Indian Polity - Target UPSC

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Indian Polity ..

Mission Karmayogi

● Its a National Programme Civil Services Capacity Building

● The programme will enhance the Indian culture values and sensibilities among the civil

servants.

● It is aimed at building a future-ready civil service with the right attitude, skills and

knowledge, aligned to the vision of New India.

● iGOT is Integrated Government Online Training platform.

● The main principles of the programme are as follows

● To emphasize on on-site learning

● To support transition from “rules based” to “roles based” human resource management

● To create an ecosystem of shared training infrastructure

● To calibrate civil service positions

Sub-categorisation of OBCs

● A commission headed by Justice (Retd.) G Rohini



● OBCs are granted 27% reservation in jobs and education under the central government

but only a few affluent communities among the over 2,600 included in the Central List of

OBCs have secured a major part of this.

● Sub-categorisation or creating categories within OBCs for reservation would ensure

“equitable distribution” of representation among all OBC communities.

No Question Hour and Zero Hour & Private member bill

● Suspension of the Question Hour and curtail Zero Hour due to Covid-19 pandemic.

● they were suspended during national emergencies

Question Hour

● The first hour of every parliamentary sitting

● in the Rajya Sabha from 11 am to 12 noon.

● During this one hour, Members of Parliament (MPs) ask questions to ministers and hold

them accountable for the functioning of their ministries.

● The questions can also be asked to the private members (MPs who are not ministers).

● regulated according to parliamentary rules

three typesof Questions:

● Starred question (distinguished by an asterisk)- this requires an oral answer and

hence supplementary questions can follow.

● Unstarred question- this requires a written answer and hence, supplementary

questions cannot follow.

● Short notice question is one that is asked by giving a notice of less than ten days. It is

answered orally.

Zero Hour:

● Zero Hour is an Indian parliamentary innovation. It is not mentioned in the parliamentary

rules book.

● Under this, MPs can raise matters without any prior notice.

● The zero hour starts immediately after the question hour and lasts until the agenda for

the day (i.e. regular business of the House) is taken up.

Private Member’s Bill

● Any Member of Parliament (MP) who is not a minister is referred to as a private member.

● The purpose of private member’s bill is to draw the government’s attention to what

individual MPs see as issues and gaps in the existing legal framework, which require

legislative intervention.

● Its introduction in the House requires one month’s notice.

● The government bills can be introduced and discussed on any day, private member’s

bills can be introduced and discussed only on Fridays.

● The last time a private member’s bill was passed by both Houses was in 1970.

● It was the Supreme Court (Enlargement of Criminal Appellate Jurisdiction) Bill, 1968.

Election in USA:



● In the USA, all elections–federal, state, and local– are directly organised by the

governments of individual states.

● Unlike India, there is no Election Commission independent of the government in the USA

to conduct elections at the national (federal) level.

● The USA Constitution and laws grant the states wide latitude in how they administer

elections, this has resulted in varying rules across the country.

Postal Voting in India

● Ballot papers are distributed electronically to electors and are returned to the election

officers via post.

● Currently, only the following voters are allowed to cast their votes through postal ballot:

○ Service voters (armed forces, the armed police force of a state and government

servants posted abroad),

○ Voters on election duty.

○ Voters above 80 years of age or Persons with Disabilities (PwD).

○ Voters under preventive detention.

● The exception to the above-mentioned category of voters is provided under Section 60

of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

Hindi, Dogri and Kashmiri to become official languages of J&K

● Before this only Urudu and English were the official language of the state.

● Dogri and Kashmiri were not official language in any of the states in India

Article 343

● The article says that the official language of the union shall be Hindi in Devanagari

script.

● It also says that the numerals shall be used in international form

Eight Schedule ● lists 22 scheduled languages as official languages of the states.

● The states are not mandated to choose their official language from the scheduled

languages.

● by 92nd Amendment Act of 2003, which consists of the following 22 languages:

● Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Kashmiri, Konkani, Malayalam, Manipuri,

Marathi, Nepali, Oriya, Punjabi, Sanskrit, Sindhi, Tamil, Telugu, Urdu, Bodo, Santhali,

Maithili and Dogri.

● Of these languages, 14 were initially included in the Constitution.

● Sindhi language was added by the 21st Amendment Act of 1967.

● Konkani, Manipuri, and Nepali were included by the 71st Amendment Act of 1992.

Constitutional and Legal Provisions for Language:

● Article 29 (Protection of interests of minorities) gives all citizens right to conserve

their language and prohibits discrimination on the basis of language.



● Article 120 (Language to be used in Parliament) provides for use of Hindi or English

for transactions of parliament but gives the right to members of parliament to express

themselves in their mother tongue.

● Part XVII of the Indian Constitution deals with the official languages in Articles 343 to

351.

● Article 350A (Facilities for instruction in mother-tongue at primary stage) provides

that it shall be the endeavour of every State and of every local authority within the State

to provide adequate facilities for instruction in the mother-tongue at the primary stage of

education to children belonging to linguistic minority groups.

● Article 351 (Directive for development of the Hindi language) provides that it shall be

the duty of the Union to promote the spread of the Hindi language.

● Right to Education (RTE) Act, 2009 says that the medium of instruction shall, as far as

practicable, be in a child’s mother tongue.

Special Marriage Act of 1954

● The SMA is a law which allows solemnization by way of registration of marriages without

going through any religious customs or rituals.

● The prime purpose of the Act was to address Inter-religious marriages and to establish

marriage as a secular institution bereft of all religious formalities, which required

registration alon

“Act of God” and “force majeure”

● This week, attributing the shortfall in GST collections to disruptions due to Covid-19,

Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the economy is facing an Act-of-God-like

situation.

● an “Act of God” is understood to include only natural unforeseen circumstances,

whereas force majeure is wider in its ambit and includes both naturally occurring events

and events that occur due to human intervention like War, riots,strike, boycotts.

Deputy Speaker of Lok Sabha

● Article 93 of the Constitution provides for the election of both the Speaker and the

Deputy Speaker.

● More symbolic of parliamentary democracy than some real authority.

● There is no need to resign from their original party

● Roles and functions: They act as the presiding officer in case of leave or absence

caused by death or illness of the Speaker of the Lok Sabha.

● It is by convention that position of Deputy Speaker is offered to opposition party in India.

● They hold office until either they cease to be a member of the Lok Sabha or they resign.

● They can be removed from office by a resolution passed in the Lok Sabha by an

effective majority ( All the then members ) of its members.

Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha

● Elected by the Rajya Sabha itself from amongst its members.



● not subordinate to the Chairman.

● In the Role of the Chairman:

● The Deputy Chairman performs the duties of the Chairman’s office when it is vacant or

when the Vice-President acts as President or discharges the functions of the President.

● He also acts as the Chairman when the Chairman is absent from the sitting of the

House.

● In both cases, he has all the powers of the Chairman.

● Like the Chairman, the Deputy Chairman, while presiding over the House, cannot vote in

the first instance; he can only exercise a casting vote in the case of a tie.

● Removal:Article 90: the Deputy Chairman vacates his office in any of the following

three cases:

○ If he ceases to be a member of the Rajya Sabha;

○ If he resigns by writing to the Chairman; and

○ If he is removed by a resolution passed by a majority of all the then members of

the Rajya Sabha. Such a resolution can be moved only after giving 14 days’

advance notice.

Departmentally-Related Standing Committees’ (DRSC)

● On the recommendation of the Rules Committee of the Lok Sabha, 17 DRSCs were set

up in the Parliament in 1993. In 2004, seven added. Total 24

● Out of 24 , 8 work under the Rajya Sabha and 16 under the Lok Sabha.

● Each standing committee consists of 31 members (21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from

Rajya Sabha)

● The members of the Lok Sabha are nominated by the Speaker, just as the members of

the Rajya Sabha are nominated by the Chairman from amongst its members

● A minister is not eligible to be nominated as a member of any of the standing

committees.

● The term of office is one year from the date of its constitution.

Role of Parliamentary Committees

Purpose:

● Since Parliament meets only for 70 to 80 days in a year, there is not enough time to

discuss every Bill in detail on the floor of the House. Plus debate in the house is mostly

political and does not go into the technical details of a legislative proposal.

● Therefore, it takes care of the legislative infirmity of debate on the floor of the House.

However, referring Bills to parliamentary committees is not mandatory.

● two kinds of parliamentary committees under Article 118 (1)

● Standing Committees and Ad Hoc Committees.

Standing Committees

● permanent (constituted every year or periodically) and work on a continuous basis.

● six categories:

○ Financial Committees

○ Departmental Standing Committees



○ Committees to Enquire

○ Committees to Scrutinise and Control

○ Committees Relating to the Day-to-Day Business of the House

○ House-Keeping Committees or Service Committees

● Ministers are not members; key committees like those related to Finance, Defence,

Home etc are usually chaired by Opposition MPs.

Ad Hoc Committees

● Temporary and cease to exist on completion of the task assigned to them.

● Two Categories

○ Inquiry Committees

○ Advisory Committees.

● Examples of Ad Hoc Committees: Joint Committee on Bofors Contract, Joint Committee

on Fertilizer Pricing etc

Business Advisory Committee (BAC)

● BAC of the Lok Sabha is constituted at the commencement of new Lok Sabha after the

general elections and thereafter from time to time.

● The Business Advisory Committee was constituted for the first time in 1952.

● Members: 15 members including the Speaker who is the ex-officio Chairperson of the

Committee. The members of the Committee are nominated by the Speaker.

● Functions:

● To recommend the time that should be allocated for the discussion of the stage or

stages of Government Bills and other business.

● The Committee, on its own initiative, may also recommend to the Government to bring

forward particular subjects for discussion in the House and recommend allocation of time

for such discussions.

● The decisions reached by the Committee are always unanimous in character and

representative of the collective view of the House.

Indo-China Defence Ministerial Meet

● The first high-level political face-to-face meeting between India and China since the

border row erupted along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.

● India pushed for the restoration of status quo ante at all friction points along the Line of

Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh and called for disengagement of troops in an

expeditious way.

● The Indian and Chinese armies are engaged in the standoff at Pangong Tso, Galwan

Valley, Demchok and Daulat Beg Oldie in eastern Ladakh.

Line of Actual Control

● The LAC is the demarcation that separates Indian-controlled territory from Chinese-

controlled territory. India considers the LAC to be 3,488 km long, while the Chinese

consider it to be only around 2,000 km.

● It is divided into three sectors:

○ The eastern sector which spans Arunachal Pradesh and Sikkim.



○ The middle sector in Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

○ The western sector in Ladakh.

● The India-China LAC in Ladakh is an outcome of the territory illegally retained by China

after the 1962 conflict. The Chinese occupation of parts of Aksai Chin is not supported

by historical or legal documents.

What is a recusal?

● Judicial disqualification, referred to as recusal, is the act of abstaining from participation

in an official action such as a legal proceeding due to a conflict of interest of the

presiding court official or administrative officer.

● Motions to recuse or disqualify judges and other adjudicators have been made for all

sorts of reasons.

● Most commonly such motions are predicated upon a claim that the judge is biased in

favour of one party, or against another, or that a reasonable objective observer would

think he might be.

Basic Structure Doctrine: Kesavananda Bharati Case

● The case was primarily about the extent of Parliament’s power to amend the

Constitution.

● First, the court was reviewing a 1967 decision in Golaknath v State of Punjab which,

reversing earlier verdicts,Upheld the validity of the 24th amendment, had ruled that

Parliament cannot amend fundamental rights.

● Second, the court was deciding the constitutional validity of several other amendments.

Notably, the right to property had been removed as a fundamental right, and Parliament

had also given itself the power to amend any part of the Constitution and passed a law

that it cannot be reviewed by the courts.

● The landmark judgement was delivered on 24th April 1973 by a thin majority of 7:6

● the majority held that any provision of the Indian Constitution can be amended by the

Parliament in order to fulfil its socio-economic obligations that were guaranteed to the

citizens as given in the Preamble, provided that such amendment did not change the

Constitution’s basic structure.

● The court held that under Article 368, which provides Parliament amending powers,

something must remain of the original Constitution that the new amendment would

change.

● However, the court did not define the ‘basic structure’, and only listed a few principles —

federalism, secularism, democracy — as being its part. Since then, the court has been

adding new features to this concept.

● The ‘basic structure’ doctrine has since been interpreted to include the supremacy of the

Constitution, the rule of law, Independence of the judiciary, doctrine of separation of

powers, federalism, secularism, sovereign democratic republic, the parliamentary

system of government, the principle of free and fair elections, welfare state, etc.

Central security cover to private individuals in India



● A call on central security to private individuals is taken by the Home Ministry based on

inputs from intelligence agencies.

● There are six kinds of central security covers: X, Y, Y plus, Z, Z plus and SPG.

● While the Special Protection Group protects only the Prime Minister, the other categories

can be provided to anyone based on the Centre’s assessment.

Sanskrit Grams Programme: Uttarakhand

● Aim: To teach people to use Sanskrit regularly.

● Villages Selected: according to the availability of Sanskrit schools

● The focus will be on the school-going children

● programme will run first at the district level and then at the block level

● Sanskrit is the second official language in Uttarakhand after Hindi (Article 345 of the

Constitution: Official language or languages of a State).

Sanskrit

● Sanskrit is a classical and an eighth schedule language.

● It is an old Indo-Aryan language in which the most ancient documents, Vedas are

composed in what is called Vedic Sanskrit.

● Classical Sanskrit, a language close to late Vedic as then used in the northwest of the

subcontinent, was elegantly described in one of the finest grammars ever produced, the

Aṣṭādhyāyī (“Eight Chapters”) composed by Pāṇini (c. 6th–5th century BCE).

● Sanskrit has been written both in Devanāgarī script and in various regional scripts

Honorary Consul

● Honorary consuls are not career diplomats.They are usually citizens of the host country,

where they live, work and pay taxes. A private individuals who take care of their tasks on

a part-time basis without remuneration.

● They are designated by a foreign government to look after the affairs of its citizens.

● Together with diplomatic missions, an honorary consul promotes economic and cultural

relations.

Basic criteria to disqualify an MP or MLA

● Article 102 of the Constitution, and for an MLA in Article 191.

● a) Holding an office of profit under government of India or state government; b) Being of

unsound mind; c) Being an undischarged insolvent; d) Not being an Indian citizen or for

acquiring citizenship of another country.

An ‘office of profit’

● If an MLA or an MP holds a government office and receives benefits from it, then that

office is termed as an “office of profit”.

● A person will be disqualified if he holds an office of profit under the central or state

government, other than an office declared not to disqualify its holder by a law passed by

Parliament or state legislature.



● As per SC : four principle of Office of Profit

○ whether the government exercises control over appointment, removal and

performance of the functions of the office

○ whether the office has any remuneration attached to it

○ whether the body in which the office is held has government powers (releasing

money, allotment of land, granting licenses etc.).

○ whether the office enables the holder to influence by way of patronage.

Back to Village(B2V) programme

● By Jammu & Kashmir gov.

● Aims to energize Panchayats and direct development efforts in rural areas through

community participation.

● to involve the people of the state and government officials in a joint effort to deliver the

mission of equitable development.

P-7 Heavy Drop System

● Developed by DRDO

● capable of para dropping military stores up to seven-tonne weight class from IL- 76

aircraft.

● It consists of a platform and specialized parachute system.

● Developed successfully with 100 per cent indigenous resources.

● inducted in the Indian Army.

P17A class frigates

● The P17A class frigates are being built using indigenously developed steel and fitted

with weapons and sensors along with Integrated Platform Management System.

● Ships have stealth features.

Parliament of World’s Religions

● held for the first time in 1893, from September 11 to September 27,

● an attempt to create a global dialogue of faiths, saw eminent personalities from around

the world at the same forum.

● Swami Vivekananda addressed the audience first on September 11 followed by the

closing speech on September 27.

● He stressed upon world harmony, and how religions, while co-existing with one another,

must preserve his individuality and grow according to his own law of growth.

Virtual Courts

● Virtual Court is a concept aimed at eliminating presence of litigant or lawyer in the court

and adjudication of the case online.



● Recently, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances, Law

and Justice has presented its report “Functioning of the Virtual Courts/Courts

Proceedings through VideoConferencing”.

● a full-fledged virtual court should be piloted in the first instance and recommends the

continuation of virtual courts in a post-Covid-19 scenario.

● It argued that transfer of certain categories of cases, like cases pertaining to traffic

challans or other petty offences, from regular court establishments to virtual courts will

reduce the pendency of cases.

e-Courts Project

● Submitted by e-Committee, Supreme Court of India with a vision to transform the Indian

Judiciary by ICT enablement of Courts.

● The e-Courts Mission Mode Project, is a pan-India Project, monitored and funded by the

Department of Justice, Ministry of Law and Justice, for the District Courts across the

country..

Criminalization of Politics

● It implies that the criminals are entering the election fray and contesting elections and

even getting elected to the Parliament and state legislature.

● Post 2019 elections, 43% of Lok Sabha members face criminal charges with 29% of

them are facing serious criminal charges such as murder, rape and kidnapping, while

84% have self-declared assets worth more than Rs. 1 crore.

● Reasons for Criminalization: include- nexus between the criminals and politicians,

use of money and muscle power in elections, delays in criminal justice system, lack of

value-based politics, tolerance to criminal candidates, First Past the Post (FPTP)

electoral system doesn’t discourage criminals from contesting elections etc.

Hybrid Warfare

● It refers to using non-military tools to achieve dominance or damage, subvert or

influence. These tools include information pollution, perception management and

propaganda.

● Cyber Attacks: This may include attacks on critical infrastructure like power grids,

business systems, and defence systems.

● These may be used to disrupt economic activities, undermine institutions, and discredit

political leadership and the intelligentsia.

Parliament Session

● The President of India is empowered to summon each House of Parliament

● The maximum gap between two sessions of Parliament cannot be more than six

months. That means the Parliament should meet at least twice a year.

● A ‘session’ of Parliament is the period between the first sitting of a House and its

prorogation.

● three sessions in a year, viz,



○ Budget Session (February to May)

○ Monsoon Session (July to September)

○ Winter Session (November to December)

● The period between the prorogation of a House and its reassembly in a new session is

called ‘recess’.

● Meetings of Session:

○ Each meeting of a day consists of two sittings, that is, a morning sitting from 11

am to 1 pm and post-lunch sitting from 2 pm to 6 pm.

● Termination of Session:

○ A sitting of Parliament can be terminated by adjournment or adjournment sine die

or prorogation or dissolution (in the case of the Lok Sabha).

● Adjournment: It suspends the work in a sitting for a specified time, which may be hours,

days or weeks.

● Adjournment sine die: It means terminating a sitting of Parliament for an indefinite

period.

● In other words, when the House is adjourned without naming a day for reassembly.

● The power of adjournment as well as adjournment sine die lies with the presiding

officer (Speaker or Chairman) of the House.

● Prorogation: The President issues a notification for prorogation of the session after the

business of a session is completed and the presiding officer declares the House

adjourned sine die.

● The President can also prorogue the House while in session.

● Dissolution: Only the Lok Sabha is subject to dissolution. Rajya Sabha, being a

permanent House, is not subject to dissolution.

○ A dissolution ends the life of the existing House, and a new House is constituted

after general elections are held.

○ The President is empowered to dissolve the Lok Sabha.

Adjournment Motion

● Recently, an adjournment motion notice was moved in the Lok Sabha over the

surveillance of key Indian personalities by a firm linked to the Chinese government.

● Adjournment motion is introduced only in the Lok Sabha to draw the attention of the

House to a definite matter of urgent public importance.

● an extraordinary device as it interrupts the normal business of the House. It needs the

support of 50 members to be admitted.

● The discussion on this motion should last for not less than two hours and thirty minutes.

● However, right to move a motion for an adjournment of the business of the House is

subject to the following restrictions. i.e. It should:

○ Raise a matter which is definite, factual, urgent and of public importance.

○ Not cover more than one matter.

○ Be restricted to a specific matter of recent occurrence.

○ Not raise a question of privilege.

○ Not revive discussion on a matter that has been discussed in the same session.

○ Not deal with any matter that is under adjudication of court.



○ Not raise any question that can be raised on a distinct motion.

National Hindi Day (14th Sept )

● Adopted as the official language of the Republic of India on 14th September, 1949.

● Kaka Kalelkar, Maithili Sharan Gupta, Hazari Prasad Dwivedi, Seth Govindadas made

important contributions to make Hindi the official language.

● Besides Hindi, English is the other official language (Article 343 of the Constitution).

● Hindi is also an eighth schedule language.

● Article 351 pertains to ‘Directive for development of the Hindi language’.

Supplementary Grants

● Supplementary Grant: It is granted when the amount authorised by the Parliament

through the appropriation act for a particular service for the current financial year is

found to be insufficient for that year.

● Article 115: Supplementary, additional or excess grants.

● These grants are presented and passed by the Parliament before the end of the financial

year.

● Article 116: Votes on account, votes of credit and exceptional grants.

● Other Grants:

● Additional Grant: It is granted when a need has arisen during the current financial year

for additional expenditure upon some new service not contemplated in the budget for

that year.

● Excess Grant : It is granted when money has been spent on any service during a

financial year in excess of the amount granted for that service in the budget for that year.

It is voted by the Lok Sabha after the financial year. Before the demands for excess

grants are submitted to the Lok Sabha for voting, they must be approved by the Public

Accounts Committee of Parliament.

● Vote of Credit: It is granted for meeting an unexpected demand upon the resources of

India, when on account of the magnitude or the indefinite character of the service, the

demand cannot be stated with the details ordinarily given in a budget. Hence, it is like a

blank cheque given to the Executive by the Lok Sabha.

● Exceptional Grant: It is granted for a special purpose and forms no part of the current

service of any financial year.

● Token Grant: It is granted when funds to meet the proposed expenditure on a new

service can be made available by reappropriation. A demand for the grant of a token

sum (of Re 1) is submitted to the vote of the Lok Sabha and if assented, funds are made

available.

○ Reappropriation involves transfer of funds from one head to another. It does not

involve any additional expenditure.

● Votes on account, votes of credit and exceptional grants are specified in Article 116

of the constitution.

● Supplementary, additional, excess and exceptional grants and vote of credit are

regulated by the same procedure which is applicable in the case of a regular budget.



Enemy properties

● Properties that were left behind by the people who took citizenship of Pakistan and

China.

● Members of the Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister have asked the

government to consider selling enemy properties

● The Enemy Property Act, enacted in 1968, provided for the continuous vesting of enemy

property in the Custodian of Enemy Property for India.Amended in 2017

● Expanded the definition of the term enemy subject and enemy firm: To include

● The legal heir and successor of an enemy, whether a citizen of India or a citizen of a

country which is not an enemy and

● The succeeding firm of an enemy firm, irrespective of the nationality of its members or

partners.

Aspirational Districts Programme(ADP)

● ADP was launched by the GOI in January 2018 to accelerate improvement in the Socio-

economic indicators of the most underdeveloped districts of the country.

● The programme is driven by the following ideas that signal a shift in the approach of the

government towards policy and governance:

○ Moving Beyond Economic Measures of Success

○ Enabling Equitable Regional Development

○ Driving Change through Cooperative and Competitive Federalism

● The programme focuses on practical and measurable social progress outcomes, in six

main themes that directly impact the quality of life as well as the economic productivity of

citizens. These are- Health and Nutrition, Education, Agriculture and Water

Resources, Financial Inclusion, Skill Development, and Basic Infrastructure.

● At the Central level, NITI Aayog is anchoring the programme and individual

Ministries have assumed responsibilities to drive the progress of the districts.

● The state governments are the main drivers of change. Each state has formed a

committee under their respective Chief Secretaries to implement as well as track the

programme.

● For each district, a central Prabhari Officer of the rank of Additional Secretary/ Joint

Secretary has been appointed to provide feedback and recommendations based on their

local level findings.

My Stamp on India’s First Anti Satellite Missile (A-SAT)

● Released by the Department of Posts on the occasion of Engineers Day 15th Sept.

● My Stamp: It is the brand name for personalized sheets of Postage Stamps of India Post

A-SAT Missile

● It is an interceptor missile that destroys or jams satellites in space.

● Two types of A-SATs: Kinetic and Non-Kinetic A-SATs.

● Kinetic A-SATs, like ballistic missiles physically strike an object in order to destroy it.



● Non-Kinetic A-SATs: A variety of nonphysical means can be used to disable or destroy a

space object. These include frequency jamming, blinding lasers or cyberattacks.

● India is only the 4th country to acquire such a specialised and modern capability after

US Russia & China.

Mission Shakti

● DRDO successfully conducted India’s first Anti-Satellite (A-SAT) missile test ‘Mission

Shakti’.

● It was launched from Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Island in Odisha on 27th March 2019.

● The interceptor missile was a three-stage missile with two solid rocket boosters.

Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY):

● Cabinet approves establishment of new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) at

Darbhanga, Bihar under PMSSY

● The PMSSY is implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

● Announced in 2003

● Objectives of correcting regional imbalances in the availability of affordable/ reliable

tertiary healthcare services , Infrastructure and also to augment facilities for quality

medical education in the country.

● Two components:

1. Setting up new AIIMS (All India Institute of Medical Sciences)

2. Upgradation of government medical colleges in various states.

● The project cost for upgradation of each medical college institution is shared by the

Centre and the state.

● At present, there are 13 AIIMS colleges in India

Pradhan Mantri Jan Vikas Karyakram( PMJVK )

● Implemented by Ministry of Minority Affairs.

● Objective: It seeks to provide better socio-economic infrastructure facilities to the

minority communities particularly in the field of education, health & skill development.

● Aims : to lessening of the gap between the national average and the minority

communities with regard to backwardness parameters.

● the Multi-sectoral Development Programme (MsDP), a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.

● Beneficiaries: Communities notified as minority communities under Section 2 (c) of

the National Commission for Minorities Act, 1992 would be taken as Minority

communities.

● At present Six communities namely Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Buddhists, Zoroastrians

(Parsis) and Jains have been notified.

Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

● Passed in 1967, the law aims at effective prevention of unlawful activities associations in

India.

● The Act assigns absolute power to the central government,

● It has death penalty and life imprisonment as highest punishments.



● Under UAPA, both Indian and foreign nationals can be charged. It will be applicable to

the offenders in the same manner, even if crime is committed on a foreign land, outside

India.

● Under the UAPA, the investigating agency can file a charge sheet in maximum 180 days

after the arrests and the duration can be extended further after intimating the court.

● As per amendments of 2019:

○ The Act empowers the Director General of National Investigation Agency (NIA) to

grant approval of seizure or attachment of property when the case is investigated

by the said agency.

○ The Act empowers the officers of the NIA, of the rank of Inspector or above, to

investigate cases of terrorism in addition to those conducted by the DSP or ACP

or above rank officer in the state.

National Investigation Agency (NIA)

● Recently The government has empowered the National Investigation Agency (NIA) to

investigate offences under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act

● Works under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

● Established under the National Investigation Agency Act 2008.

● It is a central agency to investigate and prosecute offences:

○ Affecting the sovereignty, security and integrity of India, security of State, friendly

relations with foreign States.

○ against atomic and nuclear facilities.

○ smuggling in High-Quality Counterfeit Indian Currency.

● It is also the Central Counter Terrorism Law Enforcement Agency.

● empowered to deal with terror related crimes across states without special permission

from the states.

Jurisdiction:

● A State Government may request the Central Government to hand over the investigation

of a case to the NIA, provided the case has been registered for the offences as

contained in the schedule to the NIA Act.

● Central Government can also order NIA to take over investigation of any scheduled

offense anywhere in the India.

Special NIA Courts:

● Various Special Courts have been notified by the Central Government of India.

● Any question as to the jurisdiction of these courts is decided by the Central Government.

● These are presided over by a judge appointed by the Central Government on the

recommendation of the Chief Justice of the High Court with jurisdiction in that region.

● Supreme Court of India has also been empowered to transfer the cases from one

special court to any other special court within or outside the state.

● The NIA Special Courts are empowered with all powers of the court of sessions under

Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 for trial of any offense.



● Appeals: An appeal from any judgement, sentence or order, not being an interlocutory

order, of a Special Court lies to the High Court both on facts and on law. State

Governments have also been empowered to appoint one or more such special courts in

their states.

Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)

● Constituted by the GoI in 1986 under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances

Act, 1985.

● under the Ministry of Home Affairs.

● Article 47 of the Indian Constitution which directs the State to endeavour to bring about

prohibition of the consumption, except for medicinal purposes, of intoxicating drugs

injurious to health.

● Drug abuse control is the responsibility of the central government.

Other Central Intelligence And Investigative Agencies of India

● National Counter-Terrorism Center (NCTC)

● Intelligence Bureau (IB)

● Research and Analysis Wing (RAW)

● Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI)

● Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB)

● Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI)

● The Enforcement Department (ED)

National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)

● It is a statutory body established on 12th October, 1993 under the Protection of Human

Rights Act (PHRA), 1993.

● The Act also provides for the creation of the State Human Rights Commission as well.

● The chairperson is a retired chief justice of India or a judge of the Supreme Court.

● They are appointed by the President on the recommendations of a six-member

committee consisting of:

○ Prime Minister (head)

○ Speaker of the Lok Sabha

○ Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha

○ Leaders of the Opposition in both the Houses of Parliament

○ Union Home Minister.

● They hold office for a term of three years or until they attain the age of 70 years,

whichever is earlier.

● Chairman or a member can be removed from his office by the President on the ground

of proved misbehaviour or incapacity.

Voice Vote



● Recently Rajya Sabha members of 12 opposition parties moved a no-confidence

resolution against Rajya Sabha Deputy Chairman over the passage of two controversial

farm Bills by the voice vote.

● It involves the speaker putting a question to the house and then asking the house to put

forward its opinion in the forms of ayes (yes) or noes.

● Based on a rough measure of which side was louder, the speaker decides if the motion

was passed or fell through.

● The advantage of a voice vote is that it is quick.

● The apparent disadvantage is that it is inaccurate, given that the speaker decides what

the opinion of the house is based on which side is louder.

E-GRAMSWARAJ PORTAL

● Ministry of Panchayati Raj has launched this portal to strengthen e-Governance in

Panchayati Raj Institutions across the country.

● Aims to bring in better transparency in the decentralised planning, progress

reporting and work-based accounting.

● It provides a single window for capturing Panchayat information with the complete

Profile of the Panchayat, details of Panchayat finances, asset details, activities

taken up through Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP) etc.

● For 2020-21, around 2.43 lakh Gram Panchayats have finalized their GPDP on e-

Gramswaraj.

What is “universal eligibility” condition ?

● The $1 billion World Bank loan to curb covid pandemic for India comes with a condition

of “universal eligibility” in procurements.

● This would mean that all preferential market access policies, including Public

Procurement Order, Micro Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) Policy, certain benefits

to start-ups, shall not be applicable on purchases made while implementing the national

project.

● Other conditions set by the World Bank:

● The World Bank would have the right to review the procurement documents,

inspect/audit all accounts, records and other files relating to the project. Compliance to

these conditions has been made mandatory for the funding.

●

Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB)

● Election Commission of India has completed one year of Chairmanship of the

Association of World Election Bodies (A-WEB).

About A-WEB:

● It is the largest association of Election Management Bodies (EMBs) worldwide.

● Established on October 14, 2013 in Song-do, South Korea.

● Permanent secretariat is located at Seoul.

● Aims to foster efficiency and effectiveness in conducting free, fair, transparent and

participative elections worldwide.



When can MPs be suspended from the House

● Eight Rajya Sabha MPs were suspended on September 21 for unruly behaviour in the

House.

● Power to suspend Rajya Sabha MPs:

● The Chairman of Rajya Sabha is empowered under Rule Number 255 to “direct any

Member whose conduct is in his opinion grossly disorderly to withdraw immediately”

from the House.

● Unlike the Speaker, however, the Rajya Sabha Chairman does not have the power to

suspend a Member. The House may, by another motion, terminate the suspension.

● The House may adopt a motion suspending the Member from the service of the House

for a period not exceeding the remainder of the session.

Select Committee of Rajya Sabha

● This is formed for examining a particular Bill and its membership is limited to MPs from

one House.

● They are chaired by MPs from the ruling party.

● Select Committees are constituted for a specific purpose, they are disbanded after their

report.

Parliament scrutinises legislative proposals (Bills) in two ways:

● By discussing it on the floor of the two Houses:

○ This is a legislative requirement; all Bills have to be taken up for debate.

● By referring a Bill to a parliamentary committee:

○ But, since Parliament meets for 70 to 80 days in a year, there is not enough time

to discuss every Bill in detail on the floor of the House. In such scenarios, the bill

are referred to a parliamentary committee.

● Referring of Bills to parliamentary committees is not mandatory.

When does a committee examine a Bill?

● Bills are not automatically sent to committees for examination.

● There are three broad paths by which a Bill can reach a committee.

● They are:

1. When the minister piloting the Bill recommends to the House that his Bill be

examined by a Select Committee of the House or a joint committee of both

Houses.

2. If the minister makes no such motion, it is up to the presiding officer of the House

to decide whether to send a Bill to a departmentally related Standing Committee.

3. Also, a Bill passed by one House can be sent by the other House to its Select

Committee.

● What happens after the the bill is referred to a committee?

1. The committee undertakes a detailed examination of the Bill.

2. It invites comments and suggestions from experts, stakeholders and citizens.



3. The government also appears before the committee to present its viewpoint.

4. All this results in a report that makes suggestions for strengthening the Bill.

5. The report of the committee is of a recommendatory nature.

● Time taken to submit reports:

○ The Bill can only progress in Parliament after the committee has submitted its

report. Usually, parliamentary committees are supposed to submit their reports in

three months, but sometimes it can take longer.

Indian Institutes of Information Technology Laws (Amendment) Bill 2020

● The bill seeks to give five IIITs in Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode – IIIT Bhopal,

IIIT Agartala, IIIT Surat, IIIT Bhagalpur and IIIT Raichur, a tag of Institutions of National

importance.

● Currently there are 20 IIITs which are designated at institutions of national importance.

(Now 20 + 5 = 25)

● The Institutions of National importance would have the power to give degrees and and

categorise them as B.Tech, M.Tech or Ph.D. degree, which is currently issued by a

University of National Importance.

● The Institutes would then be able to attract more students to develop a strong

information technology research base in the country.

Swachh Vidyalaya Abhiyan

● Launched in 2014 by the then Ministry of Human Resource Development (now Ministry

of Education).

● Aim: to meet the Right to Education Act’s mandate that all schools must have separate

toilets for boys and girls.

● Central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) were roped in to implement the program.

● The programme norms require the CPSEs to build toilets with running water and hand

washing facilities.

● It also requires CPSEs to maintain the toilets for three to five years while charging the

annual expenses to their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) budgets.

● Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) recently submitted a report on the

performance of this program.

Key Highlights:

● Public sector units claimed to have constructed 1.4 lakh toilets in government schools as

part of a Right to Education project, but almost 40% of those surveyed were found to be

non-existent, partially constructed, or unused.

● Over 70% did not have running water facilities in the toilets, while 75% were not being

maintained hygienically.

● The objective of providing separate toilets for boys and girls was not fulfilled in 27% of

the schools, said the CAG.

Lok Adalat

● The term ‘Lok Adalat’ means ‘People’s Court’ and is based on Gandhian principles.



● It is one of the components of the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) system and

delivers informal, cheap and expeditious justice to the common people.

● The first Lok Adalat camp was organised in Gujarat in 1982 as a voluntary and

conciliatory agency without any statutory backing for its decisions.

● given statutory status under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987. The Act makes the

provisions relating to the organisation and functioning of the Lok Adalats.

● Organisation:

● The State/District Legal Services Authority or the Supreme Court/High Court/Taluk Legal

Services Committee may organise Lok Adalats in area as it thinks fit.

● an area shall consist of such number of serving or retired judicial officers and other

persons of the area as may be specified by the agency organising.

● Generally, a Lok Adalat consists of a judicial officer as the chairman and a lawyer

(advocate) and a social worker as members.

● National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) along with other Legal Services Institutions

conducts Lok Adalats.

Jurisdiction:

● dispute in respect of

○ Any case pending before any court, or

○ Any matter which is falling within the jurisdiction of any court and is not brought

before such court.

● Any case pending before the court can be referred to the Lok Adalat for settlement if:

● Parties agree to settle the dispute in the Lok Adalat or one of the parties applies for

referral of the case to the Lok Adalat or court is satisfied that the matter can be solved by

a Lok Adalat.

● Matters such as matrimonial/family disputes, criminal (compoundable offences) cases,

land acquisition cases, labour disputes, workmen’s compensation cases, bank recovery

cases, etc. are being taken up in Lok Adalats.

● no jurisdiction in respect of any case or matter relating to an offence not compoundable

under any law. In other words, the offences which are non-compoundable under any law

fall outside the purview of the Lok Adalat.

Powers:

● Lok Adalat shall have the same powers as are vested in a Civil Court under the Code of

Civil Procedure (1908).

● a Lok Adalat shall have the requisite powers to specify its own procedure for the

determination of any dispute coming before it.

● An award of a Lok Adalat shall be deemed to be a decree of a Civil Court or an order of

any other court.

● Every award made by a Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the parties to the

dispute. No appeal (non-appealable) shall lie to any court against the award of the Lok

Adalat.

Benefits:

● No court fee and if court fee is already paid the amount will be refunded if the dispute is

settled at Lok Adalat.

● Procedural flexibility and speedy trial



● parties to the dispute can directly interact with the judge through their counsel which is

not possible in regular courts of law.

● A major drawback of the Lok Adalats is that if the parties do not arrive at any

compromise or settlement, the case is either returned to the court of law or the parties

are advised to seek a remedy in a court of law. This causes unnecessary delay in the

dispensation of justice.

Permanent Lok Adalats

● The Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 was amended in 2002

● to provide for the establishment of the Permanent Lok Adalats to deal with cases

pertaining to the public utility services like transport, postal, telegraph etc.

Features:

● set up as permanent bodies.

● Member: consist of

● A Chairman who is or has been a district judge or additional district judge or has held

judicial office higher in rank than that of the district judge and

● two other persons having adequate experience in public utility services.

● It shall not have jurisdiction in respect of any matter relating to an offence not

compoundable under any law.

● The jurisdiction of the Permanent Lok Adalats is upto Rs. 1 Crore.

● Before the dispute is brought before any court, any party to the dispute may make an

application to the Permanent Lok Adalat for settlement of the dispute.After an application

is made to the Permanent Lok Adalat, no party to that application shall invoke jurisdiction

of any court in the same dispute.

● Every award made by the Permanent Lok Adalat shall be final and binding on all the

parties thereto and shall be by a majority of the persons constituting the Permanent Lok

Adalat.

● It shall formulate the terms of a possible settlement and submit them to the parties for

their observations and in case the parties reach an agreement, the Permanent Lok

Adalat shall pass an award in terms thereof. In case parties to the dispute fail to reach

an agreement, the Permanent Lok Adalat shall decide the dispute on merits.

Democracy:

● Two types of democracy: direct and indirect.

● A direct democracy does not award full governance powers to the government.

● Instead, using the mechanisms of referendum, recall, initiative and plebiscite, direct

democracy allows the participation of every enfranchised citizen in approving many

major governmental decisions.

● An indirect democracy, on the other hand, vests elected representatives, who run the

government under a leader, with vast powers to take decisions on behalf of its people.

Direct Democracy devices - Referendum, Initiative, Recall, Plebiscite

● Direct democracy has 4 devices - Referendum, Initiative, Recall and Plebiscite



● Referendum - procedure in which a proposed legislation is referred to the electorate for

acceptance through direct voting.

● Initiative - method by means of which the people can propose a bill to the legislature for

enactment.

● Recall - way for voters to remove a representative or an officer before the expiry of

his/her term, when he fails to discharge his duties properly.

● Plebiscite - method of obtaining the opinion of people on any issue of public

importance. It is generally used to solve territorial disputes.

Online polls

● Online polls may be used to collect authentic data from millions of people within a short

time with barely any cost to the citizen and only an incremental increase in the IT

budgets of the government.

● four kinds of online polls,

● Decision polls, which determine by majority vote whether or not a proposal should be

implemented.

● Opinion polls, which provide opinion on specific matters (say, a proposed amendment

to a law or the budgetary allocation for greening initiatives).

● Sentiment polls, which gauge what the mood of the people is on the state of affairs

● Election polls, which help elect the representatives of the people who would form the

government

Assisted Reproductive Technology (Regulation) Bill, 2020 (ART)

Features & Provision

● Defination of ART to include all techniques that seek to obtain a pregnancy by handling

the sperm or the oocytes (immature egg cell) outside the human body and transferring

the gamete or the embryo into the reproductive system of a woman.

● ART services include gamete (sperm or oocyte) donation, in-vitro-fertilisation (fertilising

an egg in the lab), and gestational surrogacy (the child is not biologically related to

surrogate mother).

Regulation

● every ART clinic and the bank must be registered under the National Registry of Banks

and Clinics of India. The National Registry will be established to maintain database.

● A bank cannot supply gamete of a single donor to more than one commissioning couple

(couple seeking services).

● An oocyte donor should be an ever-married woman having at least one alive child of her

own (minimum three years of age).

● A child born through ART will be deemed to be a biological child of the commissioning

couple and will be entitled to the rights and privileges available to a natural child of the

commissioning couple.

● A donor will not have any parental rights over the child.

● The Bill provides that the National and State Boards for Surrogacy constituted under the

Surrogacy (Regulation) Bill, 2019 will act as the National and State Board respectively

for the regulation of ART services.



States Planning to Bypass Central Legislation

● states are exploring the possibilities of passing legislation under Article 254(2) of the

Constitution, to negate the enforcement of three Farm Acts passed by the Central

government under Entry 33 of the Concurrent List.

● Article 131 Provides exclusive jurisdiction to the Supreme Court to adjudicate matters

between the states and the Centre.

● Article 254(2): It enables a State government to pass a law, on any subject in the

Concurrent List, that may contradict a Central law, provided it gets the President’s

assent.

● However, the Parliament is not barred from enacting at any time any law with respect to

the same matter including a law adding to, amending, varying or repealing the law so

made by the Legislature of the State.

● Entry 33 of the Concurrent List mentions trade and commerce, production, supply and

distribution of domestic and imported products of an industry; foodstuffs, including

oilseeds and oils; cattle fodder; raw cotton and jute.

● Usually, when a state wants to amend a Central law made under one of the items in the

concurrent list, it needs the clearance of the Centre.

● When a state law contradicts a Central law on the same subject, the law passed by

Parliament prevails.

Distribution of Legislative Subjects

● Article 246 adopts a threefold distribution of legislative power between the Union and

the states.

● The subject-wise distribution of this power is given in the three lists of the Seventh

Schedule of the constitution:

● List-I- the Union List

● List-II- the State List

● List-III- the Concurrent List

Union List:

● Parliament has exclusive powers to make laws with respect to any of the matters

enumerated in the Union List.

● It includes the matters of national importance and the matters which require uniformity of

98 subjects (originally 97) like defence, banking, foreign affairs, currency, atomic

energy, insurance, communication, inter-state trade and commerce, census, audit and

so on.

State List:

● The state legislature has exclusive powers (not during emergency) to make laws with

respect to any of the matters enumerated in the State List.

● It includes the matters of regional and local importance and the matters which permit

diversity of interest.



● 59 subjects (originally 66) like public order, police, public health and sanitation,

agriculture, prisons, local government, fisheries, markets, theaters, gambling and so on.

Concurrent List:

● Both, the Parliament and state legislature can make laws with respect to any of the

matters enumerated in the Concurrent List.

● It includes the matters on which uniformity of legislation throughout the country is

desirable but not essential.

● However State legislation operates to the extent that it is not in conflict with the Central

legislation. At times, the very presence of a central legislation can negate the state’s

ability to legislate.

● 52 subjects (originally 47) like criminal law and procedure, civil procedure, marriage

and divorce, population control and family planning, electricity, labour welfare,economic

and social planning, drugs, newspapers, books and printing press, and others.

● The 42nd Amendment Act of 1976 transferred five subjects to Concurrent List from

State List i.e education, forests, weights and measures, protection of wild animals and

birds, and administration of justice; constitution and organisation of all courts except the

Supreme Court and the High Courts.

Other Features:

● The power to make laws with respect to residuary subjects i.e. the matters which are

not enumerated in any of the three lists, is vested in the Parliament.

● Parliament has power to make laws with respect to any part of the territory of India not

included in a state even though that matter is one which is enumerated in the State List.

● This provision is related to the Union Territories or the Acquired Territories (if any).

5th schedule

● The Fifth Schedule of the Constitution deals with the administration and control of

Scheduled Areas as well as of Scheduled Tribes residing in any State other than the

States of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram.

● ARTICLE 244(1)

● The Governor of each State having Scheduled Areas (SA) shall annually, or whenever

so required by the President, make a report to the President regarding the administration

of Scheduled Areas in that State.

● The Union Government shall have executive powers to give directions to the States as

to the administration of the Scheduled Areas.

Tribes Advisory Council (TAC)

● Composition: Consisting of not more than twenty members of whom, three-fourths shall

be the representatives of the Scheduled Tribes in the Legislative Assembly of the State

● Functions: The TAC shall advise on such matters pertaining to the welfare and the

advancement of the STs in the State as may be referred to them by the Governor.

6th schedule:

● It deals with the administration of the tribal areas in the four northeastern states of

Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram



● o safeguard the rights of the tribal population in these states.

● This special provision is provided under Article 244(2) and Article 275(1) of the

Constitution.

● based on the reports of Bardoloi Committee formed by the Constituent Assembly.

● The tribal areas in the four states of Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura and Mizoram have been

constituted as autonomous districts. But, they do not fall outside the executive authority

of the state concerned.

● The governor is empowered to organise and re-organise the autonomous districts.

● If there are different tribes in an autonomous district, the governor can divide the district

into several autonomous regions.

● Each autonomous district has a district council consisting of 30 members, of whom

four are nominated by the governor and the remaining 26 are elected on the basis of

adult franchise. The elected members hold office for a term of five years (unless the

council is dissolved earlier) and nominated members hold office during the pleasure of

the governor. Each autonomous region also has a separate regional council.

● The district and regional councils administer the areas under their jurisdiction. They can

make laws on certain specified matters like land, forests, canal water, shifting cultivation,

village administration, inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, social customs and

so on. But all such laws require the assent of the governor.

Global Counter-Terrorism Forum

● The GCTF is an informal, a-political, multilateral counterterrorism (CT) platform.

● Launched in 2011. India is a founding member of GCTF.

● Member Countries: 29 countries and the European Union.

● Mission: To reduce the vulnerability of people worldwide to terrorism by preventing,

combating, and prosecuting terrorist acts and countering incitement and recruitment to

terrorism.

Terrorist Travel Initiative:

● Recently, USA and Morocco launched Terrorist Travel Initiative under Global Counter

Terrorism Forum’s (GCTF).The initiative brings together stakeholders to share expertise

on how to develop and implement effective counterterrorism, watchlisting and screening

tools.

● Terrorist travel is being curbed at the moment through Advanced Passenger Information

(API), Passenger Name Record (PNR), and biometrics that have been prescribed in

Resolution 2396.

Counter Unmanned Aerial System (UAS) Threats:

● Earlier, USA and Germany launched initiative for Counter-UAS Threats.

● Purpose: The Initiative will raise awareness of how terrorists can use UAS to threaten

individuals and civilian targets and how countries can counter this specific threat.

Global Counter Terrorism Council:

● A registered non-profit International Think Tank

● Initiated by public spirited individuals to awaken further issues of national interest and

global conscience about terrorism as a threat to humanity, human security etc.



● Members: belong to different faculties & background like senior bureaucrats,

academicians, officers from the armed forces & paramilitary services, etc.

Economy ..

GDP Contracted by 23.9% in First Quarter

● In any economy, the GDP growth is generated from one of the four engines of growth.

i.e. private consumption, demand generated by private sector businesses, demand

generated by government and exports.

Basic Terms :

➢ Gross Domestic Product (GDP):GDP is the market value of all the final goods and

services produced within a country for a given time period.

➢ Net Domestic Product (NDP): NDP is calculated by deducting the depreciation of plant

and Machinery from GDP.

➢ NDP = Gross Domestic Product - Depreciation

➢ Gross National Product (GNP):GNP is the value of all final goods and services

produced by the residents of a country in a financial year (i.e., 1st April to 31st March of

the next year in India).

➢ While Calculating GNP, income of foreigners in a country is excluded but income of

people who are living outside of that country is included. The value of GNP is calculated

on the basis of GDP.



➢ Net National Product (NNP) in an economy is the GNP after deducting the loss due to

depreciation.

➢ Gross Value Added = GDP + subsidies on products - taxes on products

Operation Twist

● Operation Twist is the name given to a USA Federal Reserve monetary policy operation,

● which involves the purchase and sale of government securities to boost the economy by

bringing down long-term interest rates.

● It is now being used for similar measures taken by RBI in Indian context as well.

Special Open Market Operations by RBI

● Open Market Operations is the simultaneous sale and purchase of government

securities and treasury bills by RBI.

● To regulate the money supply in the economy.

● RBI carries out the OMO through commercial banks and does not directly deal with the

public.

Quantitative tools

● control the extent of money supply by changing the Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR), or bank

rate or open market operations.

Qualitative tools

● include persuasion by the Central bank in order to make commercial banks discourage

or encourage lending which is done through moral suasion, margin requirement, etc.

Monetary Policy

● The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) uses monetary policy to control inflation, interest rates,

supply of money and credit availability.

● The RBI has a government-constituted Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) which is

tasked with framing monetary policy Report using tools like the repo rate, reverse repo

rate, bank rate, Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR).

Basic Terms:

➢ The repo rate, also known as the policy rate, is the interest rate at which the RBI

provides loans to banks.

➢ The reverse repo is the rate at which commercial banks park their money with the

central bank (RBI)

➢ The RBI increases the Repo Rate during the time of inflation and decreases the Repo

Rate during the time of deflation and low growth.

➢ Bank rate is the rate charged by the RBI for lending funds to commercial banks.

➢ Cash Reserve Ratio: Banks are required to hold a certain proportion of their deposits in

the form of cash. This minimum ratio (that is the part of the total deposits to be held as

cash) is stipulated by the RBI and is known as the CRR.Bank earns no interest rate or

profit on this.Bank cannot lend it to anyone.



➢ Statutory Liquidity Ratio (SLR)- As the name indicates banks have to set aside this

much money into liquid assets such as gold or RBI approved securities mostly

government securities. Banks earn interest on securities but as yield on govt securities is

much lower banks earn that much less interest.

➢ Liquidity Adjustment Facility (LAF): is a tool used in monetary policy by the RBI, that

allows banks to borrow money through repurchase agreements (repos) or for banks to

make loans to the RBI through reverse repo agreements.

➢ Marginal Standing Facility (MSF): is a window for scheduled banks to borrow overnight

from the RBI in an emergency situation when interbank liquidity dries up

completely.Under interbank lending, banks lend funds to one another for a specified

term.( 3% of their deposits )

National Institute of Rural Development and Panchayati Raj

● Autonomous organisation under the Union Ministry of Rural Development.

● It is a premier national centre of excellence in rural development and Panchayati Raj.

● It builds capacities of rural development functionaries, elected representatives of

Panchayati Raj Institutions, bankers, Non-Governmental Organizations and other

stakeholders through interrelated activities of training, research and consultancy.

● The Institute is located in Hyderabad (Telangana).

National Company Law Appellate Tribunal

● constituted under Section 410 of the Companies Act, 2013

● to hear appeals against the orders of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).

● It is also the appellate tribunal for orders passed by the NCLT(s) under Section 61 of the

Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC), 2016, and for orders passed by the Insolvency

and Bankruptcy Board of India (IBBI) under Sections 202 and 211 of the IBC.

● Any person aggrieved by any order of the NCLAT may file an appeal to the Supreme

Court.

National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT)

● a quasi-judicial body in India that adjudicates issues relating to companies in India.

● Constituted under section 408 of the Companies Act, 2013.

● To exercising equitable jurisdiction, which was earlier being exercised by the High Court

or the Central Government. The Tribunal has powers to regulate its own procedures.

● Composition: President (Justice M.M. Kumar) and judicial and technical members, as

necessary.

● Structure : The NCLT has eleven benches, two at New Delhi (one being the principal

bench) and one each at Ahmedabad, Allahabad, Bengaluru, Chandigarh, Chennai,

Guwahati, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Mumbai.

● The establishment of the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT) consolidates the

corporate jurisdiction of the following authorities:

○ Company Law Board

○ Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.



○ The Appellate Authority for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction

○ Jurisdiction and powers relating to winding up restructuring and other such

provisions, vested in the High Courts.

Green Term Ahead Market (GTAM)

● Central Electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) approved Green term ahead market

(GTAM) contracts on the Indian Energy Exchange (IEX) platform.

● It is an alternative new model introduced for selling off the power by the renewable

developers in the open market without getting into long term PPAs.

● provide an exclusive platform for short-term trading of Renewable Energy.

Indian Energy Exchange (IEX)

● IEX is the first and largest energy exchange in India

● providing a nationwide, automated trading platform for physical delivery of electricity,

Renewable Energy Certificates and Energy Saving Certificates.

● IEX is regulated by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission.

Renewable purchase obligation (RPO)

● Instituted in 2011

● RPO is a mechanism by which the obligated entities are obliged to purchase certain

percentage of electricity from Renewable Energy sources, as a percentage of the total

consumption of electricity.

● Obligated Entities include Discoms, Open Access Consumers and Captive power

producers.

● RPOs are categorized as Solar and Non Solar RPO.

● RPOs are provided under Electricity Act 2003 and the National Tariff Policy 2006.

Renewable Energy Certificates (RECs)

● a market-based instrument to promote renewable sources of energy and development of

the market in electricity.

○ One REC is created when one megawatt hour of electricity is generated from an

eligible renewable energy source.

● REC acts as a tracking mechanism for solar, wind, and other green energies as they

flow into the power grid.

● RECs go by many names, including Green tag, Tradable Renewable Certificates

(TRCs), Renewable Electricity Certificates, or Renewable Energy Credits.

● In India, RECs are traded on two power exchanges — Indian Energy Exchange (IEX)

and Power Exchange of India (PXIL).

Pradhan Mantri KISAN Sampada Yojana

● The SAMPADA is Scheme for Agro-Marine Processing and Development of Agro-

Processing Clusters.

● Approved in 2017 under 14th Finance Commission. It was then renamed as Pradhan

Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana.



● The main aim of the scheme is to modernize agricultural processing and to decrease

agri-waste.

● The Pradhan Mantri KISAN Sampada Yojana is an umbrella scheme.

● The following are to be implemented under the scheme

○ Mega Food Parks

○ Integrated Cold Chains, Preservation infrastructure, value addition infrastructure

○ Infrastructure for Agro Processing Clusters

○ Creation and Expansion of food processing and preservation capacities

○ Food safety and Quality assurance infrastructure

○ Human Resources and Institutions

○ Scheme for creation of backward and forward linkages.

Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS):

● Introduced in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 w.e.f. 1st April 2015

● objective to offset infrastructural inefficiencies and associated costs involved in

exporting goods/products which are produced /manufactured in India including products

produced/manufactured by MSME Sector.

● Under MEIS, the government provides duty benefits depending on product and country.

● Rewards under the scheme are payable as percentage of realised free-on-board value

(of 2%, 3% and 5%)

● MEIS duty credit scrip can be transferred or used for payment of a number of duties

including the basic customs duty, Excise duty & service tax.

Remission of Duties or Taxes On Export Product (RoDTEP):

● The new scheme will be implemented from 1st January 2020

● Create a fully automated route for Input Tax Credit (ITC) in the GST to help increase

exports in India.

● It will reimburse all the taxes/duties/levies being charged at the Central/State/Local level

which are not currently refunded under any of the existing schemes but are incurred at

the manufacturing and distribution process.

● The Ministry of Finance has set up a committee under the chairmanship of former

commerce and home secretary GK Pillai to finalise the rates under RoDTEP that will

allow reimbursement of all embedded taxes including local levies paid on inputs by

exporters.

Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) Programme

● under the National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI)

programme by The Department of Science & Technology (DST) secretary

● To inspire the best talents to be entrepreneurs, to minimise the risk involved in pursuing

startups and to partially set off their opportunity costs of high paying jobs.

● It supports business idea over a period up to 18 months with a subsistence grant up to

Rs 30,000 per month with a maximum cap for total support of Rs 3.6 lakh.



National Initiative for Developing and Harnessing Innovations ( NIDHI )

● It was launched by the Department of Science and Technology

● An umbrella scheme to support ideas and innovations (knowledge-based and

technology-driven) into successful startups.

PRAYAS (Promoting and Accelerating Young and Aspiringinnovators & Startups)

● Under NIDHI, this programme has been initiated

● in which established Technology Business Incubators (TBI) are supported with

PRAYAS grant to support innovators and entrepreneurs with grants for ‘Proof of

Concept’ and developing prototypes.

Mundra Port

● largest private port of India located on the north shores of the Gulf of Kutch.

Major Port Authorities Bill, 2020

● Aims to regulate, operate and plan major ports in India. The bill will provide a greater

autonomy to ports in the country.

● The bill specifically deal with the major ports

● As per the Bill, ports will be managed by Port Authorities Board and every port will have

a port authority which will act under the leadership of a central board.

Port Authority Board

● The Port authority boards will replace the port trusts.

● The board comprises of chairperson, members from respective state governments,

representatives from Defence Ministry, Railway Ministry and Customs Department.

● The chairperson of the board will be appointed by the Central Government.

● The board will also include two to four independent members who will represent the

interests of the port authorities.

● The board will be empowered to use its properties and fix scales of rates for assets.

Major Ports in India

● Ports are under concurrent list.

● The Major Ports are administered by the central government’s shipping ministry, minor

ports are under the jurisdiction of respective State Governments.

● Currently Thirteen major ports: out of which 12 are operated under the government of

India while one is run by a corporation (Ennore Port).

● The Union Cabinet has given its 'in-principle' approval for setting up a major port at

Enayam near Colachel in Tamil Nadu(2016) & Vadhavan near Dahanu in

Maharashtra(2020).

● On western coast from North to South:

● Kandala or Deendayal Port (Gujrat): built after partition, Known as Tidal Port -

Largest port by volume of cargo handled - highest profit earning seaports in India

and the centre for exporting grains and importing oil.



● Mumbai (MH): Oldest modern port - largest Natural port - handles around one-

fifth of India's foreign trade - Mumbai harbour is also known as 'Front Bay'

● Jawaharlal Nehru Port or Nhava Sheva(MH): largest container port - Largest

Artificial Port - 8th in the world in terms of traffic handling capacity.

● Mormugao(Goa): Estuary of the river Zuari - leading iron ore exporting

● New Manglore or Panambur Port(Karnataka): Gurupura river - all-weather

port -

● Cochin(Kerala): between two islands, namely Willingdon and Vallarpadam -

export mainly consists of tea, coffee and spices - natural gateway of the South-

West India.

● on East Coast from north to south:

1. Kolkata(WB): 'Gateway of Eastern India' - Only riverine major port on Hugali

river - known as a Diamond Harbour - twin dock systems Kolkata & Haldia

2. Paradeep(Odisha): river Mahanadi - deals with iron-ore and coal - has its

railway system - Deepest port of India -

3. Vishakhapatnam(AP): located on a creek where the Narava Gedda joins the

sea

4. Ennore or Kamarajar Port Limited(TN): first corporate port - privately owned

port. - both road and railway links - transportation of coal - registered as a public

company with 68% stake held by government.

5. Chennai(TN): second largest port of India after JNPT.

6. Tuticorin or V.O.Chidambaranar Port(TN) : located in the Gulf of Mannar. -

artificial harbour - the pearl city.

● Port Blair is located in Andaman and Nicobar islands: Youngest major sea

port in India

SAROD-Ports launched

● Society for Affordable Redressal of Disputes – Ports.

● It was established under Societies Registration Act, 1860.

● Launched by the Union Shipping Ministry.

● members from Indian Ports Association (IPA) and Indian Private Ports and Terminals

Association (IPTTA).

● It is Affordable Dispute Redressal Mechanism for all kind of disputes of maritime sector.

● lead to saving huge amounts of legal expenditure and time.

Landlord Port Model

● In the landlord port model, the publicly governed port authority acts as a regulatory body

and as landlord while private companies carry out port operations—mainly cargo-

handling activities.

● The port authority maintains ownership of the port while the infrastructure is leased to

private firms that provide and maintain their own superstructure and install their own

equipment to handle cargo.



● In return, the landlord port gets a share of the revenue from the private entity.

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF RUDSETI (NAR)

● E-Foundation stone laying ceremony of the new training Institute building of National

Academy of RUDSETI (NAR) in Bengaluru was held.

● NAR is a resource organization committed to Entrepreneurship Development through

motivation, training and facilitation.

● It is a joint venture promoted by two public sector Banks and an Educational Trust of Sri

Kshetra Dharmasthala.

● National Academy of RUDSETI (NAR), an offshoot of RUDSETI movement is

spearheading the concept by Training the Trainers/facilitators and mentoring the Rural

Self Employment Training Institutes (RSETIs) established across the country.

● RSETIs are unique initiative where State Governments, the Union Govt.and the

commercial Banks are working together to address the issue of rural poverty.

Business Reforms Action Plan

● The plan was released by the Department of Industrial Promotion and Internal Trade

DPIIT-World Bank.

● launched since 2015. helps to improve Ease of Doing Business

● It comprises of 180 reforms (187 reform action points) to be implemented by 19 state

departments.

● Among them, Andhra Pradesh achieved 100% compliance to 187 reform action points.

Development Finance Institution (DFI)

● Essentially to fill the gap in long-term finance for infrastructure sectors.

● It will be used to finance both social and economic infrastructure projects identified under

the National Infrastructure Pipeline (NIP).

● DFIs often lend at low and stable rates of interest to promote long-term investments with

considerable social benefits.

● DFIs are also known as Development banks

Start-Up Village Entrepreneurship Programme (SVEP)

● a sub-scheme since 2016. Implemented by Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana –National

Rural Livelihoods Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development,

● Providing self-employment opportunities with financial assistance and training in

business management and soft skills while creating local community cadres for

promotion of enterprises.

● SVEP promotes both individual and group enterprises, set-up and promote enterprises

majorly on manufacturing, trading and service sectors.

● addresses three major pillars of rural start-ups namely finances, incubation and skill

ecosystems.

● Develop a pool of Community Resource Persons-Enterprise Promotion (CRP-EP) who

are local and support entrepreneurs setting-up rural enterprises



Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana – National Rural Livelihood Mission (DAY-

NRLM)

● launched as ‘Aajeevika – National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) 2011

● launched by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD)

● renamed as DAY-NRLM in 2015.

● DAY-NRLM lays special emphasis on targeting the poorest of the poor and the most

vulnerable communities and their financial inclusion.

● Additionally, the poor would also be enabled to attain improved access to rights, public

services, and other entitlements.

● The scheme started with an agenda to cover 7 Crore rural poor households via Self Help

Groups (SHGs) and federated institutions and support them for livelihoods collectives in

8-10 years.

Forex Reserves

● Foreign exchange reserves are assets denominated in a foreign currency that are held

on reserve by a central bank.

● These may include foreign currencies(capital inflows to the capital markets, Foreign

Direct Investment and external commercial borrowings),Gold, bonds, treasury bills,SDRs

(special drawing rights) and other government securities.

● The reserves are managed by the Reserve Bank of India for the Indian government and

the main component is foreign currency assets.

● The Forex reserves of India consist of below four categories:

○ Foreign Currency Assets

○ Gold

○ Special Drawing Rights (SDRs)

○ Reserve Tranche Position

Special Drawing Rights : SDR

● The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on

the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these

currencies.

● The SDR serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international

organizations.

● The SDR basket of currencies includes the U.S. dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, pound

sterling and the Chinese renminbi (included in 2016).

● The SDR currency value is calculated daily (except on IMF holidays or whenever the

IMF is closed for business) and the valuation basket is reviewed and adjusted every five

years.

Reserve Tranche

● A reserve tranche is a portion of the required quota of currency each member country

must provide to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that can be utilized for its own

purposes—without a service fee or economic reform conditions.



● The IMF is funded through its members and their quota contributions. The reserve

tranche is basically an emergency account that IMF members can access at any time

without agreeing to conditions or paying a service fee.

● Initially, member nations’ reserve tranches are 25% of their quota, but this position can

change according to any lending that the IMF does with its holdings of the member’s

currency.

Resolution Plan by RBI for Covid-19 Stressed Assets

● based on the recommendations of the K.V. Kamath committee.

● The panel was formed to make recommendations on financial parameters to be

considered for one-time restructuring of loans that were affected by COVID-19

pandemic.

● Eligibility: Only those borrowers which were classified as standard and with arrears less

than 30 days as at March 1, 2020 are eligible under the Framework.

● The resolution plans shall take into account the pre-Covid-19 operating and

financial performance of the borrower and impact of Covid-19 on its operating and

financial performance.

● RBI allowed lenders to grant a loan moratorium for three months on Equated Monthly

instalments (EMIs) falling due between March 1 and May 31, 2020. Later, it extended

this for another three months until August 31.

● A moratorium is not a loan waiver and does not offer any discount on interest payout.

But it provides stressed customers extra time to repay without their accounts being

labelled non-performing assets (NPA) or their credit score being affected - a major worry

for small and medium businesses.

Committee on Content Regulation in Government Advertising (CCRGA):

● As per the directions of Supreme Court in 2015, the Government of India had set up a

three member body in 2016

● Aim: to look into content regulation of government funded advertisements in all media

platforms.

● states are mandated to set up their respective three member committees on Content

Regulation of Government Advertisements.

● Karnataka, Goa, Mizoram and Nagaland constituted committees

Power’s of CCRGA :

● It is empowered to address complaints from the general public and can also take suo-

moto cognizance of any violation of the Supreme Court guidelines and recommend

corrective actions.

● The Committee may, if necessary, also decide to summon the concerned official of the

Govt. agencies dealing with release of advertisements in the event of undue delay in

responding to Committee’s notices.

Blue-Green Infra Policy



● It refers to urban planning where water bodies and land are interdependent, and grow

with the help of each other while offering environmental and social benefits.

● ‘Blue’ infrastructure refers to water bodies like rivers, canals, ponds, wetlands,

floodplains, and water treatment facilities.

● ‘Green’ stands for trees, lawns, hedgerows, parks, fields, and forests.

Infrastructure Investment Trust

● monetisation of assets of POWERGRID through Infrastructure Investment Trust (InvIT)

model.

● It is like a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of small amounts of money from

possible individual/institutional investors in infrastructure to earn a small portion of the

income as return.

● Regulated by: the SEBI (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014.

Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana

● to be implemented by Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying between

2020-21 and 2024-25.

Implementation:

● Central Sector Scheme: The project cost will be borne by the Central government.

● Centrally Sponsored Scheme: All the sub-components/activities will be implemented by

the States/UTs and the cost will be shared between Centre and State.

Key Features:

● Adopt ‘Cluster or Area-based Approaches’ and create fisheries clusters through

backward and forward linkages..

● Address the critical gaps in the fisheries sector and realize its potential.

● Creation of critical infrastructure including modernisation and strengthening of value

chain.

● The scheme aims to enhance fish production to 70 lakh tonnes by 2024-25.

● It aims to double income of fish farmers.

● The scheme will also aim at establishing finfish hatcheries, construction of biofloc ponds,

ornamental fish culture units, ice plants, installation of cages, fish feed plants, etc.

E-Gopala Application

● The application aims at improving breed improvement marketplace and information

portal for direct use of farmers.

● It will act as a digital platform in India for the fish farmers to manage livestock.

● This includes buying and selling of disease free germplasm and availability of quality

breeding services.

● The quality breeding services are veterinary first aid, artificial insemination and

vaccination.

EASE 2.0 Banking Reforms Index

● EASE: Enhanced Access and Service Excellence



on performance of Public Sector Banks (PSB) from March 2018-2020 was released and

best performing banks on EASE were felicitated.

-commissioned through Indian Banks’ Association and authored by Boston Consulting

Group

● EASE Agenda is aimed at institutionalizing CLEAN and SMART banking.

Performance:

● Overall Score: Increased by 37% between March-2019 and March-2020, with the

average EASE index score improving from 49.2 to 67.4 out of 100.

● Top Performing Banks: Bank of Baroda, State Bank of India, and erstwhile Oriental Bank

of Commerce

● Digital Banking: Nearly 4 crore active customers on mobile and internet banking.

● Customer service: Increase in number of call centres and inclusion of 13 regional

languages in customer service, enhanced doorstep banking support by 75,000+ Bank

Mitras etc.

● Easy loans: Turnaround time for retail loans reduced by from nearly 30 days to nearly 10

days.

● NPAs and Frauds: Gross NPAs reduced from Rs. 8.96 lakh crore in March-2018 to Rs.

6.78 lakh crore in March-2020.

EASE 1.0 :

● The EASE 1.0 report showed significant improvement in PSB performance in resolution

of Non Performing Assets (NPAs) transparently.

EASE 3.0

● A comprehensive agenda for smart, tech-enabled banking has been adopted for FY

2020-21, under which PSBs have initiated eShishu Mudra (app-based lending for instant

sanction of working capital up to Rs. 50,000) for straight-through processing of loans to

micro-enterprises.

● EASE 3.0 seeks to enhance ease of banking in all customer experiences, using

technology viz. Dial-a-loan, Partnerships with FinTechs and E-commerce companies,

Credit@click, Tech-enabled agriculture lending, EASE Banking Outlets etc.

New FDI Policy in Defence Sector

● allows the FDI through automatic approval to be increased from 49% to 74%.

● FDI in the defence sector shall be subject to scrutiny on the ground of National Security

and the Government reserves the right to review any foreign investment in the defence

sector that may affect national security.

● Strengthening Indigenous Manufacturing: Through more liberalised FDI policy the

government is seeking to attract foreign players to set up manufacturing units in India.

● The government has inaugurated two defence industrial corridors, in Tamil Nadu and in

Uttar Pradesh, to boost the flagship 'Make in India' programme

Foreign Direct Investment

● FDI is an investment made by a firm or individual in one country into business interests

located in another country.



● FDI takes place when an investor establishes foreign business operations or acquires

foreign business assets, including establishing ownership or controlling interest in a

foreign company.

● A threshold of 10 percent of equity ownership is required to qualify an investor as a

“foreign direct investor”.

● Routes through which India gets FDI:

● Automatic Route: In this, the foreign entity does not require the prior approval of the

government or the RBI.

● Government route: In this, the foreign entity has to take the approval of the

government.

○ The Foreign Investment Facilitation Portal (FIFP) facilitates the single window

clearance of applications which are through approval route.

○ This portal is administered by the Department for Promotion of Industry and

Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

NEED of FDI

● to meet the capital need , important source to fulfill the gap between income and

savings.

● It also results in technology up-gradation and efficient exploitation of natural resources

along with the development of basic infrastructure.

● It is also responsible for the balance of payment conditions and helps the recipient firms

to cope with competition in better ways.

● FDI is a great source of better technology and management, marketing networks and

offers competition.

Foreign Portfolio Investment

● the foreign entity merely buys equity shares of a company such as foreign stocks,

bonds, or other financial assets,

● FPI does not provide the investor with control over the business.

Foreign Institutional Investor (FII) ● FII refers to the group of investors who helps to bring the FPI in a country.

● Like Pension Funds, Mutual Funds,Investment Trust,Insurance or reinsurance

companies,Endowment Funds,Trustees,Bank

● It helps the recipient country companies to improve performance.

● The way through which foreign portfolio investment is to allow into the Indian stock

market is foreign institutional investors.

Need of FII:

● create non-debt creating foreign capital inflows and develops the Capital market in India,

lower the cost of capital for Indian enterprises and indirectly improve corporate

governance structures.

Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-Atal New India Challenge(ANIC)

● ARISE:Atal Research and Innovation for Small Enterprises (ARISE)



● National initiative to promote research & innovation and increase competitiveness of

Indian startups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

● Objective: To proactively collaborate with Ministries and the associated industries to

catalyse research, innovation and facilitate innovative solutions to sectoral problems.

● Administration:

● The initiative will be carried under the Atal Innovation Mission (AIM - an initiative by the

NITI Aayog).

● The programme will be driven by Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and four

ministries:

● Ministry of Defence; Mo Food Processing Industries;Mo Health and Family Welfare; and

Mo Housing and Urban Affairs.

● The initiative will help promote techno-preneurs who deserve to be supported because

of their immense potential of taking India forward.

Global Indices to Drive Reforms and Growth (GIRG) Exercise

● Objective: to fulfil the need to measure and monitor India's performance on various

important social and economic parameters and enable the utilisation of these indices as

tools for self-improvement, bring about reforms in policies, while improving last-mile

implementation of government schemes.

● NITI Aayog is the nodal agency for the MPI. It has also constituted a Multidimensional

Poverty Index Coordination Committee (MPICC).

● Global Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) is part of the government's decision to

monitor the performance of the country on 29 select global indices.

Five Star Villages Scheme

● Launched by The Department of Posts

● to ensure universal coverage of flagship postal schemes in rural areas of the country.

● launched on pilot basis in Maharashtra.

● The scheme will be implemented by a team of five Gramin Dak Sevaks who will be

assigned a village for marketing of all products, savings and insurance schemes of the

Department of Posts.

Rashtriya Gokul Mission

● Under Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.

● Aim : Aim is conservation and development of indigenous breeds in a focused and

scientific manner

● It is a project under National Programme for Bovine Breeding and Dairy Development.

● Objective : The objectives of this mission includes Conservation of indigenous breeds

and their development to improve their genetic makeup, enhancing the milk productivity

and distribution of disease free high genetic merit bulls for natural service.

● Implementation: “State Implementing Agencies (SIA) viz Livestock Development Boards.

● Scheme is implemented on 100% grant-in-aid basis and throughout the country.

● It includes establishment of Integrated Indigenous cattle centres “Gokul Gram”.



Ease of Doing Business Rankings of the States: DPIIT

● Rankings based on the State Business Reform Action Plan (State BRAP).

● joint initiative by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT)

and the World Bank to improve the overall business environment in the States.

● Top 3 : Andhra Pradesh Uttar Pradesh, Telangana

● Bottom 3: Tripura, Sikkim, Odisha.

Business Reform Action Plan (BRAP)

● It was launched in 2015.

● BRAP 2019 contains a list of 80 reforms (187 reform action points) to be implemented by

19 State departments.

● These reforms cover 12 business regulatory areas such as Access to Information, Single

Window System, Labour, Environment, etc.

● Objective : It was introduced to encourage a healthy competition between states.

● This would help in attracting investments and increasing Ease of Doing Business in each

State.

Ranking of States on Support to Startup Ecosystems: DPIIT

● Released by the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (Ministry of

Commerce & Industry).

● Objectives: The rankings were started with an objective of fostering competitiveness,

mutual learning and propel States and Union Territories (UTs) to work proactively

towards uplifting the startup ecosystem.

● States and UTs have been divided into two groups.

● Category Y: All UTs except Delhi and all States in North East India except Assam.

● Category X: All other States and UT of Delhi.

● Gujarat was the Best performer in Category X followed by Karnata and Kerala. Uttar

Pradesh and Tamil Nadu occupied the lowest positions.

● Andaman and Nicobar Islands was the Best performer in Category Y. Sikkim secured

the bottom place.

● Seed funding : It is the initial capital used when starting a business.

● Venture Funds: This generally comes after the seed funding round. It is a means of

equity financing for rapidly-growing private companies for expansion or purchase of a

company.



●

Government Initiatives:

● Start Up India Fund: Under the Startup India program, the Government created the

'Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) with a corpus of INR 10,000 crore.

- Managed by SIDBI

● Policy Reforms for Startups: These include requirement of distributable profits for

three years for a company to be eligible to issue shares with differential voting rights.

● Start-up Cells: The Cell will work towards redressal of grievances & tax-related issues

of Startups with respect to the administration of the Income-tax Act, 1961.

● National Startup Advisory Council: To advise the Centre on measures needed to

build a strong ecosystem for nurturing innovation and start-ups in the country.

● Aatmanirbhar Bharat ARISE-Atal New India Challenge: It is a national initiative to

promote research & innovation and increase competitiveness of Indian startups and

Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs).

● AIM-iCREST: It is an Incubator Capabilities Enhancement program launched by NITI

Aayog for a Robust Ecosystem focused on creating high performing Startups

Methods of Bridging the Fiscal Deficit

A. Borrowing from the market:

● The government has already raised its gross market borrowing target for the current

financial year by more than 50%, owing to the pandemic.

● Disadvantage:

○ High Debt

○ Higher Interest Rates: Higher borrowing can push up interest rates because

markets are nervous about the government's ability to repay.

○ Increase in Taxes:



○ Crowding out: When the government borrows from the private sector by selling

bonds, the private sector is left with less money to spend and invest. Therefore,

although government spending increases, private sector spending falls.

B. Monetisation of the Deficit:

● Monetising deficit means RBI purchases government bonds in the primary market and

prints more money to finance the debt.

● This is resorted to only when the government cannot borrow from the market (Banks and

other Financial Institutions like LIC).

● The money printed by the RBI is called high powered money or reserve money or

monetary base.

● RBI also conducts indirect monetization of deficit through Open Market Operations

(OMOs).

● Recently, RBI decided to infuse Rs. 10,000 crore liquidity in the banking system by

buying government securities through OMOs.

● Purchase of Government securities by the RBI helps in increasing the supply of the

money in the market and with banks. It helps to stabilize the market economy and

generates credibility in the investors.

● It is different from monetization as it is controlled by RBI instead of the government as it

is not as inflationary as deficit monetization.

Advantages:

● It has helped in the economic development of India as our domestic savings were less

than 9% of GDP and the capacity to raise loans was also limited during the early 1950s,

constraining the welfare activities of the government.

Disadvantages:

● Deficit financing is inflationary and is bad for the health of the central bank.

● It may push up interest rates and thus make it even more difficult for the government to

service the loan.

● It also poses threat to the financial stability of the economy.

Streets for People Challenge:

● Aim: It aims to inspire cities to create walking-friendly and vibrant streets.

● Eligibility: All cities with a population of over 5 lakh, and capital cities, can apply.

● It includes:

○ Creating pedestrian-friendly streets in high footfall areas,

○ Re-imagining under-flyover spaces,

○ Re-vitalizing dead neighbourhood spaces, and

○ Creating walking links through parks and institutional areas.

● Supporting Partners:

○ Fit India Mission, under Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports,

○ The India program of the Institute for Transport Development and Policy (ITDP).

Smart Cities Mission

● It is an innovative initiative under the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs,



● Launched in 2015

● a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.

● Objective: To promote cities that provide core infrastructure and give a decent quality of

life to its citizens, a clean and sustainable environment and application of Smart

Solutions.

Multi-Cap Fund

● Multi-cap funds are those that diversify their investments into all three categories (small,

medium, and large-cap).

● These funds invest by market capitalization of shares.

● Market capitalization is the aggregate valuation of the company based on its current

share price and the total number of outstanding stocks.

○ It is calculated by multiplying the current market price of the company's share

with the total outstanding shares of the company.

● A multi cap fund will be required to invest a minimum of 75% of its total assets in equities

and equity-related instruments.

Sonamura-Daudkandi Inland Waterway Route

● Waterway route over river Gumati.

● Daudkandi is in Bangladesh, while Sonamura is in Tripura, India.

Indo-Bangladesh Protocol Routes

● As per the IBP on Inland Water Transit & Trade, inland vessels of one country can

transit through the specified routes of the other country.

● The existing protocol routes are:

○ Kolkata-Pandu-Kolkata

○ Kolkata-Karimganj - Kolkata

○ Rajshahi-Dhulian-Rajshahi

○ Pandu-Karimganj-Pandu

○ Sonamura-Daudkandi

● Under the Protocol, 50:50 cargo sharing by Indian and Bangladeshi vessels is permitted

both for transit and inter country trade.

● Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the Competent Authority on Indian side.

River Gumati

● It is the largest and longest river of Tripura with a cumulative length of 180 km.

● Dumbur dam is built over the river.

● The river meets with river Meghna in Bangladesh.

Questions over FCRA nod for PM CARES

● The PM CARES Fund has received an exemption from all provisions of the Foreign

Contribution (Regulation) Act.

● However, it is alleged that PM CARES does not meet the precondition of being a body

established and owned by the government whose accounts are audited by the

Comptroller and Auditor-General (CAG).



Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act. ( FCRA )

● Enacted in 1976 and amended in 2010

● implemented by the Ministry of Home Affairs.

Objective: to regulate the acceptance and use of foreign contributions and to prevent

their use for activities detrimental to national interest.

● This includes gifts and monetary contributions from foreign sources, whether in Indian or

foreign currency.

● It is applicable to all associations,groups and NGOs which intend to receive foreign

donations.

● organisations are required to register themselves every five years.

● Who cannot receive foreign donations: Members of the legislature and political parties,

government officials, judges and media persons

● Individuals are permitted to accept foreign contributions without permission of MHA.

However, the monetary limit for acceptance of such foreign contributions shall be less

than Rs. 25,000.

● However, in 2017 the FCRA was amended through the Finance Bill to allow political

parties to receive funds from the Indian subsidiary of a foreign company or a foreign

company in which an Indian holds 50% or more shares.

● Organisations which wish to receive foreign donations must have a definite cultural,

economic, educational, religious or social programme, and must register under the Act,

and receive a clearance from the government.

● Section 50 of the Act allows the Central government to issue orders exempting any

organisation (apart from political parties) from the provisions of FCRA if it feels it

necessary or expedient in public interest, subject to conditions specified in the order.

Foreign Contribution Regulation (Amendment) Bill 2020

● Passed by the Parliament. The Bill amends the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act,

2010.

Purpose of the Bill

● The annual inflow of foreign contribution has almost doubled between the years 2010

and 2019, but many recipients of foreign contribution have not utilised the same for the

purpose

● Recently, the Union Home Ministry has suspended licenses of the six (NGOs) who were

alleged to have used foreign contributions for religious conversion.

● Many persons were not adhering to statutory compliances such as submission of annual

returns and maintenance of proper accounts.

● Such a situation could have adversely affected the internal security of the country

Aim of the Bill

● The bill is aimed at amending the provisions of the FCRA act to streamline the funding

procedure.

● The bill aims to increase transparency and accountability.

● It also aims to strengthen the compliance mechanism in the utilisation



Provision of the Bill in comparison with FCRA 2010

● Prohibition to accept foreign contribution: The Bill bars public servants from

receiving foreign contributions.

● Public servant includes any person who is in service or pay of the government, or

remunerated by the government for the performance of any public duty.

● The FCRA 2010 also bars certain persons to accept any foreign contribution. These

include: election candidates, editor or publisher of a newspaper, judges, government

servants, members of any legislature, and political parties, among others.

● Transfer of foreign contribution: The Bill prohibits the transfer of foreign contribution

to any other person.

● The term ‘person’ under the Bill includes an individual, an association, or a registered

company.

● The FCRA 2010 allows transfer of foreign contributions to persons registered to accept

foreign contributions.

● Aadhaar for registration: The Bill makes Aadhaar number mandatory for all office

bearers, directors or key functionaries of a person receiving foreign contribution, as an

identification document.

● In case of a foreigner, a copy of the passport or the Overseas Citizen of India card for

identification is required.

● FCRA account: The Bill states that foreign contribution must be received only in an

account designated by the bank as FCRA account in such branches of the State Bank of

India, New Delhi. No funds other than the foreign contribution should be received or

deposited in this account.

● The person may open another FCRA account in any scheduled bank of their choice for

keeping or utilising the received contribution.

● Restriction in utilisation of foreign contribution: The Bill allows the government to

restrict usage of unutilised foreign contribution. This may be done if, based on an inquiry

the government believes that such person has contravened provisions of the FCRA.

● Reduction in use of foreign contribution for administrative purposes: The Bill

proposes that not more than 20% of the total foreign funds received could be defrayed

for administrative expenses. In FCRA 2010 the limit was 50%.

● Surrender of certificate: The Bill allows the central government to permit a person to

surrender their registration certificate.

● The government may do so if, post an inquiry, it is satisfied that such person has not

violated any provisions of the FCRA 2010, and the management of its foreign

contribution has been vested in an authority prescribed by the government.

Rajiv Mehrishi Panel

● It will measure the impact on the national economy and financial stability of waiving of

interest and Covid-19 related moratorium.

● It will also give suggestions to mitigate financial constraints of various sections of society

SAATHI Initiative



● Ministry of Tourism has partnered with the Quality Council of India (QCI), to assist

the Hospitality Industry through an initiative called SAATHI (System for Assessment,

Awareness and Training for Hospitality Industry).

● This initiative is in 3 phases:

○ Self Certification by the hotels

○ Webinars to builds capacities on the guidelines issued.

○ Site-assessment (optional) through QCI accredited agencies

● United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) has designated 2020 as the

Year of Tourism and Rural Development.

Pesticides Management Bill, 2020

● The Bill will regulate the business of pesticides and compensate farmers in case of

losses from the use of agrochemicals.

● Pesticide Data: It will empower farmers by providing them with all the information about

the strength and weakness of pesticides, the risk and alternatives. All information will be

available openly as data in digital format and in all languages.

● Compensation: The Bill has a unique feature in the form of a provision for

compensations in case there is any loss because of the spurious or low quality of

pesticides. If required, a central fund will be formed to take care of the compensations.

● Organic Pesticides: The Bill also intends to promote organic pesticides.

● Registration of Pesticide Manufacturers: All pesticide manufacturers have to be

registered and bound by the new Act, once it is passed. The advertisements of

pesticides will be regulated so there should be no confusion or no cheating by the

manufacturers.

● Top two crops for which pesticides are used Paddy & Cotton

Consumer Price Index ( CPI )

● It measures price changes from the perspective of a retail buyer.

● The retail inflation is measured by the Consumer Price Index (CPI).

● It is released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).

● The CPI calculates the difference in the price of commodities and services such as food,

medical care, education, electronics etc, which Indian consumers buy for use.

● The CPI has several sub-groups including food and beverages, fuel and light, housing

and clothing, bedding and footwear.

● Four types of CPI are as follows:

○ CPI for Industrial Workers (IW).

○ CPI for Agricultural Labourer (AL).

○ CPI for Rural Labourer (RL).

○ CPI (Rural/Urban/Combined).

● Of these, the first three are compiled by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour and

Employment. Fourth is compiled by the National Statistical Office (NSO) in the Ministry

of Statistics and Programme Implementation.

● Base Year for CPI is 2012.

● The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) uses CPI data to control inflation.



Wholesale Price Index

● It measures the changes in the prices of goods sold and traded in bulk by wholesale

businesses to other businesses.

● Published by the Office of Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.

● It is the most widely used inflation indicator in India.

● Major criticism for this index is that the general public does not buy products at

wholesale price.

● The base year 2011-12

CPI vs. WPI

● WPI, tracks inflation at the producer level and CPI captures changes in prices levels at

the consumer level.

● WPI does not capture changes in the prices of services, which CPI does.

● In April 2014, the RBI had adopted the CPI as its key measure of inflation.

Producer Price Index (PPI)

● The Government had set up a Working Group under the Chairmanship of Professor B.

N. Goldar on 21st August, 2014 to suggest the methodology for introducing Producer

Price Index (PPI) in India.

● an index used to calculate the movement of price from the seller’s point of view.

● measures the changes in price for goods and services sold to final and intermediate

demand

● The main objective of Producer Price Index (PPI) is to address rise in prices at the

producers level before they pass on to consumer and it excludes indirect taxes,

transport, trade margins etc.

● PPI is used as a measure of inflation.

Advantages of PPI

● It will reveal all the costs of production including hidden costs e.g. taxes, shipping

charges etc.

● It is internationally comparable

● It will show economy’s effectiveness in transferring goods and services from one level of

operation to another level.

● In 2019 The government has set up a working group under Niti Aayog member Ramesh

Chand to revise the current series of Wholesale Price Index (WPI) with base 2011-12

and devise a new Producer Price Index (PPI).

PRASHAD Scheme

● Old name PRASAD: ‘National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual

Augmentation Drive’

● New Name PRASHAD: National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual,

Heritage Augmentation Drive- Changed in 2017



● Launched by the Ministry of Tourism in the year 2014-15

● Objective of holistic development of identified pilgrimage destinations.

1. Rejuvenation and spiritual augmentation of important national/ global pilgrimage

and heritage sites.

2. Follow community-based development and create awareness among the local

communities.

3. Integrated tourism development of heritage city, local arts, culture, handicrafts,

cuisine, etc., to generate livelihood.

4. Strengthen the mechanism for bridging the infrastructural gaps.

Swadesh Darshan Scheme

● a Central Sector Scheme, was launched by Ministry of Tourism in 2014 -15

● Objective: for integrated development of theme based tourist circuits in the country.

● Under the scheme, the Ministry of Tourism provides Central Financial Assistance (CFA)

to State Governments/Union Territory Administrations for infrastructure development of

circuits.

● This scheme is envisioned to synergise with other schemes like Swachh Bharat

Abhiyan, Skill India, Make in India etc. with the idea of positioning the tourism sector as

a major engine for job creation, driving force for economic growth, building synergy with

various sectors to enable tourism to realise its potential.

Mekedatu project

● the construction of the Mekedatu balancing reservoir that has been proposed to store

water for drinking purposes.

● Mekedatu is a location along Cauvery in Kanakapura Taluk of Ramanagara District of

Karnataka.

● Karnataka wants a reservoir across Cauvery at Mekedatu, to meet Bengaluru’s water

problem.

● Tamil Nadu objected project argument was that the project would affect the flow of

Cauvery water to Tamil Nadu.

Parliamentary Committee Report on Startups

● Recommendations:

○ Indian start-ups need to reduce their dependence on China and the USA

○ The companies and Limited Liability Partnerships (LLPs) should be allowed to

invest in start-ups without being classified as Non-banking Financial Companies

(NBFCs) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to expand capital sources for start-

ups.

○ Abolition of Long Term Capital Gains (LTCG) tax on Collective Investment

Vehicles (CIVs) for at least the next two years to encourage investment in start-

ups and to drive a sharp post-pandemic revival.



● A Collective Investment Vehicles is any entity that allows investors to pool their money

and invest the pooled funds, rather than buying securities directly as individuals. It is

usually managed by a fund management company which is paid a fee for doing so.

● Examples of CIV: angel funds, alternate investment funds and investment LLP.

Startup India Scheme:

● Under Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, Ministry of Commerce

and Industry

● launched on the 16th of January, 2016.

● Aim: the promotion of startups, for generation of employment and wealth creation.

● Objective: intended to catalyse startup culture and build a strong and inclusive

ecosystem for innovation and entrepreneurship in India.

● Definition: A startup defined as an entity that is headquartered in India, which was

opened less than 10 years ago, and has an annual turnover less than ₹100 crore

(US$14 million).



Government Initiative for Startups

● Start-Up Village Entrepreneurship Programme:

○ The SVEP is propelling enterprises in rural areas and building rural

entrepreneurs during this pandemic.

○ implemented by Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana –National Rural Livelihoods

Mission (DAY-NRLM), Ministry of Rural Development

● NIDHI-EIR Programme:

○ Entrepreneurs in Residence (EIR) under the National Initiative for Developing

and Harnessing Innovations (NIDHI) programme was launched by Dept. of

Science and Technology (DST)

○ EIR programme is one of the programs introduced under NIDHI to inspire the

best talents to be entrepreneurs, to minimise the risk involved in pursuing start-

ups, and to partially set off their opportunity costs of high paying jobs.

● National Startup Advisory Council

○ to advice on measures needed to build a strong ecosystem for nurturing

innovation and startups in the country.

○ Chaired by Minster for Commerce & Industry, It will consist of the non-official

members, to be nominated by Central Government, from various categories like

founders of successful startups, veterans and persons capable of representing

interests of incubators and accelerators etc.

● Startup India’s Academia Alliance Programme

○ To fulfil the Government of India’s mission to promote the spirit of

entrepreneurship in the country, Startup India launched the Startup Academia

Alliance programme

○ It is a unique mentorship opportunity between academic scholars and startups

working in similar domains.

● The Start Up India Fund

Support to Self-Employment Schemes: MSME

● The Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) has announced

expansion of and doubling of support to beneficiary oriented Self-Employment schemes

aimed at contributing to Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan.

● The government will provide assistance to artisans engaged in Pottery Activity and

Beekeeping Activity.

● Previously, the Ministry of MSME approved a programme for the benefit of artisans

involved in manufacturing of Agarbatti under the Gramodyog Vikas Yojana.

● The Scheme of Fund for Regeneration of Traditional Industries (SFURTI) aims to make

traditional industries more productive and competitive by organizing the traditional

industries and artisans into clusters.

● Beekeeping Activity: It aims to create sustainable employment for the

beekeepers/farmers, help artisans adopt scientific Beekeeping & Management practices,

utilize available natural resources; and create awareness about the benefits of

beekeeping in cross pollination.



● ‘Apiary on Wheels’ is a unique concept designed by the KVIC for the easy upkeep and

migration of Bee Boxes having live Bee colonies.

● KVIC also launched a Honey Mission in 2017 under which it provides awareness,

training and ‘Bee Boxes’ along with Bee Colonies to the farmers.

● The Honey mission was in line with the ‘Sweet Revolution’, launched in 2016 to

promote beekeeping and associated activities.

Capital Gain Tax

● Any profit or gain that arises from the sale of a ‘capital asset’ is a capital gain. This gain

or profit comes under the category of ‘income’.

● Land, building, house property, vehicles, patents, trademarks, leasehold rights,

machinery, and jewellery are a few examples of capital assets.

● Tax on capital gain is called Capital gain Tax

● Long-term Capital Gains Tax: It is a levy on the profits from the sale of assets held for

more than a year.

● Short-term Capital Gains Tax: It applies to assets held for a year or less and is taxed

as ordinary income.

Securities Transaction Tax

● It is a tax levied at the time of purchase and sale of securities listed on stock exchanges

in India.

● Both purchaser and seller both need to pay 0.1% of share value as STT.



Policy on Promotion of City Compost

● Approved in 2016.

● Under the policy, assistance of Rs 1,500 per tonne of city compost will be provided to

fertilizer companies for marketing and promotion of city compost.

● Announced by the Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

● India currently produces close to 1.5 lakh tonnes of solid waste every day and its

biodegradable fraction ranges between 30 per cent and 70 per cent for various Indian

cities. This means there is a huge potential for compositing, the most natural form of

processing wet waste.

Aircraft (Amendment) Bill, 2020 passed in Parliament

● The Act regulates the manufacture, possession, use, operation, sale, import and export

of civil aircrafts and licensing of aerodromes.

● Key Features of the Bill:

● Provides statutory status to regulatory institutions like the Directorate General of Civil

Aviation (DGCA), the Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS) and the Aircraft Accident

Investigation Bureau (AAIB).

● DGCA powers: It will carry out oversight and regulatory functions with respect to

matters under the Bill.

● Powers of BCAS: It carries out regulatory oversight functions related to civil aviation

security.

● AAIB carries out investigations related to aircraft accidents and incidents.

● Penalty: The Bill proposes to increase the fine amount for violations of rules from ₹10

lakh to ₹1 crore for aviation industry players.

● Powers of central government: It may cancel the licences, certificates or approvals

granted to a person under the Act if the person contravenes any provision of the Act.

● Exemptions: The Act exempted aircrafts belonging to the naval, military, or air forces of

the Union.

● The Bill expands this exemption to include aircrafts belonging to any other armed forces

other than these three.

Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) programme

● 56th ITEC day was observed online by the High Commission of India in Dhaka.


● It is a flagship programme of the Government of India to provide development

assistance to developing countries across the globe.

● Administered by : the Ministry of External Affairs, India.

● Division of Development Partnership Administration (DPA) in the Ministry of External

Affairs is the nodal division for handling all capacity building programmes.

● Funding : fully funded by the Government of India.

● More than 10 thousand training slots are offered every year to more than 160 partner

countries for training courses in various areas like Accounts, Audit, Management, SME,

Rural Development, Parliamentary Affairs etc.



Essential Commodities( Amendment ) Bill 2020 Passed

● The Bill is meant to replace an ordinance promulgated in June, in the wake of the

COVID-19 lockdown.

● It proposes to deregulate the production, storage, movement and sale of several

foodstuffs from the list of essential commodities. Including cereals, pulses, edible oils

and onions & Potatoes except in the case of extraordinary circumstances.

● What are the extraordinary circumstances mentioned in the Bill? (i) war, (ii) famine,

(iii) extraordinary price rise and (iv) natural calamity of grave nature.

● It empowers the central government to regulate stock of essential commodities.

● Aims to remove fears of private investors of excessive regulatory interference in their

business operations.

● A stock limit may be imposed only if there is: (i) a 100% increase in retail price of

horticultural produce; and (ii) a 50% increase in the retail price of non-perishable

agricultural food items.

● Powers of Central Government under the Essential Commodities Act, 1955:

○ The central government can designate certain commodities as essential

commodities.

○ The central government may regulate or prohibit the production, supply,

distribution, trade, and commerce of such essential commodities.

Essential commodities

● There are seven commodities that are scheduled under the Essential Commodities Act,

1955.

○ Essential drugs

○ Fertilizers (Inorganic, organic or mixed)

○ Food stuffs including oils and edible oil seeds

○ Raw jute and jute textiles, hank yarn made from cotton

○ Petroleum and Petroleum products

○ Seeds of fruits and vegetables, and seeds of food crops; Seeds of cattle fodder

○ Jute Seeds and cotton seeds

● Tea, coffee do not come under essential commodities. It is put under the category of

beverages. Sugar has been included under Essential Commodities Act.

Banking Regulation (Amendment) Bill, 2020

● The bill aims to bring cooperative banks under the supervision of Reserve Bank of India.

● The amendment is not applicable to cooperative societies such as primary agricultural

credit societies and land mortgage banks.

Key Features:

● The amendment allows RBI to initiate a scheme to reconstruct or amalgamate without

imposing moratorium. The RBI shall prepare a scheme to secure proper management in

the interest of depositors, banking system or general public.



● It will regulate functioning of banks on aspects such as management, licensing, and

operation of banks.

● The bill allows the cooperative banks to issue equity and special shares to its members

or any other person residing within the area of operation. The cooperative bank shall not

reduce or withdraw its capital except as specified by RBI. Also, no person shall be

entitled to demand payment towards surrender of shares that are issued to him by the

cooperative bank.

● A person who is insolvent cannot be employed as Chairman of a cooperative bank. The

bill empowers RBI to remove the chairman is he is found unfit and appoint a suitable

person.

● The board of directors appointed by RBI should have at least 51% of members with

special knowledge or experience in areas such as banking, accounting, economics or

law. The bill empowers RBI to direct a cooperative bank to reconstitute its board.

● RBI under the amendment, shall exempt cooperative bank from certain provisions

through notification. The provisions can be related to appointment of chairman,

qualification of board of directors or types of employment.

Cooperative Banks

● Co-operative banks are financial entities established on a co-operative basis and

belonging to their members.

● This means that the customers of a co-operative bank are also its owners.

● Two categories - urban and rural.

Kosi Rail Mahasetu

● Connects Nirmali and Saraigarh districts of Bihar.

● Provides a shorter route to the Northeast.

● The bridge is of strategic importance along the India-Nepal border.

Scheme for Integrated Textile Parks

● SITP was launched in 2005.

● Objectives: To provide the industry with world-class state of the art infrastructure

facilities for setting up their textile units.To attract foreign investors to the domestic textile

sector.

● Under the SITP, infrastructure facilities for setting up of textile units are developed in a

Public-Private-Partnership (PPP) model.

● The Government of India grants upto 40% of the project cost

● Each Integrated Textile Park (ITP) under the scheme would normally have 50 units.

● A total of 59 textile parks have been sanctioned under SITP by the textiles ministry out of

which 22 textile parks have been completed.

● Further, the proposal to set up Mega Textile Parks by the Ministry of Textiles is at the

advanced stage of discussion.

Indian Textile Sector



● The sector accounts for 7% of India’s manufacturing output, 2% of GDP, 12% of exports

and employs directly and indirectly about 10 crore people.

● Owing to the abundant supply of raw material and labour, India is-

● The largest producer of cotton, accounting for 25% of the global output.

● The world’s second-largest producer of textiles and garments after China.

● The second-largest producer of man-made fibres — polyester and viscose.

Samarth Scheme for Textile Sector

● Implemented by Ministry of Textiles

● also known as Scheme for Capacity Building in the Textile Sector (SCBTS), was

approved by Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) in 2017

● In order to ensure steady supply of skilled manpower in the labour-intensive textile

sector.

● Objective: Provide demand driven, placement oriented National Skills Qualifications

Framework (NSQF) compliant skilling programmes to create jobs in the organized textile

and related sectors, covering the entire value chain of textile, excluding Spinning and

Weaving.

● Promote skilling and skill upgradation in the traditional sectors of handlooms,

handicrafts, sericulture and jute.

● Industry/industry associations are being empanelled for undertaking industry oriented

entry level skilling programmes in the organized sectors.

Other Schemes of the Textile Sector

● Scheme for Integrated Textile Park (SITP)

● Power-Tex India

● Silk Samagra Scheme

● Amended Technology Upgradation Fund Sche

● National Handloom Day

● Jute ICARE

● National Technical Textile Mission

Country of Origin Rules: CAROTAR, 2020

● The Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules, 2020

(CAROTAR, 2020), will come into force from 21st September 2020. It was notified on

21st August 2020

● Importers will have to ensure that imported goods meet the prescribed ‘rules of origin’

provisions for availing concessional rate of customs duty under Free Trade Agreements

(FTAs).

● Importers have to prove that imported products have undergone value addition of at

least 35% in the countries of origin.

Free Trade Agreement



● It is an arrangement between two or more countries or trading blocs that primarily agree

to reduce or eliminate customs tariff and non tariff barriers on substantial trade between

them.

● It covers trade in goods (such as agricultural or industrial products) or trade in services

(such as banking, construction, trading etc.).

● It also covers other areas such as intellectual property rights (IPRs), investment,

government procurement and competition policy etc.

● India has inked FTAs with several countries, including Japan, South Korea, Sri Lanka

and ASEAN members.

● Benefit: get easier market access into one another's countries, Exporters prefer FTAs to

multilateral trade liberalization because they get preferential treatment over non-FTA

member country competitors.

Other Trade agreement:

● Trade and Investment Framework Agreement (TIFA)

● Preferential Trade Agreement

● Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement

● Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement

● Common Market

Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana

● Launched on: 25th December, 2000.

● Objective: To provide connectivity, by way of an all-weather road to unconnected

habitations.

● Eligibility: Unconnected habitations of designated population size (500+ in plain areas

and 250+ in North-Eastern States, Himalayan States, Deserts and Tribal Areas as per

2001 census) in the core network for uplifting the socio-economic condition of the rural

population.

● Funding Pattern:

● The Union Government : 90% of the project cost in North-Eastern and Himalayan

States, 60% For other states

PMGSY - Phase I

● Launched in December, 2000 as a 100 % centrally sponsored scheme.

PMGSY - Phase II

● launched in 2013 for upgradation of 50,000 Kms of existing rural road network to

improve its overall efficiency.

● While the ongoing PMGSY - I continued, under PMGSY phase II, the roads already built

for village connectivity was to be upgraded to enhance rural infrastructure.

● The cost was shared between the centre and the states/UTs.

PMGSY - Phase III

● Launched in July 2019.

● It gives priorities to facilities like:

● Gramin Agricultural Markets (GrAMs)



● to promote and service a more efficient transaction of the farmers’ produce, Higher

Secondary Schools and Hospitals.

● proposed to consolidate 1,25,000 Km road length in the States. The duration of the

scheme is 2019-20 to 2024-25.

K-Shaped Recovery

● Economists have found that US is entering into a K shaped economic recovery, which

allows workers at the top to prosper while sending working class American into further

debt

Others Types of Shape of Economic Recovery

● The alphabets generally denote the graph of growth rate, which resembles the shape of

the letter.

● The fundamental difference between the different kinds of recovery is the time taken for

economic activity to normalize.

● The time taken is often a factor of multiple things such as the depth of the economic

crisis. e.g deeper the recession, longer is the time to get back to normal.

● The other aspect of economic recovery includes the effect of pandemic on jobs and

household incomes, and the kind of policy response taken by

the government that determines how quickly economic growth

will recover.

Z-shaped recovery

● It is the most-optimistic scenario in which the economy quickly

rises after an economic crash.

● In this economic disruption lasts for a small period wherein

more than people’s incomes, it is their ability to spend is

restricted.

V-shaped recovery:

● In this economy quickly recoups lost ground and gets back to

the normal growth trend-line.

● In this, incomes and jobs are not permanently lost, and the

economic growth recovers sharply and returns to the path it

was following before the disruption.

U-shaped recovery

● It is a scenario in which the economy, after falling, struggles

around a low growth rate for some time, beforegradually to usual

levels.

● In this case several jobs are lost and people fall upon their

savings.



● If this process is more-long drawn than it throws up the “elongated U” shape.

W-shaped recovery

● A W-shaped recovery is a dangerous creature.

● In this, growth falls and rises, but falls again before recovering,

thus forming a W-like chart.

● The double-dip depicted by a W-shaped recovery can be due to

the second wave of the pandemic.

L-shaped recovery:

● In this, the economy fails to regain the level of GDP even

after years go by.

● The shape shows that there is a permanent loss to the

economy’s ability to produce.

Vaibhav Summit

● Vaishwik Bharatiya Vaigyanik (VAIBHAV) Summit will be inaugurated on 2nd October

2020 - the birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi.

● It is a global summit of Overseas and Resident Indian scientists and academicians.

● Key areas of discussion will include: quantum technologies, artificial intelligence and

machine learning, communications technologies, computational and data sciences and

aerospace technologies among others.

● Objective: to leverage the expertise and knowledge of global Indian researchers for

solving emerging challenges.

● To reflect in-depth on the collaboration and cooperation instruments with academia and

scientists in India.

● a joint effort of various Science & Technology (S&T) and Academic organisations,

including Department of S&T, DRDO

Other Government Initiatives involving Overseas Indian:

● Pravasi Bharatiya Divas (PBD) is celebrated on 9th January every year to mark the

contribution of Overseas Indian community in the development of India.

● Know India Program (KIP) is a flagship initiative of the Ministry of External Affairs

(MEA) for diaspora engagement which familiarizes Indian-origin youth (18-30 years) with

their Indian roots and contemporary India.

● VAJRA (Visiting Advanced Joint Research) Faculty Scheme of the Department of

S&T is a dedicated program exclusively for overseas scientists and academicians with

emphasis on Non-resident Indians (NRI) and Persons of Indian Origin (PIO)/Overseas



Citizen of India (OCI) to work as adjunct/visiting faculty for a specific period of time in

Indian Public funded academic and research institutions.

Biotech-KISAN Programme

● Biotech-Krishi Innovation Science Application Network (Biotech-KISAN) programme

● a farmer-centric scheme for farmers, developed by and with farmers under the

Department of Biotechnology, Ministry of Science and Technology.

● pan-India program, following a hub-and-spoke model and stimulates entrepreneurship

and innovation in farmers and empowers women farmers.

● Aim: To understand the problems of water, soil, seed and market faced by the farmers

and provide simple solutions to them.

The Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance

and Farm Services Bill, 2020

➢ The bill is aimed at transforming agriculture in the country and raising farmers’ income.

➢ It seeks to provide for a national framework on farming agreements.

➢ It protects and empowers farmers to engage with agri-business firms, wholesalers,

exporters, processors, large retailers for farm services.

➢ It enables the farmers to sale their future farming produce at a mutually agreed price in a

fair and transparent manner.

➢ It provides for an effective dispute resolution mechanism transparent time lines for

redressal.

➢ It will empower farmers to engage with processors, wholesalers, aggregators,

wholesalers, large retailers, exporters.

The Farmers’ Produce Trade And Commerce (Promotion And Facilitation)

Bill, 2020

Key provisions:

➢ The Bill, through Clauses 3 & 4, gives freedom to the farmer to indulge in intra-state or

inter-state trade in areas outside the APMC mandis.

➢ Prohibits the collection of any market fee or cess under the state APMC Acts with

respect to such trade outside the APMC market yards (Clause 6).

➢ Clause 14, which gives it an overriding effect over the inconsistent provisions of the

State APMC Acts.

➢ Also, the Central Government has been given powers to frame rules and regulations

under the Act.

Issues:

➢ This leads to a situation where local farmers do not find adequate demand for their

produce at MSP in the local market.

➢ Since most farmers are small or marginal landowners, they do not have wherewithal to

transport their produce to large distances.



➢ Hence, they are forced to sell them at a lower price than the MSP in the local market

itself.

Union Government Approved Amendment to FDI Policy in Defence Sector

● Government of India has permitted 100% foreign investments in the defence sector

● 49% share under the automatic route has been increased to 74%.

● It will make India self-Reliant in defence procurement. The reforms would also help India

to increase its defence Exports.

Other Reforms:

● For indigenous weapon procurement, a separate capital budget has been allocated.

● Ordnance factory board (OFB) has been corporatized.

● A negative list of defence equipment has been created that put some restrictions on the

import of equipment’s.

Insolvency and Bankruptcy (Second Amendment) passed in Rajya Sabha

● Under the new provisions, fresh insolvency proceedings will not be started for the next

six months taking the Covid-19 pandemic into account.

● Insolvency is a situation where individuals or companies are unable to repay their

outstanding debt.

● Bankruptcy, on the other hand, is a situation whereby a court of competent jurisdiction

has declared a person or other entity insolvent, having passed appropriate orders to

resolve it and protect the rights of the creditors. It is a legal declaration of one’s inability

to pay off debts.

FinCEN and FIU-IND

fINCEN: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network

● It was set up in 1990.

● It serves as the leading global regulator in the battle against money laundering.

● It collects and analyzes information about financial transactions in order to combat

domestic and international money laundering, terrorist financing, and other financial

crimes.

FIU-IND :

● The Financial Intelligence Unit-India (FIU-IND) performs the same functions as FinCEN

in the USA

● set up in 2004, Under the Finance Ministry,

● as the nodal agency for receiving, analyzing and disseminating information relating to

suspect financial transactions.

● The agency is authorised to obtain:

○ Cash transaction reports (CTRs)

○ Suspicious transaction reports (STRs)

○ Cross border wire transfer reports

● It is mandatory for banks in India to furnish a monthly CTR to the FIU ON All

transactions over Rs. 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign currency or a series of integrally



connected transactions that add up to more than Rs. 10 lakh or its equivalent in foreign

currency.

The Egmont Group of Financial Intelligence Units

● An important global financial network.

● Comprising over 150 members FIUs from around the world,

● founded in 1995

● Aim: to formulate coordinated policies and responses to financial crimes such as money

laundering and terrorist financing.

The Egmont Group provides support to member FIUs by:

● promoting and formalizing intelligence sharing between FIUs

● offering training

● encouraging greater collaboration between member FIUs

● increasing communications security (through use of the Egmont Secure Web [ESW]

system, for example)

● helping FIUs secure operational autonomy

Labour Sector:

● Labour stands under the Concurrent List of the Constitution.

● So, both Parliament and state legislatures can make laws regulating the labour.

● Recently, the Parliament passed three labour codes — on industrial relations;

occupational safety, health and working conditions; and social security — proposing to

simplify the country’s archaic labour laws and give impetus to economic activity without

compromising with the workers’ benefits.

● The labour codes were adopted on the recommendations of the Second National

Commission on Labour (2002), which suggested consolidating 100 State laws and 40

Central laws across industries, occupations and regions.

Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2020

● The bill subsumes- the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; the Trade Unions Act, 1926; and

the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.

● It has raised the threshold for the requirement of a standing order to over 300 workers

which implies that industrial establishments with up to 300 workers will not be required to

furnish a standing order. (Earlier its 100 )

○ Without the need of a standing order in increased industrial establishments due

to the raised threshold, the process of hiring and firing workers will be more

flexible and faster for employers which would result in increased employment.

● At present, a person employed in a public utility service cannot go on strike unless they

give notice for a strike within six weeks before going on strike or within fourteen days of

giving such notice, which the IR Code now proposes to apply for all the industrial

establishments.

● Besides, every industrial establishment employing 20 or more workers will have one or

more Grievance Redressal Committees for resolution of disputes arising out of

employees’ grievances.



● It has also proposed to set up a re-skilling fund for training of retrenched workers with

contribution from the employer, of an amount equal to 15 days last drawn by the work.

Social Security Code Bill, 2020

● This will replace nine social security laws, including Maternity Benefit Act, Employees’

Provident Fund Act, Employees’ Pension Scheme, Employees’ Compensation Act,

among others.

● The code universalizes social security coverage to those working in the unorganised

sector, such as migrant workers, gig workers and platform workers.

● The code also reduces the time limit for receiving gratuity payment from the continuous

service of five years to one year for all kinds of employees,

● It proposes a National Social Security Board which shall recommend to the central

government for formulating suitable schemes for different sections of unorganised

workers, gig workers and platform workers.

● Also, aggregators employing gig workers will have to contribute 1-2% of their annual

turnover for social security, with the total contribution not exceeding 5% of the amount

payable by the aggregator to gig and platform workers.

Occupational Safety, Health and Working Conditions Code Bill, 2020:

● It spells out duties of employers and employees, and envisages safety standards for

different sectors, focusing on the health and working condition of workers, hours of work,

leaves, etc.

● The code also recognises the right of contractual workers.

● It also mandates that no worker will be allowed to work in any establishment for more

than 8 hours a day or more than 6 days in a week.

● Women will be entitled to be employed in all establishments for all types of work and,

with consent can work before 6 am and beyond 7 pm subject to such conditions relating

to safety, holidays and working hours.

● It has defined inter-state migrant workers as the worker who has come on their own from

one state and obtained employment in another state, earning up to Rs. 18,000 a month.

● The proposed definition makes a distinction from the present definition of only

contractual employment.

● It has dropped the earlier provision for temporary accommodation for workers near the

worksites and has proposed a journey allowance, a lump sum amount of fare to be paid

by the employer for to and fro journey of the worker to their native place from the place

of their employment.

Ethical Code for Electronic Media

● Recently, the News Broadcasters Association (NBA) has asked the Supreme Court (SC)

to include its ethical code in the Programme Code of the Cable Television Networks

Rules, 1994.

● NBA represents the collective voice of the news and current affairs broadcasters in

India. It is an organisation funded entirely by its members.



● A plea was made to stop the telecast of a programme 'Bindas Bol' on Sudarshan TV

containing objectionable content against the Muslim entries into the civil services.

● The SC held that the content was prima facie “plainly hurtful” to the community and

asked the NBA to suggest measures to strengthen the self-regulatory mechanism to

prevent or penalise airing of communal or derogatory content in the electronic media.

Suggestions by NBA:

● All news channels, whether they are NBA members or not, will have to follow the

Programme Code containing the proposed amendments.

● The News Broadcasters Services Authority (NBSA) should be granted recognition as an

independent self-regulatory mechanism to receive and deal with complaints which would

strengthen News Broadcasting Standards Regulations of NBSA.

● The orders passed by the NBSA should be made binding and enforceable on the

channels and the penalties should be made stringent.

Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT)

● India recently refused to become a signatory to the Osaka declaration on digital

economy which proposes the concept of Data Free Flow with Trust (DFFT).

● About DFFT

● It aims to eliminate restrictions on cross-border transfer of information by electronic

means, including personal information, and storing data in foreign servers, for

productivity, innovation and sustainable development.

● It also stresses on the importance of addressing challenges such as security, data

protection and intellectual property that otherwise mar public trust in digital technologies.

About Osaka Declaration on Digital Economy

● The declaration was signed at the sidelines of the G20 summit in 2019, by some

G20 leaders and other countries who are currently participating in the informal

plurilateral negotiations on e-commerce at the World Trade Organization.

● It announced the launch of the ‘Osaka Track’, a process that aims to intensify efforts

on international rule-making on digital economy, especially on data flows and e-

commerce, while promoting enhanced protections for intellectual property, personal

information, and cybersecurity.

Infrastructure Investment Trusts( InvIT )

● InvITs are instruments that work like mutual funds.

● They are designed to pool small sums of money from a number of investors to invest in

assets that give cash flow over a period of time. Part of this cash flow would be

distributed as dividend back to investors.

● The minimum investment amount in an InvIT Initial Public Offering (IPO) is Rs 10 lakh,

therefore, InvITs are suitable for high networth individuals, institutional and non-

institutional investors.

● The InvITs listed on the stock exchange are IRB InvIT Fund and India Grid Trust.

● InvITs are regulated by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI)

(Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014.



● Like mutual funds, they have a trustee, sponsor(s), investment manager and project

manager.

Real Estate Investment Trust( REIT )

● REITs are similar to mutual funds

● REITs allow one to invest in income-generating real estate assets.

● They are collective investment vehicles that operate and manage property portfolios and

give returns to investors

● Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) mandated that all REITS be listed on

exchanges and make an initial public offer to raise money.

● REITs raise funds from a large number of investors and directly invest that sum in

income-generating real estate properties

Destination North East-2020 Festival

● Launched by Ministry of Development of North-East Region (DoNER)

● Aim: To bring the rest of India closer to North East (NE) India.

● Four-Day Event: It holds a special presentation of art and craft, textiles, ethnic products,

tourism promotion etc. of the eight northeastern states.

● 2020 Focus: The Emerging Delightful Destinations.

● 2020 Venue: Virtually from 27th to 30th September 2020

Organisations Involved:

● Ministry of Development of North-East Region: It is responsible for the matters

relating to the planning, execution and monitoring of development schemes and projects

in the NE Region.

● North Eastern Council (NEC): It is the nodal agency for the economic and social

development of the NE Region which consists of the eight States of Arunachal Pradesh,

Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim and Tripura. It was constituted

in 1971 by an Act of Parliament.

● NERCORMP: North Eastern Region Community Resource Management Project

(NERCORMP) is a livelihood and rural development project aimed to transform the lives

of the poor and marginalized tribal families in NE India. It is a joint developmental

initiative of the NEC, Ministry of DoNER and International Fund for Agricultural

Development (IFAD).

● IFAD is an international financial institution and a specialized agency of the United

Nations dedicated to eradicating poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing

countries. It is headquartered in Rome, Italy.



India's second Rocket Port in Tamil Nadu

● setup in Thoothukudi (formerly known as Tuticorin) district in Tamil Nadu.

● The project will house one launch pad exclusively for small satellite launch vehicles

(SSLV).

● India presently has one rocket port at Sriharikota in Andhra Pradesh with two launch

pads

Basel guidelines

● Basel guidelines refer to broad supervisory standards formulated by group of central

banks- called the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS).

● The set of agreement by the BCBS, which mainly focuses on risks to banks and the

financial system are called Basel accord.

● The purpose of the accords is to ensure that financial institutions have enough capital on

account to meet obligations and absorb unexpected losses.

BASEL-I:

● Introduced in 1988.

● Focused almost entirely on credit risk, it defined capital and structure of risk weights for

banks.

● The minimum capital requirement was fixed at 8% of risk-weighted assets (RWA).

● RWA means assets with different risk profiles.

● India adopted Basel 1 guidelines in 1999.

BASEL-II:

● Published in 2004.

● based on three parameters:



○ Banks should maintain a minimum capital adequacy requirement of 8% of risk

assets.

○ Banks were needed to develop and use better risk management techniques in

monitoring and managing all the three types of risks that is credit and increased

disclosure requirements. The three types of risk are- operational risk, market risk,

capital risk.

○ Banks need to mandatory disclose their risk exposure to the central bank.

● Basel II norms in India and overseas are yet to be fully implemented though India follows

these norms.

Basel III:

● In 2010, Basel III guidelines were released.

● These guidelines were introduced in response to the financial crisis of 2008.

● Aim at making most banking activities such as their trading book activities more capital-

intensive.

● The leverage rate has to be at least 3 %.

● The capital adequacy ratio is to be maintained at 12.9%.

● To promote a more resilient banking system by focusing on four vital banking

parameters viz. capital, leverage, funding and liquidity.

● The deadline for the implementation of Basel-III was March 2019 in India. It was

postponed to March 2020. In light of the coronavirus pandemic, the RBI decided to defer

the implementation of Basel norms by further 6 months

Basic Terms:

Capital Adequacy Ratio

● The capital adequacy ratio measures a bank's capital in relation to its risk-weighted

assets.

● The capital-to-risk-weighted-assets ratio promotes financial stability and efficiency in

economic systems throughout the world.

● The capital adequacy ratio is calculated by adding tier 1 capital to tier 2 capital and

dividing by risk-weighted assets.

○ Tier 1 capital is the core capital of a bank, which includes equity capital and

disclosed reserves. This type of capital absorbs losses without requiring the bank

to cease its operations;Tier 1 capital is subdivided into Common Equity (CET)

and Additional Capital (AT1).

○ Tier 2 capital is used to absorb losses in the event of a liquidation.

Additional tier-1 or AT1 bonds

● Bonds are a type of unsecured, perpetual bonds that banks issue to shore up their core

capital base to meet the Basel-III norms.

Key features:

● These have higher rates than tier II bonds.



● These bonds have no maturity date.

● The issuing bank has the option to call back the bonds or repay the principal after a

specified period of time.

Leverage Ratio

● banking leverage means the proportion of a bank's capital measure and its exposure

measure.

● It indicates financial health/credit risk of a company

● The most common leverage ratios are the debt ratio and the debt-to-equity ratio.

● A debt ratio is simply a company’s total debt divided by its total assets. The formula is:

Debt Ratio = Total Debt / Total Assets

● The debt-to-equity ratio is a measure of the relationship between the capital contributed

by creditors and the capital contributed by owners. It also shows the extent to which

shareholders’ equity can fulfill a company’s obligations to creditors in the event of

● Debt-to-Equity Ratio = Total Debt/Total Equity

Basel committee on Banking Supervision

● The Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) is the primary global standard

setter for the prudential regulation of banks and provides a forum for regular cooperation

on banking supervisory matters for the central banks of different countries.

● Established by the Central Bank governors of the Group of Ten countries in 1974.

● The committee expanded its membership in 2009 and then again in 2014. The BCBS

now has 45 members from 28 Jurisdictions, consisting of Central Banks and authorities

with responsibility of banking regulation.

● It provides a forum for regular cooperation on banking supervisory matters.

● Its objective is to enhance understanding of key supervisory issues and improve the

quality of banking supervision worldwide.

Official Secrets Act:

● Originally enacted during the time of Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India from 1899 to 1905.

● One of the main purposes of the Act was to muzzle the voice of nationalist publications.

● The Indian Official Secrets Act (Act No XIX of 1923) replaced the earlier Act, and was

extended to all matters of secrecy and confidentiality in governance in the

country.

● It broadly deals with two aspects:

○ Spying or espionage, covered under Section 3.

○ Disclosure of other secret information of the government, under Section 5.

MedSpark in Kerala

● one of the first medical device parks in the country, in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala.

Established by

1. Technical Research Centre for Biomedical Devices Programme of the Department of

Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.



2. Sree Chitra Tirunal Institute for Medical Sciences and Technology (SCTIMST), an

autonomous institute of the DST.

3. Kerala State Industrial Development Corporation Ltd. (KSIDC) which is the industrial

and investment promotion agency of the Government of Kerala.

● Funding from the state and central governments

● The business model for the MedSpark is self-sustaining in which its operational

expenses will be generated from its revenue streams.

Functions:

● Create an enabling support system for manufacturing support, technology innovation,

and knowledge dissemination.

● provide a full range of services for the industry like research and development support,

testing, and evaluation of medical devices.

● High-risk medical device sector deals with the category of high-risk devices which

include medical implants and extracorporeal devices (mechanical organs used in blood

purification).

Bilateral Netting of Qualified Financial Contracts Act, 2020

● enacted with an aim to ensure financial stability and promote competitiveness in Indian

financial markets

● A bilateral netting agreement enables two counterparties in a financial contract to

offset claims against each other to determine a single net payment obligation due from

one counterparty to the other.

● Netting refers to offsetting of all claims arising from dealings between two parties, to

determine a net amount payable or receivable from one party to other.

Some related terms

● Derivatives: They are defined as the type of security in which the price of the

security depends/is derived from the price of the underlying asset. The common

types of derivatives include Options, Futures, Forwards, Warrants and Swaps.

● Over the Counter (OTC) derivatives: They are contracts traded between two

parties (bilateral negotiation) without going through an exchange or any other

intermediaries.

● Qualified financial contracts (QFC): QFC means any bilateral contract notified as

a QFC between two qualified financial market participants where at least one party is an

entity regulated by the relevant authority.

YuWaah Platform

● YuWaah – a multi-stakeholder platform to make young people career ready.

● The Ministry of Youth Affairs & Sports and United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)

had signed a 'Statement of Intent' to establish Generation Unlimited in India (YuWaah).

Objective:

● Providing career guidance support to young people through career portal as well as

through job-readiness and self-exploration sessions to make young people career-ready.



● Supporting young people by providing entrepreneurship classes with successful

entrepreneurs and experts.

● Creating linkages with aspirational economic opportunities to connect young people with

jobs or self-employment.

● Upskilling young people on 21st century skills, life skills, digital skills and supporting

them through self-learning, for their productive lives and the future of work.

Govt securities (G-Sec)

● G-Sec is a tradeable instrument issued by the central government or state governments.

● It acknowledges the government’s debt obligations.

● Such securities can be both short term (treasury bills — with original maturities of less

than one year) or long term (government bonds or dated securities — with original

maturity of one year or more).

● The central government issues both: treasury bills and bonds or dated securities.

● State governments issue only bonds or dated securities, which are called the state

development loans.

● G-Secs carry practically no risk of default and, hence, are called risk-free gilt-edged

instruments.

● G- Sec prices fluctuate sharply in the secondary markets. Factors affecting their prices:

○ Demand and supply of the securities.

○ Changes in interest rates in the economy and other macro-economic factors,

such as, liquidity and inflation.

○ Developments in other markets like money, foreign exchange, credit and capital

markets.

○ Developments in international bond markets, specifically the US Treasuries.

○ Policy actions by RBI like change in repo rates, cash-reserve ratio and open-

market operations.

● Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Rajasthan have been the

top 5 borrowing States, accounting for 54% of total borrowings by States so far.

➢ Treasury Bills are short term (up to one year) borrowing instruments of the Government

of India which enable investors to park their short term surplus funds while reducing their

market risk.

➢ Cash Management Bills ( CMB ): are short term bills issued by the central government

to meet its immediate cash needs. The bills are issued by the RBI on behalf of the

government having a maturity of less than 90 days.

Tax Amnesty Scheme

● New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) has rolled out a property tax amnesty scheme so

as to provide relief to the residents of unauthorised regularised colonies.

● It is a limited-time opportunity for some taxpayers in order to pay a defined amount, in

exchange for forgiveness of a tax liability including interest and penalties related the

previous tax period without fear of criminal prosecution.



● The main purpose of the scheme is to replicate the economy and encouraging

individuals and corporations to declare their wealth.

● India in 2016 has run one of the biggest Tax Amnesty scheme called the IDS,2016 in

the world. The scheme is one of the component of Sabka Viswas scheme. Through the

scheme, India gather around $4 billion as taxes in 4 months.

Sabka Vishwas Scheme

● The scheme is a dispute resolution scheme notified by Government in order to close the

pending disputes related to the Service Tax and Central Excise cases.

● It operationalised from 1st September 2019.

Main components

● Dispute resolution component: which aims to liquidate the legacy cases of Central

Excise and Service Tax subsumed in GST.

● Amnesty component : which offers an opportunity to the taxpayers to pay the

outstanding tax.

● Objective of the scheme is to free the large number of small taxpayers from their

pending disputes with the tax administration.

What is a cess

● It is a form of tax levied or collected by the government for the development or welfare of

a particular service or sector.

● It is charged over and above direct and indirect taxes.

● Cess collected for a particular purpose cannot be used for or diverted to other purposes.

● It is not a permanent source of revenue for the government, and it is discontinued when

the purpose levying it is fulfilled.

● Education Cess, Swachh Bharat Cess, Krishi Kalyan Cess etc.

Difference between tax and cess? What is cess tax?

● Cess is different from taxes such as income tax, GST, and excise duty etc as it is

charged over and above the existing taxes.

● While all taxes go to the Consolidated Fund of India (CFI), cess may initially go to the

CFI but has to be used for the purpose for which it was collected.

● If the cess collected in a particular year goes unspent, it cannot be allocated for other

purposes. The amount gets carried over to the next year and can only be used for the

cause it was meant for.

Plastic Parks Scheme

● launched in 2019 , The Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers

● aim to increase the competitiveness and value addition in the plastic processing

industry.

● plastic parks will be set up in Madhya Pradesh, Assam, Tamil Nadu, Odisha, Jharkhand,

Chhattisgarh and Uttarakhand.

● A plastic park is a dedicated zone of plastic and related industries.



● 6 Out of the 10 plastic parks are being implemented currently. While the draft plan for

the four is underway.

● The Government of India will share Rs 40 crore per project and rest of the cost will be

borne by the state government.

Kerala Tourism’s Human by Nature campaign won PATA Grand Award

● The idea of a new campaign was put forth by Kerala Tourism.

● It was then conceptualized and scripted by Stark Communications.

● The campaign showcases the culture and daily life of the people of Kerala.

670 new electric buses and 241 charging stations sanctioned

● Sanctioned under phase II of Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles

(FAME) Scheme

About FAME Scheme:

● The scheme aims for electrification of public transportation.

● The scheme has been launched to counter the environmental pollution and for a better

fuel security.

● The Scheme was launched to achieve the goals of National Electric Mobility Mission

Plan, 2020

● Encourage faster adoption of electric and hybrid vehicles by way of offering upfront

Incentive on purchase of Electric vehicles.

FAME II

● Launched in 2019, implemented between 2019 to 2022.

● Monitoring Authority: Department of Heavy Industries, the Ministry of Heavy Industries

and Public Enterprises.

● A total of 10,000 crores were allocated for the second phase.

● The scheme covers Hybrid & Electric technologies like Mild Hybrid, Strong Hybrid, Plug

in Hybrid & Battery Electric Vehicles.

● Charging stations will be set up on major highways connecting the city clusters under the

scheme.

● planned to incentivize 5 lakh three wheelers, 35,000 four wheelers and 7,000 electric

buses.

● It provides incentives for three wheelers and four wheelers, especially those used for

public transport.

● Benefits of the scheme are extended to those vehicles that are fitted with advanced

batteries such as Lithium Ion batteries.

● The scheme seeks to establish 2,700 charging stations in metro cities, smart cities and

in cities having population more than 1 million.

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles Project

● National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) had announced a new project involving

Hydrogen Fuel Cell Electric Vehicles to run in Leh and Delhi in April 2020.



● Under the project, NTPC will provide ten Hydrogen Fuel Cell based buses.

● This is first of its kind project in India.

Benefits of Hydrogen Fuel Cells

● They produces lesser Green house gases.

● They emits heat and water as by product.

● They are more energy efficient as compared to the traditional combustion engine.

● There is abundant of hydrogen resources.

Concerns

● Handling of Hydrogen is quite challenging since it is more explosive than petrol.

● It is expensive than the traditional fossil fuels.

United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) :

● Established in 1966 as a subsidiary body of the United Nations General Assembly

(UNGA).

● It is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade

law.

● Mandate: To further the progressive harmonization and modernization of rules on

international business and reform commercial laws.

● The UNGA has recommended the use of the said Model Law and Rules in cases where

a dispute arises in the context of international commercial relations and the parties seek

an amicable settlement of that dispute by recourse to conciliation.

● India has also incorporated these uniform principles of Arbitration and Dispute

Resolution (ADR) in the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996 which has been amended

several times.

● The Arbitration Act provides for ADR mechanisms like arbitration, conciliations, etc. for

national and international stakeholders.

Retrospective Taxation:

● It allows a country to pass a rule on taxing certain products, items or services and deals

and charge companies from a time behind the date on which the law is passed.

● Countries use this route to correct any anomalies in their taxation policies that have, in

the past, allowed companies to take advantage of such loopholes.

● Retrospective Taxation hurts companies that had knowingly or unknowingly interpreted

the tax rules differently.

● Apart from India, many countries including the USA, the UK, the Netherlands, Canada,

Belgium, Australia and Italy have retrospectively taxed companies.

International Arbitration Tribunal

● Independent non-governmental panel of independent and impartial experts.

● It generally comprises three members nominated by the Parties (or appointed by the

International Arbitration Institution, or by a National Court) on the basis of their legal and

practical expertise and knowledge, to render a final and binding award.



Permanent Court of Arbitration

● Established in: 1899.

● HQ: The Hague, Netherlands.

● Purpose: It is an intergovernmental organization dedicated to serve the international

community in the field of dispute resolution and to facilitate arbitration and other forms of

dispute resolution between States.

● Structure: The PCA has a three-part organizational structure consisting of:

● Administrative Council - to oversee its policies and budgets,

● Members of the Court - a panel of independent potential arbitrators, and

● International Bureau - its Secretariat, headed by the Secretary-General.

● Funds: It has a Financial Assistance Fund which aims at helping developing countries

meet part of the costs involved in international arbitration or other means of dispute

settlement offered by the PCA.

Domestic Systemically Important Insurers

● The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), General Insurance Corporation of India

and The New India Assurance Co have been identified as Domestic Systemically

Important Insurers (D-SIIs) for 2020-21 by insurance regulator, the Insurance Regulatory

and Development Authority of India (IRDAI).

● The IRDAI would identify D-SIIs on an annual basis

Requirement of D-SII’s

● Identify all relevant risks and promote a sound risk management culture.

● The D-SIIs will also be subjected to enhanced regulatory supervision of the IRDAI.

About D-SII’s:

● D-SIIs are perceived as insurers that are ‘too big or too important to fail’ (TBTF).

● D-SIIs refer to insurers of such size, market importance and domestic and global

interconnectedness whose distress or failure would cause a significant dislocation in the

domestic financial system.

● Thus, the continued functioning of D-SIIs is critical for the uninterrupted availability of

insurance services to the national economy.

Domestic Systemically Important Bank (D-SIBs)

● D-SIB means that the bank is too big to fail. According to the Reserve Bank of India

(RBI), some banks become systemically important due to their size, cross-jurisdictional

activities, complexity and lack of substitute and interconnection.

● Banks whose assets exceed 2% of GDP are considered part of this group.

● Presently, the State Bank of India (SBI), ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank have been

identified as DSIBs in India.

● The too-big-to-fail tag also indicates that in case of distress, the government is expected

to support these banks.

Global systemically important bank (G-Sib)

● bank whose systemic risk profile is deemed to be of such importance that the bank’s

failure would trigger a wider financial crisis and threaten the global economy.



● These are selected by Financial Stability Board (FSB), in consultation with the Basel

Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS)

● Total number of G-SIBs at present=30.

Kaushal Se Kal Badlenge: DDU-GKY

● Recently, the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) has celebrated the foundation day

of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana (DDU-GKY) as “Kaushal Se Kal

Badlenge” on the occasion of Antyodaya Diwas (25th September).

● Inaugurations and New Releases:

● Agripreneurship (entrepreneurship in agriculture) Programme

○ Agripreneurship is defined as generally, sustainable, community-orientated,

directly marketed agriculture.

● Guidelines regarding Captive Employment under DDU-GKY.

○ Captive employers are businesses which can employ 500 or more in their own

organisation or one of their subsidiaries and have suitable in-house training

facilities.

● Guidelines for Promotion of Integrated Farming Cluster (IFC)

○ Integrated Farming is a combined approach aimed at efficient sustainable

resource management for increased productivity in the cropping system.

○ It has multiple objectives of sustainability, food security, farmer’s security and

poverty reduction by involving livestock, vermicomposting, organic farming, etc.

Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Grameen Kaushalya Yojana

● the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD) announced it on Antyodaya Diwas in 2014.

● It is a demand-driven placement linked skill training initiative working under the National

Rural Livelihood Mission (NRLM).

● It uses skill training and placement in wage employment as a tool to diversify income

and enable sustained upward movement out of poverty.

● DDU-GKY is uniquely focused on rural youth between the ages of 15 and 35 years

from poor families.

● Achievements: Under DDU-GKY, 10.51 lakh rural youth have been trained and 6.65 lakh

successfully placed so far.

Antyodaya Diwas

● Every year, 25th September is observed as Antyodaya Diwas to mark the birth

anniversary of Pandit Deendayal Upadhyaya, one of the great thinkers and philosophers

of the nationalist movement of the country.

● The Government of India announced it for the first time in 2014 along with the

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana.

● Antyodaya means "uplifting the poorest of the poor" and the day aims to reach the

person in the last mile.



Regional Rapid Transit System(RRTS)

● It is India's first RRTS Train which will run on the Delhi-Ghaziabad-Meerut corridor and

reduce travel time between the two cities.

● The National Capital Region Transport Corporation (NCRTC) is executing India’s first

RRTS.

● It can attain a top speed of 180 kilometres per hour and whose design is inspired by

Delhi’s iconic Lotus Temple.

● The 17-km priority corridor of Delhi-Meerut RRTS, from Sahibabad to Duhai, will be

operational in 2023 and the entire corridor will be operational in 2025.

NCRTC

● NCRTC is a joint venture of the Government of India (50%) and State Governments of

Haryana (12.5%), NCT Delhi (12.5%), Uttar Pradesh (12.5%) and Rajasthan (12.5%)

● It is mandated to design, construct, finance, operate and maintain RRTS in NCR and

works under the administrative control of Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs, GOI.

● NCRTC is mandated to implement India’s first RRTS in NCR.

National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC)

● It is a statutory corporation set up under the National Cooperative Development

Corporation Act, 1962.

● Objectives: Planning and promoting programmes for production, processing, marketing,

storage, export and import of agricultural produce, foodstuffs, industrial goods, livestock

and certain other notified commodities and services on cooperative principles.

● The sources of Funds: includes internal accruals, market borrowings and allocations

from the Government of India including International assistance.

National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM)

● Under the provisions of Drug Prices Control Order, 2013, only the prices of drugs that

figure in the National List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) are monitored and controlled

by the regulator, the National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.

● Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the majority

of the population.

● Purpose: to promote rational use of medicines considering the three important aspects

i.e. cost, safety and efficacy.

Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO)

The Drugs Prices Control Order, 1995

● an order issued by the Government of India under Sec. 3 of Essential Commodities Act,

1955 to regulate the prices of drugs.

● The Order interalia provides the list of price controlled drugs, procedures for fixation of

prices of drugs, method of implementation of prices fixed by Govt., penalties for

contravention of provisions etc.



● For the purpose of implementing provisions of DPCO, powers of Govt. have been vested

in NPPA.

The Drugs (Prices Control) Order (DPCO) 2013 was notified.

● Under the provisions of DPCO 2013, only the prices of drugs that figure in the National

List of Essential Medicines (NLEM) are monitored and controlled by the regulator, the

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority.

● Paragraph 19 of the DPCO, 2013, deals with increase or decrease in drug prices under

extraordinary circumstances.

● Essential medicines are those that satisfy the priority healthcare needs of the majority

of the population. The primary purpose of NLEM is to promote rational use of medicines

considering the three important aspects i.e. cost, safety and efficacy.

National Pharmaceutical Pricing Authority (NPPA)

● Established in 1997

● under Department of Pharmaceuticals, Union Ministry of chemicals and Fertilizersas

● Functions:

○ To implement and enforce the provisions of the Drugs Price Control Order

(DPCO), 1995/2013

○ To monitor the availability of drugs, identify shortages, if any, and to take

remedial steps.

○ To deal with all legal matters arising out of the decisions of the Authority.

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

● an autonomous statutory body established under the Food Safety and Standards Act,

2006 (FSS Act).

● Under Ministry of Health & Family Welfare,

● FSS Act, 2006 consolidates various acts & orders that had earlier handled food related

issues in various Ministries and Departments

Uniform Code of Pharmaceutical Marketing Practices (UCPMP):

● The Alliance of Doctors for Ethical Health Care said that UCPMP should be made

mandatory to bring fairness in marketing of the drugs as the industry has failed to

comply with the code on a voluntary basis.

About UCPMP Code

● It is a voluntary code relating to marketing practices for Indian Pharmaceutical

Companies and as well medical devices industry.

● Applicable on Pharmaceutical Companies, Medical Representatives, Agents of

Pharmaceutical Companies such as Distributors, Wholesalers, Retailers, and

Pharmaceutical Manufacturer’s Associations.

● Provisions

● No gifts, pecuniary advantages or benefits in kind may be supplied, offered or promised,

● Prohibits extending travel facility inside the country or outside, including rail, air, ship,

cruise tickets, paid vacations, etc.



● provides that free samples of drugs shall not be supplied to any person who is not

qualified to prescribe such product.

ESG Funds Becoming Popular in India

● The first ESG mutual fund was launched by the State Bank of India - SBI Magnum

Equity ESG Fund.

● The fund is regulated by Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI).

● ESG is a combination of three words i.e. environment, social and governance.

● It is a kind of mutual fund. Its investing is used synonymously with sustainable investing

or socially responsible investing.

● the ESG fund shortlists companies that score high on environment, social responsibility

and corporate governance, and then looks into financial factors.

● Therefore, the key difference between the ESG funds and other funds is 'conscience' i.e

the ESG fund focuses on companies with environment-friendly practices, ethical

business practices and an employee-friendly record.

Federalism and Emerging Challenges

● Several states have complained about the growing crisis of Indian federalism.

Federal Issues Raised by States:

● The refusal of the Central government of its legal commitment to compensate for Goods

and Services Tax (GST) shortfall on account of lower revenue.

● The recent Farm Acts which allow farmers to sell their produce outside the Agricultural

Produce Market Committee (APMC) and aim to promote inter-state trade. However, the

Acts encroach upon the State list.

● The amendment in banking regulations by bringing cooperative banks under the

Reserve Bank of India (RBI) supervision.Cooperative societies come under the State list

● Mechanism to Solve Dispute:

● The Supreme Court has used two mechanisms to solve the dispute between Centre and

states over the entry list in Seventh Schedule.

● The mechanisms are Doctrine of Pith and Substance and Doctrine of Colourable

Legislation.

● The Doctrine of Pith and Substance says that the constitutionality of legislation is

upheld if it is largely covered by one list and touches upon the other list only incidentally.

● The Doctrine of Colourable Legislation tests the competence of the legislature

against an enacted law. This doctrine states the fact that what cannot be done directly,

cannot also be done indirectly.

UMANG App

● It is a unified, secure, multi-channel, multi-platform, multi-lingual, multi-service mobile

app.

● Developed by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and

National e-Governance Division (NeGD)

● It provides a single platform to citizens for accessing pan India e-Government services

ranging from central to local government bodies and other citizen-centric services.



● Services Provided: Filing income tax, EPFO services, Aadhar, Pension, ePathshala, e-

Land Records, Crop Insurance etc.

Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation

● It is a government organisation that manages the provident fund and pension accounts

for the workforce engaged in the organized sector in India.

● It implements the Employees’ Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952.

● The Act provides for the institution of provident funds for employees in factories and

other establishments.

● administered by the Ministry of Labour and Employment.

● It is one of the world's largest social security organisations in terms of clientele and the

volume of financial transactions undertaken.

RBI extends enhanced borrowing limit for banks

● Borrowing limit for scheduled banks under the marginal standing facility (MSF) scheme

was increased from 2% to 3% of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) with effect

from March 27, 2020.

Marginal standing facility (MSF):

● It is a window for scheduled banks to borrow overnight from the RBI in an emergency

situation when interbank liquidity dries up completely.

● This scheme was launched by RBI while reforming the monetary policy in 2011-12.

● It is a penal rate at which banks can borrow money from RBI when they are completely

exhausted of all borrowing assistance.

Net Demand and Time Liabilities (NDTL)

● NDTL refers to the total demand and time liabilities (deposits) of the public that are held

by the banks with other banks.

● The high-quality liquid assets include only those with a high potential to be converted

easily and quickly into cash.

Production linked incentive Scheme

● Notified on April 1 as a part of the National Policy on Electronics.

● It proposes a financial incentive to boost domestic manufacturing and attract large

investments in the electronics value chain.

● Key features of the scheme:

● The scheme shall extend an incentive of 4% to 6% on incremental sales (over base

year) of goods manufactured in India and covered under target segments, to eligible

companies, for a period of five (5) years

● financial year (FY) 2019-20 considered as the base year for calculation of incentives.

● The Scheme will be implemented through a Nodal Agency which shall act as a Project

Management Agency (PMA) and be responsible for providing secretarial, managerial

and implementation support and carrying out other responsibilities as assigned by MeitY

from time to time.

Eligibility



● According to the scheme, companies that make mobile phones which sell for Rs 15,000

or more

● In the same category, companies which are owned by Indian nationals and make such

mobile phones, the incentive has been kept at Rs 200 crore for the next four years.

Gold Reserves and productions in India

● As per the World Gold Council, India has 10th largest gold reserves in the world with

capacity of 600 tonnes.

● Karantaka is the largest producer of gold in India.

● Kolar gold mines in Karnataka is one among the deepest mines of the world.

● Second largest producer of gold is Andhra Pradesh.

● Ramagiri, Anantpur of Andhra Pradesh is an important gold field.

● India is the largest importer of gold in the world while, China is the world largest exporter

of gold.

Gold Reserves in World

● US has the highest gold reserves in the world having capacity of 8,133 tonnes.

● Germany have second highest reserved with capacity of 3,366 tonnes.

● International Monetary Fund is holding 2,451 tonnes of gold.

● Deepest gold mine of the world is- Mponeng Gold Mines of South Africa.

● China is top gold producing nation that accounts for 11% of global mine production. 2nd

Australia, 3rd Russia

Sovereign Gold Bonds

● Sovereign gold bonds are issued by the RBI on behalf of the government. They are

government securities denominated in grams of gold. They are substitutes for holding

physical gold.

● scheme was launched in November 2015.

● Its objective is to reduce the demand for physical gold and shift a part of the domestic

savings (used for the purchase of gold) into financial savings.

● Tenure: Sovereign gold bonds have a tenure of eight years, with exit options are

available from the fifth year.

● The minimum permissible investment unit is 1 gram of gold.

● Investors can buy these bonds through designated scheduled commercial banks (except

Small Finance Banks and Payment Banks), Stock Holding Corporation of India Limited,

and designated post offices.

● One can also buy these bonds through National Stock Exchange of India Limited and

Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) Limited.



Environment ..

African Baobab Tree

● This tree has 168 chromosomes.

● Baobabs are deciduous trees ranging in height from 5 to 20 meters.

● Deciduous forest is a vegetation composed primarily of broad-leaved trees that shed all

their leaves during one season.

● The African baobab (Adansonia digitata) is one of the nine species of baobab and is

native to mainland Africa. They are also found in African Savannah.

● Oldest Known Angiosperm Tree:

● Baobab trees can live for more than a thousand years and provide food, livestock

fodder, medicinal compounds, and raw materials.

Angiosperms & Gymnosperm

● Angiosperms

○ a taxonomic class of plants in which the mature seed is surrounded by the

ovule (e.g. apple). This group is often referred to as hardwoods.

○ Examples Oaks, maples and dogwoods rhododendron, live oak, and sweetbay

magnolia.

● Gymnosperms

○ are a taxonomic class that includes plants whose seeds are not enclosed in an

ovule (like a pine cone). Gymnosperm means ‘naked seed’. This group is often

referred to as softwoods.

○ Examples are pines, cedars, spruces and firs

Coal gasification

● It is the process of producing syngas(Synthetic Gas), a mixture consisting carbon

monoxide (CO), hydrogen (H2), carbon dioxide (CO2), natural gas (CH4), and water

vapour (H2O).

● Benefits

○ Transporting gas is a lot cheaper than transporting coal.

○ Help address local pollution problems.

○ Has greater efficiency than conventional coal-burning

○ syngas shall be used to make fertilizers rather than importing natural gas.

● one of the more water-intensive forms of energy production.

● It also leads to land subsidence, water contamination and disposing of waste water

safety.

Coal liquefaction

● it is an alternative route to produce diesel and gasoline

● By liquefaction of synthetic gas to its fuel equivalent in presence of cobalt/iron-based

catalysts at higher pressure and temperature.



● However, liquefied coal emits twice as much CO2 as burning oil. It also emits a large

volume of SO2.

Carbon capture and storage ( CCS ) Or Geosequestration

● The CO2 emissions are more readily and cheaply captured from CTL plants than from

conventional coal-fired power stations.

● The captured CO2 can be transported and injected into underground storage reservoirs

Global methane budget

● They estimated annual global methane emissions at nearly 570 million tons for the 2008

to 2017 decade which is 5% higher than emissions recorded in the early 2000s.

● It estimated that wetlands made up for the largest natural source of methane and other

sources like agriculture, waste and fossil fuels contributed to 60%.

Global Carbon Project(GCP)

● GCP is an organization seeks to quantify global greenhouse gas emissions and their

causes.

● Established in 2001, its projects include global budgets for three dominant greenhouse

gases Carbon dioxide, Methane, Nitrous oxide

● GCP’s complementary efforts are in areas of urban, regional, cumulative,and negative

emissions.

● The main object to fully understand the carbon cycle.

● the global methane budget as part of the Global Carbon Project.

Pantanal Wetland

● It is a natural region encompassing the world’s largest tropical wetland area and the

world’s largest flooded grasslands.

● Mostly in Brazil ,little part in Bolivia & Paraguay

● UNESCO’s World Heritage List Also UNESCO Biosphere Reserve.

Early Migration of Butterflies

● Study by The Ferns Nature Conservation Society (FNCS) initiated a citizen science

project in 2018

● The annual migration of butterflies from the hill ranges of the Eastern Ghats towards the

Western Ghats

● Four species of milkweed butterflies mainly involved the Dark Blue Tiger, Blue Tiger,

Common Crow and the Double-branded (commonly known as tigers and crows).

Butterflies

● Butterflies are insects from phylum Arthropoda which also includes moths.

● Significance: Rich Biodiversity indicator species and pollinator



Parambikulam Tiger Reserve

● the Nelliampathy - Anamalai landscape of the Southern Western Ghats in India.

● It is located in the Palakkad District of Kerala.

● credited with the first scientifically managed teak plantation in the world

● It has the world's largest and oldest teak tree. Named "Kannimara" 350 yrs old

● Fauna includes Tigers, Grey-headed Fishing Eagle, the Peninsular Bay Owl, the Nilgiri

Wood Pigeon, the Black-capped Kingfisher, the Great Black Woodpecker and the Lesser

Grey-headed Fish Eagle.

Green Bee-Eater

● A dainty(Bird) (16-18 cm), bright green in plumage, slender-bodied, with blood-red eyes

● Its slim lengthened black bill a characteristic of an insect-eater (insectivore).

● Quite widespread and are resident (with slight seasonal movements locally) across the

country.

● IUCN Status : Least Concern

Biodiversity Council set up in Jammu and Kashmir

● Council is to be headed by the Chief Conservator of Forests, in consultation with the

National Biodiversity Authority.

● Include 10-members. Out of these, five will be non-official members(for three years).

● mmu and Kashmir Biodiversity Council Fund is to be constituted.

● Functions: to look after the conservation of biological diversity in the Union Territory and

also will focus on sustainable use of the components of the UT.

National Biodiversity Authority

● Statutory autonomous body operating under Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate

change.

● established in 2003 under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002.

● These measures were taken after India signed Convention on Biological Diversity in

1992.

● Headquarters : Chennai.

● Responsibility: to facilitate, regulate and advise GoI on the issues of sustainable use of

biological resources, conservation and fair and equitable sharing of use of biological

resources.

● and advising the State Governments in the selection of areas of biodiversity importance

to be notified under Sub-Section (1) of Section 37 as heritage sites and measures for the

management of such heritage sites;

● Under the Biological Diversity Act, 2002, the states are to create biodiversity

management committee (as that now created in J&K).

The State Biodiversity Boards (SBBs)

● focus on advising the State Governments, subject to any guidelines issued by the

Central Government, on matters relating to the conservation of biodiversity, sustainable



use of its components and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization

of biological resources;

● The SSBs also regulate, by granting of approvals or otherwise requests for commercial

utilization or bio-survey and bio-utilization of any biological resource by Indians.

Biodiversity Management Committees (BMCs)

● At The local level , responsible for promoting conservation, sustainable use and

documentation of biological diversity including preservation of habitats, conservation of

land races, folk varieties and cultivars, domesticated stocks and breeds of animals and

microorganisms and chronicling of knowledge relating to biological diversity.

● The main function of the BMC is to prepare People’s Biodiversity Register in

consultation with the local people.

● The Register shall contain comprehensive information on availability and knowledge of

local biological resources, their medicinal or any other use or any other.

Significance of Dead Coral Reef

● Dead coral reefs support cryptic organisms like hidden sea creatures, including fishes,

snails, tiny crabs and worms, who hide under its rubble to save themselves from

predation.

● Cryptic organisms: These are organisms that are morphologically indistinguishable

(identical in appearance) but are genetically distinct. Many species that are classified as

single species but are found to be genetically different are called cryptic species.

● In India, Coral reefs are present in the areas of Gulf of Kutch, Gulf of Mannar,

Andaman & Nicobar, Lakshadweep Islands and Malvan Maharashtra.

Coral Reef (the rainforests of the sea)

● Large underwater structures composed of the skeletons of colonial marine invertebrates

called coral.

● Corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater to create a hard, durable exoskeleton

that protects their soft, sac-like bodies.

● These exoskeleton remains of millions of corals pile up with time to form coral reefs.

● the zooxanthellae algae live inside the coral polyp's body and provide the coral with

food. The polyps, in turn, provide a home and carbon dioxide for the algae.These algae

are responsible for the variety of colours of corals.

● Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the ocean floor but they are among the most

productive and diverse ecosystems on Earth.

● Death of Coral Reefs: When corals become stressed due to any changes, including

pollution or global warming, they can expel algae and get bleached, meaning the ‘death’

of the coral reef.

Hurricane Nana

● on the coast of Belize, Which is located on the northeast coast of Central America.

● About Hurricane please refer Aug 2020 Target shots



Pripyat River

● The Pripyat river flows from northwestern Ukraine to its confluence with the Dnieper

● River,

● Ukraine’s most important river, on which its capital city of Kiev is located.

● The Pripyat river is being dredged as part of the restoration of a bilateral waterway

between Ukraine and Belarus and is being seen as the first step of the much larger E40

project.

Expansion of Kaziranga National Park

● latest additions would help provide connectivity to Orang and Nameri National Parks

across river Brahmaputra, besides the hills of Karbi Anglong to the south of the park,

where the rhino, tiger, deer and other animals take refuge during the floods.

● It is located in the State of Assam

● National Park from 1974

● Tiger reserve since 2007

● a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 .

● It is recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International.

● Fauna : One-horned Rahino, elephants, wild water buffalo, swamp dear

● Flora: Kaziranga is a vast expanse of tall elephant grass, marshland, and dense tropical

moist broadleaf forests

● The National Highway 37 passes through the park area.

● Other national parks in Assam are

○ Dibru-Saikhowa National Park,

○ Manas National Park,

○ Nameri National Park,

○ Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park.

National Parks

● They are the areas that are set by the government to conserve the natural environment.”

● A national park has more restrictions as compared to a wildlife sanctuary.

● boundaries are fixed and defined.

● The main objective oto protect the natural environment of the area and biodiversity

conservation.

What is allowed and what is not allowed inside National Parks:

● Here, no human activity is allowed.

● Grazing of livestock and private tenurial rights are not permitted here.

● Species mentioned in the Schedules of the Wildlife Act are not allowed to be hunted or

captured.

● No person shall destroy, remove, or exploit any wildlife from a National Park

● They cannot be downgraded to the status of a ‘sanctuary’.

Declaration of National Parks:

● by the Central Government and State governments. No alteration of the boundaries of a

national park shall be made except on a resolution passed by the State Legislature.



Wildlife Sanctuaries

● notified by the State Government to constitute as a sanctuary

● If area is of adequate ecological, faunal, floral, geomorphological, natural. or zoological

significance, for the purpose of protecting, propagating or developing wildlife or its

environment.

● Unlike a Sanctuary, where certain rights can be allowed, in a National Park, no rights are

allowed. No grazing of any livestock is permitted inside a National Park while in a

Sanctuary, the Chief Wildlife Warden may regulate, control or prohibit it.

Reserve Forest

● A reserve forest denotes forests accorded a certain degree of protection

● The term was first introduced in the Indian Forest Act, 1927 in British India,

● Declared by the respective state governments

● The first Reserve Forest Of India was Satpura National Park, MP.

● At present, reserved forests and protected forests differ in one important way: Rights to

all activities like hunting, grazing, etc. in reserved forests are banned unless specific

orders are issued otherwise.

Protected forests

1. These are protected from any further depletion.

2. Almost 1 /3rd of the total forest area of India is called as the protected forest.

3. These are controlled by the government.

4. The forests of Bihar, Haryana, Punjab, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha and Rajasthan

fall under this category.

Unclassed forests

1. These consist of inaccessible forests or wastelands.

2. These consist of only 16% of the total forest areas of India.

3. These are owned by government and private individuals.

4. The forests of north-eastern states and parts of Gujarat fall under this category.

Low ozone over Brahmaputra River Valley

Tropospheric or ground-level ozone

● It is created by chemical reactions between oxides of nitrogen (NOx) and volatile organic

compounds (VOC).

● It usually increases when pollutants emitted by cars, power plants, industrial boilers,

refineries, chemical plants, and other sources chemically react in the presence of

sunlight, impacting human health.

● Ozone at ground level is a harmful air pollutant.its effect on the respiratory system,

especially on lung function.

● affect agricultural crops and trees

Vienna Convention for Ozone Protection



● 28 countries originally signed the convention on 22nd March 1985, came into force in

1988 and

● Vienna Convention along with Montreal Protocol was universally ratified

● purpose of the Vienna Convention is to protect the ozone layer from depletion.

● theme of Ozone Day 2020 – “Ozone for life: 35 years of ozone layer protection.”.

● India is a member of the Vienna Convention. It acceded to the convention in 1991 and

became a party to the Montreal Protocol in 1992.

Montreal Protocol

● on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is an important Multilateral Agreement

regulating the production, consumption, and emissions of ozone-depleting substances

(ODSs).

● Protocol was signed in 1987 and entered into force in January 1989.

● protocol gives provisions to reduce the production and consumption of ODSs to protect

the ozone layer.

● Developing and developed countries have equal but differentiated responsibilities.

● atified by 197 Parties (196 member states of the UN plus the EU) making it the first

United Nations treaty to be ratified by every country in the world.

● ODSs regulated by the Protocol are listed in: CFCs, halons, other fully halogenated

CFCs, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform, HCFCs, Methyl bromide, HFCs

Kigali Amendment

● It amends the 1987 Montreal Protocol

● It aims to phase out Hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), a family of potent greenhouse gases by

the late 2040s

● Under Kigali Amendment, in all 197 countries, including India have agreed to a timeline

to reduce the use of HFCs by roughly 85% of their baselines by 2045.

Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969) – It is a treaty of treaties that

establishes comprehensive rules, procedures, and guidelines for how treaties are

defined, drafted, amended, interpreted, and generally operated.

Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations (1961) – It is a treaty that defines the

framework of diplomatic relations between the member states and anchors diplomatic

immunity. It has 192 members.

Montreal Protocol: International Day for Preservation of Ozone Layer ( 16th

Sept )

● This day commemorates the drafting of The Montreal Protocol on Substances that

Deplete the Ozone Layer.

● On 16th September 2009, the Vienna Convention and the Montreal Protocol became

the first treaties in the history of the United Nations to achieve universal ratification



● Main aim: to protect the ozone layer by taking measures to control total global

production and consumption of substances that deplete it.

● Objective of the protocol is elimination of substances that deplete ozone layer on the

basis of developments in scientific knowledge and technological information.

List of Ozone depleting substances controlled by Montreal Protocol

1. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs)

2. Halon

3. Carbon tetrachloride (CCl4), Methyl chloroform (CH3CCl3)

4. Hydrobromofluorocarbons (HBFCs)

5. Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs)

6. Methyl bromide (CH3Br)

7. Bromochloromethane (CH2BrCl)

Ozone cell :

● Under Ministry of Env. & Climate change

● It governs day-to-day operations, promulgation of relevant policies and monitoring

implementation of all phaseout projects.

● The Quota and Licensing system, on CFC production, imports and exports of ODS, is

primarily handled by Ozone Cell.

● It is the main interface between GOI, Montreal Protocol Secretariat and ODS consuming

industries in India.

HCFC 141b

● Recently India has successfully phased out Hydrochlorofluorocarbon (HCFC)-141 b.

● HCFC-141 b is one of the most powerful ozone-depleting chemicals after

Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs).

● It is mainly used as a blowing agent in the foam manufacturing industries

Ozone Depleting Substances (ODS) presently used in India

● Chloroflourocarbons(CFCs)–12 for Refrigeration, Chillers and Metered Dose Inhalers.

● Hydrochloroflourocarbons (HCFCs) - 22 for Air Conditioners .

● Carbon Teterachloride (CTCs) for as solvent process agent mainly in the metal cleaning

and textile industries. It is also used as feedstock in the manufacture of CFCs and DV

Acid Chloride.

● The Ozone Depleting Substances are those substances that damage the ozone layer.

Sonneratia alba

● a state mangrove tree species , 1st Declared by Maharashtra

● It is an evergreen mangrove tree in the family Lythraceae.

● It grows naturally in many tropical and subtropical areas

● Its habitat is sheltered around sandy seashores and tidal creeks.

● Play an important role in combating land erosion.



Launch of Bamboo Clusters

● Launched by Union Minister for Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare

● 22 bamboo clusters in 9 states viz. Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha,

Assam, Nagaland, Tripura, Uttarakhand and Karnataka.

● A logo for the National Bamboo Mission (NBM) has also been released.

● ● The Indian Forest Act 1927 was amended in 2017 to remove bamboo for the category of

trees. anyone can undertake cultivation and business in bamboo and its products

without the need of a felling and transit permission.

National Bamboo Mission

● launched in 2018-19 implemented in a hub (industry) and spoke model.

● Objective:

● Connecting farmers to markets, endeavours to upgrade skills of traditional bamboo

craftsmen,

● NBM supports local artisans through locally grown bamboo species, which will actualise

the goal of Vocal for Local and help increase the income of farmers, reducing

dependency on imports of raw material.

World Bamboo Day ( 18th Sept )

● Theme of 2020: Bamboo Now

● Officially established by the World Bamboo organization at the 8th World Bamboo

Congress held in Bangkok in 2009.

● World Bamboo Organization : It was set up at the 1992 International Bamboo Congress

in Japan

● It is an international coordinating body for bamboo practitioners dedicated to promoting

the use of bamboo and bamboo products for the sake of the environment and economy.

● Uses: Bamboo can be used in 1,500 different ways including as food, a substitute for

wood, building and construction material, for handicrafts and paper. Due to its versatile

nature and multiple uses, it is also called ‘poor man’s timber’.

● It is the fastest growing canopy, releasing 35% more oxygen than trees and can

sequester 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide from per hectare.

● According to the National Bamboo Mission, India has the highest area (13.96 million

hectares) under bamboo.

● It is the second richest country after China in terms of bamboo diversity with 136

species.



● The annual production of bamboo in India is 14.6 million tonnes and the bamboo-rattan

industry in the country was worth Rs. 28,005 crore in 2017.

Blue Pansy Butterfly

● belongs to Nymphalidae family of Butterfly

● found in parts of Southeast Asian countries, Australia and Africa.

● They prefer open habitats, like grasslands, wastelands, woodlands, open forest areas,

and farmlands.

● IUCN Status: Not Evaluated

Living Planet Report 2020

● Released by World Wildlife Fund.

● Published every two years since 1998.

● It is based on the Living Planet Index and ecological footprint calculations.

● Ecological footprint: human demand on natural capital

Key Takeaways

● The population of vertebrate species declined by around 68 per cent between 1970 and

2016.

● Wildlife populations in freshwater habitats suffered a decline of 84 per cent

● 75 per cent of earth’s ice-free land has been significantly altered, most of the oceans

polluted and over 85 per cent area of wetlands lost ~ all due to human activity.

● One in five plants is threatened with extinction.

● Factors responsible for this decline:

● Land-use change. Use and trade of wildlife. Natural habitat loss. Degradation and

deforestation driven by food production processes.

About India:

● India has 2.4 per cent global land share, about eight per cent global biodiversity and

around 16 per cent global population

● However, it has lost 12 per cent of its wild mammals, 19 per cent amphibians and 3 per

cent birds over last five decades.

● India’s ecological footprint per person is less than 1.6 global hectares (gha) / person

(smaller than that of many large countries)

● One of the most threatened biodiversity globally has been freshwater biodiversity.

World Wildlife Fund for Nature

● Iworks in more than 100 countries.

● established in 1961 and headquartered at Gland, Switzerland.

● Mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of

life on Earth.

● WWF works in the areas of climate, food, forests, fresh water, oceans and wildlife

primarily.

● It runs several projects in various fields in partnership with people, bodies and

governments worldwide.

● Campaigns launched by WWF include Earth Hour and Debt-for-Nature Swap.



IEP’S ECOLOGICAL THREAT REGISTER

● The Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP), a think tank has released annual global

terrorism and peace indexes.

● 1.2 billion people lived in 31 countries that are not sufficiently resilient to withstand

ecological threats.

● The world had 60% less fresh water available than it did 50 years ago, while demand for

food was predicted to rise by 50% by 2050 and natural disasters were only likely to

increase in frequency because of the climate crisis.

● IEP states that 19 countries facing the highest number of threats, including water and

food shortages and greater exposure to natural disasters, are also among the world’s 40

least peaceful countries.

● Out of 157 countries’ assessed, 141 countries faced at least one ecological threat by

2050.

● Ecological Threat : Sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, Middle East and North Africa the

regions facing the largest number of ecological threat.

● Some countries, such as India and China, are most threatened by water scarcity.

● Mass Migration: It judged Pakistan to be the country with the largest number of people at

risk of mass migration, followed by Ethiopia and Iran.

Net Present Value of Forests

● The Ministry of Mines has requested the Forest Advisory Committee (Ministry of

Environment, Forest and Climate Change) to exempt digging exploratory boreholes from

Net Present Value (NPV).

● Exploratory Boreholes: An exploratory borehole is drilled for the purpose of identifying

the characteristics, location, quantity and quality of a resource (coal, metal or

petroleum).

● It is a part of prospecting a site for future use for mining and extraction activities.

● Net Present Value (NPV): It is a mandatory one-time payment that a user has to make

for diverting forestland for non-forest use, under the Forest (Conservation) Act, 1980.

● It depends on the location and nature of the forest and the type of industrial enterprise

that will replace a particular parcel of forest.

● Payments go to the Compensatory Afforestation Fund (CAF) and are used for

afforestation and reforestation.

● Some projects have been provided exemption from paying NPV like

● ○ Construction of Schools, ○ Hospitals, ○ Village tanks, ○ Laying down of optical fiber

● The Forest Advisory Committee constituted by the Ministry of Environment, Forest

and Climate Change (MoEF&CC) decides on whether forests can be diverted for

projects and the NPV to be charged.

● It is a statutory body constituted by the Forest (Conservation) Act 1980.



Forest Conservation Act, 1980

● Act stipulated that the central permission is necessary to practice sustainable agro-

forestry in forest areas. Violation or lack of permit was treated as a criminal offence.

● It puts a restriction on the use of forest-land for non-forest purposes.

● It targeted to limit deforestation, conserve biodiversity and save wildlife.

Climate Smart Cities Assessment Framework 2.0

● Launched by Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

● Objective:To provide a clear roadmap for cities towards combating Climate Change

while planning and implementing their actions, including investments.

● a climate-sensitive approach to urban planning and development in India.

● 28 indicators across five categories namely;

○ Energy and Green Buildings,

○ Urban Planning, Green Cover & Biodiversity,

○ Mobility and Air Quality,

○ Water Management and

○ Waste Management.

● Implemented by : The Climate Centre for Cities under National Institute of Urban Affairs

(NIUA)

C40 CITIES CLIMATE LEADERSHIP GROUP (C40)

● C40 is a network of the world’s megacities committed to addressing climate change.

● The C40 group was started in 2005 by the then Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone.

● It has 96 members at present, representing over 70 crore people, and one-quarter of the

global economy.

● The cities from India that are part of the C40 are Delhi NCR, Bengaluru, Jaipur, and

Kolkata.

Nioghalvfjerdsfjorden glacier

● A massive chunk of ice has broken off from this ice shelf because of warmer

temperatures in Greenland.

● It is located in Northeast Greenland.

● It is Arctic’s largest ice shelf.

World's Largest Rooftop Greenhouse

● Opened in Canada

Hilsa fish

● It is a salt water fish which migrates from Bay of Bengal to the fresh waters of Ganga to

spawn

● It is well distributed in the GangaBrahmaputra river systems in India and Bangladesh.

● IUCN red list “Threatened Species”

● National fish of Bangladesh

● State symbol in the Indian states of West Bengal and Tripura



Kharai Camel

● Also known as Swimming Camels.

● Found only in Gujarat’s Bhuj area.

● This camel is adapted to the extreme climate of Ran of Kachh where shallow seas and

high salinity is prevalent.

● It can live in both coastal and dry ecosystems. It grazes on saline / mangrove trees and

is tolerant to high saline water.

● It can swim up to three kilometers into the sea in search of mangroves, their primary

food.

Leptarma Biju

● It is a new species of tree-spider crab from a mangrove forest in Kasaragod, Kerala.

● The new species is named Leptarma Biju after A. Biju Kumar who is the head of

Department of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries, University of Kerala.

● It the first report of the genus Leptarma from India.

● Its characteristic features are its long ambulatory legs and short and hook-like dactylus

that have adapted the crustacean for tree-climbing.

Blue Flag Certification

● first time eight beaches of India are recommended for the coveted International eco-

label, the Blue flag certification.

● Blue Flag Programme for beaches and marinas is run by the international, non-

governmental, non-profit organisation FEE (the Foundation for Environmental

Education).

● Blue Flag beaches are considered the cleanest beaches of the world.

● In order to qualify for the Blue Flag, a series of stringent environmental, educational,

safety, and accessibility criteria must be met and maintained.

● On the lines of Blue Flag certification, India has also launched its own eco-label BEAMS.

BEAMS(Beach Environment & Aesthetics Management Services)

● On this occasion, India has also launched India’s own eco-label BEAMS under ICZM

(Integrated Coastal Zone Management) project.

● This is launched by the Society of Integrated Coastal Management (SICOM) and the

Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan( ICZM )

● Integrated Coastal Zone Management Plan (ICZM) is a process for the management of

the coast using an integrated approach, regarding all aspects of the coastal zone,

including geographical and political boundaries, in an attempt to achieve sustainability.

● The concept of ICZM was born in 1992 during the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro.

● The specifics regarding ICZM is set out in the proceedings of the summit within Agenda

21.



● It is a World Bank assisted project and is being implemented by the Union Ministry of

Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC).

Nandankanan Zoological Park: Odisha

● First zoo in the country to become a member of the World Association of Zoos &

Aquariums (WAZA).

● It is recognized as a leading zoo for the breeding of the Indian pangolin and white tiger.

● It was the world’s first captive crocodile breeding centre, where gharials were bred in

captivity in 1980.

Sloth Bears

● Habitat: Also called honey bear, Hindi bhalu,

● Protection Status:

● ‘Vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List.

● Appendix I in CITES listing.

● Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Himalayan Black Bear

● Habitat: Also called Asiatic black bear, it inhabits mountainous and heavily forested

areas across southern and eastern Asia.

● Protection Status:

● ‘Vulnerable’ in the IUCN Red List.

● Appendix I in CITES listing.

● Schedule I of the Indian Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.

Glass2sand Initiative

● It is a zero waste ecosystem that converts glass to sand.

● The system addresses the growing problem of glass in the national capital region.

● This has prevented empty glass bottles from getting dumped into the landfills.

● Started in 2018.

● The project was started because the demand for glass bottles had dropped significantly

then because of their huge transportation cost and large storage areas. So, these glass

bottles started accumulating as landfills.

Danaid Eggfly

● It belongs to the largest family of butterflies, Nymphalidae.

● The butterflies in this family are also called Brush-footed Butterflies, where the forelegs

(first pair of legs) are reduced in size and covered with long hair, much like brushes.

● They are found across Africa, Asia, and Australia.

● Features è The females of Danaid Eggfly mimic (in appearance) the similar-sized Plain

Tiger, which is a toxic butterfly with the toxic Milkweed as its host plant.



African Elephant dying due to Cyanobacteria

● Neuro-toxins in water produced by cyanobacteria killed more than 300 African elephants

in the Okavango delta region, Botswana (country in Southern Africa).

● Neuro-toxins are substances that damage, destroy, or impair the functioning of neural

tissue.

Cyanobacteria

● also called blue-green algae, are microscopic organisms found naturally in soils and all

types of water.

● These single-celled organisms (bacteria) live in fresh, brackish (combined salt and

freshwater), and marine water.

● use sunlight to make their own food.

● In warm, nutrient-rich (high in phosphorus and nitrogen) environments, cyanobacteria

can multiply quickly.

● Not all produce toxins but scientists say toxic ones are occurring more frequently as

climate change drives up global temperatures.

● Climate Change and Algal Bloom: An algal bloom is a rapid increase in the population of

algae or cyanobacteria in an aquatic system.

The African elephant:

● It is the largest animal walking the Earth.

● IUCN Status: Vulnerable

● Included in CITES Apendix II

● Two Subspecies: The Savanna (or bush) elephant and the Forest elephant

Botswana

● It is a landlocked country in Southern Africa.

● It is bounded by Namibia to the west and north (the Caprivi Strip), Zambia and

Zimbabwe to the northeast and South Africa to the southeast and south.

● The tropic of Capricorn passes through Botswana.

Okavango Delta (or Okavango Grassland)

● in Botswana is a swampy inland delta

● formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough in the central part of the

endorheic basin of the Kalahari Desert

Komodo Dragon

● Komodo dragons are the largest and heaviest lizards on Earth. They have long, flat

heads with rounded snouts, scaly skin, bowed legs, and huge, muscular tails.

● IUCN Status: Vulnerable.

● CITES: Appendix I.

● Komodo dragons can eat almost anything, including invertebrates, birds, and mammals

like deer, pigs, and even large water buffalo.

● They have venom glands loaded with toxins which have been shown to secrete

anticoagulants.


https://www.drishtiias.com/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-international-institution/cites


● An anticoagulant is a compound which prevents the victim's blood from clotting, causing

it to bleed to death.

Mass Pilot Whale Strandings in Tasmania

● Pilot whales are so named because it was once believed that each observed group was

navigated by a pilot or leader.

● Main features Latin name, Globicephala, means ‘round head’

● Two Species

1. Short finned pilot whales, which are mainly found in tropical and warm-

temperate regions, and

2. long-finned pilot whales, which inhabit colder waters.

● IUCN Status : Data Deficient

National Conservation Strategy for Indian One-Horned Rhino

● Launched by Environment Ministry on the occasion of World Rhino Day (Sep 22 )

● India is home to the largest number of One-Horned Rhinoceros in the world.

● Theme for the Day this year is Five Rhino Species Forever

● The strategy includes conservation of Greater one horned rhinoceros in India as well as

in Nepal.

● The strategy follow the same protocol to manage the population of rhinos in Valmiki

Tiger Reserve in India, Shuklaphanta in Nepal and Chitwan National Park in Nepal

and Dudhwa that are separated by political boundary.

● Further, the conservation initiatives for rhino has also enriched the grassland

management thus it will help in reducing the negative impacts of climate change through

carbon sequestration.

Rhinos (World Rhino Day (Sep 22 )

● 5 species of Rhinos in total for which IUCN status is listed below:

○ Javan rhinos: critically endangered

○ Sumatran rhinos: critically endangered

○ Black rhinos: critically endangered

○ White rhinos: near threatened

○ Greater one horned rhinos: vulnerable. - This species found in India

● The horn is pure keratin, like human fingernails, and starts to show after about six years.

● second in size only to the Asian elephant among terrestrial land mammals

● The folds in the skin increase the surface area and help in regulating the body

temperature

● Found in Kaziranga National Park , Jaldapara National Park , Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary ,

Orang National Park, Gorumara, Dudhwa National Park, Manas National Park


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaziranga_National_Park

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaldapara_National_Park


Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority

● EPCA was constituted under section 3 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986 for the

National Capital Region in compliance with the Supreme Court order dated January

1998.

● notified in 1998 by Environment Ministry under the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

● Composition: Besides the chairman, the EPCA has 14 members

● Power to take action suo-moto, or on the basis of complaints made by any individual,

representative body or organization functioning in the field of environment.

● It takes all necessary steps for controlling vehicular pollution, ensuring compliance of

fuel quality standards, monitoring and coordinating action for traffic planning and

management in National Capital Region.

Central Pollution Control Board:

● CPCB is a statutory organisation which was constituted in September, 1974 under the

Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.

● It was entrusted with the powers and functions under the Air (Prevention and Control of

Pollution) Act, 1981.

● It serves as a field formation and also provides technical services to the Ministry of

Environment and Forests under the provisions of the Environment (Protection) Act,

1986.

Functions:

● to promote cleanliness of streams and wells in different areas of the States by

prevention, control and abatement of water pollution.

● to improve the quality of air and to prevent, control or abate air pollution in the country.

SAFAR

● The System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting and Research (SAFAR) is a national

initiative introduced by the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) to measure the air quality

of a metropolitan city, by measuring the overall pollution level and the location-specific

air quality of the city.

● The system is indigenously developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology

(IITM), Pune and is operationalized by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).

SAMEER App

● one of the air pollution mitigation measures which provides hourly updates on the

National Air Quality Index (AQI), for more than 100 cities across the country.

● Developed by the Central Pollution Control Bureau (CPCB) which provides information

on air quality

● The app represents the listed cities in a colour-coded format based on their AQI levels.

● Also used to file or track complaints related to garbage dumping, road dust, vehicular

emissions or other pollution issues in a particular area

National Air Quality Index (AQI)

● The AQI is an index for reporting daily air quality.



● It focuses on health effects one might experience within a few hours or days after

breathing polluted air.

● AQI is calculated for eight major air pollutants:

● Ground-level ozone, PM10, PM2.5, Carbon monoxide, Sulfur dioxide, Nitrogen dioxide,

Ammonia, Lead,

● Ground-level ozone and airborne particles are the two pollutants that pose the greatest

threat to human health in India.

PUSA Decomposer

● Scientists at Indian Agriculture Research Institute (IARI) have invented PUSA

Decomposer for converting crop stubble into compost.

● It is a set of four tablets made by extracting fungi strains that help the paddy straw to

decompose at a much faster rate than usual.

● It will help tackle crop residue burning by farmers.

● Benefits:

● The decomposer improves the fertility and productivity of the soil

● The soil loses its richness due to stubble burning and it also destroys the useful bacteria

and fungi in the soil, apart from causing harm to the environment.

● an efficient and effective, cheaper, doable and practical technique to stop stubble

burning

● an eco-friendly and environmentally useful technology and will contribute to achieve

Swachh Bharat Mission.

State Disaster Response Fund (SDRF)

● On the recommendations of 13th finance commision, SDRF was constituted under

disaster management Act, 2005

● Government of India allocates 75% of SDRF to the states and 90% for special category

states annually.

● The disbursement of the fund for a state is based on the Recommendation of the finance

commission.

● The fund is audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General of India every year.

Leuser Ecosystem

● Leuser Ecosystem is among the most ancient and life-rich ecosystems ever documented

by science and is a world-class hotspot of biodiversity and is widely acknowledged to be

among the most important areas of intact rainforest left in all of Southeast Asia.

● designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

● Location: across the province of Aceh and North Sumatra, Indonesia.

● Its diverse landscape includes lowland and montane rainforests and over 185,000

hectares of carbon-rich peatlands.

Montane rainforests,



● also called cloud forests, are vegetation of tropical mountainous regions in which the

rainfall is often heavy and persistent condensation occurs because of cooling of

moisture-laden air currents deflected upward by the mountains.

Sumatran Orangutan

● These are almost exclusively arboreal which means they live among the trees of tropical

rainforests.

● distributed over the entire island of Sumatra and further south into Java.

● IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered.

Fridays For Future Movement (FFF)

● FFF is a dynamic global student movement pushing for immediate action on climate

change through active campaigning and advocacy.

● inspired by Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg, who sat in protest in front of the Swedish

parliament for three weeks in 2018 to draw attention to the climate emergency.

● The FFF movement was chosen as Champion of the Earth award for inspiration and

action because of its role in highlighting the devastating effects of climate change.

● Goals: The main goals of the movement is to put moral pressure on policy-makers, to

make them listen to scientists and then to take action to limit global warming.

● Demand: Keep the global temperature rise below 1.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels

(Key outcome of Paris climate deal).

● Ensure climate justice and equity.

● Listen to the best science currently available to deal with the climate crisis.

Scrub Typhus

● a bacterial disease,in Nagaland’s Noklak district bordering Myanmar.

● Caused By: Orientia tsutsugamushi (Bacteria)

● Spread: Through bites of Larval Mites of family trombiculid, also called Chiggers

● Symptoms: Fever, headache, body aches, and sometimes rash.

● Treatment: Antibiotics. No vaccine available.

Typhus

● Typhus is a group of bacterial infectious diseases that include epidemic typhus, scrub

typhus, and murine typhus.

● Epidemic typhus is due to Rickettsia prowazekii spread by body lice.

● Scrub typhus is due to Orientia tsutsugamushi spread by chiggers.

● Murine typhus is due to Rickettsia typhi spread by fleas.

● Napoleon’s army was infected with Epidemic Typhus during his invasion of Russia in

1812 causing it to retreat.

Silicosis and Mining Safety

● Saharia tribe miners in Madhya Pradesh have appealed to the government to treat them

for silicosis rather than Tuberculosis.



● It is a progressive lung disease caused by inhalation of silica over a long period of time.

● Silicosis is characterized by shortness of breath, cough, fever and bluish skin.

● Silica (SiO2/silicon dioxide) is a crystal-like mineral found in abundance in sand, rock,

and quartz.

● silica is odourless, non-irritant and does not cause any immediate health effects

World Tourism Day 2020- ( 27th Sept )

● Day in 1970 when the Statutes of the United Nations World Tourism Organization

(UNWTO) were adopted

● The UNWTO is the United Nations specialised agency responsible for the promotion of

responsible, sustainable and universally accessible tourism.

● Theme for 2020: ‘Tourism and Rural Development

● Blue is the colour of World Tourism Day

● World Tourism Day was hosted by the Mercosur Bloc nations this year.

Initiatives taken to promote tourism in India:

● Swadesh Darshan Scheme: It is a Central Sector Scheme, and was launched in 2014 -

15 for integrated development of theme based tourist circuits in the country.

● PRASHAD Scheme: The ‘National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual,

Heritage Augmentation Drive’ (PRASHAD) was launched by the Ministry of Tourism in

the year 2014-15 with the objective of holistic development of identified pilgrimage

destinations.

● Iconic Tourist Sites: The government is developing 17 “Iconic Tourist Sites” in the

country as world class tourist destinations which in turn would serve as a model for other

tourism sites. It is aimed at enhancing India’s soft power.

● Webinar Series Dekho Apna Desh: It was launched in January 2020 with the objective

of creating awareness among the citizens about the rich heritage and culture of the

country.

○ It encourages citizens to travel widely within the country and enhances tourist

footfalls leading to development of the local economy and creation of jobs at the

local level.

● Destination North East-2020: It aims to bring the rest of India closer to North East (NE)

India.

● SAATHI Application: Sophisticated Analytical and Technical Help Institutes

● It is an initiative of the Ministry of Tourism with the Quality Council of India, launched to

assist the hospitality industry to continue to operate safely and thereby instill confidence

among the Staff, employees and the guests about the safety of the hotel/unit.

Initiative to tackle forest fire:

A. National Action Plan on Forest Fires, 2018

● Under MoEF&CC, to revamp forest fire management in the country.

● Objectives: Informing, Enabling and Empowering forest fringe communities and

Incentivizing them to work in tandem with the State Forest Departments (SFDs).



● The plan proposes nine strategies to address the issue, including establishment of a

“Centre of Excellence on Forest Fire Management”at Forest Survey of India (FSI).

B. Forest Fire Prevention and Management Scheme( FPM )

● FPM is the only centrally funded program specifically dedicated to assist the states in

dealing with forest fires.

● The FPM replaced the Intensification of Forest Management Scheme (IFMS) in 2017.

● Funds allocated center-state cost-sharing formula, with a 90:10 ratio of central to state

funding in the Northeast and Western Himalayan regions and a 60:40 ratio for all other

states.

● It also provides the states the flexibility to direct a portion of the National Afforestation

Programme (NAP) and Mission for Green India (GIM) funding toward forest fire work.

Sandalwood Spike Disease

● Caused by è phytoplasma — bacterial parasites of plant tissues — which are

transmitted by insect vectors.

● The disease is characterized by extreme reduction in leaf size accompanied by

stiffening and reduction of internode length.

● There is no cure Presently, there is no option but to cut down and remove the infected

tree to prevent the spread of the disease.

Red Sandalwood

● Red sanders (Pterocarpus santalinus) is endemic to South India.

● For cosmetics and medicinal products, wood-works and musical instruments.

● Found in the Tropical Dry Deciduous forest of the Palakonda and Seshachalam hill

ranges of Andhra Pradesh and also found in Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.

● Red Sanders usually grow in the rocky, degraded and fallow lands with Red Soil and hot

and dry climate.

● It is known for its rich hue and therapeutic properties

● IUCN Status: near threatened

● Listed in Appendix II of CITES

● Appendix II – Species which are not necessarily threatened with extinction, but in which

trade must be controlled to avoid utilisation incompatible with their survival.

Six Mega Projects in Uttarakhand: Namami Gange Mission

● These six mega projects of Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) are constructed at

Haridwar, Rishikesh, Muni ki Reti, Chorpani, and Badrinath.

● hybrid annuity mode on public private partnership.

● Hybrid Annuity Model: The Government would provide upfront around 40% of the project

cost to the developer to start the work and the remaining 60% would be borne by the

private party.



Namami Gange Programme:

● Namami Gange Programme is an Integrated Conservation Mission, approved as a

‘Flagship Programme’ by the Union Government in June 2014

● Objectives of effective abatement of pollution and conservation and rejuvenation of

National River Ganga.

● operated under the Department of Water Resources, River Development and Ganga

Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.

● implemented by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and its state

counterpart organizations i.e., State Program Management Groups (SPMGs).

○ NMCG is the implementation wing of National Ganga Council (set in 2016; which

replaced the National Ganga River Basin Authority - NGRBA).

● It has a Rs. 20,000-crore, centrally-funded, non-lapsable corpus and consists of

nearly 288 projects.

● The main pillars of the programme are:

○ Sewage Treatment Infrastructure & Industrial Effluent Monitoring

○ River-Front Development & River-Surface Cleaning

○ Bio-Diversity & Afforestation

○ Public Awareness

● Ganga Avalokan: It is the first museum inaugurated for Ganga.

○ The museum is dedicated to showcase the culture, biodiversity and rejuvenation

activities done in Ganga river.

○ Located at Chandi Ghat, Haridwar.

● Rowing down the Ganges: A book co-published by National Mission for Clean Ganga

& Wildlife Institute of India is also launched.

● The logo of Jal Jeevan Mission and ‘Margdarshika for Gram Panchayats and Paani

Samitis under Jal Jeevan Mission’ is also unveiled during the event.

Campaign to Remove Lantana Camara : Rajasthan

● A special drive to uproot the invasive Lantana bushes in the Sajjangarh Wildlife

Sanctuary in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district

Lantana Camara:

● Lantana camara is a small perennial shrub, which forms extensive, dense and

impenetrable thickets.

● native to Central and South America.

● Invasive species which was introduced in tropical regions as an ornamental plant

(introduced in India in 1807).

● It is generally deleterious to biodiversity and is an agricultural weed.

● The toxic substance in its foliage and ripe berries affected the animals.

Invasive Species

● An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area

and causes harm.(Like an amphibian (like the cane toad), plant, insect, fish, fungus,

bacteria, or even an organism’s seeds or eggs)

● They are capable of causing extinctions of native plants and animals, reducing

biodiversity, competing with native organisms for limited resources, and altering habitats.



● They can be introduced to an area by ship ballast water, accidental release, and most

often, by humans.

● India’s most notorious invasive Plant: include lantana, parthenium, Siam weed, Mexican

devil (Ageratina adenophora) and mesquite (Prosopis juliflora), water hyacinth , alligator

weed

Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary:

● Location: Udaipur (Rajasthan)

● History: It is a part of Sajjangarh Palace (also known as Monsoon Palace) built in 1884.

● The Palace derived its name from Maharana Sajjan Singh, one of the rulers of the

Mewar dynasty.

● Flora and Fauna: Animals like chitals, panthers, hares, blue bulls (Nilgais), jackals, wild

boars, hyenas, and sambhar.

● Famous for Long-billed vulture, commonly known as the Indian vulture.

● Scientific Name: Gyps indicus

● IUC Status: Critically Endangered

● CITES Status: Appendix II

● Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 Status: Schedule I

Pipeworts

● a type of wetland plant, from areas along the Western Ghats in Maharashtra and

Karnataka

● pipeworts widely distributed in tropical regions, particularly southern Asia and the

Americas.

● The genus Eriocaulon is usually adapted to soft water.

● It is a quite small, very narrow-leaved and almost cushion growing plant that demands

good supply of light and carbon dioxide to develop.

Green Strategic Partnership between India and Denmark

● India and the Kingdom of Denmark have launched the Green Strategic Partnership for

delivering sustainable solutions to India.

● The Partnership will focus on expanding economic ties, green growth, and cooperation

on global challenges such as climate change.

● Green growth is a term to describe a path of economic growth that uses natural

resources in a sustainable manner.

● Danish companies with niche technologies and expertise have offered to help India in

meeting its air pollution control targets, including in the key area of tackling the problem

of burning crop stubble.

● Other key points: dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic and cooperation in water

efficiency and water loss.

● The creation of India-Denmark energy parks in areas with large numbers of Danish

firms and an India-Denmark skill institute to train Indian manpower has been proposed.

● The Green Strategic Partnership will build on an existing Joint Commission for

Cooperation and existing joint working groups.



Partnership for Action on Green Economy (PAGE)

● Launched in 2013 as a direct response to the call at Rio+20

● it brings together five UN agencies: UN Environment(UNEP), International Labour

Organization(ILO),UN Development Programme(UNDP) ,UN Industrial Development

Organization(UNIDO), UN Institute for Training and Research

● Aims to assist countries in achieving and monitoring the emerging Sustainable

Development Goals, especially SDG 8: “Promote sustained, inclusive and sustainable

economic growth, full and productive employment and decent work for all”



Science & Technology ..

First-ever World Solar Technology Summit (WSTS)

● organised by the International Solar Alliance (ISA) and Federation of Indian Chambers of

Commerce and Industry (FICCI).

● Objective: To showcase to member countries the state of the art and next-generation

solar technologies worldwide.

International Solar Alliance

● jointly launched by India and France on 30th November 2015 during the 21st session of

the United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP-21) in Paris,

France.

● It was conceived as a coalition of solar-resource-rich countries (which lie either

completely or partly between the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn) to

address their special energy needs.

Global Solar Atlas

● The primary aim of this Global Solar Atlas is to provide quick and easy access to solar

resource and photovoltaic power potential data globally, at a click of a mouse.

● The Global Solar Atlas is provided by the Energy Sector Management Assistance

Program (ESMAP), a multi-donor trust funded program administered by the World Bank,

and was developed under contract by Solargis, a provider of solar resource data and

photovoltaic (PV) energy evaluation services

● The Global Wind Atlas is the parallel activity with comparable services for the wind

power sector. The aim of the both platforms is to support the scale up of renewable

energy sources in the global energy mix, as mandated under Sustainable Development

Goal 7.

One Sun, One World, One Grid (OSOWOG) initiative

● OSOWOG initiative was proposed by : The Union Ministry of New and Renewable

Energy (MNRE) India

● aims at building a global ecosystem of interconnected renewable energy resources that

can be easily shared

● Objective: To build global consensus about sharing solar resources among more than

140 countries of West Asia and South-East Asia.

● Vision is ‘The Sun Never Sets’ and is a constant at some geographical location, globally,

at any given point of time

● It has been taken up under the technical assistance program of the World Bank.

World’s Largest Solar Tree

● CSIR-CMERI has developed the World’s Largest Solar Tree

● installed capacity: 11.5 kWp



● The Tree has been designed in a manner to ensure maximum exposure of each Solar

PV Panel to Sunlight and also creation of the least amount of shadow area beneath.

● Besides, the surplus generated power can be fed into an Energy Grid.

Global Pulse Survey

● By World Health Organization

● at least half of 25 kinds of health services experienced disruptions due to COVID-19

● Reason for the disruption:

○ The patient did not present themselves for outpatient care due to lock down

○ The supply side factors included work-force related difficulties, elective care and

unavailability of services

○ Insufficient staff

○ Unavailability of health products

○ Changes in treatment policies

○ Closure of several population level screening programmes

Quantum State Interferography

● Indian Scientists have found a new way of inferring the state of a system (both 2-D

qubits and higher-dimensional qubits) from an interference pattern.

● It has been termed as ‘Quantum State Interferography’ (QSI).

● New ways are being experimented with to manipulate quantum states so that they can

be harnessed for computing, communication, and metrology.

● QSI can help make manipulations simpler so that several crucial operations in quantum

technologies become less cumbersome.

● The setup requires only two interferometers from which many interferograms can be

obtained to reconstruct the state.

● This provides a ‘black box’ approach to quantum state estimation -- between the

incidence of the photon and extraction of state information, conditions within the set-up

are not changed, thus providing a true single-shot estimation of the quantum state.

National Mission on Quantum Technologies & Applications (NM-QTA).

● Announced by The Finance Minister in budget 2020

● The mission will function under the Department of Science & Technology (DST).

● It will be able address the ever increasing technological requirements of the society, and

take into account the international technology trends.

Quantum-Enabled Science & Technology (QuEST)

● Launched by Department of Science & Technology

● it will invest a sum of Rs 80 crore in a span of three years to facilitate research in this

field.

● the country will be laying out the basic infrastructure that is needed to promote research

in this field.

● Help in improving the state of national security as quantum-level encrypted information

becomes a common communication standard.



Spot Robot

● researchers from Boston Dynamics, of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT -

USA) have developed a robot, called ‘Spot’.

● It can walk on four legs, similarly to a dog

● use it for patients with Covid-19 symptoms

● controlled by a handheld device.

● It can measure skin temperature, breathing rate, pulse rate, and blood oxygen saturation

in healthy patients, from 2 metres away.

● It has four cameras — one infrared, three monochrome.

Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope(UVIT)

● It weighs 230 kg. It has a spatial resolution of 1.8 arc seconds.

● The UVIT is a suite of far ultra violet, near ultra violet and visible band.

● Far Ultra Violet lies in the band of 130 to 180 nm. The Near Ultra Violet lies in the band

of 200 to 300 nm and visible band lies in the band of 320 to 550 nm.

Hubble Space Telescope

● Launched by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 1990.

● It is one of the largest space telescopes.

● It is the only telescope designed to be serviced in space by astronauts.

● The successor to Hubble Space Telescope is James Webb Space Telescope which is to

be launched in 2021.

Spitzer space telescope of NASA ● Was recently switched off in January 2020.

● It was launched in 2003. The telescope revealed new ring around planet Saturn. Also, in

2017, the telescope revealed the presence of seven rocky planets around TRAPPIST-1

star.

James Webb Space Telescope

● a large infrared telescope with a 6.5-meter primary mirror.

● The telescope will be launched on an Ariane 5 rocket from French Guiana in 2021.

● Webb is an international collaboration between NASA, the European Space Agency

(ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).

NASA Great Observatories program

● to observe the universe in distinct wavelengths of light.

● NASA Great Observatories program, which saw four specialized telescopes which are

used for various electromagnetic radiations

○ Visible light - Hubble, still operational

○ Gamma-rays - Compton Gamma-Ray Observatory, no longer operational

○ X-rays - the Chandra X-Ray Observatory, still operational.

○ Infrared Light : Spitzer Space Telescope



Black Hole

● It refers to a point in space where the matter is so compressed as to create a gravity

field from which even light cannot escape.Because no light can escape, it is black and

invisible.

● The Event Horizon: There’s a boundary at the edge of a black hole called the event

horizon, which is the point of no return — any light or matter that crosses that boundary

is sucked into the black hole. It would need to travel faster than the speed of light to

escape, which is impossible.

● Singularity: Anything that crosses the event horizon is destined to fall to the very centre

of the black hole and be squished into a single point with infinite density, called

thesingularity.

● The concept was theorized by Albert Einstein in 1915 and the term ‘black hole’ was

coined in the mid-1960s by American physicist John Archibald Wheeler.

● The scientists at Event Horizon Telescope Project 2019 have released the first-ever

image of a Black Hole

Gravitational Waves:

● They are invisible ripples that form when a star explodes in a supernova; when two big

stars orbit each other; and when two black holes merge.

● Travelling at the speed of light, gravitational waves squeeze and stretch anything in their

path.

● Proposed by Albert Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity over a century ago.

● It was only in 2015, however, that the first gravitational wave was actually detected — by

LIGO.

Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory ( LIGO )

● It is world largest observatory for detecting cosmic gravitational waves and for carrying

out experiments.

● The objective is to use gravitational-wave observations in astronomical studies.

● project will be a collaboration between Ligo-USA, India, Germany, Australia and U.K

● The project operates three gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Two are at Hanford,

Washington, north-western US, and one is at Livingston in Louisiana, south-eastern US.

LIGO India project

● Piloted by Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) and Department of Science and

Technology (DST).

● jointly coordinated and executed by three Indian research institutions:

○ the Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA),Pune

○ Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), Gandhinagar

○ the Raja Ramanna Centre for Advanced Technology (RRCAT), Indore.

● LIGO India is a planned advanced gravitational-wave observatory to be located in India

as part of the worldwide network.

● Aims to move one advanced LIGO detector from Hanford to India.



● Observatory (LIGO) will be set up at Aundha Nagnath, Hingoli District in Maharashtra.

Draft Data Empowerment and Protection Architecture(DEPA): NITI Aayog

● DEPA will be empowering individuals with control over their personal data, by

operationalising a regulatory, institutional, and technology design for secure data

sharing.

● DEPA is designed as an evolvable and agile framework for good data governance.

● DEPA empowers people to seamlessly and securely access their data and share it with

third party institutions.

● The consent given under DEPA will be free, informed, specific, clear, and revocable.

● RBI, SEBI, IRDAI, PFRDA and the Ministry of Finance will implement this model.

International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)

● Iran has granted IAEA inspectors access to one of two sites where undeclared nuclear

activity may have taken place in the early 2000s.

● IAEA is the world’s “Atoms for Peace” organization in 1957 within the United

Nations family.

● Reports to both the United Nations General Assembly and Security Council.

● Total 171 members, India member since 1957

● Headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

Functions:

● Works with its Member States and multiple partners worldwide to promote the safe,

secure and peaceful use of nuclear technologies.

● Seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any

military purpose, including nuclear weapons.

Convention on Supplementary Compensation

● adopted on 12 September 1997

● together with the Protocol to Amend the Vienna Convention on Civil Liability for Nuclear

Damage, and entered into force on 15 April 2015.

● Aims at increasing the amount of compensation available in the event of a nuclear

incident through public funds to be made available by the Contracting Parties on the

basis of their installed nuclear capacity and UN rate of assessment.

● In 2010 India had signed the Convention on Supplementary Compensation (CSC), which

sets parameters on a nuclear operator's financial liability, at the IAEA in Vienna

● In 2014, Inia had ratified the Additional Protocols of the IAEA, aÂ move that put its

reactors under international safeguards.

● In February 2016, India ratified the Convention of Supplementary Compensation for

Nuclear Damage, 1997

Report: Dengue in India

● by the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme, the numbers of Dengue went

up in 2019.In 2018, cases in India were 1,01,192.



● It is a programme launched by GoI to control Malaria, Kala-azar, Filaria, Japanese

Encephalitis, Chikungunya and Dengue.

● The Programme is implemented under National Rural Health Mission.

Real Mango Software

● Real Mango software is an illegal notorious software developed for booking Tatkal ticket

over the IRCTC website.

● This illegal and commonly banned software makes the complete process of Indian Rail

ticket booking at a fly speed.

CAPTCHA

● CAPTCHA stands for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and

Humans Apart.

● CAPTCHA determines whether the user is real or a spam robot.

● CAPTCHA uses several human validation methods including math or general knowledge

questions, visual puzzles and even chess puzzles.

Corticosteroids

● They are low-cost anti-inflammatory drugs that closely mimic cortisol, the hormone

naturally produced by the adrenal glands in humans.

● They are commonly used in treatment for rheumatological inflammatory conditions:

inflammations of muscles, inflammation of blood vessels, chronic arthritis

● According to WHO corticosteroids are “low cost, easy to administer, and readily

available globally for treatment of COVID-19

Schemes to Control FMD and Brucellosis

● The entire cost of the scheme is to be borne out by the Central Government.

● The scheme includes vaccination coverage to 30 crore bovines, 20 crore sheep or goat,

and 10 million pigs.

● Brucellosis control program shall extend to cover 100% vaccination coverage of 3.6

crore female calves.

About Foot and Mouth Disease and Brucellosis

● a severe, highly contagious viral disease of livestock that has a significant economic

impact.

● The disease affects cattle, swine, sheep, goats and other cloven-hoofed ruminants.

● FMD virus belongs to (risk group 4 as per World Organization for Animal Health (OIE))

Aphthovirus genus of the picornaviridae family.

● FMD can spread when infected animals bring the virus into physical contact with

susceptible animals.

● In rare cases, humans are also susceptible.

Brucellosis



● A bacterial disease caused by various Brucella species, which mainly infect cattle,

swine, goats, sheep and dogs.

● Humans generally acquire the disease through direct contact with infected animals, by

eating or drinking contaminated animal products, or by inhaling airborne agents.

● The majority of cases are caused by ingesting unpasteurized milk or cheese from

infected goats or sheep.

● Person to person transmission is rare.

● The disease causes flu-like symptoms, including fever, weakness, malaise and weight

loss.

Cytokine Storm Syndrome

● Characterised by the overproduction of immune cells and the cytokines themselves

because of a dysregulation in the process.

● Cytokines are a large group of proteins that are secreted by specific cells of the immune

system.

Giant Radio Galaxies

● Galaxies, which have active black holes shooting high-speed jets, are called radio

galaxies.

● A radio galaxy is a strong source of electromagnetic radiation or radio waves.

● When some of these radio galaxies grow to enormous sizes, bigger than 33 lakh light

years across, they are called giant radio galaxies (GRGs).

● The length of jets indicates how powerful and active a black hole is as well as about the

environment density of black holes.

● GRGs are visible only to radio telescopes.

What are Trans Fats ?

● the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal

and Bhutan were among countries that need to act urgently against trans-fat

● Trans fatty acids (TFAs) or Trans fats are the most harmful type of fats which can have

much more adverse effects on our body than any other dietary constituent.

● Industrially produced trans-fats are found in hardened vegetable fats such as margarine

and ghee (clarified butter) and are often present in snack foods, baked goods and fried

foods.

● TFA containing oils can be preserved longer, they give the food the desired shape and

texture

● The substance is responsible for around 500,000 deaths due to coronary heart disease

every year across the world. 15 countries account for two-thirds of the deaths linked to

the substance.

● It is, however, often used by manufacturers because it has a longer shelf life and is

cheaper than other, healthier choices that do not affect taste or cost.



● Trans fats consumption increases the risk of developing heart disease and stroke ,a

higher risk of developing obesity, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, metabolic syndrome,

insulin resistance, infertility, certain types of cancers.

REPLACE initiative

● BY WHO

● The REPLACE action package provides a strategic approach to eliminating industrially-

produced trans fat from national food supplies, with the goal of global elimination by

2023

● This package supports governments to ensure the prompt, complete, and sustained

elimination of industrially-produced trans-fat from the food supply

Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

● an autonomous statutory body established under the Food Safety and Standards Act,

2006 (FSS Act).

● Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India is the administrative Ministry of

FSSAI.

● Headquarters: Delhi.

● The FSSAI comprises of a Chairperson and twenty two members out of which one –

third are to be women.

● The Food Authority is assisted by Scientific Committees and Panels in setting standards

and the Central Advisory Committee in coordinating with enforcement agencies.

● The primary responsibility for enforcement is largely with the State Food Safety

Commissioners.

Functions

● Framing of regulations to lay down the standards and guidelines of food safety.

● Granting FSSAI food safety license and certification for food businesses.

● Laying down procedure and guidelines for laboratories in food businesses.

● To provide suggestions to the government in framing the policies.

Initiative by FSSAI:

Eat Right Movement

● Launched in 2018, by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

● built on two broad pillars of ‘Eat Healthy’ and ‘Eat Safe’.

● It aims to cut down on salt, sugar and oil consumption by 30% in three years.

Swachh Bharat Yatra

● a Pan-India cyclothon, was launched under the movement to aware the citizens on

issues of food safety, combating food adulteration and healthy diets.

Heart Attack Rewind:

● Started by the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI)

● It is a 30-second public service announcement which was broadcasted in 17 languages

on social media platforms.



● The objective of the campaign was to warn citizens about the health hazards of

consuming trans fats and offer strategies to avoid them through healthier alternatives.

What is Methane? How is it formed or produced?

● It is a clean and economical fuel..

● methane (CH4) is a naturally occurring gas.

● Biogenic Methane: Most of the methane on Earth is produced in biological processes

— some of it by microbes, and some occurring as underground natural gas that had

been formed by earlier generations of microbial life.

● methane can also be produced by abiotic processes (those that do not involve living

organisms).

● Researchers from Agharkar Research Institute (ARI) have found that the methane

hydrate deposits are located in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin are of biogenic origin.

● Methane hydrate is a crystalline solid formed when hydrogen-bonded water and

methane gas come into contact at high pressures and low temperatures such as in

oceans.Methane hydrate deposits are difficult to study and handle.

● It is estimated that one cubic meter of methane hydrate contains 160-180 cubic meters

of methane.

Krishna-Godavari Basin

● An extensive deltaic plain formed by two large east coast rivers, Krishna and Godavari in

the state of Andhra Pradesh and the adjoining areas of Bay of Bengal in which these

rivers discharge their water is known as Krishna-Godavari Basin.

● The KG Basin is a large basin of continental margin located on the east coast of India.

● The site is known for the D-6 block with the biggest natural gas reserves in India. The

first gas discovery was made in 1983 by ONGC.

● The basin is home to the Olive Ridley Sea Turtle (IUCN Status: Vulnerable).

Indian Brain Templates (IBT)

● National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences (NIMHANS) has developed

Indian Brain Templates (IBT) and a brain atlas.

● Brain Template is a gross representation from various brain images to understand brain

functionality in diseased conditions.

● Over 500 brain scans of Indian patients were studied to develop five sets of Indian Brain

Templates (IBT) and a brain atlas.

● Benefits : These new population and age-specific Indian brain templates will allow more

reliable tracking of brain development and ageing

LILo (Line In Line Out) Substation

● The substation is the part of an electrical supply system which transmits the high voltage

from the generating substations to the local distribution networks.



● In LILo (Line In Line Out) Substation, a long distribution line is brought in and brought

out from newly created substation as shown below.

● This scheme is bit expensive because of the need of an extra layout, however it is more

secure.

● Recently foundation stone for construction of LILO of Kishenganj- Darbhanga 400kV

Transmission Line at Saharsa in Bihar

● Saharsa is located in extreme Northern Part of Bihar and is a flood prone area due to

inflow of water from Nepal.

Graphene

● It is a single layer (monolayer) of carbon atoms. It is one atom thick. It is the building-

block of Graphite.

● Properties: It is harder than diamond yet more elastic than rubber; tougher than steel yet

lighter than aluminium. Graphene is the strongest known material.

● Uses: Its thin composition and high conductivity means it can be used in applications

ranging from miniaturised electronics to biomedical devices like computers, solar panels,

batteries, sensors and other devices.

● Carbon Allotropes: Diamond, graphite and fullerenes (substances that include

nanotubes and buckminsterfullerene) are the important allotropes of pure carbon.

Phytoplankton Biomass in Bay of Bengal

● Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS) have discovered a way

to measure the quantity of chlorophyll-a that indicates abundance of phytoplanktons in

the Bay of Bengal in real-time.

● Phytoplanktons: They are tiny microscopic floating plants found in water bodies.

● Significance:

○ contribute more than half of the oxygen in the environment.

○ reduce global warming by absorbing human-induced carbon dioxide.

○ base of the ocean food chain.

○ They are important bioindicators regulating life in oceans. Their abundance

determines the overall health of the ocean ecosystem.

● Chlorophyll-a: a dominant pigment found in phytoplankton cells.

Chlorophyll

● Chlorophyll is the major pigment used by plants for photosynthesis,

● Chloros which means green and phyllon which means leaf.

Four types of Chlorophyll

1. Chlorophyll a: found in all higher plants, algae and cyanobacteria.

2. Chlorophyll b: found in higher plants and green algae.

3. Chlorophyll c: found in diatoms, dinoflagellates and brown algae;

4. Chlorophyll d: found only in red algae.

Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services(INCOIS)



● an autonomous organization under the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).

● Located in Hyderabad & was established in 1999.

● It is a unit of the Earth System Science Organization (ESSO), New Delhi.

● It is mandated to provide the best possible ocean information and advisory services to

society, industry, government agencies and the scientific community through sustained

ocean observations and constant improvement through systematic and focused

research.

Earth System Science Organization

● The ESSO operates as an executive arm of the Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) for its

policies and programmes.

● Aim: to develop and improve capability to forecast, weather, climate and hazard related

phenomena for social, economic and environmental benefits including addressing

aspects relating to climate change science, and climate services.

● It is also responsible for the development of technology towards the exploration and

exploitation of marine resources.

Serial Interval and Covid-19

● Serial Interval: It is the duration between symptom onset of a primary case and symptom

onset of secondary cases (contacts) generated by the primary case.

● In simple terms, the serial interval is the gap between the onset of Covid-19 symptoms in

Person A and Person B, who is infected by Person A.

● The serial interval depends on other epidemiological parameters such as the incubation

period and the reproduction rate or R nought.

● The incubation period is the time between a person’s exposure to the virus and symptom

onset.

● The reproduction rate is the number of people who will be infected by one infected

person.

Pact for Sputnik V Availability in India

● Sputnik V: The Russian vaccine has been named after the first artificial Earth satellite,

first Covid-19 vaccine

● The Russian vaccine has outrun other Covid-19 vaccines like Oxford-Astra Zeneca,

Moderna and Pfizer which are still in trials.

● India’s Covaxin has been approved for human clinical trials.

● Another Indian vaccine ZyCoV-D has entered phase I/II of clinical trials.

Adenovirus Vector Vaccine

● In this vaccine, adenovirus is used as a tool to deliver genes or vaccine antigens to the

target host tissue.

● Adenoviruses (ADVs) are DNA viruses ranging from 70-90 nanometre in size, which

induce many illnesses in humans like cold, respiratory infection etc.



● Adenoviruses are preferred for vaccines because their DNA is double stranded which

makes them genetically more stable and the chances of them changing after injection

are lower.

● Drawbacks: pre-existing immunity in humans and inflammatory responses which may

make vaccines less effective.

Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda Bill, 2020

● The bill aims to merge three institutes into one integrated centre which will be called the

Institute of Teaching and Research in Ayurveda which will be based in Jamnagar,

Gujarat.

● It will be the first Ayurveda institution to be given the status of institution of national

importance.

● Objective of Institute The Institute will: a) develop patterns of teaching in medical

education in Ayurveda and pharmacy b) bring together educational facilities for training

of personnel in all branches of Ayurveda among others.

Tidal disruption events (TDE)

● Astronomers study Blackholes by watching for their effects on nearby stars and gas.

Stars are disrupted when the black hole’s tidal gravity exceeds the star’s self-gravity,

and this phenomenon is called tidal disruption events (TDE).

Arsenic Poisoning

● Arsenic is naturally present at high levels in the earth crust and groundwater of a number

of countries.

● It is highly toxic in its inorganic form.

● Contaminated water used for drinking, food preparation and irrigation of food crops

poses the greatest threat to public health from arsenic.

● Long-term exposure to arsenic from drinking-water and food can cause cancer, skin

disease, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

● In early childhood exposure, it has been linked to negative impacts on cognitive

development and increased deaths in young adults.

Some Heavy metal and disease because of that

➢ Arsenic : Black foot

➢ Mercury: Minamata

➢ Cadmium: Itai-Itai

➢ Nitrate: Blue Baby syndrome (Methaemoglobinemia)

Rajya Sabha Passed the Epidemic Diseases Amendment Bill, 2020

● Now it will include protections for healthcare service personnel who are combating the

epidemic diseases .

● The bill also expands the powers of the central government to prevent the spread of

such diseases.



● This makes harm, injury, hurt or danger to the life of any healthcare service personnel, a

cognizable and non-bailable offence.

● In such cases, there is a provision of imprisonment from three months to five years and

a fine between 50 thousand rupees to two lakh rupee.

● Cases registered under the Bill will be investigated by a police officer above the rank of

Inspector.

● The investigation must be completed within 30 days from the date of First Information

Report (FIR)

● The inquiry or trial should be concluded within one year.

FELUDA

● FELUDA is the acronym for FNCAS9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay.

● It is a low cost paper strip test which can detect the presence of coronavirus within 30

min.

● Developed by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) and Tata Group.

● It uses indigenously developed CRISPR gene-editing technology to identify and target

the genetic material of SARS-CoV2.

CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats)

● It is a gene editing technology.

● Use to identify and target the genetic material of SARS-CoV2, the virus that causes

Covid-19.

● launched by the TATA group

● It can detect specific sequences of DNA within a gene and uses an enzyme functioning

as molecular scissors to snip it.

● These bacteria and archaea uses the CRISPR-derived RNA and Cas proteins like Cas9

in order to foil attacks by viruses and other foreign bodies. They do so by eating up and

destroying the DNA of a foreign bodies.

Archaea

● Archaea are a domain of single-celled organisms. These microorganisms does not have

cell nuclei so they are prokaryotes. Archaeal cells can separate themselves from

Bacteria and Eukaryota. This is the unique property of Archaea.

FISH CRYOBANKS

● The National Fish Development Board (NFDB) and the National Bureau of Fish Genetic

Resources(NBFGR) will work together to establish Fish Cryobanks in different parts of

the country.

● The cryobanks would facilitate availability of fish sperm of desired species to fish

farmers all time.

● First time in the world

● enhancing the fish production and productivity, increasing prosperity among the fish

farmers.

ICAR-NBFGR



● ICAR-National Bureau of Fish Genetic Resources (ICAR-NBFGR)

● working since 1983 under the Indian Council of Agricultural Research. .

● It does the research related to the conservation of fish germplasm resources in the

country.

National Fisheries Development Board (NFDB)

● established in 2006.

● An autonomous organization under the Department of Fisheries, Ministry of Fisheries,

Animal Husbandry and Dairying,

● objective to enhance fish production and productivity in the country.

● It also coordinate with the fishery development in an integrated manner.

India based Neutrino Observatory

● An India based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is going to be set up in Bodi West Hills, in

Theni district, Tamil Nadu

● INO Project is a multi-institutional effort aimed at building a world-class underground

laboratory with a rock cover of approx. 1200 m for non-accelerator based high energy

and nuclear physics research in India.

● Funded by : Dept. of Atomic Energy (DAE) and the Dept. of Science and Technology

(DST).

● Objectives: INO will observe neutrinos and antineutrinos produced in the atmosphere of

the Earth

● Features: The project includes:

○ Underground laboratory and associated surface facilities at Bodi West Hills.

○ Construction of a magnetized Iron Calorimeter (ICAL) detector for studying

neutrinos.

○ When completed, ICAL will have the world's largest magnet.

○ Setting up Inter Institutional Centre for High Energy Physics (IICHEP) at Madurai

Neutrinos

● Detected for the first time in 1959,

● Neutrinos are the second most abundant particles in the world (about a billion of them

pass through a cubic centimeter of space every second), after photons, or the light

particle.

● Neutrinos are subatomic fundamental particles, with no charge and little or zero mass

that interacts only via the weak subatomic force and gravity.

● Neutrinos are created by various radioactive decays; during a supernova, by cosmic

rays striking atoms etc.

● Determination of neutrino masses is one of the most important open problems in physics

today. Neutrino Detectors are used to study the details of the interactions of these

particles

O-SMART Scheme



● The Ocean Services, Modelling, Applications, Resources and Technology (O-SMART)

Scheme was approved by the Union Cabinet in August 2018 and is implemented by the

Ministry of Earth Sciences.

● It aims at stepping up ocean research and setting up early warning weather systems.

● It addresses ocean development activities such as services, technology, resources,

observations and science and provides necessary scientific and technological

background required for implementation of various aspects of Blue Economy.

● To carryout exploration of Polymetallic Nodules (MPN)

Objectives:

● To generate and regularly update information on Marine Living Resources

● To periodically monitor levels of seawater pollutants,to develop shoreline change maps

for assessment of coastal erosion

Recent Government Initiative for Hydrogen Energy

● The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI), if India starts focusing on the Carbon

Neutral Economy, hydrogen uses in India will expand to 3 -10 times by 2050 .

● Currently, hydrogen does not form a plan of India's renewable energy future plans

● A committee have been formed as a part of hydrogen mission. It focus on setting up the

regulations, supporting demonstration, generating volumes and Research and

Development.

National Hydrogen Energy Roadmap

● The roadmap was adopted in 2006 by the national hydrogen energy board.

● Objective to introduce hydrogen energy gradually into the economy and to accelerate

and commercialise hydrogen energy infrastructure.

● The roadmap is also involved in production, storage, transport, delivery and application

of hydrogen energy.

Hydrogen Energy

● Hydrogen energy uses the hydrogen and/or hydrogen-containing compounds in order to

generate energy to be supplied to all practical uses.

● It has a high energy efficiency, environmental and social benefits besides the economic

competitiveness. it is more expensive than that of the fossil fuels.

● The Ministry of New and renewable energy has also called hydrogen energy as a Future

Energy.

● Currently, 48% of hydrogen in India is produced from natural gas, 30% is produced from

oil, 10% from coal and 4% from electrolysis of water.

● World’s largest hydrogen production Centre is the Fukushima hydrogen energy research

field, in Japan.

Application of Hydrogen Energy

● Hydrogen is produced for non-energy applications in India. Its application incudes –

petroleum refineries and fertiliser Industries.

● Used for spacecraft preparation and internal combustion engines, in fuel cells for electric

vehicles



Hydrogen Gas

● Hydrogen gas is the lightest elements. It rises in the atmosphere. It is rarely found in its

pure form and known for its zero-emission property when burnt with oxygen.

The Energy and Resources Institute (TERI)

● TERI is a non-profit research institute.

● Established in 1974 as Tata Energy Research Institute and renamed to The Energy

Resources Institute in 2003.

● Aims: to focus on formulating local and national level strategies for shaping global

solutions to critical issues.

● Functions: It conducts research work in the fields of energy, environment and

sustainable development for India and the Global South.

● key focus lies in promoting clean energy, water management, pollution management,

sustainable agriculture and climate resilience.

Scientific and Useful Profound Research Advancement(SUPRA)

● It seeks to explore new scientific breakthroughs, with long-term impact on

fundamental scientific understanding, and offer disruptive technologies at the cutting

edge.

● Important measures of the scheme are: Quantum of advances, Ability of research

outcomes in enhancing scientific knowledge, Global impact, outstanding publications

etc.

● It is designed by Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB).

● SERB is a statutory body under the Department of Science and Technology to

promote basic research in Science and Engineering and to provide financial

assistance to persons engaged in such research.

Multi-stakeholder Body ( MSB ) for Net Neutrality

● Recommended by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI)

● MSB should be set up as a non-profit entity.

Function:

● To provide advice and support to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) in the

monitoring and enforcement of net neutrality principles.

● To investigate complaints regarding the violation of net neutrality.

● To help DoT in the maintenance of a repository of reasonable traffic management

practices.

Net Neutrality

● Net neutrality has been defined as a principle that Internet Service Providers (ISP) also

called Internet Access Providers (IAP) should enable access to all content and

applications regardless of the source, and without favouring or blocking particular

products or websites.



● This means when the customers pay an ISP for a data plan, they should be able to

access all content online (news, social media, videos, games, etc.) at the same

broadband speed which they had opted for.

Net Neutrality in India: The DoT accepts TRAI’s recommendations in favour of net neutrality

which:

● Bars telcos from discriminatory treatment on the web, based on content, sender,

receiver, protocols or equipment.

● Penalises for violation of license rules on net neutrality.

● Includes exceptions for critical services such as remote healthcare diagnostics, self-

driving cars, etc.

● Exempts content delivery networks, which do not use public Internet from open web

rules.

● Applies equally to 5G technology as well because the principles are technology-neutral.

●

INSAT

● The Indian National Satellite (INSAT) system is a constellation of operational

communication satellites placed in Geo-stationary orbit.

● Established in 1983 with commissioning of INSAT-1B.

● The constellation of INSAT System consists of operational satellites, namely – INSAT-

3A, 3C, 3D, 4A, 4B, 4CR, 3DR.

Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor to be commissioned in 2022



● Reactor is being constructed by Bharatiya Nabhikiya Vidyut Nigam Limited (BHAVINI)

and the Indira Gandhi centre for Atomic Research (ICGAR), at Kalpakkam Atomic

Power Station in Chennai, Tamil Nadu.

● 500 MW

Features of the reactor

● a pool-type reactor whose core are immersed in liquid (water).

● negative void coefficient so it provides a high level of nuclear safety.

● The speed of the fission chain reaction decreases automatically when the reactor

overheats. This lowers the temperature and power level.

● Liquid Sodium is the coolant in the reactor.

India’s three Stage Nuclear Programme

● This was initiated by Homi Bhabha by using the thorium and uranium reserves found in

Monazite sands of coastal regions of India.

● Objective to use Thorium reserves in India to meet the energy requirements.

● The programmer is running successfully by Indo-US Nuclear deal.

● The three stages in the programme includes,

● Stage 1- Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor

● Stage 2- Fast Breeder Reactor

● Stage 3- Thorium based reactor

● Currently, India is in its third stage of the programme.

● Thorium reserves in India

● Thorium reserves in India accounts for 1%-2% of global Uranium reserves.

Non- Personal Data

● Any set of data which does not contain personally identifiable information.

● This means that no individual or living person can be identified by looking at such data.

● Digital transformations all over the world have meant that data is treated as an asset,

which is monetised, either directly by trading it, or indirectly by developing a service on

top of that data.

● Committee of Experts on Non-Personal Data Governance Framework had released a

draft in July this year.

● Headed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan has suggested that non-personal

data generated in the country be allowed to be harnessed by various domestic

companies and entities.

‘Kritagya’ Hackathon

● Organised in order to promote potential technology solutions for enhancing farm

mechanization with special emphasis on women friendly equipments.

● planned by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) under National

Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP).

● Students, faculties and innovators/entrepreneurs from any university / technical

institution across the country can apply and participate



National Agricultural Higher Education Project (NAHEP)

● It is a Government of India and World Bank project,

● commenced by ICAR in 2017.

● Aims to support the National Agricultural Research and Education System in providing

more relevant and better-quality education to the students.

Tuberculosis

● It is an infectious disease caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB) bacteria.

● Tuberculosis majorly affects the lungs and can affect other parts of the body as well.

● Symptoms of active TB includes- chronic cough with blooded mucus, fever, night

sweats, and weight loss.

● It is of two types:

○ Active TB– TB germs reproduce and spreads in body, causing tissue damage.

○ Latent TB– TB germs are asleep in the body. It can last for a very long time.

● One quarter of the world’s population is supposed to have latent infection with TB as of

2018.

● Each year, 1% of the population get infected from it.

DRDO test fired the Laser-Guided Anti-Tank Missile

● weapon has a range of up to 4 km.

● test fired from an MBT Arjun Tank at KK Ranges in Armored Corps Centre and School

(ACC&S).

● It is a laser-guided anti-tank guided missile (ATGM).

● It will enhance the fire-power capability of the Indian Army along border with Pakistan

and China.

● The ATGM hits the targets with accuracy and precision.

● The missile have a tandem heat warhead in order to defeat the armored vehicles.

About Anti-Tank Missiles (ATMs)

● designed to destroy the heavily armored vehicles and tanks.

● Uses various guiding programmes including the laser-guided missiles, wire-guided

missiles, etc. ATMs have various sizes,

● DRDO ATM, AMOGHA, JASMINE, Spike ATGMs, NAG are some of the 1st generation

Anti- Tank Missiles that has been launched by DRDO.

● MBT Arjun Tank is a 3rd generation battle tank that has been developed DRDO for its

use in the Indian Army.

Data Sonification: NASA

● The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) Chandra X-Ray Center

(CXC) has unveiled a new ‘sonification’ project that transforms data from astronomical

images into audio.

Data Sonification:



● It refers to the use of sound values to represent real data.

● It is the auditory version of data visualisation.

● In NASA’s Chandra (sonification) project, for instance, data is represented using a

number of musical notes.

● The birth of a star, a cloud of dust or even a black hole can be ‘heard’ as a high- or low-

pitched sound.

Process of images into sound translation:

● Telescopes in space collect digital data, in the form of ones and zeroes (binary), before

converting them into images.

● The images are visual representations of light and radiation of different wavelengths in

space, that can’t be seen by the human eye.

● The Chandra project has created a celestial concert by translating the same data into

sound. Pitch and volume are used to denote the brightness and position of a celestial

object or phenomenon.

● Pitch is related to frequency of sound waves. Changing the number of vibrations per

second changes the pitch.

● Volume, or loudness, is related to the strength, intensity, pressure, or power of the

sound. Bigger/amplified vibrations result in bigger/louder sounds.

The Galactic Centre

● It is the rotational centre of the Milky Way galaxy.

● It comprises a collection of celestial objects —

● Neutron and white dwarf stars,

● Clouds of dust and gas,

● A supermassive black hole called Sagittarius A*(weighs four million times the mass of

the sun).

Cassiopeia A

● Located around 11,000 light years away from Earth in the northern Cassiopeia

constellation.

● Cassiopeia A is a well-known remnant of a once-massive star that was destroyed by a

supernova explosion around 325 years ago.

The Pillars of Creation

● The iconic Pillars of Creation is located in the centre of the Eagle Nebula (it is a

constellation of stars), which is also known as Messier 16

Chandra X-ray Project

● The Chandra X-ray Observatory was launched by Space Shuttle Columbia in 1999.

● The Chandra X-ray Observatory is part of NASA's fleet of "Great Observatories" along

with the Hubble Space Telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope.

● The "X-ray universe" refers to the universe as observed with telescopes designed to

detect X-rays. X-rays are produced in the cosmos when matter is heated to millions of

degrees. Such temperatures occur where high magnetic fields, or extreme gravity, or

explosive forces exist in space.



● The telescope is named after the Nobel Prize-winning Indian astrophysicist

Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar.

● Chandrasekhar limit is the theoretical maximum mass a white dwarf star can have and

still remain a white dwarf.

The Hubble Space Telescope

● It is one of the largest and most versatile Space telescopes in service.

● Launched into low Earth orbit (540km above Earth) in 1990.

● Hubble’s four main instruments observe in the near ultraviolet, visible, and near infrared

spectra.

Supernova

● A supernova is the explosion of a star. It is the largest explosion that takes place in

space.

● A supernova happens where there is a change in the core, or centre, of a star.

Neutron stars

● Neutron stars comprise one of the possible evolutionary end-points of high mass stars.

● Once the core of the star has completely burned to iron, energy production stops and the

core rapidly collapses, squeezing electrons and protons together to form neutrons and

neutrinos.

● A star supported by neutron degeneracy pressure is known as a ‘neutron star’, which

may be seen as a pulsar if its magnetic field is favourably aligned with its spin axis.

NASA’s Artemis Program

● Started from 2011

● Program plans to send the next man and first woman to the lunar surface by the year

2024.

● The last time NASA sent humans to the Moon was in 1972, during the Apollo 11 lunar

mission.

About Program:

● three parts:

● Artemis I is most likely to be launched 2021 and involves an uncrewed flight to test the

Space Launch System (SLS) and Orion spacecraft.

● Artemis II will be the first crewed flight test and is targeted for 2023.

● Artemis III will land astronauts on the Moon’s South Pole in 2024.

Moon Exploration

● In 1959, the Soviet Union’s uncrewed Luna 1 and 2 became the first rover to visit the

Moon.

● NASA Apollo 11 mission, sent humans to the Moon was in 1972

● After July 1969, 12 American astronauts walked on the surface of the Moon until 1972.

● In 1990s, the USA resumed lunar exploration with robotic missions Clementine and

Lunar Prospector.



● In 2012, the Gravity Recovery and Interior Laboratory (GRAIL) spacecraft studied the

Moon’s gravity.

● USA, the European Space Agency, Japan, China, and India have sent missions to

explore the Moon.

ISRO’s Moon Exploration:

Chandrayaan 1:

● The Chandrayaan project began in 2007 with an agreement between India’s space

agency ISRO and Russia’s ROSCOSMOS for mutual cooperation.

● Findings: Confirmed presence of lunar water.

● Evidence of lunar caves formed by an ancient lunar lava flow.

● Past tectonic activity was found on the lunar surface.

● The faults and fractures discovered could be features of past interior tectonic activity

coupled with meteorite impacts.

Chandrayaan-2

● India's second mission to the moon and comprises a fully indigenous Orbiter, Lander

(Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan).

● The Rover Pragyan is housed inside Vikram lander.

Chandrayaan-3

● The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) recently announced India’s third lunar

mission, which will comprise a lander and a rover.

RAISE 2020- ‘Responsible AI for Social Empowerment 2020

● a Mega Virtual Summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI), RAISE 2020

● The summit is scheduled to be held from October 5 to 9, 2020.

● Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) and NITI Aayog will organize

● RAISE 2020 is a first of its kind, global meeting of minds on Artificial Intelligence to drive

India's vision and roadmap for social transformation, inclusion and empowerment

through responsible AI.

● This includes using AI in areas like Health, Agriculture, Education, Skilling, Mobility,

Fintech, Research, Inclusive AI, Future of Work, among others.

● The event will witness participation from global industry leaders, key opinion makers,

Government representatives and academia.

● It will also feature some startups working in AI-related fields.

India in AI:

● Industry analysts predict that AI could add up to 957 billion USD to India’s economy by

2035.

● India can leverage AI for inclusive development, representing the country's 'AI for All'

strategy.

● Launched National AI Strategy and National AI Portal and has also started

leveraging AI across various sectors such as education, agriculture, healthcare, e-

commerce, finance, telecommunications, etc.



● Recently, India joined the 'Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI)' as a

founding member to support the responsible and human-centric development and use of

Artificial Intelligence (AI).

U-RISE Portal Launched in UP

● ‘U-Rise’- Unified Re-imagined Innovation For Student Empowerment.

● The portal will guide students in learning, career counselling, and getting employment in

the state.

● The portal has been developed by Dr. A P J Abdul Kalam Technical University.

The National Commission for Indian System of Medicine (NCISM) Act, 2020

● The NITI Aayog had recommended to replace the Medical Council of India with National

Medical Commission.

National Medical Commission (NMC) :

● come into existence from September 25, 2020.

● The change is aimed at bringing in reforms in the medical education sector and

especially aimed at replacing the MCI, which was tainted by corruption and other

problems.

● NMC is an Indian regulatory body

● It was earlier established for 6 months by an ordinance in January 2019.

● Later it became a permanent law passed by Parliament of India.

● The common final year Bachelor of Medicine and Bachelor of Surgery (MBBS)

examination will now be known as the National Exit Test (NEXT), according to the new

medical education structure under the NMC.

● Composition

● The NMC will consist of 33 members:

● A Chairperson, 10 ex officio Members and 22 Part-time Members

● Functions:

○ To lay down the policies for regulating medical institutions and medical

professionals.

○ To assess the requirements of human resources and infrastructure in healthcare.

○ To ensure the compliance by the State Medical Councils.

○ To frame guidelines in order to determine the fee for 50% of the seats in the

private medical institutions.

The National commission for Homoeopathy (NCH) Act, 2020

● The Act seeks to repeal the Homoeopathy Central Council Act, 1973 and provide for a

medical education

● system which ensures availability of adequate and high quality homoeopathic medical

professionals, etc.



● Constitution of the National Commission for Homoeopathy (NCH) and State

Medical Councils for

● Homoeopathy

● Functions of (NCH): same as of NCISM but with regards to homeopathy

● Autonomous boards: The Act sets up certain autonomous boards under the supervision

of the NCH. These are:

○ Homoeopathy Education Board:

○ Medical Assessment and Rating Board for Homoeopathy

○ Board of Ethics and Medical Registration for

● Advisory Council for Homoeopathy

● Entrance examinations for UG, PG and license for practice.

● National Teachers’ Eligibility Test

Alternative Medicine System in India

● Alternative medicine is any practice that aims to achieve the healing effects of

medicine, but which lacks biological plausibility and is untested, untestable or proven

ineffective.

● It is also known by different names such as Traditional Medicine, Complementary

medicine (CM), integrated medicine or integrative medicine (IM).

● In India, it is known by the name Indian System of Medicine (ISM).

● ISM is the system of medicines which are considered to be Indian in origin or which have

come to India from outside and got assimilated into Indian culture. ISM mainly comprises

the AYUSH streams (Ayurveda, Unani, Yoga, Naturopathy, Siddha, and Homeopathy),

are fast gaining traction and popularity in India.

Basic terms:

Unani System of Medicine

● Yunani or Unani medicine is the term for Perso-Arabic traditional medicine as practiced

in Mughal India and in Muslim culture in South Asia and modern day Central Asia.

● India has the largest number of Unani educational, research and health care institutions.

Ayurveda

● The word ‘Ayurveda’ means the science of life.

● It aims to keep structural and functional entities in a state of equilibrium, which signifies

good health (Swasthya) through various procedures, regimen, diet, medicines and

behavior change.

Siddha system

● Siddha system of medicine is practiced in some parts of South India especially in the

state of Tamil Nadu.

● The term ‘Siddha’ has come from ‘Siddhi’- which means achievement. Siddhars were the

men who achieved supreme knowledge in the field of medicine, yoga or tapa

(meditation).



Sowa-Rigpa

● It has been originated from Tibet and popularly practiced in India, Nepal, Bhutan,

Mongolia and Russia.

● Similar to “Ayurveda”.

● Sowa-Rigpa is based on the principle that bodies of all the living beings and non living

objects of the universe are composed of five Cosmo physical elements of Jung-wa-nga

(Prithvi, Jal, Agni, Vayu and Akash)

● When the proportion of these elements is in imbalance in our body, disorder results.

● It was recognized by the Government in 2011.

Homoeopathy

● The word ‘Homoeopathy’ is derived from two Greek words, Homois meaning similar and

pathos meaning suffering.

● It was introduced in India in 18th Century.

● Homoeopathy simply means treating diseases with remedies, prescribed in minute

doses, which are capable of producing symptoms similar to the disease when taken by

healthy people, i.e.principle of - "Similia Similibus Curantur” which means "likes are

cured by likes”.

● It takes a holistic approach towards the sick individual through promotion of inner

balance at mental, emotional, spiritual and physical levels.

JIMEX 20 Maritime Exercise

● The 4th edition of India - Japan Maritime bilateral exercise JIMEX will be held in the

North Arabian Sea

● Commenced in January 2012

● Conducted biennially between the Indian Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense

Force (JMSDF)

● The indigenously built stealth destroyer Chennai, Teg Class stealth frigate Tarkash and

Fleet Tanker Deepak will represent the Indian Navy.

Other Military Exercises between India and Japan:

● Annual joint land military exercise named 'Dharma Guardian'.

● Joint Air Force exercise 'Shinyuu Maitri'.

● Trilateral Maritime Exercise Malabar with the USA.

INS Chennai

● It is an indigenously-designed and built Kolkata-class third guided missile destroyer.

● It is the last of the ships in the Project 15A of the Indian Navy.

● It is equipped with vertical launch and long-range surface-to-air and surface to surface

missile systems like supersonic BrahMos, ‘Barak-8’ Long Range Surface to Air missiles.

INS Tarkash

● It is the second of the three Teg-class stealth frigates acquired from Russia.



● It carries a wide range of anti-ship, anti-air and anti- submarine weaponry, including the

supersonic BrahMos missile, 100 mm naval gun, optically controlled 30 mm Close-In

Weapon System, torpedoes and rockets.

● It was built at the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad, Russia.

INS Deepak

● The Deepak Class fleet replenishment tankers are in service with the Indian Navy.

● The Deepak Class will provide refuelling and replenishment for the expanding fleet of the

Indian Navy and will also support the future blue-water capabilities of the navy.

● It can also be deployed in the transportation and supply of ammunitions, materials and

provisions, as well as Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations.

Pinaka rocket system

● Pinaka is a free flight artillery rocket system having a range of 37.5 km.

● Pinaka rockets are launched from a multi-barrel rocket launcher which has a capability to

launch 12 rockets in 44 seconds.

● The weapon system is designed and developed by Pune-based DRDO lab, Armament

Research and Development Establishment (ARDE).

Haiyang-2C

● Ocean-monitoring satellite launched recently by China.

● provide all-weather and round-the-clock observation of wave height, sea surface height,

wind speed and direction, and temperature.

● The planned satellite network will be capable of carrying out 80 percent of the world’s

sea surface wind monitoring within six hours.

IQWAT

● Iqwat is a virtual platform which allow Kashmiri Pandits to come together and engage in

professional and social networking in order to seek, explore, inspire, and collaborate.

● The platform will provide a way to stay in touch with their roots, culture and rich

traditions.

● It will revive the folk tales and songs that have been lost to time.

● It will also provide a foundation for the youth of the community to rise and shine. The app

will be rolled out in January 2021.

Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020

● The DAP contains policies and procedures for procurement and acquisition from the

capital budget of the MoD in order to modernise the Armed Forces including the Coast

Guard.

● Objective: Turning India into a global manufacturing hub

Provisions:

● The Offset guidelines have been revised, Under the new offset guidelines, preference

will be given to manufacture of complete defence products over components.

● The offset clause requires a foreign vendor to invest a part of the contract value in India.



● Reservations for Indigenous firms: The new DAP also protect the interests of Indian

domestic industry. The categories including the Buy(Indian-IDDM), Make I, Make II,

Production Agency in Design & Development, OFB/DPSU and SP model will be

exclusively reserved for Indian Vendors. This meets the criteria of Ownership and

Control by resident Indian citizens.

● It Notify a List of Weapons/Platforms for Ban on Import.

● Request For Information (RFI ) stage has been introduced that will explore willingness

of the prospective foreign vendors in order to progressively undertake manufacture and

setup an indigenous eco system.

● New Category of Buy (Global – Manufacture in India) has been added that

incorporates ‘manufacture of either the entire or a part of the equipment including the

spares, assemblies, sub-assemblies and Maintenance.

● Contractual Enablement has been incorporated that optimizes Life Cycle Support costs

and system enhancements through indigenous eco system incorporated.

● FDI in Defence Manufacturing- to encourage foreigners to setup ‘manufacturing or

maintenance entities’ through its subsidiary in India .

● Time Bound Defence Procurement Process and Faster Decision Making PMU be set up

to facilitate obtaining advisory and consultancy support to streamline the Acquisition

process.

Defence Acquisition Council (DAC)

● It is headed by the Defence Minister

● The DAC is responsible to give policy guidelines to acquisitions, based on long-term

procurement plans.

● It also clears all acquisitions, which includes both imported and those produced

indigenously or under a foreign license

● It was formed, after the Group of Ministers recommendations on ‘Reforming the

National Security System’, in 2001, post Kargil War (1999)

Cat que virus

● It is one of the arthropod-borne viruses (arboviruses).

● Its natural host is a mosquito.

● Domestic pigs are the primary mammalian host of CQV.

● It can cause febrile illnesses, meningitis and paediatric encephalitis in humans.

Hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas (HCNG)

● Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has allowed use of H-CNG (18% mix of

hydrogen) in CNG engines.

● The blending of hydrogen with CNG provides a blended gas termed as HCNG.

● It can be used in place of gasoline, diesel fuel and propane (C3H8) / LPG and its

combustion produces fewer undesirable gases.

● Advantages of HCNG:

● HCNG reduces emissions of CO up to 70%.

● Enables up to 5 % savings in fuel.



● Engines can be calibrated to release lower amounts of NO.

● Engines need minimum modification to run on HCNG.

● Ideal fuel for high load applications and heavy-duty vehicles.

● Better performance due to higher Octane rating of H2.

● But Current cost of H2 is more than the cost of Natural Gas. So, HCNG’s cost is more

than CNG.

Phthalates

● Phthalates are a family of chemicals used to improve the plasticity of several consumer

products, including Diapers.

● It is banned in the use of cosmetic products, toys in India, Europe, South Korea and

China.

● Phthalates are a family of chemical compounds primarily used to make polyvinyl chloride (PVC)-

high strength thermoplastic material , or vinyl ( used for wallpapers and other covering materials

) and pliant material (लचीला). ● The colorless, odorless high phthalates are used in a multitude of products that demand

high performance, long-lasting wear and durability.

Himalayan Chandra Telescope

● Location It is located at the Indian Astronomical Observatory (IAO), Mt. Saraswati,

Digpa-ratsa Ri, Hanle, Ladakh.

● Operation It is remotely operated using a dedicated satellite communication link from

the Centre for Research & Education in Science & Technology (CREST), Indian Institute

of Astrophysics, Bangalore.

● The telescope is used to make observations of extrasolar planets and it also looks for

comets and asteroids whizzing around in our solar system

Other Telescope:

● Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) is an astronomical observatory with an extremely large

telescope (ELT).It is an international project being funded by scientific organisations of

Canada, China, India, Japan and USA.

● GROWTH -India’s First Robotic Telescope, first one designed to observe dynamic or

transient events in the universe has started observing the skies.

● ARIES telescope : a joint collaboration between Indian, Russian, and Belgian

scientists.The telescope will be used in the study and exploration of planets, starts,

magnetic field and astronomical debris

● HAGAR Telescope:The telescope will help in exploring distant stars and galaxies in the

universe . The High Altitude Gamma Ray Telescope (HAGAR) is an atmospheric

Cerenkov experiment with 7 telescopes setup in 2008.

Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance

● Created in 2000,

● Gavi is an international organisation - a global Vaccine Alliance, bringing together public

and private sectors



● Goal of creating equal access to new and underused vaccines for children living in the

world’s poorest countries.

● Its core partners include the WHO, UNICEF, the World Bank and the Bill & Melinda

Gates Foundation.

● In June 2019, the Gavi Board approved a new five-year strategy (‘Gavi 5.0’) with a vision

to ‘leave no-one behind with immunisation’ and a mission to save lives and protect

people’s health by increasing equitable and sustainable use of vaccines.

VACCINE HESITANCY

● Vaccine Hesitancy is defined as reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability

of vaccines and is influenced by factors such as complacency, convenience and

confidence.

● a study published in The Lancet, India ranked the highest among countries where

people believed vaccines to be effective with 84.26 per cent believing so in 2019.

● In January 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed vaccine hesitancy as

among the top 10 threats to global health.

UAE’s Moon Mission

● United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decided to send an unmanned spacecraft to the moon

in 2024.

● Rover Name: Rashid , Rover is a vehicle for exploring the surface of a planet or moon.

● Aim: The rover will explore the surface of the moon in areas that have not been explored

previously by human missions such as NASA’s Apollo.

● In July 2020, the UAE launched a Mars probe named Amal (Hope) from Japan, marking

the Arab world’s first interplanetary mission.

● UAE is a federation of seven sheikhdoms on the Arabian Peninsula.

● Abu Dhabi (territorially the largest of the sheikhdoms), Ajman, Dubai, Fujairah, Ras al-

Khaimah, Sharjah, and Umm al-Qaiwain.

● 3 Nations are successful to land a spacecraft on the moon: USA, the former Soviet

Union and China.

● India, Israel and Japan have tried but failed

Mumbai maps its biodiversity

● In a first-of-its-kind attempt to visually empower Mumbai’s citizens with the resources

they share the city

● a biodiversity map of the city to showcase the wildlife hotspots, mangrove forests, urban

green spaces and over 90 species that can be spotted in the city has been illustrated.

● Rohan Chakravarty, popularly known for his work under the title of Green Humour, is the

man behind the map.

● This is part of a campaign Biodiversity by the Bay, initiated by the Ministry of Mumbai’s

Magic, a citizen’s collective comprising Mumbaikars who wish to bring the issue of

protecting biodiversity to the forefront.



Lion-tailed Macaque

● The scientific name: Macaca silenus.

● Habitat: It is a primate endemic to small and severely fragmented rainforests of the

Western Ghats in Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

● It is also known under its original name of Sahyadri or Benevolent Mountains.

● play important role in the ecosystem they live, as they disperse seeds of fruits and plants

they consume.

● Appendix I of CITES

● Schedule I, Part I, of the Indian Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972

● IUCN: Endangered.

● Lion-tailed Macaque is considered to be omnivorous, eating mainly fruit, insects, eggs as

well as small animals on occasion.

iDEX4Fauji initiative

● iDEX4Fauji is a first of its kind initiative.

● Launched to support the innovations identified by members of the Indian Armed Forces.

● The initiative will bolster innovation ideas from soldiers and field formations.

● The iDEX initiative stands as one of the most effective and well-executed defence

Startup ecosystem of the country.

User Depot Module (UDM) system

● developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems.

● implemented shortly across all Zones of Indian Railways.

● Implementation of this system will bring in transformational changes from manual

working to digital working with real-time transactions and online information exchange

among all stakeholders.

● ensure digitization of complete supply chain, including user depots.

● also facilitate economy, efficiency and transparency besides improved asset

management.

● It will ensure improved service level and satisfaction to customers.

Google India launches Make Small Strong campaign

● to help support small businesses and drive demand through customer support.

● The citizens can help small businesses by buying locally, leaving reviews and ratings

and by promoting their favourite retailers on social media.

● However, 92% of businesses are facing customer-related challenges, revenue loss due

to less demand and payment of fixed costs.

● So, the need to go digital is necessary and SMBs need to be digitize fast in order to

support business recovery during the current crisis.



International Relation.

Qatar’s new labour laws

● Abolition of the unjustified ‘kafala system’ or requirement for a “no objection certificate”

that migrant workers needed to get from their employers before changing jobs.

● Now, workers will have to serve a one-month notice period if they have worked for less

than two years and notice period of two months if they have worked longer

● It is being practiced in the Gulf Cooperation Council member countries of Bahrain,

Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and also in the Arab states

of Jordan and Lebanon.

Indra 2020 to be held in Andaman Sea

● A bilateral tri-services exercise between India Russia

● in the Andaman Sea, close to the Strait of Malacca

● The Strait of Malacca connects Indian Ocean to the South China Sea and is also a

prominent trade route between East Asia and West Asia-Europe.

G-20 Foreign Ministers Meet

● Currently, Saudi Arabia holds the presidency of G-20. It is the first Arab nation to take

over the G20 Presidency.

● The foreign ministers acknowledged the importance of opening borders, and promoting

measures to allow the economy to thrive in light of the protective measures for the

Covid-19 pandemic.

G 20

● The G20 is an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union, with

representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

● The G20 membership comprises a mix of the world’s largest advanced and emerging

economies, representing about two-thirds of the world’s population, 85% of global gross

domestic product, 80% of global investment and over 75% of global trade.

● The members of the G20 are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France,

Germany, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Republic of Korea, Mexico, Russia, Saudi

Arabia, South Africa, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European

Union.

● It does not have any permanent secretariat or headquarters.

G-77

● the largest intergovernmental organization of developing countries in the United Nations.

India is a member of this group.

● founded on June 15, 1964, by 77 developing non-aligned nations in the "Joint

Declaration of the Seventy-Seven Countries" issued at the United Nations Conference

on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).[

● Currently 134 Members countries



● Objective: to ensure that the developing world’s collective interests are safeguarded

along with the enhancements of its negotiation capabilities in the wider United Nations

system and other international forums.

● Aim is also to foster good relations between the developing world at large through

economic and technical cooperation.

UN Special Rapporteurs on EIA 2020

● Recently, a group of Special Rapporteurs to the United Nations (UN) has written to the

Indian government expressing concerns over the draft Environment Impact Assessment

(EIA) notification 2020.

● Special Rapporteurs are independent experts working on behalf of the UN.

● They work on a country or a thematic mandate specified by the United Nations Human

Rights Council (UNHRC).

● Special Rapporteurs often conduct fact-finding missions to countries to investigate

allegations of human rights violations. They can only visit countries that have agreed to

invite them.

US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF)

● a non-profit organization established in 2017.

● Objective: Strengthening the USA-India bilateral and strategic partnership.

● Aim: Strengthening economic and commercial ties between the two countries through

policy advocacy that will lead to driving economic growth, entrepreneurship,

employment-creation, and innovation to create a more inclusive society.

● Theme for 2020: US-India Navigating New Challenges.

UNSC 1267 committee

● first set up in 1999, and strengthened after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

● known as the Da’esh and Al Qaeda Sanctions Committee.

● It comprises all permanent and non-permanent members of the UNSC.

● The 1267 list of terrorists is a global list, with a UNSC stamp. It is full of Pakistani

nationals and residents.

UNSC Resolution 47

● concerned with the resolution of the Kashmir conflict.

● According to it, Pakistan was to withdraw its nationals who had entered the State for the

purpose of fighting and to prevent future intrusions

● The UN Security Council increased the size of the investigating council to include six

members along with permanent members of the UNSC.

● instructed the Commission to go to the subcontinent and help the governments of India

and Pakistan restore peace and order to the region and prepare for a plebiscite to

decide the fate of Kashmir.

● Both countries rejected Resolution 47.



The Quad Grouping

● The quadrilateral security dialogue includes Japan, India, United States and Australia.

● Quad is an opportunity for like-minded countries to share notes and collaborate on

projects of mutual interest.

● Members share a vision of an open and free Indo-Pacific.

Australia to Join Malabar Exercise

● Malabar Exercise is an annual trilateral naval exercise between the navies of India,

Japan, and the USA which is held alternately in the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

● The Exercise is aimed to support free, open and inclusive Indo-Pacific and remain

committed to a rules based international order.

First ever International Day of Clean Air For Blue Skies ( 7th Sept )

● By The General Assembly of United Nations

● The Day aims to Raise public awareness at all levels—individual, community, corporate

and government—that clean air is important for health, productivity, the economy and

the environment.

Indo-Pacific Business Forum to be held in Hanoi

● The forum aims to provide a free and open Indo-Pacific region with countries that are

independent, prosperous and strong.

● The World-wide Fund (WWF) has divided the Indo-Pacific into three regions,

○ The Central Indo-Pacific includes seas in Indonesian archipelago, Philippines

sea, South China sea.

○ The Eastern Indo-Pacific region includes islands in central pacific ocean.

○ The western Indo-Pacific includes red sea, Arabian sea, Persian Gulf, Bay of

Bengal.

BIMSTEC

● There are seven countries participating in BIMSTEC.

● They are Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan, Nepal.

● Established through Bangkok Declaration in 1997

● Four initial members Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand.

● Others: Myanmar (1997), Nepal (2004) and Bhutan (2004)

● BIMSTEC Secretariat has finalized BIMSTEC charter after 23 years of its inception.

● Charter is due to be signed in fifth summit, scheduled for January next year at Sri

Lanka.

● Charter is expected to

○ Define a long-term vision and priorities for cooperation,

○ Clearly delineating roles and responsibilities of different layers of institutional

structure and

○ define decision-making processes.

● In absence of a dedicated charter, BIMSTEC is running with the spirit of Bangkok

Declaration of 1997



Mekong-Ganga Cooperation (MGC)

● an initiative aiming to facilitate closer connections between its 6 member countries that

share the Ganga river and Mekong river basins.

● India and five ASEAN countries:Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam

● launched in 2000

● Aim: facilitating closer contacts among the people inhabiting these two major river basins

and enhancing cooperation in tourism, culture, education, transport and

communications.

Indo-Pacific Trilateral Dialogue

● India, Australia and France held a dialogue for the first time under a trilateral framework

● Focus: Enhancing cooperation in the Indo-Pacific Region. Australia, along with

France, has emerged as a major strategic partner for India in the Indo-Pacific and Indian

Ocean Region (IOR), especially in the maritime domain

● India has logistics agreements with both countries.

● The logistics agreement provides for easier access to supplies of goods and services

Significance of the Indo-Pacific Region

● In 2018 Shangrila Dialogue India had clearly indicated the geographical reach of India’s

idea of the Indo-Pacific, which starts from Africa to the America, which covers both the

Indian and Pacific Oceans, in tandem with that of Japan.

● It is a very rich region in terms of natural resources (fisheries, oil, gas) as well as mineral

resources.

● Trade of some of the major economies goes through this region.

● About 50% of India’s trade is conducted through the South China Sea. India has been

one of the major players in the region.

● The international community including India wants freedom of navigation, freedom of

over flights in the region.

United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

(ESCAP)

● It is the regional development arm of the United Nations for the Asia-Pacific region

● It has 53 Member States including India

● Headquarters: Bangkok, Thailand

● ESCAP works to overcome some of the region’s greatest challenges by providing

results-oriented projects, technical assistance and capacity building to member States.

India-Japan Logistics Agreement

● The agreement is known as Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA)

● agreement will allow armed forces of both sides to coordinate closely in services and

supplies.



● engaged in bilateral training activities, United Nations Peacekeeping Operations,

Humanitarian International Relief and other mutually agreed activities.

● also enhance the interoperability, assist in maintaining regional security and further

increase the bilateral defence engagements between the two countries.

● remain in force for 10 years

● India has similar agreements with the USA, Australia, France, Oman and Singapore.

● The supplies and services include food, water, transportation, airlift, petroleum, clothing,

communications and medical services etc.

India, China agree on 5-point action plan

1. following the consensus between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President Xi

Jinping to “not allow differences to become disputes”.

2. disengaging quickly to ease tensions.

3. abiding by the existing India-China border protocols and avoiding escalatory action.

4. continuing the dialogue between the Special Representatives, National Security Adviser

Ajit Doval and Mr. Wang, as well as the other mechanisms.

5. working towards new confidence-building measures (CBMs).

Singapore Convention on Mediation

● The convention will provide a more effective way of enforcing mediated settlements of

corporate disputes involving businesses in India and other signatories.

● India approved the signing of the Convention in July 2019.

● Convention has 53 signatories, including China and the USA as well.

● The Convention has been designed to become an essential instrument in the facilitation

of international trade and in the promotion of mediation as an alternative and effective

method of resolving trade disputes.

● It will also NOT apply to settlement agreements concluded for personal, family or

household purposes by one of the parties (a consumer), as well as settlement

agreements relating to family, inheritance or employment law

Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Mechanisms

● ADR is a mechanism of dispute resolution that is non adversarial, i.e. working together

co-operatively to reach the best resolution for everyone.

● The Legal Services Authorities Act was passed in 1987 to encourage out-of-court

settlements, and the new Arbitration and Conciliation Act was enacted in 1996.

● ADR can be instrumental in reducing the burden of litigation on courts, while delivering a

well-rounded and satisfying experience for the parties involved.

ADR is generally classified into the following types:

Arbitration:

● The dispute is submitted to an arbitral tribunal which makes a decision (an "award") on

the dispute that is mostly binding on the parties.

● It is less formal than a trial, and the rules of evidence are often relaxed.

● Generally, there is no right to appeal an arbitrator's decision.



● Except for some interim measures, there is very little scope for judicial intervention in the

arbitration process.

Conciliation:

● A non-binding procedure in which an impartial third party, the conciliator, assists the

parties to a dispute in reaching a mutually satisfactory agreed settlement of the dispute.

● Conciliation is a less formal form of arbitration.

● The parties are free to accept or reject the recommendations of the conciliator.

● However, if both parties accept the settlement document drawn by the conciliator, it shall

be final and binding on both.

Mediation

● In mediation, an impartial person called a "mediator" helps the parties try to reach a

mutually acceptable resolution of the dispute.

● The mediator does not decide the dispute but helps the parties communicate so they

can try to settle the dispute themselves.

● Mediation leaves control of the outcome with the parties.

Negotiation:

● A non-binding procedure in which discussions between the parties are initiated without

the intervention of any third party with the object of arriving at a negotiated settlement to

the dispute

● It is the most common method of alternative dispute resolution.

● Negotiation occurs in business, non-profit organizations, government branches, legal

proceedings, among nations and in personal situations such as marriage, divorce,

parenting, and everyday life.

USA-Maldives Framework on Defense and Security Relationship

● Framework intends to deepen engagement and cooperation in support of maintaining

peace and security in the Indian Ocean.

● both of them agreed to reiterate their commitment to a free and open Indo-Pacific that

promotes the security and prosperity of all nations in the region.

Djibouti Code of Conduct

● India joined the Djibouti Code of Conduct (DCOC) as an observer as part of efforts

aimed at enhancing maritime security in the Indian Ocean region

● Also known as the Code of Conduct concerning the Repression of Piracy and Armed

Robbery against Ships in the Western Indian Ocean and the Gulf of Aden.

● Adopted on 29th January 2009.

● Established under the International Maritime Organization (IMO).

● Jeddah Amendment: An amendment to DCOC was made in 2017 to cover other illicit

maritime activities, including human trafficking and illegal, unreported and unregulated

fishing and to build national and regional capacity to address wider maritime security

issues, as a basis for sustainable development of the maritime sector.

● It has been signed by 20 countries

● Observers: India, Japan, Norway, the UK and the USA.



Japan’s New Prime Minister

● Japan recently elected Yoshihide Suga as its new Prime Minister.

● He belongs to the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) of Japan.

● Japan has a multi-party, bicameral, parliamentary, representative democratic

constitutional monarchy.

● Constitution: It has a unitary model with supremacy of constitution.

● Government: The Government of Japan consists of a legislature, executive and

judiciary.

● The Emperor is the Head of State and the Prime Minister is the Head of Government

and the Head of the Cabinet (executive).

● The Indian Constitution derives its “Procedure established by Law” component from the

Japanese constitution.

Gilgit-Baltistan to Become a Pakistani Province

● Gilgit-Baltistan has functioned as a “provincial autonomous region” since 2009.

● Pakistan has decided to elevate Gilgit-Baltistan’s status to that of a full-fledged province.

● Gilgit-Baltistan is one of the disputed territories of India.

● Currently It is an autonomous region now and with this elevation, it will become the 5th

province of the country.

● Currently, Pakistan has four provinces namely Balochistan, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa,

Punjab, and Sindh.

China Pakistan Economic Corridor

● It is the flagship project of China’s ambitious Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).



● The bilateral project between Pakistan and China intends to promote connectivity across

Pakistan with a network of highways, railways, and pipelines accompanied by energy,

industrial and other infrastructure development projects.

● It links the Western part of China (Xinjiang) to the Gwadar Port in Balochistan, Pakistan

via Khunjerab Pass in Northern Pakistan.

● India has protested to China over the CPEC as it is being laid through Pakistan-occupied

Kashmir.

first direct Cargo Ferry service to Maldives

● help in boosting the business and trade relations between the countries.

● Launched in the wake of strengthening the Neighbourhood First Policy.

● connecting the Tuticorin and Cochin ports of India with Male and Kulhudhuhfushi ports of

Maldives.

● entire link will be operated by the Shipping Corporation of India.

● service will be beneficial for small and medium enterprises largely.

Generation Unlimited (GenU):

● Founded in September 2018,Launched by UNICEF

● GenU aims to transform education, employment and entrepreneurial outcomes for young

people around the world at a global and local level,

● by joining together partners from business and governments with the reach and network

of the United Nations (UN).

International Financial Services Centres (IFSC)

● An IFSC caters to customers outside the jurisdiction of the domestic economy.

● Such centres deal with flows of finance, financial products and services across borders.

● London, New York and Singapore can be counted as global financial centres.

Services an IFSC can provide:

● Fund-raising services for individuals, corporations and governments.

● Asset management and global portfolio diversification undertaken by pension funds,

insurance companies and mutual funds.

● Wealth management.

● Global tax management and cross-border tax liability optimization

● Global and regional corporate treasury management operations that involve fund-raising,

liquidity investment and management and asset-liability matching.

● Risk management operations

About India:

● The SEZ Act 2005 allows setting up an IFSC in an SEZ or as an SEZ after approval from

the central government.

● The first IFSC set up at the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT City) in

Gandhinagar.



IFSCA: International Financial Services Centres Authority

● A body launched by the government of India to modulate all financial services in

International Financial Services Centres (IFSCs).

● The authority modulates financial products like deposits, financial services, securities

and financial institutions approved by regulators like RBI and SEBI.

● IFSCA is headquartered in Gandhinagar, Gujarat.

Group of Four: G-4

● The G4 nations comprising Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan are four countries which

support each other’s bids for permanent seats in the United Nations Security Council.

Group of Seven G-7 & Group of eight G-8

● After the first oil shock of the 1970s, economies across the world were suffering, and

global leaders wanted to do something about it.

● It is an intergovernmental organisation that was formed in 1975

● Members: Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom and the United

States.

● the member countries of the G7 group account for 49% of global export, 51% of

industrial output and 49% of assets in the international monetary fund.

● Initially it focussed on economic issues but later it focussed on the several challenges

such as the oil crashes of the 1970s, terrorism, arms control, and drug trafficking,etc.

● The decisions taken by leaders during annual summits are non-binding.

● In 1998, Russia joined the club, making it the G-8, but it was kicked out in 2014 after its

annexation of Crimea.

Emerging 7 Or E7



● Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey,

Quad group of countries

● The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD) is also known as the Quad

● It is an informal strategic forum that includes the United States, Japan, Australia and

India.

● The forum was initiated in 2007 by Prime Minister of Japan Shinzo Abe.

● objective to ensure and support a “free, open and prosperous” Indo-Pacific region.

Andean Community (CAN)

● The Andean Community is a trade bloc of four countries - Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador

and Peru

● HQ: in Lima, Peru.

● objective of creating a Customs Union and a Common Market.

● Chile withdrew in 1976 claiming economic incompatibilities.

● Apart from CAN, Mercosur is the other major trading block of South America.

Mercosur Bloc

● Established in 1991 under Treaty of Asuncion.

● It is an economic and political bloc including Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and

Uruguay.

● Other associate members of the bloc include Chile, Bolivia, Guyana, Colombia, Ecuador,

Peru and Suriname.

● Objective to promote fluid movement of goods, current and people.

● Promote free trade

● The official language of the bloc include Guarani, Portuguese and Spanish.

Suspension of Amnesty International Operations in India

● Argument by Amnesty: It has alleged that the government has frozen its bank accounts

due to repeated calls for transparency and against the human rights violations in the

country.

● Amnesty International (AI) India had demanded an independent investigation into all

allegations of human rights violations by the police during the north-east Delhi riots and

the establishment of the National Commission for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir.

● Argument by the Government: The government has accused Amnesty of defying the law

of the land.

Amnesty International ( AI )

● It is an international Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) founded in London (UK) in

1961.

● It seeks to publicize violations by governments and other entities of rights recognized in

the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948), especially freedom of speech and of

conscience and the right against torture.

● In 1977, it was awarded the Nobel Prize for Peace.



● AI India is a part of the global human rights movement spearheaded by Amnesty

International. It has its registered office in Bangalore (Karnataka).

International Institutions-Reports.

Shanghai Cooperation Organization

● the largest transregional international organization that accounts to 44% of the world

population

● that stretches between Pacific Ocean and Baltic sea and also between Arctic Ocean and

Indian Ocean.

● formed in the year 2001 and

● Headquartered at Beijing, China.

● Aims to maintain stability, peace and security in the region. India and Pakistan became

the members of the organization only in 2017.

● Five founder members namely Kazakhstan, China, Kyrgyzstan,Russia, Tajikistan

● New 3 members: Uzbekistan in 2001, India and Pakistan became members in 2017.

● Four observer states - Afghanistan, Belarus, Iran and Mongolia.

● It has the capacity to counterbalance the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.



North Atlantic Treaty Organization

● It is an intergovernmental military alliance.

● Established by Washington treaty. signed on 4 April 1949.

● Headquarters — Brussels, Belgium.

● Headquarters of Allied Command Operations — Mons, Belgium

● Member countries : 30

● Significance:

● It constitutes a system of collective defence whereby its independent member states

agree to mutual defence in response to an attack by any external party.

Regional Anti-Terror Structure (RATS)

● RATS was established by SCO member nations in Tashkent, Uzbekistan on 2004.

● Aims to fight cross-border crimes like drug tariffing and cyber warfare under the counter-

terrorism rubric.

● India has been participating in tactical drills and counter-terror cooperation with other

SCO member countries under the RATS.

● India through RATS can improve its counterterrorism abilities by working toward

intelligence sharing, law enforcement and developing best practices and technologies

Collective Security Treaty Organization

● An inter-governmental military alliance that was signed in 1992 by Tashkent Pact.

● The countries that signed the treaty were Armenia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan,

Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. In 1994,

● Three other countries namely Belarus, Georgia and Azerbaijan joined the organization in

1994.

● In 2004, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution to grant an observer

status to the United Nations

United Nations

● an international organization founded in 1945. It is currently made up of 193 Member

States.

● The forerunner of the United Nations was the League of Nations, an organization

conceived in circumstances of the First World War, and established in 1919 under the

Treaty of Versailles "to promote international cooperation and to achieve peace and

security."

● The International Labour Organization (ILO) was also created in 1919 under the Treaty

of Versailles as an affiliated agency of the League.

● The UN Charter of 1945 is the foundational treaty of the United Nations, as an inter-

governmental organization.

● activities include maintaining international peace and security, protecting human rights,

delivering humanitarian aid, promoting sustainable development and upholding

international law.



● 6 Organs of UN are—the General Assembly, UN Security Council (UNSC ), the

Trusteeship Council, the Economic and Social Council, the International Court of Justice,

and the Secretariat.

UN General Assembly

● the main deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN.

● Total Member States- 193 , Founding member : 50(Including India )

● Each year, in September : the annual General Assembly session,

● Decisions on important questions, such as those on peace and security, admission of

new members and budgetary matters, require a two-thirds majority of the General

Assembly.

● Decisions on other questions are by simple majority.

● The President elected each year by assembly to serve a one-year term of office.

UN Security Council (UNSC )

● Established by the UN Charter in 1945.

● Headquartered at NewYork.

● Work to maintain international peace and security.

● The council has 15 members: the five permanent members and 10 non-permanent

members elected for two-year terms.

● The five permanent members are the United States, the Russian Federation, France,

China and the United Kingdom.

● Each member of the Security Council has one vote. Decisions of the Security Council on

matters are made by an affirmative vote of nine members including the concurring votes

of the permanent members.

● A "No" vote from one of the five permanent members blocks the passage of the

resolution.

UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC)

● It is the principal body for coordination, policy review, policy dialogue and

recommendations on economic, social and environmental issues, as well as

implementation of internationally agreed development goals.

● It has 54 Members, elected by the General Assembly for overlapping three-year terms.

● It is the United Nations’ central platform for reflection, debate, and innovative thinking on

sustainable development.

UN Trusteeship Council

● stablished in 1945 by the UN Charter,

● Trust territory is a non-self-governing territory placed under an administrative authority

by the Trusteeship Council of the United Nations.

● A League of Nations mandate was a legal status for certain territories transferred from

the control of one country to another following World War I, or the legal instruments that



contained the internationally agreed-upon terms for administering the territory on behalf

of the League of Nations.

● By 1994, all Trust Territories had attained self-government or independence. The

Trusteeship Council suspended operation on 1 November 1994.

Secretariat

● The Secretariat comprises the Secretary-General and tens of thousands of international

UN staff members who carry out the day-to-day work of the UN as mandated by the

General Assembly and the Organization's other principal organs.

● The Secretary-General is chief administrative officer of the Organization, appointed by

the General Assembly on the recommendation of the Security Council for a five-year,

renewable term.

Global Innovation Index 2020

● Released jointly by the World Intellectual Property Organization(WIPO), Cornell

University and INSEAD Business School

● Theme for 2020 : Who Will Finance Innovation?

● The metrics include institutions, human capital and research, infrastructure, market

sophistication and business sophistication, knowledge and technology outputs and

creative outputs.

● measures the innovative capacity and outputs of 131 economies, using 80 indicators

● India in top 50 countries for the first time moving up four places to the 48th rank.

● India remained the most innovative country in Central and Southern Asia

● top five countries : Switzerland, Sweden, the USA, the UK and Netherlands.

● India improved the most in three pillars: Institutions (61st), business sophistication

(55th), and creative outputs (64th).

World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO)

● WIPO is a global body for the promotion and protection of Intellectual Property Rights

(IPR).

● WIPO was created in 1967

● Objective: to encourage creative activity, to promote the protection of intellectual

property throughout the world

● WIPO currently administers 26 international treaties.

● It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

● WIPO currently has 192 member states.

Intellectual Property Rights

● Intellectual property rights (IPR) are the rights given to persons over the creations of

their minds: inventions, literary and artistic works, and symbols, names and images used

in commerce. They usually give the creator an exclusive right over the use of his/her

creation for a certain period of time.



● These rights are outlined in Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,

which provides for the right to benefit from the protection of moral and material interests

resulting from authorship of scientific, literary or artistic productions.

The 4 main types of intellectual property are listed below

● Patents – It is used for protecting new inventions, ideas or processes. Patent holders

need to pay periodic government renewal fees. An approved patent is for a limited time

period.

● Copyrights – It protects the ideas, examples would be written works, music, art etc.

● Trademarks – It is something that protects the symbols, colors, phrases, sounds, design

etc.

● Trade Secrets – It may be strategies, systems, formulas or other confidential

information of an organization that provides them competitive advantage in the market.

Global Multidimensional Poverty Index 2020

● Released by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Oxford

Poverty & Human Development Initiative (OPHI).

● based on the idea that poverty is not unidimensional (not just depends on income and

one individual may lack several basic needs like education, health etc.), rather it is

multidimensional.

● MPI uses three dimensions and 10 indicators which are:

○ Education: Years of schooling and child enrollment (1/6 weightage each, total

2/6);

○ Health: Child mortality and nutrition (1/6 weightage each, total 2/6);

○ Standard of living: Electricity, flooring, drinking water, sanitation, cooking fuel and

assets (1/18 weightage each, total 2/6)

Key Findings

● Around 1.3 billion people are still living in multidimensional poverty,

● More than 80% are deprived in at least five of the ten indicators used to measure health,

education and living standards in the global MPI.

● Children show higher rates of multidimensional poverty. Half of multidimensionally poor

people (644 million) are children under age 18. One in three children is poor compared

with one in six adults.

● About 84 % of multidimensionally poor people live in Sub-Saharan Africa (558 million)

and South Asia (530 million).

● India is 62nd among 107 countries with an MPI score of 0.123 and 27.91% headcount

ratio, based on the NFHS 4 (2015/16) data.

● India lifted as many as 270 million people out of multidimensional poverty between 2005-

06 and 2015-16.

● India has reduced it's poverty rate from 55% to 28% in 10 years

● According to the report Bihar , Jharkhand , UP and MP are the four poorest states



United Nations releases “Levels and Trends in Child Mortality” report

● child mortality rate of India has declined between 1990 and 2019 from 126 to 34

● In India decrease in neonatal mortality rate from 57 in 1990 to 22 in 2019.

● globally the child mortality deaths under five has dropped from 12.5 million in 1990 to 5.2

million in 2019.

● Around 53% of under-five deaths occurred in the sub-saharan Africa in 2019 and 28% in

central and southern Asia.

● India was one among the five countries of the world that contributed to half of the under-

five deaths in the world.

Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA)

● an inter-governmental organization of countries bordering the Indian Ocean.

● It consists of 22 Member States, including India, and 10 Dialogue Partners.

● It manages, coordinates, services and monitors the implementation of policy decisions,

work programmes and projects adopted by the member states.

Indian Ocean Commission (IOC)

● an intergovernmental organization that links African Indian Ocean nations: Comoros,

Madagascar, Mauritius, Réunion, and Seychelles.

● Five observer : five observers — India, China, European Union (EU), Malta and

International Organisation of La Francophonie (OIF).

the 1938 Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)

● To combat the spread of fascist propaganda into the United States.

● It requires foreign agents to register with the Justice Department and disclose their

activities to the public.

● The also requires “agents representing the interests of foreign powers in a political or

quasi political capacity to disclose their relationship with the foreign government and

information about related finances.”

● FARA is an important tool to identify foreign influence in the United States and address

threats to national security.

● The BJP has become the first mainstream political party from India

Letter of credence

● It is a letter of introduction or recommendation, especially of an ambassador.

Acquisition and Cross-Servicing Agreement (ACSA)

● India and Japan sign agreement between Forces of both countries to coordinate closely

in services and supplies.

● aimed at greater maritime cooperation and can upgrade India-Japan naval exercises as

both countries are expected to share maritime facilities for mutual benefit.

● India has similar agreements with the USA, Australia, France, Oman and Singapore

List of India-Japan Defence Exercises

● JIMEX - Naval Exercise



● SHINYUU Maitri - Air Force Exercise,

● Dharma Guardian - Military Exercise,

● Malabar Exercise – USA + Japan + India Trilateral exercise.

WHO South East Asia Region (SEAR)

● Established at the First World Health Assembly in 1948.

● Objective: To address persisting and emerging epidemiological and demographic

challenges in the South East Asia Region.

● 11 Member States – Bangladesh, Bhutan, Democratic Peopl rising e’s Republic of

Korea, India, Indonesia, Maldives, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Timor-Leste.

● Regional Office:New Delhi.

Japan International Cooperation Agency

● Established in 2003

● a governmental agency that delivers the bulk of Official Development Assistance (ODA)

for the government of Japan.

● chartered with assisting economic and social growth in developing countries, and the

promotion of international cooperation.

● Major aid modalities: Technical assistance programs/projects for capacity and

institutional development, Feasibility studies and master plans, Dispatch of Specialists

● With India:

○ sign Rs 15,295 crores 3 mega rail infrastructure projects.

○ provides Rs 3,500 crores assistance to India to fight COVID-19

○ Sustainable Catchment Forest Management launched in Tripura

Global Economic Freedom Index, 2020

● Prepared by Canada’s Fraser Institute together with a New Delhi-based think tank

Centre For Civil Society

● The report measures the ‘economic freedom’, or the ability of individuals to make their

own economic decisions in a country, by analysing policies and institutions of these

countries.

● The degree of freedom is measured in five broad areas. They are:

○ Size of Government

○ Legal System and Property Rights

○ Sound Money

○ Freedom to Trade Internationally

○ Regulation

● Top 3 : Hongkong , Singapore , New Zealand

● India has been ranked 105th position among 162 countries. India has dropped by 26

position this year. China 124th

● India performed worse in terms of size of government, regulations and the freedom to

trade internationally.



International Criminal Court (ICC)

● ICC is an intergovernmental organization and international tribunal that sits in The

Hague in the Netherlands.

● It was set up after the ad hoc tribunals to deal with Rwanda war crimes proved

ineffective.

● ICC is a criminal court.

● The ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute individuals for the international crimes of

genocide, crimes against humanity, and war crimes.

● Established by the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court in 1998.

● Court has jurisdiction only over crimes committed after July 1, 2002, when the Rome

Statute entered into force.

● India is not a party to ICC.

● There are 123 countries party to the Rome Statute.

● Countries which never signed the treaty: India, China, Iraq, North Korea, Saudi Arabia,

Turkey etc

● Countries signed but not ratified the treaty: includes Egypt, Iran, Israel, Russia, United

States etc

● Burundi and the Philippines joined the ICC but later withdrew.

The International Court of Justice ( ICJ )

● the principal judicial organ of the United Nations

● established in June 1945 by the Charter UN,started working in April 1946.

● Commonly referred as World Court

● ICJ is the successor of the Permanent Court of International Justice (PCIJ), which was

established by the League of Nations in 1920.

● It settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory opinions in accordance with

international law, on legal questions referred to it by authorized United Nations organs

and specialized agencies.

● The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine years by

the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council

● In order to be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes in both

bodies.

● one third of the Court is elected every three years and Judges are eligible for re-election.

International Commission of Jurists (ICJ)

● ICJ had observed that the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2020

passed by Parliament was incompatible with international law.

● It is an international human rights non-governmental organization.

● Composition:It is a standing group of 60

● eminent jurists—including senior judges, attorneys and academics.

● Functions: To develop national and international human rights standards through the

law.



Global Biodiversity Outlook (GBO-5) report

● A flagship publication of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

● A periodic report that summarizes the latest data on the status and trends of

biodiversity and draws conclusions relevant to the further implementation of the CBD.

● Provides global summary of progress towards the Aichi Biodiversity Targets and is

based on a range of indicators

● At the global level none of the 20 targets have been fully achieved, though six targets

have been partially achieved

Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD)

● It entered into force in 1993. It has 3 main objectives:

○ The conservation of biological diversity

○ The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity

○ The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of

genetic resources

● It has been ratified by 196 nations, including India.

● CBD has two supplementary agreements, or protocols –

○ Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety governing the movements of Living

Modified Organisms.

○ Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable

Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization (ABS).

India’s entry to United Nation’s Commission on Status of Women( UN-CSW

)

● UN-CSW is the prime global intergovernmental body that was established in 1946 for the

promotion of gender equality and the empowerment of women.

● Headquarters New York, USA.

● It is a body of the prestigious Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC).

● ECOSOC is a principal organ of the United Nations.

● It is responsible for coordinating the economic, social, and other activities of 15 UN

specialized agencies, their functional commissions, and five regional commissions.

● India will be Member for a time period of four years starting from 2021 to 2025.

● It will strengthen the initiatives taken by India on the issue of women’s empowerment

and promoting gender equality.

Human Capital Index 2020

● Released by World Bank

● The index is calculated based on three pillars. They are survival, school and health.

● India has ranked 116th among 174 position in the annual Human Capital Index.

● In 2018, India’s score was 0.44. It has now increased to 0.49 in 2020.

● In 2019, India ranked 115 out of 157 countries.

● The report says that more than 1 billion children are out of school.



● There are significant disruptions in health services to women and children.

● Several children have been listed out of their crucial vaccinations.

● The report has found that there has been a major decline in remittances and the total

income has declined by 11% to 12%.

Other Reports Published by World Bank:

● Global Economic Prospects

● Ease of Doing Business

● World Development Report

BRICS NSA Summit

● National Security Advisers (NSAs)

● Discussed issues related to security and cooperation among BRICS countries.

● During the meet, the countries exchanged their views on biosafety, cyber security,

International Security, Counter Terrorism.

● The NSA-level meet is the third high level engagement between India and China.

About BRICS

● BRICS group of world’s leading emerging economies,

● Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

● In 2001, the British Economist Jim O’Neill coined the term BRIC to describe the four

emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.

● The grouping was formalised during the first meeting of BRIC Foreign Ministers in 2006.

● South Africa was invited to join BRIC in December 2010, after which the group adopted

the acronym BRICS.

● The chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance

with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.

● During the Sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza (2014) the leaders signed the Agreement

establishing the New Development Bank (NDB). They also signed the BRICS Contingent

Reserve Arrangement.

Global Smart City Index 2020

● Released by Institute for Management Development (IMD) along with Singapore

University

Key findings:

● Report highlights that the Indian cities have declined in their technological updates.

● Smart City index has ranked 109 cities this year, all across the world.

● Indian cities have slipped in their rankings.

● Hyderabad has been kept at 85th rank. While in 2019 index city was at 67th position.

● New Delhi dropped to 86th position from 68th in 2019.

● Mumbai slipped from 78th (2019) to 93rd position.

● Bengaluru dropped to 95th from 79th position in 2019.

● Mumbai and Bengaluru face severe road congestion.

● Delhi and Hyderabad lagged on basic amenities.



● Singapore topped the index.

● Helsinki and Zurich are at second and third positions respectively.

● Other cities that ranked under 10 includes,

G4 seeks time-bound reform of Security Council

● The G4 nations comprising Brazil, Germany, India, and Japan are four countries which

support each other’s bids for permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council.

● Their economic and political influence has grown significantly in the last decades,

reaching a scope comparable to the permanent members (P5).

● All the permanent members of P5 have supported India’s bids for permanent seat on the

United Nations Security Council (UNSC)

World Risk Index (WRI) 2020

● It is part of the World Risk Report 2020 released by the United Nations University

Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS), Bundnis Entwicklung Hilft

and the University of Stuttgart in Germany.

● It indicates which countries are in the greatest need to strengthen measures for coping

with and adapting to extreme natural events.

Key Findings:

● Among continents, Oceania is at the highest risk, followed by Africa and the Americas.

● India ranked 89th among 181 countries on the WRI 2020.

● India was fourth-most-at- risk in south Asia on the index, after Bangladesh, Afghanistan

and Pakistan.

SAARC and CICA Meetings

● Recently, the Foreign Ministers’ meetings of the South Asian Association for Regional

Cooperation (SAARC) and the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building

Measures in Asia (CICA) took place in a virtual manner.

● SAARC initiatives to combat Covid-19: SAARC Covid-19 Information Exchange Platform

(COINEX), SAARC Food Bank mechanism, SAARC Covid-19 Emergency Fund.

● India has contributed 10 million USD to SAARC Covid-19 Emergency Fund and

manufactured essential drugs, Covid protection and testing kits, for countries in the

SAARC region (Eg. Operation Sanjeevani for Maldives).

● India called the SAARC countries to collectively resolve to defeat the scourge of

terrorism, including the forces that nurture, support and encourage an environment of

terror and conflict.

SAARC

● South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC)

● Established with the signing of the SAARC Charter in Dhaka on 8 December 1985.

● Afghanistan became the newest member of SAARC at the 13th annual summit in 2005.

● Headquarters: Kathmandu, Nepal.



● Eight states―Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and

Sri Lanka.

● Six observers—China, Japan, European Union, Republic of Korea, United States, Iran

● Purpose: The SAARC seeks to promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia,

strengthen collective self-reliance, promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in

various fields, and cooperate with international and regional organizations.

● Importance of SAARC:

● SAARC comprises 3% of the world’s area, 21% of the world’s population and 3.8%

(US$2.9 trillion) of the global economy.

● It is the world’s most densely populated region and one of the most fertile areas.

● SAARC countries have common tradition, dress, food and culture and political aspects

thereby synergizing their actions.

● Common problems and issues like poverty, illiteracy, malnutrition, natural disasters,

internal conflicts, industrial and technological backwardness, low GDP and poor socio-

economic condition.

Current Relevance of SAARC

● SAARC has not been very effective since 2016 as its biennial summits have not taken

place since the last one in Kathmandu (Nepal) in 2014.

● India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Afghanistan also declined to participate in the Islamabad

meet planned in 2016.

● SAARC has become almost marginal to the regions' collective consciousness and other

organisations such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and

Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) came into the forefront.

CICA Meeting

● India underlined its commitment to a pluralistic cooperative security order in Asia through

CICA. It also reaffirmed its support for Afghan peace process.

● About CICA (Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in

Asia)

● Secretariat: Nur-Sultan, Kazakhstan.

● a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation towards promoting peace, security and

stability in Asia.

● CICA Summit is convened every four years

● proposed by the First President of the Republic of Kazakhstan on 5th October 1992

● 27 member states; 8 observer states; 5 observer organizations.

● consists of 27 member nations from Asia including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Cambodia,

China, Egypt, India etc.

● Japan, Indonesia, USA etc. are some of its Observer Nations.

● All decisions within CICA framework are taken by consensus.



Security ..

National Security Act, 1980:

● It is a stringent law that allows preventive detention for months, if authorities are satisfied

that a person is a threat to national security or law and order.

● The person does not need to be charged during this period of detention. The goal is to

prevent the individual from committing a crime.

● an individual can be detained without a charge for up to 12 months; the state

government needs to be intimated that a person has been detained under the NSA. No

such order shall remain in force for more than 12 days unless approved by the State

Government.

● A person detained under the NSA can be held for 10 days without being told the charges

against them.

● The detained person can appeal before a high court advisory board but they are not

allowed a lawyer during the trial.

Special Frontier Force or Vikas Battalion

● The Special Frontier Force (SFF) unit, referred to as Vikas Battalion, had been said to

be instrumental in preventing Chinese occupation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in

Ladakh.

● SFF was established on 14th November 1962 in the immediate aftermath of the 1962

Sino-India war.

● the SFF units are not part of the Army but they function under operational control of the

Army.

● The units have their own rank structures which have equivalent status with Army ranks.

Central Industrial Security Force

● It is a central armed force the Union raised under an Act of Parliament namely Central

Industrial Security Force Act, 1968.

● It is directly under the Union Ministry of Home Affairs.

● The CISF provides security cover to industrial units, government infrastructure projects

and facilities and establishments located all over India.

● Other central armed forces: in India include Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF),

Border Security Force (BSF), Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), Sashastra Seema Bal

(SSB), National Security Guard (NSG) and Assam Rifles (AR).

Aero India

● It is a biennial air show that is held at Yelahanka Air Force Station

● Organized by Ministry of Defence.

● During the show, several Indian aerospace and aviation industry manufacturers and

service providers meet their potential buyers.



Defence Technologies and Trade Initiative(DTTI)

● India and the United States have signed a statement of intent to strengthen the bilateral

dialogue on defence technology co-operation during the 10th Defence Technology and

Trade Initiative(DTTI).


● It is a flexible mechanism to ensure that senior leaders from US and India are

persistently focused on the opportunities and challenges associated with growing

defense partnership.

● Aim : To strengthen India’s defence industrial base, explore new areas of technological

development and expand U.S.-India business ties.

Novichok

● Novichok means “newcomer”. It is used for a family of highly toxic nerve agents.

● five to 10 times more lethal than other poisonous substances like VX gas.

● The weaponisation of any chemical is banned under the 1997 Chemical Weapons

Convention, of which Moscow is a signatory.

Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC)

● a multilateral treaty that bans Developing, producing, acquiring, stockpiling, or retaining

of chemical weapons and requires their destruction within a specified period of time.

● Implemented by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW),

which is headquartered in The Hague (OPCW won the 2013 Nobel peace prize).

● 193 states-parties.

● Israel has signed but has yet to ratify the convention.

● Three states have neither signed nor ratified the convention- Egypt, North Korea and

South Sudan.

India tests indigenously developed HSTDV

● HSTDV abbreviated form of Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle is an

unmanned scramjet demonstration aircraft.

● Developed by DRDO

● fourth country after the United States, Russia and China

● Mach 6 speed with hypersonic air-breathing scramjet engine technology.

● These can be used for launching satellites at low cost and also for long-range cruise

missiles in the future

● weight up to 1-metric-ton and length 5.6-meter

Air Breathing Engine

● Air-breathing engines use oxygen from the atmosphere in the combustion of fuel. They

include the turbojet, turboprop, ramjet, and pulse-jet.

● This system is lighter, efficient and cost-effective than other systems in use.

● Ramjet



○ A ramjet is a form of air-breathing jet engine that uses the vehicle’s forward

motion to compress incoming air for combustion without a rotating compressor.

○ Ramjets work most efficiently at supersonic speeds(1.2 to 5 Mach) but they are

not efficient at hypersonic speeds.

● Scramjet: A scramjet engine is an improvement over the ramjet engine as it efficiently

operates at hypersonic speeds(5 to 10 Mach) and allows supersonic combustion.

UCBs’ cybersecurity:

● The ‘Technology Vision for Cyber Security for Urban Co-operative Banks (UCBs) 2020-

2023’ was recently released by RBI.

● seeks to enhance cybersecurity of urban co-operative banks (UCBs).

● a five-pillared strategic approach GUARD, viz.

○ Governance Oversight.

○ Utile Technology Investment.

○ Appropriate Regulation and Supervision.

○ Robust Collaboration.

○ Developing necessary IT, cybersecurity skill sets.

● The document seeks to:

● Involve more board oversight over cybersecurity.

● Enable UCBs to better manage and secure IT assets.

● Implement an offsite supervisory mechanism framework for UCBs on cybersecurity-

related controls.

● Develop a forum for UCBs so that they can share best practices and discuss practical

issues and challenges.

● Implement a framework for providing awareness/training for all UCBs.

Prithvi-II Short-Range Ballistic Missile

● Strike range of 350 km

● a single-stage liquid-fueled missile.

● Indian Air Force is its primary user.

● Engine: The missile thrusted by liquid propulsion twin engine uses an inertial guidance

system while the warhead uses a radar correlation terminal guidance system.

● Carrying Capacity : 500 to 1,000 kg of -warheads.(nuclear as well as conventional

warheads).

About Prithvi Missile

● It is a short-range surface to surface ballistic missile that has been indigenously

developed by the DRDO.

● Prithvi missile was the first missile to be developed under the Integrated Guided Missile

Development Programme.

● It has 3 variants:

● Prithvi I (SS-150) – Army version

● Prithvi II (SS-250) – Air Force version

● Prithvi III (SS-350) – Naval version



Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme

● The project was started under the leadership of the late Shri Abdul Kalam in 1983

● In order to achieve self-sufficiency in the development and production of wide range of

ballistic missiles and surface-to-air missiles.

● The programme was ended in 2008.

● Four main projects under the programme includes:

● Prithvi: It is a Short Range Surface-to-Surface missile.

● Trishul: It is a Short Range Low-level surface to air missile.

● Akash: It is a Medium Range Surface-to-air Missile.

● Nag: It is a Third Range anti-tank Missile.

JIMEX 20 Maritime Exercise

● The 4th edition of India - Japan Maritime bilateral exercise JIMEX will be held in the

North Arabian Sea

● Commenced in January 2012

● Conducted biennially between the Indian Navy and Japanese Maritime Self-Defense

Force (JMSDF)

● The indigenously built stealth destroyer Chennai, Teg Class stealth frigate Tarkash and

Fleet Tanker Deepak will represent the Indian Navy.

Other Military Exercises between India and Japan:

● Annual joint land military exercise named 'Dharma Guardian'.

● Joint Air Force exercise 'Shinyuu Maitri'.

● Trilateral Maritime Exercise Malabar with the USA.

INS Chennai

● It is an indigenously-designed and built Kolkata-class third guided missile destroyer.

● It is the last of the ships in the Project 15A of the Indian Navy.

● It is equipped with vertical launch and long-range surface-to-air and surface to surface

missile systems like supersonic BrahMos, ‘Barak-8’ Long Range Surface to Air missiles.

INS Tarkash

● It is the second of the three Teg-class stealth frigates acquired from Russia.

● It carries a wide range of anti-ship, anti-air and anti- submarine weaponry, including the

supersonic BrahMos missile, 100 mm naval gun, optically controlled 30 mm Close-In

Weapon System, torpedoes and rockets.

● It was built at the Yantar shipyard in Kaliningrad, Russia.

INS Deepak

● The Deepak Class fleet replenishment tankers are in service with the Indian Navy.

● The Deepak Class will provide refuelling and replenishment for the expanding fleet of the

Indian Navy and will also support the future blue-water capabilities of the navy.



● It can also be deployed in the transportation and supply of ammunitions, materials and

provisions, as well as Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR) operations.

Pinaka rocket system

● Pinaka is a free flight artillery rocket system having a range of 37.5 km.

● Pinaka rockets are launched from a multi-barrel rocket launcher which has a capability to

launch 12 rockets in 44 seconds.

● The weapon system is designed and developed by Pune-based DRDO lab, Armament

Research and Development Establishment (ARDE).

Haiyang-2C

● Ocean-monitoring satellite launched recently by China.

● provide all-weather and round-the-clock observation of wave height, sea surface height,

wind speed and direction, and temperature.

● The planned satellite network will be capable of carrying out 80 percent of the world’s

sea surface wind monitoring within six hours.

IQWAT

● Iqwat is a virtual platform which allow Kashmiri Pandits to come together and engage in

professional and social networking in order to seek, explore, inspire, and collaborate.

● The platform will provide a way to stay in touch with their roots, culture and rich

traditions.

● It will revive the folk tales and songs that have been lost to time.

● It will also provide a foundation for the youth of the community to rise and shine. The app

will be rolled out in January 2021.

Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020

● The DAP contains policies and procedures for procurement and acquisition from the

capital budget of the MoD in order to modernise the Armed Forces including the Coast

Guard.

● Objective: Turning India into a global manufacturing hub

Provisions:

● The Offset guidelines have been revised, Under the new offset guidelines, preference

will be given to manufacture of complete defence products over components.

● The offset clause requires a foreign vendor to invest a part of the contract value in India.

● Reservations for Indigenous firms: The new DAP also protect the interests of Indian

domestic industry. The categories including the Buy(Indian-IDDM), Make I, Make II,

Production Agency in Design & Development, OFB/DPSU and SP model will be

exclusively reserved for Indian Vendors. This meets the criteria of Ownership and

Control by resident Indian citizens.

● It Notify a List of Weapons/Platforms for Ban on Import.

● Request For Information (RFI ) stage has been introduced that will explore willingness

of the prospective foreign vendors in order to progressively undertake manufacture and

setup an indigenous eco system.



● New Category of Buy (Global – Manufacture in India) has been added that

incorporates ‘manufacture of either the entire or a part of the equipment including the

spares, assemblies, sub-assemblies and Maintenance.

● Contractual Enablement has been incorporated that optimizes Life Cycle Support costs

and system enhancements through indigenous eco system incorporated.

● FDI in Defence Manufacturing- to encourage foreigners to setup ‘manufacturing or

maintenance entities’ through its subsidiary in India .

● Time Bound Defence Procurement Process and Faster Decision Making PMU be set up

to facilitate obtaining advisory and consultancy support to streamline the Acquisition

process.

Defence Acquisition Council (DAC)

● It is headed by the Defence Minister

● The DAC is responsible to give policy guidelines to acquisitions, based on long-term

procurement plans.

● It also clears all acquisitions, which includes both imported and those produced

indigenously or under a foreign license

● It was formed, after the Group of Ministers recommendations on ‘Reforming the

National Security System’, in 2001, post Kargil War (1999)

Passage Exercise (PASSEX)

● Between Indian Navy & Royal Australian Navy (RAN) in the East Indian Ocean Region

● HMAS Hobart will be deployed in the exercise by the Royal Australian Navy. It is a lead-

ship of the Hobart-class air warfare destroyers.

● From Indian side, Karmuk and Sahyadri ships will be a part of the exercise.

● Earlier, Indian Navy conducted similar exercises with Japan, Russia and The US.



Social Issue ..

Government Initiatives for Sports Development

The Khelo India Scheme

● Aims to encourage sports all over the country, thus allowing the population to harness

the power of sports through its cross-cutting influence,

● namely holistic development of children & youth, community development, social

integration, gender equality, healthy lifestyle, national pride and economic opportunities

related to sports development.

The National Sports Development Fund ● helps sportspersons excel by providing them opportunities to train under coaches of

international repute with technical, scientific and psychological support and giving them

exposure to international competitions.

The National Sports Talent Contest (NSTC) Scheme ● implemented to scout sports talent in the age group of 8-14 years from schools and

nurture them into future medal hopes by providing scientific training.

Sports Authority of India Training Centres Scheme (STC) - for Junior level

trainees:

● The main objective was to make it possible for the Central Government and State

Governments to work together for sports development efforts, through the integration of

various Schemes.

The Sports Authority of India (SAI)

● is the apex national sports body of India, established in 1982 by the Ministry of Youth

Affairs & Sports of Government of India for the development of sport in India.

Special Area Games (SAG) Scheme

● It aims at scouting natural talent for modern competitive sports and games from

inaccessible tribal, rural and coastal areas of the country and nurturing them scientifically

for achieving excellence in sports.

Asur Tribe

● Asur is among the 9 Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups found in Jharkhand and are

Austro-Asiatic in origin.

● Found in Jharkhand , Bihar, West Bengal and a few other states.

● The Asurs claim to be descendants of Mahishasur, the buffalo-demon whom Goddess

Durga kills after a spirited fight lasting nine nights.

Hampi

● the last capital of the last great Hindu Kingdom of Vijayanagar. On Tungabhadra River

● a UNESCO World Heritage site located in east-central Karnataka.



● multi-religious and multi-ethnic; it included Hindu and Jain monuments next to each

other.

● South Indian Hindu arts and architecture dating to the Aihole-Pattadakal styles, but

the Hampi builders also used elements of Indo-Islamic architecture in the Lotus Mahal,

the public bath and the elephant stables.

● Virupaksha temple

● Jain temples and a monolithic sculpture of Lord Narasimha, a form of Lord Vishnu.

● Vittal temple built in the 16th Century, is now a World Heritage monument.

Tribes in Odisha

● Odisha is home to 62 tribal communities — the largest diverse groups of tribal

population in India.

● 13 of them are PVTGs— Bonda, Birhor, Chuktia Bhunjia, Didayi, Dungaria Kandha, Hill

Kharia, Juang, Kutia Kondh, Lanjia Saora, Lodha, Mankirdia, Paudi Bhuyan and Saora.

● The concept of labour cooperatives is popular in almost all tribal communities in Odisha

including the

Deendayal Antyodaya Yojana - National Livelihoods Mission

● launched by the Ministry of Rural Development (MoRD), Government of India in 2011.

● Aims at creating efficient and effective institutional platforms for the rural poor enabling

them to increase household income through sustainable livelihood enhancements and

improved access to financial services through SHGs and federated institutions.

● About Rs. 91,130 crore have been given to about 54.57 lakh SHGs across the country

by the end of March 2020 as loans.

● The proportion of NPAs in bank loans given to SHGs has significantly increased over the

last decade from 2.90% in 2008 to 6.12% in 2018.

NCRB report on accidental deaths, suicides:

● NCRB:Set -up in 1986 under the Ministry of Home Affairs

● As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) report shows that the number of suicide

cases and accidental deaths registered an increase across the country last year from the

2018 figures.

● Suicides in the country went up slightly from 1,34,516 to 1,39,123.

● Of the 97,613 male suicides, the most were of daily wage earners (29,092), followed by

self-employed persons (14,319) and the unemployed (11,599).

● Of the 41,493 female, over half were housewives.

● Accidental deaths in the country increased by 2.3%

● The most casualties of 30.9% were reported in the 30-45 age group, followed by 26% in

the 18-30 age group.

● Maharashtra reported the highest deaths (70,329),

● The major causes were ‘traffic accidents’ (43.9%), ‘sudden deaths’ (11.5%), ‘drowning’

(7.9%), ‘poisoning’ (5.1%), ‘falls’ (5.1%) and ‘accidental fire’ (2.6%).



Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Janaushadhi Priyojana (PMBJP)

● a campaign launched in 2008 by the Department of Pharmaceuticals of the Ministry of

Chemicals and Fertilizers

● Implementation by Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India (BPPI)

● Aim: to provide quality medicines at affordable prices to the masses through special

kendra’s known as Pradhan Mantri Bhartiya Jan Aushadhi Kendra.

● 8 immunity boosting products launched for sale through Janaushadhi Kendras across

country

Bureau of Pharma PSUs of India(BPPI)

● Established in 2008.

● Under the Department of Pharmaceuticals, Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers.

● It got registered as an independent society in 2010 under the Societies Registration

Act,1860.

AIMA Chanakya National Management Games

● It is an online Business Simulation Game conducted every year.

● It is aimed at ensuring that participating executives from various industries get an

introduction to the complexities of running an organisation and gain expertise and skills

from this event.

National Management Games (NMG)

● one of its kind platform for Corporate Managers to face the thrill of Managing Business in

a competitive mode. It is one of the most anticipated and reputable annual events based

on Business Management Simulation, conducted

State of the Young Child in India Report

● Released by Mobile Creches, a non-governmental organisation (NGO)

● Mobile Creches works in the field of early childhood care and development by ensuring

creche services at construction sites and slum settlements across several cities.

● Based on data of 2005-2006 and 2015-2016

● Young Child Outcomes Index: It measures health, nutrition and cognitive growth of

children in the 0-6 years age group with the help of indicators such as infant mortality

rate, stunting and net attendance at the primary school level.

● The overall India score is 0.585 on a scale of 0-1.

● Top 3 : Kerala, Goa, Tripura

● Bottom 3 : Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar

● Eight States have scores below the country’s average

● Young Child Environment Index: It helps to understand the policy and environment

enablers that influence a child’s well-being.

● The overall India score is 0.672.

● five policy enablers: poverty alleviation, strengthening primary health care, improving

education levels, safe water supply and promotion of gender equity.

● Top 3: Kerala, Goa, Sikkim



● Eight States that have a below average score

Ambedkar Social Innovation and Incubation Mission (ASIIM)

● Launched by Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment

● ASIIM is launched under Venture Capital Fund for SCs (VCF-SC) to promote innovation

and enterprise among Scheduled Castes (SC) students studying in higher educational

institutions (HEI).

Other initiatives for economic development of SCs

● Stand-up India scheme for financing SC/Stand/or women entrepreneurs.

● National Scheduled Castes Finance & Development Corporation to financing income

generating activities of SCs.

● Credit Enhancement Guarantee Scheme for SCs to support entrepreneurs.

Report on Literacy Rate

● Report on ‘Household Social Consumption: Education in India as part of 75th round of

National Sample Survey - from July 2017 to June 2018’ has been released.

● It is based on the National Statistical Office (NSO) survey and provides for state-wise

detail of literacy rate among the persons aged seven years and above.

● Key Findings

● Data Analysis:

● India’s Overall Literacy Rate is 77.7%.

○ Urban Areas: 87.7%.

○ Rural areas: 73.5%.

○ Male Literacy Rate: 84.7%.

○ Female Literacy Rate: 70.3%.

● The male literacy rate is higher than the female literacy rate among all states with a

considerable gap in the worst-performing states.

● Top Performers Kerala(96.2 %)> Delhi > Uttarakhand > Himachal Pradesh > Assam.

● Bottom Performers: Andhra Pradesh < Rajasthan < Bihar < Telangana < UP

Digital Literacy

● 23% of urban households and 4% of rural households possess computers.

● Among persons of age 15-29 years, nearly 56% in urban areas and 24% in rural areas

were able to operate a computer.

● In the same age group, nearly 25% in rural areas and 58% in urban areas reported the

use of the internet.

● In urban areas 42% have Internet access. In rural India, however, only 15% are

connected to the internet.

● Only 38% of rural households have secondary schools within 1 km of the house as

compared to 70% for urban households.

● At all-India level nearly 14% students attending formal education received

scholarship/stipend/reimbursement.

● In India, percentages of persons in the age group of 3-35 years dropping out of studies

were nearly 14% in rural areas and 10% in urban areas.



Government Initiatives For Education and Literacy:

● National Education Policy, 2020: It aims at making “India a global knowledge

superpower” by introducing several changes from the school to college level in the

Indian education system.

● Samagra Shiksha: It is an integrated scheme for school education extending from pre-

school to class XII to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education at all levels of

school education.

● Mid Day Meal Scheme: It provides that every child within the age group of six to

fourteen years studying in classes I to VIII who enrolls and attends the school, shall be

provided hot cooked nutritional meals, free of charge every day except on school

holidays.

● Eklavya Model School and Rajiv Gandhi National Fellowship Scheme (RGNF):

These aim to encourage the students belonging to Scheduled Tribes (ST) community to

pursue higher education.

For Digital Literacy:

● Digital India Programme: It pulls together many existing schemes by restructuring and

re-focusing them and then implementing them in a synchronized manner.

● DIKSHA (Digital Infrastructure for Knowledge Sharing) platform- DIKSHA is the

national platform for school education available for all states and the central government

for grades 1 to 12 and was launched in September 2017.

● Pradhan Mantri Gramin Digital Saksharta Abhiyan: It is one of the largest initiatives

of the country with the target of making citizens digitally literate.

● National Digital Literacy Mission: It aims to empower at least one person per

household with crucial digital literacy skills by 2020.

● Bharat Net Project : It aims to have an optical fibre network in all the 2,50,000 gram

panchayats. implemented by the Department of Telecommunication under the Ministry

of Communications.project is being funded by the Universal Service Obligation Fund

(USOF),The project is a Centre-State collaborative project, with the states contributing

free Rights of Way for establishing the Optical Fibre Network.

International Literacy Day (8th Sept)

● To raise awareness and remind people of the importance of literacy as a matter of

dignity and human rights.

● Theme : “Literacy teaching and learning in the COVID-19 crisis and beyond”.

Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace

● instituted in 1986

● It consists of a monetary award of Rs 25 lakh along with a citation

● Eligibility: The award is given to individuals or organisations who work towards ensuring

international peace and development, ensuring that scientific discoveries are used to


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further the scope of freedom and better humanity, and creating new international

economic order.

● 2019 winner : an English broadcaster and natural historian Sir David Attenborough

ODF , ODF+ and ODF++ Cities

● ODF : A city/ward is notified as ODF city/ward if, at any point of the day, not a single

person is found defecating in the open.”

● ODF + : at any point of the day, not a single person is found defecating and/or urinating

in the open, and all community and public toilets are functional and well-maintained.

● ODF ++ : faecal sludge/septage and sewage is safely managed and treated, with no

discharging and/or dumping of untreated faecal sludge/septage and sewage in drains,

water bodies or open areas

Shikshak Parv:

● being celebrated from 8th-25th September 2020 to felicitate the teachers and to take

New Education Policy (NEP) 2020 forward.

● Teachers’ Day is celebrated on 5th September every year throughout India in memory of

Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan on his birth anniversary.

● World Teachers’ Day is celebrated on 5th October annually to commemorate the

anniversary of the adoption of the 1966 ILO/UNESCO Recommendation concerning the

Status of Teachers.

Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan

● Teacher’s Day on birth anniversary of Radhakrishnan

● India’s first Vice President and second President

● Book, ‘The Philosophy of Rabindranath Tagore’ attracted global attention to Indian

philosophy

● His philosophy was grounded in Advaita Vedanta

● other works include Indian Philosophy, (1923-27), The Philosophy of the Upanishads

(1924), An Idealist View of Life (1932), Eastern Religions and Western Thought

(1939), and East and West: Some Reflections (1955)

Jigyasa

● It is a student – scientist connect programme launched in 2017.

● The programme would be implemented by the Council of Scientific and Industrial

Research (CSIR) in collaboration with Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS).

● The focus of this scheme is on connecting school students and scientists so as to extend

student’s classroom learning with well planned research laboratory based learning.

Cigarette Butts

● Not biodegradable nd not listed as hazardous

● Cellulose acetate is a major component (95%) of the cigarette butts along with the

wrapping paper and rayon and its degradation studies show that it will persist for a

longer duration.



mCessation Programme

● It is an initiative using mobile technology for tobacco cessation.

● India launched mCessation using text messages in 2016 as part of the government’s

Digital India initiative.

● It uses two-way messaging between the individual seeking to quit tobacco use and

programme specialists providing them with dynamic support.

Village Poverty Reduction Plan

● VPRP is a comprehensive demand plan prepared by the Self Help Group (SHG)

network and their federations for projecting their demands and local area

development which needs to be integrated with the Gram Panchayat Development

Plan (GPDP).

● The VPRP is presented in the Gram Sabha meetings.

● Prepare a comprehensive and inclusive demand plan of the community for local

development.

● Article 243G : intended to empower the Gram Panchayats (GPs) for local planning

and implementation of schemes for economic development and social justice.

Gram Panchayat Development Plans (GPDP)

● GPDP brings together both the citizens and their elected representatives in the

decentralized planning processes.

● GPDP is expected to reflect the development issues, perceived needs and

priorities of the community,including that of the marginalized sections.

● GPDP is conducted from 2nd October to 31st December, every year across the country,

under the People’s Plan Campaign (PPC)

● PPC guidelines and the joint advisory issued by the Ministry of Panchayati Raj and

Ministry of Rural Development

iRAD App

● iRAD stands for Integrated Road Accident Database Project.

● to enhance road safety.

● Developed by:Indian Institute of Technology-Madras (IIT-M) and will be implemented by

the National Informatics Centre..

● App enable police personnel to enter details about a road accident, along with photos

and videos, following which a unique ID will be created for the incident.

● Subsequently, an engineer from the Public Works Department or the local body will

receive an alert on his mobile device. He or she will then visit the accident site, examine

it and feed the required details, such as the road design.

● Data thus collected will be analysed by a team at IIT-M which will then suggest if

corrective measures in road design need to be taken.



AICTE-SPICES

● Union Education Minister has launched the AICTE-SPICES (Scheme for Promoting

Interests, Creativity and Ethics among Students).

● Aim: To promote healthy co-curricular activity amongst the students for their all-round

development by promoting their interests, creativity and ethics.

● AICTE approved institutes with minimum 5 years of existence.

● Only one proposal per institute for a club (with minimum student members 50) will be

admissible.

Namami Gange Programme

● It seeks to accomplish the twin objectives of effective abatement of pollution and

conservation and rejuvenation of National River Ganga.

● under Ministry of Jal Shakti.

● The program is being implemented by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG),

● NMCG is the implementation wing of National Ganga Council set in 2016

● National Ganga Council (NGC) was Created in October 2016 under the River Ganga

(Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Authorities Order, 2016. It is Headed by

Prime Minister.

● It has a Rs. 20,000-crore, centrally-funded, non-lapsable corpus and consists of nearly

288 projects.

● Main Pillars of the Namami Gange Programme are:

○ Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure

○ River-Surface Cleaning

○ Afforestation

○ Industrial Effluent Monitoring

○ River-Front Development

○ Bio-Diversity

○ Public Awareness

○ Ganga Gram

International Day of Peace ( 21st Sept )

● Theme for 2020 : Shaping Peace Together.

● The United Nations (UN) General Assembly has declared this as a day devoted to

strengthening the ideals of peace, through observing 24 hours of non-violence and

cease-fire.

● Established in 1981 by the United Nations General Assembly.

Visiting Advanced Joint Research (VAJRA) Faculty Scheme:

● Launched by the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB), a Statutory body of

the Department of Science and Technology (DST).

● This Scheme is to bring overseas scientists and academicians including Non-resident

Indians (NRI) and Overseas Citizen of India (OCI) to India to work in public funded

Institutions and Universities for a specific period of time.



● The scheme offers adjunct / visiting faculty assignments to overseas scientists including

Indian researchers to undertake high quality collaborative research in cutting edge areas

of science and technology with one or more Indian collaborators.

Other initiative by Department of Science & Tech

● JIGYASA : Objectives Student-Scientist Connect Programme

● INSPIRE : To attract talent to Science at an early age and thus build the required critical

human resource pool

● NIDHI - A programme to address the complete chain of innovation ecosystem right from

scouting to mentoring to scaling up innovations.

● Surya Jyoti - a low cost and energy-efficient Micro Solar Dome (Surya Jyoti)In order to

capture daylight and concentrate the same inside a dark room, particularly in the urban

slum or rural areas has been tested and developed

Geneva Convention: International Convention of Road Traffic:

● The Convention on Road Traffic is an international treaty promoting the development

and safety of international road traffic by establishing certain uniform rules among the

contracting parties.

● Working: The convention addresses minimum mechanical and safety equipment needed

to be on board and defines an identification mark to identify the origin of the vehicle.

● The Convention was prepared and opened for signature by the United Nations

Conference on Road and Motor Transport held at Geneva in 1949 and came to force on

March 1952.

● India signed the Convention in 1949 and ratified in 1962.

Vienna Convention on Road Safety

● The 1968 Convention on Road Signs and Signals prescribes a harmonized system of

signs and signals based on the use of shapes, colours, and the use of graphic symbols.

● Parties: It is comprised of 66 Contracting Parties from Europe, Africa, the Middle East,

Asia and Latin America.

● The convention was agreed upon at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's

Conference on Road Traffic which was convened in 1968 and came into force in 1977.

● India is not a signatory of the Vienna Convention on Road Safety.

Covid Infection in PVTGs

● Bondas and Didiayis Tribes: The Bondas and Didiayis are found in the Malkangiri district

of the state, which shares its border with Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.

● The Bondas: scattered across 32 remote hilltop villages in the Eastern Ghats, are

believed to have come to India as part of the first wave of migration out of Africa about

60,000 years ago.

● The Didayis - an Austro-Asiatic tribe - live in the immediate neighbourhood of the

Bondas. The population of Didayis is 7,250 according to the 2011 Census. They live in

the Konda Kamberu hills of Malkangiri.



Shuchi Scheme(a menstrual hygiene project),

● The Shuchi Scheme, started in 2013-14, was initially a Centrally-sponsored one.

However, the Centre asked States to take over the scheme from 2015-16.

● aimed at instilling awareness about menstrual hygiene among adolescent girls.

Kishori Shakti Yojana (KSY)

● Under Union Ministry of Women & Child Development

● to empower adolescent girls, so as to enable them to take charge of their lives.

● This scheme is a redesign of the already existing Adolescent Girls (AG) Scheme being

implemented as a component under the centrally sponsored Integrated Child

Development Services (ICDS) Scheme.

● Broad objectives: to improve the nutritional, health and development status of

adolescent girls, promote awareness of health, hygiene, nutrition and family care, link

them to opportunities for learning life skills, going back to school, help them gain a better

understanding of their social environment and take initiatives to become productive

members of the society.

● Target Group under the scheme-Adolescent Girls (11-18 yrs.)

● States are maintaining Kishori Health Cards for Adolescent Girls (11-18 years) in

Anganwadi Centres (AWCs) to record the information about the weight, height, Body

Mass Index (BMI) along with other services provided under the scheme.

Kumhar Sashaktikaran Yojana

● An initiative of the Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) for empowerment of

potters community in the remotest of locations in the country.

● launched in 2018.

● Provides:

○ Training for advanced pottery products.

○ Latest, new technology pottery equipments like the electric Chaak.

○ Market linkages and visibility through KVIC exhibitions.

World Environmental Health Day on 26 Sep

● Theme: Environmental health, a key public health intervention in disease pandemic

prevention.

● launched by the International Federation of Environmental Health (IFEH) council.

● According to 2020 report by the world health organization (WHO), 24% of global deaths

that is 13.7 million deaths per year are related to the environment.

● The International Federation of Environmental Health was established in 1986.based

in London, England. The IFEH spreads knowledge about environmental health among

people and promotes cooperation between countries to improve the environmental

situation of our planet.



Saharia Tribe

● Most of the Saharia (or Sor) of India live in the state of Madhya Pradesh.

● They speak the Munda language that belongs to the Austro-Asiatic language family.

● The Saharia tribe is divided based on occupation into five sub-tribes:

○ The Arsi , The Muli , The Kindal , The Kumbi

Education Through Radio in Odisha

● Odisha has decided to reach out to children in remote areas through the radio as online

classes fail to reach most students due to poor mobile connectivity.

● The state's School and Mass Education Department has launched classroom teaching

through All India Radio.

● Students from Class I to VIII can learn their lessons through 15-minutes of teaching by

experienced teachers through radio.

SAMVEDNA

● SAMVEDNA (Sensitizing Action on Mental Health Vulnerability through Emotional

Development and Necessary Acceptance)

● Launched by National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)

● a Toll Free Tele counselling service, which will address the stress, anxiety, fear and

other issues among children.

● The tele-counselling support will cater to children all over India in various regional

languages also.

● Counsellors have been specially trained by the expert team of National Institute of

Mental Health and Neuro-Sciences (NIMHANS) to address the needs of children in

these difficult times.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights

● Formation NCPCR is a statutory body set up in March 2007 under the Commission for

Protection of Child Rights Act, 2005.

● Parent Ministry : Ministry of Women and Child development.

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

● Mandate : The Commission’s Mandate is to 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.

● It also has responsibilities under POCSO (Protection of Children from Sexual Offences)

Act, 2012 and RTE Act, 2009.

Health in India Report Released

● Released by The Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation



● Main objective: to gather quantitative data on India’s health sector. The report have

highlighted on the health of religious communities across country.

Report highlights:

● around 7.5% of Indians suffered from ailments.

● 6.8% suffered from ailments in the rural area while in Urban area, 9.1%.

● Zoroastrians were the most susceptible to ailments. Around 31.1% of Zoroastrians were

suffered from ailments as of July 2020

● The percentage of sick people other communities are

● Jains: 11.2%

● Sikhs: 11%

● Christians: 10.5%

● Muslims: 8.1%

● Buddhists: 8%

● Hindus: 7.2%

● Report states that, women were more susceptible to suffering than men.

● Around 6.1% of males and 7.6%. Of women were suffering from ailments in rural area.

In urban areas, 8.2% of males and 10% of females were sick of ailments.

● Thus, number of females suffered from ailments were high as compared to male in both

the urban and rural area.

● The survey defines ailment as a deviation faced by the person in his or her physical well

being.

● The relation between health and religion is highly important in the manner that many

religious practices helps to reduce the impacts of some of the diseases

Partnership for Maternal, Newborn and Child Health (PMNCH)

● The Partnership (PMNCH) is a global health partnership founded in 2005.

● It is hosted at the World Health Organization in Geneva, Switzerland which joins the

maternal, newborn and child health (MNCH) communities into an alliance.

● The Accountability Breakfast aims to convert talk into action for the health and rights of

women, children and adolescents.

The White Ribbon Alliance

● WRA is a nonpartisan, non-profit and non-governmental membership organization that

aims to decrease maternal and newborn death globally.

● Founded in 1999 and same year it came to India as WRA India

● Headquarters: Washington, D.C., USA

Every Woman Every Child’ (EWEC) Movement

● Launched by the United Nations during the United Nations Millennium Development

Goals Summit in September 2010.

● Every Woman Every Child is an unprecedented global movement that mobilizes and

intensifies international and national action by governments, the private sector, and civil

society to address the major health challenges facing women, children, and adolescents

around the world.



NSO time-use survey

● National Statistical Office (NSO), which is a wing of Ministry of Statistics and Programme

Implementation

● Conducted the first Time Use Survey (TUS) in India during January to December 2019

About the Survey:

● Primary objective: to measure participation of men and women in paid and unpaid

activities.

● important source of information on the time spent in unpaid caregiving activities,

volunteer work, unpaid domestic service producing activities of the household members.

● provides information on time spent on learning, socializing, leisure activities, self-care

activities, etc., by the household members.

Key Findings:

● Average Indian woman spends 243 minutes and Men 25 min. On these

● Average Indian woman spends 19.5% of her time engaged in either unpaid domestic

work or unpaid care-giving services., Men spend only 2.5%

● 2% of persons who were of the age of six years or above were engaged in employment

and related activities in the country in 2019.

● 57.3% males & 18.4% of Females were engaged in employment and related activities

● 53.2 per cent of participants in the survey were engaged in unpaid domestic services for

household members. Male: 26.1% , Female 81.2%

● People engaged in production of goods for own final use: 1 per cent in the country.

National Statistical Office (NSO)

● To streamline and strengthen the statistical system, the government has decided to

merge the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO) and the National Sample Survey Office

(NSSO) to form a National Statistical Office (NSO).

● While the NSSO comes out with various sample surveys such as on consumption

expenditure, employment and unemployment, the CSO releases various data such as

GDP and IIP.

● The move is a follow-up of a decision taken in 2005 by the UPA government’s based on

recommendations of the report of the National Statistical Commission, headed by former

RBI governor C Rangarajan.

● Both the wings are currently part of the Ministry of Statistics and Programme

Implementation (MoSPI).

● This is a measure to avoid duplication of work and leverage the strength of the statistical

system.

● The Statistical Wing, comprising the NSO with constituents as the CSO and the NSSO,

to be an integral part of the main ministry.

● The NSO would be headed by Secretary Statistics and Programme Implementation, with

various divisions reporting to the Secretary through Director Generals (DGs).



History - Art & Culture .

Vishnupad Temple

● The origin of the temple is unknown but it is believed that Ahilya Bai Holkar, thequeen of

Indore, had the present octagonal shrine built in 1787.

● Location Gaya, Bihar. on the banks of Falgu River

● It is famous for the 40 cm long footprint, having nine symbolsincluding Shankam,

Chakram and Gadham.

Major works of drama and poetry

● Kālidāsa: Śakuntalā, Vikramorvaśīya, Kumārasambhava and Raghuvaṃśa.

● Śūdraka and his Mṛcchakatika (“Little Clay Cart”), possibly dating to the 3rd century CE.

● Bhāravi and his Kirātārjunīya (“Arjuna and the Kirāta”), from approximately the 7th

century.

● Māgha, whose Śiśupālavadha (“The Slaying of Śiśupāla”) dates to the late 7th century.

● The two epics Rāmāyaṇa (“Life of Rāma”) and Mahābhārata (“Great Tale of the

Bhāratas”) were also composed in Sanskrit, and the former is esteemed as the first

poetic work (ādikāvya) of India

Rogan Art: Gujarat

● The centuries old tradition of Rogan art (hand painting on cloth)

● Rogan means Oil

● practised by a lone Muslim family, the Khatris of Nirona Village, Gujarat.

● a rich, brightly coloured paint made from castor oil and natural colors.

● Colours drawn out into a fine ‘thread’ with a metal stylus or ‘Kalam’. This metal rod never

comes in contact with the fabric.

● Fabric is folded thereby printing its mirror image

Other Important Painting Styles of India:

● Kangra Miniature Painting (Himachal Pradesh)

● Pattachitra Painting (Odisha)

● Thanjavur Painting (Tamil Nadu)

● Kishangarh school of Painting (Rajasthan): The well-known painting "Bani Thani"

belongs to this style of painting.

● Kalamkari Painting(Andhra Pradesh)

● Madhubani Painting (Bihar)

● Warli Painting (Maharashtra)

Patrika Gate in Jaipur

● The Gate has been constructed by the Rajasthan Patrika Group of Publications (media

conglomerate).



● The facade is inspired by the traditional architecture and features Jharokhas, Pols,

Pavilions, and Chhatris.

● It is an iconic gate built as a monument under Mission Anupam of the Jaipur

Development Authority.

● Jaipur recently been recognised as a UNESCO World Heritage Site & Second city after

Ahmedabad

National School of Drama

● Set up by the Sangeet Natak Akademi as one of its constituent units in 1959.

● autonomous organization under the Societies Registration Act XXI of 1860, fully

financed by the Ministry of Culture, Government of India.

● Bharat Rang Mahotsav, or the ‘National Theatre Festival’, established in 1999, is the

annual theatre festival of National School of Drama (NSD), held in New Delhi, today it is

acknowledged as the largest theatre festival of Asia, dedicated solely to theatre.

Other Akademi under Ministry of culture:

● Lalit Kala Akademi : To encourage and promote study and research in the fields of

creative arts such as painting, sculpture and graphics etc.;

● Sahitya Akademi / India’s National Academy of Letters: Entrusted with promotion of

Literature

● Sangeet Natak Akademi : Promotion of performing arts– Indian music, dance and

drama

K.N. Dikshit committee

● To conduct holistic study of origin and evolution of Indian culture since 12000 years

before to present and its interface with other cultures of the world.

Dhrupad

● Dhrupad is the most ancient style of Hindustani classical music that has survived until

today in its original form.

● The nature of Dhrupad music is spiritual

● It is primarily a form of worship

● Dhrupad was initially sung only in the temples, the singer facing the Lord.

● Dhrupad had mainly thrived under the patronage of Mughal and Rajput kings. Later it

declined with the shift of interest in Khayal.

Other style of Hindustani classical music

● Khayal

● Tarana

● Tappa

● Thumri

● Ghazal

● Dhammar

Difference between Carnatic and Hindustani Music



1. Carnatic music originated in South India whereas Hindustani music in North India.

2. It is believed that the music of India was more or less uniform before the 13th century.

Hindustani synthesises with Vedic, Islamic and Persian traditions. Carnatic is

comparatively untouched and developed on the original lines.

3. Carnatic music has homogenous and Hindustani music has a heterogeneous Indian

tradition.

4. Carnatic music has a restrained and intellectual character as compared with the more

secular Hindustani traditions.

5. The major vocal forms of Hindustani music are Dhrupad, Khayal, Tarana, Thumri, Dadra

and Gazals. While Carnatic music has several varieties of improvisation such as

Alapana, Niraval, Kalpnaswaram and Ragam Thana Pallavi.

6. Hindustani music has various gharanas like Lucknow, Jaipur, Kirana, Agra etc., wherein

Carnatic music no such gharanas found.

Chendamangalam Saree: Kerala

● It is recognisable by its puliyilakara border, a thin black line that runs side by side with

the sari’s selvedge.

● It has extra-weft chuttikara and stripes and checks of varying width.

● Kerala Kasavu Sarees: The term kasavu refers to the zari (gold thread) used in the

border of the Kerala saree

● three clusters in Kerala - Balaramapuram, Chendamangalam and Kuthampully - that

have been given a Geographical Indication (GI) tag.

● Other GI Tagged Products from Kerala: Kasaragod Sarees, Pokkali Rice, Nilambur

Teak, Wayanad Robusta Coffee, Tirur Betel Leaf, etc.

Guru Nanak Dev’s 481st Death Anniversary

● On the occasion of the 550th birth anniversary of Guru Nanak the Kartarpur Corridor

which connects India and Pakistan was opened to the public.

About Guru Nanak:

● first of the ten Sikh Gurus in Sikhism,born in Talwandi Rai Bhoe, near Lahore, Pakistan

● believed to have died at Kartarpur

● a greatest thinker, philosopher, poet, traveller, political rebel, social leveller, mass

communicator and spiritual master.

● beliefs were based on love, equality, fraternity and virtue. He is also viewed as a symbol

of peace and servicing.

● His followers came to be known as Sikhs, which means a learner or a disciple.

● He used the medium of music, poetry, song and speech to preach the love of God and

to attack the socially oppressive practices of casteism of the orthodox Brahmanical

Hindu religion.He also spoke in favour of an equitable social status for women.

● He also spoke in favour of an equitable social status for women.

Teaching of Guru Nanak:

● Guru Nanak declared that God is one — formless (Nirgun) and without birth and death.

The whole world is God’s creation i.e. Ik Onkar Satnam.

● According to him all are born equal. He also stood for karma as the basis of dharma.



● Valued a simpler notion of truth that was the basis of honest living.

● He declared that truth has the highest value in life, but truthful living is higher still in

value.

● Created awareness related to the conservation of water, and the importance of a clean

environment.

● Emphasised on three things:

○ Kirat Karni: It means to work hard, and earn good karma and an honest

livelihood.

○ Vand Chakna: It means to not be selfish, and share with others.

○ Naam Japa: It means to meditate and remember the name of god.

● Provided a practical demonstration of building a community based on strong

egalitarian values of:

○ Cooperative agricultural work

○ Langar (collective cooking and sharing of food)

○ Pangat (partaking food without distinctions of high and low)

○ Sangat (collective decision making)

● His teachings are mentioned in the Adi Granth compiled by Guru Arjan Dev (1563-

1606), the fifth sikh guru.

Bagh Printing

● Local tribals in Barwani, Madhya Pradesh are being trained in the Bagh, Maheshwari

and Chanderi textile crafts by TRIFED to ensure continuous livelihoods.

● Bagh Print

● Bagh printing received the Geographical Indication (GI) tag in 2008.

● It is a traditional hand block print with natural colours, practised in Dhar district in

Madhya Pradesh.

● In this printing technique the cotton and silk cloth are subject to treatment of a blend of

corroded iron fillings, alum and Alizarin (organic red dye).

● Usually geometric and floral compositions with vegetable colours of red and black over a

white background are found in this style.

Maheshwari fabrics

● Maheshwari fabrics are cotton and silk fabric woven with zari or brocade in varied

designs primarily used to make sarees.

● The Maheshwari saree, comes from Maheshwar (located on banks of Narmada) in

Khargone district of Madhya Pradesh

● Maheshwari sarees were patronized by royal family of Holkars and are said to be

created by Rani Ahilya Bai Holkar herself.

Chanderi fabrics

● It is a traditional ethnic fabric characterized by its lightweight, sheer texture and fine

luxurious feel.

● It is produced by weaving in silk and golden Zari in the traditional cotton yarn that results

in the creation of the shimmering texture.



● Chanderi sarees were patronized by the royal family of Scindias.

Bharati Script

● Developed By: Srinivasa Chakravathy’s team at IIT Madras.

● It is in line with 'One Nation, One Script'.

Features:

● Bharati is a simple and unified script which can be used to write most major Indian

languages.

● It is designed using simplest shapes, often borrowing simple characters from various

Indian languages/scripts and English.

● Scripts supported are: Hindi/Marathi (Devanagari), Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi

(Gurmukhi), Bengali, Oriya, Kannada and Malayalam.

● Optical Character Recognition: The Team has developed a method for reading

documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual Optical Character Recognition (OCR)

scheme.

● OCR is a system that provides a full alphanumeric recognition of printed or handwritten

characters at electronic speed by simply scanning the form.

● Finger-spelling Method: It can be used to generate a sign language for hearing-impaired

persons.



History ..

Inscription from Renati Chola Era

● unearthed in a remote village of Kadapa district of Andhra Pradesh.

● The inscription was found engraved on a dolomite slab and shale

● The inscription was written in archaic Telugu. It was assigned to the 8th Century AD,

when the region was under the rule of Chola Maharaja of Renadu.

About Renati Cholas

➢ They ruled over Renadu region, the present day Cuddapah district.

➢ originally independent, later forced to the suzerainty of the Eastern Chalukyas.

➢ They had the unique honour of using the Telugu language in their inscriptions belonging

to the 7th and 8th centuries.

➢ The earliest of this family was Nandivarman (500 AD) who claimed descent from the

family of Karikala and the Kasyapa gotra.

➢ Their territory extended over the whole of Cuddapah district and the adjoining areas of

Anantapur, Kurnool and Chittoor districts.

Chola Dynasty

● The Cholas controlled the central and northern parts of Tamil Nadu from around the 8th-

12th century AD.

● Their core area of the rule was the Kaveri delta, later known as Cholamandalam.

● Their capital was Uraiyur (near Tiruchirapalli town) and Puhar or Kaviripattinam was an

alternative royal residence and chief port town.

● Tiger was their emblem.

● The Cholas also maintained an efficient navy.

● King Karikala was a famous king of the Sangam Cholas.

● Many Sangam poems mention the Battle of Venni where he defeated the confederacy of

Cheras, Pandyas and eleven minor chieftains.

● Trade and commerce flourished during his reign.

● He founded the port city of Puhar (identical with Kaveripattinam) and constructed 160

km of an embankment along the Kaveri River.

● Recently, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has launched ‘Project

Digital Poompuhar’ to recreate the Chola Dynasty port city (Poompuhar) in Tamil

Nadu.

● The Brihadisvara temple was built by Chola emperor Raja Raja Chola I (985-1014 AD)

between 1003 AD and 1010 AD.

Karachi Agreement



● After the 1st Indo-Pak armed conflict in 1948,under the supervision of the UNCIP,

military representatives of both Pakistan and India met in Karachi and signed the

Karachi Agreement on 27 July 1949.

● It established a cease-fire line (CFL) in Kashmir.

● Simla Agreement: India and Pakistan signed it in July 1972.

● established a Line of Control (LoC) in Kashmir which, with minor deviations, followed the

same course as the ceasefire line established by the Karachi Agreement.

Malabar Rebellion or Moplah Uprising or Mapillah Revolt (1921)

● against the British and the Hindu landlords in Malabar (Northern Kerala).

● uprising came from the Non-Cooperation Movement launched by the Congress in 1920

along with the Khilafat agitation.

● The anti-British sentiment fuelled by these agitations affected the Muslim Mapillahs (also

known as Moplahs) of south Malabar region of Kerala.

● he British had introduced new tenancy laws that tremendously favoured the landlords

known as Janmis and instituted a far more exploitative system for peasants than before.

● Wagon Tragedy: In November 1921, 67 Moplah prisoners were killed when they were

being transported in a closed freight wagon from Tirur to the Central Prison in Podanur.

They died of suffocation. This event is called the Wagon Tragedy.

Punnapara-Vayalar revolt

● It was an organized working class uprising in the Princely State of Travancore, British

India against the Prime Minister, C. P. Ramaswami Iyer and the state.

● Objective : To overthrow the exploitative diwan of Travancore and to liberate the

working class from unjust taxation and exploitation of the establishment.

● Significance:

○ It was an unique agitation where the working class rose against government.

○ It saw the people of all classes up in arms against a common tyrant hence it

dissolved class and religion distinction and induced unity among people.

Kakatiya Dynasty

● Kakatiyas is an Andhra dynasty that flourished in the 12th century CE. The Kakatiya

dynasty ruled from Warangal (Telangana) from CE 1083-1323.

● They were known for the construction of a network of tanks for irrigation and drinking

water and thereby gave a big boost to the overall development of the region.

● There are hundreds of Hindu temples built under the patronage of Kakatiya kings like

Ganapati Deva, Rudrama Devi and Prataparudra of Kakatiya dynasty. E.g.

● Thousand Pillar Temple or Rudreshwara Swamy Temple, Telangana. It is a star-

shaped, triple shrine (Trikutalayam) dedicated to Vishnu, Shiva and Surya.

● Ramappa Temple, Warangal, Telangana.

● Golconda Fort in Hyderabad (Telangana) was also constructed by the Kakatiya rulers.

Bhagat Singh’s Birth Anniversary



● Born in 1907 in Lyallpur district (now in Pakistan)

● In 1924 in Kanpur, he became a member of the Hindustan Republican Association

(HRA), started by Sachindranath Sanyal a year earlier.

● In 1928, HRA was renamed from Hindustan Republican Association to Hindustan

Socialist Republic Association (HSRA).

● In 1925,started a militant youth organisation called the Naujawan Bharat Sabha.

● Bhagat Singh worked with Josh and joined the editorial board of Kirti.

● In 1927, he was first arrested on charges of association with the Kakori Case accused

for an article written under the pseudonym Vidrohi (Rebel).

● Lahore Conspiracy case (1929) : to take revenge for the death of Lala Lajpat Rai,

Bhagat Singh and his associates plotted the assassination of James A. Scott, the

Superintendent of Police. However, the revolutionaries mistakenly killed J.P. Saunders.

● Bhagat Singh and B.K. Dutt threw a bomb on 8 April, 1929 in the Central Legislative

Assembly, in protest against the passing of two repressive bills, the Public Safety Bill

and the Trade Dispute Bill.

● hanged on 23rd March, 1931 in Lahore along with Sukhdev and Rajguru.

● Every year, March 23 is observed as Martyrs’ Day as a tribute to freedom fighters

Bhagat Singh, Sukhdev, and Rajguru.

Harijan Sevak Sangh : Celebrating its Foundation Day Today (Sep 30)

● It is a non-profit organisation which was founded by Mahatma Gandhi in 1932

● to eradicate untouchability in India, working for Harijan or Dalit people and their

upliftment.

● Headquartered at Kingsway Camp in Delhi

● having its branches in 26 states across India

● Ghanshyam Das Birla was its founding president and Amritlal Takkar was its Secretary.

● Functions: The Sangh helped the depressed classes to provide them access to public

places including temples, schools, roads and water resources. The Sangh also

conducted inter dining and inter caste marriages. It constructed and maintains several

schools and hostels.

● 30 September, Gandhi founded All India Anti Untouchability League, so as to remove

untouchability in the society.

● The league was later renamed as Harijan Sevak Sangh meaning “Servants of

Untouchables Society”.

● In that regard, the Harijan- a weekly newspaper was also started.

● Gandhi ji called untouchables Harijan which means children of God.



Geography ..

Line of Actual Control (LAC)

● the line that separates Indian and Chinese troops since 1962 – generally runs along the

land except for the width of Pangong Tso. Here, it runs through water.

● a boundary between China and India. The concept of “Line of Actual Control” (LAC)

came in a bilateral agreement in 1993,

● The Chinese government considers LAC to be around 2,000 km while India considers

the LAC to be 3,488 km long.

● LAC is divided into three regions: the western sector in Ladakh, the middle sector in

Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh, and the eastern sector which spans Arunachal

Pradesh and Sikkim.

● India controls about 45 km stretch of the Pangong Tso and China the rest.

Line of Control ( LOC )

● Originally known as the Cease-fire Line, it was redesignated as the “Line of Control”

following the Simla Agreement, which was signed on 3 July 1972.

● It denotes a kind of boundary separating parts of Indian UT i.e. Jammu & Kashmir;

controlled by India and illegally occupied by Pakistan.

● length around 776-kilometers

● Three areas of Kashmir (Azad Kashmir, Gilgit and Baltistan)occupied by Pakistan and

two-thirds, Jammu, Ladakh, and the Kashmir Valley, administered by India.

Pangong Tso

● a “conclave lake”. Pangong means conclave in Ladakhi and Tso means a lake in Tibetan

language.



● Situated at over 14,000 feet, the Lake is about 135 km long.

● It is formed from Tethys geosyncline.

● Brackish Water lake

About Punjab

● DekhoApnaDesh Webinar Series is an effort to showcase India’s rich diversity under Ek

Bharat Shreshtha Bharat programme.

● the land of Five Waters’ referring to the rivers Jhelum, Chenab, Ravi, Sutlej, and Beas.

● festivals of Punjab:

● Teej, Lohri, Basant Panchami, Baisakhi and Hola Mahalla.

Nathu La

● It is a mountain pass in the Himalayas connecting Sikkim with Chumbi Valley of the

Tibetan Plateau in China.

● It is one of the three open trading border posts between China and India; the others

being Shipkila in Himachal Pradesh and Lipulekh at the trisection point of Uttarakhand–

India, Nepal and China.

Cauvery River

● River rises on Brahmagiri Hill of the Western Ghats in south-western Karnataka state.

● River basin covers Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala , Puducherry



● Key tributaries: Hemavati, Lakshmantirtha, Kabani (Kabbani), Amaravati, Noyil, and

Bhavani rivers.

Re-measuring Mount Everest

● China and Nepal are soon expected to announce Mount Everest’s latest official height.

● Mount Everest (also called Sagarmatha in Nepal) is Earth’s highest mountain above sea

level, located in the Himalayas between China and Nepal with their borders running

across its summit point.

● Current official elevation is 8,848m

● It was first scaled in 1953 by the Indian-Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and New Zealander

Edmund Hillary.

● world’s second-highest mountain, K2, which is 8,611m tall and located in Pakistan-

occupied Kashmir.

Himalayas

● Origin: The northward drift of the Indo-Australian plate resulted in its collision with the

much larger Eurasian Plate.

● The Himalayas are geologically young and structurally folded mountains and represent

the loftiest and one of the most rugged mountain barriers of the world.

● They form an arc, which covers a distance of about 2,400 km. Their width varies from

400 km in Kashmir to 150 km in Arunachal Pradesh.

● Himalayan mountains consist of three parallel ranges in longitudinal extent:

● Great Himalaya or Himadri: It is the northernmost and the most continuous range

consisting of the loftiest peaks with an average height of 6,000 m. World’s highest peaks

are located in it.

● Lesser Himalaya or Himachal: To the south of Himadri, it is the most rugged mountain

system and is known as Himachal or lesser Himalaya. The altitude varies between 3,700

and 4,500 m. It is well known for its hill stations like Kashmir, Kangra and Kullu Valleys.

● Shiwalik: It is the southernmost range with an altitude varying between 900 and 1100 m.

These ranges are composed of unconsolidated sediments brought down by rivers from

the main Himalayan ranges located farther north.

Orientation:

● The general orientation of these ranges is from northwest to the southeast direction in

the northwestern part of India.

● Himalayas in the Darjeeling and Sikkim regions lie in an east west direction.

● In Arunachal Pradesh they are from southwest to the northwest direction.

● In Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram, they are in the north south direction.

Survey of India

● It is the National Survey and Mapping Organisation of the country under

the Department of Science and Technology.

● Established in : 1767 and is the oldest scientific department

● Headquarters: Dehradun, Uttarakhand.



● Work: It acts as an adviser to the Government of India on all survey matters, viz

Geodesy, Photogrammetry, Mapping and Map Reproduction.

● Geodesy is the science of accurately measuring and understanding the Earth's

geometric shape, orientation in space and gravity field.

● Photogrammetry is the science of making measurements from photographs.

Etosha Pan

● It is a large endorheic salt pan forming part of the Kalahari Basin in the north of

Namibia.

● The pan is mostly dry but after a heavy rain, it will acquire a thin layer of water which is

heavily salted by the mineral deposits on the surface.

● It is protected as part of Etosha National Park, Namibia’s second-largest wildlife park. It

is also designated as a Ramsar wetland of international importance.

Increase in Frequency of Medicanes

● extra-tropical storms or tropical-like cyclones in the Mediterranean Sea, known as

‘Medicanes’ or ‘Mediterranean Hurricanes’

● With the surrounding dry climate and the relatively shallow waters of the sea, the

occurrence of tropical-like cyclones is infrequent.

● They typically form in the fall or winter months and occur once or twice a year.

Comparison with Tropical Cyclones:

● These occur more in relatively colder waters than tropical cyclones, hurricanes and

typhoons. Hence, the cores of these storms are also cold, as compared to the warm

cores of tropical cyclones (but warmer as compared to extra-tropical cyclones).

● These are typically smaller in diameter and have lower wind speeds than true tropical

cyclones.

● Sometimes, warm-cored tropical cyclones transform into cold-cored extratropical

cyclones and in rare cases, the opposite can also happen.

MSP Raised for Rabi Crops

● Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has marginally increased the Minimum Support

Price (MSP) of six rabi crops for 2021-22.

● Rabi crops are agricultural crops that are sown in winter and harvested in the spring in

India. Eg. wheat, barley, mustard etc.

● MSP rates were hiked for wheat, barley, gram, masoor dal (lentil), safflower, and

rapeseed and mustard.

Minimum Support Price

● The MSP is the rate at which the government buys grains from farmers.

● Objective: to counter price volatility of agricultural commodities due to the factors like

variation in their supply, lack of market integration and information asymmetry.

● Fixation of MSP: The MSP is fixed for 23 crops based on the recommendations of the

Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), Ministry of Agriculture.



● CACP recommends MSP for twenty two (22) crops and Fair & Remunerative Price

(FRP)for sugarcane.

● After receiving the feed-back from them, the CCEA of the Union government takes a

final decision on the level of MSPs and other recommendations made by the CACP.

● Factors taken into consideration for fixing MSP include:

○ Cost of cultivation,

○ Demand and supply,

○ Price trends in the market, both domestic and international,

○ Inter-crop price parity,

○ Terms of trade between agriculture and non-agriculture,

○ A minimum of 50% as the margin over cost of production, and

○ Likely implications of MSP (inflation) on consumers of that product.

● Twenty two crops covered under MSP are Paddy, Jowar, Bajra, Maize, Ragi, Arhar,

Moong, Urad, Groundnut-in-shell, Soyabean, Sunflower, Seasamum, Nigerseed, Cotton,

Wheat, Barley, Gram, Masur (lentil), Rapeseed/Mustardseed, Safflower, Jute and Copra.

● Fair and Remunerative Price (FRP) is the arrangement for the price to be paid to

sugarcane farmers by the Sugar Mills

● Announced each year by the Centre, under the Sugarcane Control Order and on the

advice of Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP), as the minimum price of

sugarcane.

Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices

● Arm of the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare,

● formed in 1965. It is a statutory body.

● Members: the Commission comprises a Chairman, Member Secretary, one Member

(Official) and two Members (Non-Official).

● The non-official members are representatives of the farming community and usually

have an active association with the farming community.

● It is mandated to recommend Minimum Support Prices (MSPs) to incentivize the

cultivators to adopt modern technology, and raise productivity and overall grain

production.

● CACP submits separate reports recommending prices for Kharif and Rabi seasons

Report on 2020-21 Kharif Marketing Season: CACP

Present Scenario:

● Overflowing Stocks of Foodgrains:central pool had 73.85 million tonnes of food grains on

2nd April, 2020. Which is 300% of the strategic and operation reserve norm of 21.04

million tonnes

● Failure of Open Market Sale Scheme (OMSS): E-Auction of wheat and rice. the

government could just sell one-fifth of the target of a five-million tonne sale.

● Increase in food business registration:indicating that private players are eager to invest

in agri business and the rural economy as a result of the reforms by Agricultural

ordinances.

● Traders moving out-of Mandi: because of no fees on buying outside the Mandi



● Increase in MSP for Rabi Crops

Recommendations of CACP Report

● Excess Stocks need to be urgently liquidated:ease storage capacity constraints and

save large carrying costs of excessive stocks.

● Review open-ended procurement policy (OEPP)

● More Procurement from States like UP and Bihar,Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and

restrict procurement from states like Punjab and Haryana where substantial groundwater

depletion has occurred and other states that give bonus.

● The state governments should discontinue the bonus above the minimum support price

(MSP) as it distorts the market and discourages private sale.

● Farmers covered under the government procurement system Uttar Pradesh - 3.6%,

Bihar - 1.7% , Punjab - 95% , Haryana - 70%

● Reserve Price for open Market Sale of Pulses and oilseeds:The government should not

sell these stocks in the open market below the MSP

Autumnal Equinox in Northern Hemisphere

● 22nd September 2020, the day and night was almost equal in most locations marking

the start of autumn in the Northern Hemisphere which lasts until the winter solstice

(December 21 or 22).

● Similarly, the Vernal equinox falls around March 21, marking the start of spring in the

Northern Hemisphere.

● aequus (equal) and nox (night).

● There are only two times of the year when the Earth's axis is tilted neither toward nor

away from the sun, resulting in a nearly equal amount of daylight and darkness at all

latitudes. These events are referred to as Equinoxes.

● In the Southern Hemisphere the seasons are reversed (Christmas is celebrated in

Australia and New Zealand in the summer season).



● ● Solstices: The two solstices happen in June (20 or 21) (Northern HS )and December (21

or 22)(In Southern HS ).

● These are the days when the Sun’s path in the sky is the farthest north or south from

the Equator.

● Solstice refers to a day with either the longest day or the shortest.

Jasmonate Hormone and Rice Productivity

● National Institute of Plant Genome Research (NIPGR), New Delhi suggested that

targeting a specific plant hormone Jasmonate (JA) would help rice plants have greater

tolerance to potassium (K) deficiency and improve productivity.

● There was an enhanced accumulation of JA-Ile — a bioactive form of the hormone

Jasmonate (JA), in OsJAZ9 overexpressing rice, on potassium deficiency.

Potassium

● Potassium (K) is considered a macronutrient for plants and is the most abundant cation

within plant cells.

● Significance of Potassium:

● Plants require, among other things, a high and stable concentration of potassium ion to

activate many enzymes that are involved in respiration and photosynthesis.

● Potassium is also involved in key cellular processes such as energy production, and cell

expansion.

● Potassium Deficiency: It affects plants by inhibiting the growth of the roots and the

shoots.

Macro and Micro-nutrients

● Macronutrients are divided into two groups: primary and secondary.

● The primary macronutrients are those that are needed in the highest concentration:

nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), and potassium (K). In fact, these three primary nutrients

are needed in higher concentrations than the rest of the macronutrients combined.

● Secondary macronutrients are also required for sustained plant health, but in lower

quantities than the primary macronutrients. Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), and Sulfur

(S) comprise the secondary macronutrients.



● Micronutrients are also essential to plant development and growth but are needed only

in trace amounts, compared to their macro-counterparts.

● The seven critical micronutrients are:

● Boron (B), Zinc (Zn) , Iron (Fe) , Manganese (Mn) ,Copper (Cu), Molybdenum (Mo),

Chlorine (Cl)



Places in News .

Baltic Nations

● Three sovereign states in Northern Europe on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea:

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.

● All three countries are members of NATO, the eurozone, the OECD, and the European

Union

● All three are classified as high-income economies by the World Bank and maintain a

very high Human Development Index

Crete Island

● the largest and most populous of the Greek islands.

● It is located in the southern part of the Aegean Sea separating the Aegean from the

Libyan Sea.

E40 Project

● The E40 project envisions connecting the Black and Baltic Seas for ocean-going ships to

ply.

● It seeks to connect the ports of Gdansk in Poland on the Baltic, with that of Kherson in

Ukraine on the Black Sea.

● The Pripyat will become a permanent source of radioactive contaminants because

annual dredging will be needed to ensure the successful operation of the E40 waterway.

● Besides the threat of radioactive contamination, the E40 waterway will dry up rivers,

damage landscapes, negatively impact wildlife and destroy the livelihoods of local

people.



Gurupriya Bridge

● Inaugurated in 2018, it is constructed across Gurupriya river in Odisha.

● It connecta 151 villages (Balimela reservoir) under the Chitrakonda block to the

mainland in Malkangiri district.

● The region that was once identified as the cut-off area is now known as swabhiman

anchal.

KRA canal project.

● Kra Canal also known as Thai Canal or Kra Isthmus Canal

● a proposed canal project that aims to connect the Gulf of Thailand with the Andaman

Sea across the Kra Isthmus in southern Thailand

● The canal would provide an alternative to transit through the Straits of Malacca and

shorten transit for shipments of oil to Japan and China by 1,200 km.

Strait of Malacca

● It is a narrow, 890 km (550 mi) stretch of water between the Malay Peninsula

(Peninsular Malaysia) and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

● It serves as the main shipping channel between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific Ocean

and is one of the most important shipping lanes in the world.

Arab League:

● It is a regional organization of Arab countries in and around North Africa, the Horn of

Africa and Arabia.

● Formed in Cairo on 22 March 1945 with six members: Kingdom of Egypt, Kingdom of

Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Syria.Currently 22 members

●

World’s Longest High-Altitude Shinkun La Tunnel:



● National Highways & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL) has

speeded up the detailed project report (DPR) work on this Tunnel.

● The tunnel is 13.5 Km long.

● Connects the Union Territory of Ladakh and tribal Lahaul and Spiti district of Himachal

Pradesh.

● On completion of this tunnel, the Manali – Kargil highway will remain open throughout

the year.

English Channel

● Arati Saha, first Asian woman to swim across English Channel.

● It is a narrow arm of the Atlantic Ocean separating the southern coast of England from

the northern coast of France.

● It tapers eastward to its junction with the North Sea at the Strait of Dover

Armenia-Azerbaijan Conflict

● Territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region

has re-erupted with heavy clashes.

● Armenia and Azerbaijan are part of Transcaucasia or South Caucasia (geographical

region in the vicinity of the southern Caucasus Mountains on the border of Eastern

Europe and Western Asia consisting of Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan).

Durgam Cheruvu Lake.

● Recently, the Minister of State for Home has inaugurated the new ‘Cable Stayed Bridge’

constructed across Durgam Cheruvu Lake.

● About Durgam Cheruvu Lake

● freshwater lake located in Rangareddy district, Telangana.

● The lake is also known as the 'secret lake', as it was naturally hidden between rocks,

with Jubilee Hills on one side and Madhapur on the other.


Indian Polity - Target UPSC

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