CURRENT AFFAIRS
15 December 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Hunger strikes and dharnas on 19th day of protests; Convenor ready for separate talks evicted from post.
On a day when farmers held hunger strikes and dharnas at the Delhi border and across the country, the Centre continued to engage with individual elements in the farmers’ movement in an effort to restart negotiations. The national convenor of one of the farmer groups leading the protest was evicted from his position after he said he was willing to engage in separate talks with the government and discuss a minimum support price (MSP) law rather than demand repeal of the three contentious laws. Tens of thousands of farmers, mostly from Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, have been protesting on the borders of Delhi for 19 straight days, demanding a repeal of the three laws. Leaders of the movement held a day-long hunger strike from 8 am to 5 pm on Monday. When Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal joined the fast in solidarity with the farmers, Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh accused him of trying to fool farmers through dramatics. The Delhi government had notified the Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) Ordinance, 2020 one of the three farm laws on November 23, a fact pointed out by rival parties who have questioned the sincerity of Kejriwal’s support to farmer protests. Meanwhile, on the Uttar Pradesh border, protestors aligned with the Bharatiya Kisan Union-Tikait temporarily blocked the highway at Ghazipur. However, a farmer leader from U.P., V.M. Singh, seemed ready to engage with the Centre. Over the last month, Singh has repeatedly broken ranks with other leaders in the AIKSCC, which is an umbrella platform for 250 plus farm groups across the country, created in the wake of the Mandsaur protests of 2017. For instance, when the farmers first reached the Delhi border, he had urged acceptance of the government’s designated protest site in Burari, to the anger of many of the Punjab unions. His willingness to negotiate separately with the Centre seemed to be the last straw.
B) Telcos spar again, this time over farmer protests. India’s telecom majors have gotten into a sparring match over the farmer protests. Reliance Jio has written to telecom regulator TRAI seeking action against Airtel and Vi (Vodafone-Idea Ltd) for allegedly encouraging the public to show support for farmers by migrating from Jio. It has claimed that Airtel and Vi have been spreading frivolous rumours toward that end. Airtel has responded by asking the regulator to throw the complaint out with the contempt that it deserves. Vi, too, in a statement, described Jio’s complaint as baseless allegations to malign our reputation. In a letter dated December 10, Reliance Jio alleged that the two companies are directly or indirectly involved in supporting and furthering the insinuations and false and frivolous rumours of Reliance being an undue beneficiary of the farm bills. The company added that this has resulted in it receiving large number of port out requests from customers citing this as the sole reason for porting out of Jio without having any complaints or other issues related to Jio services. Meanwhile, strongly refuting the baseless charges made by Reliance Jio, Airtel on Monday shot off a letter to the regulator stating that, Despite being provoked by some competitors who we know will go to any length to make baseless allegations, adopt bullying tactics, and use intimidatory behaviour, we have always conducted our business with character and transparency, something that we are deeply proud of and known for.
C) Gmail, YouTube, other Google services hit by widespread outage.
A widespread outage of Gmail, YouTube, Google Docs and other Google services was reported globally on Monday. However, Google.com and Chrome appear to be working. Several users of YouTube, Gmail and other services posted their complaint about the issue on the social media. Google Docs users were welcomed with the message that the service has encountered an error, and that they should try reloading the page or try coming back in a few minutes. YouTube’s error page showed a monkey with the message, “Something went wrong”. More than 100,000 users have reported problems with YouTube on down detector from around the world. However, YouTube seemed to be working in an incognito browser without signing in. As per down detector website, almost all of Google’s services, including Hangouts, Meet, Play and Duo, were affected. In addition to this, users reported issues with smart home gadgets that are integrated with Google Assistant. Third party-apps that rely on Google’s back-end services were also affected. At the time of writing, it was not known what caused the outage. They are aware that many of us are having issues accessing YouTube right now their team is aware and looking into it. They will update us here as soon as they have more news, Youtube’s official handle tweeted. An hour later, it further updated that they are back up and running! They should be able to access YouTube again and enjoy videos as normal.
D) Tata Sons among multiple bidders in race to buy Air India.
The Tata Group was among multiple entities that on Monday put in preliminary bids for buying the government’s stake in loss-making carrier Air India, PTI reported. Multiple expressions of interest have been received for strategic disinvestment of Air India. The Transaction will now move to the second stage, the Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM) Secretary Tuhin Kanta Pandey tweeted. He, however, did not reveal either the identity of the bidders or the number of bids received for buying the national carrier. Sources said Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, had put in an Expression of Interest (EoI) at the close of the deadline on Monday. It was not, however, immediately clear if the Tatas have bid alone or as part of a consortium. An official said the transaction advisor will inform bidders before January 6 if their bids have been qualified. Qualified bidders will then be asked to submit financial bids.
E) SC issues notice to govt. on plea seeking declaration of Emergency as ‘unconstitutional’. The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to examine whether a simplictor declaration that the Emergency of 1975 was unconstitutional will be feasible or desirable after the passage of 45 years. A Bench led by Justice S.K. Kaul reluctantly, and after much persuasion from senior advocate Harish Salve, agreed to consider the limited question on a request made by 94-year-old Veera Sarin, who said the errors of history should be corrected and never happen again. Something wrong may have happened at a particular point of history. But it has been 45 years now. Many of the persons are no longer with them, Justice Kaul, leading a three-judge Bench, expressed his doubts. But Salve, for Sarin, replied that this may perhaps be the right time to do it. There was abuse of powers. If we do not tend to correct the errors of history, it will go on. For 19 months, the fundamental rights of this country were under the jackboots. We have to revisit this error. She [Sarin] wants a declaration that the Emergency was unconstitutional. For that, she cannot go to any other court, Salve submitted. The court then issued notice to the government. During the hearing, Justice Kaul, amidst discussion with his Bench mates, tried to dissuade Salve, saying digging up the Emergency now would be odd as the people involved were no more. Hitler is dead and gone, but even now people in their eighties and nineties are pulled for their crimes against humanity, Salve replied. One cannot compare this with the Holocaust and its consequences, said Justice Kaul in response.
F) Delhi High Court slams CBSE for ‘anti-student attitude’, treating ‘students as enemies’.
The Delhi High Court on Monday rapped the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) for its anti-student attitude, saying it was treating students as enemies by dragging them all the way to the Supreme Court in certain matters. A bench of Chief Justice DN Patel and Justice Prateek Jalan made the observation while hearing a plea moved by the Board challenging a single judge order, which said the CBSE’s reassessment scheme for students whose board exams got cancelled due to Covid-19 would apply to improvement candidates also. The Bench said that they don’t like this anti-student attitude of the CBSE. They are dragging students all the way to the Supreme Court. Should they be studying or going to court? They should start imposing costs on the CBSE. They are treating students as enemies. The Bench further said that if the scheme applies to all improvement students, “what is the harm in it?” The single-judge Bench had held on August 14 that the scheme approved by the Supreme Court for assessing students affected by the Covid-19-induced cancellation of CBSE exams will also apply to students who appeared for improvement examinations as they are equal victims of the pandemic.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) British spy thriller author John le Carre dies aged 89.
John le Carre, the British writer best known for his Cold War espionage novels Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, has died aged 89, his agent and family said on Sunday. The author, a former British intelligence officer whose real name was David Cornwell, wrote 25 novels and one memoir in a career spanning six decades, selling 60 million books worldwide. He is survived by his wife, Jane, and four sons. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was adapted for television in 1979, with Alec Guinness starring as the enigmatic spycatcher George Smiley, and became a classic. Oldman reprised the role in the 2011 film, winning an Oscar the following year. Le Carre once said he owed his career in the shadows and later literary success to an impulsive adolescent decision to flee an unhappy life. It involved a spell in Bern, Switzerland, learning German, where he took his first steps in British intelligence, doing odd-jobs across the border in Austria. He later returned to study at Oxford University. He later transferred to the overseas spy agency M16. It was as an M16 officer that he had his first success with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold in 1963. For obvious reasons, he had to use a pseudonym.
B) US Electoral College set to vote.
Electors will meet in each of the US.’s States and the District of Columbia to cast their votes on Monday and are expected to vote in favour of the presidential candidate who won the popular vote in their respective States. Normally a low. key affair, this year the process has garnered special attention with President Donald Trump repeatedly making unsubstantiated claims that large-scale voter fraud had resulted in his challenger, Democratic candidate Joe Biden, winning the election. Mr. Biden is expected to secure 306 electoral votes against Mr. Trump’s 232, further attenuating the efforts Of Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the election. Trump supporters and anti Trump activists clashed on Saturday in cities across the country, resulting in four stabbings in Washington DC and one shooting in Washington State. This was prompted by the Supreme Court dismissing a lawsuit filed by the State of Texas seeking to invalidate the electoral outcome in key swing States won by Mr. Biden. Late on Sunday night (Washington time), Mr. Trump tweeted claims Of election fraud and appeared to threaten electors with prosecution. Swing States that have found massive voter fraud, which is all of them, cannot legally certify these votes as complete & correct without committing a severely punishable crime, he wrote in a post that also contained other unsubstantiated claims about large-scale electoral fraud. Therefore, VOTES CAN. NOT BE CERTIFIED. THIS ELECTION IS UNDER PROTEST! Mr. Trump said. Twitter tagged the comment with a ‘disputed’ label. The Electoral College will meet in groups across States usually in the Capitol building starting on Monday morning.
