Daily Current Affairs 24 October 2020 | UPSC Current Affairs 2020

 Current Affairs Of Today Are

1) ONION Trade rules/regulations

• The government yesterday put stocking limits on onion traders (wholesalers/retailers) till 31st Dec. 2020 in light of the rising onion prices. This has been done as per the recent amendments done in "Essential Commodities Act 1955".  The amendment says:
• "Stocking limit restrictions can be imposed only in case of extraordinary price rise i.e. 100% increase in case of perishables and 50% increase in case of non-perishable foodstuffs over the price prevailing immediately preceding 12 months, or average retail price of last five years, whichever is lower.   
• The all-India average retail price variation of onions as of 21.10.2020, when compared to last year, is 22.12%, and when compared to the last 5 years average is 114.96%

In the past few days, Govt. has taken several other steps to prevent the onion prices rise, viz:

• On 14th Sept. 2020, Govt. of India banned the export of onions as per "The Foreign Trade (Development & Regulation.) Act of 1992"
• On 21st Oct. 2020, Govt. of India relaxed the conditions for fumigation and additional declaration on Phytosanitary Certificate under the Plant Quarantine Order, 2003 (issued under the Destructive Insects and Pests Act, 1914) for import up to December 15, 2020. 
• As per WTO Agreement on "Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures", which sets out the basic rules for food safety and animal and plant health standards, member countries can set their own standards on plant and animal health standards. But it also says regulations must be based on science.
• Under, Price Stabilization Fund (PSF), Agencies like National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. (NAFED) and  Small Farmers Agri-business Consortium (SFAC) procure mostly perishable agri commodities (like onion, potatoes, etc.) [through interest-free loan given from this PSF Fund] during the harvest season and then if prices go high, then these agencies release the stock in a calibrated manner to major mandis, to a retail supplier such as Safal, Kendriya Bhandar & NCCF and also to State Governments to cool down the prices

Source: PIB

2) Extension of ESI Scheme to Arunachal Pradesh

• In its continuous endeavor to cover more workers under ESI Scheme, Govt. of India has now extended the Employees'StateInsurance (ESI) Scheme for the first time to Arunachal Pradesh, with effect from 1st November 2020. A notification to this effect has been issued by the Central Government for notifying the district of Papum Pare, under ESI Scheme.
• All factories located in the district of Papum Pare of Arunachal Pradesh employing 10 or more persons shall become eligible for coverage under ESI Act 1948. The facility of online registration under the ESI Scheme is available on the website www.esic.in and also on the “Shram Suvidha Portal” of the Ministry of Labour and Employment, Government of India. No physical documents are required to be submitted for registration under the ESI Act. The employees working in these factories, earning wages up to Rs. 21,000/- per month (Rs. 25 thousand per month for persons with disability) shall be eligible for coverage under the ESI Scheme.
• The covered employees and their dependants shall become eligible for a host of benefits including Cashless Medical Care Services, Sickness Benefit, Maternity Benefit, Employment Injury Benefit, and Dependant Benefit in case of death due to employment injury, Unemployment Benefit, etc. Arrangements for medical care are being made through a newly opened Dispensary Cum Branch Office (DCBO) at Itanagar.

ESI Scheme in India

• The Employees' State Insurance Corporation is a pioneer Social Security organization providing comprehensive social security benefits like reasonable Medical Care and a range of Cash Benefits in times of need such as employment injury, sickness, death, etc. It is covering about 3.49 Crores of family units of workers and providing matchless cash benefits and reasonable medical care to its 13.56 crore beneficiaries. Today, its infrastructure has increased many folds with 1520 Dispensaries (including mobile dispensaries)/307 ISM Units and 159 ESI Hospitals, 793 Branch/Pay Offices, and 64 Regional & Sub-Regional Offices. The ESI Scheme today stands implemented in 568 districts in all the States and Union Territories, except Lakshadweep.
• Apart from various benefits, the employees covered under the ESI Scheme are also entitled to the unemployment allowance. There are two unemployment allowance schemes namely Atal Beemit Vyakti Kalyan Yojna (ABVKY) and Rajiv Gandhi Shramik Kalyan Yojna (RGSKY).

Source: PIB

3) IIT in Partnership with TCS Sets New Trends in India’s Advanced Manufacturing Sector

• IIT Kharagpur has developed novel Industry 4.0 technology for remotely controlled factory operations and real-time quality correction during industrial production, jointly with TCS to set a new trend in India’s advanced manufacturing sector.
• At the time of pandemic when staffing has restrictions due to the hygiene and social distancing norms, cloud infrastructure, remote and real-time operations systems hold the key to maintain effective industrial operations. But the benefits of controlled operations have a bigger impact especially in the context of Atma Nirbhar Bharat in delivering quality output at low costs. The present innovation upgraded the industrial process of friction stir welding to a multi-sensory system of Industry 4.0. It has not only set the course for remotely controlled operations in the Indian industrial sector but has also enabled real-time quality checks and correction during the production process. This will make it possible for industrial houses to achieve standardized quality goals throughout the production process and reduce rejection hence lowering the cost of production.
• Emphasizing the need for such technologies to achieve the ‘Make in India’ goal, the Director Prof. Virendra K Tewari remarked, “While we are aiming to boost indigenous production and exports, our primary goal should be the quality output with minimum disruptions. Be it, consumers, in India or abroad, these are the two basic needs of our industrial sector, which we must address for procuring orders in large volumes. At IIT Kharagpur’s Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology, we have set our target to bring to the forefront indigenously developed industry 4.0 technologies to support our industrial sector to achieve this goal.”
• The innovative technology developed by Prof. Surjya K Pal, Professor in-charge at the Centre of Excellence in Advanced Manufacturing Technology in association with TCS will acquire real-time information about the welding process through multiple sensors and enable online control of weld quality using cloud-based communication with the friction stir welding machine. “Welding is at the heart of any industrial operations. If we can improve the weld quality in real-time during batch production we can reduce rejections in post-production sample checks,” opined Prof. Pal. Explaining the new technology, he said, “Our multiple sensor process involves various signal processing and machine learning techniques to predict the ultimate tensile strength of the weld joint is fabricated. This technology is connected with a vast experimental knowledge base to conform to a standard system and prediction of the weld joint strength. Any defect identified during the monitoring procedure is corrected in real-time by sending modified parameters to the machine thus ensuring the standardized quality of the process.” The concept of this technology can further be evolved for real-time control of other industrial processes and such work will be carried at the Centre with other industrial partners soon, affirmed Prof. Pal.
• The Industry partner TCS views such innovation has helped to give a direction as an enabler of technology-based transformations in the country, especially in overcoming challenges called out by the pandemic. “The remote friction stir welding machine quality control via multi-sensor fusion developed by Centre of Excellence (CoE) in Advanced Manufacturing Technology at IIT Kharagpur is a case in point,” said K Ananth Krishnan, Executive Vice President, and Chief Technology Officer. According to him, “The Embedded Systems & Robotics, IoT and ICME platform teams from TCS Research and Innovation are working closely with IIT Kharagpur’s CoE towards AI-driven prediction/control of weld strength using a scalable and robust platform. Academic partnerships are an important part of TCS Research and TCS Co-Innovation Network (TCS CoIN) in creating real-world solutions with scientific rigor.”

Source: PIB

4) Astronomers from NCRA-TIFR, Pune, and RRI, Bangalore uncover the mystery behind the decline of star formation rate after its peak 8-10 billion years ago

• For a long, scientists have been intrigued by the decrease in the rate at which stars were formed in galaxies after it peaked about 8-10 billion years ago. They have now deciphered the mystery behind this decline in star formation activity by measuring the atomic hydrogen of the galaxies.
• Galaxies are made up mostly of gas and stars. Gas converts to stars with time. Understanding this conversion requires measurement of the atomic hydrogen gas, the primary fuel for star formation in galaxies in early times. Astronomers have long known that galaxies formed stars at a higher rate when the universe was young than they do today. But the cause of this decline is unknown, mostly because there was no information about the amount of atomic hydrogen gas at that time.
• A team of astronomers from the National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA-TIFR), Pune, and the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bangalore, an autonomous institute of the Department of Science & Technology (DST), Government of India has used the upgraded Giant Metre wave Radio Telescope (GMRT), operated by NCRA-TIFR, to measure the atomic hydrogen content of galaxies seen as they were 8 billion years ago. The research carried out by Aditya Chowdhury, Nissim Kanekar, and Jayaram Chengalur of NCRA-TIFR, and Shiv Sethi, and K. S. Dwarakanath of RRI and published in the journal Nature records the earliest epoch in the universe for which atomic gas content of galaxies has been measured.
• The research was funded by the Department of Atomic Energy, India, and DST, India.
• “Given the intense star formation in these early galaxies, their atomic gas would be consumed by star formation in just one or two billion years. And, if the galaxies could not acquire more gas, their star formation activity would decline, and finally cease”, said Aditya Chowdhury, a Ph.D. student at NCRA-TIFR and the lead author of the study. “The observed decline in star formation activity can thus be explained by the exhaustion of the atomic hydrogen,” he added.
• The measurement of the atomic hydrogen mass of distant galaxies was done by using the upgraded GMRT to search for a spectral line in atomic hydrogen.
• K. S. Dwarakanath of RRI, a co-author of the study, mentioned, “We had used the GMRT in 2016, before its upgrade, to carry out a similar study. However, the narrow bandwidth before the GMRT upgrade meant that we could cover only around 850 galaxies in our analysis, and hence were not sensitive enough to detect the signal.”
• “The big jump in our sensitivity is due to the upgrade of the GMRT in 2017”, said Jayaram Chengalur, of NCRA-TIFR, a co-author of the paper. “The new wideband receivers and electronics allowed us to use 10 times more galaxies in the stacking analysis, giving sufficient sensitivity to detect the weak average 21 cm signal.”
• Detecting the 21 cm signal from the most distant galaxies in the universe was the main science goal of the GMRT when it was designed and built by a team led by Govind Swarup in the 1980s and 1990s. “Govind Swarup was very interested in this work and was following it keenly. Sadly, he passed away shortly before it was published. This work would not have been possible without him and the wonderful team that he put together to first build and then upgrade the GMRT”, said Nissim Kanekar of NCRA- TIFR, a Swarna Jayanti Fellow of DST and co-author of the study.

Technical explanation of GMRT upgradation

• Unlike stars, which emit light strongly at optical wavelengths, the atomic hydrogen signal lies in the radio wavelengths, at a wavelength of 21 cm, and can only be detected with radio telescopes. Unfortunately, this 21 cm signal is very weak and difficult to detect from distant individual galaxies even with powerful telescopes like the upgraded GMRT. To overcome this limitation, the team used a technique called “stacking” to combine the 21 cm signals of nearly 8,000 galaxies that had earlier been identified with optical telescopes. This method measures the average gas content of these galaxies.

An image of the stacked 21 cm signal detected with the upgraded GMRT, arising from atomic hydrogen gas in galaxies 22 billion light-years away.

The spectrum of the stacked 21 cm signal was detected with the upgraded GMRT, arising from atomic hydrogen gas in galaxies 22 billion light-years away. The width of the signal gives an indication of the average rotation of galaxies 8 billion years ago.

A GMRT antenna at night. 

Source: PIB

5) Sustainable Processing of Municipal Solid Waste: ‘Waste to Wealth’

• With an ever-increasing population and the rapid pace of urbanization, the country is facing a huge challenge of waste management. The volume of waste is projected to rise from the present 62 million tonnes to about 150 million tonnes by 2030. Indiscriminate dumping of garbage at the current rate without appropriate scientific treatment would impose a huge requirement of landfill area per year. This necessitates the importance of scientific solid waste management in today’s context.
• Solid Waste treatment and disposal utilizing the plasma arc gasification process is an option for eco-friendly solid waste management in which large volume reduction of waste up to 95% is possible. The plasma gasification process uses electricity to generate a high-temperature plasma arc (above 3000°C) inside the plasma reactor which converts the waste into syngas. The produced syngas, when passed through a series of gas purification system comprising of the catalytic converter, redox reactor, cyclone separator, scrubber, and condenser, is ready for use in gas engines for generation of electricity. The residual ash can be mixed with cement for the preparation of recycled bricks for usage in construction. Thus, Science helps in the creation of ‘Wealth from Waste’.
• However, this technology is not economically viable as energy requirements for waste treatment using this technology is very high (~ 1.5 kWh/kg of waste processed for small plants (< 100 MT capacity) and ~ 1.2 kWh/kg of waste processed for plants with greater than 100 MT capacity). Also, the high rate of electrode consumption (~ 500 mg/kg of waste processed) further leads to an increase in recurring expenses making the process expensive and not an economically-rationalized option.
• Studies suggest that the Municipal Solid Wastes generated in India mostly consists of a large fraction (> 50%) of organic wastes. Unscientific disposal of organic waste produces greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and other air pollutants. The ineffective processing MSWalso is the root cause of many diseases as the dumped landfills transform into Contamination Hubs for Pathogens, Bacteria, and Viruses. The most commonly used processing "composting" also does not yield impactful economic returns for the entrepreneurs as it requires more land space, more labor, pasteurization for effective disinfection, and has restricted utilization due to the presence of heavy metals. During the rainy season managing composting becomes difficult due to the presence of excessive moisture.

New Technology

• The CSIR-CMERI developed Municipal Solid Waste Processing Facility has not only helped to achieve decentralized decimation of solid wastes but has also helped create value-added end-products from abundantly available redundant stuff such as dry leaves, dry grass, etc. The MSW Processing Facility is developed for disposal of solid waste scientifically following the Solid Waste Management Rules (SWM) 2016 prescribed by the Union Ministry of Environment, Forests, and Climate Change (MoEF&CC), Govt. of India. The primary focus of CSIR-CMERI is to unburden the common households from the segregation responsibilities through advanced segregation techniques. The mechanized segregation system segregates solid waste into metallic waste (metal body, metal container, etc.), biodegradable waste (foods, vegetables, fruits, grass, etc.), non-biodegradable (plastics, packaging material, pouches, bottles, etc.) & inert (glass, stones, etc.) wastes. The bio-degradable component of the waste is decomposed in an anaerobic environment popularly known as bio-gasification. In this process, biogas is liberated through the conversion of organic matter. Biogas can be used as fuel for cooking purposes. The gas can also be utilized in the gas engine for the generation of electricity. The residual slurry from the biogas plant is converted to compost in a natural process known as vermicomposting by introducing earthworms. The vermicompost is utilized in organic farming.

Biomass Waste Disposal

• Biomass waste such as dry leaves, dead branches, dry grass, etc. are disposed of by first shredding it to a suitable size followed by mixing with the slurry of the biogas digester. This mixture is the feedstock for briquette, which is utilized as fuel for cooking. These briquettes are also being utilized in gasifiers for the production of syngas which can be utilized in the gas engine for the generation of electricity. The ash produced from the burning of briquette is mixed with cement and water in an appropriate proportion for the production of bricks which is used for construction work.

Polymer Waste Disposal

• The polymer waste consisting of plastics, sanitary waste, etc. is being disposed of through two main processes i.e. pyrolysis and plasma gasification. In the pyrolysis process, the polymer waste is heated to a temperature of 400 – 600°C in an anaerobic environment in presence of a suitable catalyst. The volatile matter from the polymer waste comes out as a result of heating which on condensation gives pyrolysis oil. The non-condensed syngas and crude pyrolysis oil after purification are reused for heating purposes and it helps in obtaining self-sustainability. The solid residue known as char is mixed with the biogas slurry for the production of briquette.

Sanitary Waste Disposal

• The sanitary items including masks, sanitary napkins, diapers, etc. are disposed-off utilizing high-temperature plasma. The MSW facility is equipped with special disinfection capabilities to help break the COVID Chain through UV-C Lights and Hot-Air Convection methods. The Decentralized Solid Waste Management Plant developed by CSIR-CMERI have all the potentials to scientifically manage the Solid Waste including the COVID and other viruses present in the wastes. The integrated MSWpilot plant is also self-sufficient in terms of energy requirement through the installation of roof-mounted solar panels, which can also feed the surplus energy supply onto a mini-grid.
• The technology of decentralized (0.5 to 5.0 ton/day) MSW and its sustainable(negligible transport to reduce the burden of imported diesel and created CO2 pollution) processing opens-up the opportunities to realize the dream of generating 100 GW Solar Power and a city with a "Zero-Waste and Zero-Landfill Ecology", and may become a “Source of Job Creation” through both process-engagement and manufacturing, which can help support the MSEs, Start-Ups and numerous Small Entrepreneurs across the Nation.

Source: PIB

6) Maharashtra Denies consent to CBI

• Recently, the Maharashtra government withdrew its general consent to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to probe cases in the State.
• The move comes a day after the CBI registered an FIR in the TRP scam after taking over the probe based on an FIR filed in Uttar Pradesh.
• The Maharashtra government had an apprehension that the CBI would take over the TRP scam case that the Mumbai Police are already investigating.
• Earlier this year (2020), the CBI had also taken over the investigation into actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s death, which was being probed by the Mumbai Police.
• The Maharashtra government suspects the CBI of acting at the behest of the Centre.
• The Supreme Court in the past has called the CBI a “caged parrot” that sings the Centre’s tune.
• Maharashtra is the third State after West Bengal and Rajasthan to take such an action. The current confrontation also strengthens the perception that states in opposition see the Centre as weaponizing the CBI to control opposition-led governments in states.

General Consent

• Unlike the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which is governed by its own NIA Act, 2008 and has jurisdiction across the country, the CBI is governed by the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act, 1946 (DSPE Act, 1946) that makes consent of a state government mandatory for conducting an investigation in that state.
• There are two kinds of consent- case-specific and general. Given that the CBI has jurisdiction only over central government departments and employees, it can investigate a case involving state government employees or a violent crime in a given state only after that state government gives its consent.
• Section 6 of the DSPE Act, 1946 empowers the state government to give or deny consent to CBI officers to investigate the matter within the state.
• “General consent” is normally given to help the CBI seamlessly conduct its investigation into cases of corruption against central government employees in the concerned state. Almost all states have given such consent.

Impact of Withdrawal of General Consent

• It means the CBI will not be able to register any fresh case involving a central government official or a private person stationed in Maharashtra without getting case-specific consent.
• Withdrawal of consent will only bar the CBI from registering a case within the jurisdiction of concerned states. The CBI could still file cases in Delhi and continue to probe people inside Maharashtra.
• In simple terms withdrawal of consent means that CBI officers will lose all powers of a police officer as soon as they enter the state unless the state government has allowed them.
• It will have no impact on the investigation of cases already registered with CBI as old cases were registered when general consent existed.
• However, the CBI has recently started taking recourse in a Calcutta High Court judgment.
• The HC, in its order in the Ramesh Chandra Singh and another vs CBI, 2020 observed that CBI’s power to investigate and prosecute its own officials cannot be in any way impeded or interfered with by the state even if the offenses were committed within the territory of the state.

Source: Indian Express

7) Forex Reserves

According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) data, the country’s foreign exchange (forex) reserves touched a lifetime high of USD 555.12 billion after it surged by USD 3.615 billion in the week ended 16th October 2020.

Reason Behind the Increase:

• The rise in total reserves was due to a sharp rise in Foreign Currency Assets (FCAs), a major component of the overall reserves.
• FCA jumped by USD 3.539 billion to USD 512.322 billion.

Foreign Exchange Reserves:

• Foreign exchange reserves are assets held on reserve by a central bank in foreign currencies, which can include bonds, treasury bills, and other government securities.
• It needs to be noted that most foreign exchange reserves are held in U.S. dollars.
• These assets serve many purposes but are most significantly held to ensure that the central bank has backup funds if the national currency rapidly devalues or becomes altogether insolvent.
• India’s Forex Reserves include:
• Foreign Currency Assets
• Gold
• Special Drawing Rights
• Reserve position with the International Monetary Fund (IMF)

Foreign Currency Assets

• FCA are assets that are valued based on a currency other than the country's own currency.
• FCA is the largest component of the forex reserve. It is expressed in dollar terms.
• FCA includes the effect of appreciation or depreciation of non-US units like the euro, pound, and yen held in the foreign exchange reserves.
• Currency appreciation refers to the increase in the value of one currency relative to another in the forex markets.
• Currency depreciation is a fall in the value of a currency in a floating exchange rate system.
• In a floating exchange rate system, market forces (based on demand and supply of a currency) determine the value of a currency.

Special Drawing Rights

• The SDR is an international reserve asset, created by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in 1969 to supplement its member countries’ official reserves.
• The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.
• The value of the SDR is calculated from a weighted basket of major currencies, including the U.S. dollar, the euro, Japanese yen, Chinese yuan, and British pound.
• The interest rate on SDRs or SDRi is the interest paid to members on their SDR holdings.

Reserve Position in the International Monetary Fund

• A reserve tranche position implies a portion of the required quota of currency each member country must provide to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that can be utilized for its own purposes.
• The reserve tranche is basically an emergency account that IMF members can access at any time without agreeing to conditions or paying a service fee.

Source: The Hindu

8) Pakistan on FATF Grey List

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has decided to keep Pakistan on the “greylist” till the next review of its compliance to the recommendations in February 2021.
• The decision was taken after a three-day virtual plenary session.

Pakistan Remains on Grey List:

• The FATF had issued the 27-point action plan after placing Pakistan on the ‘Grey List’ in June 2018. The action plan pertains to curbing money laundering and terror financing.
• Recently, the task force’s International Cooperation Review Group (ICRG) noted that Pakistan had complied with 21 points.
• Since 2007, the ICRG has analyzed high-risk jurisdictions and recommended specific action to address the money laundering/terror financing risks emanating from them.
• At the recent plenary session, the FATF observed that Pakistan has made progress across all action plan items and has largely addressed 21 of 27 action items.
• Keeping Pakistan on the ‘Grey List’, the FATF strongly urged Pakistan to swiftly complete its full action plan by February 2021.
• The points on which Pakistan failed to deliver included its lack of action against the non-profit organizations linked to the terror groups banned by the UN Security Council (UNSC); and delays in the prosecution of banned individuals and entities like Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafiz Saeed and LeT operations chief, Zaki Ur Rahman Lakhvi, as well as Jaish-e- Mohammad chief Masood Azhar.
• While Saeed was sentenced in February 2020 to 11 years in prison for terror financing, the Pakistan government claims that others are “untraceable”.
• Further, Pakistan was found non-compliant in cracking down on terror financing through narcotics and smuggling of mining products including precious stones.
• The FATF process also showed concern about the 4,000 names that were on Pakistan’s Schedule-IV list under the Anti-Terrorism Act up to January but went missing in September 2020.

Consequences for Pakistan:

• The FATF listing makes it extremely difficult for Pakistan to get financial aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the European Union.

The response of Different Countries:

• Turkey proposed that the members should consider Pakistan’s good work and instead of waiting for the completion of the remaining six of the 27 parameters, a FATF on-site team should visit Pakistan to finalize its assessment.
• On-site teams are permitted only after jurisdictions complete their action plans. Normally such a visit is a signal for exit from the grey or blacklist.
• When the proposal was placed before the Plenary, no other member seconded the move. It was not supported by even China, Malaysia, and Saudi Arabia.

India’s Stand:

• Pakistan continues to provide safe havens to terrorist entities and individuals and has also not yet taken any action against several terrorist entities and individuals including those proscribed by the UNSC, such as Masood Azhar, Dawood Ibrahim, Zakir-ur-Rahman Lakhvi.

Financial Action Task Force

• Formation: The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established in 1989 during the G7 Summit in Paris.
• Objectives: To set standards and promote effective implementation of legal, regulatory, and operational measures for combating money laundering, terrorist financing, and other related threats to the integrity of the international financial system.
• Secretariat: Its Secretariat is located at the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) headquarters in Paris.
• Member Countries: The FATF currently has 39 members including two regional organizations — the European Commission and Gulf Cooperation Council. India is a member of the FATF.
• Decision-Making Body: The FATF Plenary is the decision making body of the FATF. It meets three times per year.
• Lists under FATF:
• Grey List: Countries that are considered a safe haven for supporting terror funding and money laundering are put in the FATF grey list (or ‘Jurisdictions under increased monitoring’). This inclusion serves as a warning to the country that it may enter the blacklist.
• Black List: Countries known as Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories (NCCTs) are put on the blacklist. These countries support terror funding and money laundering activities. The FATF revises the blacklist regularly, adding or deleting entries. As of this year, there are only two countries on the FATF's blacklist - North Korea and Iran.

Source: The Hindu

9) South Asian Flash Flood Guidance System

• Recently, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has launched the South Asian Flash Flood Guidance System (FFGS), which is aimed at helping disaster management teams and governments make timely evacuation plans ahead of the actual event of flooding.
• A dedicated FFGS center will be established in New Delhi, where weather modeling and analysis of rainfall data observations from member countries will be done.

Flash Floods:

• These are sudden surges in water levels during or following an intense spell of rain.
• These are highly localized events of short duration with a very high peak and usually have less than six hours between the occurrence of the rainfall and peak flood.
• The flood situation worsens in the presence of choked drainage lines or encroachments obstructing the natural flow of water.

Concerns:

• Forecasting flash floods is very difficult as an event can occur within three to six hours and the water run-off quantity is very high.
• The frequency of extreme rainfall events has increased due to climate change and south Asia is highly prone to flash floods.
• Data suggest that across the world, about 5,000 people die annually due to flash floods.
• Despite such high mortality, there was no robust forecasting or warning system for flash floods.

South Asian Flash Flood Guidance System:

• It has been developed by the US-based Hydrologic Research Centre after the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) and few South Asian countries put forth their views and the urgent need for such a warning system.

Warning Mechanism:

• Based on the rainfall and potential flooding scenario, flash flood warnings will be issued to respective nations.
• Flash flood threat warning will be issued six hours in advance, whereas flood risk warning will be issued 24 hours in advance. Warnings about the watershed level will be issued 12 hours in advance.

India’s Role:

• India is leading the delegation of nations, including Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, and Nepal, in sharing hydrological and meteorological data towards preparing flash flood forecasts.
• India’s National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) and the Central Water Commission (CWC) partnered in developing the system.

Source: PIB

10) Deworming in India

• As per the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, states in India have witnessed a reduction in worm prevalence.
• Regular deworming as advised by the World Health Organization (WHO) eliminates worm infestation among children and adolescents living in areas with high Soil-Transmitted Helminthiases (STH) burden, thereby contributing to achieving better nutrition and health.
• Helminthiases is infestation with or disease caused by parasitic worms.

Background:

• As per the WHO Report on STH published in 2012, in India there were an estimated 64% of children in the age group (1-14 years) at risk of STH.
• The risk was estimated based on the hygiene and sanitation practices and limited STH prevalence data at that point in time.
• To assess the exact burden of STH in India, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare appointed the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) as the nodal agency to coordinate and conduct nationwide baseline STH mapping.
• The baseline STH mapping across the country was completed by the end of 2016. The data showed varied prevalence ranging from 12.5% in Madhya Pradesh to 85% in Tamil Nadu.
• To evaluate the impact of the consistently implemented high coverage National Deworming Day (NDD) program, the Ministry recently initiated follow-up prevalence surveys led by NCDC and partners.

Result of the Follow-up Surveys:

• The follow-up surveys are completed in 14 States.
• All 14 States have shown a reduction in the follow-up survey compared to the baseline prevalence survey.
• The States of Chhattisgarh, Himachal Pradesh, Meghalaya, Sikkim, Telangana, Tripura, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, and Bihar have shown a substantial reduction in worm prevalence in the STH follow up prevalence survey.
• Chhattisgarh has successfully conducted 10 rounds of NDD as of date, and the drop in prevalence has been significant from 74.6% in 2016 to 13.9% in 2018.
• Sikkim, with 9 rounds, has seen a reduction from 80.4% in 2015 to 50.9% in 2019.
• Rajasthan, the State that implemented an annual round only due to a low baseline of 21.1 in 2013 has seen a significant reduction to the level of less than 1% in 2019 as per the survey.

National Deworming Day Programme

• Implementation of NDD is led by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in collaboration with the Ministry of Women and Child Development, Ministry of Education and technical assistance from WHO and the technical partners. It was launched in 2015.
• It is implemented as a biannual single day program (10th February and 10th August) through the platforms of schools and anganwadis.
• In the last round of deworming earlier this year in the country (which was halted due to the Covid pandemic), 11 crore children and adolescents were administered Albendazole tablets across 25 States/UTs.
• Albendazole tablet, approved by the WHO, is used for the treatment of intestinal worms in children and adolescents as part of Mass Drug Administration (MDA) programs globally.

Source: PIB