Daily Prelims Notes 29 May 2021
- May 29, 2021
- Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
- Category: DPN
Daily Prelims Notes
29 May 2021
Table Of Contents
- G7 foreign Ministers meet
- NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE PIPELINE
- CITIZENSHIP AMENDMENT ACT
- NEW SPIDER CRICKET
- NAMIBIA GENOCIDE
- TREE TRANSPLANTATION
- India calls UNGA president comment on Kashmir unacceptable
- ANTI DUMPING DUTY & INERT GASES
- GOODS TRADE BAROMETER
- WORLD HEALTH ASSEMBLY
- MID DAY MEAL SCHEME
- ROLE OF MANGROVES IN COASTAL PROTECTION
- SECTION 304 B
- QIP
- INTERNATIONAL OLYMPICS COMMITTEE
- NATIONAL AI PORTAL
- SRINAGAR LEH TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
Subject: International Organizations
Context: External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar met US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Friday, in what was their second meeting after they met on May 3 on the sidelines of the G-7 Foreign Ministers’ meeting in London.
Concept:
About G7
- It is an intergovernmental organisation that was formed in 1975.
- The bloc meets annually to discuss issues of common interest like global economic governance, international security and energy policy.
- The G7 does not have a formal constitution or a fixed headquarters. The decisions taken by leaders during annual summits are non-binding.
- The groundwork for the summit, including matters to be discussed and follow-up meetings, is done by the “sherpas”, who are generally personal representatives or members of diplomatic staff such as ambassadors.
- The leaders of important international organizations like European Union, IMF, World Bank and the United Nations are also invited.
Issues:
- Not all of the G7 countries are among the most advanced now. India is both a military and economic giant but isn’t part of the G7.
- So, its expansion, just like that of the United Nations Security Council, is called for.
2. NATIONAL INFRASTRUCTURE PIPELINE
Subject : Economy
Context : US-based realty firm wants to invest $500 bn in India’s National Infrastructure Pipeline.
Concept :
About NIP:
- NIP was announced in union budget in 2019-20 for an outlay of Rs 100 lakh Crore for infrastructure projects over the next 5 years.
- NIP is a first-of-its-kind initiative to provide world-class infrastructure across the country and improve the quality of life for all citizens.
- It will improve project preparation, attract investments (both domestic & foreign) into infrastructure, and will be crucial for attaining the target of becoming a $5 trillion economy by FY 2025.
- Covers both economic and social infrastructure projects.
Atanu Chakraborty Report :
- The task force headed by Atanu Chakraborty on National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP), in May 2020, submitted its final report to the Finance Minister. It has recommended the following ,
- Investment needed: ₹111 lakh crore over the next five years (2020-2025) to build infrastructure projects and drive economic growth.
- Energy, roads, railways and urban projects are estimated to account for the bulk of projects (around 70%).
- The centre (39 percent) and state (40 percent) are expected to have an almost equal sharein implementing the projects, while the private sector has 21 percent share.
- Aggressive push towards asset sales.
- Monetisation of infrastructure assets.
- Setting up of development finance institutions.
- Strengthening the municipal bond market.
Subject : Legislations
Context : With the Centre yet to frame rules under the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) 2019, it issued a gazette notification Friday granting powers under existing rules to authorities in 13 districts of Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab to accept, verify and approve citizenship applications from members of minority communities hailing from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh.
Concept :
- The Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019 seeks to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.
- The Citizenship Act,1955 provides various ways in which citizenship may be acquired. It provides for citizenship by birth, descent, registration, naturalisation and by incorporation of the territory into India.
- In addition, it regulates the registration of Overseas Citizen of India Cardholders (OCIs) and their rights. An OCI is entitled to some benefits such as a multiple-entry, multipurpose lifelong visa to visit India.
Key Features of CAA
- Citizenship on the basis of religion: The Bill amends the Citizenship Act, 1955, and for the first time, will grant citizenship on the basis of religion to non-Muslim communities from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, who entered India on or before December 31, 2014.
- Non – Muslim Communities Included: Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi, and Christian. This implies that migrants, who identify themselves with any group or community other than those mentioned here, from the above mentioned countries won’t be eligible for citizenship.
- Exceptions: The provisions on citizenship for illegal migrants will not apply to two categories – states protected by the ‘Inner Line’, and areas covered under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.
- Inner Line Permit (ILP): This is a special permit that citizens from other parts of India require to enter a state protected by the ILP regime. Without an ILP granted by the state government, an Indian from another state cannot visit a state that is under the ILP regime.
- Sixth Schedule: The Sixth Schedule relates to special provisions in administration of certain Northeastern states (Assam, Mizoram, Meghalaya and Tripura). It provides special powers for Autonomous District Councils (ADCs) in these states.
- Citizenship by Naturalization
- Under The Citizenship Act, 1955, one of the requirements for citizenship by naturalisation is that the applicant must have resided in India during the last 12 months, as well as for 11 of the previous 14 years.
- The amendment relaxes the second requirement from 11 years to 5 years as a specific condition for applicants belonging to the specified six religions, and the above mentioned three countries.
- Additional Ground for Cancelling Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) Registration i.e. violation of any law notified by the central government.
- However, the Bill does not provide any guidance on the nature of laws which the central government may notify.
Subject: Environment
Context: Recently, a team of zoologists headed by DrRanjanaJaiswara of the Zoology Department of Punjab University, Chandigarh has discovered a new spider cricket from Chhattisgarh.
Concept:
- It has been found in the Kurra caves of Chhattisgarh.
- The new subgenus was named Jayanti after Professor Jayant Biswas, one of the leading cave explorers in the country, who assisted the team.
- It has become the twelfth subgenus, or species, of cricket identified under the genus Arachnomimus Saussure, 1897.
Arachnomimus Saussure, 1897
- Arachnomimus is the genus name given by Swiss Entomologist Henri Louis Frédéric de Saussure in 1878 to crickets that resembled spiders.
- The word Arachnomimus is derived from two Ancient Greek words arakhne means “spider” and mimos, means “imitator, actor”.
- It is apt because crickets of this group are commonly called spider crickets because of their smaller body size and long legs.
Subject: International Relations
Context: Germany officially recognizes colonial-era Namibia genocide
Concept:
- Germany for the first time has recognised that it committed genocide against the Herero and Nama people in present-day Namibia during its colonial rule over a century ago.
- It promised financial support of over a billion euros to the Southern African nation.
- Between 1904 and 1908, German colonial settlers killed tens of thousands of men, women and children from the Herero and Nama tribes after they rebelled against colonial rule in what was then called German South West Africa.
- While Germany has previously acknowledged the atrocities, they refused to pay direct reparations for many years.
- After five years of negotiations between the two countries as they attempted to “heal the wounds”, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas on Friday announced a fund of €1.1 billion ($1.2 billion) to help aid community projects in Namibia.
Subject: Environment
Context: The Central Public Works Department (CPWD) wants to transplant over 1,800 trees which are inside what used to be the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) complex, as part of the Central Vista redevelopment project.
Concept:
- A tree cannot be transplanted by simply uprooting it and placing it in a pit dug elsewhere. The process involves multiple steps and requires significant expertise.
- First, the soil around the tree is dug up to isolate the roots. The big branches are lopped off, leaving only small shoots for regeneration.
- This is done to make transportation of the tree to the new location easier.
- The root system is covered with wet gunny bags to protect the roots and to keep the tree hydrated.
- The tree has to be first sent to a nursery to acclimatise to a new kind of soil, and to regenerate. Once new shoots start sprouting, the tree is lowered into a pit created in its new spot.
- Experts say the transplantation of trees is a complex and delicate process whose outcome cannot be predicted.
What factors determine the success of a transplant?
- Even after all steps are meticulously followed, a lot depends on luck.
- The survival rate of a transplanted tree is about 50%. If it survives, the tree may take up to 10 years to grow a full canopy similar to what it originally had.
- Not all trees can be transplanted. While peepal, ficus, semal and sheesham are tolerant to transplantation, trees such as dak, palash, arjun, shahtoot and jhilmil are not.
- Any tree that has a tap root system cannot be transplanted, as the root goes deep into the soil, and it is not possible to isolate it without damage.
- Transplanting any tree with a trunk girth of more than 80-90 cm is not advisable as the tree cannot bear the shock, and will eventually die.
7. India calls UNGA president comment on Kashmir unacceptable
Subject: International organizations
Context: India referred to the remarks of the President of United Nations General Assembly VolkanBozkir as “unwarranted” and “unacceptable”, expressing grave opposition to Bozkir’s comments on the Jammu and Kashmir region.
Concept:
- The General Assembly is the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN.
- All 193 Member States of the UN are represented in the General Assembly, making it the only UN body with universal representation.
- Each year, in September, the full UN membership meets in the General Assembly Hall in New York for the annual General Assembly session, and general debate, which many heads of state attend and address.
- Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the General Assembly.
- Decisions on other questions are by simple majority.
- The President of the General Assembly is elected each year by assembly to serve a one-year term of office.
Main Committees:
- Draft resolutions can be prepared for the General Assembly by its six main committees: (1) First Committee (Disarmament and International Security), (2) Second Committee (Economic and Financial), (3) Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian, and Cultural), (4) Fourth Committee (Special Political and Decolonization), (5) Fifth Committee (Administrative and Budgetary), (6)Sixth Committee (Legal).
- Each Member State may be represented by one person on each Main Committee and on any other committee that may be established upon which all Member States have the right to be represented.
- Member States may also assign advisers, technical advisers, experts or persons of similar status to these committees.
Other Committees:
- General Committee: It meets periodically throughout each session to review the progress of the General Assembly and its committees and to make recommendations for furthering such progress.
- It is composed of the President of the General Assembly and 21 Vice-Presidents of the Assembly and the Chairmen of the six Main Committees. The five permanent members of the Security Council serve as Vice-Presidents, as well.
- Credentials Committee: It is mandated to examine the credentials of representatives of Member States and to report to the General Assembly.
8. ANTI DUMPING DUTY & INERT GASES
Subject: Economy
Context: Anti-dumping duty on inert gas R-134a imports from China extended by six months.
Concept:
- An anti-dumping duty is a protectionist tariff that a domestic government imposes on foreign imports that it believes are priced below fair market value.
- Dumping is a process where a company exports a product at a price lower than the price it normally charges in its own home market.
- The duty is aimed at ensuring fair trading practices and creating a level-playing field for domestic producers vis-a-vis foreign producers and exporters.
- The duty is imposed only after a thorough investigation by a quasi-judicial body, such as Directorate General of Trade Remedies, in India.
- The imposition of anti-dumping duty is permissible under the World Trade Organization (WTO) regime.
Inert Gases
- An inert gas is a gas that does not undergo chemical reactions under a set of given conditions.
- The noble gases often do not react with many substances and were historically referred to as the inert gases.
- Inert gases are used generally to avoid unwanted chemical reactions degrading a sample. These undesirable chemical reactions are often oxidation and hydrolysis reactions with the oxygen and moisture in air.
- The term inert gas is context-dependent because several of the noble gases can be made to react under certain conditions.
- Purified argon and nitrogen gases are most commonly used as inert gases due to their high natural abundance (78.3% N2, 1% Ar in air) and low relative cost.
- Unlike noble gases, an inert gas is not necessarily elemental and is often a compound gas. Like the noble gases, the tendency for non-reactivity is due to the valence, the outermost electron shell, being complete in all the inert gases.
- This is a tendency, not a rule, as noble gases and other “inert” gases can react to form compounds.
Subject: International Relations
Context: WTO Goods Trade Barometer indicates strong growth in first two quarters of 2021. Growth in trade fuelled by big gains in export orders, air freight, electronic components.
Concept:
- The WTO goods trade barometer is a composite of data, with indices on export orders and agricultural raw-material trade above medium-term trends, container shipping and automotive goods at trend and air freight and electronic components trade below.
- The barometer is designed to anticipate turning points and gauge momentum in global trade growth within a few months, although the WTO said uncertainty meant it may be less reliable.
Subject : International organisations
Context : India on May 28 pushed for further studies into the origins of the COVID-19 virus, as the World Health Organisation’s decision-making body, the World Health Assembly, reviewed the findings of its special team.
Concept :
World Health Assembly (WHA):
- The World Health Assembly (WHA) is the forum through which the World Health Organization (WHO) is governed by its 194 member states.
- It is the world’s highest health policy setting body and is composed of health ministers from member states.
- The members of the World Health Assembly generally meet every year in May in Geneva, the location of WHO Headquarters.
- The main functions of the World Health Assembly are to determine the policies of the Organization, appoint the Director-General, supervise financial policies, and review and approve the proposed programme budget.
Subject : Government Schemes
Context : The Union Minister for Education has approved the proposal to provide monetary assistance to 11.8 Crore students through Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) of the cooking cost component of the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme, to all eligible children, as a special welfare measure.
Concept :
- With a view to enhancing enrolment, retention and attendance and simultaneously improving nutritional levels among children, the National Programme of Nutritional Support to Primary Education (NP-NSPE) was launched as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in 1995.
- In 2001 MDMS became a cooked Mid Day Meal Scheme.
- The Midday Meal Scheme comes under the HRD Ministry’s Department of School Education and Literacy.
- The Mid-Day Meal Scheme covers children of classes I-VIII studying in government, government-aided schools, special training centres (STC) and madarsas/ maqtabs supported under SarvaShikshaAbhiyan (SSA).
- It is the largest school feeding programme in the world.
- The scheme covers all government and government aided schools and also Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under the SarvaShikshaAbhiyan (SSA).
- The Midday Meal Scheme is covered by the National Food Security Act, 2013.
12. ROLE OF MANGROVES IN COASTAL PROTECTION
Subject : Environment
Context : West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has inquired about the 50 million mangrove plants that her previous government had planted in 2020 after Cyclone Amphan and which could not protect the Sundarbans from Cyclone Yaas.
Concept :
- Mangroves help in coping with floods by acting as barriers through factors such as bottom friction, the cross-shore width of forests, tree density and shape, which can help in reducing the force of flood waves as they pass through the mangrove forests.
- The aerial roots of mangrove forests retain sediments and stabilise the soil in the areas between high tide and low tide (intertidal areas) by reducing erosion during storms and floods.
- The roots, trunk and canopy of the mangroves can dissipate storm surges and waves. Studies show that mangroves can reduce up to 66 percent of wave energy in the first 100 m of forest width.
- Mangroves can also cope with sea level rise through gradual vertical growth.
Subject : Polity
Context : The Supreme Court observed that the phrase “soon before” as appearing in Section 304-B of the Indian Penal Code cannot be construed to mean ‘immediately before’.
Concept :
- Section 304B of the Indian Penal Code states that if a woman dies within seven years of marriage by any burns or bodily injury or it was revealed that before her marriage she was exposed to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any other relative of the husband in connection to demand dowry then the death of the woman will be considered as a dowry death.
- Punishment for dowry death is a minimum sentence of imprisonment for seven years or a maximum sentence of imprisonment for life.
Essential Ingredients
- Death should be caused by burns or bodily injury or by any other circumstances.
- Death must occur within the seven years of marriage.
- It must be revealed that soon before her marriage she was exposed to cruelty or harassment by her husband or any other relative.
- The cruelty or harassment on her should be in connection with the demand for dowry.
Subject: Economics
Context : Max Health net debt fell to ₹544 crore following a Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) from ₹2,102 crore recorded in previous year quarter, the company said in a statement.
Concept :
- Qualified institutional placements (QIPS) are a way to issue shares to the public without going through standard regulatory compliance.
- QIPs instead follow a looser set of regulations but where allottees are more highly regulated.
- The practice is mostly used in India and other Southeast Asian countries.
- QIPs were created to avoid dependency on foreign resources for raising capital.
- Qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) are the only entities allowed to purchase QIPs.
QIB’s
- An investor is dubbed a qualified institutional buyer (QIB) if they are thought to require less regulatory protection than unsophisticated investors.
15. INTERNATIONAL OLYMPICS COMMITTEE
Subject : International Relations
Context : Olympic chief Thomas Bach has told athletes they should travel to Tokyo with “full confidence” that the delayed 2020 Games will be safe for competitors and not jeopardise the health of the Japanese people.
Concept :
- IOC was created on 23 June 1894. The first Olympic Games of the modern era opened in Athens on 6 April 1896.
- It is a not-for-profit independent international organisation.
- HQ: Lausanne, Switzerland.
Mandate:
- The IOC is the supreme authority of the Olympic Movement and is responsible for organising the modern Summer and Winter Olympic Games.
- The IOC is the governing body of the National Olympic Committees (NOCs), which are the national constituents of the worldwide Olympic Movement. As of 2016, there are 206 NOCs officially recognised by the IOC.
Subject : Economy
Context :The ‘National AI Portal (INDIAai)’ , celebrated its first anniversary on May 28, 2021.
Concept :
- The National AI Portal is a joint initiative by Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY), National e-Governance Division (NeGD) and NASSCOM and serves as a central hub for AI related news, learning, articles, events and activities etc., in India and beyond.
- The portal was launched by the Union Minister for Electronics and IT, Law and Justice and Communications, Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad on May 30, 2020.
- The event also witnessed the monthly ‘AI PeCharcha’ based on the theme ‘Implementing Trustworthy AI Solutions’.
- The AI based operational excellence framework and Live Enterprise Application Platform (LEAP) and several implemented use cases were also demonstrated, especially the use of AI in GST Network for fraud detection.
17. SRINAGAR LEH TRANSMISSION SYSTEM
Subject : Economy
Context : Ministry of Power, Government of India has transferred the prestigious 220 kV Srinagar-Drass-Kargil-Khaltsi-Leh Transmission System to Power Grid Corporation of India Limited (POWERGRID) .
Concept :
- The transmission system was dedicated to the nation by Prime Minister in February 2019, and it connects the Ladakh region to the national grid, ensuring quality and reliable power supply.
- Built at a height of around 3000-4000 meters, this 335-km long transmission line traverses snow-bound difficult hilly terrain. It comprises of four new state-of-the-art 220/66 kV Gas Insulated Sub-stations and 66 kV interconnection systems at Drass, Kargil, Khaltsi and Leh.
- The project was executed by POWERGRID on consultancy basis under Prime Minister’s Reconstruction Plan (PMRP) Scheme.
- Subsequent to reorganisation of the erstwhile state of Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) into UTs of J&K and Ladakh, the 220 kV Srinagar-Leh Transmission System has been re-designated as Inter State Transmission System (ISTS) and transferred to POWERGRID with effect from 31.10.2019, the date of formation of the two UTs of J&K and Ladakh.
POWERGRID
- It is a public limited company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Power.
- It is the largest power transmission company in India.
- It started its commercial operation in the year 1992-93 and is today, a Maharatna company.