Key facts: The code proposes to amalgamate The Trade Unions Act, 1926, The Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, and The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947.

It is the third out of four labour codes that have got approval from the cabinet.

The Bill: Seeks to allow companies to hire workers on fixed-term contract of any duration. Has retained the threshold on the worker count at 100 for prior government approval before retrenchment, but it has a provision for changing ‘such number of employees’ through notification.

Provides setting up of a two-member tribunal (in place of one member) wherein important cases will be adjudicated jointly and the rest by a single member, resulting speedier disposal of cases. Has vested powers with the government officers for adjudication of disputes involving penalty as fines.

Introduces a feature of ‘recognition of negotiating union’ under which a trade union will be recognized as sole ‘negotiating union’ if it has the support of 75% or more of the workers on the rolls of an establishment. As several trade unions are active in companies, it will be tough for any one group to manage 75% support, hence taking away their negotiating rights. In such a case, a negotiating council will be constituted for negotiation.

Underlines that fixed-term employees will get all statutory benefits on a par with the regular employees who are doing work of the same or similar nature. Under the code, termination of service of a worker on completion of tenure in a fixed-term employment will not be considered as retrenchment. Proposes setting up of a “re-skilling fund” for training of retrenched employees. The retrenched employee would be paid 15 days’ wages from the fund within 45 days of retrenchment.

Significance: The Indian economy grew at 5% in the June quarter, a six-year low, while the country’s factory output shrank for the second straight month at 4.3% in September, recording its worst show since the present series was launched in April 2012.

The ease of compliance of labour laws will promote the setting up of more enterprises, thus catalysing the creation of employment opportunities in the country.

The laboratory that will be housed in the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) office here has partnered with Indian government”s Atal Innovation Mission to achieve the objectives.

What is it? The Accelerator Lab is an innovative new initiative by the UNDP, Germany and Qatar, to find 21st century solutions to today”s complex new challenges.

Four key approaches sit at the core of the Labs’ work: Building on locally-sourced solutions, finding things that work and expanding on them. Rapid testing and iteration to implement what works and go beyond the obvious solutions.

Combining the best understanding, ideas and expertise to generate collective knowledge. Accelerating progress by bringing expertise, creativity and collective intelligence to bear.

Need for: The impact of artificial intelligence on unemployment. The potential for disinformation to spread on social media. The need for policies that keep up with and drive innovation, while protecting human rights.

Many of these challenges are growing exponentially. The speed, dynamics and complexity of today’s social, economic and environmental problems are fundamentally different from previous eras in history.

The Accelerator Labs are UNDP’s new way of working in development. They will work together with national and global partners to find radically new approaches that fit the complexity of current development challenges.

Background: Supplementary, additional or excess grants and Votes on account, votes of credit and exceptional grants are mentioned in the Constitution of India 1949.

Article 115: Supplementary, additional or excess grants. Article 116: Votes on account, votes of credit and exceptional grants.

Definition: Supplementary grants are the additional grant required to meet the required expenditure of the government.

The demand for excess grants: When grants, authorised by the Parliament, fall short of the required expenditure, an estimate is presented before the Parliament for Supplementary or Additional grants. These grants are presented and passed by the Parliament before the end of the financial year.

When actual expenditure incurred exceeds the approved grants of the Parliament, the Ministry of Finance and Ministry of Railways presents a Demand for Excess Grant. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India bring such excesses to the notice of the Parliament.

The Public Accounts Committee examines these excesses and gives recommendations to the Parliament. The Demand for Excess Grants is made after the actual expenditure is incurred and is presented to the Parliament after the end of the financial year in which the expenses were made.

Other grants: Additional Grant: It is granted when a need has arisen during the current financial year for supplementary or additional expenditure upon some new service not contemplated in the Budget for that year.

Excess Grant: It is granted when money has been spent on any service during a financial year in excess of the amount granted for that year. The demands for excess grants are made after the expenditure has actually been incurred and after the financial year to which it relates, has expired.

Exceptional Grants: It is granted for an exceptional purpose which forms no part of the current service of any financial year Token Grant: It is granted when funds to meet proposed expenditure on a new service can be made available by re-appropriation, a demand for the grant of a token sum may be submitted to the vote of the House and, if the House assents to the demand, funds may be so made available.

Implications: The objective is to remove bottlenecks and capture all toll electronically. All 560-odd plazas under the control of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) will collect toll without human intervention, and vehicles need not stop to pay toll.

How does FASTag work? The device employs Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology for payments directly from the prepaid or savings account linked to it. It is affixed on the windscreen, so the vehicle can drive through plazas without stopping.

It is valid for five years, and can be recharged as and when required. The payment method is a part of the National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC) programme. The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) collects the payments.

Why do we need this scheme? According to the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI), these devices will make passing through tolls considerably smoother since drivers will no longer have to carry cash or stop to make a transaction. Cameras at toll booths will take photos of passengers in a vehicle, which will be useful for the Ministry of Home Affairs as there will be a record of a vehicle’s movement.

Implications: The symbolic move is expected to pressurise countries to act ahead of the United Nations summit on climate change that starts on December 2 in Spain.

The resolution will have more symbolic effect than practical impact, and is designed to pressure EU governments to adopt a commitment for all of the EU to reduce emissions to net zero.

Who else have declared climate emergency? Similar climate emergency declarations have already been made in several EU member states, including Spain, France and the United Kingdom. Outside Europe only Canada, Argentina and Bangladesh have declared a climate emergency.

What is Climate Emergency? There is no single definition of what that means but many local areas say they want to be carbon-neutral by 2030. It varies. For example, for UK government it is to reduce carbon emissions by 80% (compared to 1990 levels) by 2050.

Why declare an emergency? The United Nations says we could have just 11 years left to limit a climate change catastrophe. It’s not just about reducing carbon emissions on a local scale, but also raising awareness about climate change.

What does the Paris Agreement say? With the planet to experience further warming from the heat held by the oceans, there is increasing international focus on meeting the United Nation’s Paris Agreement which was signed by 197 countries in 2016.

The agreement has the ambitious global aim of preventing global temperatures from reaching 2˚C above pre-industrial levels (the late nineteenth century) by 2100, and ideally should be no more than 1.5˚C.

Context: The 6th Asian Dendrochronology Conference being held at the Birbal Sahni Institute of Palaeosciences in Lucknow. This is the first time that the conference is being held in India.

What is it? Dendrochronology is the study of tree rings that hold a wealth of information about not only a tree’s past but also that of the ecosystem in which it lives.

Launched by UNICEF. It brings young people together with the private sector, governments, international and local organisations.

The aim is to tackle the urgent challenge of investing in their learning and training so that they are prepared for the complex and fast-changing world of work and can be active and engaged citizens.

Parliament is halfway through its 20-day winter session. This session comes in the backdrop of the record-breaking first session of the 17th Lok Sabha. In that session, Parliament passed 33 Bills, the highest number ever passed by it since 1952. Another highlight from that first session was the long working hours of the Lok Sabha. On multiple occasions, the Lok Sabha Members of Parliament (MPs) worked past 10pm, debating legislation and raising important issues. Therefore, it was not surprising when the government announced an ambitious legislative agenda for the winter session. During this session, the government intends to get Parliament’s approval on 39 bills.

These bills can be divided into two categories. The first are bills which have not yet started their legislative journey in this new Lok Sabha. There are 27 of these bills, which the government plans to introduce, deliberate and pass in the session. This number includes the two ordinances relating to lowering corporate tax rates and banning e-cigarettes. The second category has the 12 remaining bills. These are ones which are already pending in Parliament. As of now, the Lok Sabha has passed one bill from each of the two categories. The bill passed by it from the first category bans the sale and manufacture of e-cigarettes. The bill from the second category grants the National Institute of Design (NID) in four states the status of institutes of national importance. This status will allow these NIDs more functional autonomy and the power to grant degrees.

So far in the session, the Rajya Sabha has passed two bills from the second category. The first one was the politically contentious amendment to the Jallianwala Bagh National Memorial Act. This 1951 law created a trust to oversee the management of the memorial. It specified that one of the trustees shall be the president of the Congress. The amendment bill deletes this provision and makes other changes. The second bill passed by the upper house gives rights and prohibits discrimination against transgender individuals. The catalyst for this government bill was the passage of a similar private member bill, piloted by Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam MP Tiruchi Siva in 2015.

The first session of this Lok Sabha had a legislative surprise. The government had brought in a constitutional amendment which changed the status of Jammu and Kashmir. So far in this session, the government has introduced and passed two bills, which were not part of the government’s legislative agenda.

The first one relates to an amendment to the Special Protection Group Act of 1988. Prime ministers, former PMs and their immediate families are guarded by the SPG. An amendment passed this week by the Lok Sabha restricts the SPG cover to the PM and immediate family members residing with the PM. The amendment bill also caps the SPG security cover for five years after a PM has demitted office. It also specifies that the immediate family of a former PM living with him in the officially allocated residence would have SPG cover for a similar period. The debate in the Lok Sabha on this bill saw sharp exchanges between the ruling party and Opposition benches.

The second bill passed by the Lok Sabha which was not part of the government’s legislative plan was one to merge the Union Territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. Both these bills will now have to be passed by the Rajya Sabha. It is also currently unclear whether the government plans to introduce and pass other bills deviating from its legislative agenda.

The two houses of Parliament have spent approximately 50% of their time debating these bills. There are 10 days remaining in the scheduled close of session on December 13, and approximately 30 more bills for passing on the government’s list. Perhaps the most contentious bill on the government’s pending list is the Citizenship Amendment Bill. It had lapsed on the dissolution of the previous Lok Sabha and has been on the government’s legislative agenda since the last session. It is yet to be introduced in Parliament. Other important bills which are yet to be brought before the two Houses relate to personal data protection, pesticides management and termination of pregnancy. If the government decides to push for passing most of these 30-odd bills, then it would mean that rigorous scrutiny of these bills by Parliament will be compromised.

However, the session so far has witnessed positive signs when it comes to legislative scrutiny. Bills have been debated extensively and a bill which prohibits commercial surrogacy was referred to a select committee of the Rajya Sabha. In the Lok Sabha, the minister for labour, who is piloting the Industrial Relations Code, was open to the idea of referring the bill for detailed scrutiny by a parliamentary standing committee. Hopefully, these positive signs will continue through the session. The presiding officers of the two houses will play an important role in this aspect. They are the ones who, by allocating adequate time for debate and sending bills to committees, deepen the debate and secure the effective scrutiny of all bills by Parliament.

Chakshu Roy is the head of Legislative and Civic Engagement, PRS Legislative Research

NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has said that his nephew's action is an act of indiscipline, and attracts the provisions of the anti-defection law. What is this law?

What happens in Maharashtra now remains to be seen. In the extraordinary political drama unfolding in Maharashtra since dawn on Saturday (November 23), it remains unclear precisely how many Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) lawmakers are with Ajit Pawar in his decision to join hands with the BJP.

NCP supremo Sharad Pawar has said that his nephew’s action is an act of indiscipline, and attracts the provisions of the anti-defection law. “NCP MLAs who support the BJP should know this move attracts provisions of anti-defection law,” Pawar said in a joint press conference with Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray who until past midnight on Friday looked set to be the next Chief Minister of Maharashtra.

The gazette notification for the revocation of President’s Rule by President Ram Nath Kovind was issued at 5.47 am on Saturday, PTI reported. Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office to Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar at 7.30 am.

It was not immediately clear what evidence of support from NCP MLAs Fadnavis and Pawar presented to the Governor. Here is how the anti-defection law — the Tenth Schedule of the Constitution, inserted by The Constitution (52nd Amendment) Act, 1985, when Rajiv Gandhi’s government was in power — came to be, and how it evolved over the three decades that followed.

The 1967 elections The seeds of the anti-defection law were sown after the general elections in 1967. The results of those elections were a mixed bag for the Congress. It formed the government at the Centre, but its strength in Lok Sabha fell from 361 to 283. During the year it lost control of seven state governments as MLAs shifted their political allegiance.

In this backdrop, P Venkatasubbaiah, a Congress MP in Lok Sabha who served in the Cabinets of both Indira and Rajiv Gandhi, proposed the setting up of a high-level committee to make recommendations to tackle the “problem of legislators changing their allegiance from one party to another”. The proposal saw a spirited debate in Lok Sabha. Opposition members suggested renaming the proposal to “save Congress”, while the ruling party accused the opposition of inducing MLAs to defect.

The Y B Chavan panel Despite the acrimony, the Lok Sabha agreed to the setting up of a committee to examine the problem of political defections. The then Home Minister, Y B Chavan, headed the committee.

The panel defined defection — and an exception for genuine defectors. According to the committee, defection was the voluntary giving up of allegiance of a political party on whose symbol a legislator was elected, except when such action was the result of the decision of the party. In its report, the committee noted “that the lure of office played a dominant part in decisions of legislators to defect”. It pointed out that out of 210 defecting legislators in seven states, 116 were given ministerial berths in governments which they helped form by their defections.

To combat this, the committee recommended a bar on defecting legislators from holding ministerial positions for a year — or until the time they got themselves re-elected. It also suggested a smaller Council of Ministers both at the levels of the Centre and the states. The committee was in favour of political parties working together to help evolve a code of conduct to effectively tackle disruptions.

Early attempts at a law Following the report of the Y B Chavan committee, two separate legislative attempts, both unsuccessful, were made to find a solution to defections.

The first one was made by Indira’s Home Minister Uma Shankar Dikshit in 1973; the second, in 1978, by Shanti Bhushan, Minister for Law and Justice in the Janata Party government of Morarji Desai. The third attempt — which was successful — was made in 1985, after the Congress won more than 400 seats in Lok Sabha in the aftermath of Indira’s assassination.

The Tenth Schedule The Bill to amend the Constitution was introduced by Rajiv Gandhi’s Law Minister Ashoke Kumar Sen, the veteran barrister and politician who had also served in the Cabinet of Jawaharlal Nehru.

The statement of objects and reasons of the Bill said: “The evil of political defections has been a matter of national concern. If it is not combated, it is likely to undermine the very foundations of our democracy and the principles which sustain it.” The amendment by which the Tenth Schedule was inserted in the Constitution, did three broad things.

* One, it made legislators liable to be penalised for their conduct both inside (voting against the whip of the party) and outside (making speeches, etc.) the legislature — the penalty being the loss of their seats in Parliament or the state legislatures.

* Two, it protected legislators from disqualification in cases where there was a split (with 1/3rd of members splitting) or merger (with 2/3rds of members merging) of a legislature party with another political party. * Three, it made the Presiding Officer of the concerned legislature the sole arbiter of defection proceedings.

Criticism and passage During the debate in Parliament, Opposition MPs argued that the Bill would curtail the freedom of speech and expression of legislators. MPs like the socialist leader Madhu Dandavate expressed concern over the impact the amendment could have on the office of the Speaker.

The Law Minister, however, succeeded in navigating the Bill through Parliament in two days. The Bill was debated in Lok Sabha on January 30, the death anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, and was passed by Rajya Sabha the following day. Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi referred in Parliament to the Mahatma’s seven social sins, the first one being politics without principles.

The immediate challenges No sooner was the law put in place than political parties started to stress-test its boundaries.

The issue of what constitutes a spilt in a political party rocked both the V P Singh and the Chandra Shekhar governments. The role of the Presiding Officers also became increasingly politicised. Lok Sabha Speaker Shivraj Patil said in 1992: “The Speaker is not expected to dabble in keeping the political parties weak or strong or discipline the Parliamentarians for their party purposes.”

The intervention of the higher judiciary was sought to decide questions such as what kinds of conduct outside the legislature would fall in the category of defection, and what was the extent of the Speaker’s power in deciding defections. The Supreme Court, while upholding the supremacy of the Speaker in defection proceedings, also held that the Speaker’s decisions were subject to judicial review.

The 2003 Amendment The last step in the legislative journey of the anti-defection law came in 2003. A Constitution Amendment Bill was introduced in Parliament by the government of Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee to address some of the issues with the law. A committee headed by Pranab Mukherjee examined the Bill.

The committee observed: “The provision of split has been grossly misused to engineer multiple divisions in the party, as a result of which the evil of defection has not been checked in the right earnest. Further it is also observed that the lure of office of profit plays dominant part in the political horse-trading resulting in spate of defections and counter defections.” The one-third split provision which offered protection to defectors was deleted from the law on the committee’s recommendation.

The 2003 Amendment also incorporated the 1967 advice of the Y B Chavan committee in limiting the size of the Council of Ministers, and preventing defecting legislators from joining the Council of Ministers until their re-election. However, as events in the years and decades since have demonstrated, these amendments have had only limited impact.

The (ab)use of the law The removal of the split provision prompted political parties to engineer wholesale defections (to merge) instead of smaller ‘retail’ ones. Legislators started resigning from the membership of the House in order to escape disqualification from ministerial berths.

The ceiling on the size of the Council of Ministers meant an increase in the number of positions of parliamentary secretaries in states. The Speakers started taking an active interest in political matters, helping build and break governments.

The anti-defection law does not specify a timeframe for Speakers to decide on defection proceedings. When the politics demanded, Speakers were either quick to pass judgment on defection proceedings or delayed acting on them for years on end.

The events in the Karnataka Vidhan Sabha in the summer of this year showed that even after three decades, the anti-defection law has not been able to stop political defections.

What happens in Maharashtra now remains to be seen. (Chakshu Roy is Head of Outreach at PRS Legislative Research. This is an updated version of the article that first appeared in the print edition of July 25, 2019 with the headline ‘The limits of anti-defection’)

The Supreme Court has ordered a floor test in the Maharashtra legislative Assembly on Wednesday. What happens after the date of the floor test is fixed? What will be the roles of the Governor, pro tem Speaker?

A large group of Shiv Sena-NCP-Congress MLAs claiming to number 162 assembled at a Mumbai hotel on Monday evening in a show of strength on the eve of the Supreme Court’s decision on the parties’ petition seeking an immediate “floor test” in the Maharashtra Assembly.

The NCP MLAs were assured by party chief Sharad Pawar that the rebel Ajit Pawar was no longer the leader of the legislature party, and had no legal right to issue a “whip” to them to vote — upon pain of disqualification — for the government during the trust vote.

Early on Saturday, President’s Rule was lifted in the state, and Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari administered the oath of office of Chief Minister to Devendra Fadnavis, and to Ajit Pawar as his deputy. The BJP and Ajit Pawar have claimed they have the support of enough MLAs from the NCP and other parties for a majority in the House — a claim that Sharad Pawar, the Sena, and Congress have rejected. Once the Supreme Court passes its order on Tuesday, what will be the next steps in the formation of the government in Maharashtra?

To begin with, what is a “floor test”? A floor test is the determination on the floor of the House (in this case, the Maharashtra Vidhan Sabha) whether the Chief Minister commands the support of the majority of the MLAs. This can be done by means of a voice vote, or by recording the vote of each MLA in the House. This determination of majority is done in a sitting of the legislature, for which the legislature has to be convened.

So, who will order the convening of the Legislative Assembly? Under the Constitution, the Governor convenes the session of the legislature. But on multiple occasions in the past, the Supreme Court has ordered the convening of the Assembly to hold the floor test.

After the state elections of 2018 in Karnataka produced a hung Assembly, the Governor, on the basis of a letter of support provided by B S Yediyurappa, swore him in as Chief Minister and gave him 15 days to prove his majority. The Congress and JD(S) moved the Supreme Court, which ordered an immediate floor test. The Assembly was convened on a Saturday to determine whether Yediyurappa had majority support.

BEST OF EXPRESS And who will conduct the floor test in the Legislative Assembly? The proceedings of a legislature are presided over by the Speaker. The election of the Speaker is usually the first order of business that newly elected MLAs undertake after taking their oath of office.

Often, in cases where an immediate floor test is ordered, the election of the Speaker is taken up after the conclusion of the floor test. In the absence of a Speaker, the Governor appoints one of the MLAs to perform the duties of the Speaker. This MLA is referred to as the pro tem Speaker. He administers the oath of office to the other MLAs, and thereafter oversees the floor test in the legislature.

Maharashtra floor test: Shiv Sena chief Uddhav Thackeray addresses the MLAs in Mumbai on Monday. (Express Photo: Prashant Nadkar) On what basis does the Governor make his choice of pro tem Speaker? The Constitution gives the Governor discretion in the selection of pro tem speaker. On many occasions, Governors have appointed the most tenured MLA in the Assembly as the pro tem Speaker. However, this is only a convention, with which Governors have broken in the past.

For the 2018 Karnataka floor test, the Governor appointed BJP MLA K G Bopaiah as pro tem Speaker. While Bopaiah had been Speaker for two terms, he was not the most senior MLA. A challenge to his appointment failed in the Supreme Court, and he went on to preside over the proceedings of the Vidhan Sabha when the floor test was to take place.

Maharashtra floor test: The MLAs took an oath at the hotel in Santacruz on Monday. (Express Photo: Prashant Nadkar) Does the pro tem Speaker have complete discretion in conducting the floor test? Not really. In the past when courts have ordered a floor test, they have also prescribed safeguards.

In the 2018 Karnataka case, the apex court ordered live telecast of proceedings. During the Jharkhand floor test in 2005, the court had directed the Chief Secretary and the DG of Police to ensure that all MLAs were able to attend the proceedings of the Assembly safely. In both these cases, the court had also stopped the Governor from nominating an Anglo Indian MLA to the Vidhan Sabha (who might conceivably vote for the government).

In the 2016 Uttarakhand floor test, the court had prescribed that supporting and opposing MLAs should line up on two sides of the House, so that their numbers could be counted individually by a show of hands. The outcome of this floor test was then sent in a sealed cover to the apex court. Maharashtra floor test: NCP chief Sharad Pawar addresses the MLAs in Mumbai on Monday. (Express Photo: Prashant Nadkar)

What is the apprehension about the role that Ajit Pawar might play? The anti-defection provisions in the Constitution define the legislature party as a group consisting of all elected MLAs of a political party in the House. However, the Constitution does not define the leader of a legislature party.

Very often, the governing document of a political party provides for a leader of the party in the legislature. This leader is usually elected by the MLAs of the party from among themselves.

On occasion, the party authorises this leader to issue a whip to its MLAs to vote in a particular manner. MLAs who violate a whip issued by the leader of the legislature party on behalf of the political party, can be disqualified from the membership of the House. On Saturday evening, the NCP, at a meeting attended by 42 of its 54 MLAs, used its discretion to sack Ajit Pawar as legislature party leader.

On Monday, Sharad Pawar told the MLAs of the “Maha Vikas Aghadi” alliance: “A misinformation is being spread that Ajit Pawar is the NCP’s legislature party leader who would issue a whip to all (NCP) MLAs to vote for the BJP (in the floor test). It is being said that whoever defies the whip would lose his membership of the House…

“Ajit Pawar, who has been removed from his position (as NCP legislature party leader), has no legal right to issue a whip to MLAs.” So in the absence of a legislature party leader, can the NCP issue a whip to its MLAs for the vote?

The anti-defection provisions specify that a party can either itself issue a whip to its MLAs or authorise any person or authority for this purpose. The NCP meeting on Saturday delegated the powers of the leader of the legislature party to state party president Jayant Patil. (Chakshu Roy is head of outreach at PRS Legislative Research)