IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Arabian Sea saw highest-ever cyclonic disturbances in 2019

News

• In a sign of rising sea surface temperature, the Arabian Sea this year has seen the highest-ever cyclonic disturbances (CDs) four cyclonic storms and three depressions or deep depressions.

Cyclonic disturbances

• According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), sea surface temperatures (SST), or simply, the temperature of seawater recorded at the surface, was higher than normal over the Arabian Sea since October, towards the culmination of the southwest monsoon season.
• While the IMD pegs normal CDs over Arabian Sea at 1.7 per year, six cyclonic disturbances were witnessed over Arabian Sea in 1998. In October, for the first time since 1965, two cyclonic storms, Kyarr and Maha, had prevailed simultaneously over the Arabian Sea.
• Out of the four cyclones over the Arabian Sea this year, ‘Vayu’ and ‘Hikka’ were ‘very severe cyclonic storms’, while ‘Maha’ in October was an ‘extremely severe cyclonic storm’ and ‘Kyarr’ that brought unseasonal rainfall to Karnataka, Maharashtra and Gujarat was a ‘super cyclonic storm’.
• While cyclonic formation over Arabian Sea in October-November is rare, it is more frequent and common over the Bay of Bengal.
• In 2019, 11 cyclonic disturbances developed over the north Indian Ocean, including four over Bay of Bengal and seven in Arabian Sea. A total of seven cyclones Pabuk, Vayu, Fani, Hikka, Kyarr, Maha and Bulbul were recorded in the Arabian Sea and Bay of Bengal in 2019 alone.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Union Cabinet approves fourth labour code on social security

News

• The Union Cabinet has approved the last of four labour codes the Code on Social Security Bill 2019, Union Environment Minister said.

Social Security Bill 2019

• The Bill seeks to consolidate the laws relating to social security of workers and subsume eight central laws.
• Last month, the Cabinet had approved Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2019 (third code), which was later introduced in the Lok Sabha.
• The Code on Wage (first code) has already been approved by Parliament. The Code on occupational safety, health and working conditions (second code) has already been introduced in the Lok Sabha and later sent to a standing committee for review. This would be pushed for passage in the Budget Session after the committee’s report submission in the House. Javadekar said that under labour reforms, 44 central laws will be codified into four codes.
• The Social Security Code will subsume 8 Central Labour Acts namely Employees’ Compensation Act, 1923; Employees’ State Insurance Act, 1948, Employees’ Provident Funds and Miscellaneous Provisions Act, 1952; Maternity Benefit Act, 1961; Payment of Gratuity Act, 1972; Cine Workers Welfare Fund Act, 1981; Building and Other Construction Workers Cess Act, 1996 and Unorganized Workers’ Social Security Act, 2008.

Policy for mobile towers on wheels

News

• Seeking to boost revenue and ensure better mobile connectivity, the SDMC launched the policy for granting licence to service providers for setting up mobile towers on wheels.
• Under this policy, any new or existing telecom company or service provider can apply for a licence for setting up of cell on wheels within the jurisdiction of SDMC on the basis of monthly rental charges to the tune of Rs 10,000.

Pune: Marked by maiden use of new equipment and technology, Sindhu Sudarshan concludes

News

• Exercise Sindhu Sudarshan, conducted by Sudarshan Chakra Corps of the Pune-headquartered Southern Command, which concluded, was marked by the first-of-its-kind collective trial of a large number of newly-inducted equipment and technology in the actual battle conditions in Thar desert along the western front.

Exercise Sindhu Sudarshan

• The exercise was named Sindhu Sudarshan, signifying the target of reaching the Sindhu river in the case of an offensive.
• The Sudarshan Chakra Corps, which is a strike formation of the Southern Command, had been conducting one of the largest military exercises of the Indian Army to assess the capabilities to strike across the border, deep in enemy territory in the Western theatre.
• Nearly 40,000 troops, 700 Armoured Vehicles and 300 artillery guns of the Sudarshan Chakra Corps, with support of Indian Air Force elements, were part of the exercise.
• The exercise was conducted in Thar by demarcating an imaginary international border, where deployment of enemy was enacted by a section of troops.
• The integrated exercise involved the use of Mechanised Forces, Infantry, Artillery and other ‘force multipliers’ such as drones and electronic warfare systems.
• The Army’s indigenous Rudra Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) were deployed alongside Indian Air Force Helicopters. These elements acted as units called the ‘integrated battle groups’, which were to conduct the offensive operations at multiple locations along the imaginary border.

Some data can be stored abroad without copy in India, Rs 15 cr fine for misuse

News

• In a significant departure from the draft Bill, the Personal Data Protection Bill cleared by the Cabinet allows some personal data to be stored and processed abroad with the individual’s consent, without requiring a mirror of the data in India.

Personal Data Protection Bill

• A previous draft of the Bill required a copy of all personal data to be stored in India a provision that was criticised by foreign technology companies and civil society stakeholders.
• The Bill still requires “sensitive” personal data related to financial, health, sexual orientation, biometric, genetic, transgender status, caste and religious belief to be stored only in India.
• This data can be processed abroad only under certain conditions, including the approval of a Data Protection Agency (DPA).
• Moreover, “critical” personal data, as defined by the government from time to time, must be stored and processed only in India. These provisions will impact companies like Google, Facebook and WhatsApp, which currently store most of their India-related data abroad.
• In another change, the Bill mandates companies to give the government access to any non-personal data anonymised data like traffic patterns or demographic information which many companies use to fund their business model. The previous draft did not specify this.
• The Bill also requires social media companies, which are deemed “significant data fiduciaries” (SDF) based on factors such as volume and sensitivity of data as well as their turnover, to develop their own user verification mechanism.
• While the process can be voluntary for users and can be completely designed by the company, it will decrease the anonymity of users and “prevent trolling”.
• The Bill includes exemptions for processing data without an individual’s consent for “reasonable purposes”, including security of the state, detection of any unlawful activity or fraud, whistleblowing, medical emergencies, credit scoring, operation of search engines and processing of publicly available data.
• The Bill retains the provisions on a Data Protection Authority (DPA), the penalties listed are: Rs 5 crore or 2 per cent of worldwide turnover for minor violations and Rs 15 crore or 4 per cent of total worldwide turnover for more serious violations. The company’s executive-in-charge can also face jail term of up to three years.

Guidelines on plastic management ready, to be rolled out in six months: Govt

News

• THE MINISTRY of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) said it had prepared the long-delayed national framework for extended producer’s responsibility (EPR), which would be implemented in the next six months.

Guidelines on plastic management

• Under the Plastic Waste Management Rules, it is mandatory for companies to ensure that their plastic does not reach landfills or end up on streets.
• The EPR framework has three components based on the size of a company small, medium and large.
• The three models are officially called: fee-based model, Producer Responsibility Organisations (PROs) model and credit model. PROs are third party entities that manage waste on behalf of manufacturers.
• According to an MoEFCC note submitted to the NGT, small manufacturers will be charged a fee, which will be deposited to the EPR fund, for getting their plastic waste recycled by urban local bodies.
• Large companies can also obtain credits by sending their waste to waste-to-energy plants or cement factories or recycling units. The ministry was developing a website where all companies can register themselves, and tenders had to invited for the same.

Proposal to set up three central universities for Sanskrit cleared

News

• THE UNION Cabinet approved a proposal to convert the Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan and Lal Bahadur Shastri Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha (LBSRSV) in Delhi and the Rashtriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha (RSV) in Tirupati into Central universities.

Central Sanskrit University Bill

• The government is expected to bring the Central Sanskrit University Bill during the ongoing winter session of Parliament. If and when the Bill is passed, the three deemed-to-be universities will be the country’s first Central universities for Sanskrit.
• Currently, there are Central universities for Hindi, English and Urdu each.
• After their conversion, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan will be known as Central Sanskrit University, SLBSRSV will become Lal Bahadur Shastri National Sanskrit University and RSV will be National Sanskrit University.
• The proposal has been justified on a few grounds. First, that Central university status will improve the stature of the three institutions. Subsequently, this will help them attract more and better faculty and foreign students. After conversion, the government expects these Central universities to also start offering programmes in Indian Philosophy and yoga.
• While LBSRSV was set up in 1962, the Sansthan dates back to 1970 and RSV came up in 1961. All three were granted deemed university status by the UGC later. Apart from being among the first Central universities for Sanskrit in the country, Rashtriya Sanskrit Sansthan will be the first multi-campus Central university.
• It has a head office in Delhi where the vice-chancellor sits and 12 campuses across the country.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

PNB scam: Nirav Modi declared fugitive economic offender

News

• Absconding diamantaire Nirav Modi, a key accused in the Rs 13,600 crore Punjab National Bank (PNB) fraud, was declared as a fugitive economic offender by a Mumbai court.

Fugitive economic offender

• • He is the second person, after Vijay Mallya, to be charged under the Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Act, that was passed by Parliament last year.
  • In July 2018, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) filed an application under the new anti-fraud law to declare Modi a fugitive economic offender. Modi’s lawyers had argued that he cannot be declared a fugitive as various legal requirements stipulated by the Fugitive Economic Offenders (FEO) Act have not been met by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).
  • Under provisions of the Act, a fugitive economic offender is a person against whom an arrest warrant has been issued in respect to a scheduled offence and who has left India so as to avoid criminal prosecution, or being abroad, refuses to return to face criminal prosecution.
  • Once the person is declared a fugitive economic offender, the prosecuting agency has powers to confiscate his properties.

India fifth most affected by climate change disasters

News

• The prolonged heatwave and floods in Kerala put India among the top five countries worst affected by climate change-induced extreme weather events in 2018.

Global Climate Risk

• A new report by on Global Climate Risk by Germanwatch, an independent development organisation, has ranked India the fifth in the list of countries worst affected by climate disasters in 2018. The list is topped by Japan, the Philippines, and Germany.
• As many as 2081 human lives were lost in these extreme events in India in 2018, the maximum for any country that year. Japan lost 1282 human lives while 1246 people died in Germany that year.
• The Global Climate Risk Index ranks the most vulnerable countries while taking into account both the loss of human lives as well as economic losses caused by disasters.
• Last year, the same report had ranked India 14th on the list of most affected countries in 2017.
• India’s economic losses in extreme weather events were in excess of US$ 37.8 billion.
• This report attributes India’s higher rank in 2018 to the Kerala floods, cyclones on the east coast and the heatwave.
• The yearly monsoon season, lasting from June to September, severely affected India in 2018. The state of Kerala was especially impacted 324 people died because of drowning or being buried in landslides set off by flooding, the worst in one hundred years.
• Over 220,000 people had to leave their homes, 20,000 houses and 80 dams were destroyed. The damage amounted to US 2.8 billion.
• Furthermore, India’s east coast was hit by the cyclones Titli and Gaja in October and November 2018.With wind speeds of up to 150 km per hour, cyclone Titli killed at least eight people and let around 450,000 without electricity, the report says.
• Since 2004, India has experienced 11 of its 15 warmest recorded years. Since 1992, an estimated 25,000 Indians have died as a result of heatwaves.

RBI proposes new prepaid card for transactions up to Rs 10,000

News

• The Reserve Bank proposed to introduce a prepaid payment instrument (PPI) that could be used only for transactions of goods and services worth up to Rs 10,000.

Prepaid payment instrument

• PPIs have been playing an important role in promoting digital payments and bringing in the new PPI will further facilitate its usage, as per an RBI statement issued post announcement of the monetary review on Thursday.
• To further facilitate its (PPI) usage, it is proposed to introduce a new type of PPI which can be used only for purchase of goods and services up to a limit of Rs 10,000.
• The central bank said the loading and reloading of such PPIs can be done only from a bank account and used for making bill payments and merchant payments.
• Such PPIs can be issued on the basis of essential minimum details sourced from the customer.
• PPIs are instruments to facilitate purchase of goods and services, including financial services, remittance facilities among others against the value stored on such instruments.
• These can be loaded and reloaded by cash or debit to a bank account or by credit card or from other PPIs up to a limit of Rs 50,000 per month. As on now, banks and non-bank entities are permitted to issue and reload such payment instruments.
• There are currently three kinds of PPIs allowed by RBI –closed system PPIs, semi-closed system PPIs and open system PPIs.
• The banking regulator also announced to allow the International Financial Service Centre Banking Units (IBUs) to open foreign currency current accounts of their corporate borrowers in order to facilitate ease of operations.
• As regard to liquidity coverage ratio, it has also allowed the IBUs to accept fixed deposits in foreign currency of less than one year tenor from non-bank entities and consequently remove the current restriction on premature withdrawal of deposits.
• The Reserve Bank also put forth the reviewed foreign exchange hedging facilities allowing users to undertake over the counter (OTC) currency derivative transactions up to USD 10 million, without the need to evidence underlying exposure.

CO2 emission trend reflects India slowdown

News

• A new study unveiled says the growth in India’s carbon dioxide emissions this year was likely to be considerably lower than in the last few years.

India’s emissions

• The Global Carbon Project, which puts out emission estimates for across the world every year, has said India’s emissions in 2019 (2.6 billion tonnes or gigatonnes) was likely to be only 1.8 per cent higher than in 2018.
• This is significantly lower than the 8% growth that India showed last year and the more-than-5% average growth over the last ten years.
• The growth in global carbon dioxide emissions too is likely to come down this year, to just 0.6% over last year.

Arrested the growth

• The lower growth in CO2 emissions, though desirable, is only a positive fallout of the slowdown in the Indian economy. Economic growth has been consistently weakening over the last few quarters, leading to reduction in activities that cause emissions.
• Weak economic growth in India has led to slower growth in oil and natural gas use. With a weakening economy, growth in India’s generation of electricity has slowed from 6 per cent per year to under 1 per cent in 2019, despite electrification of villages adding to potential demand.
• Moreover, the addition of a very wet monsoon led to very high hydropower generation and a decline in generation from coal.
• Economic slowdown has been blamed for a lower emission growth in the rest of the world as well, and also in China, the world’s largest emitter.
• The Global Carbon Project estimates the carbon dioxide emissions in 2019 alone to be about 2.6 billion tonnes. They do not give the estimates of emissions of other greenhouse gases.
• The near-real time estimates put out by the project are based on datasets that monitor production and consumption trends of key indicators like electricity, oil and gas, cement, and chemicals and fertilisers.

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