Current Affairs 05/09/2015

Contents

• Some points on ‘Reservation’
• RBI crisis fund short of target
• Saving the yellow-throated bulbul
• Communication networks and Emergency situations
• Investor Friendly Move

Some points on ‘Reservation’

GS 2: Government Policy

• Reservation was introduced to protect the lower caste majority with quotas.
• The function of reservation is to empower beneficiaries so that later generations begin to compete successfully in the general category.
• Reservation is explicitly and exclusively about redressing caste discrimination and inequality

Misuse of ‘Reservation policy’

• Reservation has now become a welfare benefit that the state can grant to any community at its discretion.
• Main qualifications for getting reservation would be: an electorally significant population, and the skills needed to mobilise the community, manage the media and mount a successful campaign to coerce the state.
• The constitutional view of reservation requires evidence of discrimination or backwardness, but the dominant view today seems to be that any caste can get reservation if it can bend the state.

Growing voices against the present form of ‘reservation policy’

• Increased competition, unemployment, lack of access to higher and professional education.
• Introduction of the quota for the Other Backward Classes (OBCs) and getting more groups under OBC and enlarging its quota.
• Entry of reservation-eligible lower castes into the general category.
• To the disiilusionment of poor, reservation benefits accrue more to creamy layer candidates from SCs and STs.  
• Exclusion of poor candidates belonging to upper casts from reservation policy.
• Undeniable presence and continuing reproduction of caste inequalities and discrimination.

RBI crisis fund short of target

GS 3: Economy-Banking

• Contingency funds with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), used in case of unforeseen shocks, have fallen to 8.4 per cent of total assets, against a target of 12 per cent, as shown in its Annual Report for 2014-15.
• For example, if a systemically important bank goes bankrupt, then the RBI has to take its losses onto its own balance sheet.
• For the last two years, the RBI has made no transfers to its Contingency Fund or its Asset Development Fund.

Saving the yellow-throated bulbul

Prelims: Environemt

• The yellow-throated bulbul is one among the 22 bulbul species of India
• Categorised as ‘vulnerable’ under the IUCN Red List
• The yellow-throated bulbul is not threatened by poaching or capturing, but by habitat destruction over decades

Security threats through communication networks

GS 3: Security threats through communication networks

• The Indian government has often flagged the concern that data-mining giants based outside the country — Google, Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, to name a few — do not cooperate with law enforcement authorities during a security crisis.

Recent incidents

• 2013 Muzaffarnagar violence and the 2012 exodus of Northeasterners from Bengaluru as prime instances where social media played mischief.
• Anti-reservation protests in Gujarat and, violence in Manipur prompted the State governments to shut off mobile data services for a week.
• People hugely dependent on internet were the hardest hit.

Options with the government

• A security crisis confers governments with wide legal latitude to restrict the flow of online information.
• They can do so in three ways: by targeting the content, medium or device.

1. Content-specific restrictions usually take the form of DNS (Domain Name System; it is a unique IP) seizures, where governments ask a website host (say, GoDaddy or Bluehost) to de-register a domain name (say, www.yestogujaratviolence.com).
2. A second type of restriction could be aimed at the medium: governments can require Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to block access to websites peddling inflammatory content.
3. A third kind of restriction targets the handheld device, where the government asks a phone manufacturer to create ‘back doors’ for monitoring and filtering content on its devices.

• All three methods are blunt, and could even be counterproductive.
• A website could easily park its domain elsewhere after its registration has been withdrawn.
• ISP blocks can be circumvented through proxy servers and virtual private networks (VPNs).
• And creating online ‘back doors’ is a dangerous exercise because the security vulnerability so created can be exploited not just by governments but by miscreants as well.
• The Indian government understands that these methods, while legally defensible during an emergency, are ineffective.
• This is why Gujarat blocked access to mobile Internet altogether.

Investor Friendly Move

For basics visit mrunal.org

GS 3: Economy: Institutional Invetors

• The Union government’s decision to waive, through an amendment to the Income Tax Act, minimum alternate tax (MAT) liability on capital gains made by foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) is a welcome move.
• It is in line with the spirit of the promise to put an end to “tax terrorism”.
• Government’s decisions would serve to restore some of the lost faith of investors in India as an investment destination that doesn’t resort to “retrospective taxation”.
• The department has been in too many disputes with global companies such as Vodafone and Cairn, some of which have even dragged India into international arbitration. It has been said that India’s image as an investment destination has suffered as a result.
• The same way as the government has taken a position on and dispelled the uncertainty around MAT, it must quickly make up its mind and come out with an announcement on another outstanding issue, concerning participatory notes (P-Notes). India’s indecision on this matter is affecting FIIs.
• The Supreme Court-appointed Special Investigation Team has asked regulators to put in place regulations to identify individuals holding P-Notes and take other steps to curb black money and tax evasion through the stock market route.
• P-Notes are offshore derivative instruments that a large number of FIIs use to park funds in the equity market without disclosing their identity to Indian regulators.
• The tax authorities suspect that a huge chunk of these investments could in fact be Indian money masquerading as foreign funds.

Cut the lines and make them as short as possible. 

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