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Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 27 May 2021

::NATIONAL::

The new rules for social media platforms and digital news outlets, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, came into effect from Wednesday.

About:

The guidelines, announced in February, had asked all social media platforms to set up a grievances redressal and compliance mechanism, which included appointing a resident grievance officer, chief compliance officer and a nodal contact person.
The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology had also asked these platforms to submit monthly reports on complaints received from users and action taken.
A third requirement was for instant messaging apps was to make provisions for tracking the first originator of a message.
Failure to comply with any one of these requirements would take away the indemnity provided to social media intermediaries under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act.

What is Section 79 of the IT Act?

Section 79 says any intermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted on its platform.
This protection, the Act says, shall be applicable if the said intermediary does not in any way, initiate the transmission of the message in question, select the receiver of the transmitted message and does not modify any information contained in the transmission.
The protection accorded under Section 79, however, is not granted if the intermediary, despite being informed or notified by the government or its agencies, does not immediately disable access to the material under question.
The intermediary must not tamper with any evidence of these messages or content present on its platform, failing which it lose its protection under the Act.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) ordered all encroachments to be removed from Gujarat’s Banni grasslands within six months and directed a joint committee to prepare an action plan in a month.
The region’s nomadic pastoralist community, the Maldharis, whose livelihoods are depend on this protected shrub-savanna, welcomed the move.

Key highlights:

The community, united under Banni Pashu Ucherek Maldhari Sangathan (BPUMS), had filed a case against the rampant encroachment in the ecologically-sensitive grassland in May, 2018.
The panel comprising the divisional commissioner and the chief conservator of forest of Kutch will define the extent of the encroachments and an action plan to remove them in the report, the court mandated.
The court also said the Maldharis will continue to hold the right to conserve the community forests in the area, granted to them as per the provisions in Section 3 of Forest Rights Act, 2006.
NGT highlighted that the lack of coordination between the forest department and the revenue department lead to the problem of encroachment.

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Banni grassland is spread over 2,618 kilometre and account for almost 45 per cent of the pastures in Gujarat.
Two ecosystems, wetlands and grasslands, are juxtaposed in Banni.
The area is rich in flora and fauna, with 192 species of plants, 262 species of birds, several species of mammals, reptiles and amphibians.
Banni grasslands, traditionally, were managed following a system of rotational grazing. On May 11 1955, the court notified that the grassland will be a reserve forest.

Nepal’s opposition parties have approached the country’s Supreme Court against President Bidya Devi Bhandari’s decision to dissolve the country’s House of Representatives last week.
This is the second time in five months that Bhandari has dissolved the House, having last done so in December on PM KP Oli’s recommendation. But that decision was overturned by Nepal’s SC.
This is certainly a setback for Nepal whose transition to a federal democracy has been long and hard. To fortify its democratic gains, Nepal’s institutions must respect democratic ground rules and accept orderly transitions of governments.
On India’s part, New Delhi must learn its lessons of 2015 and maintain neutrality in Nepal’s domestic politics.

The WHO and Switzerland signed a MoU to launch a BioHub facility to allow rapid sharing of pathogens between laboratories and partners to facilitate safe storage, better analysis, sequencing and preparedness against them.

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Presently, pathogens are shared bilaterally between countries.
The initiative will enable member states to share biological materials with and via the BioHub under pre-agreed conditions, including biosafety, biosecurity, and other applicable regulations.
The move would further contribute to the establishment of an international exchange system for novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and other emerging pathogens.

K-shaped recovery happens when different sections of an economy recover at starkly different rates.
While Certain industries and individuals pull out of a recession, others stagnate.
India’s real estate sector sees K-shaped recovery where the residential segment experienced healthy growth,the office segment remained lacklustre.

K shaped recovery is also observed in Job market:

Lower-skilled workers lost their jobs disproportionately, while job losses aren’t as significant for office workers in financial, service sectors.

Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Guwahati developing a nanocoating that can regulate heat and light passing through such structures in response to an applied voltage.

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Buildings account for nearly 39 per cent of the energy-related carbon dioxide emissions annually.
The primary consumption of energy in buildings is by climate control systems, in which energy-consuming devices are used to maintain comfortable indoor temperatures and brightness.
To meet the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement, a building energy intensity will have to improve by 30 per cent by 2030.

Designing:

Conventionally, window designs are static, that is, they are pre-designed for specific climatic conditions.
On the other hand, the emergent smart windows can dynamically adjust the amount of light and heat radiation entering a building in response to external stimuli, thus conserving the building’s energy.
The design of smart windows that are tuneable for all-weather conditions is challenging.
Theteam has designed smart window ‘glasses’ using noble metals and their relatively inexpensive alternatives that can dynamically control the intensity of transmitted solar radiation, depending upon the weather/climate condition.

Vesak Buddha Poornima is considered the Triple Blessed Day as Tathagata Gautam Buddha’s birth,enlightenment and Maha Parnirvana (death).
Lord Buddha was born as Prince Siddhartha Gautama on the Purnima Tithi (full moon day) in 563 BC in Lumbini(modern day Nepal).
He attained enlightenment under a bodhi tree at Bodhgaya.
He gave his first sermon at Sarnath and laterhis teachings and principles became Buddhism.