CURRENT AFFAIRS
30 March 2021
NATIONAL NEWS:
A) Eight states account for over 84% of India’s fresh Covid-19 cases.
Eight States, including Maharashtra, Karnataka and Punjab have reported a high number of daily Covid-19 cases and account for 84.5% of the 68,020 fresh cases recorded in the country in a day, the Union Health Ministry said. Maharashtra has reported the highest daily rise of 40,414 Covid-19 cases, followed by 3,082 in Karnataka, 2,870 in Punjab, 2,276 in Madhya Pradesh, 2,270 in Gujarat, 2,216 in Kerala, 2,194 in Tamil Nadu and 2,153 in Chhattisgarh, the Ministry said. Five States — Maharashtra, Kerala, Punjab, Karnataka and Chhattisgarh cumulatively account for 80.17% of the total active cases in the country, it added. Ten States — Maharashtra, Gujarat, Punjab, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Haryana and Rajasthan — are displaying an upward trajectory in the daily new cases, the Ministry said, adding that the total vaccination coverage in India has crossed 6 crore. India’s total active caseload has reached 5,21,808 and constitutes 4.33% of the total infections. A net rise of 35,498 cases has been recorded in the total active caseload in a day, the Ministry said. The total number of reported coronavirus cases from India stood at 1,20,40,001 with the death toll at 1,63,263.
B) Mehbooba Mufti denied passport after ‘adverse’ CID report.
Former Jammu and Kashmir chief minister and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) president Mehbooba Mufti has been denied a passport after an adverse report by the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) of the J&K police. The Passport Officer, Srinagar, on Monday submitted to the High Court that the Additional Director General of Police (DGP) of the Criminal Investigation Department (CID), J&K, has categorised the application of Mufti as not recommended for passport case. As per norms, clear Police Verification Report (PVR) is mandatory (for issuance of a passport). The PVR received from the ADGP, CID, do not favour issuance of passport and (was) returned as ‘not recommended for passport case’. In view of the CID report, your case was found to attract refusal under the provision Section 6(2) (c) of the Passport Act, 1967, the Passport Officer’s submission reads. Mufti had applied for a fresh passport on December 11, 2020. She has now been asked to appeal before the Joint Secretary (PSP) and the Chief Passport Officer, Ministry of External Affairs, Patiala House, New Delhi, within 30 days in case of any grievance against the decision. Reacting to the decision, Mufti, in a tweet, said that the Passport Office refused to issue his passport based on CID’s report citing it as ‘detrimental to the security of India’. This is the level of normalcy achieved in Kashmir since August 2019 that an ex-Chief Minister holding a passport is a threat to the sovereignty of a mighty nation.
C) Less than 6% of houses sanctioned under Central scheme reach completion.
Less than 6% of the houses sanctioned under the Centre’s flagship rural housing scheme in 2020-21 have reached completion so far this year, with Covid-19 stalling progress, the Rural Development Ministry told a Parliamentary Standing Committee last month. However, some States such as Odisha and Jharkhand used the scheme to provide employment opportunities for migrant workers who returned to their villages during the crisis. With a little over a year to go to achieve its goal of Housing for All, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana-Gramin (PMAY-G) has completed only 55% of its construction target, although money has been sanctioned for almost 85% of beneficiaries. Of the 2.28 crore houses to be built for the rural poor under the Yojana, less than 1.27 crore had been completed by January 28, 2021, according to the Committee’s report presented to the Lok Sabha earlier this month. Another 61 lakh are under construction. The PMAY-G was launched in April 2016. It aims to provide the end of March 2022 a pucca house with basic amenities to all rural families who are homeless or living in kutcha or dilapidated house. According to data provided by the Ministry in 2019, it takes an average of 114 days to construct a house under the scheme. However, the advent of the pandemic caused long delays at every stage. Implementation was affected at the ground level due to unavailability of construction materials, labour, delay in inspection of stages of house construction etc., the Ministry told the Committee. Although the nationwide lockdown in March 2020 brought work to a complete standstill, the Ministry issued an advisory to all States to start house construction activities from April 20, 2020, while adhering to safety protocols such as mask-wearing and distancing.
D) SC directs police stations to send reports to accident claim tribunals within 48 hours.
The Supreme Court has directed police stations to send accident information reports to Motor Accident Claims Tribunals and insurers within 48 hours of the road mishap. The jurisdictional police station shall report the accident under Section 158(6) of the Motor Vehicle Act (Section 159 post 2019 amendment) to the tribunal and insurer within the first 48 hours either over email or a dedicated website, the Supreme Court directed. This is part of a set of eight directions issued by the court to prevent delays in disbursement of compensations to victims. These directions should be uniformly practised by the police, motor accident claims tribunals, and insurers across the country. A Bench of Justices S.K. Kaul and R. Subhash Reddy ordered the Centre to launch a national online platform, which could be operated and accessed across the country for submission of accident reports, claims and responses to claims, etc. This would end the distress felt by victims when accidents happened in places other than their native State. Tamil Nadu and NCT of Delhi have already progressed from having email accounts for submission of accident reports by the police to the tribunal and the insurer, to operating an online platform/website for submission of accident reports, the Bench noted. However, it said every State having its own online system would hamper efficient adjudication of claims. Therefore, Central government shall develop an online platform accessible to the tribunals, police authorities and insurers throughout India, the court directed.
INTERNATIONAL NEWS
A) Boston Dynamics introduces ‘Stretch’, new warehouse worker robot.
U.S. robotics company Boston Dynamics on Monday unveiled a new robot called Stretch, designed to perform one very specific warehouse job: moving boxes. Stretch is the first robot for one task that the company has built, based on requests received from companies around the world, said Michael Perry, vice president of business development for Boston Dynamics. Stretch has a small mobile base that allows it to move around tight spaces in existing warehouses without having to reconfigure them for automation. It is equipped with an arm and a smart-gripper with advanced sensing and computer vision cameras that can identify and handle a large variety of boxed and shrink wrapped cases. They are looking at picking up boxes around 50 pounds (23 kilograms), and our maximum rate of picking up and moving boxes can reach up to 800 cases per hour. So, it’s a fast moving, highly versatile robot, Perry said. The Waltham, Massachusetts-based company is known for YouTube videos of its dog-like ‘Spot’ and humanoid ‘Atlas’ robots. Hyundai Motor Group recently agreed to buy a controlling stake in Boston Dynamics from SoftBank Group Corp in a deal that values the robot maker at $1.1 billion.
B) Abroad fans will not get full refunds of Tokyo Olympics tickets from brokers.
Many fans living outside Japan who bought tickets for the Tokyo Olympics from brokers — known as Authorised Ticket Resellers (ATRs) — will not get full refunds. And they may have a long wait to get any refunds at all. The question of refunds came into play a week ago when local organisers and the Japanese government decided to bar most fans from abroad because of the pandemic. There are dozens of ATRs. They are typically appointed by national Olympic committees and are allowed to charge a 20% handling fee on tickets. For $2,000 worth of tickets, for instance, the reseller can charge $2,400. CoSport, the ATR for the United States and other territories and countries, said in a letter over the weekend to ticket holders that it would not refund the handling fee. It said it would refund the face value of the ticket and the shipping fees.
C) Traffic in Suez Canal channel resumes after stranded ship is refloated.
In a photo released by Suez Canal Authority, the Ever Given, a Panama-flagged cargo ship is pulled by one of the tugboats on March 29, 2021. The stranded container ship blocking the Suez Canal for almost a week was re-floated on Monday and is currently being secured, Inchcape Shipping Services said, raising expectations the vital waterway will soon be reopened. The ship was successfully re-floated at 4.30 a.m. local time and was being secured at the moment, Inchcape, a global provider of marine services, said on Twitter. The rescue teams, according to media reports, were aided by the moon and the tides in prising the ship free. About 15% of world shipping traffic transits the Suez Canal, which is an important source of foreign currency revenue for Egypt. The stoppage is costing the canal $14-$15 million a day. More than 350 vessels, including container ships and oil tankers, were caught in the ‘traffic jam’ as they waited to transit the canal.
D) Global banks warn of significant losses from hedge fund default.
Swiss bank Credit Suisse said Monday it may have suffered a highly significant loss from a default by a U.S.-based hedge fund on margin calls that it and other banks made last week, while Japan’s Nomura said it could face a loss of $2 billion due to an event with a U.S. client. A margin call is triggered when investors borrow using their stock portfolio as collateral and have to make up the balance required by banks when the share prices fall and the collateral is worth less. Credit Suisse didn’t identify the significant hedge fund or the other banks affected, or give other details of what happened. News reports identified the hedge fund as New York-based Archegos Capital Management. Following the failure of the fund to meet these margin commitments, Credit Suisse and a number of other banks are in the process of exiting these positions, the company said. The Financial Times reported that Archegos had large exposures to ViacomCBS and several Chinese technology stocks and was hit hard after shares of the U.S. media group fell last week.
