UPSC Essentials : Key terms of past week with MCQs

Money Bills vs Finance Bills

WHY IN NEWS?

— The Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill is a normal Bill and not a Money bill, Parliamentary Affairs Minister Pralhad Joshi told The Indian Express. Earlier, it was reported that Bill was being introduced under Article 117 of the Constitution, which deals with special provisions for Finance Bills.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Khadija Khan Explains:

What is a Finance Bill?

— In a general sense, any Bill that relates to revenue or expenditure is a Financial Bill. A Money Bill is also a specific type of Finance Bill, that must deal only with matters specified in Article 110 (1) (a) to (g).

— More specifically, Article 117 of the Constitution deals with the special provisions relating to Financial Bills. Article 117 (1) indicates that a Bill that makes provision for any of the matters specified in clauses (a) to (f) of Article 110 (1) can be introduced or moved only on the President’s recommendation and cannot be introduced in the Rajya Sabha. Examples of this first category of Financial Bills are Money Bills and other Financial Bills originating solely in the Lok Sabha.

— The second category of Finance Bills is dealt with under Article 117 (3) of the Constitution. Such Bills are more like ordinary Bills. The difference between this kind of Financial Bill and an ordinary Bill is that if the former is enacted, it will involve expenditure from the Consolidated Fund of India and cannot be passed by either House unless the President has recommended its consideration. In all other respects, such Financial Bills are just like ordinary Bills, and can even be introduced in the Rajya Sabha, amended by it, or be subjected to deliberation by both Houses in a joint sitting.

— A Financial Bill becomes a Money Bill when it exclusively falls under one of the seven heads listed under Article 110(1), which defines Money Bills. Moreover, a Money Bill is a Financial Bill that is certified by the Speaker.

What is the difference between Money Bills and Financial Bills?

— Article 110 defines a “Money Bill” as one containing provisions dealing with taxes, regulation of the government’s borrowing of money, and expenditure or receipt of money from the Consolidated Fund of India, among others, whereas Article 109 delineates the procedure for the passage of such a Bill and confers an overriding authority on the Lok Sabha in the passage of Money Bills.

— A major difference between money and Financial Bills is that while the latter has the provision of including the Rajya Sabha’s (Upper House) recommendations, the former does not make their inclusion mandatory. The Lok Sabha has the right to reject the Rajya Sabha’s recommendations when it comes to Money Bills.

— What differentiates a Money Bill from any ordinary Bill or Financial Bill is that while an ordinary Bill can originate in either house, a Money Bill can only be introduced in the Lok Sabha, as laid down in Article 117 (1). Additionally, no one can introduce or move Money Bills in the Lok Sabha, except on the President’s recommendation. Amendments relating to the reduction or abolition of any tax are exempt from the requirement of the President’s recommendation.

— The two prerequisites for any financial Bill to become a Money Bill are that first, it must only be introduced in the Lok Sabha and not the Rajya Sabha. Secondly, these bills can only be introduced on the President’s recommendation.

How are money and Financial Bills passed?

— The role of the Rajya Sabha in passing Money Bills is restricted. Such Bills can originate only in the Lok Sabha. After being passed by the Lok Sabha, Money Bills are sent to the Rajya Sabha for its recommendations. Within 14 days, the Upper House must submit the Bill back to the Lower House with its non-binding recommendations. If the Lok Sabha rejects the recommendations, the Bill is deemed to have passed by both Houses in the form in which it was passed by the Lok Sabha without the recommendations of the Rajya Sabha.

— Even if the Rajya Sabha doesn’t respond with its recommendations within 14 days, the same consequences would follow. Thus, when it comes to Money Bills, the Rajya Sabha only has a recommendatory role.

— Meanwhile, ordinary Bills and other Financial Bills still require the agreement of both Houses of Parliament to ensure their passage. They can very well be rejected or amended by the Rajya Sabha, unlike Money Bills. Also, all other Financial Bills, separate from Money Bills, must go through the rigours of all stages in the Rajya Sabha as ordinary Bills. This means that while the President can summon a joint sitting of both Houses to resolve differences over a deadlock in passing an ordinary Bill, there is no provision for a joint sitting for differences over a Money Bill.

— Over the last seven years, the government has introduced multiple legislations through the Money Bill route, the most notable of which are the Aadhaar Act, 2016, and the Finance Act, 2017.

(Source: Money Bills vs Finance Bills: What are the differences, what the court has ruled by  Khadija Khan)

Point to ponder: Putting aside colonial convention, it was the Constitution that forged the most crucial relationship in the Republic – the one between the President and Parliament. Discuss.

1. MCQ: 

What will follow if a Money Bill is substantially amended by the Rajya Sabha? (UPSC CSE 2013)

(a) The Lok Sabha may still proceed with the Bill, accepting or not accepting the recommendations of the Rajya Sabha

(b) The Lok Sabha cannot consider the Bill further

(c) The Lok Sabha may send the Bill to the Rajya Sabha for reconsideration

(d) The President may call a joint sitting for passing the Bill

National language

WHY IN NEWS?

— Earlier this week, the Supreme Court observed that although there are at least 22 official languages in the country, Hindi is “the national language”.

— In doing so, Justice Dipankar Datta dismissed a plea for transferring a motor accident case pending before the Motor Accident Claims Tribunal (MACT) in Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh, to the MACT in Darjeeling, West Bengal.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Khadija Khan Explains:

Is Hindi India’s “national language”?

— More than 100 languages and 270 mother tongues are spoken across the country. However, the Constitution does not list any one language as India’s “national language”.

— Clause 1 of Article 343 (“Official language of the Union”) says “The official language of the Union shall be Hindi in Devanagari script”, and “The form of numerals to be used for the official purposes of the Union shall be the international form of Indian numerals.”

— Article 351 (“Directive for development of the Hindi language”) says “It shall be the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language, to develop it so that it may serve as a medium of expression for all the elements of the composite culture of India”.

— However, the provision says, this must be done “without interfering with its genius, the forms, style and expressions used in Hindustani and in the other languages of India specified in the Eighth Schedule”.

What is the Eighth Schedule?

— There are 22 languages listed under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution. These include Hindi, Bengali, Punjabi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Assamese, Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, and Urdu, among others.

— There were only 14 languages in this Schedule initially; others including Bodo, Dogri, Maithili, and Santhali were added in 2004.

— There are demands to include another 38 languages in the Eighth Schedule, such as Bhojpuri, Garhwali (Pahari), and Rajasthani. The Ministry of Home Affairs has said that “the evolution of dialects and languages is dynamic and influenced by socio-eco-political developments”, which makes it difficult to fix any criterion for languages, “whether to distinguish them from dialects, or for inclusion in the Eighth Schedule to the Constitution of India”.

— Notably, English is absent from the list of 22 in the Eighth Schedule. It is one of the 99 non-scheduled languages of India.

What is the status of English, then?

— English, alongside Hindi, is one of the two official languages of the central government.

— Article 343(2) says that “for a period of fifteen years from the commencement of this Constitution, the English language shall continue to be used for all the official purposes of the Union for which it was being used immediately before such commencement”. The Constitution of India commenced, or came into force, on January 26, 1950.

— Under Article 343(3), “Parliament may by law provide for the use, after the said period of fifteen years, of— (a) the English language, or (b) the Devanagari form of numerals, for such purposes as may be specified in the law.”

— On January 26, 1965, Section 3 of the Official Languages Act, 1963 came into effect, which provided for the “continuation of English Language for official purposes of the Union and for use in Parliament” even after the expiration of the 15-year period after the commencement of the Constitution.

(Source: The language used in courts: What the Constitution and laws say by Khadija Khan)

Point to ponder: A language, after all, is a device for communication between people. Discuss.

2. MCQ:

Which of the language is not listed under the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution?

(a) Nepali

(b) Santhali

(c) Dogri

(d) Rajasthani

Superconductivity

WHY IN NEWS?

— Last week, two South Korean researchers posted two related papers on the internet, not yet peer-reviewed, claiming that a lead-based compound they had developed had shown superconducting properties at room temperature, under normal pressure conditions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

Amitabh Sinha Explains:

— Superconductivity refers to a state in which a material offers zero, or near-zero, resistance to electric current. A current is nothing but the movement of charged particles, electrons in most cases, in a particular direction. When the electrons move, they collide, and interact, with other atoms in the material.

— The movement is not entirely smooth, it encounters resistance which, as of now, is an essential property in electrical conductivity. Resistance involves a loss of energy, mostly in the form of heat. Part of the reason why electrical appliances get heated is this resistance.

— Elimination of this resistance can result in super-efficient electrical appliances, removal of transmission losses in power cables, and massive gains in energy. But that is not all. Superconducting materials show very interesting behaviour under magnetic field which allows the functioning of systems like the MRI scan machine and the superfast Maglev trains that float above the tracks. Superconductors have very critical uses in a wide variety of other scenarios as well.

— Unfortunately, the resistance to electric conductivity cannot simply be wished away. In many ways, resistance is like friction that any motion encounters – almost a built-in feature. But while friction cannot be entirely eliminated – and this is actually a good thing – resistance can be brought down to zero, or negligible levels, in certain extreme conditions to create superconductors.

— In fact, superconductors are already being used, but their use is limited because of the extreme conditions that have to be created.

What current superconductors look like?

— As of now, superconductivity can be achieved only at very low temperatures, more than 250 degree Celsius below zero, very close to absolute zero which is – 273 degree Celsius.

— The first material to have been discovered to show super conductive properties was Mercury, which becomes a superconductor at close to 270 degree Celsius below zero. Most of the other materials commonly used as superconductors – Lead, Aluminum, Tin, Niobium, and several others – also become superconducting at comparable temperatures, called critical temperature.

— In some cases, materials can exhibit superconductivity at slightly higher temperatures as well, but under increased pressure conditions. It is all about creating the right kind of conditions for the electrons in the material to move without resistance, and a variety of tweaks are experimented with depending upon the internal atomic structure of the material.

— Even the materials that are classified as ‘high-temperature’ superconductors, as of now, show superconductive properties only well below -150 degrees Celsius. There have been claims for superconductivity at much higher temperatures, in some cases, above zero degree Celsius as well, but these are either contested or require extreme pressure conditions. In any case, these are not the materials that scientists are searching for.

— Scientists are looking for a material that can display superconductivity at room temperature (usually considered to be between 20 and 25 degree Celsius) and under normal pressure conditions. But room-temperature superconductivity does not necessarily have to be at room temperature.

— The term is commonly used to describe superconductive properties in conditions that are easy to create. For example, a minus 5 or minus 10 degree Celsius temperature conditions are not very difficult to create, nor are 70 or 90 degree Celsius conditions. Any material that would display superconductivity in an easily obtainable condition would qualify as the superconducting solution that the world is searching for.

(Source: Why room temperature superconductivity remains science’s elusive Holy Grail by Amitabh Sinha)

Point to ponder: Why India’s semiconductor manufacturing industry is yet to take off?

3. MCQ:

It state in which a material offers zero, or near-zero, resistance to electric current. ‘It’ refers to:

(a) electrostaticity 

(b) semiconductivity

(c) thermal conductivity

(d) none of the above

Privilege Motion

WHY IN NEWS?

— Rajya Sabha Chairman Jagdeep Dhankhar referred complaints related to the privilege of the House against TMC’s Derek O’Brien and AAP’s Raghav Chadha to the privileges committee on Thursday (August 3).

KEY TAKEAWAYS

What is a privilege motion?

— The two rules referred to here relate to the concept of parliamentary privilege, which are certain rights conferred to the Members of Parliament for conducting the business of the Parliament. There is no codified list of the exact privileges, but it includes the right of free expression in the course of Parliamentary debates and Members of Parliament will not be liable for court proceedings for this.

— If there is a belief that such a privilege has been breached, a motion can be raised by any member. It can be admitted by the Chairman. They can then refer it to the Privileges Committee. The Chairman can, from time to time, nominate such a Committee, consisting of ten members. It will also have a Chairman appointed by the Rajya Sabha Chairman.

— The right to raise a question of privilege is based on satisfying two conditions, namely: (i) the question shall be restricted to a specific matter of recent occurrence, and (ii) the matter requires the intervention of the Council.
Similar provisions exist in Lok Sabha with the Speaker having the power to make such decisions. The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion. Therefore, the Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.

What action can the privileges committee take?

— The mandate of the committee is to examine such cases and “make such recommendations as it may deem fit”. It can call the relevant people as part of its examination and look at related documents. It has to then make a report and if the Council has not fixed any time for its presentation, the report shall be presented within one month of the date on which reference to the Committee was made.

— A motion has to be passed for the consideration of the report and amendments can be suggested. The Chairman or any member of the Committee or any other member can move that the Council agrees, disagrees, or agrees with amendments, with the recommendations contained in the report.

(With PTI inputs)

(Source: What is a Privilege Motion and how does the Committee of Privileges in Parliament examine it?)

Point to ponder: What are Committees of Parliament, and what do they do?

4. MCQ:

With reference to the Parliament of India, which of the following Parliamentary Committees scrutinizes and reports to the Ilouse whether the powers to make regulations, rules, sub-rules, by-laws, etc. conferred by the Constitution or delegated by the Parliament are being properly exercised by the Executive within the scope of such delegation ? (UPSC CSE 2018)

(a) Committee on Government Assurances

(b) Committee on Subordinate Legislation

(c) Rules Committee

(d) Business Advisory Committee

‘Sub-categorisation’ of OBCs

WHY IN NEWS?

— The long awaited report of a commission set up to examine the sub-categorisation of Other Backward Classes (OBCs) was submitted to President Droupadi Murmu on Monday (July 31), the last working day of the commission.

— The four-member commission headed by Justice G Rohini, a retired Chief Justice of Delhi High Court, was appointed on October 2, 2017, and received as many as 13 extensions to its tenure.

— The commission was set up in recognition of the perceived distortions in the affirmative action policy, which was seen as leading to a situation in which a few castes cornered the bulk of benefits available under the 27% quota for OBCs, and tasked with suggesting corrective actions.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

What is the need for sub-categorisation of OBCs?

— OBCs get 27 per cent reservation in central government jobs and admission to educational institutions. There are more than 2,600 entries in the Central List of OBCs, but over the years, a perception has taken root that only a few affluent communities among them have benefited from the quota. Therefore, there is an argument that a “sub-categorisation” of OBCs — quotas within the 27% quota — is needed in order to ensure “equitable distribution” of the benefits of reservation.

— Even as the Justice Rohini Commission was examining the matter, a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in August 2020 intervened in the sub-categorisation debate, ruling that the 2005 decision of another five-judge Bench in ‘E V Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh’ must be revisited.

— ‘Chinnaiah’ had held that no special sub-quota can be introduced within the quota for SCs and STs for the benefit of castes or tribes that were more backward than the others on these lists. The 2020 verdict of the SC referring ‘Chinnaiah’ to a larger Bench was passed in ‘State of Punjab vs Davinder Singh’ in which the court examined the validity of a 2006 Punjab law that created sub-classification within the SCs, and sought to reserve half the SC quota for certain identified castes.

What were the terms of reference of the Rohini Commission?

—  The commission’s brief was originally to:

“Examine the extent of inequitable distribution of benefits of reservation among the castes or communities included in the broad category of OBCs with reference to such classes included in the Central List”;

“Work out the mechanism, criteria, norms and parameters in a scientific approach for sub-categorisation within such OBCs”; and

“Take up the exercise of identifying the respective castes or communities or sub-castes or synonyms in the Central List of OBCs and classifying them into their respective sub-categories”.

— It was set up with a tenure of 12 weeks ending January 3, 2018, but was given repeated extensions.

— On July 30, 2019, the commission wrote to the government that it had “noted several ambiguities in the list… [and] is of the opinion that these have to be clarified/ rectified before the sub-categorised central list is prepared”.

— Thus, on January 22, 2020, a fourth item was added to the terms of reference: “To study the various entries in the Central List of OBCs and recommend correction of any repetitions, ambiguities, inconsistencies and errors of spelling or transcription.”

Note: The report of the commission is widely expected to be politically sensitive, with a direct bearing on the electoral calculations of parties ahead of Lok Sabha elections. The contents of the report have not been made public as yet.

(Source: Rohini panel submits long-awaited report: what is ‘sub-categorisation’ of OBCs? by Shyamlal Yadav)

Point to ponder: Why has it been felt necessary to create categories within OBCs for reservations?

Akira

WHY IN NEWS?

— Earlier this month, the central government’s Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) issued an advisory flagging the emergence of a new ransomware called Akira. The Gurgaon police have also raised an alert about Akira.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

— Ransomware is essentially a kind of malware — a software used to gain unauthorised access to systems to steal data. This data can then be used by cyber criminals to demand a ransom.

— If someone is indeed attacked, the immediate countermeasures include: detaching infected devices on the same network, disconnecting all external storage devices, and one should also inspect system logs for suspicious activities.

(Source: What is Akira, a ransomware CERT-In has flagged by Bijin Jose)

Point to ponder: How to strengthen cyber security the right way?

6. MCQ: 

With reference to Akira Ransomware, consider the following statements:

1. It is essentially a kind of malware, software used to gain unauthorised access to systems to steal data.

2. It targets computer systems that run only on Windows.

3. It uses a double-extortion technique to exfiltrate and encrypt data to increase the chances of extracting money from its victims.

How many of the statements given above are correct?

(a) Only one

(b) Only two

(c) All three

(d) None

ANSWERS TO MCQs: 1 (a), 2 (d), 3 (b), 4 (b), 5 (c), 6 (b)

(The UPSC Essentials Indian Express is now on Telegram- Indian Express UPSC Hub. Click here to join our YouTube channel and stay updated with the latest updates.

Note: Catch the UPSC Weekly Quiz every Saturday evening and brush up on your current affairs knowledge.)

Also Read

UPSC Essentials | Weekly news express : Major Bills of Monsoon Session 2023

UPSC Essentials | Get Inspired: B K Singh, former forest officer on Veera...

UPSC Weekly Current Affairs Quiz : August 05 to August 12, 2023

UPSC Essentials | Society & Social Justice : Urbanisation and associated ...

Share your views, answers and suggestions in the comment box or at manas.srivastava@indianexpress.com