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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 15 October 2017

::NATIONAL::

Steps to end bottom trawling

India informed Sri Lanka that it has taken measures to stop bottom trawling by its fishermen in the waters near the Sri Lankan coastline. During a weekend meeting of the Joint Working Group (JWG) in Delhi, officials expressed satisfaction over the release of Indian fishermen by Colombo, and reiterated the need to bring the rest of them back to India.
Recent initiatives taken by the Government of India to end bottom trawling in the Palk Bay area include the launch of a programme on diversification of bottom trawlers into deep-sea fishing vessels for tuna long lining under the Blue Revolution Scheme, construction of Mookaiyur and Poompuhar fishing harbours, and capacity-building programmes for fishermen of the Palk Bay area in deep sea tuna long lining. Besides, fresh registration for bottom trawlers in the Palk Bay area has been banned by the Government of Tamil Nadu.
India also informed that schemes promoting seaweed farming and sea-cage farming have begun in the Palk Bay area to wean away fishermen from deep-sea trawling.
Bottom trawling by Indian fishermen had emerged as a major issue because of the disruptive impact it left on the coastal communities of Sri Lanka.
Earlier in July, Sri Lanka banned bottom trawling, increasing the chances of interception of more Indian bottom trawlers.
The JWG was co-chaired by Secretary-level officials of India and Sri Lanka, in which the Indian delegates praised Sri Lanka for releasing fishermen from Tamil Nadu and urged the release of the fishermen remaining in the custody of the Sri Lankan government.
The JWG mechanism commenced on November 5, 2016, to find a permanent solution to fishermen’s issues between the two countries.

South Asia Satellite benefits yet to be reaped

Some five months after the South Asia Satellite or GSAT-9 was put up in space as New Delhi’s gift to six neighbours, ground delays outside India seem to be holding up its planned harvest.
The Indian Space Research Organisation, which owns and operates the roughly Rs. 200-crore communication spacecraft, says it has initiated the processes to set up ground stations for the partners to receive/send satellite communication. It has invited expressions of interest to find suitable Indian industry players who will set up the ground equipment.
While half of the satellite’s 12 Ku-band transponders are reserved for the partners, the Indian part has been in use without a hitch.
In India, which has a 50-year active space history, satcom-based activities can routinely begin in a couple of months after a communications satellite is launched. But for the smaller neighbours, space is a relatively new area.
India’s space programme is helping Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, the Maldives, Nepal and Sri Lanka. Their satellite-based services are said to be small and some may be using commercial foreign satellites.
In the case of Bhutan, Mr. Kiran Kumar said there had been significant progress and many interactions, because of which “we are going ahead” faster than with the others.
To begin with, ISRO has enabled video transmission uplinked from India. Once the countries start using their part of satellite fully, he said it could open or spur activities for poor and unconnected areas — tele-education and tele-medicine or consultations with doctors, besides a SAARC library link of regionally relevant information.
India has offered each country one Ku-band transponder free of cost, along with services. The gesture is meant to spread the use of DTH television and VSATs to support Internet-based applications.
The South Asia Satellite was first announced by the Prime Minister in 2014. India itself has been grappling with an old shortage of Ku-band transponders — because of which Indian DTH operators lease their capacity on private foreign satellites.

India building pressure on ILO regarding the slavery report

After sending a rebuttal to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) challenging India’s ranking in a global slavery report, India will build pressure on the global body to distance itself from the Australia-based NGO-Walk Free Foundation.
It was the WFF, founded by Australia’s mining mogul Andrew “Twiggy” Forrest, that had compiled the report. Indian security agencies informed the Prime Ministers Office (PMO) that though the methodology of sampling was not clear, the WFF’s entire focus was on India and had “enough potential to substantively harm India’s image and kill its exports market”.
The PMO was warned that there was “evidence of rising interest of private and multilateral institutions in highlighting human trafficking and forced labour as modern-day slavery, with India being the largest hub of slaves”.
The Centre has tasked the V.V. Giri National Labour Institute, an autonomous body under the Labour and Employment Ministry, to prepare a point-wise rejoinder to the ‘modern slavery’ report.
“The entire thrust is to get WFF out of United Nations and ILO matters. The NGO published its first report in 2013 and the methodology adopted by them is opaque,” said a senior government official.
“While not without gaps and limitations, the Global Estimates of Modern Slavery provide the international community with the best available data and information that exists about the scale and distribution of modern slavery today,” the methodology paper said.
As per the report, the highest number of people, 17,000, were surveyed in India and it was placed in a cluster of 53 countries like Honduras, Belize, Iraq, Pakistan and China.
Elaborating on “debt bondage,” the report cited an interview from an unidentified person, which said, “For example, a 30-year-old male victim of forced labour in India described the situation he and his wife faced as having ‘…become a curse on both of us. We had threats against our family and we also got the threat that we would be evicted from our house and the village. There were also threats of violence’.”
The Labour Ministry shot off a strong letter to the ILO regarding its report titled ‘Global Estimates of Modern Slavery: Forced Labour and Forced Marriage 2017,’ The report released on September 19 did not contain any India-specific findings, barring one mention that 17,000 people were interviewed for the survey.

Might see Proxy voters for NRIs

Addressing women BJP workers in a town hall interaction, External Affairs Minister SushmaSwaraj said that soon non-resident Indians (NRIs) would be able to proxy-vote in elections in the country as the government was set to amend the Representation of the People Act.
She said that under the present law, NRIs registered in India as voters had to fly to the country during an election to cast their vote, but with the amendment, they could just issue an authorisation letter to family members or relatives to vote on their behalf.
In her interaction with the women, the Union Minister asked them to take advantage of women-specific government schemes of the State and the Central governments for social welfare, employment and entrepreneurship.

Traditional medicines getting adulterated

Traditional medicines in the large unorganised market contain spurious plant extracts and, sometimes, heavy metals that pose serious risks to health, an exhaustive genetics-based study has revealed.
The set of studies shows that traditional medicinal markets are replete with unrelated plant materials that substitute for endangered or rare ones, while the final product, in some instances, contains heavy metals, particularly lead.
In a review published in the journal Drug Safety earlier this year, scientists from Bengaluru working with their counterparts in Canada, have called for a herbal trade authentication system to address “concerns over widespread adulteration.”
Among the researchers is G. Ravikanth from Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and the Environment (ATREE) who stumbled upon significant adulteration of herbal products. In 2008, while attempting to trace the genetic history of Phyllanthus (Leaf flower), his team was surprised to see claims of the plant being used in abundance in herbal medicines, despite its relative rarity.
Taking samples from 12 wholesale markets across South India (such as Bengaluru, Kollam, Madurai and Thiruvananthapuram), their DNA analysis showed that nearly 25% of samples were not Phyllanthusamarus(used to treat Hepatitis B), but a mixture of other species which did not contain the curative elements of Phyllanthin and hypophyllanthin.
Taking off from this, they focussed their attention on species adulteration and developed DNA barcodes — short genetic sequences, much like a supermarket barcode, which becomes an identifying mark — for 150 species commonly used in traditional medicine.
The team set about comparing raw herbal products marketed with the ‘barcodes’ of the actual species. Between 2010 and 2016, five published studies or reviews detailed the scale of the adulteration.
Ashoka bark, which is used to cure many ailments including leucorrhea, uterine disorders, and as an anti-inflammatory, anti-bacterial drug — whose harvesting is highly regulated under forest laws — was found to have an astounding 90% adulteration by seven other species, including papaya or drumstick bark in Tamil Nadu and Sal trees in Central India.

Birsa Munda Tribal University

Gujarat Minister of State for Tribal Welfare ShabdasharanTadvi inaugurated the Birsa Munda Tribal University in the tribal-dominated Rajpipla town in Narmada district, Gujarat
For now, the university will function from the premises of Adarsh NivasiShala and would later shift to it’s campus on 25 acres of land at Jitnagar village on the outskirts of Rajpipla.
The Gujarat Assembly had in May last year, passed a Bill to set up the Birsa Munda Tribal University.
Ms. Tadvi, who represents Rajpipla assembly constituency, said the new university would offer graduation, post- graduation, diploma and certificate courses covering the subjects of Arts, Commerce, Science, Traditional Art and Skill, Herbal Medicine, and Sanskrit.
With this university, 90 lakh tribals in the state will get access to university education, the minister said.

::INTERNATIONAL::

N. Korea primes missile launch ahead of U.S.-South drill

North Korea is believed to be preparing to launch a ballistic missile ahead of an upcoming joint naval drill by the U.S. and South Korea, a news report said on Saturday, citing a government source.
The U.S. Navy said that a U.S. aircraft carrier would lead the drill in the coming week, a fresh show of force against North Korea as tensions soar over the hermit state’s weapons programme.
The move will likely rile Pyongyang, which has previously responded angrily to joint exercises.
The DongaIlbo daily, quoting a government source, said satellite pictures appeared to show ballistic missiles mounted on launchers being transported out of hangars near Pyongyang and in the North Phyongan Province.
U.S. and South Korean military officials suspect the North might be preparing to launch missiles capable of reaching U.S. territory, the newspaper said.
This could be the Hwasong-14 inter-continental ballistic missile (ICBM), whose range could extend to Alaska, or Hwasong-12 intermediate-range missiles which Pyongyang threatened to fire towards the U.S. Pacific territory of Guam in August, the report said.
Another possibility is that the North might be preparing to test a new Hwasong-13 ICBM, it added, that has a longer maximum range than the other two missiles and could potentially reach the U.S. West Coast.

::ENVIRONMENT::

chipko movement in Aarey Colony

Environmental activists have begun a chipko movement, in which protesters hug trees, to protect over 3,000 trees in Aarey Colony from being cut down to make way for a Mumbai Metro carshed.
Aarey Conservation Group members were joined by scores of people and school children in a peaceful protest. They appealed to the government to reconsider its carshed decision in one of the city’s last green lungs.
Stalin Dayanand, convener, NGO Vanashakti, said, “There are seven other places where the carshed can come up without destroying ecological balance, but the Metro Corporation officials are hell-bent on cutting 3,500 trees. They have already started excavation work, so we decided to start a chipko movement in Aarey Colony.
Alleging that MMRC has submitted false affidavits to different agencies to be able to cut the trees, Mr. Dayanand said the Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (MMRCL) had told the Bombay High Court that only 250 trees would be felled. “Then, it told the NGT that only 500 trees will be cut. Shockingly, here, on Ground Zero in Mumbai, it has come up with a tender to cut 3,500 trees.”
Noted lyricist Piyush Mishra, who too is batting for Aarey’s green cover, has come out with a music video to sensitise people and the government against cutting trees at Aarey.
Reacting to the developments, MMRC said there was no restraining order from the NGT on undertaking construction work at Aarey. It also said tree cutting activity has not begun as yet.

::BUSINESS AND ECONOMY::

Gold demand to increase after Easing of PMLA norms

Demand for the yellow metal is likely to increase sharply by about 25% this festive season with gems and jewellery dealers being exempted from the reporting requirement purview of the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA).
The recent PMLA requirement of KYC-linked purchases of gold had delayed buying, but the latest notification removing the same will increase the pent up demand for gold jewellery. “This is likely to cause a YoY jump of 25% during the ensuing Diwali festival,” said Anshuman Mishra, co-founder and CEO, LoanAdda.com, a platform for gold loans.
The rollback of this order will definitely improve the ease of doing business. Under PMLA, every reporting entity is required to maintain a record of all transactions of value exceeding Rs. 10 lakh, all cross border wire transfers of more than Rs. 5 lakh and all purchase and sale of immovable property of Rs. 50 lakh or more.
The PMLA guidelines, which required jewellers to keep records of customers’ Permanent Account Number (PAN) for transactions above Rs. 50,000, had a drastic effect on gold sales as buyers were hesitant to provide the PAN details.
The reversal of restrictions helped increase the demand for gold purchases, said B. Govindan, chairman, Bhima Group and president of All Kerala Gold & Silver Merchants Association.