PERIYAR IAS CURRENT AFFAIRS 26-FEBRUARY-2018
Paper
2:
Topic: Government policies and
interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of
their design and implementation.
Highway
liquor ban
Context: The Supreme Court has
given the State governments the discretion to decide, on facts, whether areas
covered by local self-governing bodies or areas proximate to municipal pockets
should be exempted from the court’s nationwide prohibition on sale of liquor
within 500 metres along the highways.
What
is the ban all about?
In 2016, the Supreme Court
passed an order banning the sale of alcohol along national and state highways,
ordering the cancellation of liquor licences issued to shops by April 1, 2017.
The order states that no liquor
stores should be even visible from highways, or located within a distance of
500 metres of the highways, or be directly accessible from a national or state
highway. The order has been subsequently modified to exempt establishments
within 220 metres of the highways for smaller towns and municipalities with a
population of less than 20,000 people.
Significance
of this ban:
The order reaffirms a policy
decision of the union government that goes back more than 10 years. In 2004,
the National Road Safety Council (NRSC) unanimously agreed that licences for
liquor shops should not to be given along the national highways, and the
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) has “consistently” advised
state governments not to issue fresh licences and remove liquor shops from
national highways.
Why
the ban?
§ The order is aimed at tackling
the rising menace of drunk driving as well as improving road safety conditions
in India. The court cited “alarming” statistics showing drunk driving-related
accidents and deaths, and said the order is in “overwhelming public interest.”
§ Citing data from the Union
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, the Supreme Court noted that in 2015,
intake of alcohol or drugs by drivers resulted in 16,298 road accidents (4.2%
of total accidents) and 6,755 fatalities (6.4% of total accidents) where
drivers were at fault.
§ The court also said data
showing low incidence of drunk driving often tends to be skewed and
“under-reported” as a cause of accidents, as that can affect the claims of
victims or their heirs to accident compensation.
Concerns:
The Supreme Court order banning
establishments selling alcohol along all state and national highways is a
classic case of good intentions missing the mark. The apex court directive is
certainly well meant. It stems from the desire to curb drunken driving that
kills thousands of people each year on our highways. But a blanket ban on all
liquor outlets is a sweeping and radical measure, throwing out the baby with
the bath water. While the move’s impact on drunken driving is likely to be
marginal, the ban puts thousands of valid businesses employing lakhs of people
at risk.
What’s
important?
For Prelims and Mains: Need for
liquor ban- implications and challenges.
Sources: the hindu.
Topic: Issues relating to
development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health,
Education, Human Resources.
Shram
Awards
Context: 338 Workers will be
Conferred with Prime Minister Shram Awards. The awards are given in recognition
of their distinguished performances, innovative abilities, outstanding
contribution in the field of productivity and exhibition of exceptional courage
and presence of mind.
About
Shram Awards:
The Prime Minister’s Shram
Awards were instituted in 1985 by the Government of India. This national award
is conferred on workers for outstanding contributions that improve
productivity, innovation, and indigenization, resulting in saving foreign
exchange. The award is also given for long-term exceptional dedicated work.
The objective of the Prime
Ministers Shram Awards is to recognize the outstanding contributions made by
workmen as defined in the Industrial Dispute Act, 1947 in organizations both in
public and private sector and who have distinguished record of performance,
devotion to duty of a high order, specific contribution in the field of
productivity and proven innovative abilities among others.
There
are four types of awards:
§ Shram Ratna: Rs. Two lakhs and
recognition of their contribution to their field (a Sanad).
§ Shram Bhushan: RS. 100000 and a
Sanad.
§ Shram Vir / Shram Veerangana:
RS. 60000 and a Sanad.
§ Shram Devi / Shram Shree: RS.
40000 and a Sanad.
What’s
important?
For Prelims: Shram awards.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Important International
institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
20th
Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers
Context: 20th Conference of
Commonwealth Education Ministers is being held at
Fiji.
The Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers is a high-level meeting that
brings together education Ministers from the 52 Commonwealth countries to
discuss key issues on education.
Theme: The theme for 20CCEM
is Sustainability and Resilience: Can
Education Deliver? It includes three subthemes:
§ Education for sustainable
development: Education as a key enabler for sustainable development-
skills development and transitioning youth to decent work.
§ Building resilience through
education: Climate change and the curriculum – displacement and migration due
to climate change and the challenges faced by small and atoll islands
(including the role of education, traditional knowledge and local culture in building
climate resilience).
§ Education governance &
management: Strengthening the teaching profession and school management –
issues of quality and equity; financing of education; societal barriers
(including drug abuse and internet/social media); and advocacy for education
strategies across the SDGs.
Key
facts for Prelims:
§ The Commonwealth education
conference has been taking place every three years since 1959, when the
first meeting was held in Oxford.
§ It is the
second largest meeting organised by the Commonwealth Secretariat after the Commonwealth
Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM).
§ 2018 conference will be the
first Conference of Commonwealth Education Ministers (CCEM) since the global
community adopted the 2030 agenda for sustainable development.
§ The meeting will give education
ministers the opportunity to agree on effective strategies to help individual
countries achieve Sustainable Development
Goal (SDG) 4 – inclusive and quality education for all.
§ Kenya
has formally undertaken to host the 21st Commonwealth Conference of Education Ministers in
2021. Bahamas hosted the 19th Conference.
What’s
important?
§ For Prelims: Commonwealth
conference of education ministers, SDG 4, location of Fiji and 21st
§ For Mains: Need for
international cooperation in the field of education.
Sources: pib.
Topic: India and its neighbourhood-
relations.
Milan
2018
Context: Andaman & Nicobar
Command will host the multinational mega event MILAN 2018.
Theme: ‘Friendship Across the
Seas’.
What
is it? MILAN is a congregation of littoral navies conducted
biennially by Indian Navy at the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, under the aegis
of the Andaman and Nicobar Command.
Aims: MILAN 2018 aims to
showcase the rich heritage and pristine natural beauty of the Andaman and
Nicobar Islands to the foreign visitors. Besides fostering co-operation through
naval exercises and professional interactions, MILAN also provides an excellent
opportunity to the participating navies to come together in a spirit of
collaboration and mutual understanding to nurture stronger ties.
What’s
important?
§ For Prelims: MILAN 2018, where
it is held.
§ For Mains: Significance of
Indian Ocean Region.
Sources: pib.
Topic: Important International
institutions, agencies and fora, their structure, mandate.
International
Conference on Sustainable Biofuels
Context: A two- day International
Conference on Sustainable Biofuels is jointly being organized by Department of
Biotechnology, Govt. of India on behalf of Mission Innovation and Biofuture
Platform at New Delhi.
What
is it? The Sustainable Biofuel is one of the Seven Mission
Innovation Challenges and India Co-leads this along with other countries
Brazil, Canada and China. The sustainable biofuel innovation challenge under MI
aims to accelerate research, development and deployment of low cost, high GHG
impacting advanced biofuels.
Participants: The event will bring
together experts from Biofuels sector to take stock of current knowledge, share
information and best practices, and build consensus on the actions most needed
to move forward. Senior Government Officers, Technical Experts, Academicians,
Researchers and Representatives from various Countries, Industry and Investors
will participate in the event.
Conference
aims:
§ Provide a platform to
Government policy makers, investors, industry and research community to
exchange experiences and challenges related to development and scaling up of
advanced biofuels.
§ Exchange best practices in
developing projects, performance breakthroughs and in cost reduction.
§ Understanding the concerns of
private sector and that of investors, to speedup large scale production of
sustainable biofuels.
What
is Mission Innovation?
Mission Innovation (MI) is a
global initiative of 22 countries and the European Union to dramatically
accelerate global clean energy innovation. As part of the initiative,
participating countries have committed to double Clean Energy Research and
Development investments over five years.
What
is Biofuture Platform?
The Biofuture Platform aims to
be an action-oriented, country-led, multistakeholder mechanism for policy
dialogue and collaboration among leading countries, organizations, academia and
the private sector conscious of the need to accelerate development and scale up
deployment of modern sustainable low carbon alternatives to fossil based
solutions in transport, chemicals, plastics and other sectors.
Way
ahead:
Use of fossil fuels for
transportation contributes significantly to global greenhouse gases (GHG)
emission. The sustainable biofuels have ability to reduce the GHG emission
load. Advanced or second-generation biofuels produced from non-food biomass
materials and specially grown high yielding plants or algae, if managed
sustainably can contribute to significantly reduce emissions. However, many of
the advanced biofuels still remain in pre- or an early commercial stage of
development and need innovations and breakthrough for low cost sustainable
production.
What’s
important?
§ For Prelims: Sustainable
biofuels, Mission Innovation and Biofuture platform.
§ For Mains: Biofuels-
significance, challenges and solutions.
Sources: pib.
Paper
3:
Topic: Awareness in the fields of
IT, Space.
Society
for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication
Context: The ₹11,500 crore fraud in the Punjab National Bank where fund transfer
through an inter-bank messaging system was not reported to the core banking
solution, followed by the cyberattack on the City Union Bank, has put the
spotlight once again on SWIFT or the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial
Telecommunication.
What
is SWIFT?
The SWIFT is a secure financial
message carrier — in other words, it transports messages from one bank to its
intended bank recipient. Its core role is to provide a secure transmission
channel so that Bank A knows that its message to Bank B goes to Bank B and no
one else. Bank B, in turn, knows that Bank A, and no one other than Bank A,
sent, read or altered the message en route. Banks, of course, need to have
checks in place before actually sending messages.
Background:
The SWIFT is a global
member-owned cooperative that is headquartered in Brussels, Belgium. It was
founded in 1973 by a group of 239 banks from 15 countries which formed a
co-operative utility to develop a secure electronic messaging service and
common standards to facilitate cross-border payments. It carries an average of
approximately 26 million financial messages each day. In order to use its
messaging services, customers need to connect to the SWIFT environment.
Significance
of SWIFT:
Messages sent by SWIFT’s
customers are authenticated using its specialised security and identification
technology. Encryption is added as the messages leave the customer environment
and enter the SWIFT Environment. Messages remain in the protected SWIFT
environment, subject to all its confidentiality and integrity commitments,
throughout the transmission process while they are transmitted to the operating
centres (OPCs) where they are processed — until they are safely delivered to
the receiver.
Sources: the hindu.
Topic: indigenization of tech.
Rustom
2
Context: Defence Research and
Development Organisation has successfully completed the test flight of its
Rustom 2 drone at the Aeronautical Test Range. Rustom 2 is part of the Rustom
line of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) that includes Rustom-I, Rustom-H and
Rustom-C.
Key
facts:
§ Rustom 2 drone is a
medium-altitude, long-endurance unmanned aerial vehicle, developed on the lines
of predator drones of the United States. The objective of this drone is to
carry out surveillance for the armed forces with an endurance of 24 hours.
§ The drone was developed for
use by all three services of the Indian armed forces, primarily for intelligence,
surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) operations.
§ The medium-altitude prototype
can fly at over 22,000 ft and is a long-endurance (MALE) UAV that has an
approximate flight time of 20 hours.
§ It can fly at around 280 km/h
and carry a variety of payloads like Medium Range Electro Optic (MREO), Long
Range Electro Optic (LREO), Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), Electronic
Intelligence (ELINT).
§ Rustom
2 can fly missions on manual as well as autonomous modes. The onboard way-point
navigation system allows the drone to conduct missions autonomously.
Significance
of drones:
Modern warfare is heavily
dependent on drones and India had deployed its imported drones effectively
during the surgical strikes it carried out across the Line of Control in
Pakistan in September 2016.
What’s
important?
§ For Prelims: Key features of
Rustom 2.
§ For Mains: Drones- uses and
challenges.
Sources: pib.
Topic: money laundering.
Centre
may enact law against fugitives
Context: The Union government may
consider enacting the Fugitive Economic Offenders Bill to confiscate assets of
those who flee the country and refuse to return after committing frauds in
excess of Rs. 100 crore. A draft of the Bill, which is in consonance with similar
legislation in several countries, has already been circulated.
Highlights
of the draft Fugitive Economic Offenders bill:
§ The bill flows from Finance
Minister Arun Jaitleys 2017 -18 Budget speech promising legislative changes or
even a new law to confiscate the assets of such fugitives. It seeks to deter
economic offenders from evading the process of Indian law by fleeing the
country.
§ The proposed law will be
applicable in cases where the value of offences is over Rs 100 crore. The bill
proposes to allow the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the premier technical
snoop wing under the finance ministry, to file an application for the
declaration of fugitive economic offender for confiscation of their assets.
§ The courts under PMLA would be
entrusted with the responsibility to try the case. Also, the bill has provision
for appointment of an administrator to dispose off the property to pay off the
creditors. Besides, the provisions of the proposed law will override provisions
of other existing laws. The burden of proof for establishing that an individual
is a fugitive economic offender will be on the authorities.
Need
for a law in this regard:
There have been several
instances of economic offenders fleeing the jurisdiction of Indian courts,
anticipating the commencement, or during the pendency, of criminal proceedings.
The absence of such offenders from Indian courts has several deleterious
consequences— first, it hampers investigation in criminal cases; second, it
wastes precious time of courts of law; third, it undermines the rule of law in
India.
Who
is a fugitive economic offender?
A Fugitive Economic Offender is
a person who has an arrest warrant issued in respect of a scheduled offence and
who leaves or has left India so as to avoid criminal prosecution, or refuses to
return to India to face criminal prosecution.
Sources: the hindu.
Facts
for Prelims:
Drypetes
kalamii:
What is it? It is a new plant
species identified by scientists from the Botanical Survey of India from two
protected National Parks in West Bengal.
Key facts:
§ Named Drypetes kalamii, it is a
small shrub found to be shorter version of its close relative Drypetes ellisii.
§ Standing just 1 metre tall, the
newly described plant is unisexual in nature, which means they have
separate male and female plants.
§ By following the IUCN
(International Union for Conservation of Nature) rules, the scientists have
provisionally assessed the plant to be
“Critically Endangered”.
§ The new species is found in
wet, shaded areas of subtropical moist semi-evergreen forests, at a height
ranging 50-100 metres.
§ With pale yellow flowers in
clusters and bright orange to red fruits, the
plant is exclusive to the two national parks- Jaldapara and Buxa National Parks.
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