Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Non-personal data
Mains level: Paper 3- Issue of data sharing
This is the age of Big data. Even after anonymising it, we gain useful information using analytical tools. So, given its potential, there is a call for treating the public data as a public good. This article analyses the suggestion of Kris Gopalakrishnan panel in this regard.
Why data matter
- By one brave count, the world generates over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data every day.
- A significant chunk of it is highly valuable.
- With the increasing sophistication of tools designed to analyse it, the value of the data is increasing further.
- This analysis of data can yield market patterns, traffic predictions, epidemic risks and much more.[Remember why Google shows you only particular ads.]
- Data need not be either big or personal for it to be highly sought after.
Non-personal data: A public good
- Would it not be better if at least some data were treated as a public good?
- Treating it as a public good will allow its open use by startups, do-gooders and government bodies.
- Dealing with such questions, a centre-appointed panel, headed by Infosys co-founder Kris Gopalakrishnan, submitted its draft report on the regulation of non-personal data in India.
- “Non-personal data” is defined as that which is either devoid of people’s details or anonymized to prevent individual identification.
Proposals of Kris Gopalan panel
- The panel has proposed a new data authority to regulate non-personal data.
- It has also outlined the need of a framework that would require companies to share its databanks with others.
- Sharing of databank will help the country catalyse business innovation, bolster India’s startup ecosystem, and help governments and local authorities frame data-enriched public policies.
Challenges
- What data a private entity can be forced to disclose must follow a commonly accepted set of principles.
- Data authority demanding companies to share data painstakingly acquired often with large sums invested to acquire it won’t work.
- Also, if sharing data blunts companies’ strategic edge over competitors, they would probably appeal against it in court.
- If enterprises fear that their confidential learnings could be threatened by intrusive data authority, then the cause of innovation would actually be set back.
Way forward
- A clear set of guidelines could be set down that specify what sort of data qualifies as a public good and must be kept open to all.
- For other kinds of data, maybe a market mechanism could evolve that lets various parties bid for privately-held information.
Consider the question “There is a growing demand for treating the non-personal data as a public good. What are the benefits and challenges of treating the non-personal data as public good?
Conclusion
Given its potential, big data does deserve regulation. But it needs to be done with clarity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Trade surplus
Mains level: Paper 3- India's import and exports
India registered a trade surplus after almost two decades. But this is not the result of a sudden rise in India’s export. It is due to subdued import indicating the low demand.
What latest data indicate
- Data released by the commerce ministry indicate a contraction in exports observed over the past few months easing slowly.
- But the continuing contraction in import which indicates low demand is worrying.
- This is trend is leading to the growing gap between import and export.
India registered a trade surplus: what it indicates
- This growing gap led to India registering a trade surplus of nearly $800 million in June.
- This is the first time in almost two decades that the country has registered a trade surplus.
- But does this mean that India’s exports have grown drastically?
- No. It is a sign of collapse in domestic demand.
Merchandise exports growing trends
- India’s merchandise exports continue to witness an upward swing.
- The pace of contraction fell to 12.4 per cent in June, from 36.2 per cent in May and 60 per cent in April.
- Exports of items such as iron ore, drugs and pharmaceuticals, chemicals and various agricultural commodities saw an expansion in June.
What growing exports and falling import indicate
- An upswing in exports could be indicative of a faster recovery of India’s export partners.
- Restrictions on economic activities in some of these countries had eased earlier.
- Other reason could be the rush by Indian exporters to ship out orders to meet their seasonal deadlines.
- Imports continue to remain deep in negative territory.
- The contraction in non-oil exports has actually worsened with decline observed in both consumer and investment/industrial goods imports.
- Some movement is visible in imports of electronic goods.
- But the import of machinery and transport equipment has not moved significantly.
- Of the 30 main import items, only four registered mildly positive growth in June — this indicates the pace of the domestic slowdown.
Conclusion
Economic activities across the world will take time to return to normalcy, India’s exports will take time to reach pre-COVID levels. It seems that the chasm between exports and imports could persist, given the plateauing of the post-lockdown spurt in demand/production.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Centralisation in Education
The article tracks the evolution of the India education system after Independence. While the decentralisation and active encouragement underscores the initial years, recent trends shows a growing emphasis on centralisation.
How Government support contributed to rise of educational institutions
- In the initial decades after Independence, the government was conscious of various social, economic and financial challenges.
- So, the government strongly supported universities, encouraging them to further develop an academic .
- The IITs and IIM along with institutions of academic excellence like the IISc, Indian Statistical Institute, and JNU emerged as model institutions.
- The institutional and academic autonomy offered was central to their emerging as premier institutions.
- Other universities revised curricula and set about the task of reforming the university as a space for healthy academic engagement.
Rise of decentralisation in collective decision making
- The above changes were marked by the growing importance of various large representative institutional bodies.
- For example, institutional bodies like faculty committees, committees of courses, board of studies, university senates, academic councils and executive councils grew in importance.
- These bodies oversaw the administrative and academic functioning of the university and ensured collective decision-making.
- Debate over ideological positions, scholarly beliefs shaped the process of nation-building in independent India.
Policy changes and its impact (2005-15)
- The constitution of the National Knowledge Commission and privatisation of education undermined the deliberative and independent character of these institutions of higher education.
- Administrative and academic decisions were imposed from above.
- Discussions within various academic bodies were discouraged.
- The imposition of the semester system and a four-year undergraduate programme in many public and private universities were hallmarks of this new era of bureaucratic centralisation.
- The academic achievements of scholars from Indian universities were undermined.
- Those in positions of authority within the universities were encouraged to undermine academic bodies and limit their role.
New government intervention after 2015
- Futher changes were introduced starting from 2015.
- Choice Based Credit System was introduced and there were renewed attempts to privatise higher education linked to an emphasis on rankings.
- The government started to look into minute details pertaining to academic curricula, the teaching-learning process and the parameters that governed academic research within the university.
Centralisation in Covid-19 pandemic
- The centralisation trend intensified with the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The Central government and the University Grants Commission have imposed themselves on the daily functioning of all higher educational institutions.
- This represents a new government-oriented bureaucratic centralisation.
- Decisions about the conclusion of academic term, the modalities for evaluation and the conduct of the teaching-learning process have become exclusive government prerogatives.
- The various academic bodies that had original jurisdiction over these matters have been made redundant.
- How and whether examinations are to be conducted has become an issue of contention between State and Central governments.
Consider the question “Centralisation of the decision making instead of at institutional level in educational institutions and universities lies at many woes of the higher education in India. Comment.”
Conclusion
The time has come for institutions of higher education in India to recover their lost voice and restore the fertile academic space where ideas are discussed and debated rather than suppressed and dismissed.
Original article:
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-lost-voice-of-the-indian-university/article32105945.ece
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 5G Technology
Mains level: 5G Technology and the Huawei issue
One of India’s business tycoon recently announced that his company’s telecom venture has designed and developed from scratch, a complete indigenous 5G solution ready for deployment.
Try this question from CSP 2019:
Q.With reference to communication technologies, what is/are the difference/differences between LTE (Long-Term Evolution) and VoLTE (Voice over Long-Term Evolution)?
- LTE ‘is commonly marketed as 3G and VoLTE is commonly marketed as advanced 3G.
- LTE is data-only technology and VoLTE is voice-only technology.
Select the correct answer using the code given below.
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
What is 5G?
- 5G or fifth generation is the latest upgrade in the long term evolution (LTE) mobile broadband networks.
- The first generation of networks allowed only mobile voice calls to be made, while the second generation allowed mobile voice calls as well as sending of short text messages.
- It was the third generation or 3G network which allowed web browsing on mobile devices, the speed and latency of which improved with fourth-generation or 4G networks.
- The 5G networks will have even faster speeds with latency down to between 1-10 milliseconds.
(Note: Latency is the time a device takes to communicate with the network, which stands at an average of up to 50 milliseconds for 4G networks across the world.)
How does 5G work?
All 5G networks chiefly operate on three spectrum bands.
- The low-band spectrum has been proven to have great coverage and works fast even in underground conditions. However, the maximum speed limit on this band is 100 Mbps (Megabits per second).
- In the mid-band spectrum, though the speeds are higher, telcos across the world have registered limitations when it comes to coverage area and penetration of telephone signals into buildings.
- The high-band spectrum offers the highest speed but has extremely limited network coverage area and penetration capabilities.
The telcos using this band rely on the existing LTE networks and will need to install a number of smaller towers to ensure adequate coverage and high-speed performance.
What does it mean to be 5G ready?
- Globally many companies have been deploying 5G networks across their service areas as early as 2018.
- Not only the network, but the devices will also have to be 5G ready for customers to be able to enjoy the maximum benefits of the latest upgrade in mobile broadband.
- One of the major improvements in 5G is the use of beam tracking to follow all devices on the network to ensure consistent connection in real-time for the device.
- 5G networks are also designed to multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) efficient which improves signal throughput for all devices on the network.
Where does India stand on the deployment of 5G?
- Companies, both telecom service providers and their equipment vendors, have completed lab trials of 5G network components but are yet to commence field trials, which were initially scheduled to happen last year.
- For the same, telecom companies are awaiting allocation of test spectrum from the Department of Telecommunications (DoT).
- The service providers have already tied up with equipment makers like Nokia, Ericsson, etc for deploying their 5G networks.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Animal sacrifice and associated issues
The Supreme Court has agreed to examine the constitutional validity of the Kerala Animals and Birds Sacrifices Prohibition Act of 1968 that prohibits sacrifice of animals and birds in temples to ‘please’ the deity.
Try this question for mains:
Q. The ritual slaughters of animals in India is a greater ethical issue than a legal one. Analyse.
The dichotomy over ritual slaughter
- The Supreme Court is set to analyse how the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Act of 1960 allows the killing of animals but prohibits cruelty to animals.
- It highlighted the “dichotomy” in animal protection law that allows the killing of animals for food but does not permit “killing of animals for an offer to a deity and then consumption”.
Why did SC interfere?
- However, the 1968 Kerala law bans the killing of animals and birds for religious sacrifices but not for personal consumption.
- This amounted to arbitrary classification.
Legal protections to Animal sacrifice
- The Kerala Act criminalizes the intent behind the animal sacrifice and not animal sacrifice per se.
- If the sacrifice is not for propitiating any deity but for personal consumption even in the precincts of the temple, it is not forbidden.
- Section 28 of the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, 1960 does not make the killing of animals for religious purposes and offence.
Appeal citing the necessity of the practice
- The oral remarks came in an appeal filed by P.E. Gopalakrishnan and some others, who are Shakthi worshippers, and for whom, animal sacrifice is an integral part of the worship.
- In their appeal, they said the animal sacrifice was an “essential religious practice” and the High Court had no power to interfere.
Why animal sacrifice needs a rethink?
- All religions call for compassion, no religion requires killing or eating animals and hacking animals to death with weapons.
- The way executioners handle, transport and kill animals for sacrifices typically violates animal transport and slaughter laws, making it a punishable offence.
- There exist ample ambiguities in religious texts over allowing the ritual slaughter of animals.
- Moreover, the practice of animal sacrifice normalizes killing and desensitizes humans to violence against animals.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Manhattan Project, WW2 and related stories
On this day, exactly 75 years ago, US scientists tested ‘Gadget’— the world’s first atomic bomb — in what was dubbed as the ‘Trinity Test’.
Practice question for mains:
Q.What is the Manhattan Project? Describe its consequences on the post-world war scenario.
The Trinity Test
- The super bomb, nicknamed ‘Gadget’, was built by a team of scientists at a top-secret site in Los Alamos, New Mexico.
- It was developed as part of the US-led Manhattan Project, which sought to build nuclear weapons to give the allied forces an edge over Germany, Japan and Italy in World War 2.
- Very soon after the Trinity test, an identical nuclear bomb called ‘Fat Man’ was dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki, killing tens of thousands of people.
- Before it detonated, the scientists had placed bets on what could happen. Some believed that the bomb would be a dud and would fail to explode.
What was the Manhattan Project?
- Germany initiated World War II by invading Poland.
- A letter signed by Nobel prize-winning physicist Albert Einstein warned then-US President Franklin D Roosevelt of the potential threat posed by an atomic weapon being developed by Adolf Hitler.
- Soon after, the US launched a secret atomic research undertaking, code-named the Manhattan Project, which sought to develop an atomic weapon to end the war.
Execution of the project
- The Project remained a relatively small-scale initiative for the next two years.
- It was only after the bombing of Pearl Harbour the project was officially kicked into gear.
- By December 1942 facilities were established in remote locations across the US, as well as in Canada.
- However, the superbomb was finally designed and conceptualized by a team of scientists at a top-secret laboratory in Los Alamos.
- The Los Alamos team developed two types of bombs — one was uranium-based, which was later code-named ‘the Little Boy’ before it was dropped on Hiroshima; the other had a plutonium core.
Looping-in nuclear physicists
- The project brought together some of the country’s leading atomic experts as well as exiled scientists and physicists from Germany and other Nazi-occupied nations.
- The team at Los Alamos was headed by J Robert Oppenheimer, a physics professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
- Oppenheimer later came to be known as the “father of the atomic bomb”.
- His team included famous Danish scientist Niels Bohr and Italian scientists Enrico Fermi.
What were the repercussions of the Trinity Test?
- New Mexico residents were pointedly not warned before the test, to ensure that it was carried out secretly.
- Data collected by the New Mexico health department, which showed the adverse impact of radiation caused by the detonation, was ignored for years after the test.
- A sudden rise in infant mortality was reported in the months after the explosion. Several residents also complained that the number of cancer patients went up after the Trinity Test.
- The dust outfall from the explosion was expected to have travelled nearly 100 miles from the test site, posing a serious threat to residents in the area.
- Many families complained that their livestock suffered skin burns, bleeding and loss of hair.
Impact of bombing on Japan
- The Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings are known to have killed well over 200,000 people — many of whom succumbed to radiation poisoning in the weeks after the blasts.
- The uranium bomb in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, destroyed around 70 per cent of all buildings and caused around 140,000 deaths by the end of 1945.
- The plutonium bomb explosion over Nagasaki, which took place three days later, killed 74,000 people that year, according to International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICANW) data.
- After seeing the destruction caused to the two Japanese cities, Oppenheimer publicly admitted that he regretted building a bomb that could cause an apocalypse.
Nuclearisation of the world thus began
- Seventy-five years after the Trinity Test, as many as nine countries around the world are currently in possession of nuclear weapons.
- These include the US, the UK, Russia, France, India, China, Israel, Pakistan and North Korea.
- At least eight countries have detonated over 2,000 nuclear test explosions since 1945.
- The most recent instance of nuclear bomb test explosions conducted by India, were the series of five explosions done as part of the Pokhran-II tests in May 1998.
- The first test, code-named Smiling Buddha, took place in May 1974.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IMEF
Mains level: Various energy related alliances and partnerships
In the joint working group meeting of the Sustainable Growth Pillar of the India-US partnership, an India Energy Modeling Forum was launched.
Note the following things about IEMF:
1. It is a bilateral forum.
2. It is not associated with any International Agency say UN, IEA, IAEA etc.
3.On March15 last year, the idea was incepted and only a formal workshop was organized on IEMF (it wasn’t launched).
UPSC can puzzle you along these 3 points in a statements-based MCQ.
India Energy Modeling Forum (IEMF)
- The IEMF seeks to provide a platform for policy makers to study important energy and environmental issues and ensure induction of modelling and analysis in informed decision making process.
- The Forum aims to improve cooperation and coordination between modeling teams, the GoI, knowledge partners and think-tanks, build capacity of Indian institutions, and identify issues for joint modeling activities and future areas of research.
What is Energy Modelling?
- Energy modeling or energy system modeling is the process of building computer models of energy systems in order to analyze them.
- There exists energy modelling forums in different parts of the World.
- Such models often employ scenario analysis to investigate different assumptions about the technical and economic conditions at play.
- Outputs may include the system feasibility, greenhouse gas emissions, cumulative financial costs, natural resource use, and energy efficiency of the system under investigation.
- Governments maintain national energy models for energy policy development.
Outcomes of the forum
- Discussions on energy modelling in India and the world explored how energy modelling can play an important role in decision-making.
- The panelists laid focus on bridging the rural-urban divide and factoring in energy pressures from the informal economy within models.
- Deliberations included a spotlight on how the impact of the evolving character of India’s cities, industries and especially the transport sector should be included in the any India-centric models.
- The shift towards electric mobility, an increasing emphasis on mainstreaming of renewable energy options and overarching environmental concerns were also stated as key factors for determining India’s energy future.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NISHTHA programme
Mains level: Various digital initiatives by HRD ministry
The first on-line NISHTHA programme for 1200 Key Resources Persons in Andhra Pradesh was launched by Union HRD Ministry.
There are various web/portals/apps with peculiar names 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.
Add one more to this list.
NISHTHA Programme
- NISHTHA is an acronym for National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement.
- It is the largest teachers’ training programme of its kind in the world.
- The basic objective of this massive training programme ‘NISHTHA’ is to motivate and equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students.
- The initiative is first of its kind wherein standardized training modules are developed at national level for all States and UTs.
- The States and UTs can also contextualize the training modules and use their own material and resource persons also, keeping in view the core topics and expected outcomes of NISHTHA.
Progress till date
- Around 23,000 Key Resource Persons and 17.5 lakh teachers and school heads have been covered under this NISHTHA face to face mode till date.
- It has been customized for online mode to be conducted through DIKSHA and NISHTHA portals by the NCERT.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Migration of Pied Cuckoo and its association with Indian monsoon onset
Mains level: NA
A new project by a number of agencies is using advancements in nanotechnology to study migratory patterns of the Pied Cuckoo.
This specie carries an unusual importance compared to other IUCN species. Go through this newscard to read more about it.
Pied Cuckoo
- There are basically three subspecies of the Pied Cuckoo of which one is resident in Africa while another is resident in South.
- The third is a migrant moving between India and Africa.
- The Pied Cuckoo is famous in North Indian folklore as ‘chatak’, a bird that quenches its thirst only with raindrops.
- From Southern Africa, it comes to the Himalayan foothills stretching from Jammu to Assam to breed every year. The birds come to the same localities every year.
- It is also a brood parasite in that it does not make its own nest and instead lays its egg in the nest of other birds, particularly the Jungle Babbler.
About the Study
- The project is a joint effort by the Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun and the Indian Institute of Remote Sensing (IIRS), which comes under the Indian Space Research Organisation or ISRO.
- The Pied Cuckoo migration study is part of a larger project — Indian Bioresource Information portal (IBIN) funded by the Department of Biotechnology under the Union Ministry of Science and Technology.
- It aims to deliver relevant bioresources (plant, animal and other biological organisms) information of India through a web portal.
- The project aims to assess the likely impacts of projected climate change on the potential distribution of Pied Cuckoo in the altered climate change scenarios.
Why study Pied Cuckoo?
- It is closely linked with the arrival of the south-west monsoon in India.
- It moves to India during the summer.
- Being a small, terrestrial bird, a sea crossing holds a lot of risk for this cuckoo.
- Before it migrates back to its home in the southern African region, by flying over the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean, it must be stopping somewhere.
- It is these stopovers that researchers want to find out about.
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