Daily Prelims Notes 12 March 2021

Daily Prelims Notes

12 March 2021

By

Santosh Sir

All 6 Prelims qualified

4 CSE Mains qualified

If I can do it, you can too

Table Of Contents

1. AMRIT MAHOTSAV
2. LGBTIQ FRREDOM ZONE
3. NCPCR
4. MAPPING INDIAN OCEAN GENOME
5. BAD BANKS
6. INDO JAPAN SPACE TIES

1. AMRIT MAHOTSAV

Subject: Current Events

Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday requested MPs and all public representatives to take part in ‘Amrit Mahotsav’ to mark India’s 75 years of Independence.

Concept :

• The Amrit Mahotsav will start from March 12, 2021 to mark the 75 years of India’s Independence from the British rule. It will start at the Sabarmati Ashram in Gujarat. This festival will be organized at the 75 locations for 75 weeks across the country.

Logo of Amrit Mahotsav

• The MyGov recently launched a logo design contest for the Amrit Mahotsav so as to commemorate the monumental occasion.
• To participate in the contest, the artists were required to design a logo on the themes ranging from Governance, Development, Technology, Reform, Progress and Policy over the years.

Who are eligible for the contest?

• This logo contest was open only for the citizens of India. The entry for the contest was free and no qualifications have been prescribed by the government. The entry was closed on February 28, 2021.

How the logo was selected?

• The entries received by February 28 will be evaluated by the Selection Committee which was constituted for this purpose. Committee will shortlist the entries and decide the winner if any entry is found suitable.
• The committee will decide one winner, two runners-up regarding which the decision of the committee will be final. The winner will get the prize of Rs 1 lakh, while the two runners-up will get the price of Rs 50,000 and Rs 25,000 respectively.

2. LGBTIQ FRREDOM ZONE

Subject: International Events

Context: The European Parliament has declared whole of the European Union as “LGBTIQ Freedom Zone” on March 11, 2021.

Concept :

• The European Union resolution declares that the “LGBTIQ persons anywhere in European Union will enjoy the freedom to live and publicly show their sexual orientation & gender identity without any fear of intolerance, persecution or discrimination”.
• The resolution further adds that, the authorities at all the levels of the governance across the European union shall protect and promote the equality and fundamental rights of all including the LGBTIQ.
• This resolution was supported by 492 MEPs, 141 MEPs voted against it while 46 abstained from voting.

European Parliament

• It is the only parliamentary institution of the European Union (EU) that is directly elected by EU citizens aged 18 years or older. Together with the Council of the European Union (also known as the ‘Council’), it exercises the legislative function of the EU.
• European Parliament does not possess as much legislative power as its member countries’ parliaments do.

3. NCPCR

Subject: National organisations

Context: In its notice to Netflix, NCPCR directed the streaming platform to furnish an action taken report within the next 24 hours.

Concept:

About NCPCR:

• Set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.
• It works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Women & Child Development.
• The Child is defined as a person in the 0 to 18 years age group.
• The Commission’s Mandate is to ensure that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Under the RTE Act, 2009, the NCPCR can:

• Inquire into complaints about violation of the law.
• summon an individual and demand evidence.
• seek a magisterial enquiry.
• file a writ petition in the High Court or Supreme Court.
• approach the government concerned for prosecution of the offender.
• recommend interim relief to those affected.

Composition:

• This commission has a chairperson and six members of which at least two should be women.
• All of them are appointed by Central Government for three years.
• The maximum age to serve in commission is 65 years for Chairman and 60 years for members.

4. MAPPING INDIAN OCEAN GENOME

Subject: Science & tech

Context: Scientists from the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO) in Panaji onboard its research vessel Sindhu Sadhana will spend the next three months traversing the course of over 10,000 nautical miles in the Indian Ocean on a research project to reveal the internal working of the body of the ocean at a cellular level.

Concept :

• The first-of-its-kind research project in the country is aimed at understanding the biochemistry and the response of the ocean to climate change, nutrient stress and increasing pollution.
• The research project will take three years to complete.
• Researchers will travel the Indian Ocean from India’s east coast, all the way to Australia, then onward towards Port Louis in Mauritius and up to the border of Pakistan, off India’s west coast, gathering samples for genome mapping of microorganisms in the Indian Ocean.
• The researchers will collect samples from various stretches of the ocean at an average depth of about 5 km.
• Just like gene mapping is carried out on blood samples collected from humans, the scientists will map these in the bacteria, microbes found in the ocean. This will help scientists understand the internal working of the ecosystem of the Indian Ocean.
• At various stages and stretches, samples will be collected by lowering a Kevlar cable of up to 8 km with a set of 24 teflon coated bottles to collect samples.

5. BAD BANKS

Subject: Economy

Context: Government-owned bad bank is more capital efficient: Report

Concept:

• A bad bank conveys the impression that it will function as a bank but has bad assets to start with.
• Technically, a bad bank is an Asset Reconstruction Company (ARC) or an Asset Management Company (AMC) that takes over the bad loans of commercial banks, manages them and finally recovers the money over a period of time.
• The bad bank is not involved in lending and taking deposits, but helps commercial banks clean up their balance sheets and resolve bad loans.
• The takeover of bad loans is normally below the book value of the loan and the bad bank tries to recover as much as possible subsequently.

Global Precedence

• US-based Mellon Bank created the first bad bank in 1988, after which the concept has been implemented in other countries including Sweden, Finland, France and Germany.
• The Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in the US.
• In Ireland, the National Asset Management Agency was established in 2009 to respond to the financial crisis.

Previous Proposals:

• In May 2020 the banking sector, led by the Indian Banks’ Association, had submitted a proposal for setting up a bad bank to resolve the NPA problem, proposing equity contribution from the government and banks.
• In 2017 the Economic Survey suggested Public Sector Asset Rehabilitation Agency or PARA, to buy out the NPAs of high value from Indian banks.

6. INDO JAPAN SPACE TIES

Subject: International Relations

Context: Indian and Japanese space agencies reviewed cooperation in earth observation, lunar cooperation and satellite navigation, and also agreed to explore opportunities for cooperation in “space situational awareness and professional exchange programme”.

Concept:

• This was agreed during a bilateral meeting between the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) held virtually.
• Both agencies signed an Implementing Arrangement for collaborative activities on rice crop area and air quality monitoring using satellite data.
• India and Japan are already working on a joint lunar polar exploration (LUPEX) mission and the two space agencies have been working on the mission that aims to send a lander and rover to the Moon’s south pole around 2024.

Space Situational Awareness (SSA)

• Space Situational Awareness (SSA) is the science of tracking objects (man-made and natural) that are in orbit and also predicting whet they would be at a given point in time.
• So far, only America, Russia and Europe have similar established capabilities in place to track space objects and share collision warnings.
• ISRO has set up a Directorate of Space Situational Awareness and Management aiming at protecting high valued space assets from space debris close approaches and collisions.
• To carryout systematically all activities related to SSAM, a control centre is being established at Bengaluru.