Lok Virasat festival.
Films
Division (FD) is organising Lok Virasat, a festival of films on folk art and
painting starting from November 27, 2020.
About:
It
is an exclusive bouquet of documentary films on folk art and paintings - Lok
Virasat - is being showcased, between November 27–29, 2020 on FD website and
You Tube channel.
The
films being streamed include:
•
The Kingdom of God, on the great Indian heritage of art and culture with focus
on various folk-art traditions,
•
Bhavai - Fading Memories, a film on Bhavai - a folk art of Gujarat,
•
Naman – Khele, a film on the ancient folk art performed in Ratnagiri,
Maharashtra,
•
Sahi Jata, The Fusion Cult, a film on the unique fusion of muscle and music in
the form of folk art on the back-drop of the ancient Orissa town of Puri and
•
Therukoothu: Dancing forLife, a film depicting the age old Tamil folk art.
Several verdicts raise concerns of judicial overreach.
Vice
President said the Supreme Court and high courts had delivered several
far-reaching verdicts in furtherance of socio-economic objectives besides
making correctional interventions but concerns were raised whether orders on
Diwali fireworks, monitoring of investigations and making judicial appointments
their preserve meant an intrusion into the domains of the legislature and the
executive.
About:
Speaking
at the 80th All India Presiding Officers’ Conference in Kevadia, he told there
had been debates whether some issues should have been more legitimately left to
the other organs of governance.
Deepavali
fireworks, cess on registration and movement of vehicles from NCR through
Delhi,
Banning
use of vehicles of certain make after 10 or 15 years, monitoring police
investigations,
Denying
the executive any role in the appointment of judges by instituting collegium, invalidating
the National Judicial Accountability Commission Act seeking to ensure
transparency and accountability are being cited as instances of judicial
overreach.
He
said the legislature, the executive and the judiciary were bound to work within
their respective domains as defined in the Constitution. “This warrants a
spirit of mutual respect, responsibility and restraint. Unfortunately, there
have been several instances of crossing the boundaries,” he added.
Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC)
Recently,
Rajasthan government has planned two special investment regions along the
Delhi-Mumbai
Industrial Corridor (DMIC) to Generate Developmental opportunities for the
State.
Highlights:
•
The Government of India is developing various Industrial Corridor Projects as
part of the
National
Industrial Corridor programme which is aimed at development of futuristic industrial
cities in India which can compete with the best manufacturing and investment destinations
in the world.
•
The same will create employment opportunities and economic growth leading to
overall socio-economic development.
(DPIIT)
for coordinated and unified development of all the industrial corridors which
are at various stages of development and implementation.
About DMIC:
•
It is the first Industrial Corridor project which was announced. DMIC
Development Corporation (DMICDC) incorporated in 2008, is the implementing
agency for the project.
•
DMICDC has been registered as a company with 49% equity of Government of India,
26% equity of the JBIC (Japan Bank for International Cooperation) and the
remaining held by government financial institutions.
•
It aims to create smart, sustainable industrial cities by leveraging high speed,
high capacity connectivity backbone provided by the Western Dedicated Freight
Corridor (DFC) to reduce logistic costs in an enabling policy framework.
•
These new cities will come up in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Haryana,
Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Maharashtra.
•
The 1,504 kms long Western DFC is from J N Port in Mumbai, Maharashtra to Dadri
in the state of Uttar Pradesh.
•
The DFC project is one of the Indian Railways’ largest infrastructure projects,
undertaken by the government at a cost Rs. 81,459 crore. This is the first time
that India has embarked on the process of planned urbanisation with
manufacturing as the key economic driver.
•
Its vision is to create a strong economic base with a globally competitive
environment and state of the art infrastructure to activate local commerce,
enhance foreign investments and attain sustainable development.
The
United Nations earlier this month launched the Sanitation and Hygiene Fund to
provide accelerated funding to countries with the heaviest burden of diseases
stemming from lack of sanitation services and have the least ability to respond
to them.
It
also aims to raise $2 billion over the next five years for these countries.
The
fund is hosted by the UN Office for Project Services, which provides technical
advice and project implementation to the UN and its partners.
The objectives of the Fund are:
Expanding
household sanitation
Ensuring
menstrual health and hygiene
Providing
sanitation and hygiene in schools and healthcare facilities
Supporting
innovative sanitation solutions.
SITMEX– 20.
The
second edition of the India, Thailand and Singapore trilateral naval exercise
SITMEX-20 has recently concluded in the Andaman Sea.
Highlights:
•
The Prime Minister of India, during his keynote address at Shangri-La Dialogue
in June 2018 announced the conduct of a trilateral naval exercise between
India, Singapore and Thailand.
•
The International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) Shangri-La Dialogue is
Asia’s premier defence summit. It was launched in 2002.
•
The first edition of SITMEX is hosted by Indian Navy, was conducted off Port
Blair in
September
2019. SITMEX is conducted annually.
•
It also aims to strengthen mutual confidence and develop common understanding
and procedures towards enhancing the overall maritime security in the
Indo-Pacific region.
•
It is in line with India’s SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region)
vision.
•
The 2020 edition of the exercise is being hosted by RSN (Singapore).
•
The Indian Navy deployed indigenous Anti-Submarine Warfare corvette INS Kamorta
and missile corvette INS Karmuk for the exercise.
•
Other Military Exercises between India and Thailand:
•
MAITREE (Army)
•
SIAM BHARAT (Air Force)
•
Indo-Thai CORPAT (Navy), which was conducted recently.
•
Other Military Exercises between India and Singapore are Bold Kurukshetra
(Army), Joint
Military
Training (Air Force) and SIMBEX (Navy)
National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF).
NIIF
is a fund created by the Government of India for enhancing infrastructure
financing in the country.
This
is different from the National Investment Fund.
NIIF
was proposed to be set up as a Trust, to raise debt to invest in the equity of
infrastructure finance companies such as Indian Rail Finance Corporation (IRFC)
and National Housing Bank (NHB). The idea is that these infrastructure finance
companies can then leverage this extra equity, manifold. In that sense, NIIF is
a banker of the banker of the banker.
Its
creation was announced in the Union Budget 2015-16. The operational framework
was approved on 20 August 2015.NIIF got registered with SEBI as Category II
Alternative Investment Fund (AIF) on December 28, 2015. A website was created
on 8 June 2016.Mr. Sujoy Bose, Director and Global Co-Head, Infrastructure and
Natural Resources, International Finance Corporation(IFC), Washington DC, was
appointed as the first Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of NIIF Ltd on 27 June
2016.
Financial
Times (London) had adjudged NIIF as the Most Innovative structure in Asia
Pacific under Finance category.
Objective
The
objective of NIIF would be to maximize economic impact mainly through
infrastructure development in commercially viable projects, both greenfield and
brownfield, including stalled projects.
It
could also consider other nationally important projects, for example, in
manufacturing, if commercially viable.
Functions:
•
Fund raising through suitable instruments including off-shore credit enhanced
bonds, and attracting anchor investors to participate as partners in NIIF;
Servicing
of the investors of NIIF.
•
Considering and approving candidate companies/institutions/ projects (including
state entities) for investments and periodic monitoring of investments.
Investing
in the corpus created by Asset Management Companies (AMCs) for investing in
private equity.
•
NIIF provides equity / quasi-equity support to those Non Banking Financial
Companies (NBFCs)/Financial Institutions (FIs) that are engaged mainly in
infrastructure financing. These institutions will be able to leverage this
equity support and provide debt to the projects selected.
•
Invest in funds engaged mainly in infrastructure sectors and managed by Asset
Management Companies (AMCs) for equity / quasi-equity funding of listed /
unlisted companies. provides Equity/ quasi-equity support / debt to projects,
to commercially viable projects, both greenfield and brownfield, including
stalled projects.
Bioluminescence.
Recently,
blue tide was spotted along Maharashtra's shoreline which was produced due to
fluorescent blue huefrom the process called bioluminescence.
Bioluminescence
is the production and emission of light by a living organism.
Blue
light was characterised by the emission of light produced by phytoplanktons
(microscopic marine plants), commonly known as dino flagellates.
The
light is produced through a series of chemical reactions due to luciferase
(oxidative enzymes) protein.
Parliamentary Panel Finds India's Response to Pandemic
Ineffective
For
the first time, a report was released by any parliamentary committee on the
government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.
•
The report was named ‘The Outbreak of Pandemic COVID-19 And its Management’ by
a
Parliamentary
Standing Committee on Health.
Highlights:
•
Causes for the spike in COVID cases in India:
•
Too Many Guidelines
•
The plethora of guidelines issued by the Health Ministry caused confusion and
chaos.
•
Many of these guidelines were contradictory and different quarantine rules
imposed by the
State
governments added to the panic.
•
Absence of specific guidelines for the treatment resulted in private hospitals
charging exorbitant fees.
•
The number of government hospital beds in the country were not adequate to
handle the increasing number of COVID and non-COVID patients.
Recommendations:
•
The report recommends the government has to increase its investments in the
public healthcare system.
•
Make consistent efforts to achieve the National Health Policy targets of
expenditure up to 2.5% of GDP within two years.
•
Healthcare spending in the country with a population of 1.3 billion is
abysmally low.
•
Health Ministry should engage with agencies and actively participate in ongoing
international treaties.
•
Conduct more research and work towards training and capacity building for
management of public health emergencies arising from use of bio-weapons.
•
The government needs to be considerate and support the private health care
sector.
•
The healthcare workers who have laid down their lives, must be acknowledged as
martyrs and their families be Adequately Compensated.
Concerns:
•
Healthcare should never be limited to only those who can afford to pay but
should move towards the noble Vision of Universal Health Coverage.
Basis of the Report:
•
It is based on the deliberations that the committee had with the Department of
Health and
Family
Welfare which submitted an action plan to ensure security against biological
weapons.
•
These Include:
✓ Strengthening disease
surveillance, including at animal-human interface, training and capacity
building for management of public health emergencies arising from use of
bio-weapons and
✓ Strengthening research
and surveillance activities related to development of diagnostics, vaccines and
drugs.
•
Bioterrorism: A planned and deliberate use of pathogenic strains of
microorganisms such as bacteria, viruses, or their toxins to spread
life-threatening diseases on a mass scale in order to devastate the population
of an area.
Chairman of International Cricket Council.
New
Zealand's Greg Barclay has been elected as the new independent chairman of the
International Cricket Council (ICC).
The
head of the New Zealand Cricket team, NZC, Barclay beat Imran Khwaja in the
second round of voting. Imran was interim chairman after Shashank Manohar
stepped down from the post in July this year.
That
vote arrived from Cricket South Africa in a second round of voting. Barclay is
the second independent chairman of the world body, after Shashank Manohar of
India.
About him:
A
commercial lawyer by trade, Barclay has served as a director of NZC since 2012.
He
was a director of 2015 Men's World Cup, held in Australia and New Zealand.
He
is also an experienced company director holding board positions with various
New Zealand and Australian companies.
Focus
on mains:
Conspiracy Over Interfaith Marriages.
Context:
•
Despite several laws, the social stigma for interfaith marriages still exists
in the Indian Society.
Issue:
•
Recently, several state governments have shown concerns about enacting proper
laws to stop marriages which they refer to as ‘Love Jihad’.
•
However, contemplating laws over interfaith marriage directly violates several
rights of people such as right to freedom, personal liberty and right to life.
What are Interfaith Marriages?
•
The matrimonial relationship developed between two individuals having different
religious faiths. Although marrying into a different religion is a matter of
choice of an adult, there are certain Issues Regarding the Same.
•
Interfaith marriages are believed to be a forced conversion of one of the
spouses (mostly women).
•
As per the Muslim Personal law, in order to get married to a non-Muslim,
conversion of religion is the only way.
•
Hindu religion allows only monogamy and those who want to marry second time
take another course.
•
There is no provision regarding caste determination of children born out of
such marriages.
•
The Special Marriage Act, 1954 is not compatible with backwardness of the
society.
•
There is debate over the validity of Article 226 in context of annulling the
interfaith marriage by high court.
About the Special Marriage Act:
•
The Special Marriage Act is a special law enacted to provide for a unique form
of marriage by registration wherein the parties to the marriage do not have to
renounce their religion.
•
This Act includes Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists
marriages.
•
This act applies to all Indian states, except Jammu & Kashmir.
•
This Act applies not only to Indian citizens who belong to different castes and
religions but also to Indian nationals who live abroad.
Requirements for the Special
Marriage:
•
The Fundamental Requirement Under this Act for a valid marriage is the consent
of both parties to the marriage.
•
If both parties to the marriage are willing to marry each other, that’s enough;
caste, religion, race, etc. is not a restriction.
Conditions for Marriage:
•
At the time of their marriage, both parties must be monogamous; i.e., they must
be unmarried and at that time should not have any living spouse.
•
In order to be able to decide for themselves, the parties should be mentally
fit, i.e., they must be sane at the time of Marriage.
Challenges with Contemplating Laws
for Interfaith Marriage:
•
Contemplating laws to regulate matrimonial relationships between two consenting
adults would not be just against the constitutional guarantees but would offend
the very notion of individuality and basic freedoms.
•
Interference of the law in an individual’s choice of marriage violates the
existing constitutional rights such as the Right to equality, Right to Freedom
& Personal Liberty, Freedom of Religion and Right to Life.
•
Article 21: It declares that no person shall be deprived of his life or
personal liberty except according to the procedure established by law. This
right is available to both citizens and non-citizens.
•
Article 25 of the Indian constitution provides the freedom to practice any
religion of one’s choice and personal laws of the religions have specified
various laws relating to marriage for the followers of that religion. Hence, in
India inter-faith marriages are allowed as the constitution allows one to
convert to a different religion from what one was born with and further the
personal laws of the religion have provisions.
Way Forward:
•
In order to avoid inclusion of any further laws, there should be acceptance of
the special marriage act, 1954 at the mental and social level.
•
The rights should not be exploited; conversion of religion for marriage only is
not at all wise.
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