Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 12th Nov 2021

NEWS

Death Anniversary of Kuvempu recently celebrated

About Kuvempu

• Full name - Kuppali Venkatappa Puttappa
• 1904 –1994
• Pen Name – Kuvempu
• Greatest Kannada Poet, Novelist, Author, Thinker and Critic of 20th century.
• Born in the Chikmanglur district
• Received early education in Shimoga and nearby districts and completed college education in Mysore.
• Started academic career as teacher of Kannada language in Mysore and Bengaluru
• Became professor, and then principal of the Maharaja’s College in Mysore
• In 1956, he was appointed as Vice Chancellor of Mysore University.
• First student of the Mysore university to become its Vice Chancellor.
• A poetry collection called “Beginner’s Muse” was his first literary work in English. Achieved extraordinary distinction by his creative works comprising almost all the genres of modern Kannada literature.
• Magnum opus is the Sri Ramayana Darshanam. It is based on Ramayana and led him to become a Sahitya Akademi and Jnanpith Award winner.
• To promote research in Kannada, he founded the Kannada Adhyayana Samsthe (Institute of Kannada Studies) in the Mysore University. Today, it is known as Kuvempu Institute of Kannada Studies.
• Tried to fight with the social evils through his work. For example, his work Shoodra Tapasvi was against the casteism and untouchability. His Sri Ramayana Darshanam is based in premise of Sarvodaya

POLITY & GOVERNANCE

NEWS

Privilege motion will be passed against a Rajya Sabha member

DETAILS

• Parliamentary privileges - certain rights and immunities enjoyed by members of Parliament, individually and collectively, so that they can “effectively discharge their functions”.
• When any of these rights and immunities are disregarded, the offence is called a breach of privilege and is punishable under law of Parliament.
• Privilege Motion - A notice is moved in the form of a motion by any member of either House against those being held guilty of breach of privilege.
• Each House also claims the right to punish as contempt actions which, while not breach of any specific privilege, are offences against its authority and dignity.
• Rules governing privilege - Rule No 222 in Chapter 20 of the Lok Sabha Rule Book and correspondingly Rule 187 in Chapter 16 of the Rajya Sabha rulebook governs privilege.
• A member may, with the consent of the Speaker or the Chairperson, raise a question involving a breach of privilege either of a member or of the House or of a committee thereof.
• Any notice should be relating to an incident of recent occurrence and should need the intervention of the House.
• Role of the Speaker/Rajya Sabha Chair - The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion. The Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament. If the Speaker/Chair gives consent under Rule 222, the member concerned is given an opportunity to make a short statement.
• What is the privileges committee - In the Lok Sabha, the Speaker nominates a committee of privileges consisting of 15 members as per respective party strengths. A report is then presented to the House for its consideration. The Speaker may permit a half-hour debate while considering the report. The Speaker may then pass final orders or direct that the report be tabled before the House.
• A resolution may then be moved relating to the breach of privilege that has to be unanimously passed.
• In the Rajya Sabha, the deputy chairperson heads the committee of privileges, that consists of 10 members.

SOCIAL ISSUES

NEWS

32nd edition of “Hunar Haat” was inaugurated  in Lucknow

ABOUT

• Organised by Ministry Of Minority Affairs
• Under “USTTAD” scheme
• An exhibition of handicrafts and traditional products made by artisans from the minority communities.
• Aim to provide market exposure and employment opportunities to artisans, craftsmen and traditional culinary experts.
• Have become a successful mission to provide employment and employment opportunities and national as well international markets for thousands of master artisans, craftsmen and culinary experts.

What is USTTAD SCHEME?

USTTAD (Upgrading the Skills and Training in Traditional Arts/Crafts for Development) scheme aims to preserve heritage of traditional arts and crafts of minority communities and build capacity of traditional craftspersons and artisans and establish linkages of traditional skills with the global market.

WHAT IS LANDFALL

• Landfall is the event of a storm or waterspout moving over land after being over water.
• A tropical cyclone is classified as making landfall when the center of the storm moves across the coast; in strong tropical cyclones this is when the eye moves over land.
• In simple words, is the storm moving over the land after its intensification in the ocean (heat source). Therefore, a cyclone is said to make landfall when the centre of the storm (eye) moves across the coast.
• As per the US National Hurricane Centre definition, it is ‘the intersection of the surface centre of a tropical cyclone with a coastline.’

CYCLONES

Cyclones are elliptical arrangement of isobars having low pressure at the centre with a convergence of winds within them. The wind direction in the cyclones is anti-clockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

TROPICAL CYCLONE

CHARACTERS

• Formed along the zone of confluence of north-east and south-east trade winds. This zone is known as the Inter Tropical Convergence Zone (ITCZ).
• Generally occur in Mexico, South-Western and North-Pacific Ocean, North Indian Ocean and South Pacific Ocean.
• No clear warm and cold fronts
• Do not have well-defined pattern of winds and are energised by convectional currents within them.
• Shallow depressions and the velocity of winds is weak.
• Not accompanied by anticyclones.
• Arrangement of isobars is almost circular.
• Not extensive and have the diametres of 160-640km.
• Few of them become very violent and cause destruction in the regions of their influence.
• Called hurricanes in the Carribean Sea, typhoons in the China, Japan and phillipines, cyclones in the Indian Ocean and willy-willies in Northern Australia

CONDITIONS FAVOURABLE FOR FORMATION

• Large sea surface with temperature higher than 27°C.
• Presence of the Coriolis force enough to create a cyclonic vortex.
• Small variations in the vertical wind speed.
• A pre-existing weak low-pressure area or low-level-cyclonic circulation.
• Upper divergence above the sea level system.

FORMATION

• Cyclogenesis is a word for a number of various processes that culminate in a cyclone.
• Warm, wet air at the ocean’s surface rises higher. This results in a low-pressure zone close to the surface.
• This causes colder air from the nearby areas to flow into the low area. Even this chilly air is now warm and wet, and it rises.
• The cycle described above continues.
• The moisture in the air cools as warm wet air rises, resulting in the development of clouds.
• This entire cloud and wind system rotates and expands.
• This cycle repeats itself, culminating in a cyclone..

WHAT HAPPENS DURING LANDFALL EVENT

The landfall usually brings with it high-speed winds, severe storm surge and torrential downpour, all of which can have a severe impact on the region. The storm usually weakens rapidly after landfall as the ocean heat and moisture that fuels the storm is no longer available.

PERSONS IN NEWS

NEWS

Birth anniversary of Acharya Kripalani was recently celebrated

Jivatram Bhagwandas Kripalani

• Born in Hyderabad in the Sindh region of present-day Pakistan on 11 November 1888
• Educated at Pune’s Fergusson College.
• Worked as a teacher
• Quit that job to join the freedom movement of the country
• Greatly inspired by the principles of Mahatma Gandhi.
• Took part in the non-cooperation movement of the 1920s
• Joined Gandhi’s ashrams in Maharashtra and Gujarat to work in the fields of education and social reform.
• Actively took part in various movements like the civil disobedience movement, Quit India Movement and so on. He was also imprisoned many times.
• From 1920 to 1927, he worked as the principal of Gujarat Vidyapeeth which was an educational institution set up by Gandhi. There, he earned the epithet ‘Acharya’.
• Was elected the General Secretary of the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1934 and continued to serve in that post for a long time till 1945.
• In November 1946, he was elected the President of the Congress Party and steered the party in that position during the crucial partition period and the transfer of power.
• Involved in a number of committees in the Constituent Assembly of India.
• After 1947, differences cropped up between Kripalani and Nehru and other leaders. He resigned from the party in 1950 and formed his own party, the Kisan Mazdoor Praja Party. Later, this party joined forces with the Socialist Party of India to form the Praja Socialist Party.
• Was elected as an MP to the Lok Sabha in 1952, 1957, 1963 and 1967. Despite being an independent MP, he was given front benches in the House.
• His wife, Sucheta Kripalani became the first woman chief minister of a state when she was elected the CM of Uttar Pradesh.
• Kripalani was an astute parliamentarian and even became the first person to introduce a no-confidence motion on the floor of the House. This was in 1963 immediately after the Sino-Indian War.

NEWS

Zoological Society of London has found three types of Sharks in Biologically dead areas of River Thames

DETAILS

• The river which was on verge of destruction is a thriving ecosystem, home to myriad wildlife as diverse as London itself
• River now supports 115 species of fish and wildlife from seahorses to seals.
• Home to three kinds of sharks: the tope, starry smooth-hound and spurdog. They are considered threatened to near threatened in IUCN
• The ZSL launched the Greater Thames Shark Project in 2020 to collect data on the endangered shark species that live in the outer estuary

RIVER THAMES

• 215 miles long
• Longest river in England.
• The famous London Bridge stretches across part of the Thames, along with more than 200 other bridges and over 20 underwater tunnels.

The Forest Department staff have named a two-year-old elephant calf at Sakrebail RIVER THAMESelephant camp near Shivamogga after actor Puneeth Rajkumar, who passed away recently.

A CAG report on preparedness and response to floods in Kerala’ has said the state is yet to enact flood plain zoning legislation, 45 years after the Union Government circulated to all states a model draft bill for flood plain zoning legislation.( Union Government in 1975)

A new study has challenged the widely accepted view that the continents rose from the oceans about 2.5 billion years ago. It suggests this happened 700 million years earlier — about 3.2 billion years ago — and that the earliest continental landmass to emerge may have been Jharkhand’s Singhbhum region