January

• India-Myanmar Free Movement Regime (FMR)


  Mutually agreed arrangement between India and Myanmar that allows tribes living along the border on either side to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa
• Formation of FMR

  Burma (Myanmar) was part of British India colony, India and Myanmar gained independence, India allowed Indian and Burmese citizens to enter either side without passport or visa up to 40 km in 1950s, India tightened FMR with permit system in 1968, India limited FMR distance to 16 km in 2004, India and Myanmar signed Agreement on Land Border Crossing in 2018
• FMR


  • Facilitates people-to-people contact and provides impetus to local trade and business
  • Divided people of the same ethnicity and culture into two nations without their consent
• India has decided to fence the entire India-Myanmar border to stop the free movement of people
• Government plans to equip the border with an "advanced smart fencing system" within four-and-half years
• India has also announced its target of fencing the entire 4,096km of India-Bangladesh Border by March 2024
• Mandatory ABPS under MGNREGS

  From January 1st 2024, all wages under MGNREGA scheme must be paid through an Aadhaar-based payment system (ABPS), which requires workers' Aadhaar details to be seeded to their job cards
• MGNREGA

  Indian social welfare measure that aims to guarantee the 'right to work'
• ABPS

  1. Utilizes the unique 12-digit Aadhaar number as a financial address for beneficiaries

  2. Worker's Aadhaar details must be seeded to their bank account and mapped with NPCI database
• Over 1.78 crore of 14.32 crore active workers under MGNREGS are ineligible to seek jobs due to mandatory ABPS
• Nagaland, Meghalaya and Assam have less than 50% of active workers eligible for ABPS payments
• Kerala is the only state where 100% active workers are eligible for ABPS payment
• Facing pressure from Union government to have 100% ABPS-eligible job cards


  States have deleted a number of cards which were not eligible for Aadhaar payments
• According to LibTech India, 7.6 crore workers have been deleted from the system over the last 21 months
• Mandatory ABPS with more than one-third of the total MNREGA registered workers rendered ineligible will lead to denial of the right to work
• Constitutional Provisions

  MGNREGA aims to follow the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Article 41 under Part IV of the Constitution of India, which directs the State to secure to all citizens the right to work
• Between the two documents, the Aadhaar and the job card, there are differences such as different spellings of workers' names
• According to LibTech India, a consortium of academics and activists, 7.6 crore workers have been deleted from the system over the last 21 months
• The Union Government claims that since April 2022, about 2.85 crore job cards have been deleted by following the due process by the states
• Compelling the use of ABPS with more than one-third of the total MNREGA registered workers rendered ineligible will inevitably lead to the denial of the right to work
• This stands in direct contravention to the aim of the Act passed by the Parliament
• The Act aims to follow the Directive Principles of State Policy enunciated in Article 41 under Part IV of the Constitution of India


  Article 41 directs the State to secure to all citizens the right to work
• Article 40 mandates the State to organise village panchayats and endow them with such powers and authority as may be necessary to enable them to function as units of self-government


  Conferring the primary responsibility of implementation on Gram Panchayats, the act further enforces the process of decentralization initiated by 73rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1992
• The act also embodies the rights conferred under Article 21 of the Constitution of India that guarantees the right to live with dignity to every citizen of India


  The act imparts dignity to the rural people through an assurance of livelihood security
• Article 16(1) of the Constitution of India guarantees equality of opportunity in matters of public employment


  This is again enforced by the act through generation of 47% of the total person-days by women and 51% of the total person-days by SCs/STs
• Article 16(4) allows the state to make special provisions for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of backward or vulnerable classes


  This is observed through the guarantee of one third of the jobs made available under the MGNREGA, to women
• The apex court is addressing two issues: The criteria for determining the minority status of an educational institution and whether an institution established under a statute can enjoy such status
• The bench said that it would examine whether the "denominational character" of the institution got lost when it was designated as a university under the 1920 AMU Act
• The apex court also observed the mere fact that it was accorded the status of a university does not amount to surrender of its minority status
• While the petitioners argue that AMU is entitled to the minority status, the UOI is now endorsing the S. Azeez Basha verdict
• The centre argued that AMU cannot be a university of any particular religion as it has been declared an institution of national importance
• The petitioners argued that the Basha judgment denied minority status to AMU just because it agreed for government recognition of its degrees through the AMU Act and received financial aid from government
• The 2024 edition of the World Braille Day was observed on January 4th

  
• Braille


  A tactile representation of alphabetic and numerical symbols that uses six dots to represent each letter, number, and even musical, mathematical, and scientific symbols
• Braille is named after its inventor Louis Braille from 19th century France
• Braille is utilised by blind and partially sighted people to read the same books and periodicals as those printed in a visual font
• World Braille Day 2024 theme

  Empowering Through Inclusion and Diversity

  
• Louis Braille, who was from France, became blind when he was a kid
• Louis Braille lost his eyes in a car accident, and that changed his life
• When Louis Braille was 10 years old, he went to a special school for blind kids in France