DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS -25 JULY 2019-10 IMPORTANT TOPICS FROM THE HINDU

IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR TODAY 

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BY SUMIT BHARDWAJ                         25 JULY 2019

1.Opposition wants select panel scrutiny of key Bills           (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:In a show of strength, Opposition parties in the Rajya Sabha told the government that they wanted seven key legislation, including the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019, the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill. 2019, and the DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019, to be sent to a Select Committee of Parliament for further scrutiny.
• All three Bills have been cleared by the Lok Sabha in the current session of Parliament.
• OPPOSITION PARTY:
• In legislature, Opposition Party has a major role and must act to discourage the party in power from acting against the interests of the country and the common man. They are expected to alert the population and the Government on the content of any Bill, which is not in the best interests of the country.
• Select Committee of Parliament:
• Types of Parliamentary Committees
• Based on purpose and duration.

1. Adhoc.
2. Standing – Advisory and Enquiry.

• Based on composition. 1.Select – Single House, ie either LS or RS.
• 2.Joint – Both Houses.
• Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019:The Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha by Minister of Home Affairs Amit Shah on 8 July, 2019. The Bill amends the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, 1967. The Act provides special procedures to deal with terrorist activities, among other things.
• The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill. 2019:In this amendment, it is proposed to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 so as to provide that the term of office of, and the salaries, allowances and other terms and conditions of service of, the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners and the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioners, shall be such as may be prescribed by the Central Government.
• DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019:.The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill, 2019 was introduced in Lok Sabha by the Minister for Science and Technology, Mr. Harsh Vardhan, on July 8, 2019. The Bill provides for the regulation of use of DNA technology for establishing the identity of certain persons.  Note that the same Bill had been previously introduced in Lok Sabha in August 2018, but lapsed.  

2.Chandrayaan-2 gets first orbit boost around earth     (GS-3)

• CONTEXT:The spacecraft is scheduled to reach moon by August 20, says ISRO update
• July 22-August 14 (23-24 days): Launch & earth bound manoeuvres
• August 14 (Day 23/24): Trans Lunar Insertion (journey from earth to moon begins)
• August 20 (Day 30): Spacecraft reaches moon
• From August 20 (13-14 days) : Orbits and manoeuvres around moon
• September 2 (Day 43) Lander Vikram separates from the orbiter
• September 7 (Day 48): Vikram begins descent; touches down on moon
• Source : ISRO
•  ABOUT CHANDRAYAN 2:
• It is India’s second mission to the moon.
• It aims to explore the Moon’s south polar region.
• The mission is an important step in India’s plans for planetary exploration, a program known as Planetary Science and Exploration (PLANEX).
• There are three components of the mission, an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
• The mission payloads include — Terrain Mapping Camera which will generate a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the entire moon, Chandrayaan 2 Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer which will test the elemental composition of the Moon’s surface Solar X-Ray Monitor which will provide solar X-ray spectrum inputs for CLASS. 
• The orbiter will be deployed at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the surface of the Moon. The lander will then separate from the orbiter, and execute a soft landing on the surface of the Moon, unlike the previous mission which crash landed near the lunar south pole.
• The lander, rover and orbiter will perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface.
• The rover is named Pragyan.
• The mission’s lander is named Vikram after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme.

SOURCE:THE WIRE



3.Kaziranga animals ‘reclaim’ abandoned quarries on corridors        (GS-1,3)

• CONTEXT:Animals of the Kaziranga National Park (KNP) are ‘reclaiming’ their migratory paths that were blocked for years by illegal stone quarries in the hills beyond a highway along the southern periphery of their habitat.
• The Assam Forest Department banned stone mining activities in the hills of the Karbi Anglong district south of KNP on April 30 after the Supreme Court ordered their closure on April 12. The ban followed a petition by environmental activist Rohit Choudhury against the stone quarries that caused noise pollution besides contaminating the streams flowing down the hills into the park.
• Kaziranga National Park (KNP) :
• Kaziranga National Park is a protected area in the northeast Indian state of Assam. Spread across the floodplains of the Brahmaputra River, its forests, wetlands and grasslands are home to tigers, elephants and the world’s largest population of Indian one-horned rhinoceroses. Ganges River dolphins swim in the park’s waters. It’s visited by many rare migratory birds, and gray pelicans roost near Kaziranga village.
• Mikir Hills are a group of hills located to the south of the Kaziranga National Park, Assam. It is part of the Karbi Anglong Plateau.its height peak is dambuchko.
• Karbi Anglong plateau is in fact an extension of the Indian Plate in the North Eastern state of India. This area receives maximum rainfall from the Southwest summer Monsoon from June through September. Average height of this plateau varies from 300 metres (984 ft) to 400 metres (1,312 ft)

4.Undermining RTI                  (GS-2)

• Context: according  to the writer of the editorial  Amendments passed by the Lok Sabha to the Right to Information Act are so obviously unnecessary that naturally many see an ulterior (existing beyond what is obvious or admitted; intentionally hidden.)motive.
• ABOUT The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill. 2019:In this amendment, it is proposed to amend the Right to Information Act, 2005 so as to provide that the term of office of, and the salaries, allowances and other terms and conditions of service of, the Chief Information Commissioner and Information Commissioners and the State Chief Information Commissioner and the State Information Commissioners, shall be such as may be prescribed by the Central Government.
• 

5.Having the last word on ‘population control’  (GS-1)

• CONTEXT: On July 11, World Population Day, a Union Minister expressed alarm, in a Tweet, over what he called the “population explosion” in the country, wanting all political parties to enact population control laws and annulling the voting rights of those having more than two children. Just a month earlier, a prominent businessman-yoga guru wanted the government to enact a law where “the third child should not be allowed to vote and enjoy facilities provided by the government”. This, according to him, would ensure that people would not give birth to more children.
• Both these demands are wayward and represent a warped thinking which has been rebutted rather well in the Economic Survey 2018-19. The Survey notes that India is set to witness a “sharp slowdown in population growth in the next two decades”. The fact is that by the 2030s, some States will start transitioning to an ageing society as part of a well-studied process of “demographic transition” which sees nations slowly move toward a stable population as fertility rates fall with an improvement in social and economic development indices over time.
•  National Population Policy (NPP) was introduced in 2000 when Atal Bihari Vajpayee was the Prime Minister. The essence of the policy was the government’s commitment to “voluntary and informed choice and consent of citizens while availing of reproductive health care services” along with a “target free approach in administering family planning services”. 
• National Family Health Survey-4 (2015-16) notes, women in the lowest wealth quintile have an average of 1.6 more children than women in the highest wealth quintile, translating to a total fertility rate of 3.2 children versus 1.5 children moving from the wealthiest to the poorest. Similarly, the number of children per woman declines with a woman’s level of schooling. Women with no schooling have an average 3.1 children, compared with 1.7 children for women with 12 or more years of schooling. This reveals the depth of the connections between health, education and inequality, with those having little access to health and education being caught in a cycle of poverty, leading to more and more children, and the burden that state control on number of children could impose on the weakest. As the latest Economic Survey points out, States with high population growth are also the ones with the lowest per capita availability of hospital beds.
• 
  
• The World Population Prospects:
• According to ‘The World Population Prospects 2019’ published by the Population Division of the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, India is projected to surpass China as the world’s most populous country by 2027.
• Through the end of the century (between 2019 and 2050) India (with an estimated population of 1.37 billion) is expected to remain the world’s most populous country, followed by China, Nigeria, United States of America, and Pakistan.
• The global population is projected to increase by another 2 billion people by 2050.
• Aging of the world's population will also spike due to increasing life expectancy and falling fertility levels.
• By 2050, one in six people in the world will be over age 65 (16%), up from one in 11 in 2019 (9%).
• Aging will result in a decline in the proportion of the working age population that in turn will exert pressure on social security systems.
• Europe and North America will have a much higher number of aging population.
• Many countries are experiencing a reduction in population size (between 2019 and 2050, many countries will experience populations shrink by at least 1%).
• populations shrink can be attributed to sustained low levels of fertility and, in some cases, high rates of emigration.
• In countries like Bangladesh, Nepal and the Philippines out-migration plays a key in population change (outflow of migrant workers).
• In some instances, out-migration could also be caused by violence, lack of security or wars as in Myanmar, Syria and Venezuela.
• Many of the fastest growing populations are in the poorest countries, where population growth brings additional challenges in the effort to eradicate poverty, achieve greater equality, combat hunger and malnutrition and strengthen the coverage and quality of health and education systems to ensure that no one is left behind.

6.Jaishankar not attending Brazil BRICS meeting      ( GS-2)

• CONTEXT:The July 25-26 visit of External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar to Brazil was cancelled on July 24 as the government remained occupied with the situation that emerged after U.S. President Donald Trump claimed Prime Minister Narendra Modi had asked him to mediate on Kashmir.
• BRICS:
• BRICS is an acronym for the grouping of the world’s leading emerging economies, namely Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa.
• The BRICS Leaders’ Summit is convened annually.
• Structure
• BRICS does not exist in form of organization, but it is an annual summit between the supreme leaders of five nations.
• The Chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.
• BRICS cooperation in the past decade has expanded to include an annual programme of over 100 sectoral meetings.
• Salient Features
• Together, BRICS accounts for about 40% of the world’s population and about 30% of the GDP (Gross Domestic Product), making it a critical economic engine.
• It’s an emerging investment market and global power bloc.
• Genesis
• The acronym "BRICS" was initially formulated in 2001 by economist Jim O'Neill, of Goldman Sachs, in a report on growth prospects for the economies of Brazil, Russia, India and China – which together represented a significant share of the world's production and population.
• In 2006, the four countries initiated a regular informal diplomatic coordination, with annual meetings of Foreign Ministers at the margins of the General Debate of the UN General Assembly (UNGA).
• This successful interaction led to the decision that the dialogue was to be carried out at the level of Heads of State and Government in annual Summits.
• Timeline
• The first BRIC Summit took place in 2009 in the Russian Federation and focused on issues such as reform of the global financial architecture.
• South Africa was invited to join BRIC in December 2010, after which the group adopted the acronym BRICS. South Africa subsequently attended the Third BRICS Summit in Sanya, China, in March 2011.
• Objectives
• The BRICS seeks to deepen, broaden and intensify cooperation within the grouping and among the individual countries for more sustainable, equitable and mutually beneficial development.
• BRICS takes into consideration each member’s growth, development and poverty objectives to ensure relations are built on the respective country’s economic strengths and to avoid competition where possible.
• BRICS is emerging as a new and promising political-diplomatic entity with diverse objectives, far beyond the original objective of reforming global financial institutions.
• Areas of Cooperation
• 1. Economic Cooperation
• There are rapidly growing trade and investment flows between BRICS countries as well as economic cooperation activities across a range of sectors.
• Agreements have been concluded in the areas of Economic and Trade Cooperation; Innovation Cooperation, Customs Cooperation; strategic cooperation between the BRICS Business Council , Contingent Reserve Agreement and the New Development Bank.
• These agreements contribute to realisation of the shared objectives of deepening economic cooperation and fostering integrated trade and investment markets.
• 2. People-to-People exchange
• BRICS members have recognised the need for strengthening People-to-People exchanges and to foster closer cooperation in the areas of culture, sport, education, film and youth.
• People-to-People exchanges seek to forge new friendships; deepen relations and mutual understanding between BRICS peoples in the spirit of openness, inclusiveness, diversity and mutual learning.
• Such People to people exchanges include the Young Diplomats Forum, Parliamentarian Forum, Trade Union Forum, Civil BRICS as well as the Media Forum.
• 3. Political and Security Cooperation
• BRICS member political and security cooperation is aimed at achieving peace, security, development and cooperation for a more equitable and fair world.
• BRICS provides opportunities for sharing policy advice and exchanges of best practices in terms of domestic and regional challenges as well as advancing the restructuring of the global political architecture so that it is more balanced, resting on the pillar of multilateralism.
• BRICS is utilised as a driver for South Africa’s foreign policy priorities including the pursuit of the African Agenda and South-South Cooperation.
• 4. Cooperation Mechanism
• Cooperation among members is achieved through:
• Track I: Formal diplomatic engagement between the national governments.
• Track II: Engagement through government-affiliated institutions, e.g. state-owned enterprises and business councils.
• Track III: Civil society and People-to-People engagement.
• Impacts of BRICS on global institutional reforms
• The main reason for co-operation to start among the BRICs nation was the financial crises of 2008. The crises raised doubts over sustainability of the dollar-dominated monetary system.
• The BRICs called for the “the reform of multilateral institutions in order that they reflect the structural changes in the world economy and the increasingly central role that emerging markets now play”.
• BRICs managed to push for institutional reform which led to International Monetary Fund (IMF) quota reform in 2010. Thus the financial crises had momentarily reduced western legitimacy and briefly let the BRICs countries become “agenda setters” in multilateral institutions.
• New Development Bank
• NDB is headquartered in Shanghai.
• At the Fourth BRICS Summit in New Delhi (2012) the possibility of setting up a new Development Bank was considered to mobilize resources for infrastructure and sustainable development projects in BRICS and other emerging economies, as well as in developing countries.
• During the Sixth BRICS Summit in Fortaleza (2014) the leaders signed the Agreement establishing the New Development Bank (NDB).
• Fortaleza Declaration stressed that the NDB will strengthen cooperation among BRICS and will supplement the efforts of multilateral and regional financial institutions for global development thus contributing to sustainable and balanced growth.
• NDB’s key areas of operation are clean energy, transport infrastructure, irrigation, sustainable urban development and economic cooperation among the member countries.
• The NDB functions on a consultative mechanism among the BRICS members with all the member countries possessing equal rights.
• Contingent Reserve Arrangement
• Considering the increasing instances of global financial crisis, BRICS nations signed BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) in 2014 as part of Fortaleza Declaration at Sixth BRICS summit.
• The BRICS CRA aims to provide short-term liquidity support to the members through currency swaps to help mitigating BOP crisis situation and further strengthen financial stability.
• The initial total committed resources of the CRA shall be one hundred billion dollars of the United States of America (USD 100 billion).
• It would also contribute to strengthening the global financial safety net and complement existing international arrangements (IMF).
• Challenges
• The marked dominance of big three Russia-China-India is challenge for the BRICS as it moves ahead. To become a true representative of large emerging markets across the world, BRICS must become pan-continental. Its membership must include more countries from other regions and continents.
• The BRICS will need to expand its agenda for increasing its relevance in the global order. As of now, climate change and development finance, aimed at building infrastructure dominate agenda.
• As BRICS moves forward foundational principles of BRICS i.e. respect for sovereign equality and pluralism in global governance are liable to be tested as the five member countries pursue their own national agendas.
• The military standoff between India and China on the Doklam plateau, which has effectively brought to an end the naive notion that a comfortable political relationship is always possible amongst the BRICS members.
• China’s efforts to co-opt nation states, which are integral to its Belt and Road Initiative, into a broader political arrangement has potential to cause conflict among BRICS members especially China and India.
• Importance for India
• India can benefit from collective strength of BRICS by way of consultation and cooperation on economic issues of mutual interests, as well as topical global issues, such as, international terrorism, climate change, food and energy security, reforms of global governance institutions, etc.
• India remains engaged with the other BRICS countries on its NSG membership.

The NDB will help India to raise and avail resources for their infrastructure and sustainable development projects. The NDB has approved its first set of loans, which included a loan of US$ 250 million in respect of India for Multitranche Financing Facility for Renewable Energy Financing Scheme’.

• Way Forward
• BRICS did well in its first decade to identify issues of common interests and to create platforms to address these issues.
• For BRICS to remain relevant over the next decade, each of its members must make a realistic assessment of the initiative's opportunities and inherent limitations.
• BRICS nations need to recalibrate their approach and to recommit to their founding ethos. BRICS must reaffirm their commitment to a multi-polar world that allows for sovereign equality and democratic decision making by doing so can they address the asymmetry of power within the group and in global governance generally.
• They must build on the success of the NDB and invest in additional BRICS institutions. It will be useful for BRICS to develop an institutional research wing, along the lines of the OECD, offering solutions which are better suited to the developing world.
• BRICS should consider a BRICS-led effort to meet their commitments under the Paris Agreement on climate change and the UN's sustainable development goals. This could include e.g. setting up a BRICS energy alliance and an energy policy institution.
• NDB in partnership with other development finance institutions could be a potent vehicle to finance progress towards the sustainable development goals amongst the BRICS members.
• Idea of setting up a BRICS Credit Rating Agency (BCRA) as proposed by India, opposed to Western agencies like Standard & Poor’s, Moody’s etc can be on BRICS future agenda.

7.Ajay Bhalla to be new Home Secretary

 (GS-2)

• A 1984 batch IAS officer and currently Secretary, Ministry of Power, Ajay Kumar Bhalla has been appointed Officer on Special Duty (OSD) to the Ministry of Home Affairs with immediate effect. He will take over as Home Secretary from incumbent Rajive Gauba.
• Home Secretary:
• The Home Secretary  is the administrative head of the Ministry of Home Affairs. This post is held by senior IAS officer of the rank of Secretary to Government of India.
• Home Secretary is the administrative head of the Ministry of Home Affairs, and is the principal adviser to the Home Minister on all matters of policy and administration within the Home Ministry.
• The role of Home Secretary is as follows:
• To act as the administrative head of the Ministry of Home Affairs. The responsibility in this regard is complete and undivided.
• To act as the chief adviser to the Home Minister on all aspects of policy and administrative affairs.
• To represent the Ministry of Home Affairs before the Public Accounts Committee of the Parliament of India.
• To act as the first among equals secretaries in the Ministry of Home Affairs.

8.China says it wants security & stability along India border      (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:China’s military on Wednesday signalled that ties with India were improving, but warned the U.S. that it should not test Beijing’s one-China policy over Taiwan.
• A white paper titled ‘China’s National Defence in the New Era’, released by the Chinese Defence Ministry, said Beijing was striving to promote security and stability along the India-China border. It has also created “favourable conditions” to peacefully resolve the Doklam military standoff — a reference to the military tensions between the two countries in the summer of 2017.

9.India rises in global innovation ranking(GS-3)

• India has jumped five places to rank 52 in the Global Innovation Index 2019, up from the 57 it had in last year’s rankings.
• India’s rise in the rankings has been a consistent trend over the last few years. It had ranked 81 in 2015, which rose to 66 in 2016, 60 in 2017 and 57 in 2018.
• “The performance improvement of India is particularly noteworthy,” the report, brought out by the UN World Intellectual Property Organisation, INSEAD and CII, said.
• Global Innovation Index 2019:
• The Global Innovation Index (GII) is an annual ranking of countries by their capacity for, and success in, innovation. It is published by Cornell University, INSEAD, and the World Intellectual Property Organization, in partnership with other organisations and institutions,and is based on both subjective and objective data derived from several sources, including the International Telecommunication Union, the World Bank and the World Economic Forum.The index was started in 2007 by INSEAD and World Business,a British magazine. The GII is commonly used by corporate and government officials to compare countries by their level of innovation.
• The GII is computed by taking a simple average of the scores in two sub-indices, the Innovation Input Index and Innovation Output Index, which are composed of five and two pillars respectively. Each of these pillars describe an attribute of innovation, and comprise up to five indicators, and their score is calculated by the weighted average method

10.Large-scale burning of grasslands detrimental to invertebrates: study    (GS-3)

• A recent study on “prescribed burning” of large tracts of grassland for the conservation of threatened ungulates in the Eravikulam National Park (ENP), a biodiversity hotspot in the Western Ghats, reveals that such burning is detrimental to endemic invertebrates, including grasshoppers.
• Prescribed burning is the process of planning and applying fire to a predetermined area, under specific environmental conditions, to achieve a desired outcome. Prescribed, controlled and planned burns are the same thing
• Eravikulam National Park (ENP),:
• Eravikulam National Park is a 97 km² national park located along the Western Ghats in the Idukki district of Kerala in India. Situated between 10º05'N and 10º20' north, and 77º0' and 77º10' east, it is the first national park in Kerala.
• A biodiversity hotspot is a biogeographic region that is both a significant reservoir of biodiversity and is threatened with destruction. The term biodiversity hotspot specifically refers to 25 biologically rich areas around the world that have lost at least 70 percent of their original habitaT
• The Western Ghats, also known as Sahyadri, are a mountain range that covers an area of 140,000 square kilometres in a stretch of 1,600 kilometres parallel to the western coast of the Indian peninsula, traversing the states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
• Short-range endemic (SRE) invertebrates are animals that display restricted geographic distributions, nominally less than 10,000 km2, that may also be disjunct and highly localised. ... Subterranean fauna, which include stygofauna and troglofauna, typically comprise short-range endemics.

11.India’s first dragon blood-oozing tree     (GS-3)

• Assam has added to India’s botanical wealth a plant that yields dragon’s blood — a bright red resin used since ancient times as medicine, body oil, varnish, incense and dye.
• A trio of researchers led by Assam forest officer Jatindra Sarma has discovered Dracaena cambodiana, a dragon tree species in the Dongka Sarpo area of West Karbi Anglong. The team’s report has been published in the latest issue of the Journal of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
• This is for the first time that a dragon tree species has been reported from India

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