Category Civics

David Cameron was the Prime Minister of the U.K. when the referendum took place. Personally, he supported staying within the EU. As the votes turned against his campaign, he stepped down as PM.

As leader of the Conservative Party, Theresa May took over from David Cameron in 2016. May promised to put Brexit into action. However, Brexit hit a roadblock for various reasons. Unable to get a Brexit divorce deal passed on Parliament, May stepped down on June 7, 2019, after a turbulent 3-year period as prime minister.

On July 23, 2019, Brexit hardliner Boris Johnson, former Mayor of London and British Foreign Minister, was elected Prime Minister. Johnson was keen on delivering Brexit by the October 31, 2019 deadline. However, Johnson needed a Brexit extension of his own after MPs failed to get the revised deal passed into law. This led to the new deadline of January 31, 2020.

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People in support of Brexit view the EU as exercising too much control over Britain, thereby halting its growth. One of the main areas of contention is immigration. They are against the EU’s main principle of ‘Free Movement’ within member states. ‘Leave’ supporters want more autonomy from the EU to control Britain’s border and to sign trade deals with any country without the interference of the EU. They also don’t want to come under the ambit of the EU court of justice.

Those who campaigned for Britain to stay in the EU argued that the immigrants would only boost economic growth. They were of the view that the EU membership would ensure security for the nation in times of crisis. Exports feel that remaining in the EU would have conferred several advantages on Britain such as free trade opportunities and easy mobility of goods and services among the EU member countries.

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The European Union (EU) is a group of 28 countries in the continent of Europe. (After Brexit, the membership now stands at 27). After World War II, some European countries came together to form a group to foster economic, social and political cooperation. They saw this as a means to stay united and not go to war with each other.

With France and Germany taking the initiative, four other nations namely Belgium, Italy, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, signed up to form the European Economic Community (EEC) in 1957. It was also called the common market.

The EU has its own currency (euro), own parliament, council and court of justice. It became a single market, allowing goods and people to move around as if they are one nation. The currency euro is being used by 19 member states.

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Brexit is now official: On January 31, 2020, the United Kingdom left the European Union. But not completely yet. The U.K. has entered into an 11-month transition period which will last till at least December 31, 2020. During this time, the U.K. and the EU will hold discussions and decide what their future relationship will be like.

The term is an portmanteau of the words ‘Britain’ and ‘exit.’ Britain had been a member of the EU since 1973 (The Union was then called the European Economic Community). But on June 23, 2016, the U.K. made a historic decision to withdraw its membership following a referendum. Of the total 33 million votes, 52% chose to leave the EU, while 48% wanted to stay on. (The U.K. Scotland and Northern Ireland. It is to be noted that the majority of the voters in Scotland and Northern Ireland chose to remain. However the whole of U.K. has left the EU.)

The exit did not happen immediately after the voting. It was a long journey from there – it took three-and-a-half years, three prime ministers and endless votes in Parliament before Britain finally became the first-ever country to leave the EU last month.

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In the U.S. presidential election of 2000, there was chaos in the state of Florida where votes had to be recounted by hand due to a glitch in the voting machines. The voting machines used cards which had to be punched through for a vote to be registered. A mechanical problem meant that a huge number of cards were incompletely punched out, leaving the bits of paper called chads, ‘hanging’. Some cards had ‘dimpled’ or ‘pregnant’ chads meaning there was only a barely visible indentation!

Chads are the small pieces of paper produced when holes are punched out in a sheet. The bits punched out of tape, plastic, textile or thin metal are also called chads. Punch cards were once widely used in computer programming and the word ‘chad’ probably originated during that time. However, the earliest use of a punch card was in a fully automated weaving loom invented by Joseph Jacquard in 1801.

A number of manufacturing industries generate chads as waste. Since they are small and weigh almost nothing, managing chads is quite bothersome. Paper manufacturers have chad collectors under the punching table to collect the chads which are later recycled and made into new paper.

There are also ‘chad-less’ punching systems available which make slits in the paper instead of holes.

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Agni-V

On April 19, 2012, India successfully test-fired 5000 km range Agni-V Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, developed by DRDO. Part of the Agni series of missiles, Agni V has been developed as a nuclear deterrent against China. The missile is expected to be inducted into service soon.

Dhanush

On Feb. 23, 2018, the nuclear-capable ‘Dhanush’ ballistic missile with a strike range of 350 km was successfully test-fired from a naval ship off Odisha coast. The surface-to-surface missile is a naval variant of the indigenously-developed ‘Prithvi 3’ missile.

Mission Shakti

On March 27, 2019, India conducted Mission Shakti, a high precision anti-satellite missile test, from the Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Island launch complex. The significance of the test carried out by the DRDO is that India has successfully demonstrated its capability to intercept a satellite in outer space. With this test, the country joins an exclusive group of space-faring nations comprising the U.S., Russia and China.

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