The week in 5 charts | PM unveils new Parliament, global warming set to break 1.5º C limit, EU slaps fine on Facebook, and more

Here are five charts that will help you understand some of the key stories from last week

An aerial view of the old and new Parliament buildings on May 27, 2023. | Photo Credit: ANI

(1) PM Modi unveils India’s new Parliament complex

As Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveils the new Parliament complex on Sunday, let’s look at the distinctive features that define the new Parliament building from the existing one, which has stood for generations.

The existing Parliament building, erected in 1927, was never designed to accommodate a bicameral legislature for a fully-fledged democracy, according to the government. With the number of Lok Sabha seats fixed at 545 since the 1971 Census-based delimitation, the building’s seating arrangements have become cramped and cumbersome.

In Frames |First look of new Parliament building to be inaugurated on May 28

With a focus on addressing space limitations and security concerns, the government devised a plan to expand the Parliament and thus born the Central Vista development project. The Central Vista project also includes the new Central Secretariat, new residences for the Vice-President, Prime Minister and PM’s Office.

The new Parliament building can comfortably seat 888 members in the Lok Sabha chamber and 384 in the Rajya Sabha chamber. The old building can accommodate 543 seats in Lok Sabha and 250 seats in Rajya Sabha. In the case of a joint sitting of both Houses, a total of 1,280 members can be accommodated in the Lok Sabha chamber. There are now 92 chambers for Cabinet Ministers and party offices.

The prime minister laid the foundation stone of the new parliament building on December 10, 2020. The deadline for completion is 2026.

The new Parliament building, constructed by Tata Projects Ltd, has a grand constitution hall to showcase India’s democratic heritage, a lounge for MPs, a library, multiple committee rooms, dining areas, and ample parking space. The triangular-shaped four-story building has a built-up area of 64,500 square meters. The building has three main gates - Gyan Dwar, Shakti Dwar, and Karma Dwar. It will have separate entrances for VIPs, MPs, and visitors.

Now, there’s no central hall that was used for joint Parliamentary sessions a few times a year — a space that also turned into a lounge for members to gather and dissolve party differences. In its place is an open-to-the-sky courtyard and three cafes as neutral ground.

The material used for the new building has been acquired from various parts of the country. The teakwood used in the building was sourced from Nagpur in Maharashtra, while the red and white sandstone was procured from Sarmathura in Rajasthan. The sandstone for the Red Fort and Humayun’s Tomb in the national capital was also known to have sourced from Sarmathura. The Kesharia green stone has been procured from Udaipur, the red granite from Lakha near Ajmer and the white marble has been sourced from Ambaji in Rajasthan.

‘Sengol’, a historical sceptre from Tamil Nadu which was received by first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to represent the transfer of power from the British and was kept in a museum in Allahabad, was installed in the new Parliament building. It is placed near the chair of Lok Sabha Speaker in the House chamber.

To mark the event, the government also issued a commemorative Rs 75 coin. According to a gazette notification by the Department of Economic Affairs under the finance ministry, the weight of this coin could be 34.65-35.35 grams. One side of the coin bears the image of the Lion Capital of Ashoka Pillar in the centre flanked by the word ‘Bharat’ in Devnagri script and ‘INDIA’ in English. The other side of the coin bears the image of Parliament Complex and the year ‘2023’ in international numeral below the image.

(2) Global warming will likely soon cross 1.5º C. 

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) has been issuing forecasts since 2020 regarding the average outlook of global warming for the next five years. This past week, WMO has predicted that there is a greater than 66% probability that at least one of the years from 2023 to 2027 will witness a global mean surface temperature rise of 1.5 degrees C above the average in the years 1850-1900.

If we look at the data until 2022, as shown below, we can see that from 1880 to 1939, the change in the mean annual temperature was below 0, meaning that, on a global level, surface temperatures (land and water) were reducing. But between 1940 and 1959, the mean annual surface temperatures started increasing and from 1980-2022, there hasn’t been a single year which has been cooler than the previous. 2016 and 2020 have witnessed the highest increase in global surface temperatures, close to 1 degree Celsius when compared to the previous years i.e. 2015 and 2019, respectively.

(3) Stalin expresses concern over deaths due to manual scavenging

This past week, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Stalin expressed concern and said that officials were not paying enough attention to the deaths due to manual scavenging. Mr. Stalin said as per the review undertaken by him, most of the deaths took place in urban areas. He warned of strict action against officials who do not take enough precautionary measures to prevent such deaths.

When asked about the deaths of manual scavengers in the country, the Union Government, on December 13, 2022 answered that, “No death has been reported due to engaging in Manual Scavenging (which is lifting of human excreta from insanitary latrines as defined in Section 2(l) (g) of the MS Act, 2013)“. But it did provide statistics on the number of deaths that occurred while cleaning sewers and septic tanks.

Even though Tamil Nadu is leading in many other social indicators and sectors such as industry and Information Technology, the state has witnessed the highest number of deaths (40) of individuals who were cleaning sewers or septic tanks between 2019-2022, followed by Uttar Pradesh (36), as shown in the graphics below.

(4) EU slaps huge fine on Facebook

On Monday, the EU slapped a fine of $1.3 billion on Meta for its continuing transfer of data from the EU to the U.S. This is the biggest fine since 2018, when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) began. Out of the top 10 biggest fines, Meta was fined six times.

This comes as the latest in a legal battle that began in 2013 when Austrian lawyer and privacy activist Max Schrems filed a complaint about Facebook’s handling of his data following former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden’s revelations about U.S. cybersnooping. The U.S. and EU have disagreed over how data was to be shared between the two. An agreement covering EU-U.S. data transfers known as the Privacy Shield was struck down in 2020 by the EU’s top court, which said it didn’t do enough to protect residents from the U.S. Government’s electronic prying.

Google, too, has come under fire for privacy concerns. In November last year, 40 U.S. states sued it for $392 million. It was for using location data of consumers even after they turned off location tracking. This was the biggest privacy settlement by U.S. states. Tiktok has agreed to run a $1.5 billion project to store U.S. user data on Oracle servers to allay Western fears about Chinese snooping.

(5) ₹2,000 currency notes withdrawn

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on May 19 decided to withdraw ₹2,000 denomination banknotes from circulation in pursuance of its “Clean Note Policy”. This comes about six-and-a-half years after ₹1000 and ₹500 banknotes were demonetised.

This move is significant, coming as it does just after the state assembly elections in Karnataka, where the Congress won, and in the run-up to elections in other states and the 2024 general elections.

Beginning May 23, RBI said all bank branches would provide the facility of exchange of ₹2000 banknotes into banknotes of other denominations up to a limit of ₹20,000 at a time until September 30, 2023. The facility for the exchange of ₹2,000 notes up to the limit of ₹20,000 at a time will also be available at the 19 Regional Offices of the RBI having “Issue Departments” from May 23, 2023. Banks have been asked to stop issuing ₹2,000 notes with immediate effect.

Banknotes of ₹2,000 denomination were introduced after the Government announced on November 8, 2016, that currency notes of denominations of ₹1000 and ₹500 (specified bank notes or SBNs) will be demonetised. The printing of ₹2,000 notes was stopped in 2018-19. The RBI said about 89% of the ₹2,000 notes were issued prior to March 2017 and are at the end of their estimated life span of 4-5 years.

RBI said the total value of these banknotes in circulation has declined from ₹6.73 lakh crore at its peak of March 31, 2018 (37.3 per cent of Notes in Circulation) to ₹3.62 lakh crore, constituting only 10.8 per cent of Notes in Circulation on March 31, 2023.