Definition of land as forest
- The conundrum of defining forest has been around since the 1980s.
- In 1996, the Supreme Court in its Godavarman Judgement expanded the definition of Forest that includes lands,
- That was already notified by the Centre as forests,
- That appears in government records as forests
- That fell in the “dictionary definition” of forest.
- Under the third category, it is the prerogative of the States to define their own criteria and define tracts of land as a forest which is known as 'deemed forests'.
- This is because, a tract of grassland in one State might qualify in one region as forest, but not in another.
- However, not all States have submitted such criteria and once a State applied criteria, it couldn't be reversed.
- Forests defined under these criteria constituted about 1% of the country’s forests.
- The discussion on this deemed forests came up because the Uttarakhand government had put forth a set of criteria defining forest land and asked the Environment ministry for it's opinion.
- The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC) have clarified that the States need not take the Centre’s approval to define what constitutes unclassified land as forest.
PMEAC
- Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council is a non-constitutional, non-permanent and independent body constituted to give economic advice to the Government of India, specifically the Prime Minister.
- The council serves to highlight key economic issues facing the country to the government of India from a neutral viewpoint.
- It is chaired by a Chairperson and consists of eminent economists as members.
- There is no fixed definition on the exact number of members and staff of the EAC-PM.
- Recent developments - It was recently reconstituted for the period of two years.
- In the council's earlier terms, there were 5 full time and part time members in total. After the reconstitution, the strength of the council gone upto 7 with 2 full time and 5 part time members.
- Bibek Debroy remains the chairman of the PMEAC and Ratan Watal its Member-Secretary.
Developments in IMF
- The members of IMF has recently agreed a new deal that would allow to maintain its funding at $ 1 trillion but postponed changes to its voting structure.
- Source of funding in IMF - Quotas are the IMF’s main source of financing. Each member of the IMF is assigned a quota, based broadly on its relative position in the world economy.
- Through New Arrangement to Borrow (NAB), a number of member countries and institutions stand ready to lend additional resources to the IMF.
- The NAB constitutes a second line of defense to supplement IMF resources.
- Bilateral Borrowing Agreements serve as a third line of defense after quotas and the NAB.
- Concessional lending and debt relief for low-income countries are financed through separate contribution-based trust funds.
- NAB is a renewable funding mechanism that has existed since 1998 and bilateral borrowings from countries after the 2008 financial crisis.
- Recent Developments - In its new deal, IMF members have decided to extended the bilateral borrowing facility by a year to the end of 2020 and a potential doubling of the NAB.
- But the new deal will leave IMF quotas (the primary source of IMF funds), which determine voting shares, unchanged. Instead, these will be reviewed before the end of 2023.
- This is mainly due to veto power of US which has objected to changing IMF quota.
- IMF quotas are distributed according to a four pronged formula that considers a member country’s GDP, its economic openness, its “economic variability” and international reserves.
- India’s quota is 2.76% and China’s is 6.41%, while the U.S.’s quota is 17.46 % (translates to a vote share of 16.52%).
- Many of the crucial decision in IMF requires 85% supermajority and US vote share give it unique veto power.
Appointments in RBI
- As per the RBI Act, the central bank should have one governor and four deputy governors -Two from within the ranks and one commercial banker and another an economist to head the monetary policy department.
- Any vacancy in the list will be filled by the government after getting recommendations from the Financial Sector Regulatory Appointment Search Committee (FSRASC).
- FSRASC is headed by Cabinet Secretary and includes additional Principal Secretary to the Prime Minister who is a permanent government nominee and 3 other experts.
- As per the process, the panel will invite applications from eligible candidates and based on interactions with them will select the candidate.
- The appointment would be made by the central government on the recommendation of the FSRASC.
- It is noted that the FSRASC is free to identify and recommend any other person also, on the basis of merit, who has not applied for the post.
- The same process is being followed in the selection of Chairman of SEBI and IRDAI.
- Currently, Deputy governor post in RBI is being vacant after the resignation of Viral Acharya.
- The tenure of the office is three years and the person is eligible for reappointment.
Relocation of Rohingyas
- Thousands of Rohingya living in Bangladesh refugee camps have agreed to move to an island named "Bhashan Char" in the Bay of Bengal.
- However, there is a warning that the island emerged from the sea only about two decades ago, might not be able to withstand violent storms during the annual monsoon season.
Source: The Hindu
