New Delhi: The Lok Sabha on Friday passed the Constitution (Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes) Order (2nd Amendment) Bill, 2022, to bring certain tribal communities such as Gond, Dhuriya, Nayak, Ojha, Pathari and Rajgond – living in the Sant Kabir Nagar, Kushinagar, Chanduali, and Sant Ravidas Nagar districts – into the list of the STs in UP. The BJP had made a pre-poll promise to make such legislations to these communities who have been seeking their inclusion in the ST list.Besides, the government has introduced in the Lok Sabha a bill to extend India’s domestic laws to provide a regulatory framework for research activities in the Antarctic and have its own national measures to protect the Antarctic environment and the dependent ecosystem.
‘The Indian Antarctic Bill 2022’, which was introduced in the Lok Sabha on Friday, was opposed by All India Trinamool Congress member Saugata Roy.Roy asked how Parliament could legislate on matters related to “Antarctic, which is a no man’s land”.Responding to this, the Union Minister for Earth Science and Technology Jitendra Singh said Parliament had the right to legislate on the matter. He pointed out that the proposed legislation was also aimed at upholding the Indian obligations to the international Antarctic Treaty, the Convention on the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources and the Protocol on Environmental Protection to the Antarctic Treaty.
Source: Economic Times
