CHROME IAS ACADEMY | DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS
28-29th Mar’18
NEWS
HONOUR KILLING GUILLOTINES LIBERTY: SC
Coming down heavily on crimes committed in the name of honour, the Supreme Court upheld the choice of consenting adults to love and marry as a part of their fundamental rights.
The apex court said, “Honour killing guillotines individual liberty, freedom of choice and one’s own perception of choice.”
It issued a set of guidelines for authorities to safeguard young couples under threat for marrying outside their caste or religion.
It ridiculed the “elevated sense of honour” of elders, the collective and khap panchayats who rain horror on couples for choosing to marry outside their caste, clan or religion. It termed the elders, presiding over murder in broad daylight, as “patriarchal monarchs”.
The district magistrate or police chief have to provide couples, who risk the wrath of khap panchayats, not only with logistics and protection at their wedding but also a “safe house” to stay during the first year of marriage. This is among the guidelines issued by the Supreme Court .
The safe house, located in the same district or elsewhere, can accommodate the couple for a nominal charge. State governments have to establish safe houses in district headquarters.
The safe houses would function under the direct supervision of the jurisdictional District Magistrate and Superintendent of Police.
Relevance : GS 1, 2
ELECTORAL BOND SCHEME 2018
Government of India has notified the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018.
As per provisions of the Scheme, Electoral Bonds may be purchased by a person, who is a citizen of India or incorporated or established in India.
A person being an individual can buy Electoral Bonds, either singly or jointly with other individuals.
Only the Political Parties registered under Section 29A of the Representation of the People Act, 1951 and which secured not less than one per cent of the votes polled in the last General Election to the House of the People or the Legislative Assembly of the State, shall be eligible to receive the Electoral Bonds.
The Electoral Bonds shall be encashed by an eligible Political Party only through a Bank account with the Authorized Bank.
Electoral Bonds shall be valid for fifteen days from the date of issue and no payment shall be made to any payee Political Party if the Electoral Bond is deposited after expiry of the validity period.
The Electoral Bond deposited by an eligible Political Party in its account shall be credited on the same day.
Relevance : Prelims
MISSION ON MOON
Chandrayaan-2 is a totally indigenous mission with Orbiter, Lander and rover configuration. Orbiter is to be placed in 100 km orbit around the Moon.
After reaching the 100 km lunar orbit, the Lander will be separated from the orbiter and it will soft land on the lunar surface and deploy a Rover.
The Rover will then move around the landing site. The Orbiter will continue to orbit around the Moon and perform remote-sensing observations of the lunar surface.
The Orbiter will study the Moon for its topography, elemental and mineralogical distribution and extent of subsurface water ice.
The lander will land on the lunar surface and demonstrate ISRO’s capability for landing on Moon. Subsequently, the Rover will roll out of the Lander and move around the landing site.
The lander and rover payloads will conduct observations on the elemental composition and study the lunar ionosphere.
Relevance : Prelims
INTERSTITIUM: THE UNDISCOVERED ORGAN IN OUR BODY
Scientists have identified a new human organ hiding in plain sight, in a discovery they hope could help them understand the spread of cancer within the body.
Layers long thought to be dense, connective tissue are actually a series of fluidfilled compartments researchers have termed the “interstitium”.
These compartments are found beneath the skin, as well as lining the gut, lungs, blood vessels and muscles, and join together to form a network supported by a mesh of strong, flexible proteins.
The team behind the discovery suggest the compartments may act as “shock absorbers” that protect body tissues from damage.
Understanding this newly discovered frontier in human anatomy could allow scientists to develop new tests for cancer.
Relevance : Prelims
IMPORTANT FACTS IN NEWS
Cool EMS Service
Ministry of Communications has launched the Cool EMS Service which will come into force from 29.03.2018. Cool EMS service is one-way service from Japan to India which allows customers in India to import Japanese food items for personal use which is allowed under Indian regulations. Initially, Cool EMS Service will be available in Delhi only. Food items will be carried by Japan Post in special cool boxes containing refrigerant to preserve the quality of the food items and addressee will collect them from Foreign Post office, Kotla Road.
NABH
NABH (National Accreditation Board for Hospitals) Accreditation is a voluntary process and therefore it is entirely up to the healthcare organization whether to adopt it or not.
GDP
As per the information available from World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), the contribution of India to world’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP), measured as share of GDP of India in world GDP (at current prices in US$ terms) is consistently increasing since 2014 as shown in the table below. As per the available data, this share in 2017 is the highest. India’s share in world GDP at current prices in US$ terms (per cent) in 2014, 2015, 2016 , and 2017 was 2.6, 2.8, 3.0, 3.1% respectively.
Bennu
As Earth’s resources rapidly deplete, scientists and industries are increasingly looking to the skies. In December 2018, a Nasa spacecraft will reach the Bennu asteroid that could become an iron ore mine worth $670 million. The Nasa mission is an early step in the space mining sector, which could be worth $1 trillion, as more asteroids are explored to study their composition and value.
Relevance : Prelims
IMPORTANT TERMS IN NEWS EXPLAINED
PRADHAN MANTRI VAYA VANDANA YOJANA (PMVVY)
Government has launched the ‘Pradhan Mantri Vaya Vandana Yojana (PMVVY)’ to provide social security during old age and to protect elderly persons aged 60 years and above against a future fall in their interest income due to uncertain market conditions.
The scheme enables old age income security for senior citizens through provision of assured pension/return linked to the subscription amount based on government guarantee to Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC).
The scheme provides an assured return of 8% per annum for 10 years. The differential return, i.e. the difference between return generated by LIC and the assured return of 8% per annum would be borne by Government of India as subsidy on an annual basis.
Pension is payable at the end of each period during the policy tenure of 10 years as per the frequency of monthly/quarterly/half-yearly/yearly as chosen by the subscriber at the time of purchase.
PRADHAN MANTRI ROJGAR PROTSAHAN YOJANA
The PMRPY Scheme aims to incentivise employers for employment generation by the Government paying the employers’ EPS contribution of 8.33%, for the new employees, for the first three years of their employment and is proposed to be made applicable for unemployed persons that are semi-skilled and unskilled.
The scheme is being implemented by the Ministry of Labour and Employment and is operational since 2016.
This Scheme has a dual benefit, where, on the one hand, the employer is incentivised for increasing the employment base of workers in the establishment, and on the other hand, a large number of workers will find jobs in such establishments.
A direct benefit is that these workers will have access to social security benefits of the organized sector.
All establishments registered with Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) can apply for availing benefits under the scheme.
LUNAR IONOSPHERE
Every terrestrial planet with an atmosphere has an ionosphere. High above the planet’s rocky surface where the atmosphere meets the vacuum of space, ultraviolet rays from the sun break apart atoms of air. This creates a layer of ionized gas–an “ionosphere.”
The first convincing evidence for an ionosphere around the Moon came in the 1970s.
The Moon isn’t quite as airless as most people think. Small amounts of gas created by radioactive decay seep out of the lunar interior; meteoroids and the solar wind also blast atoms off the Moon’s surface. The resulting shroud of gas is so thin, however, that many researchers refuse to call it an atmosphere, preferring instead the term “exosphere.”
The density of the lunar exosphere is about a hundred million billion times less than that of air on Earth—not enough to support an ionosphere as dense as the ones the Luna probes sensed.
Plasma from the sun is incident directly on the lunar surface, and atoms from the surface are ejected by the plasma ions to create the Moon’s weak ionosphere.
For 40 years, the Moon’s ionosphere remained a mystery until a possible solution was published earlier this year. The answer proposed is moondust.
An ionosphere made of dust instead of gas is new to planetary science.
Relevance : Prelims
