What is the Inter-State Council?

 

It is a mechanism that was constituted "to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India". The Inter-State Council was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it.

Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday (June 16), asking that at least three meetings of the Inter-State Council should be held every year to “strengthen the spirit of cooperative federalism”.

Stalin also suggested that bills of national importance should be placed before the Council before being tabled in Parliament. He said this was because there is no “effective and interactive communication” between the states and the Centre on issues of common interest.

What is the Inter-State Council?

It is a mechanism that was constituted “to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India”. The Inter-State Council was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it. The Council is basically meant to serve as a forum for discussions among various governments.

In 1988, the Sarkaria Commission suggested the Council should exist as a permanent body, and in 1990 it came into existence through a Presidential Order.

The main functions of the Council are inquiring into and advising on disputes between states, investigating and discussing subjects in which two states or states and the Union have a common intereThe Prime Minister is the chairman of the Council, whose members include the Chief Ministers of all states and UTs with legislative assemblies, and Administrators of other UTs. Six Ministers of Cabinet rank in the Centre’s Council of Ministers, nominated by the Prime Minister, are also its members.

What issues has Chief Minister Stalin raised?

Mainly, the DMK chief has flagged the lack of regular meetings, saying the Council has met only once in the last six years — and that there has been no meeting since July 2016. Since its constitution in 1990, the body has met only 11 times, although its procedure states it should meet at least three times every year.

Stalin appreciated the reconstitution of the Council, carried out last month. The body will now have 10 Union Ministers as permanent invitees, and the standing committee of the Council has been reconstituted with Home Minister Amit Shah as Chairman. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, UP, and Gujarat are some of the other standing committee members.

Stalin has frequently disagreed with the central government’s policies on matters of taxation, on the medical examination NEET, and often talked about the rights of states. Highlighting the need for the Council to meet regularly, he said, “What could be settled amicably among the executive branches is often taken to the doorsteps of the judicial branch.”

Tamil Nadu has long advocated the need for a Council. In 1969, Stalin’s father, M Karunanidhi, spoke about setting up an expert committee to study Centre-state relations. Months later, his government appointed a committee headed by P V Rajamannar, a former Madras High Court Chief Justice, which submitted a report in 1971, recommending “the Inter-State Council should be constituted immediately”.

What happened in the last meeting of the Inter State Council?

In 2016, the meeting included consideration of the Punchhi Commission’s recommendations on Centre-State Relations that were published in 2010. At the time, M Karunanidhi had criticised then Chief Minister J Jayalalithaa for not personally attending the meeting.

The meeting saw detailed discussion on the recommendations. States asked for maintaining the federal structure amid growing “centralisation”. Imposition of Article 356 of the Constitution, which deals with the imposition of President’s Rule in states, was a matter of concern. Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, who was then with the Opposition, demanded that the post of Governor should be abolished.

Written by Rishika Singh

Source: Indian Express, 17/06/22

What is ‘critical information infrastructure’, who protects it?

 The Union Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has declared IT resources of ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and UPI managing entity NPCI as ‘critical information infrastructure’. The notification to this effect was issued on June 16. What is ‘critical information infrastructure’, and who protects it?

What is critical information infrastructure?

The Information Technology Act of 2000 defines “Critical Information Infrastructure” as a “computer resource, the incapacitation or destruction of which shall have debilitating impact on national security, economy, public health or safety”.

The government, under the Act, has the power to declare any data, database, IT network or communications infrastructure as CII to protect that digital asset.

Any person who secures access or attempts to secure access to a protected system in violation of the law can be punished with a jail term of up to 10 years.

Why is CII classification and protection necessary?

World over governments have been moving with alacrity to protect their critical information infrastructure. IT resources form the backbone of countless critical operations in a country’s infrastructure, and given their interconnectedness, disruptions can have a cascading effect across sectors. An information technology failure at a power grid can lead to prolonged outages crippling other sectors like healthcare, banking services.

In 2007, a wave of denial-of-service attacks, allegedly from Russian IP addresses, hit major Estonian banks, government bodies – ministries and parliament, and media outlets. It was cyber aggression of the kind that the world had not seen before, and it came in the wake of Estonia’s decision to move a memorial to the Soviet Red Army to a location of less prominence. The attacks played havoc in one of the most networked countries in the world for almost three weeks.

On October 12, 2020 as India battled the pandemic, the electric grid supply to Mumbai suddenly snapped hitting the mega city’s hospitals, trains and businesses. Later, a study by a US firm that looks into the use of the internet by states, claimed that this power outage could have been a cyber attack, allegedly from a China-linked group, aimed at critical infrastructure. The government, however, was quick to deny any cyber attack in Mumbai.

But the incident underlined the possibility of hostile state and non-state actors probing internet-dependent critical systems in other countries, and the necessity to fortify such assets.

How are CIIs protected in India?

Created in January 2014, the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre (NCIIPC) is the nodal agency for taking all measures to protect the nation’s critical information infrastructure.It is mandated to guard CIIs from “unauthorized access, modification, use, disclosure, disruption, incapacitation or distraction”.

According to its website, NCIIPC will monitor and forecast national-level threats to CII for policy guidance, expertise sharing and situational awareness for early warning or alerts. The basic responsibility for protecting the CII system shall lie with the agency running that CII, it says.

“In the event of any threat to critical information infrastructure the National Critical Information Infrastructure Protection Centre may call for information and give directions to the critical sectors or persons serving or having a critical impact on Critical Information Infrastructure,” the NCIIPC website adds.

Written by Saurabh Kapoor

Source: Indian Express, 19/06/22

Quote of the Day June 13, 2022

 

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.”
Tenzin Gyatso, the 14th Dalai Lama

“यदि आप दूसरों को खुश देखना चाहते हैं तो सहानुभूति को अपनाएं। यदि आप खुश होना चाहते हैं तो सहानुभूति अपनाएं।”
तेंजिन ग्यात्सो, 14वें दलाई लामा

Economic & Poltical Weekly: Table of Contents

 

Vol. 57, Issue No. 24, 11 Jun, 2022

Perspectives

New-generation Malayalam Cinema - A Decade of Promise

Kunal Ray, Mochish K S

Book Reviews

Twin Faces of Liberal International Toleration

Vaibhav Abnave

Review Article

Where Boundaries Bleed - The Many Subtleties of George W Grierson’s Linguistic Survey of India

Smita Gandotra

Editorials

Can Growth Be Sustained?

Comment

On Targeted Killings in Kashmir

Rekha Chowdhary

From the Editor's Desk

Caste Census and Its ‘Consciousness’

From 50 Years Ago

From 50 Years Ago: Background to Big Power Involvement in Africa

Commentary

Uttar Pradesh Elections - A Duel in or for Democracy?

Manjur Ali

Pro-poorness of Growth in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu - A Comparative Analysis during the 2000s

Priyabrata Sahoo, D C Pathak

Feminist Periscoping into Research on the Surrogacy Industry in India

Annu Daftuar

Is There Any Dichotomy between India’s New FTA Strategy and Its Trade Policy?

Surendar Singh, Suvajit Banerjee

Special Articles

A Brief History of Blue Revolution 2.0 - Key Drivers, Actors, and Policies in the Indian Context

Jeffrey Immanuel J, N C Narayanan

Success Factories - Investigating the Indian Corporate Test-preparation Industry

Vinayak Kishore, Ankur Sarin

A Quantitative Assessment of the EU–India Free Trade Agreement - Pre and Post Brexit

Vani Archana

Current Statistics

Current Statistics

Postscript

Damsels Not in Distress - Adivasi Protagonists in Alice Ekka’s Writings

Ankita Apurva

Thenga Pali - Forest Vigilance and Traditional Customs

Sujit Kumar Mishra, Soumya Vinayan

Live From Lok Kalyan Marg

Anisha Drall 

Last Lines

Letters

Delaying the Census

Aditi chaudhary, Nandlal Mishra

Incentivising Forest Protection

S S Rasaily

Current Affairs- June 12, 2022

 

INDIA

– BJP wins 8 out of 16 Rajya Sabha seats in Maharashtra, Karnataka Rajasthan and Haryana; Congress bags five seats

– Nagaland Police frames charges against 30 soldiers over 2021 killing of civilians

– 4 Holy Relics of Lord Buddha from India to be taken to Mongolia for 11-day exposition as part of celebrations of Mongolian Buddha Purnima

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– FM Nirmala Sitharaman dedicates to nation Dharohar – National Museum of Customs and GST in Goa

– RBL Bank appoints R Subramaniakumar as new MD & CEO

– India extends Sri Lanka $55 mn credit line for fertiliser imports

WORLD

– WTO Ministerial Conference to begin from June 12 in Geneva; Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal to lead Indian delegation

– Senior Indian diplomat Amandeep Singh Gill appointed by UN chief Antonio Guterres as his Envoy on Technology

– 17 countries elected into UN Economic and Social Council for 3-year term

– United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopts India-sponsored resolution on multilingualism that mentions the Hindi language for the first time

– Bangladesh: Women’s Hostel funded by Indian govt inaugurated in Sylhet

– In a first, Canada to require a warning be printed on every cigarette

SPORTS

– Norway’s Magnus Carlsen wins Norway Chess 2022 at Stavanger; India’s Viswanathan Anand is third

– R. Praggnanandhaa wins Norway Chess Group A open chess tournament

Current Affairs- June 13, 2022

 

INDIA

– J&K ranks highest among UTs in national e-governance service delivery assessment (NeSDA)

– Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah chairs 25th meeting of the Western Zonal Council meeting at Diu

– Union Home and Cooperation Minister Amit Shah Amit Shah inaugurates memorial museum at decommissioned warship INS Khukri at Diu

– Doordarshan and Doordarshan News Director-General Mayank Kumar Agrawal given additional charge of Prasar Bharati CEO

ECONOMY & CORPORATE

– China’s Tencent buys stake worth $264 million in Flipkart from Binny Bansal

– RTS (Radio Technical Systems) of Russia signs contract with AAI to supply 34 sets of instrument landing system

– New guidelines for celebrity endorsements issued; endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, belief or experience of the endorsers

WORLD

– World Day Against Child Labour celebrated on June 12; theme: “Universal Social Protection to End Child Labour”

– WHO advisory group suggests Huanan seafood market in China’s Wuhan played important role in amplification of Covid-19 pandemic

– New school building inaugurated in Sarlahi, Nepal under grant assistance from India

SPORTS

– Avinash Sable creates new national record of 8:12.48s in men’s 3000m steeplechase

– Manpreet Kaur creates new national record in women’s shot put with a throw of 18.06

Green Open Access Rules 2022

 On June 6, 2022 Union Government has notified the Green Open Access Rules 2022, that will accelerate India’s renewable energy programmes.

What are Green Open Access Rules 2022?

• These rules are notified to promote generation, purchase and consumption of green energy including the energy generated through waste-to-energy plants.
• The rules also enable a simplified procedure for open access to green power.
• They also accelerate the renewable energy programmes, with the aim of ensuring access to affordable, sustainable, reliable, and green energy for all.
• These rules will help consumes in demanding green power from DISCOMS (power distribution companies).
• The rules will provide certainty on open access charges, that will be levied on green energy open access consumers.

Green Open Access

According to the rules, green open access is allowed to any consumer. Limit of open access transaction has also been decreased from 1 MW (megawatt) to 100 kW for green energy. This will also enable small consumers to purchase renewable power by means of open access. There will be transparency in approval process of open access applications. According to the rules, approvals are required to be granted in 15 days, otherwise it deemed to have been approved subject. It will be done through a national portal.

Tariff for green energy

Tariff for the green energy will be determined by appropriate commission. It will consist of average pooled power purchase cost of renewable energy, service charges covering prudent cost of distribution licensee and cross-subsidy charges, in order to provide the green energy to the consumers. These rules will streamline overall approval process to grant open access, including improve predictability and timely approval of cash flows for renewable power producers. It will bring uniformity in the application procedure.

Cap on increasing the cross-subsidy surcharge

Rules provides for cap on increasing cross-subsidy surcharges and do away with additional surcharge. It will incentivise the consumers to go green as well addresses the issues pressing the growth of open access in India. Consumers will receive certificates if they consume green power.