GS Analyst
Daily Current Affairs

Two BSF personnel, who were part of the UN Peacekeeping Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), were among five people killed during a protest in an eastern town near the border with Uganda.

Key-highlights

• They were part of United Nations Organization Stabilization Mission in the Democratic Republic of the Congo or MONUSCO.
• A total 175 Indian peacekeepers have so far died while serving with the United Nations.
• India has lost more peacekeepers than any other UN Member State.

What is the U.N. Peacekeeping mission?

• The U.N. Peacekeeping mission is a joint effort between the Department of Peace Operations and the Department of Operational Support.
• Aim: To assist host countries to transition from situations of conflict to peace.
• The U.N. began its Peacekeeping efforts in 1948 when it deployed military observers to West Asia.
• The Peacekeeping mission’s role was to monitor the Armistice Agreement between Israel and its Arab neighbours.
• N. Peacekeepers provide security as well as political and peacebuilding support to conflict-ridden countries.

India’s contribution to UN Peacekeeping Missions

• Over 200,000 Indians have served in 49 U.N. Peacekeeping missions since 1948.
• Currently, 5,581 Indians are part of various U.N. Peacekeeping missions.
• India has beenamong the largest troop-contributing countries to the U.N. peacekeeping missions.
  
  
• As of November 2021, India is the second-highest military (1,888) and fifth-highest (139) police-contributing country to the MONUSCO.

Role of women in Indian Peacekeeping

• India has been sending women personnel on UN Peacekeeping Missions.
• In 2007, India became the first country to deploy an all-women contingent to a UN Peacekeeping Mission. 

According to a new report, Cryptojacking’ attacks on computer systems have gone up by 30% to 66.7 million in the first half of 2022 compared to the first half of last year.

Cryptojacking

• Cryptojacking is a cyber-attack wherein a computing device is hijacked and controlled by the attacker, and its resources are used to illicitly mine cryptocurrency.
• Hackers seek to hijack any kind of systems they can take over—desktops, servers, cloud infrastructure and more—to illicitly mine for crypto coins.
• In most cases, the malicious programme is installed when the user clicks on an unsafe link, or visits an infected website — and unknowingly provides access to their Internet-connected device.
  
  

How Cryptojacking works?

• Coin mining is a legitimate process in the cryptocurrency world that releases new cryptocurrency into circulation. 
• It involves solving complex computational problems to generate blocks of verified transactions that get added to the blockchain.
• The reward for the first miner who successfully manages to update the crypto ledger through this route is crypto coins.
• But the race to crack this 64-digit hexadecimal number code needs considerable computing power involving state-of-the-art hardware, and electrical power to keep the systems involved up and running.
• Cryptojackers co-opt devices, servers, and cloud infrastructure, and use their resources for mining. The use of ‘stolen’ or cryptojacked resources slashes the cost involved in mining.

Concerns:

• Cryptojacking is hard to detect and the victims of these attacks mostly remain unaware that their systems have been compromised.
• Some telltale signs are the device slowing down, heating up, or the battery getting drained faster than usual.
• Apart from individuals, businesses too are on the target list of cryptojackers.
• The primary impact of cryptojacking is performance-related, though it can also increase costs for the individuals and businesses affected because coin mining uses high levels of electricity and computing power.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will inaugurate India's first bullion exchange at Gujarat's GIFT City.

India’s first International Bullion Exchange (IIBX)

• The bullion exchange was announced in the 2020 Union Budget.
• IIBX is India’s first International Bullion Exchange set up at the GIFT City, Gandhinagar.
• It has not only enrolled jewellers to trade on the exchange, but has also set up necessary infrastructure to store physical gold and silver.
• IIBX offers a diversified portfolio of products and technology services at a cost which is far more competitive than the Indian exchanges as well as other global exchanges in Hong Kong Singapore, Dubai, London and New York. 
• The International Bullion Exchange shall be the Gateway for Bullion Imports into India, wherein all the bullion imports for domestic consumption shall be channelized through the exchange
• Regulator: International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA) is the regulator of IIBX. 
• IFSCA intends to nurture a bullion ecosystem aimed at positioning India in the international markets, initially as a price influencer and ultimately as a price setter

Who can trade on the IIBX?

• Qualified jewellers will be permitted to import gold through the IIBX.
• To become qualified jewellers, entities require a minimum net worth of Rs 25 crore and 90 per cent of the average annual turnover in the last three financial years through deals in goods categorised as precious metals.

Bullion:

• Bullion refers to physical gold and silver of high purity that is often kept in the form of bars, ingots, or coins.
• Bullion can sometimes be considered legal tender and is often held as reserves by central banks or held by institutional investors.
• The Government had notified in August 2020 about the Bullion Spot Delivery Contract and Bullion Depository Receipt (BDR) with underlying Bullion as Financial Product and related services as Financial Services.

Storage facility:

• A cumulative storage capacity for approximately 125 tonnes of gold and 1,000 tonnes of silver is planned at the GIFT City.
• Currently, Indian and global vault service providers have set up, or are in the process of setting up, vaulting facilities at the GIFT-IFSC. 
• The vaulting facilities at all the key bullion centres in India will act as the spokes to feed the bullion for the jewellery manufacturers and exporters across the country, while the IIBX at GIFT-IFSC will serve as a trading hub.

Advantages of having bullion exchange in India:

• The IIBX will be a gateway for bullion imports into India, where all bullion imports for domestic consumption shall be channelised through the exchange.
• A bullion exchange will also offer the advantages of price discovery, transparency in disclosures, guaranteed centralised clearing and assurance of quality.
• A bullion exchange, apart from providing standardisation and transparent mechanism, will also be an important step towards financialization of bullion-based products.

Supreme Court recently upheld the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, including its stringent bail conditions that impose a reverse burden of proof on the accused.

Earlier Judgement:

• In Nikesh Tarachand Shah vs Union of India (2017), the two-judge bench of Justices Rohinton Nariman and Sanjay Kishan Kaul, had declared the ‘twin test’ of bail under PMLA as unconstitutional since it was manifestly arbitrary.

Key Highlights of the recent Ruling:

• SC in recent ruling, states that “declaration by the Parliament itself is testimony of compelling necessity to have stringent regime (enactment) for prevention and control of the menace of money-laundering”.
• It also expounded the theory of “soft state” which the Court said is used to “describe a nation which is not capable of preventing the offence of money laundering”.
• The Court relied on Article 39 of the Constitution, part of the Directive Principles of State Policy that mandates the State to prevent concentration of wealth, to uphold the stringent bail conditions under PMLA.
• On Twin Bail
• On the issue of twin bail conditions under the PMLA, the court ruled that the stringent conditions for bail under the Act are legal and not arbitrary.
• Enforcement Directorate, Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) officials, and not ‘police’, statements recorded during an inquiry are valid evidence.
• Quantum of penalty
• Money-laundering is one of the heinous crimes, which not only affects the social and economic fabric of the nation, but also tends to promote other heinous offences, such as terrorism, offences related to NDPS Act, etc.
• It is a proven fact that international criminal network that support home grown extremist groups relies on transfer of unaccounted money across nation, thus, by any stretch of imagination, it cannot be said that there is no compelling State interest in providing stringent conditions of bail for the offence of money-laundering.

Scientists have found a possible cause for the mysterious hepatitis outbreak in children.

• Between April and July of 2022, 1,010 cases of severe hepatitis without any explainable cause were reported in children in more than 35 countries.

Key findings of the study:

• Initial investigations found a potential link between adenovirus infection and these cases of hepatitis.
• Adenoviruses are very common viral infections, especially in children.
• They typically cause infections such as mild colds, pink eye (conjunctivitis) or stomach problems. However, if they get to the liver they can on rare occasion cause hepatitis.
• A new study suggests that the severe hepatitis cases seen in children may be the result of three factors working together:
  • adenovirus,
  • adeno-associated virus 2 (AAV2) and
  • an underlying genetic predisposition to the disease

• Another factor that might have played into this were COVID-19 restrictions, which meant many children weren’t being exposed to these viruses and developing immunity at the ages they normally would have.
  • This meant that when restrictions were lifted, children were exposed to these viruses all at once, which would overwhelm their immune system which is not prepared to deal with it.

About Hepatitis:

• Hepatitis is inflammation of the liver that is usually caused by a viral infection or liver damage from drinking alcohol.
• Short-term hepatitis often has no noticeable symptoms.
• But if some develop they can include dark urine, pale grey-coloured poo, itchy skin and yellowing of the eyes and skin.
• They can also include muscle and joint pain, a high temperature, feeling and being sick and being unusually tired all of the time. 
• When hepatitis is spread by a virus, it's usually caused by consuming food and drink contaminated with the faeces of an infected person or blood-to-blood or sexual contact.
• Symptoms: Hepatitis symptoms include dark urine, yellowing of the eyes and skin, sickness, fatigue, fever, loss of appetite, nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, light-coloured stools and joint pain.
• There is no specific treatment for hepatitis but drugs like steroids can help, as well as medicines to treat the symptoms.
  
  

Kerala becomes the only State in the country with its own internet service.

About Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON):

• Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) is a radical public-funded project conceived to ensure high-speed Internet access to an entire state.
• Kerala Fibre Optic Network (KFON) has received both the Infrastructure Provider and Internet Service Provider (ISP) licenses from the Central government.
• KFON is the ambitious flagship project, launched in February, 2021.
• It is aimed to provide Internet connections to 20 lakh below-poverty-line (BPL) households in the State, and ensure universal Internet access and address the problem of digital divide. 
• KFON Ltd is primarily an infrastructure provider for other ISPs operating in the State.
• Under the project, a venture of equal partnership between Kerala State Information Technology Infrastructure Ltd (KSITIL) and Kerala State Electricity Board (KSEB), 30,000 km of fibre optic cable will be laid connecting all parts of the State.
• The cable is being laid using the existing network of KSEB that has a network capacity of 2 lakh km in the State.

The major objectives of KFON:

• Create a core network infrastructure (information highway) with non-discriminatory access to all service providers so as they can augment their connectivity gap.
• Provide a reliable, secure and scalable intranet connecting all government offices, educational institutions, hospitals, etc.
• Partner with MSOs, TSPs, ISPs for providing free internet to economically backward households.

Benefits of KFON

KFON will complement the existing telecom ecosystem in the state and will act as the perfect catalyst positioning Kerala as a Gigabit Economy.

The following are some of the multiple benefits to be realized across the board.

• Bridge the digital divide by making internet access a basic right to citizens and enable the state government’s vision to provide free internet access to economically backward households.
• Deliver e-Governance to citizens through TSPs/ISPs/Cable operators by leveraging this network.
• Provide affordable and better broadband connectivity to households by the TSPs/ISPs/Cable operators due to a competitive market by leveraging this network.
• Boose economic growth by providing digital infrastructure support for local enterprises and SMEs and promoting Electronics and IT industry.
• Human capital development
• • Deliver remote education
  • Create job opportunities
  • Enhance skills
  • Prove remote healthcare access
• Infrastructure development
  • Smart cities/ smart grids
  • Transportation management
  • Community Connect – Smart Village
• Infotainment
  • Sharing information and best practices (financial services, e-governance, agricultural techniques)
  • Entertainment (IPTV, OTT, etc.)
  • Innovation
  • Creating connected communities (researchers, product development, anytime anywhere/ anytime collaboration)
    
    

The Lok Sabha recently passed a Bill that seeks to create a statutory framework for the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA).

The National Anti-Doping Bill, 2021:

• The Bill provides for a statutory framework for the operation of National Anti-Doping Agency, the National Dope Testing Laboratory and other dope testing laboratories and creation of a National Board for Anti-Doping in sport for carrying out and regulating anti-doping activities in sports in the country.
• The Bill gives effect to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisaton (UNESCO) international convention against doping in sport.

Highlights of the Bill

• The Bill prohibits athletes, athlete support personnel, and other persons from engaging in doping in sport.
• Currently, anti-doping rules are implemented by the National Anti-Doping Agency (NADA), which was established as a society.
• The Bill provides for constituting NADA as a statutory body headed by a Director General appointed by the central government.
• Functions of the Agency include planning, implementing and monitoring anti-doping activities, and investigating anti-doping rule violations.
• The National Board for Anti-Doping in Sports will be established to make recommendations to the government on anti-doping regulations and compliance with international commitments on anti-doping.
• The Board will oversee the activities of NADA and issue directions to it.
• The Board will constitute a National Anti-Doping Disciplinary Panel for determining consequences of anti-doping rule violations.
• Further, the Board will constitute a National Anti-Doping Appeal Panel to hear appeals against decisions of the Disciplinary Panel.