Daily Current Affairs : 4th, 5th and 6th

Daily Current Affairs for UPSC CSE

Topics Covered

1. Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System : NAVIC
2. Real-time Train Information System (RTIS)  & GAGAN
3. Glyphosate
4. RCEP
5. National Health Stack (NHS)
6. Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill
7. Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act (MRSSA) 2016
8. Facts for Prelims : Uzbekistan, Dhanush Regiment, Agreement on Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS), Tort Law, Eos, Day length of Planets

1 . Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System : NAVIC

Context : The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and its older commercial arm Antrix Corporation Ltd. are poised to commercialise India’s regional navigation satellite system, NavIC, with Antrix recently floating two separate tenders to identify industries that can develop dedicated NavIC-based hardware and systems.

About Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System 

• IRNSS is an independent regional navigation satellite system being developed by India.
• It is designed to provide accurate position information service to users in India as well as the region extending up to 1500 km from its boundary, which is its primary service area.
• An Extended Service Area lies between primary service area and area enclosed by the rectangle from Latitude 30 deg South to 50 deg North, Longitude 30 deg East to 130 deg East.
• IRNSS will provide two types of services, namely, Standard Positioning Service (SPS) which is provided to all the users and Restricted Service (RS), which is an encrypted service provided only to the authorised users.
• The IRNSS System is expected to provide a position accuracy of better than 20 m in the primary service area.
• The Indian positioning system is called Navigation with Indian Constellation (NavIC).

IRNSS Satellites

• The space segment consists of the IRNSS constellation of eight satellites, NavIC.
• Three satellites are located in suitable orbital slots in the geostationary orbit and the remaining four are located in geosynchronous orbits with the required inclination and equatorial crossings in two different planes.
• All the satellites of the constellation are configured identically. The satellites are configured with I-1K Bus to be compatible for launch on-board PSLV.

Applications of IRNSS

• Terrestrial, Aerial and Marine Navigation
• Disaster Management
• Vehicle tracking and fleet management
• Integration with mobile phones
• Precise Timing
• Mapping and Geodetic data capture
• Terrestrial navigation aid for hikers and travellers
• Visual and voice navigation for drivers

Other Countries having the navigation system

• The GPS is a satellite-based radio navigation system that is owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Air Force.
• Apart from GPS, there is GLONASS of Russia,
• Galileo of the European Union
• BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (or BDS) of China.

Other recent developments

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• ISRO announced that Qualcomm Technologies, Inc., a leading producer of semiconductor chips, had developed and tested NavIC-friendly chipsets across its user bases and that it would add NavIC to them.
• Apart from GPS, its chips can work with the global navigation satellite systems of Europe (Galileo), Russia (GLONASS) and China (Beidou.)
• ISRO said this support would be available for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) from November. It expects the indigenous system to ‘enhance’ the use of NavIC on mobile, automotive and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.
• The third and important positive for NavIC was the certification of the Indian system by the 3GPP (The 3rd Generation Partnership Project), a global body for coordinating mobile telephony standards.

2 . Real-time Train Information System (RTIS) 

Context : About 500 passenger locomotives of the South Central Railway (SCR) have been fitted with the newly developed Real-time Train Information System (RTIS) to monitor precise speeds and movement throughout the journey from first point to the destination. It has been developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CIRE) with the help of Indian Space Research Organisation-Airports Authority of India’s GAGAN -Global Positioning System (GPS) aided geo-augmented navigation, originally developed for air traffic management.

About GAGAN

• GPS Aided GEO Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) is a step by the Indian Government towards initial Satellite-based Navigation Services in India.
• It is a system to improve the accuracy of a global navigation satellite system (GNSS) receiver by providing reference signals. 
• The Airports Authority of India (AAI) and Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) have collaborated to develop the GPS Aided Geo Augmented Navigation (GAGAN) as a regional Satellite Based Augmentation System (SBAS).
• The GAGAN’s goal is to provide a navigation system to assist aircraft in accurate landing over the Indian airspace and in the adjoining area and applicable to safety-to-life civil operations. GAGAN is inter-operable with other international SBAS systems. 
• The system is inter-operable with other international SBAS systems like US-WAAS, European EGNOS, and Japanese MSAS etc. GAGAN GEO footprint extends from Africa to Australia and has expansion capability for seamless navigation services across the region
• GAGAN ionospheric algorithm known as ISRO GIVE Model-Multi-Layer Data Fusion (IGM-MLDF) was developed by ISRO and is operational in the implemented GAGAN System. India has become the third country in the world to have such precision approach capabilities.
• GAGAN though primarily meant for aviation, will provide benefits beyond aviation to many other user segments such as intelligent transportation, maritime, highways, railways, surveying, geodesy, security agencies, telecom industry, personal users of position location applications etc.

About Real-time Train Information System (RTIS) 

• It has been developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CIRE) with the help of Indian Space Research Organisation-Airports Authority of India’s GAGAN -Global Positioning System (GPS) aided geo-augmented navigation, originally developed for air traffic management.
• The new system has facilitated automatic transmission of speed and movement of trains to the central control office for improving train control functions unlike earlier where the station master concerned used to inform the section authority through a telephone which is then fed into the computer system for it to be integrated with the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) through the central office.
• RTIS is put on freight trains, it would help track not only unscheduled stoppages and breakdowns but also theft of goods, which is rampant along the journey. 
• For now, the information is being used for internal purposes and, gradually, passengers too will be given access to the data through messages or social media so that they can plan their journeys better

3 . Glyphosate

Context : German pharma company Bayer is facing thousands of lawsuits over one of its products. A Reuters report said 42,700 plaintiffs in the US are blaming Bayer’s herbicides for their cancer, up from 18,400 plaintiffs

About Glyphosate

• The herbicides are based on a compound called glyphosate.
• First developed in 1970, glyphosate is scientifically N-(phosphonomethyl) glycine under the IUPAC system of nomenclature. It is applied to the leaves of plants to kill weeds. It is widely used in India, too. Glyphosate was highly accepted by the tea planters in the past two decades. It has a very good market size in the tea sector of West Bengal and Assam. Presently, the consumption of glyphosate is highest in Maharashtra as it is becoming a key herbicide in sugarcane, maize and many fruit crops including mango, banana, grapes, pomegranate and citrus.”

About the Issue

• In 2015, the Word Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer published a study that found glyphosate is “probably carcinogenic to humans”. Activists have been campaignig against glyphosate-based products.
• The harmful effects of Glyphosate on human health is yet to be established as the World Health Organization has not issued any advisory.”
• France, Italy, and Vietnam banned the herbicide’s use after the IARC finding.

4 . RCEP

Context : Seven years after India joined negotiations for the 16-nation ASEAN (Association for South East Asian Nations)-led RCEP (Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership)or Free Trade Agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Monday that India was dropping out of the agreement, citing its negative effects on “farmers, MSMEs and dairy sector

About RCEP

• The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) is a trade deal that was being negotiated between 16 countries.
• They include the 10 Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) members (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and the six countries with which the bloc has free trade agreements (FTAs) — India, Australia, China, Korea, Japan, and New Zealand.
• The purpose of the deal is to create an “integrated market” spanning all 16 countries. This means that it would be easier for the products and services of each of these countries to be available across the entire region.
• The RCEP is billed to be the “largest” regional trading agreement yet — the countries involved account for almost half of the world’s population, contribute over a quarter of world exports, and make up around 30% of the global Gross Domestic Product (the value of all goods and services produced in a year).
• Negotiations to chart out the details of this deal have been on since 2013, and all participating countries had earlier aimed to finalise it by November 2019.

Issues

• Key issues that have prevented India from coming on board include “inadequate” protection against surges in imports. This is a major concern for India, as its industry has voiced fears that cheaper products from China would “flood” the market. India had been seeking an auto-trigger mechanism that would allow it to raise tariffs on products in instances where imports cross a certain threshold.
• India has also not received any credible assurances on its demand for more market access, and its concerns over non-tariff barriers. RCEP participants like China are known to have used non-tariff barriers in the past to prevent India from growing its exports to the country.
• India had also reportedly expressed apprehensions on lowering and eliminating tariffs on several products from the country.
• Its concerns on a “possible circumvention” of rules of origin — the criteria used to determine the national source of a product — were also not addressed. Current provisions in the deal reportedly do not prevent countries from routing, through other countries, products on which India would maintain higher tariffs. This is anticipated to allow countries like China to pump in more products.
• India has “long pushed for other countries to allow greater movement of labour and services” in return for opening up its own market. Concerns over “unsustainable trade deficits” also needed to be addressed, he had said.
• During negotiations, it was also not able to get a favourable outcome on its demands on the base year that would be used to reduce the tariffs on the products that would be traded as part of the pact. India had sought to safeguard the interests of its domestic industry through measures like seeking a 2014 base year for tariff reductions instead of 2013, when negotiations on RCEP began, as it has raised import duties on several products between 2014 and 2019. Using a base year before 2014 would mean a drastic drop in the import duties on these products.

Concerns Raised from different Sectors

• They have argued that some domestic sectors may take a hit due to cheaper alternatives from other participant countries. For instance, the dairy industry was expected to face stiff competition from Australia and New Zealand. Similarly, steel and textiles sectors have also demanded protection.
• Given India’s poor past track record with its existing FTAs, civil society bodies and trade experts have also raised questions over the possible gains from an RCEP deal.

5 . National Health Stack (NHS) & National Digital Health Blueprint

About National Health Stack

• Unveiled by the NITI Aayog last year, NHS is digital infrastructure built with the aim of making the health insurance system more transparent and robust, while factoring in the uniqueness of India’s health sector, and the political realities of federalism.

Five components of NHS

• An electronic national health registry that would serve as a single source of health data for the nation
• A coverage and claims platform that would serve as the building blocks for large health protection schemes, allow for the horizontal and vertical expansion of schemes like Ayushman Bharat by states, and enable a robust system of fraud detection;
• A federated personal health records (PHR) framework that would serve the twin purposes of access to their own health data by patients, and the availability of health data for medical research, which is critical for advancing the understanding of human health;
• A national health analytics platform that would provide a holistic view combining information on multiple health initiatives, and feed into smart policymaking, for instance, through improved predictive analytics
• Other horizontal components including a unique digital health ID, health data dictionaries and supply chain management for drugs, payment gateways, etc., shared across all health programmes.

National Digital Health Blueprint

• The NDHB is the architectural document for the implementation of the NHS.
• Its vision is “to create a national digital health ecosystem that supports universal health coverage in an efficient, accessible, inclusive, affordable, timely and safe manner, through provision of a wide range of data, information, and infrastructure services, duly leveraging open, interoperable, standards-based digital systems, and ensuring the security, confidentiality and privacy of health-related personal information”.

Key Features of the Blueprint

• The key features of the blueprint include a federated architecture, a set of architectural principles, a five-layered system of architectural building blocks, a unique health ID (UHID), privacy and consent management, national portability, electronic health records, applicable standards and regulations, health analytics and, above all, multiple access channels like call centres, Digital Health India portal, and the MyHealth app. A total of 23 such building blocks have been identified in the blueprint for the NHS to become a viable reality.
• NDHB recognises the need to establish a specialised organisation, called the National Digital Health Mission (NDHM) that can drive the implementation of the blueprint, and promote and facilitate the evolution of a national digital health ecosystem.

Importance of National Health Stack

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• Currently, apart from Ayushman Bharat-Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana, there are many secondary and tertiary care schemes running in the states — such as Swasthya Sathi in West Bengal, Aarogyasri in Telangana, Chief Minister’s Comprehensive Health Insurance Scheme in Tamil Nadu, Mahatma Jyotiba Phule Jan Arogya Yojana in Maharashtra, etc.
• West Bengal has opted out of Ayushman Bharat, and Telangana and Odisha have never been a part of the scheme.
• Also, there is an urgent need for integration of the two arms of Ayushman Bharat — health and wellness centres which constitute the primary care arm, and PMJAY, which is the secondary and tertiary care arm under which the target is to provide 10.74 crore families with an annual health cover of Rs 5 lakh each. Without integration, the goal of continuum of care cannot be met — and that would mean PMJAY might end up becoming a perpetual drain on resources.
• Hence, the need for a common digital language for the operationalisation and inter-operability of various health schemes, which the NHS seeks to provide.

6 . Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill

Context : President Ram Nath Kovind has given his assent to the Gujarat Control of Terrorism and Organised Crime (GCTOC) Bill, a controversial anti-terror legislation passed by the BJP-ruled State in March 2015.

About the Bill

• One of the key features of this bill is that the intercepted telephonic conversations would now be considered as a legitimate evidence.
• Bill also provides for the creation of a special court as well as the appointment of special public prosecutors.
• Can attach properties acquired through organised crimes. Can also cancel the transfer of properties.
• Other provisions of the act include the admissibility of confession made before a police officer as evidence.
• It extends period of probe from stipulated 90 days to 180 days before filing of charge sheet.
• It makes offences under the Act non-bailable.
• The Bill provides immunity to the State government from legal action.
• The economic offences the GCTOC covers include ponzy schemes, multi-level marketing schemes, and organised betting. It also includes extortion, land grabbing, contract killings, cyber crimes, and human trafficking.
• Anyone conspiring or attempting to commit, as well as advocating and abetting, any offence under it can invite a term of not less than five years going up to life. Offences resulting in death of a person are punishable by death or imprisonment for life.

Definition of Terrorist Act

• The GCTOC’s definition of ‘terrorist act’ is “an act committed with the intention to disturb law and order or public order or threaten the unity, integrity and security of the State or to strike terror in the minds of the people or any section of the people by doing an act using bombs, dynamite or any other explosive substance or inflammable material or firearms or other lethal weapons or poison or noxious gases or other chemicals or any other substance (whether biological or otherwise) hazardous in nature in such a manner so as to cause or likely to cause death or injury to any public functionary or any person or loss due to damage or destruction of property or disruption of any supplies or services essential to the life of the community or detains any person and threatens to kill or injure such person in order to compel the State Government to do or abstain from doing any act”.

7 . Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act (MRSSA) 2016

Context : The Meghalaya Cabinet Friday approved amendments to the Meghalaya Residents Safety and Security Act (MRSSA) 2016, which will lead to laws that require non-resident visitors to register themselves on the lines of the Inner Line Permit (ILP) system of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram.

About the MRSSA

• The ILP is an official travel document issued by the Union government to allow inward travel of an Indian citizen into a protected/restricted area for a limited period. It is obligatory for residents of other states to obtain the permit for entering into the restricted areas.
• Amendment will ensure that no Indian citizen or foreigner enter and settle without permission, penalise outsiders for illegally settling in the state, the stay of an outsider in the state not exceed 179 days and a also prevention of sale of indigenous tribal land to an outsider.
• This Act is indicative only for those people who are interested in visiting the state as tourists, labourers or for education and business. With this Act in place, they will need to comply with guidelines to be prepared in the form of rules.
• The new rules will encompass not only tenants but all visitors and tourists staying, for example, in hotels, homestays, relatives’ houses, etc. 

8 . Facts for Prelims

Dhanush Artillery

• The Indian Army, which began inducting the indigenously upgraded Dhanush artillery guns, will have the first regiment in place by March 2020 and will get all 114 guns by 2022
• Dhanush is the indigenously upgraded variant of the Swedish Bofors gun imported in the 1980s.
• The gun is fitted with an inertial navigation system having global positioning system (GPS)-based gun recording and auto-laying, an enhanced tactical computer for on-board ballistic computations, an on-board muzzle velocity recording, an automated gun sighting system equipped with camera, thermal imaging, and laser range finder.

Agreement on Reciprocal Logistics Support (ARLS)

• India and Russia are expected to conclude a mutual logistics agreement 
• Logistics agreements are administrative arrangements facilitating access to military facilities for exchange of fuel and provisions on mutual agreement when the Indian military is operating abroad.

Tort Law

• Tort is breach of some duty independent of contract which has caused damage to the plaintiff giving rise to civil cause of action and for which remedy is available.
• If there is no remedy it cannot be called a tort because the essence of tort is to give remedy to the person who has suffered injury.

Eos

• A new species of frog discovered in Arunachal Pradesh is named as eos
• It is named after the mythological Greek goddess of dawn, personifying its habitat in Arunachal Pradesh which is popularly known as the Land of the Rising Sun or the Land of Dawn-lit Mountains

Uzbekistan

• It is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and also a former Soviet Republic.
• It is a secular, unitary constitutional republic, comprising 12 provinces, one autonomous republic, and a capital city.
• Uzbekistan is bordered by five landlocked countries: Kazakhstan to the north; Kyrgyzstan to the northeast; Tajikistan to the southeast; Afghanistan to the south; and Turkmenistan to the southwest.
• Along with Liechtenstein, it is one of the world’s only two doubly landlocked countries.

Day lengths of the planets in the solar system