National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 26th October 2019

Merger of BSNL and MTNL

Topic: Indian Economy

In News: Union Cabinet approved revival plan of BSNL and MTNL.

More on the Topic:

• The proposal includes the allotment of critical spectrum to the two PSEs for offering fourth-generation wireless services, including broadband.
• The Centre will fund the spectrum’s cost through an infusion of ₹20,140 crore of capital while also bearing the related GST levy of ₹3,674 crore.
• Centre will also provide a sovereign guarantee on ₹15,000 crore of long-term bonds, which would help the firms restructure debt and partly fund expenses and an extended budgetary support of ₹17,169 crore for ex-gratia payments on a crucial voluntary retirement scheme.
• A lot will hinge on this VRS plan given that BSNL’s workforce of over 1,65,000 employees end up cornering about 75% of the telco’s total income.

Background:

• From having been monopoly providers of telephone connectivity, the state-run telcos have had to contend with sweeping change since the opening up of the industry to private players and entry of wireless telephony in the 1990s.
• In just over two decades, the mobile phone revolution has catapulted India to the second rank in terms of wireless subscribers, with only China ahead.
• But the radical transformation of the industry landscape wrought by the runaway growth in user numbers, rapid technological advances, and bruising competition has come at a substantial price.
• The private sector saw the relatively older, large firms using mergers and acquisitions to consolidate as smaller rivals found themselves unable to cope with bitter tariff wars and the capital costs of bidding for spectrum and upgrading their technologies.

Significance of BSNL:

• BSNL was saddled with the legacy of having been a large-scale provider of jobs as well as state-mandated connectivity to remote corners of the country.
• It is in the fulfilment of the state’s social objectives that the public sector enterprises (PSEs) racked up substantial costs, which the Centre’s revival plan aims to help address.

Intended Implications of the Merger:

• A successful revival of BSNL will have far-reaching implications for the industry, this at a time when two of the three surviving private players are faced with sliding market share.
• The reach of its network, especially in remote parts, makes BSNL a “strategic asset” that has national security implications given its role in serving the armed forces and responding to natural disasters.
• With the proposed measures, it is expected that BSNL will come out of losses by 2023-24 while MTNL will be back to profits in 2025-26, according to estimates. Both the PSUs have a debt of around Rs 20,000 crore.

Source: Hindu

IndiGen initiative

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: Anyone looking for a free mapping of their entire genome can sign up for the IndiGen initiative, a programme managed by the CSIR-Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (IGIB) and the CSIR-Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB).

More on the Topic:

• The aim of the exercise was twofold: To test if it’s possible to rapidly and reliably scan several genomes and advise people on health risks that are manifest in their gene and, understand the variation and frequency of certain genes that are known to be linked to disease.
• The outcomes of IndiGen will have applications in a number of areas including faster and efficient diagnosis of rare genetic diseases.
• The IndiGenome card and app(user should access the app ) ensures privacy and data security, which is vital for personal genomics to be implemented at scale.
• The CSIR exercise ties into a larger programme coordinated by the Department of Biotechnology, which plans to scan nearly 20,000 Indian genomes over the next five years, in a two-phase exercise, and develop diagnostic tests that can be used to test for cancer.

About Genome Mapping:

• Genome: It is an organism’s complete set of DNA, including all of its genes.
• Each genome contains all of the information needed to build and maintain that organism. In humans, a copy of the entire genome—more than 3 billion DNA base pairs is contained in all cells that have a nucleus.
• Genome Mapping: Genome mapping is used to identify and record the location of genes and the distances between genes on a chromosome.
• Genome mapping provided a critical starting point for the Human Genome Project. Sequenced DNA fragments can be aligned to the genome map to aid with the assembly of the genome.
• It is figuring out the order of DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome the order of As, Cs, Gs, and Ts that make up an organism’s DNA. The human genome is made up of over 3 billion of these genetic letters.

Source: Hindu

Jan Soochna Portal

Topic: e- Governance

In News: It is the first-ever public information portal launched in Rajasthan to provide information about government authorities and departments suo motu to the public in the true spirit of the Right To Information Act.

More on the Topic:

• The portal would ensure compliance with Section 4(2) of the RTI Act mandating the public authorities to disclose information in the public domain, so that the people need not file applications under the law to obtain information.
• A recent NGO study of orders by the Central Information Commission in 2018 found that 70% of the original RTI applications requested information which should have been put out in the public domain already.

Example of benefits accrued through the portal:

• In 2017, MKSS activists got access to a list of 10 lakh people across the State who had been excluded from the government’s pension scheme when the payment system switched from the post office to Aadhaar-linked bank accounts. Overnight, the number of pensioners dropped from 68 lakh to 58 lakh. According to the government, almost three lakh of the excluded names were dead, while another two lakh were fake or duplicates.
• By tracking down names from the list of the supposedly dead, activists found that thousands of people had been wrongly excluded. They sent in the papers to show they are alive and finally the government restarted their pension.

Source: Hindu

Vishwa Shanti Stupa

Topic: Art and culture

In News: 2019 commemorates  Golden Jubilee of Vishwa Shanti Stupa in Rajgir.

More on the Topic:

• It is constructed atop the Ratnagiri Hill, it is the world’s highest peace pagoda.
• Conceptualised by renowned Buddhist monk Nipponzan Myohoji and built by Japanese monk Fujii Guruji.
• Built completely with marble, the stupa comprises four golden statues of Lord Buddha with each representing his life periods of birth, enlightenment, preaching and death.
• There are 7 Peace Pagoda or Shanti Stupas in India, other Stupas are Global Vipassana Pagoda Mumbai, Deekshabhoomi Stupa Nagpur and Buddha Smriti Park Stupa Patna.

Significance of Rajgir:

• The first Buddhist Council, immediately after the Mahaparinirvana of Lord Buddha, was convened at this place which presently is called Rajgir.
• It was at the Gridhakuta, the hill of the vultures, where Buddha made Mauryan king Bimbisara convert to Buddhism.
• Rajgir is also known as Panchpahari as it is surrounded by five holy hills.
• The legend has it that the ancient city Rajagriha existed even before Lord Buddha attained enlightenment. It was the ancient capital city of the Magadh rulers until the 5th century BC when Ajatashatru moved the capital to Pataliputra (which is now known as Patna).
• Lord Mahavira too spent 14 years of his life at Rajgir and nearby areas.

Source: Hindu

Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)

Topic: Economy

In News: The Supreme Court has upheld the definition of Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) calculation as stipulated by the Department of Telecommunications. This means that telecom companies will have to pay up as much as Rs 92,642 crore to the government.

More on the Topic:

• Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR) is the usage and licensing fee that telecom operators are charged by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
• It is divided into spectrum usage charges and licensing fees, pegged between 3-5 percent and 8 percent respectively.
• As per DoT, the charges are calculated based on all revenues earned by a telco – including non-telecom related sources such as deposit interests and asset sales. Telcos, on their part, insist that AGR should comprise only the revenues generated from telecom services.

Background:

• In 2005, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI) challenged the government’s definition for AGR calculation.
• Later in 2015, the TDSAT said AGR included all receipts except capital receipts and revenue from non-core sources such as rent, profit on the sale of fixed assets, dividend, interest and miscellaneous income, etc.
• The regulator has also included forex adjustment under AGR apart from ruling that licenses fee will not be charged twice on the same income. It, however, exempted bad debt, foreign exchange fluctuations, and sale of scrap to be calculated for AGR.
• The government has also raised the issue of under-reporting of revenues to duck charges. The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) called out telcos for understating revenues to the tune of Rs 61,064.5 crore.
• Later, the Telecom Disputes Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) upheld the DoT’s definition of AGR (factors against which the license fee is payable) with certain exemptions.
• The DoT, however, filed an appeal before the Supreme Court, citing that the TDSAT had no jurisdiction on the validity of terms and conditions of licenses.

Impact of the ruling:

• Clearly this judgment has significantly damaging implications for India’s telecom industry, which is already reeling under huge financial stress and is left with only four operators.
• Significant investment of several billion dollars has been made in creating world class networks. This order has huge impact on two private operators while most of the other impacted operators have exited the sector.

Source: Hindu

Global mobility report

Topic: Reports and Indices

In News: Global Mobility Report has been released by Sustainable Mobility for All (SuM4All) initiative.

More on the Topic:

• Highlights of the report,
• Not a single country developed or developing is on track to achieve sustainability in the transportation sector and attain the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) mandated by the United Nations.
• Developed countries outperformed developing countries on all mobility policy goals, except per capita transport-related greenhouse gas emissions.
• The gap is more striking on safety and air pollution, placing a higher burden on developing countries compared with the developed countries.
• Other indicators also showed wide disparities between developed and developing countries.
• With growing urbanisation, increasing world trade and new technologies, the global mobility system is stressed.
• More than one billion people or one-third of the global rural population, lack access to all-weather roads and transport services.
• The report charted a Global Roadmap for Action (GRA), which provides a catalogue of policy measures that have been used and tested around the world to achieve four policy goals — universal access, efficiency, green mobility and safety.
• The GRA will help countries to identify gaps, crucial steps and appropriate policies to ensure that transport sector contributes to attain the SDGs by 2030.

Highlights of GRA:

• Charting mobility performances of 183 developed and developing countries.
• Providing a catalogue of suitable policy measures that have been used and tested around the world to achieve any of the four policy goals.
• Laying out a methodology to extract from this catalogue of policies those measures that are most impactful and relevant to a country’s context.

Model Mains Question: Access to efficient, green and safe mobility is the sine qua non to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”.Comment on the progress made in India in this regard.

Source: Down to Earth