Current Affairs 30 September 2022 – IAS Current Affairs

Current Affairs 30 September 2022 focuses on Prelims-Mains perspective. Major events are :

Ban on Popular Front of India

Source: Indian Express
GS II: National Security and Challenges

What is discussed under Ban on Popular Front of India?

1. Popular Front of India (PFI)
2. Why is PFI Controversial?
3. About the Ban
4. Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act

Why in News?

• For close connections to terror funding, the central government banned the Popular Front of India (PFI) and its fronts for five years.
• The judgement was made under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA), following a week in which security authorities launched nationwide raids and detained scores of persons associated with PFI in different states.

Popular Front of India (PFI)

• The PFI was founded in 2006.
• It identifies itself as a non-governmental social organisation whose declared goal is to work for the poor and disadvantaged people of the nation and to combat injustice and exploitation.
• The PFI was formed after the National Development Front (NDF), a contentious organisation founded in Kerala a few years after the Babri mosque was destroyed in 1992, united with two other southern organisations.
• Over the next few years, it grew in size as new organisations from around India amalgamated with it.
• Currently, the PFI, which has a major presence in Kerala and Karnataka, is active in more than 20 Indian states and claims to have hundreds of thousands of cadre members.

Why is PFI Controversial?

• The government has charged the organisation and its members with:

  

  • Crimes against the state
  • Creating enmity amongst different sections of society
  • Taking attempts to destabilise India
• The PFI initially came to public attention in 2010 following an attack on a college lecturer in Kerala.
  • Although the PFI distanced itself from the suspects, a court convicted several of its members for the attack.
• Members of the organisation were also linked to the beheading of a Hindu man in the western state of Rajasthan.
• Police in the eastern state of Bihar reported a few months ago that the organisation had allegedly disseminated a manifesto calling for India to become an Islamic republic.
• In 2018, PFI supporters were accused of stabbing to death a leader of the left-wing Students Federation of India (SFI) in the Kerala coastal city of Ernakulam.

About the Ban

• The government claims it has banned the PFI and its affiliate groups for allegedly engaging in illegal acts that are harmful to the country’s integrity, sovereignty, and security.
• It has noted the group’s suspected ties to banned Islamist organisations such as:
  • Students Islamic Movement of India (Simi)
  • Jamat-ul-Mujahideen Bangladesh (JMB)
  • Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS)

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana

Source: Hindu
GS II: Policies and Developmental Studies

What is discussed under Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana?

1. Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKAY)
2. Challenges

Why in News?

• The government extended by three months its programme to offer free food to the needy at a cost of over Rs 44,700 crore, as it aimed to relieve the suffering of high inflation.
• This was valid till September 30, 2022.

Pradhan Mantri Garib Kalyan Yojana (PMGKAY)

About

• The government of India introduced a free rationing system known as the PMGKAY.
• The initiative is important for those who lost their employment because of the Covid-19 outbreak and who work in the informal economy.
• It supplied rice and wheat to 36 states and UTs through September 2022.
• It was begun earlier in 2020 with the goal of providing 5 kg of food grains to each person per month.
• The National Food Security Act (NFSA) benefits around 80 crore people.

Phases

• Phase I

  

  • When the scheme was first introduced in 2020-21, it was only accessible for three months April, May, and June 2020.
• Phase II
  • The following phase lasted from July to November 2020.
• Phase III
  • To deal with the aftermath of the epidemic, the government reinstated the free rationing system from May to June 2021.
• Phase IV
  • And was extended for another five months till November 2021.
• Phase V
  • Later in Phase V, the rationing programme was extended until March 2022, and then again until September 30, 2022.
• The entire spending has now surpassed Rs 3.40 lakh crore.
• The PMGKAY initiative provides these food grains at a heavily subsidised rate of Rs 2-3 per kilogramme.
• The government shall have spent a total of 1,000 lakh tonnes of free food grains under this plan by the end of Phase VI.

Challenges

• The beneficiaries of the National Food Security Act are determined by the most recent census (2011).
  • Since then, the number of food-insecure people has risen, and they continue to go unnoticed.
• It is exceedingly costly for the government to support, which raises the demand for a plentiful supply of inexpensive grains.
  • In 2022, India was forced to limit wheat and rice exports due to irregular weather, which pushed up food costs and shook global agricultural markets.
• It might threaten the government’s goal of further reducing the fiscal deficit to 6.4% of GDP.
• The program’s choice may have an impact on inflation.
  • Rice and wheat prices are rising owing to poor output during a heatwave and patchy monsoon, which account for around 10% of India’s retail inflation.

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