Army inks pacts with 11 banks to provide banking facilities to Agniveers

• The features and benefits offered under Agniveer Salary Package are similar to the Defence Salary Package.
• The first batch of Agniveers under the "Agnipath Scheme" will be joining Training Centres by January 2023.
• Defence Minister Rajnath Singh recently announced the “Agnipath” scheme, for recruitment of youth in the armed forces for four years.
• Enrolment: Enrolment to all three services will be through a centralised online system, with special rallies and campus interviews at recognised technical institutes.
• Eligibility criteria: The new system is only for personnel below officer ranks
• Recruitment: It will be carried out on an ‘All India All Class’ basis with the eligibility age ranging from 17.5 to 21 years, with medical and physical fitness standards in accordance with existing norms.
• Salary package: Agniveers will receive Rs 33,000 in the second year, Rs 36,500 in the third year and Rs 40,000 in the fourth year. They will get Rs 11.71 lakh as Seva Nidhi Package after four years.
• Qualification: The required educational qualification will be Class X-XII.
• Reselection: For those who are re-selected, the initial four-year period will not be considered for retirement benefits.
• Permanent Commission: Up to 25% of each batch will be enrolled as regular cadre as under permanent commission and would be required to serve for a further minimum period of 15 years.

Union Finance Minister recently attended the International Monetary and Financial Committee

• What is it? The IMF Board of Governors is advised by two ministerial committees, the International Monetary and Financial Committee (IMFC) and the Development Committee.
• Composition: The IMFC has 24 members, drawn from the pool of 190 governors. Its structure mirrors that of the Executive Board and its 24 constituencies. As such, the IMFC represents all the member countries of the Fund.
• Working: The IMFC meets twice a year, during the Spring and Annual Meetings. The Committee discusses matters of common concern affecting the global economy and also advises the IMF on the direction its work.
• It is a joint committee, tasked with advising the Boards of Governors of the IMF and the World Bank on issues related to economic development in emerging and developing countries.
• The committee has 24 members (usually ministers of finance or development).
• It represents the full membership of the IMF and the World Bank and mainly serves as a forum for building intergovernmental consensus on critical development issues.

India-Africa Defence Dialogue to be held on October 18 at DefExpo 2022 in Gandhinagar

• The broad theme of the dialogue is ‘India-Africa: Adopting Strategy for Synergising and Strengthening Defence and Security Cooperation’.
• India’s approach towards Africa is guided by the Kampala Principles enunciated by Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi in 2018.
  • The Kampala Principles promote ownership of private sector engagement (PSE) through development co-operation by partner countries and ensure the alignment of PSE projects and programmes with national sustainable development priorities.
• The first-ever India-Africa Defence Ministers Conclave was held in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh in conjunction with DefExpo on February 06, 2020.

Why the war in Ukraine has countries stockpiling iodine tablets

• Potassium iodide, or KI, offers specific protection against one kind exposure. It prevents the thyroid — a hormone-producing gland in the neck — from picking up radioactive iodine, which can be released into the atmosphere in a nuclear accident.
• Iodine tablets work by filling up the thyroid with a stable version of iodine so that the radioactive kind can’t get in.
• If the thyroid is already packed with potassium iodide, it won’t be able to pick up the harmful iodine that’s left after a nuclear accident.
• But potassium iodide doesn’t protect against other kinds of radioactive threats. A nuclear bomb, for example, can release many different kinds of radiation and radioactive material that can harm many parts of the body.

Legal rights being given to nature and rivers

• Ecuador, in 2008, approved a Constitution that grants tropical forests, islands, rivers and air, legal rights to “exist, flourish and evolve”. In April 2022 Ecuador became the first country to grant legal rights to individual wild animals.
• Bolivia granted all nature rights equal to that of humans in 2011.
• New Zealand in 2017, passed the Whanganui River Claims Settlement Bill, which granted legal personhood to river Whanganui and its surrounding ecosystem.

India stand

• Article 51-A (g) of the Constitution of India lays down that it is the fundamental duty of every citizen to protect wildlife and have compassion for all living creatures. However, such duties are not enforceable by law.
• The Uttarakhand High Court in 2017, granted the river Ganga and its longest tributary Yamuna the legal right to be protected and not be harmed.
• While other legal acts such as the Wildlife Protection Act of 1972 and the Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 exist, they do not recognize animals as individual living entities.

Bio age

• The increased integration of biotechnology in human life will bring in the bio age.
• Integration of life sciences with modern technology through the production of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), engineering of genes to enhance disease resistance, gene editing, and more, indicate that biotechnology is most likely to pervade our lives in the future.
• It will mark the end of the digital Information Age and this era will require legal intervention to hold researchers accountable for the impact of their work on the environment.

Why the US is facing a shortage of Adderall, used to treat ADHD

• Adderall is the brand name for the formulation that consists of a combination of dextroamphetamine and amphetamine.
• It is an FDA-approved drug for the treatment of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy, a sleep condition that causes daytime sleepiness.
• Adderall belongs to the class of drugs known as stimulants and increases the levels of dopamine and norepinephrine in the brain.
• For people diagnosed with ADHD, Adderall can help improve focus, concentration, impulse control and hyperactivity, because of its effects on the central nervous system.
• Adderall is classified as a Schedule II drug in the US, which means that while it has positive medicinal effects, there is a large potential for abuse.

Varanasi court rejects plea seeking carbon dating of ''Shivling''

• Carbon dating is a widely-used method to establish the age of organic materials, things that were once living.
• Living things have carbon in them in various forms. The dating method is based on the fact that Carbon-14 (C-14), an isotope of carbon with an atomic mass of 14, is radioactive, and decays at a well-known rate.
• The most abundant isotope of carbon in the atmosphere is C-12. The ratio of C-12 to C-14 in the atmosphere is almost static, and is known.
• Plants and animals acquire C-12 and C-14 in roughly the same proportion as is available in the atmosphere.
• When they die, their interactions with the atmosphere stops. While C-12 is stable, the radioactive C-14 reduces to one half of itself in about 5,730 years — known as its ‘half-life’.
• The changing ratio of C-12 to C-14 in the remains of a plant or animal after it dies can be measured, and can be used to deduce the approximate time when the organism died.
• Carbon dating cannot be used to determine the age of non-living things like rocks. Also, the age of things that are more than 40,000-50,000 years old cannot be arrived at through carbon dating.

Radiometric dating methods:

• These are used to calculate the age of inanimate things. Instead of carbon, decays of other radioactive elements that might be present in the material become the basis for the dating method. Two commonly employed methods for dating rocks are
  • Potassium-argon dating: The radioactive isotope of potassium decays into argon, and their ratios can give a clue about the age of rocks.
  • Uranium-thorium-lead dating: Uranium and thorium have several radioactive isotopes, and all of them decay into the stable lead atom. The ratios of these elements present in the material can be measured and used to make estimates about age.
  • Cosmogenic nuclide dating: It is used to determine how long an object has remained exposed to sunlight. It is regularly applied to study the age of ice cores in polar regions.

Under security cover, Dera Sacha Sauda head leaves Sunaria jail on 40-day parole

• Parole is a system of releasing a prisoner with suspension of the sentence.
• The release is conditional, usually subject to behaviour, and requires periodic reporting to the authorities for a set period of time.

Furlough

• A broadly similar but subtly different concept is furlough, which is given in case of long-term imprisonment.
• While furlough is seen as a matter of right, to be granted periodically irrespective of any reason and merely to enable the prisoner to retain family and social ties, parole is not a matter of right and may be denied to a prisoner even when he makes out a sufficient case.
• Temporary release under provisions for parole or furlough is given by the state, but its decision can be challenged before a court of law.

Karnataka Hijab row: 2-judge SC bench delivers split verdict

• A split verdict is passed when the Bench cannot decide one way or the other in a case, either by an unanimous decision or by a majority verdict.
• Split verdicts can only happen when the Bench has an even number of judges. This is why judges usually sit in Benches of odd numbers (three, five, seven, etc.) for important cases, even though two-judge Benches — known as Division Benches — are not uncommon.
• In case of a split verdict, the case is heard by a larger Bench. The larger Bench to which a split verdict goes can be a three-judge Bench of the High Court, or an appeal can be preferred before the Supreme Court. In the case of the hijab verdict, the CJI, who is the ‘master of the roster’, will constitute a new, larger Bench to hear the matter.

Earlier cases with a split verdict

• A two-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court delivered a split verdict in petitions challenging the exception provided to marital rape in the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
• Madras High Court Division Bench order on the challenge to the disqualification of AIADMK MLAs owing allegiance to TTV Dinakaran (2018).