Daily Current Affairs 20 July 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) A scientific study of faults along the Himalayas

• Data from an oil and gas exploration company has helped geologists discover a series of faults at the foot of the Himalaya.
• Faults are discontinuities or cracks that are the result of differential motion within the earth’s crust. Vertical or lateral slippage of the crust along the faults causes an earthquake

The methodology of the study:

• The study looked into the seismic reflection data. In this method, seismic waves are produced by small explosions at multiple sources, and multiple recorders called geophones to record the sound echoing off layers beneath the surface.
• The signals are combined to make an image showing layers of the earth’s surface through the top few kilometers of the Earth’s crust.
• The researchers were able to identify the faults because the pattern of layers showed bends.

Significance of the findings:

• This network of faults shows that the Himalayan deformation reaches further [about 40 kilometers further south] than previously thought hence highlighting the need to look below the surface, and further afield, to fully understand earthquakes and structures within the Himalaya.

Concerns:

• For Nepal:
• This newly discovered fault system in the southeastern region of Nepal has the potential to cause earthquakes in Nepal.
• The 2015 Nepal earthquakes occurred much within the Himalayan mountain belt and the newly discovered faults may not have moved in that event.
• For India:
• Though the newly discovered faults don’t appear to extend into India, seismic waves from an earthquake occurring on them might affect regions of India near the border.
• Other yet to be discovered similar faults might be present elsewhere along the southern edge of the Himalaya and might extend beneath northern India.

Way forward:

• Given the challenges with earthquake prediction, general earthquake preparedness is most important. Earthquake resistant buildings and infrastructure can play an important role in this direction.

Source: The Hindu

2) Students with disabilities struggle with online classes

• A report titled ‘Digital education in India: Will students with disabilities miss the bus?’ based on surveys conducted by Swabhiman — a community-based organization, and the disability legislation unit of eastern India of the National Centre for Promotion of Employment for Disabled People has been released recently.

Details:

• A majority of students with disabilities, in response to the survey, have said that online learning was proving to be a big hurdle to them.
• The majority of the students with disabilities were finding it hard to cope with online education and feared falling behind in learning due to their inability to access distance learning methods.

Challenges:

• No sign language interpreters were present in the webinars which severely impairs its utility to students with speech impairment.
• There have been claims of students with disabilities not being given attention by the teachers. The clubbing of children with disabilities with other children into one group fails to recognize the special needs of the disabled.
• A large majority of such students also do not know how to use technology. The use of technology poses a huge challenge to children with visual impairment and intellectual challenges.
• A large proportion of teachers have stated that they did not have accessible educational material, suitable for online learning.

Conclusion:

• There is a need for study material in formats suitable for children with disabilities. There is a need for an inclusive approach considering the special needs of the disabled children.

Source: The Hindu

3) The agricultural sector of India.

The agriculture sector employs over 52% of the workforce, contributing to only 14% of the GDP.

Limitations of MSP:

• Except for a few crops (rice, wheat) and a few states (Punjab, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh), the selling price for the farmer is 15-50% below the minimum support price (MSP).
• Increasing MSP has drawbacks as it can trigger food inflation and macroeconomic instability.

Low food processing in India:

• The country’s food processing value addition is less than 10% of the produce while for most developed economies this is 100 to 300%.

Way forward:

• The country should focus on sustainable yield improvements through scientific farming practices.
• There is a need to improve agriculture marketing to increase farmers’ price realization through policy changes.
• The use of technology and supply aggregation platforms for storage, logistics, and better price discovery should be explored. There is a need to promote direct marketing through farmer producer organizations.
• An Integrated Agriculture Export Mission can be set up to scale up food processing and exports to increase value addition from 10% to 50%.

Source: The Hindu

4) Inclusion of Australia into the Malabar naval exercise.

• The Malabar exercise began as a bilateral exercise between India and the U.S. in 1992 and was expanded into a trilateral format with the inclusion of Japan in 2015. The Malabar exercise has grown in scope and complexity over the years.
• Japan and the U.S. have been pressing India for Australia’s inclusion in Malabar. Australia first requested observer status in the trilateral exercise in April 2017. India has been reluctant to include Australia due to China’s sensitivities.

India’s approach:

• While India has been reluctant to accept Australia’s participation in Malabar exercise, the bilateral cooperation between India and Australia has gone up significantly over the years.
• Recently, India and Australia have signed the long-pending Mutual Logistics Support (MLSA) agreement, elevated their partnership to Comprehensive Strategic partnership, and have also announced a joint declaration on a shared vision for maritime cooperation in the Indo-Pacific.

Details:

• A key meeting of the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has discussed the issue of inviting Australia for the trilateral Malabar naval exercise with Japan and the United States. However, no final decision has been taken yet.
• There has been an increasing consensus at the official level that Australia should join the naval war games.
• The final decision has been delayed given the ongoing standoff with China on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).

Significance:

• The move to include Australia will bring all Quad countries together as part of the annual war games and mark a major shift for India’s Indo-Pacific plans. This could point towards the militarisation of the Quad coalition.
• The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue or Quad is an informal strategic forum between the United States, Japan, Australia, and India.

Source: The Hindu

5) Remembering Mangal Pandey on his birth anniversary

• Mangal Pandey, the Great Indian Freedom Fighter was martyred on April 8, 1857. 
• His patriotism and sacrifice for India will be remembered forever. He was the one who instigated the 1857 Indian Rebellion that is also known as the outbreak of the first war of Indian Independence. 

His life:

• He was born on July 19, 1827, in Ballia district, Uttar Pradesh, India. 
• He led to the Indian Rebellion in 1857, which is known as the Sepoy Mutiny in 1857. His contribution to the Indian Freedom Struggle is unparalleled.
• The life of Mangal Pandey is all about patriotism, bravery, and courage. 
• Mangal Pandey as an Indian Free Fighter is remembered as a symbolic revolutionary for initiating the first war of independence against the East India Company.

Some facts:

• Mangal Pandey joined the 34th Bengal Native Infantry regiment as a Sepoy of the British East India Company. 
• He joined the Bengal Army in the year 1849 and was a private soldier in the 5th company of the regiment. 
• It was on March 29, 1857, Mangal attacked the British Officers in Barrackpore, North Kolkata. 
• The Shaheed Mangal Pandey Maha Udyan Park at Barrackpore is built on his memory. This is the place where he attacked the Britisher Officers and was later martyred
• As an honor to Mangal Pandey’s contribution to Indian Freedom Struggle, the Government of India issued a commemorative stamp in 1984 as a tribute to him.

6) UN draft declaration goes soft on demand for reform

• Despite India’s repeated demands for reform of the UN Security Council, the process of the expansion of the membership is expected to slow down this year with the final draft of the Declaration on the Commemoration of the Seventy­Fifth Anniversary of the U.N. favoring a softer approach to the issue.
• "We reiterate our call for reforms of three of the principal organs of the United Nations. We commit to instilling new life in the discussions on the reform of the Security Council and continue the work to revitalize the General Assembly and strengthen the Economic and Social Council. The review of the peace­building architecture has our full support," the fi­nal draft says. The Declaration is a powerful reiteration of the UN’s founding principles that brought a new world order 75 years ago
• Mention of ‘discussions’ in this key anniversary document is being interpreted as a dilution of the progress made on the path of reform of the principal organs of the UN during the 122nd plenary meeting of the General Assembly.  
• At the meeting on September 15, 2008, the General Assembly based on previous resolutions had
• ‘decided’ to proceed with the “modalities to prepare and facilitate intergovernmental negotiations on the question of equitable representation on and increase in the membership of the Security Council and other matters related to the Council”. 
• The final draft for the upcoming UNGA is also a step down from the Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on September 16, 2005, when the call for reform was demanded against the backdrop of widespread unilateral decisions as seen during the Iraq war of 2003 and the “war on terror”.
• The 2005 Resolution had expressed a strong global will to stop misuse of military power and said, “We are determined to reinvigorate the intergovernmental organs of the United Nations to adapt them to the needs of the twenty-­first century”.

Source: The Hindu

7) RICH TO SUFFER MORE DUE TO INCOME LOST DURING LOCKDOWN

• Every income group has suffered a big hit in terms of the proportion of households who report an increase in income. But, a greater proportion of relatively richer households have been hit by their incomes not growing. “There is an apparently anomalous behavior of the data at the far end of the income spectrum," says the CMIE Report.
• One-third of the households that earned between 2.4 million and Rs.3.6 million and half of the households that earned more than Rs.3.6 million per annum reported an increase in income during April-June 2020. It is interesting to note that a year ago, over 70% of such households had reported an increase in incomes compared to a year ago.
• India recorded 122 million job losses in April 2020 and then saw 91 million of these recover by June. However, the recovery in jobs is not reflected in perceptions regarding improvement in household incomes, says a report by CMIE. 6.7% of the households reported an increase in income in the April-June quarter in 2020 as compared to 33% in the same quarter last year.
• Middle-income households, particularly at the higher income levels, have also suffered more because they had a lot more to lose. Their loss is more than 30 percentage points.
• In April-June 2019, more than 50% of the households that earned more than 500,000 per annum reported a year-on-year increase in household income. In April-June 2020, less than 15% of such households reported a similar increase.
• According to the report, as incomes rise above 1 million per annum, the proportion of households reporting an increase in income drops dramatically. It drops to single digits beyond 1.5 million per annum and then to zero for incomes between 1.8 million and 2 million a year. In the year-ago period, more than 60% of households that earned more than Rs1 million reported an increase in income.
• The great improvement in employment in June did not help improve incomes at the lower end of the income spectrum as well, says the report. It adds, “None of the respondents who earned less than Rs.4,000 a month said that their incomes had improved during April, May, and June. Less than 5% of those who earned between 4,000 and 6,000 a month said that there was an improvement. But, this worsened in June when none of the respondents who earned less than Rs.6,000 a month said that their incomes had improved over the past 12 months. Not many were seeing an improvement in their incomes earlier."
• In April-June 2019, only around 14% of the households that earned less than 6,000 per month reported an increase in income over a year. How much worse could they get? The average fell to around 1 percent in April-June 2020, implying a fall of 13 percentage points.
• The report is a study of the responses of households to - whether their incomes improved or deteriorated during the lockdown. The Actual compilation of household incomes during the lockdown will begin getting ready only from September this year

Source: Mint

8) India’s Case Fatality Rate (CFR) falls below 2.5% for the first time

• The focused efforts of Centre and State/UT governments on efficient clinical management of hospitalized cases have ensured that India’s Case Fatality Rate has fallen below 2.5%. With effective Containment Strategy, aggressive testing, and standardized clinical management protocols based on the holistic Standard of Care approach, the Case Fatality Rate has significantly dipped. The Case Fatality Rate is progressively falling and currently, it is 2.49%. India has one of the lowest fatality rates in the world.
• Under the guidance of the Centre, the State/UT governments have ramped up the testing and hospital infrastructure by combining public and private sector efforts. The many States have conducted population surveys to map and identify the vulnerable population like the elderly, pregnant women, and those with co-morbidities. This, with the help of technological solutions like Mobile Apps, has ensured keeping the high-risk population under continuous observation, thus aiding early identification, timely clinical treatment, and reducing fatalities. At the ground level, frontline health workers like ASHAs and ANMs have done a commendable job of managing the migrant population and to enhance awareness at the community level. As a result, there are 29 States and UTs with CFR lower than the India average. 5 States and UTs have a CFR of Zero. 14 States and UTs have a CFR of less than 1%. This shows commendable work done by the Public Health Apparatus of the country.

Source: PIB

9) Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation 

• The G20 countries at the latest virtual meeting of finance ministers under the chairmanship of Saudi Arabia failed to reach an agreement on the possibility of fresh Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation to member countries or reallocating excess SDRs from rich members to those facing a liquidity crisis due to the unfolding coronavirus pandemic
• The G20 International Financial Architecture Working Group also discussed the possibility of a Special Drawing Right (SDR) allocation or of countries that have excess SDRs granting or lending them to countries that need them. There was no consensus on the issue
• SDR is an international reserve asset created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) comprising the dollar, euro, yen, sterling, and yuan, allocated to its members in the proportion of their quota.
• India has 13,114 million SDRs on account of its 2.76% quota while the US has 82,994 million SDRs due to its 17.45% quota. China with a 6.41% quota has 30,483 million SDRs at the IMF. One SDR is currently valued at $1.38.
• A fresh SDR issue by IMF would help the least developed and developing countries facing foreign exchange crises at a time the world economy is projected to contract by 4.9% in 2020. The US and India have opposed the move. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman in April told the G20 finance ministers that national forex reserves should be the first line of defense during a crisis like this.
• Later in June, IMF chief economist Gita Gopinath had said the multilateral lending agency is considering an alternative proposal to redistribute existing unused SDRs of rich member-countries to low-income countries in desperate need.
• There is certainly a lot of appetite for this second strategy and that’s something we are working on," Gopinath had said. However, it seems a consensus could not be reached on the alternative proposal as well.
• In its April meeting, the finance ministers had decided to suspend debt repayment to the IMF and the World Bank by the poorest countries distressed by the covid-19 outbreak to bring financial stability under Debt Service Suspension Initiative (DSSI).
• As of 18 July, 42 countries have requested to benefit from the DSSI, amounting to an estimated $5.3 billion of 2020 debt service to be deferred. However, most analysts contend that given the severity of the financial impact of the pandemic, IMF needs to do more to support vulnerable member countries beyond its normal lending facilities.
• So far, IMF has received 107 requests for financing, of which 77 have been approved worth SDR 60.4 billion and 30 worth SDR 37.2 billion are pending, as of 2 July, the G20 communique said.
• The G20 finance ministers strongly encouraged private creditors to participate in the DSSI on comparable terms when requested by eligible countries in their latest meeting. “We will consider a possible extension of the DSSI in the second half of 2020, taking into account the development of the COVID-19 pandemic situation and the findings of a report from the IMF and World Bank on the liquidity needs of eligible countries, which will be submitted to the G20 in advance of our meeting in October 2020," the communiqué said.

Source: Mint