Daily Prelims Notes 23 July 2020

July 23, 2020
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

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Table Of Contents

1. Contempt of Court

Subject: Polity

Context:

The contempt case has been initiated against advocate Prashant Bhushan.

Concept:

According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, contempt of court can either be civil contempt or criminal contempt.
Civil contempt means willful disobedience to any judgment, decree, direction, order, writ or other process of a court or willful breach of an undertaking given to a court.
On the other hand, criminal contempt means the publication of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which
- scandalizes or lowers the authority of, any court; or
- prejudices or interferes with the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
- Interferes or obstruct the administration of justice in any other manner.
A contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with fine which may extend to two thousand rupees, or with both, provided that the accused may be discharged or the punishment awarded may be remitted on apology being made to the satisfaction of the court.

2. Nuclear Power plant

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

The third unit of the Kakrapar Atomic Power Project (KAPP-3) in Gujarat has achieved its first criticality.

Concept:

Nuclear fission

In nuclear fission, an unstable atom splits into two or more smaller pieces that are more stable, and releases energy in the process.
The fission process also releases extra neutrons, which can then split additional atoms, resulting in a chain reaction that releases a lot of energy.
There are also ways to modulate the chain reaction by soaking up the neutrons.

Nuclear reactor:

The energy released from nuclear fission can be harnessed to make electricity with a nuclear reactor.
A nuclear reactor is a piece of equipment where nuclear chain reactions can be controlled and sustained.
When a large, fissile atomic nucleus such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239 absorbs a neutron, it may undergo nuclear fission.
The nucleus splits into two or more lighter nuclei, releasing kinetic energy, gamma radiation, and free neutrons.
A portion of these neutrons may later be absorbed by other fissile atoms and trigger further fission events, which release more neutrons, and so on. This is known as a nuclear chain reaction.

Criticality

When a reactor’s neutron population remains steady from one generation to the next by creating as many new neutrons as are lost, the fission chain reaction is self-sustaining and the reactor’s condition is referred to as ” critical.”

Significance:

KAPP-3 is the country’s first 700 MWe (megawatt electric) unit, and the biggest indigenously developed variant of the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR).

3. Common Service Centre

Subject: Government schemes

Context:

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has directed Common Service Centres (CSC) to complete the work of providing fibre-to-the-home (FTTH) and WiFi connections from the panchayat level to individual homes.

Concept:

Common Services Centre (CSC) programme is an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics & IT (MeitY), Government of India.
The CSC is a strategic cornerstone of the National e-Governance Plan (NeGP), approved by the Government in May 2006
The CSCs would provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services, in the areas of e-governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services.
A highlight of the CSCs is that it will offer web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas, including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills
In addition to the universe of G2C services, the CSC Guidelines envisage a wide variety of content and services that could be offered as listed below:
- Agriculture Services (Agriculture, Horticulture, Sericulture, Animal Husbandry, Fisheries, Veterinary)
- Education & Training Services (School, College, Vocational Education, Employment, etc.)
- Health Services (Telemedicine, Health Check-ups, Medicines)
- Rural Banking & Insurance Services (Micro-credit, Loans, Insurance)
- Entertainment Services (Movies, Television)
- Utility Services (Bill Payments, Online bookings)
- Commercial Services (DTP, Printing, Internet Browsing, Village level BPO).
The Scheme creates a conducive environment for the private sector and NGOs to play an active role in implementation of the CSC Scheme, thereby becoming a partner of the government in development of rural India.
The PPP model of the CSC scheme envisages a 3-tier structure consisting of the CSC operator (called Village Level Entrepreneur or VLE); the Service Centre Agency (SCA), that will be responsible for a division of 500-1000 CSCs; and a State Designated Agency (SDA) identified by the State Government responsible for managing the implementation in the entire State.

4. Zero MDR

Subject: Economy

Context:

Government’s waiver of Merchant discount rate (MDR) on certain payments will hamper payment innovations and growth says RBI constituted the Committee under the Chairmanship of D.B. Phatak.

Concept:

MDR is a fee charged from a merchant by a bank for accepting payments from customers through credit and debit cards in their establishments.
MDR compensates the card issuing bank, the lender which puts the Point of Sale terminal and payment gateways such as Mastercard or Visa for their services.
MDR charges are usually shared in pre-agreed proportion between the bank and a merchant and are expressed in percentage of transaction amount.

5. GST compensation Fund

Subject: Economy

Context:

Reduced GST revenues due to pandemic has translated into delayed and pending compensation payments to states by the centre.

Concept:

Compensation cess was introduced as relief for States for the loss of revenues arising from the implementation of GST.
States, in lieu of giving up their powers to collect taxes on goods and services after local levies were subsumed under the GST, were guaranteed a 14 per cent tax revenue growth in the first five years after GST implementation by the Central government.
States’ tax revenue as of FY16 is considered as the base year for the calculation of this 14 per cent growth.
Any shortfall against it is supposed to be compensated by the Centre using the funds specifically collected as compensation cess.
Compensation cess is levied on five products considered to be ‘sin’ or luxury goods like SUV, pan masala, cigrattes.
The collected compensation cessflows into the Consolidated Fund of India, and then transferred to the Public Account of India, where a GST compensation cess account has been created.
States are compensated bi-monthly from the accumulated funds in this account.

6. Impact of climate change

Subject: Geography

Context:

The first ‘Assessment of Climate Change over Indian Region” report by Ministry of Earth Sciences warned about India’s climatic vulnerabilities and stressed for need of mitigations.

Findings:

Temperature

Surface air temperature over India has risen by 0.6°C per year during 1901-2018.
Regions of North India have undergone warming more than the South, where warming has been mainly during winters.
In coming decades, the average duration of heatwaves during April-June is projected to double, and their frequency to rise by 3 to 4 times compared to 1976-2005.

Monsoon

During 1951-2015, annual rainfall over India showed a declining trend. The reduction ranged between 1-5 mm over central India, Kerala and the far Northeast regions.
Contrarily, precipitation increased over J&K and Northwest India.
The coming decades are projected to witness a considerable rise in the mean, extreme and inter-annual variability of rainfall associated with monsoon.

Droughts and floods

Since the 1950s, the frequency and intensity of both heavy rainfall events and dry days have gone up.
Flood risks are higher over the east coast, West Bengal, eastern Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat, Konkan and cities like Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
The Himalayan flood basins are projected to greater floods, due to the faster glacial and snow melting. Major flooding events are projected over the Brahmaputra, Ganga and Indus.

Sea level

During 1993-2015, the sea level over the North Indian Ocean (Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal) rose by 3.3 mm per year, which is in tune with the Global Mean Sea Level (GMSL) rise.

Tropical cyclones

Storms in the Arabian Sea are gaining more strength and the trend is projected to continue. The number of extremely severe cyclonic storms formed in the Arabian Sea has increased in the last 20 years.

Himalaya snow cover

During the last seven decades, the Hindukush Himalayas have warmed at an average 0.2°C per decade, leading to a decline in snow cover and glaciers in the last four to five decades. The Karakoram Himalayas have reported an increase in snowfall during winter.

Cause & effect

The main contributor to climate change is anthropogenic activities pushing up concentrations of greenhouse gases. This has led to rise in temperature and atmospheric moisture content.
A higher concentration of water vapour, in turn, leads to intense rainfall during monsoon.
Heating leads to vaporisation, which is directly linked to decreasing soil moisture, resulting in droughts. This can lead to reduction in food production and in availability of potable water, the report says.
Rising sea levels would make India’s big cities vulnerable to erosion and damage to coastal projects.

7. Article 212

Subject: Polity

Context:

An appeal filed by the Rajasthan Speaker’s office challenging the State High Court’s order to defer anti-defection proceedings against 19 MLAs

Concept:

Article 212 provides that courts cannot inquire into proceedings of the legislature.

The validity of any proceedings in the Legislature of a State shall not be called in question on the ground of any alleged irregularity of procedure.
No officer or member of the Legislature of a State in whom powers are vested by or under this Constitution for regulating procedure or the conduct of business, or for maintaining order, in the Legislature shall be subject to the jurisdiction of any court in respect of the exercise by him of those powers.

Source: The Hindu