Daily CURRENT AFFAIRS

Daily Current Affair - UPSC/KAS Exams - 29th June 2021

What is it : Mobile app to identify senior citizens who are beneficiaries of pension schemes

By : Social Security and Pension department , Government of Karnataka

Details :

• The app has been developed for the purpose of suo moto identification of beneficiaries under the Senior Citizens Scheme.
• The senior citizens eligible for pension in the state have been identified in accordance with Old Age Pension and Sandhya Suraksha Yojana Rules, and also as per the Navodaya app.
• Village accountants are tasked with visiting beneficiaries at their door step and recording their existence using the app. During the lockdown and thereafter, the state has not insisted upon submission of Life Certificate by any of the eligible senior citizens.

SANDHYA SURAKSA YOJANE

• The scheme launched by the state government is an old-age pension scheme launched exclusively for senior citizens residing in the state of Karnataka. Through this scheme, the government is providing financial assistance to senior citizens of the state.
• As financial aid, the government provides Rs 400 per month to senior citizens. Apart from this, the government is also providing some other benefits, such as KSRTC, free bus pass to travel to medical and day-care facilities

What is in news: Odisha government and United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have partnered to improve household food and nutritional security.

Details

• Household food & nutritional security would be improved by strengthening livelihood initiatives & reaching out to state-supported Women’s Self-Help Groups (WSHGs).
• This is a significant partnership to achieve nutritional security in Odisha which will also focus on empowerment, livelihood and incomes of women.
• Such initiatives are important to address and reduce vulnerabilities across food security.
• This partnership will be in effect till December 2023.

Objective of partnership: Partnership was done do improve linkage of women’s groups with government procurement systems. It will increase awareness on entitlements, build capacity of women’s groups, develop monitoring tools and undertake evaluations to improve functioning of SHGs.

UN World Food Programme (WFP)

WEP

• Is a food-assistance branch of United Nations.
• Is world’s largest humanitarian organization, focusing on hunger & food security and is the largest provider of school meals.
• Was founded in 1961 with headquarter in Rome.
• Has served 97 million people across 88 countries, as of 2019. 
• Was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2020 for its efforts of providing food assistance in areas with conflict and to prevent use of food as weapon of war & conflict.

What is in news : Ministry of corporate affairs (MCA) has expanded the definition of small and medium sized companies (SMCs).

What is new:  Small & Medium Companies is an unlisted company, a bank, an insurance or a financial institution with sales up to Rs 250 crore and borrowings up to Rs 50 crore(Earlier limit for sales was Rs 50 crore and for borrowings was Rs 10 crore)

Which companies are classified as SMCs:

• Banks, insurance companies, financial institutions, and listed companies cannot be classified as SMCs.
• Any holding company or subsidiary of company which is not an SMC cannot be classified as SMC.

Exemptions available to SMCs

• They are completely exempted from filing cash flow statements and providing segmental break up of their financial performance.
• They can avail partial reporting exemptions in areas like reporting on employee benefits obligations. For instance, on pensions.
• They are exempted from providing detailed analysis of benefit obligations to employees.
• They are also exempted from reporting diluted earnings per share in their filings.

Significance of the move: This move will promote ease of doing business for firms which are included under definition of SMC.

ENVIRONMENT

What is in news: Government has decided to extend adoption of electric vehicles ‘Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles in India Phase II (FAME Phase II)’ by 2 years.

Details :

• Initially FAME scheme was to be implemented for a period of three years from April 1, 2019.
• Now, it will be in force till March 31, 2024.
• Date was extended after the Department of Heavy Industries increased demand incentive for electric two-wheelers (e2W) from Rs 10,000/KWh to Rs 15,000/KWh.

FAME Scheme

• This scheme is a part of National Electric Mobility Mission Plan.
• Scheme was launched to encourage electric vehicles by providing subsidies.
• This scheme aims to incentivise all vehicle segments.
• It was launched in two phases. Phase 1 was started in 2015 & ended on 31st March, 2019. While, phase II was started from April 2019 and will end in 2024 (Earlier to end in 2022).
• Scheme is monitored by Department of Heavy Industries under Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises.

National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP)

Under the NEMMP, government targeted to achieve 6-7 million sales of electric and hybrid vehicles across India by 2020. This plan aims to achieve national fuel security by promoting hybrid and electric vehicles.

• Forest restoration is an important climate mitigation strategy. Beyond carbon sequestration, its benefits include biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. India’s potential to remove carbon through forest restoration is among the highest in the Global South as per a 2020 study published in Nature, Ecology and Evolution. At 123.3 million, India also has the greatest number of people living near areas with forest restoration opportunities (within 8km).
• Initiatives to restore degraded landscapes are, however, not new to India. Be it social forestry in the 1970s, tree growers’ cooperative societies in the 1980s, Joint Forest Management in the 1990s or the National Afforestation Programme and Green India Mission in the last two decades, studies have found them to have limited restoration benefits. These initiatives have drawn criticism for paying little attention to the land and forest tenure of local communities, failing to incorporate traditional ecological knowledge, and not assisting communities to receive the opportunities they desire from restoration.
• By assigning rights to protect, manage and restore around 40 million hectare of forests to village-level democratic institutions, COMMUNITY FOREST RESOURCE (CFR) rights under FRA tackle these issues. There are several cases of CFR rights enabling successful ecological restoration of forests, biodiversity conservation and food and livelihood security. The recognition of these rights, however, has happened at an extremely slow pace. Less than 5 per cent of the total potential area has been brought under CFR.
• There are compelling reasons for India to recognise and support CFR rights. Strong, peer-reviewed evidence from across the world shows that community forests with legally recognised rights are healthier and associated with lower deforestation rates, higher carbon storage and biodiversity compared to other forests. In its 2019 Special Report on Climate Change and Land, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change also noted that “land titling and recognition programmes, particularly those that authorise and respect indigenous and communal tenure, can lead to improved management of forests, including for carbon storage.”
• Global attention is on ecosystem restoration — the United Nations theme for the decade. India’s restoration commitments are amongst the most ambitious in the world. Its potential to benefit from forest restoration is also among the highest. It also has a legal framework — the Forest Rights Act — that facilitates an approach internationally acknowledged as essential for combating climate change. All that is needed now is to recognise and support community forest rights.

What is in news : Goa has become the first Rabies-free state of India. According to Chief Minister , state has not reported a single rabies case in last three years.

Highlights

• Chief Minister highlighted; Goa has achieved 5,40,593 vaccinations against rabies in dogs.
• State has also educated nearly a lakh people about dog bite prevention and has set up 24-hours rabies surveillance which comprise of an emergency hotline and rapid response team for dog bite victims.
• Task of controlling rabies was being carried out by Mission Rabies project which is a central government grant.

Mission Rabies

• It is a charity, initially founded as an initiative by Worldwide Veterinary Service (WVS).
• It is a United Kingdom-based charity group which assists animals. Mission Rabies works with ‘One Health approach’ which is driven by research to eliminate dog bite transmitted rabies disease.
• It was launched in September 2013 with the objective of vaccinating 50,000 dogs against rabies in India.  Rabies has estimated to kill 59,000 people annually. Mission Rabies teams have vaccinated 968,287 dogs since 2013.
• Organisation has worked in the states of Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Goa, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Assam.

About Rabies

• As per WHO, Rabies is a vaccine-preventable viral disease that occurs in about 150 countries and territories.
• Dogs act as the source of majority of human rabies deaths. Dogs are responsible for contributing up to 99% of rabies transmissions to humans. In Asia and Africa regions, low awareness regarding the need of health care after dog bite takes lives of about 55000 people per year.
• India is endemic for rabies with the burden of 36% of world’s deaths. 30-60% of reported rabies cases and deaths in India occur in children aged under 15 years because bite often go unrecognized and unreported.

What is in news : A new-generation nuclear-capable ballistic missile, Agni-P (Prime) was successfully test-fired by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) recently.

Features :

• New-generation advanced variant of Agni class of missiles
• It is nuclear-capable surface-to-surface ballistic missile which has a range of 1,000 and 2,000 km
• It is Canisterized. Canisterisation of missiles reduces the time required to launch the missile while improving its storage and mobility

Agni missiles

• Agni are long range, nuclear weapons capable surface to surface ballistic missile.
• The first missile of the series, Agni-I was developed under the Integrated Guided Missile Development Program (IGMDP) and tested in 1989.
• After its success, Agni missile program was separated from the IGMDP upon realizing its strategic importance.
• It was designated as a special program in India’s defence budget and provided adequate funds for subsequent development. As of November 2019, the missiles in the Agni series are being inducted into service.

The family comprises the following:

What is a Surface-to-Surface missile:

• A surface-to-surface missile is a missile that is launched from the ground to strike land or sea targets.
• They may be fired from hand-held or vehicles, from a ship or ground installations.
• They are often powered by a rocket engine or sometimes fired by an explosive charge since the launching platform is typically stationary or moving slowly.
• They usually have fins and/or wings for lift and stability, although hyper-velocity or short-ranged missiles may use body lift or fly a ballistic trajectory.

Canister Based Launch System

• Canister based launch system- serves as a container for transportation; a housing during storage aboard a vessel; provides operational flexibility.
• A canister launch system can be either hot launch, where the missile ignites in the cell, or cold launch, where the missile is expelled by gas produced by a gas generator which is not part of the missile itself, and then the missile ignites.
• Cold launch is safer than hot launch as the ejection system will eject the missile by itself even if there is a missile failure. In case of Agni V, it will be a cold launch.
• In case of hot launches the problem is the heat produced by the missile at the time of launch. The hot launch is better for small missiles as the ejection part itself will be done by using missiles own engine.
• In addition to this technology, India is also working to master the Multiple Independent Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) technology which is also considered as India’s technological solution for Minimum Nuclear Deterrence.
• The fundamental characteristic of deploying MIRVs is its ability to deliver several warheads along separate trajectories, which confers it flexibility of multiple targeting

What is in news : National Statistics Day is celebrated every year on 29 June to acknowledge the contributions of PC Mahalanobis

P C MAHALANOBIS

• Mahalanobis was born to a wealthy Bengali family in Calcutta on 29th June 1893. His family members were actively involved in the Brahmo Samaj movement.
• After finishing his schooling in Calcutta, he joined the Presidency College from where he received a Bachelor’s Degree in Physics. His teachers there included eminent scientists like Jagadish Chandra Bose (30 November 1858 – 23 November 1937) and Prafulla Chandra Ray.
• In 1913, he left for England to pursue higher education. Although he set out to study at the University of London, a missed train led him to join the King’s College, Cambridge.
• There, he completed his Tripos in physics. A chance reading of the journal Biometrika, which focused on theoretical statistics, intrigued his interest in the subject of statistics. He brought the entire volume of the journal back to India and began studying it. He then discovered the efficacy of statistics in solving problems in anthropology and meteorology.
• In the 1920s, he established a Statistical Laboratory in the Presidency College where he taught Physics. He established the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta on 17th December 1931, with help from a few colleagues and friends.
• In 1959, the institute was declared a deemed university and an ‘institute of national importance’.
• Mahalanobis contributed to the field of statistics through his research and findings. He is remembered mostly for the Mahalanobis Distance, which is denoted as D2. D2 is a multivariate distance measure which is used for comparing and grouping populations.
• He also invented an instrument used for measuring skull measurements known as profiloscope. He contributed towards the subject of physical anthropology as well.
• But his greatest contribution lay in the field of large-scale sample surveys. Mahalanobis initiated the concept of pilot surveys. The technique of random sampling introduced by him has been regarded as the most accurate in the world. His research also improved the estimation of crop yields.
• He also was an important member of the Planning Commission starting from the Second Five Year Plan. Mahalanobis and Russian Grigory Feldman independently developed a neo-Marxian economic development model, now known as the Feldman–Mahalanobis model.
• The Mahalanobis Model was used in the Second Five Year Plan.
• Mahalanobis has also acted as a secretary to Rabindranath Tagore (7 May 1861 – 7 August 1941,)
• HE IS REMEMBERED AS  FATHER OF INDIAN STATISTICS

• State government of Karnataka has constituted an expert committee to look into the possibility of establishing a full-fledged university on the PG campus of the University of Mysore (UoM) in the district. It is headed by Vice-Chancellor of Mysore University G. Hemantha Kumar
• President of India, in exercise of the powers conferred by Article 223 of the Constitution of India, appointed Shri Justice Ravi Vijaykumar Malimath, senior-most Judge of Himachal Pradesh High Court, to perform the duties of the office of the Chief Justice of that High Court. Justice Ravi Vijaykumar Malimath was a Justice of High court of Karnataka previously.
• Rock Phosphate is the key raw material for DAP and NPK fertilisers and India is 90% dependent on imports. Volatility in international prices affects domestic prices of fertilisers and hinders the progress and development of agriculture sector in the country. Central Government has called to expedite the exploration and mining of available rock phosphate reserves in India.
• International Day Against Drug Abuse is observed on June 26 every year to raise awareness among people regarding dangerous effects of drugs and it’s illicit trafficking. This year, International Day against Drug Abuse was observed under the theme ‘Share Facts on Drugs, Save Lives’. Its motive is to combat misinformation by sharing real facts on drugs ranging from health risks & solutions for world drug problem to evidence-based prevention, treatment & care.
• Asian Games gold medallist Rahi Sarnobat unleashed her best performance to outclass a strong field and win the 25-metre sports pistol gold with a thumping margin in the shooting World Cup
• Arjun Erigaisi made history in the Meltwater Champions Chess Tour by becoming the first Indian to gatecrash into the quarterfinals of the Goldmoney Asian Rapid online chess tournament
• The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has decided to host the T20 World Cup in October-November in the UAE and Oman.
• Sea Breeze drills is joint naval exercises in Black Sea by Ukarine and USA
• Noted journalist P. Sainath has been selected as one of the three recipients of the Fukuoka Prize for 2021. The Fukuoka Prize is an award established by the city of Fukuoka and the Fukuoka City International Foundation, Japan to honor the outstanding work of individuals or organizations in preserving or creating Asian culture.

• SPINTRONICS: Spintronics , also known as spin electronics, or the study of the intrinsic spin of the electron and its associated magnetic moment, in addition to its fundamental electronic charge, in solid-state devices offer to harness electron spins. Their collective precession can carry information encoded in its amplitude, phase, wavelength, and frequency without any physical motion of particles, eliminating unwanted energy waste and promising wave-based computing.