Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has proposed a single income tax return (ITR) form for all taxpayers. A draft form has been released, to which all stakeholders can provide inputs up to December 15.

Kinds of ITR forms

There are seven kinds of ITR forms, which are used by different categories of taxpayers. They are as follows:

• ITR Form 1, called ‘Sahaj’, is for small and medium taxpayers. Sahaj forms can be filed by individuals who have an income up to Rs 50 lakh, with earnings from salary, one house property/ other sources (interest etc).
• ITR-2 is filed by people with income from residential property.
• * ITR-3 is intended for people who have income as profits from business/ profession
• ITR-4 (Sugam) is, like ITR-1 (Sahaj), a simple forms, and can be filed by individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) and firms with total income up to Rs 50 lakh from business and profession.
• ITR-5 and 6 are for limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and businesses respectively.
• ITR-7 is filed by trusts and non-profit organisations.

What is the change that has been proposed?

• According to the proposal, all taxpayers, barring trusts and non-profit organisations (ITR-7), will be able to use a common ITR form, which will include a separate head for disclosure of income from virtual digital assets.
• “The proposed draft ITR…proposes to introduce a common ITR by merging all the existing returns of income except ITR-7.

Rationale Behind the Proposal

• The proposed draft ITR takes a relook at the return filing system in tandem with international best practices. 
• The draft form aims to make it easier to file returns, and to considerably reduce the time taken for the job by individuals and non-business-type taxpayers.
• The taxpayers will not be required to see the schedules that do not apply to them. 
• It intends the smart design of schedules in a user-friendly manner with a better arrangement, logical flow, and increased scope of pre-filling. 
• It will also facilitate the proper reconciliation of third-party data available with the Income-Tax department vis-à-vis the data to be reported in the ITR to reduce the compliance burden on the taxpayers.
• The proposed ITR form would be customised for taxpayers with applicable schedules, based on certain questions answered by them.
• Once the common ITR form is notified, after taking into account the inputs received from stakeholders, the online utility will be released by the Income Tax department. 
• In such a utility, a customised ITR containing only the applicable questions and schedules will be available to the taxpayer.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

HARIT Aaykar initiative by Income Tax Department for increasing greenery and creating micro forests.

• The Income Tax Department participated enthusiastically in the Government of India’s month-long Special Campaign for Swachhata which ends on 31st October, 2022. 
• This day (31st October) marks the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and is also observed as the National Unity Day.

About 

• The HARIT Aaykar (Hariyali Achievement Resolution by Income Tax) initiative. Under this initiative, the Department resolves to increase the green cover by planting trees and creating micro-forests in and around Income Tax Department’s buildings and other public areas.
• Under the HARIT Aaykar initiative, the first of such micro-forests has been inaugurated.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A study conducted by Sir Ganga Ram Hospital has said that Indians have an increased risk of Coronary Artery Disease (CAD) because of their smaller body surface area and not just a smaller diameter of arteries.

• In contrary to the general perception that Indians suffer more from CAD due to the smaller diameter of arteries.
• It was based on observational impact on 250 patients.
• 51 per cent respondents were hypertensive, 18 per cent were diabetic, four per cent were smokers, 28 per cent were dyslipidemic and 26 per cent had a family history of heart disease.

Key Findings

• The study found that the mean vessel diameter for males was significantly larger than those for females but when indexed to the Body Surface Area, these values were not significant.
• There has been an assumption that Asians, and particularly Indians, have increased risk of atherosclerosis (fatty deposits in arteries) because of their small coronary artery diameter. 
• However, from our observational study, it is proved that the coronary artery dimensions in the Indian population are not small, the risk is due to their small Body Surface Area. 
• Thus, the rationale for small dimensions of arteries being a risk factor for CAD is not valid in the Indian population.
• The study might also provide some insight into the use of diameters indexed to BSA as a cutoff for deciding the need for re-vascularisation (a procedure that can restore blood flow in blocked arteries or veins). 
• This study was done to estimate the size of normal coronary arteries in the Indian population, index it to BSA, and see if there is any significant difference when compared to the Caucasian population

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

China’s third and final module called Mengtian docked with its permanent space station  to further a more than decade-long effort to maintain a constant crewed presence in orbit, as its competition with the U.S. grows increasingly fierce.

• Mengtian was blasted into space from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan
• 3 astronauts arrived for a six-month stay on board, during which they will complete the station’s assembly, conduct space walks and carry out additional experiments.

Mengtian

• Mengtian is the third and final module which was blasted into space from the Wenchang Satellite Launch Center on the southern island province of Hainan.
• Mengtian, or “Celestial Dream,” joins Wentian as the second laboratory module for the station, collectively known as Tiangong, or “Celestial Palace.” Both are connected to the Tianhe core module where the crew lives and works.
• Like its predecessors, Mengtian was launched aboard a Long March-5B carrier rocket, a member of China’s most powerful family of launch vehicles.
• Mengtian weighs in at about 23 tons, is 17.9 meters (58.7 feet) long and has a diameter of 4.2 meters (13.8 feet). It will provide space for science experiments in zero gravity, an airlock for exposure to the vacuum of space, and a small robotic arm to support extravehicular payloads.
• The already orbiting 23-ton Wentian, or “quest for the heavens” laboratory is designed for science and biology experiments and is heavier than any other single-module spacecraft currently in space.
• Following Mengtian’s arrival, an additional uncrewed Tianzhou cargo craft is due to dock with the station.

Tiangong Space Station

• It is a planned Chinese Permanent space station to be placed in Low Earth orbit.
• The Space Station roughly will have one-fifth the mass of the International Space Station.
• The space station consists of three modules — the core module, Tianhe and two lab modules Wentian and Mengtian.
• In all, the station will have about 110 cubic meters (3,880 cubic feet) of pressurized interior space, including the 32 cubic meters (1,130 cubic feet).
• China’s crewed space program is officially three decades old this year, with the Mengtian launch being its 25th mission. But it truly got underway in 2003, when China became only the third country after the U.S. and Russia to put a human into space using its own resources.
• The permanent Chinese station will weigh about 66 tons — a fraction of the size of the International Space Station, which launched its first module in 1998 and weighs around 465 tons.
• With a lifespan of 10 to 15 years, Tiangong could one day find itself the only space station still running, if the International Space Station adheres to its 30-year operating plan.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The sun surely seems to be smiling down on us. NASA released an image taken by its Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) where the Sun seems to have two dark eyes, a bright round nose and a wide-open smile.

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory caught the Sun “smiling.” Seen in ultraviolet light, these dark patches on the Sun are known as coronal holes and are regions where fast solar wind gushes out into space.

About

• The dark areas that seemingly form a ‘face’ on the Sun are coronal holes, which are cooler denser regions in the Sun’s corona. 
• They appear dark in images taken in ultraviolet light and in this instance, they coincidentally happen to form what looks like a smiling face.
• In the interior, it studies the solar dynamo, which is the churning of the star’s interior that creates a magnetic field and drives space weather. 
• It observes the solar surface to measure this magnetic field and the solar atmosphere to help scientists understand how magnetic energy is linked to the interior and how it causes space weather events.
• Importantly, it also measures the extreme ultraviolet irradiance of the Sun, an important factor that contributes to the structure and composition of our planet’s upper atmosphere.
• The magnetic field is open to interplanetary space, sending solar material out in a high-speed stream of solar wind.
• Coronal holes can last between a few weeks to months.
• They can last much longer during solar minimum – a period of time when activity on the Sun is substantially diminished
• These coronal holes are important to understand the space environment around the earth.
• While it is unclear what causes coronal holes, they correlate to areas on the sun where magnetic fields soar up and away, without looping back down to the surface as they do elsewhere.

Geomagnetic Storm

• Geomagnetic storms relate to earth’s magnetosphere – the space around a planet that is influenced by its magnetic field.
• When a high-speed solar stream arrives at the earth, in certain circumstances it can allow energetic solar wind particles to hit the atmosphere over the poles.
• Such geomagnetic storms cause a major disturbance of the magnetosphere as there is a very efficient exchange of energy from the solar wind into the space environment surrounding earth.
• In cases of a strong solar wind reaching the earth, the resulting geomagnetic storm can cause changes in the ionosphere, part of the earth’s upper atmosphere.
• Radio and GPS signals travel through this layer of the atmosphere, and so communications can get disrupted.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Three global educational non-profits — Educational Testing Services (ETS), American Institutes for Research (AIR) and the Australian Council for Educational Research (ACER) —have expressed interest in helping to set up India’s first national school-level examination and assessment regulator.

• The organisations approached the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), responding to an Expression of Interest (EoI) for selecting consulting services to set up the proposed regulator PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), which is envisaged as an instrument for “establishing comparative measures and equivalence” among school examination boards and promoting collaboration among them.

PARAKH

• PARAKH will be expected to address the issue of disparities in scores of students affiliated to different boards. 
• Also, it will not just conduct future rounds of National Achievement Surveys (NAS) and other surveys on learning  outcomes, but also review all aspects of the design and conduct of the NAS 2017/2018 and 2021 exercises and identify areas for improvement.
• Apart from holding NAS and Foundational Learning Study (FLN), PARAKH will also manage India’s participation in international assessments like: 

• Program for International Student Assessment (PISA), 
• Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS),
• Progress in International Reading Literacy Study (PIRLS).

About  global educational non-profits

• ETS is internationally recognised for conducting TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language).
• GRE (Graduate Record Examination), which are gateways to higher education in top institutes worldwide.
• AIR and ACER are leading names in research on behavioural and social science domains and learning assessment studies.
• ACER, which is based in Australia, has an Indian wing. It is primarily known for conducting a set of benchmark tests for learning assessment in English, Mathematics and Science for classes III-X.
• AIR shot to fame in the 1960s after it carried out the biggest study of its time among high school students in the US on racial disparities and economic mobility among others.
• NCERT will develop and validate standards of assessment for all school stages and curricular areas of school education, based on NEP 2020.
• It will provide technical guidelines and inputs for boards to design, develop, and implement state-wide systems for measuring student learning aligned with state and national curricular standards

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Indian Veterinary Research Institute (IVRI) has demanded a ban on using aceclofenac in cattle after a new study showed that the drug metabolises into diclofenac in water buffaloes — as it does in cows.

• IVRI and its collaborators conducted the study and found that aceclofenac was rapidly converted to diclofenac while injecting the same water buffaloes.
• Such metabolisms pose a threat to vulture populations in the country. 
• The drug caused accidental poisoning in raptors after they fed on carcasses of cattle injected with it. 
• Aceclofenac in water buffaloes poses the same threat to vultures as it is a pro-drug of diclofenac.
• Aceclofenac is an unnecessary threat to the scavenging birds since safe alternatives — meloxicam and tolfenamic acid.

Initiatives by India

• The three drugs—aceclofenac, ketoprofen and nimesulide—were introduced as alternatives to diclofenac, that India banned in 2006 for animal use because it caused widespread vulture deaths.
• India is also a signatory to the Convention on Migratory Species’ Multi-species Action Plan to Conserve African-Eurasian Vultures, which recognises NSAIDS as a major threat to vultures in India.
• The vulture action plan recommends meloxicam over diclofenac. Tolfenamic acid is the other safe option.

Diclofenac 

• Anti-inflammatory drug was banned for veterinary use by the Government of India in 2006.
• It was found to be the main cause of a dramatic decline (99 per cent) of the vulture population across Asia.
• The drug caused accidental poisoning in raptors after they fed on carcasses of cattle injected with it.
• Aceclofenac in water buffaloes poses the same threat to vultures as it is a pro-drug of diclofenac.
• Vulture Action Plan 2020-2025 also mentions the drug as toxic, asking the Drugs Controller General of India (DGCI) to ban its veterinary use — along with other drugs like nimesulide and ketoprofen.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India’s manufacturing industry remained robust and expanded at a faster pace in October indicating a strong improvement in the health of the sector.

• • The seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) rose to 55.3 in October from 55.1 in September.
  • While a reading above 50 indicates an overall expansion compared to the previous month, a print below 50 shows an overall decrease.

• The index is compiled by S&P Global from responses to questionnaires sent to purchasing managers in a panel of around 400 manufacturers.

• The upward movement in the October headline figure largely reflected stronger increases in employment and stocks of purchases.
• Firms were again able to secure additional work, taking the current sequence of growth to 16 months. 
• Overall, factory orders increased at an above-trend pace that was nonetheless the weakest since June.
• Capacities were again expanded to accommodate for improving sales.
• Production likewise expanded at a slower rate at the start of the third fiscal quarter

The Purchasing Managers Index (PMI)

• PMI or a Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI) is an indicator of business activity — both in the manufacturing and services sectors.
• It is a survey-based measures that asks the respondents about changes in their perception of some key business variables from the month before.
• It is calculated separately for the manufacturing and services sectors and then a composite index is constructed.
• The index is compiled by S&P Global from responses to questionnaires sent to purchasing managers in a panel of around 400 manufacturers.
• The PMI is derived from a series of qualitative questions. Executives from a reasonably big sample, running into hundreds of firms, are asked whether key indicators such as output, new orders, business expectations and employment were stronger than the month before and are asked to rate them
• A figure above 50 denotes expansion in business activity. Anything below 50 denotes contraction.
• The PMI is usually released at the start of the month, much before most of the official data on industrial output, manufacturing and GDP growth becomes available. It is, therefore, considered a good leading indicator of economic activity and of industrial output
• Central banks of many countries also use the index to help make decisions on interest rates.
• The PMI also gives an indication of corporate earnings and is closely watched by investors as well as the bond markets.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

An invasive species, Senna spectabilis, an exotic tree, has taken over between 800 and 1,200 hectares of the buffer zones of the Mudumalai Tiger Reserve (MTR) in the picturesque Nilgiris hill district. 

The Forest Department is coming up with a comprehensive strategy to deal with the spread of the invasive species, which continues to spread rapidly in the buffer zone.

About 

• Introduced as an ornamental species and for use as firewood from South and Central America, the species has become highly invasive in the Sigur plateau in both the core and buffer zones of the MTR.
• Over the last few years, its bright yellow flowers have become more visible across the Tiger Reserve, with conservationists stating that the invasive weed has a negative effect on local biodiversity, crowding out native species and limiting food availability for wildlife.
• The Forest Department was also formulating a 10-year-plan to systematically remove Lantana camara, the other major weed that poses a threat to biodiversity in both the core and buffer zones of the Tiger Reserve.

Five major invasive weeds

• Senna spectabilis
• Lantana camara
• Wattle  
• Eucalyptus and 
• Pine
• Eucalyptus and Pine though exotic, do not spread as quickly as the other species and are considered easier to manage,

Invasive Species

An alien species is a species introduced outside its natural past or present distribution; if this species becomes problematic, it is termed an invasive alien species. The climate change, movement of people and goods around the world increases the threat for introduction of invasive alien species.

Threat posed by invasive alien species on native ecosystem:

• Invasive alien species are the most common threat to amphibians, reptiles and mammals on The IUCN Red List. 
• They may lead to changes in the structure and composition of ecosystems detrimentally affecting ecosystem services, human economy and wellbeing.
• Worldwide, invasive alien species constitute one of the leading threats to biodiversity, second only to the destruction and fragmentation of entire habitats.
• Alien species may threaten indigenous species by competing with them for the same resources, by predation, by spreading diseases or parasites, or by cross-breeding with these species in the wild.
• Alien species are also known to have changed the structure of food chains and to have affected the functioning of entire ecosystems.
• Invasive alien species cause harmful social impacts and substantial financial losses to a variety of actors. 
• Many invasive alien species are major pests for agriculture and forestry industries.
• Fishing and fish farming may also suffer from the spread of invasive alien species. 
• Alien species can also pose a health hazard or function as disease carriers.

Examples of Invasive species:

• Ipomoea (Ipomoea carnea)
• Mimosa (Mimosa himalaica)
• Parthenium (Parthenium hysterophorus) is believed to have come to India as contaminants in a consignment of wheat imported from the U.S. in the 1950s
• Lantana (Lantana camara) was brought by the British as ornamental plants from South America two centuries ago.
• Bombax ceiba (locally called Semul)
• Largestroemia speciosa (locally called ejhar)

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Supreme Court on Monday declared that any person conducting the invasive ‘two-finger’ or ‘three-finger’ vaginal test on rape or sexual assault survivors will be found guilty of misconduct.

• A 2013 SC order had noted in a similar tone.
• Evidence of a victim’s sexual history is not material to case.

About the verdict

• The sole reason behind using the “regressive” test on traumatised sexual assault survivors is to see whether the woman or girl was “habituated” to sexual intercourse. 
• Such a “concern” was irrelevant to fact whether she was raped or not.
• The faulty logic behind the test was that “a woman cannot be believed when she said she was raped merely for the reason that she was sexually active.
• “This so-called test has no scientific basis and neither proves nor disproves allegations of rape. 
• It instead re-victimises and re-traumatises women who may have been sexually assaulted, and is an affront to their dignity. 
• The court pointed out the 2013 amendment of Section 53A in the Indian Evidence Act.  “…the evidence of a victim’s character or her previous sexual experience with any person shall not be relevant to the issue of consent or the quality of consent in the prosecution of sexual offences.
• The practice questions a woman’s character and is ‘patriarchal’ and ‘sexist’.
• It violates the right of rape survivors to privacy, physical and mental integrity and dignity.
• Thus, this test, even if the report is affirmative, cannot ipso facto, be given rise to presumption of consent.
• This came on the heels of the December 2012 Nirbhaya gangrape case, after which the Union health ministry updated the proforma for medical examination of rape victims to remove the  two-finger test.
• A rape test kit, detailing tools required to collect evidence of sexual assault according to WHO guidelines, was prepared but failed to make any impact. In the absence of these kits, the two-finger test continued as is.
• The latest order creates the connection which was missing till now. Now medical text books will have to  keep pace with legal changes and that will benefit young doctors and society at large.

Indian Evidence Act

• Originally passed in India by the Imperial Legislative Council in 1872, during the British Raj.
• When India gained independence on 15 August 1947, the Act continued to be in force throughout the Republic of India.
• It contains a set of rules and allied issues governing admissibility of evidence in the Indian courts of law.

This Act is divided into three parts:

• Part 1 deals with relevancy of the facts
• Part 2 deals with facts which need not be proved, oral evidence, documentary evidence.
• Part 3 deals with burden of proof, estoppel, witnesses and their examination
• Under Section 155(4) of the Indian Evidence Act, a rape survivor’s past sexual history used to be acceptable. The rape accused could state that the rape survivor was of immoral character and claim that she consented to the sexual acts.
• This section was removed in 2003 after recommendations in the Law Commission of India’s 172nd report.
• In 2013, the JS Verma Committee, created after the Nirbhaya gangrape case 2012, suggested that a past relationship between the accused and the victim should be inapt while deciding whether the victim consented.