National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 4th November 2019

WhatsApp scandal

Topic: Polity and Governance/ Security

In News: The Government’s reaction to messaging platform WhatsApp’s revelation that Indian journalists and human rights activists were among some 1,400 people globally spied upon using a surveillance technology developed by Israel-based NSO Group is criticized as inadequate.

More on the Topic:

• A malicious code, named Pegasus, exploited a bug in the call function of WhatsApp to make its way into the phones of those select users, where it would potentially have had access to every bit of information.
• A malicious code, named Pegasus, exploited a bug in the call function of WhatsApp to make its way into the phones of those select users, where it would potentially have had access to every bit of information.

Concerns:

• NSO products are used exclusively by government intelligence and law enforcement agencies to fight crime and terror. The NSO, by its own admission, sells its service only to government agencies.
• Those targeted individuals included civil rights activists, lawyers, and journalists.
• It is evident that this activity was not done for monetary gains. These information leads to the question, on whose directions were the Indian journalists and human rights activists spied upon.

Way Ahead:

• This breach is a trivial issue, as it concerns the digital well-being of citizens.
• In a country where data protection and privacy laws are still in a nascent stage, incidents such as this highlight the big dangers to privacy and freedom in an increasingly digital society.
• It is thus imperative that the Government sends a strong message on privacy, something that the Supreme Court in 2017 declared to be intrinsic to life and liberty and therefore an inherent part of the fundamental rights.
• The first thing it could do is to answer categorically if any of the governmental agencies used NSO’s services.

Source: Hindu

Dhanush Regiment

Topic: Defence Sector

In News: The Indian Army, which began inducting the indigenously upgraded Dhanush artillery guns, will have the first regiment in place by March 2020 and will get all 114 guns by 2022.

More on the Topic:

• Dhanush is the indigenously upgraded variant of the Swedish Bofors gun imported in the 1980s.
• The Defence Ministry had stated earlier that indigenisation to the extent of about 81%, has “already been achieved” and by the end of 2019, the level of indigenisation in the manufacture of the gun “will go up to 91%.”
• The gun is fitted with an inertial navigation system having global positioning system (GPS)-based gun recording and auto-laying, an enhanced tactical computer for on-board ballistic computations, an on-board muzzle velocity recording, an automated gun sighting system equipped with camera, thermal imaging, and laser range finder.
• After close to three decades, the Army inducted its first modern artillery guns system in November last year. These include M-777 Ultra Light Howitzers (ULH) from the U.S. and K9 Vajra-T self-propelled artillery guns from South Korea.

Source: Hindu

ISRO’s NavIC set to be commercialised

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its older commercial arm Antrix Corporation Ltd. are poised to commercialise India’s regional navigation satellite system, NavIC, with Antrix recently floating two separate tenders to identify industries that can develop dedicated NavIC-based hardware and systems.

More on the Topic:

• The early set of commercial NavIC users would be potentially transporters of resources such as mined ore, coal and sand in various States. Several transporters currently use GPS-based systems.
• The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways mandated last year that all national-permit vehicles must have such tracking devices. As a pilot, many fishing boats have been fitted with these devices that have a unique texting facility.

About NavIC:

• NavIC (Navigation in Indian Constellation) is the Indian system of eight satellites that is aimed at telling business and individual users where they are, or how their products and services are moving.
• The indigenous positioning or location based service (LBS) works just like the established and popular U.S. Global Positioning System or GPS, but within a 1,500-km radius over the sub-continent.
• Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., had developed and tested NavIC-friendly semiconductor chipsets across its user bases and that it would add NavIC to them.
• Apart from GPS, its chips can work with the global navigation satellite systems of Europe (Galileo), Russia (GLONASS) and China (Beidou.)
• ISRO expects the indigenous system to ‘enhance’ the use of NavIC on mobile, automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
• NavIC is certified by the 3GPP (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project), a global body for coordinating mobile telephony standards.
• The specifications will be available in March 2020 and the Telecommunications Standards Development Society, India (TSDSI) would adopt them as a national standard.
• Potential applications of the regional navigation: Terrestrial, aerial and marine navigation; disaster management; vehicle tracking and fleet management; integration with mobile phones; precise timing (as for ATMs and power grids); mapping and geodetic data capture; as terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers; and for visual and voice navigation for drivers etc.

Source: Hindu

Electoral Bond Scheme

Topic: Governance

In News: Electoral bonds worth ₹232 crore were sold in October, taking the total number of bonds sold from March 2018 till October 2019 to 12,313 and the total value to ₹6,128 crore, according to data shared by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR).

More on the Topic:

• An electoral bond is designed to be a bearer instrument like a Promissory Note in effect, it will be similar to a bank note that is payable to the bearer on demand and free of interest. It can be purchased by any citizen of India or a body incorporated in India.
• In India, the government notified the Electoral Bond Scheme in January 2018.
• The bonds have been issued in multiples of Rs.1,000, 10,000, 1 lakh, 10 lakh and 1 crore and have been available at specified branches of State Bank of India.
• They can be bought by the donor with a KYC-compliant account.
• Donors can donate the bonds to their party of choice which can then be cashed in via the party’s verified account within 15 days.
• The electoral bonds are aimed at rooting out system of largely anonymous cash donations made to political parties which lead to the generation of black money in the economy.

Concerns:

• The introduction of the electoral bond scheme is part of what appears to be a growing trend away from transparency and accountability, two values which were already sparse in relation to Indian political parties.
• Opponents to the scheme allege that since the identity of the donor of electoral bonds has been kept anonymous, it could lead to an influx of black money.
• Others allege that the scheme was designed to help big corporate houses donate money without their identity being revealed.

Source: Hindu

CMIE report on joblessness

Topic: Reports and Indices

In News: The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy (CMIE) has released a report on Unemployment in India.

Key findings:

• India’s unemployment rate in October rose to 8.5%, the highest level since August 2016.
• Urban unemployment rate at 8.9%, is more than the rural unemployment rate of 8.3%.
• Highest unemployment rate in Tripura and Haryana, at more than 20%.
• Lowest in Tamil Nadu at 1.1%.
• Rajasthan saw its unemployment rate double between September and October 2019.

Concerns:

• CMIE findings are in line with the findings of the latest Periodic Labour Force Survey, which had estimated an unemployment rate of 6.1% between July 2017 and June 2018, the worst in 45 years.
• The data also comes on the back of other indicators showing a downturn in the economy, including the core sector output in September posting its worst contraction in at least 14 years.
• Another research estimates that between 2011-12 and 2017-18, employment declined by an unprecedented nine million jobs (a 2% drop), with agricultural employment declining by 11.5%. In the same period, employment in the service sector increased by 13.4%, while manufacturing employment dipped by 5.7%.
• While employment has been declining, the number of working age people who are Not in Labour Force, Education and Training” has continued to increase from about 84 million in 2011-12, it has now crossed 100 million.
• Most of the decline in employment has happened due to the fall in the number of workers in agriculture and a sharp fall in the absolute number of female workers– Roughly 37 million workers left agriculture in the last six years. During the same time, 25 million women workers were out of the workforce.
• While the trend of workers moving out of agriculture is seen since 2004-05 and is welcome, it also points to the rising vulnerability of farm production.

Way Ahead:

• Stagnant wages and jobless growth are not just indicators of a weakening economy, but also a recipe for political instability and a crisis in the countryside.
• The government should accept the reality of economy un-employment scenarios.
• To sustain the growth of income, improve standard of living, and to reduce poverty, employment opportunities in manufacturing and construction (although a transitory sector) is necessary.

Model Mains Question:To sustain the growth of income, improve standard of living, and to reduce poverty, employment opportunities in manufacturing and construction (although a transitory sector) is necessary. Comment

Source: Hindu

TRAI fixes ring timings for mobiles, landlines

Topic: Governance

In News: In a new regulation, the Telecom Regulatory  Authority of India (TRAI), has fixed the ring time for calls made to mobiles at 30 seconds, and those made to landlines at 60 seconds While this is a matter which directly impacts the experience of a mobile phone user, the reduction in ringing time also affects the revenue of the operator.

More on the Topic:

• The operators pay each other an interconnection charge (currently 6 paise/min). The charge is paid by the operator whose customers make a call to the operator whose subscribers receive a call.
• In case of a shorter ringing time, a user may miss the call and may need to call the other user back. Hence, making the operator with a ‘shorter ringing time’ gain in interconnection charges.
• Last month, Bharti Airtel had cut the ringing time for calls made by its subscribers to 25 seconds from about 45 seconds, in retaliation to a similar move by rival Reliance Jio. The rules by TRAI bring to an end a face-off between two major operators.

About Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI):

• It is a statutory body set up by the Government of India under section 3 of the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India Act, 1997.
• TRAI is an independent regulator of Telecom Business in India.
• Aims to regulate telecom services, including fixation/revision of tariffs for telecom services which were earlier vested in the Central Government.
• It also regularly issues orders and directions on various subjects such as tariffs, quality of service, interconnections, Direct To Home (DTH) services and mobile number portability.
• The TRAI Act was amended by an ordinance, effective from 24 January 2000, establishing a TDSAT(Telecommunications Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal) to take over the adjudicatory and disputes functions from TRAI.
• TDSAT was set up to adjudicate any dispute between a licensor and a licensee, between two or more service providers, between a service provider and a group of consumers, and to hear and dispose of appeals against any direction, decision or order of TRAI.

Source: Hindu