Articles covered:

• Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2024 announced (PIB News)
• REC receives the SCOPE Excellence Award for Digitalization (PIB News)
• World’s tallest Ambedkar statue to be unveiled in Andhra Pradesh today (Hindustan Times)
• Legal debate over sub-categorisation among SCs (Indian Express)
• The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved the creation of three officer-level posts for assisting the 16th Finance Commission (DD News)

Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2024 announced:

• Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar (PMRBP) – is given to children with exceptional abilities and outstanding achievements.
• The awards are given to children in the age group 5 – 18 years for their excellence in seven categories for Bravery, Art & Culture, Environment, Innovation, Science & Technology, Social Service and Sports that deserve national recognition.
• Each awardee of PMRBP is given a medal, certificate and a citation booklet.
• The awards will be conferred by the President of India at a ceremonial function to be held at Vigyan Bhawan on 22nd January, 2024.
• For the year Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar 2024, 19 children have been selected from all regions of the country for their exceptional achievements.
• On 23rd January, 2024 Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi will interact with Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar awardees. The children will also participate in the Republic Day parade on 26th January, 2024.
• The Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, formerly called the National Child Award for Exceptional Achievement, is India’s highest civilian honour for children, awarded annually by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• The award has two categories: Bal Shakti Puraskar, awarded to Indian citizens under the age of 18 for outstanding achievement in innovation, scholastic achievements, social service, arts and culture, bravery, or sports, and Bal Kalyan Puraskar, to individuals or organisations that have made outstanding contributions in child development, child protection, or child welfare.
• The Bal Kalyan Puraskar, previously the National Child Welfare Awards, was instituted by the Ministry of Women and Child Development in 1979, and the Bal Shakti Puraskar, previously the National Child Award, was instituted by the NGO Indian Council for Child Welfare in 1996.
• In 2018, the two awards were renamed and combined into the Pradhan Mantri Rashtriya Bal Puraskar, which is administered by the Ministry of Women and Child Development.
• It is conferred by the President of India in the week preceding Republic Day, 26 January, in the Durbar Hall of Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi. Previously, the awards were conferred on Children’s Day.

REC receives SCOPE Excellence Award for Digitalization:

• REC Limited, a Maharatna Central Public Sector Enterprise under the Ministry of Power and a leading NBFC, has been honoured with the prestigious Scope Excellence Award in the category of Special Institutional Category (Digitalization).
• The award acknowledges REC Limited’s unwavering commitment to the digitalization of its workplace and the promotion of best practices in establishing a paperless office.
• SCOPE was established in 1973 as an apex body of Public Sector Enterprises (PSEs), and is dedicated to promoting competitiveness and excellence within the PSE sector.
• The SCOPE Excellence Award recognizes and commemorates exemplary performances of Public Sector Enterprises.

About REC Limited:

• REC is a ‘Maharatna’ CPSE under the Ministry of Power, and is registered with RBI as Non-Banking Finance Company (NBFC), and Infrastructure Financing Company (IFC).
• REC finances the entire Power-Infrastructure sector comprising Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Renewable Energy and new technologies like Electric Vehicles, Battery Storage, Pumped Storage projects, Green Hydrogen and Green Ammonia projects.
• REC has also diversified into the Non-Power Infrastructure sector comprising Roads & Expressways, Metro Rail, Airports, IT Communication, Social and Commercial Infrastructure (Educational Institution, Hospitals), Ports and Electro-Mechanical (E&M) works in respect of various other sectors like Steel and Refinery.
• REC Ltd. provides loans of various maturities to State, Central and Private Companies for creation of infrastructure assets in the country.
• REC Ltd. continues to play a key strategic role in the flagship schemes of the Government for the power sector and has been nodal agency for Pradhan Mantri Sahaj Bijli Har Ghar Yojana (SAUBHAGAYA), Deen Dayal Upadhaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY), National Electricity Fund (NEF) Scheme which resulted in strengthening of last mile distribution system, 100% village electrification and household electrification in the country.
• REC has also been made the nodal agency for certain States and Union Territories for the Revamped Distribution Sector Scheme (RDSS).

World’s tallest Ambedkar statue unveiled in Andhra Pradesh today:

Features of the ‘Statue of Justice’:

• The world’s tallest Ambedkar statue stands 125-feet tall and stands on an 81-feet pedestal.
• The project to build the statue incurred ₹404.35 crore and it is spread over 18.81 acres of land covered in a lush green park.
• From sourcing raw materials to designing, the statue was built under a complete ‘Made in India’ project. Around 400 tonnes of steel went into making the ‘Statue of Justice’.
• The area surrounding the statue, along with the Swaraj Maidan, where it was built, has been re-developed. Water bodies in the forecourt, three-sided peripheral water body for the pedestal and a musical water fountain were built in the area.
• LED screens have been set up to display Ambedkar’s life, a convention centre of 2,000 seating capacity, a food court of 8,000 sq ft along with children’s playing area were also built at the site.

In ‘E.V. Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh’, the Supreme Court struck down the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2000 for being violative of the right to equality:

• A seven-judge constitution bench headed by Chief Justice of India D Y Chandrachud will start to hear the case pertaining to the sub-categorisation among Scheduled Castes (SCs) from next week.
• States have argued that there are some castes that are grossly underrepresented despite reservation in comparison to the so-called dominant scheduled castes. They want to create a separate quota for some castes within the SC quota of 15% to ensure that the benefits are equitably distributed among all castes.
• The top court will decide if states have the power to create these sub-classifications when providing reservations or if such power is vested only with the President.
• In 1975, the Punjab government issued a notification dividing its 25% SC reservation at that time into two categories. In the first category, seats were reserved solely for the Balmiki and Mazhbi Sikh communities, which were and continue to be considered two of the most economically and educationally backward communities in the state. As a result, they were to be given first preference for any reservations in education and public employment.
• The second category consisted of the rest of the SC communities, which didn’t get this preferential treatment.
• It was one of the first instances of existing reservations being ‘sub-classified’ by a state to provide benefits to certain communities beyond what was already being offered to scheduled caste communities as a whole.
• While the notification remained in force for nearly 30 years, it ran into legal hurdles when in 2004, a five-judge constitution bench struck down a similar law introduced by Andhra Pradesh in 2000.
• In ‘E.V. Chinnaiah v State of Andhra Pradesh’, the Supreme Court struck down the Andhra Pradesh Scheduled Castes (Rationalisation of Reservations) Act, 2000 for being violative of the right to equality. The law contained an expansive list of scheduled caste communities identified in the state and the quota of reservation benefits provided to each of them.
• The Court held that the sub-classification would violate the right to equality by treating communities within this category differently and said that the SC list must be treated as a single, homogenous group. The rationale was that since the Constitution classifies certain castes in a Schedule as they historically faced discrimination due to the practice of untouchability, they cannot be treated differently from one another.
• The court also drew attention to Article 341 of the Constitution which gives the President the power to create a list of SC communities for the purposes of reservation. The five-judge bench held that this meant states did not have the power to “interfere” or “disturb” this list, including through sub-classification, and that doing so would violate Article 341.
• Two years after the apex court ruling, the Punjab & Haryana High Court in ‘Dr. Kishan Pal v. State of Punjab’ struck down the 1975 notification.
• In October 2006, four months after the Punjab & Haryana High Court struck down the notification, the Punjab government attempted to bring back the law by passing the Punjab Scheduled Caste and Backward Classes (Reservation in Services) Act, 2006. This Act reintroduced the first preference in reservations for the Balmiki and Mazhbi Sikh communities.
• In 2010, the High Court once again struck down this provision. The Punjab government then moved the Supreme Court against the HC ruling arguing that the Supreme Court in 2004 had incorrectly concluded that Scheduled Caste quota cannot be sub-classified.
• In 2014, the Supreme Court in ‘Davinder Singh v State of Punjab’, referred the appeal to a five-judge constitution bench to determine if the 2004 E V Chinnaiah decision required reconsideration since it needed an inquiry into the interplay of several constitutional provisions.
• Interpretation of the Constitution requires a bench of at least five-judges of the Supreme Court.
• In 2020, the constitution bench headed by Justice Arun Mishra held that the court’s 2004 decision in E V Chinnaiah required reconsideration. The ruling noted that the Court and the state “cannot be a silent spectator and shut its eyes to stark realities.” The ruling disagreed with the premise that Scheduled Castes are a homogeneous group and said that there are “unequals within the list of Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes, and socially and educationally backward classes.”
• Crucially, since the E V Chinnaiah decision, the concept of a “creamy layer” has also trickled down to SC reservations. In the landmark 2018 ruling in ‘Jarnail Singh v Lachhmi Narain Gupta’, the Supreme Court upheld the concept of “creamy layer” within SCs too.
• The ‘Creamy layer’ concept puts an income ceiling on those eligible for reservations. While this concept applies to Other Backward Castes (OBC), it was applied to promotions of SCs for the first time in 2018.
• States have argued that the sub-classification is essentially an application of the creamy layer formula, where instead of excluding the better-off castes from the Scheduled Caste list, the state is merely giving preferential treatment to the most disadvantageous castes.
• Since the Davinder Singh bench was also of five-judges (same as E V Chinnaiah), a larger seven-judge bench is now hearing the issue — only a larger bench’s judgement can prevail over the decision of a smaller bench.
• Apart from Balmikis and Mazhabi Sikhs in Punjab and Madiga in Andhra Pradesh, Paswans in Bihar, the Jatavs in UP, and Arundhatiyars in Tamil Nadu will also be impacted by the sub-classification strategy.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi today approved the creation of three officer-level posts for assisting the 16th Finance Commission:

• The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has granted approval for the establishment of three officer-level posts to support the 16th Finance Commission. The newly instituted positions consist of two Joint Secretary-level roles and one Economic Adviser.
• The appointments align with the notification issued on December 31, 2023, in accordance with the provisions of Article 280 of the Constitution.
• The 16th Finance Commission is tasked with evaluating the financial situations of both central and state governments, providing recommendations for assistance grants, suggesting tax adjustments, and determining the framework for tax distribution among states.
• On December 31, Arvind Panagariya, former Vice Chairman of NITI Aayog and a professor at Columbia University, was appointed as the Chairman of the 16th Finance Commission.
• Hrithik Ranjan Pandey has been designated as the new Secretary of the Finance Commission.
• The Commission will submit its report to the President by October 31, 2025, covering a five-year period starting April 1, 2026.
• The 15th Finance Commission was established on November 27, 2017, with recommendations spanning from 2020-21 to 2025-26. Typically, it takes about two years for the Finance Commission to present its recommendations.
• In accordance with Article 280(1) of the Constitution, the Finance Commission is constituted every five years or earlier.
• The Advance Cell of the 16th Finance Commission was instituted on November 21, 2022, within the Finance Ministry to oversee preliminary activities until the formal establishment of the Commission.