IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

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Onion export prohibited until further notice

News

• In the light of skyrocketing onion prices, the government has prohibited its export until further notice.

Export policy

• Export policy of onion for the item description at Serial Number 51 & 52 of Chapter 7 of Schedule 2 of ITC (HS) classification of Export & Import Items is amended from free to prohibited till further orders.
• The retail price of onions have shot up to as much as ₹60 per kgin the metros. At one point, they even touched ₹80 per kg.

India terms Imran Khan’s UN General Assembly address ‘hate speech’

News

• In a strong rebuttal to Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s address to the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), India said Khan had engaged in “hate speech”.

Hate speech

• Khan, addressed the General Assembly shortly after Prime Minister Narendra Modi, had warned of a “bloodbath” in Kashmir after India removes restrictions on the State, imposed after the revocation in early August of Article 370 that granted special status.
• He had also outlined the linkages between the origins of RSS ideology and Nazism.
• Mr Modi’s address, while calling for a united fight against terrorism, made no reference to either Pakistan or Kashmir.

Proposed policy seeks to de-incentivise pre-2005 vehicles under new emission norms

News

• The much-awaited vehicle scrappage policy that has gone for a Cabinet approval is likely to see stringent registration and fitness norms for pre-2005 manufactured vehicles.

Vehicle scrappage policy

• As per estimates, there are about 2 crore pre-2005 built vehicles that are plying on Indian roads and the move is aimed at de-incentivising such vehicles in view of about 10 to 25 times higher pollution emission by them under the new emission norms.
• Indian vehicle market has grown exponentially.
• If old pollution norms are compared with new emission regulations, pre-2005 vehicles are polluting 10 to 25 times more under the new norms.
• Even if those old vehicles are maintained properly, they will be polluting more with more emissions and will prove to be a hazard for road safety.
• Given the proposed stringent norms that include fitness certificate requirement every year for transport vehicles, a significant number of such vehicles will certainly opt for vehicle scrapping.
• Besides, the government is also planning for a mechanism for a safe disposal system for pollutants that include AC-CFC a liquid refrigerant composed of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs), that are found to emitting greenhouse gases which harms the ozone.
• The policy may also contain mechanism to deflate airbags scientifically besides disposal of noble metals in the silencer and rubber etc parts in an eco-friendly manner.

India ‘invaded and occupied’ Kashmir, says Malaysian PM at UN General Assembly

News

• Raising the Kashmir issue at the UN, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad has alleged that India has “invaded and occupied” Jammu and Kashmir and asked New Delhi to work with Pakistan to resolve the issue.

Internal matter

• India has categorically told the international community that the scrapping of Article 370 was an internal matter.
• India has rejected any scope for third party mediation between India and Pakistan on Kashmir, saying the two countries can discuss and resolve all issues bilaterally.

Govt. views grassroots development in Kashmir as biggest hope for peace

News

• The Jammu & Kashmir administration has announced polls to 316 Block Development Councils (BDC) in the State, as the next step to devolution of power.

Polls to 316 Block Development Councils

• The State is currently undergoing a widespread communications clampdown and the date of polls has been declared a week before J&K and Ladakh are declared Union Territories.
• The successful conduct of that poll, except in certain pockets of south Kashmir where polling percentages were low, had two positive spin-offs.
• The first was the unlocking of ₹2,700 crore worth of funds for Panchayats, awarded to the State under the 14th Finance Commission, that could not be disbursed earlier as there had been no local body polls in the State since 2010.
• The second spin-off is related more to what the government wishes to accomplish in J&K, namely real devolution, empowering local bodies and bringing the administration to the grassroots.
• The hope is that with money being available to elected Panchayat leaders, grassroots level development will see a fillip.
• The government also hopes that these Panchayat leaders could form a level of leadership that could provide a political alternative to the current political parties and their leaders leaders who, maintain government sources, have a vested interest in the perpetuation of a conflict economy in Jammu & Kashmir.
• Holding BDC polls, will provide a second layer of political leadership in a State where most of the political class is behind bars.
• It will also help reach development programmes to the grassroots levels.

Kerala tops Niti Aayog’s School Education Quality Index; U.P. is worst performer

News

• There are huge differences in the quality of school education across the country, according to a Niti Aayog ranking released.
• Among 20 large States, Kerala was the best performer with a score of 76.6%, while Uttar Pradesh came in last with a score of 36.4%.

Quality of school education

• Haryana, Assam and Uttar Pradesh showed the most improvement in their performance in 2016-17, in comparison to the base year of 2015-16.
• The School Education Quality Index assesses States on the basis of learning outcomes, access, equity and infrastructure and facilities, using survey data, self-reported data from States and third-party verification.
• Tamil Nadu was the top performer in access and equity outcomes, while Karnataka led in learning outcomes. Haryana had the best infrastructure and facilities.
• Among smaller States, Manipur emerged as the best performer, while Chandigarh topped the list of Union Territories. West Bengal refused to participate in the evaluation process and has not been included in the rankings.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Caught in the act: a black hole rips apart an unfortunate star

News

• Scientists have captured a view of a colossal black hole violently ripping apart a doomed star, illustrating an extraordinary and chaotic cosmic event from beginning to end for the first time using NASA’s planet-hunting telescope.

Black hole

• The U.S. space agency’s orbiting Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, better known as TESS, revealed the detailed timeline of a star 375 million light-years away warping and spiralling into the unrelenting gravitational pull of a supermassive black hole.
• The star, roughly the same size as the sun, was eventually sucked into oblivion in a rare cosmic occurrence that astronomers call a tidal disruption event.
• Astronomers used an international network of telescopes to detect the phenomenon before turning to TESS, whose permanent viewing zones designed to hunt distant planets caught the beginning of the violent event, proving effective its unique method of watching the cosmos.
• Such phenomena happen when a star ventures too close to a supermassive black hole, objects that reside at the centre of most large galaxies including the Milky Way.
• The black hole’s tremendous gravitational forces tear the star to shreds, with some of its material tossed into space and the rest plunging into the black hole, forming a disk of hot, bright gas as it is swallowed.
• Observing the oscillation of light as the black hole gobbles the star and spews stellar material in an outward spiral could help astronomers understand the black hole’s behavior.

International Astronomical Union names asteroid after Pandit Jasraj

News

• The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named an asteroid, discovered in 2006, after Indian classical singer Pandit Jasraj.

Sangeet Martand Pandit Jasraj (b. 1930) is an exponent of Indian classical vocal music. Jasraj is the recipient of numerous awards, honours, and titles, including the prestigious Padma Vibhushan and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award.

Asteroid

• The asteroid, or more formally known as a minor planet, is located between Mars and Jupiter, and was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey, whose telescopes are based in Arizona in the United States.
• The privilege of naming a planet is first given to discoverers, who have 10 years to propose a name.
• The discoverer or team is expected to write a short citation, explaining the reasons for assigning the name, according to the IAU’s guidelines.
• All names proposed are judged by the 15-member Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature (CSBN) of the IAU, comprising professional astronomers with research interests in minor planets and/or comets from around the world. 
• As of September, there are 5,41,131 numbered minor planets of a total of 7,97,078 observed bodies, with the rest being unnumbered minor planets.

Saudi Arabia looking to invest $100 b in India

News

• Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil exporter, is looking at investing $100 billion in India in sectors such as petrochemicals, infrastructure and mining, considering the country’s growth potential.

Attractive investment destination

• Saudi Ambassador said India is an attractive investment destination for Saudi Arabia and it is eyeing long-term partnerships with New Delhi in key sectors such as oil, gas and mining.
• Saudi Arabia’s biggest oil giant Aramco’s proposed partnership with Reliance Industries Ltd reflected the strategic nature of the growing energy ties between the two countries.
• The envoy said investing in India’s value chain from oil supply, marketing, refining to petrochemicals and lubricants is a key part of Aramco’s global downstream strategy.
• In this backdrop, Saudi Aramco’s proposed investments in India’s energy sector such as the $44 billion West Coast refinery and petrochemical project in Maharashtra and long-term partnership with Reliance represent strategic milestones in our bilateral relationship.

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