Olympic dream under threat as visa is denied to 2 Pak. shooters

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

Context :

     ★ India’s future as a host for sporting events remained uncertain following a decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).

          

More about the news:

     ★ The issue arose when India refused visa requests from two Pakistani shooters expected to participate in the ongoing ISSF World Cup.

     ★ In a letter to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the IOC made it clear that all future international sporting events in India would be put on hold

     ★ Unless the host gave a written guarantee that there would be no discrimination on participation of athletes.

     ★ The IOC Executive Board decided to suspend all discussions with the Indian NOC [National Olympic Committee] and government regarding the potential applications for hosting future sports and Olympic-related events in India,

     ★ Until clear written guarantees are obtained from the Indian government to ensure the entry of all participants in such events in full compliance with the rules of the Olympic Charter

     ★ To recommend that the IFs [International Sports Federations] neither award to nor hold sports events in India until the guarantees are obtained

     ★ The IOC decided to restrict the withdrawal of recognition as an Olympic qualification event to the 25m rapid fire pistol competition in which the two Pakistani athletes were supposed to participate. “

     ★ This happened in the interest of the other 500 athletes from 61 countries participating in the other events,” the IOC noted.

                                                                                                           Source :- The Hindu

Terror monitor keeps Pak. on grey list, seeks action

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

Context :

     ★ Global terror financing watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) at its Paris plenary condemned the Pulwama terrorist attack, and blamed Islamabad for not doing enough to curb the finances of groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Issue:

     ★ The week-long deliberations of the 37-member group decided not to remove Pakistan from the ‘grey list’, as Islamabad had lobbied for, but also did not accept an Indian demand to move Pakistan to the ‘black list’ yet.

     ★ But the FATF has decided to keep Pakistan in the ‘grey list’ as of now. Pakistan's case will be reviewed in June 2019 and if, by October, it has not shown progress, it could get into the blacklist, thus impacting its appeal for an IMF bailout eventually.

     ★ Blacklist of the FATF that currently features Iran and North Korea – non-cooperative in the global fight against money laundering and terrorist financing, calling them “Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories” (NCCTs).

Background :

     ★ Pakistan was put on the ‘grey list’ or watch list of the FATF in June 2018 after a proposal moved by the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France was passed.

     ★ It has been scrambling in recent months to avoid being added to a list of countries deemed non-compliant with anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations by the Paris-based FATF, a measure that officials here fear could further hurt its economy.

Implications :

     ★ Pakistan continues to remain in FATF ‘grey list’, making it hard for that country to get international loans.

     ★ Being placed on the FATF watchlist carries no direct legal implications but brings extra scrutiny from regulators and financial institutions that can chill trade and investment and increase transaction costs.

     ★ If the FATF blacklists Pakistan, it may lead to downgrading of the country by lenders like the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and the European Union.

         

Financial Action Task Force (FATF ) :      ★ The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 on the initiative of the G7. .      ★ The FATF is therefore a “policy-making body” which works to generate the necessary political will to bring about national legislative and regulatory reforms in these areas.      ★ The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris.      ★ At present, the FATF has 36 member countries and 2 regional organisations, representing most major financial centres in all parts of the globe. Objective :      ★ FATF are to set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system. Functions :      ★ The FATF monitors the progress of its members in implementing necessary measures, reviews money laundering and terrorist financing techniques and counter-measures and promotes the adoption and implementation of appropriate measures globally.      ★ In collaboration with other international stakeholders, the FATF works to identify national-level vulnerabilities with the aim of protecting the international financial system from misuse. India and FATF :      ★ India became a member of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in 2010.      ★ The membership of FATF comes nearly four years after the country became an observer in 2006. Significance of FATF membership :      ★ FATF membership is very important for India in its quest to become a major player in international finance.      ★ It will help India to build the capacity to fight terrorism and trace terrorist money and help to successfully investigate and prosecute money laundering and terrorist financing offences.      ★ India will benefit in securing a more transparent and stable financial system by ensuring that financial institutions are not vulnerable to infiltration or abuse by organized crime groups. National level Efforts - to combat Money laundering :      ★ Financial Intelligence Unit – India (FIU-IND) is the central, national agency responsible for receiving, processing, analyzing and disseminating information relating to suspect financial transactions to enforcement agencies and foreign FIUs.

 

                                                                                                                                   Source :- The Hindu

Travel on a jet plane, using a little cooking oil

GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - Development of New Technology

CONTEXT :

     ★ Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP), Dehradun has successfully completed a pilot test to convert used cooking oil into bio-aviation turbine fuel (Bio-ATF) or bio-jet fuel.

Bio-aviation turbine fuel :

     ★ Bio-ATF is a biofuel used for aircraft. It can be blended with conventional ATF and used as aircraft fuel.

     ★ Biofuel that can be used as jet-fuel can be prepared using animal fat, vegetable oil and agricultural waste.

     ★ Biofuel is a fuel that is produced from biomass—i.e. plant or algae material or animal waste. It is considered to be a source of renewable energy, unlike fossil fuels such as petroleum, coal, and natural gas.

     ★ The attempt to convert cooking oil into Bio-ATF is in coherence with the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)’s Repurpose Cooking Oil (RUCO) initiative. The initiative seeks to collect and convert used cooking oil into bio-fuel

Repurpose Used Cooking Oil (RUCO) :

     ★ The Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) launched RUCO (Repurpose Used Cooking Oil), an initiative that will enable collection and conversion of used cooking oil to bio-diesel.

     ★ The initiative has been launched nearly a month after the food safety regulator notified standards for used cooking oil.

     ★ FSSAI may also look at introducing regulations to ensure that companies that use large quantities of cooking oil hand it over to registered collecting agencies to convert it into biofuel.

     ★ Under this initiative, 64 companies at 101 locations have been identified to enable collection of used cooking oil.

     ★ The food safety body says that by 2020, it should be possible to recover about 220 crore litres of used cooking oil for conversion into bio-fuel.

     ★ Reducing the re-use of cooking oil in the food industry will have positive public health outcomes and its conversion into Bio-ATF will help the aviation sector reduce its carbon footprint

                                                                                                                  Source :- The Hindu

India, Russia close to inking multi-billion agreement for AK-103 assault rifles

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

Context :

     ★ India and Russia are close to concluding an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) for a multi-billion deal to locally bulk manufacture AK-103 assault rifles in the next few months.

More about the news:

     ★ India has signed several multi-billion dollar defence deals with Russia in the last couple of years and more are in the pipeline.

     ★ According to the arrangement with Russia, a Kalashnikov factory will be set up in India in collaboration with the OFB (Ordnance Factories Board). It would cater to the forces for hinterland and counter-insurgency operations.

    ★ The Indian Armed Forces are currently equipped with INSAS(Indian National Small Arms System) Rifle.There is an urgent requirement of replacing the in-service INSAS Rifle with an Assault Rifle which is compact, robust and modern in technology.

AK 103 :

       

Additional Details :

     ★ India recently signed deals for S-400 air defence systems and stealth frigates.The agreement on Kamov-226T helicopters is in an advanced stage of negotiations.

     ★ These deals are progressing in the backdrop of the looming threat of U.S. sanctions.

                                                                                               Source :- The Hindu

Labour Bureau files MUDRA job report

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 Labour Bureau has submitted its report on jobs created by MUDRA scheme.

     ★ The Labour Bureau has completed its survey on employment generated by the MUDRA loan scheme, giving the Centre a potential data tool to combat other reports showing a dismal scenario on jobs.

Issue :

     ★ Before stepping down as vice chairman of Niti Aayog in August 2017, Arvind Panagariya, had submitted a report on the recommendations of a task force he had chaired on improving jobs data.

     ★ One recommendation was to analyse the extent of employment and self-employment generated by MUDRA loans.

     ★ In December 2017, faced with mounting criticism on the failure to create job opportunities, the Labour Ministry had asked the Labour Bureau to initiate the survey on jobs created through the MUDRA scheme.

     ★ According to reports, a leaked copy of the NSSO’s findings showed that unemployment hit a 45-year high of 6.1% in 2017-18.

     ★ Central government ministers and officials have already attempted to use the MUDRA scheme’s performance to combat criticism based on the leaked NSSO job survey report.

     ★ Some economists, however, have advised caution in the interpretation of MUDRA data, especially as it relates to jobs. “Every new loan certainly doesn’t imply creation of a new job,” ICRIER fellow Radhicka Kapoor, wrote in a working paper titled ‘Waiting for Jobs’.

           

Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) Scheme :      ★ Pradhan Mantri MUDRA Yojana (PMMY) is a scheme launched by the Hon’ble Prime Minister on April 8, 2015 for providing loans upto 10 lakh to the non-corporate, non-farm small/micro enterprises.      ★ These loans are classified as MUDRA loans under PMMY. These loans are given by Commercial Banks, RRBs, Small Finance Banks, Cooperative Banks, MFIs and NBFCs.      ★ Under the aegis of PMMY, MUDRA has created three products namely 'Shishu', 'Kishore' and 'Tarun' to signify the stage of growth / development and funding needs of the beneficiary micro unit / entrepreneur and also provide a reference point for the next phase of graduation / growth. Vision :      ★ To be an integrated financial and support services provider par excellence benchmarked with global best practices and standards for the bottom of the pyramid universe for their comprehensive economic and social development. Mission :      ★ To create an inclusive, sustainable and value based entrepreneurial culture, in collaboration with our partner institutions in achieving economic success and financial security." Objective :      ★ Fund the unfunded: Those who have a business plan to generate income from a non-farm activity like manufacturing, processing, trading or service sector but don’t have enough capital to invest can take loans up to Rs 10 lakh.      ★ Micro finance institutions (MFI) monitoring and regulation: With the help of MUDRA bank, the network of microfinance institutions will be monitored. New registration will also be done.      ★ Promote financial inclusion: With the aim to reach Last mile credit delivery to micro businesses taking help of technology solutions, it further adds to the vision of financial inclusion.      ★ Reduce jobless economic growth: Providing micro enterprises with credit facility will help generate employment sources and an overall increase in GDP.      ★ Integration of Informal economy into Formal sector: It will help India also grow its tax base as incomes from the informal sector are non-taxed.

 

           

Labour Bureau :      ★ Labour Bureau, an attached office under Ministry of Labour and Employment, was set up on 1st October 1946      ★ It is responsible for the collation, collection and publication of statistics and related information on wages, earnings, productivity, absenteeism, labour turn-over, industrial relations, working and living conditions of labour, evaluation of working of various labour enactments etc.      ★ It is a storehouse of important economic indicators like Consumer Price Index Numbers for Industrial, Agricultural and Rural Labourers; wage rate indices and data on industrial relations, socio-economic conditions in the organized and unorganised sector of industry etc. Functions : The functions/activities of Labour Bureau can be classified under three major heads:      ★ Labour Intelligence      ★ Labour Research      ★ Monitoring and evaluation studies under the Minimum Wages Act 1948.

 

                                                                                                        Source :- The Hindu

India to have own DNS for safe browsing

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 :

     ★ The government will soon launch a public domain name system (DNS) server that could protect users from any malware or phishing with enhanced security features as well as faster response time.

Key features :

     ★ The new platform is an upgraded version with enhanced in-built security features compared to the earlier created by the National Informatics Centre (NIC) and has a capability to host as many as 5 million users that can be scaled up further if needed.

     ★ If a user inadvertently accesses a malicious or phishing site, the new public system would immediately open up a page or popup to alert the user of such potential threat so that the suspicious resource could be avoided, the official who is aware of the initiative.

     ★ The new DNS will be placed across the country to minimise outage and would be available round the clock. Users can simply use it by typing the IP number into the Internet browser.

Need :

     ★ DNS is an important tool that requires to be fool-proof and has a major role in browsing the Internet.

     ★ The Centre is eyeing a new and robust platform in the wake of critical digital services being delivered online requiring enhanced security to discourage cyber-attacks and a quicker site loading time.

Domain Name System (DNS ) :

     ★ DNS is a system that translates domain names to Internet Protocol or IP addresses that allows browsers to load websites sought.

     ★ It is a database that stores all of the domain names and corresponding IP numbers for a particular top-level domain (TLD) such as .com or .net. The DNS identifies and locates computer systems and resources on the Internet.

                                                                                                      Source :- Economic Times

What pushed dinosaurs to extinction

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

Context :

     ★ scientists say that massive volcanic eruptions over hundreds of thousands of years may have contributed to the dinosaurs’ demise at the end of the Cretaceous period.

     ★ Two studies published in the journal Science contributed to a longstanding debate on what exactly finished off the mighty reptiles.

More about the news:

     ★ Before the 1980s, the dominant theory had been that huge and prolonged volcanic eruptions caused a deadly shift in the planet’s climate by sending vast clouds of ash, gas and dust into the atmosphere.

     ★ Then scientists discovered the huge Chicxulub crater of an ancient asteroid impact off the Caribbean coast of Mexico, which they posited had sent so much debris into the atmosphere that it hampered photosynthesis in plants and killed off three-quarters of life on Earth.

     ★ The authors of the two reports were able to date massive lava flows with far greater precision, whittling it down from around a million years to a period of tens of thousands of years.

     ★ The expulsion of lava there over a million years left the Deccan flows more 1,200 meters thick in places today, a volume large enough to cover an area the size of France to a depth of several hundred meters, he said.

     ★ The new dating made by the two teams match up: one found that a “pulse” of volcanic eruptions occurred just before the mass extinction.

     ★ The majority of lava flows came after the asteroid hit Earth, backing up the idea that the impact triggered an earthquake so massive it would have registered 11 on the moment magnitude scale, something never witnessed by humans. That in turn set off a wave of volcanic eruptions that lasted some 3,00,000 years.

     ★ The close correlation of the two events — eruptions and extinction — is unlikely to be a coincidence, the researchers say.

                                                                                                                         Source :- The Hindu

Without land or recourse [ Editorial / Opinion ]

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

Context :

     ★ Supreme court has ordered the eviction of lakhs of people whose claims as forest dwellers have been rejected under the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, or FRA.

     ★ That this order negates the claims of citizens under special protection of the Constitution, viz. the Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable communities already pushed by gross governmental neglect precariously to the edge, is another matter altogether.

     ★ The question centres on the responsibility of the Supreme Court in upholding constitutional claims and equal citizenship.

Background :

     ★ The court’s orders came in a case filed by wildlife groups questioning the validity of the Forest Rights Act.

     ★ Some wildlife NGOs, like petitioner Bangalore-based Wildlife First, believe the law is against the Constitution and it has led to deforestation.

     ★ The order in question was issued in the case of Wildlife First & Ors v. Ministry of Forest and Environment & Ors.

     ★ The details regarding claims made under the FRA that were placed before the court by the petitioner in 2016 showed that of the 44 lakh claims filed before appropriate authorities in the different States, 20.5 lakh claims (46.5%) were rejected.

     ★ A claim is made either for individual or community rights by the people/communities covered by the FRA. This is a plain reading of the Act, which is unambiguous on this score.

     ★ The States were then asked by the Supreme Court to report on concrete measures taken to evict the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers from the forest.

Concerns :

     ★ In the present order of February 2019, the Supreme Court specifically directs governments in 21 States by name to carry out evictions of rejected claimants without further delay and report on or before July 12. This attracts several questions which are of immediate concern.

     ★ According to the 2014 report of the High-Level Committee on Socio-Economic, Health and Educational Status of Tribal Communities in India, constituted by the Government of India (Xaxa Committee), 60% of the forest area in the country is in tribal areas — protected by Article 19 (5) and Schedules V and VI of the Constitution.

     ★ Claims are being rejected without assigning reasons, or based on wrong interpretation of the Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (OTFD) definition and the ‘dependence’ clause, or simply for lack of evidence or ‘absence of GPS survey’.

     ★ The land is wrongly considered as ‘not forest land’, or because only forest offence receipts are considered as adequate evidence.

     ★ The mere rejection of claims by the state, therefore, does not add up to a finding of the crime of “encroachment” — the sheer volume of rejections should instead set alarm bells ringing in the court of procedural improprieties.

     ★ The rejections are not being communicated to the claimants, and their right to appeal is not being explained to them nor its exercise facilitated.

     ★ The immediate result will be the forced eviction of over one million people belonging to the Scheduled Tribes and other forest communities.

     ★ Importantly, the area marked for eviction falls under areas designated under Schedule V and Schedule VI of the Constitution — there is no reference to the implications for governance in the Scheduled Areas and whether the Supreme Court, in fact, has the authority to order evictions of Scheduled Tribes from Scheduled Areas.

     ★ There are already obstacles in the way of including them in the general process of development.

     ★ Lacking the skills to survive in a competitive labor market, savvy to negotiate their way or the strength of numbers to exercise influence on political processes, the people of the PVTG will become exceedingly vulnerable.

Against Constitutional safeguard:

     ★ The presence of Article 19(5)  in the Fundamental Rights, which specifically enjoins the state to make laws “for the protection of the interests of any Scheduled Tribe”, is vital.

     ★ Supreme Court ordered the eviction in complete disregard of this core and express fundamental right protection to Adivasis (as distinct from legal/statutory protection), which protects them from a range of state and non-state intrusions in Scheduled Areas as well as from the perennial threat of eviction from their homelands.

Way Forward :

     ★ It is the obligation of the Supreme Court to protect the Scheduled Tribes and other vulnerable communities from the grave harms of violent dispossession.

     ★ Instead of order for eviction, there is a need for adequate documentation and debates on this issue so that forest dwellers won't suffer because of the inefficiencies of administration.

                                                                                                               Source :- The Hindu

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