 Good evening aspirants, welcome to daily hindi news analysis by Shankara Aceh Academy. Today's date is 11th August 2023. Displayed here are the list of articles we are going to see today. Let us get into the discussion. Recently, love and men who are convicted in Bilkis Bono case were prematurely released. Here, Bilkis Bono case is related to 2002 Kujara 3 Oats. A public interest litigation was filed against this release of convicts before the end of their punishment period. The Supreme Court questioned the need for public interest litigation filed by third parties in the case. This is all about the article. In our discussion, we will see some basic information about PIL. So, the PIL stands for public interest litigation. It is when anyone, even if he is not directly affected, can go to the court to talk about a problem that affects many people. This is usually done to help the public or society and not for personal gain. It is like asking the court to solve a problem that is important for everyone. So, what is the difference between a normal petition and a public interest litigation? Normally, a petition in a case can be filed in court only by the affected person. But in PIL, anyone can file a petition even if he is not affected directly by the case. In case of PIL, the person must have a genuine interest in the matter and can show the public interest is being harmed. In normal case, a petitioner must pay the court fees while in PIL, the petitioner is exempt from paying the court fees. So, the main difference between a normal petition and a public interest litigation is that a PIL is filed on behalf of public interest while a normal petition is filed on behalf of an individual or organization. Very important thing to note that a public interest litigation can be filed against state government, central government or even against municipal authorities but cannot be filed against any private party. The term PIL is not explicitly defined in Indian constitution or any other Indian laws. It was inspired from American judicial system. The Supreme Court in Janadathal v. HS Choudhury case in 1992 gave a definition for PIL. Here, the Supreme Court clarified that PIL means a legal action which is initiated in court in order to enforce public interest or general interest. So, this is the definition given by Supreme Court in 1992. Now, who can file a public interest litigation? Note that there is a concept called locus tandy in judiciary. It means only the affected person can go to the court for filing a case. In case of PIL, this concept of locus tandy is relaxed. This means that even someone not directly affected by the matter can approach the court. As long it's in the larger public interest rather than personal gain. Also note that sometimes the court takes a case in suyomoto manner. This means the court itself takes a case on its own even if no one filed a petition. So, how can a public interest litigation be filed? A simple letter or postcard addressed to the Chief Justice of India or Chief Justice of High Court can be sufficient to initiate a PIL. The court might choose to acknowledge the letter and treat it as PIL. So, these are the basic information about public interest litigation. Now, let us see some criticisms about PIL. Sometimes, public interest litigation may give rise to problem of competing rights. For example, when a person files a PIL against an industry which causes serious pollution to the residents of the area, the court may order the closure of this polluting industry. Here, the interest of the workmen and their families who are deprived of their livelihood may not be taken into account by the court. So, this is the problem of competing rights. The main issue with PIL is that there is a concern about potential misuse of PILs. Many parties are trying to use PIL for vested interests. Next important issue is, Indian judiciary is already burdened by huge number of cases. In addition to this, PILs will only increase this burden. Also, there is a criticism that judiciary is stepping into the powers of executive and legislature through PIL. Sometimes, this may violate the separation of powers. So, this is all about the public interest litigation. Now, let us move on to our next topic. Look at this article. Recently, the Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority conducted the tiger census. According to this updated census, Mathya Pradesh is reported to have 785 tigers, which is about one-fifth of the total tigers in the country. This is a 50 percentage increase since the last census. The editorial here highlights the steps taken by Mathya Pradesh government to improve the tiger numbers. Let us start by seeing how there is a lot of improvement in tigers in Mathya Pradesh. What Mathya Pradesh government did is very simple. Rather than focusing just on tiger numbers, they focused on creating suitable habitats for tigers. So, how did they create suitable habitats for tigers? Mathya Pradesh government brought back certain animals like swamp deer, guar to new places where tigers can have them as food. They also moved deer from the crowded areas to the less crowded areas. They did this by catching the animals and releasing them in better spots. This helped to keep the balance between tigers and their prey. This in turn resulted in increased number of tigers. This is the policy adopted by Mathya Pradesh government and this is called prey management policy. The article says that other states must also adapt this prey management policy to increase their tiger numbers. This is in news mainly due to the recent amendment made to forest conservation act. The amendment makes it easier for big pieces of forest land to be turned into forest and industries. This means that forests where animals live can get divided into small parts which is not good for them. This fragmentation of forest will affect the predator and prey ratio. To fix this issue, more states need to come up with plans to manage the prey population. That is, the state must adopt scientific prey management policies. This is all about the editorial article. As a part of this discussion, let us see some efforts taken by Indian government to conserve the tigers. The first major step was project tiger. It was launched in 1973. This was one of the earliest and most significant efforts to conserve tigers in the world. Through this project tiger, the government has established protected areas like tiger reserves to conserve the tiger. The project also aimed to stop poaching and habitat destruction. The second important thing is national tiger conservation authority, NTCA. This is responsible for formulating policies, plans and programs for the conservation of tigers in India. It sets the direction for tiger conservation efforts across the country. It also oversees the implementation of project tiger. The third important step is wildlife crime control bureau. This wildlife crime control bureau enforces the Wildlife Protection Act and other relevant laws related to poaching, killing, trafficking and trading of tigers and their derivatives. It collaborates with various enforcement agencies such as police, customs and border control to ensure a coordinated response to the wildlife crime. Then the Wildlife Institute of India and National Tiger Conservation Authority conduct a periodic tiger census every four years. So, these are the major steps taken to conserve tiger habitat in India. Finally, the government has placed tiger in Scheduled 1 of Wildlife Protection Act 1972. So, this offers tigers a maximum protection. So, this is about the conservation of tigers in India. Let us move to the next topic. Take a look at this news article. It says that special economic zones which were approved in northeastern states have still not become operational. See, there are five special economic zones which were approved between 2007 and 2021 in northeastern states. But none of them are currently operational. This concern was reported by Parliament Standing Committee on Commerce. So, this is all about the news. Now, in this context, let us understand some points about special economic zones, their types and the issues associated with it. So, what is special economic zone? It is a geographical region that is designed to generate positive economic growth in the country. This particular region has liberal economic rules. In other words, special economic zones have favorable economic regulations compared to other regions in the same country. For example, government provides tax incentives or lower tax rates in special economic zones. The first special economic zone was established at Kondlah in Gujarat in 1965. So, basically, special economic zones is an area where foreign and domestic industries can set up their factories and focus on import and exports with a wide range of benefits and supports from government. Now, let us see the objectives of special economic zones. The main objective is the promotion of exports and also generation of additional economic activity. The next important objective is the promotion of investment in domestic industries. It also helps in creation of employment opportunities and the development of infrastructure facilities in our country. Apart from this, special economic zones also promote foreign direct investment. These special economic zones are administered by SEZ Act which was passed in 2005. Now, with these basics, let us understand the types of special economic zones. There are many types of special economic zones. The important ones are free trade zones, export processing zone, industrial zone, specialized zone, etc. Now, let us take free trade zones. These zones are called commercial free or foreign trade zones. These trade zones are specially secured areas where they have special outcome procedures and duty-free treatment. They are generally designated for processing of imported and exported goods. Now, coming to the export processing zone. The export processing zones are generally used for commercial and industrial exports. The main goal of these zone is to encourage the economic growth through foreign investment in processing sector. See the export processing zones offer certain benefits such as tax and import duty exemptions. Now, moving on to the industrial parks. See the industrial parks are designated to be used for industrial purpose rather than commercial or residential purpose. These areas often have tax related incentives. So, these are the types of special economic zones. Now, let us see some important issues with special economic zones in India. See the India's special economic zones are inspired from Chinese special economic zones. But the size of SEZ in India is smaller compared to other countries like China. This is one important issue with SEZ in India. The next is large area of land allocated for special economic zones are underutilized or not properly utilized. Like we have seen in the news, most of the SEZs allocated in northeastern states are not still operational. So, this is another important issue in India. The next is there is a lot of competition between foreign investors from investing in India because the competition is going towards the Asian countries. The next important issue is existence of multiple models of special economic zones. See there are multiple models of economic zones such as coastal economic zone, special economic zone, national investment and manufacturing zone, textile parks, food parks. So, these multiple models pose challenges in integrating the various models. So, these are the important issues with regard to special economic zones in India. In order to address these issues, government has constituted Baba Kalyani committee in 2018 to make recommendations to improve the efficiency of special economic zones in India. This committee has recommended for the promotion of MSME investments in special economic zones by linking with the MSME schemes that government has already implemented in country. So, these are the basic things we need to know about special economic zones. So, in this discussion, we have seen some basic information about special economic zones. Now, let us move to our next topic. Look at this news article. Yesterday, the government of India introduced chief election commissioner and other election commissioner's bill in Rajasabha. The article here highlights the issues with the bill. So, in our discussion, we will see some important changes brought by the bill and the issues associated with it. So, let us see the basic things. Part 15 of the constitution that includes the articles 324 to 329 deals with the elections. Here, the article 324 deals with election commission. This article says that the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners can be appointed by president, but this must be made in accordance with the law made by parliament. Until now, the parliament has not made any law in this regard. So, the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners are appointed by president based on the recommendation of central government. Recently in March 2023, the constitution bench of supreme court made a ruling. In this judgment, the supreme court mentioned that president must refer to a selection committee before making the appointment of chief election commissioner and other election commissioners. This selection committee will consist of prime minister, leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and chief justice of India. The court also mentioned that this method of appointment must be followed until a new law was made by parliament. So, in this regard, the central government introduced chief election commissioner and other election commissioners bill in Rajesh Sabha. So, this bill has introduced a search committee and a selection committee. The search committee will be headed by a cabinet secretary and will have two other members. This search committee will prepare a list of five members which can be considered by the selection committee. The selection committee is also a three-member body. It will be headed by prime minister and it also includes the leader of opposition in Lok Sabha and a cabinet minister nominated by prime minister. The selection committee can make its recommendation to the president either from the list prepared by search committee or any other candidates it feels fit. So, this means while making the recommendation to president, the selection committee need not to restrict itself by the list prepared by search committee. Here, the main criticism is the composition of selection committee because the selection committee does not have any representation from judiciary. Also, since the two members of selection committee, prime minister and union cabinet minister will most often be from same political party, the opposition fears that government will appoint chief election commissioner who will be favorable to the government. So, the opposition party wants the government to move back to the supreme court judgment and include a judicial member into the selection committee. So, these are the important changes brought by the bill and the issues with these changes. The bill also proposes some other changes as well. Firstly, the bill repeals the Election Commission Act 1991. Secondly, the bill adds a provision regarding qualification of chief election commissioner and other election commissioners. According to the bill, persons who are holding or have held posts equivalent to the rank of secretary to the central government will be eligible to be appointed as chief election commissioner. Thirdly, the bill changes some provision regarding salary allowances. Earlier the salary and allowances of election commissioners were equal to that of supreme court judge. But the bill provides that salary and allowances of election commissioners will be same as that of cabinet secretary. So, this is an important change brought by the bill. Lastly, the bill says that election commissioners will not be eligible for reappointment. So, these are the important changes brought by this chief election commissioner and other election commissioners bill 2023. So, this is all regarding this discussion. Let us move to our next topic. Take a look at this news article. The news is that yesterday monetary policy committee of RBI had met to decide on policy rates. See, the committee has raised the projection for retail inflation from 5.1% to 5.4% for this current financial year. This means that the retail inflation is going to increase in upcoming months. In addition to this, the committee also observed that the headline inflation in our country is expected to surge due to increase in vegetable price. See, despite the raise in projection of inflation, the monetary policy committee kept the policy rapport rate unchanged at 6.5%. Apart from this, the committee also decided to increase the cash reserve ratio to address the problem of excess liquidity with the banks. See, this measure was taken to observe the surplus liquidity generated by various factors, including the return of 2000 rupees notes to the banking system. This is all about the news. So, in this discussion, we will learn about various monetary policy tools of RBI to control the inflation and then about monetary policy committee of RBI. Before getting into the discussion, the syllabus relevant to this topic is highlighted here for you. Now, let us start with monetary policy tools of RBI. See, the main objective of monetary policy tool of RBI is to control the money supply and to manage the liquidity in our country. On one hand, the monetary policy tool helps the RBI to balance the inflation and on the other hand, it helps to aid economic growth of the country. Now, how the monetary policy tools help to control inflation? As we all know, the inflation refers to general increase in prices of goods and services. The inflation is caused due to excess money supply in the economy or it may be caused due to increased demand for particular goods. For example, let us take tomatoes. See, currently the tomato is sold at very high prices in market. The price rise is due to increased demand for tomatoes or due to less production of tomatoes. Because of huge demand and less production, the price of tomato has been raised in the market. This is one example of inflation. Let us see another example. Let us assume that banks provide cheaper loans to its customers. In this situation, the people used to borrow more money from the banks, right? And they will be left with excess money. As more money get into the people's hands, they tend to spend more. This situation also leads to increased demand in the market. Subsequently, the prices of goods will increase. So, this is another example of inflation. See, to control these kinds of inflation, RBI uses various monetary policy tools like Reporate, Reverse Reporate, CRR, SLR, Open Market Operations and so on. Using these monetary policy tools, RBI controls the money supply in the economy, thereby controlling the inflation. Now we will understand important monetary policy tools one by one. First, let us take Reporate and Reverse Reporate. Here the Reporate is the rate at which RBI lends money to the commercial banks. See, if the RBI increases the Reporate, the commercial banks do not like to buy more money from RBI because the banks need to pay more interest. So, this ultimately leads to decreased money supply in the economy and this helps in controlling the inflation. Because the money supply decreases, the inflation will also decreases. Now coming to the Reverse Reporate. The Reverse Reporate is the rate at which RBI borrows money from commercial banks. See, if the RBI increases the Reverse Reporate, then it will attract the commercial banks to lend more money to RBI. By increasing the Reverse Reporate, the RBI sucks excess money available with the banks. So, the banks will have less money to circulate. So, by this process, the excess money supply in the economy is absorbed by the RBI. It means the money supply in the economy is decreased. As we know, if the money supply is decreased, the inflation will also decrease. This is how the monetary policy tools like Reporate and Reverse Reporate helps to control the money supply and inflation in the economy. Now let us see about Cash Reserve Ratio. CRR. CRR refers to percentage of total deposits of banks that has to be kept with RBI in the form of cash. See, the RBI used to change the ratio from time to time. For example, when there is high inflation, RBI increases the CRR, so the banks need to keep more cash with the RBI. This result in reduction of cash supply in the economy, which in turn reduces the inflation. Now when the economy faces a slowdown, RBI lowers the CRR so the banks can have more money to spend and this increases the cash flow and hence revives the economic slowdown. This is how the cash reserve ratio is used by RBI to control inflation. Now coming to open market operations. Open market operation refers to buying and selling of government securities by RBI. This is carried out to regulate short-term money supply. If the RBI wants to induce more money into the banking system, it will buy government securities and inject funds and if RBI want to reduce the money supply, it will sell the government securities to banks. So this is how open market operation helps to control inflation and money supply. Now let us see about statutory liquidity ratio, SLR. SLR refers to a percentage of total deposits of banks that they have to keep with themselves. The main difference between SLR and CRR is that CRR is kept with RBI while SLR is kept within the banks. So the banks can invest in government approved securities for maintaining the SLR. This is all about the monetary policy tools of RBI. Now let us see about the monetary policy committee which is mentioned in the news. This monetary policy committee MPC was constituted by central government under RBI Act 1934. The MPC functions under Reserve Bank of India. It is responsible for deciding rates like reporate, reverse reporate and other rates to achieve the inflation target. Note that this committee is assisted by Reserve Bank's Monetary Policy Department. What is the composition of MPC? MPC consists of six members. RBI governor serves as the chairperson of this committee. Then deputy governor in charge of monetary policy is also a member of this committee. Apart from RBI governor and deputy governor, one official is nominated by RBI is also a part of this committee. So these three members are from RBI side and the remaining three members represent the Indian government. These three government nominees are appointed by central government based on recommendation of search comm selection committee. The selection committee consists of cabinet secretary RBI governor, secretary of department of economic affairs and three experts in economics. So based on this committee recommendation, three members are appointed to monetary policy committee on behalf of central government. So these three members from RBI side and three members from government side. These six members forms the monetary policy committee. Now let us see what are the functions of monetary policy committee. The main function is to maintain the price stability and achieve inflation targets set by government. The primary goal of the committee is to contain the inflation within 4% with a deviation of 2%. That means the inflation can be around 4% plus or minus 2%. The decision making of monetary policy committee is by a majority voting. If there is a tie, RBI governor has the casting vote. This means that the vote of RBI governor will be the deciding factor in the functioning of the monetary policy committee. Important thing to note here is that the committee's decision is binding on RBI and the RBI has to implement the recommended changes in the policy rate. A minimum of four members including the governor or deputy governor must be present to constitute a quorum of MPC meeting. This means if there is less than four members the committee cannot function. So in conclusion the monetary policy committee of RBI plays a crucial role in maintaining the price stability and controlling the inflation in India. That's all about this discussion. We have seen the various tools of monetary policy by RBI and we have seen about monetary policy committee. So let's move on to our next topic. Now we have come to the prelims practice question discussion. Look at the first question. It is about national tiger conservation authority. Look at the first statement. NTCA was constituted under wildlife production act 1972. Look at this second statement. Minister for ministry of environment forest is a chairperson of NTCA and minister for state in ministry of environment and forest acts as a vice chairperson. These two statements are correct. Look at the third statement NTCA approves a tiger conservation plan prepared by state government. Yes this statement is also correct. NTCA addresses livelihood interest of local people in areas surrounding tiger reserves. Yes this statement is also correct. So the answer is D all the four. Now look at this second question. It is about public interest litigation. So we have to find which of the following is not entertained as PIL by Supreme Court. Look at the first and third statements petition relating to land law tenant matters and petition relating to early hearing of cases pending in high court and subordinate courts. So these two statements are the correct answer because these petitions are not entertained as public interest litigation by Supreme Court. So the correct answer is C one and three. Now look at the third question. It is about election commission. Look at all the four statements. The first statement is incorrect because it is the Supreme Court and High Court which look after the election disputes and not the chief election commissioner. So the first statement is incorrect while the three statements are correct. So the answer is C only three. Now look at the fourth question. It is about special economic zones. As we saw in the discussion all the given statements are correct. They have more liberal economic laws. They provide tax incentives. They promote investment from foreign countries. So all the three statements are correct and the correct answer is option C all the three. And this is the quiz question for you today. Try to answer it in comment section. This is the main question for today. Try to write an answer and post it in the comment section. So we have come to the end of the discussion. If you like the video please share it with your friends and don't forget to subscribe to Shankar A.S. Academy YouTube channel. Thank you.