PIB Revision Notes

Economy

1. 7th Meeting of FSDC held under its chairman Union Finance Minister
Matters Discussed :
a. It reviewed the asset quality and capital adequacy of the banks, assessed the capital
requirement by banks as per BASEL III.
b. Financial sector legislative reforms commission’s report(FSLRC) which was
completed in 2013 was reviewed , Measures taken by the RBI for Financial inclusion
was appraised.

Backgrounders

a. FSDC – Financial stability & Development council – Apex Super regulatory body.
b. Composition of FSDC – Union.Fin.Min + Gov of RBI + Chief Economic advisor +
Chairman(IRDA,PFRDA,SEBI )+ Or any other person invited by Minister.
c. Roles- Financial (stability, Inclusion, literacy. etc.) , Regulatory co ordination
d. Asset quality of the bank – Interest/Profits through loans , Bonds etc..
e. FSLRC – Set up by GOI under former supreme court judge B.N. Srikrishna in 2011 to
review, rewrite legislations related to financial market and making those legislations
simpler and consistent with each other.

Agriculture Biosecurity Bill

Salient Features

a. Establishment of authority for pest, pest infestation controland disease control.

Integration of plant and quarantine services
b. To meet international standards for export, import of plant, plant products, animal, animal
products and aquatic organisms.
c. Regulation of agriculturally important microorganisms.
d. Declaration of an area as ‘pest control’ area for the purpose of pest control.
e. To ensure Phytosanitary and sanitary measures – Provision to search premises, seize,
treat disposal of plants, animals to prevent spread of pest by designated officers.
f. Declaration of biosecurity Emergency in case of outbreak.
g. Removal of plants, animal and other imported objects which violates any provision of the
bill.
Arts and Culture

UNESCO has approved to enlist 6 forts of Rajasthan in its World heritage list, following are the
6 forts

a. Chittaurgarh
b. Kumbhalgarh
c. Ranthambore
d. Jaislamer
e. Amber
f. Gagron

Backgrounders

a. World heritage list is covered under World heritage convention, 1972 (India ratified this
in 1977)
b. Another site ‘Great Himalayan national park’ (HP) is in pipeline to get approval from
UNESCO.

Vaccine derived polio virus (VDPV) detected in Maharashtra.

What is VDPV?

Oral polio vaccine (OPV) is an attenuated (Weak) virus – When a child is immunized with OPV,
the weakened vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing
immunity by building up antibodies . When a child is immunized with OPV, the weakened
vaccine-virus replicates in the intestine for a limited period, thereby developing immunity by
building up antibodies. During this time, the vaccine-virus is also excreted. In areas of
inadequate sanitation (read open defecation), this excreted vaccine-virus can spread in the
immediate community- Very rarely, vaccine-derived poliovirus can cause paralysis, if the
community around is seriously under immunized.

VDVP
(OPV)

VDPV - 3 types

A. Circulated VDPV – VDPV will be getting circulated in a community where

immunization is very low – Lower the immunization, longer the virus thrives and
exchanges its genetic variation with other enterovirus
B. Immunodeficiency VDPV - These occur through some people who have much lesser
immunity than the others – these are the persons who are unable to get rid of the
intestinal vaccine virus for long time (Usually they are cleared with 6 – 8 weeks).
C. Ambiguous VDPV – Very little know about them.

Solution for the all the above cases is to immunize the child several times.

WHO removed India from the list of polio endemic countries in 2012 following one year without
any case due to wild poliovirus in the country.

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 29t June be celebrated as statistics day in recognition of the economist Prof P.C.
Mahalanobis, Theme for the this year’s statistics day is ‘Labor and employment statistics’

P C mahaloanobis – Noted economist, Held position in GOI as statistical advisor and he

was member in the planning commission as well. The formulation of the D²-Statistics,
derivation of its properties and its application are some of his contributions. he
setup National Sample Survey (NSS) entrusted with key responsibilities for the design,
collection and analysis of sample survey data.

1. Weather satellite INSAT 3D launched from Kourou, French Guyana – It is placed in

geosynchronous transfer orbit by Ariane5 - Used in weather reporting , Meteorological
observation, maritime, land rescue operations
2. INSAT 3D is equipped with Atmospheric sounding system – which provides vertical
profiles of temperature/humidity from surface to top of the atmosphere. Imager – to take
pictures. Data relay transponder – relays weather accurately from collecting it from
remote locations. Satellite aided search and rescue – collect signals from place of distress
and send it to control center.
 National Teeka Express launched

What is it?
It is launched to protect children from life threatening diseases. It’ll distribute vaccines
from cold chain points to vaccination centers.
It also brings back unused, open vaccines to cold chain back for subsequent usage so that
costly vaccines can be better utilized.
It’ll bring back the immunization related biomedical waste to storage points for safe
disposal. It’ll also collect immunization performance reports.
It’ll act as a mobile health care delivery unit in areas which lack health care facility or
worker.

Why it is launched?
1. Vaccine delivery to remote areas is becoming difficult and time consuming.
2. Under Routine immunization program, Often ANM’s have to collect vaccines a day
before the immunization – which may compromise the cold chain maintenance and its
vaccines efficacy will be lost or even improper storage could lead to adverse effects.

Recently there was news on CIC ruling which included political parties as public authority
and subsequent to that Union cabinet has approved a legislation to exclude political parties
from the ambit of RTI. The new proposal by the Cabinet argues that enough facilities are
provided within the Representation of peoples act to check political parties’ accountability
like below

Under Rep. of Peoples Act, 1951.

1. The act provides for the registration of political parties with election commission
2. Political parties can accept donations but have to declare it along with assets and
liabilities.
3. Account of election expenses is to be maintained and submitted to the dist. Election
officer. – failure to do so will attract 3yr disqualification of the particular candidate
4. Penalty for filing false affidavit
Minor Forest produce or Non timber Forest produces now to get Minimum support price (MSP)
– which will improve the livelihood of the tribal people in heavily Naxal infested area .

India has so far signed civil nuclear cooperation agreement with 9 following countries

USA, Russia, Canada, Argentina, Namibia, Mongolia, Kazakhstan and Korea (south of course)

Talks are in progress with Japan, UK, Australia and Srilanka.

Yuva Saathi Program launched by Ministry of culture –The Programme envisages the
deployment of Volunteer guides, Yuva Saathi, to provided guided tours to school children in
National museum.

Science and Tech :

Defence Research Lab (DRDO) has developed a Chilly spray called CAPSISPRAY , an
ecofriendly non-lethal spray for personal protection and self-defense. It is extracted from
World’s hottest chilli, Bhut Jolokia (cultivated in Assas and other NE states). The prototype is
developed and in pipeline for testing.

Shri Zubin Mehta to be the second recipient of the Tagore Award, 2013 in recognition of his
outstanding contribution to cultural harmony.

The annual award was instituted by the Govt. of India during the commemoration of 150th Birth
Anniversary of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. The first Tagore Award was conferred on Pt.
Ravi Shankar, the Indian Sitar Maestro in 2012.

The award is open to all persons regardless of nationality, race, language, caste, creed or sex.

Pir Panjal Railway Tunnel (The Longest Transportation Tunnel of India) - 17.7 Km)
Ircon International Ltd oversaw the project from Dharam to Qazigund (including banihal to
Quazikund)

The Kashmir Valley railway is a long (119 Km) modern railway line. It is an island railway, not
yet connected to the Indian Railway network. It connects Baramula in the western part of
Kashmir to Qazigund at the other end of the Valley, via Srinagar

The 17.7 km long rail link paves way for the future railway connectivity of Kashmir region with
the national railway network.

Internet Protocol Version 6 (IPv6) Lab setup by Telecommunication Engineering Centre (TEC),
technical arm of Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications & IT, has
earned a unique distinction of being approved by the IPv6 Ready Logo Committee under IPv6
Forum, an International body. This achievement is significant for TEC and the country as only
five other labs in the world have achieved this milestone. (Europe, USA, Japan, China and
Taiwan)
The internet and the internet facing devices are moving to new addressing scheme IPv6 since
IPv4 addresses are no longer available. So Government had set up lab so that the service
providers, content providers and the customer premises equipment vendors are encouraged to
move to IPv6 address implementation. It is one of the objectives of National telecom policy-
2012.

Backgrounder

Normally to access internet we use a device and these devices are numbered. Earlier we used
IPV4 version for numbering devices, presently we have about 4.3 billion which will be exceeded
soon ( Or is it exceeded ?) , so we need a new versioning of numbering – here comes IPV6, it has
3.8 * 10^38 possibilities.

IPV4 uses 32 bits , ITV6 uses 128 bits

Vignesh Raja P

Sources:

Pib.nic.in

www.isi-web.org

http://www.polioeradication.org

http://www.who.int

Isro.org

Thehindu.com