DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS - 24-07-2021

1. RIGHT TO BE FORGOTTEN

Ashutosh Kaushik who won reality shows Bigg Boss in 2008 and MTV Roadies 5.0 has approached the Delhi High Court with a plea saying that his videos, photographs and articles etc. be removed from the internet citing his “Right to be Forgotten”.

About:

• In the plea, Kaushik maintains that the “Right to be Forgotten” goes in sync with the “Right to Privacy”, which is an integral part of Article 21 of the Constitution, which concerns the right to life.
• The Right to be Forgotten falls under the purview of an individual’s right to privacy, which is governed by the Personal Data Protection Bill that is yet to be passed by Parliament.
• In 2017, the Right to Privacy was declared a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict.
• The Personal Data Protection Bill was introduced in Lok Sabha on December 11, 2019 and it aims to set out provisions meant for the protection of the personal data of individuals.
• Clause 20 under Chapter V of this draft bill titled “Rights of Data Principal” mentions the “Right to be Forgotten.” It states that the “data principal (the person to whom the data is related) shall have the right to restrict or prevent the continuing disclosure of his personal data by a data fiduciary”.
• A data fiduciary means any person, including the State, a company, any juristic entity or any individual who alone or in conjunction with others determines the purpose and means of processing of personal data.

Source : Indian Express

2. ALEXANDER DALRYMPLE

Vice Admiral Vinay Badhwar, Chief Hydrographer to the Govt. of India received the Alexander Dalrymple award from the British High Commissioner.

About:

• Vice Admiral Vinay Badhwar was conferred with the prestigious award in 2019 but the award ceremony was delayed due to the ongoing pandemic.
• The Alexander Dalrymple award has been named after the first hydrographer of the Admiralty and was instituted in 2006.
• Alexander Dalrymple
• Alexander Dalrymple (1737 – 1808) was a Scottish geographer and the first Hydrographer of the British Admiralty.
• He was the main proponent of the theory that there existed a vast undiscovered continent in the South Pacific, Terra Australis Incognita.
• He produced thousands of nautical charts, mapping a remarkable number of seas and oceans for the first time, and contributing significantly to the safety of shipping.

Source : PIB

3. DHAMMA CHAKRA DAY

PM Modi will address the nation and share his message on Ashadha Purnima-Dhamma Chakra Day on July 24, 2021.

About:

• Observed on full moon day in Asadha month of the Hindu calender, the Dhamma Chakra day is celebrated all over the world to commemorate the first sermon that Gautama Buddha gave to his five ascetic disciples.
• This day is also aptly observed as Guru Purnima by both Buddhists and Hindus as a day to mark reverence to their gurus.

Source : India Today

4. RENEWABLES INTEGRATION IN INDIA 2021

A report on “Renewables Integration in India 2021” was jointly launched by NITI Aayog and International Energy Agency (IEA).

About:

• The report is based on the outcome of three states workshops held with the Governments of Maharashtra, Karnataka and Gujarat to understand the specific energy transition challenges faced by these renewable-rich states.
• The report highlights that India’s power system can efficiently integrate renewables (175 GW by 2022 and 450 GW by 2030), but it would require identification of resources and proper planning, regulatory, policy and institutional support, energy storage and advance technology initiatives.
• Indian states need to employ a wide range of flexibility options – such as demand response, more flexible operation of coal based power plants, storage, and grid improvements – to transition to cleaner electricity systems.
• Larger shares of renewables can be better managed by shifting time of use in agriculture. Time of Use (ToU) tariffs will be an effective tool to incentivise demand side management and encourage flexible consumption.

Source : PIB

5. BHAGEERATHI AMMA

The Prime Minister Narendra Modi has paid tributes and expressed grief over the demise of respected Bhageerathi Amma.

About:

• Bhageerathi Amma (1914 – 22 July 2021) was an Indian woman living in the Kollam district of Kerala. She came to national attention when she returned to education at the age of 105. She was honoured with the Nari Shakti Puraskar and Narendra Modi singled her out for praise.
• At the age of 105, Amma decided to continue her education and took examinations in Mathematics, the Malayalam language and Environmental Science. She scored 205 out of 275 points and was acknowledged as the oldest person to take the equivalency exams.
• Amma was announced as a winner of the 2019 Nari Shakti Puraskar. Prime Minister Narendra Modi lauded her in a Mann Ki Baat episode saying: “She is a big source of inspiration and I pay respects to her.”

Source : Indian Express

6. NBCC (INDIA) LIMITED

NBCC (India) Limited has provided CSR funding to set up a lab space at the Thaiyur campus (called the Discovery campus) of the Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras).

About:

• NBCC (India) Limited is a Government of India Central Public Sector Enterprise (CPSE) in the category Navaratna.
• The new lab space, funded by NBCC (India) Limited, will enable the setting up of 12 additional labs of 10x5 sq. metres.
• The partnership was facilitated by the Strategic Alliances division of the Office of Principal Scientific Adviser, Government of India.
• NBCC (India)
• NBCC (India) Limited (formerly National Buildings Construction Corporation Limited) is a government enterprise under the ownership of Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs , Government of India.
• NBCC is headquartered in New Delhi and was founded in 1960.

Source : PIB

7. UN GLOBAL SURVEY ON DIGITAL AND SUSTAINABLE TRADE FACILITATION

India has scored 90.32% in United Nation’s Economic and Social Commission for Asia Pacific's (UNESCAP) latest Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation. The Survey hails this as a remarkable jump from 78.49% in 2019.

About:

• After evaluation of 143 economies, the 2021 Survey has highlighted India's significant improvement in the scores on all 5 key indicators, as follows:
• Transparency:100% in 2021 (from 93.33% in 2019)
• Formalities: 95.83% in 2021 (from 87.5% in 2019)
• Institutional Arrangement and Cooperation: 88.89% in 2021 (from 66.67% in 2019)
• Paperless Trade: 96.3% in 2021 (from 81.48% in 2019)
• Cross-Border Paperless Trade: 66.67% in 2021 (from 55.56% in 2019)
• India is the best performing country when compared to South and South West Asia region (63.12%) and Asia Pacific region (65.85%).
• The overall score of India has also been found to be greater than many OECD countries including France, UK, Canada, Norway, Finland etc. and the overall score is greater than the average score of EU.
• India has achieved a 100% score for the Transparency index and 66% in the “Women in trade” component.
• CBIC, has been at forefront of path breaking reforms under the umbrella of 'Turant' Customs to usher in a Faceless, Paperless and Contactless Customs by way of a series of reforms. This has had a direct impact in terms of the improvement in the UNESCAP rankings

About the Survey:

• The Global Survey on Digital and Sustainable Trade Facilitation is conducted every two years by UNESCAP.
• The 2021 Survey includes an assessment of 58 trade facilitation measures covered by the WTO’s Trade Facilitation Agreement.

Source : PIB

8. ESSENTIAL DEFENCE SERVICES BILL

Minister of State for Defence Ajay Bhatt introduced the Essential Defence Services Bill in the Lok Sabha.

Salient features

• Essentially, the Essential Defence Services Bill is aimed at preventing the staff of the government-owned ordnance factories from going on a strike. Around 70,000 people work with the 41 ordnance factories around the country.
• The Bill mentioned that that it is meant to “provide for the maintenance of essential defence services so as to secure the security of nation and the life and property of public at large and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto”.
• But in its objectives, the government has stated: “Indian Ordnance Factories is the oldest and largest industrial setup which functions under the Department of Defence Production of the Ministry of Defence.
• The ordnance factories form an integrated base for indigenous production of defence hardware and equipment, with the primary objective of self reliance in equipping the armed forces with state of the art battlefield equipment.”

Source : Indian Express

9. AKAMAI

Global internet infrastructure company Akamai suffered an outage that lasted over an hour, taking down several online applications across India and overseas.

About:

• Akamai is a global content delivery network (CDN) and cloud services platform that is rented by online content and commerce services apps.
• Akamai faced a disruption on its Edge DNS service that took down platforms such as Zomato, Paytm, parts of Amazon, Airbnb, PlayStation Network, Steam, Disney+Hotstar, etc for a short while.
• Edge DNS as a technology provides a shorter route for DNS, or domain name services, between a company’s servers and its users, thereby drastically decreasing resolution times and providing low latencies.

What happened in the earlier global internet outage?

• This was the second major outage involving a delivery network in as many months that affected internet usage on a global scale.
• In June, a major issue with the content delivery network of American cloud computing services provider Fastly caused several large websites to go down globally for about half an hour.

Source : Indian Express