Daily Current Affairs - 01-12-2021

The Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship launched a pilot project to revive the Namda craft of Kashmir.

Key Features of Pilot Project for Namda Craft

What is Namda craft?

Making of Namda

Wool is evenly spread in a thick layer of grass or jute mat. The mat is then rolled tightly. The rolled mat is then tied up with a rope. It is then compressed by rolling to and fro on the floor. The rolling is done by using hands and legs and goes for an hour. During rolling, the fibre fuses together. The rope is then untied and the mat is unrolled. And the well-shaped Namda is made. The plain Namda is then hand embroidered. For a patterned Namda, the craftsmen felt in the design into the Namda fibre itself.

Why was the pilot project launched?

Due to lack of skilled manpower and low availability of raw material, the export of Namda craft has reduced by 100% between 1998 and 2008.

Namda Markets

The Namda market is primarily located in Baramulla, Rainwari and Anantnag areas of Kashmir. Europe and Japan are the most attractive export destinations of Namda. Namda is also made in Tonk in Rajasthan.

The GST revenue for the month of November 2021 was Rs 1,31,526 crores. This is the second highest collection since the introduction of GST in the country. The first highest collection was in April 2021.

GST Collections

Inference

Reasons

The GST collection is high for the month of November because of the following initiatives:

Revenue Buoyancy – A concern in GST collection rise

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the Department of Telecommunications operating under the Ministry of Communications conducted a Joint Cyber Drill 2021.

What is the India – ITU Joint Cyber Drill?

What are the benefits of India – ITU Joint Cyber Drill?

Terms related to the drill

The Uttarakhand Government recently withdrew the Char Dham Devasthanam Management Act. The act was withdrawn due to the protests from priests and other stakeholders of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the major shrines.

What is Char Dham Act?

How were the shrines managed before the Char Dham act?

Before the act, the temples were managed under the Shri Badrinath – Shri Kedarnath Act, 1939. Under the act, Shri Badrinath – Shri Kedarnath Mandir Samiti was constituted. The Samiti was chaired by a person appointed by the Government. The committee was responsible for making decisions related to funds, donations and development works in and around the temples.

Why was Char Dham Act proposed?

Most of the provisions of Shri Badrinath – Shri Kedarnath Act, 1939 were not relevant to the present context. Thus, the Char Dham Bill was proposed. It aimed to rejuvenate the temples.

Why did priests and other stakeholders protest against the Char Dham Act?

According to the protestants, the Government wants to take control over the financial and policy decisions of the temple. In Gangotri and Yamunotri, the temples were earlier under the control of local trusts. The Government had no say and no share in the donations made by the devotees.

The Judges Bill was introduced by The Union Law Minister Kiren Rijiju in Lok Sabha. The bill intends to amend the High Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Act and Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Condition of Service) Act.

What is Judges Bill?

The bill seeks to bring clarity whether the SC and HC judges are entitled to get additional pension on attaining a certain age. Currently, every retired judge or his family (after his death) is entitled to get an additional quantum of pension. This is generally referred as family pension.

What is the issue? Why is a clarity needed?

Currently, the retired High Court and Supreme Court judges are provided with additional quantum of pension on completing 80 years or 85 years or 90 years or 95 years or 100 years which ever the case may be. These are the slabs of the pension. Now the confusion is should the pension be given from the first day of the month when he completes the age or the first day of the month when he enters the age. The bill inserts explanation about this issue.

What clarity does the bill provide?

The bill says that the pension shall be provided on the first day of completing the age and not in the starting. For this, Section 17B and Section 16B are to be included.

What do the courts say about this?

What are the constitutional provisions in regard to their salaries?

The salaries of SC judges are fixed based on Article 125. The Article 125 says that the salaries of SC judges are determined by the parliament by law. Also, the parliament shall decide on the privileges and allowances provided to the judges in respect of leave of absence and pension.

The Andhra Pradesh Government recently released Rs 686 crores for the Vidya Deevena Scheme. This is the third tranche of the scheme. It is an education assistance scheme.

Key Features of Vidya Deevena Scheme

Benefits of Vidya Deevena Scheme

Who are eligible beneficiaries of the scheme?

Any students whose family income is less than Rs 2.5 lakhs is eligible under the scheme. The students belonging to Scheduled Castes, Backward classes, scheduled tribes, minorities, economically backward classes, Kapus and Differently abled are also eligible. Also, students belonging to families with 25 acres of dry land and 10 acres of wetland are also eligible. The income tax payers are not eligible. The family should not own a four-wheeler. None of the family member should be a government official or pensioner.

Every year the World AIDS Day is celebrated on December 1. The day is being celebrated since 1988. It is celebrated to create awareness against the spread of HIV infection. It is one of the 11 official Global Public Health campaigns of World Health Organisation. The Other 10 campaigns are as follows

Theme of World AIDS Day

This year the World AIDS Day is celebrated under the following theme

Ending Inequalities

AIDS awareness week

Every year the last week of November is celebrated as AIDS awareness week. The first AIDS Awareness Week was celebrated in 1984 in San Francisco.

AIDS in India

According to the National AIDS Control Organisation, around 2.14 million people live with AIDS in India as of 2017. India is home to the third largest population of persons with AIDS in the world after South Africa and Nigeria as of 2018. However, the prevalence rate of AIDS in India is lesser than that of many other countries. In 2016, the prevalence rate of AIDS was at 0.3% in India. This was the 80th highest in the world.

India fights the disease through antiretroviral drugs and education programmes.

National AIDS Control Organisation

It was established in 1992 under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare. It takes leadership in controlling AIDS in India. It conducts estimates of the disease once in every 2 years along with National Institute of Medical statistics and Indian Council of Medical Research. The first such Estimation in India was done in 1998 and the last was done in 2017.

NACO has increased its number of centres providing free antiretroviral treatment from 54 to 91. The number of AIDS patients in the country have increased largely in 2020 due to COVID-19. The government programmes implemented to reduce AIDS in the country have come to halt due to COVID-19 crisis.

The Government of India recently formed an Economically Weaker Section (EWS) review panel. The panel will look in to the criteria of 10% reservation for the economically weaker section in government jobs and educational institutions.

What will the panel do?

Why was the panel constituted?

The panel was formed following the Supreme Court query to the Government of India. The SC asked “On what rationale, the central government is fixing the quota eligibility at Rs 8 lakh?” For person to be labelled under OBC (Other Backward Caste), his income limit should be less than Rs 8 lakh per annum. This was questioned by the Supreme Court.

How is the EWS identified currently?

Apart from the above said Rs 8 lakh criteria, the following persons:

Are not eligible to get 10% EWS quota.

What is the difference between OBC reservation and EWS reservation?

Panel Constituted under Article 15

Article 15 (4) says that nothing shall prevent the state from making special provisions for the advancement of the socially and educationally backward classes or scheduled tribes or scheduled caste.

The National Statistical Office recently released its findings of the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS). This is a Quarterly bulletin and is tenth is the series. This is for January to March 2021.

What are the key findings of 2021 survey?

What are the objectives of Periodic Labour Force Survey?

The main object is to estimate employment and unemployment indicators. This includes labour force participation rate, worker population ratio, unemployment rate, etc. This is done in two ways. They are

This is done in both urban and rural areas annually. In CWS approach, the person is considered unemployed if he or she did not work for even for one hour in the week.

What is “Current Weekly Status” and “Usual Status” in PLFS?

What details are provided by quarterly PLFS bulletin?

The quarterly bulletins of PLFS provides worker Population Ratio, Unemployment Rate, Labour Force Participation Rate.

About PLFS

The survey was started in 2017. So far ten bulletins have been released. They are December 2018; March, June, September and December 2019; March, June, September and December 2020. The NSO had also released three annual reports. They are for the period 2017-18, 2018-19 and 2019-20. In every year, the survey was started in June and ended in July of the consecutive year.

Kyhytysuka sachicarum is a new marine reptile species discovered by an international team of researchers. It is an extinct species. It was discovered from fossils found in central Columbia. Earlier scientists believed that it belonged to Platypterygius genus. Recently, it was discovered that it is a different species. And thus it is now named as Kyhytysuka sachicarum.

Kyhytysuka sachicarum honours Muisca tribal

Features of Kyhytysuka

Unique Feature: Teeth

The dentary is the longest bone of the species. It measures 720 mm. The dentition is the most unique feature of the species. The teeth are seated in continuous grooves. The teeth are slightly curved posteriorly. Also, an alternating wave – like pattern is observed.