Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 28TH March 2022

 NEWS

BWSSB’s rainwater harvesting theme park completes 10 years

DETAILS

• Established in 2012 by the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB)
• It is named after Sir M. Visvesvaraya Rainwater Harvesting Theme Park
• Has become a destination for awareness and training programmes.
• The park Showcases
  • 26 types of live models of RWH structures (as per the design of the Karnataka State Council for Science and Technology)
  • Different plants for water conservation
  • Different structures for infiltration of rainwater into the ground
  • Collection and usage
• Karnataka government made rainwater harvesting(RWH) mandatory in November 2009. To promote RWH, BWSSB launched a campaign
• Following BWSSB, similar theme parks were established at Hyderabad in Telangana in 2017 and Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh in 2019. The theme parks in Bengaluru and Hyderabad have received national awards and recognition
• Harvesting rainwater is now more important than ever, given the large-scale decline in groundwater levels and Bengaluru’s dependence on the Cauvery to quench its thirst.

CONTEXT

Supreme Court is taking up a petition seeking identification of minorities at the state level and granting minority status to Hindus in states and union territories where their numbers have gone below other communities.

What is the definition of minority under Indian laws?

The expression “minorities” appears in some Articles of the Constitution, but is not defined anywhere.

What does the Constitution say about minorities?

• Article 29  deals with the
  • Protection of interests of minorities
  • any section of the citizens with a distinct language, script or culture of its own shall have the right to conserve the same
  • no citizen shall be denied admission into any educational institution maintained by the State or receiving aid out of State funds on grounds only of religion, race, caste, language or any of them
• Article 30 deals with the “right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions”.
• Article 350(A) says there shall be a Special Officer for linguistic minorities to be appointed by the President

Who is a minority in India?

Currently, only those communities notified under section 2(c) of the National Minorities Commission Act, 1992, by the central government are regarded as minority

Which are the minorities notified by the Government of India?

In the exercise of its powers under the Section 2(c) of the NCM Act, the Centre on October 23, 1993, notified five groups — Muslims, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists and Parsis — as ‘minority’ communities. Jains were added to the list in January 2014

What have courts said on the subject?

TMA PAI CASE

• In ‘TMA Pai’, an 11-judge bench of the Supreme Court dealt with the question of the scope of right of minorities to establish and administer educational institutions of their choice under the Constitution.
• A majority ruling by six judges in 2002 referred to two other cases pertaining to the DAV College in Punjab, in which the SC had to consider whether Hindus were a religious minority in the State of Punjab

NEWS

Cabinet approves extension of Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PM-GKAY) for 6 months

ABOUT

• Part of Atmanirbhar Bharat to supply free food grains to migrants and poor.
• This is 6^th extension
• People will provided 5 kg free wheat/rice per person /month along with 1 kg free whole chana to each family per month
• Families belonging to the Below Poverty Line – Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) and Priority Households (PHH) categories will be eligible for the scheme.
• PHH are to be identified by State Governments/Union Territory Administrations as per criteria evolved by them. AAY families are to be identified by States/UTs as per the criteria prescribed by the Central Government
• Households headed by widows or terminally ill persons or disabled persons or persons aged 60 years or more with no assured means of subsistence or societal support.

NEWS

‘Alopecia Areata’ disease has been recently in discussion

DETAILS

WHAT IS ALOPECIA AREATA?

• Medical condition that causes sudden hair loss in patches
• Developed after the immune system attacks the hair follicles, resulting in hair loss, which cannot be observed easily
• Patches connect and then become observable
• Sudden hairfall may also occur in other parts of the body

CAUSES

• Hereditary or genetic factors
• Aging
• Loss of essential nutrients & improper diet
• Psychological pressure and anxiety
• Hormonal changes during puberty, pregnancy, and menopause
• Chronic illnesses or auto-immune diseases
• Hormonal disorders such as polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS), which affects women of reproductive age
• Environmental factors like pollution, dust, etc

TYPES

• Cicatricial alopecia (non-reversible): It results in scarring of the skin and permanent hair loss. This happens due to lichen planopilaris, trauma, burn, infections, and congenital conditions.
• Non-cicatricial alopecia (reversible): Hair loss can be reversed with no scarring of the skin. Other conditions like androgenetic alopecia (AGA) or male pattern baldness, female pattern baldness, and systemic infection are examples of non-cicatricial alopecia.

NEWS

The Indian Army has issued a Request For Information (RFI) for the supply of Articulated All-Terrain Vehicles to be deployed in Ladakh and Kutch.

WHAT ARE ARTICULATED ALL-TERRAIN VEHICLES

• Twin cabin, tracked, amphibious carrier for off road mobility
• The special design of this equipment exerts low ground pressure on the soil and a pull-push mode of locomotion between two cabins facilitates mobility over varied terrains like snow, desert and slush
• A ballistic protection in the cabin body ensures protection to troops travelling in it from small arms fire.

NEWS

Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted two successful flight tests of the Army version of Medium Range Surface to Air Missile (MRSAM) at off the coast of Odisha

WHAT IS A MRSAM?

• Surface-to-air missile
• Jointly developed by DRDO and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI)
• Will replace the ageing Air Defence systems of the Army
• Comprises multi-function radar, mobile launcher system and other vehicles
• Has Army, Navy and Air Force variants
• The mobile launcher can transport, place and launch eight canisterised missiles
• Can be fired either in single mode or in ripple firing mode in a vertical firing position
• Management system uses the radar to track and correctly identify the target, calculates the distance from it and gives all the information to the Commander for a decision to be made on interception
• Length - 4.5 metres
• Weight - 275 kg
• Equipped with fins and canards to stabilise its flight and provide it manoeuvrability
• Powered by a solid propulsion system coupled with a thrust vector control system
• Can move at a maximum speed of Mach 2 (twice the speed of sound)
• Can engage multiple targets upto a range of 70 km.