15, March 2019 15/03/2019 – Posted in: Daily News

Scientists re-confirm possibility of Mega-quakes in Himalayas

 

News Flash

A new study has reconfirmed possibility that large earthquakes are imminent in the Himalayas.

  • Multiple Himalayan segments have accumulated enough stress to trigger devastating mega-quakes measuring over 8 Mw (moment magnitude) anytime now, according to a new review in the text Himalayan Tectonics: A Modern Synthesis.
  • The current paper identifies 15 Himalayan segments that have seen large historical quakes. Ten of these haven’t slipped in years. For example, a Himalayan stretch near Himachal Pradesh’s Kangra district hasn’t ruptured since 1905, priming it for at least a Mw 7.8 temblor.
  • Another segment near Pokhara, Nepal, last slipped in 1505 AD, leaving it vulnerable to a Mw 8-8.2 temblor.
The Mw scale is logarithmic, which means that an increase of one unit corresponds to a 10-unit jump in magnitude. So, a Mw 8 earthquake will be ten times as intense as a Mw 7 quake, while an Mw 9 quake will be 100 times as much.

The paper puts together both paleo-seismic and modern data to estimate that India is moving at an average rate of 17 mm along the 2,000-km long and 100-km wide Main Himalayan Thrust. This collision is building stresses equivalent to a Mw 7.3 quake each year. Someday soon, one of these faults will slip. If the resulting quake happens at night, when people are indoors, the toll could cross 100,000. Unfortunately the Himalayan States are nowhere close to being prepared for this.

 

What are the Causes earthquakes in the Himalayas

The Indian Plate is pushing upward against the Eurasian Plate which, more than a huge number of years, has caused the formation of the Himalayas. Be that as it may, the two plates still keep on pushing against one another and that aggregates pressure in the earth’s crust. This pressure keeps developing lastly gets discharged causing a quake. In this way, there is a fault line along the Himalayas along which the two plates push. This makes earthquakes from time to time.

Source: The Hindu

 

 

Election Reforms

 

News Flash

The Election Commission has for the first time started using a mobile application that will help poll observers to submit reports.

The electoral body in a meeting with more than 1,800 IAS, IPS and IRS officials and some others from the Central services, who are to be deployed as observers in the coming Lok Sabha and State Assembly polls. They will get all the important notifications, alerts, and urgent messages through the “Observer App.”

 

Electoral Bond

EC is looking to introduce electoral bonds as “a big step towards electoral reform”.  The bonds “will ensure transparency” and “accountability. The scheme was announced during the 2017 Budget.

  • All political parties recognised, registered and un-recognised shall submit a report to the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) of a State stating that they have followed the directions of the Supreme Court regarding criminality of candidates.
  • In a major show of pre-poll strength, 23 Opposition parties moved the Supreme Court demanding the random verification of at least 50% Electronic Voting Machines (EVM) using Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) in every Assembly segment or constituency.
  • An electoral bond is designed to be a bearer instrument like a Promissory Note in effect.
  • It will be similar to a bank note that is payable to the bearer on demand and free of interest. It can be purchased by any citizen of India or a body incorporated in India.
  • In multiples of ₹1,000, ₹10,000, ₹1 lakh, ₹10 lakh and ₹1 crore will be available at specified branches of State Bank of India. They can be bought by the donor with a KYC-compliant account.
  • Donors can donate the bonds to their party of choice which can then be cashed in via the party’s verified account within 15 days.

 

Criminality and elections

The guidelines of the Supreme Court pertaining to declaration of criminal record in the prescribed form will be applicable to Lok Sabha elections as well as Assembly by-polls across the country.

  • The criminal record includes charge sheets or convictions but does not include a mere first information report.
  • The same should be published in three prominent newspapers, but the definition of prominent has not been defined.
  • It is mandatory for political parties and candidates with criminal antecedents to publish the declaration on at least three different dates from the date following the last date of withdrawal of candidatures and upto two days before the date of poll. The matter should be published in font size of at least 12 points and should be placed suitably in a minimum of three newspapers. In case of declaration in TV channels, the same should be completed before a period of 48 hours ending with hours fixed for conclusion of poll. There is a format provided by ECI for such a declaration by the candidates and political parties.
  • In case of non-compliance of the direction by the candidate or political parties, the returning officers will give a written reminder to them and in the event of non-compliance till the end of the elections, the returning officer will report to the State’s CEO who will intimate the Election Commission of India (ECI).The ECI will take a final decision in the matter. The standard format for such a reminder to the candidates and political parties is also prescribed.

 

Submission of financial assets

A candidate has to file his or her income tax returns of previous five years and of their spouse. And in case of a Hindu Undivided Family, the Karta and dependents as well.

 

VVPAT and Verification

Current Election Commission guideline:

  • Voter Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) should be conducted “only for VVPAT paper slips of one randomly selected polling station of an Assembly constituency in case of election to State Legislative Assembly and each Assembly segment in case of election to the House of the People.
  • Apex court’s judgment in the Dr. Subramanian Swamy case in 2013 held that the paper trail for EVMs was an indispensable requirement of free and fair elections, thereby making VVPAT inherent in and intrinsic to the very basic structure.

 

Political Party registration

Registration of Political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951. A party seeking registration under the said Section with the Commission has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days following the date of its formation.

This is done as per guidelines prescribed by the Election Commission of India in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the Constitution of India and Section 29A of the RP People Act, 1951.

Source: The Hindu

 

  

National Security and Election

 

News Flash

National security should indeed become a serious election issue, not in terms of just scoring political points, but in drawing attention to persistent infirmities in our governance systems.

  • Expert committees such as the Kargil Review Committee (2000) and the Naresh Chandra Task Force on National Security (2012) have suggested and identified many reforms but still we are not able to implement the recommendations.
  • The blatant lack of accountability apparent in avoiding public reckoning in subsequent serious security lapses evident in the Pathankot, Uri and now the Pulwama incidents.

What practical steps they are committed to undertaking to make our country safe from external and domestic threats.

One of these reforms is related to the police efforts :

  • The recruitment of police personnel at lower levels is often subject to political patronage and corrupt practices.
  • They lack basic training. Some, being virtually illiterate, are not even trainable. Their conditions of work and living are pathetic.
  • Large vacancies in their police forces, lowest police to population ratios at 125 per 1,00,000.
  • Unnecessary stress on the personal security of political personages and senior officials at the expense of public security.

 

Strategic Voting

Strategic voting refers to the act of voting for a particular candidate or political party not because the voter necessarily supports them but because she wants to prevent some other party or candidate from winning. For example, a voter who prefers a leftist candidate would vote for a centrist candidate in order to prevent a right-wing candidate from winning because the leftist candidate is weak in that constituency.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

 

Ganges River Dolphin

 

News Flash

A count of the Ganges River Dolphin (Platanista gangetica gangetica) in two Bihar rivers, Gandak and Ghaghara (both originate from Nepal and eventually join the Ganga), has revealed the presence of 280 dolphins.

  • Gandak is a regulated river due construction of river barrage on the Indo- Nepal border and thus the river depth is low, while the Ghaghara has deeper stretches.
  • Ganges river dolphin usually prefers a depth of more than 2 metres and diversity in the river channels.

 

Threats to Dolphin habitats

  • Construction of National Waterway 37.
  • Regulated discharge from Gandak Barrage.
  • Electrofishing (discharging electric current to kill fish) and mosquito-net fishing.
  • In the Ghaghara river, threats posed on the national aquatic animal are from sand mining and the use of chemicals in intensive bank cultivation.

 

South Asian River Dolphin

The South Asian river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) is an endangered freshwater or river dolphin found in the region of South Asia which is split into two subspecies, the Ganges river dolphin (P. g. gangetica) (≈3,500 individuals) and the Indus river dolphin (P. g. minor)(≈1,500 individuals).

The Ganges river dolphin is primarily found in the Ganges and Brahmaputra Rivers and their tributaries in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, while the Indus river dolphin is now found only in the main channel of the Indus River in Pakistan and active channels connected to it between the Jinnah and Kotri barrages as well as in the Beas river in India.

From the 1970 s until 1998, they were regarded as separate species; however, in 1998, their classification was changed from two separate species to subspecies of a single species (see taxonomy below). The Ganges river dolphin has been recognized by the government of India as its National Aquatic Animal.

Source: Indian Express

 

 

 

Equality in Workplace (opinions)

 

March 8 is celebrated as international women’s day, which gives us the opportunity to ask ourselves how much more is to be done and how it is to be accomplished.

  • We see big corporates supporting the celebration of IWD, but what is needed is to reconsider the structures of corporations and companies so that the equal opportunities for women can be ensured in workplace.

Corporations should contemplate on following things to ensure gender Equality in their organisation:

  • Consumer-facing companies should report publicly how much equality they have within the organisations that are behind them.
  • Percentage of women in their workforce.
  • Women in senior leadership roles.
  • Bonus points for women CEOs.
  • Are women paid the same as men for doing the same job?
  • What is their policy on maternity leave?
  • Do they also have equal amounts of paternity leave which they insist men take so that they also take equal responsibility for parenthood?
  • Are sexual harassment cells in place and do they function?
  • Do they have childcare facilities?
  • Have they stopped making things for women that are default coloured pink?
  • Do they market to women in the same way they market to men? Do they target both genders, like sell pressure cookers to men, cars to women?
  • Do their ads show women and men doing the same things, without tired gender stereotypes?
  • What percentage of their CSR budgets go to women’s rights issues? If they have a good record on these, they get to brag; otherwise, they shut up.

 

The beginning of Women’s Day

After the Socialist Party of America organized a Women’s Day on February 28, 1909, in New York, the 1910 International Socialist Woman’s Conference suggested a Women’s Day be held annually after more than 15,000 women garment workers fought for higher wages and shorter working hours in that strike.

In Russia, protests erupted on March 8, 1917, against World War I and brought down the Tsarist Empire. The new government gave the women the right to vote. After women gained suffrage in Soviet Russia in 1917, March 8 became a national holiday there. The day was then predominantly celebrated by the socialist movement and communist countries until it was adopted by the feminist movement in about 1967. The United Nations began celebrating the day in 1975. International Women’s Day was thus a day of resistance and demand.

In India, for instance, following the anti-colonial and social reform movement, the Constitution guaranteed justice, dignity and equality for women. However, these values came in conflict with old patriarchal values, thus limiting women’s progress. The women’s movement became fragmented, only to see a resurgence in the 1970s after the Emergency when there was a rallying cry for civil rights. This led to the birth of several women’s organisations, which successfully pushed for legal reforms. The women’s movement slowly regained strength, fighting against dowry deaths, domestic violence, and sexual abuse.

In India, however, several companies with gender diversity and pay gap problems celebrated the day, despite the alarming trend of more and more women withdrawing from the workforce (female participation in the workforce fell from 42.7% in 2004-05 to 23.3% in 2017-18).. Given the huge inequality in the treatment and payment of women workers, and with labour conditions being unfriendly to women, it is important to ask what really women want on this day: roses or reforms?

Source: The Hindu/ Indian Express