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  • Making sense of population growth of India

    The article analyses and explains the declining trend in India’s total fertility rate. The aspirational revolution in the parents explains such decline. 

    What the projections say

    • A new study was published in The Lancet, and prepared by the Seattle-based Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME).
    • It argues that while India is destined to be the largest country in the world, its population will peak by mid-century.
    • And as the 21st century closes, its ultimate population will be far smaller than anyone could have anticipated, about 1.09 billion instead of approximately 1.35 billion today.
    • It could even be as low as 724 million, the study projects.
    • Until 2050, the IHME projections are almost identical to widely-used United Nations projections.
    •  It is only in the second half of the century that the two projections diverge with the UN predicting a population of 1.45 billion by 2100, and the IHME, 1.09 billion.

    Present trends in India’s fertility rate

    •  In the 1950s, India’s Total fertility rate (TFR) was nearly six children per woman; today it is 2.2.
    •  Between 1992 and 2015, it had fallen by 35% from 3.4 to 2.2.
    • It is even below the replacement rate in 18 States and Union Territories.

    What explains the trends

    • One might attribute it to the success of the family planning programme.
    • But family planning has long lost its primacy in the Indian policy discourse.
    • Punitive policies include denial of maternity leave for third and subsequent births, limiting benefits of maternity schemes and ineligibility to contest in local body elections for individuals with large families.
    • However, these policies are mostly ignored in practice.

    Aspirational revolution

    •  It seems highly probable that the socioeconomic transformation of India since the 1990s has played an important role.
    • Over the years parents began to rethink their family-building strategies.
    • Smaller families when compared with a bigger family with same income level, invest more money in their children by sending them to private schools and coaching classes.
    • It is not aspirations for self but that for children that seems to drive fertility decline.

    Consider the question “Examine the factors responsible for the declining trends in the total fertility rate for India. What are its implications for country?”

    Conclusion

    Demographic data suggest that the aspirational revolution is already under way. What we need to hasten the fertility decline is to ensure that the health and family welfare system is up to this challenge and provides contraception and sexual and reproductive health services that allow individuals to have only as many children as they want.

  • Hindu Women’s Inheritance Rights

    The Supreme Court has expanded a Hindu woman’s right to be a joint legal heir and inherit ancestral property on terms equal to male heirs.

    What is the ruling?

    • The SC Bench ruled that a Hindu woman’s right to be a joint heir to the ancestral property is by birth and does not depend on whether her father was alive or not when the law was enacted in 2005.
    • The Hindu Succession (Amendment) Act, 2005 gave Hindu women the right to be coparceners or joint legal heirs in the same way a male heir does.
    • Since the coparcenary (heirship) is by birth, it is not necessary that the father coparcener should be living as on 9.9.2005, the ruling said.

    What is the 2005 law?

    • The Mitakshara school of Hindu law codified as the Hindu Succession Act, 1956 governed succession and inheritance of property but only recognised males as legal heirs.
    • The law applied to everyone who is not a Muslim, Christian, Parsi or Jew by religion.
    • Buddhists, Sikhs, Jains and followers of Arya Samaj, Brahmo Samaj are also considered Hindus for the purposes of this law.
    • In a Hindu Undivided Family, several legal heirs through generations can exist jointly.

    Background

    • Traditionally, only male descendants of a common ancestor along with their mothers, wives and unmarried daughters are considered a joint Hindu family.
    • The legal heirs hold the family property jointly.
    • Women were recognised as coparceners or joint legal heirs for partition arising from 2005.
    • The 174th Law Commission Report had also recommended this reform in Hindu succession law.
    • Even before the 2005 amendment, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu had made this change in the law, and Kerala had abolished the Hindu Joint Family System in 1975.

    What did the law bring in?

    • Section 6 of the Act was amended that year to make a daughter of a coparcener also a coparcener by birth “in her own right in the same manner as the son”.
    • The law also gave the daughter the same rights and liabilities “in the coparcenary property as she would have had if she had been a son”.
    • The law applies to ancestral property and to intestate succession in personal property — where succession happens as per law and not through a will.

    How did the case come about?

    • While the 2005 law granted equal rights to women, questions were raised whether the law applied retrospectively and if the rights of women depended on the living status of their father.
    • Different benches of the Supreme Court had taken conflicting views on the issue. Different High Courts had also followed different views of the top court as binding precedents.
    • The Prakash v Phulwati (2015) case held that the benefit of the 2005 amendment could be granted only to “living daughters of living coparceners” as on September 9, 2005 (the date when the amendment came to force).
    • In February 2018 a bench headed by Justice A K Sikri held that the share of a father who died in 2001 will also pass to his daughters as coparceners during the partition of the property as per the 2005 law.

    The present case

    • These conflicting views led to a reference to a three-judge Bench in the current case.
    • The ruling now overrules the verdicts from 2015 and April 2018.
    • It settles the law and expands on the intention of the 2005 legislation to remove the discrimination as contained in section 6 of the Hindu Succession Act, 1956.
    • It gave equal rights to daughters in the Hindu Mitakshara coparcenary property as the sons have.

    What was the government’s stand?

    • The solicitor argued in favour of an expansive reading of the law to allow equal rights for women. He referred to the objects and reasons of the 2005 amendment.
    • The Mitakshara coparcenary law not only contributed to discrimination on the ground of gender but was oppressive and negated the fundamental right of equality guaranteed by the Constitution.

  • [pib] Himalayan Geothermal Springs release huge amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere

    The Himalayas, which hosts about 600 geothermal springs needs to be considered while estimating emissions to the carbon cycle and thereby to global warming says, Indian researchers.

    Note the following hot springs in India:

    1) Panamik in Nubra valley

    2) Kheer Ganga in Kullu, Himachal

    3) Manikaran Sahib, Himachal

    4) Tattapani, Chhattisgarh

    5) Gaurikund, Uttarakhand

    6) Yumthang, Sikkim

    7) Reshi, Sikkim

    Geothermal springs

    • Geothermal or Hot springs are heated by shallow intrusions of magma (molten rock) in volcanic areas. Some thermal springs, however, are not related to volcanic activity.
    • The water is heated by convective circulation: groundwater percolates downward & reaches depths of a kilometre or more where the temperature of rocks is high because of the normal temperature gradient of the Earth’s crust.

    Why consider the Himalayas?

    • The Himalayan geothermal springs which cover about 10,000 square km in the Garhwal region of Himalaya show a significant discharge of CO2 rich water.
    • The estimated carbon dioxide degassing (removal of dissolved gases from liquids, especially water or aqueous solutions) flux is nearly 7.2 ×106 mol/year to the atmosphere.
    • Such CO2 degassing should be taken into account to assess global carbon outflux in the earth’s atmosphere.

    Where does this CO2 come from?

    • Carbon outflux from Earth’s interior to the exosphere through volcanic eruptions, fault zones, and geothermal systems contribute to the global carbon cycle that effects short and long term climate of the Earth.
    • The CO2 in the thermal springs are sourced from metamorphic decarbonation of carbonate rocks present deep in the Himalayan core along with magmatism and oxidation of graphite.
    • Most of the geothermal water is dominated by evaporation followed by weathering of silicate rocks.
    • Isotopic analyses further point towards a meteoric source for geothermal water.

  • In news: Mount Sinabung

    The Mount Sinabung volcano in Indonesia has erupted spouting ash at least 5,000 metres high into the sky.

    In the Philippines, a volcano called Taal on the island of Luzon; 50 km from Manila has recently erupted in January. Note all such recent eruption in news.

    Also, try this PYQ:

    Consider the following statements:

    1. The Barren Island volcano is an active volcano located in the Indian Territory.
    2. Barren Island lies about 140 km east of Great Nicobar
    3. The last time the Barren Island volcano erupted was in 1991 and it has remained inactive since then.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2018)

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 3 only

    (d) 1 and 3

    Mount Sinabung

    • It is a Pleistocene-to-Holocene stratovolcano in the Karo plateau of Karo Regency, North Sumatra, Indonesia.
    • It is created by the subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate under the Eurasian Plate.
    • It erupted in 2010 after a 400-year-long hiatus and has been continuously active since September 2013.

  • How Quit India movement gave a new direction to India’s freedom struggle?

    On August 8, 78 years ago, Mahatma Gandhi gave the call for British colonizers to “Quit India” and for the Indians to “do or die” to make this happen.

    Try this PYQ:

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

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

    What is the correct chronological sequence of the above events?(CSP 2017)

    (a) 1-2-3

    (b) 2-1-3

    (c) 3-2-1

    (d) 3-1-2

    What led to the events of August 1942?

    • While factors leading to such a movement had been building up, matters came to a head with the failure of the Cripps Mission.
    • World War II was raging, and a beleaguered British needed the cooperation of their colonial subjects in India.
    • To this end, in March 1942, a mission led by Sir Stafford Cripps arrived in India to meet leaders of the Congress and the Muslim League.
    • The idea was to secure India’s whole-hearted support in the war, in return for self-governance.
    • However, despite the promise of “the earliest possible realization of self-government in India”, the offer Cripps made was of dominion status, and not freedom.

    A final blow

    • The failures of the Cripps Mission made Mahatma Gandhi realize that freedom would be had only by fighting tooth and nail for it.
    • Though initially reluctant to launch a movement that could hamper Britain’s efforts to defeat Fascist forces in the World War, Congress eventually decided to launch a mass civil disobedience.
    • At the Working Committee meeting in Wardha in July 1942, it was decided the time had come for the movement to move into an active phase.

    The Gowalia Tank address and Gandhiji’s arrest

    • On August 8, Gandhiji addressed the people from Mumbai’s Gowalia Tank maidan with the ‘Do or Die’ mantra.
    • By August 9, Gandhi and all other senior Congress leaders had been jailed.
    • He was kept at the Aga Khan Palace in Pune, and later in the Yerawada jail.
    • It was during this time that Kasturba Gandhi died at the Aga Khan Palace.

    The slogan ‘Quit India’

    • While Gandhi gave the clarion call of Quit India, the slogan was coined by Yusuf Meherally, a socialist and trade unionist who also served as Mayor of Mumbai.
    • A few years ago, in 1928, it was Meherally who had coined the slogan “Simon Go Back”.

    Outcome: A people’s movement

    • The arrest of the leaders, however, failed to deter the masses. With no one to give directions, people took the movement into their own hands.
    • In Bombay, Poona and Ahmedabad, lakhs of people clashed with the police on August 9. On August 10, protests erupted in Delhi, UP and Bihar.
    • There were strikes, demonstrations and people’s marches in defiance of prohibitory orders in Kanpur, Patna, Varanasi, and Allahabad.
    • The protests spread rapidly into smaller towns and villages.
    • Till mid-September, police stations, courts, post offices and other symbols of government authority were attacked.
    • Railway tracks were blocked, students went on strike in schools and colleges across India, and distributed illegal nationalist literature.
    • Mill and factory workers in Bombay, Ahmedabad, Poona, Ahmednagar, and Jamshedpur stayed away for weeks.
    • In some places, the protests were violent, with bridges blown up, telegraph wires cut, and railway lines taken apart.

    Outcome

    • The Quit India movement was violently suppressed by the British – people were shot, lathi-charged, villages burnt and enormous fines imposed.
    • In the five months up to December 1942, an estimated 60,000 people had been thrown in jail.

    Significance

    • Soon after, Gandhi and almost the entire top Congress leadership was arrested and thus began a truly people-led movement in our freedom struggle.
    • Eventually dispersed violently by the British, it left behind a clear message that the British would have to leave India, and no other solution would be acceptable to its masses.

  • Boreal Summer Intra-Seasonal Oscillation (BSISO)

    Researchers at the Indian National Centre for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad have reportedly found a way to better forecast the Boreal Summer Intra-Seasonal Oscillation (BSISO).

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.With reference to ‘Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD)’ sometimes mentioned in the news while forecasting Indian monsoon, which of the following statements is/are correct? (CSP 2017)

    1. IOD phenomenon is characterized by a difference in sea surface temperature between tropical Western Indian Ocean and tropical Eastern Pacific Ocean.
    2. An IOD phenomenon can influence an El Nino’s impact on the monsoon.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 only

    (c) Both 1 and 2

    (d) Neither 1 nor 2

    What is BSISO?

    • The BSISO of the Asian summer monsoon (ASM) is one of the most prominent sources of short-term climate variability in the global monsoon system.
    • It is the movement of convection (heat) from the Indian Ocean to the western Pacific Ocean roughly every 10-50 days during the monsoon (June-September).
    • Compared with the related Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) it is more complex in nature, with prominent northward propagation and variability extending much further from the equator.
    • It represents the monsoon’s ‘active’ and ‘break’ periods, in which weeks of heavy rainfall give way to brilliant sunshine before starting all over again.
    • The active phase also enhances monsoon winds and hence the surface waves.

    Why predict BSISO behaviour?

    • Some phases of boreal summer intraseasonal oscillation or BSISO induce high wave activity in the north Indian Ocean and the Arabian Sea, the researchers claimed.
    • Wave forecast advisories based on the BSISO would be more useful for efficient coastal and marine management.
    • This finding has a great significance in developing seasonal and climate forecast service for waves and coastal erosion for India.

  • Why August 7th is called National Handloom Day?

    Yesterday, August 7th was celebrated as the National Handloom Day. It was in 2015, the first National Handloom Day was celebrated.

    Try this PYQ:

    What was the immediate cause for the launch of the Swadeshi movement? (CSP 2010)

    (a) The partition of Bengal done by Lord Curzon.

    (b) A sentence of 18 months rigorous imprisonment imposed on Lokmanya Tilak.

    (c) The arrest and deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh; and passing of the Punjab Colonization Bill.

    (d) Death sentence pronounced on the Chapekar brothers.

    Why 7th August?

    • With the partition of Bengal, the Swadeshi Movement gained strength.
    • It was on August 7, 1905, that a formal proclamation was made at the Calcutta Town Hall to boycott foreign goods and rely on Indian-made products.

    What is handloom?

    • While different definitions for the word have evolved since the Handloom (Reservation and Articles for Production) Act, 1985, where ‘handloom’ meant “any loom other than power loom”, in recent years it has become more elaborate.
    • In 2012, a new definition was proposed: “Handloom means any loom other than power loom, and includes any hybrid loom on which at least one process of weaving requires manual intervention or human energy for production.”

    Back2Basics: Swadeshi Movement

    • Credit to starting the Swadeshi movement goes to Baba Ram Singh Kuka of the Sikh Namdhari sect, whose revolutionary movements which heightened around 1871 and 1872.
    • It gained momentum with the partition of Bengal by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon in 1905 and continued up to 1911.
    • It was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements.
    • Its chief architects were Aurobindo Ghosh, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Babu Genu.
    • Swadeshi, as a strategy, was a key focus of Mahatma Gandhi, who described it as the soul of Swaraj (self-rule). It was strongest in Bengal and was also called the Vandemataram movement in India.

    Important phases of the Movement

    • 1850 to 1904: developed by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale, Ranade, Tilak, G. V. Joshi and Bhaswat K. Nigoni. This was also known as the First Swadeshi Movement.
    • 1905 to 1917: Began in 1905, because of the partition of Bengal ordered by Lord Curzon.
    • 1918 to 1947: Swadeshi thought shaped by Gandhi.

  • [pib] Sahakar Cooptube NCDC Channel

    Union Minister of Agriculture & Farmers’ Welfare has launched the Sahakar Cooptube NCDC Channel, a new initiative by National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC).

    Note: Article 19 states that the Right to form co-operative societies is a Fundamental Right and DPSP Article 43-B provides for the promotion of co-operative societies.

    Sahakar Cooptube

    • The Sahakar Cooptube Channel aims to facilitate the involvement of the youth in the cooperative movement.
    • Cooperatives lend strength to farmers to minimize risks in agriculture and allied sectors and act as a shield against exploitation.
    • The channel will give a boost to Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan under which the government has announced a series of transformative measures and sector-specific financial packages to help agriculture.
    • The initiatives are steps towards One Nation One Market with the objective for India to become a food factory of the world.

    Back2Basics: NCDC

    • The NCDC is a statutory Corporation set up under an Act of Parliament on 13 March 1963.
    • The objectives of NCDC are:

    planning and promoting programmes for production, processing, marketing, storage, export and import of agricultural produce, foodstuffs, industrial goods, livestock and certain other notified commodities and services on cooperative principles and for matters concerned therewith or incidental thereto

    • NCDC Act has been further amended which will broad-base the area of operation of the Corporation to assist different types of cooperatives and to expand its financial base.
    • NCDC will now be able to finance projects in the rural industrial cooperative sectors and for certain notified services in rural areas like water conservation, irrigation and micro-irrigation, agri-insurance, agro-credit, rural sanitation, animal health, etc.

  • Nagara Architecture of Ayodhya’s Ram Temple

    The grand temple at Rama Janmabhoomi in Ayodhya will follow the Nagara style of temple architecture.

    Note the various features of the Nagara and Vesara style of temple architecture from your basic references.

    What is Nagara style of temple architecture?

    The basic form of a Hindu temple contains the following architectural elements:

    1. Garbhagriha – the small room where the principal deity/deities of the temple reside
    2. Mandapa – the portico or hall at the entrance of the temple generally designed to house a large number of people
    3. Shikhara – the mountain like spire which can have different shapes from pyramidal to curvilinear
    4. Vahana – the mount of the main deity placed generally in line of sight from Garbhagriha
    • In this style, the temple is generally constructed on an upraised platform called Jagati.
    • Mandapas are present in front of the These are adorned with the Shikhara, the tallest one being above the Garbhagriha.
    • The shikhara over the mandapas in the pictures of the Ayodhya Ram temple can be seen having a square base, and a rectilinear outline.
    • This is called the phamsana-style shikhara. Note that the mandapa shikhara right at the entrance has an octagonal base.

    Similar to Khajuraho Temple

    • There are different types of Shikhara found in Indian temples.
    • A comparison with Khajuraho Vishwanath temple, also built in Nagara style, shows the similarity between the two.
    • Note that the main shikhara of the two are remarkably similar.
    • They rise upward in a curved pyramidal fashion, ending in a horizontal fluted disc called an Amalaka topped with a Kalasha. This is called the Latina-style shikhara.

    Note: This newscard is an excerpt from an original article published in Swarajya Magazine.

    Back2Basics: The Ramjanmabhoomi Case

  • Who are the Bru Tribals?

    Non-Brus of Tripura has proposed six places for settling the displaced Brus from Mizoram and set a limit for the number of families to be accommodated in two subdivisions that have borne the brunt of the 23-year-old refugee crisis.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. With reference to ‘Changpa’ community of India, consider the following statement:

    1. They live mainly in the State of Uttarakhand.
    2. They rear the Pashmina goats that yield fine wool.
    3. They are kept in the category of Scheduled Tribes.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2014)

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    Who are the Brus?

    • Reangs or Brus are the second largest ethnic group in Mizoram.
    • Their exodus in 1997 was spurred by violent clashes in Mamith subdivision, a Reang-dominated area when they demanded the creation of an autonomous council that was vehemently opposed by Mizo groups.
    • Around 34,000 people were forced to live in sub-human conditions in tents in Tripura. No solution could be reached all these years.
    • These people were housed in temporary camps at Kanchanpur, in North Tripura.

    Read the complete thread here:

    [Burning Issue] Bru– Reang Repatriation Agreement