Facts in News

                              Facts in News

Scorpene Class Submarine

• Indian Navy’s third stealth Scorpene-class Submarine INS Karanj was recently commissioned.
• The Scorpène-class submarines are a class of diesel-electric attack submarines jointly developed by the French and the Spanish companies.
• It features diesel propulsion and additional air-independent propulsion developed by DRDO.
• 6 Scorpene-class submarines, also known as Kalvari Class, are being built in India by the Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) Mumbai, under collaboration with Naval Group, France. Their names are
  • INS Kalvari: Commissioned in 2017
  • INS Khanderi: Commissioned in 2019
  • INS Karanj: Commissioned in 2021
  • INS Vela: Under Sea Trials
  • INS Vagir: Under Sea Trials
  • INS Vagsheer: Under Construction
• The crew of the previous Karanj, a Russian origin Foxtrot class submarine that was decommissioned in 2003 were special invitees for the ceremony.

World Soil Day (WSD)

• It is held annually on 5th December as a means to focus attention on the importance of healthy soil and to advocate for the sustainable management of soil resources.
• Genesis
  • The International Union of Soil Sciences (IUSS) recommended an international day to celebrate soil in 2002.
  • Along with the Kingdom of Thailand and the Global Soil Partnership, the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) supported the formal establishment of WSD.
  • The FAO Conference unanimously endorsed World Soil Day in June 2013 and requested its official adoption at t
  • The 68th session of the UN General Assembly 2013, designated 5th December 2014 as the first official WSD.
    • 5th December was chosen because it corresponds with the official birthday of the late H.M. King Bhumibol Adulyadej, King of Thailand, who was one of the main proponents of this initiative.
• Aims
  • Address the increasing challenges of soil management.
  • Raise awareness of the importance of sustaining healthy ecosystems and human well-being.
  • Encourage people to engage in proactively improving soil health.
  • Fight soil biodiversity loss, which threatens global food supplies and food safety.
• WSD 2020 Award
  • It was given to the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR)-Indian Institute of Soil Science, Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh.
  • It organized a massive awareness campaign for preserving “SOIL: Our Mother Earth” and also organized several programmes on WSD 2020, with support from students, the farming community and the general public.

India’s Biggest Floating Solar Power Plant

• NTPC is ready to commission India’s largest floating solar power plant at Ramagundam in Telangana by May.
  • Its capacity will be 100 MW.
• It is part of NTPC Southern Region’s target to install 450 MW of solar capacity.
  • NTPC apart from Ramagundam floating Solar Power Plant is all set to commission about an additional 117 MW floating solar capacity by May this year.
  • The other two projects about to complete are
    • 92 MW floating unit at Kayamkulam gas plant in Kerala
    • 25 MW unit at Simhadri power plant in Andhra Pradesh.
• Bhadla Solar Park in the Jodhpur district of Rajasthan is the world’s biggest solar park in terms of power generation and the second largest in terms of area.
  • But it is Not Floating.

World No Smoking Day

• World No Smoking Day for 2021 was observed on 10 March, 2021.
  • It is observed on the 2nd Wednesday of March.
• The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce Production, Supply and Distribution) Act (COTPA) 2003 banned smoking in the Public Area and mandated a designated area for smoking in restaurants, hotels, and airports, etc.
• Passive Smoking: It is unintentional exposure to Cigarettes and Tobacco smoke due to proximity to Active Smoker.
  • Passive smokers are also at a similarly high risk as active smokers.
  • Hence, to avoid passive smoking, the demand to ban designated Smoking areas in Public Places was raised.
• India has the second-largest number of tobacco users (268 million or 28.6 per cent of all adults in the country) in the world.
• Harmful Effects of Tobacco:
  • Nearly 27 per cent of all cancers in India are due to tobacco usage.
  • The total direct and indirect cost of diseases attributable to tobacco use was a staggering Rs 182,000 crore.
    • It is nearly 1.8 per cent of India’s GDP.
  • Tobacco use in all forms, whether smoking or chewing, is associated with severe COVID-19 casualties as per advisories issued by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR).

Cyber Crime Volunteer Framework

• It has been rolled out as a part of cyber hygiene promotion to bring together citizens to contribute to the fight against cybercrime in the country.
• Through its Cybercrime Grievance Portal, the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) aims to raise a group of cybercrime volunteers to flag “unlawful content” on the Internet.
• It will also assist States/UT Law Enforcement Agencies (LEAs) in their endeavour to curb cyber crimes.
• The volunteers will be enrolled and their services will be utilized by the respective State/UT Police Authorities.
• The Ministry of Home Affairs operationalised the National Cyber Crime Reporting Portal in August 2019 to provide a centralised mechanism to the citizens for online reporting of all types of cybercrime incidents, with a special focus on cyber crimes against women and children.
• It will include 200 cyber awareness promoters and 50 cyber experts.
• The MHA’s framework says under the National Cybercrime Ecosystem Management Unit, it aims to hold regular consultation with government bodies, academia, NGOs, private bodies, technical companies, etc.
  • The National Cybercrime Ecosystem Management Unit is part of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C) scheme launched in January 2020.
    • I4C is a government initiative to deal with cybercrime in India, in a coordinated and effective manner.

Pre-Pack Mechanism

• A pre-pack is an agreement for the resolution of the debt of a distressed company through an agreement between secured creditors and investors instead of a public bidding process.
• The practice of pre-packs was first developed in the US, following the enactment of the Bankruptcy Reform Act of 1978.
• Pre packs are currently in use in a number of developed jurisdictions including the US and the UK but have faced criticisms about the lack of transparency in the process and its impact on operational creditors such as suppliers, compared to an open bidding process like the CIRP.
• In India’s case, such a system would likely require that financial creditors agree on terms with potential investors and seek approval of the resolution plan from the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT).
• This process would likely be completed much faster than the traditional CIRP which requires that the creditors of the distressed company allow for an open auction for qualified investors to bid for the distressed company.
• The pre-pack scheme is aimed at quicker insolvency resolution with a timeline of 90 days for the submission of a resolution plan and 30 days for approval by adjudicating authority.

“Programme Code” notified under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995

• Bengaluru City Police Commissioner has issued a general order prohibiting all television channels from airing programmes which are not in conformity with the “Programme Code” notified under the Cable Television Networks (Regulation) Act, 1995.
  • The order, passed under Section 19 of the Cable CTN (Regulation) Act, also states that any violation of the order is liable for prosecution under Section 16 of the Act.
• The code contains an elaborate list of rules for cable TV channels, specifies that no programme should be aired that contains anything obscene, defamatory, deliberate, false and suggests innuendos and half-truths.
• The other important prohibitions in the code are on telecasting programmes which denigrate women through the depiction in any manner of the figure of a woman, her form or body or any part thereof in such a way as to have the effect of being indecent, or derogatory to women.
• It gives power to the government to block the transmission and re-transmission of any channel in the country.
• It is binding on all cable networks which are either downlinked to, or uplinked from, India.

What does Rule 6(1)(p) of the Programme Code say?

• Rule 6(1)(p) prohibits live coverage of anti-terrorism activities: “No programme should be carried… (which) contains live coverage of any anti-terrorist operation by security forces wherein media coverage shall be restricted to periodic briefing by an officer designated by the appropriate Government, till such operation concludes.”

Introduction of this rule –

• The point 6(1)(p) was introduced by an amendment to The Cable Television Network Rules last year, which came into force in March 2015.
• Following the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai, between November 2008 and March 2015, the government issued five advisories to television channels on the coverage of such incidents.