Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

NEWS

Karnataka government to convince Centre on ST tag for Kaadu Gollas

ABOUT

• Pastoral community
• Inhabited in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu
• Classified as a Backward Caste
• Anthropological report had certified that Kaadu Gollas are fit to be considered as STs as they have all the characteristics of a tribal community

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

SCHEDULED TRIBES

Article 366 (25)

• Defines scheduled tribes
• Such tribes or tribal communities or parts of or groups within such tribes or tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342 to be Scheduled Tribes

Article 342

• First specification of Scheduled Tribes in relation to a particular State/ Union Territory is by a notified order of the President, after consultation with the State governments concerned
• Orders can be modified subsequently only through an Act of Parliament.

NEWS

It is a scheme by state government to issue Free bus pass for garment workers

DETAILS

• Issued by - Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) in collaboration with the Labour Department
• Free monthly bus passes to women garment workers in the city.
• Garment workers and the Labour Department will bear 40% of the fare cost each and the BMTC will bear 20%.
• Issued from January
• Karnataka Labour Welfare Board which will verify the applications
• Pass holders will be allowed to travel in all ordinary bus passes
• Expected to benefit over 2.4 lakh women garment workers working in 850 factories.

An inter-state dispute between Karnataka and Maharashtra dating back to the period of Independence and the reorganisation of states on linguistic lines in 1956 has reared its head again in the Belagavi region of Karnataka.

IN THE HISTORY

• Belagavi is a part of Karnataka and was earlier part of the British India's Bombay Presidency.
• The Bombay Presidency encompassed present day Gujarat, Maharashtra as well as certain areas of Karnataka.
• According to the 1881 census, majority of people in Belgaum spoke Kannada and the rest were Marathi-speakers. This led it to becoming part of Karnataka despite opposition from Maharashtra.
• After India became independent in 1947, the Belagavi district of the erstwhile Bombay Presidency became a part of Bombay State. In 1948, Belagavi Municipality, dominated by Marathi-speaking politicians, asked the Indian Constituent Assembly, and the Boundary Commission to include the Belgaum Municipal District in the proposed Samyukta Maharashtra state for Marathi speakers.
• In 1956, in accordance with the established policy of bifurcation on a linguistic majority basis, the Belagavi district was incorporated into the newly formed Mysore state (now Karnataka) with the passage of the States Reorganization Act, and adjoining areas with a majority of Marathi-speaking citizens were included in the newly formed Maharashtra state.
• The Act, which re-organised India's states along linguistic and administrative lines, included Belagavi in the Kannada-majority Karnataka. The district had most of the Marathi-speaking population, hence the 'dispute'
• The Maharashtra Ekikaran Samiti – a socio political party representing the interests of the Marathi-speaking population in the Belagavi region with the single-point agenda of unifying Marathi-speaking villages in Belagavi with Maharashtra (in opposition to the reorganisation of states in 1956) – is pitted against pro-Kannada groups in Karnataka who believe Belagavi is now a Kannada-speaking district. The MES came into existence in 1948 with the sole aim of pushing for integration of Belgaum with Maharashtra during the reorganization of states.
• Since 2012, when Karnataka legislature sessions began being organised in the Belagavi region of Karnataka, the MES has organised a protest rally called the Maha Melava rally outside the Suvarna Soudha – the venue of the legislature meeting to press for unification of Belagavi with Maharashtra. Incidentally, the Suvarna Soudha in Belagavi, a replica of the Vidhana Soudha in Bengaluru, was built at a cost of Rs 400 crore by the state of Karnataka to integrate the region into the state and quell the challenge of pro-Marathi groups for integration with Maharashtra.

MAHAJAN COMMITTEE REPORT

Following a memorandum from the Maharashtra government on 23 June 1957, the Government of India constituted Mahajan Committee on 5 June 1960 to look into the case.

The four member Committee consisted of two representatives from the Maharashtra Government, and two from the Mysore state Government.

The following are the summary of Mahajan committee report.

• Belgaum to continue in Karnataka
• Around 247 villages/places including Jatta, Akkalakote, Sholapur to be part of Karnataka
• Around 264 villages/places including Nandagad, Nippani Khanapur to be part of Maharashtra
• Kasaragod (of Kerala) to be part of Karnataka

The Maharashtra and Kerala government refuted the recommendations of the report and demanded another review of the issue. Maharashtra government termed the findings of the reports as biased and self-contradictory because the "formula" applied for Kasaragod was not applied for Belgaum.

Maharashtra Government insisted that the report is against the "wish of people" of Belgaum. Kerala, on the other hand, refused to hand over Kasaragod to Karnataka. The Karnataka government, continued to press for the implementation of the report or maintaining status quo.

NEWS

The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was recently passed in Union Legislature

DETAILS

The main aim of the bill - Enables the linking of electoral roll data with the Aadhaar ecosystem. It is not compulsory or mandatory

GOVERNMENTS VIEW

• Solve the problem of multiple enrolments of the same person at different places
• Streamline alterations in EPIC during change of ordinary residence by the electors
• The incidence of multiple entry could also be eliminated which is required in participative democracy
• Will purify electoral rolls and will consequently reduce electoral malpractices.

OPPOSITION

• Supreme Court has made it clear that the Aadhaar card Scheme is purely voluntary and it cannot be made mandatory
• Violates the fundamental right to privacy as defined by the Supreme Court in the judgment
• Disenfranchising some people and profile the citizens
• Aadhar document that reflects residence, not citizenship. You’re potentially giving the vote to non-citizens

NEWS

Chillai Kalan, harshest 40 days of winter begins in Kashmir

DETAILS

• Chillai Kalan is a Persian term which means ‘major cold’
• Ongoing cold wave is said to reach its peak with Kashmir’s mountains covered in snow for weeks
• Famous Dal Lake also reaching freezing point until the fag end of January.
• It all begins with WINTER SOLSTICE
• Snow during the period lasts longer and replenishes the streams, rivers and lakes of Kashmir.
• The bone-chilling cold conditions is followed by a 20-day-long ‘Chillai Khurd’ and 10-day-long ‘Chillai Bacha’.

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

WINTER SOLSTICE

• Occurs when a particular hemisphere is experiencing winter season
• One of its pole tilts is farthest from the sun, causing the day to become the shortest of the year and the night to become the longest.
• Countries situated around the poles experience opposite weather conditions
• India - December 21-22
• Happens twice every year, once in the northern hemisphere and once in the southern hemisphere
• In ancient times the winter solstice was celebrated as the death and rebirth of the sun. In India, many festivals are held post this period, a popular one being that of Makar Sankranti.
• Word ‘solstice’, in Latin, is translated to ‘sun stands still’.
• Winter solstice is also known as ‘hiemal solstice’, ‘hibernal solstice’, ‘brumal solstice’.

ALBINO INDIAN FLAPSHELL TURTLE

NEWS

Albino Indian Flapshell turtle was recently spotted in Sirnapalli forest in Telangana

DETAILS

• Freshwater turtles
• Widespread across South Asian countries like Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka, and Bangladesh
• Golden in colour - congenital disorder and it is characterized by complete or partial absence of tyrosine pigment

GENERAL DETAILS

• “Flap-shelled” - presence of femoral flaps located on the plastron.
• Flaps of skin cover the limbs when they retract into the shell.
• Relatively small soft-shell turtle
• Scavenger in the river. 
• Found in shallow, quiet, often stagnant slow-moving rivers, streams and rice paddies.
• Predominantly carnivores, though the flapshells eat some plant matter (i.e. Omnivore).
• Threats - Poaching for meat and cartilage. Foxes and wild dogs destroy their nests.

NEWS

Government of India does not agree with the conclusions drawn by Reporters Without Borders about press freedom in India for various reasons

ABOUT

• Published annually by Reporters Without Borders since 2002
• Measures the level of media freedom in 180 countries
• Based on an evaluation of media freedom that measures pluralism, media independence, the quality of the legal framework and the safety of journalists.
• Includes indicators of the level of media freedom violations in each region.
• Compiled by means of a questionnaire in 20 languages that is completed by experts all over the world

2021 ANALYSIS

• Norway topped the index for the fifth year in a row.
• The report labelled 132 countries as “very bad”, “bad” or “problematic”.
• India remained at the 142nd position among 180 countries, in the “bad” category, along with Brazil, Mexico and Russia.
• In 2016, India’s rank was 133, which has steadily climbed down to 142 in 2020.

NEWS

National Mathematics Day is observed every year on December 22 to celebrate the life and work of Srinivasa Ramanujan, a great mathematician who was born on this day in 1887.

ABOUT

Srinivasa Ramanujan

• Born on December 22, 1887
• In city of Erode (now in Tamil Nadu)
• Known as ‘The Man who knew infinity’
• Able to solve algebra and trigonometric problems that his fellow mates found difficult to crack.
• Won a scholarship to study at Kumbakonam’s Government Arts College

• Started working as a clerk in Madras Port Trust
• Elected to the London Mathematical Society and in 1918 he was elected as a fellow to the prestigious Royal Society for the research done by him on Elliptic Functions and the theory of numbers.
• First Indian to be elected a fellow of Trinity College.
• Was invited to Cambridge University for his statements on the 120 mathematics theorems on the continued fractions, infinite series, number theory, and improper integrals.
• Compiled more than 3,000 mathematical equations and results
• Returned to the country in 1919 and passed away due to Tuberculosis in 1920.
• First Indian to be elected a fellow at Trinity College, Cambridge University.

• The BBMP, which has resumed repairing broken roads after a long gap, plans to use the micro-surfacing technology to improve the motorability of six stretches. The new method of road repair, touted to provide a smooth road surface, involves a mixture of just three to six millimetres of bitumen aggregate along with asphalt emulsion.
• Government of Karnataka would increase the compensation for crop loss in dry land from ₹6,800 to ₹13,500 per hectare while the compensation for irrigated crops would go up from ₹13,600 to ₹25,000 per hectare.The compensation for horticultural crops would increase from ₹18,000 to ₹28,000 per hectare.
• The State Human Rights Commission on Tuesday recommended that the Tamil Nadu government pay a compensation of ₹5 lakh each to 15 victims in a case relating to the alleged rape of four women by policemen of Tirukoilur station in November 2011.
• Raksha Mantri witnessed a Multi-Agency Exercise (MAE) and inaugurated an equipment display of PANEX-21, a Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) Exercise for BIMSTEC member nations, organised at College of Military Engineering in Pune, Maharashtra
• Taking the Prime Minister Modi’s unique school visit campaign ahead, Indian wrestler and Tokyo Olympics Bronze Medallist Bajrang Punia will visit Haryana’s Aarohi Model School in Panipat on December 23rd and meet the young students to talk about the importance of Santulit Aahaar (Balanced Diet), Fitness and Sports.The special school campaign is jointly being organized by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports and was started by Neeraj Chopra