Google Pay violation: HC seeks reply from govt., RBI
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in News:
The Delhi High Court sought response of the Centre and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on a plea seeking action against ‘Google Pay’ for allegedly violating the central bank’s guidelines related to data localisation, storage and sharing norms.
What are the issues?
- The plea stated that Google India launched, ‘Tez’, a mobile payments service targeted at users in India which later folded into the new ‘Google Pay’ app.
- It said ‘Google Pay’ is a third-party app which facilitates payment in the UPI ecosystem and is able to do the same by partnering with various PSP/acquirer banks.
- ‘Google Pay’ is regulated by respondent number 2 [National Payment Corporation of India] which is responsible for granting permission to Payment Service Provider [PSP] as banks and to third-party apps to operate under the UPI network.
- It is alleged that the company was storing personal sensitive data in contravention of UPI procedural guidelines of October 2019, which allows such data to be stored only by PSP bank systems and not by any third-party application.
- The plea sought direction to the RBI to take appropriate punitive action against the NPCI and revoke its authorisation to operate and regulate the UPI payment system.
UPI
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is a system that powers multiple bank accounts into a single mobile application (of any participating bank), merging several banking features, seamless fund routing & merchant payments into one hood.
- It also caters to the “Peer to Peer” collect request which can be scheduled and paid as per requirement and convenience.
- NPCI conducted a pilot launch with 21 member banks.
- The pilot launch was on 11th April 2016 by Dr. Raghuram G Rajan, Governor, RBI at Mumbai.
- Banks have started to upload their UPI enabled Apps on Google Play store from 25th August, 2016 onwards.
A third–party app:
- A third–party appis a software application made by someone other than the manufacturer of a mobile device or its operating system.
- For instance, appdevelopment companies or individual developers create a lot of applications for Apple’s or Google’s operating systems.
NPCI
The National Payments Corporation of India is an umbrella organisation for operating retail payments and settlement systems in India.
Global team of scientists discovers one of the earliest galaxies using India’s AstroSat
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in News:
- In a major breakthrough, a global team led by scientists of the Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IUCAA) has discovered one of the earliest galaxies in extreme ultraviolet light.
- AstroSat, India’s first multi-wavelength satellite that has five unique X-ray and ultraviolet telescopes working in tandem, has detected extreme UV light from a galaxy called AUDFs01, 9.3 billion light-years away from Earth.
Key Details:
- The team observed the galaxy, which is located in the Extreme Deep field, through AstroSat.
- These observations lasted for more than 28 hours in October 2016. But it took nearly two years since then to carefully analyse the data to ascertain that the emission is indeed from the galaxy.
Why this is important?
- This gives clue of how the dark ages of the Universe ended and there was light in the Universe
- NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope (HST), which is significantly larger than the Ultra Violet Imaging Telescope (UVIT) on Astrosat, did not detect any UV emission (with energy greater than 13.6 eV) from this galaxy because it is too faint.
- “AstroSat/UVIT was able to achieve this unique feat because the background noise in the UVIT detector is much less than the ones on HST.
Background:
- After the Big Bang, the Universe was a hot soup of particles (i.e., protons, neutrons, and electrons). As the universe started to cool, the protons and neutrons began combining into ionized atoms of hydrogen (and eventually some helium).
- These ionized atoms of hydrogen and helium attracted electrons, turning them into neutral atoms — which allowed light to travel freely for the first time, since this light was no longer scattering off free electrons.
- The universe was no longer opaque. But there were no stars, and no galaxies, and the Universe was dark.
- A while after this, maybe a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the dark ages ended when the first stars and galaxies formed and the energy pouring out from them ionized the hydrogen and helium, splitting the atoms back again in protons and electrons, — this is the epoch of reionization.
- Astronomers have been looking for sources that reionized the early universe.
- The usual suspects have been the first astronomical objects, especially the newborn small galaxies.
- Observing ionizing radiation from these sources is next to impossible.
- The probability that a fraction of extreme-UV photons escapes the host galaxy and are caught by a telescope on Earth is practically zero, because these photons will be absorbed by the gas in the galaxy or the gas surrounding the galaxy or the matter between the galaxy and us.
DRDO identifies 108 subsystems for development by private sector
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in News:
A list of 108 military subsystems and components has been identified for development by the Indian industry.
Key Details:
- The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) will provide support for design, development and testing of these systems on a requirement basis.
- The DRDO has been partnering with the Indian industry for many years, including the development of full systems like the Advanced Towed Artillery Gun System (ATAGS) and Pinaka rocket launchers, among others.
- The present industry base for the DRDO consists of 1,800 Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) along with Defence Public Sector Undertakings (DPSUs), ordnance factories and large-scale industries.
- The DRDO already offers its technologies to the industry for manufacture at a nominal cost and has been providing free access to its patents.
DRDO
- The Defence Research and Development Organisation(DRDO) is an agency under the Department of Defence Research and Development in Ministry of Defence of the Government of India, charged with the military’s research and development, headquartered in Delhi, India.
- It was formed in 1958 by the merger of the Technical Development Establishment and the Directorate of Technical Development and Production of the Indian Ordnance Factories with the Defence Science Organisation.
DNA Bill can be misused, flags draft report
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in News?
A draft report of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Science and Technology on the DNA Bill has stated that some alarming provisions in the bill could be misused for caste or community-based profiling.
Background:
- The Bill seeks to control the use and application of the deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) technology for establishing the identity of certain categories of persons, including offenders, victims, suspects and under-trials.
- The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Bill of 2019 was introduced in and passed by the Lok Sabha in January 2019, but lapsed before it could be taken up by the Rajya Sabha.
- It was later referred to a parliamentary standing committee for examination.
Key Details:
- The DNA Technology (Use and Application) Regulation Act, 2019, has been in the works for 15 years.
- Nearly 60 countries have enacted similar legislation, with the U.S. bringing in a law as far back as in 1994.
Issues:
- The committee pointed out that DNA profiles can reveal extremely sensitive information of an individual such as pedigree, skin color, behavior, illness, health status and susceptibility to diseases.
- Access to such intrusive information can be misused to specifically target individuals and their families with their own genetic data.
- It is particularly worrying as it could even be used to incorrectly link a particular caste/community to criminal activities.
- The report also red-flagged disregard for an individual’s privacy and other safeguards.
- The committee urged the government to amend the provisions to ensure that if the person has been found innocent his DNA profile must be removed immediately from the data bank.
- The report noted that there is no legal or moral justification for a database with DNA, given the high potential for misuse.
- In the Bill, if a person is arrested for an offence that carries a punishment of up to seven years, investigation authorities must take the person’s written consent before taking the DNA sample. However, this consent is only “perfunctory”.
- The Bill refers to consent in several provisions, but in each of those, a magistrate can easily override consent, thereby in effect, making consent perfunctory.
- There is also no guidance in the Bill on the grounds and reasons when the magistrate can override consent, which could become a fatal flaw.
- The Bill also provides that DNA profiles for civil matters will be stored in the data banks, but without a clear and separate index. The committee questioned the necessity for storage of such profiles, pointing out that this violates the fundamental right to privacy and does not serve any public purpose.
- Therefore, in the absence of a robust data protection legislation, the security of a huge number of DNA profiles that will be placed with the National DNA Data bank and its regional centres becomes questionable.
Guwahati gets India’s ‘longest’ river ropeway
Paper:
Mains: General Studies-III: Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management
Why in News?
India’s longest passenger ropeway across a river has been unveiled in Guwahati.
- The 1.82-km bi-cable jig-back ropeway passes over the mid-river Peacock Island.
- The Peacock Island, also known as Umananda Island, houses Umananda, a medieval Shiva temple.
- The island is home to an endangered species, the Golden Langur.
Why a river ropeway
- Thousands of people commute every day between the capital city of Guwahati and the town of North Guwahati, where IIT Guwahati is located.
- The ropeway cuts travel time between the two banks to 8 minutes.
Tourism potential
The ropeway will provide a breathtaking view of the mighty Brahmaputra and promote tourism in the State. It will be Connecting Kachari Ghat (Guwahati) to Dol Govinda Temple on the northern bank, the ropeway passed the famous Umananda temple on a small island.
Design and cost:
- This is one of the most advanced & longest river crossing Aerial Tramway systems in India”. The ropeway uses a “twin-track, single-haul, bi-cable double reversible jig back” system.
- The ropeway comprises two cabins — each with a capacity of 30 passengers plus one operator. The project was built at a cost of Rs 56 crore.
More hunger among M.P.’s women workers
Paper:
Mains: General Studies- II: Governance, Constitution, Polity, Social Justice and International relations.
Why in News:
- The COVID19 induced lockdown has negatively impacted the nutrition availability of women workers in Madhya Pradesh, with 57% reporting a reduced frequency of meals, a survey said.
- This reduction is nearly twice the number of deprived men.
- Overall, 88.17% women workers reported a decline in food consumption with majority of them engaged in the service sector where the loss of livelihood due to the lockdown has been the most significant, according the NGO ActionAid India, which works for child and women rights and emergency response.
Loss of Lives
- Acute malnutrition especially among tribal group, due to crushing poverty, delayed breastfeeding, premature pregnancies and seasonal migrations is continuing to take away lives
- GHI 2019 puts India at 102 out of 117 countries.
- In 2018, India was 103 out of 132. In 2017, due to a change in methodology, 44 more countries had been included and India was at 100 out of 119 consistently showing a downward trend on wasting and undernourishment parameters.