(FREE) UPSC Current Affairs 2024 PDF

Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 25 December 2021

::NATIONAL::

Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill 2021

The Karnataka legislative Assembly passed The Karnataka Right to Freedom of Religion Bill, 2021, commonly referred to as the anti-conversion Bill, amid Opposition protests.
It prohibits conversion from one religion to another by misrepresentation, force, fraud, allurement or marriage. The Bill will now go to the Karnataka Legislative Council.

About:

The Bill states, “No person shall convert or attempt to convert either directly or otherwise any other person from one religion to another by use of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means or by marriage, nor shall any person abet or conspire for conversions.”
It, however, provides an exemption in the case of a person who “reconverts to his immediate previous religion” as “the same shall not be deemed to be a conversion under this Act”.
According to the proposed legislation, complaints regarding conversions can be filed by family members or any other person who is related to the individual who is getting converted.

Penalty and punishment:

A jail term of three to five years and a fine of Rs 25,000 has been proposed for those violating the law in the case of people from general categories, and a jail term of three to 10 years and a fine of Rs 50,000 has been mooted for those converting minors, women or persons from SC/ST communities.
The Bill also envisages payment of a compensation of Rs 5 lakh (on court orders) to victims of conversion by the persons attempting the conversion, and double punishment for repeat offences.
Marriages conducted with the intention of conversion can be declared null and void by a family court or a jurisdictional court.
The offence of conversion has been deemed to be a cognizable and non-bailable, that can be tried in a magistrate’s court under the proposed law.
Any person intending to convert to another religion after the law comes into force will have to notify the district magistrate two months in advance.
The person who is carrying out the conversion must provide one month notice, and the district magistrate must conduct an enquiry through the police on the real purpose of the conversion, says the draft Bill.

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National Oxygen Stewardship Programme

Union government has launched an initiative to train health care workers in rational utilisationof medical oxygen to prevent wastage.

About National Oxygen Stewardship Programme:

As part of the programme, at least one oxygen steward will be identified and trained in eachdistrict across the country.
These trained professionals would be responsible for leading the training on oxygen therapyand management in their respective districts.
They will also support audit of oxygen delivery and preparedness for a surge scenario.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

James Webb Space Telescope

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), the largest and most powerful space telescope ever built, will be launched from French Guiana, on the northeast coast of South America, on the European Ariane 5 rocket.
It is the same space facility and the same rocket that the Indian Space Research Organisation uses to launch its heavier satellites.

About:

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is a space telescope jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
JWST is an engineering marvel comparable to the earth-based Event Horizon Telescope that produced the photograph of the black hole, or the LIGO that detected the gravitational waves.
It is widely expected to unveil many secrets of the universe, particularly those related to the formation of stars and galaxies in the early period — the first few hundred million years — after the Big Bang.

Time machine in space

Powerful space telescopes, like JWST or the Hubble Telescope, are often called time-machines because of their ability to view very faraway objects.
The light coming from those objects, stars or galaxies, which is captured by these telescopes, began its journey millions of years earlier.
Essentially, what these telescopes see are images of these stars or galaxies as they were millions of years ago. The more distant the planet or star, the farther back in time are the telescopes able to see.
Images and data sent by Hubble, which has been in operation since 1990, orbiting the Earth at 570 km, form the basis for much of our understanding of the early universe and the formation and destruction of planets, stars and galaxies.
It has seen deeper into the universe than any other instrument and taken the most iconic photographs of stars and galaxies.

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Tiananmen Square Massacre

Workers at the University of Hong Kong put up barriers that largely blocked their activity from view and, over the next several hours, took down the towering “Pillar of Shame”.

About:

The 8-metre (26-foot)-tall sculpture, which was taken away in parts, remembered the victims of China’s 1989 crackdown on pro-democracy protests at Beijing’s Tiananmen Square.
Its removal is testament to the ruling Communist Party’s efforts to erase the bloody events of that day from the public consciousness.
It also comes as the party snuffs out democratic challenges in Hong Kong to its rule.
Together they signal the different future that lies ahead for the city of 7.4 million people.
There is more than one Pillar of Shame. It is a series of works by Danish sculptor Jens Galschioet, all the same height and typically made of bronze, copper and concrete.
They have been erected in Hong Kong, Mexico and Brazil, and are designed to remind people of events to ensure they don’t happen again.

Tiananmen 1989 and Hong Kong 2021

The Tiananmen massacre, in which hundreds and possibly thousands were killed, was a pivotal moment at which a divided Communist Party leadership decided to suppress the democracy movement rather than allow it to grow.
In the ensuing years, the party experimented with allowing villagers to vote for their local representatives, but it has maintained its monopoly on power and only those who are loyal to it are allowed to hold office.
Hong Kong was a British colony and not part of China in 1989.
After its return to China in 1997, it was given partial democracy, with some of its legislature but not the city’s leader chosen by popular vote.
Demands for greater democracy sparked massive protests in 2014 and 2019.

::ECONOMY::

Toy imports into the Indian market

Toy imports into the Indian market during the last three years is showing a decreasing trend even as India has 8,366 registered Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSME) for toy manufacturing.

About:

The country’s toy imports have declined to USD 130 million in 2020-21 from USD 304 million in 2018-19, according to government data.
The government is protecting the interest of the domestic toy industry by promoting Made-in-India toys.
The government has taken a series of steps to promote domestic manufacturing of toys to ensure that no sub-standard and unsafe cheap toys are imported into India.
FY 20-21 saw 53.58% decrease in import of toys classified under HSN Code 9503 compared to FY19-20. Similarly, decrease in imports of toys classified as HSN Code 9505 was 37.61 in the same period.
HSN (Harmonised System of Nomenclature) code was introduced by the World Customs Organization for a systematic classification of goods both national and international.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Olive Ridley Turtle

Scientists have resumed tagging of Olive Ridley sea turtles at Rushikulya rookery along Odisha coast, which would help them identify the migration path and places visited by the marine reptiles after congregation and nesting.

About:

Researchers of the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) are carrying out tagging of Olive Ridley turtles at three mass nesting sites – Gahirmatha, Devi River mouth and Rushikulya.
The study would also reveal the inter-rookery movement of turtles in Odisha. The migration pattern to other countries would be recorded in detail.
The metal tags affixed to turtles are non-corrosive and they do not harm their body. It can be removed later. The tags are uniquely numbered containing details such as the name of the organisation, country-code and email address.

Key facts:

Scientific Name: Lepidochelys olivacea.
Common name: Olive Ridley, Pacific Ridley.
Arribada: These turtles, along with their cousin the Kemps ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada. i.e., thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.
The coast of Odisha in India is the largest mass nesting site for the Olive-ridley, followed by the coasts of Mexico and Costa Rica.
The species has IUCN Red List Status.

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