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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 06 November 2021

::NATIONAL::

The government has issued a Draft Mediation Bill for Public Consultation.
The draft Bill proposes for pre-litigation mediation and at the same time safeguards the interest of the litigants to approach the competent adjudicatory forums and courts in case an urgent relief is sought.

About:

As per the draft Bill, the successful outcome of mediation in the form of the Mediation Settlement Agreement has been made enforceable by law.
Since the Mediation Settlement Agreement is out of the consensual agreement between the parties, the challenge to the same has been permitted on limited grounds.
As per the draft bill, the mediation process protects the confidentiality of the mediation undertaken and provides for immunity in certain cases against its disclosure.
The draft bill also says that registration of Mediation Settlement Agreement has been provided for with State, District and Taluk Legal Authorities within 90 days to ensure maintenance of authenticated records of the settlement so arrived.

The Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA), launched a ‘whistle-blower Portal’, as a part of ‘Vigilance Awareness Week 2021’.
Through this portal, IREDA employees can raise concerns related to

1.   fraud,
2.   corruption,
3.   abuse of power etc.

Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan will be hosted by India on 10th November.

About:

The NSA level meeting will be chaired by NSA Ajit Doval.
According to sources there has been an overwhelming response to India’s invitation. Central Asian countries as well as Russia and Iran have confirmed their participation.
This is the first time all Central Asian countries, not just Afghanistan’s immediate land neighbours, are participating in this format.
The enthusiastic response is recognition of the importance attached to India’s role to promote peace and security in Afghanistan.
Two earlier meetings in this format have been held in Iran in September 2018 and December 2019.

QS (Quacquarelli Symonds), global higher education think-tank released the fourteenth edition oftheir annual list of Asia’s best higher education institutions.
The National University of Singapore is named as the continent’s best university for the fourthconsecutive year.

India’s Performance:

A total of 118 Indian universities, the second highest after Mainland China’s 126, feature in the 2022 QS World University Rankings: Asia.
India has taken the main share of new entries, with 12 universities ranked for the first time. However, its representation at the top has slipped, with two institutes in the top 50 compared to three last year.
India has the highest number of top-100 universities in the Staff with PhD indicator.
In terms of overall rankings, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Bombay was the top Indianinstitute in Asia with a rank of 42, down by five places from 37 in the 2021 edition.

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has rolled out a scheme for settlement of tax disputesinvolving small tax payers.

About e-settlement scheme, 2021:

The scheme is effective from 1st November.
Under the scheme, an‘interim board’ will decide on applications for settlement.
The interim board is tasked with handling pleas that are transferred from the SettlementCommission.
All communication between the Interim Board and tax payers will be exclusively in electronicmode.
The scheme is in line with the government’s vision to digitize the overall income tax litigationprocess in order to bring more transparency and credibility.

An advanced 650 teraflops supercomputing facility at National Agri-Food Biotechnology Instituteat Mohali was inaugurated.
A 1 teraflops computer system is capable of performing one trillion (1012) floating-point operations per second.
The facility has come up under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) in collaboration withC-DAC, Pune.
Launched in 2015, the NSM project is led jointly by the Ministry of Electronics and InformationTechnology and Department of Science and Technology.