Daily Current Affairs 28 May 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Recognition of Forest Rights Act, 2006

• Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari has modified the Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, allowing rightful claimants of forest rights to appeal against decisions of the district level committee (DLC)
• A notification issued on May 18, 2020, said the Governor has modified Section 6 of the Act, in its application to Scheduled Area of the State of Maharashtra, in the exercise of the powers conferred on him by Schedule V of the Constitution
• The Governor’s office said the notification is important to provide justice to tribals whose ‘individual or community forest right’ has been rejected by the DLC, constituted under the Forest Rights Act (FRA).
• The notification applies to areas covered in the Panchayats (Extension to Scheduled Areas) Act in the State and allows appeal provision against the DLC’s decision.
• The notification states that divisional level committees under the chairmanship of divisional commissioners have been constituted to hear the appeals against the DLC’s decisions. In the case of an order passed by the DLC before the commencement of the notification, the appeal needs to be made within six months. However, if an order has been passed after the commencement of the notification, the application has to be made within 90 days

Forest Rights Act

• The Scheduled Tribes and Other Traditional Forest Dwellers (Recognition of Forest Rights) Act, 2006, is a key piece of forest legislation passed in India on 18 December 2006. It has also been called the Forest Rights Act, the Tribal Rights Act, the Tribal Bill, and the Tribal Land Act. The law concerns the rights of forest-dwelling communities to land and other resources, denied to them over decades as a result of the continuance of colonial forest laws in India.
• Supporters of the Act claim that it will redress the "historical injustice" committed against forest dwellers while including provisions for making conservation more effective and more transparent. The demand for the law has seen massive national demonstrations involving hundreds of thousands of people.
• However, the law has also been the subject of considerable controversy in the English press in India. Opponents of the law claim it will lead to massive forest destruction and should be repealed (see below).
• A little over one year after it was passed, the Act was notified into force on 31 December 2007. On 1 January 2008, this was followed by the notification of the Rules framed by the Ministry of Tribal Affairs to supplement the procedural aspects of the Act.

Source: The Hindu

2) Charru mussel

• An invasive mussel native to the South and Central American coasts is spreading quickly in the backwaters of Kerala, elbowing out other mussel and clam species and threatening the livelihoods of fishermen engaged in molluscan fisheries
• The rapid spread of the Charru mussel (Mytella strigata) may have been triggered by Cyclone Ockhi which struck the region in 2017, according to a paper published in the  Journal of Aquatic Biology and Fisheries. 
• Surveys show the presence of the Charru mussel in the Kadinamkulam, Paravur, Edava­Nadayara, Ashtamudi, Kayamkulam, Vembanad, Chettuva and Ponnani estuaries/backwaters. Ashtamudi Lake, a Ramsar site in Kollam district, remains the worst­hit. With a population as high as 11,384 per sq meter here, it has replaced the Asian green mussel (Perna Viridis) and the edible oyster Magallana bilineata (known locally as muringa).
• Externally, the Charru mussel resembles the green and brown mussels (kallummekkaya in Malayalam) but is much smaller in size. Its color varies from black to brown, purple or dark green. 
• In all probability, the mussel reached the Indian shores attached to ship hulls or as larval forms in ballast water discharges. 
• Cyclone Ockhi may have simply speeded up their invasion of inland waters. 
• Though this smaller mussel is edible, the overall economic loss and impact on biodiversity is much bigger
• In this scenario, there is an urgent need to identify the presence of the Charru mussel in other parts of India by locating the pathways of introduction

Source: The Hindu

3) Researchers find a new possibility to improve rice productivity

• Rice is one of the main staple foods across the world since it has very high carbohydrate content and provides instant energy. In Southeast Asia, where it is consumed more than in the other part of the world, it accounts for more than 75% of the calorie intake. India has the largest area under rice crop cultivation: almost all States grow rice. However, it suffers from a problem of low productivity.
• To meet the demand of the growing population of India and the world, production of rice needs to increase significantly, say by about 50% of current production. Traits like the number of grains per plant and weight of the grain mainly determine the yield in rice. Thus, one of the main aims of the researchers and breeders has been to develop superior rice varieties with heavier grains, which can give higher yield and better nutrition.
• In a new study, researchers from the Department of Biotechnology’s National Institute of Plant Genome Research (DBT-NIPGR), ICAR-Indian Agricultural Research Institute (ICAR-IARI), ICAR-National Rice Research Institute (ICAR-NRRI), Cuttack and University of Delhi South Campus (UDSC), have identified a region in the genome of a rice, which seems to have the potential for improving productivity.
• The scientists conducted their study by sequencing the genomes of four Indian genotypes (LGR, PB 1121, Sonasal & Bindli) that show contrasting phenotype in seed size/weight. After analyzing their genomic variations, they found that the Indian rice germplasms had much more genomic diversity than estimated so far.
• They then studied the DNA from 3,000 rice accessions from across the world along with the four Indian genotypes sequenced in the study. They identified one long (~6 Mb) genomic region, which had an unusually suppressed nucleotide diversity region across the centromere of chromosome 5. They named it a `low diversity region’ or LDR in short.
• An in-depth multidimensional analysis of this region revealed that it had played an important role during the domestication of rice varieties as it was present in most of the cultivated rice genotypes and absent in wild varieties. Most of the modern cultivated rice varieties belong to japonica and indica genotypes. They had this region prominently. In contrast, it was less prominent in the aus group rice varieties, which are closer to the wild type. Further studies revealed that the LDR region contained one QTL (Quantitative Trait Locus) region that was significantly associated with grain size/weight trait.
• The new study assumes importance as in addition to genome-wide exploration, it has highlighted an important and a long domestication-related genomic region, which was found to be evolutionarily crafted to carry multiple agronomic traits associations.

Source: PIB

4) South Atlantic Anomaly

Recently, the Swarm constellation of satellites of the European Space Agency (ESA) has updated the development of the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA).

• The South Atlantic Anomaly signifies the weakening of the Earth’s magnetic field between Africa and South America.
• However, it has been observed that the present dip in the intensity of the Earth’s magnetic field is within the normal fluctuation levels.

Swarm Constellation Mission

• Swarm is the European Space Agency's first constellation of satellites for Earth observation.
• It consists of three satellites designed to identify and precisely measure the different magnetic signals that makeup Earth’s magnetic field.
• The mission is operated by ESA's European Space Operations Centre (ESOC), in Germany, via the primary ground station in Kiruna, Sweden.

Earth’s Magnetic Field

• Description:
• Earth’s magnetic field, or the geomagnetic field, is the magnetic field that extends from the Earth’s interior out into space exerting a force on the charged particles emanating from the Space including Sun.
• The earth’s south magnetic pole is actually near the North Pole and the magnetic north pole is near the South Pole. This is why a compass magnet’s north pole actually points north (Since opposite poles attract each other).
• Reasons for Presence:
• The magnetic field of the Earth is due to the metallic and liquid outer core of the planet.
• The outer core of the planet is like a giant dynamo. The rotation of the Earth creates movements inside the liquid outer core which gives rise to the geomagnetic field.
• Significance:
• It creates electric currents that generate and change our electromagnetic field.
• The Northern Lights in the Polar Regions are caused by the magnetic field of Earth – the energy particles emitted by the Sun are channeled by the Earth’s magnetic field towards the poles, where they interact with the atmosphere to create the aurora borealis.
• The Earth's magnetic field also plays an important role in protecting the planet from solar winds and cosmic radiation that are harmful.

Key Points

• Intensification of SAA (Weakening of Magnetic Field):
• Scientists have discovered that Earth’s magnetic field has lost around 9% of its strength over the last 200 years.
• Further, the strength of the field has dropped from around 24,000 nanoteslas to about 22,000 nanoteslas between 1970 and 2020.
• It has also observed an intensified weakening of magnetic fields in the southwest of Africa. The eastern minimum of the South Atlantic Anomaly has appeared over the last decade and has been developing vigorously. This scenario indicates that the South Atlantic Anomaly could split into two separate low points.
• Significance of SAA:
• It has been speculated that the current weakening of the field is a sign of the pole reversal of the earth– in which the north and south magnetic poles may switch places.
• Pole reversal is not an uncommon event and it takes place every 250,000 years. Last it had happened 7.8 lakh years ago.
• Additionally, the SAA is expected to help to understand the processes in Earth’s core and future developments in the earth’s interior.
• Implications:
• At surface level, the South Atlantic Anomaly presents no cause for alarm. It means that people won’t feel the change even if the pole shift happens.
• However, satellites and other spacecraft flying through the area are more likely to experience technical malfunctions. The weaker magnetic field in this region may force charged particles to penetrate the altitudes of low-Earth orbit satellites.
• It may also affect the navigation-mapping, telecommunication, and satellite systems which rely on the geomagnetic field. Therefore, computers, mobile phones, and other devices could also face difficulties.

Way Forward

• Earth’s magnetic field is often visualized as a powerful dipolar bar magnet at the center of the planet, tilted at around 11° to the axis of rotation. However, the growth of the South Atlantic Anomaly indicates that the processes involved in generating the field are far more complex.
• The magnetic field observations from the Swarm satellite are also expected to provide new insights into the scarcely understood processes of Earth’s interior.

Source: The Hindu

5) Misuse of Criminal Defamation Law: Madras HC

• Recently, the Madras High Court has held that public servants and constitutional functionaries cannot be allowed to misuse the law of criminal defamation by using the State as a tool to initiate defamation proceedings against adversaries.

Key Points

• Quashed Cases:
• The HC quashed criminal defamation proceedings launched by the Madras state government against a host of media houses and journalists, during Jayalalithaa’s tenure as Chief Minister in 2012 and 2013.
• It was cleared out that the publications in the newspapers were factual news and the quoted statements of the politicians.
• There was no criminal defamation in the case as the newspapers had not made any personal imputation against anyone.
• However, some media houses can be prosecuted by the aggrieved, in their individual capacity, before a Judicial Magistrate under Section 199 (6) of Code of Criminal Procedure but not before a Sessions Court since no defamation against the State had been made out.
• Observations of the Judgement:
• For States:
• They cannot use criminal defamation cases to throttle democracy.
• Public servants and constitutional functionaries must be able to face criticism since they owed a solemn duty to the people.
• States should act as a parent of all its citizens when it comes to the invocation of the law of defamation and laws cannot be misused by using the State as a tool to settle personal adversaries.
• An individual or a public servant/constitutional functionary can be impulsive but not the State which will have to show utmost restraint and maturity in filing criminal defamation cases.
• For Public Prosecutors:
• They should apply their mind independently before filing criminal defamation cases on behalf of the State and launching prosecutions.
• They should not exhibit blind eagerness to grasp a conviction and should conduct a case with utmost fairness.
• For Trial Courts:
• They should rely on materials available on record and issue summons to the accused only if they were satisfied that the ingredients required for taking cognizance of a criminal defamation complaint against the State had been made out.
• For Newspapers and Media Houses:
• The role of a newspaper is only to publish news as it had happened.
• If political personalities or constitutional functionaries disagree with the information provided, they can refute the allegations by a counter-press statement.

Defamation

• In India, defamation can both be a civil wrong and a criminal offense.
• The difference between the two lies in the objects they seek to achieve.
• A civil wrong tends to provide for redressal of wrongs by awarding compensation and a criminal law seeks to punish a wrongdoer and send a message to others not to commit such acts.
• In Indian laws, criminal defamation has been specifically defined as an offense under the section 499 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) whereas the civil defamation is based on tort law (an area of law which does not rely on statutes to define wrongs but takes from the ever-increasing body of case laws to define what would constitute a wrong).
• Section 499 states defamation could be through words, spoken or intended to be read, through signs, and also through visible representations.
• These can either be published or spoken about a person to damage the reputation of that person or with the knowledge or reason to believe that the imputation will harm his reputation.
• Section 499 also cites exceptions. These include “imputation of truth” which is required for the “public good” and thus has to be published, on the public conduct of government officials, the conduct of any person touching any public question and merits of the public performance.
• Section 500 of IPC, which is on punishment for defamation, reads, “Whoever defames another shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to two years, or with fine, or with both.”
• Moreover, in a criminal case, defamation has to be established beyond reasonable doubt but in a civil defamation suit, damages can be awarded based on probabilities.
• The Supreme Court of India, in the Subramanian Swamy vs Union of India, 2014, upheld the constitutional validity of the criminal defamation law.

Source: The Hindu

6) Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna: ANITA

Recently, NASA’s Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) has detected the unusual upward movement of neutrinos in Antarctica.

• Instead of the high-energy neutrinos streaming in from space, they seem to have come from the Earth's interior, before hitting the detectors of ANITA.
• Usually, the high-energy particles move top to bottom (i.e. from space to the earth). However, ANITA has detected an anomaly i.e. particles have been detected traveling bottom to top.
• Earlier, researchers had also located a deep-space source for high-energy neutrinos through the Ice Cube Neutrino Observatory at a U.S. scientific research station at the South Pole in Antarctica.
• The India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO) is located at the Bodi West Hills region in the Theni District of Tamil Nadu.

Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna

• Antarctic Impulsive Transient Antenna (ANITA) is a radio telescope instrument to detect ultra-high energy cosmic-ray neutrinos from a scientific balloon flying over the continent of Antarctica.
• It involves an array of radio antennas attached to a helium balloon that flies over the Antarctic ice sheet at 37,000 meters.
• At such a height, the antennas can listen to the cosmos and detect high-energy particles, known as neutrinos, which constantly bombard the planet.
• It is the first NASA observatory for neutrinos of any kind.
• ANITA detects neutrinos pinging in from space and colliding with the matter in the Antarctic ice sheet through the Askaryan effect.
• The Askaryan effect is the phenomenon whereby a particle traveling faster than the phase velocity of light in a dense dielectric (such as salt, ice, or the lunar regolith) produces a shower of secondary charged particles.
• When neutrinos smash into an atom, they produce a shower of detectable secondary particles. These detectable secondary particles allow us to probe where they came from in the universe.
• However, neutrinos pose no threat to human beings and pass through most solid objects. Additionally, they rarely do interact with matter.
• It is named after Gurgen Askaryan, a Soviet-Armenian physicist who postulated it in 1962.

Neutrinos

• Neutrinos are electrically neutral, undisturbed by even the strongest magnetic field, and rarely interact with matter. The direction from which they arrive points directly back to their original source.
• Neutrinos are produced during natural radioactive decays and all sorts of nuclear reactions in nuclear power reactors, particle accelerators, or nuclear bombs.
• However, the most common sources of neutrinos are celestial phenomena i.e. the birth and death of stars, collisions, and explosions happening in space.

Way Forward

• The ANITA experiment has definitely detected something unusual and unexpected about neutrinos but there are many competing theories about it. Several potential candidate particles could account for the results from ANITA.
• Further, there are so many unknown properties about neutrinos that astrophysicists and scientists are still trying to unravel.
• It contemplates that there is new physics out there to be found which will help to study the origin of the universe and big bang theory in the future.

Source: The Hindu

7) Banks Board Bureau

The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) has selected SN Rajeswari as the Chairman and Managing Director (CMD) of the Delhi-based Oriental Insurance Company (OIC).

• The Ministry of Finance will now start the process of appointing Rajeswari as the CMD of OIC.
• This will be followed by the Finance Ministry's nod and further approval from the Appointments Committee of the Cabinet and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Key Points

• Background: The Banks Board Bureau (BBB) has its genesis in the recommendations of ‘The Committee to Review Governance of Boards of Banks in India, May 2014 (Chairman - P. J. Nayak)’.
• Formation: The government, in 2016, approved the constitution of the BBB as a body of eminent professionals and officials to make recommendations for appointment of whole-time directors as well as non-executive chairpersons of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) and state-owned financial institutions.
• It is an autonomous recommendatory body.
• The Ministry of Finance takes the final decision on the appointments in consultation with the Prime Minister’s Office.
• Functions:
• Apart from recommending personnel for the PSBs, the Bureau has also been assigned with the task of recommending personnel for appointment as directors in government-owned insurance companies.
• It engages with the board of directors of all the public sector banks to formulate appropriate strategies for their growth and development.
• It is tasked with improving corporate governance at public sector banks, building capacities, etc.
• The Banks Board Bureau is a public authority as defined in the Right to Information Act, 2005.

Source: Indian Express

8) Chardham Pariyojana

The Border Roads Organisation (BRO) has completed the construction of a 440 m long tunnel below the Chamba town on the Rishikesh-Dharasu road highway (National Highway - 94).

• The construction of the tunnel is a part of the Chardham Pariyojana.

Key Points

• It is a program taken up by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways for connectivity improvement for Chardham (Kedarnath, Badrinath, Yamunotri, and Gangotri) in Uttrakhand.
• The cost of the project is around Rs. 12,000 Crore.
• It envisages improvement as well as the development of 889 km length of national highways.
• Implementing Agencies: Uttarakhand State Public Works Department (PWD), BRO, and the National Highway & Infrastructure Development Corporation Limited (NHIDCL).
• Project Mode: The work under the program is being implemented on Engineering, Procurement, and Construction (EPC) mode.
• Under the EPC model, the project cost is completely borne by the government.
• However, the contractor is directly responsible for ensuring the quality of the work as well as rectification of defects and maintenance of the project stretch for 4 years after completion of construction.

Border Roads Organisation

• It was conceived and raised in 1960 by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru for coordinating the speedy development of a network of roads in the North and the North-Eastern border regions of the country.
• It works under the administrative control of the Ministry of Defence.
• It has diversified into a large spectrum of construction and development works comprising airfields, building projects, defense works, and tunneling and has endeared itself to the people.

Source: The Hindu