Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Paris Agreement
Mains level: Paper 3- Balancing development with climate action
India faces an uphill task of balancing its climate action with the economic growth. Bridging the energy deficit through renewable energy in cost-effective and increasing urban forestry could help in balancing the both.
Comparing India’s commitment
- China’s announcement recently to achieve carbon neutrality, that is, effectively generating net-zero emissions, before 2060 has now shifted focus on India’s commitments.
- In this context, let us compare India’s commitments with other countries, based on an independent scientific analysis carried out by the Climate Action Tracker. Major findings of it are:-
- 1) India is one of the only six countries (amongst the 33 that were assessed), and the only G-20 country, whose climate commitments at Paris are on a path compatible to limit warming well below 2°C.
- 2) It seems that India is well on its way to achieving its carbon intensity reduction and non-fossil-fuel electricity growth capacity commitments well before the 2030 target year.
- Even though China’s commitment is likely to lower warming projections by around 0.2 to 0.3 degrees C by 2100, China continues to remain in the “highly insufficient” category.
- India, despite being the fourth-largest emitter, has consistently kept its commitments in sync with its fair share and will achieve, if not over-achieve, these targets.
Difference in development and growth levels
- Development and growth in India are still at an early stage, and our first goal remains increasing the availability of adequate infrastructure for all Indians.
- A measure of this deficit is that we use only about 0.6 tonnes of oil-equivalent worth of energy per person per year while in China it is 2.36 tonnes per person per year, and is at least 4 tonnes per person per year in the OECD countries.
- It is, therefore, essential that we rapidly bridge the energy deficit.
Bridging the energy deficit through renewable and cost-effective manner
- Cost-effectiveness in renewable electricity has occurred rather rapidly, largely as a result of the global reduction in solar PV and battery prices.
- Solar electricity is already the cheapest electricity available in India when the sun is shining.
- It now seems that round-the-clock renewable electricity may be cost-competitive with coal electricity in the near future.
- This cost-effectiveness of zero-carbon options will emerge in other applications as well.
- It will involve dedicated action in some of the vital sectors which can generate and sustain employment while adding to the country’s economic growth.
- It will enable a shift away from emissions-intensive fossil fuels, reducing our dependence on fuel imports.
Urban forestry to compensate for environmental degradation
- Increasing urban forestry could help compensate for environmental degradation as a result of rapid urbanisation in several Indian cities.
- This is vital to restore the flow of crucial ecosystem services, including air quality, and increase the resilience of cities to extreme climatic events.
- As a result, enhancing biodiversity, minimising human-wildlife conflict and restoring India’s pristine forests by developing dedicated wildlife/biodiversity corridors is an essential next step.
Way ahead
- At the developmental crossroads that India stands, the next decade is vital for its own economic growth, its climate action, and its social and ecological well-being.
- With this in mind, India must focus on its domestic developmental prerogative and disengage them from the pressures that come along with international negotiations, focussing on actions that reduce the development deficits, which also provide strong climate benefits.
- India must initiate a narrative, discussion and dialogue which focuses on each country taking on commitments that move their carbon trajectory towards the Paris agreement goal of limiting global warming to well below 2°C.
Consider the question “Development and growth in India still at an early stage which makes the challenge of balancing the commitment to climate action with economic developement more difficult. In light of this, suggest the strategy that India should follow.”
Conclusion
India, being at the crossroads of development needs to balance the development goals with its commitment towards climate action.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Relocation of supply chains and challenges India faces
The article deals with the challenges India faces in attracting the relocating supply chains in the wake of the pandemic.
Is China losing its appeal
- Some labour-intensive industries, such as textiles and apparels, have been moving to Bangladesh and Sri Lanka as labour costs in China are increasing.
- But trends in other industries show that businesses have mostly remained in China.
- COVID-19 crisis has resulted in firms establishing relatively small-scale operations elsewhere.
- This is perceived as a buffer against being completely dependent on China, referred to as the ‘China +1’ strategy.
3 Reason for firms to remain in China
- 1) Starting an enterprise and maintaining operations in China are much easier than elsewhere.
- 2) Chinese firms are nimble and fast, which is evident from the quick recovery of Chinese manufacturing after the lockdown.
- 3) Many global companies have spent decades building supply chains in China, getting out would mean moving the entire ecosystem.
3 Challenges facing India
- This has led to intensification of competition among Asian countries to be ‘plus one’ in the emerging manufacturing landscape.
- India faces three challenges in this race.
1) Increasing domestic public investment
- First is the task of increasing domestic public investments, which have implications for both demand and supply sides.
- In India, even before the pandemic, the growth in domestic investments had been weak,
- This seems to be the opportune time to bolster public investments as interest rates are low globally and savings are available.
- Private investments would continue to be depressed, due to the uncertainty on the future economic outlook.
2) Reforms in trade policy
- India needs a major overhaul in her trade policy world trade had been rattled by tendencies of rising economic nationalism and unilateralism leading to the return of protectionist policies.
- A revamped trade policy needs to take into account the possibility of two effects of the RCEP:
- 1) Walmart effect: It would sustain demand for basic products and help in keeping employee productivity at an optimum level, but may also reduce wages and competition due to sourcing from multiple vendors at competitive rates.
- 2) Switching effects: It would be an outcome of developed economies scouting for new sources to fulfil import demands, which requires firms to be nimble and competitive.
- Trade policy has to recognise the pitfalls of the present two-track mode, one for firms operating in the ‘free trade enclaves’ and another for the rest.
- A major fallout of this ‘policy dualism’ is the dampening of export diversification.
- The challenge is to make exporting activity more attractive for all firms in the economy.
3) Increasing women’s participation in labour force
- While India’s GDP has grown by around 6% to 7% per year women’s labour force participation rate has fallen from 42.7% in 2004–05 to 23.3% in 2017–18.
- This means that three out of four Indian women are neither working nor seeking paid work.
- Globally, India ranks among the bottom ten countries in terms of women’s workforce participation.
- When Bangladesh’s GDP grew at an average rate of 5.5% during 1991 and 2017, women’s participation in the labour force increased from 24% to 36%.
- India could gain hugely if barriers to women’s participation in the workforce are removed.
- The manufacturing sector should create labour-intensive jobs that rural and semi-urban women are qualified for.
Consider the question “Relocation of supply chains offers an opportunity for India. However, it faces several challenges in attracting these relocating supply chains. What are these challenges? Suggest measures to deal with these challenges.”
Conclusion
India’s approach to the changed scenario needs to be well-calibrated. The stage is set for a new ‘Asian Drama’. What will be India’s role in it? Well, it will not be on the basis of past accolades, for sure.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vulture Action Plan 2020-25
Mains level: Paper 3- Conservation efforts
Union Minister for Environment, Forests and Climate Change has launched a Vulture Action Plan 2020-25 for the conservation of vultures in the country.
Vulture Action Plan
- While the ministry has been carrying out a conservation project for vultures since 2006, the plan is to now extend the project to 2025 to not just halt the decline but to actively increase the vulture numbers in India.
- There are nine recorded species of vultures in India — the Oriental white-backed, long-billed, slender-billed, Himalayan, red-headed, Egyptian, bearded, cinereous and the Eurasian Griffon.
- Vulture numbers saw a steep slide — as much as 90 per cent in some species — in India since the 1990s in one of the most drastic declines in bird populations in the world.
Decline in Populations
- Between the 1990s and 2007, numbers of three presently critically-endangered species – the Oriental white-backed, long-billed and slender-billed vultures — crashed massively with 99 per cent of the species having been wiped out.
- The number of red-headed vultures, also critically-endangered now, declined by 91% while the Egyptian vultures by 80%.
- The Egyptian vulture is listed as ‘endangered’ while the Himalayan, bearded and cinereous vultures are ‘near threatened’.
Why protect vultures?
- Vultures are often overlooked and perceived as lowly scavengers, but they play a crucial role in the environments in which they live.
- The scavenging lifestyle that gives them a bad reputation is, in fact, that makes them so important for the environment, nature and society.
- Vultures, also known as nature’s cleanup crew, do the dirty work of cleaning up after death, helping to keep ecosystems healthy as they act as natural carcass recyclers.
Various threats
- The crash in vulture populations came into limelight in the mid-90s, and in 2004.
- The cause of the crash was established as diclofenac — a veterinary nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) used to treat pain and inflammatory diseases such as gout — in carcasses that vultures would feed off.
- Just 0.4-0.7 per cent of animal carcasses contaminated with diclofenac was sufficient to decimate 99 per cent of vulture populations.
Various initiatives
- The MoEFCC released the Action Plan for Vulture Conservation 2006 with the drugs controller banning the veterinary use of diclofenac in the same year and the decline of the vulture population being arrested by 2011.
- The Central Zoo Authority (CZA) and Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) also established the Vulture Conservation Breeding Programme.
- It has been successful and had three critically-endangered species bred in captivity for the first time.
- The ministry has now also launched conservation plans for the red-headed and Egyptian vultures, with breeding programmes for both.
- The Vulture Safe Zone programme is being implemented at eight different places in the country where there were extant populations of vultures, including two in Uttar Pradesh.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Social media and spread of fake news.
The Supreme Court has asked the Centre to explain its “mechanism” against fake news and bigotry on air, and to create one if it did not already exist.
Discuss how Fake News affects free speech and informed choices of citizens of the country?
What did the Centre say?
- The media coverage predominantly has to strike a balanced and neutral perspective.
- It explained that as a matter of journalistic policy, any section of the media may highlight different events, issues and happenings across the world as per their choice.
- It was for the viewer to choose from the varied opinions offered by the different media outlets.
What is Fake News?
- Fake news is untrue information presented as news. It often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue.
- Once common in the print and digital media, the prevalence of fake news has increased with the rise of social media and messengers.
- Political polarization, post-truth politics, confirmation bias, and social media have been implicated in the spread of fake news.
Threats posed
- Fake news can reduce the impact of real news by competing with it.
- In India, the spread of fake news has occurred mostly with relation to political and religious matters.
- However, misinformation related to COVID-19 pandemic was also widely circulated.
- Fake news spread through social media in the country has become a serious problem, with the potential of it resulting in mob violence.
Countermeasures
- Internet shutdowns are often used by the government as a way to control social media rumours from spreading.
- Ideas such as linking Aadhaar to social media accounts have been suggested to the Supreme Court of India by the Attorney General.
- In some parts of India like Kannur in Kerala, the government conducted fake news classes in government schools.
- The government is planning to conduct more public-education initiatives to make the population more aware of fake news.
- Fact-checking has sparked the creation of fact-checking websites in India to counter fake news.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Writ jurisdiction, Art. 32, 225
Mains level: Writ Jurisdiction
A Supreme Court bench headed by CJI has observed that it is “trying to discourage” individuals from filing petitions under Article 32 of the Constitution.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Which of the following is included in the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court?
- Dispute between the Government of India and one or more States
- A dispute regarding elections to either House of the parliament or that of Legislature of a State
- A dispute between the Government of India and Union Territory
- A dispute between two or more States.
Select the correct answer using the codes given below:
(a) 1 and 2
(b) 2 and 3
(c) 1 and 4
(d) 3 and 4
What is Article 32?
- Article 32 deals with the ‘Right to Constitutional Remedies’, or affirms the right to move the Supreme Court by appropriate proceedings for the enforcement of the rights conferred in Part III of the Constitution.
- It is one of the fundamental rights listed in the Constitution that each citizen is entitled.
- It states that the Supreme Court “shall have the power to issue directions or orders or writs for the enforcement of any of the rights conferred by this Part”.
- The right guaranteed by this Article “shall not be suspended except as otherwise provided for by this Constitution”.
- Dr B R Ambedkar has called it the very soul and heart of the Constitution. It cannot be suspended except during the period of Emergency.
Rights protected by A32
- The article is included in Part III of the Constitution with other fundamental rights including to Equality, Freedom of Speech and Expression, Life and Personal Liberty, and Freedom of Religion.
- Only if any of these fundamental rights is violated can a person can approach the Supreme Court directly under Article 32.
Types of Writs under it
Both the High Courts and the Supreme Court can be approached for violation or enactment of fundamental rights through five kinds of writs:
- Habeas corpus (related to personal liberty in cases of illegal detentions and wrongful arrests)
- Mandamus — directing public officials, governments, courts to perform a statutory duty;
- Quo Warranto — to show by what warrant is a person holding public office;
- Prohibition — directing judicial or quasi-judicial authorities to stop proceedings which it has no jurisdiction for; and
- Certiorari — re-examination of an order given by judicial, quasi-judicial or administrative authorities.
- In civil or criminal matters, the first remedy available to an aggrieved person is that of trial courts, followed by an appeal in the High Court and then the Supreme Court.
- When it comes to violation of fundamental rights, an individual can approach the High Court under Article 226 or the Supreme Court directly under Article 32.
Supreme Court’s recent observations
- The observation came during the hearing of a petition seeking the release of a journalist, who was arrested while reporting on an alleged gangrape and murder.
- The court asked why the petitioners could not go to the High Court first.
- In another case invoking Article 32, a Nagpur-based man was arrested for alleged defamatory content against Maharashtra CM, the same Bench directed him to approach the High Court first.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2-
The Azim Premji University has published the report titled “Myths of Online Education”, on the efficacy and accessibility of e-learning.
We have studied the Impacts of COVID-19 on Education. https://www.civilsdaily.com/burning-issue-education-in-times-of-covid-19/
This report provides decent data about the woes of online education and is easy to remember.
About the study
- The study was undertaken in five States across 26 districts and covered 1,522 schools. More than 80,000 students study in these government schools.
- It examined the experience of children and teachers with online education.
Highlights of the study
- More than 60% of the respondents who are enrolled in government schools could not access online education.
- Children with disabilities in fact found it more difficult to participate in online sessions.
- 90% of the teachers who work with children with disabilities found their students unable to participate online.
- Almost 70% of the parents surveyed were of the opinion that online classes were not effective and did not help in their child’s learnings.
- 90% of parents of government school students surveyed were willing to send their children back to school.
- The survey also revealed that around 75% of the teachers spent, on an average, less than an hour a day on online classes for any grade.
Online classes are less effective
- Teachers as well as students their expressed frustration with online classes.
- More than 80% surveyed said they were unable to maintain emotional connect with students during online classes, while 90% of teachers felt that no meaningful assessment of children’s learning was possible.
- Another hurdle that teachers found during the online classes was the one-way communication, which made it difficult for them to gauge whether students understood what was being taught.
- Teachers also reported that they were ill-prepared for online learning platforms.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 72 and Article 161
Mains level: Paper 2- Judicial scrutiny of decisions by functionaries
The inaction by the Governor of Tamil Nadu on advice to free the convict has raised the possibility of judicial intervention due to undue delay.
Inaction by Governor on advice
- The Governor of Tamil Nadu has continued to withhold his decision on an application seeking pardon by one of the seven prisoners convicted in the Rajiv Gandhi assassination case.
- In September 2018, the Supreme Court (SC) had observed, while hearing a connected writ petition, that the Governor should take a decision
- The inaction by the Governor now has given rise to constitutional fault lines within the Executive arm of the government.
Past judgements on pardoning power
- In Maru Ram v. Union of India (1981) Supreme Court held that the pardoning power “under Articles 72 and 161 of the Constitution can be exercised by the Central and the State Governments, not by the President or Governor on their own.”
- The majority judgment had said that the “advice of the appropriate Government binds the Head of the State”.
- Therefore, a Governor is neither expected, nor is empowered, to test the constitutionality of the order or resolution presented to her.
Issue of delay in decision of mercy petition
- Recently, the Supreme Court, had examined the inordinate delay by the President and the Governor — in taking decisions on mercy petitions.
- The Supreme Court, in the case of Shatrugan Chouhan v. Union of India, laid down the principle of “presumption of dehumanising effect of such delay”.
- The Supreme Court confirmed that the due process guaranteed under Article 21 was available to each and every prisoner “till his last breath”.
Judicial scrutiny of the actions of Speakers
- It was hitherto believed that the powers of the Speaker, holding a constitutional office and exercising powers granted under the Constitution, were beyond the scope of a ‘writ of mandamus’.
- In the recent case of Keisham Meghachandra Singh v. Hon’ble Speaker (2020), the Supreme Court was asked to examine the Speaker’s inaction with regard to disqualification proceedings.
- However, the apex court, referering to Rajendra Singh Rana v. Swami Prasad Maurya (2007), had confirmed its view that the “failure on the part of the Speaker to decide the application seeking a disqualification cannot be said to be merely in the realm of procedure”
- Consequently, breaking years of convention, the SC set the time period of four weeks to decide the disqualification petition.
- By doing so, the Supreme Court has indicated that it would not be precluded from issuing directions in aid of a constitutional authority “arriving at a prompt decision”.
Consider the question “The undue delays and inactions by the constitutional functionaries threaten to widen the constitutional faultlines among the Executives. Comment.”
Conclusion
Instead of relying on the judicial intervention in the event of delays, it would be better to have a set time limit for arriving at decision by the constitutional judiciary.
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