Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 17th Jan 2022

NEWS

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) has recommended that the Delhi government suspend its flagship ‘Desh ke Mentor’ programme

DESH KE MENTOR

• Launched in October 2021
• Aimed at connecting students in classes IX to XII with voluntary mentors.
• People between the ages of 18 and 35 can sign up to be mentors through an app created by a team at the Delhi Technological University and will be connected with students based on mutual interests.
• The mentorship entails regular phone calls for a minimum of two months, which can optionally be carried on for another four months.

WHY IS IT OPPOSED

There are five primary points on which the NCPCR has raised concerns with regard to the programme:

• Assigning children to a mentor of the same gender as them does not necessarily assure their safety from abuse.
• Lack of police verification of the mentors.
• On the psychometric test it has asked, “Is this Psychometric Test a full (sic) proof assessment of a person in terms of potential threat to any child? Is this Psychometric Test analyzed/checked/scrutinized by professional practising experts? Can this Psychometric Test identify paedophiles or potential paedophiles?”
• Limiting interactions to phone calls also does not ensure the safety of children since “child related crime can be initiated through phone calls as well.”
• While taking the consent of parents is an essential pre-requisite, the “responsibility and accountability of preventing children from such situation lies with the Department. The consent of parents cannot be used as a cushion in case of any untoward incident.”

ABOUT NCPCR

Set up in March 2007 under the Commission for Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

Works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Women & Child Development.

The Child is defined as a person in the 0 to 18 years age group.

Mandate : ensure that all Laws, Policies, Programmes, and Administrative Mechanisms are in consonance with the Child Rights perspective as enshrined in the Constitution of India and also the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Under the RTE Act, 2009, the NCPCR can:

• inquire into complaints about violation of the law.
• summon an individual and demand evidence.
• seek a magisterial enquiry.
• file a writ petition in the High Court or Supreme Court.
• approach the government concerned for prosecution of the offender.
• recommend interim relief to those affected.

Composition:

• Chairperson and six members of which at least two should be women.
• All of them are appointed by Central Government for three years.
• The maximum age to serve in commission is 65 years for Chairman and 60 years for members.

NEWS

Addressing first National Start-up day Union Minister Jitendra Singh highlighted that  “Purple Revolution” is Jammu & Kashmir’s contribution to "Start-ups India"

PURPLE REVOLUTION

• Around 500 farmers across villages in Doda district in Jammu had their incomes quadrupled after shifting from maize to lavender cultivation which is being called purple revolution.
• The initiative was taken under AROMA MISSION
• Farmers were given free lavender saplings and those who have cultivated lavender before were charged Rs. 5-6 per sapling.
• Aim: To support domestic aromatic crop based agro economy by moving from imported aromatic oils to homegrown varieties.
• Products:
• Main product is Lavender oil which sells for at least Rs. 10,000 per litre
• Lavender water, which separates from lavender oil, is used to make incense sticks.
• Hydrosol, which is formed after distillation from the flowers, is used to make soaps and room fresheners.
• Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Indian Institute of Integrative Medicine, Jammu (IIIM Jammu), the two bodies are mainly responsible for making purple revolution under the Aroma Mission a success.

AROMA MISSION : The CSIR Aroma Mission is envisaged to bring transformative change in the aroma sector through desired interventions in the areas of agriculture, processing and product development for fuelling the growth of aroma industry and rural employment.

National Start-up Day : Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared that January 16 will be celebrated as ‘National Start-up Day’.

Startup India Scheme

• Launched on 16th January 2016 with an aim to promote and support the start-ups in India by providing bank finances.
• Organized by the Department for promotion of industry and internal trade, the major objective of Startup India is to discard some of the restrictive States Government policies which include:
  • License Raj
  • Land Permissions
  • Foreign Investment Proposals
  • Environmental Clearances

WHAT : Potential next phase of the internet wherein the internet will be decentralised and run on blockchain technology.

PREVIOUS MODELS

• Web 1.0
  • World wide web or the internet that was invented in 1989
  • Became popular from 1993
  • was mostly static where users would go to a website and read and interact with static information
  • Even though there were e-commerce websites in the initial days it was still a closed environment and the users themselves could not create any content or post reviews on the internet.
  • Lasted until 1999.
• Web 2.0
  • Started in some form in the late 1990s itself
  • At present in use
  • Users can create content.
  • Most of the data in the internet
  • Internet traffic are owned or handled by a few large companies creating issues of data privacy, data security and abuse of data.

WEB1 V/S WEB2

• The differentiating characteristic of Web 2.0 compared to Web 1.0 is that users can create content.
• They can interact and contribute in the form of comments, registering likes, sharing and uploading their photos or videos and perform other such activities.
• Primarily, a social media kind of interaction is the differentiating trait of Web 2.0.  

CONCERNS

• In Web 2.0, most of the data in the internet and the internet traffic are owned or handled by very few behemoth companies.
• Issues related to data privacy, data security and abuse of such data.
• Original purpose of the internet has been distorted.

WEB3

• Gavin Wood, founder of Ethereum, a block chain technology company, used the term Web3 first in 2014
• In 2021, owing to the popularity of crypto-currency, more discussions happened on Web3.  
• Potential next phase of the internet

• Decentralised internet to be run on blockchain technology, would be different from the versions in use
• Users will have ownership stakes in platforms and applications unlike now where tech giants control the platforms.  

HOW WEB3WILL IT ADDRESS THE PROBLEMS OF DATA MONOPOLY

As per the Web3 foundation, Web3 will deliver “decentralized and fair internet where users control their own data”.

Currently if a seller has to make a business to the buyer, both the buyer and seller need to be registered on a “shop” or “platform” like Amazon or Ebay or any such e-commerce portal. What this “platform” currently does is that it authenticates that the buyer and seller are genuine parties for the transaction. Web3 tries to remove the role of the “platform”. For the buyer to be authenticated, the usual proofs aided by block chain technology will be used. The same goes for the seller. With block chain, the time and place of transaction are recorded permanently. Thus, Web3 enables peer to peer (seller to buyer) transaction by eliminating the role of the intermediary.

Consider a social media application where you want to share pictures with your followers. It could be a broadcast operation from you aided by blockchain and you don’t need social media accounts for all the participants to be able to perform this. 

The key concepts in Web3 seen so far are peer to peer transaction and block chain. The spirit of Web3 is Decentralized Autonomous Organization (DAO) which is that all the business rules and governing rules in any transaction are transparently available for anyone to see and software will be written conforming to these rules. Crypto-currency and block chain are technologies that follow the DAO principle. With DAO, there is no need for a central authority to authenticate or validate.

NEWS

The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has invited applications from 100 domestic companies, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) as well as startups for incentives under the design linked incentive (DLI) scheme.

ABOUT THE SCHEME

• Domestic companies, startups as well as MSMEs will receive fiscal and design infrastructure support at various stages of development and deployment of their plans over the next five years.
• Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) will act as the nodal agency for the implementation
• AIM - Promote the domestic manufacturing of semiconductor and allied devices
• Expected to provide a globally competitive incentive package to companies in semiconductors and display manufacturing as well as design.

MAHITI FOR PRELIMS

SEMICONDUCTORS

• Any of a class of crystalline solids intermediate in electrical conductivity between a conductor and an insulator.
• Semiconductors are employed in the manufacture of various kinds of electronic devices, including diodes, transistors, and integrated circuits. Such devices have found wide application because of their compactness, reliability, power efficiency, and low cost.
• As discrete components, they have found use in power devices, optical sensors, and light emitters, including solid-state lasers.

• Karnataka government launches “The Kutumba project”. It aims to be a comprehensive database to create an Integrated Social Protection System (ISPS) consisting of a Social Registry and an Entitlement Management System that the government wants to use for automatic disbursal of benefits to eligible citizens without them having to even apply.
• Veteran journalist Sam Rajappa, a long-serving correspondent of the Kolkata-based newspaper Statesman, is no more.
• A massive underwater volcanic eruption was recorded in the small island country of Tonga. It is expected to trigger Tsunamis
• Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj passes away
• Noted environmentalist M K Prasad passes away at 89. Prasad was a guiding force behind the national movement against the state government's move to set up a hydro-power project in Silent Valley in Palakkad district in the 1970s.
• Padma Shri awardee and social activist Shanti Devi of Odisha passes away
• Indian Navy’s indigenously designed and built guided missile destroyer, INS Kochi, exercised with Russian Federation Navy’s RFS Admiral Tributs on 14 January 2022 in the Arabian Sea. The exercise showcased cohesiveness and interoperability between the two navies and included tactical manoeuvres, cross-deck helicopter operations and seamanship activities. It is named Passex . A passing exercise (a PASSEX in U.S. Navy terminology) is an exercise done between two navies to ensure that the navies are able to communicate and cooperate in times of war or humanitarian relief. Common drills include flashing light drills, semaphore drills, and flaghoist drills.
• Prime Minister has paid tributes to Bharat Ratna MGR on his birth anniversary. He was a famous actor and former chief minister of Tamilnadu