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  • Foreign Policy Watch: India-Pakistan

    Pakistan’s new Political Map

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

    Recently Pakistani PM announced a new political map of Pakistan.

    Do you think that the recent launch of new political maps depicting Indian territories by Pakistan would make any difference on the international community’s stance on Kashmir?

    A chain reaction

    • With this, Pakistan became the third country to launch a new political map after India and Nepal did the same.
    • India had reiterated its territorial claims in J&K, and Ladakh with the new map; this triggered a reaction from Nepal which contested Indian claims in the Kalapani region of Pithoragarh district.

    What are the features of the new map?

    • The new political map of Pakistan has claimed the entire region of Jammu and Kashmir stretching all the way to the edge of Ladakh.
    • The map also claims Junagarh and Manavadar, a former princely State and territory, respectively that are part of present-day Gujarat.
    • Pakistan also claimed the entire territory and water bodies that fall in the Sir Creek region in the westernmost part of India.

    Defiance of old agreements

    • The territorial claims of Pakistan are, however, of a far greater extent and challenge many of the past understandings and treaties.
    • This clearly runs counter to the Simla Agreement which treated Kashmir as a bilateral matter.
    • It leaves out a claim line at the eastern end of J&K indicating Pakistan’s willingness to make China a third party in the Kashmir issue.

    How different is it from previous ones?

    • A similar map has been part of school textbooks of Pakistan for many years which highlights the territorial aspiration of Pakistan over the northern part of the subcontinent.
    • The document also maintains bits of reality on the ground as it shows the Line of Control in Kashmir in a red-dotted line.
    • The map may be used to provide legal cover for some of Islamabad’s territorial ambitions, especially in Kashmir and Sir Creek.

    A Cartographical warfare

    • The map is likely to lead to changes in Pakistan’s position on territorial disputes with India.
    • By demanding the entire J&K region, Pak is changing the main features of its Kashmir discourse as it includes the Jammu region prominently.
    • The inclusion of Junagarh and Manavadar opens fundamental issues of territorial sovereignty of India.
    • Manavadar, a princely territory, joined India on February 15, 1948, and Indian troops marched into Junagarh in September that year incorporating it into Indian Territory.
    • By normalizing Islamabad’s claims over these former princely territories, Pakistan is most likely to assert its rights over the former princely State of Hyderabad as well.

    What does Pakistan plan to gain by this exercise?

    • Sir Creek is a collection of water bodies that extend from the Arabian Sea deep inside the territory of Kutch and is rich in biodiversity and mangrove forests.
    • India’s position on Sir Creek is based on the Kutch arbitration case of 1966-69.
    • The new map can be used to reassert Pakistan’s claims regarding the Rann which it had lost in the arbitration conducted in Geneva.
    • India’s position regarding Sir Creek is based on the fact that the arbitration had granted the entire Rann and its marshy areas to India while leaving the solid land across the Rann to Pakistan.
    • By demanding the demarcation to shift towards the eastern bank, Pakistan appears to be going back also on the spirit of the Rann of Kutch arbitration where the overwhelming evidence of maps supported India’s claims.

    Are there any claims on its western borders?

    • The map is silent about territorial claims in the west and northwest of Pakistan.
    • It indicates Islamabad’s acceptance of the Durand Line as the border with Afghanistan.
    • The reality on the ground, however, shows problems that continue to haunt Pakistan on that front as well where law and order have been difficult to maintain because of free movement of armed fighters.
    • A deadly clash between Afghan civilians and Pakistani troops near its Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province is a usual discourse.
    • The resultant situation has placed Afghan and Pakistani troops in a confrontational position.

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

    Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF) Scheme

    Schemes | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: Food Processing & Related Industries In India

    PM has launched a new financing scheme under the ₹1 lakh crore AIF.

    Note the following things about AIF:

    1) It is a Central Sector Scheme

    2) Duration of the scheme

    3)Target beneficiaries

    Agriculture Infrastructure Fund (AIF)

    • It is a Central Sector Scheme meant for setting up storage and processing facilities, which will help farmers, get higher prices for their crops.
    • It will support farmers, PACS, FPOs, Agri-entrepreneurs, etc. in building community farming assets and post-harvest agriculture infrastructure.
    • These assets will enable farmers to get greater value for their produce as they will be able to store and sell at higher prices, reduce wastage and increase processing and value addition.

    What exactly is the AIF?

    • The AIF is a medium – long term debt financing facility for investment in viable projects for post-harvest management infrastructure and community farming assets through interest subvention and credit guarantee.
    • The duration of the scheme shall be from FY2020 to FY2029 (10 years).
    • Under the scheme, Rs. 1 Lakh Crore will be provided by banks and financial institutions as loans with interest subvention of 3% per annum.
    • It will provide credit guarantee coverage under Credit Guarantee Fund Trust for Micro and Small Enterprises (CGTMSE) for loans up to Rs. 2 Crore.

    Target beneficiaries

    The beneficiaries will include farmers:

    • PACS, Marketing Cooperative Societies, FPOs, SHGs, Joint Liability Groups (JLG), Multipurpose Cooperative Societies, Agri-entrepreneurs, Startups, and Central/State agency or Local Body sponsored Public-Private Partnership Projects

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  • Zoonotic Diseases: Medical Sciences Involved & Preventive Measures

    [pib] E-Sanjeevani Tele-Medicine Platform

    PIB | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    1.5 lakh teleconsultations were recently completed on the “eSanjeevani” and “eSanjeevani OPD” tele-medicine.

    Why Telemedicine?

    Telemedicine can increase the efficiency of care delivery, reduce expenses of caring for patients or transporting to another location, and can even keep patients out of the hospital.  

    E-Sanjeevani Platform

    • E-Sanjeevani is a platform-independent, browser-based application facilitating both doctor-to-doctor and patient-to-doctor tele-consultations.
    • It provides the ease of accessing the health records at the comforts of one’s home.
    • The application is based on invite-system which restricts it to the actual beneficiaries of the application.
    • It has a user-friendly interface which facilitates both tech-savvy and novice doctors/users in the rural and urban environment to access the application.
    • This eSanjeevani platform has enabled two types of telemedicine services viz. Doctor-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani) and Patient-to-Doctor (eSanjeevani OPD) Tele-consultations.
    • The former is being implemented under the Ayushman Bharat Health and Wellness Centre (AB-HWCs) programme.

    Services included:

    The telemedicine platform hosts speciality OPDs which include:

    • Gynaecology, Psychiatry, Dermatology, ENT, Ophthalmology, antiretroviral therapy (ART) for the AIDS/HIV patients, Non-Communicable Disease (NCD) etc

    With inputs from:

    https://www.cdac.in/index.aspx?id=hi_pr_eSanjeevani

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  • Coronavirus – Economic Issues

    Restructuring to cushion impact on the economy

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    “The article analyses the present scenario of the economy and impact of the steps taken by the central bank and the government.” 

    Context

    • Monetary policy committee (MPC) members, through a unanimous vote, decided to keep policy rates unchanged.
    • MPC also maintained an accommodative stance.
    • This was the result of inflation hovering around 6% i.e. above the MPCs target of 4%.

    Restructuring package after moratorium ends

    • Moratorium on loans ends 31 August, RBI said the way forward is a restructuring package for businesses and households.
    • Recent data released by large banks indicate that there has been a sizeable reduction in moratorium in June from 50% in April for all scheduled commercial banks (SCBs).
    • As economic activity normalizes further, the need for restructuring will be even lower.

    What do the trends indicate

    • Most indicators—manufacturing and services Purchasing Managers’ Index(PMI’s) electricity output, vehicle sales, exports, imports—point to economic momentum settling at 10-15% below covid levels in the near-term.
    • The RBI’s consumer confidence survey—gauge of consumer spending—was at its lowest in May, and the one-year outlook is not promising.
    • This implies that consumption demand, especially discretionary demand, will be far lower.
    • With muted consumption, capacity utilization, which had fallen to 68.2% last December, has fallen further in the last few months.
    • Thus, investment demand is not likely to see upward momentum in the near term, even with lower interest rates.

    How RBI’s intervention made the difference

    • An economic slowdown of such proportions leads to an increase in risk premium.
    • Rating upgrade to downgrade ratio of the corporate sector had fallen to 0.05 as in May from a high of 1.11 in December 2018.
    • Spread between 3-year AAA corporate bonds and sovereign bonds rose to 276 basis points on 26 March.
    • But the spread has since fallen to 50bps.
    • This was possible because of the abundant liquidity made available by RBI and credit enhancement provided by the government.

    Way forward

    • RBI and the government will have to work together to revive demand.
    • Centre has already expanded its gross borrowing to ₹12 trillion.
    • Even with net tax collections at 53% of last year’s levels, the Centre has increased its spending by 13% over 2019-20.
    • The government better understand that this is the time to apply Keynesian economics.
    • Global central banks have become large buyers of sovereign debt to support the larger roles being played the governments.
    • In India, too, the Centre and states will have to spend to crowd-in private sector spending.
    • RBI’s role will be important not only as the lender of last resort but also as a buyer of government securities.
    • It has carried out its function as a central bank well, and brought a semblance of stability to financial markets.
    • It will have to do the same in the sovereign bond market.
    • More importantly, it will have to remain vigilant of impending risks to growth and inflation, and be ready to act.

    Consider the question “To what extent the steps taken by the RBI and the government to stabilise the economy battered by the covid pandemic were helpful? 

     Conclusion

    As India’s central bank comes towards the end of its interest rate reduction cycle, it will have to navigate the economy through financial and macroeconomic stability. The government will also have to act in tandem with the central bank in steering the economy through this storm.

    Original

    articles:https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/opinion-restructuring-to-cushion-impact-on-the-economy-11596758908360.html

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  • Labour, Jobs and Employment – Harmonization of labour laws, gender gap, unemployment, etc.

    Importance of increasing the income of those at the bottom of income pyramid

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    India’s growth has been fuelled by demand which has dampened owing to various factors. One untapped source of demand could be the group which lies at the bottom of income pyramid. This article suggests the ways to increase the income of this group.

    Structural demand problem

    • India’s structural demand problem predates the COVID-19 shock.
    • This problem has been compounded after lockdown as jobs have been lost and incomes have collapsed.
    • Boosting domestic demand is critical for an economic revival as external demand is likely to remain muted.
    • It is argued that India’s growth story has been driven by demand generated by those who are at the top of India’s socio-economic pyramid
    • But the demand from that section has now plateaued.

    So, where the demand is going to come from?

    •  Turn to those at the bottom of the pyramid.
    • Those at the bottom of pyramid have a high marginal propensity to consume.
    • But realising the untapped demand potential of this group requires enhancing their incomes and earnings.

    Division of India’s workforce

    • Periodic Labour Force Survey (2018-19) tells us that less than 10 per cent of the workforce is engaged in regular formal jobs.
    • Another 14 per cent are engaged in regular informal jobs with average monthly earnings (Rs 9,500), which is roughly equivalent to or slightly below a minimum wage.
    • The self-employed and casual workers account for 50 per cent and 24 per cent of the workforce respectively and report average earnings that are considerably below a decent minimum amount.
    • Casual workers, who are unlikely to receive work on every day of the month, are at the bottom of the employment structure.

    How to increase the earning of those at the bottom of employment structure

    • Devising strategies that enhance productivity growth in the informal economy could increase their income.
    • Raising the minimum wages of the worst-off workers.
    • At present, under the Minimum Wage Act,  India has a complex set of minimum wages which offer different wages by occupation type and skill levels.
    • The Code on Wages (2019) seeks to universalise minimum wages and extend them to the unorganised sector.

    Way forward

    • 1) Ensuring a decent minimum wage for those who are the bottom of the distribution — the casual labour, would be helpful in this context.
    • This will help set a higher wage floor for others engaged in low-paid work, including regular informal workers.
    • 2) It is also important that minimum wages are paid in public workfare programmes too, in particular MGNREGA works.
    • At present, MGNREGA wages are not covered under the Minimum Wages Act.
    • 3) The minimum wage can be linked to the consumption expenditure of the relatively better-off group of workers.

    Consider the question “India’s growth story is scripted by demand which has been tapering off. The new source of demand could be those at the bottom of income structure. Suggest the strategies to increase the income of this group which could then translate into demand.”

    Conclusion

    The Indian employment challenge today cannot be seen independently of the problem of inadequate income. The above intervention will not only enable income enhancement of those in low-paid work but also add fuel to demand and growth, this time from those at the bottom of the distribution.

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  • Digital India Initiatives

    Digital realities of India

    op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: E-Governance

    Context

    • Google has recently announced a decision to invest $10 billion in India.
    • To put that sum in context, it is over 10 times the money set aside for 100 smart cities and almost 20 times that for Digital India.
    • Purpose of that investment is stated to be digitising India.

    Digital realities of India Google must consider:

    1) Contradictions

    •  India recognises the internet as a human right, and yet, has led the world in internet shutdowns.
    • Its internet speeds can be slow and variable, but its uptake of smartphones is the world’s fastest.
    • It is second only to China in internet users, app downloads and social media users.

    2) Lack of access to internet

    • Only 21 per cent of women are mobile internet users, while the percentage for men is twice that number.
    • There are many societal factors that make it difficult for women and girls to enjoy full digital freedoms.
    • In rural India, where two-thirds of the country lives, just about a quarter of the population has internet access.
    • Differences in digital access mean differences in the quality of education.
    • The gaps are both digital and societal.

    3) Lack of access to banks

    •  India’s workforce is mostly informal.
    • Only 22 per cent of recipients of migrant remittances have access to banks within one km, according to a report by the Centre for Digital Financial Inclusion.
    • A push from Google and its competitors could make payments and financial access more inclusive.

    4) Need for special products for India

    • you mention new products for India’s unique needs, of which there are many.
    • Consider the needs in the agricultural sector alone.
    • Impac of predictive data analytics and basic artificial intelligence into Indian agriculture using readily available technologies would be huge.
    • Precision farming to improve the timing and quantity of seeding, irrigation and fertiliser usage.
    • Helping farmers get credit at lower costs and helping predict commodity prices can create $33 billion in new value annually in Indian agriculture.

    5) Lack of data governance and issues with it

    • Nandan Nilekani has said, India will be data rich before it is “economically rich”.
    • With 650 million internet users, there is a lot of data richness already.
    • But this data richness exists without a forward-looking and inclusive data governance policy.
    • The experience with Aarogya Setu, provided a perfect case study on the discomfort within India because of the absence of such governance.

    6) Prevalence of misinformation

    • It is essential to get a handle on the “infodemic” problem in India.
    • The situation was made far worse by the pandemic, where many of the prejudices, fears have converged.
    • Google-owned YouTube is a critical medium for spreading information, fact and fiction.
    • To its credit, YouTube removed over 8,20,000 videos in India in the first quarter of 2020.
    • This is a great start, but the bad guys will only find ways around it and Google must make deeper investments in both human and machine intelligence to stay ahead.

    7) Geopolitical context

    • India is inching closer to the US corner in the tech Cold War between the US and China.
    • India-China relationship has cooled this year as a fallout from the political tensions between New Delhi and Beijing.
    • India acted against Chinese ByteDance-owned video streaming app TikTok, along with 59 mobile apps.
    • Google’s role will be important as a bargaining chip against China and the partnership with Jio.
    • This important role may help Google get some domestic leverage with Indian regulators.

    8) Job creation

    • Digital technologies can create jobs.
    • For this to happen India must streamline the regulations to enhancing the country’s digital and physical foundations.
    • There is also need for developing more progressive data accessibility laws.
    • To translate into productive work, the government must invest in skill-building and education at all levels.

    Consider the question “Digitising India could accelerate its progress toward development but there are certain factors which must be addressed before India could reap benefits of digitising. Examine such factors and suggest the ways to deal with the issues in digitising the country.”

    Conclusion

    There is a lot Google can take while working on the task of digitising India. But the above-mentioned factors will help Google chart out its journey well.

    Original articles:

    https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/sundar-pichai-google-education-digital-india-6544793/

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  • Electric and Hybrid Cars – FAME, National Electric Mobility Mission, etc.

    Delhi government’s Electric Vehicle Policy

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

    Image source: TOI

    The Delhi government has notified the new Electric Vehicle Policy under which it aims to make a quarter of all new vehicle registrations battery-operated by 2024 and thereby help reducing air pollution.

    Try this PYQ:

    Q.In the context of proposals to the use of hydrogen-enriched CNG (H-CNG) as fuel for buses in public transport, consider the following statements:

    1. The main advantage of the use of H-CNG is the elimination of carbon monoxide emissions.
    2. H-CNG as fuel reduces carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon emissions.
    3. Hydrogen up to one-fifth by volume can be blended with CNG as fuel for buses.
    4. H-CNG makes the fuel less expensive than CNG.

    Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (CSP 2018)

    (a) 1 only

    (b) 2 and 3 only

    (c) 4 only

    (d) 1, 2, 3 and 4

    Some key highlights of the policy are:

    • A purchase incentive of Rs 5,000 per kilowatt/hour of battery capacity (advanced battery), a maximum incentive of Rs 30,000 per vehicle for two-wheelers.
    • A purchase incentive of Rs 30,000 per vehicle (advanced battery) for e-autos.
    • A purchase incentive of Rs 30,000 per vehicle for the purchase of one e-rickshaw and e-cart. Additionally, an interest subsidy of 5 per cent on loans on vehicles with advanced battery.
    • Conversion of 50 per cent of all new stage carriage buses (all public transport vehicles with 15 seats or more) by 2022.
    • A purchase incentive of Rs 10,000 per kilowatt/hour of battery capacity (advanced battery), and maximum incentive of Rs 150,000 per vehicle to the first 1,000 e-four wheelers.
    • Complete removal of road tax and registration fee for all battery electric vehicles.

    Significance of the policy

    • According to the VAHAN database of the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, electric vehicles comprised only 3.2 per cent of the new vehicles registered in Delhi in 2019-20.
    • The proposed 25 per cent transformation of Delhi’s new-vehicle market could catalyse electric vehicle production and bring more product diversity.

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

    Twin issues: Shrinking water bodies and floods in urban landscapes

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

    This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in the D2E.

    Try this question for mains:

    Q.Shrinking water bodies and floods in urban landscapes are mutually induced by each other. Analyse.

    Water in urban landscapes

    • Lakes and wetlands are an important part of the urban ecosystem.
    • They perform significant environmental, social and economic functions — from being a source of drinking water and recharging groundwater to supporting biodiversity and providing livelihoods.
    • Their role becomes even more critical in the present context when cities are facing the challenge of rapid unplanned urbanisation.
    • Their numbers are declining rapidly. For example, Bangalore had 262 lakes in the 1960s; now only 10 of them hold water.

    Issues with urban water bodies

    • Natural streams and watercourses, formed over thousands of years due to the forces of flowing water in the respective watersheds, have been altered because of urbanisation.
    • As a result, the flow of water has increased in proportion to the urbanisation of watersheds.
    • Ideally, natural drains should have been widened to accommodate the higher flows of stormwater.
    • But, on the contrary, they have been a victim of various unlawful activities:

    (1) Pollution

    • There has been an explosive increase in the urban population without a corresponding expansion of civic facilities such as infrastructure for the disposal of waste.
    • As more people are migrating to cities, urban civic services are becoming less adequate.
    • As a result, most urban water bodies in India are suffering because of pollution. The water bodies have been turned into landfills in several cases.
    • Guwahati’s Deepor Beel, for example, is used by the municipal corporation to dump solid waste since 2006. Even the Pallikarni marshland in Chennai is used for solid waste dumping.

    (2) Encroachment

    • This is another major threat to urban water bodies. As more people have been migrating to cities, the availability of land has been getting scarce.
    • Today, even a small piece of land in urban areas has a high economic value.
    • These urban water bodies are not only acknowledged for their ecosystem services but for their real estate value as well.
    • Charkop Lake in Maharashtra, Ousteri Lake in Puducherry, Deepor beel in Guwahati are well-known examples of water bodies that were encroached.

    (3) Illegal mining activities

    • Illegal mining for building material such as sand and quartzite on the catchment and bed of the lake have an extremely damaging impact on the water body.
    • For example, the Jaisamand Lake in Jodhpur, once the only source of drinking water for the city, has been suffering from illegal mining in the catchment area.
    • Unmindful sand mining from the catchment of Vembanad Lake on the outskirts of Kochi has decreased the water level in the lake.

    (4) Unplanned tourism activities

    • Using water bodies to attract tourists has become a threat to several urban lakes in India.
    • Tso Morari and Pongsho lakes in Ladakh have become polluted because of unplanned and unregulated tourism.
    • Another example is that of Ashtamudi Lake in Kerala’s Kollam city, which has become polluted due to spillage of oil from motorboats.

    (5) Absence of administrative framework

    • The biggest challenge is the government apathy towards water bodies.
    • This can be understood from the fact that it does not even have any data on the total number of urban water bodies in the country.
    • Further, CPCB had not identified major aquatic species, birds, plants and animals that faced threat due to pollution of rivers and lakes.

    Original article:

    https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/urbanisation/two-sides-of-the-same-coin-shrinking-water-bodies-and-urban-floods-72702

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  • International Space Agencies – Missions and Discoveries

    Magnetoseismology of Sun’s Corona

    | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

    A group of researchers has measured the global magnetic field of the Sun’s corona for the very first time.

    Try this PYQ:

    The terms ‘Event Horizon’, ‘Singularity’, `String Theory’ and ‘Standard Model’ are sometimes seen in the news in the context of (CSP 2017)-

    (a) Observation and understanding of the Universe

    (b) Study of the solar and the lunar eclipses

    (c) Placing satellites in the orbit of the Earth

    (d) Origin and evolution of living organisms on the Earth

    Basis of the research

    • The properties of waves depend on the medium in which they travel.
    • By measuring certain wave properties and doing a reverse calculation, some of the properties of the medium through which they have travelled can be obtained.
    • Waves can be longitudinal waves (for example, sound waves) or transverse waves (for example, ripples on a lake surface).
    • The waves that propagate through magnetic plasma are called magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves.
    • From the theoretical calculation, it can be shown that the properties of the transverse MHD wave are directly related to the strength of magnetic fields and the density of the corona.

    How was the Magnetic Field measured?

    • The team used a technique known as coronal seismology or magnetoseismology to measure the coronal magnetic field which has been known for a few decades.
    • This method requires the measurement of the properties of magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) waves and the density of the corona simultaneously.
    • In the past, these techniques were occasionally used in small regions of the corona, or some coronal loops due to limitations of our instruments/and proper data analysis techniques.

    The CoMP instrument

    • The team used the improved measurements of the Coronal Multi-channel Polarimeter (CoMP) and advanced data analysis to measure the coronal magnetic field.
    • CoMP is an instrument operated by High Altitude Observatory, of the U.S.
    • It is located at Mauna Loa Solar Observatory, near the summit of that volcano on the big island of Hawaii.

    Why measure the solar magnetic field?

    • It is very important to measure the corneal magnetic fields regularly since the solar corona is highly dynamic and varies within seconds to a minute time scale. There are two main puzzles about the Sun which this advancement will help address:

    (1) Coronal heating problem

    • Though the core of the Sun is at a temperature of about 15 million degrees, its outer layer, the photosphere is a mere 5700 degrees hot.
    • However, its corona or outer atmosphere, which stretches up to several million kilometres beyond its surface, is much, much hotter than the surface.
    • It is at a temperature of one million degrees or more.
    • What causes the atmosphere of the Sun (corona) to heat up again, though the surface (photosphere) is cooler than the interior? That is the question which has baffled solar physicists.
    • Popular attempts to explain this puzzle invoke the magnetic field of the corona. Hence the present work will help understand and verify these theories better.

    (2) Mechanisms of eruptions of the Sun

    • The eruptions on the Sun include solar flares and coronal mass ejections.
    • These are driven by magnetic reconnections happening in the Sun’s corona.
    • Magnetic reconnection is a process where oppositely polarity magnetic field lines connect and some of the magnetic energy is converted to heat energy and also kinetic energy which leads to the generation of heating, solar flares, solar jets, etc.

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  • Festivals, Dances, Theatre, Literature, Art in News

    Why August 7th is called National Handloom Day?

    Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

    Yesterday, August 7th was celebrated as the National Handloom Day. It was in 2015, the first National Handloom Day was celebrated.

    Try this PYQ:

    What was the immediate cause for the launch of the Swadeshi movement? (CSP 2010)

    (a) The partition of Bengal done by Lord Curzon.

    (b) A sentence of 18 months rigorous imprisonment imposed on Lokmanya Tilak.

    (c) The arrest and deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh; and passing of the Punjab Colonization Bill.

    (d) Death sentence pronounced on the Chapekar brothers.

    Why 7th August?

    • With the partition of Bengal, the Swadeshi Movement gained strength.
    • It was on August 7, 1905, that a formal proclamation was made at the Calcutta Town Hall to boycott foreign goods and rely on Indian-made products.

    What is handloom?

    • While different definitions for the word have evolved since the Handloom (Reservation and Articles for Production) Act, 1985, where ‘handloom’ meant “any loom other than power loom”, in recent years it has become more elaborate.
    • In 2012, a new definition was proposed: “Handloom means any loom other than power loom, and includes any hybrid loom on which at least one process of weaving requires manual intervention or human energy for production.”

    Back2Basics: Swadeshi Movement

    • Credit to starting the Swadeshi movement goes to Baba Ram Singh Kuka of the Sikh Namdhari sect, whose revolutionary movements which heightened around 1871 and 1872.
    • It gained momentum with the partition of Bengal by the Viceroy of India, Lord Curzon in 1905 and continued up to 1911.
    • It was the most successful of the pre-Gandhian movements.
    • Its chief architects were Aurobindo Ghosh, Lokmanya Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpat Rai, V. O. Chidambaram Pillai, Babu Genu.
    • Swadeshi, as a strategy, was a key focus of Mahatma Gandhi, who described it as the soul of Swaraj (self-rule). It was strongest in Bengal and was also called the Vandemataram movement in India.

    Important phases of the Movement

    • 1850 to 1904: developed by leaders like Dadabhai Naoroji, Gokhale, Ranade, Tilak, G. V. Joshi and Bhaswat K. Nigoni. This was also known as the First Swadeshi Movement.
    • 1905 to 1917: Began in 1905, because of the partition of Bengal ordered by Lord Curzon.
    • 1918 to 1947: Swadeshi thought shaped by Gandhi.

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