Explanation:

Background
The Committee of Experts on the Non-Personal Data Governance Framework headed by K Gopalakrishnan has recommended making privately held non-personal data “open”.
This has raised concerns about state interference in the private data ecoystem.
Importance of data collected by government agencies
The report is a missed opportunity to address the governance frameworks around data created by government agencies.
Some of the most important non-personal data sets are held by the government, or result from taxpayer funding.
Such data can be useful in either framing public policy or creating and providing new services.
Why government data should be open to citizens: 5 Reasons
First, the state should be transparent about information that it has. This will improve accountability.
Second, if taxpayer money has funded any of the data sets, then it is an obligation of the state to return the fruits of that funding to the taxpayer.
Third, by permitting the reuse of government data sets, we avoid the need for duplication.
Fourth, government data sets, curated according to publicly verified standards, can lead to increased confidence in data quality and increased usage.
Finally, free flow of information can have beneficial effects on society in general.
Government policies promoting openness of data
The Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, mandates the disclosure of government data on a suo moto basis.
One of the nine pillars of the Digital India Policy is “information for all”.
The National Data Sharing and Accessibility Policy (NDSAP), 2012 requires all non-sensitive information held by public authorities to be made publicly accessible in machine readable formats (subject to conditions).
The government has also set up an Open Government Data Platform to provide open access to data sets held by ministries and other agencies of the government.
Various States have also either created their own data portals or have provided data sets to the Open Government Data Platform.
Challenges in making the data open to society
There are two reasons for our failure to create an open data-based society.
The first is lack of clarity in some of the provisions of the NDSAP or the relevant implementation guidelines.
The second is the inability to enforce guidelines appropriately.
Data sets released by governments are often inconsistent, incomplete, outdated, published in non-machine readable or inconsistent formats, include duplicates, and lack quality (or any) metadata, thereby reducing re-usability.
Issues with Gopalakrishnana Committee Report
The Gopalakrishnan Committee could have evaluated what is going wrong with existing policies and practice pertaining to government data.
The report is a missed opportunity to address the governance frameworks around non-personal data sets in a country created by government agencies, or those resulting from taxpayer money.
The report largely focuses on the dangers posed by data collection by private sector entities.
This has raised concerns about state interference in the private data ecosystem.
Many of the concerns that should be addressed in the report that are central to the governance of the data ecosystem have remained in the background.
For instance, India’s cybersecurity framework continues to be inadequate, while even the Justice B.N. Srikrishna Committee report of 2018 highlighted the need to restrict the growing power of the state to carry out surveillance.

Explanation:

What is Question Hour, and what is its significance?
Question Hour is the liveliest hour in Parliament. It is during this one hour that MPs ask questions of ministers and hold them accountable for the functioning of their ministries.
Prior to Independence, the first question asked of government was in 1893. It was on the burden cast on village shopkeepers who had to provide supplies to touring government officers.
The questions that MPs ask are designed to elicit information and trigger suitable action by ministries.
Over the last 70 years, MPs have successfully used this parliamentary device to shine a light on government functioning.
Their questions have exposed financial irregularities and brought data and information regarding government functioning to the public domain.
With the broadcasting since 1991, Question Hour has become one of the most visible aspects of parliamentary functioning.
And what is Zero Hour?
While Question Hour is strictly regulated, Zero Hour is an Indian innovation. The phrase does not find mention in the rules of procedure.
The concept of Zero Hour started organically in the first decade of Indian Parliament when MPs felt the need for raising important constituency and national issues.
During the initial days, Parliament used to break for lunch at 1 pm.
Therefore, the opportunity for MPs to raise national issues without an advance notice became available at 12 pm and could last for an hour until the House adjourned for lunch.
This led to the hour being popularly referred to as Zero Hour and the issues being raised during this time as Zero Hour submissions.
Its importance can be gauged from the support it receives from citizens, media, MPs and presiding officers despite not being part of the rulebook.

Explanation:

Mission Karmayogi
The mission is established under the National Programme for Civil Services Capacity Building (NPCSCB).
It is aimed at building a future-ready civil service with the right attitude, skills and knowledge, aligned to the vision of New India.
It is meant to be a comprehensive post-recruitment reform of the Centre’s human resource development, in much the same way as the National Recruitment Agency approved last week is pre-recruitment reform.
Why such a mission?
The capacity of Civil Services plays a vital role in rendering a wide variety of services, implementing welfare programs and performing core governance functions.
Major undertakings of the scheme
The scheme will cover 46 lakh, Central government employees, at all levels, and involve an outlay of ₹510 crores over a five-year period, according to an official statement.
The programme will support a transition from “rules-based to roles-based” HR management so that work allocations can be done by matching an official’s competencies to the requirements of the post.
Apart from domain knowledge training, the scheme will focus on “functional and behavioural competencies” as well, and also includes a monitoring framework for performance evaluations.
Eventually, service matters such as confirmation after probation period, deployment, work assignments and notification of vacancies will all be integrated into the proposed framework.
The capacity building will be delivered through iGOT Karmayogi digital platform, with content drawn from global best practices rooted in Indian national ethos.

Explanation:

The NCRB is an Indian government agency responsible for collecting and analyzing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL).
It is headquartered in New Delhi and is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
It was set-up in 1986 to function as a repository of information on crime and criminals so as to assist the investigators in linking crime to the perpetrators.
It was set up based on the recommendation of the Task-force 1985 and National Police Commission 1977.

Explanation: The Central Government had introduced the National Pension System (NPS) with effect from January 1, 2004 (except for armed forces). Then, the state governments adopted it. NPS is applicable to all new employees of the Central government (joined after January 1, 2004), all state government employees, any Indian citizens between the ages of 18 and 60 including NRIs.