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

Civilsdaily

Login

GS Paper: GS3

  • China’s use of ‘Microwave Weapons’

    The Indian Army has rejected a report in the British daily newspaper which claimed that the Chinese army had used “microwave weapons” to drive Indian soldiers away from their positions in eastern Ladakh.

    The use of non-lethal weapons for violence and mob control is a contested issue. Can you suggest some alternatives to it apart from the use of water cannon and teargas?

    What are “Microwave Weapons”?

    • Microwave weapons are supposed to be a type of direct energy weapons, which aim highly focused energy in the form of sonic, laser, or microwaves, at a target.
    • It uses a focussed beam of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation to heat the water in a human target’s skin, causing pain and discomfort.
    • In a microwave oven, an electron tube called a magnetron produces electromagnetic waves (microwaves) that bounce around the metal interior of the appliance, and are absorbed by the food.
    • The microwaves agitate the water molecules in the food, and their vibration produces heat that cooks the food.
    • Food with high water content cooks faster in a microwave often than drier foods.

    Which countries have these “microwave weapons”?

    • A number of countries are thought to have developed these weapons to target both humans and electronic systems.
    • According to a report, China had first put on display its “microwave weapon”, called Poly WB-1, at an air show in 2014.
    • The United States has also developed a prototype microwave-style weapon, which it calls the “Active Denial System”.

    How dangerous are these weapons?

    • Concerns have been raised on whether they can damage the eyes, or have a carcinogenic impact in the long term.
    • It is not clear yet how China intends to use such a weapon, and whether it can kill or cause lasting damage to human targets.

  • [pib] India’s AI supercomputer PARAM Siddhi

    India’s newest and fastest supercomputer, PARAM-Siddhi AI, has been ranked 63rd in the Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers in the world.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.The terms Mihir, Param Siddhi and Pratyush are sometimes seen in news are actually:

    a)Indigenous Submarines

    b)Supercomputers

    c)Missiles

    d)Satellites

    Param Siddhi

    • It is a high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC.
    • It was commissioned by the C-DAC earlier and has been developed in association with chipmaker Nvidia and French IT consulting firm Atos.
    • It will help deep learning, visual computing, virtual reality, accelerated computing, as well as graphics virtualization.
    • The computer is expected to be used as a platform for academia, scientific research, startups and more.

    Other Indian supercomputers

    • PARAM-Siddhi is the second Indian supercomputer to be entered in the top 100 on the Top500 list.
    • Pratyush, a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, ranked 78th on the November edition of the list.
    • It was ranked 66th in the June rankings announced by the project.
    • Another Indian supercomputer, Mihir (146th on the list), clubs with Pratyush to generate enough computing power to match PARAM-Siddhi.

    Who topped the rankings?

    • The Top500 project tracks the most powerful supercomputers in the world and is published twice a year.
    • Japanese supercomputer Fugaku (442 petaflops) and IBM’s Summit (148.8 petaflops) are the two most powerful supercomputers in the world, according to the list.
    • Chinese Sunway TaihuLight is number four on the list (93 petaflops), developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC) in China.

    Back2Basics:

    National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)

    Petaflop

    • A petaflop is a measure of a computer’s processing speed and can be expressed as A thousand trillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) A thousand teraflops.
    • In computing, floating-point operations per second is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations.
    • For such cases, it is a more accurate measure than measuring instructions per second.

  • [pib] India’s first Green Energy Convergence Project

    The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is set to roll out of India’s first Energy Convergence Project in Goa.

    Green Energy Convergence Project

    • Under the project, EESL and the Department of New and Renewable Energy (DNRE) in Goa will carry out feasibility studies and implementation of decentralized solar energy projects.
    • The project aims to connect seemingly independent sectors like Solar Energy, Energy Storage and LED lights to provide solutions, which can enable in decarbonisation and affordable energy access.
    • It will include the installation of 100 Megawatt decentralized ground-mounted solar power projects on government land to be used for agricultural pumping.
    • It seeks to replace 6,300 agricultural pumps and distribute 16 lakh LED bulbs for rural domestic households.

    Benefits of the project

    • The projects will accelerate the usage of renewable energy sources, especially for agricultural and rural power consumption in the State.
    • They will also contribute to the reduction of peak energy demand through the deployment of energy-efficient pumping and lighting thus contributing to overall sustainability.

    About EESL

    • A joint venture of NTPC Limited, Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation and POWERGRID, the EESL was set up under Ministry of Power to facilitate the implementation of energy efficiency projects.
    • EESL is a Super Energy Service Company (ESCO) that seeks to unlock energy efficiency market in India, that can potentially result in energy savings of up to 20 per cent of current consumption.
    • It also acts as the resource centre for capacity building of State DISCOMs, ERCs, SDAs, upcoming ESCOs, financial institutions, etc.

  • India’s challenge in balancing the emissions and economy

    India faces an uphill task of balancing its climate action with the economic growth. Bridging the energy deficit through renewable energy in cost-effective and increasing urban forestry could help in balancing the both.

    Comparing India’s commitment

    • China’s announcement recently to achieve carbon neutrality, that is, effectively generating net-zero emissions, before 2060 has now shifted focus on India’s commitments.
    • In this context,  let us compare India’s commitments with other countries, based on an independent scientific analysis carried out by the Climate Action Tracker. Major findings of it are:-
    • 1) India is one of the only six countries (amongst the 33 that were assessed), and the only G-20 country, whose climate commitments at Paris are on a path compatible to limit warming well below 2°C.
    • 2) It seems that India is well on its way to achieving its carbon intensity reduction and non-fossil-fuel electricity growth capacity commitments well before the 2030 target year.
    • Even though China’s commitment is likely to lower warming projections by around 0.2 to 0.3 degrees C by 2100, China continues to remain in the “highly insufficient” category.
    • India, despite being the fourth-largest emitter, has consistently kept its commitments in sync with its fair share and will achieve, if not over-achieve, these targets.

    Difference in development and growth levels

    • Development and growth in India are still at an early stage, and our first goal remains increasing the availability of adequate infrastructure for all Indians.
    • A measure of this deficit is that we use only about 0.6 tonnes of oil-equivalent worth of energy per person per year while in China it is 2.36 tonnes per person per year, and is at least 4 tonnes per person per year in the OECD countries.
    • It is, therefore, essential that we rapidly bridge the energy deficit.

    Bridging the energy deficit through renewable and cost-effective manner

    • Cost-effectiveness in renewable electricity has occurred rather rapidly, largely as a result of the global reduction in solar PV and battery prices.
    • Solar electricity is already the cheapest electricity available in India when the sun is shining.
    • It now seems that round-the-clock renewable electricity may be cost-competitive with coal electricity in the near future.
    • This cost-effectiveness of zero-carbon options will emerge in other applications as well.
    • It will involve dedicated action in some of the vital sectors which can generate and sustain employment while adding to the country’s economic growth.
    • It will enable a shift away from emissions-intensive fossil fuels, reducing our dependence on fuel imports.

    Urban forestry to compensate for environmental degradation

    • Increasing urban forestry could help compensate for environmental degradation as a result of rapid urbanisation in several Indian cities.
    • This is vital to restore the flow of crucial ecosystem services, including air quality, and increase the resilience of cities to extreme climatic events.
    • As a result, enhancing biodiversity, minimising human-wildlife conflict and restoring India’s pristine forests by developing dedicated wildlife/biodiversity corridors is an essential next step.

    Way ahead

    • At the developmental crossroads that India stands, the next decade is vital for its own economic growth, its climate action, and its social and ecological well-being.
    • With this in mind, India must focus on its domestic developmental prerogative and disengage them from the pressures that come along with international negotiations, focussing on actions that reduce the development deficits, which also provide strong climate benefits.
    • India must initiate a narrative, discussion and dialogue which focuses on each country taking on commitments that move their carbon trajectory towards the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.

    Consider the question “Development and growth in India still at an early stage which makes the challenge of balancing the commitment to climate action with economic developement more difficult. In light of this, suggest the strategy that India should follow.”

    Conclusion

    India, being at the crossroads of development needs to balance the development goals with its commitment towards climate action.

  • India’s challenges in maintaining its viability against competitive economies

    The article deals with the challenges India faces in attracting the relocating supply chains in the wake of the pandemic.

    Is China losing its appeal

    • Some labour-intensive industries, such as textiles and apparels, have been moving to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as labour costs in China are increasing.
    • But trends in other industries show that businesses have mostly remained in China.
    • COVID-19 crisis has resulted in firms establishing relatively small-scale operations elsewhere.
    • This is perceived as a buffer against being completely dependent on China, referred to as the ‘China +1’ strategy.

    3 Reason for firms to remain in China

    •  1) Starting an enterprise and maintaining operations in China are much easier than elsewhere.
    • 2) Chinese firms are nimble and fast, which is evident from the quick recovery of Chinese manufacturing after the lockdown.
    • 3) Many global companies have spent decades building supply chains in China, getting out would mean moving the entire ecosystem.

    3 Challenges facing India

    • This has led to intensification of competition among Asian countries to be ‘plus one’  in the emerging manufacturing landscape.
    • India faces three challenges in this race.

    1) Increasing domestic public investment

    • First is the task of increasing domestic public investments, which have implications for both demand and supply sides.
    • In India, even before the pandemic, the growth in domestic investments had been weak,
    • This seems to be the opportune time to bolster public investments as interest rates are low globally and savings are available.
    • Private investments would continue to be depressed, due to the uncertainty on the future economic outlook.

    2) Reforms in trade policy

    • India needs a major overhaul in her trade policy world trade had been rattled by tendencies of rising economic nationalism and unilateralism leading to the return of protectionist policies.
    • A revamped trade policy needs to take into account the possibility of two effects of the RCEP:
    • 1) Walmart effect: It would sustain demand for basic products and help in keeping employee productivity at an optimum level, but may also reduce wages and competition due to sourcing from multiple vendors at competitive rates.
    • 2) Switching effects: It would be an outcome of developed economies scouting for new sources to fulfil import demands, which requires firms to be nimble and competitive.
    • Trade policy has to recognise the pitfalls of the present two-track mode, one for firms operating in the ‘free trade enclaves’ and another for the rest.
    • A major fallout of this ‘policy dualism’ is the dampening of export diversification.
    • The challenge is to make exporting activity more attractive for all firms in the economy.

    3) Increasing women’s participation in labour force

    • While India’s GDP has grown by around 6% to 7% per year women’s labour force participation rate has fallen from 42.7% in 2004–05 to 23.3% in 2017–18.
    • This means that three out of four Indian women are neither working nor seeking paid work.
    • Globally, India ranks among the bottom ten countries in terms of women’s workforce participation.
    • When Bangladesh’s GDP grew at an average rate of 5.5% during 1991 and 2017, women’s participation in the labour force increased from 24% to 36%.
    • India could gain hugely if barriers to women’s participation in the workforce are removed.
    • The manufacturing sector should create labour-intensive jobs that rural and semi-urban women are qualified for.

    Consider the question “Relocation of supply chains offers an opportunity for India. However, it faces several challenges in attracting these relocating supply chains. What are these challenges? Suggest measures to deal with these challenges.”

    Conclusion

    India’s approach to the changed scenario needs to be well-calibrated. The stage is set for a new ‘Asian Drama’. What will be India’s role in it? Well, it will not be on the basis of past accolades, for sure.

  • Vulture Action Plan for 2020-25

    Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change has launched a Vulture Action Plan 2020-25 for the conservation of vultures in the country.

    Vulture Action Plan

    • While the ministry has been carrying out a conservation project for vultures since 2006, the plan is to now extend the project to 2025 to not just halt the decline but to actively increase the vulture numbers in India.
    • There are nine recorded species of vultures in India — the Oriental white-backed, long-billed, slender-billed, Himalayan, red-headed, Egyptian, bearded, cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.
    • Vulture numbers saw a steep slide — as much as 90 per cent in some species — in India since the 1990s in one of the most drastic declines in bird populations in the world.

    Decline in Populations

    • Between the 1990s and 2007, numbers of three presently critically-endangered species – the Oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures — crashed massively with 99 per cent of the species having been wiped out.
    • The number of red-headed vultures, also critically-endangered now, declined by 91% while the Egyptian vultures by 80%.
    • The Egyptian vulture is listed as ‘endangered’ while the Himalayan, bearded and cinereous vultures are ‘near threatened’.

    Why protect vultures?

    • Vultures are often overlooked and perceived as lowly scavengers, but they play a crucial role in the environments in which they live.
    • The scavenging lifestyle that gives them a bad reputation is, in fact, that makes them so important for the environment, nature and society.
    • Vultures, also known as nature’s cleanup crew, do the dirty work of cleaning up after death, helping to keep ecosystems healthy as they act as natural carcass recyclers.

    Various threats

    • The crash in vulture populations came into limelight in the mid-90s, and in 2004.
    • The cause of the crash was established as diclofenac — a veterinary nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammatory diseases such as gout — in carcasses that vultures would feed off.
    • Just 0.4-0.7 per cent of animal carcasses contaminated with diclofenac was sufficient to decimate 99 per cent of vulture populations.

    Various initiatives

    • The MoEFCC released the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation 2006 with the drugs controller banning the veterinary use of diclofenac in the same year and the decline of the vulture population being arrested by 2011.
    • The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also established the Vulture Conservation Breeding Programme.
    • It has been successful and had three critically-endangered species bred in captivity for the first time.
    • The ministry has now also launched conservation plans for the red-headed and Egyptian vultures, with breeding programmes for both.
    • The Vulture Safe Zone programme is being implemented at eight different places in the country where there were extant populations of vultures, including two in Uttar Pradesh.

  • Fake News

    The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explain its “mechanism” against fake news and bigotry on air, and to create one if it did not already exist.

    Discuss how Fake News affects free speech and informed choices of citizens of the country?

    What did the Centre say?

    • The media coverage predominantly has to strike a balanced and neutral perspective.
    • It explained that as a matter of journalistic policy, any section of the media may highlight different events, issues and happenings across the world as per their choice.
    • It was for the viewer to choose from the varied opinions offered by the different media outlets.

    What is Fake News?

    • Fake news is untrue information presented as news. It often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.
    • Once common in the print and digital media, the prevalence of fake news has increased with the rise of social media and messengers.
    • Political polarization, post-truth politics, confirmation bias, and social media have been implicated in the spread of fake news.

    Threats posed

    • Fake news can reduce the impact of real news by competing with it.
    • In India, the spread of fake news has occurred mostly with relation to political and religious matters.
    • However, misinformation related to COVID-19 pandemic was also widely circulated.
    • Fake news spread through social media in the country has become a serious problem, with the potential of it resulting in mob violence.

    Countermeasures

    • Internet shutdowns are often used by the government as a way to control social media rumours from spreading.
    • Ideas such as linking Aadhaar to social media accounts have been suggested to the Supreme Court of India by the Attorney General.
    • In some parts of India like Kannur in Kerala, the government conducted fake news classes in government schools.
    • The government is planning to conduct more public-education initiatives to make the population more aware of fake news.
    • Fact-checking has sparked the creation of fact-checking websites in India to counter fake news.

  • Needed, a policy framework in step with technology

    The changing realm of technology requires a change in the policy framework. The article discusses the issue of the impact of technology and the required changes in the policy framework.

    Adoption of information-based technologies

    • The expansion of computing power has driven the pace of information gathering and analysis.
    • The new currency drives processes and decision-making across a wide array of products and services, making them more efficient and value accretive for consumers.
    • These information-based technologies have been widely adopted across a broad range of industries and products that traditionally have not been perceived as electronic or software based.
    •  A modern automobile has 40% of its component value from electronic-based products.
    • This is a paradigm shift as the amount of “value add” from intangible technology services as opposed to physical objects, even in traditional goods, is being transformed by information.
    • Information and electronics are becoming all-pervasive, ensuring that we set boundaries to control quality or the uptime of the equipment.
    • Information availability drives efficiency and creates value for customers by providing greater control over the product
    • There is increasing digitisation and electronification of industrial activities, products and services, influencing the evolving skill sets in industry.

    Need for holistic views in policies

    • To address the needs of various stakeholders, governments have tended to build specialised departments and designed policies that govern those areas.
    • Over time, as each of these departments grew, they have tended to operate in silos.
    • The recent developments in technology have, however, blurred standard boundaries that dictate policy framework in most governments.
    • As technology is driving an increasing share of the value add coming from digitisation and data analytics, there needs to be a way of encouraging capital formation by way of intangibles in traditionally tangible industries.
    • There is a need to have a holistic view of policies for economic development as technology is becoming a significant enabler in most industries.
    • A change in policy framework regarding economic development that enables various ministries to work together is essential.

    Way forward

    • A nourishing ecosystem for industry, including the hard infrastructure and softer areas such as education, skilling, technical institutions, laboratories, testing centres, etc., has to be cultivated.
    • The creation of clusters of companies in adjacent but complementary areas could constitute such an ecosystem that encourages multi and cross-disciplinary learning and spur innovation and economic development.
    • Moreover, this type of ecosphere could also attract investment and capital formation.
    • There is also the larger issue of a shift of value between manufacturing and services as technology changes.
    • The policy, by and large, promotes and gives incentives for manufacturing, whereas the share of intangibles are not adequately covered in industrial policies.
    • It is important to include these to encourage innovation and technological development.
    • It is important that there is close cooperation and alignment between the Centre and State to ensure effective implementation on the ground.

    Conclusion

    Some of these thoughts could help us navigate through an ecosystem that is changing with technology.

  • Economic implications of India opting out of RCEP

    Even as India opted to stay out after walking out of discussions last year, the new trading bloc has made it clear that the door will remain open for India to return to the negotiating table.

    Must read:

    China-led RCEP takes off without India

    Try answering this also:

    Q.Signing the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement would have given more substance to India’s Act East policy. Analyse.

    Why did India walk out?

    • India decided to exit RCEP negotiations over “significant outstanding issues”.
    • Its decision was to safeguard the interests of industries like agriculture and dairy and to give an advantage to the country’s services sector.
    • The current structure of RCEP still does not address these issues and concerns.

    How far is China’s presence a factor?

    (1) Escalated tensions

    • Escalated tension with China is considered to be a major reason for India’s decision.
    • Major issues that were unresolved during RCEP negotiations were related to the exposure that India would have to China.

    (2) Surge in imports

    • This included India’s fears that there was “inadequate” protection against surges in imports.
    • It felt there could also be a possible circumvention of rules of origin— the criteria used to determine the national source of a product.
    • In the absence of this, other partner countries could dump their products by routing them through other countries that enjoyed lower tariffs.

    (3) Inability for countermeasures

    • India was unable to ensure countermeasures like an auto-trigger mechanism to raise tariffs on products when their imports crossed a certain threshold.
    • It also wanted RCEP to exclude most-favoured-nation (MFN) obligations from the investment, especially to countries with which it has border disputes.

    (4) No assurance of market access to India

    • RCEP also lacked clear assurance over market access issues in countries such as China and non-tariff barriers on Indian companies.
    • The agreement would have forced India to extend benefits given to other countries for sensitive sectors like defence to all RCEP members.

    (5) Trade balances paradox

    • India’s stance on the deal also comes as a result of learnings from unfavourable trade balances that it has with several RCEP members, with some of which it even has Free Trade Agreements.
    • India has trade deficits with 11 of the 15 RCEP countries, and some experts feel that India has been unable to leverage its existing FTAs with several RCEP members to increase exports.

    What can the decision cost India?

    • There are concerns that India’s decision would impact its bilateral trade ties with RCEP member nations, as they may be more inclined to focus on bolstering economic ties within the bloc.
    • The move could potentially leave India with less scope to tap the large market that RCEP presents —the size of the deal is mammoth, as the countries involved account for over 2 billion of the world’s population.
    • Given attempts by countries like Japan to get India back into the deal, there are also worries that India’s decision could impact the Australia-India-Japan network in the Indo-Pacific.

    What are India’s options now?

    • India, as an original negotiating participant of RCEP, has the option of joining the agreement without having to wait 18 months as stipulated for new members in the terms of the pact.
    • RCEP signatory states said they plan to commence negotiations with India once it submits a request of its intention to join and it may participate in meetings as an observer prior to its accession.
    • A possible alternative for India is to review its existing bilateral FTAs with some of these RCEP members as well as newer agreements with potential for Indian exports.
    • There is also a growing view that it would serve India’s interest to invest strongly in negotiating bilateral agreements with the US and the EU, both currently a work in progress.

    Conclusion

    • A country can never get into FTAs merely to provide its market to the partner countries.
    • When we accommodate our partner countries, our objective is also to increase the presence of our products in the markets of partners, and India hasn’t been able to achieve the latter objective.

  • What is mRNA vaccine?

    The Moderna and Pfizer vaccines which recently announced their success use the same technology, based on messenger RNA, or mRNA.

    Try this PYQ first:

    Q.‘RNA interference (RNAi)’ technology has gained popularity in the last few years. Why?

    1. It is used in developing gene silencing therapies.
    2. It can be used in developing therapies for the treatment of cancer.
    3. It can be used to develop hormone replacement therapies.
    4. It can be used to produce crop plants that are resistant to viral pathogens.

    Select the correct answer using the code given below:

    (a) 1, 2 and 4

    (b) 2 and 3

    (c) 1 and 3

    (d) 1 and 4 only

    What is mRNA?

    • Messenger RNA (mRNA) is a single-stranded RNA (Ribo Nucleic Acid) molecule that is complementary to one of the DNA strands of a gene.
    • The mRNA is an RNA version of the gene that leaves the cell nucleus and moves to the cytoplasm where proteins are made.
    • During protein synthesis, an organelle called a ribosome moves along the mRNA, reads its base sequence, and uses the genetic code to translate each three-base triplet, or codon, into its corresponding amino acid.

    What is the mRNA vaccine?

    • Such vaccines make use of the messenger RNA molecules that tell the body’s cells what proteins to build.
    • The mRNA, in this case, is coded to tell the cells to recreate the spike protein of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes Covid-19.
    • It is the spike protein — which appears as spikes on the surface of the coronavirus — that initiates the process of infection; it allows the virus to penetrate cells, after which it goes on to replicate.
    • A coronavirus vaccine based on mRNA, once injected into the body, will instruct the body’s cells to create copies of the spike protein.
    • In turn, this is expected to prompt the immune cells to create antibodies to fight it.
    • These antibodies will remain in the blood and fight the real virus if and when it infects the human body.

    Back2Basics: Ribo Nucleic Acid (RNA)

    • RNA is an important biological macromolecule that is present in all biological cells.
    • It is principally involved in the synthesis of proteins, carrying the messenger instructions from DNA, which itself contains the genetic instructions required for the development and maintenance of life.
    • In some viruses, RNA, rather than DNA, carries genetic information.
    • The type of RNA dictates the function that this molecule will have within the cell.
    • Aside from the coding region of messenger RNA (mRNA) molecules that will be translated into proteins, other cellular RNA elements are involved in different processes.