• SWITCH UAV is an indigenous system built to cater to the most demanding surveillance operations of the Indian forces.
  
• This fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing UAV can be deployed at high altitudes and under harsh environments for day and night surveillance, ideaForge said in a statement.
  

Source : The Hindu

Soon after a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters stormed the US Capitol last week, his social media accounts were suspended by Big Tech companies like Twitter and Facebook for his alleged role in inciting violence and spreading misinformation

• The incident spurred a renewed debate about Section 230 of the US’ Communications Decency Act — the controversial piece of internet legislation that permitted these tech companies to flex their powers and ban the president in the first place.
  
• Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act was passed in 1996 and provides legal immunity to internet companies for content that is shared on their websites. The act was first introduced to regulate pornography online. Section 230 is an amendment to the act, which holds users responsible for their comments and posts online.
  
• According to the regulation, “No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of any information provided by another information content provider.”
  
• This means that online companies, including social media platforms, are not liable for the content shared on their website by its users. So if a user posts something illegal on the website, the company is protected from lawsuits.
  

Important Info :

Why is Section 230 widely criticised?

• It was passed before social media existed in its present form. Political leaders and internet activists have long called for the law to be updated.
• Republican lawmakers, including Trump, have alleged that platforms like Twitter and Facebook exhibit a clear bias against conservative voices and often abuse Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act to censor right-leaning users.

Source : The Hindu

Kalaripayattu, considered the oldest surviving martial art of the country, with a legacy of more than 3,000 years, is set to see a surge in popularity with the establishment of an academy in the Kerala capital

• Lessons in one of the most famous combat styles in the world will now be taught at Kerala Tourism’s Vellar Crafts Village en route to Kovalam.
  
• The 3,500 sq ft academy in the village is scheduled to be completed in two months.
  
• Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan released the syllabus of the Kalaripayattu Academy on January 16 during the inauguration of the renovated Crafts Village.
  

Important Info :

• Kalaripayattu also known as Kalari, is an Indian martial art and fighting style that originated in Kerala.
• It is considered to be among the oldest martial arts still in existence, with its origin dating back to at least the 3rd century BC.
• Kalaripayattu includes strikes, kicks, grappling, preset forms, weaponry and healing methods. Practitioners of Kalaripayattu also possess intricate knowledge of pressure points on the human body and healing techniques that incorporate the knowledge of Ayurveda and Yoga.
• Unlike other parts of India, warriors in Kerala belonged to all castes. Women in Keralite society also underwent training in Kalaripayattu, and still do so to this day.

Source : The Hindu

With a view to create awareness among the consumers of fossil fuels, Petroleum Conservation Research Association (PCRA), Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas launched ‘SAKSHAM’, a month long campaign, highlighting the adverse health and environmental impacts of increasing carbon footprints

• ‘SAKSHAM’s idea is to convince consumers to switch to cleaner fuels and bring in behavioural change to use fossil fuel intelligently.
  
• The campaign will also spread awareness about 7 key drivers that Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently mentioned, saying that collectively these would help India move towards cleaner energy.
  
• The key drivers include
  • moving towards a gas-based economy,
    
  • cleaner use of fossil fuels,
    
  • greater reliance on domestic sources to drive bio-fuels,
    
  • achieving renewable targets with the set deadlines,
    
  • increased use of electric vehicles to decarbonize mobility,
    
  • increased use of cleaner fuels like Hydrogen, and
    
  • digital innovation across all energy systems.
    
  
  

Source : PIB

The Finance Ministry (Expenditure Department) has drafted a model tender document for public procurement by all central government departments, in a bid to standardise the language and clauses included, and avoid contractual disputes

• Public procurement refers to the purchase of goods and services by the public sector or the government, accounting for an average 15% of GDP globally.
  
• In India, government procurement is estimated to constitute about 30% of GDP with the central government accounting for a major chunk.
  
• There is no standardised nomenclature in public procurement in India and a mix of American, European and Indian nomenclature has become common. E.g. participants in the Tender are called tenderers and bidders.
  
• The standard bidding document developed now, seeks to ease out this duality by mooting that
  • the ‘Tender’ should refer to the tender document and process, while the term ‘Bid’ shall refer to the bidders’ pitches;
    
  • ‘Bidder’ is to be used instead of ‘Tenderer’ to refer to potential suppliers and the usage ‘Bid document’ be done away with, as per the proposed model.
    
    Source : The Hindu

A new study by Geological Survey of India, Kolkata has shed light on the mineralogy of the meteorite which fell in 2017 in Mukundpura village near Jaipur

• The meteorite named Mukundpura CM2 was classified to be a carbonaceous chondrite. The composition of carbonaceous chondrites are also similar to the Sun.
  
• This is a type of stony meteorite, considered the most primitive meteorite and a remnant of the first solid bodies to accrete in the solar system.
  
• Meteorites are broadly classified into three groups – stony (silicate-rich), iron (Fe–Ni alloy), and stony-iron (mixed silicate–iron alloy). Chondrites are silicate-droplet-bearing meteorites, and this Mukundpura chondrite is the fifth carbonaceous meteorite known to fall in India.
  
• the results of the Mukundpura CM2 study are relevant to the surface composition of near-Earth asteroids Ryugu and Bennu.
  

Source : The Hindu

ALLIKATTUWith Assembly polls round the corner in Tamil Nadu, Jallikattu, the traditional bull-taming sport, has caught the attention of the BJP and Congress

• The bull-taming sport is popular in Madurai, Tiruchirappalli, Theni, Pudukkottai and Dindigul districts — known as the Jallikattu belt.
  
• Jallikattu is celebrated in the second week of January, during the Tamil harvest festival, Pongal.
  
• A tradition over 2,000 years old, Jallikattu is a competitive sport as well as an event to honour bull owners who rear them for mating. It is a violent sport in which contestants try to tame a bull for a prize; if they fail, the bull owner wins the prize.
  
• Jallikattu is considered a traditional way for the peasant community to preserve their pure-breed native bulls. Kangayam, Pulikulam, Umbalachery, Barugur and Malai Maadu are among the popular native cattle breeds used for Jallikattu.
  

Important Info :

Legal battles

• Jallikattu first came under legal scrutiny in 2007 when the Animal Welfare Board of India and the animal rights group PETA moved petitions in the Supreme Court against Jallikattu as well as bullock cart races.
• In 2011, the UPA regime at the Centre added bulls to the list of animals whose training and exhibition is prohibited. In May 2014, days before the BJP was elected to power, the Supreme Court banned the bull-taming sport, ruling on a petition that cited the 2011 notification.
• In 2018, the Supreme Court referred the Jallikattu case to a Constitution Bench, where it is pending now. The state government has legalised these events, which has been challenged in the court.
• Like Tamil Nadu, Karnataka too passed a law to save a similar sport, called Kambala.

Source : Indian Express

2020 has been recorded as one of the hottest years by various agencies

• NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies says that 2020 was the hottest year on record tying with 2016 (which held the previous record for the hottest year).
  
• The US NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information has said that 2020 was the second warmest year on record since 1880, when it started maintaining records.
  
• According to NOAA, the average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces for 2020 was 0.98 degree Celsius above the average for the 20th century and just 0.02 degree Celsius less than the average temperature for 2016.
  

Important Info :

Reasons:

• NASA has said that human-produced greenhouse gas emissions are largely responsible for warming the Earth.
• These activities include burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil and natural gas, which release greenhouse gases forming an insulating blanket, which traps heat near the Earth’s surface.
• Significantly, NASA notes that carbon dioxide levels have increased by over 50 percent since the Industrial Revolution began 250 years ago, while the level of methane has more than doubled. This has warmed the Earth by about 1 degree Celsius since this period.

Source : Indian Express

The Ministry of Railways has approved a new iron-ore policy governing the allocation of rakes and transportation of iron-ore.

• This new policy has been named as Iron-ore Policy 2021 and shall come into effect from February 10, 2021.
  
• The provisions of the new policy will be updated in the rake allotment system module by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).
  
• Scrutiny of documentation by Railways has been removed.
  
• Executive Director Rake Movement of Railway Board (EDRM) office, Kolkata which has been sanctioning programmes for movement of iron-ore traffic will have no regulatory role in the new policy.
  
• Customers now desirous of moving their traffic under any priority will have to give (an) undertaking that they have procured, transported and utilized materials as per rules and regulations of Central and State Governments.
  
• Higher priority will be given to the movement of iron-ore traffic for domestic manufacturing activity. Within the domestic movement of iron-ore traffic, priority preference will be given to steel, pig iron, sponge iron, pellet, or sinter plant owning customers having their own private sidings at both the loading as well as unloading ends.
  
• The categorization of priority of movement of iron ore has now been based on the availability of railway infrastructure developed by the customer, for loading or unloading, and the nature of movement between various types of sidings with a view to maximize iron-ore movement by rail.
  
• Old and new plants will be treated similarly as far as allotment and loading of rakes is concerned.
  

Important Info :

• Iron ore is the second most important stream of traffic of Railways and along with steel accounts for nearly 17 per cent (53.81 million tonne of steel and 153.35 million tonne of iron ore) of total 1210 million tonne freight loading of Indian Railways in 2019-2020.

Source : Business Standard

Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced launching of Startup India seed fund with 1,000 crore rupees so that there is no shortage of seed money for startups

• This was announced during the ‘Prarambh: Startup India International Summit’.
  
• This will help in starting and growing new startups.
  
• Fund of funds scheme is already helping startups raising equity capital. The Government will also help the startups in raising capital through guarantees.
  

Source : PIB

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The US administration has once again amended the H-1B visa norms by changing the rules to give priority to higher wages and skills for selection of deserving candidates. The old lottery system of work visa selection will not be followed now

What is the new wage-based H-1B work visa regime?

• The new wage-based work visa regime will now give priority in selection of visas to applications of those employers where the “proffered wage equals or exceeds” the prevailing level in that area of employment.
  
• The proffered wage is the wage that the employer intends to pay the beneficiary.
  
• This will be done for both the 65,000 regular visas and the 20,000 advanced degree exemption visas.
  
• This regime will also take into account the skill set that the respective worker brings to the country and cross check it whether such skill set is available at the same cost among the US workers.
  

Source : Indian Express

A supermassive black hole, which is estimated to weigh up to 100 billion times the mass of the Sun, is seemingly missing, leaving astronomers perplexed

• Scientists have been looking for the black hole using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and Hubble Space Telescope, and have so far found no evidence that it is anywhere to be found.
  
• The black hole is supposed to be located in Abell 2261, an enormous galaxy cluster that is about 2.7 billion light-years away from our planet.
  
• At 2.7 billion light-years away, the Abell galaxy is at an overwhelmingly large distance away from us.
  

Important Info :

• Every large galaxy in the universe has a supermassive black hole at its centre, whose mass is millions or billions of times that of the Sun.
• The black hole at the centre of our galaxy– the Milky Way– is called Sagittarius A*, and is 26,000 light-years away from Earth.

Source : Indian Express

After culling of ducks and chickens in Kerala, the Haryana government has decided to cull poultry birds in Barwala after some of them tested positive for the avian influenza

• Mass slaughter of domestic poultry birds, such as chickens and ducks, to contain the spread of bird flu is called culling.
  
• During culling operations, all domestic birds in an infected area, i.e., an area in which a case of bird flu has been detected, are slaughtered and their remains buried.
  
• Though wild and other birds may also carry the bird flu, only domestic poultry birds are culled since they are present in close proximity with people, raising the chances of transmission of the virus to humans.
  

Important Info :

• In India, culling is done in a radius one kilometre from the site of infection, which is called the ‘infected zone’. This means all domestic birds present in commercial farms, backyard farms or live bird markets in the infected zone are culled.

Source : Indian Express

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address the National Youth Parliament Festival – 2021 on January 12, 2021

• The Festival is organised on 12th January on the occasion of the National Youth Day in order to encourage the youth in the age group of 18-25 years to engage with public issues and understand the common man’s point of view.
  
• The First National Youth Parliament Festival was organized in January-February, 2019.
  

Important Info :

• National Youth Day is celebrated on 12 January being the birthday of Swami Vivekananda.
• In 1984 the Government of India declared this day as National Youth Day and since 1985 the event is celebrated in India every year.

Source : All India Radio

In Manipur, the Cherry Blossom Mao Festival was held at Senapati district marking the beginning of pink season in the district

• The Mao area of Senapati district in Manipur is known for Cherry Blossom, a plant which is popularly known as Sakura in Japan.
  
• The Manipur government started organizing the festival every year from 2017 onward.
  
• The festival features the picturesque landscape of Mao town adorned with beautiful Cherry Blossom flowers.
  

Important Info :

• A cherry blossom is a flower of many trees of genus Prunus.
• Prunus cerasoides, called wild Himalayan cherry, Indian wild cherry, and sour cherry, is known in Hindi as padam, pajja, or padmakashtha.

Source : All India Radio

Assam government will provide khadi shirt, eri shawl and eri stole to Grade IV employees in a phased manner, in a move to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi and his movement for Khadi

• Eri silk comes from the caterpillar of Samia ricini, found in northeast India and some parts of China, Japan.
  
• The name “eri” is derived from the Assamese word “era”, which means “castor”, as the silkworm feeds on castor plants.
  
• Eri silk is also known as endi or errandi in India.
  
• The woolly white silk is often referred to as the fabric of peace when it is processed without killing the silkworm. This process results in a silk called Ahimsa silk. Moths leave the cocoon and then the cocoons are harvested to be spun.
  
• The eri silkworm is the only completely domesticated silkworm other than Bombyx mori.
  

Source : All India Radio

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• September 3rd Current Affairs
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