Daily Current Affairs : 27th April

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Disclosure Policy of RBI
2. 1 million species risk extinction due to humans
3. Safe Cities Programme
4. Emperor Penguin
5. NBFC Ombudsman Scheme
6. Facts for Prelims – Kafala System, Arms Trade Treaty

1 . Disclosure Policy of RBI

Context : The Supreme Court Friday said the Reserve Bank of India had committed contempt of court by coming out with a disclosure policy that allowed departments to withhold certain information related to banks under the Right to Information Act. The policy, it said, was contrary to an earlier court ruling that had ordered disclosure of such information.

Background

• The order came on a clutch of contempt petitions. One of the petitioners had filed an application under the RTI Act on December 18, 2015, seeking information relating to inspection reports of ICICI Bank, Axis Bank, HDFC Bank and State Bank of India since April 1, 2011.
• The petitioner had also sought information relating to the Sahara Group of Companies and Bank of Rajasthan. The RBI had refused to provide the information stating that “the disclosure was not in economic interest of the State, and would adversely affect the competitive position of the third party”.
• Court Ordered disclosure of such information
• Subsequent to the 2015 judgment, the RBI uploaded a Disclosure Policy on its website on November 30, 2016 “by which”, the petitioners contended, “the Public Information Officers were directed not to disclose virtually all kinds of information”.

Issues with the Disclosure Policy

• The policy exempted from disclosure “information relating to specific supervisory issues emanating from inspection or scrutiny reports received from other supervisory departments”.
• It also exempted “inspection reports falling within the purview of the ‘department of banking supervision’” besides “any information obtained from/submitted by banks/Financial Institutions and held by the RBI in a fiduciary capacity”.

Current Issue

• On April 12, 2019, the RBI uploaded a new disclosure policy replacing the earlier one.
• But the court upheld the contention of the petitioner’s counsel that “the new policy which replaces the disclosure policy dated 30.11.2016 directs various departments not to disclose information that was directed to be given by the judgment of this Court on 16.12.2015

Arguments of RBI

• It had rightly refused to disclose information related to some banks under the RTI Act as it held a fiduciary relationship with the banks
• Disclosure would hurt the economic interests of the country was found to be totally misconceived
• Court rejected both the arguments

Exceptions under RTI Act

• Section 8(1) of the RTI Act, under which information can be denied in the interest of national security, sovereignty, national economic interest and relations with foreign states

2 . Safe Cities Programme

About Safe Cities Programme

• In order to instill sense of security in women in metro cities, Government has identified eight cities for implementation of Safe City projects in first phase at a cost of Rs.2,919 crore.
• The cities are Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Lucknow & Mumbai.
• The projects are funded under Nirbhaya Fund scheme.
• The projects have been prepared jointly by Municipal bodies and City Police and reflect integrated action for safety of women.
• Safe City projects involves creation of on-ground assets, resources & behaviour change programs for safety of women. The projects will supplement existing assets and meet citizen demands for safe eco-system for women in these cities.

Important features of the Safe City projects

1. Identification of crime Hot-spots in each city.
2. Saturating such Hot-spots with increased CCTV surveillance.
3. Automated Number Plate Reading (ANPR) and drone-based surveillance also being deployed in few cities as per requirement.
4. Setting up women police out-posts for facilitating ease of access by any aggrieved woman to report incidence or seek assistance.
5. Patrols by Women police in vulnerable areas.
6. Setting up Women Help Desks in Police Stations with facility for trained Counsellors.
7. Augmentation of existing women support centers like Asha Jyoti Kendra or Bharosa centers etc.
8. Implementing Safety measures in buses, including Cameras.
9. Improving Street Lighting in identified Hot Spot areas.
10. Setting up Toilets for women.
11. Undertaking social awareness programmes on women safety and gender sensitivity.

3 . 1 million species risk extinction due to humans

Context : Up to one million species face extinction due to human influence, according to a draft UN report that painstakingly catalogues how humanity has undermined the natural resources upon which its very survival depends.

Key Findings

• The report warns of “an imminent rapid acceleration in the global rate of species extinction”.
• The pace of loss “is already tens to hundreds of times higher than it has been, on average, over the last 10 million years,” it notes. “Half-a-million to a million species are projected to be threatened with extinction, many within decades.”
• The accelerating loss of clean air, drinkable water, forests, pollinating insects, protein-rich fish and storm-blocking mangroves — to name but a few of the dwindling services rendered by Nature — poses no less of a threat than climate change indeed, biodiversity loss and global warming are closely linked, says the report,
• The direct causes of species loss, in order of importance, are shrinking habitat and land-use change, hunting for food or illicit trade in wildlife body parts, climate change and pollution

4 . Emperor Penguin

Context : The Antarctic’s second-largest colony of emperor penguins collapsed in 2016, with more than 10,000 chicks lost, and the population has not recovered, according to a new study.
The colony at Halley Bay has all but disappeared.

About the Emperor Penguin

• The emperor penguin is the tallest and heaviest of all living penguin species and is endemic to Antarctica.
• Like all penguins it is flightless, with a streamlined body, and wings stiffened and flattened into flippers for a marine habitat.
• They are the only penguin species that breeds during the Antarctic winter
• IUCN Red List Status – Near Threatened

Issue

• They are vulnerable to warming weather and high winds whipping across the ice.
• Under the influence of the strongest El Niño in 60 years, September 2015 was a particularly stormy month in the area of Halley Bay, with heavy winds and record-low sea ice.
• Those conditions appeared to have led to the loss of about 14,500 to 25,000 eggs or chicks that first year and the colony has not rebounded. The study called the three-year decline unprecedented: “three years of almost total breeding failure.”

5 . NBFC Ombudsman Scheme

Context : The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has extended the coverage of Ombudsman Scheme for non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) to eligible non deposit taking non-banking financial companies (NBFC-NDs) having asset size of Rs 100 crore or above with customer interface.

About the Scheme

• The scheme was launched in 2018 for redressal of complaints against NBFCs registered with the RBI under Section 45-IA of the RBI Act, 1934 and covered all deposit accepting NBFCs
• It provides a cost-free and expeditious complaint redressal mechanism relating to deficiency in the services by NBFCs covered under the scheme
• The offices of the NBFC Ombudsmen are functioning in four metro centres — Chennai, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi — and handle complaints of customers in the respective zones.
• The scheme also provides for an appellate mechanism under which the complainant/ NBFC has the option to appeal against the decision of the Ombudsman before the Appellate Authority
• Non banking financial company-infrastructure finance company (NBFC-IFC), core investment company (CIC), infrastructure debt fund-non-banking financial company (IDF-NBFC) and an NBFC under liquidation, are excluded from the ambit of the scheme

6 . Facts for Prelims

Kafala System

• Kafala is a system used to monitor migrant laborers, working primarily in the construction and domestic sectors, in Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE
• The system requires all unskilled laborers to have an in-country sponsor, usually their employer, who is responsible for their visa and legal status.
• This practice has been criticised by human rights organizations for creating easy opportunities for the exploitation of workers, as many employers take away passports and abuse their workers with little chance of legal repercussions

Arms Trade Treaty

• The Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) establishes common standards for the international trade of conventional weapons and seeks to reduce the illicit arms trade.
• Adopted by the UN General Assembly in 2013, the ATT covers all types of weapons and seeks to stop them from reaching regimes abusing human rights or parties in civil wars, armed and terrorist groups.
• The ATT does not place restrictions on the types or quantities of arms that may be bought, sold, or possessed by states.
• It also does not impact a state’s domestic gun control laws or other firearm ownership policies.
• Only 130 of the 193 members of the UN have signed the treaty, and of them only 101 ratified it putting it just over the threshold of 100 to come into effect
• Recently US has decided to pull out of the ATT, the US joins India,Russia and China which has not signed the treaty