Daily Current Affairs 11 February 2021

Plutus IAS Current Affairs

Daily Current Affairs 11 February 2021

Is Disinformation a cybersecurity threat?

What is disinformation?

  • Spreading the fake, half-truth, molded truth, and miss appropriated information,deep fakes, and cheap fakes is known as disinformation. It is an attack and compromise on a person’s cognitive being.
  • It is used to manipulate societies, social engineering threats on a mass scale. e.g phishing attacks compromise IT systems where as disinformation campaigns play on emotions

What is Cybersecurity?

  • When actors use attacks to compromise confidentiality, the integrity and the availability of IT systems for their benefit is known as cyber security.
  • It is aimed at computer infrastructure such as computers, networks etc while disinformation exploits our inherent cognitive biases and logical fallacies.

What is cognitive hacking?

->It is a threat from disinformation and computational propaganda which try to manipulate people’s minds.
->This attack exploits

  • psychological vulnerabilities
  • perpetuates biases
  • eventually compromises logical and critical thinking

->giving rise to cognitive dissonance.

  • For e.g. storming of the U.S. Capitol
  • in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Ireland, Cyprus and Belgium) burned down 5G towers because they believed it caused the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Deep fakes

->Deep Fakes are synthetic or fabricated media in which a person in an existing image or video is replaced with someone else’s likeness

  • This describes a new level of danger to disinformation campaigns.

How to Curb Disinformation:-

->Developing rigorous security frameworks, guidelines, standards, and applying the best practices such as defense-in-depth, threat modeling, secure development lifecycle, and red-team-blue-team (self-attack to find vulnerabilities to fix them) to build cybersecurity resilience.

->developing as disinformation defence systems by studying

  • strategy and tactics
  • identities of malicious actors
  • behaviors from the cybersecurity domain to mitigate disinformation threats.

->Defense-in-depth is an information assurance strategic tool which provides multiple, redundant defensive measures if a security control fails. It identifies disinformation actors and removes them.
->Regular patching will help to eliminate vulnerabilities from the systems.
->Educating the people is the key.
->Technology industry + civil society + the government should coordinate
->public-private partnerships must also invest
->Balancing the rights of speech with the dangers provided by disinformation is a grave challenge for policymakers and regulators.

Neustar International Security Council (NISC) a cybersecurity research institution found 48% of cybersecurity professionals regard disinformation as threats

 Swarn Rajput

Furnace oil from Titanium factory spills into the sea

London Convention on Marine Pollution (LC-72 )

->the non-binding treaty which seeks to address the problem of deliberate disposal at sea
->It does not cover discharges from land-based sources such as pipes, land discharge etc.
Barcelona Convention-> covers the Mediterranean sea in marine pollution.

International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling

->IWC governs the commercial, scientific, and aboriginal subsistence whaling practices of fifty-nine member nations which are considered as threat to whale existence.
->International Whaling Commission (IWC) was set up
->active against commercial whaling. it has adopted a moratorium on commercial whaling . This ban still continues.
->Southern Ocean Whale Sanctuary is located in the surrounding continent of Antarctica.
->Indian Ocean Whale Sanctuary

->Till now Only two such sanctuaries have been designated by International Whaling Commission

Wadden Sea Agreement

->Location of the Wadden Sea-> between the coast of northwestern continental Europe and the range of Frisian Islands.
->It is a World Heritage site
->3 national parks around the wadden sea biodiversity area.

  • Schleswig-Holstein Wadden Sea National Park
  • Hamburg Wadden Sea National Park
  • Lower Saxony Wadden Sea National Park

MARPOL refers to Marine Pollution.

->India is a party to MARPOL

Swarn Rajput

Israel Wants India to be on her side in ICC.

CONTEXT:

  • Israel seeks support from India against the ruling of the International Criminal Court on alleged Israel’s atrocities over the West Bank region.

Issue:

  • Israel and Palestine claim sovereignty over the west bank region but Israel has the control over this region.
  • Israel does not recognise the ICC jurisdiction and believes that Palestine is not a sovereign country.
  • Israeli PM called the ruling of ICC “antisemitism”.

Comparison between ICJ and IIC

Swarn Rajput

Tragedy Softly

->Himalayas are a young fold mountain + volatile mountain system.

  • Even a minor change ->can trigger landslides.

->Use of Mountains

  • regulate temperatures.
  • snow-covered ranges provide perennial availability of water.

->These mountain ranges are affected by changes in the climate system due to global warming.

Issues:

  • DPRs (detailed project reports) of i projects-> do not include the idiosyncrasies of this mountain-climate dynamic:
  • DPR does not account for the frequency of landslides, snow avalanches and lake bursts or other environmental issues.

How to solve

  • Gap in DPR must be plugged swiftly
  • detailed studies on projects, ecosystems should be conducted to understand the project effect on fragile ecosystems.
  • research should have environmental impact assessment reports.
  • Collaborative approach.

  Swarn Rajput

Guj- Panchayat constituencies reserved for SC/ST 

  • Article 243-O: Bar to courts in the electoral matters related to delimitation of constituencies & election of local bodies.. 
  • Some candidates file petitions in the High Court. State government stand – Court cannot interfere as per article 243-O. 
  • Guj HC judgement- “Judicial review is part of the basic structure of the Constitution so Court can look into the matters related to Article-243-O as well, But court should not do ordinarily else, interfere in the election process”

Swarn Rajput

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Commerce

 

  • committee, chaired by V Vijay Sai Reddy 
  • Issues highlighted by committee
    • India’s poor industrial performance
    • very high logistics costs 
    • a high dependence of crucial manufacturing sectors on imports from countries like China
  • Recommendation
    • implementation of the reforms such as pharmaceutical parks etc through seamless coordination between various Ministries

Swarn Rajput

India’s fastest highway 

  • It is under-construction, Nagpur-Mumbai Super Communication Expressway.

  • It will have 5 wildlife bridges.
  • Some part of the highway is located r between the Bor Tiger Reserve and the Umred-Karhandla Wildlife Sanctuary.

Three wildlife sanctuaries in maharashtra:

  • Tansa (Thane)
  • Katepurna (Akola-Washim border)
  • Karanja-Sohol (Washim

Swarn Rajput

Drains: Polluting Rivers?

Context:

  • Recently the govt has published reports that 100 of 156 drains in the catchment of river Yamuna are below the meeting standards
  • The Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) and the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change added this in a joint affidavit filed in reply to a notice issued by the Supreme Court.
  • There was a plea filed in the court on remediation of polluted rivers in the country.

Issue:

  • The rivers in the country are being polluted mostly by:
    Industrial waste, sewage, and wastewater, mining activities, marine dumping, the flaming of fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers and pesticides, exposure from sewer lines.
  • Among the above-mentioned causes, the most common and devastating cause is related to the drains and the leakage from sewer lines.
  • Particularly in the river Yamuna, the level of fecal coliform (microbes from human and animal excreta) is beyond the desirable limit at all points examined in the Yamuna in Delhi.
  • The levels of chlorine and calcium and the level of sulfate are also beyond the prescribed limit of what should be.
  • This is just not about one river, rivers across the country are facing the same issue with little respite amidst the growing urbanization and industrialization.

Facts about the river Yamuna:

  • Originates from the Yamunotri glacier.
  • A major tributary of river Ganges.
  • Chambal, Sindh, Betwa, and Ken are the Tributaries.

Way ahead:

  • CPCB had asked for data from the State Pollution Control Boards of Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, and Uttar Pradesh and Delhi Pollution Control Committee in relation to the Yamuna.
  • Flocculation and reuse of industrial water have been used to rebalance the quality of the water sources.
  • The water treatment plants in Panjrapur could be replicated more towards the reduction of the turbidity and colloid content in the water.

-Ajit Satapathy

Rajya Sabha Passes Ports Bill With Division Voting.

Context:.

  • Recently, Rajya Sabha passed the Ports Bill which provides for the regulation of major ports. It will change the Major Port Trusts Act of 1963, and a board of major port authorities will replace the current port trusts for each major port.
  • The Bill aims to make the ports competitive with the private ports by empowering them with autonomy

What is division voting?

  • Matters in a parliamentary democracy are decided by voting. In parliamentary terminology, this is called ‘Division’.
  • Rules 252 to 254 of the Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in Rajya Sabha grant for the various methods of Division in the House.
  • Types of Division:
  • Voice vote, Counting, Division by automatic vote recorder, and Division by going into the Lobbies.

Apprehensions regarding the bill:

  • Many opposition leaders believe that the Bill gives way for the privatization of the ports after similar things happened with the airports.
  • They accuse the government. Of going the Singapore model way which instilled the corporatization and eventually laid the foundation of the ports to be privatized.
  • The govt. claims that, since the performance of the ports have been excellent for the last six years now, profits have been increasing rapidly and liabilities are coming down, hence this is a good time to look for the modernization of the ports.

Way ahead:

  • While new projects and modernization will definitely contribute to the economy in a massive way and it also has the potential to lower the fiscal deficit, the government must continue with the upcoming projects.
  • However, there needs to be a check and balance even after the autonomy has been given to the individual ports for ensuring that the federal structure has not been violated since the matter is in the concurrent list.

Ajit Satapathy

United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC)

Context-

The Government of the United States has come up with a decision that it will reengage with the United Nations Human Rights Council that former president Donald Trump withdrew from almost three years ago.

About United Nation Human Right Council-

Establishment-

This was established in 2006

Objective-

To protect and promote human rights around the globe, as well as investigating alleged human rights violations.

Headquarter-

Geneva, Switzerland

Composition-

  • The UNHRC has the strength of 47 members serving at any time with elections held to fill up the seats on a yearly basis, based on allocations to regions across the world to ensure geographical representation.
  • Each member who is elected serves for a three year term.
  • No country can occupy a seat for more than two consecutive terms.

Functions-

The UNHRC passes non-binding resolutions on the issue of human rights through a periodic review of all 193 UN member states called the Universal Periodic Review.

Khyati Khare

PRELIMS FACTS-

1.For the construction of the Lalandar “Shahtoot” Dam MoU inked between India and Afghanistan
Dam MoU inked between India and Afghanistan

On a tributary of the Kabul river in Afghanistan for the construction of Shahtoot Dam (Lalander Dam) mou signed between India and Afghanistan via video teleconferencing. The project, which costs nearly $ 300 million, is a part of the New Development Partnership between India and Afghanistan.

2. National Horticulture Fair-2021 begins

National Horticulture Fair-2021 begins

In Bengaluru via virtual mode the five-day-long event National Horticulture Fair festival inaugurated by the Union Minister of State for Agriculture and Farmer Welfare, Kailash Choudhry.

3.5th tiger reserve set to create in Tamil Nadu

5th tiger reserve set to create in Tamil Nadu

The fifth tiger reserve in Tamil Nadu that will encompass the Meghamalai and Srivilliputhur Grizzled Squirrel Wildlife Sanctuaries .51st Tiger Sanctuary of India approved by the Central government.

The theme of NHF 2021 is ‘Horticulture for Start-Up and Stand-Up India’.

4.100-foot-high national flag laid by Indian Army in Gulmarg

100-foot-high national flag laid by Indian Army in Gulmarg

The tallest ‘Iconic National Flag’ at the famous ski-resort of Gulmarg in Jammu and Kashmir by the Indian Army. Major General Virendra Vats along with Bollywood actor-producer Arbaaz Khan and actress Vidya Balan laid the National flag.

 Alokit Kapoor

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