Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 4th Jan 2022

NEWS

The Kalaburagi bench of the high court has said that drawing of the blood sample of an accused to determine the paternity of the child is neither self-incrimination nor violative of Article 20 (3) of the Constitution.

ABOUT ARTICLE 20

• Taken care to safeguard the rights of persons accused of crimes.
• Persons here means the citizens, non-citizens as well as corporations.
• This article cannot be suspended even during an emergency in operation under article 359.
• Constitutes the limitation on the legislative powers of the Union and State legislatures.

COMPONENTS

Ex-Post facto Law

• No person shall be convicted of any offence except for violation of a law in force at the time of the commission of the Act
• Legislature cannot make a law which provides for punishment of acts which were committed prior to the date when it came into force
• New law cannot punish an old act.

Doctrine of Double Jeopardy

• No person shall be prosecuted and punished for the same offence more than once.
• Aims to avoid harassment, which must be caused for successive criminal proceedings, where the person has committed only one crime.

Self-Incrimination Law

• No person accused of any offence shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.
• Based upon a legal maxim which means that No man is bound to accuse himself.
• Accused is presumed to be innocent till his guilt is proved
• Duty of the prosecution to establish his guilt.

CONCEPTS :

DNA SAMPLING

• Testing used for the purpose of verifying the identity of an unknown person. 
• Commonly used in criminal investigations for the purpose of identifying suspects to a crime
• Also common in other areas of law, such as paternity testing.
• Work by extracting a sample of DNA from the suspect under investigation. 
• Samples may be obtained by a variety of methods, including fingerprint samples, “swab” samples obtained from inside the cheek, or bodily fluid samples (such as blood). 
• The DNA samples are taken directly from the person in question.

NEWS

President notified the appointment of three additional judges of Bombay High Court as permanent judges and extended tenure of another additional judge of the HC by a year.

DETAILS

• The President of India, in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Governor of the State, appoints the Judge of a High Court, according to Article 217 of the Indian Constitution. In addition, except in the instance of his or her own appointment, the Chief Justice of the High Court should be consulted.
• When the Chief Justice of a High Court is absent or unable to discharge his duties, the President may designate one of the other Judges of the Court to fill the vacancy.
• Retired Judges: With the President's consent, the Chief Justice of a High Court may ask a retired High Court Judge to shit and act as a judge of the High Court for a limited time.
• Additional Judge: When it appears to the President that the number of Judges should be increased due to a temporary rise in the business of the High Court or work arrears, the President may appoint duty qualified persons as additional Judges for a period of not more than two years (Article 224(1)).
• Acting Judge: When a judge, other than the Chief Justice, is unable to perform his duties due to absence or otherwise, or when a permanent judge of the High Court is appointed as its acting Chief Justice, an acting judge might be appointed. Article 224 (2) states that an acting judge serves until the permanent judge resumes his duties.
• Note: The tenure cannot go beyond the age of 62 years.

NEWS

Union Education Minister and Skill Development Minister launched NEAT 3.0, a single platform to provide the best-developed ed-tech solutions and courses to students of the country.

DETAILS

• Full Form - National Educational Alliance for Technology
• Initiative for providing the use of best-developed technological solutions in education sector for enhancing the employability of youth on a single platform for the convenience of learners.
• Solutions make use of artificial intelligence for a customised and personalised experience for better learning outcomes and skill development across niche areas.
• Significance - Play a significant role in bridging the digital divide, particularly among the economically disadvantaged students. It will also help in fulfilling the knowledge-based requirement of India as well as world.
• Currently, 58 global and Indian start-up ed-tech companies are onboard NEAT. They are offering 100 courses and e-resources for a better learning outcome, for developing employable skills as well as overcoming learning loss.
• Launched by Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry of Education) to use technology for better learning outcomes in Higher Education.
• Launched with the aim of using Artificial Intelligence to make learning customized and personalized for learner

ECONOMY

NEWS

Several States are demanding a continuation of the compensation beyond June 2022

WHAT IS THE GST COMPENSATION

• The Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act, 2016, was the law which created the mechanism for levying a common nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST).
• The adoption of GST was made possible by States ceding almost all their powers to impose local-level indirect taxes and agreeing to let the prevailing multiplicity of imposts be subsumed into the GST.
• While States would receive the SGST (State GST) component of the GST, and a share of the IGST (integrated GST), it was agreed that revenue shortfalls arising from the transition to the new indirect taxes regime would be made good from a pooled GST Compensation Fund for a period of five years that is currently set to end in June 2022.
• This corpus in turn is funded through a compensation cess that is levied on so-called ‘demerit’ goods.
• The computation of the shortfall is done annually by projecting a revenue assumption based on 14% compounded growth from the base year’s (2015-2016) revenue and calculating the difference between that figure and the actual GST collections in that year.

CAN THE DEADLINE BE EXTENDED? IF SO, HOW? The deadline for GST compensation was set in the original legislation and so in order to extend it, the GST Council must first recommend it and the Union government must then move an amendment to the GST law allowing for a new date beyond the June 2022 deadline at which the GST compensation scheme will come to a close.

DEFENCE

NEWS

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) celebrated 64th Foundation Day

ABOUT DRDO

• R&D wing of Ministry of Defence, Govt of India
• Vision
  • Empower India with cutting-edge defence technologies
  • Achieve self-reliance in critical defence technologies and systems
  • Equipping armed forces with state-of-the-art weapon systems and equipment in accordance with requirements laid down by the three Services.
• Formed in 1958
• Amalgamation of the then already functioning Technical Development Establishment (TDEs) of the Indian Army and the Directorate of Technical Development & Production (DTDP) with the Defence Science Organisation (DSO).
• Several major projects for the development of missiles, armaments, light combat aircrafts, radars, electronic warfare systems etc are on hand and significant achievements have already been made in several such technologies.
• Mission
  • Design, develop and lead to production state-of-the-art sensors, weapon systems, platforms and allied equipment for our Defence Services.
  • Provide technological solutions to the Services to optimize combat effectiveness and to promote well-being of the troops.
  • Develop infrastructure and committed quality manpower and build strong indigenous technology base.

NEWS

The Prime Minister has paid tributes to Rani Velu Nachiyar on her birth anniversary.

ABOUT

• Known by Tamils as Veeramangai
• First queen to fight against the British colonial power in India.
• Born on January 3, 1730, in Ramanathapuram, Tamil Nadu, India,
• Princess of Ramanathapuram , of the Ramnad kingdom.
• Was trained in war match weapons usage, martial arts like Valari, Silambam (fighting using the stick), horse riding and archery.
• Was a scholar in many languages and she had proficiency with languages like French, English and Urdu.
• Married the king of Sivagangai named  Muthuvaduganathaperiya Udaiyathevar, with whom she had a daughter.
• When her husband was killed by British soldiers, she was drawn into battle.
• She escaped with her daughter and waged war against the British in an alliance with Hyder Ali.
• War against the British
  • In collaboration with Hyder Ali and Gopala Nayaker, she waged a war against the British and emerged victoriously
  • She granted powers to the Marudu brothers to administer the country in 1780.
• Died on 25 December 1796.

• Raksha Mantri Shri Rajnath Singh inaugurated Kalpana Chawla Centre for Research in Space Science & Technology (KCCRSST) at Chandigarh University recently