Today's GK

The Government of Odisha in July 2013 announced Rice for Olive Ridley Conservation (ROrC) scheme for the year 2013 in order to help the fishermen families affected by seven-month ban on marine fishing at Odisha coastal areas.
The identification of beneficiaries under Rice for Olive Ridley Conservation (ROrC) Scheme was announced on 22 July 2013.

• The main aim of the ROrC scheme is to help the fishermen families who are affected by seven-month ban on marine fishing as an Olive Ridley turtle protection measure.
• ROrC is a livelihood supported package for poor fishermen communities to ensure them food security.
• Under the scheme, each family will be provided with 25 kg of rice at subsidised rate of Re 1 per kg every month.
• The fishermen will be provided with special eligibility cards to avail the subsidised rice. The cards will entitle them to get the rice from PDS retailers of Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Department each month.
• Out of the 10133 identified beneficiaries, 6255 families are from Kendrapara district. The rest of the targeted families are from Puri, Ganjam and Bhadrak districts.
Due to prohibition of fishing from 1 November to 31 May each year, the fishing communities are adversely affected with depletion of income sources.
The bulk of the affected families are from Kendrapara as the coastal district is home to the restricted sea corridors of Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary. The coast of Orissa in India is the largest mass nesting site for the Olive-ridley turtle.

The Central Empowered Committee of the Supreme Court had passed directions in April 2004 for protection of endangered Olive Ridley turtles.

Olive ridley Turtle (scientific Name: Lepidochelys olivacea)

The Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans. These turtles, along with the Kemps ridley turtle, are best known for their unique mass nesting called Arribada, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.

The Olive ridley turtle population has been declining over the past few years, and the Olive ridley is also recognized as Vulnerable Species by the IUCN Red list as a conservation measure.

The United Nations Health agency, the World Health Organisation (WHO) suggested India in 2009 to consider a ban on Monocrotophos, the pesticide blamed for the poisoning of mid day meal in Bihar on 16 July 2013.

The pesticide that killed 23 schoolchildren in Bihar's Chhapra district was banned in many countries as per the directions from the WHO, because of its high acute toxicity. However in India, Monocrotophos is widely used and easily available pesticide.

A Technical Expert Committee (TEC) appointed by the Supreme Court of India recommended an indefinite suspension on open field trials of genetically-modified (GM) crops till the deficiencies in the regulatory and safety systems are effectively addressed.

In the final report submitted to the court on 3 July 2013, the panel did not mention 10-year suspension on field trials as suggested in the interim report in October 2012. Instead, it imposed four conditions for meaningful consideration for allowing trials.

The Panel suggestions were:
• Setting up of a think tank to look into Bio-safety issues.
• Housing the new Bio-technology regulatory in either Union Environment or Health Ministry.
• Identification of specific sites for conducting tests and mandatory stakeholder participation as part of risk management strategy.
On successful following of the recommended conditions, the Technical Expert Committee (TEC) suggested that the trials should be only allowed on land owned by GM crop application and not on leased land.

TEC interim report
• In TEC interim report submitted to the Supreme Court on October 2012, the panel recommended a ban on field trials of GM crops until the regulatory system was completely overhauled.
• Panel also called for a 10-year suspension on field trials of Bt food crops (which are modified with the Bacillus thuringiensis gene, such as the proposed Bt Brinjal), and a complete ban on field trials of transgenics in crops which originate in India.

TEC members
1. Imran Siddiqui, Plant Development Biology scientist, Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology, Hyderabad.
2. P S Ramakrishnan, Emeritus Professor of Environmental Sciences and Biodiversity, Jawaharlal Nehru University Delhi.
3. P C Chauhan, an expert in Genetics Toxicology and Food Safety.
4. P C Kesavan, a former BARC Scientist and fellow in M S Swaminathan Research Foundation, Chennai.
5. B Sivakumar, former director, National Institute of Nutrition, Hyderabad.
6. Rajendra Singh Paroda, former Director General of Indian Agriculture Research Institute, Delhi.

The National Green Tribunal (NGT) bench headed by Swatanter Kumar on 22 July 2013 invoked the Polluter Pays Principle to deal with the problem of pollution and dumping of debris on the Yamuna bank.

The NGT orders
• Any person found dumping debris on the river bank at any site will have to pay 5 lakh Rupees for causing pollution. The offender will also have to remove the debris.
• The fine so imposed shall be recovered from the person who is responsible for dumping of debris- truck owner as well as person to whom the debris belongs - by whose property demolition the debris have been created.
• Even the contractor who is carrying on the business of dumping of debris shall be equally responsible.
• The Tribunal directed all concerned authorities, including the Delhi Development Authority, East Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to ensure that all debris is removed by 15 August 2013.
• The Tribunal gave the time till August 2013 to the Secretary of the Ministry of Environment and Forests to constitute an Expert Committee to finalise the Yamuna preservation and beautification plan.

The Tribunal order came on the backdrop of a petition filed by Manoj Misra of the Yamuna Jiyo Abhiyan, which has opposed the dumping of debris and construction waste on the banks of The Yamuna River.

Bastian Schweinsteiger, the German midfielder defeated his teammates Thomas Mueller and Franck Ribery to grab the Journalists' Player of the Year Award announced by the Kicker magazine on 28 July 2013. Bastian Schweinsteiger won 92 out of 527 votes. Franck Ribery won 87 votes, while Thomas Mueller won 85 votes.

The People's Linguistic Survey of India (PLSI) on 17 July 2013 reported that the North-East of India has the highest per capita language in the whole World. As per the survey, Arunachal Pradesh is a State that speaks 90 different languages.

Survey highlights
• There are over 780 languages and 66 different scripts in India.
• Arunachal Pradesh is the richest among the States with 90 languages and West Bengal has the highest number of scripts at nine.
• In terms of languages spoken, researchers found that with 90 languages Arunachal Pradesh is by far the richest among States, Assam with 55 languages; Maharashtra with 39, Gujarat with 48 and West Bengal with 38 are among the most linguistically-diverse States of India.
• As per the 2011 census, there were about 122 languages spoken by more than 10000 people. Of them 22 were the scheduled languages.
• The survey has come up with languages that are spoken by less than 10000 people many of whom are from tribal areas, nomadic communities and from the interiors of North Eastern part of the Country.

This is the biggest linguistic Survey in this Century. Irish linguistic scholar George Abraham Grierson had conducted the Linguistic Survey of India from 1898 to 1928.

The Planning Commission of India decided to prepare a comparative data for the Department of Food in order to roll out the National Food Security Ordinance in all the States. The comparative data will be based on NSSO Statistics, which covers the food consumption patterns and differential pricing in rural and urban areas in different States.

This step would help the Union Ministry of Food and Public distribution to take an immediate call on the basis of which, it will allocate food grain to different States for coverage of 75 percent of the rural population and 50 percent of the urban population under the National Food Security Ordinance.

The aim of the Central Government is to protect the current allocation to States under the Targeted Public Distribution System, which will be based on the average lifting of food grains by States in the last three years.

The Union Government of India proposed land reforms for acknowledging the women rights and giving the ownership to rural poor women, according to the National Land Reform Policy Draft 2013 formulated by Union Ministry of Rural Development released on 18 July 2013.

Highlights of the Draft
• In all Government land transfers, women’s claims should be directly recognized.
• According to the new policy, all new land distribution among landless poor families will be in the women’s name.
• In all land distribution schemes (land related to surplus land, custodial land, or under the land ceiling act), the land should be distributed to rural landless women workers.
• The policy recommends 50 percent of land holdings given to forest communities should go to women.
• Under the policy, elderly women and widows too would gain title to land.
• The policy advises the states to consider the adoption of a group approach in land cultivation. Thus, group titles to women’s group should be granted.
• The policy also asked the state to assess all uncultivated arable land with the Government, and give women’s groups such land in the long term for group cultivation.
Women and Land
• Women constitute nearly 40 percent of the agricultural workforce in the country. More importantly, 75 percent of all female workforce and 85 percent of all rural female workforce in the country at present, was involved in agriculture.
• In recent days, rural households are increasingly becoming female headed households, due to widowhood, desertion, or male out-migration.
• The Eleventh Five Year Plan recognised that agricultural productivity was increasingly getting dependent on the ability of women to function effectively as farmers and strongly, and had also recommended to ensure effective and independent land rights for women.
• The Twelfth Five Year Plan emphasised on enhancing women’s land access from all three sources- direct government transfers, purchase or lease from the market and inheritance.
• The land rights can serve multiple functions in rural women’s lives and would empower them to challenge the socio-economic and political inequalities prevalent in the rural-semi feudal society.

Counting for the West Bengal panchayat polls started on Monday with initial trends putting ruling Trinamool Congress in the lead in most of the districts.

With security ring provided by both central and state security forces, 329 counting centres have been set up which by Monday evening will decide the fate of thousands of candidates in fray.

According to a State Election Commission official, the Trinamool Congress is leading in most of the districts as per the initial counting trends.

The UP government late on Saturday night suspended Durga Shakti Nagpal, the sub-divisional magistrate of Gautam Budh Nagar. Nagpal, a 2010 batch IAS officer, who has been in news for her crackdown on illegal sand mining, was allegedly suspended over a dispute related to a religious place.

The government's controversial decision to raise the price of natural gas came under judicial scrutiny with the Supreme Court on Monday agreeing to examine the matter and issued notices to the Centre and Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL).

A bench headed by Chief Justice P Sathasivam issued notices to Centre and RIL on the issue.

The apex court issued notices on petition by MP Gurudas Dasgupta.

Deep in northeast, villagers use grass to sound-proof their huts from deafening rain, clouds are a familiar sight inside homes and a suitably rusted sign tells visitors they are in the " wettest place on earth".

Oddly enough, lifelong residents of Mawsynram, a small cluster of hamlets in Meghalaya state have little idea that their scenic home holds a Guinness record for the highest average annual rainfall of 11,873 millimeters (467 inches).

Exactly 58 days after he "stepped aside" as BCCI president, the decks have been cleared for N Srinivasan's return to the helm of the richest cricket body in the world.

A report submitted by a two-member panel that probed allegations of betting and spot-fixing against Srinivasan's son-in-law Gurunath Meiyappan, India Cements Ltd (owner of Chennai Super Kings) and Jaipur IPL Pvt Ltd (owner of Rajasthan Royals), found no direct evidence of wrongdoing on the part of any party. The panel consisted of two former judges of the Tamil Nadu high court, Jayaram Chouta and R Balasubramanian.

Maruti Suzuki, leader of the domestic car industry, has described demands of additional compensation for the 600-odd acres in Manesar , where the company has a car factory, as "unreasonable and strange".

Kenichi Ayukawa, the new MD and CEO of Maruti Suzuki, said enhanced payment demands after almost a decade of the company's presence in the area only makes India a bad investment destination as far as corporates are concerned.

New investments in the country's manufacturing sector are virtually on hold, with half of the companies indicating that they have no plans for major investments in the fiscal year 2013-14, says a survey.

According to a survey jointly conducted by PwC and Ficci titled - "India Manufacturing Barometer", sluggish economic growth and deceleration in production have made manufacturing companies tread cautiously.

"In an environment of sluggish economic growth, it is not surprising that the mood exhibited by companies is cautious," PwC India Leader Industrial Products Bimal Tanna said.

Hindustan Motors has finally bounced back by rolling out its BS IV complaint 1.5-litre diesel Ambassador, three years past deadline.

While sale of Bharat Stage III cars was banned in 17 cities - including Kolkata - from April 1, 2010, HM continued to manufacture and sell BS III yellow taxis in the replacement market following a special notification from the government. That honeymoon was about to end with the government terminating the BS III-extension favour to HM and allowing other manufacturers, including Maruti Suzuki and Mahindra & Mahindra, to supply cabs.

In recent media coverage, critics often argue that the cost of the National Food Security Bill (NFSB) is excessive. The Economic Times referred to the NFSB as a “money guzzling measure” and according to CNBC-TV18, Rahul Bajaj, chair of Bajaj Auto, said that “all such give-aways are populist measures.” The New York Times’ India blog cited Ashutosh Varshney of Brown University as arguing that the NFSB “is very consistent with the overall thrust of the government to become the welfare party of India.” And Yashwant Sinha, former Union Finance Minister, emphatically branded it as “senseless welfarism.” But what would constitute even a minimally adequate response to food insecurity in India?

Stunting

A recent UNICEF report on child malnutrition finds that India is home to 61 million stunted children under five — the most of any country — and 38 per cent of all stunted children in the world. After India, the country with the second largest number of stunted children is Nigeria with 11 million, then Pakistan (10 million), and China (eight million). Even as a proportion of the child population, stunting levels in India are higher than in any other large country in the world, according to the same UNICEF report.

Given the magnitude of food security challenges faced by India’s current and future work force, the charge that India’s NFSB is excessive strikes outside ears as exceedingly strange. One’s confusion is slightly compounded because it seems some critics dramatically exaggerate the cost of the Bill – in order to deem it unaffordable. At present, India spends about 0.9 per cent of GDP on food subsidies, and after the NFSB that will rise to a little less than 1.25 per cent.

The Financial Times cited Gurcharan Das, the author of India Grows at Night as saying: “India just cannot afford this colossal spending… This new spending will increase India’s fiscal deficit and could well lead to a downgrade of the country’s sovereign rating to junk status.” The “money-guzzling” Economic Times article warned that the NFSB endangered the fiscal deficit target, and Vinay Khattar warned that it “could partly hurt the ongoing recovery.” CNBC-TV18 covered B. Muthuramam, the non-executive director of Tata Steel, as arguing, “Food security is important but the government needs to be able to generate enough wealth in the country to be able to afford food security.” The Indian Express cited the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) statement, which read: “Under the present economic situation, the government can hardly afford to allow the fiscal deficit roadmap to be compromised in any way.” These dire warnings seem to overlook the fact that additional expenditures can be offset by cuts elsewhere. It is, as always, a question of priorities.

A comparison

So how do India’s fiscal priorities compare with others’? The Asia Development Bank has just released a report on Social Protection in Asia covering 35 countries. It compares India with the other 18 lower middle income countries in Asia. In lower middle income countries, relevant expenditures (on social insurance, social assistance, and labour market programmes) are, on average, 3.4 per cent of GDP. India’s is a mere half of that at 1.7 per cent. Even that low level is reached largely because of MGNREGA, not existing food security costs. Among low income countries, the Kyrgyz Republic (whose GDP per capita is only $871 (2009)), invests eight per cent of GDP in social protection. Upper middle income countries spend four per cent of GDP on average, and high income countries spend 10.2 per cent. Japan spends a massive 19.2 per cent of GDP on social protection and China 5.4 per cent. Even Singapore — which can hardly be called populist — still spends more than twice as much as India, at 3.5 per cent of GDP.

So, across the political spectrum in Asia, which in general has much lower rates of malnutrition than India, governments invest more in social protection. Perhaps parties of many stripes recognise that healthy workers with strong bodies and brains are essential for sustained economic growth — as well as human development.

Naturally, there are many legitimate concerns regarding the NFSB — ranging from democratic engagement to corruption to targeting to household allocations — and these must be addressed. But discussions of the size of the budget envelope should debate what an adequate response would be. India has a higher proportion of stunted children than nearly any other country on earth, yet spends half the proportion of GDP that lower middle income Asian countries spend on social protection and less than one-fifth of what high income countries in Asia spend. The costs of NFSB are not the making of a nanny state.

Lewis Hamilton ended weeks of expectation and frustration on Sunday when he finally won his first race for Mercedes by claiming a dominant textbook triumph in the Hungarian Grand Prix.

The 28-year-old Briton led from pole position to the chequered flag, apart from three short spells for pit-stops, as he secured his fourth victory at the Hungaroring in sweltering conditions.

The 2008 champion came home 11 seconds clear of Kimi Raikkonen of Lotus and third-placed defending triple world champion Sebastien Vettel of Red Bull, who was unable to force his way into second place in the closing laps.

It was Hamilton’s 22nd win of his career and a success that restored him among the challengers for this year’s drivers’ championship.

Warned by intelligence agencies that using a foreign satellite in the proposed nationwide Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) could make critical databases vulnerable to eavesdropping by other countries, the Union Home Ministry has decided to take the help of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to make the project fully indigenous.

When fully operational, the much-delayed CCTNS project will connect 14,000 police stations across all the 28 States and seven Union Territories, thus creating a nationwide networking infrastructure for the evolution of an IT-enabled, state-of-the-art tracking system for crime investigation and detection of criminals.

The CCTNS is a group of some 820 VSATs (two-way ground satellite systems) that will be networked by a satellite.

BSNL was the original agency in charge of providing ground services. Since, the intelligence agencies raised objections to the proposed use of the IPSTAR satellite managed by Thaicomm in the project, the BSNL diverted to this project some 400 VSATs that it had for other services.