Daily Prelims Notes 14 August 2020
- August 14, 2020
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN
Table Of Contents
- Transparent Taxation – Honouring the Honest
- Organic farming
- Nashamukt Bharat Campaign
- Sivaganga- Velu Nachiar, Mumbai- Benjamin Horniman
- Mutual funds
- ILO Convention 182
- Organic matter in soil
- Smart Meters and Energy efficiency Services Limited
- National Health Authority
- Telecommunication Engineering Centre
- Critical Wildlife Habitat
- Official language
1. Transparent Taxation – Honouring the Honest
Subject: Economy
Context:
Prime Minister has launched “Transparent Taxation – Honoring the Honest” platform through video conferencing which will honor the honest taxpayers.
Concept:
- The new platform will be having faceless assessments, faceless appeal and taxpayer charter.
- The faceless assessment and taxpayer charter came to effect immediately, while the faceless appeal is going to be applicable from September 25.
- It is the latest in a series of measures finance ministry has taken to eventually get rid income tax department off its legacy from intrusive tax collector to tax facilitator.
- The focus is on making the tax system people-centric and public friendly, banking the unbanked, securing the unsecured, funding the unfunded and honoring the honest.
- In a country of 130 crore people only 1.5 crore citizens were paying taxes.
- Taxpayers’ charter is a big step in the development journey of the nation. It is a step towards bringing together rights and duties of the taxpayer and fixing the government’s responsibilities towards the taxpayer
Reforms already taken
- To unfold more transparency in official communication, Document Identification Number (DIN) was introduced some time back to ensure that every communication of the department would carry a computer generated unique document identification number.
- Last year, the corporate tax rates were reduced from 30 percent to 22 percent and for new manufacturing units the rate was reduced to 15 percent. Dividend distribution tax was also abolished to reduce the unwanted burden
- With a view to provide for resolution of pending tax disputes the department also brought out the Direct Tax Vivad se Vishwas Act, 2020 under which declarations for settling disputes are being filed.
- Digital transactions and electronic modes of payment too have been encouraged to cutdown red tapism.
Tax base
- The tax base is the total amount of assets or revenue that a government can charge tax on.
- For example, the assessed value is the tax base for property taxes and taxable income is the tax base for income tax.
- It can also be defined as the total of taxable income, taxable assets, and the assessed value of property within the government tax jurisdiction.
Subject: Agriculture/Schemes
Context:
In a world battered by the COVID pandemic, the demand for healthy and safe food is already showing an upward trend and hence this is an opportune moment to be captured for a win-win situation for Indian farmers, consumers and the environment.
Concept:
- Organic farming is a farming method that involves growing and nurturing crops without the use of synthetic based fertilizers and pesticides. Also, no genetically modified organismsare permitted.
- It relies on ecologically balanced agricultural principles like crop rotation, green manure, organic waste, biological pest control, mineral and rock additives.
Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North East Region (MOVCD)
- Mission Organic Value Chain Development for North East Region (MOVCD-NER) is a Central Sector Scheme, a sub-mission under National Mission for Sustainable Agriculture (NMSA) launched in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura, during the 12th plan period.
- The scheme aims to development of certified organic production in a value chain mode to link growers with consumers and to support the development of entire value chain starting from inputs, seeds, certification, to the creation of facilities for collection, aggregation, processing, marketing and brand building initiative.
Paramparagat Krishi VikasYojana (PKVY)
- Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojna (PKVY) is asub-component under National Mission of Sustainable Agriculture(NMSA) aims at development of sustainable models of organic farming through a mix of traditional wisdom and modern science to ensure long term soil fertility buildup, resource conservation and helps in climate change adapatation and mitigation.
- It primarily aims to increase soil fertility and thereby helps in production of healthy food through organic practices without the use of agro-chemicals.
- PKVY also aims at empowering farmers through institutional development through clusters approach not only in farm practice management, input production, quality assurance but also in value addition and direct marketing through innovative means.
Participatory Guarantee System (PGS)
- PGS is a process of certifying organic products, which ensures that their production takes place in accordance with laid-down quality standards. The certification is in the form of a documented logo or a statement.
- PGS-India (Participatory Guarantee System of India) is a quality assurance initiative that is locally relevant, emphasize the participation of stakeholders, including producers and consumers and operate outside the frame of third party certification.
- PGS India system is based on participatory approach, a shared vision, transparency and trust. In addition it gives PGS movement a National recognition and institutional structure.
National Program for Organic Production (NPOP)
- The Government of India has implemented the National Programme for Organic Production (NPOP).
- The national programme involves the accreditation programme for Certification Bodies, standards for organic production, promotion of organic farming e
- The NPOP standards for production and accreditation system have been recognized by European Commission and Switzerland for unprocessed plant products as equivalent to their country standards.
- Similarly, USDA has recognized NPOP conformity assessment procedures of accreditation as equivalent to that of US.
- With these recognitions, Indian organic products duly certified by the accredited certification bodies of India are accepted by the importing countries.
Subject: Schemes
Context:
Union Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment has addressed a gathering of 272 district collectors, 32 state secretaries besides NGOs who are involved with ‘Nashamukt Bharat Campaign’ through webcast of NIC.
Concept:
- NashaMukt Bharat Annual Action Plan for 2020-21 would focus on 272 most affected districts and launch a three-pronged attack combining efforts of Narcotics Bureau, Outreach/Awareness by Social Justice and Treatment through the Health Department.
- The Action Plan has the following components:
- Awareness generation programmes;
- Focus on Higher Educational institutions, University Campuses and Schools;
- Community outreach and identification of dependent population;
- Focus on Treatment facilities in Hospital settings; and
- Capacity Building Programmes for Service Provider.
4. Sivaganga- Velu Nachiar, Mumbai- Benjamin Horniman
Subject: History
Context:
As India gears up to celebrate its 74th Independence Day celebrations, the Ministry of Tourism’s DekhoApnaDesh Webinar Series presented a webinar titled “Lesser known stories of India’s struggle against the British”
Concept:
Sivaganga- Velu Nachiar
- It was in Sivaganga, during the rule of Muthu Vaduganatha Peria Odaya Thevar. He was married to the princess of Ramanathapuram, Velu Nachiar.
- King Muthu came into conflict with his neighbour, the powerful king of Arcot. At that time, the British power too was rising in South India, and the British had a strong alley in the Nawab of Arcot.
- In 1772, the British attacked Sivaganga, intending to capture it for the Nawab.
- Muthu sent out emissaries to negotiate with them. It seemed though the British agreed to talk with them, so the Sivaganga forces relaxed their guard.
- The British forces swept in and massacred all of them, including King Muthu.
- The crux of the story was the heroic battle waged by Velu Nachiar.
- She was determined to avenge her husband’s death. She had the support of the Marudu Brothers, fierce warlords who stood by her, along with a band of loyalists.
- Velu Nachiar was protected by Udaiyal, the leader of her bodyguards.
- The British captured her and tortured her to get her to reveal the whereabouts of Velu Nachiar. Udaiyal did not give in, and was killed.
- The brave Velu raised one more battalion of women and named it Udaiyal Regiment. It was commanded by the fiercely loyal Kuyili.
- Velu Nachiar met Haidar Ali, the king of Mysore, and convinced him to help her. Haider Ali sent 5,000 men to help Velu Nachiar to get back Sivaganga.
- But, by now, Sivaganga had been handed over to the British, and they had fortified the place.
- Kuyili smuggled some female guerillas in, and while they held the British at bay, she entered the ammunition store, and set it on fire. She died in the process.
- Velu Nachiar became Queen of Sivaganga and ruled for ten years.
- Sivaganga remained under the rule of her family until the merger of princely states happened in 1947.
Mumbai- Benjamin Horniman
- The Horniman Circle Gardens is a large park in South Mumbai, situated in the busy Fort district of Mumbai. It got its name in honour of Benjamin Horniman, the British editor of a newspaper called The Bombay Chronicle.
- The Bombay Chronicle was begun by Sir Pherozeshah Mehta. As its editor, Horniman spoke up against colonialism. He used the Bombay Chronicle to speak about Indian nationalist causes.
- Then in 1919, the JallianwalaBagh massacre happened in Amritsar. The British knew that there would be a terrible backlash over the incident. They immediately clamped down on the press. Horniman defied the censorship.
- He smuggled a first-hand report of the massacre out of Punjab and published it. He continued publishing follow ups to the story and got the British really worried. They deported Horniman to England.
- Horniman continued to protest against the cruelties of the British rule in India in all his writings from England. In 1926, he exploited a loophole in his deportation order and returned to India to continue his work.
5. Mutual funds
Subject: Economy
Context:
After over four years, equity mutual funds have witnessed their first monthly outflow – investors pulled out a net Rs 2,480 crore in July.
Concept:
- A mutual fund is a type of financial vehicle made up of a pool of moneycollected from many investors to invest in securities like stocks, bonds, money market instruments, and other assets.
- Mutual funds are operated by professional money managers, who allocate the fund’s assets and attempt to produce capital gains or income for the fund’s investors.
- The Securities and Exchange Board of India has categorised mutual fund in India under four broad categories:
- Equity mutual fund scheme:These schemes invest directly in stocks. These schemes can give superior returns but can be risky in the short-term as their fortunes depend on how the stock market performs.
- Debt mutual fund schemes: These schemes invest in debt securities. Investors should opt for debt schemes to achieve their short-term goals that are below five years. These schemes are safer than equity schemes and provide modest returns. There are 16 sub-categories under the debt mutual fund category.
- Hybrid mutual fund schemes: These schemes invest in a mix of equity and debt, and an investor must pick a scheme based on his risk appetite. Based on their allocation and investing style, hybrid schemes are categorised into six types.
- Solution-oriented schemes: These schemes are devised for particular solutions or goals like retirement and child’s education. These schemes have a mandatory lock-in period of five years.
Subject: IR
Context:
ILO Convention No. 182 on the Worst Forms of Child Labour has become the first international labour standard ever to achieve universal ratification.
Concept:
- Ending child labour has been one of the main goals of the ILO, which was founded in 1919.
- The UN agency estimates that 152 million children worldwide are affected, with 73 million in hazardous work.
- Most child labour takes place in the agriculture sector, mainly due to poverty and parents’ difficulties in finding decent work.
- Convention No. 182 calls for the prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour, which includes slavery, forced labour and trafficking.
- It forbids the use of children under18 in armed conflict, prostitution, pornography, illicit activities such as drug trafficking, and in hazardous work.
- The Convention was adopted by ILO member states meeting in Geneva in 1999.
- It is one of the organization’s eight Fundamental Conventions, which cover issues such as the elimination of forced labour, the abolition of work-related discrimination and the rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.
- The Pacific island nation Tonga deposited its ratification instruments with the ILO on Tuesday, becoming the final country to do so.
- The ILO said incidence of child labour and its worst forms dropped by almost 40 per cent between 2000 and 2016 as ratification rates increased and countries adopted laws and policies, including relating to minimum age to work.
Subject: Agriculture
Context:
Punjab, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh soils are degraded and depleted because ‘organic matter’ is quite below (0.5-0.2 per cent).
Concept:
- Organic matter is the very foundation of good soil health. It consists of plants, animal material which gets converted into humus after decomposing.
- It improves soil quality and fertility.
- It supplies nutrients, increases water-holding capacity, prevents soil erosion. Supplication of organic matter into the soil decreases with frequent tilling of the land.
- While PAU said that .75 per cent organic matter in the soil is sufficient, Punjab agriculture department said it should be at least 1 per cent. International standards suggest having around 2-3 per cent in the soil.
8. Smart Meters and Energy efficiency Services Limited
Subject: Schemes and Government organisation
Context:
Energy Efficiency Services Limited sets stricter protocols to prevent incidents in future where smart meter shutdowns happened due to sabotage
Concept:
- India is on a path of transforming its energy mix with innovation. Along with enhancing energy production, the nation also needs to cut Aggregate Technical and Commercial (AT&C) losses to below 12 percent by 2022, and below 10 percent by 2027.
- Enabling India to achieve this imperative is the smart grid, the first step of which is the creation of Advanced Metering Infrastructure.
- A new range of ‘smart meters’ can bring efficiency to how India manages its electricity, by checking data-entry errors and billing efficiencies and cutting the costs of manual meter reading through web-based monitoring system.
- With its pioneering role in India’s energy efficiency journey, EESL’s Smart Meter National Programme (SMNP) is working to eventually replace 25 crore conventional meters with smart meters across India.
About EESL
- Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), under the administration of Ministry of Power, Government of India, is working towards mainstreaming energy efficiency and is implementing the world’s largest energy efficiency portfolio in the country.
- Driven by the mission of Enabling More – more transparency, more transformation, and more innovation, EESL aims to create market access for efficient and future-ready transformative solutions that create a win-win situation for every stakeholder.
Subject: Government organisation
Context:
Building on the Ayushman Bharat platform, the Centre is looking to further expand health insurance to cover the “missing middle”.
Concept:
- National Health Authority (NHA) is the apex body responsible for implementing India’s flagship public health insurance/assurance scheme called Ayushman Bharat Pradhan Mantri Jan ArogyaYojana.
- Functions of NHA
- Determine the central ceiling for premium (or maximum central contribution for trusts) per family per year to be provided to the States/UTs and review it from time to time, based on field evidence and actuarial analysis.
- Develop and enforce compliance with standards for treatment protocols, quality protocols, minimum documentation protocols, data sharing protocols, data privacy and security protocols, fraud prevention and control including penal provisions etc.
- Develop mechanisms for strategic purchasing of health care services through PM-JAY, so as to get best return on Government’s investment. Create conducive conditions for strategic purchasing by preparing a list of packages and their rates and updating them from time to time using a transparent, predictable and evidence-based process.
- Build a state of the art health information technology ecosystem with requisite foundational components on which PM-JAY and other health systems can be hosted/linked; Information Technology standards will be developed in consultation with Ministry of Electronic and Information Technology (MeitY).
- Coordination with various State Governments on regular basis for implementation of PM-JAY.
- Capacity building of State Health Agencies and other stakeholders continuousl
- Carrying out awareness activities for informing beneficiaries and other stakeholders about the scheme.
- Prevention, detection and control of fraudulent activities and abuse.
- Grievance redressal for all the stakeholders at various levels.
- Set up an efficient monitoring system for the scheme.
- Stimulate cross learning, sharing of best practices amongst States and documentation of these practices.
- Ensure interoperability, standardization and convergence amongst schemes of Central Ministries.
- Generate evidence for the policy makers from schemes’ data and other research/evaluations so as to facilitate evidence-based decision making and policy formulation by the Government.
10. Telecommunication Engineering Centre
Subject: Government organisation
Context:
India has notified the World Trade Organization (WTO) its intention to make it mandatory for telecom products sold, imported or used in the country to be tested and certified by the Telecom Engineering Centre (TEC) under the Department of Telecommunications
Concept:
- Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC) is a technical body representing the interest of Department of Telecom (DoT), Ministry of Communications and IT, Government of India.
- TEC deal with visualization and strategic positioning of future telecom sector in India, technological forecasting, assessment, and specification of next generation network elements
- Standardization activities of TEC:
- Prepare specification of common standards with regard to Telecom network equipment, services and interoperability. Published specifications of TEC are of three types namely Generic Requirements (GRs), Interface Requirements (IRs) and Service Requirements (SR).
- Providing technical support to DoT and technical advice to TRAI & TDSAT and interact with multilateral agencies like APT, ETSI and ITU etc. for standardisation.
Subject: Environment
Context:
Hardline conservationists fail to see possibilities of people-wildlife coexistence
Concept:
- CWH is a provision under the Forest Rights Act, 2006 (FRA).
- The Act primarily focuses on recognising the historically-denied rights of forest-dwellers to use and manage forests.
- FRA defines CWHs as ‘areas of national parks and sanctuaries where it has been specifically and clearly established, case by case, on the basis of scientific and objective criteria, that such areas are required to be kept as inviolate for the purposes of wildlife conservation
- The power to notify the rules to designate a CWH rests with Ministry of Environment and Forests. The State Government are needed to initiate the process for notification of a critical wildlife habitat by submitting an application on a case by case basis, to the Ministry of Environment and Forests, which is the nodal agency under the said Act. Critical Wildlife Habitats are thus, declared by Central Government ONLY.
- Before a critical wildlife area is notified, not only do the rights of the tribals and forest dwellers have to be settled, but also scientific evidence has to be provided to establish that people’s presence would adversely impact the wildlife in area.
Subject: Polity
Context:
The Supreme Court Thursday advised government to amend the Official Languages Act, 1963 to allow publication of official notifications in languages other than Hindi and English.
Concept:
- The constitutional provisions dealing with the language of the courts and legislation are as follows:
- Until Parliament provides otherwise, the following are to be in the English language only: All proceedings in the Supreme Court and in every high court and the authoritative texts of all bills, acts, ordinances, orders, rules, regulations and byelaws at the Central and state levels.
- However, the governor of a state, with the previous consent of the president, can authorise the use of Hindi or any other official language of the state, in the proceedings in the high court of the state, but not with respect to the judgments, decrees and orders passed by it. In other words, the judgments, decrees and orders of the high court must continue to be in English only (until Parliament otherwise provides).
- Similarly, a state legislature can prescribe the use of any language (other than English) with respect to bills, acts, ordinances, orders, rules, regulations or bye-laws, but a translation of the same in the English language is to be published.