Daily Current Affairs : 25th and 26th November 2020

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Cyclone Nivar
2. Government orders ‘priority’ for local tenders
3. NITI Aayog on POSHAN Abhiyaan
4. Law on religious conversion
5. Corporates as Banks
6. New Debt Platform
7. Facts for Prelims

1 . Cyclone Nivar

Context : Cyclone Nivar is expected to intensify and become a ‘very severe cyclone and make landfall between Karaikal and Mamallapuram around Puducherry late in the evening with windspeeds in the range of 120-130 km per hour, gusting to nearly 145 kmph.

About Nivar

• ‘Nivar’, name is suggested by Iran according to the list prepared by the World Meteorological Organisation’s panel
• Cyclone is expected to make a landfall between Mamallapuram in Tamil Nadu and Karaikal district in the Puducherry region.

About Tropical Cyclones

• Tropical cyclones are violent storms that originate over oceans in tropical areas and move over to the coastal areas bringing about large scale destruction due to violent winds (squalls), very heavy rainfall (torrential rainfall) and storm surge.
• They are irregular wind movements involving closed circulation of air around a low pressure center. This closed air circulation (whirling motion) is a result of rapid upward movement of hot air which is subjected to Coriolis force. The low pressure at the center is responsible for the wind speeds.

Condition favourable for tropical cyclone formation

1. Large sea surface with temperature higher than 27° C
2. Presence of the Coriolis force enough to create a cyclonic vortex
3. Small variations in the vertical wind speed
4. A pre-existing weak low-pressure area or low-level-cyclonic circulation
5. Upper divergence above the sea level system

Reasons for less cyclones originating in Arabian Sea compared to Bay of Bengal

• Most of Indian coasts lie in tropical region. Tropical cyclones need a temperature of around 25-27 degree Celsius. Greater the temperature over sea, more powerful is cyclone.
• The Arabian Sea is relatively cooler than this temperature range, which the Bay of Bengal offers. This is why Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Odisha and West Bengal face more cyclones than Kerala, Karnataka, Goa, Maharashtra and Gujarat.
• Greater frequency of Bay of Bengal cyclones and more strength to them come from a foreign source as well. Neighbouring Pacific Ocean seas are more prone to cyclones. Typhoons originating in near Philippines, China, Thailand and Malaysia enter the Andaman Sea of Bay of Bengal after they weaken in their native regions.
• Most of the cyclones in the Arabian Sea are local. They collapse a little after making landfall as there is no back-up supply. Recent Ockhi cyclone was one of the exceptions that remained strong for some time even after hitting Maharashtra and Gujarat coasts.
• Also, the hills along the eastern coasts are not high enough to stop cyclones making much inroad into the coastal states. The Western Ghats run almost the entire distance of the western coasts preventing the cyclonic storms to go in the hinterland.

Cyclone Warning System

• The cyclone warnings are issued to state government officials in four stages. The First Stage warning known as “PRE CYCLONE WATCH” issued 72 hours in advance contains early warning about the development of a cyclonic disturbance in the north Indian Ocean, its likely intensification into a tropical cyclone and the coastal belt likely to experience adverse weather. This early warning bulletin is issued by the Director General of Meteorology himself and is addressed to the Cabinet Secretary and other senior officers of the Government of India including the Chief Secretaries of concerned maritime states.
• The Second Stage warning known as “CYCLONE ALERT” is issued at least 48 hrs. in advance of the expected commencement of adverse weather over the coastal areas. It contains information on the location and intensity of the storm likely direction of its movement, intensification, coastal districts likely to experience adverse weather and advice to fishermen, general public, media and disaster managers. This is issued by the concerned ACWCs/CWCs and CWD at HQ.
• The Third Stage warning known as “CYCLONE WARNING” issued at least 24 hours in advance of the expected commencement of adverse weather over the coastal areas. Landfall point is forecast at this stage. These warnings are issued by ACWCs/CWCs/and CWD at HQ at 3 hourly interval giving the latest position of cyclone and its intensity, likely point and time of landfall, associated heavy rainfall, strong wind and storm surge alongwith their impact and advice to general public, media, fishermen and disaster managers.
• The Fourth Stage of warning known as “POST LANDFALL OUTLOOK” is issued by the concerned ACWCs/CWCs/and CWD at HQ at least 12 hours in advance of expected time of landfall. It gives likely direction of movement of the cyclone after its landfall and adverse weather likely to be experienced in the interior areas.

Colour Code

Different colour codes as mentioned below are being used since post monsoon season of 2006 the different stages of the cyclone warning bulletins as desired by the National Disaster Management.

How Cyclones are Named

• Each Tropical Cyclone basin in the world has its own rotating list of names.
• Worldwide there are six regional specialised meteorological centres (RSMCs) and five regional Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres (TCWCs) mandated for issuing advisories and naming of tropical cyclones.
• India Meteorological Department is one of the six RSMCs to provide tropical cyclone and storm surge advisories to 13 member countries under WMO/ESCAP Panel including Bangladesh, India, Iran, Maldives, Myanmar, Oman, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, United Arab Emirates and Yemen.
• RSMC, New Delhi is also mandated to name the Tropical Cyclones developing over the north Indian Ocean (NIO) including the Bay of Bengal (BoB) and the Arabian Sea (AS).
• For cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and Arabian Sea, the naming system was agreed by eight member countries of a group called WMO/ESCAP and took effect in 2004. These countries submitted eight names each, which are arranged in an 8×8 table
• During WMO/ESCAP PTC 45^th Session held at Muscat, Oman in September, 2018 it was decided to prepare a fresh list of names of tropical cyclones including representation from five new member countries, viz., Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Yemen (Total 13 member countries).
• The current list has a total of 169 names including 13 names each from 13 WMO/ESCAP member countries. It is arranged in a coloumn format
• The first cyclone after the list was adopted was given the name in the first row of the first column
• Subsequent cyclones are being named sequentially, column-wise, with each cyclone given the name immediately below that of the previous cyclone.
• Once the bottom of the column is reached, the sequence moves to the top of the next column.

Rotation of Name

• The lists for storms is not rotated in Arabian sea and Bay of Bengal however in the Atlantic and Eastern Pacific basins are, however, rotated. Exception are made in certain cases — if a storm causes excessive death and destruction, its name is considered for retirement and is not repeated; it is replaced with another name.

2 . Government orders ‘priority’ for local tenders

Context : The government has tightened its procurement norms to make it tougher for Ministries to pursue global tenders for contracts worth up to ₹200 crore.

Background

• Under the Atma Nirbhar Bharat Abhiyan announced in May, the government had barred departments from issuing global tenders for contracts worth ₹200 crore or less
• The General Financial Rules were amended to disallow global tender enquiries in such procurement of goods and services, with an eye on boosting the prospects of domestic micro, small and medium enterprises.
• Any Ministry seeking an exemption to the norm, in order to call for a global tender enquiry, is required to seek the Cabinet Secretariat’s prior nod. So far, Ministries’ requests could be considered if they gave valid justification for the need to issue a global tender and the lack of alternatives within the country.

Details of the New Rules

• Ministries can no longer seek a nod for issuing a global tender unless they have first floated a domestic tender for their requirements, and tried to locate domestic producers in co-ordination with industry bodies, as per new rules
• Departments also cannot submit exemption proposals unless they have first published their procurement plan for the next three and five years on their websites.
• Publishing such a procurement plan was mandated by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade (DPIIT) in September through a Public Procurement (Preference to Make in India) order.

3 . POSHAN Abhiyaan

Context : The National Nutrition Mission or the Poshan Abhiyaan — the world’s largest nutrition programme for children and mothers — must be stepped up in order to meet the targets set by the Centre to reduce stunting, wasting, and anaemia by 2022, warns a report by NITI Aayog with only a little over a year left to reach its goals.

About POSHAN Abhiyaan

• POSHAN Abhiyaan has been set up by Government of India for a three-year time frame commencing from 2017-18 with an aim to reduce the level of stunting in children (0-6 years), under-nutrition (underweight prevalence)in children (0-6 years) and Low Birth Weight at 2% per annum and reduce anaemia among young children (6-59 months), women and adolescent girls at 3% per annum across the country.
• The objective of POSHAN Abhiyaan to reduce stunting in identified Districts of India with the highest malnutrition burden by improving utilization of key Anganwadi Services and improving the quality of Anganwadi Services delivery. Its aim is to ensure holistic development and adequate nutrition for pregnant women, mothers and children.
• POSHAN Abhiyaan is a multi-ministerial convergence mission with the vision to ensure attainment of malnutrition free India by 2022.
• The Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD) is implementing POSHAN Abhiyaan

Features

• The POSHAN Abhiyaan, as an apex body, will monitor, supervise, fix targets and guide the nutrition related interventions across the Ministries.
• The proposal consists of
  • mapping of various Schemes contributing towards addressing malnutrition
  • introducing a very robust convergence mechanism
  • ICT based Real Time Monitoring system
  • incentivizing States/UTs for meeting the targets
  • incentivizing Anganwadi Workers (AWWs) for using IT based tools
  • eliminating registers used by AWWs
  • introducing measurement of height of children at the Anganwadi Centres (AWCs)
  • Social Audits
  • Setting-up Nutrition Resource Centres, involving masses through Jan Andolan for their participation on nutrition through various activities, among others.

Major impact

• The programme through the targets will strive to reduce the level of stunting, under-nutrition, anemia and low birth weight babies. It will create synergy, ensure better monitoring, issue alerts for timely action, and encourage States/UTs to perform, guide and supervise the line Ministries and States/UTs to achieve the targeted goals.

Benefits & Coverage

• More than 10 crore people will be benefitted by this programme. All the States and districts will be covered in a phased manner i.e. 315 districts in 2017-18, 235 districts in 2018-19 and remaining districts in 2019-20.
• The Government of India and UNICEF have jointly signed the Country Programme 2018-2022 in January, 2018. Under the agreement, UNICEF provides technical support to MWCD for POSHAN Abhiyaan under Country Programme 2018-2022 and also supporting in the following matters:
  • Supported in designing of all guidelines.
  • Preparing Posters and Hoardings
  • Preparation of audio visual.
  • Supported in preparation and designing of Jan Andolan Guidelines
  • Supported in preparation of Dashboard/Google link for Jan Andolan.

Recommendations provided in the Report

• According to the report there is a need to quickly graduate to a POSHAN-plus strategy which apart from continued strengthening the four pillars of the Abhiyaan also requires renewed focus on other social determinants in addition to addressing the governance challenges of NHM/ ICDS delivery mechanisms,
• The report calls for a need to lay as much emphasis on complementary feeding as it does on breastfeeding, which it points out can help avert 60% of the total stunting cases in India.
• It also recommends improved “water, sanitation, hand washing with soap and hygienic disposal of children’s stools” as other interventions which could help avert a quarter of the stunting cases.
• On stunting, the review says that India’s targets are conservative as compared to the global target defined by the World Health Assembly (WHA), which is a prevalence rate of 5% of stunting as opposed to India’s goal of reducing stunting levels to 13.3% by 2022. “Additional preventive nutrition and health sensitive strategies are required to achieve further reductions in wasting to meet WHA target for India.
• The target of reducing prevalence levels of anaemia among pregnant women from 50.3% in 2016 to 34.4% in 2022 and among adolescent girls from 52.9% in 2016 to 39.66%, is also considered to be conservative as compared to the WHA’s target of halving prevalence levels.
• According to the report government must implement interventions beyond the health sector and its focus on distribution of IFA tablets, and must include efforts to improve socio-economic conditions, else India will “achieve modest improvements in anaemia” among women of reproductive age.

4 . Law on religious conversion

Context : The Uttar Pradesh Vidhi Virudh Dharm Samparivartan Pratishad Adyadesh, 2020 or the UP Unlawful Religious Conversion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020 was cleared by the State Cabinet

About the Ordinance

• Uttar Pradesh government gave its nod to an ordinance that makes religious conversion a non-bailable offence inviting penalties up to 10 years in prison if found to be effected for marriage or through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or other allegedly fraudulent means.

Details of the Law

• Violation of the provisions of the law would invite a jail term of not less than one year extendable to five years with a fine of ₹15,000.
• However, if a minor woman or a woman from the Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribes communities was converted through the said unlawful means, the jail term would be a minimum of three years and could be extended to 10 years with a fine of ₹25,000.
• The ordinance, passed by the State Cabinet, also lays down strict action, including cancellation of registration of social organisations conducting mass conversions.
• Mass conversions would invite a jail term of not less than three years up to 10 years and a fine of ₹50,000, read the operative statement on the ordinance.
• In case of conversion done by a woman for the sole purpose of marriage, the marriage would be declared null and void.
• The ordinance further said that the burden to prove that a conversion was not done through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, fraudulent means or for marriage would be on the person converting or those who facilitated it.
• A person seeking to convert to another to another religion for marriage would have to inform the district magistrate two months prior to it through a prescribed form. “If they get permission, then they can convert their religion with marriage,” said Sidharth Nath Singh, U.P. government spokesperson.
• Failing to follow this step would attract a jail term of six months up to three years and a fine of ₹10,000, said the ordinance.
• The ordinance also makes ‘forced conversions’ non-bailable offences to be tried by a Class I Magistrate court.

5 . Corporates as Banks

Context : A recent report by an Internal Working Group of the Reserve Bank of India has attracted a lot of attention as well as criticism. The IWG was constituted to “review extant ownership guidelines and corporate structure for Indian private sector banks” and submitted its report last week.

About the issue

• The IWG submitted several recommendations, but one, in particular, has raised a lot of concern. This had to do with allowing large corporate/industrial houses to be promoters of private banks.

Why was the IWG constituted and what were its recommendations?

• The banking system in any country is of critical importance for sustaining economic growth. India’s banking system has changed a lot since Independence when banks were owned by the private sector, resulting in a “large concentration of resources in the hands of a few business families”.
• To achieve “a wider spread of bank credit, prevent its misuse, direct a larger volume of credit flow to priority sectors and to make it an effective instrument of economic development”, the government resorted to the nationalisation of banks in 1969 (14 banks) and again in 1980 (6 banks).
• With economic liberalisation in the early 1990s, the economy’s credit needs grew and private banks re-entered the picture. However, even after three decades of rapid growth, “the total balance sheet of banks in India still constitutes less than 70 per cent of the GDP, which is much less compared to global peers” such as China, where this ratio is closer to 175%.
• Moreover, domestic bank credit to the private sector is just 50% of GDP when in economies such as China, Japan, the US and Korea it is upwards of 150 per cent. In other words, India’s banking system has been struggling to meet the credit demands of a growing economy. There is only one Indian bank in the top 100 banks globally by size. Further, Indian banks are also one of the least cost-efficient.
• Clearly, India needs to bolster its banking system if it wants to grow at a fast clip. In this regard, it is crucial to note that public sector banks have been steadily losing ground to private banks as Charts 2, 3 and 4 show. Private banks are not only more efficient and profitable but also have more risk appetite.
• It is in this background that the IWG was asked to suggest changes that not only boost private sector banking but also make it safer.
• For the most part, the IWG’s recommendations are unexceptionable in that they bolster prudential norms so that the interests of the depositors are secure and banks and their promoters are not able to game the system. 

Why is the recommendation to allow large corporates to float their own banks being criticised?

• A greater play of private banks is not without its risks. The global financial crisis of 2008 was a case in point. A predominantly government-owned banking system tends to be more financially stable because of the trust in government as an institution.
• Even in private bank ownership, past regulators have preferred it to be well-diversified — that is, no single owner has too much stake. Historically, RBI has been of the view that the ideal ownership status of banks should promote a balance between efficiency, equity and financial stability.
• The main concern in allowing large corporates — that is, business houses having total assets of Rs 5,000 crore or more, where the non-financial business of the group accounts for more than 40% in terms of total assets or gross income — to open their own banks is a basic conflict of interest, or more technically, “connected lending”.

What is connected lending?

• Simply put, connected lending refers to a situation where the promoter of a bank is also a borrower and, as such, it is possible for a promoter to channel the depositors’ money into their own ventures.
• Connected lending has been happening for a long time and the RBI has been always behind the curve in spotting it. The recent episodes in ICICI Bank, Yes Bank, DHFL etc. were all examples of connected lending. The so-called ever-greening of loans (where one loan after another is extended to enable the borrower to pay back the previous one) is often the starting point of such lending.
• Unlike a non-bank finance company or NBFC (many of which are backed by large corporates), a bank accepts deposits from common Indians and that is what makes this riskier.
• Simply put, it is prudent to keep the class of borrowers (big companies) apart from the class of lenders (banks). Past examples of such mingling — such as Japan’s Keiretsu and Korea’s Chaebol — came unstuck during the 1998 crisis with disastrous consequences for the broader economy.
• In the past, RBI has always frowned upon this suggestion. In fact, when the IWG reached out to its set of experts, it found that barring one, all of them “were of the opinion that large corporate/industrial houses should not be allowed to promote a bank”.

Then why recommend it?

• The Indian economy, especially the private sector, needs money (credit) to grow. Far from being able to extend credit, the government-owned banks are struggling to contain their non-performing assets.
• Government finances were already strained before the Covid crisis. With growth faltering, revenues have plummeted and the government has limited ability to push for growth through the public sector banks.
• Large corporates, with deep pockets, are the ones with the financial resources to fund India’s future growth.

6 . New Debt Platform

Context : The Cabinet on Wednesday approved the infusion of ₹6,000 crore as equity into a new debt platform to raise up to ₹1.1 lakh crore for financing infrastructure projects by 2025.

About the NIIF’s infrastructure debt financing platform

• Debt platform is sponsored by the National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF)
• Of the ₹6,000-crore equity to be injected by 2021-22, the Cabinet has approved ₹2,000 crore for disbursal this year subject to the funds being required.
• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced the plan to provide equity capital to the debt platform sas part of the last round of stimulus measures announced on November 12.

Importance

• The NIIF’s infrastructure debt financing platform is expected to contribute almost ₹1 lakh crore in debt to the infrastructure sector over the next five years
• This will act as a catalyst in attracting more investments into the infrastructure sector as envisaged in the National Infrastructure Pipeline
• This would help free up space for banks to lend to new greenfield projects.
• It is expected that a well-capitalised, well-funded and well-governed NIIF debt platform can play a major role in infrastructure financing and development of bond market in India by acting as a AAA/AA-rated intermediary between the bond markets and infrastructure projects and companies,” the government observed

7 . Facts for Prelims

Leasing Military Platform

• The recently released Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 has introduced an option for leasing military platforms.
• The Indian Navy has inducted two MQ-9B Sea Guardian unarmed drones procured from the U.S. on lease, two defence sources said on Wednesday.
• “The drones are on lease for one year. All planning, execution and operations will be with the Indian Navy. The Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM) will play a support role for maintenance as laid down in the agreement,” one defence source said. The drones arrived in India mid-November.

India’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category for Oscar’s

• Malayalam film Jallikattu, directed by Lijo Jose Pellissery, has been selected as India’s official entry for the Best International Feature Film category for the 93rd Academy Awards. Jallikattu is the third Malayalam film after Guru (1997) and Adaminte Makan Abu (2011) to be chosen as the country’s official entry for the Oscars.

Right to live with a person of his or her choice

• According to a recent judgemet right to live with a person of his or her choice irrespective of religion is intrinsic to the right to life and liberty. Interference in a personal relationship would constitute a serious encroachment into the right to freedom of choice of two individuals,