In News

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA) has served a show-cause notice on SpiceJet following at least eight mid-air incidents and an accident since May.

About the News

• As per the notice, the airline has failed to establish safe, efficient and reliable air services.
• On several occasions the airline was forced to either cut short its journey and turn back its aircraft and land at the airport of origin or continue to its destination with degraded safety margins.
• DGCA has blamed poor internal safety oversight and inadequate maintenance actions for the fall in safety standards.
• A financial assessment undertaken by the DGCA in September 2021 revealed that the airline witnessed shortage in supply of spare parts because of its failure to pay vendors on time, most of whom were conducting business with the airline on cash and carry basis.
  • Cash and carry requires upfront payments as suppliers don't want to extend credit because of the airline's failure to clear dues on time.
• DGCA’s Track Record: The regulator carried out a financial audit only six months back and found glaring lapses. But did not act on it then.
  • There were signals from the DGCA's audits of Kingfisher in 2012 and Jet Airways in 2018 about the two airline's poor financial health, but the failure of the DGCA to act in both the cases resulted in hundreds of passengers losing their money, employees rendered jobless when the two airlines closed down soon after.

Categorization of the incidents as per Rules

• The Aircraft (Investigation of Accidents and Incidents) Rules, 2017 categorise occurrences into "accidents", "serious incidents" and "incidents".
• An accident is one where a passenger is fatally or seriously injured, or when the aircraft sustains structural damage or if the aircraft is missing or inaccessible.
  • However, not all kinds of physical damage to the aircraft are considered accidents such as when only one of the two engines fail, damage to propellers, wingtips, antennas, probes, vanes, tires, brakes, those resulting from hail or bird strike, etc.
• A serious incident means an occurrence where there is a high probability of an accident.
• An incident is one which could affect the safety of flight operations. On an average there are about 30 incidents that take place daily.
  • These include go around, missed approaches, diversion, medical emergencies, weather, bird hits, runway incursion or excursion and ATC-driven occurrences. Most of them have no safety implications.

What can be the implications on the Airline, as per the Rules?

• The Aircraft Rules 1937 empower the DGCA to impose a fine of ₹1 crore, detain any aircraft if it can lead to danger to persons in the aircraft or to any other persons or property.
• The regulator can also suspend the airline's air operator's certificate (AOC) which is a pre-requisite for offering commercial air services in the country or curtail the airline's schedule, i.e. flights.

Source:

• Spicejet | Turbulence in the airline:

In News

The government has recently nominated musician Ilaiyaraaja, track-and-field icon PT Usha, Telugu screenwriter V Vijayendra Prasad, and philanthropist and spiritual leader Veerendra Heggade to Rajya Sabha.

About the News

• The four new entrants to Rajya Sabha belong to four southern states, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka.
• Ilaiyaraaja, Usha, Prasad, and Heggade will serve until July 2028.
• With this, the Upper House of Parliament now has nine nominated members and three nominated positions are currently vacant.
• The members are nominated to the House so as to give an opportunity to the seasoned people who may not be in the thickest of the political fray, but who might be willing to participate in the debate with an amount of learning and importance which cannot be ordinarily associated with the Lok Sabha.

Constitutional Provisions for Nominated Members:

• Article 80 of the Constitution (“Composition of the Council of States”) states that “The Council of States shall consist of:
  • 12 members to be nominated by the President in accordance with the provisions of clause (3); and
  • Not more than 238 representatives of the States and of the Union territories.”
• Clause 3 of the article: It states that the members to be nominated by the President shall consist of persons having special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters of Literature, science, art and social service.

Role of the Nominated Members

• Nominated members of Rajya Sabha enjoy all the powers and privileges to which the elected MPs are entitled.
• They can take part in the proceedings of the House in the normal manner, indicating their inclination towards legislative work.
• However, nominated members are not allowed to vote in the election of the President but have the right to vote in the election of the Vice-President.

Source:

• Explained: Why does Rajya Sabha have ‘nominated’ MPs, and who gets nominated?
• Explained: Why Rajya Sabha elections are important

Image source:

• Explained: How are Rajya Sabha MPs elected? Why are the polls important?

In News

The Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution has recently released the first edition of the State Ranking Index for implementation of the National Food Security Act, 2013.

About the Index:

• The index attempts to document the status and progress of implementation of NFSA and various reform initiatives across the country, post consultation with states.
• The 2022 Index largely focused on NFSA distribution and will include procurement, Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Anna Yojana (PMGKAY) distribution in future.
• It is built on three key pillarswhich covers the end-to-end implementation of NFSA through Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) that include:
  • Coverage of NFSA, rightful targeting, and implementation of all provisions under NFSA.
  • The delivery platformwhile considering the allocation of food grains, their movement, and last-mile delivery to Fair Price Shops (FPS).
  • Nutrition initiativesof the department.

Key highlights of the Report

• Odisha has topped the State ranking followed by Uttar Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh.
• Among the special category states (the northeastern, Himalayan and the Island states), Tripura has bagged the first position followed by Himachal Pradesh and Sikkim.

• Jharkhand, Uttar Pradesh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu have scored the highest in terms of coverage, targeting and implementing the provisions of NFSA.
• Bihar, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana had the best delivery platform displaying the efficiency of the TPDS supply chain.

Significance

• The index has been developed to create an environment of competition, cooperation and learning among states while addressing matters of food security and hunger.
• It was released to increase transparency in the system by publishing reliable and standard data in the public domain, that can be utilised by the global and Indian agencies for research and analysis.

Source:

• Odisha tops state ranking for implementation of National Food Security Act
• Odisha tops state ranking for implementation of National Food Security Act

Image source:

• Odisha tops first national food security ranking, Tripura best among smaller states

8th July 1954 India's first Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru inaugurated the world's largest Bhakra Nangal dam canal at Punjab. Bhakra-Nangal was the first of the large dams that Pandit Nehru called "Temples of Modern India”. Widely perceived to have played a crucial role in India becoming self-sufficient in food production, it gave a newly independent India a feeling of self-reliance and pride in its achievements. Located in the village of Bhakra in Himachal Pradesh’s Bilaspur region, amidst the lusciously green Sutlej-Beas River valley, the dam took 12 years to build, starting in 1951.

Towering at 740 ft, it is one of the highest gravity dams in the world. Three times taller than the Qutub Minar, it irrigates 7 million acres in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh and Rajasthan.

Sources:

• 8 JUL 1954 PANDIT NEHRU INAUGERATED BHAKRA-NANGAL DAM:
• 8th July 1954 #OnThisDay:

• Context: The Development, Monitoring and Evaluation Office (DMEO) has called for a National Policy for Women and mainstreaming of gender-based budgeting across all ministries through the formulation of the Gender Budgeting Act.
• DMEO, which is an attached office under the NITI Aayog, has called for incentivising women participation in all training and capacity building programmes to help India achieve gender equality with a special focus on areas like health, agriculture, environment and social inclusion.

• As per the Global Gender Gap Report 2021, published by the World Economic Forum, India's rank fell by 28 places to 140 out of 156 countries with a score of 0.625 (out of 1) compared to 112 in 2020.
• According to the report, while the targeted programmes have helped to reduce sectoral inequalities, they have a long way to go towards eliminating inequalities.
• Gender Budgeting is an approach to government fiscal policy that seeks to use a country's budget(s) as a tool to resolve societal gender inequality and promote inclusive development. It is an outcome-oriented expenditure allocation.
• Mainstreaming a gender perspective is the process of assessing the implications for women and men of any planned action, including legislation, policies or programmes, in all areas and at all levels to achieve gender equality.

Source:

• Niti unit pitches for gender Budgeting act:
• Women, Hit Hardest By Pandemic, Needed A More Dynamic Budget Response:

• Context: Scientists at the Cern in Geneva have observed three never before seen subatomic particles in the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).
• The newly discovered particles, a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks”, which includes a new type of tetraquark.

• Tetraquark will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into these composite particles.
• Quarks are elementary particles that usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei.
• Finding new kinds of tetraquarks and pentaquarks and measuring their properties will help theorists develop a unified model of exotic hadrons, the exact nature of which is largely unknown. It will also help to better understand conventional hadrons.
• While some theoretical models describe exotic hadrons as single units of tightly bound quarks, other models envisage them as pairs of standard hadrons loosely bound in a molecule-like structure.

Source:

• Scientists observe never before seen 'exotic' particles in Cern collider:

• Context: States of Nebraska, Minnesota and Illinois in the US were recently hit by a storm system called a
• A derecho is a widespread, long-lived, straight-line windstorm that is associated with a “band of rapidly moving showers or thunderstorms”.

• The name comes from the Spanish word ‘la derecha’ which means ‘straight’.
• Straight-line storms are those in which thunderstorm winds have no rotation unlike a tornado and travel hundreds of miles covering a vast area.
• Being a warm-weather phenomenon, it generally occurs during summertime beginning May, with most hitting in June and July.
• For a storm to be classified as a derecho it must have wind gusts of at least 93 km per hour; wind damage swath extending more than 400 km and the time gap between successive wind damage events should not be more than three hours.
• The recent storm had turned the skies green, the reason being the big raindrops scattering away all but the blue wavelengths due to which primarily blue light penetrates below the storm cloud which then had combined with the red-yellow of the afternoon sun to produce green.

Source:

• Explained: What is a derecho, a storm that turned the sky green in the US?
• Eerie South Dakota green-sky spectacle caused by rare atmospheric phenomenon in US explained

Image source:

• Explained: What is a derecho, a storm that turned the sky green in the US?

• Context: Scientists have recently cross-bred local Aedes aegypti mosquitoes with those carrying the Wolbachia bacteria.
• Wolbachia are natural bacteria present in up to 60% of insect species, including some mosquitoes.

• However, it is notusually found in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, the primary species responsible for transmitting human viruses such as Zika, dengue, chikungunya and yellow fever.
• The bacteria blocks the proliferation of harmful viruses but does not harm the mosquitoes themselves.
• Wolbachia issafe for humans, animals and the environment.

Source:

• New bacteria to take on dengue, zika
• Wolbachia bacteria

Image source:

• How Does Wolbachia-Aedes Suppression Technology Work?

Essence: Author comments that when all emerging markets including India are facing outflow of foreign portfolio investment resultant volatility RBI has done a commendable job in managing the situation. While purists may say that the exchange rate should be allowed to float freely as a response to capital flow, the real world is not so simple. There are consequences of allowing the exchange rate to fluctuate wildly.

India’s calibrated approach on Capital account convertibility has saved India from extreme interest rate volatility being faced by many other economies. India’s large forex reserve has also helped to contain exchange rate volatility. While market participants want forward guidance from the RBI as part of inflation targeting, the author advises the market to keep their eye on the Indian economy and internalize the inflation target.

Why should you read this article?

• To understand critique of inflation targeting by RBI and other side of the story.

Source:

• Why the criticisms of the RBI governor are misplaced

Essence: India's geographically diversified LGBTQIA++ groups continue to be at risk of developing life-long mental illness and challenges notwithstanding Section 377, the National Legal Services Authority (NALSA) ruling. It frequently causes extreme stress and low self-worth, which results in self-hatred and misery. This causes the community to feel profoundly internalised fear and stigma.

Therefore, we require comprehensive, long-term solutions that prioritise the needs of the LGBTQ community and engage everyone in transforming the environment in which they live. Education and other measures to alter the status quo, it is important to ensure that all parts of mental health work in India address queer mental health concerns, especially in schools and colleges where there is a need to de-stigmatize different gender and sexual identities.

Why should you read this article?

• To comprehend the problems faced by India's LGBTQIA++ population and its effects.
• To know what could be the possible way forward.

Source:

• A community and a health issue of concern:

Background

Dadi Bhagwani Deswal, a 90-year-old athlete has won three gold medals at the ongoing National Masters Athletics Championships being held in Chennai.

About Bhagwani Deswal

• With this win, she has qualified to represent India at the World Masters Athletics Championships set to take place on June 29 in Finland.
• 'Dadi' Bhagwani Devi had earlier won three gold medals at the Delhi State Athletics Championship in a 100m race, shot put, and javelin throw.
• She is not only an inspiration for the world, but has been so even for her family. International para-athlete and Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna Awardee Vikas Dagar is the grandson of Bhagwani Deswal.

Source:

• 90-year-old Bhagwani Deswal wins 3 gold medals at nationals, qualifies for World Masters C'ships: