VISION

 What is the issue?

• Finance Minister has stressed that Budget 2021-22 raises resources to push the economy without increased taxation.
• However, one change proposed to the income tax law has caused concern for the salaried class.

What is the proposed change?

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1)  India joins Iran-Russia’s two-day navy exercise

•India joined Iran and Russia in the naval exercise dubbed as “Iran-Russia Maritime Security Belt 2021”, which kicked-off in the northern part of the Indian Ocean. The Chinese navy will also join the exercise. The purpose of the drill is to enhance the security of international maritime trade, confront maritime piracy and terrorism, and exchange information.

2)  Centre Launches new Instant Messaging platform ‘Sandes’

•The National Informatics Centre (NIC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, has launched an instant messaging platform called “Sandes”. Similar to WhatsApp, the new government instant messaging systems (GIMS) platform can be used for all kinds of communications by anyone using a mobile number or email id.

3)  Dharmendra Pradhan Participates in 11th IEA, IEF, OPEC Symposium

•The 11th IEA-IEF-OPEC Symposium on Energy Outlooks was held virtually on February 17, 2021, under the patronage of the Minister of Energy of Saudi Arabia HRH Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud. From India, the Union Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas & Steel, Dharmendra Pradhan, participated in the symposium.

•The trilateral symposium discussed the long-term outlooks of key producer and consumer countries, apart from the comparative analysis of short, medium, and long-term energy outlooks that OPEC and the IEA published in 2020.

4)  Kiran Bedi Removed As Puducherry Lt Governor

•Kiran Bedi, the Lieutenant-Governor of Puducherry, has been removed from the top position. Tamilisai Soundararajan, the Governor of Telangana, has been given additional charge as the Lieutenant Governor of Puducherry till a permanent replacement will be announced. The development comes in the backdrop of a major shake-up in the Puducherry Assembly after several Congress legislators resigned ahead of the Assembly elections due this year.

5)  Thaawarchand Gehlot Releases 3rd Edition of Indian Sign Language Dictionary

•The Union Minister for Social Justice and Empowerment Thaawarchand Gehlot released the “3rd edition of the Indian Sign Language (ISL) Dictionary, in a virtual event. The 3rd edition of the ISL dictionary contains a total of 10,000 terms. These include the 6000 terms of the first and second edition of the dictionary.

6)  Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs launches Pilot Pey Jal Survekshan

•The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has launched the Pilot Pey Jal Survekshan under Jal Jeevan Mission- Urban. The Pilot Pey Jal Survekshan has been launched in 10 cities, which are Agra, Badlapur, Bhubaneswar, Churu, Kochi, Madurai, Patiala, Rohtak, Surat and Tumkur. The motive of the Jal Jeevan Mission Urban is to provide universal coverage of water supply to all households through functional taps in all 4,378 statutory towns in accordance with Sustainable Development Goal – 6.

7)  Mamata Banerjee launches ‘Maa’ scheme to provide meals at Rs 5

•West Bengal government launched “Maa” canteens for providing subsidised cooked meals for the poor and the destitute at a nominal cost of ₹5. The govt will give a subsidy of ₹15 and people have to pay ₹5. The kitchen will run by Self-Help Groups (SHG). The government allocated ₹ 100 crores for this project.

8)  YS Jagan Mohan Reddy conferred SKOCH Chief Minister of the Year Award

•The Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy has been conferred the Skoch Chief Minister of the Year Award. The Award has been presented to the CM by Chairman, Skoch Group, Sameer Kochhar personally at Tadepalli in Andhra Pradesh. The award selection was based on a study of project-level outcomes in various States.

•Similarly, initiatives have been taken across the government to respond to COVID-19 and have shown desirable outcomes. All the above and more is evident in a year-long study of 123 projects from across sectors in Andhra Pradesh. The State has taken several revolutionary measures in the past two years to make governance more efficient and transparent. Innovative measures have been taken across sectors, the credit for which goes to the Chief Minister.

9)  IIT Madras-incubated Pi Beam launches PiMo e-bike

•An IIT Madras-Incubated start-up Pi Beam Electric has recently launched a sustainable electric two-wheeler, dubbed as PiMo. The utility e-bike has been developed for personal and commercial use. It does not require a licence or registration.

10)  Award winning Author Irwin Allan Sealy’s new novel ‘ASOCA’

•Prizewinning writer Irwin Allan Sealy’s new novel ‘ASOCA: A Sutra’, an imagined memoir of Ashoka The Great. The novel will be presented as an imagined memoir of Ashoka The Great, the emperor who ruled most of the Indian Subcontinent and played a pivotal role in the spread of Buddhism from India to other parts of Asia in the 3rd century BC. It will be published by Penguin Random House India. 

•Earlier, Penguin had published the thirtieth-anniversary edition of Sealy’s critically acclaimed debut novel The Trotter-Nama and this is the second book by the author to be published by PRH. This book will be released under Penguin’s Viking imprint in July 2021.

11)  ICICI Lombard partners with Flipkart to offer ‘Hospicash’ insurance

•The e-commerce company Flipkart has partnered with ICICI Lombard to offer its customers the ‘Group SafeGuard’ insurance, a group health insurance policy. The ‘Group SafeGuard’ comes with daily cash benefits starting from Rs 500, and ‘Hospicash’ benefit for Flipkart consumers.

 What is the issue?

• The plains over North India reported a sharp shift in temperatures (rising) in mid-February.
• This has triggered apprehensions that the cold season is ending soon and the summers are going to start early. Here is a look at the geographical factors.

How has the weather over North India been in 2021?

• The region experienced continuous cold conditions all through January and the beginning of February 2021.
• Cold conditions dominated both the plains and hilly regions in North and Northwest India this season.
• The average monthly minimum temperature recorded over the country in January remained the warmest in 62 years.
• However, Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Chandigarh and Jammu and Kashmir experienced prolonged severe cold conditions.
• The national capital and neighbouring areas also reported sporadic rainfall in the first week of January.
• However unlike the winter of 2020, not many cold day conditions were recorded during this season.
• In January, there were fewer and feeble western disturbances across lower latitudes.
• The effects of western disturbances were mostly limited to hilly regions in January.

Why is the sudden rise in temperatures?

• In the absence of cold wave and cold day conditions over the plains of north India, temperatures began to soar.
• Delhi, Dehradun and many locations in both the plains and the hills recorded significantly above normal day temperatures for this time of the year.
• On February 11, New Delhi recorded 30.4 degrees Celsius, which was 7.7 degrees above normal.
• The cold waves are prevented from reaching the northern parts of India by -
  1. the dominance of the prevailing easterly waves
  2. presence of multiple weather systems over Central India
• It is because of these that temperatures have seen a sharp rise.
• The temperature departures notably ranged between 5 to 7 degrees from normal.

How will these weather systems affect the cold conditions?

 Why in news?

Recently, West Bengal CM suggested that India should have four capitals.

What is the issue of having four capitals?

• Four capitals means that there should be Parliament buildings in three other regions & accommodation for all MPs and adjunct staff has to be constructed.
• MPs in the northern parts of the country would prefer to be in their existing accommodations while others prefer to settle in the capital close to their region.
• During Parliament sessions, MPs will descend to their envisaged capitals leaving the residential accommodations vacant for months after every session.
• This involves huge expenditure as MPs and their staffs have to fly to and from these capitals every now and then.
• In 1980s, Tamil Nadu CM proposed to shift the State capital to Tiruchirappalli but it was dropped later.
• Moreover providing security to all the MPs will be a huge burden for the State Police and also their vacant accommodations needs to be guarded round the clock.

Can this model be adopted for Supreme Court?

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