Daily Prelims Notes 13 November 2020

November 13, 2020
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Table Of Contents

1. FINANCE MINISTER ANNOUNCES MEASURES ON AATMANIRBHAR BHARAT 3.0

Subject : Economy

Context : Union Minister for Finance announced various measures, as part of Government of India’s stimulus to the economy, under AatmaNirbhar Bharat 3.0.

Concept :

Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme for MSMEs, businesses, MUDRA borrowers and individuals (loans for business purposes), has been extended till March 31, 2021.
10 more Champion Sectors will be covered under the Production Linked Incentives Scheme to help boost competitiveness of domestic manufacturing.
A sum of Rs 18000 crore is being provided for PM Awaas Yojana – Urban over and above Rs. 8000 Crore already allocated this year.
Support for Construction & Infrastructure – Relaxation of Earnest Deposit Money & Performance Security on Government Tenders
To provide ease of doing business and relief to contractors whose money otherwise remains locked up, performance security on contracts has been reduced from 5-10% to 3%.It will also extend to ongoing contracts and Public Sector Enterprises.
Differential between circle rate and agreement value in real estate income tax under Section 43 CA of IT Act has been increased from 10% to 20%.
Government will make ₹6,000 Crore equity investment in debt platform of National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), which will help NIIF provide a debt of ₹ 1.1 Lakh Crore for infrastructure projects by 2025.
Additional outlay of ₹10,000 Crore is being provided for PM Garib Kalyan Rozgar Yojana to provide rural employment. This will help accelerate rural economy.
Around ₹3,000 Crore boost is being provided to EXIM Bank for promoting project exports under Indian Development and Economic Assistance Scheme (IDEAS Scheme).
R&D grant for COVID Vaccine: ₹900 Crore is being provided to Department of Biotechnology for Research and Development of Indian COVID Vaccine.

2. AATMANIRBHAR BHARAT ROZGAR YOJANA

Subject : Economy

Context : Union Minister for Finance announced a new scheme to incentivize job creation during COVID-19 recovery has been launched.

Concept :

If EPFO-registered establishments take in new employees without EPFO registration or those who lost jobs earlier, the Yojana will benefit these employees.

Beneficiaries / New Employees under the scheme would be:

any new employee joining employment in EPFO registered establishments on monthly wages less than Rs.15,000
EPF members drawing monthly wage of less than Rs.15,000 who made exit from employment during COVID Pandemic from 01.03.2020 to 30.09.2020 and is employed on or after 01.10.2020.
Central Govt. will provide subsidy for two years in respect of new eligible employees engaged on or after 01.10.2020 at following scale:
For Establishments employing up to 1000 employees: Employee’s contributions (12% of Wages) & Employer’s contributions (12% of wages) totalling 24% of wages
For Establishments employing more than 1000 employees: Only Employee’s EPF contributions (12% of EPF wages)
The scheme will be effective from October 1, 2020 and operational till 30th June 2021. Certain other eligibility criteria would have to be met, and Central Government will provide subsidy for two years in respect of new eligible employees.

3. TECHNICAL RECESSION

Subject : Economics

Context : Latest RBI bulletin projects contraction for a second consecutive quarter, which means the economy is in a ‘technical recession’.

Concept :

In its latest monthly bulletin, the Reserve Bank of India has dedicated a chapter on the “State of the economy”. The idea is to provide a monthly snapshot of some of the key indicators of India’s economic health.
And the very first “nowcast” predicts that India’s economy will contract by 8.6% in the second quarter (July, August, September) of the current financial year.
It implies India that has entered a “technical recession” in the first half of 2020-21 for the first time in its history.
When the overall output of goods and services increases from one quarter (or month) to another, the economy is said to be in an expansionary phase. And when the GDP contracts from one quarter to another, the economy is said to be in a recessionary phase.
When a recessionary phase sustains for long enough, it is called a recession. In other words, when the GDP contracts for a long enough period, the economy is said to be in a recession.

Technical Recession :

It is often considered a recession to be in progress when real GDP has declined for at least two consecutive quarters.
That is how real quarterly GDP has come to be accepted as a measure of economic activity and a “benchmark” for ascertaining a “technical recession”

4. CONTEMPT OF COURT

Subject : Polity

Context : Kunal Kamra, a stand-up comedian, will face contempt of court charges for his tweets following the Supreme Court’s decision to grant interim bail to television anchor Arnab Goswami.

Concept :

According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
Civil contempt means wilful disobedience of any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court, or wilful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
Criminal contempt, on the other hand, is attracted by the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which:

scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or

prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or

interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.

In 2006, the government brought in an amendment, which now provides “truth” as defence provided it is bona fide and in public interest.
A-G’s consent to initiate contempt of court proceedings: In the case of a criminal contempt the court may take action on its own motion or on a motion made by (a) the Advocate-General, or (b) any other person, with the consent in writing of the Attorney-General of India.

5. SARNA TRIBAL RELIGION

Subject : Polity

Context : The Jharkhand government passed a resolution to send the Centre a letter to recognise Sarna religion and include it as a separate code in the Census of 2021.

Concept :

The followers of Sarna faith believe pray to nature. The holy grail of the faith is “Jal, Jungle, Zameen” and its followers pray to the trees and hills while believing in protecting the forest areas.
It is believed that 50 lakhs tribal in the entire country put their religion as ‘Sarna’ in the 2011 census, although it was not a code.
Jharkhand has 32 tribal groups of which eight are from Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups.
While many follow Hindu religion, some have converted to Christianity — this has become one of the planks of demanding a separate code “to save religious identity”— as various tribal organisations put it.

6. TRADITIONAL MEDICINE

Subject : Health

Context :The World Health Organisation announced on Friday that it will set up a Global Centre for Traditional Medicine in India.

Concept :

Prime Minister Narendra Modi expressed confidence that just like the country has emerged as the ‘pharmacy of the world’, the WHO institution will become the centre for global wellness.
Traditional Medicine (TM): The sum-total of the knowledge, skill and practices based on the theories, beliefs and experiences indigenous to different cultures, whether explicable or not, used in maintenance of health as well as in the prevention, diagnosis, improvement or treatment of physical and mental illness.
Complementary Medicine (CM) or Alternative Medicine (AM): A broad set of healthcare practices that are not part of that country’s own tradition or conventional medicine and area not fully integrated into the dominant healthcare system.

Different Types Of Alternative and Traditional Medicine System:

Ayurveda: The Ayurvedic System of Medicine evolved nearly 5000 years ago (3000 BC). The word Ayurveda means ‘Science of Life’ and employs treatment modalities, such as purification, palliation, prescription of various diets, exercises and the avoidance of disease causing factors.
Unani Medicine: Unani Medicine originated in the Arab world. Unani medicine treats a patient with diet, pharmacotherapy, exercise, massages and surgery. It was introduced in India around the 10th century AD.
Homeopathy: The word ‘Homeopathy’ is derived from the Greek words, ‘Homois’ meaning ‘similar’ and ‘pathos’ means ‘suffering’. It originated in Germany and was introduced in India around1810-1839.

Homeopathy is based on the law of healing- “similia Similibus Curantur’ which means ‘likes are cured by likes’. It uses highly individualized remedies selected to address specific symptoms or symptom profiles.

Siddha: This system has originated in India and is amongst the oldest systesof medicine in the country. It takes into account the patient, his/her surroundings, age, sex, race, habitat, diet, appetite, physical condition etc. to arrive at the diagnosis.

Siddha System uses minerals, metals and alloys and drugs and inorganic compounds to treat the patients. Unlike most T&CM, this system is largely therapeutic in nature. Siddha literature is in Tamilnadu.

Sowa-Ripa: The word combination means the ‘science of healing’ and its considered one of the oldest living and well-documented medical traditions of the world. It originated from Tibet and is widely practiced in India, Nepal, Bhutan, Mongolia and Russia.
Yo; ga & Naturopathy: The concepts and practices of Yoga are reported to have originated in India. Naturopathy or the naturophatic medicine is a drugless, non-invasive system of medicine imparting treatments with natural elements based on the theories of vitality, toxemia and the self-healing capacity of the body as well as the principles of healthy living.

The common naturopathy modalities include counseling, diet and fasting therapy, mud theory, hydrotherapy, massage therapy, acupressure, acupuncture, magnet therapy and yoga therapy.

7. BIO BUBBLE

Subject : Health

Context : BCCI president Sourav Ganguly on Wednesday acknowledged that it was mentally tough for players to be in the just-concluded Indian Premier League’s bio-bubble and thanked them for showing resolve to make the tournament a success.

Concept :

A bio-bubble is a safe and secure environment isolated from the outside world to minimise the risk of COVID-19 infection.
It permits only authorised sports persons, support staff and match officials to enter the protected area after testing negative for COVID-19.
Naturally, individuals must be regularly tested, temperature checked with respective health reports filed accordingly.

8. NIIF

Subject : Economy

Context : Government has decided to infuse Rs 6000 cr in NIIF debt platform to increase infrastructure funding.

Concept :

National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF):

NIIF is India’s first sovereign wealth fund set up by the Government of India in 2015.
It is an investor-owned fund manager, anchored by the Government of India (GoI) in collaboration with leading global and domestic institutional investors.
NIIF’s mandate includes investing in areas such as energy, transportation, housing, water, waste management and other infrastructure-related sectors in India.

Functioning:

It is being operationalized by establishing three Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs) under the SEBI Regulations.
The proposed corpus of NIIF is Rs. 40,000 Crores funded of 49% from Government of India.
Rest from strategic anchor partners (Overseas sovereign/quasi-sovereign/multilateral/bilateral investors).

NIIF and Three Funds:

NIIF currently manages three funds each with its distinctive investment mandate.
Master Fund: A fund focused on creating scalable sectoral platforms in core infrastructure and in collaboration with strong and reputed operating and financial partners.
Fund of Funds: A fund focused on anchoring and investing incredible and reputed third-party managers with a strong track record across diversified sectors within infrastructure services and allied sectors.
Strategic Investment Fund: A fund focused on investing in strategic assets and projects with longer-term horizon across various stages of development.

ADDITIONAL FACTS :

India’s retail inflation remained above 7% in October for a second straight month as vegetable prices stayed at elevated levels, worrying policymakers, who are struggling to pull Asia’s third-largest economy from a deep slump.
October’s retail inflation of 7.61% was higher than the forecast of 7.3% in a Reuters’ poll of economists. It was 7.27% in September, official data showed on Thursday.
Retail inflation has remained above 4%, the middle-point of the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) target of 2%-6%, for more than a year, giving it little room to cut interest rates.
Rating agency Moody’s Investors Service has revised upward its forecast for India’s GDP for calendar year 2020 to an 8.9% contraction from its earlier projection for a contraction of 9.6%
Overall, G-20 economies were expected to collectively contract 3.8% in 2020, followed by 4.9% growth in 2021 and 3.8% growth in 2022, Moody’s said.
Kerala State Election Commission has issued Notification for Local Body Elections. For the first time , Postal Ballot is to be issued to enable COVID 19 patients and persons in quarantine to cast their votes.