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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 September 2018

::NATIONAL::

Centre to launch peoples plan campaign on October 2nd

• Drawing heavily from the State’s planning process, the Central government is launching its People’s Plan Campaign (PPC) for panchayats from October 2 with the slogan SabkiYojanaSabkaVikas .

• The Centre’s Plan document defines it as People’s Plan Campaign/Gram Panchayat Development Plan (GPDP). It is being construed as a major pre-poll political exercise to reach out to rural voters across and a precursor to revive the Five Year Plan in local bodies .

• The campaign will be rolled out from October 2 to December 31 with structured gramasabha meetings for preparing panchayat development Plans for 2019-20. It would be an intensive and structured exercise for planning at gramasabha level, the document says. Which means the planning process experimented in the State from the late Nineties is set to be mirrored across the country soon.

• When the Centre relinquished the Five Year Plan and substituted Planning Commission with NITI Aayog, Kerala resolved to pursue the traditional planning process and revived the People’s Plan Campaign model.

• The State had devolved powers as well as a substantial component of its Plan funds to both urban and rural local bodies for planning and executing the projects and complemented it with capacity-building initiatives too. The campaign would be redundant for the State since it has made remarkable strides in the thrust areas mentioned in the document such as augmenting minor irrigation, fisheries, women SHGs and rural electrification.

Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention held

• Political leadership and government financing, as well as the sparking of a people’s movement, are key elements of the Swachh Bharat story, Indian leaders told international delegates looking to learn from India’s sanitation successes at the Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention here on Saturday.

• “This is the role of good political leadership. It doesn’t merely decide on a programme, but it throws its entire political weight — weight of its politics, its policies, its finances — behind the decision. And that is what happened,” said Finance Minister ArunJaitley, addressing delegates from 68 countries at the event, including many from developing nations.

• The Swachh Bharat Abhiyan-Grameen claims to have increased the percentage of the rural population with access to toilets from 39% in 2014 to almost 95% today. Overall, 503 districts and 24 States have been declared open defecation-free. About $20 billion have been allocated to the programme, Sanitation Secretary ParameswaranIyer said.

• President Ram NathKovind, who inaugurated the event, harked back to the leadership example of Mahatma Gandhi, who not only fought for political independence but also valued human freedom in terms of everyday access to sanitation facilities. “India is striving to eliminate open defecation in its entirety by October 2, 2019. This is the best 150th birthday gift we can give to Gandhiji,” he said.

• The visit comes just a week after the Comptroller and Auditor-General picked holes in Gujarat’s ODF status, with a report showing that 29% of homes in the sample villages did not, in fact, have access to toilets. “The Gujarat government is looking into that report. There is no connection to the trip,” Mr.Iyer told presspersons on the eve of the Convention.

::ECONOMY::

Government constitutes Competition Law Review Committee to review the Competition Act

• In pursuance of its objective of ensuring that Legislation is in sync with the needs of strong economic fundamentals, the Government has constituted a Competition Law Review Committee to review the Competition Act.

• The Competition Act was passed in the year 2002 and the Competition Commission of India was set up in pursuance of the same. The Commission started functioning in right earnest from 2009 and has contributed immensely towards the development of competition and fair play practices in the Indian market.

• During the past nine years the size of the Indian Economy has grown immensely and India is today amongst the top five Economies in the World and poised to forge ahead further. In this context, it is essential that Competition Law is strengthened, and re-calibrated to promote best practices which result in the citizens of this country achieving their aspirations and value for money.

• The committee to review the Competition Act/ Rules/ Regulations, in view of changing business environment and bring necessary changes, if required;to look into international best practices in the competition fields, especially anti-trust laws, merger guidelines and handling cross border competition issues.

• To study other regulatory regimes/ institutional mechanisms/ government policies which overlap with the Competition Act;

• Any other matters related to competition issue and considered necessary by the Committee.The Committee shall complete its work and submit its report within three months of the date of its first meeting.

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::INTERNATIONAL::

India to gift MiG-23 to Russia

• A highlight on the sidelines of the upcoming India-Russia bilateral summit is likely to be the gifting of three MiG-21 fighter jets to Russia. Russian President Vladimir Putin will be in New Delhi on October 4 and 5 for the annual summit with Prime Minister NarendraModi.

• “Three MiG-21s are scheduled to be handed over to Russians based on a request from their Defence Minister to our Defence Minister. They comprise one Type 75 aircraft and two Type 77 aircraft,” an official source said.

• The aircraft to be gifted are in flight-worthy condition and the cost of crating and transportation will be borne by the Russians, another official said.

• This will be major symbolic gesture to showcase the all-weather friendship and deep strategic partnership between India and Russia, which has been put to test in recent times due to changing geopolitical conditions.

• The MiG-21, a product of the Soviet Union, was designed by the Mikoyan-Gurevich Design Bureau in the 1950s. It made first flight in 1956 and entered service in 1959. However, Russia stopped producing the aircraft in 1985, while India continued operating the upgraded variants.

• India inducted the MiG-21s in 1963 and got full technology transfer and rights to license-build the aircraft in the country. It is the first supersonic fighter aircraft of the Indian Air Force. The IAF still has about 120 MiG-21s in service which will all be phased out of service by 2021-22.

China urges U.S to drop pressure tactics

• China’s Foreign Minister Wang Yi has urged the U.S. to abandon fruitless pressure tactics to resolve the trade row between the two countries.

• “Regarding trade frictions, China stands for a proper settlement based on rules and consensus through dialogue and consultation on an equal footing. China will not be blackmailed or yield to pressure,” Mr. Wang asserted during his Friday address to the United Nations General Assembly.

• In a commentary, the People’s Daily said the U.S. was working on a “interlocking” plan, which also targeted the country’s Made-in-China 2025 blueprint.

• “In addition to the additional tariffs on Chinese exports to the United States, the U.S. blocked the ‘Made in China 2025’ Initiative, a campaign to reshape China’s manufacturing edges within 10 years via advanced technologies, sanctioned Chinese telecoms company ZTE, added 44 Chinese entities to its export control list and introduced the Foreign Investment Risk Review Modernization Act (FIRRMA, and even worse it is targeting China’s defence industry sector this time, all of which can be perceived as interlocking and sharing ‘the same root’,” it said.

• The mutation of the trade war into a full-blown geopolitical rivalry also appears to be entering the African theatre. Reuters reported that after years of paying scant attention to the continent’s economic development, Washington is trying to counter China’s pervasive influence. It is doubling its financing to poor countries to $60 billion — the same amount Beijing pledged to Africa earlier this month.

::SCIENCE &TECHNOLOGY::

India accounts for high percentage of seized black spotted turtles

• India accounts for 29% of black spotted turtles (Geoclemyshamiltonii) seized from across seven countries in South Asia, states a recent report by TRAFFIC, an international network monitoring trade in wildlife.

• Classified as vulnerable by the IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of threatened species, the black spotted turtle or spotted pond turtle is native to South Asia, and a heavily trafficked chelonian. The medium-sized freshwater turtle has a black shell with yellow streaks. The species was once smuggled for its meat and is now sought after as an exotic pet.

• India is followed by Southeast Asian countries such as Thailand (1,995 specimens or 19%) and Hong Kong (1,775 specimens or 17%), followed by Bangladesh (1,197 specimens or 12%). The remaining specimens were seized from China, Pakistan and Singapore.

• In India, the species is distributed across the north, northeast and a few parts of central India in States such as West Bengal, Assam, Bihar, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, and parts of Madhya Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Meghalaya. But an analysis of the trade route places Chennai as an important centre for the trade.

• Of the 55 suspects arrested for smuggling black spotted turtles, the number of known convictions were only 20. Experts cite shortcomings in preparation of cases and procedural lapses as the reasons for the low conviction.Apart from increasing public awareness, the report emphasises the need for better law enforcement and cooperation among international authorities.

New methods to kill TB bacteria unveiled

• Oxidative stress can directly damage the DNA, proteins and lipids of most of the bacteria and eventually kill them. However, disease-causing bacteria have evolved mechanisms to survive such stressful conditions. One of the ways bacteria overcome oxidative stress is by condensing or compacting the DNA (nucleoid). Compacted DNA has reduced surface area and hence lower vulnerability to oxidative stress.

• The role of several nucleoid-associated proteins produced by bacteria in condensing the DNA is also well known. But for the first time a protein (WhiB4) that condenses the DNA of TB-causing bacteria in response to oxidative stress has been found by a multi-institutional team led by Prof. Amit Singh from Indian Institute of Science (IISc), Bengaluru.

• While DNA compaction helps the bacteria survive stressful conditions, the compaction has to be only for a brief period and should be reversible. Prolonged compaction could adversely impact bacterial multiplication, conversion of DNA into RNA, and formation of protein molecules.

• Finding drugs that can either keep the WhiB4 protein level high or DNA condensed for a long time might be challenging. Particularly, as the drug has to cross the macrophage barrier and get inside the infected cell and then enter the TB bacteria. Alternatively, viruses that infect TB bacteria can be used as vehicles to carry WhiB4 protein into the bacteria. Here, the WhiB4 protein from TB bacteria genome has to be amplified and cloned into the virus genome.

• These viruses specifically target TB bacteria and so human cells will be spared. But like in the case of the drug, the virus with the WhiB4 protein in its genome has to cross the macrophage barrier to get inside the infected cell before infecting the TB bacteria. And that will again be a challenge.

::SPORTS::

New DLS system from today

• The ICC on Saturday announced updated versions of the Duckworth-Lewis-Stern (DLS) System and its Code of Conduct, which will come to effect from September 30.

• The new version of the DLS, introduced in 2014, is based on information from 700 ODIs and 428 T20Is, which comprise over 240,000 outcomes of individual deliveries.

• The update has been carried out following a detailed ball-by-ball analysis of scoring patterns, including in the Power Plays, in all limited-over internationals played during the previous four years, according to an ICC media release.

• The changes come into effect with the first ODI between South Africa and Zimbabwe in Kimberley.

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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 30 September 2018