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IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

In a landmark event, PM to launch physical distribution of Property Cards under the SVAMITVA Scheme

Source: PIB india

News

• In a historic move set to transform rural India and empower millions of Indians, Prime Minister will launch the physical distribution of Property Cards under the SVAMITVA Scheme.

Property Cards

• The launch will enable around one lakh property holders to download their Property Cards through the SMS link delivered on their mobile phones. This would be followed by physical distribution of the Property Cards by the respective State governments.­­­­
• These beneficiaries are from 763 villages across six States including 346 from Uttar Pradesh, 221 from Haryana, 100 from Maharashtra, 44 from Madhya Pradesh, 50 from Uttarakhand and 2 from Karnataka.
• Beneficiaries from all these states except Maharashtra will receive the physical copies of the Property Cards within one day – Maharashtra has a system of recovering the nominal cost of Property Card, so it will take a month’s time.
• The move will pave the way for using property as a financial asset by villagers for taking loans and other financial benefits.
• This is the first time ever that such a large-scale exercise involving the most modern means of technology is being carried out to benefit millions of rural property owners.

SVAMITVA

• SVAMITVA is a Central Sector Scheme of the Ministry of Panchayati Raj, which was launched by the Prime Minister on National Panchayati Raj Day.

Aim: The scheme aims to provide the ‘record of rights’ to village household owners in rural areas and issue Property Cards.

• The Scheme is being implemented across the country in a phased manner over a period of four years (2020-2024) and would eventually cover around 6.62 lakh villages of the country.
• Six States have signed MoU with Survey of India for drone survey of rural areas and implementation of the scheme. These States have finalised the digital property card format and the villages to be covered for drone-based survey.
• States of Punjab and Rajasthan have signed MoU with Survey of India for establishment of CORS network to assist in future drone flying activities.

Goa becomes first ‘Har Ghar Jal’ State across the nation by providing tap water connection to every rural household; Sets an example for other States to emulate

Source: PIB india

News

• Goa has earned itself the unique distinction of becoming first ‘Har Ghar Jal’ State in the country as it successfully provides 100% Functional Household Tap Connections (FHTCs) in the rural areas covering 2.30 lakh rural households.

First ‘Har Ghar Jal’ State

• Harnessing the immense benefits of efficiently utilising the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM) which aims to improve the quality of life and bring ‘ease-of-living’ to rural communities, all rural homes in the State now have a tap water supply .
• State’s commitment and brisk efforts have ensured advancement and achievement of targets well before time.
• To strengthen the water testing facilities, the State is in process of getting 14 water quality testing laboratories NABL accredited. 
• Jal Jeevan Mission mandates training 5 persons in very village especially women to be trained in using Field Test Kits, so that water can be tested in the villages.

India gets 2nd set of Swiss bank account details under automatic info exchange framework

News

• India is among the 86 countries with which Switzerland’s Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has exchanged information on financial accounts within the framework of global standards on AEOI this year.

Automatic Exchange of Information

• India had received the first set of details from Switzerland in September 2019 under AEOI (Automatic Exchange of Information), when it involved 75 countries.
• The information exchange this year involved nearly 3.1 million (31 lakh) financial accounts. The number of such accounts was similar in 2019.
• India is among the prominent countries with which Switzerland has shared details about financial accounts of clients of Swiss banks and various other financial institutions.
• Swiss authorities have already shared information about more than 100 Indian citizens and entities in the past one year on receipt of requests for administrative assistance in cases involving probes into financial wrongdoings including tax evasion.
• The information shared by Swiss authorities include identification, account and financial information, such as name, address, country of residence and tax identification number, as well as information concerning the reporting financial institution, account balance and capital income.
• The exchanged information will allow tax authorities to verify whether taxpayers have correctly declared their financial accounts in their tax returns.
• Switzerland has committed itself to adopting the global standard for the international automatic exchange of information in tax matters.
• The data received by India can be quite useful for establishing a strong prosecution case against those who have any unaccounted wealth, as it provides entire details of deposits and transfers as well as of all earnings, including through investments in securities and other assets.
• Switzerland agreed to AEOI with India after a long process, including a review of the necessary legal framework in India on data protection and confidentiality.

Punjab rent waiver on farm machines won’t help much

News

• Punjab has recorded five times more stubble fires between September 21 and October 7 as compared to the same period last year.
• To control the fires, the state government, in a letter to the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) a Supreme Court-mandated pollution control authority said Custom Hiring Centres (CHCs) in the state will not charge any rental from small and marginal farmers for providing them machinery to manage stubble.

Steps taken by Punjab government to control field fires

• The Punjab government has not only asked all CHCs to not charge rentals for providing stubble management machinery to all small (having land upto 5 acres) and marginal (having land upto 2.5 acres) farmers, who cannot afford this in-situ costly machinery even on rent, it has also fixed nominal hiring charges for stubble management machines, which can be hired by other farmers from these centres for an hour.

Small and marginal farmers

• According to the 2015 agriculture census, there are 10.93 lakh farmers in Punjab. Experts and the state government however said that off late, there are total 18.50 lakh farmers (due to division and subdivision of holdings across generations).
• Of this, 68 per cent are small farmers, owning one to less than five acres of land, which comes to around 40-42 per cent of the total around 42 lakh hectares agriculture land in Punjab, including around 3 lakh under horticulture.
• There are over 5 per cent big farmers (highest in proportion in the country) who own more than 10 hectares (25 acres) land and remaining are semi-medium and medium farmers having land 6-8 acres and 9-24 acres, respectively.
• Majority semi-medium and medium farmers either don’t own tractors or own small ones and may avoid spending on stubble management methods and go for the burning method, Punjab owns a good number (74,000) of stubble management machines now but lacks a proper road map.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

DRDO successfully test-fires India’s first indigenous anti-radiation missile Rudram-1

News

• Conducting yet another test of a indigenously developed weapons system, the Defence Research and Development Organisation conducted a successful test of the New Generation Anti Radiation Missile (NGRAM) also called the Rudram-1 at the Integrated Test Range (ITR) in Balasore.

New Generation Anti Radiation Missile

• The missile has been designed to be launched from various fighter aircraft currently in the inventory of the Indian Air Force.
• The missile has been designed to further enhance the Suppression of Enemy Air Defence (SEAD) capability of the IAF.
• Anti Radiation Missiles are primarily designed to track and neutralise the radar and communication assets of the adversary.
• The development of the anti radiation missiles of this type was started by the DRDO around eight years ago and has been a collaborative effort of various DRDO facilities in India.
• Equipped with state of art radiation tracking and guidance system, the missile system has undergone preliminary tests in the past with the help of an operational fighter squadron of the Indian Air Force.
• This is test of indigenously developed weapons systems in addition to the recent tests of Shaurya missile or Hypersonic Technology Demonstrator Vehicle (HSTDV), which is an unmanned scramjet vehicle, or the test of flight test of a Supersonic Missile Assisted Release of Torpedo (SMART) system.

328.9 hectare in Aarey declared as reserve forest

News

• The Maharashtra state government declared 328.9 hectares of land in Aarey as ‘reserve forest’.

Reserve forest

• The government invoked Section 4 of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, which means the government intends to declare the land as reserve forest by appointing a forest settlement officer (FSO).
• With the issuance of preliminary notification, according to the provisions of the Indian Forest Act, 1927, the land becomes unavailable for new development.
• The reserved forest area encompasses 107 land parcels from Aarey, including an area of 40.46 hectare previously slotted for the zoo.
• The area of the reserved forest excludes the land on which the controversial car shed for the 33.5-km-long underground Colaba-Bandra-Seepz Metro Line 1 corridor is to come up.
• The FSO will survey the area followed by suggestions and objections about land rights. The FSO will get 45 days to survey the area. The officer will inquire into and determine the existence, nature and extent of any rights of any person on the said land.
• After the suggestions and objections and hearing, the government under Section 20 of IFA, 1927, will declare the final area as forest. Once the area is declared as reserve forest, at a later stage, it can also be included in SGNP, giving it higher protection.

Territorial Army Troops celebrate 72nd Raising Day 

Source: PIB india

News

• Territorial Army (TA) since inception on 09 October 1948, as “Citizens Army“, has come a long way and played a major role in assisting Regular Army as Second line of defence in times of war, by guarding Vantage Areas including Critical Ammunition installations.  

Territorial Army

• The TA soldier has always been recognised as multi-skilled and talented candidate, and his contribution has increased manifold over the years.
• TA has participated in all Wars since independence, later many TA Air Defence and Artillery were converted into Regular Army Units owing to their battle skills.
• The Southern Command Zone extending from Kerala to Gujarat & Andaman consists of thirteen Infantry TA battalions, that have their permanent locations in Kannur, Coimbatore, Belgaum, Kolhapur, Pune etc, they not only provide Rear Area Security, but also assist in Flood Relief & Aid to Civil Authorities, when called for, even while bulk of the unit is embodied in State of Kashmir and North Eastern region for security tasks.
• The two Ecological TA units fully focus on afforestation task in arid region of Marathwada in Maharashtra, and in Rajasthan deserts along Indira Gandhi canal.
• The Four departmental TAs (Railway, Oil, Marketing Sector) are ever ready for ESMA & Operational tasks in times of crisis. Thus, Terriers are a multifaceted and skilled combat force engaged in diverse roles contributing to Indian Army and Nation building.