Digital India Initiatives

Unified Payments Interface (UPI) market cap deadline extended by 2 years

Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Indian Economy

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: UPI
Mains level: UPI transactions
The National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has extended by two years the deadline to comply with its 30 percent cap on the market share of platforms operating on the Unified Payments Interface (UPI).

What is UPI?
- Unified Payments Interface (UPI) is an instant real-time payment system developed by National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) facilitating inter-bank transactions.
- The interface is regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and works by instantly transferring funds between two bank accounts on a mobile platform.
What is the NPCI plan for UPI?
- NPCI had initially planned to enforce the market cap rules in January 2021.
- It aimed to limit any single payments app from processing more than 30 per cent of UPI transactions in a month.
Why extension?
- The extension is being seen as a major relief for Walmart and Flipkart-backed PhonePe and Google Pay, which currently command a majority of the UPI market share.
How could it impact UPI platforms?
- Industry analysts believe the move comes as a shot in the arm for PhonePe and Google Pay, which collectively control more than 80 per cent of UPI’s market share.
- For platforms like Paytm and WhatsApp Pay, however, the extension could be seen as a natural loss.
- As of October, Paytm had a market share of 15 per cent on UPI.
- In comparison, PhonePe had a 47 per cent market share, while GooglePay accounted for around 35 per cent.
How is UPI performing?
- According to the Reserve Bank of India’s Payment Vision 2025, UPI is expected to register an average annualized growth of 50 percent.
- After touching a new high of Rs 12.11 lakh crore in October, the UPI transaction value for the month of November came in at Rs 11.90 lakh crore.
- However, the transaction count at 7.3 billion in October remained the same in November.
Try this PYQ:

With reference to digital payments, consider the following statements:
1. BHIM app allows the user to transfer money to anyone with a UPI-enabled bank account.
2. While a chip-pin debit card has four factors of authentication, BHIM app has only two factors of authentication.
Which of the statements given above is/ are correct? (CSP 2018)

(a) 1 only

(b) 2 only

(c) Both 1 and 2

(d) Neither 1 nor 2

Post your answers here.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE 1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Minority Issues – SC, ST, Dalits, OBC, Reservations, etc.

India tops index on Social Hostilities Index (SHI)

Prelims Only | Indian Society | Mains Paper 1: Communalism, Secularism, Regionalism

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: SHI Report
Mains level: Religious intoleranc issue
In 2020, India has been ranked first in the Social Hostilities Index (SHI) released by US think-tank Pew Research Center.

What is Social Hostilities Index (SHI)?
- SHI measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organisations or groups in society.
- The SHI measures acts of religious hostility by private individuals, organizations or groups.
- The index comprises 13 metrics, including religion-related armed conflict or terrorism and mob or sectarian violence.
- Questions used to compute the SHI included whether the country saw violence motivated by religious hatred or bias, whether individuals faced harassment or intimidation motivated by religious hatred or bias and whether there was mob violence against those of particular religious groups.
How bad has India fared?
- At 9.4 out of a maximum possible score of 10, India’s SHI in 2020 was worse than neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan, and a further increase in its own index value for 2019, the Pew data showed.
- India has faced severe backlash due to its crackdown on a ‘religious’ congregation held in New Delhi defying the COVID pandemic.
Other components: Government Restrictions Index (GRI)
- India much better on a second index: the Government Restrictions Index (GRI).
- This index looks at laws, policies and state actions restricting religious beliefs and practices.
- China ranked the worst, with a score of 9.3.
- India’s 34th rank was enough to categorize it among countries with “high” levels of such government restrictions.
- The GRI comprises 20 measures, including efforts by governments to ban particular faiths, prohibit conversion, limit preaching or give preferential treatment to one or more religious groups
Official data for substantiation
- By India’s own official crime statistics, the picture is more mixed.
- According to police data, religious riots for which cases were filed rose substantially in 2020, and declined again in 2021.
- But there have been significant variations over time, and the numbers are too low as a share of overall rioting incidents to indicate a definitive trend.
- Moreover, the home ministry no longer provides data on “communal incidents”, and the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) now only publishes data on religious “riots”.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE 1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Civil Aviation Sector – CA Policy 2016, UDAN, Open Skies, etc.

India leaps in to ICAO Aviation Safety Rankings

Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: ICAO Ranking
Mains level: Aviation safety in India
In the rankings by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO), India is now at the 48th position, a “quantum leap” from the 102nd rank it had in 2018.

ICAO Assessment
- Under the ICAO standards, the Effective Implementation (EI) of six areas were assessed. They are LEG, ORG, PEL, OPS, AIR and AGA.
1. LEG is Primary Aviation Legislation and Specific Operating Regulations;
2. ORG is Civil Aviation Organisation;
3. PEL is Personnel Licensing and Training;
4. OPS is Aircraft Operations;
5. AIR is Airworthiness of Aircraft; and
6. AGA is Aerodrome and Ground Aid.
How has India fared in ICAO ranking?
- With a score of 85.49 per cent each, India and Georgia are at the 48th position.
- Neighbouring Pakistan is at the 100th spot with a score of 70.39 per cent.
Global scenario
- The rankings are topped by Singapore with a score of 99.69 per cent.
- It is followed by the UAE at the second position with a score of 98.8 per cent and the Republic of Korea is at the third place (98.24 per cent).
- Others in the top ten are France (4th; 96.42 per cent), Iceland (5th; 95.73 per cent), Australia (6th; 95.04 per cent), Canada (7th; 94.95 per cent), Brazil (8th; 94.72 per cent), Ireland (9th; 94.6 per cent) and Chile (10th; 93.9 per cent).
What is ICAO?
- The ICAO is a specialized agency of the UN that coordinates the principles and techniques of international air navigation.
- It fosters the planning and development of international air transport to ensure safe and orderly growth.
- ICAO headquarters are located in the Quartier International of Montreal, Quebec, Canada.
Functions of ICAO
- Standardization: The ICAO Council adopts standards and recommended practices concerning air navigation, its infrastructure, flight inspection, prevention of unlawful interference, and facilitation of border-crossing procedures etc.
- Investigation standards: ICAO defines the protocols for air accident investigation that are followed by transport safety authorities in countries signatory to the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE 1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Judicial Appointments Conundrum Post-NJAC Verdict

We are the most transparent institution: Supreme Court

Prelims Only | Polity | Mains Paper 2: Executive & Judiciary

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: Collegium system
Mains level: Issues with collegium system
The Supreme Court has said that it had become a “fashion” for its former judges to comment on earlier decisions of the Collegium when they were part of it while adding that the apex court was the “most transparent institution”.

What is Collegium System?
- The Collegium of judges is the Indian Supreme Court’s invention.
- It does not figure in the Constitution, which says judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the President and speaks of a process of consultation.
- In effect, it is a system under which judges are appointed by an institution comprising judges.
- After some judges were superseded in the appointment of the CJI in the 1970s, and attempts made subsequently to effect a mass transfer of High Court judges across the country.
- Hence there was a perception that the independence of the judiciary was under threat. This resulted in a series of cases over the years.
Evolution: The Judges Cases
- First Judges Case (1981) ruled that the “consultation” with the CJI in the matter of appointments must be full and effective.
- However, it rejected the idea that the CJI’s opinion, albeit carrying great weight, should have primacy.
- Second Judges Case (1993) introduced the Collegium system, holding that “consultation” really meant “concurrence”.
- It added that it was not the CJI’s individual opinion, but an institutional opinion formed in consultation with the two senior-most judges in the Supreme Court.
- Third Judges Case (1998): On a Presidential Reference for its opinion, the Supreme Court, in the Third Judges Case (1998) expanded the Collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues.
The procedure followed by the Collegium

Appointment of CJI
- The President of India appoints the CJI and the other SC judges.
- As far as the CJI is concerned, the outgoing CJI recommends his successor.
- In practice, it has been strictly by seniority ever since the supersession controversy of the 1970s.
- The Union Law Minister forwards the recommendation to the PM who, in turn, advises the President.
Other SC Judges
- For other judges of the top court, the proposal is initiated by the CJI.
- The CJI consults the rest of the Collegium members, as well as the senior-most judge of the court hailing from the High Court to which the recommended person belongs.
- The consultees must record their opinions in writing and it should form part of the file.
- The Collegium sends the recommendation to the Law Minister, who forwards it to the Prime Minister to advise the President.
For High Courts
- The CJs of High Courts are appointed as per the policy of having Chief Justices from outside the respective States. The Collegium takes the call on the elevation.
- High Court judges are recommended by a Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges.
- The proposal, however, is initiated by the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned in consultation with two senior-most colleagues.
- The recommendation is sent to the Chief Minister, who advises the Governor to send the proposal to the Union Law Minister.
Does the Collegium recommend transfers too?
- Yes, the Collegium also recommends the transfer of Chief Justices and other judges.
- Article 222 of the Constitution provides for the transfer of a judge from one High Court to another.
- When a CJ is transferred, a replacement must also be simultaneously found for the High Court concerned. There can be an acting CJ in a High Court for not more than a month.
- In matters of transfers, the opinion of the CJI “is determinative”, and the consent of the judge concerned is not required.
- However, the CJI should take into account the views of the CJ of the High Court concerned and the views of one or more SC judges who are in a position to do so.
- All transfers must be made in the public interest, that is, “for the betterment of the administration of justice”.
Loopholes in the Collegium system
- Lack of Transparency: Opaqueness and a lack of transparency, and the scope for nepotism are cited often.
- Judges appointing Judge: The attempt made to replace it with a ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission’ was struck down by the court in 2015 on the ground that it posed a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
- Criteria: Some do not believe in full disclosure of reasons for transfers, as it may make lawyers in the destination court chary of the transferred judge.
Way ahead
- In respect of appointments, there has been an acknowledgment that the “zone of consideration” must be expanded to avoid criticism that many appointees hail from families of retired judges.
- The status of a proposed new memorandum of procedure, to infuse greater accountability, is also unclear.
- Even the majority opinions admitted the need for transparency, now Collegiums’ resolutions are now posted online, but reasons are not given.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Remittances to India set to cross record $100-billion mark in 2022

Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Effects Of Liberalization On The Economy, Changes In Industrial Policy and their effects on Industrial Growth

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: Remittances
Mains level: Remittances inflows and their significance
India is expected to receive a record $100 billion in remittance in 2022, the top recipient this year, the World Bank has said.

What are Remittances?
- A remittance is a non-commercial transfer of money by a foreign worker, a member of a diaspora community, or a citizen with familial ties abroad, for household income in their home country or homeland.
- The World Bank defines it as “the sum of worker’s remittances, compensation of employees, and migrants’ transfers as recorded in the IMF Balance of Payments.
- Workers remittances are current transfers by migrant who are considered residents in the source.
- Remittances are a vital source of household income for low- and middle-income countries.
India’s total remittances to grow
- Remittances to India are money transfers from non-resident Indians (NRIs) employed outside the country to family, friends or relatives residing in India.
- In its Migration and Development Brief, the World Bank has said India’s remittance will grow 12 per cent from 7.5 per cent last year, resulting in $100 billion flow as compared to $89.4 billion in 2021.
- It attributed the feat to the large share of Indian migrants earning relatively high salaries in the US, UK and East Asia.
Key points from the report by World Bank
- Highly-skilled Indian migrants living in wealthy nations such as the US, UK, and Singapore were sending more money home.
- Remittances to low and middle-income countries have grown by 5% in 2022 to around $626 billion – around half the rate of growth seen in 2021.
- The amount of money sent back home by migrants around the world has grown by 5% in 2022.
- Other top recipient countries for remittances include Mexico, China, Egypt and the Philippines.
- Domestic and International shocks have affected countries like Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka for whom remittances earned by migrants are expected to drop this year
- Barring India and Nepal, other south Asian countries saw a decline of more than 10% in their remittances from 2021, due to the end of government incentives introduced during the pandemic
Why is remittance to India so high this year?
- Upskilling: There has been a gradual shift in destinations for Indian migrants aided by a structural shift in qualifications.
- Work from home: Indian migrants in high-income countries benefited from work-from-home and large fiscal stimulus packages.
- Easing of pandemic: As the pandemic eased, the wage hikes and “record-high employment conditions” helped migrants send money home despite high global inflation.
- Inflation control in India: The price support policies kept inflation at bay in India.
- Crude oil dynamics: Demand for labour increased with higher oil prices, which in turn increased remittances for Indian labourers.
Significance of remittances
- Stable source of funds: Remittance flows tend to remain relatively stable through the business cycle, thereby having the potential to support households in the face of economic adversity.
- Economic lifeline: In countries affected by political conflict, they are often an economic lifeline to the poor.
- Labour contribution: While migrant remittances contribute to the development of their home country, and also to the host country by filling the gap between labour demand and supply and making a positive net fiscal contribution.
- Globalization: In this way, remittances represent globalization with a human face, contributing to the spread of global interdependence at all levels – social, economic and political.
Issues with Remittances
- Fear of currency depreciation: It causes the rupee to weaken against the dollar, which in return impacts the businesses exposed to foreign exchange, and the economy overall.
- Accuracy of data: A key challenge for policymakers, researchers and investors interested in remittance flows concerns the accuracy and consistency of available data.
- Accounting inconsistencies: The varied nature of remittance transactions makes the compilation process complex, resulting in a systemic problem of under-reporting of flows and data asymmetries between host and recipient countries.
- No formal registration in India: The main source of data on remittances is the World Bank, which combines national balance of payments data compiled by the IMF with country information.
- Ignoring informal flows: A large share of remittances is believed to flow through informal channels, which are often more convenient and cheaper than formal ones.
- Hawala transactions: In addition, Hawala (an international network of money brokers) and Hundi (a form of credit instrument) systems operate in parallel to formal remittance channels.
Way forward
- Promoting labour mobility: India should aim to increase remittances to say 10% of GDP. The Philippines’ model of promoting labour mobility should be replicated in India.
- Reducing the costs involved: Both the cost of recruitment of such workers and the cost of sending remittances back to India should come down.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Festivals, Dances, Theatre, Literature, Art in News

‘French Baguette’ gets UNESCO heritage status

Prelims Only | Trivia | Mains Paper 1: Arts & Culture

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: UNESCO ICH, Baguette
Mains level: NA
Baguette the staple French bread has been inscribed into the UN’s list of intangible cultural heritage (ICH).

What is a Baguette?
- The baguette is a long and thin loaf made of flour, water, salt and yeast, and is consumed as a staple in France.
- Some believe that it was invented by August Zang, a baker and an entrepreneur from Vienna in 1839, who introduced the world to the taste of crusty bread with softer insides, using a steam oven.
- It gained its official name in 1920.
- The history of the bread is uncertain, some also believe that Napoleon Bonaparte ordered thin sticks of bread for consumption by his soldiers as they could be carried from one place to another more conveniently.
Why did France nominate it for the UN list?
- About 10 billion baguettes are consumed every year in France by a population of 67 million.
- It drew attention to the steady decline in the number of bakeries in the country as around 20,000 of them have closed down since 1970.
- In March 2021, France nominated the baguette as its candidate for consideration within the UNESCO ICH list.
- In 1970, there were 55,000 artisanal bakeries (one for every 790 residents) compared with 35,000 today (one for every 2,000), often in favour of baguettes produced industrially.
Back2Basics: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)
- ICH means the practices, representations, expressions, knowledge, skills – as well as the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces associated with them that communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals recognize as a part of their cultural heritage.
- Furthermore, its importance is not in the cultural manifestation itself, but in the wealth of knowledge, know-how and skills that are transmitted from one generation to the next.
- The adoption of the Convention for the Safeguarding of the ICH by the General Conference of UNESCO in 2003 was a crucial step towards preserving intangible heritage.
- UNESCO’s list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity was established in the year 2008.
Criteria for the selection
- There are three criteria for an intangible cultural heritage to be inscribed in the United Nations list.
- The entity must-
1. be recognized by communities, groups and, in some cases, individuals as part of their cultural heritage,
2. be transmitted from generation to generation and be constantly recreated by communities and groups in response to their environment, their interaction with nature and their history and
3. provide them with a sense of identity and continuity, thus promoting respect for cultural diversity and human creativity
India’s ICH on the UNESCO list
- Sangeet Natak Akademi is the nodal organisation which looks after this function, and files nominations of intangible cultural entities from India, for evaluation by the international body.
- ICG from India include Kolkata’s Durga Puja (2021), Kumbh Mela (2017), Navroz (2016), Yoga (2016), traditional brass and copper craft of utensil-making among coppersmiths of Punjab (2014), Sankirtana, a ritual musical performance of Manipur (2013), and the Buddhist chanting of Ladakh (2012).
- Before 2011, the list included Chhau dance, Kalbelia folk songs and dance of Rajasthan, and Mudiyettu, a dance drama from Kerala (2010), Ramman, a religious festival and theatre performance of Garhwal in the Himalayas (2009), and Kutiyattam or Sanskrit theatre, and Vedic chanting (2008).
- Ramlila, a traditional performance of Ramayana, was also included in 2008.
- This year, India nominated Garba, a traditional dance form that originated in the state of Gujarat, for inscription on UNESCO’s ICH list.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Innovations in Sciences, IT, Computers, Robotics and Nanotechnology

DigiYatra Initiative for facial recognition technology at Airports

Prelims Only | Science Tech | Mains Paper 3: Awareness in various sc and tech fields

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: DigiYatra
Mains level: Not Much
The centre has introduced paperless entry at select airports to make air travel hassle-free under the DigiYatra initiative.

What is DigiYatra?
- DigiYatra envisages that travellers pass through various checkpoints at the airport through paperless and contactless processing.
- This means, passengers won’t need to carry their ID card and boarding pass.
- This would rather use facial features to establish their identity, which would be linked to the boarding pass.
- With this technology, the entry of passengers would be automatically processed based on the facial recognition system at all checkpoints – including entry into the airport, security check areas, aircraft boarding, etc.
Implementation strategy
- In the first phase, the initiative will be launched at seven airports, starting with three — Delhi, Bengaluru, and Varanasi.
- It will then be followed by four airports namely Hyderabad, Kolkata, Pune, and Vijayawada by March 2023.
- Subsequently, the technology will be implemented across the country.
How is it being implemented?
- The project is being implemented by the DigiYatra Foundation — a joint-venture company whose shareholders are the Airports Authority of India (26% stake) and Bengaluru Airport, Delhi Airport, Hyderabad Airport, Mumbai Airport and Cochin International Airport.
- These five shareholders equally hold the remaining 74% of the shares.
How can people avail the DigiYatra facility?
- For availing the service, a passenger has to register their details on the DigiYatra app using Aadhaar-based validation and a self-image capture.
- In the next step, the boarding pass has to be scanned, and the credentials are shared with airport authorities.
- At the airport e-gate, the passenger has to first scan the bar coded boarding pass and the facial recognition system installed at the e-gate will validate the passenger’s identity and travel document.
- Once this process is done, the passenger can enter the airport through the e-gate.
- The passenger will have to follow the normal procedure to clear security and board the aircraft.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Freedom of Speech – Defamation, Sedition, etc.

What are Personality Rights?

Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Intellectual Property Rights

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: Personality Rights
Mains level: Read the attached story
The Delhi High Court recently passed an interim order to prevent the unlawful use of a megastar’s name, image and voice.

What did the HC say?
- The court, through its order, restrained persons at large from infringing the personality rights of the actor.
Why are we discussing this?
- Celebrities are protected from commercial misuse of their name and personality.
- However, there have been instances where the consumers are misled owing to false advertisements or endorsements by such personalities.
- Due to such cases, the Ministry of Consumer Affairs has made a notification in 2022 to keep a check on misleading adverts and endorsements of consumer products by imposing a penalty on the endorser.
What are Personality Rights?
- Personality rights refer to the right of a person to protect his/her personality under the right to privacy or property.
- These rights are important to celebrities as their names, photographs or even voices can easily be misused in various advertisements by different companies to boost their sales.
- Therefore, it is necessary for renowned personalities/celebrities to register their names to save their personality rights.
- A large list of unique personal attributes contribute to the making of a celebrity.
- All of these attributes need to be protected, such as name, nickname, stage name, picture, likeness, image and any identifiable personal property, such as a distinctive race car.
Correlation with publicity rights
- Personality rights are different from publicity rights.
- Publicity rights are governed by statutes like the Trade marks Act 1999 and the Copyright Act 1957.
Types of personality rights
- Personality rights consist of two types of rights-
1. Right of publicity: It is the right to keep one’s image and likeness from being commercially exploited without permission or contractual compensation, which is similar (but not identical) to the use of a trademark;
2. Right to privacy: It is the right to not have one’s personality represented publicly without permission.
- However, under common law jurisdictions, publicity rights fall into the realm of the ‘tort of passing off’.
- Passing off takes place when someone intentionally or unintentionally passes off their goods or services as those belonging to another party.
- Often, this type of misrepresentation damages the goodwill of a person or business, resulting in financial or reputational damage.
Does the use of a name on the internet affect personality rights?
- The Delhi High Court in 2011 made an observation in the case of Arun Jaitley vs Network Solutions Private Limited and Ors.
- In this case, former finance minister filed a suit seeking permanent injunction against the defendants from misuse and immediate transfer of the domain name www.arunjaitley.com.
- The Court stated that the popularity or fame of individual will be no different on the internet than in reality.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Climate Change Impact on India and World – International Reports, Key Observations, etc.

Places in news: Great Barrier Reef

Prelims Only | Enviro & Biodiversity | Mains Paper 1: Important Geophysical Phenomena

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: Corals, Coral Bleaching
Mains level: Great Barrier Reef
A joint report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and UNESCO’s World Heritage Centre (WHC) expressed concern about the status of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR) in Australia, recommending that it “be inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger.”

About Great Barrier Reef
- Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest reef system stretching across 2,300 km and having nearly 3,000 individual reefs.
- It hosts 400 different types of coral, gives shelter to 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 types of mollusc.
- Coral reefs support over 25% of marine biodiversity even as they take up only 1% of the seafloor.
- The marine life supported by reefs further fuels global fishing industries.
- Besides, coral reef systems generate $2.7 trillion in annual economic value through goods and service trade and tourism.
- In Australia, the Barrier Reef, in pre-COVID times, generated $4.6 billion annually through tourism and employed over 60,000 people including divers and guides.
What does the new report say?
- The current report surveyed 87 reefs in the GBR between August 2021 and May 2022.
- Coral cover is measured by determining the increase in the cover of hard corals.
- The hard coral cover in northern GBR had reached 36% while that in the central region had reached 33%.
- Meanwhile, coral cover levels declined in the southern region from 38% in 2021 to 34% in 2022.
- The record levels of recovery, the report showed, were fuelled largely by increases in the fast-growing Acropora corals, which are a dominant type in the GBR.
Threats found
- Acropora corals are also the most susceptible to environmental pressures such as rising temperatures, cyclones, pollution, crown-of-thorn starfish (COTs) attacks which prey on hard corals and so on.
Does this mean the reef is out of the woods?
- Behind the recent recovery in parts of the reef, are the low levels of acute stressors in the past 12 months — no tropical cyclones, lesser heat stress in 2020 and 2022 as opposed to earlier.
- Besides predatory attacks and tropical cyclones, scientists say that the biggest threat to the health of the reef is climate change-induced heat stress, resulting in coral bleaching.
- The concern is that in the past decade, mass bleaching events have become more closely spaced in time.
- The first mass bleaching event occurred in 1998 when the El Niño weather pattern caused sea surfaces to heat, causing 8% of the world’s coral to die.
- The second event took place in 2002.
- But the longest and most damaging bleaching event took place from 2014 to 2017. Mass bleaching then occurred again in 2020, followed by earlier this year.
Back2Basics: Coral Reefs
- Corals are marine invertebrates or animals which do not possess a spine.
- They are the largest living structures on the planet.
- Each coral is called a polyp and thousands of such polyps live together to form a colony, which grow when polyps multiply to make copies of themselves.
- Corals are of two types — hard corals and soft corals.
1. Hard corals extract calcium carbonate from seawater to build hard, white coral exoskeletons. Hard corals are in a way the engineers of reef ecosystems and measuring the extent of hard coral is a widely-accepted metric for measuring the condition of coral reefs.
2. Soft corals attach themselves to such skeletons and older skeletons built by their ancestors. Soft corals also add their own skeletons to the hard structure over the years. These growing multiplying structures gradually form coral reefs.
How do corals bleach?
- Corals share a symbiotic relationship with single-celled algae called zooxanthellae.
- The algae prepares food for corals through photosynthesis and also gives them their vibrant colouration.
- When exposed to conditions like heat stress, pollution, or high levels of ocean acidity, the zooxanthellae start producing reactive oxygen species not beneficial to the corals.
- So, the corals kick out the colour-giving algae from their polyps, exposing their pale white exoskeleton and leading to coral starvation as corals cannot produce their own food.
- Bleached corals can survive depending on the levels of bleaching and the recovery of sea temperatures to normal levels.
- Severe bleaching and prolonged stress in the external environment can lead to coral death.
Try this PYQ:

Consider the following statements:
1. Most of the world’s coral reefs are in tropical waters.
2. More than one third of the world’s coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and Philippines.
3. Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?

(a) 1 and 2 only

(b) 3 only

(c) 1 and 3 only

(d) 1 and 3 only

Post your answers here.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor
Port Infrastructure and Shipping Industry – Sagarmala Project, SDC, CEZ, etc.

Protests against Vizhinjam Port

Prelims Only | Economics | Mains Paper 3: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways Etc.

Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important:
Prelims level: Vizhinjam Port Project
Mains level: Transshipment hub: Economic potential
Kerala’s ambitious Vizhinjam port project for a transshipment container terminal is caught in protests and violence.

Vizhinjam Port Project
- In 2015, the Adani Group signed a concession agreement with the Kerala government to build India’s first mega transshipment container terminal at Vizhinjam near Thiruvananthapuram.
- The ₹7,525 crore project — an all-weather deep-sea port with a depth of 24 meters — can service large megamax-sized container ships.
- This natural port has no littoral sedimentation, obviating the need for periodic dredging and lowers maintenance costs.
- The port, which is well-connected to the hinterland, will handle 1 million twenty-foot equivalent units in Phase-I and another 6.2 million TEUs when completed.
Significance of the project for India?
- Transshipment hub: The Vizhinjam Port holds the potential to attract a large share of container transshipment traffic that is now handled by Colombo, Singapore or Dubai.
- Important shipping lane: It located just off the International Shipping Lane and close to the East-West Shipping Axis.
- Cargo handling: A large share of India’s exports and imports that are now transshipped through these international ports can be handled at Vizhinjam.
- Reducing logistic costs: It would mean a sharp reduction in shipping costs and lead time. This will go a long way in reducing overall logistics costs and making manufacturing competitive.
- Employment generation: It will also create thousands of jobs – directly and otherwise.
Reasons for protests
- Local fishermen fear displacement and loss of livelihood. They blame higher tides and increasing coastal erosion on the project.
- Protests has some leftist leaning inherently opposing every development project.
- A Latin Catholic Church has been at the forefront of the protests.
- Many right-wing outfits have thrown their weight behind the project and want its quick completion.
- They blame foreign funding for what they call ‘anti-development’ protests.
Click and get your FREE Copy of CURRENT AFFAIRS Micro Notes

(Click) FREE1-to-1 on-call Mentorship by IAS-IPS officers | Discuss doubts, strategy, sources, and more
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor

Type: Prelims Only

What is UPI?

What is the NPCI plan for UPI?

Why extension?

How could it impact UPI platforms?

How is UPI performing?

Try this PYQ:

What is Social Hostilities Index (SHI)?

How bad has India fared?

Other components: Government Restrictions Index (GRI)

Official data for substantiation

ICAO Assessment

How has India fared in ICAO ranking?

Global scenario

What is ICAO?

Functions of ICAO

What is Collegium System?

Evolution: The Judges Cases

The procedure followed by the Collegium

Does the Collegium recommend transfers too?

Loopholes in the Collegium system

Way ahead

What are Remittances?

India’s total remittances to grow

Key points from the report by World Bank

Why is remittance to India so high this year?

Significance of remittances

Issues with Remittances

Way forward

What is a Baguette?

Why did France nominate it for the UN list?

Back2Basics: UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH)

What is DigiYatra?

Implementation strategy

How is it being implemented?

How can people avail the DigiYatra facility?

What did the HC say?

Why are we discussing this?

What are Personality Rights?

Correlation with publicity rights

Types of personality rights

Does the use of a name on the internet affect personality rights?

About Great Barrier Reef

What does the new report say?

Threats found

Does this mean the reef is out of the woods?

Back2Basics: Coral Reefs

How do corals bleach?

Try this PYQ:

Vizhinjam Port Project

Significance of the project for India?

Reasons for protests