February 5, 2020 Abhyaas Newsboard... For the quintessential test prep student 1. Classical Language At the recently concluded 93rd edition of the Akhil Bharatiya Marathi Sahitya Sammelan, a resolution was passed demanding the declaration of Marathi as a ‘Classical’ language. More On This... Currently, Six languages enjoy the ‘Classical’ status: Tamil (declared in 2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014). Guidelines for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ are: • High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years. • A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers. • The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community. • The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms or its offshoots. 2. Bharati Script Researchers from IIT Madraswww.lawprep.in have already developed a unified script for nine Indian languages, named the Bharati Script. Now, going a step further, developed a method for reading documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual optical character recognition (OCR) scheme. More On This... Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scheme: • It involves first separating (or segmenting) the document into text and non-text. • The text is then segmented into paragraphs, sentences words and letters. • Each letter has to be recognised as a character in some recognisable format such as ASCII or Unicode. • The letter has various components such as the basic consonant, consonant modifiers, vowels etc. Bharati script is an alternative for the languages of India developed by a team at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) in Madras lead by Dr. Srinivasa Chakravarthy. The scripts that have been integrated include Devnagari, Bengali, Gurmukhi, Gujarati, Oriya, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam and Tamil. Abhyaas Newsboard ... www.lawprep.in Page 1 February 5, 2020 3. Padma Awards Padma Awards – one of the highest civilian Awards of the country, are conferred in three categories, namely, Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shri. They were instituted in the year 1954. The Awards are given in various disciplines/ fields of activities, viz.- art, social work, public affairs, science and engineering, trade and industry, medicine, literature and education, sports, civil service, etc. This year President has approved conferment of 141 Padma Awards. More On This... • Padma Vibhushan is awarded for exceptional and distinguished service;( it is a second degree honour).This year a total of 7 people were awarded the Padma Vibhushan, which included George Fernandes,Arun Jaitley,Sir Anerood Jugnauth,Sushma Swaraj(Public affairs),M. C. Mary Kom(Sports),Chhannulal Mishra(Art),Sri Vishveshateertha Swamiji Sri,Pejavara Adhokhaja Matha Udupi (Others-Spiritualism) • Padma Bhushan is awarded for distinguished service of high order. (it is a third degree honour).This year a total of 16 people were awarded the Padma Bhushan, which includes P. V Sindhu, Manohar Parrikar, Anand Mahindra among many others. • Padma Shri is awarded for distinguished service in any field. (it is a fourth degree honour).This year a total of 118 people were awarded the Padma Shri, which includes Jai Prakash Agarwal, Jitu Rai, Kangana Ranaut among many others. The awards are announced on the occasion of Republic Day every year. The award is normally not conferred posthumously. However, in highly deserving cases, the Government could consider giving an award posthumously if the demise of the person proposed to be honoured has been recent, say within a period of one year preceding the Republic Day on which it is proposed to announce the award. 4. Indian History Congress www.lawprep.in Recently, the 80th session of the Indian History Congress (IHC) was held at Kannur, Kerala. It called upon political and administrative authorities to pursue the constitutional duty of promoting composite culture, which is vital to promoting the territorial unity of India. More On This... • Founded in 1935, the Indian History Congress (IHC) is the largest association of professional historians in South Asia • It has about 35000 members of which over 2000 delegates participate in its session every year. • It has been holding its sessions very regularly from its inception and publishing its proceedings every year since 1935. Abhyaas Newsboard ... www.lawprep.in Page 2 February 5, 2020 • Its main objective is to promote secular and scientific writing of history. • The BISM organised an All India Congress in 1935 to celebrate its silver jubilee in Pune. As an outcome, the Indian History Congress (IHC) was thus born with about 50 delegates. • The Bharata Itihasa Samshodhaka Mandala (BISM) was founded by Vishwanath Kashinath Rajwade in 1910 in Pune with the support of K C Mehendale. 5. Curative petition Curative petitions have been filed in the Supreme Court by two convicts in the Nirbhaya case. The petitions come just days after a Delhi sessions court scheduled the execution of the four convicts at Tihar Jail on January 22. More On This... Curative Petition is the last judicial resort available for redressal of grievances in court which is normally decided by judges in-chamber. It is only in rare cases that such petitions are given an open-court hearing. • The concept of curative petition was first evolved by the Supreme Court of India in the matter of Rupa Ashok Hurra vs. Ashok Hurra and Anr. (2002) where the question was whether an aggrieved person is entitled to any relief against the final judgement/order of the Supreme Court, after dismissal of a review petition. • The Supreme Court in the said case held that in order to prevent abuse of its process and to cure gross miscar- riage of justice, it may reconsider its judgements in exercise of its inherent powers. For this purpose, the Court has devised what has been termed as a “curative” petition. Article- 137 of the Constitution subjects to the provisions of the guidelines made under Article 145, by which it is clear that the Supreme Court has the ability to review any judgment declared by it. 6. Private property is a human right: Supreme Court The Supreme Court has recently held that a citizen’s right to own private property is a human right and the state cannot take possession ofwww.lawprep.in it without following due procedure and authority of law. More On This... • The state cannot trespass into the private property of a citizen and then claim ownership of the land in the name of ‘adverse possession’. • Grabbing private land and then claiming it as its own makes the state an encroacher. • In a welfare state, right to property is a human right. • A welfare state cannot be permitted to take the plea of adverse possession, which allows a trespasser i.e. a person guilty of a tort, or even a crime, to gain legal title over such property for over 12 years. The State cannot be permitted to perfect its title over the land by invoking the doctrine of adverse possession to grab the property of its own citizens. ‘Right to private property was previously a fundamental right’ under Article 31 of the Constitution. Property ceased to be a fundamental right with the 44th Constitution Amendment in 1978. Nevertheless, Article 300A required the state to follow due procedure and authority of law to deprive a person of his or her private property. The right to property is now considered to be not only a constitutional or statutory right, but also a human right. Abhyaas Newsboard ... www.lawprep.in Page 3 February 5, 2020 7. Centre-state disputes and Article 131 Kerala has become the first state to challenge the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA) before the Supreme Court under Article 131 of the Constitution. Besides, Chhattisgarh government has also filed a suit in the Supreme Court under Article 131, challenging the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act on the ground that it encroaches upon the state’s powers to maintain law and order. Under Article 131 of the Constitution, the Supreme Court has original jurisdiction to deal with any dispute between the Centre and a state; the Centre and a state on the one side and another state on the other side; and two or more states. More On This... • For a dispute to qualify as a dispute under Article 131, it has to necessarily be between states and the Centre, and must involve a question of law or fact on which the existence of a legal right of the state or the Centre depends. • In a 1978 judgment, State of Karnataka v Union of India, Justice P N Bhagwati had said that for the Supreme Court to accept a suit under Article 131, the state need not show that its legal right is violated, but only that the dispute involves a legal question. • Article 131 cannot be used to settle political differences between state and central governments headed by different parties. 8. 71st Republic Day India celebrated its 71st Republic Day on January 26, 2020. Guest of Honour: Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Bolsonaro is the third Brazilian President to be invited as Chief Guest for India’s Republic Day Parade. Before him, India hosted President Fernando Henrique Cardoso in 1996 and President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in 2004, as chief guests for the Republic Day Parade. More On This... www.lawprep.in • The Constitution came into effect on January 26, 1950, a date specially chosen to coincide with the anniversary of ‘Purna Swaraj Diwas’. • January 26, 1930 was marked as ‘Purna Swaraj Diwas’, or the day the nation would attain complete freedom from its colonisers by the Congress. • The members of the drafting committee felt that the birth of the constitution should be observed on a day that held some significance in their fight for independence.