SAIL signs Agreement with AAI to facilitate commercial

• The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) and the Airport Authority of India (AAI), recently signed an Operation and Management (O & M) agreement to facilitate commercial operations at Rourkela Airport under the RCS UDAN scheme.

Regional Connectivity Scheme (RCS)-UDAN

• UDAN (UdeDeshkaAamNaagrik) is a regional airport development and "Regional Connectivity Scheme" (RCS) of the Union Government.
• The scheme UDAN envisages providing connectivity to un-served and under-served airports of the country through revival of existing air-strips and airports.
• Implementing Ministry: Ministry of Civil Aviation
• This is first-of-its-kind scheme globally to create economically viable flights on regional routes so that flying becomes affordable to the common man even in small towns.
• It is a key component of the National Civil Aviation Policy (NCAP) which was released by the Ministry of Civil Aviation (India) in 2016.
• The scheme is jointly funded by the central government and state governments.

Two components of UDAN:

• **Airports:**The first component is to develop new airports and enhance the existing regional airports to increase the number of operational airports for scheduled civilian flights.
• **Flight routes:**The second component is to add several hundred financially-viable, capped-airfare, new regional flight routes to connect more than 100 under-served and un-served airports in smaller towns by using "Viability Gap Funding" (VGF) where needed.

Withdrawal of the Personal Data Protection Bill was a bad move

• The Parliamentary Standing Committee on Information and Technology recently raised several questions on implication on data privacy of citizens with vague definitions of “public interest” and “national security” in the draft Indian Telecommunication Act, 2022.
• 17 DRSCs were established in Parliament in 1993 on the proposal of the Lok Sabha Rules Committee.Seven more similar committees were established in 2004 and their numbers were thus increased from 17 to 24.
• The fundamental purpose of the Standing Committees is to make the Executive (i.e. the Council of Ministers) more accountable (particularly in financial matters) to the Parliament.
• They also help the Parliament to discuss the budget more effectively.
• All the Ministries or Departments of the Central Government shall be governed by the 24 Standing Committees.
• Each standing committee consists of 31 members(21 from Lok Sabha and 10 from Rajya Sabha). The members of the Lok Sabha (or Rajya Sabha) are nominated by the Speaker (or Chairman) from amongst its own members.
• A Minister cannot be appointedto any of the DRSCs and if a member of a DRSC becomes a minister, he ceases to be a member of that committee.
• Each standing committee''s term of office is one yearfrom the date of establishment.
• Out of the 24, 8 DRSCs work under the Rajya Sabha and 16 DRSCs under the Lok Sabha.

RBI to hold additional MPC meeting on November 3

• This meeting has been called as the RBI has failed to maintain the consumer price index (CPI) inflation target within the 2-6 per cent band for three consecutive quarters, or nine straight months — January to September 2022.
• This is the first time since the RBI adopted an inflation-targeting monetary policy regime in 2016 that an MPC meeting has been called under the provisions of Section 45ZN of the Act.

Section 45ZN of the RBI Act:

• This section says that in case the RBI fails to meet the inflation target, it has to present a report to the government explaining the reasons for the failure.
• In the report, the central bank will have to mention the remedial actions it proposes to take, and an estimated time within which the inflation target will be achieved following the timely implementation of the proposed remedial actions.
• The report is required to be sent to the government within one month from the date on which the RBI failed to meet the inflation target.

Regulation 7 of the RBI MPC and Monetary Policy Process Regulations, 2016:

• It states that a separate meeting is required to be scheduled as part of the normal policy process to discuss and draft the report to be sent to the government.
• Currently, the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meets six times in a financial year, which is every two months.
• The schedule of the MPC meetings for the entire financial year is announced in advance.

Four-day Chhath Puja celebrations begin across country today

• Chhath is a Hindu festival dedicated to the Sun god and his wife Usha in order to thank them for bestowing the bounties of life on earth. The Goddess who is worshipped during the famous Chhath Puja is known as Chhathi Maiya (also known as Usha, wife of the sun god).
• The word chhath means sixth and the festival is celebrated on the sixth day of the month Kartika of the Hindu lunar Bikram Sambat calendar.
• The festival is observed over a period of four days. They rituals include holy bathing, fasting, standing in water for long periods of time, and offering prayers and food to the setting and rising sun.
• The main worshipers, called Parvaitin, are usually women. However, many men also observe this festival as Chhath is not a gender-specific festival.
• The festival is observed most elaborately in Mithila Province of Nepal, Terai-Madhesh region of Nepal, Indian states of Bihar, Jharkhand and UP. It is also more prevalent in areas where migrants from those areas have a presence.

India’s Northward Development Journey Will Be Complete After Reaching Gilgit-Baltistan: Rajnath

• Gilgit-Baltistan (GB) was formerly known as the Northern Areas.
• It is the northernmost territory administered by Pakistan, providing the country’s only territorial frontier, and thus a land route, with China, where it meets the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
• To G-B’s west is Afghanistan, to its south is Pakistan-occupied Kashmir, and to the east, the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
• It is Indian territory, part of the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir that acceded to India in full after Independence, and which has been under illegal Pakistani occupation.
• Gilgit Baltistan has been under the control of Pakistan since April 1949, when the leadership of the so-called Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) was forced to sign away this territory to Pakistan.
• However, the region does not have any place in the constitutional framework of Pakistan and has been kept under the tight control of the central government.
• Gilgit-Baltistan shares a border with Azad Kashmir, together with which it is referred to by the United Nations as "Pakistan administered Kashmir".
• Gilgit was part of the princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, but it was ruled directly by the British, who had taken it on lease in 1935 from Hari Singh, the Hindu ruler of the Muslim-majority state.
• On October 22, 1947, with Hari Singh dithering on accession to India, Pashtun tribal militiamen along with Pakistani forces poured into the Kashmir Valley and marched towards Srinagar in accordance with a plan known as Operation Gulmarg. On the way, the lashkars engaged in massive plunder and looting in Baramulla.
• Hari Singh signed the Instrument of Accession with India on October 26, 1947. The Indian Army then landed in the Kashmir Valley and began an operation to push back the Pakistani invaders.

Govt Notifies Rules For Social Media Grievance Appellate Committees

• Grievance Appellate Committees will be set up within three months by the government for resolving social media users'' grievances. In this regard, a gazette notification was issued by the Ministry Of Electronics And Information Technology recently to amend the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
• Each Grievance Appellate Committee will consist of a chairperson and two whole time members appointed by the Central Government.
• Any person aggrieved by a decision of the Grievance Officer may prefer an appeal to the Grievance Appellate Committee within a period of thirty days from the date of receipt of communication from the Grievance Officer.
• It also states that the Grievance Appellate Committee will adopt an online dispute resolution mechanism.
• Grievance Appellate Committee has been introduced for hearing appeals against decisions of the Grievance Officer appointed by the intermediary.
• Privacy policy and user agreements of intermediaries are to be made available in the Eighth Schedule Indian languages.

PM Modi moots ''One Nation, One Police Uniform'' idea

• His suggestion “One Nation, One Uniform” is in line with his broader attempt to introduce a uniform set of policies across the country.Currently, there is a ‘one nation, one ration’ card; ‘one nation, one mobility’ card; ‘one nation, one grid’ and a ‘one nation, one sign language’.

Law and order:

• The Indian Constitution puts police forces under the jurisdiction of state governments, and each of the 28 states have their own police force.
• Both ‘public order’ and the ‘police’ are placed in List II (State List) of the Seventh Schedule of the Constitution, which deals with the division of powers between the Union and States.
• While police personnel in India are often associated with the colour khaki, their uniforms do differ in varying degrees in different regions.
• Since state governments and even an individual force can decide the uniform their personnel wear, there are at times inconsistencies in their official attire. For example:
  • The Kolkata Police wear white uniforms.
  • Puducherry Police constables wear a bright red cap with their khaki uniforms.
  • Delhi Traffic Police personnel wear white and blue uniforms.
• The Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), under the ministry of home affairs (MHA), had designed a new all-weather friendly ‘smart uniform’ for Indian police in 2017 in association with the National Institute of Design (NID) and sent a report to all the states and UTs.

In poll-bound HP, announcement on Hattis leads to resentment among SCs, Gujjars in Sirmaur

• The Hattis are a close-knit community who take their name from their traditional occupation of selling home-grown crops, vegetables, meat, and wool at small-town markets known as ‘haats’.
• Hatti men traditionally don a distinctive white headgear on ceremonial occasions.
• The Hatti homeland straddles the Himachal-Uttarakhand border in the basin of the Giri and Tons rivers, both tributaries of the Yamuna.
• The Tons marks the border between the two states, and the Hattis living in the Trans-Giri area in today’s Himachal Pradesh and Jaunsar Bawar in Uttarakhand were once part of the royal estate of Sirmaur. Jaunsar Bawar was conquered by the British in 1814.
• Parts of the Trans-Giri region, where most of the Hatti community lives, also come under the Assembly Constituencies of Renukaji, Shillai, and Pachhad.
• The two Hatti clans, in Trans-Giri and Jaunsar Bawar, have similar traditions, and inter-marriages are common.

SC & ST Population of Himachal Pradesh:

• As per the most recent Census (2011), 5.71% of the State’s population is ST and 25.19% of the population is classified as SC.

Tulu, Kodava speakers demand priority for their languages too in Kannada development Bill

• Tulu is a Dravidian language.
• It is mainly spoken in Udupi, Dakshina Kannada, Kasargod and the Western Ghats had 17,22,768 speakers as per the 2001 census.
• The native speakers of Tulu are referred to as Tuluva or Tulu people and the geographical area is unofficially called Tulu Nadu.
• **Features:**Separated early from Proto-South Dravidian, Tulu has several features not found in Tamil–Kannada. For example, it has the past perfect and the future perfect, like French or Spanish, but formed without an auxiliary verb.
• **Status:**At present, Tulu is not an official language in the country.
• **Tulu culture:**Tulu has a rich oral literature tradition with folk-song forms like paddana, and traditional folk theatre yakshagana.

Kodava:

• It is a Dravidian language.
• Kodava, which is also called Coorgi, is spoken mainly in Kodagu district.
• According to the 2001 census, the total number of Kodava speakers are 166,187, compared to 1,22,000 in the 1997 census.

Kannada Language Comprehensive Development Bill, 2022

• The Bill aims for the effective implementation of Kannada as the official language of the state with English being the second communication language.
• The bill envisages reservation of jobs for Kannadigas both in the government and private organisations.
• It also has the provision to deny incentives such as tax holiday, tax rebate or exemption and discount in land procurement to the private companies, which do not provide reservation for Kannadigas in employment.
• The job applications have to clear the Kannada language examination that is equivalent to the first language or second language in SSLC (secondary school leaving certificate). Those who have studied Kannada as the first or second language in SSLC or equivalent are exempted from this examination.
• The bill does not specify the quantum reservation on jobs and education or the ranks of the posts to be coming under the purview of reservation.
• All communications, notifications from the state government will be mandated to be in Kannada.
• The proceedings of courts and their orders should be in Kannada based on the situation.
• The bill envisages imposing a fine of Rs 5,000 for any violation if the offence is for the first time.
• The second time offence and third time offence will attract a file of Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000 respectively.