UPSC Daily Current Affairs- 30th May 2023 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly PDF Download

GS-I

Why in News?

Recently, the ‘Divya Kala Shakti’ Program was inaugurated at the Rudraksha Convention & Cultural Centre in Varanasi.

About Divya Kala Shakti Program:

•  Divya Kala Shakti is a Cultural Program by Children &Youth with Disabilities.
•    Divya Kala Shakti’ programme was organized in various parts of the country since 2019, at the national level and in other regions of the country.
•     Divya Kala Shakti aims at developing confidence among the persons with disabilities and appreciated the efforts of their hard work of parents and teachers.
•     The Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, is entrusted with organizing the Divya Kala Shakti.
•    This time, the sixth DIVYA KALA SHAKTI program was organized in the city of Varanasi, where approximately 100 artists from six states, namely West Bengal, Odisha, Jharkhand, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, and Uttarakhand, performed in the program.

Source: PIB

Why in News?

Amid the rising tensions in the Indo-Pacific region, Japan Coast Guard (JCG) source recently revealed that a China Coast Guard (CCG) vessel has been navigating in Japan’s territorial waters around the Senkaku Islands.

About Senkaku Islands:

• Location:
  • The Senkaku Islands are an uninhabited group of islands situated in the East China Sea.
  • It is approximately 90 nautical miles north from the Yaeyama Islands in Japan's Okinawa Prefecture and 120 nautical miles northeast of the island of Taiwan.
• They are also known as the Diaoyu Islands in Mainland China, the Diaoyutai Islands in Taiwan and the Pinnacle Islands by other observers.
• The islands comprise Uotsuri Island, Kuba Island, Taisho Island (also called Kumeakashima Island), Kitakojima Island, Minamikojima Island, Tobise Island, Okinokitaiwa Island, and Okinominamiiwa Island.
• Dispute: The islands are the focus of a territorial dispute between Japan and China and between Japan and Taiwan.
• Administration: 
  • They were never administered by any other country before Japan incorporated them into its territory in 1895.
  • Currently, Japan administers and controls the Senkaku islands as part of the city of Ishigaki in Okinawa Prefecture.

Source: The Print

GS-II

Why in News?

Recently, A public interest litigation (PIL) was filled against the forest department in view of the alleged hurdles created by forest officials in Khanapur, Karnataka in implementing government projects. The complainant has alleged that by holding up development work, the forest department has denied villagers of their constitutional right to life and livelihood.

About Public Interest Litigation (PIL):

• Public interest Litigation (PIL) means litigation filed in a court of law, for the protection of “Public Interest”.
• Any matter where the interest of public at large is affected can be redressed by filing a Public Interest Litigation in a court of law.
• Public interest litigation is not defined in any statute or in any act.
• It has been interpreted by judges to consider the intent of public at large.
• Justice Krishna Iyer laid the groundwork for the concept of Public Interest Litigation in India in the case of Mumbai Kamagar Sabha vs. Abdul Thai case, 1976.
• The objective of PIL is to provide common people with access to the courts in order to seek redress in legal matters.
• An Indian citizen may file a PIL, if it is not filed in a private interest but rather in a larger public interest. In some circumstances, even the Court may take on a matter if it is one of significant public concern and assign an advocate to handle it.
• Any citizen can file a public case by filing a petition;
• Under Article 32 of the Indian Constitution in the supreme court ,
• Under Article 226 in the High Court and
• Under section 133 of the Criminal Procedure Code in the magistrate court.
• A PIL can only be brought against the State and not against any individual.
• The Government and Parliament of India, each State’s Government and Legislature, and all local or other authorities within the territory of India or under the control of the Government of India are all included in the definition of a state.

Source: Times of India

Why in News?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the new Parliament building, which will have exquisite artwork and a ceremonial sceptre ‘Sengol’ among several features. 

Features of new Parliament Building

• Design: It has a built-up area of about 65,000 sq m, with its triangular shape ensuring the optimum utilisation of space.
• Capacity: The new building will house a larger Lok Sabha hall with a capacity of up to 888 seats, and a larger Rajya Sabha hall with a capacity of upto 384 seats. The Lok Sabha may accommodate up to 1,272 seats for joint sessions of Parliament.
• Theme: The Lok Sabha hall is based on the peacock theme, India’s national bird. The Rajya Sabha is based on the lotus theme, India’s national flower.
• Constitutional Hall: A state of the art Constitutional Hall in the building “symbolically and physically puts the Indian citizens at the heart of our democracy”, says the official website.
• Central Lounge: A Central Lounge that will complement the open courtyard will be a place for members to interact with each other. The courtyard will have a banyan, the national tree.
• divyang friendly: The new Parliament will be divyang friendly, and people with disabilities will be able to move around freely, says the website.
• Modern features: The building will have ultra-modern office spaces that will be secure, efficient, and equipped with the latest communications technology. The new building will have large committee rooms with the latest audio-visual equipment, and will provide a superior library experience.
• Platinum-rated Green Building: The new Sansad Bhavan is a “Platinum-rated Green Building” and embodies India’s commitment towards environmental sustainability.

Need a new Parliament building

• Old: The existing Parliament House, which was commissioned in 1927, is almost a century old Heritage Grade-I building that has seen a massive increase in parliamentary activities and users over the decades.
• Ad hoc modifications: Ad hoc constructions and modifications have been made over time, and the building “is showing signs of distress and over-utilization and is not able to meet the current requirements in terms of space, amenities and technology”.
• Narrow seating space for MPs: The present building was never designed to accommodate a bicameral legislature for a full-fledged democracy. The number of Lok Sabha seats is likely to increase significantly from the current 545 after 2026, when the freeze on the total number of seats lifts. The seating arrangements are cramped and cumbersome, with no desks beyond the second row.
• Distressed infrastructure: The addition of services like water supply and sewer lines, air-conditioning, firefighting equipment, CCTV cameras, etc., have led to seepage of water at several places and impacted the aesthetics of the building. Fire safety is a major concern at the building
• Obsolete communication structures: Communications infrastructure and technology is antiquated in the existing Parliament, and the acoustics of all the halls need improvement.
• Safety concerns: The current Parliament building was built when Delhi was in Seismic Zone-II; currently it is in Seismic Zone-IV, says the website. This raises structural safety concerns.
• Inadequate workspace for employees: Over the years, inner service corridors were converted into offices which resulted in poor-quality workspaces. In many cases, these workspaces were made even smaller by creating sub-partitions to accommodate more workers.

Central Vista Redevelopment Project

• The new parliament building has been developed as part of India's Central Vista Redevelopment Project.
• Central Vista Redevelopment Project refers to the ongoing redevelopment to revamp the Central Vista, India's central administrative area located near Raisina Hill, New Delhi. 
• The area was originally designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and Sir Herbert Baker during British colonial rule.
• Scheduled between 2020 and 2026, the project aims to 
  • revamp a 3 km long Kartvyapath between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate, 
  • convert North and South Blocks to publicly accessible museums by creating a new common Central Secretariat to house all ministries, 
  • establishing a new Parliament building near the present one with increased seating capacity for future expansion, 
  • establishing new residence and office for the Vice-President and the Prime Minister near the North Block and South Block and convert some of the older structures into museums.

Source: IE

Why in News?

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO) and World Bank have released Joint Malnutrition Estimates.

About

• The UNICEF, WHO and the World Bank inter-agency team update the joint global and regional estimates of malnutrition among children under 5 years of age each year. 
• These estimates of prevalence and numbers affected for child stunting, overweight, wasting and severe wasting are derived for the global population as well as by regional groupings of United Nations (UN) regions and sub-regions, Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), UNICEF, WHO and World Bank regions, as well as World Bank country-income group classifications.

Findings

Indian Scenario:

• Reduction in Stunting: Corresponding with global and regional trends, India continues to show a reduction in stunting and recorded 1.6 crore fewer stunted children under five years in 2022 than in 2012.
  • Stunting among children under five years in India dropped from a prevalence rate of 41.6% in 2012 to 31.7% in 2022 with the numbers dropping from 52 lakh to 36 lakh. 
  • This was accompanied by India’s share of the global burden of stunting declining from 30% to 25% in the past decade.
• Wasting and Obesity Increased: However, wasting continues to remain a concern and so does growing levels of obesity.
  • The overall prevalence of wasting in 2022 was 18.7% in India, with a share of 49% in the global burden. 
  • The prevalence of obesity marginally increased in a decade from 2.2% in 2012 to 2.8% in 2022 thereby contributing to 8.8% of the global share. 
  • But the overall classification for obesity is low and much lower than the global prevalence of 5.6%.

Global Scenario:

• Stunting Declined: Globally, stunting declined from a prevalence rate of 26.3% in 2012 to 22.3% in 2022.
• Obesity: There was no improvement on the weight issue worldwide, as its prevalence rate grew from 5.5% to 5.6%. 
• The Joint Malnutrition Estimates (JME) reveal insufficient progress to reach the 2025 World Health Assembly (WHA) global nutrition targets and the 2030 Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 targets.
  • Only about one-third of all countries are ‘on track’ to halve the number of children affected by stunting by 2030. 
  • Fewer countries are expected to achieve the 2030 target of 3% prevalence for overweight.

In line with National Family Health Survey (NFHS)

• The decline in stunting in India is commensurate with NFHS-5 (2019-2021) data which estimated its prevalence at 35.5% as against 38% in NFHS-4 (2016) and 48% in NFHS-3 (2006).
• NFHS-5 showed evidence of continued reduction of stunting and instances of underweight children.
• It also showed an improvement in access to health services — family planning, ante-natal care, deworming, breastfeeding counselling.
• In India, it has been found that two-thirds of children at 12 or 24 months had wasting at birth or at one month of age. This means two-thirds of the wasting is caused by maternal malnutrition.

Source: TH

GS-III

Why in News?

The government provided an exemption from angel tax to pension and sovereign wealth funds, among others investing in India from 21 countries.

About the Angel Tax:

• Angel tax is the tax payable by privately held companies on the issue of shares at a rate higher than the fair market value.
• In India, the ‘angel tax’ was first introduced in
• It aims to deter the generation and use of unaccounted money through the subscription of shares of a closely held company at a value that is higher than the fair market value of the firm’s shares.
• Section 56(2) (VIIB) of the Income Tax Act, deals with angel tax.
• Under Section 56(2) (vii) (b) of the Income Tax Act, if a closely held company issues shares at a price exceeding fair market value, the difference is to be taxed as income from other sources.
• The tax affects angel investment the most and therefore is popularly called the angel tax.
• An angel investor is usually a high-net-worth individual who funds startups at the early stages, often with their own money.

About the Recent Exemption from Angel Tax;

• The Finance act, 2023 amended the angel tax provision of the Income Tax Act, bringing foreign investment under its ambit.
• Before the amendment, the provision applied only to investments by Indian residents and funds not registered as alternative investment funds (AIFs).
• India exempted investments by non-resident entities such as sovereign wealth funds and pension funds from 21 countries from the so-called ‘angel tax leaving out Mauritius, Singapore, and Luxembourg among others that account for significant equity inflow into the country.
• The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) issued the notification exempting foreign central banks, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds and endowment funds from 21 countries from the levy.
• The 21 countries are Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, the UK and the US.
• Mauritius has the highest share in cumulative foreign direct equity investment since April 2000 at 26%, followed by Singapore with 23%.
• Investments by non-resident investors including multilateral entities, foreign banks and insurers, foreign portfolio investors and entities registered with the Securities and Exchange Board of India will not face the angel tax.
• The exemption will also be available to foreign investments in startups registered with the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) but no changes have been made to the eligibility conditions to register.

SOURCE: Economic Times

Why in News?

 The Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) is collaborating with the Raman Research Institute (RRI), Bengaluru, to build the X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) that is scheduled to be launched later this year.

About X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat):

• According toISRO, “XPoSat will study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.”
• The spacecraft will carry two scientific payloads in a low earth orbit.
• The primary payload POLIX (Polarimeter Instrument in X-rays) will measure the polarimetry parameters (degree and angle of polarization).
• POLIX is expected to observe about 40 bright astronomical sources of different categories during the planned lifetime of XPoSat mission of about 5 years.
• This is the first payload in the medium X-ray energy band dedicated for polarimetry measurements.
• The XSPECT (X-ray Spectroscopy and Timing) payload will give spectroscopic information on how light is absorbed and emitted by objects. It would observe several types of sources, such as X-ray pulsars, black hole binaries, low-magnetic field neutron star, etc.
• X-Ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat) is India’s first, and only the world’s second polarimetry mission that is meant to study various dynamics of bright astronomical X-ray sources in extreme conditions.
• The other such major mission is NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE) that was launched in 2021.
• IXPE carries three state-of-the-art space telescopes.
• Each of the three identical telescopes hosts one light-weight X-ray mirror and one detector unit.
• These will help observe polarized X-rays from neutron stars and super massive black holes.
• By measuring the polarisation of these X-rays, we can study where the light came from and understand the geometry and inner workings of the light source.

SOURCE: Indian Express