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

Road Safety

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Union Transport Minister Nitin Gadkari has expressed optimism that the significant amendments made to the Motor Vehicles Act have begun reducing the terrible death toll due to accidents on India’s roads.

More on the Topic:

• There is a reported reduction in crashes, notably in Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Manipur, Jammu and Kashmir, Andhra Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra, proof of the law’s beneficial impact.
• Any reduction in road safety incidents in a rapidly motorising country is encouraging, but the cold reality is that data on those who lose their lives or are incapacitated do not reflect a marked decline. In fact, they underscore the culture of indifference among States.
• Statistics: About 1.5 lakh lives each year has lost since 2015, with the graph rising from 80,888 fatalities in 2001.
• World Bank ‘Delivering Road Safety in India’ report is apprehensive that rapid motorisation and more high-speed road infrastructure have raised the risks for road users.

Way Ahead:

• The new Motor Vehicles law does have more muscle in being able to levy stringent penalties for road rule violations some States are using it.
• The transition to a professional road environment requires implementation of first-tier reforms that deal with quality of road infrastructure, facilities for vulnerable users and zero-tolerance enforcement of rules by a trained, professional and empowered machinery.
• A key mechanism of change are District Road Safety Committees, which were enabled even by the 1988 Act, but remain obscure.
• A mandatory monthly public hearing of such committees involving local communities can highlight safety concerns, and their follow-up action can then be supervised by the Members of Parliaments’ Road Safety Committees, created last year. Here, it is essential to make the Collector, local body and police accountable.
• Making dashboard cameras mandatory, with the video evidence accepted in investigation, would protect rule-abiding motorists and aid enforcement.
• To save lives on highways, quality trauma care at the district level holds the key. In the absence of good hospitals and cashless free treatment, no significant improvement is possible in the quest to save life and limb.

Source: The Hindu

Currency Swap

Topic: Economy

In News: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has opened a six-month dollar sell-buy swap window to pump liquidity in the foreign exchange market — the first move following financial markets in India and across the globe experiencing turbulence over the spread of COVID-19, which could lead to a slowdown in growth.

More on the Topic:

What is this Currency Swap Arrangement (CSA)?

• This is an arrangement, between two friendly countries, which have regular, substantial or increasing trade, to basically involve in trading in their own local currencies, where both pay for import and export trade, at the pre-determined rates of exchange, without bringing in third country currency like the US Dollar.
• In such arrangements no third country currency is involved, thereby eliminating the need to worry about exchange variations.

Significance of the agreement:

• The currency swap agreement is an important measure in improving the confidence in the Indian market and it would not only enable the agreed amount of capital being available to India, but it will also bring down the cost of capital for Indian entities while accessing the foreign capital market.
• The swap arrangement should aid in bringing greater stability to foreign exchange and capital markets in India. With this arrangement in place, prospects of India would further improve in tapping foreign capital for country’s developmental needs. This facility will enable the agreed amount of foreign capital being available to India for use as and when the need arises.

Source: Indian Express

YuViKa: Yuva Vigyani Karyakram (Young Scientist Programme)

Topic: Government Schemes

In News: ISRO has shortlisted 358 high school students from across the country to be part of its second annual ‘catch them young’ programme, YuViKa.

More on the topic:

• This Program by ISRO is primarily aimed at imparting basic knowledge on Space Technology, Space Science and Space Applications to the younger ones with the intent of arousing their interest in the emerging areas of Space activities
• The programme will be of two weeks’ duration during summer holidays and the schedule will include invited talks, experience sharing by the eminent scientists, facility and lab visits, exclusive sessions for discussions with experts, practical and feedback sessions.
• 3 students each from each State/ Union Territory will be selected to participate in this programme covering CBSE, ICSE and State syllabus. 5 additional seats are reserved for OCI candidates across the country.

Source: Indian Express

Consumer disputes redressal forum

Topic: Governance

In News: A district consumer disputes redressal forum has directed e-commerce platform Flipkart to compensate a complainant by paying over ₹11,000 for delivering a defective mobile handset and failing to redress the grievance.

More on the Topic:

• The Consumer Protection Act, 1986 provides for a 3-tier structure of the National and State Commissions and District Forums for speedy resolution of consumer disputes. They are quasi- judicial bodies.
• The National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission (NCDRC) of India was set up in 1988 under the Consumer Protection Act, 1986. Its head office is in New Delhi. The commission is headed by a sitting or retired judge of the Supreme Court of India.
• Each District Forum is headed by a person who is or has been or is eligible to be appointed as a District Judge and each State Commission is headed by a person who is or has been a Judge of High Court.

Ambit:

• The provisions of this Act cover ‘goods’ as well as ‘services’. The goods are those which are manufactured or produced and sold to consumers through wholesalers and retailers. The services are in the nature of transport, telephone, electricity, housing, banking, insurance, medical treatment, etc.

How Grievance redressal is carried out?

• A written complaint, can be filed before the District Consumer Forum for pecuniary value of upto Rupees twenty lakh, State Commission for value upto Rupees one crore and the National Commission for value above Rupees one crore, in respect of defects in goods and or deficiency in service.
• However, no complaint can be filed for alleged deficiency in any service that is rendered free of charge or under a contract of personal service.
• The remedy under the Consumer Protection Act is an alternative in addition to that already available to the aggrieved persons/consumers by way of civil suit.
• In the complaint/appeal/petition submitted under the Act, a consumer is not required to pay any court fees but only a nominal fee.

 Appeals:

• If a consumer is not satisfied by the decision of a District Forum, he can appeal to the State Commission. Against the order of the State Commission a consumer can come to the National Commission.
• In order to help achieve the objects of the Consumer Protection Act, the National Commission has also been conferred with the powers of administrative control over all the State Commissions by calling for periodical returns regarding the institution, disposal and pendency of cases.
• As per the latest Consumer Protection Act , 2019 dispute redressal Commissions will be set up at District, State and National level, with pecuniary jurisdiction up to Rs one crore, Rs one crore to Rs 10 crore, and above Rs 10 crore, respectively. In case of unfair contracts, the State Commissions will hear complaints where the value is up to Rs 10 crore, and National Commissions will hear complaints above that value.  These Commissions can declare unfair terms of such contracts to be null and void.

Source: Hindu

AT-1 Bonds

Topic: Economy

In News: AT-1, short for Additional Tier-1 bonds, are a type of unsecured, perpetual bonds that banks issue to shore up their core capital base to meet the Basel-III norms.

More on the Topic:

• These bonds are perpetual and carry no maturity date.
• Instead, they carry call options that allow banks to redeem them after five or 10 years.
• But banks are not obliged to use this call option and can opt to pay only interest on these bonds for eternity.
• Banks issuing AT-1 bonds can skip interest payouts for a particular year or even reduce the bonds’ face value without getting into hot water with their investors, provided their capital ratios fall below certain threshold levels, These thresholds are specified in their offer terms.
• If the RBI feels that a bank is tottering on the brink and needs a rescue, it can simply ask the bank to cancel its outstanding AT-1 bonds without consulting its investors.
• AT-1 bonds are complex hybrid instruments, ideally meant for institutions and smart investors who can decipher their terms and assess if their higher rates compensate for their higher risks.
• But in India, these bonds seem to have been sold to a fair number of retail investors as fixed deposit or NCD substitutes.
• AT-1 bonds carry a face value of ₹10 lakh per bond.
• There are two routes through which retailers have acquired these bonds
• Initial private placement offers of AT-1 bonds by banks seeking to raise money; or
• Secondary market buys of already-traded AT-1 bonds based on recommendations from brokers.

Source: Indian Express

Sericulture

Topic: Economy

In News: Cocoon production in Karnataka, which had been hit by a mulberry disease, appears poised to pick up just in time to meet the growing demand for indigenous silk.

More on the Topic:

• With the price of cocoons easing and the demand for raw silk expected to increase in the wake of COVID-19 disrupting import of silk from China, the production of indigenous raw silk is likely to increase.

· India is the second largest producer of silk in the world after China · India has the distinction of producing all the four types of silk i.e. (a) Mulberry silk (91.7%); (b) Tasar silk (1.4%); (c) Eri silk (6.4%); and (d) Muga silk (.5%) which are produced by different species of silkworms. · Mulberry silk is produced extensively in the States of Karnataka, West Bengal and Jammu & Kashmir. Similarly, Tasar silk worms are reared traditionally by the tribes of Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Orissa; Muga and Eri silk are produced exclusively in Assam. The food plant of silkworms is Mulberry for producing Mulberry silk.

Source: Hindu