Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 January 2021

::NATIONAL::

At 25.3 per cent, Bihar leads the list of 25 states for employing most women in its police force, according to the second annual survey on police, prisons, judiciary and legal aid, India Justice Report.

About:

The report is an initiative of Tata Trusts and partners.
In the country women account for10% of all police personnel in the country (7% in January 2017); With 25% of women police Bihar tops the rank).
13% percent prison staff (10% in December 2016);
29.3% of High Court judges (26.5% in 2017-18).
Karnataka is the only state to meet its quotas for SC, ST and OBC in both officer cadre and constabulary.

National InformaticsCentre ServicesIncorporated (NICSI)celebrates 25 years ofestablishment.
NICSI is a Public Sector Enterprise under National Informatics Centre (NIC), Ministry of Electronics and Information.

During the event, following products were launched:

TEJAS -visual intelligence tool that provides powerful data analysis for officials to design analytical reports.
e-Auction India -It caters to the electronic forward and reverse auction requirements of the Governmentdepartments.
Work from Anywhere Portal - It will ease and enhance accessibility of key applications to the Governmentemployees.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar outlined eight principles to repair strained relations between India and China that included strict adherence to all agreements on border management, fully respecting the LAC.
It showing sensitivity to each other’s interests, and making peace and tranquillity along the frontier basis for advancing overall ties.

Highlighting the principles:

The agreements already reached must be adhered to in their entirety, both in letter and spirit.
Where handling of border areas is concerned, the Line of Actual Control (LAC) must be strictly observed and respected; any attempt to unilaterally change the status quo is completely unacceptable.
Peace and tranquillity in border areas is the basis for development of ties in other domains, noting if they are disturbed, so inevitably will be the rest of the relationship.
While both nations are committed to a multi-polar world, there should be a recognition that a multi-polar Asia is one of its essential constituents.
Each state will have its own interests, concerns and priorities; but sensitivity to them cannot be one-sided.
As rising powers, each will have their own set of aspirations and their pursuit too cannot be ignored.
There will always be divergences and differences but their management is essential to our ties.
The civilisational states like India and China must always take the long view.

India’s ranking on the Corruption Perception Index– 2020 slipped from 80 to 86 even as its score decreased only by one point to 40 from 41 in 2019.
It is published by Transparency International the index ranks 180 countries and territories by their perceivedlevels of public sector corruption according to experts and business people.
It uses a scale of 0 to 100, where 0 is highly corrupt and 100 is very clean.
New Zealand and Denmark rank at first position with scores of 88.
Somalia and South Sudan rank lowest at 179th position with scores of 12.

Economic Survey 2020-21 formulated a Bare Necessities Index (BNI) at the rural, urban and all India level.
The BNI summarises 26 indicators on five dimensions viz., water, sanitation, housing, micro-environment, and other facilities.
The BNI has been created for all States for 2012 and 2018 using data from two NSO rounds viz., 69th and 76th on Drinking Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Housing Condition in India.

Key highlights of the survey:

According to the survey access to drinking water to households in most of the States has improved in 2018 compared to 2012 in rural as well as urban areas.
Survey also shows that the sanitation access has improved for all States in rural areas and for most of the States in urban areas in 2018 compared to 2012. It also notes that regional disparity in access to sanitation has declined as the States having low access to sanitation in 2012 have gained more. The level of access to safe sanitation has increased in lowest income quintile.
Survey observes improvement in Housing Index also indicating improvement in access to housing and reduction in inter-States disparities with disproportionate benefits for the lowest income group in 2018 vis-à-vis 2012.
The economic Survey also notes improvement in micro environment for all States in 2018 except for Assam in rural and Odisha and Assam in urban areas as compared to 2012. Here also the improvement is especially in the lowest income quintile.
Similarly, Survey has observed improvement in access to other facilities which captures the availability of Kitchen, Kitchen with a water tap, good ventilation in house, access to bathroom, electricity use and type of fuel used for cooking.

AIMIM president Asaddudin Owaisi and CPI leader BinoyViswam have filed dissent notes to the Parliamentary Standing Committee’s report on DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Bill 2019.

About:

The objective of the bill was not overarching but limited to the establishment of a regulatory board to regulate the use of DNA technology in consonance with international standards.
The bill proposes DNA sampling and profiling of citizens accused of crime or reported missing and storing their unique genetic information for administrative purposes.

Concern:

The fear is that the law could be used for caste or community-based profiling.
It claiming that it does not take into account their concerns over privacy violations and targets Dalit, Muslims and Adivasis by way of DNA sample collection and indefinite storage as per the new legislation.
The Standing Committee on Science and Technology, headed by Congress leader Jairam Ramesh, is scheduled to meet on February 1 to discuss and adopt the final report.