Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 30th July 2021

What is in news :Election Commission has a proposal to set up Systematic Voters Education and Electoral Participation (SVEEP) Museum and Capacity Building Centre in Mysuru

What it offers :

• Knowledge on Sveep & other initiatives of Election commission
• Create awareness and educate people, especially voters in democracies, about democracy
• Importance of Voting
• Training and capacity building

Why was Mysuru Chosen :

• The tourist attraction capacity of the heritage city
• Highlight the legacy of Representative Assembly instituted by Chamarajendra Wadiyar X in 1881
• Mysuru-based Mysore Paints and Varnish Limited (MPVL) is the only manufacturer of indelible ink, used to mark the fingers of voters during elections.(established in 1937 by Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar)

What is SVEEP?

• Flagship program of the Election Commission of India
• Started in 2009
• Voter education, spreading voter awareness and promoting voter literacy in India
• Designed according to the socio-economic, cultural and demographic profile of the state as well as the history of electoral participation in previous rounds of elections and learning thereof.

POLITY & GOVERNANCE

What is in news : The Union Health Ministry has announced 27% reservation for the OBCs (Other Backward Classes) and 10% quota for the Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) in the all-India quota (AIQ) scheme for undergraduate and postgraduate medical and dental courses from 2021-22.

What is AIQ scheme :

• Introduced in 1986
• Under the directions of the Supreme Court
• Provide for domicile-free merit-based opportunities to students from any State aspiring to study in a medical college located in another State
• Comprises 15% of the UG seats and 50% of the PG seats in government medical colleges

ECONOMY

What is in news : The government has launched the Secured Logistics Document Exchange. A Calculator for Green House Gas Emissions has also been launched.

Details :

• Why the initiative - Digital transformation can be done in the logistics sector of the country to achieve the targets of improving the country’s ranking in Logistics Performance Index, establishment of indigenous India-specific metrics and reduction in logistics cost which will help in the improvement Of India’s logistics.
• This will reduce logistics cost, improve logistics efficiency and sustainability and promote multi-modality in a big way.
• Fill the gaps where no action has been taken either by the government or the private players of the country.

What is in news : 14 Tiger reserves of India received the accreditation of the Global Conservation Assured|Tiger Standards (CA|TS)

Which are the reserves : Manas, Kaziranga and Orang in Assam, Satpura, Kanha and Panna in Madhya Pradesh, Pench in Maharashtra, Valmiki Tiger Reserve in Bihar, Dudhwa in Uttar Pradesh,Sunderbans in West Bengal, Parambikulam in Kerala, Bandipur Tiger Reserve of Karnataka and Mudumalai and Anamalai Tiger Reserve in Tamil Nadu.

Details :

• India adopted (CA|TS) in 2020
• Set of minimum standards setting the benchmark for managing conservation sites
• Sets best practice and standards to manage target species, and encourages assessments to benchmark progress.
• Tigers are the first species selected for the initiative.
• Launched in 2013, the tool was developed in collaboration with field managers, tiger experts and government agencies engaged in tiger conservation.
• CA|TS is a partnership of tiger range governments, inter-governmental agencies, institutions, NGOs and conservation organisations.
• WWF is helping tiger range countries to implement CA|TS.

What is in news : At least seven people were killed, 17 injured and over 35 missing after a cloudburst hit a remote village of Jammu and Kashmir.

What is Cloud-Burst :

• Short-duration, intense rainfall events over a small area
• According to the India Meteorological Department (IMD), it is a weather phenomenon with unexpected precipitation exceeding 100mm/h over a geographical region of approximately 20-30 square km.

Why frequent Cloudburst are seen :

• Climate change will increase the frequency and intensity of cloudbursts in many cities across the globe
• World Meteorological Organization noted that there is about a 40% chance of the annual average global temperature temporarily reaching 1.5°C above the pre-industrial level
• As temperatures increase the atmosphere can hold more and more moisture and this moisture comes down as a short very intense rainfall for a short duration probably half an hour or one hour resulting in flash floods in the mountainous areas and urban floods in the cities

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

What is in news : Government informed Parliament Space Activities Bill is under active consideration of the Government which will include aspects pertaining to regulation and promotion of private players in space sector.

Details :

• Aim - creating an ecosystem to encourage more private participation in indigenous production of space technologies, services and devices.
• In line with announcement of Government of India about space sector reforms in June 2020
• Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) was created as an independent nodal agency under the Department of Space with the mandate of promoting, handholding, licensing, authorization and monitoring of private space activities in India
• IN-SPACe which is under creation will have Safety and Security Directorate to ensure security of ISRO installations when allowing access to private entities.
• Announcement of Opportunities will be done by offering challenges in new domains of space technology.
• Government of India is bringing in new sector policies and guidelines and also revising existing policies.

Full Form :  ‘Continuous Oxygenation & Vital Information Detection Biomed ECIL ESIC Pod’

By : ESIC Medical College Hyderabad in association with the Department of Atomic Energy and Electronics Corporation of India Ltd. (ECIL)

Other Info:

• Country’s first cost effective indigenously made wireless physiological parameters monitoring system for the patients who are suffering from COVID-19
• Calculates the respiratory rate by the Bio Impedance method
• Help in reducing of transmission and will help in saving resources like PPE kits, etc.

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

When : July 29 every year

Why:  Create and spread awareness about the dangers faced by the tiger population of the world

Details :

• Very important to focus on the conservation of tigers as they play an important role in maintaining and protecting a balanced ecosystem.
• World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) states that since tigers are the top predators, they play a very important role in maintaining the planet’s ecosystems harmony.
• By preying on the herbivore population, tigers have helped to keep the balance between the forest vegetation and the animals.

History :

In the year 2010, in Russia, the first World Tiger Day was observed at the Saint Petersburg Tiger Summit. A total of thirteen countries with tiger range banded together and decided upon a global goal to double wild tigers population by the year 2022.

• The National Gallery of Australia (NGA) on Thursday announced that it would return 14 works of art from its Asian art collection to India.
• Indian Naval Ship Talwar is participating in the multi-national maritime exercise Cutlass Express 2021 (CE 21) which is held in Kenya.Exercise Cutlass Express is designed to improve regional cooperation, maritime domain awareness and information sharing practices to increase capabilities between the U.S., East African and Western Indian Ocean nations to counter illicit maritime activity in the Western Indian Ocean.
• Raja Mircha, also known as Naga King Chilli, was exported to London from Nagaland. This the first time Raja Mirch is being exported from the state of Nagaland that too during the the Covid-19 pandemic along with a drought-like situation in Nagaland
• Kenya and United Kingdom are co-hosting a Global Education Summit in the city of London with the objective to raise 5 billion USD for the Global Partnership for Education (GPE). GPE funds public education in up to 90 territories and countries
• Union Cabinet Wednesday cleared changes to the deposit insurance laws to provide funds up to Rs 5 lakh to an account holder within 90 days in the event of a bank coming under the moratorium imposed by the RBI. Deposits in public and private sector banks, local area banks, small finance banks, regional rural banks, cooperative banks, Indian branches of foreign banks and payments banks are all insured by the DICGC.