The horns of rhinoceroses may have become smaller over time from the impact of hunting, according to a recent study spanning more than five centuries.
About Indian Rhino
The Indian rhinoceros also called the greater one-horned rhinoceros and great Indian rhinoceros is a rhinoceros native to the Indian subcontinent.
It is listed as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List and Schedule I animal in the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
It once ranged across the entire northern part of the Indian Subcontinent, along the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra River basins, from Pakistan to the Indian-Myanmar border.
Poaching for rhinoceros horn became the single most important reason for the decline of the Indian rhino.
Why are Rhinos poached for horns?
Ground rhino horn is used in traditional Chinese medicine to cure a range of ailments, from cancer to hangovers, and also as an aphrodisiac.
In Vietnam, possessing a rhino horn is considered a status symbol.
Due to demand in these countries, poaching pressure on rhinos is ever persistent against which one cannot let the guard down.
In Ethics (GS Paper-IV), is one of the most ignored aspect in the UPSC Mains syllabus. Most of the times aspirants are confused on the strategy aspect as well as the timing (when to start?).
The master strategy doesn’t mean only ‘How to’ or ‘What to’. An infallible strategy always works when it starts at the very right time. Toppers don’t wait for ‘Later’. They start as soon as possible. 99.99% of toppers start dealing with ETHICS early and finish far before from Prelims (max by Feb).
Delaying Ethics preparation till the post-prelims phase is a wrong strategy.
Acknowledging the need to ensure 120+ marks, CD’s senior IAS mentor and Ethics faculty, Sukanya Rana ma’am is going to conduct a super important Ethics Masterclass on How to cover UPSC GS Paper 4 Ethics in 1.5 months?
Register and get recorded session + PDF by Sukanya ma’am | Masterclass: How to cover Ethics in 1.5 months | 10 Most important themes for Ethics
How to Complete the paper on time even if all questions are not known?
How to start case studies with core keywords inserted Introduction?
How to enrich your answers to case studies with the “My Vision”/”thinkers” approach?
How to write ethics-oriented answers even though questions could have been asked in other GS papers?
Writing course of action of case studies in the most ethical ways along with a practical approach.
In the case of studies, you must provide practical solutions. How to frame your answers based on peripheral problems in a case study will be discussed.
How to use examples and can make our examples.
How to have a grip on recent trends in Ethics papers!
Do and don’t of ethics paper. The most common mistakes will also be discussed.
Register and get recorded session + PDF by Sukanya ma’am | Masterclass: How to cover Ethics in 1.5 months | 10 Most important themes for Ethics
Sukanya Rana: Our Civilsdaily Mains Program Head Mrs. Sukanya Rana has been mentoring students across multiple stages from prelims to mains to interviews. She is part of Smash Mains as an Ethics Mentor and helped Civilsdaily toppers to achieve their dream. Interview in 2016.
What The Hindu mentioned about Civilsdaily Mentorship
The Hindu has acknowledged the success rate of CD’s Smash mains Mentorship
Quora Digests:
Register for the webinar. Submit your query and get CD’s Telegram group + access to FREE resources. Sukanya Ma’am will also share a special PDF with you post-webinar.
GS-1 Salient features of Indian Society, Diversity of India.
GS-2 Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
GS-3 Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
GS-4 Attitude: content, structure, function; its influence and relation with thought and behaviour; moral and political attitudes; social influence and persuasion.
HOW TO ATTEMPT ANSWERS IN DAILY ANSWER WRITING ENHANCEMENT(AWE)?
Daily 4 questions from General studies 1, 2, 3, and 4 will be provided to you.
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Upload the scanned answer in the comment section of the same question.
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In the fight against air pollution in the Indo Gangetic Plain, there are several important protagonists, none more so than India’s frontline environmental regulators, the State Pollution Control Boards (SPCBs), and the Pollution Control Committees (PCCs) in the Union Territories. There is no future with clean air in which the SPCB’s do not perform at the highest level possible.
know about State Pollution Control Boards (SPCB)
Constituted under Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974: The SPCBs were initially constituted under the Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974. Under the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981, the SPCB mandate was expanded to include air quality management.
New responsibility without capacity: Subsequently, several new environmental regulations added to their roles and functions. Unfortunately, this enhanced mandate has not been matched with increased capacity and capability in the Boards. As environmental indicators such as air quality and water quality worsen in many parts of the country, the Boards are evidently failing to effectively discharge their statutory mandate.
Poor performance of SPCBs: Over the years, several reports that have been published, including those by the parliamentary standing committee and government committees, have identified reasons for the poor performance of the SPCBs.
Experts are excluded from composition: The composition of SPCBs is a matter of serious concern as important stakeholders and those with crucial expertise are missing in most States. Boards are multimember bodies headed by a chairperson and a member secretary. Their decisions and policies guide the day-to-day functioning of the organisation.
Conflict of interest: Over 50% of the Board members across the 10 SPCBs and PCC studied represent potential polluters: local authorities, industries, and public sector corporations. They are subject to the SPCB’s regulatory measures, and their overwhelming presence raises fundamental questions around conflicts of interest.
SPCBs Does not meet the statutory requirement: At the same time, scientists, medical practitioners, and academics constitute only 7% of the Board members. What is even more worrying is that most Boards do not meet the statutory requirement of having at least two Board members who have knowledge of, and experience in, air quality management.
SPCB’s leadership and uncertain tenure: The chairperson and the member secretary do not enjoy a long, stable, and fulltime tenure. In many States, persons in these two posts hold an additional charge in other government departments. Data also show that several chairpersons and member secretaries have held their posts for less than a year. For example, the shortest tenure for a chairperson has been 18 days (Chhattisgarh) and 15 days for a member secretary (Haryana and Uttar Pradesh).
Short tenure with multiple roles: With the focus of the leadership of SPCB spread thin across multiple roles and their tenures being short, often they do not even have the time to understand their mandate fully before they are moved out. In such a scenario, long term policy planning, strategic interventions and effective execution aimed at reducing air pollution substantially are extremely difficult.
Problem of Understaffing: The SPCBs are critically understaffed. At least 40% of all sanctioned posts are vacant across nine SPCBs/PCCs for which there is data. Vacancy levels in technical positions are as high as 84% in Jharkhand, and over 75% in Bihar and Haryana. An inadequate staff strength forces the Boards to recast their priorities among their various functions.
Less regulatory scrutiny: Less staff strength also means weaker regulatory scrutiny and poor impact assessment. For example, given their workload, engineers in Bihar, Jharkhand, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh have less than a day to inspect, evaluate and decide on each consent application. With Board staff running on empty, this is clearly an unsustainable situation.
What are the recommendations for effective SPCBs?
Addressing Leadership and human resource needs: Strengthening manpower at the SPCBs will not only require hiring new resources, but also training existing staff by leveraging institutions such as the Indian Institutes of Technology, NEERI, and others. These in-service training programs would also serve as an incentive for staff both new and existing.
Better Pay structures: The Pay structure need to be revised to align with sectoral norms to ensure that SPCBs are not regularly losing trained manpower to industry and other sectors.
Modern infrastructure: The infrastructure of PCBs also needs to be improved along with manpower i.e., facilities such as adequate computers, improved lab facility etc. The instruments used for monitoring are not maintained properly or outdated. Sometimes labs are also not equipped enough to do the necessary analysis.
Expert should lead the SPCBs: It is imperative for their effective functioning that States should nominate to leadership positions, individuals of technical expertise and distinguished service such that effective decision making can be carried out.
Providing the fixed tenure: They should be appointed for a fixed tenure and in full-time roles, with the sword of removal or termination not hanging over their heads.
Reduction is composition for effective functioning: The size of the boards themselves may also be reduced to aid in effective functioning, with preference in membership given to technical experts, as is the international best practice. These moves would ensure that the Boards function effectively as independent agencies, as envisioned in their foundational legislation.
Read the basics-Air pollution
Air pollution is contamination of the indoor or outdoor environment by any chemical, physical or biological agent that modifies the natural characteristics of the atmosphere.
Household combustion devices, motor vehicles, industrial facilities and forest fires are common sources of air pollution. Pollutants of major public health concern include particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide and sulfur dioxide. Outdoor and indoor air pollution cause respiratory and other diseases and are important sources of morbidity and mortality.
Conclusion
Given the scale and causes of air pollution in India, multidisciplinary expertise is needed to tackle it; there must also be an explicit focus on health while designing air pollution policy. The lack of expertise and skewed representation of stakeholders on the Boards can only be a hindrance to effective policy making.
One of the biggest issues facing rural health services is lack of information. ASHA workers are the first respondents even when there is lack of access to medical aid are threatened with violence and abused on the number of occasions while handlining the prospected patients in COVID19 pandemic.
Evolution of “ASHA” you may want to know
The ASHA programme was based on Chhattisgarh’s successful Mitanin programme, in which a Community Worker looks after 50 households.
The ASHA was to be a local resident, looking after 200 households.
The programme had a very robust thrust on the stage-wise development of capacity in selected areas of public health.
Many states tried to incrementally develop the ASHA from a Community Worker to a Community Health Worker, and even to an Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM)/ General Nurse and Midwife (GNM), or a Public Health Nurse.
Who are ASHA workers?
ASHA workers are volunteers from within the community who are trained to provide information and aid people in accessing benefits of various healthcare schemes of the government.
The role of these community health volunteers under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) was first established in 2005.
They act as a bridge connecting marginalized communities with facilities such as primary health centers, sub-centers and district hospitals.
Qualifications for ASHA Workers
ASHAs are primarily married, widowed, or divorced women between the ages of 25 and 45 years from within the community.
They must have good communication and leadership skills; should be literate with formal education up to Class 8, as per the programme guidelines.
Involved in Awareness programs: They go door-to-door in their designated areas creating awareness about basic nutrition, hygiene practices, and the health services available. They also counsel women about contraceptives and sexually transmitted infections.
Ensures Mother and child health: They focus primarily on ensuring that pregnant women undergo ante-natal check-up, maintain nutrition during pregnancy, deliver at a healthcare facility, and provide post-birth training on breast-feeding and complementary nutrition of children.
Actively involved in Immunization programs: ASHA workers are also tasked with ensuring and motivating children to get immunized.
Providing medicines and therapies: Other than mother and childcare, ASHA workers also provide medicines daily to TB patients under directly observed treatment of the national programme. They also provide basic medicines and therapies to people under their jurisdiction such as oral rehydration solution, chloroquine for malaria, iron folic acid tablets to prevent anemia etc.
Tasked with Screening tests: They are also tasked with screening for infections like malaria during the season. They also get people tested and get their reports for non-communicable diseases. They were tasked to quarantine the covid 19 infected patients in the pandemic.
Informing the birth and death in respective areas: The health volunteers are also tasked with informing their respective primary health center about any births or deaths in their designated areas.
What are the challenges that ASHA workers face?
Lack of communication threating the job of ASHA Workers: One of the biggest issues facing rural health services is lack of information.
Lack of resources burdening the ASHA works job: Another area of concern is the lack of resources. Over the years, with the closest hospital being 9 km away and ambulances taking hours to respond, ASHA workers had to take multiple women in labour to the hospital in auto rickshaws.
Poor medical health facilities: Medical facilities are understaffed and lack adequate equipment for various basic procedures like deliveries. Simple tests, like for sickle cell anemia and HIV, cannot be conducted in no of respective areas of ASHA workers.
Low wages according to the job they do: The initial payment used to be paid was Rs 250 a month in 2009. Since ASHA’s unionized and agitated for a living wage. Thirteen years on, they earn around Rs 4,000 a month. It is simply not enough to sustain a family of four.
Covid 19 disruptions added to the existing problems: Low wages forcing ASHA’s to work two or more jobs. In the pandemic, no of women lost their husband or the means of earnings and had to revert to farming. Weather fluctuations disrupting the farm produce leaving no of ASHA’s the sole earner for the family. Those who don’t have land are living in miserable conditions.
Delayed payments reduce the morale: Payments are also delayed by months, Desperation for work leaves us unable to focus on the groundwork we do.
What can be done to improve the work conditions of ASHA workers?
Improving the communication channels: Channels of communication between the government and the rural population need to be robust. A deadly pandemic makes the value of these channels obvious but in order to get people on board, information needs to be sent out much more effectively and in a hands-on manner. ASHA workers play a crucial role in aiding this effort. ASHA’s can’t do this alone. They need new systems to ensure the dissemination of life-saving information in remote areas.
ASHA’s should have fixed income: ASHA’s should have a fixed income, giving them the stability in a job where they spend between eight to twelve hours daily.
Role needs to be formalized ensuring the dignity: ASHA’s are recognized as “volunteers” currently. Their role needs to be formalized. Recognizing them as workers provides dignity and protection, and helps them to be taken seriously, by the state, the gram panchayat responsible for the disbursal of funds, and patients.
Recognizing and awarding their role will empower and motivate ASHA’s further: For people in villages, ASHA’s have become lifelines. They have led innumerable immunization drives and are everybody’s first call in a medical emergency. They have labored to build trust and serve as a bridge with the state. Examples shows recognition gives some leverage to circumvent the system and seek funds for people in my community.
Conclusion
ASHA’s are lifelines of rural primary healthcare, they are playing critical role on no of fronts ensuring the basic health of India. A better, stronger India is possible if ASHA’s are enabled to serve people. Giving them due recognition would serve this end, along with making rural India’s needs medical or otherwise a priority.
Mains Question
Q. For the villagers, ASHA has been a lifeline in the last few years. Acknowledge the problems they face on a daily basis and suggest solutions to raise their morale for the primary health of the village community and the nation as a whole.
The Competition Commission of India has imposed a provisional penalty of Rs. 1337.76 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets in the Android Mobile device ecosystem.
The regulator also issued cease and desist directions to the tech giant on a number of its business practices.
Big tech companies have faced similar actions in various other countries as well.
Broader Issue: Big Tech Competition
During the course of inquiry, Google argued about the competitive constraints being faced from Apple.
However the Commission noted the differences in the two business models which affect the underlying incentives of business decisions.
Google manages the Android operating system as well as other licences, which gives it advantage over its competitors to pre-install most prominent apps and widget like Chrome browser on Android devices.
Major contention with Google: Tech Monopoly and Hegemony
Monopolies like Amazon and other Big Tech companies have been allowed to conduct blatantly anti-competitive and discriminatory disinformation practices.
This is no new thing for a huge market like India.
Google is facing more antitrust scrutiny at home and abroad.
What is Monopoly?
A monopoly that occurs when a single firm controls manufacturing methods necessary to produce a certain product, or has exclusive rights over the technology used to manufacture it.
Technological monopolies differ from those based on vertical or horizontal consolidation in that the exclusivity derives from the production process itself.
What is a Technology Monopoly?
Facebook, Google, Rogers, Microsoft, and Amazon – you have heard their names and you might even use them on a day to day basis.
Turning trillions of consumer dollars each year, these tech giants have dominated the global market.
These companies have wiped out any competition in order to maintain their monopolies on power.
Or Facebook, which has acquired over 94 companies, the most notable being Instagram, WhatsApp Messenger, Oculus Virtual Reality, Giphy, and more.
These are just a few examples of how these companies consolidate power and monopolize the industry.
Issues with Big-tech Monopoly
(1) Data Privacy
A major issue with technology monopolies is the accumulation of users’ data.
We never read the privacy policies under the terms and conditions of a website.
Technology monopolies get to set the bar in what they do with our data instead of the individual deciding.
This accumulation of data in a centralized domain makes it more enticing for hackers to breach these companies’ security measures.
(2) User manipulation
Especially regarding media companies like social media or news outlets, these large corporations can push their personal agendas and biases on the public.
The lack of variety in major media sources can result in a reduction of different perspectives and a narrowed personal point of view.
Censorship can also aid in manipulating what the public gets to see (or does not get to see) and can obstruct religious, political, social, and other viewpoints.
(3) Ability to bypass regulator
Due to rapid innovation and advancement by the Big Tech firms, the regulators are only able to react, not be in readiness.
Before the policymakers could realize prospects of a disrupting tech, the technology replaces itself. Ex. Intellectual Property manipulations by Pharma companies.
Due to this, they can avoid any negative repercussions for their continued violations.
Does this really affect us?
Sudden disruptions: Recently, the WhatsApp went down for no known reasons. Also Instagram and Netflix do. Luckily for us it was a network system failure.
Lack of alternatives would disrupt everything: But if this is what a mere maintenance mistake, imagine what a cyber-attack on one of these companies could do.
How vulnerable is India to such monopolies?
Use of the targeted algorithm: You might have seen a video in which Google CEO admits that it records and monitors every movement or click by a user.
Consumer manipulation: Tech giants are using users’ search data to push advertisements to the users. The ads are specifically targeted to users based on their recent search over the internet.
Ambiguity over data control: This has raised serious privacy concerns and also created anti-trust investigations by various governments. The Cambridge Analytica scandal of Facebook is one such example. The recent WhatsApp privacy policy also created widespread concern.
Predatory pricing: The tech giants usually drive out competitors using anti-competitive behaviour. For example, accusations on Amazon favouring their self-branded products over third-party products.
Societal impact: The big techs are the foremost medium of fake news, hate speech, etc. These were seen as un-democratic activities by countries.
Impact on economy: The combined market capitalization of the big techs is more than the GDP of most countries except China and the USA. The sheer economic presence and their market presence make them create aggressive clauses in their terms and conditions, contract agreements etc.
Steps taken in India
Competition Act, 2002 established the Competition Commission of India (CCI). The CCI has been established to eliminate practices having an adverse effect on competition.
Information and Technology Act, 2000 governs all activities related to the use of computer resources in India.
Open Network for Digital Commerce (ONDC) seeks to promote open networks, which are developed using the open-source methodology. The project is aimed at curbing “digital monopolies”.
Way Forward
Capitalizing information: Big Tech companies must negotiate a fair payment with all the stakeholders for using their content in Facebook’s newsfeed and Google’s Search.
Personal data protection bill: At a point in time where data is the new gold standard, the regulation of how tech companies use consumers’ personal data needs to be established by a proper legislation.
Comprehensive regulation: One umbrella legislation is far better than having multiplicity of legislations.
Conclusion
The implications of tech monopolies have real life consequences, and the actions of these corporations have a direct effect on each of us as individuals.
As the COVID-19 pandemic fades and hopes to rise for nations and societies to return to some kind of normalcy, there is effort all around to take stock of where we stand and what our prospects look like. A look back over the last few years at how India performed in terms of its economy.
Present situation of India’s economic growth
Mixed growth story: One group of experts argues, India’s growth story is more mixed. In 2021-22, its GDP growth was 8.7%, which was among the highest in the world. This is good but, against this, we must offset the fact that much of this is the growth of climbing out of the pit into which we had fallen the previous year.
IMF reduced the growth forecast: In 2020-21, India’s growth was minus 6.6%, which placed the country in the bottom half of the global growth chart. For 2022-23, the International Monetary Fund has cut India’s growth forecast to 6.1%.
Structural assessment of India’s growth
Rising inequality and high unemployment: Most of India’s growth is occurring at the top end, with a few corporations raking in a disproportionate share of profits, and unemployment is so high, it is likely that large segments of the population are actually witnessing negative growth.
Slowdown in previous years: What makes India’s growth story worrying is that the slowdown began much before the COVID19 pandemic. It began in 2016, after which, for four consecutive years, the growth rate each year was lower than in the previous year. Growth in 2016-17 was 8.3%. After that it was, respectively, 6.9%, 6.6%, 4.8%, and minus 6.6%.
Status of unemployment: India’s unemployment rate is high. In October, it stood at 7.8%. However, what is really worrying is youth unemployment. According to International Labour Organization (ILO) data, collated and presented by the World Bank, India’s youth unemployment, that is, from among people aged 15 to 24 years who are looking for work, the percent that does not find any, stands at 28.3%.
Know the basics-What is Unemployment?
Definition: Unemployment is a phenomenon that occurs when a person who is capable of working and is actively searching for the work is unable to find work.
Those who are excluded: People who are either unfit for work due to physical reason or do not want to work are excluded from the category of unemployed.
Unemployment rate: The most frequent measure of unemployment is unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is defined as a number of unemployed people divided by the number of people in the labour force.
Labour Force: Persons who are either working (or employed) or seeking or available for work (or unemployed) during the reference period together constitute the labour force.
Other perspectives on Indian economy
The latest GDP numbers suggest: For Q1 FY2022–23 suggest that economic growth is on a healthy track. Consumers, after a long lull, have started to step out confidently and spend private consumption spending went up 25.9% in Q1.
On the production side: the contact-intensive services sector also witnessed a strong rebound of 17.7%, thanks to improving consumer confidence.
Healthy agriculture sector: The only sector that consistently performed well throughout the pandemic, remained buoyant.
Industrial growth: Industrial growth boosted from accelerating growth in construction and electricity, gas, water supply and other utility services sectors.
Manufacturing is not doing well: A sector that has not yet taken off sustainably is manufacturing, which witnessed modest growth of 4.5% in Q1. Higher input costs, supply disruptions, and labor shortages due to reverse migration have weighed on the sector’s growth. According to the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) data on nonfinancial firms, surging raw material costs have stressed the profitability and margins of companies.
High inflation: The biggest worry is that of high inflation (which has persisted for way too long) and all the challenges that come along with it. Inflationary environments increase the costs of doing business, impact profitability and margins, and reduce purchasing power. In short, inflation thwarts both supply and demand. Central banks’ monetary policy actions, in response to rising inflation, can impede credit growth and economic activity, thereby intensifying the probability of a recession in a few advanced nations.
Rising current account deficit: The other challenge is the rising current-account deficit and currency depreciation against the dollar. While a rebounding domestic economy is resulting in higher imports, moderating global demand is causing exports to slow. The US dollar’s unrelenting rise and global inflation are further causing India’s import bills to rise.
Declining forex: The RBI had to intervene to contain volatility and ensure an orderly movement of the rupee. The RBI’s intervention is leading to a drawdown in foreign exchange reserves. Consequently, the import cover from reserves has reduced to nine months from a high of 19 months at the start of 2021 (although, it remains above the benchmark of three months).
The economy’s growth drivers are improving
Exports: Exports, the first growth driver are slowing down and are likely to moderate along with the probable global economic slowdown.
Government spending: Government spending, the second driver, is already at an elevated level, thanks to the pandemic, and the government will likely focus on its prudence in utilizing limited resources. The good news is the share of capital expenses is going up even as the government is reducing revenue expenses. Multiplier effects of this spending will aid in growth in income, assets, and employment for years to come. Strong tax revenues may support further capital spending in the future.
Capital expenditure: According to experts, prospects for capex investments the third growth driver by companies are brighter. Sustained demand growth may be the most-awaited cue for a sustained push for investment.
Consumer demand: Consumer Demand, the fourth, and perhaps the most important, growth driver has improved significantly in recent quarters. However, spending has not grown sustainable despite improving consumer confidence. For instance, retail sales are growing but the pace is patchy, and auto registrations have remained muted. We expect that receding pandemic fears and the upcoming festive season could give a much-needed boost to the consumer sector.
Conclusion
Indian economy should not be looked from isolation. It is very much integrated in global economy. Pandemic, Ukraine war, US- China trade war have given a successive shock to global and Indian economy. Despite that Indian has done well than rest of the world. Our focus should be on curbing inequality, not to allow people to descend into extreme poverty and employment generation.
Mains Question
Q. Analyse the present economic macro-indicators of Indian economy. What are the challenges for growth story of India in the context of global uncertainty?
