National Current Affairs – UPSC/IAS Exams- 20th January 2020

Tougher law against sexual harassment at work

Topic: Social Justice

In News: The Group of Ministers (GoM) headed by Home Minister Amit Shah, which was constituted to strengthen the legal framework to prevent sexual harassment at the workplace, has finalised its recommendations.

More on the Topic:

• The recommendations, which include addition of new provisions to the Indian Penal Code, will be put up for comments from the public.
• The GoM was constituted first in October 2018 in the aftermath of the #MeToo movement after many women shared their ordeal on social media. It was reconstituted in July 2019 under Home Minister.
• The other members of the GoM are Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, Human Resource and Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal and Women and Child Development Minister Smriti Irani.
• Changes to the existing laws on sexual harassment at the workplace would be incorporated when the overhaul of the IPC was complete. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) is working on another project to reboot the IPC, introduced by the British in 1860.
• The Women and Child Development Ministry had steered the Sexual Harassment of Women and Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act in 2013, which was applicable to government offices, the private sector, NGOs and the unorganised sector.

Guide Lines utilised in the formation of Amendment:

• The proposed amendments would be largely based on the Vishaka Guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court in 1997, on which the 2013 Act was based. It made the employer responsible to prevent or deter acts of sexual harassment at the workplace.
• The GoM also examined the report of the Justice J.S. Verma Committee that was constituted in the wake of the Nirbhaya gang-rape and murder in 2012. The Verma committee had recommended an employment tribunal, instead of an ICC, as dealing with such complaints in-house could discourage women from coming out.

The number of sexual harassment incidents at “work or office premises” Data:

• As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) the number of sexual harassment incidents at “work or office premises” registered under Section 509 IPC (words, gesture or act to insult the modesty of a woman) were 479 and 401 in the years 2017 and 2018 respectively. Among the cities, the highest number of such cases were registered in Delhi (28), Bengaluru (20), Pune (12) and Mumbai (12) in 2018. The total number of sexual harassment incidents in 2018 including that in public places, shelter homes and others was 20,962.

The 2013 Act shortcomings: · The 2013 Act had shortcomings like giving the powers of a civil court to the internal complaints committee (ICC) without specifying if the members need to have a legal background. · It only imposed a fine of ₹50,000 on employers for non-compliance. The Act said the employer shall provide assistance to the woman if she chooses to file a complaint under the IPC “against the perpetrator after the conclusion of the enquiry”.

Source: Hindu

Submarine-launched ballistic missile K-4

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: India successfully test-fired the 3,500-km range submarine-launched ballistic missile, K-4.

More on the Topic:

• The test was carried out by the Defence Research and Development Organsiation (DRDO) from a submerged pontoon off the Visakhapatnam coast.
• There are very few countries which have managed to achieve this technological breakthrough.
• Once inducted, these missiles will be the mainstay of the Arihant class of indigenous ballistic missile nuclear submarines (SSBN) and will give India the stand off capability to launch nuclear weapons submerged in Indian waters.
• INS Arihant, the first and only operational SSBN, is armed with K-15 Sagarika missiles with a range of 750 km.
• This means the submarine has to venture far way from the Indian waters and move closer to the adversary’s coast to launch the missile. The K-4 will do away with that need.

Nuclear Triad: · Nuclear Triad means the capability of delivering nuclear weapons by aircraft, land based ballistic missiles and submarine launched missiles. ·  India declared that its nuclear triad is operational after indigenous Ship Submersible Ballistic Nuclear (SSBN) INS Arihant achieved a milestone by conducting its first deterrence patrol. ·  India has put in place a robust nuclear command and control structure, effective safety assurance architecture and strict political control, under its Nuclear Command Authority. ·  Given India’s ‘No-First-Use’ (NFU) in launching nuclear weapons, the SSBN is the most dependable platform for a second-strike. ·  SSBNs are designed to prowl the deep ocean waters and carry nuclear weapons. ·  Because they are powered by nuclear reactors, these submarines can stay underwater indefinitely without the adversary detecting it. ·  The other two platforms — land-based and air-launched are far easier to detect.

Source: Hindu

Make In India

Topic: Government Policies

In News: The Indian government announced the ‘Make in India’ initiative to encourage manufacturing in India and galvanize the economy with dedicated investments in manufacturing and services. Down the line the performance of Make In India Initiative is not commendable.

More on the Topic:

• The ‘Make in India’ idea is not new. Factory production has a long history in the country. This initiative, however, set an ambitious goal of making India a global manufacturing hub.
• The policy approach was to create a conducive environment for investments, develop modern and efficient infrastructure, and open up new sectors for foreign capital.
• To achieve this goal, targets were identified and policies outlined.

The three major objectives were:

• to increase the manufacturing sector’s growth rate to 12-14% per annum in order to increase the sector’s share in the economy;
• to create 100 million additional manufacturing jobs in the economy by 2022;
• to ensure that the manufacturing sector’s contribution to GDP is increased to 25% by 2022 (revised to 2025) from the current 16%.

An Appraisal:

• Investment: The last five years witnessed slow growth of investment in the economy. This is more so when we consider capital investments in the manufacturing sector. Gross fixed capital formation of the private sector, a measure of aggregate investment, declined to 28.6% of GDP in 2017-18 from 31.3% in 2013-14 (Economic Survey 2018-19).
• Out Put Growth: With regard to output growth, we find that the monthly index of industrial production pertaining to manufacturing has registered double-digit growth rates only on two occasions during the period April 2012 to November 2019. In fact, data show that for a majority of the months, it was 3% or below and even negative for some months. Negative growth implies contraction of the sector.
• Employment Growth: There was a delay in the part of government in releasing data. Employment, especially industrial employment, has not grown to keep pace with the rate of new entries into the labour market.

Policy Flaws:

• The bulk of these schemes relied too much on foreign capital for investments and global markets for produce. This created an inbuilt uncertainty, as domestic production had to be planned according to the demand and supply conditions elsewhere.
• Second, policymakers neglected the Policy implementers need to take into account the implications of implementation deficit in their decisions. ‘Make in India’ has been plagued by a large number of under-prepared initiatives.
• It set out too ambitious growth rates for the manufacturing sector to achieve. An annual growth rate of 12-14% is well beyond the capacity of the industrial sector.
• The initiative brought in too many sectors into its fold. This led to a loss of policy focus.
• Further, it was seen as a policy devoid of any understanding of the comparative advantages of the domestic economy.
• Given the uncertainties of the global economy and ever-rising trade protectionism also affected the policy.

Source: Hindu

Irrawaddy dolphins

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Odisha Forest Department officials, wildlife experts and researchers sighted 146 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins in Chilika Lake.

More on the Topic:

• The direct sighting of 146 dolphins only corroborates the estimate of the CDA, which does counting of dolphins round the year using hydrophones.
• The total population of these aquatic mammals in the world is estimated to be less than 7,500. Of these, more than 6,000 Irrawaddy dolphins have been reported from Bangladesh, while the dolphin distribution in Chilika is considered to be the highest single lagoon population.
• Chilika is the largest brackish water lake in the country.

Source: Hindu

Seismic Hazard Microzonation project

Topic: Disaster Management

In News: The Ministry of Earth Science has launched Seismic Hazard Microzonation project in major cities of India.

More on the Topic:

• It is the process of dividing earth quake prone areas based on certain factors. The factors include geological and geophysical characteristics of site.
• They are ground shaking, landslide, liquefaction susceptibility, rock fall hazard and flooding caused due to earth quakes. Based on the division, mitigation measures are prepared. Hence, it is a preventive method to minimise the losses.
• The ambitious project of MoES is aimed at seismic hazard microzonation of major Indian cities and areas falling under high seismic zones IV and V.
• Earthquake-vulnerable areas falling in seismic zones IV and V include the entire North-Eastern states, Delhi, Kutch areas in Gujarat, and Andaman and Nicobar Islands.
• As per the plan of the Ministry, seismic hazard microzonation of important cities having population of half a million is to be carried out in a phased manner.
• It includes capital cities of a few states and some other cities in vulnerable areas. Authorities believe that it would effectively help them having an idea about the sites, which are more prone to seismic hazards within a particular city and accordingly mitigation measures may be adopted for the safety of the common masses.
• In the absence of a reliable prediction model for earthquakes, unlike in the case of Tsunamis, scientists believe that having well-thought and well-planned mitigation measures in place become more important.
• Japan is a leading example of how effective and well-implemented mitigation measures could make its citizens live in peace despite Japan falling in the high seismic zone and vulnerable to frequent earthquakes.
• The civil engineering practice in Japan is fully compliant to seismic by-laws, where retrofitting of old and seismically vulnerable structures have been aggressively pursued and new structures are designed with seismic resilience.
• India also needed to follow this path.

Source: Hindu

Pulse Polio Programme

Topic: Health

In News: The beginning of this year’s Pulse Polio Programme was inaugurated from the Rashtrapati Bhavan.

More on the Topic:

• India launched the Pulse Polio immunisation programme in 1995, after a resolution for a global initiative of polio eradication was adopted by the World Health Assembly (WHA) in 1988.
• Children in the age group of 0-5 years are administered polio drops during national and sub-national immunisation rounds (in high-risk areas) every year.
• To prevent the virus spread, the government has since March 2014 made the Oral Polio Vaccination (OPV) mandatory for those travelling between India and polio-affected countries.
• The last reported cases of wild polio in India were in West Bengal and Gujarat in January 2011.
• On 27 March 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared India a polio free country, since no cases of wild polio been reported in for five years.

Source: Hindu

White Rhino

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: Researchers have created third embryo of the nearly extinct northern white rhino, a remarkable success in an ongoing global mission to keep the species from going extinct.

More on the Topic:

• The death of Sudan in 2018, who was earlier at the Dvur Králové Zoo in the Czech Republic, left the world with only two northern white rhinos, Najin, 30, and Fatu, 19 both female.
• The northern white is one of the two subspecies of the white (or square-lipped) rhinocerous, which once roamed several African countries south of the Sahara.
• According to IUCN, the subspecies is considered Critically Endangered (Possibly Extinct in the Wild).
• The other subspecies, the southern white is, by contrast, the most numerous subspecies of rhino, and is found primarily in South Africa.
• There is also the black (or hook-lipped) rhinocerous in Africa, which too, is fighting for survival, and at least three of whose subspecies are already extinct.
• The Indian rhinoceros is different from its African cousins, most prominently in that it has only one horn.
• There is also a Javan rhino, which too, has one horn, and a Sumatran rhino which, like the African rhinos, has two horns.

Source: Times of India