Comprehensive Current affairs 10 September 2020

 PM seeks minimum govt. intervention in education policy.

The government’s intervention in the education policy should be “minimal”, Prime Minister NarendraModi said on Monday, emphasising that the policy belonged to the whole country, rather than to any particular government in power.

Mr.Modi was addressing the inaugural session of the Governors’ conference on the National Education Policy (NEP), which is being attended by State Education Ministers and Vice-Chancellors.

The focus of the conference is on the implementation of NEP.Mr. Modi said the NEP 2020 provided a vision for a new India of the 21st century, in line with its aspirations to be a self-reliant power.

The Prime Minister felt it would help transform the country into a “knowledge economy” and tackle brain drain by paving the way to open local campuses of global educational institutions.

The policy would also prepare the country’s youth for the jobs of the future, in a world where the nature of work was undergoing change.

Mr.Kovind noted that such investment was only 0.7% of the GDP in India, in comparison to 2.8% in the U.S., 4.2% in South Korea and 4.3% in Israel.

“Education is the most effective means of social justice and personal advancement. There is no better investment than that in education to improve the future of society,” he said.

SC mandates states to set up committees on Content Regulation of Government Advertisements

As per directions of the Supreme Court, States are mandated to set up their three member committees on Content Regulation of Government Advertisements.State-level committees have already been constituted by Karnataka, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland.

Under the Supreme Court’s guidelines dated 13th May, 2015, the content of Government Advertisement should be relevant to the government’s constitutional and legal obligations as well as the citizen’s right and entitlements.

The Committee is empowered to address complaints from the general public on violation of Supreme Court’s guidelines and make suitable recommendations.

The CCRGA was of the view that some state governments’ delay in setting up the state-level committees may be construed as contempt of Supreme Court’s order.

NIDHI-EIR Brochure Featuring Entrepreneurs in Residence Launched

 A Brochure Featuring Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) under the National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) programme was launched by Department of Science and Technology.

• National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) is an umbrella programme conceived and developed by the Innovation & Entrepreneurship division, Department of Science & Technology.

• It would work in line with the national priorities and goals.

• Its focus would be to build an innovation driven entrepreneurial ecosystem with an objective of socio-economic development through wealth and job creation.

Aim:

• To nurture ideas and innovations into Successful startups through Scouting, Supporting and Scaling of Innovations.

Key Components of NIDHI:

• NIDHI-GCC – Grand Challenges and Competitions for scouting innovations

• (NIDHI-PRAYAS) -PRomotion and Acceleration of Young and Aspiring technology entrepreneurs – Support from Idea to Prototype

•NIDHI-Entrepreneur In Residence (NIDHI-EIR) – Support system to reduce risk.

• Startup-NIDHI through Innovation and Entrepreneurship Development Centres (IEDCs) in academic institutions; encouraging Students to promote start-ups.

• Start-up Centre in collaboration with MHRD; Inculcating a spirit of entrepreneurship in National Institutions of Higher Learning.

• NIDHI-Technology Business Incubator (TBI) – Converting Innovations to start-ups.

• NIDHI-Accelerator – Fast tracking a start-up through focused intervention

• NIDHI-Seed Support System (NIDHI-SSS)– Providing early stage investment.

• NIDHI Centres of Excellence (NIDHI-CoE) – A World class facility to help startups go Global.

NIDHI-EIR programme:

• The NIDHI-EIR programme provides tremendous opportunities for innovative entrepreneurs to expand their networks and get critical feedback on their ventures in order to promote their entrepreneurial career goals and aspirations.

• Two editions of the EIR program has shown overwhelming impacts and has resulted in 65% conversion into startups.

• Objectives :

✓ To encourage graduating student to take to entrepreneurship by providing support as a fellowship.

✓ To provide a prestigious forum for deserving and budding entrepreneurs to pursue their ventures without any additional risks involved in technology based businesses.

✓ To create, nurture and strengthen a pipeline of entrepreneurs for incubators.

✓ To make pursuing entrepreneurship related to a technology business idea more attractive among options available career options.

✓ To enable creation of new start-ups by entrepreneurs and significant progress towards raising funding or investment.

•Expected Outcome of the NIDHI-EIR:

✓ Conversion of at least 30 % of the support recipient’s ideas into start-up companies.

✓ At least 10% support recipient raising funds or investment for his or her company within 18 months of NIDHI-EIR support.

Quad should Ensure Freedom of Navigation in Indian Ocean.

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) of India said that India wants the Quad to become a system to “ensure Freedom of Navigation (FoN) and Freedom of Navigation Operations (FONOPS)” in the Indian Ocean, while highlighting the threat of a combined challenge from Pakistan and China on two fronts.

Quad Grouping:

• The full form of ‘Quad’ is Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

• It is an informal strategic dialogue between four countries i.e. United States, Japan,Australia and India.

• The idea of Quad or Quadrilateral Grouping was first proposed by Japanese prime minister in 2007.

Why the Grouping Stopped Working and When?

• Quad was ceased following the withdrawal of Australia. However, during the 2017 ASEAN Summits, all four former members rejoined in negotiations to revive the Quadrilateral Alliance.

Significance of Quad:

• It underlines the rising significance of maritime geopolitics in an increasingly integrated world.

• The Quad grouping is regarded as an answer to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, which is establishing a China-centric trade route.

• All the four countries share a vision for increased prosperity and security in the Indo-Pacific region and wants to work together to ensure that the Indo- Pacific remains free and open.

National Training Academy for Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes.

Ministry of Rural Development laid e-Foundation stone laying ceremony of new training Institute of National Academy of RUDSETI (NAR) at Bengaluru.

• The NAR undertakes monitoring, mentoring and capacity building of the Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes staff, State/UT Rural Livelihood Mission staff and the concerned Bank officials on behalf of the Ministry of Rural Development.

• At present, these trainings are conducted in rented premises in Bengaluru or different premises in States/UTs.

Rural Development & Self-Employment Training Institute (RUDSETI):

• It is society established jointly by three agencies i.e. Syndicate Bank, Canara Bank and SDME Trust (Sri Dharmasthala Manjunatheshwara Education Trust) based at Ujire in Karnataka.

 • The Initiative was taken way back in 1982.

Government of India, Ministry of Rural Development (MORD) has recognized RUDSETI approach of promoting micro enterprises as an effective model for addressing unemployment problem & creation of sustainable livelihood.

Rural Self-Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs):

• RSETIs are unique initiative where State Governments, the Union Govt. and the commercial Banks are working together to address the issue of rural poverty.

• The institutions designed as to ensure necessary skill training and skill up gradation of the rural BPL youth to mitigate the unemployment problem.

• RSETI concept is based on RUDSETI (Rural Development and Self- Employment Training Institute).

• One RSETI is established in every district in the country. Concerned bank is the lead bank in the district takes responsibility for creating and managing it.

• Government of India will provide one – time grant assistance, up to a maximum of Rs. 1 crore for meeting the expenditure on construction of building and other infrastructure.

Objectives:

• Rural BPL youth will be identified and trained for self-employment.

• The trainings offered will be demand driven.

• Area in which training will be provided to the trainee will be decided after assessment the candidate’s aptitude.

• Hand holding support will be provided for assured credit linkage with banks.

• Escort services will be provided for at least for two years soon to ensure sustainability of micro enterprise trainees.

• The trainees will be provided intensive short-term residential self-employment training programmes with free food and accommodation.

• Programme Structure under RSETIs

✓ Agricultural Programmes

✓ Product Programmes

✓ Process Programmes

✓ General Programmes – Skill Development Programmes for Women etc.

✓ Other Programmes – related to sectors like Leather, Construction, Hospitality and Other.

Saudi demands fair solution of Palestinian cause.

Saudi Arabia supports a “fair” solution for the Palestinian cause, King Salman has told Donald Trump in a phone call, as the U.S. President praised the kingdom for opening its airspace to Israel-UAE flights.

Saudi Arabia has said it will not follow the United Arab Emirates, which announced last month it would establish diplomatic ties with Israel, until the Jewish state has signed a peace accord with the Palestinians.

In a phone call to Mr. Trump on Sunday, King Salman affirmed the “kingdom’s keenness to reach a lasting and fair solution to the Palestinian cause to bring peace”, the official Saudi Press Agency reported.

Last week, Saudi Arabia agreed to permit Israeli-UAE flights to “all countries” to overfly the kingdom.

Chair protest held in Berlin over migrants cause.

Activists are setting up thousands of chairs outside the German parliament in Berlin to underline their calls to take in migrants from an overcrowded camp on a Greek island.

The 13,000 chairs being set up in front of the Reichstag building today are meant to symbolize the inhabitants of the Moria camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, as well the readiness of some German cities and states to take migrants in.

Sea-rescue activist groups say that the first confirmed coronavirus case at Moria adds urgency to long-standing calls for the camp's evacuation.

RBI brings in norms for resolution of COVID-19 related stressed assets

The Reserve Bank on Monday specified five financial ratios and sector-specific thresholds for resolution of COVID-19 related stressed assets in 26 sectors, including auto components, aviation, and tourism.

The key financial ratios suggested by the K.V. Kamathcommittee are total outside liabilities/adjusted tangible networth; total debt/EBITDA; current ratio, which is current assets divided by current liabilities; debt service coverage ratio; and average debt service coverage ratio.

The 26 sectors specified by the RBI include automobiles, power, tourism, cement, chemicals, gems and jewellery, logistics, mining, manufacturing, real estate, and shipping among others.

The RBI said the ratios prescribed “are intended as floors or ceilings, as the case may be, but the resolution plans shall take into account the pre-COVID-19 operating and financial performance of the borrower and impact of COVID-19 on its operating and financial performance at the time of finalising the resolution plan, to assess the cashflows in subsequent years, while stipulating appropriate ratios in each case.”

It also said lending institutions may, at their discretion, adopt a graded approach depending on the severity of the impact on borrowers while implementing the resolution plan.

Government plans to align agri planning with change in climate and rainfall patterns.

The government plans to review crop planting across the country to align agricultural planning with changes in climate and rainfall patterns.

The focus of this exercise is to move towards precision agriculture with optimum water and nutrient use through drip, fertigation, conservation agriculture, mechanization.

The plan for each zone broadly will deal with the necessary diversification of crops with relation to climate change, farm mechanisation, adoption of agro-forestry systems including medicinal plants with integration of animal husbandry in arid region, export promotion and maximising farmers’ income of that region through scientific interventions.

“Climate changes are happening across the globe. We need to realign our crop planning as per the changes in climate and monsoon pattern. This will increase our productivity and help select right crop to plant,” said agriculture commisioner S K Malhotra.

Project Dolphin.

Recently,Indian PM Modi has Announced the government’s plan to implement a Project Dolphin which he announced in his recent Independence Day Speech (15thAugust 2020).

About Project Dolphin:

• It will be on the lines of Project Tiger, which has helped increase the tiger population.

• It got in-principle approval in December 2019, at the first meeting of the National Ganga Council (NGC), headed by the Prime Minister.

• It is expected to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.

• Special Conservation program needs to be taken up for Gangetic Dolphin which is a national aquatic animal and also indicator species for the river Ganga spread over several states. As the Gangetic dolphin is at the top of the food chain, protecting the species and its habitat will ensure conservation of aquatic lives of the river.

• The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), which implements the government’s flagshipscheme Namami Gange, has been taking some initiatives for saving dolphins.

Gangetic Dolphin:

• Its Scientific Name is Platanista gangetica.

• These are generally blind and catch their prey in a unique manner. They emit an ultrasonic sound which reaches the prey. These are also called susu.

• It is found mainly in the Indian subcontinent, particularly in Ganga-Brahmaputra-Meghna and Karnaphuli-Sangu river systems. It is also found in the Ganga’s tributaries.

• It is protected in the First Schedule of the Indian Wildlife (Protection), Act 1972 and listed as Endangered by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

• Appendix I (most endangered) of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

• Appendix II (migratory species that need conservation and management or would significantly benefit from international co-operation) of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS).

DRDO test fires hypersonic scramjet technology

The hypersonic air-breathing scramjet technology was successfully demonstrated by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on Monday with a flight test of the hypersonic technology demonstrator vehicle (HSTDV), which will lead to the development of hypersonic cruise missiles and vehicles in future.

With this technology, cruise missiles could now travel at hypersonic speeds, a defence source said. “Scramjet engine is a major breakthrough. Air goes inside the engine at supersonic speed and comes out at hypersonic speeds,” the source noted.

The vehicle reaches a certain altitude, then cruises and also reaches very high temperatures, up to 1,000°-2,000° Celsius, during re-entry. “After the Anti-Satellite Test, this is the biggest achievement recently,” the source pointed out.

 Focus on mains:

Moplah Rioters’ not Freedom Fighters: Report.

A report submitted to the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) in 2016 had recommended the de-listing of Wagon Tragedy victims and Malabar Rebellion leaders Ali Musliyar, Variamkunnath Ahmad Haji, and the latter’s two brothers from a book on martyrs of India’s freedom struggle.

About the News:

• The book, Dictionary of Martyrs: India’s Freedom Struggle 1857-1947, was released by Indian PM Modi in 2019.

• The dictionary had left the Sangh Parivar leaders red-faced when the Moplah leaders, whom they believe killed hundreds of Hindus and converted many to Islam, found place on the list of freedom fighters.

• C.I. Issac, an ICHR member, had submitted the 2016 report to the council when the fifth volume covering martyrs of freedom struggle from south India came up for review.

• The review report noted that “almost all the Moplah outrages were communal. They were against the Hindu society and done out of sheer intolerance. Thus the following names should be deleted from the yet-to-be published project.

About Moplah Rebellion:

• The Moplah Rebellion, also known as the Moplah Riots of 1921 was the culmination of a series of riots by Mappila Muslims of Kerala in the 19th and early 20th centuries against the British and the Hindu landlords in Malabar (Northern Kerala).

• It was an armed revolt led by Variyamkunnath Kunjahammed Haji.

Background of Moplah Rebellion:

• Muslims had arrived in Kerala in the 7th century AD as traders via the Arabian Sea even before north India was invaded by Muslim armies from the west.

• They were given permission to carry on trade and settle by the native rulers. Many of them married local women and their descendants came to be called Moplahs (which means son-in-law in Malayalam).

• Before Tipu Sultan’s attack on Malabar, in the traditional land system in Malabar, the Jenmi or the landlord held the land which was let out to others for farming. There were mainly three hierarchical levels of ownership including the cultivator, and each of them took a share of the produce.

• The Moplahs were mostly cultivators of the land under this system and the Jenmis were upper caste Hindus.

• Many Hindu landlords fled Malabar to neighbouring areas to avoid persecution and forced conversions.

• During this time, the Moplah tenants were accorded ownership rights to the lands.

• After the death of Tipu Sultan in 1799 in the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War, Malabar came under British authority as part of the Madras Presidency.

• The British set out to restore ownership rights to the Jenmis who had earlier fled the region.

• Jenmis were now given absolute ownership rights of the land which was not the case previously.

• The peasants were now facing high rents and a lack of security of tenure.

• This caused a series of riots by the Moplahs starting from 1836. Between 1836 and 1896, they killed many government officers and Hindu landlords.

The course of Moplah Rebellion:

• The Khilafat Movement had started in 1919 in India in support of the restoration of the caliphate in Turkey. The Indian National Congress (INC) was aligned with it.

• The Khilafat meetings in Malabar incited communal feelings among the Moplahs and it became a movement directed against the British as well as the Hindu landlords of Malabar.

• There was large-scale violence which saw systematic persecution of Hindus and British officials. Many homes and temples were destroyed.

• The prominent leaders of the rebellion were Ali Musaliyar and Variyankunnath Kunjahammed Haji.

• From August 1921 till about the end of the year, the rebels had under their control large parts of Malabar.

• By the end of the year, the rebellion was crushed by the British who had raised a special battalion, the Malabar Special Force for the riot.

• In November 1921, 67 Moplah prisoners were killed when they were being transported in a closed freight wagon from Tirur to the Central Prison in Podanur. They died of suffocation.

This event is called the Wagon Tragedy.

Consequences of Moplah Rebellion:

• The Moplah Rebellion is often considered as one of the first cases of nationalist uprisings in Southern India. However, it is widely debated as a few experts mention the Moplah revolt to have a communal touch. Some say that it has to be considered as the struggle against British supremacy while some mention that it culminated in an Anti -Hindu movement.

• The brutal violence, widespread forceful conversions, and destruction of property suggest that the motive went beyond what could have arisen from class conflict and took on religious colours.

• Sir C Shankaran Nair, a former President of the INC, criticised Gandhi’s support of the Khilafat Movement as one of the causes of the violence.