National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 23rd February 2019
Olympic dream under threat as visa is denied to 2 Pak. shooters
Topic: International Relations
In News: India’s future as a host for sporting events remained uncertain following a decision by the International Olympic Committee (IOC).The issue arose when India refused visa requests from two Pakistani shooters expected to participate in the ongoing ISSF World Cup.
More on the Topic:
- In a letter to the Indian Olympic Association (IOA), the IOC made it clear that all future international sporting events in India would be put on hold unless the host gave a written guarantee that there would be no discrimination on participation of athletes.
- According to the IOC, it was “informed on 18 February that the Indian government authorities failed to grant an entry visa to the Pakistani delegation comprising two athletes and one official who were meant to participate in the ISSF World Cup.
- This is a qualification competition for the Olympic Games Tokyo 2020 in which direct quotas are earned by the respective NOCs. The two Pakistani athletes were due to compete in the men’s 25m rapid fire pistol event, in which two quota places are available for the Games.”
Consequences:
- The IOC has declared that this is against the Olympic Charter’s principles, of which non-discrimination, equal treatment of all athletes and sporting delegations and political non-interference are supreme.
- It is clear that in the clamour to send Pakistan what it perceives to be the right message, India has shot itself in the foot.
- In the short term, the scrapping of two out of 16 quota places will deny three Indian shooters, including 16-year-old Anish Bhanwala who won the gold in the event at the 2018 Commonwealth Games, an opportunity to make the Olympic grade at home.
- The long-term consequences, however, could be more severe. The IOC, in a strongly worded statement, said that it has decided to “suspend all discussions with the Indian National Olympic Committees and government regarding the potential applications for hosting future sports and Olympic-related events until clear written guarantees are obtained…to ensure the entry of all participants.” This means negotiations regarding India’s potential bids for the 2026 Youth Olympics, 2030 Asian Games and 2032 Olympics are set to go into cold storage.
- Going by experience, beyond feeding into a certain kind of atmospherics, such bans on sportspersons and interactions in international sports events will have no meaningful effect.
Source:The Hindu
Financial Action Task Force-Pak on grey list
Topic: International Relations
In News: Condemning the Pulwama February 14 attack, the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), issued a stern statement to Pakistan to comply with an action plan on terror financing or face further action, according to a decision taken at its plenary session in Paris.
More on the Topic:
- The week-long deliberations of the 37-member group decided not to remove Pakistan from the ‘grey list’, as Islamabad had lobbied for, but also did not accept an Indian demand to move Pakistan to the ‘black list’ yet.
- The FATF criticised Pakistan for not demonstrating “a proper understanding” of the terror financing risks posed by “Da’esh (Islamic State), Al Qaeda, Jamaat-ud Dawa, Falah-e-Insaniat-Foundation, Lashkar-e Taiba, Jaish-e Mohammad, Haqqani Network, and persons affiliated with the Taliban,” and told the Pakistani government to show that remedial actions and sanctions are applied as well as demonstrating that its authorities were taking action on “illegal money or value transfer services” to these groups.
Background:
- Pakistan was put on the ‘grey list’ or watch list of the FATF in June 2018 after a proposal moved by the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France was passed.
- The resolution gave the Pakistani government a 15-month, 27-point action plan on enforcing measures to counter money laundering and financing of terrorist groups (AML/CFT regime).
About Financial Action Task Force:
- The Financial Action Task Force (on Money Laundering) (FATF), is an intergovernmental organization founded in 1989 on the initiative of the G7 to develop policies to combat money laundering.
- In 2001 its mandate expanded to include terrorism financing. It monitors progress in implementing the FATF Recommendations through “peer reviews” (“mutual evaluations”) of member countries. The FATF Secretariat is housed at the OECD headquarters in Paris.
- The effect of the FATF Blacklist has been significant, and arguably has proven more important in international efforts against money laundering than has the FATF Recommendations. While, under international law, the FATF Blacklist carried with it no formal sanction, in reality, a jurisdiction placed on the FATF Blacklist often found itself under intense financial pressure.
Model Mains Question: Financial Action Task Force (FATF) has grey listed Pakistan for its alleged laxity in curtailing finances of terrorist groups within its soil. Discuss how it will impact Pakistan. How does India stand to gain from this move?
Source: The Hindu
Cooking Oil as fuel for JET
Topic: Science and Technology
In News: Dehradun-based Indian Institute of Petroleum has successfully finished a pilot test to convert used cooking oil into bio-aviation turbine fuel (Bio-ATF), which can be blended with conventional ATF and used as aircraft fuel.
More on the Topic:
- The Institute collected used cooking oil from caterers and hotels in Dehradun for the pilot, which has now set the platform for commercial use of the technology.
- The chemical composition of the used cooking oil is identical to other plant-based oils that have been converted to Bio-ATF.
Significance:
- The test assumes importance as the Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) has launched the Repurpose Cooking Oil (RUCO) initiative to collect and convert used cooking oil into bio-fuel. As many as 64 companies in 101 locations across the country have been identified for the purpose by FSSAI.
- The food safety body says that by 2020, it should be possible to recover about 220 crore litres of used cooking oil for conversion into bio-fuel.
- Reducing the re-use of cooking oil in the food industry will have positive public health outcomes and its conversion into Bio-ATF will help the aviation sector reduce its carbon footprint.
Model Mains Question: Discuss the importance of biofuels for India. Critically examine whether the national policy on biofuel will help India to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels.
Source: The Hindu
Domain Name Server
Topic: Science and Technology
In News: The government will soon roll out a public Domain Name Server, or DNS, for India aimed at providing a faster and more secure browsing experience for Internet users in the country, while ensuring that citizens’ data is stored locally.
More on the Topic:
- A DNS is a like a directory for the Internet. It helps to convert domain names that are easy for people to remember into IP addresses, which are used by computers/machines to communicate. If the DNS is either slow or fails to work, users will not be able to locate web addresses.
- “The main aim of bringing our own public DNS is to ensure availability, particularly for smaller Interest Service Providers (ISPs) who don’t have credible DNS. Bigger ones usually have their own DNS.”
- There are other open DNS servers, including Google Public DNS.The government’s system would prevent users from visiting malicious websites.
- The roll-out,will be executed by the National Informatics Centre – the technology arm of the government – will be completed in the next four to six months. NIC is already using the public DNS within the government network.
- . It is not that users will compulsorily need to shift to India public DNS. A user is free to choose any DNS. the government’s public DNS, Indian users’ data would be stored within the country.
- The ministry, as part of its ongoing awareness campaign for safer Internet, also plans to reach out to end-users to educate them on DNS and how they could shift to an Indian public DNS if they desired.
Source:The Hindu
AK-103 assault rifles
Topic: Defense Sector
In News: India and Russia are close to concluding an Inter-Governmental Agreement (IGA) for a multi-billion deal to locally bulk manufacture AK-103 assault rifles .
More on the Topic:
- Army is looking to replace the indigenous INSAS (Indian National Small Arms System) rifles in use with a modern rifle. The AK-103 will be bulk produced by the OFB with technology transfer.
Source: The Hindu
Unified Messaging Platform
Topic: Science and Technology
In News: MeitY has released its Unified Messaging Platform for secure and efficient Government communications, as part of the mandate.
More on the Topic:
- NIC is the implementing agency for this large deployment. Email and messaging are the backbone of e-governance.
- eMail service has a grown from a user base of 0.45 million in 2014 to over 2 million in 2018 and handles a traffic of over 2 crore emails daily.
- The Unified Messaging Platform of NIC envisages to provide email service to over 5 million officials of Central and State Government employees with the domain @gov.in/@state.gov.in (for e,g @bih.gov.in) .
- The service has been built through an open source solution in accordance with the “Policy on adoption of Open source software for Government of India” by MeitY, thus, ensuring strategic control of Government over the solution.
- The service provide a multilingual platform comprising of 11 local languages with a go-live in English and Hindi initially, followed by other languages.
- The service ensures security, performance, redundancy and service continuity in addition to a rich feature set.
Source: PIB
VIVID 2019
Topic: Government Initiatives
In News: Minister of Electronics and Information Technology to inaugurate VIVID 2019.
More on the Topic:
- VIVID stands for Vision Insight and Voices as India goes Digital.
- It is an annual event, with the objective to empower National Informatics Centre (NIC) officials in the field of technology.
- It was started in 2017.VIVID 2019 would provide a cohesive and extensive platform for interaction and knowledge sharing.
- It will cover a wide range of relevant topics in various technical sessions including Emerging Technologies (Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning & Big Data Analytics), Cyber Threats & Counter Measures (Changing Digitisation Paradigm & its impact on Security), Enterprise Level Applications, and many other relevant topics.
About National Informatics Centre (NIC)
- NIC was established in 1976, and has since emerged as a “prime builder” of e-Government / e-Governance applications up to the grassroots level as well as a promoter of digital opportunities for sustainable development.
- NIC, through its ICT Network, “NICNET“, has institutional linkages with all the Ministries /Departments of the Central Government, 36 State Governments/ Union Territories, and about 708 District administrations of India.
- NIC has been instrumental in steering e-Government/e-Governance applications in government ministries/departments at the Centre, States, Districts and Blocks, facilitating improvement in government services, wider transparency, promoting decentralized planning and management, resulting in better efficiency and accountability to the people of India.
- “Informatics-led-development” programme of the government has been spearheaded by NIC to derive competitive advantage by implementing ICT applications in social & public administration.
Source: PIB
Invisible Ink and Indelible Ink
Topic: Polity/Science and Technology
In News: The Delhi-based National Physical Laboratory (NPL), the creator of indelible ink used in elections, has developed a new invisible ink.
More on the Topic:
- It was developed as part of a pilot project mooted by the Mysore Paints and Varnish Ltd. (MVPL) for a European client.
- MVPL, a Karnataka government company, has a monopoly on the manufacture of indelible ink since 1962, and is a major supplier to the Election Commission of India (ECI).
- The NPL’s invisible ink experiment is linked to a larger project of creating security inks that could be used to make bank notes and documents, such as passports, more secure.
About Invisible Ink
- It is a transparent liquid, that doesn’t leave a trace when applied on the finger but glows a bright orange when illuminated with a low-intensity beam of ultraviolet light.
- It is a biodegradable “organic-inorganic” mixture that could be washed off in 48 hours.
- The ink works on the principle of fluorescence — where certain materials emit a characteristic glow when exposed to ultraviolet light.
About Indelible Ink
- It is a semi-permanent ink that is applied on the finger of voters during elections as a deterrent against voting twice.The chemical used in indelible ink is silver nitrate.
- Once applied on skin it cannot be washed off with soap, alcohol or bleach. It will disappear only when old skin cells are replaced.
Source: The Hindu
