Current Affairs - 2019-20

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22nd March is celebrated as the World Water Day. It is celebrated to advocate for the sustainable management of freshwater resources. A theme related to the focus is selected every year by the UN organizations. The theme for 2020 was “Water and Climate Change”.

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The above given information is for Tiwa tribe of Assam which has been frequently in news for practising Jhum cultivation.

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The Whitley Awards also called Green Oscars are given annually by the Whitley Fund for Nature (WFN) to recognise and celebrate effective national and regional conservation leaders across the globe. In 2017, there are two Indians among the awardees- Purnima Devi Barman from Assam and Sanjay Gubbi from Karnataka. Purnima Devi Barman is a renowned environmentalist from Assam and has won the Green Oscars, for her efforts in conserving greater adjutant storks, an endangered bird species found in Assam. Sanjay Gubbi is a scientist with the Nature Conservation Foundation in India, and has received the award for helping to expand the protected area network in Karnataka.

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The proposed Economic and Technology Cooperation Agreement (ETCA) between India and Sri Lanka aims at improvement over the existing Free Trade Agreement (FTA). The agreement seeks to boost cooperation in scientific expertise, technical areas and research amongst institutions between India and Sri Lanka. It also seeks to boost standards of goods and services to compete on global market and improve opportunities for manpower training and human resource development. The ETCA initiative follows unfruitful negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) between two countries. Objectives of ETCA: (i) Strengthen and advance the economic, trade, investment and technology cooperation. (ii) Promote further liberalization of trade in goods, trade in services and gradually establish transparent, fair and facilitative trading, investment and investment protection mechanisms (iii) establish a cooperation mechanism and expand areas of economic cooperation.

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Pradhan Mantri Kisan SAMPADA Yojana is a comprehensive package which will result in creation of modern infrastructure with efficient supply chain management. The main objective of PMKSY is to supplement agriculture, modernize processing and decrease Agri-Waste. PMKSY will act as an umbrella scheme for incorporating ongoing schemes of the Ministry like Mega Food Parks, Integrated Cold Chain and Value Addition Infrastructure, Food Safety and Quality Assurance Infrastructure, etc. and also new schemes like Infrastructure for Agro-processing Clusters, Creation of Backward and Forward Linkages, Creation/ Expansion of Food Processing & Preservation Capacities.

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The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel 2017 was awarded to Richard H. Thaler “for his contributions to behavioural economics”. The Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences commonly referred to as the Nobel Prize in Economics, is an award for outstanding contributions to the field of economics, and generally regarded as the most prestigious award for that field. The prize was established in 1968. Although it is not one of the prizes that Alfred Nobel established in his will in 1895, it is referred to along with the other Nobel Prizes by the Nobel Foundation.

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The Nobel Prize in Physics 2016 was awarded to David J. Thouless, F. Duncan Haldane and J. Michael Kosterlitz for the theoretical discoveries of topological phase transitions and topological phases of matter.

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The ISFR 2017 shows that moderately dense forest (MDF) covers the highest area 308,318 sq. km (9.38% of GA) followed by open forest 301,797 sq. km (9.18% of GA) and very dense forest 98, 158 sq. km (2.98% of GA) respectively.

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In a bid to ensure sustainable development of the Himalayan region, NITI Aayog has recently constituted the Himalayan State Regional Council (HSRC). The council, which will be chaired by Dr. V K Saraswat, Member of NITI Aayog, and will consist of the Chief Secretaries of the Himalayan States as well as the Secretaries of key Central Ministries, senior officers of NITI Aayog special invitees. It will review and implement identified action points based on the reports of five working groups. The Council will also act as the nodal agency for sustainable development in the Himalayan region which has 12 States, including Jammu and Kashmir, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh.

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The ‘Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab (1980)’ case is a significant episode in the annals of constitutional jurisprudence in India, famously linked to the subject of capital punishment. In this landmark judgment, the Constitution Bench of the Indian Supreme Court mandated that capital punishment in India should be meted out only in ‘rarest of rare’ cases. This principle popularly known as ‘rarest of rare doctrine,’ exemplifies the stringent standards that must be applied in death penalty adjudications.