Why HC sentenced popular YouTuber ‘Savukku’ Shankar to six months in jail

• According to the Contempt of Courts Act, 1971, Criminal contempt means the publication (whether by words, spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representations, or otherwise) of any matter or the doing of any other act whatsoever which
  • scandalises or tends to scandalise, or lowers or tends to lower the authority of, any court; or
  • prejudices, or interferes or tends to interfere with, the due course of any judicial proceeding; or
  • interferes or tends to interfere with, or obstructs or tends to obstruct, the administration of justice in any other manner.
• Contempt of court may be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to six months, or with a fine of maximum Rs 2,000, or with both.

Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav

• India scripted a new world record of maximum number of blood donations in a single day on the occasion of the 72nd birthday of Prime Minister Narendra Modi under ''Raktdaan Amrit Mahotsav''.
• This was the largest country-wide Blood Donation Drive. The campaign was aimed at increasing awareness regarding regular non-remunerated voluntary blood donations and ensure that blood or its components are available, accessible, affordable and safe.
• As per 2021 statistics, India’s annual requirement is around 1.5 crore units.
• In India, the regulatory framework for blood donation and blood bank management rests with the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, while technical bodies like the National Blood Transfusion Council and National AIDS Control Organisation formulate guidelines and recommendations for transfusion medicine and blood bank management.

Minister of Commerce and Industry, Anupriya Patel, attended East Asia Summit Economic Ministers’ Meeting in Siem Reap City of Cambodia.

• The meeting saw representation from all 10 ASEAN countries as well as eight partner countries including Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea, Russia and the US.
• The East Asia Summit (EAS) is the Indo-Pacific''s premier forum for strategic dialogue.
• The EAS has 18 members - the ten ASEAN countries (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam) along with Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, Russia and the United States. ASEAN leads the forum, and the chair position rotates between ASEAN Member States annually.
• The EAS calendar culminates in the annual Leaders'' Summit, which is usually held alongside ASEAN Leaders'' meetings in the fourth quarter of every year.
• In addition to the Leaders'' Summit, meetings of EAS Foreign Ministers and Economic Ministers are held annually.

International Day of Democracy - the United Nations

• It was established through a resolution passed by the UN General Assembly in 2007, encouraging governments to strengthen and consolidate democracy.
• This year, the Day will focus on the importance of media freedom to democracy, peace, and delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals.
• On the 15th anniversary of the Democracy Day, UN Secretary General António Guterres said that democracy is backsliding across the World.
• Background: In September 1997 the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) adopted a Universal Declaration on Democracy. That Declaration affirms the principles of democracy, the elements and exercise of democratic government, and the international scope of democracy.

International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer

• This years theme is “Montreal Protocol@35: Global Cooperation Protecting Life on Earth” which recognises the wider impact the Montreal Protocol has on climate change.
• In 1994, the UN General Assembly proclaimed 16 September the International Day for the Preservation of the Ozone Layer, commemorating the date of the signing, in 1987, of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer.
• Montreal Protocol is an international treaty designed to protect the ozone layer by phasing out the production of numerous substances that are responsible for ozone depletion.
• It was agreed in 1987 and entered into force in 1989.
• Due to its widespread adoption and implementation, former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan hailed it as perhaps the single most successful international agreement.

National Logistics Policy is PM Modi’s latest move to turn India into a global factory

• The policy is aimed at bringing down the time & cost of transportation of industrial products. It will also prevent damage to agricultural products by providing faster transportation.
• The Unified Logistics Interface Platform will bring all digital services related to the transportation sector into a single portal, freeing the exporters from a host of very long and cumbersome processes.
• Under the policy, a new digital platform - Ease of Logistics Services - has also been started.
• PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan will work in tandem with the National Logistics Policy.
• The Policy, which focuses on re-engineering, digitisation and multimodal transport, will further boost ‘ease of doing business for all industries and stakeholders.

The significance of Ethereum Merge and its impact on blockchain architecture

• The revamp, known as ‘The Merge,’ will cast aside the need for crypto miners and gigantic mining farms, who had previously driven the blockchain under a mechanism called ‘proof-of-work’ (PoW).
• Instead, it has now shifted to a ‘proof-of-stake’ (PoS) mechanism that assigns ‘validators’ randomly to approve transactions and earn a small reward.
• The move to PoS will reduce ethereum’s energy consumption by nearly 99.95 per cent.
• Ethereum is still a decentralised platform, but under the new concept, it would not need miners and mining farms to authenticate transactions anymore.
• Instead, a validator will be randomly assigned using an algorithm from a pool of people who ‘stake’ their coins, which essentially means pledging at least 32 Ethereum tokens on the network.
• This would entirely eliminate the need for miners on the Ethereum network.

19 people rescued as ship sinks off Ratnagiri coast

• Within minutes of receiving the distress call, the Indian Coast Guard’s Marine Rescue Coordination Centre (MRCC) in Mumbai swung into action.
• Parth was a 102 metres-long vessel that was made in 2008. It was carrying 3,911 metric tonnes of Asphalt Bitumen and travelling from New Mangalore in Karnataka to Khor Fakkan on the Gulf of Oman in the UAE when there was an ingress of water in one of its compartments.
• The fishing ministry has cautioned fishermen from Malvan to Deogad in Maharashtra to look for marine pollution as the vessel was carrying a lot of fuel. Besides, bitumen is also a substance hazardous to ocean life.
• The shipping ministry said it will now put markers on charts for all vessels to be alert in the area about the sunk vessel.

What are the ‘colour revolutions’ that China’s Xi Jinping has warned against?

• Colour revolutions refer to a series of uprisings that first began in former communist nations in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s, but are also used in reference to popular movements in the Middle East and Asia.
• Most have involved large-scale mobilisation on the streets, with demands for free elections or regime change, and calls for removal of authoritarian leaders.
• Orange Revolution: It refers to a series of protests that occurred in Ukraine between November 2004 and January 2005.
• Tulip Revolution: Also called the First Kyrgyz Revolution, the movement led to the ouster of Kyrgyzstan’s President Askar Akayev in early 2005.
• Jasmine Revolution: The popular uprising that occurred between December 2010 to January 2011 in Tunisia was in response to the underlying corruption, unemployment, inflation and lack of political freedoms in the country.