National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 13th January 2020

by Mentors4ias · January 13, 2020

Access to Internet a fundamental right

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Recently In a significant ruling, the Supreme Court said that access to the Internet is a fundamental right under Article 19 of the Constitution, and asked the Jammu and Kashmir administration to review within a week all orders imposing curbs in the Union Territory.

Important Rulings in This Regard:

The Kerala High Court has held that the right to have access to the Internet is part of the fundamental right to education as well as the right to privacy under Article 21 of the Constitution. ( Case: A college student from Kozhikode was expelled from the college hostel for using her mobile phone beyond the restricted hours.)
The court ruling in the S.Rengarajan and others v. P. Jagjivan Ram (1989) case “ the fundamental freedom under Article 19(1)(a) can be reasonably restricted only for the purposes mentioned in Article 19(2) and the restriction must be justified on the anvil of necessity and not the quicksand of convenience or expediency.

UN view on this:

Human Rights Council of the United Nations has found that the right of access to Internet is a fundamental freedom and a tool to ensure right to education.
UN, in 2016, made a series of statements collectively describing that internet access as a basic human right.

The basic elements of this include:

Not intentionally prevent or disrupt access to or dissemination of information online.
States should consider formulating and adopting national internet-related public policies that have the objective of universal access and enjoyment of human rights at their core through transparent and inclusive processes with all stakeholders.
Promotion, protection and enjoyment of human rights, including the right to freedom of expression, on the internet and other information and communication technology.
How the internet can be an important tool for fostering citizen and civil society participation, for the realisation of development in every community and for exercising human rights.

Additional Info:

· In a landmark order, the High Court of Tripura ordered the police to refrain from prosecuting a man who was earlier arrested over a social media post. The Chief Justice in his order broadly remarked that posting on social media was tantamount to a “fundamental right” applicable to all citizens, including government employees.

Model Mains Question: The access to the Internet is a fundamental right. Comment

Source: Hindu

India’s under-5 mortality

Topic: Social Issues

In News: Half of all under-5 deaths in 2018 occurred in five countries: India, Nigeria, Pakistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Ethiopia. India and Nigeria alone account for about a third.

More on the Topic:

India is among the few countries in the world where, in 2018, the mortality under-5 years of girls, exceeded that of boys, according to the ‘Levels and Trends in Child Mortality’ report by the United Nations (UN) inter-agency group for child mortality.
In 2018 fewer countries showed gender disparities in child mortality, and across the world, on average, boys are expected to have a higher probability of dying before reaching age-5 than girls. But this trend was not reflected in India.
According to India’s 2017 Sample Registration System (SRS) the States with the highest burden of neonatal mortality are Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Uttar Pradesh, with 32, 33 and 30 neonatal deaths per 1,000 live births, respectively. India’s neonatal mortality rate is 23 per 1,000 live births.
Also States and Union Territories, Jharkhand, Bihar and Uttarakhand showed the largest gender gaps in under-5 mortality.

Causes:

Estimates indicate that the majority of child mortality cases in India are attributable to deaths during the neonatal period. The major causes of neonatal mortality are pre-term birth, intrapartum related events, and neonatal infection. In the post-neonatal period, the major direct causes of death are diarrhoea and pneumonia.
The report adds that despite the tremendous progress in child survival that has been made over the past two decades, one child or young adolescent died every five seconds in 2018.

Need of the Hour:

It is urgently required to further accelerate progress in preventing child deaths.
Current trends predict that close to 10 million 5- to 14-year-olds, and 52 million children under 5 years of age, will die between 2019 and 2030.
Almost half of these under-5 deaths will be newborns whose deaths can be prevented by reaching high coverage of quality antenatal care, skilled care at birth, postnatal care for mother and baby, and care of small and sick newborns.

The burden of child mortality is determined both by the mortality rate (the proportion of children who die) and by the estimated population of any given State (total number of annual births). In this sense, Uttar Pradesh is the State with the highest number of estimated newborn deaths in India, both because of the high neonatal mortality rate and because of the large cohort of births that occur every year in the State ( according to UNICEF).

Source: Hindu

Kaziranga Wetland Bird Count

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Kaziranga, home of the world’s most one-horned rhinos, has 96 species of wetland birds, one of the highest for wildlife preserves in India.

More on the Topic:

Officials of the Kaziranga National Park and avian specialists conducted the second wetland bird count and counted a total of 19,225 birds belonging to 96 species under 80 families.
With 6,181 individuals, the bar-headed goose led the species count, followed by the common teal and northern pintail. All three belong to the family anatidae.
The other species with sizeable numbers include gadwall, common coot, lesser whistling duck, Indian spot-billed duck, little cormorant, ferruginous duck, tufted duck, Eurasian wigeon, Asian openbill, northern lapwing, ruddy shelduck and spot-billed pelican.
The park also has more than 250 seasonal water bodies, besides the Dipholu River running through it.

Significance:

Data on avian wealth is important because the wetlands nourish Kaziranga’s ecosystem. Increase or decrease in the number of birds is indicative of the park’s health.

The Big Four Conservation:

Much of the focus of conservation efforts in Kaziranga are focused on the ‘big four’ species, rhino, elephant, Royal Bengal tiger and Asiatic water buffalo.
The 2018 census had yielded 2,413 rhinos and approximately 1,100 elephants. The tiger census of 2014 said Kaziranga had an estimated 103 tigers, the third highest population of the striped cat in India after Jim Corbett National Park (215) in Uttarakhand and Bandipur National Park (120) in Karnataka.
Kaziranga is also home to nine of the 14 species of primates found in the Indian subcontinent.

Source: Hindu

Bojjannakonda-Budhist site

Topic: Art and Culture

In News: After a sustained campaign, heritage lovers and officials have been successful in almost stopping the stone-pelting ritual at Bojjannakonda, a famous Buddhist site at Sankaramhe, Andhra Pradesh.

More on the Topic:

The villagers, as a part of the ancient ritual, used to pelt stones at a belly-shaped object, believing it to be a part of a demon.
However, following the intervention of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH), the practice on the Kanuma day during Sankranti has almost been done away with.
(The Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage is a non-profit charitable organisation registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860. In 2007, the United Nations awarded INTACH a special consultative status with United Nations Economic and Social Council.)
The name Sankaram is derived from the term, ‘Sangharama’. It is famous for the whole lot of votive stupas, rock-cut caves, brick-built structural edifices, early historic pottery and Satavahana coins that date back to the 1st century AD.
The main stupa was carved out of rock and then covered with bricks, where one can see a number of images of the Buddha sculpted on the rock face all over the hill.
At the nearby Lingalametta, one can see hundreds of rock-cut monolithic stupas in rows.
Tourists visit the Buddhist sites in large numbers to see the relic casket, the three Chaitya Halls, the votive platforms, the stupas and the Vajrayana sculpture.
Visakhapatnam is famous for Buddhist sites at Thotlakonda, Appikonda, and Bavikonda too.

Bojjannakonda and Lingalametta are the twin Buddhist monasteries dating back to the 3rd century BC. These sites have seen three forms of Buddhism – the Theravada period when Lord Buddha was considered a teacher, the Mahayana, where Buddhism was more devotional, and Vajrayana, where Buddhist tradition was more practised as Tantra and esoteric form.

Source: Hindu

Odisha’s Ghodahada reservoir

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: As per the recent census, the number of mature muggers crocodiles in Ghodahada reservoir and its adjoining area has increased from 58 in January 2019 to 65 in 2020.

More on the Topic:

This is an example of peaceful coexistence of humans and crocodiles.
As per the locals and forest officials, in the British era, the area zamindar had kept some crocodiles in the Ujaleswar temple tank.
The crocodiles of the Ghodahada reservoir and its adjoining village ponds have never harmed any villagers or domestic animals.
According to zoologists, muggers are less ferocious than other crocodile breeds and they seem to be satisfied with fish in the reservoir and its adjoining ponds.
Villagers are fishermen and involved in pisciculture in the reservoir and conservation of crocodiles.
IUCN status: It is extinct in Bhutan and Myanmar and has been listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List since 1982.

Source: Hindu

H9N2

Topic: Health

In News: Indian scientists have detected the country’s first case of infection with a rare variant of the virus that causes avian influenza, or bird flu(H9N2).

More on the Topic:

H9N2 is a subtype of the influenza A virus, which causes human influenza as well as bird flu. The H9N2 subtype was isolated for the first time in Wisconsin, US in 1966 from turkey flocks.
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), with avian influenza viruses circulating in poultry, there is a risk for sporadic infection and small clusters of human cases due to exposure to infected poultry or contaminated environments. Therefore, sporadic human cases are not unexpected.
H9N2 virus infections in humans are rare, but likely under-reported due to typically mild symptoms of the infections.
H9N2 viruses have been observed in poultry in India several times. Now, identification of the first clinical human case of H9N2 virus infection highlights the importance of systemic surveillance in humans and animals to monitor this threat to human health.

Source: Hindu

Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Center (I4C)

Topic: Governance

In News: Union Ministry of Home Affairs has inaugurated the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C).

More on the Topic:

This state-of-the-art Centre is located in New Delhi.
The I4C will deal with all types of cybercrimes in a comprehensive and coordinated manner.
It has seven components viz.,
National Cyber Crime Threat Analytics Unit,
National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal,
National Cyber Crime Training Centre,
Cyber Crime Ecosystem Management Unit,
National Cyber Crime Research and Innovation Centre,
National Cyber Crime Forensic Laboratory Ecosystem.
Platform for Joint Cyber Crime Investigation Team.
At the initiative of Union Ministry for Home Affairs (MHA), 15 States and UTs have given their consent to set up Regional Cyber Crime Coordination Centres at respective States/UTs.