Comprehensive Current affairs 18 October 2020

Stay on civil/criminal proceedi not exceed beyond 6 months,claims SC

Any stay on civil or criminal proceedings is valid for a period of six months, beyond which the trial will resume, the Supreme Court held in an order on Friday.

“Whatever stay has been granted by any court, including the High Court, automatically expires within a period of six months,” a Bench led by Justice Rohinton F. Nariman said.

An extension of the stay has to be granted only for a “good reason.”The Bench was reiterating a 2013 judgment in the Asian Resurfacing of Road Agency Pvt. Ltd case.

“The speaking order must show that the case was of such exceptional nature that continuing the stay was more important than having the trial finalised,” the court said.

The judgment was concerned with the case of refusal of a magistrate court in Pune to resume trial as the Bombay High Court had previously stayed the proceedings.

 “We must remind the magistrates all over the country that in our pyramidical structure under the Constitution of India, the Supreme Court is at the apex, and the High Courts, though not subordinate administratively, are certainly subordinate judicially. This kind of orders fly in the face of our judgment . We expect that the magistrates all over the country will follow our order in letter and spirit,” the Supreme Court observed.

Government aims to make country free from transfat by 2022.

Indian Health Minister Harsh said that the aim of the government is to make India Trans Fat free by 2022, a year ahead of target set by World Health Organization .

Chairing the event on World Food Day organized by FSSAI, Harsh Vardhan said, due to the unprecedented challenges faced by the world on account of the Covid pandemic, there has been a renewed focus on food, nutrition, health, immunity and sustainability. He said, focus this year is on elimination of Trans Fats from the food supply chain.

The Minister said, Trans Fat, a food toxin present in Partially Hydrogenated Vegetable Oils, baked and fried foods, is a major contributor to the rise in non-communicable diseases in India.

Digital Education in Kerala .

Recently, Kerala has become the first state in the country to have high-tech classrooms or high-tech labs in all government-run and aided schools.

Highlights:

• It is a part of this flagship project of the government, high-tech labs have been set up in primary and upper primary schools and 40,000 classrooms in high school and higher secondary schools have been converted into smart classrooms.

• The High-speed broadband internet has been ensured in 12,678 schools. The high-tech classroom project was implemented by Kerala Infrastructure and Technology for Education (KITE), the nodal agency for ICT education in schools.

 • The government has also started digital classrooms known as ‘First bell’ to impart education to 41 lakh students in the state after schools shut due to the lockdown

• It is also carrying out a unique programme called “Namath Basai”of teaching tribal children in their mother tongue.

• The programme is being implemented by the Samagra Shiksha Kerala (SSK).

• The Central government has proposed long-term measures to address social inequities in online education, as highlighted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

• The digital education in India still faces many challenges like lack of internet penetration, economic inequality, lack of trained teachers etc.

Israeli parliament back peace deal with UAE.

Israel’s Parliament voted on Thursday in favour of normalisation of ties with the United Arab Emirates after a marathon debate with over 100 speeches lasting more than eight hours.

A total of 80 lawmakers voted to approve the U.S.-brokered agreement, with 13 from the Arab-led Joint List against.

“This historic agreement will bring us closer to other countries in the region to sign other peace agreements,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

He said Israel had contact with another country in the region for the first time, but did not reveal its name.

The UAE in August became the first Arab state to establish relations with Israel since Egypt in 1979 and Jordan in 1994. It was quickly followed by Bahrain.

The U.S.-brokered deals were formalised at the White House on September 15.The West Asia agreements were condemned by the Palestinians as a “betrayal”.

 India-Chile holds joint commission meeting for the first time.

India and Chile held their first joint commission meeting yesterday and agreed to add new momentum to their relations in a wide range of fields including trade and commerce, agriculture, health and social security, defence and space.

The meeting held virtually was co-chaired by External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and his Chilean counterpart Andres Allamand Zavala. Both sides noted that the Joint Commission was a significant development in India - Chile relations, being the first institutionalized dialogue between the two countries at the level of Foreign Ministers.

India welcomed Chile's decision to designate India as a priority country in its foreign policy. Chile will also be opening its Consulate General in Mumbai.

Based on their convergence of views on many global and regional issues, both sides agreed to coordinate closely at the multilateral fora.

The External Affairs Minister underlined Prime Minister NarendraModi's vision of Atmanirbhar Bharat for enhancing resilience through self-reliance and human-centric globalization as the basis for India's economic revival. He invited Chile to take advantage of India's new economic capacities and growing market.

Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojana (ABVKY) to ensure wages to those who became unemployed due to lockdown.

The government is launching a campaign, AtalBeemitVyaktiKalyanYojana (ABVKY), to ensure that Employees’ State Insurance Corporation-registered workers who had lost their jobs during the lockdown can claim of 50% of their wages for up to three months as unemployment relief even if they have resumed work.

The move is seen as an outreach to those displaced by the lockdown and blunt the criticism that the government did not take care of migrant and factory workers, who were the worst hit. Sourcessaid that the documents will need to be submitted physically as the beneficiaries are not linked to Aadhaar.

Ministry sources said the scheme has started to receive nearly 400 claims daily since the labour ministry and ESIC decided to extend ABVKY last month, when it also decided to bump up the rate of unemployment relief from the existing 25% of wages to 50% of wages.

While unemployment benefits could only be available following submissions through employers, the labour ministry has now permitted claims to be made directly to designated ESIC branch office. ESIC services nearly 3.4 crore families through medical insurance cover and cash benefits to almost 13.5 crore beneficiaries.

Under the new social security code law, the government has also decided on extending ESIC services to all 740 districts of the country, for which labour ministry officials said they have tied up with hospitals empanelled under the Ayushman Bharat scheme and 3rdparty service providers.

India-International food and agri week inaugurated.

Indian Food Processing Industries Minister virtually inaugurated the India - International Food and Agri Week. According to reports Indian food processing sector is 32 per cent of India’s food market.

Proper marketing and latest technology can lead to greater development of the agriculture sector and significant steps have been taken in this direction. He added that with 3.4 per cent GDP growth rate agriculture sector has contributed hugely to India’s economic growth even during Covid times.

Food Processing Ministry has started an awareness campaign named ‘Anna DevoBhava’ to mark this occasion. Minister stressed that along with increasing awareness about the value of food we must also focus on reducing food wastage.

Study finds global climate events in 3200 years may have impacted Indian monsoons.

 Global climatic events like the Roman Warm Period, Medieval Climate Anomaly, and the Little Ice Age may have had significant impacts on India's landscape, vegetation, and socio-economic growth, with abrupt shifts in the Indian Summer Monsoon (ISM) coinciding with these climatic events, a study by Indian researchers has found.

The study by the Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, an institute of the Department of Science & Technology, shows wet monsoon conditions in the North-Western Himalaya between 1200 and 550 BCE.

This condition prevailed till 450 AD, coinciding with the Roman Warm Period. It was followed by reduced precipitation and a weak ISM till 950 AD and then strengthened during the Medieval Climate Anomaly between 950 and 1350 AD.

In a recent study published in the journal 'Quaternary International', researchers obtained grain size data, stable isotope ratios of carbon and nitrogen, total organic carbon (TOC), and total nitrogen data from the sediments of the lake.

The findings pointed out a revival of wet climatic conditions with a strong ISM around 1600 AD following the Little Ice Age, which prevails in present times.

The variability of ISM in the historical past needs to be ascertained to understand present, and future behaviour of ISM as climate shifts and water supply has dictated the flourish and demise of ancient civilisations, the study said.

Biological Plant-Virus Arms Race Uncovered.

A recent study with researchers from National Centre of Biological Sciences (NCBS-TIFR), Bengaluru, has discovered that a virus called Synedrella Yellow Vein Clearing Virus and the plants it attacks.

• The virus was isolated by the researchers from a plant named Synedrella nodiflora, and it was able to infect tobacco and tomato plant in their studies.

Synedrella Yellow Vein Clearing Virus:

 • Synedrella Yellow Vein Clearing Virus is a representative of the Begomovirus family of viruses.

• Begomoviruses are a large family with about 400 members.

• They infect economically important plants and are a major reason for crop loss.

Arms Race:

• The virus first attacks the plant, and the plant has defences that are actually counter-attacks – mechanisms that seek to destroy the virus.

• In turn, the virus develops a counter-counter-attack by trying to escape being destroyed by the plant’s mechanisms.

• In the case of Synedrella Yellow Vein Clearing Virus: When the virus attacks the plant, it produces vein-clearing symptoms which make the plant look beautiful.

• It actually makes it difficult for the plant to produce flowers and fruits.

• In turn, the plant develops defence mechanisms to destroy the virus. It targets the protein called BetaC1 made by the virus which helps in successful infection and intracellular movement within the plant.

• Plants degrade BetaC1 protein of virus by tagging this protein with another smaller protein called ubiquitin.

Focus on Mains:

Government designates single SBI branch for all FCRA accounts

The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has asked all NGOs seeking foreign donations to open a designated FCRA account at the State Bank of India’s New Delhi branch by March 31, 2021.

About the News:

• The MHA order reiterated that NGOs registered under FCRA shall not receive any foreign donations in any other bank account from April 1, 2021.

 • In September, the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act, 2020 was amended by Parliament and a new provision that makes it mandatory for all non-government organisations and associations to receive foreign funds in a designated bank account at

SBI’s New Delhi branch was inserted.

• An order specifying the process of opening the FCRA bank account was issued by the MHA recently. As of now there are 22,434 such NGOs and associations active under the FCRA.

What does the Order Say?

• The order said an NGO will have to report the amount and source of foreign remittance received to the authorities.

• The order said the Centre has notified the New Delhi Main Branch (NDMB) of SBI, 11 Sansad Marg, New Delhi-110001 for the purposes of opening the “FCRA account” to receive foreign contribution.

• MHA said to open the account, the applicant need not visit the NDMB in Delhi and they might approach the nearest SBI branch or their SBI branch of choice.

• It said that all persons/associations/NGOs that are already registered under FCRA will get sufficient time to transition to the new system and can open accounts at NDMB till March 31, 2021.

• However, all fresh applicants for certificate of registration or prior permission under the FCRA, 2010, shall have to first open the FCRA account in the NDMB to receive any foreign contribution.

• It is further clarified that the applicant person/NGO/ association has complete liberty to retain its present FCRA account as the FCRA account in any branch of a scheduled bank of its choice. They can link this account with the designated FCRA account opened in NDMB, Delhi. MHA also said adding that NDMB will not levy any fee to transfer the foreign funds to the designated FCRA account.

 Other Amendments Made:

• It seeks to prohibit ‘public servants’ from receiving any Foreign Funding.

• It proposes to reduce the use of foreign funds to meet administrative costs by NGOs from the existing 50 per cent to 20 per cent.

• It seeks to “prohibit any transfer of foreign contribution to any association/person”.

• It proposes to make Aadhaar cards a mandatory identification document for all office-bearers, directors and other key functionaries of NGOs or Associations eligible to receive Foreign Donations.

Controversial Provisions:

• To allow for the central government to hold a summary inquiry to direct bodies with FCRA approval to “not utilise the unutilised foreign contribution or receive the remaining portion of foreign contribution”.

• To limit the use of foreign funds for administrative purposes. This would impact research and advocacy organisations which use the funding to meet their administrative costs.

Main Criticisms:

• The Bill will enhance government power and restrict foreign-funded civil society work in India.

• It can be used as a means to “target those who speak against the government”.

• It will curtail the ease of doing business for civil society organisations.

Why these Amendments are Necessary?

• The need to strengthen the Act has arisen due to several organisations “misutilising or misappropriating” the funds leading to the government cancelling 19,000 such registrations in the past Few Years.

 • The annual inflow of foreign contribution has almost doubled between the years 2010 and 2019, but many recipients of foreign contribution have not utilised the same for the purpose for which they were registered or granted prior permission under the said Act.

• Criminal investigations also had to be initiated against dozens of such non-governmental organisations which indulged in outright misappropriation or mis-utilisation of foreign Contribution.