Let’s admit this— As much as we have heard our seniors, mentors and toppers advise us to answer fewer questions in Prelims exams due to negative marking, do we want to follow it? All of us wish to answer as many questions as possible correctly. However, post 2014, questions have started getting tougher so much that now –
“Prelims is no longer about selecting the right option. It’s searching for the correct option by eliminating the incorrect ones.”
Let’s take a sample question from Prelims 2021 Paper —
Constitutional government means:
a representative government of a nation with federal structure
a government whose Head enjoys nominal powers
a government whose Head enjoys real powers
a government limited by the terms of the Constitution
An average aspirant gets confused between 2-3 options. Option a), b) and d) look equally correct but you have to select only one. The right answer is option d). How can you find out what was the missing criteria in option a) and b) which option d) fulfilled to emerge as the right answer?
Attend the free webinar by Sajal and Sudhanshu sir to get the answer.
Prelims question papers have become more or less like a game of Sudoko. Except, in Sudoko you can solve the puzzle at your leisure and over here you are limited by 2 hours. We hope this webinar will help all 2022 aspirants implement the suggestions of Sajal sir & Sudhanshu sir
SajalSingh has the distinction be being 2017 topper of GS Mains. He has appeared for interview 3 times. Over 400 students have emerged as toppers under SajalSir’s mentorship in the last 7 years.
Sudhanshu (IIM-K, MBA cont.) has first-hand experience of UPSC civil services and helped many candidates sail through. Prior to this he had served in India’s largest industrial defense complex under Ministry of Defense for 10 years. He also keeps a keen interest in regional and global geopolitics with contributions in several online portals including CivilsDaily IAS.
Formed in 1862, the Indian Penal Code completes 160 years of its existence. One of the prominent remains of the British era, IPC has been a part of Indian society. But has it served society according to its needs? Or does it still have a colonial hangover?
More important… has it been able to keep pace with the changing face of crime.
The article looks back at the journey of the Indian Penal Code and discusses the possibilities of reforms.
What is Indian Penal Code (IPC)?
The IPC is the official criminal code of India. It is a comprehensive code intended to cover all substantive aspects of criminal law.
The code was drafted on the recommendations of first Law Commission of India established in 1834 under the Charter Act of 1833 under the Chairmanship of LordMacaulay.
It came into force in British India during the early British Raj period in 1862.
However, it did not apply automatically in the Princely States, which had their own courts and legal systems until the 1940s.
The Code has since been amended several times (more than 70 times) and is now supplemented by other criminal provisions.
Applications beyond India
After the partition, the IPC was inherited by its successor states, the Dominion of India and the Dominion of Pakistan, where it continues independently as the Pakistan Penal Code.
After the separation of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the code continued in force there.
The Code was also adopted by the British colonial authorities in Colonial Burma, Ceylon (modern Sri Lanka), the Straits Settlements (now part of Malaysia), Singapore and Brunei, and remains the basis of the criminal codes there.
Key feature: Versatility of the IPC
The Code is universally acknowledged as a cogently drafted code, ahead of its time.
It has substantially survived for over 150 years in several jurisdictions without major amendments.
The Supreme Court of UK has applauded the efficacy and relevance of IPC while commemorating 150 years of IPC.
Modern crimes involving technology unheard of during Macaulay’s time fit easily within the Code mainly because of the broadness of the Code’s drafting.
Some controversial sections of IPC
[A] Section 377: Homosexuality
This section prevented private consensual sex between adults of same sex. The Supreme Court of India decriminalised homosexuality by striking off parts of Sec. 377 of which were held violative of Fundamental Rights of LGBTQ Community under Art 14.
[B] Section 309: Attempt to Commit Suicide
The Section 309 of dealt with criminalizing attempt to suicide. This was however in P Rathnam v. Union of India held this section as unconstitutional and void for it violates Article 21.
[C] Section 497: Adultery
The Section was been criticised on the one hand for allegedly treating woman as the private property of her husband. The Supreme Court headed by the then CJI, Deepak Misra, pronounced that Section 497 is unconstitutional and hence, struck it down.
[D] Section 124A: Sedition
This section criminalises anti-national activities and sedition . Throughout India’s history this overbroad provision has been used to silence public figures, including Mahatma Gandhi. More recently it has been used to justify the harassment of protesters.
[E] Section 153A: Hate Speech
Promotion of enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony’, is an offence punishable with three years’ imprisonment.
[F] Section 499: Criminal Defamation,
This section criminalizes defamation, can be used to secure a conviction without proof that actual harm has occurred – the intent or knowledge that harm would likely result is sufficient. Predictably, this provision has been used to silence political speech.
Lacunae in IPC
Unchallenged and archaic: The code has been premised on some very basic principles of criminal jurisprudence and hence the underlying expositions and definitions in the IPC mostly remained unchallenged.
Covers generic offences: The classification of offences was kept generic and wider enough to include a vast array of wrong-doings and therefore it also did not pose major problems until recently.
Colonial attempt: The IPC was essentially a cultural product that reflects a European lineage which was quite alienated to many indigenous personal laws based on religion.
Modern crimes not covered: For instance Cyber Crimes, Drug Offences, Economic Offences, Juvenile Offences, Customs & Excise Offences and further there are many more emerging forms of crime to which IPC does not address.
Persistence of death penalty: Keeping of death penalty in the IPC had a different objective in colonial times. All such reasons have now vanished and the presence of death penalty in master criminal law of India defies modern principles of penology and rehabilitation.
Other legacy challenges
Delays in criminal trials pose a major challenge in the way of justice and seek more coordination between the stakeholders of the legal system.
Lack of awareness among people regarding the criminal laws adds to the weak functioning of the legal system even after the existence of a comprehensive legal framework.
Complex language of the laws mentioned under IPC forms a barrier for the legal interpreters and the common citizens which results in the delay of justice and adds loopholes in the entire system.
Way forward
The Malimath Committee (2003) has made following suggestions for a comprehensive for reforming and restructuring of IPC:
Legal research: There is a need to have empirical legal research showing areas required to be contemplated as new offences in the code.
Enforceability check: The same process should also be applied in case of identification of offences to be dropped from the IPC on account of being outdated nature and issues of enforceability involved in them.
Gender-based offences: There is no separate chapter on sexual offences in IPC. It is therefore the right time to dedicate a full chapter on this subject to bring all sexual offences at one place.
Cover modern laws: To be comprehensive enough, the IPC must also include chapters on cyber laws, economic offences, and terrorist offences in the code. This would be helpful in avoiding duplicity and confusion.
Indigenization: In revision, the indigenousness in the framing of laws must be given space which was completely left out by the IPC.
Parallel reforms in Policing: Although revamping IPC will lead to reforming the criminal justice system, additional changes in the police structure are also needed.
Conclusion
Reforming the criminal justice system is not just a one-step process.
Revamping IPC is a major step to modernize the criminal law of India and make it in accordance with the Indian democracy.
Fulfilling political agendas should not be the reason behind adding specific provisions.
Group Studies for UPSC-CSE has it’s pros and cons. At it’s best, you are exposed to highly competitive and helpful aspirants who will share their knowledge and resources with you. You also get to discuss and debate on important current affairs issues with like-minded peers. When everyone transparently shares their marks, you get motivated to perform better. You will also understand easy ways to complete your preparation from another person.
But, many a times this ideal is not achieved and group studies initiatives fail. This is because there is no one to lead the group and provide a structured agenda for everyone to follow. Every aspirant is busy, wrapped up in their own schedule that they don’t meet up often.
At Civilsdaily, we are bridging this gap and turning the ideal to reality. Our mentors lead the telegram channels and give a direction for all aspirants to contribute. Doubts are resolved, notes are shared, timetable is laid out for everyone to complete.
Are you finding Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE to be a time-consuming affair? Do you either spend the entire day reading only current affairs or skip reading it for many days? Is there a lack of clarity while answering current affairs questions? Do you want to know the right approach to prepare for UPSC-CSE Current affairs without wasting time on trial and error? Then it’s time you filled the Samanvaya form for free 1-on-1 counselling session with an experienced faculty from Civilsdaily!
Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE doesn’t only test an aspirant’s basic understanding, but their ability to critically analyze and remember certain very important details. It requires you to do match the following — you need to match the topic in your UPSC syllabus with the current affairs as you read. For example, India has placed an anti-dumping duty recently on China to protect it’s local manufacturers from cheap imports. This news is related to GS 3 Economics and comes under Foreign Trade topic.
But that’s not all. Current Affairs is the key component that you cannot do without in all the 3 stages of your UPSC-CSE preparation — Prelims, Mains and Interview. And the way you are supposed to prepare for current affairs under each stage varies. You have to remember facts for Prelims, understand the background, challenges and the solutions of current events for Mains and for Interview you should be able to drive meaningful discussions with your current affairs knowledge. Hence, simply reading a newspaper cannot help you ace current affairs for UPSC-CSE.
Unlike popular notion, importance of current affairs isn’t decreasing in UPSC-CSE papers. Rather, it’s become a part and parcel of every topic in the Core Subjects like Economy, Polity, Science and Environment. Let’s understand this with a question asked in UPSC-CSE Mains 2020 —
Which steps are required for constitutionalization of a commission? Do you think imparting constitutionality to the National Commission for Women would ensure greater gender justice and empowerment in India? Give reasons.
This question needs you to have current knowledge on government policies/interventions, constitutional and non-constitutional bodies, constitutional provisions and issues related to developmental and management of social sectors. That’s totally 4 topics for one answer!
Remembering current affairs indices for Prelims MCQs & using them to substantiate answers in Mains is crucial to get marks above cut-off.
Why Samanvaya for UPSC-CSE Current Affairs Preparation?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
At the core of Samanvaya lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. Over 80% of students who claimed to have revised NCERTs twice were unable to answer basic questions. Many were not comfortable with at least 1 GS subject and Optional. Many struggled with ‘What went wrong’ after 2-3 years of hard work. Our mentors will provide free preliminary assignments so that we can assess your preparedness and suggest accurate strategies. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation.
Are you finding Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE to be a time-consuming affair? Do you either spend the entire day reading only current affairs or skip reading it for many days? Is there a lack of clarity while answering current affairs questions? Do you want to know the right approach to prepare for UPSC-CSE Current affairs without wasting time on trial and error? Then it’s time you filled the Samanvaya form for free 1-on-1 counselling session with an experienced faculty from Civilsdaily!
Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE doesn’t only test an aspirant’s basic understanding, but their ability to critically analyze and remember certain very important details. It requires you to do match the following — you need to match the topic in your UPSC syllabus with the current affairs as you read. For example, India has placed an anti-dumping duty recently on China to protect it’s local manufacturers from cheap imports. This news is related to GS 3 Economics and comes under Foreign Trade topic.
But that’s not all. Current Affairs is the key component that you cannot do without in all the 3 stages of your UPSC-CSE preparation — Prelims, Mains and Interview. And the way you are supposed to prepare for current affairs under each stage varies. You have to remember facts for Prelims, understand the background, challenges and the solutions of current events for Mains and for Interview you should be able to drive meaningful discussions with your current affairs knowledge. Hence, simply reading a newspaper cannot help you ace current affairs for UPSC-CSE.
Unlike popular notion, importance of current affairs isn’t decreasing in UPSC-CSE papers. Rather, it’s become a part and parcel of every topic in the Core Subjects like Economy, Polity, Science and Environment. Let’s understand this with a question asked in UPSC-CSE Mains 2020 —
Which steps are required for constitutionalization of a commission? Do you think imparting constitutionality to the National Commission for Women would ensure greater gender justice and empowerment in India? Give reasons.
This question needs you to have current knowledge on government policies/interventions, constitutional and non-constitutional bodies, constitutional provisions and issues related to developmental and management of social sectors. That’s totally 4 topics for one answer!
Remembering current affairs indices for Prelims MCQs & using them to substantiate answers in Mains is crucial to get marks above cut-off.
Why Samanvaya for UPSC-CSE Current Affairs Preparation?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
At the core of Samanvaya lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. Over 80% of students who claimed to have revised NCERTs twice were unable to answer basic questions. Many were not comfortable with at least 1 GS subject and Optional. Many struggled with ‘What went wrong’ after 2-3 years of hard work. Our mentors will provide free preliminary assignments so that we can assess your preparedness and suggest accurate strategies. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation.
China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs has issued standardized names for 15 places in the Indian State of Arunachal Pradesh, to be used henceforth on official Chinese maps.
MEA clarification
The Ministry of External Affairs has dismissed the Chinese “invention”.
Arunachal Pradesh has always been, and will always be, an integral part of India, said MEA.
Why is China giving names to places that are in India?
China claims some 90,000 sq km of Arunachal Pradesh as its territory.
It calls the area “Zangnan” in the Chinese language and makes repeated references to “South Tibet”.
Chinese maps show Arunachal Pradesh as part of China, and sometimes parenthetically refer to it as “so-called Arunachal Pradesh”.
China makes periodic efforts to underline this unilateral claim to Indian territory.
Giving Chinese names to places in Arunachal Pradesh is part of that effort.
Earlier unilateral renamings
This is the second lot of “standardized” names of places in Arunachal Pradesh that China has announced.
Earlier in 2017, it had issued “official” Chinese names for six places spanning the breadth of Arunachal Pradesh
What is China’s argument for claiming these areas?
The PRC disputes the legal status of the McMahon Line, the official boundary under the ‘Convention Between Great Britain, China, and Tibet’ — of 1914 (Simla Convention).
China was represented at the Simla Convention by a plenipotentiary of the Republic of China, which had been declared in 1912 after the Qing dynasty was overthrown.
The present communist government came to power only in 1949, when the People’s Republic was proclaimed.
The Chinese representative did not consent to the Simla Convention, saying Tibet had no independent authority to enter into international agreements.
What is the McMohan Line?
The McMohan Line, named after Henry McMahon, the chief British negotiator at Shimla, was drawn from the eastern border of Bhutan to the Isu Razi pass on the China-Myanmar border.
China claims territory to the south of the McMahon Line, lying in Arunachal Pradesh.
China also bases its claims on the historical ties that have existed between the monasteries in Tawang and Lhasa.
Intention behind these renamings
This renaming is a part of the Chinese strategy to assert its territorial claims over Indian territory.
As part of this strategy, China routinely issues statements of outrage whenever an Indian dignitary visits Arunachal Pradesh.
Beijing keeps harping on its “consistent” and “clear” position that the Indian possession of Arunachal Pradesh.
These claims have been firmly established and recognized by the world, as “illegal”.
Arunachal not all-alone
Laying aggressive claims to territories on the basis of alleged historical injustices done to China is a part of Beijing’s foreign policy playbook.
The claim on Taiwan is one such example, as are the consistent efforts to change the “facts on the ground” in several disputed islands in the South China Sea.
The aggression is at all times backed in overt and covert ways by the use of China’s economic and military muscle.
Hours before the new GST rate was to take effect, the GST Council has decided to temporarily roll back the increase in tax rate for the textiles sector.
What was the proposal?
The GST Council had recommended making certain rate changes for footwear and textiles to correct the inverted duty structure.
What is Inverted Duty Structure?
An inverted duty structure arises when the taxes on output or final product is lower than the taxes on inputs.
This creates an inverse accumulation of input tax credit which in most cases has to be refunded.
A loss for the govt
Inverted duty structure has implied a stream of revenue outflow for the government prompting the government to relook the duty structure.
For footwear, the government refunds around Rs 2,000 crore in a year.
What is the present rate of GST on textiles?
At present, tax rate on manmade fibre, yarn and fabrics is 18%, 12% and 5%, respectively.
Apparel and clothing up to Rs 1,000 per piece currently attracts 5% GST.
Issues with the tax increase
This decision has created a negative impact resulting in drop in demand and recession.
The new rate structure would cause closure of around 1 lakh textile units and losses of 15 lakh jobs nationally.
Ladakh’s Chisumle-Demchok Road, when it crosses the Umling Pass, is now the world’s highest motorable road.
Chisumle- Demchok Road
The project to build the road through the pass — a part of Border Roads Organization (BRO) Project Himank — had been completed in 2017, after which vehicles had started playing on the route.
The road is in south Ladakh. It passes through Umling La Pass, which is at a height of over 19,000 feet.
The height of the pass makes it the highest motorable road in the world, and was recently recognized as such by Guinness World Records.
The 52-km road ‘black-top’ tarmac road from Chisumle to Demchok betters the previous record of a road in Bolivia, which connects the volcano Uturuncu at 18,953 feet.
The road was built under extremely challenging conditions, as temperatures in the region can fall to below minus 40 degrees Celsius, and oxygen levels go down to 50 per cent below normal.
Top of the world
At the pass, the road is higher than both the base camps for the climb to Mount Everest, the world’s highest mountain.
The South Base Camp in Nepal is at a height of 17,598 ft, while North Base Camp in Tibet is at 16,900 ft.
The Chisumle-Demchok road is also higher than the Siachen Glacier, which is situated at 17,700 feet.
Khardung La in Leh, which at one time was among the highest roads in the world, is at an altitude of 17,582 feet.
Military significance of the road
This road provides a direct route from Chisumle, which lies on the major road coming from Leh, Karu and Nyoma.
All of these stations have important military stations which are close to the Line of Actual Control.
Demchok has been an India-China flashpoint earlier, the site of a standoff between the two armies in 2016.
In the current standoff in eastern Ladakh, which began in May 2020, Demchok has come up as a point of contention.
Other benefits offered
The new axis will be helpful for the armed forces, making it easier to mobilize troops and equipment, including rations.
The road will not only enable faster movement of armed forces to the region but will also boost tourism and improve the socio-economic condition of the local people in the region.
Certain limitations
Since the road goes through such a high pass, road transport will be unfeasible during the winter, when the armed forces rely on air support.
After Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, now another Indian origin is in the headline is Jagdeep Singh, CEO and founder of a US battery startup. The reason for his recent buzz for his breakthrough battery technology.
About QuantumScape
QuantumScape Corp is a battery startup backed by Volkswagen AG.
Its solid-state battery — lithium metal with a solid electrolyte separating the two electrodes — is seen as an exceptionally bright prospect in E-Vehicle industry.
What are Solid-state batteries?
A solid-state battery is a battery technology that uses solid electrodes and a solid electrolyte, instead of the liquid or polymer gel electrolytes found in lithium-ion or lithium polymer batteries.
Such batteries can provide potential solutions for many problems of liquid Li-ion battery, such as flammability, limited voltage, unstable solid-electrolyte interphase formation, poor cycling performance and strength.
What are Li-ion Batteries?
Lithium-ion batteries use aqueous electrolyte solutions, where ions transfer to and fro between the anode (negative electrode generally made of graphite) and cathode (positive electrode made of lithium), triggering the recharge and discharge of electrons.
The energy density of lithium-ion cells used in today’s mobile phones and electric vehicles is nearly four times higher than that of older-generation nickel-cadmium batteries.
Its limitations
Low energy density: Despite improvements in technology over the last decade, issues such as long charging times and weak energy density persist.
Small appliances: While lithium-ion batteries are seen as sufficiently efficient for phones and laptops, they still lack the range that would make EVs a viable alternative.
Extreme reactivity: One major problem is that lithium metal is extremely reactive.
Corrosion of cells: The main form of lithium corrosion is dendrites (branched lithium structures) that grow out from the electrode and can potentially pierce the separator short-circuiting the cell.
Fire hazard: In current lithium-ion batteries, in which the electrolyte is a flammable liquid, dendrite formation can trigger a fire.
What is the breakthrough?
QuantumScape claims to prevent dendrites formation.
It uses a solid-state separator technology that eliminates the side reaction between the liquid electrolyte and the carbon/graphite in the anode of conventional lithium-ion cells.
The replacement of the separator enables the use of a lithium-metal anode in place of the traditional
The lithium metal anode is more energy-dense than conventional anodes, which allows the battery to store more energy in the same volume, according to the company.
Key advantages of QuantumScape Battery
The advantages of the solid-state battery technology include higher cell energy density (by eliminating the carbon anode), lower charge time (by eliminating the need to have lithium diffuse into the carbon particles in conventional lithium-ion cells).
It has the ability to undertake more charging cycles and thereby a longer life, and improved safety.
Lower cost could be a game-changer, given that at 30 per cent of the total cost, battery expenses are a key driver of the vehicle costs.
India’s battery push
The centre is working on a blueprint for a project of around 4,000 MWh of grid-scale battery storage system at the regional load dispatch centres that control the country’s power grid, primarily to balance the vagaries of renewable generation.
Reliance Industries Ltd has announced plans to set up an Energy Storage Giga factory; state-owned NTPC Ltd has floated a global tender for a grid-scale battery storage project.
The Ministry of Heavy Industries issued a request for proposal for setting up manufacturing facilities for Advanced Chemistry Cell (ACC) battery storage in India.
Are you finding Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE to be a time-consuming affair? Do you either spend the entire day reading only current affairs or skip reading it for many days? Is there a lack of clarity while answering current affairs questions? Do you want to know the right approach to prepare for UPSC-CSE Current affairs without wasting time on trial and error? Then it’s time you filled the Samanvaya form for free 1-on-1 counselling session with an experienced faculty from Civilsdaily!
Current Affairs for UPSC-CSE doesn’t only test an aspirant’s basic understanding, but their ability to critically analyze and remember certain very important details. It requires you to do match the following — you need to match the topic in your UPSC syllabus with the current affairs as you read. For example, India has placed an anti-dumping duty recently on China to protect it’s local manufacturers from cheap imports. This news is related to GS 3 Economics and comes under Foreign Trade topic.
But that’s not all. Current Affairs is the key component that you cannot do without in all the 3 stages of your UPSC-CSE preparation — Prelims, Mains and Interview. And the way you are supposed to prepare for current affairs under each stage varies. You have to remember facts for Prelims, understand the background, challenges and the solutions of current events for Mains and for Interview you should be able to drive meaningful discussions with your current affairs knowledge. Hence, simply reading a newspaper cannot help you ace current affairs for UPSC-CSE.
Unlike popular notion, importance of current affairs isn’t decreasing in UPSC-CSE papers. Rather, it’s become a part and parcel of every topic in the Core Subjects like Economy, Polity, Science and Environment. Let’s understand this with a question asked in UPSC-CSE Mains 2020 —
Which steps are required for constitutionalization of a commission? Do you think imparting constitutionality to the National Commission for Women would ensure greater gender justice and empowerment in India? Give reasons.
This question needs you to have current knowledge on government policies/interventions, constitutional and non-constitutional bodies, constitutional provisions and issues related to developmental and management of social sectors. That’s totally 4 topics for one answer!
Remembering current affairs indices for Prelims MCQs & using them to substantiate answers in Mains is crucial to get marks above cut-off.
Why Samanvaya for UPSC-CSE Current Affairs Preparation?
In UPSC 2020, Civilsdaily helped 80+ students secure ranks in their exams. In the top 100, every 3rd ranker was a Civilsdaily student.
A very recent success story would be Vishwa Shah, student of Civilsdaily Mentor, Sukanya Ma’am. Vishwa has cleared the GPSC exam to become the Deputy Superintendent of Police in Gujarat. He has penned a thank-you note yesterday. Heartiest Congratulations to Vishwa!
One of our other Civilsdaily Student, Shubham Nagargojecleared the exams in 2020 to become an IPS Officer. Shubham was gracious enough to let us know how he felt about Civilsdaily Samanvaya Guidance under Parth sir.
To know how all of them cleared the exam with our mentorship, visit the UnherdPodcast.
Now that results are announced for UPSC 2021 Prelims, out of 15 out of 25 students of Santhosh Gupta sir have been recommended to Mains. One such student, Rahul expresses his gratitude and extends his appreciation.
Most of our Mentors like Sudhanshu sir, Sajal sir, Santhosh sir, Pravin sir, Parth Verma sir and Sukanya Ma’am were UPSC aspirants themselves and have attended UPSC Mains more than five times and UPSC Interview more than twice. Hence their mentorship is always a blend of the best test series, comprehensive notes and current affairs knowledge.
All of them dedicate their time weekly to give 1-on-1 mentorship to every student where they discuss last week’s performance and next week’s approach.
Be it Telegram, Whatsapp or Habitiat channels, they are always available and clear student’s doubts in a turnaround time of 24 Hours.
Why Civilsdaily Mentors are the GPS for Your UPSC-CSE Preparation
Remember there is always light at the end of the tunnel and if you want to get out of the tunnel you have to follow the direction of the light! Our mentors’ give you direction which is divided into daily modules. All you have to do is study and complete them on time.
As every year passes by, we don’t get confident by the previous years’ performance and become laidback. Instead, we become more hungry to convert all our students into toppers.
How are Current Civilsdaily Students Gearing up for UPSC-CSE 2022?
Initially, our Civilsdaily student Smriti wasn’t confident about Prelims when she began her preparation. Though she had joined Civilsdaily in 2020, she started studying for UPSC-CSE back in 2019. At that time, Smriti had enrolled in multiple institutes. Though, most of these institutes had promised a personal mentor, she was unable to get in touch with them on a daily basis. Also those mentors never scheduled test-series on a weekly basis. Hence, despite preparing for a year, Smriti had scored only 35 marks out of 200 in her first test series by Civilsdaily.
She then started writing 20-25 test series over the course of UAP 2021 and in her last test, her scores have drastically improved. She now scores in the range of 130-135 marks in prelims’ and 110+ in mains’ papers.
In Smriti’s own words she describes her Samanvaya Mentorship Experience to be —
“Our parents provide us financial and emotional support, friends provide us moral support and the right mentor gives you logistic and logical support for UPSC. There are days when I felt I won’t be able to compete against lakhs of aspirants. That’s when my mentor, Ravi sir reminded me of my improvement and encouraged me that I can crack it with the same consistency. We need someone, who tells us we are performing well especially when we cannot see that ourselves. The mentorship at Civilsdaily helped me become mentally stronger as a person. In other institutes, mentors are allotted only for doubt resolution. But at Civilsdaily, I am getting end-to-end mentorship via value added notes, classes, test series and detailed evaluation.”
Similarly our another Civilsdaily student, Ashishsums up his Samanvaya experience with Civilsdaily mentor,Pravin Sir, “Because of Pravin sir’s support, I am able to understand a topic in lesser time.”
This is how Pravin sir evaluates Ashish’s Mains Test Series every week. After every test series evaluation, Pravin sir schedules a 1 hour call to discuss how Ashish can improve his marks and the sources he can refer for key topics.
It’s Your Turn Get the Free 40 Min Counselling Session By a CD Mentor
At the core of Samanvaya lies the fact that each one of you will have a unique journey while preparing for the exam. Some will get through on the first attempt without much effort while others will take both more time and more effort.
We want to understand you better to help you optimize your journey so you can focus on the right things and not waste time on the wrong ones. We are asking you to tap into the valuable experiences of mentors who underwent the same grind and realize the pitfalls and understand the shortcuts to make it.
In the first counselling session, we will understand your weaknesses. Over 80% of students who claimed to have revised NCERTs twice were unable to answer basic questions. Many were not comfortable with at least 1 GS subject and Optional. Many struggled with ‘What went wrong’ after 2-3 years of hard work. Our mentors will provide free preliminary assignments so that we can assess your preparedness and suggest accurate strategies. We then help you to stick to one plan or strategy throughout your preparation.
