Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE
Topics Covered
- BRICS
- National Cyber Security Strategy
- Enforcement Directorate
- Guru Teg Bahadur
- Facts for Prelims
1 . BRICS
Context : Weeks after the visit of Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi to Delhi, India has agreed to attend a virtual summit of leaders of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping, likely to be held at the end of June, sources here have confirmed.
About BRICS
- BRICS is an informal group of states comprising the Federative Republic of Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Republic of India, the People’s Republic of China and the Republic of South Africa.
- On November 30, 2001, Jim O’Neill, a British economist who was then chairman of Goldman Sachs Asset Management, coined the term ‘BRIC’ to describe the four emerging economies of Brazil, Russia, India, and China.
- It was the Russian side that initiated the creation of BRICS.
- On 20 September 2006, the first BRICS Ministerial Meeting was held at the proposal of Russian President Vladimir Putin on the margins of a UN General Assembly Session in New York. Foreign ministers of Russia, Brazil and China and the Indian Defence Minister took part in the meeting. They expressed their interest in expanding multilateral cooperation.
- It was agreed to expand BRIC to BRICS with the inclusion of South Africa at the BRICS Foreign Ministers’ meeting in New York in September 2010.
- The 6th BRICS Summit (Fortaleza and Brasilia, 15-16 July 2014) produced a highly important result. The sides signed the Agreement on the New Development Bank and the Treaty for the Establishment of a BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement. These institutions will possess a total of $200 billion.
- Considering the increasing instances of global financial crisis, BRICS nations signed BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement (CRA) in 2014 as part of Fortaleza Declaration at Sixth BRICS summit. The BRICS CRA aims to provide short-term liquidity support to the members through currency swaps to help mitigating BOP crisis situation and further strengthen financial stability.
Structure
- BRICS does not exist in form of organization, but it is an annual summit between the supreme leaders of five nations.
- The Chairmanship of the forum is rotated annually among the members, in accordance with the acronym B-R-I-C-S.
- BRICS cooperation in the past decade has expanded to include an annual programme of over 100 sectoral meetings.
Importance of BRICS for India
- From the Indian perspective, BRICS has emerged the voice of developing countries, or the global south. As these countries face an aggressive club of developed countries, raising challenges on issues from WTO to climate change, New Delhi believes BRICS has to protect the rights of the developing countries. The five BRICS countries are also members of G-20.
- While the economic heft of three of the five countries has been dented in the last few years, the BRICS cooperation has two pillars — consultations on issues of mutual interest through meetings of leaders and ministers, and cooperation through meetings of senior officials in areas including trade, finance, health, education, technology, agriculture, and IT.
- Also, India has to maintain the balancing act between Russia-China on the one side and the US on the other. While India has had a growing role in global affairs in the last decade or so, and is seen to be helping drive the global agenda, the current crop of BRICS leaders too are seen as strong personalities — from Chinese President Xi Jinping to Russian President Vladimir Putin to Brazil’s President Jair Bolsonaro — with a pronounced nationalistic agenda. South Block views this as a potential for cooperation, as the leaders have more in common than their predecessors. New Delhi believes that over the last few years, India has taken the lead in galvanising BRICS has also worked within the grouping to take a strong stand against terrorism and bring about focused consultations on specific aspects relating to terrorism.
2 . National Cyber Security Strategy
Context : Amid a surge in cyberattacks on India’s networks, the Centre is yet to implement the National Cyber Security Strategy which has been in the works since 2020.
Why does India need a cybersecurity strategy?
- As per American cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks’ 2021 report, India is among the more economically profitable regions for hacker groups and hence these hackers ask Indian firms to pay a ransom, usually using cryptocurrencies, in order to regain access to the data.
- One in four Indian organisations suffered a ransomware attack in 2021. Indian organisations witnessed a 218% increase in ransomware — higher than the global average of 21%.
- Software and services (26%), capital goods (14%) and the public sector (9%) were among the most targeted sectors. Increase in such attacks has brought to light the urgent need for strengthening India’s cybersecurity.
What is the National Cyber Security Strategy?
- Conceptualised by the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), the 22-page report focuses on 21 areas to ensure a safe, secure, trusted, resilient, and vibrant cyberspace for India.
- The main sectors of focus of the report are:-
- Large scale digitisation of public services: There needs to be a focus on security in the early stages of design in all digitisation initiatives and for developing institutional capability for assessment, evaluation, certification, and rating of core devices.
- Supply chain security: There should be robust monitoring and mapping of the supply chain of the Integrated circuits (ICT) and electronics products. Product testing and certification needs to be scaled up, and the country’s semiconductor design capabilities must be leveraged globally.
- Critical information infrastructure protection: The supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) security should be integrated with enterprise security. A repository of vulnerabilities should also be maintained.
- Digital payments: There should be mapping and modelling of devices and platform deployed, transacting entities, payment flows, interfaces and data exchange as well as threat research and sharing of threat intelligence.
- State-level cyber security: State-level cybersecurity policies and guidelines for security architecture, operations, and governance need to be developed.
What steps does the report suggest?
To implement cybersecurity in the above-listed focus areas, the report lists the following recommendations:
- Budgetary provisions: A minimum allocation of 0.25% of the annual budget, which can be raised up to 1% has been recommended to be set aside for cyber security. In terms of separate ministries and agencies, 15-20% of the IT/technology expenditure should be earmarked for cybersecurity. The report also suggests setting up a Fund of Funds for cybersecurity and to provide Central funding to States to build capabilities in the same field.
- Research, innovation, skill-building and technology development: The report suggests investing in modernisation and digitisation of ICTs, setting up a short and long term agenda for cyber security via outcome-based programs and providing investments in deep-tech cyber security innovation.
- National framework should be devised in collaboration with institutions like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and ISEA (Information Security Education and Awareness) to provide global professional certifications in security. The DSCI further recommends creating a ‘cyber security services’ with cadre chosen from the Indian Engineering Services.
- Crisis management: For adequate preparation to handle crisis, the DSCI recommends holding cybersecurity drills which include real-life scenarios with their ramifications. In critical sectors, simulation exercises for cross-border scenarios must be held on an inter-country basis.
- Cyber insurance: Cyber insurance being a yet to be researched field, must have an actuarial science to address cybersecurity risks in business and technology scenarios as well as calculate threat exposures. The DSCI recommends developing cyber insurance products for critical information infrastructure and to quantify the risks involving them.
- Cyber diplomacy: Cyber diplomacy plays a huge role in shaping India’s global relations. To further better diplomacy, the government should promote brand India as a responsible player in cyber security and also create ‘cyber envoys’ for the key countries/regions.
- Cybercrime investigation: With the increase in cybercrime across the world, the report recommends unburdening the judicial system by creating laws to resolve spamming and fake news. It also suggests charting a five-year roadmap factoring possible technology transformation, setting up exclusive courts to deal with cybercrimes and remove backlog of cybercrimes by increasing centres providing opinion related to digital evidence under section 79A of the IT act.
- Forensic : DSCI suggests advanced forensic training for agencies to keep up in the age of AI/ML, blockchain, IoT, cloud, automation. Law enforcement and other agencies should partner with their counterparts abroad to seek information of service providers overseas.
3 . Enforcement Directorate
Context : The Enforcement Directorate (ED) is in the news now and often. It goes back to May 1, 1956, when an ‘Enforcement Unit’ was formed in the Department of Economic Affairs, for handling Exchange Control Laws violations under the Foreign Exchange Regulation Act (FERA). The ED today is a multi-dimensional organisation investigating economic offences under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA), Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, Foreign Exchange Management Act and FERA.
From where does the ED get its powers?
- When proceeds of crime (property/money) are generated, the best way to save that money is by parking it somewhere, so one is not answerable to anyone in the country. Therefore, there was a need to control and prevent the laundering of money. The PMLA was brought in for this exact reason in 2002, but was enacted only in 2005.
- The objective was to prevent parking of the money outside India and to trace out the layering and the trail of money. So as per the Act, the ED got its power to investigate under Sections 48 (authorities under act) and 49 (appointment and powers of authorities and other officers).
- If money has been laundered abroad, the PMLA court (constituted as per the Act) has the right to send a letter of rogatory under Section 105 (reciprocal arrangements regarding processes) of the Code of Criminal Procedure. The said government can then share the documents and evidence needed by the agency. The preventive part is to create a deterrent and fear in the minds of people.
At what stage does the ED step in when a crime is committed?
- Whenever any offence is registered by a local police station, which has generated proceeds of crime over and above ₹1 crore, the investigating police officer forwards the details to the ED.
- Alternately, if the offence comes under the knowledge of the Central agency, they can then call for the First Information Report (FIR) or the chargesheet if it has been filed directly by police officials. This will be done to find out if any laundering has taken place.
What differentiates the probe between the local police and officers of the ED?
- If jewellery costing ₹1 crore is stolen, police officers will investigate the theft. The ED, however, will attach assets of the accused to recover the amount of ₹1 crore.
What are the other roles and functions of the ED?
- The ED carries out search (property) and seizure (money/documents) after it has decided that the money has been laundered, under Section 16 (power of survey) and Section 17 (search and seizure) of the PMLA. On the basis of that, the authorities will decide if arrest is needed as per Section 19 (power of arrest).
- Under Section 50 (powers of authorities regarding summons, production of documents and to give evidence etc), the ED can also directly carry out search and seizure without calling the person for questioning. It is not necessary to summon the person first and then start with the search and seizure.
- If the person is arrested, the ED gets 60 days to file the prosecution complaint (chargesheet) as the punishment under PMLA doesn’t go beyond seven years. If no one is arrested and only the property is attached, then the prosecution complaint along with attachment order is to be submitted before the adjudicating authority within 60 days.
The PMLA being relatively new, can the ED investigate cases of money laundering retrospectively?
- If an ill-gotten property is acquired before the year 2005 (when the law was brought in) and disposed off, then there is no case under PMLA. But if proceeds of the crime were possessed before 2005, kept in cold storage, and used after 2005 by buying properties, the colour of the money is still black and the person is liable to be prosecuted under PMLA.
- Under Section 3 (offence of money laundering) a person shall be guilty of the offence of money-laundering, if such person is found to have directly or indirectly attempted to indulge or knowingly assist a party involved in one or more of the following activities — concealment; possession; acquisition; use; or projecting as untainted property; or claiming as untainted property in any manner.
4 . Guru Teg Bahadur
Context : The government will celebrate the 400th birth anniversary of Guru Tegh Bahadur with a two-day event at the Red Fort starting Wednesday and the release of a commemorative postage stamp and coin, Union Culture Minister G. Kishan Reddy said on Monday.
About Guru Tegh Bahadur
- Tegh Bahadur was born in Amritsar on April 21, 1621 to Mata Nanki and Guru Hargobind, the sixth Sikh guru, who raised an army against the Mughals and introduced the concept of warrior saints.
- As a boy, Tegh Bahadur was called Tyag Mal because of his ascetic nature. He spent his early childhood in Amritsar under the tutelage of Bhai Gurdas, who taught him Gurmukhi, Hindi, Sanskrit, and Indian religious philosophy, while Baba Budha trained him in swordsmanship, archery and horse-riding.
- He was only 13 when he distinguished himself in a battle against a Mughal chieftain. His bravery and swordsmanship in the battle earned him the name of Tegh Bahadur.
- He was married to Mata Gujri at Kartarpur in 1632, and subsequently left for Bakala near Amritsar.
Ninth Sikh Guru
- After Guru Ram Das, the fourth Sikh guru, the guruship became hereditary. When Tegh Bahadur’s elder brother Gurditta died young, the guruship went to his 14-year-old son, Guru Har Rai, in 1644. He remained on the seat until his death at the age of 31 in 1661.
- Guru Har Rai was succeeded by his five-year-old son Guru Har Krishan, who passed away in Delhi in 1664 before he could reach the age of eight. It is said that when asked about his successor, he took the name of “Baba Bakala”, his grand uncle.
- Guru Tegh Bahadur had built a ‘bhora’ (basement) in his house at Bakala where he spent most of his time in meditation. In the ancient Indian tradition, ‘bhoras’ were considered ideal for meditation as they were soundproof and had an even temperature. But since Guru Har Krishan hadn’t directly named Guru Tegh Bahadur, many claimants cropped up.
- According to lore, Makhan Shah, a wealthy trader whose ship was caught in a storm at sea, had prayed that if it was saved he would give 500 gold mohurs (coins) to the reigning guru. But when he reached Delhi, he learnt that Har Krishan had passed away and there was a line of claimants at Bakala. It is said that he decided that whoever was the real guru would ask him for the exact sum he had promised in his prayers.
- He had exhausted his options when he was told about Tegh Bahadur meditating in the ‘bhora’. Tegh Bahadur took one look at Makhan Shah, and told him that he had promised 500 coins. He added, “It’s not wise to test your guru.” An ecstatic Makhan Shah is said to have run to the rooftop and shouted “Guru ladho re (I have found the guru).”
- Soon afterward, Tegh Bahadur moved to Kiratpur Sahib. In 1665, on the invitation of Raja Bhim Chand of Kahlur who was his devotee, he bought land at Makhowal village and renamed it Chak Nanki (now Anandpur Sahib) after his mother.
The Guru’s times
- Aurangzeb was the ruling Mughal emperor at the time. There were conversions, either through a government order or through coercion. When people were charged with some crime or misdemeanour, they would be pardoned if they converted.
- Guru Tegh Bahadur who started travelling extensively through Malwa and Majha, first came into conflict with the authorities when he started questioning the tradition of worshipping at the graves of pirs and faqirs. He preached against this practice, and urged his followers to be ‘nirbhau’ (fearless) and ‘nirvair’ (without envy).
- His sermons, delivered in a mix of Sadukhri and Braj languages, were widely understood from Sindh to Bengal. The metaphors he used resonated with people across North India. Guru Tegh Bahadur often alluded to Panchali (Draupadi) and Ganika in his preachings and declared that Hindustan could regain its piety if it took refuge in one God
- As his message began to spread, a local chieftain at Dhamtan near Jind in present-day Haryana picked him up on fabricated charges of collecting revenue from villagers, and took him to Delhi. But Raja Ram Singh of Amer, whose family was a long-time follower of the gurus, intervened and kept him in his house for around two months until he convinced Aurangzeb that the guru was a holy man with no political ambitions.
- Earlier, Raja Jai Singh of Amer had donated land for a dharamshala where the gurus could rest while visiting Delhi. The present-day Bangla Sahib gurdwara is built on this site.
- While the guru was on the way back from Dhaka, Raja Ram Singh sought his help to broker a truce with the Ahom king. Gurdwara Dhubri Sahib on the banks of the Brahmaputra commemorates this peace accord. The guru was also honoured at Guwahati’s Kamakhya temple.
- According to historians, the guru rushed back to Punjab on learning about the increasing atrocities by the Mughals.
The guru’s martyrdom
- Back in Anandpur Sahib, the guru was approached by Kirpa Ram, a Kashmiri Brahmin who sought his protection with a group from the Valley. Das told Guru Tegh Bahadur that local chieftains had told him to convert or face retribution. The guru assured Das and his group of his protection and told them to tell the Mughals that they should first try to convert the guru.
- Aurangzeb considered this an open challenge to his authority. According to Sri Gur Bilas Patshahi Dasmi, a biography of Guru Gobind Singh by Kavi Sukha Singh written in 1797, the guru himself went to Delhi where he revealed his identity, and was arrested by the Mughals.
- In a paper titled ‘Who killed Guru Tegh Bahadur?’, historian Sardar Kapur Singh wrote that Aurangzeb ordered the public execution of the guru on November 11, 1675 after the guru declined to embrace Islam.
- He was tortured to death and beheaded at Chandni Chowk along with his three companions, Bhai Mati Das, who was torn asunder, Bhai Sati Das, who was burnt to death, and Bhai Dyala ji, who was put in boiling water. Till the very end they were asked to change their minds, but they remained resolute. In 1784, Gurdwara Sis Ganj was built on the site on which they were executed.
5 . Facts for Prelims
Army Commanders Conference
- The ACC, which is held in April and October every year, is an institutional platform for conceptual-level deliberations culminating in important policy decisions.
Satellite Phones
- A satellite phone is a telephone that has the ability to connect to orbiting satellites. Similar to terrestrial mobile phones, they can connect to voice and short messaging service as well as low bandwidth Internet access.
- Satellite phones can connect from anywhere as they are directly connected to satellites around the world and do no depend on terrestrial mobile networks.
- Satellite phones work with either low earth orbit systems or much higher geosynchronous systems. Each type of network has its plusses and minuses.
Childline 1098
- Childline 1098 is the country’s only dedicated helpline number for children and the entire child rights sector relies on it to provide assistance to them, but today a cloud hangs over its future as the government plans to merge it with national emergency helpline 112.
- Childline 1098 is a 24×7 emergency, free phone outreach for children in distress. It is one of the world’s biggest emergency helpline service dedicated for children, and is considered to be among the country’s largest emergency response systems with 50 lakh calls received annually.