29.03.17 Daily Current Affairs

North Eastern States of India and their Borders

• Assam: Has the following seven Indian states as it neighbor: Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram, Tripura, Meghalaya, West Bengal; Assam has the maximum number of Indian States as its neighbor.
• Sikkim and Meghalaya are the only states in India to have only one other Indian state has their neighbor. West Bengal in case of Sikkim and Assam in case of Mehalaya.
• Mizoram is the southernmost state in the North East.

Greater Nagalim

• NSCN(IM) has been demanding the creation of a Greater Nagalim that includes large areas of Assam adjoining Nagaland, most of Manipur’s hill districts, Tirap, Longding and Changlang districts of Arunachal Pradesh, and parts of Myanmar.
• The NSCN(IM)’s Greater Nagalim map of “all contiguous Naga-inhabited areas” covers an area of about 1,20,000 sq km — more than 7 times Nagaland’s 16,527 sq km area.
• Nagaland was created in 1963 out of the then Naga Hills district of Assam and Tuensang Division of the then Northeast Frontier Agency NEFA (now Arunachal Pradesh).
• Home Ministry said in a statement: “Some media reports have appeared recently to the effect that the Government of India has agreed to carve out a larger Nagaland state by taking away the territories of the states contiguous to Nagaland. Such reports are erroneous. It is clarified that there is no such agreement or decision of the Government of India.”

Mental Healthcare Bill 2016

• Rights of persons with mental illness: The Bill ensures every person shall have a right to access mental health care and treatment from mental health services run or funded by the appropriate government. The Bill also assures free treatment for such persons if they are homeless or belong to Below Poverty Line, even if they do not possess a BPL card.
• A person with mental illness shall have the right to confidentiality in respect of his mental health, mental healthcare, treatment and physical healthcare.
• (Note that NHP 2017 talks of an assurance based approach)
• Advance Directive: A person (who is not a minor) with mental illness shall have the right to make an advance directive that states how he/she wants to be treated for the illness and who his/her nominated representative shall be. The advance directive should be certified by a medical practitioner or registered with the Mental Health Board.
• If a mental health professional/ relative/care-giver does not wish to follow the directive while treating the person, he can make an application to the Mental Health Board to review/alter/cancel the advance directive.
• Mental Health Authority: The Bill empowers the government to set-up Central Mental Health Authority at national-level and State Mental Health Authority in every State. Every mental health institute and mental health practitioners including clinical psychologists, mental health nurses and psychiatric social workers will have to be registered with this Authority.
• A Mental Health Review Board will be constituted to protect the rights of persons with mental illness and manage advance directives.
• Suicide is Decriminalized: A person who attempts suicide shall be presumed to be suffering from mental illness at that time and will not be punished under the Indian Penal Code. The government shall have a duty to provide care, treatment and rehabilitation to a person, having severe stress and who attempted to commit suicide, to reduce the risk of recurrence of attempt to commit suicide.

Neutrino

A neutrino is a subatomic particle that is very similar to an electron, but has no electrical charge and a very small mass, which might even be zero.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 2015 was awarded jointly to Takaaki Kajita and Arthur B. McDonald “for the discovery of neutrino oscillations, which shows that neutrinos have mass”.

The so-called Standard Model of Particle Physics suggests the material universe is assumed to be built by a small number of fundamental particles:

* quarks

* electron-like particles called leptons

Quarks bind together through the strong interaction to make, for example, protons and neutrons. Leptons do not take part in the strong interaction, and only interact via the electromagnetic and weak forces. Quarks, at least in normal circumstances, exist only in bound states (Protons, Neutrons). Leptons, on the other hand, can be individually observed. 

We have experimental evidence for six different kinds of leptons – three negatively electrically charged leptons, and three electrically neutral. The best known electrically charged leptons are:

* the electron

* the muon

* the tauon

The three electrically neutral leptons are the neutrinos (ν). Associated to each charged lepton, there are three distinct kinds of neutrinos:

* the electron neutrino

* the muon neutrino

* the tauon neutrino

Finance Bill

• Finance Bill is a Money Bill: It only needs the approval of Lok Sabha, and Rajya Sabha may only make recommendations.
• It can propose legislative changes that are unrelated to taxation: This year, the Finance Bill has been passed by Lok Sabha with not only changes to applicable taxes, but also structural changes to institutions and sectors. For instance, the bill replaces certain existing Tribunals and transfer their functions to other Tribunals. It also allows the central government to specify the appointments, tenure, removal, and reappointment of chairpersons and members of Tribunals through Rules (and not laws, as is the current method).

Smart India Hackathon 2017

• All India Council for Technical Education (AICTE) under the aegis of Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) and in collaboration with i4c, My Gov, Persistent Systems, NASSCOM and Rambhau Mhalgi Prabodini (a charitable organisation) is conducting a unique initiative ‘Smart India Hackathon 2017’.
• For the first time ever, 29 different government ministries and departments came together and posed 598 problem statements to 30 lakh technical students from India.
• During the 36-hour Grand Finale scheduled to be held on April 1&2, 2017 teams of thousands of technology students will build innovative digital solutions for problems posed by different central govt. ministries/ departments.