Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 19 August 2022

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AamAadmi Party leader Arvind Kejriwal on August 7 declared a six-point “guarantee” for tribals in Gujarat’s ChhotaUdepur district, including the “strict implementation” of The Panchayats (Extension to the Scheduled Areas) Act (PESA Act).

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The PESA Act was enacted in 1996 “to provide for the extension of the provisions of Part IX of the Constitution relating to the Panchayats to the Scheduled Areas”.
Under the PESA Act, Scheduled Areas are those referred to in Article 244(1), which says that the provisions of the Fifth Schedule shall apply to the Scheduled Areas and Scheduled Tribes in states other than Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram. The Fifth Schedule provides for a range of special provisions for these areas.
The PESA Act was enacted to ensure self-governance through Gram Sabhas (village assemblies) for people living in the Scheduled Areas.
It recognises the right of tribal communities, who are residents of the Scheduled Areas, to govern themselves through their own systems of self-government, and also acknowledges their traditional rights over natural resources.

Supreme Court asked the Centre to find out whether States are following its 2018 judgment (Tehseen Poonawalla case) which puts the onus on the police to prevent communal violence and lynchings.

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In Tehseen Poonawalla case, SC condemned the incidents of mob lynchings as “horrendous acts of mobocracy”.

The Biden administration said it was shipping its biggest yet direct delivery of weapons to Ukraine sending $1 billion in rockets, ammunition and other material to Ukraine from the Defense Department stockpiles.

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The new US arms shipment would further strengthen Ukraine as it mounts the counteroffensive, which analysts say for the first time could allow Kyiv to shape the course of the rest of the war, now at the half-year mark.
Kyiv aims to push Russian troops back out of Kherson and other southern territory near the Dnipro River.
Russia in recent days was moving troops and equipment in the direction of the southern port cities to stave off the Ukrainian counteroffensive.
The new US aid includes additional rockets for the High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems, or HIMARS, as well as thousands of artillery rounds, mortar systems, Javelins and other ammunition and equipment.

Italy’s largest lake called as Lake Garda drops to near-historic lowamid extreme drought in Europe.

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Italy, country of south-central Europe, shares landBorder with France, Switzerland, Austria, and Slovenia.
It is surrounded by Adriatic Sea, Ionian Sea, TyrrhenianSea and Ligurian Sea.
Shares maritime borders with Albania, Algeria, Croatia,Greece, Libya, Malta, Montenegro, Spain, and Tunisia.
Two of the largest Mediterranean islands belong to Italy—Sardinia and Sicily.
Longest River is Po;
Highest mountain is Monte Bianco (Mont Blanc);
Largest lake is Garda;

The Enforcement Directorate has attached properties worth about ₹47,099 crore in 515 money laundering cases related to fraud in public and private sector banks during 2014-2022, according to the Finance Ministry.
In response to a query from Lok Sabha Member Ritesh Pandey, the Minister of State in the Finance Ministry said the ED has filed charge sheets before special courts in 115 cases.

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Also, out of the aforementioned 515 cases, 137 cases pertain to the bank frauds wherein amount involved is more than ₹100 crore in each case.
According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the public and private banks recovered ₹8,39,452 crore from 2014-2015 to 2021-2022 in the Non-Performing Asset (NPA) accounts, including those reported as frauds.
The aggregate amounts involved in frauds in respect of top 100 accounts, based on the date of occurrence of frauds, were ₹38,722 crore (public banks) and ₹10,729 crore (private banks) in 2014-2015. The next financial year, it peaked to ₹51,625 crore for public banks, while the amount was ₹10,484 crore in the case of private banks. The figure for private banks spiked to ₹17,571 crore in 2018-19.

With rising cases of mobile phone snatching in the national capital, the Delhi Police is now planning to close ranks with internet service providers and the department of telecommunications to block stolen or robbed phones.
This will be done by using the device’s International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number.

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The International Mobile Equipment Identity or IMEI is a unique number that is used to identify a device on a mobile network. It has 15 digits, and is like your phone’s unique identity.
When you use the internet or place a call through your cellular service provider, then this number is used to verify the identity of your device.
If you have a dual SIM phone, then you will have two IMEI numbers, one for each slot.