IT (INTERMEDIARY GUIDELINES AND DIGITAL MEDIA ETHICS CODE) RULES, 2021 & MORE (CURRENT AFFAIRS 11 MARCH 2021 )

 IT (INTERMEDIARY GUIDELINES AND DIGITAL MEDIA ETHICS CODE) RULES, 2021

The Kerala High Court restrained the Centre from taking coercive action against Live Law Media Private Ltd., which owns a legal news portal, for not complying with Part III of the new IT (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.

Arguments by Petition:

• The court issued notice to the Centre on a petition filed by the firm challenging the rules regulating digital news media, curated content (OTT platforms), and social media intermediaries.
  
  
• The petition said Part III of the rules imposed an unconstitutional three-tier complaints and adjudication structure on publishers.
  
  
• The creation of a grievance redressal mechanism, through a governmental oversight body (an inter-departmental committee constituted under Rule 14) amounted to excessive regulation.
  
  
• Rule 4(2), which makes it mandatory for every social media intermediary to enable tracing of originators of information on its platform, purportedly in furtherance of Section 69 of the IT Act, violated Article 19(1)(a) (freedom of speech and expression).
  
  
• It also deprived the intermediaries of their “safe-harbour protections” under Section 79 of the IT Act.
  
  
• The rules obligating messaging intermediaries to alter their infrastructure to “fingerprint” each message on a mass scale for every user to trace the first originator was violative of the fundamental right to privacy of Internet users.
  

ARBITRATION AND CONCILIATION (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2021

The Parliament gave its nod to the Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2021 with Rajya Sabha passing it. The Lok Sabha has already passed the bill last month.

About:

• The legislation seeks to amend the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996. The Act contains provisions to deal with domestic and international arbitration and defines the law for conducting conciliation proceedings.
  
  
• The Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2021 provides for the following:
• to grant unconditional stay of enforcement of arbitral awards, where the underlying arbitration agreement, contracts or arbitral award is induced by fraud or corruption;
  
  
• to omit Eighth Schedule of the Act which laid down the qualifications, experience and norms for accreditation of arbitrators; and
  
  
• to specify by regulations the qualifications, experience and norms for accreditation of arbitrators and the said amendment is consequential in nature.

NATIONAL CAPITAL TERRITORY OF DELHI LAWS (SPECIAL PROVISIONS) SECOND (AMENDMENT) BILL, 2021

The Parliament has passed the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second (Amendment) Bill, 2021 with Lok Sabha approving it. Rajya Sabha had already passed the bill last month.

About:

• The legislation aims to amend the National Capital Territory of Delhi Laws (Special Provisions) Second Act, 2011. The 2011 Act was valid till 31st December last year. The Bill seeks to extend this deadline to till the end of December 2023.
  
  
• The 2011 Act provided for the regularisation of unauthorised colonies in the National Capital which existed as on 31st March , 2002, and where construction took place till 1st June, 2014.
  
  
• The Bill amends this to provide that unauthorised colonies will be identified for regularisation as per the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Recognition of Property Rights of Residents in Unauthorised Colonies) Act, 2019, and the National Capital Territory of Delhi (Recognition of Property Rights of Residents in Unauthorised Colonies) Regulations, 2019.
  
  
• The legislation provides that the unauthorised colonies which existed as on 1st June 2014, and have 50 per cent development as on 1st January, 2015, will be eligible for regularisation.

FLOATING SOLAR POWER PLANT, RAMAGUNDAM

The country’s biggest floating solar power plant till date, by generation capacity, which is being developed by the NTPC in the reservoir of its thermal plant at Ramagundam in Peddapalli district, Telangana, is set to be commissioned by May-June next.

About:

• Work on this 100 megawatt floating solar power plant at Ramagundam is in the final stages of completion.
  
  
• This will be one of the renewable (solar) energy plants being developed by the NTPC with an installed capacity of 447 MW in the southern region and the entire capacity will be commissioned by March 2023.
  
  
• Except for the 230 MW ground-mounted solar power plant at Ettayapuram in Tamil Nadu, the remaining 217 MW capacity was to be commissioned by May-June this year.

MSME

Minister of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises inaugurated two technology centres at Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and Bhopal in Madhya Pradesh, three extension centres of big technological centres and seven mobile Udyam Express.

About:

• The Ministry of MSME has rolled out the Technology Centres Systems Programme to develop the competitiveness ecosystems of MSME in  the country.
  
  
• These Technology Centres will train more than 16 thousand students annually and have infrastructure for training and production.
  
  
• The minister also launched the 7 Udyan Express Mobile Vans with a view to provide assistance to MSME in remote areas and also make aware the youth of rural areas about government’s schemes.
  

DUSTLIK

The India – Uzbekistan joint military exercise “DUSTLIK II” commenced in Foreign Training Node Chaubatia, Ranikhet (Uttarakhand). It will continue till 19th March 2021.

About:

• 45 Soldiers each from Uzbekistan and Indian Army are participating in the exercise.
  
  
• Both contingents will be sharing their expertise and skills in the field of counter terrorist operations in mountainous/rural/urban scenario under UN mandate.
  
  
• This is the Second Edition of annual bilateral joint exercise of both armies.
  
  
• The first edition of the exercise was held at Uzbekistan in Nov 2019.