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General Studies-01

Assam govt decides to rejuvenate Barak river

News: The Assam government plans to rejuvenate the Barak river .

Why its important:It has potential to revitalise trade and commerce with Bangladesh and Myanmar.

Developing the river as a major channel for water transport will help improve trade with the neighbouring countries.

Barak River:

It  is one of the major rivers of South Assam and is a part of the Surma-Meghna River System. It rises in the hill country of Manipur State, where it is the biggest and the most important of the hill country rivers. After Manipur it flows through Mizoram State and into Assam, ending just after it enters Bangladesh where it forks into the Surma and Kushiyara rivers

ADD-ON Info: Namami Barak festival 

Barak, the gift of God has been a source of great blessing to the people of Tahamzam(Senapati) district since time immemorial. Besides irrigating crops and increasing productivity and prosperity, it has provided cleansing drainage over the ages and touched the lands along its majestic flow with charm and scenic beauty and transformed it into an eco-tourism paradise.

Averting disaster

Issue: In recent times, Category 5 hurricanes in the Caribbean and in the American mainland; record floods across Bangladesh, India and Nepal; and drought emergencies in 20 countries in Africa have damaged these regions, killed hundreds, and ruined the lives of millions.

Impact on least developed countries:

  • The impact of disasters can strip away livelihoods; for developed and middle-income countries, the economic losses from infrastructure alone can be massive; for both, these events reiterate the need to act on a changing climate, the effects of which have been revelatory.
  • While 4.2 million people dying prematurely each year from ambient pollution gets relatively little media attention, the effect of heat-trapping greenhouse gases on extreme weather events is coming into sharper focus.
  • It could not be otherwise when the impacts of these weather events are so profound.

Seriousness of issue:

  • During the last two years, over 40 million people, mainly in countries which contribute least to global warming, have been forced from their homes by disasters.

Tackle climate change

  • While the Paris Agreement has set the world on a long-term path towards a low-carbon future, it is a windy path that reflects pragmatism and realities in each individual country.
  • Thus, while carbon emissions are expected to drop as countries meet their targets, the impacts of climate change may be felt for some time, leaving the world with little choice but to invest, simultaneously, in efforts to adapt to climate change and reduce disaster risk.
  • This will require international cooperation. Restoring the ecological balance between emissions and the natural absorptive capacity of the planet is the long-term goal.

General Studies-02

Israel joins U.S to quit UNESCO

News: The United States and Israel announced on Thursday they were quitting the U.N.’s cultural agency UNESCO, after Washington accused it of anti-Israeli bias.

When did this all started?

Washington has already withheld its funding for UNESCO since 2011, when the body admitted Palestine as a full member.

The United States and Israel were among just 14 of 194 members that voted against admitting the Palestinians.

In recent years, Israel has repeatedly complained about what it says is the body taking sides in disputes over cultural heritage sites in Jerusalem and the Palestinian territories.

Impact of this decision:

The withdrawal of the United States, which is meant to provide a fifth of UNESCO’s funding, is a major blow for the Paris-based organization, founded after World War Two to help protect cultural and natural heritage around the world.

The US withdrawal will become effective at the end of December 2018 – until then, the US will remain a full member.

UNESCO: The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO; is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) based in Paris.

Its declared purpose is to contribute to peace and security by promoting international collaboration through educational, scientific, and cultural reforms in order to increase universal respect for justice, the rule of law, and human rights along with fundamental freedom proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.

{Op-Ed}Saving child brides

  • By ruling that marriage cannot be a licence to have sex with a minor girl, the Supreme Court has corrected an anomaly in the country’s criminal law.

Under Indian Penal code:

  • It is an offence to have sex with a girl below 18 years of age, regardless of consent. However, it made an exception if the girl was the man’s wife, provided she was not below 15.
  • In other words, what was statutory rape is treated as permissible within a marriage.
  • By reading down the exception to limit it to girls aged 18 and older, the court has sought to harmonise the various laws in which any person under 18 is a minor.
  • The age of consent under the IPC was raised in 2013 from 16 to 18 to bring it in line with the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012.
  • However, the age above which marriage is an exception to rape was retained at 15, as fixed in 1940

Perspective:

  • As a move to strengthen the fight against child marriage and help stricter enforcement of the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006, the judgment cannot be faulted.
  • But the practical implications of the judgment are worrying.
  • Given the prevalence of child marriage in this country, it is doubtful whether it is possible — or even desirable — to implement the statutory rape law uniformly in the context of marriages.
  • Significantly, if boys under 18 but over 16 are charged with penetrative sexual assault under POCSO or rape under the IPC, which can be termed ‘heinous offences’, they could face the prospect of being tried as adults, according to the juvenile law as it stands now.
  • Treating all below 18 as children may be good for their care and protection, but whether 18 is the right age for consent in this day and age remains a moot question.

Regulatory upgrade

  • Pesticides play an important role in sustaining agricultural production, and in controlling vectors responsible for diseases.
  • On the flip side, they can be toxic.
  • Therefore, what is needed is a top-notch mechanism to regulate the import, manufacture, sale, transport, distribution and use of insecticides with a view to preventing risk to human beings and animals.

Significant bills & acts :

  • The Insecticides Act, 1968 was enacted to ensure this, until deficiencies in the statute caught the eye of several Parliamentary Committees and stakeholders.
  • The Pesticides Management Bill of 2008, which is pending in Parliament, aims to cover this ground.

The statement of objects and reasons of the draft says that the proposed legislation, among others, intends to provide for an elaborate definition of pesticides to cover any substance of chemical or biological origin intended for preventing, destroying, repelling, mitigating or controlling any pest, including unwanted species of plants or animals, which will enable regulation of existing pesticides as well as new discoveries.

General Studies-03

‘GST to hit aviation sector by Rs. 5,700 cr. a year’

  • The aviation industry will take a annual hit of Rs. 5,700 crore following the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), domestic airlines told the Finance Ministry recently.
    • The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA), which represents IndiGo, SpiceJet, Jet Airways and GoAir, made a presentation before top Finance Ministry officials on September 27 on behalf of the entire airline industry, saying guideline principles of the new indirect system — revenue neutrality and equity — have been violated by the GST.
  •  GST, in the current form, was against the objective of “affordability and sustainability” stated in the National Civil Aviation Policy 2016 and regional connectivity scheme UDAN released last year.
  • [sociallocker id=”2087″] [/sociallocker]

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