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Thursday, August 13, 2020

Vision IAS Prelims 2021 Test 4 Hindi With Solution PDF

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Insights IAS Current Affairs July 2020 in Hindi PDF

Monthly Current Affairs

VisionIAS 07:36

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Hindu Woman’s Inheritance Right

VisionIAS 17:26

Why in news?

The Supreme Court expanded on a Hindu woman’s right to be a joint legal heir and inherit ancestral property on terms equal to male heirs.

What is the ruling?

A three-judge Bench has ruled that a Hindu woman’s right to be a joint heir to the ancestral property is by birth.
It says that the rights do not depend on whether her father was alive or not when the law was enacted in 2005.
The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gave Hindu women the right to be coparceners or joint legal heirs like a male heir does.
The ruling said that since the coparcenary is by birth, it is not necessary that the father coparcener should be living as on 9.9.2005.

What is the Hindu Succession Act, 1956?

The Mitakshara school of Hindu law was codified as the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
It governed succession and inheritance of property but only recognised males as legal heirs.
The law applied to everyone who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion.
Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and followers of Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj are also considered Hindus for the purposes of this law.
In a Hindu Undivided Family (HUF), several legal heirs through generations can exist jointly.
Traditionally, HUF includes only the male descendants of a common ancestor along with their mothers, wives and unmarried daughters.
The legal heirs hold the family property jointly.

What is the 2005 law?

Women were recognised as coparceners or joint legal heirs for partition arising from 2005.
Section 6 of the Act was amended that year to make a daughter of a coparcener also a coparcener by birth in her own right.
The law also gave the daughter the same rights and liabilities in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son.
It applies to ancestral property and to intestate succession in personal property - where succession happens as per law and not through a will.
The 174th Law Commission Report had also recommended this reform in Hindu succession law.
Even before the 2005 amendment, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had made this change in the law.

How did the case come about?

While the 2005 law granted equal rights to women, questions were raised in multiple cases on whether the law applied retrospectively.
There were questions regarding whether the rights of women depended on the living status of the father through whom they would inherit.
Different benches of the SC had taken conflicting views on the issue.
In Prakash v Phulwati (2015), the SC held that the benefit of the 2005 amendment could be granted only to living daughters of living coparceners as on September 9, 2005.
[September 9, 2005 - The date when the amendment came into force.]
In 2018, the SC held that the share of a father who died in 2001 will also pass to his daughters as coparceners during the partition of the property as per the 2005 law.
These conflicting views by Benches of equal strength led to a reference to a three-judge Bench in the current case.
The ruling now overrules the verdicts from 2015 and 2018.

How did the court decide the case?

The court looked into the rights under the Mitakshara coparcenary.
Section 6 creates an unobstructed heritage or a right created by birth for the daughter of the coparcener.
So, the right cannot be limited by whether the coparcener is alive or dead when the right is operationalised.
The court said that the 2005 amendment gave recognition of a right that was in fact accrued by the daughter at birth.
The conferral of a right is by birth, and the rights are given in the same manner with incidents of coparcenary as that of a son.
She is treated as a coparcener in the same manner with the same rights as if she had been a son at the time of birth.
The ruling said that though the rights can be claimed, w.e.f. 9.9.2005, the provisions are of retroactive application.
They confer benefits based on the antecedent event.
The Mitakshara coparcenary shall be deemed to include a reference to a daughter as a coparcener.
The SC also directed High Courts to dispose of cases involving this issue within six months since they would have been pending for years.

What was the government’s stand?

Solicitor General Tushar Mehta argued in favour of an expansive reading of the law to allow equal rights for women.
He referred to the objects and reasons of the 2005 amendment.
He said that the Mitakshara law contributed to gender discrimination and was oppressive.
He also said that the law negated the fundamental right of equality guaranteed by the Constitution of India.

Source: The Indian Express

Daily Current Affairs, 12th August 2020

vision ias current affairs

VisionIAS 17:20

1) International Youth Day: 12th August

•International Youth Day (IYD) is observed globally on 12th August every year. This day is celebrated to recognize the efforts put in by the youth for the betterment of society. The Day aims to promote the ways to engage the youth and make them more actively involved in their communities through positive contributions.

The theme of International Youth Day:

•The theme of International Youth Day 2020, “Youth Engagement for Global Action”. The theme highlights the ways in which the engagement of young people at the local, national and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced.

2) PM to launch platform for “Transparent Taxation-Honoring the Honest”

•Prime Minister Narendra Modi will roll out the platform for “Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest”. The new platform will carry forward the journey of direct tax reforms and will also reward the honest taxpayers.

•Several major tax reforms in direct taxes have been carried out by the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT). These reforms includes reduction in the Corporate Tax rates from 30% to 22%, abolition of Dividend distribution Tax as well as reduction in the rates for new manufacturing units to 15%. The reforms also includes Direct Tax “Vivad se Vishwas Act, 2020″ under which declarations for settling disputes are being filed currently, and introducing more transparency in official communications via the newly launched Document Identification Number (DIN).

3) Gujarat government announces Mukhya Mantri Kisan Sahay Yojana

•Mukhya Mantri Kisan Sahay Yojana has been announced by the Gujarat Chief Minister Vijay Rupani. The yojana has been announced for the current Kharif season and all farmers of the state will be covered under this scheme. Farmers would not have to pay any premium or registration process for the scheme.

•The Mukhya Mantri Kisan Sahay Yojana will replace the existing crop insurance scheme. Hence, those farmers who have already paid the premium for the existing scheme will receive the refund. Tribal farmers would also be a part of this scheme as compared to the previous one in which they were excluded.

4) Chhattisgarh Govt rolls out “Indira Van Mitan” Yojana

•Chhattisgarh Government has launched the “Indira Van Mitan” Yojana. The new scheme will aim to make the forest dwellers of the state self reliant. Under this scheme, government will form groups of youth in 10,000 villages of tribal areas of the state and they will be responsible to conduct all forest based economic activities. These economic activities will create self employment opportunities for the forest dwellers.

•Under this scheme, Chhattisgarh Government has planned to cover 19 lakh families in scheduled areas through the youth groups. These groups will also manage the trees and will collect the forest produce from the trees in forest areas. They will also arrange the purchase of forest produce to ensure right price of the forest produce.

5) Mumbai becomes 1st city in India to have female icons on traffic signals

•Mumbai’s Dadar has become the first city in India to have women symbols on traffic signals and signage. Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) has installed traffic signals that display female icons sporting triangular frock, a shift from the default representation of men.

6) Lebanon′s Govt resigns over deadly Beirut port blast

•The Prime Minister of Lebanon, Hassan Diab and his entire government has resigned, in the wake of the major blast in Beirut that has triggered public outrage, and anger at the Lebanese government for their failure to prevent the disaster.

•President Michel Aoun has ordered Diab government to stay on caretaker capacity until a new cabinet is formed. Diab served as the PM from 21 January 2020 to 10 August 2020.

7) Skyroot Aerospace tests upper stage rocket engine “Raman”

•Skyroot Aerospace, a Spacetech startup has successfully test fired an upper stage rocket engine “Raman”. With this, Skyroot Aerospace has become the first Indian private firm to exhibit the potential to build a homegrown rocket engine. “Raman” is a 3-D printed rocket engine which has been named after Nobel laureate CV Raman.

•Skyroot Aerospace expects to launch its first rocket, which can hurl satellites of 250-700 kgs, into a lower earth orbit by December 2021. These developments from the private players has become possible after the union cabinet’s approval of private player participation in space in June 2020.

8) Harsh Kumar Bhanwala becomes new executive chairman of Capital India Finance

•Former NABARD Chief, Harsh Kumar Bhanwala has been appointed as executive chairman of the Capital India Finance Limited. Prior to this, Bhanwala was chairman of National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) for over six years. He was appointed as the chairman NABARD in December 2013 and demitted the office on May 26, 2020.

9) Paytm launched India’s 1st pocket android POS device

•Paytm has launched India’s 1st Pocket Android POS (Point of Sale) Device named ‘Paytm All-in-One Portable Android Smart POS’ for contactless ordering and payments in India. This is the first such Android-based device to be introduced in India and is much more powerful than the portable Linux based POS devices presently available in the country. It is an effort to digitise and empower a large number of Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs). The company aims to issue over 2 lakh devices within the next few months which will generate over 20 million transactions per month.

10) BSE partners with Akola-based bullion associations

•A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) has been signed by the Bombay Stock Exchange with Akola, Maharashtra-based bullion trade and industry associations namely Akola Sarafa Association and Akola Sarafa Va Suvarnakar Yuva Sangh. The partnership will seek to enhance cooperation between the BSE and physical markets represented by the two trade bodies in various areas like knowledge sharing, education and training, events as well as explore areas of mutual interests.

•The Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) will conduct various activities such as seminars and awareness programmes on price-risk management for bullion traders and jewellers. These programmes will help them in shifting to more organised forms of trading. BSE will also aware them about effective hedging tools like derivatives contracts, especially ‘options in goods’ and hence enable them to face a volatile market.

11) A book titled ‘Connecting, Communicating, Changing’ released

•The Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Prakash Javadekar unveiled an e-version of the book titled ‘Connecting, Communicating, Changing’. The book chronicles Shri M Venkaiah Naidu’s three years in office as the Vice President of India. Vice President Venkaiah Naidu has completed three years in office on 11 August 2020.

Roman Saini Static GS 500 Most Important Topics for UPSC Prelims 2020

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VisionIAS 13:40

Roman Saini Static GS 500 Most Important Topics for UPSC Prelims 2020

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The HINDU Notes – 12th August 2020

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VisionIAS 10:32

📰 India’s population data and a tale of two projections

The country’s demographic future will see peaking and then declining numbers driven by a sharp fertility reduction

•A new study (https://bit.ly/30JzoKd), published in the highly regarded journal, The Lancet , and prepared by the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), has shaken up the world of population policy. It argues that while India is destined to be the largest country in the world, its population will peak by mid-century. And as the 21st century closes, its ultimate population will be far smaller than anyone could have anticipated, about 1.09 billion instead of approximately 1.35 billion today. It could even be as low as 724 million.

•Readers who follow COVID-19 projections will remember that in March 2020, the IHME projected U.S. deaths from COVID-19 to be around 81,000 by August. Deaths in the U.S. today are more than twice that number. The underlying assumptions for the initial model were not borne out. The IHME population projections are also subject to underlying assumptions that deserve careful scrutiny. They predict that by the year 2100, on average, Indian women will have 1.29 children. Since each woman must have two children to replace herself and her husband, this will result in a sharp population decline. Contrast this predicted fertility rate of 1.29 for India with the projected cohort fertility of 1.53 for the United States and 1.78 for France in the same model. It is difficult to believe that Indian parents could be less committed to childbearing than American or French parents.

•Until 2050, the IHME projections are almost identical to widely-used United Nations projections. The UN (https://bit.ly/2PGYALh) projects that India’s population will be 1.64 billion by 2050, the IHME projects 1.61 billion by 2048. It is only in the second half of the century that the two projections diverge with the UN predicting a population of 1.45 billion by 2100, and the IHME, 1.09 billion.

•Part of this divergence may come from IHME model’s excessive reliance on data regarding current contraceptive use in the National Family Health Survey (NFHS) and potential for increasing contraceptive use. Research at the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) National Data Innovation Centre by Santanu Pramanik and colleagues shows that contraceptive use in the NFHS is poorly estimated, and as a result, unmet need for contraception may be lower than that estimated by the IHME model, generating implausibly low fertility projections for 2100.

Fertility decline

•Regardless of whether we subscribe to the UN’s projections, or the IHME projections, India’s demographic future contains a peaking and subsequently declining population driven by a sharp reduction in fertility. In the 1950s, India’s Total fertility rate (TFR) was nearly six children per woman; today it is 2.2. Ironically, the massive push for family planning coupled with forced sterilisation during the Emergency barely led to a 17% decline in TFR from 5.9 in 1960 to 4.9 in 1980. However, between 1992 and 2015, it had fallen by 35% from 3.4 to 2.2.

•What happened to accelerate fertility decline to a level where 18 States and Union Territories have a TFR below 2, the replacement level? One might attribute it to the success of the family planning programme but family planning has long lost its primacy in the Indian policy discourse. Between 1975 and 1994, family planning workers had targets they were expected to meet regarding sterilisations, condom distribution and intrauterine device (IUD) insertion. Often these targets led to explicit or implicit coercion. Following the Cairo conference on Population and Development in 1994, these targets were abandoned.

•If carrots have been dropped, the stick of policies designed to punish people with large families has been largely ineffective. Punitive policies include denial of maternity leave for third and subsequent births, limiting benefits of maternity schemes and ineligibility to contest in local body elections for individuals with large families. However, as Nirmala Buch, former Chief Secretary of Madhya Pradesh, wrote, these policies were mostly ignored in practice.

Aspirational revolution

•If public policies to encourage the small family norm or to provide contraception have been lackadaisical, what led couples to abandon the ideal of large families? It seems highly probable that the socioeconomic transformation of India since the 1990s has played an important role. Over this period, agriculture became an increasingly smaller part of the Indian economy, school and college enrolment grew sharply and individuals lucky enough to find a job in government, multinationals or software services companies reaped tremendous financial benefits. Not surprisingly, parents began to rethink their family-building strategies. Where farmers used to see more workers when they saw their children, the new aspirational parents see enrolment in coaching classes as a ticket to success.

•The literature on fertility decline in western countries attributes the decline in fertility to retreat from the family; Indian parents seem to demonstrate increased rather than decreased commitment to family by reducing the number of children and investing more in each child. My research with demographer Alaka Basu at Cornell University compares families of different size at the same income level and finds that small and large families do not differ in their leisure activities, women’s participation in the workforce or how many material goods they purchase. However, smaller families invest more money in their children by sending them to private schools and coaching classes. It is not aspirations for self but that for children that seems to drive fertility decline.

In language of the past

•Ironically, even in the face of this sharp fertility decline among all segments of Indian society, the public discourse is still rooted in the language of the 1970s and on supposedly high fertility rate, particularly in some areas such as Uttar Pradesh and Bihar or among some groups such as women with low levels of education or Muslims. This periodically results in politicians proposing remedies that would force these ostensibly ignorant or uncaring parents to have fewer children.

•Demographic data suggest that the aspirational revolution is already under way. What we need to hasten the fertility decline is to ensure that the health and family welfare system is up to this challenge and provides contraception and sexual and reproductive health services that allow individuals to have only as many children as they want.