Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chumbi Valley
Mains level: Paper 2- What China's new boundary law mean for India?
Context
The latest in the series of aggressive Chinese actions is the use of lawfare through the passing of the “Land Boundary Law” on October 21 which became effective this week.
Background of the Chinese approach
- The last residue of the Qing dynasty was wiped out in the 1911 revolution when China was established as a republic.
- The republic was again overthrown in 1949 by the Chinese Communist Party.
- Three successive Chinese governments in China refused to delineate or demarcate the boundary with either Tibet or India.
- British archival records, many declassified points to attempts made by Imperial Britain to formally formulate a boundary with China.
- Yet, all three regimes were united in their refusal to accept a formal limiting of China’s territorial expanse and kept their response ambiguous.
- Even during the Simla Convention of 1913-14, when the Republic was ascendant in China, there was a vehement refusal to recognise any demarcation of boundaries between Tibet and China.
Strong-arm tactics against India
- Having operated from a maximalist position to settle its borders with 12 of its 14 neighbours so far, China has attempted to use the same strong-arm tactics with both India and Bhutan.
- It has offered to forgo its claims in the larger parts of North Bhutan in lieu of gaining a relatively smaller area in West Bhutan.
- Threat to Siliguri corridor: This seeming magnanimity is calculated to expand into the Chumbi Valley in the South, threatening the narrow and strategic Siliguri corridor in India.
- In its latest move, China has made a new claim on Sakteng sanctuary in Bhutan which may form a launchpad for future operations against Tawang in Arunachal Pradesh.
- China has also strengthened its collusion with Pakistan.
- There is a deliberate attempt by China to physically link with Pakistan in the Northern Areas by removing the Indian wedge of DBO, the doorway to the Karakoram Pass.
- A Training Mobilisation Order (TMO) issued by Xi Jinping in January 2020 called for “confrontational training” for its troops and officers to assess their preparedness, especially in light of the new reforms undertaken by the PLA.
- These factors seem to be the tactical beginnings of China’s grand strategy which also saw China flexing in the South China Sea and Taiwan, almost simultaneously.
China making use of lawfare and implications for India
- The latest in the series of aggressive Chinese actions is the use of lawfare through the passing of the “Land Boundary Law”.
- Formalises and legalises land Chinese grab: The law formalises and legalises China’s geographic creep towards Tawang, Arunachal Pradesh and parts of eastern Ladakh and creates conditions for using newly-constructed border villages close to the LAC for claiming sovereignty over disputed areas.
- The import of the law is most critical for India but will affect China’s disputes with other countries too.
- What China has done, therefore, is convert a territory dispute over borders into a sovereignty dispute which precludes any give or take of territory.
- China will attempt to settle its Han population in the Tibetan regions, reversing established demographic patterns and at the same time.
- Future negotiations over territory, if they occur, will then refer to the Border Defence Cooperation Agreements of 2005 and 2012 which call for border settlements to be done keeping in mind the local population in the border regions.
Way forward
- A deliberate thought process needs to be evolved to offset our disadvantages as purely military actions may not solve the situation in the long term.
Conclusion
What emerges clearly is that by adopting the Land Boundary Law, in conjunction with its physical actions on the LAC, China has consolidated its position in eastern Ladakh and kept possibilities open in Arunachal Pradesh.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: REDD+
Mains level: Paper 3- Ensuring participation of people to achieve desired target of carbon sequestration
Context
India’s pledge to set a net-zero target by 2070, at the COP26 summit, Glasgow, has again highlighted the importance of forests to help mitigate the challenges of climate change.
Need for sustainable management of forests
- The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) framework (2013) of REDD+ for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation has highlighted the importance of forest along with the ‘sustainable management of forests for the conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks’.
- Land-based sinks: In a study by Griscom (2017), land-based sinks (natural climate solutions which also include forests) can provide up to 37% of emission reduction and help in keeping the global temperature below 2° C.
- Natural regeneration model: Recent research has favoured a natural regeneration model of restoration over the existing much-hyped mode of tree planting as such forests are said to secure nearly 32% carbon storage, as per one report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
Degradation and deforestation in India
- As per the State of Forests Report (1989), the country had 2,57,409 sq.km (7.83% of its geographical area) under the open forest category, having a density of 10% to less than 40%.
- However, in 30 years (2019) this has been increased to 3,04,499 sq. km (9.26%).
- This means every year on average, nearly 1.57 lakh hectare of forests was degraded.
- Anthropogenic pressure: This degradation highlights the presence of anthropogenic pressures including encroachment, grazing, fire, which our forests are subjected to.
Need for the participation of people to achieve target of carbon sequestration
- The degradation warrants the participation of people as an essential and effective route to achieve the desired target of carbon sequestration through the restoration of forests.
- As envisaged in National Forest Policy, 1988, India made its attempt, in 1990, to engage local communities in a partnership mode while protecting and managing forests and restoring wastelands with the concept of care and share.
- Later, the concept of forest development agencies was introduced to consolidate the efforts in an autonomous model.
- Creation of joint forest management committees: The efforts to make this participatory approach operative resulted in the formation of nearly 1.18 lakh joint forest management committees managing over 25 million hectares of forest area.
- Most of these became active and operative while implementing various projects financed by external agencies such as the World Bank, the Overseas Economic Cooperation Fund (OECF) Japan, the Department for International Development (DFID) United Kingdom and the European Union (EU).
- A similar system of joint management in the case of national parks, sanctuaries and tiger reserves which existed in the name of eco-development committees initially proved effective.
- However, the completion of the project period and lack of subsequent funding affected their functionality and also the protection of forests due to a lack of support from participating local communities including associated non-governmental organisations.
- Customary participation: Except for the National Mission for Green India, in all other centrally sponsored programmes such as Project Tiger, fire management, Integrated Development of Wildlife Habitats (IDWH) including the Compensatory Afforestation Management and Planning Authority (CAMPA), the lack of priority and policy support to ensure the participation of local communities via the institutions of joint forest management committees slowly made their participation customary.
- This caused a gradual decline in their effectiveness.
- Role change: The role of local institutions of gram panchayat or joint forest management committees is now restricted to be a consultative institution instead of being partners in planning and implementation.
- Implications of role change: This indifference and alienation from the participatory planning and implementation of various schemes
Way forward
- Revisit legal and policy mechanism: To achieve net-zero targets there is a need to revisit our existing legal and policy mechanisms.
- Incentivise local communities: We also need to incentivise the local communities appropriately and ensure fund flow for restoration interventions.
- There is a need for duly providing for the adequate participation of local people in planning and implementation through local institutions.
- Replicate Telangana model: Political priority and appropriate policy interventions as done recently in Telangana by amending the panchayat and municipal acts and creating a provision for Telangana Haritha Nidhi need replication in other States.
- Financial and institutional support mechanisms: These should be supported by enabling financial and institutional support mechanisms and negotiations with stakeholders
- Though India did not become a signatory of the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, the considerations of land tenure and the forest rights of participatory communities with accelerated finances will help aid steps in the race toward net zero.
Consider the question “India is witnessing enormous degradation of forests and deforestation. This warrants the participation of people as an essential and effective route to achieve the desired target of carbon sequestration. In context of this, elaborate the importance of people participation and suggest the way forward.”
Conclusion
This inclusive approach with political prioritisation will not only help reduce emissions but also help to conserve and increase ‘our forest cover’ to ‘a third of our total area’. It will also protect our once rich and precious biological diversity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Price and tax measures to reduce demand of tobacco
Context
There is no doubt that tobacco use is highly detrimental to public health. We have to find the ways and the means to reduce the demand for tobacco among existing as well as aspiring users.
Impact of tobacco
- Tobacco is a product that kills more than 13 lakh Indians every year.
- Annual burden: The annual economic burden from tobacco use is estimated to be ₹177,340 crore which is more than 1% of India’s GDP.
- About 27 crore people above the age of 15 years and 8.5% of school-going children in the age group 13-15 years use tobacco in some form in India.
Are price and tax measures effective against tobacco use?
- When tobacco products become more expensive, people either quit using them or use them less, and it incentivises many to not initiate the habit.
- Because it hurts both revenue and profits, the tobacco industry, globally, is always devising tactics and narratives that will pre-empt any kind of tax increases on tobacco products.
- The narrative of “increasing illicit trade” is something the tobacco industry has historically used to pre-empt potential tax increases on tobacco products in most countries around the world.
- The story is no different in India.
- In a recent report by the Tobacco Institute of India, it was said that the illicit cigarette volume in India has grown by 44% from 2011 to 2019 while adding that high and increasing tax rates provide a profitable opportunity for tax evasion and encourage growth in illegal trade.
- A study published in 2018 which used a survey of empty cigarette packs collected from retail outlets across different cities in India estimated that illicit cigarettes constitute 2.7% of the market.
- The second study published in 2020 used tax-gap analysis to estimate that the percentage of illicit cigarettes was 5.1% in 2009-10 and 6.6% in 2016-17.
Are taxes and prices key determinants of illicit trade?
- It is to be noted that taxes and prices are not the key determinants of illicit trade.
- There is sufficient evidence in the literature on illicit trade in cigarettes that shows tax increases only have a minimal impact, if at all, on illicit trade.
- There are several countries where tobacco taxes are quite high and yet have low levels of illicit trade, while there are also countries with high levels of illicit trade despite having relatively low tax rates.
- Several factors such as the quality of tax administration, the strength of the regulatory framework, government commitment to control illicit trade, the strength of governance, social acceptance, and the presence of informal distribution networks are known to play a larger role in determining the scale and the extent of an illicit market.
Way forward
- WHO protocol: Eliminating all forms of illicit trade in tobacco products through a package of measures is one of the major objectives of the Protocol to Eliminate Illicit Trade in Tobacco Products under the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.
- The Protocol provides the tools and the measures to eliminate or minimise illicit trade which includes strong governance, establishing an international track and trace system, and securing supply chains.
- India has already ratified the World Health Organization Protocol and it should now show leadership in implementing these measures to effectively address even the relatively lower levels of illicit trade.
Conclusion
There is no scientific or public health rationale not to increase tax on tobacco products for unfounded fear of increasing illicit trade.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with the nutrition gap
Context
The NFHS-5 factsheets for India and all states and Union territories are now out. At first glance, it appears to be a mixed bag — much to cheer about, but concern areas remain.
Positives from the NFHS-5 survey
- Change in demographic trends: For the first time since the NFHS 1992-93 survey, the sex ratio is slightly higher among the adult population.
- Improvement in sex ratio at birth: For the first time in 15 years that the sex ratio at birth has reached 929 (it was 919 for 1,000 males in 2015-16).
- The total fertility rate has also dropped from 2.2 per cent to a replacement rate of 2 per cent, albeit with not much change in the huge fertility divide between the high and low fertility states.
- Improvement in literacy level of women: There has been an appreciable improvement in general literacy levels and in the percentage of women and men who have completed 10 years or more of schooling, which has reached 41 per cent and 50.2 per cent respectively.
- Improvements in health indicators: The health sector deserves credit for achieving a significant improvement in the percentage of institutional births, antenatal care, and children’s immunisation rates.
- There has also been a consistent drop in neonatal, infant and child mortality rates — a decrease of around 1 per cent per year for neonatal and infant mortality and a 1.6 per cent decrease per year for under five mortality rate.
Nutrition: Area of concern
- Increase in anaemic people: India has become a country with more anaemic people since NFHS-4 (2015-16), with anaemia rates rising significantly across age groups, ranging from children below six years, adolescent girls and boys, pregnant women, and women between 15 to 49 years.
- Why anaemia is a concern? Adverse effects of anaemia affect all age groups — lower physical and cognitive growth and alertness among children and adolescents, and lesser capacity to learn and play, directly impacting their future potential as productive citizens.
- Further, anaemia among adolescent girls (59.1 per cent) advances to maternal anaemia and is a major cause of maternal and infant mortality and general morbidity and ill health in a community.
- The detailed report will explain why a dedicated programme like Anaemia Mukt Bharat which focused on IFA consumption failed to gain impetus.
- Slow pace of improvement in nutritional indicators: Between NFHS 4 and NFHS 5, the percentage of children below five years who are moderately underweight has reduced from 35.8 per cent to 32.1 per cent.
- Moderately stunted children have fallen from 38.4 per cent to 35.5 per cent, moderately wasted from 21 per cent to 19.3 per cent and severely wasted have increased slightly from 7.5 per cent to 7.7 per cent.
- Inadequate diet: The root cause for this is that the percentage of children below two years receiving an adequate diet is a mere 11.3 per cent, increasing marginally from 9.6 per cent in NFHS-4.
Way forward
- India’s nutrition programmes must undergo a periodic review.
- The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS), which is perceived as the guardian of the nation’s nutritional well-being must reassess itself and address critical intervention gaps, both conceptually and programmatically, and produce rapid outcomes.
Conclusion
The nutritional deficit which ought to be considered an indicator of great concern is generally ignored by policymakers and experts. Unless this is addressed, rapid improvement in nutritional indicators cannot happen.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CERT-IN
Mains level: Paper 2- Cybercrimes against women
Context
The open-source app, Bulli Bai, hosted on the web platform GitHub for “auctioning Muslim women” has laid bare the harassment women face online.
Cybercrimes against women
- As per the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) there were around 825 million internet users in India at the end of March 2021.
- The minuscule amount of rogue elements among these internet users have the lethal capability to create havoc in the nation, its polity, economy and the personal and professional lives of citizens.
- Reluctance to file case: Many times, police officers are approached by anxious parents, days before marriage, seeking help about fake profiles or morphed photographs of their daughters on the internet.
- A formal police case is thus never lodged.
- The stark reality is that cyber blackmailing, stalking and bullying is a humongous issue, causing a lot of stress to women and their families.
- NCRB statistics show that total cyber crimes in India during 2020 were 50,035, and those specifically against women were only 10,405.
Steps need to be taken
- Promt reporting and registration: To find out the true magnitude of cyber crime, prompt reporting and registration are the only options.
- International cooperation through treaties: There are many international gangs which successfully avoid detection as “servers” used by them are located outside India.
- International cooperation through formal treaties and informal channels has to be pursued.
- CERT-IN has been doing commendable work in this regard.
- Registering a criminal case is the first crucial step as it sets the law into motion, leading to tracing, arresting and prosecuting the rogues even if they are located outside the country.
- Increase awareness: There is need to increase awareness about cyber safety and security so that youth, especially young girls and women, take proper precautions while surfing the virtual world.
- Better policing: As for the police, we do need better infrastructure, more special cyber cells and police stations, regular training, and collaboration with cyber experts on a continuous basis.
- Strengthening the capability of forensic laboratories can lead to timely collection of evidence of cyber bullying, threatening, morphing and profiling.
- Many state labs do not have sufficient numbers of cyber experts to seize, preserve and store images of digital evidence essential for securing conviction in courts.
- The central government has given funds to states and Union territories under the Cyber Crime Prevention Against Women and Children (CCPWC) scheme to start “cyber forensic-cum-training laboratories”.
- Fast trial: Fast trial of cyber crimes would indeed help. As per the NCRB, during 2020, court trials were completed in only nine cases of cyber blackmailing and threatening with a 66.7 per cent conviction rate — 393 such cases are pending in courts.
- Systematic training of prosecutors and judicial officers in dealing with cyber crimes would definitely speed up trials.
Conclusion
Prompt reporting of cyber crime by citizens, technically proficient investigation by police adequately supported by forensics, and time-bound completion of court trials are essential for catching cyber offenders who are terrorising people, especially women, in the virtual as well as the real world.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Blue Dot network
Mains level: Paper 2- Indo-Pacific region
Context
The visit by United States Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken to Southeast Asia in December 2021 underscores the importance that is being accorded to this region by the Joe Biden administration.
Take aways from the visit
[1] Projecting the US as reliable partner
- The idea was to present the U.S. as a reliable partner in meeting the challenges that the Indo-Pacific region is facing.
- For instance, completely aware that the Southeast Asian nations are averse to choosing sides in this U.S.-China competition, Mr. Blinken made it a point to mention that “individual countries will be able to choose their own path and their own partners.
[2] Tackling China challenge
- Both China and the U.S. are trying to lure the Association of Southeast Asian Nation (ASEAN) countries to their side — China with its grand economic infrastructure investment deals and the U.S. through recent high profile official visits as well as through the Build Back Better World initiative and Blue Dot Network.
- In Southeast Asia, the U.S.-China competition is most visible in two areas; one is the South China Sea and the second is the investment in fulfilling the infrastructure development needs of Southeast Asian countries.
- The U.S. has continued its Freedom of Navigation operations in the disputed waters of the South China Sea.
- In his remarks in Indonesia, Mr. Blinken stressed America’s determination “to ensure freedom of navigation in the South China Sea, where Beijing’s aggressive actions there threaten the movement of more than $3 trillion worth of commerce every year”.
[3] Closing the gap on infrastructure
- Southeast Asia has been one of the top recipients of Chinese investments under its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
- How these investments have driven countries such as Cambodia and Laos to do China’s bidding in the ASEAN even at the cost of compromising ASEAN’s unity is a known fact.
- Mr. Blinken reiterated that the U.S. remains committed to help close the gap on infrastructure.
- The infrastructure coordination group launched by the Quad members is seeking to catalyse even more investment and is looking to partner with Southeast Asia on infrastructure and many other shared priorities.
- Washington is promising to do more under the Build Back Better World initiative and the Blue Dot Network.
Way forward
- The ASEAN countries, even after the release of the ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific, do not have a uniform approach when it comes to dealing with the U.S. and China.
- These differing approaches are also challenging the much vaunted ASEAN centrality in the Indo-Pacific.
- Though external players will have a limited role in ensuring that the unity within ASEAN is restored, providing proper alternative models of investments for development in sectors such as infrastructure, digital economy, supply chain, and health for the Southeast Asian nations will be critical.
Conclusion
The economic framework, investment plans and promises outlined need to be made operational quickly if Washington is to show that it is indeed serious about sustained commitment toward the Indo-Pacific.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Regulatory challenges faced by civil society organisations
Context
Recently, the Missionaries of Charity established by Nobel Laureate Mother Teresa was in the news for the cancellation of its permission under the FCRA.
Detailed scrutiny delaying permission for grant
- The levels of due diligence and the information sought on the one hand and the annual declarations to be given by the board members of civil society organisations on the other have increased significantly.
- The mandatory opening of bank accounts for foreign contributions has been centralised in one branch of the State Bank of India.
- The linking of Permanent Account Number (PAN), Aadhaar number and mapping it with the bank account/s of the individual board members are happening.
- The registrations under Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) have been long necessitated in order to undertake due diligence of the causes for which the organisation is working for and also to have a handle on the traceability of funds.
- The dashboard shows a little under 17,000 active organisations — which have either got permission or will know their fate by March 2022, while around 33,000 organisations have either lost their permission or it has expired.
Various restrictions
- Restriction on sub-grant: In the past, the amendments in the FCRA that restricted the ability to sub-grant, killed many of the niche organisations working in very remote areas which had no direct access to international funding but were doing it through larger non-governmental organisations.
- Restriction on administrative expenses: The other amendment restricting the proportion of expenses on administration almost choked organisations that worked for the rights of the disposed.
- The increasing level of surveillance type of data sought has resulted in many organisations losing people on their governance structure and resulting in problems in funding.
Why do we need Civil Society Organisations?
- We need them because they usually work on what can be called an unreasonable agenda.
- This unreasonableness falls in three large verticals.
- [1] Ensuring efficiency and accountability from state: The first is that they ask for greater efficiency, delivery and accountability from the state.
- Whether is it about rehabilitation and compensation in the case of land acquisition or setting up a great accountability framework as was done through the movement led by the Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan for the Right to Information.
- [2] Correcting extractive nature of market: The second vertical is in correcting the extractive nature of markets.
- The groups asking for environmental accountability are looking at inter-generational justice on a matter that is not very precisely measurable but is palpable.
- [3] Picking up niche causes: The third is basically picking up causes that are so niche that it is beyond the capability of the state to come up with such initiatives.
- For example, a drama school set up in a village called Heggodu, Karnataka, or an idea of distributing clothing for work as done by Goonj.
- These initiatives cannot be put into specific business plans, spreadsheets or government schemes.
- They, therefore, need a grant-based, cause-based revenue stream model.
Should these organisations accept foreign funding?
- Causes have no boundaries: “Causes” have no boundaries and funding for such socially desirable belief systems could come from beyond borders.
- Some causes carried out by organisations such as Doctors Without Borders, or Reporters Without Borders are by definition international in nature.
- Similar is the case with the Jaipur foot provided by the Bhagwan Mahaveer Viklang Sahayata Samiti.
- The humanitarian work by the Missionaries of Charity is beyond the capability of a state.
- Such causes do not have a rational basis to be explained in terms of a financial model; how do you put a price tag to press freedom?
- The niche funding will happen from agencies that may be beyond the borders.
- The duality of welcoming foreign investments (which takes away capital gains and dividends) while actively discouraging foreign aid to charities is staring us in the face.
Conclusion
The government needs to ensure that the regulations do not create hurdles for the civil society organisations in their functioning and receiving fundings.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Commitment to net-zero emission targets
Mains level: Paper 3- Transition towards clean energy
Context
At a time when our planet faces an existential crisis, there is little doubt that we need innovative, scientific and urgent steps to secure humanity’s future.
India’s climate commitment
- We need to act decisively to reach global net-zero, restricting future cumulative emissions to the remaining carbon budget — as COP26 noted — if the rise in temperature is to remain within the limits of the Paris Agreement.
- At COP26, India announced its climate commitments — the “Panchamrit”, including a commitment to reach net-zero by 2070.
- India’s announcement of its net-zero goal is a major step considering that our country is not the cause of global warming.
- Its historical cumulative emissions are a mere 4.37 per cent of the world’s total.
India’s steps to achieve the targets
[1] India’s renewable energy targets and achievements
- India’s renewable energy targets have steadily become more ambitious, from the 175 GW by 2022 declared at Paris, to 450 GW by 2030 at the UN Climate Summit, and now 500 GW by 2030, announced at COP26.
- India has also announced the target of 50 per cent installed power generation capacity from non-fossil energy sources by 2030, raising the existing target of 40 per cent, which has already been almost achieved.
- Renewable technologies: India will not lag in terms of new cutting-edge renewable technologies and has already announced a Hydrogen Energy Mission for grey and green hydrogen.
- In energy efficiency, the market-based scheme of Perform, Achieve and Trade (PAT) has avoided 92 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions during its first and second cycles.
[2] India’s E-mobility transtion
- FAME: India is accelerating its e-mobility transition with the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles Scheme to support the electric vehicle market development and enable its manufacturing ecosystem to achieve self-sustenance.
- Incentives for customers and companies: The government has also announced a slew of incentives for customers and companies to promote e-vehicles.
- Adoption of BS-VI: India leapfrogged from Bharat Stage-IV (BS-IV) to Bharat Stage-VI (BS-VI) emission norms by April 1, 2020.
- Scrapping policy: A voluntary vehicle scrapping policy to phase out old and unfit vehicles now complements these schemes.
- Electrification of railway routes: Indian Railways is charging ahead, targeting the full electrification of all broad-gauge routes by 2023.
[3] Ujjwala Yojana and UJALA
- The Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana has benefitted 88 million households with LPG connections.
- More than 367 million LED bulbs have been distributed under the UJALA scheme, leading to energy savings of more than 47 billion units of electricity per year and a reduction of 38.6 million tonnes of CO2 per year.
- With these and many other initiatives, India has already achieved a reduction of 24 per cent in the emission intensity of its GDP between 2005 and 2016, and is on track to meet its target of 33 to 35 per cent by 2030.
Role of private sector
- Since industries also contribute to GHG emissions, any climate action will need to reduce or offset emissions that emerge from industrial and commercial activity.
- The public and private sectors in India are already playing a key role in meeting the climate challenge, helped by growing customer and investor awareness, as well as increasing regulatory and disclosure requirements.
- Enterprises are well-positioned to not just adapt to but also gain from the low-carbon transition.
- The low-carbon transition challenge is bigger for companies that are largely coal-powered and contribute more than half of our country’s emissions.
- The business fraternity must make the best possible use of this opportunity to invest in climate technologies and expand the use of renewable energy sources.
- The Indian cement industry has taken pioneering measures and achieved one of the biggest sectoral low carbon milestones worldwide.
Way forward
- India’s journey on the low-carbon pathway towards net-zero requires the active participation of all stakeholders.
- Sustainable lifestyles and climate justice are at the core of this journey.
Conclusion
With cooperation from the private sector, India will be able to responsibly use its fair share of the global carbon space and contribute to reaching the global net-zero goal to build a more environmentally sustainable planet.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Capex boom in India
Context
Economists are predicting a potential virtuous capital investments (capex) cycle to kick in globally as we emerge from the pandemic.
Why do analysts think that capital investment cycle is about to start?
- Less leveraged: Corporates are less leveraged today compared to 2008.
- Indian corporates repaid debts of more than Rs 1.5 trillion.
- Fiscal and monetary support: Companies are also more confident of durable fiscal and monetary support.
- Increased savings: Households have large excess savings built during Covid — $1.7 trillion in the US and roughly $300 billion in India as per a UBS report.
- Cash: Lastly, corporates are sitting on a large cash pile – S&P 500 firms’ cash has soared from $1 trillion pre-pandemic to $1.5 trillion now.
Why capex wave is difficult in India?
- Fall in capital formation: India’s fixed capital formation rate has steadily fallen from 36 per cent of GDP in 2008 to 26 per cent in 2020.
- For a set of 718 listed companies for which data is consistently available from 2005, the capex growth rate has decreased from 7 per cent in 2008 to around 2 per cent in 2020.
- Low return on invested capital: The return on invested capital in FY21 is still low at 2-3 per cent compared with 16-18 per cent returns in 2005-08.
- Structural issues: Land acquisition is still tough, changes to labour laws have been slow, and reform uncertainty has resurfaced with the rollback of the agriculture reform laws.
- Discouraging current data: As per CMIE data, the quarter ending in June 2021 saw Rs 2.72 lakh crore worth of new projects announced. This fell to Rs 2.22 lakh crore for the September 2021 quarter.
- This is much below the average of Rs 4 lakh crore a quarter of new project announcements during 2018 and 2019.
- Further, new projects are concentrated in fewer industries (power, and technology) with the top three accounting for 44 per cent of the total of new projects announced.
- Low capacity utilisation: At the same time, capacity utilisation for corporate India is at an all-time low.
- From a peak of 83 per cent in 2010, when capex was running hot, utilisation levels declined to 70 per cent just before the pandemic, and further to 60 per cent in June 2021 as per the RBI’s latest OBICUS data.
- Capex is funded either from fresh debt or equity issues or from accumulated cash. Large firms are repaying debt.
Conclusion
It is too early in the cycle to predict anything with confidence, but we need more evidence to predict a capex cycle.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India's engagement with the world
Context
In 2021, Indian diplomacy was characterised by a readiness to deal with friends and foes alike.
Challenges faced by India diplomacy in 2021
- The US leadership change: Coping with the change from President Donald Trump to President Joe Biden and the consequent changes in U.S. policy were big enough to keep the world leaders on tenterhooks.
- Pandemic: With the increased onslaught of the pandemic, India suddenly became the epicentre of the tragedy.
- The exposure of the inefficiency of India’s health system and put the country in the defensive and weakened its credibility as it tried to contribute to the resolution of global issues.
- Aggression by China: For India, the biggest preoccupation of 2021 was the effort to get China to disengage in areas in Ladakh.
- Dialogue, military preparedness and economic pressure met with limited success.
- Afghanistan crisis: Afghanistan turned out to be a bigger crisis than expected, with the Taliban’s walkover in Kabul.
- Bringing some civility to the Taliban in Kabul became a high priority in the face of a Pakistan-China-Taliban axis with some support from Russia and Iran.
- Issue of permanent membership of the UN Security Council: Unprecedented in the history of the UN, an event at the Security Council was chaired by the Prime Minister.
- Significant inputs were provided during discussions on issues like maritime security, peacekeeping and anti-terrorism for active consideration in the future.
- Although it is illusory to believe that the way has been cleared for India’s permanent membership of the Security Council, India’s diplomatic capabilities and its commitment to the UN have demonstrated yet again.
What marks the change in the style of Indian diplomacy?
- From selective alignment, India moved to universal engagement, even to the extent of convening meetings with antagonists.
- Engagements with the U.S. went beyond familiarisation with the new government to increased commitment to Quad and acceptance of AUKUS and formation of the ‘western Quad’, with the U.S., Israel and the UAE.
- Engagement with Russia: Major agreements were signed with Russia, despite the American threat of CAATSA against S-400 missiles and the Russian inclination to align with China in the days to come.
- The engagement with China at the level of commanders and diplomats was intense, and ministerial interaction continued even when China tore up many fundamental agreements that sustained the dialogue for many years.
- Patience, diligence and firmness: India attended a Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting, where a sub-group led by China took its own decisions on Afghanistan.
- We also attended a meeting of Russia, China and India.
- Perhaps because of the unique geopolitical situation, India gave particular importance to its presidency of the UN Security Council in August 2021.
- Engagement with Myanmar: The Foreign Secretary’s visit to Myanmar to engage the military junta at a time when opposition leaders are in prison may raise eyebrows in many countries, but this is another instance of India’s readiness to engage those in power to explore possibilities of friendship and co-operation.
- The intention is to prevent China from having a field day in Myanmar.
Conclusion
Sadly, the extraordinary efforts made by India have not been fruitful in the cases of China and Afghanistan. But India’s new style of diplomacy will have an impact in shaping the world of the future.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges in transition to clean energy
Context
Political leaders find themselves currently amid a messy reality. The seemingly “irresistible force” for clean energy has met, it would appear, the “immovable object” of an embedded fossil fuel energy system.
Changes in the energy sector in 2021
- Commitment to Net-zero: One hundred and thirty-three countries pledged to a “net-zero carbon emissions date” and most governments, corporates and civic entities have shown determination to “phase down” and eventually phase out fossil fuels from their energy basket.
- Price volatility: The petroleum market seesawed and was expectedly volatile.
- High price: Natural gas prices reached stratospheric levels as demand exceeded supplies and geopolitics compounded the imbalance.
Five trends that will shape the emergent energy landscape
[1] Transition to clean energy will be long and expensive
- Redesign and rebuilding: The fossil fuel-based economic system will have to be redesigned and, in parts, rebuilt for clean energy to achieve scale.
- The process will take decades and require massive capital infusion.
- No country or multilateral institution can finance this transition individually.
- The world needs to collaborate: The world will have to collaborate and if it fails to do so, the financing deficit will push back the transition even further.
[2] Fossil fuels will dominate the energy basket during the transition
- Fossil fuels will dominate the energy basket during this transition phase.
- Contributing factors: As has been the case so far, its market will be defined by the “fundamentals” of demand, supply and geopolitics and the “non-fundamentals” of exchange rates and speculative trade.
- The price movements will be sharp, volatile and unexpected.
[3] The resurgence of market influence of OPEC plus after private companies move beyond fossil fuel
- The “ OPEC plus” will resurge in market influence.
- The low-cost, high resource petrostates (Saudi Arabia, the Gulf nations, Iraq, Iran, Russia) will, in particular, gain greater control over the petroleum market as private companies move beyond fossils under pressure from shareholders and regulators.
[4] Transition will create new centres of energy power
- The Democratic Republic of Congo controls, more than 50 per cent of the global supply of cobalt; Australia holds a comparably large share of the lithium market; and China controls the mining, processing and refining of rare earth minerals.
- It is difficult to tell how and when these countries will exercise their market power but it is clear that the “green transition” will create new centres of energy power.
[5] Nationalism and political opportunism will influence energy policy
- The US and China are currently embroiled in a “Cold War” over technology, trade, cyber issues and the South China Sea.
- The US and China appear to be in a similar face-off. But that has not come in the way of their energy relations.
- A few weeks ago, the two countries decided to coordinate the release of oil stocks from their strategic reserves to cool off the oil market.
- The underlying reality is that national self-interest and short-term political ambition will be the defining determinant of future energy supply relations cutting across values and rhetoric.
Suggestions for India
- Nurture relations with traditional suppliers: India must assiduously nurture relations with our traditional suppliers of oil and gas.
- It must not assume their role in the energy market will diminish.
- Increase storage capacity of strategic reserves: It should accelerate the build-up of the storage capacity for oil and gas; the latter to hold strategic oil reserves, the former to store gas for inter alia conversion to blue hydrogen.
- Ecosystem for search and development of minerals required for clean energy: It must create a facilitative ecosystem for the search and development of the minerals and metals required for clean energy.
- Clean energy supply chain: It should create a “clean energy aatmanirbhar supply chain”.
Conclusion
The green transition must not lead to import dependency on raw minerals and manufactured inputs, especially from China. The current policy to incentivise the manufacture of semiconductors is a step in the right direction.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Powers of Election Commission
Context
Ever since the Allahabad High Court urged the Election Commission of India to consider banning all political rallies or postponing the upcoming Assembly elections due to the increasing threat of Omicron, the focus of debate has shifted to the EC.
Why and when does the Election Commission clubs the elections?
- To avoid the influence of result: As per practice, the EC clubs all elections that are so close to each other to ensure that the results in one state do not influence the voters in the state going to the polls soon after.
- Earliest date: The earliest due date of a state determines the poll dates for all the clubbed states.
- No delay allowed: The EC cannot delay an election even by a day, although it can advance it by up to six months.
- The Assembly elections of five states are due in the early months of 2022, four of these in March itself — Goa (by March 15), Manipur (March 19), Uttarakhand (March 23) and Punjab (March 27).
- The fifth — UP — is due by May 14.
- Goa being the earliest, we must have all five elections completed before March 15.
Why EC cannot postpone the elections?
- Violation of Constitution: Postponing elections is not in the Election Commission’s hands at all and would be a violation of the constitutional mandate that gives every Vidhan Sabha a fixed term.
- As soon as the term is over, the House stands dissolved automatically.
- The term of the House cannot be extended except in an emergency declared by Parliament, which the Constitution restricts to only two situations — war and breakdown of law and order.
- In the seven decades of our electoral history, this has happened only three times — in Assam, Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir — in insurgency situations.
Way forward: Strict enforcement of guidelines
- Before the Bihar elections of 2020, the EC had issued detailed guidelines based on its observation of other countries that conducted elections that year, like South Korea and Sri Lanka.
- Reduction of the number of electors: These guidelines included the reduction of the number of electors per polling booth from 1,500 to 1,000, to prevent over-crowding, which required the addition of 33,797 auxiliary polling stations.
- Covid-sensitive capacity building: The guidelines also included Covid-sensitive capacity-building of election officials.
- Postal ballot option: The ECI also extended the postal ballot option to senior citizens over the age of 80, Covid-positive patients, persons with disabilities and voters in essential services.
- Virtual campaigning: Virtual campaigning was also encouraged to stop election rallies contributing to Covid.
- Besides the standard social distancing and sanitising norms, voters were provided with gloves to touch the EVMs.
- To avoid crowding at the counting centres, the counting tables were reduced from 14 to seven per assembly constituency.
Consider the question “What are the challenges in postponing the Assembly elections beyond the fixed terms of the Assembly? Suggest the way forward.”
Conclusion
This election is an opportunity for the EC to redeem its image. More importantly, it must guard itself against the trap of postponing the polls under any persuasion.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Summit for Democracy
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges facing democracy
Context
President Joe Biden-led Summit for Democracy was held on December 9-10. The summit was driven by the idea that in the face of populism, authoritarianism it is critical to keep the “democratic” flock together.
The salience of Summit for Democracy
- As a goal in itself: The salience of this summit lies in a deeper understanding that democracy is not just a form of government, it is a goal in itself, a value that must be cherished, preserved and celebrated.
- Democracy as a way of life: Unlike other political systems, democracy is also a way of life — a work in progress that needs sustained attention and careful nurturing to make it more resilient.
Taiwan as a desired partner of like-minded democracies
- Taiwan’s New Southbound Policy (NSP) was launched in 2016 to bring Asia closer to Taiwan and vice-versa.
- The NSP is aimed to be a pivotal tool to engage like-minded democracies in the region.
- Role in the post-pandemic world: The post-pandemic world would be more invested in some of these areas — for example, health diplomacy and collaboration in the medical sector, climate change mitigation, and developing sustainable and resilient supply chains.
- Platform for semiconductor industry: Taiwan is already proving its efficacy as a viable platform for the semiconductor industry.
- Resilient supply chain mechanism: The US and its friends in the region, particularly India, Japan and Australia, have been proactively exploring possibilities of creating resilient supply chain mechanisms.
- With its technological knowhow, and shared interests and concerns, Taiwan fits perfectly in this agenda.
- EU’s renewed interest in Indo-Pacific: Greater interactions between Taiwan and EU on the technology cooperation front, stimulated by the latter’s renewed interest in the Indo-Pacific region, makes Taiwan a desired partner of fellow democracies.
- As an industrialised democracy, Taiwan could play an important role, especially since countries are trying to reduce dependence on China and establish supply chain resilience.
Conclusion
It is important for liberal democracies to acknowledge that they are facing similar challenges and view Taiwan as an indispensable partner. Deft diplomacy is in order since transnational challenges demand joint efforts by liberal democracies.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Digital diplomacy
Context
India is pioneering the concept of digital public goods, with it, there is an opportunity for India to embark on digital diplomacy.
Digital public goods in India
- Built on the foundation of Aadhaar and India Stack, modular applications, big and small, are transforming the way we make payments, withdraw our PF, get our passport and driving licence and check land records, to name just a few activities.
- There is an opportunity for India to embark on digital diplomacy — to take its made-in-India digital public goods to hundreds of emerging economies across the world.
How Digital Diplomacy can help India?
- This could be a strategic and effective counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
- Enhancing the productivity of emerging economies: Emerging economies are characterised by gross inefficiencies in the delivery of government services and a consequent trust deficit.
- Digital public goods spread speed, transparency, ease and productivity across the individual-government-market ecosystem and enhance inclusivity, equity and development at scale.
- Acceptance in emerging economies: India’s digital diplomacy will be beneficial to and welcomed by, all emerging economies from Peru to Polynesia, from Uruguay to Uganda, and from Kenya to Kazakhstan.
- Goodwill: It will enable quick, visible and compounding benefits for India’s partner countries and earn India immense goodwill.
Benefits of Digital diplomacy
- Reusability: The code is highly reusable
- Low cost: The cost of setting up an open source-based high school online educational infrastructure, to supplement the physical infrastructure, for an entire country is less than laying two kilometres of high-quality road.
- No debt trap: The investments required for transporting digital public goods are minuscule in comparison and there is no chance of a debt trap.
- Short gestation period: Unlike physical infrastructures such as ports and roads, digital public goods have short gestation periods and immediate, and visible impact and benefits.
- It plugs leaks: Digital infrastructure plugs leaks.
- It eliminates ghost beneficiaries of government services, removes touts collecting rent, creates an audit trail, makes the individual-government-market interface transparent and provides efficiencies that help recoup the investments quickly.
- Processes get streamlined and wait times for any service come down dramatically.
- Increases productivity: Productivity goes up and services can be scaled quickly.
- Benefits can be rapidly extended to cover a much larger portion of the population.
- Compounding instead of depreciation: Above all, the digital public goods infrastructure compounds while physical infrastructure depreciates.
Three ways in which digital public goods infrastructure compound
- Compounding happens for three reasons.
- [1] Growth of technologyy: Chips keep becoming faster, engines more powerful, and gene-editing technology keeps improving.
- [2] Network effect: As more and more people use the same technology, the number of “transactions” using that technology increase exponentially — be it Facebook posts or UPI transactions.
- [3] Rapid creation of new layers of technology: For example, the hypertext protocol created the worldwide web.
- Then the browser was built on top of it, which made the worldwide web easier to navigate and more popular.
- Thousands of new layers were added to make it what it is today.
- Growth of UPI in India: To give an example, consider the surge in UPI-based payments in India.
- This kind of growth doesn’t happen with a few entitled and privileged people using UPI more and more; it happens with more and more people using UPI more and more.
- Use of Diksha: The use of Diksha, the school education platform built on the open-source platform Sunbird, has followed the same trajectory — today close to 500 million schoolchildren are using it.
Conclusion
Made in India digital tools can help other emerging economies deal with economic, governance challenges.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Palk Bay conflict
Context
The arrest of 68 Indian fishermen by the Sri Lankan authorities between December 18 and 20 and the impounding of 10 boats for “poaching” in the territorial waters of Sri Lanka has flared up the conflict between the two countries.
About Palk Bay
- Palk Bay is home to diverse resources including 580 species of fish, extends from Point Calimere of Nagapattinam district to Mandapam-Dhanushkodi of Ramanathapuram district over about 250 km.
- Source of dispute: It is an important marine zone between south-eastern India and northern Sri Lanka, has been a source of dispute for long.
About the conflict
- Negotiations: The genesis of the dispute can be traced to the October 1921 negotiations between representatives of the Governments of Madras and Ceylon, on the need for the delimitation of the Palk Strait and the Gulf of Mannar.
- Delimitation: It was in the mid-1970s that two agreements were signed by India and Sri Lanka, under which the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) came into being.
- Instead of settling the issues, the pacts gave way to new problems, including the recurring incidents of Tamil Nadu fishermen crossing the IMBL and getting caught by the Sri Lankan authorities.
Cause of the problem
- Different fishing practices: The asymmetric nature of fishing practices in Tamil Nadu and the Northern Province of Sri Lanka is said to be the cause of the problem.
- While Tamil Nadu’s fishing community uses mechanised bottom trawlers, its counterpart uses conventional forms of fishing, as trawling is banned in Sri Lanka.
- Difference in resources: The fishermen of Tamil Nadu continue to cross the IMBL, as the Sri Lankan side of the Bay is considered to have more fishery resources than the Indian side.
Way forward
- Weak away fishermen from trawling: The deep-sea fishing project, to wean away the fishermen of Tamil Nadu from bottom trawling, launched in July 2017, has not yielded the desired results.
- Relaxation of norms of the project is under the consideration of the Union Government, to draw greater response from the fishermen.
- Motivation for deep-sea fishing: Given the fact that deep sea fishing takes longer duration and has a higher recurring cost per voyage than what the fishing community experiences currently, the need for providing continuous motivation to the fisherfolk assumes critical importance.
- Other strategies: Various strategies, including the promotion of seaweed cultivation, open sea cage cultivation, seaweed cultivation and processing, and sea/ocean ranching should be adopted.
- Forming FPOs: There is a view that if the community is encouraged to form fish farmer producer organisations, it may take to sustainable fishing practices.
- Institution of stakeholders: A section of specialists favours the creation of an international institution of stakeholders for regulating the fishing sector in the Bay.
Consider the question “What leads to the dispute between India and Sri Lanka over the Palk Bay? Suggest the way forward for fishermen in Tamil Nadu.”
Conclusion
For all this to happen, sustained public pressure and political will are a must.
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Back2Basics: What is bottom trawling?
- A bottom trawl consists of a large tapered net with a wide mouth and a small enclosed end.
- The mouth of a trawl net has two weighted doors that serve not only to keep the net open, but also to keep the net on the ocean floor.
- These doors can weigh several tons.
- In addition to the heavy doors, the bottom of the net is a thick metal cable (footrope) studded with heavy steel balls or rubber bobbins that effectively crush everything in their path.
- As the net drags along the seafloor, living habitat in its path is crushed, ripped up, or smothered as the seabed is turned over.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Importance of middle powers in Arab Gulf
Context
On December 19, Pakistan hosted a special session of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to address the crisis in Afghanistan.
The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan and how regional countries are responding to it
- The humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan is peaking with no basic amenities available for its population and a harsh winter ahead.
- While Pakistan hosted the OIC, India played host to foreign ministers of Central Asian states where Afghanistan topped the agenda as well.
- All the attending countries — Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Kyrgyzstan — also OIC members, chose to prioritise deliberations with New Delhi.
Qatar’s growing influence in Afghanistan and implications for the region
- Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Pakistan were the only three countries that had officially recognised the previous Taliban government in 1996, until its fall in 2001.
- Fast forward to the 2010s, and it was the small but rich state of Qatar that became the mediating force on Afghanistan.
- Doha hosted the official Taliban political office from 2013 to allow negotiations with the U.S.
- Qatar’s new role on Afghanistan gave it significant diplomatic and political visibility the world over.
- In West Asia, Qatar’s growing influence was causing unease in the traditional power centres in Abu Dhabi and Riyadh, specifically on issues such as the Qatari leadership’s support for political Islam and organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood.
Fundamental changes
- Economic blockade: In 2017 the UAE and Saudi Arabia initiated an economic blockade against Doha in the hope of reigning the Kingdom in and disallowing it from pursuing its geopolitical designs that were challenging the long-held power status quos.
- This four-year long impasse ended in 2021.
- These four years created fundamental changes within the larger Arab Gulf construct.
- Qatar mitigated risk and moved closer towards Turkey and Iran.
- Today, both Qatar and Turkey are bidding to operate a landlocked Afghanistan’s airports under the Taliban regime.
- For the Gulf specifically, Qatar’s punching-above-its-weight approach in geopolitics was also making it more powerful and influential with Washington D.C.
- To mitigate this, the Saudis played a central role during the recent OIC special session.
- They repaired their broken relationship with Pakistan.
Way forward for India
- Over the past decade, India has recognised the importance of middle powers in the Arab Gulf to a fast-evolving global order, from fighting against terrorism to newer diplomacy challenges such as Afghanistan.
Conclusion
The Arab Gulf is poised to become an important player once again in Afghanistan under the shadow of the Taliban.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with Covid
Context
The Government must make COVID-19 data including that for vaccine regulatory approvals and policy available.
Kay decisions
- On December 25, the Prime Minister of India announced two key decisions.
- Vaccination of children: All children in the 15-17 age bracket will be eligible to receive COVID-19 vaccines from January 3, 2022.
- Third shot: All health-care workers, frontline workers and the people aged 60 years and above (with co-morbidities and on the advice of a medical doctor) can get a third shot, or ‘precaution dose’.
- The eligibility for the precaution dose will be on the completion of nine months or 39 weeks after the second dose.
- Teenage children whose birth year is 2007 or before will be eligible for COVID-19 vaccines.
- Children will receive Covaxin, the reason being (according to the note) it is the only emergency use listed (EUL) World Health Organization vaccine available for use in this age group in India.
Issues with the decision
- Lack of scientific evidence: The decision is said to be based on ‘advice of the scientific community’.
- A few members of the National Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (NTAGI) in India, have written or spoken publicly about not having enough scientific evidence to administer booster doses and vaccinate children in India.
- Successive national and State-level sero-surveys have reported that a majority of children in India had got natural infection, while staying at home and thus developed antibodies.
- The studies have shown that children rarely develop moderate to severe COVID-19 disease.
- Targeted vaccination approach not adopted: Most public health and vaccine experts favour a ‘targeted vaccination approach’ by prioritising high-risk children for COVID-19 vaccination.
- However, such an approach is likely to face an operational challenge in the identification of the eligible children.
- Consultation cost: A majority of the elderly have one or other comorbidities. Of the 14 crore elderly population in India, an estimated 7 to 10 crore people could have co-morbidities.
- If they have to seek advice from a physician, in order to get vaccinated, this essentially means that there would be up to 10 crore of medical consultations, which would come at a cost — all of which is avoidable.
Suggestions
- Do away with prescription: The conditionality of comorbidities and the need for advice/prescription by a doctor for ‘the precaution shot’ in the elderly should be done away with.
- Third dose to all immunocompromised adults: There is scientific evidence and consensus on administering the third dose for immunocompromised adults.
- The Indian government should urgently consider administering a third dose for all immunocompromised adults, irrespective of age.
- Third dose on a different vaccine platform: Studies have found that a heterologous prime-boost approach — third shot on a different vaccine platform — is a better approach.
- Identify policy questions: Various pending policy questions on COVID-19 vaccine need to be identified urgently.
- The technical expert should be given complete access to COVID-19 data for analysis and to find answers to those scientific and policy questions.
- Vaccine supply and stock management: Vaccination for teenage children, exclusively with Covaxin (which means 15 crore doses for this sub-group) has other implications.
- Covaxin will also be needed for people coming for their first shot, returning for their second shot, and then for their ‘precaution dose’ if a third shot of the same vaccine is allowed.
- Focus on primary vaccination: The precaution dose and vaccination for children should not divert attention from the task of primary vaccination, which continues to be an unfinished task in India; 46 crore doses are still needed for the first and second shots.
- Make data public: It is time the Union and State governments in India make COVID-19 data — this includes clinical outcomes, testing, genomic sequencing as well as vaccination — available in the public domain.
- This would help in formulating and updating COVID-19 policy and strategies and also assess the impact of ‘precaution dose’ as well as vaccination of children.
Conclusion
The Indian government urgently needs to make COVID-19 data available, including the one used for regulatory approvals of vaccines and for vaccine policy decisions. This will bring transparency in decision making and increase the trust of the citizen in the process.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Aadhar-voter ID linking issue
Context
The Election Laws (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which facilitates amendment to the Representation of People’s Act, is a step toward implementing online-based remote e-voting for which the use of Aadhaar will be the primary identity.
Objectives of linking
- The linking of Aadhaar with one’s voter ID was primarily to build a biometric dependent voting system from the very beginning.
- The change could help fight fraud and duplicates in the electoral rolls.
About the pilot programmes on linking the voter id
- In 2014, the Election Commission of India (ECI) conducted two pilot programmes on linking the voter id with Aadhaar in the districts of Nizamabad and Hyderabad.
- Based on the effectiveness, the ECI called for a National Consultation on Aadhaar and voter id linking.
- The ECI launched the National Electoral Roll Purification and Authentication Programme (NERPAP) on April 1, 2015, which had to be completed by August 31, 2015.
- After a Supreme Court of India order on August 11, 2015, it was announced that this NERPAP would be shut down.
- But as Telangana and Andhra Pradesh were early adopters of this programme since 2014, both States have nearly completed linking Aadhaar and voter id for all residents.
- Methodology is unknown: The methodology followed by the ECI to find duplicate voters using Aadhaar is unknown to the general public.
- SRDH data used: In a letter from the CEO Andhra Pradesh (then for Telangana and Andhra Pradesh) to the ECI, it is clear that the State Resident Data Hub (SRDH) application of the Government of Telangana and Andhra Pradesh was used to curate electoral rolls.
- The SRDH has data on residents of the State which is supplied by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) or collected further by the State governments.
- While the UIDAI was constrained not to collect data on caste, religion and other sensitive information data for Aadhaar, it recommended to the States to collect this information, if required, as part of Aadhaar data collection; it termed the process as Know Your Resident (KYR) and Know Your Resident Plus (KYR+).
- It is these SRDH applications that the ECI used to curate electoral rolls which resulted in the deletion of a sizeable number of voters from the list in Telangana in 2018.
Concerns
- Disenfranchisement: The role of the ECI to verify voters using door-to-door verification (in 2015) has been subsumed; a software algorithm commissioned by the Government for purposes unknown to the public and maintained by a private IT company is in control now.
- Subjecting key electoral rolls to surveillance software damages the concept of universal adult suffrage.
- What the experience in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh highlights is voter suppression and disenfranchisement.
- Issue of ensuring electoral integrity: In a situation where the role of money makes a mockery of the democratic process, linking Aadhaar will be futile.
- Electronic Voting Machines (EVMs), if foolproof, put an end to the days of booth capturing prevalent in the days of paper ballots.
- E-voting can also be gamed using malware to change the outcome of an election.
- While the Bill does not look into large-scale e-voting, there is an issue of ensuring electoral integrity.
- Voter profiling: An Aadhaar-voter ID linkage will also help political parties create voter profiles and influence the voting process.
- Online trends on the day of voting and micro-targeting voters using their data will make it easier for political parties in power to use data for elections.
Consider the question “What are the objectives of Aadhar-Voter Id linking? What are the concerns associated with such linking?”
Conclusion
The linking of Aadhaar with voter ID will create complexities in the voter databases that will be hard to fix. This process will introduce errors in electoral rolls and vastly impact India’s electoral democracy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: EPR
Mains level: Paper 3- Regulations on EPR and issues with them
Context
In October, the Environment Ministry published draft regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR), set to come into effect by the end of this year. These regulations denote a backslide, particularly with respect to integration of the informal sector.
What is EPR?
- Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) requires the manufacturer of a product, or the party that introduces the product into the community, to take responsibility for its life cycle.
- An FMCG company should not only account for the costs of making, packing and distributing a packet of chips, but also for the collection and recycling/reuse of the packet.
Shortcomings in the guidelines
The guidelines fall short in three areas: people, plastics and processing.
[1] Integration of informal sector is lacking
- By failing to mention waste pickers or outlining mechanisms for their incorporation under EPR, the guidelines are retrogressive.
- For decades, waste pickers, working in dangerous and unsanitary conditions, have picked up what we throw away.
- Besides, by diverting waste towards recycling and reuse, waste pickers also subsidise local governments responsible for solid waste management.
- Further, they reduce the amount of waste accumulating in cities, water bodies and dumpsites and increase recycling and reuse, creating environmental and public health benefits.
- Between 1.5 and 4 million waste pickers in India work without social security, health insurance, minimum wages or basic protective gear.
- Suggestions: An effective EPR framework should address the issue of plastics and plastic waste management in tandem with the existing machinery, minimise duplication and lead to a positive environmental impact, with monitoring mechanisms including penalties for non-compliance.
- EPR funds could be deployed for mapping and registration of the informal sector actors, building their capacity, upgrading infrastructure, promoting technology transfer, and creating closed loop feedback and monitoring mechanisms.
[2] The scope of plastic covered need to be altered
- The EPR guidelines are limited to plastic packaging.
- There are other multi-material plastic items like sanitary pads, chappals, and polyester that pose a huge waste management challenge today, but have been left out of the scope of EPR.
- Three categories of plastic packaging: Plastic packaging can be roughly grouped into three categories: recyclable and effectively handled by the informal sector, technologically recyclable but not economically viable to recycle, technologically challenging to recycle (or non-recyclable).
- [1] Rigid plastics like PET and HDPE are effectively recycled.
- Suggestion: The government could support and strengthen the informal recycling chain by bridging gaps in adequate physical spaces, infrastructure, etc.
- [2] Typically flexible plastics like LDPE and PP bags are recyclable, but due to their contamination with organic waste, lightweight, and high volume, the costs of recycling are prohibitively expensive relative to the market value of the output.
- Suggestion: Market value for these plastics can be increased by increasing the demand for and use of recycled plastics in packaging, thus creating the value to accommodate the current costs of recycling.
- [3] Multi-layered and multi-material plastics are low weight and voluminous, making them expensive to handle and transport.
- Since they are primarily used in food packaging, they often attract rodents, making storage problematic.
- Even if this plastic is picked, recycling is technologically challenging as it is heterogeneous material.
- The Plastic Waste Management Rules mandated the phase-out of these plastics.
- However, in 2018, this mandate was reversed.
[3] Processing technologies need to be closely evaluated
- Not all processing is recycling.
- Processes like waste-to-energy, co-processing and incineration have been proven to release carbon dioxide, particulate matter, harmful dioxins and furans which have negative climate and health impacts.
- While the environmental impact and desirability of these processes continues to be debated, the draft regulations legitimise them to justify the continued production of multi-layered plastics.
- Technologies like chemical recycling and pyrolysis are capital-intensive, yielding low returns and running into frequent breakdowns and technological problems.
- They also release carbon dioxide and other pollutants.
- These end-of-life processes are economically, environmentally and operationally unsustainable.
- A number of gasification, pyrolysis and other chemical recycling projects have figured in accidents such as fires, explosions and financial losses.
Way forward
- Address issues of the informal sector: The consultation process should involve informal workers.
- Alter the scope of plastics covered: The scope of plastics covered by the guidelines could be altered to exclude those plastics which are already efficiently recycled and to include other plastic and multi-material items.
- Processing technologies should be closely evaluated: And end-of-life processing technologies should be closely evaluated, based not only on their health and environmental impacts, but also on the implications for continued production of low-quality and multi-layered plastics.
Consider the question ” The Environment Ministry published draft regulations on Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). Examine the issues with the regulations and suggest the way forward”
Conclusion
In conclusion, the government should redo the consultation process for the draft guidelines.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Myanmar relations
Context
The recent short visit to Myanmar by India’s Foreign Secretary had a clearly-etched mandate: to deepen cooperation with an important neighbour. His mission succeeded to a large extent, but challenges remain.
Background of the current political scenario in Myanmar
- Transition to democracy and derailment: Since the military coup on February 1, 2021, the international community has stayed divided on how to address the derailment of Myanmar’s transition to democracy.
- For a decade, the country’s system based on power-sharing between the military and elected representatives ran well enough.
- An overwhelming electoral victory of the National League for Democracy (NLD) led by Daw Aung San Suu Kyi in November 2020, unnerved the military leadership.
- The Tatmadaw (Myanmar’s military) moved faster, seizing power in violation of the Constitution and putting down the Opposition with an iron hand.
- Global reaction: Global dismay was evident in the western sanctions, but others such as Russia saw the opportunity to strengthen ties with the new rulers.
- China took urgent steps to stabilise and expand cooperation with the military regime.
- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) first showed creativity through its ‘Five-Point Consensus’ formula, but later its unity stood damaged once Myanmar’s top leader Senior General Min Aung Hlaing refused to cooperate.
India’s position and bilateral concerns
- In Indian foreign Secretary Mr. Shringla visit he succeeded in holding substantive discussions with various stakeholders.
- India’s position: India’s position, as conveyed to Myanmar, is similar to and supportive of ASEAN: release of political prisoners; resolution of issues through dialogue; cessation of “all violence”; and full cooperation with ASEAN.
- Assistance for capacity building: In recent years, India has assisted Myanmar through capacity-building programmes for strengthening the transition to democracy.
- This assistance remains available, but it is not an offer of mediation by India in the military-NLD conflict.
- This burden will have to be borne by ASEAN.
- India’s concerns: India’s principal concerns pertaining to border security and stability in its neighbourhood were clearly conveyed, especially the noticeable escalation of activities of anti-India insurgent groups.
- Refugee issue: The second issue — the outcome of Myanmar’s instability — is that of refugees. Several thousands of Myanmar people have sought shelter in Mizoram.
- This will only be reversed by a political settlement in Myanmar, through dialogue.
- Economic cooperation: Economic cooperation has always been a major agenda item in all bilateral discussions with Myanmar.
- Central to this is India’s long-delayed commitment to “expeditious implementation” of mega initiatives such as the Trilateral Highway and Kaladan projects.
Way forward
- China is not the only friend: India continues to have high equity in Myanmar, which it must now carefully leverage.
- It is reflected in the special gesture made by Senior General Min Aung Hlaing to receive Mr. Shringla and hold detailed discussions in Yangon. This is unusual.
- The protocol departure for Mr. Shringla revealed current political realities which should be carefully factored in against the argument that China is the only friend Myanmar has.
- Leverage the gainst of the visit: India can leverage the gains of this visit and keep up the momentum by inviting Myanmar’s Foreign Minister at an appropriate time as well as other important stakeholders to India for deliberations with their counterparts here.
Conclusion
The single goal should be to put Myanmar back on the path of becoming “a stable, democratic and federal union.
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