India Singapore link payment services (GS Paper 3, Economy)
Why in news?
- Recently, the Prime Minister of India and Singapore participated in the virtual launch of real time payment linkage between the Unified Payments Interface (UPI) of India and PayNow of Singapore.
- Singapore is the first country with which cross border Person to Person (P2P) payment facility has been launched.
Salient features:
- This will help the Indian diaspora in Singapore, especially migrant workers/students and bring the benefits of digitalisation and FINTECH to the common man through instantaneous and low-cost transfer of money from Singapore to India and vice-versa.
- Acceptance of UPI payments through QR codes is already available in selected merchant outlets in Singapore.
UPI-based payment ecosystem:
- The UPI-based payment ecosystem has witnessed significant attention recently. In January, the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) enabled international (phone) numbers to be able to transact using UPI.
- Later, the Union Cabinet chaired by PM Modi approved incentivisation schemes for promoting low-value BHIM-UPI transactions in FY 2022-23.
- In February 2023, PhonePe, launched support for the “UPI international” payments, allowing Indian users travelling abroad to pay foreign merchants using UPI.
- In the third quarter of 2022, India recorded over 23.06 billion digital payments worth ₹38.3 lakh crore. Out of these, UPI-based transactions amounted to ₹32.5 lakh crore in value.
First synchronised vulture survey
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Why in news?
- The Kerala Forest and Wildlife Department, with its counterparts in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, is preparing to organise the first synchronised vulture survey in select regions of the Western Ghats on February 24, 25 and 26.
Background:
- Every year the Forest Departments in the three States were organising separate surveys at different times to count the remaining vulture population in South India. But this often resulted in duplications.
Key Highlights:
- The survey would simultaneously be organised in the three forest divisions, including the Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, and the South and North forest divisions.
- It will be conducted after dividing the Wayanad landscape, where the bird species are frequently sighted, into 10 locations.
Vulture population:
- Wayanad Wildlife Sanctuary, contiguous to the tiger reserves of Nagarhole and Bandipur of Karnataka and Mudumalai of Tamil Nadu, is the lone region where vultures thrive in Kerala.
- The sanctuary harbours nearly 120-150 white-rumped vultures and less than 25 red-headed vultures.
- The occasional sightings of long-billed vultures have also been reported in the sanctuary.
Threats:
- Vultures faced a catastrophic population decline during the 2000s when the species was exposed to the anti-inflammatory drug diclofenac used as a painkiller for cattle.
- South Asia had about four crore white-rumped vultures until the end of the nineties. But the population has come down to less than 10,000.
Children have the right to protect their genetic data: SC
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Why in news?
- Recently, the Supreme Court has held in a judgment that children cannot be mechanically subjected to DNA tests in each and every case between warring parents as a short-cut to establish proof of infidelity.
- The judgment came in a petition filed by a man who questioned his second child’s paternity.
Key Highlights of the judgement:
- It emphasized that “a child’s genetic information is part of his fundamental right to privacy”.
- Besides, mechanical orders allowing DNA tests would also harm the reputation and dignity of the mother.
- Family courts should direct for a DNA test only in expedient situations and in the interest of justice, as a last resort.
- Children have the right not to have their legitimacy questioned frivolously before a court of law. This is an essential attribute of the right to privacy.
- Courts are, therefore, required to acknowledge that children are not to be regarded like material objects, and be subjected to forensic/DNA testing, particularly when they are not parties to the divorce proceeding. It is imperative that children do not become the focal point of the battle between spouses.
Rights of privacy, autonomy and identity:
- Justice Nagarathna drew attention to the rights of privacy, autonomy and identity recognised under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child.
- The Convention acknowledges the control that individuals, including children, have over their own personal boundaries and the means by which they define who they are in relation to other people. Children are not to be deprived of this entitlement to influence and understand their sense of self simply by virtue of being children.
