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  • Distribution of Fortified Rice under ICDS

    In a bid to combat chronic anaemia and undernutrition, the government is planning to distribute fortified rice through the Integrated Child Development Services and Mid-Day Meal schemes across the country.

    What is Fortified Rice?

    • Rice can be fortified by adding a micronutrient powder to the rice that adheres to the grains or spraying of the surface of ordinary rice grains with a vitamin and mineral mix to form a protective coating.
    • Rice can also be extruded and shaped into partially precooked grain-like structures resembling rice grains, which can then be blended with natural polished rice.
    • Rice kernels can be fortified with several micronutrients, such as iron, folic acid and other B-complex vitamins, vitamin A and zinc.
    • These fortified kernels are then mixed with normal rice in a 1:100 ratio, and distributed for consumption.

    Note: Biofortification is the process by which the nutritional quality of food crops is improved through agronomic practices, conventional plant breeding, or modern biotechnology. It differs from conventional fortification in that Biofortification aims to increase nutrient levels in crops during plant growth rather than through manual means during the processing of the crops.

    What was the earlier initiative?

    • The centrally-sponsored pilot scheme was approved in February 2019 for a three-year period from 2019-20 onwards.
    • However, only five States — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh — have started the distribution of fortified rice in their identified pilot districts.

    Need for expansion

    • Currently, there are only 15,000 tonnes of these kernels available per year in the country.
    • To cover PDS, anganwadis and mid-day meals in the 112 aspirational districts, annual supply capacity would need to be increased to about 1.3 lakh tonnes.
    • To cover PDS across the country, 3.5 lakh tonnes of fortified kernels would be needed.

    Regulating fortification

    • FSSAI has formulated a comprehensive regulation on fortification of foods namely ‘Food Safety and Standards (Fortification of Foods) Regulations, 2016’.
    • These regulations set the standards for food fortification and encourage the production, manufacture, distribution, sale and consumption of fortified foods.
    • The regulations also provide for the specific role of FSSAI in promotion for food fortification and to make fortification mandatory.
    • WHO recommends fortification of rice with iron, vitamin A and folic acid as a public health strategy to improve the iron status of population wherever rice is a staple food.

    Back2Basics: Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS)

    • The ICDS aims to provide food, preschool education, primary healthcare, immunization, health check-up and referral services to children under 6 years of age and their mothers.
    • The scheme was launched in 1975, discontinued in 1978 by the government of Morarji Desai, and then relaunched by the Tenth Five Year Plan.
    • The tenth FYP also linked ICDS to Anganwadi centres established mainly in rural areas and staffed with frontline workers.
    • The ICDS provide for anganwadis or day-care centres which deliver a package of six services including:
    1. Immunization
    2. Supplementary nutrition
    3. Health checkup
    4. Referral services
    5. Pre-school education (Non-Formal)
    6. Nutrition and Health information

    Implementation

    • For nutritional purposes, ICDS provides 500 kilocalories (with 12-15 grams of protein) every day to every child below 6 years of age.
    • For adolescent girls, it is up to 500-kilo calories with up to 25 grams of protein every day.
    • The services of Immunisation, Health Check-up and Referral Services delivered through Public Health Infrastructure under the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare.

  • Punjab Connection of the Irish freedom movement

    Ireland is commemorating 100 years of the mutiny by a British Army battalion stationed in Jalandhar and Solan in Punjab in support of the Irish freedom movement.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.With reference to the Indian freedom struggle, consider the following events:

    1. Mutiny in Royal Indian Navy
    2. Quit India Movement launched
    3. Second Round Table Conference

    What is the correct chronological sequence of the above events?

    (a) 1-2-3

    (b) 2-1-3

    (c) 3-2-1

    (d) 3-1-2

    Irish mutiny in India

    • The Connaught Rangers were raised during the British Army reforms of 1881.
    • A British Army battalion belonging to the Connaught Rangers was the one in which Irish soldiers mutinied in Jalandhar and Solan in Punjab.
    • Solan now lies in Himachal Pradesh but in 1920 it was part of Punjab. The Ist Battalion of the Connaught Rangers was stationed in Jalandhar since January 1920 after it had taken part in the First World War.

    Why did the mutiny take place?

    • The troops were protesting against the behaviour of the ‘Black and Tans’ during the Irish War of Independence (1919-22).
    • The Black and Tan were members of the Irish constabulary which had been recruited from Great Britain and mostly comprised demobilized soldiers who had fought in the First World War.
    • The Irish soldiers felt that they must rise in solidarity with their compatriots back in Ireland and hence in June and July 1920 some of the regiment’s men mutinied.
    • Some of the mutinied soldiers were later put through a court-martial.

    Who were the Black and Tans?

    • They were constables recruited into the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) as reinforcements during the Irish War of Independence.
    • Recruitment began in Great Britain in January 1920 and about 10,000 men enlisted during the conflict.
    • The vast majority were unemployed former soldiers from Great Britain who fought in the First World War, although some were from Ireland.

  • Reinforcing the RBI’s accountability

    Inflation targeting and legal provisions

    • The inflation target, notified in August 2016, is 4%.
    • The upper tolerance level was set at 6% and the lower tolerance level at 2%.
    • Inflation was 6.7% in the January-March quarter, 6.6% in the April-June quarter and 6.9% in the July-September quarter.
    • Breaching limits for any three consecutive quarters constitutes a failure to achieve the inflation target.
    • In such an event, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) is required to send a report to the Centre, stating the reasons for the failure to achieve the inflation target, the remedial actions it proposes to initiate, and an estimate of the time-period within which it expects to achieve the inflation target through the corrective steps proposed.
    • Through amendments passed by Parliament in 2016, these new provisions were written into the RBI Act.
    • They are aimed at ensuring enhanced transparency and accountability of the central bank.

    Reason given by the RBI for missing the target

    • The normal data collection exercise of the National Statistics Office was disrupted during the lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
    • The minutes of the Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) meeting after its August policy review suggest that the RBI’s defence for the breach of the 4% inflation target and 6% upper tolerance limit was the handicap of data limitations.

    Issues with the reason given by the RBI

    • The range around the inflation target that the Ministry provided to the RBI is for accommodating constraints and challenges like data limitations.
    • The whole point of the range around the target, the statement emphasised, is that it “accommodates data limitations, projection errors, short-run supply gaps and fluctuations in the agriculture production”.

    Way forward

    • RBI should be made to explain what it plans to do to control inflation.
    • The central bank should be allowed to state expressly what support by way of government policy it needs to meet the inflation target.
    • This can only strengthen the RBI’s hand; it should not let go of the opportunity to reinforce the MPC framework.

    Conclusion

    Transparency can enable more informed decision-making within the government, greater public scrutiny of the RBI’s performance, and an improved inflation-targeting regime. To slack off on it would be to compromise with the credibility, transparency and predictability of monetary policy.

  • Explained: Malabar Exercise

    Phase 1 of the Malabar Naval Exercise has kicked begun with the participation of Australian navy for the first time since 2007.

    Go through the list for once. UPSC may ask a match the pair type question asking exercise name and countries involved.

    [Prelims Spotlight] Defence Exercises

    What is Malabar Exercise?

    • It is a multilateral naval exercise that includes simulated war games and combat manoeuvres.
    • It started in 1992 as a bilateral exercise between the Indian and US navies. Japan joined in 2015.
    • This year the exercise will be held in two phases, the first from Tuesday off the coast near Visakhapatnam, and the second in the Arabian Sea in mid-November. Last year it was held in early September off the coast of Japan.

    Major highlight: Quad Participation

    • For the first time in over a decade, the exercise will see the participation of all four Quad countries.
    • This will be the second time Australia will participate. In 2007, there were two Malabar Exercises.
    • The first was held off Okinawa island of Japan in the Western Pacific — the first time the exercise was held away from Indian shores — and the second in September 2007.
    • The following year, Australia stopped participating. Japan became a regular participant only in 2015, making it a trilateral annual exercise since then.

    Why is Australia’s participation important?

    • The 2+2 dialogue ended with an agreement to uphold the rules-based international order, respect for the rule of law and freedom of navigation in the international seas and upholding the territorial integrity and sovereignty of all states.
    • As the standoff in eastern Ladakh continues, the participation of four large navies from the Indo-Pacific region will send a message to China.
    • It was the possibility of riling up China that had prevented India from expanding the Malabar Exercise, and from Australia joining it.

    Quad is an exception

    • Over the last few months, the Indian Navy has conducted a number of Passage Exercises (PASSEX) with navies from Japan, Australia and the US.
    • But those were basic exercises to increase operability between the navies, while Malabar involves simulated war games.

  • What is Army Aviation Corps?

    The Army Aviation Corps (AAC), the youngest Corps of the Indian Army, has celebrated its 35th Corps Day.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q. Discuss why high-altitude warfare is challenging. Also, discuss India’s preparedness for a long-term war.

    The Army Aviation Corps

    • The origin of the AAC can be traced back to the raising of the Army Aviation wing of the Royal Air Force in India in 1942, and the subsequent formation of the first Indian Air Observation Post in August 1947.
    • The Air Observation Post units primarily acted as artillery spotters – which are the elements that help the artillery in directing the fire and also giving air support to ground forces.
    • In the wars of 1965 and 1971, the Air Observation Post helicopters played a key role in the battlefields by flying close to the enemy lines and helping ground assets spot targets.
    • The Corps was raised as a separate formation on November 1 in 1986. The AAC now draws its officers and men from all arms of the Army, including a significant number from the artillery.

    Significant battles

    • Immediately after raising, the units of the Corps were pressed into action in Operation Pawan by the Indian Peacekeeping Forces, in the mostly jungle areas of Sri Lanka.
    • Ever since AAC helicopters have been an inseparable part of fighting formations in all major conflict scenarios and a life-saving asset in peace times.

  • Who was Maharani Jindan Kaur?

    Maharani Jindan Kaur, the last wife of Maharaja Ranjit Singh, is in news for the auction of some of her jewellery in London.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Consider the following Bhakti Saints:

    1. Dadu Dayal
    2. Guru Nanak
    3. Tyagaraja

    Who among the above was/were preaching when the Lodi dynasty fell and Babur took over?

    (a) 1 and 3

    (b) 2 only

    (c) 2 and 3

    (d) 1 and 2

    Who was Rani Jindan (1817-1863)?

    • She was the youngest wife of Ranjit Singh, founder of the Sikh empire, whose boundaries stretched from Kabul to Kashmir and the borders of Delhi.
    • She was also the mother of Duleep Singh, the last ruler of the empire, who was raised by the British.
    • Duleep Singh was five years old when he was placed on the throne in 1843 after the death of two heirs to Ranjit Singh. Since he was just a child, Maharani Jindan was made the regent.
    • Not a rubber stamp, she took an active interest in running the kingdom, introducing changes in the revenue system.

    Anglo-Sikh War and Jindan

    • The British declared war on the Sikh empire in December 1845. After their victory in the first Anglo-Sikh war, they retained Duleep Singh as the ruler but imprisoned Jind Kaur.
    • She escaped and arrived at Kathmandu on April 29, 1849, where she was given asylum by Jung Bahadur, the prime minister.
    • She was given a house on the banks of river Bhagmati. She stayed in Nepal till 1860, where she continued to reach out to rebels in Punjab and Jammu-Kashmir.

  • The shifting trajectory of India’s foreign policy

    The article analyses the impact of India’s growing engagement with the U.S. on relations on India’s foreign policy.

    What signing of  BECA mean

    • The centrepiece of the third 2+2 dialogue was the signing of the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geo-Spatial Cooperation.
    • With the signing of BECA, India is now a signatory to all U.S.-related foundational military agreements.
    • Built into the agreements are provisions for a two-way exchange of information.
    • India had signed the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA), in 2016, and the Communications, Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), in 2018.
    • By appending its signature to BECA, India is in a position to specifically receive sensitive geo-spatial intelligence.
    • The foundational military pacts effectively tie India to the wider U.S. strategic architecture in the region.

    Issues with signing BECA

    • With the signing of these agreements, India’s claims of maintaining strategic autonomy will be doubtful.
    • By signing BECA, India has signed on to becoming part of the wider anti-China ‘coalition of the willing’ led by the U.S.
    • By signing on to BECA at this juncture, India has effectively jettisoned its previous policy of neutrality, and of maintaining its equi-distance from power blocs.

    Impact on relations with China

    • China-India relations have never been easy.
    • Since 1988, India has pursued, despite occasional problems, a policy which put a premium on an avoidance of conflicts with China.
    • This will now become increasingly problematic as India gravitates towards the U.S. sphere of influence.
    • India’s willingness to sign foundational military agreements with the U.S. would suggest that India has made its choice, which can only exacerbate already deteriorating China-India relations.

    Impact on the relations in the region

    • India needs to pay greater attention at this time to offset its loss of influence in its immediate neighbourhood (in South Asia), and in its extended neighbourhood (in West Asia).
    • Sri Lanka, Nepal and Bangladesh, normally perceived to be within India’s sphere of influence, currently seem to be out of step with India’s approach on many issues.
    • At the same time, both China and the U.S. separately, seem to be making inroads and enlarging their influence here.
    • The Maldives, for instance, has chosen to enter into a military pact with the U.S. to counter Chinese expansionism in the Indian Ocean region.
    • India needs to ensure that the latest UAE-Israel linkage does not adversely impact India’s interests in the region.
    • India must also not rest content with the kind of relations it has with Israel, as Tel Aviv has its own distinct agenda in West Asia.
    • Furthermore, India needs to devote greater attention to try and restore India-Iran ties which have definitely frayed in recent years.

    India’s role in Afghanistan

    • India must decide on how best to try and play a role in Afghanistan without getting stuck.
    • India had subscribed to an anti-Taliban policy and was supportive of the Northern Alliance (prior to 2001).
    • The new policy that dictates India’s imperatives today, finds India not unwilling to meet the Taliban.
    • India must decide how a shift in policy at this time would serve India’s objectives in Afghanistan, considering the tremendous investment it has made in recent decades to shore up democracy in that country.

    India’s role in SCO and NAM

    • SCO, which has China and Russia as its main protagonists — and was conceived as an anti-NATO entity — will test India’s diplomatic skills.
    • Even though India currently has a detached outlook, vis-à-vis the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and has increasingly distanced itself from the African and Latin American group in terms of policy prescriptions, matters could get aggravated, following India’s new alliance patterns.
    • It would be a rude awakening for India, if it is seen as no longer a stellar member of NAM.

    Impact on relations with Russia

    • The impact of India signing on to U.S.-related foundational military agreements, cannot but impact India-Russia relations.
    • India-Russia relations in recent years have not been as robust as in the pre-2014 period, but many of the edifices that sustained the relationship at optimum levels, including annual meetings between the Russian President and the Indian Prime Minister have remained.
    • It is difficult to see how this can be sustained, if India is seen increasingly going into the U.S. embrace.
    • Almost certainly in the circumstances, India can hardly hope to count on Russia as a strategic ally.
    • This is one relationship which India will need to handle with skill and dexterity, as it would be a tragedy if India-Russia relations were to deteriorate at a time when the world is in a state of disorder.

    Consider the question “What are the implications of India’s signing of foundational military agreements with the U.S. for India’s relations with the other countries”

    Conclusion

    While India moves towards more robust engagement with the U.S., it must also consider impact of such move on the relations with the other countries.

     

  • What are Bulk Drugs Parks?

    Himachal Pradesh is one of the states vying for the allotment of a bulk drug park under a central government scheme announced earlier this year for setting up three such parks across the country.

    Try this question:

    Q.The drug pricing system in India is an indirect outcome of the growing dependence on China for APIs. Discuss.

    What are Bulk Drugs or APIs?

    • A bulk drug also called an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), is the key ingredient of a drug or medicine, which lends it the desired therapeutic effect or produces the intended pharmacological activity.
    • For example, paracetamol is a bulk drug, which acts against pain.
    • It is mixed with binding agents or solvents to prepare the finished pharmaceutical product, ie a paracetamol tablet, capsule or syrup, which is consumed by the patient.
    • APIs are prepared from multiple reactions involving chemicals and solvents.
    • The primary chemical or the basic raw material which undergoes reactions to form an API is called the key starting material, or KSM.
    • Chemical compounds formed during the intermediate stages during these reactions are called drug intermediates or DIs.

    Why is India promoting bulk drug parks?

    • India has one of the largest pharmaceutical industries in the world (third largest by volume) but this industry largely depends on other countries, particularly China, for importing APIs, DIs and KSMs.
    • This year, drug manufacturers in India suffered repeated setbacks due to disruption in imports.
    • Factories in China shut down when the country went into a lockdown, and later, international supply chains were affected as the Covid pandemic gripped the entire world.
    • The border conflict between India and China exacerbated the situation.

    What is the Centre’s scheme?

    • The Centre’s scheme will support three selected parks in the country by providing a one-time grant-in-aid for the creation of common infrastructure facilities.
    • The grant-in-aid will be 70 per cent of the cost of the common facilities but in the case of Himachal Pradesh and other hill states, it will be 90 per cent.
    • The Centre will provide a maximum of Rs 1,000 crore per park.
    • A state can only propose one site, which is not less than a thousand acres in area, or not less than 700 acres in the case of hill states.

    What does a bulk park offer?

    • A bulk drug park will have a designated contiguous area of land with common infrastructure facilities for the exclusive manufacture of APIs, DIs or KSMs, and also a common waste management system.
    • These parks are expected to bring down manufacturing costs of bulk drugs in the country and increase competitiveness in the domestic bulk drug industry.

    Why Himachal?

    • Himachal already has Asia’s largest pharma manufacturing hub, that is the Baddi-Barotiwala-Nalagarh industrial belt, and the state produces around half of India’s total drug formulations.
    • Himachal offers power and water at the lowest tariffs in the country, and the state also has an industrial gas pipeline.
    • It jumped nine places in this year’s ease-of-doing-business rankings declared by the Centre last month, securing the seventh position in the country.

  • Nyay Kaushal E-resource Centre

    CJI has inaugurated the first-ever e-resource centre and virtual court for traffic and transport to enable speedy justice for litigants, called ‘Nyay Kaushal’, at Nagpur.

    Must read edition:

    [Burning Issue] Judiciary in Times of COVID-19 Outbreak

    Nyay Kaushal Centre

    • It is a first of its kind e-resource centre in India that will facilitate electronic filing of cases in the Supreme Court, High Courts and district courts across the country.
    • It is meant to be a step at mitigating various inequalities, being connected to the Supreme Court, the High Courts and the Taluka Courts.
    • It will provide the easiest way of filing court matters by utilising technology. It will provide benefits in saving time, avoidance of exertion, travelling long distances, and a saving in costs.
    • The virtual court will be working from Katol in Nagpur district.

    It’s working

    • The virtual court can deal with all traffic challan cases from every corner of Maharashtra online.
    • It will be possible for the litigants to pay the fine and get the traffic challan case disposed of with the click of a button on a smartphone or a computer.

    Why need such a mechanism?

    • The biggest problem that came with the pandemic was that access to justice became conditional on access to technology.
    • This has ended up creating a divide between the ones who can afford technology and ones who cannot.
    • With the aid of virtual courts, our system of justice does not suffer and the rule of law continues to be maintained.

  • Street Vendors in India

    Recently PM distributed loans to nearly 300,000 street vendors under the PM SVANidhi scheme.

    Q. Discuss how Street-vending accounts for significant non-agricultural urban informal employment in India. Also, discuss how the PM SVANidhi scheme will help street vendors.

    SVANidhi scheme

    • The SVANidhi ensures a working capital loan up to Rs 10,000 for vendors and rewards digital transactions.
    • All street vendors who have been in the business on or before March 24, 2020, are eligible to avail the benefits.
    • For this scheme launched in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Centre has earmarked a stimulus package of Rs 5,000 crore for nearly 50 lakh vendors.

    Street vendors in India

    • There are estimated 50-60 lakh street vendors in India, with the largest concentrations in the cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, and Ahmedabad.
    • Most of them are migrants who typically work for 10–12 hours every day on average. Anyone who doesn’t have a permanent shop is considered a street vendor.
    • According to government estimates, street-vending accounts for 14 per cent of the total (non-agricultural) urban informal employment in the country.
    • The sector is riddled with problems. Licence caps are unrealistic in most cities — Mumbai, for example, has a ceiling of around 15,000 licences as against an estimated 2.5 lakh vendors.
    • This means most vendors hawk their goods illegally, which makes them vulnerable to exploitation and extortion by local police and municipal authorities.

     

    Identifying street vendors

    • The Street Vendors (Protection of Livelihood and Regulation of Street Vending) Act, 2014 was enacted to regulate street vendors in public areas and protect their rights.
    • The Act defines a “street vendor” as a person engaged in vending of articles… of everyday use or offering services to the general public, in…any public place or private area, from a temporary built-up structure or by moving from place to place”.
    • The Act envisages the formation of Town Vending Committees in various districts to ensure that all street vendors identified by the government are accommodated in the vending zones subject to norms.