Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: India-UK ties
India and the U.K. must not allow concerns of the moment to dominate their relationship.
Practice Question: Discuss the opportunities and the challenges in the India-UK relationships. What is the prospectus of India-UK relations after Brexit and Coronavirus pandemic?
Secretary’s Delhi visit
- British Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab’s Delhi visit came with a declaration of immediate and longer-term goals for the India-U.K. relationship.
- It prepares the way for PM Johnson’s India visit, as the chief guest at Republic Day and to invite PM Modi to the U.K. to the G-7 and the Climate Change (COP26) summits next year.
- Johnson will be the first head of government to visit India after the spread of COVID-19; this will also be his first bilateral visit anywhere after Brexit signalling the importance of ties with India.
A new page in ties
- Upgrading the ties – Both countries up for upgrading of the 2004 India-U.K. Strategic Partnership to a “Comprehensive” Strategic Partnership.
- This will help to envision closer military ties, cooperation in Indo-Pacific strategies, counter-terrorism and fighting climate change.
- Hoping for FTA – Britain is on a mission to secure free trade partners after Brexit. It has wrapped up nearly 20 trade deals, including most recently with the U.S., Japan, and Vietnam and is hoping for India to sign the same.
- Corona pandemic and cooperation for vaccine manufacturing – The highlight of India’s relations will be closer cooperation on the coronavirus vaccine.
- India’s Serum Institute set to produce and distribute the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine in India, and then as part of the COVAX project to other developing countries.
Challenges in India-UK relations
- Stagnancy in the relations – India-UK relations are stagnant for the past five years due to Britain’s Brexit preoccupation.
- The relationship has failed to progress in this time, despite visits by Mr Modi and former British Prime Minister Theresa May.
- Other less important issues gained the narrative – Issues such as visas and the fate of fugitive Indian businessmen in the U.K. have been allowed to dominate the narrative.
- The MEA had responded sharply to protests at the Indian High Commission in London over the Article 370 move in Jammu and Kashmir, and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
- Britain’s concerns about the farmers’ protests that sparked responses in New Delhi about interference in India’s internal matters.
- Sometimes, intense interest from the British Indian diaspora makes Indian politics a factor in British politics is a reminder of how closely linked the two countries remain.
- A new chapter in India-UK relationship would necessarily entail the K. to be more sensitive to India’s concerns, and for India to be less sensitive when Britain expresses its concerns.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Farmers agitation and the fuss
The intended beneficiaries often understand the realities of the systems better; policymakers need to build trust.
Practice Question: The farmers protest against the new farm laws rises the serious concerns about the policymaking and involvement of citizen in the process by experts. What can be done to improve the trust of the public and how the challenge of agricultural income be solved?
Reassessment is needed
- The purpose of agriculture reforms is to increase farmers’ incomes. Farmers want the laws repealed.
- The Supreme Court of India has called for discussions between the government and farmers around the country.
- It is time to go back to the drawing board about the purpose and the process of agriculture reforms.
- According to economists, fewer people must work on farms for farm productivity and incomes to be improved. Which begs the question of how the millions displaced from farms will earn incomes.
- Indian industry is not growing much. There too, according to economists, humans should be replaced by technology for improving productivity.
Flipside of productivity
- Landholdings are too small for mechanization to improve farm productivity. Their solution is to ‘scale-up’ farms.
- Mechanization requires standardization of work, hence mechanized farming on scale requires monocropping.
- Large-scale specialization upsets the ecological balance. Reduced diversity of flora enables pests to spread more easily; soil quality is reduced; water resources get depleted.
- Solutions to these new problems require more industrial inputs, with more costs for farmers.
- The harmful side-effects of this approach to improve agriculture productivity are very visible in Punjab nowhere farm incomes have grown at the cost of water resources.
Nature’s self-adaptive system
- The ecological imbalance out of monocropping made the trees more vulnerable to pests.
- Nature is a complex ‘self-adaptive’ system. It knows how to take care of itself.
- When Man tries to overpower Nature with his science and industry, without understanding how Nature functions, he harms Nature — and ultimately himself.
- Challenges of environmental degradation and increasing inequalities require that the economic calculus shifts from ‘economies of scale with standardization’ to ‘economies of scope for sustainability’.
- This will make large-scale mechanization more difficult. It will require the use of more ‘flexible’ human labour.
- In the long run, not only will this be good for the ecology, but it will also increase employment and incomes for people in the lower half of the economic pyramid.
Market access
- Farm incomes can increase with access to wider markets for farm produce, which is an objective of the agricultural reforms.
- Indian farmers fear that they will not have adequate pricing power when pushed into large supply systems and less regulated markets.
- Connections into global supply chains can increase volumes of sales which always favour the larger players in the supply chains who have easier access to capital.
- Studies show that farmers in developed countries formed collectives which enable their voice to be heard by politicians and they could set the rules of global trade.
Strengthen cooperatives
- Institutions for cooperative ownership and collective bargaining must be strengthened to give power to small farmers before opening markets to large corporations.
- A very good example is the Indian dairy sector. It’s ‘per person productivity is much lower than in New Zealand and Australian dairy producers’.
- Still, it provides millions of tiny producers with reasonable incomes which large-scale industrial dairy producers do not.
- Moreover, with its cooperative aggregation, the Indian dairy sector has also acquired political clout.
- It has compelled the Indian government not to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership to connect the Indian economy with larger supply chains.
Low agriculture income
- The problem of low incomes in India’s agriculture sector is a complex systems problem which cannot be solved by agriculture experts alone.
- Experts from many disciplines must collaborate to find systemic solutions.
- The intended beneficiaries of the new policies must be included in the designing of the new policies right at the beginning as they understand the realities of systems better than experts.
- When policymakers say ‘the people don’t get it’ after the policy is announced and the intended beneficiaries protest, it is an indication that the experts didn’t get it.
The reforms of the 1990s
- The stand-off in agriculture reforms has caused a flurry of discussions about democracy, consultation, and processes for economic reforms.
- The immediate beneficiaries of the 1991 reforms were all Indian consumers, rich and poor, who would benefit from access to better quality products from around the world.
- The principal opponents of the reforms were a few large industrialists whose products citizens were not satisfied with.
- Governments have more power over a few industrialists than they have over the masses.
- The 1991 reforms changed industrial licensing and trade policies — both subjects of the Union government.
- ‘Factor market’ reforms, inland, agriculture, and labour regulations, which are necessary to realize the full benefits of the 1991 reforms are State subjects.
- They affect the lives of people on the ground, and differently, around the country. Therefore, the central government, no matter how strong it is, must not force these reforms onto the States.
Conclusion:
Silo experts cannot help
- India’s policymakers must improve their expertise in solving complex, multi-disciplinary problems.
- They must apply the discipline of systems thinking, and not rely on siloed domain experts.
- Citizens around the country must be involved in the policymaking throughout the evolution of policies.
- The policies of the government should create public value and it satisfies the desire of citizens for a well-ordered society, in which fair, efficient, and accountable public institutions exist.
- Trust is essential for a well-governed society. The lesson for India’s leaders is- good processes for making public policies build trust between citizens and their governments.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Refuse-derived fuel (RDF)
Mains level: MSW management
The new plant at Bidadi has several advantages but also some operational challenges.
Practice Question: Discuss the various benefits of waste to energy plants and challenges in running them successfully.
The prospectus of new plant
- The new 5 MW waste-to-energy plant is going to set up near Bidadi, Karnataka.
- This plant is expected to process 600 tonnes per day of inorganic waste.
- The inorganic waste, which consists of bad quality plastics and used cloth pieces, can be processed as Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF). This material has a calorific value of more than 2,500 kJ/kg.
- This can be used to generate steam energy, which can be converted into electric energy.
A well-planned plant
- The waste-to-energy plants usually accept the RDF material generated in organic composting plants.
- They also segregate the wet and inorganic material near the plant, convert organic waste to compost, and inorganic waste to energy.
- About 50 tonnes of RDF generate 1 MW of power, which indicates that the plant at Bidadi has been appropriately designed.
A permanent solution
- Handling inorganic waste that is not fit for recycling has always been a challenge.
- At present, these high-calorific materials are landfilled or left unhandled in waste plants and cause fire accidents.
- Attempts to send this material to cement kilns have not fructified.
- The proposed plant can source 600 tonnes per day of this RDF and generate 11.5 MW of power equivalent to 2.4 lakh units of power per day.
- This will reduce the dependence on unscientific landfills, reduce fire accidents, and provide a permanent solution to recover value from inorganic waste.
Challenges
- Needed a good demonstration model – Over the last decade, several Indian cities have been trying to set up such plants but a good demonstration model is yet to be established.
- Nature of waste – Technology suppliers are international organizations who struggle with the change in quality and nature of waste generated in Indian cities. A few plants in India have stopped operations for this reason.
- The plants require fine inorganic material with less than 5% moisture and less than 5% silt and soil contents, whereas the moisture and inert content in the mixed waste generated is more than 15%-20%.
- The sticky silt and soil particles can also reduce the calorific value.
- Economic cost per unit of electricity – The other big challenge for this plant is the power tariff which is around ₹7-8 KwH which is higher than the ₹3-4 per KwH generated through coal and other means.
Way forward
- For the successful running, the plant needs to ease the challenge of handling inorganic waste, the efficiency of organic waste processing/ composting plants.
- With the increasing waste generation in the coming years, there is a need for more such plants which are environment friendly.
Back2Basics: Refuse-derived fuel (RDF)
- Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) is a fuel produced from various types of waste such as municipal solid waste (MSW), industrial waste or commercial waste.
- It is selected waste and by-products with recoverable calorific value can be used as fuels in a cement kiln, replacing a portion of conventional fossil fuels, like coal, if they meet strict specifications.
- Sometimes they can only be used after pre-processing to provide ‘tailor-made’ fuels for the cement process.
- RDF consists largely of combustible components of such waste, as non-recyclable plastics (not including PVC), paper cardboard, labels, and other corrugated materials.
- These fractions are separated by different processing steps, such as screening, air classification, ballistic separation, separation of ferrous and non-ferrous materials, glass, stones and other foreign materials and shredding into a uniform grain size, or also pelletized.
- This produces a homogeneous material which can be used as a substitute for fossil fuels in e.g. cement plants, lime plants, coal-fired power plants or as a reduction agent in steel furnaces.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Art. 352
Mains level: National Emergency
The Supreme Court agreed to look into whether it should examine the constitutionality of the proclamation of National Emergency in 1975 by the then Indira Gandhi-led government.
Q.Discuss how the imposition of National Emergency under Art. 352 of the Constitution seek to change India’s federal character.
What is the issue?
- A 94-year old lady is seeking compensation for the loss she suffered due to the proclamation of emergency.
- Petitioner has claimed that a number of her immovable properties were illegally occupied for their activities during the Emergency.
- A bench of the Supreme Court has agreed to examine if the court could examine whether the proclamation of Emergency was constitutional.
- The court was hesitant to take up the issue as 45 years have passed since the declaration of Emergency and examining such an issue on merits now could be a cumbersome process.
What is a National Emergency?
- A national emergency can be declared on the basis of “external aggression or war” and “internal disturbance” in the whole of India or a part of its territory under Article 352.
- Such an emergency was declared in India in 1962 war (China war), 1971 war (Pakistan war), and 1975 internal disturbance (declared by Indira Gandhi).
- But after the 44th amendment act 1978 added the provision for Internal Emergency.
- The President can declare such an emergency only on the basis of a written request by the Cabinet headed by the Prime Minister.
The 1975 Emergency
- On June 12, 1975, the Allahabad High Court had declared the election of then PM Indira Gandhi as null and void.
- Following the court decision, Gandhi moved the Supreme Court and stayed the high court’s decision allowing her to remain as PM while limiting her right to vote in the parliament till the appeal was decided.
- Following an opposition rally for the resignation of Indira Gandhi, she made a decision to impose a national Emergency which would give the central government sweeping powers.
- On June 25, 1975, then President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed relying on Article 352 of the Constitution declared a national emergency in the country.
What happened after the proclamation of Emergency?
- From media censorship, suspension of civil liberties and attempts to fundamentally change the Constitution to suit the government, the Emergency is remembered as a dark period in India’s democracy.
- The 38th- 42nd Constitutional amendments were passed during the Emergency which led to a tussle between the executive and the judiciary that gave the Parliament a power to amend the Constitution.
- Many of these changes were either overturned by courts or were reversed in the 44th Constitutional amendment in 1978 which was brought in after the Janata government was voted to power.
Series of Amendments
- Through the 38th Constitutional Amendment, Gandhi sought to expand the power of the President and barred judicial review of the proclamation of Emergency.
- The 39th amendment was intended to nullify the effect of the Allahabad High Court ruling that declared Gandhi’s election as null and void.
- The amendment placed any dispute to the election to the office of the Prime Minister, President beyond the scope of judicial review.
- The 40th amendment placed crucial land reforms in the Ninth schedule, beyond the scope of judicial review.
- The 41st Amendment said no criminal proceedings “whatsoever” could lie against a President, Prime Minister, or Governor for acts before or during their terms of office.
- In the 42nd amendment, the Parliament expanded its powers to amend the Constitution, even its ‘basic structure’ and curtail any fundamental rights.
The 44th Amendment
- Through the 43rd and 44th amendments, many of the amendments made during the Emergency were withdrawn.
- Article 352- the provisions relating to Emergency itself was strengthened to prevent misuse by the executive.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Art. 19
Mains level: Right to Protest and limtations over it
The Supreme Court has that said farmers have a constitutional right to continue with their “absolutely perfect” protest as long as their dissent against the three controversial agricultural laws did not slip into violence.
Q.It is the abundant duty of the State to aid and limit the exercise of Right to Protest peacefully. Examine.
Right to Protest
- The right to protest is the manifestation of the right to freedom of assembly, the right to freedom of association, and the right to freedom of speech.
- The Constitution of India provides the right of freedom, given in Article 19 with the view of guaranteeing individual rights that were considered vital by the framers of the constitution.
- The Right to protest peacefully is enshrined in Article 19(1) (a) guarantees the freedom of speech and expression; Article 19(1) (b) assures citizens the right to assemble peaceably and without arms.
- Article 19(2) imposes reasonable restrictions on the right to assemble peaceably and without arms.
Reasonable restrictions do exist in practice
- Fundamental rights do not live in isolation. The right of the protester has to be balanced with the right of the commuter. They have to co-exist in mutual respect.
- The court held it was entirely the responsibility of the administration to prevent encroachments in public spaces.
- Democracy and dissent go hand in hand, but then the demonstrations expressing dissent have to be in designated places alone.
- The present case was not even one of the protests taking place in an undesignated area but was a blockage of a public way which caused grave inconvenience to commuters.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CMS-01
Mains level: Not Much
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully placed into a transfer orbit India’s 42nd communications satellite, CMS-01, carried onboard the PSLV-C50.
CMS-01
- It is a communications satellite envisaged for providing services in extended C Band of the frequency spectrum and its coverage will include the Indian mainland and the Andaman & Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands, the ISRO.
- The satellite is expected to have a life of over seven years.
- It was injected precisely into its pre-defined sub- geostationary transfer orbit (GTO).
- CMS-01 is considered to be a replacement of the aged satellite GSAT-12. It provides services like tele-education, tele-medicine, disaster management support and Satellite Internet access.
What is GTO?
- A geosynchronous transfer orbit or geostationary transfer orbit (GTO) is a type of geocentric orbit.
- Satellites which are destined for geosynchronous (GSO) or geostationary orbit (GEO) are (almost) always put into a GTO as an intermediate step for reaching their final orbit.
- A GTO is highly elliptic.
- Its perigee (closest point to Earth) is typically as high as low Earth orbit (LEO), while its apogee (furthest point from Earth) is as high as geostationary (or equally, a geosynchronous) orbit.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Icebergs
Mains level: Impact of climate changes on Cryosphere
A research mission is held to find out the impact of a giant floating iceberg A-68s on the wildlife and marine life on a sub-Antarctic island.
Q. How does the cryosphere affect global climate? (CSM 2017)
What are Icebergs?
- An iceberg is a large piece of freshwater ice that has broken off a glacier or an ice shelf and is floating freely in open (salt) water.
- Small bits of disintegrating icebergs are called “growlers” or “bergy bits”.
- Much of an iceberg is below the surface which led to the expression “tip of the iceberg” to illustrate a small part of a larger unseen issue.
- Icebergs are considered a serious maritime hazard, especially for shipping industries.
A-68s
- The iceberg — named A-68s — is travelling at varying speeds depending on local conditions, but at its fastest was travelling about 20 kilometres a day.
- The huge iceberg — the size of the U.S. state of Delaware — has been floating north since it broke away from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf in 2017.
- It is now about 75 kilometres from the island of South Georgia, and scientists are concerned over the risks it poses to the wildlife in the area if it grounds near the island.
- South Georgia is home to colonies of tens of thousands of penguins and 6 million fur seals, which could be threatened by the iceberg during their breeding season.
- The waters near the island are also one of the world’s largest marine protected areas and house more marine species than the Galapagos.
- Destruction by the iceberg will release this stored carbon back into the water and, potentially, the atmosphere, which would be a further negative impact.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Metal-CO2 battery
Mains level: Optimization of space missions and thier payloads
India’s planetary missions like Mars Mission may soon be able to reduce payload mass and launch costs with the help of an indigenously developed Metal- CO2 battery with CO2 as an Energy Carrier.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles produce one of the following as “exhaust”:
(a) NH3
(b) CH4
(c) H2O
(d) H2O2
Metal CO2 Battery
- An IIT professor recently demonstrated the technical feasibility of Lithium- CO2 battery in simulated Mars atmosphere for the first time.
- The development of Metal-CO2 batteries will provide highly specific energy density with the reduction in mass and volume, which will reduce payload mass and launch cost of planetary missions.
- Metal-CO2 batteries have a great potential to offer significantly high energy density than the currently used Li-ion batteries.
- They provide a useful solution to fix CO2 emissions, which is better than energy-intensive traditional CO2 fixation methods.
It’s working
- A primary Li-CO2 battery uses pure carbon dioxide as a cathode.
- According to chemical knowledge, Lithium metal can react with CO2 to form lithium oxalate at room temperature.
- While at high temperatures, lithium oxalate decomposes to form lithium carbonate and carbon monoxide gas.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: About the railway line
Mains level: Recent trends in India-Bangladesh ties
Ours and Bangladeshi PM has jointly inaugurated a railway link between Haldibari in India and Chilahati in Bangladesh.
Examine the opportunities and challenges in the adoption PPP model by the Indian Railways.
Haldibari – Chilahati Rail Link
- This rail link being made functional is the 5th rail link between India and Bangladesh.
- It was operational till 1965. This was part of the Broad Gauge main route from Kolkata to Siliguri during partition.
- Trains travelling to Assam and North Bengal continued to travel through the then East Pakistan territory even after partition.
- For example, a train from Sealdah to Siliguri used to enter East Pakistan territory from Darshana and exit using the Haldibari – Chilahati link.
- However, the war of 1965 effectively cut off all the railway links between India and the then East Pakistan.
- So on the Eastern Sector of India partition of the railways thus happened in 1965. So the importance of the reopening of this rail link can be well imagined.
A British-era legacy
- The railway network of India and Bangladesh are mostly inherited from British Era Indian Railways.
- After partition in 1947, 7 rail links were operational between India and the then East Pakistan (up to 1965). Presently, there are 4 operational rail links between India and Bangladesh.
- They are, Petrapole (India) – Benapole (Bangladesh), Gede (India) – Darshana (Bangladesh), Singhabad (India)-Rohanpur (Bangladesh), Radhikapur (India)–Birol (Bangladesh).
Benefits offered by the rail
- The rail link will be beneficial for transit into Bangladesh from Assam and West Bengal.
- It will enhance rail network access to the main ports, dry ports, and land borders to support the growth in regional trade and to encourage economic and social development of the region.
- Common people and businessman of both countries will be able to reap the benefit of both goods and passenger traffic, once passenger trains are planned in this route.
- With this new link coming into operation, tourists from Bangladesh will be able to visit places like Darjeeling, Sikkim, Dooars apart from countries like Nepal, Bhutan etc easily.
- Economic activities of these South Asian countries will also be benefitted from this new rail link.
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