💥UPSC 2027,2028 Mentorship (April Batch) + Access XFactor Notes & Microthemes PDF
Talk to mentor

Civilsdaily

Login

Archives: News

  • Child Rights – POSCO, Child Labour Laws, NAPC, etc.

    Lend a helping hand to children the right way

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Laws, Institutions & Bodies Constituted For The Vulnerable Sections

    The article highlights the need to be aware of the legal provisions while helping a orphan child.

    Helping orphaned children

    • Social media is flooded with requests to adopt children who have lost their parents in the pandemic.
    • However, before handing over an orphan child to any agency, family or person, it is important to be aware of the laws.
    • If an orphan child is kept by someone without lawful authority, he or she may land themselves in trouble.
    • According to the Hindu Minority and Guardianship Act, 1956, the father, and in his absence the mother, is the natural guardian.
    • Not even a close relative can look after the child without authorisation.

    What are the options to help

    • First option is any individual who finds an orphan child or even any child who needs care and protection under the circumstances, should immediately call the toll free Childline number 1098.
    • It is an emergency phone outreach service managed by the Women and Child Development department’s nodal agency, the Childline India Foundation.
    • The second option is to intimate the district protection officer concerned whose contact details can be found on the National Tracking System for Missing and Vulnerable Children portal.
    • The third alternative is to approach the nearest police station or its child welfare police officer who is specially trained to exclusively deal with children.
    •  jOne can always dial the Emergency Response Support System (ERSS) which is a pan-India single number (112) based emergency response system for citizens in emergencies and seek the necessary help.
    • The non-reporting of such children is also a punishable offence under the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015 (JJA).

    Procedure after a child reaches outreach agency

    • Once an orphan child is recovered by the outreach agency, it is the duty of the said agency to produce the child within 24 hours before the Child Welfare Committee (CWC) of the district.
    • The CWC, after an inquiry, decides whether to send the child to a children’s home or a fit facility or fit person.
    • If the child is below six years, he or she shall be placed in a specialised adoption agency.
    • The State thus takes care of all such children who are in need of care and protection, till they turn 18 years.
    • In Sampurna Behrua vs Union of India (2018), the Supreme Court of India directed States and Union Territories to ensure that all child care institutions are registered.

    Procedure for adoption

    • Once a child is declared legally free for adoption by the CWC, adoption can be done either by Indian prospective adoptive parents or non-resident Indians or foreigners, in that order.
    • Another important feature of the JJA is that it is secular in nature and simple in procedure.
    • While the Hindu Adoptions and Maintenance Act, 1956 is religion specific but also relatively cumbersome in procedure.
    • Second, the procedure of adoption is totally transparent and its progress can be monitored from the portal of the statutory body, the Central Adoption Resource Authority.

    Directives to the police

    • The Supreme Court in Bachpan Bachao Andolan vs Union of India directed all Directors General of Police, in May 2013, to register a first information report as a case of trafficking or abduction in every case of a missing child.
    • At least one police officer not below the rank of assistant sub-inspector in each police station is mandatorily required to undergo training to deal with children in conflict with the law and in need of care and protection.
    • They are not required to wear a uniform and need to be child-friendly.
    • Similarly, each district is supposed to have its special juvenile police unit, headed by an officer not below the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of Police.
    • The Supreme Court in Re: Exploitation of children in Orphanages in the State of Tamil Nadu (2017) inter alia, specifically asked the National Police Academy, Hyderabad and police training academies in every State to prepare training courses on the JJA and provide regular training to police officers in terms of sensitisation.
    • The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) recently wrote to the Chief Secretaries of all States and Union Territories on the issue of children orphaned due to COVID-19.

    Conclusion

    Following the Covid surge and subsequent increase in request for adoption of children, the laws and procedure for the protection of children must be noted.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Native Indian turtles face U.S. slider threat across Northeast

    Species | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 3: Conservation, Environmental Pollution & Degradation, Eia

    About red-eared slider

    • The red-eared slider (Trachemys scripta elegans) derives its name from red stripes around the part where its ears would be and from its ability to slide quickly off any surface into the water.
    • Native to the U.S. and northern Mexico, this turtle is an extremely popular pet due to its small size, easy maintenance, and relatively low cost.

    Reports about threat

    • Between August 2018 and June 2019, a team of herpetologists from NGO Help Earth published the finding in ‘Reptiles & Amphibians’, journal of the U.S.-based International Reptile Conservation Foundation in August 2020.
    • But the alarm was raised experts from Mizoram University’s Department of Zoology published another report in the same journal in April this year.

    How is it a threat?

    • They grow fast and virtually leaves nothing for the native species to eat.
    •  People who keep it as pets become sensitive about turtle conservation but endanger the local ecosystem, probably unknowingly, by releasing them in natural water bodies after they outgrow an aquarium, tank or pool at home.
    • Much like the Burmese python that went to the U.S. as a pet to damage the South Florida Everglades ecosystem, the red-eared slider has already affected States such as Karnataka and Gujarat, where it has been found in 33 natural water bodies.
    • Preventing this invasive species from overtaking the Brahmaputra and other river ecosystems in the Northeast is crucial because the Northeast is home to more than 72% of the turtle and tortoise species in the country, all of them very rare.

    Way forward

    • Although the red-eared slider is traded legally, the time has come for the government to come up with regulations against keeping invasive as pets.
    • There is a need to create awareness among pet traders for maintaining a database of red-eared slider buyers.
    • They can be contacted to hand over the turtles to the repository insulated from any wetland or natural water body.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Israel’s Iron Dome rocket defence system

    Explained | Security Issues | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    Context

    • Amid the Israel-Palestine conflict, the night sky over Israel has been ablaze with interceptor missiles from Iron Dome shooting down the incoming rockets in the sky.

    What is Iron Dome?

    • Iron Dome is a multi-mission system capable of intercepting rockets, artillery, mortars and Precision Guided Munitions as well as aircraft, helicopters and Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) over short ranges of up to 70 km.
    • It is an all-weather system and can engage multiple targets simultaneously and can be deployed over land and sea.
    • Iron Dome is jointly manufactured by Rafael Advanced Systems and has been in service with Israeli Air Force since 2011.
    • The radar system was developed by Elta.

    Working of Iron Dome

    • An Iron Dome battery consists of a battle management control unit, a detection and tracking radar and a firing unit of three vertical launchers, with 20 interceptor missiles each.
    • The interceptor missile uses a proximity fuse to detonate the target warhead in the air.
    • One of the system’s important advantages is its ability to identify the anticipated point of impact of the threatening rocket, to calculate whether it will fall in a built-up area or not, and to decide on this basis whether or not to engage it.
    • This prevents unnecessary interception of rockets that will fall in open areas and thus not cause damage, the paper states.
    • The system has intercepted thousands of rockets so far and, according to Rafael Advanced Systems, its success rate is over 90%.

    Limitations of the system

    • The system can see limitations when it is overwhelmed with a barrage of projectiles.
    • The system has a ‘saturation point’.
    • It is capable of engaging a certain number of targets at the same time, and no more.
    • One of the possible limitations is the system’s inability to cope with very short range threats as estimates put the Iron Dome’s minimum interception range at 5-7 kilometres.

     

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Parliament – Sessions, Procedures, Motions, Committees etc

    No virtual meets of standing committees

    | | Mains Paper 2: Parliament & State Legislatures

    Confidential nature of meeting not possible in virtual meetings

    • Days after the Leader of Opposition in Rajya Sabha wrote to Chairman to allow virtual meetings of parliamentary standing committees, the Rajya Sabha Secretariat has turned down his plea.
    • Requests to allow virtual meetings of the standing committees were turned down last year as well by Rajya Sabha Chairman and Lok Sabha Speaker.
    • The request was turned down on grounds that virtual meetings would violate the confidential nature of such meetings and that any change to the norms require approval by Parliament.

    Matter referred to Committee on Rules

    • The letter by the Rajya Sabha Secretariat points out that the Chairman and Speaker had decided last year, during the first wave of the pandemic, to refer the issue of allowing virtual meetings of parliamentary panels to the Committee on Rules in both Houses.
    • The Committee on Rules, however, did not take up the matter for discussion since Committees started physical meetings as the lockdown restrictions gradually eased in the second half of last year.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Medical Education Governance in India

    NITI Aayog’s proposal of allowing private entities to take over district hospitals

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    The article highlights the issue of shortage of doctors in India and issues with the involvement of private sector in it.

    Government approach

    • Market-oriented approach towards medical education: NITI Aayog’s proposal of allowing private entities to take over district hospitals for converting them into teaching hospitals with at least 150 MBBS seats.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • The world cannot ignore the Palestinian question

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Effect Of Policies & Politics Of World On India’S Interests

    The article discusses the types of response the recent violence in the Israel-Palestine conflict would invoke across the world and also explains the perils of ignoring the conflict.

    Three types of responses

    • The deadly riots in Israel and the war in Gaza, is likely to evoke three kinds of responses: The indifferent, the imperial, the humanitarian.

    1) Moral indifference

    •  Instead of becoming the symbol of the unfinished tasks of decolonisation, and a human rights catastrophe, the Palestinian question is now mostly an occasion to vent cynicism.
    • The moral questions the oppression of Palestinians poses is avoided by claiming that in this conflict we can assigning rights and wrongs equally to both sides.
    • There is the spectacle of civilians on both sides living in terror.
    • There is the fanaticism of the right-wing in Israel and there is the fanaticism of Hamas and Fatah.
    • Blaming both sides also whitewashes the fact that there is a monumental injustice to the Palestinians at the heart of the problem.

    2) The imperial response

    • The events leading up to the recent clashes at the Al-Aqsa Mosque can be seen as part of a long pattern of pushing out Palestinians from territory Israel wants to claim.
    • American administration has not been able to significantly roll back this project of pushing the Palestinians out.
    • Palestine will once again be the site where the Biden administration’s liberal internationalism will face challenge.

    3) Humanitarian response

    • This third response is to dig beneath the politics and find bridges in shared humanity and suffering.
    • This is also the tack of the peace movements that use culture and a history of shared suffering to build bridges.
    •  They emphasise that dispossession and exile is something both communities share; they, of all the people, should be able to understand each other.
    •  Humanity and culture, even when deeply internalised, collapse quickly when subject to fear.
    • And they always fall short of acknowledging the core issue at stake: Political equality between two peoples.

    Geopolitical implications of conflict

    • The violence of Israel will beget more terrorist violence of Hamas and Fatah, with every world power from Russia to Iran influencing the chaos.
    • Israel needs to be reminded of the blowback of imperial politics: The ultimate consequence of trying to dominate a people is that you end up destroying the moral legitimacy of your own claims.
    • No amount of military capacity can compensate for the images of lynching, rioting, and provocations that we have seen this week.

    Conclusion

    We continually risk conflict if the Palestinian question is simply treated as an object of geo-political opportunism, not as a question of basic dignity and justice.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Remittance received by India remain unaffected by pandemic

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    What the World Bank report says

    • India received over USD 83 billion in remittances in 2020, according to a World Bank report.
    • In 2019, India had received USD 83.3 billion in remittances.
    • The report said India’s remittances fell by just 0.2 per cent in 2020.
    • Much of the decline was due to a 17 per cent drop in remittances from the United Arab Emirates, which offset resilient flows from the United States and other host countries.
    • The World Bank, in its latest Migration and Development Brief, said despite COVID-19, remittance flows remained resilient in 2020.

    Trend analysis

    • China, which received USD 59.5 billion in remittances in 2020 against USD 68.3 billion the previous year, is a distant second.
    • India and China are followed by Mexico (USD42.8 billion), the Philippines (USD34.9 billion), Egypt (USD29.6 billion), Pakistan (USD26 billion), France (USD24.4 billion) and Bangladesh (USD21 billion).
    • Remittance outflow was the maximum from the United States (USD68 billion), followed by UAE (USD43 billion), Saudi Arabia (USD34.5 billion), Switzerland (USD27.9 billion), Germany (USD22 billion), and China (USD18 billion).
    • The relatively strong performance of remittance flows during the COVID-19 crisis has also highlighted the importance of timely availability of data.
    • Given its growing significance as a source of external financing for low- and middle-income countries, there is a need for better collection of data on remittances, in terms of frequency, timely reporting, and granularity by corridor and channel.

    B2BASICS

    Remittances

    • Remittances are usually understood as financial or in-kind transfers made by migrants to friends and relatives back in communities of origin.
    • These are basically sum of two main components – Personal Transfers in cash or in kind between resident and non-resident households and Compensation of Employees, which refers to the income of workers who work in another country for a limited period of time.
    • Remittances help in stimulating economic development in recipient countries, but this can also make such countries over-reliant on them.

    Remittance and the Indian Economy

    Benefits

    • Increased inward remittance is a boon for the economy at both macro and micro levels.
    • At the macro level, remittances contribute to maintaining stable foreign reserves.
    • Remittances help Indian Rupee hold its value against the US dollar and forms a significant part of the GDP.
    • On a micro level, remittances have shown a positive impact on healthcare, entrepreneurship, education, and overall economic development of the recipient families.

    Issues

    An increase in outward remittances however, raises an alarm. It causes the rupee to weaken against the dollar, which in return impacts the businesses exposed to foreign exchange, and the economy overall.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Judicial Reforms

    App to view live proceedings of SC launched for media persons

    | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

    App to view virtual proceedings

    • Chief Justice of India launched a mobile app that would allow media persons to view the Supreme Court’s virtual proceedings live on their mobile phones.
    • The role of the media assumes importance in the process of disseminating information.
    • Justice A.M. Khanwilkar said the facility, which is now temporary, could be made permanent in the future depending on the operational issues.

    ‘Indicative Notes’ on the SC website

    • The CJI also launched a new feature in the Supreme Court’s official website called ‘Indicative Notes’.
    • This feature is aimed at providing concise summaries of landmark judgments in an easy-to-understand format.
    • This will serve as a useful resource for media persons and the general public who wish to be better informed about the rulings of the court.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Citizenship and Related Issues

    Issues with MHA notification for OCI

    | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

    About notification

    • The Home Ministry’s March 4 order that required professional Overseas Citizens of India (OCIs), such as journalists, engineers and researchers, to notify the Ministry about their activities in India.
    • The notification said that OCIs shall be required to obtain a “special permission or a special permit” from the competent authority or the Foreigners Regional Registration Office (FRRO) or the Indian mission “to undertake research, missionary or Tabligh or mountaineering or journalistic activities or internship in any foreign diplomatic missions
    • The Ministry issued a gazette notification that OCI cardholders could claim “only NRI (Non-Resident Indian) quota seats” in educational institutions.

    Issues with the notification

    • This will place undue burden on scientific, pharmaceutical, medical, biotechnology and other research fields.
    • Even if an OCI student has secured a high rank in an exam like NEET, several institutions of repute do not have NRI seats.
    • The exorbitantly high fees under the NRI quota cannot be afforded by many OCIs as they live and work in India.
    • India-domiciled OCI students are deprived of domicile status both in India [country of residence] as well as the country of their citizenship.
    • The notification equates India-domiciled OCIs with a foreigner.

    About OCIs

    • OCIs are of Indian origin but hold foreign passports.
    • India does not allow dual citizenship but provides certain benefits under Section 7B(I) of the Citizenship Act, 1955 to the OCIs.
    • So far, 37.72 lakh OCI Cards are said to have been issued.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

  • Coronavirus – Health and Governance Issues

    India resists Community Transmission tag despite soaring cases

    | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    How other countries are classifying themselves

    • Inspite of adding the highest number of cases in the world every day, India continues to label itself as a country with no community transmission (CT) according to the latest weekly report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on May 11.
    • India opts for the lower, less serious classification called ‘cluster of cases’.
    • Countries such as the United States, Brazil, United Kingdom, France have all labelled themselves as being in ‘community transmission.
    • Among the 10 countries with the most number of confirmed cases, only Italy and Russia do not label themselves as being in community transmission.
    • Both countries have been on a declining trajectory for at least a month and together contribute less than 20,000 cases a day — about 5% of India’s daily numbers.
    • India, since the beginning of the pandemic has never marked itself as being in community transition.

    Understanding the classification

    • Broadly, CT is when new cases in the last 14 days can’t be traced to those who have an international travel history, when cases can’t be linked to specific cluster.
    • Instead, the classification, ‘cluster of cases’ says “Cases detected in the past 14 days are predominantly limited to well-defined clusters that are not directly linked to imported cases”.
    • The WHO guidelines further suggest four subcategories within the broader definition of CT.
    • CT-1 implying “Low incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases…and low risk of infection for the general population.
    • The highest, a CT-4 suggests very high incidence of locally acquired, widely dispersed cases in the past 14 days.
    • Very high risk of infection for the general population.

    Why right classification matters

    • If cases were still a cluster, it would mean that the government ought to be prioritising testing, contact tracing and isolating to prevent further infection spread.
    • CT, on the other hand meant prioritising treatment and observing advisories to stay protected.
    • CT — far from being stigmatic or an indicator of failure — has a bearing on how authorities addressed a pandemic.

    Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

Join the Community

Join us across Social Media platforms.