IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR 18 JULY 2019

IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR TODAY 

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BY SUMIT BHARDWAJ                             18 JULY2019

1.WHO declares ebola outbreak in Congo a global health emergency                          (GS-3)

• Background:This week the first Ebola case was confirmed in Goma, a major regional crossroads in northeastern Congo on the Rwandan border with an international airport.
• The deadly Ebola outbreak in Congo is now an international health emergency, the World Health Organization announced on Wednesday after the virus spread this week to a city of two million people.
• What is EBOLA?
• Ebola is a rare but deadly virus that causes fever, body aches, and diarrhea, and sometimes bleeding inside and outside the body. As the virus spreads through the body, it damages the immune system and organs. Ultimately, it causes levels of blood-clotting cells to drop. This leads to severe, uncontrollable bleeding.
• World Health Organization :The World Health Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations that is concerned with international public health. It was established on 7 April 1948, and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. The WHO is a member of the United Nations Development Group.

2.Kulbhushan Jadhav case: ‘Indian stand vindicated,’ says MEA                              (GS-3) 

• BACKGROUND:India on Wednesday said the ICJ verdict in the Kulbhushan Jadhav case vindicated its position that Pakistan had violated the Vienna Convention. “The court has directed that Pakistan is under an obligation to inform Shri Jadhav without further delay of his rights and to provide Indian consular officers access to him in accordance with the Vienna Convention,” the MEA said.
• ICJ :The International Court of Justice sometimes called the World Court, is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations. The ICJ's primary functions are to settle international legal disputes submitted by states and give advisory opinions on legal issues referred to it by the UN. Wikipedia
• Headquarters location: The Hague, Netherlands
• Location: The Hague, Netherlands
• Founded: 26 June 1945, San Francisco, California, United States
• Established: 1945
• Number of positions: 15
• Vienna Convention:The Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of 1961 is an international treaty that defines a framework for diplomatic relations between independent countries. It specifies the privileges of a diplomatic mission that enable diplomats to perform their function without fear of coercion or harassment by the host country. This forms the legal basis for diplomatic immunity. Its articles are considered a cornerstone of modern international relations. As of October 2018, it has been ratified by 192 states.



3.Open to improving Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana: Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar                                  (GS-2)

• BACKGROUND:Promising to create a new breed of “smart farmers by introducing smart farming”, Agriculture Minister Narendra Singh Tomar on Wednesday told the Lok Sabha that the government was open to improving its welfare schemes, including the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) for crop insurance.
• Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY):
• The government of India in April 2016, launched the Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana (PMFBY) after scraping down the earlier insurance schemes viz. Modified National Agricultural Insurance Scheme (MNAIS), Weather-based Crop Insurance scheme and the National Agriculture Insurance Scheme (NAIS). Therefore, currently, Pradhan Mantri Fasal Bima Yojana is the only flagship scheme of the government for agricultural insurance in India.
• Details:
• Annual Commercial / Annual Horticultural crops, oilseeds and food crops (Cereals, Millets and Pulses) are covered under the scheme.
• The scheme is optional for the farmers who have not availed institutional credit, while all the farmers who have borrowed institutional loans from banks are covered under the scheme mandatorily.
• All the funds for the scheme come from the Krishi Kalyan Kosh.
• The scheme covers localized calamities such as hailstorms, landslides etc; yield losses such as droughts, dry spells, pests, floods etc; and post-harvest losses against specific perils of unseasonal rains, cyclonic rains, cyclones etc.
• However, the scheme does not cover perils such as war & kindred perils, nuclear risks, riots, malicious damage, theft, act of enmity, grazed and/or destroyed by domestic and/or wild animals
• It is proposed by the scheme to use remote sensing technology, smart phones or drones to expedite the crop loss estimation.                                          
  
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4.   ‘Use more steel for water mission’ ( GS-2,3) 

• BACKGROUND: Union Steel Minister Dharmendra Pradhan has written to Union Water Minister Gajendra Shekhawat exhorting him to use more steel in the Jal Jeevan Mission, the government’s push to ensure that all rural households have piped water by 2024.
• In a letter dated July 16, Mr. Pradhan said that steel could play “an important role” in the mission as its “corrosion resistant nature” made it an ideal material for transporting potable and industrial water. Steel pipes also reduced leakage by minimising joints and were low maintenance. It could also be used in tankers, water treatment plants, and save on transmission and distribution losses, the letter underlines. 
• ABOUT Jal Jeevan Mission :
• Mission Objective: To ensure HarGharJal (piped water supply) to all rural households by 2024 under the Jal Jeevan Mission.
• Executing agency: Department of Drinking Water and Sanitation under the Jal Shakti Mantralaya.
• Strategy:
• This Mission will focus on integrated demand and supply side management of water at the local level, including creation of local infrastructure for source sustainability like rainwater harvesting, groundwater recharge and management of household wastewater for reuse in agriculture.
• The  Mission will converge with other Central and State Government Schemes to achieve its objectives of sustainable water supply management across the country.
• Coverage: Government has identified 1592 Blocks which are critical and over exploited, spread across 256 Districts for the Jal Shakti Abhiyan.
• Funding: Besides using funds available under various Schemes, the Government will also explore possibility of using additional funds available under the Compensatory Afforestation Fund Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA) for this purpose.                                    
  
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5.Normal rainfall measure may be lowered  (GS-1)       

• (BACKGROUND):IMD proposes to revise LPA quantum by 2%.
• IMD :The Indian Meteorological Department is an agency of the Ministry of Earth Sciences of the Government of India. It is the principal agency responsible for meteorological observations, weather forecasting and seismology. 
• Headquarters: New Delhi
• Founder: Government of India
• Founded: 1875
• Agency executive: K.J. Ramesh, Director General of Meteorology
• Jurisdiction: India
• Parent organization: Ministry of Earth Sciences
• LPA:IMD brands the monsoon as ‘normal’ or ‘deficient’ based on how it fares against its benchmark Long Period Average (LPA).
• LPA is the average rainfall received by the country as a whole during the south-west monsoon, for a 50-year period. The current LPA is 89 cm, based on the average rainfall over years 1951 and 2000. This acts as a benchmark against which the rainfall in any monsoon season is measured. The country is said to have received deficient rainfall if the actual rainfall falls below 90 per cent of LPA. Similarly, the country is said to have received excess rainfall if the rainfall is greater than 110 per cent of LPA. It is deemed ‘normal’ when the actual rainfall received falls between 96 and 104 per cent of LPA.
• In 2018, the IMD expects the rainfall to be at 97 per cent of LPA. The IMD also budgets for a ‘model error’ of plus or minus 5 per cent from its forecasts.
• IMD’s rainfall data is based on actual rainfall recorded in 2,412 locations, across its 3,500 rain-gauge stations. Based on daily rainfall data received in these stations, monsoon statistics are prepared for the administrative zones such as districts, States and for the whole country. The statistics is compiled for the 36 meteorological subdivisions and for the four broad regions — South peninsula, North West India, Central India and North and North-East India — before being aggregated for the whole country.
• Why is it important?
• The LPA uses a 50-year average because annual rainfall can be highly variable, thanks to the whimsical rain gods. A 50-year average is expected to smooth out the day-to-day, month-to-month variations, while also accounting for freak weather events like the El Nino and La Nina.
• Once in every three or four years, Indian monsoons have witnessed aberrations such as severe drought, flooding and storms owing to El Nino — the abnormal warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean. You can also know if IMD has got its prediction right with the help of LPA. For instance, IMD forecast normal rainfall for the year 2013 but the actual rainfall received was 106 per cent of LPA, which is above normal rainfall.
• But it is important to understand that a ‘normal’ monsoon doesn’t automatically guarantee farm prosperity or rural spending. The actual distribution of those 89 cm of rainfall over India’s key growing regions and over the critical sowing months (called spatial and temporal distribution), plays a key role too.

6.Dam Safety Bill gets nod from CCEA  (GS-2)

BACKGROUND:The Centre is set to introduce
the Dam Safety Bill,
2019 in Parliament after itwas cleared by the Union Cabinet
Committee on Economic Affairs(CCEA) 
Dam Safety Bill: The Bill lays the onus of the
dam safety on the dam owner
and provides for penal provisions for wilful “commission
and omission of certain acts.” The The Bill also
provides for establishment of a National Dam Safety
Authority as a regulatory body
to implement the policy.

• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs(CCEA) :Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA):
• Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is one of the standing committees of cabinet constituted by government of india.
• Functions:
• The major function of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) is to review economic trends on a continuous basis, as also the problems and prospects, with a view to evolving a consistent and integrated economic policy framework for the country.
• Matters regarding fixation of prices of agricultural products as well as reviewing progress of activities related to rural development including those concerning small and marginal farmers are in CCEA’s competence.
• Price controls of industrial raw materials and products, industrial licensing policies including industrial licensing cases for establishment of Joint Sector Undertakings, reviewing performance of Public Sector Undertakings including their structural and financial restructuring are also within the purview of CCEA, as are all matters relating to disinvestment including cases of strategic sale, and pricing of Government shares in Public Sector Undertakings (except to the extent entrusted to an Empowered Group of Ministers).
• CCEA facilitates finalization of factual reports on the accomplishments of the Ministries, Agencies and Public Sector Undertakings involved in implementation of prioritized schemes or projects for evaluation by the Prime Minister. The CCEA also considers cases of increase in the firmed up cost estimates/revised cost estimates for projects etc. in respect of the business allocated to the CCEA.

7.At the UNSC, a three­point agenda     (GS-3)

• IMPORTANT POINTS AND ASPECTS OF THE ARTICLE:
• INDIA AS non­permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) in 2021-­22
•  Henry Kissinger: World Order
• International social and economic cooperation.
•  UN:193 sovereign member nations
• permanent members (P­5)
• report by PricewaterhouseCoopers:

“World in 2050”, predicts

that by 2050, China will be the

world’s number one economic

power, followed by India.

• UNSC’s Military Staff Committee
• UN and the UNSC, India must lift its game in South Asia and its larger neighbourhood.

8.Sword against pen                            ( GS-4)

BACKGROUND:India needs a free and independent  media for its own well­ being
2019 World Press Freedom Index compiled by Reporters Without Borders(RSF)
India’s rank fell by two places to140 from 
138, in 2016 it was 133 and in 2017 it was 136.
In 2014 India’s ranking was 140.

9.Turkey’s tilt towards Russia         (GS-3)

• IMPORTANT POINTS:
•  S­400
• NATO.
• F­35
• CIA 
• ISIS
• KURDISH REBELS
• Syrian Kurdistan.

10.The price of a good cuppa                 (GS-3)

• BACKGROEUND:THE ARTICLE LAYS EMPHASIS ON THE PLIGHT OT TEA FARMERS,SOME POINTS TO REMEMBER FROM THIS ARTICLE:

There are 276 organised tea estates

spread over the three tea­growing regions of

West Bengal: Darjeeling Hills, Terai and

Dooars.

• The Plantations Labour Act (PLA), 1951

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11.RBI reserves: panel for transfer in tranches (GS-3)

• ABOUT:Jalan committee report expected within the next fortnight; consensus on decision unlikely .
• Jalan committee report :
• A committee set up to recommend the appropriate economic capital framework for the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended the transfer of excess capital from the central bank to the government over 3 to 5 years, according to a senior official. It has also recommended the framework should be reviewed periodically. The report of the committee, headed by former RBI Governor Bimal Jalan, was finalised on Wednesday after a meeting in New Delhi and will be submitted to the central bank “very soon”. The report is also expected to reflect the differences among the panel members over the treatment of RBI’s excess reserves.

12.Cabinet okays amendments

to bankruptcy code                    (GS-2,3)

ABOUT:The Union Cabinet on Wednesday
approved amendments
to the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, placing a
greater emphasis on more time­bound resolution and
laying down voting rules of the financial
Creditors. Insolvency and
Bankruptcy Code 2016
through the Insolvency and
Bankruptcy Code (Amendment)
Bill, 2019.

• Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code 2016:
• The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 is the bankruptcy law of India which seeks to consolidate the existing framework by creating a single law for insolvency and bankruptcy. The Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2015 was introduced in Lok Sabha in December 2015.

13.Ingenious technique to

eradicate mosquitoes ..                (GS-3)

A breakthrough technique harnessing two methods to
target disease­carrying mosquitoes was able to effectively
eradicate buzzing biters in two test sites in China, according
to research published on Thursday.

• The mosquitoes targeted
• are a type that is particularly difficult
• to control called Aedes albopictus, which area major vector for diseases including Zika and dengue.

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