UPSC DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

2018 September Month Daily Current Affairs

30^th September 2018 Daily Current affairs

Pak. duplicity key hurdle in fight against terror: Sushma

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate

Context:

In a speech in United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said Pakistan’s duplicity is a key obstacle in the global fight against terrorism and India is an immediate and continuing target of terrorism originating from there.

Speech:

✦ The most startling evidence of this duplicity was the fact that Osama Bin Laden, the architect and ideologue of 9/11 was given safe haven in Pakistan….that claimed to be America’s friend and ally

✦ The killers of 9/11 met their fate; but the mastermind of 26/11 Hafiz Saeed still roams the streets of Pakistan with impunity

✦ Pakistan glorifies killers; it refuses to see the blood of innocents

✦ The international community has become increasingly aware of Pakistan’s role in promoting terrorism, the absence of an international agreement on the definition of terrorism allows Pakistan to characterise terrorists as “freedom fighters,”

Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT)

✦ External affairs Minister reiterated India’s demand for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT)at the UN General Assembly.

✦ The CCIT was proposed by India in 1996.

Objectives of CCIT:-

✦ To have a universal definition of terrorism that all 193-members of the UNGA will adopt into their own criminal law

✦ To ban all terror groups and shut down terror camps

✦ To prosecute all terrorists under special laws

✦ To make cross-border terrorism an extraditable offence worldwide.

Need for Fundamental reform:

✦ If the UN did not undertake immediate reform, it could meet the fate of the League of Nations that could not forge a global agenda and prevent the Second World War. “The League went into meltdown because it was unwilling to accept the need for reform. We must not make that mistake

✦ The United Nations must accept that it needs fundamental reform. Reform must begin today; tomorrow could be too late. If the UN is ineffective, the whole concept of multilateralism will collapse

                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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Mughal era bridge on DAL lake to live on

GS PAPER 01 HISTORY - Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, Literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Context:

The iconic 17th-century bridge, Oont Kadal will be restored through a conservation project with the help of Germany.

More about Onnt kadal:

✦ It is a hump-backed bridge, locally known as Oont (Camel) Kadal in Kashmir lies in the middle of the Dal Lake

✦ It was built in the times of the ruler Shah Mir Sultan for the parking of Dongas that ferried tourists and locals who wished to take a tour of the Mughal garden ‘Nishat Bagh’.

✦ Dal Lake is prone to strong winds and windstorms making it impossible for Dongas and Shikaras to cross over. This link road came into existence for public convenience and also for Dongas and Shikaras to rest and anchor their boats during storms.

✦ Trees are also planted on both the sides of the road which provide shade to the pedestrians and also cut the strong winds.

                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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India to gift 3 MiG-21s to Russia

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context:

✦ upcoming India-Russia bilateral summit India is likely to be the gifting three MiG-21 fighter jets to Russia.

✦ Three MiG-21s are scheduled to be handed over to Russians based on a request from their Defence Minister to our Defence Minister. They comprise one Type 75 aircraft and two Type 77 aircraft.

Background:

✦ The MiG-21, a product of the Soviet Union, was designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the 1950s.

✦ It made first flight in 1956 and entered service in 1959.

✦ However, Russia stopped producing the aircraft in 1985, while India continued operating the upgraded variants.

✦ India inducted the MiG-21s in 1963 and got full technology transfer and rights to license-build the aircraft in the country.

✦ It is the first supersonic fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force. The IAF still has about 120 MiG-21s in service which will all be phased out of service by 2021-22.

More about the news:

✦ The aircraft to be gifted are in flight-worthy condition and the cost of crating and transportation will be borne by the Russians.

✦ This will be major symbolic gesture to showcase the all-weather friendship and deep strategic partnership between India and Russia.

✦ The aircraft will get new registration numbers and may be adopted for vintage flight.

✦ The MiG-21 has more of emotional value for Russia, as it has the distinction of being the most produced supersonic fighter in history.

                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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59 Plant species in IUCN threat category

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ Scientists have recently identified the threat status of 59 Indian plant species based on criteria used by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)

More about the news:

✦ Experts from several institutes prioritized 59 plant species that are at risk of “elimination” if the threat levels they face are not assessed soon

✦ They revealed that 10 species are critically endangered, 18 endangered, six vulnerable, five near threatened and one species each are data deficient and least concern.

✦ Threat level of some plants have been altered.

     ○ Palm Bentinckia Nicobarica - It is currently listed as endangered; however the new study suggests it is critically endangered based on its distributional attributes (the palm is reported only from the Great Nicobar Island).

Cause:

✦ Based on population sizes and numbers of mature individuals remaining in the wild using field surveys revealed that habitat loss was a huge factor affecting many declining plant population

✦ Factors such as low seed viability could have caused declines in the wild too.

Significance of the Study:

✦ This would streamline conservation efforts for the plants.

✦ Funding agencies often consider the threat status of species provided in IUCN’s Red List (a catalogue of the world’s threatened species), to sponsor research and conservation activities to save them.

                                                                                                                          Source:- The Hindu

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Now, undertake a virtual journey on the Railways with Google

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

CONTEXT:

✦ In a first-of-its-scale heritage mapping and digitisation project, Google and Ministry of Railways on Friday launched a project that aims to preserve the cultural heritage of the Indian Railways.

✦ The two-year digitisation project "The Railways-Lifeline of a Nation" is a comprehensive digital document viewable on Google's Arts and Culture website.

✦ It was launched at the National Rail Museum

More about the news:

✦ The project is divided into "Journeys", "People", "Heritage" and "Engineering" sections, each containing visual and textual narratives that rail enthusiasts can access for free.

✦ It comprises photographs, documentaries, text, virtual tours, 360-degree videos, online exhibits, and maps, pertaining to the Indian Railways.

✦ Ministry of Railways Piyush goyal said, From the Nilgiri mountains to the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus Station, let the people of India relive their childhood... through the train journey to Madhira and through the Darjeeling toy train; let's show them the Kangra Valley, the Kalka-Shimla experience so that it could be enjoyed by someone in Coimbatore or Ooty.

                                                                                                                                 Source:- The Hindu

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Black Spotted Turtles/ Geoclemys Hamiltonii

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ A recent report by TRAFFIC says India accounts for 29% of black spotted turtles (Geoclemys hamiltonii) seized from across seven countries in South Asia

Facts and figures:

✦ The highest number of seizures occurred in India, accounting for a total of 3,001 (29.33%) specimens.

✦ Of the 53 seizures across these seven countries, 38% (or 20) seizures were from India.

✦ India is followed by Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand (1,995 specimens or 19%) and Hong Kong (1,775 specimens or 17%), followed by Bangladesh (1,197 specimens or 12%).

✦ The remaining specimens were seized from China, Pakistan and Singapore.

Smuggling Hot spot:

✦ Tamil Nadu and Maharashtra fall completely out of the distribution range of the species, it proves that these States are used as trade routes. Seizure data indicates that black spotted turtles are transported to Chennai by car or train, and subsequently smuggled to other parts of the region.

✦ Chennai has been identified as a major transit hub for illegal international trade in the Indian star tortoise, another species smuggled in large numbers.

✦ The report describes the India-Bangladesh border, part of the species’ natural range, as another hotspot for trade in the black soft-shelled turtle.

                                                                                                                                                           Source:- The Hindu

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29^th September 2018 Daily Current affairs

All women may pray at Sabarimala

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Indian Constitution- historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions & basic structure



Context:

✦ Recently, the Supreme Court’s ruled, in a 4:1 majority, that the exclusionary practice of women in the 10-50 age group from the Sabarimala temple in Kerala, violates the rights of women devotees. 

✦ The apex court was assessing the constitutionality of the Sabarimala custom of excluding women in their ‘menstruating years’. The custom was allowed by Rule 3(b) of the Kerala Hindu Places of Public Worship Act, 1965.

Majoritarian view:

✦ The majority held that devotees of Lord Ayyappa do not constitute a separate religious denomination and that the prohibition on women is not an essential part of Hindu religion.

✦ To Chief Justice Dipak Misra, any rule based on segregation of women pertaining to biological characteristics is indefensible and unconstitutional.

✦ Further, devotion cannot be subjected to the stereotypes of gender.

✦ Justice D.Y. Chandrachud asserted that stigma built around traditional notions of impurity has no place in the constitutional order, and exclusion based on the notion of impurity is a form of untouchability.

✦ CJI Misra also went on to add that the devotees of Ayyappa do not constitute a separate religious denomination.

✦ Justice Rohinton F. Nariman said the fundamental rights claimed by worshippers based on ‘custom and usage’ must yield to the fundamental right of women to practise religion. The decision reaffirms the Constitution’s transformative character and derives strength from the centrality it accords to fundamental rights.

✦ Justice D.Y. Chandrachud wrote in his separate opinion. Fundamental rights are meant for individuals, not for deities or idols

    ○ countering the argument that the right to preserve the celibacy of the deity in the Sabarimala temple is a “protected constitutional right,” which extends to excluding women from the temple.

    ○ the law recognises an idol or deity as a “juristic person which can own property and can sue and be sued in the court of law”. But it “does not mean the deity necessarily has constitutional rights”,

✦ the exclusion of women from the Sabarimala temple effects both the religious and civic rights of an individual.

Dissenting view:

✦ Justice Indu Malhotra was the lone dissenting voice.

✦ Justice Indu Malhotra chose not to review the religious practice on the touchstone of gender equality or individual freedom.

✦ Her view that the court “cannot impose its morality or rationality with respect to the form of worship of a deity” accorded greater importance to the idea of religious freedom as being mainly the preserve of an institution rather than an individual’s right.

✦ She asserted that issues of deep religious sentiments should not be ordinarily be interfered by the court.

✦ Further, she went on to add that the court should not interfere unless if there is any aggrieved person from that section or religion. What constitutes essential religious practice is for the religious community to decide, not for the court.

                                                                                                                                Source: - The Hindu

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River pollution: NGT directs States to act

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed all States and Union Territories to prepare action plans within two months.

Background:-

✦ Data from the Central Pollution Control Board, that the number of polluted river stretches in the country had increased to 351 from 302 over the last two years.

Observation:

✦ pollution control boards had failed to check pollution, the bench said, “They have not been able to stop dumping of waste, discharge of effluents in rivers and water bodies.”

NGT Directions -  Action plan:

✦ Improving the polluted stretches for “at least bathing purposes”,

✦ The bench directed that four-member committees, comprising representatives of State pollution control boards and the State governments, be constituted for preparing and executing the action plans.

✦ The action plan will include components like identification of polluting sources including functioning or status of sewage treatment plants, common effluent treatment plants, solid waste management and processing facilities, quantification and characterisation of sewage generated in the catchment area of the polluted river stretch.

✦ The tribunal specified that Chief Secretaries of each State and administrators of UTs will be “personally accountable for failure to formulate action plan.”

          

National Green Tribunal(NGT): ✦ The NGT was established in 2010 under the National Green Tribunal Act 2010, passed by the Central Government. ✦ The stated objective of the Central Government was to provide a specialized forum for effective and speedy disposal of cases pertaining to environment protection, conservation of forests and for seeking compensation for damages caused to people or property due to violation of environmental laws or conditions specified while granting permissions. Legal jurisdiction of NGT: The NGT has the power to hear all civil cases relating to environmental issues and questions that are linked to the implementation of laws listed in Schedule I of the NGT Act. These include the following: 1. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974; 2. The Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Cess Act, 1977; (yes, cess act) 3. The Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980; 4. The Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981; 5. The Environment (Protection) Act, 1986; (aka EPA) 6. The Public Liability Insurance Act, 1991; (good option to confuse) 7. The Biological Diversity Act, 2002. NOTE: The NGT has not been vested with powers to hear any matter relating to the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, the Indian Forest Act, 1927 and various laws enacted by States relating to forests, tree preservation etc. Therefore, specific and substantial issues related to these laws cannot be raised before the NGT. Salient features ✦ The NGT is not bound by the procedure laid down under the Code of Civil Procedure, 1908, but shall be guided by principles of natural justice. ✦ NGT is also not bound by the rules of evidence as enshrined in the Indian Evidence Act, 1872. ✦ It will be relatively easier (as opposed to approaching a court) for conservation groups to present facts and issues before the NGT, including pointing out technical flaws in a project, or proposing alternatives that could minimize environmental damage but which have not been considered. ✦ While passing Orders/decisions/awards, the NGT will apply the principles of sustainable development, the precautionary principle and the polluter pays principles. However, it must be noted that if the NGT holds that a claim is false, it can impose costs including lost benefits due to any interim injunction.

                                                                                                                                  Source:- The Hindu

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Assam to introduce methanol as cooking fuel

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT  - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ On October 5 State owned Public sector unit Assam Petrochemicals Limited (APL) will launch a pilot project to assess the feasibility of using methanol as a cooking fuel.

✦ The move is a part an initiative by the country’s premier think tank, Niti Aayog, to promote use of methanol.

Why?

Oil import is a major concern for India and its demand is gradually rising. This has significantly contributed to the country’s import bill. As a means of energy security and clean fuel, methanol can replace the traditional energy sources and reduce import and pollution.

More about  the News:

✦ India’s first step towards NITI Aayog’s flagship programme , Methanol economy.

✦ It is estimated that methanol will be at least 30% cheaper than LPG

✦ The concept of “Methanol Economy” is being actively pursued  by China, Italy, Sweden, Israel, US, Australia, Japan and many other European Countries.

      ○ 10 per cent of fuel in China in transport sector is methanol .

 

Methanol: Methanol is a clean fuel. It can replace both petrol & diesel in transportation & LPG, Wood, Kerosene in cooking fuel. It can also replace diesel in Railways, Marine Sector, Gensets etc. Methanol Economy is the bridge to the dream of a complete “Hydrogen-based fuel systems” India’s efforts towards Methanol-based Economy ✦ India has an installed Methanol Production capacity of 2 MT per annum. ✦ NITI Aayog has planned to substitute 10% of Crude imports by 2030, by Methanol alone. This requires approximately 30MT of Methanol. Methanol & DME are substantially cheaper than Petrol and Diesel. India can potentially reduce its fuel bill by 30% by 2030. ✦ India is going to implement Methanol 15 % blending program with Petrol and cost of petrol is expected to come down immediately by 10%. India has conducted extensive discussions with Israel, which has successfully implemented Methanol 15 (M15) blending program for Technology transfer. ✦ Global engine manufacturers like Volvo, Caterpillar, Mercedes etc. are technical consultation and collaboration with Indian players. They can help India manufacture these engines under the Make in India programme. ✦ India is also in the process of preparing a roadmap for introducing methanol in the inland waterways sector. ✦ The movement towards a methanol economy will give a thrust to the ‘Make in India’ programme and create extra engineering jobs while catalysing investments in methanol-based industries. ✦ The NITI Aaayog has set a target of an annual reduction of 100 Billion US$ by 2030 in crude imports. To promote this renewable fuel which is really very eco-friendly and innovative, a “Methanol Economy Fund” is being positively considered.

                                                                                                         Source:- Times of India

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RBI cracks down on Bandhan Bank for violating norm

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Effects of liberalization on the economy



Context:

✦ The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has cracked the whip on Bandhan Bank freezing the remuneration of its MD and CEO Chandra Shekhar Ghosh for not bringing down promoters’ shareholding in the bank to 40% within three years of operations as mandated by it while granting the bank licence.

✦ RBI had also barred the Kolkata-based lender from opening new branches. The bank has to take RBI’s prior approval for opening branches.

Background

✦ There is a three-layered structure for the group. Bandhan Financial Services holds 100% stake in Bandhan Financial Holdings which is the non-operative financial holding company and also the promoter of Bandhan Bank with a 82.28% stake.

✦ The bank started operations on August 23, 2015.

✦ Bandhan Bank was listed at the end of March this year following an Initial Public Offering.

✦ While Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) norms ban promoters’ stake sale for one year after listing, since the lender was aware of the RBI’s licensing conditions, it should have timed its IPO accordingly.

                                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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Dumping an archaic law [ Editorial / Opinion]

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIAL ISSUES - Social Empowerment

Context:

Recently, the Supreme Court decriminalised the offence of adultery by holding Section 497 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) unconstitutional.

Section 497 in The Indian Penal Code:

✦ This section deals with Adultery.

✦ Specifically, whoever has sexual intercourse with a person who is and whom he knows or has reason to believe to be the wife of another man, without the consent or connivance of that man, such sexual intercourse not amounting to the offence of rape, is guilty of the offence of adultery, and shall be punished with imprisonment of either description for a term which may extend to five years, or with fine, or with both. In such case the wife shall not be punishable as an abettor.

Analysis: 

✦ Until a few days ago, India was one of the few countries in the world that still considered adultery an offence.

✦ This draconian law punished the adultering man, or rather ‘the outsider’, for having extra-marital relations with a woman who he knows to be married.

✦ Further, this was only deemed to have been an offence if the husband had not consented to this relation- thus, implicitly suggesting that the wife was the property of her husband.

✦ Hence, the husband was considered to be the “victim” of adultery and could file a case. Unfortunately, the same recourse was, however, not available to the wife.

✦ Thus, as the law previously stood, in this offence, the victim would be the husband alone, whose property (i.e. the wife) was trespassed upon.

Arguments for retaining the provision:

The main argument for retaining the criminal provision was that:

✦ The outsider should be punished for breaching the matrimonial unit and that the law should mandate punishment for such a moral wrong.

✦ It was this violation that was seen as a crime against the institution of marriage.

✦ This crime against the institution of marriage thus justified it to be a breach of security and well-being of society.

Observations by the Court:

✦ The court observed that the issue of adultery between spouses was a private matter.

✦ Further, it observed that it could be a ground for divorce under civil law.

✦ It did not warrant the use of criminal sanction against any party involved.

✦ Moreover, no justification can be given by the state for penalising people with imprisonment for making intimate and personal choices.

✦ The Supreme Court dismissed the regressive patriarchal notion of women being the property of their husband. The court held that Section 497, as it existed, denied women ownership of their sexuality and agency over their own relationships.

✦ Further, the court relied on K.S. Puttaswamy v. Union of India to explain this deprivation of autonomy as a violation of their right to privacy and to live with dignity, which is thus violative of their fundamental rights under Article 21 of the Constitution.

✦ The adultery provision also violated the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14. The court observed that women were treated as passive entities, and possessions of their husband.

The idea of Equality:

✦ Section 497 consumed the identity of a wife, as an individual with rights as an equal partner to the marriage, tipping the scales to favour the husband.

✦ The court further explained: “Marriage in a constitutional regime is founded on the equality of and between spouses. Each of them is entitled to the same liberty which Part III [of the Constitution] guarantees.”

✦ As a consequence to the above, not affording both parties to a marriage equal rights and opportunities would be discriminatory and a violation of their right to equality.

                                                                                                                                                  Source:- The Hindu

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DIGIVAARTA Launched

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Context:

DigiVaarta has been launched to spread awareness amongst the common public on digital payment topics such as BHIM, Aadhar Enabled Payment Systems (AePS), Bharat QR, and Security Do’s and Don’ts to begin with.

Aim:

✦ To enable citizen government dialogue and engage citizens in educational and outreach programmes. With the mobile phone as its interface, DigiVaarta’s content and communication style is interactive and adaptive.

✦ The same message can be used to interact with both smart phone and feature phone users.

✦ It can engage the user over multiple channels in a 2-way interaction, using different content styles (stories, images, videos, discussions and polls) in different languages.

                                                                                                                                                       SOURCE:- PIB

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MoHUA partners with Google to launch #LooReview Campaign

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies & interventions for development in various sectors & issues arising out of their design & implementation

Context:

✦ The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, under the aegis of Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM – U), has partnered with Google to launch the Loo Review campaign to encourage all local guides in India to rate and review public toilets on Google Maps.

✦ 500+ cities in India with more than 30,000 toilets with the name of “SBM Toilet” are currently live on Google Maps.

✦ Objectives of the Swachh Bharat Mission – Urban (SBM – U) is to provide sanitation coverage through public toilet facilities across cities in India for achieving Open Defecation Free (ODF) status.

✦ With around 3400cities already having achieved ODF status, and other cities gearing up towards the same, there is now a need to ensure that the ODF status is sustained through continuous usage and proper maintenance of public toilets.

                                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- PIB

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28^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Hearings on Ayodhya title suit

GS PAPER - 02 SOCIAL ISSUES - communalism, regionalism & secularism



Context:

✦ The Supreme Court Thursday, in a 2:1 majority verdict, ruled that the 1994 Ismail Faruqui case – that mosques are not integral to Islam – will not be referred to a larger bench.

✦ The majority verdict was pronounced by Justice Ashok Bhushan, who read on his and Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra’s behalf. Justice S Abdul Nazeer presented a dissenting judgment.

✦ The majority view by Chief Justice Dipak Misra and Justice Ashok Bhushan ordered that the hearing in the main Ayodhya title suit appeals should resume.

More about the news:

✦ The conflict over the site of Babri Masjid is over a century old and in the past few decades has undergone several legal twists and turns.

✦ A three-judge bench comprising of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra, and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer had taken up the appeal against the Allahabad High Court judgment of 2010 that ordered a three-way partition of the site.

     ○ (A three-judge Bench of the High Court had partitioned the disputed site among Hindus, Muslims and the Nirmohi Akhara in September 2010.)

✦ However, in the course of the hearings, Muslim appellants urged the court to first spell out the importance of a mosque in Islam.

✦ Speaking for the majority judgement of himself and the Chief Justice on the issue of referring the question “if a “mosque as a place of prayer is an essential part of Islam”,

     ○ in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid appeals, to a seven-judge Bench, Justice Ashok Bhushan said references cannot be made to a larger Bench merely because of “questionable observations” made in  Ismail Faruqui case - 1994.

     ○ Such observations cannot be treated as “governing factors” for a reference, he said.

✦  Justice Bhushan said the statement made in the 1994 Faruqui verdict was in the context of whether the mosque, which was acquired by the Ayodhya Act of 1993, had immunity from acquisition.

Ismail Faruqui case - 1994:

✦  The bone of contention here is an observation made by a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court in the 1994 judgment in the Ismail Faruqui case.

✦  It had stated that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of the religion of Islam and namaz (prayer) by Muslims can be offered anywhere, even in open.

Fundamental Rights:

✦  What is essential or not in a religion can be decided only after studying tenets, beliefs, and doctrines.

✦ Justice Nazeer held that the comment has to be examined in the background of the fundamental right against discrimination under Article 15 and the protection guaranteed to practice, profess and propagate religion in Articles 25 and 26 under the Constitution.

✦ As the hearings progressed in the appeals, the Muslim appellants had pressed that the place of a mosque in Islam and the importance of the practice of offering prayers inside a mosque should be first decided by a five-judge Bench.

✦ The statement meant that no place of worship, be it a temple, church or mosque, is immune from acquisition. It merely wanted to convey that mosques had “no special immunity from acquisition”.

✦ The context had nothing to do with the essentiality of the practice of offering prayers or namaz in a mosque.

✦ Acquisition, Justice Bhushan observed, is a sovereign power. The power of acquisition is available for a mosque like any other place of worship.

✦ Places of worship of all religions are liable to be acquired by the government under the Doctrine of Eminent Domain.

                                                                                                                                                   Source:- The Hindu

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Adultery is not a crime, rules SC; strikes it off IPC

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIAL ISSUES - Social empowerment



Context:

✦ A five-judge Constitution Bench, led by CJI Dipak Misra held that adultery is not a crime and struck it off the Indian Penal Code.

✦ The bench observed that Section 497 (adultery) of the Code “commands” married couples to remain loyal to each other.

✦ The Bench also held Section 198 (2) of the CrPC, which gives the cuckolded husband the exclusive right to prosecute his wife’s lover, manifestly arbitrary.

Matter of choice:

✦The court observed that two individuals may part if one cheats, but it is not viable to attach criminality to the infidelity caused by adultery.

✦Besides, there is no data to back claims that abolition of adultery as a crime would result in “chaos in sexual morality” or an increase of

✦How married couples deal with adultery is absolutely a matter of privacy.

Wife not a commodity:

✦ Adultery is not a crime if the husband allows or consents to his wife’s extra-marital affair.

✦ Section 497 treats a married woman as her husband’s possession.

✦ The provision is a reflection of the social dominance of men prevalent 150 years ago and the biblical orders of the colonial government.

Codified Patriarchy phased out

✦ Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, in his separate view, termed Section 497 as a “codified rule of patriarchy”.

✦ Marriage does not mean ceding autonomy of one to the other.

✦ Ability to make sexual choices is essential to human liberty.

✦ Society imposes impossible virtues on a woman. It objectifies her and says she should be pure.

✦ If the woman involved in the extra-marital affair happens to be single and has no husband who is wronged, the law treats the situation with total unconcern.

                                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Railways to roll out smart coaches

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc



Context:

✦ The Indian Railways are set to launch their ‘Make in India’ smart coaches with new features like black box and artificial intelligence (AI)-powered CCTVs, matching international standards.

✦ Named ‘Smart Trains’, the coaches have been equipped with sensors that can detect defects on bearings, wheels, and the railway track, giving constant inputs to those in the control room to avoid accidents, carry out maintenance, and to improve efficiency of operations.

✦ This to improve the safety and security of commuters, and to boost efficiency.

Features:

BLACK BOX:

✦ The black box, being introduced for the first time by Indian Railways, has a powerful multi-dimensional communication interface to provide information on passengers and coach condition on real-time basis.

✦ The black box will act as a coach control unit with communication interfaces for passenger announcements, GPS-based announcement triggers, emergency intercom for commuters, digital destination boards, train reservation display modules, and CCTVs with remote monitoring.

CCTV

✦ AI-powered CCTVs will help those in the control room to keep a tab on untoward incidents and on the behaviour of on-board staff.

✦ Six cameras installed in the coach will provide live recording.

✦ The footage can be accessed from the control room, which will be advantageous for law enforcers.

✦ An emergency talk-back system will enable communication between passengers and the guard during a crisis.

BETTER MONITORING AND MAINTENANCE:

✦ For wheel, coach and track monitoring, Railways have come up with Internet of Things-based system.

✦ The vibrating-energy-based sensors will monitor the wheels, bearing and hard spots on the track, and will provide data through GPS/GPRS to the remote server for diagnosis and remedial measures.

✦ The Passenger Information and Coach Computing Unit (PICCU), an industrial grade computer, will monitor the coach maintenance and passenger interface.

✦ Commuters will also be able to communicate with Railways officials.

OTHER FEATURES:

✦ A Wi-Fi hotspot information system is another innovative feature.

✦ Smart coaches are also laden with water-level indicator technology to know whether the water in the coach is sufficient and when it needs to be filled.

✦ An SMS will be sent to the next watering station when the water level falls below half the coach capacity.

✦ They will include video analytics with face detection feature; unusual occurrence feature; fire-and-smoke detection unit; and an energy-metering module to measure the energy consumption of the coach.

                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Customs duty hike can’t tackle rising CAD: Montek

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Effects of liberalization on the economy

Context:

✦ Increasing customs duties is not the solution to tackle the increasing current account deficit (CAD), said Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Former Deputy Chairman of the erstwhile Planning Commission.

✦ His comments come a day after the Centre released a list of 19 categories of items on which it would be hiking import duties, including white goods such as air-conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines as well as non-essential items such as gems, travel bags and aviation turbine fuel (ATF).

✦ India was in a situation where CAD was not at an alarming level but it had moved from comfort level to a worrying level.

✦ India’s point of view increasing customs duty is not the solution. “Because the depreciation of exchange rate is giving all the support that we need to get imports become more competitive. That’s really better way of handling the situation.”

                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Aadhaar: DoT to hold meetings

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

With the Supreme Court striking down the mandatory linking of mobile phone numbers with Aadhaar, officials from the Department of Telecom (DoT) would soon meet representatives of UIDAI, Law Ministry as well as telecom services providers (TSPs) to ensure compliance.

Reason:

Law Ministry official and TSPs to make sure we are in compliance with the Supreme Court order and to see the way forward.

Background:

A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court on Wednesday declared that a DOT circular mandating linking of mobile number with Aadhaar was illegal and unconstitutional.

                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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MDR reimbursement pending from bank

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ Payments Council of India (PCI), the representative body of non-banking merchant aggregators and acquirers, have raised serious concerns over non-receipt of reimbursements of MDR by merchant aggregators, from the related acquiring banks since January 2018.

✦ This is likely to seriously impact the operating ability of merchant aggregators and dent the efforts to promote digital payments

✦ MDR is the fee that a merchant has to pay to a bank for every transaction that is split between the bank which issued the card, the payment service providers, and payment gateways.

Background:

✦ In December 2017, the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, had said that MDRs would be reimbursed by the government on transactions up to Rs 2,000. This was applicable on all transactions below Rs 2,000 made through debit cards, BHIM UPI or Aadhaar enabled payments systems.

                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Iran sanctions may cost refiners $500 mn

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests, Indian diaspora.

Context:

✦ Indian refiners are likely to lose as much as $500 million as the U.S. sanctions on Iran kick in from November 5 and Indian refiners will be forced to replace cheap Iranian crude with that from other oil producing nations.

✦ India is one of the largest buyers of Iranian crude, accounting for about 30% of total crude exports from Iran during April-August 2018.

Concerns

✦ The sanctions on Iranian oil are credit negative for Indian refiners,according to Moody’s Investors Service, which believes that refiners’ exposure to oil price volatility will also increase if they turn to the spot market.

✦ Iran used to offer its crude to Indian refiners at a discount of $2-$3 per barrel over international rates.

✦ Besides, Iran’s national oil company, National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), also subsidised the freight costs for crude oil delivery and offered extended payment terms to the Indian buyers.

✦ Iran used to offer 60 days credit period besides discounts on crude and transportation costs.

                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Ministerial panel to study need for disaster levy in GST

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation

Context:

✦ A seven-member ministerial panel will study whether a disaster levy, or other ways of fund-raising, is needed to provide relief to states struck by natural calamities

✦ The committee will have representation from the north-eastern, coastal and hill states, which are disaster-prone.

✦ The constitution amendment brought into facilitate the GST’s rollout has a provision that in the event of a natural calamity, a special rate can be imposed with permission of the GST Council.

Why:

✦ Recently Kerala came from a proposal for levying a higher state GST.

✦ Center’s Response for the proposal:

    ○ This is not something that is to be decided on the spur of the moment,” Jaitley said.

    ○ levying a higher state GST needed to be decided upon at a high level as this would set a precedent.

    ○ In case the levy was imposed in only one state, there was a risk of trade shifting to another state

    ○ There were many aspects that needed to be worked out before finalizing a mechanism.

What the ministry will look into?

✦ Whether a revenue-raising mechanism over and above the national and state-level disaster funds was required

✦ whether it should be an all-India levy or implemented only in one state

✦ whether it should be applicable on all items or some on some demerit or luxury goods, or whether it should be a perpetual fund

✦ The group of ministers will also need to decide the scale of the disaster for which this mechanism would be needed over and above the NDRF.

                                                                                                                                                         Source:- live mint

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Centre of Excellence for Data Analytics (CEDA)

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology

Context:

✦ National Informatics Centre (NIC) and NIC Services Incorporated (NICSI) have jointly set up a Centre of Excellence for data analytics.

✦ This is aimed to support Government departments to unlock the hidden potential of the data that they are generating as part of the governance processes and use it to improve the overall governance.

✦ CEDA is envisaged to kick-start and fast track the adoption of advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities.

✦ It shall provide quality data analytic services to government departments at all levels by identifying appropriate tools and technologies and deploying people with right expertise.

Service offering:

✦ Understand their business requirements and define their analytic needs

✦ Identify the data sets that are required to meet the analytic need

✦ Determine access to the relevant data sources (both within as well as outside the government)

✦ Build the required data analytic solutions

✦ In integrating departmental data silos and deliver an integrated whole-of government analytics for an integrated policy formulation.

                                                                                                                                                      SOURCE:- PIB

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India and the UN to sign a Five-Year Sustainable Development Framework (2018-2022)

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests

Context:

NITI Aayog and United Nations are set to sign the Government of India-United Nations Sustainable Development Framework (UNSDF) for 2018-2022.

India-UNSDF (2018-2022)

✦ The Framework outlines the work of UN agencies in India, to support the achievement of key development outcomes that are aligned to the national priorities.

✦ The NITI Aayog is the national counterpart for the UN in India for the operationalization of the UNSDF.

✦ Nineteen (19) UN agencies have signed on the UNSDF 2018-2022.

About United Nations Sustainable Development Framework

The UNSDF 2018-22 comprises of seven priority areas that outline the work that UN agencies will undertake jointly or individually, fully aligned with the priorities of the GoI.

The seven priority areas outlined in the UNSDF are:

        ○ Poverty and Urbanization;

        ○ Health, Water, and Sanitation;

        ○ Education and Employability;

        ○ Nutrition and Food Security;

        ○ Climate Change, Clean Energy, and Disaster Resilience;

        ○ Skilling, Entrepreneurship, and Job Creation;

        ○ Gender Equality and Youth Development.                                                                                                                                                           

                                                                                                                                                                     SOURCE:- PIB

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27^th September 2018 Daily Current affairs

Aadhaar gets thumbs up from Supreme Court

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.



Context:

✦ The Supreme Court, in a majority opinion, upheld Aadhaar as a reasonable restriction on individual privacy that fulfils the government’s legitimate aim to provide dignity to a large, marginalised population living in abject poverty.

More about the news:

✦ In a 4:1 verdict, the Supreme Court found that the Aadhaar Act, 2016, was constitutionally valid.

    ○ the CJI and Justices A K Sikri, A M Khanwilkar and Ashok Bhushan were in favour of Aadhaar while D Y Chandrachud dissented.

✦ The five-judge bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra said the scheme gave dignity to the marginalised and served a much larger public interest.

✦ However, the court struck down some Sections of the Act, including Section 33(2), 47 and 57. It read down Section 33(1).

contention against Aadhaar before the Supreme Court

The Supreme Court, in a marathon 38-day hearing earlier this year, heard a clutch of petitions against the Aadhaar programme. The main questions raised during the hearing on Aadhaar were:

✦ Is the Aadhaar Act, 2016, constitutionally valid given that it was passed in Parliament as a Money Bill?

✦ Why does every citizen need one identity proof - a unique identification number -  to acquire government benefits? Can’t this be done using other documents, like ration card or passport?

✦ Does Aadhaar take away our right to privacy - upheld as a fundamental right by a nine-judge Constitution bench of the court in August 2017.

✦ What happens if Aadhaar data becomes a tool for mass surveillance by the state, as the movement and activities of users can be tracked by collecting metadata?

Money bill:

The SC upheld the passage of the Aadhaar Act as a Money Bill.

Arguments:

✦ The majority opinion on the Constitution Bench that the Aadhaar Act was a Money Bill prevailed, but the dissenting judgment by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud questioned how a statute about an identity proof, Aadhaar, can be possibly passed as a Money Bill.

✦ Justice A.K. Sikri pointed to Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act which required authentication by Aadhaar card if beneficiaries wanted to access subsidies, benefits and services.

✦ Justice Sikri reasoned that since all these were welfare measures sought to be extended to the marginalised sections, a collective reading would show that the purpose is to expand the coverage of all kinds of aid, support, grant, advantage, relief provisions, facility, utility or assistance which may be extended with the support of the Consolidated Fund of India with the objective of targeted delivery.

✦ the majority view justified that Aadhaar was vital to ensure that government aid reached the targeted beneficiaries, and hence, the Act was validly passed as a Money Bill.

✦ A Money Bill must deal with the declaring of any expenditure to be expenditure charged on the Consolidated Fund of India. Section 7 does not declare the expenditure incurred to be a charge on the Consolidated Fund. It only provides that in the case of such services, benefits or subsidies, Aadhaar can be made mandatory to avail of them, Justice Chandrachud countered Justice Sikri’s view.

✦ He also pointed out that the other sections of the Aadhaar Act which dealt with several aspects relating to the Aadhaar numbers were alien to the scope of Article 110 of the Constitution which defined a Money Bill.

unique identification number

✦ The majority opinion upheld the PAN-Aadhaar linkage, but declared linking Aadhaar with bank accounts and mobile SIM cards unconstitutional.

✦ The court insulated children from the Aadhaar regime.

✦ The card was not necessary for children aged between six and 14 under the Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan as right to education was a fundamental right.

✦ Statutory bodies such as the CBSE and the UGC cannot ask students to produce their Aadhaar cards for examinations like the NEET and the JEE.

✦ Permission of parents and guardians was a must before enrolling children into Aadhaar.

✦ Once they attained the age of majority, children could opt out of Aadhaar.

✦ Reading down Section 2(d) of the Aadhaar Act, the court also ruled that authentication record should not include metadata. Records cannot be kept beyond the period of six months.

Arguments:

✦ Justice DY Chandrachud said allowing private players to use Aadhaar would lead to profiling, which could be used in ascertaining political views etc of citizens

✦ Justice Sikri, in his judgment, found this section to be unconstitutional. It was under this provision that private companies like Paytm and Airtel Payments Bank sought Aadhaar details from customers.

Struck down:

✦ Supreme Court struck down Sections 33(2), 47 and 57 of the Aadhaar Act.

✦ Section 33(2):- Section 33(2) allows identity and authentication data to be disclosed in the interest of national security on direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India.

      ○ shall apply in respect of any disclosure of information, including identity information or authentication of records, made in the interest of national security in pursuance of a direction of an officer not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the Government of India specially authorised in this behalf by an order of the Central Government

✦ read down Section 33(1):- 33(1) allows disclosure of information, including identity and authentication records, if ordered by a court not inferior to that of District Judge. Reading down this sub-section, the SC has said individuals should be given the opportunity of hearing.

✦ Section 47 of the Aadhaar Act :- refers to cognizance of offences. Under this Section, no court is allowed to take cognizance of any offence punishable under this Act, except on a complaint made by the authority of officer or person authorised by it. The Section also disallows courts below that of a Chief Metropolitan Magistrate or a Chief Judicial Magistrate to try any offence punishable under this Act.

✦ Section 57 of the Aadhaar Act: Nothing contained in this Act shall prevent the use of Aadhaar number for establishing the identity of an individual for any purpose, whether by the State or any body corporate or person, pursuant to any law, for the time being in force, or any contract to this effect

Privacy:

✦ Aadhaar is a reasonable restriction on individual privacy.

✦ The Supreme Court quashed or read down several provisions in the Aadhaar Act in order to de-fang any possibility of the state misusing data.

✦ For one, the court held that authentication records should not be retained for more than six months. It declared the archiving of records for five years as bad in law.

✦ It also prohibited the creation of a metabase for transactions.

✦ It read down Section 33 (1), which allowed the disclosure of Aadhaar information on the orders of a District Judge. This cannot be done now without giving the person concerned an opportunity to be heard.

✦ The Supreme Court struck down Section 33(2), which allowed the disclosure of Aadhaar information for national security reasons on the orders of an officer not below a Joint Secretary

Arguments:

✦ The Supreme Court said neither were individuals profiled nor their movements traced when Aadhaar was used to avail government benefits under Section 7 of the Aadhaar Act, 2016.

✦ The statute only sought minimal biometric information, and this did not amount to invasion of privacy.

✦ The collection of personal data and its authentication was done through registered devices. The Authority did not get any information related to the IP address or the GPS location from where authentication was performed.

✦ The Aadhaar structure makes it very difficult to create the profile of a person, Justice Sikri reasoned.

✦ The absence of a legislative framework for the Aadhaar project between 2009 and 2016, before the Aadhaar Act came into existence, left the biometric data of millions of Indian citizens exposed to danger.

✦ Justice Chandrachud did not agree with Justice Sikri’s majority view that since information was collected in silos in Aadhaar, potential surveillance or profiling by the state or private entities was impossible.

✦ He countered that when Aadhaar was seeded into every database, it became a bridge across discrete data silos, which allowed anyone with access to this information to re-construct a profile of an individual’s life.

Aadhaar not a Surveillance tool

✦ Authentication transactions through Aadhaar did not ask for the purpose, nature or location of the transaction.

✦ Besides, information was collected in silos and their merging was prohibited.

✦ The collection of personal data and its authentication was done through registered devices and was not expanded to the Internet.

✦ The Authority did not get any information related to the IP address or the GPS location from where authentication was performed

Arguments:

✦ Countering the argument that the Aadhaar regime would facilitate the birth of a surveillance state, Justice Sikri wrote that Aadhaar exhibited no such tendencies.

                                                                                                                                                         Source:- The Hindu

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Ordinance allows panel to supersede scam-tainted MCI

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context

✦ In a move to enhance governance and quality of medical education, an ordinance was issued dissolving the Medical Council of India (MCI) and replacing it with a seven-member Board of Governors led by NITI Aayog Member Dr. V.K. Paul.

✦ The Ordinance supersedes the MCI and the powers of the Council have been vested in a Board of Governors (BoG).

✦ The BoG will continue to perform till a council is constituted.

Background

✦ The National Medical Commission (NMC) Bill, 2017 to replace the MCI with a National Medical Commission is pending in Parliament.

✦ It was based on the March 2016 ‘92nd Report’ of the Department related to the Parliamentary Standing Committee (PSC) on Health and Family Welfare, and recommendations of a group of experts.

✦ The Bill was taken up for consideration in January this year and was referred to the Department-related PSC on Health and Family Welfare for examination.

✦ The PSC presented its 109th Report on the Bill to the House in March, and the Ministry, after examining the recommendations, obtained approval of the Cabinet for moving official amendments.

✦ Meanwhile, the Supreme Court, in its judgment in May 2016, issued directions to the Centre to constitute an oversight committee with the authority to oversee all statutory functions of the MCI till a new legislation comes in.

Features of the Bill

✦ The Bill provides for simplification of procedures and was aimed at spurring rapid growth in the number of Under and Post Graduate medical seats in the country.

✦ The NMC Bill provides for distribution of functions among four autonomous Boards, whose members would be persons of proven ability selected through a transparent process.

                                                                                                                                                   SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Centre hikes import duty on select goods

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY  - Indian Economy and issues relating to planning

Context:

✦ The government has released a list of 19 categories of items on which it would be hiking import duties, which include white goods such as air-conditioners, refrigerators and washing machines as well as non-essential items such as gems, travel bags and aviation turbine fuel (ATF).

✦ The new rates will be applicable from September 27.



Reason for Hike :

✦ The Central Government has taken tariff measures, by way of increase in the basic customs duty to curb import of certain imported items.

✦ These changes aim at narrowing the current account deficit .

✦ It is aimed at reducing the drain of currency reserves and boost domestic demand.

                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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MHA merges police forces in six Union Territories

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.

Context:

✦ The National Capital Territory of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Chandigarh (Police Service) Rules, 2018, was notified on September 25.

✦ The new rules have amalgamated police forces in six Union Territories.

✦ The rules effectively mean that officers, who are not direct IPS recruits, could be posted in any of the six UTs and will be at the disposal of the MHA.

✦ There are around 533 posts that will be covered under the new rules including Assistant Commissioners of Police and Deputy Superintendents of Police.

✦ The rules will come into play upon promotion or direct recruitment of inspectors to the post of ACPs.

✦ Half of the posts at ACP rank will be filled through direct recruitment and the other half through promotion.

✦ Earlier these postings were decided

✦ By the respective UT administrators.

✦ Moreover, a Service known as the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep, Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Chandigarh Police Service will be constituted.

                                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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Punjab plan to eliminate malaria

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

✦ The Punjab government in collaboration with the World Health Organization has launched a “’micro strategic plan” to eliminate malaria from the State by 2020.

✦ Punjab is the first State in the country where the WHO will collaborate for elimination of malaria.

✦It would provide technical support to the State to achieve the set target.

✦ The State is committed to micro-level surveillance under which each and every reported case of malaria would be investigated and remedial measures undertaken to prevent its further spread.

 

Government steps to eradicate Malaria: ✦ The plan is to eliminate malaria (zero indigenous cases) by 2022 in all Category 1 and 2 districts. ✦ The remaining districts are to be brought under a pre-elimination and elimination programme. ✦The NSP also aims to maintain a malaria-free status for areas where transmission has been interrupted. ✦It seeks to achieve universal case detection and treatment services in endemic districts to ensure 100% diagnosis of all suspected cases, and full treatment of all confirmed cases. ✦ The plan has four components, based on WHO recommendations: diagnosis and case management; surveillance and epidemic response; prevention — integrated vector management; ‘cross-cutting’ interventions, which include advocacy, communication, research and development, and other initiatives. ✦ There are 660 reporting districts, which, along with another 18 reporting units, make up a total of 678 reporting units.

                 

                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Chardham project: NGT forms panel

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ Following a plea challenging the environmental clearance granted to the Chardham highway project, the National Green Tribunal constituted an oversight committee to look into the issue.

✦ The independent committee will consist of representatives from the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), the Forest Research Institute and others.

✦ The directions came while the green panel was hearing a set of pleas challenging the construction of the Chardham highway project, stating that the project will have adverse environmental effects.

Chardham highway project

✦ It is a proposed two-lane (in each direction) express National Highway with a minimum width of 10 metres in the state of Uttarakhand.

✦ The proposed highway will complement the under development Char Dham Railway by connecting the four holy places in Uttarakhand states includes Badrinath, Kedarnath, Gangotri and Yamunotri.

✦ The project includes 900 km national highways will connect whole of Uttarakhand state.

                                                                                                                                                   Source:- The Hindu

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Boost to SC/ST quota in promotions

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.



Context:

✦ A Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court has modified a 2006 judgment requiring the State to show quantifiable data to prove the backwardness of a Scheduled Caste/Scheduled Tribe community in order to provide quota in promotion in public employment.

✦ It gives a huge fillip for the government’s efforts to provide accelerated promotion with consequential seniority for Scheduled Castes/ Scheduled Tribes (SC/ST) members in government services.

✦ The apex court also turned down the centre’s plea that overall population of SC/ST be considered for granting quota for them.

Observations

✦ Justice Rohinton Nariman held that this portion of the M. Nagaraj judgment of another five-judge Constitution Bench in 2006 was directly contrary to the nine-judge Bench verdict in the Indira Sawhney case.

✦ In the Indira Sawhney case, the Supreme Court had held that the test or requirement of social and educational backwardness cannot be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, who indubitably fall within the expression ‘backward class of citizens’.

✦ Justice Nariman pointed out that the Presidential List for Scheduled Castes contains only those castes or groups or parts as untouchables.

✦ Similarly, the Presidential List of Scheduled Tribes only refers to those tribes in remote backward areas who are socially extremely backward.

✦ The whole object of reservation is to see that backward classes of citizens move forward so that they may march hand in hand with other citizens of India on an equal basis.

✦ This will not be possible if only the creamy layer within that class bag all the coveted jobs in the public sector and perpetuate themselves, leaving the rest of the class as backward as they always were, Justice Nariman said and upheld Nagaraj’s direction that creamy layer applied to SC/ST in promotions.

✦ It said that when a court applies the creamy layer principle to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, it does not in any manner tinker with the Presidential List under Articles 341 or 342 of the Constitution of India.

✦ The caste or group or sub-group named in the said List continues exactly as before.

✦ It is only those persons within that group or sub - group, who have come out of untouchability or backwardness by virtue of belonging to the creamy layer, who are excluded from the benefit of reservation.

                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Recyclers storing electronic waste hazardously: Environment Ministry

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ Many of India’s electronic-waste (e-waste) recyclers aren’t recycling waste at all.

✦ While some are storing it in hazardous conditions, others don’t even have the capacity to handle such waste, says a new report prepared by the Union Environment Ministry.

Background

✦ India generates more than two million tonnes of e-waste annually, and the bulk of it is processed in the informal sector.

✦ In 2017, the Centre brought into effect the E-waste Rules, which require companies that make or sell electronic equipment to collect a certain percentage of e-waste generated from their goods once they have reached their end-of-life.

✦ In 2017-2018, the companies were supposed to have collected 10%. This would rise to 70% by 2023. But doing this would require these firms to work with licensed e-waste recyclers and ensure that all e-waste is properly disposed of.

✦ India now has 178 registered e-waste recyclers, accredited by the State governments to process e-waste.

Checks by the Ministry

✦ The Environment Ministry conducted checks at 11 registered recyclers and one unregistered recycler in May this year.

✦ The checks led the Ministry to conclude in its report that a number of transgressions were seen committed by the recycling facilities such as adopting non-environmentally sound methods of storage, handling and processing of e-waste, non-compliance with guidelines of the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

✦ Certain recycling facilities were non-operational or seemed to be inadequate to handle the capacity of e-waste.

                                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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National Digital Communications Policy-2018

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development    in various sectors

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the National Digital Communications Policy-2018 (NDCP-2018) and re-designation of the Telecom Commission as the “Digital Communications Commission”.

Impact:

✦ Supports India’s transition to a digitally empowered economy and society by fulfilling the information and communications needs of citizens and enterprises by establishment of a ubiquitous, resilient and affordable digital communications infrastructure and services.

✦ The ‘Customer focused’ and ‘application driven’ NDCP-2018 shall lead to new ideas and innovations, after the launch of advanced technology such as 5G, IOT, M2M, etc. which shall govern the telecom sector of India.

Objectives:

✦ Broadband for all;

✦ Creating four million additional jobs in the Digital Communications sector;

✦ Enhancing the contribution of the Digital Communications sector to 8% of India’s GDP from ~ 6% in 2017;

✦ Propelling India to the Top 50 Nations in the ICT Development Index of ITU from 134 in 2017;

✦ Enhancing India’s contribution to Global Value Chains; and

✦ Ensuring Digital Sovereignty.

     ○ These objectives are to be achieved by 2022.

Features:

✦ Provide universal broadband connectivity at 50 Mbps to every citizen;

✦ Provide 1 Gbps connectivity to all Gram Panchayats by 2020 and 10 Gbps by 2022;

✦ Ensure connectivity to all uncovered areas;

✦ Attract investments of USD 100 billion in the Digital Communications Sector;

✦ Train one million manpower for building New Age Skill;

✦ Expand IoT ecosystem to 5 billion connected devices;

✦ Establish a comprehensive data protection regime for digital communications that safeguards the privacy, autonomy and choice of individuals

✦ Facilitate India’s effective participation in the global digital economy;

✦ Enforce accountability through appropriate institutional mechanisms to assure citizens of safe and

✦ Secure digital communications infrastructure and services.

Strategy:

✦ Establishment of a National Digital Grid by creating a National Fibre Authority;

✦ Establishing Common Service Ducts and utility corridors in all new city and highway road projects;

✦ Creating a collaborative institutional mechanism between Centre, States and Local Bodies for Common Rights of Way, standardization of costs and timelines;

✦ Removal of barriers to approvals; and

✦ Facilitating development of Open Access Next Generation Networks.

                                                                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- PIB

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26^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Enact ‘strong law’ to cleanse politics: SC

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

Context:

The Supreme Court directed political parties to publish online the pending criminal cases of their candidates and urged Parliament to bring a “strong law” to cleanse political parties of leaders facing trial for serious crimes.

More about the news:

✦ Parliament should frame a law that makes it obligatory for political parties to remove leaders charged with “heinous and grievous” crimes, such as rape, murder and kidnapping, to name only a few, and refuse ticket to offenders in both parliamentary and Assembly polls.

✦ Candidates should divulge their criminal past to the Election Commission in “block letters”.

✦ Candidates should make a full disclosure of the criminal cases pending against them to the political parties under whose banner they intend to contest the polls.

✦ The parties, in turn, should put up the complete details of their candidates on their websites for public consumption.

✦ Further, both the candidate and the political party should declare the criminal antecedents of the former in widely-circulated newspapers.

✦ Finally, both the candidate and the political party should give “wide publicity” to the criminal record of the former by airing it on TV channels, not once, but thrice after the filing of nomination papers.

Impact of Judgement:

✦ It ensures that ordinary voters can have an “informed choice” about who he or she has to vote for in a country which already “feels agonised when money and muscle power become the supreme power”.

✦ Disclosure of antecedents makes the election a fair one and the exercise of the right of voting by the electorate also gets sanctified.

Observation of court:

✦ Criminals in power are nothing but a liability to this country. Their presence in power strikes at the roots of democracy.

✦ The best available people, as is expected by the democratic system, should not have criminal antecedents and the voters have a right to know about their antecedents, assets and other aspects.

✦ Citizens in a democracy cannot be compelled to stand as silent, deaf and mute spectators to corruption.

✦ Criminalisation of politics and corruption, especially at the entry level of elections, has become a national and economic terror. It is a disease which is self-destructive and becoming immune to antibiotics.

                                                                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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NPAs with PSU banks declining: Jaitley

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources

Context:

✦ Non-performing assets with public sector banks are on the decline, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said, adding that public sector banks are expecting recoveries of loans to the tune of Rs 1.8 lakh crore this financial year.

✦ The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code and NCLT proceedings were having a positive effect on recoveries and prompting promoters to pay their dues before the legal process began.

✦ Public sector banks are expecting stronger credit growth this financial year on the back of stronger growth in the economy.

✦ Consumption has moved up and there is growth in investment activity, so naturally the banking sector will also grow.

✦ The government has launched a Financial Inclusion Index to rank States.

                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Legislators can practise law, says SC

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments of the Government

Context:

The Supreme Court has held that there was no bar on legislators doubling up as lawyers.

More details:

✦ The writ petition, filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, had argued that legislators donning the lawyers’ robes is a matter of serious concern to the judiciary.

✦ Upadhyay had argued that lawmakers drew their salaries and pensions from the public exchequer and hence could be classified as employees.

✦ The Bench dismissed the arguments made in the petition that such legal practice by

✦ lawmakers was in violation of Rule 49 of the Bar Council of India Act, which forbade an advocate to be full-time salaried employee of any person, government, firm, corporation or concern, so long as he continues to practise.

✦ More importantly, the Supreme Court said there is no conflict of interest if the MPs are allowed to practise law in the Supreme Court and in the High Courts before the very judges they have power to impeach.

✦ The conferment of power on the legislators (MPs) to move an impeachment motion against the judge(s) of constitutional courts does not per se result in conflict of interest or a case of impacting constitutional morality or for that matter institutional integrity.

✦ The judgment said lawmakers could not be described as full-time salaried employees of the State. They were elected representatives and occupied a unique position in our democracy.

                                                                                                                                                      Source:- The Hindu

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Unemployment among educated youth at 16%: study

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Development and employment



Concern:

With higher growth rates not having translated into more jobs and increases in productivity failing to spur a commensurate rise in wages, the government ought to formulate a National Employment Policy that takes these trends into account, the State of Working India 2018, a new study released by Azim Premji University’s Centre for Sustainable Employment, recommends.

Facts and Figures:

✦ Confirming the spectre of jobless growth, the study contends that this divergence between growth and jobs had increased over time.

      ○ “If we look back at the 1970s and 80s, when GDP growth was around 3-4%, employment growth was about 2%,”

      ○ “Currently, the ratio of GDP growth to employment growth is less than 0.1.” That means that a 10% increase in GDP results in a less than 1% increase in employment.

✦ The study uses government data to show that total employment actually shrank by seven million between 2013 and 2015, and cites private data to posit that an absolute decline has continued in the years since.

✦ Unemployment has risen to more than 5% overall, and the study slices the data to show that in geographic terms, north Indian States are the most severely affected, while in demographic terms, young people with higher education levels suffer an unemployment rate as high as 16%.

✦ While wages are rising in almost all sectors, hidden within the positive data is the worrying fact that rural wage growth collapsed in 2014, and has not risen since

Manufacturing sector:

✦ In the organised manufacturing sector, though the number of jobs has grown, there has also been an increase in the share of contract work, which offers lower wages and less job security, according to the study.

✦ Also, of concern is the divergence of productivity and wages in the organised manufacturing sector.

✦ Labour productivity in the sector is six times higher than it was 30 years ago; however, managerial and supervisory salaries have only tripled in the same period, while production workers’ wages have grown a measly 1.5 times.

Women status:

✦ Women’s participation in the paid workforce is still low, but the situation is unequal across States.

✦ In Uttar Pradesh, only 20 women are in paid employment for every 100 men, while that figure jumps to 50 in Tamil Nadu and 70 in Mizoram and Nagaland.

Dalits and Adivasi status:

✦ With regard to earnings, the caste gap is actually larger than the gender gap.

✦ Dalits and Adivasis are over-represented in low-paying occupations, and severely under-represented in higher-paying ones, the study reveals.

✦ They earn only 55-56% of upper caste workers’ earnings, the data shows.

                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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SC forms prison reforms panel

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE -  Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

The Supreme Court formed a Committee on Prison Reforms chaired by former apex court judge, Justice Amitava Roy, to examine the various problems plaguing prisons in the country, from overcrowding to lack of legal advice to convicts to issues of remission and parole.

Reason behind judgement:

✦ Highlighting the overcrowding in prisons, unnatural deaths of prisoners, gross inadequacy of staff and the lack of trained staff.

Committee on Prison Reforms

✦ Examine the extent of overcrowding in prisons and correctional homes and recommend remedial measures, including an examination of the functioning of Under Trial Review Committees, availability of legal aid and advice, grant of remission, parole and furlough.

✦ The panel would also probe the reasons for violence in prisons and correctional homes and recommend preventive measures.

                                                                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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India ranks 158th in ‘human capital’ score, behind Sudan

GS PAPER - 03 - INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Important International institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate

Context:

India ranks 158th in the world for its investments in education and health care, according to the first-ever scientific study ranking countries for their levels of investment in human capital.

More about the news:

✦ The study, conducted by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the request of the World Bank, is the first of its kind to measure and compare the strength of countries’ “human capital”.

✦ The study underscores that when a country’s human capital score increases, its economy grows.

✦ The study, published in journal The Lancet, says that India is ranked at 158 out of 195 countries in 2016, an improvement from its position of 162 in 1990.

✦ It showed that India is falling behind in terms of health and education of its workforce, which could potentially have long-term negative effects on the Indian economy.

✦ The study is based on analysis of data from sources, including government agencies, schools, and health care systems.

Ranking:

✦ The study places Finland at the top.

✦ India ranks 158th in the world for its investments in education and health care, according to the first-ever scientific study ranking countries for their levels of human capital.

✦ The nation is placed behind Sudan (ranked 157th) and ahead of Namibia (ranked 159th) in the list.

✦ The U.S. is ranked 27th, while China is at 44th and Pakistan at 164th.

✦ South Asian countries ranking below India in this report include Pakistan (164), Bangladesh (161) and Afghanistan (188).

✦ Countries in the region that have fared better than India in terms of human capital include Sri Lanka (102), Nepal (156), Bhutan (133) and Maldives (116).

                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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National Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA)

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology

Context:

✦ Inaugural Session of the two-day National Orientation workshop on National e-Vidhan Application (NeVA) and new website and app of NeVA was organized by Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs.

✦ The focus of the workshop would be to encourage all State Legislatures to move towards e-Vidhan platform.

✦ This will help bringing in transparency, accountability and responsiveness in their conduct of business, through the use of technology.

National e-Vidhan Application

✦ NeVA is a member-centric, decentralized digital application that makes information available on digital platform about day to day functioning of Legislative Houses covering various businesses of the Houses.

✦ The application would host a secure page for each Member of the House for submitting Questions & other Notices.

✦ The mNeVA (NeVA-mobile app) is a device neutral and user friendly app that has made information on conduct of business in Legislatures accessible anytime, anywhere to everyone.

✦ It is a work-flow based app deployed in Cloud (Meghraj) which helps the Chair of the House to conduct the proceedings of the House smoothly and the members to carry out their duties in the House efficiently.

✦ NeVA has made live for Rajya Sabha in respect of Monsoon Session 2018 and information in respect of Lok Sabha is being updated.

e-Vidhan Project

✦ e-Vidhan is a Mission Mode Project to digitize and make the functioning of State Legislatures paperless.

✦ This is part of Digital India programme and Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs, being the Nodal Ministry for this project.

✦ It desires to roll out e-Vidhan as NeVA covering all 40 Houses including two Houses of Parliament and thereby putting all them on a single platform and proving the theory of ‘One Nation One Application’.

✦ It is to be used by the Legislatures as well as all the Government Departments.

✦ This journey began with a pilot project executed in Himachal Pradesh with the central assistance of Rs.8.12 crores which made the Shimla Legislative Assembly the first Assembly in India to go paperless in 2014.

✦ This project resulted into overall savings of about Rs.5.08 crores annually on account of expenditure on papers, printing, manpower costs and conservation of forests/ trees as ancillary benefits.

                                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- PIB

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Centenary Celebrations of Dakshin Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha

GS PAPER - 01 FREEDOM STRUGGLE - Various stages and important contributors /contributions from different parts of the country.

Context

✦ Institutions like the Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha have played a very important role in strengthening the emotional unity of our country.

✦ The Sabha has developed a network of about 20,000 Hindi campaigners.

Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha

✦ Dakshina Bharat Hindi Prachar Sabha is an organisation whose main goal is to improve Hindi literacy among the non-Hindi speaking people of South Indi and is headquartered in Chennai.

✦ The organisation was established by Annie Besant with support from Mahatma Gandhi, who became the founder president of the Sabha, who held the post till his death.

✦ The first Hindi class here was taken by M. Gandhi’s son Devdas Gandhi.

✦ In 1964, the institution was recognised by the Indian Government as one of the Institutes of National Importance.

Hindi Movement in South India

✦ The Hindi movement in South India was started in the year 1918 by Mahatma Gandhi.

✦ Gandhi saw the need to unite the northern and southern states of the country in the greatest interest of integration of the nation, as Hindi was spoken by the largest section of the people of India.

✦ Therefore, he founded this Sabha at Madras to propagate the study of Hindi in the then Madras Presidency and other princely states.

✦ Under this, Hindi training schools were started in Andhra and Tamil Nadu.

✦ By 1927, the Hindi Prachar Sabha emerged as an independent organization, and Mahatma Gandhi remained its president until his death in 1948.

✦ Gandhiji desired that the ‘Hindi Prachar‘in the south should be carried on by involving the local people of the respective area.

                                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- PIB

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Parakram Parv Celebrations

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate

Context:

Indian Army conducted surgical strikes in 2016 which had strategic ramifications and were aimed to dissuade inimical adversary from adopting the path of violence and to ensure an environment of peace for the nation.

About:

✦ The day Sept 29 marks the eve of second anniversary of 2016’s surgical strikes against terror pods in Pakistani territory by Indian forces and the Ministry of Defence will be conducting the event with the army, air force and navy being represented.

✦ To showcase the courage, valour and sacrifice of Armed Forces, ‘Parakram Parv’ is being observed from Sept 28-30, which will have an overall theme of ‘valour’ of the armed forces with the focus being on the strikes.

✦ Exhibition is being planned for this day, with a ‘selfie wall’, showing representative videos and a portion of the original footage of the strikes and stalls displaying equipment of the three defence services throughout the three day celebration.

                                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- PIB

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25^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Centre finalising tariffs on non-essential imports

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

The government has finalised the list of non-essential items on which it will be imposing import tariffs

Background:

✦ The government had earlier this month, announced:

    ○ The easing of overseas borrowing norms for manufacturing companies, 

    ○ Removal of restrictions on foreign portfolio investment in corporate bonds and tax benefits on masala bonds.

    ○ The imposition of tariffs on the import of non-essential items  is expected to bolster these efforts in stabilising the rupee’s levels

Import Tariffs:

✦  The official said the list, to be notified soon, would include electronics, gems, select items of steel that are also manufactured in India, imported apples, and almonds, among others.

✦  The main issue under consideration was whether to include gold in it. The list has now been finalised and will include most of the non-essential items…

                                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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SC sends plea for ban on female genital mutilation to 5-judge bench

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE -  mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.

Context:

The Supreme Court Monday referred a petition seeking a ban on female genital mutilation of minor girls, allegedly prevalent among the Dawoodi Bohras, to a five-judge Constitution Bench

 

Female genital mutilation ✦ Female genital mutilation(FGM), also known as female genital cutting and female circumcision, is the ritual cutting or removal of some or all of the external female genitalia. ✦ The practice is found in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and within communities from countries in which FGM is common. ✦ UNICEF estimated in 2016 that More than 200 million girls and women alive today have been cut in 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Asia where FGM is concentrated. ✦ FGM is mostly carried out on young girls between infancy and age 15. ✦ In INDIA, a newly formed association of women from the community described it as khatna, khafz, or female circumcision.

 

Female circumcision

✦ The court was hearing a PIL filed by Delhi-based lawyer Sunita Tiwari, seeking a declaration that the practice amounts to violation of a woman’s right to life and dignity.

✦ The petitioner contended that the procedure is performed “illegally upon girls (between five years and before she attains puberty)”

     ○ against the “UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights of which is India is a signatory”. This also resulted in “permanent disfiguration to the body of a girl child”,

✦ Petitioner Tiwari contended that the practice had no basis in any religious texts and was being carried out without any medical reason. She also stressed on the long-term consequences that it leaves on a girl child.

✦ The petition demanded implementation of the 2012 United Nations resolution on elimination of FGM and referred to World Health Organisation records which classify FGM as a violation of human rights.

✦ Petition stated that the practice of Khatna is illegal and against the religious norms/customs and amounts to serious violation of child rights as well as the rights of a woman to live with freedom and dignity and also a violation of human rights, and hence, amounts to cruelty of the first order, which is a heinous crime,”

 

Observation:

✦ During the hearing, the bench had earlier observed that “control over one’s genitalia is vital to privacy, autonomy, dignity”.

      ○Noting that the practice violates the “bodily integrity” of a girl child, it had asked how bodily integrity of an individual could be part of religion and an essential practice.

✦ The Bench had said the practice should be tested in the light of constitutional morality.

✦ Attorney General K K Venugopal, was of the view that it went against various fundamental rights of the girl child.

      ○ moreover, such kind of genital mutilation had serious repercussions on their health.

      ○ Venugopal too favoured a ban and pointed out that it had already been prohibited in the US, UK, Australia and several African countries.

 

Arguments in Favour:

✦ Senior counsel Abhishek Manu Singhvi referred to the practice of male circumcision (khatna) in Islam and said it had been allowed in all countries and is an accepted religious practice.

✦ Senior advocate A.M. Singhvi, appearing for 70,000 Bohra Muslim women under the banner of the Dawoodi Bohra Women’s Association for Religious Freedom (DBWRF) in favour of ‘khafz,’ said the practice was essential to religion and had been continuing since the 10th century.

         

International efforts to curb this problem: ✦ WHO strongly urges health professionals not to perform such procedures. ✦ In 1997, WHO issued a joint statement against the practice of FGM together with the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA). ✦ In 2007, UNFPA and UNICEF initiated the Joint Programme on Female Genital Mutilation/Cutting to accelerate the abandonment of the practice. ✦ In 2008, WHO together with 9 other United Nations partners, issued a statement on the elimination of FGM to support increased advocacy for its abandonment, called: “Eliminating female genital mutilation: an interagency statement”. ✦ In 2010, WHO published a “Global strategy to stop health care providers from performing female genital mutilation” in collaboration with other key UN agencies and international organizations. ✦ In December 2012, the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution on the elimination of female genital mutilation. ✦ In 2016 UNICEF launched an updated report documenting the prevalence of FGM in 30 countries, as well as beliefs, attitudes, trends, and programmatic and policy responses to the practice globally. ✦ In May 2016, WHO in collaboration with the UNFPA-UNICEF joint programme on FGM launched the first evidence-based guidelines on the management of health complications from FGM. The guidelines were developed based on a systematic review of the best available evidence on health interventions for women living with FGM.

 

                                                                                                                                                     Source:- The Indian Express

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Odisha changes norms in food, procurement policy

GS PAPER - 03 AGRICULTURE - Public Distribution System- objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security

Context:

The Odisha government has decided to facilitate entry of more small and marginal farmers and share - croppers into the procurement fold by bringing changes in the norms of food and procurement policy for the Kharif Marketing Season (KMS) 2018-19.

Old Practice:

The past practice was that of deducting towards personal consumption requirement at the rate of three quintals of paddy per member in the family of farmer for computation of marketable surplus of paddy.

Cabinet approval

✦ The Cabinet, which approved the food and procurement policy for KMS 2019 to regulate all aspects of paddy and rice procurement during the ensuing KMS, decided that paddy (Kharif crop) will be procured between November, 2018 and April, 2019.

✦ The paddy (Rabi crop) will be procured from May to June, 2019.

✦ A tentative target to procure 55 lakh tonnes of paddy from farmers has been fixed which will be around 37 lakh tonnes in terms of rice.

✦ Food Supplies & Consumer Welfare Minister has been authorised to revise the target if need arises.

✦ The farmers would be paid the Minimum Support Price (MSP) fixed by the Central government at Rs 1,750 per quintal for the common variety of paddy and ₹ 1,770 for Grade-A variety.

✦ The money would be directly paid into the bank accounts of farmers within three days of the procurement.

MoU with Centre

While 23 lakh tonnes of the procured rice will be pumped into the Public Distribution System in the State, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) will evacuate the remaining 14 lakh tonnes of rice to other States as per the MoU with the Centre.

Process of procurement

✦ Like previous year, paddy procurement process in all 308 procuring blocks will be conducted through paddy procurement automation system (P-PAS).

✦ All documents in connection with paddy procurement shall be generated from computer through P-PAS software to make the process hassle-free and transparent.

                                                                                                                                                 Source:- The Hindu

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Panel approves nutrition norms

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

The National Technical Board on Nutrition (NTBN) has approved guidelines proposed by WCD Ministry for severe acute malnutrition. The measures are part of the community based health management of children suffering from SAM.

Guidelines:

✦ Severely malnourished children must be fed freshly cooked food

     ○ prepared from locally available cereals, pulses and vegetables.

     ○ This is to be distributed by anganwadi centres, as part of the country’s first-ever guidelines for nutritional management of children suffering from severe acute malnutrition (SAM).

 

severe acute malnutrition (SAM) Severe acute malnutrition is the most extreme and visible form of undernutrition. Its face is a child – frail and skeletal – who requires urgent treatment to survive.

 

✦ The guidelines outline the role of anganwadi workers and auxiliary nurse midwives (ANMs) in identifying severely wasted children.

    ○ According to the recommendations, anganwadi workers have to provide modified morning snacks, hot cooked meals and take home ration for SAM children.

✦ They have to segregate those with oedema or medical complications and sending them to the nearest health facility or nutrition rehabilitation centres.

    ○ The remaining children are enrolled into “community based management”.

    ○ This includes provision of nutrition, continuous monitoring of growth, administration of antibiotics and micronutrients as well as counselling sessions and imparting of nutrition and health education.

✦ The morning snacks and hot-cooked meals,

    ○ which are served at anganwadis to children between the age of three to six years, should be “prepared freshly and served at the centralised kitchen/ anganwadi centres.

    ○ Locally available cereals, pulses, green leafy vegetables and tubers, vitamin C rich fruits, as well as fresh milk and 3-4 eggs every week” have also been prescribed.

✦ Importantly, the government has also revised the method to be used to measure wasting and advised calculating weight based on the height of children instead of the mid-upper arm circumference.

 

National Technical Board on Nutrition (NTBN) ✦ It has been constituted to make technical recommendations on policy-relevant issues on nutrition. ✦ The role of the board is advisory in nature. ✦ It has to advise the states and UTs on preventive measures and management of SAM children. ✦ The board has to coordinate the collation, synthesis of existing scientific and operational research, identify research gaps and make technical recommendations for the research agenda. ✦ It has to provide technical guidance on the design of nutrition surveys proposed by the states/UTs, other sectors and institutions and their coherence with ongoing National Health and other surveys. ✦ It has to formulate India specific growth indicators including stunting.

                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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Monsoon withdrawal to begin by weekend

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ The monsoon will likely start withdrawing from the country by the last week of September, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has said in a forecast.

✦ Typically, the monsoon begins its withdrawal from the 1st week of September, but it has been delayed primarily due to the development of cyclonic conditions.

✦ Figures from the IMD say that India is facing a 9% rainfall deficit and 11 of India’s 36 subdivisions spanning 29% of the country’s area  have seen a deficit of 29% in monsoon rains between 1st June and 23rd September.

✦ The maximum deficit has been in northeastern India with Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya recording a 32% and 28% shortfall in their monsoon quotas.

✦ Jharkhand, Bihar, Saurashtra and Kutch, Rayalaseema and north interior Karnataka are among the subdivisions that have registered a deficit greater than 25%.

                                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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Centre to issue warnings on lynchings

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges

Context:

The Centre has assured the Supreme Court that it and the State governments would, within a week, start broadcasting on radio and TV a stern message that mob lynching and violence would invite the wrath of law.

Background:

✦ On July 17, the Supreme Court directed the Union and the State governments to disseminate through radio, television and other media platforms, including the official websites of the Home Department and the State police forces, the message that lynching and mob violence of any kind shall invite serious consequences under the law.

✦ The Centre’s promise came in response to a query by a Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra on whether the court’s directions on the matter had been complied with.

Concern:

The court said  Nothing appears to have been done on the ground, eight States and Union Territories were yet to file reports indicating their compliance with the July 17 verdict.

                                                                                                                                 Source:- The Hindu

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Ayodhya reference verdict likely to be delivered on Friday

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIETY - communalism, regionalism & secularism.

Context:

The Supreme Court is likely to pronounce its judgment on September 28 on whether to refer the question if a mosque as a place of prayer is an essential part of Islam in the Ramjanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid appeals to a Constitution Bench.

Background

✦ A three-judge Bench of Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra and Justices Ashok Bhushan and S. Abdul Nazeer had taken up the long-pending Ayodhya land title appeals against the Allahabad High Court judgment of 2010, which had ordered a three-way partition of the disputed land.

✦ Chief Justice Misra had in the beginning observed that the appeals would be decided like any other civil suit, shorn of any religious sentiments displayed by the parties.

✦ However, as the hearings progressed in the appeals, the Muslim appellants pressed that the place of a mosque in Islam and the importance of the practice of offering prayers inside a mosque should be first decided by a five-judge Bench.

✦ The bone of contention here is an observation made in a 1994 SC judgment in the Ismail Farooqui case that a mosque is not an essential part of the practice of religion of Islam and namaz (prayer) by Muslims can be offered anywhere.

                                                                                                                                                     Source:- The Hindu

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Renewed push for Statehood in Northeast

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIAL ISSUES - communalism, regionalism & secularism.

Context:

✦ Statehood movements have gathered momentum across the Northeast, with a renewed push for Bodoland, a proposed State comprising areas beyond the four districts under the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).

✦ Organisations such as All Bodo Students’ Union, Peoples’ Joint Action Committee for Bodoland Movement, and two factions of the National Democratic Front of Boroland organised a pro-Statehood rally at the BTC headquarters in Kokrajhar in western Assam.

✦ The Eastern Nagaland People’s Organisation, a tribal body with sway in four of Nagaland’s most backward districts, has stepped up its demand for the creation of the Frontier Nagaland State.

✦ The Indigenous Peoples Front of Tripura, the BJP’s ally in Tripura, raised pro-Statehood slogans while observing the 10th Twipraland Demand Day on August 23. The demand for carving out a separate State has been intermittent since 1997.

 

BODOLAND TERRITORIAL COUNCIL: BODO: ✦ The Bodos are an ethnic and “linguistic” aboriginal group of the Brahmaputra valley in the northeast part of India. ✦ The Bodos are recognized as a plains tribe in the Sixth Schedule of the Indian Constitution. ✦ Udalguri and Kokrajhar of Assam are considered the centre of the Bodo area. Demand: ✦ A separate state(Bodoland)(within the Indian Union) be created by carving out some area of eight districts of the current State of Assam, namely Kokrajhar, Dhubri, Bongaigaon, Barpeta, Nalbari, Kamrup, Darang and Sonitpur districts. ✦ To protect and preserve the interest of the indigenous people of the region as well as to counter the effects of influx. Administration: ✦ It is an Autonomous Administrative unit constituted under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution of India. ✦ BTC(Bodoland Territorial Council) governs BTAD(Bodoland Territorial Area District) since 2003 according to BTC Accord.

 

                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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24^th September 2018 Daily Current affairs

HC notice to Centre on OCIs entry into India

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - citizens charters

Context:

The Delhi High Court has directed the Centre to ensure that Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) card holders or foreigners are informed in advance if they are blacklisted and would be denied entry into the country.

More about the news:

✦ Recently, there have been a number of cases which have been filed in the High Court on account foreigners or OCI card holders not being permitted entry into India when they arrive here.

✦ Unfortunately, a common feature in each of them was that none of them had any prior intimation that they were blacklisted, despite having a valid visa.

✦ The High Court directed the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) to ensure that necessary directions are issued to all the officers, who are authorised to issue blacklisting orders.

✦ They are now to inform the foreigners/OCI card holders concerned that they have been blacklisted and their entry into the country would be denied.

                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Citizen science initiative helps save hornbills

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ A recent citizen science initiative of documenting Indian hornbills is providing valuable inputs for the conservation of this unique bird.

More about the news:

✦ The Hornbill Watch initiative (www.hornbills.in) is an interactive web interface that allows a person to report on hornbills anywhere in India. People can record the observation of a live hornbill, note its call or report a dead, hunted or captive bird

✦ The data on the presence of hornbills outside protected areas would be crucial in identifying and protecting their habitats from possible threats and development projects.

Species Distribution:

✦ There are nine hornbill species in India.

✦ States from where the most sightings were recorded are Karnataka, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

✦ Hornbills were reported from across 70 protected areas in the country. While 41% of the observations were made within protected areas, 59% were made outside.

✦ The endangered Narcondam hornbill is restricted to an area of 6 sq.km. of the Narcondam Island in the Andamans.

✦ The rufous-necked hornbill is a vulnerable or near threatened species.

✦ Further, the Austen’s brown hornbill and the great hornbill were observed in several States in northeastern India.

✦ Other important species of hornbill include the oriental pied hornbill and the Indian grey hornbill

                                                                                                                                   Source:- The Hindu

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Publishing poll candidate’s propaganda is paid news

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential

Context:

✦ The Election Commission of India has told the Supreme Court that repeated publication of propaganda, lauding the achievements of a candidate in an election is nothing but “paid news”.

✦ The EC draws a distinction between “motivated propaganda” and the fundamental right to free speech.  The EC adds that politicians cannot say that it is part of their fundamental right to free speech to spew out “motivated propaganda”.

✦ The EC has asked the Supreme Court court to declare whether it amounts to “paid news” if widely circulated daily newspapers cover statements issued by, and in the name of, a candidate that are

○ not only laudatory of his or her record and achievements but also are

○ a direct appeal to voters by the candidate.

UNEQUAL ADVANTAGE:

✦ It is important to note that if such motivated propaganda is allowed in the garb of free speech during the election period then there would be some serious consequences.

✦  For example, candidates with a strong network of connections and undefined relationships will exploit their sphere of influence in society, and as a consequence, will have the unequal advantage of encashing such silent services.

                                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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States told to arm PHCs in fight against TB

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

BACKGROUND:

✦ The Union Government had earlier set an ambitious target to eradicate tuberculosis (TB) by 2025.

✦ This is an effort five years ahead of the target fixed by the World Health Organisation (WHO).

✦ Pursuant to this, the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has directed all States to expand TB diagnostics services to all primary health centres (PHCs).

 

Tuberculosis ✦ Tuberculosis is an infectious, airborne disease caused by the bacterium Mycobacterium tuberculosis.It mainly affects the lungs.It can be transmitted from person to person through the air when people with TB cough, sneeze, laugh or speak, spit, propelling the germs into the atmosphere.

 

Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme:

✦ The Revised National Tuberculosis Control Program is the state-run tuberculosis control initiative of the Government of India.

✦ Under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP), Government is committed to end tuberculosis by 2025.

✦ The strategies adopted for this purpose include:

             ○ strengthening and improving quality of basic TB services,

             ○ addressing TB HIV co-infection, other co-morbidities and MDR-TB.

✦ strategies under RNTCP.

           ○ targeted interventions in the vulnerable population

           ○ integrating newer molecular diagnostics for TB in the health system for early diagnosis of TB

           ○ Information Communication Technology (ICT)

           ○ Enhanced Private Sector Engagement

           ○ Nikshay and E Nikshay etc.

TB diagnosis:

○ Currently, TB diagnosis under the Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP) is done primarily using sputum smear microscopy.

○ This is done in more than 14,000 Designated Microscopy Centres (DMCs) spread across the country.

Problem:

✦ at least 25,650 Primary Health Centres (PHCs) have been established in the country (as on March 31, 2017), most don’t offer the service of  sputum smear microscopy.

✦ The samples from such Primary Health Centres (PHCs) are sent to the nearest facility that has a DMC. Because of this, there might be a significant loss of presumptive TB cases.

✦ It is believed that establishing microscopy centres will prevent sample loss owing to lack of referral links for sputum examination. As a consequence, this would lead to improved case detection.

✦ Further compounding India’s burdens, India has an estimated 27 lakh TB patients, of which only 13 lakh have been captured in government data.

✦ According to the Global TB Report of 2017, the estimated incidence of TB in India is 28 lakh. This amounts to about a quarter of the world’s TB cases.

Way forward:

✦ All States have been directed to map the non-DMC PHCs and designate all PHCs, including those in urban areas, as microscopy centres.

✦ In PHCs where a laboratory technician is already available, microscopes should be provided and, if required, the technician trained.

✦ In PHCs that do not have laboratory technicians, recruitment should be urgently carried out, and microscopes and training provided subsequently.

 

Steps taken by Government:

 ✦ The National TB Control Programme was started in 1962 with the aim to detect cases earliest and treat them.

 ○ In the district, the programme is implemented through the district Tuberculosis Centre (DTC) and the Primary Health Institutions.

○ The District Tuberculosis Programme (DTP) is supported by the state level organization for the coordination and supervision of the programme.

✦ The Revised National Tuberculosis Control Programme (RNTCP)

○ based on the Directly Observed Treatment, Short Course (DOTS) strategy, began as a pilot project in 1993

○ launched as a national programme in 1997 but rapid RNTCP expansion began in late 1998.

○ The nation-wide coverage was achieved in 2006.

National strategic plan for 2012- 2017:

✦ RNTCP's National Strategic Plan (NSP) 2012-17 was part of the country’s 12th Five year Plan.

✦Theme of the NSP 2012-17 was "Universal Access for quality diagnosis and treatment for all TB patients in the community" with a target of "reaching the unreached".

✦ The major focus was early and complete detection of all TB cases in the community, including drug resistant TB and HIV-associated TB, with greater engagement of private sector for improving care to all TB patients.

✦ National strategic plan for 2017 - 20205 - TB elimination In india:

✦ Vision : TB - Free India with zero deaths, disease and poverty due to tuberculosis.

✦ Goal : To achieve a rapid decline in burden of TB, morbidity and mortality while working towards elimination of TB in India by 2025.

Strategic pillars

The requirements for moving towards TB elimination have been integrated into the four strategic pillars of "Detect - Treat  - Prevent  - Build" (DTPB).

✦ Detect : Find all DS - TB and DR - TB cases with an emphasis on reaching TB patients seeking care from private providers and undiagnosed TB in high - risk populations.

✦ Treat : Initiate and sustain all patients on appropriate anti - TB treatment wherever they seek care, with patient friendly systems and social support.

✦ Prevent the emergence of TB in susceptible populations

✦ Build and strengthen enabling policies, empowered institutions and human resources with enhanced capacities.

For more information  visit - http://vikaspedia.in/health/nrhm/national-health-programmes-1/communicable-diseases/revised-national-tuberculosis-control-programme?content=normal

                                                                                                                                                           Source:- The Hindu
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India looks to buy Israeli missiles

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context:

A deal to procure the Spike anti-tank guided missiles from Israel through the government-to-government route has been brought before the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) for approval. However, some validation trials have to be held before the deal is signed.

More about the news:

✦ However, as the Army is faced with a huge shortage of anti-tank guided missiles and the indigenous system missed development deadlines, it was decided that a smaller number will be procured off the shelf through the government-to-government route.

✦ The earlier $500-million deal for Spike missiles was accorded Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) by the DAC in 2009 and was approved in October 2014, but contract negotiations dragged on over cost and technology transfer. The deal was for 8,000-plus missiles and 300-plus launchers, along with technology transfer to build them in India.

✦ Spike is a third-generation, fire-and-forget, man-portable missile manufactured by Israel’s Rafael.

✦ In all, nearly 40,000 missiles are required to equip the Army’s 382 infantry battalions and 44 mechanised regiments.

✦ The indigenous low-weight missile was successfully flight-tested twice by the DRDO from the Ahmednagar test range last week.

                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Governor’s discretion

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.

Context:

✦ Currently, the discretionary powers of the Governor are once again at the centre of controversy. This assumes importance based on the recent decision on the remission of seven convicts in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.

PRIOR VERDICTS OF SUPREME COURT:

✦ In the Nabam Rebia and Bamang Felix v. Deputy Speaker (2016) case, the  Supreme Court, speaking through a five-judge Bench, viewed that the discretionary power of the Governor is extremely limited and entirely amenable to judicial review.

✦ As a matter of fact, time and again, the courts have spoken out against the Governor acting in the capacity of an “all-pervading super-constitutional authority”.

✦ Pertaining to the exercise of discretion, in Samsher Singh v. State of Punjab (1974), a seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court had held that the Governor may do so only “in harmony with his Council of Ministers”. 

✦ In an effort to do so, the Governor is prevented from taking a stand against the wishes of the Council of Ministers.

CONSTITUTIONAL PROVISIONS:

✦ Article 161 of the Constitution provides the Governor with the power to “remit or commute the sentence of any prisoner”.

○ However, the Governor’s decision will be subject to judicial review by the constitutional courts.

✦ Article 163 - Council of Ministers to aid and advise Governor

○ There shall be a council of Ministers with the chief Minister at the head to aid and advise the Governor in the exercise of his functions, except in so far as he is by or under this constitution required to exercise his functions or any of them in his discretion

○ If any question arises whether any matter is or is not a matter as respects which the Governor is by or under this Constitution required to act in his discretion, the decision of the Governor in his discretion shall be final, and the validity of anything done by the Governor shall not be called in question on the ground that he ought or ought not to have acted in his discretion

ISSUES INVOLVED:

✦ Currently, the domain being traversed in this case is alien to the Constitution of India, not having envisaged a situation where the Governor exercises his power under Article 161 against the express recommendation of the Council of Ministers.

✦ such a decision may drastically alter the Constitution and its founding principles such as

         ○ a) the federal structure,

         ○ b) Cabinet responsibility and

         ○ c) accountable governance.

✦ This might also be interpreted as the Governor having lost faith in the State government with regard to the performance of its executive functions.

✦ Either which way, it is believed that to stay true to the spirit of the Constitution, the Governor should desist from conferring discretionary powers to his office where there are none.

                                                                                                                                    SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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23^rd September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Vantangiyas finally on revenue map

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes

Context:

✦ The forest dwellers of eastern Uttar Pradesh have lived in tin shacks for decades is finally being exposed to the benefits of government schemes and a wider range of employment and utilisation of resources previously prohibited by forest laws.

✦ For the first time since Independence, Tinkonia is among the 23 Vantangiya villages in Gorakhpur and Maharajganj that have been declared as revenue villages by the U.P. government. opening the doors of development in these neglected settlements .

     ○ Previously a forest-bound village,These villages and their residents were deprived of basic government schemes and could not even get basic facilities, including BPL cards, healthcare, education, electricity connections, pensions, loans and permanent housing.

Background

✦ Britishers were inspired by the  Taungya, This was introduced to U.P. by the British around 1922 to offset the huge loss of trees due to expansion of the railways. Landless labourers, mostly from backward and Dalit castes, were deployed in these forests as settlers, earning them the name Vantangiya.

✦ The Vantangiya system continued after 1947

✦ In the 1980s, after the Forest Cooperation took shape, the forest working planning was scrapped and the Vantangiyas were served eviction notices. they were now branded encroachers.

✦ In 1995 they got their voting rights. But this was only for the Lok Sabha and Assembly polls. They still had no rights in their own villages.

✦ Forest rights act 2006 and  in 2011  for the first time, received land titles, getting their share of rights on forest land.

✦ In 2015 the Vantangiyas earned the right to participate in the panchayat elections but only as voters attached to other gram panchayats.

 

Taungya System of Cultivation ✦ The taungya system was used primarily as an inexpensive means of establishing timber plantations but is finally a recognized AF system. ✦ The taungya (taung = hill, ya = cultivation) is a Burmese word coined in Burma in 1850. ✦ The system was introduced to India by Brandis in 1890 and the first taungya plantations were raised in 1896 in North Bengal. ✦ In India it started in 1896 in North Bengal. In 1890, it was introduced to Coorg in Karnataka. Regular plantation however started in North Bengal in 1911 for raising Sal plantations and in 1912, extended for raising Teak. In 1923 it was adopted in UP for raising Sal plantations. ✦ It is still practiced in the states of Kerala, West Bengal, Orissa, Karnataka and the north-eastern hill region. ✦ This is a modified form of shifting cultivation in which the labour is permitted to raise agri-crops in an area but only side by side with the forest species planted by it.      ○ The practice consists of land preparation, tree planting, growing agricultural crops for 1-3 years, until shade becomes too dense, and then moving on to repeat the cycle in a different area.      ○  A large variety of crops and trees, depending on the soil and climatic conditions, are grown in India. In fact this system was introduced to raise forest plantations, but finally became recognized agroforestry system. Types of Taungya: ○ i. Departmental Taungya: Under this, agricultural crops and plantation are raised by the forest department by employing a number of labourers on daily wages. The main aim of raising crops along with the plantation is to keep down weed growth. ○ ii. Leased Taungya: The plantation land is given on lease to the person who offers the highest money for raising crops for a specified number of years and ensures care of tree plantation. ○ iii. Village Taungya: This is the most successful of the three taungya systems. In this crops are raised by the people who have settled down in a village inside the forest for this purpose. Usually each family has about 0.8 to 1.7 ha of land to raise trees and cultivate crops for 3 to 4 years.

                                                                                                                           Sourcce:- The Hindu

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Delhi RTOs to get e-makeover by Oct. 1

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential

Context:

✦ Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) across the Capital will bid farewell to the traditional practice of accepting manual applications for various services and transform into ‘e-RTOs’ from October 1.

✦ Transport Department said that it had also been decided to request the Delhi government to merge e-RTOs with the doorstep delivery scheme enabling, in effect, an application-to-delivery procedure

✦ The Transport Department will request the government to add learners’ and permanent drivers’ licences to the list in addition to all the other services it offers.

✦ Currently, only services such as duplicate registration certificates, transfer of ownership, change in address in registration certificates, hypothecation addition and hypothecation termination are the services that fall under the Transport Department’s domain being offered through doorstep delivery.

✦ Transport Minister said, “No manual or paper-based applications will be entertained at the 13 RTOs in Delhi from October 1. Applications for close to a dozen of services on offer at these facilities will be shifted online completely,”

Background:

✦ Transport Department records posit that over 75% of over 10 lakh estimated transactions at the RTOs over the last two years were related to drivers’ licences. As many as 10,04,085 such transactions took place at the RTOs in 2016 and 10,89,203 in 2017.

 

Impacts:

✦ It will curb possible avenues for corruption

✦ To enhancing user convenience

✦ To ensure that there are simply no more queues at these offices.

                                                                                                                                 Source:- The Hindu

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Capital breathes ‘good’ air for second time this year

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ The Capital witnessed “good” air quality on Saturday owing to continuing rain, revealed data from the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

✦ This is the second time this year that the air quality touched the “good” category. The overall Air Quality Index (AQI) of Delhi was recorded at 48, which falls under the “good” category, indicated the apex pollution control board’s data.

National Air quality index:

✦ The ministry of environment and forests launched a National Air Quality Index (AQI)

✦ To monitoring the quality of air in major urban centres across the country on a real-time basis and enhancing public awareness for taking mitigative action.

✦ This index is launched under Swacch Bharat Abhiyan in 2014

✦ Index considers eight pollutants i.e. PM10, PM2.5, NO2, SO2, CO, O3, NH3, and Pb for which short-term (up to 24-hourly averaging period)

✦ Aim is ‘one number- one colour-one description’ for the common man to judge the air quality within his vicinity Air quality is declared in 6 categories

✦ National Ambient Air Quality Standards are prescribed



                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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Alcohol intake doubles in 11 years

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.



Context:

Recently WHO released Global status report on alcohol and health 2018

More about the news:

✦ Report released by WHO says per capita liquor consumption in India increased from 2.4 litres in 2005 to 5.7 litres in 2016.

✦ The global per capita consumption has also risen from 5.5 litres in 2005 to 6.4 litres in 2016, and killed more than 3 million people globally in 2016.

✦ Total alcohol per capita consumption has increased globally after a relatively stable phase between 2000 and 2005. Since then, total per capita consumption rose from 5.5 litres in 2005 to 6.4 litres in 2010 and was still at the level of 6.4 litres in 2016, the report stated.

✦ The report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) says that about 237 million men and 46 million women had alcohol problems, with the highest prevalence in Europe and the Americas.

✦ About one in three deaths from alcohol were because of injuries, including car crashes and self-harm.

Future Estimation (2025):

✦ By 2025, total alcohol per capita consumption (15+ years) is expected to increase in half of the WHO regions, and the highest increase is expected in the South-East Asia, with an increase of 2.2 litres alone in India that represents a large proportion of the total population in this region.

✦ The second-highest increase is projected for the populations of the Western Pacific Region.

     ○ Where the population of China is the largest, with an increase in per capita consumption of 0.9 litres of pure alcohol by 2025.

✦ However, increases, although smaller, are also expected in Indonesia and Thailand (with the second- and fourth-largest largest populations).

Impacts:

✦ Alcohol consumption causes death and disability relatively early in life. In the age group 20–39 years approximately 13.5 % of the total deaths are alcohol-attributable.

✦ The harmful use of alcohol is a causal factor in more than 200 disease and injury conditions.

✦ Worldwide, 3 million deaths every year result from harmful use of alcohol, this represent 5.3 % of all deaths.

✦ The rise in alcoholic liver diseases is fast growing in India and as the name suggests, it is a result of excessive alcohol consumption over a period of time.

     ○ Liver diseases include alcoholic fatty liver, chronic liver disease and liver cirrhosis. Fatty liver is the most common result of excessive alcohol consumption.

     ○  The report suggests 51.1 men per 100,000 population and 27.1 women per 100,000 population suffered from liver cirrhosis.

✦ Cancers associated with alcohol abuse resulted in 181 men per 100,000 population and 126.4 women per 100,000 population.

✦ Beyond health consequences, the harmful use of alcohol brings significant social and economic losses to individuals and society at large.

✦ Direct impact on many health-related targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs):

     ○ maternal and child health

     ○ infectious diseases (HIV, viral hepatitis, tuberculosis)

     ○ non-communicable diseases and mental health,

     ○ injuries and poisonings.

“Twenty years ago, commonest form of liver disease in India was Hepatitis B. See change has happened since then, with people suffering from Alcoholic Liver Disease of the severe type that is not seen even in the west,” said Dr SK Sarin, director, ILBS.

WHO response:

✦ WHO aims to reduce the health burden caused by the harmful use of alcohol and, thereby, to save lives, prevent injuries and diseases and improve the well-being of individuals, communities and society at large.

✦WHO emphasizes the development, implementation and evaluation of cost-effective interventions for harmful use of alcohol as well as creating, compiling and disseminating scientific information on alcohol use and dependence, and related health and social consequences.

✦ The “Global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol”, negotiated and agreed by WHO Member States in 2010, represents international consensus that reducing the harmful use of alcohol and its associated health and social burden is a public health priority.

       ○ The strategy provides guidance for action at all levels, including 10 recommended target areas for policy options and interventions for national action to reduce the harmful use of alcohol and the main components for global action to support and complement activities at country level.

✦ The Global Action Plan for the Prevention and Control of  Noncommunicable Diseases 2013-2020 resulted in a new set of enabling and focused recommended actions to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.

✦ The Global Information System on Alcohol and Health (GISAH) has been developed by WHO to dynamically present data on levels and patterns of alcohol consumption, alcohol-attributable health and social consequences and policy responses at all levels.

Way Forward:

✦ regulating the marketing of alcoholic beverages (in particular to younger people);

✦ regulating and restricting the availability of alcohol;

✦ enacting appropriate drink-driving policies;

✦ reducing demand through taxation and pricing mechanisms;

✦ raising awareness of public health problems caused by harmful use of alcohol and ensuring support for effective alcohol policies;

✦ providing accessible and affordable treatment for people with alcohol-use disorders;

✦ implementing screening and brief interventions programmes for hazardous and harmful drinking in health services.

                                                                                                                                                                 Source:- Hindu

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U.S. to end H-1B spouse work permits

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests & Indian diaspora.

Context

✦ The Donald Trump administration is moving ahead with a proposal to end work permits for spouses of H-1B workers in the United States, a federal court has been told.

✦ Spouses of H-1B visa holders, whose green card applications have reached a certain milestone, can get employment authorisation under a 2015 executive order. Dependents of H-1B visa holders get H-4 visas.

✦ After the new regulations are published, there will be time for public comments and revisions before they come into effect.

✦ However, the uncertainty over their legal status has already stalled the job prospects of hundreds of H-4 visa holders.

 

H-1B Visa ✦ The H-1B category is an expedient and lawful method to bring foreign-born professionals temporarily to the United States, and therefore one of the most widely sought after visa classifications for employment in the United States. ✦ The H-1B is a non-immigrant visa in the United States; it allows U.S. employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in specialty occupations. ✦ H-4 visa is a work permit issued to the spouses of H1-B visa holders under a special order by the previous Obama administration. ✦ H-4 visa allows work permits for spouses who otherwise could not be employed without waiting for their spouses to receive permanent resident status, a process that can take a decade or longer.

                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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22^nd  September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Goa Congress moves to remove Speaker

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Parliament and State Legislatures - structure, functioning, conduct of business, powers & privileges and issues arising out of these.

Context:

✦ Congress MLAs in Goa have submitted a 14-day notice to the Goa State Legislature Secretary, preparatory to moving a motion for the removal of the Speaker, Pramod Sawant.

✦ The notice comes while the House is not in session.

✦ The notice moved by the Congress to remove the Speaker would facilitate a motion for floor test, but will come into operation only after the House is summoned.

✦ An Assembly session to facilitate the floor test can only be summoned by the Governor on the advice of the Cabinet.

 

Article 179 ✦ It deals with the vacation and resignation of, and removal from, the offices of Speaker and Deputy Speaker of an assembly. ✦ Article 179 (c) lays down that the Speaker may be removed from office by a resolution of the Assembly passed by a majority of all the then members of the Assembly (and not majority of the members present and voting). ✦ A prior notice of 14 days is required to be given before such a resolution is moved in the House. Tenth Schedule (Anti-Defection Law) Tenth Schedule talks about the power of the Speaker to disqualify legislators for defection.

 

                                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Ban on adoption by live-in partners lifted

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ Individuals in a live-in relationship will once again be able to adopt children from and within India after the country’s nodal adoption agency decided to withdraw a circular issued earlier this year disallowing them from doing so.

✦ The applications from prospective adoptive parents will be examined on a case-by-case basis now.

✦ It will benefit both domestic and international applicants.

Background:

✦ The Child Adoption Regulatory Authority (CARA), a statutory body of Union Ministry of Women and Child Development, in a circular issued on May 31, barred applicants in a live-in relationship from adopting a child on the ground that the Authority would like the children to be placed only with a stable family and individuals in a live-in relationship cannot be considered as stable family.

✦ The eligibility criteria under Adoption Regulations, 2017, permit single women to adopt a child of any gender, while single men can adopt only boys.

✦ When a married couple seeks to adopt a child, it needs to give its consent for adoption and should be stable marriage for at least two years.

✦ Applicants have to be physically, mentally and financially stable to raise a child.

 

Child Adoption Regulatory Authority(CARA) ✦ It is established under Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. ✦ It is a nodal body for adoption of Indian children. ✦ It is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions. ✦ It deals in orphan, abandoned or surrendered children. ✦ It deals with inter-country adoptions according to Hague Convention on Inter- country Adoption, 1993 ratified by India in 2003. Importance: ✦ CARA launched monthly Jan Sampark program to enable public to interact with its officials to obtain information related to child adoption.

 

                                                                                                                        SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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ISRO setting up launch pad for Gaganyaan mission

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology



Context:

 ✦ The ISRO is setting up a third launch pad at Sriharikota to undertake the Gaganyaan manned space flight programme, an ISRO official said on Friday.

✦ In addition, ISRO is scouting for a location on the western sea coast near Gujarat to set up another launch pad for Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV).

Why?

✦ ISRO presently has two launch pads, which are already full. A third launch pad is being set up for the human space flight.

✦ In addition to the third launch pad at Sriharikota, ISRO is also scouting for a new location near Gujarat for the SSLV.

Gaganyaan

✦ ISRO had begun work on the manned mission in 2004 and many of the critical technologies required for human spaceflight have already been validated through various tests — Space Capsule Recovery Experiment, Crew Module Atmospheric Re-Entry Experiment and Pad Abort Test.

✦ The ‘pad abort’ test or Crew Escape System is an emergency escape measure that helps pull the crew away from the launch vehicle when a mission has to be aborted.

✦ Space Capsule Recovery Experiment is intended to demonstrate the technology of an orbiting platform for performing experiments in micro gravity conditions.

✦ Crew module Atmospheric Re-entry Experiment would be used as a platform for testing the re-entry technologies envisaged for Crew Module (payload) including validating the performance of parachute-based deceleration system.

SSLV

✦ In addition, ISRO is scouting for a location on the western sea coast near Gujarat to set up another launch pad for Small Satellite Launch Vehicles (SSLV).

✦ ISRO is developing the SSLV to offer affordable launch options for smaller satellites through Antrix, the space agency’s commercial arm.

✦ ISRO currently piggybacks smaller satellites on the PSLV and GSLV along with bigger satellites.

✦ The SSLV is expected to reduce the launch time as well as cost less to launch small satellites, which are much in demand.

                                                                                                                                                    SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Dual listing of masala bonds being explored

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ Masala bonds could also be dual-listed (listing of any security on two or more different exchanges) in India under options being explored by the Stock Exchange Group and the National Stock Exchange of India.

✦ The idea being explored is a potential precursor of further joint listings in the future, that could see foreign currency bonds in India also being able to list in London.

Significance

✦ The dual listing would extend access to a wider base of global investors as well as domestic and regional investors.

✦ Dual listing of masala bonds would enhance visibility, increase liquidity in secondary markets, and enhance efficiency of price discovery for masala bond issuers.

✦ This would also reduce the cost of raising capital for all issuers and encourage the participation of a wider variety of issuers in the masala bond market.

                                                                                                                                            SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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SEBI revises KYC norms for foreign portfolio investors

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

✦ The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has announced the revised guidelines for know your client (KYC) requirement for foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) allowing non-resident Indians (NRIs), resident Indians (RIs) and overseas citizens of India (OCIs) to be part of such FPIs investing in India.

More about news:

✦ Such NRIs, OCIs and RIs can be part of an FPI if their aggregate holding in such an overseas fund is less than 50% of the corpus of the fund.

✦ Further, the individual share of such entities cannot exceed 25% in an FPI.

✦ More importantly, the regulator has also laid down that FPIs can be controlled by investment managers that are owned or controlled by NRIs, OCIs or RIs.

✦ Such, investment managers, however, need to be properly regulated in their home jurisdiction and also registered with the SEBI.

✦ For category II and III FPIs from high risk jurisdictions, KYC review would be done annually.

Time to fulfil norms

✦ Existing FPIs will be given two years’ time from the date the new regulations come into force  to fulfil the new eligibility criteria.

✦ Also, in case of a temporary breach of the norms, the entity will get 90 days to comply with the regulations.

✦ Meanwhile, FPIs will be subject to periodic review and any change in material information or disclosure would warrant such a review.

                                                                                                                                                    SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Offset Policy in Defence

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE  - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ The Offset Policy was formally announced for the first time in 2005 and has been revised several times.

✦ It mandates foreign suppliers of equipment’s to spend certain percent of the contract value in India. It was first revised in 2006 and then again in 2011 and in 2016. Sometimes this may take place with technology transfer.

✦ Offset policy necessarily aims at acquisition and development of the state of the art technologies and create world class defence production industry which should be able to meet both domestic and export requirements of the country.

More about the news:

✦ The key objectives of the Defence Offset Policy is to leverage the capital acquisitions to develop Indian defence industry by fostering development of internationally competitive enterprises; augmenting capacity for research and development in defence sector and to encourage development of synergistic sector like civil aerospace and internal security.

✦ The offset can be discharged by many means such as direct purchase of eligible products/services, FDI in joint ventures and investment towards equipment and transfer of technology.

✦ As per Defence Offset Guidelines, the foreign Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) is free to select any Indian company as its offset partner.

✦ All successful offset programmes have certain common well defined characteristics, purposeful selection in consonance with well-defined objectives, hard negotiations, detailed planning and close oversight.

✦ It is being deduced that Offset Policy aims at defence industrial development of country.

Concerns

✦ Equipment Acquisition in Jeopardy: In their enthusiasm to obtain order, many vendors fail to grasp the full implications of offset liabilities. They tend to take obligation lightly and do not make adequate budgetary provisions.

✦ Time Delays: Negotiations and deliberations may hinder fast implementation and may cause undue delay

✦ Offset as Incidental Considerations: Offset will work best when aspirations of both the vendor and buyer country are fulfilled and resulting in a win-win situation for both seller and buyer. An analysis of buyers’ perspective on offsets to gain maximum advantages and vendors’ reluctance to give away too much may lead to the impression that offsets aspirations of buyer and possible approach towards same by vendor are dichotomous.

✦ Technology received in few countries also show that it was outdated and did not improve competitions of indigenous industry.

✦ Offsets did not create new markets for local produce.

Recommendations

✦ Offset should not delay main acquisition nor should it drive acquisition of equipment and technology.

✦ Wherever feasible, we should resort to direct offsets.

✦ Technology being obtained through offsets should be both relevant and contemporary.

                                                                                                                                                         SOURCE:- PIB

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21^st September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Punjab nod for FRBM Act implementation

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

CONTEXT:

✦ The Punjab Cabinet gave its approval to rules for implementation of the Punjab Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2003.

✦ The move will help the State achieve specific fiscal targets within a stipulated time period to avail of the benefits of the Centre’s Debt Consolidation and Relief Facility for States.

Background:

✦ The Act was framed by the Centre on the basis of the model draft bill circulated by the Reserve Bank of India, suitably amended from time to time.

✦ As per the recommendations of the 14th Finance Commission, each State is compulsorily required to enact a fiscal responsibility legislation to realise the desired targets.

 

Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act 2003: The Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act, 2003 (FRBMA) was enacted by the Parliament of India to institutionalize financial discipline, reduce India’s fiscal deficit, improve macroeconomic management and the overall management of the public funds by moving towards a balanced budget. Objectives of the FRBM Act ✦ The first objective of the Act is to make the Government responsible to "ensure inter generational equity in fiscal management" implying that borrowings are nothing but deferred taxation and the governments living beyond their means leave a burden of debt on future generations. ✦ The second objective is to make the Government responsible for ensuring long term Macro Economic stability because reckless borrowings by government crowds out private investment or fuels inflation or leads to balance of payment crises eventually leading to macro-economic instability. ✦ The third objective is to make the Government responsible for removing fiscal impediments to the effective conduct of monetary policy because unsustainable increase in deficit makes the task of the RBI to control money supply difficult as the RBI also happens to be the debt manager of the government.

                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                           Source:- The Hindu

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Sex offenders’ registry launched with 4.4 lakh entries

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections. 

 

Context:

The first-of-its-kind national sex offenders’ registry recently launched has names and details of some 4.4 lakh people convicted for various sexual offences across the country.

Background:

✦ India became the ninth country in the world to have a National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO), accessible only to law enforcement agencies for the purpose of investigation and monitoring.

✦ The proposal to set up a registry was mooted by the UPA government after the 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case in New Delhi.

More about the news:

✦ The database is for those convicted for sexual offences 2005 onwards.

✦ It includes name, address, photograph and fingerprint details of the convict.

✦ The database will be maintained by the National Crime Records Bureau, that will also track whether the State police were updating the records on time.

✦ The database will include offenders convicted under charges of rape, gang rape, Protection of Children from Sexual Offenders Act (POCSO) and eve teasing.

                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Nearly one lakh winged visitors arrive at Bengal sanctuary

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context

✦ The number of winged visitors at the Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary in West Bengal’s Uttar Dinjapur district has crossed all previous records.

✦ As per a census carried out by the State Forest Department, the wildlife sanctuary, spread over 130 hectares, recorded 98,532 birds this year.

✦ This the highest number of birds which has visited Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary over the past several years.

✦ The number of migratory birds is increasing every year.

✦ Not only has the number of birds increased, but the number of species has also increased from 50 in 2012-13 to over 120 this year.

 

About Rajganj Wildlife Sanctuary ✦ The sanctuary, which is also known as the Kulik Bird Sanctuary, drawing its name from the river Kulik, attracts a large number of tourists every year, including birdwatchers and wildlife enthusiasts. ✦ Situated near Raiganj in Uttar Dinajpur district of West Bengal, the sanctuary is home to 164 bird species. ✦ The sanctuary has one of the highest numbers of Openbill stork population not only in India but in Asia and this makes the sanctuary unique. Openbill storks have a conservation status of Least Concern. ✦ Birds visit the Raiganj Wildlife Sanctuary in June and stay till November, when the temperature drops. ✦ Of the new bird species visiting the sanctuary for the first time in 2018 are the Asian Paradise Flycatcher and Indian Pitta. About Asian Paradise Flycatcher ✦ It is native to Asia but is widely distributed. ✦ As the global population is considered stable, it has been listed as Least Concern on the IUCN Red List since 2004. ✦ They are migratory and spend the winter season in tropical Asia. ✦ Indian paradise flycatchers inhabit thick forests and well-wooded habitats from ✦ Central Asia to south-eastern China, all over India and Sri Lanka to Myanmar. About Indian Pitta ✦ It is native to the Indian subcontinent. ✦ It is a passerine bird (passerines are distinguished from other orders of birds by the arrangement of their toes, three pointing forward and one back, which facilitates

                                                                                                                                                               

                                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Sushma to meet Pakistan’s Foreign Minister in New York

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - India and its neighborhood- relations.

Context:

✦ India has accepted Pakistan’s proposal for talks between the Foreign Ministers on the sidelines of the ongoing annual UN General Assembly session in New York.

✦ India’s response came within hours of the news that Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan proposed talks between the two senior Ministers.

✦ However, India said the talks would not be aimed at a broader scheme of dialogue.

✦ The MEA spokesperson emphasised that despite agreeing to the meeting, India stuck to its position that talks and terror could not go together.

✦ However, the issue of Pakistan facilitating visits by Indian pilgrims to the Kartarpur Sahib gurdwara is expected to feature at the meeting.

✦ The MEA spokesperson said India’s position on joining the SAARC summit in Islamabad remained unchanged as the atmosphere in the region is not conducive. Under the shadow of cross-border terrorism, it is difficult to hold the summit that is to be hosted by Pakistan.

Background:



                                                                                                                                       Source:- The Hindu

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Plug tax gaps in consent route: SEBI

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) wants the government to amend the Income Tax Act to plug loopholes wherein individuals and companies managed to avail tax benefits on the money paid to the regulator to settle matters under the consent mechanism.

Background

✦ The regulator had already taken up the matter with the government highlighting cases

✦ where entities showed the settlement amount paid to the SEBI as a deductible

✦ business expense to lower their taxable income and thereby the tax liability.

✦ A committee formed to review consent framework has highlighted this issue.

                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Preventive vigilance is key to good governance in PSEs: Patel

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

Context:

✦ Reserve Bank of India Governor Urjit Patel emphasised on preventive vigilance for improving governance standards in public sector enterprises (PSEs) and said punitive vigilance may not achieve the desired results.

More details about the news:

✦ preventive vigilance takes centre stage and becomes a key effective tool of governance in a public-sector institution.

✦ When lapses can arise due to background noise outside of the employee control (which is often the case in public sector due to the complexity of the interaction with a multitude of other public-sector entities), punitive vigilance becomes even less attractive due to further demotivation that it might induce; in turn, so does detective vigilance.

✦ While not taking away from the need to engage in some detective and punitive vigilance, preventive vigilance is conceptually likely to be the most effective governance mechanism at public sector institutions.

✦ Punitive vigilance was difficult in a public-sector institution for several reasons, adding the rewards were low to start with, thereby limiting the possibility of downward revisions.

                                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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20^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

Triple talaq is criminal offence

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these scheme

Context:

✦ The Union Cabinet has cleared an ordinance as well as Presidents assent has been received that makes talaq-e-biddat, or instant triple talaq, a criminal offence that will attract a maximum jail term of three years.

✦ The new law incorporates safeguards, including a provision for bail to an accused before the start of the trial. 

More details about the news:

✦ The offence of instant triple talaq has also been “compoundable” or a provision that allows the wife to withdraw a complaint or approach the magistrate for a dispute settlement.

✦ 201 cases had been reported from across the country after the Supreme Court banned triple talaq in August 2017.

✦ Since January 2017, 430 cases had been reported until September this year.

✦ The practice of triple talaq continues in spite of the Supreme Court having annulled it and the Lok Sabha having passed a Bill that is pending in the Rajya Sabha.

Provisions:

✦ While instant triple talaq will continue to be a “non-bailable” offence the police cannot grant bail at the police station the accused can approach a magistrate for bail even before trial.

✦ The magistrate could exercise discretion to grant bail “after hearing the wife”.

✦ The magistrate would also have power to decide the quantum of compensation and subsistence allowance for the victim and her minor children.

✦ Another safeguard that had been added is that the police can lodge an FIR (first information report) only if the complaint is filed by the wife (victim), her blood relations or her relatives by virtue of her marriage.

✦ Non-relatives or neighbours cannot lodge a complaint under the proposed law.

                                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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Cabinet clears Rs 3,466 crore dam improvement project

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context:

✦ The CCEA has approved the Revised Cost Estimate of Dam Rehabilitation and Improvement Project (DRIP) at the revised cost of Rs 3466 crore with the financial assistance of the World Bank.

More about the news:

✦ The project originally envisaged the rehabilitation and improvement of about 223 dams within four states namely, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, and Tamil Nadu and later Karnataka, Uttarakhand (UNVNL) and Jharkhand (DVC) joined DRIP and total number of dams covered under DRIP increased to 250; due to the addition / deletion of dams during implementation by partner agencies, presently 223 dams are being rehabilitated.

✦ The DRIP project will improve the safety and operational performance of selected existing dams and mitigate risks to ensure safety of downstream population and property.

✦ The primary beneficiaries are both urban and rural communities dependent on reservoir and downstream communities, who are prone to risk associated with dam failure or operational failure.

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Impatient move [ EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions & Bodies constituted for the protection & betterment of these vulnerable sections

Context:

✦ The Union Cabinet’s decision to take the ordinance route to enact a diluted version of its law making instant triple talaq a criminal offence is a sign of undue impatience

✦ This is a matter that required deliberation, especially after serious objections were raised to some provisions of the Bill passed by the Lok Sabha

✦ There is also an ongoing debate on the desirability of criminalising instant triple talaq

✦ When the Bill has been deferred to the next session of Parliament, it is not clear what exigency impelled the government to take recourse to the extraordinary power of promulgating an ordinance

Women’s rights protection bill 2017

✦ The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister of Law and Justice, Mr. Ravi Shankar Prasad on December 28, 2017.

✦ The Bill makes all declaration of talaq, including in written or electronic form, to be void (i.e. not enforceable in law) and illegal. 

✦ Further, it defines talaq as talaq-e-biddat or any other similar form of talaq pronounced by a Muslim man resulting in instant and irrevocable divorce.

✦ the Bill makes declaration of talaq a cognizable and non-bailable offence.

✦ A husband declaring talaq can be imprisoned for up to three years along with a fine.

Changes made in ordinance

✦ The first makes the offence cognisable only if the woman, or one related to her by blood or marriage, against whom triple talaq has been pronounced, files a police complaint

✦ Second, the offence has been made compoundable, that is, the parties can settle the matter between themselves

✦ Third, it provides that a magistrate may grant bail to the husband after hearing the wife

Remarks:

✦ Unfortunately, the core of the issue still remains unaddressed, i.e. whether a marital wrong, which is essentially a civil matter, should lead to prosecutions and jail terms?

✦ Interestingly, when the law declares instant triple talaq to be invalid, it only means the marriage continues to subsist- it is somewhat self-contradictory for a law to both allow a marriage to continue while proposing a jail term for the offending husband.

                                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Successful Flight Test of Prahar

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievement of Indians in science & technology

Context:

✦ Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully flight tested the indigenously developed surface-to-surface tactical missile ‘Prahar’.

✦ There were also a series of papers which were presented on weapon integration on service aircraft and towards building and sustaining the training for naval experimental test pilots and flight test engineers.

✦ ‘Prahar’ is a contemporary weapon system capable of carrying multiple types of warheads and neutralizing a wide variety of targets.

                                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- PIB

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Launching of two portals to strengthen Women Safety

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes

Context:

Union Home Minister, launched two separate portals to strengthen Women Safety.

More details about the news:

The Cyber Crime Prevention against Women and Children (CCPWC)

○ portal “cybercrime.gov.in” will receive complaints from citizens on objectionable online content related to child pornography, child sexual abuse material, sexually explicit material such as rape and gang rape.

○ portal is convenient and user friendly that will enable complainants in reporting cases without disclosing their identity.

○ This will not only aid the  victims/complainants but also help the civil society organizations  and  responsible citizens  to anonymously  report complaints pertaining to child pornography, child sexual abuse material or sexually explicit material such as rape and gang rape.

○ Complainants can also upload the objectionable content and URL to assist in the investigation by the State Police.

○ The complaints registered through this portal will be handled by police authorities of respective State/UTs.

○ victim or complainant can track his/her report by opting for “ report and track” option using his/her mobile number.

✦ The National Database on Sexual Offenders (NDSO),

○ It is a central database of “sexual offenders” in the country which will be maintained by the NCRB for regular monitoring and tracking by the State Police.

○ which is accessible only to law enforcement agencies, will assist in effectively tracking and investigating cases of sexual offences.

○ The database will include offenders convicted under charges of rape, gang rape, POCSO and eve teasing.

✦ The database includes name, address, photograph and fingerprint details for each entry. However, the database will not compromise any individual’s privacy.

                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- PIB

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19^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

U.S., China step up trade war, slap tit-for-tat tariffs

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India's interests & Indian diaspora.

Context:

✦ The trade rivalry between the U.S. and China escalated to an unprecedented level with both countries announcing new tariffs on imports from each other.New rates on both sides will go into effect on September 24.

Background:



Synchronous Countermeasures:

✦ With the new announcements, U.S. tariffs will apply to $250 billion of Chinese goods and Chinese tariffs will apply to $110 billion of U.S. goods.

✦ Around 5,000 American items are expected to face the new measures, including aircraft, soya bean oil, smoked beef, coffee and flour, according to a provisional list released last month.

✦ The U.S.’s additional tariffs “have brought new uncertainties for bilateral consultations”

✦ With President Donald Trump threatening to impose tariffs on all Chinese imports and Beijing appearing ready to retaliate, the two largest economies might be hurtling towards a prolonged trade war that could impact the world economy.

                                                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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ISRO to tap small cities for innovations

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievement of Indians in science & technology

Context:

✦ The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched a space technology incubation centre in Tripura capital Agartala.

✦ The incubation centre will be located in the National Institute of Technology, Agartala.

✦ It is the first of six such centres planned nationally to build capacity in new locations.

✦ The space agency’s new Capacity Building Programme directorate will invest Rs 2 crore in incubation facilities in Jalandhar, Bhubaneswar, Tiruchi, Nagpur and Indore.

                                                                                                                                     SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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New Akash missiles get green light

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Context:

✦ The Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) gave its procedural approval to the upgraded version of indigenously developed Akash short-range surface-to-air missile (SRSAM) system

✦ This missile is being inducted into Army as Short Range Surface to Air Missile (SRSAM).

Featuress:

It include the seeker technology and possess a 360-degree coverage, and will be of compact configuration. It will provide protection to vital assets.

 

Akash short-range surface-to-air missile (SR-SAM) system ✦ Akash is a medium-range mobile surface-to-air missile defence system developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) ✦ It is produced by Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL) for Missile Systems and Bharat Electronics (BEL) for other radars, control centres in India ✦ Akash flies at supersonic speed, reaching around Mach 2.5 ✦ The missile system can target aircraft up to 30 km away, at altitudes up to 18,000 m ✦ It has the capability to “neutralise aerial targets like fighter jets, cruise missiles and air-to-surface missiles” as well as ballistic missiles ✦ It is in operational service with the Indian Army and the Indian Air Force ✦ The Akash system is fully mobile and capable of protecting a moving convoy of vehicles ✦ Akash has an indigenous content of 96%

                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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Bank of Baroda, Vijaya shares end in red, Dena rises 20%

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE  - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

CONTEXT:

✦ Moody’s Rating agency said the merger would be credit positive as it would increase efficiency.

More about the news:

✦ The government’s proposal to merge three public sector banks evoked mixed response from investors, with Bank of Baroda and Vijaya Bank stocks ending in the red, while Dena Bank shares, which hit the upper circuit, ended with a 19.75% gain.

Moody’s credit rating agency

✦ According to Moody’s the merged entities will be credit positive as it will provide efficiencies of scale and help improve the quality of corporate governance for the banks.

✦ It will be the third largest bank in the country after State Bank of India and HDFC Bank, will have a market share of about 6.8% by loans.

✦ According to Moody’s, BoB and Vijaya Bank have relatively better credit metrics than Dena Bank in terms of asset quality, capitalisation and profitability.

✦ The merged entity will require capital support from the government; otherwise such a merger would not improve their capitalisation profile by Moody’s.

                                                                                                                                                                 Source:- The Hindu

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UN Report: A child under 15 dies every 5 seconds around the world

GS PAPER - 01 SOCIETY - population and associated issues

Context:
According to the new mortality estimates released by UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the United Nations Population Division and the World Bank Group, an estimated 6.3 million children under 15 years of age died in 2017, or 1 every 5 seconds, mostly of preventable causes.

Facts and Figures:

✦ In 2017, 2.5 million newborns died in their first month while 5.4 million deaths — occur in the first five years of life, with newborns accounting for around half of the deaths.

    ○ Globally, in 2017, half of all deaths under five years of age took place in sub-Saharan Africa, and another 30% in Southern Asia.

✦ Also, a baby born in sub-Saharan Africa or in South Asia was nine times more likely to die in the first month than a baby born in a high-income country

✦ The most risky period of child’s life is the first month.

✦ The estimates also said that the number of children dying under five has fallen dramatically from 12.6 million in 1990 to 5.4 million in 2017.

✦ The number of deaths in older children aged between 5 to 14 years dropped from 1.7 million to under a million in the same period.

Disparities within countries

✦ Under-five mortality rates among children in rural areas are, on average, 50% higher than among children in urban areas.

✦ In addition, those born to uneducated mothers are more than twice more likely to die before turning five than those born to mothers with a secondary or higher education.

Causes:

✦ Most children under 5 die due to preventable or treatable causes such as complications during birth, pneumonia, diarrhea, neonatal sepsis and malaria.

✦ Among children between 5 and 14 years of age, injuries become a more prominent cause of death, especially from drowning and road traffic.

      ○ Within this age group, regional differences exist, with the risk of dying for a child from sub-Saharan Africa 15 times higher than in Europe.

Way forward:

There is an urgent need to being a stop to this and this requires radical reforms like structural changes in policy making and simple solutions like providing medicines, clean water, electricity and vaccines.

                                                                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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Celestial misfit [ editorial / opinion ]

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Context:

In the year, 2006 the International Astronomical Union (IAU) voted to remove Pluto’s planetary status.some researchers are challenging the decision made by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) in the year 2006.These researchers cite the manner in which scientific tradition has dealt with the taxonomy of planets.

3 conditions for a celestial object to be called a planet

✦ It must orbit the Sun;

✦ It should be massive enough to acquire an approximately spherical shape;

✦ It has to ‘clear its orbit’, which means that the object that exerts the maximum gravitational pull within its orbit.

Reasoning and Observations:

✦ Pluto is affected by Neptune’s gravity.

✦ Further, Pluto also shares its orbit with the frozen objects in the Kuiper belt. Based on this, the IAU deemed that Pluto did not ‘clear its orbit’.

✦ Dwarf planets, on the other hand, need only satisfy the first two conditions

✦ The above rationale was questioned by Philip Metzger whos is a planetary physicist. He and his team have come up with several exceptions to the third rule.

✦ In a paper published in the journal Icarus, they point out that the only work in history that used this rule to classify planets was an article by William Herschel in 1802.

✦ They further argue that this work was based on reasoning and observations that have since been disproved.

Complications in Re - designate - pluto as planet

✦ Charon, which is Pluto’s moon, is much too large to be called a satellite. Judging by this, the Charon-Pluto system should then rightly be called a binary planet system.

✦ If this is done, it would then lead to classifying several other sets of bodies as binary planets.

✦ Further, recent research shows that both the Kuiper Belt and the Oort cloud, contain objects that can then be called planets, thereby complicating the issue.

                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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18^th SEPTEMBER 2018 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

Machines will rule workplace by 2025’

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - GROWTH, DEVELOPMENT AND EMPLOYMENT



Context:

✦ Recently World economic Forum released a report on “Future Jobs”

✦ By 2025, machines are projected to overtake humans in workplace task hours in 12 key industry sectors

Major highlights of  the report:

✦ Globally, almost half of all companies expect automation to cut their full-time workforce in the next four years

✦ Technological changes such as high-speed mobile Internet and cloud technology, artificial intelligence, robots and automation are expected to drive a “significant shift on the frontier between humans and machines when it comes to existing work tasks between 2018 and 2022.”

✦ In 2018, humans performed an average of 71% of total task hours across the 12 industries spanning manufacturing, services and high tech. By 2025, that will drop to just 48%, Machines will perform the remaining 52%.

✦ Estimates indicates that 75 million jobs may be displaced by a shift in the division of labour between humans and machines,

     ○ while, 133 million new roles may emerge that are more adapted to the new division of labour between humans, machines and algorithms.

Way forward

✦ In India, 54% of employees in these sectors will need reskilling by 2022.

✦ The reskilling and upskilling of employees as an urgent imperative.

     ○ If labour forces managed poorly, these transformations posed the risk of widening skill gaps, heightening inequality and raising polarisation.

✦ New jobs will still lead to a net gain in employment opportunities if sufficient reskilling is done.

                                                                                                                                                          Source:- The Hindu

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Many Odisha school children hit by fluoride contamination

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

Water sources in 54 schools and anganwadis show high fluoride presence

More about the news:

✦ An alarming level of fluoride presence has been found in Baramunda High School in Sinapali block of Nuapada.

✦ Laboratory tests certified by the National Rural Drinking Water Programme under the Union Drinking Water and Sanitation Ministry found 5.25 mg per litre fluoride content in water sourced from a tube well in the school.

 

FLUORIDE ✦ Fluoride is the simplest anion of fluorine. Its salts and minerals are important chemical reagents and industrial chemicals, mainly used in the production of hydrogen fluoride for fluorocarbons. ✦ In terms of charge and size, the fluoride ion resembles the hydroxide ion. ✦ Fluoride ions occur on earth in several minerals, particularly fluorite, but are only present in trace quantities in water. Fluoride contributes a distinctive bitter taste. ✦ It contributes no color to fluoride salts. ✦ Fluoride salts and hydrofluoric acid are the main fluorides of industrial value. ✦ High concentration of fluoride ions is present in drinking water in 13 states of India. The maximum level of fluoride, which the human body can tolerate is 1.5 parts per million (mg/L of water). Long term ingestion of fluoride ions causes fluorosis. EFFECTS: ✦ Excess fluoride in drinking water causes neuromuscular disorders, gastrointestinal problems, teeth deformity, hardening of bones and stiff and painful joints (skeletal fluorosis). ✦ Fluorosis is a common problem in several states of the country due to intake of high fluoride content water. ✦ Fluorides cause dental fluorosis, stiffness of joints (particularly spinal cord) causing humped back. ✦ Pain in bones and joint and outward bending of legs from the knees is called Knock-Knee syndrome.

                                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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State to set up cyber varsity

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY  - role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security

Context:

✦ In real time that the majority of the world’s cyber attacks are directed towards Russia, Japan and India.

✦ In India, cyber attack is taking place every 10 minutes as opposed to 12 minutes previously.

✦ The current supply of cyber professionals in the country is about a lakh while the demand hovers around 30 lakh.There was a greater shortfall in the IoT and Cyber Forensics sectors.

✦ To bridge these gaps Maharashtra Government has taken the first step towards setting up a varsity dedicated to mitigating cyber threats.

More details about the new Cyber university:

✦ It will train 3,000 professionals to fight online space cyber attacks, internet crimes, and conduct cyber forensics.

✦ It will also impart training in 15 other Internet of Things (IoT) areas such as Data Analytics and Artificial Intelligence (AI). 

Course offered:

✦ Courses will provide for and prepare internet professionals on the lines of the Microsoft Certified Professional Program.

✦ The courses will cost less than Rs 5 lakh for courses in data analytics, cloud computing, blockchain, AI, cyber forensics and cyber investigations.

Steps taken by Maharashtra government :

✦ Maharashtra is already in the process of setting up its version of the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team to ward off external cyber threats.

✦ In 2016, the State had even appointed a consortium of M/s C-DAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing) and Railtel Corporation of India for the Rs 838-crore project.

✦ The consortium in its analysis used the same technology as GARUDA, India’s national grid computing initiative, and the Graphics and Intelligence Based Script Technology.

 

Steps taken by government of india: ✦ National Cyber security Policy 2013 ○ India released its first cyber security policy called National Cyber Security Policy in 2013. ○ The National Cyber Policy 2013 document outlines a road-map to create a framework for comprehensive, collaborative and collective response to deal with the issue of cyber security at all levels within the country. ○ Vision: To build a secure and resilient cyber space for citizen, businesses and Government. ○ Mission: To protect information and information infrastructure in cyberspace, build capacities to prevent and respond to cyber threats, reduce vulnerabilities and minimize damage from cyber incidents through a combination of institutional structure, people, process, technology and cooperation. Cyber Swachhta Kendra ✦Launched by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology ✦ The Cyber Swachhta Kendra is a part of the Digital India initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.  ✦ Initiative which deals with Swachhata or the cleanliness drive in the Cyber World. ○ The Cyber world faces a number of threats like that of viruses, phishing, malware, etc. ✦ This mission aims at establishment of Botnet Cleaning and Malware Analysis Centre for analysis of malware and botnets that affect networks and systems. ✦ The main motto of the initiative is to create a safe and secure cyber ecosystem in the country. ✦ The Cyber Swachhta Kendra, apart from looking after botnets and malware, will also provide some free tools for the citizens of the country for detection and removal of malicious programmes. The free tools would be available in the Cyber Swachhta Kendra Portal.

                                                                                                                                Source:- The Hindu

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Supreme Court lifts ban on Saridon for now

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

The Bench was hearing a plea challenging the ban on the drug following a notification by the Health Ministry earlier this month.

Background:

✦ The Union Ministry of Health had on September 13 issued a notification banning FDC drugs, effective from September 7.

✦ FDCs are two or more drugs combined in a fixed ratio into a single dosage format.

More details about the news:

✦ A Bench of Justices R F Nariman and Indu Malhotra was hearing a plea challenging the ban on the drug following a notification by the Health Ministry earlier this month.

✦ The petitioners contended that the medicines were manufactured before 1988 and thus exempted from last week’s government notification issued to stop the sale of 328 fixed dose combination (FDC) drugs.

✦ Supreme Court on Monday allowing the sale of the drug and three other banned fixed dose combinations (FDCs).

    ○ Piramal Healthcare, which makes Saridon, GlaxoSmithkline and Juggat Pharma.

✦ However, SC did not grant any relief to the other medicines falling in the list of 328 FDC drugs which were banned by the Health Ministry by its September 7 notification.

                                                                                                                        SOURCE:- THE INDIAN EXPRESS

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Pak. urged to create milieu for talks

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - India and its neighborhood- relations.

Context:

India on Monday urged Pakistan to create a ‘conducive’ environment for restarting dialogue.

More about the news:

✦ Earlier last week, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mehmood Qureshi during a visit to Kabul said the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan desired dialogue with India.

✦ In an response to Pakistan foreign minister, India urged Pakistan to create a ‘conducive’ environment for restarting dialogue.

     ○ Our policy is very clear that dialogue will happen provided the environment is made conducive,” Mr. Singh said.

✦ Indian and Pakistani Foreign Ministers are expected to interact during the UN General Assembly (UNGA) session which will begin this week.

PRO - DIALOG OPINION

✦ Pakistan’s Information Minister Fawad Chaudhry, who told a news channel, “Pakistan’s Army, government and people want peace with India.

✦ PM Imran Khan had said that we will take two steps if India takes one.”

                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Ministry clarifies on nutrition guidelines

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to poverty and hunger.

Context:
The Ministry of Women and Child Development has issued clarifications In response to the report titled ‘Maneka Gandhi bypassed, nutrition norms cleared’

Clarifications issued:

✦ The finalisation of Supplementary Nutrition Guidelines is still under the consideration and no final decision has been taken yet.

✦ There is no difference of opinion in the matter as to what constitutes supplementary nutrition as the same has been defined under the NFSA.

✦ The Nutritional entitlements under the Anganwadi Services Scheme are provided under Section 4, 5 and 6 of NFSA.

✦ These are to be governed by the Supplementary Nutrition (SN) Rules as provided under the Section 39 of NFSA. These rules were formulated and modified by the Ministry on 20.02.2017.

✦ The Ministry is proposing to issue detailed guidelines to help the state/district level functionaries in order to ensure that supplementary nutrition is provided to all beneficiaries as per NFSA and SN Rules 2017.

✦ Presently, the implementation of Supplementary Nutrition Programme by the States/UTs has to be in accordance with the NFSA 2013, SM Rules 2017 and the Nutrition Norms issued by the Ministry on 24.02.2009.

✦ The Supplementary Nutrition guidelines prepared as per the provisions of the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) need the approval of the Minister, WCD ”

                                                                                                                               Source:- The Hindu

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NITI Aayog for clear policy on ‘jhum’ cultivation

Gs paper - 03 Agriculture - Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country

Context:

✦ NITI aayog published the report titled “Mission on Shifting Cultivation: Towards a Transformational Approach”Proposes that land for shifting cultivation be recognised as agricultural land under agro-forestry

Why such recommendations?

✦ Locally referred to as jhum cultivation, this practice is considered as an important mainstay of food production for a considerable population in northeast India in States like Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghalaya, Tripura and Manipur.

✦ The publication notes that between 2000 and 2010, the land under shifting cultivation dropped by 70 %.

✦ Central as well as State government departments of forests and environment, agriculture and allied departments often have divergent approaches towards shifting cultivation. This creates confusion among grass-roots level workers and jhum farmer.

NITI Aayog Recommendations:

✦ The Ministry of Agriculture should take up a “mission on shifting cultivation” to ensure inter-ministerial convergence between ministries.

✦ Land for shifting cultivation should be recognised as “agricultural land” where farmers practise agro-forestry for the production of food rather than as forestland.

✦ Shifting cultivation fallows must be legally perceived and categorised as ‘regenerating fallows’ and that credit facilities be extended to those who practise shifting cultivation.

                                                                                                                                    Source:- The Hindu

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Smart fencing will put an end to infiltration: Rajnath

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Security challenges and their management in border areas

Context:

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh inaugurated the first phase of hi-tech ‘smart fencing’ of a 11 km stretch on the International Border (IB) in .

More details about the news:

✦ A total of 2,026 km border was vulnerable. “Digital fencing will make it virtually impossible for terrorists to infiltrate”.

✦ The Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) would provide for round-the-clock laser-guided surveillance of the borders

✦ The smart fencing project will initially be implemented to cover gaps in the physical fencing. Eventually, this technology will be implemented across the entire border

✦ The smart fencing is a web of surveillance, communication and data storage devices.

      ○ It will enable surveillance during difficult weather conditions and reduce the need for physical patrolling of the borders.

      ○ It will rely on thermal imaging, infra-red and laser-based intruder alarms to stop infiltration.

           

Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) ✦ The CIBMS is a more robust and integrated system that is capable of addressing the gaps in the present system of border security by seamlessly integrating human resources, weapons, and high-tech surveillance equipment. ✦ At the moment, BSF is working on a Comprehensive Integrated Border Management System (CIBMS) which will be deployed along the International Border with Pakistan. ✦ CIBMS is expected to counter infiltration and cross-border terror attacks. ✦ The system employs latest technology which would detect infiltration via land, underwater, air and tunnels. ✦ The concept of CIBMS is the integration of manpower, sensors and command and control to improve situational awareness and facilitate quick response to emerging situations. AIM ✦ The purpose of the CIBMS is to eventually replace manual surveillance/patrolling of the international borders by electronic surveillance and organising the BSF personnel into quick reaction teams to enhance their detection and interception capabilities.

           

                                                                                                                                                             SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Dena Bank, Vijaya Bank, BoB to merge

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.



CONTEXT:

✦ The government on Monday proposed the amalgamation of state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB), Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank to create India’s third-largest bank.

      ○  The move is part of the reforms initiated in the public sector banking segment.

✦ This major decision was taken by [the] Alternative Mechanism to amalgamate Bank of Baroda, Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank.

BENEFITS:

✦ The proposal entailed that the amalgamated entity would be the third largest in India.

✦ It would be a strong competitive bank with economies of scale. The entity would also be positioned for a substantial rise in customer base, market reach and operational efficiency.

                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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‘Amalgamation may take 1 year’

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY -  Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.

Context:

Amalgamation of banking  will not help recover NPAs

More about the news:

✦ The government’s ambitious plan to merge three public sector banks —Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank and Dena Bank could take at least one year to complete, banking industry officials said.

✦ The combined entity will become the second largest public sector bank, with a balance sheet size of about Rs 15 lakh crore.

Prudent decision:

✦ The All India Bank Employees’ Association (AIBEA) has opposed the government’s proposal and demanded the decision be ‘reviewed and re-examined.’“Merger of the banks will not help recover the bad loans

✦ Regarding the choice of the banks, the government had taken a prudent decision by opting to pick the best bank among the laggards viz. Dena Bank.

✦ Dena Bank has the highest net NPA ratio among the three banks (11.04%), lowest capital adequacy ratio (10.6%) and the only bank among the three having negative return on assets.

✦ But the overall impact of Dena Bank on the merged entity will be limited as it’s size is small compared to other banks that are in trouble

✦ The net NPAs of the combined entity would be 5.7% with a capital adequacy ratio of 12.25%.

                                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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Germany rolls out world’s first hydrogen-powered train

Gs PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - developing new technology.

CONTEXT:

✦ Germany rolled out the world’s first hydrogen-powered train

✦ Hydrogen trains are equipped with fuel cells that produce electricity through a combination of hydrogen and oxygen, a process that leaves steam and water as the only emissions.

✦ Excess energy is stored in ion lithium batteries on board the train.

                                                                                                                                                         SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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17^TH SEPTEMBER 2018 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

More river stretches are now critically polluted: CPCB

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment



Context:

✦ The number of polluted stretches in India’s rivers has increased from 302 to 351 two years ago, and the number of critically polluted stretches

        ○ water quality indicators are the poorest — has gone up from 34 to 45, according to an assessment by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB).

✦ The CPCB says several of the river’s stretches in Bihar and Uttar Pradesh — are actually far less polluted than many rivers in Maharashtra, Assam and Gujarat.

        ○ These three States account for 117 of the 351 polluted river stretches.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

The most significant stretches of pollution highlighted by the CPCB assessment are:

✦ Mithi river — from Powai to Dharavi — with a BOD (Biochemical Oxygen Demand) of 250 mg/l

✦ Godavari — from Someshwar to Rahed — with a BOD of 5.0-80 mg/l

✦ Sabarmati — Kheroj to Vautha — with a BOD from 4.0-147 mg/l

✦ Hindon — Saharanpur to Ghaziabad — with a BOD of 48-120 mg/l.

✦ polluted stretches in Uttar Pradesh, the Ganga with a BOD range of 3.5-8.8 mg/l is indicated as a ‘priority 4’ river.

 

Biochemical oxygen demand ✦ Biochemical oxygen demand (BOD, also called biological oxygen demand) is the amount of dissolved oxygen (DO) needed (i.e., demanded) by aerobic biological organisms to break down organic material present in a given water sample at certain temperature over a specific time period. ✦ The BOD value is most commonly expressed in milligrams of oxygen consumed per litre of sample during 5 days of incubation at 20 °C and is often used as a surrogate of the degree of organic pollution of water. ✦ BOD can be used as a gauge of the effectiveness of wastewater treatment plants. Why is BOD important? ✦ Biochemical Oxygen Demand is an important water quality parameter because it provides an index to assess the effect discharged wastewater will have on the receiving environment. ✦ The higher the BOD value, the greater the amount of organic matter or “food” available for oxygen consuming bacteria. ✦ If the rate of DO consumption by bacteria exceeds the supply of DO from aquatic plants, algae photosynthesis or diffusing from air, unfavourable conditions occur. ✦ Depletion of DO causes stress on aquatic organisms, making the environment unsuitable for life. Further, dramatic depletion can lead to hypoxia or anoxic environments. ✦ BOD is also used extensively for wastewater treatment, as decomposition of organic waste by microorganisms is commonly used for treatment.

 

GRADE SCALE:

✦ the CPCB has 1,822 monitoring stations on rivers and 473 on lakes/ponds/tanks.

✦ The health of a river and the efficacy of water treatment measures by the States and municipal bodies are classified depending on BOD

✦ BOD greater than or equal to 30 mg/l termed ‘priority 1,’ while that between 3.1-6 mg/l is ‘priority 5.’

✦ The CPCB considers a BOD less than 3 mg/l an indicator of a healthy river.

 

Central Pollution Control Board The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) of India is a statutory organisation under the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC). BACKGROUND ✦ It was established in 1974 under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. CPCB is also entrusted with the powers and functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981. ✦ It serves as a field formation and also provides technical services to the Ministry of Environment and Forests under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986. ✦ It Co-ordinates the activities of the State Pollution Control Boards by providing technical assistance and guidance and also resolves disputes among them. It is the apex organisation in country in the field of pollution control, as a technical wing of MoEF. ✦ CPCB along with its counterparts the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs) are responsible for implementation of legislation relating to prevention and control of environmental pollution.


                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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U.P. to launch first-ever dial-FIR

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential

Context:

✦ U.P government  soon going to start an e-FIR or dial-FIR scheme in the state.

More about the news:

✦ U.P. is the only second state to prepare such a localised online criminal database after Punjab.

✦ The Uttar Pradesh Police are set to launch a first of its kind dial-FIR scheme in the country. where a common man can register regular crimes without going to a police station.

✦  it is preparing an online photographic dossier of criminals that will be provided to policemen on 22,000 new i-pads.

✦ A two-month pilot project conducted on it in Ghaziabad has been found to be successful

E- FIR:

Certain categories of crime that includes cases like - vehicle theft.

○ one can dial the emergency number and file an FIR, a call-based FIR.

○ This will be like a regular FIR, under similar sections of IPC,

○ people need not come to the police station to get a case registered.

Total of 22 domains of police permissions.

○ Getting domestic help verification,

○ lost and found complaint,

○ obtaining permission for taking out a procession,

○ getting character certificate from police. Etc..

people need not come to the police station they can obtain from home.

           

Online dosier:

✦ To combat crime, an online dossier of criminals in the state has also been prepared

✦ The investigating officers in various districts of the state will be given 22,000 new i-pads soon

       ○ on which theyhave fed a dossier of over 1-lakh small and big criminals.

✦ Once they reach a crime spot they will show photos of the probable suspects of the area and other places, based on initial leads.

✦ dossier would help in solving a case fast as the suspects can be identified quickly

                                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Odisha man, team builds private satellite

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievement of Indians in science & technology

Context:

✦ The eight-member team, including Mr. Panda, from Hyderabad-based Exseed Space Private Limited has constructed 10 cm cube-sized communication satellite, which will be launched into space by the United States-based SpaceX in November.

More abt the news:

✦ This is the first of its kind private space endeavour.

✦ The small satellite will carry a linear transponder on FM for voice communication.

✦ This satellite will serve the ham or the amateur radio community. As a result, it will be of great help during natural calamities, when conventional communication services get disrupted.

✦ After the launch, this artificial satellite will be on a polar orbit with two passes over India everyday.

✦ Last phase tests of the satellite are being conducted.

✦ This small communication satellite has been constructed a cost of less than Rs 20 lakh.

                                                                                                                                            SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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In managing water, Surat takes the lead

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment



Context:

Municipality to supply 115 MLD treated water to meet industrial requirement by March 2019

More details about the news:

✦ Surat’s civic body is setting up state-of-the-art sewage treatment plants (STPs) to ensure every drop of waste water is treated and reused for purposes other than drinking.

✦ From March 2019, the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) will be supplying 115 MLD (million litres per day) treated water to industries located within the city, in order to meet the entire industrial requirement of water through treated or recycled water.

✦ The entire quantum of water will be treated from domestic sewerage water in tertiary treatment plants for supplying to mainly textile factories in the industrial clusters housing over 400 dying and printing units.

✦ At present, Municipality is supplying 40 MLD treated water to industries.

✦ This is the largest capacity of tertiary water treatment in the country.

✦  Surat was the first city in the country to start selling recycled water to industries in 2014.

                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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ISRO launches two U.K. satellites

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life Achievement of Indians in science & technology

Context:

✦ PSLV-C42 launched two satellites NovaSAR and S1-4 from the first launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre.

○ The two satellites were placed in the desired orbit by ISRO.

NovaSAR:

✦ It is a technology demonstration mission designed to test the capabilities of a new low cost S-band SAR platform.

✦ It will be used for ship detection and maritime monitoring and also flood monitoring, besides agricultural and forestry applications.

S1-4 :

✦ It will be used for environment monitoring.

✦ urban management, and tackling disasters.
                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Indigenous anti-tank missile test-fired

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Context:

✦ An indigenously developed Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) was successfully flight tested for the second time from Ahmednagar test range

✦ Developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO).

✦ low-weight MPATGM will complement the Spike Anti-Tank Guided Missile to be procured from Israel.

✦ The two missions on September 15 and 16 have been successfully flight tested for different ranges, including the maximum range capability

                                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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CIC wants break-up of how MPLADS funds are utilised

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability

Context:

Rs12,000 crore of the Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme (MPLADS) funds remains unspent

More details about the news:

✦ The MPLADS allots Rs 5 crore per year to each Member of Parliament (MP) to be spent on projects of their choice in their constituency.

✦ The scheme is funded and administered through the Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).

✦ Projects are to be recommended to and implemented by the district-level administration.

✦ The Central Information Commission (CIC) has asked the Lok Sabha Speaker and the Rajya Sabha Chairman to come out with a legal framework to ensure its transparency and hold parliamentarians and political parties accountable for their obligations under the scheme.

 

MPLAD SCHEME (Members of Parliament Local Area Development Scheme ) ✦ Launched in December, 1993 ✦ It provides a mechanism for the Members of Parliament to recommend works of developmental nature for creation of durable community assets and for provision of basic facilities including community infrastructure, based on locally felt needs. Works under the scheme: ✦ Works, developmental in nature, based on locally felt needs and always available for the use of the public at large, are eligible under the scheme ✦ Preference under the scheme is given to works relating to national priorities, such as provision of drinking water, public health, education, sanitation, roads, etc. ✦ MPs were allowed to spend the money outside their constituency — and outside their State in case of Rajya Sabha— after the 1999 super cyclone in Odisha. Funds: ✦ Funds are released in the form of grants in-aid directly to the district authorities. ✦ The funds released under the scheme are non-lapsable. ✦ The liability of funds not released in a particular year is carried forward to the subsequent years, subject to eligibility. Execution of works: ✦ The MPs have a recommendatory role under the scheme. ✦ They recommend their choice of works to the concerned district authorities who implement these works by following the established procedures of the concerned state government. ✦ The district authority is empowered to examine the eligibility of works sanction funds and select the implementing agencies, prioritise works, supervise overall execution, and monitor the scheme at the ground level. Recommendation of works: ✦ The Lok Sabha Members can recommend works in their respective constituencies. ✦ The elected members of the Rajya Sabha can recommend works anywhere in the state from which they are elected. ✦ Nominated members of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha may select works for implementation anywhere in the country.

 

Suggestions by CIC:

✦ The framework should make transparency a legal obligation

✦ All MPs and parties required to present the public and Parliament with a comprehensive report on:

     ○ The number of applications received for their constituency

     ○ Works recommended

     ○ Works rejected with reasons

     ○ Progress of works and details of beneficiaries.

✦ Liabilities for any breach of duties should also be imposed

✦ the framework should prohibit and prevent MPs using the funds for their private works, or diverting them to private trusts or to their own relatives.

✦ District administrations must provide regular information about:

     ○ work-wise, MP-wise, and year-wise details on progress

     ○ which are to be compiled by the MoSPI and made available to the public

                                                                                                                                            SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Centre’s steps may not stop rupee sliding: economists

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - growth, development and employment.

Context:

✦ The steps announced by Finance Minister were primarily aimed at easing conditions related to external commercial borrowings, hedging conditions for infrastructure loans, and relaxing restrictions on masala bonds. 

✦ The government believes these measures could lead to additional capital flows to the tune of $5 billion-$10 billion and limit currency pressures to some degree.

✦ Economists are doubtful about the impact of such measures in the immediate future

Reasons for Fall in rupee:

✦ Rising oil prices and widening current account deficit. Concerns over trade wars have also made emerging market currencies vulnerable, along with the strengthening dollar.

Experts view on recent steps announced by government:

✦ The capital account measures announced are unlikely to result in any significant shift in fund flows in the immediate future since these are better suited when the sentiment in the global market is positive towards emerging markets and when it is relatively easy for emerging market corporates to raise money abroad.

✦ Anindya Banerjee, currency strategist at Kotak Securities stated, “It is good that there was no knee-jerk reaction from the government, like NRI deposits schemes etc. because the main reason for the rupee’s weakness is coming from external sources. The steps... will help attract inflows in the long run,”.

                                                                                                                                           Source:- The Hindu

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India calling: 5G networks may be in place by 2020

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology

Context:

✦ The Indian government is aiming to commercially introduce 5G services in the country by the end of 2020

✦ 5G is the next generation of mobile Internet connectivity that would offer much faster and more reliable networks, which would form the backbone for the emerging era of Internet of Things (IoT).

✦ Initially the next generation network will see usage in key government projects such as smart cities and Digital India.

More details about the news:

✦ The transition from 4G to 5G will serve both consumers and multiple industries

✦ Globally, over 150 pre-commercial 5G trials are under  way around the world, including South Korea, China and the U.S.

     ○ 5G trials are yet to begin in India.

✦ The 5G standards, currently being developed by the third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP)  an industry-driven standardisation body

     ○ envisages high speed links with peak rates of 2 to 20 Gbps for various services.

✦ 5G is expected to see use beyond delivery of services just on “personal phone platforms.” It will also connect new devices including machines, sensors, actuators, vehicles, robots and drones, to support a much larger range of applications and services.

Disruption:

Once commercialised, 5G is expected to disrupt not only telecom but other industries as well as.

                                                                                                                                              Source:- The Hindu

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Lethal filth – on manual scavenging [EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions & Bodies constituted for the protection & betterment of these vulnerable sections

Context:

Five young men who were employed to clean a septic tank in an upmarket residential community died during the process. Around the same time as the Delhi incident, five workers died in a septic tank in Odisha.

Details:

✦ Manual scavenging has been officially prohibited by law in 1993 due to it being regarded as a dehumanizing practice (if not done in a safe manner).

✦ Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013’ came into effect from 6thDecember, 2013 replacing Employment of Manual Scavengers and Construction of Dry Latrines(Prohibition) Act, 1993.This Act intends to achieve its objectives of eliminating insanitary latrines, prohibition of employment as manual scavengers etc

✦ The act says National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK)would monitor implementation of the Act and enquire into complaints regarding contravention of the provisions of the Act.

Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013

✦ A violation can be punished with two years of imprisonment or fine or both.

✦ Under the provision, no person, local authority or agency should engage or employ people for hazardous cleaning of sewers and septic tanks.

✦ Mechanised cleaning of septic tanks is the prescribed norm.

Issue:

✦ The law (Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013) is not being enforced, and there is no fear of penalties.

✦ The workers in Delhi were apparently asked to perform the task in violation of Section 7 of the Act;

✦ In spite of a well-funded programme such as the Swachh Bharat Abhiyan in operation, little attention is devoted to this aspect of sanitation.

✦ The requirements of worker safety and provision of safety gear for rare instances when human intervention is unavoidable are often ignored.

✦ The Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation in its manual of 2016 on toilet design acknowledges that in rural areas, mechanical pumps to clear septic tanks are not available.

✦ In the southern States, sanitation has expanded along with urbanisation, but it has brought with it a higher number of deaths as workers clean septic tanks manually. For instance, Tamil Nadu recorded 144 fatalities of workers engaged for septic tank cleaning in the past three years, according to official data.

✦ Toilet designs proposed by the government include those in which fully composted waste must be removed from pits every two years.

✦ In the absence of political will and social pressure, more lives could be lost because more tanks are being built in rural and urban areas as part of the drive to construct toilets.

Way forward:

✦ If the law on manual scavenging is to be effective, the penalties must be uniformly and visibly enforced.

✦ It is equally important for State governments to address the lack of adequate machinery to clean septic tanks.

✦ The Centre must ensure that the proposals for new toilet design does not become a fresh avenue to oppress members of some communities who are expected to perform such work, reflecting social inequalities.

                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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World Ozone Day

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ Harsh Vardhan released the draft India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) and a booklet on ‘Montreal Protocol – India’s Success Story’.

✦ A refurbished website on the Ozone Cell of the Ministry and a Management Information System (MIS) for Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) were also launched on the occasion.

✦ India is the first country in world to develop such a document (ICAP), which addresses cooling requirement across sectors and lists out actions which can help reduce the cooling demand.

✦ “Keep Cool and Carry on”: The Montreal Protocol is the theme of 24th World Ozone Day celebrations.

The broad objectives of the India Cooling Action Plan include -

(i) Assessment of cooling requirements across sectors in next 20 years and the associated refrigerant demand and energy use,

(ii) Map the technologies available to cater the cooling requirement including passive interventions, refrigerant-based technologies and alternative technologies such as not-in-kind technologies,

(iii) Suggest interventions in each sector to provide for sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all,

(iv) Focus on skilling of RAC service technicians

(v) Develop an R&D innovation ecosystem for indigenous development of alternative technologies. 

                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- PIB

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16^TH SEPTEMBER 2018 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

7 out of 10 seats sold on flights to smaller cities

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.



Context:

✦ 5.24 lakh seats taken under UDAN scheme since April 2017.

More details about the scheme:

✦ According to data accessed under RTI application shows that as many 7.5 lakh seats were made available for sale by eight airline operators, of which 5.24 lakh seats were sold.

     ○ These figures are for a period of 16 months between the first flight under the scheme in April last year and until August 1, 2018.

     ○ So far, two rounds of bidding have taken place for routes under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) or UDAN (Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik),Which aims to take flying to the masses and enhance air connectivity to Tier-1 and Tier-2 cities.

✦ A total of 428 routes were awarded to 17 airline and helicopter operators. Of these, eight airlines have started flights on 96 routes, while helicopter services are yet to commence.

✦ The government data show that the three airlines with the highest seat occupancy rate are low-cost carrier SpiceJet (81.4%), regional airline TrueJet (70.7%) and Air India’s regional arm Alliance Air (64.9%).

 

5 most best performing Routes:

The five most successful routes under the scheme in terms of the passenger load factor are:

      ✦ Mumbai-Porbandar (93%),

      ✦ Delhi-Kanpur- Delhi (91.5%), Mumbai-Kandla-Mumbai

      ✦ (91%), Delhi-Shimla-Delhi (89.5%),

      ✦ Delhi-Adampur-Delhi (86%).

Four of these routes are operated by SpiceJet.

Worst performing routes:

The routes that have flopped so far are :

      ✦ Shillong-Dimapur-Shillong (1%),

      ✦ Ahmedabad-Bhavnagar-Ahmedabad (11%),

      ✦ Ahmedabad-Jamnagar-Ahmedabad (14%),

      ✦ Ahmedabad-Diu-Ahmedabad (19%)

      ✦ Gwalior-Indore-Gwalior (35%).

Air Odisha serves four of these worst routes.

 

UDAN ( Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik): ✦ The Civil Aviation Ministry launched Regional Connectivity Scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik). ✦ UDAN is an innovative scheme to develop the regional aviation market. ✦ The UDAN scheme seeks to provide connectivity to un-served and under-served airports of the country through revival of existing air-strips and airports. ✦ This first-of-its-kind scheme will ensure affordability, connectivity, growth and development. ✦ It aims to increase ticketing volume from 80 million to 300 million by 2022. ✦ Under it regional connectivity will be developed on market-based mechanism under which Airlines will bid for seat subsidies. ✦ It will create affordable yet economically viable and profitable flights on regional routes so that flying becomes affordable to the common man even in small towns. ✦ Under it, airlines will have complete freedom to enter into code sharing with larger airlines for connectivity and they will be exempted from various airport charges. ✦ Airlines will have exclusive rights for three years to fly on a particular regional route. ✦ On these routes for regional flights Airfares will be capped at 2500 rupees for an hour’s flight. ✦ Central and State governments and airport operators will provide a financial stimulus in the form of concessions to airlines ✦ The mechanism of Viability Gap Funding (VGF) will be provided to interested airlines to kick-off operations from such airports so that the passenger fares are kept affordable ✦ Government will provide subsidy to airlines for first three years of operations when they will have exclusive flying rights on the selected routes. ✦ Once the market in these routes gets jump started, it will operate on a commercial basis as per market forces of supply and demand.

 

                                                                                                                                                         Source:- The Hindu

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Call for policy, action in diabetes prevention, management

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.



CONTEXT:

✦ The recently-released Global Burden of Disease Study 2016 has shown that the prevalence of diabetes has increased more rapidly in the less-developed States of the country.

✦ The study, authored by Nikhil Tandon et al, goes on to warn: “If uncontrolled, diabetes and its complications are likely to take a heavy toll on India’s healthcare system in the coming decades.”

Highlights of the report:

✦ The total number of people with diabetes grew from 26 million in 1990 to 65 million in 2016. The prevalence of diabetes in India was 5.5 % in 1990, but it has increased to 7.7 % in 2016.

✦ The highest prevalence is in Tamil Nadu and Kerala, followed by Delhi, Punjab, Goa, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Tripura.

✦ Diabetes contributed to 3% of all deaths in India, with an increase in death rates due to diabetes from 1990 to 2016.

     ○ This highlights the low likelihood of meeting national and global targets for reducing deaths due to diabetes by 2025 and 2030

✦ Among the risk factors contributing to diabetes in India in 2016, high BMI had the highest impact, while the other factors were dietary risks, tobacco use, occupational exposure to secondhand smoke, low physical activity, and alcohol use.

 

Steps taken by Govenment: ✦ WHO has developed a comprehensive Global Monitoring Framework and Action Plan for prevention and Control of Non Communicable Diseases (NCDs 2013-2020), which was endorsed by the 66th World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2013. India is the first country globally to adopt the NCD Global Monitoring Framework and Action Plan to its National Context. ✦ The Framework includes a set of nine voluntary targets and 25 indicators which can be applied across regional and country settings. ✦ The framework elements include      ○ halting the rise in obesity and diabetes prevalence,      ○ reduction in alcohol use and      ○ promotion of physical activity. ✦ The Government of India is implementing various NCD programmes as under through the State Governments: ○ National Programme for Prevention and Control of Cancer, Diabetes, Cardiovascular Diseases & Stroke (NPCDCS). ○ National Programme of Health Care of Elderly (NPHCE). ○ National Iodine Deficiency Disorders Control Programme (NIDDCP). ○ National Programme for Control of Blindness (NPCB). ○ National Mental Health Programme (NMHP). ○ National Programme for Prevention and Control of Deafness (NPPCD)

 

Way forward:

✦ providing awareness about diabetes

✦ There is a need for policy and health system action commensurate with the disease burden in each State to ensure more effective prevention and management of diabetes.

✦ The effective policy implementation. When combined with appropriate allocation of financial and human resources, and a robust disease monitoring system, this would help in prevention, treatment and reduction of diabetes deaths and, in turn, curb the growing disease burden.

                                                                                                                       SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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PSLV to launch 2 U.K. satellites tonight

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Context:

✦ ISRO’s first fully commercial trip this year

More details about the launch:

✦ There is no Indian satellite on this flight. PSLV-C42 will be the first fully commercial trip of the year

✦ PSLV-C42 is scheduled for launch at 10.08 p.m. from the first launch pad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre, Sriharikota.

✦ It will lift NovaSAR and S1-4 to a sun-synchronous ('pole-to-pole') orbit 583 km from Earth.

✦ The entire flight up to the release of the satellites is designed to happen within 17.5 minutes.

                                                                                                                                          SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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4.37 lakh new mothers receive cash benefits

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Welfare schemes for vulnerable sections of the population by the Centre and States and the performance of these schemes

Context:

✦ Nearly 37 lakh women have received cash incentives under the Centre’s maternity benefits programme since the launch of Matru Vandana Saptah last year, a release from the Ministry of Women and Child Development said.

✦ The scheme has an estimated 51.6 lakh beneficiaries a year.

✦ As many as 48.11 lakh women have been enrolled in the Matru Vandana Saptah and the Centre has disbursed an amount of Rs 1,168.63 crores to various States


 

Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) ✦ Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana  (PMMVY) is a Maternity Benefit Programme that is implemented in all the districts of the country in accordance with the provision of the National Food Security Act, 2013. Objectives: ✦ Providing partial compensation for the wage loss in terms of cash incentive s so that the woman can take adequate res t before and after delivery of the first living child. ✦ The cash incentive provided would lead to improved health seeking behaviour amongst the Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers (PW& LM). Target Beneficiaries: ✦ All Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers, excluding PW&LM who are in regular employment with the Central Government or the State Governments or PSUs or those who are in receipt of similar benefits under any law for the time being in force. ✦ All eligible Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers who have their pregnancy on or after 01.01.2017 for first child in family. ✦ The date and stage of pregnancy for a beneficiary would be counted with respect to her LMP date as mentioned in the MCP card. Case of Miscarriage/Still Birth : ✦ A beneficiary is eligible to receive benefits under the scheme only once. ✦ In case of miscarriage/still birth, the beneficiary would be eligible to claim the remaining instalment(s) in event of any future pregnancy. ✦ Thus, after receiving the 1st instalment, if the beneficiary has a miscarriage, she would only be eligible for receiving 2nd and 3rd instalment in event of future pregnancy subject to fulfilment of eligibility criterion and conditionalities of the scheme. Similarly, if the beneficiary has a miscarriage or still birth after receiving 1 st and 2nd instalments, she would only be eligible for receiving 3rd instalment in event of future pregnancy subject to fulfilment of eligibility criterion and conditionalities of the scheme. ✦ Case of Infant Mortality: A beneficiary is eligible to receive benefits under the scheme only once. That is, in case of infant mortality, she will not be eligible for claiming benefits under the scheme, if she has already received all the instalments of the maternity benefit under PMMVY earlier. ✦ Pregnant and Lactating AWWs/ AWHs/ ASHA may also avail the benefits under the PMMVY subject to fulfilment of scheme conditionalities.

 

                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Does U.S. want India to import more?

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India's interests

Context:

✦ President Donald trump move to impose higher duties on imports to spur local manufacture and increase jobs in the U.S.

✦ The same spirit is also behind the move to pressure India to import at least $10 billion a year more from the U.S. over the next three years.

✦ The U.S.’s latest demand means it wants India to cut its trade deficit with the American nation by close to half, through increased purchases of civilian aircraft and natural gas.

 Facts and figures:

✦ According to the U.S. Census Bureau, India imported $25.7 billion from the U.S. in 2017 while it exported $48.6 billion to the largest economy in the world.

✦ Between 2014 and 2017, India’s trade deficit with the U.S. has hovered over $23-24 billion annually.

     ○ In 2017, it dropped by $1.5 billion compared with 2016, due to higher imports from the U.S.

     ○ Till July this year, India’s deficit ran to $13.2 billion, not significantly different from the $13.6 billion for the same period a year earlier.

Impact on U.S.

✦ GDP is growing at a 3%-plus rate

✦ unemployment rate is near a 50-year low

✦ the stock market has jumped 27% amid a surge in corporate profits.

✦Some predict that the U.S. could even see a recession in 2020.

How it Affects on Indian economy?

✦ wasting precious dollar resources in signing up for imports under pressure.

✦ if the U.S. continued to grow, an increase in imports by India, merely to address the trade gap, would have a telling effect on the exchange rate.

✦ Indian government officials have estimated an extra $26 billion expenditure due to rising oil prices. Oil importers buy dollars to pay for their imports.

      ○ That has contributed significantly to the falling rupee, which has lost as much as 14% this year, making it the worst performing currency in Asia.

✦ A falling rupee makes life difficult for other Indian importers. This would have a domino effect on the rest of the economy. Rising prices could dampen consumer demand, resulting in poorer profit margins for industry.

                                                                                                                                                      SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Govt. links Pravasi Divas with Kumbh

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS  -  Indian Diaspora

Context:

 The 15th edition of the event will be held in January 2019 in Varanasi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s constituency, and close to the site of the ‘Ardh Maha Kumbh’ in Allahabad.

 

Pravasi Bharatiya Divas ✦ It is a celebratory day observed on 9 January, biennially (after 2015) to mark the contribution of the ✦ overseas Indian community towards the development of India ✦ The day commemorates the return of Mahatma Gandhi from South Africa to Mumbai on 9 January 1915 ✦ It is sponsored by the Ministry of External Affairs and the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce ✦ and Industry (FICCI), the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the Ministry of DoNER ✦ A celebratory event is held on 7–9 January in an Indian city: a forum for issues concerning the Indian ✦ Diaspora is organized and the Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Awards are given ✦ The latest 14th PBD was held in Bengaluru, Karnataka in January 2017 ✦MEA also organizes Regional PBD periodically outside India to connect with the Indian Diaspora in specific regions, familiarize them with the policies and programmes of the Government and enable them to contribute to India’s development and growth, and address their concerns

 

Shift after 14 Years:

✦ the government has decided to move the date to facilitate NRI Kumbh Mela visitors, and “maximise their experience” during their visit to India.

✦ Reason sited for shiting date:- MEA sources said the Ministry had received feedback that the event, which drew about 1,800 delegates from 72 countries in 2017, was increasingly being seen as a “talk-shop, without concrete results”.

✦ Some members of the diaspora had reportedly asked Ms. Swaraj to consider shifting the date closer to the Kumbh Mela, to begin on January 14, 2019.

                                                                                                                  Source:- The Hindu

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15^TH SEPTEMBER 2018 DIALY CURRENT AFFAIRS

Govt. moves to stabilise rupee

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - EFFECTS OF LIBERALISATION ON THE ECONOMY

Context:

The government announced a set of five measures late on Friday aimed at supporting the rupee, which has been under pressure in the last few weeks, and ensuring that the current account deficit stays in control.

Measures taken by government:

cut down non-essential imports

✦ The government will also take necessary steps to cut down non-essential imports and increase exports

To attract more foreign portfolio investors (FPI)

The government has said it will review a couple of restrictions into the corporate debt market to attract more foreign portfolio investors (FPI)

✦ the condition that FPIs’ investment in a single corporate entity cannot exceed 20% of its corporate bond portfolio will be reviewed.

✦The condition that FPIs cannot invest more than 50% of an issue of corporate bonds will also be reviewed

Exemption to masala bond

✦ In a bid to push Indian corporates to take the masala bond route, the government has exempted all such bond issues until March 31, 2019, from withholding tax.

✦ It has also said it will remove restrictions on Indian banks on market-making for such bonds and on underwriting them.

✦ Masala bonds are rupee-denominated instruments issued abroad by Indian borrowers.

✦ The advantage of these bonds is that any depreciation in the rupee will not affect the borrower.

Review in  the external commercial borrowing (ECB) route.

    ○ will review the mandatory hedging condition for infrastructure loans borrowed under the external commercial borrowing (ECB) route.

    ○ Presently there is no compulsion on borrowers to hedge these loans.

manufacturing companies borrowing up to $50 million through ECBs will be able to do so only for a one-year term as against the three-year term allowed earlier.

 

Masala Bond: ✦ Masala Bonds’ are Indian rupee denominated bonds issued in offshore capital markets which issued to offshore investors settled in dollars and, therefore, the currency risk resides with investors. It is used to refer to rupee-denominated borrowings by Indian entities in overseas markets. ✦ The International Finance Corporation (IFC) the investment branch of the World Bank issued a 10-year, 10 billion Indian rupee bonds in November 2014 to increase foreign investment in India and mobilize international capital markets to support infrastructure development in the country. ✦ Masala bond was the first Indian bond to get listed in London Stock Exchange. IFC named it Masala bonds to give a local flavour by calling to mind Indian culture and cuisine. Moreover, there are popular bonds name are there in the list Dim-Sum Bond of China and Samurai Bonds of Japan, Yankee of USA and the bulldog of UK. (For more details about Masala bond refer - arthapedia)

                                                                                                             

                                                                                                            Source:- The Hindu

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Welfare panels can’t evaluate dowry complaints: SC

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.]

Context:

✦ The Supreme Court on Friday modified its July 2017 order which roped in retirees, wives of “working officers” and social workers to sift genuine complaints of dowry harassment from the frivolous ones.

✦ Three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra held that such panels had no place under the established criminal procedural law.

SC verdict on  July 27:

✦ The Bench of Justices A.K. Goel (now retired) and U.U. Lalit, which passed the July 27 order, had merely wanted to craft a fair and reasonable procedure for complaints under Section 498-A.

✦ ‘family welfare committees’ in all districts to act as a vanguard against frivolous complaints of dowry harassment in their localities.

○ These ‘family welfare committees’ will be set up in all districts under the aegis of the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA).

○ These committees will sift the genuine cases from the trivial ones and no suspect shall be arrested in a dowry case immediately after a complaint is registered.

○ Police and the courts will have to wait for the committee’s inquiry report.

○ Even the police could register an FIR only after the committee cleared the complaint as valid and not frivolous.

To act a vanguard against “disgruntled wives” using the anti-dowry harassment provision of Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) as a “weapon” against their husbands and in-laws, young and old, rather than a “shield.”

 

Section 498-A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) : ✦ It is related to dowry related cases. ✦ It says –  Whoever, being the husband or the relative of the husband of a woman, subjects such woman to cruelty shall be pun­ished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years and shall also be liable to fine. ✦ Section 498-A IPC is a cognisable and non-bailable offence. A guilty person faces up to three years in prison.

 

Quashing of last year's order :

✦ Chief Justice Misra reasoned that one of the major factors that influenced the July 27 order was statistics published by the National Crime Records Bureau,

     ○ which showed that 1,97,762 husbands and relatives were arrested in 2012 alone for dowry harassment.

     ○ Justice Goel had observed how arrest brought “humiliation, curtails freedom and casts scars forever”.

✦  Chief Justice Misra rationalised that the blame does not lie with Section 498-A, which was introduced in 1983 by Parliament to protect hapless married women against the dowry menace.

✦  The evil lay in the misuse of arrest powers by the police “who behave like emperors considering the notion that they can do what they please”.

 

SC verdict:

✦  Three-judge Bench led by Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra held that such panels had no place under the established criminal procedural law.

✦  Chief Justice Misra further agreed with the July 27 order to have a designated police officer to probe dowry complaints. It ordered the Director General of Police of every State to provide such officers rigorous training.

✦  Now the parties would have to approach the High Court concerned for quashing the complaint filed by the woman.

✦  The three-judge Bench also held that accused persons should apply for exemption from personal appearance in dowry harassment hearings.

                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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Bengal scheme to combat human trafficking

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.



Context:

✦ As the per the NCRB data West Bengal has highest recorded case of trafficking among the States.

✦An attempt to combat human trafficking, the West Bengal government has rolled out a scheme, Swayangsiddha, in different districts of the State.

More details about - Swayangsiddha:

✦ Swayangsiddha, which means self-reliance, will be executed by the West Bengal Police.

✦ The scheme aims to empower young boys and girls to make informed choices so that they are less vulnerable to trafficking and child marriage.

✦ Swayangsiddha Groups have been formed in schools and colleges with interested students.

    ○ These groups were formed with students between the ages of 12 and 21 years.

    ○ The State Government’s Child Protection Committees are monitoring and guiding these groups.

✦ Part of the project is strengthening the response mechanism to acts of violation of rights in collaboration with police and child protection committees to build safe communities.

✦ Strengthening access to schemes and entitlements on education, training, livelihood and food security for vulnerable groups is also an important part of Swayangsiddha.

                                                                                                                                                     Source:- The Hindu

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Wiping out AIDS by 2030 will not be easy’

GS PAPER - 02 - GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

✦ NACO’s HIV Estimations 2017 report shows there are still 21.4 lakh infected people in India

✦ India’s long battle against AIDS is not likely to end any time soon, in the latest figures released by the National AIDS Control Organisation (NACO)

No significant positive shift:

✦ As of 2017, there were 21.40 lakh people living with HIV in India.

✦ There were around 87,000 new HIV infections and over 69,000 AIDS-related deaths (ARDs) in 2017. Around 22,675 mothers needed Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) for prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV.

✦ In 2015, India had reported 86,000 new HIV infections. Of these, children (<15 years) accounted for 12 per cent (10,400) while the remaining (75,000) were adults (15+ years). In 2015, the total number of people living with HIV in India was estimated at 21.17 lakh, while the same figure was 22.26 lakh in 2007.

✦ The report has noted that the HIV epidemic in India -- national prevalence and incidence remains low, but the epidemic is high in some geographical regions and population groups.

Impact of HIV AIDS control programme:

✦ More than an 80 per cent decline in estimated new infections from the epidemic’s peak in 1995.

✦ Estimated AIDS-related deaths declined by 71 per cent since its peak in 2005. As per UNAIDS 2018 report

 

Steps taken by government: National AIDS Control Program (NACP) Shortly after reporting the first AIDS case in 1986, the Government of India established a National AIDS Control Program (NACP) which has now become the Department of AIDS under Ministry of Health and Family Welfare i) Phase 1 (1992 ‐1999): It focused on initiating a national commitment, increasing awareness and addressing blood safety. ii) Phase 2 (1999 – 2006): Targeted interventions for the most at risk populations, preventive interventions among the general population, and involvement of NGOs and other sectors and departments, such as education, transport and police iii) Phase 3 (2007 – 2012): The goal was of halting and reversing the epidemic by the end of project period iv) Phase 4 (2012 -2017): The goal was to reduce new infections by 50 percent and to provide comprehensive care and support to all persons living with HIV/AIDS 2. Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 (Professional Conduct, & Ethics) Regulations, 2002– It lays down certain duties on the part of doctors towards the HIV/AIDS patients. 3.  Immoral Trafficking Prevention Act, 1986- It provides for conducting compulsory medical examination for detection of HIV/AIDS among the victims of trafficking. 4. HIV and AIDS (Prevention and Control) Bill, 2017 ✦ The Bill seeks to prevent and control the spread of HIV and AIDS ✦ Prohibits discrimination against persons with HIV and AIDS ✦ Provides for informed consent and confidentiality with regard to their treatment ✦ Places obligations on establishments to safeguard their rights ✦ Createsmechanisms for redressing their complaints 5. National strategic plan (2017-24) and Mission SAMPARK ✦ The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare launched the plan with aim to eradicating HIV/AIDS by 2030. In 2016, India commit at the UNs’ High-Level Meeting on AIDS towards the goal of ‘ending the AIDS epidemic as a public health threat by 2030 ✦ National Strategic Plan (2017-24) aims towards fast track strategy of ending the AIDS epidemic by 2030 and is expected to pave a roadmap for achieving the target of 90:90:90. ✦ Mission SAMPARK aim is to trace those who are Left to Follow Up and are to be brought under Antiretroviral Therapy (ART) services. ✦ “Community Based Testing” will be taken up for fast-tracking the identification of all who are HIV positive. 6. 90:90:90 Strategy It is a new HIV treatment narrative of UNAIDS programme which has set targets of ✦ 90% of all people living with HIV will know their HIV status (90% diagnosed), ✦ 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained antiretroviral therapy (90% on HIV treatment) and ✦ 90% of all people receiving antiretroviral therapy will have viral suppression (90% suppressed) 7. Project Sunrise: It aims for prevention of AIDS specially among people injecting drugs in the 8 North-Eastern states

                                                                                                                                                          Source:- The Hindu

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SC questions ‘leprosy-free’ tag for India

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

CONTEXT:

✦ SC said, India “underestimated” leprosy and diverted funds meant to eliminate the curable disease for 18 long years.

✦ The underestimation of cases of leprosy and the declaration of elimination of leprosy has resulted in the integration of leprosy in general health services thereby leading to diversion of funds which would have otherwise been dedicated to eliminating leprosy,” Chief Justice Misra, who authored the verdict, wrote.

More details:

✦ Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra pointed out that though the country was declared leprosy-free on December 31, 2005, the reality is “entirely different”.

✦ The Supreme Court referred to progress reports of the National Leprosy Eradication Programme (NLEP) to show that only 543 districts of the total 642 districts in the country had achieved the World Health Organisation-required prevalence rate of less than one case of leprosy for 10,000 persons.

DENIAL OF FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS:

✦ At present, majority of the populace afflicted with leprosy live as a marginalised section in society, deprived of even basic human rights.

     ○ This manifestly results in violation of the fundamental right to equality and right to live with dignity.

✦They are even denied their fundamental right to food.

✦ They are not issued BPL (Below Poverty Line) cards to claim the benefit of various welfare schemes such as the Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY).

✦ They are deprived of housing, basic civic amenities, adequate sanitary facilities and rehabilitation programmes.

 

NATIONAL LEPROSY ERADICATION PROGRAMME: ✦ The National Leprosy Eradication Programme is a centrally sponsored Health Scheme of the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, Govt. of India. ✦ NLEP strategies and plans are formulated centrally, the programme is implemented by the States/UTs. ✦ The Programmes also supported as Partners by the World Health Organization, The International Federation of Anti-leprosy Associations (ILEP) and few other Non-Govt. Organizations. OBJECTIVES: ✦ Early detection through active surveillance by the trained health workers; ✦ Regular treatment of cases by providing Multi-Drug Therapy (MDT) at fixed in or centres a nearby village of moderate to low endemic areas/district; ✦ Intensified health education and public awareness campaigns to remove social stigma attached to the disease. ✦ Appropriate medical rehabilitation and leprosy ulcer care services. (FOR MORE DETAILS REFER - VIKASPEDIA)

                                                                                                                                                        SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Millions out of poverty but glaring inequalities in India, reveals Human Development Index report

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - growth, development and employment. Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.



Context:

✦ The UNDP report stated that with an HDI value of 0.64 compared to last year’s 0.636, India is categorised as a medium human development and that its rank rose one spot compared to the 2017 HDI.

 More abt the news:

✦ India ranks a low 130 out of 189 countries in the latest human development Index (HDI) released by the United Nations Development Programme.

       ○ the findings indicating a glaring inequality in the country though “millions have been lifted out of poverty”.

✦ Norway at 0.95 has been ranked the highest on the HDI scale, while Niger is the bottom at 0.35.

✦ The greatest increase in HDI rank over the last five years is by Ireland followed by Turkey

✦ the worst decline was seen in conflict-hit countries of Syria, Libya, and Yemen.

✦ India is categorised as a medium human development and that its rank rose one spot compared to the 2017 HDI.

✦ “India’s HDI has increased tremendously in the last two and half decades

FACTS AND FIGURE’S:

GLOBALLY:

The report states that on an average, people are living longer, are more educated, and have greater income today as is evident in the rise in average HDI levels since 1990 at 22 per cent.

INDIA:

In the last 17 years since 1990, India registered a 50 per cent increase.

✦ In this period, life expectancy at birth in the country has increased by 11 years.

✦ children have been predicted to stay in school for 4.7 years longer than in 1990.

✦ The highest leap has been in India’s GNI per capita which registered a 266 per cent increase between 1990 and 2017.

GENDER INEQUALITY INDEX:

✦ Gender inequality is another big issue which adversely affects human development.

✦ This inequality is mainly due to the very low economic participation of women in India,”

✦ Globally, the average HDI for women is six per cent lower than for men, due to women’s lower income and educational attainment in many countries.

✦ India ranks 127 out of 160 countries on the Gender Inequality Index which reflects genderbased inequalities in reproductive health, empowerment (political and educational), and economic activity.

     ○ in India women hold only 11.6 per cent of parliamentary seats,

     ○ while only 39 per cent of adult women have reached at least a secondary level of education as compared to 64 per cent men.

     ○ India’s worst performance with regards to its female participation in the labour market which is 27.2 per cent compared to 78.8 per cent for men.

✦ Globally 49 per cent women are part of the labour force as compared to 75 per cent men.

CONCERNS:

✦ The HDI value declines by more than a fourth when adjusted for inequality.

    ○ The value of India’s Inequality-adjusted HDI (IHDI) falls to 0.468, a 26.8 per cent decrease, far worse than the global average decrease in the global HDI value due to inequality at 20 per cent.

 

HUMAN DEVELOPMENT REPORT: ✦ The Human Development Report (HDR) is an annual milestone published by the Human Development Report Office of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) ✦ the HDI is an average measure of basic human development achievements in a country, it “masks inequality in the distribution of human development across the population at the country level,” the HDI report points out. ✦ “The ‘loss’ in human development due to inequality is given by the difference between the HDI and inequality adjusted HDI, or IHDI It provides a composite measure of 3 dimensions of human development.      (i) Living a long and healthy life (measured by life expectancy),      (ii) Having education (measured by literacy and gross enrolment in education);      (iii) Having a decent standard of living (measured by purchased power parity, PPP, income). The 2010 Report introduces following 3 new indices to capture important aspects of the distribution of well-being for inequality, gender equity and poverty. a) Inequality-adjusted Human Development Index (IHDI) adjusts the Human Development Index (HDI) for inequality in distribution of each dimension across the population. The IHDI is the actual level of human development (accounting for this inequality), while the HDI can be viewed as an index of “potential” human development (or the maximum level of HDI) that could be achieved if there was no inequality. The “loss” in potential human development due to inequality is given by the difference between the HDI and the IHDI and can be expressed as a percentage. b) Gender Inequality Index (GII) reflects women’s disadvantage in 3 dimensions-reproductive: health, empowerment and the labour market. The index shows the loss in human development due to inequality between female and male achievements in these dimensions. It ranges from 0, which indicates that women and men fare equally, to 1, which indicates that women fare poorly in all measured dimensions. c) Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) identifies multiple deprivations at the individual level in health, education and standard of living. It uses micro data from household surveys, and unlike the Inequality adjusted Human Development Index all the indicators needed to construct the measure must come from the same survey. Each person in a given household is classified as poor or non poor depending on the number of deprivations his or her household experiences.

 

WAY FORWARD:

✦ India needs to focus on, to ensure sustained HDI growth, is climate resilience.

✦ We need to focus on inequality and the pockets of deprivation that are dragging the HDI down.

                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE INDIAN EXPRESS

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12^th SEPTEMBER 2018 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

Small loans could turn bad: Rajan

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.



Context

✦ Former RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan has cautioned that the next crisis in India’s banking sector could come from loans given to the unorganised micro and small businesses, called MUDRA loans, and credit extended through the Kisan credit card.

✦ MUDRA loans are offered under the Prime Minister Mudra Yojana launched in 2015 by the NDA government.

✦ A total of Rs. 6.37 lakh crore has been disbursed under the scheme by public and private sector banks, regional rural banks and micro-finance institutions till date, as per data from the MUDRA website.

Suggestions

✦ In a note on NPAs, Rajan said the government should refrain from setting ambitious credit targets or from waiving loans.

✦ Both MUDRA loans as well as the Kisan Credit Card, while popular, have to be examined more closely for potential credit risk.

✦ He also flagged the Credit Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs, run by the SIDBI calling it “a growing contingent liability” that needs to be examined with urgency.

✦ A large number of bad loans originated in the period 2006-2008 when economic growth was strong the banks are more prone to make mistakes.

 

Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana ✦ PMMY is a flagship scheme of Government of India to enable a small enterprise come into the formal financial system and get affordable credit to run his/ her business. ✦ Any Indian Citizen who has a business plan for a non-farm sector income generating activity ✦ Credit need: Less than Rs 10 lakh ✦ Under the aegis of PMMY, MUDRA has already created the following products / schemes.      ○ Shishu : covering loans upto 50,000/-      ○ Kishor : covering loans above 50,000/- and upto 5 lakh      ○ Tarun : covering loans above 5 lakh and upto 10 lakh ✦ There is no subsidy for the loan given under PMMY. However, if the loan proposal is linked some Government scheme, wherein the Government is providing capital subsidy, it will be eligible under PMMY also. MUDRA Bank and its role in the MUDRA Yojana ✦ MUDRA Bank = Micro Units Development and Refinance Agency Bank ✦ The Rs 20,000 crore MUDRA Bank aims to provide refinancing to small and medium enterprises, particularly those from SC & ST ✦ The idea is to refinance micro-finance institutions through Pradhan Mantri Mudra Yojana ✦ This bank would be responsible for regulating and refinancing all MFIs which are in the business of lending to MSME

                                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Damage to Aravallis scary, says SC

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment

Context:

✦ The Supreme Court on Tuesday ordered the demolition of structures built illegally by a prominent builder in the protected forests of the Aravallis, noting that ecological damage done by colonisers to the ancient hills was irreversible and “quite frightening.”

✦ A Bench of Justices Madan B. Lokur and Deepak Gupta ordered that all structures built after August 18, 1992 in the area known as ‘Kant Enclave’ at Anangpur in Faridabad district of Haryana should be demolished.

✦ It held that these illegal structures defy a Haryana government notification of August 18, 1992, issued under the Punjab Land Preservation Act, declaring the area as forest land and fragile.

Exemptions:

✦ The court, however, ordered not to disturb constructions made between April 17, 1984 and August 18, 1992.

    ○ These structures were built on the basis of an exemption given to Kant &Co by the State’s town planning department under the Haryana Development and Regulation of Urban Areas Act of 1975 for setting up a “film studio and allied complex” in the area.

    ○ The exemption was removed when the August 18, 1992 notification kicked in.

                                                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Floods trigger influx of alien fish species in Kerala

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment Disaster and disaster management.

Context:

✦ The catastrophic floods that caused widespread havoc throughout the State last month have also released several alien species of fish into water bodies, raising a threat to the endemic aquatic ecosystem and biodiversity, scientists have reported.

11 Alien Species:

✦ A joint research team which carried out a rapid assessment of the impact of the floods on water bodies has documented the presence of 11 alien species.

          ○ Including the alligator gar (Atractosteus spatula), arapaima (Arapaima gigas), arowana, giant gourami, grass carp, kissing gourami, (Helostoma temminckii), koi carp, gold fish (Carassius auratus), shark catfish also known as Malaysian vaala, red-bellied pacu (Piaractus brachypomus) and three-spot gourami and four alien invasive species namely the East African catfish, common carp, tilapia (both cultivated and ornamental varieties) and sucker catfish.

✦ The researchers from the University of Kerala, Kerala University of Fisheries and Ocean Sciences (KUFOS) and the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bengaluru, have established that the alien species had escaped in large numbers from flooded commercial and ornamental fish farms. 

 

Threat to freshwater Ecosystem

✦ Kerala, considered a global hotspot for fish diversity, with about 200 freshwater species of fish, about 30 percentage of them endemic.

✦ The scientists have called for a ban on the import and farming of alien species like the arapaima and alligator gar.

✦ Endemic to the Amazon, the Arapaima and the alligator gar, native to the US and Mexico.

         ○ Both the species feed voraciously on fish and hence have the potential to cause serious threat to the indigenous fish in the rivers of Kerala.

✦ the red-bellied pacu which was extensively cultivated in several districts, is currently caught in large numbers from the Vembanad and kole wetlands and backwaters of Kuttanad. A native of South America, it is omnivorous, devouring everything from fruits, seeds and nuts to insects, small fish, crustaceans and zooplankton.

                                                                                                                             Source:- The Hindu

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AAI shelves water aerodrome project in Chilika Lake

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment Disaster and disaster management.

Context:

✦ The Airports Authority of India (AAI) has dropped the proposed water aerodrome project at Chilika Lake in Odisha

✦ AAI has cancelled the seaplane project in the lake which, if implemented, would have negatively impacted the ecosystem and the surrounding human population at the world’s second largest brackish water lake.

✦ The water aerodrome project would seriously jeopardise the habitat of Chilika’s nearly one million avian visitors which come from the Arctic and Eurasian regions.

✦ Operation of seaplane and water aerodrome at Chilika is likely to cause irrevocable damage to the ecosystem and livelihood of people dependent on it.

                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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India’s first missile tracking ship is readying for sea trials

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Indigenization of technology & developing new technology



Context:

✦ This will be the first of its kind ocean surveillance ship being built as part of the efforts to strengthen the country’s strategic weapons programme.

✦ Its induction will put India in the elite of club of a few countries that have such a sophisticated ocean surveillance ship.

✦ It has the capacity to carry 300-strong crew with hi-tech gadgets and communication equipment, powered by two diesel engines, and a large deck capable of helicopter landing.

✦ The keel of the ship which was laid on June 30, 2014, is being built for the National Technical Research Organisation.

✦ This technical intelligence agency working directly under the supervision of the Prime Minister’s Office and the National Security Adviser.

✦ Hindustan Shipyard Limited (HSL) is gearing up to undertake sea trials of India’s first missile tracking ship by the first week of October.

✦ Visakhapatnam is considered a strategic location on the East Coast for the Indian defence forces as it is home for Ship Building Centre to build nuclear powered submarine INS Arihant class.

                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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12 special courts set up to try MPs, MLAs: Centre tells SC

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY  -  Salient features of the Representation of People’s Act

Context:

The Centre on Tuesday informed the Supreme Court that 12 special courts have been set up across 11 States exclusively to try sitting MPs and MLAs.

Background:

✦ The court on November 1 had directed the Centre to place before it details of 1,581 cases involving MPs and MLAs,

✦ This had to be as per the declaration by the politicians at the time of filing their nominations during the 2014 general elections

✦ The Supreme Court had on December 14, 2017 ordered that special courts be set up across the country to Fasttrack the long pending trials of lawmakers.

12 SPECIAL COURTS:

✦ Delhi has two such courts, while Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh have one each. Six are sessions courts and five are magisterial courts.

✦ The special court in each State would have jurisdiction over the entire State while the two in Delhi would cover cases within the precincts of Delhi or “partly Delhi”.

                                                                                                                                                     SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Dial a service [ EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - transparency & accountability & institutional & other measures

Delhi government’s scheme of home delivery of services

✦ Delhi government’s ambitious phone-a-sahayak scheme to get doorstep delivery of government services within a limited time frame is set to be an eye-catching exercise in urban-centric administration

✦ The scheme promises to offer 40 services at Rs 50 each and has roped in VFS, a global outsourcing agency, to execute it

Efficacy of the scheme

✦ The test of this new initiative will not be the range of services it offers

✦ It will depend on how efficiently it guides consumers past administrative red tapes, that often straitjacket such application procedures

Right to services act

✦ Recently, the Manipur government announced a single-window services centre in Imphal, to be operational from November, that will also include door-to-door delivery of government services

✦ In August 2010, Madhya Pradesh had become the first state in India to enact the Right to Service Act.

✦ Several other states enacted similar laws to ensure delivery of services to residents

✦ Most states, however, have failed to fully capitalise on the Right to Service Act’s potential, meeting with moderate to poor success rates

Way Forward

✦ In a country where policy-making has largely addressed itself to and focussed upon the rural electorate, the Delhi government’s endeavour indicates a recognition of the changing dynamics of new India, where urban migration is fast reworking the rules of engagement between the metropolitan and the rural

✦ The success of this new scheme could contribute to the still-evolving template of urban politics in a fast urbanising country

                                                                                                                         SOURCE:- THE INDIAN EXPRESS

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“Rail Sahyog” web portal

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY -  Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways, etc.



Context

The Minister of Railways and Coal has launched a web portal Rail Sahyog to provide a platform for the Corporates and PSUs to contribute to creation of amenities at/near Railway Stations through CSR funds.

Rail Sahyog Portal

✦ The portal has been envisaged as a platform for all including individuals as also private & public organisation to contribute towards CSR activities in association with Indian Railways.

✦ The companies desirous of contributing can show willingness on the portal by registering their requests which will be processed by Railway officials.

✦ This portal will provide an opportunity for Industry/ Companies/ Associations to collaborate with Railways. Individuals, Private companies have the freedom to execute projects in Railways.

✦ The main focus is on ensuring creation of good quality assets through this collaboration.

CSR Funded activities in Railways

✦ Construction of toilets in circulating areas of all stations with provision of low cost sanitary pad vending machine & incinerator in female toilets and contraceptives vending machine in male toilets and initial one year maintenance.

✦ Providing free Wi-Fi at stations through setting up Hotspots.

✦ Provision of Benches at station Platforms as facility for senior citizens/disabled.

✦ Bottle crushing machines at 2175 major stations for ensuring environmental sustainability.

✦ Dustbins at all stations for Swachh Bharat will help in preventing littering around.

✦ Separate dustbins for wet/dry waste need to be provided at circulating area of Station and Platforms.

                                                                                                                                                        SOURCE:- PIB

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Health Ministry issues a notification for bringing the HIV/AIDS Act, 2017 in force

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development & management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources

 

Context

✦  The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has issued a notification for bringing the HIV AIDS (Prevention and Control) Act, 2017 in force from 10th September, 2018.

✦  The Act safeguards the rights of people living with HIV and affected by HIV.

Provisions of the Act

✦  The provisions of the Act address HIV-related discrimination, strengthen the existing programme by bringing in legal accountability, and establish formal mechanisms for inquiring into complaints and redressing grievances.

✦  The Act lists various grounds on which discrimination against HIV positive persons and those living with them is prohibited.

✦  These include the denial, termination, discontinuation or unfair treatment with regard to:

      ○ employment

      ○ educational establishments

      ○ health care services

      ○ residing or renting property

      ○ standing for public or private office

      ○ provision of insurance

✦ The requirement for HIV testing as a pre-requisite for obtaining employment or accessing health care or education is also prohibited.

Other Provisions

✦ Every HIV infected or affected person below the age of 18 years has the right to reside in a shared household and enjoy the facilities of the household.

✦ The Act also prohibits any individual from publishing information or advocating feelings of hatred against HIV positive persons and those living with them.

✦ A person between the age of 12 to 18 years who has sufficient maturity in understanding and managing the affairs of his HIV or AIDS affected family shall be competent to act as a guardian of another sibling below 18 years of age.

✦ Every person in the care and custody of the state shall have right to HIV prevention, testing, treatment and counseling services.

                                                                                                                                                         SOURCE:- PIB

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11^th SEPTEMBER 2018 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS

SC Poser to judge on Babri Masjid case trial deadline

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.



Context:

✦ The Supreme Court on Monday asked additional sessions judge S.K. Yadav, who is hearing the Babri Masjid demolition cases against top BJP and Sangh Parivar leaders like L.K. Advani, Murli Manohar Joshi, Uma Bharti and “lakhs of unknown kar sevaks”.

        ○ To explain how he intends to complete the trial by April 2019, the deadline given by SC.

✦ The Supreme Court had on April 19, 2017, revived the criminal conspiracy charge against the top BJP leaders and transferred their case, languishing in the magistrate court at Rae Bareilly, to the additional sessions court (Ayodhya matters) in Lucknow.

✦ The sessions judge in Lucknow is now jointly trying the Rae Bareilly case with that against kar sevaks who destroyed the Babri Masjid on December 6, 1992 and unleashed violence. Both cases have been pending for the past 26 years.

✦ Besides the two year Deadline, the apex court had barred the transfer of the Sessions Judge until the entire trial was concluded.

        ○ The case was to be taken up on a Day today basis. Adjournment would be granted only if the Sessions Judge found it “impossible” to carry on the trial on a particular date.

✦ We want to know how the Additional District Judge is going to complete the trial within the time limit stated by this court,” a Bench of Justices Rohinton F. Nariman and Indu Malhotra recorded in its order.

✦ The Bench asked Judge Yadav to filed his report in a sealed cover. He has, in fact, approached the Supreme Court with an application against the recent Allahabad High Court order staying his promotion.

✦ The High Court stayed his promotion citing the Supreme Court order of April 2017. The Bench led by Justice Nariman issued notice to the Uttar Pradesh government on the application Filed by Justice yadav​
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Delhi launches doorstep delivery of govt. Services

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.



Context:

✦ Delhi government launched its ambitious project to deliver public services at the doorstep of residents.

More details about mobile “sahayak”:

✦ From driving licences to marriage certificates, Delhiites can now apply for 40 government documents to be delivered at their homes for a fee of Rs.50 per service.

✦ The applicant would have to call 1076 and fix an appaonitment with mobile Sahayak.

     ○ who will go to their home and help with filling forms, payment of fees and collection of documents.

✦ The mobile sahayak would then submit the documents at the government office concerned.

     ○ which would post the Certifates (or) licences once issued.

                                                                                                                                                        Source:- THE HINDU

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Tejas clears maiden Mid air refuelling trial

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Context:

The first ever mid air Refuelling of the indigenously developed Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) Tejas was successfully carried out.

More about News:

✦ India  placed in an elite group of countries(31 countries) which have developed the air to air Refuelling system for military aircraft.

✦ Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. and LCA’s designer and developer Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) gave the Thumbs up as an Air Force transport plane IL78 Refuelled the light fighter, as it Flew at a height of 20,000 feet over Gwalior.

✦ With this first trial, the aircraft gets much closer to the important battle ready Tag, called the FOC or the final Operational clearance.

✦ On September 4 and 6, a dry docking of the aerial refuelling probe with mother tanker was done,

                                                                                                                                                         Source:- THE HINDU

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Casting capers: Maneka sees animals in wrong role

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Mechanisms, laws, institutions & Bodies constituted for the protection & betterment of the vulnerable sections

 

✦ Union WCD Minister has concerned the Animal Welfare Board of India (AWBI) for being lax in enforcement of rules that specify how wild animals can be depicted in films and television programmes.

✦ The Minister listed “blatant errors” by the AWBI subcommittee that screens applications from film-makers.

Preventing Cruelty to Animals

✦ It was alleged that the committee did not seek details of the species being used, which were required to determine whether they were protected.

✦ It had even allowed their depiction in scenes that could promote cruelty to animals.

✦ The letter cites an instance of approval given for a scene showing animal sacrifice, which is against the Supreme Court’s orders.

Depiction of Animals

✦ While tigers, monkeys, lions, bears, panthers (including leopards) are banned from being exhibited under Section 22 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act, the government body has allowed their use on several occasions.

✦ All Indian snakes and birds except the crow are protected under the Wildlife Protection Act and any certification for performance or exhibition is only possible after permission from the Chief Wildlife Warden of the relevant State.

                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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The problems with India’s land market distortions [editorial / opinion ]

Gs paper - 03 agriculture - Land reforms in India

Land misallocation and scarcity

✦ India is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, but its growth potential has been compromised by resource misallocation, especially when it comes to land

✦ India is one of the most land-scarce countries in the world

✦ The demand for land has accelerated with the increase in the pace of industrialization and urbanization

Effect of land distortion

✦ Firms use three factors of production—labour, land and capital—to produce output

✦ Conventional wisdom has focused on the labour market as being the most distorted in India

✦ Distortions in land markets are much bigger than those in labour markets

✦ An increase in the misallocation of all factors is associated with a huge decrease in output per worker in the manufacturing sector

✦ Most of this decline originates from the misallocation of land and buildings

✦ Distorted land markets are a breeding ground for crony capitalism and political subsidies

Inteconnection between land and capital allocation

✦ Land misallocation does have repercussions on capital allocation through financial markets

✦ How? Most bank loans require some form of collateral to guarantee the loan

✦ The land is simply the best form of collateral due to its immobility (i.e. the debtor can’t run off with land)

Increasing land revenue

✦ In most municipal corporations in India, property tax contributes less than 20% of municipal revenue

✦ In most major cities, nearly 50% of the properties do not pay any tax

✦ There are bigger growth benefits that can be derived from shifting the policy focus from reducing land “regulatory tax” to increasing land revenue tax

✦ It is estimated that non-linear and progressive property and land taxes could almost quadruple revenue to 1% of gross domestic product (GDP) from currently 0.15–0.2%

✦ This will enable more efficient firms to grow faster and increase the budgetary revenue to maximize finance for development, and additional revenues needed for investments in infrastructure, urbanization, housing, and social programmes

Way Forward

✦ India is one of the most unequal countries in the world. The richest 1% in India own 53% of wealth compared to the richest 1% in the US who own 37.3% of the wealth

✦ Reducing land market distortions is a key step towards making growth more inclusive and achieving double-digit growth

                                                                                                                                              Source:- Live Mint

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Solutions beyond farm loan waivers [EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 03 AGRICULTURE - Issues related to direct & indirect farm subsidies & minimum support prices

Context:

✦ A new research commissioned by Tata Trusts and Copenhagen Consensus for the India Consensus project  shows that loan waivers are extremely expensive while having a limited impact

✦ Other policies could help many more farmers for every rupee spent

Status of loan availability to farmers

✦ Only 15% of the marginal farmers (with less than 2 hectares of landholding) have access to formal credit

✦ Loan waiver schemes typically cater to farmers who have availed of formal loans

✦ Previous waivers have led to banks reducing credit outlay for small farmers during their next loan cycle, thereby diminishing their chances of getting formal loans

✦ With the small farmers receiving less money from banks, this incremental loan is actually made available for the big farmers who use it to buy farm equipment such as tractors and combine harvesters

✦ Loan waivers actually do harm to the small farmers, as with less credit outlay from the formal sector, the small farmers increasingly have to depend upon the informal sector

Usage of loan waiver amount

✦ Studies also point out small farmers use money saved from loan waiver for consumption activities and not to augment investment to increase agricultural productivity

✦ This results in lower agricultural produce for small farmers during next loan cycles

Alternate interventions to reduce loan waivers

The government can spend money on

Building more canals and warehouses

      ✦ It makes economic sense to build more warehouses and storage facilities

      ✦ This will reduce waste of perishable fruits, vegetables and milk that command a higher market price than staple crops

      ✦ Nearly 20% of India’s fresh produce is wasted because of storage problems

      ✦ Most small farmers do not risk growing perishable crops and because of the lack of adequate storage facilities, often sell their output forward to the village-level aggregators (arthiya) from whom they typically

take loans for growing crops at a higher rate

On rural electrification

     ✦ This will help farmers with more equipment and irrigation facilities

To operate more e-markets

     ✦ Regulated markets have problems associated with lower market size, lack of price discovery because of buyer cartelization, and lack of information related to product standards

    ✦ The research suggests that e-markets could result in better prices

    ✦ Farmers would realize better prices with reduced information asymmetry and direct market access

Way Forward

    ✦ Last year’s farmer protests highlighted the extent of India’s nationwide agrarian distress

    ✦ Farmer distress requires a serious response

    ✦ The government should spend each additional rupee to alleviate farm distress in a way where the impact is more, with a higher benefit-to-cost ratio

                                                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- LIVE MINT

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Modernizing land records in India [ EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 03 AGRICULTURE - Land reforms in India

Context:

    ✦ A land title is a document that helps determine land ownership

    ✦ The Digital India Land Records Modernisation Programme (DILRMP)—the erstwhile National Land Records Modernisation Programme—seeks to improve the quality of land records in the country, make them more accessible, and move towards government-guaranteed titles

    ✦ This will be achieved through complete computerization of the property registration process and digitization of all land records

    ✦ The scheme completed a decade in operation in August this year

Land ownership still not clear

    ✦ The scheme so far has looked at the digitization of land records only

    ✦ It has not addressed issues around land ownership

    ✦ It is well known that land records in India are unclear and do not guarantee ownership

Reasons for non-availability of ownership data

In India, we have a system of registered sale deeds and not land titles

    ✦ The Transfer of Property Act, 1882, provides that the right to an immovable property (or land) can be transferred or sold only by a registered document

    ✦ These documents are registered under the Registration Act, 1908. Therefore, the transaction gets registered, and not the land title

    ✦ This implies that even bona fide property transactions may not always guarantee ownership, as earlier transactions could be challenged

Land ownership is established through multiple documents maintained by different departments, making it cumbersome to access them

    ✦ For example, sale deeds are stored in the registration department, maps are stored in the survey department, and property tax receipts are with the revenue department

    ✦ These departments work in silos and do not update the data in a timely manner, which results in discrepancies

    ✦ One has to go back to several years of documentation to find any ownership claims on a piece of property, which causes delays

The cost of registering property is high and, hence, people avoid registering transactions

   ✦ While registering a sale deed, the buyer has to pay a stamp duty along with the registration fee

   ✦ In India, stamp duty rates across states vary between 4% and 10%, compared to 1% and 4% in other countries

   ✦ The registration fee is an additional 0.5% to 2%, on an average

Under the Registration Act, 1908, registration of property is not mandatory for transactions such as the acquisition of land by the government, property leased for less than one year, and heirship partitions

   ✦ Due to this several property divisions are not recorded and, hence, do not correctly reflect the ownership of the property

   ✦ This often leads to litigation related to rightful ownership

What do unclear land titles lead to?

   ✦ In rural areas, small and marginal farmers, who may not hold formal land titles, are unable to access institutionalized credit

   ✦ In urban areas, disputed land titles lead to lack of transparency in real estate transactions

   ✦ Any infrastructure created on land that is not encumbrance-free can be potentially challenged in the future, making such investments risky

Need of clear land titles

   ✦ Under the Smart Cities and AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation ) missions, cities are trying to raise their own revenue through property taxes and land-based financing

   ✦ This necessitates the importance of providing a system of clear land titles

Proposed measures

   ✦ Conclusive titling has been proposed to address issues with unclear land titles

   ✦ In this system, the government provides guaranteed titles and compensation in case of any ownership disputes

   ✦ This will require several changes in existing laws that govern registration and transfer of land

   ✦ A system of registered property titles will have to be developed as the primary evidence of ownership

   ✦ All existing land records will have to be updated to ensure that they are free of any encumbrance

   ✦ Information on land records, which is currently spread across multiple departments, will have to be consolidated

Way Forward

   ✦ Unclear land titles impede development on several fronts

   ✦ The DILRMP aims to move towards conclusive titling but various other issues need to addressed in order to achieve that

                                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- LIVE MINT

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INDO-MONGOLIA joint exercise Nomadic Elephant-2018

GS PAPER - 03 INTERNAL SECURITY - Various Security forces & agencies & their mandate

   ✦ Indo-Mongolia joint exercise Nomadic Elephant-2018 has commenced at Mongolian Armed Forces (MAF) Five Hills Training Area, Ullanbaatar.

   ✦ The 12 days long joint exercise is an annual, bilateral exercise since 2006 which is designed to strengthen the partnership between Indian Army and Mongolian Armed Forces.

   ✦ The exercise will see them improve their tactical and technical skills in joint counter insurgency and counter terrorist operations in rural and urban scenario under United Nations mandate.

Details of the Exercise

  ✦ The Indian contingent is represented by a contingent of 17 PUNJAB Regiment while the Mongolian contingent is represented by Unit 084 of the Mongolian Armed Forces.

  ✦ During the exercise both sides will jointly train, plan and execute a series of well developed tactical drills for neutralisation of likely threats that may be encountered in urban warfare scenario.

  ✦ Experts from both sides will also hold detailed discussions to share their experience on varied topics for mutual benefits.

  ✦ The exercise will contribute immensely in developing mutual understanding & respect for each others military and also facilitate in tackling the world wide phenomenon of terrorism.

                                                                                                                                                           SOURCE:- PIB

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10^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

T.N. recommends release of all seven Rajiv case convicts

GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.



Context:

✦ A meeting of the Tamil Nadu Cabinet, chaired by Chief Minister Edappadi K. Palaniswami, on Sunday evening recommended to Governor Banwarilal Purohit that all seven life convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case be released under Article 161 of the Constitution.

✦ The decision followed the Supreme Court’s observation last week that the Governor shall be at liberty to decide on the remission application of Perarivalan, one of the convicts, “as deemed fit.”

✦ Article 161 empowers the Governor to grant pardons and to suspend, remit or commute sentences of any person convicted of any offence against any law relating to a matter to which the executive power of the State extends.

✦ To a question on the contention that the State government could not decide on a case investigated by a Central government agency, the Minister said, “Whatever it may be, law is only interpreted by the authority concerned — the Supreme Court, the highest in hierarchy. The Supreme Court’s direction is clear.”

A-G’s advice

✦ The Tamil Nadu Cabinet’s decision to recommend the release of the seven life convicts in the former Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi assassination case, was taken on the strength of Advocate General Vijay Narayan’s opinion that the Governor had “unfettered power” under Article 161 of the Constitution to decide on their release.

✦ Narayan is learnt to have given the opinion that the Governor could take an independent view of the matter, notwithstanding the Centre’s rejection of the earlier proposal of the Tamil Nadu government to release the convicts.

✦ Article 161 deals with the power of the Governor to grant pardons and to suspend, remit or commute sentences in certain cases.

✦ Sources in the government said the Advocate General’s opinion was sought to help the State Cabinet take a decision.

Home Ministry stand

✦ In April 2018, a Presidential order issued through the Ministry of Home Affairs turned down the State government’s proposal, mooted in February 2014 and March 2016, to release the convicts.

✦ Earlier, in December 2015 in Union of India v/s V. Sriharan @ Murugan & Others, the court had held that “the expression “consultation” ought to be read as concurrence and primacy must be accorded to the opinion of the Central Government in matters covered under clauses (a), (b) and (c) of Section 435(1) of the Cr.P.C [concerning State government having to act after consultation with the Centre in certain cases, as provided under Code of Criminal Procedure].”

✦ In the light of these two positions, the A-G dealt broadly with two questions — whether the State government could make a recommendation to the Governor to release the convicts, citing Article 161, and whether what is relevant to Perarivalan (in the backdrop of the court’s latest order) was applicable to the other six convicts, whose applications are pending.

✦ On whether the Governor, a Central government appointee, could go against the stand of the Centre in this issue, Mr. Jayakumar reiterated, “Governor has to accept the decision taken at the Cabinet meeting.”

                                                                                                                                                 SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Heritage tag for 2 irrigation facilities in Telangana

GS PAPER - 03 AGRICULTURE -  Different types of irrigation & irrigation systems storage

Context

The International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) has accepted Telangana’s nomination of Sadarmatt anicut across river Godavari in Nirmal district and Pedda Cheruvu in Kamareddy district in the ICID Register of Heritage Irrigation Structures (HIS).

Sadarmatt anicut

✦ The HIS award is a deserving recognition to this irrigation facility which has provided precious water for paddy crops in its designed ayacut of 13,100 acres since its construction in 1891-92.

✦ It has also served as a picnic spot for people from an area which may not be as vast its catchment area of nearly 40,000 sq miles but is spread over old undivided Adilabad, Karimnagar and Nizamabad districts.

✦ The anicut, which is English word for Telugu’s ana-katta, meaning a rainfall bund, was built by Nawab Ikbal-ud-Dowla who bore the tile of Vicar-ul-Umrah Bahadur in 1891-92 about 50 km downstream of the Sri Ram Sagar Project (SRSP).

✦ Ottley was the engineer and Khanapur was a jagir of the Nawabs during the rule of the Nizam of Hyderabad.

✦ Sadarmatt bund is 437.4 m long on its left flank and 23.8 m on its right flank.

✦ The left canal is 21.5 km long while the right canal is 10 km and the distributory is 12 km in length irrigating 5,700 acres, 3,400 acres and 4,000 acres respectively.

Pedda Cheruvu

✦ The Pedda Cheruvu (big tank in Telugu) located on the outskirts of this district headquarters town is spread over an area of 618 acres.

✦ It was built in 1897 during the rule of Mir Mahaboob Ali Khan, the sixth Nizam of Hyderabad State.

✦ It has a 1.8-km-long tank bund and 145-metre weir and three sluices. It’s catchment area is spread over 68.97 sq. km.

✦ With a capacity of 0.175 tmcft it provides water for irrigation to over 900 acres in Kamareddy, Sarampally, Narsampally and old Rajampet.

✦ It also provides drinking water for residents of the area.

✦ Womenfolk play Bathukamma during the Navaratrotsavalu on its bund and immerse them in its waters.

✦ This tank was taken up under the second round of Mission Kakatiya to be developed as a mini tank bund with an estimated outlay of Rs 6.6 crore.

 

International Commission on Irrigation and Drainage (ICID) ✦ The ICID is a Technical and Voluntary Not-for-profit, International NGO, dedicated to enhance the world-wide supply of food and fibre for all people by improving water and land management, and the productivity of irrigated and drained lands. ✦ The ICID By-laws have been enacted its International Executive Council for the due implementation of the provisions of the Constitution of the Commission. ✦ It is headquartered in New Delhi. ✦ ICID has been involved in the global discussions leading to Agenda 21, World Water Vision, World Water Forums etc., which have become the focal point of several of its technical activities. ✦ In recognition of its significant contribution to the programs and objectives of International Year of Peace proclaimed by the UN General Assembly, on 15 September 1987 ICID was designated as a Peace Messenger by the UN Secretary General.

                                                                                                                                                SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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‘Pondicherry shark’ spotted near Kakinada

GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment Disaster and disaster management.

Context:

✦ Field biologists from the EGREE Foundation have spotted ‘Pondicherry shark’, an endangered species protected under the provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, near the Kumbhabhishekam landing point in the city.

✦ This is for the third time they are spotted in the East Godavari River Estuarine Ecosystem region after 2007 and 2016.

✦ Scientifically known as Carcharhinus hemiodon, it belongs to the Carcharhinidae family with a growth of 3.3 feet.

✦ Known as ‘Pala Sora’ in the local parlance, the Pondicherry Shark is on the verge of extinction even according to the conventional fishermen.

Steps taken for Conservation:

✦ Divisional Forest Officer (Wildlife), also the additional CEO of the EGREE Foundation, says the department in association with the foundation is working with the fishing communities and various line departments in bringing down the trade in such species.

✦ Conservation of such species is only possible through community mobilisation and stewardship

                                                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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U.P. Bill to restore anticipatory bail clause referred to President

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Important aspects of governance

Context:

✦ Uttar Pradesh Governor has referred a bill to restore anticipatory bail clause for presidential assent.

    ○ Provision of Anticipatory Bail was repealed in UP during 1976 emergency.

    ○ Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand are the only two states in India with no Anticipatory Bail provision.

About Anticipatory  bail

✦ A provision under section 438 of Criminal procedure code.

✦ A person can seek bail in expectation o being named or accused for a non-bailable offence.

✦ Safeguard against false accusation.

✦ Person must approach court citing section 438 of CrPC to get bail.

Anticipatory Bail in UP: A Timeline

✦ 1976: Revoked during emergency by then UP CM to rein in protest against the government.

✦ 2009: State law commission made a recommendation for reintroduction of a modified bill.

✦ 2010: Passed by assembly and sent for president’s assent; Put on hold by centre.

About the Amendment Bill

✦ Name of the Amendment Bill: Code of Criminal Procedure (Uttar Pradesh Amendment) Bill, 2018.

      ○ Since this bill proposes amendments for the state in Section 438 of CrPC it was mandatory to be sent to president for his assent.

Salient Features

Unlike the Section 438 of CrPC which gave court discretion to impose certain condition for granting bail this amendment bill has made certain riders mandatory which includes:

✦ Accused should be present for interrogation whenever required by police.

✦ Accused cannot threaten anyone involved with the case and cannot leave country.

✦ Not necessary for the accused to be present for court hearing.

✦ There will be no Anticipatory Bail in cases where punishment is death sentence and also cases under gangster’s act.

✦ Court will have to decide on Anticipatory Bail within 30 days of filling of such application.

                                                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Cloudy forecast: on climate change [ EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER -  01 GEOGRAPHY - changes in critical geographical features (including waterbodies & ice-caps) & in flora & fauna & the effects of such changes

Recent UNFCCC review meeting

The conference of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change in Bangkok last week ran into predictable difficulties over the issue of raising funds to help poorer nations

✦ This conference was aimed at drafting a rulebook for the Paris Agreement ahead of a crucial international conference in Poland in December

✦ Some developed countries led by the U.S. — which, under the Trump administration, has rejected the agreement — are unwilling to commit to sound rules on raising climate finance

Paris summit commitments

✦ Under the pact concluded in Paris, rich countries pledged to raise $100 billion a year by 2020

✦ This was to help developing countries reduce their greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and aid populations to cope with extreme events such as floods, droughts and storms

Developed nations refusing responsibility

✦ By trying to stall climate justice to millions of poor people in vulnerable countries, the developed nations are refusing to accept their responsibility for historical emissions of GHGs

✦ Those emissions raised living standards for their citizens but contributed heavily to the accumulated carbon dioxide burden, now measured at about 410 parts per million of CO2 in the atmosphere, up from 280 ppm before the industrial revolution

Impact of climate change

✦ If scientific estimates are correct, the damage already done to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is set to raise sea levels

✦ A 2° Celsius rise will also destabilise the Greenland Ice Sheet

✦ Failed agriculture in populous countries will drive more mass migrations of people, creating conflict

Role of India, China & other developing nations

✦ China and India have committed themselves to a cleaner growth path

✦ India, which reported annual CO2 equivalent emissions of 2.136 billion tonnes in 2010 to the UNFCCC two years ago, estimates that the GHG emissions intensity of its GDP has declined by 12% for the 2005-2010 period

✦ China and India have the responsibility for climate leadership in the developing world and have to green their growth

Way Forward

✦ Obstructing the transition to a carbon-neutral pathway and preserving the status quo is short-sighted, simply because the losses caused by weather events are proving severely detrimental to all economies

✦ Developing countries need a supportive framework in the form of a rulebook that binds the developed countries to their funding pledges, provides support for capacity building and transfer of green technologies on liberal terms

✦ This is the time for the world’s leaders to demonstrate that they are ready to go beyond expediency and take the actions needed to avert long-term catastrophe

                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Why not Dalit? [EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - mechanisms, laws, institutions and Bodies constituted for the protection and betterment of these vulnerable sections.

Context:

The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting has told the media to “refrain from using the nomenclature Dalit” and, instead, use only the Constitutional term, ‘Scheduled Caste’.

Issue:

✦ Dalit rights groups have opposed the I&B ministry’s order, asserting that the term holds political significance and a sense of identity.

✦ It is opined that the advisory must be withdrawn as there is no reason to tell the media how to do their job, even if it is phrased in the form of voluntary advice.

Background:

✦ The debate over the appropriateness of using the term ‘Dalit’ to refer to members of the Scheduled Castes is far from new.

✦ A decade ago, the National Commission for Scheduled Castes disfavoured the use of ‘Dalit’, which it felt was unconstitutional.

✦ This is because belonging to a ‘Scheduled Caste’ is a legal status conferred on members of castes named in a list notified by the President under Article 341 of the Constitution. And arguably must be used in official documents and communications.

Evolution of the term ‘Dalit’:

✦ The term ‘Dalit’ has evolved over a period of time and has come to symbolise different things in different contexts — self-respect, assertion, solidarity and opposition to caste oppression.

✦ In the past, Dalits were referred to as ‘untouchables’, but the official term during British rule was ‘depressed classes’.

✦ Mahatma Gandhi sought to remove the stigma of ‘pollution’ by using the term ‘Harijans’, or ‘children of god’. In course of time, the community rejected this title as patronising and hypocritical.

✦ It was only some decades ago that they began to refer to themselves as Dalits.

✦ ‘Dalit’ literally means ‘downtrodden’ or ‘broken’, but it is a word suggestive with meaning, reflecting the struggle of a community to reassert its identity and lay claim to the rights that were denied to them for centuries.

✦ The term Dalit, was used by Jyotiba Phule, Swami Shraddhananda, Gandhi, and Ambedkar.

✦  In fact, the seven-judge Bench of the Supreme Court in S.P. Gupta v. President of India (1981) had observed that society is “pulsating with urges of gender justice, worker justice, minorities justice, Dalit justice and equal justice between chronic un-equals.” In using the term “Dalit justice”, the Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court validated the use of the term Dalit.

Details:

✦ Though the advisory has been issued in compliance with a direction from the Nagpur Bench of the Bombay High Court. The advisory from the Union Information and Broadcasting Ministry is unnecessary, intrusive and issued with little application of the mind.

✦ The reading of the court’s order shows it only wanted the Centre “to consider the question of issuing such direction to the media and take a suitable decision upon it”.

✦ The I&B Ministry’s advisory is confusing as it uses the words “for all official transactions, matters”, though the media’s references to the community are usually beyond official contexts.

✦ Union Minister of State for Social Justice Ramdas Athawale, who has been associated with the Dalit Panther movement in Maharashtra which popularised the use of the term as a political identity, said the word ‘Dalit’ “denotes a sense of pride”.

Conclusion:

✦ Arguably, ‘Scheduled Caste’ is the appropriate way to refer to this class of people in official communications and documents. However, it is strange to oppose the use of the term ‘Dalit’ in the media and in non-official contexts — a nomenclature chosen and used by the community itself. Doing so lends itself to the charge that there is an attempt to deny the powerful and emotive meaning of the word Dalit. ‘Dalit’ must be recognised as an expression of self-empowerment. In the absence of a better word, Dalit has been the preferred word in the movements for justice for Dalits till now.

                                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Why India should let the Rupee fall [ EDITORIAL / OPINION ]

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Effects of liberalization on the economy

Falling value of the rupee

✦ The Indian rupee has been sliding against the U.S. dollar in recent days as emerging markets come under pressure

✦ That’s made the currency one of Asia’s worst performers, losing 12 percent this year

Effects of falling value on economy

✦ Currency depreciation will have an impact on corporate balance sheets

✦ India’s currency-derivative markets, with many restrictions and limited liquidity, make hedging quite expensive, so these companies are now exposed

✦ India imports about 80 percent of its petroleum needs, a factor only complicated by the country’s exorbitant domestic taxes on fuel — almost 100 percent on gasoline and 60 percent to 70 percent on diesel

✦ This means that when the rupee depreciates, the exchange-rate pass through to fuel prices and, as a result, the rest of the economy, is high

Steps that RBI can take

✦ The central bank has more than $400 billion in reserves at its disposal and it could intervene in foreign-exchange markets by selling dollars

✦ It could raise interest rates, a move justified by the currency weakness, higher oil prices and the latest above-target inflation data

✦ It can also raise dollars by borrowing from non-resident Indians

Previous measures and their impacts

✦ The RBI has used these instruments in the past but rupee fared worse than all other emerging-market currencies

✦ Currency and derivatives markets, money and credit markets, and high costs of borrowing all hurt the economy in subsequent months

A new way to manage the exchange rate

✦ RBI has continued to manage the rupee carefully

✦ This was achieved by reducing the size of the rupee-dollar derivatives market, which made its intervention more effective and then buying rupees forward

✦ By doing this, while the real exchange rate of the rupee appreciated, the currency didn’t weaken in line with India’s higher inflation

How is rupee depreciation beneficial?

✦ A weaker currency helps export growth, which has been weak in recent years

✦ A weaker rupee would also offset competition of cheap imports from countries like China, which could give domestic industries a much-needed boost

                                                                                                                                  SOURCE:- THE INDIAN EXPRESS

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9^th September 2018 Daily Current Affairs

25% of all accidental deaths in India are weather-related

GS PAPER - 01 GEOGRAPHY - geographical features and their location- changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.



Context:

✦ Weather-related deaths are on the rise globally and figures in India stand at a staggering 25%, noted a study conducted across the country from 2001-2014 by research-based organisation Population Council

✦  From 2001-2014, 25% of all accidental deaths in India due to unnatural causes happened as a result of extreme weather events

     ○ it said, adding that men and the elderly were at maximum risk.

Details

✦ The current study assessed the magnitude of loss of human lives due to extreme weather events and examined the region, State and the demographics most affected

✦ From 2001-2014, 25% of all accidental deaths in India due to unnatural causes happened as a result of extreme weather events adding that men and the elderly were at maximum risk.

✦ Most deaths reported were due to lightning (40%), followed by extreme precipitation (24%), heatwave (20%) and cold wave (15%).

✦ The study also found that a higher number of males died due to extreme weather events than females across all years and regions in the country.

✦ A higher proportion of individuals who were 60 years or older died due to cold (47%) and heat (42%) waves than those in the younger age groups.

     ○ In fact, four-fifths of the deaths due to cold and heatwaves were among individuals aged 44 years or older

Regions Affected

The burden of deaths was the highest in central India, and Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and West Bengal were affected the most by extreme weather events.

Concerns

✦ Loss of human lives due to extreme weather events can have an impact on both macro and micro levels.

✦ At the micro level, the death of an individual can bring mental distress to the family and the loved ones.

       ○ Moreover, the death of an income-generating individual can have more serious consequences as it can throw a household into the poverty trap.

✦ At the macro level, the demographic structure can change if deaths from a particular age or sex are more frequent

Challenges

In India, these extreme events each year are a challenge for governments and policymakers due to the extent of damage, diversity and distribution of extreme events, and size of the population affected.

                                                                                                                                                               SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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India awaits longest road-rail bridge — the Bogibeel Bridge

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

Context:

✦ It is a combined road and rail bridge over the Brahmaputra River in Assam between Dhemaji district and Dibrugarh district.

✦ Upon its expected completion at the end of 2018 the 4.94 km bridge, work on which was started in 2002, wpule be the longest rail-cum-road bridge in India.

✦ Bogibeel is the fourth rail-road bridge on the Brahmaputra River in Assam.

✦ Bogibeel Bridge connects the North and South banks of river Brahmaputra and is situated in the eastern region of Arunachal Pradesh and Assam.

✦ The foundation stone for Bogibeel Bridge was laid down by former PM Atal Bihari Vajpayee in 2002.

✦ Built at an estimated cost of Rs 4857 crore, the Bogibeel bridge is the second longest in Asia.

Construction

The bridge, which has been made making use of techniques from Sweden and Denmark, is much lighter when compared to bridges with riveted girders. The design too is similar to a bridge that connects Sweden and Denmark.

Significance

✦ Due to its location, the bridge will be of strategic importance to India as it will significantly enhance India’s ability to transport troops and supplies to its border with Tibet in Arunachal Pradesh

✦ The bridge is located just over 20 km away from the Assam- Arunachal Pradesh border and is thus expected to act as an alternative to the Kolia Bhomora Setu, Tezpur in providing connectivity to nearly five million people residing in Upper Assam and Arunachal Pradesh.

✦ Bogibeel bridge will save a lot of time both in terms of road and rail travel

     ○ As of now a train journey from Arunachal Pradesh to Assam’s Dibrugarh means a detour of 500 kilometres via Guwahati. But, with the Bogibeel bridge, the train journey will be less than 100 kilometres

                                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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NITI Aayog clears nutritional norms

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Context:

✦ The NITI Aayog has approved the supplementary nutrition guidelines, prepared by the Ministry for Women and Child Development, bypassing Minister for Women and Child Development Maneka Gandhi following intervention by the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO)

✦ The PMO had stepped in to end a more than yearlong stand-off between Ms. Gandhi and the Ministry’s officials in the wake of sharp differences over the proposed norms.

Concerns

✦ The debate continues to haunt the government about the mode of implementation.

✦ The Govt currently lacks the data about the quality of food with the different kinds of models that exist

✦ There is no data systems about the quality of food, how people use it, and what people think about it

Conclusion

Lot of assumptions are being made within all quarters, but what we need to do is to look at what is actually happening on the ground.

                                                                                                                                                            SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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Nepal to skip BIMSTEC military drill in India

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Important International institutions, agencies and fora- their structure, mandate.

Context:

✦ The Nepal Army has withdrawn from the first BIMSTEC military exercise to be held in India following a political row in the country over the participation in the event

✦ Prime Minister K.P. Oli asked the national defence force not to participate in the drill, compelling the Nepal Army leadership to rollback its earlier decision to take part in the first-ever military exercise of the regional grouping initiated by India.

       ○ The decision was taken just a day before the Army squad was set to travel to Pune, where the drill will commence on Monday, the Kathmandu Post reported.The Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral ✦ Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) comprises Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal.

 

BIMSTEC ✦ BIMSTEC stands for Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation. ✦ It is an international organisation involving a group of countries in South Asia and South East Asia. ✦ 7 members :    ○ Bangladesh    ○ India    ○ Myanmar    ○ Sri Lanka    ○ Thailand    ○ Bhutan    ○ Nepal ✦Established in 1997 in Bangkok ✦ Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, and Thailand were founding members ✦ HQ : Dhaka, Bangladesh ✦ The main objective of BIMSTEC is technological and economic cooperation among south Asian and south east Asian countries along the coast of the bay of Bengal . Commerce, investment, technology, tourism, human resource development, agriculture, fisheries, transport and communication, textiles, leather etc. have been included in it ✦ BIMSTEC uses the alphabetical order for the Chairmanship

                                                                                                                                              SOURCE:- THE HINDU

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For a world free of chemical weapons

GS PAPER - 02 INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - Bilateral, regional & global groupings & agreements involving India &/or affecting India’s interests

Chemical weapons convention

✦ The Chemical Weapons Convention Act was enacted in 2000 to give effect to the Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction

✦ In 2010, the Act was amended to widen the scope of Section 9 to give the Centre power to appoint any of its own officers, other than those of the National Authority, as enforcement officers

✦ The convention was signed by the government on January 14, 1993

Definition of chemical weapons

✦ The Act defines chemical weapons as toxic chemicals, including munitions and devices, specifically designed to cause death or other harm

✦ The definition includes in its ambit “any equipment” specifically designed for employing chemical weapons

Provisions of the act

✦ The Act defines chemical weapons and empowers the Cen