Sep 2011 National

A 6.8-magnitude earthquake struck the Sikkim-Nepal border on 18 September 2011 and sent shockwaves across north and east India and Bangladesh. The quake’s epi centre lay in an area in Sikkim 64 km from the capital, Gangtok. Six persons were reported to have been killed and 50 injured in the quake. In Nepal, five persons were killed and 44 injured. The West Bengal districts of Darjeeling and Jalpaiguri were also badly affected.

Election Commission of India (ECI) for the first time decided to deploy volunteers of National Service Scheme (NSS) and cadets of National Cadet Corps (NCC) for election duty in Uttar Pradesh and other states going for Assembly polls in 2012. ECI has planned to deploy the volunteers at polling stations with more than 1,000 voters and where there are more than two booths in the same place.

The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) on 30 September 2011 was appointed as external auditor of two major UN organizations, the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). It is for the first time that a supreme audit institution from outside Europe has been appointed to these prestigious positions in these two organisations. These appointments were made in the face of competition from other developed countries like the U.K., Spain and Norway. The tenure of these audits could extend up to six years.

According to data released by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on 23 September 2011, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana are the top three states from where maximum cases of bonded labour have been reported in the past 18 years.As per the report 1300 cases of human rights violations pertaining to bonded labour were reported from Uttar Pradesh followed by Punjab (465) and Haryana (425). Delhi stood at the ninth position with 45 such cases.

The Gujarat Legislative Assembly on 27 September 2011 passed the Gujarat Animal Preservation (Amendment) Bill 2011. The bill seeks seven-year jail term for cow slaughter or even transporting the animal for that purpose. The Maldharis(Pastoral People) in Gujarat had been demanding stricter laws against cow slaughter and trade of beef for a long time.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh unveiled the new policy which aims at dealing with Naxalism through a five year integrated plan while addressing the concluding session of the day long national workshop on development strategies in naxal affected districts in New Delhi on 13 September 2011. This programme is aimed at bridging the development deficit in the extremely backward areas that are affected left wing extremism. The Government is contemplating to bring 20 more naxal affected districts under the Integrated Action Plan. A specialised battalion is being raised to ensure security and development in these districts.

The Supreme Court of India ruled that farmers, whose land is being acquired by the government, should be compensated not only for their land but also for the plantation on it. A bench comprising Justices V Raveendran, H L Gokhale and Gyan Sudha Misra, set aside the order of the Bombay High Court which had held that once the compensation is awarded for the land, there cannot be additional or separate compensation for the trees. The Apex Court ruled, if the land value has been determined with reference to the sale statistics or compensation awarded for a nearby vacant land, then trees will have to be valued separately.

The Land Acquistion, Relief and Rehabilitation Bill, 2011, was approved by the Union Cabinet on 5 September 2011. It aims to put in place a transparent and legal framework for land acquisition. According to the proposed Bill, consent of at least 80 per cent of people will be mandatory to acquire land except where it is acquired for a public purpose. The Bill defines public purpose as land use for strategic purposes, infrastructure and industry. The Bill calls for different land acquisition norms for rural and urban areas. Under the new Bill, the states will be free to have their own land acquisition laws. The proposed law seeks to replace the 117-year-old Land Acquisition Bill, 1894 and for the first time integrates both land acquisition and R&R package.

Main features of land draft bill

• For land acquired in rural areas, the compensation will be four times the market value. The compensation package for urban area however remains two times the market value.
• Linear projects like Railways and Power lines will not be covered under the Bill.
  Irrigated multi crop land can be acquired upto five percent. However, an equal area of wasteland within the district will have to be developed.
• In case the acquired land is not used for the stated purpose the land will not be returned to the original owner but will go to state.
• States are free to have their own land acquisition law.
• Public purpose has been defined as land use for strategic purpose, infrastructure and industry.
• Consent of 80 percent people would be mandatory in case the land is acquired for private project. Consent not mandatory when land is acquired by the government for its own use.
• Urgency clause to be used in rarest of rarest case, such as emergencies or national calamity.
• Compensation should be completed within three months of acquisition. Re settlement and rehab monetary part should be completed within 6 months.
• Persons who have been dependent on the said land for at least three years will be eligible for compensation.

A tripartite agreement for Suspension of Operations (against ULFA) was signed between the Centre, the Assam state government and the outlawed United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) in New Delhi on 3 September 2011 with the objective of bringing permanent peace in Assam. ULFA had earlier agreed to abjure violence and to find a solution to the problems as perceived by the outfit through peaceful negotiations with the Union Government and the Assam Government.

The Supreme Court of India held that rule of law is an integral part of the basic structure of the constitution and cannot be abrogated by Parliament of India which is bound by it.

The bench opined that any law which deprives a person of his private property for private interest, will be unlawful and unfair and undermines the rule of law and can be subjected to judicial review. In Kesavananda Bharati’s case, this Court enunciated rule of law as one of the most important aspects of the doctrine of basic structure. Rule of law affirms Parliament’s supremacy while at the same time denying it sovereignty over the Constitution. A five-judge constitutional bench headed by Chief Justice SH Kapadia gave the judgmentThe bench, which also included Justices Mukundakam Sharma, K S Radhakrishnan, Swatanter Kumar and Anil R Dave passed the judgment while upholding the Roerich and Devika Rani Roerich Estate Acquisition Act, 1996, enacted by the Karnataka legislature to protect the 465-acre estate of the famous Russian painter Svetoslav and his wife, in Bangalore.

Asian Development Bank, ADB has approved 500 million dollar loan to help India improve rail services. The bank has approved a multi-tranche financing facility for the Railway Sector Investment Program, RSIP. The RSIP is being carried out by the Ministry of Railways and will end by December 2018.Asian Development Bank loan will be used to develop freight and passenger routes in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Maharashtra, Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh, including the critical Golden Quadrilateral corridor that connects Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi. The loan will be utilised for laying down additional lines and the electrification of hundreds of kilometers of existing track, along with installing new signaling.

Telugu is all set to become a world language, a great effort by the information and technology department to 'technicalise' the language so that it could be uploaded online easily like English, French, Spanish, Arabic, Portuguese and Russian. The IT department of Andhra Pradesh is now embarking on standardization of Telugu language so that many of the complex words can be translated into Unicode so that there would be no trouble in uploading the Telugu text. "Telugu is the language of more than 10 crore people.

In Assam, the process to set up the first integrated tea park of the North East region has been initiated. Sources in the tea industry said that the proposed park would come up at Chaygaon on the outskirts of Guwahati. The tea park would provide infrastructure of international standard and the state of the art facilities. It will create world-class facilities for processing, warehousing, auction centre, blending and packaging, and generate employment. North East contributes 55 percent of the country’s total tea production. After completion of the park, the tea export is likely to be increased largely.