Daily Prelims Notes 3 September 2020

September 3, 2020
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Table Of Contents

Subject: Governance

Context:

Union Cabinet has approved ‘Mission Karmayogi’, a new capacity-building scheme for civil servants aimed at upgrading the post-recruitment training mechanism of the officers and employees at all levels.

Concept:

Mission Karmayogi aims to prepare the Indian Civil Servant for the future by making him more creative, constructive, imaginative, innovative, proactive, professional, progressive, energetic, enabling, transparent and technology-enabled.
Mission Karmayogi programme will be delivered by setting up a digital platform called iGOTKarmayogi.
Empowered with specific role-competencies, a civil servant will be able to ensure efficient service delivery of the highest quality standards, the government said.
The platform will act as a launchpad for the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB), which will enable a comprehensive reform of the capacity building apparatus at the individual, institutional and process levels.

Institutional framework

NPCSCB will be governed by the Prime Minister’s Human Resource Council, which will also include state Chief Ministers, Union Cabinet ministers and experts. This council will approve and review civil service capacity building programmes.
Besides this, there will be a Cabinet Secretary Coordination Unit comprising of select secretaries and cadre controlling authorities.
Also, there will be a Capacity Building Commission, which will include experts in related fields and global professionals. This commission will prepare and monitor annual capacity building plans and audit human resources available in the government.
Finally, there will be a wholly-owned Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV), which will govern the iGOT-Karmayogi platform. It will be set up under Section 8 of the Companies Act, 2013.
The SPV will be a “not-for-profit” company and will own and manage iGOT-Karmayogi platform. The SPV will create and operationalise the content, market place and manage key business services of iGOT-Karmayogi platform, relating to content validation, independent proctored assessments and telemetry data availability. The SPV will own all Intellectual Property Rights on behalf of the Government of India.

2. Question Hour and Zero Hour

Subject: Polity

Context:

Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha secretariats notified that there will be no Question Hour during the Monsoon Session of Parliament in view of the Covid-19 pandemic, and that Zero Hour will be restricted in both Houses

Concept:

Question Hour

The first hour of every parliamentary sitting is slotted for this.
Question Hour is the liveliest hour in Parliament. It is during this one hour that Members of Parliament ask questions of ministers and hold them accountable for the functioning of their ministries.
The questions that MPs ask are designed to elicit information and trigger suitable action by ministries.
The questions are of three kinds, namely, starred, unstarred and short notice.
Parliament has comprehensive rules for dealing with every aspect of Question Hour.
And the presiding officers of the two houses are the final authority with respect to the conduct of Question Hour

Zero Hour

Unlike the question hour, the zero hour is not mentioned in the Rules of Procedure.
Thus it is an informal device available to the members of the Parliament to raise matters without any prior notice.
The zero hour starts immediately after the question hour and lasts until the agenda for the day (ie, regular business of the House) is taken up.
In other words, the time gap between the question hour and the agenda is known as zero hour. It is an Indian innovation in the field of parliamentary procedures and has been in existence since 1962.

3. Healthy Air: Immunity Booster

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

Defence Institute of Advanced Technology, a Deemed to be University, Pune has developed herbal-based immunity boosting room freshener product named “Healthy Air” to contain the spread of COVID-19.

Concept:

The product Healthy Air has been developed with various extracts of herbal oils like Neem, Neelgiri, Camphor, Daalcheeni, Tulsi, Lemon, Turmeric, Laung, Ajwain, Lavender, Elaichi, Turmeric, Natural Vetiveru, Raimuniya and Pine Oil.
The product consists of a blended solution of the natural herbal oils, which instinctively acts as an immunity booster for the body, and exhibits Anti-cancerous, Anti-microbial, Anti-viral and Anti-fungal properties.
It is herbal-based product is non-carcinogenic, non-toxic, non-mutagenic, and purifies the air, and makes it breathable.
The product has resulted to removing the toxic fumes, cleanses the air, and does not contain any synthetic solvent / surfactant in its formulation.
Healthy Air does not contain any synthetic chemicals nor secondary solvents. Whereas the commercial room fresheners mostly contains synthetic adsorbents, surfactants, disinfectants, oxidizers, allergens, and chemical air sanitizers in the main formulation could affect respiratory system & brain neural sensing, do not contain any immunity boosting agents and does not possess the anti-bacterial properties.
Healthy Air supports respiratory condition in healthy way, does not affect brain neural sensing and useful for people suffering from allergic reactions, breathing problems related to asthma, headache, nasal irritation, or soreness in throat as the product is mainly made of natural herbal extracts which works as immunity booster.

4. COVID testing

Subject: Science and tech

Context:

Using mass spectrometer, researchers at the Delhi-based Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) have been able to detect novel coronavirus with 95% sensitivity and 100% specificity with respect to RT-PCR

Concept:

The new method can directly detect the virus without amplifying the RNA for detection, as is the case with RT-PCR.
The new method relies on detecting the presence of two peptides which are unique to SARS-CoV-2 virus and not seen in any other coronavirus or other viruses.
Though seven peptides were found to be unique to SARS-CoV-2, only two peptides are used for quick virus detection.
One of the peptides is the spike protein and the other is a replicase protein. The unique peptides were seen in over 54,000 genomic sequences of the SARS-CoV-2 virus deposited in a public database (GISAID)
The mass spectrometer is expensive but it would cost only about ₹100 per test, and so cheaper than RT-PCR.
Since it takes less than 30 minutes to detect the virus and is also highly sensitive and specific, it can be used for screening and diagnostic purposes. It can either complement RT-PCR or be used as an alternative to RT-PCR.

5. Global innovation index

Subject: IR

Context:

India has climbed 4 spots and has been ranked 48th by the World Intellectual Property Organization in the Global Innovation Index 2020 rankings

Concept:

India was at the 52nd position in 2019 and was ranked 81st in the year 2015.
It is a remarkable achievement to be in a league of highly innovative developed nations all over the globe.
The WIPO had also accepted India as one of the leading innovation achievers of 2019 in the central and southern Asian region, as it has shown a consistent improvement in its innovation ranking for the last 5 years.
The consistent improvement in the global innovation index rankings is owing to the immense knowledge capital, the vibrant startup ecosystem, and the amazing work done by the public & private research organizations.
The scientific ministries like the Department of Science and Technology, the Department of Biotechnology and the Department of space have played a pivotal role in the enriching the national innovation Ecosystem.
The NITI Aayog has been working tirelessly to ensure optimization of national efforts in this direction by bringing policy led innovation in different areas such as EVs, biotechnology, Nano technology, Space, alternative energy sources, etc.
The India Innovation Index, which was released last year by the NITI Aayog, has been widely accepted as the major step in the direction of decentralization of innovation across all the states of India. A constant thrust in monitoring and evaluating India’s position in global rankings has be provided by the NITI Aayog, including the global innovation index.

6. Force Majeure

Subject: Economy

Context:

RBI given moratorium period expired on August 31 so people sought a complete waiver of interest for the moratorium period.

Concept:

The term ‘force majeure’ has been defined in Black’s Law Dictionary, as ‘an event or effect that can be neither anticipated nor controlled.
From a contractual perspective, a force majeure clause provides temporary reprieve to a party from performing its obligations under a contract upon occurrence of a force majeure event.
While force majeure has neither been defined nor specifically dealt with, in Indian statutes, some reference can be found in Section 32 of the Indian Contract Act, 1872 (the “Contract Act”) envisages that if a contract is contingent on the happening of an event which event becomes impossible, then the contract becomes void.
Force majeure clauses can usually be found in various contracts such as power purchase agreements, supply contracts, manufacturing contracts, distribution agreements, project finance agreements, agreements between real estate developers and home buyers, etc.