Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

NEWS

A recent notification by Karnataka government allows Panchayat Development Officers (PDOs) to register marriages

BENEFITS OF THE MOVE

• Help curbing child marriages in rural areas
• By enabling PDOs to register marriages, births and deaths, a comprehensive database can be maintained at the gram panchayat-level

PANCHAYAT DEVELOPMENT OFFICER

WHO - Non-gazetted government employee, the head secretary of the village

FUNCTIONS

• Village sanitation
• Preparing the annual budget of the Panchayat Samiti and submitting the consolidated plan to the Zilla Parishad
• Execution of such activities and execution of such works given by the government or Zilla Parishad, such as agriculture, land reform, minor irrigation, poverty alleviation program, animal husbandry, etc
• Child Welfare and Motherhood
• Establishment, maintenance and caring of common grazing land. A few more works which you will get to know after selection

NEWS

Karnataka has been elevated from Category II (pre-elimination phase) to Category I (elimination phase) by Union Health Ministry

DETAILS

• Karnataka has received national recognition and appreciation for its efforts to eliminate malaria in the past six years, between 2015 and 2021, as part of the National Framework for Malaria Elimination in India (NFMEI) initiative.
• The Union Health Ministry has issued a certificate of appreciation to Karnataka on the occasion of world Malaria Day observed on April 25
• States and Union Territories with an Annual Parasite Incidence (API) of less than one case per 1,000 population at risk and some districts reporting an API of one case per 1,000 population have been classified as Category 2 states. Karnataka that was under Category 2 has now been elevated to Category 1

MALARIA

• Mosquito-borne infectious disease
• Caused by various species of the parasitic protozoan microorganisms called Plasmodium
• The first evidence of this protozoan came from mosquitoes preserved in amber nearly 30 million years ago.
• It is even thought to have brought the Roman Empire to its knees. Malaria was so prevalent during the Roman times that the disease is also called ‘Roman Fever’
• Today, the credit for actually discovering the parasite is given to Charles Louis Alphonse Laveran, a French physician. He even won the Nobel Prize in 1907 for his findings.
• Causes of Malaria
  • Bitten by a malarial vector (Anopheles stephensi)
  • Use of shared and infected syringes
  • Organ transplantation
  • From an infected mother to her baby during birth

Features of the National Strategic Plan for Elimination of Malaria

• It is a year-wise detailed strategy with operational guidelines for each state for the elimination of Malaria.
• The goal is to achieve universal detection of cases, 100% diagnosis of suspected cases, and provide adequate treatment services in Malaria endemic districts.
• It aims to preserve a “Malaria-free” status in the areas where there has been an interruption in the transmission.
• The districts are categorized based on the Annual Parasite Incidence (API) with a plan to totally eliminate indigenous Malaria cases in category1 (API<1 per 1000 population) & category 2(API >1<2 per 1000 population) districts and to bring category 3 districts (API>2 per 1000 population) under pre-elimination & elimination programme by the year 2022.
• Funds will be managed from government sources, Corporate Social Responsibility of the corporate sector, and from international donations.

WORLD MALARIA DAY

• Annually on the 25th of April World Malaria Day is observed across the world to highlight the need for sustained political commitment and continued investment so as to prevent and control malaria across the world.
• The World Health Organization has continuously highlighted the need for and also called for innovations and investments to bring in new vector control approaches, antimalarial medicines, diagnostics, and other tools that will help in fighting against malaria.
• The theme of World Malaria Day 2022 :The theme for this year’s world malaria day is “Harness innovation to reduce the malaria disease burden and save lives.”
• The day is significant as despite being a treatable disease, Malaria continues to impact the livelihoods of people all over the world.

ALSO IN NEWS : Karnataka has set a target to eliminate malaria by 2027, three years before the 2030 target set by the Union government.

NEWS

Prime Minister inaugurated the seventh edition of Raisina Dialogue on April 25, 2022

DETAILS

WHAT

• Annual conference on geopolitics and geoeconomics addressing issues facing the global community
• Takes its name from Raisina Hill, the seat of the Indian government
• Organised as a multi-stakeholder, cross-sectoral conversation, with participation from heads of state, cabinet ministers, and local government officials, as well as important private sector executives, journalists, and academics.
• Observer Research Foundation is hosting the conference in cooperation with the Indian Ministry of External Affairs

RAISINA DIALOGUE 2022

• Raisina Dialogue is a joint venture of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the independent think tank Observer Research Foundation (ORF).
• Theme: The theme is “Terranova: Impassioned, Impatient, and Imperilled”.
• Significance
  • Raisina Dialogue 2022 assumes greater significance in the backdrop of the unfolding invasion of Ukraine by Russia.
  • Since its inception, the Raisina Dialogue has emerged as a leading global conference on international affairs featuring the participation of heads of state, ministers, journalists, academics and researchers.

NEWS

According to a study that analyzed data from the last 19 million years, Seafloor spreading rates have slowed down by roughly 35% globally

WHAT DID THE STUDY SAY

• Researchers selected 18 of the world’s largest spreading ridges (mid-ocean ridges)
• By studying magnetic records in the rocks on the oceanic crust, they calculated how much oceanic crust had formed over the last 19 million years. Basalt rocks on the oceanic crust contain magnetic properties
• Their magnetism is influenced by the Earth’s magnetic field when the magma reaches the surface and begins cooling to form the crust
• Records are incomplete because the crusts get destroyed at subduction zones
• Subduction zone is a point where two tectonic plates collide, causing one of them to sink into the Earth’s mantle beneath the other plate

REASONS BEHIND THE DECLINE OF SEAFLOOR SPREADING

• Growing mountains on the continents might be one of the factors driving the slowdown (as it causes resistance to seafloor spreading)
• Natural consequence of a ‘mature’ stage of supercontinent breakup and dispersal
• Changes in mantle convection could also be playing a role as mantle convection transports heat from the earth’s interior to the surface.

WHAT IS SEAFLOOR SPREADING?

• The seafloor spreading hypothesis was proposed by the American geophysicist Harry H. Hess in 1960.
• Seafloor spreading is the process of magma welling up in the rift as the old crust pulls itself in opposite directions. Cold seawater cools the magma, creating a new crust.
• The upward movement and eventual cooling of this magma has created high ridges on the ocean floor over millions of years.
• However, the seafloor is destroyed in subduction zones, where oceanic crust slides under continents and sinks back into the mantle, and is reforged at seafloor spreading ridges.

NEWS

The government of Meghalaya’s Planning Department’s initiative of the “e-Proposal System”- Meghalaya Enterprise Architecture (MeghEA) Project, has won the UN Award – World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum Prizes 2022

MEGHEA PROJECT

• Spread across 6 pillars i.e. Governance, Human Resources, Entrepreneurship, Primary Sector, Infrastructure and Environment, and envision to make Meghalaya a high income state by 2030.
• Envisioned to make Meghalaya a high income state by 2030.
• MeghEA is conceived to support the following digital government goals:
  • A planned state government transformation initiative which demands efficient coordination between strategies, policies, processes, services and organizational capacity
  • Coordinate all ICT initiatives under one umbrella to get a better holistic perspective
  • Implement and ICT enable state government process reengineering to provide multi-channel service delivery
  • Ensure that state government applications and systems provide end-users with information they need
  • Craft an ecosystem for the digital economy to boost shared prosperity, by leveraging ICT for employment and growth.

INDIA ENTERPRISE ARCHITECTURE (INDEA)

• It is a framework that enables the development and implementation of Enterprise Architectures independently and in parallel by all governments and their agencies across India, conforming to the same models and standards.
• It was notified as an e-Governance standard by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) in October 2018.
• The primary purpose of IndEA is to help state governments, ministries and departments in the governments at various levels to adopt a structured approach for developing their enterprise architecture.

 BACKGROUND

• The Russian invasion of Ukraine seems to have brought to the forefront some other disputes that Russia has with the West’s allies
• On April 22, Japan’s Diplomatic Bluebook for 2022 described the Kuril Islands (which Japan calls the Northern Territories and Russia as the South Kurils) as being under Russia’s “illegal occupation”
• Japan had been using softer language since 2003, saying that the dispute over the islands was the greatest concern in Russia-Japan bilateral ties

KURIL ISLANDS - GEOGRAPHY

• Chain of islands stretching from the Japanese island of Hokkaido to the southern tip of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula
• Separate the Okhotsk Sea from the North Pacific Ocean
• Consists of 56 islands and minor rocks
• The islands are part of the Ring of Fire belt of geologic instability circling the Pacific.
• It contains at least 100 volcanoes, of which 35 are still active, and many hot springs.
• Earthquakes and tidal waves are common phenomena over these islands.

THE DISPUTE

• The dispute is concerning four islands which are:
  • Iturup or Etorofu Island
  • Kunashir or Kunashiri Island
  • Shikotan Island
  • Habomai Island

• Both Moscow and Tokyo claim sovereignty over them though the islands have been under Russian control since the end of World War II
• The Soviet Union had seized the islands at the end of World War II and by 1949 had expelled its Japanese residents
• Tokyo claims that the disputed islands have been part of Japan since the early 19th century

AGREEMENTS BETWEEN JAPAN AND RUSSIA OVER THE KURIL ISLANDS

Treaty of Shimoda - The 1855 Treaty of Shimoda, which established diplomatic relations between Russia and Japan, was the first Russo-Japanese accord to deal with the status of Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands. (1855)

Treaty of Saint Petersburg (1875)

• Russia gave Japan possession of the Kurils in exchange for undisputed control of Sakhalin Island in the Treaty of Saint Petersburg, signed between the two countries in 1875.
• For Russia, the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–5 was a military failure. The Treaty of Portsmouth, signed at the end of the war in 1905, awarded Japan the southern half of Sakhalin Island.
• During World War II, Japan was a German ally, and the USSR was aware of this. Later on, however, Soviet and Japanese troops were on opposing sides.

Yalta Agreement (1945) - The islands were given to the Soviet Union in 1945 as part of the Yalta negotiations (which were codified in the 1951 Treaty of Peace with Japan), and the Japanese population was returned and replaced by the Soviets.

San Francisco Peace Treaty, 1951

• The Allies and Japan signed this treaty in 1951, which declared that Japan must relinquish all rights, titles, and claims to the Kuril Islands while simultaneously refusing to recognize the Soviet Union's authority over them.
• Following World War II, the following two treaties further exacerbated the situation, resulting in modern-day Kuril Island disputes.

Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration (1956)

• The Japan-Soviet Joint Declaration restored diplomatic relations between Japan and Russia in 1956.
• The Soviet Union offered that the conflict is settled by returning Shikotan and Habomai to Japan during the 1956 peace talks between Japan and the Soviet Union.
• This was accepted by Japan, and the statement officially ended the conflict between the two countries. However, the Kuril Islands conflict lingered in the shape of territorial interpretation.

WHAT MAY HAPPPEN NEXT

• Soon after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Japan made its unhappiness with Russia clear with its Foreign Minister Hideki Uyama, saying that Russia had “occupied” the southern part of the Kuril Islands, thereby violating international law.
• Japan has been among the most steadfast of Western allies in denouncing Russian aggression and punishing it with sanctions. The April 22 statement in its Diplomatic Bluebook will further damage relations between the two countries. Japan has probably been spurred by its fears of a Russia-China alliance as Japan itself has territorial disputes and an uneasy history with China.
• Secondly, Japan might have felt that this is a good opportunity to further isolate Russia and paint it as a “habitual offender” of international law.
• Finally, Tokyo might have been prompted to take this position as it feels that the invasion of Ukraine proves that getting back the Kuril Islands is a lost cause.
• Japan’s policy shift on the Kuril Islands will only embitter bilateral relations with Russia while advancing the possibility of its two neighbours, China and Russia, coming together against it.

• The Tamil Nadu Assembly on Monday adopted two Bills that seek to empower the government to appoint Vice-Chancellors (V-Cs) to 13 State universities under the aegis of the Higher Education Department by amending the respective Acts.
• Manipal Hospitals, Bengaluru has announced it has received the Enhanced Recovery After Surgery (ERAS) certification after doctors and other healthcare providers at the facility underwent a comprehensive training programme
• World military spending continued to grow in 2021, reaching a record $2.1 trillion despite the economic fallout of the pandemic, according to new data on global military spending published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI). The five largest spenders in 2021 were the U.S., China, India, the U.K. and Russia, together accounting for 62% of expenditure. The U.S. and China alone accounted for 52%.
• Housing and Urban Development Corporation Limited celebrates its 52nd Formation Day
• The Ministry of Civil Aviation organized “Yog Prabha”, a mega Yoga event at Safdarjung Airport, New Delhi
• PM inaugurated a community radio station (CRS) named Dudh Vani that is dedicated to animal husbandry
• Urja Pravaha, the Indian Coast Guard Ship (Auxiliary Barge) has been inducted into the Indian Coast Guard at Bharuch, Gujarat.