Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 18th September 2021

What is in news : Indian Railways took a leap in advancement of Skill India Mission by launching the “Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana (RKVY)” under the aegis of “Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)”.

Features :

• Under Rail Kaushal Vikas Yojana, training will be provided to 50,000 candidates over a period of three years.
• The training will initially be provided to 1000 candidates in four trades -Welder, Electrician, Fitter and Machinist. The training will include basic initial training of 100 hours.
• A total of 75 Railway Training Institutes have been shortlisted from across the country to provide training in the mentioned disciplines to cover youth from all over the country.
• The training programs in other trades will be added by zonal railways and production units based on regional demands and needs assessment.
• The training will be completely free of cost and the participants will be selected based on the applications received online.
• The selection process will follow a transparent mechanism based on marks in matriculation.
• A nodal website will be developed as a single source of information regarding the training programs, notification inviting application, selected candidates lists, selection results, final assessment and study material.
• All trainees will have to undergo a standardized assessment and will be awarded certificates in their respective trade by the National Rail & Transportation Institute after completion of their training.
• They will also be given relevant toolkits that would help them utilize their learnings and enhance their capacity for employability in various industries.

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Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana

• Launched in 2015
• Under  Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE)
• Implemented by National Skill Development Corporation.
• Objective: is to enable a large number of Indian youth to take up industry-relevant skill training that will help them in securing a better livelihood.
• Individuals with prior learning experience or skills will also be assessed and certified under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL).

ECONOMY

What is in news : Paving the way for a major clean-up of bad loans in the banking system, the Union Cabinet has cleared a ₹30,600-crore guarantee programme for securities to be issued by the newly incorporated ‘bad bank’ for taking over and resolving non-performing assets (NPAs) amounting to ₹2 lakh crore.

What is a Bad Bank?

• A bad bank conveys the impression that it will function as a bank but has bad assets to start with.
• Technically, it is an asset reconstruction company (ARC) or an asset management company that takes over the bad loans of commercial banks, manages them and finally recovers the money over a period of time.
• Such a bank is not involved in lending and taking deposits, but helps commercial banks clean up their balance sheets and resolve bad loans.
• The takeover of bad loans is normally below the book value of the loan and the bad bank tries to recover as much as possible subsequently.

Bad Banks to be established

• The NARCL-IDRCL structure is the new bad bank.
• The National Asset Reconstruction Company Limited (NARCL) has already been incorporated under the Companies Act.
• It will acquire stressed assets worth about Rs 2 lakh crore from various commercial banks in different phases.
• Another entity — India Debt Resolution Company Ltd (IDRCL), which has also been set up — will then try to sell the stressed assets in the market.

GST COUNCIL MEET

What is in news : GST council which met recently  has come up with effected several long-pending tweaks in tax rates including an increase in the GST levied on footwear costing less than ₹1,000 as well as readymade garments and fabrics to 12% from 5%.  Petroleum products has not been included under GST

GST COUNCIL

• The GST council is the key decision-making body that will take all important decisions regarding the GST. The GST Council dictates tax rate, tax exemption, the due date of forms, tax laws, and tax deadlines, keeping in mind special rates and provisions for some states. The predominant responsibility of the GST Council is to ensure to have one uniform tax rate for goods and services across the nation.
• The Goods and Services Tax (GST) is governed by the GST Council. Article 279 (1) of the amended Indian Constitution states that the GST Council has to be constituted by the President within 60 days of the commencement of the Article 279A.
• According to the article, GST Council will be a joint forum for the Centre and the States. It consists of the following members:
  • The Union Finance Minister will be the Chairperson
  • As a member, the Union Minister of State will be in charge of Revenue of Finance
  • The Minister in charge of finance or taxation or any other Minister nominated by each State government, as members.
• Article 279A (4) specifies that the Council will make recommendations to the Union and the States on the important issues related to GST, such as, the goods and services will be subject or exempted from the Goods and Services Tax.

ENVIRONMENT

What is in news : Every year, 16th September is observed as the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone layer (World Ozone Day).

Why : Montreal Protocol on Substances that deplete the ozone layer signed by almost every country in 1987

By : United Nation General Assembly

2021 Theme: Montreal Protocol – Keeping us, our food, and vaccines cool.

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OZONE LAYER

• Atmospheric ozone concentrated in a layer in stratosphere.
• About 9 to 18 miles above Earth’s surface.
• What does ozone layer do?
  • Absorbs a range of ultraviolet energy
  • Ozone molecule absorbs even low-energy ultraviolent radiation.
  • Splits into ordinary oxygen molecule and free oxygen atom.
  • Free oxygen atom quickly re-joins with an oxygen molecule to form another ozone molecule
  • Ozone-oxygen cycle converts harmful UV radiation into heat and acts as a shield
  • Weakening ozone layer causes skin cancer, cataracts and impairs immune systems.

MONTREAL PROTOCOL:  The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was designed to reduce the production and consumption of ozone depleting substances in order to reduce their abundance in the atmosphere, and thereby protect the earth’s fragile ozone Layer. The original Montreal Protocol was agreed on 16 September 1987 and entered into force on 1 January 1989.

STEPS TAKEN BY INDIA

• India, as Party to the Montreal Protocol since June 1992, has been successfully implementing the Montreal Protocol and its ozone depleting substances phase out projects and activities in line with the phase out schedule of the Protocol.India has phased out Chlorofluorocarbons, Carbon tetrachloride, Halons, Methyl Bromide and Methyl Chloroform for controlled uses in line with the Montreal Protocol. Currently Hydrochlorofluorocarbons are being phased out as per the accelerated schedule of the Montreal Protocol.
• India is the first country in world to develop such a document (ICAP), which addresses cooling requirement across sectors and lists out actions which can help reduce the cooling demand.
• The overarching goal is to provide sustainable cooling and thermal comfort for all while securing environmental and socio-economic benefits for the society.
• The goals emerging from the suggested interventions stated in ICAP are:
  • Reduction of cooling demand across sectors by 20% to 25 % by year 2037-38.
  • Reduction of refrigerant demand by 25% to 30% by year 2037-38.
  • Reduction of cooling energy requirements by 25% to 40% by year 2037-38.
  • Training and certification of 100,000 servicing sector technicians by the year 2022-23, in synergy with Skill India Mission.
  • Recognize “cooling and related areas” as a thrust area of research under the national S&T Programme.

What : World’s largest tree

What is in news : The General Sherman trees are now being threatened by Wildfires of California

How is General Sherman the world’s largest tree:

• World’s largest in terms of volume
• Exists in the Giant Forest sequoia grove of the national park
• As per recent estimates the trees are about is about 2,200 years old
• It stands at a height of 275 feet (taller than the leaning tower of Pisa) and has a diameter of 36 feet at the base.
• Even 60 feet above the base, the tree has a diameter of 17.5 feet.

Wildfires at the Sequoia National Park

• The National Park Service (NPS) notes that historically, low to moderate severity fires burn every 6 to 35 years in the giant sequoia groves.
• Further, occasional patches of higher severity fires have opened up gaps in the forest canopy where seedlings can then grow. Significantly, the park staff has estimated that less than 10 per cent of the large sequoias have died due to low severity and about 34 per cent have died in moderate severity fire areas.
• According to NPS, the Castle fire that started in August last year in a remote part of the national forest burned about 171,000 acres including more than 9,530 acres of giant sequoia groves on US Forest Service, National Park Service, State of California, Tulare County and private lands.
• Significantly, this burned area represents a third of all sequoia grove area across the Sierra Nevada, the only area in the world where giant sequoias occur naturally, NPS notes.
• Giant sequoia trees have existed in the national park for thousands of years and there are an estimated 2,000 such trees in the park. Firefighters are now trying to save the world’s largest tree and some other large trees in the area by wrapping fire-resistant aluminium blankets onto the bases of the trees.

HISTORY – ART – CULTURE

What:

• Shankhalipi or “shell-script” is a term used by scholars to describe ornate spiral characters assumed to be Brahmi derivatives that look like conch shells or shankhas.
• They are found in inscriptions across north-central India and date to between the 4th and 8th centuries.
• A similar inscription was found on the back of a stone horse sculpture from that period that is at present in the State Museum at Lucknow.
• Both Shankhalipi and Brahmi are stylised scripts used primarily for names and signatures.
• The inscriptions consist of a small number of characters, suggesting that the shell inscriptions are names or auspicious symbols or a combination of the two.
• The script was discovered in 1836 on a brass trident in Uttarakhand’s Barahat by English scholar James Prinsep, who was the founding editor of the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal.
• A year later, he came across two more similar scripts at Nagarjuna group of caves in the Barabar Hills near Gaya.
• Prominent sites with shell inscriptions include the Mundeshwari Temple in Bihar, the Udayagiri Caves in Madhya Pradesh, Mansar in Maharashtra and some of the cave sites of Gujarat and Maharashtra. In fact, shell inscriptions are also reported in Indonesia’s Java and Borneo.
• The first detailed study of shell inscriptions was undertaken by Professor Richard Salomon of the University of Washington.
• Shankhalipi is found to be engraved on temple pillars, columns and rock surfaces.

What is in news : Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) discovered remains of an ancient temple dating back to the Gupta period (5th century) in a village in Uttar Pradesh’s Etah district recently

Details :

• The stairs of the temple had ‘shankhalipi’ inscriptions, which were deciphered by the archaeologists as saying, ‘Sri Mahendraditya’, the title of Kumaragupta I of the Gupta dynasty.
• The Bilsarh sites was declared ‘protected’ in 1928. Every year, the ASI undertakes scrubbing work at the protected sites.
• As per the ASI, the stairs led to a structural temple built during the Gupta period. The discovery becomes significant since only two other structural temples from the Gupta age have been found so far — Dashavatara Temple (Deogarh) and Bhitargaon Temple (Kanpur Dehat).

What is in news : QCI launched the Prof. S.K. Joshi Laboratory Excellence Award.This is country’s first-of-its- kind Laboratory Excellence Award. This Award has been instituted to promote Laboratory Quality and performance improvement in the country.

About SK JOSHI

• Born on 06 June 1935.
• Studied at the Allahabad University and did his Ph.D. in Physics from there in 1962.
• Broad field of research interest was Condensed Matter Theory.
• Had earlier worked on Collision Processes in Atomic and Molecular Systems also. Dr. Joshi was Professor of Physics at the University of Roorkee (Now IIT, Roorkee) from 1967 till 1986.
• Was the Director of National Physical Laboratory from 1986-1991. He held the position of the Director General CSIR from 1991 till 1995.
• Was elected Fellow of the Indian National Science Academy in 1974
• Was the President of the INSA from 1993 till 1995.
• Was a Fellow of the Indian Academy of Sciences since 1974 and was Vice President from 1989-91.
• Was a Fellow of the National Academy of Sciences and was its President for 2001-2002.
• Was the President of Indian Physics Association during 1989-90, President of the Materials Research Society of India during 1995-97, and the President of the Indian Science Congress Association for the year 1996-97
• Was a Fellow of the Third World Academy of Sciences, and a Foreign Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
• Won Watumull Memorial Prize for 1965, Shanti Swarup Prize for Physical Sciences for 1972, CSIR Silver Jubilee Award 1973 and Meghnad Saha Award for Research in Theoretical Sciences in 1974.
• Has received FICCI Award in Physical Sciences for 1990 and Goyal Prize in Physics from Goyal Foundation in 1993.

REPORTS & INDICES

By : UNCTAD

Details :

• India’s economic growth rate will increased to a four-year high of 7.2 per cent in 2021 as compared to a contraction of 7 per cent in 2020.
• With this growth rate, India will be the fastest growing economy after China.
• China is projected to grow by 8.3 per cent.
• These calculations were made on the basis of GDP at constant dollars in 2015.
• UNCTAD has also projected that, India’s economy will outpace all other major economies in the year 2022 even though the growth would be slower, at 6.7 per cent.
• According to the report, India’s economy that reduced by seven per cent in 2020, showed a strong growth of 1.9 per cent in first quarter of 2021, in the backdrop of the momentum of second half of 2020. It was also supported by government spending in goods and services.
• Rising food and general price inflation, widespread lockdowns and drastic consumption & investment adjustments also hit India.

INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

What is in news : US administration has announced a new trilateral security partnership for the Indo-pacific. Security partnership was done between Australia, United Kingdom and United States. This security grouping called AUKUS

Aim : focus towards advancing strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region.

Features of the partnership

• The central feature of this partnership comprises of a trilateral 18-month effort in order to help Australia in acquiring nuclear powered submarines which are quieter, more capable as compared to their conventional counterparts.
• Such submarines can be deployed for longer periods and needing to surface less frequently.
• These are nuclear powered submarines and not armed with nuclear weapons.
• AUKUS will also involve a new architecture of meeting and engagements between three countries.
• It also involves the cooperation across emerging technologies like AI, quantum technologies as well as undersea capabilities.

What is in news :  The 21st meeting of the SCO Council of Heads of State was held recently in Dushanbe

About SCO

• After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the then security and economic architecture in the Eurasian region dissolved and new structures had to come up.
• The original Shanghai Five were China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
• The SCO was formed in 2001, with Uzbekistan included. It expanded in 2017 to include India and Pakistan.
• Since its formation, the SCO has focused on regional non-traditional security, with counter-terrorism as a priority.
• The fight against the “three evils” of terrorism, separatism and extremism has become its mantra. Today, areas of cooperation include themes such as economics and culture.

• Karnataka legislative assembly passes Karnataka Gram Swaraj and Panchayat Raj (Amendment) Bill to ensure fairness in the process of delimitation and fixing of reservation of wards in the wake of thousands of objections being filed by the general public against such an exercise undertaken by the State Election Commission.
• Thanu Padmanabhan, eminent theoretical physicist and cosmologist, passed away in Pune . He was 64.
• 15th Edition of Indo - Nepal Joint Military Training, Exercise Surya Kiran between Indian Army and Nepali Army is commencing from 20 September 2021 at Pithoragarh (UK).
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi have been named among 100 most influential people of 2021 by the Time Magazine. Apart from PM Modi, West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee and CEO of Serum Institute of India, Adar Poonawalla have also been named among the world’s 100 most influential people.Time magazine unveiled its annual list of ‘The 100 Most Influential People of 2021’ on September 15, 2021.
• MyGov India has launched the “Planetarium Innovation Challenge” for Indian start-ups and tech entrepreneurs. his Planetarium challenge was launched with the aim of bringing together the tech firms and Start-ups, that are based out of India, with the potential to build an indigenous planetariums system software. MyGov is a citizen engagement platform, launched by central government on July 26, 2014 in order to promote the active participation of Indian citizens in the governance and development of India. It aims to create common platform for Indian citizens in a bid to “crowdsource governance ideas from citizens”.