Daily Current Affairs   Date : 4^thFebruary,2022

 (30+ Questions hit in Prelims 2021 from this series)

Covers 4 Most relevant Sources

• The Hindu
• Indian Express
• PIB
• Mint

Index

• Chandrayaan-3 Mission (TH, pg 10)
• Common Electoral Roll (TH, pg 9)
• Comparing Veto Powers of President and Governor (TH, pg 1)
• All About Winter Olympics (TH, pg 1)
• National War Memorial (PIB)
• United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (TH, pg 8)
• Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) Scheme (PIB)
• Islamic State (TH, pg 11)

 

1. Chandrayaan-3 Mission (TH, pg 10)

• Context: India plans to execute the Chandrayaan-3 mission in August 2022, the concernedMinister told the Lok Sabha recently.

Analysis

• The Chandrayaan-3 mission is a follow-up of Chandrayaan-2 of July 2019, which aimed to land a rover on the lunar South Pole.

• Chandrayaan-2 was sent aboard the country’s most powerful geosynchronous launch vehicle, the GSLV-Mk 3.
• However, lander Vikram, instead of a controlled landing, ended up crash-landing and prevented rover Pragyaan from successfully travelling on the surface of the moon.
• Had the mission been successful, it would have been the first time a country landed its rover on the moon in its maiden attempt.
• Chandrayaan-2 mission was India’s first attempt to make a soft-landing of a rover on the unchartered South Pole of the lunar surface.

• Chandrayaan-3 will be a mission repeat of Chandrayaan-2 and will include a Lander and Rover similar to that of Chandrayaan-2, but will not have an orbiter(as the one deployed by Chandrayaan 2 is working just fine).
• ISRO is planning to land the Chandrayaan 3 lander at the same location as the Chandrayaan 2 – the lunar south pole.
• The area is relatively unexplored and has mainly just been studied by orbiters.
• Only China, in January 2019, was able to successfully soft-land near the lunar south pole with its Chang’e 4 mission.
• Chandrayaan 3, if successful, will make India the fourth country to soft-land a spacecraft on the Moon after the United States, USSR and China.

Chandrayaan 1

• India’s first mission to the Moon Chandrayaan-1, launched in 2008, had given clear evidence on the extensive presence of surface water and the indication for subsurface polar water-ice deposits.
• It carried the Moon Impact Probe, which hard-landed on the moon in November 2008.
• The lunar probe was originally supposed to orbit the Moon for two years and prepare a three-dimensional atlas of the near and far side of the Moon and to conduct a chemical and mineralogical mapping of the lunar surface.
• However, after almost a year, the orbiter started suffering from several technical issues. It stopped communicating on 28 August 2009, after 312 days of operation.

Why did the ISRO choose the Moon’s South Pole as the landing site for Chandrayaan-2?

• The lunar South Pole is one of the most compelling places in the entire Solar System.
• The towering massifs of the South Pole-Aitken Basin can be accessed, and these massifs contain impact melt that will allow scientists to unambiguously determine the age of this huge basin and could provide insights into planetary formation.
• Permanently shadowed craters may harbour reservoirs of ices and other volatile compounds that could serve as a tremendously valuable resource for future explorers.
• Additionally, these volatile deposits could contain a priceless record of water composition dating back to the beginning of our Solar System, an incomparable dataset for astrobiology investigations.
• A few mountain peaks near the pole are illuminated for extended periods of time, which could provide near-constant solar power for a permanent lunar outpost sometime in the far future.
• In addition, South Pole region has craters that are cold traps and contain a fossil record of the early Solar System.

Why not North Pole?

• The south pole of Moon has a large shadowy region (larger than that in North pole). It contains places that remains in permanent darkness where Sunlight never reaches.Further,

• The South Pole is at the edge of the Aitken basin, the largest impact basin in the Solar System.

• NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter is still flying over the South Pole region at an altitude of only 30 km, collecting a wealth of data.

• Unlike Earth, which turns on its axis every 24 hours, the Moon takes about 30 days to make a complete rotation. This means that days and nights on the Moon last two weeks.

The Moon Exploration

• Luan 9 (Soviet Union) was the first unmanned lunar soft landing and first picture from the lunar surface.
• Lunokhod 1 (Soviet Union) was the first robotic rover to explore the surface of the moon.
• Chang’e 3 (China) was the first non-Soviet rover on the Moon; first rover after a gap of 40 years.

What’s Next for ISRO?

Gaganyaan

• Gaganyaan – India’s maiden manned mission to space – seems to be ISRO’s next ambitious leap – aims to demonstrate human space flight capability with three crew members for five to seven days in Low Earth Orbit (2,000 km above the surface) and safely recover them after the mission.

Aditya L1 Satellite

• One of the most prominent is India’s first mission to the sun. The programme is aimed at building the Aditya L1 satellite, which will study the solar corona (the outer layers of the sun).
• The satellite is scheduled to be launched by the PSLV-XL from Sriharikota.
• A second launch port, exclusively for the Small Satellite Launch Vehicle (SSLV), will be established in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district and the land acquisition has been initiated.

X-ray Polarimeter Satellite (XPoSat)

• Work will also be undertaken on XPOSAT, a planned space observatory to study cosmic X-rays.

NISAR [NASA-ISRO SAR] Mission

• ISRO has completed development of a Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) capable of producing high-resolution images for a joint earth observation satellite mission with the U.S. space agency NASA.
• The NISAR mission, scheduled for launch in 2023, is optimised for studying hazards and global environmental change and can help manage natural resources better and provide information to scientists to better understand the effects and pace of climate change.

DISHA: Disturbed and quite-type Ionosphere System at High Altitude

• A twin satellite system to study the Earth’s aeronomy, the uppermost layer of a planet’s atmosphere which interacts with space, is in an advanced stage.

Venus Mission

• India plans to launch a new orbiter to Venus in 2024, a year later than planned, according to media reports.
• The Shukrayaan orbiter will be the first mission to Venus by the India Space Research Organization (ISRO).
• Dozens of missions have flown to Venus since the 1960s, but only a few in recent years. For example, the European Space Agency’s Venus Express orbited the planet between 2006 and 2014, and Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft entered orbit in 2015 after a previous unsuccessful attempt.
• Several spacecraft are also performing flybys of Venus in the near future, including NASA’s Parker Solar Probe for solar observation, and Europe’s BepiColombo en route to Mercury.

Indo-French Cooperation in Space

TRISHNA Mission

• Developed by the Indian space agency, ISRO, and the French space agency CNES, the TRISHNA mission is designed to observe Earth’s surface in the thermal infrared domain. Its objective is to measure surface temperatures all over the globe.
• Today, temperature measurements from space can only be obtained monthly at a resolution of about 100 metres, and daily global measurements are only available at a resolution of one kilometre.
• The goal of TRISHNA—for Thermal infraRed Imaging Satellite for High-resolution Natural resource Assessment—is to reach a resolution of 57 metres with a revisit interval of three days.

Megha-Tropiques

• The Indo-French joint satellite mission called MEGHA-TROPIQUES was launched in 2011 for the study of the tropical atmosphere and climate related to aspects such as monsoons, cyclones, etc. The data products from this satellite are made available to the international Scientific community.

SARAL

• Another joint mission with France, named SARAL (Satellite for ALTIKA and ARGOS) for studying ocean from space using altimetry was successfully launched in February 2013.

 

2. Common Electoral Roll (TH, pg 9)

• Context: Law and Justice Minister told the Rajya Sabha that the Centre was not planning on amending the Representation of the People Act, 1951 to enable a common electoral roll and simultaneous elections to all electoral bodies in the country.

Analysis

What is common electoral roll?

• A common electoral roll will serve for elections to the panchayat, municipality, state assembly and the Lok Sabha.
• In many states, the voters’ list for the panchayat and municipality elections is different from the one used for Parliament and Assembly elections (Some states allow the SEC to borrow and use the EC’s voter’s rolls in toto for the local body elections).
• The distinction stems from the fact that the supervision and conduct of elections in our country are entrusted with two constitutional authorities — the Election Commission (EC) of India and the State Election Commissions (SECs).
• Set up in 1950, the EC is charged with the responsibility of conducting polls to the offices of the President and Vice-President of India, and to Parliament, the State Assemblies and the Legislative Councils under article 324 of the constitution.
• The SECs constituted under the Constitution (73rd and 74th) amendments Act, 1992 for each State / Union Territory supervise municipal and panchayat elections (all three tiers of municipality and panchayat).
• They are free to prepare their own electoral rolls for local body elections, and this exercise does not have to be coordinated with the EC.
• Art 243K states that for Elections to the Panchayats: the superintendence, direction and control of the preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of, all elections to the Panchayats shall be vested in a State Election Commission consisting of a State Election Commissioner to be appointed by the Governor.
• Art 243ZA give the power of superintendence, direction and control of preparation of electoral rolls and the conduct of urban local body elections to the SECs.
• It has argued that the preparation of a separate voters list causes duplication of essentially the same task between two different agencies.
• The pitch for a single voters list is not new as earlier the Law Commission recommended it in its 255th report in 2015.

Features of an electoral roll

• The roll for each constituency shall be prepared in such form and in such language or languages as the Election Commission may direct.
• You can enrol as a Voter only if you:
• are an Indian citizen.
• have attained the age of 18 years on the qualifying date i.e., 1st of January of the year of revision of electoral roll.
• are ordinarily resident of the part/polling area of the constituency where you want to be enrolled.
• are not disqualified to be enrolled as an elector.
• There are 3 categories of electors (voters) in India: –
  (i)    General Electors
  (ii)    Oversees (NRI) Electors

(iii)    Service Electors

General Elector

• Every Indian citizen who has attained the age of 18 years on the qualifying date i.e. first day of January of the year of revision of electoral roll, unless otherwise disqualified, is eligible to be registered as a voter in the roll of the part/polling area of the constituency where he is ordinarily resident.

Overseas (NRI) Elector

• According to the provisions of Section 20A of the Representation of People Act, 1950, an NRI settled in foreign land can become an elector in electoral roll in India.
• An overseas elector is a person who is a citizen of India and who has not acquired citizenship of any other country and is otherwise eligible to be registered as a voter but is absent from his place of ordinary residence in India owing to his employment, education or otherwise is eligible to be registered as a voter in the constituency in which his place of residence in India as mentioned in his passport is located.

Service Elector

• Service Elector is a voter having service qualification.
• According to the provisions of Section 20 of Representation of People Act, 1950, service qualification means –
• Being a member of the armed Forces of the Union includes both civil and defence employees;
• Being a member of an Armed Police Force of a State, and serving outside that state; or
• Being a person who is employed under the Government of India, in a post outside India.
• Person having service qualification can get enrolled as ‘service voter’ at his native place even though he actually may be residing at a different place (of posting).

 

3. Comparing Veto Powers of President and Governor (TH, pg 1)

• Context: Tamil Nadu Governor has returned to the Assembly Speaker a Bill seeking to dispense with NEET-based admissions for undergraduate medical degree courses.
• Within hours of the Raj Bhawan release, the Tamil Nadu government said it would take steps to adopt the same Bill in the Assembly again.
• The Bill adopted by the Assembly in September 2021 sought to admit students to UG medical degree programmes on the basis of Plus Two scores.
• Note: You have already prepared this topic in detail from the9 Jan 2022 file.

 

4. All About Winter Olympics (TH, pg 1)

• Context:Terming China’s decision to field a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) soldier involved in the June 2020 Galwan clashes as the torchbearer for the Winter Olympics Games in Beijing as “regrettable”, India announced a diplomatic boycott of the games just ahead of the opening ceremony.

Analysis

• The decision does not affect the participation of Arif Khan, the skier who will be the only athlete representing India in Beijing.

What is a diplomatic boycott?

• It simply means these countries will not send official government delegations to Beijing during the Games.

Does a diplomatic boycott affect athletes’ participation?

• It doesn’t. Athletes and officials from all countries will continue to take part in the Winter Olympics in Beijing unhindered.

Why have the Beijing Winter Games been so controversial?

• In India’s case, the boycott was announced after a Chinese soldier involved in the Galwan incident was made an Olympic torchbearer.
• The Western countries, led by the US, made the diplomatic snub over China’s alleged treatment of the Uyghur Muslims and human rights issues.
• Some countries like Austria, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden and the Netherlands have cited pandemic-related risks for not sending government officials.
• France, the hosts of the 2024 Summer Olympics, has been against a boycott. 

Has the Peng Shuai issue also contributed to the boycotts?

• The US and Australia cited it as one of the reasons, while German ministers, too, said they won’t attend the Games in response to the alleged treatment meted out towards Chinese tennis star Peng Shuai.
• Peng Shuai had accused a high-ranking communist party member, Zhang Gaoli, of sexually assaulting her.

Olympic Games

• The first Olympic Games took place in the 8th century B.C. in Olympia, Greece. They were held every four years for 12 centuries. Then, in the 4th century A.D., all pagan festivals were banned by Emperor Theodosius I and the Olympics were no more.
• However, the athletic tradition was resurrected about 1500 years later: The first modern Olympics were held in 1896 in Greece.
• The five rings of the Olympic symbol – designed by Baron Pierre de Coubertin, co-founder of the modern Olympic Games – represent the five inhabited continents of the world.
• The six colors – blue, yellow, black, green, red, and the white background – were chosen because every nation’s flag contains at least one of them.
• The Olympics remains the world’s greatest congregation adhering to its eternal ‘faster, higher, stronger’ motto.
• The basic requirements for a sport to be Olympic are as follows: it must have a men’s federation in at least 75 countries on four continents and a women’s federation in 40 countries on three continents.

• In addition, the country organising the Games may propose that sports be included or removed depending on their strength in the Games or on the climatic or economic conditions.
• Finally, the IOC votes on whether they are accepted or not.

• The first time the Olympics were cancelled was in 1916, which were scheduled to be held in Berlin and German Empire, but were cancelled due to World War I.
• Japan had planned to host the summer and winter Olympics in 1940, but the second world war led to the cancellation of the Games.
• After abandonment of the Tokyo Games in 1940, the 1944 edition in London was also cancelled due to WWII.
• Moreover, in 1980, many countries, including the US, China and Japan, boycotted the Moscow Olympics in protest at the Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan.
• As Tokyo, Japan, underwent a harsh Covid-19 wave of the pandemic in 2020, the games were postponed to 2021.

Winter Olympics

• The first Winter Games were held in Chamonix (France), in 1924.
• The Winter Olympics used to be held during the same year as Summer Games until 1992
• Since 1992, the Summer and Winter Games are each still held every four years but the Summer Games are celebrated during the first year of an Olympiad and the Winter Games held in the third year(four years period is called “Olympiad).
• Both Summer and Winter Olympic Games are organized by the International Olympic Committee.
• The Summer Olympics, more popularly known as just The Olympics is a much bigger event with 204 countries participating as of 2012.
• The Winter Olympics is an event on a relatively smaller scale, with about 88 countries participating in it.
• The Winter Olympics typically occur in February of their scheduled year, while the Summer Olympics take place in the month of August of their scheduled year.
• Winter Olymics are organised only for sports that are practiced on snow and ice.
• Beijing is the first city to host both Summer and Winter Olympics.Beijing is also the first Olympic venue to host the Games where natural snow is not abundant.
• There are hundreds of snow guns and necessary equipment used to create artificial snow at the snow-centric venues.
• There will be 15 sportsheld at the Winter Olympics in Beijing this year.

Do you know?

• The International Olympic Committee is entirely privately funded and ever since the first modern Olympic Games in Athens in 1896 it has relied upon contributions from commercial partners in order to stage the Games and support the Olympic Movement.
• At the United Nations (UN) General Assembly in October 2015, confronted with the global refugee crisis that has seen millions of people in the world displaced, IOC President Thomas Bach announced the creation of the Refugee Olympic Team – the first of its kind – to take part in the Olympic Games Rio 2016.

 

5. National War Memorial (PIB)

• Context: PM urges people to visit National War Memorial.

Analysis

• National War Memorial was inaugurated in 2019.
• It is located inside the C hexagon India Gate at New Delhi.
• The layout of the structure comprises four concentric circles, named:
• the “Amar Chakra” or Circle of Immortality,
• the “Veerta Chakra” or Circle of Bravery,
• the “Tyag Chakra” or Circle of Sacrifice and
• the “Rakshak Chakra” or Circle of Protection.
• The memorial is dedicated to soldiers who laid down their lives defending the nation during the Sino-Indian war in 1962, Indo-Pak wars in 1947, 1965 and 1971, Indian Peace Keeping Force Operations in Sri Lanka and in the Kargil Conflict in 1999.
• The National War Memorial also commemorates the soldiers who participated and made supreme sacrifices in United Nations peace-keeping missions, Humanitarian Assistance Disaster Relief (HADR) operations, counterinsurgency operations and Low-Intensity Conflict Operations (LICO).
• As part of the Central Vista redevelopment project, the Amar Jawan Jyoti flame has been merged with the one at National War Memorial.

Amar Jawan Jyoti

• Established in 1972, it was to mark India’s victory over Pakistan in the 1971 War, which resulted in the creation of Bangladesh.
• The eternal flame at the Amar Jawan Jyoti was a symbol of the nation’s tributes to the soldiers who have died for the country in various wars and conflicts since Independence.
• The India Gate memorial was built by the British government in memory of the British Indian Army soldiers who lost their lives between 1914-1921.

Reason for relocation

• The names inscribed on the India Gate are of only some martyrs who fought for the British in World War 1 and the Anglo Afghan War & thus is a symbol of our colonial past.
• The names of all Indian martyrs from all the wars, including “1971 and wars before and after it are housed at the National War Memorial.

 

6. United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) (TH, pg 8)

• Context: The Centre is preparing to come out with a cross-border insolvency resolution framework based on the UNCITRAL model law and which would be applicable to both corporate debtors as well as personal guarantors to such debtors.
• The cross-border insolvency process pertains to those debtors having assets and creditors overseas.

Analysis

• The United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL)is the core legal body of the United Nations system in the field of international trade law.
• In establishing the Commission, the General Assembly recognized that disparities in national laws governing international trade created obstacles to the flow of trade, and it regarded the Commission as the vehicle by which the United Nations could play a more active role in reducing or removing these obstacles.
• The members of the Commission are elected by the General Assembly for a term of six years, the term of half of the members expiring every three years.
• India was a founder member of UNICTRAL.
• It plays an important role in developing framework/ model laws for harmonization and modernization of the law of international trade.

 

7. Fund of Funds for Startups (FFS) Scheme (PIB)

• Context: An article in PIB.

Analysis

• The Government has established FFS with corpus of Rs. 10,000 crore, spread over 14th and 15th Finance Commission cycles, to meet the funding needs of startups. Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT), Ministry of Commerce and Industry, is the monitoring agency and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) is the operating agency for FFS.
• It has not only made capital available for startups at early stage, seed stage and growth stage but also played a catalytic role in terms of facilitating raising of domestic capital, reducing dependence on foreign capital and encouraging home grown and new venture capital funds.
• The Scheme does not directly provide financial assistance to startups, instead supports SEBI- registered Alternative Investment Funds (AIFs), who in turn invest money in growing Indian startups through equity and equity-linked instruments.

Do you know?

• Government e-Marketplace (GeM) Startup Runway is a dedicated corner for startups to sell products & services directly to the Government.
• Faster Exit for Startups:Ministry of Corporate A­ffairs has notified Startups as ‘fast track firms’ enabling them to wind up operations within 90 days vis-a-vis 180 days for other companies.
• One of the key objectives under the Startup India initiative is to help connect Indian startup ecosystem to global startup ecosystems through various engagement models.

 

 

 

 

8. Islamic State (TH, pg 11)

• Context:The leader of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS), Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, died in a U.S. counterterrorism operation in Idlib province, in northwestern Syria.

Analysis

• Though the al-Qaeda and the IS are cut from the same cloth, there are tactical and strategic differences in their operations.
• The al-Qaeda was basically a hit-and-run organisation (until the IS changed the landscape of terrorism).
• The group would carry out attacks and then retreat to the deserts, caves or mountains where it was hiding.
• It did not expose itself to the conventional military might of its enemies.
• Barring certain pockets that al-Qaeda-affiliated groups control, such as Syria’s Idlib, the group largely remains a hit-and-run organisation.
• The IS, however, took insurgency a step further.
• It started holding on to territories it captured, established a proto-state in those territories and called it the Islamic State.
• While the al-Qaeda also wants to create a global emirate, the IS took steps to implement its world-view.
• It declared a Caliphate, trying to revive an Islamic institution that ceased to exist following the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire at the end of the First World War.
• And by doing so, SIS’s former chief Baghdadi tried to place himself in the long list of Islamic Caliphs, the rightful leaders of the ummah(the global Muslim community).

Salafi-Jihadists

• The Salafist movement or Salafism is an ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam.
• Salafi thinkers and theologians believe that the Islamic civilization will be cured of all ills, and thrive and flourish again once Muslims adopt and apply the Islamic codes, law, norms and values to their everyday lives as they were in the 7^thcentury during the time of the Prophet Muhammad and his first four successors, known as Al-Khulafa-ur-Rashidun, The Rightly-Guided Caliphs.
• The Salafisbelieve that the establishment of the Caliphate (a global Islamic cultural, political, and religious entity) is a marathon process, which has to be achieved mostly through preaching, education, social activities, voluntarism, charity work, and political action.
• However, unlike the Salafi affiliated organizations, in order to implement the codes, law, and values, Salafi-Jihadists (represented by groups like Al-Qaeda, ISIS, Islamic Jihad, etc.) call for proactively and violently (militantly) spreading and implementing their ideology.
• Defining features of Salafi-jihadism
• jihad (holy war),
• tawhid (the oneness of God),
• hakimiyya(true Islamic government),
• al-wala wal-bara (loyalty to divine truth and disavowal of untruth and polytheism), and
• takfir (the naming of disbelievers). It is a controversial concept in Islamist discourse, denoting excommunication, as one Muslim declaring another Muslim as a non-believer (kafir).