we are here to help you in the duration of your preparation feel free to contact us for any query regarding your exam contact us at : 9454721860, 0522-4241011 or log on to our website : www.iasnext.com

1. D A I L Y N E X T
C A P S U L E W I L L
H E L P Y O U T O
P R O V I D E
2nd floor, shahar plaza, munshi pulia, indira nagar, lucknow
Feel Free to call us at:
9454721860
Follow us on:

2. Recognition/derecognition of political parties:
Reference News:-
A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court
seeking a direction to the Election
Commission of India (ECI) to seize the
election symbol or de-register a political
party that promises or distributes “irrational
freebies” from public funds before elections.
 It said there should be a total ban on such populist measures to gain undue political
favours from the voters as they violate the Constitution and the ECI should take
suitable deterrent measures.
Need for:
 The plea urged the court to declare that the promise of irrational freebies from
public funds before elections unduly influences the voters, disturbs the level
playing field and vitiates the purity of the poll process.
 This unethical practice is just like giving bribes to the electorate at the cost of the
exchequer to stay in power and must be avoided to preserve democratic principles
and practices.
Registration of political parties:
Registration of Political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the
Representation of the People Act, 1951.
 A party seeking registration under the said Section with the Election Commission
has to submit an application to the Commission within a period of 30 days
following the date of its formation as per guidelines prescribed by the Election
Commission of India in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 324 of the
Commission of India and Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.
To be eligible for a ‘National Political Party of India:
1. It secures at least six percent of the valid votes polled in any four or more states, at
a general election to the House of the People or, to the State Legislative Assembly.
2. In addition, it wins at least four seats in the House of the People from any State or
States.
3. It wins at least two percent seats in the House of the People (i.e., 11 seats in the
existing House having 543 members), and these members are elected from at least
three different States.
To be eligible for a ‘State Political Party:
1. It secures at least six percent of the valid votes polled in the State at a general
election, either to the House of the People or to the Legislative Assembly of the
State concerned.

3. 2. In addition, it wins at least two seats in the Legislative Assembly of the State
concerned.
3. It wins at least three percent (3%) of the total number of seats in the Legislative
Assembly of the State, or at least three seats in the Assembly, whichever is more.
Benefits:
1. If a party is recognised as a State Party’, it is entitled for exclusive allotment of its
reserved symbol to the candidates set up by it in the State in which it is so
recognised, and if a party is recognised as a `National Party’ it is entitled for
exclusive allotment of its reserved symbol to the candidates set up by it throughout
India.
2. Recognised `State’ and `National’ parties need only one proposer for filing the
nomination and are also entitled for two sets of electoral rolls free of cost at the
time of revision of rolls and their candidates get one copy of electoral roll free of
cost during General Elections.
3. They also get broadcast/telecast facilities over Akashvani/Doordarshan during
general elections.
4. The travel expenses of star campaigners are not to be accounted for in the election
expense accounts of candidates of their party.
Criminal justice reforms:
Reference News:-
Experts have expressed “serious concerns over
the slow pace of reforms in the criminal justice
system to ensure speedy justice”.
Current concerns/challenges:
1. The delay in disposal of cases was leading
to human rights violations of the under-
trials and convicts.
2. Despite the Supreme Court’s directions on police reforms, there had been hardly
any changes on the ground.
3. Court orders convicting a person are also taking years to implement.
Suggested Reforms:
 Special laws and fast-track courts could replace certain offences under the Indian
Penal Code in order to reduce the piling up of cases at every police station.
 Digitisation of documents would help in speeding up investigations and trials.
 The construction of new offences and reworking of the existing classification of
offences must be guided by the principles of criminal jurisprudence which have
substantially altered in the past four decades.

4.  The classification of offences must be done in a manner conducive to management
of crimes in the future.
 The discretion of judges in deciding the quantum and nature of sentence differently
for crimes of the same nature should be based on principles of judicial precedent.
Criminal law in India:
The Criminal law in India is contained in a number of sources – The Indian Penal Code of
1860, the Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955, Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961 and the
Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
 Criminal Justice System can impose penalties on those who violate the established
laws.
 The criminal law and criminal procedure are in the concurrent list of the seventh
schedule of the constitution.
 Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay is said to be the chief architect of codifications of
criminal laws in India.
Need for reforms:
1. Colonial era laws.
2. ineffectiveness.
3. Pendency of cases.
4. Huge undertrials.
Committee For Reform In Criminal Law:
 The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has constituted a national level committee for
reform in criminal law.
 The committee has been constituted under Ranbir Singh and several other
members.
 The committee would be gathering opinions online by consulting with experts and
collating material for their report to the government.
Previous committees:
Madhav Menon Committee: It submitted
its report in 2007, suggesting various
recommendations on reforms in the
Criminal Justice System of India (CJSI).
Malimath Committee Report: It submitted
its report in 2003 on the Criminal Justice
System of India (CJSI).

5. Amid Ukraine crisis, NATO sends planes,
ships to eastern Europe:
Reference News:-
Amid the rising tensions over Russia’s
military buildup around Ukraine, NATO
allies have put forces on standby and sent
ships and fighter jets to bolster Europe’s
eastern defences.
What is the conflict all about?
Tensions between Ukraine and Russia, both former Soviet states, escalated in late 2013
over a landmark political and trade deal with the European Union. After the pro-Russian
then-President, Viktor Yanukovych, suspended the talks, weeks of protests in Kiev
erupted into violence.
 Then, in March 2014, Russia annexed Crimea, an autonomous peninsula in
southern Ukraine with strong Russian loyalties, on the pretext that it was
defending its interests and those of Russian-speaking citizens.
 Shortly afterwards, pro-Russian separatists in Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk
regions declared their independence from Kiev, prompting months of heavy
fighting. Despite Kiev and Moscow signing a peace deal in Minsk in 2015, brokered
by France and Germany, there have been repeated ceasefire violations.
Latest developments:
The United States, NATO and Ukrainian officials have been making statements for nearly
two weeks, referring to what they say are unusual Russian troop movements in the
proximity of Ukraine.
 Russia has stationed more than 1,00,000 troops at its border with aspiring NATO
member Ukraine.
What’s the issue? What are the demands by Russia?
 Russia stated that only if NATO withdraws their forces from all countries in Europe
that joined the alliance after May 1997, would they de-escalate the military build-
up.
 This would effectively mean that NATO cannot operate in any of the Baltic nations
that border Russia (Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania), central European states such as
Poland, Hungary, and the Czech republic, and Balkan states such as Croatia and
Slovenia.
 Russia also wants NATO to drop plans of any further ‘enlargement’, which means
committing to not accepting Ukraine and Georgia as members. Another demand is
that NATO must not hold drills in eastern Europe, Ukraine and Georgia without
prior approval from Russia.

6. Need for international attention:
Fourteen thousand people have died in the battle between Kiev and pro-Russia rebels in
the east of the country. Out of these, 3,393 deaths were of civilians, according to the UN
Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights’s October 2021 report.
About North Atlantic Treaty Organization:
 It is an intergovernmental military alliance.
 Established by Washington treaty.
 Treaty that was signed on 4 April 1949.
 Headquarters — Brussels, Belgium.
 Headquarters of Allied Command Operations — Mons, Belgium.
Composition:
 Since its founding, the admission of new member states has increased the alliance
from the original 12 countries to 30. The most recent member state to be added to
NATO was North Macedonia on 27 March 2020.
 NATO membership is open to “any other European state in a position to further the
principles of this Treaty and to contribute to the security of the North Atlantic
area.”
Minsk Agreements:
Minsk I: Ukraine and the Russian-backed separatists agreed a 12-point ceasefire deal in
the capital of Belarus in September 2014.
 Its provisions included prisoner exchanges, deliveries of humanitarian aid and the
withdrawal of heavy weapons.
 The agreement quickly broke down, with violations by both sides.
Minsk II: In 2015, an open conflict was averted after the ‘Minsk II’ peace agreement was
signed, under the mediation of France and Germany.
 It was designed to end the fighting in the rebel regions and hand over the border to
Ukraine’s national troops.
China-Taiwan relations:
Reference News:-
China recently flew 39 warplanes toward Taiwan in its largest such sortie of the new
year, continuing a pattern that the island has answered by scrambling its own jets in
response.
Rationale behind such acts:
 China often mounts such missions to express displeasure at something Taiwan has
done or at shows of international support for the democratically ruled island,
especially by the United States, Taiwan’s main arms provider.

7.  China has described its activities as necessary to protect the country’s sovereignty
and deal with “collusion” between Taipei and Washington.
Chinese pilots have been flying towards Taiwan on a near-daily basis in the past year and
a half, since Taiwan’s government started publishing the data regularly. The largest sortie
was 56 warplanes on a single day last October.
What’s the issue?
China has ramped up military pressure, including repeated missions by Chinese
warplanes near democratic Taiwan, which Beijing claims as its own and has not ruled out
taking by force.
Latest developments:
The European Parliament’s first official delegation to Taiwan recently come in support of
Taiwan and said that the diplomatically isolated island is not alone. It called for bolder
actions to strengthen EU-Taiwan ties as Taipei faces rising pressure from Beijing.
 Taiwan, which does not have formal diplomatic ties with any European nations
except tiny Vatican City, is keen to deepen relations with members of the European
Union.
China- Taiwan relations- Background:
China has claimed Taiwan through its “one China” policy since the Chinese civil war
forced the defeated Kuomintang, or Nationalist, to flee to the island in 1949 and has
vowed to bring it under Beijing’s rule, by force if necessary.
 While Taiwan is self-governed and de facto independent, it has never formally
declared independence from the mainland.
 Under the “one country, two systems” formula, Taiwan would have the right to run
its own affairs; a similar arrangement is used in Hong Kong.
Presently, Taiwan is claimed by China, which refuses diplomatic relations with countries
that recognise the region.
Indo- Taiwan relations:
 Although they do not
have formal
diplomatic ties,
Taiwan and India have
been cooperating in
various fields.
 India has refused to
endorse the “one-
China” policy since
2010.

8. Food fortification:
Reference News:-
The Food Safety and Standards Authority
of India’s (FSSAI’s) Food Fortification
Resource Centre (FFRC) has reported
that over 70% of India’s population
consumes less than half the daily
recommended dietary allowance of
micronutrients.
 These deficiencies are prevalent not only in women and children from rural areas
but also affect population groups in urban India.
Key to Addressing Nutrition Gap:
With a section of the populace having limited access to nutritious food, fortification is key
in addressing the nutrition gap.
 In a bid to directly address anaemia and micronutrient deficiency in the country,
the Centre recently approved a pilot scheme on “Fortification of Rice & its
Distribution under Public Distribution System”.
 The government’s food fortification initiative is already taking shape with several
states, including Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh,
Uttar Pradesh, Odisha, Telangana, Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh, starting the
distribution of fortified rice under the pilot programme.
 Fortifying staple foods and condiments with key micronutrients is an effective way
of addressing deficiencies.
 Timely adoption of food fortification in social and nutrition security programmes
as a part of the fortification initiative will play a crucial role in addressing
undernutrition in India.
Need for Rice fortification:
 The country has high levels of malnutrition among women and children.
 According to the Food Ministry, every second woman in the country is anaemic and
every third child is stunted.
 India ranks 94 out of 107 countries and is in the ‘serious hunger’ category on the
Global Hunger Index (GHI).
 Malnutrition and lack of essential nutrients in poor women and poor children
poses major obstacles in their development.
What is food fortification?
Food fortification is defined as the practice of adding vitamins and minerals to commonly
consumed foods during processing to increase their nutritional value.

9.  It is a proven, safe and cost-effective strategy for improving diets and for the
prevention and control of micronutrient deficiencies.
 The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI), defines fortification as
“deliberately increasing the content of essential micronutrients in a food so as to
improve the nutritional quality of food and to provide public health benefit with
minimal risk to health”.
Fortified rice:
According to the Food Ministry, fortification of rice is a cost-effective and complementary
strategy to increase vitamin and mineral content in diets.
 According to FSSAI norms, 1 kg fortified rice will contain iron (28 mg-42.5 mg),
folic acid (75-125 microgram) and Vitamin B-12 (0.75-1.25 microgram).
 In addition, rice may also be fortified with micronutrients, singly or in combination,
with zinc (10 mg-15 mg), Vitamin A (500-750 microgram RE), Vitamin B1 (1 mg-
1.5 mg), Vitamin B2 (1.25 mg-1.75 mg), Vitamin B3 (12.5 mg-20 mg) and Vitamin
B6 (1.5 mg-2.5 mg) per kg.
What are the benefits of Fortification?
Since the nutrients are added to staple foods that are widely consumed, this is an
excellent method to improve the health of a large section of the population, all at once.
 Fortification is a safe method of improving nutrition among people. The addition of
micronutrients to food does not pose a health risk to people.
 It does not require any changes in food habits and patterns of people. It is a socio-
culturally acceptable way to deliver nutrients to people.
 It does not alter the characteristics of the food—the taste, the feel, the look.
 It can be implemented quickly as well as show results in improvement of health in
a relatively short period of time.
 This method is cost-effective especially if advantage is taken of the existing
technology and delivery platforms.
Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)
Reference News:-
The details of the recently released
draft environment impact assessment (EIA) report
for the mega development project in the Great
Nicobar Island have raised serious questions.
 The questions are related to submission of
incorrect or incomplete information,
scientific inaccuracy and failure to follow
appropriate procedure.

10.  A public hearing to discuss the report has been scheduled.
What is the matter related to?
 The matter is related to the NITI Aayog-piloted Rs. 72,000-crore integrated project in
Great Nicobar that includes construction of a mega port, an airport complex, a township
spread over 130 sq. km of pristine forest and a solar and gas-based power plant.
 Ecologists and researchers have been raising concerns about this project for over a
year.
Environment Impact Assessment (EIA)
 It is a process of evaluating the likely environmental impacts of a proposed project
 It is statutorily backed by the Environment Protection Act, 1986.
 Environment Impact Assessment Notification of 2006 has decentralized the
environmental clearance projects by categorizing the developmental projects in two
categories – Category A (national level appraisal) and Category B (state level appraisal).
o Category A projects – They require mandatory environmental clearance and thus
they do not undergo the screening process.
o Category B Projects– They undergo screening process and they are classified into
two types:
o Category B1 projects (Mandatorily require EIA).
o Category B2 projects (Do not require EIA).
Conjugal rights
Reference News:-
The Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing a fresh challenge to the provision allowing
restitution of conjugal rights under Hindu personal laws.
About Conjugal rights
 Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 deals with restitution of conjugal rights.
 It recognises one aspect of conjugal rights — the right to consortium and protects it by
allowing a spouse to move court to enforce the right.
 Conjugal rights are rights created by marriage, i.e. right of the husband or the wife to
the society of the other spouse.
 The law recognises these rights— both in personal laws dealing with marriage, divorce
etc, and in criminal law requiring payment of maintenance and alimony to a spouse.
 Conjugal Rights includes:
o Living together: The spouses or the married couple should live together
o Marital intercourse: The spouses or the married couple have rights and duties
together with each other and have physical or sexual relationships.

11. o Comfort to each other: The spouses should give comfort to each other like;
emotional and mental comfort.
o Matrimonial Obligation: The married couple is supposed to share the
responsibility of the households as well.
Why has the law been challenged?
 Main ground is that it is violative of the fundamental right to privacy.
 It amounted to a “coercive act” on the part of the state, which violates one’s sexual and
decisional autonomy, and right to privacy and dignity.
 The provision disproportionately affects women. Women are often called back to
marital homes under the provision, and given that marital rape is not a crime, leaves
them susceptible to such coerced cohabitation.
 Also in question is whether the state can have such a compelling interest in protecting
the institution of marriage that it allows a legislation to enforce cohabitation of spouses.
Web3: A vision for the future
Reference News:-
The concept of Web3, also called Web 3.0, used
to describe a potential next phase of the
internet, created quite a buzz in 2021.
 The model, a decentralised internet to be
run on blockchain technology, would be
different from the versions in use, Web
1.0 and Web 2.0.
 In web3, users will have ownership stakes in platforms and applications unlike now
where tech
What do we need to know of versions in use?
 To understand web3, we should start with Web 1.0 and Web 2.0.
 Web 1.0 is the world wide web or the internet that was invented in 1989. It became
popular from 1993.
 The internet in the Web 1.0 days was mostly static web pages where users would go
to a website and then read and interact with the static information.
 Even though there were e-commerce websites in the initial days it was still a closed
environment and the users themselves could not create any content or post reviews on
the internet.
 Web 1.0 lasted until 1999. Web 2.0 started in some form in the late 1990s itself though
2004 was when most of its features were fully available. It is still the age of Web 2.0
now.

12.  The differentiating characteristic of Web 2.0 compared to Web1.0 is that users can
create content. They can interact and contribute in the form of comments, registering
likes, sharing and uploading their photos or videos and perform other such activities.
 Primarily, a social media kind of interaction is the differentiating trait of Web 2.0.
What are some of the concerns?
 In Web 2.0, most of the data in the internet and the internet traffic are owned or
handled by very few large companies.
 This has created issues related to data privacy, data security and abuse of such
data.
 There is a sense of disappointment that the original purpose of the internet has been
distorted. It is in this context that the buzz around Web3 is significant.
 Over the past few years, owing to the popularity of crypto-currency, more discussions
happened on Web3.
What is Web3 and how will it address the problems of data monopoly?
 As per the Web3 foundation, Web3 will deliver “decentralized and fair internet where
users control their own data”.
 Currently if a seller has to make a business to the buyer, both the buyer and seller need
to be registered on a “shop” or “platform” like Amazon or any such e-commerce portal.
 What this “platform” currently does is that it authenticates that the buyer and seller are
genuine parties for the transaction.
 Web3 tries to remove the role of the “platform”.
 For the buyer to be authenticated, the usual proofs aided by block chain
technology will be used. The same goes for the seller.
 With block chain, the time and place of transaction are recorded permanently.
 Thus, Web3 enables peer to peer (seller to buyer) transaction by eliminating the role of
the intermediary. This concept can be extended to other transactions also.
 Consider a social media application where one wants to share pictures with their
followers. It could be a broadcast operation from the person, aided by blockchain and
there is no need of social media accounts for all the participants to be able to perform
this.
 The spirit of Web3 is Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) which is that
all the business rules and governing rules in any transaction are transparently available
for anyone to see and software will be written conforming to these rules.
 With DAO, there is no need for a central authority to authenticate or validate. Crypto-
currency and block chain are technologies that follow the DAO principle.
Will it take off?
 There is much scepticism from top tech brains in the industry and the academic
community that Web3 does not solve the problems it purports to solve.
 Elon Musk and Jack Dorsey (founder of Twitter), for example, are a couple of tech
entrepreneurs who do not foresee a future for Web3.

13.  From a technology perspective, Web3 will require deviation from the current
architecture where there is a front-end, middle layer and back-end.
 Web3’s architecture will need backend solutions for handling block chain, persisting
and indexing data in block chain, peer to peer communications and so forth.
 Similarly, the middle layer, also called the business rules layer, will need to include
handling block chain-based backend.
 It is not know yet if Web3 will become the dominant mode of handling the internet but
the questions it raises are relevant.