Third Anglo-Maratha War

Third Anglo-Maratha War

Third Anglo-Maratha War (1817 – 1818)

Background and course

• After the second Anglo-Maratha war, the Marathas made one last attempt to rebuild their old prestige.
• They wanted to retake all their old possessions from the English.
• They were also unhappy with the British residents’ interference in their internal matters.
• The chief reason for this war was the British conflict with the Pindaris whom the British suspected were being protected by the Marathas.
• The Maratha chiefs Peshwa Bajirao II, Malharrao Holkar and Mudhoji II Bhonsle forged a united front against the English.
• Daulatrao Shinde, the fourth major Maratha chief was pressured diplomatically to stay away.
• But the British victory was swift.

Uniform Civil Code

Uniform Civil Code

·         Uniform Civil Code generally refers to that part of law which deals with family affairs of an individual and denotes uniform law for all citizens, irrespective of his/her religion, caste or tribe.

·         A Uniform Civil Code administers the same set of secular civil laws to govern different people belonging to different religions and regions. This supersedes the right of citizens to be governed under different personal laws based on their religion or ethnicity.

Allied and healthcare professionals database portal

Allied and healthcare professionals database portal

The Union Health ministry has launched a web portal which will act as a robust data repository of allied and healthcare workers, help in bringing transparency and track the number of such professionals.

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), “Allied health personnel are personnel who have specific connections with the art and science of health care and are recognized as members of health team in the national health system. They are educated, with different levels of professional qualifications, in a recognized or accredited health or health related or academic Institution".

Zonal Cultural Centres

Zonal Cultural Centres

Zonal Cultural Centres have been conceptualised with the aim of projecting cultural kinship which transcend territorial boundaries. The idea is to arouse awareness of the local cultures and to show how these merge into zonal identities and eventually into the rich diversity of India's composite culture.

The Seven ZCCs with Headquarters and States, they cover are as follows :

Groundwater Contamination

Groundwater Contamination

Introduction: 

·         Any addition of undesirable substances to groundwater caused by human activities is considered to be contamination.

·         Groundwater contamination also called Groundwater pollution occurs when pollutants are released to the ground and make their way down into groundwater.

·         It can also occur naturally due to the presence of a minor and unwanted constituent, contaminant or impurity in the groundwater.

·         Different mechanisms have influence on the transport of pollutants, e.g. diffusion, adsorption, precipitation, decay, in the groundwater.

The interaction of groundwater contamination with surface waters is analyzed by use of hydrology transport models

Tebhaga Peasant Movement

Tebhaga Peasant Movement

The Tebhaga movement was a militant campaign initiated in Bengal by the Kisan Sabha (peasants front of Communist Party of India) in 1946. At that time share-cropping peasants (essentially, tenants) had to give half of their harvest to the owners of the land. The demand of the Tebhaga (sharing by thirds) movement was to reduce the share given to landlords to one third. In many areas the agitations turned violent, and landlords fled villages leaving parts of the countryside in the hands of Kisan Sabha. As a response to the agitations, the then Muslim League ministry in the province launched the Bargadari Act, which provided that the share of the harvest given to the landlords would be limited to one third of the total. But the law was not fully implemented.

Zonal Council

Zonal Council

Zonal Councils are advisory councils and are made up of the states of India that have been grouped into five zones to foster cooperation among them. Five Zonal Councils were set up vide Part-III of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956. The North Eastern States' special problems are addressed by another statutory body - The North-Eastern Council, created by the North Eastern Council Act, 1971.

The present composition of each of these Zonal Councils is:

UN-Specialized Agencies

Economic and Social Council

·         Principal organ to coordinate the economic, social and related work of the United Nations and the specialized agencies and institutions.

·         Members: 54, elected by the GA for a three-year term and Seats in the council are allocated based on geographical representation.

·         The president is elected for a one-year term and voting in the Council is by simple majority; each member has one vote.

Order of Relief

Various kind of relief feature can be seen on earth and ocean surface. Large scale landscapes can be divided into three orders of relief called Mega relief.

Megareliefs include the largest landscapes by scale, from enormous ocean basins and continents down to local hills, spurs, cliffs, valleys, gorges and river terraces. Accordingly, there are three orders of relief as follows:

First Order Relief

·         Entire lithosphere which consists of continental crust as well as the oceanic crust comes under first order relief.

Election Commission of India

Election Commission of India

For the conduct of free and fair elections an independent Election Commission has been provided for in Article 324. Constitution of India has provided a separate chapter for elections and has not left the elections to jurisdiction of the executive and legislative departments of the government. This is mainly because the makers of the constitution had been very serious to safeguard this political right as an integral part of the constitution itself.  Election commission of India is a permanent body entrusted for the following matters:

• Election of President
• Election of Vice-President
• Election of Lok Sabha as well as Rajya Sabha
• Elections to State Legislatures as well as Legislative Councils
• Reservation of Seats in Lok Sabha and State Legislatures
• Qualifications of the MPs and MLAs
• Determination of population for purposes of election

Cheque

Cheque

Definition of a Cheque

"Cheque is an instrument in writing containing an unconditional order, addressed to a banker, sign by the person who has deposited money with the banker, requiring him to pay on demand a certain sum of money only to or to the order of certain person or to the bearer of instrument."

The Drawer has to write the amount in both in figures and words. If different values are written in Figures and words, the value of words can be paid as per section 18 NI act. If the amount is written in words only and NOT in figure than NO payment will be made because it would be Inchoate (incomplete).

Marine Protected Areas

Marine Protected Areas

Introduction

·         Marine protected areas (MPA) are protected areas of seas, oceans, estuaries or large lakes.

·         It is a clearly defined geographical space, recognized, dedicated and managed, through legal or other effective means, to achieve the long-term conservation of nature with associated ecosystem services and cultural values".

·         MPAs restrict human activity for a conservation purpose, typically to protect natural or cultural resources. Such marine resources are protected by local, state, territorial, native, regional, national, or international authorities and differ substantially among and between nations.

·         This variation includes different limitations on development, fishing practices, fishing seasons and catch limits, moorings and bans on removing or disrupting marine life.

MPA is an umbrella term to describe a wide range of protected areas for marine conservation around the world.

Sources of Urban finance

Brief Introduction

§  India’s urban population has grown by 32% from 2001 to 2011 as compared to 18% growth in total population of the country.

§  With increasing urban population, the need for providing better infrastructure and services in cities is increasing. The government has introduced several schemes to address different urban issues.

§  However there is a issue of finance related to it. For example, under the Smart Cities Mission, the total cost of projects proposed by the 60 smart cities (winners from the earlier rounds) is Rs 1.3 lakh crore. About 42% of this amount will come from central and state funding towards the Mission, and the rest will be raised by the cities.

Prelim Punch 17-01-2018

Prelim Punch 17-01-2018

Malimath Report

• Justice Malimath Committee or The Committee on Reforms of the Criminal Justice System was constituted by the Home Ministry in 2000.
• The committee had submitted its report in 2003 and made recommendations on crime investigation and punishment.
• The recommendations were never implemented. It is now going to be revisited by the government.
• One of its key recommendations is admissibility of confessions made before a police officer as evidence in a court of law.
• Other recommendations are

a.       Stringent punishment for false registration of cases,

b.      Constituting a National Judicial Commission

c.       Amending Article 124 to make impeachment of judges less difficult

d.      Standard of “proof beyond reasonable doubt” followed in criminal cases be done away with.

Indian Councils Act 1861

Indian Councils Act 1861

The Indian Council’s Act 1861 was an act of the British Parliament that made significant changes in the Governor-General’s Council.

Provisions of the Indian Councils Act 1861

• For the executive functions of the Council, a fifth member was added. Now there were five members for home, military, law, revenue and finance. (A sixth member for public works was added in 1874.)
• Lord Canning, who was the Governor-General and Viceroy at the time, introduced the portfolio system. In this system, each member was assigned a portfolio of a particular department.

Economic Affairs ;Environment and Ecology,Science Affairs- Nov-2017

Economic Affairs

The Code on Wages Bill, 2017:

The Union Government has taken a drive to rationalise 38 Labour Acts by framing 4 labour codes viz. Code on Wages, Code on Social Security, Code on Industrial Relations and Code on Occupational Safety, health and working conditions. The codification of labour laws will remove multiplicity of definitions and authorities leading to ease of compliance without compromising wage security and social security to workers.

Domestic Systematically Important Banks

The RBI has added HDFC Bank, the 2nd largest private sector lender bank of the country, to the list of DSIBs or Domestic Systematically Important Banks. DSIBs are perceived certain banks in the country on whom the economy of the country depends. These are perceived as TBTF - Too Big To Fail. There are two types of SIBs - Global SIBs, identified by BASEL Committee and Domestic SIBs identified by central bank of country.

Domestic Systematically Important Banks in India == > SBI, HDFC& ICIC

Mission 2018-19

FAME India Scheme

The Government has extended the FAME India Scheme by 6 more months. FAME stands for Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles. The scheme was launched in 2015 under the National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) with an aim to promote eco-friendly vehicles in the country. Its objective is to provide fiscal and monetary incentives for adoption and market creation of both hybrid and electric technologies vehicles in the country. It also aims to support hybrid or electric vehicles market development and its manufacturing eco-system in the country in order to achieve self-sustenance in stipulated period. The scheme is being administered by Heavy Industries Ministry.

ADVOCATE-GENERAL

ADVOCATE-GENERAL

·         This office is just similar to the office of the Attorney-General.

·         Article 165 of the Indian Constitution provides for the office of the Advocate General at the states.

·         The Advocate General is the first law officer at the state level.

SOURCES OF THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION

SOURCES OF THE INDIAN CONSTITUTION

 US CONSTITUTION:

§  Judicial Review

§  Fundamental Rights

§  Independent Judiciary

§  Impeachment procedure of the President

§  The Vice President acting as the Chairman of the Upper House

§  Removal of the Supreme Court and High Court Judges.

Mission 2018-2019

NISAR

• NISAR stands for NASA ISRO Synthetic Aperture Radar Mission
• Aims to study the hazards and global environmental changes
• Slated to launched in 2020-21
• NISAR is a dual frequency (L & S Band) Radar Imaging Satellite. It will be the first radar imaging satellite to use dual frequency.
• Will be launched in a Sun Synchronous Low -Earth
• It is designed to observe and take measurements of some of the planet’s most complex processes, including ecosystem disturbances, ice-sheet collapse, and natural hazards such as earth quakes, tsunamis, volcanoes and landslides.
• The satellite is likely to be launched from India aboard an Indian launch vehicle.
• Applications:
• NISAR would provide info about a place more frequently. For Ex. If the present satellite takes 23 to 25 days to revisit a particular spot and give the next round of info about it, NISAR would provide the repeat info in two to five days.
• Objectives:
• Estimation of soil moisture
• Agriculture and forest biomass
• Estimation of glacier
• Snow and possibility of landslide

Prelims Current Affairs 16-01-2018

Prelims Current Affairs 16-01-2018

Aadhaar Face Authentication

• The Unique Identification Authority of India has decided to enable Face Authentication for validating Aadhaar cards from July 2018.
• Currently, the UIDAI provides two modes of biometric verification: fingerprint authentication and iris authentication.
• Face authentication will be allowed only in fusion mode along with one more authentication factor either fingerprint or iris or aOTP to authenticate an Aadhaar number holder.
• Face authentication will only be allowed on a “need” basis.

UN-General Assembly

UN-General Assembly

·         Main deliberative organ and composed of all member states, each of which has one vote.

·         General Assembly appoints SG of UN based on the recommendations given by Security Council.

·         GA elects Non-Permanent members in Security Council & elects Members for Social and Economic Council.

·         GA+SC elects Judges to International Court of Justice

·         Make recommendations on any matters within the scope of the UN, except matters of peace and security that are under consideration by the Security Council

·         UN budget – United Nation is funded by its member states through compulsory and voluntary contributions.

·         Compulsory contribution depends mainly on its economic strength, though its state of development and debt situation are also taken into account.

·         MC can make voluntary contribution to UNESCO, WHO, UN Programmes and Funds such as Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF).