NuGen Mobility Summit 2019                                                                                                                   

‘RTI scrutiny will ruin judicial independence’                                                                                         

Skymet expects a ‘below normal’ monsoon                                                                                           

Group chats: WhatsApp users get more control                                                                                   

Bleaching hits world’s southernmost coral reef                                                                                    

South Korea first to roll out 5G services                                                                                               

NuGen Mobility Summit 2019

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Government Schemes and Policies

Context :

• The International Centre for Automotive Technology (ICAT) will organize a NuGen Mobility Summit, 2019, at Manesar, NCR, from 27th to 29th November 2019

NuGen Mobility Summit 2019 :

• The Summit is being organized in association with SAENIS, SAE INDIA, SAE International, NATRiP, DIMTS, Department of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, SIAM and ACMA.

• Objective : to share new ideas, learnings, global experiences, innovations and future technology trends for faster adoption, assimilation and development of advanced automotive technologies for a smarter and greener future.

• The event aims to bring together the automotive OEMs, professionals, researchers, academic experts, vehicle system suppliers, test equipment supplier, quality managers, product planners, component developers, SAE members and students from all over the world.

What’s so Special with this event ?

          Track demonstrations, drive-touch-feel activity and lab demonstrations on upcoming vehicle technologies like connected mobility, autonomous vehicles, electric mobility, alternate fuels, intelligent transportation system, hydrogen fuel cell, hydrogen IC engine, vehicle dynamics, advanced materials and lightweight, end of life vehicles and recycling are the uniqueness of this event.

Significance :

• The event will help in building a platform for bringing together all stakeholders in the automotive industry to understand global advancements in technologies.

                                                                                                                                                                 Source :- PIB

‘RTI scrutiny will ruin judicial independence’

GS PAPER - 02 GOVERNANCE - Statutory, regulatory and various quasi-judicial bodies Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Context :

• The Supreme Court has commenced hearing on its own appeal whether the Chief Justice of India’s office is covered under the purview of the Right to Information Act (RTI).

Background :

• The issue has arisen from an appeal filed by the Supreme Court against the January 2010 judgement of the Delhi High Court that declared the CJI’s office a public authority within the meaning of Section 2(h) of the RTI Act, 2005.

Questions before the Court :

• one is relating to disclosure of correspondence between Collegium and Centre

• Second is relating to disclosure of assets of judges and

• third is about to disclosure of letters exchanged in the matter of appointment of a Madras High Court judge.

More about the news:

• For the past decade, the Supreme Court has refused to divulge information under the RTI Act about the collegium’s confidential communications with the government.

• “If the RTI Act were to be applied to the collegium, its member judges would not be able to sit back and have a free and frank discussion for fear that their confidential views may later come into the public domain.” Said Mr. Venugopal.

• Venugopal represents the Supreme Court’s Central Public Information Officer (CPIO), who is the authority tasked to respond to RTI queries related to the court.

• There must be a caution against the demand for the application of the Right to Information Act on the judiciary.

Should Supreme Court come under RTI?

• Challenge to the apex court’s immunity from the Right to Information Act has put the focus on judicial transparency.

• There are some valid arguments for the judiciary feeling the need for secrecy.

• For example, collegium discussions can be freewheeling and include the discussion of courtroom corridor gossip and judges’ private lives, the examination of fairly invasive government intelligence reports and the expression of judges’ personal opinions.

• For judges, their credibility and reputation is hugely important, and many feel that the slightest potential slight on this could be debilitating and prevent judges from doing their job.

• That goes doubly so for judges who may have been rejected by the collegium, but continue to sit in high courts. Some may, perhaps legitimately fear, that a few over-enthusiastic advocates would love to get their hands on dirt against judges that they can take it out of context and use for leverage in court, by asking for their recusal or otherwise, questioning their independence in hearing a case.

• Therefore, being completely subject to RTI is perhaps deeply uncomfortable to the judges at a deeper level.

• This idea that increased exposure to the media leads to a healthier judiciary is debatable.

• Example of USA: In the United States of America, the Connecticut Supreme Court in Clerk of the Superior Court, Geographical Area Number Seven et al vs Freedom of Information Commission (2006) held that the judicial branch’s administrative functions relating to its budget, personnel, facilities and records created in carrying out the court’s adjudicatory function are exempt from the Freedom of information Act.

                                                                                                                                                               Source :- The Hindu

Skymet expects a ‘below normal’ monsoon

GS PAPER - 01 GEOGRAPHY - Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc.,

Context :

• Private weather forecaster Skymet expects below normal monsoon rains from June through September.

Rainfall Below Normal :

•  It expects monsoon rains to be about 7% short of the long period average rainfall (89cm) that India receives from June to September. It has also predicted the onset of monsoon to be late.

• Skymet has predicted that there is a 15% chance of a drought, 30% chance of normal rainfall and 55% chance of below normal rainfall.

• East India, along with large parts of Central India will receive deficient rainfall, particularly in June and July when El Niño will make its effect felt It is expected to weaken thereafter.

Causes :

• Skymet attributed developing El Nino phenomenon for its forecast of below normal rainfall during the monsoon.

• A strong El Nino results in reduction and uneven distribution of rainfall across the Indian sub-continent. T

• his is because the trade winds coming from South America which normally blow westward towards Asia during Southwest Monsoon gets weakened due to the warming of the Pacific Ocean.

• Therefore, moisture and heat content gets limited and this leads to poor rainfall in the region.

Concern :

•  According to Skymet’s regional forecast, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Bihar in the east, and Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Telengana are going to be particularly dry throughout the season.

• There is a 15% chance of drought in some of these regions.

                                                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

Group chats: WhatsApp users get more control

GS PAPER - 03 INTERNAL SECURITY - Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention.

Context :

• WhatsApp has unveiled its ‘Checkpoint Tipline’, where people can check the authenticity of information received as the messaging giant looks to crack down on fake news ahead of the general election in the country.It has been developed in collaboration with PROTO,an Indian based skilling start up.

Checkpoint Tipline :

• WhatsApp users can submit all the information received through the messaging platform that they are uncertain about to the ‘Tipline’ on WhatsApp (+91-9643-000-888).

• Following this,PROTO’s verification centre will “seek to respond and inform the user if the information received is verified or not.

• The response will indicate if information is classified as true, false, misleading, disputed or out of scope and include any other related information that is available.

• The verification centre, in turn, will be able to review rumors in the form of pictures, video links or text.

• Apart from English, it will cover four regional languages – Hindi, Telugu, Bengali and Malayalam.

Significance :

• This is not the first time the global messaging platform has tried to filter the barrage of information exchanged every day by billions of users.

•  In the aftermath of a series of mob lynching incidents following misinformation spreading on WhatsApp, the company is now taking stringent steps in the lead up to the 2019 general elections in India.

• It has also undertaken many efforts to battle fake news, including the five-forward limit, social campaigns, and the latest – a ‘Tipline’ for misinformation.

                                                                                                                                                            Source :- The Hindu

Bleaching hits world’s southernmost coral reef

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

Context :

• The Australian scientists have observed that the world’s southernmost coral reef has been hit by bleaching this summer and warned that the rising sea temperatures from climate change were affecting even the most isolated ecosystems.

Coral Bleaching :

• The corals off Lord Howe Island 600 km offshore from Sydney are affected by elevated temperatures this summer, despite escaping severe bleaching that damaged the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 and 2017.

          Note : Lord Howe Island was named a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982. The Lord Howe Island is located in the Tasman Sea between Australia and New Zealand.

• It’s a strong indicator that climate change is affecting everywhere around the world.

• It was inferred that the baseline temperatures caused by climate change, and local factors such as elevated temperatures in the area this summer, caused the bleaching to occur.

• The scientists are set to return to Lord Howe in the next few months to find out if some corals have been so severely bleached they can’t recover.

                                                                                                                                                          Source :- The Hindu

South Korea first to roll out 5G services

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 :

• South Korea will launch world’s first 5G mobile networks on April 5, 2019. South Korea will be the first country to launch 5G networks  beating U.S. and China.

5G Network:      

• 5G is the latest generation of cellular mobile communications.

• It succeeds the 4G (LTE-A, WiMax), 3G (UMTS, LTE) and 2G (GSM) systems.

• 5G performance targets high data rate, reduced latency, energy saving, cost reduction, higher system capacity, and massive device connectivity.

• The technology can offer 20-times faster data speeds than 4G long-term evolution (LTE) networks and better support for artificial intelligence and virtual reality with low latency.

• Sometimes it can offer 100-times faster speeds.

• SK Telecom is working with its memory-chip making affiliate SK Hynix to build a highly digitised and connected factory powered by 5G technology.

• While security concerns over 5G networks using telecom equipment made by China’s Huawei have marred the buildup to the release of these services, South Korean telcos have tried to shrug them off.

                                                                                                                                     Source :- The Hindu

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