DAY 32Quick read

The National Council of Education (or NCE) was an organisation founded by Indian nationalists in Bengal in 1906 to promote science and technology as part of a swadeshi industrialisation movement. It established the Bengal National College and Bengal Technical Institute which would later merge to form Jadavpur University. Institutions functioning under the Council were considered to be hotbeds of swadeshi activities and the government banned nationalistic activities such as the singing of patriotic songs.

The situation in Punjab was alarming as there were riots and protests against the Rowlatt Act.
On the day of the festival of Baisakhi on 13th April 1919 in Jallianwala Bagh, a public garden in Amritsar, the crowd had gathered to protest against the arrest of two popular Congress leaders Satya Pal and Saifuddin Kitchlew.
General Dyer came there with his troops and blocked the only narrow entrance to the garden. Then, without warning, he ordered his troops to fire at the unarmed crowd, which included children as well. The indiscriminate firing resulted in the deaths of at least 1000 people and injured more than 1500 people.
The government set up the Hunter Commission to inquire into the massacre. Although the commission condemned the act by Dyer, it did not impose any disciplinary action against him.

Shyamji Krishna Varma is an Indian revolutionary fighter, lawyer and journalist, who led India’s freedom struggle from London
•Founded the famous India House in London in 1904 which became the nerve centre and nucleus for India’s revolutionaries like Veer Savarkar, Madame Cama, Sardar Singh Rana, V V S Iyer, Lala Hardayal and Virendranath Chattopadhaya and Madhanlal Dhingra – was the political guru of Veer Savarkar, V V S Iyer and many other freedom fighters in this period
•He started the publication of a monthly journal called ‘Indian Sociologist’ which became a vehicle of revolutionary ideas.
•In February 1905, he established the Indian Home Rule Society to raise his voice against British domination in India.
•It was Shyamji who first advocated non-violent means of getting rid of the British and using withdrawal of cooperation with the colonial administration as the most effective weapon for this purpose. Gandhiji built on this and evolved Satyagraha as a tool to oust the British much later.

The 1929 Session of Indian, National Congress is of significance in the history of the Freedom Movement because the attainment of Poorna Swaraj was adopted as the goal of the Congress.

Free Trade and Warehousing Zones
•Objective: To create trade-related infrastructure to facilitate the import and export of goods and services with freedom to carry out trade transactions in free currency.
•The scheme envisages duty free import of all goods (except prohibited items, arms and ammunitions, hazardous wastes and SCOMET items) for warehousing. As far as bond towards customs duty on import is concerned, the units would be subject to similar provisions as are applicable to units in SEZs.

India announced a capacity building programme UNNATI (UNispace Nanosatellite Assembly & Training by ISRO) on Nano satellites development through a combination of theoretical coursework and hands-on training on Assembly, Integration and Testing (AIT) in June 2018(formally inaugurated in 2019) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the first United nation conference UNISPACE+50
The programme aims at capacity building in satellite technology for participants from countries interested in developing space programme by providing hands-on experience in building and testing of nano satellites.

In the Constitution, Articles 79 to 122 define the roles and functions of the Parliament. According to it, the Parliament of India consists of: the President, Rajya Sabha, and Lok Sabha.

Rajya Sabha has a maximum strength of 250, of which 12 are elected members. In the USA, 2 delegates are assigned to all states irrespective of their population, each state gets 2.
There are no nominated members in the American Senate. Only Lok Sabha can pass a motion of no-confidence against the government.

Rajya Sabha follows the method of Proportional Representation. But owing the vastness of India’s territory and its population, for Lok Sabha elections we follow the method of territorial representation

The qualifying age for Lok Sabha is minimum 25 years, and for Rajya Sabha it is minimum 30 years.
Representation of People Act (1951) prohibits a person from being a member of both Houses simultaneously.
The anti-defection law can be used to disqualify a member of either of the Houses votes against the directions given by his party.