Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Kalasa-Banduri Nala , Mahadayi River
Mains level: Interstate water disputes
Karnataka’s decision to go ahead with a water diversion project on river Mahadayi has escalated its long-standing dispute on the issue with neighbouring Goa.
What is the Kalasa-Banduri Nala Project?
- The Kalasa Banduri Nala project aims to divert water from Mahadayi to satisfy the drinking water needs of Belagavi, Dharwad, Bagalkot and Gadag districts.
- Though the project was first proposed in the early 1980s, it has remained on paper owing to a dispute between Karnataka, Goa and Maharashtra.
- As per plans, barrages are to be built against Kalasa and Banduri streams — tributaries of Mahadayi — and water diverted towards Karnataka’s parched districts.
The larger issue: Mahadayi dispute
- Mahadayi originates inside the Bhimgad Wildlife Sanctuary in the Belagavi district of Karnataka and flows into the Arabian Sea in Goa.
- Goa, under its then CM Manohar Parrikar, approached the Centre, urging it to assess the available resources in the river and allocate water to the three basin states — Goa, Maharashtra and Karnataka.
- Due to the protests in Goa and also due to concerns over ecological damage, the project was put on hold by the then government.
- The dispute gained steam in 2006, when Karnataka decided to start work on the project.
- Goa then approached the Supreme Court, seeking the creation of a Tribunal to settle the water sharing dispute.
- A Tribunal was finally set up by the UPA government in November 2010.
What did the Tribunal award?
- The Tribunal in 2018 awarded 13.42 TMC water from Mahadayi river basin to Karnataka, 1.33 TMC to Maharashtra and 24 TMC to Goa.
- In Karnataka’s share, 5.5 TMC was to meet drinking water needs and 8.02 TMC was for hydro-electricity generation.
- Of the 5.5 TMC, 3.8 TMC was to be diverted to Malaprabha basin through Kalasa and Banduri Nalas (canals).
- This was notified by the Central government in February 2020.
Issues raised with the Tribunals award
- After the Tribunal award, Goa filed a Special Leave Petition in the Supreme Court in July 2019, challenging the quantum of allocation.
- Subsequently, in October 2020, it filed a contempt petition before the SC, accusing Karnataka of illegally diverting water from the Mahadayi basin.
- Civil appeals were also filed by Maharashtra over the dispute.
Also read:
In news: Interstate River Water Disputes Act, 1956
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: APPU
Mains level: Not Much
India took over the leadership of the Asian Pacific Postal Union (APPU) having its Headquarters in Bangkok, Thailand.
About Asian Pacific Postal Union (APPU)
- APPU is an intergovernmental organization of 32-member countries of the Asian-Pacific region.
- It was formed by International treaty through an Asian-Pacific Postal Convention signed in Yogyakarta on 27 March 1981.
- The organisation has origins dating back to 1961.
- APPU is the only Restricted Union of the Universal Postal Union (UPU) in the region, which is a specialized agency of the United Nations.
- Secretary General leads the activities of the Union and is also the Director of the Asian Pacific Postal College (APPC) which is the largest intergovernmental postal training institute in the region.
Goals and objectives
- The goal of APPU is to extend, facilitate and improve postal relations between member countries and to promote cooperation in the field of postal services.
- As the regional center for various UPU projects, APPU also takes the lead in ensuring that all technical and operational projects of the UPU are fulfilled in the region.
Significance of India’s chair
- The Asia Pacific region accounts for around one-third of the world’s postal workforce and about half of the world’s mail volume.
- India seeks to improve the regional coordination with postal players in the Asia Pacific region to improve the growth of the business through the postal network, to ensure the sustainability of the Union.
- This is the first time an Indian is leading an international organization in the postal sector.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Savitribhai Phule
Mains level: Not Much
Recently, 192nd birth anniversary of Savitribai Phule, w/o Jyotiba Phule (the pioneer of Satyashodhak Samaj) was celebrated.
Who was Savitribai Phule?
- A Dalit woman from the Mali community, Savitribai was born on January 3, 1831, in Maharashtra’s Naigaon village.
- Married off at the age of 10, her husband Jyotirao Phule is said to have educated her at home.
- Later, Jyotirao admitted Savitribai to a teachers’ training institution in Pune.
- Throughout their life, the couple supported each other and in doing so, broke many social barriers.
Pioneering first school for girls in India
- At a time when it was considered unacceptable for women to even attain education, the couple went on to open a school for girls in Bhidewada, Pune, in 1848.
- This became the country’s first girls’ school.
Opposition to Phules’ schools
- The Phules opened more such schools for girls, Shudras and Ati-Shudras (the backward castes and Dalits, respectively) in Pune.
- This led to discontent among Indian nationalists like Bal Gangadhar Tilak.
- They opposed the setting up of schools for girls and non-Brahmins, citing a “loss of nationality”, and believing not following the caste rules would mean a loss of nationality itself.
- Savitribai herself faced great animosity from the upper castes, including instances of physical violence.
- When serving as the headmistress of the first school in Bhide Wada, upper-caste men often pelted stones and threw mud and cow dung on her.
Phule’s role as a social reformer, beyond education
- Infanticide prevention: Along with Jyotirao, Savitribai started the Balhatya Pratibandhak Griha (‘Home for the Prevention of Infanticide’) for pregnant widows facing discrimination.
- Child adoption: The Phules also adopted Yashwantrao, the child of a widow, whom they educated to become a doctor.
- Reforms in marriages: Savitribai Phule also advocated inter-caste marriages, widow remarriage, and eradication of child marriage, sati and dowry systems, among other social issues.
- Denouncing Brahmanical ritualism: As an extension, they started ‘Satyashodhak Marriage’ – a rejection of Brahmanical rituals where the marrying couple takes a pledge to promote education and equality.
- Bubonic plague mitigation: Savitribai became involved in relief work during the 1896 famine in Maharashtra and the 1897 Bubonic plague. She herself contracted the disease while taking a sick child to the hospital, and breathed her last on March 10, 1897.
Savitribai’s literary works
- Savitribai Phule published her first collection of poems, called Kavya Phule (‘Poetry’s Blossoms’), at the age of 23 in 1854.
- She published Bavan Kashi Subodh Ratnakar (‘The Ocean of Pure Gems’), in 1892.
- Besides these works, Matushri Savitribai Phulenchi Bhashane va Gaani (Savitribai Phule’s speeches and songs’), and her letters to her husband have also been published.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Wealth tax
Mains level: Income inequality, Wealth tax and its necessity
Context
- The discourse on efficient, effective and equitable public spending often takes us into the realm of limited resources facing competing demands. India definitely needs to widen its revenue collection as well as base. In this context its time to consider a wealth tax.
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What is wealth tax?
- Wealth tax is a direct tax unlike the goods and services tax or value-added tax, can take several forms, such as property tax, inheritance or gift tax and capital gains tax.
- It aims to reduce the inequalities of wealth.
- It is based on the market value of assets owned by a taxpayer and charged on the net wealth of super rich individuals.
Wealth Tax in India
- Abolished wealth tax: The government abolished wealth tax as announced in the budget 2015. In its place, the government decided to increase the surcharge levied on the ‘super rich’ class by 2% to 12%. (Super rich are persons with incomes of Rs.1 crore or higher and companies that earn Rs.10 crores or higher).
- Abolished to simplify tax structure and discourage tax evasion: The abolition was a move to do away with high costs of collection and also to simplify the existing tax structure thereby discouraging tax evasion.
- No wealth tax at present: India presently does not have any wealth tax i.e., a tax levied on one’s entire property in all forms. It did not impose a one-time ‘solidarity tax’ on wealth in post-covid budgets that could have generated resources for essential public investment.
What is the need for levying a wealth tax?
- High inequality: India’s top 10% population owns 65% of the country’s wealth, while the bottom 10% owns only 6%, according to the World Inequality Database, 2022.
- Massive accumulation of wealth in a few hands: A small section of people has access to a large share of economic assets and resources that remain almost completely untaxed and thus unavailable for public allocation.
- Capital gains tax has limited base: Capital Gains tax exists in India, but applies only to transactions and hence is limited in its base.
- Wealth largely depends on inheritance and privilege: Wealth, much less than even income, has little to do with one’s education, merit or efforts; it is largely dependent on inheritance and opportunities that come with the advantages associated with belonging to one of India’s privileged classes and castes.
- India does not have inheritance tax: India scrapped its estate duty in 1985 and has no inheritance tax.
- Almost entirely exemptions on gift tax: Although the receipt of gifts is subject to income tax in the beneficiary’s hands, it has various exemptions; it is almost entirely exempt if received from within the family, including the extended family of self and spouse. These exemptions shrink the base significantly, as most accumulated wealth is acquired through family, and that remains outside the gift tax’s ambit. Given the cultural context of wealth inheritance, some exemptions make sense, but upper thresholds can be easily added to make it more effective.
Comprehensive PoV: Why wealth tax is necessary at present economic condition
- Wealth of rich doubled during the pandemic but not channelised well to create productive resou: An Oxfam report has highlighted how India’s richest doubled their wealth during the pandemic. This happened for a variety of reasons. despite facing grave financial and economic challenges, has no means to convert any of this growing wealth into productive resources that can generate employment opportunities and push up the incomes of multitudes, which in turn can drive demand for goods something that is needed to counter an economic drag-down.
- There is no sufficient increase in private investment: The government lowered the corporate tax rate significantly from 30% to 22% in 2019-20, which has continued despite the economic crises caused by the pandemic. However, this did not elicit much private investment. Obviously, there is something else at work, and one cannot assume that accumulated wealth in private hands will necessarily be invested in the domestic economy.
- Not only investment is important but also the right application is important: It is not only investment that is important, but also where that investment is going and whether it is creating employment opportunities for the youth.
- Data on youth unemployment: Data from diverse sources show high unemployment rates during May-July 2022 for the youth: 28.3% in the 15-24 age group and an even higher 43.3% for the 20-24 age-group.
- Likely global recession overhead: The likelihood of a global recession and the related layoffs being announced by corporate giants will make the situation worse.
- Jobless growth and wealth inequality: The recent economic growth experienced in India, especially in the post-covid recovery phase, has largely been jobless growth and can further deepen both income and wealth inequalities.
- Economy cannot afford to have such high level of youth unemployment: No economy can afford to have such youth unemployment rates for long without adversely affecting economic growth and social cohesion.
Way ahead
- A number of Latin American countries, including Argentina, Peru and Bolivia, have either introduced or are introducing a progressive annual wealth tax levied on the wealth gains of each year or a one-time covid ‘solidarity’ tax.
- There is no reason why India cannot do so too. This is the right time to introduce a progressive wealth tax along with other fiscal steps that can directly reverse the trend of growing inequalities in the country.
Conclusion
- India needs a shift in its fiscal policy, as suggested by a number of economists, to adopt measures that create employment opportunities and in turn drive demand for products made by small and medium level producers. This would also push up growth while not necessarily widening inequalities.
Mains question
Q. What is wealth tax? Why wealth tax abolished? Considering the present economic situation Discuss the need to levy wealth tax in India?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Status of prisons in India and associated challenges
Context
- Lieutenant-Governor of Delhi (L-G) Vinay Kumar Saxena directed the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) to allocate 1.6 lakh square metres of land to Delhi’s prison department to construct a district prison complex in Narela.
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Background: Recent prison reform debate
- Speech by president of India: At the Constitution Day celebrations organised by the Supreme Court in November 2022, President Draupadi Murmu shared a snippet of her journey with the audience.
- Prisoners unaware of their rights: She reflected on her visits to prisons across India and the circumstances of those incarcerated. She highlighted that these individuals were often unaware of their fundamental rights and had been incarcerated for prolonged periods for minor offences, while their families, struggling with poverty, were unable to bail them out.
- All organs of state must work together: President Murmu emphasised how the judiciary, executive, and legislature must work together to help them, and concluded by poignantly asking: How are we claiming that we are progressing as a nation, if we are still building prisons to address the issue of overcrowding?
What is the problematic architecture of Prison?
- High security prison in Delhi: In phase 1, which is expected to be completed by April 2024, a high-security jail is to be built in the complex with a capacity to lodge 250 high-risk prisoners.
- Stringent security measures: The prison administration has incorporated stringent security measures in the design such as constructing high walls between cells to prevent inmates from viewing others, and interacting with each other, as well as building office spaces between cells to facilitate surveillance.
- Intention of torture: Architecture of prisons is often used as a tool to surveillance, torture, and break the souls of inmates.
- Physical and mental health of prisoners: With this prison design, the Delhi prison administration is essentially creating solitary confinement which will have a severe detrimental effect on prisoners’ mental health.
- Governed by colonial act: Prisons in India are still governed by the Prisons Act, 1894, a colonial legislation which treats prisoners as sub-par citizens, and provides the legal basis for punishment to be retributive, rather than rehabilitative.
- Caste biases in laws: These laws are also highly casteist, and remain largely unchanged since they were drafted by the British. For example, some jail manuals continue to focus on purity as prescribed by the caste system, and assign work in prison based on the prisoner’s caste identity.
- Colonial mindset in prison governance: Organisations such as the Vidhi Centre of Legal Policy have taken us one step further in identifying colonial legal continuities that India must shred, and the manner in which she can do so.
- SC/ST community suffers more: Furthermore, Dalits and Adivasis are over-represented in Indian prisons. The National Dalit Movement for Justice and the National Centre for Dalit Human Rights’ report ‘Criminal Justice in the Shadow of Caste’ explains the social, systemic, legal, and political barriers that contribute to this. Legislations such as the Habitual Offenders Act and Beggary Laws allow the police to target them for reported crimes.
What should be way forward?
- Preventive measures are necessary: We must take preventive measures before we realise that we have travelled far down this road, and have subjected several people to unnecessary trauma and confinement.
- Prison reforms rather than more prisons: With the warning signs beseeching us, we must amplify President Murmu’s message on the need to de-carcerate and stop building more prisons, so that the L-G takes adequate steps in that direction.
Conclusion
- Many prisoners in India continue to suffer for petty crimes just because of lack education and legal assistance. More than 70% of them are economically poor people. Government must address the false cases by police and judicial delay before building more prisons.
Mains Question
Q. Critically examine the present condition of prisons in India? prisons reform should be prior step than building more prisons. Comment.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Indian Economy, stock trade indicators and economic growth
Context
- Even as the RBI steadily downgraded India’s growth forecasts for the year from 7.2 per cent in April to 6.8 per cent in December, and the benchmark Nifty50 index ended the year up a mere 4.1 per cent, a handful of stocks delivered outsized returns to investors.
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Expansion of business and reward
- Adani gained because of expansion: The top trade was undoubtedly that of Adani Enterprises with the stock more than doubling over the year. But that should not come as a surprise. After all, the group has embarked on a breathless pace of expansion (both organic and inorganic) that is perhaps unparalleled in recent times.
- Unexpected rise in prices: Share prices of associated companies such as Adani Green have also seen a remarkable surge, catapulting the group into the top leagues of Indian conglomerates.
- Risky price-to-rent ratio: One should be forgiven for thinking that residential real estate in Delhi, with a price-to-rent ratio that ranges between 40-50, is expensive. Adani Enterprises is currently trading at a price-to-equity ratio of 394 as per NSE. The Nifty50, in comparison, is trading just above 21.
Performance of Public sector banks
- SBI AND PNB gained: The year also belonged to Indian banks, more specifically to public sector banks, who at last seemed to have turned the corner. SBI is up more than 30 per cent, while Punjab National Bank is up almost 50 per cent. Others like Bank of Baroda and UCO Bank have more than doubled.
- Outperforming private banks: While private sector bank stocks have also seen a sharp rise Axis is up almost 35 per cent, while ICICI is up 17 per cent, public sector banks have outperformed their private counterparts by a significant margin. The Nifty PSU bank index is up 70 per cent for the year, while in comparison, the private bank index is up only 21 per cent. This was perhaps to be expected.
- Cleaning up balance sheet: Public sector banks have been on a multi-year drive to clean up their balance sheets, and shore up capital. And while there are still some concerns over possible slippages from accounts that were restructured during the pandemic, gross non-performing assets or bad loans were down to 6.5 per cent at the end of September 2022.
- Rising lending rates: Moreover, lending is growing at a brisk pace. And banks’ spreads also have improved with the interest rate cycle on the upswing. In typical fashion, lending rates have risen faster than deposit rates. But, as credit growth picks up and competition for deposits among banks begins to intensify, deposit rates are likely to edge upwards, putting pressure on the spread.
Status of Consumption and auto sector
- Consumption is up: while concerns over the unevenness of the economic recovery persist, consumption stocks have fared well. ITC is up more than 50 per cent, as are Britannia (almost 20 per cent) and HUL (9 per cent).
- Real wages have not increased: But with firms underlining the continuing pressure on volumes with elevated inflation, real wage growth has been subdued in rural areas it is likely that in some product segments, the formalisation theme is still playing out.
- Size of market is not expanding: The bigger formal firms gaining market share even as the overall size of the market isn’t expanding as hoped.
- Auto sector have done well: Among the auto stocks, M&M and Maruti are up 50 per cent and 12 per cent respectively, though Tata motors is down 22 per cent, while among the two-wheelers, both Bajaj and Hero are up.
- Moderate uptick in infrastructure: Infrastructure stocks are a mixed bag. Larsen & Toubro, often thought of as a proxy for the domestic capex cycle, is up almost 9 per cent, recently hitting a new high.
- Impact of PLI scheme: Perhaps, this reflects a pick up in the public sector capex or the private sector push under the government’s production-linked investment scheme.
- Mix picture of steel and cement: Among cement stocks, Ultratech is down, though ACC is up, while among steel stocks, SAIL is down, Tata steel is almost flat, but JSW Steel is up.
IT sector was worst performing
- IT NIFTY significantly down: The sector which has taken a beating has been IT. The Nifty IT index is down 26 per cent.
- Heavy correction in market: All major IT firms from TCS to Infosys to Wipro have witnessed heavy correction.
- Impact of slowdown in advanced economy: Valuations of the sector will be heavily influenced by market views over the slowdown in advanced economies which are major revenue centres for these firms.
Conclusion
- Though stock market doesn’t reflect the entirely true picture of economy but it certainly a good indicator of where the retail investor and common man invest his money. India’s stock market is going to be top 3 in the world. SEBI must protect the retail investor from this highly volatile terrain.
Mains Question
Q. Analyze the performance of the auto and IT sector in India through lenses of stock market? Why the balance sheet of public sector banks is improving?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Regulation of online gaming
The Ministry of Electronics and IT proposed an amendment to bring online gaming under the ambit of the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021.
Regulating Online Gaming
The following draft amendments to the IT Act are being placed in the public for comments, feedback till January 17:
- Due diligence: Online gaming intermediaries shall exercise due diligence to ensure that online games with gambling, betting are not permitted.
- Withdrawals or refunds: Online gaming intermediaries shall inform users of policy for withdrawal or refund of deposit, distribution of winnings, applicable fees
- Self-Regulatory Organisation: SRO will determine what constitutes prohibited wagering
- Registration: Self-regulatory bodies will be registered with the MeitY
- Online games: Self-regulatory bodies may register online games of intermediaries that are members and meet prescribe criteria.
- Complaints’ redressal: Self-regulatory bodies will resolve complaints through a grievance redressal mechanism.
What is online gaming?
- Online gaming can refer to any type of game that someone can play through the Internet or over a computer network.
- Most of the time, it refers to video games played over the Internet, where multiple players are in different locations across the world.
- Online gaming also can refer to the idea of gambling over the Internet, through an online casino or an online poker room.
Types of gaming
- The types of online gaming include:
- E-sports (well-organized electronic sports which include professional players) ex. Chess
- Fantasy sports (choosing real-life sports players and winning points based on players’ performance) ex. MPL cricket
- Skill-based (mental skill) ex. Archery
- Gamble (based on random activity) ex. Playing Cards, Rummy
Why is the online gaming industry booming in India?
- Digital India boom in the gaming industry
- Narrowing of the digital divide
- IT boom
Other factors promoting the boom
- Growing younger population
- Higher disposable income
- Inexpensive internet data
- Introduction of new gaming genres, and
- Increasing number of smartphone and tablet users
Prospects of online gaming
- State List Subject: The state legislators are, vide Entry No. 34 of List II (State List) of the Seventh Schedule, given exclusive power to make laws relating to betting and gambling.
- Distinction in laws: Most Indian states regulate gaming on the basis of a distinction in law between ‘games of skill’ and ‘games of chance’.
- Classification on dominant element: As such, a ‘dominant element’ test is utilized to determine whether chance or skill is the dominating element in determining the result of the game.
- Linked economic activity: Staking money or property on the outcome of a ‘game of chance’ is prohibited and subjects the guilty parties to criminal sanctions.
- ‘Game of Skill’ debate: Placing any stakes on the outcome of a ‘game of skill’ is not illegal per se and may be permissible. It is important to note that the Supreme Court recognized that no game is purely a ‘game of skill’ and almost all games have an element of chance.
Need for regulation
- No comprehensive regulation: India currently has no comprehensive legislation with regards to the legality of online gaming or boundaries that specify applicable tax rates within the betting and gambling industry.
- Ambiguity of the sector: The gaming sector is nascent and is still evolving, and many states are bringing about legislation seeking to bring about some order in the online gaming sector.
- State list subject: Online gaming in India is allowed in most parts of the country. However, different states have their own legislation with regards to whether online gaming is permitted.
- Economic advantage: Well-regulated online gaming has its own advantages, such as economic growth and employment benefits.
Issues with online gaming
- Gaming addiction: Numerous people are developing an addiction to online gaming. This is destroying lives and devastating families.
- Compulsive gaming: Gaming by children is affecting their performance in schools and impacting their social lives & relationships with family members. Ex. PUBG
- Impact on psychological health: Online games like PUBG and the Blue Whale Challenge were banned after incidents of violence and suicide.
- Threat to Data privacy: Inadvertent sharing of personal information can lead to cases of cheating, privacy violations, abuse, and bullying.
- Betting and gambling: Online games based on the traditional ludo, arguably the most popular online game in India, have run into controversy, and allegations of betting and gambling.
Why hasn’t a comprehensive law yet materialized?
- Earlier, states like Tamil Nadu, Telangana, Andhra Pradesh, and Karnataka also passed laws banning online games.
- However, they were quashed by state High Courts on grounds that an outright ban was unfair to games of skill:
- Violation of fundamental rights of trade and commerce, liberty and privacy, speech and expression;
- Law being manifestly arbitrary and irrational insofar as it did not distinguish between two different categories of games, i.e. games of skill and chance;
- Lack of legislative Competence of State legislatures to enact laws on online skill-based games.
Way forward
- Censoring: Minors should be allowed to proceed only with the consent of their parents — OTP verification on Aadhaar could resolve this.
- Awareness: Gaming companies should proactively educate users about potential risks and how to identify likely situations of cheating and abuse.
- Regulating mechanism: A Gaming Authority in the central government should be created.
- Accountability of the gaming company: It could be made responsible for the online gaming industry, monitoring its operations, preventing societal issues, suitably classifying games of skill or chance, overseeing consumer protection, and combatting illegality and crime.
- All-encompassing legislation: the Centre should formulate an overarching regulatory framework for online games of skill. India must move beyond skill-versus-chance debates to keep up with the global gaming industry.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Systemically Important Banks (SIBs)
Mains level: Too Big To Fail Banks
State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, and HDFC Bank have again been named as Domestic Systemically Important Banks (D-SIBs) by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
What are Systemically Important Banks (SIBs)?
- SIBs are perceived as certain big banks in the country/world. They enjoy a huge customer base and also engage in cross sector activities and are perceived as ‘Too Big to Fail (TBTF)’.
- The system of D-SIBs was adopted in the aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis where the collapse of many systematically important banks across various regions further fuelled the financial downturn.
- A failure of any of these banks can lead to systemic and significant disruption to essential economic services across the country and can cause an economic panic.
- As a result of their importance, the government is expected to bail out these banks in times of economic distress to prevent widespread harm.
- D-SIBs follow a different set of regulations in relation to systemic risks and moral hazard issues.
Types of SIBs
There are two types of SIBs:
- Global SIBs: They are identified by BCBS (BASEL Committee on Banking Supervision)
- Domestic SIBs: They are declared by Central Bank of the country
How are D-SIBs determined?
- Since 2015, the RBI has been releasing the list of all D-SIBs.
- They are classified into five buckets, according to their importance to the national economy.
- In order to be listed as a D-SIB, a bank needs to have assets that exceed 2 percent of the national GDP.
- The banks are then further classified on the level of their importance across the five buckets.
- ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank are in bucket one while SBI falls in bucket three, with bucket five representing the most important D-SIBs.
What regulations do these banks need to follow?
- Due to their economic and national importance, the banks need to maintain a higher share of risk-weighted assets as tier-I equity.
- SBI, since it is placed in bucket three of D-SIBs, has to maintain Additional Common Equity Tier 1 (CET1) at 0.60 percent of its Risk-Weighted Assets (RWAs).
- ICICI and HDFC on the other hand, have to maintain Additional CET1 at 0.20 percent of their RWA due to being in bucker one of D-SIBs.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nilgiri Tahr
Mains level: Not Much
The Tamil Nadu government launched an initiative for the conservation of the Nilgiri Tahr, the State animal.
Nilgiri Tahr
IUCN Conservation Status: Endangered
Wildlife (Protection) Act of India, 1972: Schedule I
- It is endemic to the Nilgiri Hills and the southern portion of the Western Ghats in the states of Tamil Nadu and Kerala in Southern India.
- It is the state animal of Tamil Nadu.
- The Nilgiri tahr inhabits the open montane grassland habitat of the South Western Ghats montane rain forests eco-region.
- At elevations from 1,200 to 2,600 metres (3,900 to 8,500 ft), the forests open into grasslands interspersed with pockets of stunted forests, locally known as sholas.
- Eravikulam National Park is home to the largest population of this Tahr.
- It is estimated that there are 3,122 Nilgiri Tahrs in the wild. It has become locally extinct in around 14% of its traditional shola forest-grassland habitat.
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Nilgiri Tahr Conservation Project
- Under The Nilgiri Tahr project, TN government plans to develop a better understanding of the Nilgiri Tahr population through-
- Surveys and radio telemetry studies;
- Reintroduce the Tahrs to their historical habitat;
- Address proximate threats; and
- Increase public awareness of the species.
- The project is to be implemented from 2022 to 2027.
- Furthermore, October 7 will be celebrated as ‘Niligiri Tahr Day’ in honour of E.R.C. Davidar, who was responsible for pioneering one of the first studies of the species in 1975.
Historic significance of Nilgiri Tahr
- There are multiple references to the Nilgiri Tahr in Tamil Sangam literature dating back to 2,000 years.
- The late Mesolithic (10,000-4,000 BC) paintings highlight the significance of the Tahr in folklore, culture and life.
- It was designated as the State animal in recognition of its ecological and cultural significance.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Indian Rhino
Mains level: Not Much
Assam CM announced that no rhinos were poached in the state in 2022.
Indian Rhinoceros
- The Indian rhinoceros (Rhinoceros unicornis) is found only in the Brahmaputra valley, parts of North Bengal, and parts of southern Nepal.
- It has a single black horn that can grow up to 60 cm, and a tough, grey-brown hide with skin folds, which gives the animal its characteristic armour-plated look.
- It is listed as Vulnerable (better than endangered, worse than near threatened) in the IUCN Red List; it was earlier placed in the endangered category.
- It is listed as a Schedule I animal in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
Why are Rhinos poached for horns?
- Ground rhino horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure a range of ailments, from cancer to hangovers, and also as an aphrodisiac.
- In Vietnam, possessing a rhino horn is considered a status symbol.
- Due to demand in these countries, poaching pressure on rhinos is ever persistent against which one cannot let the guard down.
Flourishing population
- According to the WWF, there are around 3,700 Indian rhinos in the wild today.
- Assam’s Kaziranga National Park (KNP) alone has 2,613 animals, according to a census carried out in March 2022.
- There are more than 250 other rhinos in the Orang, Pobitora, and Manas parks.
- The WWF says the “recovery of the greater one-horned rhino is among the greatest conservation success stories in Asia”.
Try this PYQ:
Q. Consider the following statements:
- Asiatic lion is naturally found in India only.
- Double-humped camel is naturally found in India only.
- One-horned rhinoceros is naturally found in India only.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: International energy market, decarbonatization and Challenges in front of India
Context
- India marches ahead carrying the same challenge projected as last year that it will have to navigate the choppy waters of a volatile petroleum market without straying from the green path towards clean energy. Energy security cannot be achieved by focusing only on the supply and distribution side of the equation. The demand conservation and efficiency sides are equally important.
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- Fragmented energy market: the energy market has fragmented and energy nationalism is the driving force behind policy.
- Restricted markets for Russia: Irrespective of how and when the Ukraine conflict ends, Russia will not be allowed access to the western markets for as long as President Putin is at the helm of the affairs. One fallout is the tightening energy embrace between Russia and China.
- Declining western orbit and increasing non-aligned approach: Three, OPEC plus one which is, in effect, Saudi Arabia plus Russia has stepped outside the Western orbit. Saudi Arabia has made clear it intends to pursue a Saudi first, non-aligned approach to international relations including with the US.
- Emergence of new energy centres: The new centres of energy power are emergent around countries that have a large share of the metals, minerals and components required for clean energy. China is currently the dominant power.
What should India do against this backdrop?
- Government must increase productivity of existing sources: Discounted Russian crude is an opportunistic panacea. It does not provide a sustainable cover to meet our requirements. To secure such a cover, government must increase the productivity of our existing producing fields; additional resources should be allocated for accessing relevant enhanced oil recovery technologies.
- Secure long- term supply relationship with Saudi Arabia and Iran: Further, it should leverage the country’s market potential to secure a long-term supply relationship with Saudi Arabia and an equity partnership with Iran.
- Enhance the strategic petroleum reserves: It should enhance the strategic petroleum reserves to cover at least 30 days of consumption and remove the sword of Damocles that the CBI/CVC/CAG wield over the heads of the public sector petroleum companies so that their traders can, without fear, take advantage of market volatility.
- Expediate gas pipeline grid: The construction of a pan-India national gas pipeline grid should be expedited.
Analysis: Phasing out coal and the energy transition in India
- Coal one of the major sources of energy in India: Coal will remain the bulwark of India’s energy system for decades. It is no doubt the dirtiest of fuels, but it remains amongst, if not the cheapest, source of energy. Plus hundreds of thousands depend on the coal ecosystem for their livelihood.
- Phasing out is not yet a near possibility: The option of phasing out coal whilst environmentally compelling is not yet a macroeconomic or social possibility.
- Need a balance: In the interim, the government has to find an energy transition route that balances livelihoods and pushes forward the green agenda.
- Steps to be taken: Some small, politically feasible steps in that direction would include increased R&D expenditure for coal gasification and carbon capture and sequestration technologies; setting a carbon tax; the establishment of regulatory and monitoring mechanisms for measuring carbon emissions from industry; the closure of inefficient and old plants and a decision not to approve any new ones.
- Determining competitiveness: In parallel, it would help if Niti Aayog were to pull together a group of economists and energy experts to determine the competitiveness of coal versus solar on a full-cost basis
Other possible measures
- Upgrading the transmission grid: Allocation of funds for upgradation of the transmission grid network to render it resilient enough to absorb clean electrons on an intermittent basis. The sun does not shine at night and the wind does not blow all the time. In parallel, the underlying structural issues currently impeding the scaling up of renewables must be addressed.
- Repairing the balance sheets of discoms through various regulatory reforms: In parallel, the repair of the balance sheets of state distribution companies (discoms), easing the procedures for the acquisition of land and the removal of regulatory and contract uncertainties are most important.
- Building up the domestic chip industry: It will take decades to harness our indigenous resources of the metals and minerals critical for clean energy and build up a domestic chip industry. In the interim, diplomats should secure diversified sources of supply to reduce the country’s vulnerability.
- Developing and commercializing 3G clean energy technologies: Finally, the creation of an enabling ecosystem for developing and commercializing third-generation clean energy technologies like hydrogen, biofuels and modular nuclear reactors. Nuclear, in particular, should be pushed.
Conclusion
- India is not responsible for global warming, but it will be amongst the worst affected. Millions live around its coastline. Their livelihoods will be undermined by rising sea levels. Millions will also be affected by melting glaciers and extremes of temperatures. So irrespective of who is to blame, India has to stay on the path of decarbonization. It cannot afford to develop first and clean up later.
Mains question
Q. What is the current situation of international energy market? What are the measures that India should take in the time of global uncertainty of energy market.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: E- waste and gender justice
Context
- According to the Global E-waste Monitor 2020, out of the total 56.3 million tonnes of discarded e-waste products generated in 2019, only 17.4 percent was officially recorded as being collected and recycled. The rest end up in landfills, in scrap trade markets or are recycled by the informal markets.
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E-waste in India
- Third largest contributor: India is the third largest contributor to this great wall of waste after China and the United States (US) with a whopping 1,014,961.21 tonnes generated in 2019-2020, out of which only 22.7 percent was collected, recycled or disposed of.
- More than 12 million workers: For the 12.9 million women working in the informal waste sector, Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE’s) are lifelines as it contains valuable recyclable metals notwithstanding the detrimental effects it can have on health and the environment.
E-waste and Burden on women
- Less women in value chain: Inequalities are particularly pronounced in this largely gender-neutral sector across the value chain which is heightened by the barriers in decision-making roles.
- Negligible percent of women: With reliable data hard to come by from this sector recent reports indicate that an estimated 0.1 percent of waste pickers account for India’s urban workforce with women populating the lower tiers in this economy as collectors and crude separators at landfill sites.
- Men at skilled position: Men unsurprisingly dominate the entire spectrum of skilled positions as managers, machinery operators, truck drivers, scrap dealers, repair workers and recycling traders.
- Women mostly from poor background: Workers in this ‘grey sector’ are some of the most marginalised, poverty-stricken, uneducated people from vulnerable backgrounds with little social or financial security. They remain unprotected at their workplaces, and often are victims of sexual abuse with no bargaining power in selling their goods. All of these factors then act upon their exclusion as cities begin to formalise the waste sector to effectively control discarded goods.
E-waste Impact on Health
- Incineration and leaching: Open incineration and acid leeching often used by informal workers are directly impacting the environment and posing serious health risks, especially to child and maternal health, fertility, lungs, kidney and overall well-being.
- Occupational health hazards: In India, many of these unskilled workers who come from vulnerable and marginalised are oblivious to the fact that that what they know as ‘black plastics’ have far reached occupational health hazards especially when incinerated to extract copper and other precious metals for their market value.
- Exposures to children: This ‘tsunami of e-waste rolling out of the world’, as described in an international forum on chemical treaties, poses several health hazards for women in this sector as they are left exposed to residual toxics elements mostly in their own households and often the presence of children.
- Constant contact with organic pollutants: According to a recent WHO report, a staggering 18 million children, some as young as five, often work alongside their families at e-waste dumpsites every year in low- and middle-income countries. Heavy metals such as lead, as well as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), like dioxins, and flame retardants (PBDEs) released into the environment, have also added to air, soil, and water pollution.
- India’s E-waste (Management) Rules, 2016: Released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) flagged e-waste classification, extended producer responsibility (EPR), collection targets, and restrictions on imports of e-wastes containing hazardous substances.
- Amendment to Rules: The amended Electronic Waste Management Draft Rules 2022, expected to come into effect by early next year has also emphasised on improving end-of-life waste throughout the circular economy.
- Lack of clear guidelines: These progressive measures, however, lack clear guidelines on the role of informal recyclers and have particularly blind sighted the role of women creating a lacuna in equitable growth.
- The Beijing Platform of Action: It is worth mentioning that The Beijing Platform of Action clearly maintains that a properly designed e-waste processing system can meet both economic and environmental goals to improve the status of women in the informal economy. Sculpting this blueprint in a variegated social and cultural milieu can perhaps play out to examine best practices and success stories around the world.
How to make E-waste sector more gender inclusive
- Ownership of supply chain: The social stigma attached to this sector progressively manifests in discrimination and loss of dignity. Women lack ownership at the end of the value chain as business owners of material processing units nor have access to capital for starting business ventures.
- Separate policy for ground workers: Educating the un-educated takes more than simply designing training modules, skill development and generating awareness about e-waste should be tailored to run at ground-zero where workers operate without disrupting their daily work schedules.
- Gendered data collection: All of these factors compounded by the severe lack of gender-disaggregated data necessitate earmarked gender budgeting to shape an inclusive e-waste management system.
Conclusion
- The concept of the 3R’s, Reduce, Reuse, recycle as envisaged under Mission LiFE will have to invest in women as drivers of a responsible waste management economy, recognising their critical role to minimise the quantum of waste with the ultimate objective of zero waste.
Mains Question
Q. Analyze the gender inequality in the E-waste sector? What are the ways to make e-waste sector more gender Inclusive?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Indian economic growth prospect and challenges
Context
- The new year begins on a slightly more optimistic note for India. Global crude and food prices are down, the rupee has stabilised at 82-83 to the dollar after dropping from 74.5 levels at the start of 2022, even as official foreign exchange reserves have recovered. However, there are challenges to the economic growth of India which needs an immediate attention and action.
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The current scenario and the optimism around Indian economy
- Global crude and food prices: Global crude and food prices are roughly 38 per cent and 15 per cent down respectively from their highs in March, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Stabilised rupee: The rupee has stabilised at 82-83 to the dollar after dropping from 74.5 levels at the start of 2022
- FOREX recovered: even as official foreign exchange reserves, which had plunged to $524.5 billion on October 21 from a year-ago peak of $642 billion, have since recovered to $562.8 billion.
- Environmental conditions are good for Rabi crops: With the prospects for the upcoming rabi crop looking good, as there is favourable soil moisture conditions, timely onset of winter and improved fertiliser availability on the back of declining international prices one can expect consumer inflation to ease further.
What is inflation?
- Inflation is an increase in the level of prices of the goods and services that households buy. It is measured as the rate of change of those prices. Typically, prices rise over time, but prices can also fall (a situation called deflation).
- Challenge is more on growth than on Inflation: The challenge for India this year is likely to be more on the growth than on the inflation front.
- It seems, Chinese’s authoritarian policies making India a favourable investment destination: On paper, the world’s disillusionment with China (more specifically, the authoritarian policies of Xi Jinping, both at home and beyond) and its diminishing economic prospects, worsened by a looming demographic crisis, should be making India every investor’s favourite destination.
- On paper government efforts are honest to attract investment: The present government’s focus on improving the country’s physical as well as digital infrastructure plus schemes such as production-linked incentive to attract investments in specific sectors, from solar photovoltaic modules and drones to specialty steels ought to have given added impetus to this process.
- But on the ground, neither domestic nor foreign companies are really investing: The biggest drag on investment during the last decade was over-leveraged corporates and bad loans-saddled banks.
- Deepening global slowdown is a major challenge to the economic growth: That twin balance sheet problem has more or less resolved itself. Today’s problem has mainly to do with strained government and household balance sheets. That, coupled with a deepening global slowdown constricting export demand, could have a bearing on India’s economic growth.
What is Current Account Deficit (CAD)?
- A current account is a key component of balance of payments, which is the account of transactions or exchanges made between entities in a country and the rest of the world.
- This includes a nation’s net trade in products and services, its net earnings on cross border investments including interest and dividends, and its net transfer payments such as remittances and foreign aid.
- A CAD arises when the value of goods and services imported exceeds the value of exports, while the trade balance refers to the net balance of export and import of goods or merchandise trade.
What should the government do?
- Refrain from fiscal stimulus and maintain macroeconomic stability: It should certainly refrain from any fiscal stimulus to kick-start investment or drive growth. Far from stimulus, what the country needs is macroeconomic stability and policy certainty.
- Managing current account deficit: The current fiscal deficit and public debt levels are far too high to allow any new populist schemes in the name of putting money in people’s hands or sharp tax cuts to supposedly revive investor sentiment. Large government deficits will invariably spill over into current account deficits. The latter number, at 4.4 per cent of GDP in July-September, was the highest for any quarter since October-December 2012 and the prelude to the last so-called taper tantrum-induced balance of payments crisis.
- Must prioritize fiscal consolidation: The coming budget must prioritize fiscal consolidation. This will enable the RBI to also pause interest rate hikes and further monetary tightening, which is probably not the best thing for an economy already facing multiple growth headwinds.
Conclusion
- India’s challenge has shifted from inflation management to facilitating growth in 2023. Policy stability and credibility should be the mantra that will ultimately work for India.
Mains question
Q. It is said that the new year 2023 is starting on a slightly more optimistic note for the Indian economy. In this background, discuss the challenges facing India’s economy and what the government should do?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cryptocurrency
Mains level: Issues with Cryptocurrency
The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) will launch an outreach programme soon to create awareness of cryptocurrencies.
What is Cryptocurrency?
- A cryptocurrency is a digital asset stored on computerised databases.
- These digital coins are recorded in digital ledgers using strong cryptography to keep them secure.
- The ledgers are distributed globally, and each transaction made using cryptocurrencies are codified as blocks.
- And multiple blocks linking each other forms a blockchain on the distributed ledger.
- There are estimated to be more than 47 million cryptocurrency users around the world.
- These cryptocurrencies are created through a process called mining.
Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)
- The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) is managed by the IEPF Authority, which was set up in 2016 under the provisions of Section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.
- The Authority is entrusted with promoting awareness among investors, makes refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits and debentures and so on to rightful claimants.
- As for investment education, the idea is to reach out to household investors, housewives and professionals alike in rural and urban areas and teach them the basics.
- Focus areas include primary and secondary capital markets, various saving instruments, the instruments for investment, making investors aware of dubious Ponzi and chit fund schemes and existing grievance redressal mechanisms, among other things.
- Until the end of October, it had conducted more than 65,000 awareness programmes covering 30 lakh citizens.
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Why is there a concern about cryptocurrency?
- RBI caution: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended framing legislation on the sector. It is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited.
- Fiscal stability at stake: The crypto dilemma stems from concerns about the unregulated currency having a destabilising effect on the monetary and fiscal stability of a country.
- Involved in unlawful activities: Further, crypto exchanges in India are being investigated for their alleged involvement in unlawful practices such as drug trafficking, money laundering, violating foreign exchange legislation and evasion of GST.
- High volatility: Cryptocurrency investing can be a complex and risky endeavour as the category is extremely volatile and works round the clock.
Will an outreach programme help?
- Regulation is must: Apart from the outreach programme, there has to be a regulatory mechanism for the crypto sector.
- Messaging has to be right: If the government takes a heavy-handed approach and starts saying things like virtual currency is not legal in India that will not be entirely true.
Present regulation in India
- RBI has banned banks and other regulated entities from supporting crypto transactions.
- The Government has confirmed that expenditure incurred in mining cryptocurrency is considered capital expenditure and not a cost of acquisition.
- Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 was introduced by the Centre.
Way forward
- Crypto assets are borderless and therefore, any legislation (for regulation or for banning) would require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage.
- The collaboration must entail an evaluation of risks and benefits and the evolution of common taxonomy and standards.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Battle of Bhima Koregaon
Mains level: Not Much
The 205th anniversary of the Bhima-Koregaon battle was recently celebrated in all harmony at the Ranstambh (victory pillar) in Perne village in Pune.
Battle of Bhima-Koregaon
- The 1818 battle of Bhima-Koregaon, one of the last battles of the Third Anglo-Maratha War culminated in the Peshwa’s defeat.
- It was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company (BEIC) and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy, at Koregaon at the banks of River Bhima.
- A 28,000-strong force led by Peshwa Baji Rao II while on their way to attack the company-held Pune were unexpectedly met by an 800-strong Company force of which 500 belonged to the Dalit community.
- The battle was part of the Third Anglo Maratha war, a series of battles that culminated in the defeat of the Peshwa rule and subsequent rule of the BEIC in nearly all of Western, Central, and Southern India.
Role of Mahar Community
- Back in the seventeenth century, the community was particularly valued by the ruler Shivaji, under whom Maratha caste identities were far more fluid.
- The value of the Mahars for military recruitment under Shivaji was noted by the social reformer Jyotirao Phule.
- The Mahars were not only beneficiaries of the attempt at caste unity under Shivaji but were in fact valued for their martial skills, bravery, and loyalty.
Mahars during Maratha Empire
- The position occupied by the Mahars under Shivaji, however, was short-lived and under later Peshwa rulers, their status deteriorated.
- The Peshwas were infamous for their Brahmin orthodoxy and their persecution of the untouchables.
- The Mahars were forbidden to move about in public spaces and punished atrociously for disrespecting caste regulations.
- Stories of Peshwa atrocities against the Mahars suggest that they were made to tie brooms behind their backs to wipe out their footprints and pots on their necks to collect their spit.
Why is the battle significant?
- The battle resulted in losses to the Maratha Empire, then under Peshwa rule, and control over most of western, central, and southern India by the British East India Company.
- The battle has been seen as a symbol of Dalit pride because a large number of soldiers in the Company forces were the Mahar Dalits, the same oppressed community to which Babasaheb Ambedkar belonged.
- After centuries of inhumane treatment, this battle was the first time that Mahars had been included in a battle in which they won.
Dr. Ambedkar’s association
- It was Babasaheb Ambedkar’s visit to the site on January 1, 1927, that revitalized the memory of the battle for the Dalit community.
- He led to its commemoration in the form of a victory pillar, besides creating the discourse of Dalit valor against Peshwa ‘oppression’ of Dalits.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Madan Mohan Malviya
Mains level: Not Much
An archive on the principal founder of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), ‘Mahamana’ Madan Mohan Malaviya was recently unveiled.
Who was Madan Mohan Malaviya?
- Malaviya was born on 25th December, 1861 in Allahabad.
- He was a great Indian educationist and freedom fighter, distinguished from others for his significant role in Indian independence and his support of Hindu nationalism.
- At the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), which he founded in 1916, he served as Vice-Chancellor from 1919 to 1938.
- The University has around 12,000 students all across the field such as the arts, sciences, engineering and technology.
Political affiliations
- Malaviya rose up the ranks, and became president four times — in 1909 (Lahore), in 1918 (Delhi), in 1930 (Delhi), and in 1932 (Calcutta).
- He was part of the Congress for almost 50 years.
- He was one of the early leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, and helped found it in 1906.
- He was a social reformer and a successful legislator, serving as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council for 11 years (1909–20).
- In the freedom struggle, he was midway between the Liberals and the Nationalists, the Moderates and the Extremists, as the followers of Gokhale and Tilak were respectively called.
- In 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Salt Satyagraha and the Civil Disobedience Movement, he participated in it and courted arrest.
Literary associations
- He remained the Hindustan Times’ Chairman from 1924 to 1946.
- He was involved with magazines including the-
- Hindi language weekly, the Abhyudaya (1907)
- English-language daily the Leader of Allahabad (1909) and
- Hindi dailies Aaj
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Boson, Satyendranath Bose
Mains level: Not Much
Born on January 1, 1894, Bose collaborated with Einstein to develop what we now know as the Bose-Einstein statistics. We take a look at the Indian physicist’s illustrious legacy and stellar achievements.
Satyendra Nath Bose
- Born on January 1, 1894, Bose grew up and studied in Kolkata, where he solidified his position as an exemplary academician.
- His father, an accountant in the Executive Engineering Department of the East Indian Railways, gave him an arithmetic problem to solve every day before going to work, encouraging Bose’s interest in mathematics.
- By the age of 15, he began pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree at the Presidency College, and later finished his MSc in Mixed Mathematics in 1915.
Career as researchers
- These were tough times for Indian researchers as World War I had broken out and, European scientific journals came to India quite infrequently.
- Not only this, most of the research papers weren’t available in English and both Bose and Saha had to learn scientific terms in German and French languages to read published works.
- However, the new skill came in handy for them in 1919, when they published English translations of Albert Einstein’s special and general relativity papers.
- Two years later, Bose was appointed to the position of Reader in Physics at the University of Dhaka. It was here that he made his most significant contributions to physics.
Association with Einstein
- Bose wrote a letter to Albert Einstein in 1924 about his breakthrough in quantum mechanics.
- He claimed that he had derived Planck’s law for black body radiation (which refers to the spectrum of light emitted by any hot object) without any reference to classical electrodynamics.
- Impressed by Bose’s findings, Einstein not only arranged for the publication of the paper but also translated it into German.
- This recognition catapulted Bose to fame and glory.
Breakthrough in the invention of Boson
- He went on to work with Einstein and together they developed what is now known as the Bose-Einstein statistics.
- Today, in honour of his legacy, any particle that obeys the Bose-Einstein statistics is called a boson.
- On his 129th birth anniversary, we take a look at the Indian physicist’s illustrious legacy and stellar achievements.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Road accidents and road safety In India
Context
- Cricketer Rishabh Pant’s accident near Roorkee resulting in some injuries, has once again drawn attention to the problem of road safety in India. Nitin Gadkari, Minister of Road Transport and Highways, Government of India, recently said that the Indian road accident scenario, with 415 deaths and many injured every day, is more serious than Covid-19. This is a frank admission that even with comprehensive road safety programmes, India’s record shows little signs of improvement.
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Road Accidents in India A lookover
- In spite of several years of policymaking to improve road safety, India remains among the worst-performing countries in this area.
- Total 1,47,913 lives lost to road traffic accidents in 2017 as per Ministry of Road Transport and Highways statistics.
- The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) figure for the same year is 1,50,093 road accident deaths.
- Easy licences without basic road signage knowledge: The fact of the matter is that simple but serious issues, like road users’ inept understanding of the basic traffic rules and road signage, easier access to driving licences without a meaningful ground scrutiny of skills and unchecked selfish and aggressive driving behaviour continue to dominate Indian road traffic.
- Road traffic rules are grossly violated and goes unchecked: Deadly violations of lane driving, speed limits and traffic signals, instances of at-will parking on the fast-developing modern, smooth highways all these go mostly unchecked and unquestioned.
- Human errors are major factors: The causes of road crashes, such as the ones above, are well known. Human error on the roads is admittedly the single-largest factor responsible.
- Lack of understanding of basic traffic rules: Nobody seems to know which lane they’re supposed to be in; not even the traffic police personnel on duty can tell.
- Charges are often framed against the driver but rarely against the officials: Further, in case of a serious road crash, charges are framed against the erring drivers, but rarely (or, never) against the road-safety public officials for non-performance, non-enforcement of traffic rules, not taking urgent corrective action on conspicuous road-hazards and the black spots.
- Engaged more in paperwork than ion ground: At the macro level, various institutions of road safety, both at the national level and in the states, are engaged in routine paperwork and bear no accountability for the failure to produce desired results.
What is road safety?
- Road safety means methods and measures aimed at reducing the likelihood or the risk of persons using the road network getting involved in a collision or an incident that may cause property damages, serious injuries and/or death.
What needs to be done?
- The enforcement of traffic norms is the key to road safety: All ongoing programmes towards enhancing safe road conditions and vehicles have to go on. However, the priority goal and the global mandate is to significantly reduce the rising number of road crashes.
- Scare resources and complex nature of road safety: The central and state governments run complex road safety programmes with their scarce resources, with little success. The World Bank has chipped in with a $250 million loan to India to tackle the high rate of road crashes through road-safety institutional reforms and the results-based interventions.
- Wise administration and enforcement of rules is necessary: Regular, professional enforcement of rules and swift and innovative solutions to traffic indiscipline and bottlenecks by the administration could help evolve a healthy safe-road culture.
- An example to be followed: In Delhi too the government’s insistence on drawing a bus lane on the city’s major roads has been accepted overnight, and largely implemented. The lessons from such sporadic but crucial initiatives are apparent and inspiring.
What are the proposed measures?
- To begin with, identify the two worst roads in a specific area:
- Notify each identified road as a Zone of Excellence (ZOE) in road safety (RS) This could include a state or national highway/road/part thereof and adjoining areas
- Provide road marking/written instructions on road-surface/road signage
- Take care to provide lanes for emergency vehicles, cyclists, pedestrians etc, as feasible
- Ensure adherence to basic traffic rules/ safety norms. Create multiple checkpoints (CP), every 2-4 kms for example, with each CP supported by road safety volunteers in addition to police
- Use tech aids, judiciously combined with manual interventions/ volunteers
- Supplement enforcement with road safety education/ awareness measures
- Station ambulances and lift cranes for swift response to accidents
- Make reliable arrangements with hospitals/ trauma centres through formal MoUs
- The administrative structure for the implementation of road safety can be set up in three tiers.
- Tier 1 would be the Managing Group (MG), which would look after day-to-day operations and would be autonomous and financially empowered. The MG would meet daily to introspect, analyse issues, incorporate suggestions and assign tasks. It would organise training and refresher programmes for traffic police and road safety volunteers.
- Tier 2 would have district level monitoring. Exclusive personnel would be earmarked for ZoEs with a district. This is where urgent solutions would be sought, budgetary allocations made and review modes fixed. It would also ensure adherence to targets.
- Tier 3 would have top management and control, represented at the level of the Union or state government. It is at this level that a dynamic road-safety ecosystem would be developed. Existing road safety institutions would either be dismantled or rejuvenated, and there would be monthly reviews, with directions, accountability and disciplinary action
- The expected results would include:
- A logical, simple, practical and convincing model that would add new perspective to road safety measures
- A potentially effective action plan, plus a dynamic live-experiment lab for road safety
- Application of best practices, both local and global
- Proactive engagement of elected public representatives, NGOs, RWAs, educational institutes and voluteers
- An evolving standing expert think tank
- Revitalisation and development of existing and new institutions of road safety
- Employment generation
- Traffic decongestion and lane discipline
- A carnival of road safety on the ground overnight, throughout the country, which would make road safety visible and respectable
- A model that would be replicable in other low and middle-income countries
Way ahead
- The need here is to return to the basics, with courage and coordination: A newly power-packed Motor Vehicles Act, a decentralised federal structure, down to the level of district and panchayat administration, and the Supreme Court committee on road safety and its regular monitoring of the related issues.
- Regular monitoring: What is further required is a specific regime whereby road safety authorities are given clear targets for reducing road crashes over a defined period.
- Ensuring accountability: Further, the authorities should be subjected to close and regular monitoring, review and accountability.
Conclusion
- In spite of several years of policymaking to improve road safety, India remains among the worst-performing countries in this area. It is absolutely necessary for citizens to follow road safety norms but government cannot look away from its responsibility.
Mains question
Q. Road accidents in India is a serious and a silent pandemic. Discuss where lies the overall apathy and discuss mention few proposed measures.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Contamination of medicines and drug regulations in India
Context
- Merely two months after the World Health Organisation (WHO) sounded an alert over deadly contamination in four brands of cough syrup manufactured by a Sonepat-based pharmaceutical company that were subsequently linked to the deaths of 72 children in Gambia, another Indian pharmaceutical company stands accused of a similar crime. This time, it is Uzbekistan which has accused a Noida-based pharmaceutical company of selling contaminated cough syrup that has allegedly killed 18 children in that country.
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Thorough analysis
- Unacceptable levels of Ethylene/ Diethylene glycol: In both cases, lab tests reportedly found unacceptable levels of diethylene glycol (DEG) or ethylene glycol (EG) or both in the cough syrups.
- Ideally these chemicals should not be found in any medicine: Both DEG and EG are deadly chemicals that should not be found in any medicine.
- Then how these chemicals end up in medicines: The typical reason these chemicals end up in medicine is because pharmaceutical manufacturers do not adequately test industrial solvents purchased from chemical traders and used to manufacture cough syrups despite the fact that the law mandates such testing for contamination.
- Proximity in two cases: Given the physical proximity of the manufacturers implicated in the Gambian and Uzbekistan cases, there is a very high possibility that the same batch of contaminated industrial solvent was used by both companies.
Contamination of medicines in India
- India has a tumultuous history of DEG contamination in medicines: Between 1972 and 2020, India has seen at least five mass DEG poisonings in Chennai, Mumbai, Bihar, Gurgaon and Jammu. The incident in Gurgaon led to the death of 33 children and the incident in Jammu of at least 11 children.
- Difficult to diagnose deaths due to adulterated medicine: The final reported toll in such cases is definitely an undercount because it is notoriously difficult for doctors to diagnose such deaths and attribute them to adulterated medicine.
- Lethargy and denial is a pattern with drug regulators in India: In August 2020, about eight months after the DEG-related deaths of the children in Jammu were first reported by PGIMER, Chandigarh, the same hospital reported that another two-year-old child from Baddi had died in its facility after consuming a different brand of cough syrup manufactured by the same company that was responsible for the deaths earlier in Jammu. This was a death that could have been easily avoided if the regulators had conducted and published a thorough root cause analysis after the Jammu incident and followed it up by a nationwide recall of all cough syrups manufactured at the same facility. This never happened.
Critique: Whether the Ministry of Health and the Central Drugs Standard Control Organization have learnt their lessons from these previous incidents?
- Government will handle the issue just as any other public relation crisis: The present government is likely to handle this crisis as yet another public relations crisis instead of a public health crisis. Assumption is based on the observation of the official response from the government to the tragedy in Gambia.
- Instead of condoling, accused them for not testing before prescribing: Far from condoling the deaths of 72 Gambians, the initial press release from the Ministry of Health gaslit the Gambians by accusing them of not testing the cough syrups before prescribing them to patients.
- False presumption that the drug regulator is doing its job well: This was an absurd allegation because nobody tests drugs that are purchased before releasing them for patient use, even in India. The presumption is that the drug regulator is doing its job to ensure quality control.
- Government’s information czars accusing WHO: The first step of this PR strategy was to keep leaking to journalists that the WHO was not co-operating with the information requests made by an expert committee set up by the Government of India to investigate the deaths in Gambia. This despite the government fully knowing that the responsibility of investigating the deaths lay not with the WHO but with the sovereign authorities in Gambia.
- Rare mention of sympathy: The common thread running through these events is a communications strategy aimed at denial and intimidation. There is rarely a mention of sympathy for lives lost or a commitment to protect public health.
- Even China does better than India: An iron fist in a titanium glove is the best way to describe the government’s response to any allegations of quality issues afflicting the Indian pharmaceutical industry. In 2007, when a Chinese chemicals manufacturer was implicated in the deaths of 365 people in Panama who consumed cough syrup manufactured with an adulterated industrial solvent, the Chinese arrested the manufacturer and publicly promised to punish him.
- The immediate public health response in these cases of DEG contamination should be aimed at limiting further deaths.
- This means tracing the origins of the contaminated industrial solvent used to manufacture the syrups.
Conclusion
- What India needs right at the moment is to accept the fact that there is a major quality problem with the Indian pharmaceutical industry. Allegations cannot be morphed from one to another. Perhaps the need of the hour is to have meaningful and comprehensive conversation on actual regulatory reform.
Mains question
Q. It is said that India has a tumultuous history of DEG contamination in medicines. The recent deaths in Gambia and Uzbekistan supports this statement. What the critique has to say over India’s response in such cases.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: India's G20 presidency, opportunities and challenges
Context
- In September 2014, in his first meeting with President Barack Obama, Prime Minister Narendra Modi talked about making the US a principal partner in the realization of India’s rise as a responsible, influential world power. This was in a way the first time that any Indian prime minister had talked about the country’s ambition to grow into a responsible, influential world power.
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India in World politics
- India is not new to playing a proactive role in world politics: Right from Independence, India’s leadership had actively pursued an agenda that favoured the interests of developing or less developed countries.
- India took a form stand against the domination of developed countries: Whether it was the GATT negotiations or the Non-Proliferation Treaty, India took a principled stand and stood up to the policy domination of the developed world.
- India as a protector of developing world: India’s role as the protector of the interests of the developing world during WTO negotiations has been significant.
- For instance: Murasoli Maran, as the Minister of Commerce in the Vajpayee government, played a very critical role in preventing developed countries from pushing through their trade and commercial agendas. The UPA government continued that approach, inviting opprobrium and occasional isolation from the interested players. However, that didn’t deter India from opposing agendas that were seen as against the interests of not only its people but also the larger developing world.
- India added moral dimension to the developing world but seen as obstructionist: India’s significant contribution in all these fora was that it added a moral dimension to the developed world’s monetary vision. However, India, in the process, acquired the image of being a nay-sayer and obstructionist.
- Stated playing proactive role: While standing up for the developing world and zealously upholding its strategic autonomy, India started playing a proactive role in finding solutions.
- Paris climate summit provided a major opportunity: The Paris Climate Summit in 2015 provided the first major opportunity for India to highlight its new priorities. It played a pivotal role in clinching the climate deal while ensuring that the interests of the developing world are not compromised.
- India’s stand in the words of PM Modi: PM PM Modi cogently articulated this stand on the eve of the Summit: “Justice demands that, with what little carbon we can safely burn, developing countries are allowed to grow. The lifestyles of a few must not crowd out opportunities for the many still on the first steps of the development ladder.” India’s efforts resulted in developed countries agreeing to the principle of “common and differentiated responsibility”.
- India successfully convinced developed countries for INDCs: India also convinced developed countries to agree to the formulation of not externally imposed targets but “intended nationally determined contributions” or INDCs.
- India emerged as a powerful player during Covid pandemic response through “Vaccine Maitri”: India’s arrival on the global stage as an important player was further augmented by its constructive response during the Covid pandemic. Besides undertaking the massive exercise of vaccinating its billion-plus citizens, India came to the rescue of more than 90 countries by ensuring a timely supply of vaccines through its “Vaccine Maitri” programme.
- Commendable economic recovery in post-Covid world: India’s growing importance is conspicuous in many areas. Its post-Covid economic recovery has been commendable, with the World Bank even revising its projections for 2022 GDP growth from 6.5 per cent to 6.9 per cent. The IMF estimated it to be at 6.8 per cent while the rest of the world was projected to grow at 4.9 per cent.
India in a new year
- Stronger ties with African nations: The India Africa Forum Summit (IAFS), started in 2008 as a triennial event by then Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, met for the third time in 2015 in Delhi. PM Modi took a special interest in cultivating stronger ties with African nations which led to the highest-ever participation in the Summit. It is important to revive the process.
- India’s crucial role in Russia-Ukraine war: At the Bali G20 Summit, India played a crucial role in ensuring that both Russia and its critics like the US had their say on the Russia-Ukraine war in a dignified way without being interrupted. On its part, India conveyed to the Russian leadership that it was not a time for war. The new year will bring an opportunity before India to play a role in ending the war.
- Opportunity to set new agenda for global public good: As G20 chair, India has the opportunity to set a new agenda before the world’s most powerful block of nations. In the past, it always worked for the judicious sharing of global public goods. It is time now to undertake similar efforts for global digital and genetic goods.
Way ahead
- India must continue to act as voice of global south: While striving to achieve its ambition, India must not lose sight of the principles that it always championed. It must continue to act as the voice of the Global South.
- Focus on neighbourhood must increase: India’s diplomatic, strategic and political investments in its neighbourhood and Asia, Africa and Latin America must increase.
- Attention in ASEAN IOR must grow: With SAARC failing and BIMSTEC remaining a non-starter, India’s attention to the ASEAN and Indian Ocean neighbourhood must grow. India’s Act East policy needs more teeth.
- India must bring moralist dimensions in new tech developments: India always upheld moralism in global politics. In climate talks, too, the Indian side is resorting to traditional wisdom to achieve global good. India must bring that moralist dimension to new technological developments.
- India must lead to regulate technologies for humanity’s future: The advent of artificial intelligence and genetic manipulation technologies is going to throw the world into turmoil. If not regulated globally on time, these technologies are going to play havoc with humanity’s future.
Conclusion
- The country is entering the new year on a buoyant note. The leadership of important multilateral bodies including the G20 and SCO has come into its hands. The new year is thus going to provide India with the opportunity to fulfil its world power ambition. However, opportunities come with challenges. China may try to curtail India’s ambitions by keeping the border tense. India needs to maintain harmonious balance.
Mains question
Q. From wars to the economy to climate, India has become integral to the contemporary global discourse. What will India need to do to fulfil its global superpower ambitions in the new year?
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