Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MACS 4028
Mains level: Bio-fortification and its benefits
Scientists from Agharkar Research Institute (ARI), Pune, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology have developed a biofortified durum wheat variety MACS 4028, which shows the high protein content.
MACS 4028
- MACS 4028 is a semi-dwarf variety, which matures in 102 days and has shown the superior and stable yielding ability of 19.3 quintals per hectare.
- It is resistant to stem rust, leaf rust, foliar aphids, root aphids, and brown wheat mite.
- It has a high protein content of about 14.7%, better nutritional quality having zinc 40.3 ppm, and iron content of 40.3ppm and 46.1ppm respectively, good milling quality and overall acceptability.
- The MACS 4028 variety is also included by the Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) programme for UNICEF to alleviate malnutrition.
Back2Basics
Biofortification is the idea of breeding crops to increase their nutritional value. This can be done either through conventional selective breeding, or through genetic engineering.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2-Role of administration in 21-day lock-down of country.
Context
A 21-day lockdown is extraordinary. Government, people must come together to ensure that supply chains and social trust must not break.
An unprecedented move
- A 21-day nationwide lockdown: The way we conduct ourselves in these 21 days will be critical in our fight against the coronavirus.” With these words, Prime Minister announced a measure unprecedented in India’s 72-year-old history.
- Never have the people of the country been asked to stay within the confines of their homes for this long a period, not even when the country has fought wars.
- Yet extraordinary times demand extraordinary measures. As the PM underlined, “stringent social distancing and staying within the Lakshman Rekha of our homes is the only prevention against the coronavirus”, the only way to break its transmission cycle.
Challenges and consequences
- There will be social and economic consequences and the PM did not equivocate on the challenges. He spoke of the vulnerable sections, and, as in last week’s speech, emphasised the imperative to be compassionate.
- He lauded the frontline workers, doctors, nurses and other healthcare workers, expressed gratitude to safai karamcharis and praised the private sector and civil society.
- A reworked social compact — more compassionate — will be necessary to confront the challenges posed by the lockdown.
- It is now up to civil society, government agencies, the healthcare and corporate sectors to take their cues from the PM’s speech and ensure that the burden of fighting the pandemic does not fall too heavily on those at the margins, the migrant and daily wage labourers, the rickshaw pullers and others for whom these 21 days could prove to be the toughest.
- Centre and state to work together: The Centre and state governments will need to work together, setting aside their political differences, to ensure that there is no shortage of essential commodities and the supply chains are not broken.
Measures to mitigate the impact
- Earlier in the day, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had announced a slew of measures that could soften the blow of a 21-day lockdown.
- The deadline for filing of income taxes for the financial year 2018-19 has been extended, as has the last date for filing GST returns.
- Sitharaman also announced that the threshold for taking companies through the insolvency and bankruptcy proceedings has been increased from Rs 1 lakh to Rs 1 crore.
- This will prevent creditors from taking small and medium-sized companies, who may be facing temporary cash flow management issues due to the lockdown, and hence are unable to meet their obligations, through the IBC process.
- The Centre has also advised state governments to transfer funds to construction workers from the cess fund collected by the labour welfare boards.
Conclusion
As the PM said, “21 days is a long period”. It’s now up to the authorities and the people to own and implement his message — to ensure that not just supply chains, but also social trust, isn’t broken.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Application of digitalisation in healthcare and judiciary.
Context
The Covid-19 pandemic gives us a chance to re-evaluate the worth of two major initiatives of the government: demonetization and digitization.
Importance of digitalisation in pandemic
- The importance of digitization in a pandemic cannot be exaggerated when we are repeatedly told to maintain social distance and work from home in order to avoid infection.
- Consider how nigh impossible it would be to avoid contact with retail cashiers and point-of-sale (PoS) terminals if we were to use credit cards and cash to pay for our daily necessities.
- Today, most bill payments have moved online and barring older people, who may prefer to pay their electricity bills at physical counters, digitization is delivering in spades.
- But digitization is not just about payments and financial transactions. Consider what all will happen as the current lockdown persists across the country.
Application in the judiciary
- Courts are beginning to use video-conferencing to conduct hearings. It is ironic that something that should have been done years ago to hasten hearings is now being done to prevent infections.
- India’s judiciary has been resisting technology for as long as one can remember.
- Witnesses do not have to drag themselves to court every day; they can video-record their statements in advance, and submit themselves to questioning through Skype or other such video-calling apps.
- When the entire case is recorded, the possibility of judges conducting trials in an unfair way gets substantially reduced, for those at the receiving end of judicial injustice can seek retrials based on video recordings.
- These recordings will also enable the higher judiciary to figure out who its good judges are, and who adopts dilatory tactics and frequent adjournments, delaying justice.
- At some point, a judicial appointments commission will have video records of all judges shortlisted for promotions. They will thus know whom to recommend for elevation and whom to sideline. Corruption is also likely to come down.
Application in the healthcare sector
- In the current Covid-19 crisis, doctors and nurses are putting themselves at huge risk, and so are those handling millions of samples of throat swabs that need to be analysed for the virus
- Applications: Remote patient examinations, analysis of symptoms with the help of databases and algorithms, and even the basic task of taking down a new patient’s medical history can all be done remotely through a digital app or interface.
- The doctor will know even before he has met the patient what could be wrong, something she only has to confirm after interacting with the patient.
- India is spending humongous amounts of money, and so are to-be doctors, to master medical knowledge that doubles every 75 days. In short, by the time your average MBBS doctor completes his or her degree, much of that knowledge could be outdated.
- He or she has to use technology to update himself or herself, and also rely on databases and artificial intelligence to deliver healthcare without the risk of misdiagnosis.
- India may be spending too much on training doctors at a cost of millions of rupees per head when a lot of that money could have been spent on technology to deliver competent and lower-cost healthcare.
Conclusion
If we just stop to think where we would have been in this pandemic but for digital technology, we would recognize the importance of going digital. It should make us think of how to convert the Covid-19 disruption into an agenda that brings us up to technological speed in various spheres of human activity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Vaccine development and trials.
Context
The world is dealing with an unprecedented and unimaginably serious crisis. Therefore, the speed of vaccine development is crucial.
Speeding up the vaccine development
- Availability of rationale and information: The race for developing an anti-COVID-19 vaccine has begun. Reasonable scientific rationale and the information needed for vaccine development are available to all stakeholders in academia and industry.
- Vaccine platforms: A large number of candidate vaccines based on different vaccine platforms, including delivering the virus genetic materials (RNA, DNA) or using synthetic biology to produce key viral proteins, have already been developed.
- Phase-I safety trials of an experimental vaccine, jointly developed by scientists at the National Institute of Health and at Moderna, a biotechnology company, has already been administered to healthy volunteers for its safety and immunogenicity.
- The speed with which the experimental vaccine has entered safety trials is unprecedented.
- Another vaccine jointly developed by China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and CanSino Biologics has reportedly been cleared for early-stage clinical trials.
- Development in India: The Serum Institute of India has also recently announced its readiness to start safety trials following animal experiments.
- According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report, more than 20 vaccine candidates are in advanced stages of development and will be ready for Phase-I safety trials.
- However, it is also clear that it will not be possible to roll-out any efficacious vaccine for at least another year.
Questions that need to be answered
- While these developments are encouraging, several questions will need to be answered for this vaccine development to move further.
- Triggering immune response safely: Although it is quite evident that humans mount a strong immune response and clear the viral load, the nature of the immune response and how to trigger it safely through vaccination will be key questions to address.
- Duration of the acquired immunity: How long the acquired immunity in humans will last is another important question to be asked before experimental vaccines move forward.
- We will need to know this because if the immunity is transient, then humans will be susceptible to reinfections.
- Ensuring no disease enhancement: Before moving to Phase-II trials in a large number of healthy volunteers, we also have to ensure that the immune response induced by vaccination does not lead to any disease enhancement.
Repurposing the already available drugs
- Therapeutic interventions, not only for curing severe cases of the disease but also for protecting all front-line healthcare workers, are urgently needed.
- Using already approved drugs: Since developing new drugs is a complex and lengthy process, scientists and pharmaceutical companies have rushed to investigate and use drugs that have already been approved by regulatory authorities.
- Using available molecular and structural biology information on the virus, a group of scientists have analysed all interactions of the viral proteins with human proteins that are crucial for the virus to enter human cells and use the host cell machinery to rapidly reproduce itself.
- Of the nearly 70 short-listed molecules that may interrupt these key interactions, 24 happen to be already approved drugs which can now be tested in laboratory animal models as well as humans.
- However, the re-purposing of several drugs, alone or in combinations to treat COVID-19 patients, have already been reported.
- More confusion than hope: There are many success stories of curing patients of COVID-19 doing the rounds in different parts of the world, but these have managed to create more confusion than hope.
- Without any appropriate controls, careful dosing and safety concerns, such small experiments can only do more harm than good.
Controlled randomised trials
- Given the urgency of finding a cure, it is absolutely necessary to find out unequivocally what works well and what does not. For that conducting carefully controlled randomised trials is the only way to go.
- In a welcome move, the WHO has announced clinical trials called the ‘Solidarity Project’.
- Under this project four drugs or drug, combinations will be tested in many countries around the world.
- These candidates include the anti-Ebola drug, Remdesivir, Chloroquine, anti-HIV drugs, and the Ritonavir/Lopinavir combination, with or without Interferon-beta.
- The European counterpart of the trial, Discovery, will conduct these trials in countries including France, Spain, Germany and the U.K.
- The pharma company Roche has also decided to initiate large, randomised Phase-III trials of its arthritis drug Actemra for its safety and efficacy in adult patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia.
- It is complex and tedious to conduct randomised, large multi-centric trials.
- Quickly getting all the stakeholders together is laudable and underscores the notion that everyone needs to fight the deadly virus together. Hopefully, these trials will lead to tangible drug therapies against COVID-19.
Conclusion
It is most heartening to see scientists in academia and industrial partners coming together to fight a monumental public health crisis. The battle between pathogens and humans will continue but let us hope that we win the present one sooner than later.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Peatlands
Mains level: Significance of peatlands
Peatlands, which play a crucial role in regulating global climate by acting as carbon sinks, are facing degradation and need to be urgently monitored, according to the FAO.
What are Peatlands?
- Peatlands are a type of wetlands that occur in almost every country on Earth, currently covering 3% of the global land surface.
- The term ‘peatland’ refers to the peat soil and the wetland habitat growing on its surface.
- They are formed due to the accumulation of partially decomposed plant remains over thousands of years under conditions of water-logging.
- In these areas, year-round waterlogged conditions slow the process of plant decomposition to such an extent that dead plants accumulate to form peat.
- Over millennia this material builds up and becomes several metres thick.
Why are peatlands significant?
- Large amounts of carbon, fixed from the atmosphere into plant tissues through photosynthesis, are locked away in peat soils, representing a valuable global carbon store.
- Peatlands are highly significant to global efforts to combat climate change, as well as wider sustainable development goals.
- The protection and restoration of peatlands are vital in the transition towards a low-carbon and circular economy.
1) Better sinks of Carbon
- Damaged peatlands contribute about 10% of greenhouse gas emissions from the land-use sector.
- CO2 emissions from drained peatlands are estimated at 1.3 gigatonnes of CO2 This is equivalent to 5.6% of global anthropogenic CO2 emissions.
- However, at the same time, peatlands are the largest natural terrestrial carbon store. Worldwide, the remaining area of near-natural peatland contains more than 550 gigatonnes of carbon.
- This represented 42% of all soil carbon and exceeds the carbon stored in all other vegetation types, including the world’s forests. This area sequesters 0.37 gigatonnes of CO2 a year.
2) Vital ecosystem services
- By regulating water flows, peatlands help minimize the risk of flooding and drought and prevent seawater intrusion.
- In many parts of the world, peatlands supply food, fibre and other local products that sustain local economies.
- They also preserve important ecological and archaeological information such as pollen records and human artefacts.
- Draining peatlands reduces the quality of drinking water due to pollution from dissolved compounds. Damage to peatlands also results in biodiversity loss.
Other benefits
- Peatlands occur in different climate zones.
- While in a tropical climate, they can occur in mangroves, in Arctic regions, peatlands are dominated by mosses. Some mangrove species are known to develop peatland soils under them.
- Besides climate mitigation, peatlands are important for archaeology, as they maintain pollen, seeds and human remains for a long time in their acidic and water-logged conditions.
- In many countries, pristine peatlands are important for recreation activities. These areas also support livelihood in the form of pastoralism
- The vegetation growing on pristine peatlands provide different kinds of fibres for construction activities and handicrafts.
- Many wetland species produce berries, mushrooms and fruits, often economically important to local communities.
- Peatlands also provide fishing and hunting opportunities. It is also possible to practise paludiculture or wet agriculture on rewetted peatlands.
Various threats
- Their degradation due to drainage, fire, agricultural use and forestry can trigger the release of the stored carbon in a few decades.
- Peatlands contain 30 per cent of the world’s soil carbon. When drained, these emit greenhouse gases, contributing up to one gigatonne of emissions per year through oxidation.
Way forward
- In India, peatlands occupy roughly 320–1,000 square kilometres area.
- To prevent further degradation, these areas should be urgently mapped and monitored.
With inputs from: https://www.iucn.org/resources/issues-briefs/peatlands-and-climate-change
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)
Mains level: Not Much
Researchers from a Canadian space observatory have been recording the periodic radio waves hitting Earth from a neighbouring galaxy from past few years. These radio waves are called Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs).
Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs)
- FRBs are super intense, millisecond-long bursts of radio waves produced by unidentified sources in the space.
- Their discovery in 2007 by American astronomer Duncan Lorimer led to the term ‘Lorimer Bursts’.
- Since then, just a few dozen similar events have been observed in data collected by radio telescopes around the world, building evidence that points to a variety of potential causes.
- Only a handful of emissions have been traced to specific areas of the sky, indicating sources in other galaxies.
- The flash of radio waves is incredibly bright if distant, comparable to the power released by hundreds of millions of suns in just a few milliseconds.
- This intensity suggests powerful objects like black holes and neutron stars could be involved.
- The events were once considered to be largely transient – they seemed to happen once, without obvious signs of a repeat emission. However, a number of such bursts have been identified since then.
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.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kurzarbeit Scheme
Mains level: Strategies to prevent job losses during economic fallouts
Amid the all-round disruption caused to the economy by the novel coronavirus outbreak, a concern across the world is the possibility of a loss of jobs. Various governments have unveiled various measures to address such concerns, and one of the most talked-about is Kurzarbeit.
Kurzarbeit Scheme
- Kurzarbeit is German for “short-work”.
- The policy provides for a short-time work allowance, called kurzarbeitgeld, which partially compensates for lost earnings during uncertain economic situations.
- The policy was rolled out during the 2008 economic crisis while its origins date back as far as the early 20th century, before and after World War I.
How it works?
- When companies face a loss of earnings due to unforeseen economic situations, they often need to cut back on their working hours or send some of their employees’ home.
- It aims to address workers who are impacted by the loss of income due to shortened work hours during such times.
- They can apply for short-term work benefits under the scheme, with the government stepping in to pay employees a part of their lost income.
Quantum of payment
- Payment under Kurzarbeit is calculated on the basis of a net loss of earnings.
- As per Germany’s Federal Agency for Work, short-time employees generally receive about 60 per cent of the flat-rate net wage.
- In case there is at least one child in the house of the short-time worker, he/she receives 67 per cent of the flat-rate net wage.
Benefits
- This scheme helps the companies retain their employees instead of laying them off, and allows the latter to sustain themselves for a period of up to 12 months.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Hantavirus
Mains level: Rise in zoonotic diseases and their possible causes
China has reported the death of a person from Yunnan Province who tested positive for the Hantavirus.
What is Hantavirus?
- The Hantaviruses are a family of viruses spread mainly by rodents. It is contracted by humans from infected rodents.
- Cases of the Hantavirus in humans occur mostly in rural areas where forests, fields and farms offer suitable habitat for infected rodents.
- A person can get infected if he/she comes in contact with a rodent that carries the virus.
- In the US and Canada, for instance, the Hantavirus carried by the deer mouse is responsible for the majority cases of the Hantavirus infection.
- Like this, there are various other kinds of Hantaviruses that find hosts in rodents, like the white-footed mouse and the cotton rat among others that may lead to infections in humans if transmitted.
Its origin
- The Hantavirus is not novel and its first case dates back to 1993, according to the US Centre for Disease Control (CDC).
- In the Americas, the family of viruses is known as ‘New World hantaviruses’.
Symptoms
- A person infected with the virus may show symptoms within the first to eighth week after they have been exposed to fresh urine, faeces or the saliva of infected rodents.
- Symptoms may include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, headaches, chills and abdominal problems.
- Four to ten after being infected, late symptoms of HPS may start to appear, which include coughing and shortness of breath.
Mortality risk
- It is the cause of Hantavirus pulmonary disease (HPS), a severe respiratory disease. The HPS can be fatal and has a mortality rate of 38 per cent.
- It remains unclear whether human-to-human transmission of the virus is possible.
- There have been no reports of human-to-human transmission of Hantavirus in the US.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: India VIX Index
Mains level: Impact of coronovirus outbreak on Economy
The India VIX Index, an indicator of the volatility of the stock market has been plunging after the outbreak of novel coronavirus.
What is Volatility Index?
- Volatility Index is a measure of the market’s expectation of volatility over the near term.
- Volatility is often described as the “rate and magnitude of changes in prices” and in finance often referred to as risk.
- It is a measure, of the amount by which an underlying Index is expected to fluctuate, in the near term, (calculated as annualized volatility, denoted in percentage e.g. 20%) based on the order book of the underlying index options.
India VIX Index
- India VIX is a volatility index based on the NIFTY Index Option prices.
- From the best bid-ask prices of NIFTY Options contracts, a volatility figure (%) are calculated which indicates the expected market volatility over the next 30 calendar days.
- “VIX” is a trademark of Chicago Board Options Exchange, Incorporated (“CBOE”) and Standard & Poor’s.
- The firm has granted a license to NSE to use such mark in the name of the India VIX and for purposes relating to the India VIX.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 3- Incentive package to promote the API production in India.
Context
It is most welcome that the Centre has announced a `14,000-crore incentive package to boost the manufacture of drugs, especially active pharmaceutical ingredients (API).
What should be the immediate policy focus?
- Focus on protective gear: The immediate policy focus must be to swiftly overcome shortages of critical protective gear like gowns and face masks, diverting production lines if required.
- We also need to anticipate and step-up production of vital devices like ventilators.
- Provisions in the package: What is proposed now are industrial parks for bulk drugs and APIs, together with a policy for multi-year fiscal benefits. And ditto for parks for the manufacture of medical devices and attendant fiscal incentives.
- The state governments need to identify 1,000 acres for the parks that are well-integrated with knowledge centres and nationally accredited labs.
What additions need to be made in the package?
- Public-private partnership: In tandem, the pharmaceuticals package issued on Saturday needs to be followed through, with a forward-looking public-private partnership, to avoid import-dependency in this critical sector.
- What is envisaged is a set of schemes to reap economies of scale and ready availability of inputs in the production of APIs and medical devices via the cluster approach.
How India became uncompetitive in API?
- Policy rigidities and price controls: APIs are, of course, bulk drugs that provide medicines with their therapeutic value, and it is unfortunate that since circa 1995, India has become steadily uncompetitive in API production, thanks to a panoply of policy rigidities such as onerous price controls.
- Export competition from China: Opaque export competition from China has been game-changing indeed: APIs for most medicines are mostly imported.
- This needs to change, fast. We do need to competitively and efficiently boost output of pharmaceuticals right across the value chain.
Conclusion
The government must understand that manufacture by itself is not enough. The policy must ensure competition and quality, keep prices down.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Finance Bill
Mains level: Finance Bill
The Parliament has passed the Finance Bill 2020 with 40 amendments without any discussion.
Highlights of the Bill
- Among the important amendments included was one enabling the government to raise additional excise duty on petrol by up to Rs 18 per litre and diesel by up to Rs 12 per litre when required.
- Amendments enabling the taxation of NRIs’ India-controlled income above Rs 15 lakh, and another extending the DDT exemption to REITs and Infrastructure Investment trusts were passed.
- The Bill also changes the definition of ‘Resident’, as stipulated under the Income Tax Act.
- Presently, a person is considered a resident of India, i.e. their global income is taxable in India if they are in the country for more than 182 days a year. This has now been reduced to 120 days.
- The amendments also include provisions for levying TDS of 1 per cent on e-commerce transactions.
What is a Finance Bill?
- As per Article 110 of the Constitution, the Finance Bill is a Money Bill.
- The Finance Bill is a part of the Union Budget, stipulating all the legal amendments required for the changes in taxation proposed by the Finance Minister.
- This Bill encompasses all amendments required in various laws pertaining to tax, in accordance with the tax proposals made in the Union Budget.
- The Finance Bill, as a Money Bill, needs to be passed by the Lok Sabha — the lower house of the Parliament. Post the Lok Sabha’s approval, the Finance Bill becomes Finance Act.
Difference between a Money Bill and the Finance Bill
1) Money Bill
- A Money Bill has to be introduced in the Lok Sabha as per Section 110 of the Constitution. Then, it is transmitted to the Rajya Sabha for its recommendations.
- The Rajya Sabha has to return the Bill with recommendations in 14 days.
- However, the Lok Sabha can reject all or some of the recommendations.
2) Finance Bill
- In a general sense, any Bill that relates to revenue or expenditure is a Financial Bill.
- The Finance Bill is introduced in Lok Sabha.
- Rajya Sabha can recommend amendments in the bill. However, the bill has to be passed by the Parliament within 75 days of introduction.
>Types of Finance Bills
Type I
- Financial Bill Cat-1 is a bill which contains any of the matters specified in Article 110 but does not exclusively deal with such matters.
- For example- a bill which contains a taxation clause, but does not deal solely with taxation under Article 117 (1), has two features in common with a money bill.
- It cannot be introduced in the Rajya Sabha.
- It can only be introduced in Lok Sabha with the prior recommendation of the President.(Similarities)
- But has one feature uncommon that is, not being a Money Bill, the Rajya Sabha has the same power to reject or amend such Financial Bill subject to limitation.
Type II
- It is a finance bill which merely involves expenditure and does not include any of the matters specified in Article 110.
- It is an Ordinary Bill and may be initiated in either House and the Rajya Sabha has full power to reject or ament it.
- It is thus apparent that all Money Bills are Financial Bills but all Financial Bills are not Money Bills.
Who decides the Bill is a Finance Bill?
- The Speaker of the Lok Sabha is authorised to decide whether the Bill is a Money Bill or not.
- Also, the Speaker’s decision shall be deemed to be final.
Why Finance Bill is needed?
- The Union Budget proposes many tax changes for the upcoming financial year, even if not all of those proposed changes find a mention in the Finance Minister’s Budget speech.
- These proposed changes pertain to several existing laws dealing with various taxes in the country.
- The Finance Bill seeks to insert amendments into all those laws concerned, without having to bring out a separate amendment law for each of those Acts.
- For instance, a Union Budget’s proposed tax changes may require amending the various sections of the Income Tax law, Stamp Act, Money Laundering law, etc.
- The Finance Bill overrides and makes changes in the existing laws wherever required.
What changes can be made via Finance Bill?
- The most awaited changes in the tax proposals in the Union Budget usually pertain to personal income tax.
- For taxpayers across the country, the most awaited moment is when the Finance Minister’s speech announces an increase in minimum income threshold, or declares any changes in income tax slabs to make it less costly, or other exemptions.
- In addition, there might be changes in the rules, procedures, and deadlines for filing tax returns or the payment of tax itself.
- For instance, there might be a change in the amount of penalty for missing the deadline. Those proposed changes would typically need to be brought in via amending the Income Tax Act.
- Among other changes, the FM may propose in the Union Budget with regard to the rates or processes for payment or administration of stamp duty levied on various instruments.
- Such a change would need to be brought in via an amendment to the Stamp Act.
- Since the introduction of GST, there is no amendment to indirect taxes in the Union Budget, since that is under the purview of the GST Council.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Excise duty
Mains level: Crude oil pricing dynamics
In a move which would help the government to raise excise duty on fuel further in future, the government has raised the cap on special additional excise duty on petrol and diesel. These changes are as per the amendments in the Finance Bill passed in the Parliament.
Why such move?
- Government is increasing duties on petrol and diesel to raise revenues in view of a tight fiscal situation.
- Slump in global crude oil prices, alongside possibility of a global economic recession, has forced the government to look for avenues to raise revenues to support growth.
- With major companies going for production shut downs, industry players have suggested the government to boost fiscal stimulus in the wake of demand collapse triggered by the coronavirus.
- Earlier, Saudi Arabia had triggered the crash in prices by announcing a sharp increase in oil production after Russia declined to reduce oil supply to contain a fall in oil prices due to declining demand in a meeting of petroleum exporting countries.
Impact of the move
- Every rupee hike in excise duty is expected to yield roughly Rs 13,000-14,000 crore annually.
- The slump in global crude oil prices enables the government to raise these duties substantially without immediately putting the burden on the consumer.
- But there is expected to be a demand slowdown for fuels with a nearly country wide lockdown in the wake of coronavirus.
- With airlines, railways, trucks and passenger cars going off the roads, petrol, diesel and ATF (aviation turbine fuel) consumption is expected to fall drastically.
Back2Basics
What is Excise Duty?
- Excise duty is a form of tax imposed on goods for their production, licensing and sale.
- It is the opposite of Customs duty in sense that it applies to goods manufactured domestically in the country, while Customs is levied on those coming from outside of the country.
- At the central level, excise duty earlier used to be levied as Central Excise Duty, Additional Excise Duty, etc.
- Excise duty was levied on manufactured goods and levied at the time of removal of goods, while GST is levied on the supply of goods and services.
Purview of excise duty
- The GST introduction in July 2017 subsumed many types of excise duty.
- Today, excise duty applies only on petroleum and liquor.
- Alcohol does not come under the purview of GST as exclusion mandated by constitutional provision.
- States levy taxes on alcohol according to the same practice as was prevalent before the rollout of GST.
- After GST was introduced, excise duty was replaced by central GST because excise was levied by the central government. The revenue generated from CGST goes to the central government.
Types of excise duty in India
Before GST kicked in, there were three kinds of excise duties in India.
Basic Excise Duty
- Basic excise duty is also known as the Central Value Added Tax (CENVAT). This category of excise duty was levied on goods that were classified under the first schedule of the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985.
- This duty was levied under Section 3 (1) (a) of the Central Excise Act, 1944. This duty applied on all goods except salt.
Additional Excise Duty
- Additional excise duty was levied on goods of high importance, under the Additional Excise under Additional Duties of Excise (Goods of Special Importance) Act, 1957.
- This duty was levied on some special category of goods.
Special Excise Duty
- This type of excise duty was levied on special goods classified under the Second Schedule to the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985.
- Presently the central excise duty comprises of a Basic Excise Duty, Special Additional Excise Duty and Additional Excise Duty (Road and Infrastructure Cess) on auto fuels.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Significance of self-imposed curfew
To enforce a full lockdown to contain the spread of COVID-19, law enforcement agencies have taken the help of various legal provisions in CrPC and IPC.
- The orders issued to curb the spread of the coronavirus have been framed under the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, which lays down punishment as per Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860.
- Similarly, Sections 269 and 270 IPC are being invoked against persons who malignantly do any act which is likely to spread the infection of any disease dangerous to life.
Sections 269 and 270 of the IPC
- Sections 269 (negligent act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) and 270 (malignant act likely to spread infection of disease dangerous to life) come under Chapter XIV of the IPC.
- The chapter is named ‘Of Offences Affecting The Public Health, Safety, Convenience, Decency and Morals’.
- While Section 269 provides for a jail term of six months and/or fine, Section 270 provides for a jail term of two years and/or fine.
- In Section 270, the word ‘malignantly’ indicates a deliberate intention on the part of the accused.
- During the coronavirus outbreak, penal provisions, such as Sections 188, 269 and 270 of the IPC, are being invoked to enforce the lockdown orders in various states.
Earlier instances of invocation
- Both Sections have been used for over a century to punish those disobeying orders issued for containing epidemics.
- The Sections were similarly enforced by colonial authorities during outbreaks of diseases such as smallpox and bubonic plague.
What is Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code?
- Section 3 of the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897, provides penalties for disobeying any regulation or order made under the Act.
- These are according to Section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant).
- It is not necessary that the offender should intend to produce harm, or contemplate his disobedience as likely to produce harm.
- It is sufficient that he knows of the order which he disobeys, and that his disobedience produces, or is likely to produce, harm.
What happens if you violate the lockdown orders?
Under Section 188, there two offences:
1) Disobedience to an order lawfully promulgated by a public servant, If such disobedience causes obstruction, annoyance or injury to persons lawfully employed
Punishment: Simple Imprisonment for 1 month or fine of Rs 200 or both
2) If such disobedience causes danger to human life, health or safety, etc.
Punishment: Simple Imprisonment for 6 months or fine of Rs 1000 or both
According to the First Schedule of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC), 1973, both offences are cognizable, bailable, and can be tried by any magistrate.
Triable By: Any Magistrate
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Supercomputers
Mains level: Applications of Supercomputers
The Union Ministry of Science & Technology has informed about the progress of the National Supercomputing Mission.
National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
- NSM is a proposed plan by GoI to create a cluster of seventy supercomputers connecting various academic and research institutions across India.
- In April 2015 the government approved the NSM with a total outlay of Rs.4500 crore for a period of 7 years.
- The mission was set up to provide the country with supercomputing infrastructure to meet the increasing computational demands of academia, researchers, MSMEs, and startups by creating the capability design, manufacturing, of supercomputers indigenously in India.
- Currently there are four supercomputers from India in Top 500 list of supercomputers in the world.
Aims and objectives
- The target of the mission was set to establish a network of supercomputers ranging from a few Tera Flops (TF) to Hundreds of Tera Flops (TF) and three systems with greater than or equal to 3 Peta Flops (PF) in academic and research institutions of National importance across the country by 2022.
- This network of Supercomputers envisaging a total of 15-20 PF was approved in 2015 and was later revised to a total of 45 PF (45000 TFs), a jump of 6 times more compute power within the same cost and capable of solving large and complex computational problems.
IWhat is a Supercomputer?
- A supercomputer is a computer with a high level of performance as compared to a general-purpose computer.
- The performance of a supercomputer is commonly measured in floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) instead of million instructions per second (MIPS).
- Since 2017, there are supercomputers which can perform over a hundred quadrillion FLOPS (petaFLOPS).
- Since November 2017, all of the world’s fastest 500 supercomputers run Linux-based operating systems.
Why do we need supercomputers?
- Developed and almost-developed countries have begun ensuring high investments in supercomputers to boost their economies and tackle new social problems.
- These high-performance computers can simulate the real world, by processing massive amounts of data, making cars and planes safer, and more fuel-efficient and environment-friendly.
- They also aid in the extraction of new sources of oil and gas, development of alternative energy sources, and advancement in medical sciences.
- Supercomputers have also helped weather forecasters to accurately predict severe storms, enable better mitigation planning and warning systems.
- They are also used by financial services, manufacturing and internet companies and infrastructure systems like water-supply networks, energy grids, and transportation.
- Future applications of artificial intelligence (AI) also depend on supercomputing.
- Due to the potential of this technology, countries like the US, China, France, Germany, Japan, and Russia have created national-level supercomputing strategies and are investing substantially in these programmes.
When did India initiate its efforts to build supercomputers?
- India’s supercomputer programme initiated in the late 1980s, when the United States ceased the export of a Cray Supercomputer due to technology embargos.
- This resulted in India setting up C-DAC in 1988, which in 1991, unveiled the prototype of PARAM 800, benchmarked at 5 Gflops. This supercomputer was the second-fastest in the world at that time.
- Since June 2018, the USA’s Summit is the fastest supercomputer in the world, taking away this position from China.
- As of January 2018, Pratyush and Mihir are the fastest supercomputers in India with a maximum speed of Peta Flops.
What are the phases of the National Supercomputing Mission?
Phase I:
- In the first phase of the NSM, parts of the supercomputers are imported and assembled in India.
- A total of 6 supercomputers are to be installed in this phase.
- The first supercomputer that was assembled indigenously is called Param Shivay. It was installed in IIT (BHU) located in Varanasi.
- Similar systems, Param Shakti (IIT Kharagpur) and Param Brahma (IISER, Pune) were also later installed within the country.
- The rest will be installed at IIT Kanpur, IIT Hyderabad and Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Advanced Studies (JNIAS).
Phase II:
- The supercomputers that are installed so far are about 60% indigenous.
- The 11 systems that are going to be installed in the next phase will have processors designed by the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) and will have a cumulative capacity of 10 petaflops.
- These new systems are to be constructed more cost-effectively than the previous ones.
- One of the 11 proposed supercomputers will be installed
- at C-DAC exclusively for small and medium enterprises so that they can train employees as well as work on supercomputers at a very low cost.
Phase III:
- The third phase aims to build fully indigenous supercomputers.
- The government had also approved a project to develop a cryogenic cooling system that rapidly dispels the heat generated by a computing chip. This will be jointly built together by IIT-Bombay and C-DAC.
What are the advantages of the National Supercomputing Mission?
- The National Supercomputing Mission can ensure accessibility to supercomputers at an affordable rate to the scientific community and medium and small enterprises.
- It can exponentially enhance the quality and quantity of R&D and higher education in the areas of science and technology.
- It can solve the current and future challenges that are plaguing the country.
- Currently, the world’s top supercomputers are mostly under the control of advanced nations like the US, Japan, China and the European Union. This Mission has the potential to bring India into this select league of such nations.
- These supercomputers can be used in the areas of climate modelling, weather predictions, computational biology, atomic energy simulations, defence, disaster simulation, astrophysics etc.
- These computers have played a crucial role in scientific and technological advancements in numerous fields.
- Unlike other computers, these high-performance machines can crunch the most complex of data at a speed, which is millions of times faster than a desktop PC.
- This mission, aiming to provide supercomputing facilities to about 60-70 institutions across the nation and thousands of active researchers, academicians, is moving fast towards creating a computer infrastructure within the country.
- This mission can also enhance the country’s capacity to develop the next generation of supercomputer experts.
How do other countries make use of supercomputers?
China:
- Jiangsu Province has a supercomputer called “Sunway TaihuLight”.
- This supercomputer performs a wide range of tasks, including climate science, weather forecasting and earth-system modelling to help ships avoid rough seas, improve farmers’ yields and ensure the safety of offshore drilling.
- TaihuLight has already led to an increase in profits and a reduction in expenses that justify its cost ($270 million).
United States:
- In the US, supercomputers are radically transforming the healthcare system.
- The Centre for Disease Control (CDC) has used supercomputers to create a far more detailed model of the Hepatitis-C virus, a major cause of the liver disease that costs $9 billion in healthcare costs in the US alone.
- Using supercomputers, the researchers have now developed a model that comprehensively simulates heart down to the cellular level and can lead to a substantial reduction in heart diseases.
These are some of the very few cases of how supercomputers have enhanced breakthroughs in various fields.
How do supercomputers help fight coronavirus?
- Earlier, the US had established COVID-19 High-Performance Computing Consortium that will bring together industry, academic institutions, and federal laboratories to try to identify or create candidate compounds that might prevent or treat coronavirus infection.
- One of the members of the consortium, the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, aimed to look into compounds that are already available in the market that might combat COVID-19.
- For this purpose, the world’s fastest supercomputer “Summit” was used.
- Like other viruses, the novel coronavirus uses a spike protein to inject cells.
- Using Summit with an algorithm to investigate which drugs could bind to the protein and prevent the virus from doing its duty, the researchers have a list of 77 drugs that show promise.
- Starting with 8,000 compounds, Summit has shortened the time of the experiment exponentially, ruling out the vast majority of possible medications before settling on 77 drugs, which are ranked based on how effective they are likely to be at halting the virus in the human body.
Way forward
- It is evident that supercomputers would become a vital part of our lives as it can provide solutions to the current and future problems and India, one of the most populous nations in the world, must ensure that it also has access to this technology for the welfare of its people.
- Supercomputers, as they operate at such incredible speeds, will encounter numerous barriers like network and interconnectivity hardware that previous generations of designers did not have to deal with.
- The cooling system is also one of the major design constraints.
- Hence, India must give a high emphasis on innovation to tackle these challenges.
- India must also give high emphasis to the application rather than the technology itself.
- Supercomputing research also requires fundamental research of the next stages of computing like quantum computing that are still in the theoretical stage.
- Bureaucratic red-tapism must be circumvented and scientists and researchers must be allowed to take bold and radical steps without fear of reprisal.
- The government must also invest in necessary physical and digital infrastructure.
- It must also address the challenges of:
- Limited funding and delayed release of funds
- The increasing need for imports for necessary hardware components to build supercomputers
Conclusion:
- Supercomputers are strategically important for India as it can help the country to become a knowledge-driven economy.
- This technology also can support cutting edge research that can benefit the economy, society, businesses, environment, etc.
- Thus, enhancing investments, improving flexibility for research and providing other necessary infrastructures must be ensured for it to grow.
- Without this technology, India risks being surpassed on the global stage by other nations and will consequently miss the huge benefits that come from having this strategically important technology at the disposal of the country’s best and brightest minds
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- China's growing influence at UN agencies and how it matters for Indian and the world.
Context
The WHO leadership, especially its Director-General, has been accused of serving China’s interests rather than preparing the world against the spread of the virus.
What is the basis of accusations?
- The first basis for these charges is the WHO’s endorsement of the Chinese claim in mid-January that there was no evidence of human-to-human transmission of the virus.
- Second, consistent support for Beijing’s handling of the crisis.
- Third, WHO’s criticism of other nations for imposing travel restrictions to and from China.
- Critics also believe the WHO lulled the world into complacence by delaying the decision on calling it a global emergency.
The new geopolitics of multilateralism
- Whatever the merits of the above arguments, they point to the new geopolitics of multilateralism,
- It also disproves the assumptions in both the West and India on China’s role in the UN.
- It also underlines Beijing’s success in the leveraging of international organisations for its national advantage.
- Nations working together against the trans-national threat: On the face of it, the sentiment that nations must work together against common trans-national threats is an eminently sensible one. But it does not easily translate into concrete actions.
- Example of failure to act against a common threat: Take climate change. Attempts at developing collective solutions to the problem over the last three decades have foundered.
- Most leaders agree on the problem and the solutions but are not willing to accept the framework — either the domestic or international — for distributing the costs associated with the solutions.
- The US-China rivalry angle to the coronavirus outbreak: The problem of the cost-benefit distribution is compounded by great power rivalries. The coronavirus has shown up at a moment of deepening tensions between the US and China.
- The grave collective challenge that the virus constitutes has only sharpened the conflict.
- The blame game between the two: The US blames Beijing for letting this virus become a global monster and Beijing is doing all it can to deny that the virus came out of China.
How the relationship between China and WHO has transformed over the years?
- WHO’s actions in the past: Nearly two decades ago, during the SARS crisis, WHO was at the front and centre of pressing China to come clean on the unfolding pandemic.
- In 2003, it had issued the organisation’s first travel advisory ever on travel to and from the epicentre of the pandemic in southern China.
- As the SARS crisis escalated, Beijing’s traditional arguments about the centrality of state sovereignty yielded place to a new policy of working with the WHO and taking proactive steps to reassure neighbours in South East Asia.
- Reasons for change in WHO’s stance: Some attribute the turnaround in the relationship between Beijing and WHO to China’s growing financial contributions.
- China’s efforts to expand clout: Observers of the UN point to something more fundamental — a conscious and consequential Chinese effort to expand its clout in the multilateral system.
- China, which was admitted to the UN system in the 1970s, was focused on finding its way in the 1980s, cautiously raised its profile in the 1990s, took on some political initiatives at the turn of the millennium and seized the leadership in the last few years.
How India and the West are reacting to China’s rise?
- Unprepared to deal with China’s rise at UN: Neither the West nor India have been prepared to deal with the impact of China’s rise on the UN system.
- The US and its allies bet that China will be a “responsible stakeholder”. Put another way, they hoped that China will play by the rules set by the West.
- China’s ambitions: China, of course, wants to set its own rules. Only the political innocents will be shocked by China’s natural ambition.
- India’s past alignment with China: India, which considered US dominance over the international institutions in the 1990s as a major threat, chose to align with China in promoting a “multipolar world”.
- Delhi convinced itself that despite differences over the boundary, Pakistan and other issues, there is huge room for cooperation with China.
- Replacing the US as the dominant force: To their chagrin, the West and India are being compelled to respond to a very different environment at the UN. China wants to replace America as the dominant force in the UN.
- The US is now fighting back. Last month, Washington went all out to defeat the Chinese candidate for the leadership of an obscure UN agency called the World Intellectual Property Organisation.
Implications of China’s rise for India
- Chinese hegemony vs. American primacy: Delhi discovered that Chinese global hegemony could be a lot more problematic than American primacy.
- After all, it is China that complicates India’s plans for membership of the Nuclear Suppliers Group, protects Pakistan against international pressures on cross-border terrorism, and relentlessly pushes the UN Security Council to take up the Kashmir question.
- India now turns to the US and its allies to pursue some of its interests in the UN.
- Multilateralism not an end in itself: Political ironies apart, if there is one lesson that India could learn from China’s experience with WHO and the UN, it is that multilateralism is not an end in itself for major powers.
- It is an important means to secure one’s national interest and shape the international environment.
- As a nation battered by the Cultural Revolution, China used international cooperation and global institutions to rebuild itself in the last decades of the 20th century.
- Ready to reorder global governance: Having developed its economy and advanced its scientific and technological base, China is now ready to reorder global governance and become a rule-maker.
- The effects are visible in the arena of global health.
- China’s expanding global engagement with the WHO, its substantive international health assistance programmes, and an impressive domestic health technology sector are poised to boost China’s ambition to build a “Global Silk Road for Health’.
Conclusion
On its part, Delhi needs to intensify the recalibration of India’s multilateralism, rewrite its diplomatic lexicon at the UN, and build new political coalitions that will simultaneously contribute to India’s internal modernisation and enhance its international influence. The corona crisis is a good moment to start writing a new script for India’s own health diplomacy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 3- Economic policy changes to mitigate the impact of slowdown on the vulnerable.
Context
India must use the windfall from oil to provide assistance to the most vulnerable to mitigate the impact due to COIVD-19 outbreak.
Estimates of impact
- Impact on major economies: Minus 40 per cent, -30 per cent, -22 per cent, and -14 per cent. These are the estimated impacts (at an annualised rate) on the quarterly growth rates of China, the UK, Eurozone, and the US because of the Covid-19 virus.
- Even excluding China and those that are closely tied to its supply chain — Korea and Taiwan — emerging markets (EM) are expected to go into recession in the first half of 2020, with the second quarter taking the biggest hit at over an 8 per cent quarterly decline.
- Impact on India: India will not be spared this growth shock. In fact, the economic impact could be deeper and longer in emerging markets where the capacity of public health systems is limited at the best of times.
Prospects of recovery
- Sudden stop to economic activity: We also know from the experiences of the countries already infected that the way to control the spread of the virus is through aggressive containment and social distancing that inevitably brings economic activity to a sudden stop.
- There doesn’t seem to be a middle path. We also know that unlike natural catastrophes like earthquakes, capital stock is not destroyed by the virus.
- Sharp recovery and conditions: Once the containment period is over and social interaction normalises, there is every reason to believe that activity can recover very sharply.
- Unless the containment period is long because of capacity constraints in the healthcare system which could turn supply chain disruptions into a long-term problem, or the credit stress created by the lack of earning by households and firms during the sudden stop stymies the recovery.
India needs to brace itself
- Unfortunately, India, where the virus still appears to be in the early stage, needs to brace for such a sudden stop.
- The lockdown could be for an extended period given the already stretched public health system.
- Impact on urban economy: The swathe of the economy that depends on social interaction — retail sales, entertainment, restaurants, and importantly construction and manufacturing — is very large.
- Even if one believes that rural areas with relatively low population densities will not be affected much, the impact on urban economic activity could be very large.
Role of economic policy
- What is the role of economic policy in such circumstances? It needs to “bridge the gap” between the brutal downturn and the eventual recovery.
- While public health policies force a sudden stop in the economy to save lives, economic policies need to ensure that the impact from the shutdown is cushioned, incomes of households and firms supported, credit stress is contained, and the recovery is not hamstrung by policy headwinds.
- This requires policy support to be operated on various fronts.
- Role of the Central bank: Central banks not only need to cut rates but also need to provide adequate liquidity and extend regulatory forbearance to prevent credit stress and non-performing loans from clogging up the already strained financial system when the economy starts to recover.
- Role of fiscal policy: The role of fiscal policy is even larger, from direct and indirect tax cuts or postponement to targeted credit support for sectors that are likely to be most affected such as airlines and retail trade.
- Support to the vulnerable: The key is income support to the most vulnerable: From daily wage earners to SMEs (small and medium enterprises).
- Using JAM trinity for cash transfer: It is here that the government’s efforts over the last five years make India one of the best-placed economies to deliver such cash transfers.
- Since 2015, substantial time, effort, and resources have been expended to establish Jan Dhan (bank accounts), Aadhaar and mobile banking (JAM), and Mudra, the programme that dispenses loans to SMEs.
- The objective of JAM and Mudra is to use Aadhaar as a way of accurately identifying beneficiaries and use mobile banking to digitally and seamlessly transfer cash/subsidies directly to households’ bank accounts and provide loans to SMEs without any leakages.
- According to government reports, the total number of Jan Dhan accounts stand at around 380 million and 59 million MUDRA loans were sanctioned last year.
- For a country with a population of 1.3 billion and about 63 million SMEs, even if there are duplicate accounts, JAM and Mudra should be able to cover almost all households and SMEs.
- With Aadhaar accurately targeting beneficiaries, leakages should be minimised. If there ever was a time that India needed JAM and Mudra it is now.
Issue of fiscal space and solution
- Some will argue that India doesn’t have the fiscal space. But it does.
- Use oil windfall: In the last month or so, the crude oil price has dropped from around $60/bbl to around $30 and is likely to stay at this level given the breakdown in agreement among oil-producing countries and the massive collapse in global demand.
- If the government simply taxed the oil windfall by raising excise duties, as it did during the 2014-15 oil price collapse, it could potentially raise almost 1 per cent of GDP or a staggering Rs 2.25 trillion.
- If 50 million households have to be provided assistance because of the shutdown, it comes to about Rs 14,000 per month for three months or about Rs 24,000 a month to half of the 63 million SMEs.
- And this without even having to increase this year’s budgeted deficit.
Conclusion
The government might have other uses for the oil windfall. But if India is forced into lockdown, the economic costs will be very large and the recovery will crucially depend on whether the pilot-light of the economy is kept lit through this period. This critically requires income transfers to vulnerable households and SMEs. India cannot complain that it does not have the fiscal space or the infrastructure to provide it.
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Context
The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights filed an application seeking to intervene as amicus curiae in the pending litigation in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019.
What are the implications of intervention?
- Concern over international attention: That the case has attracted the attention of the international human rights agency is a matter of concern for the Indian government.
- International law principles: The intervention may enable the Supreme Court to read in public international law principles in determining the constitutionality of CAA.
- Law on concepts of sovereignty: Ultimately, this would assist in laying down the law on concepts of sovereignty in addition to determining the obligations of a nation-state to the international community at large.
Why the intervention matters?
- Basis of the application: The application is based on the belief that the High Commissioner’s intervention will provide the Court “with an overview of the international human rights norms and standards with respect to the state’s obligations to provide international protection to persons at risk of persecution in their countries of origin”.
- This application stands out for a number of reasons.
- First, this is a voluntary application rather than at the invitation of the Supreme Court.
- Second, she accepts that India is a state party and signatory to various international conventions including the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Culture Rights which contain important non-discrimination clauses, including on the ground of religion.
- India’s obligations towards migrants: India is obliged, under international law, to ensure that migrants in its territory or under its jurisdiction receive equal and non-discriminatory treatment regardless of their legal status or the documentations they possess.
- Locus standi issue raised by India: In response, the External Affairs Ministry argued that “no foreign party has any locus standi on issues pertaining to India’s sovereignty”.
- The High Commissioner has filed similar amicus curiae briefs on issues of pubic importance before a range of international and national judicial fora.
- A precedent for future: This intervention, if permitted, would serve as a precedent for a number of future applications. It would also provide an opportunity for the Supreme Court to lay down the law on whether such applications interfere with national sovereignty.
Sovereignty as responsibility
- Defining sovereignty: International Court of Justice judge James Crawford defines sovereignty as, among other things, the “capacity to exercise, to the exclusion of other states, state functions on or related to that territory, and includes the capacity to make binding commitments under international law” and states that “such sovereignty is exercisable by the governmental institutions established within the state”.
- Sovereignty in Indian Constitution: The Preamble to the Constitution lays out the position, wherein the people of India have resolved to constitute the Indian Republic into a sovereign and not just any one authority.
- As such, the courts (judiciary), the government (executive) and elected legislatures (legislature) are equally sovereign authorities.
- No one can claim exclusivity over sovereignty. Furthermore, Article 51 (c) of the Constitution directs the state to “foster respect for international law”.
Responsibility to citizens and the international community
- Responsibility of political authority: According to the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty, “national political authorities are responsible to the citizens internally and to the international community through the UN”.
- Constraints on sovereignty: Therefore, it is trite to say that an authority’s right to sovereignty is not unfettered. It is subject to constraints including the responsibility to protect its citizenry and the larger international community.
- Extending Article 14: Furthermore, Article 14 extends the right to equality to all persons, which is wider than the definition of citizens. Even illegal immigrants shall, consequently, be treated by the government in a manner that ensures equal protection of Indian laws.
Conclusion
It is hoped that the Supreme Court will conclude that the intervention is necessary as the Court would benefit from the High Commissioner’s expertise in public international law principles.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NM-QTA
Mains level: Paper 3- Research on Quantum technology and its applications in India.
Context
With the Budget announcement providing direction for the development in quantum technology, the stakeholders need to roll-out the national mission quickly.
Pushing India into second quantum revolution
- Budgetary allocation for NM-QTA: In the Budget 2020 speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman made a welcome announcement for Indian science — over the next five years she proposed spending ₹8,000 crores (~ $1.2 billion) on a National Mission on Quantum Technologies and Applications.
- This promises to catapult India into the midst of the second quantum revolution, a major scientific effort that is being pursued by the United States, Europe, China and others.
Timeline of the development of Quantum Mechanics
- Science to describe nature on atomic-scale: Quantum mechanics was developed in the early 20th century to describe nature in the small — at the scale of atoms and elementary particles.
- Foundation for understanding: For over a century it has provided the foundations of our understanding of the physical world, including the interaction of light and matter.
- It also led to ubiquitous inventions such as lasers and semiconductor transistors.
- Despite a century of research, the quantum world still remains mysterious and far removed from our experiences based on everyday life.
- Second revolution: A second revolution is currently underway with the goal of putting our growing understanding of these mysteries to use by actually controlling nature and harnessing the benefits of the weird and wondrous properties of quantum mechanics.
- Challenge of experimental realisation: One of the most striking of these is the tremendous computing power of quantum computers, whose actual experimental realisation is one of the great challenges of our times.
- Quantum supremacy: The announcement by Google, in October 2019, where they claimed to have demonstrated the so-called “quantum supremacy”, is one of the first steps towards this goal.
Applications and challenges
- Applications: Besides computing, exploring the quantum world promises other dramatic applications including the creation of novel materials, enhanced metrology, secure communication, to name just a few.
- Some of these are already around the corner.
- Application in communication: China recently demonstrated secure quantum communication links between terrestrial stations and satellites.
- Applications in cryptography: Computer scientists are working towards deploying schemes for post-quantum cryptography — clever schemes by which existing computers can keep communication secure even against quantum computers of the future.
- Exploring fundamental questions: Beyond these applications, some of the deepest foundational questions in physics and computer science are being driven by quantum information science. This includes subjects such as quantum gravity and black holes.
- The need for collaboration: Pursuing these challenges will require unprecedented collaboration between physicists (both experimentalists and theorists), computer scientists, material scientists and engineers.
- Challenges on the experimental front: On the experimental front, the challenge lies in harnessing the weird and wonderful properties of quantum superposition and entanglement in a highly controlled manner by building a system composed of carefully designed building blocks called quantum bits or qubits.
- These qubits tend to be very fragile and lose their “quantumness” if not controlled properly, and a careful choice of materials, design and engineering is required to get them to work.
- Challenges on the theoretical front: On the theoretical front lies the challenge of creating the algorithms and applications for quantum computers.
- These projects will also place new demands on classical control hardware as well as software platforms.
Where India stands
- India late in starting work on technology: Globally, research in this area is about two decades old, but in India, serious experimental work has been underway for only about five years, and in a handful of locations.
- What are the constraints on Indian progress in this field? So far we have been plagued by a lack of sufficient resources, high-quality manpower, timeliness and flexibility.
- Resource and quality manpower problem: The new announcement in the Budget would greatly help fix the resource problem but high-quality manpower is in global demand.
- In a fast-moving field like this, timeliness is everything — delayed funding by even one year is an enormous hit.
- A previous programme called Quantum Enabled Science and Technology has just been fully rolled out, more than two years after the call for proposals.
- Laudable announcement: One has to laud the government’s announcement of this new mission on a massive scale and on a par with similar programmes announced recently by the United States and Europe.
Limits and way forward
- But there are some limits that come from how the government must do business with public funds.
- Role of the private sector: Here, private funding, both via industry and philanthropy, can play an outsized role even with much smaller amounts.
- For example, unrestricted funds that can be used to attract and retain high-quality manpower and to build international networks — all at short notice — can and will make an enormous difference to the success of this enterprise.
- Private participation is the effective way: This is the most effective way (as China and Singapore discovered) to catch up scientifically with the international community, while quickly creating a vibrant intellectual environment to help attract top researchers.
- Connection with industry: Further, connections with the Indian industry from the start would also help quantum technologies become commercialised successfully, allowing the Indian industry to benefit from the quantum revolution.
- We must encourage industrial houses and strategic philanthropists to take an interest and reach out to Indian institutions with an existing presence in this emerging field.
- For example, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), home to India’s first superconducting quantum computing lab, would be delighted to engage.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Price Support operations under MSP Operations
Mains level: MSP mechanism
The Centre will spend ₹1,061 crore to reimburse the Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) and its sub-agent in Maharashtra for procuring cotton at the minimum support price in that State since 2014.
Why Centre reimburses to states?
In the event of fall in market prices, the Centre intervenes through following schemes-
Market Intervention Scheme
- Similar to MSP, there is a Market Intervention Scheme (MIS), which is implemented on the request of State Governments for procurement of perishable and horticultural commodities in the event of fall in market prices.
- The Scheme is implemented when there is at least 10% increase in production or 10% decrease in the ruling rates over the previous normal year.
- Proposal of MIS is approved on the specific request of State/UT Government, if the State/UT Government is ready to bear 50% loss (25% in case of North-Eastern States), if any, incurred on its implementation.
- Under MIS, funds are not allocated to the States.
- Instead, central share of losses as per the guidelines of MIS is released to the State Governments/UTs, for which MIS has been approved based on specific proposals received from them.
Price Supports Scheme (PSS)
- The Department of Agriculture & Cooperation implements the PSS for procurement of oil seeds, pulses and cotton, through NAFED which is the Central nodal agency, at the MSP declared by the government.
- NAFED undertakes procurement as and when prices fall below the MSP. Procurement under PSS is continued till prices stabilize at or above the MSP.
- Losses, if any incurred by NAFED in undertaking MSP operations are reimbursed by the central Government.
- Profit, if any, earned in undertaking MSP operations is credited to the central government.
Back2Basics
Minimum Support Price (MSP)
- MSP is a form of market intervention by the GoI to insure agricultural producers against any sharp fall in farm prices.
- The MSP are announced at the beginning of the sowing season for certain crops on the basis of the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
- MSP is price fixed to protect the producer – farmers – against excessive fall in price during bumper production years.
- In case the market price for the commodity falls below the announced minimum price due to bumper production and glut in the market, govt. agencies purchase the entire quantity offered by the farmers at the announced minimum price.
- The minimum support prices are a guarantee price for their produce from the Government.
- The major objectives are to support the farmers from distress sales and to procure food grains for public distribution.
Methods of calculation
- In formulating the level of MSP and other non-price measures, the CACP takes into account a comprehensive view of the entire structure of the economy of a particular commodity or group of commodities.
- The CACP makes use of both micro-level data and aggregates at the level of district, state and the country.
- Other factors include cost of production, changes in input prices, input-output price parity, trends in market prices, demand and supply, inter-crop price parity, effect on industrial cost structure, effect on cost of living, effect on general price level, international price situation, parity between prices paid and prices received by the farmers and effect on issue prices and implications for subsidy.
Procurement agencies
- Food Corporation of India (FCI) is the designated central nodal agency for price support operations for cereals, pulses and oilseeds.
- Cotton Corporation of India (CCI) is the central nodal agency for undertaking price support operations for Cotton.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Various stages of a pandemic
Mains level: Coronovirus outbreak and its mitigation
Over the past few weeks, India has been dreading the possibility that the novel coronavirus outbreak will move to the stage of community transmission.
What are the stages of a pandemic?
Stage I
- In the first stage of a disease epidemic that eventually takes the form of a pandemic sweeping the globe, cases are imported into a country in which the infection did not originate.
- An infection whose spread is contained within the boundaries of one or a few countries is obviously not a pandemic.
Stage II
- The second stage is when the virus starts being transmitted locally.
- Local transmission means that the source of the infection is from within a particular area and the trajectory the virus has taken from one person to the next is clearly established.
Stage III
- The third stage is that of community transmission. It is usually localised.
- According to the WHO community transmission is evidenced by the inability to relate confirmed cases through chains of transmission for a large number of cases, or by increasing positive tests through sentinel samples.
- In layman terms, it means that the virus is now circulating in the community, and can infect people with no history either of travel to affected areas or of contact with an infected person.
- If and when community transmission happens, there might arise the need for a full lockdown because in that situation it is theoretically possible for every person, regardless of where they are from and who they have been in contact with, to spread the disease.
Stage IV
- There is also a fourth stage in every pandemic. It is when the disease, COVID-19 in this case, becomes endemic in some countries.
- The Indian government’s containment plan takes this possibility into account.
- Among diseases that are currently endemic in India — meaning they occur round the year across the country — are malaria and dengue.
How does categorising an outbreak in this manner help?
- The stages of a pandemic are uniform the world over.
- This is so because, in today’s interconnected world, it is important to have a standardised phraseology that conveys the same thing to every person around the world, and helps countries prepare better.
- The categorization helps countries take specific actions that are necessary to target just that particular scenario.
- For example, India imposed travel restrictions to China from very early on as the cases they were all imported from China.
- Later, as cases started being imported from other European countries, flight and visa restrictions were put in place for those countries.
- India has now shut itself to individuals coming from all countries — this is because the virus is now confirmed as circulating in at least 177 countries and territories.
Worldwide, in which stage is the COVID-19 pandemic now?
- The pandemic has spread to nearly every country on the planet. In most, though, it is in the stage of either imported cases or local transmission.
- Among the countries where community transmission seems to be operating are China, Italy, Iran, South Korea and Japan.
- China adopted a graded approach in dealing with the infection but the epicentre, Hubei, was in a state of complete lockdown at the peak of the infection.
- It something that Italy has now effected in a bid to stop the virus from wreaking more havoc, given the country’s ageing population.
How long before India enters community transmission?
- It is totally unpredictable. Some doctors perceive that community transmission is inevitable; other experts feel it may have already happened.
- There are some reports of one strain having less mortality. If indeed a milder strain has come to India, it could change the course of the epidemic.
- There is another theory that all the various viruses circulating in South Asia and the generally lower levels of hygiene may give us some immunity.
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