9 PM Daily Current Affairs Brief – October 10th, 2022

Current Affairs Compilations for UPSC IAS Prelims 2022

Mains Oriented Articles

GS Paper 2

• Getting it right, in five ways: Commerce and industry minister says growth will receive a big boost from new logistics policy
• The coalition of the world
• Status beyond faith: The panel on giving SC status to converts has its work cut out

GS Paper 3

• Why India Inc. is not taking a Hanuman leap
• The cause of science
• India’s drug problem: Why WHO’s alert over Indian medicines in Gambia should not be ignored
• The fate of chips will decide the fate of nations
• What an e-rupee really is must be crystal clear
• Is IAF ready for future wars?

Prelims Oriented Articles (Factly)

• Committee on sustainable finance submits suggestions to IFSCA
• Why Egypt historians wants the UK to return the 2,000-year-old Rosetta Stone
• PM declares Modhera in Gujarat as India’s first 24×7 solar-powered village
• Elon Musk wants to create an ‘everything app’; what is it?
• Why has the Election Commission frozen the Shiv Sena’s symbol?
• India-UK FTA talks face deadlock over data: Report
• The programming languages running the crypto-economy
• The action plan against Delhi’s air pollution

Mains Oriented Articles

GS Paper 2

Getting it right, in five ways: Commerce and industry minister says growth will receive a big boost from new logistics policy

News: The government has recently come up with the New Logistics Policy (NLP). It will benefit India in many ways and lead India towards a developed country in coming 25 years.

What are the components of NLP?

New Logistics Policy focuses on 5 ‘R’s. They are –

1. Getting the right product;
2. In the right condition;
3. At the right place;
4. At the right time;
5. To the right customer.

What are the benefits of the new logistics policy?

Costs: It will reduce logistics costs from an estimated 13-14% of GDP to single-digit. The policy will benefit small farmers and many MSMEs by lowering the transportation costs.

Farmers: This will benefit farmers as they have to sell their products at low prices due to the fear of rotting.  However, the NLP will improve connectivity and benefit farmers by giving them the required price of their products.

Governance: The New Logistics Policy along with PM Gati Shakti will end the isolation in the governance of infrastructure.

• These policies will help in building high-quality rural roads and expressways, improving container turnaround time, faster and safer railways and dedicated freight corridors amongst others.

Exporters: Exporters will gain a lot from better logistics as their goods will become more competitive and can be delivered to buyers in a faster and more predictable manner.

• The Unified Logistics Interface Platform has been launched under the NLP to help exporters facing various hurdles in exports such as compiling shipping bill numbers.
• Further, a digital platform named Ease of Logistics Services (eLOGS) under the logistics policy will help resolve any issue faced by the exporters.

India has already seen improvement in its logistics before by the movement of oxygen and food during the peak of pandemic.

Further, this new policy will boost the economy by creating jobs, eliminating disparities between wealthy metropolitan areas and the countryside and creating massive savings from efficiency gains.

The coalition of the world

News- The article explains the challenges faced by the UN-led multilateral framework. It explains the guiding framework for future multilateral engagement.

What are challenges to the UN led multilateral framework?

While addressing the United Nations General Assembly The Secretary General said that the world is in big trouble. We need to create mechanisms of dialogue to heal divides.

Multilateralism is under challenge by its proponent, the USA. The dispute settlement mechanism of WTO is dysfunctional due to lack of quorum. G7 countries have not fulfilled their promise of providing 100 billion dollar every year to fight climate change.

China is developing alternate institutions for multilateral cooperation. Belt and Road initiative is one such institution. It covers half of world population, one-third of GDP and has investment of $930 billion.

There is a deep divide between the Atlantic powers and Russia-China combine.

What should be the guiding framework?

In a multipolar world, there is a need for new rules and principles that are focused upon human well-being.

There is a need for bid ideas. We should move away from multilateral focus on global rules, amount of aid and IPR inviolability.

“Vasudhaiva kutumbakam” or ‘world as one family’, can be the core of a set of universal principles for a dialogue between the states.

There is a need for redefining ‘common concerns’ in terms of felt needs of the majority rather than interests and concerns of the powerful.

We need a global consensus around equitable sustainable development.

India’s Presidency of the Group of 20, UNSC in 2022, and the SCO in 2023 presents a historic opportunity to guide the future framework.

Status beyond faith: The panel on giving SC status to converts has its work cut out

News:

The Centre has appointed a three-member Commission to examine the sensitive issue of extending Scheduled Caste (SC) status to all those who have historically suffered discrimination and untouchability, regardless of the religion they now profess.

About the Panel to study SC status of Dalits post-conversion

What are the previous instances of historical discrimination post-religious conversion?

In 1985, the Supreme Court agreed that historical discrimination may continue even after members of the SCs convert to other religions. But it did not decide in favour of converts being given SC status as it felt there was not enough material outlining their condition after conversion.

The National Commission for Religious and Linguistic Minorities, headed by retired Chief Justice Ranganath Mishra, also examined this issue. In its 2007 report, the panel made a categorical recommendation in favour of giving SC status to Dalits belonging to all religions. It found the caste system to be “an all-pervading social phenomenon in India shared by almost all Indian communities”.

What are the counter-views about providing SC status post-religious conversion?

1) Social discrimination and deprivation are the consequences of the caste-based Hindu social order. So, the SC status should not be extended to those who have converted to Christianity and Islam, 2) If SC benefits are provided irrespective of all religions, then it may be seen as an incentive to mass conversion, 3) The share of the reservation pie available to Dalits among Hindus may shrink if new sections are included. There is no ‘creamy layer’ concept for SC reservation, and expanding its scope may be to the disadvantage of the current beneficiaries.

GS Paper 3

Why India Inc. is not taking a Hanuman leap

News: Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has recently raised concern about slow corporate investment despite business-friendly measures taken by the government.

The corporate tax was cut in 2019 for existing companies to 22% from 30% and for new manufacturing companies to 15% from 25%. However, there has been rarely any improvement in the investments.

Private investment accounts for close to 75% of total capital formation in the economy. Therefore, its revival is essential for sustained growth of the economy.

What is the significance of public investment in the expansion of private investment?

The private capital formation last peaked in 2011–12 but it has been on decline at present.

The present government tried to shift away from a state-driven model of economic development and it announced the slogan of ‘minimum government’ to encourage private investments.

However, still the government maintained the level of public investment, but Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management Act kept it from expanding it any further.

Later, export growth declined due to the global financial crisis and the slowing of the world economy which led private investors to stop investing.

Even the ‘minimum government’ failed to expand aggregate demand when it was needed. Further steps like demonetization and GST also did not boost demand, which raised a sense of insecurity amongst private investors.

However, the government brought change after the pandemic by increasing the allocation of capital spending in Budget 2022 but it will take time to enhance the growth in India.

Therefore, the expansion in public investment should have been taken earlier by the government.

The International Monetary Fund has also suggested that public investment can play the role of an engine of growth for the developing economies.

What can be the course of action?

First, if private investments are declining then the government can come up with public investments. It has also been proven from the history of India that public investments have led the growth in India.

• For example, the growth accelerations of the 1950s, the late 1970s, etc. Therefore, crowding in rather than crowding out characterizes the relationship between public and private capital formation in India.

Second, it is important to choose the right projects and the investment must be focused on productivity-enhancing infrastructure.

Third, the government should focus on overall growth of agricultural produce other than the superior cereals to control the inflation.

• This could also act as an opportunity to end India’s import dependence on edible oils and the persisting shortfall in the supply of vegetables.

The cause of science

News: Recently, Nobel Prize has been given in many fields which also include Chemistry, Physics and Medicine. The developments made in these fields are important for the development in science.

Who has been awarded the Nobel Prize in chemistry and for what achievement?

The Nobel prize of 2022 in chemistry prize went to Carolyn Bertozzi, Morten Meldal, and Barry Sharpless (who also won a chemistry Nobel in 2001) for “the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”.

Click chemistry helps in quick chemical reactions without unwanted by-products.

Bioorthogonal chemistry is a method of doing click chemistry within living cells without disrupting the normal functions of the cell.

These processes enable scientists to quickly and cheaply build new molecules which can be studied intensively.

It has many benefits as it can help in pharmaceutical research by making new drugs and also studying the impact of those drugs.

For example, bioorthogonal approach can help in studying the impact of cancer drugs in cells.

Who has been awarded Nobel Prize in physics and for what achievement?

The Nobel Prize in physics is shared among three individuals – Alain Aspect, John F. Clauser and Anton Zeilinger. They have separately investigated the rules for the working of entangled particles.

Entanglement between two paired particles means that a change in the state of one particle leads to a simultaneous change in the state of the other particle even if the pairs are separated by a distance.

This appears to violate the principle of relativity which says that not even information can travel faster than light. Albert Einstein described it as “spooky action”.

Anton Zeilinger demonstrated quantum teleportation using entanglement.

Quantum effects are important in cryptography and in computing.

Who has been awarded Nobel Prize in medicine and for what achievement?

The Nobel Prize 2022 in medicine has been awarded to Svante Pääbo.

He developed the field of paleogenealogy by using modern DNA technology to examine the genomes of extinct branches of the human race.

He is also led the discovery of the Homo Denisovan sub-species and with sequencing the Neanderthal genome.

This discovery gives us many clues about Palaeolithic migration and socialisation patterns. Further, this method can be used to extract and analyse ancient DNA from many other species.

Moreover, genes from extinct sub-species may have peculiar and useful effects in terms of affording immunity.

India’s drug problem: Why WHO’s alert over Indian medicines in Gambia should not be ignored

News: Cough syrups manufactured by Maiden Pharmaceuticals has caused the deaths of 66 children in Gambia.

This has led Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO) and state authorities to investigate into cough syrups.

What are the findings of the WHO?

WHO said that its laboratory analysis of samples of these syrups have revealed the presence of unacceptable amounts of diethylene glycol and ethylene glycol.

These chemicals are toxic to humans, and can result in abdominal pain, vomiting, diarrhoea, inability to pass urine, headache, and altered mental state. It can also lead to acute kidney injury that can prove fatal in children.

India stopped the use of cough syrups that contained these toxins after 17 children died in Jammu and Kashmir.

However, the initial inquiries have revealed that Maiden Pharmaceuticals manufactured the cough syrups only for export to Gambia.

What led to the manufacture of the cough syrups even though they were stopped by the government?

The Drugs and Cosmetic Act, 1940 says that the state authorities are responsible for monitoring the manufacture and sale of drugs. While CDSCO is responsible for laying down standards and providing expert advice to regulators in the states.

However, after the tragedy of Jammu and Kashmir there is very little information shared between the state and the centre.

Moreover, drugs that fail quality tests in one state continue to be sold in others due to the lack of binding mechanism to recall of such medicines.

What are the concerns associated with the low quality of drugs?

According to a CDSCO survey in 2014-2016, about five per cent of Indian drugs mostly manufactured by large pharma companies failed the quality test.

There has also been quality concern raised by national and international observers over the pharmaceutical products of India and many have been rejected for the quality.

Therefore, there is a need for the pharma industry to set up mechanisms for cooperation on quality control amongst firms.

Moreover. the situation like that of Gambia can harm India’s hard-earned reputation of being the pharmacy of the Third World.

The fate of chips will decide the fate of nations

News- The article explains the reason behind increasing dependence on chips. It also tells about the factors that need to be considered by India in case of chip manufacturing.

Why has chip manufacturing gained the attention of the world?

They are very small in size. Apple’s new A16 chip has 16 billion transistors on it. Apple chips are mostly outsourced. Even a large company like Apple is not able to manufacture chips on its own. Besides, it is manufactured by very few countries like the USA, Taiwan.

Russia was not able to dominate Ukraine through war. Ukraine used precision-guided missiles powered by chips. Russia had a lack of these missiles due to unavalabilty of chips.

Toyota has to temporarily shut down its plants in Japan due to a shortage of chips.

Critical sectors such as defence, telecom and mobility are impacted by chip shortages. It would not end by 2023. Natural disasters in South Korea and Taiwan could worsen the crisis.

Further the $200 billion investment put up by countries in chip making will not give instant results.

If China attacks Taiwan, it could disrupt the entire supply chain.

What factors need to be considered by India while putting investment in chip manufacturing?

India should be cautious. Previous attempts by Vietnam, Brazil and the USA have not yielded desired results.

Chip manufacturing requires a steady supply of electricity and billions of gallons of clean water.

A chip manufacturing plant costs around 15 to 20 billion dollars. It takes time to make it profitable. Further the supply chain disruption by COVID-19 and the Ukraine war has complicated chip manufacturing.

What an e-rupee really is must be crystal clear

News- The article explains the recent RBI concept note on Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC).

Which issues are clearly addressed in the RBI note?

The RBI note has clearly addressed the issue of monetary stability. Money supply due to e-rupee may lead to inflation.

It has clarity on danger of disintermediation. It rejects interest-paying CBDC as it might get enough funds to leave lenders out of the loop.

Which issues are not clearly adressed?

On Product-The two versions of CBDC will create misconfusion.

On placement- Banks and wallets will work as intermediaries. It will not create disruption. But we should have flexible technology to ensure its gradual shift to direct or hybrid models of finance. It will ensure that RBI can use deposit rates directly as tools and keep e-rupee saving free from bank failure.

On promotion– For promotion, UPI may be used as a base for retail CBDC. But we need cash like appeals for CBDC which has components like no need for ban and anonymity of transaction. First component can be addressed by use of the internet. For the second component, we need privacy laws and anonymity of transactions. At this juncture, RBI can only ensure anonymity for small value transactions.

Is IAF ready for future wars?

News- The article shows the strengths and weaknesses of IAF. It shows the requirement of IAF in the context of hybrid wars.

What message does the recent use of the Air Force against China and Pakistan, convey?

It shows the determination of IAF to take action. It also conveys the willingness of political executives to take calculated risks.

It also brought into focus several faultlines in IAF working in changing scenarios of war.

One of the lessons learnt was in dealing with the after-effects of a strike. Lack of numbers, capability gap in long-range air to air missiles and other structural deficiencies in IAF defence networks and sensors resulted in suboptimal response.

What is needed to strengthen the Air Force in the context of hybrid war?

There should be accelerated induction of mid-range indigenous platforms with sensors and weapons.

There should be need-based and transparent import of high-end offensive capabilities. It must be linked with technology transfer for the next generation aerial system.

Space domain should be treated at par with the land and maritime domain. The Air Force should get adequate representation at apex structures of national security.

The Air Force should move away from its rigid position. It should contribute to jointness, synergy and integration.

What are lessons from the use of air power in recent conflicts?

In recent conflicts the use of air power was a determining factor to decide the outcomes.

Limited use of air power by India during Balakot strikes proved beneficial.

Sustained use of airpower against ISIS ensured its defeat.

Russian use of air power against Ukraine shows its limitations. It was not well coordinated, and without proper strategy. Poor training and lack of precision-guided weapons impacted its effectiveness.

Prelims Oriented Articles (Factly)

Committee on sustainable finance submits suggestions to IFSCA

Source: The post is based on the article “Committee on sustainable finance submits suggestions to IFSCA” published in The Indian Express on 5^th October 2022.

What is the News?

A “committee of experts on sustainable finance” was constituted by International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) at the GIFT City. Now, the committee has submitted its suggestions.

What is Sustainable Finance?

It refers to any form of financial service integrating environmental, social and governance(ESG) criteria into the business or investment decisions for the lasting benefit of both clients and society at large.

About the committee of experts on sustainable finance

Headed by: CK Mishra, former secretary, Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change

Major focus: The main focus of the committee was to align the IFSC regulations with international best practices.

The committee also explored ways in which capital flows through IFSC can be enhanced and support the development of innovative financial products in the area of green and sustainable finance.

What are the major recommendations of the committee?

Significance of the MSME: Considering the significance of the MSME sector in the economic development of the country, the committee also proposed setting up of a dedicated MSME platform for sustainable lending.

Some other important recommendations include a) Developing a voluntary carbon market, b) A framework for transition bonds, c) Enabling de-risking mechanisms, d) Promoting a regulatory sandbox for green fintech and e) Facilitating the creation of a global climate alliance among others.

The committee also recommended facilitating the use of innovative instruments such as catastrophe bonds, municipal bonds, green securitisation, and blended finance among others.

Why Egypt historians wants the UK to return the 2,000-year-old Rosetta Stone

Source: The post is based on the article “Why Egypt historians wants the UK to return the 2,000-year-old Rosetta Stone” published in the Indian Express on 8^th October 2022.

What is the News?

According to a Reuters report, the UK is being asked to return the Rosetta Stone, a large stone slab that has fascinated the world since its discovery around two centuries ago.

What is the Rosetta Stone?

The Rosetta Stone is a large stone slab with inscriptions on it and is believed to be a piece of a bigger rock. It has inscriptions in three scripts, all of which convey a decree or public message.

The decree is inscribed three times, 1) Hieroglyphs – Suitable for a priestly decree, 2) Demotic – The cursive Egyptian script used for daily purposes, meaning ‘language of the people’, and 3) Ancient Greek – The language of the administration – the rulers of Egypt at this point were Greco-Macedonian after Alexander the Great’s conquest.

Note: It is similar to how in Ancient India, King Ashoka ordered stambhas or edicts that had messages of Buddha’s teachings and news about victory in a war inscribed.

The engraving was done during the reign of King Ptolemy V who ruled from 204–181 BC. This puts the stone’s age at well over 2,000 years. It is believed to carry messages by some priests in support of the king. With time the stone, among other inscriptions, was displaced.

Discovered by: While details of its discovery are vague, it is said to have been found by Napoleon’s soldiers accidentally in 1799 in the city of Rashid (called Rosetta by the French) in the Nile Delta.

On Napoleon’s defeat later at the hands of the British, the Treaty of Alexandria (1801) led to its transfer, and it has been at the British Museum since then.

What is the significance of the Rosetta Stone?

Before the stone was found, there was no knowledge of what Egyptian hieroglyphs meant. But the stone conveyed the same information in three languages and the Ancient Greek was understood by scholars.

So, Hieroglyphics was finally within the grasp of modern historians. Hence, its discovery helped in developing the specific field of Ancient Egypt studies, called Egyptology.

Further, the stone is a symbol of cultural violence and a symbol of cultural imperialism.

PM declares Modhera in Gujarat as India’s first 24×7 solar-powered village

Source: The post is based on the article “PM declares Modhera in Gujarat as India’s first 24×7 solar-powered village” published in All India Radio on 9^th October 2022.

What is the News?

Recently, Prime Minister declared Modhera in Gujarat’s Mehsana district as India’s first 24×7 solar-powered village.

About India’s India’s first 24×7 solar-powered village

Modhera will be India’s first village to become a net renewable energy generator. It will be the first modern village to have a solar-based ultra-modern electric vehicle charging station.

It is India’s first grid-connected megawatt-hours (MWh) scale battery energy storage system. People in Modhera would be saving 60% to 100 % on electricity bills.

Modhera was well known for the Sun temple, now it will also be known as a solar-powered village. The heritage lighting and 3-D projection at the Sun Temple would operate on solar energy. The 3-D projection will inform visitors about the history of Modhera.

About Modhera Sun Temple

It was made by King Bhima I of the Chalukya dynasty in the early 11th century. It is made to honour the Sun God in Modhera village of Mehsana district on the bank of River Pushpavati.

The temple is designed in such a way that during every equinox, the first ray of the rising sun would fall on a diamond placed on the head of the Sun God. This would also light up the shrine with a golden glow.

The Sabha Mandap stands on 52 pillars, signifying the 52 weeks in a year. There are carvings of the sun on the walls to show its unity with air, water, earth and space.

In 2014, Modhera Sun Temple entered the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. It enjoys the same significance as the other two well-known sun temples in Kashmir (Martand Sun Temple) and Odisha (Konark Sun Temple).

Elon Musk wants to create an ‘everything app’; what is it?

Source: The post is based on the article “Elon Musk wants to create an ‘everything app’; what is it?” published in the Indian Express on 6^th October 2022.

What is the News?

Elon Musk is thinking about creating an “everything app. According to him, buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.

What is an everything app or a super app?

The concept of an everything app, often referred to as a “super app,” is massively popular in Asia and tech companies across the world have tried to replicate it.

A super app has been described as the Swiss army knife of mobile apps, offering a suite of services for users such as messaging, social networking, peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce shopping.

What are some examples of super apps?

These mega apps are widely used in Asia because mobile is the main form of access to the internet for many people in the region. For example,

a) WeChat of China: Users of this app can hail a car or taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments at stores, use it as an electronic identification system, etc.

b) Grab app of Southeast Asia: It offers food delivery, ride-hailing, on-demand package delivery and financial services and investing.

What are some examples of super apps in India?

Paytm: It has brought together services like payments, ticket bookings, games, online shopping, banking, consumer finance, etc into one app.

PhonePe: It has tied up with companies such as Ola Cabs, Swiggy, Grofers, AJio, Decathlon, Delhi Metro, booking.com, etc to offer these services from within its own app.

Currently, Reliance Industries, under its Jio umbrella, is consolidating various services and offerings.

What are the concerns about the super app?

Super apps have the following concerns. Such as a) They increase the possibility of a monopoly, b) They have concerns about privacy in cases where a super app has onboarded third-party service providers.

Why has the Election Commission frozen the Shiv Sena’s symbol?

Source: The post is based on the article “Why has the Election Commission frozen the Shiv Sena’s symbol?” published in the Indian Express on 6^th October 2022.

What is the News?

Recently, the Election Commission of India (ECI) froze the well-known ‘bow and arrow’ election symbol of the Shiv Sena until the competing claims for recognition by the two rival factions are decided.

How does the ECI decide who gets the symbol?

Before 1968, the EC issued notifications and executive orders under the Conduct of Election Rules, 1961.

According to Para 15 of the Symbols Order, 1968, “When the Commission is satisfied… that there are rival sections or groups of a recognised political party each of whom claims to be that party. The Commission may decide that….one such rival section or group or none of such rival sections or groups is that recognised political party and the decision of the Commission shall be binding on all such rival sections or groups.” This applies to disputes in recognised national and state parties.

Previous instances: The first case under the 1968 order was the split of the Indian National Congress in 1969.

How does Election Commission resolve symbol disputes?

The ECI usually conduct the test of majority to resolve a symbol dispute. In almost all disputes decided by the EC so far, a clear majority of party delegates/office bearers, MPs and MLAs have supported one of the disputing factions.

Whenever the EC could not test the strength of rival groups based on support within the party organisation, it fell back on testing the majority only among elected MPs and MLAs.

Can the splinter group become a recognised political party/parties?

Prior to 1997, the EC will assess the splinter group of the party — other than the group that got the party symbol. They will be considered as a recognised party, if they have a substantial presence in some states and satisfied the criteria fixed for recognition of parties under Paras 6 and 7 of the Symbols Order.

In 1997, the EC introduced a new rule under which the splinter group of the party — other than the group that got the party symbol — had to register itself as a separate party, and could lay claim to national or state party status only on the basis of its performance in the state or central elections after registration.

India-UK FTA talks face deadlock over data: Report

Source: The post is based on the article “India-UK FTA talks face deadlock over data: Report” published in The New Indian Express on 9^th October 2022.

What is the News?

The Diwali timeline for an FTA was announced enthusiastically by the former prime minister of the UK during his visit to India. But the Diwali draft completion deadline was not achieved due to deadlock in the final stages of the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA) negotiations.

About India-UK FTA negotiation

What are the challenges in finalising India-UK FTA?

According to the UK’s Department for International Trade (DIT), any FTA would be agreed upon only if it meets the UK’s interests. But the UK has “reservations” over India being offered some sort of “open borders” visa concessions.

On the other hand, data localisation and UK companies being allowed to bid for Indian government contracts are among the issues causing a possible deadlock in the final stages of the India-UK free trade agreement (FTA).

Negotiations on key issues of mobility/migration and tariffs are expected to continue towards a non-time-bound second phase of the agreement.

What is the potential of the India-UK FTA?

According to official UK government data, India-UK bilateral trade currently stands at around GBP 24.3 billion a year and the aim is for that to be at least doubled by 2030. The FTA will aid in such doubling.

The programming languages running the crypto-economy

Source: The post is based on the article “The programming languages running the crypto-economy” published in The Hindu on 10^th October 2022.

What is the News?

Programming languages help crypto platforms and protocols run effectively.

What are the popular Programming languages of crypto-economy?

Some most important ones are,

C++

C++ is a programming language associated with Bitcoin. While the Bitcoin whitepaper explaining the peer-to-peer electronic cash system is written largely in English, the Bitcoin Core software, which makes transactions possible, uses C++.

It is hailed for being an accessible programming language that users of Java, C, and C# can easily learn due to existing similarities.

It is also one of the most used programming languages, playing a role in the development of operating systems like MacOS and Windows, gaming devices, search engines, and even machine learning.

Solidity

It is the programming language mainly used on the blockchain platform Ethereum. The language is influenced by C++, Python, and JavaScript. It is also known as a ‘curly bracket language’ as it uses the flower bracket special character.

Parts of the Ethereum ecosystem also support several other programming languages such as Python, Ruby, Rust, Java, and more.

Rust

Rust has the unique distinction of being called the “perfect programming language” in 2021 by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

He noted Rust was a “close second” to C. Blockchains such as Solana blockchain, The Polkadot blockchain uses Rust.

However, developers have complained that Rust is too difficult to learn. A 2018 survey showed that more than 22% of users did not feel productive using the programming language.

Haskell

Cardano’s smart contract programming language is based on Haskell. Haskell is classified as a purely functional programming language and is hard to learn. But it is well-suited to deliver accurate crypto projects due to its immutability feature.

However, a smart contract failure can cause platform outages, and exploitation of the codes could devalue the entire ecosystem.

The action plan against Delhi’s air pollution

Source: The post is based on the article “The action plan against Delhi’s air pollution” published in The Hindu on 10^th October 2022.

What is the News?

A revised action plan to fight the serious challenge of air pollution in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) has come into force after a sudden dip in air quality in the capital and its neighbouring areas.

What is the Graded Response Action Plan (GRAP)?

Have anti-pollution policies changed under the revised GRAP?

Under the revised GRAP, restrictions on polluting activities will be dependent on Air Quality Index (AQI) rather than PM2.5 and PM10 concentration.

The GRAP for Delhi-NCR is divided into four stages of air quality — Stage one for “poor” AQI ranging between 201 and 300, Stage two for “very poor” AQI of 301-400, Stage three for “severe” AQI of 401-450 and Stage four for “severe plus” AQI more than 450.

Stage one: A ban on construction and demolition activities at specific sites will be implemented. Also, agencies should ensure that all solid waste is lifted from dedicated dump sites, and none is dumped on open land.

Heavy fines are to be imposed for openly burning municipal solid waste and biomass. Roads will be mechanically cleaned and water sprinkled from time to time. The ban on firecrackers should be followed as per the directions of respective courts.