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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Hydrogen is all set to play a significant role in decarbonizing energy systems. Green Hydrogen has no carbon footprint through several challenges remain in its usage at a wider level. National Hydrogen Mission was announced by the center govt in this year’s Budget to tackle all these challenges. In this edition, we will discuss and analyze all aspects of this issue.
Green Hydrogen: Fuel of the future
Hydrogen is primarily used in the petrochemicals and fertilizer industry and is produced largely from natural gas, thereby emitting enormous amounts of carbon dioxide.
Depending on the nature of the method of its extraction, hydrogen is categorized into three categories, namely, grey, blue and green.
Green hydrogen gas is produced by splitting water (H2O) into hydrogen and oxygen using an electrolyzer that may be powered by electricity generated from renewable energy sources.
This gives hydrogen the edge over other fuels to unlock various avenues of green usage.
However, challenges lie in terms of technology, efficiency, financial viability, and scaling up which the summit will aim to address.
What is National Hydrogen Mission?
The Union Budget for 2021-22 has announced a National Hydrogen Energy Mission (NHM) that will draw up a road map for using hydrogen as an energy source.
The initiative has the potential of transforming transportation.
Why shift for Hydrogen?
India has a huge edge in green hydrogen production owing to its favorable geographic conditions and presence of abundant natural resources.
Presently India has around 6 million Metric tonnes of Hydrogen production every year which is almost 8% of the global hydrogen production.
Hydrogen also offers an opportunity to decrease the dependence on Fossil fuel.
The fertilizer, Steel, and transport sector need a lot of energy so we can decarbonize by using green hydrogen. Thus future of clean energy depends a lot on Green Hydrogen.
The growth of solar has given a unique advantage for the growth of green hydrogen.
Cheap solar tariffs mean the cost of powering the electrolysis process through surplus electricity at peak hours to generate hydrogen remains low.
Setting up hydrogen generation plants near solar parks will further reduce transmission costs.
Major challenges
Overt regulations: Currently, multiple regulatory authorities regulate hydrogen use. The MoRTH regulates vehicle’s fuel carrier specification, MNRE regulates renewable energy sources, Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board regulates pipelines and Petroleum and Explosives Safety Organization regulates explosive substances, storage and fuel station’s specifications.
Economic sustainability: One of the colossal challenges faced by the industry for using hydrogen commercially is the economic sustainability of extracting green or blue hydrogen. Furthermore, the maintenance costs for fuel cells post-completion of a plant can be costly, like in South Korea.
Technological limitations: The technology used in production and use of hydrogen like carbon capture and storage (CCS) and hydrogen fuel cell technology are at nascent stage and is expensive which in turn increases the cost of production of hydrogen.
Lack of investment: The commercial usage of hydrogen as a fuel and in industries requires mammoth investment in R&D of such technology and infrastructure for production, storage, transportation, and demand creation for hydrogen.
Although, the draft regulations of NHM are expected to contain details pertaining to hydrogen technology, including storage, R&D, pilot projects, and other specification and safety standards.
Going Forward
De-carbonization: We need to decarbonize many Industries to shift towards green hydrogen technology.
De-regulation: Hydrogen being a versatile resource will require coordination among the various ministries and regulators.
Collaboration: Proactive industry collaboration with the government is key to creating a hydrogen economy in India. This will help bring best-in-class hydrogen technology, equipment, and know-how to create a hydrogen supply chain in India — in many cases, these could be “Made in India”.
Infrastructure: Hydrogen is highly explosive so storage must be highly secured. The NHM should aim to establish appropriate physical infrastructure and legal framework for the usage of hydrogen. India also plans to extend the production linked incentive (PLI) scheme for manufacturing electrolyzer, which are used for producing green hydrogen.
R&D: The NHM can also highlight the need for global cooperation and generate opportunities for exchange of technology. To augment the NHM, constructive synergies among leading industries from different sectors like automobiles, power generation, refining, chemicals is necessary.
Capacity building: Hydrogen generation cost is very high. The draft regulations for NHM shall have a roadmap for affordable targets and capacity installation. Designated hydrogen hubs can be established to attract investment by providing infrastructural support like pipelines and renewable electricity for production, storage and transportation of green hydrogen.
Global cooperation: Global hydrogen initiatives have been gaining traction. The year 2020 saw 20 countries, including Australia, Canada, the USA, Japan, and Germany, announce hydrogen policies. India should ramp up international collaborations for more effortless transfer of technology and resources related to hydrogen.
Conclusion
Green hydrogen is one of the most promising fuels in the efforts to reduce carbon emissions.
India should aim to reduce the cost of hydrogen to less than $2 by 2030. By doing so, the demand is expected to increase by at least five times today’s demand to 30 million tonnes per annum by 2050.
At this juncture, with calibrated approach, India can uniquely position itself to take advantage of increasing investment in R&D, capacity building, compatible legislation, and the opportunity for the creation of demand among its vast population.
The Tamil Nadu government has decided to shun the usage of the term ‘Central government’ in its official communications and replace it with ‘Union government’. This is a major step towards regaining the consciousness of our Constitution.
India the union
Seventy-one years since we adopted the Constitution, it is time we regained the original intent of our founding fathers beautifully etched in the parchment as Article 1: “India, that is Bharat, shall be a Union of States”.
The Constituent Assembly did not use the term ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in all of its 395 Articles in 22 Parts and eight Schedules in the original Constitution.
What we have are the ‘Union’ and the ‘States’ with the executive powers of the Union wielded by the President acting on the aid and advice of the Council of Ministers headed by the Prime Minister.
Where is Central Govt defined?
Even though we have no reference to the ‘Central government’ in the Constitution, the General Clauses Act, 1897 gives a definition for it.
The ‘Central government’ for all practical purposes is the President after the commencement of the Constitution.
Therefore, the real question is whether such definition for ‘Central government’ is constitutional as the Constitution itself does not approve of centralising power.
Intent of Constituent Assembly
On December 13, 1946, Pt Nehru introduced the aims and objects of the Assembly by resolving that India shall be a Union of territories willing to join the “Independent Sovereign Republic”.
The emphasis was on the consolidation and confluence of various provinces and territories to form a strong united country.
Many members of the Constituent Assembly were of the opinion that the principles of the British Cabinet Mission Plan (1946) be adopted, which contemplated a Central government with very limited powers whereas the provinces had substantial autonomy.
The Partition and the violence of 1947 in Kashmir forced the Constituent Assembly to revise its approach and it resolved in favour of a strong Centre.
The possibility of the secession of States from the Union weighed on the minds of the drafters of the Constitution and ensured that the Indian Union is “indestructible”.
Preventing the secession
In the Constituent Assembly, B.R Ambedkar, the Chairman of the Drafting Committee, observed that the word ‘Union’ was advisedly used in order to negative the right of secession of States.
Ambedkar justified the usage of ‘Union of States’ saying that the Drafting Committee wanted to make it clear that though India was to be a federation, it was not the result of an agreement.
Therefore, no State has the right to secede from it. “The federation is a Union because it is indestructible,” Ambedkar said.
Then criticism of the ‘Union’
The usage of ‘Union of States’ by Ambedkar was not approved by all and faced criticisms from Maulana Hasrat Mohani.
He argued that Ambedkar was changing the very nature of the Constitution.
Mohani made a fiery speech in the Assembly on September 18, 1949 where he contended that the usage of the words ‘Union of States’ would obscure the word ‘Republic’.
Mohani went to the extent of saying that Ambedkar wanted the ‘Union’ to be “something like the Union proposed by Prince Bismarck in Germany, and after him adopted by Kaiser William and after him by Adolf Hitler”.
Dr. Ambedkar’s clarification
Ambedkar clarified that the Union is not a league of States, united in a loose relationship; nor are the States the agencies of the Union, deriving powers from it.
Both the Union and the States are created by the Constitution, both derive their respective authority from the Constitution.
The one is not subordinate to the other in its own field… the authority of one is coordinate with that of the other.
Features of Indian Union
The sharing of powers between the Union and the States is not restricted to the executive organ of the government.
The judiciary is designed in the Constitution to ensure that the Supreme Court, the tallest court in the country, has no superintendence over the High Courts.
Though the Supreme Court has appellate jurisdiction — not only over High Courts but also over other courts and tribunals — they are not declared to be subordinate to it.
In fact, the High Courts have wider powers to issue prerogative writs despite having the power of superintendence over the district and subordinate courts.
Parliament and Assemblies identify their boundaries and are circumspect to not cross their boundaries when it comes to the subject matter on which laws are made.
However, the Union Parliament will prevail if there is a conflict.
Answer this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
The Executive Power of the Union of India is vested in the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister is the ex-offi cio Chairman of the Civil Services Board.
Which of the given statements is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
A wordplay indeed
The members of the Constituent Assembly were very cautious of not using the word ‘Centre’ or ‘Central government’ in the Constitution as they intended to keep away the tendency of centralizing of powers in one unit.
The ‘Union government’ or the ‘Government of India’ has a unifying effect as the message sought to be given is that the government is of all.
Even though the federal nature of the Constitution is its basic feature and cannot be altered, what remains to be seen is whether the actors wielding power intend to protect the federal feature of our Constitution.
As Nani Palkhivala famously said, “The only satisfactory and lasting solution of the vexed problem is to be found not in the statute book but in the conscience of men in power”.
The Department of Agriculture, Cooperation and Farmers Welfare has entered into an MoU with Microsoft Corporation to start a pilot project in 100 villages to create a ‘Unified Farmer Service Interface’ through its cloud computing services.
AgriStack
The AgriStack is a collection of technologies and digital databases proposed by the Central Government focusing on India’s farmers and the agricultural sector.
The central government has claimed that these new databases are being built to primarily tackle issues such as poor access to credit and wastage in the agricultural supply chain.
Under AgriStack’, the government aims to provide ‘required data sets’ of farmers’ personal information to Microsoft to develop a farmer interface for ‘smart and well-organized agriculture’.
The digital repository will aid precise targeting of subsidies, services and policies, the officials added.
Under the programme, each farmer of the country will get what is being called an FID, or a farmers’ ID, linked to land records to uniquely identify them. India has 140 million operational farm-land holdings.
Alongside, the government is also developing a unified farmer service platform that will help digitise agricultural services delivery by the public and private sectors.
Issues with the move
Agriculture has become the latest sector getting a boost of ‘techno solutionism’ by the government.
But it has, since then, also become the latest sector to enter the whole debate about data privacy and surveillance.
Since the signing of the MoUs, several concerns related to sharing farmers’ data with private companies the major one being Microsoft whose owner Bill Gates is said to be the largest private farmland owner in the US.
In all the MoUs, there are provisions under which the agriculture ministry will enter into a data sharing agreement with the private companies of the likes of Amazon, Microsoft and Patanjali.
The development has raised serious concerns about information asymmetry, data privacy and consent, profiling of farmers, mismanaged land records and corporatization of agriculture.
The formation of ‘Agristack’ also implies commercialization of agriculture extension activities as they will shift into a digital and private sphere.
Why such concerns?
The project was being implemented in the absence of a data protection legislation.
It might end up being an exercise where private data processing entities may know more about a farmer’s land than the farmer himself.
Without safeguards, private entities would be able to exploit farmers’ data to whatever extent they wish to.
This information asymmetry, tilted towards the technology companies, might further exploit farmers, especially small and marginal ones.
What are some major threats?
One of the biggest worries is the threat of financial exploitation.
We have already seen how microfinance firms have wreaked financial havoc in rural hinterlands.
Now, once Fintech companies are able to collect granular data about the farmers’ operations, they may offer them usurious rates of interest precisely when they would be in the direst need for credit.
With this, the risk of commodifying agriculture and farmer data ran high.
The US Navy Friday carried out a ‘full ship shock trial’ on its newest and most advanced nuclear-powered aircraft carrier to ensure its hardness was capable of withstanding battle conditions.
What is a Full Ship Shock Trial (FSST)?
During World War II, American warships suffered severe damage from enemy mines and torpedoes that had actually missed their target, but exploded underwater in close proximity.
The US Navy has since worked to improve the shockproofing of their ship systems to minimize damage from such “near miss” explosions.
In FSSTs, an underwater explosive charge is set off near an operational ship, and system and component failures are documented.
The FSST probes whether the components survive shock in their environment on the ship; it probes the possibilities of system failures, and large components that could not be otherwise tested.
Tax Inspectors Without Borders (TIWB) programme has been recently launched.
TIWB Program
TIWB is a joint initiative of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).
India was chosen as the Partner Jurisdiction and has provided the Tax Expert for this programme.
It aims to aid Bhutan in strengthening its tax administration by transferring technical know-how and skills to its tax auditors, and through sharing of best audit practices.
The focus of the programme will be in the area of International Taxation and Transfer Pricing.
This programme is another milestone in the continued cooperation between India and Bhutan and India’s continued and active support for South-South cooperation.
The Union Minister for Electronics & Information Technology has further liberalized the guidelines for Other Service Providers (OSPs).
Do you remember quaternary and quinary sectors of Economy from NCERTs?
What are OSPs?
These entities are business process outsourcing (BPO) organizations giving Voice based services, in India and abroad.
The term Business Process Outsourcing or BPO as it is popularly known, refers to outsourcing in all fields.
A BPO service provider usually administers and manages a particular business process for another company.
BPOs either use new technology or apply an existing technology in a new way to improve a particular business process.
India is currently the number one destination for business process outsourcing, as most companies in the US and UK outsource IT-related business processes to Indian service providers.
Main features of the liberalized guidelines
Distinction between Domestic and International OSPs has been removed. A BPO centre with common Telecom resources will now be able to serve customers located worldwide including in India.
EPABX (Electronic Private Automatic Branch Exchange) of the OSP can be located anywhere in the world. OSPs apart from utilising EPABX services of the Telecom Service Providers can also locate their EPABX at third Party Data Centres in India.
With the removal of the distinction between Domestic and International OSP centres, the interconnectivity between all types of OSP centres is now permitted.
Remote Agents of OSP can now connect directly with the Centralised EPABX/ EPABX of the OSP/ EPABX of the customer using any technology including Broadband over wireline/ wireless.
No restriction for data interconnectivity between any OSP centres of same company or group company or any unrelated company.
Deflation. A recent (2014) study found substantial deflationary pressures from Japan’s ageing populationThe article argues that a decline in population is not always as worrisome as it is made to be.
Declining fertility rate
China’s fertility rate of 1.3 children per woman in 2020 is well below replacement level, but so, too, are fertility rates in every rich country.
In all developed economies, fertility rates fell below replacement in the 1970s or 1980s and have stayed there.
In India, more prosperous states have fertility rates below replacement level, with only the poorer states of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh still well above.
And while the national rate in 2018 was still 2.2, the Indian National Family Health Survey finds that Indian women would like to have, on average, 1.8 children.
In all prosperous countries where women are well educated and free to choose whether and when to have children, fertility rates fall significantly below replacement levels.
If those conditions spread across the world, the global population will eventually decline.
Is the declining population good or bad for the economy
A pervasive conventional bias assumes that population decline must be a bad thing.
But while absolute economic growth is bound to fall as populations stabilise and then decline, it is the income per capita that matters for prosperity and economic opportunity.
It is true that when populations no longer grow, there are fewer workers per retiree, and healthcare costs rise as a percent of GDP.
But that is offset by the reduced need for infrastructure and housing investment to support a growing population.
A stable and eventually falling global population would make it easier to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to avoid climate change, and alleviate the pressure that growing populations inevitably place on biodiversity and fragile ecosystems.
And contracting workforces create stronger incentives for businesses to automate while driving up real wages, which, unlike absolute economic growth, are what really matter to ordinary citizen.
In a world where technology enables us to automate ever more jobs, the far bigger problem is too many potential workers, not too few.
Even when the Indian economy grows rapidly, its highly productive “organised sector” of about 80 million workers, fails to create additional jobs.
Growth in the potential workforce simply swells the huge “informal sector” army of unemployed and underemployed people.
So, when declining populations turns to be a problem?
Fertility rates far below replacement level create significant challenges, and China may well be heading in that direction.
At those rates, population decline will be precipitate rather than gradual.
If Korea’s (fertility rate 1.09) birth rate does not rise, its population could fall from 51 million today to 27 million by 2100, and the ratio of retirees to workers will reach levels that no amount of automation can offset.
Conclusion
The average fertility rates well below replacement level in all developed countries, and, over time, gradually falling populations. The sooner that is true worldwide, the better for everyone.
Suppose you started reading Laxmikant to prepare for questions on Indian Constitution.
What do you do? You read through it, answer the questions in the book, and gradually complete the syllabus.
What do you do next? You pick up mock questions and try solving them.
While solving the question paper, you realise that you have missed some points. What do you do then? You go back to Laxmikant and read that chapter again.
Now, this is not a one time thing. Every time you discover that you have missed a concept or cannot solve a particular question, you go back to the book and read it again. Basically, you spend a lot of time reading the same material over and over again without feeling confident that you will definitely solve the questions. Is this the smart way of preparing for your exams or could there be a better way?
And you are not alone. Most of the students do the same thing and waste a lot of time and effort in reading the same things without feeling completely confident about it. Would it not be better if you could spend this time on reading some other material or preparing for your optional subject? Wouldn’t it be better if you read the syllabus once or maybe twice and felt confident about it?
What if we tell you that you can gain absolute mastery over the subject, not only constitution but all of them, without going through the same material multiple times? What if we tell you that there is a better way, a smarter way?
So, what is the smarter way?
We spoke with hundreds of aspirants who have cracked the exam and they revealed the secret that helped them succeed. The secret was ‘discussion.’
In fact, every aspirant who has succeeded will tell you that they engaged with their peers and mentors in numerous discussions to understand the topics comprehensively. Successful aspirants will tell you that they got a comprehensive understanding of the topics by participating in thorough discussions with other aspirants.
Why do they do this?
Engaging in discussions helped these successful candidates in clearing their doubts. It helped them get a broader perspective on the subject and it helped them find new ways of answering questions without having to read the same material over and over again.
They learned through conversations!
How can you do the same?
Well, at Habitat, we have highly focused aspirants engaging in thorough discussions on the most relevant topics, everyday. They are guided by experienced mentors who engage in the conversation and keep it concentrated on the topic. We make sure that every aspirant on Habitat learns at their own pace but in an efficient manner.
The aspirants in our clubs get the following benefits:
Completion of the syllabus? No problem
Intense revision? Done
Detailed discussion? Of course
Answer writing practice? Yes
A focused approach to studies? Indeed
Doubt clearing? Obviously
We make sure that you have everything that you need to succeed!
All you need to do is give it a shot! So, go ahead and try out one of our clubs. Or just speak with us for free!
We promise that you will find learning much easier and feel more confident going for your exam.
