Daily Current Affairs 30 September 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

 Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) Time Use Survey

• National Statistical Office (NSO) conducted the first "Time Use Survey" (TUS) in India during January – December 2019. 
• The primary objective of the Time Use Survey (TUS) is to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities. TUS is an important source of information on the time spent in unpaid caregiving activities, volunteer work, unpaid domestic service-producing activities of the household members. It also provides information on time spent on learning, socializing, leisure activities, self-care activities, etc., by the household members. 
• Time Use Survey (TUS) provides a framework for measuring time dispositions by the population on different activities. It is an important source of information about the activities that are performed by the population and the time duration for which such activities are performed. One distinguishing feature of Time Use Survey from other household surveys is that it can capture time disposition on different aspects of human activities, be it paid, unpaid or other activities with such details which are not possible in other surveys.
• The primary objective of the Time Use Survey (TUS) is to measure the participation of men and women in paid and unpaid activities. TUS is an important source of information on the time spent in unpaid caregiving activities, volunteer work, unpaid domestic service-producing activities of the household members. It also provides information on time spent on learning, socializing, leisure activities, self-care activities, etc., by the household members.
• National Statistical Office (NSO) conducted the first Time Use Survey in India during January – December 2019. The survey measures the participation rate and time spent on paid activities, care activities, unpaid activities, etc.

Features of the Survey

• 1. Coverage: This survey covered 1,38,799 households (rural: 82,897 and urban: 55,902). Information on time use was collected from each member of age 6 years and above of the selected households. This survey enumerated 4,47,250 persons of age 6 years and above (rural: 2,73,195 and urban:1,74,055).
• 2. Data collection: In this survey data on time use was collected through personal interview method. Information on time use was collected covering 24 hours starting from 4:00 A.M. on the day before the date of interview to 4:00 A.M. on the day of the interview
• 3. Presentation of the estimates: The results have been presented here considering all the activities in the time slots instead of considering only the major activity. However, the Report on Time Use in India-2019 also contains estimates considering only the major activities in the time slots. The results are presented for persons age 6 years and above. The key indicators of the time use survey are calculated as follows:
• The participation rate in a day in any activity is calculated as the percentage of persons performing that activity during the day.
• The average time spent in a day per participant for any activity is calculated by considering those who participated in the activity. Estimates of average time in a day in different activities derived by considering only the participants in the activities are referred to as average time spent in a day per participant.
• The average time spent in a day per person for any activity is calculated by considering all the persons irrespective of whether they participated in the activity or not. By this approach, the distribution of total time of 1440 minutes of a day per person in different activities is derived.

Source: PIB

2) Six Mega Projects in Uttarakhand: Namami Gange Mission

• The Prime Minister has inaugurated six mega projects in Uttarakhand under the Namami Gange Mission.
• These six mega projects of Sewage Treatment Plants (STP) are constructed at Haridwar, Rishikesh, Muni ki Reti, Chorpani, and Badrinath.
• Jagjeetpur, Haridwar project also marks the completion of the first sewage project taken up on hybrid annuity mode on public-private partnership.
• Hybrid Annuity Model: The Government would provide upfront around 40% of the project cost to the developer to start the work and the remaining 60% would be borne by the private party.
• In Muni ki Reti town, Chandreshwar Nagar STP is the first 4 storied Sewage Treatment Plant in the country where the limitation of land availability was converted into an opportunity.

Significance:

• All 30 STP projects (100%) are now complete in Uttarakhand for taking care of pollution from 17 Ganga towns near river Ganga, which is a landmark achievement.
• The Haridwar-Rishikesh zone contributes about 80% wastewater load into the River Ganga.

Namami Gange Programme:

• Namami Gange Programme is an Integrated Conservation Mission, approved as a ‘Flagship Programme’ by the Union Government in June 2014 to accomplish the twin objectives of effective abatement of pollution and conservation and rejuvenation of the National River Ganga.
• It is being operated under the Department of Water Resources, River Development, and Ganga Rejuvenation, Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• The program is being implemented by the National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), and its state counterpart organizations i.e., State Program Management Groups (SMGs).
• NMCG is the implementation wing of the National Ganga Council (set in 2016; which replaced the National Ganga River Basin Authority - NGRBA).
• It has an Rs. 20,000-crore, centrally-funded, non-lapsable corpus and consists of nearly 288 projects.
• The main pillars of the program are:
• Sewage Treatment Infrastructure & Industrial Effluent Monitoring
• River-Front Development & River-Surface Cleaning
• Bio-Diversity & Afforestation
• Public Awareness

Other Activities at the Event

• Ganga Avalokan: It is the first museum inaugurated for Ganga.
• The museum is dedicated to showcasing the culture, biodiversity, and rejuvenation activities done in the Ganga river.
• The museum is located at Chandi Ghat, Haridwar.
• Rowing down the Ganges: A book co-published by the National Mission for Clean Ganga & Wildlife Institute of India is also launched.
• The logo of Jal Jeevan Mission and ‘Margdarshika for Gram Panchayats and Paani Samitis under Jal Jeevan Mission’ is also unveiled during the event.

Source: PIB

3) Campaign to Remove Lantana: Rajasthan

• A special drive to uproot the invasive Lantana bushes in the Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary in Rajasthan’s Udaipur district has been carried out along with the plantation of native species on the cleared patches of land.
• This has helped in the ecological restoration of grasslands and saved biodiversity.

Lantana:

• Lantana Camara is a small perennial shrub, which forms extensive, dense, and impenetrable thickets.
• It is native to Central and South America.
• It is an invasive species that was introduced in tropical regions as an ornamental plant (introduced in India in 1807).
• It is generally deleterious to biodiversity and is an agricultural weed.
• Impact:
• The thickets covered vast tracts of land, stopping the natural light and nutrition for other flora and fauna.
• The toxic substance in its foliage and ripe berries affected the animals.
• With the herbivores not getting sufficient forage, the prey base for carnivorous animals was declining, leading to ecological disturbances in the food chain.
• It has also invaded other wildlife reserves, riverbanks, and the Project Tiger areas.
• In some regions, the plant has invaded pastures and shrunk the cattle grazing areas, affecting the livelihood of villagers.

Sajjangarh Wildlife Sanctuary:

• Location: Udaipur (Rajasthan)
• History: It is a part of Sajjangarh Palace (also known as Monsoon Palace) built-in 1884.
• The Palace derived its name from Maharana Sajjan Singh, one of the rulers of the Mewar dynasty.
• Area: 5.19 sq. Km
• Flora and Fauna: Animals like chitals, panthers, hares, blue bulls (Nilgais), jackals, wild boars, hyenas, and sambhar.
• More than 279 Plant Species.
• Famous for Long-billed vulture, commonly known as the Indian vulture.

• Scientific Name: Gyps indicus
• IUCN Red List Status: Critically Endangered
• CITES Status: Appendix II
• Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 Status: Schedule I

Invasive Species

• An invasive species is an organism that is not indigenous, or native, to a particular area and causes harm.
• They are capable of causing extinctions of native plants and animals, reducing biodiversity, competing with native organisms for limited resources, and altering habitats.
• They can be introduced to an area by ship ballast water, accidental release, and most often, by humans.

Source: The Hindu

4) Maharashtra modifies Forest Rights Act

• Maharashtra Governor Bhagat Singh Koshyari issued a notification modifying the Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 that will enable tribals and other traditional forest dwelling families to build houses in the neighborhood forest areas. 
• The decision is likely to provide a major relief to Scheduled Tribes and other traditional forest­dwelling families residing in the scheduled areas of the State.
• The move aims to prevent the migration of forest-dwelling families outside their native villages and provide them housing areas by extending the village site into forest land in their neighborhood. 
• The notification has been issued by the Governor using his powers under subparagraph (1) of paragraph 5 of the Schedule V of the Constitution, according to a statement issued by Raj Bhavan. 
• The FRA recognizes rights to habitation and cultivation on forest lands if the land were occupied before December 13, 2005. The forest department officers in Jawahar division held that all new houses built in tribal habitations on forest land were illegal and had filed criminal offenses and scheduled demolition
• The urban areas get increased FSI, the rural areas (on revenue lands) get Gaothan Vistaar Yojana, but tribal villages (on forest lands) have no legal space for building houses. PESA rules in the State have given recognition to many habitations as villages, but there is no provision for land for house­building

Source: The Hindu

5) Bharati Script

• Bharati script is designed to be a common script that can express all the major Indian languages.
• The script refers to a set of letters used for writing a particular language. E.g. Devanagari, Roman, etc.
• Developed By: Srinivasa Chakravathy’s team at IIT Madras.

Features:

• Bharati is a simple and unified script that can be used to write the most major Indian languages.
• It is designed using the simplest shapes, often borrowing simple characters from various Indian languages/scripts and English.
• Scripts supported are: Hindi/Marathi (Devanagari), Tamil, Telugu, Gujarati, Punjabi (Gurmukhi), Bengali, Oriya, Kannada, and Malayalam.

Use of Technology:

• Optical Character Recognition: The Team has developed a method for reading documents in Bharati script using a multi-lingual Optical Character Recognition (OCR) scheme.
• OCR is a system that provides full alphanumeric recognition of printed or handwritten characters at electronic speed by simply scanning the form.
• Finger-spelling Method: It can be used to generate a sign language for hearing-impaired persons.
• Related Applications/Tools: Bharati Handwriting Keyboard and Bharati Transliterator.
• Transliteration changes the letters from one alphabet or language into the corresponding, similar-sounding characters of another alphabet.
• It is different from the translation which allows words in one language to be understood by those who speak another language. Essentially, the translation of a foreign word involves interpreting its meaning.
• Transliteration, on the other hand, makes a language a little more accessible to people who are unfamiliar with that language’s alphabet. Transliteration focuses more on pronunciation than meaning, which is especially useful when discussing foreign people, places, and cultures.

Significance:

• It is in line with 'One Nation, One Script'.
• The Roman script is used as a common script for many European languages (English, French, German, Italian, etc.), which facilitates communication across nations that speak and write those languages. Likewise, a common (Bharati) script for the entire country is hoped to bring down many communication barriers in India.
• It can help the next generation of Indians to easily read in Indian languages.
• It is an ideal script for languages like Konkani or Tulu that don’t have their own script.
• It can serve as a writing system for the innumerable tribal languages of India, and languages of the NorthEast.
• It can act as a link script for migrant Indians who move out of their native state for work
• It can connect the millions of Non-Resident Indian (NRI) children back to Indian literature.
• It can lead to a new system of Braille (for blind persons) for Indian languages and even a fingerspelling system for the hearing-impaired.
• It can shorten the duration of adult literacy programs from 6 months to a few weeks, as the script is easy to learn.

Source: The Hindu

6) New Defence Acquisition Procedure of 2020 (DAP 2020)

• DAP 2020, which will govern the procurement of defense equipment from the capital budget, was recently unveiled.
• The new policy will supersede the Defence Procurement Procedure of 2016 from October 1.

Highlights of the new policy

• Reservations for Indigenous firms:
• The policy reserves several procurement categories for indigenous firms.
• DAP 2020 defines an “Indian vendor” as a company that is owned and controlled by resident Indian citizens, with foreign direct investment (FDI) not more than 49 percent.
• New Buy (Global–Manufacturer in India) category:
• This stipulates indigenization of at least 50 percent of the overall contract value of a foreign purchase bought to subsequently build it in India with technology transfer.
• Meeting the difficult indigenization requirement would force the vendor to build the equipment in India, rather than supply most of it ready-built from abroad.
• Greater indigenous content:
• It promotes greater indigenous content in arms and equipment of the military procures, including equipment manufactured in India under license. In most acquisition categories, DAP-2020 stipulates 10 percent higher indigenization than DPP 2016.
• Measuring indigenous content:
• Indigenous content will now be calculated on ‘Base Contract Price’, which is Total Contract Price, fewer taxes, and duties.
• Import embargo list:
• The “import embargo list” of 101 items that the government promulgated last month has been specifically incorporated into DAP 2020. (An embargo is a government order that restricts commerce with a specified country or the exchange of specific goods.)
• Offset liability:
• The government has decided not to have an offset clause in the procurement of defense equipment if the deal is done through inter-government agreement (IGA), government-to-government, or an ab initio single vendor.
• The offset clause requires a foreign vendor to invest a part of the contract value in India.
  

Source: The Hindu

7) RBI extends enhanced borrowing limit for banks

• Because of economic woes created by the COVID-19 pandemic, the Reserve Bank has decided to extend by six months the enhanced borrowing facility provided to banks to meet the shortage of liquidity till March 31, 2021.
• The borrowing limit for scheduled banks under the marginal standing facility (MSF) scheme was increased from 2% to 3% of their net demand and time liabilities (NDTL) with effect from March 27, 2020.
• This dispensation provides increased access to funds to the extent of ₹1.49 lakh crore and also qualifies as high-quality liquid assets (HQLA) for the liquidity coverage ratio (LCR).

What is MSF?

• Under the MSF, banks can borrow overnight at their discretion by dipping into the statutory liquidity ratio (SLR).
• It is a window for scheduled banks to borrow overnight from the RBI in an emergency situation when interbank liquidity dries up completely.
• This scheme was launched by RBI while reforming the monetary policy in 2011-12.
• It is a penal rate at which banks can borrow money from RBI when they are completely exhausted of all borrowing assistance.

Net Demand and Time Liabilities (NDTL):

• NDTL refers to the total demand and time liabilities (deposits) of the public that are held by the banks with other banks.
• The high-quality liquid assets include only those with a high potential to be converted easily and quickly into cash.

Source: The Hindu

8) Hydrogen-enriched compressed natural gas (HCNG)

• Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has allowed the use of H-CNG (18% mix of hydrogen) in CNG engines.
• A notification for amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules 1989, for the inclusion of H-CNG as an automotive fuel, has already been published.

Background:

• The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) has also developed specifications (IS 17314:2019) of Hydrogen enriched Compressed Natural Gas (H-CNG) for automotive purposes, as a fuel.

What is HCNG?

• The blending of hydrogen with CNG provides a blended gas termed as HCNG.
• It can be used in place of gasoline, diesel fuel, and propane (C3H8) / LPG and its combustion produces fewer undesirable gases.

Advantages of HCNG:

• HCNG reduces emissions of CO by up to 70%.
• Enables up to 5 % savings in fuel.
• The first step towards the future Hydrogen economy.
• Engines can be calibrated to release lower amounts of NO.
• Engines need minimum modification to run on HCNG.
• The ideal fuel for high load applications and heavy-duty vehicles.
• Better performance due to higher Octane rating of H2.

Disadvantages of using HCNG:

• Determining the most optimized H2/ NG (Natural Gas) ratio.
• It requires new infrastructures for preparing HCNG.
• Many steps need to be taken for commercializing it at a large scale.
• The current cost of H2 is more than the cost of Natural Gas. So, HCNG’s cost is more than CNG.

Source: PIB