Comprehensive Current affairs 29 October 2020

 CJI claims online court proceedings susceptible to abuse.

Attorney General of India K.K. Venugopal on Monday pushed for live-streaming court proceedings to make hearings accessible to all.

But Chief Justice of India Sharad A. Bobde, heading a three-judge Bench of the Supreme Court, sounded a cautionary note, saying it was susceptible to “abuses.”

He reminded the Supreme Court of its own judgment of September 2018 in favour of “opening up” the apex court through live-streaming. The order has remained unimplemented. Mr.Venugopal hinted that the pandemic offered a fresh opportunity.

Justice Chandrachud was one of the three judges on the Bench that gave the verdict on live-streaming in September 2018. In fact, he had noted in his separate opinion that live-streaming would be the true realisation of the “open court system.” Mr.Venugopal had assisted that Bench as amicus curiae. His suggestions were later adopted as guidelines in the 2018 judgment.

 

The issue of live-streaming came up as a Special Bench led by the CJI was taking stock of the virtual court system initiated after the lockdown. Justice Chandrachud, on the Bench along with Justice L. NageswaraRao, said each High Court could make rules for itself and trial courts under it for the virtual system. Uniform rules would prove difficult owing to the difference in connectivity and e-literacy.

Naidu launches Parampara series-2020.

India's Vice President Venkaiah Naidu today said that music and dance can provide relief from the anxiety caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Launching the virtual festival of ‘Parampara Series 2020-National Festival of Music and Dance’ organized by NatyaTarangini in partnership with the United Nations, he said that music and dance make lives more fulfilling by rejuvenating and energising.

He added that they bring harmony into lives and nourish inner spirit by dispelling gloom and despair.

He appreciated Natya Tarangini for organising the ‘Parampara Series’ continuously since past 23 years, and adopting innovative efforts to make it happen for the 24th year, even in difficult times like this.

Productive-Linked Incentive Scheme.

The Government is planned to extend the production-linked incentive (PLI) scheme to eight more sectors to boost Domestic Manufacturing.

Highlights:

• It is an outcome- and output-oriented scheme where incentives will be paid only if the manufacturers make the goods.

 

 

 

• It will give cash incentives for five to seven years and all the sunrise and important sectors are proposed to be covered in this. The sectors may be automobile, networking products, food processing, advanced chemistry and solar PV manufacturing.

• The Need for the scheme are

✓ Sunrise sectors are promising sectors but they may need support in the initial stage.

✓ Export base can be developed in sectors under PLI scheme.

✓ There is a growing demand in the world for diversification in supply chains and India can become a major player.

• With the view to make India a manufacturing hub, the government launched the PLI scheme for mobile phones (electronic manufacturing) and it was extended to pharma products and medical equipment sectors.

• It is for Large Scale Electronics Manufacturing. It proposes a financial incentive to boost domestic manufacturing and attract large investments in the electronics value chain including electronic components and semiconductor packaging.

• The electronics manufacturing companies will get an incentive of 4 to 6% on incremental sales (over base year) of goods manufactured in India for a period of next 5 years.

• It shall only be applicable for target segments namely mobile phones and specified Electronic Components.

• The government estimates that with the PLI scheme, domestic value addition for mobile phones is expected to rise to 35-40% by 2025 from the current level of 20-25% and generate additional 8 lakh jobs, both direct and indirect.

 

 

 

UNSG welcomes Armenia-Azerbaijan ceasefire agreement.

UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres welcomed the joint statement yesterday by the United States, Armenia and Azerbaijan announcing that a previously reached humanitarian cease-fire agreement will take effect from today, said spokesperson of UN Secretary StephaneDujarric, in a statement in NewYork.

Guterres commended the facilitation efforts of the United States, with the support of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

The secretary-general expected the parties to abide by all their commitments and to work jointly together with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to take concrete steps toward a peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, said the statement.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at loggerheads over the mountainous region of Nagorno-Karabakh since 1988. Peace talks have been held since 1994 when a cease-fire was reached, but there have been sporadic minor clashes. A new round of armed conflict broke out along the contact line on September 27.

BRICS parliamentary forum meeting held.

LokSabha Speaker Om Birla today said that BRICS countries need to intensify their collective fight against terrorism which poses the biggest threat to humankind. Virtually addressing the meeting of the 6th BRICS Parliamentary Forum, Mr Birla said, as people’s representatives, parliamentarians can no longer be silent bystanders and they must unite to fight the challenges of terrorism and violent extremism.

He emphasized that the funding of all terrorist activities must be stopped immediately and the conditions that are conducive to the spread of terrorism and violent extremism need to be addressed and resolved at the earliest.

Mr Birla stressed that the Parliaments of BRICS countries must use international platforms to highlight their collective resolve to support all treaties and agreements that prevent terrorism.

 

The LokSabha Speaker mentioned that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused the tragic death of millions of people, severe economic challenges and disruption of everyday life. He added that if ever there was any greater need for international unity and cooperation then it is now.

Mr Birla said, despite their differences, BRICS countries share a common vision of a just and fair world, free of poverty, hunger and disease and where every human being is born equal in dignity.

He said, BRICS countries have to ensure that the outbreak of the pandemic does not jeopardize the progress towards achievement of the Agenda 2030 of Sustainable Development Goals and that they remain committed to work together to achieve the goals of Zero hunger, poverty eradication and an inclusive and just world.

RBI claims COVID to erode fiscal consolidation efforts of states.

The additional outgo to combat the impact of COVID-19 will significantly erode the fiscal consolidation achieved by the State governments in the past three years, the RBI said in a report on Tuesday.

• In its study of the State budgets of 2020-21,the RBI has dwelled on ‘COVID-19 and its Spatial Dimensions in India’ and said that Gross Fiscal Deficit (GFD) of the States would spiral during the current fiscal.

• Observing that the quality of spending and the credibility of State budgets will assume critical importance, it said, “The next few years are going to be challenging for the States. They have played an important role in the frontline of the defence against the pandemic. Going forward, they need to remain empowered to provide growth impulses to the Indian economy and build resilience against future pandemics as well.

• “Sustaining the recovery from the pandemic will reshape State finances, entailing boosting investment in health care systems and other social safety nets in line with the States’ demographic and co-morbidity profiles,” it added.

 

 

• States’ responses by delaying or cutting down expenditures, even wages and salaries, also need to be taken into account in the assessment of the pandemic’s effects on State finances.

7) .FinMin expects economy to bounce back as the fastest growing from next year.

The Indian economy may contract or stagnate this fiscal but it will bounce back to be among the fastest growing in the world next year, Finance Minister Sitharaman said.

••Demand revival and the government’s focus on infrastructure, agriculture and related sectors, along with support to sovereign funds and pension funds will drive economic growth, she said at the India Energy Forum by CERAweek. The highest level seen in manufacturing PMI since 2012 signalled revival, she said.

Sitharaman said demand for durable goods, agricultural equipment, tractors, vehicles are all going up in India. “The festival season has commenced in India, as a result of which I expect the demand to go up, and therefore be sustainable also,” she said.

Infrastructure spending is the government’s top priority, she said. The sector is attracting domestic and foreign funds, she added.

The finance minister said investment in efficient and clean energy was another focus area of the government. These included the country’s ambitious plan to expand clean energy generation, incentives to produce ethanol from stored grains and incentives to use biomass to produce energy.

Affordability of Nutritious Diets in Rural India.

According to a recently published paper, titled “Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India”, by an economist of the International Food Policy Research Institute, three out of four rural Indians cannot afford a Nutritious Diet.

Background:

• Economic Survey’s Thalinomics provided a rosier picture of meal costs.

 

 

• According to Thalinomics average worker in India’s organised manufacturing sector, the affordability of a plate of vegetarian food — comprising rice or roti, dal and sabzi — has improved 29% since 2006-07. For non-vegetarians, affordability has risen 18%.

• The Survey found that a worker who would have spent 70% of their daily wage on two vegetarian thalis a day for a household of five in 2006-07 would only have to spend 50% of their income for the meals in 2019-20

• This year, the most affordable meal was in Jharkhand, where two vegetarian thalis for a household of five required about 25% of a worker’s daily wage.

Current Study:

• Current study uses the wages of unskilled workers who make up a larger proportion of the population than industrial workers, and includes items such as dairy, fruit and dark green leafy vegetables that are essential as per India’s official dietary guidelines.

• The study used the latest available food price and wage information from the National Sample Survey’s 2011 Dataset.

Key Findings:

• The National Institute for Nutrition’s guidelines for a nutritionally adequate diet call for adult women to eat 330 gm of cereals and 75 gm of pulses a day, along with 300 gm of dairy, 100 gm of fruit, and 300 gm of vegetables, which should include at least 100 gm of dark green leafy vegetables. Selecting the cheapest options from actual Indian diets —wheat, rice, bajra, milk, curd, onions, radish, spinach, bananas — the study calculated that a day’s meals would cost ₹45 (or ₹51 for an adult man).

• Three out of four rural Indians cannot afford a nutritious diet. Even if they spent their entire income on food, almost two out of three of them would not have the money to pay for the cheapest possible diet that meets the requirements set by the government’s premier nutrition body.

 

 

• Even if they spent all their income on food, 63.3% of the rural population or more than 52 crore Indians would not be able to afford that nutritious meal.

• If they set aside just a third of their income for non-food expenses, 76% of rural Indians would not be able to afford the recommended diet. This does not even account for the meals of non-earning members of a household, such as children or older adults.

Importance of the Findings:

• The findings are significant in the light of the fact that India performs abysmally on many nutrition indicators even while the country claims to have achieved food security. Global Hunger Index showed that India has the world’s highest prevalence of child wasting, reflecting acute under nutrition.

• On indicators that simply measure calorie intake, India performs relatively better, but they do not account for the nutrition value of those calories.

• The observations made in the study go against the observations made in the recent Economic Survey. This year’s Economic Survey’s ‘Thalinomics’, had noted that the affordability of meals had increased in India.

Study finds Himalayan region to be tectonically active

The Himalayan or the Indus Suture Zone (ISZ) in the Ladakh region has been found to be tectonically active. Suture zone is the zone where the Indian and Asian Plates join each other. Until now, it was supposed to be a locked zone.

It has been observed that sedimentary beds are tilted and thrust broken. There is a remote fault zone in the suture zone which is tectonically active. The rivers at this zone are associated with uplifted terraces. The bedrock further shows brittle deformation at a shallower depths.

This region of the Indus Suture Zone (ISZ) was last active some 78000 — 58000 years back. However the recent Earthquake of 2010 near the village Upshi that occurred due to a thrust rupture.

 

The study also says that the Suture Zone of the Himalayas has been active in the recent years of the earth history.

This is thus one of the major reason for the frequent earthquakes in the northern India recently. Himalayas comprise of three thrusts- Main Central Thrust, Main Frontal Thrust and Main Boundary Thrust. The study says, Main Frontal Thrusts are locked and the overall deformation is occurring in the Main Frontal Thrust.

OSIRIS-REx Mission

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has recently touched down on the surface of asteroid Bennu to collect rock and dust samples.

About OSIRIS-REx Mission:

• The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft was launched in 2016 for the journey to Bennu.

• It is the United States’ first asteroid sample return mission, aiming to collect and carry a pristine, unaltered sample from an asteroid back to earth for scientific study.

• It is essentially a seven-year-long voyage and will conclude when at least 60 grams of samples are delivered back to the Earth (in 2023).

• The mission promises to bring the largest amount of extraterrestrial material back to the Earth since the Apollo era.

• The spacecraft contains five instruments meant to explore Bennu including cameras, a spectrometer and a laser altimeter.

• The spacecraft’s robotic arm called the Touch-And-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism (TAGSAM), made an attempt to “TAG” the asteroid at a sample site and collected a sample.

• The departure window for the mission will open up in 2021, after which it will take over two years to reach back to Earth.

 

About Asteroid Bennu:

• It is an ancient asteroid, currently more than 200 million miles from Earth.

• It offers scientists a window into the early solar system as it was first taking shape billions of years ago and tossing ingredients that could have helped seed life on Earth.

• It hasn’t undergone drastic changes since its formation over billions of years ago and therefore it contains chemicals and rocks dating back to the birth of the solar system. It is also relatively close to the Earth.

• It is known that this asteroid is a B-type asteroid, implying that it contains significant amounts of carbon and various other minerals.

• Because of its high carbon content, it reflects about 4% of the light that hits it, which is very low when compared with a planet like Venus, which reflects about 65% of the light that hits it. Earth reflects about 30%.

• Around 20-40% of Bennu’s interior is empty space and scientists believe that it was formed in the first 10 million years of the solar system’s formation, implying that it is roughly 4.5 billion years old.