UPSC Current Affairs Pointers of the past week | December 23 to December 29, 2024

Events

• Good Governance Day

— Good Governance Day is celebrated on December 25th every year to raise awareness among citizens about government accountability and effective administration while promoting the practice of “good governance” among civil servants.

— In 2014, the Union government announced that December 25 would be celebrated as “Good Governance Day” to honor the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Kisan Diwas, National Farmers Day 2024: This year, the Government of India is celebrating Kisan Diwas under the idea of “Empowering ‘Annadatas’ for a Prosperous Nation.” (file/Representational Image)

• National Farmers Day 2024

— India celebrates National Farmers’ Day, also known as Kisan Diwas, to recognise the lifeblood of the nation—its farmers on December 23, every year.

— This day also commemorates the birth anniversary of India’s fifth Prime Minister, Chaudhary Charan Singh, who served from 1979 to 1980 and is well-known for his extensive understanding of rural concerns and unwavering support for farmer welfare.

— During his term, he promoted measures that would improve farmers’ livelihoods, including land reforms and attempts to increase agricultural output.

— This year, the Government of India is celebrating Kisan Diwas under the idea of “Empowering ‘Annadatas’ for a Prosperous Nation.”

 

Polity

• Suposhit Gram Panchayat Abhiyan

— The PM launched the ‘Suposhit Gram Panchayat Abhiyan’, which aims at improving nutritional outcomes and well-being by strengthening the implementation of nutrition-related services to eliminate malnutrition and form the basis of developed India.

— The programme will involve competition among anganwadis, and a total of 1,000-gram panchayats will get Rs 1 lakh while a part of this amount will be used for better nutrition in the anganwadis.

• SVAMITVA

— Prime Minister Narendra Modi has asked all Union ministers to attend the public events to be held to distribute 57 lakh property cards among a dozen states and UTs on December 27, under SVAMITVA, a central sector scheme.

— The acronym SVAMITA stands for Survey of Villages and Mapping with Improvised Technology in Village Areas. It is a Central Sector Scheme aimed at “providing ‘record of rights’ to village household owners possessing houses in inhabited rural areas in villages and issuance of property cards to the property owners.”

— The scheme was launched by the Prime Minister on the occasion of National Panchayati Raj Day, April 24, 2020.

•  FREE-AI

— The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has constituted an eight-member committee of experts to develop a framework for responsible and ethical enablement of artificial intelligence (FREE-AI) in the financial sector.

— The committee, to be headed by Pushpak Bhattacharyya, professor (Department of Computer Science and Engineering), IIT Bombay, will recommend a robust, comprehensive, and adaptable AI framework for the financial sector.

— The committee will assess the current level of adoption of AI in financial services, globally and in India, and review regulatory and supervisory approaches on AI with a focus on the financial sector globally.

he Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairman of the PM CARES Fund.

• PM CARES Fund

— The Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) received Rs 912 crore in contributions during the financial year 2022-23 as donations continued to pour in even after the Covid pandemic.

— The PM CARES Fund was registered as a Public Charitable Trust under the Registration Act, 1908 in New Delhi on March 27, 2020, three days after the lockdown in the country in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.

— The Prime Minister is the ex-officio chairman of the PM CARES Fund, while the Defence Minister, Home Minister and Finance Minister are ex-officio trustees of the Fund. The Prime Minister, as the chairperson of the Board of Trustees of the PM CARES Fund, has nominated Justice K T Thomas (retd.) and Kariya Munda as trustees.

 

Environment

• Bald Eagle

— The bald eagle, a symbol of power and the strength of the United States for more than 240 years has officially become the US’s National bird. They are put under the Least concerned category of the IUCN Red List.

— In 2007, when the bald eagle was removed from the endangered species list, there were roughly 9,789 known breeding pairs in the US. The latest figures (from 2021) put the number of nesting pairs at about 71,4000 with the overall population standing at roughly 316,700.

—  According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bald eagles are native to North America and can be found in almost every state, but they are most populous in Alaska.

Officials say quarantining the animals for a month will help them acclimatise to their new habitat. (Courtesy: West Bengal Zoo Authority)

•  Red Pandas

— West Bengal marked Christmas by welcoming two red pandas from the Netherlands, the first such acquisition from a foreign country in a decade.

— The red panda (Ailurus fulgens), also known as the lesser panda, is a small mammal native to the eastern Himalayas and southwestern China.

— It is listed as endangered in the list of the International Union For Conservation of Nature. According to the World Wildlife Fund, their population is less than 10,000.

• Pangolins

— Recent incidents in Telangana have renewed concerns about the smuggling of pangolins, a scaly nocturnal mammal known for its huge demand in the international market.

— In India, both Indian pangolins and Chinese pangolins are listed in Schedule I of the Wildlife (Protection) Act, of 1972. Therefore hunting, trade, or any other form of utilisation of the species or their body parts and derivatives is banned.

— Since 2017, all pangolin species have been listed in Appendix I of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), prohibiting their commercial trade.

— Chinese Pangolin is classified as ‘Critically Endangered’ on the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List while the Indian Pangolin is classified as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List.

— They are the only known mammals with large keratin scales covering their skin. They are also toothless and nocturnal. They curl up into scaly spheres upon being alarmed.

• Gangetic Dolphin

— The first ever Ganges river dolphin (Platanista gangetica) was tagged in Assam on December 18, the movement aimed towards conserving India’s National Aquatic Animal.

— The family Platanistidae comprises two extant species of Indian river dolphins — the Indus river dolphin and the Ganges river dolphin.

— Ganges river dolphins go by a number of local names across their range including susu, soons, soans, or soos in Hindi, shushuk in Bengali, hiho or hihu in Assamese, and bhagirath, shus or suongsu in Nepali.

— Both the Indus and Ganges dolphins have been listed as ‘Endangered’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List since the 1990s.

 

Science and Technology

• Automated & Intelligent Machine-aided Construction (AIMC) system

— Given the concerns over delays in the completion of many National Highway projects across the country, the Ministry of Road Transport & Highways (MoRTH) has expedited the use of Automated & Intelligent Machine-aided Construction (AIMC) system.

— NHAI is implementing AIMC on a pilot basis in the 63-km long under-construction Lucknow-Kanpur Expressway Project, also known as the Awadh Expressway, where automated & intelligent machines such as GPS-aided motor grader, intelligent compactor, and stringless paver have been used.

— Officials said that on the basis of this pilot projects, there will be countrywide adoption of the AIMC in National Highway construction.

The year-ender will be a mission of many firsts. (File Photo)

• Spadex Mission

— On December 30, ISRO will launch the SPadex Mission from Sriharikota.

— The Spadex mission will see two satellites — SDX01 or Chaser and SDX02 or Target — align in the same orbit, reduce the distance between each other, join and transfer electrical power between them, and then separate.

— After they separate, payloads on board both the satellites will continue to function for two years.

— India’s workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle PSLV-C60 will launch the two 220 kg satellites in a 470 km circular orbit, with the launch vehicle providing a small relative velocity between the two.

 

Persons in News

Singh served as Prime Minister from May 22, 2004, to May 26, 2014, leading the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for a historic 3,656 days.

• Manmohan Singh

— Former Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh passed away on 26th December at the age of 92. The Union government has declared a seven-day mourning period for Singh and has canceled all government programs scheduled for Friday.

— He was the chief architect of the economic reforms, particularly the LPG (Liberalization, Privatization, and Globalization) policy in the 1990s, which transformed India’s economic trajectory.

— Singh’s reforms in 1991 sought to liberalise and end the ‘Licence Raj’ through industrial policy reforms.

— Singh served as Prime Minister from May 22, 2004, to May 26, 2014, leading the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government for a historic 3,656 days. His tenure made him the third longest-serving Prime Minister in Indian history, following Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandhi.

• V Ramasubramanian

— Former Supreme Court judge V Ramasubramanian has been appointed as the 9th Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) for a tenure of three years until December 2027.

— The previous NHRC chairman, Justice Arun Mishra, completed his term on June 1, 2024.

— The first NHRC chairman was former Chief Justice of India Ranganath Mishra.

— Until 2019 only former Chief Justices of India could be appointed as NHRC chairperson. However, in July 2019, the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993, was amended to also allow former SC judges for the post.

— The committee to select the NHRC chairperson is headed by the Prime Minister. It has the Lok Sabha Speaker, the Union Home Minister, the Leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha, and the Deputy Chairperson of the Rajya Sabha as its members.

•  Sanjay Kishan Kaul

— Retired Supreme Court judge Sanjay Kishan Kaul has been appointed a member of the Bahrain International Commercial Court by King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa. He is among the nine members appointed to the newly established BICC.

— Leading arbitrator Jan Paulsson has been appointed as BICC president and former British judge Sir Christopher Greenwood as its vice president.

— The BICC is a part of the Bahrain government’s “Team Bahrain” to enhance private sector investment in the country by providing a forum for dispute resolution between parties.

Madan B Lokur

• Madan B Lokur

— Retired Supreme Court judge Madan B Lokur has been appointed chairperson of the United Nations Internal Justice Council.

— The Internal Justice Council comprises five members appointed by the Secretary-General.  The other four members on the list are Carmen Artigas (Uruguay), Rosalie Balkin (Australia), Stefan Brezina (Austria) and Jay Pozenal (United States of America).

• Bapsi Sidhwa

— Bapsi Sidhwa died in Houston, Texas. She was 86. She is survived by her novels known for their comedy, tragedy and seamless fusion of the political and personal.

— Her first novel, The Crow Eaters (1978), published to much backlash in Pakistan, was about a Parsi businessman, a stalwart of his community, who couldn’t tolerate his mother-in-law. The book tracked his fortunes and failures after he uprooted his family’s life in central India and moved them to Lahore.

• Dr. Ravi Pillai

— Bahrain King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa awarded the Medal of Efficiency (First Class) to R P Group Chairman Ravi Pillai for his “outstanding contributions” to the Kingdom of Bahrain. In the field of refinery operations.

• Shyam Benegal

— Shyam Benegal breathed his last on 23rd December at the age of 90. Benegal has been suffering from chronic kidney disease for several years.

— He was honoured with the Padma Shri in 1976 and the Padma Bhushan in 1991.

— His impressive body of work includes a host of landmark television shows and documentaries, including landmark series such as Yatra (1986) and Bharat Ek Khoj (1988).

Renowned Malayalam author-filmmaker MT Vasudevan Nair passed away in Kozhikode on Wednesday at the age of 91. (Express Archive photo)

• MT Vasudevan Nair

— Renowned Malayalam author-filmmaker MT Vasudevan Nair passed away on December 25, in Kozhikode at the age of 91.

— Important works: Valarthumrigangal, Kalam, Gopuranadayil, Swargam Thurakkunna Samayam, Randamoozham, and more.

— At 25, he won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award for Naalukettu. In 1970, he won the Sahitya Akademi prize for his fifth novel, Kaalam. He won the National Award for screenplay four times and the Kerala State film award 11 times.

Newly Appointed Governors
Ajay Kumar Bhalla	Manipur
Arif Mohammed Khan	Bihar
Hari Babu Kambhampati	Odisha
General (Dr.) Vijay Kumar	Mizoram
Rajendra Vishwanath Arlekar	Kerala

 

Places in News

(Just FYI: The location of the place is important, considering that UPSC has asked several questions about places that were in the news, such as Aleppo and Kirkuk, in the 2018 UPSC Prelims. The best way to remember them is to plot them on a world map.)

• Belgaum session, Karnataka

— Congress leaders planned to celebrate the 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi presiding over the Congress’s historic Belgaum session as the party president in 1924.

— Exactly 100 years ago, on December 26-27, 1924, the Congress held its 39th session in Belgaum (now Belagavi) — the sole session to be chaired by Mahatma Gandhi.

— Belgaum was then a part of the Bombay Presidency. The session’s venue was named Vijayanagara, after the Vijayanagara Empire.

• Ken- Betwa River Linking National Project

— Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone of the Ken- Betwa River Linking National Project on December 25, on the 100th birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

— The KBLP envisages transferring water from the Ken River to the Betwa River, both tributaries of the Yamuna. The Ken-Betwa Link Canal will be 221 km in length, including a 2-km tunnel.

— It is the first project under the National Perspective Plan for the interlinking of rivers, which was prepared in 1980. This plan has 16 projects under its peninsular component, including the KBLP. Apart from this, 14 links are proposed under the Himalayan rivers development plan.

— The Ken-Betwa Link Project has two phases. Phase-I will involve building the Daudhan Dam complex and its subsidiary units such as the Low Level Tunnel, High Level Tunnel, Ken-Betwa Link Canal and power houses. Phase-II will involve three components — Lower Orr Dam, Bina Complex Project and Kotha Barrage.

— On March 22, 2021, a memorandum of agreement was signed among the Ministry of Jal Shakti and the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh to implement the Ken-Betwa Link Project.

The festival spans three kilometers, from Lauruk to Chankhapur. (Photo: @sthemanta via Kantipur)

• Pokhara, Nepal

— Nepal’s tourism capital, Pokhara, has taken adventure tourism to new heights with its inaugural International Balloon Festival.

— The nine-day event, running from December 24, 2024, to January 2, 2025, is being held in the Pame region, known for its scenic beauty and adventure opportunities.

 

Terms making buzz

— The Satanic Verses: Salman Rushdie’s The Satanic Verses is back on bookshelves after a 36-year-old import ban was recently lifted by the Delhi High Court.

 

Test Your Knowledge

(Note: The best way to remember facts for UPSC and other competitive exams is to recall them through MCQs. Try to solve the following questions on your own.)

A. National Farmers’ Day is celebrated to commemorate the birth anniversary of which of the following former Prime Ministers?

(a) Atal Bihari Vajpayee

(b) P. V. Narasimha Rao

(c) Chaudhary Charan Singh

(d) H. D. Deve Gowda

B. Consider the following statements related to the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC):

1. Recently, former Supreme Court judge V Ramasubramanian was appointed the 9th Chairperson of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC).

2. Only the former Chief Justices of India could be appointed as NHRC chairperson.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

C. Consider the following statements about the SPadex Mission:

1. On December 25, the ISRO launched the SPadex Mission from Sriharikota.

2. It has launched SDX01 or Chaser and SDX02 or Target satellite from PSLV-C60 vehicle.

Which of the following statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

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