Top News Highlights-29 October 2024

Digitization of Land Records in India

• Overview: India has digitized the land records of over 6.26 lakh villages, thereby providing a secure, transparent, and accessible land ownership environment.
• Reducing Litigation: Over 60% of Indian litigation is on land issues. Digitization will also help reduce such disputes, encroachments, and benami properties.
• Agricultural Benefits: Clear land titles are very essential in providing capital and credit in agriculture, enhancing targeting for farm input subsidies, and ensuring timely compensation for the land acquisition.
• Technology integration: The government is eager to use blockchain, AI, and machine learning in the management of lands to achieve greater accuracy and less fraud.

India’s Role in Multilateral Development Banks

• Global Influence: India’s Finance Minister emphasized the important contributions the Global South, in which India falls, has made to MDBs’ policies and structures.
• Advocacy for Reforms: India is also a proponent of MDBs’ decision-making practices being more inclusive and consultative in a bid to reflect diverse views of the world.
• Supporting Global Challenges: To further global interests, India has sought solutions to issues that primarily affect the Global South, such as climate change and disruption in supply chains.
• New Financial Inflows: India, one of the fastest-growing economies, is increasing its financial inflows to MDBs but simultaneously striving for a competitive pricing model that maximizes development impact.

Arbitration and Conciliation (Amendment) Bill, 2024

• Legal Reforms: The Government has introduced amendment bills to the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, of 1996 to make arbitration in India efficient and effective.
• Institutional Arbitration: The changes promote institutional arbitration instead of ad hoc arrangements, and the intent is to have minimum interventions by courts and arbitration completed in time.
• Technological Adaptations: The reforms include the incorporation of video conferencing provisions and the creation of an Appellate Arbitral Tribunal to further the cause of modern arbitration.

Initiatives for Digital Infrastructure and Public Safety

• Digital and Social Advancements: Improvements in digital infrastructure, and partnership with other partner countries like the United States, Japan, or South Korea, will have projects under the DiGi Framework, which includes sectors under 5G, Data Centres, and Artificial Intelligence.
• Social Security Enhancements: Improvements related to Social Security include the registration of unorganized workers into portals like e-Shram portals and pension schemes for Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maandhan for gig workers.
• Child Protection Programs: Indian Railways has worked with the Ministry of Women and Child Development to establish a revised Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) aimed at safeguarding vulnerable children who interface with railway services.

Keywords and Concepts

• DILRMP: A plan for modernization of the country’s land records management system.
• MDB Reforms: Equitable representation and resource allocation to address the maladies of globalization.
• Arbitration Reforms: Improving the institutional framework for swifter, more effective arbitration.
• Digital Infrastructure: Building India’s digital capacity with strategic partnerships that build an Indian digital footprint on the world’s digital infrastructure.