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Hindu Notes from General Studies-02

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‘Visually impaired not able to use banknotes’

News

  • The Delhi High Court sought responses from the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on a plea seeking to lay down standards for design of banknotes and coins and make all forms of physical currency and digital means of transactions accessible to the visually impaired.

Beyond News

  • A Bench sought response of the Centre and the central bank on the plea filed by an organisation working for empowerment of visually impaired persons.
  • The plea also sought a direction to the government to stop circulation and withdraw, in a phased manner, the inaccessible physical currency.
  • The members of the NGO, Blind Graduates Forum of India, talked about the difficulty being faced by the visually impaired in identifying the currency, which was introduced post-demonitisation, and difficulty in distinguishing coins.
  • The NGO had sent a detailed representation in 2017 to the RBI Governor highlighting the major challenges being faced by the visually impaired and gave suggestions factoring in inputs from several blind and low vision individuals.
  • Despite the assurances given to the petitioner, the RBI introduced the new ₹100 note, dimensions of which were once again not visually-impaired friendly.
  • The NGO said that it received a mail from the RBI stating that the bank was sensitive to the challenges faced by the visually impaired, but believed that technological advancement had opened up new avenues for identification of currency by the visually impaired and accordingly, they are working on the same.
  • The petition said the plea was filed on behalf of over 52 lakh visually impaired persons in India who are facing immense hardship owing to inaccessibility of physical Indian currency along with inaccessible means of digital transactions and it has a direct negative impact on the independence and livelihood of such people.
  • The plea sought direction to the authorities to lay down standards as per the provisions of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act for banking services, portals, apps, payment gateways, hardware devices like ATM, point of sale devices, self-service passbook printers and cash collection devices to make them accessible to the visually impaired within six months.

UN award for Sikkim

News

  • Sikkim beat 51 other nominations from across the globe to receive an UN award, for becoming the world’s first 100% organic state.

Beyond News

  • Sikkim Chief Minister Chamling received the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO) Future Policy Gold Award for paving the way for the rest of the world.
  • Sikkim was recognised for its farming policies which have helped over 66,000 farmers and boosted tourism.
  • It got rid of chemical fertilizers and pesticides and began using natural alternatives instead.

In a first, Delhi govt releases policy on animal welfare

News

  • Birth control programme for monkeys, a revised regime for sterilisation of stray dogs, and electronic chips to identify owners of deserted pets and cattle are some of the measures the Delhi government’s first policy on animal welfare recommends.

Beyond News

  • The Animal Health and Welfare Policy, 2018, also proposes a cowshed at Ghumanhera, ‘where cows will be kept along with the elderly in a unique coexistence’, was discussed at a meeting.
  • The policy suggests tagging pets and cattle with electronic chips so that their owners can be identified. It also provides for undertaking a monkey birth control programme under animal birth control (ABC) initiatives and observes that sterilisation of stray dogs under the ABC programme in Delhi through NGOs is not as per expectations.
  • Strengthening infrastructure through a network of veterinary hospitals, polyclinics, aviaries, helpline for distressed animal and birds, and ambulance services are other measures the policy recommends.
  • As per the policy, animal health and veterinary services will be strengthened through 24×7 operational polyclinics in all districts. The needs of birds will also be taken care at district-level aviaries. A veterinary hospital that will be operational round-the-clock will be inaugurated at Tis Hazari on January 16.
  • Setting up 12 check posts and quarantine facilities at Delhi’s borders is part of the policy.

U.K. to test immigration proposals in India

News

  • British officials are set to test India’s reaction to proposals for a new post-Brexit immigration system
  • Home Office officials are set to meet with counterparts in India next week, as well as others, for discussions on the ‘Immigration White Paper’ unveiled by Home Secretary last year.

Beyond News

  • The immigration plans aim to create a level-playing field for EU and non-EU workers, basing immigration opportunities on skills levels rather than which part of the world workers have come from.
  • Among the changes proposed are the removal of the current annual cap on the number of Tier 2 visas for skilled workers, as well as the requirement that employers demonstrate that they attempted to fill the role domestically before bringing in a person from abroad (the resident labour market test).
  • The government will also allow international students six months after they graduate to find permanent skilled work and work temporarily during that period, while PhD graduates will have a whole year to do so. There will be no post-study visa, however, as many student and university bodies have been lobbying for.
  • The government has also said it is to consult on the salary threshold for the skilled visas which has been the subject of much debate in the U.K.
  • While the Migration Advisory Committee has recommended setting it at £30,000 a year, business groups and others have warned this would leave businesses unable to access key skills at a time particularly crucial for the country.
  • The meetings in India are also an acknowledgment of the crucial role the migration debate plays in the bilateral relationship between the U.K. and India and the need to strengthen it ahead of Brexit.
  • Last year, the FCO warned in a submission to a parliamentary inquiry, that India accounts for the largest number of individuals staying in the U.K. illegally, and the number of those subjected to forced returns to India has fallen by 50% in three years.
  • Britain also faced criticism for failing to include India in a relaxation of student documentation requirements that were extended to other countries, including China.
  • The discussions next week will focus on the issues in the white paper, rather than some of these outstanding concerns, which will be the subject of further bilateral discussions in the future.

Hindu Notes from General Studies-03

A ‘bio-safe’ way to fight mosquitoes

News

  • Scientists said they had taken a major step toward developing a “mosquito birth control” drug to curb the spread of malaria and other killer diseases blamed for hundreds of thousands of deaths a year.

Findings

  • Researchers said they had discovered a protein unique to female mosquitoes which is critical for their young to hatch.
  • When the scientists blocked the protein, the females laid eggs with defective shells causing the embryos inside to die.
  • The team said developing drugs which targeted the protein could provide a way to reduce mosquito populations without harming beneficial insects such as bees.
  • Mosquitoes are one of the world’s deadliest insects, according to the World Health Organization (WHO) which has warned that global progress against malaria is stalling.
  • The disease infected around 216 million people in 2016, killing 445,000 of them, predominantly babies and young children in sub-Saharan Africa. Other diseases spread by mosquitoes include Zika, chikungunya, yellow fever, West Nile virus and dengue, which has risen 30-fold in recent decades, according to the WHO.

Caught on camera: Sikkim’s Royal Bengal Tiger

News

  • Two clear images of a Royal Bengal Tiger going up and down a path beside a camera trap laid at 9,538 ft have provided the first visual evidence of a tiger in the Himalayan State of Sikkim.

Beyond News

  • The area where the tiger was photographed shares a boundary with the Tibet Autonomous Region under the control of China and Bhutan.
  • While there were sightings and oral records of tiger presence in Sikkim till the 1980s, there was no photographic evidence to confirm the presence.
  • In 2017 there were reports of a cattle kill at a place called Theng and pug marks of tigers were found in the area. After the first camera trap images confirming tiger presence in Sikkim, the State Forest Department is planning to install more camera traps at higher altitudes with the aim of obtaining more evidence.
  • The development also assumes significance as it comes only a few weeks after a tiger was spotted in the snow-clad Dibang Valley of Arunachal Pradesh, at a height of 3,630 m.

Hubble’s most advanced camera shut down: NASA

News

  • The operations of the Hubble Space Telescope’s most technologically advanced camera have been suspended after it encountered a hardware problem.
  • Hubble is the first major optical telescope to be placed in space, providing an unobstructed view into the universe. Launched in 1990, the world’s first space telescope helped confirm the theory that the universe is expanding, lending credence to the Big Bang theory.

Beyond News

  • However, the telescope will continue to perform science observations with its other three active instruments, while the Wide Field Camera 3 anomaly is investigated.
  • The Hubble Wide Field Camera 3 was installed by space-walking astronauts during Servicing Mission 4 in 2009.
  • NASA said that the camera is equipped with back-up electronics that can be called to action should they be needed to recover the instrument.
  • Hubble has made more than 1.3 million observations since its mission began in 1990, taking pictures of stars and galaxies of as it whirls around the Earth.
  • Astronomers using Hubble data have published more than 15,000 scientific papers, making it one of the most productive scientific instruments ever built.

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