9 PM Current Affairs Brief – October 22nd, 2019

Azad Hind Government

News: The 76th anniversary of the formation of the Azad Hind Government will be celebrated on 21st October, 2019, at the Red Fort, Delhi.

Facts:

About Azad Hind Government:

• The Azad Hind Government or the Provisional Government of Free India was established in Singapore on October 21,1943 by Indians in exile.
• Subhas Chandra Bose was the Head of State of the provisional government.
• This government was formed as a part of political freedom movement originating in the 1940s outside of India with the purpose of allying with Axis powers during the Second World War(WWII) to free India from British Rule.
• The government was supported by the Axis powers of Imperial Japan, Nazi Germany, the Italian Social Republic and their allies.
• It was also having its armed force named Azad Hind Fauj or the Indian National Army(INA) whose purpose was to free India from British control. 
• Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose gave a famous slogan Dilli Chalo (Come to Delhi) after formation of this government.
• However,Netaji’s death was seen as an end to the Azad Hind movement. The Second World War had also ended in 1945 with the defeat of the Axis powers.

Liver transplant registry

News:India’s first voluntary liver transplant registry has been started by the Liver Transplantation Society of India.

Facts:

About liver transplant registry:

• The liver transplant registry aims to collate national data of the procedures and their outcomes.
• The registry has been established as nearly 2,000 liver transplants are carried out in the country annually.But there is no India-specific data.
• On the other hand,in Western countries it is mandatory to report all transplants and the outcomes.

Additional information:

About the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994

• The Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1994 was enacted by the Parliament in 1994.
• The main purpose of the Act is to regulate the removal, storage, and transplantation of human organs for therapeutic purposes and to prevent commercial dealings in human organs.

About Liver Transplant Society of India:

• The Liver Transplant Society of India (LTSI) has been established with the primary objective of facilitating the growth of liver transplantation and allied fields in India.

Defence Acquisition Council

News: Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), chaired by Defence minister has accorded approval for three projects to be indigenously designed, developed and manufactured by the Indian industry.

Facts:

About the Projects:

• The first two projects include third generation Anti-Tank Guided Missiles (ATGM) and the Auxiliary Power Units (APUs) for the T-72 and T-90 Tanks.
• The third generation ATGM would provide fire and forget and Top Attack capabilities to the troops in an armoured battle.
• On the other hand, APUs would enable incorporation of various upgrades to Fire Control System and Night Fighting capabilities of the Tanks.
• These projects will be progressed under the Make in India II category and will provide a boost to indigenous research and development in the Private Sector.
• Further,the third indigenous project is the Electronic Warfare (EW) systems for the mountain and High Altitude terrain which would be designed and developed by Defence Research and development organization(DRDO).

About Defence acquisition Council:

• Defence Acquisition Council(DAC) is the highest decision making body for military procurement.
• The council was formed in 2001.It is headed by Defence minister.
• The objective of the DAC is to ensure expeditious procurement of the approved requirements of the Armed Forces in terms of capabilities sought and time frame prescribed by optimally utilizing the allocated budgetary resources.
• The council also gives policy guidelines to acquisitions based on long-term procurement plans.
• It also clears all acquisitions including imported equipment and those produced indigenously or under a foreign licence.

Marawah Island

News:The World’s oldest known natural pearl was discovered at a Neolithic site on Marawah Island off the coast of Abu Dhabi.

Facts:

About the discovery:

• The pearl has been named as the ‘Abu Dhabi Pearl  that have been radio dated to 5,800-5,600 BCE.
• The discovery proves that pearls and oysters were being used in the UAE nearly 8,000 years ago.
• Prior to this discovery,the earliest pearl was found in another Neolithic site off the coast of Abu Dhabi.

Additional information:

About Marawah Island:

• Marawah is a low-lying island off the coast of the Western Region of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi,the United Arab Emirates. 
• The island is 15 km north of the Khor al-Bazm (lagoon) along the Abu Dhabi coastline in the southern Gulf.

Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti

News:Union Ministry of State for Culture & Tourism has launched the E-Portal of Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT) ‘Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti’.

Facts:

About the Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti:

• The ‘Digital Bharat Digital Sanskriti’ is an E-portal that will enable dissemination of cultural education through digital interactive medium into classrooms all over the country.
• The portal will provide a platform for specifically dropout children so that they can join the mainstream and pursue their dreams by making a career out of be it music, painting, or any other art forms.
• For this initiative,CCRT has tied up with Routes 2 Roots,an NGO for connecting seamlessly all the CCRT Regional Centres.

Additional information:

About CCRT:

• The Centre for Cultural Resources and Training (CCRT) is an autonomous organisation under the Ministry of Culture of Government of India.
• It was established in 1979 to support cultural education.

National Tiger Conservation Authority(NTCA)

News:The National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has red-flagged the Madhya Pradesh government’s move to increase tourism activities inside the state’s tiger reserves.

Facts:

About NTCA:

• The National Tiger Conservation Authority is a statutory body under the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change constituted under enabling provisions of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.

Objectives of NTCA:

• Providing statutory authority to Project Tiger so that compliance of its directives become legal.
• Fostering accountability of Center-State in the management of Tiger Reserves by providing a basis for MoU with States within our federal structure.
• Providing for an oversight by Parliament.
• Addressing livelihood interests of local people in areas surrounding Tiger Reserves.

Powers and Functions of NTCA:

• To approve the tiger conservation plan prepared by the State Government.
• To evaluate and assess various aspects of sustainable ecology and disallow any ecologically unsustainable land use such as, mining, industry and other projects within the tiger reserves;
• To provide for management focus and measures for addressing conflicts of  man and wild animals 
• To provide information on protection measures including future conservation plan, estimation of population of tiger among others among others.

Govt launches BHIM 2.0 with new functionalities, additional language support

News:Union Minister of Electronics and Information Technology (MeiTY) has launched BHIM 2.0 with additional features.

Facts:

About BHIM:

• Bharat Interface for Money(BHIM) is Unified Payments Interface(UPI) based payment interface application that allows real time fund transfer
• The app has been launched in 2016.It was developed by the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• The BHIM 2.0 supports three additional languages- Konkani, Haryanvi and Bhojpuri, over and above existing 13.
• The existing cap of Rs. 20,000 has also been increased to Rs. 1,00,000, from verified merchants.
• The app has also added features such as (a)linking multiple bank accounts (b)offers from merchants and (c)gifting money among others.

Additional information:

About UPI:

• Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application of any participating bank.
• The interface has been developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI).
• It merges several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood. 
• It also caters to the Peer to Peer collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.

About National Payments Corporation of India(NPCI):

• NPCI is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
• It is an initiative of Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) under the provisions of the Payment and Settlement Systems Act, 2007 for creating a robust Payment and Settlement Infrastructure in India.

Annual Crime in India Report 2017

News: The annual Crime in India Report 2017 has been published by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).

Facts:

Key takeaways from the report:

• In 2017,there was an increase of 3.6% in registration of cases over 2016.
• Delhi witnessed the highest crime rate in the country with 1,050 Indian Penal Code(IPC) crime incidents per lakh of the city’s population.On the other hand,the IPC crimes decreased greatly in Mizoram, Gujarat, Himachal, Tripura and Nagaland.
• The number of crimes against women has been increased by 6% in the country.Uttar Pradesh topped the list with most number of cases followed by Maharashtra and West Bengal.
• There were around 58,000 incidents of rioting reported.The maximum number of incidents were reported from Bihar followed by Uttar Pradesh and Maharashtra.
• The incidents registered under the Scheduled Caste Prevention of Atrocities Act has seen an increase from 5,082 incidents reported in 2016 to 5,775 in 2017.
• The report for the first time collected data on circulation of false/fake news and rumours.Under the category, maximum incidents were reported from Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Kerala.
• Further, a new category of offences committed by various categories of Anti-National Elements was included. It showed that the maximum offences were committed by Left Wing Extremist(LWE) followed by North East insurgents and Terrorists.
• However, the report has not collected any data under the categories of (a)death due to mob lynching (b)killing ordered by khap panchayat and (c)murder committed for religious reason.

Additional information:

About NCRB:

• The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) is an attached office of the Ministry of Home Affairs.
• The agency is responsible for collecting and analysing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL).
• The NCRB data only reflects the number of crimes registered by the police.

US India Strategic Partnership Forum

News: The members of US India Strategic Partnership Forum(USISPF) has called on the Indian Prime Minister to discuss trade and economy related issues.

Facts:

About US India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF):

• The US-India Strategic Partnership Forum (USISPF) is a non-profit organization established in 2017.
• The forum’s objective is to strengthen the India-US bilateral and strategic partnership through policy advocacy in the fields of economic growth, entrepreneurship, employment-creation and innovation.
• It’s purpose is also to enable businesses and government to collaborate and create meaningful opportunities that can positively change the lives of citizens.
• According to the forum estimates, India-US bilateral trade is projected to grow to 238 billion dollars by 2025. 
• The forum has said that sectors like defence trade, commercial aircraft, oil and LNG, coal, machinery and electronics are areas of potential growth in US investments and commerce into India.

TechSagar

News:The Data Security Council(DSCI) of India in partnership with National Cyber Security Coordinator’s office has launched TechSagar.

Facts:

About TechSagar:

• TechSagar is a platform to discover India’s technological capability through a portal.
• It is a consolidated and comprehensive repository of India’s cyber tech capabilities.
• The portal will list business and research entities from the IT industry, startups, academia, and individual researchers.
• It will provide insights about capabilities of the Indian Industry across 25 technology areas like internet of things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) among others.
• The portal will also allow targeted search, granular navigation and drill down methods using more than 3000 niche capabilities.
• Further,the portal will be frequently updated with new entities and information to maintain its relevance and usefulness.

Additional information:

About Data Security Council(DSCI) of India:

• Data Security Council of India (DSCI), is a not-for-profit, industry body setup by NASSCOM for data protection in India, 
• DSCI aims to make cyberspace safe, secure and trusted by establishing best practices, standards and initiatives in cyber security and privacy. 
• It engages with governments and their agencies, regulators, industry sectors, industry associations and think tanks for policy advocacy, thought leadership, capacity building and outreach activities.