Daily Prelims Notes 2 November 2020
- November 2, 2020
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN
Table Of Contents
- GIG WORKERS
- INVENTORY GAINS
- CENTRAL VISTA REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT
- ARMY AVIATION CORPS
- TYPHOON GONI
- GIGIT BALTISTAN
- BSF
1. GIG WORKERS
Subject: Economy
Context: The new Code on Social Security allows a platform worker to be defined by their vulnerability not their labour, nor the vulnerabilities of platform work.
Concept:
What is Gig Economy?
- A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and organizations contract with independent workers for short-term engagements
- Examples of gig employees in the workforce could include freelancers, independent contractors, project-based workers and temporary or part-time hires.
- Global Gig Economy Index report has ranked India among the top 10 countries.
- The report says there has been an increase in freelancers in India from 11% in 2018 to 52% in 2019, thanks to various initiatives including Startup India and Skill India.
Issues of Gig Workers – Example of Swiggy (Food Delivery platform)
- Swiggy workers have been essential during the pandemic.
- They have faced a continuous dip in pay, where base pay was reduced from ₹35 to ₹10 per delivery order, despite braving against the odds of delivering during Pandemic
- Stable terms of earning have been a key demand of delivery-persons
Does new version of labour code offer any relief to Gig workers?
- The three new labour codes passed by Parliament recently acknowledge platform and gig workers as new occupational categories in the making
- Defining gig workers is done in a bid to keep India’s young workforce secure as it embraces ‘new kinds of work’, like delivery, in the digital economy.
- In the Code on Social Security, 2020, platform workers are now eligible for benefits like maternity benefits, life and disability cover, old age protection, provident fund, employment injury benefits, and so on.
Issues with new labour codes for gig workers
- Platform delivery people can claim benefits, but not labour rights.
- This distinction makes them beneficiaries of State programmes but does not allow them to go to court to demand better and stable pay, or regulate the algorithms that assign the tasks.
- This also means that the government or courts cannot pull up platform companies for their choice of pay, or how long they ask people to work.
- The laws do not see them as future industrial workers.
- They are now eligible for government benefits but eligibility does not mean that the benefits are guaranteed. Actualising these benefits will depend on the political will at the Central and State government-levels.
- The language in the Code is open enough to imply that platform companies can be called upon tso contribute either solely or with the government to some of these schemes. But it does not force the companies to contribute towards benefits or be responsible for workplace issues.
Subject: Economics
Context : Both Indian Oil Corporation Ltd. (IOCL) and Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd. (BPCL) have reported strong financial results in the second quarter of this fiscal despite lower operating revenues.
Concept:
- The key item driving profits for both companies in the quarter were “inventory gains”.
- Inventory gains are registered from an appreciation in the value of inventory held by a company.
- In the case of oil marketing companies, inventory gains can be caused by an appreciation in the price of crude classified as refining inventory gains or an appreciation in the price of products such as petrol and diesel classified as marketing inventory gains.
- Refining inventory gains are a result of an appreciation in the price of crude oil in the company’s inventory.
3. CENTRAL VISTA REDEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Subject: Economy
Context: In a Supreme Court hearing, Senior Advocate argued about the discrepancies in the process of the Central Vista Redevelopment project.
Concept:
- The Central Vista is a 3 km stretch in the heart of New Delhi that runs from the RashtrapatiBhavan to India Gate. It is flanked by large green spaces and significant structures such as Parliament, the Secretariat buildings and the National Archives.
- The Central government is redeveloping the three-km-long Central Vista and Parliament. A common Central secretariat will be constructed for all ministries that are currently spread over many buildings across Delhi.
- The new Parliament has to be ready by March 2022 the 75th year of India’s Independence. The revamped Central Vista, complete with public amenities and parking, has to be ready by November 2021 and the new common Central secretariat by March 2024.
- The Parliament House and North and South Blocks will not be demolished, but their usage may change. The rest of the buildings that came up post-1947, including ShastriBhavan and KrishiBhavan, are likely to be demolished.
Need of project:
- The Parliament House and the North and South Blocks were built by the British between 1911 and 1931. Post-1947, the government of independent India added office buildings such as ShastriBhavan, KrishiBhavan and NirmanBhavan. These buildings do not have the facilities and space required today.
- While the British-built buildings are not earthquake-proof the buildings that came up after 1947 are prone to fires. The new buildings are expected to have a lifespan of 150 to 200 years. They would be energy-efficient and modern workspaces. The revamp would represent a ‘New India’.
Subject: Defence
Context: The Army Aviation Corps (AAC), the youngest Corps of the Indian Army, celebrated its 35th Corps Day on November 1.
Concept:
- The Corps was raised as a separate formation on November 1 in 1986.
- The AAC now draws its officers and men from all arms of the Army, including a significant number from the artillery.
- Immediately after raising, the units of the Corps were pressed into action in Operation Pawan by the Indian Peacekeeping Forces, in the mostly jungle areas of Sri Lanka against the Tamil Tigers.
- Ever since, AAC helicopters have been an inseparable part of fighting formations in all major conflict scenarios, and a life-saving asset in peace times.
- The main roles played by the AAC choppers are that of reconnaissance, observation, casualty evacuation, essential load drops, combat search and rescue, thus adding an invaluable air dimension to the Army’s capabilities.
5. TYPHOON GONI
Subject: Geography
Context: Typhoon Goni made landfall in the eastern Philippines. Over a million people in the typhoon’s projected path have been evacuated, including in the capital, where the international airport is now closed.
Concept:
- Goni – known as Rolly in the Philippines – is the most powerful storm to hit the country since Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people in 2013.
- In fact, Typhoon Goni is the world’s strongest Typhoon in 2020.
- Another storm, Atsani, is gaining strength in the Pacific Ocean as it approaches the Philippines.
- Typhoon is a regionally specific name for a strong “tropical cyclone”.
- Tropical cyclones are known as ‘typhoons’ in the northwest pacific ocean, hurricanes in the North Atlantic Ocean, Willy-willies in north-western Australia and Tropical Cyclones in the Indian Ocean Region.
- A tropical cyclone is a generic term used by meteorologists to describe a rotating, organized system of clouds and thunderstorms that originates over tropical or subtropical waters and has closed, low-level circulation.
- Tropical cyclones rotate counterclockwise in the Northern Hemisphere.
- These are measured by the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.
- Naming of Typhoons: The Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre (RSMC) Tokyo – Typhoon Centre assigns a tropical cyclone a name from the five lists. The name ‘Goni’ is contributed by South Korea.
Subject: Security
Context: India on Sunday slammed Pakistan for its attempt to accord provincial status to the “so-called Gilgit-Baltistan”, saying it is intended to camouflage the “illegal” occupation of the region by Islamabad.
Concept:
- Gilgit-Baltistan has functioned as a “provincial autonomous region” since 2009.
- Besides, India has conveyed that the entire Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, including the areas of Gilgit and Baltistan, are an integral part of India by virtue of its fully legal and irrevocable accession.
Location of the region
- Located in the northern Pakistan. It borders China in the North, Afghanistan in the west, Tajikistan in the north west and Kashmir in the south east.
- It shares a geographical boundary with Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and India considers it as part of the undivided Jammu and Kashmir, while Pakistan sees it as a separate from PoK.
- It has a regional Assembly and an elected Chief Minister.
- China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) also passes through this region.
- Gilgit-Baltistan is home to five of the “eight-thousanders” and to more than fifty peaks above 7,000 metres (23,000 ft).
- Three of the world’s longest glaciers outside the polar regions are found in Gilgit-Baltistan.
7. BSF
Subject : Security
Context: The Border Security Force and the Odisha police have set up a Company Operating Base (COB) at Gurasethu, dubbed the “ideological headquarters” of the outlawed CPI(Maoist) along the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh border.
Concept :
Border Security Force
- BSF is primary border guarding organisation of India and termed as First Line of Defence of Indian Territories.
- It is the sentinels of Indian borders with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
- It came into existence on 1st December, 1965.
- It was created by merging various State Armed Police Battalions for achieving a better coordinated synergy between the border guarding functions in peace time and fighting the war during the eventuality on both Western and Eastern fronts.
- BSF is deployed on Indo-Pakistan International Border, Indo-Bangladesh International Border, Line of Control (LoC) along with Indian Army and in Anti-Naxal Operations.
- Since its inception, BSF has proven its credentials during various counter insurgency and anti-militancy operations, internal security duties, natural calamities etc.
- BSF is one of the five Central Armed Police Forces of Union of India under the administrative control of Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
- It is mandated with guarding India’s land border during peacetime and preventing transnational crime.
- BSF currently stands as the world’s largest border guarding force.