Goaltide Daily Current Affairs 2021
Current Affair 1:
Single-use plastic ban
On India’s Independence Day in 2019, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had appealed to the citizens to make the country free from single-use plastics (SUP) and work towards this mission wholeheartedly.
What is single-use plastic?
SUP is plastic produced and designed to be thrown away after being used only once. By that definition, a large number of products fall in the category. These include everything from a disposable straw to a disposable syringe.
India has defined SUP as “a plastic commodity intended to be used once for the same purpose before being disposed of or recycled” in its Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021.
The identification of single-use plastic items to be phased out was done on the basis of a report by an expert committee constituted by the Department of Chemicals and Petrochemicals (DCPC), under the direction of the Union Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers on SUP.
The expert committee comprised policy makers, scientists, academicians and researchers in the field of plastic and allied materials. The assessment was conducted by DCPC by comparing two pillars — the utility index of a particular type of SUP and the environmental impact of the same.
Each factor was assigned 20 points, which added up to each pillar having a total of 100 points. The product that scores low on utility and high on environmental impact should be considered for immediate phase out.
Methodologically, the 20 items listed for phasing out:
Other recommendations of Committee:
Current Affair 2:
Does A High Court's Order Staying A Central Law Or Rule Apply Throughout The Country?
The normal rule is that an order or a judgment of the High Court will operate only within its territorial jurisdiction. Article 226(1) of the Constitution says that a High Court shall have powers "throughout the territories in relation to which it exercises jurisdiction".
However, when it comes to a High Court's judgment against a Central law or a rule, the situation might be different.
In 2004, the Supreme Court in Kusum Ingots and Alloys Ltd. v. Union of India held that an order passed on a writ petition questioning the constitutionality of a Parliamentary Act, whether interim or final, will affect the territory of India subject to the applicability of the Act.
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It is relevant to note that Article 226A inserted in the Constitution by the 42nd amendment provided that a High Court cannot consider the constitutional validity of a Central legislation. However, Article 226A was repealed shortly thereafter by the Forty-Third Amendment a year later.
That the High Courts can consider constitutional challenges against Central legislations has been clarified by the Supreme Court in many instances. |
Few examples:
The Madras High Court in Textile Technical Tradesmen Association v. Union of India (2011), held that a judgment of the Andhra Pradesh High Court which declared Section 17-A of the Industrial Disputes Act as unconstitutional, will have effect throughout the territory of India. The Madras High Court expressly referred to the observations in Kusum Ingot case.
Likewise, in Shiv Kumar v. Union of India (2014), the Karnataka High Court held that a judgment of the Kerala High Court which read down Section 10A(1) of the Indian Divorce Act will apply throughout India.
Just remember: It shall apply across the whole country.
Current Affair 3:
TAPAS Initiative
TAPAS is the initiative of National Institute of Social Defence (NISD), Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment, to provide access to lectures by subject experts, study material and more, but in a manner that it supplements the physical classroom without compromising on the quality of teaching.
The main objective of introducing the course modules is to impart training and enhance the knowledge and skills for the capacity building of the participants. It can be taken up by anyone who wishes to enhance his or her knowledge on the topics and there is no fee for joining.
The five basic courses are on Drug (Substance) Abuse Prevention, Geriatric/Elderly Care, Care and Management of Dementia, Transgender Issues and on comprehensive course on Social Defence Issues.
Current Affair 4:
All three tiger reserves of Chhattisgarh now in Maoist territory
The threat of Maoist conflict is now looming in Chhattisgarh’s Achanakmar Tiger Reserve. The central government recently included Mungeli district, where the tiger reserve is located, in the list of Maoist-affected districts of the state.
The classification of districts affected by Maoist insurgency is done to deploy resources and plan interventions. Mungeli has been included in the list of districts that are covered under the Security Related Expenditure (SRE) scheme as well as under a new category, ‘Districts of Concern’, created to counter the spread of Maoist ideology and insurgency to new areas and stop resurgence in some areas where it is controlled.
Two of the three tiger reserves in Chhattisgarh, Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve and Indravati Tiger Reserve, have been Maoist-dominated areas for years.
This comes at a time when the tiger population in Chhattisgarh has reduced to less than half in just four years. There were 46 tigers in the state according to the 2014 tiger census, while the 2018 census estimated that the state has only 19 individuals.
Such CAs becomes important, when sometimes question similar to this given below appear in exam:
Current Affair 5:
New Study Suggests Indus Valley People Spoke Ancestral Dravidian Language
Using similarities between, among other things, the word used in bronze-age Mesopotamia for ‘elephant’ and that used by people of the Indus Valley civilisation (IVC), a study published by the journal Nature suggests that a significant population of the IVC spoke ancestral Dravidian languages.
The study also comments on the possible migration of Proto-Dravidian speakers from the Indus Valley to South India.
Though the IVC was the most expansive civilisation of its time – spanning parts of present-day Afghanistan, Pakistan and Northwest India – and its archaeological sites are of great scholarly interest, we don’t yet know which language(s) its people spoke. Their script is also yet to be deciphered.
Today, the languages spoken in the region where the IVC existed belong to various families. These are Indo-Aryan languages such as Punjabi, Sindhi, Hindi, Marwari, Gujarati; Dardic languages such as Shina, Khowar, Kohistani; Iranian languages such as Baluchi, Dari, Pashto, and Wakhi; Nuristani in northeastern Afghanistan; and the Dravidian Brahui.
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