THE HINDU BROKEN INTO 4 LINER | 4th Jan 2019 | Current affairs UPSC Prelims 2019 and 2020
DISSENT NOTE ON CITIZENSHIP BILL
What is happening ? Citizenship Amendment Bill 2016is on discussion.
What is this bill about ? The Bill proposes to give citizenship to six persecuted minorities.
Who are those minorities ? Hindus, Jains, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians and Buddhists — from Pakistan.
What the opposition wants ? The Opposition members have been demanding that the Bill should be made “religion and country neutral.”
CHINA LANDS PROBE ON FAR SIDE OF MOON
What happened ? A Chinese space probe touched down on the far side of the moon.
What is its significance ? The Chang’e-4 lunar probe made the “soft landing” at 02.26 GMT and transmitted the first-ever “close range” image of the far side of the moon.
When it was launched ? December 2018.
Why far side image of moon is so important ? The moon is tidally locked to Earth, rotating at the same rate as it orbits our planet, so most of the far side — or “dark side” — is never visible to us. Previous spacecraft have seen the far side, but none has landed on it.
Where it landed ? The probe, which has a lander and a rover, touched down at a targeted area near the moon’s south pole in the Von Karman Crater, after entering its orbit in mid-December.
Purpose of the mission : astronomical observation, surveying the moon’s terrain, land form and mineral make-up, and measuring the neutron radiation and neutral atoms to study the environment of its far side.
JUDGES’ RETIREMENT AGE WON’T GO UP
The proposal : The Law Ministry there was no proposal as of now to increase the retirement age of Supreme Court judges from 65 to 67 and of High Court judges from 62 to 65.
Ministry response : The Ministry was responding to the recommendation of a Parliamentary Standing Committee that raising the retirement age of judges would help retain the existing judges, which in turn would help in reducing both vacancy and pendency of cases in short run.
The origin : In August 2010, then Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily introduced the Constitution (114th Amendment) Bill, 2010 in the Lok Sabha but lapsed later
Why this bill is important ? There are large number of vacancies of judges in High Courts so increasing the age would minimize the same.
