IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR 22 JULY 2019

IMPORTANT TOPICS FOR TODAY 

                        http://dailycurrentaffairs-sumit.blogspot.com
                                TELEGRAM: t.me/indiancivilservices

BY SUMIT BHARDWAJ                       22 JULY 2019

1.Government to roll out big push for infrastructure                       (GS-2,3)

• CONTEXT:An Annual Global Investors Summit is to be organised later this year, with the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) anchoring the event, to invite investment in the infrastructure segment, where spending for the next five years is projected at RS 100 crore.
• National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF):
• National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) is India’s first sovereign wealth fund that was set up by the Government of India in February 2015. The objective behind creating this fund was to maximize economic impact mainly through infrastructure investment in commercially viable projects, both Greenfield and Brownfield.
• In Union Budget 2015-16, India’s Finance Minister, Arun Jaitley announced the creation of National Investment and Infrastructure Fund. It was proposed to be established as an Alternative Investment Fund to provide long tenor capital for infrastructure projects with an inflow of  Rs . 20,000 crore from the Government of India. NIIF was approved in August 2015 by the Department of Economic Affairs. First meeting of its governing council was held in December 2015 further to which it was registered with SEBI as Category II Alternative Investment Fund. In June 2016, Finance Ministry announced that they appointed Mr. Sujoy Bose as Chief Executive Office of National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF) who was then the director at Infrastructure and Natural Resources, International Finance Corporation (IFC)
• MORE IMPORTANT POINTS FROM THE NEWS ARTICLE:
• Prime Minister Kisan Samman Nidhi (farmers income support scheme) 
• National Defence Fund.
• Jal Shakti Ministry.
• Jal Shakti Abhiyan .
• Ujjwala YOJANA (supply of cooking gas to BPL households).

2.Final index score of NITI Aayog report on States adversely impacted..       (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:An analysis of the NITI Aayog’s ‘Healthy States, Progressive India’ report released on June 25 shows that the usage of estimated figures in place of reported numbers, to calculate certain health indicators, has adversely impacted the final index score of certain States while boosting that of others.
• ABOUT NITI AYOG:
• The NITI Aayog (Hindi for Policy Commission) (abbreviation for National Institution for Transforming India) is a policy think tank of the Government of India, established with the aim to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and to enhance cooperative federalism by fostering the involvement of State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach. Its initiatives include "15 year road map", "7-year vision, strategy and action plan", AMRUT, Digital India, Atal Innovation Mission, Medical Education Reform, agriculture reforms (Model Land Leasing Law, Reforms of the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee Act, Agricultural Marketing and Farmer Friendly Reforms Index for ranking states), Indices Measuring States’ Performance in Health, Education and Water Management, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Rationalization of Centrally Sponsored Schemes, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, Sub-Group of Chief Ministers on Skill Development, Task Forces on Agriculture and op of Poverty, and Transforming India Lecture Series.[1]
• It was established in 2015, by the NDA government, to replace the Planning Commission (योजना आयोग) which followed a top-down model. The Prime Minister is the Ex-officio chairman. The permanent members of the governing council are all the state Chief Ministers, along with the Chief Ministers of Delhi and Puducherry, the Lieutenant Governor of Andaman and Nicobar, and a vice chairman nominated by the Prime Minister. In addition, temporary members are selected from leading universities and research institutions. These members include a chief executive officer, four ex-official members and two part-time members.



                                                         SOURCE:THE HINDU

3.Revamp of Army Headquarters to get under way by end of July                                  (GS-2,3)

• CONTEXT:The Army’s attempt at major restructuring will begin with the draft government sanction letter (GSL) for reorganisation of the Army Headquarters (AHQ) expected by month-end, Army sources said.The AHQ restructuring is the first of the four studies being undertaken as part of the transformation of the force.
• ABOUT ARTRAC:
• The Army Training Command, abbreviated as ARTRAC, is one of the seven commands of the Indian Army. It is based at Shimla. Lieutenant General Pattacheruvanda C Thimayya is the present commander. 
• History
• The Army Training Command was established on 1 October 1991 at Mhow in Madhya Pradesh and moved to Shimla on 31 March 1993.The main aim of the command is to maximize effectiveness of the training.
• Roles
• Formulate concepts and doctrines of warfare in the fields of strategy,operational art, tactics, logistics, training and human resource development stimulating a real time scenario.
• Acts as the nodal agency for all institutional training in the Army
• Evolve joint doctrines in conjunction with other Services
• The entire training function will move under the Army Training Command (ARTRAC), which will be shifted from Shimla to Meerut. Furthermore, the Director-General, Rashtriya Rifles (RR), now based in Delhi, will be moved to Udhampur, under an Additional Director-General (ADG), where the Northern Command is located

4.Moon mission to try landing on Sept. 7      

(GS-3)

• CONTEXT:After the planned launch date for the Chandrayaan 2 mission was postponed by a week due to a technical fault in a fuel connecting joint in the GSLV-MKIII rocket, it was also announced that there won't be any change in the planned landing date of the mission on the Moon.
• ABOUT Chandrayaan 2 :
• Chandrayaan-2, the country’s first moon lander and rover mission, is a month away. The Indian Space Research Organisation has marked mid-July for the take-off.
• Chandrayaan-2 to have 3 components — Orbiter, Lander and Rover:
• Chandrayaan 2 is India’s second lunar mission with three modules: the Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan).
• The Orbiter and Lander will be mechanically interfaced and stacked together as an integrated module inside the launch vehicle, GSLV MK-III.
• The Orbiter and Lander modules would be interfaced mechanically and stacked together as an integrated module and accommodated inside the GSLV MK-III launch vehicle. Rover is housed inside Lander.
• After the launch into an earth-bound orbit by GSLV MK-III, the integrated module would reach the moon orbit using the orbiter propulsion module.
• Chandrayaan spacecraft, with a mass of 3.8 tonne, will have three modules comprising of the Orbiter, Lander (Vikram) and Rover (Pragyan). 
• Lander (Vikram):
• This is the first time that ISRO is attempting to soft-land a module in extra-terrestrial Space.
• Once the Lander and Rover, enter the Moon’s gravity, they would be in a state of free fall. That could end up in crash-landing and destruction of instrument.
• Because of lack of air to provide drag, these instruments cannot make use of parachute like technologies.
• To enable a smooth landing, the speed of the Lander just ahead of touchdown should be 3.6 kilometres per hour or less. 
• Rover (Pragyan):
• The Rover, a six-wheeled solar-powered vehicle, will detach itself and slowly crawl on the surface, making observations and collecting data.
• It will be equipped with two instruments, the primary objective is to study the composition of the surface near the lunar landing site, and determine its abundance of various elements.
• It is designed in such a way that it will have power to spend a lunar day or 14 Earth days on Moon’s surface.
• The mission cost of Chandrayaan-2 with regard to the satellite was Rs 603 crore. Cost of GSLV MK III is Rs 375 crore.
• According to the ISRO, Orbiter, with scientific payloads, would orbit around the moon. Lander would soft land on the moon at a predetermined site and deploy Rover.
• The scientific payloads on board Orbiter, Lander and Rover are expected to perform mineralogical and elemental studies of the lunar surface. 
• India: Fourth Country to Land a Spacecraft on Moon:
• India will become the fourth country to land a spacecraft on the Moon. So far, all the landings have been in the areas close to the Moon’s equator.
• This is mainly because, this area receives more sunlight, which is required by solar powered instruments.
• But Chandrayaan-2 will make a landing at a site where no earlier mission has gone, i.e., near the South Pole of the Moon. It can contain clues to the fossil records of early Solar System.
• The unexplored territory gives an opportunity for the Mission to discover something new.  The South Pole of the Moon holds possibility of presence of water. In addition, this area is also supposed to have ancient rocks and craters that can offer indications of history of the Moon.
• ISRO recently listed at least six complexities of soft landing a mission on the Moon – something that pioneers Russia and the U.S. could not achieve easily back in the mid-1960s. Soft landing, it says, is the most challenging part of the mission.

5.Sucking up surplus                                (GS-3)

• CONTEXT:ACCORDING TO THE WRITER SEBI needs financial autonomy to remain Effective as the chief markets regulator.
• Centre’s decision to suck out SEBI’s surplus funds will affect its autonomy
• The Securities and Exchange Board of India Act, 1992' is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted for regulation and development of securities market in India. It was amended in the years 1995, 1999 and 2002 to meet the requirements of changing needs of the securities market.
• WILL affect the health of India’s financial markets in the long run .
• The Reserve Bank of India and the National Sample Survey Office have come under pressure in recent months, and the latest move on SEBI adds to this worrisome trend of independent agencies being subordinated by the government

6.The tremor of unwelcome amendments    

  (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:ACCORDING TO THE WRITERS The Right to Information (Amendment) Bill is a twin attack on accountability and the idea of federalism.
• The proposed amendments tabled in Parliament on July 19, 2019 have been in the offing for some time now. In the form of the Right to Information (Amendment) Bill, 2019, they seek to amend Sections 13, 16, and 27 of the RTI Act which carefully links, and thereby equates, the status of the Central Information Commissioners (CICs) with the Election Commissioners and the State Information Commissioners with the Chief Secretary in the States, so that they can function in an independent and effective manner. The deliberate dismantling of this architecture empowers the Central government to unilaterally decide the tenure, salary, allowances and other terms of service of Information Commissioners, both at the Centre and the States. Introducing the Bill in the Lok Sabha, the Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, Jitendra Singh, asserted that this was a benevolent and minor mechanism of rule-making rather than a basic amendment to the RTI law.
• Sword of Damocles :If you say that someone has the Sword of Damocles hanging over their head, you mean that they are in a situation in which something very bad could happen to them at any time. It is an idiom originally used to define the hidden insecurity of an autocrat.

7.An ally, a partner and American unilateralism                                                          (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:ACCORDING TO THE WRITER There are major differences but also similarities in the U.S.’ response to Russia’s S-400 deals with Turkey and India
• IMPORTANT ASPECTS IN THE EDITORIAL:
• Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA)
• Russian S-400 air defence systems
• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
• Incirlik airbase
• Syrian civil war
• F-35
•  Sukhoi fighter jets (the Su-35 and/or the Su-57)

8.The Aanayoottu (feeding of elephants)         (GS-1)

 is a festival held in the precincts of the Vadakkunnathan temple in City of Thrissur, in Kerala. The festival falls on the first day of the month of Karkkidakam (timed against the Malayalam calendar), which coincides with the month of July. It involves a number of unadorned elephants being positioned amid a multitude of people for being worshipped and fed. A large number of people throng the temple to feed the elephants.
Every year of Aanayoottu, gaja pooja, is conducted. It is believed that offering poojas and delicious feed to the elephants is a way to satisfy Lord Ganesha—the god of wealth and of the fulfillment of wishes. The Vadakkunnathan temple, which is considered to be one of the oldest Shiva temples in southern India, has hosted the Aanayottoo event for the past few years.

9.Centre’s Jammu and Kashmir playbook goes down to the grassroots                (GS-2)

• CONTEXT:This Parliament session saw the extension of President’s Rule in Jammu and Kashmir by another six months. At the same time, Union Home Minister Amit Shah spoke of devolution of powers and grassroots democracy in the State for which panchayat and urban local body elections were held last year…….



                                                        SOURCE :THE HINDU

10.Protesters deface Beijing’s office    in Hong Kong                                         ( GS-2)

• CONTEXT:HONG KONG PROTEST
• The 2019 Hong Kong anti-extradition bill protests are a series of ongoing demonstrations in Hong Kong and other cities around the world against the Fugitive Offenders and Mutual Legal Assistance in Criminal Matters Legislation (Amendment) Bill proposed by the Hong Kong government.
• The protests arose over concerns that such legislation would blur the demarcation between the legal systems (also known as "one country, two systems") in Hong Kong and mainland China, subjecting Hong Kong residents and those passing through the city to de facto jurisdiction of courts controlled by the Communist Party of China.The bill was first proposed by Secretary for Security John Lee in February 2019. The first protest happened on 31 March with a peak estimate of 12,000 pro-democracy protesters. The movement gained stronger momentum after a second demonstration on 28 April, attracting an estimated 130,000 protesters.

DOWLOAD FREE PDF FOR 22 JULY 2019



FOR IMPORTANT TOPICS EVERY DAY PLEASE VISIT…. https://dailycurrentaffairs-sumit.blogspot.com/
AND DOWNLOAD  THE FREE PDF AS WELL….…..PLEASE  FOLLOW ME AS WELL BY CLICKING THE FOLLOW BUTTON AT THE END OF THE BLOG. PROVIDE FEEDBACK TOO AS CHANGES ARE DONE ON YOUR SUGGESTIONS EVERYDAY.
THANKYOU.