Daily Current Affairs : 22nd and 23rd

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

1. E Mandate
2. Citizenship
3. Impact of Nitrate Exposure
4. Age of Marriage
5. Rajasthan Free Medicine Scheme
6. Oxytocin
7. Henley Passport Index
8. Polygraph and Narco Analysis Test
9. Extended Producer Liability, Ordinance Factories Board, India – US 2+2 Dialogue, Countries sharing Amazon Rain Forest, Adratiklit boulahfa

1 . E – Mandate

Context : The Reserve Bank on Wednesday permitted processing of e-mandate on credit and debit cards for recurring transactions (merchant payments) with a cap of Rs 2,000.

About the News

• The RBI has been receiving requests from industry stakeholders to allow processing of e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions with Additional Factor of Authentication (AFA) during e-mandate registration and first transaction.
• It has been decided to permit processing of e-mandate on cards for recurring transactions (merchant payments) with AFA during e-mandate registration, modification and revocation, as also for the first transaction, and simple / automatic subsequent successive transactions

About Mandate

• A mandate is a set of permission that you provide to your bank or other financial institution to automatically debit the required amount from your bank account. The process and approval for this mandate takes a significant amount of time.
• In the era of digitisation, automating processes for payment services between banks and other financial institutions serve a great purpose.
• Once, an individual authorises a concerned authority to debit from the said account on a fixed date of every month, through an e-NACH form, rest is hassle-free for the individual.
• Funds are automatically deducted for innumerable reasons like the loan, EMI, micro-lending payments, rental payments, gold loans and other financial services.

About E-Mandate

• The E-Mandate system facilitates issuance and confirmation of mandate by the customers through alternate channels to the paper-based mandate.
• The mandate will be routed by the destination bank, after due authentication, to the sponsor bank or by corporate through their sponsor bank to the destination bank with the attributes of customer authentication depending upon the variant of E-Mandate.
• The objectives of E-Mandate are:
  • Creation of an authenticated mandate by the customer himself through electronic channels.
  • Shorter mandate acceptance cycle or auto acceptance of mandates.
  • Secured and assured mandate acceptance -mandates are initiated by the customer or his banker. The system will leverage on Core-Banking Solution (CBS) of participating banks for initiation of mandates and posting of transactions. NPCI will be running the centralised services.

Features

• Once, a bank/merchant is authorised by the customer, the process of deducting the amount towards the consumption of a service/product provided to the customer is completely automated.
• All the subsequent payments will not require customer intervention: using the corporate website integrated with an aggregator and the customers’ bank can issue and authorize the mandate online.
• No additional means of identification required, decreasing the risk of fraud
• It notifies the successful registration to the investors and in case of rejection, it sends a timely update to the client, any authentication by the issuer of the mandate in an electronic form either online or in a batch mode.

Usage

• If you are subscribing for an insurance plan for your family through an e-Mandate, you can schedule all your premium payments through a simple online process at the start of the insurance period, instead of manually keeping track and making individual premium payments.
• If you have bought few electronic appliances on EMI for 2 years, you can schedule fixed payments through the online process.
• If you have picked up a loan for a vehicle, the payment for the loan can be completely automated.

2 . Citizenship

Context : In the run-up to the publication of the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) in Assam, citizenship has become the most talked about topic in the country. The Assam government has been taking various steps in relation to those who will be left out of the NRC, while the Supreme Court last week rejected a plea to include those born in India between after March 24, 1971 and before July 1, 1987 unless they had ancestral links to India. In any other Indian state, they would have been citizens by birth, but the law is different for Assam.

Background

• Citizenship signifies the relationship between individual and state. It begins and ends with state and law, and is thus about the state, not people. Citizenship is an idea of exclusion as it excludes non-citizens.
• There are two well-known principles for grant of citizenship.
  • Jus soli confers citizenship on the basis of place of birth,
  • Jus sanguinis gives recognition to blood ties.
• From the time of the Motilal Nehru Committee (1928), the Indian leadership was in favour of the enlightened concept of jus soli. The racial idea of jus sanguis was rejected by the Constituent Assembly as it was against the Indian ethos.
• Citizenship is in the Union List under the Constitution and thus under the exclusive jurisdiction of Parliament.
• The Constitution does not define the term ‘citizen’ but gives, in Articles 5 to 11, details of various categories of persons who are entitled to citizenship.
• Unlike other provisions of the Constitution, which came into being on January 26, 1950, these articles were enforced on November 26, 1949 itself, when the Constitution was adopted.
• However, Article 11 itself confers wide powers on Parliament by laying down that “nothing in the foregoing provisions shall derogate from the power of Parliament to make any provision with respect to the acquisition and termination of citizenship and all matters relating to citizenship”. Thus Parliament can go against the citizenship provisions of the Constitution.

Citizenship Act 1955

• The Citizenship Act, 1955 was passed and has been amended four times — in 1986, 2003, 2005, and 2015.
• The Act empowers the government to determine the citizenship of persons in whose case it is in doubt. However, over the decades, Parliament has narrowed down the wider and universal principles of citizenship based on the fact of birth.
• Moreover, the Foreigners Act places a heavy burden on the individual to prove that he is not a foreigner.

Criteria for Citizenship

• Article 5: It provided for citizenship on commencement of the Constitution. All those domiciled and born in India were given citizenship. Even those who were domiciled but not born in India, but either of whose parents was born in India, were considered citizens. Anyone who had been an ordinary resident for more than five years, too, was entitled to apply for citizenship.
• Article 6: Since Independence was preceded by Partition and migration, Article 6 laid down that anyone who migrated to India before July 19, 1949, would automatically become an Indian citizen if either of his parents or grandparents was born in India. But those who entered India after this date needed to register themselves.
• Article 7: Even those who had migrated to Pakistan after March 1, 1947 but subsequently returned on resettlement permits were included within the citizenship net. The law was more sympathetic to those who migrated from Pakistan and called them refugees than to those who, in a state of confusion, were stranded in Pakistan or went there but decided to return soon.
• Article 8: Any Person of Indian Origin residing outside India who, or either of whose parents or grandparents, was born in India could register himself or herself as ab Indian citizen with Indian Diplomatic Mission.

Amendments to the Act

• 1986 amendment: Unlike the constitutional provision and the original Citizenship Act that gave citizenship on the principle of jus soli to everyone born in India, the 1986 amendment to Section 3 was less inclusive as it added the condition that those who were born in India on or after January 26, 1950 but before July 1, 1987, shall be Indian citizen. Those born after July 1, 1987 and before December 4, 2003, in addition to one’s own birth in India, can get citizenship only if either of his parents was an Indian citizen at the time of birth.
• 2003 amendment:  Government made the above condition more stringent, keeping in view infiltration from Bangladesh. Now the law requires that for those born on or after December 4, 2004, in addition to the fact of their own birth, both parents should be Indian citizens or one parent must be Indian citizen and other should not be an illegal migrant. With these restrictive amendments, India has almost moved towards the narrow principle of jus sanguinis or blood relationship. This lays down that an illegal migrant cannot claim citizenship by naturalisation or registration even if he has been a resident of India for seven years.

Assam’s Case?

• The Assam Movement against illegal immigration eventually led to the historic Assam Accord of 1985, signed by Movement leaders and the Rajiv Gandhi government. Accordingly, the 1986 amendment to the Citizenship Act created a special category of citizens in relation to Assam.
• The newly inserted Section 6A laid down that all persons of Indian origin who entered Assam before January 1, 1966 and have been ordinary residents will be deemed Indian citizens. Those who came after 1 January, 1966 but before March 25, 1971,and have been ordinary residents, will get citizenship at the expiry of 10 years from their detection as foreigner. During this interim period, they will not have the right to vote but can get an Indian passport.
• Identification of foreigners was to be done under the Illegal Migrants (Determination by Tribunal) Act, (IMDT Act), 1983, which was applicable only in Assam while the Foreigners Act, 1946 was applicable in the rest of the country. The provisions of the IMDT Act made it difficult to deport illegal immigrants. On the petition, the Act was held unconstitutional and struck down by the Supreme Court in 2005. This was eventually replaced with the Foreigners (Tribunals of Assam) Order, 2006, which again was struck down in 2007
• In the IMDT case, the court considered classification based on geographical considerations to be a violation of the right to equality under Article 14. In fact, another such variation was already in place. While the cutoff date for Western Pakistan is July 19, 1949, for Eastern Pakistan the Nehru-Liaquat Pact had pushed it to 1950.

3 . Impact of Nitrate Exposure

Context : In a new World Bank report that looks at the impact of water pollution worldwide, one aspect covered is the long-term impact of nitrate exposure experienced during infancy. While short-term exposure to nitrates has almost negligible effect on adult height, cumulative exposure over the first three years of life has considerable impact.

About the Impact

• An infant girl who has been exposed to nitrate levels above the safety threshold in the first three years experiences a 1-2 cm decrease in her adult height, the report found.
• Given that female adult height in India has increased by approximately 4 cm over the last century, a 1-2 cm loss means that nitrate exposure in infancy can wipe out almost half of this gain in height.

Details of the Report

• Nitrate pollution is caused by the overuse of nitrogenous fertilisers which, while boosting yields, can be harmful if they leach into water or air. In India, the Green Revolution of the 1960s kick-started the use of synthetic fertilisers
• The data set used was taken from over 1,330 monitoring stations from 1963-2017. The birth years of the sample range was from 1966-1999, “a period when the effect of the Green Revolution was already in force yet nitrogen fertilisers were increasing in use.”
• The report also found (using data from the Central Groundwater Board of India) that nitrate levels in groundwater aquifers exceeded permissible levels in more than 50 per cent of the districts across 19 states.
• The report broadly covers two types of pollutants — the well known ones such as faecal contaminants and the new pollutants that include plastic, nutrients and pharmaceuticals.

4 . Age of Marriage

Context : Delhi High Court took up a plea that sought a uniform age of marriage for men and women.

Background

• Currently, the law prescribes that the minimum age of marriage is 21 and 18 years for men and women, respectively. The minimum age of marriage is distinct from the age of majority, which is gender-neutral. An individual attains the age of majority at 18 as per the Indian Majority Act, 1875. 

Why a minimum age

• The law prescribes a minimum age of marriage to essentially outlaw child marriages and prevent abuse of minors. Personal laws of various religions that deal with marriage have their own standards, often reflecting custom.
• For Hindus, Section 5(iii) of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955 sets 18 years as the minimum age for the bride and 21 years as the minimum age for the groom. Child marriages are not illegal but can be declared void at the request of the minor in the marriage.
• In Islam, the marriage of a minor who has attained puberty is considered valid under personal law.
• The Special Marriage Act, 1954 and the Prohibition of Child Marriage Act, 2006 also prescribe 18 and 21 years as the minimum age of consent for marriage for women and men respectively.

Background of the Law

• The Indian Penal Code enacted in 1860 criminalised any sexual intercourse with a girl below the age of 10. The provision of rape was amended in 1927 through the Age of Consent Bill, 1927, which made marriages with a girl under 12 invalid. The law had faced opposition from conservative leaders of the nationalist movement such as Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Madan Mohan Malaviya who saw the British intervention as an attack on Hindu customs.
• In 1929, the Child Marriage Restraint Act set 16 and 18 years as the minimum age of marriage for women and men respectively. The law, popularly known as Sarda Act after its sponsor Harbilas Sarda, a judge and a member of Arya Samaj, was eventually amended in 1978 to prescribe 18 and 21 years as the age of marriage for a woman and a man, respectively.

About the Court case

• Petitioner has challenged the law on the grounds of discrimination. He alleges that Articles 14 and 21 of the Constitution, which guarantee the right to equality and the right to live with dignity, are violated by having different legal age for men and women to marry.
• Two Supreme Court rulings could be significant to the context of this argument.
  • In 2014, in National Legal Services Authority of India v Union of India, the Supreme Court while recognising transgenders as the third gender said that justice is delivered with the “assumption that humans have equal value and should, therefore, be treated as equal, as well as by equal laws.”
  • In 2019, in Joseph Shine v Union of India, the Supreme Court decriminalised adultery and said that “a law that treats women differently based on gender stereotypes is an affront to women’s dignity.”

Law Commissions View

• The different legal standards for the age of men and women to marry has been a subject of debate. The laws are a codification of custom and religious practices that are rooted in patriarchy. In a consultation paper of reform in family law in 2018, the Law Commission argued that having different legal standards “contributes to the stereotype that wives must be younger than their husbands”.
• Women’s rights activists too have argued that the law perpetuates the stereotype that women are more mature than men of the same age and therefore can be allowed to marry sooner. The international treaty Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW), also calls for the abolition of laws that assume women have a different physical or intellectual rate of growth than men.
• The Law Commission paper recommended that the minimum age of marriage for both genders be set at 18. “The difference in age for husband and wife has no basis in law as spouses entering into a marriage are by all means equals and their partnership must also be of that between equals,” the Commission noted.

5 . Free Medicine Scheme

Context : Chief minister Ashok Gehlot’s flagship free medicine scheme secured the top position in the country in the ranking issued by the National Health Mission (NHM)

About the NHM ranking

• The NHM assessed the performance of the states on the basis of effective implementation of Drugs and Vaccine Distribution Management System (DVDMS), stock of essential drugs, value of drugs about to expire along with other such parameters, which are 10 in total.
• The NHM has initiated giving rankings as it is encouraging and supporting states to provide free drugs to patients coming to public health facilities.
• NHM —free drug service initiative has been implemented by ministry of health and family welfare (MoHFW) under which states/UTs are being supported under NHM to provide free drugs to patients coming to public health facilities.
• The initiative was taken aiming to reduce out of pocket expenditure (OOPE) and improve footfalls in public facilities.

About Free Medicine Scheme?

• In the year 2011-12, Ashok Gehlot, who was serving as the chief minister, had announced a scheme to provide commonly-used essential medicines free of cost to patients visiting government healthcare institutions.
• The scheme consists of two components — free medicine and free tests
• To implement the scheme, Rajasthan Medical Services Corporation Limited (RMSCL) was incorporated on May 4, 2011, as a Public Limited Company, and obtained its Certificate of Commencement of Business on June 13, 2011. RMSCL was established as a centralised procurement agency for procuring generic medicines, surgical equipment, sutures and medical equipment for the department of Medical, Health and Family Welfare, Medical Education department, among others.
• While the Free medicines scheme was implemented on October 2, 2011, the free test scheme was introduced on World Health Day – April 7 – in 2013. The first phase of the free test scheme was implemented in hospitals affiliated with state medical colleges, as well as district /sub-divisional and satellite hospitals.
• On Doctor’s Day – July 1 – in 2013, it was brought to the community health centres (CHCs) and on August 15, in primary health centres (PHCs) and dispensaries.

6 . Oxytocin

Context : The final decision on whether the government can block private pharmaceutical companies from manufacturing and selling vital pregnancy drug oxytocin in India has been deferred, with the Supreme Court deciding the issue needs further deliberation.

Background

• Union Health Ministry imposed a highly controversial ban on the retail sale and private manufacture of oxytocin, a life-saving drug for new mothers and restrict its manufacture to a single public sector undertaking.
• The reason for the ban is the misuse of oxytocin in dairy animals, like buffaloes, to increase milk production.
• The government’s April ban order refers to a 2016 Himachal Pradesh High Court judgment, which said daily oxytocin injections made cattle barren and reduced their lifespans. In addition, it claimed that drinking milk from oxytocin-treated cattle led to male impotence, early puberty among women and cancers.

What is oxytocin?

• Oxytocin, also known as the ‘love hormone’, is a hormone secreted by the pituitary glands of mammals during sex, childbirth, lactation or social bonding.
• However, it can also be chemically manufactured and is sold by pharma companies for use during childbirth. It is administered either as an injection or a nasal solution.

Why is it vital?

• Oxytocin helps contract the uterus and induce delivery, control bleeding, and promote the release of breast milk. Its use is especially crucial to prevent new mothers from excessively bleeding after giving birth—a common cause of maternal deaths.
• According to an India sample registration scheme survey conducted in 2001-2003, postpartum hemorrhage accounted for 38 per cent of maternal deaths.

Does it make the cattle barren

• There is little evidence that oxytocin, when used judiciously under the oversight of a veterinary doctor, harms animals. Veterinarians use oxytocin in very few situations. One situation is to induce labour in cattle.
• Another situation is when a dairy animal is unable to produce milk because her calf is either dead or has been taken away. To supplement the animal’s natural oxytocin, which stimulates milk production oxytocin is injected. At such low levels, oxytocin is not known to harm cattle.
• In a more recent unpublished study by the National Dairy Research Institute (NDRI), Haryana, buffaloes were given 2.5 and 5 IUs of oxytocin daily for 90 days. Here, too, there were no adverse effects on the buffalos’ estrous cycle and ability to conceive, However, the animals grew addicted to oxytocin and produced lesser milk when deprived of it. This is why, continuous use of the hormone is problematic.

Does milk from such cattle hurt humans?

• A study commissioned by the central government and published in the June 2014 issue of the Indian Journal of Medical Research, reported that “exogenous OT (Oxytocin) injections do not influence its content in milk”, and that “OT present in milk is rapidly degraded during intestinal digestion, ruling out its intestinal absorption and associated adverse health consequences, if any
• The National Dairy Research Institute has informed that there is no scientific evidence that artificial use of Oxytocin has adversely affected progeny of cattle and buffaloes resulting in dwindling of livestock. However, continuous Oxytocin use could lead to a progressive addiction and lack of response to normal let down of milk.”

Counter View

• Oxytocin can be overused in the absence of oversight by a veterinary doctor. At high doses, it can hurt animals. Also, when untrained dairy farmers are administering the injection, it can cause pain for the animals.
• Several investigations have found indiscriminate oxytocin use in States like Punjab and Haryana. Sometimes oxytocin is used to compensate for stressful living conditions, which interferes with milk let-down. Also, because the synthetic oxytocin available in pharmacies is expensive, farmers buy crude pituitary extract of the hormone from grey markets. Such extracts contain several other hormones like gonadotropins, which could have ill-effects too.

7 . Henley Passport Index

Context : The latest Henley Passport Index ranks India at 86, down five places from 81 in 2018. The index ranks passports based on their power and mobility. Last year, an Indian passport holder had visa-free access to 60 countries; this year, she has access to 58.

What is the Henley Passport Index?

• Prepared by Henley and Partners, a London-based global citizenship and residence advisory firm, the Henley Passport Index claims to be the “original ranking of all the world’s passports”.
• The index gathers data from the International Air Transport Association (IATA) that manages inter-airline cooperation globally. This data is supplemented by accounting for real-time changes in visa policies using publicly available sources to prepare a visa list, which is a list of destinations that a passport can access visa-free, through a visa on arrival, e-visa or with a traditional visa.
• The Henley Passport Index is updated in real time according to countries’ visa policy changes. It covers 227 destinations and 199 passports.

How are passport ranks and scores interpreted?

• Each passport is attributed with a score and a rank. For instance for 2019, India’s score is 58 and it ranks 86 in the list. Japan and Singapore, on the other hand, are ranked 1 and have a score of 189.
• The score is the sum of the number of countries accessible by that passport holder without requiring pre-departure government approval for visa-types including a visitor’s permit, visa on arrival or an electronic travel authority (ETA).
• For every territory/country that a passport holder of a particular country/territory is able to access through these visa-types (without pre-departure government approval), a value of 1 is attributed to it.
• A value of 0 is attributed to a score when a passport holder has to seek pre-departure government approval for visa-types including e-visa (visas applied for online and received) and visa on arrival.
• Therefore, the total score becomes the sum total for all the values of 1. For instance, a passport holder from Singapore and Japan can travel to 189 countries/territories without requiring pre-departure government approval.

Importance of the Index for Indian passport holders?

• India has a score of 58. That is the number of destinations an Indian passport holder can travel to today, without pre-departure government approval. That is the same as a citizen of any country, on an average, could travel to 13 years ago. “In 2006, a citizen, on an average, could travel to 58 destinations without needing a visa from the host nation; by 2018, this number had nearly doubled to 107,” Henley and Partners noted in the Global Mobility Report, released in 2019.
• Passport rankings point towards the strength of diplomatic relations between countries. In the past decade travel freedom has expanded vastly as a result of the rising number of bilateral visa-waiver programmes signed between different countries and unilateral decisions implemented by governments of some countries.

Arton Passport Index?

• The Henley Passport Index is not the only index available on passport rankings. Others include the Arton Passport Index, which ranks United Arab Emirates’s passport at rank 1 as per its most recent rankings.
• As per this index, India has a mobility score (MS) of 67, with visa required for 131 destinations, visa on arrival required for 41 destinations and 26 destinations where Indian passport holders can travel visa free.
• This index uses a three-tier approach to rank passports, attributing scores and using the United Nations Development Programme Human Development Index 2018 in its methodology. It is powered by Arton Capital, a global financial advisory.

8 . Polygraph and Narco Analysis Test

Context : CBI wants to conduct polygraph and narcoanalysis tests on a former staffer of Punjab National Bank (PNB), who is in custody in the alleged Rs 7,000-crore fraud involving the absconding jewellers Nirav Modi and Mehul Choksi. Gokulnath Shetty, the 63-year old retired deputy manager of PNB, refused to give his consent for the test, stating among other reasons, that it could have an adverse effect on his health. He also cited a Supreme Court judgment that makes it mandatory to obtain the consent of the accused for such tests.

Polygraph test

• A polygraph test is based on the assumption that physiological responses that are triggered when a person is lying are different from what they would be otherwise.
• Instruments like cardio-cuffs or sensitive electrodes are attached to the person, and variables such as blood pressure, pulse, respiration, change in sweat gland activity, blood flow, etc., are measured as questions are put to them.
• A numerical value is assigned to each response to conclude whether the person is telling the truth, is deceiving, or is uncertain.

Narcoanalysis

• Narcoanalysis, by contrast, involves the injection of a drug, sodium pentothal, which induces a hypnotic or sedated state in which the subject’s imagination is neutralised, and they are expected to divulge true information.
• The drug, referred to as “truth serum” in this context, was used in larger doses as anaesthesia during surgery, and is said to have been used during World War II for intelligence operations.

Legality of the Tests

• In Selvi & Ors vs State of Karnataka & Anr (2010), a Supreme Court Bench comprising Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and Justices R V Raveendran and J M Panchal ruled that no lie detector tests should be administered “except on the basis of consent of the accused”. Those who volunteer must have access to a lawyer, and have the physical, emotional, and legal implications of the test explained to them by police and the lawyer, the Bench said. It said that the ‘Guidelines for the Administration of Polygraph Test on an Accused’ published by the National Human Rights Commission in 2000, must be strictly followed.
• The subject’s consent should be recorded before a judicial magistrate, the court said. The results of the tests cannot be considered to be “confessions”, because those in a drugged-induced state cannot exercise a choice in answering questions that are put to them.
• However, any information or material subsequently discovered with the help of such a voluntarily-taken test can be admitted as evidence. Thus, if an accused reveals the location of a murder weapon in the course of the test, and police later find the weapon at that location, the statement of the accused will not be evidence, but the weapon will be.

Why it cant be done without the consent

• The Bench took into consideration international norms on human rights, the right to a fair trial, and the right against self-incrimination under Article 20(3) of the Constitution.
• Forcible intrusion into a person’s mental processes is also an affront to human dignity and liberty, often with grave and long-lasting consequences
• State’s argument that the use of such scientific techniques would reduce ‘third degree’ methods “is a circular line of reasoning since one form of improper behaviour is sought to be replaced by another”.

9 . Facts for Prelims

Extended Producer Liability

• The rising consumption of a range of complex durable goods over the years has resulted in a serious environmental problem. Proper management of the waste thus generated has been a matter of serious concern for policy makers.
• The authorities in the last decade has imposed the burden on the producers of these goods to be responsible for their end of-life management.
• The producer may also choose to delegate this responsibility to a third party, a so-called producer responsibility organization (‘PRO’), which is paid by the producer for used product management.
• EPR makes the producers responsible for the environmental impacts throughout the life-cycle of products.
• EPR is based on the polluter-pays principle (PPP’), but emphasises life-cycle impact of the products.
• Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (‘OECD’) defines EPR as ‘an environmental policy approach in which a producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the post-consumer stage of a product’s life cycle including its final disposal . EPR is not part of corporate social responsibility (‘CSR’), instead it is part of sustainable business practice.
• In India, the concept of PRO is recognized in two sectors namely, plastic waste management² and e-waste management . The E-Waste (Management) Rules, 2016, and Plastic Waste Management Rules, 2016, imposes primary burden on the producer for collection of waste plastic electronic products. They need to establish a system for collecting back the waste generated due to their products.
• PRO is defined as a professional organization authorized or financed collectively or individually by producers, which can take the responsibility for collection and channelization of e-waste generated from the ‘end-of-life’ of their products to ensure environmentally sound management of such e-waste

Indian Ordinance Factories

• Indian Ordnance Factories is the oldest and largest industrial setup which functions under the Department of Defence Production of the Ministry of Defence.
• The ordnance factories form an integrated base for indigenous production of defence hardware and equipment, with the primary objective of self reliance in equipping the armed forces with state of the art battlefield equipments.
• The Indian Ordnance Factories is a conglomerate of 41 Factories, 9 Training Institutes, 3 Regional Marketing Centres and 4 Regional Controller of Safety.
• Ordnance Factory Board, Kolkata acts as the corporate headquarters
• They are engaged in production, testing, logistics, research, development and marketing of a comprehensive product range in the area of land, sea and air systems.

India- US 2+2 Dialogue

• A two plus two dialogue’ is a term — adopted in foreign parleys — used for installation of a dialogue mechanism between two countries’ defence and external affairs ministries.
• Two plus two dialogue’ is an expression used to indicate that two appointed ministers from each country, the ministers of defence and external affairs will meet up to discuss the two countries’ strategic and security interests.

Countries Sharing Amazon Rain Forest

• The majority of the forest is contained within Brazil, with 60% of the rainforest, followed by Peru with 13%, Colombia with 10%, and with minor amounts in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Guyana, Suriname and French Guiana. 

Adratiklit boulahfa

• Scientists have described a new species of stegosaurus and dated it to 168 million years ago, which makes it the oldest known member of that group of dinosaurs ever known as Adratiklit boulahfa
• It is also the first stegosaurus to be found in North Africa. Its remains were discovered in the Middle Atlas mountains of Morocco