Topic covered- Government Policies & Interventions
Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency.
Context
Inter-Ministerial Committee on Virtual Currencies submits its Report along with Draft Bill ‘Banning of Cryptocurrency & Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2019’.
Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology
- Blockchain is a vast, global distributed ledger or database running on millions of devices and open to anyone, where not just information but anything of value — money, but also titles, deeds, identities, even votes — can be moved, stored and managed securely and privately.
- The first generation of the digital revolution brought us the Internet of information.
- The second generation, powered by Blockchain technology, is bringing us the Internet of value: a new platform to reshape the world of business and transform the old order of human affairs for the better.
- Blockchain technology and cryptocurrency are not one and the same.
- A cryptocurrency is a digital currency that uses cryptography for security and is generally based on blockchain technology.
- Blockchain is an incorruptible digital ledger of transactions that can be programmed to record virtually everything of value. Each list of record in a Blockchain is called block.
- Blockchain is a continuously growing list of records called blocks, which are linked and secured.
- Once the data is recorded in a block it cannot be altered without having to change every block that came after it, making it impossible to do so without it being seen by the other participants on the network.
- The use of blockchain technology is not restricted only to the exchange of digital currencies.
- The governments of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana have put the land records on the blockchain technology owing to its easy traceability feature.
Banning of Cryptocurrencies and Regulation of Official Digital Currencies Bill 2019
- The draft Banning of Cryptocurrencies and Regulation of Official Digital Currencies Bill2019 has proposed a 10-year prison sentence for persons who mine, generate, hold, sell, transfer, dispose, issue or deal in cryptocurrencies.
- It also proposed making it completely illegal, the bill makes holding of cryptos a non-bailable offence.
Key Features of the bill
- It states that Issuance of currency is a sovereign right of the country. Unless, there is a conscious decision by a state to forgo this right, any currency issued by anybody else is considered as counterfeit currency.
- Current holders of Bitcoin, a type of cryptocurrency, are considered to have diluted sovereignty of the country by investing their money into that currency.
- Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoins are not yet the legal tender of exchange in the country.
- Legal tender is the national currency, such as paper money and coins.
- Investment in cryptocurrencies is risky as there is no one to regulate the transactions that happen through cryptocurrencies.
- It has been reported that a lot of transactions related to human trafficking, drugs, cartels, terror funding is being done in cryptocurrencies.
- India does not have the required infrastructure for supporting cryptocurrency exchanges.
- Countries like China have already banned the use of cryptocurrencies completely.
- Cryptocurrencies may require India to go for full capital account convertibility.
- Presently, India is a country of partial convertibility on the capital account.
Concerns on Cryptocurrency and Blockchain Technology
- At present, there are about three million bitcoins in India. It has been argued that present holders of bitcoins have purchased the cryptocurrency by using legal tender money only.
- If the Bill becomes an Act, anybody who is holding bitcoins would not be able to sell or transact it.
- Russia, U.S. and many European countries accept cryptocurrencies as a medium of exchange. Such countries also have in place a regulatory system for the same.
- There is a concern that the decision to ban cryptocurrencies would provide leeway to people to use cryptocurrencies for wrongful purposes.
- Until a proper regulatory mechanism for cryptocurrencies is there in the country, the RBI can collaborate with virtual money exchanges to ensure the proper use of cryptocurrencies.
- As virtual-currency market and transactions are sky rocking and these digital monies are non-legal tenders with different standards in most of the jurisdictions.
- Global regulators are divided on how to responses on it. As of now there is no international regulator to regulate virtual-currency.
Way forward
- As blockchains can be accessed from every corner of the world that has a Personal computer or cell phone and good network coverage, the technology has the potential to bring the unbanked on track, expanding the horizon for trade and commerce from remotest parts of the world.
- The definition of cryptocurrency in the draft is reasonably vague and may not cover something like Facebook’s libra or even bitcoin if one were to read it too technically.
- As for private cryptocurrencies, given the risks associated with them and volatility in their prices, the Group of experts has recommended banning of the cryptocurrencies in India and imposing fines and penalties for carrying on of any activities connected with cryptocurrencies in India.
GS-2 Paper
Topics covered- Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2019
Context
Parliament Passes the Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2019 unanimously.
Objective of the Bill
The bill aims to accelerate the process of appointment of chairperson and members of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).
Key features of the bill
The Protection of Human Rights (Amendment) Bill, 2019, inter alia, provides
- That a person who has been a Judge of the Supreme Court is also made eligible to be appointed as Chairperson of the Commission in addition to the person who has been the Chief Justice of India;
- To increase the Members of the Commission from two to three of which, one shall be a woman;
- To include Chairperson of the National Commission for Backward Classes, Chairperson of the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights and the Chief Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities as deemed Members of the Commission;
- To reduce the term of the Chairperson and Members of the Commission and the State Commissions from five to three years and shall be eligible for re-appointment;
- To provide that a person who has been a Judge of a High Court is also made eligible to be appointed as Chairperson of the State Commission in addition to the person who has been the Chief Justice of the High Court; and,
- To confer upon State Commissions, the functions relating to human rights being discharged by the Union territories, other than the Union territory of Delhi, which will be dealt with by the Commission.
Significance of the Bill
- The Amendment will strengthen the Human Rights Institutions of India further for effective discharge of their mandates, roles and responsibilities.
- The amendment will ensure transparency in the appointment of chairman and members of the commission and will help fill all the vacancies,
- The amended Act will be in perfect sync with the agreed global standards and benchmarks towards ensuring the rights relating to life, liberty, equality and dignity of the individual in the country.
- The amendment will also make National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) more compliant with the Paris Principle concerning its autonomy, independence, pluralism and wide-ranging functions in order to effectively protect and promote human rights.
GS -3 Paper
Topics covered- Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
BHARATMALA PROJECT
Context
The Government of India approved Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase–I in October, 2017 with a financial outlay of Rs. 5,35,000 crore.
About the Bharatmala Pariyojana
- Bharatmala Project is the second largest highways construction project in the country since NHDP, under which almost 50,000 km or highway roads were targeted across the country.
- It is an umbrella project under the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways.
- Bharatmala will look to improve connectivity particularly on economic corridors, border areas and far flung areas with an aim of quicker movement of cargo and boosting exports.
- The Public Investment Board has cleared the proposal for Bharatmala Pariyojana Phase-I.
- In the first phase, the plan is to construct 34,800 km of highways at a cost of Rs 5.35 lakh crore.
- It focuses on the new initiatives like development of Border and International connectivity roads, Coastal & port connectivity roads, improving efficiency of National Corridors, Economic corridors and others.
Benefits of the project
- The key benefits include logistics, cost and economic activity and employment generation.
- Completion of Bharatmala will give the country total 50 national corridors.
- Currently, 40% freight moves along National Highways, it will be boosted to 70-80%.
- Overall, this will boost India’s Logistic Performance Index (LPI).
- The programme will also help generate a large number of direct and indirect employments in the construction activity, along with the development of highways amenities.
- It enhanced economic activity in different parts of the country that will result from better road connectivity.
- This in turn makes government’s other schemes like ‘Make-in-India’ more competitive and attractive to investors.
- The economic corridors developed under this project would ensure that time taken for transporting goods from manufacturing sectors is reduced.
- The Bharatmala project would further optimise the efficiency of movement of goods and people across the country.
For Prelims
Chandrayaan-2
Context: Chandrayaan-2 goes up successfully, places satellite in orbit.
Chandrayaan-2 mission
- The Chandrayaan-2 mission was approved in September 2008 by the government.
- Chandrayaan-2 is India’s second lunar exploration mission after Chandrayaan-1, developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation.
- For the first time in the history of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), two women will head the Chandrayaan-2 mission.
- Ritu Kridhal and M Vanitha are leading as project and mission directors respectively for Chandrayaan-2 mission.
- It aims to explore the Moon’s South Polar Region.
- The GSLV-Mark III vehicle has successfully injected Chandrayaan-2 in the defined orbit.
- Planetary Science and Exploration (PLANEX) is India’s program for planetary exploration.
- The mission payloads has
- Terrain Mapping Camera which will generate a Digital Elevation Model (DEM) of the entire moon,
- Large Area Soft X-ray Spectrometer which will test the elemental composition of the Moon’s surface,
- Solar X-Ray Monitor which will provide solar X-ray spectrum inputs for CLASS.
- Chandrayaan-2 has three components of the mission, an orbiter, a lander and a rover.
- The orbiter will be deployed at an altitude of 100 kilometers above the surface of the Moon.
- The lander will then separate from the orbiter, and execute a soft landing on the surface of the Moon.
- The Rover is named as PRAGYAN.
- The mission’s lander is named VIKRAM after Dr Vikram A Sarabhai, the Father of the Indian Space Programme.
Objectives of the mission
The primary objectives of Chandrayaan-2 are
- Quantify the water available on the moon’s surface.
- Map its topography, to explore chemicals and minerals such as magnesium, iron, and Helium.
- Study topmost part of the lunar atmosphere.
- To demonstrate the ability to soft-land on the lunar surface and operate a robotic rover on the surface.
GSLV Mk-III
- The Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle Mark-III is a three-stage vehicle and it is developed by ISRO,
- It is primarily designed to launch communication satellites into geostationary orbit.
- GSLV-Mk III can put four-tonne satellites in the Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit (GTO) and is capable of placing up to eight tonnes in a Low Earth Orbit (LEO). This capacity is enough to carry a manned module and launch people into space.
- GSLV Mk-III vehicle is powered by two solid motor strap-ons (S200), a liquid propellant core stage (L110) and a cryogenic stage (C25), that has been designed for carrying the four-tonne class satellites.
- The C25 is powered by CE-20, India’s largest cryogenic engine, designed and developed by the Liquid Propulsion Systems Centre.
Digitization of Archaeological Museum
- The National Portal and Digital Repository for Indian Museums is developed and hosted by Human Centres Design and Computing Group, C-DAC, Pune.
- JATAN: Virtual Museum software is developed by Human Centres Design and Computing Group.
- It is used for creating the digital collections in various museums and digital archival tools that are used in background for managing the National Portal and Digital Repository for Indian Museums.
- There are 48 (forty-eight) Archaeological Site Museums under Archaeological Survey of India.
- Two Archaeological Site Museums, namely – Velha Goa, and Nagarjunakonda, have been digitised during the first phase through JATAN.
