POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                                                       

1. New Bill wants engineers to register, follow ethics code                                    

2. HINDI DIVAS                                                                                                      

ECONOMY                                                                                                                     

1. Govt. unveils package to boost exports, revive housing sector                         

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY                                                                                 

1. The 4P1000 Initiative: The Tribal Perspective through Bamboonomics             

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY                                                                                    

1. New scientific social responsibility policy in the offing                                        

SECURITY                                                                                                                     

1. CENTRAL EQUIPMENT IDENTITY REGISTER (CEIR)                                   

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

New Bill wants engineers to register, follow ethics code

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

Context :

• Soon, engineers will have to register with a body to be able to practise their trade.

More in the news:

• A Bill wants engineers to register,  is taking shape under the aegis of the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.

• The first draft of the Bill has been submitted to the Ministry, which has recommended changes.

• The Bill has been drafted by a committee constituted by the AICTE.

Key Features of the bill:

• A council to register engineers on the lines of those that exist for lawyers, doctors and pharmacists.

• It has been suggested  there must be professional ethics and code which they all have to follow.

  • If they don’t follow, their registration can get cancelled.

                                                                                                                        Source :- The Hindu

HINDI DIVAS

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

Context :

• Rashtriya Hindi Divas is observed across India every year on 14th September.

Background :

• The Constituent Assembly of India adopted Hindi written in Devnagari Script along with English as the official language of the country on September 14, 1949, under Article 343(1).

  • Initially, English was granted the official language status for only 15 years since the adoption of the constitution. During these 15 years, Hindi’s reach was to be promoted for official purposes as well as in the education sector so that English would fade out, giving ground to Hindi.

• Hindi Divas is observed to mark the decision of the Constituent Assembly on September 14, 1949 to extend official language status to Hindi. It was first observed in 1953.

                                                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

ECONOMY

Govt. unveils package to boost exports, revive housing sector

GS PAPER - 03 ECONOMY - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a third set of government decisions to revive the economy.

• The government announced a set of measures to boost sagging exports, including a new WTO-compatible scheme to refund central and state levies.

  • These measures were part of the government’s strategy to revive growth and exports which have slumped, triggering concerns about the health of the economy.

Key Measures - Export  :

• One of the key announcements was a new scheme, Remission of Duties or Taxes on Export Product (ToDTEP) to replace Merchandise Exports from India Scheme.

  • The previous MEIS and the new RoDTEP are designed to incentivise exports by giving them rewards to offset the duties they pay to export their products.

  • The rate of reward under MEIS varies between 2% and 7% of the free-on-board (FOB) value, depending on the item and the country it is being exported to.

• Fully electronic refund module for the quick and automated refund of input tax credits to exporters.

• Higher Insurance cover for working capital to export :

  • To increase bank credit to exporters, the Export Credit Guarantee Corporation (ECGC) will expand the scope of its Export Credit Insurance Scheme to provide a higher insurance cover to banks that are lending working capital for exports.

  • At present banks are covered for 60% of what they lend to exporters for working capital,This will be increased to 90%.

• the Reserve Bank of India is also looking into modifying the priority sector lending norms for the export sector to release an additional ₹36,000 crore to ₹68,000 crore as export credit.

• The entire process of export clearances will be digitised and all offline or manual processes will be eliminated to reduce the ‘time to export’.

Key measures - Housing :

• The external commercial borrowing guidelines will be relaxed to facilitate financing for home buyers who are eligible under the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana,

• The interest rate on house building advances will be lowered and linked with the 10 Year Government Security yields.

• A Rs 10,000 crore special window to provide last-mile funding for completion of ongoing housing projects

  • The objective of the special window is to focus on the completion of affordable and middle-income housing projects.

                                                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

The 4P1000 Initiative: The Tribal Perspective through Bamboonomics

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

Context :

• On the sidelines of CoP14 of UNCCD, TRIFED and Union Tribal Ministry has launched TICD(TRIFED’s Initiative to Combat Desertification) under “The 4P1000 Initiative:The Tribal Perspective through Bamboonomics.”

TRIFED’s Initiative to Combat Desertification(TICD):

• Under this initiative,TRIFED will integrate its Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojna with this global environmental intervention termed as TICD (TRIFED’s Initiative to Combat Desertification).

• TRIFED will be partnering with the German Cooperation (GIZ) to involve the tribal community for rehabilitating the degraded land while supplementing the income of tribal community.

4P1000 Initiative:

• The international initiative “4per1000” was launched by France in 2015 at the COP 21.

• It consists of federating all voluntary stakeholders of the public and private sectors under the framework of the Lima-Paris Action Plan (LPAP).

• The aim of the initiative is to demonstrate that agriculture and in particular agricultural soils can play a crucial role where food security and climate change are concerned.

• This initiative demonstrates that an annual growth rate of 0.4% in the soil carbon stocks, in the first 30-40 cm of agricultural soil, would significantly reduce the CO2 concentration in the atmosphere related to human activities.

• The Executive Secretariat of the “4 per 1000” initiative is hosted by the CGIAR System Organization,an international organization based in Montpellier.

Bamboonomics:

• It is a movement to combat desertification and climate change which will involve the tribal community of India since they have the expertise in this field.

• The movement will ensure that tribals can earn a livelihood without causing environmental harm.           

                                                                                                                                      Source :- PIB

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

New scientific social responsibility policy in the offing

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

Context :

• India is going to be possibly the first country in the world to implement a Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) Policy on the lines of Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR).

Scientific Social Responsibility (SSR) Policy :

• SSR to encourage science and technology (S&T) institutions and individual scientists in the country to proactively engage in science outreach activities to connect science with the society.

• The draft defines SSR as “the ethical obligation of knowledge workers in all fields of science and technology to voluntarily contribute their knowledge and resources to the widest spectrum of stakeholders in society, in a spirit of service and conscious reciprocity”.

• This draft policy builds upon traditions of earlier policies (Scientific Policy Resolution 1958, Technology Policy Statement 1983, Science and Technology Policy 2003 and Science Technology and Innovation Policy 2013) while proposing more pragmatic provisions to make institutions and individual scientists socially responsible.

Aim :

• The policy aims to harness latent potential of the scientific community for strengthening linkages between science and society, and for making S&T ecosystem vibrant.

• It is aimed at developing a mechanism for ensuring access to scientific knowledge, transferring benefits of science to meet societal needs, promoting collaborations to identify problems and develop solutions.

Key Features :

• Under the proposed policy, individual scientists or knowledge workers will be required to devote at least 10 person-days of SSR per year for exchanging scientific knowledge to society.

• It also recognises the need to provide incentives for outreach activities with necessary budgetary support.

• It has also been proposed to give credit to knowledge workers/scientists for individual SSR activities in their annual performance appraisal and evaluation.

• No institution would be allowed to outsource or sub-contract their SSR activities and projects.

• A central agency will be established at DST to implement the SSR. Other ministries would also be encouraged to make their own plans to implement SSR as per their mandate.

Implementation :

• For implementation of the policy, a national portal will be developed up to capture societal needs requiring scientific interventions and as a platform for implementers and for reporting SSR activities.

                                                                                                                  Source :- Down To Earth

SECURITY

CENTRAL EQUIPMENT IDENTITY REGISTER (CEIR)

GS PAPER - 03 SECURITY - Role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security

Context :

• Union Telecom Minister launched Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) in a bid to curtail the rampant cloning and theft of mobile phones across the country.

• The project has started on a pilot basis in Maharashtra and later it will be implemented across the country.

Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) :

• Central Equipment Identity Register (CEIR) is a database of International Mobile Equipment Identities (IMEIs), the 15-digit numbers that uniquely identify each mobile device.

Objective  :

• It is being launched to curtail the rampant cloning and theft of mobile phones across the country.

• Curtailment of counterfeit mobiles, blocking of lost or stolen mobiles across networks thus discouraging theft of mobile phones, maintaining a registry of all equipment identity to facilitate database of valid devices, and facilitate IMEI-based lawful interception.

Working :

• It will be a database of IMEI numbers that will consist of three lists – white, grey and black.

  • Mobile phones with IMEI numbers in the white list will be permitted for use.
     

  • Those in the blacklist will be the ones that are reported stolen or lost and will not be allowed to access the network.
     

  • Those in the greylist will be the ones that do not conform to standards but will be permitted to connect under supervision.

                                                                                                                                              Source :- Livemint

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