POLITY AND GOVERNANCE                                                             

1. 3.7% food samples found unsafe, 15.8% sub-standard, says regulator            

2. Government launches portal for subsidy scheme under PMAY                         

3. Union HRD Minister launches website, invites students for National Essay Competition                                                                                                        

4. Govt introduces bill to merge Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli in Lok Sabha                                                                                                                 

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY                                                      

1. Greenhouse gases surge to record in 2018, exceeding 10-yr average rate: UN                                                                                                                           

2. To tackle pollution, smog tower to come up in Delhi                                          

SECURITY                                                                                             

1. DEFCOM India 2019                                                                                          

POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

3.7% food samples found unsafe, 15.8% sub-standard, says regulator

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

Context :

• At least 10 states in India are unequipped to ensure food safety, owing to scarcity of staff and food testing laboratory infrastructure, the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

Concern :

• According to the apex food regulator, Chattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka, Assam, Jharkhand, Odisha, Rajasthan, West Bengal, Telengana, and Uttarakhand are the worst performing states on food safety.

  •  Many of the poorly performing States have not been able to put in place full-time officers and do not have proper testing laboratories. despite the food safety law coming into force over a decade ago.

• However, the food regulator has also noted improvement in food safety in states such as Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir, Delhi and Chandigarh.

• It analysed a total of 106,459 samples across the country and found over 15.8% food samples as sub-standard, 3.7 % unsafe and 9% mislabelled during the year 2018-19.

• The food regulator said this was the first year the data had been compiled for unsafe, substandard and labelling defects separately. This would help authorities take precise corrective and preventive action.

                                                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

Government launches portal for subsidy scheme under PMAY

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

Context :

• The Union Government has launched the Credit-linked Subsidy Services Awas Portal (CLAP) for Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Housing for All (Urban).

More in the news :

• The portal was launched along with the signing of agreements between the Union Housing Affairs Ministry and state governments for the construction of Light House projects under GHTC-India.

Objective of CLAP portal:

• The CLAP portal aims to provide a transparent and robust real-time web-based monitoring system for the beneficiaries of the Credit-linked Subsidy Services (CLSS).

• The portal will help the beneficiaries track their application status online on a real-time basis.

• The portal would also benefit other stakeholders to work in unity to release subsidy to the beneficiaries on time.           

                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

Union HRD Minister launches website, invites students for National Essay Competition

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

Context :

• Ministry of Human Resources Development has launched launched the kartavya.ugc.ac.in portal on the occasion of ‘Constitution Day’.

  • It is a part of Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan.

More in the news :

• The portal will be used primarily for holding monthly essay competitions for students as well as other activities like quizzes, debates, poster making etc.

Nagrik Kartavya Paalan Abhiyan :

• Nagrik Kartavya Palan Abhiyan will run from 26th November 2019 to 26th November 2020.

• It seeks to create mass awareness about the Fundamental Duties as enshrined in The Indian Constitution.         

                                                                                                                                                                 Source :- PIB

Govt introduces bill to merge Daman and Diu, Dadra and Nagar Haveli in Lok Sabha

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

Context :

• The government introduced a bill to merge Union Territories Daman and Diu, and Dadra and Nagar Haveli into one in the Lok Sabha.

• The proposed legislation -- The Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Bill 2019 -- was introduced in the House by Union Minister of State.

Why such a move ?

• Both UTs have two separate constitutional and administrative bodies which lead to a lot of duplicacy, inefficiency and wasteful expenditure.

• The merger will help in achieving the government’s goal to have Minimum Government, Maximum Governance.

• Both of them have small population and limited geographical area so the merger will not be challenging and the services of officers will be used efficiently.

• The move comes after the landmark decision of bifurcating the State of Jammu and Kashmir into the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.

            Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu (Merger of Union Territories) Bill, 2019 :

• The Bill provides for the merger of the Union Territories (UTs) of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu into a single UT.

Key Features :

• Amendment of the Constitution:

  • The First Schedule to the Constitution specifies the territories that come under various states and UTs. 

    • The Bill amends the First Schedule to merge the territories of the two UTs: (a) Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and (b) Daman and Diu. 

    • The merged territory will form the UT of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu.  This will come into effect from the day notified by the central government.

  • Article 240(1) of the Constitution allows the President to make regulations for certain UTs, including the UTs of Dadra and Nagar Haveli, and Daman and Diu. The Bill amends the Article to replace these two UTs with the merged UT.  

•  Representation in Lok Sabha:

  • The First Schedule to the Representation of the People Act, 1950 provides one seat in Lok Sabha to each of the two UTs.

  •  The Bill seeks to amend the Schedule to allocate two Lok Sabha seats to the merged UT. 

•  Services under the UTs:

  • Every person employed in connection with the affairs of the existing UTs will provisionally serve the merged UT. 

  • The central government will determine whether every such person will finally be allotted for service in the merged UT.

  • The merged UT will take steps to integrate employees into services under its control. The central government may give orders and instructions to the merged UT in this regard.

  • These provisions will not apply to members of All India Services (such as Indian Administrative Services, Indian Police Services, and Indian Forest Services), and persons on delegation from any state.

•  Jurisdiction of High Court:

  • The Bill provides that the jurisdiction of the High Court of Bombay will continue to extend to the merged UT.             

                                                                                                                                                    Source :- Business Standard

ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

Greenhouse gases surge to record in 2018, exceeding 10-yr average rate: UN

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

Context :

• The World Meteorological Organization has said that Greenhouse gases in the atmosphere hit a new record in 2018.

More in the news :

• The concentration of carbon dioxide surged from 405.5 ppm in 2017 to 407.8 ppm in 2018, exceeding the average annual increase of 2.06 ppm in 2005-2015.

• The UN agency’s Greenhouse Gas Bulletin measures the atmospheric concentration of the gases responsible for global warming, rather than emissions.

• The report said that since 1990, there has been a 43% increase in total radiative forcing – the warming effect on the climate – due to trapped greenhouse gases. Of this, carbon dioxide accounts for about 80%, the WMO said, quoting figures from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

• The annual increase in methane was the highest since 1998, said the report.

• This continuing long-term trend means that future generations will be confronted with increasingly severe impacts of climate change, including rising temperatures, more extreme weather, water stress, sea-level rise and disruption to marine and land ecosystems.

                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

To tackle pollution, smog tower to come up in Delhi

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

Context :

• Recently,the Supreme Court has directed the Centre and the Delhi government to draw up a comprehensive plan to install ‘smog towers’ across Delhi to deal with air pollution.

Smog Towers:

• Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers.

• They are usually fitted with multiple layers of air filters, which clean the air of pollutants as it passes through them.

• China has the world’s largest smog tower and has reduced the particulate matter pollution by 19% in an area of around 6 sq km in the tower’s vicinity.

Smog Tower in Delhi:

• The smog tower project in Delhi will be headed by the Indian Institute of Technology(IIT) Bombay in collaboration with IIT-Delhi and the University of Minnesota.

• The smog tower is expected to reduce particulate matter by 50% in the area.

• The smog tower filters being installed would use carbon nanofibres as a major component.However,the proposed smog tower is focused only on reducing particulate matter load at present.

                                                                                                                   Source :- Indian Express

SECURITY

DEFCOM India 2019

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

Context :

• The two-day DEFCOM INDIA 2019 seminar commenced at New Delhi.

DEFCOM 2019:

• DEFCOM is India’s international conference & exposition on military communication.

• It is the flagship event in the area of military communication.

• The event brings together major national and international IT and communication industry and the key stakeholders from the Indian Armed Forces.

• It is jointly being organized by Corps of Signals, Indian Army and Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers (SIDM) /Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

• DEFCOM provides an excellent opportunity for the industry to understand the requirements of the Armed Forces.

• The DEFCOM exhibition showcased cutting edge communication solutions from the industry and gave officers from the three services an opportunity to gain insights on technology and industry capabilities.

                                                                                                               Source :- PIB

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