Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Juvenile Justice Act, 2015
Mains level: Key provisions of Juvenile Justice Act
The Union Cabinet has approved a slew of amendments to the Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015.
What are the key features of Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2015? Discuss the proposed amendments by the WCD ministry.
Juvenile Justice Act, 2015
- The JJ Act, 2015 replaced the Indian juvenile delinquency law, Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) Act, 2000.
- It allows for juveniles in conflict with Law in the age group of 16–18, involved in Heinous Offences, to be tried as adults.
- The Act also sought to create a universally accessible adoption law for India.
- The Act came into force from 15 January 2016.
Key features
- Change in nomenclature from ‘juvenile’ to ‘child’ or ‘child in conflict with law’, across the Act to remove the negative connotation associated with the word “juvenile”
- Inclusion of several new definitions such as orphaned, abandoned and surrendered children; and petty, serious and heinous offences committed by children;
- The Act mandates setting up Juvenile Justice Boards and Child Welfare Committees in every district. Both must have at least one woman member each.
- Special provisions for heinous offences committed by children above the age of sixteen years – Under Section 15, special provisions have been made to tackle child offenders committing heinous offences in the age group of 16-18 years (in response to the juvenile convict in Nirbhaya Case).
- Separate new chapter on Adoption to streamline adoption of orphan, abandoned and surrendered children – To streamline adoption procedures for orphan, abandoned and surrendered children, the existing Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) is given the status of a statutory body.
- Inclusion of new offences committed against children – Sale and procurement of children for any purpose including illegal adoption, corporal punishment in child care institutions, use of child by militant groups, offences against disabled children and, kidnapping and abduction of children.
- Penalties for cruelty against a child– offering a narcotic substance to a child, and abduction or selling a child has been prescribed.
- Mandatory registration of Child Care Institutions
What are the news amendments?
The amendments are aimed at strengthening the Child Protection set-up to ensure the best interest of children.
(A) More powers to the DM
- These include empowering the DMs and the additional DMs to monitor the functioning of agencies responsible for implementing the JJ Act.
- The District Child Protection Units will function under the DMs.
(B) Evaluating shelter homes
- Before someone sets up a shelter home for children and sends their proposal for registration under the JJ Act to the State, a DM will have to assess their capacity and conduct a background check.
- A DM could also independently evaluate the functioning of the Child Welfare Committee, Special Juvenile Protection Units and registered childcare institutes, the Minister stated.
(C) Members of committees
- The proposed amendments also define the eligibility parameters for the appointment of members of the Child Welfare Committees.
- These committees are tasked to decide on children in need of care and protection and mandate their background checks.
(D) Definition of Children
- It is also proposed to expand the definition of children in need of care and protection and include those children who have been victims of trafficking or drug abuse or child labour.
- It would also include those children who have been abandoned by their guardians.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: XR
Mains level: Climate activism
Delhi Police have named some environmental activists who are volunteers of a global environment movement seeking to call attention to the climate change emergency, in the Greta Thunberg ‘toolkit’ case.
Q.Climate activism is increasingly turning into a propaganda movement. Discuss.
What is Extinction Rebellion?
- The global movement Extinction Rebellion also referred to as ‘XR’, describes itself as a decentralized, international and politically non-partisan movement using non-violent direct action and civil disobedience.
- It aims to persuade governments to act justly on the Climate and Ecological Emergency.
- XR was launched in the UK on October 31, 2018, as a response to a report by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
- It had then declared that we only have 12 years to stop catastrophic climate change and our understanding that we have entered the 6th mass extinction event.
- The movement now has a presence in 75 countries, including India.
What does XR want?
- The group has “three core demands” of governments around the world.
- It wants governments to “Tell the Truth”, to “Act Now”, and to “Go Beyond Politics” in order to confront the climate and ecological emergency that the world is faced with.
- It wants them to communicate the urgency to bring change, and reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net-zero by 2025.
- XR seeks to “rebel”, and asks groups to “self-organise”, without the need for anyone’s permission, to come up with collective action plans as long as they adhere to the group’s core principles and values.
What activities have XR done so far?
- The group had announced a “Declaration of Rebellion” at launch, involving a public act of civil disobedience in London, demanding that the government reduce carbon emission to zero by 2025.
- The eventual plan was to coordinate actions in other countries and to engage in an “International Rebellion” in March 2019.
- The XR global website, however, states that the movement is “strictly non-violent”, and that they are “reluctant law-breakers”.
- In April 2019, Greta Thunberg, the teenage Swedish climate activist, lent her support to the group by speaking to its members in London.
XR and India
- The movement claims to have been inspired by 15 major civil disobedience movements around the world, including, apart from Women’s Suffrage and the Arab Spring, India’s struggle for Independence.
- It refers to Mahatma Gandhi’s Salt March in 1930.
- XR’s website says there are 19 groups in the country, including in the cities of Mumbai, Pune, Delhi, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Kolkata, and Chennai.
Recent events
- One of the group’s early public events was a “die-in” protest organised at Bandra Reclamation in Mumbai in October 2019.
- Participants at “die-in” protests lie on the ground, pretending to be dead.
- Since the city was already seeing protests against the felling of trees at Aarey Colony for the Metro crashed, police did not grant permission for the “die-in” protest.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NHEM
Mains level: Hydrogen as clean fuel
Recently, the Finance Minister in her budget speech formally announced the National Hydrogen Energy Mission which aims for generation of hydrogen from green power resources.
Background
- With this announcement, India has made an uncharacteristically early entry in the race to tap the energy potential of the most abundant element in the universe, hydrogen.
- The proposal in the Budget will be followed up with a mission draft over the next couple of months — a roadmap for using hydrogen as an energy source.
- The mission would have a specific focus on green hydrogen, dovetailing India’s growing renewable capacity with the hydrogen economy.
Hydrogen as an element
- The most common element in nature is not found freely.
- Hydrogen exists only combined with other elements and has to be extracted from naturally occurring compounds like water (which is a combination of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom).
- Although hydrogen is a clean molecule, the process of extracting it is energy-intensive.
- The sources and processes, by which hydrogen is derived, are categorised by colour tabs.
Its types as fuel
- Hydrogen produced from fossil fuels is called grey hydrogen; this constitutes the bulk of the hydrogen produced today.
- Hydrogen generated from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage options is called blue hydrogen; hydrogen generated entirely from renewable power sources is called green hydrogen.
- In the last process, electricity generated from renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.
Hydrogen for mobility
- While proposed end-use sectors include steel and chemicals, the major industry that hydrogen has the potential of transforming is transportation.
- This sector contributes a third of all greenhouse gas emissions, and where hydrogen is being seen as a direct replacement of fossil fuels, with specific advantages over traditional EVs.
- Hydrogen fuel cell cars have a near-zero carbon footprint.
- Hydrogen is about two to three times as efficient as burning petrol because an electric chemical reaction is much more efficient than combustion.
We already had H-CNG!
- In October 2020, Delhi became the first Indian city to operate buses running on hydrogen spiked compressed natural gas (H-CNG) in a six-month pilot project.
- The buses will run on a new technology patented by Indian Oil Corp for producing H-CNG — 18 per cent hydrogen in CNG — directly from natural gas, without resorting to conventional blending.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2019:
In the context of proposals to the use of hydrogen-enriched CNG (H-CNG) as fuel for buses in public transport, consider the following statements :
1. The main advantage of the use of H-CNG is the elimination of carbon monoxide emissions.
2. H-CNG as a fuel reduces carbon dioxide and hydrocarbon emissions.
3. Hydrogen up to one-fifth by volume can be blended with CNG as fuel for buses.
4. H-CNG makes the fuel less expensive than CNG.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Green hydrogen has specific advantages
- One, it is a clean-burning molecule, which can decarbonize a range of sectors including iron and steel, chemicals, and transportation.
- Two, renewable energy that cannot be stored or used by the grid can be channelled to produce hydrogen.
- This is what the government’s Hydrogen Energy Mission, to be launched in 2021-22, aims for.
Philosophy behind NHEM
- India’s electricity grid is predominantly coal-based and will continue to be so.
- In several countries that have gone in for an EV push, much of the electricity is generated from renewables — in Norway for example, it is 99 per cent from hydroelectric power.
- Experts believe hydrogen vehicles can be especially effective in long-haul trucking and other hard-to-electrify sectors such as shipping and long-haul air travel.
- Using heavy batteries in these applications would be counterproductive, especially for countries such as India, where the electricity grid is predominantly coal-fired.
Back2Basics: How hydrogen fuel cells work?
- Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source of energy.
- Hydrogen fuel must be transformed into electricity by a device called a fuel cell stack before it can be used to power a car or truck.
- A fuel cell converts chemical energy into electrical energy using oxidizing agents through an oxidation-reduction reaction.
- Inside each individual fuel cell, hydrogen is drawn from an onboard pressurized tank and made to react with a catalyst, usually made from platinum.
- As the hydrogen passes through the catalyst, it is stripped of its electrons, which are forced to move along an external circuit, producing an electrical current.
- This current is used by the electric motor to power the vehicle, with the only byproduct being water vapour.
Issues with H-Fuel cells
- A big barrier to the adoption of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles has been a lack of fuelling station infrastructure.
- There are fewer than 500 operational hydrogen stations in the world today, mostly in Europe, followed by Japan and South Korea.
- Safety is seen as a concern. Hydrogen is pressurized and stored in a cryogenic tank, from there it is fed to a lower-pressure cell and put through an electrochemical reaction to generate electricity.
- Scaling up the technology and achieving critical mass remains the big challenge.
- More vehicles on the road and more supporting infrastructure can lower costs. India’s proposed mission is seen as a step in that direction.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PLI scheme and various sectors
Mains level: Make in India promotions
The Union Cabinet has approved the production-linked incentive scheme for the telecom sector with an outlay of ₹12,195 crores over five years.
Why such a scheme?
- The scheme aims to make India a global hub for manufacturing telecom equipment.
- The sector is expected to lead to an incremental production of about ₹2.4 lakh crore, with exports of about ₹2 lakh crore over five years and bring in investments of more than ₹3,000 crores.
PLI Scheme
- The PLI scheme aims to boost domestic manufacturing and cut down on imports by providing cash incentives on incremental sales from products manufactured in the country.
- Besides inviting foreign companies to set shop in India, the scheme aims to encourage local companies to set up or expand, existing manufacturing units.
UPSC can directly as the sectors included in the PLI scheme. Earlier it was only meant for Electronics manufacturing (particularly mobile phones).
Benefits for MSMEs
- For inclusion of MSMEs in the scheme, the minimum investment threshold has been kept at ₹10 crores, while for others it is ₹100 crore.
- For MSMEs, a 1% higher incentive is also proposed in the first three years.
Employment generation
- The scheme was also likely to generate 40,000 direct and indirect employment opportunities and generate tax revenue of ₹17,000 crores from telecom equipment manufacturing.
Which equipments?
- The telecom manufacturing would include core transmission equipment, 4G/5G Radio Access Network and wireless equipment, access and Customer Premises Equipment (CPE), IoT access devices, other wireless equipment.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with vaccine hesitancy
Reluctance to take the vaccine has several implications. The misinformation around the vaccines needs to be fought through several measures.
Understanding vaccine hesitancy
- According to the World Health Organization, vaccine hesitancy is defined as a reluctance or refusal to vaccinate despite the availability of vaccine services.
- To date, two vaccines have been approved for inoculation in India: Pune-based Serum Institute’s Covishield and Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech’s Covaxin.
- An adequate supply of vaccines is in place at least for the first phase, but the trickier part is to persuade the population for vaccination.
- Like Western nations, vaccine hesitancy has been a cause of concern in the past in India as well.
- Social media has seen a rising number of self-proclaimed experts who have been making unsubstantiated claims.
- The debates around hesitancy for COVID-19 vaccines include concerns over safety, efficacy, and side effects due to the record-breaking timelines of the vaccines, competition among several companies, misinformation, and religious taboos.
Need to adopt libertarian paternalism
- It is suggested that we adopt the idea of libertarian paternalism, which says it is possible and legitimate to steer people’s behaviour towards vaccination while still respecting their freedom of choice.
- Vaccine hesitancy has a different manifestation in India, unlike in the West.
- According to the World Economic Forum/Ipsos global survey, COVID-19 vaccination intent in India, at 87%, exceeds the global 15-country average of 73%.
Way forward
- Instead of anti-vaxxers, the target audience must be the swing population i.e., people who are sceptical but can be persuaded through scientific facts and proper communication.
- The second measure is to pause before you share any ‘news’ from social media.
- It becomes crucial to inculcate the habit of inquisitive temper to fact-check any news related to COVID-19 vaccines.
- The third measure is to use the celebrity effect — the ability of prominent personalities to influence others to take vaccines.
- Celebrities can add glamour and an element of credibility to mass vaccinations both on the ground and on social media.
Consider the question “What is vaccine hesitancy? Suggest the measures to deal with it”
Conclusion
The infodemic around vaccines can be tackled only by actively debunking myths, misinformation and fake news on COVID-19 vaccines.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Mains level: Paper 3-
The article argues for consideration of the regional variation in the conditions of farmers and their concerns in the context of recently introduced farm laws.
Argument against diversification
- In Punjab, Haryana and western UP, minimum support price (MSP)-based agriculture has a logic.
- Not all regions must diversify.
- The region has great alluvial soil, good irrigation and almost a century-long tradition of the application of science to agriculture.
- In south Punjab, with less irrigation, and parts of Haryana not covered by the Indira Gandhi Canal, some diversification to pulses, cotton etc. could work but the solid specialisation in this region remains.
Issue of middlemen
- Arhtiyas (middlemen) are important in Indian agricultural markets.
- They are a part of the supply chain in north-west India.
- Here they are not like the middlemen elsewhere.
- They function simply as agents of the procurement agencies.
- This was done by the past government to reduce overhead costs of procurement.
Steps need to be taken
- The e-markets, forwards and farmer-managed companies are not the dominant mode of rural organisations.
- Agriculture is the one good sector in otherwise dismal year.
- So, we need to strengthen it, not feed off on its glory, even outside north-west India.
- We have the largest spread of agricultural markets in the world according to spatial maps.
- But they are not APMCs.
- With weak markets (outside of grains) and without first-stage processing and other infrastructure, the farmer knows he is at the mercy of the trader and comes out on the streets when that is not understood.
Evolution of MSP
- The MSP played a crucial role in the days of compulsory procurement and zonal restrictions.
- Each crop had its own report then.
- Later separate reports were replaced by two reports, one for kharif and another one for rabi, apart from one for sugarcane (an annual crop).
- The 1982 rabi report stated that relative prices and, in that context, MSP had the role of an intervention mechanism when markets failed, outside the compulsory procurement area.
- Later, the concept of transport costs and managerial costs became important.
Way forward
- The Essential Commodities Act should be ditched.
- Good laws are good because progress starts with them, but not all laws are good everywhere.
- A modified version of the laws with a roadmap can be on the agenda — not everywhere, but most places outside the lands of the five rivers.
Conclusion
The amended laws should be considered in the context of regional variation in the country and necessary changes should be made to address the concerns of the farmers.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Finance Commission
Mains level: Paper 2- Recommendations of Fifteenth Finance Commission
The article analyses the various recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission and their impact.
Unique challenges
- Many new and unique demands were placed on the 15th Finance Commission.
- The major challenge being addressing the issue of the 2011 population census evoking a sharp response from the southern states.
- Other issues include the non-lapsable defence fund and the use of certain parameters for performance incentives.
- The Commission was also required to perform the task of assessing and projecting the fiscal roadmap for the Union and state amid an uncertain domestic environment due to shortfall in the GST collection, further accentuated in the year 2020 by the global pandemic.
Key recommendations
The Commission, in its final report, recommended vertical devolution at 41 per cent, adjusting 1 per cent for the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir.
1) Horizontal distribution
- For horizontal distribution, the commission has tried to harmonise the principles of expenditure needs, equity and performance.
- This is achieved by the introduction of efficiency criteria of tax and fiscal efforts and by assigning 12.5 per cent weight to demographic performance.
- Consideration of demographic performance will help in resolving the demographic debate and incentivising states in moving towards the replacement rate of population growth.
2) Principles governing grant-in-aid
- Grants are important as they are more directly targeted and equalise the standards of basic social services to some extent.
- The Commission has recommended a total grant of Rs 10,33,062 crore during 2021-26.
- Grant is broadly characterised into: (a) revenue deficit grants (b) grants for local governments (c) grants for disaster management (d) sector-specific grants and (e) state-specific grants.
- Many of these grants are linked with performance-based criteria, thereby promoting principles of transparency, accountability, and leading to better monitoring of expenditures.
- However, the Commission was asked to examine whether revenue deficit grants should be provided at all to the states.
- Some states stressed that revenue deficit grants have serious disincentives for tax efforts and prudence in expenditure and, hence, these should be discontinued.
- Fiscally stressed states of Kerala, West Bengal and Punjab are regular recipients of these grants due to high debt legacy.
3) Conditional grants to local bodies
- This Commission’s grant for local government is different from that of its predecessors for the set of entry-level conditions:
- (a) Constitution of State Finance Commissions.
- (b) Timely auditing and online availability of accounts for rural local bodies coupled with
- (c) Notifying consistent growth rate for property tax revenue for urban local bodies.
- Secondly, the recommendations are in alignment with the national programmes of Swachch Bharat Mission and Jal Jeewan Mission.
4) Incubation of new cities and urban grants
- It is for the first time that a Finance Commission has recommended Rs 8,000 crore to states for incubation of new cities, granting Rs 1,000 crore each for eight new cities.
- The focus of urban grants for million-plus cities is improvement in air quality and meeting the service level benchmark of solid waste management and sanitation.
5) Grants for health and setting up of disaster mitigation fund
- The commission recommended channelising the health grant of Rs 70,051 crore through local bodies, addressing the gaps in primary health infrastructure.
- The Commission’s recommendation for setting up the state and national level Disaster Risk Mitigation Fund (SDRMF), in line with the provisions of the Disaster Management Act, is both well-timed and necessary.
- For the first time, the Finance Commission has introduced a 10-25 per cent graded cost-sharing basis by the states for the NDRF and NDMF which has not been appreciated by the states.
6) Non-lapsable fund for defence
- The Commission has recommended setting up of a dedicated non-lapsable fund, the Modernisation Fund for Defence and Internal Security (MFDIS).
- Objective of the fund is to bridge the gap between projected budgetary requirements and budget allocation for defence and internal security and to provide greater predictability for enabling critical defence capital expenditure.
- The fund will have four specific sources: (a) Transfers from the Consolidated Fund of India, (b) disinvestment proceeds of DPSEs, (c) proceeds from the monetisation of surplus defence land and (d) proceeds of receipts from defence land likely to be transferred to state governments and for public projects in the future.
- The total indicative size of the proposed MFDIS over the period 2021-26 is Rs 2,38,354 crore.
- The Union government has accepted this recommendation in principle.
Consider the question “Examine the various principles on which the Fifteenth Finance Commission based the horizontal distribution of states share.”
Conclusion
The report starts with the famous quote of Mahatma Gandhi: “The future depends on what we do in the present”. It would be interesting to see the impact of these overarching and revolutionary recommendations in the times ahead.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: New York Convention
Mains level: Not Much
Cairn Energy has filed a case in a U.S. district court to enforce a $1.2 billion arbitration award it won in a tax dispute against India. Cairn aims to enforce the award under international arbitration rules, commonly called the New York Convention.
New York Convention
- The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards is commonly known as the New York Convention.
- It was adopted by a UN diplomatic conference on 10 June 1958 and entered into force on 7 June 1959.
- It requires courts of contracting states to give effect to private agreements to arbitrate and to recognize and enforce arbitration awards made in other contracting states.
- Widely considered the foundational instrument for international arbitration, it applies to arbitrations that are not considered domestic awards in the state where recognition and enforcement are sought.
What was the case?
- The Indian government has lost an international arbitration case to energy giant Cairn Plc over the retrospective levy of taxes and has been asked to pay damages worth $1.2 billion to the UK firm.
- The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague has maintained that the Cairn tax issue is not a tax dispute but a tax-related investment dispute and, hence, it falls under its jurisdiction.
- India’s demand in past taxes, it said, was in breach of fair treatment under the UK-India Bilateral Investment Treaty.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MBT Arjun
Mains level: India's artillery capability
PM has recently handed over the indigenously developed Arjun Main Battle Tank (MK-1A) to the Indian Army.
Q.Discuss India’s preparedness for high-altitude warfare.
Arjun Main Battle Tank
- The Arjun Main Battle Tank project was initiated by DRDO in 1972 with the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) as its lead laboratory.
- The objective was to create a “state-of-the-art tank with superior firepower, high mobility, and excellent protection”.
- During the development, the CVRDE achieved breakthroughs in the engine, transmission, hydro-pneumatic suspension, hull and turret as well as the gun control system.
- Mass production began in 1996 at the Indian Ordnance Factory’s production facility in Avadi, Tamil Nadu.
Features of the Arjun tank
- The Arjun tanks stand out for their ‘Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS)’ ammunition and 120-mm calibre rifled gun.
- It also has a computer-controlled integrated fire control system with a stabilised sighting that works in all lighting conditions.
- The secondary weapons include a co-axial 7.62-mm machine gun for anti-personnel and a 12.7-mm machine gun for anti-aircraft and ground targets.
How is Mk-1A different?
- The Mk-1A version has 14 major upgrades on the earlier version.
- It is also supposed to have missile firing capability as per the design, but this feature will be added later as final testing of the capability is still on.
- However, the biggest achievement with the latest version is 54.3 per cent indigenous content against the 41 per cent in the earlier model.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mahabahu-Brahmaputra
Mains level: Infrastructure in NE
PM will launch the ‘Mahabahu-Brahmaputra’, lay the foundation stone of Dhubri Phulbari Bridge and perform Bhumi Pujan for construction of Majuli Bridge Assam.
Click here to read all North-East related news.
Mahabahu-Brahmaputra
- The program is aimed at providing seamless connectivity to the Eastern parts of India and includes various development activities for the people living around River Brahmaputra and River Barak.
- It will consist of the Ro-Pax vessel operations between Neamati-Majuli Island, North Guwahati-South Guwahati and Dhubri-Hatsingimari.
- The Ro-Pax services will help in reducing the travel time by providing connectivity between banks and thus reducing the distance to be travelled by road.
- PANI (Portal for Asset and Navigation Information) will act as a one-stop solution for providing information about river navigation and infrastructure.
Dhubri Phulbari Bridge
- PMwill lay the foundation stone for the four-lane bridge over the Brahmaputra between Dhubri (on North Bank) and Phulbari (on South Bank).
- The proposed Bridge will be located on NH-127B, originating from Srirampur on NH-27 (East-West Corridor), and terminating at Nongstoin on NH-106 in the State of Meghalaya.
- It will connect Dhubri in Assam to Phulbari, Tura, Rongram and Rongjeng in Meghalaya.
- It will reduce the distance of 205 Km to be travelled by Road to 19 Km, which is the total length of the bridge.
Majuli Bridge
- PM will perform Bhumi Pujan for the two-lane Bridge on the Brahmaputra between Majuli (North Bank) and Jorhat (South Bank).
- The bridge will be located on NH-715K and will connect Neematighat (on Jorhat side) and Kamalabari (on Majuli side).
- The Construction of the bridge has been a long demand of the people of Majuli who for generations have been dependent on the ferry services to connect with the mainland of Assam.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ISDS
Mains level: Paper 3- Termination of BITs and its implications for India
The article examine the termination of agreement for the development of East Container Terminal by Sri Lanka in the context of unilateral termination of bilateral investment treaties by India.
Context
- Recently, Sri Lanka terminated 2019 agreement with India and Japan that aimed to jointly develop the strategic East Container Terminal (ECT) at the Colombo port.
- Apart from analysing the diplomatic fallout of this problematic decision for India-Sri Lanka ties, the issue also needs to be looked at through the prism of the India-Sri Lanka bilateral investment treaty (BIT).
India-Sri Lanka BIT and its termination
- In 1997, India and Sri Lanka signed a BIT to promote and protect foreign investment in each other’s territories.
- It empowers individual foreign investors to directly sue the host state before an international tribunal if the investor believes that the host state has breached its treaty obligations.
- This is known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
- Article 3(2) of this treaty provides that investments and returns of investors of each country shall, at all times, be accorded fair and equitable treatment (FET) in the other country’s territory.
- The normative content of the FET provision has been fleshed out by scores of ISDS tribunals in the last two decades.
- The tribunals have persistently held that an important component of the FET provision is that the host state should protect the legitimate expectations of foreign investors.
- In a case known as International Thunderbird Gaming Corporation v Mexico, it was held that the concept of legitimate expectations relates to a situation where the host state’s conduct creates reasonable and justifiable expectations on the part of an investor (or investment) to act in reliance on said conduct, such that a failure to honour those expectations could cause the investor (or investment) to suffer damages.
- Sri Lanka, by signing the agreement to jointly develop the ECT at the Colombo port, created such expectations on the part of Indian investors.
- However, the twist in the tale is that India unilaterally terminated the India-Sri Lanka BIT on March 22, 2017.
- This termination was part of the mass repudiation of BITs that India undertook in 2017 as a result of several ISDS claims being brought against it.
- In cases of such unilateral termination, survival clauses in BITs assume significance because they ensure that foreign investment continues to receive protection during the survival period.
- But, in the case of the investment in developing the ECT at the Colombo port, this survival clause will be inconsequential, since the agreement was signed in 2019, i.e., after India unilaterally terminated the BIT.
Important lessons
- As a consequence of the onslaught of ISDS claims in the last few years, India has developed a protectionist approach towards BITs.
- However, an important attribute that perhaps has not received much attention is that BITs are reciprocal.
- BITs do not empower merely foreign investors to sue India, but also authorise Indian investors to make use of BITs to safeguard their investment in turbulent foreign markets.
- Accordingly, given India’s emergence as an exporter, and not just an importer of capital, the government should revisit its stand on BITs.
Consider the question “Examine the implications of unilateral termination of bilateral investment treaties(BITs) by India.”
Conlcusion
India needs to adopt a balanced approach towards BITs with an effective ISDS provision. This will facilitate Indian investors in defending their investment under international law should a country, like Sri Lanka, renege on an agreement.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vivad se Vishwas scheme
Mains level: Paper 3- Measures adopted for increasing transparency and compliance in taxation.
Article explains the measures adopted in the Budget 2021-22 for increasing compliance and transparency.
Maintaining the status quo
- COVID-19 has upset fiscal maths around the world.
- It is in this context that the Union budget assumed significance this year.
- The expectations of tax breaks were rife on the presumption that this could boost economic activity.
- Whereas others called for a tax on stock market gains.
- Unyielding to such requests, the budget was based on a pragmatic approach to maintain the status quo.
Why higher tax rates would not help much
- Nearly 60 per cent of corporate taxes are paid by the 0.06 per cent of the companies belonging to the top income bracket.
- On the other hand, among individual taxpayers, only 0.17 per cent report taxable incomes above Rs 25 lakh.
- Therefore, higher taxes would either yield little revenue or adversely affect economic activity.
Need to shift focus to compliance and greater transparency
- For increasing compliance and transparency, significant proposals have been made:
- 1) Limited the window for reopening the case to 3 years.
- 2) The introduction of the requirement for an assessment officer to provide facts on the basis of which he/she re-assesses.
- 3) The faceless Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).
- By making the process of assessment faceless the major causes for litigation are addressed.
- The limited window of re-opening cases for small taxpayers and due consideration of risk management strategy and the CAG’s observations in carrying out such assessments marks an improvement in the process.
Dispute resolution mechanism with better interface
- The Vivad se Vishwas scheme was launched in 2020 to address piling litigation and it is reported that collections under this scheme have been Rs 85,000 crore for 1,10,000 taxpayers.
- This is a small fraction as compared to the Rs 4.34 lakh crore in corporate taxes and Rs 4.49 lakh crore in income taxes that are locked in dispute.
- Therefore, a dispute resolution mechanism that allows for better interface between the taxpayer and the department may, in fact, be relatively beneficial.
Consider the question “Examine the reasons for small tax base in India. Examine the measures adopted in the Budget 2021-22 for increasing compliance and transparency.”
Conclusion
The budget estimates suggest that corporate tax and income tax collections are expected to increase by 22 per cent. With an expected growth rate of 14 per cent in nominal GDP, the remaining gains in taxes are presumably expected from higher compliance or realisation of taxes due. Whether this will pan out remains to be seen.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- How governments are dealing with the dominance of social media
The article discusses the issue of growing influence of social media companies and response of the governments.
Issues with the growing influence of social media companies
- In the US the last two general elections in 2016 and 2020 have seen strong charges of political manipulation by social media companies.
- But influence of social media companies is not limited ot elections, it envelops a range of domestic and international issues.
- These issuesincludes: the concentration of economic power, individual rights against the state as well as the corporation, disinformation, the rise of digital geopolitics, and global digital governance.
How governments are responding
- Democratic forces need to consult each other and collaborate in developing new norms for managing the digital world.
- In the US, both the left and right are demanding that digital behemoths like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter are brought under greater control if not broken up.
- Last December, the European Commission proposed new rules to promote competition and fairness in digital markets.
- The EU is likely to approve a Digital Markets Act next year.
- Australia has decreed that Google must work out an arrangement with Australian newspapers to pay for the use of their content.
- The current digital giants, however, are not easily amenable to political attack.
- They are bigger than the biggest we have known.
3 Issues with business practices of social media companies
- Governments are now questioning the sharp business practices of the tech giants especially labour rights, taxes and politics.
- While the tech giants have created a lot of new wealth, some of them have sharply squeezed the labour.
- In California, trade unions are battling against the success of Uber and Lyft to turn employees into “contract workers” to deny them multiple benefits.
- Digital giants have been aggressive tax evaders.
- On the political front recently,Twitter and Facebook shut down President Donald Trump’s accounts.
- European leaders raised important questions about social media’s actions against Trump.
Way forward
- Answer to deal with social media on political front lies in laying down a clear set of obligations and responsibilities for the digital giants.
- This move will help in building digital sovereignty.
- The world’s democracies must get together to discuss global digital governance.
Consider the question “What are the challenges posed by the growing influence of social media companies in the democratic countries?”
Conclusion
As governments push back against big tech, a new challenge presents itself — reining in the growing power of the state in the digital age. The answer lies in democracies modernising their laws to protect freedoms in the era of technological transformation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Geospatial data
Mains level: Benefits of the liberalized scheme
In sweeping changes to the country’s mapping policy, the government has announced liberalisation of norms governing the acquisition and production of geospatial data.
Q.What do you mean by Geo-Spatial Data? What are its economic and strategic significance?
What is the news?
- The Ministry of Science and Technology has released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India.
- It deregulated the existing protocol and liberalizes the sector to a more competitive field.
What is a Geo-Spatial Data?
- Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth.
- The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease.
- Geospatial data combines location information, attribute information, and often also temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist.
- Geo-spatial data usually involves information of public interest such as roads, localities, rail lines, water bodies, and public amenities.
- The past decade has seen an increase in the use of geospatial data in daily life with various apps such as food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato, e-commerce like Amazon or even weather apps.
What is the present policy on geospatial data?
- There are strict restrictions on the collection, storage, use, sale, dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime.
- The policy had not been renewed in decades and has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns.
- Private companies need to navigate a system of permissions from different departments of the government as well as the defence and Home Ministries, to be able to collect, create or disseminate geospatial data.
Why has the government deregulated geospatial data?
- This system of acquiring licenses or permission, and the red tape involved, can take months, delaying projects, especially those that are in mission mode – for both Indian companies as well as government agencies.
- The deregulation eliminates the requirement of permissions as well as scrutiny, even for security concerns.
- Indian companies now can self-attest, conforming to government guidelines without actually having to be monitored by a government agency- these guidelines, therefore, place a great deal of trust in Indian entities.
- There is also a huge lack of data in the country which impedes planning for infrastructure, development and businesses which are data-based.
- The mapping of the entire country that too with high accuracy, by the Indian government alone could take decades.
- The government, therefore, felt an urgent need to incentivise the geospatial sector for Indian companies and increased investment from private players in the sector.
- Large amounts of geospatial data are also available on global platforms, which makes the regulation of data that is freely available in other countries, untenable.
What next?
- While for decades, geospatial data has been a priority for strategic reasons and for internal and external security concerns.
- This priority has seen a shift in the past 15 years – geospatial data has now become imperative for the government in planning for infrastructure, development, social development as well as the economy.
- More and more sectors such as agriculture, environment protection, power, water, transportation, communication, health (tracking of diseases, patients, hospitals etc) are relying heavily on this data.
- There has also been a global push for open access to geospatial as it affects the lives of ordinary citizens.
Expected impacts
- By liberalizing the system, the government will ensure more players in the field, the competitiveness of Indian companies in the global market, and more accurate data available to both the government to formulate plans and administer, but also for individual Indians.
- Startups and businesses can now also use this data in setting up their concerns, especially in the sector of e-commerce or geospatial based apps – which in turn will increase employment in these sectors.
- Indian companies will be able to develop indigenous apps, for example, an Indian version of Google maps.
- There is also likely to be an increase in public-private partnerships with the opening of this sector with data collection companies working with the Indian government on various sectoral projects.
- The government also expects an increase in investment in the geospatial sector by companies, and also an increase in export of data to foreign companies and countries, which in turn will boost the economy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Impact of fuel prices on inflation
Mains level: Global oil price dynamics
Diesel and petrol prices have hit record highs across the country.
Govt explanation
- The government reasons that global crude oil prices have risen by more than 50 per cent to over $63.3 per barrel since October, forcing oil retailers to increase pump prices.
- That, however, is only partly true.
- Indian consumers are already paying much higher than what they were paying last January, even though crude prices are yet to reach levels of early last year.
Note: Petrol and diesel do not come under the purview of goods and services tax (GST).
Fuel price dynamics in India
- Retail petrol and diesel prices are in theory decontrolled — or linked to global crude oil prices.
- It means that if crude prices fall retails prices should come down too, and vice versa.
- But this does not happen in practice, largely because oil price decontrol is a one-way street in India.
- When global crude oil prices fall and prices slide, the government slaps fresh taxes and levies to ensure that it rakes in extra revenues.
- The consumer should have ideally benefited by way of lower pump prices, is forced to either shell out what she’s already paying or spend even more for every litre of fuel.
- The main beneficiary in this subversion of price decontrol is the government.
Why crude oil prices are rising now?
- Prices collapsed in April 2020 after the pandemic spread around the world, and demand fell away.
- But as economies have reduced travel restrictions and factory output has picked up, global demand has improved, and prices have been recovering.
- The controlled production of crude amid rising demand has been another key factor in boosting oil prices, with Saudi Arabia voluntarily cutting its daily output.
What is the impact of taxes on retail prices of auto fuels?
- The central government hiked the central excise duty on petrol to Rs 32.98 per litre during the course of last year from Rs 19.98 per litre at the beginning of 2020.
- It increased the excise duty on diesel to Rs 31.83 per litre from Rs 15.83 over the same period to boost revenues as economic activity fell due to the pandemic.
- A number of states have also hiked sales tax on petrol and diesel to shore up their revenues.
How much tax do we pay now?
Currently, state and central taxes amount to around 180 per cent of the base price of petrol and 141 per cent of the base price of diesel in Delhi.
How will these hikes impact inflation?
- Experts note that the impact of rising fuel inflation has been counterbalanced by declining food inflation, but that consumers with greater expenditure on travel are feeling the pinch of higher prices.
- Rising fuel inflation may pinch consumers who have to travel further for work and have access to affordable cereals etc.
- The urban population would be more impacted by rising fuel prices than the rural population — however, a weak monsoon may lead to rural India being hit as farmers are forced to rely more on diesel-powered irrigation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Dickinsonia, Bhimbetka
Mains level: Geological time scale
Bhimbetka, which has yielded a fossil of Dickinsonia dating back about 550 million years, is the first time the particular fossilized organism has been recorded in India.
Why does this fossil matter?
- It dates back to an era regarded as the precursor to the explosion of life on earth during the Cambrian period.
- Thus it puts India firmly on the map for studies of the Ediacaran era along with Australia and Russia.
Here’s what makes the discovery a global milestone:
(a) Ediacaran Period
- The finding gives lead about the earliest living species during a period of the earth’s history known as the Ediacaran, named after the Ediacara Hills in South Australia.
- This is the period in Earth’s history when Dickinsonia and several multicellular organisms existed.
- It was approximately 635 million years ago (Ma) and 541 Ma, with the living creatures of the era, called vendobionts.
Now take this opportunity to revise the Geological time scale from your NCERTs. Try differentiating between different era, periods and epoch.
(b) India’s Proximity to Australia
- Studies of the rock characteristics in and around Bhimbetka show that they share several characteristics with rocks in Australia.
- Dickinsonia fossils from India were found by the scientists to be identical to the Rawnsley Quartzite in South Australia.
- This provides evidence of their age and the proximity of the two landmasses in Gondwanaland in that era.
- The evidence however did not support reconstructions adjusted for the polar wander phenomenon [which involves motion of continents over geologic time and its impacts].
Use of Zircon dating
- The age of fossil rock is determined using Zircon isotopes.
- Zircon dating of the youngest Maihar sandstone in Madhya Pradesh puts its age at 548 Ma.
- The lower Bhander group in the Son and Chambal valleys yielded an isotope-derived age for limestones ranging from 978 Ma to 1073 Ma, situating it in the older Tonian period.
- The Ediacaran period was the precursor to the Cambrian (about 541 Ma to 485.4 Ma) when the earth witnessed an explosion of life forms and much of which makes up modern animal life today.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sandes
Mains level: Secured instant messaging
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has launched an instant messaging platform called Sandes on the lines of WhatsApp. Open initially only to government officers, it has now been released for the common public as well.
Features of Sandes Platform
- The instant messaging app, called Sandes, has an interface similar to many other apps currently available in the market.
- Like WhatsApp, the new NIC platform can be used for all kinds of communications by anyone with a mobile number or email id.
- Although there is no option to transfer the chat history between two platforms, the chats on government instant messaging systems or GIMS can be backed up to a users’ email.
- It also offers features such as group making, broadcast message, message forwarding and emojis.
- Further, as an additional safety feature, it allows a user to mark a message as confidential, which will allow the recipient to be made aware the message should not be shared with others.
Why need such instant messaging platform?
- Following the nationwide lockdown, the government felt the need to build a platform to ensure secure communication between its employees as they worked from home.
- The idea for a secure communication network dedicated exclusively to government employees has been in the works for the past four years.
- In August 2020, the NIC released the first version of the app, which said that the app could be used by both central and state government officials for intra and inter-organisation communication.
- The app was initially launched for Android users and then the service was extended to iOS users.
Limitations of the app
- The limitation, however, is that the app does not allow the user to change their email id or registered phone number.
- The user will have to re-register as a new user in case they wish to change their registered email id or phone number on the app.
Do you remember?
[Burning Issue] WhatsApp Snooping
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MapmyIndia, Various tools of ISRO
Mains level: Geospatial data and its utilization
The ISRO has joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial expertise and build holistic solutions by leveraging their geoportals.
Note various geo-spatial solutions of ISRO mentioned in the newscard.
What is the Project?
- It combines the power of MapmyIndia’s digital maps and technologies with ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data.
- Indian users would not be dependent on foreign organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial services, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead.
Various components
The collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilising the ISRO’s earth observation datasets such as-
- IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation, is India’s own navigation system, developed by ISRO.
- Bhuvan is the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising geospatial data, services and tools for analysis.
- VEDAS (Visualization of Earth observation Data and Archival System) is an online geo-processing platform using an optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral EO data covering applications particularly meant for academia, research and problem solving, according to ISRO.
- MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre)is a data repository for all the meteorological missions of ISRO and deals with weather-related information, oceanography and tropical water cycles.
About MapmyIndia
- MapmyIndia is an Indian technology company that builds digital map data, telematics services, location-based SaaS (Software as a service) and GIS AI services.
- The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered at New Delhi with regional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru and smaller offices across India.
- Its map covers all 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities, in total providing maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Giant Leatherback Turtle
Mains level: Not Much
Proposals for tourism and port development in the Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands has left conservationists worried over the fate of some of the most important nesting populations of the Giant Leatherback turtle.
What is the news?
- There is concern that at least three key nesting beaches — two on Little Andaman Island and one on Great Nicobar Island — are under threat due to mega “development” plans announced in recent months.
- These include NITI Aayog’s ambitious tourism vision for Little Andaman and the proposal for a mega-shipment port at Galathea Bay on Great Nicobar Island.
Giant Leatherback Turtle
IUCN status: Vulnerable
- The largest of the seven species of sea turtles on the planet and also the most long-ranging, Leatherbacks are found in all oceans except the Arctic and the Antarctic.
- Within the Indian Ocean, they nest only in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the A&N Islands.
- They are also listed in Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, according it the highest legal protection.
- The population in A&N Islands is among the most important colonies of the Leatherback globally.
About Galathea Bay
- The Galathea Bay is adjacent to Galathea National Park in Great Nicobar Island.
- It was earlier proposed as a wildlife sanctuary in 1997 for the protection of turtles and was also the site of a long-term monitoring programme.
- The monitoring was stopped after the tsunami devastation of 2004, but it provided the first systematic evidence of numbers and importance of these beaches.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Finance Commission and its recommendations
Mains level: Paper 2- Fifteenth Finance Commission report and federalism
The article analyses the recommendations of fifteenth Finance Commission and their implications for the federalism in India.
Major recommendations accepted by the government
- Report of the fifteenth Finance Commission (XVFC) was laid before the Parliament.
- The finance minister announced the acceptance of its recommendation of retaining the share of states in central taxes at 42 per cent.
- She also stated that on its recommendation revenue deficit grants of Rs 1.18 lakh crore to the states have been provided for in the budget.
- Some of the recommendations, however, have far-reaching implications on government finances, both of the Centre and the states.
- Keeping in view the extant strategic requirements for national defence in a global context, XVFC has, in its approach, recalibrated the relative shares of the Union and the states in gross revenues receipts.
Issues with the recalibration for national defence
- Recalibration enables the Union to set aside resources for special funding on defence.
- The states have been made to pay Rs 7,000 crore to bridge [the] Centre’s gap between projected budgetary requirements and budget allocation for defence and internal security defence.
- But this is an expenditure that the Centre is obliged to fund.
- For the first time, a finance commission has carved out resources meant for distributable statutory grants and dipped into the states’ revenue share, as against the tax share, in order to finance the Centre’s exclusive expenditure obligation.
- What has been done is not in line with the system envisaged in the Constitution.
- This move will eventually put the fiscal federal system under systemic strain.
- In operational terms, too, this move is a significant departure.
- So far, the Centre has been used to pre-empting resources from the kitty to be distributed among the states but only to finance expenditures in areas earmarked for states.
- This was done through the centrally-sponsored schemes, but at least the states’ money was being used in the states, even if on a discretionary rather than a criteria basis.
- Now, with this move of earmarking and financing of funds for sectors, it is the states’ money that is being used to finance the Centre’s expenditure.
- This is certainly not cooperative federalism.
Changes in horizontal distribution: More weightage to efficiency and performance
- In horizontal distribution, the criteria used by successive finance commissions for devolving taxes across states have always been linked to need — based on equity, tempered by efficiency.
- From 92.5 per cent of funds to a state being devolved based on need and equity, the XVFC has reduced these two components to 75 per cent.
- The remaining 25 per cent are to be devolved on considerations of efficiency and performance.
- This is the lowest weightage for equity, making the XVFC transfers potentially the least progressive ever.
Structural changes not taken into account
- The Finance Commission has not even made any serious effort to review the existing scheme of transfers in light of the changed federal landscape.
- The existing criteria for the devolution have evolved in, and for, a production-based tax system.
- The XVFC should have reformulated the distributional criteria for a consumption-based tax system [GST].
- The structural change from production to consumption will make a significant difference to distribution as well as the need, nature and distribution of equalising grants.
- This is the same manner in which the revenue deficit grants have been carried forward.
- Ideally, the “gap-filling” approach should have been redesigned in light of the compensation law providing a minimum-guaranteed revenue of 14 per cent to every state.
Consider the question “For the first time, a finance commission has carved out resources meant for distributable statutory grants and dipped into the states’ revenue share, as against the tax share, in order to finance the Centre’s exclusive expenditure obligation. What are the issues with this move?”
Conclusion
The Fifteenth Finance Commission report is not aligned with the new landscape of federalism and does not address the key issues.
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