1. Jagdeep Dhankhar to take oath as 14th Vice President of India
Tags: Person in news
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) candidate Jagdeep Dhankhar has been elected as the 14th Vice President of India.
Important facts
He will take the oath of office on 11 August, a day after the term of the incumbent Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu ends.
He will also be appointed the ex-officio Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
Chief Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar and Election Commissioner Anoop Chandra Pandey signed the certificate of election of Dhankhar.
Dhankhar won with a vote share of 74.36 per cent, the highest in the last six vice-presidential elections, receiving 528 votes against Alva's 182 votes.
Vice President of India
It is the second highest constitutional office in India.
The term of the Vice President is five years, but he can continue in office even after the expiry of the term.
The Vice President can resign from his office by giving his resignation to the President of India.
The Vice-President can be removed from office by a resolution of the Council of State (Rajya Sabha), which is passed by a majority of its members and with the concurrence of the Lok Sabha (Lok Sabha).
The office of the Indian Vice President is modeled on the lines of the US Vice President.
Article 63 to Article 71 of the Constitution of India give the procedure for the election, qualification and removal of the Vice President of India.
Eligibility
Must be a citizen of India.
Must have completed 35 years of age.
Must be qualified for election as a member of the Rajya Sabha.
Must not hold any office of profit under the Union government or any state government or any local authority or any other public authority.
Electoral College
According to Article 66 of the Constitution of India, the Vice President is elected by the members of the Electoral College.
The Electoral College consists of elected members of Rajya Sabha, nominated members of Rajya Sabha and elected members of Lok Sabha.
2. Village Unnati appointed former Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora as chairman
Tags: National Person in news
Former Chief Election Commissioner Sunil Arora has been named as the new non-executive chairman of the Village Unnati Board.
About Sunil Arora
He is a 1980 batch retired Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer of Rajasthan cadre.
He has served as the secretary of two important ministries, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting and the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship.
He was also the 23rd Chief Election Commissioner of India.
About Gram unnati
Gram Unnati is a social enterprise that helps farmers to increase their net income by realising value, increasing agricultural productivity and reducing the cost of cultivation.
Gram Unnati provides physical and technical infrastructure support to agri-processors, banks, agri-input manufacturers, research institutes and others.
Gram Unnati also provides institutional buyers with consultancy services, low cost high quality inputs and market connections to marginal farmers, as well as tailored production, logistics, and end-to-end quality control of agricultural products.
Gram unnati is headquartered in Gurgaon with operations across 6 states currently.
3. Rajiv Kumar to be new Chief Election Commissioner of India
Tags: Person in news
Election Commissioner Rajiv Kumar would take charge as the Chief Election Commissioner (CEC) on May 15 after the incumbent Sushil Chandra retired on May 14.
Kumar has been a member of Election Commission of India since September 1, 2020.
Prior to that, he served as the chairman of the Public Enterprises Selection Board.
1984-batch IAS officer of the Bihar/Jharkhand cadre, Kumar retired from the civil service in February 2020 from the post of Union Finance Secretary.
Kumar has also been the Director, Central Board of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), SBI, NABARD.
Kumar has been credited with being instrumental in conceptualising and implementing mergers and acquisitions in the financial sector.
With his effort, the National Pension System (NPS) was streamlined, benefiting about 18 lakh central government employees.
In pursuance of clause (2) of Article 324 of the Constitution, the President shall appoint Rajiv Kumar as the Chief Election Commissioner.
4. India elected as Chair of the Association of Asian Election Authorities (AAEA) for 2022-24
Tags: International News
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India has been unanimously elected as the new Chair of the Association of Asian Election Authorities (AAEA) for 2022-2024 at the recently held meeting of the Executive board and General Assembly at Manila, Philippines.
The Election Commission, Manila was the current chairman of the AAEA.
The new members in the Executive Board now include Russia, Uzbekistan, Sri Lanka, Maldives, Taiwan and Philippines.
The Election Commission of India's three-member delegation headed by deputy election commissioner Nitesh Vyas, along with CEO Manipur Rajesh Agrawal and CEO Rajasthan Praveen Gupta, attended the executive board meeting in Manila.
62 officials from 12 AAEA members participated in the 3rd International Virtual Election Visitors Programme (IEVP) hosted by ECI during Assembly Elections in 2022.
About AAEA
The AAEA provides a non-partisan forum in the Asian region for sharing experiences and best practices among election authorities.
It discusses and acts upon ways to promote open and transparent elections.
The objective to do so is to support good governance and democracy.
AAEA is also an Associate Member of the 118 member Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB).
It was established in pursuance of the resolution passed by participants of the Symposium on Asian Elections in the Twenty First Century held from January 26-29, 1997 in Manila, Philippines.
It was established in 1998.
Currently 20 Asian EMBs are members of AAEA.
5. Delimitation Commission finalises Delimitation Order for Jammu and Kashmir
Tags: Popular State News
The Delimitation Commission headed by Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai (Retired Judge of Supreme Court of India) has finalised the delimitation order for the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
Of the 90 assembly constituencies in the region, 43 will be part of the Jammu region and 47 will be for the Kashmir region.
After consultations with Associate Members, representatives of political parties, citizens, civil society groups, nine assembly constituencies have been reserved for Scheduled Tribes.
Of these, six are in the Jammu region and three in the Kashmir Valley.
There are five parliamentary constituencies in this region.
The Delimitation Commission has kept the Jammu and Kashmir region as a single union territory.
The last delimitation of assembly seats in Jammu and Kashmir was done in 1995, on the basis of the 1981 census.
The Commission, chaired by retired Justice Ranjana Prakash Desai and Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra and Jammu and Kashmir State Election Commissioner KK Sharma, met in New Delhi and finalised the delimitation order.
About Delimitation Commission
The task of delimitation has been entrusted to a high power body.
Such a body is known as Delimitation Commission or Boundary Commission.
In India, such Delimitation Commissions have been constituted 4 times – in 1952 under the Delimitation Commission Act, 1952, in 1963 under Delimitation Commission Act, 1962, in 1973 under Delimitation Act, 1972 and in 2002 under Delimitation Act, 2002.
The Delimitation Commission in India is a high powered body and its orders cannot be questioned before any court.
6. Election Commission inaugurates integrated election complex
Tags: National News
The Chief Election Commissioner of India inaugurated the Integrated Election Complex in Delhi recently.
About Integrated Election Complex
It has been constructed for storage and management of EVMs and VVPATs of NCT Delhi.
It has been built by the Chief Electoral Officer, Delhi and Delhi Tourism.
This is a milestone for the Election Commission of India.
The complex has been conceptualised with all state-of-the-art facilities and administrative security protocols for storage, security and movement of EVMs.
It has comprehensive facilities for first level verification of EVMs and VVPATs as per the guidelines of the Election Commission.
Electronic Voting Machine (EVM)
EVMs have been used in all elections since 2004.
EVMs cannot be tampered.
It provides accurate and timely results establishing their reliability as they were first put into use on pilot basis 4 decades back.
The VVPAT audit trail initiated since the 2019 General Elections has further established the credibility of EVMs and no mismatch has been found in the counting of votes cast in the EVMs and VVPAT slips.
7. Indian diaspora to register as Overseas Voters
Tags: National News
Chief Election Commissioner Sushil Chandra has urged members of the overseas Indian community to register as overseas voters.
He also informed the NRI community that the extension of Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) facility for overseas voters is being considered.
The government is considering the matter after the Election Commission had written to the Law Ministry in 2020 to allow NRIs to vote through postal ballots.
A delegation led by Chandra visited South Africa and Mauritius.
During the visit, talks were held with the Election Commission of South Africa and Mauritius as well as with the NRI community in both the countries.
South Africa has made great strides in democracy and will host the next general assembly of the Association of World Election Bodies (AWEB) in October 2022.
India has a very intense and active engagement with AWEB.
Both India and South Africa are founding members of this organisation.
Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS)
It enables voters to cast their vote on a postal ballot received electronically from their preferred location.
Voters can avail this service from anywhere outside their designated constituency.
It was developed to facilitate service voters
ETPBS is developed and managed by Election Commission of India.
8. BJP poised to form government in 4 states and AAP sweeps Punjab polls
Bharatiya Janata Party is set to form governments in Uttar Pradesh,Uttarakhand, Manipur and Goa while the Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) swept away Punjab.
The general election to constitute a new legislative Assembly in the states of Manipur, Goa, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Punjab was held by the Election Commission of India from 14 February 2022 to March 7 ,2022.
Uttar Pradesh voted in 7 phases from February 10 to March 7 to elect 403 vidhan sabha members of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly
The 40-member assembly of Goa went to polls in a single phase on February 14.
The 70 member assembly of Uttarakhand went to polls in a single phase on February 14.
The 117 member assembly of Punjab went to polls in a single phase on February 20.
The 60 member assembly of Manipur went to polls in two phases on 28 February and 5 March 2022.
State | Total Seats | Majority seats | Second place | Others |
Punjab | 117 | Aam Aadmi Party -92 seats | Congress(I)- 18 seats | Shiromani Akali Dal-3 seats |
Uttar Pradesh | 403 | BJP-255 seats | Samajwadi party-111 seats | Congress-2 seats |
Uttrakhand | 70 | BJP-47 seats | Congress-19 seats | Others - 2 seats |
Manipur | 60 | BJP-32 seats | National People’s Party -7 seats | Congress-5 seats |
Goa | 40 | BJP-20 seats | Congress-11 | AAP-2 seats |
In Uttar Pradesh,the alliance partners of BJP were Apna Dal(Sonelal) and NISHAD Party(Nirbal Indian Shoshit Hamara Aam Dal") .The alliance partner Apna Dal won 12 seats and the NISHAD party won 6. The total seats won by BJP and its alliances are 273.
Notable winners of the Poll
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath of BJP won from Gorakhpur Urban seat by defeating Samajwadi Party’s Subhawati Upendra Dutt Shukla. This was the first time he contested an Assembly poll.
Samajwadi party leader Akhilesh Yadav won the Karhal seat by defeating the Union Minister of State for Law and Justice Satya Pal Singh Baghel.
Manipur Chief Minister N.Biren Singh of BJP defeated Congress's P Sharatchandra from Heingang seat.
Goa Chief Minister Pramod Sawant won the Sanquelim assembly constituency seat as he defeated Congress leader Dharmesh Saglani.
Notable losers
- Uttarakhand Chief Minister and BJP leader, Pushkar Singh Dhamilost the election from Khatima to the Congress candidate Bhuwan Chandra Kapri.
- Punjab Chief Ministerand Congress Party (I) candidate Charanjit Singh Channi contested from two constituencies and lost both . He was defeated by Aam Aadmi Party(AAP) candidate Labh Singh Ugoke in the Bahadaur assembly seat. He also lost his traditional Chamkaur singh sahib seat to his name sake ,Chanranjit singh Channi of Aam Aadmi Party.
- Former Chief Minister of Punjab ,Captain Amrinder Singh who formed a new party, Punjab Lok Congress lost his Patiala Urban constituency to AAP's Ajit Pal Singh Kohli.
- Congress Party Punjab chief , Navjot Singh Sidhu lost the Amritsar East seat to AAP candidate Jeevanjyot Kaur
- Uttar Pradesh Deputy Chief Minister Keshav Prasad Maurya was defeated by Pallavi Patel of Samajwadi Party in Sirathu constituency .
Pushkar Singh Dhami and Charanjit Singh Channi have resigned from their post .
Chief Election Commissioner of India : Sushil Chandra .
9. 25th January: National Voters’ Day
Tags: Important Days
The theme for voters' day 2022 is ‘Making Elections Inclusive, Accessible and Participative’.
Every year India observes “National Voters’ Day” on January 25 to encourage more young voters to take part in the political process.
- Since 2011, National Voters’ Day has been celebrated all across the country on the 25th of January every year, to mark the foundation day of the Election Commission of India.
- The Election Commission of India is observing 12th National Voters’ Day today.
Current Chief Election Commissioner of India: Sushil Chandra
The first Chief Election Commissioner of Independent India: Sukumar Sen.
10. Election Commission has reduced the Notice period for Political parties registration
Tags: National News
The Election Commission of India has reduced the notice period for registering new political parties in the five election bound states of Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Manipur, Goa and Punjab from 30 days to 7 days due to the prevailing coronavirus pandemic.
- According to the Election commission a party seeking registration with the election commission has to publish its proposed names in two national newspapers and two local newspapers before applying to the election commission for registration.
- The election commission has clarified that the notice period was also reduced last year when elections were held in Bihar, Assam, Kerala, Puducherry, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal during the corona pandemic.
Registration of Political parties is governed by the provisions of Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951
- Chief Election Commissioner : Mr. Sushil Chandra
