MoU between Indian Space Research Organisation and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency
The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister was apprised of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) for cooperation in the exploration and user of outer space for peaceful purposes.
The MoU would result in setting up a Joint Working Group with members from ISRO and UAESA, which will further work out the plan of action including the time-frame and the means of implementing this MoU.
Cabinet gives ex-post facto approval to the Amendments in the Constitution (Scheduled Tribes) Order, 1950 to modify the list of Scheduled Tribes (STs) in Assam, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu, Tripura and Puducherry
Location of tribes is important and is a potential questions in Prelims.
The following communities as per approved modalities were found to be eligible for their inclusion in, exclusion from and other modifications in the list of Scheduled Tribes:
| Sl.No. | State / Union Territory | Inclusion / Exclusion / Rectification / Identification | Community |
| 1. |
Assam |
Inclusion |
i) Boro, Boro Kachari,Bodo, Bodo Kachariii) Karbi (Mikir)
|
| 2. |
Chhattisgarh
|
Inclusion
|
iii) Bhuinya, Bhuiyan, Bhuyaniv) Dhanuhar / Dhanuwarv) Kisanvi) Saunra, Saonravii) Dhangad |
| 3. |
Jharkhand |
Inclusion |
viii) Bhogta, Deshwari, Ganjhu, Dautalbandi (Dwalbandi), Patbandi, Raut, Maajhia, Khairi (Kheri)ix) Puran
|
| 4. |
Tamil Nadu |
Inclusion |
x) Malayali Gounderxi) Narikoravan,Kurivikkaran
|
| 5. |
Tripura |
Inclusion |
xii) Darlong
|
| 6. |
Puducherry |
Identification (First Order) |
xiii) Irular (including Villi and Vettaikaran) |
National Capital Goods Policy (Draft) :-
Background:-
The Union Cabinet, chaired by the Prime Minister has given its approval for National Capital Goods Policy. This is first ever policy for Capital Goods sector with a clear objective of increasing production of capital goods from Rs.2,30,000 crore in 2014-15 to Rs.7,50,000 crore in 2025 and raising direct and indirect employment from the current 8.4 million to 30 million
What is Capital Goods:-
- Goods that are used in producing other goods, rather than being bought by consumers.They are used to produce consumable goods.
- “Capital Goods” sector comprises of plant and machinery, equipment / accessories required for manufacture / production, either directly or indirectly, of goods or for rendering services, including those required for replacement, modernization, technological upgradation and expansion.
The Policy:-
- In a challenging global environment, India has earned the distinction of being one of the fastest growing economies in the world over the last decade. During this period manufacturing sector has exhibited a growth rate of ~7%, and has been a strong contributor to overall GDP growth
- However GDP contribution of manufacturing at ~18% is still low when compared to other developing countries (25-35%). This promises a significant upside for manufacturing in the coming decades, provided the fundamental enablers to create a vibrant manufacturing ecosystem are in place.
- Capital goods sector is extremely crucial for the development of the country’s economy for the following two important reasons:-
- Capital Goods is considered as a strategic sector and development of domestic capabilities is essential from a national self-reliance and security perspective
- Capital Goods sector has multiplier effect and has a bearing on the growth of user industries as it provides critical inputs, i.e., machinery and equipment to the remaining sectors covered under the manufacturing activity
- The capital goods sector contributes 12% to the total manufacturing activity (which is about 15% of the GDP).The sector has grown at the rate of 15% per annum over the last decade.
- Concerns:-
- The capital goods component in industrial production has lagged in recent years due to slow pace of domestic demand leading to growing dependence on imports and following slow growth in the world economy.Further, in the globalized world and as trade barriers in the form of tariffs are reduced, not all capital goods manufacturers have been able to tap the global opportunity.
- Vision and Mission:-
- To increase the share of capital goods contribution from present 12% to 20% of total manufacturing activity by 2025.Become one amongst top 10 capital goods producing nations of the world.
- To determine enablers and set mission for each enabler, complementing vision. For example enablers such as availability of Finance, Raw Material, Innovation and Technology (R&D), Skills Development, Productivity, Quality & Environment Friendly Manufacturing Practices (No Defect, No Effect), Exports (Share in the Global Markets), Domestic Demand, etc.
- Creating an Eco-system for globally competitive Capital Goods Sector
- Creation and Expansion of Market for Capital Goods Sector
- Promotion of Exports
- Human Resource Development development in this sector
- Technology & IPR utilization and realizing the best of technology
- Introduction of Mandatory Standards to safeguard the sector
- Focus on SME Development which can empower and employ many
Highlights achievements/initiatives of Ministry of Law & Justice in last two years
Disclaimer-Special emphasis should be given to the highlighted keywords and few data.
Initiatives towards Ease of Doing Business
- To ensure speedy and fair disposal of commercial disputes, a new Act namely, the Commercial Courts, Commercial Division and Commercial Appellate Division of High Courts Act 2015 has been enacted by Parliament. It is Government’s endeavour to make India an investor friendly destination and enhance its ranking in Ease of Doing Business.
- The Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 has been amended to make Arbitration as preferred mode for settlement of commercial disputes by making it more user-friendly, cost effective, leading to expeditious disposal of cases. This Bill was pending before the Government since 2003.
Initiatives towards better management of litigation
- Draft National Litigation Policy is under formulation to make Government a responsible and efficient litigant. The Draft National Litigation Policy shall facilitate in bringing down unwarranted litigation.
- For proper monitoring of the pending court cases of the entire Government of India, a web portal Legal Information and Management Based System (LIMBS) has been set up.
- 19 Law Officers (including AG/SG) and 34 ASGs in High Courts have been appointed. Fresh panels of Counsels were approved for Supreme Court/High Courts/Central Administrative Tribunals/Armed Forces Tribunal/District Courts/Armed Forces Tribunal.
Initiatives towards Minimum Government Maximum Governance
- Four Acts have been enacted to repeal the obsolete and redundant laws. In total the aforesaid four enactments have repealed 1175 Acts. This exercise was taken up after 14 years, earlier being taken up only in the year 2001.
- Major exercise for convergence of Tribunals to reduce the number of tribunals is being carried out. High level Inter-Ministerial Group has been constituted for consideration of the issue.
Initiatives towards digital India and e-Governance
- e-Governance and E-courts usage have started in Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) leading to faster disposal of cases with less hassles to litigants.
- Digitisation work of Appeals has been undertaken in ITAT. Once the digitisation work is complete, all the appellate records shall be accessible from any station and any appeal can be taken by e-court in any location.
- Web portal named LIMBS has been introduced for Centrally monitoring cases of UoI pending in various courts and Tribunals.
Initiatives towards Computerisation of Courts
- eCourts Mission Mode Project has been taken up for universal computerization of district and subordinate courts with an objective of providing designated services to litigants, lawyers and the judiciary.
- eCourts Phase-II projects aims at automation of workflow management, enabling the courts to exercise greater control in management of cases. This will also include installation of touch screen based kiosks, use of e-filing, e-payment and mobile applications and composite set of services through Judicial Service centres.
- Case status information in respect of over 6.11 crore pending, decided cases and more than 2.4 crore orders/judgements pertaining to District and Subordinate Courts are available online.
Initiatives towards Justice Delivery
- Appointment of Judges in higher judiciary has been undertaken. 86 additional Judges were made permanent, 51 new judges were appointed and appointment of another 170 is being processed.
- Judges’ sanctioned strength of the High Courts has been increased from 906 on 2014 to 1065 as on 2016. In the case of District/Subordinate Courts, the sanctioned strength has been increased from 17,715 at the end of 2012 to 20,502 in December, 2015.
- Department of Justice has been implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme for Development of Infrastructure Facilities for Judiciary. On account of concerted efforts by all stakeholders, the availability of judicial infrastructure for subordinate courts has increased considerably in the recent past.
Initiatives towards Access to Justice Projects
- 300 Paralegal Volunteers of Odisha, 400 Para Legal Volunteers of North Eastern States and 187 Para Legal Volunteers of J&K have been trained under the activities of State Legal Services Authorities.
- Legal literacy has been incorporated into National Literacy Mission Authority (NLMA) and activities have been started in States- 62 Districts of Uttar Pradesh and 31 Districts of Rajasthan.
- Helpdesks for Juveniles in Observation Homes have been established in Maharashtra.
- 50 voice based Legal Information Kiosks have been established in the State of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand.
- 46 Legal Aid Clinics have been established in two most backward districts of Nagaland – Tuensang and Mon.
Other important initiatives
- 21st Law Commission of India has been reconstituted in September, 2015. Chairman/Member has been appointed.
- The National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) has been constituted to monitor and evaluate the implementation of legal services programmes and to lay down policies and principles for making legal services available under the Act.
- More than 15.14 lacs Lok Adalats have been organized in the country since inception. More than 8.25 crore cases including cases pending in the courts as well as those at the pre-litigation stage have been settled in these Lok Adalats.
- Promotion of Alternate Dispute Resolution Mechanism through National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) at the national level and State Legal Services Authorities at State level.
- DoJ has taken up with all High Courts and Supreme Court for implementation of Incheon strategy to facilitate people with disability.
- Proper training to Judicial Officers in international best practices w.r.t. alternate dispute resolution, quick and easy entity structuring, restructuring, incorporation, evolution and exit, tax reforms in the light of Make in India and Start-up India.
- Process Re-engineering (PR) exercise taken up to modernize the existing processes and procedures and introduce new processes and procedures to expedite disposal of cases.
- 101 Legislative Bills were introduced in the Parliament. 75 Bills have been enacted into Acts and two constitutional Acts were enacted.
Incheon Strategy to “Make the Right Real”
- 650 millions people with disabilities live in Asia and the pacific
Backgournd:-
Governments of the ESCAP region gathered in Incheon, Republic of Korea in 2012 to chart the course of the new Asian and Pacific Decade of Persons with Disabilities for the period 2013 to 2022. They were joined by representatives of civil society organizations, including organizations of and for persons with disabilities. Also in attendance were representatives of intergovernmental organizations, development cooperation agencies and the United Nations system.
The Incheon Strategy provides the Asian and Pacific region, and the world, with the first set of regionally agreed disability-inclusive development goals.
The Incheon Strategy builds on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Biwako Millennium Framework for Action and Biwako Plus Five towards an Inclusive, Barrier-free and Rights-based Society for Persons with Disabilities in Asia and the Pacific.
The Incheon Strategy will enable the Asian and Pacific region to track progress towards improving the quality of life, and the fulfilment of the rights, of the region’s 650 million persons with disabilities, most of whom live in poverty.
Noting that the World Report on Disability estimates that 15 per cent of the population experience some form of disability, which in the Asian and Pacific region equates to 650 million persons with disabilities,with 80 per cent living in developing countries.
Few Initiative in this regard:-
- Bali Declaration – On the Enhancement of the Role and Participation of Persons with Disabilities in the ASEAN Community.
- Busan Partnership-for Effective Development Cooperation adopted by the Fourth High-level Forum on Aid Effectiveness, Busan, Republic of Korea, which, inter alia, recognized the importance of international commitments on disability for forming the foundation of cooperation for effective development
- Beijing Declaration-On Disability-InclusiveDevelopment adopted Beijing Forum with the theme “removing barriers, promoting integration “
- United Nations Conferenceon Sustainable Development, entitled “The future we want”, which was adopted by the Conference identified persons with disabilities and recognized their right to inclusion in measures that accelerate the implementation of sustainable development commitments
Key principles and policy direction
The Incheon Strategy is based on the principles of the Convention on
the Rights of Persons with Disabilities:
- Respect for inherent dignity, individual autonomy, including the freedom to make one’s own choices, and independence of persons;
- Non-discrimination;
- Full and effective participation and inclusion in society;
- Respect for difference and acceptance of persons withdisabilities as part of human diversity and humanity;
- Equality of opportunity;
- Accessibility;
- Equality between men and women;
- Respect for the evolving capacities of children with disabilities and respect for the right of children with disabilities to preserve their identities
Target 1.A
Eliminate extreme poverty among persons with disabilities
Target 1.B
Increase work and employment for persons of working age with disabilities who can and want to work
Target 1.C
Increase the participation of persons with disabilities in vocational training and other employment-support programmes funded by governments
Target 2.A
Ensure that persons with disabilities are represented in government decision-making bodies
Target 2.B
Provide reasonable accommodation to enhance the participation of persons with disabilities in the political process
Target 3.A
Increase the accessibility of the physical environment in the national capital that is open to the public
Target 3.B
Enhance the accessibility and usability of public transportation
Target 3.C
Enhance the accessibility and usability of information and communications services
Target 3.D
Halve the proportion of persons with disabilities who need but do not have appropriate assistive devices or products
Target 4.A
Increase access to all health services, including rehabilitation, for all persons with disabilities
Target 4.B
Increase coverage of persons with disabilities within social protection programmes
Target 4.C
Enhance services and programmes, including for personal assistance and peer counselling, that support persons with disabilities, especially those with multiple, extensive and diverse disabilities, in living independently in the community
Target 5.A
Enhance measures for early detection of, and intervention for,children with disabilities from birth to pre-school age
Target 5.B
Halve the gap between children with disabilities and children without disabilities in enrolment rates for primary and secondary education
Target 6.A
Enable girls and women with disabilities to have equitable access to mainstream development opportunities
Target 6.B
Ensure representation of women with disabilities in government decision-making bodies
Target 6.C
Ensure that all girls and women with disabilities have access to sexual and reproductive health services on an equitable basis with girls and women without disabilities
Target 6.D
Increase measures to protect girls and women with disabilities from all forms of violence and abuse
Target 7.A
Strengthen disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction planning
Target 7.B
Strengthen implementation of measures on providing timely and appropriate support to persons with disabilities in responding to disasters
Target 8.A
Produce and disseminate reliable and internationally comparable disability statistics in formats that are accessible by persons with disabilities
Target 8.B
Establish reliable disability statistics by the midpoint of the Decade, 2017, as the source for tracking progress towards the achievement of the goals and targets in the Incheon Strategy
Recent Posts
The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.