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

Civilsdaily

Login

Archives: News

  • Water Management – Institutional Reforms, Conservation Efforts, etc.

    Places in news: Mullaperiyar Dam

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

    The Mullaperiyar dam has recently turned 125.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q. What is common to the places known as Aliyar, Isapur and Kangsabati?

    (a) Recently discovered uranium deposits

    (b) Tropical rain forests

    (c) Underground cave systems

    (d) Water reservoirs

    Mullaperiyar Dam

    • It is a masonry gravity dam on the Periyar River in the Indian state of Kerala.
    • It is located 881 m above mean sea level, on the Cardamom Hills of the Western Ghats in Thekkady, Idukki District of Kerala.
    • 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 (present-day Tamil Nadu).
    • Pennycuick is widely worshipped as a hero by farmers in the four districts of southern Tamil Nadu, where water from the dam meets the drinking water needs and irrigates thousands of hectares.

    Why is the dam special?

    • The dam was constructed surmounting many odds, with malaria and thick jungles taking a toll on workers. It was a huge challenge before him to construct the dam and divert the river course.
    • Pennycuick sowed the seeds of river interlinking to bring barren and rain-starved areas under cultivation.
    • To fund dam construction, gold ornaments were donated by Chettiar families and farmers in Cumbom valley also gave their meagre savings to Pennycuick.
    • Pennycuick even sold his ancestral property in Britain and spent the amount for completing the works of the dam when the expenses exceeded the allotted funds.
    • The British government endowed him with the ‘Companion of Star of India’, a high civilian honour. He died on March 9, 1911, at Frimley in Britain.

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

  • Capital Markets: Challenges and Developments

    What are Hybrid Funds?

    Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Investment Models

    This newscard is an excerpt from an originally FAQ published in TH.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.Which of the following is issued by registered foreign portfolio investors to overseas investors who want to be part of the Indian stock market without registering themselves directly?

    (a) Certificate of Deposit

    (b) Commercial Paper

    (c) Promissory Note

    (d) Participatory Note

    Hybrid Fund

    • A hybrid fund is one that invests in both equity and bonds. So, such funds ought to help investors with their asset allocation decision.
    • This refers to how you allocate your annual savings between equity and bond investments.
    • Suppose you are unsure of the proportion of equity and bond investments to have in your portfolio.
    • By investing in a hybrid fund, you could outsource your asset allocation decision to the manager of the fund, so the argument goes.
    • The issue is that each goal you pursue requires different asset allocation. For instance, the asset allocation for your child’s education portfolio must be different from your retirement portfolio.
    • Hybrid funds cannot consider your individual goal requirement as it is a collective investment vehicle.

    Tax efficiency of the fund

    • Based on current tax laws, a hybrid fund that holds 65% or more in equity is considered as an equity fund.
    • So, if you redeem your units in such hybrid funds after a holding period of more than 12 months, you have to pay long-term capital gains tax of 10%.
    • If a hybrid fund holds less than 65% in equity, you have to pay 20% capital gains tax with indexation if you sell your units after a holding period of more than 36 months.

    Back2Basics: Stocks vs. Bonds vs. Equity

    • A stock represents a collection of shares in a company which is entitled to receive a fixed amount of dividend at the end of the relevant financial year which are mostly called Equity of the company.
    • Bonds term is associated with debt raised by the company from outsiders which carry a fixed ratio of return each year and can be earned as they are generally for a fixed period of time.
    • Bonds are actually loans that are secured by a specific physical asset.
    • It highlights the amount of debt taken with a promise to pay the principal amount in the future and periodically offering them the yields at a pre-decided percentage.
    • Equity is ownership of assets that may have debts or other liabilities attached to them. Equity is measured for accounting purposes by subtracting liabilities from the value of an asset.

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

  • New Species of Plants and Animals Discovered

    ZSI lists Skinks of India

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

    Celebrating skinks, Zoological Survey of India has listed 62 species.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.With reference to India’s Biodiversity, Ceylon frogmouth, Coppersmith barbet, Gray-chinned minivet and White-throated redstart are-

    (a) Birds

    (b) Primates

    (c) Reptiles

    (d) Amphibians

    What are Skinks?

    • Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha.
    • With long bodies, relatively small or no legs, no pronounced neck and glossy scales, skinks are common reptiles around homes.
    • Although they are common reptiles and have a prominent role in maintaining ecosystems, not much is known about their breeding habits, and ecology because identification of the species can be confusing.

    Certain notions about them

    • Skinks are highly alert, agile and fast-moving and actively forage for a variety of insects and small invertebrates.
    • The reduced limbs of certain skink species or the complete lack of them make their slithering movements resemble those of snakes, leading people to have the incorrect notion that they are venomous.
    • This results in several of these harmless creatures being killed.

    ZSI study on Skinks

    • A recent publication by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI) reveals that India is home to 62 species of skinks and says about 57% of all the skinks found in India (33 species) are endemic.
    • Sepsophis (with one species)and Barkudia (with two species) are limbless skinks found in the hills and coastal plains of the eastern coast.
    • Barkudia insularisis believed to be found only in the Barkud Island in Chilka lake in Odisha. Barkudia melanosticta is endemic to Visakhapatnam.
    • Sepsophis punctatus is endemic to the northern part of Eastern Ghats.
    • Five species of Kaestlea (blue-tailed ground skinks) are endemic to the Western Ghats and four species of Ristella (Cat skinks) also endemic to the southern part of Western Ghats.

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

  • Agricultural Sector and Marketing Reforms – eNAM, Model APMC Act, Eco Survey Reco, etc.

    Farm Bills latest step in sequential freeing up of farm sector

    | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: Transport & Marketing Of Agricultural Produce

    The recently passed agri bills seek to expand the choices and opportunities available with the farmers and will help in increasing their income.

    Diversified product segment

    • The Minimum Support Price (MSP) evolved as a mechanism to guard farmers against supply and demand shocks in the cereals segment. 
    •  Now, however, farmers and agricultural producers have diversified their product segments, cereals no longer dominate production.
    • In the last decade itself, India has witnessed tremendous change in the GVA composition of the agri-sector.
    • The share of crops has decreased from 65.4% in 2011-12 to 55.3% in 2018-19, projected to further fall to 45.6% in 2024-25.
    •  In the same period, value add of livestock and fishing & aquaculture is steadily increasing, as are the total value outputs of sub-segments like horticulture, milk and meat.
    • With differentiated production strategies that are less reliant on cereals and more on other segments, farmers are accruing better incomes.
    • By diversifying their produce, they are moving away from one-crop risks.

    Government schemes and policies

    • Keeping farmers dependent on subsidies and restricted by APMCs, and acts like the Essential Commodities Act wasn’t in the nation’s long-term interests.
    • Recognising this, the government has been making sequential changes in the system.
    • It started with the introduction of the National Agriculture Market (e-NAM) to facilitate online trading of agri-produce.
    • Then PM-KISAN was introduced to provide minimum income support to nine crore marginal farmers, at Rs 6,000 annually.
    • The KISAN credit card with an allotment of a total of Rs 2 lakh crore credit to maintain larger workforces and implements during harvest season is helping farmers plan and organise their harvests better.
    • The Rs 1 lakh crore Agri Infrastructure Fund as part of Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan will help by the creation of agri-infrastructure.

    Need for structural changes

    • The government recently passed three agri-bills, these are:-
    • 1) The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce Bill.
    • 2) Farmers Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services Bill.
    • 3) Essential Commodities (Amendment) Bill.
    • They enable farmers the freedom to diversify their crops and produce, which reduces mono-crop dependence and increases income avenues.
    • They can also now sell their produce anywhere, to the highest bidder across the country.
    • The farmers are no longer are they required to go to the mandis where they are subject to middlemen and layers of bureaucracy.
    • Contract farming enable farmers them to boost the value-add of their products via contracts and assured procurement by the food processing industries.
    • Retaining the MSP system means the government is underwriting the whole network for certain crops to ensure farmers receive assured income for those crops.

    Focusing on the export market

    • The passage of agri bills gives India the long-awaited opportunity to orient its agriculture sector towards export markets.
    • By catering to just the Indian economy, the exposure is hardly $3 trillion ; instead, export-orientation caters to an $82 trillion global economy —a 27x expansion.
    • India’s agri exports in 2018 were at $38.5 billion.
    • India can comfortably triple this by providing infrastructure for grading, sorting, and supply chain distribution.

    Conclusion

    The farm Bills are liberating farmers at a pivotal juncture, the nation and farmers have a generational opportunity here to break out of a 70-year sectoral stagnation and aim bigger.

    Source:-

    https://www.financialexpress.com/opinion/agri-reforms-farm-bills-latest-step-in-sequential-freeing-up-of-farm-sector/2107611/

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

  • Analysing the trends in India’s population growth

    op-ed snap | Trivia | Mains Paper 1: Population & Associated Issues

    The article analyses some trends in India’s population growth as found in the Sample Registration System Statistical Report (2018).

    Context

    • There have been some encouraging trends in India’s population in the Sample Registration System (SRS) Statistical Report (2018) and global population projections made by the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), US.

     Declining TFR

    • SRS report estimated the Total Fertility Rate (TFR), the number of children a mother would have at the current pattern of fertility during her lifetime, as 2.2 in the year 2018.
    •  It is estimated that replacement TFR of 2.1 would soon be, if not already, reached for India as a whole.
    • As fertility declines, so does the population growth rate.
    • This report estimated the natural annual population growth rate to be 1.38 per cent in 2018.
    • A comparison of 2011 and 2018 SRS statistical reports shows that TFR declined from 2.4 to 2.2 during this period.
    • Fertility declined in all major states.
    • In 2011, 10 states had a fertility rate below the replacement rate. This increased to 14 states.
    • The annual natural population growth rate also declined from 1.47 to 1.38 per cent during this period.

    So, when will India’s population stabilise

    • Duet to population momentum effect, a result of more people entering the reproductive age group of 15-49 years due to the past high-level of fertility, population stabilisation will take some time.
    • The UN Population Division has estimated that India’s population would possibly peak at 161 crore around 2061.
    •  Recently, IHME estimated that it will peak at 160 crore in 2048.
    • Some of this momentum effect can be mitigated if young people delay childbearing and space their children.

    Factors affecting fertility rates

    • Fertility largely depends upon social setting and programme strength.
    • Programme strength is indicated by the unmet need for contraception, which has several components.
    •  The National Family Health Survey (2015-16) provides us estimates for the unmet need at 12.9 per cent and contraceptive prevalence of 53.5 per cent for India.
    • Female education is a key indicator for social setting, higher the female education level, lower the fertility.
    • As the literacy of women in the reproductive age group is improving rapidly, we can be sanguine about continued fertility reduction.

    Declining sex ratio at birth: Cause for concerrn

    •  The SRS reports show that sex ratio at birth in India, measured as the number of females per 1,000 males, declined marginally from 906 in 2011 to 899 in 2018.
    • Biologically normal sex ratio at birth is 950 females to 1,000 males. 
    • The UNFPA State of World Population 2020 estimated the sex ratio at birth in India as 910, lower than all the countries in the world except China.
    • This is a cause for concern for following 2 reasons:
    • 1) This adverse ratio results in a gross imbalance in the number of men and women.
    • 2) Impact on marriage systems as well as other harms to women.
    • Increasing female education and economic prosperity help to improve the ratio.
    • It is hoped that a balanced sex ratio at birth could be realised over time, although this does not seem to be happening during the period 2011-18. 

    Conclusion

    In conclusion, there is an urgent need to reach young people both for reproductive health education and services as well as to cultivate gender equity norms. This could reduce the effect of population momentum and accelerate progress towards reaching a more normal sex-ratio at birth. India’s population future depends on it.

    Back2Basics: Total Fertility Rate and Replacement rate

    • Total fertility rate (TFR) in simple terms refers to total number of children born or likely to be born to a woman in her life time if she were subject to the prevailing rate of age-specific fertility in the population.
    • TFR of about 2.1 children per woman is called Replacement-level fertility (UN, Population Division).
    • This value represents the average number of children a woman would need to have to reproduce herself by bearing a daughter who survives to childbearing age.
    • If replacement level fertility is sustained over a sufficiently long period, each generation will exactly replace itself without any need for the country to balance the population by international migration.

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

  • India’s Bid to a Permanent Seat at United Nations

    Opportunity for India to push for reforms at the UN

    op-ed snap | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    The article analyses the changing geopolitical context against the background of the pandemic. China has been facing some challenges at the UN of late. Multilateralism faces an unprecedented crisis. This context provides an opportunity for India to push for reforms in international institutions. 

    China facing difficulty in elections to UN bodies

    • Recently, India besting China in the elections for a seat on the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women (CSW).
    • Soon after the CSW vote, it lost another election, this time to tiny Samoa for a seat on the UN Statistical Commission.
    • And a couple of days ago, it just about managed to get elected to the UN High Rights Council, coming fourth out of five contestants for four vacancies.
    • Earlier, China’s candidate had lost to a Singaporean in the race for DG World Intellectual Property Organization.

    China’s strengths

    • Taking advantage of its position as a member of the P-5 and as a huge aid giver, China made itself invincible in UN elections.
    • It won among others, the top positions at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO), the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO).

    Historical background on China’s rise at the UN

    • World War II saw strong U.S.-China collaboration against the Japanese, including U.S. operations conducted from India.
    • Their bilateral ties saw the U.S. include the Chinese in a group of the most important countries for ensuring world peace post- World War II, along with the U.S., the USSR and the U.K.
    • This enlarged into the P-5, with France being added by the UK at the San Francisco conference held in 1945 where the UN charter was finalised.
    • The pure multilateralism of the League of Nations was thus infused with a multipolarity, with the U.S. as the sheet anchor.

    Challenges to multilateralism and the need for reform in the international institutions

    • Multilateralism is under stress due to COVID-19 pandemic and a certain disenchantment with globalisation.
    • At the root is the rise of China and its challenge to U.S. global hegemony.
    • But in the current scenario multilateralism backed by strong multipolarity in the need of the hour.
    • This demands institutional reform in the UN Security Council (UNSC) and at the Bretton Woods Institutions.
    • In this context, it is good that recently India, Germany, Japan and Brazil (G-4) have sought to refocus the UN on UNSC reform.
    • As proponents of reform, they must remain focused and determined even if these changes do not happen easily or come soon.
    • This is also the way forward for India which is not yet in the front row.

    Way forward

    • Earlier in the year, India was elected as a non-permanent member of the UNSC for a two-year term.
    • India will also host the BRICS Summit next year and G-20 Summit in 2022.
    • These are openings for India in collaborating the world in critical areas that require global cooperation especially climate change, pandemics and counter-terrorism.
    • India also needs to invest in the UN with increased financial contributions in line with its share of the world economy and by placing its people in key multilateral positions.

    Consider the question “The UN, which came into existence in different time fails to take into account the realities of the changing world. In light of this, examine the basis of India’s claim to a permanent seat at the UN. What are the challenges to India’s claim.”

    Conclusion

    Against the backdrop of pandemic and subsequent pushback against China at the UN, it is also an opportune moment for India and a Reformed Multilateralism.

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

  • Hunger and Nutrition Issues – GHI, GNI, etc.

    Highlights of the Global Hunger Report, 2020

    IOCR | Governance | Mains Paper 1: Poverty & Development Issues

    India has the highest prevalence of wasted children under five years in the world, which reflects acute undernutrition, according to the Global Hunger Index 2020.

    Note the parameters over which the GHI is based and their weightage composition.

    Global Hunger Index (GHI)

    • The GHI has been brought out almost every year by Welthungerhilfe lately in partnerships with Concern Worldwide since 2000; this year’s report is the 14th one.
    • The reason for mapping hunger is to ensure that the world achieves “Zero Hunger by 2030” — one of the SDGs laid out by the UN.
    • A low score gets a country a higher ranking and implies better performance.
    • It is for this reason that GHI scores are not calculated for certain high-income countries.
    • Each country’s data are standardised on a 100-point scale and a final score is calculated after giving 33.33% weight each to components 1 and 4, and giving 16.66% weight each to components 2 and 3.

    For each country in the list, the GHI looks at four indicators:

    1. Undernourishment (which reflects inadequate food availability): calculated by the share of the population that is undernourished (that is, whose caloric intake is insufficient)
    2. Child Wasting (which reflects acute undernutrition): calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are wasted (that is, those who have low weight for their height)
    3. Child Stunting (which reflects chronic undernutrition): calculated by the share of children under the age of five who are stunted (that is, those who have low height for their age)
    4. Child Mortality (which reflects both inadequate nutrition and unhealthy environment): calculated by the mortality rate of children under the age of five.

    India’s performance this year

    • In the 2020 Global Hunger Index, India ranks 94th out of the 107 countries with sufficient data to calculate 2020 GHI scores.
    • With a score of 27.2, India has a level of hunger that is serious.
    • The situation has worsened in the 2015-19 period, when the prevalence of child wasting was 17.3%, in comparison to 2010-14, when it was 15.1%.
    • India fares worst in child wasting (low weight for height, reflecting acute undernutrition) and child stunting (low height for age, reflecting chronic undernutrition), which together make up a third of the total score.

    Useful comparative data

    • Overall, India ranks 94 out of 107 countries in the Index, lower than neighbours such as Bangladesh (75) and Pakistan (88).
    • In the region of the south, east and south-eastern Asia, the only countries which fare worse than India are Timor-Leste, Afghanistan and North Korea.

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

  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-Russia

    What is New START Treaty?

    IOCR | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    Russian President Mr Putin has proposed a one-year extension without conditions of the last major nuclear arms reduction accord, the New START Treaty between Russia and the U.S.

    The New START, INF and the Open Skies …. Be clear about the differences of these treaties. For example- to check if their inception was during cold war era etc.

    New START Treaty

    • The New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START) pact limits the number of deployed nuclear warheads, missiles and bombers and is due to expire in 2021 unless renewed.
    • The treaty limits the US and Russia to a maximum of 1,550 deployed nuclear warheads and 700 deployed missiles and bombers, well below Cold War caps.
    • It was signed in 2010 by former US President Barack Obama and then-Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
    • It is one of the key controls on superpower deployment of nuclear weapons.
    • If it falls, it will be the second nuclear weapons treaty to collapse under the leadership of US President Donald Trump.
    • In February, US withdrew from the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF), accusing Moscow of violating the agreement.

    Also read:

    https://www.civilsdaily.com/news/us-confirms-pull-out-from-inf-treaty/

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

  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-Russia

    Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO)

    IOCR | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    Russian Navy along with CSTO members has begun military exercises in the central waters of the Caspian Sea north of the Azerbaijani capital Baku.

    Try this MCQ:

    Q.The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) sometimes seen in news is an alliance led by:

     

    (a) Russia (b) USA (c) India (d) European Union

    Collective Security Treaty Organization

    • CSTO is an intergovernmental military alliance that was signed on 15 May 1992.
    • In 1992, six post-Soviet states belonging to the Commonwealth of Independent States—Russia, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan—signed the Collective Security Treaty
    • This is also referred to as the “Tashkent Pact” or “Tashkent Treaty”.
    • Three other post-Soviet states—Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia—signed the next year and the treaty took effect in 1994.
    • Five years later, six of the nine—all but Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan—agreed to renew the treaty for five more years, and in 2002 those six agreed to create the CSTO as a military alliance.

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

  • Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

    Five Eyes (FVEY) group of nations

    | International Relations | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

    India joins the UK in drive known as ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations, as a seventh member against encrypted social media messages.

    Map the countries in ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations.

    ‘Five Eyes’ group of nations

    • The Five Eyes (FVEY) is an intelligence alliance comprising Australia, Canada, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
    • The origins of the Five Eyes alliance can be traced back to the Atlantic Charter, which was issued in August 1941 to lay out the Allied goals for the post-war world.
    • These countries are parties to the multilateral UK-USA Agreement, a treaty for joint cooperation in signals intelligence.
    • India is among seven countries to back a UK-led campaign against end-to-end encryption of messages by social media giants such as Facebook, which they say hinder law enforcement by blocking all access to them.

    A formal expansion

    • The UK and India joined this group to ensure they do not blind themselves to illegal activity on their platforms, including child abuse images.
    • This marks an expansion of the so-called “Five Eyes” group of nations, a global alliance on intelligence issues, to include India and Japan.

    For a common cause

    • All members claim that end-to-end encryption policies such as those employed by the social media giant erode the public’s safety online.
    • They have made it clear that when end-to-end encryption is applied with no access to content, it severely undermines the ability of companies to take action against illegal activity on their own platforms.
    • It also prevents law enforcement investigating and prosecuting the most serious crimes being committed on these services such as online child sexual abuse, grooming and terrorist content.

    Back2Basics: End-to-end encryption

    • End-to-end encryption (E2EE) is a system of communication where only communicating users can read the messages.
    • It is regarded as the most secure way to communicate privately and securely online.
    • By encrypting messages at both ends of a conversation, end-to-end encryption prevents anyone in the middle from reading private communications.
    • In principle, it prevents potential eavesdroppers – including telecom providers, Internet providers, and even the provider of the communication service – from being able to access the cryptographic keys needed to decrypt the conversation.

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

Join the Community

Join us across Social Media platforms.