Facts in News

                                   Facts In News

Report by V­Dem (Varieties of Democracy) Institute

• VDem, a Sweden Based firm has released a report grading the quality of liberal Democracies across the world.
• According to this data, India is an Elected Autocracy.
  • The classification means that elections in India simply assert that autocratic power.
  • V-Dem downgraded India as a democracy and placed it below neighbours such as Bangladesh and Nepal.
  • Reasons behind degrading rank:
    • Muzzling of media
    • Frequent use of sedition clauses
    • Defamation cases
• Autocracy is defined as “a system of government by one person with absolute power”.
  • V-Dem classified India as a Complete Autocracy during the Emergency.
• The report pointed towards the ‘steep’ global decline of liberal democracies in the past 10 years in the Asia-Pacific region, Central Asia, Eastern Europe and Latin America.
• Apart from India, countries like Brazil and Turkey figured among the top 10 countries that slipped in rankings that were part of the G-20 nations.
• The findings are similar to the recently published report by US-based NGO, Freedom House.
  • Freedom House also lowered India’s status as ‘partly free’ in terms of political rights and civil liberties.

Right to Education Act (RTE), 2009

• The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or RTE is an Act of the Parliament of India enacted on 4th August 2009.
• It describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between 6 and 14 in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution.
  • The Constitution (Eighty-sixth Amendment) Act, 2002 inserted Article 21-A in the Constitution.
• Article 21-A and the RTE Act came into effect on 1st April 2010.
• Education in the Indian constitution is a concurrent issue and the Act lays down specific responsibilities for the centre, state and local bodies for its implementation.
• Free Education: No child, other than a child who has been admitted by his or her parents to a school that is not supported by the appropriate Government, shall be liable to pay any kind of fee or charges or expenses which may prevent him/her from pursuing and completing elementary education.
• Compulsory Education: It casts an obligation on the appropriate Government and local authorities to provide and ensure admission, attendance and completion of elementary education by all children in the 6-14 age group.
• Key Provisions
  • Requires all private schools to reserve 25 per cent of seats for children (to be reimbursed by the state as part of the public-private partnership plan).
  • Kids are admitted to private schools based on economic status of caste-based reservations.
  • Prohibits all unrecognised schools from practice, and makes provisions for no donation or capitation fees and no interview of the child or parent for admission.
  • No child shall be held back, expelled, or required to pass a board examination until the completion of elementary education.
  • Special training of school drop-outs to bring them up to par with students of the same age.
  • Requires surveys that will monitor all neighbourhoods, identify children requiring education, and set up facilities for providing it.
• The Right to Education of persons with disabilities until 18 years of age is laid down under separate legislation, the Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016.

SERB-PRoject Information System & Management (SERB-PRISM)

• It has been set up by the Science and Engineering Board (SERB) as a portal that offers real-time information on the various research projects supported by it.
  • SERB is a statutory body of the Department of Science and Technology (DST).
  • Mandate: To plan, promote and fund internationally competitive research in emerging areas.
• The e-platform will provide information on all projects sanctioned by SERB from 2011 onwards, including funding details, status, research summary and project output details such as publications and patents.
• Search facilities enable retrieval of information about projects by the names of Principal Investigators (PIs), institutions, topics and other keywords, as well as year-wise listing and project equipment that have been sanctioned by the Board for them.
• It is expected to work as a comprehensive tool to help forge stronger scientist-scientist, and science-society connections.
• Among other things, it will help researchers to look at research trends, learn about cutting-edge science, locate critical equipment in their vicinity and help seek collaborations across disciplines.

Pachyderm

• It means a very large mammal with thick skin, like elephants, rhinoceros, or hippopotamus.
• It is an obsolete 19th-century taxonomic order of mammals.

PLI for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API)

• The government has approved 33 applications with a committed investment of Rs. 5,082.65 crore under the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme for Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API).
  • API is any substance or combination of substances used in a Finished Pharmaceutical Product (FPP), intended to furnish pharmacological activity or to otherwise have direct effect in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment or prevention of disease, or to have direct effect in restoring, correcting or modifying physiological functions in human beings.
• The government also approved a PLI scheme for the pharmaceutical sector, entailing an outlay of Rs. 15,000 crore.
• Setting up these plants will make the country self-reliant to a large extent in respect of these bulk drugs.

Kala-Azar

• Visceral leishmaniasis, also known as kala-azar, is characterized by irregular bouts of fever, substantial weight loss, swelling of the spleen and liver, and anaemia (which may be serious).
• It is caused by a protozoan Leishmania parasite and is transmitted to humans by the bite of infected female sandflies.
• The parasite primarily infects the reticuloendothelial system and may be found in abundance in bone marrow, spleen and liver.
• The disease affects some of the poorest people on earth and is associated with malnutrition, population displacement, poor housing, a weak immune system and lack of financial resources.
• If the disease is not treated, the fatality rate in developing countries can be as high as 100% within 2 years.

Swami Chidbhavananda

• He was born on 11th March 1898, in a traditional agricultural family to Perianna Gounder and Nanjammal.
• He lived as a great teacher by explaining difficult spiritual concepts such as the path to salvation through his lucid writings of Ramayana and Mahabharata.
• He was the founder of the Ramakrishna Ashram at Udhagamandalam.
• He also founded Sri Ramakrishna Tapovanam Ashram at Thirupparaithurai, Tiruchirapalli, Tamil Nadu.
• He has authored 186 books and has many literary compositions to his credit.
• However, his scholarly work on the Gita is one of the most celebrated ones.
  • The Tamil version of the Gita with his commentaries was published in 1951, followed by the English in 1965.
  • Its translations into Telugu, Oriya, German and Japanese were undertaken by devotees.
  • Its Kindle version has been recently launched.

AsterX

• France launched its first military exercise in space this week to evaluate its ability to defend its satellites and other defence equipment from an attack.
• The exercise, codenamed “AsterX” in memory of the first French satellite from 1965, will be based on 18 simulated events in an operations room.
• The drills will simulate the monitoring of a potentially dangerous space object, as well as a threat to a satellite.
• The new US Space Force and German space agencies are taking part in the French exercise.