IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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National Population Register updation: Centre to seek info on date and place of parents’ birth

News

• Amid protests over the NRC, the Union Home Ministry has approached the Cabinet for Rs 3,941 crore to update the National Population Register (NPR).
• The upcoming NPR exercise will require people to declare ‘date and place of birth of parents’ which was not asked in the earlier NPR this holds significance in the context of the proposed nationwide NRC.

Update the National Population Register

• Home Ministry has sought Rs 8,754 crore for Census 2021 and Rs 3,941 crore for updating the NPR.
• The data for NPR will be updated alongside the first phase of Census.No biometric data is being collected during the updation exercise.
• Data on 21 points will be collected for updating the NPR. These include date and place of birth of parents, last place of residence, Permanent Account Number, Aadhaar (on voluntarily basis), Voter ID card number, Driving License number and mobile number.
• In the last NPR in 2010, data was collected on 15 points. These 15 points did not include date and place of birth of parents, last place of residence, passport number, Aadhaar ID, PAN, Driving Licence number, Voter ID card and Mobile number. The three points of mother’s name, father’s name and name of spouse have been made into one point this time.
• According to the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and Issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, notified on December 10, 2003, a Population Register is ‘the register containing details of persons usually residing in a village or rural area or town or ward or demarcated area (demarcated by the Registrar General of Citizen Registration) within a ward in a town or urban area.
• It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR. A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more,says the Census of India website.
• Several new initiatives are being taken to conduct Census 2021 which include the facility to the public for self-enumeration and the use of a mobile application time for data collection.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Bill to promote legacy of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin luther King Jr. introduced in US House

News

• A bill has been introduced in the US House of Representatives to promote the legacy of Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. Introducing the bill, America’s legendary civil rights leader Congressman John Lewis sought a budgetary allocation of $150 million for the next five years, which is $30 million every year.

House Bill

• The House Bill (HR 5517), which has also been moved to mark the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi, affirms the friendship between India and the US and honours the contributions of Gandhi and King.
• The Bill also proposes establishing a Gandhi-King Development Foundation, which will be created by the USAID under the Indian laws.
• According to the bill, a governing council convened by governments of the United States and India would oversee grants to NGOs in the areas of health, pollution and climate change, education and women empowerment.
• Proposing the establishment of a Gandhi-King Scholarly Exchange Initiative with an allocation of $2 million for the next five years till 2025, the bill will comprise an annual educational forum for scholars from India and the US held alternately in the two countries.

The focus will also be on the study of the works and philosophies of Gandhi and King and visits to historical sites.

Boundary talks: Chinese foreign minister, NSA Doval to meet

News

• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and National Security Adviser Ajit Doval will hold boundary talks under the framework of Special Representatives dialogue.

Boundary talks

• Wang’s visit to India will be the first high-level one from China after the Modi-Xi informal meeting in October as well as after New Delhi pulled out of the RCEP following a meeting of the group’s leadership in Bangkok recently.
• Doval and Wang are the designated Special Representatives of the two countries for the boundary talks.
• The two sides are likely to review implementation of decisions taken at the second informal summit between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in October.
• The two sides have already held over 20 rounds of talks under the framework of SR dialogue which was set up to find an early solution to the border dispute.
• The India-China border dispute covers 3,488-km-long Line of Actual Control. China claims Arunachal Pradesh as part of southern Tibet while India contests it.
• Both sides have been asserting that pending the final resolution of the boundary issue, it is necessary to maintain peace and tranquility in the border

Malaysian PM Mahathir raises citizenship law, India hits back

News

• Malaysia’s Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad spoke out against the amended citizenship law, the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, saying “people are dying” because of this law.
• New Delhi was quick to reject the comments as “factually inaccurate”, and called upon Malaysia to refrain from commenting on internal developments in India.

Citizenship

• Malaysia’s Prime Minister’s comments assume significance as the Citizenship (Amendment) Act grants citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Christians, Jains and Parsis but not Muslims who entered the country from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan till December 31, 2014.
• Malaysia’s Prime Minister added that Malaysia has granted citizenships to people from the Chinese and Indian communities.

Delhi Jal Board signs MoU with Himachal govt for more water supply in city

News

• The Delhi government signed a water-sharing pact with the government of Himachal Pradesh to get more water for the city. Water will be delivered at Tajewala to Delhi starting Saturday.

Water-sharing pact

• Himachal Pradesh will provide regular, daily supply of 368 cusecs from November to February and 268 cusecs from March to June every year. Further, after the creation of the upstream storages the supply shall be upgraded to 421 cusecs throughout the year.
• DJB provides a little over 900 MGD of water to its residents, whereas the demand is around 1,200 MGD.
• With the water from Himachal Pradesh, a minimum of 170 MGD will be made available.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Gujarat govt plans project for rejuvenation of Vishwamitri

News

• At a high-level meeting chaired by Chief Minister, the state government has decided to “chalk out a comprehensive plan for holistic development of the entire river area of Vishwamitri River, from its origin at Pavagadh to its amalgamation with Gulf of Khambhat”, in order to mitigate the flood risk to Vadodara city and neighbouring areas, every monsoon.

Mitigate the flood risk

• This year, Vadodara city witnessed flooding for over seven days from July 31, and again in mid-August due to the swelling of the Vishwamitri river following heavy rain in the catchment areas of Halol taluka in the Panchmahals.
• The project is much needed to resolve the issue of monsoon flooding in the city of Vadodara. It will take care of the entire route of the Vishwamitri river, right from Pavagadh to Khambat, whereas the Vishwamitri Riverfront project was only dealing with a small part of the city area where the river flows.
• The Vadodara Municipal Corporation will invite agency to prepare the DPR and the state government will be extremely involved in the details.
• The government especially wants to ensure that the river has water throughout the year and also develop organic farming along its banks.

Op Muskan-V: Most of the children rescued by Cyberabad police had fake Aadhaar cards

News

• The Cyberabad police in Telangana, which rescued as many as 541 children who were forced into child labour, begging, and rag picking, etc in the month of July this year, as part of Operation Muskan-V, have stumbled upon a possibly unique modus operandi followed by those agents who force children into labour.

Operation Muskan-V

• • As many as 541 children were rescued by Cyberabad police in the month of July 2019, as part of Operation Muskaan-V.
  • The Cyberabad police also stood first in the number of FIRs registered, with 247 cases registered under various sections concerned to crime against children u/s 374 IPC, 75, 79 Juvenile Justice Act 2015 and u/sec 14 of Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Act 2016. Of the rescued 541 children, 483 were boys.
  • According to police, nine trained police teams screened and rescued vulnerable children. Particulars of such identified children have been checked and uploaded in Facial Recognition App i.e., DARPAN. A unique feature has been the use of technology by rescue teams in the form of Facial Recognition App on TS Cop as well as DARPAN.
  • The idea was to trace out the missing children, children involved in child labour, bonded labour, micro industries, begging and trafficked children, rescue them and restore them to their parents and family members.
  • According to police, the children were suffering from malnutrition, stunted growth and other health issues.
  • In a majority of cases where children were found to be working in small industries like metal welding, plastic material, cotton spinning etc., police recovered fake Aadhaar cards of the victims.
  • Surprisingly, all the children carried Aadhar cards in which their date of birth was recorded to be 01-01-2000, 01-01-2001 and all these cards had month and day of birth as January 1, said police.
  • In a similarly bizarre instance, among the rescued were three HIV positive children aged 10, 11 and 12. They were forced into begging on streets by their relatives who took their custody after parents died suffering from HIV/AIDS. They were not given any food to eat unless they brought at least Rs 1,500 a day. The children used to travel to different locations by metro and beg for alms.

Blow to NASA ISS mission: what happened?

News

• A space capsule built to ferry astronauts to the International Space Station (ISS) has failed its first test flight, and will now return to Earth without completing its mission.
• The capsule, named Starliner, has been built by Boeing, and was successfully launched by NASA from Cape Canaveral, Florida.

Went wrong

• Starliner apparently fired its engines at the wrong time and, as a result, entered a wrong orbit.
• The faulty thrusting had caused far too much fuel to be burned, and the mission would no longer be pursued.
• The failure is likely to push back further NASA’s already delayed and repeatedly postponed attempt at resuming human spaceflight from the United States. NASA has contracts with Boeing and Elon Musk’s SpaceX to build spacecraft to ferry astronauts to and from the ISS.
• For more than eight years, no human has gone to space from US soil, and NASA has relied on Russia to get its astronauts on the space station.

J&K: Communication blockade affects counter-terror ops

News

• The unprecedented communications shutdown in Kashmir has hit the government’s counter-militancy operations, according to top J&K Police officials.
• A total of 82 operations took place in J&K so far this year, including two in Jammu region, down from 97 anti-militancy operations conducted in 2018.

Counter-militancy operations

• Data accessed shows this year’s figures for the number of militants killed are at a three-year low.
• Since the beginning of the year, 155 militants have been killed in the Valley in these 82 operations, a sharp decline from last year’s figure of 246. A majority of these 155 militants approximately 120 were killed up to the end of July, before the lockdown began on August 5 with the announcement of scrapping of the state’s special status under Article 370.
• The comparative figures in the number of militants killed in 2016 and 2017 were, respectively, 130 and 200, and going up to 246 in 2018.
• Director-General of J&K Police told this dip is also because of the police’s preoccupation with law and order duties during this period (since August 5, when special status to the erstwhile state under Article 370 was scrapped).
• Operations at the Line of Control (LoC) saw a sharp decline.Compared to approximately 30 operations last year along the LoC, this year there was only one operation, in which two militants were killed.
• In terms of ‘law and order incidents’, police records show 310 incidents recorded since August 5, including 240 in Srinagar alone. In comparison, more than 1,500 law and order incidents were reported from Kashmir in 2016 in the uprising following the killing of Hizbul Mujahideen militant Burhan Wani.
• The administration has claimed that no lives have been lost in action by security forces in Kashmir since suspension of special status. In comparison, 62 civilians lost their lives in the unrest in 2016.

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