Daily Current Affairs : 19th, 20th & 21st November

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana
2. Cartosat 3
3. Space Internet
4. West Bank
5. Electoral Bonds
6. Annual report on road accidents in India
7. Insar
8. Avian botulism
9. Debt ETF
10. Synthetic Drugs
11. Facts for Prelims : Section 47 of the RBI Act, 1934

1 . Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY)

Context : Almost 61% of beneficiaries registered under the Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana (PMMVY) between April 2018 and July 2019 (38.3 lakh out of the total 62.8 lakh enrolled) received the full amount of ₹6,000 promised under the scheme, according to an RTI reply.

About Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana

• Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana  (PMMVY) is a Maternity Benefit Programme that is implemented in all the districts of the country in accordance with the provision of the National Food Security Act, 2013.

Objectives

• Providing partial compensation for the wage loss in terms of cash incentive s so that the woman can take adequate rest before and after delivery of the first living child.
• The cash incentive provided would lead to improved health seeking behaviour amongst the Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers (PW& LM).

Benefits under PMMVY

• Cash incentive of Rs 5000 in three instalments i.e. first instalment of Rs 1000/ – on early registration of pregnancy at the Anganwadi Centre (AWC) / approved Health facility as may be identified by the respective administering State / UT, second instalment of Rs 2000/ – after six months of pregnancy on receiving at least one ante-natal check-up (ANC) and third instalment of Rs 2000/ – after child birth is registered and the child has received the first cycle of BCG, OPV, DPT and Hepatitis – B, or its equivalent/ substitute.
• The eligible beneficiaries would receive the incentive given under the Janani Suraksha Yojana (JSY) for Institutional delivery and the incentive received under JSY would be accounted towards maternity benefits so that on an average a woman gets Rs 6000 / – .

Target beneficiaries

1. All Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers, excluding PW&LM who are in regular employment with the Central Government or the State Governments or PSUs or those who are in receipt of similar benefits under any law for the time being in force.
2. All eligible Pregnant Women and Lactating Mothers who have their pregnancy on or after 01.01.2017 for first child in family.
3. The date and stage of pregnancy for a beneficiary would be counted with respect to her LMP date as mentioned in the MCP card.
4. Case of Miscarriage/Still Birth :
   • A beneficiary is eligible to receive benefits under the scheme only once.
   • In case of miscarriage/still birth, the beneficiary would be eligible to claim the remaining instalment(s) in event of any future pregnancy.
   • Thus, after receiving the 1st instalment, if the beneficiary has a miscarriage, she would only be eligible for receiving 2nd and 3rd instalment in event of future pregnancy subject to fulfilment of eligibility criterion and conditionalities of the scheme. Similarly, if the beneficiary has a miscarriage or still birth after receiving 1 st and 2nd instalments, she would only be eligible for receiving 3rd instalment in event of future pregnancy subject to fulfilment of eligibility criterion and conditionalities of the scheme.
5. Case of Infant Mortality: A beneficiary is eligible to receive benefits under the scheme only once. That is, in case of infant mortality, she will not be eligible for claiming benefits under the scheme, if she has already received all the instalments of the maternity benefit under PMMVY earlier.
6. Pregnant and Lactating AWWs/ AWHs/ ASHA may also avail the benefits under the PMMVY subject to fulfilment of scheme conditionalities.

Key Findings

• The scheme reached only half of the mothers who had their first child between April 2018 and July 2019.
• Only 31% of all eligible mothers received their total entitlement of Rs 6,000
• Given the stipulated conditions, the scheme brings under its ambit 23% of all births and pays full benefits to a mere 14% of all births, which was at 270.5 lakh for 2017. 
• The study found that only 50% of pregnant women and 57% of nursing women surveyed were eligible for the scheme. It also throws light on the need for higher awareness among the pool of beneficiaries — only 66% of pregnant women and 69% of nursing women knew about the scheme. Only 8% of pregnant women and 23% of nursing mothers received some benefits.

Challenges in Efficient implementation

• Several factors impeded proper implementation of the programme that aims to fight malnutrition among children. These include an application form of about 23 pages, a slew of documents such as mother-child protection card, Aadhaar card, husband’s Aadhaar card and bank passbook aside from linking their bank accounts with Aadhaar.
• The requirement to produce the husband’s Aadhaar card results in excluding women who may be living with men they are not married to, single mothers and those who may be staying at their natal home. Women must also have the address of their marital home on their Aadhaar card, which often results in newly weds being either left out or forced to go from door-to-door when pregnant and needing rest and care.

2 . Cartosat 3

Context : India’s Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, PSLV-C47 will launch Cartosat-3 and 13 commercial nanosatellites into Sun Synchronous orbit from Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC) SHAR, Sriharikota.

About the Launch

• PSLV-C47 is the 21^st flight of PSLV in ‘XL’ configuration (with 6 solid strap-on motors). This will be the 74^th launch vehicle mission from SDSC SHAR, Sriharikota.
• Cartosat-3 satellite is a third generation agile advanced satellite having high resolution imaging capability.  The satellite will be placed in an orbit of 509 km at an inclination of 97.5 degree. Cartosat-2 second generation series offered the best resolution of 65 cm from ISRO. The agency entered the sub-metre (80 cm) resolution club in 2007 with Cartosat-2, the best civil imagery resolution of that time.
• PSLV-C47 will also carry 13 commercial nanosatellites from United States of America as part of commercial arrangement with NewSpace India Limited (NSIL), Department of Space.

3 . Starlink

Context : The SpaceX, the world’s leading private company in space technology, last week fired a spray of 60 satellites into orbit, the first operational batch of what is intended to eventually evolve into a constellation of nearly 12,000 satellites aimed at providing low-cost and reliable space-based Internet services to the world. The Starlink network, as the project is called, is one of several ongoing efforts to start beaming data signals from space, and also the most ambitious.

Why is it necessary to launch satellites in order to provide Internet services?

• This is mainly to ensure that reliable and uninterrupted Internet services — now part of humanity’s basic infrastructure and an important means of delivering a wide variety of public services to the world’s peoples — are universally available in every part of the globe.
• Currently, about 4 billion people, more than half the world’s population, do not have access to reliable Internet networks. And that is because the traditional ways to deliver the Internet — fibre-optic cables or wireless networks — cannot take it everywhere on Earth. In many remote areas, or places with difficult terrain, it is not feasible or viable to set up cables or mobile towers.
• Signals from satellites in space can overcome this obstacle easily.

About space Internet

• Space-based Internet systems have, in fact, been in use for several years now — but only for a small number of users. Also, most of the existing systems use satellites in geostationary orbit. This orbit is located at a height of 35,786 km over the Earth’s surface, directly above the Equator.
• Satellites in this orbit move at speeds of about 11,000 km per hour, and complete one revolution of the Earth in the same time that the earth rotates once on its axis. To the observer on the ground, therefore, a satellite in geostationary orbit appears stationary.

Advantages and Disadvantages of Placing satellites in Geo Stationary Orbit

• One big advantage of beaming signals from geostationary orbit is that the satellite can cover a very large part of the Earth. Signals from one satellite can cover roughly a third of the planet — and three to four satellites would be enough to cover the entire Earth. Also, because they appear to be stationary, it is easier to link to them.
• But satellites in geostationary orbit also have a major disadvantage. The Internet is all about transmission of data in (nearly) real time. However, there is a time lag — called latency — between a user seeking data, and the server sending that data. And because data transfers cannot happen faster than the speed of light (in reality, they take place at significantly lower speeds), the longer the distance that needs to be covered the greater is the time lag, or latency.
• In space-based networks, data requests travel from the user to the satellite, and are then directed to data centres on the ground. The results then make the same journey in the reverse direction. A transmission like this from a satellite in geostationary orbit has a latency of about 600 milliseconds. A satellite in the lower orbit, 200-2,000 km from the Earth’s surface, can bring the lag down to 20-30 milliseconds, roughly the time it takes for terrestrial systems to transfer data.

So how will placing satellites in lower orbits help?

• The LEO extends up to 2,000 km above the Earth’s surface. The Starlink satellites — the 12,000 for which SpaceX has permission, as well as the other 30,000 that it wants to launch — will be deployed in the altitude band of 350 km to 1,200 km.
• Issues with LEO satellites : Owing to their lower height, their signals cover a relatively small area. As a result, many more satellites are needed in order to reach signals to every part of the planet.
• Satellites in these orbits travel at more than double the speed of satellites in geostationary orbit — about 27,000 km per hour — to balance the effects of gravity. Typically, they go around the Earth once every few hours. To compensate for the fact that they cannot be seen from a terrestrial location for more than a few minutes, many more satellites are needed in the networks, so that there are no breaks in the transmission of data. That is the reason why the Starlink network is talking about 42,000 satellites.

Issues with the Project

• Three issues have been flagged — increased space debris, increased risk of collisions, and the concern of astronomers that these constellations of space Internet satellites will make it difficult to observe other space objects, and to detect their signals.
• Astronomers and scientists have also complained about increased “light-pollution”, a reference to light reflected from the man-made satellites that can interfere with — and be mistaken for — light coming from other heavenly bodies.

4 . West Bank

Context : United States no longer thinks Israeli settlements in the West Bank violate international law, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Monday. The new US view is different from that of most countries’ on this issue.

About West Bank settlements?

• The West Bank, a patch of land about one and a half times the size of Goa, was captured by Jordan after the 1948 Arab-Israeli War.
• Israel snatched it back during the Six Day War of 1967, and has occupied it ever since.
• It has built some 130 formal settlements in the West Bank, and a similar number of smaller, informal settlements have mushroomed over the last 20-25 years.
• Over 4 lakh Israeli settlers — many of them religious Zionists who claim a Biblical birthright over this land — now live here, along with some 26 lakh Palestinians.

Are these Israeli settlements illegal?

• To the vast majority of the world’s nations, yes. The United Nations General Assembly, the UN Security Council, and the International Court of Justice have said that the West Bank settlements are violative of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
• Under the Fourth Geneva Convention (1949), an occupying power “shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies”.
• Under the Rome Statute that set up the International Criminal Court in 1998, such transfers constitute war crimes, as does the “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and want only”
• Under the Oslo Accords of the 1990s, both Israel and the Palestinians agreed that the status of settlements would be decided by negotiations. But the negotiations process has been all but dead for several years now.
• Israel walked into East Jerusalem in 1967, and subsequently annexed it. For Israel, Jerusalem is non-negotiable. The Palestinians want East Jerusalem as the capital of their future state. Most of the world’s nations look at it as occupied territory

What was the American stand earlier?

• In 1978, when Jimmy Carter was President, the State Department concluded that the Israeli settlements were “inconsistent with international law”.
• Soon after taking office in 1981, President Ronald Reagan said he did not agree — even though the establishment of new Israeli communities in Palestinian territory was indeed “unnecessarily provocative”.
• Thereafter, the United States took the line that the settlements were “illegitimate”, not “illegal”, and repeatedly blocked UN resolutions condemning Israel for them.
• In 2016, President Barack Obama broke with this policy and the US did not veto a resolution that called for an end to Israeli settlements.
• Pompeo said: “After carefully studying all sides of the legal debate, this administration agrees with President Reagan. The establishment of Israeli civilian settlements in the West Bank is not per se inconsistent with international law.”

What impact will the change have?

• Those who support the right of Israelis to settle in the West Bank are likely to see the decision as an endorsement. It will boost Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has promised sweeping annexations in the West Bank.

5 . Electoral Bonds

Context : Electoral bonds: Law Ministry, CEC objected to 1% vote share requirement

About Electoral Bonds

• An electoral bond is like a promissory note that can be bought by any Indian citizen or company incorporated in India from select branches of State Bank of India.
• The citizen or corporate can then donate the same to any eligible political party of his/her choice.
• The bonds are similar to bank notes that are payable to the bearer on demand and are free of interest.
• An individual or party will be allowed to purchase these bonds digitally or through cheque. 

When was electoral bond introduced

• The electoral bonds were introduced with the Finance Bill (2017). On January 29, 2018 the Narendra Modi-led NDA government notified the Electoral Bond Scheme 2018. 

How to use electoral bonds

• The bonds will be issued in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 100,000 and Rs 1 crore (the range of a bond is between Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore).
• These will be available at some branches of SBI. A donor with a KYC-compliant account can purchase the bonds and can then donate them to the party or individual of their choice.
• Now, the receiver can encash the bonds through the party’s verified account. The electoral bond will be valid only for fifteen days. 
• The 29 specified SBI branches are in cities such as New Delhi, Gandhinagar, Chandigarh, Bengaluru, Bhopal, Mumbai, Jaipur, Lucknow, Chennai, Kolkata and Guwahati. 

When are the bonds available for purchase

• The electoral bonds are available for purchase for 10 days in the beginning of every quarter.
• The first 10 days of January, April, July and October has been specified by the government for purchase of electoral bonds.
• An additional period of 30 days shall be specified by the government in the year of Lok Sabha elections. 

Electoral bonds: Conditions 

• Any party that is registered under section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 (43 of 1951) and has secured at least one per cent of the votes polled in the most recent General elections or Assembly elections is eligible to receive electoral bonds.
• The party will be allotted a verified account by the Election Commission of India (ECI) and the electoral bond transactions can be made only through this account. 
• The electoral bonds will not bear the name of the donor. Thus, the political party might not be aware of the donor’s identity. 

Are electoral bonds taxable

• In February 2017, the then finance minister Arun Jaitley said that the donations would be tax deductible. Hence, a donor will get a deduction and the recipient, or the political party, will get tax exemption, provided returns are filed by the political party. 

Electoral bonds introduced in India

• According to the Narendra Modi-led government, electoral bonds were being introduced to ensure that all the donations made to a party would be accounted for in the balance sheets without exposing the donor details to the public. 
• The government said that electoral bonds would keep a tab on the use of black money for funding elections.
• In the absence of electoral bonds, donors would have no option but to donate by cash after siphoning off money from their businesses, the government said. 

Controversy over electoral bond

• Experts are of the view that if the electoral bonds scheme had been introduced to bring about greater transparency, the government must not restrain from allowing details of such donations to be made public. 
• Experts and several politicians say that since neither the purchaser of the bond nor the political party receiving the donation is required to disclose the donor’s identity, the shareholders of a corporation will remain unaware of the company’s contribution.
• Voters, too, will have no idea of how, and through whom, a political party has been funded. 
• Opponents of the electoral bond scheme argue that since the identity of the donor has been kept anonymous, it could lead to an influx of black money.
• Some others allege that the scheme was designed to help big corporate houses donate money without their identity being revealed.
• According to civil rights societies, the concept of donor “anonymity” threatens the very spirit of democracy. The Congress party said that the donations made through electoral bonds were equivalent to money laundering.

Restrictions that were done away with after the introduction of the electoral bond scheme 

• Earlier, no foreign company could donate to any political party under the Companies Act
• A firm could donate a maximum of 7.5 per cent of its average three year net profit as political donations according to Section 182 of the Companies Act 
• As per the same section of the Act, companies had to disclose details of their political donations in their annual statement of accounts. The government moved an amendment in the Finance Bill to ensure that this proviso would not be applicable to companies in case of electoral bonds. Thus, Indian, foreign and even shell companies can now donate to political parties without having to inform anyone of the contribution. 

What does the Supreme Court have to say on electoral bonds

• Supreme Court asked all the political parties to submit details of donations received through electoral bonds to the ECI.
• It also asked the Finance Ministry to reduce window of purchasing electoral bonds from 10 days to five days. The apex court is yet to fix a date for hearing other pleas against the electoral bonds. 

On what grounds has the scheme been challenged in court?

• The petitioners have stated that the Electoral Bonds Scheme has “opened the floodgates to unlimited corporate donations to political parties and anonymous financing by Indian as well as foreign companies which can have serious repercussions on the Indian democracy”.
• The scheme, they have said, has “removed the caps on campaign donations by companies and have legalised anonymous donations”. This poses a “serious danger to the autonomy of the country and are bound to adversely affect electoral transparency, encourage corrupt practices in politics, and have made the unholy nexus between politics and corporate houses more opaque and treacherous and is bound to be misused by special interest groups and corporate lobbyists”.

The petitioners have raised four major objections:

• Ordinary citizens will not be able to know who is donating how much money to which political party, and the bonds “increase the anonymity of political donations”.
• The requirement to disclose in the profit and loss account the name of the political party to which a donation has been made, has also been removed.
• With the removal of the 7.5% cap on the net profits of the last three years of a company, corporate funding has increased manifold, as there is now no limit to how much a company, including loss-making ones, can donate. This opens up the possibility of companies being brought into existence by unscrupulous elements primarily for routing funds to political parties through anonymous and opaque instruments like electoral bonds.
• The contribution received by any eligible political party in the form of electoral bonds will be exempt from income-tax as per Section 13A of the Income Tax Act

What does the Election Commission think of electoral bonds?

• In its affidavit to the Supreme Court filed the EC said that “any donation received by a political party through an electoral bond has been taken out of the ambit of reporting under the Contribution Report”, and if information on the money received through such bonds is not reported, “it cannot be ascertained whether the political party has taken any donation in violation of provisions” of the Representation of the People Act, which “prohibits the political parties from taking donations from government companies and foreign sources
• The Commission also flagged the issue of laws being changed to allow political parties to receive contributions from foreign companies, which would “allow unchecked foreign funding of political parties in India which could lead to Indian policies being influenced by foreign companies”.
• In its affidavit to the Supreme Court filed on March 25, the EC said that it had written to the Union Ministry of Law and Justice in April 2017 that “certain provisions of the Finance Act, 2017 and corresponding amendments carried out in the Income-Tax Act, the Representation of the People Act, and the Companies Act will have serious repercussions/ impact on the transparency aspect of political finance/ funding of political parties

What are the government’s arguments on these issues?

• The government has been defending the scheme on the ground that it limits the use of cash in political funding, thus bringing more transparency, and provides a shield to donors by granting them anonymity.
• It told the Supreme Court in its affidavit that the introduction of the scheme “has brought in a marked shift from the old electoral system which suffered from many lacunas” as “massive amounts of political donations were being made in cash, by individuals/corporates, using illicit means of funding” and identity of the donors was not known and “the ‘system’ was wholly opaque and ensured complete anonymity”.
• It argued that “all payments made for the issuance of the electoral bonds are accepted only by means of a demand draft, cheque or through the Electronic Clearing System or direct debit to the buyers’ account”; “no black money can, therefore, be used for the purchase of these bonds”.
• The goverment underlined that buyers must comply with KYC requirements, and the beneficiary political party has to “disclose the receipt of this money and must account for the same”. Also, limiting the time for which the bond is valid “ensures that the bonds do not become a parallel currency”.
• According to the government, “non-disclosure of the identity of the donor is the core objective of the scheme, in order to safeguard the donor from political victimisation”, and “the records of the purchaser are always available in the banking channel and may be retrieved as and when required by enforcement agencies”.

 Reserve Bank of India on electoral bonds scheme 

• RBI was critical of the scheme. The central bank had warned the government that the bonds would “undermine the faith in Indian banknotes and encourage money laundering.

6 . Annual report on road accidents in India

Context : More than 1.5 lakh people lost their lives in road crashes in the country in 2018, registering an increase of 2.4% as compared to the year before, when there were 1.47 lakh fatalities as per annual report on road accidents

About the report

• The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways released the annual report on road accidents in India
• As per the report road traffic injuries constitute the eighth leading cause of deaths in India in 2018.
• Report shows a daily average of 1,280 road crashes and 415 deaths. This translates into 53 crashes and the loss of 17 lives every hour.
• India is the most unsafe country in the world for road users across 199 countries, as reported by the Geneva-based World Road Federation’s World Road Statistics 2018. It’s followed by China (63,000 deaths) and the U.S. (37,000 deaths).
• The annual report also reveals that of the total people killed in road crash deaths in 2018, 48% were between 18 years and 35 years old. Minors involved in road crash deaths were at 6.6% of the total deaths.
• Over-speeding is a major killer, accounting for 64.4% of the persons killed. This category was followed by driving on the wrong side of the road, which accounted for 5.8% of the accident related deaths. Use of mobile phones accounted for 2.4% of the deaths and drunken driving accounted for 2.8% of the persons killed.
• Not wearing helmets and seat belts are not causes of crashes, but are critical for avoiding grievous injuries and fatalities. As many as 43,614 deaths or 28.8% of total road accident deaths in the country last year were caused due to “non-wearing of helmets”.
• “Non-wearing of seat belts” was linked to 24,435 deaths or 16.1% of total road accident deaths in the country.
• Among the States, Tamil Nadu (13.7%) topped the country in terms of the total number of road crashes, followed by Madhya Pradesh (11%) and Uttar Pradesh (9.1%). The highest road fatalities were observed In Uttar Pradesh (22,256), followed by Maharashtra (13,261) and Tamil Nadu (12,216).

7 . Insar

Context : Scientists at the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) have used a novel mathematical technique and analysed satellite images to estimate the strength of North Korea’s underground nuclear test of September 2017.

Background

• “North Korea detonated a nuclear device in 2017 equivalent to about 250 kilotons of TNT, creating an explosion 16 times the size of the bomb the United States detonated over Hiroshima, Japan, in 1945,” noted theAmerican scientists’ paper published in the Journal of Geophysical Research. Their approach, however, relied on studying the signature of sound waves from an explosion when it travels through rock at the test site, and how it affected sensors around the world.
• In the normal course, the detection and estimation of nuclear device explosions is based on the reading of earthquake monitoring sensors.
• However, North Korea’s relative isolation has meant that there were no accessible seismic stations near the test site at Mount Mantap, Punggye-ri, to accurately gauge the intensity of the explosion, and how deep into the earth the device was detonated.
• Such information is also important for determining the type of bomb, and consequently, the degree of know-how the detonating country possesses.

About the Study

• Researchers from ISRO used images of the location after the explosion, sourced from the ALOS-2, a Japanese satellite, and Sentinel 1B, a European radar imaging satellite.
• InSAR refers to the interferometric synthetic aperture radar and is a radar technique used to generate maps of how a place would look after an earthquake, or a detonation.
• While other groups have also used InSAR based approaches to estimate impact from a detonation, the ISRO group claims to have used a mathematical technique called Bayesian inversion that can correct for errors associated with InSAR data.
• These estimates, of a yield of 250 kiloton, are in line with an assessment this June by U.S. scientists, who said that the 2017 test was about 10 times more powerful than the tests first conducted by North Korea in 2016.
• The Bayesian modelling of the InSAR data reduced the uncertainties in the yield and depth by 25-85% and 40-97%, as per the ISRO team.

8 . Avian botulism

Context : Over the last 10 days, thousands of migratory birds have been found dead at Sambhar Lake, about 80 km southwest of Jaipur city. Officials have buried over 18,000 carcasses so far. While there is no clarity yet on what has caused the deaths, investigations so far suggest avian botulism, a paralytic and frequently fatal disease caused by the ingestion of toxins.

What birds have been found dead?

• Sambhar Lake is India’s largest inland saltwater lake at 230 sq km, spread mostly across Jaipur and Nagaur districts and also a part of Ajmer.
• Every year, the lake attracts thousands of migratory birds. A total 83 species of water birds have been recorded at the lake, the most abundant of which are little grebe, great crested grebe, great white pelican, little cormorant, black stork, and darter, apart from various species of plovers, egrets, herons, and geese.
• Birds of about 25-30 species have now been found dead, including northern shoveller, Brahminy duck, pied avocet, Kentish plover and tufted duck.

How much is known so far about the cause of death?

• It has been found that the birds were infected by avian botulism, a serious neuro-muscular illness caused by a toxin produced by the bacterium Clostridium botulinum.
• Botulism is one of the most potent toxins known to science (very little is needed to kill). Botulism binds to nerve endings and interferes with muscle movements. Typical clinical signs in birds with botulism include weakness, lethargy, inability to hold up the head or to fly. For waterfowl, this can be catastrophic because inability to hold up the head leads to drowning.

Is there a concern for human health?

• Humans are primarily at risk from avian botulism only if they eat infected fish or birds. While NIHSAD has ruled out bird flu, this was what was feared initially. Personnel were directed to adopt appropriate prophylactic measures such as use of masks and gloves and burial of carcasses in deep pits with limestone.

Likely Reasons in Sambhar

• Viral infection;
• Toxicity, as a new area has been filled up after almost 20 years, and there could be higher concentration of salts along the edges;
• Bacteriological infection; and
• Higher temperature and high water levels due to a good monsoon. This might have led to an increase in competition for resources. The weaker individuals, exhausted from the long journey, perhaps were unable to compete, and may have succumbed to stress emanating from the shortage of food, susceptibility to disease/pollutants/toxins and other habitat-related factors in the wintering grounds, the government suggested. If that is the reason, the government said it is expected that with fall of temperature and lowering of water levels, incidence of such mortality will go down.

What are the reasons that make salt concentration a concern?

• In a 2016 directive, the National Green Tribunal had noted the impact of the salt industry — including “unauthorised salt pans” — on the ecosystem of Sambhar Lake and asked the state government to cancel allotment of salt pans. Over the last week, the Wildlife Institute of India, the State Pollution Control Board and Sambhar Salts Ltd have collected samples to test for water quality. Part of the lake has been leased to Sambhar Salts, a joint venture of Hindustan Salts Limited and the state government. Sambhar Salts produces 196,000 tonnes of clean salt every year, which is around 9 per cent of India’s salt production.
• The lake was recognised as a wetland of international importance when it was designated as a UNESCO Ramsar Site in 1990. Today, as per NGO Wetlands International, it has the worst possible Wetland Health Score at E.

9 . Debt Exchange Traded Fund

Context : The government is expected to launch India’s first fixed income Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) comprising debt securities of about a dozen state-owned companies by mid-December 2019

About the News

• India’s first fixed income ETF will provide a safe investment option, alongside high liquidity. Apart from deepening the corporate bond market, such ETFs will allow PSUs to borrow from the market. Investors can expect higher yield than on fixed deposits.
• The proposed debt ETF will be India’s first large fund that provides retail investors the convenience to invest in a fixed income product comprising a basket of securities, without the need to study individual bond issues. 
• The debt ETF can comprise corporate debt securities in the form of bonds, credit-linked note, debentures, promissory notes as underlying instruments. Large central public sector enterprises are expected to participate in the maiden debt ETF

About Debt ETF

• Debt Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) are simple investment products that allow the investors to take an exposure to the fixed income securities.
• These debt ETFs combine the benefits of debt investments with the flexibility of stock investment and the simplicity of mutual funds.
• These Debt ETFs trade on the cash market of the National Stock Exchange, like any other company stock, and can be bought and sold continuously at live market prices.
• Debt ETFs are passive investment instruments that are based on indices and invest in securities in same proportion as the underlying index.
• Because of its index mirroring property, there is a complete transparency on the holdings of an ETF.
• Further due to its unique structure and creation mechanism, the ETFs have much lower expense ratios as compared to mutual funds.

10 . Generic Scheduling of Drugs

Context : To deal with the problem of abuse of synthetic drugs and ‘New Psychotropic Substances’ (NPS), the government is considering generic scheduling of drugs to replace the practice of substance-by-substance scheduling.

About Synthetic Drugs

• Synthetic drugs are chemical compounds produced in a laboratory. They can be produced commercially by drug manufacturers for valid medical purposes and are diverted from legal channels or produced illegally in clandestine laboratories for illicit markets worldwide
• When produced clandestinely, synthetic drugs aim to mimic or even enhance the effects of natural illicit drugs, such as marijuana.

Based on their chemical composition, synthetic drugs are commonly divided into two categories:

• Cannabinoids such as K2 and Spice. Synthetic Cannabinoids are chemicals that mimic the effect of THC, the primary psychoactive active ingredient in marijuana.
• Stimulants such as Bath Salts. Most synthetic stimulants contain chemical compounds that mimic the effects of cocaine, LSD and methamphetamine. (Similar drugs include MDMA sometimes referred to as “ecstasy”, “molly”)

11. Facts for Prelims

Provisions for transfer of surplus profit to Government of India

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) transfers its surplus profits to the Government of India in terms of the provisions of Section 47 of the Reserve Bank of India Act, 1934 which is as follows:
• “After making provision for bad and doubtful debts, depreciation in assets, contributions to staff and superannuation funds and for all matters for which provision is to be made by or under this Act or which are usually provided for by bankers, the balance of the profits shall be paid to the Central Government.”

Solar Eclipse