CURRENT AFFAIRS CAPSULE – JULY 23, 2020

News: Government has filed its response against a PIL in Delhi High Court seeking directions to the Centre to ensure country of origin tag on products being sold on E-commerce websites. 

Centre’s response

In an affidavit, centre has responded to PIL that all e-commerce entities, including Amazon, Flipkart, and Snapdeal, have to ensure the mandatory declaration of country of origin of imported products sold on their site.

laws relating to the issue were enacted under the Legal Metrology Act, 2009 and the Legal Metrology (Packaged Commodities) Rules, 2011. 

Whenever violations are observed, action is taken by the legal metrology officials of the States/ UTs governments in accordance with the law. 

Issues in compliance

Snapdeal, an e-commerce platform, put forward the following issues in compliance to ‘Country of Origin’ tag:

• It functioned as a ‘marketplace-based’ e-commerce model in which it only acted as an ‘intermediary’ with no control over inventory.
• It only provided its information technology platform to connect third-party sellers with their potential consumers. Whereas other form of e-commerce model was ‘Inventory-based,’ where an organisation has control over inventory too.
• Due to unavailability of law backing, filling the available ‘country of origin’ field was not made mandatory for sellers. Thus, some seller could have chosen to leave the field blank. 
• There are many cases, where finished goods are sourced from different countries and packed together or assembled in a third country, prior to their shipment into India. 
• In the above case, it could not be simply presumed that the rules intended that the last country of export alone be declared as the ‘country of origin,’ unless the law was amended or clarified to expressly state so.

News: The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has asked for explanation from Environment Ministry, Oil India Limited (OIL) and two other entities, on permission to proposed drilling of seven oil wells in an eastern Assam national park.

About petition 

• NGT directives are in response to the petition against the environment clearance to OIL on May 11 for drilling in the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park in violation of a Supreme Court order of September 2017.
• OIL did not carry out a biodiversity assessment study, besides not conducting a public hearing as mandated by the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Notification of 2006.
• EIA report grossly undermined the blowout risk and only considered the blowout risk applicable to the U.S. and did not give data from India in general. 

• Petition was filed after the Baghjan gas well fire incident. 

Baghjan gas well fire

• On May 27, the well in eastern Assam’s Tinsukia district adjoining the sensitive Maguri-Motapung wetland and is close to the Dibru-Saikhowa National Park underwent a blowout. 
• It led to the uncontrolled escape of gas at tremendous velocity and has been continuously on fire.
• Project started after claims of OIL officials to use the sophisticated ERD (extended reach drilling) technology under which the drilling would enable exploration of hydrocarbon deposits horizontally at a depth of 3.5 km under the park, without disturbing its flora and fauna.

News: Salt­loving bacteria turned Lonar lake pink.

News details

As per study of Pune-based institute, Lonar lake water of Maharashtra turned to pink colour due to a large presence of the salt-loving ‘Haloarchaea’ microbes. 

During the study, sample water was allowed to stand still, it resulted into the water becoming transparent and clear, as soon as the biomass subsided. 

About microbe: Haloarchaea or halophilic archaea is a bacteria culture which produces pink pigment and is found in water saturated with salt. 

Now colour of lake is turning to its natural, because rain is allowing dilution of the water. It also led to salinity and pH/alkalinity levels to come down and green algae have started growing in the water body.

About Lonar lake 

• The oval-shaped Lonar lake, formed after a meteorite hit the earth some 50,000 years ago, is a popular tourist hub. 
• The lake is located about 500 kilometers (311 miles) east of Mumbai. It is the best preserved and youngest carter formed in basalt rock.
• Mud belt of the lake is devoid of any vegetation due to the alkaline content of the area. Monitor lizards is the prominent reptiles found in the Lonar Crater Lake.

News: Supreme Court will hear the petition of Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) for an amendment in its constitution. 

About the case

• As per the current constitution, an office-bearer who has served two three-year terms, either at the BCCI or at the state association, goes into a compulsory three-year cooling-off period. 
• Thus, by existing constitution, Ganguly would need to go in for a mandatory cooling off period by next year after his 10-month term ends. 
• Ganguly took charge of BCCI on October 23. 
• As per the proposed Amendments the cooling off period to kick in only after the individual has finished two terms (six years) each at the board and the state association. 
• But if the amendments are made, there are chances of Ganguly continuing till 2024.
• Case may decide the tenures of its president Sourav Ganguly and secretary Jay Shah.

SC 2018 order

In it’s 2018 order SC approved the revised draft constitution of the Board of Control for Cricket in India. It also directed State Association and the affiliated bodies to implement the new constitution in four weeks. a slew of structural reforms in BCCI which were approved by the apex court, were based on the recommendation of Lodha panel:

• SC allowed office-bearers two successive two-year terms in the BCCI and/or the State bodies before “cooling off period”. It was against Lodha Panel advisory of a three-year cooling off period after each three-year term in a State body or the BCCI office. 
• A person will be disqualified from being a BCCI or a State body office-bearer on attaining the age of 70 years.

News: Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR) has released an analysis based on the self­sworn affidavits of Rajya Sabha members. 

Key points of Analysis

• About 25% of the sitting Rajya Sabha members have declared criminal cases against themselves. 
• 89% have declared assets estimated at over ₹1 crore.
• 12% had declared serious criminal cases against themselves.
• Janata Dal (United) MP from Bihar Mahendra Prasad had the highest declared assets at ₹4,078 crore.
• Lowest assets have been declared by BJP MP from Manipur Maharaja Sanajaoba Leishemba who declared ₹5.48 lakh in assets.

Parties must submit the same details to the Election Commission within 72 hours of declaring the name of the candidate.

Judgment was passed in a contempt of court case filed against the Chief Election Commissioner of India for failing to ensure the implementation of a 2018 judgment

News: Indigenously designed 700 MWe Kakrapar Atomic Power Plant-3 in Gujarat achieved criticality.

About nuclear Plant 

At 700 MWe, It is India’s 1st biggest indigenously developed variant of Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor. Before that biggest reactor size of indigenous design was the 540 MWe PHWR. 

It is country’s 23rd nuclear power reactor. components and equipment for the reactor have been manufactured by Indian industries

Kakrapar 1 and 2 – both Indian-designed 220 MWe PHWRs – entered commercial operation in 1993 and 1995 respectively.

Four units of the 700MWe reactor are currently being built at Kakrapar (KAPP-3 and 4) and Rawatbhata (RAPS-7 and 8).

Given India plans to add 175 GW of renewable energy from renewable sources such as wind and sun, the nuclear projects should help provide the baseload to balance the power grid.

Currently, nuclear power capacity constitutes less than 2% of the total installed capacity of 3,68,690 MW (end-January 2020).

What does criticality mean?

A nuclear reactor reaches ‘criticality’, when it is ready for self-sustaining nuclear fission chain reaction i.e. each fission releases a sufficient number of neutrons to sustain an ongoing series of nuclear reactions that generates energy.

Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor

PHWRs are mainstay of India’s nuclear reactors. PHWRs commonly use unenriched natural uranium as fuel and heavy water (deuterium oxide D2O) as its coolant and moderator.  The heavy water coolant is kept under pressure, allowing it to be heated to higher temperatures without boiling

News: It is a rare celestial event after many years that a comet can be seen with naked eye in Earth’s night sky. 

About comet 

• Comet Neowise officially known as C/2020F3 is the brightest comet that can be seen in the sky.
• It will be visible across the globe as it is closest to the earth these days. 
• Once disappear, it will be visible only after 6800 years.
• It has been named after NASA’s spacecraft mission Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE). 
• It came in the view of NASA’s solar mission SOHO which exclusively studies the sun and its activities, when it moved close to the sun during early July.
• Aditya-L1 mission is India’s similar space venture which is due to go up in the sky, to study the corona of the Sun. 

What is comet?

• It is an icy small body which consists mostly of rocky materials, dust and ice.
• As they come closer to the sun there is evaporation of volatile contents from these comets. 
• When they start melting, the particles start glowing by the reflected sunlight. This makes the ‘dust tail’ of Comets.

NASA’s solar mission SOHO

• SOHO (SOlar Heliospheric Observatory) is a NASA’s space-based observatory.
• Goal: The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory was designed to study the internal structure of the sun, its extensive outer atmosphere – the corona and the origin of the solar wind. 

Aditya-L1 mission: Aditya-I will be India’s first dedicated scientific mission to study the sun. it would be placed about 800 kilometres from the surface of the Earth at ‘Lagrangian point 1 (L1)’.