Today's Headlines

Today's Headlines - 15 April 2023

Vibrant Villages Programme

GS Paper -2 (Development)

Union Home Minister in Arunachal Pradesh launches the ‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ (VVP) in the border village of Kibithoo. The constant threat along the country’s border amid the on-going standoff with China has led to a concerted push to upgrade infrastructure in the border areas.

‘Vibrant Villages Programme’ (VVP):

  • This village development scheme was first announced in the 2022 Budget. The programme’s targets are to provide comprehensive development of villages on the border with China and improvement in the quality of life of people living in identified border villages.
  • The development in these villages will help prevent migration, and thus also boost security.
  • The Parliamentary Standing Committee in 2018 had pointed towards backwardness, illiteracy, and lack of basic facilities and infrastructure in our border areas. The VVP aims to address all these issues.

Coverage of VVP:

  • Under this centrally sponsored scheme, 2,967 villages in 46 blocks of 19 districts have been identified for comprehensive development.
  • The villages covered in the border areas in the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Sikkim, Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh and the Union Territory of Ladakh.
  • In the first phase, around 662 villages have been identified for priority coverage.

Funds allocated for the programme:

  • A population of about 1.42 lakh people will be covered in the first phase. Under the programme, the government has allocated Rs 4,800 crore for infrastructure development and to provide livelihood opportunities in the border areas.
  • Out of the total outlay, Rs 2,500 crore will be spent exclusively on the creation of road infrastructure. The total outlay is for financial years 2022-23 to 2025-26.
  • There is a conscious effort to not overlap VVP with the Border Area Development Programme.

Objectives of the scheme:

  • The aims of the scheme are to identify and develop the economic drivers based on local, natural, human and other resources of the border villages.
  • The centrality of the development of growth centres on the “Hub and Spoke Model” through promotion of social entrepreneurship, empowerment of youth and women through skill development.
  • The programme also intends to leverage tourism potential through promotion of local, cultural, traditional knowledge and heritage in the border areas, thus increasing the employment opportunities of the people and, as a result, stemming migration.
  • It will promote development of sustainable eco-agribusinesses on the concept of “One village-One product” through community-based organisations, cooperatives, SHGs, NGOs etc.
  • The scheme envisages that drinking water, 24×7 electricity, connectivity with all-weather roads, cooking gas, mobile and internet connectivity be made available in the border areas.

'Mars' habitat unveiled on Earth

GS Paper - 3 (Space Technology)

Four small rooms, a gym and a lot of red sand -- NASA unveiled its new Mars-simulation habitat, in which volunteers will live for a year at a time to test what life will be like on future missions to Earth's neighbour. The facility, created for three planned experiments called the Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog (CHAPEA), is located at the US space agency's massive research base in Houston, Texas.

More about the habitat

  1. Four volunteers will begin the first trial this summer, during which NASA plans to monitor their physical and mental health to better understand humans' fortitude for such a long isolation.
  2. With that data, NASA will better understand astronauts' "resource use" on Mars, said Grace Douglas, lead researcher on the CHAPEA experiments.
  3. The volunteers will live inside a 1,700 square-foot (160 square-meter) home, dubbed "Mars Dune Alpha," which includes two bathrooms, a vertical farm to grow salad, a room dedicated to medical care, an area for relaxing and several workstations.
  4. An airlock leads to an "outdoor" reconstruction of the Martian environment -- though still located inside the hangar.
  5. Several pieces of equipment astronauts would likely use are scattered around the red sand-covered floor, including a weather station, a brick-making machine and a small greenhouse.
  6. There is also a treadmill on which the make-believe astronauts will walk suspended from straps to simulate the red planet's lesser gravity.
  7. Four volunteers will use the treadmill to simulate long trips outside to collect samples, gathering data or building infrastructure, she said.
  8. The members of the first experiment team have yet to be named, but the agency stated that selection "will follow standard NASA criteria for astronaut candidate applicants," with a heavy emphasis on backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math.
  9. Researchers will regularly test the crew's response to stressful situations, such as restricting water availability or equipment failures. The habitat has another special feature: it was 3D-printed.
  10. That is one of the technologies that NASA is looking at as apotential to build habitat on other planetary or lunar surfaces.


The Inter-Services Organisations Bill 2023

GS Paper -2 (Acts)

The government introduced a bill which seeks to empower designated defence heads of inter-services organisations with certain administrative and disciplinary powers over all personnel serving in the command or attached to it.

More about the news:

Inter-services organisations include soldiers from the Army, the Air Force and the Navy, like joint training institutes National Defence Academy, National Defence College (NDC), Defence Services Staff College (DSSC), and the Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC).

Logic behind the bill:

  • At present, armed forces personnel are governed by the provisions of three separate laws for the three services, the Air Force Act, 1950, the Army Act, 1950, and the Navy Act, 1957.
  • Only an officer of the same service holds disciplinary powers over persons governed by the respective Act. As far as inter-services organisations are concerned, this directly impacts command, control and discipline.
  • Since the commander-in-chief of a joint services command and the officer-in-command of any other inter-services organisation are not empowered with disciplinary powers, any person accused of an offence has to be sent back to the parent service unit for any disciplinary or administrative action.
  • The existing framework is time-consuming and involves financial costs to move the personnelProceedings become even more cumbersome when the disciplinary or administrative proceedings arise from the same set of facts and circumstances but involve personnel belonging to different services.
  • The proposed legislation aims to address these impediments to ensure discipline is maintained and targets faster disposal of cases, which in turn is likely to save time and public money “without disturbing the unique service conditions or amending the service Acts.”

Key provisions in the Bill:

  • While existing inter-services organisations will be deemed to have been constituted under the Bill, the proposed legislation seeks to empower the central government to set up an inter-services organisation by notification.
  • The superintendence of the inter-services organisation will be vested in the Central Government, which “shall have the power to issue directions to each of such organisations, on any matters concerning national security or general administration, if it considers it necessary and expedient so to do in the public interest.”
  • All disciplinary and administrative powers in terms of personnel serving or attached to an existing or a future inter-services organisation will lie with the commander-in-chief, the officer-in-command, or any other officer specially empowered by the central government.
  • While serving in or attached to an inter-services organisation, personnel will continue to be governed by their respective service Acts.
  • The Centre can notify any force or part of it, which has been raised and maintained in India under the authority of the Government, to which the Bill will apply.
  • It will pave the way for “tangible benefits” such as expeditious disposal of cases, saving of time and public money by avoiding multiple proceedings and greater integration amongst armed forces personnel.

Impact on the tri-services theaterisation plan:

  • The bill looks to integrate the capabilities of the three services. The theatre commands will have units of the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, as per the plan, which has the mandate of the government.
  • All the units will work as a single entity looking after security challenges in a specified geographical territory under an operational commander.
  • The Bill holds the potential to ensure better management of theatre commands once they are operationalised.

‘Dabba trading’ and its impact

GS Paper -3 (Economy)

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) issued a string of notices naming entities involved in ‘dabba trading’. The bourse cautioned retail investors to not subscribe (or invest) using any of these products offering indicative/assured/guaranteed returns in the stock market as they are prohibited by law.

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It added that the entities are not recognised as authorised members by the exchange.

 ‘Dabba trading’:

  • It refers to informal trading that takes place outside the purview of the stock exchanges.
  • Traders bet on stock price movements without incurring a real transaction to take physical ownership of a particular stock as is done in an exchangeIn simple words, it is gambling centred around stock price movements.
  • For example, an investor places a bet on a stock at a price point, say ₹1,000. If the price point rose to 1,500, he/she would make a gain of 500. However, if the price point falls to 900, the investor would have to pay the difference to the dabba broker.
  • It could be concluded that the broker’s profit equates to the investor’s loss and vice-versa. The equations are particularly consequential during bull runs or bear markets.
  • ‘Dabba trading is recognised as an offence under Section 23(1) of the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act (SCRA), 1956 and upon conviction, can invite imprisonment for a term extending up to 10 years or a fine up to ₹25 crore, or both.

Why does such trading take place?

  • The primary purpose of such trades is to stay outside the purview of the regulatory mechanism, and thus, transactions are facilitated using cash and the mechanism is operated using unrecognised software terminals.
  • It could also be facilitated using informal or kaccha (rough) records, sauda (transaction) books, challans, DD receipts, cash receipts alongside bills/contract notes as proof of trading.

Issues associated with it:

  • As there are no proper records of income or gain, it helps dabba traders escape taxation. They would not have to pay the Commodity Transaction Tax (CTT) or the Securities Transaction Tax (STT) on their transactions.
  • The use of cash also means that they are outside the purview of the formal banking system, which results in a loss to the government exchequer.  
  • The primary risk entails the possibility that the broker defaults in paying the investor or the entity becomes insolvent or bankrupt.
  • It also implies that investors are without formal provisions for investor protection, dispute resolution mechanisms and grievance redressal mechanisms that are available within an exchange.
  • It could potentially encourage the growth of ‘black money’ alongside perpetuating a parallel economy that translates to risks entailing money laundering and criminal activities.
  • It also observed that clients, on entering the dabba ecosystem, were harassed by the broker’s ‘recovery agents’ for default payments and refused payments upon profit.
  • Due to aggressive marketing, ease of trading (using apps with quality interface) and lack of identity verifications, brokers keep their fees and margins open to negotiation as well.
  • The mechanism could potentially translate into ripple effects for the regulated bourse as well by inducing volatility when dabba brokers look to hedge their exposures (take position in an alternate asset or investment to reduce the risk/loss with the current position).

Antineutrinos detected

GS Paper - 3 (Science and Technology)

In a lab buried around 2000 kilometres under the ground in Canada, scientists accidentally discovered antineutrinos using extremely pure water for the first time.

What is Antineutrinos

  1. Antineutrinos are the antimatter of neutrinos. They have an almost non-existent mass and charge and they rarely if ever interact with other particles.
  2. This makes them especially difficult to detect. They are produced as a byproduct when neutrons separate into protons and electrons in nuclear reactors.
  3. The Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) was being upgraded to make it SNO+ when the discovery was made. The scientists detected the antineutrino even before the observatory’s upgrades were completed.
  4. As the observatory’s detector’s components were being upgraded in 2018, the observatory was filled with ultrapure water, and the detector was being calibrated. While looking through the calibration data, the researchers picked up signals of an antineutrino that came from a nuclear power station hundreds of kilometres away.
  5. It intrigues us that pure water can be used to measure antineutrinos from reactors and at such large distances.
  6. Usually, in order to detect antineutrinos, “liquid scintillators” scientists need to use a method called liquid scintillation. Typically, this involves the use of chemicals like linear alkylbenzene.
  7. But this new discovery suggests that it would be possible to build neutrino detectors using ultrapure water, which is non-toxicrelatively inexpensive and easy to handle.
  8. This could mean that detectors such as SNO+ could be used to monitor the power output of a nuclear plant from a distance.