• The Labour Day is celebrated to commemorate the happenings of May 4, 1886, the Haymarket affair (Haymarket Massacre) in the Chicago.
• In India, the first celebration of the Labour Day was organised in Madras (now Chennai) by the Labour Kisan Party of Hindustan on May 1, 1923.

Know! more about labour day

• The Labour Day was observed across the world on May 1, 2019. The day is also known as International Worker's Day and May Day.
• The day is celebrated by the working classes and is promoted by the international labour movement, socialists and communists.
• Over 90 countries, including North Korea, celebrate Labour Day on May 1 as a national holiday.

Know! about the Haymarket affair (Haymarket Massacre)

• It was a big event as workers were on the general strike for their eight-hour workday and police were doing their job of dispersing the general public from the crowd.
• Suddenly, a bomb was thrown over the crowd and police started firing over the workers and four demonstrators were killed.
• It was due to the sacrifice of these workers that eight-hours were declared as the legal time for the workers in the National Convention at Chicago in 1884 by the American Federation of Labor.
• To commemorate this event, the Second International, a pan-national organisation of socialist and communist political parties, marked 1 May as the Labour Day in 1891.

Environment Conservation

Environment Ministry constitutes committee to implement National Clean Air Programme
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about environment ministry initiatives and about NCAP) + Mains ( GS III environment conservation)

The National Clean Air Programme aims to tackle the increasing air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner.

What's the NEWS

• The Union Environment Ministry has constituted a new committee to implement the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), which aims to cut pollution in the 102 worst affected cities by 20-30 percent by 2024.
• The committee will be chaired by the Secretary in the Union Environment Ministry. Its members will include the Joint Secretary (Thermal), Ministry of Power, TERI Director General and Professor Sachidananda Tripathi from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur.

• The committee would be headquartered in New Delhi and its key role will include ensuring inter-ministerial organisation and cooperation, sharing information and resolving issues that could arise between ministries.
• The committee would also give overall guidance and directions to effectively implement the programmes.

• The National Clean Air Programme (NCAP), launched by the Union Environment Minister on January 10, 2019 is a time-bound national level strategy for pan India implementation to tackle the increasing air pollution problem across the country in a comprehensive manner.
• The main objective of the programme is comprehensive mitigation actions for prevention, control and abatement of air pollution besides augmenting the air quality monitoring network across the country and strengthening the awareness and capacity building activities.
• The National Clean Air Program (NCAP) aims to cut pollution in the 102 worst affected cities by 20-30 percent by 2024, taking 2017 as the base year for the comparison of PM concentration.
• The programme will be a mid-term, five-year action plan with 2019 as the first year.

Main Features of NCAP:

• Increasing number of monitoring stations in the country including rural monitoring stations
• Providing technology support
• Placing emphasis on awareness and capacity building initiatives
• Setting up of certification agencies for monitoring equipment, source apportionment studies, emphasis on enforcement and specific sectoral interventions

• The Smart Cities program will be used to launch the NCAP in the 43 smart cities falling in the list of the 102 non-attainment cities.
• The NCAP is envisaged to be dynamic and will continue to evolve based on the additional scientific and technical information as they emerge.
• The NCAP will be institutionalised by respective ministries and will be organised through inter-sectoral groups, which include Ministry of Road Transport and Highway, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, Ministry of Heavy Industry, Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, Ministry of Agriculture, Ministry of Health, NITI Aayog, CPCB, experts from the industry, academia and civil society.

• Air pollution is one of the biggest global environmental challenges of today. India is home to the world's 14 most polluted cities, according to the World Health Organisation.
• Currently, the cities occupy just 3 per cent of the land, but contribute to 82 per cent of GDP and are responsible for 78 per cent of carbon dioxide emissions.

Miscellaneous Facts
Oldest human footprint found in Chile

Relevance IN - Prelims ( about the discovery)

What's the NEWS

• Scsearchers claimed that fossil can reveal new findings about human colonisation of Patagonia. New discoveries were published in the latest edition of the peer-reviewed scientific journal PLOS One.
• It was originally excavated in year 2010, after long research researchers have now ruled out animals and have confirmed that it belongs to a male adult human.
• The footprint was found at the Pilauco excavation site in the city of Osorno in south-central Chile where scientists have been digging since 2007.

Environment conservation
Green Car Loan launched by SBI
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about green car loan)

What's the NEWS

• State Bank of India (SBI) has recently launched India's first ‘Green Car Loan' to encourage customers to buy electric vehicles.

• Green Car Loan is part of its environment friendly commitment towards building a cleaner and greener environment. With this initiative, SBI has become India's first bank to offer a loan specifically for electric cars.
• With this initiative SBI believes that Green Car Loan scheme would act as a change agent in auto loan segment and encourage customers to switch to electric vehicles which can improve overall air quality and lower carbon emissions.
• The bank also became the first major Indian organisation, along with Wipro, to join the Climate Group's EV100 initiative for accelerating the roll-out of electric vehicles worldwide.
• The new scheme will offer loan at 20 basis points lesser than the interest rate on the existing car loan schemes.
• SBI Green Car Loan (Electric Vehicle) scheme, which comes with the longest repayment period of up to eight years, is a strategic inclusion to the bank's auto loan segment offered with zero processing fees for the first six months of the launch.

Know! the benefits

• This initiative of SBI will encourage government's agenda for making India free of vehicles which run on petrol and diesel. 
• In line with Government of India's pledge of ensuring 30% electric vehicles on the road by 2030, SBI has already announced 100% migration towards electric vehicles by 2030 to reduce carbon footprints.

International Affairs
US President Trump announces to withdraw from UN Arms Trade Treaty
Relevance IN - Prelims ( about UN Arms trade treaty)

What's the NEWS

• President Donald Trump rejected the United Nations' 2013 Arms Trade Treaty aimed at regulating the global arms trade.
• Trump said that the US Senate never ratified the 2013 Arms Trade Treaty despite his predecessor Barack Obama having endorsed it. The US President also made it clear that he will never ratify the treaty.

• The 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) came into effect in December 2014 after over 65 countries of the world signed it on June 3, 2013.
• The treaty was discussed at the global conference from in July 2012 in New York, however, no agreement was reached at that time.
• Finally, on April 2, 2013, the Arms Trade Treaty was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly.
• The UN General Assembly endorsed the Arms Trade Treaty on a vote of 154 to 3. While some countries were absent, the only nations opposed to the ATT were Iran, North Korea, and Syria.
• The treaty seeks to regulate the flow of weapons into conflicted zones. It requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that can be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians.
• So far, while 130 countries have originally signed the treaty, only 101 ratified and joined it.
• The world's largest arms traders including the United States, China and Russia have not joined the treaty.

Objective of Arms Trade Treaty

• The treaty creates requirements for all the countries to review the cross-border contracts in order to make sure that these weapons would not be used for the illegal purposes such as organised crimes, human rights abuses, violation of humanitarian law as well as terrorism.

• With these sanctions, Pakistan is the latest to join the list of 10 nations imposed with sanctions under the US Immigration and Nationality Act according to which countries refusing to take back deportees and visa over-stayers will be denied American visas.
• Ghana and Pakistan have been included in the list this year. The other countries include Guyana in 2001; Gambia in 2016; Cambodia, Eritrea, Guinea, and Sierra Leone in 2017; Burma and Laos in 2018.
• Under Section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, the US Secretary of State is required to discontinue with the granting of immigration or non-immigrant visas to a nation upon receiving notice that the country has denied or is delaying accepting citizen, subject or resident of that country.
• The section 243 (d) of the Immigration and Nationality Act was used only twice before 2017; however, after coming to power, the Trump Administration has been effectively using this provision on many countries, including Pakistan.
• For some countries, sanctions began by targeting officials who work in the ministries responsible for accepting the return of that country's nationals and then sanctions escalated to other categories of applicants if initial move did not prove effective at encouraging cooperation from the targeted government.

Consider the following statement about Arms trade treaty
1. The 2013 Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) came into effect in December 2014 after over 65 countries of the world signed it on June 3, 2013.
2. The treaty seeks to regulate the flow of weapons into conflicted zones. It requires member countries to keep records of international transfers of weapons and to prohibit cross-border shipments that can be used in human rights violations or attacks on civilians.
3. So far, while 130 countries have originally signed the treaty, only 101 ratified and joined it.
4. The world's largest arms traders including the United States, China and Russia have recently joined the treaty.

Find the correct statement from the option given below
a. 1 2 and 3
b. 3 and 4
c. 1 3 and 4
d. 2 and 4

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