Montreal Protocol

• Protocol of Vienna Convention: Protection of the Ozone Layer,1985
• To cut down 99% of all ozone-depleting substance (ODS)
• India (1992)

Ozone layer

• Stratosphere, 
• absorbs UV rays
• 16 September 

Kigali Agreement

• 2016 (entered into force in 2019)
• 80% reduction in HFCs consumption by 2047.

Ozone-depleting substance (ODS)

• CFCs
• halons
• methyl bromide
• bromochloromethane

CFCs

• harmful for the Ozone layers
• Use: Refrigerators, AC, Fire extinguishers, foams

HFCs

• do not harm Ozone Layer 
• Causing global warming

United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change(UNFCC)

• Rio Earth Summit (1992) and into force(1994)
• India: Member
• Kyoto Protocol
• Paris Climate Agreement

Global Methane Pledge

• United States and EU
• India is not a Member
• COP26 (2021)
• reduce methane emissions by at least 30% below 2020 levels by 2030.

Earth Surface Mineral Dust Source Investigation (EMIT) Mission

• NASA
• Related to Methane
• helped to identify more than 50 super-emitters of methane gase

Intergovermental Panel On Climate Change(IPCC)

• 1988
• World Meterological Organization (WMO) and UNEP
• India is a Member
• Nobel Prize (2007)

Report

• Assessment Reports
• Special Reports
• Methodology reports

Directive Principles of State Policy (DPSP)

• Part IV
• Articles 36 to 51
• Borrowed from Irish Constitution (Copied from Spanish Constitution)
• Instrument of Instructions (GOI Act, 1935)
• Concept of  "Welfare State"
• Non-Justiciable
• Aim at establishing social and economic  democracy

Amendments

42nd CAA, 1976

• Article 39 (Children)
• Article 39A (Equal Justice, free legal Aid)
• Article 43A (workers)
• Article 48A (Environment and Wildlife)

44th CAA, 1978

• Article 38 (Inequalities in Income)

86th CAA, 2002

• Article 45 to Article 21A (Elementary Education)

97th CAA, 2011

• Article 43B (Co-operative Societies)

Cases

Champakam Dorairajan (1951)

• FR Should Prevail over DPSP (Ruled By SC)
• Parliament: 1st CAA 1951, 4th CAA 1955, 17th CAA 1964

Golaknath Case (1967)

• Court: FR can not be amended for the  implementation of the DPSP
• Parliament: 24th CAA 1971, 25th CAA 1971
• 24th CAA 1971: Parliament has the power to take away any of the FR by Enacting the CAA
• 25th CAA 1971: Article 39(b) and (c) prevails over Article 19,14 and Article 31, No Judicial Review

Kesavananda Bharti Case (1971)

• Basic Structure (Not Defined in the Constitution)
• 25th CAA 1971: Judicial Review

Minerva Mills Case (1980)

British In India

• 1600: Royal Charter: Elizabeth I
• 1608: Hawkin : Jahangir
• 1613: Jahangir : 1st Trading post at Surat
• Broach, Ahemdabad, Agra
• 1715: John Surman: Mughal emperor Farrukhsiyar : Farmans: valuable privilaeges in Bengal, Gujarat and Hyderabad.
• 
  

1st Carnetic War (1740-48)

• duplex and Lawrence
• No result

2nd Carnetic War (1749-54)

• Treaty of Pondicherry (1754)

Battle of Plassey (1757)

• Robert Clive led the Company's army against the Siraj-udda-ulah at Plassey
• Company Won the Battle
• Reason for defeat: Mir Jafar was on EIC Side
• EIC 1st victory in the Indian Subcontinent

Battle of Wandhiwash (1760)

• British and French
• 3rd Carnatic war
• Eyre Coote and de Lally
• Treaty of Paris (1763)
• Part of Seven Years War

Battle of Buxar (1764)

Land Settlement Reforms

• Why?? 
• They needed a permanent source of income and reforms in the agriculture sector to improve its revenue

Permanent Settlement (1793)

• Cornwallis
• Sunset Law
• Rajas and taluqdars were recognised as zamindars
• Amount was fixed permanently
• Anyone who failed to pay the revenue losses his zamindari under the act

Mahalwari System (1822)

• Holt Mackenzie
• NWP of Bengal
• Mahal means Village
• Village headman was given the responsibility
• Amount was not fixed

Ryotwari System

• Thomas Munro
• Southern India
• Direct collection of Land Revenue

Jyotedar

• Rich class peasants consolidated their position in the villages.
• They controlled local trade as well as moneylending, exercising immense power over poorer cultivator of the region
• Called as Havaldars, Gantidars or Mandals

Annexation Policies

Doctrine of Lapse

• Dalhousie
• Satara (1848), Udaipur (1852) Jhansi and Nagpur (1854)
• Eight States

Subsidiary Alliance

• Wellesley

Policy of Ring Fence

• Warren Hastings
• Buffer zone 
• The British were safeguarding their territories at the expense of their neighbouring ally states

Citizenship

 Two well known Principles,

• 'Jus Soli': Citizenship on the basis of place of birth 
• 'Jus Sanguinis':  Basis on blood relation ~> Rejected by Constituent Assembly

Indian Constitution

• Union List
• Constitution does not define the "Citizen"
• Details in the Part II (Article 5 to 11)
• Single Citizenship (e.g. UK)

Article 11

• It empowers Parliament to make any provision wrt the acquisition and termination of citizenship and all matters relating to it.

Acquisition

• By Birth
• By descent
• Registration 
• Naturalisation

Citizenship Act, 1955

• Act has been amended 5 times: 1986, 2003, 2005, 2015 and 2019

Section 6A

• Only applicable to Assam

Swami Vivekananda

• 12th January, 1863 -  161st birth anniversary
• National Youth Day
• 1893: Maharaja Ajit Singh of the Khetri State: Vivekananda
• Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose had called him "the maket of modern India"
• Neo-Vedanta
• World Parliament of Religion in Chicago in 1893
• Swami Vivekananda talked about the four pathways of attaining moksha from worldly pleasure and attachment in his books. Which is Karma Yoga, Bhakti Yoga, Raja Yoga and Jnana Yoga.

Organisations

• Ramakrishna Mission (1897)
• Belur Math, West Bengal (1899):  He died here in 1902 

“Arise! Awake! And stop not until the goal is reached.”

 “Where can we go to find God if we cannot see Him in our own hearts and in every living being.”

“Ask nothing; want nothing in return. Give what you have to give; it will come back to you, but do not think of that now.”

“All the powers in the universe are already ours. It is we who have put our hands before our eyes and cry that it is dark.”

Doctrine of Basic Structure

• Kesavananda Bharati v State of Kerala 1973
• a 13-judge Constitution Bench ruled that the ‘basic structure’ of the Constitution could not be amended by Parliament.
• Origin: German Constitution
• Constitution does not defined "Basic Structure"

Pravasi Bharatiya Diwas (PBD)

• 17th edition, Indore, Madhya Pradesh

Why Celebrated?

• January 9 was selected as it was the date when Mahatma Gandhi returned to India from South Africa in 1915.

The Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award

Rare earth elements

 a set of 17 chemical elements in the periodic table — the 15 lanthanides, plus scandium and yttrium.

• The 17 rare earths are cerium (Ce), dysprosium (Dy), erbium (Er), europium (Eu), gadolinium (Gd), holmium (Ho), lanthanum (La), lutetium (Lu), neodymium (Nd), praseodymium (Pr), promethium (Pm), samarium (Sm), scandium (Sc), terbium (Tb), thulium (Tm), ytterbium (Yb), and yttrium (Y).
• One of the rare earths, promethium, is radioactive.

Kiruna mine in Sweden, where the deposits have been found.

Article 239AA

• 69th Amendment Act, 1991
• S Balakrishnan Committee 1987

Space Mission

 Juice mission

• European Space Agency (ESA)
• Jupiter Icy  Moons Explorer mission in April 2023
• Moons: Europa, Ganymede and Callisto.

Russia’s Luna 25 mission

• Moon 
• July 2023

Ispace’s Hakuto R mission, Rashid Rover

• ispace
• Japanese Space Technology
• the Hakuto lander launched in December 2022, it is only expected to reach the Moon by April 2023

Savitribai Phule

• January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra’s Naigaon village
• Along with Jyotirao, Savitribai started the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (‘Home for the Prevention of Infanticide’) for pregnant widows facing discrimination.
• In 1873, the Phules set up the Satyashodhak Samaj (‘Truth-seekers’ society’)
• Savitribai became involved in relief work during the 1896 famine in Maharashtra and 1897 Bubonic plague.
• breathed her last on March 10, 1897.

Source: The Indian Express

Archaeological Survey of India (ASI)

• 1861
• Canning
• Union Ministry of Culture

The Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act (AMASR Act) regulates the preservation of monuments and archaeological sites of national importance.

Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis)

• found only in the Brahmaputra valley, parts of North Bengal, and parts of southern Nepal.

IUCN  Status

• Indian rhino is listed as vulnerable.
• It was earlier placed in the endangered category

 September 22, World Rhino Day, in 2021

Green Bonds

• issue Sovereign Green Bonds (SgrBs) worth Rs 16,000 crore.
• issued by any sovereign entity, inter-governmental groups or alliances and corporates with the aim that the proceeds of the bonds are utilised for projects classified as environmentally sustainable.
• Framework issued by the government on November 9, 2022.

Green Hydrogen Mission

Prime Minister Narendra Modi had first announced the National Green Hydrogen Mission (NGHM) in his Independence Day speech in 2021.

Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE)

• to promote the development of green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 million metric tonnes (MMT) per annum with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 gigawatts (GW) by 2030.

A mission outlay of Rs 19,744 crore was cleared by the Union Cabinet

• Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels is called grey hydrogen
• Hydrogen generated from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage options is called blue hydrogen
•  hydrogen generated using electrolysers powered by renewable power sources is called green hydrogen

Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition (SIGHT)

Mahatma Gandhi

• 2nd October, 1869 Porbandar (Gujarat)
• Gandhi Peace Prize
• International day of Non-Violence 
• 30 January, 1930: Martyrs' Day

South Africa

• 1893-1915
• Satyagrah
• 1899-1902: The Boer War: Awarded the Queen's South Africa Medal for serving the British Empire
• Phoenix (Durban)
• Tolstoy Farm (Johanessburg)
• 1911: Gopal Krishan Gokhale (Political Guru)  Visited South Africa
• Viceroy Hardinge

9th January, 1915: Return to India: Pravasi Bharatiya Divas

Satyagraha Movements

• 1916: Champaran (Bihar): 1st CDM, Rajkumar Shukla, Problems of Indigo Planters, Tinkatiya System (3/20), Rajendra Prasad, Anugrah Sinha
• 1917: Kheda (Gujarat): 1st NCM, Sardar Patel, Indulal Yagnik
• 1918: Ahemdabad (Gujarat): Mill Workers: 1st hunger Strike, Anusuiya Sarabai
• 1919: Nationwide Satyagraha against the Rowlatt Act (1919)
• 13 April,1919: Jallianwalla Bagh: Called off the Movement
• 1920: Non-Cooperation Movement: Calcutta Session: Support Khilafat
• Dec 1920: Nagpur Session: Non-Cooperation Movement Addopted
• 1922: Withdrwa the NCM after the Chauri Chaura Incident
• 1930: Salt March: Civil Disobedience Movement: Sabarmati to Dandi
• 1931: Gandhi Irwin Pact: Called off CDM: 2nd Round Table Conferenece
• 1934: Relaunched CDM
• 1942: The Quit India Movement

Social Work

• Poona Pact (1932): Dr B.R. Ambedkar
• The Hindustani Prachar Sabha (1942) at Wardha (Maharastra)

Books

• Hind Swaraj
• My Experiments with Truth

News Paper

• Harijan (Gujarati)
• Indian Opinion (South Africa)
• Young India (English)

"I cannot possibly bear the idea that a man who has got wealth should get the vote but a man who has got character but no wealth or literacy should have no vote, or that a man who honestly works by the sweat of his brow day in and day out should not have the vote for the crime of being a poor man…".

Millet

United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) adopted a resolution to declare 2023 as the International Year of Millets.