1. GLOBAL PEACE PHOTO AWARD
Aadhyaa Aravind Shankar, a seven-year-old hailing from Karnataka’s Bangalore has scripted history by becoming the first-ever Indian to win the Children’s Peace Image of the Year-Global Peace Photo Award.
About:
- In Partnership with UNESCO and the Austrian Parliament, the Global Peace Photo Award is awarded annually by Lammerhuber Editions.
- The award honours and acknowledges photographers from around the world whose pictures reflect human efforts towards a peaceful world.
Source : All India Radio
2. SCIENTIFIC ADVISORY GROUP FOR THE ORIGINS ON NOVEL PATHOGENS (SAGO)
World Health Organization (WHO) has announced the establishment of a scientific advisory group to identify the origin of COVID-19 and other future outbreaks.
About:
- The WHO’s Scientific Advisory Group for the Origins on Novel Pathogens, or SAGO, will include 26 scientists from the US, China and about two dozen other countries to find out the answer the question of how the novel coronavirus first infected humans.
- The group will also be responsible for establishing a framework to combat future pandemics.
Source : All India Radio
3. BORDER SECURITY FORCE (BSF)
The Union Home Ministry has enhanced the powers of the Border Security Force (BSF) to “arrest, search and seize” within 50 km from the international boundary in Assam, West Bengal and Punjab.
About:
- Such operational powers to the BSF, a Central Armed Police Force under the Union, will also be applicable to the newly created Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh, according to a notification published in the Gazette of India on October 11.
- Earlier, the BSF’s limit was fixed up to 80 km from the international boundary in Gujarat and 15 km in Rajasthan, Punjab, West Bengal and Assam.
- The October 11 notification replaces a 2014 order under the BSF Act, 1968, which also covered the States of Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya.
- The violations for which the BSF carries out search and seizure include smuggling of narcotics, other prohibited items, illegal entry of foreigners and offences punishable under any other Central Act among others.
- The amendment “establishes uniformity in defining the area within which the BSF can operate” as per its charter of duties, adding that this would enable improved operational effectiveness in curbing trans-border crimes.
- After a suspect has been detained or a consignment seized within the specified area, the BSF can only conduct “preliminary questioning” and has to hand over the suspect to the local police within 24 hours. The BSF does not have the powers to prosecute crime suspects.
- Punjab Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi criticised the move as an attack on federalism, and sought a rollback of the decision.
Source : The Hindu
4. OWNERSHIP OF ASSETS
An analysis of asset ownership data at the household level collected by Lokniti-CSDS during its National Election Study in 2019 was recently released.
About:
- Gauging who can afford the five assets of a car, an air-conditioner at home, a desktop or laptop computer, a refrigerator, and a television set, has been seen as an important indicator of economic well-being in a fast-growing, aspirational economy.
- An analysis of asset ownership data at the household level collected by Lokniti-CSDS during its National Election Study in 2019 indicates that no more than 3% of Indian households — that is, 1 in every 33 — own all of these five assets at the same time.
- The pace of growth of ownership of these assets has been unexceptional in recent years — five years previously, in 2014, the percentage of households that owned these assets was 2%, or 1 in every 50 households.
- The data show major differences in asset ownership among the various social groups. Thus, upper-caste Hindu households are seven times more likely to own all the five assets, compared to Dalit (SC) and Muslim households.
- Among religious groups, Sikh households were found to be the most prosperous.
- The pattern of asset-ownership varies significantly with how urban the area is. As against about 13% of households in cities, only 5% of households in towns, and merely 1% in villages, could boast of having all of the five assets in 2019.
- The highly urbanised or high per-capita-income states of Delhi, Punjab, Goa, and Kerala, in that order, emerged at the top of the table in this regard.
Source : Indian Express
5. INDIA’S COAL CRISIS
The Prime Minister’s Office reviewed the coal stock situation in India’s thermal power plants.
About:
- India’s thermal power plants currently have an average of four days worth of coal stock against a recommended level of 15-30 days, with a number of states highlighting concerns about blackouts as a result of the coal shortage.
- Coal and lignite fired thermal power plants account for about 54 per cent of India’s installed power generation capacity but currently account for about 70 per cent of power generated in the country.
- Purchase bids on the Day Ahead Market (DAM) on the India Energy Exchange (IEX) on October 12 were for 430,778 MWh (Megawatt-hours) up from 174,373 MWh a month ago.
Reasons
- The shortage in coal is a result of a sharp uptick in power demand as the economy recovered from the effects of the pandemic.
- A sharp increase in the international prices of coal due to a shortage in China and low accumulation of stock by thermal power plants in the April-June period have also contributed to the coal shortage.
- Heavy rains in coal bearing areas in September had also led to a slowdown in the supply of coal to thermal plants.
- What is the government doing to address the situation?
- The power ministry has also permitted power generators using local coal to use upto a 10 per cent blend of imported coal to boost coal stocks.
Source : Indian Express
6. UNITY SMALL FINANCE BANK
The Reserve Bank of India issued a small finance bank (SFB) licence to a consortium of fintech company BharatPe and Centrum Financial Services Ltd. The new business entity “Unity Small Finance Bank” will see Centrum’s MSME and micro finance businesses merged into itself.
About:
- In a statement, Centrum Group’s Executive Chairman Jaspal Bindra said: “We aspire to be India’s first Digital Bank”.
- This sheds light on the need for traditional lenders to expand their digital infrastructure in order to address the market’s requirement for digital products.
- There have been several examples of small finance banks and non-banking financial companies collaborating with fintech companies to access and monetise the data collected by these consumer tech firms.
- This has particularly gained momentum in the buy-now-pay-later (BNPL) and the micro-lending models, where companies like Paytm, Google Pay, Amazon Pay, etc have partnered with NBFCs to assess creditworthiness of an existing customer and present it to the lender as a potential borrower.
Source : Indian Express
8. TAIWAN
Tensions between China and Taiwan have escalated since October 1, when China observes its National Day to mark the birth of the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
Timeline:
- Taiwan, earlier known as Formosa, a tiny island off the east coast of China, is where Chinese republicans of the Kuomintang government retreated after the 1949 victory of the communists — and it has since continued as the Republic of China (RoC).
- Since its founding in 1949, the PRC has believed that Taiwan must be reunified with the mainland, while the RoC has held out as an “independent” country.
- Taiwan observes October 10 — “double 10” — as its national day; it was on this day in 1911 that sections of the Manchu army rose in rebellion, leading ultimately to the overthrow of the Qing dynasty and the end of 4,000 years of the monarchy. The RoC was declared on December 29, 1911.
Important Info :
Key facts
- The island is located in the East China Sea, to the northeast of Hong Kong, north of the Philippines and south of South Korea, and southeast of Japan.
- Although largely unrecognised by other countries as such, self-ruled Taiwan sees itself as no less than an independent nation.
- But Taiwan is entirely dependent on the US for its defence against possible Chinese aggression — and that is why every spike in military tensions between China and Taiwan injects more hostility in the already strained relationship between Washington and Beijing.
Source : Indian Express
9. CLIMATE RESILIENCE INFORMATION SYSTEM AND PLANNING (CRISP-M) TOOL
Union Minister of Rural Development & Panchayati Raj jointly launched Climate Resilience Information System and Planning (CRISP-M) tool for integration of climate information in Geographic Information System (GIS) based watershed planning under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA.
About:
- The CRISP-M tool will help embed climate information in the GIS based planning and implementation of Mahatma Gandhi NREGS.
- This tool will be used in seven states where in the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO), Government of UK and Ministry of Rural Development, Government of India are jointly working towards climate resilience.
- The states are Bihar, Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Odisha and Rajasthan.
Source : PIB
10. DRASS
President of India will Celebrate Dussehra with Jawans in Drass.
About:
- Drass is a hill station in the Kargil district of the union territory of Ladakh in India.
- It is on the NH 1 between Zoji La pass and Kargil town.
- Drass is the coldest place in India.
- There is a popular claim as well various signs/boards showing Drass being the “second coldest inhabited place in the world”. However, there is no reliable weather data to substantiate the claim.
Source : PIB