CURRENT AFFAIRS
TOPICS :
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The national emblem
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World population day
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Hubble space telescope
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Strength of High Court Judges A Concern
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SARFAESI Act
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Global liveability Index
The National emblem
Context:
The Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled the national emblem cast on the roof of new parliament building.
New Emblem Design:
- The new national emblem is made using bronze material.
- Total weight of the emblem is of 9500 kgs, which is 6.5 m in height.
- It has been cast on top of the central foyer of New Parliament building.
- For this, a steel support structure of 6500kg weight has been constructed.
The National Emblem:
- The national emblem was adopted on 26th January 1950.
- The national emblem is an adaptation of lion capital of Ashoka at sarnath.
It was adopted with some modifications from the original.
- In the original there are 4 lions, mounted back to back, on a circular abacus.
- The abacus placed on a bell shaped lotus.
- The abacus has sculptures in high relief of an elephant, a galloping horse, a bull and a lion.
- The dharma chakras in between each pair of animals.
In national emblem,
- The bell-shaped lotus was omitted.
- A dharma chakra in the centre of abacus with a bull on the right and a galloping horse on the left, and outlines of Dharma chakras on extreme right and left was adopted.
- Below the profile of lion capital, there is motto “satyameva jayate” (truth only triumphs) is written in devanagari script.
The new parliament building is being constructed under the new central vista redevelopment project.
Central vista re development project:It was announced in 2019 under union ministry of Housing and urban affairs. The project covers, A new parliament building in triangular shape, Common central secretariat, Revamping 3km long Rajpath between Rashtrapati Bhavan and India Gate. North and south block to be repurposed as museums. |
World population day
Context:
World population day is observed on July 11th.
Background:
The world population day is established by UN in 1990.
This specific date is chosen as a result of massive interest people had in celebration of five billion day.
Five billion day is the date at which the world population reached 5 billion mark i.e., July 11th 1987.
World population day serves to highlight the growing problems with increasing global population.
World population day 2022:
UN has released World Population Prospects 2022 on world population day.
Highlights of the report:
- According to that release India is expected to surpass China in population in 2023 and become worlds most populous country.
- At present india’s population stands at 141.7 crore.
- India’s fertility rate, from present 2.01 is expected to dip to 1.78 by 2050 and further to 1.69 in 2100. (global average is 2.3 at present)
- As per the report population above 65 age is growing faster.
- By 2100 it is projected that global population of above 65 age group will be considerably larger than population of age group below 15.
- The report also highlighted that the migration will be the sole driver of population growth over the next few decades in high income countries.
Problems related to population growth:
Overpopulation is an undesirable situation.
- Because of overpopulation, there can be depletion of natural resources
- degradation of environment
- rise in unemployment
- increase in conflicts
- and higher risk of disasters and pandemics.
Hubble space telescope
Context:
The Hubble space telescope has captured an image of a beautiful galaxy merger.
About hubble telescope:
- It is named after an astronomer Edwin Hubble.
- It is a large, space-based observatory launched in 1990 into low earth orbit.
- It is about a size of a school bus, with much smaller mirrors (2.4m).
- It is one of NASA’s Great Observatories.
- Hubble forms the visible light component of NASA’s Great Observatories Program.
- Range: Range of light that Hubble can detect is from ultraviolet through visible light to near infrared.
- Because of orbiting outside the earth’s atmosphere, Hubble can take high resolution pictures.
- Hubble is the only telescope designed to be maintained by astronauts in space.
- HST can take colour images with different filters.
Data transmission:
it is provided with solid state data storage facilities.
About twice daily, the HST radios data to a satellite in the Geosynchronous Tracking And Data Relay Satellite System (TRDSS).
Some important contributions of Hubble telescope:
- It helped pin down the age for the universe now known to be 13.8 billion years.
- It’s observations showed that dwarf plant Eris is bigger than Pluto.
- Helped in determining the rate of expansion of universe.
- It discovered that every major galaxy is anchored by a blackhole at centre.
- It has also created a 3-d map of dark matter.
Strength of High Court Judges A Concern
Context:
The Bombay high court has 57 judges against the sanctioned strength of 96 judges.
Impacts of delay:
- ” Justice delayed is justice denied”, with pending judge appointments rises the number of cases steadily.
- According to the National Judicial Data Grid (NJDG), there are 5.88 lakh cases pending in Bombay High Court.
- 14 lakh fresh cases were filed in last one year.
- and more than 16,000 criminal cases pending for over 10 years.
Appointment of Judges:
Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the president under Articles 124(2) and 217 of the constitution.
| ? Article 124(2): “every Judge of the Supreme Court shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with such Judges of the Supreme Court and of the high Courts in the states as he may deem necessary”.
? Article 217: “Every Judge of High Court shall be appointed by the President by warrant under his hand and seal after consultation with the chief Justice of India, the Governor of the state, and, in the case of appointment of a Judge other than the chief Justice of the High Court”. |
Reasons for delay:
- The process of appointment of HC judge is a cumbersome process as per the MoP (memorandum of procedure).
- There are halts in all most all stages of the process like some at SC collegium, some awaiting clearance from IB, government not taking immediate action etc.
Past reforms:
An attempt was made by introducing the National Judicial Appointments Committee (NJAC), in 2014.
But the constitutional bench of SC has declared NJAC unconstitutional in 2015.
Way forward:
- Time has come to rethink of the collegium issue, either through a presidential reference to the Supreme Court, or a constitutional amendment with appropriate changes in the original NJAC law.
- The thought process of both government collegium should be modulated and the finding of time frame is needed for both the collegium and ministry to complete the process of appointment.
SARFAESI Act
Context:
Banks have invoked the Securitisation And Reconstruction Of Financial Assets And Enforcement Of Security Interest (SARFAESI) 2002 against Telcom provider GTL.
About SARFAESI:
It was brought in to guard financial institutions against loan defaulters.
- It empowers banks financial institutions to recover their non-performing assets (NPAs) without the intervention of the court.
Objective :To recover their debts, the financial institutions under this law can take control of the pledged securities against the loan.
They can manage or sell them to recover loan without the court intervention.
It can be applied throughout the country and covers all assets movable or immovable which were pledged as security.
Why was this act introduced?
Before this act was introduced the recovery process was used to be very slow and encouraged defaulting in order to check them it was introduced.
SARFAESI act provides 3 methods in recovering,
- Securitisation: acquiring financial assets by issuing debentures or bonds or by agreement.
- Reconstruction: take measures for proper management, sale, debt restructuring or settlement.
- Enforcement of security interest: enforce security interests by taking possession of security, sale or lease of security etc without intervention of court.
Global liveability Index
Context:
Global liveability index 2022 was released.
About global liveability index:
- It is published by Economics Intelligence Unit (EIU) annually.
- It has ranked 173 cities across the world.
- Ranking was based on 5 Factors which are Healthcare, stability, culture & environment, infrastructure and environment.
- Among these more weightage is given to culture & environment and stability.
- Top:Vienna city is declared as most liveable city.
- Last:Damascus capital of Syria is leat liveable cit
In India:
- for the 1st time 5 cities (Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai, Ahmedabad and Bangalore) are included in list of ranking.
- Delhi was ranked best (140) and Bangalore (146) scored as least liveable city.
- All Indian cities ranked between 140 and 146.
UPSC Civil Services Daily Current Affairs 121th July 2022
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