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

Civilsdaily

Login

GS Paper: GS3

  • The cost of cleaning air

    The article deals with the issue of allocation of funds to tackle air pollution and issues with it.

    Allocation in the budget

    • A ₹4,400 crore package was announced in last budget for 2020-21 to tackle air pollution in 102 of India’s most polluted cities.
    • The funds would be used to reduce particulate matter by 20%-30% from 2017 levels by 2024 under the National Clean Air Programme (NCAP).

    Issues with estimating the scale of the problem

    • It is unclear if this amount is adequate because the scale of the problem is unknown.
    • Delhi government spent money on the measurement of pollution for in Delhi that far exceeds s allocations that find mention in the Centre and State government’s budgeting books.
    • The funds allocated don’t account for the trained manpower and the support system necessary to effectively maintain the systems and these costs are likely to be significant.
    • Historically, cites have used manual machines to measure specified pollutants and their use has been inadequate.
    • An analysis by research agencies Carbon Copy and Respirer Living Sciences recently found that only 59 out of 122 cities had PM 2.5 data available.
    • Only three States, had all their installed monitors providing readings from 2016 to 2018.
    • Prior to 2016, making comparisons of reduction strictly incomparable.
    • Now manual machines are being replaced by automatic ones and India is still largely reliant on imported machines.
    • In the case of the National Capital Region, at least ₹600 crore was spent by the Ministry of Agriculture over two years to provide subsidised equipment to farmers in Punjab and Haryana and dissuade them from burning paddy straw.
    • Yet this year, there have been more farm fires than the previous year and their contribution to Delhi’s winter air woes remain unchanged.
    • This indicates that money alone doesn’t work.

    Conclusion

    A clear day continues to remain largely at the mercy of favourable meteorology. While funds are critical, proper enforcement, adequate staff and stemming the sources of pollution on the ground are vital to the NCAP meeting its target.

  • Economic lessons from Vietnam and Bangladesh

    The article examines the emergence of Bangladesh and Vietnam as the major export hubs in the world and explains the lessons India could draw from it.

    Context

    • Bangladesh has become the second-largest apparel exporter after China.
    • Vietnam’s exports have grown by about 240% in the past eight years.

    Analysing Vietnam’s success

    • An open trade policy, a less inexpensive workforce, and generous incentives to foreign firms contributed to Vietnam’s success.
    • Vietnam’s open trade policy through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) means trading partners do not charge import duties on products made in Vietnam.
    • Vietnam’s domestic market is open to the partners’ products.
    • Vietnam has agreed to change its domestic laws to make the country attractive to investors.
    • Over a decade or so, large brands such as Samsung, Canon, Foxconn, H&M, Nike, Adidas, and IKEA have flocked to Vietnam to manufacture their products.

    What explains Bangladesh’s success?

    • In Bangladesh, large export of apparels to the EU and the U.S. make the most of the country’s export story.
    • The EU allows the import of apparel and other products from least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh duty-free.
    • India, as a good neighbour, accepts all Bangladesh products duty-free (except alcohol and tobacco).
    • Bangladesh may not have this facility in four to seven years as its per capita income rises and it loses the LDC status.
    • Bangladesh is working smartly to diversify its export basket.

    Lessons for India

    • The key learning from Bangladesh is the need to support large firms for a quick turnover.
    • Yet, most of Vietnam’s exports happen in five sectors, in contrast, India’s exports are more diversified.
    • The Economic Complexity Index (ECI), which ranks a country based on how diversified and complex its manufacturing export basket is, illustrates this point.
    • The ECI rank for China is 32, India 43, Vietnam 79, and Bangladesh 127.
    • India, unlike Vietnam, has a developed domestic and capital market.
    • To further promote manufacturing and investment, India could set up sectoral industrial zones with pre-approved factory spaces.
    • There should be no need to search for land or obtain many approvals.

    India should pursue organic growth

    • Most of Vietnam’s electronics exports are just the final assembly of goods produced elsewhere.
    • In such cases, national exports look large, but the net dollar gain is small. China also faces this issue.
    • Country’s Export to GDP ratio (EGR) indicates its export capacity.
    • Vietnam’s EGR is 107%, such high dependence on exports brings dollars but also makes a country vulnerable to global economic uncertainty. 
    • The U.S.’s EGR is 11.7%, Japan’s is 18.5%, India’s is 18.7%. Even for China, with all its trade problems, the EGR is 18.4%.
    • Most such countries, including India, follow an open trade policy, sign balanced FTAs, restrict unfair imports, and have a healthy mix of domestic champions and MNCs.
    • While export remains a priority, it is not pursued at the expense of other sectors of the economy.
    • The focus is on organic economic growth through innovation and competitiveness.

    Consider the question “While export is essential for the growth of the country, over-dependence on it and its promotion at the expense of the other sectors could do more harm to the economy than good. Comment.” 

    Conclusion

    With reforms promoting innovation and lowering the cost of doing business, India is poised to attract the best investments and integrate further with the global economy without increasing its dependence on export.

  • GRACE-FO Mission

    The GRACE-FO mission has mapped deviation in Earth’s surface mass and spatial variations in the rate of sea-level rise between 1993 and 2018 using altimetric and gravimetric analysis.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.NASA’s VIPER mission sometimes seen in news is related to the study of-

    a)Moon

    b)Venus

    c)Sun

    d)None of these

    GRACE-FO Mission

    • The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment Follow-On (GRACE-FO) mission launched in 2018 is a partnership between NASA and the German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ).
    • It is a successor to the original GRACE mission, which orbited Earth from 2002-2017.
    • It carries on the extremely successful work of its predecessor while testing a new technology designed to dramatically improve the already remarkable precision of its measurement system.

    How did NASA measure this?

    (1) Altimetric Study

    • Altimetry missions are used to know the ocean surface topography — the shape and height of the ocean’s peaks and valleys.
    • Radar altimeters continually send out pulses of radio waves (microwaves) that bounce off the surface of the ocean and reflect back toward the satellite.
    • The instrument calculates the time it takes for the signal to return, while also tracking the precise location of the satellite in space. From this, scientists can derive the height of the sea surface directly underneath the satellite.

    (2) Gravimetric Study

    • Gravimetry is a process of using ice’s gravitational pull on a pair of satellites. It helps estimate ice loss and its contribution to sea-level rise.
    • The twin satellites in each mission detect subtle shifts in Earth’s gravity field.
    • The strength of gravitational forces is determined by mass, so changes in Earth’s gravity field indicate a change or redistribution in mass.

  • Regulation of Other Service Providers (OSP)

    The Department of Telecom (DoT) has eased the rules for registration, submission of bank guarantee and other norms for other service providers (OSP) in the business process outsourcing (BPO) and information technology-enabled services (ITes).

    Recall your basics from NCERT books… Sectors of the Economy … More precisely, the Tertiary, Quaternary and Quinary Sectors.

    What are Other Service Providers (OSP)?

    • OSPs or other service providers are companies or firms which provide secondary or tertiary services such as telemarketing, telebanking or telemedicine for various companies, banks or hospital chains, respectively.
    • As computers made their foray into the Indian information technology space, a number of such OSPs, which were either voice or non-voice based, came into the market.
    • The sector required minimal investment but gave great returns in business, which prompted a large number of individuals and companies to float other service providing firms.

    Registration of OSPs

    • The new telecom policy of 1999 suggested that all OSPs register themselves so that the government could keep a check on the usage of its resources.
    • Since most of these firms used leased telephone lines, this in turn used the telecom spectrum auctioned by the DoT, hence facing the regulation.
    • Further, the registration was also made mandatory to ensure that firms did not establish fake OSPs which swindled customers under the garb of providing telebanking and other such sensitive services.

    What were the various registration norms for OSPs?

    • To start services in India, OSPs had to register themselves with the DoT and declare to the government as to how many employees were working in the firm as well as the area of service it was engaged in.
    • For example, if a firm wished to provide telebanking services, it had to tell the government the number of people working with the BPO and the state that firms catered to.
    • Further, the OSPs also have to declare whether they were providing services to domestic firms or international firms, and the nature of services being offered.

    Significance of the new guidelines

    • The guidelines will make it easier for BPOs and ITes firms in many ways, such as cutting down on the cost of location, rent for premises and other ancillary costs such as electricity and internet bills.
    • The doing away of registration norms will also mean that there will be no renewal of such licenses and therefore will invite foreign companies to set up or expand their other service providing units in India.
    • This change, in line with the norms of countries in the West can also allow employees to opt for freelancing for more than one company while working from home, thereby attracting more workers in the sector.

  • What is Einstein’s Eclipse?

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the DownToEarth.

    Einstein’s Eclipse

    • Albert Einstein’s prediction of the bending of light by the gravity of the Sun, one of the components of his general theory of relativity, can be tested during a solar eclipse.
    • Following an unsuccessful attempt to validate this prediction during the Solar eclipse of June 8, 1918, two expeditions were made to measure positions of stars during this eclipse.
    • The eclipse presented a rare chance to verify one of the essential consequences of general relativity, the bending of light by gravity.
    • Einstein’s theory predicted that rays of light passing near a massive body in space would be visibly bent as they followed the curve in space-time created by the body’s mass.
    • In the case of a ray of light originating from a distant star and passing near the edge of the Sun, Einstein calculated a deflection of about 1.75 arc seconds.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Consider the following phenomena:

    1. Light is affected by gravity.
    2. The Universe is constantly expanding.
    3. Matter warps its surrounding space-time.

    Which of the above is/are the predictions of Albert Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity, often discussed in media?

    (a) 1 and 2 only

    (b) 3 only

    (c) 1 and 3 only

    (d) 1, 2 and 3

    What was studied during the eclipse?

    • Einstein published his theory and predictions in 1915, and in 1919 the British physicist Sir Arthur Eddington took advantage of a total solar eclipse to attempt to detect the shifting images of stars near the limb of the sun.
    • The problem was that during totality the sky does not get perfectly dark, and only a handful of stars were visible near the sun from which to make the measurement.
    • The darkness of an eclipse, though, would allow the astronomers to observe and photograph the field of stars around the Sun.
    • By comparing the photographs with reference images taken at night, it would be possible to measure how much the presence of the Sun had bent the stars’ light.
    • Conveniently, a cluster of bright stars known as the Hyades would appear near the Sun during the eclipse.

    Significance

    • After several months of analysis, researchers announced in November that their findings supported the theory of general relativity.
    • Media coverage tended to dwell on the recondite nature of Einstein’s work, emphasizing that there were only a handful of people in the world who could understand it.
    • It could be argued that 1919 was the year when Einstein’s name became a byword for superhuman intellectual ability—making possible the small industry of Einstein-themed merchandise that still exists today.

    Back2Basics: General Relativity

    • Einstein’s theory proposes that gravity is not an actual force, but is instead a geometric distortion of space-time not predicted by ordinary Newtonian physics.
    • The more mass you have to produce the gravity in a body, the more distortion you get.
    • This distortion changes the trajectories of objects moving through space, and even the paths of light rays, as they pass close-by the massive body.
    • Even so, this effect is very feeble for an object as massive as our own sun, so it takes enormous care to even detect that it is occurring.
    • General Relativity predicts how much of this bending of light you should see given the mass of the object.
    • Called ‘gravitational lensing’ it has been detected on the cosmological scale as entire clusters of galaxies distort the light from more distant galaxies behind them as this image from the Hubble Space Telescope shows.

  • Ghogha-Hazira Ferry Service

    PM has virtually inaugurated the Ghogha-Hazira Ro-Pax ferry service in Gujarat.

    Try this question from CSP 2016:

    Q.Recently, which of the following States has explored the possibility of constructing an artificial inland port to be connected to the sea by a long navigational channel?

    (a) Andhra Pradesh

    (b) Chhattisgarh

    (c) Karnataka

    (d) Rajasthan

    Ghogha-Hazira Ferry Service

    • It will work as a Gateway to South Gujarat and Saurashtra region. It will reduce the distance between Ghogha and Hazira from 370 km to 90 km.
    • It has a load capacity of 30 trucks (of 50 MT each) on the main deck, 100 passenger cars on the upper deck and 500 passengers plus 34 crew and hospitality staff on the passenger deck.
    • The reduced cargo travel time from 10 to 12 hours to about four hours will result in huge savings of fuel (approx 9,000 litres per day) and lower the maintenance cost of vehicles drastically.
    • The ferry service, while making three round trips per day on the route, would annually transport about 5 lakh passengers, 80,000 passenger vehicles, 50,000 two-wheelers and 30,000 trucks.

    Benefits

    • It will reduce the fatigue of truck drivers and enhance their incomes by giving them more opportunity to do extra trips.
    • It will give an impetus to the tourism industry with ease of access to the Saurashtra region and lead to the creation of new job opportunities.
    • With the onset of ferry services, the port sector, furniture and fertilizer industries in Saurashtra and Kutch region will get a big boost.
    • Eco-tourism and religious-tourism in Gujarat, especially in Porbandar, Somnath, Dwarka and Palitana will grow exponentially.
    • The benefits of enhanced connectivity through this ferry service will also result in increased inflow of tourists in the famous Asiatic lion wildlife sanctuary at Gir.

  • Using the crucial expertise of CAPFs

    The article emphasises the role played by the CAPFs in dealing with the disasters.

    Dealing with the disasters

    • When disaster strikes our country, be it natural or man-made, the government summons the Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) to carry out the task of overcoming the disaster.
    • The CAPFs help in carrying out rescue and relief operations, and also mitigates the pains and problems arising out of the disaster.

    Role played by CAPFS during Covid

    • CAPFs comprise the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF), Border Security Force, Central Industrial Security Force, Sashastra Seema Bal, Assam Rifles and the ITBP.
    • Even before the country got to know about the COVID-19, the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) had already set up its 600-bed quarantine centre in Chawla on the outskirts of New Delhi.
    • The Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare had roped in specialists from the Safdarjung Hospital to coordinate with ITBP officials.
    • Doctors and paramedical personnel of other CAPFs were also roped in.
    • The expertise acquired by ITBP personnel and the Standard Operating Procedure prepared by the ITBP came handy for the States and other police forces in establishing their own quarantine centres and COVID-19 hospitals.

    Role of NDRF during Covid-19

    • NDRF personnel are wholly drawn from the CAPFs.
    • So, they form a good reserve of trained personnel when they go back to their parent force after their stint with NDRF.
    • With 12 battalions of the NDRF— each comprising 1,149 personnel — spread across the country, its experts have the core competency to tackle biological disasters like COVID-19.
    • Such personnel can be deployed at quarantines centres after short-term courses.
    • A proposal mooted by NITI Aayog last year, to conduct a bridge course for dentists to render them eligible for the MBBS degree, could be revived, and such doctors could be on stand-by to help in such emergency crises.

    Conclusion

    It is these CAPF personnel who give a semblance of existence of government administration even in the remotest corners of the country. Their versatile experience can be utilised to the nation’s advantage.

    B2BASICS:

    CAPF

    The Central Armed Police Forces refers to uniform nomenclature of five security forces in India under the authority of Ministry of Home Affairs. Their role is to defend the national interest mainly against the internal threats.

  • Green Hydrogen based vehicular fuel

    Transport sector has been a major contributor of Green House Gases in India. Moving towards cleaner fuels brings to fore two options battery-operated electric vehicle (EV) and hydrogen fuel cell EV. The article compares the two.

    Vehicular emission and steps taken to deal  with it

    • The transport sector in India contributes one-third of the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, within which the lion’s share is that of road transport.
    • The government has made concerted efforts to tackle vehicular emissions with policies steps and programmes such as the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Hybrid and Electric Vehicles (FAME I) scheme, FAME II, tax benefits, etc.

    Blending hydrogen

    • Typically, hydrogen can be produced in one of three ways, i.e., from fossil fuels (grey hydrogen), through carbon capture utilisation & storage (CCUS) application and fossil fuels (blue hydrogen), or by using renewable energy (green hydrogen). 
    • Indian Oil Corporation Limited has patented a technology that produces H-CNG (18% hydrogen in CNG) directly from natural gas, without having to undertake expensive conventional blending.
    • This compact blending process provides a 22% reduction in cost as compared to conventional blending.
    • In comparison to CNG, H-CNG allows for a 70% reduction in carbon monoxide emissions and a 25% reduction in hydrocarbon emissions.
    • The new H-CNG technology requires only minor tweaks in the current design of CNG buses.
    • However, the issue is that the  Hydrogen-spiked CNG is still being produced from natural gas-a fossil fuel.

    Electric vehicle Vs. Fuel cell

    • From a commercial viability standpoint, two cleaner fuel alternatives come to mind—battery-operated electric vehicles (BEV) and hydrogen fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEV).
    • Hydrogen FCEVs has reduced refuelling time (5 minutes versus 30-40 minutes with fast charges), higher energy density, longer range, etc.
    • However, one needs to focus on is the entire life cycle of these vehicles as opposed to restricting the analysis to just the carbon-free tailpipe emissions.
    • According to a report by Deloitte (2020) on hydrogen and fuel cells, the lifecycle GHG emissions from hydrogen FCEVs ranges between 130-230 g CO2e per km.
    • The lower end of the range depicts the case of hydrogen production from renewables while the higher end reflects the case of hydrogen production from natural gas.
    • The corresponding life cycles GHG emissions for BEV and internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicles range between 160-250 g CO2e and 180-270 g CO2e respectively.
    • The cost of lithium ion-based battery-operated vehicles has been reducing while hydrogen fuel cell technology is relatively quite expensive.
    • A hydrogen-run vehicle achieves an energy efficiency rate of 25-35% (roughly 45% of energy is lost during the electrolysis process alone).

    Way forward

    • Given that these are early days for FCEV, one can be hopeful that we will be able to achieve economies of scale and attain cost reductions.
    • Hydrogen Council (2020) on hydrogen cost competitiveness that states scaling up and augmenting fuel cell production from 10,000 to 200,000 units can deliver a 45% reduction in the cost per unit.
    • Similarly, the versatility of hydrogen allows for complementarity across its numerous applications.
    • Moreover, based on the numbers quoted by this report, fuel cell stacks for passenger vehicles are expected to exhibit learning rates of 17% in the coming future.
    • The corresponding figures for commercial vehicles stand at 11%.
    • Efforts are underway in India, and the research activities pertaining to hydrogen have been compiled and recently released in the form of a country status report.
    • In their quest for becoming carbon neutral by 2035, Reliance Industries plan to replace transportation fuels with hydrogen and clean electricity.
    • Similarly, the National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) is considering setting up a green hydrogen production facility in Andhra Pradesh.
    • The ministry of road transport and highways issued a notification proposing amendments to the Central Motor Vehicles Rules (1989) to incorporate safety standards for hydrogen fuel cell technology vehicles.
    • As per a policy brief issued by TERI, demand for hydrogen in India is expected to increase 3-10 fold by 2050.

    Consider the question “What are the benefits and challenges in the adoption of hydrogen as vehicular fuel?”

    Conclusion

    Against this backdrop, the future of hydrogen, particularly green hydrogen, looks promising in India.

    Source:-

    https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/fuelling-a-green-future/2121991/

  • What is a Fast Radio Burst (FRB)?

    NASA has reported that it observed a mix of X-ray and radio signals never observed before in the Milky Way.

    Such news makes us think about alien and extraterrestrial life at the first. Do not get carried away with such thoughts. Its simply a space based phenomena.

    What is an FRB?

    • The first FRB was discovered in 2007, since when scientists have been working towards finding the source of their origin.
    • Essentially, FRBs are bright bursts of radio waves (radio waves can be produced by astronomical objects with changing magnetic fields).
    • Its durations lie in the millisecond-scale, because of which it is difficult to detect them and determine their position in the sky.

    Who discovered it?

    • The X-ray portion of the simultaneous bursts was detected by several satellites, including NASA’s Wind mission.
    • Further, a NASA-funded project called Survey for Transient Astronomical Radio Emission 2 (STARE2) also detected the radio burst.

    Why are they significant?

    • First noticed in 2018 by the Canadian observatory the waves have created ripples across the globe for one reason — they arrive in a pattern.
    • This gave birth to theories that they could be from an alien civilization.
    • Initially, it was believed that the collision of black holes or neutron stars triggers them.
    • But the discovery of repeating FRBs debunked the theory of colliding objects.

    What is the origin of the FRB detected in April?

    • The source of the FRB detected in April in the Milky Way is a very powerful magnetic neutron star, referred to as a magnetar.
    • Magnetar is located in the constellation Vulpecula and is estimated to be between 14,000-41,000 light-years away.
    • The FRB was part of one of the magnetar’s most prolific flare-ups, with the X-ray bursts lasting less than a second.

    What is a magnetar?

    • A magnetar is a neutron star, “the crushed, city-size remains of a star many times more massive than our Sun.”
    • The magnetic field of such a star is very powerful, which can be over 10 trillion times stronger than a refrigerator magnet and up to a thousand times stronger than typical neutron stars.
    • Neutron stars are formed when the core of a massive star undergoes gravitational collapse when it reaches the end of its life.

  • Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) and its flaws

    A special instrument for access to crop genetic resources, i.e. Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) system, is fraught with challenges.

    What is ABS?

    • The Nagoya Protocol sought to ensure commercial and research utilization of genetic resources led to sharing its benefits with the government and the community that conserved such resources.
    • The Nagoya Protocol deals with Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity.
    • It is a 2010 supplementary agreement to the 1992 Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
    • It sets out obligations for its contracting parties to take measures in relation to access to genetic resources, benefit-sharing and compliance.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Which one the following is associated with the issue of control and phasing out of the use of ozone-depleting substances?

    (a) Bretton Woods Conference

    (b) Montreal Protocol

    (c) Kyoto Protocol

    (d) Nagoya Protocol

    A deviation from its purpose

    • The CBD was created with wild biodiversity in mind, especially medicinal plants where the source of a particular genetic resource and associated traditional knowledge can often be established easily.
    • The situation is different with respect to genetic resources for food and agriculture, including crops and livestock.
    • Humans have modified these in an incremental manner and in many different geographical locations far from where they were originally domesticated.

    India at loss

    • India was a victim of misappropriation or bio-piracy of our genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge, which were patented in other countries.
    • Well-known examples of this include neem and turmeric. It was expected that the Nagoya Protocol on ABS, a key missing pillar of the CBD, would address this concern.

    Threats to livestocks

    • Animal genetic resources composed of breeds and strains of domesticated animals that humans have developed out of 40 wild species in the past 10,000 years were placed under the purview of the Nagoya Protocol.
    • India is a key repository of genetic resources related to animals and holds a rich diversity of distinct livestock breeds. It is, therefore, essential that these breeds are protected.
    • The impending and on-going implementation of the Nagoya Protocol at national levels, therefore, creates some urgency for the animal genetic resource sector to engage with these questions.