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GS Paper: GS3

  • A proposal for Indian Environmental Service

    The Supreme Court has asked the Government if it will create an Indian Environmental Service (IES) as recommended by a committee headed by former Cabinet secretary T.S.R Subramanian in 2014.

    Why is the IES debate back in the news?

    • The Supreme Court was responding to a petition whose counsel pointed out that the matters of environment required special expertise.
    • Currently, matters of environmental regulation rest on scientists of the Ministry of Environment and Forests as well as bureaucrats from the Indian Administrative Services (IAS).
    • The apex court expressed reluctance at getting into administrative matters of the Government but nevertheless asked the Centre if it expects to go about constituting such a mechanism.

    TSR Subramanian Committee Report on Environment

    • The Subramanian committee was set up in August 2014 to review the country’s green laws and the procedures followed by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEF&CC).
    • It suggested several amendments to align with the Government’s economic development agenda.
    • The report had suggested amendments to almost all green laws, including those relating to the environment, forest, wildlife and coastal zone clearances.
    • The committee suggested that another committee, with more expertise and time, be constituted to review the environmental laws.

    Key recommendations

    (a) Establishment of Environment Management Authorities

    • The report proposed an ‘Environmental Laws (Management) Act’ (ELMA), that envisioned full-time expert bodies to be constituted at the Central and State levels respectively:
    1. National Environmental Management Authority (NEMA)
    2. State Environmental Management Authority (SEMA)

    (b) Project clearances

    • These authorities evaluate project clearance (using technology and expertise), in a time bound manner, providing for single-window clearance.
    • It suggested a “fast track” procedure for “linear” projects (roads, railways and transmission lines), power and mining projects and for “projects of national importance.”
    • It also suggested an appellate mechanism against the decisions of NEMA/SEMA or MoEF&CC, in respect of project clearance, prescribing a three-month deadline to dispose appeals.

    (c) Expanding Environment Protection Act

    • The Air Act and the Water Act is to be subsumed within the EP Act.
    • The existing Central Pollution Control Board and the State PCBs, which monitor and regulate the conditions imposed on the industries to safeguard environment be integrated into NEMA and SEMA.

    (d) Evaluating Environmental Reconstruction Cost (ERC)

    • The report also recommends that an “ERC” should be assessed for each project on the basis of the damage caused by it to the environment and this should be added into the cost of the project.
    • This cost has to be recovered as a cess or duty from the project proponent during the life of the project.

    (e) Research and Development

    • It proposed the establishment of a National Environment Research institute “on the lines of the Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education”.
    • It would bring in the application of high-end technology in environment governance.

    (f) Establishment of Indian Environment Service (IES)

    • Finally, an Indian Environment Service should be established to recruit qualified and skilled human resource in the environment sector.

    How were the recommendations received?

    • The Centre never formally accepted this report and neither constituted a new committee as recommended by the Parliamentary Standing Committee.
    • The Parliamentary rejected the report on the grounds that it ended up diluting key aspects of environmental legislation designed to protect the environment.
    • However, many of these recommendations are implicitly making their way into the process of environmental regulation.

    Back2Basics: All Indi Services

    • The All India Services (AIS) comprises three civil services: the Indian Administrative Service, the Indian Police Service and the Indian Forest Service.
    • A unique feature of the AIS is that the members of these services are recruited by the centre (Union government in federal polity), but their services are placed under various State cadres.
    • They have the liability to serve both under the State and under the centre.
    • Officers of these three services comply to the All India Services Rules relating to pay, conduct, leave, various allowances etc.
    • The All India Services Act, 1951, provides for the creation of two more All India Services, namely, the Indian Engineering Service and the Indian Medical Service.

     

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  • Kerala gets its first-ever Scientific Bird Atlas

    The Kerala Bird Atlas (KBA), the first-of-its-kind State-level bird atlas in India, has created solid baseline data about the distribution and abundance of bird species across all major habitats, giving an impetus to futuristic studies.

    Kerala Bird Atlas (KBA)

    • The KBA has been prepared based on systematic surveys held twice over 60 days a year during the wet (July to September) and dry (January to March) seasons between 2015 and 2020.
    • It was conducted as a citizen science-driven exercise with the participation of over 1,000 volunteers of the birdwatching community.
    • The KBA accounts for nearly three lakh records of 361 species, including 94 very rare species, 103 rare species, 110 common species, 44 very common species, and 10 most abundant species.
    • It was found that the species count was higher during the dry season than in the wet season while species richness and evenness were higher in the northern and central districts than in the southern districts.

    Significance of KBA

    • The KBA offers authentic, consistent and comparable data through random sampling from the geographical terrain split.
    • It is arguably Asia’s largest bird atlas in terms of geographical extent, sampling effort and species coverage derived from the aggregation of 25,000 checklists.
    • The KBA is considered to be a valuable resource for testing various ecological hypotheses and suggesting science-backed conservation measures.

     

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  • Why India needs a single agency to guard its borders

    Context

    Recent developments warrant a comprehensive review of border management to ensure the all-weather security of our borders.

    What makes India’s border management difficult?

    • India shares land borders with Pakistan, China, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Myanmar, which stretch approximately 15,106 km.
    • In addition, we have an approximately 3,323 km-long LoC with Pakistan, which further extends to the rechristened 110 km stretch of “Actual Ground Position Line” (AGPL) dividing the Siachen glacier region.
    • Further east, we have the 3,488 km LAC with China.
    • We share maritime boundaries with Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Myanmar and Indonesia; we have a 7,683 km coastline and an approximately 2 million sq km exclusive economic zone (EEZ).
    • This makes India’s task more complex than most other countries.

    Multiple agencies securing borders

    • Complexity is accentuated by the fact that along with the army, we have multiple other security agencies — the Central Armed Police Force (CAPF) and the Paramilitary Forces (PMF) — sharing the responsibility.
    • While the army is deployed along the LoC and AGPL, the Border Security Force (BSF) looks after the international border with Pakistan and Bangladesh.
    • Guarding the LAC has been assigned to the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) and Assam Rifles.
    • The Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) is responsible for guarding the borders with Nepal and Bhutan.
    • The Assam Rifles looks after our border with Myanmar.
    • In a nutshell, in addition to the army, we have four agencies guarding borders with six neighbours.
    • Conversely, maritime borders are guarded by a single agency — the Coast Guard.

    Need for review of the border management

    • There is a lack of a coherent policy on training, planning and the conduct of guarding operations among various outfits.
    • Overall coordination is also affected.
    • Our adversary on the western border has often escalated violations by resorting to the prolonged use of military resources.
    • Chinese provocations along the LAC are military operations.
    • Clearly, the peace-time scenario is now by and large militarised.

    Way forward

    • Single security agency: In this scenario, India needs a single security agency adequately equipped, suitably armed and trained in advanced military drills and sub-unit tactics to guard our borders.
    • Manpower from Army: Further, to augment the battle efficiency, a fixed percentage of manpower, including the officer cadre, should be drawn on deputation from the army.
    • Paramilitary force under Ministry of Defence: To ensure the desired training and operational standards, this single security agency should be designated as a paramilitary force under the Ministry of Defence and operate under the army.
    • Mergers: The ITBP and the SSB should be fully merged into the new outfit; the BSF and CRPF still have important internal security duties and can be partially merged.
    • The reorganised Assam Rifles too should retain its role of conducting counter-insurgency operations and act as a reserve for the army for conventional operations.
    • Most countries have raised specialised and dedicated armed bodies for border security.
    •  Iran has the Border Guard Command, Italy has the Border Police Service, Russia has created a Border Guard Service, whereas in the US, it is under Homeland Security.
    • Most of these countries, based on threat perception and for better combat cohesion, have placed these organisations under the command of the armed forces.

    Conclusion

    India should adopt a single agency with adequate resources and training to deal with the evolving challenges.

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  • Declaration on Forests and Land Use

    At COP-26 in Glasgow, countries got together to sign the Declaration on Forests and Land Use (or the Deforestation Declaration). However, India was among the few countries that did not sign the declaration.

    What is this Deforestation Declaration?

    • It was signed by 142 countries, which represented over 90 percent of forests across the world.
    • The declaration commits to halt and reverse forest loss and land degradation by 2030 while delivering sustainable development and promoting an inclusive rural transformation.
    • The signatories committed $19 billion in private and public funds to this end.

    Why did India abstain from joining?

    • India had concerns about the linkage the declaration makes between deforestation, infrastructure development and trade.
    • Any commitment to the environment and climate change should not involve any reference to trade, cited India.
    • Analysts in India have linked the decision to a proposed amendment to the Forest Conservation Act 1980 that would ease the clearances presently required for acquiring forest land for new infrastructure projects.

    India abstained from many things

    • A look at India’s positions on some other recent critical pledges and decisions related to climate change reveals a clear pattern of objections or absence.
    • At CoP26, India was not part of the dialogue on Forests, Agriculture and Commodity Trade (FACT).
    • FACT, which is supported by 28 countries seeks to encourage “sustainable development and trade of agricultural commodities while protecting and managing sustainably forests and other critical ecosystems”.
    • India also voted against a recent draft resolution to allow for discussions related to climate change and its impact on international peace and security to be taken up at the UNSC.

    Why should India join this declaration?

    • Broadly speaking, all of India’s objections are based on procedural issues at multilateral fora.
    • Although justifiable on paper, these objections seem blind to the diverse ways in which climate change is linked to global trade, deforestation, agriculture, and international peace, among other issues.
    • For context, consider India’s palm oil trade. India is the largest importer of crude palm oil in the world.
    • Palm oil cultivation, covering roughly 16 million acres of land in Indonesia and Malaysia, has been the biggest driver of deforestation in the two countries.

     

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  • Why 5G roll-outs are disrupting flights to the US?

    Air India said Boeing had cleared its B777 aircraft for flights to the US following concerns that the 5G roll-out there could interfere with critical aircraft functions.

    What is 5G Technology?

    • 5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long-term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
    • It’s a unified platform which is much more capable than previous mobile services with more capacity, lower latency, faster data delivery rate and better utilization of spectrum.

    How can 5G affect flight safety?

    • Airlines take off and land using auto-pilot systems, which use data from radar altimeters to determine the altitude of the aircraft.
    • Altimeters emit radio waves at 4.2-4.3 Gigahertz (GHz) frequency, which could interfere with a 5G band called C-Band, which lies between 3.7-4.4 GHz.
    • This interference can mess up the data. That’s the safety concern. Radio altimeters are used at airports and other low-altitude locations.
    • A different kind of altimeter, called pressure altimeter, is used for high altitude areas.
    • Not using auto-pilot would lead to more fuel consumption and higher costs for airlines.

    What happens to Air India’s operations?

    • While scheduled international flights, to and from India, remain suspended due to the pandemic, Air India operates flights to the US under an air bubble agreement.
    • These routes are served by the airline’s wide-body fleet of Boeing 777 and Boeing 787 planes.
    • The roll out of 5G is expected to primarily impact the operations of Boeing 777 and 747.

    Can this impact India’s 5G roll-out?

    • India’s 5G auctions are expected to include spectrum bands of 3.3GHz -3.6GHz, which means the C-Band may not be operational, at least in the near future.
    • Plus, aircraft equipment is manufactured globally, with certain standards.
    • The FAA tests will likely lead to standards for altimeters and applied internationally.
    • For aircraft makers, altimeters are key equipment. But they’re bought off-the-rack instead being designed in-house.
    • Once a standard is known, it can be implemented in all aircraft.

    Also read

    [Burning Issue] 5G Technology

  • What is Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)?

    The Global Research on Antimicrobial Resistance (GRAM) report published in The Lancet provides the most comprehensive estimate of the global impact of Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR) so far.

    What is AMR?

    • Antimicrobial resistance (AMR or AR) is the ability of a microbe to resist the effects of medication that once could successfully treat the microbe
    • Antibiotic resistance occurs naturally, but misuse of antibiotics in humans and animals is accelerating the process.
    • A growing number of infections – such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, gonorrhoea, and salmonellosis – are becoming harder to treat as the antibiotics used to treat them become less effective.
    • It leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality.

    How does it occur?

    • Antibiotics are medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial infections.
    • Antibiotic resistance occurs when bacteria change in response to the use of these medicines.
    • Bacteria, not humans or animals, become antibiotic-resistant.
    • These bacteria may infect humans and animals, and the infections they cause are harder to treat than those caused by non-resistant bacteria.

    What did the GRAM report find?

    • AMR is a leading cause of death globally, higher than HIV/AIDS or malaria.
    • As many as 4.95 million deaths may be associated with bacterial AMR in 2019.
    • Lower respiratory tract infections accounted for more than 1.5 million deaths associated with resistance in 2019, making it the most common infectious syndrome.

    The six leading pathogens for deaths associated with resistance were:

    1. Escherichia coli (E. Coli)
    2. Staphylococcus aureus
    3. Klebsiella pneumonia
    4. Streptococcus pneumonia
    5. Acinetobacter baumannii
    6. Pseudomonas aeruginosa

    What are the implications of this study?

    • Common infections such as lower respiratory tract infections, bloodstream infections, and intra-abdominal infections are now killing hundreds of thousands of people every.
    • This includes historically treatable illnesses, such as pneumonia, hospital-acquired infections, and foodborne ailments.

    Way forward

    • Doctors recommend greater action to monitor and control infections, globally, nationally and within individual hospitals.
    • Access to vaccines, clean water and sanitation ought to be expanded.
    • The use of antibiotics unrelated to treating human disease, such as in food and animal production must be “optimised” and finally they recommend being “more thoughtful”.

     

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  • The mobile phone sector has lessons for India’s economy

    Context

    The mobile phones and room air conditioners (RAC) sectors in recent times have shown us the formulae for expansion of the manufacturing sector and growing exports.

    How did India expand its mobile manufacturing base?

    • We were one of the largest consumers of mobile phones in 2014.
    • In 2014-15, our mobile phone imports exceeded $8 billion.
    • Our electronics imports were threatening to exceed our oil imports.
    • Steps taken by govt: The government took many steps like 100 per cent automatic FDI,
    • levy of import duties to protect local manufacturers,
    • the Phased Manufacturing Plan (PMP),
    • manufacturing clusters (EMC 2.0) and
    • the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
    • They have attracted investments, created lakhs of jobs, and have moved us from being a net importer to a net exporter.
    • Our mobile phone manufacturing value has jumped more than eight times from Rs 0.27 trillion in 2013-14 to Rs 2.2 trillion in 2020-21.
    • We have surpassed the US and South Korea to become the second-largest manufacturer globally.

    Steps need to be taken

    •  Our mobile phone exports are primarily limited to feature phones and low-value smartphones.
    • India must aim for a significant increase in exports from the current $4 billion.
    • China exports $200 billion, and Vietnam exports $60 billion worth of mobile phones.
    • The PLI scheme aims to achieve the same by allocating incentives of Rs 410 billion for the mobile phone category over the next five years.
    • Low value addition: Our value addition in mobile phone manufacturing is currently limited to 15-20 per cent versus more than 40 per cent in China.
    •  The scheme for promoting the manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors (SPECS) is a step in the right direction.
    • We must focus on setting up a fabrication plant to manufacture semiconductor chips to facilitate complete vertical integration.

    The Room AC sector story

    •  We imported RACs worth Rs 41 billion in 2017-18.
    • The government initiated multiple measures such as the PMP scheme, banning the import of refrigerant-filled ACs, increasing the import duty on RACs and critical components, and the PLI scheme.
    • From 2017-18, RAC imports have declined by 56 per cent to Rs 18 billion in 2020-21.
    • Our import of RACs has shifted from China to an FTA country like Thailand, where import duty isn’t applicable.
    • A judicious mix of protection (levy of import duty/banning of finished goods) and incentives (PMP, PLI scheme, 100 per cent FDI) has developed local manufacturing, created jobs, and turned a trade surplus.

    Way forward

    • We missed the manufacturing/export bus in the 1980s.
    • We did excel in services like software to become back office to the world. With China+1 becoming a geopolitical imperative, it is an opportune time for us to expand the manufacturing sector and improve our export market share.
    • To achieve our true potential we need close coordination and seamless working between central, state, and local governments, the rule of law, improvements in infrastructure, especially logistics and flexible labour laws.

    Conclusion

    Many of our peers are ahead of us in ease of doing business, but none of them has a large domestic market like us. The automobile and generic pharma sector in the past and the mobile phone/RAC sectors recently have shown that we know the formulae.

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  • Species in news: Swamp Deer

    The population of the vulnerable eastern swamp deer, extinct elsewhere in South Asia, has dipped (from 907 in 2018 to 868 in 2020 ) in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.

    Swamp Deer

    • The swamp deer also called as barasingha is a deer species distributed in the Indian subcontinent.
    • Populations in northern and central India are fragmented, and two isolated populations occur in southwestern Nepal.
    • It has been locally extinct in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and its presence is uncertain in Bhutan.
    • In Assamese, barasingha is called dolhorina; dol meaning swamp.

    Note: Swamp deers do occur in the Kanha National Park of Madhya Pradesh, in two localities in Assam, and in only 6 localities in Uttar Pradesh.

    Conservation status

    • IUCN Red List: Endangered
    • CITES: Appendix I
    • Wildlife Protection Act of 1972: Schedule I

     

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. Consider the following fauna of India:

    1. Gharial
    2. Leatherback turtle
    3. Swamp deer

    Which of the above is/are endangered?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1, 2 and 3

    (d) None

     

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

     

     

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  • Species in news: Miss Kerala

    A section of aquarists and ornamental fish breeders are surprised that the Denison barb (Miss Kerala), a native freshwater fish species commonly found in parts of Karnataka and Kerala, has been included in Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1982 (amendment bill).

    Miss Kerala

    • Miss Kerala is also known as Denison barb, red-line torpedo barb and roseline shark.
    • Its scientific name is Sahyadria denisonii.
    • The fish is featured with red and black stripes on its body.
    • It is found in the States of Kerala and Karnataka.
    • It has been listed on the IUCN Redlist as Vulnerable, in 2010.
    • This species is known to inhabit fast-flowing hill streams and is often found in rocky pools with thick vegetation along river banks.

    Why included in Schedule I of WPA?

    • Ironically, its beauty is the biggest threat to its survival, as it is highly sought-after in the international aquarium trade, constituting 60 – 65% of the total live ornamental fish exported from India.
    • Its numbers are also decreasing owing to habitat degradation due to deforestation, mining, agriculture, urban expansion and hydro-electric projects.

     

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  • What the budget needs to do

    Context

    We need to insure the most vulnerable against shocks such as Covid, but even more, we need to create good job opportunities for the unskilled. What can the budget do?

    Impact on informal economy

    • The last two quarters have seen a substantive recovery in the Indian economy.
    • Corporate profitability of our largest firms has hit a new record this year.
    • So have GST collections, another indicator of the formal economy, with an average monthly collection of Rs 1.2 trillion in the second and third quarters.
    • The glass though is half full, the informal economy was particularly badly hit by Covid and its associated lockdowns.
    • Small enterprises, retail, hospitality, and construction were all hammered.
    • These were our main source of recent employment growth.
    •  Agricultural employment has risen in the last year-and-a-half, while manufacturing and services employment has fallen — this is the opposite of development.
    •  Informal service sector jobs may not seem like great jobs to us, but they are greatly prized relative to eking out a marginal existence in agriculture.
    • We need to insure the most vulnerable against such shocks, but even more, we need to create good job opportunities for the unskilled, equip people at all levels to participate more fully in the modern economy, and systemically promote wider policies of inclusion.

    What can the budget do?

    • Create good jobs for unskilled: The way it can do so directly is through accelerating spending on infrastructure.
    • The National Infrastructure Pipeline has identified a good set of projects.
    • The government should be complimented for its intention and ambition; what we need now is implementation.
    • Labour-intensive manufacturing: Most countries developed by putting millions to work in labour-intensive manufacturing.
    • We do not have the huge firms in export-oriented labour-intensive sectors that employ millions in China, Vietnam, and Bangladesh.
    •  Bangladesh has thrived by putting millions to work in manufacturing.
    • A booming garment sector employs 4.4 million.
    • As 80 per cent of those employed in garment factories are women, Bangladesh has twice the female labour force participation ratio of India.
    • Implement labour laws: In June and September 2020, the government passed four labour laws.
    • These laws have since been left dormant.
    • The budget should announce a time frame for implementation, notification by the Union government and then by the states.
    • Investment in education and skilling:  India has among the least skilled workforces in the world.
    • Under 5 per cent of our workforce is formally skilled, compared to 96 per cent in South Korea, 75 per cent in Germany and 52 per cent in the US.
    • That is why the work of the National Skills Development Corporation is so important.
    • Can the budget specify it as an independent entity controlled and run by the private sector that is then held accountable for delivering on our skilling targets.
    • Education is even more important, especially primary education.
    • Pratham’s education reports make for sobering reading.
    • The New Education Policy has a proposal that every second standard child should be able to read and do arithmetic at the second standard level as a foundation for further education.
    • This welcome initiative must receive greater dedication and focus from both government and industry.
    • School education is a state subject, so the Union budget can at best incentivise states to do the right things, say by linking the flow of additional funds to those that demonstrate improved second standard learning outcomes.
    • As a part of CSR, many companies work actively with schools.
    • Education is already the largest single area for CSR spending, accounting for one-third of the Rs 9,000 crore spent by the top 100 companies.

    Conclusion

    Other policies for economic inclusion must go beyond social inclusion. These include measures like reducing tariffs to benefit millions of consumers instead of thousands of firms. Industrial policies that help all firms such as the ease of doing business, instead of incentivising a selected few.

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