Daily Prelims Notes 19 June 2022

Daily Prelims Notes

19 June 2022

Table Of Contents

1. Bills in Committee stage
2. Inter-State Council
3. Marine heatwave fuelled super cyclone Amphan
4. New species of bamboo-­dwelling bat found in Meghalaya

1. Bills in Committee stage

Subject : Polity

Section: Parliament

Context:

• It’s the government that decides to send Bills to Standing Committees, said Loksabha Speaker in a recent interview.

 Parliament functioning in recent years 

• During the pandemic, the duration of sittings was reduced but the Lok Sabha clocked 167% productivity, which was a record high.
• There are frequent complaints by the Opposition that not enough Bills are being sent to parliamentary committees.

Procedure for passing a bill:

• Every  ordinary  bill  has  to  pass  through  the  five  stages  in the Parliament before it finds a place on the Statute Book.After first reading , a bill can be referred to a parliamentary committee .
• Committee Stage:The  usual  practice  is  to  refer  the  bill  to  a  select  committee  of  the House.
  • This  committee  examines  the  bill  thoroughly  and  in  detail, clause  by  clause.
  • It  can  also  amend  its  provisions,  but  without altering  the  principles  underlying  it.
  • After  completing  the  scrutiny and discussion, the committee reports the bill back to the House.

Parliamentary standing committee:

• Broadly,  parliamentary  committees  are  of  two  kinds–Standing Committees  and  Ad  Hoc  Committees.
  • The  former  are  permanent (constituted  every  year  or  periodically)  and  work  on  a  continuous basis,  while  the  latter  are  temporary  and  cease  to  exist  on completion of the task assigned to them
• The Constitution of India makes a mention of these committees at different places, but without making any specific provisions regarding their composition, tenure, functions, etc. All these matters are dealt by the rules of two Houses.
• Accordingly, a parliamentary committee means a committee that:
  • Is appointed or elected by the House or nominated by the Speaker / Chairman
  • Works under the direction of the Speaker / Chairman
  • Presents its report to the House or to the Speaker / Chairman
  • Has a secretariat provided by the Lok Sabha / Rajya Sabha
• There are 24 DRSCs — 16 from Lok Sabha and 8 from Rajya Sabha. Each committee has 21 MPs from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha.
• The role: Given the volume of legislative business and the time constraints it is not possible for MPs to discuss and scrutinise all bills in the House.
• Parliamentary committees, either formed for a specific bill (select committee) or permanent (standing committees that are reconstituted annually) allow for a scrutiny with the possibility of tapping subject experts from outside and other stakeholders in an environment where MPs are not bound by party positions or whips.

2. Inter-State Council

Subject : Polity

Section: Parliament

Context:

• Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin wrote to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, asking that at least three meetings of the Inter-State Council should be held every year to “strengthen the spirit of cooperative federalism”.

Concept:

What is the Inter-State Council?

• It is a mechanism that was constituted “to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India”.
• The Inter-State Council was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it.
• The Council is basically meant to serve as a forum for discussions among various governments.
• In 1988, the Sarkaria Commission suggested the Council should exist as a permanent body, and in 1990 it came into existence through a Presidential Order.
• The main functions of the Council are
  • inquiring into and advising on disputes between states,
  • investigating and discussing subjects in which two states or states and the Union have a common interest, and
  • making recommendations for the better coordination of policy and action.
• The Prime Minister is the chairman of the Council, whose members include the Chief Ministers of all states and UTs with legislative assemblies, and Administrators of other UTs.
• Six Ministers of Cabinet rank in the Centre’s Council of Ministers, nominated by the Prime Minister, are also its members.
• There  is  also  a  Standing  Committee  of  the  Council.  It  was  set  up in  1996  for  continuous  consultation  and  processing  of  matters  for  the consideration of the Council.
  • It consists of the following members:
    • (i) Union Home Minister as the Chairman
    • (ii) Five Union Cabinet Ministers
    • (iii) Nine Chief Ministers
• The  Council  is  assisted  by  a  secretariat  called  the  Inter-State Council  Secretariat.  This  secretariat  was  set-up  in  1991  and  is headed  by  a  secretary  to  the  Government  of  India.  Since  2011,  it  has also functioned as the secretariat of the Zonal Councils.

Issues with Inter-State Council

• Lack of regular meetings, the Council has met only once in the last six years and that there has been no meeting since July 2016.
• Since its constitution in 1990, the body has met only 11 times, although its procedure states it should meet at least three times every year.
• The reconstitution of the council was appreciated, carried out last month. The body will now have 10 Union Ministers as permanent invitees, and the standing committee of the Council was reconstituted with Home Minister Amit Shah as Chairman.
• Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, UP, and Gujarat are some of the other standing committee members.

3. Marine heatwave fuelled super cyclone Amphan

Subject :Geography

Section: Climatology

Context:

• A study, published in the Frontiers in Climate, is the first study conducted in the Indian Ocean that investigates the interaction between a marine heatwave and super cyclone Amphan in the Bay of Bengal in May 2020. 

Marine heatwaves

• The high sea surface temperatures are more susceptible to generating extreme temperature conditions that persist over days to months and are termed as Marine Heat- waves (MHWs).
• Previous studies have shown that due to global warming,the tropical Indian Ocean, at the surface, is warming at a faster rate as compared to the rest of the global ocean.

Relation between Marine heatwaves and tropical cyclones:

• The anthropogenic warming of the oceans and atmosphere facilitates the generation and intensification of extreme events such as MHWs and tropical cyclones.
• The intense warming of the ocean due to MHW has severe socio-economic consequences such as fish mortality, and coral bleaching, and also has the potential to interact and modify other extreme events such as tropical cyclones.
• Both marine heat waves and tropical cyclones are the extreme events of the ocean-atmosphere coupled system.
• The co-occurrence of multiple extreme events (e.g.in our case the co-occurring marine heatwave and tropical cyclone) are termed compound extreme events.

Sea surface temperature in Bay of Bengal:

• The Bay of Bengal exhibits high sea surface temperatures (about 28°C) through-out the year and is more prone to tropical cyclones.
• The Bay of Bengal is home to about 5-7% of the total number of tropical cyclones occurring globally each year and this makes the North Indian Ocean vulnerable to the highest number of fatalities globally.
• Amphan was the first super cyclone in the Bay of Bengal in the last 21 years and intensified from category 1 (cyclonic storm) to category 5 (super cyclone) in less than 24 hours. 

Factors responsible of Super Cyclone Amphan

• It was found the presence of a strong MHW beneath the track of the cyclone with an extremely high anomalous sea surface temperature of more than 2.5°C that coincided with the cyclone track and facilitated its rapid intensification in a short period.
• The study has compared the super cyclone Amphan to a previous extremely severe cyclone Fani in May 2019 with a near similar trajectory.
• The total life span of Amphan over the ocean was five days as com- pared to Fani which was for seven days but Fani did not turn into a super cyclone as Amphan did.
• The main difference between these two cyclones was the presence of MHW in the case of Amphan, which was not there in the case of Fani. 
• The study also inferred that despite short duration and unfavourable atmospheric conditions relative to Fani, Amphan turned into a super cyclone, primarily fuelled by a strong MHW on its way. 
• Apart from the surface warming, the study also shows that ocean stratification and warming below the surface also play a crucial role during this phenomenon of compound extreme events.

4. New species of bamboo-­dwelling bat found in Meghalaya

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

Context:

• Scientists have discovered a new species of bamboo­ dwelling bat in Ri Bhoi dis­trict of Meghalaya.

Concept :

• The spe­cies, found near the forested patch of Nongkhyllem Wil­dlife Sanctuary, has been named
• The present discovery is the first report of a thick­ thumbed bat not only from India but also from South Asia.
• Thick ­thumbed bats of the genus Glischropus are cur­rently composed of four re­cognised species from Southeast Asia.
• Two recently collected Glischropus specimens from Meghalaya in northeastern India extend the known dis­tribution range of the genus westward into South Asia by ca. (approximately) 1,000 km.
• Bamboo ­dwelling bats are a particular kind of bats liv­ing in the internodes of bamboo with specialized morphological characters that help them to adapt to the life inside a bamboo.
• With this new discovery, the total number of bat spe­cies known from India stands at 131.

Meghalaya, a State with a small geographi­cal area, harbors the high­est bat diversity in the coun­try with 67 species, which is about 51% of total bat species in the country.