27th April 2020 Current Affairs in English

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27th April 2020 Current Affairs in English

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27th APRIL 2020

TABLE OF CONTENTS

  1. Industries hobbled by curbs on mobility of men, material
  2. Assam’s BTAD might see Governor rule
  3. A boon to Odisha’s snakebite victims
  4. Dolphins reclaim Bosphorus as virus silences Istanbul
  5. Australia cancels premier air exercise
  6. CERT-In to conduct security audit of COVID-19 data
  7. The United States State Department reports
  8. Extra Information
    1. Enforcement Director
    2. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005
    3. Pallikarani wetland in chennai
    4. National Wetland Conservation Program (NWCP)

1. Industries hobbled by curbs on mobility of men, material

Information in News

  • Almost half of the industries which have been allowed to reopen still face hurdles in obtaining permits to function and passes for employees, according to a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) survey.Over 60% of surveyed companies also said movement of inputs and finished goods is still disrupted.
  • The industry group demanded that businesses should be allowed to function without need of permits in non-containment areas, with workers allowed to commute to work in their own vehicles on the basis of a letter issued by the employer without need of a government pass.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) survey Reports

  • Nationwide, 180 companies participated in the CII survey, which was conducted on April 23 and 24, a few days after the latest round of relaxations came into effect on April 20.
  • CII suggested that permits may be granted on a self-certification basis by State governments, at least in areas which are not hotspots of infection.
  • CII suggested that employees be allowed to use their own private vehicles, and that government passes should be replaced by company letters.

Confederation of Indian Industry (CII)

  • The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) works to create and sustain an environment conducive to the development of India, partnering industry, Government, and civil society, through advisory and consultative processes.
  • CII is a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led and industry-managed organization, playing a proactive role in India’s development process.
  • Founded in 1895and celebrating 125 years in 2020, India’s premier business association has more than 9100 members, from the private as well as public sectors, including SMEs and MNCs, and an indirect membership of over 300,000 enterprises from 291 national and regional sectoral industry bodies.
  • CII charts change by working closely with Government on policy issues, interfacing with thought leaders, and enhancing efficiency, competitiveness and business opportunities for industry through a range of specialized services and strategic global linkages. It also provides a platform for consensus-building and networking on key issues.
  • Extending its agenda beyond business, CII assists industry to identify and execute corporate citizenship programmes.
  • Partnerships with civil society organizations carry forward corporate initiatives for integrated and inclusive development across diverse domains including affirmative action, healthcare, education, livelihood, diversity management, skill development, empowerment of women, and water, to name a few.
  • India is now set to become a US$ 5 trillion economy in the next five years and Indian industry will remain the principal growth engine for achieving this target.
  • With the theme for 2019-20 as ‘Competitiveness of India Inc – India@75: Forging Ahead’,
  • CII will focus on five priority areas which would enable the country to stay on a solid growth track. These are
    1. Employment generation,
    2. Rural-urban connect,
    3. Energy security,
    4. Environmental sustainability and
    5. Governance
  • With 68 offices, including 9 Centres of Excellence, in India, and 11 overseas offices in Australia, China, Egypt, France, Germany, Indonesia, Singapore, South Africa, UAE, UK, and USA, as well as institutional partnerships with 394 counterpart organizations in 133 countries,
  • CII serves as a reference point for Indian industry and the international business community.

Reference

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/coronavirus-lockdown-industries-hobbled-by-curbs-on-mobility-of-men-material/article31440076.ece

2. Assam’s BTAD might see Governor Rule

Information in News

  • The COVID-19 pandemic may earn Governor’s rule for the Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD) in Assam.
  • The State’s Governor is the constitutional head of the BTAD that falls under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution and is administered by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC).
  • Elections were scheduled to be held for the BTC on April 4 but was deferred indefinitely in view of the pandemic.
  • The council’s current term expires on April 27.

Sixth Schedule

  • The Sixth Schedule consists of provisions for the administration of tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram, according to Article 244 of the Indian Constitution.
  • Passed by the Constituent Assembly in 1949, it seeks to safeguard the rights of tribal population through the formation of Autonomous District Councils (ADC).
  • ADCs are bodies representing a district to which the Constitution has given varying degrees of autonomy within the state legislature.
  • The Governors of these states are empowered to reorganise boundaries of the tribal areas.
  • In simpler terms, she or he can choose to include or exclude any area, increase or decrease the boundaries and unite two or more autonomous districts into one.
  • They can also alter or change the names of autonomous regions without a separate legislation.

Bodoland Territorial Area Districts (BTAD)

  • The BTAD covers four districts of western and northern Assam.
  • It is an autonomous region in the state of Assam in India.
  • It made up of four districtson the north bank of the Brahmaputra River, by the foothills of Bhutan and Arunachal Pradesh.
  1. Kokrajhar district
  2. Chirang district
  3. Baksa district
  4. Udalguri

 Referance

https://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/assams-btad-might-see-governors-rule/article31440536.ece

3. A boon to Odisha’s snakebite victims

Information in News

  • The Odisha government’s move to add ventilator facilities to treat COVID-19 patients is likely to provide a much-needed help for another serious health threat snakebite.
    • Toxin injected during snakebite affects the nervous system and the bite becomes fatal especially in the case of bites by the common krait in which no local symptoms are detected.
  • If not treated immediately, victims may die from respiratory failure. It is often found that absence of ventilator facility in district level government health institutions increases chances of fatality in snakebites.
  • Although snakebite was declared as a State-specific disaster in 2015, health infrastructure was not upgraded to deal with the threat.
  • “Acute neuromuscular paralysis, a type of neurotoxicity, is caused due to bite of cobras and kraits. Mechanical ventilation, intensive care and anti-venom treatment with prolonged hospital stays are key to snakebite treatment,” said the ZSI scientist.

Prelims point in this news

  • Snakebite was declared as a State-specific disaster in 2015.
  • “Acute neuromuscular paralysis, a type of neurotoxicity, is caused due to bite of cobras and kraits.

New Chief Justice of HC

  • President Ram Nath Kovind had on Thursday elevated
  • Justice Dipankar Datta of the Calcutta High Court as the Chief Justice of Bombay High Court,and
  • Justice Biswanath Somadder of the Allahabad High Court as Chief Justice of the Meghalaya High Court.

 4. Dolphins reclaim Bosphorus as virus silences Istanbul

Information in News

  • The Turkish city of 16 million has been under lockdown
  • Spotting dolphins in the Bosphorus — a usually very busy narrow waterway connecting the Mediterranean to the Black Sea right through the heart of Istanbul is often a source of joy for the city’s residents.

Due to Lockdown Effect

  • Fewer ships and more fish in the water, encouraging the mammals to come closer to shore and prompting more frequent sightings.
  • A decrease in boat and human traffic across the Bosphorus has a big impact.
  • Terrestrial and aquatic living things can remain free without human beings. That enables dolphins to come closer to the shoreline
  • Before the pandemic, fishing was a daily ritual in Istanbul with hundreds lighting fires or bringing samovars for making tea as they prepared for long angling stints along the shore.
  • The sight of thousands of amateur fishers on the Galata Bridge and on the banks of the Bosphorus is one of the city’s iconic images.
  • Dolphins are coming closer to the edge of the water as the terror of uncontrolled anglers on the shoreline has temporarily stopped.
  • At Sarayburnu, which separates the Golden Horn from the Sea of Marmara, a pod of dolphins were spotted swimming with an army of seagulls to the joy of photographers.
  • The visibility of the dolphins is seen as an indicator of a healthy maritime ecosystem as the mammals are fighting for survival.
  • Turkish literary giant Yasar Kemal wrote about the devastation wrought on the country’s coastal ecosystems by the overhunting of dolphins for oil in his 1978 novel “The Sea-Crossed Fisherman”.
  • Since 1983, maritime mammal hunting has been prohibited in Turkey, and dolphins are protected by law.

Dolphins

  • Dolphins have been included in Schedule I of the Indian Wild Life (Protection) Act 1972,
  • In Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES),
  • In Appendix II of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS)and
  • Categorised as ‘Endangered’ on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Red List.

Bosphorus Strait

  • It is a natural strait connecting the Black Sea to the Sea of Marmara,by extension via the Dardanelles, the Aegean and Mediterranean seas, thus being a very strategic waterway.
  • It’s length is 32 kilometers (20 miles) in the north to south direction.
  • Bosphorus strait separates the European part from the Asian part of Istanbul.
  • Bosphorus,also known as the Strait of Istanbul, is a narrow, natural strait and an internationally significant waterway located in northwestern Turkey.
  • It is the world’s narrowest strait used for international navigation.
  • It forms part of the continental boundary between Europe and Asia, and divides Turkey by separating Anatolia from Thrace.

Galata Bridge

5. Australia cancels premier air exercise

Information in News

  • Australia has informed India that its premier multilateral air combat training exercisePitch Black 2020scheduled from July 27 to August 14 has been cancelled due to the COVID-19 situation, defence sources said.
  • In the last edition of Pitch Black in 2018, the IAF for the first time deployed fighter aircraft which it had said would “provide a unique opportunity for exchange of knowledge and experience with these nations in a dynamic warfare environment”.
  • The bilateral naval exercise AUSINDEXearly last year saw participation of the largest Australian contingent ever to India with over 1,000 personnel.
  • Australia has launched a smartphone appto trace people who come in contact with coronavirus patientsdespite privacy concerns. The COVIDSafe appuses a phone’s Bluetooth wireless signal to store information about people’s interactions, and can be accessed by health officials if a person contracts coronavirus.

AUSINDEX

  • AUSINDEX is an acronym for Australia India Exercise.
  • To strengthen and enhance mutual cooperation and interoperability between the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) and Indian Navy (IN).
  • The maiden edition of the exercise was held in 2015 at Visakhapatnam.
  • Australia hosted the second edition of the exercise off Freemantle in 2017.
  • Multi-lateral air-combat exercise Pitch Black hosted by Australia in 2017.

6. CERT-In to conduct security audit of COVID-19 data

Information in News

  • It will ensure safety of details collected on cloud platform.
  • In the wake of the controversy surrounding the Sprinklr deal, the State government has decided to carry out a security audit by CERT-In,under the Union Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology,the nodal agency responsible for dealing with cyber security threats, of the various data collected by the government departments and agencies related to COVID-19.
  • The agency will have to execute the security audit of the data stored in the Amazon cloud platform in line with the guidelines of the government.

 CERT-In(Computer Emergency Response Team)

  • CERT-In is operational since January 2004,(CERT-In) within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
  • The constituency of CERT-In is the Indian Cyber Community.
  • CERT-In is the national nodal agency for responding to computer security incidents as and when they occur.
  • It issued a list of security guidelines to all critical departments.
  • To deal with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing.
  • In the recent Information technology Act,CERT-In has been designated to serve as the national agency to perform the following functions in the area of cyber security:
  • Collection, analysis and dissemination of information on cyber incidents.
  • Forecast and alerts of cyber security incidents
  • Emergency measures for handling cyber security incidents
  • Coordination of cyber incident response activities.
  • Issue guidelines, advisories, vulnerability notes and whitepapers relating to information security practices, procedures, prevention, response and reporting of cyber incidents.
  • Such other functions relating to cyber security as may be prescribed.

 7.  At the edge of a new nuclear arms race 

Information in News

A report issued by the United States State Department on “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report)” raised concerns that

  1. China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nur test site, in violation of its Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings.
  2. Also claims that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that produced a nuclear yield and were inconsistent with ‘zero yield’ understanding underlying the CTBT, though it was uncertain about how many such experiments had been conducted.

A report issued by the United States State Department on “Adherence to and Compliance with Arms Control, Nonproliferation, and Disarmament Agreements and Commitments (Compliance Report)” raised concerns that

China might be conducting nuclear tests with low yields at its Lop Nur test site, in violation of its Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) undertakings.

Also claims that Russia has conducted nuclear weapons experiments that produced a nuclear yield and were inconsistent with ‘zero yield’ understanding underlying the CTBT, though it was uncertain about how many such experiments had been conducted.

What does CTBT ban mean?

  • A ban on nuclear testing was seen as the necessary first step towards curbing the nuclear arms race but Cold War politics made it impossible.
  • A Partial Test Ban Treatywas concluded in 1963 banning underwater and atmospheric tests but this only drove testing underground.
  • By the time the CTBT negotiations began in Geneva in 1994, global politics had changed. The Cold War had ended and the nuclear arms race was over.
  • The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, or the USSR, had broken up and its principal testing site, Semipalatinsk, was in Kazakhstan (Russia still had access to Novaya Zemlya near the Arctic circle).
  • In addition, North Korea, India and Pakistan are the three who have not signed. All three have also undertaken tests after 1996; India and Pakistan in May 1998 and North Korea six times between 2006 and 2017. The CTBT has therefore not entered into force and lacks legal authority.
  • Nevertheless, an international organisation to verify the CTBT was established in Vienna with a staff of about 230 persons and an annual budget of $130 million.
  • In 1991, Russia declared a unilateral moratorium on testing, followed by the S. in 1992. By this time, the U.S. had conducted 1,054 tests and Russia, 715.
  • Negotiations were often contentious. France and Chinacontinued testing, claiming that they had conducted far fewer tests and needed to validate new designs since the CTBT did not imply an end to nuclear deterrence.
  • France and the U.S.even toyed with the idea of aCTBT that would permit testing at a low threshold, below 500 tonnes of TNT equivalent.
  • This was one-thirtieth of the “Little Boy”,the bomb the U.S. dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Its explosive yield was estimated to be the equivalent of 15,000 tonnes of TNT.
  • Civil society and the non-nuclear weapon states reacted negatively to such an idea and it was dropped. Some countries proposed that the best way to verify a comprehensive test ban would be to permanently shut down all test sites, an idea that was unwelcome to the nuclear weapon states.
  • Eventually, the U.S. came up with the idea of defining the“comprehensive test ban” as a “zero yield” test ban that would prohibit supercritical hydro-nuclear tests but not sub-critical hydrodynamic nuclear tests.
  • Accordingly, the CTBT prohibits all parties from carrying out “any nuclear weapon test explosion or any other nuclear explosion”; these terms are neither defined nor elaborated.

Why it lacks authority

  • Another controversy arose regarding the entry-into-force provisions (Article 14) of the treaty. After India’s proposals for anchoring the CTBT in a disarmament framework did not find acceptance,in June 1996, India announced its decision to withdraw from the negotiations.
  • The new provisions listed 44 countries by name whose ratification was necessary for the treaty to enter into force and included India. India protested that this attempt at arm-twisting violated a country’s sovereign right to decide if it wanted to join a treaty but was ignored. The CTBT was adopted by a majority vote and opened for signature.
  • Of the 44 listed countries, to date only 36 have ratified the treaty. China, Egypt, Iran, Israel and the U.S. have signed but not ratified. China maintains that it will only ratify it after the U.S. does so but the Republican dominated Senate had rejected it in 1999.
  • The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) limits U.S. and Russian arsenals but will expire in 2021 and U.S. President Donald Trump has already indicated that he does not plan to extend it.

Current context

  • Both China and Russia have dismissed the U.S.’s allegations, pointing to the Trump administration’s backtracking from other negotiated agreements such as the Iran nuclear deal or the U.S.-Russia Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.
  • Tensions with China are already high with trade and technology disputes, militarisation in the South China Sea and most recently, with the novel coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. could also be preparing the ground for resuming testing at Nevada.
  • The Cold War rivalry was already visible when the nuclear arms race began in the 1950s. New rivalries have already emerged. Resumption of nuclear testing may signal the demise of the ill-fated CTBT, marking the beginnings of a new nuclear arms race.

Extra Information

  1. Enforcement Director (ED)

  • Directorate of Enforcement is a specialized financial investigation agency under the Department of Revenue, Ministry of Finance, Government of India, which enforces the following laws: –
  1. Foreign Exchange Management Act,1999 (FEMA) – A Civil Law,with officers empowered to conduct investigations into suspected contraventions of the Foreign Exchange Laws and Regulations, adjudicate, contraventions, and impose penalties on those adjudged to have contravened the law.
  2. Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA) – A Criminal Law, with the officers empowered to conduct investigations to trace assets derived out of the proceeds of crime, to provisionally attach/ confiscate the same, and to arrest and prosecute the offenders found to be involved in Money Laundering.

The main functions of the Directorate are as under

  1. Investigate contraventions of the provisions of Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999(FEMA) which came into force with effect from 1.6.2000. Contraventions of FEMA are dealt with by way of adjudication by designated authorities of ED and penalties upto three times the sum involved can be imposed.
  2. Investigate offences of money laundering under the provisions of Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002(PMLA) which came into force with effect from 1.7.2005 and to take actions of attachment and confiscation of property if the same is determined to be proceeds of crime derived from a Scheduled Offence under PMLA, and to prosecute the persons involved in the offence of money laundering. There are 156 offences under 28 statutes which are Scheduled Offences under PMLA.
  3. Adjudicate Show Cause Notices issued under the repealed Foreign Exchange Regulation Act, 1973 (FERA) upto 31.5.2002 for the alleged contraventions of the Act which may result in imposition of penalties. Pursue prosecutions launched under FERA in the concerned courts.
  4. Processing cases of fugitive/s from India under Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018. The objective of this Act is to provided for measures to deter fugitive economic offenders from evading the process of law in India by staying outside the jurisdiction of Indian Courts and to preserve the sanctity of the rule of law in India.
  5. Sponsor cases of preventive detention under Conservation of Foreign Exchange and Prevention of Smuggling Activities Act, 1974(COFEPOSA) in regard to contraventions of FEMA.
  6. Render cooperation to foreign countries in matters relating to money laundering and restitution of assets under the provisions of PMLA and to seek cooperation in such matters.

  7. The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005’

  • Ministry of Rural Development has been implementing ‘The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005’ which provides at least one hundred days of guaranteed wage employment in every financial year to every rural household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work.
  • The demand for work itself is influenced by various factors such as rain-fall pattern, availability of alternative and remunerative employment opportunities outside MGNREGA and prevailing unskilled wage rates.

Increase in Days of Employment Under MGNREGA

  • An additional 50 days of wage employment are provided over and above 100 days in the notified drought affected areas or natural calamity areas in the countryon recommendation of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
  • The Ministry also mandates the provision of additional 50 days of wage employment to every Scheduled Tribe Householdin a forest area, provided that these households have no other private property except for the land rights provided under the FRA Act, 2006.
  • Wage rates for workersunder the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), 2005 are notified annually based on Consumer Price Index-Agricultural Labourers (CPI-AL) by the Central Government in accordance with the provisions of section 6(1) of the MGNREGA. The Ministry has notified wage rates for the FY 2019-20 under MGNREGA from 1st April, 2019.

  1. Pallikaranai Wetland in chennai

  • Pallikaranai wetland is a freshwater marsh in the city of Chennai, India.
  • It is situated adjacent to the Bay of Bengal, about 20 kilometres (12 mi) south of the city centre, and has a geographical area of 80 square kilometres (31 sq mi).
  • Pallikaranai marshland is the only surviving wetland ecosystem of the city and is among the few and last remaining natural wetlands of South India.
  • It is one of the 94 identified wetlands under National Wetland Conservation and Management Programme (NWCMP) operationalised by the Government of India in 1985–86 and one of the three in the state of Tamil Nadu.

  1. National Wetland Conservation Program (NWCP)

  • Under this, the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) is responsible for overall coordination of the program and to provide financial and technical assistance to the State Governments.
  • State governments, on the other hand, are responsible for the management of wetlands and implementation of the NWCP (as land is state subject).
  • Notification of Wetlands (Conservation and Management) Rules, 2010 , under the Environmental Protection Act 1986.
  • Central Wetlands Regulatory Authority (CWRA) was constituted under the chairmanship of secretary (MoEFCC), as per the wetland rules, 2010.
  • CWRA merged conservation schemes for wetlands, mangroves and coral reefs in 2011, as Ramsar convention deals them all under wetlands.

 Objective of NWCP

  1. to lay down policy guidelines for conservation and management of wetlands in the country;
  2. to undertake intensive conservation measures in priority wetlands and provide financial assistance for the same;
  3. to monitor implementation of the programme; and
  4. to prepare an inventory of Indian wetlands.
  5. Significant Achievements under NWCP
  6. Over the years, based on the recommendations of the National Wetlands Committee, 115 wetlands have been identified for conservation under the NWCP.

 

 

 

 

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