Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 2nd October 2021

What is in news : The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has simplified the process for Indians who want to renounce their citizenship.

Details :

• Provisions have been made for applicants to upload documents online, with an upper limit of 60 days for the renunciation process to be completed.
• In 2018, the MHA revised the Form XXII under the Citizenship Rules for declaration of renunciation of citizenship, which for the first time included a column on “circumstances/reasons due to which applicant intends to acquire foreign citizenship and renounce Indian citizenship”.

CITIZENSHIP ACT, 1955:

MODES OF ACQUISITION OF CITIZENSHIP

• By Birth: The grant of citizenship under this clause is subject to changes according to amendments in place at that time.
• By registration: Citizenship can be acquired by registering.
• By Descent: Similar to citizenship by descent this provision also was subjected to changes from time to time
• By Naturalization.
• By Incorporation of territory.

MODES OF LOSS OF CITIZENSHIP

• Renunciation – to voluntarily give up citizenship.in addition to if person terminated his citizenship ,minor of that person will also loses his citizenship .
• Termination – upon acquiring citizenship of one country, Indian citizenship is terminated
• Deprivation -it is mandatory for the central government to cancel the Indian citizenship deprived under the following ways:
  • if acquired by fraud
  • Disloyalty to constitution
  • Unlawfully communicated with enemy alien.
  • Resident outside India for 7 years continuously.
  • Within 5 years of acquiring citizenship through naturalization and registration, person was imprisoned for 2 years in any country.

What is in news : Prime Minister launched the second phases of the Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation.

Details :

• The Swachh Bharat Mission 2.0 intends to make India’s cities garbage-free.
• AMRUT 2.0 aims at ramping up sewage treatment as well as providing 100 per cent water supply coverage to all households.

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

Swachh Bharat Mission

• Launched on 2nd October, 2014 to accelerate the efforts to achieve universal sanitation coverage and to focus on sanitation.
• The aim is to achieve a clean and open defecation free (ODF) India.
• Implemented by the Ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation.
• It seeks to improve the levels of cleanliness in rural areas through Solid and Liquid Waste Management activities and making Gram Panchayats Open Defecation Free (ODF), clean and sanitised.
• Incentive as provided under the Mission for the construction of Individual Household Latrines (IHHL) shall be available for all Below Poverty Line (BPL) Households and Above Poverty Line (APL) households restricted to SCs/STs, small and marginal farmers, landless labourers with homestead, physically handicapped and women headed households.

AMRUT

• Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) is the new avatar of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM).
• Adopts a project approach to ensure basic infrastructure services relating to water supply, sewerage, storm-water drains, transportation and development of green spaces and parks with special provision for meeting the needs of children.
• The Mission will focus on the following Thrust Areas:
  • Water Supply.
  • Sewerage and septage management.
  • Storm Water Drainage to reduce flooding
  • Non-motorized Urban Transport.
  • Green space/parks.

PEOPLE’S PLAN CAMPAIGN 2021

What is in news : Panchayati Raj Ministry launched People's Plan Campaign 2021- Sabki Yojana Sabka Vikas along with the Vibrant Gram Sabha Dashboard.

People's Plan Campaign 2021

• Rolled out in all the States from October 2, 2021
• Structured Gram Sabha meetings will be held for preparing Panchayat Development Plans for the next financial year 2022–2023.
• Aims to strengthen the role of elected representatives of Panchayats and SHG Women under DAY-NRLM in effective Gram Sabha.
• Conducted last year
• Each activity will promote a sense of camaraderie and commitment in the citizens towards a common goal of overall development of villages.

Vibrant Gram Sabha Dashboard : Vibrant Gram Sabha Dashboard was launched in order to help in increasing maximum participation by means of meeting of Gram Sabha, meeting of elected Panchayat Public Representatives and Standing Committee meeting of Gram Panchayat.

ECONOMY 

INSOLVENCY AND BANKRUPTCY BOARD OF INDIA

What is in news : The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) celebrated its Fifth Annual Day

About :

• Regulating authority for insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings in the country.
• Oversees the activities of bodies such as the Insolvency Professional Agencies (IPA), Insolvency Professionals (IP) and Information Utilities (IU), Registered Valuers, and Registered Valuer Organisations.
• Established as a statutory body in 2016 under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016.
• Makes and implements rules governing the corporate insolvency resolution process
• Major pillar in the implementation of the IBC that implements the insolvency and reorganisation resolution process
• Regulates both a profession and the processes.

What is in news : The centre will use Chacha Chaudhary, the popular comic book character, for sensitising children and youths about the cleaning of Ganga and other rivers under National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG)

Details : At the 37th Executive Committee meeting of the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) , Chacha Chaudhary was declared as the mascot of the Namami Gange Programme

Chacha Chaudhary

• Chacha Chaudhary is an Indian comic book character, created by cartoonist Pran Kumar Sharma.
• The comic comes in ten Indian languages including Hindi and English and has sold over ten million copies.
• Chacha Chaudhary was created in 1971 for the Hindi magazine Lotpot. It soon became popular among kids and the elderly alike.
• Pran was inspired from the ancient philosopher Chanakya and elders people of every village who resides to help and solve problems by their elderly experience.

National Mission for Clean Ganga

• Also known as the National Council for Rejuvenation, Protection, and Management of River Ganga
• Was set up in 2016
• Replaced the National River Ganga Basin Authority (NRGBA).
• Constituted under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA),1986.
• Chaired by Prime Minister
• Overall responsibility for the superintendence of pollution prevention and rejuvenation of River Ganga Basin, including Ganga and its tributaries.
• Registered as a society in 2011 under the Societies Registration Act 1860.
• The aims and objectives of NMCG are:
  • To ensure effective control of pollution and rejuvenation of the river Ganga by adopting a river basin approach to promote inter-sectoral coordination for comprehensive planning and management.
  • To maintain minimum ecological flows in the river Ganga with the aim of ensuring water quality and environmentally sustainable development.

What is in news : In a move to curb and abate the air pollution levels arising from the Construction and Demolition (C&D) activities in the National Capital Region (NCR), the Commission for Air Quality and Management (CAQM) will periodically review compliance of dust mitigation measures at Construction & Demolition sites in the National Capital Region.

What are the other directions :

• Directs State governments of Haryana, U.P., Rajasthan and GNCTD to set up a ‘Web Portal’ for monitoring compliance of dust mitigation measures by project proponents
• All projects under Urban Local Bodies of NCR to mandatorily register at the web portal
• Provision of video fencing with remote connectivity to be incorporated in the web portal for effective monitoring of dust mitigation measures
• Project Proponents to install reliable and low-cost PM2.5 and PM10 sensors at the project sites

CAQM

• The Commission for Air Quality Management was formed by an ordinance in October 2020, the “Commission for Air Quality Management (CAQM) in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas Ordinance 2020”.
• Chairperson: To be chaired by a government official of the rank of Secretary or Chief Secretary.
• Will be a permanent body and will have over 20 members.
• Statutory authority.
• Supersede bodies such as the central and state pollution control boards of Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, UP and Rajasthan.
• Powers to issue directions to these state governments on issues pertaining to air pollution.
• Jurisdiction: Exclusive jurisdiction over the NCR, including areas in Haryana, Punjab, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, in matters of air pollution, and will be working along with CPCB and ISRO, apart from the respective state governments.
• Will this new body also have penal powers:  Yes, the Commission will have some teeth. If its directions are contravened, through say, the setting up of an industrial unit in a restricted area, the Commission will have the power to impose a fine of up to Rs 1 crore and imprisonment of up to 5 years.

What is in news : Gandhi Jayanti celebrated on October 2

WHAT DISTINGUISHES GANDHI AS A POLITICAL FIGURE

• Simplicity and Honesty
• His belief in the moral growth of humanity
• In a world which suffers from an immaturity of politics and politicians, reading Gandhi as a lesson of political maturity is an ethical imperative.
• For Gandhi, politics was essentially an ethical mode of conduct. He never pretended to be a teacher of truth. However, others took him to be a guru, and there is no doubt that his attempts to encourage people to experiment with the truth were both philosophical and pedagogical.

THE ETHICAL VIEW OF RELIGIONS  - SWARAJ

• Gandhi played the role of an exemplar in prescribing “patience” as a means to understand and approach the other.
• The dialogical nature of Gandhi’s culture of patience finds its roots in the idea of epistemic humility as a necessary methodology in approaching and understanding other cultures and religions.

• He was the foremost critic of the epistemological arrogance of modern rationality and its authoritarian practices in terms of colonial thinking and imperialistic domination.
• It is on account of his overriding concern for the self-respect of individuals and nations that Gandhi joined the two notions of truth and non-violence to that of the term Swaraj.
• Gandhi believed that all individuals irrespective of their religion, race and culture had the right to self-governance. Accordingly, what we can call the Gandhian moment of Swaraj was actually for him a constant experimentation with modes of cross-cultural and inter-faith understanding and dialogue.

A SELF-TRANSCENDENCE

• Gandhi did not consider freedom as a mere political act, but he defined it primarily as an ethical enterprise.
• We have here a process of individual self-transcendence that Gandhi also applied to the idea of civilization, since he considered civilization as an exercise of human maturity.
• Gandhi firmly believed that the anthropological and ethical origins of such a state of maturity resided in the spiritual capacity of human beings. But he also underlined this move towards maturity as a process of learning to be responsible towards oneself and the others. As a result, everything Gandhi did and wrote during his lifetime was an attempt to bring into the open his own journey of intellectual and political maturity. He, therefore, used the concept of maturity not only in the social context, but also as an expression of character building which he distinguished from literary training.
• In other words, maturity for Gandhi was a state of mind and a mode of being, where one had the capacity to form one’s life in a social sphere. It was on the basis of this act of maturity that Gandhi established his political anthropology and pedagogical premises. He believed that an autonomy formed by a mature judgment prepared a life according to morality. Gandhi, therefore, approached pragmatic politics as a form of character-building and not necessarily a struggle for getting elected or grasping power.
• Gandhi’s acknowledgment of the moral imperative of maturity and his devotion to democratic transparency continues to distinguish his political psychology from most of the other discourses in Indian and world politics. As such, Gandhi’s suggestion to us in relation to moral excellence and spiritual maturity presents itself at the same time as an invitation to self-respect and self-restraint.

RELEVANCE  IN PRESENT WORLD

• He argued, “Where there is egotism, we shall find incivility and arrogance. Where it is absent, we shall find a sense of self-respect together with civility”
• He who holds his self-respect dear acts towards everyone in a spirit of friendship, for he values others’ self-respect as much as he values his own. He sees himself in all and everyone else in himself, puts himself in line with others.
• Despite all his shortcomings, his appeal to mature and conscientious politics and nobility of spirit continues to be a strong ethical response to the political issues and challenges of our time. Maybe, that is why, Gandhi remains our contemporary, while he belongs to our future.

What is in news : Birth Anniversary of Lal Bahaddur Shastri celebrated

About :

• The 2nd Prime Minister of India
• Deeply impressed and influenced by Mahatma Gandhi
• Joined the Indian independence movement in the 1920s
• Led the country during the Indo-Pakistan War of 1965
• In 1961, he was appointed as Home Minister, and he appointed the Committee on Prevention of Corruption. He created the famous “Shastri Formula” which consisted of the language agitations in Assam and Punjab.
• In 1964, he signed an agreement with the Sri Lankan Prime Minister Sirimavo Bandaranaike, in concern with the status of Indian Tamils in Ceylon. This agreement is known as Srimavo-Shastri Pact.
• His slogan of “Jai Jawan Jai Kisan” (“Hail the soldier, Hail the farmer”) became very popular during the war. The war formally ended with the Tashkent Agreement on 10 January 1966. Many years later, former Prime Minister A B Vajpayee added “Jai Vigyan” to Shastri’s slogan in order to hail achievements of Indian scientists.
• His vision for self-sufficiency in foodgrains led to sowing the seeds of the Green Revolution, and promotion of the White Revolution.
• Following a train accident at Ariyalur in Tamil Nadu, in which more than 140 people were killed, he resigned as railway minister taking moral responsibility for the incident. Lauding him for his integrity, the then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said that he was accepting his resignation because it would set an example in constitutional propriety, although Shastri was in no way responsible for it.

By : UNCTAD

Details :

• In its report, UNCTAD noted the Philippines as one among six countries that allows free flow of data across borders. Free flow of data is required to boost the digital economy.
• Other five countries allowing free-flow of data across border include- Canada, Australia, Mexico, Singapore and the United States. These countries use “light-touch approach” for data flow.
• Light-touch approach is mostly favoured by countries having strong regulatory environments and sufficient regulatory resources in order to monitor compliance of domestic laws. As per report, Philippines’s use of light-touch approach is towards its “dependence” on the outsourcing industry, which is the major economic growth drivers in the country.
• Counties following restrictive or Guarded approach
• The “restrictive” or “guarded” approach for cross-border data flows is followed by countries like India, China, Indonesia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Rwanda, Russian Federation, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam.
• Recommendations
  • UNCTAD recommends that the global community should enable free flow of digital data across the borders. It suggests to make an international framework in order to allow such activities. New approach should:
    • Facilitate “worldwide data sharing,
    • Develop global digital public goods,
    • Increase trust and
    • Reduce uncertainty in the digital economy.
    • As per UNCTAD, no global framework would mean added burden in protecting the privacy for private sector as well as government use of data.
    • Thus, a new regulatory framework is required that factors in both economic and non-economic dimensions.

• Canada marked its first ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation on 1 october to honour the lost children and survivors of the country’s indigenous residential schools, their families and communities.The aim of the holiday is to educate and remind the citizens of the history of indigenous children and remember their suffering. All citizens were encouraged to wear the colour orange to highlight how indigenous children were robbed of their culture and freedoms.
• All India Institute of Ayurveda (AIIA), under the AYUSH ministry, has developed “Bal Raksha Kit” which is an immunity boosting kit.
• “Nata-Sankirtana” festival was started at the Mandap of Jawaharlal Nehru Manipur Dance Academy (JNMDA), Imphal. In classical Ragas, Nata sankirtana is a hymn of lord Krishna that synthesizes seevral indigenous rhythms. Sankirtana follows a strict code in its performance with rhythms pattern and costumes that are determined by specific rules & regulation. Sankirtana is performed to mark important occasions in person’s life such as from birth to death. UNESCO had recognized Manipur Nata Sankirtana in 2013.
• India’s highest science award called “Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Award 2021” was presented to the 11 scientists on the occasion of 80th foundation day of Council for Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR).