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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 07 February 2021

::NATIONAL::

HAL hands over helicopters to Navy, Coast Guard

HAL handed over three Advanced Light Helicopters (ALH) Mk III to the Indian Navy and two to the Indian Coast Guard as part of a 16-ALH contract.
The Light Utility Helicopter (LUH) is a 3-ton-class new-generation single-engine helicopter designed and developed indigenously.
HAL has been recognised by Rolls Royce as authorised maintenance centre for Adour Mk871 engines for its global customers.
The two companies will extend their collaboration to the area of supply chain.

The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971

Police in Uttar Pradesh’s Pilibhit district have booked the mother and brother of a farmer who had died during the farmers’ agitation in Delhi, under The Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971, after his body was allegedly draped in the national flag.
The deceased farmer, Balvinder Singh (32), died on January 24 near Ghazipur where he was participating in the farmers’ agitation. Police in Pilibhit district have booked his mother Jasveer Kaur (51), and brother Gurvinder Singh (22), under Section 2 of the Act.

About the law:

The law, enacted on December 23, 1971, penalises the desecration of or insult to Indian national symbols, such as the National Flag, the Constitution, the National Anthem, and the Indian map, as well as contempt of the Constitution of India.
Section 2 of the Act, “Insults to Indian National Flag and Constitution of India”, says: “Whoever in any public place or in any other place within public view burns, mutilates, defaces, difiles, disfigures, destroys, tramples upon or otherwise shows disrespect to or brings into contempt (whether by words, either spoken or written, or by acts) the Indian National Flag or the Constitution of India or any part thereof, shall be punished with imprisonment for a term which may extend to three years, or with fine, or with both.”
As per the Act, “disrespect to the Indian National Flag means and includes”, among other things, “using the Indian National Flag as a drapery in any form whatsoever except in State funerals or armed forces or other paramilitary forces funerals”. (Explanation 4(d) under Section 2)
Section 3.22 of The Flag Code of India, 2002 (which deals with laws, practices and conventions that apply to the display of the national flag), reads: “The Flag shall not be used as a drapery in any form whatsoever except in State/Military/Central Paramilitary Forces funerals hereinafter provided.”
Section 3.58 says: “On occasions of State/Military/Central Paramilitary Forces funerals, the flag shall be draped over the bier or coffin with the saffron towards the head of the bier or coffin. The Flag shall not be lowered into the grave or burnt in the pyre.”

Use of flag in funerals:

The flag can only be used during a funeral if it is accorded the status of a state funeral.
Apart from police and armed forces, state funerals are held when people who are holding or have held office of President, Vice-President, Prime Minister, Cabinet Minister, Chief Minister pass away. The status of a state funeral can be accorded in case of death of people not belonging to the armed forces, police or the above-mentioned categories by the state government. Then too, the national flag can be used.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Denmark’s artificial energy island project

The Government of Denmark has approved a plan to build an artificial island in the North Sea as part of its effort to switch to green energy.
The project is being called the largest construction project to be undertaken in Denmark’s history with an estimated cost of DKK 210 billion.

What is an energy island?

An energy island is based on a platform that serves as a hub for electricity generation from surrounding offshore wind farms.
The idea is to connect and distribute power between Denmark and neighbouring countries. Denmark has already entered into agreements with the Netherlands, Germany and Belgium to begin the joint analysis of connections in the energy island.
The estimates suggest that it will be able to store and produce enough green energy to cover the electricity requirements of over 3 million households in the European Union (EU).
According to the Danish Energy Agency, as part of the Climate Agreement for Energy and Industry, Denmark wants to become the first country in the world to begin working on such energy islands with a total capacity of about 5 GW offshore winds.
The construction of both islands is expected to be complete by 2030.

Bhashan Char Island

It is an uninhabited island in Bay of Bengal where theBangladesh has made shelter houses for lakhRohingya refugees.
Rohingya are the persecuted ethinic minority(Muslims) of Myanmar's Rakhine province.
The island surfaced only in 2006 from the sediment deposited (char is Bengali for sediment) by the riverMeghna.
The place is more similar to a mudflat and is vulnerable to going under water from tides and flooding.

::ECONOMY::

Government securities market

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that it will give small investors direct access to its government securities trading platform.
Retail investors can directly open their gilt accounts with RBI, and trade in government securities.
These are debt instruments issued by the government to borrow money. The two key categories are treasury bills – short-term instruments which mature in 91 days, 182 days, or 364 days, and dated securities – long-term instruments, which mature anywhere between 5 years and 40 years.
Small investors can invest indirectly in g-secs by buying mutual funds or through certain policies issued by life insurance firms.
To encourage direct investment, the government and RBI have taken several steps in recent years.
Retail investors are allowed to place non-competitive bids in auctions of government bonds through their demat accounts. Stock exchanges act as aggregators and facilitators of retail bids.
The g-sec market is dominated by institutional investors such as banks, mutual funds, and insurance companies.
It is in the government’s and RBI’s interest to bring this down. That can happen by broadening the base of investors and making it easier for them to buy g-secs.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Government guidelines for tech platform

The Centre has issued notice to Twitter after the micro-blogging site restored more than 250 accounts that had been suspended earlier on the government’s ‘legal demand’.

Key highlights:

The government wants the platform to comply with its earlier order of January 31 by which it was asked to block accounts and a controversial hashtag that spoke of an impending ‘genocide’ of farmers for allegedly promoting misinformation about the protests, adversely affecting public order.
Twitter reinstated the accounts and tweets on its own and later refused to go back on the decision, contending that it found no violation of its policy.
In India, the Information Technology Act, 2000, as amended from time to time, governs all activities related to the use of computer resources.
It covers all ‘intermediaries’ who play a role in the use of computer resources and electronic records.
The term ‘intermediaries’ includes providers of telecom service, network service, Internet service and web hosting, besides search engines, online payment and auction sites, online marketplaces and cyber cafes.
It includes any person who, on behalf of another, “receives, stores or transmits” any electronic record. Social media platforms would fall under this definition.
Section 69 of the Act confers on the Central and State governments the power to issue directions “to intercept, monitor or decrypt…any information generated, transmitted, received or stored in any computer resource”.
Section 69A, for similar reasons and grounds on which it can intercept or monitor information, enables the Centre to ask any agency of the government, or any intermediary, to block access to the public of any information generated, transmitted, received or stored or hosted on any computer resource.

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