THE INDIAN ART AND CULTURE

1. DHAULI-KALINGA MAHOTSAV-ODISHA

• Every year, in January and February, a popular festival in Odisha, the Kalinga festival or the Kalinga Mahotsava is organized.
• It brings together the folk, classical and martial art forms on one stage. It is said that people of Odisha are distinguished as kings in Malaysia, as they once colonized parts of Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. One can find the largest variety of tribal communities in Odisha. Since the Kalinga war, Odisha is known world over.
• The Dhauli festival represents the popular Konark dance and music festival. It was initiated by the famous Guru Gangadhar Pradhan about 13 years ago.
• The Kalinga Mahotsava was initiated by a famous Bhubaneswar-based Italian Odissi dancer Ileana Citaristi. Kalinga Mahotsava represents the various forms of martial art forms and this popular festival is organized over the Dhauli hills near the famous Japanese Buddhist temple. As the story goes, after the bloodiest war of Kalinga, King Ashoka desperately looked for peace and hence this cultural festival in Odisha is held each year to depict the significance of peace over war.
• Thang-Ta from Manipur and Kalaripayattu from Kerala are also performed.

INDIAN POLITY

2. JUDGES MUST GIVE REASONS FOR BAIL DECISIONS, SAYS SC

THE CONTEXT: Judges are duty-bound to give reasons for granting or denying bail, especially in cases involving serious offences and hardened criminals, the Supreme Court has held.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Also, SC stressed that the cryptic bail orders without giving any reasons have no place in the judicial system.
• According to a bench led by the Chief Justice of India observed in a judgment “There is a recent trend of passing such orders granting or refusing to grant bail, where the courts make a general observation that ‘the facts and the circumstances have been considered. No specific reasons are indicated which precipitated the passing of the order by the court,”.

Grant of bail by HC

• CJI observed that “judges are duty-­bound to explain the basis on which they have arrived at a conclusion… The reasoning is the lifeblood of the judicial system. That every order must be reasoned is one of the fundamental tenets of our system. An unreasoned order suffers the vice of arbitrariness”.
• “There is a need to indicate reasons for prima face concluding why bail was being granted particularly where the accused is charged of having committed a serious offence. Any order devoid of such reasons would suffer from non-­application of mind’, CJI noted.

VALUE ADDITION:

WHAT IS A BAIL?

• The term Bail is not defined in the Criminal Procedure Code, however, this term, in the most common sense, indicates that the accused is set free from jail against a kind of security which is given by the accused to the court that he will attend the proceedings in court against the accusations made upon him and include personal bond and bail bond.
• Bail is a mechanism used to ensure that the accused is present before the court and is available for Trial. The sections 436 to 439 of the Criminal Procedure Code deal with the concept of Bail.

THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

3. THE U.K. RWANDA ASYLUM PLAN

THE CONTEXT: The United Kingdom has signed a deal with Rwanda to send some asylum seekers to the East African nation — a move that PM Boris Johnson said will “save countless lives” from human trafficking.

THE EXPLANATION:

IMMIGRANT CRISIS IN THE UK

• Since 2018, there has been a marked rise in the number of refugees and asylum seekers that undertake dangerous crossings between Calais in France and Dover in England.
• Most such migrants and asylum seekers hail from war-torn countries like Sudan, Afghanistan, and Yemen, or from developing countries like Iran and Iraq.
• The Britain that has adopted a hard line stance on illegal immigration, these crossings constitute an immigration crisis.
• The Nationality and Borders Bill, 2021, which is still under consideration in the UK, allows the British government to strip anyone’s citizenship without notice under “exceptional circumstances”.
• The Rwanda deal is the operationalization of one objective in the Bill which is to deter illegal entry into the United Kingdom.

WHAT IS THE RWANDA DEAL?

• The UK and Rwanda Migration and Economic Development Partnership or the Rwanda Deal is a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed between the two governments.
• Under this deal, Rwanda will commit to taking in asylum seekers who arrive in the UK on or after January 1, 2022, using illegally facilitated and unlawful cross border migration.
• Rwanda will function as the holding centre where asylum applicants will wait while the Rwandan government makes decisions about their asylum and resettlement petitions in Rwanda.
• Rwanda will, on its part, accommodate anyone who is not a minor and does not have a criminal record.

RATIONALE OF THE DEAL

• The deal aims to combat “people smugglers”, who often charge exorbitant prices from vulnerable migrants to put them on unseaworthy boats from France to England that often lead to mass drownings.
• The UK contends that this solution to the migrant issue is humane and meant to target the gangs that run these illegal crossings.

DO ANY OTHER COUNTRIES SEND ASYLUM SEEKERS OVERSEAS?

• Several other countries — including Australia, Israel and Denmark — have been sending asylum seekers overseas.
• Australia has been making full use of offshore detention centres since 2001.
• Israel, too, chose to deal with a growing influx of asylum seekers and illegal immigrants from places like Sudan and Eritrea by striking deals with third countries.
• Those rejected for asylum were given the choice of returning to their home country or accepting $3,500 and a plane ticket to one of the third countries.
• They faced the threat of arrest if they chose to remain in Israel.

THE ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

4. WORLD EARTH DAY 2022

THE CONTEXT: Every year on April 22, we celebrate our mother earth with ‘World Earth Day, which marks the anniversary of the Modern Environmental Movement, which started in 1970.

THE EXPLANATION:

• World Earth Day is a reminder for mankind to protect and safeguard the mother earth and its species, to make Earth a better place for the coming generations. April 22, 2022, will mark 52 years of Earth Day.
• Earth Day is widely recognized as the largest secular observance in the world, marked by more than a billion people every year as a day of action to change human behavior and provoke policy changes.

WORLD EARTH DAY 2022: THEME

The Earth Day 2022 theme is ‘Invest In Our Planet’. According to the UN, “Despite ongoing efforts, biodiversity is deteriorating worldwide at rates unprecedented in human history. It is estimated that around one million animal and plant species are now threatened with extinction”.

HISTORY OF EARTH DAY:

The first Earth Day in 1970 launched a wave of action, including the passage of landmark environmental laws in the United States. The Clean Air, Clean Water, and Endangered Species Acts were created in response to the first Earth Day in 1970, as well as the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Many countries soon adopted similar laws. Earth Day continues to hold major international significance: In 2016, the United Nations chose Earth Day as the day when the historic Paris Agreement on climate change was signed into force.

5. ‘SEA MAY INUNDATE MANY CITIES BY 2050’: SAYS GLOBAL RISK MANAGEMENT FIRM

THE CONTEXT: An analysis by RMSI, a global risk management firm has found that Haji Ali dargah, Jawahar Lal Nehru Port Trust, Western Express Highway, Bandra-Worli Sea-link, and Queen’s Necklace on Marine drive — all in Mumbai — are at risk of submergence.

THE EXPLANATION:

• The sea-level rise in coastal Indian cities could lead to some properties and road networks being submerged in Mumbai, Kochi, Mangalore, Chennai, Visakhapatnam, and Thiruvananthapuram by 2050.
• RMSI took findings from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) sixth assessment report, ‘Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis’ released in August 2021; publications based on the report, latest climate change data and its own models to assess the impact on the Indian coastline
• They considered Mumbai, Chennai, Kochi, Vizag, Mangalore and Thiruvananthapuram for the analysis, with experts creating a high-resolution Digital Terrain Model for the coastline of these cities and then used a coastal flood model to map inundation based on sea level predictions.
• In Chennai, a road length of 5 km and 55 buildings are at the risk; in Kochi, around 464 buildings are likely to be impacted by 2050 with the number rising to around 1,502 buildings during high tide. In Thiruvananthapuram, due to sea-level rise by 2050 and sea-level rise with high tide, 349 and 387 buildings, respectively, are likely to be impacted. In Visakhapatnam, around 206 buildings and 9 km of the road network are likely to be inundated due to potential coastline changes by 2050.
• With the IPCC report projecting that sea levels around India will rise by 2050, another report by the Ministry of Earth Sciences also said that from 1993 to 2017, sea levels have been rising at an accelerated rate of 3.3 mm per year as opposed to 1.06-1.75 mm per year from 1874-2004 in the North Indian Ocean.
• “The moderate emissions (RCP 4.5) scenario of IPCC projects that steric sea level (variation in the ocean volume due to density changes) of the north Indian Ocean will rise by approximately 300 mm (a foot) relative to the average values from 1986 to 2005”.

The amount of greenhouse gases like CO2 emitted by the world needs to peak by 2025 followed by a 43% reduction in the 10 years after to limit global warming to 1.5 degree C by the year 2100, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

NEWS IN NUMBERS

6. RUSSIA SEIZES LUHANSK

80 percentage of Luhansk now under the control of Russia, according to Luhansk Governor Serhiy Haidai. Luhansk is one of two regions that make up the Donbas in eastern Ukraine. Before the invasion, the Kyiv government controlled 60% of the region. Haidai urged residents to evacuate immediately as the Russian forces are now threatening the cities of Rubizhne and Popasna, after seizing Kreminna. One of Russia’s stated goals is to expand the territory in the Donbas which is under the control of Moscow-backed separatists.

7. PENSION SCHEMES

4 crores, the total number of enrollments under the Atal Pension Yojana (APY) by the end of 2021-22, according to the Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authority. APY is a government-backed pension scheme, targeted at the unorganised sector. More than 99 lakh APY accounts were opened during FY2021-22. The pension enrollments for APY had participation from all categories of banks. Around 71% of the enrollments were done by public sector banks, regional rural banks (19%), private sector banks (6%), and small finance banks (3%).

8. PARTY DONATIONS

258₹crore, the amount of donation received by seven electoral trusts from corporates and individuals, with the NDA bagging more than 82% (₹212.05 crore) of it, according to poll rights body Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR). An electoral trust is a non-profit organisation formed in India for the orderly receiving of contributions from corporate entities and individuals to political parties. It aims at improving transparency in the usage of funds for election-related expenses.

9. JEWELLERY EXPORTS RISE

56 percentage, the increase in gems and jewellery exports in 2021-22 to $39.15 billion which shows a significant jump in exports compared to the previous financial year, according to the Gem and Jewellery Export Promotion Council (GJEPC). The gems and jewellery exports stood at $25.40 billion in 2020-21. “Out of the total gem and jewellery exports, the cut and polished diamonds segment alone accounted for 62% or $24,236.57 million, reflecting robust demand from the U.S., the UAE, Belgium, and Israel”.

10. AIDING SRI LANKA

40,000 metric tonnes, the amount of diesel to be sent to Sri Lanka by India. India said it had delivered one more consignment of diesel to Sri Lanka under the Indian credit line to help ease the acute power crisis in the island nation. India and Sri Lanka signed a $500 million Line of Credit Agreement for the purchase of petroleum products on February 2, 2022, which has proven to be a lifeline to Sri Lanka amidst one of its worst economic crises.

THE PRELIMS PRACTICE QUESTIONS

QUESTION OF THE DAY

Q. With reference to culture in India, Gotipua is

1. 1. Traditional dance form in Odisha
   2. Puppetry form in Andhra Pradesh
   3. Performing art from Kerala
   4. The martial art form in West Bengal

 ANSWER FOR 21ST APRIL 2022

Answer: D

Explanation: