3 April 2024

• Polity: The Punjab and Haryana High Court clarifies that bail courts can release PMLA accused without satisfying the strict PMLA conditions.
• Elections: Puducherry deploys bilingual Braille signage at thirty polling booths, making voting accessible to visually impaired citizens.
• Geography: Swell waves inundate parts of Kerala coast, a phenomenon locally called Kallakkadal.
• Climate science: A negative leap second previously planned for 2026 is delayed to 2029 due to accelerated polar ice melt slowing Earth's rotation.
• Security: Hundreds of Indians are rescued from cyber-slavery operations in Cambodia.

GS area: Governance, Internal Security

The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 was enacted under Article 253 of the Constitution, which empowers Parliament to implement international obligations. It targets money laundering, which the Financial Action Task Force defines as concealing the proceeds of crime to make them appear legitimate.

Key facts:

• FATF: The Financial Action Task Force was established in 1989 and has 39 members. It sets global standards on anti-money laundering.
• 2023 amendments to PMLA:
  • Defines Politically Exposed Persons (PEPs) for enhanced due diligence.
  • Virtual digital assets (cryptocurrencies) brought under PMLA coverage.
  • Beneficial ownership threshold lowered from 25 per cent to 10 per cent.
  • Non-profit organisations must register on the DARPAN portal.
  • Money laundering is now treated as a standalone offence rather than only a predicate to another crime.
• Key bail provision controversy: PMLA requires an accused to demonstrate they are not guilty and not likely to reoffend before bail is granted. This reverses the normal presumption of innocence. The Punjab and Haryana High Court ruled that ordinary courts may grant bail without satisfying these special conditions in certain circumstances.
• Landmark Supreme Court cases:
  • Nikesh Tarachand Shah (2018): Struck down the existing bail provision as violating Articles 14 and 21.
  • 2022 ruling: Upheld the Enforcement Directorate's arrest and seizure powers.

Static linkage: fundamental rights, judiciary, financial crimes.

GS area: Polity (elections), Social Justice

The Election Commission deployed bilingual Braille signage (English and Tamil) at thirty Assembly constituency booths in Puducherry for the 2024 Lok Sabha elections.

Key facts:

• Rule 49N of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961: Permits a visually impaired voter to bring a companion of their choice to assist in voting. The Braille option removes the need for a companion.
• ECI accessibility measures in 2024:
  • Home voting for citizens above 85 years and persons with disabilities with 40 per cent or more disability.
  • SVEEP (Systematic Voters' Education and Electoral Participation) outreach.
  • Proposed Remote Electronic Voting Machine (RVM) for migrant workers.
  • Postal ballot for special voters and service voters.

Static linkage: elections, rights of persons with disabilities, Election Commission.

GS area: Physical Geography (oceanography)

Southern and central Kerala experienced coastal inundation from swell waves, unusual for the April season.

Key facts:

• Definition: Swell waves are ocean waves that have travelled far from the region where they were generated by wind. They are smoother and more uniform than locally generated waves.
• Kallakkadal: The Tamil term for this phenomenon, used along the Kerala coast. It means "calm-sea flooding."
• Mechanism: Swells generated by distant storms (sometimes thousands of kilometres away) retain energy and can cause coastal flooding even in calm local weather.
• Coastal impact: Inundation, erosion, and damage to fishing infrastructure.
• Season significance: Swell events in April are unusual because the southwest monsoon-associated rough seas are still weeks away.

Static linkage: oceanography, coastal geography, India (Kerala coast).

GS area: Physical Geography (Earth science), Science and Technology

Scientists announced that a negative leap second, which was to be subtracted from Coordinated Universal Time in 2026, has been delayed to 2029 or later.

Key facts:

• Positive leap second: Added when Earth's rotation slows down. Twenty-seven positive leap seconds have been added since 1972.
• Negative leap second: Would be subtracted when Earth's rotation speeds up enough to get ahead of atomic time.
• Why now: Earth's core has been spinning slightly faster than expected. This would normally require a negative leap second.
• The delay: Accelerated melting of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets is redistributing mass toward the equator, which slows Earth's rotation slightly. This counteracts the core's spin-up and pushes the need for a negative leap second to 2029 or later.
• Coordinated Universal Time (UTC): The global standard for civil time, kept by atomic clocks and adjusted by leap seconds.

Static linkage: physical geography (Earth's rotation), climate change effects.

GS area: Internal Security, International Relations

Indian authorities rescued hundreds of Indian nationals from Cambodia who had been trafficked into cyber-scam operations under false job promises.

Key facts:

• Cyber-slavery: A form of modern trafficking where victims are lured with false employment offers and forced to run online scams: romance frauds, crypto investment frauds, and money laundering.
• Cambodia: Located in Southeast Asia. Angkor Wat, the largest stone temple complex in the world from the Khmer Empire, is its most prominent historical landmark. The Mekong River flows through the country.
• Scale in 2024: Hundreds of Indians were recovered. The MEA coordinated evacuations with local authorities.
• Organised crime link: These operations are run by criminal syndicates that control compounds in border zones. Workers cannot leave and are subjected to violence if they fail to meet scam targets.
• Trafficking law: The Trafficking in Persons Protocol (Palermo Protocol, 2000) under the UN Convention Against Transnational Organised Crime is the key international instrument.

Static linkage: internal security, India's diaspora, international law.

GS area: Environment, Science and Technology

The National Information System for Climate and Environment Studies (NICES) operates under ISRO and the Department of Space in collaboration with other ministries.

Key facts:

• Conceptualisation: 2012.
• Framework: National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC).
• Purpose: Generate long-term Essential Climate Variables (ECVs) from Indian and international Earth observation satellites.
• Focus areas: Space-based ECVs, climate indicators, weather extremes, and climate change challenges across India.
• The programme contributes to India's obligations under the UNFCCC and supports state climate action plans.

Static linkage: ISRO, climate change, environment.

GS area: Science and Technology, Environment

The Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary in Delhi is using plant tissue culture to produce saplings of threatened or rare native tree species.

Key facts:

• Tissue culture (micropropagation): Growing plant cells, tissues, or organs in a sterile artificial environment. A single cell can regenerate an entire plant.
• Advantage: Produces genetically identical plants in large numbers quickly, preserving rare species that cannot be propagated easily by seed.
• Asola Bhatti Wildlife Sanctuary: Located at the southern edge of Delhi, in the Aravalli ridge zone. It is one of the few wildlife sanctuaries within a major Indian city.
• Animal tissue culture, by contrast, maintains isolated cells or organs for biomedical research including disease study.

Static linkage: biotechnology, biodiversity conservation, Delhi.

• Cardamom crisis in Kerala: Drought caused large-scale damage to cardamom plantations. Cardamom (Elettaria cardamomum) grows in the ginger family at elevations of 600 to 1,500 metres with high rainfall. ICAR recommended foliar application of PPFM bacteria to reduce disease incidence in stressed plants.
• World's most powerful MRI brain scan: Researchers in France achieved brain imaging with a resolution equivalent to a few thousand neurons using a scanner with a 4-minute scan time.
• Ozone on Callisto: An international team including researchers from the Physical Research Laboratory Ahmedabad found evidence of ozone on Jupiter's moon Callisto, formed when sulphur dioxide ice reacts under ultraviolet light.