Cold wave gets chillier across northern region

garh, north Rajasthan and west Uttar Pradesh for the next two days due to cold northwesterly winds and other favourable weather conditions, according to the IMD. Cold wave conditions are also likely in some areas of east Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, it added.

Several parts of Jammu and Kashmir, and Ladakh reeled under cold wave conditions on Saturday, with Srinagar recording the coldest night of the season at minus 5.8 degrees Celsius.

The mercury in Leh and Drass in Ladakh plummeted to minus 19.1 degrees Celsius and minus 28.6 degrees Celsius, respectively.

I n Delhi, t he Safdarjung Observatory, whose reading is considered the official marking for the city, recorded the minimum temperature at 2.4 degrees Celsius. The same temperature was recorded on December 30, 2013. Before that the coldest day in December was December 11, 1996 when minimum temperature recorded at the observatory was 2.3 degrees Celsius.

Due to heavy fog on Saturday morning, four flights were diverted from the Delhi airport, an airport official said, adding that the flights were operating at the airport under CAT III B conditions, which means that the runway visual range (RVR) is between 50-175 metres.

With chilling cold continuing to sweep Delhi-ncr, the region is expected to record its secondcoldest December since 1901, the weather department had said earlier in the week.

The severe weather conditions are likely to abate from most parts of north and east India from December 30.

A fresh western disturbance is likely to affect the western Himalayan region from December 30, which is set to bring widespread rain and hailstorms in many parts of northwest and central India on December 31 and January 1, the IMD said. national level,” Prasad said in the Upper House during the Question Hour.

The ministry official said another roadblock f or t he project was the fear that judges would face difficulty in presiding over courts because proceedings are conducted in local language. “Under the proposal , intensive training shall be given to the selected candidates in the local language of the state where the high court is situated,” he said. AIJS will also introduce reservation in judiciary for disadvantaged sections of society.

Experts, however, have reservations over AIJS. Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy, an independent think-tank doing legal research, recently released a primer on AIJS, highlighting the challenges the system is expected to face. It said introduction of a cent r al i s ed examination will adversely affect the federal structure of judicial administration of recruitment. “States are best suited to select judges qualified to adjudicate matters that arise in unique socio-economic context of every state,” it said.

The primer also flags the challenge judges could face if they do not belong to the state where they get appointed. “The nature of the judicial office however, especially at the level of the District and Subordinate Judiciary is very different since judges are often required to directly deal with litigants, prisoners, lawyers and witnesses in their local languages. The proficiency of judges in the local language, both oral and written, has to be much higher than of a gazetted officer in the IAS or IPS because the cost of a judicial error due to the judge misunderstanding the local language could result in a litigant being deprived of their liberty or property. Thus, the costs of misunderstanding or mistranslation by a judge who lacks native proficiency of the local languages are simply too high,” it added.

“For the above-said purpose, additional Secretaries and joint secretaries are requested to arrange to furnish the details of the queries generally received or information sought by MPS during the course of functioning of the branches/ sections under their charge,” the letter from Yaduvanshi further said.

According to the letter, the National Informatics Centre will develop the software for the information centre.

MPS are entitled to have one personal assistant. Generally, these assistants are entrusted by the MPS to manage their offices and help in parliamentary duties. While the MPS will continue to employ their assistants, the call centre is seen as a more institutional mechanism to assist the MPS.

“The assistants who are appointed to the MPS are generally political activists and outsiders. But this call centre will be operated by our own people who understand the secretariat inside-out and know which branch of the secretariat should be contacted for what purpose,” added a second senior officer of the secretariat.

The new call centre is expected to be fully functional by the end of the year. Initially, it will serve Lok Sabha MPS, but such a system might also be used for Rajya Sabha MPS in the future.

Former Lok Sabha secretary general TK Vishwanathan said, “It is an excellent idea. MPS need information on many subjects to prepare themselves for Question Hour, debates, Zero Hour or bills. Many times they don’t know where to find authentic information or background note. Such a system will definitely help them. Also, they don’t have to worry about mundane issues like travel bills.”

Trinamool Congress Lok Sabha floor leader Sudip Bandopadhyay welcomed the call-centre.

“It is correct that all MPS are allowed to employ a private secretary. But they are good in clerical works and not experts in parliamentary procedure. They mostly come from the states and for the first few months many of them look directionless. Also, they don’t know the details of how Parliament works. The Lok Sabha Speaker’s plan for such assistance is a very good idea and will be helpful for MPS,” he said.