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There comes a time in our lives when we realize our calling. When to get where we have to go – even if there are no doors or windows, we walk through a wall. If this is that time for you please continue reading.
In our discussion with over 1000 bright students last month, we realized that it wasn’t a lack of motivation that stood in the way of their success, it was something else…
Motivation will get you started but it is discipline alone which will keep you growing. Remember, even a drop of rain every day will make a hole in the most stubborn stone. Be that goddamn drop of rain!
It is persistence and discipline that is the bridge between your goals and accomplishments.
A common misconception about discipline is that it is about punishment and suffering. No, It is not! It is about accountability – daily, weekly, monthly.. for the entire journey of your IAS preparation.
How to set and enforce that accountability to keep your journey disciplined and always on track?
This is where our 3 tier mentoring comes in:
1. 1st step starts with this Samanvaya call: Once you fill in the form, we get on a 30-40 minute call with you to understand your prep level, working/ study constraints, current strategies and create a step by step plan for next week, next month and so on
2. You are given access to our invite-only chat platform, Habitat where you can ask your daily doubts, discuss your test-prep questions and have real-time, live sessions on news and op-eds, and find your optional groups.
Daily target monitoring.
3. The third and the most personalized tier is the 1 on 1 mentor allotment who stays with you through the course of your UPSC preparation – always-on chat and on scheduled calls to help you assess, evaluate, and chart the next milestone of your IAS 2021 journey.
Working Junta? If you are preparing for IAS 2021 and working simultaneously, we can help you design a timetable that fits right in your hectic schedule.
First-time prep? If you are in the last year of college or thinking of dropping a year and preparing for IAS 2021 full time, we can help you pick the right books and craft a practical & personal strategy.
Once done, we will call you within 24 hours or so.
Here are some testimonials of our students about Samanvaya and our propriety chat interventions:
This world is full of unsuccessful talents, unrewarded geniuses, and educated derelicts. Nothing in this world can take the place of discipline and persistence. – Calvin Coolidge
China began heavy investment in infrastructure. This was a key policy decision as it provided employment to millions of people improving their economic status and purchasing power, which was the essential ingredient for industrial progress.ajya Sabha TV programs like ‘The Big Picture’, ‘In Depth’ and ‘India’s World’ are informative programs that are important for UPSC preparation. In this article, you can read about the discussions held in
The LAC has been exploited by China as leverage against India. And failure on our part to understand long-term strategic aims and objective of China makes the problem hard to solve. This article suggests a three-pronged approach to deal with China.
Incomprehension of aims and objectives
There is incomprehension among our decision-makers of the long-term strategic aims and objectives that underpin China’s belligerent conduct.
We have not devoted adequate intellectual capital, intelligence resources and political attention to acquisition of a clear insight into China and its motivations.
Even when intelligence is available, analysis and dissemination have fallen short.
What China’s Defence White Papers suggest
These thematic public documents articulate China’s national security aims, objectives and vital interests and also address the “ends-ways-means” issues related to its armed forces.
The 11 DWPs issued so far are a model of clarity and vision, and provide many clues to current developments.
No Indian government since Independence has deemed it necessary to issue a defence white paper, order a defence review or publish a national security strategy.
Had we done so, it may have prepared us for the unexpected and brought order and alacrity to our crisis-response.
China uses LAC as strategic leverage
In order to show India its place, China had administered it a “lesson” in 1962.
And it may, perhaps, be contemplating another one in 2020, with the objective of preventing the rise of a peer competitor.
For China, the line of actual control or LAC, representing an unsettled border, provides strategic leverage.
Leverage it can use to keep India on tenterhooks about its next move while repeatedly exposing the latter’s vulnerabilities.
1993 Agreement didn’t benefit India
Our diplomats derive considerable satisfaction from the 1993 Border Peace & Tranquility Agreement.
This agreement, according to former foreign secretary, Shivshankar Menon, “…effectively delinked settlement of the boundary from the rest of the relationship”.
But by failing to use available leverage for 27 years, and not insisting on bilateral exchange of LAC maps, we have created a ticking time-bomb, with the trigger in China’s hands.
While “disengagement” may soon take place between troops in contact, it is most unlikely that the PLA will pull back or vacate any occupied position in Ladakh or elsewhere.
In which case, India needs to consider a three-pronged strategy.
What should be India’s three-pronged strategy?
1. Reinforce at ground level
At the ground-level, we need to visibly reinforce our positions, and move forward to the LAC all along.
We should enhance the operational-tempo of the three services as a measure of deterrence.
Indian warships should show heightened presence at the Indian Ocean choke-points.
Cyber emergency response teams country-wide should remain on high alert.
We should build-up stocks of weapons, ammunition and spares.
The Ministry of Defence should seize this opportunity to urgently launch some long-term “atma-nirbharta” schemes in defence-production.
2. At strategic level: Modus vivendi
At the strategic level, the government should consider sustained process of engagement with China at the highest politico-diplomatic echelons.
The negotiations should seek multi-dimensional Sino-Indian modus-vivendi; encompassing the full gamut of bilateral issues like trade, territorial disputes, border-management and security.
Simultaneously, at the grand-strategic level, India should initiate a dialogue for the formation of an “Indo-Pacific Concord for Peace and Tranquility”.
This Concord should involve inviting four members of the Quad as well as Vietnam, Indonesia, Philippines and Malaysia.
3. Political pragmatism
As a nation, we need to be pragmatic enough to realise that neither conquest nor re-conquest of territory is possible in the 21st century.
Parliament should, now, resolve to ask the government, “to establish stable, viable and peaceful national boundaries”.
Consider the question “With changing relations with China, India needs to overhaul its strategy on the ground, strategic and political levels in dealing with China”
Conclusion
This three-pronged approach while comprehending the Chines objectives and goals can help India in dealing successfully with the challenge posed by China.
The Disaster Management Act (DMA) 2005 has been invoked by the government to deal with the pandemic. However, National Plan as provided under the Act to deal with Covid-19 is nowhere to be found. Also, the creations of PM CARES violated the provision of the DMA-2005. These two issues are discussed here.
Provisions of DMA 2005
The Act, along with other things provides the constitution of a National Authority, a National Executive committee.
It also provides for the constitution of an advisory committee of experts in the field to make recommendations and to prepare a national plan.
This plan must provide for measures for prevention or mitigation.
The Act lays down “guidelines for minimum standards of relief, including ex gratia assistance.
Provision of various Funds under DMA 2005
It enables the creation of a National Disaster Response Fund in which the central government must make due contribution.
It also requires “any grants that may be made by any person or institution for the purpose of disaster management” to be credited into the same Fund.
It also provides for a National Disaster Mitigation Fund, exclusively for mitigation.
The Act also provides for State and local-level plans and for creating State Disaster Response Fund among others.
Provision of disaster management plan
After the direction by the SC, the government came out with a National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP), 2016.
This Plan dealt with various kinds of disasters; it was amended in 2019.
Bu this National Plan not in place now.
Without it, the fight against COVID-19 is ad hoc and has resulted in thousands of government orders.
These orders are confusing those who are to enforce them as well as the public.
NDRF and PM CARES issue
On April 3, 2020, the government of India agreed to contribute its share to the NDRF.
But a public charitable trust under the name of Prime Minister’s Citizen Assistance and Relief in Emergency Situations Fund (PM CARES Fund) was set up to receive grants made by persons and institutions out of the NDRF, in violation of Section 46 of the Act.
The crores being sent to this fund are not even audited by the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) of India.
It is a totally opaque exercise.
The government of the day has not only ignored the binding law but also circumvented it.
The government has been fighting the crisis in an ad hoc and arbitrary manner instead of the organised steps as mandated by the Act.
In so doing, the experts have been sidelined.
Consider the question “Describe the various provision of the DMA 2005 to deal with the disaster. In light of this, examine whether the creation of PM CARES conflicts with the provision of his act”
Conclusion
The national plan to deal with the pandemic and making PM CARES more transparent would help the government in its fight against the corona crisis.
To commemorate the death centenary of Tilak, a Pune based NGO is set to revive the Independence-era spirit of the ‘Lal-Bal-Pal’, named after nationalists Lala Lajpat Rai, ‘Lokmanya’ Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Bipin Chandra Pal.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2010:
Q. What was the immediate cause for the launch of the Swadeshi movement?
(a) The partition of Bengal done by Lord Curzon.
(b) A sentence of 18 months of rigorous imprisonment imposed on Lokmanya Tilak.
(c) The arrest and deportation of Lala Lajpat Rai and Ajit Singh; and passing of the Punjab ColonizationBill.
(d) Death sentence pronounced on the Chapekarbrothers.
About Lal-Bal-Pal
Lal Bal Pal was a triumvirate of assertive nationalists in British-ruled India in the early 20th century, from 1906 to 1918.
They advocated the Swadeshi movement involving the boycott of all imported items and the use of Indian-made goods in 1907 during the anti-Partition agitation in Bengal which began in 1905.
The final years of the nineteenth century saw a radical sensibility emerge among some Indian intellectuals.
This position burst onto the national all-India scene in 1905 with the Swadeshi movement – the term is usually rendered as “self-reliance” or “self-sufficiency”.
Their Legacy
Lal-Bal-Pal mobilized Indians across the country against the Bengal partition, and the demonstrations, strikes and boycotts of British goods that began in Bengal soon spread to other regions in a broader protest against the Raj.
The nationalist movement gradually faded with the arrest of its main leader Bal Gangadhar Tilak and retirement of Bipin Chandra Pal and Aurobindo Ghosh from active politics.
While Lala Lajpat Rai suffered from injuries, due to British police superintendent, James A. Scott, ordered the British Indian police to lathi charge and personally assaulted Rai; he died on 17 November 1928.
Back2Basics:
Lala Lajpat Rai
Born in undivided Punjab on 28 January 1865, Lala Lajpat Rai grew up in a family that allowed the freedom of faith.
Even before he focused his efforts towards a self-sufficient India, Rai believed in the principle.
In 1895, he started the Punjab National Bank—the first Indian bank to begin solely with Indian capital, and that continues to function till date.
Rai had travelled to America in 1907 and immediately caught up similarities between the ‘colour-caste’ practised there and the caste system prevalent in India.
In 1917, he even founded the Indian Home Rule League of America there.
His proactive, brave participation in the protest earned him the title of the Lion of Punjab or Punjab Kesari.
Bal Gangadhar Tilak
Bal Gangadhar Tilak (23 July 1856 – 1 August 1920) was an Indian nationalist, teacher, and an independence activist
In 1884, he founded the Deccan Education Society in Pune, and under the banner, opened the New English School for primary studies and Fergusson College for higher education.
His involvement in the educational institutions was to emphasise on the cultural revival of young Indian minds.
For the British, Tilak was the “Father of the Indian Unrest.”
When the Indian National Congress was divided among moderates and extremes—the stand that each member took against the British government—there was no doubt which side Tilak supported.
Literary works: Kesari and Maratha newspapers
Bipin Chandra Pal
The father of revolutionary thoughts, Bipin Chandra Pal, was born to a wealthy family in Sylhet, Bengal Presidency (now in Bangladesh).
Pal was a journalist by profession and often contributed to several newspapers.
He used his literary expertise to write against the use of British goods, advocating Indians to start using Swadeshi goods instead.
He was of a strong opinion that a mass reliance on Swadeshi goods would help people get rid of their poverty.
The Union Cabinet has approved the creation of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorization Centre (IN-SPACe) to provide a level playing field for private companies to use Indian space infrastructure.
Note the key differences between IN-SPACe, ANTRIX and NSIL. We can expect a prelims question with shuffled objectives of these organisations.
IN-SPACe
The creation of IN-SPACe is part of reforms aimed at giving a boost to private sector participation in the entire range of space activities.
The IN-SPACe is expected to hand-hold, promote and guide the private industries in space activities through encouraging policies and a friendly regulatory environment.
It would endeavour to reorient space activities from a ‘supply-driven’ model to a ‘demand-driven’ one, thereby ensuring optimum utilization of the nation’s space assets.
Why need IN-SPACe?
India is among a handful of countries with advanced capabilities in the space sector.
Space sector can play a major catalytic role in the technological advancement and expansion of our Industrial base.
The proposed reforms will enhance the socio-economic use of space assets and activities, including through improved access to space assets, data and facilities.
Back2Basics: New Space India Limited (NSIL)
It functions under the administrative control of Department of Space (DOS).
It aims to commercially exploit the research and development work of ISRO Centres and constituent units of DOS.
The NSIL would enable Indian Industries to scale up high-technology manufacturing and production base for meeting the growing needs of the Indian space programme.
It would further spur the growth of Indian Industries in the space sector.
ANTRIX
Antrix Corporation Limited (ACL), Bengaluru is a wholly-owned Government of India Company under the administrative control of the Department of Space.
It is as a marketing arm of ISRO for promotion and commercial exploitation of space products, technical consultancy services and transfer of technologies developed by ISRO.
Antrix is engaged in providing Space products and services to international customers worldwide.
The government has made it mandatory for sellers on the Government e-Marketplace (GeM) portal to clarify the country of origin of their goods when registering new products.
Practice question for mains:
Q. India’s quest for self-reliance is still a distant dream. Critically comment in light of the popular sentiment against the Chinese imports in India.
What is Government e-Marketplace?
The GeM is a one-stop National Public Procurement Portal to facilitate online procurement of common use Goods & Services required by various Government Departments / Organizations / PSUs.
It was launched in 2016 to bring transparency and efficiency in the government buying process.
GEM aims to enhance transparency, efficiency and speed in public procurement.
It is a completely paperless, cashless and system driven e-marketplace that enables procurement of common use goods and services with minimal human interface.
It provides the tools of e-bidding, reverses e-auction and demand aggregation to facilitate the government users to achieve the best value for their money.
The purchases through GeM by Government users have been authorized and made mandatory by the Ministry of Finance by adding a new Rule No. 149 in the General Financial Rules, 2017.
It has been developed by Directorate General of Supplies and Disposals (Ministry of Commerce and Industry) with technical support of National e-governance Division (MEITy).
What is the new move?
Sellers on the GeM portal will now have to disclose the origins of their products.
The portal also has a ‘Make in India’ filter, and government offices will be able to ascertain which products have a higher content of indigenously produced raw materials.
Why need ‘Country of Origin’ tag?
The tag would help bidders choose products that meet the ‘minimum 50 per cent local content’.
This is the new procurement norm amended by the government earlier this month categorise suppliers based on the level of local content in their goods.
The GeM portal now allows buyers to reserve a bid for Class I local suppliers, or suppliers of those goods with more than 50 per cent local content.
For bids below Rs 200 crore, only Class I and Class II (those with more than 20 per cent local content) are eligible.
Why is all of this happening?
The decision comes in the backdrop of the government’s push for self-sufficiency which intends to promote self-reliance by boosting the use of locally produced goods.
At $ 70.32 billion in 2018-19 and $ 62.38 billion between April 2019 and February 2020, China accounts for the highest proportion of goods imported into India (around 14 per cent in 2019-2020 so far).
It also follows the deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops in Galwan Valley which have prompted several government departments to launch an offensive against imports from China.
How will ordinary consumers in India be impacted?
The announcement may over time filter out imported goods from use in government offices and facilities.
This might provide an opportunity to Indian manufacturers across industries to push their products in government facilities.
A more direct impact may be seen if the proposal to mandate the country of origin for products on private platforms is implemented.
The Union Cabinet has approved the extension of the term of the Commission to examine the issue of Sub-categorization of Other Backward Classes, by 6 months i.e. upto 31.1.2021.
Practice question for mains:
Q.The quota policy for OBCs needs a revisit. Comment.
About the commission
The Commission was constituted under Article 340 of the Constitution in 2017 under the chairmanship of Justice (Retd.) Smt. G. Rohini.
The Commission has since interacted with all the States/UTs which have subcategorized OBCs, and the State Backward Classes Commissions.
The expenditure related to the establishment and administration costs of the Commission is borne by the Department of Social Justice and Empowerment.
Background
The Supreme Court in Indra Sawhney and others vs. Union of India case (1992) had observed that there is no constitutional or legal bar on states for categorizing OBCs as backward or more backward.
It had also observed that it is not impermissible in law if a state chooses to do sub-categorization.
So far, 9 states/UTs viz. Karnataka, Haryana, Andhra Pradesh, Jharkhand, Puducherry, Telangana, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu have carried out sub-categorization of OBCs.
However, there was no subcategorization in the central list of OBCs so far.
Why need a sub-categorization?
Presently, half of these 1,900-odd castes have availed less than three per cent of reservation in jobs and education, and the rest availed zero benefits during the last five years.
Five-year data on OBC quota implementation in central jobs and higher educational institutions showed that a very small section has cornered the lion’s share.
A/c to the Commission, the classification is based on relative benefits availed and not relative social backwardness, which involves parameters such as social status, traditional occupations, religion, etc.
