Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 22nd September 2021

What : Award to eminent senior citizens and institutions in recognition of their services towards the cause of elderly persons, especially indigent senior citizens.

By : Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

What is in news :  Kerala has bagged the Vayoshreshta Samman instituted by the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment for geriatric care

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What does constitution say about elderly care in India: Article 41 and Article 46 talk about elderly care in India. Though they are not enforceable in the court of law but create a positive and moral obligation on the state while enacting any law

Elderly care in laws :

• Hindu marriage and adoption act, 1956: makes it mandatory for children to ensure maintains of their parents.
• Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2007: provides for a legal route to elderly who can seek maintenance legally from their children or heirs in case they refuse to take care.

What is in news :  Recently, the Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to implement the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006, which will elevate the socio-economic status of a sizable section of the 14-lakh-strong population of tribals and nomadic communities.

Details

The act-

• Was passed in December 2006
• Deals with the rights of forest-dwelling communities over land and other resources. Grants legal recognition to the rights of traditional forest dwelling communities

Rights under the Act:

• Title rights – Ownership to land that is being farmed by tribals or forest dwellers subject to a maximum of 4 hectares; ownership is only for land that is actually being cultivated by the concerned family, meaning that no new lands are granted.
• Use rights – to minor forest produce (also including ownership), to grazing areas, to pastoralist routes, etc.
• Relief and development rights – to rehabilitation in case of illegal eviction or forced displacement; and to basic amenities, subject to restrictions for forest protection.
• Forest management rights – to protect forests and wildlife.

Eligibility:

• Confined to those who “primarily reside in forests” and who depend on forests and forest land for a livelihood
• Either the claimant must be a member of the Scheduled Tribes scheduled in that area or must have been residing in the forest for 75 years.

Process of recognition of rights:

• Gram sabha, or village assembly, will initially pass a resolution recommending whose rights to which resources should be recognised.
• This resolution is then screened and approved at the level of the sub-division (or taluka) and subsequently at the district level.
• The screening committees consist of three government officials (Forest, Revenue and Tribal Welfare departments) and three elected members of the local body at that level. These committees also hear appeals.

Tourism is travel for recreational (fun), leisure (rest), family, or business purposes, usually of limited duration. It refers to the temporary, short-term movement of people to destinations outside their residence places.

Importance of Tourism in India

• Generates Income and Employment: In 2017, Tourism Industry accounted for 8% of the total employment. An increase has been witnessed in the sale of handlooms, handicrafts etc.
• Service Sector: It gives a push to service sector. A large number of businesses engaged in service sector such as airlines, hotel, surface transportation, etc. grows with the growth of tourism industry.
• Foreign Travelers help India in getting Foreign Exchange.
• Tourism helps in preservation of National Heritage and Environment by bringing in focus the importance of sites and need to preserve them.
• Renewal of Cultural Pride: Tourist spots being appreciated globally instills a sense of pride among Indian residents gets reinforced.
• Infrastructural Development: Now-a-days, it is ensured that Travelers do not face any problem; multiple use infrastructures are getting developed at several tourist places. Uttarakhand’s plan to start mobile caravans is a latest example.
• It helps in bringing India on global map of tourism, earning appreciation, recognition and initiates cultural exchange.
• Tourism as a form of soft power, helps in promoting cultural diplomacy, people to people connect and thereby promotes friendship and cooperation between India and other countries.

Scope of Tourism in India

• Tourism in India is the largest service industry, with a contribution of 9.2% of India’s GDP in 2018 and 8.78% of the total employment in India.
• India witnesses more than 17.9 million annual foreign tourist arrivals and 740 million domestic tourism visits. The tourism industry in India generated about 100 US$ billion in 2008 and that is expected to increase to US$275.5 billion by 2018 at a 6.9% annual growth rate.
• According to World Tourism Organization estimates, India will lead in South Asia with 8.9 million arrivals by 2020.
• India is poised to emerge as the 2nd fastest growing (8.8%) tourism economy in the world over 2005-14 according to the World Travel & Tourism.

Constraints in Tourism Sector

• Deficiencies in infrastructure and inadequate connectivity
• Online marketing/branding remains limited and campaigns are not coordinated.
• Tourist information centers are poorly managed, making it difficult for domestic and foreign tourists to access information with ease.
• Number of adequately trained individuals for the tourism and hospitality sector is a key challenge to giving visitors a world-class experience.
• A limited number of multilingual trained guides, and the limited local awareness and understanding of the benefits and responsibilities associated with tourist growth act as constraints on the sector’s growth.
• Out of 140 countries, India ranked 8th on cultural resources and business travel, 13th on price competitiveness, and 14th on natural resources in World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Report 2019.
• Despite these superb rankings, India’s overall tourism competitiveness ranking at 34 reveals that India has not monetized or marketed the precious assets embedded in its heritage to their full potential, as other countries do.

Way Forward

• Travel and tourism heavily depend on a robust transportation network operated on-road, railways, and air. There is still a lot of ground to cover to improve last-mile connectivity.
• It is critical to make these routes operational and viable for airlines so that hidden gems such as Zuluk in Sikkim, Ziro in Arunachal, Majuli in Assam have better connectivity through commercial flights, helicopters and air taxis.
• There is a pressing need to upgrade capacity at top tourist locations.
• India’s top travel destinations are crumbling due to the high influx of tourists and poor infrastructural support.
• Water scarcity and infra issues in Shimla are well known, and this time, in between the two Covid-19 waves.
• Before the pandemic, around 26 million Indians travelled abroad in 2018, spending an estimated USD 25 billion.
• With a belief that the travel and tourism sector will continue to contribute significantly to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and employment generation, as was done in the past, it is an opportune moment for timely push with concessions and incentivisation to grow domestic tourism.
• Recently, the ministry of tourism initiated a proposal for the inclusion of tourism in the concurrent list of the Constitution. This move will allow both the Centre and states to formulate policies that could benefit the sector.
• The move could particularly benefit the industry as it could lead to the rationalisation of property and other taxes, industry status across the board, as well as lower rates on electricity and water.

ENVIRONMENT & GEOGRAPHY

What: 

• A pearl is a hard object produced within the soft tissue of a living shelled mollusk. Just like the shell of a mollusk, a pearl is made up of calcium carbonate, which has been deposited in concentric layers. The ideal pearl is perfectly round and smooth, but many other shapes of pearls also occur.
• Six species of pearl oysters occur along the Indian coasts,
  • Pinctada fucata (Gould)
  • Pinctada margaritifera (Linnaeus)
  • Pinctada chemnitzii (Philippi)
  • Pinctada sugillata (Reeve)
  • Pinctada anomioides (Reeve)
  • Pinctada atropurpurea (Dunker)
• India has one of the highest demands for pearls for setting in jewellery. The pearl oyster fisheries are located in two main areas:
  • The Gulf of Mannar
  • The Gulf of Kutch

What is in news :  Recently, the Trifed (Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India) inked an agreement with the Jharkhand-based Purty Agrotech for the promotion of pearl farming in tribal areas.

Benefits:

• Increased Farmers Income: The income of farmers in India is usually dependent on external factors like climate and this dependence often leads to their losses but on the other hand, Pearl farming is totally independent of these factors and gives one a high amount of profit.
• Eco-Friendly: Pearl farming is eco-friendly. It provides habitat for fish and improves species diversity.
• Water Purification: Filter feeder oysters also purify the water. A single oyster clears over 15 gallons of water a day.It accumulates heavy metals from the water, and removes harmful pollutants as well.

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Tribal Cooperative Marketing Development Federation of India

• Under the administrative control of the Ministry of Tribal Affairs
• Established in 1987.
• Head Office - New Delhi
• Objective - socio-economic development of tribal people in the country by way of marketing development of the tribal products such as metal craft, tribal textiles, etc.
• Functions viz. Minor Forest Produce (MFP) development and Retail Marketing and Development.

What is in news : Assam will mark World Rhino Day — September 22 — with a special ceremony by burning a stockpile of nearly 2,500 horns of the one-horned rhinoceros.

Why : The ceremony has been publicised as a “milestone towards rhino conservation” aimed at “busting myths about rhino horns”. It shares a loud and clear message to the poachers and smugglers that such items have no value. It is in accordance with Section 39(3)(c) of the Wildlife (Protection) Act of 1972.

Why are Rhino horns smuggled : ground rhino horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure a range of ailments, from cancer to hangovers, and also as an aphrodisiac.” In Vietnam, possessing a rhino horn is considered a status symbol

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RHINO

• The Greater One-Horned Rhino is one among the five different species of Rhino.
• The other four are:
  • Black Rhino: Smaller of the two African species.
  • White Rhino: Recently, researchers have created an embryo of the northern white rhino by using In vitro Fertilization (IVF) process.
  • Javan Rhino: Critically endangered in IUCN Red List.
  • Sumatran Rhino: Recently gone extinct in Malaysia.
• There are three species of rhino in Asia—Greater one-horned (Rhinoceros unicornis), Javan and Sumatran.
• Only the Great One-Horned Rhino is found in India.
• Also known as Indian rhino, it is the largest of the rhino species.
• It is identified by a single black horn and a grey-brown hide with skin folds.
• They primarily graze, with a diet consisting almost entirely of grasses as well as leaves, branches of shrubs and trees, fruit, and aquatic plants.
• Protection Status:
  • IUCN Red List: Vulnerable.
  • Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES): Appendix I (Threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for scientific research).
  • Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

What : Alzheimer’s disease is a degenerative brain condition which gradually deteriorates memory and cognitive abilities. It is the most frequent cause of dementia in older people. This condition is a progressive illness which causes brain cells to deteriorate and die.

Symptoms of disease

• Memory loss
• Inability to recall recent events or discussions is the early symptom of the illness. Memory problems increase with the development
• Is an irreversible, degenerative brain condition, affecting memory & thinking skills.

What is in news : World Alzheimer Day was observed across the world on September 21 with the objective of raising awareness of the disease, common symptoms and risk factors.

Alzheimer Disease International

• Formed in 1984.
• On the tenth anniversary of the Alzheimer Disease International in 1994, World Alzheimer’s Day was announced and is being observed on September 21 since then.
• The World Alzheimer’s Month was started in 2012

REPORTS & INDICES

By : Food Safety and Standards Authority of India

Parameters : Human Resources and Institutional Data, Compliance, Food Testing – Infrastructure and Surveillance, Training & Capacity Building and Consumer Empowerment.

Other details:

• The Index is a dynamic quantitative and qualitative benchmarking model that provides an objective framework for evaluating food safety across all States/UTs.
• The first State Food Safety Index for the year 2018-19 was announced on the first-ever World Food Safety Day on 7th June 2019.

Ranking of States:

• Among the larger states, Gujarat was the top ranking state, followed by Kerala and Tamil Nadu.
• Among the smaller states, Goa stood first followed by Meghalaya and Manipur.
• Among UTs, Jammu & Kashmir, Andaman & Nicobar Islands and New Delhi secured top ranks.

• The Assembly adopted the Karnataka Religious Structures (Protection) Bill, 2021, that seeks to insulate unauthorised religious structures from the court’s directive to demolish such constructions in public places.The Bill gives protection from the court order to all religious structures that have been built before the date of coming into existence of this legislation
• The third edition of maritime exercise ‘Samudra Shakti’ between India and Indonesia will be conducted from 20th-22nd September, 2021 in the Sunda Strait.
• The Centre has started the process to revise school textbooks by appointing former Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) chairman K. Kasturirangan as the head of a 12-member steering committee responsible for developing a new National Curriculum Framework (NCF).
• The Asian Development Bank has cut its forecast for India’s GDP growth in 2021-22 to 10%, from 11% projected earlier, with downside risks dominating the economic outlook. The ADB also sees rising input costs fuelling inflation to a faster 5.5% pace, than the 5.2% previously estimated.
• The International Day of Peace is observed by United Nations on September 21, every year.Theme of the Day.Theme of International Day of Peace in year 2021 is “Recovering better for an equitable and sustainable world”.