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  • [pib] UDAN Scheme awarded PM Award for Excellence in Public Administration

    The Ministry of Civil Aviation’s flagship Regional Connectivity Scheme UDAN (Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik) has been awarded Prime Minister’s Award for Excellence in Public Administration this year.

    What is UDAN Scheme?

    • The Ude Desh Ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) scheme is a low-cost flying scheme launched with the aim of taking flying to the masses.
    • The first flight under UDAN was launched by the PM in April 2017.
    • It is also known as the regional connectivity scheme (RCS) as it seeks to improve air connectivity to tier-2 and tier-3 cities through revival of unused and underused airports.

    Working of the Scheme

    • Airlines are awarded routes under the programme through a bidding process and are required to offer airfares at the rate of ₹2,500 per hour of flight.
    • At least 50% of the total seats on an aircraft have to be offered at cheaper rates.
    • In order to enable airlines to offer affordable fares they are given a subsidy from the govt. for a period of three years.

    Success of the scheme

    • In a short span of 5 years, today 419 UDAN routes connect 67 underserved/unserved airports, including heliports and water aerodromes, and over 92 lakh people have benefited from it.
    • More than 1 lakh 79 thousand flights have flown under this scheme.
    • UDAN scheme has immensely benefitted several sectors pan-India including Hilly States, North-Eastern region, and Islands.
    • The scheme also led to development of new Greenfield Airports such as Pakyong near Gangtok in Sikkim, Tezu in Arunachal Pradesh, and Kurnool in Andhra Pradesh.
    • Krishi UDAN Scheme launched in August 2020, on international and national routes has assisted farmers in transporting agricultural products.

    Issues with the working

    • Discontinuance: In reality, some of the routes launched have been discontinued as most of the routes awarded under UDAN are not active.
    • On-paper Ambitions: UDAN was expanded to provide improved connectivity to hilly regions and islands through helicopters and seaplanes. However, they mostly remain on paper.
    • The reasons include:
    1. Failure to set up airports or heliports due to lack of availability of land
    2. Airlines unable to start flights on routes awarded to them or finding the routes difficult to sustain
    3. Adverse impact of the COVID-19 pandemic

    Various challenges

    • Lack of funds: Many small airlines await infusion of funds, to be able to undertake maintenance of aircraft, pay rentals to lessors, give salaries to its staff, etc.
    • Maintenance issue: Many players don’t have more than one or two planes and they are often poorly maintained. New planes are too expensive for these smaller players.
    • Availability of pilots: Often, they also have problems with the availability of pilots and are forced to hire foreign pilots which costs them a lot of money and makes the business unviable.
    • Competition: Only those routes that have been bagged by bigger domestic players such as IndiGo and SpiceJet have seen a better success rate.

    Way forward

    • The govt offers subsidies for a route for a period of three years and expects the airline to develop the route during this time so that it becomes self-sufficient.
    • Airlines need an extension of the subsidy period for their operational continuity.
    • Due to the rise in COVID cases, travel restrictions and passenger safety too needs to be taken into consideration in the loss-making of such airlines.

     

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  • Explained: Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs)

    The Union Housing and Urban Affairs Minister has announced that 80 Integrated Command and Control Centres (ICCCs), an integral component of the Smart Cities Mission, have already been set up.

    What is the Smart Cities Mission?

    • The Smart Cities Mission aims at developing 100 cities, which were shortlisted, into self-sustainable urban settlements.
    • The mission was launched on June 25, 2015 and was projected as one aimed at transforming the process of urban development in the country.
    • Among its strategic components is ‘area-based development’, which includes city improvement (retrofitting), city renewal (redevelopment) and city extension (greenfield development), plus a pan-city initiative in which ‘smart solutions’ are applied covering larger parts of the city.

    Focus areas

    • Key focus areas of the scheme include the construction of walkways, pedestrian crossings, cycling tracks, efficient waste-management systems, integrated traffic management and assessment.
    • The scheme also assesses various indices to track urban development such as the Ease of Living Index, Municipal Performance Index, City GDP framework, Climate-Smart Cities assessment framework, etc.

    What is an Integrated Command and Control Centre?

    • The Smart Cities Mission includes setting up ICCCs for each such city as a vital step.
    • These ICCCs are designed to enable authorities to monitor the status of various amenities in real time.
    • Initially aimed at controlling and monitoring water and power supply, sanitation, traffic movement, integrated building management, city connectivity and Internet infrastructure, these centres have since evolved to monitor various other parameters.
    • The ICCCs are now also linked to the CCTNS (Crime and Criminal Tracking Networks and Systems) network under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
    • The ICCC acts of a smart city acts as a “nerve centre” for operations management. It processes a complex and large pool of data sets at an aggregated level.
    • It is the nodal point of availability of all online data and information relating to smart services included in a smart city, such as like LED street lighting, CCTV surveillance cameras, air quality sensors, etc.

    How did the ICCCs help in management of Covid-19?

    • During the pandemic, they also served as war-rooms for Covid-19 management.
    • During the peak of the first wave, when countries were struggling to figure out ways of combating the virus, the government used the ICCCs as war-rooms for managing the outbreak, with real-time surveillance and monitoring of districts across the country.
    • Converted into war-rooms, the smart cities’ ICCCs used the central data dashboard and provided information about the status of Covid-positive cases in various administrative zones of these cities, officials aware of the exercise said.
    • The war-rooms were also used for tracking people under quarantine and suspected Covid-19 cases.

    What is the current status of the Smarts Cities Mission?

    • The ambitious project, announced by Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2015, had an initial deadline of 2021 for the first lot of 20 smart cities out of the 100 selected.
    • Although the project was announced in 2015, the cities were selected over a period of two years between 2016 and 2018, each with a deadline of completion within five years from the time of their selection.
    • On the recommendation of NITI Aayog, the timeline was extended last year until 2023 due to delays caused by the pandemic.
    • According to current Ministry data, the SCM has so far covered over 140 public-private partnerships), 340 ‘smart roads’, 78 ‘vibrant public places’, 118 ‘smart water’ projects and over 63 solar projects.

    What next?

    • The Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs has begun work to finalise its recommendation for providing ICCCs as a service to states and smaller cities.
    • The Ministry aims to finalise an ICCC model and implement a pilot project across six major states — Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu.

     

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  • INS Vagsheer: Key features, capabilities

    The sixth and last of the French Scorpene-class submarines, INS Vagsheer, was launched into water at the Mazagon Docks in Mumbai.

    Launch of INS Vagsheer

    • It was launched by Veena Ajay Kumar (wife of Union Defence Secretary), in keeping with the naval tradition of launch and naming by a woman.
    • The six submarines were being built under Project-75 by the Mazagon Docks under technology transfer from the Naval Group as part of a $3.75-billion deal signed in October 2005:
    1. INS Kalvari was commissioned in December 2017;
    2. INS Khanderi in September 2019;
    3. INS Vagir in November 2020;
    4. INS Karanj in March 2021; and
    5. INS Vela in November 2021.
    • P 75 is one of two lines of submarines, the other being P75I, as part of a plan approved in 1999 for indigenous submarine construction with technology taken from overseas firms.

    Why ‘Vagsheer’

    • Vagsheer is named after the sand fish, a deep sea predator of the Indian Ocean.
    • The first submarine Vagsheer, from Russia, was commissioned into the Indian Navy on December 26, 1974, and was decommissioned on April 30, 1997.
    • The new Vagsheer will be officially named at the time of its commissioning.

    Specifications

    • Vagsheer can take up to eight officers and 35 men.
    • It is 67.5 metres long and 12.3 metres high, with a beam measuring 6.2 metres Vagsheer can reach top speed of 20 knots when submerged and a top speed of 11 knots when it surfaces
    • It has four MTU 12V 396 SE84 diesel engines, 360 battery cells for power, and a silent Permanently Magnetised Propulsion Motor.
    • The hull, fin and hydroplanes are designed for minimum underwater resistance and all equipment inside the pressure hull is mounted on shock-absorbing cradles for enhanced stealth.

    Features

    • Vagsheer is a diesel attack submarine, designed to perform sea denial as well as access denial warfare against the adversary.
    • It can do offensive operations across the spectrum of naval warfare including anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, intelligence gathering, mine laying and area surveillance.
    • It is enabled with a C303 anti-torpedo counter measure system.
    • It can carry up to 18 torpedoes or Exocet anti-ship missiles, or 30 mines in place of torpedoes.
    • Its superior stealth features include advanced acoustic absorption techniques, low radiated noise levels, hydro-dynamically optimised shape.
    • It has the ability to launch a crippling attack using precision guided weapons, underwater or on surface.

    Road ahead

    • Vagsheer will be commissioned into the Indian Navy’s Western Command after 12 to 18 months when sea trials end.
    • It will be based with Western Naval Command, mostly in Mumbai.
    • The submarine will undergo a very comprehensive and rigorous set of tests and trials, for more than a year, to ensure delivery of a fully combat worthy submarine.

    Back2Basics: Various classes of Submarines in India

    In maritime terms, a class of ships is a group of vessels that have the same make, purpose and displacement.

    • Chakra Class: Under a 10-year lease from Russia since 2012
    • Arihant Class: Nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines
    • Shishumar Class: Diesel-electric attack submarines Indian variant of the Type 209 submarines developed by the German Navy
    • Kalvari Class: Diesel-electric attack submarines designed by French company DCNS
    • Sindhughosh Class: Kilo-class diesel-electric submarines built with the help of Russia
    • Scorpene-Class: French submarines that can undertake various types of missions such as anti-surface warfare, anti-submarine warfare, intelligence gathering, mine laying, area surveillance etc.

     

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  • ISRO develops Space Bricks from Martian Soil

    Researchers from the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) and the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) have developed a way to make bricks from Martian soil with the help of bacteria and urea.

    Space Bricks

    • ISRO and IISc have collaborated to develop a novel scalable technique of manufacturing space bricks using Martian Simulant Soil (MSS).
    • The team first made the slurry by mixing Martian soil with guar gum, a bacterium called Sporosarcina pasteurii, urea and nickel chloride (NiCl2).
    • This slurry can be poured into moulds of any desired shape, and over a few days the bacteria convert the urea into crystals of calcium carbonate.
    • These crystals, along with biopolymers secreted by the microbes act as cement holding the soil particles together.
    • This method ensures that the bricks are less porous, which was a problem with other methods used to make Martian bricks.
    • The bacteria seep deep into the pore spaces, using their own proteins to bind the particles together, decreasing porosity and leading to stronger bricks.

    Their significance

    • In the past, the team had made bricks out of lunar soil using a similar method.
    • These ‘space bricks’ can be used to construct building-like structures on Mars that could facilitate human settlement on the red planet.

     

     

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  • Who was Veer Kunwar Singh (1777-1858)?

    Political factions in Bihar has planned to organise the birth anniversary of the 1857 uprising hero Veer Kunwar Singh on April 23 at Jagdishpur in Bhojpur.

    Veer Kunwar Singh

    • Kunwar Singh also known as Babu Kunwar Singh was a leader during the uprising of 1857.
    • He belonged to a family of the Ujjainiya clan of the Parmar Rajputs of Jagdispur, currently a part of Bhojpur district, Bihar.
    • At the age of 80, he led a selected band of armed soldiers against the troops under the command of the British East India Company.
    • He was the chief organiser of the fight against the British in Bihar.
    • He is popularly known as Veer Kunwar Singh or Veer Babu Kunwar Singh.

    Role in 1857 Uprising

    • Singh led the Indian Rebellion of 1857 in Bihar. He was nearly eighty and in failing health when he was called upon to take up arms.
    • He was assisted by both his brother, Babu Amar Singh and his commander-in-chief, Hare Krishna Singh.
    • He gave a good fight and harried British forces for nearly a year and remained invincible until the end.
    • He was an expert in the art of guerrilla warfare.

    In popular culture

    • To honour his contribution to India’s freedom movement, the Centre issued a commemorative stamp on 23 April 1966.
    • The Government of Bihar established the Veer Kunwar Singh University, Arrah, in 1992.

     

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  • [Yojana Archive] Harnessing Multiplier Effect

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    March 2022

    Context

    • Recently, the Finance Minister has stressed upon the need to increase capital expenditure by both public sector as well as private sector.
    • This is in order to improve the economic growth and invigorate demand in the country.

    Why increase CAPEX?

    • As per the various studies, capital expenditure has a multiplier effect of 2.45 in the short term and 4.8 in the long term.
    • This means that a single rupee spent on capital expenditure has the potential to add Rs 2.45 in the short term and Rs 4.8 in the long term to the overall economy.

    What is multiplier effect in economy?

    • The multiplier effect is an economic term, referring to the proportional amount of increase, or decrease, in final income that results from an injection, or withdrawal, of capital.
    • In effect, it measures the impact that a change in economic activity—like investment or spending—will have on the total economic output of something.

    Amount of Capital Expenditure in this year Budget

    • The budget for 2022-23 has proposed a hike of 24.47% in capital expenditure, amounting to almost Rs 7.5 Lakh Crore.
    • If grants in aid for the creation of capital assets (including MGNREGA assets) are included in the capital expenditure, the effective capital expenditure increases to Rs 10.68 Lakh Crore.
    • This is 27% more than the capital expenditure of Rs 8.4 Lakh Crore in 2021-22.

    Similar Provisions in the Budget

    • Due to COVID-induced economic slowdown, the Union government has relaxed various provisions related to expenditure.
    • For e.g. the Borrowing limit for the states has been enhanced to 4% of the Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP). 
    • The government has allowed Rs 2 Lakh Crore for States and Autonomous bodies for capital expenditure.

    Need for Increase in Capital Expenditure

    • Pandemic: As mentioned above, COVID-induced lockdown has resulted in closure of industries for an extended period of time.
    • Crowding-in private investment: There is a need to crowd-in private investment through direct investment and signalling through favorable policy interventions by the government in the Economy.
    • Shortfall in Tax Revenues: The pandemic has led to a decrease in the realization of tax revenues due to a fall in demand as well as temporary closure of industries. This can be countered by sustained investment by the government, providing the necessary boost to animal spirits within the Economy.
    • Benefits of Capital Expenditure: Capital Expenditure has various effects on the Economy of a country including creating capacity and increasing supply, increasing employment generation and rise in wages, in turn, stimulating demand for the goods and services and attracting FDI.
    • Supplementary fundings: The increased allocations would be available for investment in PM Gati Shakti Plan and its associated initiatives. The funds can also be used for supplementary funding in projects like PM Gram Sadak Yojana.
    • Scheme for Special Assistance to States for Capital Expenditure: These funds under will also be used to encourage the government to undertake reforms for increasing the development in the States. The associated sectors include digitization of the Economy, including digital payments, and reform in areas like town planning, transit oriented development, building bylaws and transferable development rights.

    Conclusion

    • Overall, this budget aims to create a long-term multiplier effect by focusing its resources and capital in the right direction.
    • In future years, the government will need to stay the course set today, as the impact of these initiatives will be seen in the long term.

  • Demolition drives violate international law

    Context

    Communal clashes broke out during Ram Navami processions in several parts of the country including at Khargone in Madhya Pradesh. Subsequently, the Madhya Pradesh government bulldozed the houses of those who were allegedly involved in rioting.

    Right to housing

    • Fundamental right under Article 21: The right to housing is not only a fundamental right recognised under Article 21 of the Indian Constitution, it is also a well-documented right under the international human rights law framework, which is binding on India.
    • Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that “everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care.
    • Likewise, Article 11.1 of the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights (ICESCR) recognises “the right of everyone to an adequate standard of living for himself and his family, including adequate food, clothing and housing, and to the continuous improvement of living condition.
    • The rights recognised under ICESCR, according to Article 4, can be restricted by States only if the limitations are determined by law in a manner compatible with the nature of these rights and solely to promote society’s general welfare.
    • Besides, international law also prohibits arbitrary interference in an individual’s right to property.
    • For instance, Article 12 of the UDHR states that “no one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation”.
    • Article 12 also stipulates that “everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks”.
    • This same right is also provided under Article 17 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR).

    Protection against Forced eviction

    • According to the UN Human Rights Office, an integral element of the right to adequate housing is ‘protection against forced evictions’.
    • The UN Human Rights Office defines ‘forced evictions’ as ‘permanent or temporary removal against the will of individuals, families and/or communities from the homes and/or land which they occupy, without the provision of, and access to, appropriate forms of legal or other protection’.

    Way forward

    • The apex court in cases like Bachan Singh vs State of Punjab, Vishaka vs State of Rajasthan, and recently in the famous Puttaswamy vs Union of India has laid down the principle that the fundamental rights guaranteed under the Constitution must be read and interpreted in a manner which would enhance their conformity with international human rights law.
    • It is high time that the judiciary acted and imposed necessary checks on the unbridled exercise of power by the executive.

    Conclusion

    The bulldozing of the houses of the alleged rioters amounts to forced eviction and arbitrary interference with an individual’s home.

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  • Towards a peaceful, stable Northeast

    Context

    Progress in settling border disputes, removal of AFSPA herald positive changes in the region.

    Significant development for restoring normalcy in the region

    • Efforts to address the issues of the Northeast have been moving according to a strategic plan which is premised on three objectives —
    • 1] Ending all disputes.
    • 2] Ushering in economic progress and taking the region’s contribution to GDP back to its pre-Independence levels,
    • 3] making efforts to maintain and preserve the region’s languages, dialects, dance, music, food, and culture and make it attractive for the whole country.
    • In this regard, two recent developments are significant:
    • On March 29, the Assam and Meghalaya chief ministers signed an agreement to resolve the five-decade-old border dispute.
    • The Union home ministry (MHA) decided to reduce the disturbed areas under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur after decades.

    Progress on the border disputes

    • As part of the strategy, existing issues of both interstate border disputes and insurgency have been closely studied and negotiated and a few agreements have been signed.
    • Assam, with the maximum border disputes in the region, got into a proactive border dialogue.
    • The dialogues on the state’s border disputes with Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram are continuing at a steady pace.
    • After the violent flare-ups witnessed last year at the Assam-Mizoram border, today there are regular engagements to maintain peace and work out a permanent solution.
    • The model of Assam’s engagement with Meghalaya, is a good one to emulate — the two chief ministers, after two rounds of talks in August last year, constituted three committees each under cabinet ministers in their states to go into the complex boundary issues.

    Significance of notification on AFSPA

    • Peace has been witnessed in most places across Assam, and even in Nagaland and Manipur talks with various groups for a permanent solution had resulted in a cessation of violence.
    • The NLFT Tripura Agreement (August 2019), the Bru Agreement (January 2020), the Bodo Peace Accord (January 2020) and the Karbi Anglong Agreement (September 2021) have actually resulted in about 7,000 militants surrendering their arms.
    • Removal of DAN: So the demand for the removal of the disturbed areas notification (DAN) was very much justified.
    • DAN has been in force in the whole of Assam since 1990, in all of Manipur (except the Imphal Municipality area) since 2004 and in the whole of Nagaland since 1995.
    • With the removal of the DAN tag, AFSPA has been removed with effect from April 1 this year completely from 23 districts and partially from one district of Assam, from 15 police station areas of six districts of Manipur and from 15 police station areas in seven districts in Nagaland.
    •  DAN is currently applicable in only three districts and in two police station areas in one other district of Arunachal Pradesh.
    • AFSPA was completely removed from Tripura in 2015 and Meghalaya in 2018, respectively.

    Conclusion

    The efforts by the Union government to make the northeastern region the main pillar of the Act East policy have been useful in bringing a sense of political stability that is very crucial for optimal economic development and capacity enhancement in the region.

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  • India’s Crude Oil Imports from OPEC

    OPEC’s share of India’s oil imports for the FY22 financial year remained almost steady year-on-year, arresting sharp declines over the past six years, as refiners prefer crude from West Asia to counter rising global prices.

    India’s crude oil imports from OPEC

    • OPEC oil accounted for about 88% of India’s crude imports in FY08.
    • Its share of India’s overall imports could decline because refiners in Asia’s third-largest economy are buying cheaper Russian oil.
    • However, Russian oil continued to account for less than 1% of India’s crude imports in FY22.

    What is OPEC?

    • OPEC stands for Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries.
    • It is a permanent, intergovernmental organization, created at the Baghdad Conference in 1960, by Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela.
    • It aims to manage the supply of oil in an effort to set the price of oil in the world market, in order to avoid fluctuations that might affect the economies of both producing and purchasing countries.
    • It is headquartered in Vienna, Austria.
    • OPEC membership is open to any country that is a substantial exporter of oil and which shares the ideals of the organization.
    • Today OPEC is a cartel that includes 14 nations, predominantly from the middle east whose sole responsibility is to control prices and moderate supply.

    What is OPEC+?

    • The non-OPEC countries which export crude oil along with the 14 OPECs are termed as OPEC plus countries.
    • OPEC plus countries include Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Brunei, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico, Oman, Russia, South Sudan and Sudan.
    • Saudi and Russia, both have been at the heart of a three-year alliance of oil producers known as OPEC Plus — which now includes 11 OPEC members and 10 non-OPEC nations — that aims to shore up oil prices with production cuts.

    Why OPEC plus came into existence?

    • When Russia concluded the Vienna Agreement in 2016, the Russian leadership believed that it would help prepare the country for the Russian presidential elections in March 2018.
    • Higher oil prices ensured the Kremlin’s financial capacity to lead a successful electoral campaign.
    • This changed the regime’s priorities – from satisfying the needs of the general population to ensuring the sustainability of the Kremlin’s alliance with powerful tycoons, including that controlling oil production.
    • For Saudi Arabia, turning what had been an ad hoc coalition into a formal group provides a hedge (protection) against future oil-market turbulence.
    • For Russia, the formalization of the group helps expand Putin’s influence in the Middle East
    • However, both reportedly aimed at causing a drop in oil prices in order to hit US shale producers, who have continued to benefit from OPEC production cuts by expanding their market share.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.The term ‘West Texas Intermediate’, sometimes found in news, refers to a grade of

    (a) Crude oil

    (b) Bullion

    (c) Rare earth elements

    (d) Uranium

     

    [wpdiscuz-feedback id=”fozewnon7k” question=”Please leave a feedback on this” opened=”1″]Post your answers here.[/wpdiscuz-feedback]

     

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  • Places in news: East Timor

    Asia’s youngest nation, East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, holds the second and final round of its presidential election.

    About East Timor

    • The territory was colonized by Portugal in the 18th century and remained under is control until 1975.
    • When the Portuguese withdrew, troops from Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor as its 27th province.
    • A long and bloody struggle for independence ensued, during which at least 100,000 people died.
    • The East Timorese voted for independence in a 1999 U.N.-supervised referendum, but that unleashed even more violence until peace-keeping forces were allowed to enter.
    • The country was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2002.
    • East Timor has applied to be a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It currently holds observer status.

    Its geography

    • East Timor comprises the eastern half of Timor Island, the western half of which is part of Indonesia.
    • It spans a 15,000 square km (5,792 square mile) land area – slightly smaller than Israel – and it’s 1.3 million people are predominantly Roman Catholic.

    Politics and economy

    • In nearly 20 years since independence, East Timor’s presidential and parliamentary elections have been dominated by many of the same faces.
    • Its revolutionary have run for and held various positions of power and continue to feature prominently in the running of the country.
    • East Timor depends on revenues from its offshore oil and gas reserves which account for 90% of its gross domestic product.
    • Its main revenue stream, the Bayu Undan gas field, is set to dry up by 2023 and the country is now planning to collaborate with companies like Australia’s Santos to turn it into carbon capture facilities.

     

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