National Current Affairs- UPSC/KAS Exams – 5th October 2018

Ethics panel debates checks and balances

Topic: Indian Polity

IN NEWS: Parliamentarians are deliberating on having checks and balances while making their personal information public.

More on the topic:

• In a meeting of the Rajya Sabha’s Parliamentary Committee on Ethics (PCE), membersdiscussed amending Rule 293 of the Rajya Sabha’s procedures, which makes the “declaration of interest” by members a public document.
• Parliamentarians are deliberating on having checks and balances while making their personal information public.
• In a meeting of the Rajya Sabha’s Parliamentary Committee on Ethics (PCE), members discussed amending Rule 293 of the Rajya Sabha’s procedures, which makes the “declaration of interest” by members a public document.
• The section says that a “register of member’s interest” should be maintained. This interest is explained as “personal or specific pecuniary interest (direct or indirect) in a matter being considered by the Council or a Committee”.
• The rules say that a member should not participate in any debate if there is direct conflict of interest, without first declaring it, and that in case of a vote on any issue in the House, the vote of such a member could be challenged.
• The members contended said that they while filing their nominations, they declared their assets and liabilities. They had to update any changes in their assets and liabilities every year, too.
• Apart from allowing this information to be in the public domain, it could also be accessed by anyone through the Right to Information Act.
• Some members felt that the availability of information should be made conditional and the present rule should be strengthened.

Ethics committee:

• Both the houses of Parliament have a permanent standing committee on ethics.
• The ethics committee in the Lok Sabha has 15 member.,while the Rajya Sabha has 10 memberd Ethics committee
• Ethics committees formulate, enforce and oversee the moral and ethical conduct for members of Parliament.
• Rajya Sabha was the first among the two Houses to form an ethics committee, with a full standing committee status, on 30th May, 1997. Lok Sabha, in contrast, formed an ad hoc ethics panel in 2000 and has been operating as one until August 2015 when it was given a permanent standing committee status.

Ethics committees functions:

• Formulate a Code of Conduct for members and suggest amendments to it from time to time.
• To oversee the moral and ethical conduct of the Members
• To examine the cases referred to it with reference to ethical and other misconduct of the Members.
• Even while being two Houses of the Indian Parliament, there is a significant degree of variation on the rules and procedures of the ethics committees in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha. While both focus on codes of conduct for Members of Parliament, where they differ is the declaration of members’ pecuniary or financial interest

Differences between Rajyasabha Ethics committee and Lokhsabha Ethics committee:

• Rajya Sabha has explicitly provided for a ‘Register of Members’ Interest’, where MPs have to declare their interest in 5 categories: remunerative directorship, remunerated activity, majority shareholding, paid consultancy and professional engagement.
• In addition to that, members are required to declare any financial interest on an issue that is being debated in the House or under consideration by any other standing committee and hence refrain from taking part to avoid conflict of interest.
• Lok Sabha does not maintain such a registry of members interests and apart from disclosing their assets and liabilities, MPs are not obliged to declare other financial interests that might be in direct or indirect conflict with their role as public servants.
• Another significant point of difference between the two Houses is that while Rajya Sabha’s Ethics Committee acts both on complaints as well as takes up issues suo motu, Lok Sabha’s committee acts only on complaints made either by any member of the public or any other member of the House.
• The Rajya Sabha’s registry though is not openly available on its website and can be accessed only through an RTI application.

‘Holy compost’ is the buzz word’

Topic: Environment and Ecology

IN NEWS: The idea of ‘holy compost’ is fast gaining ground after one temple in Bengaluru made compost out of its waste, branded it and sold it at a premium. Now, nearly 40 temples have installed leaf composters to process flower waste.

More on the Topic

• One of the first temples to compost flower and kitchen waste was the Shakthi Mahaganapathy temple in Bangalore. The ‘zero waste’ temple has also invested in drum digesters for kitchen waste.
• After installing these in June 2016, the temple management harvested over three tonnes of ‘holy compos and sold it at a premium.
• The temple’s success story seems to have captured the attention of the managements of many other temples in the city.
• A lot more temple managements are now open to discussing in situ processing solutions as there is better awareness. That apart, such solutions require little investment and are not dependent on heavy machinery.

Importance of Composting:

• Composting creates soil in organic matter that can be used in the yard and garden. The soil helps retain nutrients, moisture and air for the betterment of plants. Research shows that soil treated with compost tends to produce plants with fewer pest problems
• Adding compost to the soil reduces the farmers dependence on chemical fertilisers.
• Chemical fertilisers are know to be soil quality reducing agent. In addition chemical fertilisers can create health issues also.

Source:The Hindu

India ranked 5th in pictorial warning on tobacco products

Topic: Health

In news: India has been ranked fifth in the listing of countries that have pictorial health warning on tobacco products, with experts here quick to add that the country is making tremendous progress towards creating public awareness on the health hazards of tobacco abuse.

More on the topic:

• The Cigarette Package Health Warnings: International Status Report’ was released recently by the Canadian Cancer Society which documents global progress on plain packaging.
• It has ranked 206 countries and territories on the size of their health warnings on cigarette packages, and lists countries and territories that require graphic picture warnings.
• East Timor is ranked first with 85% of the front and 100% of the back of the packaging being used for pictorial warnings. Nepal follows with 90% coverage on both sides.
• Indian packaging has the warning on 85% of both sides. The report found that 118 countries and territories have now made picture health warnings on cigarette packages mandatory, up from 100 in 2016. Canada was the first to insists.
• India, meanwhile, is the only SAARC country to have a Quit-Line number on tobacco products and the fourth in Asia after Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore.

Background:

• The current pictorial warnings on both sides of all packets of cigarettes, bidis and all forms of chewing tobacco products in India came into effect in April 2016 on the direction of the Rajasthan High Court and, subsequently, the Supreme Court of India.

Importance of pictorial warnings:

• In a country like India, where people use several languages and dialects, the pictorial warning transcends the language and in many cases also the illiteracy barrier.
• The 85% pictorial warnings on all cigarettes, bidis and chewing tobacco packages manufactured and sold in India have resulted in 92% of adults (surveyed under GATS 2016-2017) believing that smoking caused serious illness and 96% saying use of smokeless tobacco causes serious illness.
• The pack warning will help to warn people, especially the illiterate and children, about the harms of tobacco consumption.

Source:The Hindu

International Science fest

Topic: Science and Technology

In news: More than 6,000 delegates from all over the country will participate in the fourth edition of the India International Science Festival (IISF) .

More on The Fest:

• IISF 2018 is being organized by Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Earth Sciences in association with Vijnana Bharati.
• This year it is being coordinated by Department of Biotechnology (DBT),and the nodal agency is National Institute of Immunology (NII).
• The 1st IISF was held at Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) New Delhi in December, 2015. The mega S&T expo attracted more than 3 Lakh people.
• Indeed, the event was a great success with the participation of more than 3000 young scientists across the country.

Source:The Hindu

Setback to oil sector reforms

Topic: Indian Economy

In news: Center announced price cut on petrol and diesel.

Different Perspectives:

• There are two ways of looking at the price cut enforced by the Centre on petrol and diesel. First, as a consumer-friendly measure that will ease the burden on the common man.
• The cut is also probably a signal to the RBI ahead of its monetary policy announcementon the Centre’s commitment to keep inflation in check.

 Implications of the rate cut:

• The oil companies have the financial depth to take on the burden for now.But it flies against the reformist credentials of this government and secondly, it ignores the small fact that there are now public shareholders who own large parts of the equity of these companies.
• The government cannot act against their interests by passing on a part of its burden to their companies. And that’s the reason why the stocks of these three companies fell off the cliff in the last few minutes of trading after the Centre’s announcement on rate cut.
• Now there is higher risk as the chances of increasing petroleum prices in the world market is high.It may compelling the government to take more burden affecting the fiscal deficit.

How the petroleum prices are decided:

• Retail Selling Price (RSP) of Petrol is determined based on a lot of factors. The average price of Crude Oil of the Indian Basket is calculated every fortnight. This price is calculated in dollars per Barrel. The price in Indian rupees is also dependent on the average exchange price for that fortnight.

What are the possible causes and consequences of higher oil prices on the overall economy?

• Higher oil prices tend to make production more expensive for businesses, just as they make it more expensive for households to do the things they normally do.
• Oil price increases are generally thought to increase inflation and reduce economic growth. In terms of inflation, oil prices directly affect the prices of goods made with petroleum products.
• Oil prices indirectly affect costs such as transportation, manufacturing, and heating.
• The increase in these costs can in turn affect the prices of a variety of goods and services, as producers may pass production costs on to consumers.
• The extent to which oil price increases lead to consumption price increases depends on how important oil is for the production of a given type of good or service.
• Oil price increases can also stifle the growth of the economy through their effect on the supply and demand for goods other than oil.
• Increases in oil prices can depress the supply of other goods because they increase the costs of producing them.
• In economics terminology, high oil prices can shift up the supply curve for the goods and services for which oil is an input.
• High oil prices also can reduce demand for other goods because they reduce wealth, as well as induce uncertainty about the future .

Source: The Hindu

Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana

Topic: Government schemes

In news: A Distribution camp for free of cost distribution of Aids and Assistive Living devises under Rashtriya Vayoshri Yojana (RVY), a scheme of Social Justice & Empowerment Department for Senior Citizen under BPL category, was recently organized in Delhi by Artificial Limbs Manufacturing Corporation of India (ALIMCO), a PSU working under the aegis of Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment.

More on the scheme

• The Scheme aims at providing Senior Citizens, belonging to BPL category and suffering from any of the age related disability/infirmity Low vision, Hearing impairment, Loss of teeth and Locomotor disability, with such assisted-living devices which can restore near normalcy in their bodily functions, overcoming the disability/infirmity manifested.
• This is a Central Sector Scheme, fully funded by the Central Government. The expenditure for implementation of the scheme will be met from the “Senior Citizens’ Welfare Fund“.
• Under the scheme, free of cost distribution of the devices, commensurate with the extent of disability/infirmity that is manifested among the eligible senior citizens will take place.
• In case of multiple disabilities/infirmities manifested in the same person, the assistive devices will be given in respect of each disability/impairment.
• Beneficiaries in each district will be identified by the State Governments/UT Administrations through a Committee chaired by the Deputy Commissioner/District Collector.
• As far as possible, 30% of the beneficiaries in each district shall be women.

Source:Pib

Udyam Abhilasha

Topic:Indian Economy

In news: Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) launched National Level Entrepreneurship Awareness Campaign names Udyam Abhilasha.

 About the Campaign:

• The campaign would create and strengthen cadre of more than 800 trainers to provide entrepreneurship training to the aspiring youths across these districts thus encouraging them to enter the admired segment of entrepreneurs.
• SIDBI has partnered with CSC e-Governance Services India Limited, a Special Purpose Vehicle, (CSC SPV) set up by the Ministry of Electronics & IT, Govt. of India for implementing the campaign through their CSCs.
• Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) was set up on 2nd April 1990 under an Act of Parliament.
• It acts as the Principal Financial Institution for Promotion, Financing and Development of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprise (MSME) sector as well as for co-ordination of functions of institutions engaged in similar activity

Source:Pib