Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 21 January 2022

::NATIONAL::

Committee for resolving border disputes between Assam and Meghalaya

Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma and his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K. Sangma met Union Home minister Amit Shah in Delhi and apprised him about the efforts being made to resolve six of the 12 inter-state border disputes between the two northeastern states.

Key highlights:

The ministerial committees before finalising the recommendations of the two states had visited 36 villages in six of the 12 disputed areas during the past four months.
Recently, regional committees submitted reports on these six areas.
The states will now submit a common report to the centre as both the States have agreed 100 per cent to the recommendations of the regional committees.

About Assam-Meghalaya border dispute:

Assam and Meghalaya share an 885-km-long border. As of now, there are 12 points of dispute along their borders.
Meghalaya was carved out of Assam under the Assam Reorganisation Act, 1971, a law that it challenged, leading to disputes.

Assam and border disputes:

The states of the Northeast were largely carved out of Assam, which has border disputes with several states.
Assam's border disputes with Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland are pending in the Supreme Court.
Assam's border disputes with Meghalaya and Mizoram are currently in the phase of resolution through negotiations.
The border dispute with Mizoram had turned violent last year, leading to intervention from the Centre.

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IAS officers and central posting

The Centre has proposed amendments to the IAS (Cadre) Rules in order to exercise greater control in central deputation of IAS officials, which has often been at the centre of tussles between the Centre and the states.

What is current rule on deputation?

Central deputation in the Indian Administrative Service is covered under Rule-6 (1) of the IAS (Cadre) Rules-1954, inserted in May 1969.
It states: “A cadre officer may, with the concurrence of the State Governments concerned and the Central Government, be deputed for service under the Central Government or another State Government or under a company, association or body of individuals, whether incorporated or not, which is wholly or substantially owned or controlled by the Central Government or by another State Government. Provided that in case of any disagreement, the matter shall be decided by the Central Government and the State Government or State Governments concerned shall give effect to the decision of the Central Government.”
As on January 1, 2021, out of around 5,200 IAS officers in the country, 458 were on central deputation.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

Pacific Ring of Fire

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano erupted over the weekend, sending ash and smoke thousands of feet into the air.
The volcano, situated on an uninhabited island, became active in 2009. It lies along the Pacific ‘Ring of fire’, and is just over 60 kilometres from the island nation of Tonga.

About:

The Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ or Pacific rim, or the Circum-Pacific Belt, is an area along the Pacific Ocean that is characterised by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
It is home to about 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes – more than 450 volcanoes. Also, about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur here.
Along the area, tectonic plates move towards each other creating subduction zones.
One plate gets pushed down or is subducted by the other plate.
As this subduction happens, rocks melt, become magma and move to Earth's surface and cause volcanic activity.

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Industrial R&D & Technological Innovation Fund

Experts from both countries deliberated on widening the scope of the India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) at its 8th Governing Body meeting.
They approved three joint R&D projects totaling 5.5 million $ and proposed measures to create a larger India-Israel collaborative ecosystem.

About India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund:

India-Israel Industrial R&D and Technological Innovation Fund (I4F) fund is a collaboration between the Department of Science and Technology (DST), and the Israel Innovation Authority, to promote, facilitate and support joint industrial R&D projects between companies from India and Israel to address the challenges in the agreed ‘Focus Sectors’.
The goal of I4F is to promote, facilitate and support joint industrial R&D, which would lead to the co-development and commercialization of innovative technologies that can benefit both nations.
The Global Innovation & Technology Alliance (GITA) is appointed to implement the I4F program in India, while Israel Innovation Authority is the implementing agency in Israel.

India-Israel Relations:

India announced its recognition of Israel in1950.
Since the upgradation of relations in 1992, defence and agriculture formed the two main pillars of the bilateral engagement between both nations.

About Indo-Israeli Agriculture Project:

In the agricultural sector, both countries have jointly developed new crop varieties and share post-harvest technologies following the success of the 10-year-old Indo-Israeli Agriculture Project (IIAP).
This accomplishments include the successful growing of cherry tomatoes in Haryana, rejuvenating mango orchards in Maharashtra, and demonstrating to Indian farmers the effectiveness of state-of-the-art irrigation technologies.

::ECONOMY::

Digital payments index

The Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) digital payments index (DPI), which was launched in January 2021 to indicate the extent of digitisation of payments across the country.
It shows that the index for September 2021 stood at 304.06 against 270.59 in March.
In March 2019, the index stood at 153.47 and by September 2019, it rose to 173.49, followed by 207.94 in March 2020, 217.74 in September 2020, and 270.59 in March 2021.

About DPI:

RBI-DPI comprises five broad parameters
Payment Enablers (weight 25%),
Payment Infrastructure - Demand-side factors (10%),
Payment Infrastructure - Supply-side factors (15%),
Payment Performance (45%) and
Consumer Centricity (5%).

The index will be published on a semi-annual basis with a lag of four months.
The RBI-DPI has been constructed with March 2018 as the base period, that is, DPI score for March 2018 is set at 100.

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::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Antimicrobial resistance

The Union Ministry of Fisheries, Animal Husbandry and Dairying wrote to the chief secretaries of all states and Union territories January 14, 2022 regarding the threat posed by antibiotic use in the aquaculture sector.
There is an urgent need for countermeasures since the threat persists despite measures and guidelines.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has received significant attention from the ministry over concerns around the impact of antibiotic misuse and overuse in aquaculture and livestock sectors.
AMR is the ability of bacteria and other microbes to resist the drugs used to inhibit or kill them.

Key concerns:

Sale of antimicrobials in bulk quantities to aquaculture farmers, particularly shrimp aquaculture, is a serious health concern.
Export issues as there have been instances of rejection of shrimp consignments from India due to antibiotic detection.
Cattle treatment is mostly done by quacks with little or no formal training resulting in frequent misuse of antibiotics.

Steps taken by India to curb AMR