DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS
28 APRIL 2022
| S. No. | Topic Name | Prelims/Mains |
| 1. | ABOUT THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RULES 2021 | Prelims & Mains |
| 2. | PIL FILED AGAINST THE LIFETIME CABINET MINISTER STATUS GIVEN IN GOA | Prelims & Mains |
| 3. | ABOUT THE DEFENCE ACQUISITION PROCEDURE | Prelims & Mains |
| 4. | DETAILS OF SELF-REPLICATING M-RNA COVID VACCINES | Prelims & Mains |
| 5. | ABOUT THE KURIL ISLANDS | Prelims Specific Topic |
1 – ABOUT THE INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY RULES 2021:
GS II
Government Policies and Interventions
- Context:
- Six Pakistani YouTube news channels have been blocked by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting (I&B).
- For a variety of reasons, it had already blacklisted 78 YouTube news channels, including 18 from India.
-
Why:
- On charges of disseminating false and unfounded information in order to incite fear, create communal discord, and destabilise the country’s public order.
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Legal groundwork:
- The move was carried out under emergency powers under Rule 18 of the IT Rules, 2021.
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Here are the IT guidelines for 2021:
- It creates a grievance redress procedure for over-the-top (OTT) and digital portals in the country. This is critical for social media users to express their displeasure with the misuse of the platform.
- Significant social media firms must hire a chief compliance officer and keep a nodal contact person on hand 24 hours a day, seven days a week to communicate with law enforcement agencies.
- Social media sites would employ a grievance officer who would be in charge of registering issues within 24 hours and resolving them within 15 days.
- Removal of content: If users complain about exposed private parts, nudity, sexual acts, impersonation, or other content that violates the dignity of users, particularly women, social media platforms are required to remove it within 24 hours of receiving the complaint.
- They’ll also have to provide a monthly report on the amount of complaints they’ve received and how far their remedies have progressed.
- The three tiers of supervision for news publishers will be self-regulation, a self-regulatory body led by a retired judge or a prominent person, and oversight from the Information and Broadcasting Ministry, which will include codes of practise and a grievance committee.
-
What is a well-known social media intermediary, and what are the benefits of employing it:
- Social media companies with more than 50 lakh registered members would be classified as “major social media intermediaries” under the new laws.
-
If you don’t obey the rules, you’ll face the following consequences:
- Companies including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp Messenger may face a ban if they do not comply with the new Information Technology rules.
- They risk losing their status as “intermediaries” if they do not comply with the updated regulations, and they may face criminal charges.
2 – PIL FILED AGAINST THE LIFETIME CABINET MINISTER STATUS GIVEN IN GOA:
GS II
Separation of Powers between the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary
- Context:
- In appreciation of his 50 years as a legislator, Pratapsingh Rane, a veteran Congress lawmaker, was accorded “lifetime status of the rank of Cabinet minister” by the BJP government.
- Pratapsingh Rane is a six-time Chief Minister of Goa and a 50-year legislator.
What exactly is the issue right now:
- This action was in violation of the 91st Amendment, according to a complaint currently before the Supreme Court.
- Rane’s appointment to the Cabinet elevates the total number of Cabinet positions to 13, exceeding the Constitution’s maximum. There are 40 seats in the unicameral Goa Assembly.
- The Constitution (91st Amendment) Act of 2003 added clause 1A to Article 164, stating that “the total number of Ministers in the Council of Ministers in a State shall not exceed fifteen percent of the total number of members of the Legislative Assembly of that State provided that the total number of Ministers in a State shall not be less than twelve.”
3 – ABOUT THE DEFENCE ACQUISITION PROCEDURE:
GS III
Internal Security
- Context:
- As a result of the permissions granted by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC) in the following areas, the Defence Acquisition Procedure (DAP) 2020 has been revised:
- In the future, all upgrading requirements of the Defence Services and Indian Coast Guard shall be sourced domestically, regardless of the nature of the procurement.
- Imports of defence equipment and capital acquisitions from foreign companies should be the exception, not the usual, and should only be done with the DAC/Raksha Mantri’s sanction.
- The requirement for an Integrity Pact Bank Guarantee (IPBG) has been abolished.
- Instead, an Earnest Money Deposit (EMD) will be employed as a bid security for all purchase instances with an Acceptance of Necessity (AoN) costing more than Rs 100 crore.
-
2020 DAP:
- The new policy took effect on October 1 and superseded the 2016 Defense Procurement Procedure.
- The DAP offers policies and methods for purchase and acquisition from the MoD’s capital budget in order to modernise the Armed Forces, including the Coast Guard.
-
The following are some of the new policy’s highlights:
- Reservations for indigenous firms: In a number of procurement sectors, the policy creates allowances for indigenous businesses.
- A “Indian vendor” is defined under DAP 2020 as a company owned and controlled by Indian citizens with less than 49 percent foreign direct investment (FDI).
-
New Buy (Worldwide–Manufactured in India):
- This requires at least half of the entire contract value of a foreign acquisition made with the aim of constructing it in India with knowledge transfer to be indigenized.
- It encourages more indigenous content in military procurements, including equipment made in India under licence. In most purchase categories, DAP-2020 stipulates a 10% increase in indigenization over DPP 2016.
- List of prohibited imports: Last month, the government announced a “import embargo list” of 101 items, which has been specifically included in DAP 2020. (An embargo is a government decree that prohibits trade with a specific country or the exchange of specific items.)
- If a deal is made through an intergovernmental agreement (IGA), a government-to-government agreement, or an ab initio single vendor agreement, the government has chosen not to include an offset clause.
- Under the offset clause, a foreign vendor must invest a portion of the contract value in India.
4 – DETAILS OF SELF-REPLICATING M-RNA COVID VACCINES:
Prelims Specific Topic
- Context:
- A California pharmaceutical company developed ARCT-154, a self-amplifying mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 infection.
-
Benefits:
- It protected against severe Covid-19 infection 95% of the time and Covid infection 55% of the time.
-
How do mRNA vaccines operate and what are they:
- In an mRNA vaccination, the coronavirus spike protein is encoded by messenger RNA.
- If and when an infection occurs, the mRNA orders the cell to make copies of the spike protein, which the immune system will recognise and respond to.
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Moderna and Pfizer/BioNTech are two examples.
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mRNA vaccines that self-amplify are exactly what they sound like:
- A self-amplifying mRNA vaccine is an advancement over traditional RNA vaccinations.
- It also encodes four additional proteins that facilitate amplification of the original strand of RNA once inside the cell, in addition to the vaccine antigen. The main advantage is that it requires a lower dosage.
5 – ABOUT THE KURIL ISLANDS:
Prelims Specific Topic
- According to Japan’s Diplomatic Bluebook for 2022, Russia’s “illegal occupation” of the Kuril Islands (known in Japan as the Northern Territories and in Russia as the South Kurils) is “illegal.”
- This is the first time in two decades that Japan has used this phrase to characterise the Kuril Islands issue.
-
Kuril Islands/Northern Territories:
- These four islands are situated between the Sea of Okhotsk and the Pacific Ocean in Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost prefecture.
- Despite the fact that the islands have been under Russian control since the conclusion of WWII, Moscow and Tokyo both claim possession.
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The varied claims are based on the following:
- According to Tokyo, the Shimoda Treaty of 1855, the 1875 Treaty for the Exchange of Sakhalin for the Kuril Islands (Treaty of St. Petersburg), and the Portsmouth Treaty of 1905, signed following Japan’s victory in the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-05, all establish Japan’s sovereignty over the islands.
- Russia, on the other hand, claims that the Yalta Agreement (1945) and the Potsdam Declaration (1945) establish its sovereignty, and that Japan’s acceptance of Russian sovereignty over the islands is established by the San Francisco Treaty of 1951.
UPSC Civil Services Daily Current Affairs 28th April 2022
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