November 22, 2018

1. East And West, Maharshtra Districts Fight Water Wars

 Water is not being released from the Tembhu Lift irrigation project on the Krishna
River which villagers believes that it is legally theirs.
 All India Kisan Sabha

2. Once more, with Male

 India has reason to be reassured by turn of events in Maldives. But it would be
unwise to return to old ways of doing business.
 New Delhi needs to realise that its smaller neighbours are not willing to offer
uncritical and unquestioning support for India.

3. New labour for new India

 The government has tried to address the problems of the informal sector through
a focused approach which rests on two legs. The first is to promote formalisation
and the second is the provision of social security to those remaining in the
informal sector.
 Fixed term workers are also eligible for all statutory benefits available to a
permanent workman proportionately according to the period of service rendered
by him/her.
 Formal employment is promoted by reducing the compliance cost for companies.
Under the Ease of Compliance rules, the government has pruned the numbers of
registers mandatory for all establishments to be maintained under nine central
Acts to just and the five from 56 and the relevant data fields to 144 from 933.
 Transformative initiatives such as the Shram Suvidha Portal, Universal Account
Number (UAN) and the National Career Service Portal.
 Pradhan Mantri Rojgar Protsahan Yojana in 2016(revised this year) under which
the government will pay the full employer’s EPF Contribution for three years
years for new employment.

4. Two patriarchies
 Overthrowing the tribal priests was the new tradition of women being disallowed
imposed.
The RSS has created structures that convert Shudra/Dalit/Adivasi/ temples into
Brahmin/ Hindu temples, and impose very primitive practices on the devotees.

November 23, 2018

1. An ill wind in the valley

 The governor cited that political parties of opposing ideologies were coming
together to form the government.
 This reasoning is flawed for two reasons- the first governor has no power to
examine the ideologies of the political parties prior to inviting them to form the
government. No party that does not have faith in the Constitution of India can be
registered by the Election Commission.
 Government should be run by people’s elected representatives rather than
nominated governors . Dissolution of the assembly to prevent the formation of
popular government shows a lack of belief in parliamentary democracy, which is
the basic structure of the Constitution.
 Dissolution of the assembly may be legal in strict terms if the court does not find
it mala fide, but it is certainly contrary to constitutional morality.

2. Greenhouse gas amounts in atmosphere hit record high

 The Greenhouse Gas Bulletin has a special section devoted to CFC-11
(trichlorofluorometahne). This is a potent greenhouse gas and a stratospheric
ozone depleting substance regulated under the Montreal Protocol.

3. Drought
 The first step is to look at two mandatory indicators- rainfall deviation and dry
spell. Depending on the extent of the deviation, and whether or not there is a dry
spell, the manual specifies various situations that may or may not be considered a
drought trigger.
 The second step is to look at four impact indicators- agriculture, vegetation
indices based on remote sensing, soil moisture and hydrology. Each impact can
be assessed on the basis of various indices. “The States may consider any three of
the four types of the Impact Indicators for assessment of drought, the intensity of
the calamity and make a judgement,” the manual states. If all three chosen
indicators are in the ‘severe’ category, it amounts to severe drought; and if two of
the three chosen impact indicators are in the ‘moderate’ or ‘severe’ class, it
amounts to moderate drought.
 The third step comes in after both the previous triggers have been set off. In that
event, “States will conduct sample survey for ground truthing…in order to make
a final determination of drought. The finding of field verification exercise will be
the final basis for judging the intensity of drought as severe or moderate.
 Once a drought is determined, the state government needs to issue a notification
specifying the geographical extent. The notification is valid for six months, unless
de notified earlier.

4. Why India wants to study human microbiome

 The human body carries diverse communities of microorganisms, which are
mainly bacterial. These are refereed to as “human microbiome”. these organisms
play a key role in any aspects of host physiology, ranging from metabolism of
otherwise complex indigestible carbohydrates and fats to producing essential
vitamins, maintaining immune systems and acting as a first line of defense
against pathogens.
 It shows that the Indian population harbours a distinct gut microbial community,
which, scientist says, calls for an in-depth investigation of the Indian
Microbiome.
 A study on the tribal population would help improve knowledge of evolution of
the mutualism between gut microbiota and the host.

5. Do not disturb the island.

 The Great Andamanese, an alliance of 10 coastal clans. Fought the battle of
Arbedeen against the British in 1859
 The forest dwelling Jarawa fiercely resisted outsiders until the late 1990s
 The nicobar tribes are Mongoloid; the Andaman tribes including the sentinelese,
are Negrito.
 The Andaman and Nicobar (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956.
due to their isolation, it is unlikely the Sentinelese have immunity against even
common disease.
 Their health and sovereignty decided that no one could enter a 5 km buffer one
around their island, which was already out of bounds.

November 24, 2018

1. Despite the people

 It is believed that the god in Sabrimala, Lord Aytappa, had given a commitment to
goddess Malikapurathamma, frim a shrine nearby that he would one day accept
her proposal to marry when the first-time “kanni” swamis stop visiting his
temple, and the goddess is waiting in a nearby temple for that to happen.
 Following in her footsteps, women in the age group of 10-50 years refrain from
entering Ayyappa’s abode at Sabrimala.
 Nothing to do with the tradition directly. Their argument was that the tradition is
against gender equality and hence regressive. They also hurled institutions that
the temple tradition treats women shabbily by calling them impure during the
menstrual cycle.
 Besides the Khasis in Meghalaya, that follows a matriachal system. Women
dominate family and social life in Kerala. Teaching them about the gender
equality is like carrying coal to Newcastle.

2. No platform for violence

 Facebook is deeply aware that terrorists use a variety of tools to plan, co-ordinate
attacks and propagate, radicalize and recruit.
 We use a variety of signals, image matching, other AI and machine leaning tools.
 We have a counter team of counter terrorism experts- these experts are former
prosecutors, law enforcement officials,investigators, academics, counter terrorism
researchers.
 Organizations that are banned on Facebook are Hizbul Mujhahideen, al Qaeda in
the Indian Subcontinent or AQIS
 Growing community action to build safe communities and efforts to de-radealise
groups.