Daily Current Affairs – 19 November 2022

Certain countries support terrorism as part of their foreign policy, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said at an international conference on terror financing
In an indirect reference to Pakistan and China, Mr. Modi said that certain countries offer political, ideological and financial support to terror groups and sometimes, there are indirect arguments made in support of terrorism to block action against terrorists.
Pakistan is not participating in the conference while China did not send a delegation.

The Centre’s significantly shortened and revised draft Bill on personal data protection proposes a hefty increase in penalty amounts up to Rs 500 crore, while also easing rules on cross-border data flows, in a big relief for large tech firms.
The revised draft — now called The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, 2022 — comes just over three months after its earlier avatar was withdrawn from Parliament by the Central government.

About Personal Data Protection Bill & Its Major Challenges

The Personal Data Protection Bill, 2019was introduced in Lok sabha by the Minister of Electronics and Information Technology, on December 11, 2019.
Commonly referred to as the “Privacy Bill”, it intended to protect individual rights by regulating the collection, movement, and processing of data that is personal, or which can identify the individual.

Challenges:
- Many contend that the physical location of the datais not relevant in the cyber world as the encryption keys may still be out of reach of national agencies.
- National security or reasonable purposes are open-ended and subjective terms, which may lead to intrusion of the state into the private lives of citizens.
- Technology giants like Facebook and Google are against it and have criticised the protectionist policy of data localisation as they are afraid it would have a domino effect in other countries as well.
  - It had been opposed by social media firms, experts and even ministers, who said that it had too many loopholes to be effective and beneficial for both users and companies.
  - Also, it may backfire on India’s own young startup that are attempting global growth, or on larger firms that process foreign data in India.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched the country’s from its spaceport in Sriharikota, about 115 kms from Chennai.
Vikaram-S is India’s first privately developed rocket.

The six-meter tall rocket is one of the world’s first few all-composite rockets that has 3-D printed solid thrusters for spin stability of the launch vehicle, a Skyroot functionary said.
The launch of the rocket is expected to demonstrate flight proving of avionics systems in the Vikram series like telemetry, tracking, inertial measurement, Global Positioning System, on-board camera, data acquisition, and power systems.
India’s space regulator IN-SPACe on Wednesday authorised the launch of Skyroot’s Vikram-S sub-orbital vehicle.
The Vikram-S suborbital flight will carry three payloads of Chennai-based start-up SpaceKidz, Andhra Pradesh-based N-SpaceTech and Armenian BazoomQ Space Research Lab.
Vikram-S will soar to an altitude of 81 km after its launch from Satish Dhawan Space Centre. The launch vehicle has been named so as a tribute to the father of the Indian Space programme, the late Vikram Sarabhai.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the month-long Kashi Tamil Sangamam at the amphi theatre ground of the Banaras Hindu University in Varanasi on Saturday.
Speaking on the occasion, Prime Minister said that the Kashi-Tamil confluence is as holy as Ganga-Yamuna Sangam.
More than 2,500 delegates from Tamil Nadu are visiting Varanasi and will participate in seminars and visit to interact with local people of similar trade, profession and interest.
“The promotion of the idea of ‘Ek Bharat Shreshtha Bharat’ has been one of the major focus areas of the government guided by the vision of the Prime Minister.
In yet another initiative reflecting this vision, ‘Kashi Tamil Sangamam’, a month-long programme, is being organised in Kashi (Varanasi)
The objective of the programme is to celebrate, reaffirm and rediscover the age-old links between Tamil Nadu and Kashi – two of the country’s ancient seats of learning.
A month-long exhibition of handlooms, handicrafts, ODOP products, books, documentaries, cuisine, art forms, history, tourist places etc of the two regions will also be put up in Kashi.
The endeavour is in sync with NEP 2020’s emphasis on integrating the wealth of Indian knowledge systems with modern knowledge.
IIT Madras and BHU are the two implementing agencies for the programme.

Source: THE HINDU