Daily Prelims Notes 27 March 2021

March 27, 2021
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

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Daily Prelims Notes

27 March 2021

Table Of Contents

1. PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION SYSTEM

Subject: Economy

Context: Inspection finds PDS food grains being supplied in Delhi unfit to consume.

Concept:

The Public distribution system (PDS) is an Indian food Security System established under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.
PDS evolved as a system of management of scarcity through distribution of food grains at affordable prices.
PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments.
The Central Government, through Food Corporation of India (FCI), has assumed the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments.
The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of eligible families, issue of Ration Cards and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc., rest with the State Governments.
Under the PDS, presently the commodities namely wheat, rice, sugar and kerosene are being allocated to the States/UTs for distribution. Some States/UTs also distribute additional items of mass consumption through the PDS outlets such as pulses, edible oils, iodized salt, spices, etc.
The Revamped Public Distribution System (RPDS) was launched in June, 1992 with a view to strengthen and streamline the PDS as well as to improve its reach in the far-flung, hilly, remote and inaccessible areas where a substantial section of the underprivileged classes lives.
In June, 1997, the Government of India launched the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) with a focus on the poor.
Under TPDS, beneficiaries were divided into two categories: Households below the poverty line or BPL; and Households above the poverty line or APL.
Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY): AAY was a step in the direction of making TPDS aim at reducing hunger among the poorest segments of the BPL population.
In September 2013, Parliament enacted the National Food Security Act, 2013. The Act relies largely on the existing TPDS to deliver food grains as legal entitlements to poor households. This marks a shift by making the right to food a justiciable right.

How PDS system functions?

The Central and State Governments share responsibilities in order to provide food grains to the identified beneficiaries.
The centre procures food grains from farmers at a minimum support price (MSP) and sells it to states at central issue prices. It is responsible for transporting the grains to godowns in each state.
States bear the responsibility of transporting food grains from these godowns to each fair price shop (ration shop), where the beneficiary buys the food grains at the lower central issue price. Many states further subsidise the price of food grains before selling it to beneficiaries.

food grains to the identified beneficiary

2. NATIONAL JUDICIAL DATA GRID

Subject : Polity

Context : According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), a government platform monitoring judicial data, backlog of cases in district courts saw a sharp increase of 18.2 per cent between December 31, 2019 and December 31, 2020.

Concept :

The National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG) is a part of the e-Courts Integrated Mission Mode Project. It was launched in 2015. The aim is to track judicial performance across different courts in the country.
The NJDG is working as National data warehouse for case data including the orders/judgments for Courts across the country.
NJDG works as a monitoring tool to identify, manage & reduce pendency of cases.
It also helps to provide timely inputs for making policy decisions to reduce delay and arrears in the system, facilitate better monitoring of court performance and systemic bottlenecks, and, thus, facilitate better resource management.
NJDG has specifically helped India improve its ranking in World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report.

E-court Integrated Mission Mode Project

The E-Courts Project was conceptualised on the basis of “National Policy and Action Plan for Implementation of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) in the Indian Judiciary – 2005” submitted by e-Committee of the Supreme Court of India (set up in 2004).
The main objectives of the e-Court Project are as follows:
To provide efficient & time-bound citizen centric service delivery.
To develop, install & implement decision support systems in courts.
To automate the processes to provide transparency of Information access to its stakeholders.
To enhance judicial productivity both qualitatively & quantitatively, to make the justice delivery system affordable, accessible, cost effective & transparent.
The e-Courts National portal (gov.in) was launched in 2013. This provides Case Status, daily Case-list, Cases Filed and Cases Registered through the Case information System (CIS) Software.

3. NON FUNGIBLE TOKENS

Subject : Science & tech

Context : Art investors traditionally rely on galleries and auction houses to find new and exciting art, but emerging NFT technology is bringing about a revolution.

Concept :

What is a NFT?

It is a class of cryptocurrency that has no standard value but a unique value that is provided for the commodity exchanged against it.
NFT can be understood as a digital file whose unique identity and ownership are verified on a blockchain.
The blockchain is a kind of a public ledger on which anyone can verify the authenticity of a NFT and check its ownership.
These are created by uploading files and are not mutually interchangeable as each one has a unique value.
Non-fungible means that something is unique and cannot be replaced with something else.
NFTs are tokens that we can use to represent ownership of unique items. They let us tokenise things like art, collectibles, even real estate.
Powered by smart contracts on the Ethereum blockchain, NFT can only have one official owner at a time– no one can modify the record of ownership or copy/paste a new NFT into existence.
As for example, a bitcoin is fungible, that is it trades one for another bitcoin. One has exactly the same thing for.
A one-of-a-kind trading card, however, is non-fungible. If you traded it for a different card, you would have something completely different.

Ethereum Blockchain

Ethereum is a cryptocurrency platform that uses smart contracts – rules that execute automatically exactly as written.
Ethereum advocates that their platform will give users more control over their online data. With traditional apps and services, the platform owners have control over, what their users do online.
For example, Gmail has a copy of all of its users’ emails, and Twitter habitually bans accounts that don’t follow its rules. Ethereum is a platform for building applications similar to the apps we use today, but without centralized control.

4. ELECTORAL BONDS

Subject : Polity

Context : Electoral Bonds Won’t Be Stopped, Says Supreme Court Ahead Of State Polls.The court said it is not only the ruling party that is always the beneficiary of electoral bonds.

Concept :

Electoral Bond is a financial instrument for making donations to political parties.
The bonds are issued in multiples of Rs. 1,000, Rs. 10,000, Rs. 1 lakh, Rs. 10 lakh and Rs. 1 crore without any maximum limit.
State Bank of India is authorised to issue and encash these bonds, which are valid for fifteen days from the date of issuance.
These bonds are redeemable in the designated account of a registered political party.
The bonds are available for purchase by any person (who is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India) for a period of ten days each in the months of January, April, July and October as may be specified by the Central Government.
A person being an individual can buy bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
Donor’s name is not mentioned on the bond.

5. TORNADOES

Subject : Geography

Context :At least six people were killed after severe tornadoes and storms hit the southern parts of the US, authorities said.

Concept :

A tornado is a narrow, violently rotating column of air that extends from a thunderstorm to the ground.
Because wind is invisible, it is hard to see a tornado unless it forms a condensation funnel made up of water droplets, dust and debris.
Tornadoes can be among the most violent phenomena of all atmospheric storms we experience.
Tornadoes come in many shapes and sizes, and they are often visible in the form of a condensation funnel originating from the base of a cumulonimbus cloud, with a cloud of rotating debris and dust beneath it.
It is generally accompanied by extreme weather such as heavy downpours, hail storms, and lightning.

6. COVOVAX

Subject : Science & tech

Context : Serum Institute’s second COVID-19 vaccine ‘Covavax’ likely to be launched in September.

Concept :

Serum Institute of India, the world’s biggest Covid-19 vaccine maker, is hopeful to launch Covovax by September this year, CEO Adar Poonawalla announced on Saturday.
In August 2020, the two companies announced an agreement under which Novavax had given SII the licence to manufacture and supply the vaccine in low- and middle-income countries.

About Covovax

Covovax is the protein-based Covid-19 vaccine developed by Novavax, headquartered in the US.
NVX-CoV2373 is a vaccine candidate engineered from the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19 disease.
It was created using Novavax’ recombinant nanoparticle technology to generate antigen derived from the coronavirus spike (S) protein and contains Novavax’ patented saponin-based Matrix-M adjuvant to enhance the immune response and stimulate high levels of neutralizing antibodies
Serum Institute of India, will be making 1 billion doses of the shot for domestic supply and export under its brand Covovax.

7. OUMUAMUA

Subject: Science & tech

Context : Interception mission to confirm ‘Oumuamua, other interstellar objects, in the works.

Concept :

Oumuamua is the first known interstellar object to pass through the Solar System.
The Interstellar object 1I/2017 U1 has been named by the Pan-STARRS observatory team as ‘Oumuamua’.
The name is of Hawaiian origin and means “a messenger from afar arriving first.”
The object was discovered on Oct. 19, 2017 by the NASA-funded Pan-STARRS1 telescope. Initially assumed to be a comet, it was reclassified as an asteroid a week later, then the first of a new class of interstellar objects.
Journey: Scientists don’t know which star system this object came from. 1I/2017 U1’s trajectory indicates it came from the general direction of the constellation Lyra.
It is on an outbound trajectory. It will pass above Neptune’s orbit in 2022. As it leaves our solar system it is headed towards the constellation Pegasus.
Size and Shape: The object is believed to be at least a quarter-mile (400 meters) long and cigar-shaped, with a length roughly ten times longer than the width.
Composition: It is similar to many asteroids found in our solar system – dense, possibly rocky or even metallic. The object’s surface is somewhat reddish due to effects of irradiation from cosmic rays over millions of years.

8. RTI REJECTIONS

Subject : Governance

Context : The Centre has only rejected 4.3% of all Right to Information (RTI) requests in 2019-20, the lowest ever rate, according to the Central Information Commission’s annual report.

Concept :

However, almost 40% of these rejections did not include any valid reason, as they did not invoke one of the permissible exemption clauses in the RTI Act, according to an analysis of report data by RTI activist VenkateshNayak.
This includes 90% of rejections by the Prime Minister’s Office.
The RTI Act allows public authorities to reject RTI requests on a number of grounds, ranging from information which would endanger life and safety to that which involves irrelevant personal information, Cabinet papers, foreign governments, copyrights, or sovereignty, security and intelligence matters.
Public authorities are expected to cite the relevant clause of the Act to invoke the exemption.

Right to Information Act

RTI is an act of the parliament which sets out the rules and procedures regarding citizens’ right to information.
Under the provisions of RTI Act, any citizen of India may request information from a “public authority” (a body of Government or “instrumentality of State”) which is required to reply expeditiously or within 30.
In case of the matter involving a petitioner’s life and liberty, the information has to be provided within 48 hours.
The Act also requires every public authority to computerize their records for wide dissemination and to proactively publish certain categories of information so that the citizens need minimum recourse to request for information formally.

Governing of RTI

The Right to information in India is governed by two major bodies:
Central Information Commission (CIC) – Chief Information commissioner who heads all the central departments and ministries- with their own public information officers (PIO)s. CICs are directly under the President of India.
State Information Commissions (SIC)–State Public Information Officers or SPIOs head over all the state department and ministries. The SPIO office is directly under the corresponding State Governor.
State and CIC are independent bodies and CIC has no jurisdiction over the SIC.

Fundamental status of RTI

RTI is a fundamental right for every citizen of India. Since RTI, is implicit in the Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression under Article 19 of the Indian Constitution, it is an implied fundamental right.

Important Sections:

Section- 2 (f): “Information” means any material in any form, including Records, Documents, Memos, e-mails, Opinions, Advices, Press releases, Circulars, Orders, Logbooks, Contracts, Reports, Papers, Samples, Models, Data material held in any electronic form and information relating to any private body which can be accessed by a Public Authority under any other law for the time being in force.
Section 4 of the RTI Act requires suomotu disclosure of information by each public authority. However, such disclosures have remained less than satisfactory.
Section 8 (1) mentions exemptions against furnishing information under RTI Act.
Section 8 (2) provides for disclosure of information exempted under Official Secrets Act, 1923 if larger public interest is served.

9. CONCURRENT LIST

Subject : Polity

Context : Health should be shifted to the Concurrent list under the Constitution, and a developmental finance institution (DFI) dedicated to healthcare investments set up, Fifteenth Finance Commission Chairman N.K. Singh said on Friday.

Concept :

Article 246 adopts a threefold distribution of legislative power between the Union and the states.
The subject-wise distribution of this power is given in the three lists of the Seventh Schedule of the constitution:

List-I- the Union List

List-II- the State List

List-III- the Concurrent List

Concurrent List:

Both, the Parliament and state legislature can make laws with respect to any of the matters enumerated in the Concurrent List.
It includes the matters on which uniformity of legislation throughout the country is desirable but not essential.
However State legislation operates to the extent that it is not in conflict with the Central legislation. At times, the very presence of a central legislation can negate the state’s ability to legislate.
This list has at present 52 subjects (originally 47) like criminal law and procedure, civil procedure, marriage and divorce, population control and family planning, electricity, labour welfare, economic and social planning, drugs, newspapers, books and printing press, and others.
The 42nd Amendment Act of 1976 transferred five subjects to Concurrent List from State List i.e. education, forests, weights and measures, protection of wild animals and birds, and administration of justice; constitution and organisation of all courts except the Supreme Court and the High Courts.

10. NCLAT

Subject : Polity

Context : Relief for Tata Group; SC sets aside NCLAT order restoring Cyrus Mistry as executive chairman.

Concept :

National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT)

It was constituted under Section 410 of the Companies Act, 2013 for hearing appeals against the orders of National Company Law Tribunal.
NCLAT is also the Appellate Tribunal for hearing appeals against the orders passed by NCLT(s) under Section 61 of the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC).
NCLAT is also the Appellate Tribunal for hearing appeals against the orders passed by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India under Section 202 and Section 211 of IBC.
NCLAT is also the Appellate Tribunal to hear and dispose of appeals against any direction issued or decision made or order passed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).