Daily Current Affairs 9 February 2020

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Disha police station

• Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has said the State is preparing to equip itself with all facilities like forensic laboratories, special courts, and public prosecutors to effectively implement the Disha Bill 2019 by June. 
• The Chief Minister was inaugurating the first Disha police station. Later, he launched the Disha mobile application at the Adikavi Nannayya University. 
• As many as 18 Disha police stations would come up by February-­end, said the Chief Minister. Similarly, ₹26 crores were sanctioned for setting up 13 special Disha courts.
• Forensic laboratories were being set up at a cost of ₹31 crores at Tirupati and Visakhapatnam for speedy investigation of the Disha cases
• The Disha law is designed in such a way that it awards the capital punishment for the convict in a rape case if the evidence is established during the 14­ day trial. The State ensures a fair investigation within seven days in the Disha cases

Source: The Hindu

2)  Muktoshri: arsenic-­resistant rice

• Researchers have developed and commercialized a rice variety that is resistant to arsenic. Several studies have shown that arsenic from groundwater and the soil can enter the food chain through paddy
• West Bengal is among the States with the highest concentration of arsenic in groundwater, with 83 blocks across seven districts having higher arsenic levels than permissible limits. 
• The new rice variety, Muktoshri — also called IET 21845— was developed jointly by the Rice Research Station at Chinsurah, coming under West Bengal’s Agriculture Department and the National Botanical Research Institute, Lucknow, over several years. Gazette notification for the commercial use of Muktoshri was issued by West Bengal last year.
• The State government’s decision to make the seeds available for cultivation came after successful trials in both the wet season and the dry season in different blocks of the State. The trials were done in areas with arsenic contamination in groundwater, particularly in Nadia, North 24 Parganas, Bardhaman and Murshidabad.
• This variety absorbs very less amount of arsenic from soil and water than the other varieties of rice. The variety yields 5.5 metric tonnes per hectare in the Boro season and 4.5 to 5 metric tonnes per hectare in the Kharif season, respectively
• The work on developing the variety started in 2006 and by 2013 the scientists were successful
• In Nadia, arsenic contamination is a major health problem. So far about 150 farmers are cultivating the variety and it is going to increase in the next few years,
• The rice was long and thin, and aromatic. Across the State, thousands of farmers have started cultivation, even in areas where arsenic in groundwater is not an issue, because of the aroma and the yield. 
• According to the World Health Organization, longterm exposure to arsenic, mainly through drinking water and food, can lead to poisoning. Skin lesions and skin cancer are the most characteristic effects.

Source: The Hindu

3) Reservation in promotion is not a fundamental right: Supreme Court

• Reservation in promotion in public posts cannot be claimed as a fundamental right, the Supreme Court has reiterated in a judgment.
• A Bench of Justices L. Nageswara Rao and Hemant Gupta observed that State governments are not bound to make a reservation. Even the courts could not issue a mandamus directing the States to provide reservation.
• There is no doubt that the State government is not bound to make a reservation. There is no fundamental right which inheres in an individual to claim reservation in promotions. No mandamus can be issued by the court directing the State government to provide reservation, according to the supreme court verdict
• Citing Constitution Bench precedents that had settled the law, the court said Articles 16 (4) and 16 (4­A) of the Constitution did not confer individuals with a fundamental right to claim reservation in promotion. 
• The Articles empower the State to make a reservation in matters of appointment and promotion in favor of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes only “if in the opinion of the State they are not adequately represented in the services of the State”. 
• “The inadequacy of representation is a matter within the subjective satisfaction of the State,” the judgment said. Thus, the State government has discretion “to consider providing reservations, if the circumstances so warrant”. 
• “It is a settled law that the State government cannot be directed to provide reservations for an appointment in public posts. Similarly, the State is not bound to make a reservation for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes in matters of promotions,” the court explained.

Source: The Hindu

4) Guru Ravidas

The President of India, Shri Ram Nath Kovind has greeted fellow-citizens on the eve of the birthday of Guru Ravidas

About Guru Ravidas

• Ravidas was an Indian mystic poet-saint of the Bhakti movement during the 15th to 16th century CE. Venerated as a guru (teacher) in the region of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, and Madhya Pradesh, the devotional songs of Ravidas have had a lasting impact upon the bhakti movement. He was a poet-saint, social reformer, and a spiritual figure.
• The life details of Ravidas are uncertain and contested. Scholars believe he was born in 1371 CE, in a family that worked with dead animals' skins to produce leather products. If tradition and medieval era texts are to be believed then Ravidas was one of the disciples of the bhakti saint-poet Ramananda and a contemporary of the bhakti saint-poet Kabir.
• Ravidas' devotional songs were included in the Sikh scriptures, Guru Granth Sahib. The Panch Vani text of the Dadupanthi tradition within Hinduism also includes numerous poems of Ravidas. Ravidas taught the removal of social divisions of caste and gender and promoted unity in the pursuit of personal spiritual freedoms.

Life

• Medieval era texts, such as the Bhaktamal suggest that Ravidas was not the disciple of the Brahmin bhakti -poet Ramananda. He is traditionally considered as Kabir's younger contemporary.
• His ideas and fame grew over his lifetime, and texts suggest Brahmins (members of priestly upper caste) used to bow before him. He traveled extensively, visiting Hindu pilgrimage sites in Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Rajasthan and those in the Himalayas. He abandoned saguna (with attributes, image) forms of supreme beings, and focussed on the nirguna (without attributes, abstract) form of supreme beings. As his poetic hymns in regional languages inspired others, people from various backgrounds sought his teachings and guidance.
• Most scholars believe that Ravidas met Guru Nanak Dev Ji, the founder of Sikhism. He is revered in the Sikh scripture, and 41 of Ravidas' poems are included in the Adi Granth. These poems are one of the oldest attested sources of his ideas and literary works. Another substantial source of legends and stories about the life of Ravidas is the hagiography in the Sikh tradition, named Premambodha. This text, composed over 150 years after Ravidas' death, in 1693, includes him as one of the seventeen saints of Indian religious tradition. The 17th-century Nabhadas's Bhaktamal, and the Parcais of Anantadas, both contain chapters on Ravidas. Other than these, the scriptures and texts of Sikh tradition and the Hindu Dadupanthi traditions, most other written sources about the life of Ravidas, including by the Ravidasi (followers of Ravidas), were composed in the early 20th century, or about 400 years after his death.
• This text, called the Parcaīs (or Parchais), included Ravidas among the saints whose biography and poems were included. Over time new manuscripts of Parcais of Anantadas were reproduced, some in different local languages of India. Winnand Callewaert notes that some 30 manuscripts of Anantadas's hagiography on Ravidas have been found in different parts of India. Of these four manuscripts are complete, collated and have been dated to 1662, 1665, 1676 and 1687. The first three are close with some morphological variants without affecting the meaning, but the 1687 version systematically inserts verses into the text, at various locations, with caste-related statements, new claims of Brahmins persecuting Ravidas, notes on the untouchability of Ravidas, claims of Kabir giving Ravidas ideas, ridicule of nirguni and saguni ideas.

Source: PIB, Wikipedia

5) Deinotherium indicum: the elephant’s long­lost relatives in Kutch

It was a pleasant January winter morning last year and Ningthoujam Premjit Singh along with his team was out on their excavation work at Kutch. When he stumbled upon a premolar tooth of about 6 cm width and 7 cm length, little did he know that what he held belonged to an extinct ancient elephant called  Deinotherium indicum

First occurrence

Interestingly, this turned out to be the region’s first occurrence of the mammal which weighed between eight and 10 tons in weight. Dr. Singh adds that this new find also expands the distribution range of this species, hitherto only known from two or three localities (Tapar of Gujarat, Haritalyangar in Himachal Pradesh, and Piram Island off the coast of Gujarat). It also increases our understanding of the variations in the dental morphology of the South Asian Deinotheres species.

Biostratigraphy

Using a technique called biostratigraphy, it was noted that D. indicum lived roughly between 11 and 7 seven million years ago in India. In biostratigraphy, the presence of certain species from a known period can be used to estimate the age of a deposit containing the same species in a different locality. “Remains of D. indicum have been found in well­dated Siwalik deposits from Haritalyangar of Himachal Pradesh. Based on the similarity in species, Scientist inferred a similar date for the Kutch’s D. indicum,” 

How morphologically different this species is from today's elephants?

Advait M. Jukar from the Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution explains that though they had similar large bodies with columnlike limbs, their heads were very different. “They had flatter skulls, and a set of downwards pointing, curved tusks only on the lower jaw. Analyses of their skulls have shown that they probably also had a short, slightly bulbous trunk. If you looked inside their mouths, all of their teeth would have erupted and were used in chewing at the same time. Modern elephants have only one tooth in use on each side of their jaw,

Distant relative

• This species was a fairly distant relative of today’s elephants, both evolutionarily and in time. The deinotheriidae, the family that includes D. indicum, was first found in the fossil record approximately 28 million years old in Africa, but the family that includes modern elephants doesn’t appear until about eight million years ago.
• The team plans to continue their studies in the Tapar beds of Kutch as it may be hiding many more fossils

Source: The Hindu

6) Affordable access to Technology at the doorsteps of the farmers

• To make available costly and bigger advance farm machinery at the doorsteps of the farmers on rent basis, Custom Hiring Centres (CHC) are promoted through a dedicated scheme Sub Mission on Agricultural Mechanization (SMAM); under which subsidy is provided @ of 40% of the project cost to individual farmer up to a project cost of Rs.60 lakh and 80% to the group of farmers up to a project cost of Rs. 10 lakh.  Special consideration for the farmers of North Eastern Region (NER) is available, a 95% subsidy up to a project cost of Rs. 10 lakh is provided to a group of NER farmers for the establishment of Custom Hiring Centres. For the establishment of Hi-tech and Hi-value agricultural machinery CHC,  assistance @ of 40% of the project cost to the individual farmers up to a project cost of Rs.250 lakh is provided.
• To address air pollution due to crop burning, a new Central Sector Scheme on ‘Promotion of Agricultural Mechanization for In-Situ Management of Crop Residue in the States of Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and NCT of Delhi’ (CRM) for the period from 2018-19 to 2019-20 has been launched. Under the scheme to establish Custom Hiring of in-situ crop residue management machinery a financial assistance @ 80% of the project cost is provided to the farmers.
• The Government has developed and launched Multilingual Mobile App “CHC- Farm Machinery” which helps the farmers for getting rented farm machinery and implements through Custom Hiring Service Centers (CHC) in their area. As on date, 44,607 CHCs with 1,39,319 Agricultural machinery for renting out is registered on this Mobile app. Total 1,14,461 farmers as users are registered on this Mobile App.

Source: PIB

7) “Science and Applied Research Alliance and Support”(SARAS)

• Coal India’s flagship subsidiary NCL has set up a center named “Science and Applied Research Alliance and Support”(SARAS) to promote Innovation, Research & Development, and skill development along with improving the company’s operational efficiency and utilize resources at an optimum level. NCL CMD Shri Prabhat Kumar Sinha announced this pioneering move in Indian coal sector at a National Seminar on Innovation Driving Productivity with Special Focus on Coal, Power, Steel and MSME Sectors organized by World Confederation of Productivity Science in New Delhi
• “SARAS will help and enable the company in the Integration of Innovation and Research for enhancing coal production, productivity, and safety in mines. The company has set up a dedicated R&D Centre in collaboration with IIT (BHU) and has already commenced 6 varied domain projects worth ₹ 60 Million to facilitate this move.” Shri Sinha Said in the seminar.
• Besides, the SARAS would also help establish centers of excellence to ensure technical support to R&D along with thrust on quality skill development and employment to local youths in and around the company’s operational area. Continuous improvement of the existing technical infrastructure of the company for operational efficiency and integrating all initiatives with common tech platforms for optimum utilization of resources are also the objectives of setting up this center.
• CMD NCL Shri Sinha was also elected as a fellow of the World Academy of Productivity Science in the seminar for his significant and longitudinal contributions to the improvement of productivity, quality of work and other countless contributions to the coal sector.
• NCL accounts for 15 percent of India’s coal production and 10 percent of thermal power generation of the country is met by the coal produced by this Miniratna Company of Govt. of India. The company produces more than 100 million tonnes of coal every year. It has planned to produce 107 million tonnes of coal in the current fiscal.

Source: PIB

8) DRDO handed over 15 licenses for ToT (LATOT) to 17 industries

• In DEFEXPO 2020, during the MoU signing ceremony titled ‘Bandhan’, DRDO handed over 15 licenses for ToT (LATOT) to 17 industries on DRDO developed technologies. This would enhance cooperation and synergy between industry and Government organizations. The technologies transferred are from the area of electronics, laser technology, armaments, life sciences, materials science, combat vehicles, naval systems, aeronautics, sensors, etc. These products are Mine Field Marking Equipment MK-II (MFME MK-II), e-Nasika, DMS HIDEN Fuel-I, Bi-Modular Charge System (BMCS), 500kg General Purpose Bomb, 250kg Pre Fragmented Bomb, Electronic Fuze for 81mm Mortar Bomb, Post Impact Delay Fuze for Air Delivery Bomb, Vehicle Mounted ECM System, IR Flare for CMDS, Process Monitoring of Vacuum Assisted Resin Transfer Moulding (VARTM), Man mounted cooling system, Optical Target Locator 600 (OTL 600), High Power Li-ion Battery Technology (HPLBT) and Combat Free Fall (CFF)  Parachute System. These high technology products will boost the defense manufacturing sector with self-reliance and enhance the operational capabilities of the Armed Forces.
• In a big push to the Uttar Pradesh defense corridor, Uttar Pradesh Expressways Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for knowledge partnership with Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO). The partnership with DRDO is expected to provide impetus to further boost the development of the defense production corridor in Uttar Pradesh.

Source: PIB