Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- What findings of NHFS-5 imply
Context
The second and final phase of NFHS-5 was released which covered 11 states (including Uttar Pradesh (UP), Tamil Nadu, Punjab, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh (MP), Jharkhand, Haryana, and Chhattisgarh) and about 49 per cent of the population.
Major findings
[1] Success of New Welfarism
- Figure one plots household access to improved sanitation, cooking gas and bank accounts used by women.
- The improvements are as striking as they were based on the performance of the phase 1 states.
- In all cases, access has increased significantly, although claims of India being 100 per cent open defecation-free still remain excessive.
[2] Child-related outcomes
- India-wide, stunting has declined although the pace of improvement has slowed down post-2015 compared with the previous decade.
- For example, stunting improved by 0.7 percentage points per year between 2005 and 2015 compared to 0.3 percentage points between 2015 and 2021.
- On diarrhoea too, adding the new data reverses the earlier finding.
- However, on anaemia and acute respiratory illness, there seems to have been deterioration.
- The new child stunting results are significant but also surprising because of the sharply divergent outcomes between the phase 1 and phase 2 states.
- The interesting pattern is that nearly all the phase 2 states show large improvements, whereas most of the phase 1 states exhibited a deterioration in performance.
[3] Catch up by the laggard states
- If the new child stunting numbers are right, a different picture of India emerges.
- Apparently, Madhya Pradesh now has fewer stunted children than Gujarat; Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand are almost at par with Gujarat; Chhattisgarh fares better than Gujarat, Karnataka, and Maharashtra; and Rajasthan and Odisha fare better than Gujarat, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Telangana and Himachal Pradesh!
- On child stunting, the old BIMARU states (excepting Bihar) are no longer the laggards; the laggards are Gujarat, Maharashtra, and Karnataka, and to a lesser extent, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana.
- Indeed, the decline in stunting achieved by the poorer states such as UP, MP, Chhattisgarh and Rajasthan would be all the more remarkable given the overall weakness in the economy between 2015 and 2021.
Conclusion
When commentators speak of two Indias, it is now important to ask: Which ones and on what metrics.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Disconnect between policy and politics in India
Context
Decision-making on virtually all governance issues is disconnected from politics and the mobilisation of public opinion.
Disconnect between politics and policy
- The repeal of the farm laws is thus a notable instance of politics and policy coming together, although in conflict.
- The Opposition speaking in one voice in the Parliament helped, but the heavy lifting of organising in the villages and sustaining the protests was done by the farmers’ groups.
- This disconnect between politics and policy is not a recent development, though it manifests differently across political divides.
- Policy-first lens and its implications: The liberal side has a policy-first lens but is unable to articulate its ideas in a manner which makes for good politics, repeatedly couching its ideas in a bureaucratic framework disconnected from political organisation.
- Bureaucracy is downstream from politics and this approach rather than curbing the state may have instead contributed to undermining the democratic process of political accountability since the political class is, by design, not central to the policy in the first place.
- A politics-first approach: The right, on its side, has a politics-first lens but it derives its politics largely from its social agenda instead of issues of governance.
- The policy imperatives, if any, are ad hoc and appear to be driven by the demands of running the political apparatus instead of a clear governance agenda.
- Despite these differences, what is common across parties is the apolitical harnessing of the state as a disburser of different kinds of economic largesse, especially just before elections, as political parties cast about for simple ideas for easy mass communication.
Reasons for the breakdown of the process
- Weakly institutionalised nature of state and politics: Indian politics and the state are weakly institutionalised to begin with, which leads to an all-around fuzziness in the relationship between politics and policy.
- However, this is as much an effect as it is cause, with the direction of change towards greater deinstitutionalisation instead of the opposite.
- Lack of consensus-building: Another contributing factor is that traditional sites of consensus-building such as media, civil society, and political parties have developed pathologies which have rendered sustained consensus-building almost impossible.
- Centralisation of power: The excessive centralisation of power in party platforms and the head of the government (state and national).
- This renders the individual elected representative extraneous to governance even in their own constituency, where their function is to provide representation and oversight.
Way forward
- There’s too much at stake to allow such a state of affairs to continue.
- It is important to rescue public interest from partisanship and cut through at least some of the bad-faith crosstalk across partisan divides.
- Cross-cutting collaboration: There are many issues which lend themselves to cross-cutting collaboration outside of ideological affiliations.
- Need for reforms: Institutional reforms are required to create such a space but public-spirited individuals across political divides can lay the foundation for such collaboration through issue-based discipline, moderation and intellectual independence.
Consider the question “There has been a growing disconnect in India between policy and politics. Examine the factors responsible for this. Suggest the way forward.”
Conclusion
We need to address the disconnect between policy and politics to make the functioning of democracy more meaningful for us.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Paika Rebellion
Mains level: Peasants uprising in India
The 1817 Paika Rebellion of Odisha would be included as a case study in the Class 8 NCERT history textbook, informed the Union Culture Minister.
Who were the Paiks?
- The Paiks of Odisha were the traditional landed militia and enjoyed rent free land tenures for their military service and policing functions on a hereditary basis.
Paika Rebellion
- When the British started tinkering with the revenue system in 1803, the farming community of Odisha rose in rebellion.
- At that critical juncture, Bakshi Jagabandhu Bidyadhar — the military chief of the King of Khurda — led his army of Paikas forcing the British East India Company forces to retreat.
- The rebellion came to be known as Paika Bidroh (Paika rebellion).
When did it take place?
- The rebellion, by the landed militia of Khurda called Paiks, predates the first war of independence in 1857 but did not get similar recognition.
- It took place when the British East India Company wrested the rent-free land that had been given to the Paiks for their military service to the Kingdom of Khurda.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2020:
Q. With reference to the history of India, ‘ulgulan’ or the great tumult is the description of the which of the following?
(a) The revolt of 1857
(b) The Mappila rebellion of 1921
(c) The Indigo revolt of 1859-1860
(d) Birsa Munda’s revolt of 1899-1900
Post your answers here.
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The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s largest space science telescope ever constructed, is scheduled to be sent into orbit in December.
James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)
- It is a space telescope being jointly developed by NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA).
- It has taken 30 years and $10bn to develop, and is being described as one of the grand scientific endeavors of the 21st Century.
What is the goal of this telescope?
- The telescope will be able to see just about anything in the sky.
- However, it has one overriding objective – to see the light coming from the very first stars to shine in the Universe.
- These pioneer stars are thought to have switched on about 100-200 million years after the Big Bang, or a little over 13.5 billion years ago.
- Webb will be picking out groupings of these stars.
- They are so far away their light – even though it moves at 300,000km per second – will have taken billions of years to travel the cosmos.
JWST mirror
- One of the most important objects it will carry is a large mirror which will help collect light from the objects being observed.
- The primary mirror is made of 18 hexagonal-shaped mirror segments — each 1.32 metre in diameter — stitched together in a honeycomb pattern.
- The primary mirror is a technological marvel.
- The lightweight mirrors, coatings, actuators and mechanisms, electronics, and thermal blankets when fully deployed form a single precise mirror that is truly remarkable.
- Each mirror segment weighs approximately 20 kilograms and is made from beryllium.
Why beryllium?
- NASA explains that beryllium was used as it is both strong and light.
- Beryllium is very strong for its weight and is good at holding its shape across a range of temperatures. Beryllium is a good conductor of electricity and heat and is not magnetic.
- Because it is light and strong, beryllium is often used to build parts for supersonic airplanes and the Space Shuttle.
- It added that special care was taken when working with beryllium because it is unhealthy to breathe in or swallow beryllium dust.
So, it does not have gold?
- After the beryllium mirror segments were polished a thin coating of gold was applied to it. Gold helps improve the mirror’s reflection of infrared light.
- The gold was coated using a technique called vacuum vapour deposition.
- The mirrors are kept inside a vacuum chamber and a small quantity of gold is vapourised and deposited on the mirror.
- The thickness of the gold is just 100 nanometers. So less than 50 grams of gold was used for the entire mirror.
- A thin layer of glass was also deposited on top of the gold layer to protect it from scratches.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PAT Scheme
Mains level: Schemes for emission control
A recent report by the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) has attributed the inefficiency of the PAT scheme to non-transparency, loose targets and overlooked deadlines.
PAT Scheme
- Perform Achieve and Trade (PAT) scheme is a flagship program of Bureau of Energy Efficiency under the National Mission for Enhanced Energy Efficiency (NMEEE).
- NMEEE is one of the eight national missions under the National Action Plan on Climate Change (NAPCC) launched by the Government of India in the year 2008
Working of the scheme
- PAT is a market-based compliance mechanism to accelerate improvements in energy efficiency in energy-intensive industries.
- The energy savings achieved by notified industries is converted into tradable instruments called Energy Saving Certificates (ESCerts).
- The ESCerts after issuance by the Bureau of Energy Efficiency are traded at Power Exchanges.
What is PAT cycle?
- The government shortlists industries and restricts the amount of energy they can consume and defines a time limit of three years by when this restriction should be met as part of PAT.
- These three years of time are called one PAT cycle.
- The industries are chosen after in-depth, sector-wise analysis by the government.
- Industries that participate in this scheme are called designated consumers (DC).
- Those that overachieve their targets are issued energy savings certificates (ESCerts) that can be traded with industries that have not achieved their targets.
- Non-achievers have to buy the ESCerts after the three years for compliance.
Various PAT cycles
- PAT covered about 13 energy-intensive sectors
- Sectors included are thermal power plants (TPP), cement, aluminium, iron and steel, pulp and paper, fertilizer, chlor-alkali, petroleum refineries, petrochemicals, distribution companies, railways, textile and commercial buildings (hotels and airports)
- Announcements for six cycles since 2012 have been made so far
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: [pib] Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India (SPPEL)
Mains level: Not Much
The Government of India has initiated a Scheme known as “Scheme for Protection and Preservation of Endangered Languages of India” (SPPEL) informed the Minister of Culture and Tourism.
About SPPEL
- The Scheme was instituted by Ministry of Human Resource Development in 2013.
- The sole objective of the Scheme is to document and archive the country’s languages that have become endangered or likely to be endangered in the near future.
- The scheme is monitored by the Central Institute of Indian Languages (CIIL) located in Mysuru, Karnataka.
- The CIIL has collaborated with various universities and institutes across India for this mission.
- University Grants Commission (UGC) is also providing financial assistance for the creation of centres for endangered languages at Central and State Universities.
What are Endangered Languages?
- At the moment, the languages which are spoken by less than 10,000 speakers or languages that are not been linguistically studied earlier are considered endangered language.
Present status of the scheme
- Presently, 117 languages have been listed for the documentation.
- Documentation in the form of grammar, dictionary and ethno-linguistic profiles of about 500 lesser known languages are estimated to be accomplished in the coming years.
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