• India has become the first country in the world to control locust by using drones, as the Centre deployed drones, tractor mounted sprayers and fire tender vehicles to undertake locust control in the country.
• Under Make in India initiative, the Department of Agriculture, Cooperation & Farmers’ Welfare (DAC&FW), Agriculture Ministry has indigenously developed a vehicle mounted Ultra-low volume (ULV) sprayer for locust control.
• In total 60 ground control teams of Locust Circle Offices and 12 drones are being used for locust control operations in the affected areas.
• The need of aerial spray for locust control was felt as the ground control vehicles sprayers can spray up to a height of 25-30 feet only. The tractor mounted sprayers also have a limitation in reaching inaccessible areas and tall trees.
• Locust is a crop-threatening migratory pest that has entered the country through the India-Pakistan border.

• Union Minister of Minority Affairs Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi laid the foundation stone for "Sanskritik Sadbhav Mandap" at Numaish Ground in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. It aims for a "Self-reliant India" which is the guarantee of “Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat”.  

Sanskritik Sadbhav Mandap:

• The Sanskritik Sadbhav Mandap will be constructed with the cost of Rs.92 crore by Union Minority Affairs Ministry under Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karykram (PMJVK). 
• The community centre will be utilized for various socio-economic-cultural activities, skill development training, coaching, relief activities during disasters such as Corona and different sports activities.
• The move by the Centre is to develop socio-economic-educational and employment-oriented infrastructure across India in backward areas under PMJVK. 
• So far, a total of around 13,276 projects with a total cost of more than Rs.350 crore have been constructed in Rampur, UP. 

• Union Minister of State for Culture and Tourism (Independent charge) Shri Prahlad Singh Patel has announced that the ministry has decided to celebrate ‘Sankalp Parva’ from 28th June to 12 July 2020.
• This initiative is line with the Prime Minister of India Shri Narendra Modi’s call for planting at least five trees either in Office campus or wherever it is possible, to ensure clean and healthy environment of the country.
• The Ministry of Culture has asked all its Subordinate Offices, Academies, Attached Institutions, Affiliated Institutions to plant the five trees as identified by PM Modi, in its campus or at the surroundings wherever it is possible.
• These trees are “Bargad”, “Awla”, “Pepal”, “Ashok” and “Bel” and represent the herbal heritage of our country.
• However, people may do plantation of any other sapling of their choice, incase of non availability of the saplings of these trees. 

• Siddhartha Mukherjee and Raj Chetty, who have contributed towards the efforts in mitigating the COVID-19 health crisis are among the 38 immigrants honoured by a prestigious American foundation ahead of US Independence Day commemoration this year.

• The 20th edition of the annual BET Awards 2020 took place with a series of virtual performances on 28 June 2020.
• The renowned American Popstar Beyonce was honored with the 2020 Humanitarian Award during the event.
• Beyonce, 38, was honoured for her longstanding philanthropic work and passion for social justice including her recent COVID-19 relief efforts.
• The BET Awards is an American award show that was established in 2001 by the Black Entertainment Television network to celebrate African Americans and other American minorities in music, acting, sports, and other fields of entertainment over the past year.

• Artificial Intelligence-enabled MyGov Corona Helpdesk received two awards at the CogX 2020 is held annually in London, the UK. CogX is a prestigious Global Leadership Summit and Festival of AI & Emerging Technology. MyGov Corona was awarded under the categories ‘Best Innovation for Covid-19 – Society’ and ‘People’s Choice Covid-19 Overall Winner’. The awards were won by JioHaptik Technologies.
• MyGov is a citizen engagement platform that facilitates two-way communication between the Central government and citizens.
• It facilitates participatory governance in India, in the fight against COVID-19.
• The AI-enabled MyGov Corona Helpdesk was jointly developed by MyGov, JioHaptik Technologies, and WhatsApp team in the record time of five days including the weekend.
• MyGov Corona Helpdesk demonstrated the true Public, Private and Partnership (PPP), wherein, citizen-centric services were provided by MyGov
• The technology was designed, developed, and deployed by JioHaptik Technologies, and ideas given by the public were factored-in on a daily basis to improve the services and solution.
• Indian chatbot ‘MyGov Corona Helpdesk’ was chosen after a rigorous evaluation, among hundreds of entries that made a difference to society during the pandemic.

• Former Reserve Bank of India governor Chakravarthi Rangarajan, has been conferred with the first Prof. P C Mahalanobis Award in Official Statistics for lifetime achievements on the occasion of the National Statistics Day on 29 June 2020, by the Ministry of  Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI).
• The award has been instituted by MoSPI from 2020, and will henceforth be awarded annually for outstanding and meritorious contribution of an individual for the development and promotion of official statistics.

• The Himachal Pradesh state Panchayati Raj department has won first prize under the e-Panchayat Puraskars-2020 of the Union Ministry of Panchayati Raj.
• The e-panchayat puraskar is conferred to those states which have ensured maximum use of information technology for monitoring the works of the panchayats.
• Himachal Pradesh has won the award for effective implementation of the e-application developed by the central government and other applications developed by the state government.
• All the 3,226 panchayats in the state have been provided with internet facility, with the help of which people can access various services online.

• The online food delivery platform Swiggy launched its own digital wallet ‘Swiggy Money’ in partnership with ICICI Bank to provide its customers with a single-click checkout experience.
• Swiggy Money will enable its customers to store money virtually that can be used for any food orders made through the Swiggy app.
• The Bengaluru-based company is leveraging ICICI Bank’s ‘Insta wallet service’ which is built on a cloud platform with API integration, which enabled the startup to create a wallet for customers instantly.

• The Vice President of India, Shri. M. Venkaiah Naidu virtually released a book titled “Future of Higher Education – Nine Mega Trends”, during an event hosted by ICT Academy.
• The book has been authored by CA V Pattabhi Ram, Author, Public Speaker, and Teacher.
• It is based on a survey of around 5000 educators across India, who were part of ICT Academy’s “SkyCampus” Digital Knowledge Series.
• The book will cover the new norms in the key areas of higher education such as Student-Teacher relationship, Learning methods, Laboratories, Examinations, etc; all taking a paradigm shift during this COVID pandemic.

• The gross GST revenue collected in June 2020 is 90 thousand 917 crore rupees of which CGST is 18 thousand 980 crore, SGST is 23 thousand 970 crore and IGST is 40 thousand 302 crore rupees. It also includes 15 thousand 709 crore collected on import of goods and Cess is seven thousand 665 crore rupees.
• The GST collections for April was 32 thousand 294 crore rupees which was 28 per cent of the revenue collected during the same month last year. In May, 62 thousand nine crore rupees was collected out of which was 62 per cent of the revenue collected during the same month last year.
• The GST collections for the first quarter of the year is 59 per cent of the revenue collected during the same quarter last year. Our correspondent reports, however, a large number of taxpayers still have time to file their return for the month of May, 2020.

• The Ministry of Defence (MoD) cleared the purchase of 21 MiG-29 and 12 Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter aircraft along with 248 indigenous long-range air to air missiles, Astra, among others on 2 July 2020.
• The move by the Ministry is to boost the Indian armed forces. It was approved by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) headed by Defence Minister Rajnath Singh.
• MoD has cleared the purchase of platforms and equipment for the armed forces to the tune of Rs 38,900 crore. 
• The Ministry also approved the upgrade of the existing 59 MiG-29 aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF).
• Out of the 248 indigenous Astra missiles, 200 is for IAF, and 48 for the Indian Navy.
• The estimated cost of the procurement is Rs.2,700 crore.
• Also, the MiG-29 procurement and upgrade from Russia has been estimated to cost around Rs.7,418 crore. 
• And, the Sukhoi-30 MKI which is to be procured from Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) has been estimated at the cost of Rs.10,730 crore. 

• The Indian and Japanese navies conducted a small exercise PASSEX (passing exercise), towards the Malacca Strait in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
• From India, Rajput-class destroyer INS Rana and Kora-class missile corvette INS Kulish, took part in the exercise and from Japan, JS Shimayuki and JS Kashima participated.

• Union Minister of Human Resource Development Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' and Minister of Sports and Youth Affairs Shri Kiren Rijiju launched the "Fit Hai To Hit Hai India" program for school children under the Fit India campaign.
• The Fit India Talks sessions are being organized in association with the Sports Authority of India and the Ministry of Human Resource Development.
• Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has announced that it would launch a new series of fitness sessions for school going children in the Fit India Active Day program under this campaign. 
• So far, 13,868 schools affiliated to CBSE have participated in various Fit India programs and 11,682 schools have also received the Fit India flag
• Under Fit India Campaign, 2.5 lakh schools have registered.
• The movement was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2019 with an aim to create a fit nation.
• GoI aims to ensure India stands among the top 10 countries at the 2028 Olympics in Los Angeles.

• In Madhya Pradesh, the school bell will be ringing in the houses of the state too from July 6. Children will read, perform yoga, write and listen to stories and make notes on them.
• In order to maintain the academic regularity of students during the Corona crisis, the State Education Center has prepared a ‘Hamara Ghar-Hamara Vidyalaya’ means My Home-My school scheme, in which children will be taught at home in a school-like environment.

• Human Resources and Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal Nishank virtually launched World’s first ever online B.Sc. degree in Programming and Data Science.
• The programme has been prepared and offered by the Indian Institute of Technology, IIT Madras.
• Data Science is one of the fastest growing sectors that is predicted to create 11.5 million jobs by 2026.
• Online education is a trend being rapidly embraced for high quality education on a large scale.
• This programme is open to anyone who has passed Class 12th, with English and Maths at the Class 10th level, and enrolled in any on-campus UG course.

• India's trade deficit with China fell to $48.66 bn in 2019-20 on account of decline in imports from the neighbouring country, as per government data. Exports to China in the last financial year stood at $65.26 billion, while imports aggregated at $16.6 bn.
• The main imports from China include clocks and watches, musical instruments, toys, sports goods, furniture, mattresses, plastics, electrical machinery, electronic equipment, chemicals, iron and steel items, fertilisers, mineral fuel and metals.

• Electronic chip maker Intel’s investment arm, Intel Capital, will buy 0.39 per cent stake in billionaire Mukesh Ambani's digital unit, Jio Platforms, for Rs 1,894.50 crore.
• Intel Capital is the 12th company to join the list of marquee firms who have recently invested in Jio Platforms, taking the total investment amount to Rs 1,17,588.45 crore.
• Intel Capital will invest Rs 1,894.50 crore in Jio Platforms at an equity value of Rs 4.91 lakh crore and an enterprise value of Rs 5.16 lakh crore.
• Jio Platforms, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Reliance Industries, also runs Reliance Jio telecom business. Jio leads the India market with over 38.8 crore subscribers.
• Intel Capital president - Wendell Brooks

• The United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) has released The State of World Population 2020 report.
• The world organisation's sexual and reproductive health agency, said that the number of “missing women” has more than doubled over the past 50 years - from 61 million in 1970 to a cumulative 142.6 million in 2020.
• India accounts for 45.8 million of the world's 142.6 million "missing females" over the past 50 years and China accounted for 72.3 million.
• “Missing females” are women missing from the population at given dates due to the cumulative effect of postnatal and prenatal sex selection in the past.
• China and India together account for about 90-95 per cent of the estimated 1.2 million to 1.5 million missing female births annually worldwide due to gender-biased (prenatal) sex selection.

• Care Ratings has revised India’s GDP growth forecast for the current financial year 2020-21 to (-) 6.4 percent.
• The rating agency had earlier projected a decline in GDP growth of 1.5-1.6 per cent in FY21.
• This decline is because the economic activity continues to be under restriction due to the lockdown on account of the COVID-19 pandemic.

• Fitch Ratings has cut India’s growth forecast for the fiscal year 2021-22 to 8 percent from its earlier projection of 9.5 percent, in its June update of Global Economic Outlook.
• However, the rating agency has retained its projection for the current fiscal which is expected to contract by 5 percent in the 2020-21.
• Meanwhile, Fitch projected Indian economy to grow 5.5 percent in 2022-23.

• The GDP growth of India is expected to contract by 5 percent in the fiscal year 2020-21, according to latest forecast by S&P Global Ratings.
• The growth is expected to rebound in 2021-22 at 8.5%.
• FY21: -5%
• FY22: 8.5%
• FY23: 6.5%

• Indian Council of Medical Research, ICMR is planning to launch indigenous Covid-19 vaccine for public use by the 15th of August after completion of all clinical trials. ICMR has partnered with Bharat Biotech International Limited to develop this path breaking, Covid-19 vaccine.
• ICMR has asked Bharat Biotech to fast track the clinical trial mechanism and ensure that the subject enrolment is initiated by 7th of July.
• This is the first indigenous vaccine being developed in India and one of the top priority projects of the government.
• The vaccine is derived from a  SARS-COV2 strain isolated by ICMR-National Institute of Virology, Pune. ICMR and Bharat Biotech are jointly working for the pre-clinical as well as clinical development of this vaccine.  
• Recently, the Central Drug Standard Control Organisation, the National regulatory body for Indian Pharmaceuticals and medical devices, has granted approval to Bharat Biotech India to conduct human clinical trials for Corona Vaccine called ‘Covaxin’.

• The Central Drug Standard Control Organisation has granted approval to Bharat Biotech India to conduct human clinical trials for Corona Vaccine called ‘Covaxin’. The company said that it is the first indigenous COVID-19 vaccine to receive the approval.
• Bharat Biotech Chairman & MD- Krishna Ella.

• Maharashtra Chief Minister Uddhav Thackeray launched the world's largest plasma therapy trials for the COVID-19 "Project Platina". 
• The project is aimed at creating robust data for treating the disease for which no specific line of treatment exists. 
• The project will help the country's worst-hit state create infrastructure for this line of treatment.
• The project will be free of cost.
• Plasma therapy or Convalescent Plasma Therapy (CPT) has been proved to be useful in fighting other coronavirus diseases, such as SARS and MERS.
• Plasma therapy against COVID-19 has shown encouraging results on patients across the country and the world.
• The plasma therapy trials will be conducted in 17 medical colleges across the Maharashtra state. It will account for 1.64 lakh coronavirus cases out of the national total of 5.48 lakh.
• The entire funding to support this plasma therapy trial will be spent through the CM Relief fund.
• So far, the Indian Council for Medical Research (ICMR) had first approved only 21 state-run hospitals to conduct plasma therapy.

• The Delhi government is all set to establish India’s first plasma bank in the national capital to fight the novel coronavirus.
• Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has announced that the plasma bank will be set up at the Institute of Liver and Biliary Sciences in south Delhi’s Vasant Kunj.
• It will serve the purpose of coordination between plasma donors and recipients.
• The Minister has also requested those who have recovered from the infection to donate plasma to help other patients.

• President of India Shri Ram Nath Kovind inaugurated the Dharma Chakra Day also known as Asaadh Poornima, on 4 July 2020 from the Rashtrapati Bhavan. 
• The day is celebrated by the Buddhists all over the world as the day of Dharma Chakra Parvattana or Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.
• The Dharma Chakra Day will be celebrated by the International Buddhist Confederation (IBC), which functions under the aegis of Union Ministry of Culture.  
• The day commemorates Buddha's First Sermon to his first five ascetic disciples at the Deer Park, Rsipatana in the present-day Sarnath near Varanasi, UP.
• The day aims to emphasize the teachings of peace and justice of Lord Buddha and the Eight-Fold Path shown by Buddha to overcome the sufferings of sentient beings.
• All the events will be conducted virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

• International Day of Cooperatives is observed on 4 July. The day is observed on the first Saturday of July every year.
• The day aims to raise awareness of cooperatives and extend the partnerships between the international cooperative movement and other organizations. 
• The theme of 2020 International Day of Cooperatives 2020 is "Cooperatives for Climate Action".
• It focussed to support the Sustainable Development Goal-13 (SDG-13) on climate action. It will focus on the cooperatives' contribution to the fight against climate change.
• The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) was formed in 1895 and the first Saturday of July is observed as International Cooperative Day since 1923.

• Each Year World Allergy Organization (WAO) organises World Allergy Week to raise awareness of the impact of allergy in our communities.
• The World Allergy Week 2020 is being celebrated from 28 June to 4 July 2020.
• The theme for 2020 is “Allergy care does not stop with COVID-19.”

• On 1st July 2018, India celebrated the 1st Anniversary of the Goods and Services Tax as GST day. The GST was launched at midnight on 1 July 2017 by the President of India by a historic midnight (30 June – 1 July) session of both the houses of parliament.

• The National Doctors’ Day is organised on 01 July annually in India by the Indian Medical Association (IMA),to honour the legendary physicians and emphasise on value of doctors in our lives, to offer them our respects by commemorating one of their greatest representatives.
• The day commemorates the birth anniversary of the second Chief Minister of West Bengal, Dr. Bidhan Chandra Roy who was born on July 1, 1882 and died on the same date in 1962.
• The theme of 2020 Doctors Day is “Lessen the mortality of COVID 19”.

• Charted Accountants Day or CA Day is celebrated on July 1 every year to commemorate the finding of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) by the parliament of India in 1949.

• International Day of Parliamentarism is observed on 30th June every year. 
• The day is aimed to honour the Parliamentarian for their service amid the pandemic. 
• During the COVID-19 crisis, Parliaments and other government institutions are subject to the same social distancing measures as other public and private organizations. But the parliament plays a more vital role than ever to pass emergency laws, allocate resources, and scrutinize government action. 
• The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed resolution and designated June 30 to celebrate the International Day of Parliamentarism.
• The day was chosen as IPU, the global organization of parliaments, was established on 30 June 1889.
• The day aims to recognize the role of parliaments in national plans and strategies. The day will also ensure greater transparency and accountability at the national and global levels.

• The Government of India celebrates Statistics Day on June 29 every year since 2007 to popularize the use of Statistics in everyday life and sensitize the public as to how Statistics helps in shaping and framing policies.
• The day marks the birth anniversary of Father of Indian Statistics, Prof. P C Mahalanobis, in recognition of his invaluable contribution in establishing the National Statistical System.
• The theme of Statistics Day, 2020 is SDG- 3 (Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages) & SDG- 5 (Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls).

• NLC India has signed a pact with state-owned CIL to form a joint venture (JV) to develop 5,000 megawatts of solar and thermal power assets across the country.
• The equity participation in the proposed JV between Coal India Ltd (CIL) and NLC India will be in the ratio of 50:50.

• Tamil Nadu government has announced a monthly stipend of 3,000 rupees to junior lawyers for two years to help them overcome financial difficulties. The stipend has been a longstanding demand of the Bar Council of Tamil Nadu. 
• Tamil Nadu Government is implementing an Advocates Welfare Scheme for more than three decades. Under the scheme, on the demise of the advocates, currently seven lakh rupees each is being given to their families.
• Now as an additional measure, the young advocates are going to be handed over a monthly dole of three thousand rupees for the next two years.

• National Highway Authority of India (NHAI) is to set up an Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT) with an aim to facilitate investment in the highway sector. 
• As part of the structure, a new company will be set up to act as the Investment Manager to the proposed InvIT.
• InvIT will be the first-of-its-kind to be sponsored by any government/semi-government entity in India.
• It is important to have a professional management structure for the investment manager.
• NHAI has set up a committee in order to select the best talent for the appointment of two Independent Directors and one Chairman for the Investment Manager Board. 
• Dr.Sukhbir Singh Sandhu, Chairman, NHAI will be the Convenor of the Committee and other members include:
  Shri Deepak Parekh, Chairman, Housing Development Finance Corporation
  Shri Girish Chandra Chaturvedi, Chairman, ICICI Bank
  Shri Sanjay Mitra, Ex-Secretary, Ministry of Road Transport & Highways.
• The aim of setting up of InvIT is to professionally run the Infrastructure Trust to mobilize resources from the market for monetizing completed highway projects of NHAI.

• Government of India has provided 19 lakh households tap connections under Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM). JJM aims to provide functional household tap connections (FHTCs) to every rural household of the country by the year 2024.
• It aims to ensure potable water supply in adequate quantity, which is 55 lpcd (Litres per capita per day), of prescribed quality on a long-term and regular basis. The programme will benefit all rural people.
• Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) was launched by the Prime Minister of India Narendra Modi on 73rd Independence Day, which is 15 August 2019, from the ramparts of Red Fort. The mission is under implementation in partnership with States.
• The main objective of the mission is to have ‘Har Ghar Jal’, every house in the village is to be provided with a tap connection. Under the mission, during 2019-20, more than 84 lakh households were provided with tap connections.

• Government launched the Special Liquidity Scheme of Rs 30, 000 Cr to improve the liquidity position for Non-Banking Finance Companies- NBFCs and Housing Finance Companies- HFCs. 
• The scheme was launched through a Special Purpose Vehicle set up by SBICAP.
• The Scheme will remain open for three months for making subions by the Trust. The period of lending by the Trust will be for a period of up to 90 days. The financing would be used by the NFBCs and HFCs only to repay existing liabilities and not to expand assets.
• This facility is a part of the Central Government and RBI’s efforts to alleviate the concerns of the market participants on the availability of funds to the sector.
• Any NBFC including Micro-finance Institutions registered with RBI and any HFC registered with the National Housing Bank complying with the given  conditions will be eligible to raise funding.

• The Government of Goa has allotted over 14,380 square metres of land at Verna industrial estate to ‘Konkan Maritime Cluster’ (Goa Maritime Cluster), a consortium of 49 Goan MSME units, to set up its Common Facility Centre.
• The Goa Maritime Cluster will be the first Maritime Cluster of India, providing a world-class common facility for manufacturing, design and other allied services for the shipbuilding industry.
• The project is likely to extend direct benefits to another 180 units.
• The project is supported by the Government of Goa, Ministry of Shipping GoI, through Directorate General of Shipping, and Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.
• The Goa Government will contribute 10% of the total setup cost.

• India and Bangladesh today signed an agreement for the formation of a 50:50 Joint Venture Company (JVC) for LPG business in Bangladesh.
• The agreement was signed between the  IOC Middle East FZE, Dubai, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and RR Holdings Ltd., Ras Al Khaimah, UAE, the holding company of Beximco LPG of Bangladesh.
• The energy cooperation between India and Bangladesh has made big strides in the recent times.
• The Joint Venture Company will help reduce the cost of import of LPG and make it more affordable for the consumers in Bangladesh.
• The company plans to diversify into LPG export to the north eastern states of India from Bangladesh which will prove to be a win win situation for both the countries.

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced free food grains to 80 crore people across the country for five more months.  
• The Prime Minister  Gareeb Kalyan Anna Yojana has been extended  till the end of November this year.
• Under the scheme announced in the wake of COVID- 19 pandemic, 5 kg free wheat or rice along with 1 kg whole chana will be provided to each member of a family per month.  
• Its  extension will cost over Rs. 90 thousand crore.

• The Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) has set up ‘Swavalamban Crisis Responsive Fund’ to support free onboarding for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) on trade receivables discounting system (TReDS).
• The initiative aims to offer relief to the MSMEs from severely crunched cash flow, during these challenging times.
• The free onboarding of MSMEs would be available till September 2000.
• It is an open-ended fund with the target to onboard 10,000 MSMEs during this period.
• Usually, an MSME has to pay a fee of Rs 5,000 to Rs 10,000 for getting registered on a TReDS platform.
• Three TReDS platforms namely Receivables Exchange of India Ltd (RXIL), M1xchange and Invoicemart will help MSMEs to gain access to working capital through invoice discounting via multiple financiers.

• Centre launched the PM Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme as a part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. It was launched by Union Minister for Food Processing Industries Harsimrat Kaur Badal on 29 June. 
• The scheme aims to provide financial, technical, and business support for the upgradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.
• The PM FME Scheme will generate a total investment of Rs.35,000 crore.
• It will also generate 9 lakh skilled and semi-skilled employment and benefit 8 lakh units through access to information, training, better exposure, and formalization.
• The scheme will be implemented over a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 with an outlay of Rs.10,000 crore.
• The expenditure for the scheme will share a 60:40 ratio between Central and State Governments, in 90:10 ratio with North Eastern and the Himalayan States, 60:40 ratio with UTs with the legislature, and 100% by Centre for other UTs.

• India and Bhutan signed the first Indo-Bhutan joint venture hydroelectric project . 
• The agreement will pave the way for the commencement of its construction and other related works. 
• The agreement was signed by the Bhutanese government and the Kholongchhu Hydro Energy Limited in the virtual presence of the Union Minister of External Affairs S Jaishankar and his Bhutanese counterpart Tandi Dorji.
• The concession agreement is for the 600 MW Kholongchhu project.
• The agreement will lead to the commencement of construction and other works of this first Joint Venture (JV) Hydroelectric Project between India and Bhutan.
• The project will be completed in the second half of the year 2025.
• The 600 MW run-of-the-river project is located on the Kholongchhu River in the Trashiyangtse district in eastern Bhutan.
• The main objective of the project to build an underground powerhouse of four 150 MW turbines with water impounded by a concrete gravity dam of 95 metres height.
• It will be implemented by Kholongchhu Hydro Energy Limited, a JV company formed between Druk Green Power Corporation (DGPC) of Bhutan and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Limited (SJVNL) of India.

• India has moved down three places to 77th rank in terms of money parked by its citizens and enterprises with Swiss banks at the end of 2019, as per the latest annual banking statistics released by the Swiss National Bank (SNB).
• India was ranked 74th in 2018.
• As per the latest data, India accounted for just about 0.06 percent of the aggregate funds parked by all foreign clients of Switzerland-based banks.
• UK has retained its top position, accounting for close to 27 percent of the total foreign funds parked with Swiss banks at the end of 2019.
• UK is followed by the US, West Indies, France and Hong Kong in the top five.
• These top-five countries alone account for more than 50 percent of the aggregate foreign funds parked with the Swiss banks.

• The Centre has declared the entire Nagaland as disturbed area for a further period of six months till December-end.
• In exercise of the powers conferred by Section 3 of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, 1958 (No. 28 of 1958) the Central Government has declared the whole of the State to be a disturbed area for a period of six months with effect from 30th June, 2020 for the purpose of that Act.

• The Union Minister of Steel Dharmendra Pradhan virtually inaugurated Continuous Galvanized Rebar Production Facility at Mandi Gobindgarh in Punjab.
• The new plant is a first-of-its-kind facility in Asia to apply CGR technology that will increase life span of these rebars thereby reducing the overall maintenance cost.
• The facility has been developed by International Zinc Association (IZA), in collaboration with Madhav KRG Group. The project will be supported by Hindustan Zinc Limited.
• The Continuously Galvanized Rebar (CGR), are value added rebars for higher life and low maintenance of infrastructure to provide significant cost savings compared to other corrosion resistant rebar systems.
• It is estimated that the plant will produce an annual capacity of over 30,000 tonne of ZnCoat TempCore TMT bars, under the brand name ‘Jyoti’.

• Russia's Energia space corporation has announced that it is to take the first tourist on a spacewalk in 2023, under the terms of a new contract with a US partner. 
• Energia has signed a contract with Space Adventures. Under this, two space tourists to the International Space Station (ISS).
• Energia announced after NASA signed a deal with Richard Branson's Virgin Galactic space tourism company. The deal is to promote private missions to the station after a special training program in the US.
• The programme is introduced after the first successful mission by Elon Musk's SpaceX in the month of May 2020 to bring astronauts to the station on a reusable Crew Dragon spacecraft. This has ended nearly a decade of Russia holding a monopoly on shuttling humans to orbit. 
• SpaceX in March announced its own space tourism trip for three people in the year 2020, on board of the Crew Dragon.
• SpaceX together with the Russian agency previously took 8 tourists to the ISS between 2001 and 2009.

• The Manila, Philippines based Asian Development Bank (ADB) has joined the Central Banks and Supervisors Network for Greening the Financial System (NGFS).
• ADB’s inclusion as Observer will help the institution to fulfill its corporate strategy, ‘the Strategy 2030’, particularly in tackling climate change, building climate and disaster resilience, and enhancing environmental sustainability; fostering regional cooperation and integration; and strengthening governance and institutional capacity.
• NGFS was launched at the Paris One Planet Summit on 12 December 2017.
• It is a group of central banks and supervisors willing to share best practices and contribute to the development of environment and climate risk management in the financial sector, while mobilizing mainstream finance to support the transition toward a sustainable economy.
• The other NGFS Observers are World Bank, the International Finance Corporation, the International Monetary Fund, and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.

• The World Bank has approved loan worth $750 million to address the immediate liquidity and credit needs of India’s micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs), severely impacted by the Covid-19 crisis.
  
• The World Bank’s MSME Emergency Response program will provide financial support to some 1.5 million viable MSMEs.
• With this, the World Bank’s total commitment has reached to $2.75 billion to support India’s emergency Covid-19 response.
• World Bank Country Director in India- Junaid Ahmad.

• The World Bank approved $400 million, about Rs.3,000 crore, to enhance its support for the Government of India’s program to rejuvenate the Ganga river. It is expected that this assistance will help stem pollution in the river.
• The assistance provided by the World Bank will help strengthen the management of the river basin which is home to more than 500 million people.
• The Second National Ganga River Basin Project (SNGRBP) will support the government’s Namami Gange program and its long-term vision for controlling pollution in the river and restoring its water quality.
• The first World Bank project was aimed to help build critical sewage infrastructure in 20 pollution hotspots along the river. The first project will help the current project to scale this up to the tributaries.
• It should be noted that over 40% of India’s GDP is generated in the densely populated basin.

• The Government of India, Government of Tamil Nadu and the World Bank signed an agreement to help low-income groups in Tamil Nadu State to get access to affordable housing.

The agreement was signed for two projects:

• First Tamil Nadu Housing Sector Strengthening Program for $200 million
• Tamil Nadu Housing and Habitat Development Project for $50 million
• The project aims to strengthen the state’s housing sector policies, institutions, and regulations.
• The first operation will support the government’s ongoing efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing by gradually shifting the role of the state from being the main provider to an enabler. 
• It will aim to unlock regulatory barriers and incentivize private sector participation in affordable housing for low-income families. 
• The second operation aims to deepen these measures to make the affordable housing sector more efficient and inclusive

• The World Bank has approved loan worth $500 million (about Rs 3,700 crore) for Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States Program (STARS) to improve quality and governance of school education in six Indian states.
• The STARS program builds on the long partnership between India and the World Bank (since 1994), for strengthening public school education and to support the country’s goal of providing Education for All.
• The six states are Himachal Pradesh, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, and Rajasthan.

• Two eminent agricultural experts hailing from India have been named members of an international scientific group, aimed to offer foremost scientific evidence for sustainable food systems, established by UN chief Antonio Guterres ahead of a global food summit next year.
• Prof Rattan Lal of Ohio State University and Dr Uma Lele of the International Association of Agricultural Economists (IAAE) are among the Scientific Group Members.
• Lal, a pre-eminent Indian-American soil scientist, was named last month as the 2020 World Food Prize Laureate for developing and mainstreaming a soil-centric approach to increasing food production that conserves natural resources and mitigates climate change.
• Lal serves as distinguished university professor of Soil Science and founding Director of the Carbon Management and Sequestration Centre at The Ohio State University.
• Lele, the first woman to be awarded a PhD in agricultural economics by Cornell University, was elected President Elect of the International Association of Agricultural Economists in July 2018.
• The Scientific Group will be Chaired by Dr. Joachim von Braun of Bonn University Germany.

• India has become a founding member of an Alliance for Poverty Eradication at the UN, launched by the President of the General Assembly, aimed at focussing on efforts to boost global economy in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic.
• India has joined the alliance as a founding member and stressed that ending poverty is not just about monetary compensation but guaranteeing access of the poor to quality education, healthcare, clean water, sanitation, decent housing and social security.
• President of UN General Assembly: Tijjani MD Bande.

• NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has announced that the agency’s headquarters building in Washington, D.C., will be named after Mary W. Jackson, the first African American female engineer at NASA.
• It would be called as Mary W. Jackson NASA Headquarters.
• Jackson started her NASA career in 1951 as a human computer, a mathematician who performed hand calculations for NASA missions.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced that is is to conduct special "Open Market Operations (OMO)" on 2 July 2020. The aim is to pump up liquidity in the financial system.
• RBI's special OMO session will see the simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities for Rs.10,000 crore. 
• RBI will sell short-term securities, that worth Rs.10,000 crore, that are maturing in the current band next year and purchase long-term securities of an equal amount maturing between 2027 and 2033.
• The move by the Central Bank is expected to improve both liquidity and bond yields.

Open Market Operations (OMO):

• Open market operations (OMO) refers to a central bank's buying and selling of government securities in the open market in order to expand or contract the amount of money in the banking system. Securities' purchases inject money into the banking system and stimulate growth, while sales of securities do the opposite and contract the economy.

• In March 2020, the Reserve Bank of India, had increased the borrowing limit of scheduled banks under the marginal standing facility (MSF) scheme from 2 percent to 3 percent of their Net Demand and Time Liabilities (NDTL) as a temporary measure to deal with cash crunch caused by coronavirus pandemic.
• This relaxation was effective from March 27, 2020 and was granted till June 30, 2020.
• Now, RBI has decided to extend this enhanced borrowing facility provided to the banks to meet their liquidity shortages till September 30, 2020.
• Apart from this, the Central Bank has also extended the relaxation on the minimum daily maintenance of the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) at 80 percent for a further period of three months till September 25, 2020.
• On March 27, the minimum daily maintenance of the CRR was reduced from 90 percent of the prescribed CRR to 80 percent till June 26, 2020 due to the hardships faced by banks in terms of social distancing of staff and consequent strains on reporting requirements.

• Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) has decided to examine the feasibility of introducing surety bonds by insurance companies for road contracts in the country.
• For this, the insurance regulator has set up a nine-member working group to study the legal framework and suitability of the Indian insurance industry or any other sector to offer such bonds.
• The Working Group will be headed by G Srinivasan, Director, National Insurance Academy.

Responsibility of the Working Group :

• To study the current Indian legal and regulatory framework with reference to Surety Bonds.
• To assess the suitability of the Indian Insurance Industry or any other sector to offer Surety Bonds.
• To provide justification for the recommendations being made by the group, with special reference to the legal and regulatory perspective.
• The insurance legal/regulatory framework does not permit underwriting of bonds that guarantee performance and bid securities as they are financial instruments and not conventional insurance products.

• French President Emmanuel Macron named Jean Castex, as the country’s new prime minister.
• The French government led by Prime Minister Edouard Philippe and his government submitted their resignations on 03 July 2020.

• Karnam Sekar, the managing director and chief executive of public sector lender Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) has retired on June 30, 2020.
• Karnam had joined the bank as an OSD (officer on special duty) and whole-time director on April 1, 2019 after merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank into Bank of Baroda.
• He was elevated as MD and CEO on July 1, 2019 after the retirement of Subramaniam Kumar.
• Prior to working with IOB, Sekar was MD and CEO of Dena Bank since September 21, 2018.

• Cholamandalam MS General Insurance Company announced the appointment of V Suryanarayanan as its new Managing Director with effect from July 1.  Suryanarayanan succeeds S S Gopalarathnam.
• MS General Insurance is a Joint Venture between diversified conglomerate Murugappa Group and Japan- based Mitsui Sumitomo Insurance Company Ltd.

• Renowned Bollywood choreographer Saroj Khan died early on Friday morning due to cardiac arrest. She was 71.
• The three-time National Award winner, who had choreographed some of the most memorable songs in Hindi cinema, was not keeping well for some time.
• She was admitted to Guru Nanak Hospital in Bandra last Saturday after she complained of breathing issues. The mandatory Covid-19 test done at the hospital showed a negative result.
• She last choreographed for "Tabaah Hogaye", featuring Madhuri from filmmaker Karan Johar's production "Kalank" in 2019.

• French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe resigned on Friday ahead of a government reshuffle by President Emmanuel Macron designed to bolster his green credentials and win back disillusioned voters ahead of a possible re-election bid.
• In French government reshuffles, the prime minister tenders his or her resignation ahead of cabinet appointments but can still be re-named to the position. It was not immediately clear whether Philippe would be called upon to form the new government.
• It would be a political gamble for Macron to replace Philippe, who is more popular with the public than the president, political analysts say. The prime minister has shown steadfast loyalty during waves of unrest and could emerge as a presidential rival in 2022.

• Indian all-rounder Ravindra Jadeja has been named as India’s most valuable Test player in the 21st century by the Wisden magazine.
• With the ‘Most Valuable Player’ (MVP) rating of 97.3, the 31-year-old Jadeja is also rated as the second most valuable Test player worldwide, only after Sri Lanka legend Muttiah Muralitharan.
• Since making his debut in 2012, Jadeja has played in 49 Tests, scoring 1,869 runs with one century and 14 fifties. He has picked up 213 Test wickets.
• Wisden used CricViz, a detailed analysis tool in cricket to analyse his performance.

• In Mizoram, the former speaker of the state legislative assembly Upa Rokamlova has passed away after suffering from prolonged illness of kidney disorder. He was 79.
• A veteran Congress leader, Rokamlova became the speaker of the Mizoram Assembly in 1990.

• President Vladimir Putin has won a resounding victory in his bid to stay in power until the middle of the next decade- 2036, as Russians voted overwhelmingly to endorse the country's political status quo, according to preliminary results.
• Russia Capital- Moscow,
• Currency- Rubble.

• Shashank Manohar has formally stepped down as International Cricket Council (ICC) chairman after heading the sport’s global governing body for four years.
• Imran Khwaja appointed as interim Chairman.

• Senior diplomat Indra Mani Pandey has been appointed as the next Ambassador and Permanent Representative of India to the United Nations and other International Organisations in Geneva. 
• Pandey, a 1990-batch Indian Foreign Service officer, is currently serving as an additional secretary in the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA).

• The government of India has extended the term of Union Bank of India’s Managing Director (MD) and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Rajkiran Rai by two-years amid the bank’s ongoing merger exercise.
• His term has now been extended till May 31, 2022, or until further orders, whichever is earlier.
• Rai was appointed the MD and CEO of Union Bank of India in May 2017 for a period of three years.
• It must be recalled that Union Bank has been merged with Andhra Bank and Corporation Bank, which came into effect on April 1, 2020. The merger has made Union Bank the fifth largest public sector bank in the country with assets of over Rs 14.5 lakh crore.

• Government-owned Power Finance Corporation (PFC), India's leading NBFC, today announced the appointment of SmtParminder Chopra as Director (Finance) of the company. She succeeds Shri N.B. Gupta, who superannuated on June 30 2020.
• Smt. Chopra was working as Executive Director (Finance) at Power Finance Corporation (PFC) before assuming charge as Director (Finance), PFC.
• With over 32 years of rich and varied experience, she specializes in handling crucial and core finance functions such as fund mobilisation, corporate accounts, banking & treasury, asset-liability management, stressed asset resolution etc

• Shri Ravinder Bhakar, a 1999 batch officer of Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS), has taken over as the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Central Board of Films Certification (CBFC).
• Prior to this, Mr. Bhakar was posted as the Secretary & Chief Public Relations Officer of Western Railways.
• He succeeds Anurag Srivastava.
• Chairperson of CBFC – Shri Prasoon Joshi

• The Pakistani Army has appointed Major General Nigar Johar the first female lieutenant general in the country's history.
• She has been appointed as the first female Surgeon General of the Pakistani Army.
• Johar hails from remote area Panjpir of Swabi district of the country's northwest Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and is currently serving as Commandant Military Hospital Rawalpindi.

• The last of the famous three ‘Ws’, Everton Weekes has passed away.
• The West Indies cricketing great was 95 years old.
• Weekes played alongside Frank Worrell and Clyde Walcott, with all three of them making their Test debuts in 1948.
• After his playing career he became match referee for ICC.

• Salma Lakhani made history upon her appointment as the Lieutenant Governor of the province of Alberta, the 1st-ever Muslim with roots in the Indian subcontinent to occupy the post in Canada.A Lt Governor in Canada is the equivalent of a Governor in India.

• Shrikant Madhav Vaidya has taken over as the new chairman of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on 01 July 2020.
• Prior to this, Vaidya was the Director (Refineries) on the IOC Board, since October 2019.
• He succeeds Sanjiv Singh, who has superannuated from the services of the Corporation on June 30, 2020.

• The Appointments Committee of the Union Cabinet has approved the re-appointment of senior advocate Tushar Mehta as Solicitor General for a period of three years. 
• Senior advocate K.K. Venugopal has also been reappointed to the post of Attorney General for India for a period of one year.
• The Attorney General of India is the first law officer of the Government of India. 
• Article 76 provides for the office of the Attorney General for India.
• The Attorney General is appointed by the President. 
• The Attorney-General is assisted by two Solicitors General and four Additional Solicitors-General. 
• There is a point to take special note of the fact that only the office of the AG is created by the Constitution. 
• It means that Article 76 of the Constitution does not mention the solicitor general and additional solicitor general in an explicit manner

• The current President of Iceland, Gudni Johannesson has been re-elected as the head of the state.
• The former history professor won his second four-year term , with 92.2 percent of the 168,821 votes cast.
• It is the second-highest margin of victory in the history of Iceland’s presidential elections.
• Vigdis Finnbogadottir, the first woman in the world to be democratically elected as head of state, holds the record, winning re-election in 1988 with 94.6 percent of the vote.

• Micheal Martin has been appointed as the Taoiseach (Prime Minister) of the Republic of Ireland.
• The 59-year-old will lead a three-party coalition government consisting of Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party.
• Martin is serving as the 15th Taoiseach of the country. He succeeds Leo Varadkar.
• He has been the leader of the Fianna Fáil party since 2011.

• President Ram Nath Kovind has appointed Uttar Pradesh Governor Anandiben Patel to assume the additional charge as the Governor of Madhya Pradesh.
• The incumbent Governor of Madhya Pradesh, Lal Ji Tandon, is on medical leave due to the poor health conditions.

• Former Germany footballer Mario Gomez has announced his retirement from the sport.
• The 34 year old has represented the Germany national team over a period of 11 years between 2007 and 2018.
• He played as a striker and has scored 31 goals in 78 appearances for the national team.

• Malawi’s opposition leader Lazarus Chakwera has been sworn in as the 6th President of the country on 28 June 2020, after being declared as the winner of the southern African country’s historic presidential election.
• The 65-year-old, leader of the Malawi Congress Party- MCP, defeated the incumbent President Peter Mutharika with 58.57% of votes.
• Peter Mutharika, 79, of the Democratic Progressive Party, secured 39.4% of the total votes.

• Actor Priyanka Chopra and filmmaker Anurag Kashyap have been among the 50 celebrated global filmmakers and actors invited as ambassadors of the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) 2020.
• For the first time, the festival, is being organised virtually, due to the coronavirus pandemic.
• The 45th edition of the festival is scheduled to take place from September 10 to September 19, 2020
• It is expected that around 50 films will be screened in physical theaters through socially-distanced screenings, during its first five days.
• Toronto International Film Festival starts in 1976.
• Toronto International Film Festival Headquarters: Toronto, Canada.

• Karnataka Chief Minister BS Yediyurappa launched a web portal called `Skill Connect Forum`, which will bring together both private entrepreneurs and job seekers on the same platform.
• The portal will provide information on jobs available and those who need jobs. An unemployed person will be imparted a skill and then made ready to get a job.
• Registration: Jobseekers can register on the portal by uploading their educational, skill qualifications and other details on https://skillconnect.kaushalkar .com.

• HDFC Bank has launched e-Kisaan Dhan application to address information and knowledge gap for farmers in the agriculture space and rural ecosystem.
• Farmers can access a suite of agricultural and banking services on their mobile applications.
• ‘e-Kisaan Dhan’ app will provide value-added services like mandi prices, latest farming news, weather forecast, information on seed varieties, SMS advisory, e-pashuhaat, Kisan TV, among other things.
• Besides this, users can also avail multiple banking services like procuring loans, the opening of Bank accounts, availing insurance facilities, calculate KCC loan eligibility online, and acquiring Government social security schemes at their fingertips.
• The app will also help with traditional banking services such as apply for loans, Fixed Deposits, Recurring Deposits, and Savings Accounts.
• The app has been launched by the bank under its ”Har Gaon Hamara” initiative to reach out to customers in the rural and under-served areas.

• The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has launched Aatmanirbhar Bharat Innovation Challenge, to identify the best Indian Apps that are already being used by citizens and have the potential to scale and become world class Apps in their respective categories.
• This challenge is for you if you have such a working product or if you feel you have the vision and expertise to create such products.

• A team of engineers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kanpur has developed an innovative classroom-to-home teaching setup titled ‘Mobile Masterjee’, to overcome the disruption in normal classroom teaching caused due to Covid-19 lockdown,
• The device is targeted at helping the rural schools to overcome the teaching and learning challenges posed by the pandemic.
• This virtual classroom system has been designed to record the lectures/instructions by the teachers using smartphones.
• The gadget allows for fixing the smartphone at various locations and heights, and to self record the lectures for communicating to the students.
• It also allowed for writing on a sheet of paper apart from giving the option of recording blackboard teaching.
• It is lightweight and compact, and has adjustments to fit sheets/book on it for delivering instructions to pupils.

• The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also known as Mangalyaan mission, of the ISRO, has captured the image of the closest and biggest moon of Mars, named Phobos.
• The image was taken on July 1, 2020, by the Mars Colour Camera (MCC) onboard MOM, when the MOM was about 7,200 km from Mars and 4,200 km from Phobos.
• The Spatial resolution of the image is 210 m.
• Phobos is largely believed to be made up of carbonaceous chondrites.
• Stickney, the largest crater on Phobos along with the other craters (Shklovsky, Roche & Grildrig) are also seen in this image.

• Centre launched Drug Discovery Hackathon in the presence of Union Minister for Science and Technology Dr. Harsh Vardhan and Union Minister for Human Resource Development Shri Ramesh Pokhriyal ‘Nishank’. 
• Drug Discovery Hackathon is a joint initiative of the Ministry for Human Resource Development (MHRD’s) Innovation Cell (MIC), All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). It is supported by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC), MyGov, and other private players.
• MIC & AICTE will focus on identifying potential drug molecules through the Hackathon. And CSIR will take the identified molecules forward for synthesis and laboratory testing for efficacy, toxicity, sensitivity, and specificity.
• The initiative is open for all researchers/faculty across the globe as it attracts international talent to join and support our efforts.
• The Hackathon will have three Tracks.
  Track 1 will primarily deal with drug design for anti-COVID-19 hit/lead generation: this is done using tools such as molecular modelling, pharmacophore optimization, molecular docking, hit/lead optimization, etc.
  Track 2 deals with designing/optimizing new tools and algorithms which will have an immense impact on expediting the process of in silico drug discovery.
  Track 3 which is called “Moon shot" will allow for working on problems which are ‘out of the box’ nature.

• GoI launched Accelerate Vigyan to strengthen the scientific research mechanism. The new scheme was launched by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB).
• The scheme aims to provide a single platform for research internships, capacity building programs, and workshops across the country.

Accelerate Vigyan:

• The main objective of the Accelerate Vigyan scheme is to give more thrust on encouraging high-end scientific research and preparing scientific manpower, which can lead to research careers and knowledge-based economy. 
• It aims to recognize that all research has its base as the development of quality and well-trained researchers.
• AV will initiate and strengthen mechanisms to identify research potential, training, mentoring, and hands-on workshop on a national scale.
• The AV plans to work on a mission mode with respect to its component dealing with consolidation/aggregation of all major scientific events in the country.
• Also, an Inter-Ministerial Overseeing Committee (IMOC) that involves all the scientific ministries/departments and a few others has been constituted for the purpose of supporting SERB in implementing the AV scheme in a successful manner.

• Indian National Science Academy (INSA) and the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) are to organize a photo/painting and a one-minute-film competition. 
• The competition aims to help people go beyond their discipline and see, understand, and appreciate science around them. 
• The competition will foster and promote the scientific spirit, interest in research, and will encourage creative abilities.
• The theme for the competition is ‘Science through My Eyes.’ 
• Some examples of sub-themes are science in the lab, kitchen, sports, hospital, at home, or at work. 
• The creation may include any work in the above forms related to the COVID-19 virus, healthy life, geo-heritage, health, fascinating space.
• The competition is open to Indian nationals only. 
• There is no entry fee for registration. 
• A team of two may also be made to create the work. 
• The entry can be in the name of an individual or a team of 2 individuals.

• The Ministry of Information Technology, on June 29, banned 59 mobile apps,saying they are engaged in activities which are "prejudicial to the sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order.
• The IT Ministry said that it has received many complaints from various sources including several reports about misuse of some mobile apps available on Android and iOS platforms for stealing and surreptitiously transmitting users’ data in an unauthorized manner to servers which have locations outside India.
• Here is a list of apps that have been banned by the Centre:
  1. TikTok
  2. Shareit
  3. Kwai
  4. UC Browser
  5. Baidu map
  6. Shein
  7.Clash of Kings
  8. DU battery saver
  9. Helo
  10. Likee
  11. YouCam makeup
  12. Mi Community
  13. CM Browser
  14. Virus Cleaner
  15. APUS Browser
  16. ROMWE
  17. Club Factory
  18. Newsdog
  19. Beauty Plus
  20. WeChat
  21. UC News
  22. QQ Mail
  23. Weibo
  24. Xender
  25. QQ Music
  26. QQ Newsfeed
  27. Bigo Live
  28. SelfieCity
  29. Mail Master
  30. Parallel Space
  31. Mi Video Call – Xiaomi
  32. WeSync
  33. ES File Explorer
  34. Viva Video – QU Video Inc
  35. Meitu
  36. Vigo Video
  37. New Video Status
  38. DU Recorder
  39. Vault- Hide
  40. Cache Cleaner DU App studio
  41. DU Cleaner
  42. DU Browser
  43. Hago Play With New Friends
  44. Cam Scanner
  45. Clean Master – Cheetah Mobile
  46. Wonder Camera
  47. Photo Wonder
  48. QQ Player
  49. We Meet
  50. Sweet Selfie
  51. Baidu Translate
  52. Vmate
  53. QQ International
  54. QQ Security Center
  55. QQ Launcher
  56. U Video
  57. V fly Status Video
  58. Mobile Legends
  59. DU Privacy

• Indian umpire Nitin Menon has been included in the International Cricket Council’s (ICC’s) Elite Panel of Umpires for the upcoming 2020-21 season on 29 June 2020.
• The 36-year-old is the only third Indian umpire to feature in the prestigious panel after former captain Srinivas Venkatraghavan (2002) and Sundaram Ravi (2010).
• Menon replaces Nigel Llong of England in the list of 12 umpires for the season.
• He has the experience of officiating in three Tests, 24 ODIs and 16 T20Is so far.

• Former England’s women captain Clare Connor has been named as the first female president of Marylebone Cricket Club (MCC) in its 233-year history.
• Connor will replace incumbent President Kumar Sangakkara. She will take charge of her new post on 1 October 2021.
• Connor is currently the managing director of women’s cricket of England and Wales Cricket Board.
• Former Sri Lankan skipper Kumar Sangakkara, who is the first non-British MCC president appointed in 2019 for one-year tenure, has been invited to hold the position for another 12-month period due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
• MCC owns the famous Lord's Cricket Ground.

• Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy flagged-off a huge fleet of '108 ambulances' and '104 mobile medical units' at Benz Circle of the city on Wednesday.
• Mr. Reddy along with ministers A.Kali Krishna Srinivas, Peddireddi Ramachandra Reddy and officials of the departments concerned took part in the launch ceremony.
• The line-up of the 432 ambulances and 656 mobile medical units (MMUs) on M.G.Road from Benz Circle to Police Control Room become a cynosure of eyes. Drone visuals of the same are trending online.
• The government spent Rs. 201 crore on the new units and for the first time, 26 neo-natal ambulances are being made available as part of the 108 service. These ambulances are equipped with Sick Newborn Care Units (SNCU).

• The Madhya Pradesh government has announced to launch 15-day long ‘Kill Corona’ campaign in the state from 1st July 2020 to control the spread of coronavirus in the state.
• Under the campaign, a door-to-door survey will be conducted and tests would also be done on citizens for other diseases.
• Around 2.5 lakh tests will be carried out and 15,000 to 20,000 samples would be collected daily.

• Tripura government has announced an ambitious scheme “Mukhyamantri Matru Pushti Uphaar”. 
• The scheme aims to provide nutrition kits to pregnant and lactating women in order to combat infant and maternal mortality and malnutrition. 
• The scheme is expected to benefit 40,000 women in the state.
• The state government is expected to incur an expenditure of Rs 8 crore every year for the initiative.
• Under the Matru Pushti Uphaar scheme, pregnant women would be tested four times in the Primary Health Centers (PHC), and will be offered a nutrition kit after each test, comprising of food items and grocery supplies like peanuts, soyabeans, mixed pulses, jaggery and ghee.
• Each nutrition kit would cost Rs 500.

• Germany becomes the first country to phase-out of coal as an energy source.
• Bills approved by both houses of parliament Friday envision shutting down the last coal-fired power plant by 2038 and spending some 40 billion euros ($45 billion) to help affected regions cope with the transition.
• It also commits phase out nuclear power by 2022.
• German Chancellor: Angela Merkel;
  Capital : Berlin

• India is expected to add only 60 GW of renewable energy capacity in the next 5 yrs, according to a Renewable Energy CEO survey report 2020 by research & consultancy firm Bridge to India. 
• India's utility-scale solar capacity was 32.2GW as on March 31, 2020.
• The Union Minister for Power and Renewable Energy R.K. Singh told the power sector last week that a basic customs duty on solar modules, cells and inverters will be effective starting August 1, 2020.

• The Odisha Government planned to implement a new initiative ‘Sabuja Odisha’ to increase green cover through extensive plantation over 1,30,264 Hectares of land.
• Tripathy has directed to put a web-based system for real-time monitoring and supervision of the programme.
• The department has asked to form district-level committees led by the collector for proper coordination and implementation of the program at the ground level.
  Capital: Bhubaneswar
  Governor: Ganeshi Lal
  Chief minister: Naveen Patnaik

• The Union Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs (MoHUA) Shri Hardeep Singh Puri launched the sixth edition of the annual cleanliness survey of urban India, the toolkit for Swachh Survekshan 2021.
• Swachh Survekshan is redesigned innovatively every year, to ensure that the process becomes more robust, with a focus on sustaining the behaviour change. 
• In 2019, the Ministry’s efforts focussed on ensuring the sustainability of the sanitation value chain, the SS 2021 indicators focus on parameters pertaining to wastewater treatment and reuse along with faecal sludge.
• MoHUA provided a detailed presentation on the methodology and various parameters of Swachh Survekshan 2021.

Prerak Dauur Samman:

• A new category of awards titled Prerak Dauur Samman will be given as a part of Swachh Survekshan 2021. Top three cities will be recognized in each category. The award has a total of five additional sub-categories namely:
  Divya (Platinum)
  Anupam (Gold)
  Ujjwal (Silver)
  Udit (Bronze)
  Aarohi (Aspiring) 
   
•  A new category ‘population category’ been added. It will categorize cities on the basis of six select indicator wise performance criteria which are as follows:
  Segregation of waste into Wet, Dry and Hazard categories
  Processing capacity against wet waste generated
  Processing and recycling of wet and dry waste
  Construction & Demolition (C&D) waste processing
  Percentage of waste going to landfills
  Sanitation status of cities

• A United Nations led report has found that India is the third largest contributor to e-waste in the world in 2019.
• As per the report titled ‘Global E-waste Monitor 2020’, the world dumped a record 53.6 million tonnes of e-waste in 2019. Of this, just 17.4 percent was recycled.
• China was the biggest contributor to e-waste in the world, contributing 10.1 million tonnes of e-waste.
• United States was second with 6.9 million tonnes.
• India, with 3.2 million tonnes, was third.
• Together these three countries accounted for nearly 38 percent of the world’s e-waste in 2019.
• The report also says that the way in which we produce, consume, and dispose of e-waste is unsustainable, because of the overall damage done to the environment from all the un-recycled waste.

• The Delhi government will organize a mega tree plantation drive under the campaign 'Paudhe lagao, Paryavaran Bachao'.
• The campaign will be held from 10-26 July 2020. The information was passed by Delhi Environment Minister Gopal Rai on 2 July 2020. 
• The campaign is launched with an aim to reduce air pollution by increasing green cover in the national capital. 
• It has been planned that during the campaign, in 17 days, 31 lakh of tree saplings will be planted under the campaign. 
• The campaign will be launched near ITO in National Highway 20 (NH 20).
• Out of the 31 lakh saplings, 20 lakh saplings will be of big trees and the remaining 11 lakh saplings will be of shrubs that will be planted on both sides of the road.

• India’s first lichen park has been established in Kumaon’s Munsiyari village of Pithoragarh district in Uttarakhand, by the state forest department, to protect, conserve and cultivate lichen, which are the best bioindicators of the pollution levels.
• The park is spread across an area of 1.5 acres, with over 80 species of lichens collected from across the Himalayan state.
• Lichens are found in the Himalayas at a height of about 5000 metres, and are important species as they are the natural indicator of pollution levels in an area. If pollution levels increase in a certain area, the lichen species decline there.

• A Memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed on Waste to Energy plant at Okhla, Delhi, between Indian Oil, NTPC Ltd and South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC).
• Under the MoU, IndianOil, SDMC, and NTPC will jointly develop a demonstration Waste-to-energy Plant at Okhla landfill site in Delhi, using Gasification technology. 
• The Plant will process 17,500 tons per annum of Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) produced from combustible components of Municipal Waste to generate syngas which shall in turn be used to generate electricity.
• This Energy plant is expected to bring solutions to the management of Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) in Delhi.
• The gas generation from waste will also help in cutting imports of petroleum products and saving foreign exchange.
• The technology that is used in the Delhi plant will result in less emission and also provide usable residues.

Context: Pandemic has been ravaging the economies across the globe but digital services have escaped the onslaught and are thriving. 
For India, this could be an opportunity. This article highlights the importance of the sector and how some proposed measures could have an adverse impact on the sector.
Background
Pandemic crisis:

• The COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in drastic drops in economic growth rates globally and the competition for foreign investment is intensifying, spurred on by national campaigns to shift supply chains.
• Foreign direct investment (FDI) is falling. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, in its latest World Investment Report, has projected that FDI to developing Asian economies could drop by as much as 45%.

Key Points

Why digital services would beat this trend

• Digital services have become critical to every 21st century economy.
• Digital services are filling gaps when national or global emergencies interrupt more traditional modes of commerce.
• It enables access to and delivery of a wide array of products across multiple sectors.

How it matters for India

• India offers undeniable potential for innovative homegrown start-ups.
• India has a huge and increasingly digitised population.
• Indian government policies will be key determinants in how quickly and at what level the economy attracts new investment.
• Fostering innovation, and expanding its exporting prowess will also matter.

Pending Measures
Currently, there are three pending reform measures under consideration that are likely to affect India’s growth trajectory in digital services for years to come — the Personal Data Protection Bill (PDPB), the e-commerce policy, and the Information Technology Act Amendments.
The policy would have to delicately balance the following aspects:

• Protecting the domestic market for domestic companies while encouraging FDI into India.
• Prioritising government access to data while promoting data privacy.
• It should promote innovation through increased competition and create an environment that is friendly towards start-ups.

Issues with these measures

• These regulatory reforms seem to emphasise a focus on protecting the domestic market for domestic companies.
• It also prioritises government access to data.
• It may be difficult to reconcile these approaches with India’s strong interest in i) promoting data privacy ii) protecting its democratic institutions iii) encouraging FDI and India’s position as a global leader in information technology.

India-US trade relationship issue

• The India-U.S. trade relationship is uncertain.
• The bilateral relationship is an important factor for greater trade and investment in digital services.
• India and the U.S. are yet to conclude negotiation on a bilateral trade agreement that could address some digital services issues.
• The U.S. just initiated a “Section 301” review.
• The review seeks whether digital services taxes in 10 countries constitute “unfair” trade measures, including India’s equalisation levy.

Road Ahead'

• Indian government policies will be key determinants to attract new investment, foster Indian innovation, and expand its exporting prowess and cement India’s position as a global leader in information technology.
• Post-COVID-19 international cooperation and approaches to good governance in the digital sphere will be top-priority initiatives. The steps India takes now could well establish itself as a true global leader.

Context: Pandemic has made it necessary to digitise procedures and lower human intervention to facilitate trade across borders. Recognizing digitisation of procedures and lower human intervention as the two major pillars that drive trade across borders, India has embarked on multiple reforms.
Steps taken by government to digitise cross border trading

• Post India’s ratification of the Trade Facilitation Agreement of the World Trade Organization in April 2016, following reforms focused on infrastructural upgradation, digitisation and automation.

Direct Port Entry and Direct Port Delivery
Radio Frequency Identification system and Single Window Interface

• The Port Community System: It is aimed at seamlessly integrating all maritime trade-related stakeholders on a single platform.
• e-SANCHIT (e-Storage and computerised handling of indirect tax documents): Aimed at reducing human intervention.Pandemic effect:

India’s exports in April 2020 have contracted by 60% year-on-year.

• There has been a drastic drop in the cargo handled by the Jawaharlal Nehru Port in April 2020 as compared to April 2019 which is indicative of the drop in India’s trade.
• The slump in international trade due to the pandemic is understandable. As countries slowly emerge out of this, new demand and supply chains will form, which will be located in countries that re-orient their existing trade structures.
• The significance of a more digitised trading environment, with minimal manual touchpoints, will increase.
• With the current crisis, there will be the demand for a greater leap in trade facilitation measures to expedite the movement, release and clearance of goods.

Challenges

• While different interventions of the government have positively developed the logistics sector, there are still some gaps that need to be bridged.
• Some of the delays in moving to a paperless trade ecosystem can be attributed to gaps in the effective implementation of digital platforms. The shortcomings in the functionality of the digital system and technical glitches result in limited use of the system.
• The lack of connectivity/message exchanges between different stakeholders’ systems results in delayed cargo clearance.
• The lack of awareness, acceptability and adaptability of new initiatives among the users is a concern, due to issues with respect to training and capacity building amongst the users, restricting the optimal utilisation of digital platforms.
• There is also the issue of standardisation and coordination of processes across ports.

Suggestion

• The present crisis presents an opportunity to develop new systems and enhance existing platforms.
• Measures to facilitate and expedite the clearance process to make it more automated, online and paperless should be promoted.
• There is a need to further augment the digital infrastructure in the trade ecosystem.
• Enhanced integration of systems and coordination between the different stakeholders with the sharing of input data between them on a real-time basis should be promoted.
• Promoting the use of a multi-stakeholder single platform like the Port Community System can streamline EXIM procedures.
• These efforts will be instrumental towards improving India’s trading ecosystem and achieving the desired target of Ease of Doing Business (ranking under 50). The more digitised our trade facilitation infrastructure, the more immune we will be to future disruptions.

Context: According to the statistics of CMIE rural unemployment rate in the last week of June inched up from 7.26 per cent in the previous week, urban unemployment rate eased from 11.19 per cent.
Key Points

• The urban unemployment rate continued to remain in double-digits at 10.69 per cent and the rural unemployment rate was recorded at 7.62 per cent.
• While the rural unemployment rate in the last week of June was 7.26 per cent and the urban unemployment rate was  11.19 per cent. 
• The first week of June had seen the unemployment rate at 17.51 per cent for the country, with the rural unemployment rate at 17.71 per cent and the urban rate at 17.08 per cent.
• There was an improvement in the rural rate of unemployment due to the Kharif sowing and higher MGNREGA activities to engage the migrant labourers who have returned.

Reasons for percentage increase in urban unemployment

• The labour-intensive manufacturing and heavy machine segments are not functioning with their optimal resources, the demand in the market is low and the support supply chain is structurally weak now. 
• MSMEs are in bad shape and formal sectors are shedding jobs for survival.
• All this will have an impact on urban unemployment and the urban joblessness is likely to be between 10% and 15% for the next few months.

About Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy( CMIE)

• It is a privately owned and professionally managed business information company head-quartered at Mumbai.
• It was established in 1976, primarily as an independent think tank.
• It has a presence over the entire information food-chain from large scale primary data collection to information product development through analytics and forecasting.
• Functions- It provides services to the entire spectrum of business information consumers including governments, academia, financial markets, business enterprises, professionals and media.
• CMIE produces economic and business databases and develops specialised analytical tools to deliver these to its customers for decision making and for research. It analyses the data to decipher trends in the economy.
• It conducts the largest survey to estimate household incomes, the pattern of spending and savings.

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has launched the PM Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme as a part of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’.
Background

• The unorganised food processing sector faces a number of challenges which limit their performance and their growth.
• These challenges include lack of access to modern technology & equipment, training, access institutional credit, lack of basic awareness on quality control of products; and lack of branding & marketing skills, etc.
• The unorganized food processing sector comprising nearly 25 lakh units contributes to 74% of employment in the food processing sector.
• Nearly 66% of these units are located in rural areas and about 80% of them are family-based enterprises supporting the livelihood of rural household and minimizing their migration to urban areas.
• These units largely fall within the category of micro-enterprises.

About the PM FME Scheme

• The scheme was launched as part of the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.
• It is proposed as a Centrally Sponsored scheme.
• The objective of the scheme is to support local unorganized food processing units in the country.
• Scheme aims to providing financial, technical and business support for up gradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.
• It will be Implemented over a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25 with an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore.

The expenditure under the scheme would to be shared in:

• 60:40 ratio between Central and State Governments
• 90:10 ratio with North Eastern and Himalayan States
• 60:40 ratio with UTs with legislature
• 100% by Centre for other UTs.

The Scheme adopts One District One Product (ODOP) approach to reap benefit of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common services and marketing of products.

• The States would identify food product for a district keeping in view the existing clusters and availability of raw material.
• Existing individual micro food processing units desirous of upgrading their unit can avail credit-linked capital subsidy @35% of the eligible project cost with a maximum ceiling of Rs.10 lakh per unit.
• Seed capital @ Rs. 40,000/- per SHG member would be provided for working capital and purchase of small tools.
• FPOs/SHGs/producer cooperatives would be provided credit-linked grant of 35% for capital investment along the value chain.
• Support would be provided through credit-linked grant @ 35% for development of common infrastructure including common processing facility, lab, warehouse, cold storage, packaging and incubation centre through FPOs/SHGs/cooperatives or state-owned agencies or private enterprise to use by micro-units in the cluster.
• Support for marketing & branding would be provided to develop brands for micro-units and groups with 50% grant at State or regional level which could benefit a large number of micro-units in clusters.
• The Minister also announced the extension of Operation Greens from TOP (tomato-onion-potato) to all perishable fruits and vegetables. 

About Operation Green

• It is a price fixation scheme that aims to ensure farmers are given the right price for their produce.
• It aims to promote Farmer Producers Organizations (FPO), Agri-logistics, processing facilities and professional management of agri-produce.
• It focuses on organized marketing of Tomatoes, Onions and Potatoes (TOP vegetables) by connecting farmers with consumers.
• State Agriculture and other Marketing Federations, Farmer Producer Organizations (FPO), cooperatives, companies, Self-help groups, food processors etc. can avail the financial assistance under it.
• To help in the structural and infrastructure part of the scheme, agriculture market committee (APMCs) promoted markets will be connected to the e-NAM platform.
• The government will also help in development of 22,000 agricultural markets.

Additional Facts

• E-NAM (e-National Agriculture Market) is an important initiative of GoI to use pan-India electronic trading portal for bidding and network the existing APMC mandis to create a unified national market for agricultural commodities.
• Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) is a statutory market committee constituted by a State Government in respect of trade in certain notified agricultural or horticultural or livestock products, under the Agricultural Produce Market Committee Act issued by that state government.

Context: Recently, the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) ordered the scrapping of a Rs 1,950 crore tender for the BharatNet project in Tamil Nadu.
Key Points

• It is a flagship mission implemented by Bharat Broadband Network Ltd. (BBNL).
• It is a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) set up by the Government of India under the Companies Act, 1956 with an authorized capital of Rs 1000 crore.
• Initially, it was under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology, which was bifurcated into the Ministry of Communications and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology in July 2016.
• Currently, it is being implemented by the Department of Telecommunication under the Ministry of Communications.
• National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) was launched in October 2011 and was renamed as Bharat Net Project in 2015.

National Optical Fibre Network

• It was envisaged as an information superhighway through the creation of a robust middle-mile infrastructure for reaching broadband connectivity to Gram Panchayats.
• The Ministry of Communications has launched the National Broadband Mission that will facilitate universal and equitable access to broadband services across the country, especially in rural and remote areas.

Aim:

• To facilitate the delivery of e-governance, e-health, e-education, e-banking, Internet and other services to rural India.
• To connect all the 2,50,000 Gram panchayats in the country and provide 100 Mbps connectivity to all gram panchayats.
• To achieve this, the existing unused fibres (dark fibre) of public sector undertakings (PSUs) (BSNL, Railtel and Power Grid) were utilised and incremental fibre was laid to connect to Gram Panchayats wherever necessary.
• Non-discriminatory access to the NOFN was provided to all the service providers like Telecom Service Providers (TSPs), Cable TV operators and content providers to launch various services in rural areas.
• The entire project is being funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund (USOF), which was set up for improving telecom services in rural and remote areas of the country.

Implementation

• The project is a Centre-State collaborative project, with the states contributing free Rights of Way for establishing the Optical Fibre Network.

The three-phase implementation of the BharatNet project is as follows:

• First Phase: Provide one lakh gram panchayats with broadband connectivity by laying underground optic fibre cable (OFC) lines by December 2017.
• Second Phase: Provide connectivity to all the gram panchayats in the country using an optimal mix of underground fibre, fibre over power lines, radio and satellite media. It is to be completed by March 2019.
• Third Phase: From 2019 to 2023, a state-of-the-art, future-proof network, including fibre between districts and blocks, with ring topology to provide redundancy would be created.
• The participation of states became important in the second phase which involved laying of OFC over electricity poles.
• This was a new element of the BharatNet strategy as the mode of connectivity by aerial OFC has several advantages, including lower cost, speedier implementation, easy maintenance and utilization of existing power line infrastructure.

About Dark fibre

• It is an unused optical fibre that has been laid but is not currently being used in fibre-optic communications. Since fibre-optic cable transmits information in the form of light pulses, a ‘dark’ cable refers to one through which light pulses are not being transmitted.
• Companies lay extra optical fibres in order to avoid cost repetition when more bandwidth is needed.
• It is also known as unlit fibre.

About Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade

• The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) has been renamed as the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade.

Mandate for the Newly Named Department

• The newly named department will work under the Union Ministry of Commerce.
• The order issued by the President states that the department would deal with matters related to start-ups, facilitating ease of doing business among others.
• The subject matter of internal trade which was under the ambit of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has been transferred to the newly named department.
• With this new mandate, both internal and external trade has been brought under a single Ministry (Ministry of commerce and industry).
• This will ensure better coordination and help in promoting the growth of both segments of the trade.

Why the new mandate?

• For a long time Confederation of All India Traders Association (CAIT) was demanding for a separate Ministry of Internal Trade. CAIT sees the creation of a separate department by merging Internal and external trade is a step forward in the creation of a separate Ministry.

Functions

• With progressive liberalisation of the Indian economy, initiated in July 1991, there has been a consistent shift in the role and functions of this Department.
• From regulation and administration of the industrial sector, the role of the Department has been transformed into facilitating investment and technology flows and monitoring industrial development in the liberalised environment.

Context: Recently, RBI announced another ‘operation twist’, also known as open market operations (OMO), under which it conducts simultaneous sale and purchase of bonds.
Key Points

• Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced fresh Open Market Operations (OMO) for the sale and purchase of Government Securities.  
• The RBI will conduct the sale and purchase of government securities on July 2, 2020 of Rs 10,000 crore each. The RBI took the decision after considering the current liquidity and market situation. 
• In order to participate in the OMO, bidders and participants need to submit their bids on the E-Kuber system (Core Banking Solution) of the RBI in electronic format
• RBI has decided to conduct simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities under OMO for Rs 10,000 crore each.
• The RBI undertakes operation twist to manage yields in the bond market.
• Rationale behind the plan is to raise short-term yields and lower long term yields.

Open Market Operations (OMO)

• It is one of the Quantitative (to regulate or control the total volume of money) Monetary policy tools which is employed by the central bank of a country to control the money supply in the economy.
• OMOs are conducted by the RBI by way of sale or purchase of government securities to adjust money supply conditions.
• The central bank sells government securities to remove liquidity from the system and buys back government securities to infuse liquidity into the system.
• These operations are often conducted on a day-to-day basis in a manner that balances inflation while helping banks continue to lend.
• RBI carries out the OMO through commercial banks and does not directly deal with the public.
• The RBI uses OMO along with other monetary policy tools such as repo rate, Cash Reserve Ratio(CRR) and Statutory Liquidity Ratio(SLR) to adjust the quantum and price of money in the system.

Why RBI conducts the OMO?

The RBI conducts the OMO to manage the liquidity situation in the economy. Have a look at the motive behind the conduct of Open Market Operations:

• When there is excess liquidity --> Sale of Government Securities --> To drain liquidity off the market
• When there is Liquidity Crunch --> Purchase of Government Securities --> To infuse liquidity in the market

What are Government Securities?

• Government Securities are financial instruments or bonds - securities that are issued at face value by the Central Government for raising a loan from the public. The Government Securities are issued to finance important projects and manage budget deficits.

Operation Twist

• Operation Twist is when the central bank uses the proceeds from the sale of short-term securities to buy long-term government debt papers (Long term securities), leading to easing of interest rates on the long term papers.

Context: Recently, RBI announces special liquidity scheme for NBFCs and HFCs through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) to avoid any potential systemic risks to the financial sector.
Key Points

• RBI will provide funds for the Scheme by subscribing to government guaranteed special securities issued by the Trust.
• Government of India will provide an unconditional and irrevocable guarantee to the special securities issued by the Trust.
• The Scheme is being launched through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) in the form of SLS Trust set up by SBI Capital Markets Limited (SBICAP).
• The proceeds of sale of such securities would be used by the SPV to acquire short-term debt of NBFCs/HFCs.
• The Scheme will be administered by the Department of Financial Services (Ministry of Finance).

To be eligible under the scheme, RBI laid out the conditions

• The Non-Banking Financial Company (NBFCs), including Microfinance Institutions that are registered with the RBI, under the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934, excluding those registered as Core Investment Companies
• Housing Finance Companies that are registered under the National Housing Bank Act, 1987
• CRAR/CAR of NBFCs/HFCs should not be below the regulatory minimum, i.e., 15% and 12% respectively as on March 31, 2019
• The net non-performing assets should not be more than 6% as on March 31, 2019
• They should have made net profit in at least one of the last two preceding financial years (i.e. 2017-18 and 2018-19)
• They should not have been reported under SMA-1 or SMA-2 category by any bank for their borrowings during last one year prior to August 01, 2018
• They should be rated investment grade by a SEBI registered rating agency.
• They should comply with the requirement of the SPV for an appropriate level of collateral from the entity, which, however, would be optional and to be decided by the SPV.

Benefits

• Unlike the Partial Credit Guarantee Scheme, NBFCs/ HFCs do not have to liquidate their current asset portfolio under this scheme.
• Current assets are all the assets of a company that are expected to be used as a result of standard business operations over the next year.
• The scheme would also act as an enabler for the NBFC to get investment grade for bonds issued.
• The Scheme would benefit the real economy by augmenting the lending resources of NBFCs/HFCs/MFls.
• This facility would supplement the liquidity measures taken so far by the Government and RBI.

Financial implication

• The direct financial implication for the Central government is Rs. 5 crore, which may be the equity contribution to the SPV.
• Beyond that, there is no financial implication for the government until the guarantee involved is invoked.
• However, on invocation, the extent of government liability would be equal to the amount of default subject to the guarantee ceiling, which has been set at Rs. 30,000 crore.

Context: Recently, the Prime Minister extended PM Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana for five months till November-end for distributing free foodgrains to the poor.  
Key Points

• The government will keep providing free foodgrains to the poor section of society due to the increased need during the festivals. 
• The government will incur an additional expenditure of Rs  90,000 crore to provide 5 kg of rice or wheat and 1 kg gram every month to the poor. 
• A total of 116.02 lakh metric tonnes (LMT) of food grains have been lifted under the scheme. 
• In April, 93% of the food grains allotted to the States were distributed targeting 74.05 crore beneficiaries.
• In May, the distribution stood at 91% reaching 72.99 crore beneficiaries and in June 2020, 71% per cent of allocated food grains have been distributed to 56.81 crore beneficiaries so far.

About PM Gareeb Kalyan  Anna Yojna

• Under this  Yojna, people below the poverty line will get  5 kg foodgrain (rice or wheat) and 1 kg Gram per month for a period of three months between April and June 2020, which has now been extended for five more months.
• It aimed to ensure sufficient foods with the poor and needy amid the coronavirus crisis. 
• The foodgrains are distributed to all the beneficiaries under the targeted public distribution system (TPDS) for Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and priority household (PHH) ration cardholders. 

Road Ahead

• The food grain provided under the scheme must continue until the impact of Covid-19 pandemic is not reduced. The impact of Covid-19 pandemic is still continuing, many economic activities have not been able to start in their full capacity, and a large number of people are unemployed.
• India has large buffer stocks of food grains that are maintained precisely for meeting emergencies like Covid-19. What is required is a universal Public Distribution System (PDS) to ensure that nobody is excluded.

Context: Recently, the Government of India, the Government of Tamil Nadu and the World Bank signed legal agreements to help low-income groups in the state of Tamil Nadu get access to affordable housing.
Key Points

• The legal agreements were signed for two projects – $200 million First Tamil Nadu Housing Sector Strengthening Programme and $50 million Tamil Nadu Housing and Habitat Development Project – to strengthen the state’s housing sector policies, institutions, and regulations.
• Nearly half of Tamil Nadu’s population is urban, and this is expected to increase to 63 percent by 2030. An estimated 6 million people are currently living in slums (representing 16.6 percent of the state’s urban population).

First Tamil Nadu Housing Sector Strengthening Programme

• This programme supports the government’s ongoing efforts to increase the availability of affordable housing by gradually shifting the role of the state from being the main provider to an enabler.
• It will also aim to unlock regulatory barriers and incentivise private sector participation in affordable housing for low-income families.

Tamil Nadu Housing and Habitat Development Project

• This project will support innovations in housing finance and strengthen housing sector institutions in the state.
• It will finance the newly created Tamil Nadu Shelter Fund (TNSF) – an innovation in housing finance in India – by providing an equity contribution of $35 million.
• This initial support to TNSF will enable cross-subsidisation opportunities where higher returns from commercial and high-income developments will compensate for lower returns from affordable housing.
• This will make affordable housing commercially viable for potential investors.
• The project will also strengthen the capacity of key housing institutions including the Tamil Nadu Slum Clearance Board, the state’s main provider of affordable housing; Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority, the land use planning authority for the Chennai Metropolitan Area; and Tamil Nadu Infrastructure Fund Management Corporation Limited, the asset management company of TNSF.
• The loans of $200 million and $50 million from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) have a maturity of 20 years including a grace period of 3.5 years.

Context: Recently, the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has observed an increase in ozone (a harmful pollutant) levels in the several cities of the country.
Key Points

• The pandemic-led change in air quality has helped researchers understand summer pollution.
• The characteristics of summer pollution are different: there are high winds, intermittent rains and thunderstorms, and high temperature and heat waves.
• The analysis was based on Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data from 22 cities in 15 States in lockdown days.
• It has also observed that the particulate matter and nitrous oxide levels fell during the lockdown to control Covid-19 outbreak.

About Surface level Ozone/Bad Ozone

• Surface level Ozone is a harmful pollutant. In the Earth’s lower atmosphere (troposphere) near ground level, ozone is formed when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers, refineries, chemical plants, and other sources react chemically in the presence of sunlight.
• Ozone gas is not emitted directly into the air, but is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOC) in the presence of sunlight.
• Emissions from industrial facilities and electric utilities, motor vehicle exhaust, gasoline vapours, and chemical solvents are some of the major sources of NOx and VOC.
• Ozone pollution can be curtailed only if gases from all sources are controlled.
• Ozone pollution is a concern during the summer months because strong sunlight and hot weather result in harmful ozone concentrations in the air we breathe.
• Ozone is a highly reactive gas. Even short-term exposure of an hour is dangerous for those with respiratory conditions and asthma. Repeated exposure may permanently scar lung tissue.
• That’s why an eight-hour average is considered for ozone instead of the 24-hour average for other pollutants.
• It damages crops, trees and other vegetation.
• It is a main ingredient of urban smog.

About Ozone 

• It occurs naturally in the Earth’s upper atmosphere (Stratosphere) where it forms a protective layer that shields us from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. This is known as Good Ozone.
• Good Ozone is gradually being destroyed by man-made chemicals referred to as ozone-depleting substances (ODS), including chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs), halons, methyl bromide, carbon tetrachloride, and methyl chloroform.
• Ozone depletion can cause increased amounts of UV radiation to reach the Earth which can lead to more cases of skin cancer, cataracts, and impaired immune systems. Overexposure to UV is believed to be contributing to the increase in melanoma, the most fatal of all skin cancers.

Road Ahead

• The government needs to take active steps to mitigate primary pollutants, which lead to ground ozone formation. These steps involved curbing private vehicle usage, increasing electric mobility, scaling up public transport and pedestrian infrastructure, deploying citywide parking management, and aggressively controlling industrial emissions.

Context: Extensive biodiversity loss in the past decades has spared neither developed nor developing countries. This has led to pacing up of global biodiversity governance.
The begining

• Rapidly accelerating biodiversity loss led to a series of introspections and eventually a worldwide catharsis among countries that resulted in them coming together at the Rio Summit in 1992.
• Here major legally binding conventions for the protection of nature — including the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD) were adopted.
• More than 25 years have passed since 197 countries became a party to CBD, with several of them taking significant steps to protect their biodiversity.

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

• The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), a legally binding treaty to conserve biodiversity has been in force since 1993.

It has 3 main objectives

• The conservation of biological diversity.
• The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity.
• The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.

Nearly all countries have ratified it (notably, the US has signed but not ratified).

• The CBD Secretariat is based in Montreal, Canada and it operates under the United Nations Environment Programme.
• The Parties (Countries) under Convention of Biodiversity (CBD), meet at regular interval and these meetings are called Conference of Parties (COP).
• On 29 January 2000, the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP5) adopted a supplementary agreement to the Convention known as the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety. It came into force on 11 September 2003.
• The Protocol seeks to protect biological diversity from the potential risks posed by living modified organisms resulting from modern biotechnology.
• The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS) to the Convention on Biological Diversity was adopted on 29 October 2010 in Nagoya, Japan at COP10. It entered into force on 12 October 2014.
• It provides a transparent legal framework for the effective implementation of one of the three objectives of the CBD: the fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources.
• It not only applies to genetic resources that are covered by the CBD, and to the benefits arising from their utilization but also covers traditional knowledge (TK) associated with genetic resources that are covered by the CBD and the benefits arising from its utilization.
• Along with Nagoya Protocol on Genetic Resources, the COP-10 also adopted a ten-year framework for action by all countries to save biodiversity.
• Officially known as “Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020”, provide a set of 20 ambitious yet achievable targets (divided into 5 sections: A to E), collectively known as the Aichi Targets for biodiversity.

The Aichi Biodiversity Targets are

• Strategic Goal A: Address the underlying causes of biodiversity loss by mainstreaming biodiversity across government and society
• Strategic Goal B: Reduce the direct pressures on biodiversity and promote sustainable use.
• Strategic Goal C: To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity
• Strategic Goal D: Enhance the benefits to all from biodiversity and ecosystem services
• Strategic Goal E: Enhance implementation through participatory planning, knowledge management and capacity building.
• India enacted Biological Diversity Act in 2002 for giving effect to the provisions of the CBD.
• The National Biodiversity Authority is a statutory body, which was established by the Central Government in 2003 to implement India’s Biological Diversity Act (2002).
• It performs facilitative, regulatory and advisory functions for the Government of India on issues of conservation, sustainable use of biological resources and fair and equitable sharing of benefits arising out of the use of biological resources.
• The NBA is headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.
• International Biological Diversity Day is observed on 22 May. Theme for 2018: "Celebrating 25 Years of Action for Biodiversity".
• United Nations General Assembly had declared the period 2011-2020 to be the “United Nations Decade on Biodiversity”.

 The two major protocols under CBD

• CBD has two supplementary agreements – Cartagena Protocol and Nagoya Protocol.
• The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety is an international treaty governing the movements of living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology from one country to another.
• The Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS) is a supplementary agreement to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
• Access to genetic resources rested with the national government and was subject to national legislation, according to CBD.

Success of CBD

• The CBD, in its spirit, laid the foundation for ethics taking priority over mindless exploitation and constantly sounded a reminder to the international community in the form of Article 15 and Article 8 (j).
• Article 15 of the CBD recognised the right of states to their genetic resources and Article 8 (j) recognised the rights of communities to their traditional knowledge.
• With these guidelines in mind, most countries that signed the CBD met again at Nagoya in Japan in 2010 and adopted the Nagoya Protocol that aimed to give effect to the fair and equitable sharing provisions of the CBD.

The 12 National Biodiversity targets of India are

• By 2020, a significant proportion of the country’s population, especially the youth, is aware of the values of biodiversity and the steps they can take to conserve and use it sustainably.
• By 2020, values of biodiversity are integrated into national and state planning processes, development programmes and poverty alleviation strategies.
• Strategies for reducing the rate of degradation, fragmentation and loss of all natural habitats are finalized and actions put in place by 2020 for environmental amelioration and human well-being.
• By 2020, invasive alien species and pathways are identified and strategies to manage them developed so that populations of prioritized invasive alien species are managed.
• By 2020, measures are adopted for sustainable management of agriculture, forestry and fisheries.
• Ecologically representative areas under terrestrial and inland water, and also coastal and marine zones, especially those of particular importance for species, biodiversity and ecosystem services, are conserved effectively and equitably, based on protected area designation and management and other area-based conservation measures and are integrated into the wider landscapes and seascapes, covering over 20% of the geographic area of the country, by 2020.
• By 2020, genetic diversity of cultivated plants, farm livestock, and their wild relatives, including other socio-economically as well as culturally valuable species, is maintained, and strategies have been developed and implemented for minimizing genetic erosion and safeguarding their genetic diversity.
• By 2020, ecosystem services, especially those relating to water, human health, livelihoods and well-being, are enumerated and measures to safeguard them are identified, taking into account the needs of women and local communities, particularly the poor and vulnerable sections.
• By 2020, an effective, participatory and updated national biodiversity action plan is made operational at different levels of governance.
• By 2020, national initiatives using communities’ traditional knowledge relating to biodiversity are strengthened, with the view to protecting this knowledge in accordance with national legislation and international obligations.
• By 2020, opportunities to increase the availability of financial, human and technical resources to facilitate effective implementation of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020 and the national targets are identified and the Strategy for Resource Mobilization is adopted.

Steps taken by India

• India — a key mega-biodiversity country — adopted the Biological Diversity Act (BD Act) in 2002 to halt and reverse effects of diversity loss.
• The BD Act was hailed as an important step towards preserving our vast biodiversity.
• It was considered pioneer legislation as it recognised the sovereign right of countries over their natural resources.
• It also put restrictions on the access of bio-resources by user countries.
• The BD Act was a game-changer, ensuring the conservation and sustainable use of resources, leading to proper sharing of benefits to local populations.

BD Act in action

• Under the BD Act, an important regulatory mechanism was the emphasis on access and benefit-sharing (ABS) to local populations
• Having integrated ABS within a decade of CBD, India came to be regarded as a pioneer country: Only 105 of 197 countries that signed CBD formed national legislation for regulatory use of bio-resources.
• This initial initiative taken by the Union government went a long way in strengthening the case of securing benefits for its rightful owners for the coming decades.
• The BD Act seeks to address issues of managing bio-resources in the most decentralized manner possible without compromising on the sovereignty of the country or community’s rights over these resources.
• The act lists conditions under which persons, commercial firms and other institutions can access biological resources and the knowledge associated with them.
• It created three structures: The National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) at the national level, the state biodiversity boards (SSBs) at the state level and biodiversity management committees (BMCs) at the local level.

Adopting ABS

• With the adoption of the BD Act, the focus shifted on actualizing the tenets of CBD.
• It was felt that an efficient mechanism — acceptable to all countries and a reference point for issues of bio-resources — needs to be adopted.
• For a process that began in 1992 with the CBD, the detailed action points were adopted under the Nagoya Protocol.
• Almost immediately, countries began the process of implementing national legislation to adopt the regulatory frameworks and India, again, took the lead and adopted the ABS guidelines in 2014.
• India’s stand leading upto the negotiations that finally led to the adoption of the Nagoya Protocol was of intense negotiations.

Benefit for India

• India was a victim of misappropriation or bio-piracy of our genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, which were patented in other countries.
• Well-known examples of this include neem and turmeric.
• India and other developing countries fought hard in several international negotiations to correct the historical wrong of being victims of bio-piracy and succeeded in scoring a major victory.
• It is expected that the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, a key missing pillar of the CBD, addressed this concern.

Context: Due to anthropogenic activities India’s 1.34 billion people exert a heavy pressure through encroachment, raising commercial plantations.
Key Facts our Ecosystem

• India has about 8 percent of the world’s biodiversity on 2 percent of the earth’s surface, making it one of the 12 mega-diversity countries in the world. 
• Of about 1.75 million species globally identified, around 1,26,188 species have been reported so far from India. 
• The species recorded include flowering plants (angiosperms), mammals, fish, birds, reptiles and amphibians, constituting about 17.3 percent of the total, whereas fungi and insects make up nearly 60 percent of India’s bio-wealth. 
• This diversity can be attributed to the great variety of natural ecosystems due to the varied physical and climatic features found in India.
• India ranks tenth in the world both in respect of richness of flowering plants (17,500 spp.) and mammals (350 spp.) and fourth in Asia in plant diversity. India is also a centre of crop diversity, a homeland of as many as 167 species of crops and 320 species of wild crop relatives.
• The country has 10 different bio geographic zones and 26 biotic provinces gifted with unique and rare species of flora and fauna.

Key Points

• India is known for its rich biological diversity due to the presence of large numbers of plant and animal species. It is one of the top-ranking, mega-diverse countries of the world.
• Our cultural diversity has played a key role in conserving floral and faunal diversity. Having said that, this diversity is now in danger.
• Take for instance, trees. In spite of their valuable services to humanity, trees are being ruthlessly destroyed because of developmental projects and increased dependence.
• While several species are facing threats from anthropogenic pressure, many are threatened due to invasive alien species and climate change.

Challenges to tree species in the Western Ghats

• India’s 1.34 billion people exert a heavy pressure through encroachment, raising commercial plantations and other developmental activities. 
• Due to anthropogenic activities like excessive harvesting and habitat destruction, many of the economically important tree species are under serious threat.
• Syzygium travancoricum, an economically important tree species, is reported to exist with a population size of only 15-20 individuals. 
• Similarly, Dipterocarpus bourdillonii, another endangered species has only 14 individuals occurring in three patches in the Kodagu district of Karnataka.
• Since tree species require decades for regeneration of the optimum population, if there is lack of regeneration or habitat, their present population cannot be considered healthy.
• Increased inbreeding because of limited pollen and seed dispersal flow caused by fragmentation of populations can impact regeneration of the species. 
• In case of Dysoxylum malabaricum, an endangered tree species in the Western Ghats, inbreeding between related individuals has caused reduced regeneration.
• Hence, if urgent action is not taken to restore the population of these species, they may be irrecoverably lost. In India, recovery programmes for a few plant species have been taken up.
• For instance, Paphiopedilum druryi, a slipper orchid, has multiplied through tissue culture and has been reintroduced in the Agasthiamalai hill ranges of the southern Western Ghats.
• Out of the 387 Indian plants listed under the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List, 77 have been enlisted as ‘critically endangered’, six are ‘extinct’ and two are ‘extinct’ in the wild. 
• The IUCN is an international organization working in the field of nature conservation and sustainable use of natural resources. 
• The 77 critically endangered species can be prioritised for recovery programme and the balance can be taken up subsequently. 
• A systematic species recovery programme is thus the need of the hour to restore the populations of these species.

Global Initiative

• Many countries have initiated plans to address the resurrection of the RET species. Species recovery programmes have been carried out successfully in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom and Australia.
• In the United States, there is special legislation such as the Endangered Species Act, 1973, (ESA) for carrying out species recovery programmes. The Act, that was implemented in 1973, has provisions for listing the species as ‘endangered’, developing recovery plans for each species and designating critical habitats.

India initiative

• While taking earnest measures for conservation and recovery of RET species, collection of data about their population sizes, identification of the specific threats and developing mitigation strategies are to be attempted systematically.
• So far, 47 species have been stabilised through different recovery processes and have been excluded from the recovery programmes. A gradual increase in the population size, habitat restoration and captive breeding or population stabilisation have been achieved through recovery programmes.
• The Vallanadu Black Buck Sanctuary and the Grizzled Giant Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuary in Tamil Nadu; Aghanashini Lion-tailed Macaque Conservation Reserve in Karnataka and Gibbon Sanctuary in Assam have been established for conserving specific taxa.
• But, till date, no area has been specifically protected for any single endangered plant species, except for species groups like the Varsey Rhododendron Sanctuary in Sikkim and the Sessa Orchid Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh.
• Combined and collective efforts are required on the part of the forest department as well as the forest stakeholders.
• Promulgation of specific acts and framing of rules and regulations are urgently needed to protect the threatened species by reaching an agreement between the department and the stakeholders.
• Documentation of the RET species, their threatened status, surveying all known populations and mapping their locations, identifying the extrinsic and intrinsic factors that drive the species to threatened status and assessing the genetic variability of the species are to be carried out scientifically on war footing.
• Based on the above strategies, long-term monitoring programmes are to be developed for assessing the population changes periodically.

Legislation for Protecting Endangered Species

• Considering the importance of flora and fauna, there are major national and international efforts to protect and conserve the rich biodiversity and endangered species of wildlife and flora.
• The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), 1973, is a significant step in this direction. The convention recognized that wild fauna and flora in their many beautiful and varied forms are irreplaceable parts of the natural systems of the earth, which must be protected by all means.
• The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 is another milestone.
• The Biological Diversity Bill, 2000, which is in the offing, also interalia, strives to protect and conserve the biodiversity and endangered species in India.

Context: Recently, a team of researchers rediscovered a rare and critically endangered plant species called Globba andersonii from the Sikkim Himalayas near the Teesta river valley region.

• The plant, known commonly as ‘dancing ladies’ or ‘swan flowers’ was thought to have been extinct for more than 135 years.

About Globba Andersonii

• Globba is a genus of plants in the ginger family.
• It contains about 100 species, native to China, the Indian Subcontinent, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, the Bismarck Archipelago and Queensland.
• Globba andersonii are characterised by white fowers, non-appendaged anthers, and a yellowish “lip”.
• Globba andersonii is Classified by IUCN as Critically endangered and “narrowly endemic” and the species is restricted mainly to Teesta River Valley region which includes the Sikkim Himalays and Darjeeling hill ranges.
• As no live collections were made for the last 136 years, it was considered as presumably extinct in the wild.

About Teesta River

• Teesta river is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
• It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
• Originally, the river continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River (main channel of Ganga in Bangladesh) but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
• The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.
• Teesta river water conflict is one of the most contentious issues between India and Bangladesh.

Context: Recently, the Environment Ministry has reconstituted the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) to include an expert from the School of Planning and Architecture, Delhi, and a molecular biologist.
What is a zoo?

• As per Section 2 (39) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972, Zoo means an establishment, whether stationary or mobile, where captive animals are kept for exhibition to the public and include a circus and rescue centres but do not include an establishment of a licensed dealer in captive animals.

About CZA

• The CZA is the body of the government responsible for oversight of zoos constituted under the section 38A of Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972.
• The main objective of the authority is to complement the national effort in the conservation of wildlife.
• Standards and norms for housing, upkeep, health care and overall management of animals in zoos have been laid down under the Recognition of Zoo Rules, 1992.

Roles & Functions

• The Authority’s role is more of a facilitator than a regulator.
• It, therefore, provides technical and financial assistance to such zoos which have the potential to attain the desired standard in animal management.
• Primary function– grant of recognition and release of financial assistance.
• It also regulates the exchange of animals of endangered category Listed under Schedule-I and II of the Wildlife (Protection) Act among zoos.
• Exchange of animals between Indian and foreign zoos is also approved by the Authority before the requisite clearances under EXIM Policy and the CITES permits are issued by the competent authority.
• The Authority also coordinates and implements programmes on capacity building of zoo personnel, planned breeding programmes and ex-situ research including biotechnological intervention for the conservation of species for complementing in-situ conservation efforts in the country.

Composition

• Apart from the chairman, it consists of 10 members and a member-secretary.
• Almost all of them are officials in the Environment Ministry and NGO experts are those who are wildlife conservationists or retired forest officers.

Context: Recently, Researchers analysed simulations of this(Last Glacial Maximum) past climate and predicted that the ongoing climate change could reawaken an ancient climate pattern of the Indian Ocean Region (IOR).
Background

• About 19,000-21,000 years ago, there was a peak of ice age conditions called the Last Glacial Maximum.
• Around this time, ice-sheets covered North America and Eurasia, and sea-levels were much lower, with Adam’s Bridge exposed so that the Indian subcontinent and Sri Lanka were contiguous. 
• By studying microscopic zooplankton called foraminifera, the team had published a paper in 2019 which first found evidence from the past of an Indian Ocean El Niño. 
• Foraminifera builds a calcium carbonate shell, and studying these can tell us about the properties of the water in which they lived. 
• The team using this property was able to reconstruct the sea surface temperature conditions of the past.

Key findings of the Study

• Researchers analyzed simulations of this earlier climate and predicted that the current climate change could reawaken an ancient climate pattern of the Indian Ocean.
• They found that this could be similar to the El Niño phenomenon of the Pacific Ocean which will bring more frequent floods and droughts to countries around the Indian Ocean. 
• Look at the current warming scenario, the pattern could emerge by 2050.

The Last Glacial Maximum

• The Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) was the most recent time during the Last Glacial Period that ice sheets were at their greatest extent.
• Vast ice sheets covered much of North America, Northern Europe, and Asia and profoundly affected Earth’s climate by causing drought, desertification, and a large drop in sea levels.
• Growth of ice sheets commenced 33,000 years ago and maximum coverage was between 26,500 years and 19–20,000 years ago, when deglaciation commenced in the Northern Hemisphere.
• It caused an abrupt rise in sea level.

About El Nino

• It is a climate cycle in the Pacific Ocean with a global impact on weather patterns. 
• The cycle begins when warm water in the western tropical Pacific Ocean shifts eastward along the equator toward the coast of South America. 
• Normally, these warm water pools near Indonesia and the Philippines.
• Its most direct impacts are droughts in normally damp places in the eastern Pacific, such as parts of Indonesia and Australia, while normally drier places like the west coast of South America suffer floods.
• But the changes affect the global atmospheric circulation and can weaken the Indian monsoon and bring rains to the western US.

About Indian Ocean Dipole

• Sustained changes in the difference between sea surface temperatures of the tropical western and eastern Indian Ocean are known as the Indian Ocean Dipole or IOD. 
• It is an irregular oscillation of sea surface temperatures in which the western Indian Ocean becomes alternately warmer (positive phase) and then colder (negative phase) than the eastern part of the ocean.
• Positive Phase leads to better Indian Monsoon, Neutral has little effect and the negative phase weakens the monsoon and causes drought. 

Context: Recently, International Energy Agency (IEA) and Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas jointly organized a webinar on “Building a Natural Gas-Based Economy in India Amidst a Changing Global Gas Market Landscape’’. 
About the Workshop

• The workshop is the first collaborative activity between the IEA and the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas in the realm of a gas-based economy.

The collaboration of India and IEA in the natural gas sector are intended - 

• To develop relevant knowledge sharing and experiences on a range of issues including natural gas infrastructure, regulation and gas hub development 
• To help facilitate India’s national efforts to increase the share of natural gas in the energy mix and strengthen India’s energy security

India’s association with IEA

• India and IEA have been cooperating across a range of areas, including oil security, energy efficiency, statistics and technology since 2017 when India became Associate Country of IEA. 
• The genesis of this collaboration can be linked to the launch of first In-depth Review of India’s Energy Policies by IEA in January 2020 in which it had lauded Government of India’s efforts to increase the share of Gas in India’s energy mix.

India’s Gas Sector

• India has set a very ambitious target of increasing the share of natural gas from 6 % to 15 % by 2030 in India’s energy mix.

As per experts India will emerge as pioneer in Gas Based economy as focus is being given - 

• To enhance domestic gas production
• On expeditious development of gas infrastructure as well as development of the Gas market by providing open access to gas infrastructure.
• On creation of a free gas market, the Government is progressively moving towards a marketing and pricing freedom regime in the country.
• Gas grid is being expanded to new markets in eastern and north-eastern part of the country with Government’s support of capital grants for Pradhan Mantri Urja Ganga (PMUG) and Indradhanush North Eastern Gas Grid projects.
• Coverage of City Gas projects is being expanded to 232 Geographical Areas (GAs) spread over more than 400 districts, with a potential to cover about 53% of the country’s geography and 70% of the country's population.

Efforts are underway to rationalise gas pipeline tariff structure as - 

• The present zonal tariff structure leads to additive tariffs for usage of multiple pipelines to transport natural gas from the distant gas supply sources. 
• It causes wide disparity in pipeline tariffs particularly for the buyers located distant from the gas sources, thereby hindering the development of new gas markets/ demand centres in far flung and remote areas. 

Benefits of Rationalised Tariff

• It will facilitate in creating a single gas market by attracting investment to complete the Gas Grid, thereby ensuring equitable access to natural gas across the country. 
• It will create a level playing field among gas consumers located in far/remote areas
• It will improve Gas affordability throughout the country.
• It will encourage gas industries to utilize the opportunity of procuring their gas requirement through the Gas Trade Exchange(s) platform based on market mechanisms. 
• Level playing field will reduce the cost of industries and make them more competitive at Global level. 

About International Energy Agency

• It is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization established in the framework of the Organisation for Economic Co operation and Development (OECD) in 1974 in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis. 
• The IEA was initially dedicated to responding to physical disruptions in the supply of oil, as well as serving as an information source on statistics about the international oil market and other energy sectors.
• Now the agency’s mandate has broadened to focus on the "3Es" of effectual energy policy: energy security, economic development, and environmental protection.
• The IEA acts as a policy adviser to its member states, but also works with non-member countries, especially China, India, and Russia. 
• The IEA has also been criticized for failing to create a 1.5°C scenario and place it centrally in its annual World Energy Outlook report.

Context: Recently, Raksha Mantri launched a new web portal for issue of No Objection Certificate (NOC) for power projects.
Key Points

• The new portal was launched for the issue of No Objection Certificate (NOC) for power projects and Research Survey Exploration Exploitation (RSEE) activities in the Indian Territorial Waters (TW) and Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ).
• The Ministry of Defence (MoD) accords security clearances to various private/Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs)/Government organisations for power/wind/solar projects in areas nearby defence installations and also RSEE activities in the Indian TW and EEZ for applications received through different Ministries like Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Ministry of Power, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas, Ministry of Shipping, Director General of Hydrocarbons, etc.
• To ensure ease of business and transparency in issuing NOC for such projects, the Ministry has developed the online application portal with the assistance of National e-Governance Division (NeGD), Bhaskaracharya Institute for Space Applications and Geo-informatics (BISAG) and National Informatics Centre (NIC).
• The newly developed MoD web portal will facilitate the applicants in submitting their proposals online for seeking MoD Security Clearance for undertaking Power Projects/RSEE activities.
• The Online System will establish an effective, speedy and transparent mechanism to process these proposals.
• The Ministry had earlier launched a similar portal for grant of NOC for aerial survey.

About Exclusive Economic Zone

• An EEZ is a sea zone prescribed by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) over which a sovereign state has special rights regarding the exploration and use of marine resources, including energy production from water and wind.
• It stretches from the baseline out to 200 nautical miles (nmi) from its coast.
• The term does not include either the territorial sea or the continental shelf beyond the 200 nmi limit.
• The territorial sea confers full sovereignty over the waters, whereas the EEZ is merely a sovereign right which refers to the coastal state’s rights below the surface of the sea.

Context: A lack of new oil discoveries in India coupled with a long lead time to begin production from discovered wells has led to a steady decline in India’s crude oil production.
Key Facts

• India’s crude oil production fell 7.1% in May 2020 compared to May 2019 on the back of low demand due to the Covid-19 pandemic.
• Domestic production of crude has, however, been falling every year since FY 2012.
• Annual crude oil production has fallen at a compounded annual rate of 2.1% since to 32,169.3 thousand Metric Tonnes (TMT) in FY 2020 from 38,089.7 TMT in FY 2012.
• This has led to a steady climb in the proportion of imports in domestic crude oil consumption from 81.8% in 2012 to 87.6% in 2020

Why is production falling?

• Experts say that most of India’s crude oil production comes from aging wells that have become less productive over time.
• A lack of new oil discoveries in India coupled with a long lead time to begin production from discovered wells has led to a steady decline in India’s crude oil production making India increasingly dependent on imports.
• The output of these aging wells is declining faster than new wells can come up according to experts. Domestic exploration companies are attempting to extend the life of currently operational wells.
• Crude oil production in India is dominated by two major state-owned exploration and production companies, ONGC and Oil India.
• These companies are the key bidders for crude oil block auctions and end up acquiring most of the blocks that are put up for auction in India, according to experts.

Why are there not more private players?

• While there are some private players in the upstream oil sector including Cairn India and Hindustan Oil Exploration Company there has been a lack of interest in exploration and production in India from major private players, particularly those based abroad.
• According to experts, this is because of long delays in the operationalisation of production even after an oil block is allotted due to delays in approvals.
• Some of the key approvals which are required to begin production include, environmental clearances and approval by the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons after the allottee completes a seismic survey and creates a field development plan.
• “The best-case scenario from allotment to production is at least 5-7 years,” said an industry expert noting that in many cases it was delayed beyond this timeline particularly in the case of public sector companies.

What policy changes could help?

• Existing public and private sector players have asked for reduced levies of oil production including oil cess, royalties, and profit petroleum especially when crude oil prices are below $45/barrel.
• Experts say the requirement to pay royalties to the government at low crude prices can make it unviable for these companies to invest in further exploration and production.
• The government introduced the Open Acreage Licensing Programme (OALP) in 2019 to allow companies to carve out blocks that they are interested in and with lower royalties and no oil cess.
• However, existing players are calling for a relaxation of royalties and oil cess on block allotted under previous policies.
• One expert pointed out that the Chinese government offered a floor price to oil producers insulating them somewhat from any sharp falls in international crude prices.
•  “This kind of policy at least allows for a company to have a fixed worst-case scenario for the sale of crude oil,” said an expert noting that this incentivised more investment in exploration and production.

Context: Recently, Indian Oil Corporation Limited and Sun Mobility announced the launch of a battery swapping facility for electric vehicles at IOC petrol pumps, offering to replace discharged batteries with fully charged ones within minutes.
Key Points

• IOC will begin with a pilot project of battery swapping called Quick Interchange Station (QIS) at one of its outlets in Chandigarh and gradually scale it up to 20 stations.
• Battery swapping technology offers the best alternative to no or slow charging options and can help EV drivers make optimum use of their operational hours.
• Indian Oil would consider various aspects of the battery-swapping technology for scaling up its presence in the EV infrastructure business.
• The battery swapping model is initially targeted at commercial vehicles such as electric autos, rickshaws and electric two-wheelers and EVs that are either factory fitted or retrofitted.

Significance

• Battery swapping facilities and technologies could go a long way in reducing range-related concerns in EVs.
• Range anxiety is one of the major stumbling blocks towards the mass adoption of EVs around the world.
• It refers to the number of kilometres a vehicle can travel before requiring a charge.

Benefits of Battery Swapping technology
User benefits:

• It is quick (≤ 3 mins) and makes the experience as convenient as refuelling at a petrol pump.
• It gives the option of selling the car separate from battery thereby reducing the cost by almost 30-50% since the battery is the most expensive part in it.
• Battery Swapping Operators are more in control of batteries and will ensure maximum battery usage and proper disposal.

DISCOM benefits:

• This will increase revenue for DISCOMs by providing additional demand from reliable commercial end-users.
• It can be flexible in terms of charging (can be done during non-peak hours), hence balancing the peak load of the grid.

Energy operator benefits:

• This will ensure better utilization of the land as swapping requires a fraction of land needed compared to the charging station.
• This will be an attractive option for urban areas and reduce the financial burden for the energy operators and will provide new business opportunities.

Understanding the background of problem

• In wake of custodial deaths in Tamil Nadu, the debate on Roman dilemma: “Who will guard the guardians” rises again. Torture is anathema to democracy and cannot be tolerated in a civilized society.
• Answer to prevention of torture can be found in multiple sources like Royal Commissions in the UK, Law Commission report and Police Commission reports in India and also Supreme Court’s progressive case law, like Joginder Kumar (1994) and Nilabati Behera (1993).
• However, the basic loophole which exists even today is that most torture is done before the arrest is recorded by the police. Safeguards obviously kick in only after the arrest is shown. This is a perennial, insoluble dilemma and all devious police forces globally use it.

Supreme Court judgement in DK Basu case

• The DK Basu judgment since 1987 is crucial in dealing with issue of custodial deaths.
• The judgement has origin from a letter complaint in 1986, which was converted into PIL. 4 crucial and comprehensive judgments — in 1996, twice in 2001 and in 2015 — lay down over 20 commandments, forming the complete structure of this judgement.

Details of judgment:
First 11 commandments in 1996, focused on vital processual safeguards:

• All officials must carry name tags and full identification, arrest memo must be prepared,containing all details regarding time and place of arrest, attested by one family member or respectable member of the locality.
• The location of arrest must be intimated to one family or next friend, details notified to the nearest legal aid organisation and arrestee must be made known of DK Basu judgement.
• All such compliances must be recorded in the police register, arrestee must get periodical medical examination, inspection memo must be signed by arrestee also and all such information must be centralised in a central police control room.
• Breach to be culpable with severe departmental action and additionally contempt also, and this would all be in addition to, not substitution of, any existing remedy.
• All of the above preventive and punitive measures could go with, and were not alternatives to, full civil monetary damage claims for constitutional tort.

8 other intermediate orders till 2015 sought:

• Precise detailed compliance reports of above orders to be submitted by all states and UT and any delayed responses looked into by special sub-committees appointed by state human rights body.
• Also where no SHRC existed, the chief justice of the high courts to monitor it administratively.
• It emphasised that existing simple but potent powers for magisterial inquiries under the CrPC were lackadaisical and must be completed in four months, unless sessions court judges recorded reasons for extension.
• It also directed SHRCs to be set up expeditiously in each part of India.

The third and last phase of judgment ended in 2015:

• Stern directions were given to set up SHRCs and also fill up large vacancies in existing bodies.
• The power of setting up human rights courts under Section 30 of the NHRC Act was directed to be operationalized.
• All prisons had to have CCTVs within one year.
• Non-official visitors would do surprise checks on prisons and police stations.
• Prosecutions and departmental action to be made unhesitatingly mandated.

Where do we lack?

• In operationalising the spirit of DK Basu judgment, in punitive measures, in last mile implementation, in breaking intra-departmental solidarity with errant policemen and in ensuring swift, efficacious departmental coercive action plus criminal prosecution.
• A 1985 Law Commission report directing enactment of section 114-B into our Evidence Act, raising a rebuttable presumption of culpability against the police if anyone in their custody dies or is found with torture, has still not become law, despite a bill introduced as late as 2017.
• We still have abysmally deplorable rates of even initiating prosecutions against accused police officers. Actual convictions are virtually non-existent.

Road Ahead

• Monitoring and implementation of DK Basu by independent and balanced civil society individuals at each level, under court supervision, is sufficient to minimise this scourge. It is high time we take actions in this direction.

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has constituted a national level committee for reform in criminal law.
Key Points
Committee For Reform In Criminal Law

• The committee has been constituted under Ranbir Singh and several other members.
• The committee would be gathering opinions online by consulting with experts and collating material for their report to the government.
• The consultation exercise would start on 4th July 2020 and go on for the next three months.

Background of Criminal Justice System

• The codification of criminal laws in India was done during the British rule, which more or less remains the same even in the 21st century.
• Lord Thomas Babington Macaulay is said to be the chief architect of codifications of criminal laws in India.
• Criminal law in India is governed by Indian Penal Code, 1860, Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, and Indian Evidence Act, 1872, etc.

Need for Reforms

• Colonial Era Laws: The criminal justice system is a replica of the British colonial jurisprudence, which was designed with the purpose of ruling the nation and not serving the citizens.
• Ineffectiveness: The purpose of the criminal justice system was to protect the rights of the innocents and punish the guilty, but nowadays the system has become a tool of harassment of common people.
• Pendency of Cases: According to Economic Survey 2018-19, there are about 3.5 crore cases pending in the judicial system, especially in district and subordinate courts, which leads to actualisation of the maxim “Justice delayed is justice denied.”
• Huge Undertrials: India has one of the world’s largest number of undertrial prisoners.
• According to NCRB -Prison Statistics India (2015), 67.2% of our total prison population comprises undertrial prisoners.
• Investigation: Corruption, huge workload and accountability of police is a major hurdle in speedy and transparent delivery of justice.
• Madhav Menon Committee: It submitted its report in 2007, suggesting various recommendations on reforms in the CJSI.
• Malimath Committee Report: It submitted its report in 2003 on the Criminal Justice System of India (CJSI).
• The Committee had opined that the existing system “weighed in favour of the accused and did not adequately focus on justice to the victims of crime.”
• It has provided various recommendations to be made in the CJSI, which were not implemented.

Suggestions for Reforms
Criminal law is considered to be the most apparent expression of the relationship between a state and its citizens. Therefore, any revision to the CJSI needs to be done while keeping several principles in mind, which are:

• The reason for victimization ought to be given a major thrust in reforming laws to identify the rights of crime victims.
• For Example: Launch of victim and witness protection schemes, use of victim impact statements, increased victim participation in criminal trials, enhanced access of victims to compensation and restitution.
• The construction of new offences and reworking of the existing classification of offences must be guided by the principles of criminal jurisprudence which have substantially altered in the past four decades.
• For Example: Criminal liability could be graded better to assign the degree of punishments. New types of punishments like community service orders, restitution orders, and other aspects of restorative and reformative justice could also be brought in its fold.
• The classification of offences must be done in a manner conducive to management of crimes in the future.
• Many chapters of the IPC are overloaded at several places. The chapters on offences against public servants, contempt of authority, public tranquility, and trespass can be redefined and narrowed.
• Guiding principles need to be developed after sufficient debate before criminalising an act as a crime.
• Unprincipled criminalisation not only leads to the creation of new offences on unscientific grounds, but also arbitrariness in the criminal justice system.
• The discretion of judges in deciding the quantum and nature of sentence differently for crimes of the same nature should be based on principles of judicial precedent.

Context: Recently, the Amendments in the Indian Stamp Act, 1899 brought through Finance Act 2019 and Rules made thereunder will come into effect from July 2020.
Indian Stamp Act

• Indian Stamp Act, 1899 is an in-force Act of the Government of India for the charging of stamp duty on instruments recording transactions.
• The Regulators are: Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and they have been have been authorized by the Government to issue clarificatory circulars/ operational guidelines on the Amendments made to the Indian Stamp Act.

Need for Amendments to the Indian Stamp Act

• The present system of collection of stamp duty on securities market transactions led to multiple rates for the same instrument.
• This had resulted in jurisdictional disputes and multiple incidences of duty, thereby raising the transaction costs in the securities market and hurting capital formation.

Purpose of amendments

• The legal and institutional mechanism is in place to enable states to collect stamp duty on securities market instruments at one place by one agency (through Stock Exchange or Clearing Corporation authorized by it or by the Depository) on one Instrument.
• It places a mechanism to facilitate ease of doing business and to bring in uniformity of the stamp duty on securities across States and thereby build a pan-India securities market.
• It also includes a mechanism for appropriately sharing the stamp duty with relevant State Governments has also been developed which is based on the state of domicile of the buyer.

Benefits of the Amendment

• This rationalized and harmonized system through centralized collection mechanism is expected to ensure minimize cost of collection and enhance revenue productivity.
• Further, this system will help develop equity markets and equity culture across the length and breadth of the country, ushering in balanced regional development.

Context: Recently, a five-judge Review Bench upholding the September 2018 Constitution Bench judgment has dismissed the review petitions.
Background

• The original judgment of the September 2018 Constitution Bench had held that Section 497 (adultery) of the Indian Penal Code cannot “command” married couples to remain loyal to each other for the fear of penal punishment and had struck adultery out of the penal statute book.
• The then Chief Justice had opined that two individuals may part if one cheats, but to attach criminality to infidelity was not right.
• Adultery was considered not a crime if the cuckolded husband connives or consents to his wife’s extra-marital affair.
• Section 497 treats a married woman as the commodity of her husband, the Bench had held.
• The court had reasoned that there was no data whatsoever to support claims that the abolition of adultery as a crime would result in “chaos in sexual morality” or an increase of divorce.

Key Points

• A five-judge Review Bench upholding the September 2018 Constitution Bench judgment has dismissed the review petitions.
• Adultery is not a crime if the cuckolded husband connives or consents to his wife’s extra-marital affair. Section 497 treats a married woman as her husband’s “chattel”. The provision is a reflection of the social dominance of men prevalent 150 years ago.
• “Husband is not the master… Obituaries should be written of these historic perceptions,” then chief justice Misra had observed.
• The Bench had also held that Section 198 (2) of the CrPC, which gave the cuckolded husband the exclusive right to prosecute his wife’s lover, was manifestly arbitrary.
• Adultery can however be a ground for civil remedy like dissolution of marriage, the 2018 verdict had said.

What is a review petition and when can it be filed?

• Under Article 137, the Supreme Court has the power to review any of its judgments or orders.

Scope for review

• When a review takes place, the law is that it is allowed not to take fresh stock of the case but to correct grave errors that have resulted in the miscarriage of justice.
• The court has the power to review its rulings to correct a “patent error” and not “minor mistakes of inconsequential import”.
• In a 1975 ruling, Justice Krishna Iyer said a review can be accepted “only where a glaring omission or patent mistake or like grave error has crept in earlier by judicial fallibility”.

In a 2013 ruling, the Supreme Court has laid down three grounds for seeking a review of a verdict it has delivered:

• The discovery of new and important matter or evidence which, after the exercise of due diligence, was not within the knowledge of the petitioner or could not be produced by him.
• Mistake or error apparent on the face of the record.
• Any other sufficient reason. It means a reason that is analogous to the other two grounds.
• In 2013 Union of India v. Sandur Manganese & Iron Ores Ltd) case, the court laid down nine principles on when a review is maintainable.

Who can file a review petition?

• As per the Civil Procedure Code and the Supreme Court Rules, any person aggrieved by a ruling can seek a review. However, the court exercises its discretion to allow a review petition only when it shows the grounds for seeking the review.

Time- period within which a review petition should be filed?
As per 1996 rules framed by the Supreme Court:

• A review petition must be filed within 30 days of the date of judgment or order. While a judgment is the final decision in a case, an order is an interim ruling that is subject to its final verdict.
• In certain circumstances, the court can condone a delay in filing the review petition if the petitioner can establish strong reasons that justify the delay.

The procedure to be followed:

• The rules state that review petitions would ordinarily be entertained without oral arguments by lawyers. It is heard “through circulation” by the judges in their chambers.
• Review petitions are also heard, as far as practicable, by the same combination of judges who delivered the order or judgment that is sought to be reviewed.
• If a judge has retired or is unavailable, a replacement is made keeping in mind the seniority of judges.
• In exceptional cases, the court allows an oral hearing. In a 2014 case, the Supreme Court held that review petitions in all death penalty cases will be heard in open court by a Bench of three judges.

Context: Recent, Manipur Speaker’s decision to disqualify some MLAs ahead of the Rajya Sabha election has raised questions once again on the Speaker’s powers to disqualify under the tenth schedule of our Constitution.
About Tenth Schedule

• The anti-defection law, referred to as the Tenth Schedule, was added to the Constitution through the Fifty-Second (Amendment) Act, 1985 when Rajiv Gandhi was PM.
• It lays down the process by which legislators may be disqualified on grounds of defection by the Presiding Officer of a legislature based on a petition by any other member of the House.
• A legislator is deemed to have defected if he either voluntarily gives up the membership of his party or disobeys the directives of the party leadership on a vote.
• This implies that a legislator defying (abstaining or voting against) the party whip on any issue can lose his membership of the House.
• The law applies to both Parliament and state assemblies.

Exceptions under the law

• Legislators may change their party without the risk of disqualification in certain circumstances.
• The law allows a party to merge with or into another party provided that at least two-thirds of its legislators are in favour of the merger.
• In such a scenario, neither the members who decide to merge nor the ones who stay with the original party will face disqualification.

Is there any time limit to decide on the matter?

• The law does not specify a time period for the Presiding Officer to decide on a disqualification plea.
• Given that courts can intervene only after the Presiding Officer has decided on the matter, the petitioner seeking disqualification has no option but to wait for this decision to be made.

Under debate: Speaker’s power

• The power for this disqualification is vested in the Speaker, who is usually a nominee of the ruling party.
• Since no action was taken by the Speaker on the disqualification petitions, a writ petition was filed before the High Court of Manipur in Imphal seeking directions to decide on the petition.

However, the court did not pass an order.

• It said that the larger issue of whether a High Court can direct a Speaker to decide a disqualification petition within a certain timeframe is pending before a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.
• The parties are left with the option to move the apex court or wait for the outcome of the cases pending before it.

The apex court’s reluctance to intervene

• In 2018, however, the High Court, refusing the preliminary objections of the Speaker, decided to hear the case on merits.
• It reasoned that since the remedy under Tenth Schedule is an alternative to moving courts.
• It said that if the remedy is found to be ineffective due to deliberate inaction or indecision on the part of the Speaker, the court will have jurisdiction.
• However, the High Court again did not pass orders since the larger issue is pending before the Supreme Court.

The apex court recommends-

• The apex court has expressed its displeasure with the Speaker’s lack of urgency in deciding the disqualification petitions.
• A three-judge bench of the Supreme Court ruled that Speakers of assemblies and the Parliament must decide disqualification pleas within a period of three months except in extraordinary circumstances.
• This settled the law for situations where the timing of the disqualification is meddled to manipulate floor tests.
• The court also recommended that the Parliament consider taking a relook at the powers of the Speakers citing instances of partisanship.
• The court suggested independent tribunals to decide on disqualification

Road Ahead

• Impartiality, fairness and autonomy in decision-making are the hallmarks of a robust institution. It is the freedom from interference and pressures which provide the necessary atmosphere where one can work with an absolute commitment to the cause of neutrality (as a Constitutional value).
• At a time when India’s rank has fallen in the latest Democracy Index (2019), it is expected from Parliament to take steps to revamp and strengthen the institution of the Speaker.
• Further, the structural issues regarding the manner of appointment of the Speaker and his tenure in office needs an urgent redressal.

Context: Recently, Uganda has become the first African country to submit results for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD+) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
Key Points

• REDD+ is a mechanism developed by the parties to the UNFCCC to reduce emissions from deforestation and forest degradation.
• The results submitted by Uganda to the UNFCCC has paved the way for results-based payments to the country.
• Results-based payments comprise the final REDD+ phase. It provides financial incentives to developing countries that prove they stopped deforestation during a certain period.
• Uganda’s forest cover had depleted to 8 per cent from 24 per cent in the 1990s, largely attributed to human encroachment, including for charcoal, timber and agriculture.

Significance for Africa

• The submission of the results will encourage other African countries to reduce carbon emissions by decreasing deforestation and forest degradation.
• Achieving REDD+ results in the continent is challenging, as there are other development priorities — with agriculture, mining, energy and forestry — driving deforestation.
• Africa had the greatest annual rate of net forest loss, at 3.9 million ha, across the world in this decade.
• It is a climate change mitigation solution developed by Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), that incentivizes developing countries to keep their forests standing.

About UN-REDD Programme

• United Nations Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation is a collaborative programme of the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), created in 2008 in response to the UNFCCC decisions on the Bali Action Plan and REDD at COP-13.
• The Programme supports nationally led REDD+ processes and promotes the indigenous peoples and other forest-dependent communities, in national and international REDD+ implementation.
• It releases an annual Programme Progress Report and a Semi-Annual Report in the public domain.

Goal

• The overall development goal of the Programme is to reduce forest emissions and enhance carbon stocks in forests while contributing to national sustainable development.

Difference between REDD+ and the UN-REDD Programme

• REDD refers to reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation while REDD+ refers to the conservation of forest carbon stocks, sustainable management of forests, and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.
• REDD+ is a voluntary climate change mitigation approach that has been developed by Parties to the UNFCCC.

About Uganda

• Uganda is a landlocked country in East-Central Africa.
• It is in the African Great Lakes region. Uganda also lies within the Nile basin, and has a varied but generally a modified equatorial climate.
• It is bordered to the east by Kenya, to the north by South Sudan, to the west by the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to the south-west by Rwanda, and to the south by Tanzania.
• The southern part of the country includes a substantial portion of Lake Victoria, shared with Kenya and Tanzania.

Context: Recently, the 36th Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit was held via video conference to focus on the Covid-19 pandemic response, post-pandemic recovery and further cooperation with partner countries.

• The theme for the Summit was "Cohesive and Responsive ASEAN".
• The Summit was chaired by Vietnam which is also holding the chairmanship of ASEAN currently.

Background

• China has been pushing its presence in the Exclusive Economic Zones of other countries while claimant countries have been preoccupied in tackling the COVID-19 pandemic.
• China has been stepping up its activity in the disputed South China Sea during the coronavirus pandemic.
• Vietnam and the Philippines had raised protests with China in April 2020 after China unilaterally declared the creation of new administrative districts on islands in the South China Sea to which Vietnam and the Philippines also have competing claims.
• In early April 2020, Vietnam claimed that one of its fishing boats was sunk by a Chinese maritime surveillance vessel.

Key Points

• Leaders of Vietnam and the Philippines argued that international institutions and international law had been seriously challenged during the global crisis.
• Vietnam and the Philippines have warned of growing insecurity and instability in Southeast Asia and have called upon countries to refrain from escalating tensions and abide by responsibilities under international law.

About ASEAN Covid-19 Response Fund

• The summit has decided to establish the ASEAN Covid-19 response fund with a reserve for medical supplies to meet urgent needs during epidemics.
• A special ASEAN meeting convened in April to tackle the pandemic had failed to agree on an emergency fund.
• It has also decided to build the ASEAN standard procedures of epidemic response in case of health emergencies.

About ASEAN

• It is a regional grouping that promotes economic, political, and security cooperation. It was established in 1967 in Bangkok, Thailand, with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the founding fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.
• Currently, it consists of ten members namely, Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
• Chairmanship of the group rotates annually, based on the alphabetical order of the English names of Member States.

Its objectives are

• to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development,
• to promote regional peace and stability,
• to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields. 

Context: Israel’s aim to annex parts of the occupied West Bank was clearly illegal, the UN’s human rights chief said, warning that the consequences could be “disastrous”
Background

• The UN Secretary General’s alarm has been sounded in the context of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s reported plan to annex on July 1 around 30% of the Occupied West Bank.
• It will include annexation of all the existing (post-1967) settlements in addition to areas surrounding them and access roads.
• The UN Secretary General called upon Israel to abandon its annexation plans and asked the Middle East Quartet (the US, Russia, the European Union and the UN) to resume its mandated mediatory role.

Whether the annexation is a violation of International law?

• Annexation: It is forcible acquisition of territory by one state at the expense of another state as per international law.
• Violation of inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force: It will be illegal if such an act is sanctified by Israel and according to some experts is the accepted position of all international legal bodies including the International Court of Justice.

Position by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UN Human Rights)

• It described the annexation of occupied territory as a serious violation of the Charter of the UN and the Geneva Conventions and contrary to the fundamental rule affirmed many times by the UNSC and the General Assembly that acquisition of territory war or by force is inadmissible.
• Human rights violation: It pointed out that the 53-year-old Israeli occupation is a source of profound human rights violations of the Palestinian people and these would only intensify after annexation.
• It would lead to a separate territory for Palestinian with islands of disconnected land completely surrounded by Israel and no territorial connection with the outside world.
• 21st century Apartheid: The annexation would solidify an already unjust reality: two peoples living in the same space ruled by the same state but with profoundly unequal rights.

The effect of the plan

• Consequences: There are no fixed understandings about the effect of plan on the status of private property owned by Palestinians (owns 23% of its land), rights to Palestinians with respect to Israeli Arabs of Palestinian origin (Muslim, Christian and Druze) who together constitute about 20% of Israel’s population etc.
• Effect on self-determination: There are question marks whether it will take away from the Palestinians right to have their own state under the right of national self-determination recognised at times without number by the international community.
• Demographic consequences: By its foundation, Israel is not a Jewish state only because most of its inhabitants are Jews but It is a state for the Jews wherever they may be and for any Jew who wishes to be there. The plan will have effect on non-Jews peoples.
• Changing ground realities: Since the 1967 war, the Israeli effort has been to procrastinate a settlement. Now, Israel is a member of the international community and succeeded in normalising its relations with a wide range of countries. It also includes observance of globally accepted norms of state conduct. Israel did not fulfill it with the support of powerful friends and imperatives of geopolitics.

India and Road Ahead

• India’s amity with the Palestinian people and its principled support to their cause predates India’s own independence.
• India needs to ask itself whether it supports the Israeli annexation plan that is in contravention of international legality.

Context: According to a Brookings India study, most South Asian nations are now largely dependent on China for imports despite geographical proximity to India.
Key Points

• As India-China border tensions continue to fester, a hegemonic China, as part of its global expansionism, is chipping away at India’s interests in South Asia.
• Several foreign policy experts argue that India’s strategic dealing with China has to begin with South Asia by reinvigorating SAARC, which has been inactive since 2014.

China’s contemporary relations with India’s neighbors

• China’s proximity to Pakistan has been strengthened by the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.
• Nepal is also moving closer to China for ideational and material reasons. 
• China is wooing Bangladesh by offering tariff exemption to 97% of Bangladeshi products
• China has also intensified its ties with Sri Lanka through massive investments. 

Ignoring SAARC

• Isolating Pakistan: India has been trying hard to isolate Pakistan internationally for its role in promoting terrorism in India.

Alternatives to SAARC

• India started investing in other regional instruments such as BIMSTEC but it cannot replace SAARC for reasons such as lack of a common identity and history among all BIMSTEC members.
• As BIMSTEC’s focus is on the Bay of Bengal region, it is an inappropriate forum to engage all South Asian nations.
• Many foreign policy experts argue that India’s strategic dealing with China has to begin with South Asia.

Infusing life in SAARC by reviving the process of South Asian economic integration

Trade

• South Asia is one of the least integrated regions in the world with intra-regional trade teetering at 5% of total South Asian trade as compared to 25% of intra-regional trade in the ASEAN region.

Trade treaties

• While South Asian countries have signed trade treaties, the lack of political will and trust deficit has prevented any meaningful movement.
• India should take the lead and work with its neighbours to slash the tariff and non-tariff barriers.

Investments

• There’s a need to rejuvenate the negotiations on a SAARC investment treaty which has been pending since 2007.
• According to the UN Conference on Trade and Development, intra-ASEAN investments constitute around 19% of the total investments in the region.
• The SAARC region can likewise benefit from higher intra-SAARC investment flows.
• There are certain domestic issues of India in reviving SAARC.

Domestic challenges in revitalising SAARC
Ideological reasons

• There has been an anti-Pakistan and Bangladesh migrant rhetoric due to ideological reasons and to reap political dividends.
• Denting soft power: Majoritarian politics dents India’s soft power of being a liberal and secular democracy which gives moral legitimacy to India’s leadership in the region.

Complexity in the economic vision:

• There is a lack of clarity on the slogans of atma nirbharta (self-reliance) and ‘vocal for local’ mean.
• Protectionism: The government is stating that India needs to cut down its dependence on imports which signal a return to the obsolete economic philosophy of import substitution. This questions India’s interests in deepening South Asian economic integration.

Context: Recently, North and South Korea separately marked the 70th anniversary of the start of the Korean War, a conflict that killed millions of people and is technically yet to end.
Current Scenario

• In recent years North Korea has accelerated its nuclear programme by increasing its nuclear stockpile, withdrawn from the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and has tested nuclear explosives multiple times.
• USA has deployed THAAD (Terminal High Altitude Area Defence) in South Korea to counter increasing missile adventurism of North Korea.
• North Korea recently demolished the Inter-Korean Liaison Office in Kaesong, which was established in 2018. In the absence of formal diplomatic relations, the building functioned as a de facto embassy and provided a direct communication channel for the two nations.

About Korean war (1950-53)

• After World War II, the Korean peninsula was divided along the 38th Parallel by American administrators.
• The northern part of the country was occupied by Soviet troops and the southern part was occupied by troops from the United States.
• During the late 1940’s Northern Korea established a communist government and the 38th Parallel became a political border between the two sides.
• North Korea wanted to expand its borders and sought assistance from both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China to mount an assault against South Korea.
• China committed supporting the leader of North Korea and on June 25, 1950, North Korean troops advanced across the 38th Parallel.
• The Korean War (1950-1953) began when the North Korean Communist army crossed the 38th Parallel and invaded non-Communist South Korea.
• As Kim Il-sung’s North Korean army, armed with Soviet tanks, quickly overran South Korea, the United States came to South Korea’s aid.
• Although Korea was not strategically essential to the United States, the political environment at this stage of the Cold War was such that policymakers did not want to appear soft on Communism.
• The Korean War halted following the signing of an armistice agreement in July 1953.

Consequences

• There were several casualties on both sides, though the exact figure is unknown.
• The Korean War created more friction between the United States and the Soviet Union.
• War made the United States truly aware of the falling domino effect of communism.
• South Korea became an important US military base with thousands of American troops stationed there.
• North Korea has carried out a controversial nuclear test and several ballistic missile tests, keeping South Korea, Japan, USA (Hawaii) and China in their missile range.

Role of India

• After the Armistice agreement in 1953, India sent Custodian Forces to the Korean Peninsula for the protection and repatriation of prisoners of war.
• The war resulted in large numbers of prisoners of war on either side who needed to be returned to their country of origin.
• A final operation- Operation Big Switch, occurred between August and September 1953, where North Korean, Chinese and UN Command prisoners of war were returned.
• The Neutral Nations Repatriation Committee (NNRC) was set up, with India at the helm, to put the prisoners of the Korean War who refused to return to their countries under the protection of the NNRC.
• India was tasked with sending a Custodian Force comprising military and civilian personnel who would ensure the welfare of all prisoners of war who did not wish to be repatriated.

Context: Recently, a commemorative declaration marking the 75th anniversary of the signing of the United Nations (UN) Charter was delayed as member states could not reach an agreement on phraseology.
Background

• This objection comes at a time when China’s relationships with many countries including India, Australia and the U.S., are strained. 
• China’s refusal to allow investigation in COVID-19 breakout from Wuhan Lab, its aggression in the South China Sea and recent stand-off with India in Galwan valley are the reasons behind the strained relations. 

About the delay

• The Five Eyes countries namely the U.S., the U.K., Australia, New Zealand and Canada along with India, objected to the use of a phrase “shared vision of a common future”, with associates with China. 
• The phrase, “community with a shared future for mankind” is closely associated with the Chinese Communist Party (CPC) and especially Chinese President as an articulation of the country’s vision for the world and has become a matter of objection. 
• The ‘silence’ process (a procedure by which a resolution passes if no formal objections are raised within a stipulated time) was broken at the request of the U.K.’s UN Ambassador. 

Silence process

• With this objection, the ‘silence’ process (a procedure by which a resolution passes if no formal objections are raised within a stipulated time) has been broken.
• However, China, on behalf of itself and Russia, Syria and Pakistan raised objections to the silence being broken.

What the countries demand?

• There is a demand of the resolution to be read  as “We will work together with partners to strengthen coordination and global governance for the common good of present and future generations and to realize our shared vision for a better future as envisaged in the preamble of the UN Charter.”

About UN75 declaration

• This declaration is meant to commemorate the 75th anniversary of UN on 24th October. 
• The UN is marking its 75th anniversary at a time of great disruption for the world, compounded by an unprecedented global health crisis with severe economic and social impacts. In these hard times, the role and responsibility of the UN increase more than ever. 
• Since January 2020  the UN is holding a people’s debate UN75, through which it aims to encourage people to put their opinions together to define how enhanced international cooperation can help realize a better world by 2045.

About  Five Eyes

• It is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States. These countries are parties to the multilateral UKUSA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.
• Origins: It began in 1946 when the United States and the United Kingdom agreed to an open exchange of intelligence on the communications of foreign nations. It was expanded when Canada joined the alliance in 1948, followed by Australia and New Zealand in 1956.

The Partition Museum has been shortlisted for the 2020 Museums + Heritage Awards for showcasing “Jallianwala Bagh 1919: Punjab Under Siege” in association with the Manchester Museum, UK, under the category of “International project of the year.”

This is the first time that the association between two museums has been recognised. “Jallianwala Bagh 1919: Punjab under Siege” included archival and audio-visual material, which shared the narrative of massacre through eyewitness accounts, photographs and official documents.

The Partition Museum is a public museum located in the town hall in Amritsar, India. The museum aims to become the central repository of stories, materials, and documents related to the post-partition riots that followed the division of British India into two independent countries: India and Pakistan.

The Asia Book of Records has listed the Virasat-e-Khalsa museum in Punjab’s Anandpur Sahib as the most visited museum in the Asian sub-continent (on a single day).
About:-
• The museum had witnessed a record footfall of 20,569 visitors on a single day.
• The Limca Book of Records and India Book of Records had also listed ‘Virasat-e-Khalsa’ as the country’s top-ranked museum in terms of the number of visitors.

The museum has been conferred an award by the Punjab Energy Development Agency in state-level energy conservation competition, for cutting down electricity consumption.
• The Virasat-e-Khalsa museum (the second most important Sikh shrine in Anandpur Sahib, after the Golden Temple complex) was built to commemorate 300 years of the founding of the 'Khalsa Panth' by the Guru Gobind Singh (10th Sikh guru).
• Museum also helped grow the economy of Anandpur Sahib in Punjab.

Ranjit Singh, also spelled Runjit Singh, byname Lion of the Punjab, (born November 13, 1780, Budrukhan, or Gujranwala [now in Pakistan]—died June 27, 1839, Lahore [now in Pakistan]), founder and maharaja (1801–39) of the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab.

Ranjit Singh was the first Indian in a millennium to turn the tide of invasion back into the homelands of the traditional conquerors of India, the Pashtuns (Afghans), and he thus became known as the Lion of the Punjab. At their height, his domains extended from the Khyber Pass in the northwest to the Sutlej River in the east and from the Kashmir region at the northern limit of the Indian subcontinent southward to the Thar (Great Indian) Desert. Although he was uneducated, he was a shrewd judge of people and events, free from religious bigotry, and was mild in the treatment of his adversaries.

Early Life And Conquests
Ranjit Singh was reported to be short and unattractive. He was blind in one eye and had a face pitted with pockmarks. A lover of life, he liked to surround himself with handsome men and women, and he had a passion for hunting, horses, and strong liquor.

He was the only child of Maha Singh, on whose death in 1792 he became chief of the Shukerchakias, a Sikh group. His inheritance included Gujranwala town and the surrounding villages, now in Pakistan. At 15 he married the daughter of a chieftain of the Kanhayas, and for many years his affairs were directed by his ambitious mother-in-law, the widow Sada Kaur. A second marriage, to a girl of the Nakkais, made Ranjit Singh preeminent among the clans of the Sikh confederacy.

Consolidation Of Territory And Later Career:-
Ranjit Singh then turned his ambitions in other directions. In December 1809 he went to the aid of Raja Sansar Chand of Kangra in the Lesser Himalayas (in what is now western Himachal Pradesh state) and, after defeating an advancing Ghurka force, acquired Kangra for himself. In 1813 he joined a Barakzay Afghan expedition into Kashmir. Although the Barakzays betrayed him by keeping Kashmir for themselves, he more than settled scores with them by rescuing Shah Shoja?—brother of Zaman Shah, who had been deposed as Afghan king in 1803 and had fled from the Barakzays—and by occupying the fort at Attock on the Indus River, southeast of Peshawar, the Pashtun citadel. Shah Shoja? was taken to Lahore and pressured into parting with the famous Koh-i-noor diamond. In the summer of 1818 Rangit Singh’s troops captured the city of Multan, and six months later they entered Peshawar. In July 1819 he finally expelled the Pashtuns from the Vale of Kashmir, and by 1820 he had consolidated his rule over the whole Punjab between the Sutlej and Indus rivers.

All Ranjit Singh’s conquests were achieved by Punjabi armies composed of Sikhs, Muslims, and Hindus. His commanders were also drawn from different religious communities, as were his cabinet ministers. In 1820 Ranjit Singh began to modernize his army, using European officers—many of whom had served in the army of Napoleon I—to train the infantry and the artillery. The modernized Punjabi army fought well in campaigns in the North-West Frontier (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, Pakistan, on the Afghanistan border), including quelling an uprising by tribesmen there in 1831 and repulsing an Afghan counterattack on Peshawar in 1837.

In October 1831 Ranjit Singh met with British officials regarding the disposition of Sindh province (now in southeastern Pakistan). The British, who had already begun to navigate the Indus River and were eager to keep Sindh for themselves, prevailed on Ranjit Singh to accept their plan. Ranjit Singh, however, was chagrined by the British design to put a cordon around him. He opened negotiations with the Afghans and sanctioned an expedition led by the Dogra commander Zorawar Singh that extended Ranjit Singh’s northern territories into Ladakh (a region of eastern Kashmir now in Jammu and Kashmir state, India) in 1834.

In 1838 he agreed to a treaty with the British viceroy Lord Auckland to restore Shah Shoja? to the Afghan throne at Kabul. In pursuance of that agreement, the British Army of the Indus entered Afghanistan from the south, while Ranjit Singh’s troops went through the Khyber Pass and took part in the victory parade in Kabul. Shortly afterward, Ranjit Singh was taken ill, and he died at Lahore in June 1839—almost exactly 40 years after he entered the city as a conqueror. In little more than six years after his death, the Sikh state he had created collapsed because of the internecine strife of rival chiefs.

Recently, the Ministry of Food Processing Industries (MoFPI) has launched the PM Formalization of Micro Food Processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme as a part of ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan’.

The Scheme is expected to generate a total investment of Rs. 35,000 crore and 9 lakh skilled and semi-skilled employment.

One District One Product (ODOP) Approach :

The States would identify food products for districts keeping in view the existing clusters and availability of raw material.

The ODOP could be a perishable produce based or cereal based or a food item widely produced in an area.

Funding Details :

It is a centrally sponsored scheme with an outlay of Rs. 10,000 crore.

The expenditure under the scheme would be shared in 60:40 ratio between Central and State Governments,  in 90:10 ratio with NE & Himalayan States, and 100% by Centre for other UTs.

Harsimrat Kaur Badal virtually launched Rs 10,000 cr PM-FME Scheme; Operation Greens scheme extended to 18 more fruits, vegetables

As a part of Rs 20 Lakh crore “Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan” to tackle the COVID-19 impact, Minister for Food Processing Industries (FPI) Harsimrat Kaur Badal launched Centrally Sponsored Prime Minister Formalisation of Micro food processing Enterprises (PM FME) scheme named “Sapno ki Udaan” to be implemented over a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25.

It was launched virtually from the village Badal, Bathinda in Punjab in the presence of Minister of State (MoS), FPI Rameswar Teli.

With an outlay of Rs 10,000 crore, this scheme for the unorganized food processing sector would generate total investment of Rs 35,000 crore and 9 lakh skilled and semi-skilled employment and benefit 8 lakh units through access to information, training, better exposure and formalization.
Notably, all the processes of the Scheme would take place on the management information system (MIS).

About PM FME scheme:

Aim– To take “local brand to global”

Objective– To provide financial, technical and business support for up gradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.

Sharing of expenditure– The expenditure under the scheme would be shared in 60:40 ratio between Central and State Governments, in 90:10 ratio with North Eastern and Himalayan States, 60:40 ratio with Union Territories (UTs) with legislature and 100% by Centre for other UTs.

Approach to be used- One District One Product (ODOP)

ODOP will be adopted for this scheme under which the states will identify food product (specialized or perishable or cereal) for a district on the basis of availability of raw material. 

Preference would be given to those enterprises which produce ODOP products and will also get support for common infrastructure, branding & marketing. 
The Scheme also places focus on waste to wealth products, minor forest products and Aspirational Districts.
35% Credit-linked capital subsidy for upgradation of micro food processing units

Support to Individuals– Existing individual micro food processing units desirous of upgradation of their units could avail credit-linked capital subsidy of 35% of the eligible project cost with a maximum ceiling of Rs.10 lakh per unit.

Support to FPOs/SHGs/Cooperatives– Seed capital of Rs. 40,000/– per Self Help Group (SHG) member would be provided for working capital and purchase of small tools.  

Farmer producer organisations (FPOs) / SHGs/ producer cooperatives would be provided a credit linked grant of 35% for capital investment along the value chain. 
Infrastructure and branding support– Support would be provided through credit linked grant @ 35% for development of common infrastructure. Support for marketing & branding would be provided to develop brands for micro units and groups with 50% grant at State or regional level which could benefit large number of micro units in clusters.

Migration from rural India to urban areas has been a matter of discussion since the beginning of this millennium. One of the main reasons identified for this trend is the agrarian crisis that emerged during the early 1990s, a detrimental product of factors like market-oriented agriculture reforms, land degradation, climate change, etc. There was a reduction of around 1.5 crore in the number of farmers, who are the main cultivators, between 1991 and 2013.

Outmigration of men, in particular from rural India, also resulted in the feminisation of agriculture, which has been viewed as an opportunity for making agriculture more profitable by experts. Irrespective of its socio-economic implications, outward migration from rural India was a continuous process until the outbreak of Covid-19 pandemic, which not only stopped it, but also reversed it.

The lockdown imposed across India in late March immediately resulted in a reverse migration of a large number of labourers working mainly in the unorganised sector in small and big cities in India. Stringent measures imposed by state and Central governments temporarily stopped it, even as the country witnessed a series of agitations of migrant labour stranded in cities, demanding facilities to go back to their hometowns and villages.

The lockdown made daily-wage workers — most of whom are migrants — jobless for two months or so. Now that they are back home, many of them may not even dare to migrate again soon. After India’s integration into global economy, there were never 60 days at a stretch in which Indian economy recorded probably near-to-zero growth rate. Certainly, the recovery is going to take time; how much would depend heavily on when the Covid crisis subsides.

The absorptive capacity of urban cities as far as the migrant labourers are concerned would also recover accordingly. Conclusively, a good number of these migrant workers are going to be in their villages for quite some time.

The impact of this sudden reverse migration is going to be serious from economics and demographic viewpoints. This will invariably increase the number of cultivating farmers and agricultural labour force in rural India. In a way, it may reverse the feminisation of Indian agriculture to a large extent.

This will also have an impact on the average landholding of farmers in India, which is now less than 0.5 hectare per farmer. Moreover, this is going to tremendously increase the number of people who are primarily depending on agriculture for their livelihood, which is among the sectors most vulnerable to climate change and the economic situation even when there is no pandemic.

China allowed the food and agriculture sector to function as far as possible by establishing green channels even during the lockdown after the Covid outbreak. India did reluctantly take a call on this matter, realising the overall impact of the weakening of rural and agriculture sectors on Indian economy. The impact of the sudden load of additional dependence on agriculture will be manifold. In all, this will re-engineer the agrarian crisis exponentially in India, making agriculture a further less dependable livelihood in multiple ways.

Alternatively, the sharp increase in the number of cultivating farmers would further lessen the average agriculture landholding in India, which is already low, contributing to the agrarian crisis, according to experts like MS Swaminathan. Reversal of feminisation of agriculture would expectedly reduce gender inclusiveness in the sector. Increase in the local labour availability in some states would drastically reduce the wages in this sector. At the local level, the debts of farmers would shoot up in a short while, which would perhaps widen the scope for land-locking towards a corporate style of land consolidation/acquisition vis-à-vis agriculture.

This could eventually kill our last opportunity for making Indian agriculture the biggest enterprise in India with all farmers as stakeholders. Despite the agrarian crisis, a populous country like India was resilient enough to ensure food availability since the Green Revolution, eventually scripting the National Food Security Act in 2013. This enabled the government to design apt enabling approaches for enhancing food access to its citizens during the pandemic. In a way, self-reliance vis-a-vis food security gave the country a free hand to adopt lockdown measures during the pandemic. All this was possible only due to the stupendous labour of the farmers at the pre-Covid stage amounting to a buffer stock of agricultural produce for untoward situations. And, it is time we acknowledged the significant role played by farmers and the organisations that ushered in the Green Revolution and systematically improved the country’s self-reliance to ensure ‘Right to Food’ for all citizens.

At this point of time, we should recall the Bengal famine of 1943-45 that claimed 20 lakh lives. It spurred the then government to work towards the Green Revolution. During the post-colonial period, we were able to combat famine-like situations, such as in Bihar in 1966 and in drought-hit Maharashtra during 1970-73. But, our buffer stock of foodgrains stands liquidated during such untoward situations. So, the agriculture being talked about today needs to have inclusive recognition, from farmers to the food processors, and the business model should be inspired from successful models like that of Amul. Needless to mention that farmers should be registered in the country and given due recognition as professionals, as they are the missing link between food security and national security. They are the ones who have made the nation food-secure during all emergencies.

The Governor of Punjab is pleased to set up a Mission titled ‘Tandarust Punjab’ to make Punjab healthiest State with healthy people by taking care of its air quality, water quality, and safe food, ensuring a good living environment.

The Right to Life is enshrined in the Indian constitution and entails right to clean air, potable water and safe food in a healthy environment. Attempt by any person to pollute air, contaminate water and adulterate food should be seen as a crime against nature, humanity and State. 

The Mission envisages to build a healthy Punjab for achieving human excellence in a sustainable manner.

The main goal of the Mission will be to provide clean drinking water, improve air quality, ensure growing and consuming unadulterated food and food products and to improve the physical and mental health of the people of Punjab.

The strategy to achieve ‘ Tandarust Punjab’ would be:

i) To focus on building awareness among the principal stakeholders, especially the residents of Punjab through comprehensive IEC planning and activities;
ii) to improve the working of regulatory mechanisms within the Government for achieving desired standards of living;
iii) to ensure proper implementation of development programmes of government; and
iv) to obtain baseline data and set clear, achievable targets in a timebound manner.

At a time when India is grappling with Covid-19, a locust crisis is swarming over northern parts of the country, with several states issuing advisories to prevent a desert locust attack.

With India battling the worst desert locust outbreak in three decades, the crop-destroying insects have now spread to Punjab, Gujarat, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh after arriving in Rajasthan.

In its latest update, the United Nations’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) desert locust information center said much of these movements were associated with strong westerly winds from the Bay of Bengal.

According to the Locust Warning Organisation (LWO), which monitors locust swarms, there is no immediate danger of the swarms heading towards Delhi.

The insects feed on a large variety of crops. If not controlled, locust swarms can threaten the food security of a country.

History of outbreaks:

While legend has it that locusts were part of the Mahabharata during Karna’s battle with Arjuna, modern-day records suggest that since the beginning of the 19th century, there have been at least eight “outbreaks” in India from 1812 to 1889, and a ninth in 1896-1897.

According to history of the Locust Warning Office published by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), there were “serious invasions” of locusts in India every few years during the 1900s.

A “five-year invasion” from 1926 to 1931 is estimated to have to have damaged crops worth Rs 2 crore (about $100 million at today’s prices).

What are ‘desert locusts’ doing in non-desert lands:-

Desert locusts (Schistocerca gregaria), which belong to the family of grasshoppers, normally live and breed in semi-arid or desert regions.
For laying eggs, they require bare ground, which is rarely found in areas with dense vegetation.
So, they can breed in Rajasthan but not in the Indo-Gangetic plains or Godavari and Cauvery delta.
But green vegetation is required for hopper development. Hopper is the stage between the nymph that is hatched from the eggs, and the winged adult moth. Such cover isn’t widespread enough in the deserts to allow growth of large populations of locusts.
As individuals, or in small isolated groups, locusts are not very dangerous. But when they grow into large populations their behaviour changes, they transform from ‘solitary phase’ into ‘gregarious phase’, and start forming ‘swarms’.
A single swarm can contain 40 to 80 million adults in one square km, and these can travel up to 150 km a day.

What damage have they caused:-

So far, not much, since the rabi crop has already been harvested, and farmers are yet to really start kharif sowings.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has, however, predicted “several successive waves of invasions until July in Rajasthan with eastward surges across northern India right up to Bihar and Odisha”.

But after July, there would be westward movements of the swarms that will return to Rajasthan on the back of changing winds associated with the southwest monsoon.

The danger is when they start breeding. A single gregarious female locust can lay 60-80 eggs three times during its average life cycle of 90 days. If their breeding is coterminous with that of the kharif crop, we could well have a situation similar to what maize, sorghum and wheat farmers of Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia experienced in March-April.

How can these pests be controlled:-

Historically, locust control has involved spraying of organo-phospate pesticides on the night resting places of the locusts.

The Indian Institute of Sugarcane Research, Lucknow, advised farmers to spray chemicals like lambdacyhalothirn, deltamethrin, fipronil, chlorpyriphos, or malathion to control the swarms.

However, the Centre had on May 14 banned the use of chlorpyriphos and deltamethrin. Malathion is also included in the list of banned chemicals but has been subsequently allowed for locust control.

Special mounted guns are used to spray the chemicals on the resting places and India has 50 such guns, and 60 more are expected to arrive from UK by the first week of June. Drones are also being used this year.

Beginning of cooperation:-

Iran too suffered locust attacks, in 1876, and in 1926-1932.
“Apparently the first case of collaboration between countries in the region occurred in 1942 when a delegation from India helped with locust control work in southwest Persia.
Over the next two years, Indian help was also provided to Oman and Persia. This was followed by the first conference within the region on Desert Locust, which was held in Tehran in 1945 and involved Iran, India, Saudi Arabia and Egypt. A second conference took place in 1950 also in Tehran with Pakistan participating,” the FAO says.
In the 1950s, India and Iran cooperated and Pakistan provided two aircraft for locust surveys in Saudi Arabia.
Following another attack during 1958-61, a decision was taken to group Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India together and the FAO Desert Locust commission was formed in 1964.
The commission held annual sessions, skipped in 1965 and 1999 but held in 1971. Even in the last six years when the relationship between India and Pakistan has deteriorated, it has been held in 2014, 2016 and 2018.

Damage and mitigation:

However, humans have a distinct advantage in fighting locusts now as compared to their ancestors — deeper knowledge and technology.
Farmers have switched to crops that can be harvested much before swarming season, and the locusts themselves can be controlled and killed with pesticides.
Monitoring for locust breeding is essential as it is much easier to destroy eggs than fully grown locusts.
At present, the primary method of controlling desert locust swarms is through organophosphate chemicals (the prime ingredient in herbicide and pesticide) applied in small concentrated doses by vehicle-mounted and aerial sprayers along with knapsack- and hand-held sprayers.
In rural areas of India, farmers have been known to beat steel utensils during late afternoons and evenings, and play loud music at night and create wood-fire, to ward off locust swarms from farms, albeit temporarily.
Additionally, newer technology in the form of serotonin inhibition has shown promise in laboratory settings.
 

Way Ahead:

As the current locust swarms attacking crops in India have bred and matured in Iran and Pakistan, New Delhi has offered assistance to both the countries to jointly combat the locust menace.

However, only Iran has accepted the offer so far. The External Affairs Ministry has approached state-owned HIL for the manufacture and supply of the pesticide Malathion Technical to Iran.

Monthly meetings are held between June and October-November at Zero Point, west of Barmer, Rajasthan and east of Chor, Tharparkar.

Arrangements are made in advance and protocols are followed for crossing the border.

While politics and diplomacy is kept out of the technical discussions, locust control authorities feel that one of the more difficult challenges faced by the commission is that of “insecurity and sensitivities” in the region.

Though Punjab’s water crisis has been in the making for the past over three decades, no serious efforts have been made to address it. Paradoxically, all stakeholders, including political parties, have been hitherto in the denial mode about the gravity of water insecurity. 

Punjab was once comfortably placed in terms of water availability, but over the years, the situation deteriorated. In 1984, Punjab had 2.44 million acre ft (MAF) of groundwater, which dwindled to minus 11.63 MAF in 2013. It was mainly due to overexploitation of groundwater. 

In 1984, there were five districts doing overdraft of groundwater; in 2013, there were 15. The range of overdraft was between 1.34 (Ludhiana) and 1.91 (Kapurthala) times in 1984, while it was 1.21 times (Gurdaspur) to 2.11 (Sangrur) times in 2013. The average total draft in Punjab was 149 in 2013. 

The overexploitation of groundwater led to fast depletion of the water table, due to which the average depth of tubewells increased from 49 ft during 1960-70 to 128 ft in 2013-14 in nearly 15 districts of (predominantly paddy zone). Of them, the pre-monsoon depth of the water table went down by 7 metres to 22 metres in 10 districts during 1996-2016.

Genesis of depleting water table 

Historically, Punjab has never been a paddy-growing area. Of the total irrigated area, paddy accounted for 9 per cent (2.37 lakh hectares) in 1939. Even in 1970-71, 9.62 per cent of the net sown area was under paddy. Nonetheless, paddy has been a major crop of Punjab since the 1980s and the area under it went up to 72 per cent of the net sown area in 2015-16.

The Green Revolution transformed Punjab’s diversified cropping system into wheat-paddy rotation. The country’s increasing demand for food and the vested interests of global agri-business, inter alia, were the major factors behind the Green Revolution and the promotion of paddy in Punjab. The assured supply of high-yielding varieties of seeds, fertilisers and public investment in irrigation were aimed at meeting these objectives. The public procurement under the MSP regime (since the mid-1960s) assured market clearance for the farmers’ produce of wheat and paddy. 

The area under tubewell irrigation increased from 56 per cent in 1970-71 to 71 per cent in 2014-15, while the area under canal irrigation declined from 45 per cent to 29 per cent. This can be attributed to the increasing demand for groundwater due to an extraordinary increase in the area under paddy and a significant increase in the gross cropped area. It is interesting to note that the area under rice and the number of tubewells increased concurrently. 

Mind-boggling water consumption  

Paddy is the main consumer of groundwater in Punjab. Water productivity of rice (quantity of water required to produce 1-kg rice) in the state in the triennium (TE) ending 2013-14 was 5,337 litres, whereas the all-India average was 3,875 litres. This is also due to applying higher number of irrigations than the recommended doses.

The water consumption for total rice production in Punjab increased from 16,642 (13,449 billion litres, 81%, for Central pool) billion litres in 1980-81 to 59,047 (73% for Central pool) billion litres in 2013-14. It is the case of virtual water export from Punjab to the rest of India. Punjab provided much-needed food security to the nation at the cost of its groundwater (the most precious non-renewable natural resource). Even the quality of its sub-soil water has got polluted in the process.

Electricity usage:-

As compared to 1970-71, electricity consumption in the agricultural sector increased by 1,652 times in 2015-16, while the gross cropped area rose just by 1.38 times. Clearly, an increase in the gross cropped area does not justify such a huge consumption of electricity in agriculture. 

Can it be attributed to the increase in irrigation intensity? Perhaps no, as 71 per cent of the net sown area was under irrigation in 1970-71. The ever-increasing demand for water for paddy (and overdependence on groundwater to meet this demand), the higher and higher number of tubewells, sharp depletion of the water table, the increasing depth of tubewells and the rising number of submersible motors (up from 6.2 lakh in 2009 to 8.4 lakh in 2014) seem to be behind such a huge consumption of electricity in agriculture. Injudicious use of water due to the provision of free electricity in agriculture is also the reason for the depleting water table and hence the increasing consumption of electricity.

Policy intervention":-

Though the state government has been trying to respond to the depleting water table, the only effective policy response came in 2009 when The Punjab Preservation of Sub-soil Water Act prohibited sowing of nursery of paddy before May 10 and transplantation before June 15. Other measures such as crop diversification, resource conservation technologies and micro-irrigation techniques are yet to show substantive results.

For crop diversification, the government constituted two committees (1986 and 2002), popularly known as Johl Committee 1 and 2. But not much has happened on the ground. The Union Government has been advising (without any policy intervention, alternative crops and financial support) Punjab to shift massive area from under paddy. The promotion of paddy in Punjab was mainly due to the policy mix (focused on country’s food security). 

The way out:-

Punjab needs to shift huge area from under paddy. That would require a compatible policy set and support (from the Union and state governments) and an alternative crop combination (with MSP and assured market clearance) which could give farmers at least the same amount of per-hectare returns which they are getting from paddy. The free power to agriculture would have to be rationalised if we really want to address the issue of diversification and depleting water table. It would not be possible without bringing farmers on board. There is a need to have a social movement by the farmers for rationalisation of free electricity and reducing area under paddy.  It is of utmost importance for having sustainable agriculture, ensuring livelihood, saving water for future generations and saving Punjab from the looming desertification.

Generating awareness among the stakeholders is a sine qua non for mobilising any social movement for addressing the issue of water scarcity. Harvesting and conservation of water (through the mantra of Reduce, Recycle and Reuse) must be made mandatory.  In my own empirical study of 10 districts of Punjab, I found little or no awareness (about depleting water table, wastage and injudicious use of water, harvesting and conservation) among farmers, domestic water users and industrialists. 

The state needs to have comprehensive agriculture and water policies, organically linked with each other, as 97 per cent of the groundwater is being used in agriculture. The constitution of the Punjab Water Authority would also play a significant role in supporting and supplementing the government’s efforts in addressing the emerging water crisis.

A first, child-friendly police station in Punjab has been launched in Fatehgarh Sahib.

The police station had been set up in coordination with the Bachpan Bachao Andolan.

The objective behind setting up such a police station was to ensure that every child, hether involved in a crime or a witness to it, has proper and timely access to justice.

Bachpan Bachao Andolan is an India-based movement campaigning for the rights of children.

It was started in 1980 by Nobel Laureate Mr. Kailash Satyarthi.

Its focus has centred on ending bonded labour, child labour and human trafficking, as well as demanding the right to education for all children.

If increasing threat of mysterious proportions from coronavirus was not enough, people may be having a new problem ‘at hand’. And this time around it’s from none other than the most basic protection itself- the hand sanitiser.

• Punjab’s Food and Drug Administration has found during an analysis that many of the hand sanitisers being sold in the market are of sub-standard quality.
• Around 60% of samples were found devoid of any details about their contents.
• Some brands were found to be adulterating the sanitisers with water.
• Majority of brands were found containing lesser ethanol than mentioned in the content details.
• As per WHO standards, a hand sanitizer should contain 80% ethanol or 75% isopropyl alcohol.
• One of the most glaring instances of adulteration that was found during the survey was the use of methanol in place of ethanol by some brands.

Methanol

• Also known as methyl alcohol, it is a light, volatile, colourless flammable liquid with a distinctive alcoholic odour similar to that of ethanol.
• Methanol plays a critical role in the production of biodiesel. Biodiesel is generally made when fats and oils are chemically reacted with methanol, and a catalyst, typically sodium or potassium hydroxide to produce biodiesel.

Threats

• It is a hazardous chemical that is highly flammable. It is a toxic alcohol, used industrially as a solvent, pesticide and alternative fuel source.
• It is extremely toxic to humans if ingested or if vapors are inhaled. It is irritating to eyes, skin and respiratory tract.
• Direct exposure to methanol should be avoided, as methanol can be harmful if swallowed, absorbed through the skin, or inhaled. Ingestion of even small amount can cause irreversible injury to the nervous system, blindness or even death.
• Methanol can also degrease the skin, which may cause dermatitis.
• Symptoms of acute methanol exposure may include headache, weakness, drowsiness, nausea, difficult breathing, drunkenness, eye irritation, blurred vision, loss of consciousness, and possibly death.

Do’s and don’ts

• In case of methanol contact with skin, remove contaminated clothing, wash with soap and water for 15 minutes, and seek medical attention if irritation occurs.
• If methanol comes in direct contact with eyes, immediately flush eyes with water for at least 15 minutes.
• In case of inhalation of methanol vapors, the individual should be allowed plenty of fresh air.
• Ingestion of methanol is life threatening. Onset of symptoms may be delayed for 18 to 24 hours after ingestion. Immediate medical attention is critical in such cases.

PSPCL creates record in power generation: The Punjab State Power Corporation Limited (PSPCL) generated 3,018 lakh units of electricity, the highest ever in its history.

Punjab State Electricity Board (PSPCL) is the electricity generating and distributing company of the Government of Punjab state in India.

PSPCL was incorporated as company on 16-04-2010 and was given the responsibility of operating and maintenance of State's own generating projects and distribution system.

The business of Generation of power of erstwhile PSEB was transferred to PSPCL.

Punjab Govt Gives Nod To Launch A Pilot Project For COVID-19 Rapid Antigen Testing

Punjab govt gave its nod to launch a pilot project for testing COVID rapid antigen from the coming week. At least 1K tests will be conducted under the project.

The Punjab government gave its nod to launch a pilot project for testing COVID-19 rapid antigen in the coming week.

As per a state government release, once the rapid antigen pilot project is completed successfully, it would be tested on the migrants returning to the state as industries reopen and work in the paddy fields resume. At least 1,000 tests will be conducted under the pilot project.

The state government is looking at different ways to reduce the financial burden caused by the whopping power subsidy bill of Rs 16,400 crore. On the agenda is doing away with the power subsidy for farmers having over 10 acres of agricultural land and shifting connections of tubewells to solar power.

 there are 14 lakh tubewell connections in Punjab and connecting all these to solar power will entail a capital cost of Rs80,000 crore.
Solar power is available at Rs2.95 per unit while the average cost of thermal power is Rs4.05 per unit.

The power subsidy bill, which includes subsidy to farmers, industry and socially disadvantaged sections, is Rs 10,600 crore for 2020-21, while another Rs 5,759 crore is pending for the previous year. Finance Minister Manpreet Singh Badal said the revenue loss faced by the state in the first quarter of 2020-21 would be Rs 7,000 crore.

With the controversy over missing five crore tablets of the de-addiction drug, buprenorphine nalaxone, refusing to die down, Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh today constituted a three-member committee to probe the matter.

Over five crore tablets were found missing from the record entered into the online registry system by private centres

The government had served notices to 23 centres and one pharmaceutical company under the NDPS Act. But it is yet to find out whether these tablets were issued to addicts or sold illegally

Additional Chief Secretary Anurag Aggarwal had raised the issue after Health Minister Balbir Singh Sidhu ‘let off’ the de-addiction centres by issuing a warning Aggarwal wanted action against the centres under the NDPS Act.

The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, commonly referred to as the NDPS Act, is an Act of the Parliament of India that prohibits a person to produce/manufacture/cultivate, possess, sell, purchase, transport, store, and/or consume any narcotic drug or psychotropic substance.

Under one of the provisions of the act, the Narcotics Control Bureau was set up with effect from March 1986. The Act is designed to fulfill India's treaty obligations under the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, Convention on Psychotropic Substances, and United Nations Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances.

The Punjab Government is all set to launch ‘Educare App’. The mobile-based app will have chapters, assignments and quizzes for pre primary to Class XII students on a single platform.

students of around 19,500 government schools would get access to classroom lessons and could appear in tests even if they miss their classes due to non-availability of smartphones.

The application has been developed by a special team comprising assistant director Salinder Singh, state coordinator.

Teachers and students will be facilitated to have easy access to syllabus, textbooks (pdf), worksheets, assignments and quizzes, among others. It will help staff and children to recapitulate any topic whenever they want.

The state coordinators of different subjects and public-private partnership teams at district-levels have been asked to prepare video lectures, worksheets, assignments and quizzes.

In recent years Punjab has been termed as the drug capital of the country. Recently state government has been compelled to conduct a drug abuse survey with glaring results. It found that 230,000 people in the state were drug users. This translates to 836 drug users per 100,000 people in the state. The All India number is 250 per 100,000 according to the ministry of social justice and empowerment.

Causes of Drug Problem in Punjab:
1. Nearness to Golden Crescent: major drug producing nations like Afghanistan, Pakistan has proliferated drugs in the region
2. Easy availability - Heroin (chitta) is mostly home-grown; also corruption and laxity in border security architecture has allowed easy ingress points for narcotics from Pakistan.
3. Relatively higher degree of acceptance to drug use in the society - opium consumption has been a part of cultural landscape since before partition.
4. Politico-Criminal Nexus – in shielding drug traders from effective state action; Recent instance of capturing of 1.35 lakh kg of drug during Lok Sabha Election 2014; drugs seized in police raids have also returned to the market
5. Low presence of manufacturing base - dominance of agrarian sector with low income levels has resulted in wide spread rural unemployment; agriculture has also started showing stagnation (as a result of side effects of Green Revolution strategy)
6. Greater influx of money due to a remittance economy and inability to channelize surplus capital to productive investment avenues
7. Governmental approach that emphasizes criminality rather than a holistic approach; inadequate access to deaddiction centers and hospitals

Consequences of Drug Problem:-
1. Economic - Decline in workforce productivity. This has deterred many companies to setup shop in PB. They are shifting to other states such as HR, RJ.
2. Political - Inability of the govt to deal effectively with the rising drug menace is creating a sense of disappointment with the govt. e.g. also reflected in recent religious riots in the state
3. Social – Debt, poverty, failed marriages, increased domestic violence, suicides as well as the stigma of being associated with drug addicts is impacting day to day social life in the state
4. Security - Increase in criminality, radicalism; Money from drug trade has been used for spreading terror in other parts of country (narcoterrorism)
5. Public Health - It has led to an increase in the number of at risk population, placed severe stress on state's de-addiction centres; increase in incidences of diseases like AIDS

Way forward – An integrated approach involving demand reduction, harm reduction and supply reduction.
1. Harm reduction—providing clean needles, sterilization equipment and the like to drug users (it has proved effective in Manipur as well as in other countries in minimizing secondary damage such as the spread of AIDS and Hepatitis C)
2. Demand reduction - involves perception management of the youth and parents, effective affordable rehabilitation centres, focus on high-prevalence drug groups such as sex workers, transportation workers and street children, and simultaneous redressal of the unemployment situation.
3. Supply reduction - involves a zero-tolerance policy towards drug cartels, syndicates and peddlers, prevention of diversion of licit cultivation of opium and opiate pharmaceutical drugs, checking illicit cultivation of opium and closing porous borders should be non-negotiable clauses in India’s drug abuse prevention policy.
With concerted efforts the problem can certainly be rectified.

The figures can be disputed but it’s clear that Punjab is staring at a huge demographic crisis. It is being reported that around one lakh students have gone abroad especially to Canada to study and then to find employment. Most educational institutions here are complaining of a sharp drop in admissions. But the majority does not want to return.

Foreign dreams have always fascinated the Punjabi. Many songs have been written about it especially about going to ‘CANADA" The US is no longer a favoured destination due to the stringent anti-immigrant policy of the Trump administration and the same goes for the UK. Today, the preferred countries are Australia and Canada but Canada has far outstripped Australia due to its liberal policy and large Punjabi diaspora. Many Punjabis have either a relative or a friend, or both living there.

Canada so far has a stated policy of welcoming immigrants, they say it helps in multiculturalism and brings in the best. It doesn’t trouble them that the foreign students’ admissions make them richer by a few billion dollars! According to a report, Punjab has lost Rs 25000 crores to foreign admissions. The Canadian government has listed 250 colleges where these students can get admission and this has given a fillip to the exodus.

It’s a tragedy of Punjab that every young person who can, wants to get out. This will have very adverse social consequences in the future but both the Central and Punjab government seem oblivious to the emerging crisis. Not everyone who has gone abroad to study will get jobs and when they return after exhausting their reserves, Punjab will have a big socio-economic problem on hand.

It is also unfortunate that some who have recently gone have migrated with the culture of indiscipline, lawlessness, drugs, and violence. There have been fights in the Brampton area which has now become notorious. Not only the original Canadians but also the Punjabis settled there have started refusing accommodation to incoming Punjabis. Many houses now have put signboards saying ‘International students not allowed’. The basements where four-five students lived in a shared accommodation are no longer available.

The emptying of the state is a huge socio-economic challenge, yet the government seems somnolent perhaps deliberately, as they have fewer youth to worry about. But it’s a poor reflection on the state of affairs of what was once the number 1 state of the country.

Context: A gas leak at Sainor Life Sciences Pvt Ltd, Jawaharlal Nehru Pharma City, in Visakhapatnam has claimed two lives and injured four people.
Key Points

• Hydrogen sulphide vapours leaked from the reactor of a pharmaceutical company’s plant.
• According to the Commissioner of Police, the leak has been brought under control.
• This is the second incident in the Sainor Life Sciences plant since it began operations at JNPC.
• In September 2015, two workers were charred to death and five others injured in a reactor blast.
• Cases were booked against the company and it was allowed to resume operations only after the management paid a hefty fine.
• There have been about 40 industrial accidents in Visakhapatnam district, over 20 in pharma and chemical units alone, since 1997. About 130 lives have been lost and hundreds injured.

About Hydrogen Sulfide

• Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is a colourless chalcogen hydride gas with a characteristic foul odour.
• It is very poisonous, corrosive, and flammable.
• The gas can irritate the eyes, nose, throat, and lungs.
• Too much H2S can halt the breathing centre in the brain, which can cause death.
• It dissolves in water and oil, and it may be released when these liquids are heated, depressurized, or agitated. Because it is heavier than air, it may settle in low spots.
• It occurs in volcanic gases, natural gas, and in some sources of well water.

Uses

• Hydrogen sulfide is used primarily to produce sulfuric acid and sulfur.
• It is also used to create a variety of inorganic sulfides used to create pesticides, leather, dyes, and pharmaceuticals.
• Hydrogen sulfide is used to produce heavy water for nuclear power plants.

Context: Recently, Defence Acquisition Council(DAC) chaired by Defence Minister has cleared several proposals worth close to Rs 39,000 crore that will boost the combat capabilities of all three services—Army, Navy and the Air Force.
Key Points

• The indigenous content in some of these projects is up to 80 per cent of the project cost. 
• A large number of these projects have been made possible due to Transfer of Technology (ToT) by Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) to the indigenous industry. 
• These include Pinaka ammunitions, BMP armament upgrades and software defined radios for the Indian Army, Long Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems and Astra Missiles for the Indian Navy and Indian Air Force (IAF). 
• Further, addressing the long felt need of the IAF to increase its fighter squadrons, the DAC also approved the proposal for procurement of 21 MIG-29 along with upgradation of existing 59 MIG-29 aircraft and procurement of 12 Su-30 MKI aircraft. 

Benefits  

• While acquisition of Pinaka missile systems will enable raising additional regiments over and above the ones already inducted, addition of Long Range Land Attack Missile Systems having a firing range of 1,000 kilometres to the existing arsenal will bolster the attack capabilities of the Navy and the Air Force. 

Missile and Aircrafts

• Astra Missile for Navy and Air Force: It is a Beyond Visual Range Air-to-Air Missile(BVRAAM) developed by DRDO. It is designed to be mounted on fighter aircraft to engage and destroy supersonic aircraft with a range of over 70 km.
• Pinaka Missile system for Army: It is an all-weather artillery rocket system developed by DRDO. It has the capability of accurately striking against a variety of targets such as exposed enemy troops, armored vehicles, communication centers and air terminal complexes.
• Long-Range Land Attack Cruise Missile Systems(LRLACM) for Navy and Air Force:  It is aimed at enhancing India’s firing range from between 400 km and 500 km of the Brahmos to 1000 km.
• MIG-29 from Russia: It is a twin-engine, multirole fighter jet developed by the Soviets since the 1970s, but has been upgraded since.
• Sukhoi Su-30MKI: It is a twinjet multirole air fighter developed by Russia’s Sukhoi and built under licence by India’s Hindustan Aeronautics Limited(HAL) for the Indian Air Force (IAF)

About Defence Acquisition Council  

• Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), under the Defence Minister was constituted for overall guidance of the defence procurement planning process.
• The composition of the DAC is as follows – Defence Minister: Chairman; Minister of State for Defence: Member; Chief of Army Staff: Member; Chief of Naval Staff: Member; Chief of Air Staff: Member etc. It decides on the new policies and capital acquisitions for the three services (Army, Navy and Air Force) and the Indian Coast Guard. 
• It was formed, after the Group of Ministers recommendations on ‘Reforming the National Security System’, in 2001, post Kargil War (1999). 
• The objective of the Defence Acquisition Council is to ensure expeditious procurement of the approved requirements of the Armed Forces in terms of capabilities sought, and time frame prescribed, by optimally utilising the allocated budgetary resources. 

Functions of the DAC 

• In-principle approval of 15 Year Long-Term Integrated Perspective Plan for Defence Forces; 
• Accord of Acceptance of Necessity to acquisition proposals; 
• Categorisation of the acquisition proposals relating to ‘Buy’, ‘Buy & Make’ and ‘Make’; 
• Issues relating to Single vendor clearance; 
• Decision regarding ‘offset’ provisions in respect of acquisition proposals above Rs. 300 crores; 
• Decisions regarding Transfer of Technology under ‘Buy & Make’ category of acquisition proposals; and 
• Field Trial evaluation. 

Context: Recently, Russia has promised to accelerate deliveries of some defence contracts with India, in a meeting of Indian Defence Minister and  Russian Deputy Prime Minister.
About S-400

• The S-400 Triumph  is an air defence missile system developed by Almaz Central Design Bureau of Russia. 
• The S-400 replaced the S-300P and S-200 air defence systems of the Russian Army.

Features: It is designed to destroy aircraft, cruise and ballistic missiles, including medium-range missiles, and can also be used against ground installations.

• The S-400 can engage targets at a Range of 400 km and At an altitude of up to 30 km.
• The S-400 Triumph air defence system integrates a multifunction radar, autonomous detection and targeting systems, anti-aircraft missile systems, launchers, and command and control centre. 
• It provides four different types of layered air defence.
• The system can simultaneously engage 36 targets.
• The missiles are launched by a 6×6 tractor truck Transporter-Erector-Launcher (TEL) vehicle. The TEL vehicle can carry up to four launch tubes holding a mix of missiles.
• It can also be integrated into the existing and future air defence units of the air force, army and navy.

Key Points

• India’s Defence Minister has requested Russia to speed up deliveries of the S-400 long range air defence system along with spares and support for military hardware.
• India’s Defence Minister is on a three-day trip to Russia to attend the 75th Victory Day which marks the end of World War II and the victory of the Allied Forces in 1945. Russia celebrates Victory Day on May 9 while Europe and USA celebrate it on May 8.
• S-400 deal: In 2018, India signed the deal worth $5.43-billion to buy five Russian S-400 Triumf missile shield systems.
• Booster to the Indian Air Force: Acquiring the missile system will help repulse the air attacks by India's adversaries, especially Pakistan and China.
• US opposition: The Trump administration had threatened to impose sanctions on the states that are acquiring weapons and military hardware from Russia under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, CAATSA.

Major  Weapon  Systems  Purchased  from  Russia

• Su-30MKI  multi-role  fighter  aircraft
• Il-78 tanker aircraft to be used as platform for Airborne Warning and Control System(AWACS)
• Mi-17-IV military transport helicopters
• R-77 air-to-air missiles
• Kilo  class/type  877E  submarines,  frigates
• Ka-31  Helix  airborne  early warning helicopters,
• Aircraft carrier Admiral Gorshkov (INS Vikramaditya)
• MiG-29K, including MiG-29KUB version for use on aircraft carrier 
• Ka-27PL(Ka-28  version)  and  Ka-31  helicopters
• T-90  tanks

Major Joint Military Programme between India & Russia

• BrahMos cruise missile programme
• 5th generation fighter jet programme
• Sukhoi Su-30MKI fighter jet programme (230+ to be built by Hindustan Aeronautics)
• Ilyushin/HAL Tactical Transport Aircraft
• KA-226T twin-engine utility helicopters
• India entered into a joint venture with Russia to manufacture the legendary Kalashnikov assault rifles in India.

Context: Recently, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) released a report ‘Commodities at a glance: Special issue on strategic battery and minerals’.

• The report facilitated research into battery technologies that depended less on critical raw materials and had the potential to provide higher energy density.
• Energy density is the amount of energy that can be stored in a given mass of a substance or system, i.e. a measure of storage of energy.

Key Points

• Uncertain Supply: The report highlighted that the supply of raw materials to produce rechargeable batteries is uncertain.
• Lithium, natural graphite and manganese are critical raw materials for the manufacture of rechargeable batteries.

Rising Demand:

• Integration of EVs: There has been a rapid growth in demand for rechargeable batteries due to the gradual integration of electric vehicles (EVs) in global transportation.
• The sales of electric cars have increased by 65% in 2018 from 2017 to 5.1 million vehicles and it will reach 23 million in 2030.
• Increased Use of Raw Material: With the increasing number of EVs, the demand for rechargeable batteries and the raw materials used in them have also increased.
• The worldwide market for cathodes for lithium-ion batteries was estimated at $7 billion in 2018 and is expected to reach $58.8 billion by 2024.
• The demand for raw materials used to manufacture rechargeable batteries will grow rapidly as other sources of energy lose their importance.

Concerns:

• Limited Suppliers: The security of supplies is a concern for all stakeholders because the production of the raw materials is concentrated in a few countries.
• Over 60% of the world’s Cobalt is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo while over 75% of global Lithium is mined in Australia and Chile.
• Prone of Volatility: Any disruption to supply might lead to tighter markets, higher prices and increased costs of rechargeable batteries.
• In 2018, the demand for cobalt surged by 25% from 2017 to 125,000 tonnes, of which 9% accounted for the EV battery sector.
• Cobalt demand would reach 185,000 tonnes by 2023, with about 35% accounting for the EV battery sector, the report said.
• Growth in demand for lithium had been significant since 2015, increasing by 13% per year.

About Li-ion Batteries

• A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery.
• Li-ion batteries use an intercalated (Intercalation is the reversible inclusion or insertion of a molecule into materials with layered structures) lithium compound as one electrode material, compared to the metallic lithium used in a non-rechargeable lithium battery.
• The battery consists of electrolyte, which allows for ionic movement and the two electrodes are the constituent components of a lithium-ion battery cell.
• Lithium ions move from the negative electrode to the positive electrode during discharge and back when charging.
• They are one of the most popular types of rechargeable batteries used for military, EVs and aerospace applications.

Road Ahead

• Alternative sources of energy such as electric batteries are becoming more important as investors become sceptical of the future of the oil industry.
• There is a need to make a strategy for dynamic monitoring of the raw material cycles, from mining through processing, refining and manufacturing to recycling.
• It will facilitate early detection of supply risks and also enable the development of mitigation strategies at either company or national level.

Context: Recently, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), has launched a scheme called Accelerate Vigyan (AV) to strengthen scientific research mechanisms in the country.
Key Points

• Objective: To give more thrust on encouraging high-end scientific research and preparing scientific manpower, which can lead to careers in research and knowledge-based economy.
• Vision: To expand the research base, with three broad goals i.e. consolidation/aggregation of all scientific programs, initiating high-end orientation workshops, and creating opportunities for research internships.

About the Scheme

• The objective of this scheme is to give more thrust on encouraging high-end scientific research and preparing scientific manpower.
• The aim is to expand the research base in the country, with three broad goals.
• Consolidation / aggregation of all scientific training programs.
• Initiating High end Orientation Workshops
• Creating opportunities for Research Internships.
• Scheme primarily focuses on young potential researchers with an aim to give an opportunity to them to spend quality time in the pre-identified premier institution, labs / organizations and empower them through best practices and environment.

Programmes under the Scheme

ABHYAAS

• It aims to boost research and development in the country by enabling potential PG/PhD students by means of developing their research skills in selected areas across different disciplines.

It has two components: High-End Workshops (KARYASHALA) and Research Internships (VRITIKA).

• This is especially important for those researchers who have limited opportunities to access such learning capacities / facilities / infrastructure.

SAMMOHAN

• It aims to encourage, aggregate and consolidate all scientific interactions in the country under one common roof.

It has been sub-divided into SAYONJIKA and SANGOSHTI.

• SAYONJIKA (chronicle) is an open-ended program to catalogue the capacity building activities in science and technology supported by all government funding agencies in the country.
• SANGOSHTI (Seminar or Symposia) is designed to facilitate the scientific community to establish an interaction with other individuals and research groups to enhance knowledge exchange.

Implementation

• SERB will centrally coordinate with the other ministries/departments/organizations for achieving the three goals of AV.
• An Inter-Ministerial Overseeing Committee (IMOC) is constituted to help and support SERB in implementing the scheme.

Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB)

• SERB was established under the Science and Engineering Research Board Act, 2008.
• It is a statutory body with requisite financial and administrative autonomy for performing its mandated functions.
• It was set up for promoting basic research in science and engineering and to provide financial assistance to scientists, academic institutions, R&D laboratories, industrial concerns and other agencies for such research.
• It is Chaired by Secretary, Department Of Science And Technology (DST).

Context: Recently, the National Centre for Polar and Ocean Research and the Goa University have successfully synthesized gold nanoparticles (GNPs) using psychrotolerant Antarctic bacteria through a non-toxic, low-cost, and eco-friendly way.
Key Points

• The study has established that 20-30-nm-sized spherical-shaped GNPs could be synthesized in a controlled environment.
• These GNPs can be used as a composite therapeutic agent in clinical trials, especially in anti-cancer, anti-viral, anti-diabetic, and cholesterol-lowering drugs.
• The NCPOR-GU study revealed the genotoxic effect of GNPs on a sulphate reducing bacteria (SRB).
• The GNPs displayed enough anti-bacterial properties by inhibiting the growth of SRB and its sulphide production by damaging the genetic information of the DNA of the bacterial cell.
• Genotoxicity describes the property of a chemical agent that is capable of damaging the genetic information of DNA and thus causing a mutation of the cell, which can lead to cancer.

About Gold Nanoparticles (GNPs)

• Gold nanoparticles (AuNPs) are small gold particles with a diameter of 1 to 100 nm which, once dispersed in water, are also known as colloidal gold.
• GNPs are found to have greater solar radiation absorbing ability than the conventional bulk gold, which makes them a better candidate for use in the photovoltaic cell manufacturing industry.
• GNPs have unique optical properties too. For example, particles above 100 nm show blue or violet colour in water, while the colour becomes wine red in 100 nm gold colloidal particles. They can thus be used in therapeutic imaging.
• GNPs also have unique physicochemical properties. Their biocompatibility, high surface area, stability, and nontoxicity make them suitable for various applications in therapeutic use including detection and diagnosis of diseases, bio-labelling, and targeted drug delivery.
• As nano-carriers, GNPs are capable of transferring various drugs made out of peptides, proteins, plasmid DNAs, small interfering RNAs, and chemotherapeutic agents to target diseased cells of the human body.
• GNPs are also found to be useful in the electronics industry.
• Scientists have constructed a transistor known as NOMFET (Nanoparticle Organic Memory Field-Effect Transistor) by embedding GNPs in a porous manganese oxide as a room temperature catalyst to break down volatile organic compounds in air and combining GNPs with organic molecules.
• NOMFETs can mimic the feature of the human synapse known as plasticity, or the variation of the speed and strength of the signal going from neuron to neuron.
• These novel transistors can now facilitate better recreation of certain types of human cognitive processes, such as recognition and image processing and have their application in artificial intelligence.

Context: Recently, the heavy engineering division of Larsen & Toubro Ltd (L&T) despatched a giant Cryostat lid, the most complex and final assembly of Cryostat, the largest stainless-steel, high-vacuum pressure chamber in the world, to International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) site in France from its Hazira unit in Gujarat.
Key Points

• “This is an important milestone in the global nuclear fusion arena as well as a moment of pride for the Make in India initiative.

About ITER Project

• ITER is international nuclear fusion research and engineering megaproject, which will be the world’s largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment.
• The goal of ITER is to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion energy for peaceful use.
• The project is funded and run by seven member entities—the European Union, India, Japan, China, Russia, South Korea and the United States.
• The EU, as host party for the ITER complex, is contributing about 45 per cent of the cost, with the other six parties contributing approximately 9 per cent each.
• Construction of the ITER Tokamak complex started in 2013 and the building costs were over US$14 billion by June 2015.

How does it work?

• ITER is the most complex science project in human history. The ITER aims to use a strong electric current to trap plasma inside a doughnut-shaped enclosure long enough for fusion to take place.
• Hydrogen plasma will be heated to 150 million degrees Celsius, ten times hotter than the core of the Sun, to enable the fusion reaction.
• The process happens in a doughnut-shaped reactor, called a tokamak 1, which is surrounded by giant magnets that confine and circulate the superheated, ionized plasma, away from the metal walls.
• The superconducting magnets must be cooled to -269°C (-398°F), as cold as interstellar space.
• Scientists have long sought to mimic the process of nuclear fusion that occurs inside the sun, arguing that it could provide an almost limitless source of cheap, safe and clean electricity.
• Unlike in existing fission reactors, which split plutonium or uranium atoms, there’s no risk of an uncontrolled chain reaction with fusion and it doesn’t produce long-lived radioactive waste.

About Nuclear fusion 

• It is the process of making a single heavy nucleus (part of an atom) from two lighter nuclei. This process is called a nuclear reaction.
• The nucleus made by fusion is heavier than either of the starting nuclei. It releases a large amount of energy.
• Fusion is what powers the sun. Atoms of Tritium and Deuterium (isotopes of hydrogen, Hydrogen-3 and Hydrogen-2, respectively) unite under extreme pressure and temperature to produce a neutron and a helium isotope.
• Along with this, an enormous amount of energy is released, which is several times the amount produced by fission.
• Scientists continue to work on controlling nuclear fusion in an effort to make a fusion reactor to produce electricity.

How it is different from nuclear fission?

• Simply put, fission is the division of one atom into two (by neutron bombardment), and fusion is the combination of two lighter atoms into a larger one (at a very high temperature).
• Nuclear fission takes place when a large, somewhat unstable isotope (atoms with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons) is bombarded by high-speed particles, usually neutrons.