Daily UPSC Current Affairs 20 Aug 2021

By Sudheer Kumar K|Updated : August 20th, 2021

The Daily Current Affairs Series covers events of national and international importance sourced from various national newspapers - The Hindu, PIB, The Indian Express, Down to Earth, Livemint, etc.

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Daily Current Affairs: 20 Aug 2021

Assam govt renames ‘foreigner’ detention centres to ‘transit camps’

(Topic- GS Paper II–Governance, Source-The Hindu)

Why in the news?

  • Recently, the Assam government renames 'foreigner' detention centres to ‘transit camps’Assam.
  • These six centres were notified temporarily by the state government in 2009 are inside district jails in Goalpara, Kokrajhar, Tezpur, Jorhat, Dibrugarh and Silchar for holding “foreigners”.

About Foreign detention centres

  • They are places designated to keep illegal migrants (people who have entered a country without necessary documents) once they are detected by the authorities till the time their nationality is confirmed and they are deported to the country of their origin.
  • Detention centres were set up in Assam after the Union government authorized the state to do so under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act, 1946 and the Foreigners Order, 1948.

About Foreigners Act, 1946:

  • It replaced the Foreigners Act Of, 1940 conferring wide powers to deal with all foreigners
  • The act empowered the government to take such steps as are necessary to prevent illegal migrants including the use of force.
  • The concept of 'burden of proof lies with the person, and not with the authorities.

What is a Foreigners tribunal?

  • The tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies, to determine if a person staying illegally is a “foreigner” or not.
  • In 1964, the government brought in the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order.

Who can set up these tribunals?

  • The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has amended the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964, and has empowered district magistrates in all States and Union Territories to set up tribunals to decide whether a person staying illegally in India is a foreigner or not.
  • Earlier, the powers to constitute tribunals were vested only with the Centre.

Foreigners Tribunal Member

  • Each Foreigners Tribunal member is appointed under the Foreigners Tribunal Act, 1941, and Foreigners Tribunal Order, 1984, as per the guidelines issued by the government from time to time.
  • A member can be a retired judicial officer of the Assam Judicial Service, a retired civil
  • servant not below the rank of secretary and additional secretary with judicial experience, or a
  • practising advocate, not below the age of 35 years and with at least seven years of practice.
  • A member is also required to have a fair knowledge of the official languages of Assam
  • (Assamese, Bengali, Bodo and English) as well as be conversant with the historical
  • background to the foreigners' issue.

The tribunals there have seen two kinds of cases

  1. Those concerning persons against whom a reference has been made by the border police.
  2. Those whose names in the electoral roll have a “D”, or “doubtful”, marked against them.

Note:

  • Every individual, whose name does not figure in the final National Register of Citizens (NRC), can represent his/her case in front of the appellate authority i.e. Foreigners Tribunals.
  • Under the provisions of Foreigners Act 1946 and Foreigners (Tribunals) Order 1964, only Foreigners Tribunals are empowered to declare a person as a foreigner.

Global Crypto Adoption Index

(Topic- GS Paper III–Economics, Source-Indian Express)

Why in the news?

  • According to the 2021 Global Crypto Adoption Index by blockchain data platform Chainalysis, India ranks second in terms of crypto adoption worldwide behind Vietnam, but ahead of countries such as the US, UK, and China,

About Global Crypto Adoption Index

  • The goal of the index is to provide an objective measure of which countries have the highest levels of cryptocurrency adoption.

Methodology

The Global Crypto Adoption Index is made up of three metrics.

  1. On-chain cryptocurrency value received, weighted by purchasing power parity (PPP) per capita
  2. The on-chain retail value transferred, weighted by PPP per capita
  3. Peer-to-peer (P2P) exchange trade volume, weighted by PPP per capita and number of internet users

Score

  • It scores the country on f 0 to 1 to give every country a score that determines the overall rankings.
  • The closer the country’s final score is to 1, the higher the rank.

Countries and their Ranking

Acetabularia jalakanyakae

(Topic- GS Paper III–Environment, Source-The Hindu)

Why in the news?

  • Recently, Marine biologists from the Central University of Punjab (CUP) have discovered a new species of marine green algae from the Andaman and Nicobar Islands and named the green seaweed Acetabularia jalakanyakae after the goddess of oceans.

About Acetabularia jalakanyakae

  • The entire plant is just one gigantic cell with a lone nucleus.
  • Botanically, the condition is called coenocytic.
  • Jalakanyaka is Sanskrit for mermaid.

Features

  • It has an unusual structure by being large, unicellular and possessing features that might be considered organs i.e. 'roots, stems and leaves.
  • The single cell is attached to the substrate by root-like cellular extensions.
  • It is a typical photoautotroph, using the energy of sunlight to synthesize carbohydrates from carbon dioxide and then using the carbohydrates as an energy source in cellular respiration.
  • It is generally found in warm, marine waters.

Permanent Mission of India

(Topic- GS Paper III–Economics, Source-The Hindu)

Why in the news?

  • The Union Cabinet has recently approved the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between Permanent Mission of India to the WTO (PMI), Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL) of the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and Centre for Trade and Economic Integration (CTEI) within The Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva.

Benefits:

  • It aims to enhance the understanding of the Department Of Commerce officials, CTIL researchers and academics on contemporary issues of international trade.
  • It will build support for India’s positions in international trade and investment law
  • It would be beneficial to formulating India’s positions on various issues on international trade negotiations and dispute settlement.

About the Permanent Mission of India

  • The Permanent Mission of India in Geneva has three separate wings namely,
  1. the Permanent Mission of India to the United Nations and Other International Organizations in Geneva,
  2. the Permanent Mission of India to the Conference on Disarmament in Geneva,
  3. the Permanent Mission of India to the World Trade Organization(WTO) in Geneva.
  • The Consulate General of India in Geneva is housed in the Permanent Mission of India to the UN in Geneva.

Related Information

About Centre for Trade and Investment Law (CTIL)

  • It was established in the year 2016 by the Ministry of Commerce and Industry at the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT). It aims to provide sound and rigorous analysis of legal issues of international trade and investment law to the government.

Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme

(Topic- GS Paper III–Economics, Source-The Hindu)

Why in the news?

  • The Centre recently notified the rates and norms for the Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme.

Key highlights

  • The government will remit about ₹50,000 crores of pending export benefits over two years and notify the RoDTEP scheme rates awaited by exporters soon.
  • The RoDTEP in January replaced the earlier export incentive schemes that were not compliant with WTO rules.
  • It is covering 8,555 tariff lines or roughly 65% of India's exports, the remission rates now notified, range from 0.5% to 4.3% of the Freight On Board value of outbound consignments.
  • For some goods, there is a cap on the value of the exported items.
  • To enable zero-rating of exports by ensuring domestic taxes are not exported, all taxes, including those levied by States and even Gram Panchayats, will be refunded under the scheme.

Exemption

  • Steel, pharma and chemicals have not been included under the scheme because their exports have done well without incentives.

About Remission of Duties and Taxes on Exported Products (RoDTEP) scheme

  • The scheme had been implemented from 1st January 2020.
  • It will replace the existing Merchandise Exports from India Scheme (MEIS).

Benefits

  • Indian exporters will be able to meet the international standardsfor exports as affordable testing and certification will be made available to exporters within the country instead of relying on international organizations.
  • Also under it, tax assessment is set to become fully automatic for exporters.
  • The businesses will get access to their refunds for GST via an automatic refund route.
  • This would increase the economy for the country and the working capitalfor the enterprise.
  • RoDTEP will coordinate with the World Trade Organization (WTO) to reduce the post-production transaction costs for exporters.

About Merchandise Export from India Scheme (MEIS)

  • It was introduced in the Foreign Trade Policy (FTP) 2015-20 w.e.f. 1st April 2015.

Objective

  • Its objective is to offset infrastructural inefficiencies and associated costs involved in exporting goods/products which are produced /manufactured in India including products produced/manufactured by MSME Sector. 

UPSC Current Affairs PDF 20 Aug 2021 (English)

UPSC Current Affairs PDF 20 Aug 2021 (Hindi)

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