Comprehensive Current affairs 26 August 2020

Comprehensive Current affairs 26 August 2020

EC issues directions for conducting elections during COVID pandemic.

Election Commission has issued detailed guidelines related to key activities for conducting upcoming General Elections and bye-elections in various States and Union Territories during the period of COVID-19 Pandemic.

The guidelines laid down strict compliance norms to be followed by Candidates and officials conducting the Elections. Those found violating the instructions on COVID-19 measures even during the campaign process will be liable to be proceeded against, as per the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, 2005.

Election Commission in its guidelines has also stated that the training of election officials should be organized in a decentralized manner at large halls. It has also stressed on online modules of training as far as possible.

All necessary forms including the Nomination form will be available online on the website of CEO and DEO for the intending candidates. Candidates can even deposit the security money through

online mode at the designated platform. During the filing of nomination papers only two persons and vehicles are allowed to accompany a candidate.

Social distancing shall be maintained as per the COVID-19 guidelines of the State Government and Ministry of Home Affairs. The guidelines also say that a maximum of only 1 thousand voters should be allowed in a polling station at a given point in time instead of the current norm of one thousand five hundred voters.

International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief is observed on 22 August.

International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief is observed on 22 August. The day aims to appreciate the efforts taken by the UN to combat intolerance, discrimination and violence against persons based on religion or belief. The day aims to promote and protect human rights, including the human rights of persons belonging to religious minorities, including their right to exercise their religion or belief freely.

History:

The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has passed its resolution A/RES/73/296 and designated 22 August as the International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief. The day aims to recognize the importance of providing victims of acts of violence based on religion or belief and members of their families with appropriate support and assistance in accordance with applicable law.

The move deplores all acts of violence against persons on the basis of their religion or belief, as well as any such acts directed against their homes, businesses, properties, schools, cultural centres or places of worship, and all attacks on and in religious places, sites and shrines that are in violation of international law.

Supreme court issues notice to Nagaland Lokayukta over government’s plea

The Supreme Court on Friday issued notice on a plea filed by the State of Nagaland for a direction to its Lokayukta to cease exercising his powers and functions and transfer all his work to the Upa-Lokayukta.

A statement issued by Nagaland Advocate General K.N. Balagopal, who appeared for the State, alleged that the writ petition sought the removal of the Lokayukta for “acts of impropriety.”

The petition by the State asked the court to use its extraordinary powers under Article 142 of the Constitution to preserve the institutional integrity of the Lokayukta and ensure that a “fit, proper and competent person” occupies the office of the Lokayukta.

National Sports Awards 2020 announced.

The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports announced the National Sports Awards 2020. A large number of applications were received for Sports Awards 2020. The winners were considered by the Selection Committee headed by Justice (Retd.) Mukundakam Sharma, the former Judge of Supreme Court of India, and other members comprising eminent sportspersons, persons having experience in sports journalism and sports administration, etc. Based on the recommendations of the Committee, GoI has conferred awards upon the following sportspersons, coaches and entities under various categories:

RAJIV GANDHI KHEL RATNA AWARD

Shri Rohit Sharma - Cricket

Shri Mariyappan T. - Para Athletics

Ms. Manika Batra - Table Tennis

Ms. Vinesh - Wrestling

Ms. Rani - Hockey

DRONACHARYA AWARD

A) Life- Time Category

Shri Dharmendra Tiwary - Archery

Shri Purushotham Rai - Athletics

Shri Shiv Singh - Boxing

Shri Romesh Pathania - Hockey

Shri Krishan Kumar Hooda - Kabaddi

Shri Vijay Bhalchandra Munishwar - Para Powerlifting

Shri Naresh Kumar - Tennis

Shri Om Parkash Dahiya - Wrestling

B) Regular Category

Shri Jude Felix Sebastian - Hockey

Shri Yogesh Malviya - Mallakhamb

Shri Jaspal Rana - Shooting

Shri Kuldeep Kumar Handoo - Wushu

Shri Gaurav Khanna - Para Badminton

ARJUNA AWARD

Shri Atanu Das - Archery

Ms. Dutee Chand - Athletics

Shri Satwik Sairaj Rankireddy - Badminton

Shri Chirag Chandrasekhar Shetty - Badminton

Shri Vishesh Bhriguvanshi - Basketball

Subedar Manish Kaushik - Boxing

Ms. Lovlina Borgohain - Boxing

Shri Ishant Sharma - Cricket

Ms. Deepti Sharma - Cricket

Shri Sawant Ajay Anant -Equestrian

Shri Sandesh Jhingan - Football

Ms. Aditi Ashok - Golf

Shri Akashdeep Singh - Hockey

Ms. Deepika - Hockey

Shri Deepak - Kabaddi

Shri Kale Sarika Sudhakar - Kho Kho

Shri Dattu Baban Bhokanal - Rowing

Ms. Manu Bhaker - Shooting

Shri Saurabh Chaudhary - Shooting

Ms. Madhurika Suhas Patkar - Table Tennis

Shri Divij Sharan - Tennis

Shri Shiva Keshavan - Winter Sports

Ms. Divya Kakran - Wrestling

Shri Rahul Aware - Wrestling

Shri Suyash Narayan Jadhav - Para Swimming

Shri Sandeep - Para Athletics

Shri Manish Narwal - Para Shooting

DHYAN CHAND AWARD

Shri Kuldip Singh Bhullar - Athletics

Ms. Jincy Philips - Athletics

Shri Pradeep Shrikrishna Gandhe - Badminton

Ms. Trupti Murgunde - Badminton

Ms. N. Usha - Boxing

Shri Lakha Singh - Boxing

Shri Sukhvinder Singh Sandhu - Football

Shri Ajit Singh - Hockey

Shri Manpreet Singh -Kabaddi

Shri J. Ranjith Kumar - Para Athletics

Shri Satyaprakash Tiwari - Para Badminton

Shri Manjeet Singh - Rowing

Late Shri Sachin Nag -Swimming

Shri Nandan P Bal - Tennis

Shri Netarpal Hooda - Wrestling

TENZING NORGAY NATIONAL ADVENTURE AWARDS 2019

Ms. Anita Devi - Land Adventure

Col. Sarfraz Singh - Land Adventure

Shri Taka Tamut - Land Adventure

Shri Narender Singh - Land Adventure

Shri Keval Hiren Kakka - Land Adventure

Shri Satendra Singh - Water Adventure

Shri Gajanand Yadava - Air Adventure

Late Shri Magan Bissa - Life Time Achievement

MAULANA ABUL KALAM AZAD (MAKA) TROPHY

Panjab University, Chandigarh

RASHTRIYA KHEL PROTSAHAN PURUSKAR

Identification and Nurturing of Budding and Young Talent - 1. Lakshya Institute, 2. Army Sports Institute

Encouragement to sports through Corporate Social Responsibility - Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) Ltd.

Employment of sportspersons and sports welfare measures - Air Force Sports Control Board

Sports for Development - International Institute of Sports Management (IISM)

Former Finance Secretary Rajiv Kumar was appointed as the Election Commissioner.

In pursuance of clause (2) of article 324 of the Constitution, the President has appointed Rajiv Kumar, IAS(Retd.) as the Election Commissioner.

About Election commission of India:

The constitution under article 324 provides for an Election Commission for the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of the electoral rolls for the conduct of elections to parliament, state legislatures and to the offices of president and vice president.

Composition Election commission of India:

The constitution provides for the following provisions in relation to the composition of the election commission:

The election commission shall consist of the Chief Election Commissioner and a such number of other election commissioners, if any, as the president may from time to time fix.

The appointment of the chief election commissioner and other election commissioners shall be made by the president.

When any other election commissioner is so appointed the chief election commissioner shall act as the chairman of the election commission.

The president may also appoint after consultation with the election commission such regional commissioners as he may consider necessary to assist the election commission.

The conditions of service and tenure of office of the election commissioners and the regional commissioners shall be such as the President may by rule determine.

CEC vs ECs:

Though the Chief Election Commissioner is the chairman of the election commission, however, his powers are equal to the other election commissioners. All the matters in the commission are decided by the majority amongst its members. The Chief Election Commissioner and the two other election commissioners receive equal salary, allowances and other benefits.

Tenure:

The Chief Election Commissioner and other election commissioners hold office for 6 years or till they attain the age of 65 years, whichever is earlier. They can resign at any time by addressing their resignation to the president.

Removal:

They can resign anytime or can also be removed before the expiry of their term.

The Chief Election Commissioner can be removed from his office in the same manner and on same grounds as a judge of the Supreme Court.

Turkey discovers a large natural gas reserve in Black Sea.

Turkey discovered large natural gas reserves in the Black Sea coast. The announcement was made by the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The discovery included 320 billion cubic metres of natural gas. If the natural gas reserve can be extracted, it could help the country to reduce its energy dependence on imports from countries such as Russia, Iran, and Azerbaijan.

Highlights:

♦ Turkey aims to use the discovered natural gas by 2023.

♦ The country has made the biggest discovery of natural gas in its history in the Black Sea.

♦ The new natural gas reserves come amid the rising tensions between Ankara and Athens over oil and gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean.

♦ The discovery has come up in the middle of tensions between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies Greece and Turkey are running high in disputed waters in the eastern Mediterranean.

Background:

Turkey highly depends on Russia, Iran, and Iraq for its energy resources. In the year 2019, the Turkish energy imports from these countries were $41 billion. The discovery of the new oil exploration will help to reduce the country's imports.

MEA to organise 6th roundtable of AINTT

The Ministry of External Affairs in partnership with the Foreign Ministry of Thailand has organized the 6th Round Table of ASEAN-India Network of Think Tanks (AINTT) which culminated today.

The theme of the two day Round Table which was conducted through video conferencing was 'ASEAN-India: Strengthening Partnership in the Post COVID Era'.

It was jointly inaugurated by External Affairs Minister Dr. S. Jaishankar and the Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Thailand Mr. Don Pramudwinai yesterday. ASEAN Secretary General Mr. Lim Jock Hoi also addressed the inaugural session.

More than 400 people from academia, industry, government and diplomatic community attended the Round Table.

The ASEAN-India Round Table comprising think tanks, policy makers, scholars, media and business representatives was established at the 7th ASEAN-India Summit in Thailand in 2009 to provide policy inputs to Governments on future direction of cooperation.

India- Maldives to flag off direct shipping from next month

A direct shipping service between India and Maldives would be flagged off next month. The service, agreed upon during the visit of Prime Minister NarendraModi to Maldives last year shall be connecting Cochin and Tuticorin with Maldives capital Male.

A Memorandum of Understanding was signed last year to establish a direct passenger-cum-cargo ferry service between the two neighbours for providing an alternate, direct and less expensive means for transport for passengers and goods.

The service will have a container-cum-break bulk vessel which can carry about 200 TEUs (Twenty-foot Equivalent Unit) and 3,000 Metric Tonnes of bulk cargo and will have a round voyage of 10 days.

The service will be performed by the Shipping Corporation of India Limited and is expected to give momentum to bilateral trade and economic relations and further strengthen the dynamic people-to-people contact between the two countries.

RBI chief flags disconnect between stock market and real economy

Sounding a note of caution, RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das on Friday said there is a disconnect between the stock market and the real economy and a correction will be witnessed, though its timing is hard to predict.

The Governor said excess liquidity in the global system appears to be fuelling stock market exuberance.

“There is so much liquidity in the system, in the global economy, that’s why the stock market is very buoyant and it is definitely disconnected with the real economy. It will certainly witness correction in the future. But when the correction will take place, it is hard to predict,” Mr. Das said in an interview to a private news channel.

The RBI is regularly monitoring the market behaviour and its impact on financial sector stability and will take necessary steps as and when needed, he added.

“We are regularly monitoring all market behaviour. RBI is vigilant about the impact of correction on the financial sector and how to deal with it,” he said.

Talking about the economic outlook, Mr. Das said the RBI has projected that the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) will be in the negative territory this fiscal.

Scientists convert tamarind waste and cotton waste to supercapacitor.

Scientists at the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy & New Materials (ARCI), under Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India, have developed a cost-effective electrode material for making affordable supercapacitor devices, from waste biomass like tamarind seeds and industrial cotton waste. With this discovery, tamarind seeds and cotton waste may soon be used to make low-cost supercapacitors for energy storage. The scientists have used waste biomass to develop materials for making cost-effective supercapacitor devices.

Highlights:

♦ The scientists have converted the waste materials into highly porous carbon fibres by activation process. It was then utilised the porous carbon fibres to make high-performance supercapacitor electrodes.

♦ The electrode materials are made from biomass waste. It was tested with the help of a rapid testing protocol developed by Scientists at Centre for Fuel Cell Technology, ARCI-Chennai to evaluate different porous electrode materials for their suitability in supercapacitors.

♦ The method involves Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (EIS) and records the impedance offered by a material under a small perturbation and the capacitance was formed by the arrangement of electrolyte ions over the electrode surface, which is called as double-layer capacitance.

♦ The scientists tested the pore characteristics and stability of the activated carbon material prepared from tamarind seed and its suitability for supercapacitor application.

♦ The Dynamic Electrochemical Impedance Spectroscopy (DEIS) results that are observed by the ARCI team showed a superior double layer capacitance value at all the applied potentials for the optimized sample with high surface area (2645 m2 g-1) within 1 hour of the experiment, validating that the material could be used for supercapacitor electrode.

♦ It is expected that this will respond to the intense hunt for supercapacitor materials to meet the widespread demand for supercapacitors.

♦ This discovery can pave the way towards affordable electric vehicles and hybrid vehicles which bank on supercapacitors significantly for their application in braking systems and start-stop cycles.

Note: Impedance is a parameter used to measure the opposition that a circuit presents to a current when a voltage is applied.

West Bengal forest officials use sniffer dogs to contain poaching

Forest officials in West Bengal have arrested a person in Jalpaiguri district for killing a bison (Indian Gaur). The incident occurred in the Gorumara National Park, where the carcass of a bison was found in the forest on Wednesday evening.

On Thursday morning, a sniffer dog called Orlando took the forest officials to a house in Tilabari of Matiailli block, a few kilometres away from the site of the carcass of the animal. Raw and cooked meat was recovered from the house of SomraMunda. Munda was arrested and produced before a court in the district.

Janmejay Pal, Additional Divisional Forest Officer, Gorumara Wildlife Division, said that the accused had killed the wild animal for meat. A horn of the bison was also recovered from the house. The forest official said that sniffer dog Orlando had been deputed only a few months ago. This was the first case for the Belgian Malinois dog.