Daily Current Affairs 1 August 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Remembering Bal Gangadhar Tilak on his 100th death anniversary 

• Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak was a scholar, mathematician, philosopher, and ardent nationalist. 
• He founded and served as the president of the Indian Home Rule League. 
• He was the founder-editor of Mahratta (English) and Kesari (Marathi).

Who was Bal Gangadhar Tilak?

• Bal Gangadhar Tilak, an Indian nationalist, teacher, social reformer, lawyer, and independence activist, passed away on 1 August 1920. 
• He was horrified by the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and his health started declining and he passed away soon after.

Early life:

• He was born on July 22, 1856, to a Sanskrit Scholar in Ratnagiri, Keshav Gangadhar Tilak later shifted to Pune. 
• A teacher and journalist by profession, he initiated his political life as a social reformer and freedom activist. 
• He was one of the first few leaders to advocate for 'swaraj' or self-rule. 
• He published two newspapers -Kesari (Marathi) and Mahratta (English) -that actively circulated the cause of national freedom. 
• His slogan 'Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it' inspired millions of youths.

Conferred with the title of 'Lokmanya'

• He was also conferred with the title of 'Lokmanya' and is often regarded as the first leader of the Indian Independence movement.
• Dubbed the 'father of Indian unrest' by the British, he was one of the first and strongest advocates of Swaraj. 
• After his death, Gandhi paid tribute to him by calling him ' The Maker of Modern India', while Jawaharlal Nehru described him as 'The father of the Indian Revolution'.

2) Gramodyog Vikas Yojana

• Ministry of Micro Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME), Government of India, approved a program for the benefit of artisans involved in the manufacturing of Agarbatti and to develop village industry under ‘Gramodyog Vikas Yojana’ on 30th July 2020. As per the program, initially, four Pilot Projects will be started, including one in the North-Eastern part of the country. Each targeted cluster of artisans will be supported with about 50 Automatic Agarbatti making machines and 10 Mixing machines. Accordingly, a total of 200 Automatic Agarbatti making machines and 40 Mixing machines will be provided to the artisans.
• After two major decisions by Govt of India i) placing the ‘Agarbatti’ item from “Free” trade to “Restricted” trade in the import policy and ii) enhancing the import duty from 10% to 25% on ‘round bamboo sticks’ used for manufacturing of Agarbatti, this decision will help to boost the indigenous production of ‘Agarbatti’and will pave the way to generate rural employment. This will also start the process of mitigating the gap between the indigenous ‘production and demand’ and will reduce the import of ‘Agarbatti’ in the country.
• Under this Mission, Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC), one of the statutory organizations, working under the M/o MSME, will provide training, and assist artisans working in this area, with Agarbatti manufacturing machines. KVIC will tie-up with Khadi institutions / Agarbatti manufacturers in the country, having a good track record, to provide work and raw material to ‘Agarbatti making artisans’.
• The program will act as a catalyst in reviving the Agarbatti manufacturing in the villages and small towns and will immediately generate a  minimum of about  500 additional jobs.
• The program aims to enhance the production of ‘Agarbatti’ in the country and create sustainable employment for the traditional Artisans, by providing them regular employment and an increase in their wages. This will give a boost to the domestic Agarbatti Industry in the country and will reduce imports of Agarbatti.

Source: PIB

3) M/o Tribal Affairs receives SKOCH Gold Award for its “Empowerment of Tribals through IT-enabled Scholarship Schemes”

• Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) has received SKOCH Gold Award for its “Empowerment of Tribals through IT-enabled Scholarship Schemes” project of Scholarship Divison of the Ministry. The 66th SKOCH 2020 Competition was entitled “INDIA RESPONDS TO COVID THROUGH DIGITAL GOVERNANCE” and MoTA chose to participate in DIGITAL INDIA & E-GOVERNANCE - 2020
• This project is a step towards achieving unwavering commitment of the Government of India towards realizing the dreams of Digital India and bringing transparency as well as ease in the delivery of services. To assimilate with the larger vision of ‘Digital India’ and to realize the cherished goal of e-governance, MoTA has integrated all 5 Scholarship Schemes with DBT Portal under the guidance of DBT Mission.
• The initiative was rolled out on 12th June 2019 by the Union Minister for Tribal Affairs Shri Arjun Munda 
• During 2019-20, under 5 Scholarship schemes, about Rs. 2500 Cr were directly transferred to student’s Bank accounts through DBT to approximately 30 lakh students in 31 States and UTs.  The portal provides facility to States for data sharing through Web services and States can up-load proposals, UCs, and SOE online. This has brought a paradigm shift from Paper-based UC monitoring mandated for budget release to data-enabled budget release and monitoring process. This has considerably reduced scholarship release time and now it is possible to release scholarship in the same academic year in which admission is taken. MoTA has also entered into CEDA (Centre for Data Analytics), which analyzes and prepares State Wise Data Analysis Reports, which helps in data-based planning. In Fellowship Scheme run by Ministry for doing Ph.D., all 331 Universities have been integrated with the portal thereby enabling verification application online.  Portal is also integrated with Digi-Locker developed by MeiTY so that documents are directly fetched and saves verification time.
• The portal has the facility to upload documents that are not on Digi-Locker.  Each of these portals has Grievance Redressal and Communication Mechanism and all stakeholders, Universities, Bank, PFMS, Students, and States can upload queries, grievances and upload documents, which has made grievances redressal mechanism easy, transparent and fast.  KPMG, as part of its mandate for NITI Aayog, has carried out a national evaluation of Centrally Sponsored Schemes focused on social inclusion, in which it has recognized the Direct Benefit  Transfer (DBT) Portal of Ministry of Tribal Affairs as a best practice in e-governance which has brought about greater transparency, accountability and radical improvement in service delivery to Scheduled Tribe students. To have connected with 7000 students studying in Top 246 Institutions across India and 4000 Students doing Ph.D. in more than 300 Universities, MoTA has conceptualized the unique concept of the Talent pool for empowering ST scholars which can be connected to various research projects run by TRIs and States.

Source: PIB

4) Dispute Panels Against India: WTO

• Recently, the Dispute Settlement Body (DSB) of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has set up two dispute settlement panels targeting import duties imposed by India on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) products including mobile phones.
• It was done on the request of Japan and Taiwan, taking up the number of panels constituted to examine the same tariff-related issue to three.
• In June 2020, the European Union (EU) had a panel established against India on the same issue.
• The panels would determine whether India’s customs duties on imports of certain ICT products infringe on the WTO’s norms or not.
• The panels have been set up to decide on 20% customs duty levied by India on mobile phones and some other ICT products.
• India decided to levy 10% customs duty on these products for the first time in July 2017 which was increased to 15% in the same year.
• These custom duties were further increased to 20% despite opposition from several WTO members.
• The EU, USA, China, Singapore, Taiwan, Canada, Japan, and Thailand initiated consultations with India on the matter claiming that the move substantially affects them.
• The goods covered in the complaint include telephones for cellular networks or for other wireless networks; base stations; machines for the reception, conversion, and transmission or regeneration of voice, images, or other data, etc.
• Complainants’ Arguments:
• Japan and Taiwan said that their failed consultations with India prompted them to submit the requests for panels.
• Japan, Taiwan, and the EU have argued that these products fall within the scope of the relevant tariff lines for which India has set the bound rate of 0% for its WTO schedule of commitments.
• Bound Rates are the legally bound commitments on customs duty rates, which act as ceilings on the tariffs that member governments can set.
• Once a rate of duty is bound, it may not be raised without compensating the affected parties
• They held that India is applying tariffs on ITC goods falling under five tariff lines more than the 0% bond rate and that for some products, the applied tariff rate was as high as 20% some times.
• Tariff Line refers to the classification codes of goods, applied by individual countries, that are longer than the 6-digit level of the Harmonized System (HS).
• HS is a system of code numbers for identifying products. The codes are standing up to six digits. Beyond that countries can introduce national distinctions for tariffs and many other purposes.

India’s Stand:

• India managed to block Japan’s first request for a panel because the complaint undermined India’s sovereignty.
• India also rejected the EU’s suggestion of agreeing to one consolidated panel combining complaints from all three of them and saving time and resources.
• India argued that all three complainants are seeking to get the country to take on commitments under the Information Technology Agreement-II (ITA-II) which it never agreed to.

Information Technology Agreement

• It is a plurilateral agreement enforced by the WTO and concluded by 29 participants in the Ministerial Declaration on Trade in Information Technology Products at Singapore in 1996.
• It entered into force on 1st July 1997.
• It seeks to accelerate and deepen the reduction of trade barriers for the critically important ICT industry.
• Currently, the number of participants has grown to 82, representing about 97% of world trade in IT products.
• India is a signatory.

Information Technology Agreement-II

• Few developed countries proposed to broaden the scope and coverage of the ITA.
• At the Nairobi Ministerial Conference in December 2015, over 50 members concluded the expansion of the Agreement, which now covers an additional 201 products valued at over USD 1.3 trillion per year.
• Its aim was to increase the coverage of IT products on which customs duty would be bound at zero, addressing non-tariff measures and expanding the number of signatory countries to include countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and South Africa.
• India has decided not to participate in this for the time being because India’s experience with the ITA-I has been most discouraging, which almost wiped out the IT industry from India.
• The real gainer from that agreement has been China which raised its global market share from 2% to 14% between 2000-2011. China is a significant exporter of ICT goods.

Source: TH

5) Hiroshima Black Rain

Recently, a district court of Hiroshima (Japan) has recognized 84 survivors of the post-nuclear explosion “black rain” as the atomic bomb survivors enabling them to avail benefits like free medical care.

Nuclear Explosion:

• In 1945, the USA dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki on 6th and 9th August respectively, which marked the end of World War II.
• 2020 marks the 75th anniversary of the incident.
• The explosion and resultant firestorms are believed to have killed around 80,000 people in Hiroshima and around 40,000 people in Nagasaki.
• Thousands more died in the following years due to the exposure to radiation from the blast and also from the black rain that fell in the aftermath of the explosions.

Black Rain:

• The debris and soot from the destroyed buildings in Hiroshima (estimated 69% of the buildings were destroyed) mixed with the radioactive fallout from the bomb, rose high into the atmosphere in the form of a mushroom cloud.
• This material combined with the vapor in the atmosphere and came down as dark drops of liquid that have been called black rain.
• Survivors describe it as consisting of large, greasy drops that are much heavier than normal raindrops.
• Nagasaki witnessed less black rain even though the nuclear bomb dropped on it was more powerful than Hiroshima’s.
• It killed fewer people and its effects were confined to a smaller area because of Nagasaki’s geographical position between hills.
• The blast did not produce firestorms and the material contributing to black rain was less.

Effects:

• Black rain is full of highly radioactive material and exposure to it can result in serious illnesses.
• A study conducted in 1945 showed that black rain had come down as far as 29 km away from ground zero.
• About nuclear explosions and other large bombs, ground zero is the point on the Earth's surface closest to a detonation.
• In the case of an explosion above the ground, ground zero is the point on the ground directly below the nuclear detonation and is sometimes called the hypocenter.
• The rain contaminated everything it came in contact with. Dead fish were reported floating in water bodies and severely ill cattle were seen lying in the fields.
• Black rain caused Acute Radiation Symptoms (ARS) in many who were exposed to it.
• These symptoms include nausea, diarrhea, fever, sore throat, and loss of hair.
• Over time, many people who were exposed to black rain have developed cancer as well.

Addition to Survivors:

• In 1976, Japan used a 1945 study to demarcate the area within which people could claim to have been affected by black rain and be recognized as survivors of the nuclear blast.
• It allowed people living in the area during the time of the black rain to avail of free medical care and other benefits if they showed symptoms related to radiation exposure.
• However, later studies have shown that black rain could have come down on an area nearly four times the size of the one demarcated by the government.
• It was also argued that people who moved to the area later, could also be affected by the radioactive contamination caused by the rain.

Effects of the Ruling:

• The Hiroshima District Court ruling recognizes the plaintiffs as Hibakusha (Japanese term for the survivors of the nuclear blasts).
• It gives hope to many others because the decision may pave the way for the government to reconsider the limits it has set on who can be considered a survivor of the atomic bomb.

Source: IE

6) AJO-Neo: Device to Measure Neonatal Bilirubin Level

• Recently, researchers from the S.N. Bose National Centre For Basic Sciences (SNBNCBS), Kolkata have developed a device called “AJO-Neo '' to measure the neonatal bilirubin level.
• SNBNCBS is an autonomous research Institute under the Department of Science and Technology (DST), Government of India.

Description:

• AJO-Neo is a non-contact and non-invasive spectrometry-based technique for measurement of neonatal bilirubin level without limitations of other available bilirubin meters.
• Bilirubin is a yellowish substance in the blood. It forms after red blood cells break down, and it travels through the liver, gallbladder, and digestive tract before being excreted.
• It is a necessary process in the body's clearance of waste products that arise from the destruction of aged or abnormal red blood cells.

Significance:

• The screening of bilirubin levels in new-borns is necessary to reduce incidents of a type of brain damage called kernicterus that can result from high levels of bilirubin in a baby's blood.
• Kernicterus leads to Neuro-psychiatry problems in neonates.

Advantages:

• It is reliable in measuring bilirubin levels in preterm, and term neonates irrespective of gestational or postnatal age, sex, risk factors, feeding behavior, or skin color.
• The device delivers an instantaneous report (about 10 seconds) to a concerned doctor.
• The conventional “blood test” method takes more than 4 hours to generate the report.

Source: PIB

7) Pratihara style of architecture:

A rare late ninth century stone statue of Lord Shiva, which was stolen from a temple in Rajasthan and smuggled to the UK, will be returned to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI).

Key facts:

• The stone Nataraj/Natesha murti, in “chatura pose with jatamakuta and trinetra” and almost four-feet-tall, is a rare depiction of Lord Shiva in the Prathihara style.
• It is a rare sandstone idol.
• It is originally from the Ghateswara Temple at Baroli, Rajasthan.

Pratihara empire:

• The Gurjara-Pratiharas, also known as the Pratihara Empire, ruled much of Northern India from the mid-7th to the 11th century.
• They were instrumental in containing Arab armies moving east of the Indus River.
• Nagabhata I defeated the Arab army under Junaid and Tamin during the Caliphate campaigns in India.

Architecture:

• Gurjara-Pratihara is known for its sculptures, carved panels, and open pavilion-style temples.
• The greatest development of their style of temple building was at Khajuraho, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Source: The Hindu

8) Aerial seeding?

• The Haryana Forest Department has started aerial seeding across the state on a pilot basis.
• This technique will allow plantation in sections of the Aravallis that are either difficult to access or inaccessible altogether.
• The pilot project will help determine the effectiveness of the technology and the dispersal mechanism.

What is aerial seeding?

• It is a technique of plantation wherein seed balls – seeds covered with a mixture of clay, compost, char, and other components – are sprayed on the ground using aerial devices, including planes, helicopters or drones.

How does this technique work?

• Seeds balls or seed pellets are dispersed in a targeted area by the low-flying drones.
• They fall to the ground with the help of the coating of clay, compost, char, and other material, that provides the required weight for seeds to drop on a predetermined location rather than disperse in the wind.

What are the advantages of this technique? 

• Areas that are inaccessible, have steep slopes, are fragmented or disconnected with no forest routes, making conventional plantation difficult, can be targeted with aerial seeding.
• The process of the seed’s germination and growth is such that it requires no attention after it is dispersed – the reason why seed pellets are known as the “fire and forget” way of the plantation.
• They eliminate the need for plowing and digging holes in the soil and the seeds do not need to be planted since they are already surrounded by soil, nutrients, and microorganisms.
• The clay shell of these pellets along with the other items in the mixture also protects them from birds, ants, and rats.
• These pellets will then sprout when there is enough rain, with the nutrients present within them helping in the initial growth.

Source: Indian Express

9) 15th Finance Commission’s HLEG on Agricultural Exports submits a report

The High-Level Group (HLEG) on Agricultural Exports set up by the Fifteenth Finance Commission to recommend measurable performance incentives for States to encourage agricultural exports and to promote crops to enable high import substitution, has submitted its report to the Commission

After intensive research and consultations and taking inputs from stakeholders and the private sector through intensive consultations, the HLEG has made its recommendations, major among which are :

• Focus on 22 crop value chains – demand-driven approach.
• Solve Value Chain Clusters (VCC) holistically with a focus on value addition.
• Create a State-led export plan with participation from stakeholders.
• Private Sector should play an anchor role.
• The center should be an enabler.
• The robust institutional mechanism to fund and support implementation.

The Group in its report has recommended a State-led Export Plan -  a business plan for a crop value chain cluster, that will lay out the opportunity, initiatives, and investment required to meet the desired value chain export aspiration. These plans will be action-oriented, time-bound, and outcome-focused.  The Group has also said that for the success of the State led Export Plan, the following factors needed to be considered:-

• Plans should be collaboratively prepared with private sector players and Commodity Boards.
• Leveraging of state plan guide and value chain deep dives.
• The private sector should play an anchor role in driving outcomes and execution.
• The center should enable state-led plans. 
• Institutional governance should be promoted across the state and center. 
• Funding through the convergence of existing schemes, Finance Commission allocation, and private sector investment.

The Group was of the view that the private sector players had a pivotal role to play in ensuring demand orientation and focus on value addition; ensuring project plans are feasible, robust, implementable and appropriately funded; providing funds for technology based on the business case and for creating urgency and discipline for project implementation. 

The HLEG feels that-

• India’s agricultural export has the potential to grow from USD 40 billion to USD 70 billion in a few years.
• The estimated investment in agricultural export could be in the tune to USD  8-10 billion across inputs, infrastructure, processing, and demand enablers.
• Additional exports are likely to create an estimated 7-10 million jobs.
• It will lead to higher farm productivity and farmer income.

The Terms of Reference of the HLEG include:

• To assess export & import substitution opportunities for Indian agricultural products (commodities, semi-processed, and processed) in the changing international trade scenario and suggest ways to step up exports sustainably and reduce import dependence.
• To recommend strategies and measures to increase farm productivity, enable higher value addition, ensure waste reduction, strengthen logistics infrastructure, etc. related to Indian agriculture, to improve the sector's global competitiveness.
• To identify the impediments for private sector investments along the agricultural value chain and 3 suggest policy measures and reforms that would help attract the required investments.
• To suggest appropriate performance-based incentives to the state governments for the period 2021-22 to 2025-26, to accelerate reforms in the agriculture sector as well as implement other policy measures in this regard.

Source: PIB