Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NAAC
Mains level: Paper 2- ABC scheme for higher education
Context
The National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 has recommended a revamp of the higher education scene in India. A new initiative stemming from this desire is an ‘Academic Bank of Credits’ (ABC) in higher education idea, which was notified recently by the University Grants Commission (UGC).
About the Academic Bank of Credits’ (ABC)
- Any undergraduate or postgraduate student can create an account in the ABC portal and store information of his/her completed courses (i.e., subjects/papers in old terminology) and grades obtained.
- These grades are stored for a period of five years.
- As multiple institutes are connected to the ABC portal, one can be formally enrolled in university ‘A’ but can choose to do some courses from university ‘B’, some more from university ‘C’ and so on and all of these would count towards the student’s degree.
- Flexible and multidisciplinary: One can enrol in an equivalent course from another college in the same city or join online courses offered by other universities; or can enrol in SWAYAM (a programme initiated by the Government of India) or the National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL) and add these credits.
- Thus, education will truly become flexible and interdisciplinary, without forcing any single institute to float an unmanageable number of courses.
- This flexibility will offer students a chance to enrol in a course and learn from teachers from some of the best institutes such as the Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) or the Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research.
Issues with ABC
- Limited seats: ABC regulations say that the institute should allow up to 20% supernumerary seats for students enrolling through the ABC scheme.
- There is no clarity on how the selection of students would be made if there are more than 20% seats.
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platforms such as SWAYAM and NPTEL are ‘supposedly designed’ for large enrolments.
- So far we have not found any evidence in the public domain that these MOOC platforms can provide a reliable assessment of learning achievement if there is massive enrolment for a course.
- Filtering criterion: The ABC portal will accept courses from a large inumber of higher education institutes.
- The filtering criterion in the original regulation was that higher education institutes should have obtained an ‘A’ grade or higher in the latest round of National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) accreditation.
- This filtering criterion is not satisfactory.
- Impact on small colleges: The ABC scheme specifies that students can avail up to 70% of courses from other institutes while being enrolled in a particular college.
- If students avail these credits outside the parent college, they need not enrol for the corresponding in-house courses.
- As the number of teaching posts in any higher education institute are calculated on the basis of student enrolment numbers, what happens when a large fraction of students do not enrol for the courses offered by you?
Conclusion
In India, where the quality of education varies drastically from one institute to the next, this can lead to unmanageable academic and administrative issues in higher education institutes with brand names, and lead to a contraction in the number of teaching posts in smaller higher education institutes.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for refugee and asylum law
Context
A Private Member’s Bill was introduced in the Lok Sabha proposing the enactment of a Refugee and Asylum law.
Why does India need a Refugee and Asylum law?
- The principle of non-refoulement: The international legal principle of non-refoulement — the cornerstone of refugee law, which states that no country should send a person to a place where he or she may face persecution.
- The principle of non-refoulement is clearly affirmed, with no exceptions, though reasons have been specified for exclusion, expulsion, and revocation of refugee status, to respect the Government’s sovereign authority but limit its discretion.
- India is not signatory to Refugee Convention: India has been, and continues to be, a generous host to several persecuted communities, doing more than many countries, but is neither a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, nor does it have a domestic asylum framework.
- The tradition of asylum: It will be in line with India’s millennial traditions of asylum and hospitality to strangers.
- Because India has neither subscribed to international conventions on the topic nor set up a domestic legislative framework to deal with refugees, their problems are dealt with in an ad hoc manner, and like other foreigners they always face the possibility of being deported.
- It will finally recognise India’s long-standing and continuing commitment to humanitarian and democratic values while dealing with refugees.
Multiple laws
- In the absence of a uniform and comprehensive law to deal with asylum seekers, we lack a clear vision or policy on refugee management.
- We have a cocktail of laws such as:
- the Foreigners Act, 1946,
- the Registration of Foreigners Act, 1939,
- the Passports Act (1967),
- the Extradition Act, 1962,
- the Citizenship Act, 1955 and
- the Foreigners Order, 1948 — all of which club all foreign individuals together as “aliens”.
Defining refugee
- Well-founded fear of persecution: The internationally-accepted definition of the term, includes people who have fled their home countries and crossed an international border because of a well-founded fear of persecution in their home countries, on grounds of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group, or political opinion.
- Who does not qualify as a refugee? This means that people who cross borders in quest of economic betterment, or because they are fleeing poverty, anarchy or environmental disaster, do not qualify as refugees.
- Nor do those who flee from one part of their home country to another because of war, conflict or fear of persecution.
Way forward
- India must enact a National Asylum Law.
- We need a proper framework to make sure that refugees can access basic public services, be able to legally seek jobs and livelihood opportunities for some source of income.
- The absence of such a framework will make the refugees vulnerable to exploitation, especially human trafficking.
- Our judiciary has already shown the way forward on this: in 1996, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the state has to protect all human beings living in India, irrespective of nationality, since they enjoy the rights guaranteed by Articles 14, 20 and 21 of the Constitution to all, not just Indian citizens.
- The enactment and enumeration of refugee rights will reduce our dependence on judge-centric approaches — or even worse, the whims of Home Ministry bureaucrats, police officers and politicians.
Consider the question “In the absence of a uniform and comprehensive law to deal with asylum seekers, we lack a clear vision or policy on refugee management. In the context of this, examine the need for law to deal with asylum seeker and suggest the various aspects the law should cover.”
Conclusion
The problems of refugees worldwide are problems that demand global solidarity and international cooperation. India, as a pillar of the world community, as a significant pole in the emerging multipolar world, must play its own part, on its own soil as well as on the global stage, in this noble task.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Blockchain technology
Mains level: Paper 3- Applications of blockchain and challenges
Context
Blockchain is a fascinating data structure that generates great curiosity. However, there is a lot of hype around the concept and its adoption in diverse fields seems to be faith-based, driven by unsubstantiated vendor and consultant claims.
Two main functional properties of blockchain
- A blockchain is a sequential append-only public bulletin board of transaction records with two main functional properties.
- 1] Verification by peers: What can get added is reconciled by multiple participating peers following a pre-decided consensus protocol.
- This process cannot be gamed under the assumption that a majority of the unrestricted number of peers are honest.
- 2] Immutable record: recryptographically ensured that it cannot be altered.
- Each participating peer normally has their own copy of the entire bulletin board, with identical content, and they can read and further copy at will.
Applications and their limits
- Private blockchain: A “permissioned” or private blockchain has only pre-identified participating peers.
- Hence, collusion is possible and integrity can only be ensured through regulations.
- Without political decentralisation, consensus does not imply safety, and this is no different from centralisation in its threat model.
- Privacy concern is not addressed: Despite many claims to the contrary, the blockchain structure has nothing to do with the highly-nuanced notion of privacy, or even the limited secrecy aspect of it.
- To ensure secrecy of the bulletin board records, one has to fall back on traditional and well-established notions from cryptography — like encryption, key management and zero-knowledge proofs.
- “Consensus” is inapplicable when there is only one authority responsible for the integrity of the transactions, for example, the Election Commission of India when a vote is cast in the privacy of a polling booth or a person is added or removed from a voters’ list.
- Issues with use for voting purpose: Also, voting is not the only example of the inadequate analysis of the applicability of blockchain, and there are proposals for using them for land records, asset registers, etc.
- Most such proposals do not pass muster for reasons similar to voting.
- The role of blockchain in RBI’s digital currency proposal is similarly doubtful, and convincing methods independent of “consensus” need to be developed to ensure the correctness and verifiability of transactions while protecting user privacy.
Issues with application for cyrptocurrencies
- Macroeconomic implications not clear: Currency properties and monetary policies have evolved over thousands of years of bartering, and it is not clear that cryptocurrencies are consistent with them or that the larger macroeconomic implications of cryptocurrencies are well understood.
- Crypto assets derive their values from their potential to be exchanged for other currencies.
- Uncertain price determination: Since only a limited set of commodities are traded with crypto assets, their price determinations with respect to sovereign fiat currencies are uncertain.
- Potential to increase inequality: Apart from the crucial price stabilisation issues, their potential to further inequality is also considerable.
- Environmental impact: The total carbon footprint of cryptocurrencies is equivalent to that of a few megacities, and it does seem ungainly, energy-inefficient and unsustainable to mine assets this way.
Way forward
- What may help in many of these applications is just the immutable public bulletin board part of a blockchain, with or without encryption and zero-knowledge proofs.
- This may be simply achieved by the concerned authority periodically publishing the bulletin board in a publicly downloadable forum, and using hash chains verifiable by all to make alterations impossible.
- Given the carbon footprint associated with cryptocurrencies, it requires regulation and taxation, especially for the potential environmental impacts and because only a few participate.
Consider the question “What is blockchain technology? What are its potential applications and concerns with these applications?”
Conclusion
Blockchain is certainly an elegant concept whose properties and potential require careful research. The hype of treating them as solutions for everything with not-so-thoughtful use cases is perhaps techno-determinism at its worst.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Green Hydrogen
Mains level: Gas based economy
The Ministry of Power has notified the first part of the National Hydrogen Mission policy on green hydrogen and green ammonia, aimed to boost production of hydrogen and ammonia using renewable energy.
What is green hydrogen?
- Green hydrogen is hydrogen gas produced through electrolysis of water.
- It is an energy intensive process for splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen— using renewable power to achieve this.
Key takeaways of the Green Hydrogen Policy
- The new policy offers 25 years of free power transmission for any new renewable energy plants set up to supply power for green hydrogen production before July 2025.
- This means that a green hydrogen producer will be able to set up a solar power plant in Rajasthan to supply renewable energy to a green hydrogen plant in Assam.
- It would not be required to pay any inter-state transmission charges.
What are the incentives?
- The government is set to provide a single portal for all clearances required for setting up green hydrogen production.
- It will facilitate producers to transfer any surplus renewable energy generated with discoms for upto 30 days and use it as required.
- The requirement of time bound clearances for these projects would spur investment while grid connectivity on priority will ease operational processes.
- The energy plants set up to produce green hydrogen/ammonia would be given connectivity to the grid on a priority basis.
- State DISCOMS may also procure renewable energy to supply green hydrogen producers but will be required to do so at a concessional rate.
- Such procurement would also count towards a state’s Renewable Purchase Obligation (RPO) under which it is required to procure a certain proportion of its requirements from renewable energy sources.
Facilities to boost export
- Under the policy port authorities will also provide land at applicable charges to green hydrogen and green ammonia producers to set up bunkers near ports for storage prior to export.
- Germany and Japan could be key markets for green hydrogen produced in India.
Why such move?
- The move is likely going to make it more economical for key users of hydrogen and ammonia such as the oil refining, fertiliser and steel sectors to produce green hydrogen for their own use.
- These sectors currently use grey hydrogen or grey ammonia produced using natural gas or naphtha.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Reserviors on Krishna River
Mains level: Interstate river water disputes
The Supreme Court has asked if the States of Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka could amicably settle their quarrel over the allocation of the Krishna river water.
Krishna River Dispute
- The Krishna is an east-flowing river that originates at Mahabaleshwar in Maharashtra and merges with the Bay of Bengal, flowing through Maharashtra, Karnataka, Telangana, and AP.
- Together with its tributaries, it forms a vast basin that covers 33% of the total area of the four states.
- A dispute over the sharing of Krishna waters has been ongoing for many decades, beginning with the erstwhile Hyderabad and Mysore states, and later continuing between successors.
Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal
- In 1969, the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal (KWDT) was set up under the Inter-State River Water Dispute Act, 1956, and presented its report in 1973.
- The report, which was published in 1976, divided the 2060 TMC (thousand million cubic feet) of Krishna water at 75 percent dependability into three parts.
- It was 560 TMC for Maharashtra, 700 TMC for Karnataka, and 800 TMC for Andhra Pradesh.
- At the same time, it was stipulated that the KWDT order may be reviewed or revised by a competent authority or tribunal any time after May 31, 2000.
- Afterward, as new grievances arose between the states, the second KWDT was instituted in 2004.
- It delivered its report in 2010, which made allocations of the Krishna water at 65 percent dependability and for surplus flows as follows: 81 TMC for Maharashtra, 177 TMC for Karnataka, and 190 TMC for Andhra Pradesh.
Row over the share
- Andhra Pradesh has since asked that Telangana be included as a separate party at the KWDT and that the allocation of Krishna waters be reworked among four states, instead of three.
- Maharashtra and Karnataka are now resisting this move since Telangana was created following the bifurcation of Andhra Pradesh.
- Therefore, the allocation of water should be from Andhra Pradesh’s share which was approved by the tribunal.
Duo’s stance
- It is relying on Section 89 of The Andhra Pradesh State Reorganization Act, 2014, which reads:
- The term of the Krishna Water Disputes Tribunal shall be extended with the following terms of reference, namely:
- shall make a project-wise specific allocation, if such allocation has not been made by a Tribunal constituted under the Inter-State River Water Disputes Act, 1956;
- shall determine an operational protocol for project-wise release of water in the event of deficit flows.
- For the purposes of this section, it is clarified that the project-specific awards already made by the Tribunal on or before the appointed day shall be binding on the successor States.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mullaperiyar Dam
Mains level: Not Much
Kerala plans to build a new dam to replace the 126-year-old Mullaperiyar dam in the Idukki district.
Mullaperiyar Dam
- It is a masonry gravity dam on the Periyar River in Kerala.
- It is located on the Cardamom Hills of the Western Ghats in Thekkady, Idukki District.
- It was constructed between 1887 and 1895 by John Pennycuick and also reached in an agreement to divert water eastwards to the Madras Presidency area.
- It has a height of 53.6 m (176 ft) from the foundation, and a length of 365.7 m (1,200 ft).
Operational issue
- The dam is located in Kerala but is operated and maintained by Tamil Nadu.
- The catchment area of the Mullaperiyar Dam itself lies entirely in Kerala and thus not an inter-State river.
- In November 2014, the water level hit 142 feet for first time in 35 years.
- The reservoir again hit the maximum limit of 142 feet in August 2018, following incessant rains in the state of Kerala.
- Indeed, the tendency to store water to almost the full level of reservoirs is becoming a norm among water managers across States.
The dispute: Control and safety of the dam
- Supreme court judgment came in February 2006, has allowed Tamil Nadu to raise the level of the dam to 152 ft (46 m) after strengthening it.
- Responding to it, the Mullaperiyar dam was declared an ‘endangered’ scheduled dam by the Kerala Government under the disputed Kerala Irrigation and Water Conservation (Amendment) Act, 2006.
- For Tamil Nadu, the Mullaperiyar dam and the diverted Periyar waters act as a lifeline for Theni, Madurai, Sivaganga, Dindigul and Ramnad districts.
- Tamil Nadu has insisted on exercising the unfettered colonial rights to control the dam and its waters, based on the 1886 lease agreement.
Rule of Curve issue
- A rule curve or rule level specifies the storage or empty space to be maintained in a reservoir during different times of the year.
- It decides the fluctuating storage levels in a reservoir.
- The gate opening schedule of a dam is based on the rule curve. It is part of the “core safety” mechanism in a dam.
- The TN government often blames Kerala for delaying the finalization of the rule curve.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Participatory and Non-Participatory Funds
Mains level: NA
The amendment to Section 24 of the LIC Act, brought prior to commencing the IPO, segregated the previously single ‘Life Fund’ into the participatory and non-participatory fund.
What are Participatory and Non-Participatory Funds?
- Under a participatory policy, a policyholder can get a share of the profits of the company.
- This is received as a bonus. Examples of such products offered by LIC include Jeevan Labh and Bachat Plus.
- No such sharing of profits happens under non-participatory products, which under the LIC fold includes policies such as Saral Pensionand Nivesh Plus.
- As all insurance companies do, LIC also reinvests premium monies that policyholders pay.
- The profits or surplus that comes about, as a result, was till September last year held in one single fund. This was the Life Fund.
- The surplus was divided in the 95:5 ratio between policyholders (in the form of bonuses) and shareholders (in the form of dividends).
What has the Amendment changed?
- But the amendment to Section 24 of the LIC Act has necessitated the segregation of the Life Fund into participatory and non-participatory funds, depending on the nature of the policies they support.
- The amendment stipulates terms on how surplus is to be shared with respect to participatory and non-participatory funds.
- As for non-participating funds, surplus from the non-participating business would be transferred to shareholders.
- Surplus from participatory business, however, would be shared between policyholders and shareholders.
How does this change impact the shareholder?
- The change, especially the one that has enabled 100% of the surplus in non-participatory funds to flow to the shareholder, has led to a massive jump in the Indian Embedded Value, or IEV.
- IEV is a measure of future cash flows in life insurance companies and the key financial gauge for insurers.
- The embedded value will help establish the market valuation of LIC and determine how much money the government raises in the flotation.
- That will be crucial for the government to help meet its divestment targets and keep its fiscal deficit in check.
Why is it a risk, then?
- LIC has stated in the document that a significant portion of its business premiums come from participating and single premium products.
- It added, should the participating products generate lower than expected returns for policyholders, it could lead to increased surrenders.
- This could also potentially bother their financial condition, operations, and cash flows.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: REWARD Program
Mains level: Not Much
The GoI, the State Governments of Karnataka and Odisha, and the World Bank have signed a $115 million for the REWARD Project.
What is REWARD Program?
- REWARD stands for Rejuvenating Watersheds for Agricultural Resilience through Innovative Development.
- The project aims to help national and state institutions adopt improved watershed management practices to help increase farmers’ resilience to climate change, promote higher productivity and better incomes.
- REWARD is being implemented in three to four Indian States.
- It is proposed as a 6 years Project.
Objectives of the project
- The outcomes are prevention of soil run-off, regeneration of natural vegetation, rainwater harvesting, and recharging of the groundwater table.
- This enables multi-cropping and the introduction of diverse agro-based activities, which help to provide sustainable livelihoods to the people residing in the watershed area.
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