Current Affairs for IAS Exams - 22 October 2017

::NATIONAL::

Linking of Aadhaar to bank account is mandatory

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) clarified that linking of Aadhaar to bank accounts was mandatory under the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017.
The clarification comes after a section of the media, citing a reply to a Right to Information Act application, reported that the linking of Aadhaar and bank accounts was not mandatory.
The Reserve Bank clarifies that, in applicable cases, linkage of Aadhaar number to bank account is mandatory under the Prevention of Money-laundering (Maintenance of Records) Second Amendment Rules, 2017, published in the Official Gazette on June 1, 2017.

Cleaning up of Ganga

Coursing about 2,500 km, the Ganga is the longest river within India’s borders. Its basin constitutes 26% of the country’s land mass (8,61,404 sq. km.) and supports 43% of India’s population. Even as its basin traverses 11 States, five States are located along the river’s main stem spanning Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Bihar and West Bengal. Much of the river’s pollution load — from chemical effluents, sewage, dead bodies, and excreta — comes from these States.
In the Ganga basin, approximately 12,000 million litres per day (mld) of sewage is generated, for which there is now a treatment capacity of just 4,000 mld. Particularly, on the stretch spanning Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, approximately 3,000 mld of sewage is discharged, and a treatment capacity of just 1,000 mld has been created to treat it.
Though the contribution of industrial pollution, volume-wise, is about 20%, its toxic and non-biodegradable nature has a disproportionate impact. The industrial pollutants largely emanate from tanneries in Kanpur, distilleries, paper mills and sugar mills in the Kosi, Ramganga and Kali river catchments.
Then there is the municipal sewage which, at about a billion litres a day, generates 80% of the pollution load. This spans a wide range, from run-off in rural settlements to carcasses floated down the river.
The BJP included the cleaning of the Ganga in its 2014 election manifesto. The Narendra Modi government earmarked Rs. 20,000 crore for the clean-up and promised that the river would be clean by 2020.
Former Union Minister for Water Resources Uma Bharti said the river would be clean by 2018 but the new Minister, Nitin Gadkari, indicated that this deadline was unlikely to be met. He, however, said the river would be “noticeably clean” by March 2019
The government has set up an empowered authority called the National Mission for Clean Ganga. This is a dedicated team of officers who are responsible for disbursing the Rs. 20,000 crore fund towards a variety of projects that involve setting up of sewage treatment plants (STPs), replacing woodfired crematoriums with electric ones or those that use fuel more efficiently, setting up biodiversity parks that will enable native species — from the Gangetic river dolphin to rare turtles — to replenish their numbers and planting trees to improve the water table in the surrounding regions and prevent soil erosion.
The authorities focussed on having trash skimmers ply along the river and collecting garbage, and improving crematoria. However the big task — of installing sewage treatment plants — is grossly delayed. Barely Rs. 2,000 crore of the Rs. 20,000 crore has been spent so far.
The government says this has taken time because it wanted to put in place an extremely transparent tendering process. It has also established a system called the hybrid-annuity model, used in commissioning highways, for selecting firms that will manage STPs.
Under this, firms would be given nearly half the money upfront to set up a plant and the rest (with a profit margin included) at regular intervals, provided they meet certain criteria over 15 years. Sixty-three sewerage management projects are being implemented in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal. Last week, STPs to treat 1187.33 mld were cleared for Hardwar and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
The ultimate objective, for the river to be clean, would be to ensure that the coliform bacteria level, biochemical oxygen demand, pH and dissolved salts remain within the standards prescribed by the Central Pollution Control Board.
A lot will depend on how soon the STPs are commissioned. On average, they will take about a year-and-a-half to work at their optimal capacity. The tanneries, a major polluter, will have to install new systems to ensure that no discharge leaches into the river.
Given that several employ techniques that have not been tried on a large scale in Indian rivers, it is unclear how soon they will deliver results. Moreover, a clean river also implies that it maintains minimum levels — called ecological flows — across all stretches of the river. This requires management on a larger scale, including controlling the several dams along the river that bring with them their own challenges.

Ordinancemaking public servants immune to investigation should be repealed-PUCL

The People’s Union for Civil Liberties demanded repeal of a controversial ordinance promulgated by the Rajasthan government which has made public servants immune to investigation. The ordinance also bars the media from disclosing names of officials until prior sanction is granted for their prosecution.
The PUCL has decided to challenge the ordinance in the Rajasthan High Court.
The ordinance, promulgated on September 6, attempts to silence the media and prevent the judiciary from exercising its function of setting the criminal law in motion. “It’s alarming that the intention was to prevent at the very threshold any possibility of investigation being ordered by a magistrate when the evidence was prima facie brought before the court,” PUCL State president KavitaSrivastava said.
In its judgment, the Constitution Bench of SC had held that an FIR has to be lodged and investigation initiated by the police officer on a complaint about a cognisable offence. In the cases of non-cognisable offences, the investigating officer is empowered to initiate a preliminary enquiry and seek the court’s direction to obtain sanction for prosecution.
Mr. Saxena said the ordinance was meant to neutralise the SC’s ruling and the State government’s own circular of 2015.

::INTERNATIONAL::

Catalan govt sacked by Spain to hold polls

Spain announced that it would move to dismiss Catalonia’s separatist government and call fresh elections in the semi-autonomous region to stop its leaders from declaring independence.
The drastic escalation of Spain’s worst political crisis in decades will see separatist leader CarlesPuigdemont and his administration stripped of their jobs, Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy told reporters after a crisis meeting of his Cabinet.
Mr. Puigdemont's threat to declare independence “has been unilateral, contrary to the law, and seeking confrontation,” said Mr. Rajoy, adding that he will seek approval from the Senate — where his conservatives hold an absolute majority — for permission to dissolve the Catalan parliament and call elections within six months.
In the meantime, the jobs of Mr. Puigdemont and his team will be carried out by Spain's national ministers, the Prime Minister said.
Mr. Puigdemont was due to respond at 9 p.m. (21 GMT) to the decision. In Barcelona, independence supporters took to their balconies banging their pots and pans in protest at Mr. Rajoy's decision.
Autonomy is a highly sensitive issue in wealthy Catalonia, which saw its powers taken away under the dictatorship of General Francisco Franco.
Under Article 155 of Spain's Constitution, Madrid enjoys powers to wrest control of rebellious regions, but it has never used them before. Mr. Rajoy said he made the decision reluctantly but had no choice in his battle to keep the country together. “This was neither our desire nor our intention,” he said. “We are applying Article 155 because the government of a democratic country cannot accept that the law is ignored.
Mr. Rajoy said elections had wide backing amongst Catalans, who are growing frustrated with politicians’ inability to end the deadlock. A poll for newspaper El Periodico released on Saturday indicated that 68% of Catalans back elections, although ahead of Mr. Rajoy's announcement, 66% rejected his move to seize powers from Catalonia.
European Parliament head Antonio Tajani, accepting a prize from the King on behalf of the EU, demanded respect for the law and said, “All too often in the past the prospect of redrawing borders has been presented as a heavenly panacea that has resulted in a hellish mess.”

China’s influence over North Korea and its limits

North Korea and China share a long, porous border, several millennia of history and deep ideological roots. Tens, and possibly hundreds, of thousands of Chinese soldiers, including Mao Zedong’s son, died to save North Korea from obliteration during the Korean War, and China is essentially Pyongyang’s economic lifeline, responsible for most of its trade and oil.
However, their relationship is less about friendship or political bonds than a deep and mutually uneasy dependency. Nominally allies, the neighbours operate in a near constant state of tension, a mix of ancient distrust and dislike and the grating knowledge that they are inextricably tangled up with each other, however much they might chafe against it.
This matters because if China is not the solution to the nuclear crisis, then outsiders long sold on the idea must recalibrate their efforts as the North approaches a viable arsenal of nuclear-tipped missiles capable of reaching the U.S. mainland, something the CIA chief this week estimated as only a matter of months away.
One clue about how Chinese see the North can be seen in two widespread nicknames for Kim Jong-un — Kim Fatty The Third and Kim Fat Fat Fat.
A growing disdain among the public is reflected in China’s willingness to permit criticism of the North in the press, and to allow tougher sanctions at the UN Beijing has suspended coal, iron ore, seafood and textiles from the North.
Still, nothing China has done offsets its underlying fear that too much external pressure could collapse the government in Pyongyang. The nightmare scenario for Beijing is North Korean refugees flooding into its northeast after Seoul takes power in Pyongyang and U.S. and South Korean troops occupy lands that were once considered a buffer zone.
One way to gauge Pyongyang’s feelings for Beijing is to consider that Kim Jong-un has yet to visit his only major ally, a country that accounts for 90% of North Korean trade, since taking power in December 2011.
Since communication at the highest levels has now virtually disappeared, Mr. Kim feels little need to pay attention when Beijing calls on him to stop testing nukes and missiles.
In fact, North Korea has seemingly sought to humiliate Beijing by timing some of its missile tests for major global summits in China.
It can be argued that the North Korea-China relationship never really recovered from Beijing’s decision in 1992 to establish formal diplomatic relations with Seoul.
But a big part of North Korea’s “profound sense of mistrust” and “long-term effort to resist China’s influence” stems from the 1950-53 Korean War, according to James Person, a Korea expert at the Wilson Center think tank in Washington. The war is often seen as the backbone of the countries’ alliance, he said, but the North blamed the failure to conquer the South on Beijing, which had seized control of field operations after the near-annihilation of North Korean forces.

Mugabe honour by WHO gives way to outrage

The World Health Organisation cited Zimbabwe’s anti-tobacco record and efforts against non-communicable diseases as justifications for making President Robert Mugabe a “goodwill ambassador”, as International criticism of the move mounted.
The UN health agency, led since July by former Ethiopian Health Minister TedrosAdhanomGhebreyesus, has asked Mr. Mugabe to serve in the role to help tackle NCDs like heart attacks, strokes and asthma across Africa.
The appointment announced earlier in Uruguay has triggered confusion and anger by activists who note that Zimbabwe’s healthcare system, like many of its public services, has collapsed under Mr. Mugabe’s authoritarian regime.
Britain joined the widening chorus of critics, calling the decision “surprising and disappointing, particularly in light of the current U.S. and EU sanctions against him.”
Mr. Mugabe’s “appointment risks overshadowing the work undertaken globally by the WHO on Non-Communicable Diseases.”
Zimbabwean activist and human rights lawyer Doug Coltart said on Twitter that a “man who flies to Singapore for treatment because he has destroyed Zimbabwe’s health sector is WHO’s goodwill ambassador.”
Mr. Mugabe, who is 93 and has been in power since 1980, is in increasingly fragile health and makes regular trips abroad for medical treatment.

China’s influence reaches till Djibouti

The People’s Liberation Army’s overseas garrison conducted its first live-fire drills from China’s base in Djibouti last month. The base on the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, where the Red Sea meets the Indian Ocean, was inaugurated in July, and is embedded in Djibouti’s new Doraleh Multi-Purpose Port.
At the port’s opening ceremony two months earlier, two vessels, one owned by Ethiopian Logistics & Shipping Enterprise (ESLSE) and the other by China’s state-owned COSCO Shipping Lines, berthed at the port, and fêted Djibouti’s President Ismaïl Omar Guelleh with a long whistle.
The state-owned China Merchants Port Holding has invested $580 million in the port’s construction and owns almost a quarter of Djibouti’s ports holding company. It is now in talks to take a stake in ESLSE, in Djibouti’s landlocked hinterland. Ethiopia’s Prime Minister HailemariamDesalegn has announced that the ruling Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front plans to liberalise the state monopoly that controls the country’s seaward and inland transport.
RobaMegerssaAkawak, ESLSE’s CEO, told this writer he’s been informed “at a ministerial level” that China Merchants will be considered for the bid. ESLSE handed the relevant documents, including an inventory of its assets, to a committee at Ethiopia’s Transport Ministry before May, when he became CEO, Mr. Roba said.
The committee, overseeing due diligence and a valuation in preparation for the bid, is headed by the chair of ESLSE’s board and Transport Minister Ahmed Shide. (Mr. Shide and China Merchants did not respond to requests for comment).
Ethiopia’s ruling party has not informed Mr. Roba about the size of the stake on offer but once the government decides on a partner, he expects his role will be contracted to a foreigner, or be supervised by “shadow managers”.
Prime Minister Hailemariam and China Merchants Group’s chairman Li Jianhong met in Beijing in May at the first summit of Xi Jinping’s Belt & Road Initiative. The Hong Kong-listed conglomerate then announced that it reached an “agreement” with Ethiopia to build a “logistics channel to improve logistics operational efficiency”, but did not mention ESLSE, most of whose cargo is channelled through Djibouti.
ESLSE’s assets amount to 16.28 billion Ethiopian Birr ($700 million), according to the monopoly’s provisional balance sheet as on June 30. These include inland dry ports, terminals, buildings, land and 11 vessels, according to Mr. Roba.
Shortly before the monopoly was formed in 2011 after a merger between three state enterprises, nine vessels were bought from Chinese shipbuilders for almost $400 million, Mr. Roba said.
China Civil Engineering Construction is expanding two of ESLSE’s inland dry ports, he said, and these ports are planned to be connected to a road to Djibouti’s Doraleh port by a rail link that’s also being built by the state enterprise.
Li Qingjie, deputy general manager of China’s Ministry of Railway Logistics, attended an August 18 meeting in Beijing between the Vice Chair of China’s Central Military Commission, General Fan Changlong (deputy to President Xi Jinping) and the Chief of Staff of Ethiopia’s Army, General SamoraYunis. The PLA is willing to contribute to a “comprehensive strategic partnership” with Ethiopia, General Fan said.
Ethiopia’s Defence Ministry spokesperson couldn’t comment on whether the PLA will be permitted to use the dry ports or the railway to Djibouti. The specifics may be released later, but what’s beyond doubt is that the Chinese dragon is only growing big in African hinterlands.

::SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY::

Plant extract to kill skin cancer cells

Nanoparticle formulation of a chlorophyll-rich biomolecular extract of an Indian medicinal plant Anthocephaluscadamba combined with a near-infrared dye has been found to selectively kill skin cancer cells.
The plant extract is particularly toxic to cancer cells as there is enhanced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) while the dye aids in the destruction of cancer cells through photothermal therapy. Near-infrared light was used to heating up the nanoformulation.
The results were published in the International Journal of Biological Macromolecules.
Two teams from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad and IIT Bombay working together have achieved promising results using skin cancer cell lines.
While the plant extract is hydrophobic and hence the uptake by cells will be less, the nanoformulation of the extract makes it less hydrophobic, thereby increasing the bioavailability significantly. The extract and the dye together are encapsulated in a FDA-approved polymer to produce the nanoformulation.
Unlike the highly selective nature of the extract, the photothermal ablation produced by the dye when exposed to near-infrared light is not selective. “So we have minimised the photothermal effect and enhanced the selective toxicity by adding the plant extract. This way, we need to use minimal photothermal effect to kill cancer cells,” Dr. Rengan says.
“We have been to achieve a synergistic effect by combining the natural extract and photothermal therapy. There was higher cell death when the combination was used than when photothermal therapy alone was used,” says Prof. Rohit Srivastava from the Department of Biosciences and Bioengineering at IIT Bombay and the other corresponding author of the paper.
The NIR dye used (IR-780) for photothermal effect is an inherently imaging agent. The makes the use of any other chemical as an imaging agent redundant.
On being irradiated with near-infrared light, the dye gets heated up and facilitates the release of the extract from polymer membrane. After 4-5 minutes of irradiation, about 80% of cancer cells were killed. AFter irradiation, the temperature of nanoparticles that contained the dye and the extract increased to 51 degree C. Cells die when heated beyond 42 degree C.
“The nanoformulation with only the plant extract killed less than 20% skin cancer cells while the nanoformulation with only the dye killed 45-50% cells. But the extract and the dye used together killed 82-83% cancer cells,” says Tejaswini Appidi from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and one of the first authors of the paper.
But the crude extract (not made into nanoformulation) killed 51% cancer cells at 20 microgram per ml concentration. “The reduced toxicity of the extract in nanoformulation was because only very little of the extract could come out of the polymer coating,” says Appidi.
“We will be working on different kinds of breast cancer in animal models,” says Deepak Pemmaraju from the Department of Biomedical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and the first author of the paper. “At 780 nm, the penetration of IR will be less than 0.5 cm. The depth of penetration can be increased by using higher IR wavelength.”
The use of nanoformulation containing both the extract and the dye will be particularly useful in treating resistant cancer cells.
“The extract that is released will suppress the growth of resistant cancer cells that escape the transient photothermal heat,” says Dr. Rengan.

Jamun fruit to remove fluoride from water

Now, while removing excess fluoride from drinking water, the usual problems such as high operational costs and getting rid of toxic sludge will be a thing of the past. Researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Hyderabad have used activated jamun seed powder to bring the fluoride content in drinking water to less than the WHO limit of 1.5 mg per litre. The results were published in the Journal of Environmental Chemical Engineering.
The team led by Dr. Chandra S. Sharma from the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad mixed the jamun seed powder thoroughly with potassium hydroxide and heated it to 900 degree C for an hour to produce activated jamun powder.
The activation increases the pore volume several times and the surface area by more than 50 times. As a result, the fluoride adsorption efficiency increased several times compared to samples that were not treated with KOH but heated to 900 degree C.
The fluoride ion removal increases with a decrease in pH, with maximum adsorption found at pH 3. The activated jamun seed acquires a positive charge at low pH and the positive charge attracts the fluoride ions while the negative charge in an alkaline medium repulses the fluoride ions.
With fluoride adsorption capacity of 3.65 milligram per gram, activated jamun seed was close to tea ash (3.75 milligram per gram) but much higher than other substances such as banana peel, coffee husk, and coconut shell.
“Besides testing the activated jamun seed powder in the lab we also tested it using groundwater taken from Nalgonda village, which is one of the worst fluoride-affected villages in India. After two hours of contact time, we were able to reduce the fluoride content from 3.2 milligram per litre to less than 1.5 milligram per litre, which is the WHO limit,” says Dr. Sharma.
On heating the activated jamun powder to 50 degree C, the fluoride gets desorbed and the jamun powder can be reused up to five times. “About 96% of the fluoride can be desorbed. So there is a loss of only 4% efficiency after each desorption,” he says.
Disposal of the fluoride sludge is another area that the team is working on. “The fluoride ions desorbed from the activated carbon will be present in very small quantity of water. We can add sodium hydroxide to this water to produce sodium fluoride,” he says.
The major objective of the current study was to evaluate the fluoride removal efficiency using a novel, low-cost activated carbon.
“We will next be testing the efficiency of the activated jamun powder in water containing multiple ions such as fluoride, arsenic and heavy metals,” says Ramya Araga the Department of Chemical Engineering at IIT Hyderabad and the first author of the paper.
“We have so far carried out all tests in batches. We need to now undertake column studies,” says Araga. The continuous flow parameters have to be optimised to achieve best results; during the batch studies, two hours of contact time was needed for the fluoride to be removed.

::ECONOMY AND BUSINESS::

Technological breakthrough in lead acid batteries

A homegrown company, Log 9 Materials, has made a technological breakthrough in the capacity of lead acid batteries used in motor vehicles, inverters and solar energy storage units.
“What we have so far been able to achieve is a 30% improvement in the amount of charge the battery can store,” AkshaySinghal, founder of Log 9 Materials, said in an interview. “So, earlier if the storage capacity was for five hours, it can now run for 6.5 to 7 hours.”
Mr. Singhal added that his company had achieved a 35% increase in the longevity of the batteries. “And the potential for this is a 50% increase in capacity, and a 40% increase in the life,” he said.
The breakthrough, in an area that has not seen a change in the materials used in the last 30 years, comes with the use of a form of carbon called graphene. Mr. Singhal, a graduate of IIT Roorkie, said that Log 9 Materials started as a graphene and nanoparticles manufacturers, but quickly morphed into a product manufacturer since “it makes more sense if there are first products in the market that are graphene based before the market for the material picks up.”
“Graphene is a very thin material,” he added. “And as thin as a material is, the more is its capacitance (ability to store an electrical charge). Graphene is a single layer of atoms closely placed together. It’s the thinnest you can get. It is also very conducting, so not only can you can store more charge, but you can withdraw it at a much higher rate.”
“For example, if one takes a normal battery that can run four fans at a time, and start running 10 fans on it, it will run, but where earlier it was running for two hours, now it will discharge in 30 minutes. In addition, the repeated complete discharges of the battery will also degrade its inner plate, reducing its life.”
Graphene can not only increase the charge that the battery can hold (running four fans for three hours instead of the earlier two hours, for example), but also increase the number of full discharges it can withstand.
Apart from this, the advantage of such a graphene formulation is that adding it to the battery does not require any change in the manufacturing process. “Where the manufacturer was adding, say, four powders to the paste inside the battery, now he will have to add five powders,” Mr. Singhal said.

Duty-free imports hit Paper industry

A sharp increase in import of paper and paperboard, especially writing and printing paper, this financial year has turned into a matter of concern for the domestic industry.
Import of coated paper, which totalled 45,492 tonnes in February this year, shot up to 73,792 tonnes in July. In the same period, import of uncoated paper too rose from 13,347 tonnes to 32,887 tonnes, according to data with Indian Paper Manufacturers Association (IPMA).
Import of paper and paperboard [excluding newsprint] has been steadily on the rise for the last six years,” said Rohit Pandit, secretary general, IPMA. “Import of these items from ASEAN countries have grown almost 43% in volume in the last six years. Imports from South Korea alone have risen 58%.”
Since 2014, there has been no import duty on paper and paperboard from ASEAN countries. Under the India-Korea CEPA, the basic customs duty has been reduced gradually with a 0% target by January 1. Between April and July this year, the growth in imports has been more than 40%, he said. In the writing and printing paper segment, import of coated, uncoated, and copier papers is significant, he added.
“The domestic industry in India has started feeling the impact and the government should increase import duty on paper and paperboard to 20%,” the Indian Agro & Recycled Paper Mills’ Association has demanded.
R. Krishnaswamy, vice-president of the association, said that for wood-based paper mills in India, the cost of wood is ‘very high’. If it is $100 a tonne in India, the price of wood in Indonesia, with which Indian suppliers compete, is only $40 a tonne. Hence, the price of paper is also lower, he said.