Comprehensive News Analysis - 29 March 2016

A. GS1 Related

NO RELATED NEWS TODAY!!

B. GS2 Related

1. New home in the offing for Vrindavan widows

Topic: Social Justice

Category: Policies and Schemes

Location: The Hindu
Key points:

• A project is being undertaken to construct a special home for 1,000 Vrindavan widows
• It is the largest such initiative for widows to be established or funded by the government and will be laid under the ‘Swadhar Greh Scheme’ of the Women and Child Development Ministry

2. Defence procurement policy pushes ‘Make in India’

Topic: Polity-Governance

Category: Policy

Location: The Hindu
Key points:

• The much-awaited Defence Procurement Procedure 2016 was released online in the Defence Expo inauguration in Goa
• A new category for acquisition called Indigenously Designed Developed and Manufactured (IDDM) has been introduced
• Under this indigenously designed, developed and manufactured equipment must have at least 60 per cent of the components locally sourced if the design is not Indian. If the design is Indian, at least 40 per cent needs to be locally sourced
• It would help global OEMs and Indian companies forge partnership for co-development and co-production
• Government-funded defence projects with estimated development cost of less than Rs 10 crore will be reserved for MSMEs
• the offset level for Indian industries has been raised to Rs2,000 crore, from Rs300 crore currently

(An offset agreement is by which a supplier agrees to buy products from the party to whom it is selling, in order to win the buyer as a customer and offset the buyer’s outlay)

C. GS3 Related

1. IS nuclear threat to be focus of summit

Topic: Security

Category: Nuclear Security

Location: The Hindu
Key Points:

• the 4th and final Nuclear Security Summit is to flag off in Washington – leaders from 51 nations will participate
• The threat of IS getting hold of fissile material would be the likely focus of the summit
• The summit would discuss the heightened need of nuclear security in this context
• Three potential nuclear terrorist threats relate to – extremists making or acquiring and exploding a nuclear bomb; the danger of radioactive material being fashioned into a “dirty bomb”; and the risk of nuclear reactor sabotage

2. ISRO to launch 22 satellites on one rocket

Topic: S&T

Category: space

Location: The Hindu
Key Points:

• The launch vehicle PSLV C34 will inject 22 satellites into orbit in May, a first in the history of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)
• payload: Cartosat 2C(remote sensing satellite)-primary payload, 4 micro-satellites weighing 85 to 130 kg each and 17 nano-satellites weighing 4 to 30 kg
• As many as 18 satellites are being launched for foreign agencies, including those from the U.S., Canada, Germany, and Indonesia.

3. Reconciliation process picks up pace

Topic: India’s Neighbourhood

Category: India-Sri Lanka Relations

Location: The Hindu
Key Points:

• Sri Lankan President is set to declare open a ‘reconciliation village’ in Vavuniya in the Northern Province in Sri Lanka
• the Sri Lankan Navy handed back 177 acres of land in Sampur village in the Eastern Province where they had a training centre to its original owners
• Such initiatives are indeed praiseworthy though much needs to be done

4. First vaccine against Rota virus launched in India

Topic: S&T

Category: Medicine

Location: The Financial Express
Key Points:

• the health ministry launched the Rota Virus vaccine which will be available free of cost at public healthcare facilities, initially in four states
• Rota is a highly contagious virus that infects majority of children before their first birthday. It is the most common cause of severe diarrhoea among children, leading to hospitalisation and death
• In India, Rota Virus diarrhoea causes about 78,000 deaths and about 8.7 lakh hospitalisations each year. Additionally, 32.7 lakh children under five years of age are treated as outpatients

D. GS4 Related

Nothing here for today folks!

E. Important Editorials : A Quick Glance

The Hindu:

1 .Providing transparency in rural electrification

Topic: Polity-governance
Category: social sector- rural electrification
Key points:

• States provide access to and distribute electricity and maintain related infrastructure while the Central government provides policy and financial support
• the Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY) is a central scheme that ensures rapid electrification, feeder separation, and strengthening of rural distribution infrastructure
• It is necessary to monitor progress intensively for smooth and fast implementation of electrification
• To transparently monitor the process, the Central government appointed 309 Grameen Vidyut Abhiyantas (GVAs or rural electrification engineers)
• Reports by these GVAs are shared through the GARV (Grameen Vidyutikaran) app with officials as well as the public
• It puts pressure on State governments for timely and quality delivery
• Prior to GVAs, only data provided by the States was available, which in many cases does not represent ground reality. GVAs provide a verification mechanism in a bold, transparent, and reliable manner.
• With enhanced funds, pro-people guidelines, constant monitoring and speedy delivery, we can not only to electrify all villages much before the scheduled time but also to take it to the next level to provide connectivity to all the households in these villages and meet the ultimate goal of 24X7 power for all.

The Indian Express:

Others:

1 .The Business Line: All you wanted to know about UDAY

Topic: Governance
Category:Social sector schemes
Key points:

UDAY(Ujwal Discom Assurance Yojna )is the Centre’s scheme to rescue the country’s ailing state power distribution utilities (discoms)

• State discoms are facing massive losses and mounting debt(Rs 4.8 trillion)
• For many decades, State discoms have been supplying electricity at tariffs that are far below cost
• Inefficiencies in power distribution such as large transmission and distribution losses on power, have further strained the finances of the discoms, who have been borrowing heavily from banks to keep themselves running
• Under the scheme, States will take over three-fourths of the debt of their respective discoms. The governments will then issue ‘UDAY bonds’ to banks and other financial institutions to raise money to pay off the banks, the other 25% would be converted to low interest loans by banks
• In return for the bailout, the discoms have been given target dates (2017 to 2019) by which they will have to meet efficiency parameters such as reduction in power lost through transmission, theft and faulty metering, installing smart meters and implementing GIS (geographic information system) mapping of loss making areas.
• States will also have to ensure that power tariffs are revised regularly

2 .The Economic Times: Two reasons for government to curb spectrum prices

Topic: Economy
Category: telecom sector
Key points:

• government should shun setting high base price for the 700 MHz spectrum it plans to auction off to telecom operators shortly
• Two reasons to curb the prices
• 1.Reliance on a single, dedicated frequency band will become obsolete as technology advances to 5G and IoTs takes off(Locking up lots of capital in acquiring a band of spectrum will mean a wasteful form of capital allocation)
• 2.The higher the frequency of the bandwidth, the larger the number of towers, base stations and repeaters, calling for higher levels of energy. And, conversely, lower frequency bands like 700 MHz consume less energy.The government must incentivise use of lower frequencies

3 .The Financial Express: Labour pains

Topic: polity-legislation
Category: labour laws
Key points:

• Proposals in the various Bills planned:
  1. i. fixed-term employment, but with the same terms given to permanent employees, which means both workers and employers benefit(hiring temporary staff in the terms applied to permanent employees)
  2. ii. The changes in the Apprentices Act gives managements more flexibility in hiring while training workers on the job
  3. iii. Also proposed is automatic conciliation once a strike notice is given and classifying gheraos and go-slows as coercive action
  4. iv. retrenchment compensation is to be trebled and a worker-reskilling fund for retrenched workers is to be set up, funded by employers.
  5. v. An industrial relations board is to be set up to help address workers’ grievances if the conciliation process fails
  6. vi. managements will have to negotiate with the largest union in the factory in case there are multiple unions.

F. Concepts-in-News: Related Concepts to Revise/Learn:

1. UDAY
2. Rota virus
3. Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana (DDUGJY)
4. DPP
5. 5G
6. IoTs

G. Fun with Practice Questions 🙂

Question 1:Which of the following are true?

Question 2:Which of the following are true about Deendayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana?

Question 3:Choose the correct answer w.r.t following

Question 4:Choose the right order of EM waves arranged in increasing order of wavelength  

Question 5:Which of the statements below are true:

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