Comprehensive Current affairs 4 October 2020

 Apex Court asserts states cannot declare slowdown as public emergency.

The State cannot declare the slowdown caused by the pandemic a “public emergency” to curtail the rights of people, the Supreme Court.

The pandemic had not resulted in an “internal disturbance” of a nature that posed a “grave emergency” whereby the security of India was threatened, it said.

A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud observed that the sweeping powers of the State to declare a public emergency could only be wielded in case of “threat to the security of India or a part of the territory must be caused by war, external aggression or an internal disturbance”.

In a 41-page judgment, Justice Chandrachud observed: “We find that the economic slowdown created by the COVID-19 pandemic does not qualify as an internal disturbance threatening the security of the State”.

 The verdict dealt with blanket notifications issued by the Gujarat government denying factory workers overtime wages during the lockdown by invoking its powers of declaring a public emergency under Section 5 of the Factories Act.

GoI claims over 99% of Indian cities as open defecation free.

Government today said that more than 99 per cent of the cities across the country have become Open Defecation Free, ODF. Housing and Urban Affairs Ministry today celebrated six glorious years of Swachh Bharat Mission - urban and organised a webinar on ‘Swachhatake 6 saal, Bemisaal.

•Speaking on the ocassion, Housing and Urban Affairs Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said, it is time to reaffirm pledge for Swachhatam Bharat, Swasthatam Bharat - Cleaner and healthier India.

•He said this spirit of Jan Andolan and Jan Bhagidari is exemplified by the SwachhSurvekshan 2020 in which over 12 crores of citizens have participated in the survey. The Minister said, when Swachh Bharat Mission- urban was launched in 2014, it was with the vision of achieving Clean India by 2nd October 2019, the 150th birth anniversary of the Father of the Nation.

EU takes legal action against U.K over Brexit bill.

The European Union took legal action against Britain on Thursday over its plans to pass legislation that would breach parts of the legally binding divorce agreement the two sides reached late last year.

The EU move underscored the worsening relations with Britain, which was a member of the bloc until January 31. Both sides are trying to forge a rudimentary free trade agreement before the end of the year, but the fight over the controversial U.K. Internal Market Bill has soured relations this month.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said that the British plan “by its very nature is a breach of the obligation of good faith laid down in the Withdrawal Agreement.”

 EU leaders fear that if the U.K. Bill becomes law, it could lead to the re-imposition of a hard land border between Northern Ireland, which is part of Britain, and EU member Ireland, and erode the stability that has underpinned peace since the 1998 Good Friday accord.

British lawmakers voted 340-256 on Tuesday to push the legislation past its last major hurdle in the House of Commons.

Vietnam says Chinese military drills could hurt talks.

Vietnam said on Thursday that military drills conducted this week by Beijing in the South China Sea will hurt negotiations on a regional maritime code of conduct (COC) for the disputed waters.

The exercises could complicate efforts to restart talks on a long-awaited code between China and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Le Thi Thu Hang told a regular briefing.

China on Monday began five military exercises simultaneously along different parts of its coast, including two exercises near Paracel Islands also claimed by Vietnam. “The resumption of code of conduct (COC) negotiations after a long pause because of the (coronavirus) pandemic is the priority of ASEAN countries and China,” Ms. Hang said.

Vietnam shared that priority and “looks forward to concluding the COC in an effective, comprehensive way”, in line with international law, Ms. Hang said.

Finance ministry grants permission for additional grants to 2 states.

Union Finance Ministry has granted additional borrowing permission to Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh for successfully undertaking reforms in the Public Distribution System (PDS) and Ease of Doing Business. This will make an additional amount of seven thousand 376 crore rupees available to these states.

In view of the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic, the Union Government had in May this year allowed additional borrowing limit of up to two per cent of Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) to the states for the current financial year.

 This made an amount up to four lakh 27 thousand 302 crore rupees available to the states. One per cent of this additional borrowing limit is subject to implementation of four specific state-level reforms, where weightage of each reform is 0.25 per cent of GSDP.

These reforms include implementation of One Nation, One Ration Card System, Ease of Doing Business reforms, Urban Local body reforms and Power Sector reforms.

Earlier last week, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Karnataka and Tripura were granted permission to raise additional financial resources of nine thousand 913 crore rupees through Open Market Borrowings upon successfully meeting the reform conditions of implementation of One Nation, One Ration Card System.

Andhra Pradesh has now become the first state in the country to successfully undertake Ease of Doing Business reforms as well and has therefore become eligible to raise an additional amount of two thousand 525 crore rupees through Open Market Borrowings.

GST collections indicate economic recovery.

Ministry of Finance has said that the gross Goods and Services Tax, GST revenue collection in the month of September stood at 95 thousand 480 crore rupees. The revenue collection in September is the highest so far during this fiscal.

Out of total GST collection, Central GST is 17 thousand 741 crore rupees, State GST is 23 thousand 131 crore rupees, Integrated GST is 47 thousand 484 crore rupees and Cess is 7 thousand 124 crore rupees.

The Ministry in a statement said, the total revenue earned by Central Government and the State Governments after regular settlement in the month of September is over 39 thousand crore rupees for CGST and 40 thousand 128 crore rupees for the SGST.

 Researchers develop sutures with nano fibre yarns.

A team of researchers at IIT Madras is ready with a prototype of suture thread made of nanofiber yarns that is bio-absorbable and can deliver a higher load of antibiotics and/or therapeutics at the site itself.

The suture material uses nanofibers woven as yarn using certain specific techniques, and the strength can be varied depending on the target tissue (skin, muscle, cartilage), explains Rama S. Verma of the Stem Cell and Molecular Biology laboratory, Department of Biotechnology, IIT Madras. Each strand has a good tensile strength, besides degrading rapidly and mimics the collagen fibrils of body tissues, he adds.

Several innovations globally in suture material have advanced infection control and achieved in some cases, better recovery among patients, even as other options such as staples, glues and strips have become available.

Nanofiber yarns are thread-like structures formed by twisting together hundreds of nanofibers, Prof. Verma explains. The way the nanofibers mimicked the collagen fibril sparked the idea in a lab that primarily works on scaffold-based tissue engineering to create thread like structures by twisting nanofibers together using custom-made machinery.

“Several experiments were done to prove its compatibility, mechanical strength, stem cell interaction, immune responses, and antibacterial property, and they were compatible with prescribed norms in surgical procedure,” Prof. Verma claims.