Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-China relations
Despite India’s careful approach which involved not upsetting China’s domestic and geopolitical sensitivities, Galwan happened. What explains the Chinese aggression? There could be many factors. This article delves into these factors.
Not upsetting China
- The India government has been very careful not to upset China’s domestic and geopolitical sensitivities.
- Barring occasional joint statements issued with leaders from the U.S. and Asia-Pacific countries, reasserting India’s commitment to “freedom of navigation” India has stayed away from criticising China on controversial topics,
- On issues such as “de-radicalisation” camps in Xinjiang, crackdown on protests in Hong Kong, or disputes with Taiwan India India didn’t criticise China.
Yet China chose to increase tensions along the LAC. Why?
1. China wants to reorient global order
- Unlike the Soviet Union of the 1940s China is not an ideological state that intends to export communism to other countries.
- When it was rising, China had adopted different tactical positions — “hide your capacity and bide your time”, “peaceful rise” or “peaceful development”.
- That era is over.
- Under President Xi Jinping, the Chinese think they have arrived.
- With the global economy in the doldrums, globalisation in a crisis and the U.S. under an isolationist President hostile towards China Beijing believes the global order is at a breaking point.
- It is fighting back through what game theorists call “salami tactics” — where a dominant power attempts to establish its hegemony piece by piece.
- India is one slice in this salami slice strategy.
2. India: An ally-in-progress of the US
- It sees India as an ally-in-progress of the U.S.
- So, China actions are a result of the strategic loss [India] that has already happened.
- If India is what many in the West call the “counterweight” to China’s rise, Beijing’s definite message is that it is not deterred by the counterweight.
- This is a message not just to India, but to a host of China’s rivals that are teaming up and eager to recruit India to the club.
Factors that could explain China’s move
Global factors
- Europe has been devastated by the virus.
- The U.S. is battling in an election year the COVID-19 outbreak.
- It is also battling the deepest economic meltdown since the Great Depression.
- Its global leadership is unravelling fast.
Regional and local factors
- The Indian economy was in trouble even before COVID-19 struck the country, slowing down its rise.
- Social upheaval over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), 2019, and the National Register of Citizens had weakened the Indian polity.
- India’s traditional clout in its neighbourhood was slipping.
- Tensions with Pakistan have been high keeping the troops occupied in the border areas.
- Nepal raised boundary issues with India.
- Sri Lanka is diversifying its foreign policy.and China is making deep inroads into that region.
- Bangladesh was deeply miffed with the CAA.
- Even in Afghanistan, where Pakistan, China, Russia and the U.S. are involved in the transition process, India is out.
- A confluence of all these factors, which point to a decline in the country’s smart power, allowed China to make aggressive moves on the LAC.
Consider the question “At the time when relations reached a nadir with China, India needs to focus on its neighbourhood and mend win back the friendly neighbours. Comment”
Conclusion
What India needs is a national security strategy that’s decoupled from the compulsions of domestic politics and anchored in neighbourhood realism. It should stand up to China’s bullying on the border now, with a long-term focus on enhancing capacities and winning back its friendly neighbours. There are no quick fixes this time.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ICP, PPP
Mains level: India's GDP related issues
The World Bank has released its ICP report for the reference year 2017. India has retained its position as the third-largest economy in the world in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP), behind the US and China.
Try this MCQ:
Q. The International Comparison Programme (ICP) Report recently seen in news is released by: IMF/World Bank/OECD/None.
The International Comparison Programme (ICP)
- ICP is one of the largest statistical initiatives in the world.
- It is managed by the World Bank under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Commission.
- Globally 176 economies participated in the 2017 cycle of ICP. The next ICP comparison will be conducted for the reference year 2021.
The main objectives of the ICP are:
(i) To produce purchasing power parities (PPPs) and comparable price level indexes (PLIs) for participating economies;
(ii) To convert volume and per capita measures of gross domestic product (GDP) and its expenditure components into a common currency using PPPs.
Highlights of the report
- India accounts for 6.7% or $8,051 billion, out of the world’s total of $119,547 billion of global GDP in terms of PPP compared to 16.4 % in case of China and 16.3 % for the US.
- India is also the third-largest economy in terms of its PPP-based share in global Actual Individual Consumption and Global Gross Capital Formation.
- In the Asia-Pacific Region, in 2017, India retained its regional position, as the second-largest economy, accounting for 20.83 % in terms of PPPs.
- China was first at 50.76% and Indonesia at 7.49% was third.
- India is also the second-largest economy in terms of its PPP-based share in regional Actual Individual Consumption and regional Gross Capital Formation.
Trends in INR
- The PPPs of Indian Rupee per US$ at the GDP level is now 20.65 in 2017 from 15.55 in 2011.
- The Exchange Rate of US Dollar to Indian Rupee is now 65.12 from 46.67 during the same period.
Significance of PPP
- Purchasing Power Parities are vital for converting measures of economic activities to be comparable across economies.
- It is calculated based on the price of a common basket of goods and services in each participating economy and is a measure of what an economy’s local currency can buy in another economy.
- Market exchange rate-based conversions reflect both price and volume differences in expenditures and are thus inappropriate for volume comparisons.
- PPP-based conversions of expenditures eliminate the effect of price level differences between economies and reflect only differences in the volume of economies.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IN-SPACE, ANTRIX, NSIl
Mains level: ISRO and India's space economy
- The government approved the creation of Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (IN-SPACe) to ensure greater private participation in India’s space activities.
- This decision is described as historic being part of an important set of reforms to open up the space sector and make space-based applications and services more widely accessible to everyone.
Practice question for mains:
Q. What is IN-SPACe? Discuss how it would benefit ISRO and contribute to India’s space economy.
What is IN-SPACe?
- IN-SPACe is supposed to be a facilitator, and also a regulator.
- It will act as an interface between ISRO and private parties and assess how best to utilise India’s space resources and increase space-based activities.
- IN-SPACe is the second space organisation created by the government in the last two years.
- In the 2019 Budget, the government had announced the setting up of a New Space India Limited (NSIL), a public sector company that would serve as a marketing arm of ISRO.
Confusion over NSIL and ANTRIX
- NSIL’s main purpose is to market the technologies developed by ISRO and bring it more clients that need space-based services.
- That role, incidentally, was already being performed by Antrix Corporation, another PSU working under the Department of Space, and which still exists.
- It is still not very clear why there was a need for another organisation with overlapping function.
- The government now had clarified the role of NSIL that it would have a demand-driven approach rather than the current supply-driven strategy.
- Essentially, what that means is that instead of just marketing what ISRO has to offer, NSIL would listen to the needs of the clients and ask ISRO to fulfil those.
Then, why was IN-SPACe needed?
(1) ISRO and its limited resources
- It is not that there is no private industry involvement in India’s space sector.
- In fact, a large part of the manufacturing and fabrication of rockets and satellites now happens in the private sector. There is increasing participation of research institutions as well.
- Indian industry, however, is unable to compete, because till now its role has been mainly that of suppliers of components and sub-systems.
- Indian industries do not have the resources or the technology to undertake independent space projects of the kind that US companies such as SpaceX have been doing or provide space-based services.
(2) India and the global space economy
- Indian industry had a barely three per cent share in a rapidly growing global space economy which was already worth at least $360 billion.
- Only two per cent of this market was for rocket and satellite launch services, which require fairly large infrastructure and heavy investment.
- The remaining 95 per cent related to satellite-based services, and ground-based systems.
(3) Catering to domestic demands
- The demand for space-based applications and services is growing even within India, and ISRO is unable to cater to this.
- The need for satellite data, imageries and space technology now cuts across sectors, from weather to agriculture to transport to urban development and more.
- If ISRO is to provide everything, it would have to be expanded 10 times the current level to meet all the demand that is arising.
(4) Promoting other private players
- Right now, all launches from India happen on ISRO rockets, the different versions of PSLV and GSLV.
- There were a few companies that were in the process of developing their own launch vehicles, the rockets like ISRO’s PSLV that carry the satellites and other payloads into space.
- Now ISRO could provide all its facilities to private players whose projects had been approved by IN-SPACe.
How ISRO gains from all these?
- There are two main reasons why enhanced private involvement in the space sector seems important.
- One is commercial, and the other strategic. And ISRO seems unable to satisfy this need on its own.
- Of course, there is a need for greater dissemination of space technologies, better utilization of space resources, and increased requirement of space-based services.
- The private industry will also free up ISRO to concentrate on science, research and development, interplanetary exploration and strategic launches.
- Right now too much of ISRO’s resources are consumed by routine activities that delay its more strategic objectives.
A win-win situation for all
- ISRO, like NASA, is essentially a scientific organisation whose main objective is the exploration of space and carrying out scientific missions.
- There are a number of ambitious space missions lined up in the coming years, including a mission to observe the Sun, a mission to the Moon, a human spaceflight, and then, possibly, a human landing on the Moon.
- And it is not that private players will wean away from the revenues that ISRO gets through commercial launches.
- The space-based economy is expected to “explode” in the next few years, even in India, and there would be more than enough for all.
- In addition, ISRO can earn some money by making its facilities and data available to private players.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: RRBs, Cooperative Banks
Mains level: RBI regulations of default bankers
To ensure that depositors are protected, the Centre has decided to bring all urban and multi-State cooperative banks under the direct supervision of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
Practice question for mains:
Q. What are Cooperative Banks? How are they regulated? Discuss their role in extending credit facilities in rural India.
What are Cooperative Banks?
- A Co-operative bank is a financial entity which belongs to its members, who are at the same time the owners and the customers of their bank.
- They are registered under the States Cooperative Societies Act.
- They are also regulated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and governed by the Banking Regulations Act 1949 and Banking Laws (Co-operative Societies) Act, 1955.
What is the present decision?
- The urban cooperatives and multi-State cooperative banks have been brought under RBI supervision process, which is applicable to scheduled banks.
- Currently, these banks come under dual regulation of the RBI and the Registrar of Co-operative Societies.
Why such a move?
- The move to bring these urban and multi-State coop banks under the supervision of the RBI comes after several instances of fraud and serious financial irregularities.
- The most recent was the major scam at the Punjab and Maharashtra Co-operative (PMC) Bank last year.
- The RBI was forced to supersede the PMC Bank’s board and impose strict restrictions.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Coccolithophores
Mains level: Not Much
A study of microscopic ancient marine algae (Coccolithophores) has found that there is a decrease in the concentration of oceanic calcium carbonate (CaCO3) in the Southern Indian Ocean.
Try this question:
Q.The Coccolithophores sometimes seen in news are-
(a) Diatoms
(b) Algae
(c) Coral Polyps
(d) Sea grass
Coccolithophores
- Coccolithophores are single-celled algae living in the upper layers of the world’s oceans.
- They have been playing a key role in marine ecosystems and the global carbon cycle for millions of years.
- They calcify marine phytoplankton that produces up to 40% of open ocean calcium carbonate and responsible for 20% of the global net marine primary productivity.
- They build exoskeletons from individual CaCO3 plates consisting of chalk and seashells building the tiny plates on their exterior.
Role as a carbon sink
- Though carbon dioxide is produced during the formation of these plates, coccolithophores help in removing it from the atmosphere and ocean by consuming it during photosynthesis.
- At equilibrium, they absorb more carbon dioxide than they produce, which is beneficial for the ocean ecosystem.
- These investigations are important for future intervention to bring positive changes in the marine ecosystem and the global carbon cycle.
Threats
- The reduction of coccolithophores is due to an increase in the presence of diatom algae, which occurs after sea ice breakdown with climate change and ocean acidification, and increases the silicate concentration in the waters of the Southern Ocean.
- Their existence is highly dependent on time and influenced by various environmental factors such as silicate concentrations, calcium carbonate concentration, diatom abundance, light intensity and availability of macro and possibly micronutrient concentrations.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much.
Mains level: Paper 2- India-China relations
The Galwan incident marked the new low in the India-China relations. Following it, there have been talks of a closer alliance with the U.S. This article analyses the utility, potential and the limitations of this approach.
Exploring the strategic options
- As the border stand-off with China deepens, India will have to think of all possible strategic options that gives it leverage.
- One of the options is new arrangements with other powers.
- This is the right moment to mobilise international opinion on China.
- But can this be translated into concerted global action to exert real pressure on China?
Things India should consider while forming alliance with the US
- International relations are formed in the context of a country’s development paradigm.
- India’s primary aim should be to preserve the maximum space for its development model, if it can actually formulate one.
- India is not unique in this respect.
- The question for India is not just whether the US has a stake in India’s development, which it might.
- But it is, rather, to ask whether India’s development needs will fit into the emerging US development paradigm.
- Will the very same political economy forces that create a disengagement with China also come in the way of a closer relationship with India?
- Some sections of American big business might favour India.
- But the underlying political economy dynamics in the US are less favourable.
- Will the US give India the room it needs on trade, intellectual property, regulation, agriculture, labour mobility, the very areas where freedom is vital for India’s economy?
- Will a US hell-bent on bringing manufacturing jobs back to the US, easily gel with an “atma nirbhar” Bharat?
- To see what is at stake, we just need to look how the development paradigm is driving tensions on trade, taxation and regulatory issues between the US and EU.
Why India avoided alignment with the US in the past
- But the drivers of this have often been legitimate differences over development, including climate change.
- It has also been that, at various points, that alignment was against India’s other strategic commitments.
- India was wise to stay out of the war in Iraq, it was wise not to upset Russia.
- It is wise not to throw its weight behind the US’s Iran policy.
- There is more maturity in the US to understand India’s position.
Global reluctance in collective action against China
- It is an odd moment in global affairs, where there is recognition of a common challenge emanating from China.
- But there is no global appetite to take concerted action.
- An interesting example might be the global response to the BRI.
- Many countries are struggling to meet their BRI debt obligations.
- But it is difficult to see the rest of the international community helping all these countries to wean their regimes away from dependence on Chinese finance.
- Similarly, there are now great concerns over frontier areas of conflict like cyber security and space.
- It is difficult to imagine concerted global action to create rules in these area, partly because Great Powers like the US and Russia will always want to maintain their exceptionalism.
Limitations of global alliance and public opinion in solving local conflicts
- 1) The international community has not been very effective in neutralising
- exercised by some powers.
- This is the tactic Pakistan has used.
- 2) Don’t count on the fact that the world will support an Indian escalation beyond a point.
- The efforts of the international community, in the final analysis, will be to try and throw cold water on the conflict.
- No one has a serious stake in the fate of the terrain India and China are disputing.
- At the end of the day, India has to manage China and Pakistan largely on its own.
Conclusion
Even as we deal with the military situation on the border, the test of India’s resolve will be its ability to return to some first principle thinking about its own power.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Skills Build Reignite
Mains level: NA
MSDE-IBM Partnership has unveiled Free Digital Learning Platform “Skills Build Reignite” to reach more job seekers & provide new resources to business owners in India.
There are various web/portals/apps with Hindi acronyms such as YUKTI, DISHA, SWAYAM etc. Their core purpose is similar with slight differences. Pen them down on a separate sheet under the title various digital HRD initiatives.
Skills Build Reignite
- The SkillsBuild Reignite tends to provide job seekers and entrepreneurs, with access to free online coursework and mentoring support designed to help them reinvent their careers and businesses.
- It is a long term institutional training to the nation’s youth through its network of training institutes and infrastructure.
- IBM will provide multifaceted digital skill training in the area of Cloud Computing and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to students & trainers across the nation in the National Skill Training Institutes (NSTIs) and ITIs.
- Directorate General of Training (DGT) under the aegis of the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship (MSDE) is responsible for implementing the program.
- Job seekers, individual business owners, entrepreneurs and any individual with learning aspirations can now tap into host of industry-relevant content on topics including AI, Cloud, Data analytics etc.
Features
- Its special feature is the personalized coaching for entrepreneurs, seeking advice to help establish or restart their small businesses as they begin to focus on recovery to emerge out of the COVID 19 pandemic.
- Courses for small business owners include, for example, financial management, business strategy, digital strategy, legal support and more.
- Plus, IBM volunteers will serve as mentors to some of the 30,000 SkillsBuild users in 100 communities in at least five major regions worldwide to help reinvigorate local communities.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- PDS and related issues
- The Public distribution system (PDS) is an Indian food Security Systemestablished under the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food, and Public Distribution.
- PDS evolved as a system of management of scarcity through distribution of food grains at affordable prices.
- PDS is operated under the joint responsibility of the Central and the State Governments.
- The Central Government, through Food Corporation of India (FCI), has assumed the responsibility for procurement, storage, transportation and bulk allocation of food grains to the State Governments.
- The operational responsibilities including allocation within the State, identification of eligible families, issue of Ration Cards and supervision of the functioning of Fair Price Shops (FPSs) etc., rest with the State Governments.
- Under the PDS, presently the commodities namely wheat, rice, sugar and keroseneare being allocated to the States/UTs for distribution. Some States/UTs also distribute additional items of mass consumption through the PDS outlets such as pulses, edible oils, iodized salt, spices, etc.
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