IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

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US House votes to impeach President Donald Trump for abuse of power

News

• The majority of lawmakers in the US House of Representatives voted to impeach President Donald Trump on charges that he abused his power by trying to pressure Ukraine to investigate political rival Joe Biden ahead of the 2020 Presidential election.

Impeach President Donald Trump

• With this, the 73-year-old has become the third President in the history of the United States to be impeached, the others being Bill Clinton and Andrew Johnson.
• The Democratic-led House passed the abuse of power article of impeachment on a largely party-line 230-197 vote. Subsequently, the House proceeded with a vote on the second article of impeachment charging the New York real estate mogul with obstruction of Congress.
• The matter will now go to the Republican-controlled Senate for a trial. While Democrats hold the majority in the House, Republicans control the Senate and are expected to acquit Trump of the charges beginning next year, ahead of early state presidential primary voting.
• It requires a two-thirds majority in the 100-member Senate to convict and remove a president from office. No president in the 243-year history of the United States has been removed from office by impeachment. In Trump’s case, at least 20 Republicans would have to join Democrats in voting against the US President- and none have indicated they will.
• Impeachment is a remedy devised by the United States’ founders, wary of a monarch on American soil after breaking away from Britain and King George III in the 18th century, to enable Congress to remove a president who has committed “high crimes and misdemeanors.”

At second 2+2 dialogue, India and US agree to expand bilateral strategic cooperation

News

• Agreeing to deepen strategic ties, India and the US have decided to work with like-minded countries to ensure a free and open Indo-Pacific, amidst China flexing its military muscles in the region.

Expand bilateral strategic cooperation

• The decisions were taken at the second India-US 2+2 dialogue between US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Defense Secretary Mark Esper and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and Defence Minister Rajnath Singh at the State Department amidst the historic impeachment vote against President Donald Trump.
• The first 2+2 dialogue was held in New Delhi in September last year after the mechanism was approved by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Trump.

Centre makes standard format for ration cards, asks states to follow it for issuing fresh cards

News

• The Centre has designed a standard format for ration cards as it moves ahead with ‘one nation, one ration card’ initiative and has asked state governments to follow the pattern while issuing fresh ration cards.

Standard format for ration card

• Currently, the central government’s ambitious initiative is being implemented on a pilot basis in a cluster of six states. It wants to implement this facility across the country from June 1, 2020.
• Under the initiative, eligible beneficiaries would be able to avail their entitled foodgrains under the National Food Security Act (NFSA) from any Fair Price Shop in the country using the same ration card.
• A standard format for ration card has been prepared after taking into account the format used by different states and after consultation with other stakeholders.
• The state governments have been advised to use this new format whenever the states decides to issue new ration cards.
• Standardised ration card includes the requisite minimum details of the ration card holder and states can add more details as per their requirement.
• For national portability, the state governments have been asked to issue the ration card in bi-lingual format, wherein besides the local langauge, the other language could be Hindi or English.
• The states have also been told to have a 10-digit standard ration card number, wherein first two digits will be state code and the next two digits will be running ration card numbers.
• Besides this, a set of another two digits will be appended with ration card number to create unique member IDs for each member of the household in a ration card, the official added.
• Under the NFSA, about 75 crore beneficiaries have been covered so far against the target of 81.35 crore, as per official data.

India-Bangla technical talks on sharing of river water cancelled

News

• The India-Bangladesh Joint Rivers Commission’s technical-level talks that were scheduled to begin were cancelled at the last minute.

Joint Rivers Commission

• India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers and a Joint River Commission is functioning since June 1972. Besides this, technical level meetings are held regularly.
• The meeting was postponed due to the delay in the exchange of data on six common rivers which was updated several years ago.
• The cancellation of the meeting comes at time when the country is witnessing protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act passed by Parliament earlier this month.
• Last week, Bangladesh Foreign Minister and Home Minister too, cancelled their scheduled visits to India.

Worldwide, the number of men using tobacco products has finally started to decline: WHO

News

• Worldwide, the number of men using traditional tobacco products has finally started to decline, health officials said.

Started to decline

• Four out of five tobacco users globally are men, so declines among males mark a turning point in the fight against tobacco.
• The agency’s new report covers an array of tobacco use, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing tobacco.
• Researchers previously reported declines in male and female smoking rates internationally, but the drop wasn’t enough to offset the growth in world population.
• The number of female tobacco users did shrink since 2000, but the number of male tobacco users continued to edge up, bringing the total to more than 1.3 billion people.
• WHO now estimates the number of male tobacco users will decline by more than 1 million next year and by 5 million by 2025.
• The agency said the decline is driven mainly by a decrease in the number of males who exclusively use smokeless tobacco.
• The WHO report found that countries in southeast Asia had the world’s highest rates of tobacco use 45 per cent among males and females age 15 and older. But that percentage also is projected to decline.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

In a first, GST Council holds a vote for 28% uniform lottery tax

News

• The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council went in for a vote on the issue of imposing a uniform tax rate of 28 per cent for both state-run and state-authorised lottery the first instance of voting in the 38 Council meetings held so far.

28% uniform lottery tax

• A total of 21 members of the GST Council voted in favour of a uniform rate for lottery effective March 1 next year, 7 against it (including Kerala, Chhattisgarh, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Puducherry), while 3 members abstained.
• As per the voting rules for the Council, every decision has to be taken by a majority of not less than three-fourth of the weighted votes of the members present, with the vote of the central government having a weightage of one-third of the total votes cast, and votes of all the state governments together having a weightage of two-thirds of the total votes cast.
• The GST Council has decided to restrict availment of input tax credit to 10 per cent of the eligible credit for businesses if invoices are not uploaded by the taxpayer’s suppliers in GSTR-2A, from 20 per cent decided last month. This has been done to block fraudulent availing of input tax credit in certain situations.

 ‘Top 100 wealth creators in India generated Rs 49 lakh crore in 2014-19’

News

• Reliance Industries (RIL) has been the biggest wealth creator over 2014-19, according to the Motilal Oswal 24th Annual Wealth Creation Study 2019 released.

Wealth creators in India

• • As per the report, the top 100 wealth creators created Rs 49 lakh crore of wealth during 2014-19, while five of the biggest wealth creators were from the financial sector.
  • Financial sector firms topped wealth creation, whereas telecom sector companies performed poorly with only one company successfully creating wealth.

The Houbara bustard

News

• The government of Pakistan has issued special permits to the Emir of Qatar and nine other members of the royal family to hunt the houbara bustard, an internationally protected bird species.

Houbara bustard

• Bustards are large, terrestrial birds that belong to several species, including some of the largest flying birds.
• The houbara bustard, which lives in arid climates, comes in two distinct species as recognised by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, one residing in North Africa (Chlamydotis undulata) and the other in Asia (Chlamydotis macqueenii).
• The population of the Asian houbara bustards extends from northeast Asia, across central Asia, the Middle East, and the Arabian Peninsula to reach the Sinai desert.
• According to the International Fund for Houbara Conservation (IFHC), roughly 33,000 Asian houbara bustards and over 22,000 of the North African houbara bustards remain today. After breeding in the spring, the Asian bustards migrate south to spend the winter in Pakistan, the Arabian Peninsula and nearby Southwest Asia.
• Some Asian houbara bustards live and breed in the southern part of their ranges including parts of Iran, Pakistan and Turkmenistan.
• According to IFHC, the main reasons for the houbara’s decline are poaching, unregulated hunting, along with degradation of its natural habitat.

Mobile internet, voice and SMS shut down in Delhi over anti-CAA protests

News

• Amid heavy protests against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act 2019 (CAA) in multiple states, including the national capital Delhi, mobile internet services have been shutdown in some parts of the city.

Suspension of telecom services

• Telecom operators like Airtel, Vodafone-Idea, Jio, MTNL/BSNL were instructed to have shut down voice, Internet, and SMS services in parts of Delhi. User reports initially claimed internet services were blocked in Seelampur, India Gate and ITO in Delhi.
• The suspension of telecom services in India comes under the Temporary Telecom Suspension Rules of 2017. The reasons for suspending mobile internet, voice services would need to be “occurrence of public emergency or in the interest of public safety”, according to these rules. The power to suspend telecom services on these grounds is traced back to section 5(2) of the Indian Telegraph Act, 1885.
• India’s Information Technology Act (IT Act) has a section 69 A with provisions for blocking certain URLs when violence is feared or in times of threat to national security.
• Internet shutdown that we see in the country are usually under section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code(CRPC) which allows the Executive Magistrate of any state or territory to issue an order to prohibit the assembly of four or more people in an area.
• Given internet is seen as a means of allowing people to come together digitally, Section 144 is extended to the internet services as well.
• The Citizen (Amendment) Act protests have resulted in internet shutdowns in West Bengal.
• Internet shutdowns had been enforced in several districts of Uttar Pradesh and in the Northeastern states. Aligarh and Meerut in UP saw an internet shutdown for “law and order maintenance”.
• The longest internet shutdown in India though is still on in Jammu and Kashmir.  On Monday, December 17, it was 134 days of internet remaining suspended, which first began on August 5, where the government stripped the state of its special status under Article 370 of the Constitution.
• The state had earlier experienced a 133-day shutdown between July 8 and November 19, 2016.

Kejriwal launches free WiFi scheme, says paradoxical that internet suspended in Delhi

• Delhi Chief Minister  launched a free WiFi scheme and said it was paradoxical that internet services were shut by authorities on this day due to protests against the amended Citizenship Act in the city.
• The free Wifii service will be provided through over 11,000 hotspots at bus stands and other places, including markets and residential colonies.

Delhi: Smog towers worth Rs 26 crore to be built next year

News

• The North Delhi Municipal Corporation has proposed a budget of Rs 26 crore to build smog towers at 26 places in the capital next year.

Smog towers

• Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers. They are usually fitted with multiple layers of air filters.
• The provisions have been made to control air pollution.
• The noxious smog resulting from raging farm fires and unfavourable weather had pushed pollution in Delhi-NCR towards the “emergency” zone in November, prompting authorities to order closure of schools.

NASA selects site on asteroid Bennu for sample collection mission

News

• NASA’s team leading the first asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer) has officially selected a sample collection site on the asteroid Bennu’s boulder-scattered surface.
• A site located in a crater high in Bennu’s northern hemisphere designated “Nightingale” is the best spot for the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft to snag its sample.

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