Read Daily Current Affairs of 30th January 2020 for UPSC Civil Services (IAS) Prelims and Mains Exam 2020.
Read Current Affairs Notes of 30th January 2020 for UPSC Civil Services Prelims and Mains Examination 2020. Highlighting all National and International contemporary issues important from the exam point of view.
GS-3, Prelims
Topic: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
RIL lays out road with plastic waste
- The Reliance Industries Ltd.’s (RIL) have constructed a 40-km road network in Nagothane township. The speciality of the road is that it is made up of plastic waste (50 tonnes).
- Under its sustainability initiative, Waste Plastic to Road initiative, plastics used by the RIL and those by e-commerce companies were collected from within the township and surrounding areas of Pen taluka and road was made using this plastic waste.
- Advantages of using plastic waste for making roads:
- Beneficial to the environment
- Enhances the quality of roads
- Challenges:
- Collection of plastic waste is challenging
- Way forward:
- Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), to make the polluter pay, is going to prove effective for the initiative
- A robust collection system of plastic waste should be established.
GS-3, Prelims
Topic: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.
Prepaid meters may lower power tariff
- Union Power Ministry has sent a circular to States last week, which allowed them to approach State Electricity Regulatory Commissions (SERC) for the reduction in power tariff in cases “where prepayment meters have been installed”.
- The crux of the circular is that the citizens can hope the reduction in electricity bills if they have prepaid meters installed on their premises.
- Reduction is estimated because of the following reasons:
- Carryings costs will come downàreduced requirement of working capital for the Distribution Companies (Discoms).
- Will eliminate costs involved in meter reading, billing and collection.
- Citizens will be able to pay at their own convenience, requirement and as per their consumption.
- The Union Ministry has set a deadline of six months for implementing its directive.
- Last year, the Union government had issued guidelines to States to convert their all existing consumer meters into “smart meters in prepaid mode”.
- The National Electricity Policy in 2005 had stated the same thing, so the concept is not new.
- The States of Rajasthan, Odisha and Tamil Nadu have worked in this direction. Delhi government has also taken steps in this direction.
GS-1, Prelims
Topic: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.
Month long Nagoba Jatara conclude in Telangana
- Nagoba Jatara is celebrated by Adivasi groups of Telangana every year.
- This celebration continues for a month.
- Thanksgiving and Betal-puja constitute the last of the rituals before the formal end of the celebrations.
- Betal puja involves the display of martial arts. In this form of martial arts, a ‘warrior’ jumps in the air wielding a thin bamboo-stick like a sword.
- According to elders, the Adivasis once belonged to ruling clans and thus were familiar with martial arts.
GS-2, Prelims
Topic: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance-applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
NCRB’s missing persons data now available online
- The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) have launched some online services for citizens on its Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems platform.
- Can be accessed through:
- http://digitalpolicecitizenservices.gov.in
- Through a link in existing “Digital Police Portal”
- Services include:
- Missing person search
- Generate vehicle NOC
GS-3, Prelims
Topic: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cybersecurity; money laundering and its prevention.
Email accounts of Govt. officials hacked
- A Computer Science Engineering graduate, from IIT-Guwahati, Sai Krishna Kothapalli has a start-up named Hackrew, which works towards making Indian cyber-space more secure.
- He has alerted the National Critical Information Protection Centre of Government of India, that credentials of at least 3,000 employees working in sensitive establishments such as Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Research (IGCAR), Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC), Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), and Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) have been hacked in various data breaches.
- The analysis done by them has shown that accounts ending with “gov.in” format were hacked and their login name/passwords made available in plain text over the deep web.
- Most targeted organisations were the IGCAR and BARC.
- The suggestions provided to be safe from such data breaches include:
- Revoke the hacked credentials and take proper security measures
- Introduce two-factor authentication to access email accounts of employees in sensitive organisations.
GS-2, Prelims
Topic: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.
Vigilante form of ILP enforced in Meghalaya
- Meghalaya is yet to come under the Inner Line Permit (ILP). States of Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland have already come under the ILP.
- But a local organisation in Meghalaya has “implemented” a vigilante version of the permit.
- ILP was first issued under the Bengal Eastern Frontier Regulation of 1873 by State governments during British-era.
- ILP is an official travel document allowing inward travel of an Indian citizen to a protected area for a limited area.
- The resolution in favour of ILP was adopted by the Meghalaya assembly in December 2019 under pressure of anti-CAA protests.