Ten relevant news updates from across the world, useful for examinations
SHARE:
Headlines - 29 - 07 - 2021
- Agriculture - No landless farmers in National Farmers Database - The Central Government’s new National Farmers Database will only include land-owning farmers for now as it will be linked to digitised land records. A data policy is being prepared specifically for the agriculture sector in collaboration with the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY). The Government can make use of the database for targeted service delivery with higher efficiency. It is the first step for the initiative that would serve as the core of the Agristack, a collection of technologies and digital databases that focuses on farmers and the agricultural sector. AgriStack will create a unified platform for farmers to provide them end to end services across the agriculture food value chain. It is in line with the Centre’s Digital India programme, aimed at providing a broader push to digitise data in India, from land titles to medical records. Each farmer will have a unique digital identification (farmers’ ID) that contains personal details, Each ID will be linked to the individual’s digital national ID Aadhaar.
- Infrastructure - Marine Aids to Navigation Bill 2021 - Parliament passed the Marine Aids to Navigation Bill 2021, to replace over 90-year-old Lighthouse Act 1927, to incorporate the global best practices, technological developments and India’s International obligations in the field of Marine Aids to Navigation. The administration and management of Lighthouse and Lightships in India is governed by Lighthouse Act 1927 for safe navigation. At the time of enactment of Lighthouse Act 1927, there were only 32 Lighthouses in the then British India spread across six regions viz. Aden, Karachi, Bombay, Madras, Calcutta and Rangoon. Post-Independence, 17 Lighthouses came under the administrative control of India, which have now increased manifold to meet the growing needs of the shipping industry. As the technology evolved, systems were put in place where with the help of Radar and other sensors, vessels were advised from shore about the position and thus Vessel Traffic Services (VTS) came into existence and found wide acceptability. These modern, technologically improved aids to marine navigation systems have changed their profile from a ‘passive’ service to that of ‘passive as well as interactive’ service. Lighthouses have also been globally identified as a major tourist attraction due to scenic location, typical architecture and heritage value.
- Science and Technology - Russia’s Nauka going to space - Russia is sending the module "Nauka" to the International Space Station. Nauka was launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan on July 21 using a Proton rocket, scheduled to be integrated with the ISS on July 29. Nauka (meaning “science” in Russian) is the biggest space laboratory Russia has launched to date, to replace Pirs, a Russian module on the International Space Station (ISS) used as a docking port for spacecraft and as a door for cosmonauts to go out on spacewalks. Nauka will serve as the Russia’s main research facility on the space station and is 42 feet long and weighs 20 tonnes. It is also bringing to the ISS another oxygen generator, a spare bed, another toilet, and a robotic cargo crane built by the European Space Agency (ESA). A space station is essentially a large spacecraft that remains in low-earth orbit for extended periods of time. The ISS has been in space since 1998. It is a result of cooperation between the five participating space agencies that run it: NASA (United States), Roscosmos (Russia), JAXA (Japan), ESA (Europe), and CSA (Canada). The ISS circles the Earth in roughly 93 minutes, completing 15.5 orbits per day. The ISS serves as a microgravity and space environment research laboratory in which scientific experiments are conducted in astrobiology, astronomy, meteorology, physics, and other fields.
- World Politics - Exercise Cutlass Express - The Indian Naval Ship Talwar participated in a multinational training exercise Cutlass Express 2021, being conducted along the East Coast of Africa. The exercise is an annual maritime exercise conducted to promote national and regional maritime security in East Africa and the Western Indian Ocean. The 2021 edition of the exercise involves participation of 12 Eastern African countries, US, UK, India and various international organisations like International Maritime Organisation (IMO), United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Interpol, European Union Naval Force (EUNAVFOR), Critical Maritime Routes Indian Ocean (CRIMARIO). The exercise is designed to assess and improve combined maritime law enforcement capacity, promote national and regional security and increase interoperability between the regional navies. India’s Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) is also participating in the exercise. India’s participation is in accordance with India’s stated policy towards maritime cooperation in the Indian Ocean region and vision SAGAR (Security and Growth for All in the Region).
- Governance and Institutions - Garib Nawaz Employment Scheme - The Union Minister for Minority Affairs informed that a total number of 371 training centers under Gharib. Nawaz Employment Scheme were opened in India. It was launched by the Ministry of Minority Affairs in 2017. Maulana Azad Education Foundation, an autonomous body under the aegis of Ministry of Minority Affairs, implements it. The aim is to provide short term job oriented skill development courses to minorities’ youth in order to enable them for skill based employment. It implemented as per common norms of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSD&E) through the empanelled Program Implementation Agencies (PIAs). The PIA is mandated to place minimum 70% trainees out of total trained trainees. The monthly stipend for maximum of three months and post placement support for maximum of two months after getting employment are also being paid to the beneficiaries directly into their account.
- Environment and Ecology - National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG) update - The National Mission for Clean Ganga (NMCG), conceived as a Rs.20,000-crore programme in 2014 to clean up the river, has been allocated Rs.15,074 crore so far. Of this only Rs.10,972 crore, or about two-thirds, was released by the Finance Ministry to the NMCG, a body under the Jal Shakti Ministry. The NMCG further allocates the money to the riverine States. The planned outlay for the Ganga clean-up mission, accounting for future costs, is well over Rs.20,000 crore. Overall, 346 projects had been taken up at a sanctioned cost of Rs.30,235 crore, out of which, 158 projects are completed. Uttar Pradesh, at Rs.3,535 crore, has received the most funds, followed by Bihar (Rs.2,631 crore), Bengal (Rs.1,030 cr) and Uttarakhand (Rs.1001 cr).
- Infrastructure - Central and South Asia Connectivity Confrerence 2021 - Uzbekistan hosted a high-level International Conference titled “Central and South Asia: Regional Connectivity. Challenges and Opportunities” at Tashkent, in July '21. The conference was an initiative of the President of Uzbekistan, Shavkat Mirziyoyev. Delegates from over 40 countries and about 30 international organizations, and heads of think tanks participated in the conference. It was attended by President of Afghanistan Ashraf Ghani, Ministers from Central Asian, West Asian and South Asian countries, including Minister of External Affairs of India Dr. S. Jaishankar. Jaishankar said that for Central Asian countries, Chabahar port in Iran provides a ‘secure, viable and unhindered access to the sea. The port has been proposed to be included in the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC). It may be added that an India-Uzbekistan-Iran-Afghanistan Quadrilateral Working Group has been formed on the joint use of Chabahar port.
- Education - Maharashtra ordinance to reduce school fees - The Maharashtra Cabinet passed an ordinance to slash school fees by 15% for the current academic year across all education boards. This comes after the Supreme Court asked the state to consider reducing fees in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Across India, most schools have generally tried accommodating parents as much as possible, though elite, branded schools have not reduced their fees substantially.
- Defence and Military - China's missile silors - Experts reading commercial-satellite imagery have found a field of up to 110 missile silos being built in the eastern part of China’s Xinjiang region. In June, a team had found a separate field of 120 silos being constructed in the desert of Gansu. The two sites represent the largest burst of silo-building since the cold war. They have sparked concerns that China’s modest nuclear arsenal—estimated at 100 or so intercontinental ballistic missiles and around 200 operational warheads—will expand dramatically. China perhaps intends to play a “shell game”, shuffling a handful of missiles among the silos to keep other countries guessing where they are. America’s State Department says that China “is deviating from decades of nuclear strategy based around minimum deterrents”.
- World Economy: Washington saw bipartisan co-operation when the Senate voted to consider an infrastructure bill that will provide $550bn in new funding for roads, broadband and more. It was a crucial procedural hurdle to clear, suggesting that the Biden administration’s plan might just pass. But a two-year deal to suspend America’s debt ceiling expires at the end of July '21. Without an agreement to lift the ceiling or suspend it once more, markets must again weigh the risk of a government default. There is no immediate danger, as the Treasury will have $450bn on hand at the end of July; it can always buy space by holding on to cash that would have otherwise been invested in retirement funds for federal employees. Janet Yellen, the treasury secretary, has warned that such “extraordinary measures” may be hard to calibrate because the pandemic has disrupted the government’s normal cash flows.
COMMENTS