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.

Comprehensive Current affairs 17 October 2020

 Cengov. approves STARS scheme for reforming education sector.

GoI has approved a project partially funded by the World Bank to carry out a reform agenda in the governance of school education, and improve data and assessment systems at the national level, as well as teaching and learning outcomes in six States, especially for early childhood and vocational education.

The project includes an emergency response component to help the government respond to disaster situations which lead to school closures and loss of learning, such as the current COVID-19 pandemic, according to an official statement issued after the Cabinet meeting on Wednesday.

The Strengthening Teaching-Learning and Results for States (STARS) project will have a total project cost of ?5,718 crore, with the World Bank’s support amounting to about ?3,700 crore ($500 million), said the statement.

 At the State level, the project seeks to improve education outcomes and school-to-work transition strategies for better labour market outcomes in Himachal Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Kerala and Odisha.

A similar project to be funded by the Asian Development Bank will cover Gujarat, Tamil Nadu, Uttarakhand, Jharkhand and Assam and every State will partner with one other State to share best practices, said the statement.

India gets re-elected as president of ISA.

India has been re-elected as the President of the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and France as the Co- President for a term of two years.

This was decided during the virtual meeting of third assembly of the International Solar Alliance attended by 34 ISA members today.Four new Vice-Presidents were also chosen to represent the four regions of ISA.

The assembly also approved the initiatives of the ISA Secretariat in institutionalizing ISA’s engagement with the private and public corporate sector through the Coalition for Sustainable Climate Action.

Speaking in the plenary, President of the ISA assembly and India’s Power and New and Renewable Energy Minister, R.K. Singh appreciated the Alliance Members coming together to work for combating climate change.

He welcomed the seventh initiative on heating and cooling to be introduced for discussion in the Third Assembly.

Mr Singh said solar energy is already contributing around 2.8 percent of global electricity and if trends were to continue, by 2030 solar will become most important source of energy for electricity production in large part of the world.

The President also mentioned about various activities and programmes initiated by ISA since the 2nd Assembly.

Russia reluctant to extend New START pact with U.S.

Moscow has said that it does not see prospects for extending the new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty with Washington.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said this yesterday, while adding that the countries plan to continue talks nonetheless.

The New START accord was signed in 2010. It limits the number of strategic nuclear warheads that Russia and the United States can deploy. It is due to expire in February next year.

Failure to extend the pact would remove the main pillar maintaining the balance of nuclear arms between Moscow and Washington.

IMF claims India’s public debt to rise to almost 90% due to COVID.

India’s public debt ratio, which remarkably remained stable at about 70% of the GDP since 1991, is projected to jump by 17 percentage points to almost 90% because of an increase in public spending due to COVID-19, the IMF said.

“In our projections, the increase in public spending, in response to COVID-19, and the fall in tax revenue and economic activity, will make public debt jump by 17 percentage points to almost 90% of GDP,” Vitor Gaspar, Director of IMF’s Fiscal Affairs Department, told the Press Trust of India.

“Going forward, it is projected to stabilise in 2021, before slowly declining up to the end of the projection period, in 2025. Broadly speaking, the pattern of public debt in India is close to the norm around the world,” he said.

According to Mr. Gaspar, in the near-term, additional fiscal action can and should be deployed as needed to support the poor and the vulnerable.

MSME ministry launches AI & ML for champions portal.

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises- MSME Ministry has introduced Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning for strengthening its single window system portal ‘Champions’ to assist the MSMEs in the country.

 Champions Portal was launched by the Prime Minister in June this year.This multi-modal system also comprises technology equipped physical control rooms at around 69 locations in the country.

Appreciating the efforts made by the MSME Ministry, Minister Nitin Gadakari said, the entire conceptualization and scope analysis has been done in the Ministry with the help of NIC and guidance provided by the team of Intel.

Artificial Intelligence and Analytics technology help in understanding the issues on real-time basis based on widely available social media and online data.

MSME Ministry is also aggressively working in the direction of Industry 4.0 to give a boost to the MSME sector.Ministry is also helping the MSMEs for manufacturing the products like sensors, motors, computer displays and other animation technologies.

Health ministry launches Thalassemia BalSewa yojana phase-2.

Health and Family Welfare Minister Harsh Vardhan today virtually launched the second phase of “Thalassemia BalSewaYojna” for the underprivileged Thalassemic patients.

The Minister said that Prime Minister NarendraModi had introduced the Ayushman Bharat-PradhanMantri Jan AarogyaYojana for targeted populace.

He said, beneficiaries of the scheme had expressed their gratitude for this valuable support in midst of the gloom in their lives.

Expressing satisfaction that the scheme has been extended to cover Aplastic Anaemia patients for a total of 200 such patients from this year, Dr. Harsh Vardhan said, such cases can be prevented by using the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centres network.

He said, blood transfusion facilities have been made available in every district hospital while some districts also offer the facility in health centres at sub-district level.

India's first Saviour Sibling experiment.

Recently, doctors successfully conducted India’s first ‘saviour sibling’ experiment.

 The Saviour Sibling named Kavya saved her 6-year-old brother (suffering from Thalassemia).

150- 200 ml bone marrow was harvested from Kavya in an hour-long procedure and then given to her brother Abhijeet through transfusion.

Kavya suffered low haemoglobin for some time but it was corrected with supplements and she also endured some pain in the areas from where the marrow was taken for a few days. Presently, both Kavya and Abhijeet are healthy.

Key Points

‘Saviour Sibling’ refers to babies that are created to serve an older sibling as a donor of organs, bone marrow or cells.

Stem cells from the umbilical cord blood or blood of the saviour sibling are used for treatment of serious blood disorders like thalassemia, sickle cell anaemia.

They are created with In vitro fertilisation (IVF) so that they can undergo pre-implantation genetic diagnosis (or testing) to rule out any genetic disorders and also check bone marrow compatibility.

Pre-implantation Genetic Testing (PGT) refers to the genetic profiling of embryos. It is used to screen embryos for genetic diseases or chromosomal abnormalities.

From each embryo, PGT takes a biopsy of only a few cells and conducts a genetic analysis.

This analysis can search to exclude embryos carrying a genetic variant that causes a hereditary disease, and it can search to find embryos that are an Human Leukocyte Antigen (HLA) match to a sibling.

HLA is a type of molecule found on the surface of most cells in the body. These play an important part in the body’s immune response to foreign substances.

These make up a person’s tissue type, which varies from person to person.

HLA typing is important in organ transplantation protocols, as they determine the likelihood of rejection.

 The world’s first saviour sibling, Adam Nash, was born in 2000 in the USA.

Need:

For those families with a child that requires a stem cell transplant, often there is a hurdle of finding a donor for the transplant.

A successful transplant requires an HLA match between donor and recipient. However, the probability of finding a suitable match among family members is about 30% overall.

Ethical Considerations and Implications: In a 2004 paper published in the Journal of Medical Ethics, UK researchers debated whether selecting saviour siblings should be banned.

They studied the arguments to ban it:

That saviour siblings would be wrongfully treated as means rather than ends.

They would cause or constitute a slide towards designer babies,

They would suffer physically and/or emotionally.

But the paper found these arguments to be flawed. It concluded that the selection of saviour siblings should be permitted, especially given that prohibiting it would result in the preventable deaths of a number of existing children.

In vitro Fertilisation

IVF is one of the more widely known types of Assisted Reproductive Technology (ART).

In vitro comes from the latin word ‘in glass’, i.e. studies are done in a test tube rather than in a human or animal.

The opposite to ‘In-vitro’ is ‘In-vivo’, which comes from the latin word ‘within the living’. In vivo refers to experimentation being done in a living organism.

In vitro means outside the body. Fertilization means the sperm has attached to and entered the egg.

During IVF, mature eggs are collected (retrieved) from the ovaries and fertilized by sperm in a lab. Then the fertilized egg (embryo) or eggs (embryos) are transferred to a uterus.

Way Forward

Currently there is a significant gap between the biotechnology advancements in prenatal testing versus the necessary legal and ethical framework. It is imperative that legal and ethical standards be set for the benefit of both the families and professionals involved in the creation of savior children.

Demand for Gurkha Rights in Assam.

The Gurkha community in Assam has sought gazette notification ensuring that the safeguards according to Clause 6 of the 1985 Assam Accord are also extended to Gurkha people of Assam.

Key Points

The demand for the safeguards by Gurkha community further intensified with the recommendations of the high-level committee formed under the Chairmanship of Biplab Kumar Sharma by the Union Home Ministry on Clause 6 of Assam Accord.

The committee recommended that all Gurkhas of Assam are not indegenous Assamese people as per the definition of Assamese people .

Clause 6 of the Accord envisages constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards for protecting, preserving and promoting the culture, social, linguistic identity and heritage of the Assamese people.

Biplab Kumar Sharma Committee Recommendation:

Definition of Assamese: The report proposes 1st January 1951 as the cut-off date for any Indian citizen residing in Assam to be defined as an Assamese for the purpose of implementing Clause 6.

 Reservation for Assamese: It seeks reservation for Assamese in Parliament, state assembly, local bodies. It recommended creating an Upper House (Legislative Council of Assam) whose seats will be reserved for the ‘Assamese people’.

The report also seeks quotas in government jobs.

Regulation of Outsiders: Recommends regulation of entry of people from other states into Assam, which include the implementation of an Inner Line Permit (ILP) regime in the state.

The ILP is a system in which a special permit is required by people from other regions of India to visit the state.

Currently the ILP is applicable in Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.

Other Rights: It also talks about issues related to land and land rights, linguistic, cultural and social rights and protection of the state’s resources and biodiversity.

Concern: It did not mention anything about the constitutional, legislative and administrative safeguards of local Gorkhas.

This means the exclusion from the rights under the Clause 6 of the Accord.

Government Assurance

The Gurkhas in Assam are “one of the old communities”.

The government would treat them “at par with other indigenous communities and protect their constitutional rights while implementing Clause 6”.

Gorkhas in Assam:

There are currently 25 lakh Gurkhas in Assam.

The Gurkhas were permanently settled in the Scheduled Areas in the last part of the 18th century as grazers and cultivators.

They fought for Assam against the Burmese invaders in 1826 resulting in the Treaty of Yandaboo.

It was a peace treaty that resulted in the end of the First Anglo Burmese War. This treaty was signed on February 24, 1826 after two years of the war between British and Burmese.

They were declared as protected class by the British in the tribal belts and blocks according to the Assam Land and Revenue Regulation Act, 1886.

Assam Accord

It was a tripartite accord signed between the Government of India, State Government of Assam and the leaders of the Assam Movement in 1985.

The Accord ended the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation from 1979-1985.

The signing of the Accord led to the conclusion of a six-year agitation that was launched by the All Assam Students’ Union (AASU) in 1979, demanding the identification and deportation of illegal immigrants from Assam.

It sets a cut-off of midnight of 24th March 1971, for the detection of illegal foreigners in Assam.

However, the demand was for detection and deportation of migrants who had illegally entered Assam after 1951.

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Comprehensive Current affairs 16 October 2020

 Cengov. asks supreme court to strike balance between freedom of speech and contempt of court.

Indian Attorney General Venugopal yesterday told the Supreme Court that there is an urgent need to strike a balance between freedom of speech and contempt of court as the media is foraying into forbidden territory.

He added that a bail petition is filed in a court of law and TV channels go to town with private WhatsApp conversation messages of the accused. This is prejudicial to the rights of the accused and is very dangerous for the administration of justice.

Addressing the court on larger issues, the Attorney General told a bench of Justices A M Khanwilkar, B R Gavai and Krishna Murari that abuse of the right to freedom of speech had taken serious proportions today.

Mr.Venugopal said that electronic media and print media are commenting on cases which are pending and are seeking to influence the court, and in big cases when bail applications are about to come up for hearing, TV reports are aired which are very damaging for the accused who has filed the bail application.

Operation green provides 50% subsidy on transportation of crops including storage.

Ministry of Food Processing and Ministry of Railways directly provide subsidised rate of 50 per cent in freight for transportation of perishable surplus agriculture produce like Oranges and Vegetables by Railway.

• Operation Green is being implemented as part of Atmanirbhar program under the ageis of Ministry of Food Processing. Under this scheme, 50 per cent subsidy is given to the farmers for transporting the surplus produce of agricultural commodities like oranges and vegetables to the markets by rail.

50 per cent subsidy is also given for cold chain storage of agricultural commodities. However, in order to get this subsidy, farmers have to attach self-certified documents online on ‘Sampada’ portal of the Ministry of Food Processing.

• It has been suggested that the subsidy for the transport should be given to the farmers at the time of registration itself for rail transport. This suggestion was taken up by the Ministry of Railways and the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries and a 50 per cent concession has been accepted in the railway transport of eligible agricultural produce.

• This step will enable farmers to register for railway transport at subsidized rates for agricultural produce and more farmers could avail this facility; it would provide better ticket fares to the railways and increase its profits.

Germany accuses turkey of escalating tensions between Greece & Cyprus.

Germany's foreign Minister criticized Turkey for unilateral steps in the eastern Mediterranean that are undercutting efforts to de-escalate tensions with Greece and Cyprus over sea boundaries and drilling rights.

 Heiko Maas said Yesterday said any attempt by a Turkish survey ship to begin prospecting for hydrocarbons in disputed waters around the Greek island of Kastellorizo would strike a serious blow to efforts at easing tensions and improving ties between the European Union and Turkey.

Ankara's redeployment of the Oruc Reis survey vessel for new energy exploration around Kastellorizo has reignited tensions over sea boundaries between Greek islands, Cyprus and Turkey's southern coast.

Turkey rebuffed international criticism of its research ship's redeployment, insisting that the Oruc Reis is operating in Turkish waters.

Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President RecepTayyipErdogan's ruling party, accused Greece of stirring up tensions and of trying to avoid negotiations by engaging in actions like military drills during Turkey's national day celebrations.

FATF's Asia Pacific Group keeps Pakistan on ‘enhanced follow-up list.

Pakistan is going to exit the Financial Action Task Force (FATF’s) greylist next week, when the plenary session of the Paris-based global terror-financing watchdog is held, after its latest evaluation saw it clear 21 of 27 action points, with six key areas outstanding where Pakistan has yet to show progress.

According to sources, there is still no consensus amongst the 39-member FATF, which includes the U.S., U.K., China and Russia, to blacklist Pakistan, despite its failure to meet its original deadline in September 2019, which would mean the group would maintain the status quo and continue Pakistan on the greylist until February 2021.

On Tuesday, the International Co-operation Review Group (ICRG) of the FATF held a meeting to discuss the final recommendation to the plenary session on October 21-23.

Earlier, Pakistan had requested for its ratings pertaining to targeted financial sanctions on terrorism and terrorist financing to be revised.The APG stated that the insufficient progress made by the country fails to justify a re-rating.

 The APG said, Pakistan will remain in the enhanced follow-up list and will have to continue to report back to the APG on progress to strengthen its implementation of comprehensive Anti-money Laundering and Terrorist Financing measures.

Centre allows open market borrowing for 20 states.

The Department of Expenditure in the Ministry of Finance yesterday granted permission to 20 States to raise an additional amount of 68 thousand 8 hundred 25 crore rupees through open market borrowings.

The Ministry of Finance said, additional borrowing permission has been granted at 0.50 per cent of the Gross State Domestic Product, GSDP to those States who have opted for Option- 1 out of the two options suggested by the Ministry to meet the shortfall arising out of GST implementation.

In the meeting of GST Council held on 27th August this year, these two options were put forward and were subsequently communicated to the States on 29th August. Twenty States have given their preferences for Option-1.

The facilities available to the States who choose Option-1 include a special borrowing window, coordinated by the Ministry of Finance to borrow the amount of shortfall in revenue through issue of debt.

The total shortfall in the revenue of the States on this account has been estimated at around 1.1 lakh crore rupees. Permission to borrow the final installment of 0.5 per cent of GSDP out of the 2 per cent additional borrowings permitted by the Government of India in view of the COVID pandemic, waiving the reforms condition.

The Department of Expenditure, on 17th May this year, had provided an additional borrowing limit of upto 2 per cent of GSDP to the States. The final installment of 0.5 per cent out of this 2 per cent limit was linked to carrying out at least three out of four reforms stipulated by the Government of India.

 

 

TRIPS Agreement.

India and South Africa, in a formal submission to the World Trade Organization (WTO), have sought a waiver on Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement that regulate intellectual property rights to speed up efforts to prevent, treat and contain the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Issues Raised by India and South Africa through submission:

• There were several reports about intellectual property rights hindering or potentially hindering timely provisioning of affordable medical products to COVID -19 patients and that a particular concern for countries with insufficient or no manufacturing capacity were the requirements of cumbersome and lengthy process of the import and export of pharmaceutical products.

• Many countries, especially the developing ones, may face institutional and legal difficulties when using flexibilities available in the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement).

• Beyond patents, other intellectual property rights may also pose a barrier, with limited options to overcome those barriers, noted the Submission.

• The Medical Products Companies Especially medicine and vaccine manufacturers want to profit from pandemic by keeping the monopoly rights through intellectual protection.

Importance of the Submission:

• In the Present Context of global emergency, it is important for WTO to ensure that intellectual property rights do not create barriers to timely access to affordable medical products, or to Scaling up research, development, manufacturing and supply of medical products essential to combat COVID-19.

• The waiver of TRIPS Obligation is a major initiative to ensure availability and affordability of medical products.

Sections 1, 4, 5, and 7 of Part II of the TRIPS Agreement:

• PART II of the TRIPS Agreement relates to Standards Concerning the Availability, Scope and Use of Intellectual Property Rights

1. Sections 1: Copyright and Related Rights.

2. Sections 4: Industrial Designs.

3. Sections 5: Patents.

4. Sections 7: Protection of Undisclosed Information.

Academic institutions to set up supercomputer infrastructure in the country.

Several premier academic institutions across the country will soon partner with indigenous assembling and manufacturing facilities to establish supercomputing infrastructure in the country at an affordable cost.

Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, C-DAC signed a total of 13 Memoranda of Understanding with the premier academic and R&D institutions for establishing Supercomputing Infrastructure under National Supercomputing Mission.

In a virtual ceremony yesterday, Minister of State for Electronics and Information Technology Sanjay Dhotre said that these MoUs will help the Aatmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan. He expressed his satisfaction over the progress made in the National Supercomputing Mission.

Secretary of Department of Science and Technology Prof. Ashutosh Sharma said that major changes took place under the National Supercomputing Mission in the last five years where the emphasis was given on design and fabrication of hardware and software of the supercomputers.

Atal Innovation Mission to promote innovation across schools.

Atal Innovation Mission (AIM), NITI Aayog, has signed a Statement of Intent with CGI India in order to promote innovation across the schools.

 Atal Innovation Mission, AIM has collaborated with CGI India which is one among the largest IT and business consulting services firms, for creating a successful and innovative workforce from the Atal Tinkering Lab, ATL schools.

As part of the Statement of Intent, CGI has agreed to adopt 100 schools with ATLs across Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad and Mumbai to promote and train students. CGI volunteers will coach and mentor students at the ATLs to enhance technical literacy and provide immersive learning experiences to the students through hands-on experience using STEM tools.

CGI will also conduct training workshops for teachers at select schools on topics such as design thinking, computational thinking, robotics and coding.

Mission Director Atal Innovation Mission, NITI Aayog R Ramanan said that the collaboration between AIM and CGI is crucial for ATLs and that it would prove of utmost benefit to both ATL students and teachers.

AIM is the flagship programme of the Government that promotes a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship across country. Its ATLs are accessed by over 2.5 million school kids in India. ATL is a dedicated innovation workspace set-up at schools where students get access to do-it-yourself (DIY) kits and learn to tinker and create innovative solutions using the latest technologies.

IgaSwiatek becomes new French open champion.

In Tennis, Polish teenager IgaSwiatek has become the new French Open Champion. She beat the American Australian Open winner Sofia Kenin in the Women Singles final by 6-4, 6-1.

The 19-year-old Swiatek will earn $1,900,000 for the incredible achievement and moves to 17th position in the world ranking.

Earlier, Sofia Kenin left the court due to injury and could not play her natural game after returning on the court.

 DAY-NRLM Special Package for J&K and Ladakh.

Recently, Indian Cabinet has approved a special package worth Rs. 520 crore in the Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh for a period of five years under the Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-NRLM).

The decision is in line with Centre’s aim to universalise all centrally sponsored beneficiary-oriented schemes in J&K and Ladakh in a time-bound manner.

The package has been approved for a period of five years till the financial year 2023-24 and it has been decided to ensure funding on a demand-driven basis without linking allocation with poverty ratio during the extended period.

Around two-third rural women from the UTs will be covered and 10.58 lakh women will get the benefit from the special package.

The step was based on the outcomes of an evaluation pointing to the potential of the Mission to improve the quality of life of rural households and women empowerment under the changed circumstances in the recently downgraded territories of J&K and Ladakh.

• Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana-National Rural Livelihood Mission is a centrally sponsored programme, launched by the Ministry of Rural Development in June 2011.

• It aims to eliminate rural poverty through the promotion of multiple livelihoods and improved access to financial services for the rural poor households across the country.

To reach out to all rural poor households and impact their livelihoods.

• It involves working with community institutions through community professionals in the spirit of self-help which is a unique proposition of DAY-NRLM.

• It impacts the livelihoods through universal social mobilization by inter alia organising one-woman member from each rural poor household into Self Help Groups (SHGs), their training and capacity building, facilitating their micro-livelihoods plans, and enabling them to implement their livelihoods plans through accessing financial resources from their own institutions and the banks.

• It is implemented in a Mission mode by special purpose vehicles (autonomous state societies) with dedicated implementation support units at the national, state, district and block levels, using professional human resources in order to provide continuous and long-term handholding support to each rural poor family.

• There were 63 lakh SHGs comprising seven crore women members in India which had been granted Rs. 3 lakh crore in loans and the non-performing assets (NPA) amounted to only 2.3%.

The outstanding loans were to the tune of Rs. 1 lakh crore.The government plans to take the scheme to 10 crore women.

Focus on mains:

Pakistan’s relection to the UNHRC.

Pakistan is currently serving on the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) since 1st January, 2018. With its re-election, Pakistan will continue as a member for another three-year term commencing on 1st January, 2021.

A total of Fifteen countries were elected to the 47-nation council. Russia and Cuba were elected unopposed. Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Nepal and China were elected from the Asia-Pacific region.

Key Points

Pakistan has been re-elected despite the accusation by few groups over its human rights records which Pakistan is reported to have improved. This is the fifth time that Pakistan has been elected to the UNHRC.

Acoording to the British Government’s Foreign and Commonwealth Office Report titled ‘Human Rights and Democracy’, there were the report of few human rights concerns and violations in Pakistan in 2019, including restrictions on civic space and freedom of expression etc.

 

Concerns:

Countries with Dubious Record: With a number of countries with questionable rights records being elected, the current system of entry to UNHRC is in serious need of reform.

The election of states such as China and Russia “damages the reputation of the HRC, its standing within the international human rights committee and beyond”.

Non-competitive Elections: Problem of election without opposition.

For example, the Eastern European group had two available seats but only two countries were nominated to fill those positions, meaning there was no competition for the spots.

Except for the Asia-Pacific contest, the election of 15 members to the 47-member Human Rights Council was decided in advance because all the other regional groups had unopposed states.

The Other View: Electing nations with dubious human rights records has some positives.

There is a silver lining to repressive countries being elected to the council – their position as the supposed guardian of human rights makes it far more difficult for them to hide their own human rights abuses.

United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

It was established in 2006.

Headquarter: Geneva, Switzerland

Aim: Promoting and protecting human rights around the globe, as well as investigating alleged human rights violations.

Features: The UNHRC has 47 members elected for staggered three-year terms on a regional group basis from 5 groups.

Membership: To become a member, a country must receive the votes of at least 96 of the 191 states of the UN General Assembly (an absolute majority).

 

According to Resolution 60/251, which created the council, members are elected directly by secret ballot by the majority of the UN General Assembly. Membership has to be equally distributed geographically.

Five regional groups for membership: Africa, Asia-Pacific, Latin America and the Caribbean, Western Europe and Eastern Europe.

The members are elected for a period of three years, with a maximum of two consecutive terms.

Sessions: The UNHRC holds regular sessions three times a year, in March, June, and September.

The council also carries out the Universal Periodic Review of all UN member states, which allows civil society groups to bring accusations of human rights violations in member states to the attention of the UN.

Way Forward

The USA withdrew from the UNHRC in 2018 citing its ineffectiveness and bias. For India it is a testing time as Pakistan got re-elected may increase the tight vigelence over India’s recently downgraded and dubious status regarding human rights.

However, India’s commitment towards respecting institutions of global governance mandates to have a critical voice against some events instead of quitting the membership without reasons backed by principles.