Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

NEWS

The Karnataka High Court is hearing a challenge to the constitutionality of the state government’s ban on students wearing a hijab in educational institutions. In recent hearing, the judges heard an argument on whether the state can justify the ban on the ground that it violates ‘public order’.

WHAT IS PUBLIC ORDER?

• One of the three grounds on which the state can restrict freedom of religion
• Also one of the grounds to restrict free speech and other fundamental rights
• Equated with equated with public peace and safety
• According to List 2 of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, the power to legislate on aspects of public order rests with the states.

ARTICLE 25

• Guarantees to all persons right to freedom and conscience and the right freely to profess, practise and propagate religion
• Subject to public order, morality and health

HOW DOES IT RELATE TO THE HIJAB BAN

• According to the government order issued on February 5 under the Karnataka Education Act, 1983, “public order” is one of the reasons for not allowing students to wear a headscarf in educational institutions along with “unity” and “integrity.”
• The petitioners have asked the state to show how the mere wearing of a hijab by students could constitute a public order issue.
• The second argument made is that the government cannot delegate to college committees the function of determining whether the hijab was detrimental to public order.
• Government order states that while individual college committees are free to determine the uniform, in the absence of such rules the government order banning the headscarf would apply

HOW HAS THE STATE RESPONDED

• Karnataka’s Advocate General has argued that the government order makes no mention of “public order” and that the petitioners reading of the order could be an error in translation. The order, in Kannada, uses the words “sarvajanika suvyavasthe”
• Incidentally, the official Kannada translation of the Constitution uses “sarvajanika suvyavasthe” for “public order” in all nine instances

HOW HAS PUBLIC ORDER BEEN INTERPRETED BY COURTS

• In Ram Manohar Lohia vs State of Bihar (1965), the Supreme Court held that in the case of ‘public order’, the community or the public at large have to be affected by a particular action. “The contravention of law always affects order but before it can be said to affect public order, it must affect the community or the public at large.
• One has to imagine three concentric circles, the largest representing ‘law and order’, the next representing ‘public order’ and the smallest representing ‘security of State’.”
• In the Karnataka case, the petitioners have argued: “Public order is not every breach of law and order. Public order is an aggravated form of disturbance that is much higher than a law and order issue.”

NEWS

Project proposals for more than 60,000 houses were approved for construction in Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan at the 58th meeting of Central Sanctioning and Monitoring  Committee (CSMC) under Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (Urban) recently

PMAY - U

WHO LAUNCHED -  Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA)

WHAT IS THE AIM - Provision of Housing for All by 2022

HOW IT SEEKS TO WORK

• Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource.
• Promotion of Affordable Housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy.
• Affordable Housing in Partnership with Public & Private sectors.
• Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction /enhancement.

OTHER FACTS

• The beneficiaries are poor and people living under EWS and LIG categories in the country.
• The scheme is divided into three phases. In the first phase, a total of 100 cities will be covered from April 2015 to March 2017. In phase two, 200 cities will be covered from April 2017 to March 2019. In the third phase, the leftover cities will be covered from April 2019 to March 2022.
• The government is providing an interest subsidy of 6.5% on housing loans which can be availed by beneficiaries for 15 years from start of loan date.
• The government will grant Rs 1 lakh to all the beneficiaries of the scheme. In addition, Rs 1.5 lakh will be given to all eligible urban poor who want to construct their houses in urban areas or plan to go for renovation in their existing houses. One can also avail loans under this scheme to build toilets in existing houses.

 WHAT

• Process by which a privately held company, or a company owned by the government Raises funds by offering shares to the public or to new investors
• Following the IPO, the company is listed on the stock exchange
• While coming with an IPO, the company has to file its offer document with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi)
• Offer document contains all relevant information about the company, its promoters, its projects, financial details, the object of raising the money, terms of the issue, etc

WHICH COMPANIES CAN COME OUT WITH AN IPO

Rules laid by  Sebi

Company

• Must have net tangible assets of at least Rs 3 crore, and net worth of Rs 1 crore in each of the preceding three full years
• Minimum average pre-tax profit of Rs 15 crore in at least three of the immediately preceding five years

WHERE DO THE PROCEEDS OF THE IPO GO

• If the issue raises fresh capital, the proceeds of the IPO go to the company, and can be utilised for future growth, expansion, debt reduction, etc
• If the issue involves offer for sale by promoters or existing investors, then the money goes to them and not to the company

WHO FIXES THE PRICE OF SECURITIES IN AN ISSUE

• Fixed by the issuer in consultation with the merchant banker
• They arrive at the total valuation of the company based on parameters such as assets, revenues, profits, and future cash flow projections, and the total value of the company is then divided by the post-offer shares outstanding to arrive at the price of each share.
• The regulator, Sebi, does not play a role in price fixation.

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF LISTING A COMPANY

• Help a company raise capital, and diversify and broaden its shareholder base
• Provides an exit to existing investors of the company

WHO CAN INVEST IN AN IPO

• Qualified institutional buyers (QIBs) is a category of investors that includes foreign portfolio investors (FPIs), mutual funds, commercial banks, insurance companies, pension funds, etc
• All individuals who invest up to Rs 2 lakh in an issue are classified as retail investors
• Retail investors investing above Rs 2 lakh are classified as high net worth individuals
• A person must be  18 years of age to become an investor
• A brokerage account is needed to invest, and you have to be at least 18 years old to have one

NEWS

India plans to prepare digital maps of all its 6,00,000 villages and pan-India 3D maps will be prepared for 100 cities, Union Minister of State for Science and Technology said at an event to mark a year of the updated geospatial policy guidelines. It will help SVAMITVA scheme

DETAILS

WHAT IS GEO-SPATIAL DATA

• Also known as “spatial data”
• Represents the data-linked to features or objects on the Earth’s surface
• Referenced to locations on the earth (some portion of data is spatial)
• Can be
  • Static, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, etc.
  • Dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease.
• Examples in daily lives - food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato, e-commerce app like Amazon, Weather apps, etc

WHAT INFORMATION IS AVAILABLE

• Location information
• Attribute information (the characteristics of the object, event, or phenomena concerned): For example, in addition to the spatial information of building it also provides other information like the number of stories in the building, number of owners, etc.
• Temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist

IN INDIA

• Till recently, the government had a near-monopoly regarding the collection, storage, use, sale, dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping. This was because of concerns over internal as well as external security threats.
• For example, Only government-run agencies such as the Survey of India, Defence and Home Ministries were allowed to use geospatial data.
• The private companies require approval from different departments as well as the Defence and Home Ministries. Then only, they were able to collect, create or disseminate geospatial data.
• So there is a lack of private participation in Geographic Information System (GIS) mapping in India.
• India built its own navigation system known as Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) or NavIC
• Building geospatial portals like Bhuvan portal, Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre (MOSDAC) of ISRO.

NEW GUIDELINES

• Geospatial data will be freely available in India, specifically for Indian companies.
• The companies can self-attest to government guidelines and start using geospatial data.
• Restrictions under the present policy:
  • Only Indian entities can use terrestrial mapping and surveys.
  • The data generated also needs to be owned and stored in India.
  • High-resolution data—finer than 1 m horizontally and 3 m vertically—will still remain restricted.
  • Except for sensitive defence or security-related data, all other data can be accessed by Indian companies.
• With this policy, Indian companies will be able to set up location services like Google Map in India.

NOTE :SVAMITVA SCHEME

 NEWS

PM visited Guru Ravidas shrine in UP on account of Guru Ravidas Jayanti

GURU RAVIDAS

• 14th century poet-saint, social reformer and a spiritual figure of the Bhakti movement in North India
• Venerated as a guru (teacher) in the region of Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and mainly Punjab and Haryana
• Life details are uncertain and contested
• Scholars believe he was born in 1450 CE.
• Devotional Verses were included in the Sikh scriptures ( Guru Granth Sahib )
• The Panch Vani text of the Dadupanthi tradition within Hinduism also includes numerous poems of Guru Ravidas.
• Taught removal of social divisions of caste and gender, and promoted unity in the pursuit of personal spiritual freedom.
• Believed to be a disciple of the bhakti saint-poet Ramananda and a contemporary of the bhakti saint-poet Kabir.
• One of his famous disciples was the saint, Mirabai.
• Among Ravidas’s moral and intellectual achievements were the conception of “Begampura”, a city that knows no sorrow; and a society where caste and class have ceased to matter.
• The AdiGranth of Sikhs, and Panchvani of the Hindu warrior-ascetic group Dadupanthis are the two oldest attested sources of the literary works of Guru Ravidas.
• Ravidas Jayanti is celebrated on Magh Purnima, the full moon day in the month of Magh according to the Hindu lunar calendar.
• It is believed that he was born in Varanasi in a cobbler’s family

NEWS

The 4th India – Australia Energy Dialogue was recently held

WHAT HAPPEN AT THE MEET

• Energy Transition was a major area of discussion in the dialogue and both the Energy Ministers spoke in detail about the ongoing Energy Transition activities in their respective countries with focus on renewables, energy efficiency, storage, EVs, critical minerals, mining etc. The need of Climate Finance was also highlighted by India for meeting the Energy Transition goals of dev1eloping countries.
• A Letter of Intent(LOI) between India and Australia on New and Renewable Energy Technology was signed during the Dialogue. This LoI will pave the way for working towards reducing the cost of new and renewable energy technologies and scaling up deployment in order to accelerate global emissions reduction. The focus of this LoI will be scaling up manufacture and deployment of ultra low-cost solar and clean hydrogen.
• There is an urgent need to focus on advancing technology and clean energy transition. In this context, the agreed forward action plan includes areas like energy efficiency technologies; grid management; R&D collaboration on flue gas desulphurisation, biomass or hydrogen co-firing, water cycle optimisation, renewables integration, batteries and electric mobility.
• Apart from the power sector, there are many desirable areas of cooperation agreed under the other JWGs like reducing costs of Green Hydrogen; cooperation in sphere of coal-based energy security and resource deployment; investment opportunities in the minerals sector; exploring potential for an LNG Partnership, among other areas.

ADDITIONAL INFO

WHAT IS ENERGY TRANSITION - Energy transition refers to the global energy sector’s shift from fossil-based systems of energy production and consumption — including oil, natural gas and coal — to renewable energy sources

WHAT IS LETTER OF INTENT - A letter of intent (LOI or LoI, or Letter of Intent) is a document outlining the understanding between two or more parties which they intend to formalize in a legally binding agreement.

Indian Scientists have developed a first-of-its-kind tool for understanding the process of long-term memory consolidation in the brain by capturing the neural signals from rodent brain. Learning and memory are the fundamental processes of brain and are one of the most intensively studied subjects in the field of neuroscience. Learning is attributed to the acquisition of new data and memory. Retention of the acquired data leads to long-term memory (LTM) formation. The new tool which uses the behavioral tagging model is a novel one to study LTM consolidation through behavioral analysis.