INSIGHTS DAILY

CURRENT
AFFAIRS + PIB
SUMMARY
31 August 2022

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The many ways of helping Sri Energy projects:
Provisional approvals for the
Lanka
Adani Group’s wind power
projects of over $500 million
Syllabus:
in the Northern Province.
Bilateral, regional and global grouping
MSME sector: Programmes
involving India, India and its neighbourhood
including the ‘Digital MSME’ and
etc
‘RAMP’ (Raising and
Accelerating MSME
Source: The Hindu
Performance) can provide leads
to the MSME sector.
Directions:
School education: India can
This is an editorial piece. You can go through
expand its scheme of establishing
it once. The recent crisis in Sri Lanka and
smart classrooms and modern
India’s role in neighbouring countries is
computer labs to cover all those
important for this year’s mains.
institutions teaching children of
hill country Tamils, the most
Context:
underprivileged section in Sri
India has assisted with nearly $4 billion to
Lankan society.
Sri Lanka.
Higher education: Indian
universities can consider setting
How can India help?
up satellite campuses in Sri
Provide Liberal loans
Lanka.
Sharing technical expertise or
Training employees of the
knowledge
public sector: A collaborative
Helping the country upgrade skills
project can be conceived for
in different areas of economic
training second and third rung
activity.
employees of the public sector.
Culture front: India can arrange
Engagement areas:
for greater numbers of Buddhist
Agriculture and allied
monks to visit religious places.
activities: India can help Sri
Lanka develop its dairy sector.
Way forward:
Sri Lanka imports a
Engagement: There is enormous
considerable quantity of milk
scope for India to engage in a
powder from India and
constructive way with its southern
annually imports dairy
neighbour, which is known for
products worth $315 million.
performing better than most other
Poultry sector: India can share its
economies in Asia.
knowledge on the productivity of wheat
Equitable distribution of developmental
which is largely used as the primary
programmes: India can ensure that the
ingredient in domestic poultry feed.
proposed development programme is
equitably distributed in coverage.

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 The Northern and Eastern Justification:
Provinces, where the Tamil
and Muslim ethnic
minorities live, should be
given special attention as
their contribution to Sri
Lanka’s GDP is hardly 10%.
Stability: Politically and
economically stable Sri Lanka will
be in India’s interest too.

Insta Links:
India-Sri Lanka Relations

Mains Link:
The long-sustained image of India as a
leader of the oppressed and marginalized
Nations has disappeared on account of its
Challenging the Special
newfound role in the emerging global
order” Elaborate. (UPSC 2019)
Marriage Act, 1954

Syllabus:
Prelims Link:
Social empowerment, Government policies
Hambantota port
and interventions for the development of the
Mapping important areas of Sri
social sector and issues arising out of it,
Lanka
special marriage Act etc
Palk Bay
Which of the following is the correct
Directions:
arrangement of Islands from North to
These are contentious provisions. Know a
South in the Indian Ocean?
few but no need to remember all.
a. Sri Lanka-Maldives-Assumption Islands-
Agalega Islands
Source: The Hindu
b. Maldives-Sri-Lanka-Assumption Islands-
Agalega Islands
Context:
c. Sri-Lanka-Maldives-Agalega Islands-
The Supreme Court dismissed a writ petition
Assumption Islands
challenging provisions of the Special
d. Sri-Lanka-Assumption Islands-Maldives-
Marriage Act (SMA), 1954 requiring couples
Agalega Islands
to give a notice declaring their intent to marry
Ans: (a)
30 days before their marriage.

What does the petition seek?

Article 21: This provision in the
act violates the right to privacy of
the parties.

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 Article 14: The requirement
violates the right to equality
under Article 14 of the
Constitution since no other laws
prescribe such a requirement.
What are the provisions that have been
challenged?
Section 5 of the SMA: It requires
couples getting married under it
to give notice to the Marriage
Officer 30 days before the date
of marriage.
Section 6: It requires notice to be
entered into the Marriage Notice
Book maintained by the Marriage
Officer, which can be inspected
by “any person desirous of
inspecting the same.
Section 7: It provides the process
for making an objection such as if
either party has a living spouse, is
incapable of giving consent due
to “unsoundness of mind” or is
suffering from a mental disorder
resulting in the person being unfit
for marriage or procreation.
Section 8:It Specifies the inquiry
procedure to be followed after an
objection has been submitted.
What did the Court say:
SC rejected the writ petition on
the grounds that the petitioner(35-
year-old Athira Sujatha) was no
longer an aggrieved party as she
had already solemnized her
marriage under SMA.
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Rules and laws in different states:
Haryana: The Haryana
government has laid down 16
prerequisites which ask couples
to issue a notice in a newspaper
and that such notices be sent to
their parents.
No-objection certificate: In
certain States, couples have to
seek a no-objection certificate
from their parents.
Maharashtra: The Maharashtra
Department of Registration and
Stamps publicly shares the
details of couples marrying under
SMA on its website.
Love Jihad law: 11 States
passed anti-conversion
laws.example: Uttar Pradesh,
Madhya Pradesh etc
How do these provisions make couples
vulnerable?
Harassment by anti-social
elements: Public notices have
been used by anti-social
elements to harass couples
getting married.
Officers’ incompetence: There
have been instances, where
marriage officers have gone over
and beyond the law and sent
such notices to the parents of the
couple.
Example: Muslim woman in
Delhi being confined to her
house by her parents in
March 2020.
Special Marriage Act: Data gathering by public
The SMA is a law which allows
agencies picks up even as the
the solemnization of marriages
without going through any
law hangs fire
religious customs or rituals.
Syllabus:
People from different castes or
Internal Security/ Governance
religions or states get married
under SMA in which marriage is
Source: Indian Express
solemnized by way of
registration.
Direction:
Personal data protection/Surveillance is an
Insta Links:
important topic. Keep a note on it including a
Special Marriage Act 1954
few points of the now withdrawn Personal
data protection bill 2021. No need to note
Mains Links:
down all examples, have 1-2 examples
Q. Critically analyze the provisions of the
ready.
special marriage Act 1954.

Context:
Prelims Links:
Experts have raised concerns about the trend
Special Marriage Act
of increasing the government’s efforts in data
Article 14 and 21
collection and monetisation in the absence of
With reference to the Special Marriage Act,
a basic data protection regime.
consider the following statements:
Instances of increasing data collection:
i. It allows the solemnization of
Customs department mandating airlines
marriages without going through
to share personal details of
any religious customs or rituals.
international flyers,
ii. The prime purpose of the act was
Civil Aviation Ministry’s facial
to address inter-religious
recognition system DigiYatra
marriages.
MeitY’s proposal to share non-
Which of the statements given above is/are
personal data collected by the
correct?
government with start-ups and
a. 1 only
researchers
b. 2 only
CERT-In’s mandate asks virtual private
c. Both 1 and 2
network (VPN) service providers to store
d. Neither 1 nor 2
data of their users
Ans: (c)
Department of Telecommunications
Justification:
(DoT) (2021): Telecom operators and
Refer to article
internet service providers to maintain
commercial and call detail records for at
least two years (instead of 1 year
currently)
Contact tracing app Aarogya Setu —
and collected data like their names,
phone numbers and location.
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Karnataka High Court in October 2020
ordered that the app cannot be made
mandatory.
Instances of increasing efforts for Data
Monetisation:
IRCTC released a tender detailing its
plans to monetise its bank of passenger
data (including sensitive data such as
mobile numbers, email, and passwords)
for doing business with government and
private entities. (now withdrawn)
MeitY had floated a draft India Data
Accessibility and Use Policy which
proposed that data collected by the
Centre that has “undergone value
addition” can be sold in the open market
for an “appropriate price”. (now
withdrawn)
The Ministry of Road Transport (2020):
Bulk Data Sharing Policy, under which
the ministry used to sell vehicle
registration data (Vahan) and driving
licence data (Sarathi) to private and
public entities. (Now Scrapped)
Previously, the government withdrew the
Data Protection Bill, 2021, saying that it will
soon come out with a “comprehensive legal
framework” for the online ecosystem.
The bill laid down a framework for
consent-related mechanisms before
gathering data and how personal data
was supposed to be handled by various
entities and provided for a recourse
mechanism in case a person’s data was
compromised.
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Fundamental issue in treating citizens’ data
as a “wealth resource”:
The 2018-2019 Economic Survey of India
referred to data as a ‘public good’. By
definition, that means it should be treated
as a ‘non-excludable and non-rivalrous
public good’ and not traded as if it were a
commodity.
Data is not a ‘sovereign wealth
resource’: Treating it as such will lead to
attempts to accumulate, and subsequently
monetise large volumes of data, without
data protection law.
Violating SC order (Puttaswamy
Judgement 2017): ‘Right to Privacy’ as a
fundamental right.
Conclusion:
The government’s primary concern should be
service delivery and safeguarding the
information it gathers from citizens towards
this end. Its key objective should not be to
monetise this data for profit.
Insta Links
Data Protection Bill
Mains Links
Those giving mains this time, have notes
ready on personal data protection,
implications and need for government
surveillance, and Facial recognition
technology (in S&T).
Q. What is the CyberDome Project? Explain
how it can be useful in controlling internet
crimes in India. (UPSC 2019)
Prelims Links
Link it with types of data- personal and non-
personal, committee for data protection, what
are biometric data etc. Now answer the
Question.
In addition to fingerprint scanning, which Issues with ‘Panchyat Pati’:
of the following can be used in the Most of the women’s sarpanches
biometric identification of a person? do not attend meetings that
i. Iris scanning take place at the
ii. Retinal scanning district/block/village.
iii. Voice recognition Defeats the purpose of
Select the correct answer using the code reservation for women in
given below. Panchayat
(a) 1 only Study says, more than 80 per
(b) 2 and 3 only cent of women sarpanches are
(c) 1 and 3 only proxy sarpanches even today
(d) 1, 2 and 3 Punjab had implemented a 50
Answer: D per cent reservation for
women in Panchayati Raj
institutions.
Content for Mains Enrichment Benefit of women reservation in
(Ethics/Essay) Panchayat: A 2010 study published by the
India Policy Forum, organised by the
Punjab bans sarpanch proxies NCAER, noted that “villages with female
(‘Panchayat/Sarpanch Pati’) leaders experienced increased female
participation and responsiveness to female
Source: Indian Express policy concerns”
Related News:
Direction: Previously, the Panchayat Raj department
This is a very positive move. You can use it for of Madhya Pradesh had asked to take
a case study for Governance/women action against relatives of elected women
empowerment-related questions in Mains. representatives who administer the official
oath on her behalf.
Context:
Male kin of women can’t attend meetings of
Panchayat as the Punjab government order.
‘Sarpanch pati’, where men relatives (mostly
husbands) of elected women run the office in
place of them.
(even shown in the recent web series
Panchayat)

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How a ‘Podcast’ helped solve a Context:
India managed to get many things right in its
murder
management of the pandemic including
putting in place a central procurement
Source: The New Indian Express
agency says the world bank Report.
India’s successful management of the
Direction:
pandemic:
It can be used to highlight the positive impact
COVID-19 Emergency Response
that media/journalism has on criminal justice
and Health Systems
Strengthening Project: jointly
Context:
funded by World Bank (WB) and
Podcast leads to Australian man’s conviction
Asian Infrastructure Investment
in the murder of wife who ‘disappeared’ in
Bank (AIIB)
1982
Expert panel: An expert panel was
“The Teacher’s Pet” podcast, which 60
also put in place to develop
million people have listened to since 2018,
specifications for overalls,
reinvigorated the demand for justice when the
goggles, and N95 masks which
journalist Hedley Thomas, set out a
supported the Health Ministry’s
circumstantial case that Dawson had
long-term market development
murdered his wife, Lynette.
and production of Emergency
The judge found it to be true and Chris
Medical Equipment (EME) in
Dawson has been found guilty by the court.
India.
Preventing fraudulent business
practices: Indian agencies caught
a company from Singapore trying
to dispatch millions of substandard
Chinese KN95 masks to India in
2021 by forging a third-party
Inspection Certificate
Empowered inter-ministerial
groups: India managed efficient
distribution of medical supplies
nationwide and had early
India managed to get many restrictions.
things right during COVID, says Testing laboratories: India
World Bank managed to scale up from 18 to
over 2,500 testing laboratories
Source: The Hindu rapidly within four months and
become ready to face future
Directions: pandemics and health
It can be used as an example in mains about emergencies.
India’s successful management of the
pandemic.

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Facts for Prelims:
Indian Navy’s ensign
Source: Indian Express
Context:
PM will unveil the new naval ensign (flag)
for the Indian Navy in Kochi on the sidelines
of the commissioning of India’s first
indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant at
Cochin Shipyard Limited.
What is the Saint George’s Cross?
The red cross on a white background is
known as the Saint George’s Cross and is
named after a Christian Warrior Saint who
is believed to have been a crusader during
the third crusade. (This cross also serves as
the flag of England)
Background: After Independence, on August
15, 1947, the Indian defence forces
continued with the British colonial flags and
badges and it was only on Jan 26, 1950, that
a changeover to Indianised pattern was
made, however, in the Navy’s flag Union
Jack was replaced with the Tricolour, and the
George’s Cross was retained.
In 2014, the words ‘Satyamev
Jayate’ were included on the flag
below the Ashoka emblem in the
Devanagri script.
Fig: The Indian naval ensign at present (left)
and Indian naval ensign till Jan 26, 1950
(right)
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La Ninã conditions enter 3rd
year, 6th time since 1950
Source: Indian Express
Context:
In an uncommon phenomenon, La Ninã
conditions prevailing over the equatorial Pacific
Ocean since September 2020 have entered the
third year.
La Ninã is when the sea surface temperatures
(SSTs) along the central and equatorial
Pacific Ocean are colder than normal, which,
favours the Indian summer monsoon.
However, La Niña years are also
infamous for frequent and intense
hurricanes and cyclones in the
Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of
Bengal.
The opposite is El Niño, that is, warmer SSTs
prevail over these regions.
Cloud Seeding
Source:
Context: Countries in middle-east and north
Africa are racing to develop chemicals to get rain
drops out of the cloud.
Cloud seeding is a type of weather
modification that aims to change the amount or
type of precipitation that falls from clouds by
dispersing substances (such as silver iodide,
potassium iodide and dry ice (solid carbon
dioxide) and liquid propane) into the air that
serve as cloud condensation or ice nuclei.
 Benefit: It improves a cloud’s ability to
produce rain or snow, supplements the
rainwater supplyand cleans the
atmosphere by introducing tiny ice nuclei
into certain types of subfreezing clouds.
These nuclei provide a base for
snowflakes to form.
Dangers: So far, experts haven’t found
any harmful effects of cloud seeding with
silver iodide on the environment. But
Silver iodide can be toxic to aquatic life.
The concentration of silver in a storm
from cloud seeding is far below the
accepted limit of 50 micrograms per
litre.
India: In India, cloud seeding operations
were conducted during the years 1983,
1984–87,1993-94 by Tamil Nadu Govt
due to severe drought. In the years 2003
and 2004 Karnataka government initiated
cloud seeding.
Zombie Ice
Without replenishment, the
doomed ice is melting from climate
change and will inevitably raise
seas,
Impact: The unavoidable ten inches is more
than twice as much sea level rise that
scientists had previously expected from the
melting of Greenland’s ice sheet
Snakebites in India
Source: Down to Earth
Context:
Half of all global deaths due to venomous
snakes occur in India
Snakebites are classified as a
neglected tropical disease
(NTD).
Snakes in India
Over 300 species (60 venomous)
India has seen an estimated 1.2
million (12 lakh) snakebite deaths
from 2000 to 2019, an average of
58,000 per year.
ICMR’s National Task Force for
Research on Snake Bite in India

Source: Indian Express

Context:
Zombie ice from Greenland may raise the sea
level 10 inches
Zombie Ice is the ‘doomed ice’ that, while
still attached to thicker areas of the ice, is no
longer getting replenished by parent glaciers
now receiving less snow.
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Delhi: Collection of forensic
evidence is mandatory

Source: The Hindu

Context:
Delhi Police has become the first
police force in the country to
make the collection of forensic
evidence mandatory in crimes
punishable by more than six
years.
A forensic mobile van: will be
allotted to each district to provide
scientific and forensic assistance PARAKH
on the spot whenever any need
arises. Source: Indian Express
These forensic mobile vans
shall not be under the Direction:
administrative control of the Know the name, but objectives can be just
police but shall be an gone through once. No need to remember.
independent entity
responsible to the court of Context:
law. Govt proposes a new regulator for
The recently released NCRB ‘uniformity’ in all board exams
report showed a 40% increase in Objectives of PARAKH (Performance
crimes against women in Delhi, Assessment, Review and Analysis of
the highest among all metropolitan Knowledge for Holistic Development) (a
cities in the country. constituent unit of NCERT):
Holding periodic learning outcome
Forensic Evidence: tests like the National
Any evidence which can make Achievement Survey (NAS) and
investigators identify the criminal State Achievement Surveys.
easily amounts. Set norms, standards and
Some major categories of forensic guidelines for student
evidence are DNA, fingerprints, assessment and evaluation for
and bloodstain pattern analysis. all recognised school boards in
Forensic evidence is useful in India
helping solve the most violent and Encourage and help school boards
brutal of cases, as well as to shift their assessment
completely nonviolent cases patterns towards meeting the skill
related to crimes such as fraud requirements of the 21st
and hacking. century.

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 Tackle the problem of students of
some state boards being at a
disadvantage during college
admissions as compared to their
peers in CBSE schools.
Develop and implement
“technical standards for the
design, conduct, analysis and
reporting” of tests at all levels of
school education
PARAKH, the proposed implementing agency
is also part of the NEP 2020 proposal. It is
also one of the components of World Banks’
sponsored STARS Project (to improve the
quality and governance of school education in
Indian states)
Presently, different state and central boards
follow different standards of evaluation,
leading to wide disparities in scores and
confusion among universities to set admission
criteria.
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SEED
Direction:
Seed Scheme is an umbrella scheme of
MoSJ&E. There are higher chances of Qn being
asked from Umbrella schemes of respective
ministries.
Context:
The scheme for Economic Empowerment of
DNTs (SEED) for the welfare of De-notified,
Nomadic and Semi Nomadic Communities, has
been delayed due to tribe categorization work
Who are de-notified, nomadic and semi-
nomadic tribes?
They are communities that were ‘notified’ as
being ‘born criminals’ during the British regime
under a series of laws starting with the Criminal
Tribes Act of 1871. This law was repealed and
these communities became ‘De-Notified’.
Their numbers:
The Renke commission (2006)
estimated their population at
around 10.74 crores based on
Census 2001.
1,262 communities have been
identified as de-notified, nomadic and
semi-nomadic.
About SEED
It is being implemented through an online portal
(from 2021 to 2026) and would issue a unique
ID to each applicant. But delay in the
categorization of 1262 tribes is delaying the
implementation of the scheme.
Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment
is implementing this umbrella scheme for
empowerment (educational e.g. free coaching;
Health e.g. insurance; Housing e.g. PMAY and
income generation activities)
 Abhijit Sen
Source: The Hindu

Direction: Go through once.

Geneva Convention
Context: India’s most distinguished
Source: Business-Standard development economist, teacher and
policymaker Abhijit Sen passed away.
Context: About him:
In adherence to the Convention of He was a renowned agriculture economist
International Road Traffic of 1949 (also and former member of the Planning
known as the Geneva convention), the Commission
Ministry of Road Transport and Highways He was also chairman of the Commission for
have notified on standardizing the process for Agricultural Costs & Prices (CACP) and
issuance of International Driving Permit authored the report of the High-Level
(IDP) Committee on Long Term Grain Policy
India is a signatory of the (2000)
convention and is required to Reforms suggested in his report:
issue IDPs. Greater diversification and
About Geneva Convention decentralisation of public
It is an international treaty signed in 1949 procurement to include a much
that helps support the development and safety larger number of crops and
of International Road traffic. regions
Please Take care: Geneva Convention Simplifying legal conditions on
contained multiple international agreements private trade.
including rules for Prisoners of war, Recommended that the CACP be
protection for civilians during wartime made an empowered statutory
(including civil war) and limiting barbarity body and its fixation of minimum
of war. (see infographic below) support prices—which the
government was bound to accept
—be based on the ‘C2’ cost of
production.
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 13

This paved the way for the Map In News

‘Swaminathan Formula’ in
agriculture (2006)
An advocate of decentralized
governance: Abhijit was a
great believer in the principle
of subsidiarity, that solutions
to problems are best found
closest to where they arise.
g. Rashtriya Krishi Vikas
Yojana (RKVY), which
Abhijit conceptualised as a
Member of, the Planning
Commission in 2007. It
sought to provide flexibility
and autonomy to the
States in planning and
executing programmes,
based on location-specific
plans emanating from the
districts.

He was a great proponent of the enduring

role of the state in providing the basic
needs of life.

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