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13 May 2021 | Nikaalo Prelims Quiz- TS 13- Geography Test 2: Indian Geography; Government Initiatives – Schemes, National Parks, Missions, etc

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May 12, 2021
12th May 2021 | Prelims Daily with Previous Year Questions

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May 12, 2021
Digital Technologies and Inequalities
Impact of pandemic
- The novel coronavirus pandemic has accelerated the use of digital technologies in India, even for essential services such as health and education, where access to them might be poor.
- Economic inequality has increased: people whose jobs and salaries are protected, face no economic fallout.
- Well-recognised channels of economic and social mobility — education and health — are getting rejigged in ways that make access more inequitable in an already unequal society.
Growing inequality in access to education
- According to National Sample Survey data from 2017, only 6% rural households and 25% urban households have a computer.
- Access to Internet facilities is not universal either: 17% in rural areas and 42% in urban areas.
- Surveys by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT), the Azim Premji Foundation, ASER and Oxfam suggest that between 27% and 60% could not access online classes for a range of reasons: lack of devices, shared devices, inability to buy “data packs”, etc.
- Further, lack of stable connectivity jeopardises their evaluations.
- Besides this, many lack a learning environment at home.
- Peer learning has also suffered.
Inequality in access to health care
- India’s public spending on health is barely 1% of GDP.
- Partly as a result, the share of ‘out of pocket’ (OOP) health expenditure (of total health spending) in India was over 60% in 2018.
- Even in a highly privatised health system such as the United States, OOP was merely 10%.
- Moreover, the private health sector in India is poorly regulated in practice.
- Both put the poor at a disadvantage in accessing good health care.
- Right now, the focus is on the shortage of essentials: drugs, hospital beds, oxygen, vaccines.
- In several instances, developing an app is being seen as a solution for allocation of various health services.
- Digital “solutions” create additional bureaucracy for all sick persons in search of these services without disciplining the culprits.
- Platform- and app-based solutions can exclude the poor entirely, or squeeze their access to scarce health services further.
- In other spheres (e.g., vaccination) too, digital technologies are creating extra hurdles.
- The use of CoWIN to book a slot makes it that much harder for those without phones, computers and the Internet.
Issues with the creation of centralised database
- The digital health ID project is being pushed during the pandemic when its merits cannot be adequately debated.
- Electronic and interoperable health records are the purported benefits.
- For patients, interoperability i.e., you do not have to lug your x-rays, past medication and investigations can be achieved by decentralising digital storage say, on smart cards as France and Taiwan have done.
- Given that we lack a data privacy law in India, it is very likely that our health records will end up with private entities without our consent, even weaponised against us.
- For example, a private insurance companies may use health record to deny poor people an insurance policy or charge a higher premium.
- There are worries that the government is using the vaccination drive to populate the digital health ID database.
Way forward
- Unless health expenditure on basic health services (ward staff, nurses, doctors, laboratory technicians, medicines, beds, oxygen, ventilators) is increased, apps such as Aarogya Setu, Aadhaar and digital health IDs can improve little.
- Unless laws against medical malpractices are enforced strictly, digital solutions will obfuscate and distract us from the real problem.
- We need political, not technocratic, solutions.
Conclusion

Today, there is greater understanding that the harms from Aadhaar and its cousins fall disproportionately on the vulnerable. Hopefully, the pandemic will teach us to be more discerning about which digital technologies we embrace.
May 11, 2021
KNOWLEDGE EUPHORIA – ACHIEVE 2X SYLLABUS COMPLETION RATE
Click here to fill the Samanvaya form for 1-1 mentorship. We will call you within 24 hours.(Also provided at the bottom of the article)

From Articles of Constitution to National parks

From listing mountain ranges to Mauryan administration

From Artificial intelligence to Repo rate……There is so much variety in UPSC CSE Syllabus.

Learning so many new subjects and new topics, one can feel the influx of knowledge in the preparation mode. This newfound knowledge generates a sense of euphoria in many aspirants. To keep feeding this euphoria, many aspirants make the mistake of reading more and more material, be it the current or static part. Sadly, unchecked knowledge euphoria can hijack your preparation.

IS SYLLABUS COMPLETION A SERIOUS ISSUE YOU ARE FACING IN YOUR PREPARATION? IS IT SO THAT WHILE ATTEMPTING MOCK TESTS, YOU VAGUELY RECALL THE TOPICS? OR LOOKING AT SO MANY BOOKS MAKE YOU LOSE INTEREST IN THE PREPARATION?

If yes, then something has to change in your strategy. In fact, you are not alone facing this challenge. Check out the video given below of our student discussing the same problem and how it affected his performance in the last 5 attempts.

Giving prelims without even completing the whole syllabus once is like killing your own golden duck. In our interaction with our Mentors and their mentees, we identified few common mistakes when it comes to incomplete syllabus attempts:
- Habit of collecting and reading too many books, Photostatted material and online content
- Reading every book from cover to cover with giving equal importance to every topic
- Mismanagement of current affairs and static part
Click here to fill the Samanvaya form for 1-1 mentorship. We will call you within 24 hours.(Also provided at the bottom of the article)

Obviously, solutions to these problems differ from student to student. BUT ONE MANTRA THAT ALL OUR MENTORS SWEAR BY IS INSTEAD OF HARD WORK, DO SMART WORK. SO, WHAT DOES SMART WORK MEAN?

WHAT NOT TO READ: Common impression about UPSC CSE preparation is that you have to know everything under the sun. But there is a catch here! Try to learn everything under the sun from a Generalist than a specialist point of view. This can be done if you know “WHAT NOT TO READ?”. Let our mentors look at the material you are reading and chuck out the unnecessary clutter.

MARK BOUNDARIES: This is all about making sure that every subject has 1-2 reference material, which you will focus on. Marking boundaries is also important in the case of current affairs. Usually, students end up using 4-5 hours of their time just for daily current affairs. This for sure is not Smart study!

Click here to fill the Samanvaya form for 1-1 mentorship. We will call you within 24 hours.(Also provided at the bottom of the article)

REVISION: Yes! we all know that revision is important. But do you know you have to divide your revision into 3 groups: Short term, medium-term and long-term revision. Revision should not be a bi-annual exercise. Syllabus completion and revision have to be done side by side. So, getting this balance in your preparation is where we as a mentor come in.

COVER TO COVER: Don’t read your books like novels. You have to constantly tell yourself that ‘BE EXAM ORIENTED’. In each subject, you should have a rough idea about ‘UPSC FAVORITES’. Finish them first!

MONITORING: A neutral third-person monitoring can be a great addition to your preparation. Constant check on what you are reading, what good material not to miss, and focusing on high importance areas is the priority in our mentorship program.

Mentorship is subjective but we are trying to add a bit of science to it with years of data collection on performances, feedback and interviews with our students. Fill up the form below and let us know what issue you are facing? Surely we will resolve it together!

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May 11, 2021
What does US departure from Afghanistan mean for South Asia?
The article highlights the important role played by the US in the geopolitics of the region and the impact of the US retreat on the region foreign policy landscape.

How the US shaped the regional politics of South Asia
- Since it replaced Britain as the major external power in Greater Middle East half a century ago, America has been the pivot around which the regional politics has played out.
- Many regional actors sought alliances with America to secure themselves against ambitious or troublesome neighbours.
- Others sought to balance against America.
- Israel’s security, ensuring oil supplies, competing with other powers, making regional peace, promoting democracy, and stamping out terrorism are no longer compelling factors demanding massive American military, political and diplomatic investments in the region.
Region now has to learn to live with neighbours
- As America steps back from the Middle East, most regional actors either need alternate patrons or reduced tensions with their neighbours.
- Although China and Russia have regional ambitions, neither of them bring the kind of strategic heft America brought to bear on the Middle East all these decades.
- Turkey has figured that its troubled economy can’t sustain the ambitious regional policies.
- After years of challenging Saudi leadership of the Islamic world, Erdogan is offering an olive branch to Riyadh.
- After years of intense mutual hostility, Saudi Arabia and Iran are now exploring means to reduce bilateral tensions and moderate their proxy wars in the region.
- Saudi Arabia is also trying to heal the rift within the Gulf by ending the earlier effort to isolate Qatar.
- These changes come in the wake of the big moves last year by some Arab states — the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan — to normalise ties with Israel.
How India’s approach helped maintain ties in the region
- India’s emphasis on good relations with all the regional actors without a reference to their conflicts has been vindicated by the turn of events.
- Barring Turkey, which turned hostile to India under Erdogan, India has managed to expand its ties with most regional actors.
- Hopefully, the new regional churn will encourage Turkey to take a fresh look at its relations with India.
Effect on India-Pak relations
- The regional reset in the Middle East has coincided with efforts by Delhi and Rawalpindi to cool their tensions.
- The ceasefire on the Line of Control in Kashmir announced at the end of February appears to be holding.
- The US withdrawal from Afghanistan poses major challenges to the Subcontinent.
- India and Pakistan, for very different reasons, would have liked to see the US forces stay forever in Afghanistan.
- For India, American military presence would have kept a check on extremist forces and created conducive conditions for an Indian role in Afghanistan.
- For Pakistan, American military presence in Afghanistan keeps the US utterly dependent on Pakistan for geographic access and operational support.
Challenge of terrorism
- The prospect of trans-border links between the Taliban and other extremist forces in the region is a challenge that South Asian states will have to confront sooner than later.
- Soaring levels of violence in Afghanistan and attack on the former president of Maldives, underlines South Asia’s enduring challenges with terrorism.
- Unless the South Asian states collaborate on countering extremism and terrorism, every one of them will be weakened.
Consider the question “How US troop withdrawal from Afghanistan will influence the regional geopolitics of the region?”

Conclusion

The region needs to focus on the peace and harmony in the region while resolving the bilateral issues through dialogue.
May 11, 2021
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx begins journey back from asteroid
On May 11, NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft will depart asteroid Bennu, and start its two-year-long journey back to Earth.

About OSIRIS-REx
- OSIRIS-REx is NASA’s first mission to visit a near-Earth asteroid, survey its surface and collect a sample from it.
- The mission was launched in 2016, it reached its target in 2018 and since then, the spacecraft has been trying to match the velocity of the asteroid using small rocket thrusters.
- It also utilised this time to survey the surface and identify potential sites to take samples.
- In October 2020, the spacecraft briefly touched asteroid Bennu, from where it collected samples of dust and pebbles.
- Once the surface was disturbed, the spacecraft’s robotic arm captured some samples.
- The spacecraft’s engineers have also confirmed that shortly after the spacecraft made contact with the surface, it fired its thrusters and “safely backed away from Bennu”.
About Bennu
- Bennu is considered to be an ancient asteroid that has not gone through a lot of composition-altering change through billions of years, which means that below its surface lie chemicals and rocks from the birth of the solar system.
- Around 20-40 percent of Bennu’s interior is empty space and scientists believe that it was formed in the first 10 million years of the solar system’s creation, implying that it is roughly 4.5 billion years old.
- Bennu is a B-type asteroid, implying that it contains significant amounts of carbon and various other minerals.
- Because of its high carbon content, the asteroid reflects about four percent of the light that hits it, which is very low when compared with a planet.
- Bennu is named after an Egyptian deity.
- The asteroid was discovered by a team from the NASA-funded Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research team in 1999.
May 11, 2021
Israel-Palestine Clash
Context

On Monday, Israeli police stormed the Al-Aqsa mosque compound in East Jerusalem, leaving a reported 300 people injured. The stand-off came at the end of a week of tensions over the eviction of Palestinian residents from two neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem, Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan, to make way for Jewish settlers.

Cause of the clashes
- The Al-Aqsa is located on a plaza at Temple Mount, which is known in Islam as Haram-e-Sharif.
- The Mount is also Judaism’s holiest site.
- The most imposing structure on the compound is the Dome of the Rock, with its golden dome.
- The Western Wall, also known as the Wailing Wall sacred to Jews, is one side of the retaining wall of the Al-Aqsa compound.
- Soon after the 1967 Six-Day War ended, Israel gave back to Jordan the administration and management of the Al-Aqsa compound.
- While non-Muslims have not been allowed to worship at Al-Aqsa, Jewish individuals and groups have made repeated attempts to gain entry to the Mount Temple plaza.
- Since the late 1990s, around the time of the first intifada, such attempts began occurring with a regularity as Jewish settlers began claiming land in East Jerusalem and surrounding areas.
- It has led to repeated clashes and tensions at Al-Aqsa.
Rival claims over Jerusalem
- Both Israel and Palestine have declared Jerusale their capital.
- In July 1980, the Israeli Parliament passed the Jerusalem Law declaring it the country’s capital.
- Palestinians declared Jerusalem the capital of the putative state of Palestine by a law passed by the Palestinian Authority in 2000.
- The 1988 Palestinian Declaration of Independence also declared Jerusalem as the capital.
- For the present, the Palestinian Authority has its headquarters in Ramallah.
How the world is reacting
- The Security Council held a meeting on the situation in Jerusalem, but did not make any statement immediately.
- Last Friday, the US said it was “extremely concerned” .
- The UAE, which recently recognised as Israel as a state and sealed a historic peace agreement to normalise relations with it, has “strongly condemned” the clashes and the planned evictions in Jerusalem over the past week.
- Saudi Arabia said it “rejects Israel’s plans and measures to evict dozens of Palestinians from their homes in Jerusalem”.
- Pakistan Prime Minister also condemned Israel for violation of international law.
May 11, 2021
India’s Silent Pivot: West Asia
The pandemic has caused a lot of distrust against our government in power at the centre. Especially due to the inefficiencies in the handling of the crisis which led to the loss of more than 50 thousand lives, over the past few weeks.

Although India managed to get a lot of foreign aid and support, the issues of distribution to most needy places persist. The government has started to take steps to face-save itself after repeated rebukes by high courts and finally the supreme court.

With this as a pretext, it’s easy to miss several desirable machinations being orchestrated by Indian diplomats abroad, especially in West Asia and Pakistan. Given its geographical location ( West Asia ) and plenty of oil, it’s hard to get ignored by world powers too. There are local and international fissure points as well.

During the reign of Donald Trump, West Asia embraced the policy of Abraham accords. With the active participation of Israel, UAE, and Bahrein for acceptance of the statehood of Israel. This also has elements of nurturing inter-regional socio-economic and technological cooperation. The accords are named to emphasize the shared belief in the Prophet Abraham in Judaism and Islam yet the regional and ideological differences are far from over.

Oftentimes countries like Turkey and Pakistan have played spoilsport to take a leadership role in the crisis-laden region. Challenges due to both these countries are now getting addressed one at a time. The region being close to India’s strategic interests in terms of security, energy supplies, and expatriates making a living in the region, India always remains invested. PM Modi in the first term has worked overtime to craft a predictable and stable foreign policy especially in Muslim majority West Asia, which seems to be paying off.

Recently S Jaishankar was on a trip to West Asia and returned in late April. As we know Pakistan is in the middle of a terrible crisis both internally and externally. Pressure is on the Pak govt to sever ties with France by several internal Islamist sections, aggravating its economic isolation & decline. Pakistan is also cornered for its way of handling terrorist groups on its soil. Hence the double-edged sword of FATF is a constant threat. Further, the corona pandemic has led the establishment in Pakistan to take an ever pragmatic stand and come to terms.

Recently in a statement by Pakistan foreign minister Qureshi, Art 370 is India’s internal matter ( unka andarooni masla ). This admission must not be seen in isolation. UAE had already extended a $ 2 Bn loan to Pakistan. After Qureshi made the statement on the 7th of May, MBS released $ 500 ml from Saudi Development Funds on 8th May. Further relaxations could be forthcoming if Pakistan softens its stance on the state recognition of Israel. Not to forget the oil loan from the Saudis which is due this year.

It started with the West Asia Peace Plan at the behest of Palestine. It is for Israel to agree to a two-state solution. This as a bargaining chip and US-brokered Abraham accords for regional cooperation, pressure is on peripheral powers like Turkey and Pakistan to react in approval. With the intensifying pandemic all over the globe, crumbling state finances, and calls for support for medical supplies, Pakistan seems to be relenting. So do we see any contribution made by India in changing the geopolitical landscape?

The reasons for India’s inevitable contributions could be many:-
- India’s belief in being a development partner in the region. Against the Chinese chequebook and hegemonic designs.
- India has cultural and economic relations. With huge diaspora making a living and playing a vital role in regional development
- India’s successful role in the peaceful & developmental contributions. In the form of Parliament, schools, libraries and cricket playgrounds in Afghanistan.
- With the withdrawal of American troops from Afgan, the anticipated surge insurgencies. Also, the active ISIS-Khorasan module places India on the diplomatic high table for security and peace dialogue. This is also a challenge with the Taliban on the table.
- Russian and US endorsement of India’s participation in several dialogues involving Afgan. It is a positive sign of status elevation.
- India being a pharmaceutical hub for the world and its proximity to Pakistan will only help.
- Chinese development funds are infamous for their exploitative character even in Pak parliament.
- Last but not least, India’s immaculate balancing act with Russia – the US. Also Israel – Saudi – UAE and other middle eastern countries.
India tried to fulfill its regional and global responsibilities by Mission Vaccine Maitri. But it seems to have lost the moral high ground to help others when we have graveyards in lakhs back home. Our star-studded foreign minister now has the challenge to see-through, all that is in planning over the years. Who knows POK is on the radar sooner than anticipated?

About the author: Sudhanshu Mishra

The Author presently works with Civilsdaily as a Faculty member and has keen interests on social reform & Geopolitics.

Ex- Defence Serviceman, has been part of India’s largest industrial defence complex, the Indian Ordnance Factories Organization.

He can be reached @SudhanshuM on Habitat & @sudhanshu_misR on Twitter.
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