Current affairs Nov 16

Draft Rules under the Code on Social Security 2020

• Ministry of Labour & Employment has notified the draft rules under the Code on Social Security, 2020 inviting objections and suggestions, if any, from the stakeholders.

Key Provisions

• Operationalization of provisions in the Code on Social Security, 2020 relating to Employees’ Provident Fund, Employees’ State Insurance Corporation, Gratuity, Maternity Benefit, Social Security and Cess in respect of Building and Other Construction Workers, Social Security for Unorganised Workers, Gig Workers and Platform Workers.
• Aadhaar based registration including self-registration by unorganised workers, gig workers and platform workers on the portal of the Central Government.
• Aadhaar based registration of Building and Other Construction Workers on the specified portal of the Central Government and the State Government or the State Welfare Board.
• Where a building worker migrates from one State to another he shall be entitled to get benefits in the State where he is currently working and
• It shall be the responsibility of the Building Workers Welfare Board of that State to provide benefits to such a worker.
• Gratuity to an employee who is on fixed term employment.
• Single electronic registration of an establishment including cancellation of the registration in case of closure of business activities.
• Manner and conditions for exiting of an establishment from EPFO and ESIC coverage.
• Self-assessment and payment of Cess in respect of building and other construction workers has been elaborated in the rules.
• The rate of Interest for delayed payment of such cess has been reduced from 2 per cent every month or part of a month to 1 per cent.
• Under the existing rules, the Assessing Officer has the power to direct that no material or machinery can be removed or disturbed from the construction site.
• Such power for indefinitely stopping of construction work has been withdrawn in the draft rules.
• The assessing officer can visit the construction site only with the prior approval of the Secretary of the Building and Other Construction Workers Board.
• The rules have also provided for the manner of payment of contribution by the aggregators through self-assessment.

PIB

Sex Ratio

• Arunachal Pradesh recorded the best sex ratio in the country while Manipur recorded the worst sex ratio, according to the 2018 report on “vital statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System”.
• Sex ratio at birth is number of females born per thousand males.
• Arunachal Pradesh recorded 1,084 females born per thousand males, followed by Nagaland (965) Mizoram (964), Kerala (963) and Karnataka (957).
• The worst was reported in Manipur (757), Lakshadweep (839) and Daman & Diu (877), Punjab (896) and Gujarat (896).
• Delhi recorded a sex ratio of 929, Haryana 914 and Jammu and Kashmir 952.
• The ratio was determined on the basis of data provided by 30 States and Union Territories as the “requisite information from six States namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal is not available”.
• The level of registration of births has increased to 89.3% in 2018 from 81.3% in 2009.
• The prescribed time limit for registration of birth or death is 21 days. Some States however register the births and deaths even after a year.
• The birth or death certificate is issued free of charge by the Registrar concerned if reported within 21 days.
• If reported within 21-30 days, it can be registered on payment of the prescribed fee.
• If the duration is more than 30 days but within a year, it can be registered with the written permission of the prescribed authority and on production of an affidavit made before a notary public or any other officer authorised by the State government and on payment of a fee.
• Births and deaths reported after one year of occurrence shall be registered only on an order of the Magistrate of the First Class after verifying the correctness and on payment of the prescribed fee.

THE HINDU

Ban on Opinion Polls

• Former Chief Election Commissioner S.Y. Quraishi called for a ban on opinion polls and also suggested counting of votes from the Voter Verifiable Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips instead of Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs) and change in the appointment process of the Election Commission.
• In his lecture on the need for electoral reforms organised by the Capital Foundation he said the EC had been a “powerful neutral umpire” and never missed a deadline for elections.
• While the EC had set up campaigns for voter awareness to increase turnout and formed the expenditure monitoring division to check the use of money in elections, there was more to be done.
• Flagged the problem of “criminalisation”, with 30%-40% of the members of any legislature having pending criminal cases.
• Among the reforms he suggested were changing the process of removal of Election Commissioners, who can be removed on the recommendation of the CEC while the removal of the CEC is by impeachment. They [ECs] feel like they are on probation.
• The EC should have the power to de-register political parties, as “there are lots of defunct and bogus parties” that only exist for “money laundering”.
• Opinion polls should be banned as they vitiate the purity of the election process.
• There needs to be a debate on proportional representation.
• He said he changed his mind about the first past the post system after the 2014 elections when the Bahujan Samaj Party got 20% of the votes in Uttar Pradesh but no seats.
• The fact that 20% of the voters did not have a voice in the legislature was a defect in the system.

THE HINDU

Right to ‘Default’ Bail

• An accused, irrespective of the merits of the case against him, should be granted “default” or “complusive” bail if the investigating agency does not complete the probe within a prescribed time limit, the Supreme Court has held in a judgment.
• A bench referred to how “in England, even a person accused of grave offences such as treason could not be indefinitely detained in prison till commencement of the trial”.
• The court held that an accused has an “indefeasible right” to default bail under Section 167(2) of the Code of Criminal Procedure if the probe agency failed to complete the investigation on time.

What Section 167 says

• Under Section 167, an accused can be detained in custody for a maximum of 90 days for a crime punishable with death, life imprisonment or a sentence of over 10 years. It is 60 days of detention if the investigation relates to any other offence.
• In some special statutes such as the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the period of detention can extend to 180 days.
• These time-limits were set to ensure that agencies do not use the rule of an ongoing probe to keep people behind bars indefinitely.
• In fact, the top court highlighted that magistrates have to mandatorily inform the accused persons, especially those from the poor sections of the society, of their statutory right to apply for default bail.
• Any court, which adjourns an application for bail to favour the prosecution, is acting in violation of the legislative mandate
• Section 167(2) has three clear objectives — fair trial, expeditious investigation and the setting down of a rationalised procedure to protect the poor sections of the society.

THE HINDU

Leonid Meteor Shower

• The Leonid meteor showers are currently making their yearly appearance, and will reach their peak in India on November 17 and 18.
• The Leonids emerge from the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which requires 33 years to revolve once around the Sun.
• These meteors are bright and among the fastest moving– travelling at speeds of 71 km per second.
• Meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to be coming from.
• The Leonids originate from the constellation Leo the Lion– the groups of stars which form a lion’s mane.

What is a meteor shower?

• On its journey around the Sun, the Earth passes through large swathes of cosmic debris.
• The debris is essentially the remnants of comets — great frigid chunks of matter that leave behind dirty trails of rocks and ice that linger long after the comets themselves have passed.
• As the Earth wades through this cloud of comet waste, the bits of debris create what appears from the ground to be a fireworks display in the sky — known as a meteor shower.
• Several meteor showers can be seen around the year. According to NASA, over 30 meteor showers occur annually and are observable from the Earth.
• The remaining months of 2020 will have the Geminids (from December 4-20, peaking around December 13-14), and the Ursids (from December 17-26, peaking around December 21-22).

What is the best way to see a meteor shower?

• Meteors are best seen on a cloudless night, when the entire sky is visible, and when the Moon is not extremely bright.
• Chances of a successful viewing are higher from locations far away from the lights of cities.
• The showers peak when the Earth passes through the densest part of the debris cloud. Peaks can last for a few hours or several nights.
• They tend to be most visible after midnight and before dawn.
• The Leonids will be most visible in the Northern Hemisphere, but can also be seen from the Southern Hemisphere.

IE

Long-distance Airborne Dispersal of SARS-COV-2

• When researchers investigated the ventilation openings in one COVID-19 ward and the central ducts that expel indoor air from three COVID-19 wards.
• They were able to detect SARS-CoV-2 in central ventilation systems, which were distant from patient areas, implying that the virus can be transported long distances.

What is airborne transmission?

• As per the WHO, airborne transmission is defined as the spread of an infectious agent caused by the dissemination of aerosols that remain infectious when suspended in the air over long distances and time.
• Airborne transmission can happen during aerosol-generating medical procedures and even through speaking and singing.

What do we know about airborne transmission?

• While the virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, does spread through respiratory droplets from one person to another, it has been up for debate whether droplets, including tiny aerosols, containing the virus remain suspended in the air for a long enough period of time to enable the virus to infect a new person.
• While WHO had already acknowledged that airborne transmission can occur during medical procedures that generate aerosols, the updated guidelines state that
• “WHO, together with the scientific community, has been actively discussing and evaluating whether SARS-CoV-2 may also spread through aerosols in the absence of aerosol-generating procedures, particularly in indoor settings with poor ventilation”.

So what does the study say?

• Researchers found the virus RNA in vent openings in wardrooms where COVID-19 patients were present.
• They also found viral RNA in fluid placed in open dishes suspended below vent openings and similar levels of viral RNA were detected in exhaust filters and open petri dishes.
• Therefore, the study provides further evidence for the ability of SARS-CoV-2 to disperse from patients to ward vent openings as well as the detection of viral RNA in ventilation exhaust filters located at least 50 m from patient room vent opening.
• While they could not conclude that the viral samples they studied retained their infective ability, the distance at which they detected
• The RNA suggests that there may be some risk for airborne transmission, “especially at much closer distances to contagious persons in confined spaces, both in and outside hospital environments.”

IE

An Arthritis Drug for COVID-19

• A type of arthritis drug called baricitinib may help reduce the risk of death for elderly patients with Covid-19 according to a new international study.
• This medication is usually used to treat rheumatoid arthritis and was initially identified by the Imperial team using artificial intelligence as a drug that could have anti-viral and anti-inflammatory effects.
• The study suggests this drug can aid recovery of patients with moderate to severe Covid-19.
• The drug worked in two ways.
• It reduced organ damage caused by inflammation.
• It also blocked the virus from entering human cells.

BusinessLine

New Zealand’s Bird of the Year

• The green and fawn kākāpō – the world’s heaviest, longest-living parrot –named New Zealand’s bird of the year for an unprecedented second time, first won in 2008.
• It can’t fly and it hides during the day and a critically endangered large parrot.
• Kākāpō – a bird also known as “mighty moss chicken” – used to live throughout Aotearoa, but today survive only on predator-free islands.
• The things that make kākāpō unique also make them vulnerable to threats. They are slow breeders, they nest on the ground and their main defence is to imitate a shrub.
• Those qualities worked great in the island of birds the kākāpō evolved in but they don’t fool introduced predators like stoats, rats and cats.
• Another endangered bird, the antipodean albatross, which is often caught in fishing nets, won most first-choice votes.
• The government has promised to put cameras on all commercial fishing boats, and New Zealand has a goal to be predator free by 2050.

THE GUARDIAN

Damage to Multiple Organs Recorded In ‘Long COVID’ Cases

• Young and previously healthy people with ongoing symptoms of Covid-19 are showing signs of damage to multiple organs four months after the initial infection, a study suggests.
• Fatigue, brain fog, breathlessness and pain are among the most frequently reported effects.
• The Coverscan study aims to assess the long-term impact of Covid-19 on organ health in around 500 “low-risk” individuals –
• those who are relatively young and without any major underlying health complaints –
• With ongoing Covid symptoms, through a combination of MRI scans, blood tests, physical measurements and online questionnaires.
• Preliminary data from the first 200 patients to undergo screening suggests that almost 70% have impairments in one or more organs, including the heart, lungs, liver and pancreas, four months after their initial illness.
• In some, but not all, cases there was a correlation between people’s symptoms and the site of the organ impairment.
• For instance, heart or lung impairments correlated with breathlessness, while liver or pancreas impairments were associated with gastrointestinal symptoms.
• The study doesn’t prove that organ impairments are the cause of people’s ongoing symptoms.

THE GUARDIAN

SpaceX’s Crew Dragon Astronaut Launch for NASA

• SpaceX has launched four astronauts to the International Space Station on the first full-fledged taxi flight for NASA by a private company.
• The Falcon rocket from Kennedy Space Center in Florida with three Americans and one Japanese onboard, the second crew to be launched by SpaceX.
• This launch comes just a few months after a two-pilot test flight by SpaceX and kicks off what Nasa hopes will be a long series of crew rotations between the US and the space station, after years of delay.
• The crew – comprising three men and one woman, led by Commander Mike Hopkins, an Air Force colonel – named their capsule Resilience in a nod not only to the pandemic, but also racial injustice and contentious politics.
• With physicist Shannon Walker, as well as Navy Commander Victor Glover, the first Black astronaut on a long-term space station mission, and Japan’s Soichi Noguchi, who became the first person in almost 40 years to launch on three types of spacecraft.
• The Dragon capsule can carry up to seven people. Previous space capsules have launched with no more than three. The extra room in the capsule was used for science experiments and supplies.
• The four astronauts will be joining two Russians and one American who flew to the space station last month from Kazakhstan.
• The first-stage booster – which landed on an ocean platform several minutes after liftoff – is expected to be recycled by SpaceX for the next crew launch, scheduled for the end of March.
• That would set up the newly launched astronauts for a return to Earth in April.

THE GUARDIAN

How Asteroid Dust May Reveal Secrets of Life on Earth

• In a few days, a capsule containing samples of soil from a distant asteroid will be released by a robot spaceship and dropped into Earth’s upper atmosphere.
• The container will parachute safely on to the Woomera test range in South Australia on 6 December.
• The information returned could help solve several major astronomical puzzles, including the mystery of how water first appeared on our planet.
• Asteroids are the leftover building blocks from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago.
• The Japanese probe Hayabusa 2 was launched six years ago and sent on a trajectory to the asteroid Ryugu which orbits the sun every 16 months.
• Scientist plan to use a device called an atom probe which allows researchers to identify individual atoms in a sample.
• Given the vast numbers of atoms that make up even the tiniest of samples, this will require counting and analysing tens of millions of individuals atoms.
• Engineers at the Japanese space agency, Jaxa, are still unsure how much material Hayabusa 2 has collected.
• Its predecessor mission, Hayabusa 1 – Hayabusa is the Japanese word for a peregrine falcon – in 2005, was plagued by engine failures and other technical problems and brought back very little material from its target, the asteroid Itokawa.
• Apart from telling us what the early solar system was made of, they will also tell us what happens to rocks when they are bombarded by the solar wind for billions of years – and that is of crucial bearing in understanding the story of water in the solar system and, most importantly, on Earth.
• The solar wind is a stream of protons and other sub-atomic particles emitted by the sun.
• Earth’s atmosphere shields us but in space the particles remorselessly batter surfaces that lack such protection. This bombardment may be triggering the creation of water on asteroids.
• Protons are, essentially, hydrogen ions and could be reacting with oxygen in rocks to create water molecules.
• Recent space probes – such as the Rosetta mission which visited the comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko between 2014 and 2016 – have found water on these bodies. However, it is not quite like the water on Earth.
• These extraterrestrial samples contain higher levels of deuterium, an isotope of hydrogen, than is found in water from Earth and this has led many scientists to conclude our supply must have been here from the start.

THE GUARDIAN

Scientists Link Record-breaking Hurricane Season to Climate Crisis

• Hurricane Mitch in 1998 was the most destructive storm to hit Central America.
• But hundreds of thousands of subsistence farmers across the region have lost everything in flooding caused by Eta, which made landfall in Nicaragua as a category 4 hurricane on 3 November.
• Now, with a second hurricane, Iota, projected to make landfall near where Eta did, even more could find themselves in the same situation.
• Climate scientists say that this year’s record-breaking hurricane season and the “unprecedented” double blow for Central America has a clear link to the climate crisis.
• In a 36-hour period [Eta] went from a depression to a very strong category 4, that is just not normal, probably it was the fastest spin up from a depression to a major hurricane in history.
• The evidence of the influence of the climate crisis is not so much in the record-breaking 30 tropical storms in the Atlantic so far this year, but the strength, rapid intensification and total rainfall of these weather systems.
• The warmer ocean waters that climate change brings are expected to make the stronger storms stronger and make them rapidly intensify more frequently and at a greater rate.
• Central America has been one of the regions most affected by the climate crisis to date, first with Hurricane Mitch, and in recent years with more extreme weather patterns, particularly in what’s known as the dry corridor, which extends from northern Costa Rica all the way to southern Mexico.
• In the dry corridor, that has meant more frequent, prolonged and intense droughts as well as heavier rainfall when it does come, often causing flash flooding that washes away crops.
• Subsistence farmers in the region have struggled to adapt to the new reality, and many in the region have simply given up and left.
• The climate crisis – and the hunger it brings – is increasingly being recognized as a major driver of emigration from the region.
• Hondurans migrated to the US in significant numbers for the first time following Hurricane Mitch.
• The Atlantic hurricane season is expected to last until December this year, meaning that Iota might not be the last.

THE GUARDIAN

Our Solar System Was Formed In Less Than 200,000 Years

• Our solar system is vast but it formed very quickly, according to a new study.
• By analyzing billion-year-old isotopes on meteorites, scientists have determined the Sun and the rest of our star system was created in less than 200,000 years.
• For comparison, homo sapiens have been walking the Earth for at least 300,000 years.
• Researchers had expected the timeframe for the solar system’s development be closer to one to two million years, judging by the development of other star systems.
• Our solar system was formed about 4.5 billion years ago from the collapse of a dense cloud of interstellar gas and dust.
• Astrophysicists theorize the collapse was caused by the shockwave from an exploding supernova.
• dated molybdenum isotopes found in carbonaceous chondrite meteorites, including Allende, the largest carbonaceous chondrite found on Earth, which landed in Chihuahua, Mexico, in 1969.
• These meteorites are rich in calcium-aluminum–rich inclusions, the oldest known solids in our solar system.
• Scientists analyzed molybdenum isotopes in the inclusions, and determined they formed over a period of about 40,000 to 200,000 years.
• That means our solar system had to have been formed in that time frame, as well.
• Our solar system continues to reveal new facets of itself: It may have even been home to an ‘extra’ planet located between Saturn and Uranus.
• Their conclusion is that the orbits of the ‘ice giant’ planets, Uranus and Neptune, were influenced by the gravitational pull of a mysterious missing planet — an ice giant that once lay between Saturn and Uranus.

DAILY MAIL

Surveyor 2 Lunar Lander

• A rocket booster flung into the abyss of space during a 1966 mission to the Moon has been caught by Earth’s gravity and will orbit our planet ‘for a few weeks’.
• NASA launched the uncrewed Surveyor 2 probe to the Moon in 1966 but an issue mid-flight resulted in the spacecraft losing control and NASA eventually lost contact.
• Now Centaur, the upper stage rocket booster that helped lift the ill fated spacecraft off the Earth has been captured by our planet out of its orbit around the Sun.
• It is expected to become a temporary satellite for the next few weeks or months until it eventually escapes Earth’s gravitational pull and returns back to a solar orbit.
• The tiny object was spotted in September by astronomers the NASA-funded Pan-STARRS1 survey telescope in Maui.
• They saw that it was following a slight but distinctly curved path in the sky – a sign of its proximity to Earth – and at first it was assumed to be an asteroid.
• The Surveyor 2 lunar lander was launched toward the Moon on September 20, 1966, on an Atlas-Centaur rocket.
• The mission was designed to reconnoiter the lunar surface ahead of the Apollo missions that led to the first crewed lunar landing in 1969.
• Shortly after lift-off, Surveyor 2 separated from its Centaur upper-stage booster as intended.
• But control of the spacecraft was lost a day later when one of its thrusters failed to ignite, throwing it into a spin.
• The spacecraft crashed into the Moon just southeast of Copernicus crater on September 23, 1966.
• The spent Centaur upper-stage rocket, meanwhile, sailed past the Moon and disappeared into an unknown orbit about the Sun.
• A spent rocket is essentially an empty tube and therefore is a low-density object with a large surface area.
• So it will be pushed around by solar radiation pressure more than a solid, high-density clump of rock – much like an empty soda can will be pushed by the wind more than a small stone.
• ‘Solar radiation pressure is a non-gravitational force that is caused by light photons emitted by the sun hitting a natural or artificial object.
• The resulting acceleration on the object depends on the so-called area-to-mass ratio, which is greater for small and light, low-density objects.’
• So, with the new measurements and knowledge of the way sunlight was pushing its trajectory, the team realised it was likely a remnant of the early space age.

DAILY MAIL

How Plastic pollution travels Everywhere

• Plastic pollution is ubiquitous today, with microplastic particles from disposable goods found in natural environments throughout the globe, including Antarctica.
• Microplastic particles get stuck when traveling through porous materials such as soil and sediment but later break free and often continue to move substantially further.
• Previously, researchers thought that when microparticles got stuck, they generally stayed there, which limited understanding of particle spread.
• Microparticles are pushed free when the rate of fluid flowing through the media remains high enough.
• The process of deposition, or the formation of clogs, and erosion, their breakup, is cyclical; clogs form and then are broken up by fluid pressure over time and distance, moving particles further through the pore space until clogs reform.
• Tested two types of particles, “sticky” and “nonsticky,” which correspond with actual types of microplastics found in the environment.
• Surprisingly, they found that there was no difference in the process itself; that is, both still clogged and unclogged themselves at high enough fluid pressures.
• The only difference was where the clusters formed.
• The “nonsticky” particles tended to get stuck only at narrow passageways, whereas the sticky ones seemed to be able to get trapped at any surface of the solid medium they encountered.
• As a result of these dynamics, it is now clear that even “sticky” particles can spread out over large areas and throughout hundreds of pores.

PHYS.ORG

East African Rift System Is Slowly Breaking Away

• The African continent is slowly separating into several large and small tectonic blocks along the diverging East African Rift System, continuing to Madagascar—the long island just off the coast of Southeast Africa—that itself will also break apart into smaller islands.
• These developments will redefine Africa and the Indian Ocean.
• The breakup is a continuation of the shattering of the supercontinent Pangea some 200 million years ago.
• This isn’t happening anytime soon.
• The rate of present-day break-up is millimeters per year, so it will be millions of years before new oceans start to form.
• The rate of extension is fastest in the north, so we’ll see new oceans forming there first.
• The new GPS dataset of very precise surface motions in Eastern Africa, Madagascar, and several islands in the Indian Ocean reveal that the break-up process is more complex and more distributed than previously though.
• The region of distributed extension is about 600 kilometers (372 miles) wide, spanning from Eastern Africa to whole parts of Madagascar.
• More precisely, Madagascar is actively breaking up with southern Madagascar moving with the Lwandle microplate—a small tectonic block—and a piece of central Madagascar is moving with the Somalian plate.
• The rest of the island is found to be deforming non-rigidly.
• The discovery of the broad deforming zone helps geoscientists understand recent and ongoing seismic and volcanic activity happening in the Comoros Islands, located in the Indian Ocean between East Africa and Madagascar.

PHYS.ORG

Jolly Grant Airport

• Environmental activists and local residents in Uttarakhand are opposing the cutting of trees for a project to expand Dehradun’s Jolly Grant airport.
• The Union Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has asked the state government to explore the possibility of acquiring a different patch of land for the expansion, so that the trees could be spared.

What is the project to expand the airport?

• The Uttarakhand Civil Aviation Development Authority has proposed the expansion of Jolly Grant airport in Dehradun with the aim of upgrading it to meet international standards.
• The forest area earmarked for the expansion is in the Thano range, a prominent tourism destination where local people run a number of homestays.

So who is protesting and why?

• Social activists and local residents from the Thano forest range and nearby areas of Dehradun, Rishikesh and Haridwar assembled outside the airport and staged a protest against the proposal to cut 9,745 trees in the affected area.
• Invoking the famous Chipko movement which began in Uttarakhand in the 1970s, they tied “raksha sutras” around the trees to express their concern for the environment, and to demand the conservation of green cover.

What is the government’s argument for cutting the trees?

• Due to the hilly geography, people are dependent on roads for travel and movement.
• A large part of the state shares an international border with China, and the expansion of Jolly Grant airport is strategically very important.
• The state has to face frequent natural disasters, and air operations are very important for rescue and relief. Air operations will also help promote tourism to the Char Dham.
• With this objective, the building of new helipads, and expansion of existing helipads and runways is being carried out.
• With financial assistance of the ADB, over 60 helipads are being developed and upgraded in the state.
• Also, the Hilmalaya Darshan scheme involving private helicopter operators has been started to promote tourism.

IE

Que-    Legendary Indian actor Soumitra Chatterjee, famed for his work with Oscar-winning director Satyajit Ray, has recently died from Covid complications. Which is incorrect about him

2018. a) He was awarded the Dada Saheb Phalke Award, the highest honour in Indian cinema, in 2012 and in 2018.
2019. b) He was given France’s highest award, the Legion of Honour.
2020. c) He received two National Film Awards as an actor.
2021. d) None of the Above

Ans-     (d)