[Mission 2023] Current Affairs Quiz , 22 May 2023

Solution: a)

• The Model Code of Conductis a set of guidelines issued by the Election Commission of India for the conduct of political parties and candidates during elections mainly with respect to speeches, polling day, polling booths, portfolios, election manifestos, processions, and general conduct. This set of norms has been evolved with the consensus of political parties who have consented to abide by the principles embodied in the said code in its letter and spirit.
• The Model Code of Conduct comes into force immediately on the announcement of the election schedule by the commission for the need of ensuring free and fair elections.
• Its main purpose is to ensure that ruling parties, at the Centre and in the States, do not misuse their position of advantage to gain an unfair edge.

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Solution: d)

The word sovereignty appears in the beginning of the Preamble to the Constitution of India, as the first attribute of the independent republic of India. Its placement as the first among the core principles of the republic underlines its importance in the Constitution.

Sovereignty is mentioned in the Constitution under Fundamental Duties, which are to be followed by all Indian citizens but cannot be legally enforced. Article 51A(c) states that it is the duty of all citizens “to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity and integrity of India.”

It is also mentioned in the oaths for positions like the Chief Justices, Union Ministers and Members of Parliament under the Third schedule: “…I will bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established, that I will uphold the sovereignty and integrity of India…”

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Solution: c)

On May 11, 1998, India conducted three nuclear bomb test explosions at the Indian Army’s Pokhran Test Range. Two days later, on May 13, two more bombs were tested.

Codenamed Operation Shakti (literally, “strength”), these tests would display India’s capability to build fission and thermonuclear weapons with yields up to 200 kilotons, helping India enter the highly guarded club of countries with capability to deploy nuclear weapons.

However, Pokhran-II, as the series of tests is more popularly known, was also the culmination of a long journey that began back in the 1940s-50s.

On May 18, 1974, India carried out its first nuclear test at the Pokhran test site. Pokhran-I, codenamed Operation Smiling Buddha, would be billed as a “peaceful nuclear explosion”, with “few military implications”.

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Solution: a)

Passing a unanimous judgement on the various issues related to the split in Shiv Sena in June 2022, the Supreme Court made strong observations about the role of the then Governor of Maharashtra and the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly. 

Not intervening in the proceedings, the SC said the issue of disqualification ought to be decided as per established procedures in law and the Speaker is the appropriate authority for this under the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, which lays down the anti-defection law.

The court also clarified that an MLA has the right to participate in proceedings of the House regardless of pendency of any petitions for disqualification.

Paragraph 3 of the Tenth Schedule protected defectors as long as one-third of the members of a political party formed a separate group. It was removed by the Constitution (91st Amendment) Act, 2003, which came into effect on January 1, 2004.

The court said that the power of the Governor to act without the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers is of an extraordinary nature, and must be exercised with circumspection within the limits of law.

The court said that as per provisions of the Representation of the People Act, an association of individuals calling itself a political party has to be registered with the EC.

The freedom of expression of legislators in the House, or intra-party dissent, cannot fall within the purview of anti-defection laws.

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Solution: b)

The government has also lowered the threshold for businesses to generate e-invoice for business-to-business (B2B) transactions to Rs 5 crore from Rs 10 crore under GST.

E-invoicing was initially implemented for large companies with turnover of over Rs 500 crore, and within three years the threshold has now been lowered to Rs 5 crore.

What does the e-invoicing envisage?

• The GST Council in its 37th meeting in September 2019 had approved the standard of e-invoice with the primary objective to enable interoperability across the entire GST ecosystem.
• Under this, a phased implementation was proposed to ensure a common standard for all invoices, that is, an e-invoice generated by one software should be capable of being read by any other software and through machine readability, an invoice can then be uniformly interpreted.
• With a uniform invoicing system, the tax authorities are able to pre-populate the return and reduce the reconciliation issues. With a high number of cases involving fake invoices and fraud availment of input tax credit, GST authorities have pushed for implementation of this e-invoicing system which is expected to help to curb the actions of tax evaders and reduce the number of frauds as the tax authorities will have access to data in real-time.

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