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  • UGC norms to setup Foreign Universities in India

    foreign universities

    The University Grants Commission (UGC) has unveiled draft regulations for ‘Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India’.

    Quest for Foreign Universities in India: A quick recap

    • The government had in 1995 drafted the Foreign Education Bill which had to be shelved.
    • Another attempt was made in 2006, but the draft law could not cross the Cabinet stage.
    • Then in 2010, the UPA-2 government brought the Foreign Educational Institutions Bill, which failed to get enough support in the Parliament.
    • The bill lapsed in 2014 as UPA lost power.
    • The New Education Policy, 2020 allows for establishment of foreign university campuses in India.

    Procedure for Universities coming to India

    • The process for getting approval for setting up a campus in India will be strictly online in the beginning. Interested institutions have to apply at the UGC portal with a non-refundable fee, and then submit some documents.
    • After the applications are received, a committee formed by the Commission will examine these applications on these factors:
    1. Credibility of the institution
    2. Programmes to be offered by the institution
    3. Their potential to strengthen academic opportunities in India
    4. Proposed infrastructure

    UGC (Setting up and Operation of Campuses of Foreign Higher Educational Institutions in India) Regulations 2023: Key questions answered

    • UGC approval compulsory: All foreign universities that wish to set up their campus in India will be allowed to do so only after getting approval from the UGC.
    • Reputed institutions: To set up a campus in Indian foreign universities will either have to be in the top 500 to apply or will have to be “highly reputed” in their respective countries (if the varsity does not participate in global rankings). If their ranking is between 500 and 100, but the subject-wise ranking is higher than overall, then in such cases, the institutions will be permitted to set up their campuses only for those ranked subjects.
    • Quality assurance: Additionally, the UGC will reserve the right to inspect these Indian campuses of foreign HEIs at any time, and they will not be outside the purview of anti-ragging and other criminal laws.
    • Offline classes only: All the foreign universities that open their branches in India will be allowed to conduct offline classes only, i.e. foreign universities can offer only full-time programmes in physical mode.
    • Freedom to choose admission process, fee, and faculty: All foreign varsities will have the freedom to come up with their own admission process. However, the universities will have to ensure “quality of education imparted at their Indian campuses is on par with their main campus.”
    • Admissions to all: Foreign higher educational institutes will have the freedom to enroll Indian as well as international students on their Indian campuses.
    • International funds transfer: To ensure that there is no chaos in funds transfer, all matters related to funding will be as per the Foreign Exchange Management Act 1999.
    • Safeguarding of students’ interest: FHEI shall not discontinue any course or programme or close the campus without the commission’s prior approval. In the case of a course or programme disruption or discontinuation, the parent entity shall be responsible for providing an alternative to the affected students.
    • Equivalence with degrees awarded by Indian HEIs: The qualifications awarded to the students in the Indian campus shall be recognised and treated as equivalent to the corresponding qualifications awarded by the FEHI in the main campus located in the country of origin.
    • Securing India’s national interest: FEHIs shall not offer any such programme or course which jeopardises the national interest of India or the standards of higher education in India. The operation of FEHIs shall not be contrary to the sovereignty and integrity of India, the security of the state, friendly relations with foreign states, public order, decency, or morality.

    Why such move?

    • Increase in domestic enrolment: India has more than 1000 universities and 42,000 colleges. Despite having one of the largest higher education systems in the world, India’s Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) in higher education is just 27.1%, among the worlds’ lowest.
    • Education quality improvement: The lack of quality in Indian education is reflected in the QS World University Rankings 2022. IIT Bombay was the top-ranking Indian institute in the list with a ranking of 177. Only eight Indian universities made it to the top 400.
    • Paving the way: London Business School, King’s College in London, the University of Cambridge, and New York University have started preliminary discussion with the GIFT City authorities and the regulator to establish facilities at the GIFT International Financial Services Centre.

    Benefits of the move

    • Human capital generation: This move would complement efforts to provide high quality human capital to India’s financial services industry.
    • Decreased overseas spending: Indian students’ overseas spending is set to grow from current annual $28 billion to $80 billion annually by 2024.
    • Reduce FOREX spending: Apart from fostering a competition in quality, International branch campuses can also help in reducing the foreign exchange outflow.
    • Prevents brain-drain: Education attracts opportunities. Atmanirbhar Bharat push will retain the domestic talent. More than eight lakh Indians gave up their citizenship in the last seven years.
    • Increase India’s soft power: Opening the door for foreign universities can improve India’s soft power as it will provide further impetus to the government’s Study in India programme that seeks to attract foreign students.

    Challenges

    • Regulatory challenges: The following factors may deter foreign higher educational institutions from investing in India-
    1. Multi-layer regulatory framework governing different aspects of higher education
    2. Lack of a single regulatory body overlooking the collaborations/ investments and
    3. Multiple approvals required to operate in India
    • Implementation issues: While NEP has taken the right steps to boost the education sector and pave the way for a globally-compatible education system, its implementation has been slow and requires clarity.
    • Higher possibility of Brain Drain: A policy challenge that stands before the GoI is to facilitate such tie-ups in a way that the Indian talent chooses to and is incentivised to remain in India and the Indian educational infrastructure is developed to match global standards.

    Conclusion

    • The intent of the GoI, with respect to international universities setting up campuses in India, is clear from the provisions in the NEP.
    • However, much clarity is awaited for the proper implementation.

     

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  • Census exercise postponed till September 2023

    census

    The decennial census exercise has been postponed till September, at least, as the government informed States that the date of freezing of administrative boundaries has been extended till June 30.

    What is the Census of India?

    • The decennial Census of India has been conducted 16 times, as of 2021.
    • While it has been undertaken every 10 years, beginning in 1872 under British Viceroy Lord Mayo, the first complete census was taken in 1881.
    • Post 1949, it has been conducted by the Registrar General and Census Commissioner of India under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
    • All the censuses since 1951 were conducted under the 1948 Census of India Act.
    • The last census was held in 2011, whilst the next was to be held in 2021. But it has been postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

    What is the purpose of the census?

    • To collect the information for planning and formulation policies for Central and the State Governments.
    • The census tells us who we are and where we are going as a nation.
    • It helps the government decide how to distribute funds and assistance to states and localities.
    • The census data is widely used by National and International Agencies, scholars, business people, industrialists, and many more.

    Why is the census important?

    • Vital statistics for governance: The census is the foundational database for official statistics and policymaking in a modern economy. Outdated census data makes block and district-level planning particularly difficult, since survey data do not offer that kind of high resolution.
    • Provides most credible statistics: Information on Demography, Economic Activity, Literacy and Education, Housing & Household Amenities, Urbanisation, Fertility and Mortality, SCs and STs, Language, Religion, Migration, Disability and many other socio-cultural and demographic data.
    • Delimitation/reservation of Constituencies: Parliamentary/Assembly/Panchayats and other Local Bodies are also done on the basis of the demographic data thrown up by the Census.
    • Administration: Census is the basis for reviewing the country’s progress in the past decade, monitoring the ongoing Schemes of the Government.
    • Planning the future: It provides pathways for planning and resolving problems, and fixing deficiencies. Government goes through analysis over the census data and formulates policies for the future accordingly.
    • Detailed accounts: The best of sample surveys find it impossible to beat a census as It carries the promise of counting each and every Indian. A census is when the state connects to every individual and it will find it hard to hide or duck from the data.
    • Welfare schemes: Identifying the actual beneficiaries, Census is the key to creating identity and affirming it over time. Census data enable neat, inter-temporal comparability.

    Impact of delay in census 2021

    (1) Discrepancies in PDS beneficiary identification

    • The National Food Security Act, 2013, says that 75% of the rural population and 50% of the rural population are entitled to receive subsidised food grains from the government under the targeted public distribution system (PDS).
    • Under the 2011 Census, India’s population was about 121 crore, hence PDS covered approximately 80 crore people.
    • If we apply projected population of 137crore ,current delay in Census data would continue to deprive more than 10 crore people of subsidised food entitlements, with the biggest gaps in Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with 2.8 crore and 1.8 crore projected exclusions respectively.

    (2) Poor targeting of beneficiaries for welfare schemes

    • Although the Government’s intent to use SECC data but failed at budgetary allocation for the projected expansion.
    • Census data may not be used to calculate the beneficiaries of most schemes, but it is critical to policy planning, budgeting and administration.
    • A number of schemes need to use the disaggregated age and fertility indicators to assess effectiveness as demographics change over time.

    (3) Identifying migration data

    • From the COVID19 lockdowns it is realized that the Numbers, causes and patterns of migration, which could not be answered using outdated 2011 Census data.
    • The D-tables on migration from the 2011 Census were only released in 2019, so it’s outdated by the time it came out.
    • Apart from the One Nation, One Ration card scheme which now allows for portability of food subsidy entitlements, the migration data is actually not used too much in broader economic policy and planning.

    Why there is delay in Census?

    • Administrative boundaries demarcation: As per norms, census can be conducted only three months after freezing of boundary limits of administrative units such as districts, sub-districts, tehsils, talukas etc.
    • COVID-19 Pandemic: The pandemic is being cited as the official reason for the delay, but it is an unconvincing excuse. Pandemic-related restrictions were removed long back.
    • CAA, NRC Issue: The Union government had declared that the 2021 census would be used to draw up an all-India NRC. The Centre is yet to frame the rules for Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
    • Lack of Political will: The Union government has shown no urgency in getting census operations back on track. When questioned about the delay, it refuses to clarify when the census might take place.

    Way forward

    • Complete Pre-census work: Conduct house-listing and other allied activites ASAP.
    • Digital census: The data collected through a mobile app will reduce the overall time taken to process the census data and to publish the results in time.
    • Self-enumeration: Allowing households to self-enumerate is a new initiative but it is unclear how successful it would be in terms of data quality and completeness of coverage.

    Conclusion

    • The Census of India has to be saved from needless disruptions and inexplicable delays.
    • Unless the census is insulated from day-to-day politics, the integrity of its data will be compromised.
    • The world’s largest democracy deserves clean and honest data.

     

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  • In news: Affordable Rental Housing Complexes

    A Parliamentary panel has asked the government to clarify how many of the 66 proposals received under the Affordable Rental Housing Scheme launched for the urban poor, especially migrant workers, during the COVID-19 pandemic have been approved by their respective local urban bodies.

    Affordable Rental Housing Scheme

    • AHRC is a sub-scheme under PM Awas Yojana – Urban.
    • Under the scheme, existing vacant government-funded housing complexes will be converted in ARHCs through Concession Agreements for 25 years.
    • The concessionaire will make the complexes livable by repair/retrofit and maintenance of rooms and filling up infrastructure gaps like water, sewer/ septage, sanitation, road etc.
    • States/UTs will select concessionaire through transparent bidding.
    • Complexes will revert to ULB after 25 years to restart next cycle like earlier or run on their own.

    Beneficiaries of the scheme

    • A large part of the workforce in manufacturing industries, service providers in hospitality, health, domestic/commercial establishments, and construction or other sectors, labourers, students etc. who come from rural areas or small towns seeking better opportunities will be the target beneficiary under ARHCs.

    Benefits of AHRCs

    • Usually, these migrants live in slums, informal/ unauthorized colonies or peri-urban areas to save rental charges.
    • They spend a lot of time on roads by walking/ cycling to workplaces, risking their lives to cut on the expenses.
    • ARHCs will create a new ecosystem in urban areas making housing available at affordable rent close to the place of work.
    • Investment under ARHCs is expected to create new job opportunities.
    • ARHCs will cut down unnecessary travel, congestion and pollution.

    Back2Basics: Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY)

    PMAY-Urban

    The PMAY- Urban Programme launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation (MoHUPA), in Mission mode envisions provision of Housing for All by 2022. The Mission seeks to address the housing requirement of urban poor including slum dwellers through following programme verticals:

    • Slum rehabilitation of Slum Dwellers with participation of private developers using land as a resource
    • Promotion of Affordable Housing for weaker section through credit linked subsidy
    • Affordable Housing in Partnership with Public & Private sectors
    • Subsidy for beneficiary-led individual house construction /enhancement.

    PMAY-Rural

    • In pursuance to the goal – Housing for all by 2022, the rural housing scheme Indira Awas Yojana has been revamped to Pradhan Mantri Awaas Yojana – Gramin and approved during March 2016.
    • Under the scheme, financial assistance is provided for construction of a pucca house to all houseless and households living in dilapidated houses.
    • It is proposed that one crore households would be provided assistance for construction of pucca house under the project during the period from 2016-17 to 2018-19.
    • The scheme would be implemented in rural areas throughout India except for Delhi and Chandigarh. The cost of houses would be shared between the Centre and States.

     

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  • Digital healthcare Services

    healthcare

    Context

    • India leveraged information and communications technologies (ICTs) during the pandemic. Digital health solutions played a crucial role in bridging the gap in healthcare delivery as systems moved online to accommodate contactless care.

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    India’s spectacular demonstration of digital public good (DPG) so far

    • Aadhar and UPI are like the building blocks of DPG: India has demonstrated its digital prowess by building digital public goods the digital identity system Aadhaar, the DPGs built on top of Aadhaar and the Unified Payments Interface.
    • Aadhar for PDS and UPI for payments: While Aadhaar has become central to India’s public service delivery architecture, UPI has transformed how payments are made.
    • One of the largest internet users: Our digital public infrastructure has reached the last mile, enabled by 1.2 billion wireless connections and 800 million internet users.
    • Some examples of DPGs developed during the pandemic: For instance, the Covid Vaccine Intelligence Network (CoWIN) and the Aarogya Setu application. CoWIN propelled India to adopt a completely digital approach to its vaccination strategy. Aarogya Setu provided real-time data on active cases and containment zones to help citizens assess risk in their areas.
    • Increasing use of Telemedicine platforms: Telemedicine platforms saw a steep increase in user acquisitions, as 85 per cent of physicians used teleconsultations during the pandemic, underscoring the need to better incorporate cutting-edge digital technologies into healthcare services.

    Acknowledging the current need?

    • Although the impact of the pandemic on health services put the spotlight on the benefits of digital innovation and technology-enabled solutions, private entities, health technology players, and the public sector have been driving digitisation in the sector for some time now.
    • It has become clear that a comprehensive digital healthcare ecosystem is necessary to bring together existing siloed efforts and move toward proactive, holistic, and citizen-centric healthcare.

    Government efforts in this direction?

    • Shared public goods for healthcare: Recognising this need, the government has created shared public goods for healthcare and developed a framework for a nationwide digital health system. This brought healthcare to a turning point in India.
    • Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission (ABDM): The PM launched the Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission on September 27, 2021, under the aegis of the National Health Authority. Within a year of its launch, ABDM has established a robust framework to provide accessible, affordable, and equitable healthcare through digital highways. The ABDM has implemented vital building blocks to unite all stakeholders in the digital healthcare ecosystem.
    • The Ayushman Bharat Health Account (ABHA): ABHA creates a standard identifier for patients across healthcare providers. With the ABHA and its associated Personal Health Record (PHR) app, citizens can link, store, and share their health records to access healthcare services with autonomy and consent. With more than 300 million ABHAs and 50 million health records linked, the mission is growing at a massive rate.
    • The Health Facility Registry (HFR) and the Health Professional Registries (HPR) for central digital health information: HFR and HPR accounts provide verified digital identities to large and small public and private health facilities and professionals. This enables them to connect to a central digital ecosystem while serving as a single source for verified healthcare provider-related information. HFR and HPR improve the discovery of healthcare facilities and help health professionals build an online presence and offer services more effectively. The
    • Drug registry for centralised repository of approved drugs: It is a crucial building block designed to create a single, up-to-date, centralised repository of all approved drugs across all systems of medicine.
    • Unified Health Interface (UHI) enables a connect between healthcare providers with end users: It aims to strengthen the health sector by enabling all healthcare service providers and end-user applications to interact with each other on its network. This will provide a seamless experience for service discovery, appointment booking, teleconsultations, ambulance access, and more. The UHI is based on open network protocols and can address the current challenge of different digital solutions being unable to communicate with each other.

    What the government is planning next in this domain?

    • To give UHI the necessary push, the government is repurposing Aarogya Setu and CoWIN: Aarogya Setu is being transformed into a general health and wellness application. At the same time, CoWIN will be plugged with a lite Hospital Management Information System (HMIS) for small clinics, to bring digitisation to the masses.
    • Addressing well the patient registration process at the hospital counters: Another use-case of ABDM is scan and share, which uses a QR code-based token system to manage queues at hospital counters. It uses the foundational elements of ABHA and PHR to streamline the outpatient registration process in large hospitals
    • Expanding healthcare digital initiative worldwide: The government is also planning to expand its digital initiatives in the healthcare sector with Heal by India, making India’s healthcare professionals’ services available worldwide.
    • Platform for organ donation: Additionally, a platform is being developed to automate the allocation of deceased organ and tissue donations, making the process faster and more transparent.

    Way ahead

    • Digitise insurance claim settlement process: With the implementation of digital solutions, the next step is to digitise and automate the insurance claim settlement process through the Health Claim Exchange platform.
    • Making claim settlement process inexpensive and transparent: There is need to make claim-related information verifiable, auditable, traceable and interoperable among various entities, enabling claim processing to become inexpensive, transparent and carried out in real time.
    • Bringing together global efforts for digital health: India assumes the G20 presidency this year. The G20 Global Initiative on Digital Health calls for the creation of an institutional framework for a connected health ecosystem to bring together global efforts for digital health.
    • Accelerating UHC by scaling up the technologies: It also calls for the scaling-up of technologies such as global DPGs to accelerate Universal Health Coverage.

    Conclusion

    • The ABDM has proven to be a valuable asset and its adoption across states has been accelerated by the National Health Authority. It aims to build the foundation for a sustainable digital public infrastructure for health, enabling India to achieve universal health coverage. The mission embodies G20’s theme of “Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam” or “One Earth. One Family. One Future”

    Mains question

    Q. India has demonstrated spectacular success in digital public goods, specifically in Digital health. Discuss how the government efforts are taking shape in this direction and suggest a way ahead in short.

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  • AI generative models and the question of Ethics

    AI

    Context

    • 2022 had an unusual blue-ribbon winner for emerging digital artists; Jason Allen’s winning work Théâtre D’opéra Spatial was created with an AI Generative model called Midjourney.

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    What is Midjourney?

    • Midjourney is an AI based art generator that has been created to explore new mediums of thought.
    • It is an interactive bot, which uses machine learning (ML) to create images based on texts. This AI system utilises the concepts and tries to convert them into visual reality.
    • It is quite similar to other technologies such as DALL-E 2.

    AI

    The journey of AI generative models so far

    • Midjourney generator: Midjourney is one of the rash of AI-generated Transformer or Generative or Large Language Models (LLMs) which have exploded onto our world in the last few years.
    • Earlier models: Models like BERT and Megatron (2019) were relatively small models, with up to 174 GB of dataset size, and passed under the collective public radar.
    • Composition skills of GPT3: GPT3, released by OpenAI with a 570 GB dataset and 175bn parameters was the first one to capture the public consciousness with some amazing writing and composition skills.
    • Models that creat images or videos based on texts: The real magic, however, started with Transformers which could create beautiful and realistic pieces of art with just a text prompt OpenAI’s DALL-E2, Google’s Imagen, the open-source Stable Diffusion and, obviously, Midjourney. Not to be left behind, Meta unleashed a transformer which could create videos from text prompts.
    • ChatGPT, a latest and more evolved, like real communication: Recently in late 2022 came the transformer to rule them all ChatGPT built on GPT3, but with capabilities to have real conversations with human beings.

    AI

    Are these models ethical?

    • Ethics is too complex a subject to address in one short article. There are three big ethical questions on these models that humanity will have to address in short order.
    1. Environmental: Most of the bad rap goes to crypto and blockchain, but the cloud and these AI models running on it take enormous amounts of energy. Training a large transformer model just once would have CO2 emissions equivalent to 125 roundtrips from New York to Beijing. This cloud is the hundreds of data centres that dot our planet, and they guzzle water and power at alarming rates.
    2. Bias; as it do not understand meaning and its implications: The other thorny ethical issue is that sheer size does not guarantee diversity. Timnit Gebru was with Google when she co-wrote a seminal research paper calling these LLMs ‘stochastic parrots’, because, like parrots, they just repeated a senseless litany of words without understanding their meaning and implications.
    3. Plagiarism, question of who owns the original content: The third prickly ethical issue, which also prompted the artist backlash to Allen’s award-winning work is that of plagiarism. If Stable Diffusion or DALL-E 2 did all the work of scouring the web and combining multiple images (a Pablo Picasso Mona Lisa, for example), who owns it. Currently, OpenAI has ownership of all images created with DALL-E, and their business model is to allow paid users to have rights to reproduce, paint, sell and merchandise images they create. This is a legal minefield the US Copyrights office recently refused to grant a copyright to a piece created by a generative AI called Creativity Machine, but South Africa and Australia have recently announced that AI can be considered an inventor.

    AI

    Do you know ChatGPT?

    • ChatGPT is a chatbot built on a large-scale transformer-based language model that is trained on a diverse dataset of text and is capable of generating human-like responses to prompts.
    • A conversation with ChatGPT is like talking to a computer, a smart one, which appears to have some semblance of human-like intelligence.

    What are the other concerns?

    • Besides the legal quagmire, there is a bigger fear: This kind of cheap, mass-produced art could put artists, photographers, and graphic designers out of their jobs.
    • Machine does not have human like sense: A machine is not necessarily creating art, it is crunching and manipulating data and it has no idea or sense of what and why it is doing so.
    • As it is cheap, corporate might consider using it at a large scale: But it can do so cheaply, and at scale. Corporate customers might seriously consider it for their creative, advertising, and other needs.

    Conclusion

    • Legal and political leaders across the world are sounding the alarm about the ethics of large generative models, and for good reason. As these models become increasingly powerful in the hands of Big Tech, with their unlimited budgets, brains and computing power, these issues of bias, environmental damage and plagiarism will become even more fraught. Such AI models should not be used to create chaos rather a harmonious existence.

    Mains question

    Q. Name some of the models of AI based art generators. Discuss the ethical concerns of such models.

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  • Centre clears National Green Hydrogen Mission

    hydrogen

    The Union Cabinet approved the National Green Hydrogen Mission, which is aimed at making India the global hub for the production of green hydrogen.

    What is Green Hydrogen?

    • Green hydrogen is hydrogen gas produced through the electrolysis of water.
    • It is an energy-intensive process for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen— using renewable power to achieve this.
    • The current cost of green hydrogen in India is ₹300 to ₹400 per kg.

    Green Hydrogen Mission

    • The National Hydrogen Mission was launched on August 15, 2021, with a view to cutting down carbon emissions and increasing the use of renewable sources of energy.
    • The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) will formulate the scheme guidelines for implementation.

    Key features

    • Power capacity: The mission seeks to promote the development of green hydrogen production capacity of at least 5 MMT per annum with an associated renewable energy capacity addition of about 125 GW in the country by 2030.
    • Job creation: It envisages an investment of over ₹8 lakh crore and creation of over 6 lakh jobs by 2030.
    • Reducing energy import bill: It will also result in a cumulative reduction in fossil fuel imports of over ₹1 lakh crore and abatement of nearly 50 MMT of annual greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.
    • Export promotion: The mission will facilitate demand creation, production, utilisation and export of green hydrogen.
    • Incentivization: Under the Strategic Interventions for Green Hydrogen Transition Programme (SIGHT), two distinct financial incentive mechanisms targeting domestic manufacturing of electrolysers and production of green hydrogen will be provided under the mission.
    • Green Hydrogen Hubs: Regions capable of supporting large-scale production and/or utilisation of hydrogen will be identified and developed as Green Hydrogen Hubs.

    Hydrogen Energy: A Backgrounder

    • Hydrogen is an important source of energy since it has zero carbon content and is a non-polluting source of energy in contrast to hydrocarbons that have net carbon content in the range of 75–85 per cent.
    • Hydrogen energy is expected to reduce carbon emissions that are set to jump by 1.5 billion tons in 2021.
    • It has the highest energy content by weight and lowest energy content by volume.
    • As per International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA), Hydrogen shall make up 6 per cent of total energy consumption by 2050.
    • Hydrogen energy is currently at a nascent stage of development, but has considerable potential for aiding the process of energy transition from hydrocarbons to renewable.

    Why hydrogen?

    • Better properties: At standard temperature and pressure, hydrogen is a nontoxic, nonmetallic, odourless, tasteless, colourless, and highly combustible diatomic gas.
    • Clean fuel: Hydrogen fuel is a zero-emission fuel when burned with oxygen. It can be used in fuel cells or internal combustion engines. It is also used as a fuel for spacecraft propulsion.
    • Ample sources: Hydrogen can be sourced from natural gas, nuclear power, biomass, and renewable power like solar and wind.
    • Phasing out carbon: India remains committed to environmental and climate causes with a massive thrust on deploying renewable energy and energy efficiency measures.
    • Diversification of our energy basket: This would be the key lever enabling this transition. That’s why the emergence of hydrogen at the centre stage is a welcome development.

    How Hydrogen can be produced?

    Commercially viable Hydrogen can be produced from –

    1. Hydrocarbons including natural gas, oil and coal through processes like steam methane reforming, partial oxidation and coal gasification
    2. Renewables like water, sunlight and wind through electrolysis and photolysis and other thermo-chemical processes.

    How is Green Hydrogen produced?

    • For source material, green hydrogen today is typically generated from water through a process known as electrolysis, which uses an electric current to split water into its component molecules of hydrogen and oxygen.
    • This is done using a device called an electrolyzer,  which utilizes a cathode and an anode (positively and negatively charged electrodes).
    • This process produces only oxygen – or steam – as a by-product.
    • As for energy supply, to qualify as “green hydrogen,” the source of electricity used for electrolysis must derive from renewable power, such as wind or solar energy.
    • Currently the production of green hydrogen is two or three times more expensive than blue hydrogen.

    How can green hydrogen be used?

    Hydrogen can be used in broadly two ways. It can be burnt to produce heat or fed into a fuel cell to make electricity.

    • Fuel-cell  Mobility: Hydrogen electric cars and trucks
    • Container ships powered by liquid ammonia made from hydrogen
    • “Green steel” refineries burning hydrogen as a heat source rather than coal
    • Hydrogen-powered electricity turbines that can generate electricity at times of peak demand to help firm the electricity grid

    Challenges in producing Green Hydrogen

    India’s transition towards a green hydrogen economy (GHE) can only happen once certain key issues are addressed.

    • Supply-Chain Issues: GHE hinges upon the creation of a supply chain, starting from the manufacture of electrolysers to the production of green hydrogen, using electricity from a renewable energy source.
    • Technology: Green hydrogen needs electrolysers to be built on a scale larger than we’ve yet seen.
    • Storage: Either very high pressures or very high temperatures are required, both with their own technical difficulties.
    • Explosion Hazard: It is hazardous because of its low ignition energy and high combustion energy.
    • Risk to use: Automotive fuels are highly inflammable, but a vehicle laden with hydrogen is likely to be more vulnerable in case of a major accident.
    • High Cost of Production: To become competitive, the price per kilogram of green hydrogen has to reduce to a benchmark of $2/kg. At these prices, green hydrogen can compete with natural gas.
    • Energy intensivity: Creating green hydrogen needs a huge amount of electricity, which means an enormous increase in the amount of wind and solar power to meet global targets.
    • Lack of proper infrastructure, only 500 Hydrogen stations exist globally. Only countable manufacturers are involved as market players in this technology.
    • Others: Low user acceptance and social awareness. Developing after-sales service for hydrogen technology.

    Policy and Economic Challenges

    • Economic sustainability: One of the biggest challenges faced by the industry for using hydrogen commercially is the economic sustainability of extracting green or blue hydrogen.
    • Technological challenges: The technology used in production and use of hydrogen like Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) and hydrogen fuel cell technology are at nascent stage.
    • Cost Factor: These technologies are expensive which in turn increases the cost of production of hydrogen and will require a lot of investment which in turn add fiscal pressure on government.
    • Higher Maintenance costs: Maintenance costs for fuel cells post-completion of a plant can be costly.
    • Need for legal and administrative adherence: Certification mechanisms, recommendations, and regulations for different components of the system.

    Way forward

    • Hydrogen energy is at a nascent stage of development but has significant potential for realizing the energy transition in India.
    • The new policy is a futuristic vision that can help the country not only cut down its carbon emissions but also diversify its energy basket and reduce external reliance.
    • India’s transition can be a testament to the world on the achievement of energy security, without compromising the goal of sustainable development.
    • The GoI must strongly pursue the objective of creating a GHE to make India a global manufacturing hub and place itself at the top of the green hydrogen export market.

  • What are Black Carbon Aerosols?

    black carbon

    Black carbon aerosols have indirectly affected the mass gain of the Tibetan Plateau glaciers by changing long-range water vapour transport from the South Asian monsoon region, a study has found.

    What are Black Carbon Aerosols?

    • Black Carbon (BC) aerosol, often called soot, is the dominant form of light absorbing particulate matter in the atmosphere.
    • They are emitted by incomplete combustion processes, both human (e.g., diesel engines) and natural (e.g., wildfire).
    • Its ability to absorb visible and infrared radiation means BC can heat the atmosphere and darken surfaces, specifically snow and ice.
    • These effects have important consequences on earth’s climate and climate change.
    • BC may also have adverse impacts on human health. Unlike long-lived greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, BC is removed from the atmosphere in 1-2 weeks, so its impacts tend to be more regional rather than global.

    Deposition over Himalayas

    • The South Asia region adjacent to the Tibetan Plateau has among the highest levels of black carbon emission in the world.
    • Many studies have emphasised black carbon aerosols from South Asia can be transported across the Himalayas to the inland region of the Tibetan Plateau.

    Impact on glaciers melting

    • Black carbon deposition in snow reduces the albedo of surfaces — a measure of how much of Sun’s radiations are reflected.
    • This accelerates the melting of glaciers and snow cover, thus changing the hydrological process and water resources in the region.
    • They heat up the middle and upper atmosphere, thus increasing the North-South temperature gradient.
    • As a result, precipitation in the central and the southern Tibetan Plateau decreases during the monsoon, especially in the southern Tibetan Plateau.
    • The decrease in precipitation further leads to a decrease of mass gain of glaciers.
    • From 2007 to 2016, the reduced mass gain by precipitation decrease accounted for 11% of the average glacier mass loss on the Tibetan Plateau and 22.1% in the Himalayas.

     

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  • Ministers’ Right to Free Speech and Issues

    minister

    The Supreme Court has held that there is no reason to impose “additional restrictions” on the right to free speech of Ministers and the government is not vicariously liable for disparaging remarks made by them, even if the comments are traceable to state affairs or meant to protect the government.

    Why are we discussing this?

    • Many politicians make unwarranted statements and tender an apology in return.
    • The PM or the CM does not have disciplinary control over the members of the Council of Ministers.
    • In a country like ours, where there is a multi-party system and where coalition Governments are often formed, it is not possible at all times for the whip to control the politician’s behavior.
    • A derogatory speech that closely resembles hate speech cannot fall within the ambit of the free speech right.

    Do ministers and lawmakers have absolute freedom of speech?

    • Scope: Ministers and lawmakers enjoy the freedom of speech and expression under Article 19(1) of the Constitution as other citizens and additional restrictions cannot be imposed to curb their right to free speech.
    • Restrictions: A five-judge Constitution bench held that curbs on free speech cannot extend beyond what is prescribed under Article 19(2) of the Constitution imposes reasonable restrictions and applies equally on all citizens.

    What is the case?

    • The proceedings in the case began when the top court took cognisance of a controversial statement made by former UP minister in July 2016.
    • He had allegedly termed a gang rape case as part of a “political conspiracy”. While he was let off with an unconditional apology, the Court agreed to examine the larger issue.
    • In October 2017, a three-judge bench referred the matter to the constitution bench to decide on various aspects of the matter.

    Key issues examined

    • Free speech and sensitive issues: The top priority was to examine whether ministers, public functionaries and lawmakers can claim freedom of speech while expressing views on sensitive matters.
    • Free speech and state matters: Another key aspect of the matter was whether a statement by a minister in relation to any affairs of the State or for the protection of government can be attributed vicariously to the government itself.

    What does Article 19 say?

    • Freedom: Article 19(1) (a) guarantees the freedom of speech and expression to all citizens. It is the first condition of liberty and plays an important role in forming public opinion.
    • Restrictions: As per Article 19(2), restrictions can be imposed upon the freedom of speech and expression in the interests of:
    1. Sovereignty and integrity of India,
    2. Security of the state,
    3. Friendly relations with foreign states,
    4. Public order, decency or morality, or
    5. In relation to contempt of court,
    6. Defamation, or
    7. Incitement to an offense

    What does the judgment say about free speech restrictions?

    • Citizens had the right to petition the Court for violations of Article 19 (freedom of expression) and Article 21 (right to life).
    • A statement made by the Minister, inconsistent with the rights of the citizens, may not by itself be actionable.
    • It is not possible to extend this concept of collective responsibility to any and every statement orally made by a Minister outside the House of the People/Legislative Assembly.

    Way forward

    • Legal framework: A proper legal framework was necessary before taking action as a constitutional tort.
    • Political will: Parliament could enact legislation or code to restrain citizens in general and public functionaries in particular from making disparaging or vitriolic remarks against fellow citizens.
    • Code of conduct: Likewise, political parties should come up with a code of conduct to regulate and control the actions and speech of their functionaries and members.

     

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  • Sixth Schedule and Ladakh

    ladakh

    A high-powered committee to ensure protection of land and employment for the people of Ladakh does not address the demand for inclusion of State under the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution.

    What is the Sixth Schedule?

    • The Sixth Schedule under Article 244 provides for the formation of autonomous administrative divisions — Autonomous District Councils (ADCs).
    • ADCs have some legislative, judicial, and administrative autonomy within a state.
    • The Sixth Schedule applies to the NE states of Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram (three Councils each), and Tripura (one Council).

    Composition of ADCs

    • ADCs have up to 30 members with a term of five years.
    • It can make laws, rules and regulations with regard to land, forest, water, agriculture, village councils, health, sanitation, village- and town-level policing, inheritance, marriage and divorce, social customs and mining, etc.
    • The Bodoland Territorial Council in Assam is an exception with more than 40 members and the right to make laws on 39 issues.

    Why does Ladakh want to be part of the Sixth Schedule?

    • Tribal populations: According to the 2011 Census, the tribal population in the UT of Ladakh is 79.61% of the total population.
    • Local aspirations: There was much enthusiasm initially, mostly in Leh, after the repeal of Art. 370 which created two new UTs.
    • Negligence in erstwhile J&K state: Buddhist-dominated Leh district had long demanded UT status because it felt neglected by the erstwhile state government.
    • Denial of Legislature: The enthusiasm waned as it was understood that while the UT of J&K would have a legislature, the UT of Ladakh would not.
    • Inadequate representation: The administration of the region is now completely in the hands of bureaucrats with only 1 MP.
    • New domicile criteria: The changed domicile policy in Jammu and Kashmir has raised fears in the region about its own land, employment, demography, and cultural identity.
    • Statehood demands: A coalition of social, religious, and political representatives in Leh and Kargil has demanded full statehood for Ladakh.

    Cultural significance of Ladakh

    • Ladakh is historically perceived as a cosmopolitan region with centuries of multiple cultural settings.
    • It was an Asian pivot – the people here traversed diverse cultural boundaries and engaged with ideas.

    Can Ladakh be included in Sixth Schedule?

    • NCST Recommends: In September 2019, the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes recommended the inclusion of Ladakh under the Sixth Schedule.
    • Distinct culture: It was predominantly tribal (more than 97%), people from other parts of the country had been restricted from purchasing or acquiring land there, and its distinct cultural heritage needed preservation.

    Legal hurdles

    • Fifth schedule as an alternative: The Constitution is very clear, Sixth Schedule is for the Northeast. For tribal areas in the rest of the country, there is the Fifth Schedule.
    • Exclusive provision for NE: Notably, no region outside the Northeast has been included in the Sixth Schedule.
    • Requires Constitutional Amendment: It remains the prerogative of the government. For this, a constitutional amendment is required.

     

    Try this question from CSP 2015:

    Q.The provisions in Fifth Schedule and Sixth Schedule in the Constitution of India are made in order to-

    (a) Protect the interests of Scheduled Tribes

    (b) Determine the boundaries between States

    (c) Determine the powers, authority and responsibilities of Panchayats

    (d) Protect the interests of all the Border States

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”auf90w3qys” question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

     

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  • India takes over leadership of the Asian Pacific Postal Union

    postal

    India took over the leadership of the Asian Pacific Postal Union (APPU) having its Headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand.

    About Asian Pacific Postal Union (APPU)

    • APPU is an intergovernmental organization of 32-member countries of the Asian-Pacific region.
    • It was formed by International treaty through an Asian-Pacific Postal Convention signed in Yogyakarta on 27 March 1981.
    • The organisation has origins dating back to 1961.
    • APPU is the only Restricted Union of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in the region, which is a specialized agency of the United Nations.
    • Secretary General leads the activities of the Union and is also the Director of the Asian Pacific Postal College (APPC) which is the largest intergovernmental postal training institute in the region.

    Goals and objectives

    • The goal of APPU is to extend, facilitate and improve postal relations between member countries and to promote cooperation in the field of postal services.
    • As the regional center for various UPU projects, APPU also takes the lead in ensuring that all technical and operational projects of the UPU are fulfilled in the region.

    Significance of India’s chair

    • The Asia Pacific region accounts for around one-third of the world’s postal workforce and about half of the world’s mail volume.
    • India seeks to improve the regional coordination with postal players in the Asia Pacific region to improve the growth of the business through the postal network, to ensure the sustainability of the Union.
    • This is the first time an Indian is leading an international organization in the postal sector.

     

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