💥Join UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (July Batch) + XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to Mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Distribution: weekly

  • What is National Population Register?

    The latest form of the National Population Register (NPR) appears to have retained contentious questions such as “mother tongue, place of birth of father and mother and last place of residence”.

    National Population Register

    • The NPR is a Register of usual residents of the country.
    • It is being prepared at the local (Village/sub-Town), sub-District, District, State and National level.
    • This is carried under provisions of the Citizenship Act 1955 and the Citizenship (Registration of Citizens and issue of National Identity Cards) Rules, 2003.
    • It is mandatory for every usual resident of India to register in the NPR.
    • A usual resident is defined for the purposes of NPR as a person who has resided in a local area for the past 6 months or more or a person who intends to reside in that area for the next 6 months or more.

    Why NPR is under fire?

    • Though NPR was first compiled in 2010 and updated in 2015, the new questions were part of a trial exercise involving 30 lakh respondents in September 2019.
    • The exercise has perceived the first step toward the compilation of the National Register of Indian Citizens (NRC) according to Citizenship Rules, 2003.

    Questions in NPR

    • In 2020 NPR, the respondent will have to specify the “name of State and district” if the place of birth of father and mother is in India and mention the country’s name if not born here.
    • The form will collect details on 14 parameters of all family members.
    • The sub-heads include passport number, relationship to head of the family, whether divorced/widowed or separated, mother tongue, if non-worker, cultivator, labourer, government employee, daily wage earner among others.
    • The form also has a column on Aadhar, mobile phone, Voter ID and driving license number, which are to be provided if available with the respondent.

    How are NRIC and NPR related?

    • Out of the NPR, a set of all usual residents of India, the government proposes to create a database of “citizens of India”.
    • Thus, the “National Register of Indian Citizens” (NRIC) is a sub-set of the NPR.
    • The NRIC will be prepared at the local, sub-district, district and State levels after verifying the citizenship status of the residents.
    • The rules say the particulars of every family and individual found in the Population Register shall be verified and scrutinized by the Local Registrar.

    How NPR is different from Census?

    • The census involves a detailed questionnaire — there were 29 items to be filled up in the 2011 census.
    • They are aimed at eliciting the particulars of every person, including age, sex, marital status, children, occupation, birthplace, mother tongue, religion, disability and whether they belonged to any SC or ST.
    • On the other hand, the NPR collects basic demographic data and biometric particulars.
    • While the census is legally backed by the Census Act, 1948, the NPR is a mechanism outlined in a set of rules framed under the Citizenship Act, 1955.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Meghalaya to give land rights to men

    Matrilineal Meghalaya is set to break the tradition of share of parental property to the khatduh, which means the youngest daughter in the Khasi language.

    Matrilineal Society of Meghalaya

    • The matrilineal tradition which the Khasi and other subgroups practice in Meghalaya is unique within India.
    • Khasi are an ancient tribe said to be the largest surviving matrilineal culture in the world.
    • Matrilineal principles among the Khasi are emphasised in myths, legends, and origin narratives.

    Their evolution

    • Khasi kings embarking on wars left the responsibility of running the family to women and thus their role in society became very deep rooted and respected.
    • Reference to Nari Rajya (female kingdom; or land of matriarchy) in the epic Mahabharata likely correlates with the Khasi and Jaintia Hills and Meghalaya’s present-day matrilineal culture.

    Property rights

    • The youngest daughter of the family, the Ka Khadduh, inherits all ancestral property.
    • After marriage, husbands live in the mother-in-law’s home.
    • The mother’s surname is taken by children.
    • When no daughters are born to a couple, they adopt a daughter and pass their rights to property to her.
    • The birth of a girl is celebrated while the birth of a son is simply accepted.
    • There is no social stigma attributed to a woman remarrying or giving birth out of wedlock as the “Khasi Social Custom Lineage Act” gives security to them.
    • Care of children is the responsibility of mothers or mothers-in-law.

    Matrilineal, not matriarchal

    • While society is matrilineal, it is not matriarchal. In past monarchies of the state, the son of the youngest sister of the king inherited the throne.
    • Even now in the Meghalaya Legislative Assembly or village councils or panchayats the representation of women in politics is minimal.

    Issues with the system

    • Some Khasi men perceive themselves to be accorded a secondary status.
    • They have established societies to protect equal rights for men.
    • They express that Khasi men don’t have any security, they don’t own land, they don’t run the family business and, at the same time, they are almost good for nothing.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Podu Land issue in Telangana

    The Telangana government has decided to move landless, non-tribal farmers engaged in Podu shifting cultivation inside forests to peripheral areas as it looks to combat deforestation.

    What is Shifting Cultivation?

    • Shifting cultivation is a form of agriculture or a cultivation system, in which, at any particular point in time, a minority of ‘fields’ are in cultivation and a majority are in various stages of natural re-growth.
    • Over time, fields are cultivated for a relatively short time, and allowed to recover, or are fallowed, for a relatively long time.
    • Eventually, a previously cultivated field will be cleared of the natural vegetation and planted in crops again.
    • Fields in established and stable shifting cultivation systems are cultivated and fallowed cyclically.
    • This type of farming is also called jhumming in India.

    What is Podu?

    • Podu is a traditional system of cultivation used by tribes in India, whereby different areas of jungle forest are cleared by burning each year to provide land for crops.
    • The word comes from the Telugu language.
    • Podu is a form of shifting agriculture using slash-and-burn methods.

    Issue in Telangana

    • Shifting cultivation continues to be a predominant agricultural practice in many parts of India, despite state discouragement and multipronged efforts.
    • Telangana government has red-flagged encroachment of forests by non-tribals, who are indulging in the practice of shifting agriculture (podu).
    • Several political leaders have raised the issues of shifting agriculture and deforestation wherein encroachers clear a portion of land.
    • The government now wants to shift out all farmers from the forests to the periphery by allotting lands to them for cultivation.

    Impact of the move

    • Tribal farmers who have been traditionally cultivating for decades will not be affected by this drive against illegal encroachers.
    • The government has, in fact, given land ownership titles to tribals.
    • Other encroaching farmers will be shifted out.

    Back2Basics: Various shifting cultivation in India

    Type Place of practice
    Jhum North-eastern India
    Vevar and Dahiyaar Bundelkhand Region (Madhya Pradesh)
    Deepa Bastar District (Madhya Pradesh)
    Zara and Erka Southern States
    Batra South-eastern Rajasthan
    Podu Andhra Pradesh
    Kumari Hilly Region of the Western Ghats of Kerala
    Kaman, Vinga and Dhavi Odisha

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCSC)

    There are cybersecurity organisations in the country but no central body responsible for safety in the online space said the National Cyber Security Coordinator (NCSC).

    National Cyber Coordination Centre

    Headed by National Cyber Security Coordinator:  Lt. Gen. Rajesh Pant (Retd.)

    Objective: To help the country deal with malicious cyber-activities by acting as an Internet traffic monitoring entity that can fend off domestic or international attacks

    • The National Cyber Coordination Centre (NCCC) is an operational cybersecurity and e-surveillance agency in India.
    • It is jurisdictionally under the Ministry of Home Affairs.
    • It coordinates with multiple security and surveillance agencies as well as with CERT-In of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
    • Components of the NCCC include a cybercrime prevention strategy, cybercrime investigation training and review of outdated laws.

    Functions

    • It will be India’s first layer for cyber threat monitoring and all communication with government and private service providers would be through this body only.
    • The NCCC will be in virtual contact with the control room of all ISPs to scan traffic within the country, flowing at the point of entry and exit, including the international gateway.

    Cyber-security bottlenecks in India

    • India has no dedicated Cyber-security regulation and is also not well prepared to deal with cyberwarfare.
    • India has formulated the National Cyber Security Policy 2013 which is not yet implemented.
    • NCCC has been classified to be a project of the Indian government without a legal framework, which may be counterproductive as it may violate civil liberties and human rights.
    • Some have expressed concern that the NCCC could encroach on Indian citizens’ privacy and civil liberties, given the lack of explicit privacy laws in the country.

    Back2Basics: Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-IN)

    • CERT-IN is an office within the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology.
    • It is the nodal agency to deal with cyber security threats like hacking and phishing. It strengthens the security-related defence of the Indian Internet domain.
    • It was formed in 2004 by the Government of India under the Information Technology Act, 2000 Section (70B) under the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • A ‘bubbles of trust’ approach to globalisation

    Context

    An asymmetric globalisation favouring China allowed Beijing to attain power. It is now using that power to undermine liberal democratic values around the world.

    What is Globalization?

    Globalization is a process of increasing interdependence, interconnectedness and integration of economies and societies to such an extent that an event in one part of the globe affects people in other parts of the world.

    OR

     Globalization is a process of interaction and integration among the people, organizations, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology.

    Asymmetric globalisation

    • The Chinese market was never open to foreign companies in the way foreign markets are to Chinese firms.
    • This is particularly true in the information and communications technology sector: foreign media, technology and software companies have always been walled out of Chinese markets.
    • Meanwhile, Chinese firms rode on the globalisation bandwagon to secure significant market shares in open economies.

    Global retreat from globalisation and role of Quad

    • We are currently witnessing a global retreat from the free movement of goods, services, capital, people and ideas.
    • But this should not be understood as a reaction to globalisation itself, but of its skewed pattern over the past four decades.
    • The Quad countries – Japan, India, Australia and the U.S. – have an opportunity to change tack and stop seeing engagement with China through the misleading prism of free trade and globalisation.
    • It will be to their advantage to create a new form of economic cooperation consistent with their geopolitical interests.
    • Indeed, without an economic programme, the Quad’s geopolitical and security agenda stand on tenuous foundations.

    Economies inside bubbles of trust

    • Policies of self-reliance: The popular backlash against China – exacerbated by the economic disruption of the pandemic – is pushing Quad governments towards policies of self-reliance.
    • But while reorienting and de-risking global supply chains is one thing, pursuing technological sovereignty is inherently self-defeating.
    • Worse still, inward-looking policies often acquire a life of their own and contribute to geopolitical marginalisation.
    • There is a better way.
    • A convergence of values and geopolitical interests means Quad countries are uniquely placed to envelop their economies inside bubbles of trust, starting with the technology sector.
    • The idea of ‘bubbles of trust’ offers a cautious middle path between the extremes of technological sovereignty and laissez-faire globalisation.
    •  Unlike trading blocs, which tend to be insular and exclusive, bubbles tend to expand organically, attracting new partners that share values, interests and economic complementarities.
    • Such expansion will be necessary, as the Quad cannot fulfil its strategic ambitions merely by holding a defensive line against authoritarian power.

    Way forward

    • The U.S. is a global leader in intellectual property, Japan in high-value manufacturing, Australia in advanced niches such as quantum computing and cyber security, and India in human capital.
    • This configuration of values, interests and complementary capabilities offers unrivalled opportunities.
    • The Quad’s Critical and Emerging Technology Working Group, announced in March 2021, is well placed to develop the necessary ‘bubbles of trust’ framework, which could be adopted at the next Quad summit.
    • To be successful the Working Group must seek to strengthen geopolitical convergences, increase faith in each member state’s judicial systems, deepen economic ties and boost trust in one another’s citizens.
    • There are fundamental differences between authoritarian and liberal-democratic approaches to the information age.
    • The Quad cannot allow differences of approach on privacy, data governance, platform competition and the digital economy to widen.

    Conclusion

    This agenda cannot be about substituting China. Rather, the approach would allow Quad countries to manage their dependencies on China while simultaneously developing a new vision for the global economy.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission

    PM has launched the Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission (AB-HIM), one of the largest pan-India schemes for strengthening healthcare infrastructure.

    AB- Health Infrastructure Mission

    • AB-HIM is being rolled out as India’s largest scheme to scale up health infrastructure.
    • It is aimed at ensuring a robust public health infrastructure in both urban and rural areas, capable of responding to public health emergencies or disease outbreaks.

    Key features

    • Health and Wellness Centres: In a bid to increase accessibility it will provide support to 17,788 rural HWC in 10 ‘high focus’ states and establish 11,024 urban HWC across the country.
    • Exclusive Critical Care Hospital Blocks: It will ensure access to critical care services in all districts of the country with over five lakh population through ‘Exclusive Critical Care Hospital Blocks’.
    • Integrated public health labs: will also be set up in all districts, giving people access to “a full range of diagnostic services” through a network of laboratories across the country.
    • Disease surveillance system: The mission also aims to establish an IT-enabled disease surveillance system through a network of surveillance laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels.
    • Integrated Health Information Portal: All the public health labs will be connected through this Portal, which will be expanded to all states and UTs, the PMO said.

    Why is the scheme significant?

    • India has long been in need of a ubiquitous healthcare system.
    • A 2019 study has highlighted how access to public health care remained elusive to those living on the margins.
    • The study found that 70 per cent of the locations have public healthcare services.
    • However, availability was less in rural areas (65 per cent) compared to urban areas (87 per cent).
    • In 45 per cent of the surveyed locations, people could access healthcare services by walking, whereas in 43 per cent of the locations they needed to use transport.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Mullaperiyar Dam Issue

    The Supreme Court has directed the Supervisory Committee to take an immediate and firm decision on the maximum water level that can be maintained at Mullaperiyar dam amidst torrential rains in Kerala.

    What is the news?

    • A report by United Nations has stated that the Mullaperiyar dam, situated in a seismically active area, faces the risk of failure.
    • Earlier this year, the Supreme Court warned the TN Chief Secretary against the failure to give information on the rule curve for dam which decides the discharge of excess water.

    Mullaperiyar Dam

    • It is a masonry gravity dam on the Periyar River in Kerala.
    • It is located on the Cardamom Hills of the Western Ghats in Thekkady, Idukki District.
    • It was constructed between 1887 and 1895 by John Pennycuick and also reached in an agreement to divert water eastwards to the Madras Presidency area.
    • It has a height of 53.6 m (176 ft) from the foundation, and a length of 365.7 m (1,200 ft).

    Operational issue

    • The dam is located in Kerala but is operated and maintained by Tamil Nadu.
    • The catchment area of the Mullaperiyar Dam itself lies entirely in Kerala and thus not an inter-State river.
    • In November 2014, the water level hit 142 feet for first time in 35 years.
    • The reservoir again hit the maximum limit of 142 feet in August 2018, following incessant rains in the state of Kerala.
    • Indeed, the tendency to store water to almost the full level of reservoirs is becoming a norm among water managers across States.

    The dispute: Control and safety of the dam

    • Supreme court judgment came in February 2006, has allowed Tamil Nadu to raise the level of the dam to 152 ft (46 m) after strengthening it.
    • Responding to it, the Mullaperiyar dam was declared an ‘endangered’ scheduled dam by the Kerala Government under the disputed Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2006.
    • For Tamil Nadu, the Mullaperiyar dam and the diverted Periyar waters act as a lifeline for Theni, Madurai, Sivaganga, Dindigul and Ramnad districts.
    • Tamil Nadu has insisted on exercising the unfettered colonial rights to control the dam and its waters, based on the 1886 lease agreement.

    Rule of Curve issue

    • A rule curve or rule level specifies the storage or empty space to be maintained in a reservoir during different times of the year.
    • It decides the fluctuating storage levels in a reservoir.
    • The gate opening schedule of a dam is based on the rule curve. It is part of the “core safety” mechanism in a dam.
    • The TN government often blames Kerala for delaying the finalization of the rule curve.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • What is White Dwarf?

    Using the Hubble Space telescope and Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers have identified several white dwarfs over the years.

    Where is this white dwarf?

    • A white dwarf is what stars like the Sun become after they have exhausted their nuclear fuel.
    • Near the end of its nuclear burning stage, this type of star expels most of its outer material, creating a planetary nebula.
    • Only the hot core of the star remains. This core becomes a very hot white dwarf, with a temperature exceeding 100,000 Kelvin.
    • Unless it is accreting matter from a nearby star, the white dwarf cools down over the next billion years or so.

    Limits for white dwarf

    • White Dwarf is half the size of our Sun and has a surface gravity 100,000 times that of Earth.
    • There is a limit on the amount of mass a white dwarf can have.
    • Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar discovered this limit to be 4 times the mass of the Sun. This is appropriately known as the “Chandrasekhar Limit.”

    Observing white dwarf

    • Many nearby, young white dwarfs have been detected as sources of soft, or lower-energy, X-rays.
    • Recently, soft X-ray and extreme ultraviolet observations have become a powerful tool in the study the composition and structure of the thin atmosphere of these stars.

    What is TESS?

    • The researchers observed this phenomenon using Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).
    • TESS is a space telescope in NASA’s Explorer program, designed to search for extrasolar planets using the transit method.
    • The primary mission objective for TESS is to survey the brightest stars near the Earth for transiting exoplanets over a two-year period.
    • The TESS project will use an array of wide-field cameras to perform an all-sky survey. It will scan nearby stars for exoplanets.

    How does white dwarf ‘switch on and off’?

    • In these types of systems, the donor star orbit around the white dwarf keeps feeding the accretion disk.
    • As the accretion disk material slowly sinks closer towards the white dwarf it generally becomes brighter.
    • It is known that in some systems the donor stars stop feeding the disk.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • [pib] GoI Floating Rate Bonds

    The Government of India has announced the Sale (Re-issue) of Floating Rate Bonds, 2028’.

    What are Bonds?

    • Bonds are investment securities where an investor lends money to a company or a government for a set period of time, in exchange for regular interest payments.
    • Generally, bonds come with a fixed coupon or interest rate. For example, you can buy a bond of Rs 10,000 with a coupon rate of 5%.
    • Once the bond reaches maturity, the bond issuer returns the investor’s money.
    • Fixed income is a term often used to describe bonds, since your investment earns fixed payments over the life of the bond.

    Why are bonds launched?

    • Companies sell bonds to finance ongoing operations, new projects or acquisitions.
    • Governments sell bonds for funding purposes, and also to supplement revenue from taxes.

    What are Floating Rate Bonds?

    • A floating rate bond is a debt instrument that does not have a fixed coupon rate, but its interest rate fluctuates based on the benchmark the bond is drawn.
    • Benchmarks are market instruments that influence the overall economy.
    • For example, repo rate or reverse repo rate can be set as benchmarks for a floating rate bond.

    How do floating rate bonds work?

    • Floating rate bonds make up a significant part of the Indian bond market and are majorly issued by the government.
    • For example, the RBI issued a floating rate bond in 2020 with interest payable every six months. After six months, the interest rate is re-fixed by the RBI.

     

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)

  • Step towards more LGBTQIA+ affirmative medical curriculum doesn’t go far enough

    Context

    The National Medical Commission (NMC), the body responsible for regulating medical education in India, released an advisory regarding the LGBTQIA+ community and the necessary changes in the competencies of its competency-based medical education (CBME) curriculum.

    Exclusion of LGBTQIA+ community in medication

    • Medical education in India has focussed only on the binary of male and female, heterosexuality and cis-gendered lives, while excluding homosexuality and gender non-binary and transgender issues.
    • This results in the exclusion of the LGBTQIA+ community.
    • Even with the release of the competency-based medical curriculum in August 2019, the curriculum continues to include a queerphobic syllabus.

    About the NMC notification

    • The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 mandates governments to take measures for the “review of medical curriculum and research for doctors to address their [transgender] specific health issues,” but no action has been taken since then.
    • In June 2021, in response to a case filed by a queer couple, the Madras High Court laid down a set of guidelines and directed the NMC to ban queerphobic practices such as conversion therapy which aims to forcibly change the sexual orientation of a person.
    • In its notification, the NMC has advised medical colleges to teach gender in a way that is not derogatory to the queer community.
    • The authors of medical textbooks have also been asked to amend the books to remove any harmful contents regarding virginity and the queer community.

    Issues with the NMC notification

    • While the NMC advisory title mentions necessary changes in the competencies of its CBME curriculum, there are no specifications on what these changes are.
    •  At the same time, the CBME curriculum itself mentions queerphobic things that are to be taught to students.
    • Certain acts are called as sexual offences even though the Supreme Court has read down Section 377. 
    •  Also, the competencies which will make a future Indian doctor respectful and empathetic in treating a queer patient are missing.

    Way forward

    • The NMC must start by recognising the flaws in its own CBME curriculum and explicitly state the changes required.
    • Specific guidelines on how to make healthcare queer-affirmative are needed.
    • The directive also needs to specify changes across several subjects and not just forensic medicine and psychiatry.
    •  For this, there needs to be a participatory stakeholder consultation towards the development of a queer-affirmative curriculum.
    • Finally, there needs to be clarity on what the NMC plans to do for tackling queerphobia in the current set of health professionals.

    Consider the question “The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act, 2019 mandates governments to take measures for the review of the medical curriculum. In light of this, discuss the changes needed in the medical curriculum regarding the LGBTQIA+ community.”

    Conclusion

    Without these changes, equitable access to healthcare for queer persons will remain a faraway dream.

    UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)