Daily Prelims Booster 13th July 2023

1) Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991: The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to clarify its stand on the act by October 2023.

• The Act prohibited the conversion of any place of worship and provided for the maintenance of its religious character of any place of worship as existed on the 15th of August 1947.
• Exemptions: 
  • Archaeological sites covered by the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act, of 1958. 
  • Ayodhya Land dispute was also exempted.

2) North Atlantic Treaty Organisation: Turkey is opposing Sweden’s bid to join the grouping.

• HQ: Brussels, Belgium.
• Genesis: NATO was established in 1949 by the Washington Treaty.
• Objective and Functions:
  • Established as a military alliance, against the then USSR in the European region;
  • Works on Collective defence principle;
  • Derives its authority from Article 51 of the UN charter.
• Significance of NATO:
  • Promotes democratic values and encourages cooperation between member countries;
  • Played a crucial role in crisis management in the region;
  • Helped to maintain peace and stability in the region among member countries.
• Membership:
  • A willing country to join the grouping is admitted after being uniformly agreed by all the members;
  • Currently, it has 31 members and Finland was the last country to join.

3) De-Dollarisation: Bangladesh and India launched the trade transaction in rupees, a step towards de-dollarization.

• De-Dollarisation refers to countries reducing their reliance on the US dollar, and advancing trade and economics. reserves in their currency or alternate resources.
• It will strengthen regional currency and trade. 
• Also, both countries will gradually adopt the Bangladeshi currency ‘Taka’ for trade. 
• The exchange rate will be fixed in line with market demand and banks involved in the process.

4) Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC): Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will implement interoperability between central bank digital currency (CBDC) and United Payments Interface (UPI).

• In 2022, RBI launched CBDC, known as the Digital Rupee (e₹) which has generally components based on blockchain technology (public ledger).
  • It is being issued in the same denominations as paper currency and coins. 
  • It is being distributed through financial intermediaries, i.e., the banks.
• Users will be able to transact with e₹- R through a digital wallet offered by the banks.

5) Samarth (Scheme For Capacity Building In the Textile Sector): Recently, the empanelment of 43 new implementing partners and an additional target of training around 75,000 beneficiaries have been done under the scheme.

• It is a demand-driven and placement-oriented umbrella skilling programme of the Ministry of Textiles.
  • The implementation period of the scheme is extended up to March 2024.
  • Objectives:
    • To provide a demand-driven, placement-oriented skilling programme.
    • To promote skilling and skill up-gradation in the traditional sectors.
    • A centralized web-based Management Information System (MIS) has been placed.