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

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Near-Earth Asteroid Scout

Mains level: Study of asteroids

Last week, NASA announced that its new spacecraft, named NEA Scout, has completed all required tests and has been safely tucked inside the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.

For landing on Moon

NEA Scout is one of several payloads that will hitch a ride on Artemis I, which is expected to be launched in November.
Artemis I will be an uncrewed test-flight of the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket.
Under the Artemis programme, NASA has aimed to land the first woman on the Moon in 2024 and also establish sustainable lunar exploration programs by 2030.

What is NEA Scout?

Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, is a small spacecraft, about the size of a big shoebox. Its main mission is to fly by and collect data from a near-Earth asteroid.
It will also be America’s first interplanetary mission using special solar sail propulsion.
This type of propulsion is especially useful for small, lightweight spacecraft that cannot carry large amounts of conventional rocket propellant.
NEA Scout will use stainless steel alloy booms and deploy an aluminium-coated sail measuring 925 square feet.
The large-area sail will generate thrust by reflecting sunlight.
Energetic particles of sunlight bounce off the solar sail to give it a gentle, yet constant push.

How will it study the asteroid?

NEA Scout is equipped with special cameras and can take pictures ranging from 50 cm/pixels to 10 cm/pixels.
It can also process the image and reduce the file sizes before sending them to the earth-based Deep Space Network via its medium-gain antenna.
The spacecraft will take about two years to cruise to the asteroid and will be about 93 million miles away from Earth during the asteroid encounter.

Why should we study near-Earth asteroids?

Despite their size, some of these small asteroids could pose a threat to Earth.
Understanding their properties could help us develop strategies for reducing the potential damage caused in the event of an impact.
Scientists will use this data to determine what is required to reduce risk, increase effectiveness, and improve the design and operations of robotic and human space exploration.

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International Space Agencies – Missions and Discoveries

Why does Mercury have such a big iron core?

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

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Our planetary system

Mains level: Not Much

Researchers have developed a model showing that the density, mass and iron content of a Mercury’s core is influenced by its distance from the Sun’s magnetic field.

About Mercury

Mercury is the first and the smallest planet in our solar system.
It is also the closest planet to Earth.
Like the other three terrestrial planets, Mercury contains a core surrounded by a mantle and a crust.
But unlike any other planet, Mercury’s core makes up a larger portion of the planet.
MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field.
It was the analysis from the MESSENGER mission that tells: Mercury’s core is solid.

Mystery over the core

It has long been known that Mercury’s core composition is made of liquid metal.
The core itself is about 3,600 km across. Surrounding that is a 600 km thick mantle.
And around that is the crust, which is believed to be 100-200 km thick.
The crust is known to have narrow ridges that extend for hundreds of kilometres.
This large core has long been one of the most intriguing mysteries about Mercury.

Why does Mercury have a large core?

A new study reveals that the sun’s magnetism is the reason.
The sun’s magnetic field influences the density, mass, and iron content of Mercury’s core.
The four inner planets of our solar system—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are made up of different proportions of metal and rock.
A gradient in which the metal content in the core drops off as the planets get farther from the sun.
The researchers explain how this happened by showing that the sun’s magnetic field controlled the distribution of raw materials in the early forming solar system.

What are the key propositions?

During the early formation of the solar system, when a swirling dust storm and gas encircled the sun, iron’s grain was drawn toward the centre by the sun’s magnetic field.
At the time of planet formation from clumps of that dust and gas, planets nearer to the sun consolidated more iron into their centres than those farther away.
Scientists also found that the density and proportion of iron in the planet’s core correlate with the strength of the magnetic field around the sun during planetary formation.
Existing models on planetary formation were used to determine the speed at which gas and dust were pulled into the centre of our solar system during its formation.
The magnetic field that the sun would have generated as it burst into being and calculated how that magnetic field would draw iron through the dust and gas cloud.

Cooling led solidification

As the early solar system began to cool, dust and gas that were not drawn into the sun started to clump together.
The clumps closer to the sun would have been exposed to a stronger magnetic field and thus would contain more iron than those farther away from the sun.
As the clumps coalesced and cooled into spinning planets, gravitational forces drew the iron into their core.

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Issue of undertrials

op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Governance, Transparency & Accountability, Citizens Charters

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Article 21

Mains level: Paper 2- Addressing the issue of undertrials

Context

After the death of Stan Swamy, questions about the conditions of jails and treatment of the incarcerated have been raised anew.

Issue of deaths of prisoners

The NCRB data reports the death of over 1,800 prisoners in the year 2018. An estimated 70 percent of prison inmates are undertrials.
Despite constitutional provisions like Article 21, which says, no person shall be denied life or liberty except by the due process of law, the number of undertrials is increasing.

How prisoners are subjected to additional torture

Overcrowding, delayed medical attention, unhygienic conditions and malnutrition exist in all Indian prisons.
It is the responsibility of the State and the judiciary to ensure that they are only deprived of their liberty and are not exposed to any additional torture in the form of medical deprivation, unhygienic conditions, bad or inadequate food, etc.
Yet, thousands are dying every year and the prison authorities are not made accountable.

Way forward

Acts of extreme neglect that could result in the death of inmates should be acknowledged as extrajudicial torture and made an offense.
The SC in Sunil Batra (I) v. Delhi Administration (1978), held that “the humane thread of jail jurisprudence that runs right through is that no prison authority enjoys amnesty for unconstitutionality”.
ARC Recommendations on Prison Reforms: The Union and State Governments should work out, fund and implement at the
earliest, modernization and reforms of the Prison System as recommended by the All India Committee on Jail Reforms (1980-83).
b. The attendant legislative measures should also be expedited.
c. Rules regarding Parole and Remission need to be reviewed.
Infrastructure: Prisoner Information System, Biometric Identification, facilities for pregnant women, up-gradation of hospitals, etc is needed.
Strengthening the Open Prison System.

Conclusion

The government needs to take urgent measures to address the issue of additional torture in various forms and the death of prisoners.

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

What the new Ministry of Cooperation needs to achieve

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

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Ministry for Cooperation

Mains level: Paper 3- Performance of cooperative movement

Context

Two weeks ago, the government created a new Ministry for Cooperation. India is, perhaps, the first country to have such a ministry. The Ministry can play an important role in the transformation of cooperatives in the country.

How 1991 economic reforms benefited agriculture

On July 24, 1991, India decided to unshackle the spirit of private sector entrepreneurship through the move to de-license industry and reduce tariffs on a host of commodities.
Trade policy changes improved the terms of trade for agriculture and benefitted millions of farmers.
Agri-exports increased, but this led to higher domestic prices.

The success story of dairy sector in India

In 1991, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister wanted to delicense the dairy sector as well, but there was stiff opposition from Verghese Kurien.
It was after 10 years in 2002 that the dairy sector was fully de-licensed.
The competition between cooperatives and corporate dairy players has benefitted millions of farmers around the country.
With the entry of the private sector, the growth of the dairy sector accelerated at double the speed.
Today, both procure roughly the same quantities and growth in the organised private sector is faster than in cooperatives.

Performance of cooperative movement in India

India’s experience with the cooperative movement has produced mixed results — few successes and many failures.
There are cooperatives in the financial sector, be it rural or urban.
But the performance of these agencies when measured in terms of their share in overall credit, achievements in technology upgradation, keeping NPAs low or curbing fraudulent deals has been poor to average.
Sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra initially touted as exemplars of the movement, are in the doldrums now.
Many are being sold to the private sector.

Performance of cooperatives in dairy sector

1) Amul

The performance of the cooperative champion, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) — with its poster brand, Amul — has been most successful.
During Operation Flood, it received a lot of capital at highly concessional terms.
But its success is also the result of professionalism, business and, therefore, keeping politics away.
But despite the grand success of Gujarat’s milk cooperatives in Gujarat, the model did not spread to other states as successfully.

2) Karnataka Milk Federation

In its eagerness to please milk farmers, the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), which sells its products under the brand name of Nandini, gives them Rs 5 to Rs 6 extra per litre.
This subsidy, given by the state government, cost the exchequer Rs 1,260 crore till 2019-20.
KMF procures a lot of milk and then dumps it at lower prices in the market for consumers.
This depresses prices in adjoining states like Maharashtra, affecting the fortunes of Maharashtra milk farmers.
If Maharashtra and Karnataka were two different countries, Maharashtra would be challenging Karnataka at the WTO.

Way forward

The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards ironing out distortions in state price policies due to subsidization such as in Maharastra and Karnatak milk prices.
Cooperatives desperately need technological upgradation.
The Ministry of Cooperation can give them soft loans for innovation and technology upgradation.
But such loans should also be extended to the private sector to ensure a level playing field.
The Ministry of Cooperation needs to ensure the least political interference in the operation of cooperatives.

Conclusion

The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards bringing in professionalism in cooperatives and make them more competitive.

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Skilling India – Skill India Mission,PMKVY, NSDC, etc.

Skilling in India: Issues and Suggestions

| Economics | Mains Paper 3: Issues relating growth and development, employment

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Unemployment in India

PM has yet again underscored the importance of a skilled workforce for achieving the goal of becoming Atma-nirbhar Bharat. India still continues to be a country that faces one of the highest shortages of skilled workforce.

Unemployment vs Skills

On one hand, companies in India face an acute shortage of skilled manpower and, on the other, India has millions of educated unemployed.
The data for this chart is for the January to April 2021 period, when the overall unemployment rate in the country was 6.83%.
In comparison, those with graduation (or even higher degrees) face almost three times the unemployment level.
At over 19% unemployment rate, one in every five Indians who graduate (or even better) is unemployed.

What explains this contradiction?

The lack of skill is definitely the only answer.

What is Skilling?

National Council of Applied Economic Research, 2018 — aptly titled “No time to lose”.
This report explains that there are three types of skills.

Cognitive skills: basic skills of literacy and numeracy, applied knowledge and problem-solving aptitudes, and higher cognitive skills such as experimentation, reasoning, and creativity.
Technical and vocational skills: physical and mental ability to perform specific tasks using tools and methods in any occupation.
Social and behavioral skills include working, communicating, and listening to others.

Different levels of these three types of skills can be combined to further classify skills into foundational, employability, and entrepreneurial skills.

What is the scale of the skilling challenge facing India?

According to the 2018 report by NCAER, India had about 468 million people in its workforce.

Informal sector: Around 92% of them were in the informal sector.
Illiteracy: Around 31% were illiterate, only 13% had primary education, and only 6% were college graduates.
No vocational training: Further, only about 2% of the workforce had formal vocational training, and only 9% had non-formal vocational training.
Out of more than 5 lakh final year bachelors students aged 18–29 who were surveyed, around 54% were found to be “unemployable”.

Opportunities for India

India has entered a demographic sweet spot that will continue for another two to three-decade.
There is a great opportunity for India to improve both its social and economic outcomes if a higher number of workers are productively employed.

What is at stake?

If the skilling issue is not resolved, India risks forfeiting its so-called “demographic dividend”.
But whether this will turn into a demographic dividend or not will depend entirely on how many of those in the working-age bracket are working and becoming prosperous.
If they are not in well-paying jobs, the economy would not have the resources to take care of itself since with each passing year, the proportion of dependents will continue to rise after 2040.
To put it simply, to attain its rightful place and realize its aspirations, India must become rich before it gets old.

The skilling paradox

Indians have excelled in technical expertise at the global level — be it medicine or engineering. Then what explains India’s domestic skilling paradox?
A big part of the trouble is the starting condition. Over 90% of India’s workforce is in the informal sector.

India is trapped in a vicious cycle:

Greater workforce informality leads to lower incentives to acquire new skills. Faced with inadequately skilled workers, businesses often choose to replace labor with machinery.
That’s because “skilled labor and technology are complementary, but unskilled labor and technology are substitutes”.
This, in turn, leads to still fewer formal jobs.

What can be done to break this cycle?

A distinct disadvantage with India’s approach towards skilling has been to ignore and match the demands of the market.
For the most part, skills have been provided in a top-down fashion.
Given the way market demands fluctuate — for instance, how the Covid pandemic has upended supply chains — skilling efforts must try to anticipate the needs of the market.

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Corruption Challenges – Lokpal, POCA, etc

Lokpal

| Polity | Mains Paper 2: Constitutional Bodies

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013

Mains level: Read the attached story

More than two years after the Lokpal came into being, the Centre is yet to appoint a director of inquiry for conducting a preliminary inquiry into graft complaints sent by the anti-corruption ombudsman.

Who is ‘Director of Inquiry’?

According to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, there shall be a director of inquiry, not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the GoI.
He/ She shall be appointed by the Central government for conducting preliminary inquiries referred to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) by the Lokpal.

About the Lokpal

The Lokpal, the apex body to inquire and investigate graft complaints against public functionaries, came into being with the appointment of its chairperson and members in March 2019.
In March 2019, former SC judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose was selected as the first head of the Lokpal.

Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013

The Lokpal Act 2013 is anti-corruption legislation that seeks to provide for the establishment of the institution of Lokpal.
It seeks to inquire into allegations of corruption against certain important public functionaries including the PM, cabinet ministers, MPs, Group A officials of the Central Government etc.
The Bill was introduced in the parliament following massive public protests led by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and his associates.
The Bill is one of the most widely discussed and debated Bills in India in recent times.

Its history

The term Lokpal was coined in 1963 by Laxmi Mall Singhvi, a member of parliament during a parliamentary debate about grievance mechanisms.
The Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) headed by Morarji Desai submitted an interim report on “Problems of Redressal of Citizen’s Grievances” in 1966.
In this report, ARC recommended the creation of two special authorities designated as ‘Lokpal’ and ‘Lokayukta’ for redress of citizens’ grievances.
Maharashtra was the first state to introduce Lokayukta through The Maharashtra Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayuktas Act in 1971.

Also read:

Explained: How Lokpal will form, function

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RBI Notifications

RBI bars Mastercard from issuing new cards

| Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Need for data localization

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has banned Mastercard from issuing new debit and credit cards to customers in India.

Why such a ban?

According to the RBI, the US card issuer has failed to comply with the local data storage rules announced by the central bank in 2018.

What is the RBI’s data localization policy?

In 2018, the RBI had issued a circular ordering card companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to store all Indian customer data locally.
This was aimed for the regulator to have “unfettered supervisory access”.

Why such a policy by RBI?

The reason offered by the RBI was that local storage of consumer data is necessary to protect the privacy of Indian users and also to address national security concerns.

Issues with the policy

Privacy: Customer privacy and national security are genuine concerns that need to be taken seriously.
Protectionism: However, data localization rules may sound too stringent and they could simply be used by governments as tools of economic protectionism.
Security: For instance, it may not be strictly necessary for data to be stored locally to remain protected.
Formal international laws to govern the storage of digital information across borders may be sufficient to deal with these concerns.
Discrimination: Governments, however, may still mandate data localization in order to favour local companies over foreign ones.

Implications of the move

Indian banks that are currently enrolled in the Mastercard network are expected to make alternative arrangements with other card companies.
The RBI’s data localization policy, as it burdens foreign card companies, may end up favouring domestic card issuers like RuPay, which in turn can lead to reduced competition.
Mastercard owns about one-third of the market share in India, and the RBI’s ban is likely to significantly benefit its competitors.
This could mean higher costs and lower quality services for customers.

Conclusion

In today’s digital economy data have turned out to be a valuable commodity, which companies, as well as governments, have tried to gain control over.
With no clear rules on who owns customer data and to what extent, conflicts over data ownership are likely to continue for some time.

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Global Geological And Climatic Events

How the Moon ‘Wobble’ affects rising tides

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

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Moon wobble

Mains level: Moon wobble and climate change

US coastlines will face increasing flooding in the mid-2030s due to a regular lunar cycle called the wobble effect that will magnify rising sea levels caused by climate change.

What is the Moon Wobble?

The moon wobble is nothing but a regular swaying in the moon’s orbit.
It was first documented way back in 1728.
This wobble takes over an 18.6-year period to complete and continues in a cyclic fashion.

How does this wobble occur?

High tides on this planet are caused mostly by the pull of the moon’s gravity on a spinning Earth. On most beaches, you would see two high tides every 24 hours.
The moon also revolves around the Earth about once a month, and that orbit is a little bit tilted.
moon’s orbital plane around the Earth is at an approximate 5-degree incline to the Earth’s orbital plane around the sun.
Because of that, the path of the moon’s orbit seems to fluctuate over time, completing a full cycle — sometimes referred to as a nodal cycle — every 18.6 years.
At certain points along the cycle, the moon’s gravitational pull comes from such an angle that it yanks one of the day’s two high tides a little bit higher, at the expense of the other.
This does not mean that the moon itself is wobbling, nor that its gravity is necessarily pulling at our oceans any more or less than usual.

What impact does this wobble have on Earth?

Influences the ebb and flow of tides: The moon wobbles impacts the gravitational pull of the moon, and therefore, indirectly influences the ebb and flow of tides here on the Earth.
One half of the 18.6-year cycle suppresses the tides, which means that the high tides get lower, while the low tides get higher than normal.
Once this cycle completes, the situation flips—in the subsequent cycle, the tides are amplified, with high tides getting higher and low tides, lower.
The lunar cycle is expected to shift again by mid-2030, and in the coming phase, the tides will amplify once again.

Moon wobble and climate change

The upcoming changes in the lunar cycle will pose a serious threat, as the amplified high tides coupled with the rising sea levels will make the risk of flooding far greater across all coastal regions of the globe.
The study predicts that the high tide-associated floods—also known as nuisance floods or sunny day floods—may occur in clusters that could last for months or even for longer periods!
This surge will be closely associated with the position of the Moon, Earth and the Sun.
When the Moon and Earth line up in specific ways with each other and the Sun, the resulting gravitational pull and the ocean’s corresponding response may leave city-dwellers coping with floods every day or two.

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Climate Change Impact on India and World – International Reports, Key Observations, etc.

Places in news: Great Barrier Reef

Places in news | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Important Geophysical Phenomena

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Great Barrier Reef

Mains level: Coral Reefs and their significance

Chinese official has said that political tensions between Beijing and Australia were not behind a UNESCO recommendation to place the Great Barrier Reef on its endangered list.

Great Barrier Reef

The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands.
It is stretched for over 2,300 kilometres over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres.
The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
It was world heritage listed in 1981 by UNESCO as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet.

Importance of Corals

Coral reefs are some of the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth.

They support more species per unit area than any other marine environment, including about 4,000 species of fish, 800 species of hard corals and hundreds of other species.
This biodiversity is considered key to finding new medicines for the 21st century.
Medical use: Many drugs are now being developed from coral reef animals and plants as possible cures for cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, viruses, and other diseases.
Fisheries: Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through tourism and recreation.
Local economies receive billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems.
Coral reef structures also buffer shorelines against 97 per cent of the energy from waves, storms, and floods, helping to prevent loss of life, property damage, and erosion.

Answer this PYQ in the comment box:

Q.Consider the following statements:

Most of the world’s coral reefs are in tropical waters.

More than one-third of the world’s coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests.

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) 1 and 3 only

Back2Basisc: Coral Reef

Coral reefs are built by and made up of thousands of tiny animals—coral “polyps”—that are related to anemones and jellyfish.
Polyps are shallow-water organisms that have a soft body covered by a calcareous skeleton. The polyps extract calcium salts from seawater to form these hard skeletons.
The polyps live in colonies fastened to the rocky seafloor.
The tubular skeletons grow upwards and outwards as a cemented calcareous rocky mass collectively called corals.
When the coral polyps die, they shed their skeleton on which new polyps grow.
The cycle is repeated for millions of years leading to the accumulation of layers of corals shallow rock created by these depositions is called a reef.

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Cyber Security – CERTs, Policy, etc

Back in news: Pegasus Spyware

Prelims Only | Security Issues | Mains Paper 3: Cyber Security

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Pegasus

Mains level: Whatsapp snooping

Telephone numbers of some noted Indian journalists were successfully snooped upon by an unidentified agency using Pegasus software.

Pegasus Spyware

All spyware do what the name suggests — they spy on people through their phones.
Pegasus works by sending an exploit link, and if the target user clicks on the link, the malware or the code that allows the surveillance is installed on the user’s phone.
A presumably newer version of the malware does not even require a target user to click a link.
Once Pegasus is installed, the attacker has complete access to the target user’s phone.
The first reports on Pegasus’s spyware operations emerged in 2016, when Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in the UAE, was targeted with an SMS link on his iPhone 6.

What is the new threat?

Pegasus has evolved from its earlier spear-phishing methods using text links or messages to ‘zero-click’ attacks which do not require any action from the phone’s user.
This had made what was without a doubt the most powerful spyware out there, more potent and almost impossible to detect or stop.

How do zero-click attacks work?

A zero-click attack helps spyware like Pegasus gain control over a device without human interaction or human error.
Zero-click attacks are hard to detect given their nature and hence even harder to prevent.
Detection becomes even harder in encrypted environments where there is no visibility on the data packets being sent or received.
Most of these attacks exploit software that receive data even before it can determine whether what is coming in is trustworthy or not, like an email client.

Answer this PYQ from CSP 2018:

Q.The terms ‘WannaCry, Petya, Eternal Blue’ sometimes mentioned news recently are related to

(a) Exoplanets

(b) Crypto currency

(c) Cyber attacks

(d) Mini satellites

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A panoramic look at our three decades of economic reforms

| Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Paper 3- Look at three decades of economic reforms

Context

This month marks the 30th anniversary of the economic reforms launched by our then finance minister Manmohan Singh in his budget speech of 24 July 1991.

After and before reform comparison

The average annual growth over the past three decades has been 5.8% per annum.
It is slightly higher than 5.6% in the decade before 1991.
Clearly, our growth acceleration was not sustained, despite a pick-up in the pace of reforms.
However, on a long-term comparison, the economy did better than its 4.1% average of the first 40 years of independence.
But if we compare our first four decades with the pre-1947 phase, and on that score, we saw a massive growth improvement.

Impact of reforms

Their biggest contribution was a change in India’s economic paradigm.
Every government after 1991 has embraced the philosophy of liberalization and privatization that those reforms initiated and has tried to outdo the previous regimes on that.
Still, 30 years on, the situation for most of our population remains unchanged.
The reforms created a class of rich entrepreneurs and a small but vocal middle class in urban areas.
But it also contributed to widening inequality, which has worsened after 1991 and is now at its worst level since 1947 on almost all dimensions.
The widening of disparities also occurred between urban and rural areas, between laggard states and developed ones.
Disparities have increased even further in terms of access to health and education and several other human- development indicators.
On most of these, be it education, health, women’s workforce participation and hunger, we remain at the bottom of any global chart of comparison.
The logic of reforms meant that expenditure on welfare and investment in human development were not a policy priority.
The situation is no different on employment, with data suggesting an absolute decline on this count and a historic rise in unemployment rates.
An official consumption survey that was not accepted about two years ago by the Centre had shown, a decline in real consumption and a rise in poverty.
Rising informalization and contractualization of the country’s workforce has been a factor in the worsening of most workers’ working conditions.

Why reforms failed to deliver

In many ways, they are no different from our pre-reform economic policies, all of which were supply- side responses.
The reforms attempted to use the private sector for the task through a liberalized regulatory framework and business-friendly fiscal and monetary policies.
But an absence of concern for distributional inequities and aggregate-demand management has continued as the defining feature of our economic policymaking.
The consequences of supply-side- biased reforms will show up in a further worsening of income distribution and eventually slow growth down.

Conclusion

Things have taken a turn for the worse with the pandemic. The problem this time is not like the 1991 crisis. What is needed at this point is a fundamental shift in the way economic policy is designed, keeping people and workers at the centre of the exercise.

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

Need for social security to migrant and informal workers

op-ed snap | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Schemes For Vulnerable Sections

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Recommendation 202

Mains level: Paper 2- Social security for migrant labour

Context

The migrants’ crisis after the two covid waves compelled policy-makers to make certain provisions for them in the schemes announced for the assistance of the poor.

Supreme Court judgement on the issue

On June 29, the Supreme Court finally delivered its judgment on the plight of migrant labour.
The judgement was notable for two main reasons.
First, it recognised that there was the large-scale exclusion of migrant workers and other informal workers from existing schemes due to the lack of their registration and outdated eligibility lists.
It noted that no benefits will be denied to migrant workers for want of an Aadhaar card and that food assistance will be provided for migrants who were not covered by the National Food Security Act.
Second, it connected informal workers and migrant workers, both of whom experience exclusion, and mandated that the portal for registration of all informal/migrant workers should be fully operational before July 31.

Advantages of providing social protection

Investment in social protection is not charity, it is an investment in workers’ productivity and in equitable growth.
Providing social protection is, as the UN mooted in 2009 when it spelt out the social protection floor (SPF) initiative after the global financial crisis, the surest way out of a crisis by boosting demand at the bottom of the pyramid.
The report of the Advisory Committee of the ILO, in which India was represented by its labour secretary, provides a strong rationale for instituting a universal SPF during economic crises.
As a result, all constituents of the ILO adopted Recommendation 202 on social protection floors at the International Labour Conference in 2012.

Inadequate provisions by government

The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, was approved by Parliament in December 2008.
But it lacks the mandatory elements of the NCEUS’s proposals and included neither a National Minimum Social Security Package, nor the provision for mandatory registration.
Estimates show that the central government’s expenditure on all major social protection programmes declined from 1.96 per cent of GDP in 2008-09 to 1.6 per cent in 2013-14 and to only 1.28 per cent in 2019-20.

Way forward

The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) had pointed out that the circular migrant workers were a disadvantaged segment among informal workers.
Comprehensive law: The NCEUS had advocated a comprehensive law for the protection of the rights of all informal workers, including migrants, home workers, and domestic workers.
Universal registration: NCEUS had also recommended a universal registration mechanism based on self-declaration, with the issuance of a smart social security card, and a National Minimum Social Security Package.
Guaranteed social security/social protection: We need the provision of a minimum level of guaranteed social security/social protection for all informal workers and their households within a definite time frame.
More public spending: Guaranteed social protection would involve a clear framework and a commitment to greater public resources being spent on social protection as a large class of workers in India do not have an identifiable employer and a contributory social insurance framework will not work for them.
Recommendation 202: Government should embrace ILO’s Recommendation 202 and work towards these in a time-bound manner.

Conclusion

To end the silent, painful, and enduring crisis for the workers, as well as the crisis for the economy, the government must urgently recognise the right to social security, embedded both in the Indian Constitution and international covenants.

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Can India invoke state sovereignty in Cairn Energy case?

op-ed snap | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: BIT

Mains level: Paper 2- State sovereignty

Context

Last year, an arbitration tribunal indicted India for breaching its obligations by imposing taxes retrospectively on Cairn. As a result, Cairn Energy has been attempting to seize Indian assets in several jurisdictions to recover $1.7 billion due from India.

How asset seizure order affects India?

This episode projects India as an unfriendly country for investors at a time when it wishes to project itself as a prime destination for foreign investment.
This episode puts India in the league of countries like Pakistan, Congo, Venezuela, Russia and Argentina, who have been part of attachment proceedings overseas due to their failure to comply with international arbitral awards.
Fighting cases will consume an enormous amount of time, money, and resources, in addition to attracting bad press internationally.

Understanding the doctrine of state immunity

State immunity is a well-recognised doctrine in international law.
It safeguards a state and its property against the jurisdiction of another country’s domestic courts.
Despite the universal acceptance of this doctrine, there is no international legal instrument in force administering its implementation.
Attempts are underway to create binding international law on the application of the rules of state immunity such as the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property (UNSCI).
However, this convention is yet to be ratified by 30 countries — the minimum number required to bring it in force, as per Article 30(1) of UNSCI.
India has signed the convention, but not ratified it.
The doctrine of state immunity has progressed from absolute immunity to restrictive immunity in which immunity is only for the sovereign functions of the state.

Can India invoke state immunity?

Most prominent jurisdictions follow the concept of restrictive immunity.
State immunity can be invoked to resist the seizure of sovereign assets, but not commercial properties.
In the context of the execution of the investment treaty arbitration awards, properties serving commercial functions are available for seizure.
In the case of India, the most popular commercial property that foreign investors would target for attachment are the global assets of India’s public sector undertakings such as Air India.

Way forward

If India wishes to continue the case, it needs to carefully study the laws on state immunity in different jurisdictions where attachment proceedings are likely to come up.
A better option would be to admit that amending the tax law retrospectively was a mistake and comply with the international ruling.

Conclusion

At the time when India seeks to project itself as an attractive investment destination, such cases could be a setback. India needs to avoid such disputes in the future.

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Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

Explained: Shreya Singhal case that struck down Section 66A of IT Act

| Polity | Mains Paper 2: Indian Constitution - historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Shreya Singhal Case

Mains level: Section 66A

Six years after it struck down Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000, the Supreme Court earlier this month termed its continued use by law enforcement agencies of various states as “a shocking state of affairs” and sought a response from the Centre.

What did Section 66A do?

Introduced in 2008, the amendment to the IT Act, 2000, gave the government power to arrest and imprison an individual for allegedly “offensive and menacing” online posts, and was passed without discussion in Parliament.
Section 66A empowered police to make arrests over what policemen, in terms of their subjective discretion, could construe as “offensive” or “menacing” or for the purposes of causing annoyance, inconvenience, etc.
It prescribed the punishment for sending messages through a computer or any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet, and a conviction could fetch a maximum of three years in jail.
In 2015, the apex court struck down the law in the landmark case Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, calling it “open-ended and unconstitutionally vague”, and thus expanded the contours of free speech to the Internet.

Why was the law criticized?

The problem was with the vagueness about what is “offensive”.
The word having a very wide connotation was open to distinctive, varied interpretations.
It was seen as subjective, and what might have been innocuous for one person, could lead to a complaint from someone else and, consequently, an arrest arbitrarily.

So, how did 66A come under the Supreme Court’s scrutiny?

The first petition came up in the court following the arrest of two girls in Maharashtra by Thane Police in November 2012 over a Facebook post.
The girls had made comments on the shutdown of Mumbai for the funeral of a political leader.
The arrests triggered outrage from all quarters over the manner in which the cyber law was used.
The petition was filed by Shreya Singhal, then a 21-year-old law student.

What were the grounds for the challenge?

The objective behind the 2008 amendment was to prevent the misuse of information technology, particularly through social media.
The petitioners argued that Section 66A came with extremely wide parameters, which allowed whimsical interpretations by law enforcement agencies.
Most of the terms used in the section had not been specifically defined under the Act.
The law was a potential tool to gag legitimate free speech online and to curtail freedom of speech and expression guaranteed under the Constitution, going far beyond the ambit of “reasonable restrictions” on that freedom.

What did the Supreme Court decide?

In March 2015, a bench of Justices J. Chelameswar and R.F. Nariman ruled in Shreya Singhal v. Union of India declared Section 66A unconstitutional for “being violative of Article 19(1)(a) and not saved under Article 19(2).”
Article 19(1)(a) gives people the right to speech and expression whereas 19(2) accords the state the power to impose “reasonable restrictions” on the exercise of this right.
The decision was considered a landmark judicial pushback against state encroachment on the freedom of speech and expression.
The bench also read down Section 79– now at the centre of the ongoing “intermediary liability” battle between the Centre and micro-blogging platform Twitter– defining key rules for the relationship between governments and commercial internet platforms.
Section 79 says that any intermediary shall not be held legally or otherwise liable for any third party information, data, or communication link made available or hosted on its platform.

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Civil Aviation Sector – CA Policy 2016, UDAN, Open Skies, etc.

Draft Drone Rules, 2021

Bills/Act/Laws | Governance | Mains Paper 2: Bilateral, Regional and Global Groupings and agreements involving India

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Draft Drone Rules, 2021

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has released Draft Drone Rules, 2021, for public consultation. The rules will replace the Unmanned Aircraft System Rules, 2021.

Highlights of the Draft Drone Rules 2021

Number of forms: The rules propose to reduce the number of forms required for manufacturing, importing, testing, certifying and operating drones in India from 25 to six.

Abolishing authorization number: The draft seeks to abolish the unique authorisation number, unique prototype identification number, and certificate of conformance that were previously required for approval of drone flights.

Digital Sky Platform: Digital Sky, a platform launched by the government in December 2018, will become a single-window system for all approvals under the newly proposed rules.

Airspace map: An airspace map segregating the entire landmass of India into Green, Yellow and Red zones will be published on the platform within 30 days of notification of the new rules, the government said. The map will also be machine-readable through an Application Programming Interface (API) for easier plotting of drone flight paths.

Airport Perimeter: The draft rules reduced the airport perimeter from 45 km to 12 km. The rules state that no flight permissions would be required to fly up to 400 feet in green zones and up to 200 feet in the area between 8 and 12 km from the airport perimeter.

Drone corridors: The government will also publish a policy framework for Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) within 60 days of notifying the rules. This will also include frameworks for developing “drone corridors” for the safe transfer of goods by drones.

Drone Promotion Council: The Rules also propose the setting up of a Drone Promotion Council, with the aim of facilitating a business-friendly regulatory regime for drones in India, the establishment of incubators for developing drone technologies and organizing competitive events to showcase drones and counter-drone solutions.

Others: To implement safety features such as “no permission, no take-off”, real-time tracking and geofencing, drone manufacturers, importers and operators will get six months’ time to comply from the date of notification of the rules.

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Modern Indian History-Events and Personalities

When were Tilak and Gandhi tried under the Sedition Law?

Prelims Only | | Mains Paper 1: Modern Indian History

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Sedition in colonial times

Mains level: Not Much

Recently, Chief Justice of India N V Ramana observed that the “colonial law” was used by the British to silence Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak.

Must read:

Sedition Law and its discontents

Use of sedition law through history

According to the LOC blog, the first known instance of the application of the law was the trial of newspaper editor Jogendra Chandra Bose in 1891.
Other prominent examples of the application of the law include the trials of Tilak and Gandhi.
Apart from this, Jawaharlal Nehru, Abul Kalam Azad and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar were also charged with sedition.

When was sedition law used against Gandhi and Tilak?

In 1922, Gandhi was arrested on charges of sedition in Bombay for taking part in protests against the colonial government.
He was sentenced to six years in prison but was released after two years because of medical reasons.
Before Gandhi, Tilak faced three trials in cases related to sedition and was imprisoned twice.
He was charged with sedition in 1897 for writing an article in his weekly publication called Kesari and was sentenced to 12 months imprisonment.
He has tried again in 1908 and was represented by MA Jinnah. But his application for bail was rejected and he was sentenced to six years.
The second time he was tried was also because of his writings, one of which referred to the murder of European women in Muzzafarpur when bombs were thrown by Bengali revolutionaries.
Interestingly, the judge who announced Tilak’s sentence in the second trial, Justice DD Davar, had represented him in his first trial in 1897.

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Digital India Initiatives

[pib] Kisan Sarathi Platform

PIB | Agriculture | Mains Paper 3: E-Technology In The Aid Of Farmers

In order to facilitate farmers to get ‘right information at right time’ in their desired language, a digital platform namely ‘Kisan Sarathi’ was launched by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

Kisan Sarathi

This digital platform empowers farmers with the technological interventions to reach farmers in remote areas.
Through this platform, the farmers can interact and avail personalized advisories on agriculture and allied areas directly from the respective scientists of Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVKs).
Using this platform, farmers can get information about crop and crop production, among other things that will help them in improving the quantity of their produce.
Farmers will be able to get information about good crop practices, the right amount of products and many other basic things.

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Police Reforms – SC directives, NPC, other committees reports

Interference an investigating officer can do without

op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Not much

Mains level: Paper 2- Judicial interference in investigation

Context

Instances of judiciary directing the investigating officer point to the need for restraint from the judiciary.

Challenging the discretion of investigating officer

There have been growing instances of subordinate judicial officers, and even High Courts sometimes, directing the investigating officer to effect the arrest of a particular individual.
To deal with the issue, the Supreme Court of India recently made the observation that courts have no authority to direct an investigating officer to in turn direct the arrest of any particular individual connected with a crime
This points to the need for a slightly kindlier view of police conduct and more latitude to them in the standard operating procedures which they follow, especially when they investigate a complicated crime.
The Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC) vests sufficient discretion in the investigating officer to take such decisions as arrests and searches.

Issues with court’s directions

Court observations that smack of a lack of faith in police ability and integrity will make grass-root level policemen even more arbitrary than now and force them into carrying out questionable actions that will cast aspersions on an officer’s ability to think for himself.
Court interference in the day-to-day investigation is not only undesirable but is also not sanctioned by law.
Only the Supreme Court, has been vested with enormous authority and discretion by the Constitution, the lesser courts shall not give directions in the matter of arrests and searches.

Safeguard against police misconduct

We need to educate the Executive and the common man that it is now well-established law that the police have to register an FIR.
It is mandatory that every police station in the land should register a complaint under the relevant sections of a statute the moment a cognisable offence is made out in the complaint
There is another safeguard against police misconduct.
The CrPC makes it obligatory for the investigating officer to write a diary that details the action taken every day following registration.
When in doubt, the competent court, which already has a copy of the first information report, can demand to see the case diary.
Courts should remember that the police are a well-established hierarchy that is obligated to ensure objectivity during a criminal investigation.
Every investigation is supervised by at least two immediate senior officers.

Conclusion

Judicial interference in an investigation is counterproductive to the idea of justice. Therefore, there is a need for allowing more freedom to the investigating officers in the standard operating procedure that they follow.

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Addressing claims of backwardness by various politically powerful castes

op-ed snap | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary,Government Scheme/Policies

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Social backwardness

Mains level: Paper 2- Claim of backwardness and challenges

Context

Two rulings of the Supreme Court have frayed nerves in Maharashtra on the broader question of “reservation”. The other pertains to OBC reservation in local bodies. Both issues have relevance beyond Maharashtra.

Challenges in addressing the demand for reservation

Lack of quantitative data: The issue of actual numbers or population share of OBCs has been talked about for over a decade.
Besides, there is a need to understand the socio-economic situation of different backward communities.
In the last instance, we have to decide which groups are backward and what needs to be done for them.
The political class have consistently avoided the juridical reality.

Consensus between judiciary and political class

That consensus after implementation of Mandal commission recommendation had three dimensions:
1) Accepting that caste is the main cause of tradition-born backwardness among a large section of the population.
2) Resorting to “reservation” as the easiest policy response.
3) Recognising and accommodating the political aspirations of the backward sections by expanding the social base of the political elite.
But this resulted in the current deadlock on the question of social justice.
Today, not only the Marathas, but Jats and Patidars, too, claim that vast numbers among them have been left behind in the contemporary economy.
These demands have deflected attention from two matters.
1) That the enabling provision of the Constitution aims at social backwardness (caused by societal location).
2) That the causes of economic distress originating in development policies are distinct from backwardness primarily originating in caste location.
Granting reservations on an economic basis seems to have complicated matters.

Five reservation-related issues gaining renewed urgency

Intra-OBC differentiations: This issue was already raised by a member of the Mandal Commission itself.
Most states have failed to come up with an effective arrangement to addressing the issue.
The Centre is currently waiting for a report on this question.
Intra-caste stratification: Intra-caste stratification is increasing — something that was rather limited at the time of Mandal.
What sociologist D L Sheth called as classification is now becoming the central issue, with many complications.
Advantages and logic: The third question is about the specific advantages and logic of reservation in the three different arenas of employment, education and political representation.
Limits of reservation: There is need to discuss the limits of reservation and the need to think of additional measures to augment the policy of social justice.
Setting boundaries: With such widespread poverty and suffering, how do we distinguish between backwardness primarily caused by a group’s social location in traditional social order and backwardness resulting from distortions of the political economy?
Unless we grapple with this question, reservation is bound to remain a contentious issue.

Way forward

The above questions are best left ideally to a third backward classes commission whose time has come.
Removing the 50 per cent cap legislatively needs to be considered.

Conclusion

We need to devise a mechanism to verify the claims of backwardness to address the increasing demands for reservation from the politically strong section of society.

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Foreign Policy Watch: India-Afghanistan

Explained: India’s Afghan investment

| International Relations | Mains Paper 2: India & Its Neighborhood - Relations

Note4Students

From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :

Prelims level: Read the attached story

Mains level: India-Afghan relations

As the Taliban push ahead with military offensives across Afghanistan, preparing to take over after the exit of US and NATO forces, India faces a situation in which it may lose all its stakes.

India-Afghan ties

After a break between 1996 and 2001, when India joined the world in shunning the previous Taliban regime (only Pakistan, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia kept ties).
One-way New Delhi re-established ties with the country in the two decades after the 9/11 attacks was to pour in development assistance, under the protective umbrella of the US presence.
India built vital roads, dams, electricity transmission lines and substations, schools and hospitals, etc. India’s development assistance is now estimated to be worth well over $3 billion.
And unlike in other countries where India’s infrastructure projects have barely got off the ground or are mired in the host nation’s politics, it has delivered in Afghanistan.

A soft corner

Afghanistan is vital to India’s strategic interests in the region.
It is also perhaps the only SAARC nation whose people have much affection for India.
Taliban takeover would mean a reversal of nearly 20 years of rebuilding a relationship that goes back centuries.

Projects across the country

[1] SALMA DAM

Already, there has been fighting in the area where one of India’s high-visibility projects is located — the 42MW Salma Dam in Herat province.
The hydropower and irrigation project, completed against many odds and inaugurated in 2016, is known as the Afghan-India Friendship Dam.
In the past few weeks, the Taliban have mounted attacks in nearby places, killing several security personnel.
The Taliban claim the area around the dam is now under their control.

[2] ZARANJ-DELARAM HIGHWAY

The other high-profile project was the 218-km Zaranj-Delaram highway built by the Border Roads Organisation. Zaranj is located close to Afghanistan’s border with Iran.
With Pakistan denying India overland access for trade with Afghanistan, the highway is of strategic importance to New Delhi, as it provides an alternative route into landlocked Afghanistan through Iran’s Chabahar port.

[3] AFGHAN PARLIAMENT

The Afghan Parliament in Kabul was built by India at $90 million.
It was opened in 2015; PM Modi inaugurated the building.
A block in the building is named after former PM AB Vajpayee.

[4] STOR PALACE

In 2016, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and PM Modi inaugurated the restored Stor Palace in Kabul, originally built in the late 19th century.
It is famous for the 1919 Rawalpindi Agreement by which Afghanistan became an independent country.

[5] POWER INFRA

Other Indian projects in Afghanistan include the rebuilding of power infrastructure such as the 220kV DC transmission line from Pul-e-Khumri, the capital of Baghlan province to the north of Kabul.
Indian contractors and workers also restored telecommunications infrastructure in many provinces.

[6] HEALTH INFRA

India has reconstructed a children’s hospital it had helped build in Kabul in 1972 —named Indira Gandhi Institute for Child Health in 1985 — that was in shambles after the war.
‘Indian Medical Missions’ have held free consultation camps in several areas.
Thousands who lost their limbs after stepping on mines left over from the war have been fitted with the Jaipur Foot.
India has also built clinics in the border provinces of Badakhshan, Balkh, Kandahar, Khost, Kunar, Nangarhar, Nimruz, Nooristan, Paktia and Paktika.

[7] TRANSPORTATION

According to the MEA, India gifted 400 buses and 200 mini-buses for urban transportation, 105 utility vehicles for municipalities, 285 military vehicles for the Afghan Army.
It also gave three Air India aircraft to Ariana, the Afghan national carrier, when it was restarting operations.

[8] OTHER PROJECTS

India has contributed desks and benches for schools, and built solar panels in remote villages, and Sulabh toilet blocks in Kabul.
New Delhi has also played a role in building capacity, with vocational training institutes, scholarships to Afghan students, mentoring programmes in the civil service, and training for doctors and others.

Various ongoing project

India had concluded with Afghanistan an agreement for the construction of the Shatoot Dam in Kabul district, which would provide safe drinking water to 2 million residents.
Last year, India pledged $1 million for another Aga Khan heritage project, the restoration of the Bala Hissar Fort south of Kabul, whose origins go back to the 6th century.
Bala Hissar went on to become a significant Mughal fort, parts of it were rebuilt by Jahangir, and it was used as a residence by Shah Jahan.

Bilateral trade

Despite the denial of an overland route by Pakistan, the India-Afghanistan trade has grown with the establishment in 2017 of an air freight corridor.
In 2019-20, bilateral trade crossed $1.3 billion.
The balance of trade is heavily tilted — exports from India are worth approximately $900 million, while Afghanistan’s exports to India are about $500 million.
Afghan exports are mainly fresh and dried fruit.
Some of this comes overland through the Wagah border; Pakistan has permitted Afghan trade with India through its territory.
Indian exports to Afghanistan take place mainly through government-to-government contracts with Indian companies.
Exports include pharmaceuticals, medical equipment, computers and related materials, cement, and sugar.
Trade through Chabahar started in 2017 but is restricted by the absence of connectivity from the port to the Afghan border.

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