Daily Prelims Notes 1 January 2023

Daily Prelims Notes

1 January 2023

Table Of Contents

1. Most Union government offices likely to go fully digital
2. India abstains from voting on U.N. resolution on Israel
3. How will the free foodgrain scheme work out?
4. Women break new ground in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme
5. Government starts process to buy 100 more K9-Vajras
6. Sustainable shrimp cultivation provides hope for mangrove restoration in Sundarbans
7. What is the crypto awareness campaign?
8. First mitochondrial transplant in six children shows promise
9. Hint of an elementary particle vanishes under LHC scrutiny

1. Most Union government offices likely to go fully digital

Subject: Science and Technology

Context: Several security measures put in place to avoid any cybersecurity incidents such as recent ransomware attack at AIIMS Delhi.

About e-office:

• E-Office is designed and developed by National Informatics Centre, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MEITY).
• E-Office is a cloud enabled software that can be deployed/hosted in any data centre or in any cloud identified by the organization.
• NIC team shall help the organization in setting up of e-Office environment, master data preparation and in initial rollout.
• The e-Office aims to support Governance by ushering in more effective and transparent inter and Intra-Government processes. The vision of e-Office is to achieve a simplified, responsive, effective and transparent working of all Government Offices.
• The Open Architecture on which e-Office has been built, makes it a reusable framework and a standard reusable product amenable to replication across the Governments, at the Central, State and District levels.
• e-office is for unclassified files with two-factor authentication and is not available on the Internet, but on NICNET. It has mandatory features of authentication of documents with digitally signed certificates and e-signatures.
• So far, 74 ministries and departments have migrated to e-office version 7.0.

About CERT-In:

• It is an organisation of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, Government of India, with the objective of securing Indian cyberspace.
• It is the nodal agency which deals with cybersecurity threats like hacking and phishing.
• It collects analyses and disseminates information on cyber incidents, and also issues alert on cybersecurity incidents.
• CERT-IN provides Incident Prevention and Response Services as well as Security Quality Management Services.
• The Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008 designated CERT-In to serve as the national agency to perform the following functions in the area of cyber security:
  • Collection, analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents.
  • Forecast and alerts of cyber security incidents
  • Emergency measures for handling cyber security incidents
  • Coordination of cyber incident response activities.
  • Issue guidelines, advisories, vulnerability notes and whitepapers relating to information

2. India abstains from voting on U.N. resolution on Israel

Subject: International Relations

Context:

• India abstained in the U.N. General Assembly on a resolution that asked the International Court of Justice for its opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s “prolonged occupation” and annexation of the Palestinian territory.

More about the news:

• The resolution decided to request the UN’s highest judicial body to “render an advisory opinion” on “what are the legal consequences arising from the ongoing violation by Israel of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, from its prolonged occupation, settlement and annexation of the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”
• Resolution adopted by a recorded vote, with 87 votes in favour, 26 against and 53 abstentions, including by India

UNGA Resolutions:

• United Nations resolutions are formal expressions of the opinion or will of United Nations organs.
• A United Nations General Assembly Resolution is a decision or declaration voted on by all member states of the United Nations in the General Assembly.
• General Assembly resolutions usually require a simple majority (50 percent of all votes plus one) to pass.
• However, if the General Assembly determines that the issue is an “important question” by a simple majority vote, then a two-thirds majority is required;
• “important questions” are those that deal significantly with the maintenance of international peace and security, admission of new members to the United Nations, suspension of the rights and privileges of membership, the expulsion of members, operation of the trusteeship system, or budgetary questions.
• Although General Assembly resolutions are generally non-binding towards member states.

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA):

• It is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations(UN)
• The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN.It meets from September to December every year, and then again between January and August.
• All 193 Member States of the UN are represented in the General Assembly, making it the only UN body with universal representation.
• The President of the General Assembly is elected each year by assembly to serve a one-year term of office.
• Each of the 193 Member States of the United Nations has an equal vote.
• UNGA also makes key decisions for the UN, including:
  • appointing the Secretary-General on the recommendation of the Security Council
  • electing the non-permanent members of the Security Council
  • approving the UN budget

3. How will the free foodgrain scheme work out?

Subject : Government schemes

Context:

• The Centre decided to provide 5 kg of free food grains per month for the 81 crore beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act (NFSA) during 2023, rather than charging them a subsidised amount of ₹3 a kg of rice, ₹2 a kg of wheat and ₹1 a kg of coarse cereal as is currently done.

What is the impact of this measure on the food subsidy bill?

• During the pre-Covid years, Centre’s food subsidy bill on account of the NFSA amounted to around ₹2 lakh crore.
• During covid-19 years (2020-2022) the amount has been doubled.
• Now the centre has to spend an additional ₹15,000 crore to ₹16,000 crore on providing free food grains under the NFSA for a year.
• However, the Centre will save around ₹2 lakh crore by ending the PMGKAY scheme.

What does this mean for foodgrain stocks?

• The annual foodgrain requirement for the NFSA is about 520 lakh tonnes, while the PMGKAY required an additional 480 lakh tonnes.
• The difference comes from the fact that the poorest families coming under the Antyodaya Anna Yojana category received 35 kg a family every month under the NFSA, but received 5 kg per person under the PMGKAY.

How will it impact beneficiaries?

• The Right to Food Campaign estimates that poor families will be forced to spend ₹750-₹900 a month to access the current level of ration entitlement.

What is Pradhan Mantri GareebKalyaanAnnadata Yojana (PM-GKAY)?

• About the scheme:
  • PMGKAY is a part of the Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Package (PMGKP) to help the poor fight the battle against Covid-19.
  • The scheme aimed at providing each person who is covered under the National Food Security Act 2013 with an additional 5 kg grains (wheat or rice) for free, in addition to the 5 kg of subsidised foodgrain already provided through the Public Distribution System (PDS).
  • It was initially announced for a three-month period (April, May and June 2020), covering 80 crore ration cardholders. Later it was extended till September 2022.
  • Its nodal Ministry is the Ministry of Finance.
  • The benefit of the free ration can be availed through portability by any migrant labour or beneficiary under the One Nation One Ration Card (ONORC) plan from nearly 5 lakh ration shops across the country.
• Cost: The overall expenditure of PMGKAY will be about Rs. 3.91 lakh crore for all the phases.
• Challenges: The beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act are based on the last census (2011). The number of food-insecure people has increased since then and they remain uncovered.
• Issues:
  • Expensive: It’s very expensive for the government to sustain and increases the need for an abundant supply of cheap grains. In 2022, India has had to restrict exports of wheat and rice after erratic weather hurt harvest, adding to pressure on food prices, and rattling global agricultural markets.
  • Increase Fiscal Deficit: It could pose a risk to the government’s target to further narrow the fiscal deficit to 6.4% of gross domestic product.
  • Inflation: The decision on the program could also affect inflation. The prices of rice and wheat, which make up about 10% of India’s retail inflation, are seeing an uptick due to lower production amid a heatwave and patchy monsoon.

National Food Security Act (NFSA), 2013

• Notified on: 10th September, 2013.
• Objective: To provide for food and nutritional security in the human life cycle approach, by ensuring access to adequate quantities of quality food at affordable prices to people to live a life with dignity.
• Coverage: 75% of the rural population and upto 50% of the urban population for receiving subsidised foodgrains under Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS).
  • Overall, NFSA caters to 67% of the total population.
• Eligibility:
  • Priority Households to be covered under TPDS, according to guidelines by the State government.
  • Households covered under existing Antyodaya Anna Yojana.
• Provisions:
  • 5 Kgs of foodgrains per person per month at Rs. 3/2/1 per Kg for rice/wheat/coarse grains.
  • The existing AAY household will continue to receive 35 Kgs of foodgrains per household per month.
  • Meal and maternity benefit of not less than Rs. 6,000 to pregnant women and lactating mothers during pregnancy and six months after the child birth.
  • Meals for children upto 14 years of age.
  • Food security allowance to beneficiaries in case of non-supply of entitled foodgrains or meals.
  • Setting up of grievance redressal mechanisms at the district and state level.

4. Women break new ground in Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme

Subject :Polity

Context:

• The proportion of women workers participating in the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MGNREGS) has touched a ten-year high in the ongoing financial year.

More in news:

• According to the latest statistics 57.8% of the workers who used the scheme this year were women, their highest level of participation since 2012-13.
• Out of the 15 States (Kerala, Bihar, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Andhra Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Chhattisgarh, Telangana, Odisha, Jharkhand, Assam, Gujarat and Uttar Pradesh) being surveyed, 14 States reported an upward trend in women’s participation except Kerala.
• The drop in Kerala is miniscule. For the last five years, in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, women’s share in the MGNREGA workforce has been hovering between 85-90%.
• The proportion of women workers in Bihar grew 3.7 percentage points this year, while UP saw a 3.3 percentage point hike.
• Despite this, U.P. has participation in MGNREGS around 37%.

About MGNREGA:

• The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), also known as Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (MNREGS) is Indian legislation enacted on August 25, 2005.
• The MGNREGA provides a legal guarantee for one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any rural household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage.
• The Ministry of Rural Development (MRD), Govt of India is monitoring the entire implementation of this scheme in association with state governments.
• This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or unskilled work to people living below poverty line in rural India.
• Roughly one-third of the stipulated work force must be women.
• Adult members of rural households submit their name, age and address with photo to the Gram Panchayat.
• The Gram Panchayat registers households after making enquiry and issues a job card.
• The job card contains the details of adult member enrolled and his /her photo.
• Registered person can submit an application for work in writing (for at least fourteen days of continuous work) either to Panchayat or to Programme Officer.
• The Panchayat/Programme officer will accept the valid application and issue dated receipt of application, letter providing work will be sent to the applicant and also displayed at Panchayat office.
• The employment will be provided within a radius of 5 km: if it is above 5 km extra wage will be paid.

Eligibility Criteria:

• Must be Citizen of India to seek MGNREGA benefits.
• Job seeker has completed 18 years of age at the time of application.
• The applicant must be part of a local household (i.e. application must be made with local Gram Panchayat).
• Applicant must volunteer for unskilled labour.

Key facts:

• Individual beneficiary oriented works can be taken up on the cards of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, small or marginal farmers or beneficiaries of land reforms or beneficiaries under the Indira Awaas Yojana of the Government of India.
• Within 15 days of submitting the application or from the day work is demanded, wage employment will be provided to the applicant.
• Social Audit of MGNREGA works is mandatory, which lends to accountability and transparency.
• The Gram Sabha is the principal forum for wage seekers to raise their voices and make demands.
• It is the Gram Sabha and the Gram Panchayat which approves the shelf of works under MGNREGA and fix their priority.

Roles of Gram Panchayat:

• Receiving applications for registration
• Verifying registration applications
• Registering households
• Issuing Job Cards (JCs)
• Receiving applications for work
• Issuing dated receipts for these applications for work
• Allotting work within fifteen days of submitting the application or from the date when work is sought in the case of an advance application.
• Identification and planning of works, developing shelf of projects including determination of the order of their priority.

5. Government starts process to buy 100 more K9-Vajras

Subject :Defence

Context:

• The Defence Ministry has started the process for the procurement of 100 more K9-Vajra tracked self-propelled howitzers which are built in India by Larsen & Toubro (L&T) using technology transferred from South Korean defence major Hanwha Defense.

About K9-Vajra:

• The K9 VAJRA-T 155mm/ 52 is a tracked self-propelled howitzer (a short gun for firing shells on high trajectories at low velocities), which has its roots in the K9 Thunder, the mainstay of the South Korean Army.
• It offers a high rate of fire at long-range and is compatible with Indian and standard North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) ammunition.
• The K9 Thunder platform is made of all-welded steel armour protection material.
• The K9 gun has been developed under the ‘Buy Global’ programme of the Defence Procurement Procedure (DPP) where foreign companies are allowed to participate.
• In this case, Hanwha Techwin of South Korea is the technology partner of L&T.

6. Sustainable shrimp cultivation provides hope for mangrove restoration in Sundarbans

Subject :Environment

Context:

• A new initiative of sustainable shrimp cultivation provides hope for mangrove restoration in Sundarbans. There were concerns over unsustainable aquaculture, particularly shrimp collection, after cleaning large tracts of mangrove forests in Sunderbans.

Sustainable Aquaculture In Mangrove Ecosystem (SAIME):

• Under the initiative, farmers have taken up cultivation of shrimp at 20 hectares at Chaital in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas, and 10 hectares at Madhabpur in adjoining South 24 Parganas.
• The community-based initiative of sustainable shrimp cultivation is being conceived by NEWS and Global Nature Fund (GNF), Naturland Bangladesh Environment and Development Society (BEDS).
• A research program on the contribution of mangrove leaf litter in the nutritional dynamics in SAIME ponds has been initiated in collaboration with the Centre for Excellence in Blue Economy (CoE-BE) of the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Kolkata.

Shrimp cultivation in sundarbans:

• The Sundarbans forest is about 10,000 sq. km across India and Bangladesh, of which 40% lies in India.
  • The Sundarbans, a cluster of low-lying islands in the Bay of Bengal, spread across India and Bangladesh, is famous for its unique mangrove forests.
  • It occupies a position of importance as a tourist spot for the scenic beauty it provides and for the famous and majestic “Royal Bengal Tiger”.
• Fishing, particularly shrimp cultivation, is one of the key occupations of the people of Sundarbans, which is a complex network of rivers and low-lying islands that face a tide surge twice a day.
• Shrimp cultivation is practised in about 15,000 to 20,000 hectares of the unique ecosystem in India.
• They are also cultivating indigenous varieties of shrimps such as black tiger shrimp (P. monodon) and giant freshwater prawn (M. rosenbergii).

What is the Significance of the Sundarban Delta?

• The Sundarbans hosts the largest mangrove forests in the world, lying on the delta of the Ganges, Brahmaputra and Meghna rivers on the Bay of Bengal.
• Mangrove ecosystem is a very specialised environment occurring in between the land and the sea in the tropical and subtropical regions.
• Sundarban is the natural abode of many groups of animals and a large number of species are known to feed, breed and take shelter in this ecosystem.
• It is home to many rare and globally threatened wildlife species such as the estuarine crocodile, water monitor lizard, Gangetic dolphin and olive ridley turtle.
• Sundarban was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1987 (India) and 1997 (Bangladesh).
• Sundarban Wetland, India was recognised as the ‘Wetland of International Importance’ under the Ramsar Convention in January 2019.

7. What is the crypto awareness campaign?

Subject: Economy

Context:

• The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) will launch an outreach programme soon to create awareness of cryptocurrencies and online gaming. The need for the outreach is based on the observation that both crypto-assets and online gaming.

What is the Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)?

• Setup in 2016, under the section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.
• Managed by the IEPF Authority.
• The Authority is entrusted with the responsibility of administration of the IEPF, which, besides promoting awareness among investors, makes refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits and debentures and so on to rightful claimants.
• Focus areas include primary and secondary capital markets, various saving instruments, the instruments for investment (such as mutual funds, equity, among others), making investors aware of dubious Ponzi and chit fund schemes and existing grievance redressal mechanisms, among other things.

Why is there a concern about cryptocurrency?

• Crypto exchanges in India are being investigated for their alleged involvement in unlawful practices such as drug trafficking, money laundering, violating foreign exchange legislation and evasion of GST.
• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended framing legislation on the sector.

What is online gaming?

• An online game is a video game that is either partially or primarily played through the Internet or any other computer network available.

What are the types of online gaming?

1. e-sports (well-organised electronic sports which include professional players),
2. Fantasy sports
3. Casual games: these can be either skill-based (mental skill) or chance based (based on a random activity like a roll of a dice) online games.

How big is the online gaming market in India?

• Revenue generated: The revenue is estimated to reach $5 billion in 2025.
• Growth: CAGR of 38% between 2017-2020, as opposed to 8% in China and 10% in the US.

Law on online gaming in India:

• State subject: Online gaming so far has been a state subject, but state governments are finding it extremely difficult to enforce certain rules like geo-blocking certain apps or websites within the territory of their state.
• Applicability issue: there is a concern that rules passed in one state are not applicable in another, which has caused inconsistency in regulation.
• Lack enough power: State governments also do not have enough blocking powers like the Centre to issue blocking orders for offshore betting sites.

Online Gaming sector:

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has been appointed the nodal industry for online gaming in India;
• for e-sports, the nodal agency is the Department of Sports, under the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports.
• Issue: There is confusion about the definitions of a ‘game of chance’ like fantasy games, and a ‘game of skill’, a term which has been used in the Public Gaming Act (1867) but has not been spelt out.
  • Under several rulings of supreme court and High courts, ‘Game of skill’ is protected under the Article 19(1)(g) of the Indian Constitution.
  • These rulings have also emphasised a clear distinction between ‘Games of Skill’ and ‘Games of Chance’.

8. First mitochondrial transplant in six children shows promise

Subject: Science and Technology

Context:

• In a world first, six children with a rare disorder caused by deletions in the genomes of their mitochondria– the cellular compartments essential for energy generation- have been successfully treated with donor mitochondria from their mother.

More on the news:

• Doctors transferred healthy mitochondria into the children’s haematopoietic stem cells, which give rise to blood cells.

About Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT):

• Mitochondrial replacement therapy (MRT), sometimes called mitochondrial donation, is the replacement of mitochondria in one or more cells to prevent or ameliorate disease.
• MRT originated as a special form of in vitro fertilisation in which some or all of the future baby’s mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) comes from a third party.
• This technique is used in cases when mothers carry genes for mitochondrial diseases.
• The therapy is approved for use in the United Kingdom.
• A second application is to use autologous mitochondria to replace mitochondria in damaged tissue to restore the tissue to a functional state.
• This has been used in clinical research in the United States to treat cardiac-compromised newborns.

What is Mitochondria?

• It was first described by a German pathologist named Richard Altmann in the year 1890.
• Popularly known as the “Powerhouse of the cell,”mitochondria are a double membrane-bound organelle found in most eukaryotic organisms.
• They are found inside the cytoplasm and essentially function as the cell’s “digestive system.”
• They play a major role in breaking down nutrients and generating energy-rich molecules for the cell.
• Many of the biochemical reactions involved in cellular respiration take place within the mitochondria.

Functions of Mitochondria:

• The most important function of mitochondria is to produce energy through the process of oxidative phosphorylation.
• It is also involved in the following process:
  • Regulates the metabolic activity of the cell
  • Promotes the growth of new cells and cell multiplication
  • Helps in detoxifying ammonia in the liver cells
  • Plays an important role in apoptosis or programmed cell death
  • Responsible for building certain parts of the blood and various hormones like testosterone and oestrogen
  • Helps in maintaining an adequate concentration of calcium ions within the compartments of the cell
  • It is also involved in various cellular activities like cellular differentiation, cell signalling, cell senescence, controlling the cell cycle and also in cell growth.
• Mitochondrial diseases: Alpers Disease, Barth Syndrome, Kearns-Sayre syndrome (KSS).

9. Hint of an elementary particle vanishes under LHC scrutiny

Subject: Science and Technology

Context:

• An intriguing anomaly in data gathered by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that raised hopes of a new elementary particle has turned out to be a fluke.

More in the news:

• In 2014, LHC scientists at CERN, Europe’s particle-physics laboratory near Geneva, Switzerland, discovered that some massive particles decay more often into electron-positron pairs than into muon-antimuon pairs.
• This imbalance defied the standard model of physics, which predicts both pairs to occur with roughly the same frequency.

About CERN:

• CERN is the European Organization for Nuclear Research where scientists probe the fundamental structure of the universe.
• CERN was established in 1954. It has 23 member states. 22 members are European countries. Israel is the only non-European nation that has full membership in CERN.
• India is the associate member of CERN and USA has observer status at CERN.
• CERN is located in Geneva and it is an official Observer to the United Nations (UN).
• Functions of CERN:
• Its most important function is to provide the particle accelerators and other related infrastructure required for high-energy physics research.
• CERN operates the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. Originally, the laboratory was solely used to study atomic nuclei. Later, it is also being used for research in higher-energy physics to study interactions between subatomic particles.

Facilities at CERN:

• Through international collaborations, many experiments have been conducted at CERN.
• There is a large computing facility at the main site, where data from experiments is stored and analyzed. In 2016, 49 petabytes of datawas generated by CERN.
• The laboratory is also a major wide area network (WAN) hub. This is to enable researchers to remotely access the facilities present at the laboratory. In 1989, World Wide Web (WWW) was invented by a scientist at CERN.

What is Large Hadron Collider (LHC)?

• The Large Hadron Collider is a giant, complex machine built to study particles that are the smallest known building blocks of all things.
• Structure: LHC is a 27-km-long track-loop buried 100m underground on the Swiss-French border.
• Operation: In its operational state, it fires two beams of protons almost at the speed of light in opposite directions inside a ring of superconducting electromagnets.
  • Guided by magnetic field: The magnetic field created by the superconducting electromagnets keeps the protons in a tight beam and guides them along the way as they travel through beam pipes and finally collide.
  • High precision: The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 km apart with such precision that they meet halfway.
  • Supercooled: Since the LHC’s powerful electromagnets carry almost as much current as a bolt of lightning, they must be kept chilled. It uses liquid helium to keep its critical components ultracold at minus  271.3 degrees Celsius, which is colder than interstellar space.

Experiments:

• ATLAS is the largest general-purpose particle detector experiment at the LHC
• The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of the largest international scientific collaborations in history, with the same goals as ATLAS, but which uses a different magnet-system design.)

Achievements:

• ‘God Particle’ discovery: Scientists at CERN had announced the discovery of the Higgs boson or the ‘God Particle’ during the LHC’s first run.
• This led to Peter Higgs and his collaborator François Englert being awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 2013.
• The Higgs boson is the fundamental particle associated with the Higgs field, a field that gives mass to other fundamental particles such as electrons and quarks.
• ‘New Physics’ beyond Standard Model: After the discovery of the Higgs boson, scientists have started using the data collected as a tool to look beyond the Standard Model, which is currently the best theory of the most elementary building blocks of the universe and their interactions.

What you need to know about matter and antimatter?

• The universe consists of a massive imbalance between matter and antimatter.
• Antimatter and matter are actually the same, but have opposite charges, but there’s hardly any antimatter in the observable universe, including the stars and other galaxies.
• In theory, there should be large amounts of antimatter, but the observable universe is mostly matter.
• This great imbalance between matter and antimatter is all tangible matter, including life forms, exists, but scientists don’t understand why.

What happens when matter and antimatter meet?

• When antimatter and matter meet, they annihilate, and the result is light and nothing else. Given equal amounts of matter and antimatter, nothing would remain once the reaction was completed. As long as we don’t know why more matter exists, we can’t know why the building blocks of anything else exist, either.
• This is one of the biggest unsolved problems in physics. Researchers call this the “baryon asymmetry” problem.
• Baryons are subatomic particles, including protons and neutrons. All baryons have a corresponding antibaryon, which is mysteriously rare.
• The standard model of physics explains several aspects of the forces of nature. It explains how atoms become molecules, and it explains the particles that make up atoms.