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DAILY NEWS ANALYSIS

Monthly DNA

24 Feb, 2021

29 Min Read

Military coup in Myanmar

GS-II : International Relations South East Asia

The military coup in Myanmar

Introduction

  • The military, which had shared power with Aung San Suu Kyi’s National League for Democracy (NLD) for five years, orchestrated the coup on February 1, hours before the country’s newly elected Parliament, in which the NLD had a huge majority, was set to convene.

Details

  • The military, which controlled Myanmar through direct rule for almost 50 years since independence from Britain in 1948, has now deployed the familiar repressive tactics.
  • Tatmadaw has detained Ms Suu Kyi, President Win Myint and several of the NLD’s other top leaders, suspended the Internet, blocked social networks and warned the public of repercussions if they joined protests.

Rising protests in demand for restoration of democratically elected government (Revival of the Saffron Revolution)

  • But protests have only grown by the day.
  • On Saturday, two unarmed protesters were killed by security forces in Mandalay.
  • They demand the Generals free the detained elected leaders and restore democracy.
    • Myanmar’s military has been one of the most consistent enemies of democracy.
  • In the past, challenges to its powers were met with brutal crackdowns. Still, the junta has continued to face popular resistance.
  • The crackdown on the protests of August 8, 1988, did not prevent the ‘saffron revolution’ of 2007protests led by Buddhist monks.
  • Then Shwe, the then leader of the country, suppressed them but had to offer a new Constitution in 2008 as a compromise.
  • This Constitution was the basis of the partial transition to democracy in 2015 when the NLD came to power.
  • The protesters have called for civil disobedience, stoppage of work, sit-ins and mass demonstrations.

Conclusion

  • The strike has already paralysed the banking system at a time when the economy, hit hard by COVID-19, is struggling to stand on its feet.
  • The military is also facing international sanctions and condemnation.
  • There is no easy way out for Gen. Min Aung Hlaing, the commander-in-chief and the coup’s main architect, from the crisis he has put himself in.

Way ahead

  • The Generals should realise that years of repression have not killed Myanmar’s aspirations for democracy.
  • They should not repeat 1988 or 2007. They should stand down, respect the election results, release the leaders and hand power back to the elected government.

Source: TH

National Urban Digital Mission

GS-II : Governance Urban Governance

National Urban Digital Mission

  • National Urban Digital Mission (NUDM) was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA) and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
  • NUDM will create a shared digital infrastructure for urban India by working across the three pillars of people, process, and platform to provide holistic support to cities and towns.
  • It will institutionalise a citizen-centric, principles-based and ecosystem-driven approach to urban governance and service delivery in 2022 cities by 2022, and across all cities and towns in India by 2024.
  • NUDM has articulated a set of governing principles, and inherits the technology design principles of the National Urban Innovation Stack (NUIS), whose strategy and approach were released by MoHUA in 2019.
  • The principles give rise to standards, specifications, and certifications, across the three pillars of people, process, and platforms.

Source: TH

India Urban Data Exchange

GS-II : Governance Data Privacy

India Urban Data Exchange

  • India Urban Data Exchange (IUDX) is an open-source software platform developed by the Smart Cities Mission and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.
  • It facilitates the secure exchange of Smart City data amongst data platforms, 3rd party authenticated and authorised applications and other sources.
  • This Smart City data could be monetised in the future, similar to the UPI for bank accounts and digital payments.
  • It serves as an interface for data providers and data users to share, request, and access datasets related to cities, urban governance, and urban service delivery.
  • As the number of cities on IUDX expands, this will scale up to uniform sharing between data producers and data consumers across urban India.

Source: TH

Smart Code Platform

GS-II : Governance Urban Governance

Smart Code Platform

  • It enables all ecosystem stakeholders to contribute to a repository of open-source code for various solutions and applications for urban governance.
  • It addresses the challenges that Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) face in the development and deployment of digital applications to address urban challenges.
  • The source code available on the platform will be free to use without any licensing or subscription fees, thus limiting costs to those involved with customising the code and developing a locally-relevant solution.

Source: TH

Central Employment Guarantee Council

GS-II : Indian Polity Statutory Bodies

Central Employment Guarantee Council

  • The Council was constituted under Section 10 of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005.
  • The Central Government has constituted this Council to discharge the functions and perform duties assigned to it by or under the provisions of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, 2005.
  • Chairperson - Minister of Rural Development, Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare.
  • It advises the Central Government on all matters concerning the implementation of this Act.
  • It reviews the monitoring and redressal mechanism and recommends improvements required.
  • It prepares annual reports to be laid before Parliament by the Central Government on the implementation of this Act.

Source: TH

Bio-Restoration

GS-III : Biodiversity & Environment Conservation

Bio-Restoration

  • New technology for ecological restoration (Bio-restoration) was developed by Indian scientists.
  • It is helping in the revival of mangroves degraded due to rising sea levels, climate change and human intrusion in the Sunderbans, West Bengal.
  • The Sundarbans is a protected wetland under the Ramsar Convention and is also a UNESCO World Heritage site.
  • Ecological restoration means reviving the native ecosystem in degraded areas while maintaining the diversity of original flora and fauna through regeneration but bringing down the regeneration period to 4 to 5 years.
  • The restoration process begins with stabilising the entire site by planting native salt tolerant grasses. It involves the use of growth-promoting bacteria.
  • The restoration project was initiated with help from the Department of Biotechnology in 2013.

Source: TH

Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess

GS-III : Economic Issues Agriculture

Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess

  • The Budget 2021-22 has proposed a new levy, Agriculture Infrastructure Development Cess (AIDC) on 29 items.
  • The purpose of the new AIDC is to raise funds to finance spending on developing agriculture infrastructure.
  • The new cess will be levied on 29 products, such as gold, silver, as well as imported alcohol (excluding beer), imported apple, pulses, palm oil, urea, and petrol/diesel including branded ones.
  • The new cess will only offset the reduction in Basic Custom Duty (BCD), Basic Excise Duty (BED) and Special Additional Excise Duty (SAED) on unbranded and branded petrol-diesel.
  • Thus it will not raise the tax incidence for consumers.

Cess

  • Cess is a special-purpose tax levied over and above basic tax rates.
  • Drawing power from Articles 270 and 271 of the Constitution, the Centre collects cess and deposits it in the Consolidated Fund of India.
  • The money collected is then transferred to a segregated fund to be used for a specific purposes.
  • But, this cess and surcharge money is not part of the divisible pool, from which devolution of Central taxes takes place to the States.

Source: TH

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