05 November 2022

DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS ANALYSIS

1 – EPFO: GS II – Statutory and Non-Statutory Bodies

Context:

• The Employees’ Pension (Amendment) Scheme, 2014 of the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization was “legal and valid,” the Supreme Court ruled in part on Friday.

About EPFO:

• An act of the Indian Parliament created the Employees’ Provident Fund Organization (EPFO) to offer social security to foreign workers in India. The Employee Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provision Act established it in 1952. The Indian Government’s Ministry of Labour and Employment is in charge of EPFO.

The EPFO is composed of three main plans:

1952 EPFO Plan:

Key characteristics of EPFO schemes:

• Upon retirement and death, the accumulation plus interest will be paid.
• For partial withdrawals, qualifying circumstances included home construction, illness, marriage, and schooling.
• To help the prime minister reach his goal of providing homes for everyone by 2022, the EPFO has launched a housing project.
• The EPS for the 1995 Pension Plan is 2.

The following are the pension plan’s primary features:

• total monthly retirement, disability, survivor, widow(er), and child benefits received by an individual.
• Lowest-attainable disability allowance
• Participants in the earlier Family Pension Scheme of 1971 received compensation for prior service.

The 1976 Insurance Plan (EDLI):

The following are the proposal’s primary elements:

• A payment is made when a worker passes away and was a plan participant at the time of death.
• Benefits are worth 20 times the pay and have a benefit cap of 6 lakh.
• In terms of the quantity of financial transactions and the number of beneficiaries, the EPFO is the largest social security institution in the world. The Prime Minister introduced the Universal Account Number for Employees Covered by EPFO on October 1st, 2014, to facilitate the transfer of PF numbers.

EPFO’s organizational structure:

• The EPFO is governed by an administrative board of trustees. The Trustees Board is made up of the Central Board and the Executive Committee. There is a chairperson for both the Central Board and the Executive Committee. The central board includes a vice-chairman, and the central PF commissioner is a member of the Executive Committee. The federal government, state governments, unions, and members of the business community support both of them.

UAN Number:

• A company assigns a 12-digit number to each employee. If an individual has multiple member IDs from different organisations, all of those IDs will be combined under a single UAN number that will remain constant for the duration of the individual’s life. If a worker switches employers, this number won’t change.

Source The Hindu

 2 – G 7: GS II – International Relations

Context:

• On November 4, senior diplomats from the world’s main industrialised democracies met to address a variety of topics, including the Russian conflict in Ukraine, China’s expanding role in world trade, and the Iranian government’s crackdown on anti-government protestors.
• More than eight months after Russia’s invasion and as winter draws near, foreign ministers from the Group of Seven nations began two days of discussions in Münster, a mediaeval city in western Germany, to assess the war in Ukraine and maintain financial, military, and other support for the country.

Past G7 summits:

• The G7, formerly the G8, was founded in 1975 as a free-form forum for the heads of the biggest industrialised nations in the globe.
• Prior to the 1973 oil crisis, the idea of a forum for the major industrialised nations of the capitalist world first surfaced.
• The “Group of Five,” composed of senior financial officials from the United States, United Kingdom, West Germany, Japan, and France, convened informally.
• The attendees reviewed the economic issues of the 1970s, including the first oil crisis and the fall of the Bretton Woods system of fixed currency rates, and came to consensus on a global economic strategy and initial responses to the global recession.
• Canada and Mexico were invited to the first G-7 summit, which was sponsored by the US and held in Puerto Rico in 1976.

The G7 summits held yearly:

• There are yearly conferences that are hosted by different organisation members. Both the annual calendar and the G7 presidency are within the control of the G7 host nation.
• The annual G7 summits have evolved over time into a platform for directing multilateral dialogue and formulating political solutions to global issues.
• The G20’s position as the principal international platform for continuous economic coordination is so confirmed. The G-7, which mostly focuses on politics, is a smaller organisation than the G-20, which is more concerned with the world economy. It accounts for 80% of global GDP and is also known as the “Summit on Financial Markets and the World Economy.”

Other details:

• Over 31% of the global economy, 10% of the world’s population, and 21% of its carbon dioxide emissions are accounted for by the combined GDP of the G-7 member states.
• In 2021, yearly public sector spending will exceed annual revenue in all G7 nations. The United States, Japan, and Italy are among the G7 nations with the highest gross debt levels.
• The G7 nations make a considerable contribution to world trade. The United States and Germany are two important exporting nations.

G-7 initiatives:

• The G7 expanded its areas of focus throughout the 1980s to cover issues with national, international, and human rights. For instance, the G7 was concerned about the ongoing Iran-Iraq War and the Soviet Union’s occupation of Afghanistan at this time.
• The Financial Action Task Force on Money Laundering was founded at the G-7 summit in Paris in 1989 in response to escalating money laundering issues. (FATF).
• The Chornobyl Shelter Structure was built with $300 million thanks to the Financial Stability Forum, which was founded in the 1990s to assist in “managing the world monetary system.” A initiative to eliminate debt for 42 heavily indebted impoverished countries was also initiated (HIPC).
• The environment, energy, and climate ministers reiterated their commitment to decarbonizing the electrical sector by 2035 during the G7 summit in Berlin in May 2022.

Source The Hindu

 3 – Make II Project: GS III – Internal Security of India:

Context:

• The Army has authorised five Project Sanction Orders (PSOs) for the Make-II pathway, which will allow the Indian defence sector to create specialised technology. Some of the projects are High Frequency Man Packed Software Defined Radios, 155mm Terminally Guided Munitions, Infantry Training Weapon Simulator, Drone Kill Systems, and Medium Range Precision Kill Systems (MRPKS) (TGM).

About:

• On January 16th, 2018, the Defence Acquisition Council, chaired by Raksha Mantri, approved a streamlined “Make-II” procedure, enabling greater industry engagement in the acquisition of defence equipment.
• This strategy will encourage innovative thinking and considerably assist import substitution. The Defense Procurement Procedure (DPP)-2016’s current “Make Approach” will be replaced by this simplified “Make-II” method.
• After receiving extensive input from the industry, the amended methodology was ultimately approved.
• The main characteristics of the new “Make-II” technology are as follows:
• The business community may provide projects, particularly for those commodities that are now imported. Ideas may also come from people or small businesses. Additionally, Service Headquarters will provide a list of “Make-II” projects that can be completed with the new methodology.
• A committee overseen by the Secretary of Defense will review and approve any proposed “Make-II” initiatives on behalf of the Department of Defense, DRDO, and HQ (IDS) (Defence Production).
• The ideas will be posted on the Ministry of Defence/Department of Defence Production website, encouraging industry to participate, based on the in-principle approval selected by this committee.
• As long as they meet the minimal requirements for certification, any industry may respond to the EoI for developing the prototype. A 12- to 30-week design and development window is given to business to create prototypes.
• There are other businesses that could show interest and provide prototypes.
• Following that, a commercial RFP will be made accessible. The RFP cannot be withdrawn after it has been released. In the winning industry, there will be business.
• A Project Facilitation Team will be assembled by Service Headquarter (SHQ) to manage the process utilising this strategy.
• Even if just one party offers a novel defence, the case will still proceed.

Source The Hindu

4 – Beidou Navigation System: GS II – International Relations

Context:

• China announced intentions to greatly increase the global coverage of its domestic Beidou satellite navigation system on November 4, 2022. China sees Beidou as a competitor to the US Global Positioning System. (GPS).
• Beijing is “strengthening regional cooperation with organizations like ASEAN, the African Union, the League of Arab States, and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States,” according to a white paper published by the Chinese government.

Background:

• The Chinese word for the Big Dipper or Plough constellation is where the name BeiDou originates.
• Early in the 1990s, China’s BeiDou navigation programme was still under development. The technique was then applied in China beginning in 2000 and the Asia-Pacific area beginning in 2012.
• The navigation satellite system had to be completed in three phases: BDS-1 covered China, BDS-2 covered the Asia-Pacific region, and BDS-3 covered the whole world.

Features:

• 30 geostationary Earth orbit (GEO), inclination geosynchronous orbit (IGSO), and medium earth orbit (MEO) satellites in a hybrid constellation (MEO).
• supplies multiple-frequency navigation signals, and by combining multiple-frequency signals, service accuracy can be increased.
• Time, navigation, exact point localization, precise location, ground-based and satellite-based augmentation, short message transmission, and international search and rescue are just a few of the services it provides.
• These services are used by China in a number of industries, including the military, agriculture, emergency response, and transportation.
• After the US GPS, the Russian GLONASS, and the European Union’s Galileo, it will be the fourth global satellite navigation system.
• It is said to be significantly more accurate than the GPS used in the USA.

Source The Hindu