CURRENT AFFAIRS
23 September 2020
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Opposition parties boycott both Houses of Parliament.
On 22 September, opposition parties had boycotted both the Houses of Parliament, first walking out of Rajya Sabha in the morning, and from the Lok Sabha around 4 pm, in protest against the flawed passage of the 2 farm bills in the upper House on Sunday. The Bill’s passage by voice vote had resulted in violent protests by Opposition members and the suspension of 8 Parliamentarians. The Parliament is expected to end sine die on 23 September. Congress, Trinamool Congress, Dravida Munnetra Kazgham, Telangana Rashtra Samithi, Aam Aadmi Party, Rashtriya Janata Dal, Nationalist Congress Party, CPI (M), CPI, and other smaller parties boycotted both houses of Parliament. Bahujan Samaj Party, Biju Janata Dal, and YSR Congress did not participate in the boycott. Though the BSP did walk out of Lok Sabha, they made it clear it had nothing to do with the rest of the Opposition.
B) Academic session to start from November 1 as per the new UGC calendar.
Students entering colleges and universities will begin classes from November 1, with the new academic session getting off to a delayed start, according to the University Grants Commission’s (UGC) calendar for 2020-21, which was released on Tuesday. Holiday breaks will be curtailed and classes will run 6 days a week to compensate for the time lost due to the Covid-19 pandemic. UGC approved the guidelines for the new academic calendar for first-year students of both undergraduate and postgraduate programs at its meeting on Monday. The admissions schedule has been delayed by the fact that schools and colleges were shut in mid-March due to the pandemic-linked lockdown, and board examinations, as well as entrance examinations for professional courses such as medicine and engineering, were postponed multiple times. The delays have also caused admission cancellations and migration of students. In a statement, the Education Ministry directed that in order to avoid causing financial hardship to parents already hit by the lockdown and economic recession, there will be a full refund of fees made in such cases. On cancellation/withdrawal of admissions up to 31 December 2020, the entire fee collected from a student should be refunded in full after deduction of not more than ₹1,000 as processing fee. This is a special measure for this academic year only.
C) Suspended Opposition MPs end dharna.
The 8 suspended MPs on 22 September had ended their sit-in at the Mahatma Gandhi statue inside the Parliament premises after Opposition parties took a joint decision to boycott the proceedings of the Rajya Sabha for the remainder of the monsoon session. Parliamentary Affairs Minister Prahlad Joshi had told Rajya Sabha that the suspension will be withdrawn if the 8 MPs express regret. The opposition parties did not agree to this proposal. Now they will take their fight for the rights of the farmers to every town and village in the country. On 21 September, the TMC’s Derek O’Brien and Dola Sen, CPI(M) are Elamaram Kareem and K.K. Rajesh, Congress’s Rajeev Satav, Syed Naseer Hussain and Ripun Bora, and AAP’s Sanjay Singh were suspended from the Rajya Sabha for unruly behavior in the House. The 8 MPs had been on a sit-in protest from Monday 12:45 pm till Tuesday at 10:30 am. The MPs spent the night in the Parliament premises, sleeping on bedsheets on the lawn next to the Gandhi statue.
D) Government working on amending IT rules.
The government is working on amending the IT rules for intermediaries such as Facebook and Google in order to make them more responsive and accountable, Parliament was informed on 21 September. Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology is in the process of amending the Information Technology (Intermediaries Guidelines) Rules, 2011, to make the intermediaries more responsive and accountable, Minister of State for Electronics and IT Sanjay Dhotre said in a written reply to the Lok Sabha. The rules are currently being finalized. Dhotre said Section 79(1) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, 2000, grants intermediaries a conditional immunity with regard to any third-party content uploaded on their platforms. However, this immunity is subject to provisions of certain other sections of the Act. Section 79 of the IT Act already provides safe harbor protection to intermediaries subject to their following due diligence as prescribed in IT (Intermediary Guidelines) Rules 2011 notified under this section. The government respects the right of freedom of speech and expression as enshrined in the constitution of India.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) India-China: No breakthrough after the 6th round of talks.
The sixth round of Corps Commander talks between India and China, which went on for 14 hours, failed to yield a breakthrough on de-escalation along the disputed boundary in Ladakh. The talks were quite positive despite the lack of apparent results. There will be more rounds of talks as issues are complex. The talks that began on 21 September at 9 a.m. in Moldo went on till 11 p.m. The talks were held in line with the 5 point plan agreed upon by the 2 Foreign Ministers in Moscow earlier this month. There are different positions and the issues are complex, so it will take more rounds of talks to reach an understanding. Details of the talks would be discussed within the government and the future course of action decided, it has been learned. India has pressed for a roadmap for complete disengagement and de-induction of Chinese troops from all friction points along the Line of Actual Control (LAC), the source added. For the first time, a Joint Secretary from the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) was present at the talks.The situation on the ground has remained quiet since the Foreign Ministers’ meeting, the second source added. Officials said that for India, mutual disengagement would not be acceptable and China would have to pull back its troops from the stand-off areas.
B) US judge blocks Commerce Department order to remove WeChat from app stores.
Early on 20 September, a judge of the United States has blocked the Commerce Department from requiring Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc. Google to remove the messaging app WeChat which was owned by China for downloads. The Magistrate Judge of United States Laurel Beeler in San Francisco has said in an order that WeChat users who had filed a lawsuit have shown serious questions going to the merits of the First Amendment claim. Parents are discovering how increased screen time has led to the change in behavioral patterns of the children. They are bad for the environment and responsible for a large number of pedestrian deaths. The Commerce Department had issued an order which was citing national security grounds to block the application from the app stores of the United States which was owned by Tencent Holding and Justice Department had urged Beeler not to block the order. The Commerce Department of the United States did not comment immediately.
