UPSC ONLINE ACADEMY

Raashid Shah

Dead zones

24. Dead zones • Dead zones are large areas in the ocean that have low oxygen concentration. • The marine life in these areas mostly suffocates and dies or if they are mobile like the fish then, they leave the area. • Though at many times, dead zones occur naturally, scientists are also of the opinion that they are created due to increased human activity. • The main cause of the zones created by humans is nutrient pollution. Excess nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) can result in the overgrowth of algae, which later decomposes in the water consuming excess oxygen, depleting the supply available for the marine life. Dead zones can be found in virtually every oceanic body, the largest encompassing almost the whole bottom of the Baltic Sea. Another large dead zone is located in the Gulf of Mexico. Other dead zones occur off the western coastsof North and South America and off the coast of Namibia and western coast of India. Global warming triggered by climate change is predicted to lead to an expansion of these dead zones. However, it is not certain whether the climate change would lead to the removal of the last traces of oxygen from the bay as well.

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PREVENTIVE DETENTION

PREVENTIVE DETENTION : Article 22 preventive detention: Preventive detention means detention without trial. Punitive detention is to punish person for what he has done and after he is tried in courts for the illegal act committed by him. Generally preventive detention is resorted to in situations that the possessed evidence by authority is not sufficient to make a charge or to secure conviction of the detenu by legal proofs but may still be sufficient to justify his detention on the suspicion that he would commit a wrongful act unless he is detained. Preventive detention is unknown in the USA or UK in times of peace.The Indian constitution authorizes the legislature to make laws providing for “preventive detention” for reasons connected with the security of a state, the maintenance of public order or the maintenance of public supplies and services essential to the community, or reasons connected with Defence, Foreign affairs or the security of India. The constitution however, imposes certain safeguards against abuse of such power(22(4)- (7) Following are those limitations: • Government can detain a person under this clause only for maximum three monthsthereafter, it need to obtain a report from an Advisory Board who will examine the papers submitted by government and by the accused to justify the detention.• Detained person must be informed of the ground of his detention, excepting facts which the detaining authority considers against the public interest to disclose• The detained person must have earliest opportunity of making a representation against the order of detention Legislative power on preventive detention is in concurrent list of constitution that is it is divided between union and states. Detention due to reasons connected to Defence, Security of India and Foreign affairs comes under union whereas, maintenance of public order, production and supplies essential to community related preventive detentions are covered under legislature of the states.Article 22 remains in the Indian constitution as necessary evil.    

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POWERS & DUTIES OF PRESIDENT

POWERS & DUTIES OF PRESIDENT : President of India is the head of executive power of the Union. Supreme Court defines executive power as“It may not be possible to frame an exhaustive definition of what executive function means and implies. Ordinarily it connotes the residue of governmental functions that remain after legislative and judicial functions are taken away subject, of course, to the provision of the Constitution or of any law. ““Executive function comprises both the determination of the policy as well carrying out it into execution, the maintenance of order, the promotion of social and economic welfare, the direction of foreign policy, in fact, the carrying on or supervision of the general administration of the State.” Limitations of President’s power: • President must exercise his powers according to the Constitution otherwise he will be liable to be removed by the process of impeachment.• After 42nd amendment of constitution in 1972, President shall exercise his functions and act in accordance with advice of Council of Ministers and in 44th amendment of 1976, President is given power to send advice for reconsideration to CoM once after that He is bound to accept it.Therefore, it may be said that the powers of the President will be the power of his ministers, in the same manner as the prerogatives of the English Crown have become the ‘privileges of the people’.Subject to above limitations, President’s power can be classified as following• Administrative power that is the execution of the laws and the administration of the departments of the government.• Military power that is the command of the armed forces and the conduct of the war.• Legislative power that is the summoning, prorogation etc. of the legislature, initiation of and assent to legislation and the like.• Judicial power that is granting of pardons, reprieves etc. to persons convicted of crime. Administrative Power: Unlike American president who is read head of the executive, Indian counterpart shall not have any administrative function to discharge nor shall he have that power of control and supervision over departments of the Government. But though the various departments of government of the Union will be carried on under the control and responsibility of the respective ministers in charge, the President will remain the formal head of the administration and all executive actions taken of the Union must be expressed to be taken in the name of president. [Article 77]All officers of GoI will be President’s subordinates. President has power to appoint and remove following state dignitaries:• Prime Minister, Other Ministers of Union Government, Attorney general for India, CAG, Governor, Finance Commission, UPSC commission, CEC and other members of EC, A special officer for SC and ST, Commison to report on administration of Scheduled areas, a commission to investigate into the condition of backward classes, A commison of Official language, A special officer for linguistic minorities, A commission to investigate intereference with water suppies.• Judges of SC and HC on the consultation of CJI Military Power: The military powers of the Indian President shall be lesser that those of either the Americans President or of an English Crown. The supreme command of the defence forces is vested into President and exercise of this power shall be regulated by law( Parliament) whereas President of USA has this power independent of legislative control.Diplomatic power ie power over foreign or external affairs It comprises “all matters which bring the union into relation with any foreign country”. The legislative power as regards to these matter as well as the power of making treaties and implementing them belongs to parliament. But Legislature can not take the initiative in such matters. Thus, the task of negotiating treaties and agreements with other countries, subject to ratification by Parliament, will belong to the President acting on aid and advice of his Ministers. President will represent India in international affairs and will have the power of appointing Indian representatives to other countries and of receiving diplomatic representatives of other states, as shall be recognized by parliament. Legislative Power: President is Part of Union parliament like Crown of England. Here Indian constitution departs from American constitution’s principle of separation of powers among executive, legislature and judiciary. Legislative power of President can be kept under following points 1. Summoning, prorogation and dissolution of both houses of Parliament, and can summon joint sitting of both houses. 2. The Opening address to joint parliament sitting after each General election and first session of each year. Generally opening address is used to announce the programme of the Cabinet for the session and to raise a debate as to the political outlook and matters of general policy or administration. 3. Right to address both houses individually as well as jointly at any time.(article 86). Indian President shall have the right to send messages to either house either in regard to any pending bill or to other matter, and the house must then consider the message. This provision has never used till now by any president. 4. Nominating certain members to the houses that is 12 members having special knowledge or practical experience of literature, science, art and social service(article 80) to Rajya Sabha and 2 member of Anglo – Indian community to Lok Sabha, if he is of opinion that the community is not adequately represented in Lok Sabha.(331) 5. Laying reports like Budget, Supplementary statement, report of Auditor General, recommendations of FC, report of UPSC, report of specail officers for SC/ST and linguistic minorities, report of commission of backward classes before parliament. 6. Previous sanction or recommendation of President for introducing legislation on some matters such as a bill for formation of new state or alteration of boundaries of existing states, a bill providing for any matters specified in art 31A, a Money bill, a bill that requires expenditure from Consolidated fund of India, a bill affecting taxation in which states are interested and state bills introducing restriction on trade. 7. Assent of president is required for a bill to be an act and president

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CONSTITUTIONAL & LEGISLATIVE MEASURES

Constitutional and legislative Measures National Commission for SC is a constitutional body that monitors the safeguardes provided for SC and also review issues concerning their welfare. Commission has been conferred powers of a civil court truing a suit, to summon and enforce the attendance of any persons and examining on oath, receiving evidence on affidavits. National Commision for Safai Karmacharis is statutory body that has been empowered to investigate into specific grievances and matters relating to implmentation of programs and schemes for the welfate of Safai Karmcharis. To abolish the practice of untouchability and curb the high incidence of crimes and atrocities against SCs, efforts are made for implementation of Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955and Scheduled castes & Schedules tribes (Prevention of atrocities) Act, 1989 with the help of 22 special courts under PCR act, 1955 and also 137 special courts under SC&ST(PoA) Act, 1989. NATIONAL COMMISSION FOR WOMEN: The National Commission for Women (NCW), which was constituted as a statutory body in 1992 has a wide mandate to safeguard and promote the interests of women. As per Section (10) of the National Commission for Women Act, 1990, the Commission shall perform any function to safeguard and promote the interest of women in the country. These include, among others,• Investigation and examination of the safeguards provided for women under the Constitution and other laws and making recommendation to Government on measures for their effective implementation;• Reviewing the existing provisions of the Constitution and other laws affecting women and recommendation of amendments and remedial legal measures to meet any lacunae, inadequacies or shortcoming in such laws;• Looking into complaints and taking suo-moto notice of matters relating to deprivation of women’s rights, etc. and taking up the issues with appropriate authorities;• Calling for special studies or investigations into specific problems or situations arising out of discrimination and atrocities against women, identifying the constraints so as to recommend strategies for their removal;• Participation and advice in the planning process for socio-economic development of women, evaluation of the progress made thereof;• Inspection of jails, remand homes etc., where women are kept under custody and seeking remedial action wherever necessary. The Commission has been given powers of a Civil Court while investigating matters relating to safeguards for women under the Constitution and other laws and deprivation of women’s rights, to the extent of summoning and enforcing attendance of any person from any part of India and examining him on oath, requiring discovery and production of any document, receiving evidence on affidavits, requisitioning of any public record or copy thereof from any court or office, issuing Commissions for examination of witnesses and documents and any other matter which may be prescribed.

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ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT

Economic Empowerment : Special central assistance to SCs sub plan(SCSP) is a major scheme for economic advancement of SCs. The main objective of the plan is to five a thrust to family oriented schemes of economic development of SC families living below the poverty line. National SC Finance and Developement corporations(NSFDC) provides financial assistance in form of concessional loans to all SC families living below Double poverty line (presently 44000 in rural areas and 55000 in urban areas per annum). State SC development corporations(SCDC) main functions are: • to identify eligible SC families and motivate them to undertake economic development schems,• sponsor the schemes to financial institutions for credit support,• provide financial assistane in the form of margin money at low rate of interest and subsidy in order to reduce repayment liability and• provide necessary tie up with other poverty alleviation programmes SCDC finances projects by dovetailing loan component from NSFDC/banks along with margin money out of their own funds and subsidy out of Special Central Assistance. Rehabilitation of manual scavengers and their dependents into alternative occupations is done through Self-employment scheme for rehabilitation of manual scavengers. National Safai Karmcharis Finance and Development corporation extends concessional financial assistance to the Safai Karmchary beneficiaries for establishments under ‘Mahila Samriddhi Yojana’  

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SAAKSHAR BHARAT MISSION

Saakshar Bharat Mission (Earlier known as National Literacy Mission) • Covers all adults in the age group 15 and beyond.• Volunteer based mass campaign.• Lok Shikha Kendra will be set up to coordinate and manage all mission programs within their territorial jurisdiction. • Envisages to provide impetus to achieving the goal of a fully literate society engaged in lifelong learning. Objectives 1. Impart functional literacy and numeracy to non-literate and none-numerate adults2. Enable the neo-literate adults specially younger adults to continue their leaning beyond basic literacy and acquire equivalency to formal educational system3. Impart non and neo-literates relevant skill development programs to improve their earning and living conditions.4. Promote a learning society by providing opporutinities to neo literate adults and other potential learners for continuing learningPrinciple target of the mission it to impart functional literacy to 7 Crore adults in the age group of 15 years and beyond. Mission will primarily focus, but not limited to, women.    

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RIGHT TO EDUCATION

 (NIOS) :National Institute of Open schooling NIOS provided access to sustainable and learner-centric quality school education, skill upgrading and training through open and distance learning and ensures convergence of open schooling organisations, resulting in an inclusive learning society, Human resource development, national integration and global understanding. It has aprox 16 lakh learners on roll.NCERT• apex resource organization of govt in the field of school education• It advises and assists the ministry of HRD, and departments of Education in States and UTs in formulation and implementation of their policies and major programs in the field of education, particularly for qualitative improvement of school education.• It undertakes programs related to research development training extension,, international cooperation, publication and dissemination of educational information.• Acts as major agency for implementing the bilateral cultural exchange programs with other countries in the field of school education.

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IMPEACHMENT PROCESS :

IMPEACHMENT PROCESS : Removal of SC judge is termed as impeachment. Consitution lays down procedure in article 124(2) and it is suplemented by Judges (Inquiry ) Act, 1968. 1. A motion addressed to the President is delivered to Speaker which is signed by at least 100 Lok Sabha MPs or 50 Rajya Sabha MPs. 2. A Committee of 2 SC judges and 1 eminent jurist is formed to investigate the motion. 3. If the committee finds the judge guilty of misbehaviour or that he suffers from incapacity, the motion together with report of the committee is taken up for consideration in the House where motion is pending. 4. If motion is passed in both houses by at least 2/3rd members present and voting and at least half of total strength of the house, the address is presented to the President 5. President gives his/her order for removal of Judge based on the address.

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Pre- historic period

Pre-historic period The Antiquity of Man: We do not know when man first appeared upon the earth. We only know that in ages long past, when both the climate and the outline of the continents were very different from what they are at present, primitive man roamed over them with animals now extinct; and that, about 5000 B.C., when the historic curtain first rises, in some favoured regions, as in the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates, there were nations and civilizations already venerable with age, and possessing arts, governments, and institutions that bear evidence of slow growth through very long periods of time. The Prehistoric and the Historic Age :The uncounted millenniums which lie back of the time when man began to keep written records of what he thought and did and of what befell him, are called the Prehistoric Age.The comparatively few centuries of human life which are made known to us through written records comprise the Historic Age. In the valleys of the Nile and the Euphrates there have been discovered written records which were made at least four or five thousand years before Christ; so we say that the historic period began in those lands six or seven thousand years ago. On the island of Crete numerous inscriptions have recently been found that apparently were written as early as the fourth millennium B.C. These, however, have not yet been deciphered. Some written records used by Chinese historians seem to go back to the third millennium before our era. In other regions the historic period still begins for us at a much later date. Thus the truly historic age did not open in Greece and Italy until about 800 or 700 B.C., and for the countries of Northern Europe, speaking broadly, not until about the beginning of our era. How we learn about Prehistoric Man ?A knowledge of what prehistoric man was and what he did is indispensable to the historical student; for the dim prehistoric ages of human life form the childhood of the race, and the man cannot be understood without at least some knowledge of the child.But how, in the absence of written records, are we to find out anything about prehistoric man? In many ways we are able to learn much about him. Thus, for instance, we may regard existing savage and semi-savage races as representing the prehistoric state of the advanced races. As it has been put, what they now are we once were. So by acquainting ourselves with the life and customs of these laggard races we acquaint ourselves with our own prehistoric past and that of all other civilized peoples.Again, the men who lived before the dawn of history left behind them many things which witness as to what manner of men they were. In ancient gravel beds along the streams where they fished or hunted, in the caves which afforded them shelter in the refuse heaps on the sites of their villages or camping places, or in the graves where they laid away their dead, we find great quantities of tools and weapons and other articles shaped by their hands. From these things we learn what skill these early men had acquired as tool makers and to what degree of culture they had attained. Divisions of Prehistoric Times.–The long period of prehistoric times is divided into different ages which are named from the material which man used in the manufacture of his weapons and tools. The earliest epoch is known as the Paleolithic or Old Stone Age; the following one as the Neolithic or New Stone Age; and the later period as the Age of Metals.The division lines between these ages are not sharply drawn. In most countries the epochs run into and overlap one another, just as in modern times the Age of Steam runs into and overlaps the Age of Electricity.The Paleolithic or Old Stone Age : In the Old Stone Age man’s implements were usually made of stone, and particularly of easily chipped flints, though sometimes bones, horns, tusks, and other material were used in their manufacture. These rude tools and weapons of Paleolithic man, found in gravel beds and in caves, are the very oldest things in existence shaped by human hands.The man of the Old Stone Age saw the retreating glaciers of the last great ice age, of which geology tells us. Among the animals which lived with him on the continent of Europe–we know most of Paleolithic man there–were the mammoth, the cave bear, the elk, the rhinoceros, the wild horse, and the reindeer; species which are no longer found in the regions where primitive man hunted- them. As the climate gradually grew warmer they either became extinct or retreated up the mountains or migrated towards the north.What we know of Paleolithic man may be summed up as follows: he was a hunter and fisher; his habitation was a cave or a rock shelter; his implements were in the main roughly shaped flints; he had no domestic animals save possibly the dog and the reindeer; he was practically ignorant of the art of making pottery; he had no belief in a future life, at least we have no evidence that he buried his dead after the manner of those folk who have come to hold such a belief.The length of the Old Stone Age no one knows; we do not attempt to reckon its duration by centuries or millenniums even, but only by geologic epochs. But we do know–and this is something of vastly greater moment than a knowledge of the duration of the age–that the long slow epochs did not pass away without some progress having been made by primeval man, which assures us that though so lowly a creature he was a creature endowed with capacity for growth and improvement.Before the end of the age man had learned the use of fire, as we know from the traces of fire found in the caves which were his abode, and

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Qualification for Member of Parliament in India

Qualification for Member of Parliament in India : The Indian Constitution is a detailed document, It provides everything in minute detail. This applies equally to the membership of the Parliament.The constitution stipulates that only Indian Citizens of not less than 25 years of age are qualified to be members of the Lok Sabha. Similarly only Indian citizens of not less than 30 years of age may be members of the Rajya Sabha. The Parliament may prescribe additional qualifications under Art 84 of the constitution. Disqualification for Member of Parliament of India The constitution stipulates that a citizen is disqualified to become a member of the Parliament :1. if he holds an office of profit under the Union of a State Government, (the ministers are not deemed to hold offices of profit)2. if he is declared to be of unsound mind by a court3. if he is a bankrupt4. if he has lost his Indian citizenship through voluntary renunciation or through any other means. Additional criteria for disqualification may be provided by laws passed by the Parliament. Any dispute as to whether any disqualification has been incurred by a citizen is settled by the President in consultation with the election commission. In terms of Article 103, the decision given by the President is final. It should be noted that a person cannot remain simultaneously a member of both the Houses of the Parliament or a member of either House of the Parliament and a member of a state legislature. An M.P. may forfeit his membership of the Parliament in a variety of ways.o If a member incurs any of the disqualification mentioned in the constitution, he loses his membership in the Parliament. Thus a member may become mad leading to his disqualification.o Membership of the Parliament may be vacated through resignation, or it may fail vacant through death.o Similarly, if any person is elected to both the Houses of the Parliament, he will have to relinquish his membership in either House of the Parliament.o In case of election to either House of the Parliament and to the Legislative Assembly in a state, the member concerned may retain his membership of only one body.o Finally continuous absence from the Parliament for 60 days or more without permission, may lead to expulsion of the member concerned by the House.  

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