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15th MARCH 2019 DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS
Man Portable Anti Tank Guided Missile
India Energy Modelling Forum
Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Centre sends medical team to Malappuram to assess West Nile Virus situation
RTI trumps Official Secrets Act, says SC
Govt. defends electoral bonds scheme in SC
Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone curtailed
A climate vulnerability index for India on the anvil
Man Portable Anti Tank Guided Missile
GS PAPER - 03 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY - indigenization of technology and developing new technology.
Context :
★ Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) successfully test fired indigenously developed, low weight, fire and forget Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) for the second time in the ranges of Rajasthan desert.
Man Portable Anti-Tank Guided Missile (MPATGM) :
★MPATGM is third-generation anti-tank guided missile (ATGM) indigenously developed by DRDO.
★It has strike range of 2.5 km. It weighs around 14.5 kg to maintain man portability.
★It is capable of being fired from shoulder and can be used during day and night. It has minimum lateral centre and gravity offset.
★It works on fire and forget principle and is known for its top attack capabilities.
★It is effective against both stationary and moving targets.
★ It will be deployed in infantry and parachute battalions of Indian Army.
Source :- PIB
India Energy Modelling Forum
GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Context :
★The NITI Aayog and the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) organized the first workshop on development of the India Energy Modelling Forum (IEMF)
★The two-day workshop, being held with the support of the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), was organized under the Sustainable Growth Pillar of the India-U.S. Strategic Energy Partnership.
India Energy Modelling Forum (IEMF) :
★IEMF has been envisaged as a pan-stakeholder platform for debating ideas, scenario-planning & discussing the India’s energy future.
★IEMF has been envisaged as a pan-stakeholder platform for debating ideas, scenario-planning & discussing the India’s energy future.
★The IEMF seeks to provide a platform for leading experts and policy makers to study important energy and environmental issues and ensure induction of modelling and analysis in informed decision making process.
★The Forum aims to improve cooperation and coordination between modeling teams, the Government of India, knowledge partners and think-tanks, build capacity of Indian institutions, and identify issues for joint modeling activities and future areas of research.
Source :- PIB
Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship
GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.
Context :
★The President of India, visit Gujarat to inaugurate the Festival of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Gandhinagar.
Festival of Innovation & Entrepreneurship (FINE):
★FINE is an initiative being organised by Rashtrapati Bhavan in association with the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India and the National Innovation Foundation-India.
★It will recognise, respect, showcase, reward innovations and to foster a supportive ecosystem for innovators.
★FINE will provide a platform for innovators for building linkages with potential stakeholders to develop their ideas into implementable projects for the larger social good.
★It will provide a window to showcase creative and innovative solutions for social development through innovation emerging from grassroots, student ideas and other technologies.
National Innovation Foundation (NIF) - India :★The National Innovation Foundation (NIF) – India,is India’s national initiative to strengthen the grassroots technological innovations and outstanding traditional knowledge.★Its mission is to help India become a creative and knowledge-based society by expanding policy and institutional space for grassroots technological innovators.★It was set up with the support of Honey Bee Network.★NIF scouts, supports and spawns’ grassroots innovations developed by individuals and local communities in any technological field, helping in human survival without any help from formal sector.★It also tries to ensure that such innovations diffuse widely through commercial and/or non-commercial channels, generating material or non-material incentives for them and others involved in the value chain |
Source :- PIB
Centre sends medical team to Malappuram to assess West Nile Virus situation
GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Issues related to Health
Context :
★A section of the media has reported that a seven-year-old boy from Malappuram District of Kerala is suffering from a West Nile Virus (WNV), a mosquito-borne disease, mostly reported in the continental United States.
★Health Ministry takes stock of the public health measures for controlling West Nile Virus.
West Nile Virus :
★According to WHO, West Nile Virus (WNV) is a member of the flavivirus genus and belongs to the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of the family Flaviviridae.
★West Nile Virus (WNV) can cause neurological disease and death in people.
★ WNV is commonly found in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America and West Asia.
★WNV is maintained in nature in a cycle involving transmission between birds and mosquitoes. Humans, horses and other mammals can be infected.
Transmission :
★Human infection is most often the result of bites from infected mosquitoes. Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds, which circulate the virus in their blood for a few days.
★The virus eventually gets into the mosquito's salivary glands. During later blood meals (when mosquitoes bite), the virus may be injected into humans and animals, where it can multiply and possibly cause illness.
★The virus may also be transmitted through contact with other infected animals, their blood, or other tissues.
★A very small proportion of human infections have occurred through organ transplant, blood transfusions and breast milk. There is one reported case of transplacental (mother-to-child) WNV transmission.
★To date, no human-to-human transmission of WNV through casual contact has been documented, and no transmission of WNV to health care workers has been reported when standard infection control precautions have been put in place.
Signs and Symptoms :
★Infection with WNV is either asymptomatic (no symptoms) in around 80% of infected people, or can lead to West Nile fever or severe West Nile disease.
★About 20% of people who become infected with WNV will develop West Nile fever.
★Symptoms include fever, headache, tiredness, and body aches, nausea, vomiting, occasionally with a skin rash (on the trunk of the body) and swollen lymph glands.
★The symptoms of severe disease (also called neuroinvasive disease, such as West Nile encephalitis or meningitis or West Nile poliomyelitis) include headache, high fever, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, and paralysis.
Treatment :
★Treatment is supportive for patients with neuro-invasive West Nile virus, often involving hospitalization, intravenous fluids, respiratory support, and prevention of secondary infections.
★No vaccine is available for humans.
Source :- Livemint
RTI trumps Official Secrets Act, says SC
GS PAPER - 02 POLITY - Structure, organization & functioning of the Executive & the Judiciary
Context :
★The Supreme Court has reserved its order on whether it would examine the documents submitted by Petitioners to review its order on the Rafale deal.
More about the news:
★An all-out effort by the government to claim privilege and push the Rafale jets’ pricing details back into the dark zone was met with a stoic counter from Justice K.M. Joseph in the Supreme Court.
★The government’s reasons to hush the Rafale prices ranged from national security to not upsetting a “solemn undertaking” given to France to keep the price of the jets a secret.
★But Justice Joseph, one of the three judges on the Bench, asked the government to read out Sections of the Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005. The judge said the information law has revolutionised governance and overpowered notions of secrecy protected under the Official Secrets Act, 1923.
Official secret Act :★An ‘Official Secrets Act’ is a generic term that is used to refer to a law — originally invented by the British, and then exported across the Commonwealth — that is designed to keep certain kinds of information confidential, including, but not always limited to, information involving the affairs of state, diplomacy, national security, espionage and other state secrets.★Across multiple countries, the Official Secrets Acts follow a similar pattern: classifying certain categories of information as “official secrets,” and then providing stiff penalties for any sharing, dissemination or publication of such information.Official Secret Act 1993 :★India’s Official Secrets Act (OSA) dates back to 1923, unsurprisingly a creation of the colonial regime★The 1923 Act includes penalties for spying (which, in turn, include even “approaching” or being “in the vicinity of” a prohibited place, publishing any “sketch” or “plan” that might be useful to the enemy, with a prejudicial purpose).★It punishes the communication of any information obtained in contravention of the Act, which could prejudice the security of the state, or friendly relations with foreign states. Furthermore, it punished people who knowingly receive such information — a provision clearly designed to capture investigative journalism.★The OSA is not used very often, but it is used enough times to keep it in the news, and to exercise a chilling effect (especially on investigative journalism).The act does not Define Secrecy :★Officials Secrets Act does not define ‘secret’ or ‘official secret’, and does not provide a ‘classification’ of documents.★The Manual of Departmental Security Instruction (MODSI) of the Ministry of Defence has laid down procedures and criterion for classification of documents as ‘top secret’, ‘secret’ and ‘confidential’. |
Source :- The Hindu
Govt. defends electoral bonds scheme in SC
GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Context :
★The Centre on Thursday defended in the Supreme Court its decision to issue electoral bonds saying it aimed at ensuring "enhanced accountability" and pushing electoral reforms "to defeat the growing menace of black money".
Issue :
★A petition has been filed in the Supreme Court seeking to strike down the ‘Electoral Bond Scheme 2018’ and amendments in the Finance Act, 2017, which allow for “unlimited donations from individuals and foreign companies to political parties without any record of the sources of funding.”
Centres Response :
★Centre contends that the scheme “envisages building a transparent system of acquiring bonds with validated KYC and an audit trail”.
★Besides, a limited window and a very short maturity period shall make any misuse improbable.
★Also, only those political parties which are registered under Section 29A of the Representation of People’s Act, 1951 and have secured not less than 1 percent of the votes polled in the last general election to the Lok Sabha or the Legislative Assembly, are eligible to receive the bond, Cente has added.
★Further, the Scheme mandates every political party has to file returns before the Election Commission of India as to how much money has come through these electoral bonds.
★Centre has further submitted that to ensure complete transparency, the buyer of a bond must submit an application in the requisite format, containing PAN, details of identity, address etc. Additionally, the application has to be attested by two witnesses with a declaration of the truthfulness of the contents of the Application.
Electoral Bond :★The electoral bonds scheme was announced in Union Budget 2017-18 with an aim for increasing transparency in political funding.★It makes India first country in the world to have such unique bonds for electoral funding.★These bonds are bearer instrument in nature of promissory note and interest-free banking instrument.★It aims at rooting out current system of largely anonymous cash donations made to political parties which lead to generation of black money in the economy.★These electoral bonds can be bought for any value in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 1 lakh, Rs 10 lakh or Rs 1 crore after fulfilling all existing Know Your Customer (KYC) norms and making payments from bank account.★It will not carry name of payee. The bond deposited by any eligible political party to its account shall be credited on the same day.★Electoral Bonds are valid for fifteen calendar days from the date of issue. No payment shall be made to any payee political party if bond is deposited after expiry of validity period.★Eligible political parties can encash electoral bonds only through their bank accounts. Electoral Bonds may be purchased by only citizen of India. An individual can buy Electoral Bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.★Only registered political parties, that have secured not less than 1% of votes polled in last election of Lok Sabha or legislative assembly of state, will be eligible to receive electoral bonds.★The cash donation has been capped at Rs. 2000 and beyond that donations are via electoral bonds. |
Source :- The Hindu
Bannerghatta eco-sensitive zone curtailed
GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
Context :
★The Bannerghatta National Park’s Eco-Sensitive Zone (ESZ), which provides a regulated buffer zone around protected areas, will remain at 168.84 sqkm despite thousands of citizens objecting to the reduction of nearly 100 sqkm as compared to the original proposal.
Changes :
★In the 33rd ESZ Expert Committee meeting of the Ministry of Environment and Forests held on February 28, members recommended finalisation after ‘detailed deliberations’ of the November 5 draft notification which declared an ESZ area of 168.84 sqkm around the BNP.
★This represents a 37% reduction from the first draft notification issued in 2016 which had marked an ESZ area of 268.9 sqkm.
★The new ESZ will range from 100 metres (towards Bengaluru city) to 1 kilometre (in Ramanagaram district) from the periphery of the protected area.
★The ESZ Committee estimates that between 150 and 200 elephants were observed at the BNP. During the meeting, members of the expert committee discussed extending the area of the proposed ESZ towards Bengaluru city.
★“However, the State representative cited that it will be difficult to further expand the ESZ due to thick habitation in adjoining areas,” as per the minutes of the meeting which were made public recently. Thousands of comments were sent to the MoEF from the city after the draft notification was published in November.
Eco - Sensitive Zone :★An ecologically sensitive area is one that is protected by the government given the sheer number of species, plants and animals endemic to the region.★According to the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, the government can prohibit industrial operations such as mining, sand quarrying and building thermal power plants in sensitive areas.★The definition offered by the MoEF: An ecological sensitive area is a bio-climatic unit (as demarcated by entire landscapes) in the Western Ghats wherein human impacts have locally caused irreversible changes in the structure of biological communities (as evident in number/ composition of species and their relative abundances) and their natural habitats.★To categorise an area as ecologically sensitive, the government looks at topography, climate and rainfall, land use and land cover, roads and settlements, human population, biodiversity corridors and data of plants and animal species. |
Source :- The Hindu
A climate vulnerability index for India on the anvil
GS PAPER - 03 ENVIRONMENT - Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment
Context :
★Indian scientists have developed a common framework for assessment of climate change vulnerability in all the states in the Himalayan region — Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Jammu and Kashmir and hilly districts of West Bengal.
★They have developed an index based on socio-economic factors, demographic and health status, sensitivity of agricultural production, forest-dependent livelihoods and access to information, services and infrastructure.
★The assessment has been done jointly by experts from Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) at Guwahati and Mandi, in collaboration with Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore with support from the Department of Science and Technology and the Swiss Development Corporation (SDC) which is implementing the Indian Himalayas Climate Adaptation Program (IHCAP).
Key Findings :
★he vulnerability index is the highest for Assam (0.72) and Mizoram (0.71), followed by Jammu & Kashmir (0.62), Manipur (0.59), Meghalaya and West Bengal (both 0.58), Nagaland (0.57), Himachal Pradesh and Tripura (0.51 both), Arunachal Pradesh (0.47) and Uttarakhand (0.45).
★Sikkim is the least vulnerable state with the index being 0.42. Districts within a state face different degrees of vulnerability based on difference in geographic, climatic, socio-economic and demographic conditions.
★ assessment does not portray Sikkim, Uttarakhand or Arunachal Pradesh as having a low vulnerability in an absolute sense.
★These states are least vulnerable relative to the other states
★Assam is highly vulnerable to climate change because of factors like low per capita income, deforestation, large number of marginal farmers, least area under irrigation, lack of alternative sources of income and high rates of poverty.
Significance :
★Receding apple lines, changing cropping patterns, more disasters like landslides and floods, drying springs in hills, spread of vector-borne diseases etc — are being felt all over the Himalayan region, which is one of the most sensitive climate zones globally.
★However, the vulnerability to climate change varies from state to state and even district to district within a state. It also depends on various socio-economic factors.
★Climate adaptation is a collaborative effort between appropriate use of technology, vision that produces policies, change at ground level and engagement of local communities. These vulnerability maps will play a crucial role in this effort.
★The vulnerability assessments will be useful for officials, decision makers, funding agencies and experts to have a common understanding on vulnerability and enable them to plan for adaptation.
Source :- The Hindu ; Down to Earth
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