‘A.P. Buddhist remains date back to Satavahana period’

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

 

Context:

     ★ Buddhist remains of a circular sthupa and pillared pavilion (sila mandapa) of third century were found at Kondaveedu Fort.

         

Significance of findings:

     ★ Historians and archaeologists had held that human movement on Kondaveedu came only after the Reddy kings of the 14th century moved their capital to the hilltop located in dense forest. discovery points that the Buddhists moved around the hilltop almost 2000 years back.

     ★ One small fragment of Brahmi Inscription was found in the stupa remains. Based on this inscriptional evidence, it emphasises that Buddhism existed on Kondaveedu fort from Satavahana period.

         

More about the Stupa - Kondaveedu Fort:

     ★ The stupa structure measuring 12.5 ft in diameter, 4.5 ft in height consisting of layers of well-dressed Palnadu lime stone which the Buddhists preferred.

     ★ The bottom-most layer was carved with lotus flower design representing the mature phase of typical Amaravati School of Art as seen at the pedestal of the world famous Nagarjunakonda Buddha image, giving clue to conclude that the stupa was built during the Ikshvaku period.

                                                                                                                                     Source:- The Hindu

SC to hear petition on Bhopal gas leak payout

GS PAPER - 03 DISASTER - Disaster and disaster management

 

Context:

     ★ The Supreme Court has agreed to hear in April the curative petition filed by the Centre in 2011 for additional compensation for Bhopal gas tragedy victims from US-based Union Carbide Company( which is now owned by Dow Chemicals).

 

More about the news:

     ★ The petition filed in December 2010 seeks additional compensation of Rs.7413 crores, seeking re-examination of the apex court's February 14, 1989 judgement by which the compensation was fixed at US$ 470 million (Rs 750 crore) and subsequent orders of February 15 and May 4 determining the mode of payment and settlement.

​     ★ Centre says that the earlier settlement was based on incorrect assumptions on the number of deaths, injuries and losses, and has not taken into account the subsequent environmental degradation.

     ★ The settlement was based on the earlier figure of 3,000 deaths and 70,000 injury cases; the curative petition has put the death numbers at 5,295 and injury figure at 527,894. has sought.

                                                                                                                                    Source:- The Hindu

‘India can’t handle more big cats’

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

 

Context:

     ★ The 3rd Stock Taking Conference on Tiger Conservation was inaugurated in New Delhi on 28 Jan 2019.

                   ☆ Third in a series of Stock Taking Conferences, had discussions on the status of the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) by the 13 tiger range countries besides deliberations on combating wildlife trafficking.

     ★ While conservation efforts are aimed at increasing the tiger count in India, global experts and officials in the government suggest that India must also prepare for a new challenge — of reaching the limits of its management capacity.

         

Datas and Facts:

     ★ India had 2,226 tigers as of 2014

     ★ India’s current capacity to host tigers ranges from 2,500-3,000 tigers.

     ★ 25-35% of India’s tigers now lived outside protected reserves.

         

Challenges:

     ★ With dwindling core forests as well as the shrinking of tiger corridors

     ★ poaching and man-animal conflict

                  ☆ Recent attempts at translocating tigers to unpopulated reserves, such as Satkosia in Orissa, have ended badly, with one of the tigers dying.

         

Way forward:

    ★ The low availability of prey in some reserves, the country should now concentrate on developing vast tracts of potential tiger habitat that can be used to improve prey density, develop tiger corridors and therefore support a much larger population.

         

International Stock Taking Conference on Tiger Conservation:      ★ Third in a series of Stock Taking Conferences, this is the second to be held in India after 2012      ★ The conference is being hosted by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change in close collaboration with the Global Tiger Forum which is an International, Intergovernmental Organization for conserving tigers in the world.      ★ 13 Tiger range States—Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Vietnam. Double the Tiger Numbers:      ★ During the St. Petersburg declaration in 2010, tiger range countries had resolved to double tiger numbers across their range by 2022. India’s Stand:      ★ At the time of deliberations at St. Petersburg, India’s tiger estimate stood at 1411, which after the third cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation, 2014 has nearly been doubled to 2226.      ★ The fourth cycle of the All India Tiger Estimation, 2018 is currently under way.

 

                                                                                                                              Source:- The Hindu; PIB

Plea challenges ‘Hindu prayers’ in KVs

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

 

Context:

     ★ The Supreme Court on Monday referred to a Constitution Bench a plea questioning a revised education code followed by the Central government-run, 1,125-strong Kendriya Vidyalaya schools, which compels students to recite Sanskrit and Hindi verses with folded palms and closed eyes during morning assemblies or face public humiliation in front of the entire school.

         

Issue:

     ★ A Bench led by Justice Rohinton Nariman found that the petition raises an important issue where a secular state, which is supposed to have no religion, is compelling students drawn from diverse faiths, beliefs, minority communities and many who may be coming from agnostic, scepticism and rationalist family backgrounds, to recite a prayer which is “based on Hindu religion”, under threat of punishment.

     ★ The petition said the revised education code of the Kendriya Vidyalayas violates Articles 19 (right to freedom of speech and expression) and Article 28(1), which prohibits the state from providing any religious instruction in an educational institution run on public funds.

     ★ The petition said the common prayer amounted to “religious instruction”.

     ★ The petition pointed to Article 92 of the revised code, which mandates that “all students irrespective of their faith and belief, have to compulsorily attend the morning assembly and recite the prayer.

                   ☆ All the teachers share the collective responsibility of supervising the assembly and making sure that every student folds his/her hands, closes his/her eyes and recites the prayer without fail.

                  ☆ Any student failing to do so is punished and humiliated in front of the entire school”.

     ★ The petition said it is constitutionally impermissible to impose the prayer on students of other faiths and beliefs. Besides, the practice is an obstacle to fostering a scientific temperament among the students as the “whole idea of God and religious faith is given immense priority and the same is instilled as a thought process among the students”.

                                                                                                          Source:- The Hindu

 SC seeks count of detained foreigners

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

 

Context:

     ★ The Supreme Court on Monday directed the Centre to give the number of functional detention centres in Assam and the foreigners detained there during the last 10 years as also various other details.

         

More about the news:

     ★ A bench comprising Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi and Justice Sanjiv Khanna was hearing a petition filed by activist Harsh Mander on the condition of detention centres in Assam and the prolonged detention of foreigners there.

     ★ The apex court asked the Centre to provide various details about the detention centres, the period of detention of detainees and the status of their cases before the Foreigners Tribunal.

         

Issue:

     

      ★ The Bench, asked Solicitor-General Tushar Mehta to provide details of the number of persons who were declared foreigners and deported till date. It sought year-wise details of foreigners who had illegally entered India in the past decade.

     ★ The information has to be provided by February 19, the next date of hearing in the court. On November 5 last year, the government informed the court about the framing of new guidelines for keeping foreign nationals in detention centres across the country. Mr. Mehta had then submitted that tenders were invited by the Assam government for the setting up of a new detention centre in Goalpara and the work was expected to be completed using pre-fab technology by August 31, 2019.

     ★ In September, the court admitted the petition filed by Harsh Mander, who, speaking through his lawyer Prashant Bhushan, compared the situation of families languishing in detention centres with the family separation policy imposed on illegal immigrants in the U.S. by the Trump administration.

     ★ The Bench had then sought responses from the Centre and the Assam government on the plight of families which languish in the State’s six detention centres as “declared foreigners,” separated from each other and their children.

                                                                                                                              Source:- The Hindu

 Non-communicable diseases top killers: WHO

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

 

Context:

     ★ According to World Health Organization (WHO), non-communicable diseases (NCDs) continue to be one of major reasons for death worldwide.

         

Highlights :

     ★ Non-communicable diseases such as diabetes, cancer and heart disease, are collectively responsible for over 70% of all deaths worldwide.

     ★ 15 million people die prematurely, aged between 30 and 69 due to NCDs

     ★ NCDs kill 8.5 million people each year in the South-East Asia Region

     ★ Cardiovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, diabetes and cancer are mainly caused by four modifiable behavioural risk factors: tobacco use, unhealthy diet, insufficient physical activity and harmful use of alcohol.

         

Solutions:

     ★ K.K. Aggarwal, former president of the Indian Medical Association, said: “A study conducted world-wide has noted that consuming fibre and whole grains can reduce health risks from non-communicable diseases such as heart disease.

     ★ The paper published in The Lancet indicates that eating fibre-rich foods reduces the incidence of coronary heart disease, stroke, type 2 diabetes and colorectal cancer by 16% to 24%. A higher fibre intake is also associated with lower bodyweight, systolic blood pressure and total cholesterol when compared with lower intake.

     ★ Doctors then recommend — eat less and enjoy your food by eating slowly, fill half your plate with fruits and vegetables, avoid oversized portions which causes weight gain, at least half of your grains should be whole grains, limit consumption of food high in trans fats.

                                                                                                                                  Source:- The Hindu

New Delhi superbug gene reaches the Arctic

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

 

Context:

     ★ In a significant find in the global spread of multi-drug resistant (MDR) bacteria, scientists have found a “superbug” gene — first detected in over a decade back — in one of the last “pristine” places on Earth that is some 12,870 km away.

         

More about the news:

     ★ Soil samples taken in Svalbard - a Norwegian archipelago between mainland Norway and the North Pole - have now confirmed the spread of blaNDM-1 (New Delhi Metallo-beta-lactamase-1) into the High Arctic.

     ★ The enzyme that makes bacteria drug-resistant got 'New Delhi' in its name because it was first detected in a Swedish patient of Indian origin who travelled to India in 2008.

         

NDM-1 drug:

         

blaNDM-1 found in the Arctic:

     ★ blaNDM-1 and other medically-important ARGs were found in Arctic soils that were likely to spread in the faecal matter of birds, other wildlife and human visitors to the area.

         

Superbugs:

     ★ Superbugs are strains of bacteria that are resistant to several types of antibiotics.

                                                                                                                                       Source:- The Hindu

India’s participation in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA)

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

 

Context:

     ★ An Agreement  was signed between India and OECD for India’s participation in Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2021.

         

PISA - 2021 :

     ★ India will participate in the Programme for International Students Assessment (PISA) to be conducted by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in 2021.

     ★ The participation in PISA 2021 would indicate the health of the education system and would motivate other schools /states in the subsequent cycles.

     ★ This will lead to improvement in the learning levels of the children and enhance the quality of education in the country.

     ★ PISA is a competency based assessment which unlike content-based assessment, measures the extent to which students have acquired key competencies that are essential for full participation in modern societies.

     ★ It would lead to recognition and acceptability of Indian students and prepare them for the global economy in the 21st century.

     ★ Learnings from participation in PISA will help to introduce competency based examination reforms in the school system and help move away from rote learning.

         

Key feature:

     ★ PISA is a triennial international survey (every three years) which aims to evaluate the education system worldwide by testing the skills and knowledge of 15-year-old students.

     ★ Students are assessed in reading, mathematics, science and collaborative problem-solving.

     ★ Participation in PISA allows benchmarking performance against a wide range of countries.

     ★ PISA uses test items aligned with international benchmarks. Test items are adapted to the local context and language, pilot tested and validated before being used for the test.

     ★ OECD have agreed to contextualize the questions for Indian students.

                                                                                                                                                    Source:- PIB

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

​