TOPICS OF THE DAY:
- Contempt of court’, and why does the A-G have to consent
- Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana
- Doorstep Service for submission of Digital Life Certificate through Postman launched
- 20th Summit of SCO Council of Heads of State
- Lady of Bietikow
1) Contempt of court’, and why does the A-G have to consent:
Relevant to: GS Prelims
Context: Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian, will face contempt of court charges for his tweets following the Supreme Court’s decision to grant interim bail to television anchor Arnab Goswami.
What is contempt of court?
According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
Civil contempt means wilful disobedience of any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
Criminal contempt is attracted by the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which:
- Scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
- Prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
- Interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.
Why is the A-G’s consent needed to initiate contempt of court proceedings?
As per the provisions of the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971: “In the case of a criminal contempt, other than a contempt referred to in Section 14 (“Procedure where contempt is in the face of the Supreme Court or a High Court”), the Supreme Court or the High Court may take action on its own motion or on a motion made by (a) the Advocate-General, or (b) any other person, with the consent in writing of the Advocate-General”.
What is the punishment for contempt of court?
May be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, or with both, provided that the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of the court.
2).Aatmanirbhar Bharat Rozgar Yojana:
Relevant to: GS Prelims and GS-II – Policies and interventions & GS-III – Economy
Context: Union Minister for Finance announced a new scheme of AATMANIRBHAR BHARAT ROZGAR YOJANA to incentivize job creation during COVID-19 recovery
Key points
- If EPFO-registered establishments take in new employees without EPFO registration or those who lost jobs earlier, the Yojana will benefit these employees.
- Beneficiaries / New Employees under the scheme would be:
-any new employee joining employment in EPFO registered establishments on monthly wages less than Rs.15,000
-EPF members drawing monthly wage of less than Rs.15,000 who exited from employment during COVID Pandemic from 1st March to 30th September, 2020 and is employed on or after 1st October, 2020. - Central Govt. will provide subsidy for two years in respect of new eligible employees engaged on or after 1st October, 2020 at following scale:
-Establishments employing up to 1000 employees: Employee’s contributions (12% of Wages) & Employer’s contributions (12% of wages) totalling 24% of wages
-Establishments employing more than 1000 employees: Only Employee’s EPF contributions (12% of EPF wages) - The scheme will be effective from October 1, 2020 and operational till 30th June 2021.
3) Doorstep Service for submission of Digital Life Certificate through Postman launched:
Relevant to: #GS1- Social Issues GS-2 Government policies
Context: The facility to submit life certificate online through Jeevan Pramaan Portal
Key points
India Post Payments Bank, IPPB of Department of Posts & Meity have launched the initiative of the Department of Pension &Pensioners’ Welfare: “Doorstep Service for submission of Digital Life Certificate through Postman”
The facility to submit life certificate online through Jeevan Pramaan Portal was launched in November,2014.
It’s the objective to provide a convenient and transparent facility to pensioners for submission of Life Certificate.
- In order to avail “doorstep service for submission of DLC” through IPPB, pensioners can get detailed information on ippbonline.com.
- It is a chargeable service and will be available to all Central Government Pensioners across the country irrespective of the fact their pension accounts are in different bank.
- Jeevan Pramaan: Jeevan Pramaan is Aadhar based Digital Life Certificate for Pensioners. It was launched by Prime Minister on 10 November 2014. It is expected to benefit over a crore pensioner.
It will do away with the requirement of a pensioner having to submit a physical Life Certificate in November each year, in order to ensure continuity of pension being credited into their account.
It has been developed by the Department of Electronics and IT, Government of India
Essence: In order to make this facility available across the country, DoPPW roped in the India Post Payments Bank (IPPB) and utilise its huge network of Postmen and Gramin Dak Sevaks in providing doorstep facility to pensioners for submission of life certificate digitally.
4)20th Summit of SCO Council of Heads of State was held recently via Video Conference:
Relevant to:#GS Prelims
WHAT IT IS? It is a permanent intergovernmental international organisation founded in 2001 by Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan.
Members are China, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. India and Pakistan were admitted to the SCO as permanent members in 2017.
Observed States are Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.
Secretariat at: Beijing, China.
Goals are:
- Strengthening mutual trust and neighbourliness among the member states;
- Promoting effective cooperation in politics, trade, the economy research, technology, culture, education, energy, transport, tourism environmental protection, making joint efforts to maintain and ensure peace, security and stability in the region;
- Moving towards the establishment of a democratic, fair and rational new international political and economic order.
- Heads of State Council (HSC) : It is the supreme decision-making body inthe SCO. It meets once a year and adopts decisions and guidelines on all important matters of the organization.
SCO Heads of Government Council (HGC) è It meets once a year to Discuss the organization’s multilateral cooperation strategy and priority areas, to resolve current important economic and other cooperation issues.
- It also approves the organisation’s annual budget.
- Regional Anti-Terrorist Structure(RATS) It is a permanent organ of theSCO which serves to promote cooperation of member states against theThree evils of terrorism, separatism and extremism.
- Headquarters: Tashkent, Uzbekistan.
5) Lady of Bietikow:
Relevant to: #GS prelims
Context: Recently German researchers are piecing together the life of aprehistoric woman from a skeleton found during an excavation.
- The women is believed to be died more than 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic period.
- A researcher has named her the “Lady of Bietikow,” a village of the same name in northeastern Germany’s Uckermark region.
- The skeleton had been buried in a settlement ia squatting (?????) position, one of the oldest known forms of burial Investigations have shown that she was between 30 and 45 years old and died more than 5,000 years ago.
- It was during the Neolithic period that humans first introduced grains into their diet, since they could be stored more easily than meat and could also be used as a means of payment. However, this led to a deterioration in people’s general health.
NEOLITHIC ERA
- The time span of the Neolithic Age in India was around 7,000 B.C. to 1,000 BC
- Neolithic Age was preceded by Mesolithic Age (9,000 B.C. to 4,000 B.C.) and succeeded by Chalcolithic Age (c.2100 to 700 B.C.).
- The major crops grown were ragi, horse gram, cotton, rice, wheat, and Barley.
- The people of this age domesticated cattle, sheep, and goats. They resided in pits near a lake side and had hunting and fishing enomy.
Some of the important Neolithic settlements are
- Mehrgarh (located in Baluchistan, Pakistan),
- Burzahom (Kashmir),
- Gufkral (Kashmir),
- Chirand (Bihar), and
- Utnur (Andhra Pradesh).