• Indian and Greek scholars will collaborate to trace common threads between the two countries through a detailed research in India, especially in Malana (a cluster of villages in Kullu district) where men from the Army of ‘Alexander the Great’ are believed to have settled after the war with Porus in 326 BC.

Villagers have greek features

• Experts say that the people of Malana have facial and physical features resembling Greeks.
• A folklore suggests that while Alexander returned home, some of his soldiers settled down in Malana, as they were very tired.
• This was among the issues discussed at the first international conference of ‘Greek World and India’ in the JNU.
• In 2009, a Swedish University had held talks with the Institute of Tribal Studies of Himachal Pradesh University for joint research on the people of Malana, who claim to be the descendants of Alexander’s soldiers, trace their genetics and the origin of their dialect.
• While there is no real scientific backing the hypothesis, some reports suggest the discovery of artifacts belonging the Alexander period from the area.

About Hanukkah:

• Hanukkah is also known as Chanukah.
• It is a Jewish Festival of Lights that lasts for eight days and nights in honor of a 2,000-year-old miracle in which light won out over darkness.
• It marks the rededication during the second century BC of the Second Temple in Jerusalem, where according to legend, Jews had risen up against their Greek-Syrian oppressors in the Maccabean Revolt.
• According to the Jewish religious calendar, Hanukkah begins on the 25th day of the month of Kislev and continues until the second day of the month of Teslev — a date known as Zos Chanukah that is particularly holy.

• India has jumped from 7th to 3rd global ranking in scientific publications.
• According to the report of National Science Foundation (NSF)’s Science & Engineering Indicators 2022 of the United States, India’s scholarly output has increased from 60,555 papers in 2010 to 1,49,213 papers in 2020.
• India now ranks 3rd in terms of number of PhDs in science and
• The number of patents granted to Indian scientists at India Patent Office (IPO) during the last three years has also increased from 2511 in 2018-19 to 4003 in 2019-20 and 5629 in 2020-21.
• The National Science Foundation is an independent agency of the United States government that supports fundamental research and education in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering.

About Controller General of Patents, Designs, and Trade Marks

• The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs & Trade Marks (CGPDTM) is located at Mumbai.
• The Head Office of the Patent office is at Kolkata and its Branch offices are located at Chennai, New Delhi and Mumbai.
• The Trade Marks registry is at Mumbai and its Branches are located in Kolkata, Chennai, Ahmedabad and New Delhi.
• The Design Office is located at Kolkata in the Patent Office. The Offices of The Patent Information System (PIS) and National Institute of Intellectual Property Management (NIIPM) are at Nagpur.
• The Controller General supervises the working of the Patents Act, 1970, as amended, the Designs Act, 2000 and the Trade Marks Act, 1999 and also renders advice to the Government on matters relating to these subjects.
• In order to protect the Geographical Indications of goods a Geographical Indications Registry has been established in Chennai to administer the Geographical Indications of Goods (Registrationand Protection) Act, 1999 under the CGPDTM.

• Ministry of Culture in collaboration with Prasiddha Foundation inaugurated Delhi International Arts Festival at Kartavya Path with the tag-line – ‘Where Bharat Meets India.

Aim of This Festival:

• The festival aims to celebrate the great Epics, the Warriors Who Fought for Our Freedom, and the many policy decisions and schemes instituted by our Government towards ‘Women Empowerment’, towards ‘Cleaning Our Holy Rivers‘, towards keeping our Country ‘Clean and Free from Dirt and Disease’.

More About This:

• In the festival dance performances such as Kathak, Odissi along with theatre, classical musical performances and other cultural performances will be organised. A series of events and performances  will be organised at various venues like Kartavya Path India Gate Lawns, Central Vista, Samvet Auditorium Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts Janpath, Amphitheatre Indira Gandhi National Centre for Arts Janpath, etc in Delhi.

• INSV Tarini has set sail for an expedition to Cape Town, South Africa for participating in the 50th edition of Cape to Rio Race 2023. This ocean sailing race will be flagged off from Cape Town on 2nd January, 2023 and will culminate at Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
• The race is one of the most prestigious Trans-Atlantic ocean races. The expedition is being undertaken by an Indian Navy crew of five officers including two women officers.
• During the expedition while transiting from Goa to Rio de Janeiro via Cape Town and back, INSV Tarini would be covering a distance of almost 17000 nautical miles.
• The crew, over a period of 5-6 months in this trans-oceanic voyage is expected to face extreme weather and rough sea conditions of the Indian, Atlantic and the Southern oceans.
• The expedition aims to train the crew onboard, in essential seamanship skills including Navigation, Communication, Technical and Planning. The expedition is an important milestone in training of the two women officers onboard for undertaking solo circumnavigation sailing expedition of the globe.
• INSV Tarini is known for circumnavigating the globe with an all-women officer crew in the historic expedition titled ‘Navika Sagar Parikrama’ in 2017.

• The Uttar Pradesh government led by Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath has set up 200 health ATMs at different locations across the state and has provided experts to run them.
• The state government intends to install health ATMs at all 4,600 wellness centres in the state.
• Efforts are also afoot to provide the facility of tele-consultation at all health centres of the state. Accordingly, health workers are being trained.
• The first health ATM of the state was inaugurated in September this year to upgrade health services. A health ATM can conduct tests for more than 30 diseases immediately.
• Health ATMs will be very effective in making health facilities accessible to the general public.
• Through expert health workers, reports of 30 types of tests will be made available to the patients in a very short time through printout, WhatsApp, e-mail and SMS. Simultaneously, the results of the test will be shared by the doctors on the telemedicine hub.
• There is also a provision to provide medical consultation through telemedicine if there is no doctor at places where health ATMs have been set up.
• Provision of video consultation has already started after the prescribed tests at 200 places.

What is Health ATM? 

• Similar to a bank’s Automated Teller Machine (ATM), a health ATM is a touch-screen kiosk hardware built for managing health-related information. This enables consumers to access their personal health information from any internet-connected web browser.
• It empowers patients and allows them to actively participate in managing their health requirements by providing access to world-class medical facilities.
• Health ATM addresses the issue of primary health care in rural and distant places. It is a sophisticated, modern, simple, accurate, and automated healthcare kiosk.
• A one-stop digital touch-point integrated equipment developed to diagnose all chronic diseases while also providing primary care and diagnostics in rural places.
• ATMs for healthcare are outfitted with cutting-edge diagnostic equipment for basic vitals, cardiology, neurology, pulmonary tests, gynecology, clinical diagnostic and life-saving equipment, and emergency services.

• Over 190 countries have adopted a landmark biodiversity pact to restore natural ecosystems.
• At the UN Biodiversity Conference, COP15 in Montreal, these countries agreed to protect 30 percent of the planet by 2030.
• The countries pledged to achieve 23 targets to reverse ecosystem degradation under four overarching goals for the survival of the natural world.
• Under the Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), countries also agreed to reduce harmful government subsidies worth 500 billion dollars annually, while vowing to identify subsidies that are harmful to biodiversity by 2025. The biodiversity plan gives India legroom on farm subsidies.
• The GBF gives elbow space to India both in terms of continuing farm subsidies and pesticide use. This has been a priority for India, which has been voluntarily pitching for natural farming in a big way.
• The Global Biodiversity Framework is considered equivalent to the Paris Agreement on climate change in terms of its significance for protecting biodiversity.
• Its other targets include reducing the use of pesticides by half and raising annual international financial flows from developed to developing countries to at least 20 billion dollars by 2025, and to at least 30 billion dollars by 2030.

1.   Decriminalisation of offences under GST.

Why in News

• Recently, the 48th GST Council meeting was held which recommended decriminalising certain offences under Section 132 of the Central Goods and Services Tax (CGST) Act, 2017.
  • There were also some other recommendations which included for the facilitation of trade, include an increased threshold of the amount of tax for prosecution, reducing the compounding amount in GST etc.

What was previously criminalised under GST?

• Tax evasion: 
  • Since the implementation of GST, there has been a significant increase in tax evasion with numerous cases of taxpayers using multiple strategies to avoid indirect tax coming to light.
  • Tax authorities are actively using technology and data from e-way bills and GST returns to check evasion.
    • The GST law establishes stringent penalties and guidelines that taxpayers must abide by to ensure smooth intrastate or interstate trade of goods and to combat corruption and maintain an effective tax collection system.
  • The GST Law provides for two different types of penalties:
    • Monetary fines: The department authorities have the authority to impose monetary fines and the seizure of goods as penalties for violating statutory provisions.
    • Criminal penalties include imprisonment and fines, which are also provided by GST Law, but which can only be awarded in a criminal court following a prosecution.
  • Sections 122 to 131 of the CGST Act of 2017 
    • It contains provisions relating to penalties, while Sections 132 to 138 contains provisions relating to prosecution and compounding.
    • The amount of tax evaded, the amount of Input Tax Credit (ITC) improperly claimed or used, or the amount of refund improperly claimed determines the length of the prison sentence.
  • Cognisable and non-cognisable offences:
    • The section further divides offences into those that are cognisable and bailable and those that are not cognisable and bailable.
    • It is observed that many non-compliances fall under both categories of penalties, prosecution, and compounding.

Offences under GST law which attract IPC and CrPC provisions

• Under the CGST Act:
  • Criminal conspiracy: If a group of two persons or more agree to commit an illegal act like tax evasion, fraud etc. they are held liable under the act of criminal conspiracy.
    • Section 120A of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) defines criminal conspiracy.
    • Section 120B deals with punishment for it.
    • Section 46 of the Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) deals with how the arrest is made.
  • Section 69 of the CGST Act provides the power to arrest a person by an order of a commissioner when he believes that a person has committed any offence under Section 132.
  • Section 67 of CrPC states that if a summons is issued outside the local authority, a duplicate copy of that summons should be sent to the Magistrate of that outside authority to serve the summons.
  • Section 165 of CrPC deals with the search by the police officer.
  • Section 67 of the CGST Act defines that only an officer not below the rank of joint commissioner can authorise in writing an inspection or search.

What are the recommendations of the 48th GST Council meeting

• It has recommended various measures to decriminalise the GST offences such as:
  • Raising the minimum threshold of tax amount for launching prosecution under GST from one crore to two crore, except for the offence of issuance of invoices without supply of goods or services or both.
  • Reducing the compounding amount from the present range of 50 to 150% of the tax amount to the range of 25 to 100%.
  • Decriminalising certain offences specified under Section 132 of the CGST Act, 2017 such as obstructing or preventing any officer from doing his duties, deliberate tempering of material evidence and failure to supply information.

About:

• It is a nationwide campaign under the Good Governance Week 2022.
• The Nationwide campaign for Redressal of Public Grievances and Improving Service Delivery will be held in all Districts, States and Union Territories of the country.
• Over 700 District Collectors will participate in the Campaign and officials will be visiting Tehsils and Panchayat Samiti Headquarters.
• Over 3,100 new government services will be added for online delivery during the five-day good governance week.
• The good governance week, or Sushasan Saptah, will witness the nation’s grievance redressal platforms functioning in unison — grievances received on Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) will be redressed along with grievances received on State portals.

Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS):

• Centralised Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS) is an online platform available to the citizens 24×7 to lodge their grievances to the public authorities on any subject related to service delivery.
• It is a single portal connected to all the Ministries/Departments of Government of India and States.
• Every Ministry and States have role-based access to this system.
• CPGRAMS is also accessible to the citizens through standalone mobile application downloadable through Google Play store and mobile application integrated with UMANG.
• The status of the grievance filed in CPGRAMS can be tracked with the unique registration ID provided at the time of registration of the complainant.
• CPGRAMS also provides appeal facility to the citizens if they are not satisfied with the resolution by the Grievance Officer.

About Good Governance Day

• 25^thDecember is celebrated as ‘Good Governance Day’ to mark the birth anniversary of former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

Indian Initiatives to improve Good Governance:

Good Governance Index:

• GGI has been launched by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances & Pensions to determine the status of governance in the country.
• It assesses the impact of various interventions taken up by the State Government and UTs.

National e-Governance Plan:

• It has the vision to “make all government services accessible to the common man in his locality, through common service delivery outlets and ensure efficiency, transparency & reliability of such services at affordable costs to realise the basic needs of the common man.”

Right to Information Act, 2005:

• It plays an effective role in ensuring transparency in governance.

Other Initiatives:

• Setting up of NITI Aayog, Make in India programme, Lokpal, etc.

• Nishant Gupta has been adjudged the best researcher on tuberculosis (TB) and its connection with human genes in the recently concluded three-day International Conference on Recent Advances in Biotechnology organised by Dr BR Ambedkar National Institute of Technology in Jalandhar.
• The conference was attended by scientists from Switzerland, the US, Ireland, Singapore, China and India.
• Nishant is a teacher in the department of biochemistry, Government Medical College, Hamirpur, presented his research work titled “CD209 receptor variants and susceptibility to TB in North Indian Punjabi population”.
• His work pertains to the Punjabi population and is expected to help identify new targets for developing efficient strategies to combat the TB infection.
• Besides the award, he received a citation. Nishant said he found that CD209 gene plays a big role in susceptibility to TB. “This gene influences the ability of the TB pathogen to get inside the immune cells, survive and hide from the surveillance mechanisms of humans.”