Context: Recently, Government e Marketplace (GeM) organised the fourth edition of the National Public Procurement Conclave (NPPC) in association with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).
About GeM

• The Government e-Marketplace is a dedicated online platform where goods and services can be procured by various organizations and departments under the Government of India, and by the PSUs also.
• GeM is aimed at enhancing the efficiency, speed and transparency in public procurement of goods and services. It also serves the objective of eliminating corruption.
• It is administered by the Ministry of Commerce and Industries under the Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (DGS&D)
• It is a completely paperless, cashless and system-driven e-marketplace that enables the procurement of common use goods and services with a minimal human interface.
• It is an online marketplace for government officers and others for procurement.

About GeM 4.0
GeM 4.0 adds more features to the GeM platform. Some of the new features include:

• Timely payment to the sellers.
• Advanced search engine – NLP-based (Natural language Processing).
• Demand aggregation – Buyers would be able to collate multiple orders of the same product for various consignees across multiple organisations in the same Ministry.
• Staggered delivery – flexible delivery allowed.
• Redesigned bidding module by way of item-wise and consignee-wise bidding.
• Better grievance redressal mechanism in place.
• Portal is integrated with advanced analytics, artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning.
• Revamped user interface.
• Price variance included in the platform making cataloguing easy for sellers.
• Ease of payment – GeM is integrating with multiple banks and ERPs.
• New categories and services.
• Seller rating introduced.
• Vendors and buyers would be able to interact with each other so that suitable requirements can be designed with market research.
• Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) will now have dedicated pages.

Context: With a motive to transform the Agriculture into a Sustainable Enterprise Agriculture Mechanization and Technology Division takes various initiatives for farmers’ welfare under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan/Krishi.
Under Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan/Krishi, the following schemes have been initiated
Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM)

• Agricultural Mechanization is one of the key drivers for sustainable development of the agriculture sector which helps in increasing production by timely farm operations, reducing losses, reducing the cost of operations by ensuring better management of costly inputs.
• Mechanization also enhances the productivity of natural resources and reduces drudgery associated with various farm operations.
• For driving mechanization in this sector, the Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM) was launched in 2014.
• This scheme provides a suitable platform for converging all activities for inclusive growth of agricultural mechanization by providing a ‘single window’ approach for implementation with a special focus on small & marginal farmers.

CRM (Crop Residue Management) scheme

• With an objective to wean away farmers of Punjab and Haryana from Crop Residue Burning, the scheme of CRM (Crop Residue Management) was initiated since 2018 by the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare.
• Paddy straw burning is one of the major problems in the Northern Region of the country causing environmental pollution.
• Paddy straw burning is currently practised on a large scale in Punjab & Haryana to clear the fields for Rabi Crop sowing because the time window available between the harvesting of paddy crop and the sowing of next crops is very short (2-3 weeks).
• Under this scheme, farmers are provided machinery for in-situ management of crop residue through the establishment of CHCs (Custom Hiring Centres).
• Individual farmers are also provided with a subsidy for the procurement of machinery.
• The Ministry has also developed a Multilingual Mobile App “CHC- Farm Machinery” which connects the farmers with Custom Hiring Service Centres situated in their locality.
• This App has been modified and provided more features and renamed “FARMS-app” (Farm Machinery Solutions-app).

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Textiles disbanded another advisory body” the All India Powerloom Board” after All India Handicrafts and Handloom boards.

• It has also changed the status of all the Textiles Research Associations (TRAs) from ‘affiliated bodies’ to ‘approved bodies’ for conducting testing, research and developmental activities related to the textiles sector.

Reasons for disbanding

• It failed to impact policy-making and became vehicles of “political patronage” with the emergence of a ‘middleman culture’ that did not help the interests of weavers. 

Key Points

• The Textile Research Associations will now act as approved bodies to conduct tests, researches and development activities of the textiles sector.
• The boards have been scrapped with a view to achieving “minimum government and maximum governance”.
• Concerning point is, the Textile sector is the most prominent employer after agriculture in rural India and the move to abolish the board can be “disastrous for small-scale artisans.

About All India Powerloom Board

• The All India Powerloom Board was first constituted as an Advisory Board to the Government of India in November 1981. Powerloom is a mechanised loom that was developed during the early Industrial Revolution.
• Aims: It aims to advise the Government generally on matters concerning the healthy development of Powerlooms within the power-operated weaving sector.
• It includes measures to be taken to achieve better productivity, increased efficiency, improve the welfare of workers and locational dispersal of Powerlooms. 
• The Government of India reconstitutes AIPB from time to time.
• The present AIPB was reconstituted for a period of two years in 2013.
• The Handloom Board was scrapped on the National Handloom Day (August 7).

Status of Textiles Sector In India

• The percentage of contribution of Textile industry to industrial production is 2.3% of GDP of India. Textiles industry provides the second largest employment in the country providing employment to more than 45 million people. For the overall development of the sector, the government is formulating a New Textile Policy. 
• The textile industry is facing problems like technological obsolesce, high input cost (power & capital), poor access to credit, fragmented units, absence of fiber neutrality etc.
• The textiles sector is highly important to India as it generates huge employment to both skilled and unskilled labours after agriculture.
• India is first in jute production and contributes to 63% of Global textile market. Most of the jute mills in India are located in the banks of Hooghly River. 
• India faces tough competition from countries such as Brazil, Bangladesh, Philippines, Thailand and Egypt. The main markets of jute are Russia, USA, UK, Australia and Canada.
• The textiles industry in India include silk, cotton, wool, jute and man-made fibres. Cotton contributes to 60% of Indian Textiles industry. 
• The Cotton Textile industries are concentrated in the cotton growing belts of Gujarat, Maharashtra and Rajasthan.

Various schemes to provide support to Textiles

• Knitting and Knitwear Sector scheme: For the development and Knitwear Sector to boost production in knitting and knitwear cluster at Ludhiana, Kolkata and Tirupur.
• Amended Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS): Government is implementing Amended Technology Up-gradation Fund Scheme (ATUFS) for technology up-gradation of the textile industry to incentivize production with an outlay of Rs.17,822 crore during 2016-2022.
• Power Tex India: A comprehensive scheme for Powerloom sector.
• National Handicrafts Development Programme (NHDP) and Comprehensive Handicraft Cluster Development Schemes.
• Silk Samagra: An integrated Scheme for development of silk.
• Scheme for Integrated Textile Park (SITP) which provides support for the tion of world-class infrastructure facilities for setting up of textile units.

Context: Recently, to expand the vision of technology Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog, in collaboration with Dell Technologies launched Student Entrepreneurship Programme 2.0 for young innovators of Atal Tinkering Labs.
Key Points
SEP 2.0

• Objective: It will allow student innovators to work closely with Dell volunteers. They will receive mentor support; prototyping and testing support; end-user feedback; intellectual property registration and patenting of ideas, processes, and products; manufacturing support; as well as the launch support of the product in the market.

Background

• As many as 1500 innovations were submitted in the last season of ATL Marathon (2019). ATL Marathon is a nationwide contest where students identify community challenges and create grassroots innovations and solutions within their ATLs.
• 50 teams were selected and mentored by Atal Incubation Centres via the Student Innovator Programme 2.0.
• Student Innovator Programme provides training on business and entrepreneurship skills to students.
• The top 8 will take their prototypes to product through SEP 2.0.

SEP 1.0

• SEP 1.0 was a 10-month-long programme through which the top 6 teams of ATL Marathon 2017 got a chance to transform their innovative prototypes into fully functioning products, which are now available in the market.

About Atal Tinkering Labs (ATLs)
Vision

• AIM is establishing ATLs in schools across India with a vision to cultivate one million children in India as neoteric (modern) innovators.
• It is aimed at disrupting the Indian education system, creating a paradigm shift where children as young as 12 years of age are being introduced to the world of technology innovation.

Objectives: To foster curiosity, creativity and imagination in young minds; and inculcate skills such as design mindset, computational thinking, adaptive learning, physical computing etc.

• Eligibility: Schools (minimum Grade VI - X) managed by Government, local body or private trusts/society.
• Financial Support: AIM provides grant-in-aid of Rs. 20 Lakh to each school that includes a one-time establishment cost of Rs. 10 lakh and operational expenses of Rs. 10 lakh for a maximum period of 5 years to each ATL.

Features

• ATL is a work space where young minds can give shape to their ideas through hands on do-it-yourself mode; and learn innovation skills.
• Young children get a chance to work with tools and equipment to understand the concepts of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
• CollabCAD was launched in ATL schools to provide students experience in creating and modifying 3D designs.
• In order to foster inventiveness among students, ATL conducts different activities ranging from regional and national level competitions, exhibitions, workshops on problem solving, designing and fabrication of products, lecture series etc. at periodic intervals.

Context: Recently, the Prime Minister of India launched the ‘Transparent Taxation - Honoring The Honest’ platform to honour the honest taxpayers of the country.

Key Points
The Transparent Taxation Platform:

• It is aimed at bringing transparency in income tax systems and empowering taxpayers.
• The main features of the platform are faceless assessment, faceless appeal and taxpayer charter.
• The faceless assessment and taxpayer charter will come into place immediately from the launch, while the faceless appeal is going to be applicable from 25th September 2020.
• Faceless Assessment: It aims to eliminate the interface between the taxpayer and the income tax department.
• There will be no need for the taxpayer to visit the income tax office or the officer.
• The selection of a taxpayer is possible through systems using analytics and Artificial Intelligence.
• Faceless Appeal: Under the system, appeals will be randomly allotted to any officer in the country. The identity of the officer deciding the appeal will remain unknown.
• Taxpayer Charter: This outlines the rights and responsibilities of both tax officers and taxpayers.

Other Recent Direct Tax Reforms

• The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has carried out several major tax reforms in direct taxes in recent years. The focus of the tax reforms has been on reduction in tax rates and on simplification of direct tax laws.
• Corporate Tax rates were reduced from 30% to 22% in 2019. For new manufacturing units the corporate tax rates were reduced to 15%.
• Dividend Distribution Tax was also abolished in 2019.
• The CBDT has also taken several initiatives for bringing in efficiency and transparency in the functioning of the Income Tax (IT) Department, such as:
• Bringing more transparency in official communication through the newly introduced Document Identification Number (DIN) wherein every communication of the Department would carry a computer generated unique document identification number.
• Pre-filing income tax returns to increase the ease of compliance for taxpayers and to make compliance more convenient for individual taxpayers.
• Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Act, 2020 to provide for resolution of pending tax disputes.

Context: Recently, a study based on satellite data has flagged a high rate of deforestation in a major hornbill habitat in Arunachal Pradesh.

• According to the Global Forest Watch 2020 report, Arunachal Pradesh lost 1,110 sq.km. of the primary forest from 2002-2019.

Key highlights of the study
Methodology of the study

• Ecologists used fine-scale satellite imagery to assess the changes in forest cover of the 1,064 sq.km. covering the Papum Reserve Forest (RF) adjoining the Pakke Tiger Reserve as well as a part of Assam affected by illegal felling and ethnic conflict.
• The ecologists assessed the habitat loss due to illegal logging within a 1 km radius around 29 hornbill nest trees.

Outcomes of the study

• The satellite data pointed to alarming deforestation rates in Papum RF with annual loss rates as high as 8.2 sq.km. as per estimates from 2013-2017 where forest cover declined to 76% of the total RF area.
• The result shows the loss and degradation of critical hornbill habitat in the biologically rich forests of the Indian Eastern Himalaya, underscoring the need for habitat conservation efforts. 
• It was found that from 2011 to 2019, the forest cover was found to have declined from 38.55 sq.km. to 21.94 sq.km. around these trees.

About Papum Reserve Forest

• Papum Reserve Forest (RF) is an Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) in Arunachal Pradesh.
• It is located between two IBAs, Itanagar Wildlife Sanctuary to the east and Pakke Wildlife Sanctuary to the west.
• Papum Reserve Forest forms part of the Eastern Himalayas Endemic Bird Area. A large part of the site is covered by Sub-tropical Dry Evergreen and Semi-evergreen Forests, while the higher areas are under Subtropical Broadleaf Hill Forest cover.
• Papum RF is a nesting habitat of three species of the large, colourful fruit-eating hornbills: Great, Wreathed and Oriental Pied.

About Hornbills Birds

• The hornbills (scientific name Bucerotidae), are a family of birds found in tropical and subtropical Africa and Asia.
• India is home to nine species of hornbills. The northeastern region of India has the highest diversity of hornbill species. 
• The Hornbill festival celebrated in Nagaland is named after the bird – Hornbill which is the most revered and admired bird for the Nagas. 
• One of the kinds of Hornbill found in India is called the Great Indian Hornbill. 
• Great Indian Hornbill- It is one of the larger members of the hornbill family, distributed along Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia.
• It is an important bird in many tribal cultures and rituals owing to its size and unique colour.
• The great hornbill is long-lived, living for nearly 50 years in captivity.
• Though predominantly frugivorous, it also preys on mammals, reptiles and birds.

Conservation Status

• At present, 26 out of the 62 species (40%) of hornbills are Globally Threatened or Near Threatened with extinction, with all other species listed as Least Concern, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.
• It is listed in Appendix I of CITES.
• The great hornbill is the state bird of Kerala and Arunachal in India and Chin State in Myanmar.
• The Great Hornbill is used as the logo of Kerala Evergreen FC an Indian professional football club based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India.
• A great hornbill called William (pictured) was the model for the logo of the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and the name of their building.

Threats

• Hornbills are hunted for their casques i.e. upper beak and feathers for adorning headgear.
• Tribal people hunt them for their parts for rituals and making headgears and other decorations and even as a delicacy.
• Habitat loss and hunting are major threats.
• Forest clearance for agriculture.

Significance

• Hornbills are called ‘forest engineers’ or ‘farmers of forest’ for playing a key role in dispersing seeds of tropical trees, hornbills indicate the prosperity and balance of the forest they build nests in.
• Since hornbills consume and spread seeds of fruit species, they are important for the economy and culture of local communities.

Additional Facts
Hornbill Species: The Papum Reserve is a nesting habitat of three species of hornbills:

• Great hornbill- Vulnerable
• Wreathed hornbill – Vulnerable and
• Oriental Pied Hornbill- Least Concern.

Pakke reserve houses a fourth species,the Rufous-Necked Hornbill- Vulnerable.

Context: According to quantitative analysis on impacts of air pollution on insects by the National Centre for Biological Sciences, Bengaluru, the giant Asian honey bee is falling prey to air pollution.
Key findings of the study

• The study examined the effects of air pollution on the behaviour, physiology, and molecular aspects of the giant Asian honey bee in Bangalore – one of India’s fastest growing megacities.
• In collaboration with other scientists from the NCBS as well as the Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (inStem) and the The Knight Cardiovascular Institute, the scientists found that bees from more polluted areas of the city exhibited lower flower visitation rates than in less polluted areas.
• Scientists from India’s National Centre for Biological Sciences in Bangalore found that the poor air quality could be devastating for organisms we rely on most for our own survival – pollinators such as the honey bee.
• Bees from more polluted areas also showed significant differences in heart rhythmicity, blood cell count, and the expression of genes coding for stress, immunity, and metabolism,
• In India Apis dorsata produces more than 80% of India’s honey.

Giant Asian honey bee

• Apis dorsata is giant honey bee native to South and Southeast Asia.
• They are typically around 17–20 mm long.
• Known for their aggressive defense strategies and vicious behavior when disturbed.
• Though not domesticated, the indigenous peoples have traditionally used this species as a source of honey and beeswax, a practice known as honey hunting.

Concerns

• India is the world’s largest fruit producer, second-largest vegetable producer as well as the second-most populous country.
• The wild pollinator is an important contributor to India’s food security and ecosystems.
• 80% of all flowering plants rely on animal pollination, maximum of which would disappear without insect pollinators like honey bees.

Context: Recently, Scientists from the Bombay Natural History Society published a research paper on the forgotten butterflies of Matheran in the community peer-reviewed ‘Biodiversity Data Journal’.

• Scientists found 140 rare species of butterflies, including 77 new ones in Matheran after a long gap of 125 years.
• The last time butterflies have codified in this eco-sensitive zone was in 1894, when a researcher identified 78 species.

Key Points

• The maximum diversity (125) of butterflies was recorded during winter, while the least (80) during monsoon. 
• Biostatistical techniques were used by the team. The team used a barcode system to denote seasons and the activities of the butterflies.
• This system will help biologists studying butterflies present such data concisely and effectively.

Significance

• A long-term study of butterflies will surely help the scientific community to understand and conserve the health of the ecosystem.

About Matheran

• Matheran means “forest on the forehead” (of the mountains) is an eco-sensitive region, declared by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• It is one of the smallest hill stations of India and is part of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region along the Western Ghats.

About Eco-Sensitive Region

• It is the area which has been notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC), as areas around the Wildlife Sanctuaries, National Parks and Protected Areas as requiring more protection due to their fragility. 

Its Purpose

• To manage and regulate the activities around these areas with the intention of creating some kinds of ‘shock absorbers’
• To provide a transition zone between the highly protected and relatively less protected areas.
• To give effect to Section 3(2)(v) of the Environment Protection Act, 1986 which restricts the operation of industries or processes to be carried out in certain areas or to maintain certain safeguards to operate industries.

Context: The island of New Guinea, the world’s second-largest in area and the largest tropical island, has the globe’s richest collection of plants, a study by the University of Zurich in Switzerland. 
Key findings of the study

• Some 99 scientists from 56 institutions and 19 countries probed online catalogues, repositories of institutions and datasets made by taxonomists to come up with a list of 13,634 plant species of New Guinea and its surrounding islands. The list has been verified by experts. 
• However, the university said that more species are waiting to be discovered and another 3,000-4,000 could be added to the list in the years to come. 
• The number of plant species that the list enumerates — 13,634 — is 20 per cent more species than Madagascar or Borneo. The plant family with the maximum number of species is orchids while a third of the species are trees. Some 68 per cent of the plants in the list are endemic and not found anywhere else in the world. 

Key Facts about New Guinea

• It is world’s second-largest in area and the largest tropical island.
• The number of plant species that the list enumerates is 13,634 which is 20 % more species than Madagascar or Borneo.
• Some 68 % of the plants in the list are endemic and not found anywhere else in the world.

Location of New Guinea

• New Guinea is an island of the eastern Malay Archipelago, in the western Pacific Ocean, north of Australia.
• It is bounded by the Pacific Ocean to the north, the Bismarck and Solomon seas to the east, the Coral Sea and Torres Strait to the south, and the Arafura Sea to the southwest.

Context: Recently,the island country of Mauritius has declared an environmental emergency after a ship that ran aground on a reef in the Indian Ocean started leaking fuel.
Issue

• The ship, the MK Wakashio, is Japanese-owned but registered in Panama. It was travelling from China to Brazil when it struck the reef on July 25 and its crew was evacuated. 
• However, subsequently due to bad weather and constant pounding by the ocean, the ship began to leak fuel, of which, there was 4,000 tonnes on board. 
• Mauritius’ Prime Minister has appealed to France for help. The French island of Reunion is situated near Mauritius in the Indian Ocean. 
• The Japanese company that owns the ship has also promised to do all it can to stop the leak. Mauritius is world-renowned for its coral reefs and international organisation Greenpeace has warned that the country, which depends on ecotourism, could be devastated by the disaster.

About Mauritius

• It is an island nation in the Indian Ocean about 2,000 kilometres (1,200 mi) off the south-east coast of the African continent. Mauritius is considered to be part of the African Continent.
• The capital and largest city, Port Louis, is located on the main island of Mauritius.
• Physiographically, it is part of the Mascarene Islands.
• Mauritius is known for its varied flora and fauna, with many species endemic to the island.
• Mahatma Gandhi en route to India from South Africa made a brief stopover (October 29 to November 15, 1901), in Mauritius. As a tribute to Gandhiji and the Indian freedom struggle, the National Day of Mauritius is celebrated on March 12 (the date of launch of Dandi Salt March).

Context: Recently, a Japanese ship named M V Wakashio struck a coral reef resulting in an oil spill of over 1,000 tonnes into the Indian Ocean.
Issue

• The accident had taken place near two environmentally protected marine ecosystems and the Blue Bay Marine Park Reserve, which is a wetland of international importance.
• A number of popular tourist beaches and mangrove plantations are located nearby the spill.

Concerns associated with oil spills

• Oil spills affect marine life by exposing them to harsh elements and destroying their sources of food and habitat. 
• Both birds and mammals can die from hypothermia as a result of oil spills, for instance, oil destroys the insulating ability of fur-bearing mammals, such as sea otters.
• It also decreases the water repellency of birds’ feathers, without which they lose their ability to repel cold water.
• Conservationists are also anxious about oil washing into mangrove forests, where roots serve as nurseries for fish.
• Concerns are also growing for the thousands of local people whose livelihoods will be impacted by the spill.
• The damage could impact Mauritius and its tourism-dependent economy for decades.

Methods of Cleaning the oil spill

• Including skimming: It involves removing oil from the sea surface before it is able to reach the sensitive areas along the coastline. 
• In situ burning: It means burning a particular patch of oil after it has concentrated in one area.
• Release of chemical dispersants: Releasing chemical dispersants helps break down oil into smaller droplets, making it easier for microbes to consume, and further break it down into less harmful compounds.
• Natural actions: Natural actions in aquatic environments such as weathering, evaporation, emulsification, biodegradation and oxidation can also help reduce the severity of an oil spill and accelerate the recovery of an affected area. 

Other instances of oil spills

• Some of the world’s largest oil spills include the Persian Gulf War oil spill of 1991 when more than 380 million gallons of oil was poured into the northern Persian Gulf by Iraq’s forces.
• The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is also considered to be among the largest known accidental oil spills in history. Starting April 20, 2010, over 4 million barrels of oil flowed over a period of 87 days into the Gulf of Mexico.
• In 2016, a United States Geological Survey (USGS)-NASA study found that the 2010 oil spill led to “widespread” shoreline loss along with the heavily oiled areas along Louisiana’s coast. 
• Recently occurred Oil spill in Russia’s Arctic region.

Context: Recently, National Statistical Office(NSO) released the state-wise data in the EnviStats India 2020 report it says that the number of heat wave days in 2019 increased over 80%. 
About the Report

• The report was prepared by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation. The National Statistical Office (NSO) operates under this ministry.
• The report covers the biophysical aspects of the environment and those aspects of the socio-economic system that directly influence and interact with the environment.

Key findings of the report

• Heat Waves: The average number of heat wave days has increased by 82.6% year-on-year to 157 in 2019 with the highest number recorded in Rajasthan followed by Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand.
• Deaths Due to Heat Waves: The deaths due to heat waves in 2019 saw a sharp jump from 26 in 2018 to 373 in 2019.However, it was slightly lower than 375 in 2017.
• Acute Respiratory Infection: The deaths due to acute respiratory infection in 2018 were 3,740.This was the highest in six years.The highest number of deaths were reported in West Bengal.
• Particulate Matter(PM): In 2018, the particulate matter of size less than or equal to 10 µm was the highest in Delhi followed by Ahmedabad and Mumbai.
• Drinking Water: The tube well and hand pump were the primary source of drinking water in rural India with a share of 53.8%.On the other hand, piped water, public tap, standpipe were the primary source in urban areas with a share of 65%.
• Slum Population: Andhra Pradesh had the highest number of slum population followed by Chhattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.
• Motor Vehicles: Delhi had the highest number of registered motor vehicles in the country followed by Bengaluru.

Additional Information

• India needs to redouble its national sustainability efforts. The country needs to focus largely on biodiversity, climate change and air and water quality. 
• India ranked 168 in the Environment Performance Index, 2020. It measured the environment performance of 180 countries.

Context: Recently, TRAFFIC India conducted a study on the seizure and mortality of ‘common leopards’ (Panthera pardus fusca).
It revealed that of the total of 747 leopard deaths between 2015-2019 in India, 596 were linked to illegal wildlife trade and activities related to poaching.
Key Facts

• Indian Leopard: It is a leopard subspecies widely distributed on the Indian subcontinent.
• Habitat: It is distributed in India, Nepal, Bhutan and parts of Pakistan.
• IUCN Status: Vulnerable
• Threats: Habitat Destruction, Human-Animal Conflict and Illegal Wildlife Trade.

Key points of study

• The records indicated that 140 leopards were killed by poachers and their carcasses were recovered from the forest areas.
• Whereas body parts belonging to the equivalent of 456 leopards were seized during various operations by law enforcement agencies during the study period.
• The paper titled ‘‘SPOTTED’ in Illegal Wildlife Trade: A Peek into Ongoing Poaching and Illegal Trade of Leopards in India’ also revealed that the highest numbers of poaching incidents were reported from the States of Uttarakhand and Maharashtra. 

Causes

• Among all the derivatives found in illegal wildlife trade, skin remained the most in-demand product, accounting for 69% of all seizures, while derivatives like claws, teeth and bones were also traded.
• It is also believed that bones of the leopard are possibly traded as tiger bones as they have a larger international demand for traditional medicines
• IUCN Status-The conservation status of common leopards was elevated from ‘Near Threatened’ in 2008 to ‘Vulnerable’ in 2015 by the International Union of Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
• Leopards are threatened by increasing habitat destruction and human-wildlife conflict around the country arising out of shrinking habitats and illegal trade.

About TRAFFIC 

• TRAFFIC is a leading non-governmental organisation working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.
• It is a joint program of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and IUCN.
• Its aim is to ensure that trade in wild plants and animals is not a threat to the conservation of nature.
• TRAFFIC investigates and analyses wildlife trade trends, patterns, impacts and drivers to provide the leading knowledge base on trade in wild animals and plants.

Context: Recently, the Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare launched the Krishi Megh (National Agricultural Research & Education System -Cloud Infrastructure and Services). 

• The Minister also launched the KVC ALUNET (Krishi Vishwavidyalaya Chhatr Alumni Network) and Online Accreditation System for Higher Agricultural Educational Institutions (HEI).

About Krishi Megh (National Agricultural Research & Education System – Cloud Infrastructure and Services)

• Krishi Megh is the data recovery centre of ICAR (Indian Council of Agricultural Research).
• The data recovery centre has been set up at National Academy of Agricultural Research Management (NAARM), Hyderabad.
• Krishi Megh has been set up under the National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP), funded by both the government and the World Bank.
• The data recovery centre at NAARM is synchronised with the data centre at IASRI.
• IASRI – ICAR-Indian Agricultural Statistics Research Institute (IASRI) is an institute located in New Delhi engaged in teaching and training in Agricultural Statistics, Computer Application and Bioinformatics.

Benefits of Krishi Megh

• It has been built to mitigate the risk, enhance the quality, availability and accessibility of e-governance, research, extension and education in the field of agriculture in India.
• Krishi Megh is said to be a step forward towards digital agriculture of the ‘New India’.
• Krishi Megh is equipped with the latest artificial intelligence and deep learning software for building and deploying of deep learning-based applications through image analysis, disease identification in livestock, etc.
• It enables the farmers, researchers, students and policymakers to be more equipped with the updated and latest information regarding agriculture and research.

About KVC ALUNET

• Its development has been a result of an idea of social networking for the alumnus of the Agricultural Universities. 
• It will enable the alumni of all the 74 Agricultural Universities in connecting with each other and making it possible to assist the students in internship, placements and to provide support to their alma maters.

About Cloud Storage

• It is a cloud computing model that stores data on the Internet through a cloud computing provider who manages and operates data storage as a service.
• It is delivered on demand with just-in-time capacity and costs, and eliminates buying and managing your own data storage infrastructure.
• It gives agility, global scale and durability, with “anytime, anywhere” data access.

Additional Information

• NAHEP: It is a Government of India-World Bank funded project that aims to attract talent and strengthen higher agricultural education in the country by supporting agricultural universities and ICAR in providing more relevant and quality education to Agricultural University students.
• ICAR: It is an autonomous organisation under the Department of Agricultural Research and Education (DARE), Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.Union Minister of Agriculture serves as its president.

Context: Recently, the Rockefeller Foundation has selected Naandi Foundation (a Hyderabad based non-profit organisation), as one of the top 10 ‘Visionaries’ in the world for the Food System Vision 2050 Prize.

• Naandi was recognised for its Arakunomics model.

About Food System Vision Prize

• It was launched by the USA-based ‘The Rockefeller Foundation’, in partnership with the other two organisations - SecondMuse and OpenIDEO- in 2019.
• It is an invitation for organizations across the globe to develop a Vision of the regenerative and nourishing food system that they aspire to create by the year 2050.
• Food System Vision is a story about the future that addresses the following six interconnected themes: "Environment, Diets, Economics, Culture, Technology and Policy".

The notion is that by transforming food systems, following challenges can be addressed

• A global population approaching 10 billion,
• Greenhouse gasses changing the climate,
• Pollution poisoning soil, air, and water.
• USD 2 million will be distributed to the Top Visionaries, who will be eligible to receive a prize of USD 2,00,000 each.

About Naandi Foundation (Arakunomics)

• The organisation was recognised for the application of Arakunomics model in regions of Araku (Andhra Pradesh), Wardha (Maharashtra) and New Delhi, leading to the Food Vision 2050 that follows an “ABCDEFGH” framework centring on: Agriculture, Biology, Compost, Decentralised decision-making, Entrepreneurs, Families, Global Markets, and ‘Headstands (implying innovation)’.
• Arakunomics is a new integrated economic model that ensures profits for farmers, quality for consumers through regenerative agriculture.
• It is based on work with tribal farmers in Araku for nearly 20 years.
• This economic model is a tribute to the tribal farmers of Araku region for the world class coffee produced and launched in Paris in 2017, as well as for the high carbon landscape transformation they did in over 955 villages, thereby planting 25 million trees.
• Arakunomics success in Araku led to Naandi replicating the model to support the livelihoods of farming communities in the villages of Wardha – infamous for agrarian distress, as well as later in New Delhi, as part of an Urban Farms Co programme.
• Naandi hopes to expand its “food-print” by creating thousands of farm livelihoods by transforming their agriculture over one million acres spread across India.
• Rockefeller Foundation will release USD 1,50,000 at present and the balance USD 50,000 after a three-month accelerator programme that is intended to help Naandi realise its vision.

About Regenerative Agriculture

• “Regenerative Agriculture” describes farming and grazing practices that, among other benefits, reverse climate change by rebuilding soil organic matter and restoring degraded soil biodiversity – resulting in both carbon drawdown and improving the water cycle.
• The key to regenerative agriculture is that it not only “does no harm” to the land but actually improves it, using technologies that regenerate and revitalize the soil and the environment.
• Regenerative agriculture leads to healthy soil, capable of producing high quality, nutrient dense food while simultaneously improving, rather than degrading land, and ultimately leading to productive farms and healthy communities and economies.
• It is dynamic and holistic, incorporating permaculture (sustainable and self-sufficient agricultural ecosystems) and organic farming practices, including conservation tillage, cover crops, crop rotation, composting, mobile animal shelters and pasture cropping, to increase food production, farmers’ income and especially, topsoil.
• It has been promoted to counter loss of the world’s fertile soil and biodiversity, along with the loss of indigenous seeds and knowledge.

Context: Recently, Researchers at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad have reportedly found a way to better forecast the Boreal Summer Intra-Seasonal Oscillation (BSISO).
About BSISO

• The BSISO of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) is one of the most prominent sources of short-term climate variability in the global monsoon system.
• It is the movement of convection (heat) from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean roughly every 10-50 days during the monsoon (June-September).
• They found that waves induced by active phases of BSISO are nearly 0.5 meters higher than those which occur during other phases of BSISO. The active phases of BSISO occur between June and August which are the monsoon summer months.
• Compared with the related Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) it is more complex in nature, with prominent northward propagation and variability extending much further from the equator.
• It represents the monsoon’s ‘active’ and ‘break’ periods, in which weeks of heavy rainfall give way to brilliant sunshine before starting all over again.
• The active phase also enhances monsoon winds and hence the surface waves.

Significance

• Some phases of boreal summer intra seasonal oscillation or BSISO induce high wave activity in north Indian Ocean and Arabian Sea, the researchers claimed. 
• The will help improve wave forecasts along India’s coasts and mitigate adverse impacts of high waves (coastal flooding, erosion, etc). Sea-navigation routes can also be better planned. 
• This finding has a great significance in developing seasonal and climate forecast service for waves and coastal erosion for India. 

Context: Amid a busy season for the NDRF, a look at how it came into being, how personnel are deputed from the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPF), and how they are trained.

• The origins and role of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) during natural calamities and man-made disasters in India is equipped and trained to handle a range of difficulties, from borewell accidents to chemical, biological and radioactive emergencies.

Origin

• Its origin lies in the National Disaster Management Act (NDMA), 2005.
• The National Disaster Management Act was passed by the Parliament in 2005.
• In the backdrop of the 2001 earthquake and 2004 tsunami, it was a much-needed step towards determining responsibility and accountability for disaster response.
• The legislation was also the result of ongoing discussions about disaster management on international forums at the time.

About NDRF

• NDMA laid down a legal framework for disaster response at the national, state and district levels.
• The National Disaster Management Authority is chaired by the Prime Minister.
• The Act paved the way for establishing Disaster Management Authorities at the national, state and district levels, setting up the National Disaster Response and Mitigation Funds, and formation of the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF).

The constitution of NDRF and its structure:

• The NDRF was raised in 2006, initially with eight battalions, and now has 12 spread across the country.
• Each battalion, which has a sanctioned strength of 1,150 rescuers, caters to particular states as their areas of responsibility.
• In case required, teams from other battalions are moved for emergency response.
• The NDRF functions under the purview of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) and is headed by a Director-General.
• The NDRF officials believe that the strategies of preemptive availability and pre-positioning of teams anticipating emergency situations, facilitated by the nationwide presence of its battalions, have made sure that damages are contained.
• Note: It has been recently announced that four more NDRF battalions will be raised, and teams of women rescuers will also be inducted.

Personnel and training of the NDRF

• The NDRF gets personnel and officers on deputation from the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) for a period of seven years.
• After serving their tenure, personnel will go back to their force.
• Currently, the NDRF has battalions staffed by personnel from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force (BSF), Central Industrial Security Force (CISF), Indo Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB).
• Sections of personnel are given specialised training in deep diving, special search and rescue, collapsed structure search and rescue, Chemical Biological Radiological Nuclear emergencies and also psycho-social intervention.
• Some of the personnel further undergo specialised training with national and international institutions including those on chemical and biological warfare situations.

Context: Recently, landslides have been reported at the Nayamakkad tea estate at Pettimudy which is located about 30 km from Munnar, adjacent to the Eravikulam National Park (ENP), Kerala.
About landslides

• A landslide is defined as the movement of a mass of rock, debris, or earth down a slope.
• Landslides are a type of mass wasting (a geomorphic process), which denotes any down-slope movement of soil and rock under the direct influence of gravity.
• Landslides can be triggered by many factors such as earthquakes, volcanic activity, soil erosion and slow weathering of rocks.
• Landslides are a natural disaster that result in loss of lives and property. South Asian countries and India particularly, are seriously affected by landslides every year.
• They are a major hydrogeological hazard that affect large parts of India including the Himalayas, the north-eastern hill ranges, the Eastern and Western Ghats, the Nilgiris, and the Vindhyas.

Major types of landslides

• Falls: It happens due to the abrupt movements of masses of geologic materials, such as rocks and boulders that become detached from steep slopes or cliffs.
• Spread: It generally happens on very gentle slopes or flat terrain.
• Topples: It happens due to the forward rotation of a unit or units about some pivotal point, below or low in the unit, under the actions of gravity and forces exerted by adjacent units or by fluids in cracks.
• Slides: Here, rocks, debris or soil slide through slope forming material.

Landslide mitigation

• Restriction or removal of population from landslide-prone areas.
• Restriction of certain types of land use where slopes are vulnerable.
• Installing early warning systems based on the monitoring of ground conditions like slope displacement, strain in soil and rocks, groundwater levels.

About Eravikulam National Park

• It is located in the High Ranges (Kannan Devan Hills) of the Southern Western Ghats in Devikulam Taluk of Idukki District, Kerala.
• It also has South India’s highest peak, Anamudi (2695 m).
• It has special Neelakurinji flowers that bloom once every 12 years.
• A new bright reddish-orange-coloured frog named Raorchestes resplendens was discovered in the Eravikulam National Park.
• Fauna: Grasslands, Shrub Land and Shola Forests.
• Flora: Nilgiri Langur, Leopards, Indian Bison etc.

Context: Recently, the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology operating under the Department of Science and Technology investigated gas emissions in the springs of Himalayas. According to the study, the springs in the Himalayan region show a significant discharge of carbon dioxide.
Background

• There are more than 600 Geothermal springs in the Himalayan region. They play a major role in regional and global climate. They are spread across 10,000 square kilo metres in the Garhwal region of Himalaya show a significant discharge of CO2 rich water.
• The estimated carbon dioxide degassing (removal of dissolved gases from liquids, especially water or aqueous solutions) flux is nearly 7.2 ×106 mol/year to the atmosphere.
• Such CO2 degassing should be taken into account to assess global carbon outflux in the earth’s atmosphere.

Key findings of the Study

• The carbon dioxide released from the thermal springs are sourced from metamorphic decarbonation of carbonate rocks, magmatism and oxidation of graphite. 
• These rocks are present in the deep Himalayan core. The Geothermal rocks in the region are dominated by evaporation and weathering of silicate rocks. 
• The Isotopic analyses point that there are meteoric sources of geothermal water.
• The scientists collected samples from 20 Geothermal springs in the major fault zones of Garhwal Himalayas. 
• The samples consisted of isotopic measurements such as oxygen and dissolved inorganic carbon.

About Carbon Cycle

• The carbon outflux from the interior of the earth through volcanic eruptions, geothermal systems and fault zones contribute to global carbon cycle. 
• It affects long term and short-term climate of the earth.
• Carbon Cycle involves series of processes where carbon compounds are interconverted in the environment. 
• It involves incorporation of carbon dioxide into living tissue by photosynthesis and its return to atmosphere by respiration, burning of fossil fuels and decay of dead organisms.
• The four main steps of carbon cycle are photosynthesis, decomposition, respiration and combustion.

About Geothermal Springs

• Water on the earth’s surface percolates into porous rocks and is subjected to intense heat. 
• When this water matter comes in contact with hot magma in the lower part of the crust, they are converted into steam. 
• As more and more water get converted into steam, the pressure increases. The increased pressure forces the steam through vents beneath the earth’s surface. 
• The steam gets converted into hot spring water as it reaches the surface due to decrease in pressure.

List of Major hot springs in India:

• Panamik in Nubra valley, Ladakh.
• Kheer Ganga hot water spring, Himachal Pradesh
• Gaurikund, Kedarnath, Uttarakhand.

Context: Recently, Union Minister for Finance & Corporate Affairs Smt. Nirmala Sitaraman inaugurated the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP) Online Dashboard here today through video conferencing.
Current Scenario

• The dashboard is being hosted on the India Investment Grid (IIG).
• The NIP project database hosted on India Investment Grid (IIG) would provide visibility to the NIP and help in financing with prospective investors; domestic and foreign, able to access updated project level information.

Background

• In the budget speech of 2019-2020, an outlay of Rs 100 lakh Crore was announced for infrastructure projects over the next 5 years.
• In furtherance to this, a high level Task Force submitted a final report on the National Infrastructure Pipeline with projected infrastructure investment of Rs 111 Lakh Crore during FY 2020-25.

About National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP)

• It is the investment plan unveiled by the Central Government for enhancing infrastructure in identified sectors for a period of five years from 2020-25.
• NIP will improve project preparation, attract investments (both domestic & foreign) into infrastructure, and will be crucial for attaining the target of becoming a $5 trillion economy by FY 2025.
• The funding of the National Infrastructure Pipeline will be jointly made by the Centre, states and the private sector in the proportion of 39:39:22.
• It covers both economic and social infrastructure projects– based on the updated Harmonized Master List of Infrastructure.

India Investment Grid (IIG):

• IIG is an interactive and dynamic online platform to showcase the best of investment opportunities in India to the global investor community.
• It has been developed and managed by Invest India, the National Investment Promotion and Facilitation Agency.
• IIG serves as the gateway to investments in India, and is also widely used by Indian missions and embassies across the world.

IIG allows investors to:

• Search a pan-India database for investment opportunities across sectors
• Track the progress of preferred projects and indicate interest
• Directly communicate with project promoters

Context: Recently, an Air India Express flight on a special ‘Vande Bharat’ repatriation flight from Dubai to Kozhikode overshot the runway and fell into a valley resulting in fatalities.
Tabletop airports

• Tabletop airport is an airport located and built on top of a plateau or hilly surface, with one or both ends of the runway overlooking a drop.

Tabletop airports in India

• Lengpui (Mizoram)
• Shimla and Kullu (Himachal Pradesh)
• Pakyong (Sikkim)
• Mangaluru (Karnataka)
• Kozhikode and Kannur (Kerala).

Steps for improving the safety of tabletop airports
Safety assessment:

• Proper safety assessment is to be carried out to assess the risk associated with the operation in such airports.
• Runways will have to meet the required Navigation Performance approach.

Safety features

• Safety features like the RESA, or Runway End Safety Area are mandatory. This helps to limit the consequences when there is an aircraft overrun during landing, a rejected take-off, or even undershoots the landing area.
• Engineered Materials Arrestor/Arresting System, made of engineered lightweight and crushable cellular cement/concrete can be used at the runway ends where it can act as a safety barrier and successfully stop an aircraft overrun.
• Ground arresting systems for aircraft like the one used in the airfields of the Indian Air Force’ can be used.

Aids to the pilot

• Technical upgrades like making the runways of such airports Instrument Landing System (ILS) enabled. This removes the possibility of human errors.
• Appropriate visual aids have to be provided to the pilots. This could involve a visual reference system to alert the pilot (while landing) of the remaining distance to be covered.

Rigorous training

• Appropriate Crew Resource Management training for all pilots should be strictly enforced.
• This could include classroom and simulator training. The training done on the simulator for landing in low visibility, heavy rain and winds should be emphasized on.

Stand by rescue facilities

• The role of the Rescue and Fire Fighting service should not be neglected despite all the precautions taken.

Context: Recently, the Prime Minister will inaugurate submarine Optical Fibre Cable (OFC) cable connectivity to Andaman & Nicobar Islands (A&NI).
Key Points

• The Cable will connect Chennai and Port Blair. It will also connect Port Blair to Swaraj Dweep (Havelock), Little Andaman, Car Nicobar, Kamorta, Great Nicobar, Long Island, and Rangat.
• About 2300 Kms of Submarine OFC cable has been laid at a cost of about Rs 1224 Crore.
• The submarine OFC link will deliver bandwidth of 2 x 200 Gigabits per second (Gbps) between Chennai and Port Blair, and 2 x 100 Gbps between Port Blair and the other islands.
• Funded by the Government of India through the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF).
• Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) executed this project while Telecommunications Consultants India Limited (TCIL) is the Technical Consultants.

Benefits

• Provision of reliable, robust, and high-speed telecom and Broadband facilities in these Islands will be a landmark achievement from the viewpoint of consumers, as well as for strategic and governance reasons.
• 4G mobile services, which were constrained due to limited backhaul bandwidth provided via satellite will also see a major improvement.
• Enhanced telecom and Broadband connectivity will boost tourism and employment generation in the Islands, give an impetus to the economy and raise standards of living.
• Better connectivity will also facilitate delivery of 
• Small enterprises will benefit from opportunities in e-commerce, while educational institutions will utilize the enhanced availability of bandwidth for e-learning and knowledge sharing.e-Governance services such as telemedicine and tele-education.
• Business Process Outsourcing services and other medium and large enterprises will also reap the benefits of better connectivity.

Submarine communications cable

• A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean and sea.
• The first submarine communications cables laid beginning in the 1850s carried telegraphy traffic.
• Currently 99% of the data traffic that is crossing oceans is carried by undersea cables.
• The reliability of submarine cables is high, especially when (as noted above) multiple paths are available in the event of a cable break.
• Also, the total carrying capacity of submarine cables is in the terabits per second, while satellites typically offer only 1,000 megabits per second and display higher latency.
• However, a typical multi-terabit, transoceanic submarine cable system costs several hundred million dollars to construct.

About the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF)

• USOF was formed by the Central Government to help fund projects to boost connectivity in rural areas.
• Established in 2002, it is headed by the USOF Administrator who reports to the Secretary, Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
• The money for this fund comes through a ‘Universal Access Levy,’ charged from the telecom operators on their Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) which are then deposited into the Consolidated Fund of India and require prior parliamentary approval to be dispatched.

Context: Recently, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy has received proposals from various players for over 10 gigawatts (GW) of fresh solar equipment manufacturing.

• Earlier, a 750 megawatt (MW) solar project was also inaugurated in Rewa, Madhya Pradesh.
• These moves are in line with India's commitment to attain the target of 175 GW of installed renewable energy capacity by 2022 including 100 GW of solar installed capacity.

Key Points

• This rise of interest in the domestic manufacture of solar equipment coincides with other measures of the government to promote domestic industry like increasing duties on imports across sectors, including solar power.
• There is a proposal of increasing customs duty to around 20-25% on solar equipment and also for a 5% interest subvention scheme for the domestic manufacturing of ingots, wafers and cells.
• However, these duty changes should be in compliance with the World Trade Organisation (WTO) standards.

Solar Power and India

• There has been a significant progress in solar capacity addition since 2014, with India progressively emerging as the world’s third largest solar market.
• However, the domestic solar equipment manufacturing industry has largely failed to capitalise on the opportunity.
• Despite a 20GW demand for solar cell manufacturing, India’s current average annual capacity is only around 3GW.
• Nearly 80% of the inputs and components are imported from China as it was the top exporter of solar cells and modules to India in the Financial Year 2019-20, accounting for USD1.68 billion of the product into the country.
• India has implemented safeguard duties on import of solar equipment from China and Malaysia, which have been extended until July 2021 at a rate of around 15%.
• However, a safeguard duty is of limited duration and will therefore not induce people to make long-term commitments in terms of investments.
• Despite all these initiatives to incentivise domestic production, the safeguard duty, domestic content requirement policy and an approved list of models and manufacturers, the expected scale-up has not materialised.
• There are about 16 solar cell manufacturers in India of which only half have a manufacturing capacity of 100 MW or higher.

Reasons for Less Development of Solar Energy in India

• Solar cell manufacturing is a complicated process that is technology and capital intensive and it also upgrades every 8-10 months.
• The global market of solar wafer and ingot manufacturing is dominated by China, whose companies dominate the Indian solar components market too with their competitive pricing.

Road Ahead

• Strong financial measures, promotion of research and development, proper mechanisms to tackle China's dumping of solar equipment are few of the steps required to boost the solar energy and its production in the country.
• The government’s move to shift from the use of short-term safeguard duties to protect domestic manufacturers to the imposition of customs duties has induced the industry to make long-term commitments in terms of investments.
• It is an indication that the centre’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyaan could be yielding early results in the solar energy space.

Context: Recently,a team of scientists from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology (DST), studied numerous stars of the Omega Centauri and discovered Helium-enhanced cool bright stars among the metal-rich sample of the globular cluster.
Key Findings of the study

• Globular clusters are the stellar systems with millions of stars formed from the same gaseous cloud. 
• Hence, usually, the stars formed will be homogeneous in their chemical composition of elemental abundances. But, there are clusters which deviate from this norm. 
• One of them is Omega Centauri, the brightest and the largest globular cluster in our Milky Way galaxy.
• The different stars of Omega Centauri do not show the same metal content, a parameter that indicates its age, but a large range in it.
• Due to the anomalous elemental abundances, the formation scenario may be different from normal. 
• Normally, the abundances are derived using the assumption that Helium (He) is one-tenth of the Hydrogen-abundance
• According to the ministry, this is the first-ever spectroscopic determination of He-abundance in Omega Centauri.
• The study provides a very important clue for the origin of the He-enhanced population establishing that these are the second generation of stars formed from the metal-rich and He-enhanced material from the first generation of stars.

About Omega Centauri

• It is a globular cluster in the constellation of Centaurus.
• It is the largest globular cluster in the Milky Way at a diameter of roughly 150 light-years.
• It is estimated to contain approximately 10 million stars, making it the most massive globular cluster in the Milky Way.
• It is at a distance of 15800 light-years from Earth and is visible to the naked eye.
• A globular cluster is a spherical collection of stars that orbits a galactic core. Such clusters are tightly bound by gravity.
• Stars of a globular cluster are formed from the same gaseous cloud. Therefore, generally, all the stars in a globular cluster would be homogenous in their chemical composition.
• Omega Centauri is an exception to this rule. Its different stars do not show the same metal content.

Context: The Perseids meteor shower will be active from 17th-26th August 2020. This is an annual celestial event and is considered the best meteor shower, as many bright meteors and fireballs shoot through the sky making it easy for people to watch it from Earth.
Key Points

• Meteor: It is a space rock or meteoroid that enters Earth's atmosphere.
• Meteoroids are objects in space that range in size from dust grains to small asteroids.
• Most are pieces of other, larger bodies that have been broken or blasted off. These come from comets, asteroids, planets and the Moon.
• When meteoroids enter Earth’s atmosphere (or that of another planet, like Mars) at high speed and burn up, the fireballs or “shooting stars” are called meteors.
• As the space rock falls towards the Earth, the resistance—or drag—of the air on the rock makes it extremely hot.
• As it passes through the atmosphere, it leaves behind streaks of glowing gas (shooting star) that are visible to the observers.
• Fireballs are larger explosions of light and color that can persist longer than an average meteor streak. This is due to the fact that fireballs originate from larger particles of cometary material.
• When a meteoroid survives its journey through the atmosphere and hits the ground, it’s called a meteorite.

Meteor Shower

• When Earth encounters many meteoroids at once, it is called a meteor shower.
• Comets, like Earth and the other planets, also orbit the sun. Unlike the nearly circular orbits of the planets, the orbits of comets are usually quite lop-sided.
• As a comet gets closer to the sun, some of its icy surface boils off, releasing lots of particles of dust and rock (meteoroids).
• This comet debris gets scattered along the comet's path, especially in the inner solar system (includes planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars) as the sun's heat boils off more and more ice and debris.
• Then, several times each year as Earth makes its journey around the sun, its orbit crosses the orbit of a comet, which means Earth encounters a bunch of comet debris.
• Meteor showers are named for the constellation where the meteors appear to be coming from. So, for example, the Orionids Meteor Shower, which occurs in October each year, appears to be originating near the constellation ‘Orion the Hunter’.

Perseids Meteor Shower

• It peaks every year in mid-August. It was first observed over 2,000 years ago.
• The Perseids occur as the Earth runs into pieces of cosmic debris left behind by the comet Swift-Tuttle.
• The cloud of debris is about 27 km wide, and at the peak of the display, between 160 and 200 meteors streak through the Earth’s atmosphere every hour as the pieces of debris, travelling at some 2.14 lakh km per hour, burn up a little less than 100 km above the Earth’s surface.
• It gets its name from the constellation Perseus.
• Pollution and monsoon clouds make the Perseids difficult to view from India.
• Comet Swift-Tuttle: It was discovered in 1862 by Lewis Swift and Horace Tuttle and takes 133 years to complete one rotation around the sun.

Context: As per the data collected by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, dwarf planet Ceres reportedly has salty water underground.

• Dawn (2007-18) was a mission to the two most massive bodies in the main asteroid belt - Vesta and Ceres.

Latest Findings

• The scientists have given Ceres the status of an “ocean world” as it has a big reservoir of salty water underneath its frigid surface.
• This has led to an increased interest of scientists that the dwarf planet was maybe habitable or has the potential to be.
• Ocean Worlds is a term for ‘Water in the Solar System and Beyond’.
• The salty water originated in a brine reservoir spread hundreds of miles and about 40 km beneath the surface of the Ceres.
• Further, there is an evidence that Ceres remains geologically active with cryovolcanism - volcanoes oozing icy material.
• Instead of molten rock, cryovolcanoes or salty-mud volcanoes release frigid, salty water sometimes mixed with mud.
• Subsurface Oceans on other Celestial Bodies: Jupiter’s moon Europa, Saturn’s moon Enceladus, Neptune’s moon Triton, and the dwarf planet Pluto.
• This provides scientists a means to understand the history of the solar system.

Ceres

• It is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
• It was the first member of the asteroid belt to be discovered when Giuseppe Piazzi spotted it in 1801.
• It is the only dwarf planet located in the inner solar system (includes planets Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars).
• Scientists classified it as a dwarf planet in 2006.
• It has a diameter of about 950 km, which is more than one-fourth of Earth’s moon.
• It takes 1,682 Earth days, or 4.6 Earth years, to make one trip around the sun.
• It completes one rotation around its axis every 9 hours.
• It does not have any moon or rings.
• It has a 92 km wide crater named Occator located in its northern hemisphere.

Dwarf Planets

• According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which sets definitions for planetary science, a dwarf planet is a celestial body that - orbits the sun, has enough mass to assume a nearly round shape, has not cleared the neighborhood around its orbit and is not a moon.
• The first five recognised dwarf planets are Ceres, Pluto, Eris, Makemake and Haumea.

Context: Recently, NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) observed a massive Sunspot group named AR2770. It emitted a few minor space flares which caused minor waves of ionization to ripple through Earth’s upper atmosphere.

About Sunspots

• Sunspots (some as large as 50,000 km in diameter) are areas that appear dark on the surface of the Sun (photosphere). They appear dark because they are cooler than other parts of the Sun’s surface.
• However, the temperature of a sunspot is still very hot —around 6,500 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Photosphere is a visible surface of the Sun, from which is emitted most of the Sun’s light that reaches Earth directly.
• They are relatively cool because they form at areas where magnetic fields are particularly strong. These magnetic fields are so strong that they keep some of the heat within the Sun from reaching the surface.
• Magnetic field in such areas is about 2,500 times stronger than Earth’s.
• They typically consist of a dark region called the ‘umbra’, which is surrounded by a lighter region called the ‘penumbra’.
• In every solar cycle, the number of Sunspots increases and decreases.
• The current solar cycle, which began in 2008, is in its ‘solar minimum’ phase, when the number of Sunspots and solar flares is at a routine low.

About Solar Flares

• The magnetic field lines near sunspots often tangle, cross, and reorganize. This can cause a sudden explosion of energy called a solar flare.
• The solar flare explosion’s energy can be equivalent to a trillion ‘Little boy’ atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
• Solar flares release a lot of radiation into space. Solar flares, when powerful enough, can disrupt satellite and radio transmission on the Earth, and more severe ones can cause ‘geomagnetic storms’ that can damage transformers in power grids.
• A geomagnetic storm is a major disturbance of Earth’s magnetosphere that occurs when there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space surrounding Earth.
• Magnetosphere is a region around the Earth dominated by the Earth’s magnetic field.
• It protects the Earth from solar and cosmic radiation as well as erosion of the atmosphere by the solar wind - the constant flow of charged particles streaming off the Sun.

Solar flares are sometimes accompanied by a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME).

• CMEs are huge bubbles of radiation and particles from the Sun’s Corona (outermost region of the Sun’s atmosphere). They explode into space at very high speed when the Sun’s magnetic field lines suddenly reorganize.

They can trigger intense light in the sky on Earth, called auroras.

• Some of the energy and small particles travel down the magnetic field lines at the north and south poles into Earth’s atmosphere.
• There, the particles interact with gases in the atmosphere resulting in beautiful displays of light in the sky. Oxygen gives off green and red light. Nitrogen glows blue and purple.
• The aurora in Earth’s northern atmosphere is called an aurora borealis or northern lights. It’s southern counterpart is called an aurora australis or the southern lights.

About Solar Cycle

• Most Sunspots appear in groups that have their own magnetic field, whose polarity reverses during every solar cycle, which takes around 11 years. 
• In every such cycle, the number of Sunspots increases and decreases.
• The number of Sunspots is not constant but shows a minimum and then rises up to a maximum and then falls again in what is called the solar cycle. 
• So far, astronomers have documented 24 such cycles, the last one ended in 2019.
• The current solar cycle, which began in 2008, is in its ‘solar minimum’ phase, when the number of Sunspots and solar flares is at a routine low.

Context: Recently, an international team of solar physicists, including academics from Northumbria University has measured for the first time the global magnetic field of the outer most layer of the Sun's atmosphere i.e. solar corona.
About Global Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona

• The researchers used observations from the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) which an instrument that can provide measurements of infrared radiation coming from the Sun's atmosphere.
• It is the first time that a global map of the coronal magnetic field has been obtained through actual coronal observations.
• The team used a technique known as coronal seismology or magnetoseismology to measure the coronal magnetic field.
• The method requires the measurement of the properties of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and the density of the corona simultaneously.

• There are two main puzzles about the Sun which this advancement will help address i.e. Coronal heating problem and Mechanisms of eruptions of the Sun.

Coronal Heating Problem

• Though the core of the Sun is at a temperature of about 15 million degrees, its outer layer, the photosphere is a mere 5700 degrees hot.
• However, its corona or outer atmosphere, which stretches up to several million kilometres beyond its surface, is much, much hotter than the surface (reaching temperatures of one million degrees or more).

Mechanisms of eruptions of the Sun

• Solar flares and coronal mass ejections (eruptions of the Sun) are driven by magnetic reconnections happening in the Sun’s corona.
• Magnetic reconnection is a process where oppositely polarity magnetic field lines connect and some of the magnetic energy is converted to heat energy and also kinetic energy which leads to the generation of heating, solar flares, solar jets, etc.

Significance of measurement of Global Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona

• The Sun is a magnetized star, and its magnetic field plays a critical role in shaping the solar atmosphere.
• The magnetic field governs many aspects of the Sun's behaviour, leading to an 11-year solar cycle, spectacular solar eruptions, and the heating of the hot gas (plasma) in the solar corona to millions of degrees Celsius.
• The magnetic field threads through the different layers of the Sun's atmosphere, which means that information on the magnetic field of the whole atmosphere is required in order to understand the interplay between the solar plasma and magnetic field.
• The speed the waves travel at depends on the strength of the magnetic field which means that being able to measure how fast the waves travel enables an estimate of the magnetic field to made.
• The global map of the coronal magnetic field obtained through actual coronal observations will mark a leap towards solving the problem of coronal magnetic field measurements.
• The new technique will provide that global coronal magnetic field maps could now be routinely obtained, filling in the missing part of the measurements of the Sun's global magnetism.
• The synoptic coronal magnetograms will provide critical information to advance the understanding of how the magnetic field couples the different layers of the Sun's atmosphere as well as the physical mechanisms responsible for solar eruptions and solar cycle.

Why study of Global Magnetic Field of the Solar Corona is necessary?

• It is very important to measure the corneal magnetic fields regularly since the solar corona is highly dynamic and varies within seconds to a minute time scale.
• The measurement of global coronal magnetic fields was missing in the past since the coronal magnetic fields are very weak. 

Additional Information
Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP)

• It is located at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, near the summit of that volcano on the big island of Hawaii.
• It is an instrument operated by High Altitude Observatory, of the U.S.

Aditya-L1 satellite 

• It is India’s first solar mission which is aimed to measure the solar coronal magnetic fields regularly.
• It will help understand the spectacular solar eruptions and predictions of space weather and many more things.
• A Satellite placed in the halo orbit around the Lagrangian point 1 (L1) of the Sun-Earth system has the major advantage of continuously viewing the Sun without any occultation/ eclipses.

Context: Recently, India has refused a request by Pakistan to hold a meeting on issues around Indus Water Treaty at the Attari checkpost near the India-Pakistan border.
Background

• The practice at the IWT meetings is that they are led by Indus Water Commissioners from both countries and a range of issues on construction of dams and hydropower projects concerning the Indus river system are discussed.
• Among the key points on the table was evolving a procedure to solve differences on technical aspects governing the construction of the Ratle run-of-the-river (RoR) project on the Chenab in the Kishtwar district of Jammu and Kashmir.
• India has called for the appointment of a ‘neutral’ party while Pakistan favours a Court of Arbitration to agree upon a final resolution on the design parameters of this hydropower project.

Present issue

• After the Uri attacks (2016) & Pulwama attacks (Feb. 2019), Indian govt. is planning to review IWT, and contain all excess water flowing from India’s share of eastern rivers into Pakistan at present, and divert it to Haryana, Punjab and Rajasthan for different uses.
• India has the right to build RoR projects on Chenab, Jhelum and Indus provided it does so without substantially impeding water flow in Pakistan downstream.
• Pakistan believes that the project’s current design does pose a serious impediment and has wants a Court of Arbitration (CoA) set up to decide on the issue.
• India maintains that it is only a technical issue and mutually solvable.
• India wants a neutral party since a CoA could stall any form of construction on all Indus projects.

Significant Points

• According to the terms of the IWT, India has the right to build RoR projects on the three ‘western’ rivers — the Chenab, Jhelum and Indus — provided it does so without substantially impeding water flow in Pakistan downstream.
• Pakistan believes that the project’s current design does pose a serious impediment and has told the World Bank that it wants a Court of Arbitration (CoA) set up to decide on the issue.
• India says this is only a technical issue and mutually solvable and has agreed to a ‘neutral party’ since a CoA potentially could stall any form of construction on all Indus projects.

About Indus Waters Treaty (IWT)

• The Indus Waters Treaty is a water-distribution treaty between India and Pakistan, brokered by the World Bank, to use the water available in the Indus River and its tributaries.
• The Indus Waters Treaty (IWT) was signed in Karachi in 1960.
• The Treaty gives control over the waters of the three “eastern rivers” — the Beas, Ravi and Sutlej to India, while control over the waters of the three “western rivers” — the Indus, Chenab and Jhelum to Pakistan.
• India was allocated about 16% of the total water carried by the Indus system while Pakistan was allocated the remainder.
• The treaty allows India to use the Western River waters (the ones in Pakistan’s control) for limited irrigation use and unlimited non-consumptive use for such applications as power generation, navigation, floating of property, fish culture, etc.
• It lays down detailed regulations for India in building projects over the western rivers.
• The preamble of the treaty recognises the rights and obligations of each country in the optimum use of water from the Indus system in a spirit of goodwill, friendship and cooperation.

About Indus River Basin

• The Indus River (also called the Sindhu) is one of the longest rivers in Asia and the longest river of Pakistan.
• It flows through China (western Tibet), India (Ladakh) and Pakistan.
• Its estimated annual flow is estimated to be twice that of the Nile River making it one of the largest rivers in the world in terms of annual flow.
• The Zanskar is its left bank tributary in Ladakh.
• In the plains, its left bank tributary is the Panjnad which itself has five major tributaries, namely, the Chenab, Jhelum, the Ravi, the Beas, and the Sutlej.
• Its principal right bank tributaries are the Shyok, the Gilgit, the Kabul, the Gomal, and the Kurram.

Context: Recently, the Union Minister for Jal Shakti has launched the Swachh Bharat Mission Academy as part of the ongoing week-long behaviour change campaign ‘GandagiMukt Bharat’. 
About the Swachh Bharat Mission Academy

• It is an IVR based mobile online learning course.
• The phone-based academy will provide access to on-demand, anytime, anywhere training courses with high quality and standardized content over basic mobile phones free of charge.
• The Interactive Voice Response (IVR)-based training course contains a 60-minute module spanning various topics under ODF-S (Open Defecation Free – Sustainability) as well as SLWM (Solid and Liquid Waste Management).
• The content of SBM Academy is in Hindi as of now.

Significance

• It will significantly boost the capacity building efforts in training of Swachhagrahis as well as PRIs members, community-based organizations, NGOs, SHGs and others who are associated with phase 2 of SBM(G).
• It will be crucial in achieving goals underlined in Phase – 2 of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin).
• It also improves knowledge and interpersonal communication skills in order to enhance the quality of interaction with the beneficiaries. 

About Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)

• To accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to put focus on sanitation, the Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2nd October, 2014.

The Mission Coordinator for SBM: Secretary, Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (MDWS) with two Sub-Missions - 

• The Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin): Nodal Ministry: MDWS 
• The Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban): Nodal Ministry: Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs.

Together, they aim to achieve Swachh Bharat by 2019, as a fitting tribute to Mahatma Gandhi on his 150th Birth Anniversary.

• The aim of Swachh Bharat Mission (Gramin) is to achieve a clean and Open Defecation Free (ODF) India by 2nd October, 2019.
• Phase II of SBM(G): The Mission is moving towards the next Phase II of SBMG i.e ODF-Plus, launched in 2020 to ensure that the open defecation free behaviours are sustained, no one is left behind, and that solid and liquid waste management (SLWM) facilities are accessible. 

Context: Recently, the Prime Minister inaugurated Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra, an interactive experience centre on the Swachh Bharat Mission. 
It was first announced on 10th April 2017, the occasion of the centenary celebrations of Mahatma Gandhi’s Champaran Satyagraha.
Key highlights about Rashtriya Swachhata Kendra

• It is an interactive experience centre on the Swachh Bharat Mission and will introduce future generations to its successful journey as the world’s largest behaviour change campaign.
• A balanced mix of digital and outdoor installations in the RSK will impart information, awareness and education on Swachhata and related aspects. 
• The complex interplay of processes and activities will be presented through assimilative learning, best practices, global benchmarks, success stories and thematic messages in an interactive format.
• It will impart information, awareness and education on Swachhata (sanitation) and related aspects and the installations at RSK will include audio visual immersive shows, interactive LED panels, hologram boxes, interactive games etc.

 About Swachh Bharat Mission

• It is one of the flagship programs of the government. 
• It is also called as Clean India Mission. It is a country-wide sanitation campaign and was launched on 2nd October, 2014.
• It aims to eliminate open defecation, manual scavenging and to incorporate modern and scientific municipal solid waste management and bring behavioural change regarding healthy sanitation practices.

It has two components:

• Swachh Bharat Mission (Urban): Implemented by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (M/o HUA) for urban areas. It has recently achieved its target of creating Urban India Open Defecation Free (ODF)
• Swachh Bharat Mission (Grammen): Implemented by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation (M/o DWS) for rural areas. Recently, it completed its Phase-I and its Phase-II was launched.

Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen)

• The Swachh Bharat Mission was launched on 2nd October 2014 by the Prime Minister towards eradicating the practice of open defecation across the country.
• The rural component of the Mission, Swachh Bharat Mission – Grameen (SBM-G) has witnessed unprecedented progress with increase in rural sanitation coverage of the country from mere 38% to around 100%.
• Under SBM (G), more than 100 million toilets have been constructed in last five years.
• The Swachh Bharat Mission has transformed rural sanitation in India and has changed the behaviours of over 55 crore people from open defecation to using a toilet.
• The mission is now in its second phase, aiming to take India’s villages from Open Defecation Free (ODF) to ODF Plus, with a strong focus on sustaining ODF status and ensuring solid and liquid waste management for all.

Note: The Union Cabinet has approved the Phase II of the Swachh Bharat Mission (Grameen) [SBM (G)] which will focus on Open Defecation Free Plus (ODF Plus), which includes ODF sustainability and Solid and Liquid Waste Management (SLWM). Its objective is to sustain the ODF status of villages and to improve the levels of cleanliness in rural areas through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities, making villages ODF Plus.

Context: Recently, Ministry of Corporate Affairs (MCA) releases the Report of the Committee on Business Responsibility Reporting.
Background

• The MCA has been taking various initiatives for ensuring responsible business conduct by companies.
• As a first step, the ‘Voluntary Guidelines on Corporate Social Responsibility’ were issued in 2009.
• These guidelines were revised in 2011 as the ‘National Voluntary Guidelines on Social, Environmental and Economic Responsibilities of Business’ (NVGs).
• SEBI issued the ‘Listing Regulations’ in 2012 which made it mandatory for the top 100 listed companies (by market capitalisation) to file Business Responsibility Reports (BRRs) from an environmental, social and governance perspective.
• Taking into account national and international developments in the domain of business and human rights, the NVGs were revised in 2019 as NGRBC (National Guidelines on Responsible Business Conduct).
• NGRBC is aligned with UNGPs, UNSDGs, Paris Agreement on Climate Change, etc.

About Business Responsibility Report 

• It is a disclosure of the adoption of responsible business practices by a listed company to all its stakeholders.

Key highlights of the Report (BRR)

• A new reporting framework called the ‘Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report (BRSR)’ has been recommended to better reflect the intent and scope of reporting on non-financial parameters.
• Another recommendation is that the BRSR be integrated with the MCA 21 portal.
• As a long-term measure, the report envisions that the information captured through BRSR filings be used to develop a Business Responsibility-Sustainability Index for companies.
• The top 1000 listed companies are to undertake this reporting mandatorily.
• The reporting requirement may be extended by MCA to unlisted companies above specified thresholds of turnover and/or paid-up capital.
• Further, the Committee recommended that smaller unlisted companies below this threshold may, to begin with, adopt a light version of the format, on a voluntary basis.

Context: Recently, the nationwide lockdown had a significant negative impact on inpatient care utilisation under the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY).
Background

• The analysis covers 22 weeks of data, from 1st January to 2nd June 2020. The national lockdown started on 25th March and was significantly relaxed as of 1st June.
• The analysis is based on claims data drawn from the PMJAY Transaction Management System (TMS) and the main indicator of claim volumes (utilization) is non-rejected pre-authorisation requests.

Key Points

• Demographic groups, women, younger and older populations (under 20 and over 60) reduced their utilisation by more than men, young adults or the middle-aged.
• Among procedures, planned surgeries such as cataract operations and joint replacements suffered a decline of over 90%, while hemodialysis (also known as dialysis which is a process of purifying the blood) declined by only 20%.
• Overall, average weekly claim volumes in 10 weeks of lockdown were 51% lower than the weekly average observed during the 12 weeks prior to the lockdown.
• The steepest decline (over 75%) was registered in Assam, followed by Maharashtra and Bihar, while much smaller declines (about 25% or less) were observed in Uttarakhand, Punjab and Kerala.
• There was a small but perceptible shift in PMJAY utilisation from the public to private hospitals.

Significant declines were noticed in admissions for child delivery and oncology (study and treatment of tumours).

• The utilisation of neo-natal packages declined by 24%.
• There was a slight shift from public to private hospitals for neonatal care and the largest declines have been observed in the public sector in Tamil Nadu and Madhya Pradesh.
• The 64% decline in oncology volumes across India was concentrated in a few States.
• In the public sector, which plays a smaller role in oncology care under PMJAY, there was a 90% decline in claims in Maharashtra and a 65% decline in Tamil Nadu.
• While access to medical facilities was one of the few exceptions to stay-at-home orders during the lockdown, care-seeking behaviours and healthcare provision were nevertheless significantly affected, due to the following reasons:

On the Supply Side

• Hospitals may be preoccupied with Covid-19 preparations or caseloads, resulting in fewer resources for non-Covid-19 cases.
• This may be particularly relevant in public hospitals, which have been the primary focus of the policy response and could extend to activities such as submitting pre-authorisation requests or claims documents as required under PMJAY.
• Private hospitals may reduce services out of fear among health workers that they will become infected.

On the Demand Side

• PMJAY beneficiaries might delay or forego treatment due to fear of infection at a hospital.
• They may not be able to reach hospitals due to public transport shutdowns and mobility constraints.
• The economic crisis may affect financial considerations related to seeking care.
• Health experts have highlighted that ensuring the least possible impact on key health programmes will be an ongoing challenge which needs continued close monitoring.

About Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana

• PMJAY is the world’s largest health insurance/assurance scheme fully financed by the government targeting more than 50 crore beneficiaries.
• Launched in September 2018, this scheme was earlier known as National Health Protection Scheme (NHPS).
• It is essentially a health insurance scheme to cater to the poor, lower sections of society and the vulnerable population.
• The scheme offers financial protection in case of hospitalisation due to medical emergencies.

Key Features of PM-JAY

• Provides cover of Rs. 5 lakhs per family per year, for secondary and tertiary care hospitalization across public and private empaneled hospitals in India.
• Provides cashless access to health care services for the beneficiary at the point of service (hospitals).
• Covers up to 3 days of pre-hospitalization and 15 days’ post-hospitalization expenses such as diagnostics and medicines.
• Benefits of the scheme are portable across the country i.e. beneficiary can visit any empaneled public or private hospital for cashless treatment.

Eligibility

• Families are identified by the government on the basis of deprivation and occupational criteria using the Socio-Economic and Caste Census (SECC) 2011 both in rural and urban areas.

Context: Recently, the telemedicine service platforms of the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare i.e. ‘eSanjeevani’ and ‘eSanjeevaniOPD’ have completed 1.5 lakh tele-consultations.

• In a short span of time since its launch in November 2019, tele-consultation by eSanjeevani and eSanjeevaniOPD have been implemented by 23 States (which covers 75% of the population) and other States are in the process of rolling it out.

Services offered

• It is a national telemedicine service that offers tele-consultations enabling patient to doctor consultations from the confines of their home, as well as doctor to doctor consultations.
• This eSanjeevani platform has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations
• The former is being implemented under the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWCs) programme.
• The telemedicine platform is hosting over 40 online OPDs, more than half of these are speciality OPDs which include Gynaecology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, ENT, Ophthalmology, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the AIDS/HIV patients, Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) etc.

About the National Teleconsultation Service

• The Health Ministry launched the National Teleconsultation Service to facilitate telemedicine aiming to provide healthcare services to patients in their homes.
• This offers communication between doctors and patients who are geographically separated.

There are two types of telemedicine services:

eSanjeevani: Doctor-to-Doctor

• This is being deployed in 155,000 Health and Wellness Centres under Ayushman Bharat

eSanjeevani OPD: Doctor-to-Patient (teleconsultation)

• This is the government’s flagship telemedicine technology developed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing in Mohali.
• It has been implemented by 23 states.
• The panel of doctors on the service are drawn by the state governments.
• The patients do not have to pay any fees for the teleconsultation service. They are also given ePrescriptions (electronic prescriptions).
• The government has also interlinked 50 government medical colleges in the country for tele-education, e-Learning and online medical consultation under the National Medical College Network (NMCN) scheme.

About Telemedicine

• As per the World Health Organisation, telemedicine is the delivery of health care services, where distance is a critical factor, by all health care professionals using IT for diagnosis, treatment and prevention of disease and injuries, research and evaluation, etc., all in the interests of advancing the health of individuals and their communities.
• The term ‘telemedicine’ was framed in the seventies.
• It involves the use of various types of ICTs (information communication technologies).
• It facilitates patients’ and rural practitioners’ access to specialist health services and support.
• It comprises videoconferencing, transmission of still medical images, document sharing, remote monitoring of vital signs, etc.

Context:  Recently, Dr Pradeep Kumar Joshi took oath as Chairman of Union Public Service Commission (UPSC). 
About Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) 

• It is the central recruiting agency in India. 
• It is an independent constitutional body and the provisions regarding it are mentioned in Part XIV. 

Constitutional provisions

• Article 312 to Article 323 deals contain elaborate provisions regarding composition, function, appointment, removal etc of UPSC.  Some important Articles are :
• Art. 315: Subject to the provisions of this article, there shall be a Public Service Commission for the Union. 
• Art. 316: Appointment and term of office of members
• The Chairman and other members of a Public Service Commission shall be appointed, in the case of the Union Commission or a Joint Commission, by the President. 
• A member of a Public Service Commission shall hold office for a term of six years from the date on which he enters upon his office or until he attains, in the case of the Union Commission, the age of sixty-five years, and in the case of a State Commission or a Joint Commission, the age of sixty-two years, whichever is earlier.
• Art. 317: Removal and suspension of a member of a Public Service Commission.
• The Chairman or any other member of a Public Service Commission shall only be removed from his office by order of the President on the ground of misbehaviour after the Supreme Court, on a reference being made to it by the President, has, on inquiry held in accordance with the procedure prescribed in that behalf under article 145, reported that the Chairman or such other member, as the case may be, ought on any such ground to be removed.
• Art.318: Power to make regulations as to conditions of service of members and staff of the Commission.

Functions of UPSC

• Under Article 320 of the Constitution of India, the Commission is, inter-alia, required to be consulted on all matters relating to recruitment to civil services and posts. The functions of the Commission under Article 320 of the Constitution are:
• Conduct examinations for appointment to the services of the Union.
• Direct recruitment by selection through interviews.
• Appointment of officers on promotion / deputation / absorption.
• Framing and amendment of Recruitment Rules for various services and posts under the Government.
• Disciplinary cases relating to different Civil Services.
• Advising the Government on any matter referred to the Commission by the President of India.

Context: Recently, Election Commission (EC) officials are exploring the potential of using blockchain technology to enable remote voting. The aim is to overcome the geographical hurdles in voting.

• Remote voting may take place in person somewhere other than an assigned polling station or at another time, or votes may be sent by post or cast by an appointed proxy.
• There have been demands from various political parties that the EC should ensure that migrant workers who miss out on voting, as they cannot afford going home during elections to exercise their franchise, should be allowed to vote for their constituency from the city they are working in.

Key Points
Blockchain Technology

• Blockchain is a system in which the database of recordings (a ‘chain’) appears on multiple computers at the same time even as it is updated with any new digital information (‘a block’).
• It offers a singular combination of permanent and tamper-evident record keeping, real-time transaction transparency and auditability.
• The initial and primary use of blockchain technology was for monitoring cryptocurrency (e.g. bitcoin) transactions. However, other usage and applications have emerged in the last few years.
• The government of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have put the land records on the blockchain technology owing to its easy traceability feature.

Blockchain Technology in Voting

• Growing concern over election security, voter registration integrity, poll accessibility, and voter turnout has led governments to consider blockchain-based voting platforms as a means to increase faith and participation in essential democratic processes.
• Electronic voting has been used in varying forms since the 1970s with fundamental benefits over paper based systems such as increased efficiency and reduced errors. At present, the feasibility of blockchain is being explored for effective e-voting.
• Even the EC had used a one-way electronic system for service electors (consisting of personnel belonging to the armed forces, central para military forces and central government officers deployed at Indian missions abroad) i.e. Electronically Transmitted Postal Ballot System (ETPBS) in 2019 Lok Sabha Elections.
• Blockchain’s decentralized, transparent, immutable, and encrypted qualities could potentially help minimize election tampering and maximize poll accessibility.

Possible Working

• A blockchain remote voting process would involve voter identification and authorisation using a multi-layered IT enabled system (with the help of biometrics and web cameras) at the venue.
• After a voter's identity is established by the system, a blockchain enabled personalised e-ballot paper (Smart Contract) will be generated.
• When the vote is cast (Smart Contract executed), the ballot would be securely encrypted and a block chain hashtag (#) will be generated. This hashtag notification would be sent to various stakeholders i.e. the candidates and political parties.

Its Limitations

• Any new technology systems, including those based on blockchain technologies, are vulnerable to cyber-attacks and other security vulnerabilities.
• These could cause vote manipulation, paper trail erasure, or electoral chaos.
• Furthermore, a voter verification system that uses biometric software, such as facial recognition, could lead to false positives or negatives in voter identification, thus facilitating fraud or disenfranchising citizens.
• Blockchain-based voting systems may also entail privacy risks and concerns.

Road Ahead

• India is primed to lead globally on how it transitions to next generation voting systems. However, pilot examples from the 2018 US midterm elections underlines that there needs to be a bridge between security concerns and technological innovation. Thus, such a service should be provided by an extremely vetted technology provider and system.
• EC could try blockchain-based voting first as a mock exercise in some locations on a small scale and keep having stress tests to ensure it is durable. Then it can go onto the next level of having mock elections where people can take part using EVMs for their real vote and a mock vote.

Context: Recently, a confidential report on Assam Accord has released by the All Assam Students’ Union(AASU) which was a part of the Centre’s high-level committee on the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.
Background

• A high-power committee was constituted by the Centre in July 2019 with 14 members and justice Sharma as its chairman for the implementation of Clause 6 of the Assam Accord.
• It had submitted its report to the Chief Minister of Assam in February 2020.

About Clause 6 of the Assam Accord

• It provides that appropriate constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards shall be provided to protect, preserve and promote the cultural, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.
• It is one of the promises in the Assam Accord, a memorandum of settlement inked between the representatives of the All Assam Students’ Union, the Assam state government and the Government of India.
• The Clause that ended the anti-foreigners’ Assam agitation from 1979-1985.
• The bone of contention since the signing of the Accord was the definition of Assamese people. The committee tried to address this issue.

Key Recommendations of the Committee
The committee has proposed that the following be considered Assamese people for the purpose of Clause 6:

• Assamese community, residing in the Territory of Assam on or before January 1,1951 or
• Any indigenous tribal community of Assam residing in the territory of Assam on or before January 1,1951 or
• Any other indigenous community of Assam residing in the territory of Assam on or before January 1,1951 or
• All other citizens of India residing in the territory of Assam on or before January 1,1951 and Descendants of the above categories.

The committee has also proposed 80 to 100% reservation in the parliamentary seats of Assam, Assembly seats and local body seats be reserved for the Assamese people.

Land rights with restrictions imposed on transferring land by any means to persons other than Assamese people among other recommendations.

Context: Recently, Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde suggested that the government should consider amending the Official Languages Act of 1963 to:

• Include more vernacular languages in governance.
• Not just confine it to Hindi and English.

Background

• The court was hearing an appeal filed by the Union of India challenging the legality of a Delhi High Court judgment to translate the draft Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) notification of 2020 into all 22 vernacular languages in the Eighth Schedule of the Constitution.
• The high court had allowed the plea holding that EIA notification should be translated and published in all the scheduled languages.

Key Points

• Scheduled languages are those languages that are listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution and are given official recognition and encouragement by the Central Government.
• However, all official communication and publication of rules and notifications by the Central Government are in Hindi and English.
• As per Article 343 of the Constitution, the official language of the Union is Hindi along with English.
• Further, section 3 of the Official Languages Act states that Hindi and English shall be used for resolutions, general orders, rules, notifications, administrative or other reports made by the Central Government or any of its ministries or departments.

8th Schedule of the Constitution

• The Eighth Schedule of the Constitution consists of 22 languages.
• Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution.
• The Sindhi language was added in 1967.
• Thereafter, three more languages viz., Konkani, Manipuri and Nepali were included in 1992.
• Subsequently, Bodo, Dogri, Maithili and Santhali were added in 2004.

Context: The political crises in Manipur and Rajasthan has once again highlights the loopholes in Antidefection law
Background

• In Manipur assembly,contrary to their party’s stand six Congress MLAs defied their party’s whip by absenting themselves from the confidence vote which led to the government surviving the confidence motion.
• In Rajasthan, Governor’s disagreement with the Rajasthan cabinet’s decision to summon the state assembly has been violated previous Supreme Court decisions.
• By passing Anti-defection law: The main purpose of the law is to deter MLAs from defecting from their political parties. An MLA who has been declared a defector cannot become a minister in a government for six months. Yet, by winning a by-election to the assembly he can become a minister.

Issues in Anti defection law

• The law doesn’t bar the defector from reelection to the assembly or the legislature.
• It only punishes MLAs for switching parties but it doesn’t restrict Political parties that is often accused of alluring MLAs of rival parties to switch loyalties.

Unaccountability of Political parties

• The limits on electoral spending is only applicable to candidates and not to political parties as they are allowed to spend unlimited amount on behalf of their candidates.
• Similarly, with respect to criminalisation in politics there is no bar on political parties to restrict individuals who face criminal charges although there is a bar on elected Individuals convicted with a prison term of over two years cannot contest elections.

Suggestions

• Just as how penalising both the bribe giver and bribe taker is supposed to clamp down on corruption similarly, penalising both elected individuals as well as political parties will be an effective solution.
• However political parties have made deliberate attempts to flout laws that attempts to hold them accountable. Even the courts had limited success in this regard.
• Thereupon, as per the expert committee’s suggestion, a lasting solution to the problem can only come from the adherence by political parties to a code of conduct or set ofconventions that takes into account the fundamental priorities that govern the functioning of democratic institutions.

Road Ahead

• Political parties should refrain themselves from misusing the anti-defection law to fix their internal problems. Also, the menace of defection can be stopped only by enforcing accountability on both the individual MLA’s as well as the political party.

Context: The recent revival of the demand for two autonomous councils in Arunachal Pradesh has led to the call for bringing the entire Arunachal Pradesh under the ambit of the 6th Schedule or Article 371 (A) of the Constitution.

• Arunachal Pradesh is a 5th Schedule State. Currently the 6th Schedule is applied in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura.
• On the other hand, Article 371 A is applied in Nagaland which provides special status to Nagaland.

Why is inclusion in the 6th Schedule being demanded?

• Arunachal Pradesh is under the Fifth Schedule that does not provide special rights for the indigenous communities, unlike the Sixth Schedule.
• While executive powers of the union extend in scheduled areas with respect to their administration in the 5th Schedule; the 6th Schedule areas remain within the executive authority of the state.
• While the 5th schedule envisages the creation of Tribal Advisory Council, the 6th Schedule provides for District Councils and Regional Councils with certain legislative and judicial powers.

Key Points
Concept of 6th Schedule

• The 6th Schedule of the Constitution provides for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram to safeguard the rights of the tribal population in these states. This special provision is provided under Article 244(2) and Article 275(1) of the Constitution.
• The tribes in the above states have not assimilated much with the life and ways of the other people in these states. These areas still have the presence of anthropological specimens.
• Based on the reports of the Bordoloi Committee formed by the Constituent Assembly, the 6th Schedule was formulated to provide limited autonomy to the tribal regions of North-East.
• The committee report stated that there was a need for a system of administration that would allow tribal areas to become developed.
• The report also called for the protection of these tribal areas from exploitation by the people in the plains and preserving their distinct social customs.

Administration in the 6th Schedule

• The tribal areas in the 6th Schedule area have been constituted as autonomous districts. The autonomous districts have been given varying degrees of autonomy within the State Legislature.
• There are 10 autonomous districts – three in Assam, Meghalaya and Mizoram and one in Tripura.
• Each autonomous district can also have a separate regional council.

• The tribals have been given freedom to exercise legislative and executive powers through an autonomous regional council and autonomous district councils (ADCs).
• The ADCs are empowered with civil and judicial powers. They can also make laws on matters like land, forests, fisheries, social security, etc. with due approval from the governor.
• The Acts passed by Parliament and state legislatures may or may not be levied in these regions unless the President and the governor gives her or his approval, with or without modifications in the laws for the autonomous regions.

Governor’s Control

• Despite various degrees of autonomy, the 6th Schedule area does not fall outside the executive authority of the state concerned.
• The governor is empowered to organise and re-organise the autonomous districts. He can increase or decrease the areas of autonomous districts or change their names or define their boundaries and so on.
• If there are different tribes in an autonomous district, the governor can also divide the district into several autonomous regions.

Composition of Autonomous Councils

• Each autonomous district and regional council consists of not more than 30 members, of which four are nominated by the governor and the rest via elections. All of them remain in power for a term of five years.
• However, the Bodoland Territorial Council is an exception as it can constitute up to 46 members.

Article 371 A

• The Acts of Parliament relating to the following matters would not apply to Nagaland unless decided by the State Legislative Assembly:
• Religious or social practices of the Nagas.
• Naga customary law and procedure.
• Administration of civil and criminal justice involving decisions according to Naga customary law.
• Ownership and transfer of land and its resources.

Context: Recently, a three-day Loya Jirga-grand assembly has been called in Afghanistan to decide on freeing about 400 Taliban fighters convicted for serious crimes including murder and abductions.

Need for Convening Loya Jirga

• The Loya Jirga has been convened after the Afghanistan President refused to release the Taliban prisoners. This threatened the derailment of intra-Afghan talks, tentatively scheduled for 10th August 2020 in Doha.
• The Taliban has also threatened of more bloodshed if the prisoners are not released.
• The USA believes that the talks between the Afghanistan government and Taliban will lead to reduction of violence and direct talks, resulting in a peace agreement and an end to the war in Afghanistan.

About Loya Jirga

• A Loya Jirga or grand council in Pashto is a mass national gathering that brings together representatives from the various ethnic, religious, and tribal communities in Afghanistan.
• The Loya Jirga is a centuries-old institution that has been convened at times of national crisis or to settle national issues.
• Historically, it has been used to approve a new constitution, declare war, choose a new king, or to make sweeping social or political reforms.
• According to the Afghan Constitution, a Loya Jirga is considered the highest expression of the Afghan people.
• It is not an official decision-making body and its decisions are not legally binding.
• Any verdict it hands out must be approved by the two houses of the Afghan parliament  and  the president in order for it to be made official.

Context: Recently, Russia became the first country to officially register a Covid-19 vaccine and declare it ready for use.
Key Points

• The vaccine has been called Sputnik V, named after the first artificial Earth satellite, Sputnik-I launched by the Soviet Union.
• It is the first Covid-19 vaccine to be approved.
• However, a Chinese vaccine had been cleared for ‘limited use’ before this. It is an adenovirus vector vaccine approved to be administered only on soldiers of the People’s Liberation Army.
• The russian vaccine has outrun other Covid-19 vaccines like Oxford-AstraZeneca, Moderna and Pfizer which are still in trials.
• India’s Covaxin has been approved for human clinical trials. Another Indian vaccine ZyCoV-D has entered phase I/II of clinical trials.
• This vaccine has been developed by Moscow’s Gamaleya Institute in collaboration with the Russia’s defence ministry.
• The vaccine is based on the DNA of a SARS-CoV-2 type adenovirus, a common cold virus.
• The vaccine uses the weakened virus to deliver small parts of a pathogen and stimulate an immune response.
• The vaccine is administered in two doses and consists of two types of a human adenovirus, each carrying an S-antigen of the new coronavirus, which enter human cells and produce an immune response.
• Russian officials have said that large-scale production of the vaccine will start in September, and mass vaccination may begin as early as October.

Adenovirus Vector Vaccine 

• In this vaccine, adenovirus is used as a tool to deliver genes or vaccine antigens to the target host tissue.
• Adenovirus: Adenoviruses (ADVs) are DNA viruses ranging from 70-90 nanometre in size, which induce many illnesses in humans like cold, respiratory infection etc.
• Adenoviruses are preferred for vaccines because their DNA is double stranded which makes them genetically more stable and the chances of them changing after injection are lower.
• Rabies vaccine is an adenovirus vaccine.
• However, there are drawbacks of adenovirus vector vaccines like pre-existing immunity in humans, inflammatory responses etc.
• Just as human bodies develop immune responses to most real viral infections, they also develop immunity to adenoviral vectors. Since adenoviral vectors are based on natural viruses that some humans might already have been exposed to, these vaccines might not work for everyone.

Concerns Regarding the Vaccine

• Experts expressed concerns over the safety and efficacy of the vaccine due to its extremely fast production and lack of published data on the vaccine.
• Russia has only made public the results of phase-I of the clinical trials, which it claimed were successful and produced the desired immune response.
• The human trials, which take several years in normal circumstances, have been completed in less than two months for Sputnik V. The late-phase human trials are important because the vaccine’s efficacy can differ on different population groups.
• Russia, however, has claimed that this was made possible due to the fact that its Covid-19 vaccine candidate closely resembled a vaccine for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) disease, caused by another coronavirus, that had already been tested extensively.

Use in India

• Russia has claimed that around 20 countries have shown interest in the Sputnik V vaccine, including India.
• India has also partnered with the USA for development of Covid-19 vaccine.

The approval for a vaccine is given by the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).

• The Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO), under Directorate General of Health Services ,Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, is the National Regulatory Authority (NRA) of India.
• Under the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, CDSCO is responsible for approval of Drugs, Conduct of Clinical Trials, laying down the standards for Drugs, control over the quality of imported Drugs in the country and coordination of the activities of State Drug Control Organizations by providing expert advice.

CDSCO can ask Russia to conduct late-phase human trials, usually both phase-2 and phase-3, on an Indian population.

• This is the usual requirement for all vaccines developed outside of India.

CDSCO can also give emergency authorisation without late-phase trials, considering the extraordinary situation.

• The drug remdesivir was recently granted similar emergency approval to be used as a therapeutic on novel coronavirus patients.

However, this is unlikely as vaccines are given to a large number of people, and the risks involved are much higher.

• There are also issues in manufacturing the vaccine as there is no agreement for its production in India right now.
• Pune-based Serum Institute of India, the world’s largest manufacturer of vaccines by volume, has already entered into tie-ups with developers to mass-produce their vaccines. Other Indian companies have also done similar agreements but there is none with Russia.

Context: Recently, the United Arab Emirates and Israel have agreed to establish full diplomatic ties as part of a deal to halt the annexation of occupied land sought by the Palestinians for their future state.

Background

• Formed in 1971, the UAE is a USA-allied federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula which did not recognise Israel over its occupation of land home to the Palestinians.
• The UAE relied on white-collar (people who perform professional, desk, managerial or administrative work) Palestinians in creating its nation and maintained its stance that Israel should allow the creation of a Palestinian state on land it seized in the 1967 war.
• In recent years, ties between Gulf Arab nations and Israel have quietly grown, in part over their shared enmity of Iran and the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah.
• The UAE also shares Israel’s distrust of Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and the militant group Hamas that holds the Gaza Strip.

What is the deal?

• The deal halts Israeli annexation plans, the Palestinians have repeatedly urged Arab governments not to normalize ties with Israel until a peace agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state is reached.

Significance

• The announcement makes the UAE the first Gulf Arab state to do so and only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties to Israel.
• For Israel, the announcement comes after years of boasting by Israeli PM Netanyahu that his government enjoys closer ties to Arab nations than publicly acknowledged.
• Both the UAE and Israel are the USA’s close allies in West Asia.

Current Scenario

• The UAE has become the first Gulf Arab state to do so and only the third Arab nation to have active diplomatic ties with Israel.
• Egypt made a peace deal with Israel in 1979, followed by Jordan in 1994.
• Under the deal, Israel would suspend its plans to annex large parts of the occupied West Bank.
• The West Bank is sandwiched between Israel and Jordan. One of its major cities is Ramallah, the de facto administrative capital of Palestine.
• Israel took control of it in the Six-day Arab-Israeli war, 1967 and has over the years established settlements there.
• A joint statement from the USA, the UAE and Israel has been issued which says that delegations would meet in the coming weeks to sign deals on direct flights, security, telecommunications, energy, tourism and health care.
• Both nations will also partner on fighting the Covid-19 pandemic together.
• It remains unclear what prompted Israel and the UAE to make the announcement now.
• In June 2020, the UAE’s ambassador to the USA warned that Israel’s plan to annex the Jordan Valley and other parts of the occupied West Bank would upend Israel’s efforts to improve ties with Arab nations.

Impact on the UAE

• The deal smoothens the UAE’s international campaign to be seen as a beacon of tolerance in the Middle East despite being governed by autocratic rulers.
• It puts the UAE out first in a regional recognition race among neighbouring Gulf Arab states.

Impact on Israel

• The announcement justifies the year-long claims of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that his government enjoys closer ties to Arab nations than publicly acknowledged.
• The deal gives Netanyahu a domestic boost at a time when Israel’s coalition government is facing infighting and the possibility of early elections.

Impact on the USA

• The recognition grants a diplomatic win to the USA President Donald Trump ahead of the November election.
• Neither his efforts to bring the war in Afghanistan to an end nor efforts to bring peace between Israel and the Palestinians have been successful yet.

For Palestine

• For Palestinians, who long have relied on Arab backing in their struggle for independence, the announcement marked both a win and setback for the Israel-Palestine relations.
• While the deal halts Israeli annexation plans, the Palestinians have repeatedly urged Arab governments not to normalize relations with Israel until a peace agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state is reached.

Road Ahead

• The deal marks a historic day and a significant step forward for peace in the Middle East. Opening direct ties between two of the Middle East’s most dynamic societies and advanced economics will transform the region by spurring economic growth, enhancing technological innovation and forging closer people-to-people relations.

Context: Recently, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) has sent a letter to the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) backing an extension of its arms embargo on Iran, just two months before it is set to expire.

Current Scenario

• The GCC has alleged that Iran had not ceased or desisted from armed interventions in neighbouring countries, directly and through organisations and movements armed and trained by Iran.

Allegation on Iran

• The UN, the USA and other armament experts have accused Iran of providing arms to Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
• Iran allegedly arms Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon and Syria and also provides weapons to Shiite militias in Iraq and terrorist groups in Bahrain, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
• The letter also mentioned Iran’s shootdown of a Ukrainian passenger plane and its navy accidentally killing 19 sailors in a missile strike during an exercise.
• Iran also is suspected of launching an attack on Saudi Arabia’s oil industry in September 2019.

Arms Embargo

• In 2010, the UN banned Iran from purchasing foreign-made weapons like fighter jets, tanks and warships amid tensions over Iran’s nuclear program.
• The embargo blocked Iran from replacing its ageing equipment, much of which had been purchased before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
• An earlier embargo had targeted Iranian arms exports.
• In 2015, under Iran’s nuclear deal (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action), the UN agreed to end the arms embargo in October 2020.
• In 2018, the USA unilaterally withdrew from the deal as a part of the maximum pressure campaign to hurt Iran’s already ailing economy.

Internal Conflict in GCC: Even though the GCC has offered a unified statement, it remains affected by internal conflict among the member nations. For example:

• Qatar crisis, which saw Bahrain, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Emirates cut diplomatic ties with Qatar and launch a boycott of the nation beginning in 2017.
• Qatar has had good relations with Iran and has used its airspace while sharing a vast offshore oil and gas field with Tehran (Iran’s capital).
• Qatar is home to the massive Al-Udeid Air Base and the forward headquarters of the USA military’s Central Command.
• Oman also has had close ties to Iran and has served as an interlocutor between Tehran and the West.
• On the other hand, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are suspicious of Iran and accuse it of stirring up dissent among Shiite populations in the region.

Iran’s Stand

• Iran has denied the various accusations of its involvement in arms supply.
• Iran has condemned the GCC letter and called it an irresponsible statement that serves the USA’s interests.
• It has also criticized the GCC countries for being “among the largest arms buyers in the region and the world,” even amidst the economic downturn caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)

• GCC is a political and economic alliance of six countries in Arabian Peninsula: Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and UAE.
• All these member countries of the GCC come under the Persian Gulf Region.

Context: Recently, Union Home Minister conveyed greetings to mark the International Youth Day which celebrated on 12 August every year.
About International Youth Day

• The day was designated by the United Nations and it was observed for the first time in 2000.
• It is meant as an opportunity for governments and others to draw attention to youth issues worldwide.
• The purpose of the day is to draw attention to a given set of cultural and legal issues surrounding youth.
• The theme for the International Youth Day 2020 is “Youth Engagement for Global Action”.

This year’s IYD seeks to put the spotlight on youth engagement through the following three interconnected streams:

• Engagement at the local/community level;
• Engagement at the national level (formulation of laws, policies, and their implementation); and,
• Engagement at the global level.

National Youth Day (NYD) 2020

• National Youth Day (NYD) is observed on Swami Vivekananda’s birth anniversary on January 12 every year.
• The main objective of NYD is to promote rational thinking among the youth. Youth is expected to rise to the values, principles and beliefs that Vivekananda lived by.
• On the occasion of National Youth Day 2020 the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and Uttar Pradesh government also jointly organized the National Youth Festival (NYF) with the theme “Fit youth, Fit India”.
• The objective of NYF is to provide an arena where youth can interact and exchange their social and cultural uniqueness. This blend of diverse socio-cultural milieu proves belief in ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’.

Additional Facts

• World Youth Report: Youth Social Entrepreneurship and the 2030 Agenda- The report was released by the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs(UNDESA).
• Aim: To contribute to the understanding of how youth social entrepreneurship can both support youth development and help accelerate the implementation of the SDGs.
•  #31DaysOfYOUth: It is a social media campaign by the UN to celebrate young people throughout the month of August to help spread the word and strike up a conversation surrounding youth engagement for global action.
• World Programme of Action for Youth(WPAY): It was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in 1995 to provide a policy framework and practical guidelines for national action and international support to improve the situation of young people around the world.
• Youth and COVID-19: Impacts on jobs, education, rights and mental well-being report: It has been published by International Labour Organization(ILO). According to the report, COVID-19 may push half the world’s youth into anxiety, depression.

Context: Recently, the Union Health Minister has announced the successful completion of PAN-India 1000 Genome sequencing of SARS- CoV-2.
Background

• The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has also launched and dedicated to the nation the largest network of five dedicated COVID-19 Bio-repositories established by Department of Biotechnology in record time.

The five dedicated COVID-19 Bio -epositories are:

• Translational Health Science and Technology Institute (THSTI) Faridabad,
• Institute of Life Science (ILS) Bhubaneshwar,
• Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences (ILBS) New Delhi,
• National Centre for Cell Science (NCCS) Pune and
• Institute for Stem Cell Science and Regenerative Medicine (InStem) Bangalore.

Current Scenario

• The Department of Biotechnology had launched a Pan India 1000 SARS CoV-2 RNA Genome Sequencing programme.
• The consortium was coordinated by National Institute of Biomedical Genomics (NIBMG-Kalyani), West Bengal.
• The Consortium has achieved its initial goal of completing the sequencing of 1000 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from nasopharyngeal and oropharyngeal swabs collected from individuals testing positive for COVID19 by Real Time PCR.

Benefits

• The information in the database will improve the understanding on how the virus is spreading, helping to interrupt the transmission chains, prevent new cases of infection and provide impetus to research on intervention measures.

Context: Recently, a team of researchers at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Bhopal, has conducted a study on seed germination that could have a major impact on agriculture.
The study focused on the interplay between:

• Plant hormones like Abscisic acid (ABA) which inhibit the sprouting of the seed,
• Environmental cues like light which promotes the sprouting process and

Darkness

• The mechanisms underlying germination inhibition by ABA protein have been the subject of intensive research.
• There is scant knowledge about the mechanisms controlled by ABA for arresting the post-germination growth in response to environmental cues.

Significance

• The research has proved that the inhibition of seedling growth by ABA is much stronger in darkness as compared to light conditions.
• Understanding the complex factors that modulate ABA sensitivity is vital to developing economically important plant varieties that have better tolerance to stress conditions.
• The results of the study are vital as they come at a time when frustrated farmers across Maharashtra have lodged thousands of complaints against seed companies, alleging them of having provided them with seeds that failed to germinate.

About Abscisic acid (ABA)

• Abscisic acid is a plant hormone. It modulates plant growth and development.
• ABA functions in many plant developmental processes, including seed and bud dormancy, the control of organ size and stomatal closure.
• It acts as a master regulator of the seed’s growth by controlling several aspects of plant development, including seed dormancy and germination, as well as controlling growth under adverse conditions such as drought or salinity.
• ABA signals the seed not to germinate until there are favourable conditions for growth.
• If the stress comes after the germination of a seed, ABA suppresses further growth of the seedling. This inhibition leads the seedling to invest its energies less in its growth and more in defence mechanisms designed to ensure its survival.

Context: Recently, The Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) is working on developing “mega labs” to ramp up testing for COVID-19 as well as improve the accuracy rate. Next-Generation Sequencing machines (NGS) will be used in these labs. 

• The machines will be repurposed to sequence 1,500-3,000 viral genomes at a go for detecting the SARS-CoV-2 novel coronavirus in the mega labs 

About Next-Generation Sequencing machines (NGS)

• Next-Generation Sequencing is massively parallel or deep sequencing are related terms that describe a DNA sequencing technology which has revolutionised genomic research. NGS is normally used for sequencing human genomes.

Benefits of using NGS machines 

• Using NGS an entire human genome can be sequenced within a single day.
• The genome sequencing (NGS) machines when used optimally and with appropriate modifications, can substantially detect the possible presence of the virus even in several instances where the traditional RT-PCR tests miss out on them. 
• The genome method can read a bigger chunk of the virus genome and thereby provide more certainty, unlike the RT-PCR test that identifies the SARS-CoV-2 virus by exploring only specific sections of the virus. 
• NGS identified cases as either positive and negative when RT-PCR found them to be ‘inconclusive’. So this can also be used as a confirmatory test. 
• It can also trace the evolutionary history of the virus and track mutations more reliably and it can help identify more places where SARS-COv-2 viruses differ from other related viruses. 
• The NGS does not need primers and probes and only needs custom reagents, unlike the RT-PCR that needs primers and probes, which is a key hurdle in the scaling of tests. 
• Primers are short sequences of DNA used to amplify a particular DNA sequence. A probe is a small radioactively or fluorescently labelled DNA sequence used to identify a particular DNA sequence.
• Reagent for DNA is designed to easily prepare DNA extracts from animal tissues that can be used directly in PCR.

Other uses of the machine

• Establishing “hubs” capable of whole-genome sequencing would help track significant mutations in the virus and can be repurposed for any kind of outbreak, be they of viral or bacterial origin.
• Due to the limited accuracy and capacity of existing tests, a sizeable population is falsely negative. NGS can help in serving a larger purpose of continuous surveillance of large pools like industrial hubs, commercial establishments or places where an outbreak is likely.
• NGS can also be used to develop new diagnostic tests for Covid-19 in future for more fast and accurate testing. 

Additional Information
About Genome

• A genome is all the genetic matter in an organism.
• It is defined as an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes.
• Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism.
• Human Genome is made up of 23 chromosome pairs with more than 3 billion DNA base pairs, contained in all cells that have a nucleus.

About Genome sequencing

• It is a process to figure out order of DNA nucleotides or bases in a genome.
• This means the order of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts, a unique combination of which makes up an organism’s DNA.
• After the genome is sequenced, the data is analysed to understand the genetic information of an entire species.

Context: Recently, Ministry of Defence launched an online portal that provides information about defence equipment and items that can be taken up for indigenisation by private sector companies.
About SRIJAN

• SRIJAN is the Ministry of Defence’s portal which acts as a one-stop-shop online portal that provides access to the vendors to take up items that can be taken up for indigenization.
• The portal will display those items that are being imported currently so that the Indian industry can design, develop and manufacture them domestically as per its capability.
• On this portal, DPSUs/OFB/SHQs can display their items that they have been importing or are going to import which the Indian Industry can design, develop and manufacture as per their capability or through joint venture with OEMs.
• The Indian Industry will be able to show their interest.
• The concerned DPSUs (defence PSUs)/OFB (Ordnance Factory Board)/SHQs (Service Headquarters), based on their requirement of the items and their guidelines & procedures will interact with the Indian industry for indigenization.
• The portal displays information in a structured way, which includes the item name, image and specification, values of imports, NATO Classification (indicative), etc. It also has a search facility.
• There are over 3000 unique items with a value of over Rs 10,000 Crore that are available through the portal.
• The SRIJAN portal is expected to make opportunities for ‘Make in India’.

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has announced a negative list of 101 defence items that the MoD will stop importing.
Key Points
Indigenisation of Defence Production

• This will boost indigenisation of defence production and is in line with the government's target to reach a turnover of USD 25 billion by 2025 through indigenously manufactured defence products.
• Government also targets to export these indigenously manufactured defence products worth USD 5 billion by 2025.
• The manufacturers could be private sector players or Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs).
• This will reduce the government's defence import bill.

List of Items

• The list comprises simple parts to high technology weapon systems like artillery guns, assault rifles, sonar systems, transport aircrafts, radars, and many other items.

Implementation

• The imports on these 101 defence items is planned to be progressively implemented between 2020 to 2024.
• MoD has also bifurcated the capital procurement budget for 2020-21 between domestic and foreign capital procurement routes.
• A separate budget head has been created with an outlay of nearly Rs. 52,000 crore for domestic capital procurement in the current financial year.
• In any government contract over Rs. 200 crore, no foreign company can participate in the tendering process.

Benefits

• It will offer an opportunity to the Indian defence industry to manufacture the items in the negative list by using their own design and development capabilities or adopting the technologies designed and developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to meet the requirements of the Armed Forces.
• It is a big step towards self-reliance in defence under the Atmanirbhar Bharat initiative.

Issues Involved

• At least a third of the 101 items are already being produced in India.
• Some items in the list are under development by domestic industry, and are not produced by any other country. E.g. the Light Combat Helicopter and the light transport aircraft.
• Items like the AK-203 rifle, to be produced by the Ordnance Factory Board in Amethi with Russian collaboration are stuck over pricing issues.
• The items in the list are of proven technologies, and do not involve any critical or cutting-edge technology for a next-generation weapon system or platform.
• Challenge for the government and the armed forces will be to keep this commitment to domestic producers in the event of an operational requirement.
• E.g. Make in India scheme announced in 2014 aimed to develop the indigenous defence industry, but has failed to achieve its targets.

Road Ahead

• By supporting its domestic manufactures, India can become the centre of excellence in the small arms sector. It will also reduce the import dependence of arms and ammunition. Domestic manufacturing of arms will also create jobs for Indians.
• However, the Government must address the challenges and further focus on transfer of cutting edge technologies through bilateral agreements with major defence players in order to support domestic industry.

Context: Recently, a special committee set up by the Supreme Court of India has recommended restoration of 4G internet services in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K).
Key Points
Committee’s Recommendation

• The committee is of the view that the threat perception on the security front in J&K continues to be high.
• However, it has recommended to restore 4G internet services after 15th August 2020 on a trial basis in a careful manner in specified areas to assess the impact on the security situation.
• The internet could be restored in one district each of Jammu region and Kashmir region which are away from the international border or line of control, and has low intensity of terrorist activities.
• Telecom operators in the districts which are allowed to have 4G services on a trial basis may also have to submit reports of data usage volume and which apps are being used the most.
• The committee is also of the view that internet speed related restrictions are not posing any hindrance to Covid control measures, access to education programmes or carrying out business activities.
• According to it there is adequate access to the internet through broadband services available over landline to business and healthcare institutions.

Background

• High speed internet services in J&K were suspended in August 2019, when the Centre announced revocation of J&K’s special status and bifurcation of the state into two Union Territories (UTs).
• According to the Centre, the same was being done in order to avoid violence.
• It has maintained that faster internet services can be misused in the region by elements opposed to peace, who act at the behest of a hostile neighbour to spread rumours and arouse passions of the public and disturb the atmosphere in the J&K.

Impact of Lifting the 4G Ban

• Promote Commercial Activity: Resumption of 4G in the J&K will be beneficial for citizens engaged in commercial activities that are dependent on high-speed internet. E.g. e-commerce, travel bookings, filing of GST and income tax returns.
• Education and Job: It will also help the students to access the online classes, till the school and colleges are closed due to Covid-19 pandemic.
• It will allow people to work from home.
• Health: 4G services are necessary to provide access to the medical fraternity including patients to access latest information, advisories, and guidelines.

Road Ahead

• The Centre needs to balance between security of the J&K and rights to the people. It is required to continuously assess the situation in J&K and take further actions accordingly.

Context: Recently, The Union Minister of Defence launched the Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO) to boost self-reliance in the defence manufacturing sector.
Background

• The Draft Defence Acquisition Policy 2020 (DAP 20) envisages Service Headquarters establishing an Innovation & Indigenisation Organisation within existing resources.
• Indian Navy already has a functional Directorate of Indigenisation (DoI) and the new structures created will build upon the ongoing indigenisation initiatives, as well as focus on innovation.

Key Points

• The Indian Navy signed Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority, Raksha Shakti University of Gujarat, Maker Village in Kochi and Society of Indian Defence Manufacturers.
• A compendium of Indian Navy’s Indigenisation perspective plans titled ‘SWAVLAMBAN’ was released on the occasion.

About Naval Innovation and Indigenisation Organisation (NIIO)

• It will provide dedicated structures for the end-users to interact with academia and industry towards fostering innovation and indigenisation for self-reliance in defence.

Three Tier Structure

• Naval Technology Acceleration Council(N-TAC): It will bring together the twin aspects of innovation and indigenisation and provide apex level directives.
• Working group: It will work under the N-TAC to implement the projects.
• Technology Development Acceleration Cell(TDAC): It has been created for induction of emerging disruptive technology in an accelerated time frame.

Significance: The NIIO puts in place dedicated structures for the end users to interact with academia and industry towards fostering innovation and self-reliance in defence in keeping with the vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat.

Context: Recently, the Delhi High Court has issued notice to Union Public Service Commission (UPSC) on a plea challenging this year’s preliminary examination notice for direct recruitment to civil services on the ground that it neglects the minimum reservation to be provided to disabled persons.
Issue

• The plea is on the ground that it neglects the minimum reservation to be provided to disabled persons.
• The petition is filed by Sambhavana, a registered society of the disabled for the disabled.
• It claims that the Union Public Service Commission’s notice reserves only 24 vacancies for persons with disabilities out of a total 796 expected approximate vacancies.
• The plea submitted that four per cent of 796 vacancies work out to is 32.
• The number of vacancies were below the 4 % mandatory reservation under section 34 of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016.
• The matter will be heard next on August 31.

Concept of 4% mandatory reservation under section 34 of Rights of Persons with Disabilities (RPwD) Act, 2016:

• Section 34(1) mandates a minimum 4% reservation for the benchmark disabled of the total number of vacancies in the cadre strength in each group of posts meant to be filled with such disabled.
• It mandates equal distribution of one (20% each) among the disabled classes of the blind, deaf, locomotor plus the combined class of autism, etc. with those having multiple disabilities.

Salient features of Right of Persons with Disabilities Act 2016
Addition in types of disability

• Disability has been defined based on an evolving and dynamic concept.
• The types of disabilities have been increased from existing 7 to 21.
• The Central Government will have the power to add more types of disabilities.
• Education: Every child with benchmark disability will get free education from 6 to 18 years of the age. 
• Reservation: Reservation to the differently abled person in the education and government jobs has been increased from 3% to 4%.
• Infrastructure: An important distinguishing feature of the 2016 Act is that it provides for time limits within which existing infrastructure and premises should be made disabled friendly.
• The obligations laid down in the Act are mandatory for both government and private establishments.
• Fund: Creation of National and State Fund will be created to provide financial support to the persons with disabilities.
• The existing National Fund for Persons with Disabilities and the Trust Fund for Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities will be subsumed with the National Fund.
• Grant of guardianship: The Bill provides for grant of guardianship by District Court, under which there will be joint decision, making between the guardian and the persons with disabilities.
• Strict enforcement: Special Courts will be designated in each district to handle cases concerning violation of rights of PwDs.
• Persons with benchmark disabilities: Additional benefits such as reservation in higher education, government jobs, reservation in allocation of land, poverty alleviation schemes etc. have been provided for persons with benchmark disabilities and those with high support needs.
• The 21 disabilities are Blindness, Low-vision, Leprosy Cured persons, Hearing Impairment (deaf and hard of hearing), Locomotor Disability, Dwarfism, Intellectual Disability, Mental Illness, Autism Spectrum Disorder, Cerebral Palsy, Muscular Dystrophy, Chronic Neurological conditions, Specific Learning Disabilities, Multiple Sclerosis, Speech and Language disability, Thalassemia, Hemophilia, Sickle Cell disease, Multiple Disabilities including deaf blindness, Acid Attack victim, Parkinson’s disease.

Additional Information

• As per Census 2011, in India, out of the total population of 121 crore, about 2.68 Cr persons are ‘Disabled’ (2.21% of the total population)
• Out of 2.68 crore, 1.5 crore are males and 1.18 crore are females
• Majority (69%) of the disabled population resided in rural areas

Constitutional Frameworks for Disabled in India

• Article 41 of the Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP) states that State shall make effective provision for securing right to work, to education and to public assistance in cases of unemployment, old age, sickness and disablement, within the limits of its economic capacity and development.
• The subject of ‘relief of the disabled and unemployable’ is specified in state list of the Seventh Schedule of the constitution.

Context: A recent report examining the future of news in India has recommended that the Competition Commission of India investigate the dominance of online advertising platforms. The report was prepared by the Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
Key suggestions in the report
Studying the role and practices of online advertising platforms systematically

• The advertisement-revenue model for digital news might be displaying indications of market failure. 
• To orient the market for digital news towards the public good, the role and practices of online advertising platforms must be systematically studied by a specialized authority.

Addressing misinformation

• The report has also favored the enactment of “light-touch measures” to address misinformation. 
• For achieving that, the report suggests a range of legislative, co-regulatory and voluntary measures, which provide an integrated framework to prevent the spread of misinformation and enhance reader literacy

Imposition of “appropriate responsibilities” on digital news entities

• The legal vacuum for digital news needs to be filled in a manner, which is sensitive to the nuances of online discourse. 
• The report, therefore, recommends granting limited powers to the Press Council of India
• This is to be in conjunction with a voluntary registration procedure and the development of a brief, accessible code of conduct as a mechanism for the imposition of editorial responsibility.

Appropriate Responsibilities on Digital News Entities

• The report calls to fill the legal vacuum for digital news in a manner which is sensitive to the nuances of online discourse.
• It recommends granting limited powers to the Press Council of India, in conjunction with a voluntary registration procedure and the development of a brief, accessible code of conduct as a mechanism for the imposition of editorial responsibility.
• The role of online platforms in the distribution of news should be addressed through targeted interventions based on the design aspects of such platforms.

About Competition Commission of India (CCI)

• Competition Commission of India is a statutory body of the Government of India responsible for enforcing The Competition Act, 2002 throughout India.
• They prevent activities that have an appreciable adverse effect on competition in India.
• The idea of Competition Commission was conceived and introduced in the form of The Competition Act, 2002.
• A need was felt to promote competition and private enterprise especially in the light of 1991 Indian economic liberalisation.

Composition 

• The Chairperson and every other Member shall be a person of ability, integrity and standing and who has special knowledge of, and such professional experience of not less than fifteen years in, international trade, economics, business, commerce, law, finance, accountancy, management, industry, public affairs or competition matters, including competition law and policy, which in the opinion of the Central Government, may be useful to the Commission.
• The Chairperson and every other Member shall hold office as such for a term of five years from the date on which he enters upon his office and shall be eligible for re-appointment [Provided that the Chairperson or other Members shall not hold office as such after he has attained the age of sixty-five years]

Functions

• It is the duty of the Commission to eliminate practices having adverse effect on competition, promote and sustain competition, protect the interests of consumers and ensure freedom of trade in the markets of India.
• The Commission is also required to give opinion on competition issues on a reference received from a statutory authority established under any law and to undertake competition advocacy, create public awareness and impart training on competition issues.
• Competition Commission of India aims to establish a robust competitive environment through Proactive engagement with all stakeholders, including consumers, industry, government and international jurisdictions.
• Being acknowledge intensive organization with high competence level, Professionalism,transparency, resolve and wisdom in enforcement.
• The Act is extra-territorial and assumes jurisdiction over acts outside India that may affect a market within India. In the discharge of its functions, the CCI shall be guided by the principles of natural justice, and has the power to regulate its own procedures. Government replaced the Competition Appellate Tribunal (COMPAT) with the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) in 2017.

Context: India’s sharp decline in fertility rate is largely attributed to the change in socio-economic conditions
India’s demography transition outlook

• Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) findings: A new study published in the journal, The Lancet, argues that while India’s population set to be the largest in the world by the mid-century thereafter it will witness a sharp decline by the end of 21st
• Basis: The prediction is based on the assumption that on average, Indian women will have fertility rate of 1.29 by the year 2100 which will be below the replacement level and hence there will be a sharp decline.
• Anomaly: Though the population estimates for India by 2050 of both the UN and the IHME are similar (UN-1.64 billion by 2050, IHME projects 1.61 billion by 2048) there is a sharp contrast between their prediction  on India’s population growth  by the year 2100 ( UN predicts 1.45 billion by 2100, and the IHME, 1.09 billion).
• Reason For the anomaly: IHME models relies excessivelyon National Family Health Survey (NFHS) data regarding current contraceptive use. It is observed that contraceptive use in the NFHS is poorly estimated, and as a result, IHME model, generating remarkably low fertility projections for 2100.
• Demographic Future: Considering both the findings it can be said with certainty that, India’s demographic future will peak till mid-21stcentury   and subsequently declining population driven by a sharp reduction in fertility.

Understanding India’s success in lowering fertility rate

• India’s total fertility rate has fallen to 2.2 from 6 during 1950’s. However, the policy of family planning and forced sterilisation accounted for mere 17% decline in TFR from 5.9 in 1960 to 4.9 in 1980.
• Also, the target set by these policies were abandoned after Cairo conferenceon Population and Development in 1994 as these targets led to explicit or implicit coercion.
• In addition, thePunitive policies such as denial of maternity leave for third and subsequent births, limiting benefits of maternity schemes and ineligibility to contest in local body elections for individuals with large families has remained largely ineffective.

Significant Contributor for India’s Low fertility rate

• The socioeconomic transformation of India since the 1990s has contributed an important role. With the growth in schools and education resulted in more lucrative jobs that aided contraction in agricultural sector.
• Parents began to rethink their family-building strategies.The new aspirational parents saw education as a livelihood oppurtunity. Smaller families helped the parents to invest more money in their children’s education which has also guided the decline in fertility rate.
• India’s story of low fertility rate is in contrast to western countries, where the western countries attributes the decline in fertility to retreat from the familysystem although in India it can be attributed to the increased commitment of Indian parents to family by reducing the number of children and investing more in each child.

Conclusion: While the aspirational revolution has already started to hasten the fertility decline our health system should aid the process by providing basic contraception and sexual and reproductive health services that allow individuals to have only as many children as they want.

Context: Recently, International Labour Organization (ILO)’s convention on Worst Forms of Child Labour also known as Convention No. 182 received universal ratification after the Kingdom of Tonga ratified the same.
About this Universal Ratification

• It means ratification by all the members of an organisation. Convention No. 182 has received ratification from all the 187 members of ILO.

Child Labour

• The ILO defines child labour as work that deprives children of their childhood, their potential and their dignity, and that is harmful to their physical and mental development.
• In the least developed countries, slightly more than one in four children (ages 5 to 17) are engaged in labour that is considered detrimental to their health and development.
• The eradication of child labour is part of the Sustainable Development Goal Target 8.7.
• The UN General Assembly has declared 2021 as the year for the elimination of child labour.

About Convention No. 182

• The convention was adopted by ILO member states meeting in Geneva in 1999.
• It aims to protect children from the worst forms of child labour, which include slavery, prostitution, trafficking, deployment of children in armed conflict and other conditions that compromise their overall well-being.

Other International Laws on Child Labour

• The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 1989: It contains the idea that children are not just objects who belong to their parents and for whom decisions are made, or adults in training. Rather, they are human beings and individuals with their own rights.
• Minimum Age Convention 1973: It aims to prevent the employment of children below a lower age threshold.
• Both Convention No. 182 and the 1973 Minimum Age Convention are among the eight core ILO Conventions regarded as embodying the spirit of the 1998 declaration on fundamental principles and rights at work.
• India ratified the Convention No. 182 and the 1973 Minimum Age Convention in 2017.

Impact of Laws on Child Labour

• According to ILO, incidence of child labour and its worst forms dropped by almost 40% between 2000 and 2016 as ratification rates on child labour increased and countries adopted laws and policies.
• The conventions have resulted in significant increases in enrolments in primary education.
• These conventions also provide the necessary framework to counteract the predominance of informality in the conditions of work and ought to be a priority for governments.

Challenges Related to Child Labour

• The Sustainable Developmental Goal (SDG) aims at complete abolition of child labour by 2025. However, still an estimated 152 million are trapped in child labour and 72 million of them are engaged in hazardous work.
• The Covid-19 pandemic is also threatening the reversal of recent gains, with widespread job losses, deterioration in conditions of work, decline in household incomes and temporary school closures.

Road Ahead

• The cycle of poverty and its implications must be addressed properly, so families can find other means to survive. Many NGOs like Bachpan Bachao Andolan, ChildFund, CARE India, etc. have been working to eradicate child labour in India.
• Right kind of focus and orientation with state level authorities is also needed to avoid the practice of child labour. Forced Child Labour requires an urgent action from governments and the international communities.

Context: World Tribal Day or International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples is observed on 9th August every year.
Key Points

• Aim: The day is aimed at promoting and protecting the rights of the world’s indigenous population and to acknowledge the contributions that indigenous people make towards world issues such as environmental protection.
• The day recognizes the first meeting of the United Nations Working Group on Indigenous Populations in Geneva in 1982.
• It has been celebrated every year since 1994, in accordance with the declaration by the United Nations.
• Theme 2020: “Covid-19 and the indigenous peoples’ resilience”

Background

• There are an estimated 370 million indigenous people in the world, living across 90 countries.
• They make up less than 5 percent of the world’s population but account for 15 percent of the poorest.
• They speak an overwhelming majority of the world’s estimated 7,000 languages and represent 5,000 different cultures.
• Indigenous peoples are inheritors and practitioners of unique cultures and ways of relating to people and the environment.
• They have retained social, cultural, economic and political characteristics that are distinct from those of the dominant societies in which they live.
• Indigenous peoples have sought recognition of their identities, their way of life and their right to traditional lands, territories and natural resources for years, yet throughout history, their rights have always been violated.
• Indigenous peoples today, are arguably among the most disadvantaged and vulnerable groups of people in the world.

Tribes in India

• According to the 2011 census, tribals make up 8.6% of India's population.
• There are over 700 tribal groups in India, out of which around 75 are Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups (PVTGs).
• The Gond comprise the largest tribal group of India
• The largest number of tribal communities (62) are found in Odisha.
• No Tribe identified in Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Puducherry.

Constitutional Provisions

• Article 342(1): The President may with respect to any State or Union Territory, and where it is a State, after consultation with the Governor, by a public notification, specify the tribes or tribal communities or part of or groups within tribes or tribal communities as Scheduled Tribe in relation to that State or Union Territory.
• Article 15: Prohibition of discrimination on grounds of religion, race, caste, sex or place of birth only.
• Article 16: Equality of opportunity in matters of public employment
• Article 46: Promotion of educational and economic interests of scheduled castes, Scheduled tribes and other weaker sections,
• Article 335: Claims of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to services and posts.
• As per Article 338-A of the Constitution of India, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes has been set-up.
• 5th and 6th Schedule: Administration and control of Scheduled and Tribal Areas.

Legal Provisions

• Protection of Civil Rights Act, 1955 against Untouchability.
• Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 to prevent the commission of offences of atrocities against the members of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes.
• Provisions of the Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act, 1996 to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution relating to the Panchayats to the Scheduled Areas.
• Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006 to recognize and vest the forest rights and occupation in forest land in forest dwelling scheduled tribes and other traditional forest dwellers.
• Committees Related to Tribal Communities: Xaxa Committee (2013); Bhuria Commission (2002-2004); Lokur Committee (1965)