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IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

5^th Meeting of the India-Mexico Bilateral High Level Group on Trade, Investment and Cooperation

Source: PIB

News

• The fifth meeting of the India-Mexico Bilateral High Level Group on Trade, Investment and Cooperation (BHLG) was held.

India-Mexico Bilateral meeting

• The two sides appreciated the progress made in the bilateral trade and commercial relations between India and Mexico in the recent years.
• Both sides discussed a number of bilateral ongoing and outstanding issues, ranging from Audio-visual Co-production, Bilateral Investment Treaty, market access for agricultural products, a cooperation framework on Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) & Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) measures between the two countries, co-operation in the Intellectual Property Rights, and exploring ways to promote tourism and people-to-people contact between India and Mexico.
• In the meeting, two business to business MoUs were signed, to foster the cooperation in the respective domains.
• A Memorandum of Understanding between the Electronics & Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) of India and the Mexican Chamber of Electronics, Telecommunications and Information Technologies (CANIETI) was signed.
• A Memorandum of Understanding between the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) and the Mexican Business Council of Foreign Trade, Investment and Technology (COMCE) for promoting the development of business relations between India and Mexico was also signed.
• They also agreed to expand and diversify the bilateral trade relationship to tap the potential of the complementarities between India and Mexico through enhanced cooperation in pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, healthcare, agro-products, fisheries, food processing and aerospace industry etc.

7th round of military talks: India, China agree to arrive at solution for disengagement as early as possible

News

• A day after Indian and Chinese Corps Commanders held the seventh round of dialogue to resolve the standoff in eastern Ladakh, both sides said the talks were “positive and constructive” and agreed to arrive at a mutually acceptable solution for disengagement as early as possible.

Military talks

• The meeting took place on the Indian side of Chushul-Moldo Border Personnel Meeting (BPM) point. India and Chinese troops have been locked in a border standoff in eastern Ladakh for over five months.
• Both sides agreed to maintain dialogue and communication through military and diplomatic channels, and arrive at a mutually acceptable solution for disengagement as early as possible.
• Both sides agreed to earnestly implement the important understandings reached by the leaders of the two countries, not to turn differences into disputes, and jointly safeguard peace and tranquility in the border area.

Most powerful passport in the world

News

• According to the recent 2020 global rankings by the Passport Index, the small country in the southern hemisphere, New Zealand has secured the top spot, meaning that people of the country who have it, are in the possession of the most powerful passport in the entire world.

Most powerful passport

• For a country to have the strongest passport in the world, it has to be welcomed by other countries. In other words, the more countries that welcome the passport holder of a particular country without a visa, with visa on arrival, or with a visa in advance the higher it goes in the rankings.
• It is believed that Kiwi passports allow their owners to enter 86 countries visa-free, 43 countries with visa on arrival, and 69 countries where visas are required.
• Sweden, Belgium, France, Finland, Italy and Spain take the third spot, while India ranks 58th on the list a spot that it shares with Benin, Gabon, Jordan and Algeria. Indian passport holders can visit 18 countries visa-free, 34 countries with visa on arrival, and 146 countries where visas are required in advance.
• The US ranks 21st on the list, along with Malaysia.
• The passport ranking is based on real-time, visa restrictions, factoring in legislative changes, and entry requirements.

Sexual violence against transgenders: SC notice to Centre on plea for changes in law

News

• The Supreme Court issued notice to the Centre on a plea seeking changes in the criminal law to protect transgender people from sexual violence.

Protect transgender people

• The petition cited the absence of any provision in the Indian Penal Code that deals with sexual assault by any male, female or transgender on a transgender.
• It said that Section 354 of the IPC dealing with offence of sexual assault does not extend to transgenders.
• The petition has sought appropriate amendments in IPC provisions dealing with sexual assault to include transgender/transsexual/kinnar in the definitions and to direct the government to make gender-neutral laws on sexual harassment.
• The plea also said that statistics show shockingly high levels of sexual abuse and assault against transgenders. It claimed that one in two transgenders have been sexually abused or assaulted at some point in their lives.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Mars is the brightest this month

News

• Due to an event referred to as “opposition”, which takes place every two years and two months, Mars will outshine Jupiter, becoming the third brightest object (moon and Venus are first and second, respectively) in the night sky during the month of October.
• The opposition will give the planet its “biggest, apparent size of the 2020s”.

Opposition

• Opposition is the event when the sun, Earth and an outer planet (Mars in this case) are lined up, with the Earth in the middle.
• The time of opposition is the point when the outer planet is typically also at its closest distance to the Earth for a given year, and because it is close, the planet appears brighter in the sky.
• An opposition can occur anywhere along Mars’ orbit, but when it happens when the planet is also closest to the sun, it is also particularly close to the Earth.
• Earth and Mars orbit the sun at different distances (Mars is farther apart from the sun than Earth and therefore takes longer to complete one lap around the sun).
• Opposition can happen only for planets that are farther away from the sun than the Earth. In case of Mars, roughly every two years, the Earth passes between sun and Mars, this is when the three are arranged in a straight line.
• Further, as the Earth and Mars orbit the sun, there comes a point when they are on the opposite sides of it, and hence very far apart. At its farthest, Mars is about 400 million km from the Earth.
• In case of opposition, however, Mars and sun are on directly opposite sides of the Earth. In other words, the Earth, sun and Mars all lie in a straight line, with the Earth in the middle.
• Because from the perspective on Earth, the sun and Mars appear to be on the opposite sides of the sky, Mars is said to be in “opposition”. Essentially, opposition is a reference to “opposing the sun” in the sky.

New amendments to Gujarat’s Disturbed Areas Act

News

• Indian President has given his assent to a Bill passed by the Gujarat Assembly last year, which made some important amendments to The Gujarat Prohibition of Transfer of Immovable Property and Provisions of Tenants from Eviction from Premises in Disturbed Areas Act, a controversial law that is popularly known as the ‘Disturbed Areas Act’.

Disturbed Areas Act

• Under the Disturbed Areas Act, a district Collector can notify a particular area of a city or town as a “disturbed area”. This notification is generally done based on the history of communal riots in the area.
• Following this notification, the transfer of immovable property in the disturbed area can take place only after the Collector expressly signs off on an application made by the buyer and the seller of the property.
• In the application, the seller has to attach an affidavit stating that she/he has sold the property of her/his free volition, and that she/he has got a fair market price.
• Violation of the Act’s provisions, that is, if property in a notified disturbed area is transferred without the Collector’s permission, invites imprisonment and a fine.
• The state government claims it is aiming to check communal polarisation of various parts of the state through the Act.

Need for the Act

• As per the Gujarat government, the Bill to amend the Act was brought in after a large number of complaints were received from MLAs and other people about individuals who had skirted the provisions of the Act by taking advantage of legal loopholes in it. It was argued that this could potentially lead to the communal polarisation of a particular locality.
• In the earlier version of the Act, the district Collector had to ensure, on the basis of an affidavit by the seller, that she/he had sold the property of her/his own free will, and that she/he had got the fair market price for it.
• There were reports of anti-social elements selling and buying properties after either threatening people or luring them with higher prices, in areas marked as “disturbed”.
• It was reported that at times, these elements had got transfers done even without the Collector’s prior permission by getting the transfer deed registered under the provisions of The Registration Act, in which the Collector’s prior sanction under The DA Act was not required.
• This had resulted in clustering or polarisation of localities.

Penal provisions for violation in the amended Act

• The punishment for the violation of the Act was earlier imprisonment for six months and fine up to Rs 10,000.
• The amendment has increased the punishment to imprisonment between three and five years. The fine has also been increased to Rs 1 lakh, or 10% of the jantri rate (ready reckoner of property prices in different parts of the state) of the property, whichever is higher.