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Saturday, August 24, 2019

Vision IAS Mains 365 (ENGLISH) 2019 PDF DOWNLOAD

06:53



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Revision Notes on Art and Culture PDF Download

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Revision Notes on Art and Culture 




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Friday, August 23, 2019

History Short notes In Hindi Pdf Download

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Daily Current Affairs, 23rd August 2019

21:25





1) International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition: 23 August
•United Nations observes 23 August every year as “International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition”. The Day is observed to inscribe the tragedy of the slave trade in the memory of all peoples. The day was designated by UNESCO to memorialize the transatlantic slave trade.

2) India to launch e-commerce portal “Bharatcraft” for MSME’s
•Union Government is planning to launch an e-commerce portal named “Bharatcraft” for MSME’s. The portal is based on other e-commerce portals like ‘Alibaba’ and ‘Amazon’. The portal will provide a platform for MSMEs to market and sell their products and in turn boost the sector. As per the MSME Union Minister, the Bharatcraft portal has a huge potential to generate revenue worth ₹10 lakh crore in next 2-3 years.

3) New set of health warnings on “Tobacco packs”
•The Health Ministry has notified the new warnings on “Tobacco packs”. It has been done by making an amendment in the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labeling) Rules, 2008.

•The text messages that will be printed on the packs are “tobacco causes painful death”. A quitline number “1800-11-2356” will also be printed on the packs. The new sets of health warnings, including enlarged pictorial images and text messages, covering 85% of the packet area will assist the users to quit. This will help in creating awareness among tobacco users, and gives them access to counselling services to effect behaviour change.

4) Iran unveils new missile defence system “Bavar-373”
•Iran has unveiled new missile defence system “Bavar-373”. This is also Iran’s first domestically produced long-range missile defence system which has been inducted into the country’s missile defence network. The system was unveiled at an occasion of Iran’s National Defense Industry Day.

5) Ajay Kumar Bhalla appointed as Home Secretary
•Ajay Kumar Bhalla was appointed as the new Union Home Secretary. He is currently serving as an officer on special duty in the home ministry. He replaces Rajiv Gauba, who was appointed as the new cabinet secretary.

•The Appointments Committee of the cabinet headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi approved Bhalla’s appointment as the new home secretary.




6) Russia sends its first humanoid robot Fedor into space
•Russia launched an unmanned rocket carrying a life-size humanoid robot named Fedor, (Final Experimental Demonstration Object Research). It is a silvery anthropomorphic robot stands 1.80 metres (5 foot 11 inches) tall and weighs 160 kilogrammes (353 pounds).

•Fedor will spend 10 days learning to assist astronauts on the International Space Station. It blasted off in a Soyuz MS-14 spacecraft from Russia’s Baikonur cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.

7) WCD Minister Smriti Irani distributed the Poshan Abhiyaan Awards for 2018-19
•Women and Child Development Minister distributed the Poshan Abhiyaan Awards for 2018-19 in different categories in New Delhi.

•The awards were given to the States, Districts, Blocks and Anganwadi Workers for their contributions in scaling up the Abhiyaan and ensuring that it reaches every household in the country. The awards are aimed at motivating the primary stakeholders and encourage large scale citizen participation in creating awareness to combat malnutrition.

8) Akshay Kumar takes 4th spot in Forbes highest paid actors list 2019
Bollywood Actor Akshay Kumar has made it to the 4th position on the Forbes magazine’s Worlds Highest-Paid Actors Of 2019 list. Akshay has raked in $65 million. Hollywood star Dwayne ‘Rock’ Johnson tops the Forbes list of the 10 highest-paid actors.

Here’s the list of the World’s Highest-Paid Actors Of 2019 listed by Forbes:

1. Dwayne Johnson ($89.4 million)
2. Chris Hemsworth ($76.4 million)
3. Robert Downey Jr. ($66 million)
4. Akshay Kumar ($65 million)
5. Jackie Chan ($58 million)
6. Bradley Cooper ($57 million)
7. Adam Sandler ($57 million)
8. Chris Evans ($43.5 million)
9. Paul Rudd ($41 million)
10. Will Smith ($35 million)

9) Vikram Rathour appointed as Team India’s batting coach
•Former Indian opener Vikram Rathour appointed as team India’s new batting coach. He will replace Sanjay Bangar. While Bharath Arun and R. Sridhar were retained as bowling and fielding coaches.

•The 50-year-old Rathour has played 6 Tests and 7 ODIs in 1996. He was a senior national selector under Sandeep Patil’s chairmanship.



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The HINDU Notes – 23rd August 2019

18:30





📰 FATF Asia-Pacific Group may blacklist Pakistan

The assessments, represented from Pakistan by State Bank of Pakistan Governor Baqir Reza, will conclude on August 23.

•After being greylisted at the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) plenary, Pakistan now faces being put on the “blacklist” of the FATF’s Asia affiliate, the Asia-Pacific Group (APG), that will conclude its meetings in Canberra, Australia, on Friday.

•While the two processes are separate, the APG blacklisting, or ‘Enhanced Expedited Follow Up’ status would definitely impair Pakistan’s chances at extricating itself from the FATF greylist that deals with countering terror-financing and money-laundering, at its Paris plenary later this year. 

•Sources told The Hindu that the APG meeting, which began on August 18, completed a third evaluation (MER) of Pakistan’s actions over the past five years on building anti-money-laundering and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CFT) safeguards, and found them wholly inadequate. 

•According to the APG’s final report, expected to be made public after the meeting ends, Pakistan failed in 32 of 40 ‘compliance’ parameters for its legal and financial systems, and failed 10 of 11 ‘effectiveness’ parameters for enforcing safeguards against terror-financing and money-laundering by UN-sanctioned entities and other non-government outfits. 

•As a result, Pakistan is likely to be placed on the fourth and lowest rung of the APG’s Follow-Up (FU) listing, the Enhance Expedited Follow Up, the sources said. This would make the Pakistani government’s next steps, as it faces FATF reviews in September and October much more challenging.

•India is a member of both the APG and the FATF consultations and is represented by a team of officials from the Ministries of Finance, External Affairs and Home Affairs. However, the actions demanding Pakistan’s review have been pushed by the U.S., the U.K., Germany and France. Pakistan’s multi-ministerial team at the APG meeting is led by its State Bank Governor.

Against Hafiz Saeed

•Last week, Islamabad had submitted a 450-page compliance document that details all the changes the government has made to existing laws, and actions against terror groups in the past year and a half. Pakistan has claimed that it has charged Lashkar-e-Taiba/ Jamaat-ud Dawa (JuD) chief Hafiz Saeed with terror financing, and frozen all assets of the JuD and other UNSC banned outfits this year, as part of its ongoing efforts to crack down on terror. 

•The compliance document will be reviewed against a 27-point action plan set out by the FATF, which could decide one of three options: to remove Pakistan from the greylist, to continue to keep it on the greylist, or to downgrade it further to its blacklist. Review meetings will be held in Bangkok on September 5, with a final decision at the Paris plenary session on October 18-23. 

•If Pakistan stays on the greylist, or is blacklisted, it faces not only a financial downgrade and restrictions on its markets, but will have a tough time managing capital inflows from IMF and other agencies, as well as servicing debt that adds up to about 25% of the government’s revenues at present. 

📰 India-U.S. 2+2 meeting being held in California

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THE HINDU NEWSPAPER IMPORTANT ARTICLES 23.08.2019

Yojana Magazine August 2019 (English) Pdf Download

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Yojana Magazine August 2019 (English) Pdf Download



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Thursday, August 22, 2019

Daily Current Affairs, 22nd August 2019

16:49





1) International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief: 22 August
•United Nations observes 22 August every year as “International Day Commemorating the Victims of Acts of Violence Based on Religion or Belief”. The day is observed to strongly condemn continuing violence and acts of terrorism targeting individuals, including persons belonging to religious minorities, on the basis of or in the name of religion or belief.

2) International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism: 21 August
•United Nations observes 21 August every year as International Day of Remembrance and Tribute to the Victims of Terrorism. This year, the 2nd commemoration of the day will focus on the resilience of victims and their families, how they have coped and what they have done to transform their experiences to aid healing and recovery as well as become stronger and more united against terrorism.

•To observe the International Day, the United Nations Office of Counter Terrorism (UNOCT) and the Group of Friends of Victims of Terrorism will launch a photographic exhibition on August 21 at the United Nations Headquarters in New York.

3) Union HRD Minister launches NISHTHA
•Union HRD Minister launched the training programme NISHTHA, (National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement) to improve Learning Outcomes at the Elementary level across the country. This is the largest teachers’ training programme of its kind in the world.

•NISHTHA to build capacities of 42 Lakh government teachers across the country. The basic objective of this massive training programme ‘NISHTHA’ is to motivate and equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students.

4) “Op-Blue Freedom” flag off in Delhi
•Sports Minister Kiren Rijiju and former India football captain Baichung Bhutia flagged off Op-Blue Freedom in  Delhi. This is an initiative in which a group of armed forces veterans train sports enthusiasts in survival training and self-defence.

•Op-Blue Freedom is a nation-wide adaptive scuba diving programme for people with disabilities as well as the able-bodied. It comes under the parent project “Special Forces Adventures”.

5) Karnataka tops the State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index
The State Rooftop Solar Attractiveness Index-SARAL was launched during the Review Planning and Monitoring (RPM) Meeting with States and State Power Utilities. Karnataka has topped the index which evaluates Indian states based on their attractiveness for rooftop development.

SARAL currently captures five key aspects:

•Robustness of policy framework

•Implementation environment

•Investment climate

•Consumer experience

•Business ecosystem

SARAL has been designed collaboratively by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE), Shakti Sustainable Energy Foundation (SSEF), Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) and Ernst & Young (EY).

6) Culture Minister to launch book ‘ The Diary of Manu Gandhi’
•Culture Minister will launch the book  “The Diary of Manu Gandhi” at a function in New Delhi. The book has been brought out by National Archives of India, on the occasion of 150th anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi in collaboration with Oxford University Press. The first volume covers the period 1943-1944.

•The Diary of Manu Gandhi originally in Gujarati has been edited and translated by Dr Tridip Suhrud. Manu Gandhi (Mridula) was a grand niece of Mahatma Gandhi, and stayed with Gandhiji till his assassination.

7) Rajiv Gauba appointed as Cabinet Secretary
•Home Secretary Rajiv Gauba appointed as a Cabinet secretary for two years. He will replace P.K. Sinha, who was appointed Cabinet Secretary in 2015. The Appointments Committee of the Cabinet, headed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, approved his appointment.

8) Cerebras Systems reveals “world’s largest computer chip”
•Artificial intelligence(AI) company Cerebras Systems has unveiled the world’s largest single silicon-based processor named Cerebras Wafer Scale Engine(WSE). This chip has 1.2 trillion transistors, the basic on-off electronic switches that are the building blocks of silicon chips.

•The rectangular shape chip measures 21.5cm sq (8.5in sq), comes with 400,000 AI (Artificial Intelligence) cores and 18 gigabytes of on-chip memory.

9) RBI allows e-mandate for cards for recurring transactions
•The Reserve Bank of India has permitted processing of e-mandate on credit and debit cards for recurring transactions (merchant payments). The maximum limit for such a transaction will be Rs 2,000. While processing the first transaction in e-mandate-based recurring transaction series, additional factor authentication (AFA) validation should be performed.

•As per the RBI circular, no charges should be levied or recovered from the card holder for availing the e-mandate facility on cards for recurring transactions. The direction is applicable for transactions performed using all types of cards—debit, credit and Prepaid Payment Instruments (PPIs), including wallets.


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The HINDU Notes – 22nd August 2019

16:29




📰 State-breaking is not nation making

In the J&K demotion, every code, principle and constitutional sanction protecting federalism has been violated

•In India most linguistic and ethnic groups aspire for a State of their own. Militants have taken up arms against the government and against other groups to achieve this particular objective. It is, therefore, astonishing that the abrogation of Article 370 guaranteed by the Constitution, and the downgrading of the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), are being hailed and celebrated. It is surprising that the Telangana Government which secured its State through popular mobilisation, voted for a Bill that dismembered J&K. It is shocking that the Chief Minister of Delhi, Arvind Kejriwal, who battles for statehood, also voted in favour of the Bill, as did the regional party in Odisha, the Biju Janata Dal.

•Regional parties should be wary of a Central government that tampers with their State. The Government has now the power to demote any State for whatever reason. An unfortunate precedent has been set. Every code, every principle, every constitutional sanction protecting federalism has been violated by the Central government that relentlessly implements a myopic agenda. In the process no one asks, why not Article 370 that grants regional autonomy? For regional autonomy is indispensable for India’s plural and complex society.

Issue of co-existence

•This lesson was hammered into political consciousness by events that followed the collapse of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Countries melted away and a number of new States emerged out of the debris of old ones often through processes of civil war, ethnic cleansing and genocide. As the world saw a rush of State-breaking and State-making, a new lease of life was infused into dormant separatist movements. Some examples were the Nagas and the Bodos in India, the Chechens in Russia, separatist movements in Azerbaijan (Nagorno-Karabakh) and Moldova (Trans-Dniester), Baluchistan in Pakistan, West Papua in Indonesia, the Oromos and the Somalis in the Ethiopia-Somali region, the Kurds in Turkey, Sudan, the Tamils in Sri Lanka, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, and the rise of protest politics in the Kashmir Valley. Regional elites in Canada, the United Kingdom and Europe, such as Quebec, Scotland, Catalonia, the Basque country and Corsica continue to demand independence, off and on. The spate of ethnic cleansing and genocide has prompted scholars to raise the question: how can we ensure that people who speak different languages, worship different gods, and follow different belief systems coexist in a plural society?

Kernel of identity

•On balance, scholars agreed that federalism is the best answer to the question of co-existence. Federalism has since long been offered as an antidote to the centralisation of power, which results in a democratic deficit in large and multicultural societies. Decentralisation and regional autonomy ensure responsive governance, fiscal prudence and efficiency as well as popular participation. But in the 1990s, scholars realised that individuals do not only seek economic benefits. Individuals need to have an identity; they need community whether that of language, or religion, or memory, or shared traditions.

•Certainly, some people identify strongly with their community, others identify weakly, and still others move on and adopt the meaning systems of another community. But most of the time, most of us, are intimately attached to the community of birth. For it is from here that we learn the first alphabet of a language that teaches us how to live with people who are like us, and people who are not like us. The alphabet of this language simply allows us to make sense of ourselves, our worlds, and of our relationships with others. If community is so crucial to the fact of being human, individuals should be assured secure access to their community.

•Neither the state nor society should harm my community. By harming my community through perverse imaging and acts of violence, you harm me, you harm a citizen of India. Human beings without community are lesser human beings, homeless, wanderers searching for belonging on a road that has no signboards. That is why the loss of community breeds trauma; it leads to struggle, it can even result in civil war. Across the world we see two kinds of struggle, the struggle for material resources, and the struggle for identity. The latter has led to some of the most bitter conflicts in human history.

•The one institution that threatens community is the nation state. This is considered one of the major mistakes of history. Nations do not emerge as fully-fashioned entities; they are created by states through flattening out of diverse languages, religions, cultures, through conscription, through education, and through coercion. Attempts by States in the post-colonial world to forge nations out of diverse populations have resulted in tremendous harm. In Sri Lanka, the official estimate was that under 7,000 people were killed, and 72,000 civilians were displaced from their homes by the Sri Lankan Army, as well as by the secessionist group, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, in the last phase of the civil war, between January 2009 and May 2009 alone. But this ran counter to data by experts at the United Nations which estimated that as many as 40,000 civilians, if not more, lost their lives.

•Thousands of innocent people died as a result of suicide bombings, grenade explosions, attacks on government buildings and installations, indiscriminate murders, assassinations, arson and crossfire. In 1971, when East Pakistan declared itself independent of Pakistan, an estimated 3 million people died in the war between the new state of Bangladesh and the parent country. About 8 to 10 million were rendered homeless. In another historical context, A.E. Housman had written: “They say my verse is sad: no wonder, Its narrow measure spans, Tears of eternity and sorrow, Not mine, but man’s.” These lines may well provide the epigraph of the nation state.

Regional autonomy

•The homogenising impulse of the nation state generates resistance. These are political wars; they cannot be resolved by military means. The only way to stem, to ward off disorder and the innumerable tragedies mayhem spawns is to strengthen federalism. A decentralised political system enables participation. It also protects minority identities. This was the precise logic that governed the linguistic reorganisation of States in India in the 1950s. This was the precise logic that gave to J&K, along with other constituent States of the Indian federal system, regional autonomy.

•Mature democracies do not steamroller diversity or oppress minorities. They understand that diverse cultures expand and enrich our grasp of the complexities, and the dilemmas of the human condition. A monochromatic society is, by definition, soulless and bare. Stripped of the excitement of learning new languages, acquaintance with new values, familiarity with new cuisines, literature, music, art, sculpture, and ways of conceiving the world, life becomes dull. Life in a plural society promises adventure.

•The best way to protect diversity is through the grant of regional autonomy. If we abolish diversity we land up with a sense of longing, loss, and ultimately resentment. Kashmir’s greatest contemporary poet, Agha Shahid Ali, who died at 52, powerfully captures this sense of loss and longing in his poem, ‘A Wrong Turn’: “In my dream I am always in a massacred town, its name/erased from maps/no road signs to it/Only a wrong turn brings me here....” Imagine what happens to a people when they lose Statehood. They become refugees in their own land, the land of their ancestors, the land of their memories, the land of their traditions. We have rootless individuals on our hands. They can go in any direction.

📰 Data on demonetisation's link to economic slowdown may have been suppressed

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