Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Importance of export for growth
The article highlights the argument made by Arvind Panagaria about the primacy of export for the progress of the country in his new book India Unlimited: Reclaiming the Lost Glory.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Entry 56 of the Union List
Mains level: Paper 2- Challenges to water governance
The article highlights the issue of challenges facing the water governance in India, how need for more coordination between the Centre and the States.
Objectives of the two bills
- Interstate River Water Disputes Amendment Bill 2019 and the Dam Safety Bill 2019 were passed by Lok Sabha and awaits Rajya Sabha nod.
- The Interstate River Water Disputes Amendment Bill 2019 seeks to improve the inter-state water disputes resolution by setting up a permanent tribunal.
- The Dam Safety Bill 2019 aims to deal with the risks of India’s ageing dams, with the help of a comprehensive federal institutional framework comprising.
- The other pending bills also propose corresponding institutional structures and processes.
Challenges to the federal water governance
- The agenda of future federal water governance is not limited to the above cited issues.
- These include emerging concerns of long-term national water security and sustainability, the risks of climate change, and the growing environmental challenges, including river pollution.
- These challenges need systematic federal response where the Centre and the states need to work in a partnership mode.
- Greater Centre-states coordination is also crucial for pursuing the current national projects — whether Ganga river rejuvenation or inland navigation or inter-basin transfers.
Challenges to water governance
- Water governance is perceived and practiced as the states’ exclusive domain, even though their powers are subject to those of the Union under the Entry 56 about inter-state river water governance.
- The River Boards Act 1956 legislated under the Entry 56 has been in disuse.
- No river board was ever created under the law.
- The Centre’s role is largely limited to resolving inter-state river water disputes by setting up tribunals for their adjudication.
- Combined with the states’ dominant executive power, these conditions create challenges for federal water governance.
- This state of affairs puts the proposed bills at a disadvantage.
Bridging the water governance gap
- Each bill proposes their own institutional mechanisms and processes leaning on closer Centre-state coordination and deliberation.
- The disputes resolution committee and dam safety authority rely on active Centre-states participation.
- Segmented and fragmented mechanisms bear the risks of the federal water governance gap.
Way forward
- The massive central assistance (Rs 3.6 lakh crore- Centre and states together) through Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM), is an opportunity to open a dialogue with the states to address this governance gap.
- Globally, federated systems with comparable organisation of powers have used similar investments to usher key water sector reforms.
- The symbiotic phase of implementing JJM can be productively used to engage in a dialogue with the states about the larger water resources management agenda, beyond the mission’s goals.
- The Centre can work with the states in building a credible institutional architecture for gathering data and producing knowledge about water resources.
Consider the question “Water governance in the country requires greater Centre-State coordination to deal with the current issues as well as future challenges. In light of this, examine the challenges and suggest the strategies to deal with it.”
Conclusion
Bridging the governance gap between the Centre and State and creation of institutional framework is at the heart of addressing the future challenges to the federal water governance in the country.
Back2Basics: River Board Act 1956
- The act to provide for the establishment of River Boards for the regulation and development of inter-state rivers and river valleys.
- It empowers the Central Government, on a request received in this behalf from a State Government to establish a River Board for advising the Governments on regulation or development of an inter-State river or river valley or any specified part thereof.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mahajan Commission
Mains level: Federal issues in India
A Maharashtra leader has sparked a controversy, when he called the incorporation of Belgaum (Belagavi), Karwar and Nipani areas of Karnataka into Maharashtra, as a dream of the ruling party.
Try answering this
Q.The linguistic re-organization of India in the post-Independence period has prevented its balkanization, unlike our neighbourhood. Comment.
Maha-K’taka boundary dispute
- The erstwhile Bombay Presidency, a multilingual province, included the present-day Karnataka districts of Vijayapura, Belagavi, Dharwad and Uttara-Kannada.
- In 1948, the Belgaum municipality requested that the district, having a predominantly Marathi-speaking population, be incorporated into the proposed Maharashtra state.
- However, the States Reorganization Act of 1956, which divided states into linguistic and administrative lines, made Belgaum and 10 taluka of Bombay State a part of the then Mysore State
The Mahajan Commission
- While demarcating borders, the Reorganization of States Commission sought to include talukas with a Kannada-speaking population of more than 50 per cent in Mysore.
- Opponents of the region’s inclusion in Mysore argued, and continue to argue, that Marathi-speakers outnumbered Kannadigas who lived there in 1956.
- In September 1957, the Bombay government echoed their demand and lodged a protest with the Centre, leading to the formation of the Commission under former CJI Mehr Chand Mahajan in October 1966.
Beginning of the dispute
- The Commission recommended that 264 villages be transferred to Maharashtra (which formed in 1960) and that Belgaum and 247 villages remain with Karnataka.
- Maharashtra rejected the report, calling it biased and illogical, and demanded another review.
- Karnataka welcomed the report and has ever since continued to press for implementation, although this has not been formally done by the Centre.
A case pending in the Supreme Court
- Successive governments in Maharashtra have demanded their inclusion within the state– a claim that Karnataka contests.
- In 2004, the Maharashtra government moved the Supreme Court for a settlement of the border dispute under Article 131(b) of the Constitution.
- It demanded 814 villages from Karnataka on the basis of the theory of village being the unit of calculation, contiguity and enumerating linguistic population in each village.
- The case is pending in the apex court.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Deemed forest
Mains level: Forest conservation in India
Karnataka Forest Minister has announced that the state government would soon declassify 6.64 lakh hectares of the 9.94 lakh hectares of deemed forests in the state (nearly 67%) and hand it over to Revenue authorities.
Try this PYQ:
Q. In India, in which one of the following types of forests is teak a dominant tree species?
(a) Tropical moist deciduous forest
(b) Tropical rain forest
(c) Tropical thorn scrub forest
(d) Temperate forest with grasslands
What are Deemed Forests?
- The concept of deemed forests has not been clearly defined in any law including the Forest Conservation Act of 1980.
- However, the Supreme Court in the case of T N Godavarman Thirumalpad (1996) accepted a wide definition of forests under the Act.
- It covered all statutorily recognised forests, whether designated as reserved, protected or otherwise for the purpose of Section 2 (1) of the Forest Conservation Act.
- The term ‘forest land’ occurring in Section 2 will not only include ‘forest’ as understood in the dictionary sense but also any areas recorded as forest in the government record irrespective of the owners said the court.
Why it is in news?
- The issue of deemed forests is a contentious one in Karnataka, with legislators across party lines often alleging that large amounts of agriculture and non-forest land are “unscientifically” classified as such.
Demands to reclassify
- A deemed forest fits “dictionary meaning” of a forest, “irrespective of ownership”.
- Amidst claims that the move hit farmers, as well as barred large tracts from mining, the state has been arguing that the classification was done without taking into account the needs of people.
Why does the government want to release these forests?
- In 2014, the then government decided to have a relook at the categorisation of forests.
- The dictionary definition of forests was applied to identify thickly wooded areas as deemed forests, a well-defined scientific, verifiable criterion was not used, resulting in a subjective classification.
- The subjective classification in turn resulted in conflicts.
- Ministers have also argued that land was randomly classified as deemed forest by officials, causing hardship to farmers in some areas.
- There is also a commercial demand for mining in some regions designated as deemed forests.
Back2Basics: Forest Classification in India
The Forest Survey of India (FSI) classifies forest cover in 4 classes.
- Very Dense forest: All lands with tree cover (including mangrove cover) of canopy density of 70% and above.
- Moderately dense forest: All lands with tree cover (including mangrove cover) of canopy density between 40% and 70%.
- Open forests: All lands with tree cover (including mangrove cover) of canopy density between 10% and 40%.
- Scrubs: All forest lands with poor tree growth mainly of small or stunted trees having canopy density less than 10%.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Microwave weapons
Mains level: Not Much
The Indian Army has rejected a report in the British daily newspaper which claimed that the Chinese army had used “microwave weapons” to drive Indian soldiers away from their positions in eastern Ladakh.
The use of non-lethal weapons for violence and mob control is a contested issue. Can you suggest some alternatives to it apart from the use of water cannon and teargas?
What are “Microwave Weapons”?
- Microwave weapons are supposed to be a type of direct energy weapons, which aim highly focused energy in the form of sonic, laser, or microwaves, at a target.
- It uses a focussed beam of high-frequency electromagnetic radiation to heat the water in a human target’s skin, causing pain and discomfort.
- In a microwave oven, an electron tube called a magnetron produces electromagnetic waves (microwaves) that bounce around the metal interior of the appliance, and are absorbed by the food.
- The microwaves agitate the water molecules in the food, and their vibration produces heat that cooks the food.
- Food with high water content cooks faster in a microwave often than drier foods.
Which countries have these “microwave weapons”?
- A number of countries are thought to have developed these weapons to target both humans and electronic systems.
- According to a report, China had first put on display its “microwave weapon”, called Poly WB-1, at an air show in 2014.
- The United States has also developed a prototype microwave-style weapon, which it calls the “Active Denial System”.
How dangerous are these weapons?
- Concerns have been raised on whether they can damage the eyes, or have a carcinogenic impact in the long term.
- It is not clear yet how China intends to use such a weapon, and whether it can kill or cause lasting damage to human targets.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Param Siddhi
Mains level: National Supercomputing Mission
India’s newest and fastest supercomputer, PARAM-Siddhi AI, has been ranked 63rd in the Top500 list of most powerful supercomputers in the world.
Try this MCQ:
Q.The terms Mihir, Param Siddhi and Pratyush are sometimes seen in news are actually:
a)Indigenous Submarines
b)Supercomputers
c)Missiles
d)Satellites
Param Siddhi
- It is a high-performance computing-artificial intelligence (HPC-AI) supercomputer established under National Supercomputing Mission (NSM) at C-DAC.
- It was commissioned by the C-DAC earlier and has been developed in association with chipmaker Nvidia and French IT consulting firm Atos.
- It will help deep learning, visual computing, virtual reality, accelerated computing, as well as graphics virtualization.
- The computer is expected to be used as a platform for academia, scientific research, startups and more.
Other Indian supercomputers
- PARAM-Siddhi is the second Indian supercomputer to be entered in the top 100 on the Top500 list.
- Pratyush, a supercomputer used for weather forecasting at the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, ranked 78th on the November edition of the list.
- It was ranked 66th in the June rankings announced by the project.
- Another Indian supercomputer, Mihir (146th on the list), clubs with Pratyush to generate enough computing power to match PARAM-Siddhi.
Who topped the rankings?
- The Top500 project tracks the most powerful supercomputers in the world and is published twice a year.
- Japanese supercomputer Fugaku (442 petaflops) and IBM’s Summit (148.8 petaflops) are the two most powerful supercomputers in the world, according to the list.
- Chinese Sunway TaihuLight is number four on the list (93 petaflops), developed by the National Research Center of Parallel Computer Engineering & Technology (NRCPC) in China.
Back2Basics:
National Supercomputing Mission (NSM)
Petaflop
- A petaflop is a measure of a computer’s processing speed and can be expressed as A thousand trillion floating-point operations per second (FLOPS) A thousand teraflops.
- In computing, floating-point operations per second is a measure of computer performance, useful in fields of scientific computations that require floating-point calculations.
- For such cases, it is a more accurate measure than measuring instructions per second.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Green Energy Convergence Project, EESL
Mains level: Green Energy Convergence Project
The Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL) is set to roll out of India’s first Energy Convergence Project in Goa.
Green Energy Convergence Project
- Under the project, EESL and the Department of New and Renewable Energy (DNRE) in Goa will carry out feasibility studies and implementation of decentralized solar energy projects.
- The project aims to connect seemingly independent sectors like Solar Energy, Energy Storage and LED lights to provide solutions, which can enable in decarbonisation and affordable energy access.
- It will include the installation of 100 Megawatt decentralized ground-mounted solar power projects on government land to be used for agricultural pumping.
- It seeks to replace 6,300 agricultural pumps and distribute 16 lakh LED bulbs for rural domestic households.
Benefits of the project
- The projects will accelerate the usage of renewable energy sources, especially for agricultural and rural power consumption in the State.
- They will also contribute to the reduction of peak energy demand through the deployment of energy-efficient pumping and lighting thus contributing to overall sustainability.
About EESL
- A joint venture of NTPC Limited, Power Finance Corporation, Rural Electrification Corporation and POWERGRID, the EESL was set up under Ministry of Power to facilitate the implementation of energy efficiency projects.
- EESL is a Super Energy Service Company (ESCO) that seeks to unlock energy efficiency market in India, that can potentially result in energy savings of up to 20 per cent of current consumption.
- It also acts as the resource centre for capacity building of State DISCOMs, ERCs, SDAs, upcoming ESCOs, financial institutions, etc.
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