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

Civilsdaily

Login

Archives: News

  • Global Geological And Climatic Events

    Earth’s seismic noise levels

    | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Geographical Features & Their Location

    Scientists at the British Geological Survey (BGS) reported a change in the Earth’s seismic noise and vibrations amid the coronavirus lockdown. This change has been monitored through a space-based seismograph.

    Ever heard of space-based monitoring of seismic activities?  This topic creates a scope for potential prelims question…

    What is seismic noise?

    • In geology, seismic noise refers to the relatively persistent vibration of the ground due to a multitude of causes.
    • It is the unwanted component of signals recorded by a seismometer– the scientific instrument that records ground motions, such as those caused by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and explosions.
    • This noise includes vibrations caused due to human activity, such as transport and manufacturing, and makes it difficult for scientists to study seismic data that is more valuable.
    • Apart from geology, seismic noise is also studied in other fields such as oil exploration, hydrology, and earthquake engineering.

    How are vibrations generated?

    • We measure ground vibrations from earthquakes using seismometers.
    • These are incredibly sensitive so they also pick up other sources of vibration too, including human activity, such as road traffic, machinery and even people walking past.
    • All these things generate vibrations that propagate as seismic waves through the Earth.

    Reasons for the decline

    • Due to the enforcement of lockdown measures around the world to tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic, the Earth’s crust has shown reduced levels of vibration.

    How do the reduced noise levels help scientists?

    • The seismic noise vibrations caused by human activity are of high frequency (between 1-100 Hz), and travel through the Earth’s surface layers.
    • Usually, to measure seismic activity accurately and reduce the effect of seismic noise, geologists place their detectors 100 metres below the Earth’s surface.
    • However, since the lockdown, researchers were able to study natural vibrations even from surface readings, owing to lesser seismic noise.
    • Due to lower noise levels, scientists are now hoping that they would be able to detect smaller earthquakes and tremors that had slipped past their instruments so far.

     

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

  • Global Geological And Climatic Events

    What are Primordial Black Holes (PBH)?

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

    A scientist duo from Pune has studied primordial black holes that were born as a result of a tiny bump in the potential energy levels of the universe, at a time when it was expanding rapidly.

    Strange space events are known to be the favourites of UPSC 🙂

    Primordial Black Holes (PBH)

    • PBH are a hypothetical type of black hole that formed soon after the Big Bang
    • It is believed that they are formed as a result of collapsing radiations as opposed to the collapse of massive stars, which is the case of any other black holes.
    • PBH can be massively large as 3000kms or be extremely tiny like nucleus of an atom.

    What did the study conclude?

    • The study has confirmed that this marginal rise in potential energy resulted in birth of several PBHs and also emitted very powerful gravitational waves.
    • Approximately 14 billion years ago before the commencement of the Hot Big Bang phase, the very young universe was found to be active and expanding at a highly accelerated rate.
    • This exponential growth in its size was fuelled by the presence of uniform energy field and density as the universe passed through the Cosmic Inflation phase.
    • According to the scientists, as time passes, this uniform energy prevailing in the Inflation Field wanes out.
    • As a result, the universe resumes its normal decelerating rate.

    Expansion of universe

    • Gravity is normally attractive in nature. The PBH did undergo rapid expansion due to the Inflation field which contrarily possessed repulsive gravity.
    • This pushed the universe to expand at a much faster rate than normal.
    • The universe had expanded to nearly 10^27 times its original size, that too, within just fraction of a second by the time Cosmic Inflation phase concluded.
    • Thereafter, the remnant energy possessed by this gravitational force got converted mainly into photons (light) in addition to protons, electrons, neutrons and other particles.
    • As the universe continued to grow exponentially during the Cosmic Inflation phase, it sent across tiny quantum jitters.
    • These fluctuations, released in a specific fashion, when sufficiently large, slowly give birth to galaxies and stars. Among those that were significantly large, helped form PBHs.

     

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

  • Zoonotic Diseases: Medical Sciences Involved & Preventive Measures

    What is Contact Tracing Technology?

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

    Global technology giants Apple and Google have announced that they are partnering on developing contact tracing technology to help governments and health authorities tackle the novel coronavirus pandemic.

    What did tech-giants announce?

    • Contact tracing is considered essential for bringing epidemics under control and is expected to help governments in relaxing lockdown orders.
    • The tech companies announced that they would build a comprehensive solution that includes application programming interfaces (APIs) and operating system-level technology to assist in enabling contact tracing.

    What is contact tracing?

    • The WHO defines contact tracing as the process of identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to a disease to prevent onward transmission.
    • Via contact tracing, people who have come into contact with a person carrying a disease are alerted and identified.

    Importance of contact tracing

    • Identifying people at the onset of symptoms and promptly isolating them reduces exposure to other persons, preventing subsequent EVD (Ebola Virus Disease) infections.
    • Additionally, prompt isolation and admission of the symptomatic person to a treatment facility decreases the delay to supportive treatment, which improves the likelihood of survival.

    How will the new technology by Google and Apple work?

    • Google and Apple are the developers of the Android and iOS platforms respectively, which together power most of the world’s smartphones.
    • Both companies will release application programming interfaces (APIs) that would enable interoperability between Android and iOS devices using apps from public health authorities.
    • The official apps will be available for users to download via their respective app stores, as per the press release.
    • When this step is realized, phone-based matching via official apps will help alert people if they have come in contact with someone diagnosed with COVID-19.

    Actual working

    • For this to work, COVID-19 patients would have to declare their status to the respective apps voluntarily.
    • Following this, all people whose Android/iOS smartphones were detected nearby such patients, would get notified.
    • This means the user will be notified even if he/she was around a stranger who has tested positive for the disease.

    Issues with contact tracing

    • Privacy, transparency, and consent are of utmost importance in this effort.
    • The tech giants should look forward to building this functionality in consultation with interested stakeholders.

    Note: How is our Aarogya Setu app different from the technology mentioned in the newscard?

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

  • Capital Markets: Challenges and Developments

    How a dollar swap line with US Fed can help in uncertain times?

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    India is working with the US to secure a dollar swap line that would help in better management of its external account and provide an extra cushion in the event of an abrupt outflow of funds.

    What are Currency Swaps?

    • A currency swap, also known as a cross-currency swap, is an off-balance sheet transaction in which two parties exchange principal and interest in different currencies.
    • The purpose of a currency swap is to lower exposure to exchange rate risk or reduce the cost of borrowing a foreign currency.

    Why do we need dollars?

    • According to RBI data, 63.7% of India’s foreign currency assets — or $256.17 billion — are held in overseas securities, mainly in the US treasury.
    • While FPIs investors looking for safer investments, the current global uncertainty over COVID outbreak have led to a shortfall in Indian stock markets.
    • This has pulled down India’s foreign exchange reserves.
    • This means that the government and the RBI cannot lower their guard on the management of the economy and the external account.

    How does a swap facility work?

    • In a swap arrangement, the US Fed provides dollars to a foreign central bank, which, at the same time, provides the equivalent funds in its currency to the Fed, based on the market exchange rate at the time of the transaction.
    • The parties agree to swap back these quantities of their two currencies at a specified date in the future, which could be the next day or even three months later, using the same exchange rate as in the first transaction.
    • These swap operations carry no exchange rate or other market risks, as transaction terms are set in advance.

    Benefits of currency swap

    • The absence of an exchange rate risk is the major benefit of such a facility.
    • This facility provides India with the flexibility to use these reserves at any time in order to maintain an appropriate level of balance of payments or short-term liquidity.
    • currency swaps between governments also have supplementary objectives like promotion of bilateral trade, maintaining the value of foreign exchange reserves with the central bank and ensuring financial stability (protecting the health of the banking system).

    Recent examples

    • India already has a $75 billion bilateral currency swap line with Japan, which has the second-highest dollar reserves after China.
    • The RBI also offers similar swap lines to central banks in the SAARC region within a total corpus of $2 billion.

    Note: Relate all other terminologies related to USD-INR convertiblity viz. Current Account, BoP etc.

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

  • Corporate Social Responsibility: Issues & Development

    Covid-19 donations to CM Relief Fund won’t qualify as CSR

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

    The corporate affairs ministry has clarified that COVID-19 donations to CM Relief Fund won’t qualify as CSR contributions.

    Contributions considered under CSR

    • According to the ministry, contributions made to the State Disaster Management Authority to combat COVID-19 would qualify as CSR expenditure.
    • The contributions by companies to PM-CARES Fund to tackle the pandemic would be considered as CSR.
    • Ex-gratia payments made to temporary, casual and daily wage workers by companies will be considered as CSR expenditure under the company’s law, provided that such payments are over and above disbursement of wages.
    • The contribution towards ‘Chief Minister’s Relief Fund’ or ‘State Relief Fund for COVID-19’ would not be considered as spending towards CSR work.

    Note: Please remember or make note of the various contributions complying for CSR.

    Back2Basics: CSR in India

    • India is the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandatory, following an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013 in April 2014.
    • Prior to that, the CSR clause was voluntary for companies, though it was mandatory to disclose their CSR spending to shareholders.
    • Businesses can invest their profits in areas such as education, poverty, gender equality, and hunger as part of any CSR compliance.
    • Under the Companies Act, 2013, certain classes of profitable entities are required to spent at least 2 per cent of their three-year average annual net profit towards CSR activities.
    • Under Section 135 of the Companies Act, 2013, every company having net worth of at least ₹500 crore, turnover of ₹1,000 crore or more, or a minimum net profit of ₹5 crore during the immediately preceding financial year, has to make CSR expenditure.

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

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

    [pib] Diverse names of harvesting festival

    PIB | History | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

    The nation today celebrates the festival of harvest, Vaishakhi under diverse names. Vaisakhi celebrates the solar new year, based on the Hindu Vikram Samvat calendar.

    Vaishakhi

    • Vaisakhi also known as Baisakhi is a historical and religious festival in Sikhism.
    • It is usually celebrated on 13 or 14 April every year which commemorates the formation of Khalsa panth of warriors under Guru Gobind Singh in 1699.
    • In Sikhism, Vaisakhi marks the start of the Khalsa in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh.

    Other names

    • Maha Bishuba Pana Sankranti (Odisha)
    • Bikhu or Bikhauti (Kumaon region of Uttarakhand)
    • Bisu (Tulu region of Karnataka)
    • Bohag Bihu (Assam)
    • Puthandu (Tamil Nadu)
    • Vishu (Kerala)

    Note: Harvest festivals are significant events. Do try to remember their names as one can expect a match the pair question.

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

  • Coronavirus – Economic Issues

    [pib] Operation Lifeline UDAN

    PIB | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Disaster Management

    To ensure a steady supply of essentials, even in the most remote locations, the Union Civil Aviation Ministry launched ‘Lifeline Udan’.

    Don’t get confused or correlate this with Ude Desh ka Aam Nagrik (UDAN) Scheme. The name clearly indicates that it is an HADR like operation. Whats HADR? Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief

    Op. Lifeline Udan

    • Under this operation, flights are being operated to transport essential medical cargo to remote parts of the country amid the lockdown to support India’s fight against Covid-19.
    • The flights have been operated by Air India, Alliance Air, Indian Air Force, Pawan Hans and private carriers.
    • The cargo compulsorily supplies goods such as regents, enzymes, medical equipment, testing kits and PPE, masks, gloves and other essential items as applicable by the State and UT Governments.
    • Air India is shouldered to operate dedicated scheduled cargo flights to other countries for transfer of critical medical supplies, as per the requirement.

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

  • Coronavirus – Health and Governance Issues

    [pib] YUKTI web-portal

    PIB | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Health & Education

    Union Ministry for HRD has launched a web-portal YUKTI (Young India Combating COVID with Knowledge, Technology and Innovation).

    There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names, ex. DISHA, SWAYAM. Note them down with their one line purpose. UPSC Prelims may quiz you on these.

    YUKTI web-portal

    • YUKTI is a unique portal and dashboard to monitor and record the efforts and initiatives of MHRD.
    • The portal intends to cover the different dimensions of COVID-19 challenges in a very holistic and comprehensive way.
    • The primary aim of the portal is to keep academic community healthy, both physically & mentally and to enable a continuous high-quality learning environment for learners.

    Utility of the portal

    • The portal allows various institutions to share their strategies for various challenges which are there because of the unprecedented situation of COVID-19 and other future initiatives.
    • It will give inputs for better planning and will enable MHRD to monitor effectively its activities for coming six months.
    • It will establish a two-way communication channel between the Ministry of HRD and the institutions so that the Ministry can provide the necessary support system to the institutions.

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

  • Trade Sector Updates – Falling Exports, TIES, MEIS, Foreign Trade Policy, etc.

    World trade fall mustn’t stoke export pessimism

    | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

    Context

    The WTO expects a sharp drop-off in global trade in the wake of Covid-19. But India must not withdraw inwards.

    Prospects of the exports

    • Impact on global trade: The World Trade Organization (WTO) predicts that global trade could fall by 13-32% this year on account of disruptions and all the turmoil.
    • At this point, we cannot even count on a quick recovery after this health emergency is past its peak.
    • A trade revival may have to wait till 2022 or later.
    • Indian exports have been in a slump for a large part of the past decade, and recent reports point to a rash of cancelled orders from abroad (except, notably, for drugs).
    • This, however, should not mean that we slip into export pessimism.
    • Opportunity in the crisis: Instead, a crisis such as this could serve as an opportunity to sharpen our competitive edge that has got blunt over the years.
    • Rupee and reform: This is best done through reforms, though a rupee on the decline vis-à-vis the US dollar should help too.

    Reasons for export orientations

    • The relation between growth and exports: No country is an island unto itself, and nations will continue to exchange goods and services so long as it makes economic sense.
    • Trade partners are usually better off producing what they’re best at, for all users, and buying from the rest what others turn out better—at a lower cost and higher quality.
    • Economies that participate in this game, as the historical record has shown, tend to grow faster.
    • There is another good reason for export orientation.
    • Foreign earnings: India needs foreign earnings, not just for oil imports and suchlike, but also for overall economic stability, given our reliance on foreign capital for growth.
    • In tough times such as these, when we may need to borrow money from abroad to bridge a hugely enlarged fiscal deficit, ensuring a stream of future dollar earnings becomes even more crucial.
    • To enable the issuance of dollar bonds and raise our chances of staging a less painful return to form, we need to get our export act together.

    Way forward to increase exports

    • Structural and policy changes: Export success goes by competitiveness, and for domestic businesses to achieve this, India would need to undertake several structural and policy changes.
    • We could begin with reversing the tariff barriers that have been raised in recent years.
    • Exposure to foreign competitors would force them to turn efficient and perform better.
    • Duties on inputs, especially, need to come down. So do other taxes that hold companies back. Other steps to raise productivity will help, too.
    • Good logistical backup is another big requirement.
    • The low value of rupee: The rupee’s slump is a plus for exporters, since their output is cheaper in dollar terms, but we may need to pursue a policy that does not let our currency’s value get over-inflated by inflows of foreign “hot money” (when they return).
    • Cost of capital: The cost of capital in India needs to be low, too, and this would depend on how well the government manages its finances.
    • India’s annual exports currently form less than 2% of the world’s. We should aim for 5%.

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

  • Government Budgets

    A plan for the aftermath

    op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Government Budgeting

    Context

    Everyone is agreed that the whole world is hurtling towards an unprecedented economic recession. India, already facing a massive slowdown, is going to get hurt perhaps more than the others, because our economic immune system is already weak.

    Three things that we must do in the present situation

    • The first is containing the spread of the virus.
    • Apart from the manpower, medicines, protective equipment for frontline workers and other methods, it will need massive resources to tackle it.
    • Second, the poor are already suffering in more ways than one, including the daily wage earners. They will have to be taken care of, again needing massive resources.
    • Third, economic activity will have to be revived as soon as conditions return to normal or near-normal, for which businesses will have to be helped, again needing massive resources; both in terms of revenue foregone and actual cash outgo.
    • The question, therefore, on everyone’s mind is how much money will be needed for all this and where will it come from?
    • What the government and the RBI have done so far is clearly awfully inadequate. Other countries have done much more. India can be no exception.

    Where will the government will get resources?

    • Partly from market and partly form RBI: Broadly speaking, resources will come partly through market borrowings and partly from the RBI.
    • Manmohan Singh had decided in 1994 that in future the government of India would not monetise its deficit; in other words, would not borrow from the RBI but go to the money market and borrow from there.
    • Borrow from the RBI: In these unprecedented times, we may take leave from that very sound principle, which all governments have followed religiously since then, and borrow from the RBI.
    • What does it mean? This means printing of more currency notes with all its attendant problems including inflation.
    • Government of India will have to take the steps necessary to tackle the after-effects to the extent possible. It must ensure that the supply chains work smoothly.

    How will the money be spent?

    • The Important role of states: The states will have to play a very important role in this, as much of the work will have to be done by them.
    • Responsibility of finance commission: Since the finance commission continues to be in existence and has a clear idea of the state finances, it should be immediately tasked with the responsibility of discussing this matter with the state governments and making its recommendations available within a period of one month.
    • The task force under the finance minister could work out the needs of businesses and the government of India both in the short as well as the medium term.
    • Spending money properly and efficiently: It should not be wasted and each rupee spent creates its own multiplier effect.
    • Our system leaves much to be desired. And the moment it is known that funding is not a constraint, the system can go berserk.
    • We must guard against that and ensure that rules are in place, specially at the field level to ensure the proper use of resources.

    Role of banks, financial institutions and MGNREGA

    • The banks and other financial institutions will have to be provided with resources to help the private sector, especially the agricultural and MSME sectors.
    • In the rural areas, we must ensure that durable assets are created out of the funds made available.
    • The rules governing the MGNREGA scheme should be tweaked to the extent necessary in order to ensure that more material than labour is used wherever necessary.

    Conclusion

    India should and can come out of the present crisis with as little damage as possible if we tackle it together. We cannot control what happens in other countries, but we can surely learn from them and adopt their best practices. We must also play our role in defining the new global order because the world is more intertwined now than ever before.

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

Join the Community

Join us across Social Media platforms.