Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

NEWS

The BMTC has become the country’s first state transport utility to have inducted BS VI buses(procured from Ashok Leyland)

BS VI

Bharat Stage norms

• Automotive emission norms
• Based on the European regulations (Euro norms)
• Introduced in 2000
• Specifications/limits for the release of air pollutants from equipment using internal combustion engines, including vehicles.
• Automotive manufacturers have to comply to sell their vehicles in India
• Applicable to all two wheelers, three wheelers, fourwheelers and construction equipment vehicles.
• Government of India has decided to leapfrog from the exiting BS – IV norms to the BS- VI, thereby skipping the BS – V norms, and to implement the BS – VI norms with effect from 1st April 2020.
• Stringent and at par with global standards.

Difference between BS-IV and the new BS-VI:

• The major difference in standards between the existing BS-IV and the new BS-VI auto fuel norms is the presence of sulphur.
• The newly introduced fuel is estimated to reduce the amount of sulphur released by 80%, from 50 parts per million to 10 ppm.
• As per the analysts, the emission of NOx (nitrogen oxides) from diesel cars is also expected to reduce by nearly 70% and 25% from cars with petrol engines.

NEWS

A farmer from Mandya has bagged the Plant Genome Saviour Award in recognition of his efforts to conserve the indigenous variety of paddy and agrarian heritage.

ABOUT

• By ICAR-Protection of Plant Varieties and Farmers’ Rights Authority (PPV&FRA)
• Conferred to to all Indian group of farmers, community of farmers, particularly the tribal and rural communities engaged in conservation, improvement and preservation of genetic resources of economic plants and their wild relatives particularly in the areas identified as agro bio-diversity hotspots.
• Maximum of five awards in a year, consisting of a cash of Rs.Ten lakh each, a citation and a memento.

NEWS

President of India promulgated two ordinances that would allow the Union Government to extend the tenures of the directors of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Enforcement Directorate (ED) from two years to up to five years.

DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION

• Is Inspector General of Police, Delhi Special Police Establishment
• Responsible for the administration of the organisation.
• Till 2014, the CBI Director was appointed on the basis of the DSPE Act, 1946.
• In 2003, DSPE Act was revised on Supreme Court’s recommendation in the Vineet Narain case.
• A committee that had members from Central Vigilance Commission, Secretaries from Home Ministry, Ministry of Personnel and Public Grievances would send recommendations to Central Government for the appointment of CBI Director.
• In 2014, the Lokpal Act provided a committee for appointment of CBI Director:
  • Headed by Prime Minister
  • Other members – Leader of Opposition/ Leader of the single largest opposition party, Chief Justice of India/ a Supreme Court Judge.
• Provided security of two year tenure, by the CVC Act, 2003.

DIRECTOR OF ENFORCEMENT DIRECTORATE

Being part of Finance Ministry , the director of ED is appointed by central government directly. No special procedures are followed

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

ORDINANCE IN INDIA

• Article 123 - Power of President to promulgate Ordinances during recess of Parliament
• Maximum validity - 6 months and 6 weeks.
• Expire after 6 weeks once both houses of the Parliament are in session.
• Constitutional amendment cannot be made
• Envisaged for immediate action
• Article 213 - Ordinance making power of the Governor of a state
• Governor cannot issue an Ordinance without instructions from the President in three cases where the assent of the President would have been required to pass a similar Bill
  • if a Bill containing the same provisions would have required the previous sanction of the President for introduction into the legislature
  • if the Governor would have deemed it necessary to reserve a Bill containing the same provisions for the consideration of the President
  • if an Act of the legislature containing the same provisions would have been invalid unless it received the assent of the President.

NEWS

29th meeting of the Southern Zonal Council was recently held

ZONAL COUNCILS

• Statutory bodies
• Established under the States Reorganisation Act 1956
• Only deliberative and advisory bodies.
• Aim:  to promote interstate cooperation and coordination.
• There are five Zonal councils namely:
  • The Northern Zonal Council -  Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan, National Capital Territory of Delhi and Union Territory of Chandigarh.
  • The Central Zonal Council - Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
  • The Eastern Zonal Council - Bihar, Jharkhand, Orissa, and West Bengal.
  • The Western Zonal Council - Goa, Gujarat, Maharashtra and the Union Territories of Daman & Diu and Dadra & Nagar Haveli.
  • The Southern Zonal Council - Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka, Kerala, Tamil Nadu and the Union Territory of Puducherry.
• The North Eastern States i.e. (i) Assam (ii) Arunachal Pradesh (iii) Manipur (iv) Tripura (v) Mizoram (vi) Meghalaya (vii) Sikkim and (viii) Nagaland are not included in the Zonal Councils and their special problems are looked after by the North Eastern Council, set up under the North Eastern Council Act, 1972.
• Composition:
  • Chairman – The Union Home Minister
  • Vice Chairman – The Chief Ministers of the States included in each zone act as Vice-Chairman of the Zonal Council for that zone by rotation, each holding office for a period of one year at a time.
  • Members– Chief Minister and two other Ministers as nominated by the Governor from each of the States and two members from Union Territories included in the zone.
  • Advisers– One person nominated by the Planning Commission (which has been replaced by NITI Ayog now) for each of the Zonal Councils, Chief Secretaries and another officer/Development Commissioner nominated by each of the States included in the Zone.
  • Union Ministers are also invited to participate in the meetings of Zonal Councils depending upon necessity.

WHAT WAS ACHIEVED

Mitigation

• Has emphasised that stronger action in the current decade was most critical to achieving the 1.5-degree target.
• Accordingly, it has:
  • Asked countries to strengthen their 2030 climate action plans, or NDCs (nationally-determined contributions), by next year
  • Established a work programme to urgently scale-up mitigation ambition and implementation
  • Decided to convene an annual meeting of ministers to raise ambition of 2030 climate actions
  • Called for an annual synthesis report on what countries were doing
  • Requested the UN Secretary General to convene a meeting of world leaders in 2023 to scale-up ambition of climate action
  • Asked countries to make efforts to reduce usage of coal as a source of fuel, and abolish “inefficient” subsidies on fossil fuels
  • Has called for a phase-down of coal, and phase-out of fossil fuels(Has been explicitly mentioned in any COP decision)

Adaptation

Glasgow Climate Pact has:

• Asked the developed countries to at least double the money being provided for adaptation by 2025 from the 2019 levels. In 2019, about $15 billion was made available for adaptation that was less than 20 per cent of the total climate finance flows.
• Developing countries have been demanding that at least half of all climate finance should be directed towards adaptation efforts.
• Created a two-year work programme to define a global goal on adaptation. The Paris Agreement has a global goal on mitigation — reduce greenhouse gas emissions deep enough to keep the temperature rise within 2 degree Celsius of pre-industrial times.

Finance:

• Developed countries are under an obligation, due to their historical responsibility in emitting greenhouse gases, to provide finance and technology to the developing nations to help them deal with climate change.
• In 2009, developed countries had promised to mobilise at least $100 billion every year from 2020. This promise was reaffirmed during the Paris Agreement, which also asked the developed countries to scale up this amount from 2025.
• The 2020 deadline has long passed but the $100 billion promise has not been fulfilled.
• The developed nations have now said that they will arrange this amount by 2023.

PARALLEL PROCESSES

• A lot of substantial action in Glasgow happened in parallel processes that were not a part of the official COP discussions.
• These do not form part of the final agreed outcome, but Glasgow can certainly claim credit for facilitating these actions.
  • India announced a Panchamitra (a mixture of five elements) of climate actions. It raised the targets for two of its existing climate targets, announced two new ones, and also promised to turn net-zero by the year 2070. India’s new commitments created the maximum buzz on the first two days of the Glasgow meeting.
  • Several other countries also announced enhanced climate actions. Brazil, for example, said it would advance its net-zero target year from 2060 to 2050. China promised to come out with a detailed roadmap for its commitment to let emissions peak in 2030, and also for its 2060 net-zero target. Israel announced a net zero target for 2050.
  • Over 100 countries pledged to reduce methane emissions by at least 30 per cent from present levels by 2030. Methane is a dangerous greenhouse gas, with a global warming potential nearly 80 times that of carbon dioxide over a 20-year time period. This pledge, if achieved, is estimated to avoid about 0.2 degree Celsius temperature rise by the middle of the century. The methane pledge is being seen as one of the biggest successes at COP26.
  • Another set of over 100 countries promised to arrest and reverse deforestation by 2030.
  • Over 30 countries signed on to a declaration promising to work towards a transition to 100 per cent zero-emission cars by the year 2040, at least in the leading car markets of the world.

Carbon Markets

• Carbon markets
  • Facilitate the trading of emission reductions.
  • Allows countries, or industries, to earn carbon credits for the emission reductions they make in excess of their targets
  • Can be traded to the highest bidder in exchange of money.
  • Considered a very important and effective instrument to reduce overall emissions.
• Existed under Kyoto Protocol but is no longer there because the Protocol itself expired last year
• New market under Paris Agreement is yet to become functional. Developing countries like India, China or Brazil have large amounts of carbon credits left over because of the lack of demand as many countries abandoned their emission reduction targets.
• A deadlock over this had been holding up the finalisation of the rules and procedures of the Paris Agreement
• The Glasgow Pact has offered some reprieve to the developing nations. It has allowed these carbon credits to be used in meeting countries’ first NDC targets. These cannot be used for meeting targets in subsequent NDCs.
• The resolution of the deadlock over carbon markets represents one of the major successes of COP26.

WHAT IT DID NOT ACHIEVE

The Glasgow  pact has:

• Expressed “deep regrets” over the failure of the developed countries to deliver on their $100 billion promise. It has asked them to arrange this money urgently and in every year till 2025
• Initiated discussions on setting the new target for climate finance, beyond $100 billion for the post-2025 period
• Asked the developed countries to provide transparent information about the money they plan to provide

Loss and Damage:

• Worst affected are the poor and small countries, and the island states
• No institutional mechanism to compensate these nations for the losses, or provide them help in the form of relief and rehabilitation
• Introduced eight years ago in Warsaw, the provision hasn’t received much attention at the COPs, mainly because it was seen as an effort requiring huge sums of money. However, the affected countries have been demanding some meaningful action on this front.
• Final agreement, which has acknowledged the problem and dealt with the subject at substantial length, has only established a “dialogue” to discuss arrangements for funding of such activities

NOROVIRUS

NEWS

Norovirus outbreak in Kerala is being noticed

DETAILS

What

• Bug similar to the diarrhoea-inducing rotavirus
• Infects people across age groups
• Outbreaks typically occurs

Symptoms

• Vomiting and/or diarrhoea(one or two days after exposure to the virus)
• Patients also feel nauseous, and suffer from abdominal pain, fever, headaches and bodyaches
• Extreme cases, loss of fluids could lead to dehydration.

Treatment

• Self-limiting — the infection, even though it takes a lot out of the patient, normally lasts only two or three days, and most individuals who are not very young, very old, or malnourished can ride it out with sufficient rest and hydration.
• Diagnosis is done by real-time reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction. No vaccines are available for the disease
• Important to maintain hydration in the acute phase. In extreme cases, patients have to be administered rehydration fluids intravenously.

Transmission

• Highly contagious
• Can be transmitted through contaminated food, water, and surfaces
• Primary route is oral-faecal
• One may get infected multiple times as the virus has different strains
• Resistant to many disinfectants and heat up to 60°C
• Can also survive many common hand sanitisers.

How common

• Most common pathogen
• Implicated in outbreaks of gastrointestinal disease (inflammation of the stomach and intestines)
• The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that about one out of every five cases of acute gastroenteritis worldwide is caused by Norovirus.
• There are 685 million cases annually, of which 200 million are detected among children younger than five years.
• Nearly 50,000 children die every year due to diarrhoea caused by the virus.

Prevention

• Repeatedly washing hands with soap
• Using the lavatory or changing diapers
• Surfaces must disinfected with a solution of hypochlorite at 5,000 parts per million.

NEWS

Moscow has started deliveries of the S-400 air defence systems to India

ABOUT S-400

• NATO calls it SA-21 Growler)
• Mobile, surface-to-air missile system (SAM)
• Designed by Russia.
• Most dangerous operationally deployed modern long-range SAM (MLR SAM) in the world
• Considered much ahead of the US-developed Terminal High Altitude Area Defense system (THAAD).
• Can engage all types of aerial targets including aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV and ballistic and cruise missiles within the range of 400km, at an altitude of up to 30km.
• Can track 100 airborne targets and engage six of them simultaneously.
• Integrates a multifunction radar, autonomous detection and targeting systems, anti-aircraft missile systems, launchers, and command and control centre.
• Capable of firing three types of missiles to create a layered defence.

NEWS

Australia wins ICC T20 World Cup

ABOUT

• Organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC)
• Once in four years.
• Premium One Day International (ODI) Cricket tournament
• Most prestigious among the various sports played across the world.

2021 HIGHLIGHTS

• Held in Dubai
• Man of the Match (Finals) – Mitchell Marsh (Australia)
• Player of the Tournament – David Warner (Australia)
• Leading Run-scorer of the Tournament – Pakistan’s Babar Azam (303 runs)
• Leading Wicket-taker of the Tournament – Sri Lanka’s Wanindu Hasaranga (16 wickets)

NEWS

The Centre has decided to observe November 15 as ‘Janjatiya Gaurav Diwas,’ every year in honour of tribal people’s contribution to the freedom movement and nation-building. It is Birthday of Birsa Munda

ABOUT BIRSA MUNDA

• Folk hero and a tribal freedom fighter
• Hailing from the Munda tribe
• Spearhead behind the Millenarian movement that arose in the Bihar and Jharkhand belt in the 19th century under the British colonisation.
• Known as ‘Dharti Abba’ or the Earth Father.
• Birsait: Bisra wanted to reform the tribal society and so, he urged them to let go of beliefs in witchcraft and instead, stressed on the importance of prayer, staying away from alcohol, having faith in God and observing a code of conduct. Based on these, he started the faith of ‘Birsait’.
• Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Monday inaugurated a museum in Ranchi in memory of revered tribal freedom fighter Birsa Munda

The Great Tumult : Bisra started a movement called ‘Ulgulan’, or ‘The Great Tumult’. His struggle against the exploitation and discrimination against tribals led to a big hit against the British government in the form of the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act being passed in 1908. The act restricted the passing on of land from the tribal people to non-tribals.

PANDIT JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

NEWS

Birth anniversary of Pandit Nehru is celebrated every year as Children’s day

Pt Jawaharlal Nehru

• Influential leader in the Indian independence movement
• Political heir of Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru
• Became the nation’s first prime minister in 1947
• Faced with the challenge of uniting a vast population diverse in culture, language and religion
• Successfully established various economic, social and educational reforms that earned the respect and admiration of millions of Indians.
• Policies of non-alignment and Panchscheel - principles of peaceful coexistence
• Guided India’s international relations until the outbreak of the Sino-Indian War in 1962.
• Born into an affluent Kashmiri Brahman family in Allahabad on November 14, 1889.
• Studying law at London’s Inner Temple
• Returned to India at the age of 22
• Practiced law with his father and prominent barrister, Motilal Nehru.
• Joined All India Home Rule League
• ROLE IN NCM - During the Non-Cooperation Movement (1920-22) led by Mahatma Gandhi, Nehru was imprisoned for the first time for activities against the British government and, over the course of the next two and a half decades, spent a total of nine years in jail.
• In 1929, Jawaharlal was elected president of the Indian National Congress—his first leadership role in politics—whereby he promoted the goal of complete independence from Britain as opposed to dominion status.
• Participation in Individual Satyagraha:
• To protest against the participation of India in World War II without consulting Indian leaders and confusion created by the August Offer, the individual satyagraha was launched not to seek independence but to affirm the right to speech. Pt. Nehru was chosen as the second satyagrahi in this movement after Vinoba Bhave.
• Was one of the pioneers of the constituent Assembly. He moved the objective Resolution on 13 December 1946, which became the light for our preamble. He was the chairman of the States Committee, Union Powers Committee and Union Constitution Committee.

SNIPPETS

• UNESCO Member States have declared the first Thursday of November as the International Day against Violence and Bullying at School, including cyberbullying. The aim is to raise awareness among students, parents, members of the school community, education authorities and others about the problem of online violence and cyberbullying.
• The Punjab Land Preservation Act was enacted by the then government of Punjab in 1900 for the conservation of subsoil water is being amended. Section 3 explains government’s powers to bring any area ‘subject to erosion or likely to become liable to erosion’ under the ambit of the PLPA through a notification. After Section 3 of the principal Act, the government has inserted Section 3A into the Bill to exclude certain areas from the ambit of the Act.
• In a bid to celebrate and commemorate 75 years of Independence and India’s glorious cultural history through Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, the Ministry of Culture is organizing the final match of the M.P. Cup Polo Championship - Sir Pratap Singh Cup 2021.