WhatsApp No. 88986-30000...2020/08/20 · Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and...

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1. Centre to set up National Recruitment Agency to conduct common test

for government jobs Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper II; Polity & Governance

The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved the creation of a National Recruitment Agency (NRA) for conducting a Common Eligibility Test (CET) for various government jobs. All you need to know about National Recruitment Agency

Information and Broadcasting Minister Prakash Javadekar said the Cabinet had taken the “historic” decision at a meeting chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to benefit crores of young people who applied for jobs every year. About 2.5 crore to 3 crore candidates applied for the 1.25 lakh Group B and C jobs advertised by three agencies every year, with separate schedules and fees. 3 agencies under NRA for now

Secretary of the Department of Personnel and Training (DoPT) C. Chandramouli said that to begin with, three of the over 20 Central government recruitment agencies would be brought under the NRA. The preliminary test for the Railway Recruitment Board, the Staff Selection Commission and the Institute of Banking Personnel Selection would be conducted by the NRA, after which the candidates can use the scores to apply to the individual agencies for the next round. Gradually all Central government recruitment agencies would be brought under the NRA, Mr. Chandramouli said.

Common test for railway, bank, Central government jobs from 2021 “A common eligibility test would enable these candidates to appear once and apply to any or all of these recruitment agencies for the higher level of examination. This would indeed be a boon to all the candidates”, a government statement said. Online exam

The exam would be held online and centres would be set up in every district to increase access for candidates, it stated. “The CET score of the candidate shall be valid for a period of three years from the date of declaration of the result. The best of the valid scores shall be deemed to be the current score of the candidate. There shall be no restriction on the number of attempts to be taken by a candidate to appear in the CET subject to the upper age limit”, it said. Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and Other Backward Classes candidates would be given a relaxation in the age limit as per the government’s policy, it noted.

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The government sanctioned ₹1,517.57 crore for the NRA for a period of three years. The CET would be held separately for three levels - graduate, 12th pass and 10th pass - for the non-technical posts of the three agencies. “Based on the screening done at the CET score level, final selection for recruitment shall be made through separate specialised Tiers (II, III etc) of examinations, which shall be conducted by the respective recruitment agencies. The curriculum for this test would be common as would be the standard”, the statement said. In 12 languages

Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pension Jitendra Singh said the exam would be conducted in 12 languages to begin with and the attempt would be to expand it further to all languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. He added that though the test score would be used for Central government recruitment for now, it could be used by State governments and even the private sector in the future. Source: The Hindu

2. Harley-Davidson may exit India Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper III; Economics








Barely a decade after its entry, Harley-Davidson Inc. is looking to wind down its assembly operations in the country as a result of weak sales and a lack of visibility for future demand, industry executives said. Harley-Davidson India sold fewer than 2,500 units in the last financial year, industry officials said. If the company, which saw U.S. President Donald Trump passionately lobby India for lower tariffs on its two-wheelers, does indeed exit, it would mark the second departure of an American automaker, after General Motors wound up its domestic operations and sold its Gujarat plant in 2017. The company declined to comment on its immediate plans for India and an external spokesman said it “does not comment on speculation”. The motorcycle maker is expected to continue to run a skeletal operation to provide after sales support for the motorcycles already on the road in the country, to support its dealers and likely sell fully built imported bikes, the person said. Harley-Davidson India sold fewer than 2,500 units in the last financial year and only about 100 bikes between April-June 2020, industry officials said, making India one of its worst-performing international markets. As recently as in July 2018, the company had shared its plans to tap a growing middle class by introducing “a 250-500cc motorcycle within 2 years in India”. To offload unsold inventory, the company recently offered heavy discounts in the range of

₹65,000 to ₹77,000 on two of its models. Source: The Hindu

3. Why is America debating mail-in ballots? Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper II; IOBR

With the US presidential elections less than three months away, the US Postal Service (USPS) is at the centre of a row with Democrats demanding that more Americans be given access to mail-in voting, and Republicans opposing this on the ground that it would increase chances of fraud. Why is a postal ballot critical now?

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, many states have made mail-in voting accessible to more voters. However, slower mail deliveries over the last few months, including for medicines,








have raised concerns about how the USPS will handle an influx of mail-in ballots. The USPS has warned that these ballots may not reach in time to be counted. While Democrats are calling for wider mail-in voting, they are also concerned about changes in the methods of processing mail initiated by Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. These include clamping down on overtime and halting late delivery trips, which will effectively delay mail-in ballots. On Sunday, the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi, in a letter accused President Donald Trump of sabotaging the election by “manipulating the Postal Service to disenfranchise voters”. Pelosi referred to DeJoy as a “crony” who “continues to push forward sweeping new operational changes that degrade postal service, delay the mail, and – according to the Postal Service itself – threaten to deny the ability of eligible Americans to cast their votes through the mail in the upcoming elections in a timely fashion”.

What is President Trump’s stand?

Trump does not favour mail-in voting. Many Republicans are of the view that mail-in voting will favour Democrats — in essence, they believe that more voters (especially low-income and non-white ones) will mean more votes for Democrats. Trump has alleged that voting by mail will lead to fraud in the election process. Various studies, in fact, suggest that there is no evidence that mail-in voting leads to greater chances of fraud. A Stanford University study in April said that while mail-in ballots offer greater convenience to voters and may increase voter turnout “modestly”, it had no particular advantages for any party. In 2017, the Brennan Center for Justice estimated the risk of ballot fraud at between 0.00004-0.00009%. How does mail-in voting work?

While every state offers mail-in voting, their rules differ. Some states allow mail-in voting in special circumstances only. These circumstances include illness, injury, disability or being a student at an out-of-state college or university. Once local election authorities have received such a request, they will send a ballot to the address of the voter after vetting the application. The voter then casts their vote and signs the envelope and mails the ballot back to the election authorities. States that require reasons for mail-in ballot include Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, all Republican-controlled. Democrat-controlled New York also requires a reason for mail-in ballots. On the other hand, in view of the pandemic, some states have allowed absentee voting for all. These include Florida, North Carolina, Ohio and Michigan among others. Other states such as California, Nevada and Vermont will mail a ballot to every registered voter ahead of the elections. As per The New York Times, this year over 76% of Americans will be eligible to receive a ballot in the mail and roughly 80 million votes are expected to be cast this way.








Source: The Indian Express

4. As head of House panel, can Shashi Tharoor summon Facebook over

alleged links with BJP? Relevant for GS Prelims & mains Paper II; Polity & Governance

BJP MP Nishikant Dubey has accused the Congress party’s Shashi Tharoor, chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information Technology, of violating Committee rules when he wrote to Facebook asking it to appear before the committee. Dubey, a member of the panel, has argued that Tharoor did not follow the rule that an order signed by the Secretary-General of Lok Sabha is required to summon a witness. Tharoor has rejected as “extraordinary” the idea that the panel should not take up a matter of “such great public interest” —allegations in The Wall Street Journal that Facebook’s top public policy executive in India had opposed applying hate-speech rules to BJP politicians because it could damage the company’s business prospects in India. What is the Committee Tharoor heads?

Parliamentary Committees are considered an extension of Parliament and do a good deal of legislative business as both Houses of Parliament have limited time. Standing Committees, whose tenure is continuous throughout the tenure of the House, are appointed or elected by the House or nominated by the Lok Sabha Speaker or Rajya Sabha Chairman. They work under the direction of the presiding officers. There are 24 department/ministry-related Standing Committees of which 16 are serviced by Lok Sabha and eight by Rajya Sabha. The IT Committee chaired by Tharoor has 20 more MPs from Lok Sabha and nine from Rajya Sabha. The ruling BJP has a majority representation in most of the committees. The 30-member IT panel has 15 MPs from BJP, four from Congress including Tharoor, two each from Trinamool Congress and YSRCP, two independents, and one each from Shiv Sena, TRS, CPM, LJSP and DMK. What is this committee supposed to do?

Committees formed to see that Parliament functions effectively, discuss Bills referred to them by the presiding officers. These MPs assemble during and between sessions, invite officials as well as experts, and are not bound by the party whips when it comes to discussion of a Bill, unlike in the House. Department-related Standing Committees consider demands for grants for the ministry, and take up any subject based on Annual Reports and long-term policy documents relating to the ministries/departments under their jurisdiction The Committee on IT, which was constituted in April 1993 (then the Committee on Communications), has jurisdiction over subject matters dealt with by the Ministry of Communications including the Department of Posts, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Electronics & IT, and Ministry of Information and Broadcasting.








So, does it have the powers to summon Facebook?

The committee has the powers to send a letter to Facebook — or any institution — asking it to appear and give an explanation on a subject. The committee or chairman does not have executive powers, but calling a particular person or an institution as witness is possible. An invitation to appear before a Parliamentary Committee is equivalent to a summons from a court: If one cannot come, he or she has to give reasons which the panel may or may not accept. However, the chairman should have the support of the majority of the members. Any member can call for a meeting to discuss this, and if the majority of the members do not agree, the chairman may have to cancel the summoning, said Subhash Kashyap, constitutional expert and former Secretary General of Lok Sabha. Kashyap said that in the past, there were instances when the chairman summoned an individual or an institution, but with the ruling party having a majority, it was presumed that the majority was in his/her favour. The situation is different here — the BJP with the majority of members is opposing it. What, then, is the BJP’s argument?

The BJP argues that Tharoor neither took the consent of the Committee nor got approval from the Lok Sabha Speaker for his move. Dubey has argued that Tharoor has violated the rules. Rule 269 (1) — Rule 269 in Parliamentary Rule Book deals with the functions of the standing committee – says: “A witness may be summoned by an order signed by the Secretary-General and shall produce such documents as are required for the use of a Committee.”

Does the BJP’s argument hold water?

Yes, if one goes strictly by the rulebook. But as experts point out, the panel chairman can take decisions, especially when the House is not in session or when a meeting is not to take place in the immediate future, and especially when the matter is of great public interest as Tharoor has argued. But again, members can object and the majority can press the chairman to cancel the summons. The rule says a Committee shall have power to send for persons, papers and records, provided that if any question arises whether the evidence of a person or the production of a document is relevant for the purposes of the Committee, the question shall be referred to the Speaker whose decision shall be final. So, in this case the Speaker can support or reject Tharoor’s move. Why is this issue important anyway?

Tharoor has argued that the matter is of great public interest. Parliamentary panels across the world have expressed concern over the role of social media giants like Facebook, WhatsApp, Twitter etc over the dissemination of disinformation and fake news on these platforms. Parliamentary panels in the UK, US , Singapore etc have summoned these giants over online disinformation and the use of social media tools for political campaigns. The report in the WSJ alleged that Facebook, which owns WhatApp (used extensively by BJP in recent elections), had favoured the party and refused to block anti-Muslim posts by








BJP leaders fearing a backlash. Referring to hate-speech — a call for violence against minorities — allegedly by Telangana BJP MLA T Raja Singh, the report has cited “current and former” Facebook employees as saying the intervention by Facebook public policy head Ankhi Das is part of a “broader pattern of favouritism” by the company towards the ruling party. When the Election Commission sought their views over the conduct of polls in Bihar, a number of parties expressed concern that a digital campaign could give an undue advantage for leading parties, mainly the BJP. During the tenure of the previous Lok Sabha, the IT panel – then headed by BJP’s Anurag Thakur — had summoned Twitter India and asked it to submit its views on the subject of “safeguarding citizens’ rights on social/online news media platform” after a volunteer group wrote to the committee, alleging the company was biased against right-wing Twitter accounts. Who all have alleged that Facebook is doing the BJP’s bidding?

After the WSJ report, the Congress sought a Joint Parliamentary Committee probe – a demand repeated by the CPI (M) too – into the allegations made in the report. The Congress has asked what was the relation between Ankhi Das and Rashmi Das (her sister), who was a president of ABVP’s JNU unit. Earlier, Bloomberg had published a report in December 2017, saying Facebook employees had become de facto campaign workers for the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi during the elections. Another report, in The Guardian in March 2016, also spoke about Ankhi Das’s connections with the BJP. Source: The Indian Express

5. How NBA stars are campaigning to restore ex-convicts’ voting rights Relevant for GS Prelims & Mains Paper II; IOBR

LeBron James might be cocooned inside a Disney-themed bubble arena in Orlando as the National US Basketball Association (NBA) seeks to complete its season exclusively for the TV audience. But when he checked in to be locked away from the world for three months, basketball’s biggest name today had already helped put into place provisions that reached out to the most marginalised of Floridians: convicted felons who had completed their sentences but were still barred from voting in the November presidential elections, unless they paid outstanding fines and fees. Superstar King James’s ‘More Than a Vote’ brought together black athletes and entertainers who raised $100,000 for such felons.








While Black Lives Matter is America’s most powerful slogan in the run-up to the elections, NBA stars including Udonis Haslem, Trae Young and Draymond Green and WNBA star Skylar Diggins-Smith joined James in More Than a Vote. Up against a state legislature that makes it difficult for almost 1.5 million disenfranchised Floridians to register to vote in this swing state, More Than a Vote has helped re-enfranchise a population with donations to Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, the chief voting rights organization. Why is it happening in Florida?

ProCon.org says Florida has the most disenfranchised citizens in the US — about 10.43% of the state population (over 1.6 million individuals) and 23.3% of blacks — because of felony charges (bribery, perjury, larceny, etc). It used to be one of only four states to impose lifetime bans on sentenced felons. In November 2018, 65% of Floridians voted in favour of restoration of voting rights for ex-felons under Amendment 4 — except for those incarcerated for murder or sexual crimes — on completion of their sentences. However, Republicans brought in a restriction that made it mandatory for ex-felons to clear their fines before they were allowed to vote again. The move is being debated in courts — with a hearing on Wednesday, the same day as the primaries — and has been widely criticised for its exclusionary nature. “Your right to vote shouldn’t depend upon whether or not you can pay to exercise it,” Miami Heat forward and More Than a Vote member Udonis Haslem said in a statement.

How did More Than a Vote start?

The immediate trigger for James and others seemed to be the primary elections in Georgia, marked by long voting lines and voting machine malfunctions in black neighbourhoods, coupled with President Donald Trump’s refusal to allow votes-by-post at the height of the pandemic in the southern state in early June. Georgia’s Stacey Abrams, who ran for the Democrat Vice Presidency candidature before Kamala Harris won it, had lost a narrow Governor’s election in 2018 and suspected rigging by her opponent. More Than a Vote has pledged to raise $100,000 to help pay the fines with over 1.4 million impacted by the law. Why does James’ involvement matter? Besides being NBA’s most influential contemporary figure, James has 66 million followers on Instagram and 46 million on Twitter. He has launched other civil rights campaigns, including one to honour shooting victim Breonna Taylor. “I’m inspired by the likes of Muhammad Ali, I’m inspired by the Bill Russells and the Kareem Abdul-Jabbars, the Oscar Robertsons – those guys who stood when the times were even way worse than they are today. Hopefully, someday down the line, people will recognise me not only for the way I approached the game of basketball, but the way I approached life as an African-American man,” he told The New York Times. Most recently, he said the President’s eyeballs wouldn’t be missed after he declared he wouldn’t watch NBA. While James insists that he and his peers will start with the initial donations for the ‘returning citizens’ (ex-felons) he has also spoken of a voting tutorial, where black voters








will be educated on the polling process and the discrimination and voter suppression they are being subjected to. Why is Florida crucial?

Daniel Smith, professor at University of Florida, studied the impact on nearly 7.7 lakh who would be ineligible to vote because of the restrictions. Current Governor Ron DeSantis defeated Democrat Andrew Gillum in 2018 by fewer than 33,000 votes. In 2016, Trump had won Florida 49% to Hillary Clinton’s 47.8%, when black numbers were low. Trump is desperate for Florida to deliver his re-election and the move to link voting rights to restitution, court fines and fees has been seen as a desperate ploy. The Floridian fight against the constitutional injury has been on for large part of the last decade, and according to a legal petition, “countless hours and millions of dollars” had been spent in convincing 5 million voters to vote in favour of Amendment 4 so everyone gets voting rights.

Who else has taken up this voting rights cause?

Veteran basketball player Michael Jordan announced on July 29 that he and his brand will pitch in with a $100 million commitment to help Formerly Incarcerated and Convicted Peoples and their Families Movement (FICPFM) to combat Black voter suppression. The Florida Rights Restoration Coalition (FRRC) will receive $500,000 to help pay off fines and fees. “One of the ways we change this country’s ingrained racism is by eliminating Black voter suppression. Our initial partners will directly impact the social and political power of Black people in our country. We know it will take time to create the change we want to see, but we’re working quickly to help make the Black Community’s voice be heard,” Jordan said in a press statement. Source: The Indian Express





WhatsApp No. 88986-30000...2020/08/20 · Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and...

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