Daily Prelims Notes 6 July 2021

July 6, 2021
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Daily Prelims Notes

6 July 2021

Table Of Contents

1. Section 43D (5) of the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA)

Subject: Legislations

Context: Just two days before his death, Stan Swamy had moved the Bombay High Court challenging Section 43D(5) of the Unlawful Atrocities Prevention Act (UAPA) — a provision Swamy termed “illusory”.

Concept:

Section 43D (5) of UAPA

The UAPA, enacted in 1967, was strengthened by the Congress-led UPA government in 2008 and 2012.
The test for denying bail under the UAPA is that the court must be satisfied that a “prima facie” case exists against the accused.
The Section 43D(5) reads that no person accused of an offence punishable under Chapters IV and VI of this Act shall, if in custody, be released on bail or on his own bond unless the Public Prosecutor has been given an opportunity of being heard on the application for such release.
It provided that such accused person shall not be released on bail or on his own bond if the Court, on a perusal of the case diary or the report made under section 173 of the Code is of the opinion that there are reasonable grounds for believing that the accusation against such person is prima facie true.

Law of Bail under UAPA

Both regular bail and bail by default like CrPC are available under UAPA with some alterations under section 43 D of UAPA.
The Regular Bail in UAPA can be granted by a competent magistrate under section 437 CrPC and by the high court or district and sessions court under section 439 of CrPC.
The provisions for default bail is also available under section 167(2) CrPC read with section 43D(2) of UAPA, after 30 days of police custody and 90 days of judicial custody, subjected to delay in filing of charge-sheet.
UAPA does not provide any specific conditions to be satisfied to grant bail.

Curious case of Section 43D(5)

It is only applicable to offences punishable under chapter IV and VI of the act i.e. offences related to terrorist acts and terrorist organizations.
It has a proviso which basically explains condition when bail shall be denied, i.e. if reasonable grounds exist for accusations to be prima-facie true and such decision shall be based on charge sheet or case diary.
The second part of proviso explains the burden over prosecution and the prosecution had to prove that reasonable grounds exist for accusations believed to be prima facie true.

2. Punjab Suba Movement

Subject : History

Context : Recently, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC) has decided to organise an event to mark the anniversary of police action at the Golden Temple against Punjab Suba Movement.

Concept:

About Punjab Suba Movement

It started in Punjab soon after the Independence.
The Shiromani Akali Dal was spearheading the movement for a Punjabi speaking state.
Those in favour of demand used to raise slogan ‘Punjabi Suba Amar Rahe’ and those opposing demand were raising slogans in favour of ‘Maha-Punjab’.
It was on April 6, 1955 that Amritsar DC banned the slogans of ‘Punjabi Suba’ and ‘Maha-Punjab’ fearing law and order problem.
It is suspected that slogans like Punjabi Suba or Maha-Punjab Amar Rahe, or Punjabi Suba Zindabad can violate the law and order.

Constitutional Provisions for Creation of New States

Article 3 assigns to Parliament the power to enact legislation for the formation of new States.
The Parliament may create new States in a number of ways, namely by:
1. Separating territory from any State,
2. Uniting two or more States,
3. Uniting parts of States and
4. Uniting any territory to a part of any State

The Parliament’s power under Article 3 extends to increasing or diminishing the area of any State and altering the boundaries or name of any State.
A bill calling for formation of new States may be introduced in either House of Parliament only on the recommendation of the President.
A bill must be referred by the President to the concerned State Legislature for expressing its views to Parliament if it contains provisions which affect the areas, boundaries or name of that State.

3. UAE’s Hope spacecraft has captured images of discrete auroras

Subject : Geography

Context : Recently, the UAE’s Hope spacecraft has captured images of glowing atmospheric lights in the Red Planet’s night sky, known as discrete auroras.

Concept :

Phenomena of Auroras on Earth

The Auroras are caused when charged particles ejected from the Sun’s surface, called the solar wind, enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
The particles from solar wind are harmful, and our planet is protected by the geomagnetic field, which preserves life by shielding us from the solar wind.
At the north and south poles, some of the solar wind particles are able to continuously stream down, and interact with different gases in the atmosphere to cause a display of light in the night sky.
It is known as an aurora which is seen from the Earth’s high latitude regions (called the auroral oval), and is active all year round.
In the northern part of our globe, the polar lights are called aurora borealis or Northern Lights, and are seen from the US (Alaska), Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
In the south, they are called aurora australis or southern lights, and are visible from high latitudes in Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.

Auroras in Mars

Unlike Earth, which has a strong magnetic field, the Martian magnetic field has largely died out because the molten iron at the interior of the planet has cooled.
The Martian crust, which hardened billions of years ago when the magnetic field still existed, retains some magnetism.
In contrast with Earth, which acts like one single bar magnet, magnetism on Mars is unevenly distributed, with fields strewn across the planet and differing in direction and strength.
The disjointed fields channel the solar wind to different parts of the Martian atmosphere, creating “discrete” auroras over the entire surface of the planet as charged particles interact with atoms and molecules in the sky.

4. ONORC Scheme in Delhi Bengal soon

Subject : Government Schemes

Context : Delhi and West Bengal are expected to roll out the ‘One Nation One Ration Card ‘ scheme by the end of the month, while chattisgarh is still in the process of acquiring the necessary devices.

Concept :

One Nation One Ration Card (RC) will ensure all beneficiaries especially migrants can access PDS across the nation from any PDS shop of their own choice.
Benefits: No poor person is deprived of getting subsidized food grains under the food security scheme when they shift from one place to another.
It also aims to remove the chance of anyone holding more than one ration card to avail benefits from different states.
Significance: This will provide freedom to the beneficiaries as they will not be tied to any one PDS shop and reduce their dependence on shop owners and curtail instances of corruption.

Standard format of ‘one nation, one ration card’:

A standard format for ration card has been prepared after taking into account the format used by different states.
For national portability, the state governments have been asked to issue the ration card in bi-lingual format, wherein besides the local language, the other language could be Hindi or English.
The states have also been told to have a 10-digit standard ration card number, wherein first two digits will be state code and the next two digits will be running ration card numbers.
Besides this, a set of another two digits will be appended with ration card number to create unique member IDs for each member of the household in a ration card.

5. PM Narendra Modi addressed the CoWin Global Conclave

Subject : Current Events

Context : The Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the CoWin Global Conclave as India offered CoWIN platform as a digital public good to the world to combat COVID19.

Concept :

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) is a platform for the citizens of India to Register for COVID-19 vaccination and schedule their vaccination slots at the nearest vaccination centres.
This digital platform will also provide real time information of vaccine stocks, their storage temperature and individualized tracking of beneficiaries of the COVID-19 vaccine.
This platform will assist the program managers across all levels through automated session allocation for pre-registered beneficiaries, their verification and for generating a digital certificate upon successful completion of the vaccine schedule.
The platform will be used for recording vaccine data and will form a database of healthcare workers too.
All COVID-19 related data necessary for the delivery of the vaccine is presently being uploaded on the CO-WIN platform.
To augment and simplify the process of registration and vaccination, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare introduced COWIN 2.0.

6. OPEC+

Subject: International Relations

Context: The latest round of meetings among the OPEC+ group of oil-exporting countries has stalled as the UAE has pushed back proposals making an increase in crude oil supply conditional on an extension to an output agreement.

Concept:

The non-OPEC countries which export crude oil are termed as OPEC Plus countries. OPEC Plus countries include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan and Sudan.
The OPEC and non-OPEC producers first formed the alliance at a historic meeting in Algiers in 2016.
OPEC’s 14 members control 35 percent of global oil supplies in addition to the 82 percent of proven reserves.
The addition of 10 Non-OPEC countries as OPEC+ including various important countries like Russia, Mexico and Kazakhstan, the share has increased to 55 percent and 90 percent of the holdings respectively. This provides OPEC+ a greater level of influence over the world economy than OPEC countries.

Concern

The OPEC+ group ran into sharp criticism from developing economies, for deliberately maintaining low supply levels to raise prices.
OPEC+ agreed to gradually increase crude production as prices reached $64.5 per barrel including a phased end to Saudi Arabia’s 1 million barrel per day cut in production by July.

Impact on India

If the UAE and other OPEC+ nations do not reach an agreement to increase production in August, expected relief in the form of lower crude oil prices could be delayed.
High crude prices have led to Indian oil marketing companies hiking the price of petrol by about 19.3 per cent and that of diesel by about 21 per cent since the beginning of 2021.

7. ONDC project

Subject: Government Schemes

Context: The Centre has set up an Advisory Council for Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) comprising

Concept:

It was decided to constitute an Advisory Council, to advise the government on measures needed to design and accelerate adoption of ONDC, by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), comprising Nandan Nilekani of Infosys and senior representatives from the government and retailers organizations

ONDC project

The ONDC, a project of the DPIIT assigned to the Quality Council of India (QCI), aims at promoting open networks developed on open sourced methodology, using open specifications and network protocols independent of any specific platform.
ONDC is expected to digitise the entire value chain, standardise operations, promote inclusion of suppliers, derive efficiency in logistics and enhance value for consumers.
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) project that is aimed at curbing “digital monopolies”. This is a step in the direction of making e-commerce processes open source, thus creating a platform that can be utilised by all online retailers

Significance of making something open-network

Making a software or a process open-source means that the code or the steps of that process is made available freely for others to use, redistribute and modify it.
If the ONDC gets implemented and mandated, it would mean that all e-commerce companies will have to operate using the same processes. This could give a huge booster shot to smaller online retailers and new entrants.

8. Glyphosate-based herbicides

Subject: Science and Technology

Context: In the past two years, three US juries have awarded multimillion-dollar verdicts to plaintiffs who asserted that glyphosate, the active ingredient in Roundup, gave them non-Hodgkin lymphoma, a cancer of the immune system.

Concept:

Generic glyphosate is ubiquitous around the globe. Farmers use it on a majority of the world’s agricultural fields. Generic glyphosate is ubiquitous around the globe.

China still dominates the pesticide industry it exported 46% of all herbicides worldwide in 2018 .

EFFECTS

Monsanto scientists claimed that it would not harm people or other non-target organisms and did not persist in soil and water. Scientific reviews determined that it did not build up in animal tissue.
Glyphosate killed more target weed species than any other herbicide before
Researchers have detected it in the urine of children in remote villages in Laos and babies
World Health Organization, classified it as a probable human carcinogen based on “limited” evidence of cancer in humans from actual real-world exposures and “sufficient” evidence of cancer in experimental animal
Children whose mothers experienced prenatal exposure to glyphosate had a significantly higher risk of autism spectrum disorder than a control population.
Studies have found that glyphosate causes liver and kidney damage in rats and alters honey bees’ gut microbiomes.
Mice exposed to it have shown increased disease, obesity and birth abnormalities three generations after the exposure.
Although glyphosate breaks down in the environment relatively quickly, it is present in aquatic systems at a volume large enough to be detected in blood samples from Florida manatees.

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the European Food Safety Authority maintain that glyphosate is unlikely to cause cancer in humans and does not threaten human health when used according to the manufacturer’s directions. Countries, including Luxembourg and Mexico, have banned or restricted the use of glyphosate, citing health concerns.

9. Harit Dhara

Subject: Environment

Context: Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institute has developed an anti-methanogenic feed supplement ‘Harit Dhara’

Concept:

Methane in cattle

Methane is produced by animals having rumen, the first of their four stomachs where the plant material they eat – cellulose, fibre, starch and sugars – gets fermented or broken down by microorganisms prior to further digestion and nutrient absorption.
Carbohydrate fermentation leads to production of CO2 and hydrogen. These are used as substrate by archaea microbes in the rumen with structure similar to bacteria to producemethane, which the animals then expel through burping.
Belching cattle, buffaloes, sheep and goats in India emit an estimated 9.25 million tonnes (mt) to 14.2 mt of methane annually, out of a global total of 90 mt-plus from livestock
Methane’s global warming potential – 25 times of carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 years, making it a more potent greenhouse gas – that’s cause for concern.
Indian livestock largely fed on agricultural residues wheat/paddy straw and maize, sorghum or bajra stover – ruminants in India tend to produce 50-100% higher methane than their industrialised country counterparts that are given more easily fermentable/digestible concentrates, silages and green fodder

Harit Dhara has been prepared using condensed and hydrolysable tannin-rich plant-based sources abundantly available in the country. It roughly costs Rs 6/kg and it is to be fed only to animals aged above three months having fully functional rumen. It was developed by ICAR

Advantages

it not only cuts down their methane emissions by 17-20%, but also results in higher milk production and body weight gain.
Fermentation continues and more production of propionic acid now in proportion to acetic and butyric acid, provides much of the energy for lactose (milk sugar) production and body weight gain, from feeding of Harit Dhara.
Harit Dhara acts by decreasing the population of protozoa microbes in the rumen, responsible for hydrogen production and making it available to the archaea for reduction of CO2 to methane.

The benefit-cost ratio for the dairy farmer works out to 3:1.

10. Organ transplantation

Subject: Governance

Context: The Covid-19 pandemic has dealt a body blow to organ transplantation and aggravated the existing gap between patients awaiting transplants and organ availability

Concept:

Organ donation means giving part of the body (organ) to a person with end stage organ disease who needs a transplant.
The organs that can be donated for transplantation include kidney, liver, heart, lungs, and small bowel and tissues such as corneas, heart valves, skin and bone. Tissue means a group of cells performing a particular function in the human body such as bone, skin, cornea of the eye, heart valve, blood vessels, nerves and tendon etc.

Legal Framework:

Organ Transplantation and Donation is permitted by law, and covered under the “Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994”, which has allowed organ donation by live & Brain-stem Dead donors.
In 2011, amendment of the Act also brought in donation of human tissues, thereby calling the Amended Act “Transplantation of Human Organs & Tissues Act 2011”.
The Government of India has also started a National Organ and Transplant Program (NOTP), under which patients below the poverty line are supported for the cost of transplant as well as cost of immunosuppression after transplant for one year.

Concerns

The main source of organ availability was from victims of road accidents. But with the Covid lockdown road traffic has dropped and that has meant fewer accidents and non-availability of organs for transplanting.
Patients are unwilling to accept organs from other donors due to concerns about possible Covid infection.
Government data says annually around 1.8 lakh persons suffer from renal failure but only 6,000 renal transplants are done. About 2 lakh die of liver failure or liver cancer – 10-15 per cent of them could be saved with a timely liver transplant. Similarly, about 50,000 persons suffer from heart failures but only about 10 to 15 heart transplants are performed every year

11. REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust)

Context: SEBI recently announced that the minimum investment amount in a REIT be brought down to ₹10,000-15,000, with the revised trading lot at one unit; the earlier investment amount was ₹50,000,

Concept:

REITs are investment vehicles that pool investor money like mutual funds and use it to buy a portfolio of real estate assets.
They manage these assets to generate a regular income and capital appreciation. In order to ensure that the REIT is able to generate income, the portfolio of a REIT should be invested in completed and rent-generating properties.
REITs can invest in all kinds of income-generating properties — residences, offices, hotels, malls, warehouses et al, in India the listed REITs are focussed mainly on office space.
The first listing of REIT in the country (Embassy REIT), the listing and trading of REITs on the exchanges allow investors to buy or sell them at any time.
The structure of a REIT is similar to a mutual fund.
REITs focus on paying out regular income from rent earned on properties.

It has three tier structure

a sponsor, who is responsible for promoting the REIT with his own capital;
a fund management company which is responsible for selecting and operating the properties;
Trustee, who ensures that the money is managed in the interest of unit-holders.

As per SEBI’s guidelines,

REITs need to mandatorily distribute 90 per cent of their income to unit-holders. The distribution could be in the form of dividend or interest income or both.
REITs offer a chance to buy into diversified property portfolio with a small outlay.

12. T cells memory in exposed vs unexposed individuals to COVID 19

Context: In Covid-19 patients whose symptoms were mild, researchers found that they were more likely than sicker patients to have signs of prior infection by similar, less virulent coronaviruses. The study, by researchers from the Stanford University School of Medicine researchers, has been published in the journal Science Immunology.

Concept:

The findings suggest that people with Covid-19 may experience milder symptoms if certain cells of their immune systems “remember” previous encounters with seasonal coronaviruses.

Exposed

The immune cells are killer T cells. The study showed that killer T cells taken from the sickest Covid-19 patients exhibit fewer signs of having previous ruins with common-cold-causing coronaviruses.
Human cells routinely saw up some samples of each protein they’ve made into tiny pieces, and display those pieces (called peptides) on their surfaces, so that T cells can inspect them. When a killer T-cell notices a peptide that doesn’t belong on a cell’s surface, it multiplies furiously, and its numerous offspring fire up to destroy any cell carrying these peptides.

Unexposed

It is found that unexposed individuals’ killer T cells targeting SARS-CoV-2 peptides that were shared with other coronaviruses were more likely to have proliferated than killer T cells targeting peptides found only on SARS-CoV-2.
The T cells targeting those shared peptide sequences had probably previously encountered one or another gentler coronavirus strain, and had proliferated in response