GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Recently, the Goa High court gave a Judgement regarding the daughter’s right to the family property in Terezinha Martins David vs. Miguel Guarda Rosario Martins & Others.

• In Prakash v Phulwati (2015), a two-judge Bench headed by Justice A K Goel held that the benefit of the 2005 amendment could be granted only to “living daughters of living coparceners” as on September 9, 2005 (the date when the amendment came into force).
• In February 2018, contrary to the 2015 ruling, a two-judge Bench headed by Justice A K Sikri held that the share of a father who died in 2001 will also pass to his daughters as coparceners during the partition of the property as per the 2005 law.

• The petitioner's brothers asserted that all four sisters received "appropriate dowries" at the time of their marriages, after which three of them established the partnership.
• They argued that the suit shop and the land underneath it were added to the partnership and became a part of the company's assets.
• They claimed that as a result, neither the petitioner nor her three sisters had any claim to the suit shop.
• First appellate court upheld the dismissal of the daughter’s suit, set aside the decree in the counterclaim.

Court’s Judgement:

• A daughter’s right to family property will not extinguish even if dowry was provided to her at the time of marriage.
• The mentioned that there is no evidence about providing a sufficient dowry to the daughters of the house. However, even if it is assumed that some dowry was provided to the daughter that does not mean that the daughters cease to have any right in the family property.
• The court observed that although the present suit was filed by the petitioner after four years of instituting the transfer deed, the daughter came to know about it only six weeks prior to the institution of the suit.

What provisions of the Portuguese Civil Code come into the picture?

• Article 1565 of the Code provides that the parents or grandparents shall not be entitled to sell or mortgage to children or grandchildren if the other children or grandchildren do not consent to the sale or mortgage.
• Article 2177 of the Code provides that a co-owner may not, however, dispose of any specific part of the common property unless the same is allotted to him in partition; and the transfer of the right which he has to the share which belongs to him may be restricted in terms of the law.

The Hindu Succession Act, 2005:

• The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 granted equal rights to women.
• Women were recognised as coparceners or joint legal heirs for partition arising from 2005.
• Section 6 of the Act was amended that year to make a daughter of a coparcener also a coparcener by birth “in her own right in the same manner as the son”.
• The law also gave the daughter the same rights and liabilities “in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son”.
• The law applies to ancestral property and to intestate succession in personal property — where succession happens as per law and not through a will.

The Chhattisgarh legislative Assembly on Wednesday passed a Bill, ‘Chhattisgarh Media persons Protection Bill 2023’, aimed at providing protection to media persons and preventing violence against them.

Need of the initiative:

• Journalism remains a deadly profession—and nine times out of ten, the murder of a journalist is unresolved.
• Other threats against journalists, online and offline, continue to grow. Journalist imprisonment is at record highs, while online violence and harassment spur self-censorship and, in some cases, physical attacks.

Provisions of the Bill:

• The Bill asks for the registration of all media persons with a broad classification of journalists, media institutions and mass media, such as news gatherers, freelancers, trainees and interns.
• Formation of a Committee:
• A committee will be constituted under a chairperson to deal with complaints from the media.
• Three media persons with over 10 years of experience, including at least one woman and two senior government officials, will be the members of the committee.
• Powers of the committee:
  • The committee shall have the same powers throughout the state as are vested with the civil court while the trial of a suit under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908 (5 of 1908). 
  • The committee shall have the power to recommend emergency protection measures and protection plans to the Superintendent of Police (SP) of the district concerned, who in turn will take appropriate decisions as per law.
  • The committee will have powers to direct the SP of the district concerned to supervise the investigation and submit a report within 15 days in cases where there are allegations or trials or inquiries/investigations against a media person.
  • The committee can also act against media persons for giving false complaints.
  • For the first false complaint, the registration will be cancelled and for a second time, a fine may go up to Rs 10,000.

Significance:

• The Bill will give protection to journalists in the state of Chhattisgarh.
• This ensures freedom of free speech in Chhattisgarh. Other states should also follow a similar pathway to ensure the freedom of free speech and expression.

Haryana Control of Organised Crime Bill, 2023 was passed in the Haryana Vidhan Sabha’s Budget Session 2023.

What does organised crime mean?

• Organized crime (or organised crime) is a category of transnational, national, or local groupings of highly centralized enterprises run by criminals to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit.

About Haryana’s Crime scenario:

• Haryana ranked second countrywide with a 12.3 per cent rape rate.
• Similarly, 3,724 kidnapping cases were reported in 2021. That's an average of 10 cases of kidnapping every day.
• With a kidnapping rate of 12 per cent, Haryana ranks third in the country after Assam and Orissa.
• Haryana ranks third (next only to Kerala, and Delhi) as regards crime rate across all states and union territories, says the recent report of the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Need of the Initiative:

• According to research on crime patterns in Haryana during the past ten years, there has been a change in the state's criminal behaviour patterns.
• In contrast to prior terrible crimes like murder, dacoity, robbery, kidnapping, and extortion, which were done by people acting alone or in concert, gangsterism and organised crime, have grown in Haryana over the past ten years.
• A well-organized network of criminals, comprising shooters, informers, spotters, and weaponry suppliers, has been developed by organised criminal gangs operating in some Haryana districts.
• These gangs are largely focused on contract assassinations, threat-based extortion from businessmen, the smuggling of drugs, protection rackets, etc. that have the potential to create enormous profits.

Provisions of the bill:

• The bill will empower the state government with powers to intercept wire, electronic or oral communication to control the menace of organised crime.
• According to the Bill, whoever commits an offence of organised crime and if it results in the death of any person, it will be punishable with death or imprisonment for life and also be liable to a fine which will not be less than Rs 1 lakh.
• In any other case, the offender shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which shall not be less than five years but which may extend to imprisonment for life and shall also be liable to a fine not less than ?5 lakh.
• Significance:
  • The bill will act as a deterrent against the organized crime.
  • It will break the nexus between the organized crime and terrorism.
  • This will safeguard the state and country from the menace of organized crime.

Laws related to Organised Crime:

• Criminals engaged in contract killings shall be liable under Section 300 and Section 302 of the IPC which deals with murder.
• Similarly, an organised criminal engaged in kidnapping shall be dealt with under Section 360, Section 363 and Section 364A of the IPC.

Recently, the Prime Minister unveiled a vision document for the rollout of 6G communications technology in India by 2030.

What is 6G?

• While, technically, 6G does not exist today, it has been conceived as a far superior technology promising internet speeds up to 100 times faster than 5G
• As opposed to 5G, at its peak can offer internet speeds up to 10 gigabits per second, 6G promises to offer ultra-low latency with speeds up to 1 terabit per second.

What is India’s 6G roadmap?

• The 6G project will be implemented in two phases,
• In Phase-I, support will be provided to explorative ideas, risky pathways and proof-of-concept tests.
• In Phase II,  Ideas and concepts that show promise and potential for acceptance by the global peer community will be adequately supported to develop them to completion
• The government has also appointed an apex council to oversee the project and focus on issues such as standardisation, identification of the spectrum for 6G usage and figure out finances for research and development.
• The government will have to explore shared use of spectrum, particularly in the higher frequency bands for 6G.

6G across the world:

• South Korea has outlined a 6G research and development plan with Rs.1200 crore worth of investments in the first phase running till 2025.
  • It aims for attaining global leadership, developing key original technologies, making significant contributions to international standards and patents, and building a strong foundation for 6G research and industry.
• In Japan, the Integrated Optical and Wireless Network (IOWN) Forum has published its Vision 2030 white paper for 6G, which laid out key technology directions for infrastructure evolution in four dimensions: cognitive capacity, responsiveness, scalability, and energy efficiency.

A recent study stated that Methane emissions from wetlands raised 5-6% from 2000-2006.

Findings of the report:

• Methane emissions from wetlands rose at a rate of 1.3-1.4 teragrams (1 Tg equals 1,000,000 tonnes) per year from 2000 to 2021.
• Emissions in 2020 and 2021 increased by 14-26 Tg per year and 13-23 Tg per year, respectively, compared to 2000-2006. 
• Methane is responsible for roughly 30 per cent of the rise in temperature since the pre-industrial period. It is also 84 times more potent on a 20-year timescale.

About Methane:

• Methane, a short-lived climate pollutant (SLCP) with an atmospheric lifetime of roughly a decade, is a potent greenhouse gas tens of times more powerful than carbon dioxide at warming the atmosphere.
• Methane’s atmospheric concentration has more than doubled since pre-industrial times and is second only to carbon dioxide in driving climate change during the industrial era.
• Impact:
  • Methane contributes to the formation of ground-level ozone, a dangerous air pollutant.
  • Ozone attributable to anthropogenic methane emissions causes approximately half a million premature deaths per year globally and harms ecosystems and crops by suppressing growth and diminishing production.
• Sources:
  • Approximately 60 per cent of total global methane emissions come from anthropogenic sources.
  • Of these, more than 90 per cent originate from three sectors:
    • fossil fuels- 35 per cent;
    • agriculture- 40 per cent;
    • Waste- 20 per cent
  • Wetlands like swamps, marshes, permafrost (permanently frozen ground), bog and fens are responsible for a third of total methane emissions.
• Reducing human-caused methane emissions is one of the most cost-effective strategies to rapidly reduce the rate of warming and contribute significantly to global efforts to limit temperature rise to 1.5°C.

Steps were taken to Curb Methane Emissions:

• COP 26 Pledges: At COP26 in Glasgow, over 100 countries signed an agreement to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030.
• MethaneSAT: Controlling methane emissions will require further scrutiny of its sources. To this end, satellites that will track methane leakage such as MethaneSAT have been planned to launch.
• The International Energy Forum (IEF) launched the IEF Methane Initiative in June 2021 to develop a methane emissions measurement methodology.

President Droupadi Murmu conferred Padma awards to 106 people belonging to various fields including art, social work, public affairs, trade and industry, medicine, and science and engineering among others.

• M Krishna- Former Karnataka CM S.M. Krishna who is known for his statesman like vision and administrative acumen during a career spanning more than six decades was given the Padma Vibhushan.
• Kumar Mangalam Birla- Chairman of Aditya Birla group (ABG) was given the Padma Bhushan.
  • ABG was one of the first Indian groups to venture abroad and acquire widespread global presence.
• Balkrishna Vithaldas Doshi: The renowned Indian architect, credited with designing some of the most iconic structures in the country such as IIM Bangalore, NIFT Delhi and CEPT University in Ahmedabad, was awarded Padma Vibhushan posthumously.
• Rakesh Jhunjhunwala: Billionaire stock market investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala, who had passed away, last year, was conferred Padma Shri posthumously.

The Padma Awards:

• The Padma Awards are one of the highest civilian honours only after Bharat Ratna of India announced annually on the eve of Republic Day.
• The Awards are given in three categories: Padma Vibhushan (for exceptional and distinguished service), Padma Bhushan (distinguished service of higher order) and Padma Shri (distinguished service).
• The award seeks to recognize achievements in all fields of activities or disciplines where an element of public service is involved.
• The Padma Awards are conferred on the recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee, which is constituted by the Prime Minister every year.
• The awards are presented by the President of India usually in the month of March/April every year where the awardees are presented a Sanad (certificate) signed by the President and a medallion.

Eligibility:

• All persons without distinction of race, occupation, position or sex are eligible for these awards.
• Government servants including those working with PSUs, except doctors and scientists, are not eligible for these Awards.
• The award is normally not conferred posthumously. However, in highly deserving cases, the Government could consider giving an award posthumously.

Other Conditions:

• The awards are given in various disciplines or fields of activities: social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc.

• A higher category of Padma award can be conferred on a person only where a period of at least five years has elapsed since conferment of the earlier Padma award. However, in highly deserving cases, a relaxation can be made by the Awards Committee.
• The total number of awards to be given in a year (excluding posthumous awards and to NRI/foreigners/OCIs) should not be more than 120.