Current affairs Notes for IAS UPSC

February 16 2017

General Studies -02

• Krishna river water dispute

• Krishna river water dispute are between newly created telangana and Andhra Pradesh

• Both state government refuse to coming on final decision so bajaj panel has been formed which not earning fruit yet.

• Electorate reform

• In budget government announces some step like more than 2000 donation to be made compulsory with banking transaction to bring transparency in political funding

• Totally four declaration made as follows

1. Only 2000 in cash per person per year

2. More than 2000 donation to be made with cashless mode

3. Political should fill IT return to get exemption from tax

4. Electoral bond should be issued

• Where the problem of above step lying

1. In this cashless mode are already in trend because existing law of funding

2. Timely filing of income tax return is only white elephant because biggest political party have due month and some not feel at all and no one being penalized

3. More importantly, there was and is no limit to how much overall a party can receive in cash from all sources put together. Following the Law Commission’s recommendations, the EC had proposed that no party should be allowed to receive more than ₨20 crore or 20% of its overall donations from anonymous sources.

4. This proposal is unlikely to make any difference to the business as usual for political parties. The fact is that most political funds remain in the pockets of party leaders. A small amount enters the cofers of the party and becomes party funds. A tiny fraction of party funds is placed in the bank accounts of the party to meet some expenses that cannot remain invisible.

5. The basic outline of the scheme is clear. Anyone who wants to donate to a political party would be able to purchase bonds from authorised banks. This purchase will have to be in ‘white money’ against cheque and digital payments only. Once purchased, these bonds will be like bearer bonds and will not contain the name of the eventual beneficiary.

6. These bonds shall be redeemable only in the designated account of a registered political party within a prescribed period. So, the donor’s bank would know about who bought how much of Electoral Bonds, but not the name of the party which received it.

General Studies -03

• ISRO launch 104 satellite in one go and create history

• 104 satellite launched with PSLV-037 from sriharikota. With commercial flight include cube satellite or Nano satellite from various countries

• This flight also include ambitious cartosat which useful in resource management and map creation

• This foreign launching done on the basis of the commercial contract through ANTRIX. Which is commercial branch of the ISRO

• The PSLV, 39 flights old since 1993, also launched the Indian Moon mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008; and is set to launch a private lunar mission for Bengaluru start-up Team Indus in late December this year.

• Indian Space Research Organization boosted its repute a successfully launched a record 104 satel- lites in one mission from Sriharikota on Wednesday by relying on its workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle rocket. An earth observation Cartosat-2 series satellite and two other nano satellites were the only Indian satellites launched: the remaining were from the United States, Israel, the UAE, the Netherlands, Kazakhstan and Switzerland. Of the 101 foreign satellites launched, 96 were from the U.S. and one each from the other five countries.

• Till now Russia held the record of launching 37 satellites in a single mission, in 2014, while the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of the U.S. launched 29 satellites in one go in 2013. Last June, ISRO had come close to NASA’s record by launching 20 satellites in one mission.

• ISRO plans to launch more Cartosat-2 series satellites and even an improved version. Besides setting the record for the most number of satellites launched in a single mission, the Indian space agency has launched two nano satellites weighing less than 10 kg. It is a technology demonstrator for a new class of satellites called ISRO nano satellites (INS).

• The main objective of the INS, which will be launched together with bigger satellites, is to provide a platform on which payloads up to 5 kg from universities and R&D laboratories, and ISRO itself can be easily integrated for carrying out scientific research activities.

• With many Indian universities already building and launching nano satellites, the availability of a dedicated nano satellites platform is sure to boost space research in India.

• Geo engineering and climate change

• In Maharashtra vidarbha facing frequent draught like situation due to situated in rain shadow area

• Maharashtra government now planning to experiment artificial rain to solve this problem with help of the technology

• First of all silver iodide released into atmosphere by the jet rocket

• Then this iodide particle force water vapor to freeze

• That frozen particle come to surface as snow or rain

• So in this technique forced condensation and precipitation take place if this will succeed on larger scale than problem of water scarcity and el- nino can be solved

• The biggest question from scientist if cloud seeding can produce sufficient rain for region. In 2017 monsoon that will be checked in Sholapur area

• Rafale deal

• India and France aviation giant dassault aviation create a deal for the 36 rafale jet

• This 36 rafale to be delivered between 2019 to 2022 but indian government want earlier delivery which refused by the company because rafale has to be customized yet.

• This rafale jet enhance power in the sky in the time of the crisis

• Deadly air pollution

• According to recent report particulate matter of diameter less than 2.5 is increasing and that follows the series of premature death. According to statistics in india biggest death toll is due to air pollution globally

• The rise in average annual population-weighted PM2.5 levels indicates that the Centre’s initiatives to help States reduce the burning of agricultural biomass and coal in Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi have failed.

• Plan the city for the people

• When we think about planned we always have to go to history of ancient india because now no evidences present to shows what will be planned city

• It has now become a truism that Indian cities are poorly planned and governed. Plans do not have complete sway
  over our cities since they are constantly violated and a significant section of the urban population lives outside “planned” neighborhoods.

• One of the fundamental issues with our planning process is the incongruence between urban planning and local democracy. Even though the 74^th Constitutional Amendment sought to empower urban local governments to enable them to function as “institutions of self-government”, they still have limited influence over how the city is planned.

• two decade has been passed since enforcement of the 74^th constitutional amendment. But till date local government lack function, functionaries and finance.

• Nowadays cities lack of master date or integrated data management that make our city more vulnerable because without data proper planning can not be done. Without planning cities become headache

• Another what cities lack is humanity and sympathy of living that lower doen happiness index of the person life and make in boring

General Studies-04

• A few good officer

• Supreme court decision on disproportionate income and property encourage investigating agency to enquiry in case with motivation and integrity

• In the case of jayalalithaa every officer have fear because jayalalithaa enjoy much greater majority

• This case present pure form of integrity not only in investigation authority but also judicial system that present real rule of law and this kind incident