VISION

GS Score Complete Prelims Revision 2021 Test 07 With Solution PDF

 Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has published its annual report and highlights “asset quality of banks and their preparedness requires close monitoring for higher provisioning for upcoming quarters”. In its annual report, the central bank said the country’s growth prospects now essentially depend on how fast India can arrest the second wave of COVID-19 infections.

RBI Annual Report 2021:

•RBI in its semi-annual financial stability report earlier highlighted bad loan ratio of banks could rise to 13.5% under the baseline stress scenario by September 2021.

1)  International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers: 29 May

•The “International Day of United Nations Peacekeepers” is observed on May 29 annually. The day is celebrated to pay tribute to all the men and women who have served and continue to serve in United Nations peacekeeping operations for their high level of professionalism, dedication, and courage and to honour the memory of those who have lost their lives in the cause of peace.

•The day was designated by United Nations General Assembly on December 11, 2002, and first celebrated in 2003. The 2021 Theme: “The road to a lasting peace: Leveraging the power of youth for peace and security.”

2)  International Everest Day: 29th May

•International Everest Day is being observed on 29th May. Nepalese Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand’s Edmund Hillary had climbed Mt. Everest on this day in 1953, as the first humans to achieve the feat. Nepal decided to observe the day as International Everest Day in 2008 when the legendary climber Hillary passed away.

•Everest Day on May 29 every year in memory of the first summit of Mt. Everest by Sir Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay Sherpa on the day in 1953. The day is celebrated with memorial events, processions, and special events in Kathmandu and the Everest region.

3)  World Digestive Health Day: 29 May

•Every year, World Digestive Health Day (WDHD) is observed on 29 May. It is organised by the World Gastroenterology Organisation (WGO) in collaboration with the WGO Foundation (WGOF). Each year the day focuses upon a particular digestive disease and/or disorder in order to increase general public awareness of prevention, prevalence, diagnosis, management and treatment of the disease and/or disorder. The theme of WDHD 2021 is “Obesity: An Ongoing Pandemic.”

4)  3 Indian peacekeepers to be honoured with UN’s prestigious medal

•Corporal Yuvraj Singh, civilian peacekeeper Ivan Michael Picardo, and Moolchand Yadav are among those to be honoured with the UN’s prestigious medal. Corporal Yuvraj Singh was serving at the United Nations Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) while civilian peacekeeper Ivan Michael Picardo was associated with UNAMISS as a civil peacekeeper. Moolchand Yadav was associated with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI).

•Three Indian peacekeepers, who laid down their lives while serving in United Nations (UN) peacekeeping missions last year, are among 129 military, police and civilian personnel honoured with a prestigious UN medal awarded posthumously for courage and sacrifice in the line of duty.

•India is the fifth-largest contributor of uniformed personnel to UN peacekeeping with more than 5,500 military and police serving in peace operations in Abyei, Cyprus, Congo, Lebanon, the Middle East, Somalia, South Sudan and Western Sahara, according to the UN.

5)  Bashar Al-Assad Re-Elected as Syrian President for 4th Term

•Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad has been re-elected for the fourth straight 7-year term in a landslide victory, winning 95.1 per cent of the total votes cast. The 55-year-old Assad is serving as the 19th President of Syria since 17 July 2000. On the eve of the election, the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Italy said the poll was “neither free nor fair”, and Syria’s fragmented opposition has called it a “farce”.

6)  US Senate confirms Christine Wormuth as first female Army secretary

•Christine Wormuth was confirmed unanimously by the Senate to be the first female secretary of the Army. Wormuth, who led President Joe Biden’s transition team at the Pentagon, got an overwhelmingly warm reception from members of the Senate Armed Services Committee during a hearing this month. Her confirmation sets her up as one of the more powerful officials in a defence establishment long dominated by men. She is the second woman named to a top Pentagon role by Biden. The deputy secretary of defence is Kathleen Hicks.

7)  B.V.R. Subrahmanyam to be Commerce Secretary

•The appointments committee of the Cabinet (ACC) has approved the appointment of B.V.R. Subrahmanyam, Chief Secretary Jammu & Kashmir as an officer on special duty in the Department of Commerce. An order issued by the Union Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions.

•Mr Subrahmanyam is a 1987 batch IAS officer of the Chhattisgarh cadre and was sent on deputation to Jammu and Kashmir in June 2018. He served as Chief Secretary when the State was bifurcated into two Union Territories in 2019. He is a widely experienced bureaucrat having worked in Manmohan Singh Prime Minister’s Office as Joint Secretary.

8)  One-year extension for RAW chief Samant Goel, IB head Arvind Kumar

•Research and Analysis Wing chief, Samant Kumar Goel and Intelligence Bureau head Arvind Kumar were given a one-year extension in their services. Goel, a 1984-batch IPS officer from Punjab cadre, would continue to be the Secretary of Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) for a period one year beyond the presence tenure which ends on June 30.

•Similarly, Kumar, an IPS officer of Assam and Meghalaya cadre, will continue to head the Intelligence Bureau for a period of one year after June 30.

9)  Hong Kong woman breaks record for fastest ascent of Everest

•Tsang Yin-hung, a Hong Kong-based mountaineer, has created the record of the world’s fastest ascent of Everest by a woman, within the time of just under 26 hours. The 44-year-old Tsang, scaled the 8,848.86-metre (29,031 feet) Everest mountain in a record time of 25 hours and 50 minutes on May 23. It was her third attempt of scaling the Himalayan peak.

•In 2017, Tsang became the first Hong Kong woman to reach the top of the mountain peak. Before this, the record of fastest woman to conquer Everest was held by Nepali Phunjo Jhangmu Lama, who had completed the climb in 39 hours 6 minutes in 2018.

10)  IBF to be renamed as Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation

•The Indian Broadcasting Foundation (IBF), the apex body of broadcasters, is being renamed as Indian Broadcasting and Digital Foundation (IBDF), as it expands its purview to cover digital platforms to bring all digital (OTT) players under one roof. IBDF is in the process of forming a new wholly-owned subsidiary to handle all matters pertaining to digital media.

•IBDF will also form a Self-Regulatory Body (SRB), as per the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 as notified by the Government of India on 25th February 2021.

11)  Louvre gets its first female leader in 228 years

•Historian Laurence des Cars becomes the first female president of Musée du Louvre, the world’s largest museum in Paris, France in 228 years. She was appointed as the first female president of Musée du Louvre by the President of France, Emmanuel Macron.

•Laurence des Cars, 54, is currently heading the Musée d’Orsay, the Paris landmark museum which is dedicated to 19th-century art. On September 1, 2021, she will replace the current president, Jean-Luc Martinez, who had been heading the Orsay museum for the past eight years.

📰 Dowry deaths | Supreme Court widens scope of Section 304-B

📰 India seeks more studies on virus origin

 What is the issue?

• For more than 50 years, attempts to bring peace to historical Palestine have adhered to the two-state solution as the only way forward.
• But here is why the whole premise of the two-state solution is wrong, providing Israel the immunity to continue its ethnic cleansing.

What was a similar offer made earlier?

• The idea of partitioning Palestine is not new.
• It was already offered by the new British occupiers of Palestine in 1937.
• The Zionist movement was hardly 50 years old then.
• The Zionist goal was to turn historical Palestine into a Jewish state.
• To this, a chunk of the Palestinian homeland was proposed as a future state.
• [Back then, this was similar to an offer as decolonising India by partitioning it between a British India and local India.]
• No country would have ever consented to such a post-colonial arrangement, and it was naturally rejected by the Palestinians.

What was the catastrophic event that followed the proposal?

• International community back in 1940s insisted that the Palestinians should give half of their homeland to the settler movement of Zionism.
• But Palestinians kept reiterating that the settler movement of Zionism would not be content with just half of the country.
• Coming true, in less than a year, under the guise of UN support, the new Jewish state took over nearly 80% of historical Palestine.
• They ethnically cleansed almost a million Palestinians (more than half of Palestine’s population).
• They demolished half of Palestine’s villages and most of its towns in 9 months in 1948.
• This was an event known by the Palestinians as the Nakba, the catastrophe.

What happened following Israel’s occupation?

• In 1967, Israel occupied the rest of historical Palestine.
• In the process, they expelled another 300,000 Palestinians.
• It was impossible after 1948 to repeat a massive ethnic cleansing.
• So, it was substituted by incremental ethnic cleansing.
• The last stage in this process was one of the root causes that ignited the cycle of recent violence. (Click here to know more.)
• It is to do with the proposed eviction of Palestinians from Shaykh [Sheikh] Jarrah, an East Jerusalem neighbourhood.
• The eviction is part of an overall attempt to Judaise East Jerusalem.
• Imposing military rule in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip after they were occupied was another means.
• This enclaved the people there without basic human and civil rights.
• A version of an Apartheid regime was imposed on the Palestinian minority in Israel.
• Also, there was constant refusal to allow the 1948 refugees to return.
• This completed the matrix of power that allowed Israel to retain the land.

What is the tw0-state solution proposed now?

 Why in news?

The new rules in India for social media platforms and digital news outlets, called the Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code, came into effect.

What are the key provisions in the Guidelines?

• The guidelines had asked all social media platforms to set up a grievances redressal and compliance mechanism.
• This includes appointing a resident grievance officer, chief compliance officer (CCO) and a nodal contact person.
• The Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology had also asked these platforms to submit monthly reports.
• It should have details on complaints received from users and action taken.
• A third requirement is for instant messaging apps to make provisions for tracking the first originator of a message.
• Failure to comply with any one of these requirements would take away the indemnity provided to social media intermediaries under Section 79 of the Information Technology Act.

What protection does Section 79 of the IT Act offer?

 GS SCORE Fact Files: Economic: Key Economy Terms PDF

 GS Score Complete Prelims Revision 2021 Test 06 With Solution PDF