, UAE, the US, Brazil, Chile, Canada, Singapore, Switzerland and its use by companies such as LG, Samsung, Amazon, Microsoft, Oracle and IBM. Initially, the National Blockchain Framework would be used for e-governance domain. Transition would be made to incorporate various use cases beyond e-governance and the National Blockchain Framework would be open for relevant stakeholders. Government would define the policies and guidelines, the report said. Source: TOI