Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Brexit
Mains level: Paper 2- India-U.K. ties
India and the U.K. has shard past, now the present offers an opportunity to strengthen the ties between the two countries.
India-U.K. ties in changing geopolitical landscape
- India has invited the British Prime Minister as chief guest for the Republic Day parade.
- India has a shared past with Britain and needs to chart a different shared future, now that Britain has left the European Union (EU).
- One joint enterprise will be as members of the UN Security Council where Britain has permanent status and India holds a non-permanent seat this year and next.
- Also, this year, the U.K. will be hosting India as an invitee to the G-7, and the UN Climate Change Conference.
Implications of Brexit on the bilateral relations
- For the U.K., Brexit necessitates that every effort be made to seek commercial advantage in Asian countries with high growth rates.
- India has been fruitlessly negotiating a trade agreement with the EU since 2007, during which Britain was considered the main deal-breaker.
- The EU wanted duty reductions on autos, wines and spirits and wanted India to open financial sectors.
- India sought free movement for service professionals.
- The same obstacles with post-Brexit Britain will arise, because the export profile of both countries is predominantly services-oriented.
- In response to free movement for professionals, Britain will refer to its new points-based system for immigrants.
- After withdrawing from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and will place greater stress on aspects related to country of origin and percentage of value addition in exports.
- Therefore, while signing agreement two countries will coverge on pharmaceuticals, financial technology, chemicals, defence production, petroleum and food products.
India-U.K. close ties
- One and a half million persons of Indian origin reside in Britain.
- Before COVID-19, there were half a million tourists from India to Britain annually and twice that figure in the reverse direction.
- Around 30,000 Indians study in Britain despite restrictive opportunities for post-graduation employment.
- Britain is among the top investors in India and India is the second-biggest investor and a major job creator in Britain.
- India has a credit balance in total trade of $16 billion, but the level is below India’s trade with Switzerland, Germany or Belgium.
Conclusion
Two countries should strive towards strengthening ties against the backdrop of changing geopolitical circumstances and the Brexit.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Trends in the various data of NFHS
Mains level: Paper 2- Analysis of NFHS-5 data
The article analyses the data of NHFS-5 and try to factors responsible for the outcomes.
Analysing health and nutrition of child through NHFS-5
- The recently released fifth round of the National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) provide insights into some dimensions of micro-development performance before COVID struck.
- The latest round only has data for 17 states and five Union territories.
- Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Rajasthan and Tamil Nadu are notable exclusions.
- Many of the child-related outcomes are also determined by state-level implementation, therefore neither success nor failure can be attributed to state or the centre alone.
Let’s understand the data
- The NFHS has 42 indicators related to child’s health and nutrition.
- Indicators fall into nine categories and each of these can be divided into outcomes and inputs.
- For example, neonatal, infant and under-5 mortality rates can be thought of as outcomes.
- Similarly, all the nutrition indicators —stunting, wastage, excess wastage, underweight and overweight can also be classified as outcomes.
- In contrast, the post-natal care indicators relating to visits made by health workers and the extent and nature of feeding for the child can be classified as inputs.
Outcomes of the survey
- On the front of wasting (weight for height of children) these is an improvement because even though the gains were marginal, they reversed a negative trend between 2005 and 2015.
- India continues to be successful in preventing child deaths, but the health and nutrition of the surviving, living child has deteriorated, somewhat worryingly.
- India continued to make progress in preventing child-related deaths (neonatal, infants and under-5).
- The pace of improvement in child mortality slowed down relative to the previous 10 years (Fig.1).
- Figure 2 shows the six indicators where outcomes have deteriorated. These all relate to what happens after survival:
- The health (anaemia, diarrhoea, and acute respiratory illness (ARI)) and nutrition (stunting, and overweight) of the child deteriorated between 2015 and 2019.
- The absolute deterioration in health and nutrition indicators must be seen against the fact that they reversed the historic trends of steady improvements.
What explains the outcomes
- Implementation capacity of individual states probably played an important role.
- Sector-specific factors such as changing diets are also implicated.
- A broader deterioration in outcomes hints at the likelihood of a common factor, namely the macro-economic growth environment, which determines employment, incomes and opportunities.
- At the least, it is safe to conjecture that some of these outcomes are inconsistent with the narrative of a rapidly growing economy.
Conclusion
As discussed in Chapter 5 of the Economic Survey of 2015-16, perhaps the next big welfare initiative of the government should be a mission-mode focus on the well-being of the early child (and of course the mother), from the womb to the first five years, which research shows is critical for realising its long run potential as an individual.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Water usage for agriculture in India
Mains level: Paper 3- Need for RD in agriculture
The article highlight the need for more emphasis on agricultural R&D as a solution to the woes of the farmers.
India needs low-input high-output agriculture
- Amid farmers protest against farm acts, the current debates focus mainly on MSP, reducing farmers’ debt liabilities, reducing post-harvest losses, cash transfers and marketing reforms.
- India with entrenched poverty requires low-input, high-output agriculture; low input in terms of both natural resources and monetary inputs.
- Very little attention is being given to reducing the natural resource inputs — most critical being water —and agricultural R&D.
- This cannot be achieved without science and technology.
Following are the areas in which Indian agriculture needs R&D to reduce agriculture inputs
1) Water usage for agriculture
- India receives around 4,000 billion cubic meters (bcm) of rainfall, but a large part of it falls in the east.
- Moreover, most of the rain is received within 100 hours of torrential downpour, making water storage and irrigation critical for agriculture.
- India has one of the highest water usages for agriculture in the world — of the total 761 bcm withdrawals of water, 90.5 per cent goes into agriculture.
- In comparison, China uses 385.2 bcm (64.4 per cent) out of the total withdrawals of 598.1 bcm for agriculture.
- China’s per-unit land productivity in terms of crop production is almost two to three times more.
- The total estimated groundwater depletion in India is in the range of 122-199 bcm .
- The depletion is highest in Punjab, Haryana, and western UP.
2) Increasing the yields of coarse-grain crops and oilseed crops
- Years of intense research on yield increase and yield protection by breeding varieties and hybrids resistant to pests and pathogens have made wheat, rice and maize stable high yielders.
- Environmentalists suggest replacing rice with coarse grain crops — millets, sorghum etc.
- However, the yields of these crops are not comparable to those of wheat and rice even when protective irrigation is available.
- These crops have a serious R&D deficit leading to low yield potential as well as losses to pests and pathogens.
- This leaves us with pulses and oilseeds.
- In the 2017-18 fiscal year, India imported around Rs 76,000 crore worth of edible oils.
- Three oilseed crops (mustard, soybean, and groundnut) are already grown very extensively.
- Soybean and groundnut are legume crops and fix their nitrogen.
- All three crops not only provide edible oils but are also an excellent source of protein-rich seed or seed meal for livestock and poultry.
- Unfortunately, yields of the three crops are stagnating in India at around 1.1 tons per hectare, significantly lower than the global averages.
3) Genetic improvements of crops
- Pests and pathogens can be best tackled by agrochemicals or by genetic interventions.
- A recent global level study on crop losses in the main food security hotspots for five major crops showed significant losses to pests — on average for wheat 21.5 per cent, rice 20 per cent, maize 22.5 per cent, potato 17.2 per cent, and soybean 21.4 per cent.
- India is one of the lowest users of pesticides.
- In 2014, comparative use of pesticides in kilograms per hectare in some select countries/regions is as following: Africa 0.30, India 0.36, EU countries 3.09, China 14.82, and Japan 15.93.
- A more benign method for dealing with pests is through breeding.
- The Green Revolution technologies were based on the effective use of germplasm and strong phenotypic selections.
- Recombinant DNA technologies since the 1970s have brought forth unprecedented opportunities for genetic improvement of crops.
- Since 2000, genomes of all the major crops have been sequenced.
- The big challenge is in the effective utilisation of the enormous sequence data that is available.
- India’s efforts in all three areas are half-hearted.
Way forward
- Over the last 20 years, India has been spending between 0.7 to 0.8 per cent of its GDP on R&D.
- This is way below the percentage of GDP spent by the developing countries and Asia’s rapidly growing economies.
- There are structural issues like lack of competent human resources and lack of policy clarity.
- However, the biggest impediment to agricultural R&D has been overzealous opposition to the new technologies.
Consider the question “India needs low-input, high-output agriculture. This cannot be achieved without science and technology. In light of this, examine how R&D could play a role in the advancement of agriculture in India.”
Conclusion
Maybe the present crisis in agriculture would lead to a greater appreciation of the need for strong public supported R&D in agriculture.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Central Vista Project
Mains level: Need for new parliament building
The Hon’ble Supreme Court has allowed the central vista project to go ahead.
Try this MCQ first:
Q.The architecture of the present Parliament House of India is inspired from:
a) Ekattarso Mahadeva Temple
b) Virupaksa Temple
c) Dilwara Temples
d) Brihaddeswara Temple
The Central Vista Project
- The project aims to renovate and redevelop 86 acres of land in Lutyens’s Delhi.
- In this, the landmark structures of the government, including Parliament House, Rashtrapati Bhavan, India Gate, North Block and South Block, etc. stand.
- This dream project of redeveloping the nation’s administrative heart was announced by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on September 13, 2019.
Litigation over the project
- A petition was filed in the Supreme Court in April 2020, challenging the Centre’s change-of-land-use notification of March 2020 with regard to the 86 acres of land.
- The petitioner submitted that the order violated the citizen’s Right to Life guaranteed under Article 21 by depriving people of open and green spaces.
- The petition also argued that the notification violated the Master Plan of Delhi 2021.
- Subsequently, the court heard the challenge on three main grounds: change of land use; violations of municipal law; and violations of environmental law.
What has the court held?
- In a 2:1 majority verdict, the court has held that there are no infirmities in the approvals granted.
- The verdict held that the central government’s change of land use for the project in the Master Plan of Delhi 2021 is also a lawful exercise of its powers.
History of Lutyens’s Delhi
- At his coronation as Emperor of India on December 12, 1911, Britain’s King George V had announced the transfer of the seat of the Government of India from Calcutta to the ancient Capital of Delhi.
- Thereafter, a 20-year-long project to build modern New Delhi was spearheaded by architects Edwin Lutyens and Herbert Baker.
- They built Parliament House, Rashtrapati Bhavan, North and South Blocks, Rajpath, India Gate, National Archives and the princes’ houses around India Gate.
- New Delhi was unveiled in 1931.
Must read:
New Parliament Building
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
Mains level: Horn of Africa Region
Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt have agreed on to resume negotiations to resolve their decade-long complex dispute over the Grand Renaissance Dam hydropower project in the Horn of Africa.
Note: You never know when UPSC might switch map based questions away from the Middle East and SE Asia.
Considering this news, the UPSC may ask a prelim question based on the countries swept by River Nile/ various dams constructed/ landlocked countries in the African continent etc.
Also read
[Burning Issue] Ethiopian Crisis and the Geopolitics
Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam
- Spearheaded by Ethiopia, the 145-meter-tall (475-foot-tall) Grand Renaissance Dam hydropower project, when completed, will be Africa’s largest.
- Its construction was initiated in 2011 on the Blue Nile tributary of the river that runs across one part of Ethiopia.
- The Nile is a necessary water source in the region and Egypt has consistently objected to the dam’s construction, saying it will impact water flow.
- The long-standing dispute has been a cause of concern for international observers who fear that it may increase conflict between the two nations and spill out into other countries in the Horn of Africa.
What is the dispute about?
- The Nile, Africa’s longest river, has been at the centre of a decade-long complex dispute involving several countries that are dependent on the river’s waters.
- At the forefront of this dispute are Ethiopia and Egypt, with Sudan having found itself dragged into the issue.
- The main waterways of the Nile run through Uganda, South Sudan, Sudan and Egypt, and its drainage basin runs through several countries in East Africa, including Ethiopia.
Concerns over the dam
- Given the dam’s location on the Blue Nile tributary, it would potentially allow Ethiopia to gain control of the flow of the river’s waters.
- Egypt lies further downstream and is concerned that Ethiopia’s control over the water could result in lower water levels within its own borders.
- In addition, Egypt proposed a longer timeline for the project over concerns that the water level of the Nile could dramatically drop as the reservoir fills with water in the initial stages.
- Sudan’s location between Egypt up north and Ethiopia down south has caused it to become an inadvertent party to this dispute.
- But that isn’t all; Sudan to is concerned that if Ethiopia were to gain control over the river, it would affect the water levels Sudan receives.
Why does Ethiopia want this dam?
- Ethiopia’s goal is to secure electricity for its population and to sustain and develop its growing manufacturing industry.
- Addis Ababa anticipates that this dam will generate approximately 6,000 megawatts of electricity when it is completed, that can be distributed for the needs of its population and industries.
- In addition to its domestic requirements, Ethiopia may sell surplus electricity to neighbouring nations like Kenya, Sudan, Eritrea and South Sudan, that also suffer from electricity shortages, to generate some revenue.
What lies ahead?
- Despite previous talks, the point of contention hasn’t changed: Egypt and Sudan are concerned about the filling and the operation of the dam.
- Ethiopia continues to insist that the dam is required to meet the needs of its population and has said that downstream water supplies will not be adversely affected.
- Cairo insists that the dam would cut its water supplies — concerning for a country that depends on the Nile for approximately 97% of its drinking water and irrigation supplies.
- Sudan believes that the dam will reduce flooding, but is concerned about the path forward if the negotiations end at a stalemate.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Global Lithium production
Mains level: Lithium ion batteries and their significance
India has inked a pact with an Argentine firm to jointly prospect lithium in the South American country.
Why such a move?
- Currently, India is heavily dependent on import of these cells and the move to ink sourcing pacts for lithium is seen as another salvo in the front against China, a key source of both the raw material and cells.
- India is seen as a late mover as it attempts to enter the lithium value chain, coming at a time when EVs are predicted to be a sector ripe for disruption.
- And 2021 is likely to be an inflexion point for battery technology, with several potential improvements to the Li-ion technology.
About Lithium
- Lithium is a chemical element with the symbol Li and atomic number 3.
- It is a soft, silvery-white alkali metal. Under standard conditions, it is the lightest metal and the lightest solid element.
- Like all alkali metals, lithium is highly reactive and flammable and must be stored in mineral oil.
- When cut, it exhibits a metallic lustre, but moist air corrodes it quickly to a dull silvery grey, then black tarnish.
- Lithium metal is isolated electrolytically from a mixture of lithium chloride and potassium chloride.
- It is a crucial building block of the lithium-ion rechargeable batteries that power electric vehicles (EVs), laptops and mobile phones.
Global producers of lithium
- Australia and Chile have swapped positions as the world’s leading lithium-producing country over the past decade. In 2019, the world’s Top 5 lithium producers were:
- Australia – 52.9% of global production
- Chile – 21.5%
- China – 9.7%
- Argentina – 8.3%
- Zimbabwe – 2.1%
- The U.S. ranked 7th with 1.2% of the world’s lithium production.
- In 2019, the world’s Top 5 lithium reserves by country were:
- Chile – 55.5% of the world’s total
- Australia – 18.1%
- Argentina – 11.0%
- China – 6.5%
- U.S. – 4.1%
Lithium-ion batteries
- A lithium-ion battery or Li-ion battery is a type of rechargeable battery.
- They are commonly used for portable electronics and electric vehicles and are growing in popularity for military and aerospace applications.
- A prototype Li-ion battery was developed by Akira Yoshino in 1985, based on earlier research by John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham, Rachid Yazami and Koichi Mizushima during the 1970s–1980s.
- In 2019, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was given to this trio “for the development of lithium-ion batteries”.
How does it work?
- In the batteries, lithium ions move from the negative electrode through an electrolyte to the positive electrode during discharge, and back when charging.
- Li-ion batteries use an intercalated lithium compound as the material at the positive electrode and typically graphite at the negative electrode.
- The batteries have a high energy density, no memory effect and low self-discharge.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Hydrogen fuel cell vehicles produce one of the following as “exhaust”:
(a) NH3
(b) CH4
(c) H2O
(d) H2O2
Limitations
- Despite the improvements in lithium-ion batteries over the last decade, long charging times and weak energy density are still barriers.
- The Li-ion batteries are seen as sufficiently efficient for applications such as phones and laptops, in case of EVs.
- They still lack the range that would make them a viable alternative to internal combustion engines.
- A number of alternatives are being fostered to achieve more optimal options.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PM UJALA scheme
Mains level: Not Much
The Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) Scheme and Street Lighting National Programme (SLNP) marks their sixth anniversary today.
Do not get confused with PM-UJJWALA Scheme.
UJALA Scheme
- Unnat Jyoti by Affordable LEDs for All (UJALA) was launched by our PM on 1 May 2015, replacing the “Bachat Lamp Yojana”.
- The project is spearheaded by the Energy Efficiency Services Limited.
- In non-subsidized LED lamp distribution projects, this program is considered the world’s largest.
- In May 2017, the Government of India announced that they were expanding the LED distribution project to the United Kingdom.
- Both the programmes are being implemented by Energy Efficiency Services Limited (EESL), a joint venture of PSUs under the Ministry of Power, Government of India since their inception.
A roaring success
- Under UJALA, EESL has distributed over 36.69 crores LED bulbs across India.
- This has resulted in estimated energy savings of 47.65 billion kWh per year with an avoided peak demand of 9,540 MW and an estimated GHG emission reduction of 38.59 million tonnes CO2 per year.
- Additionally, over 72 lakh LED tube lights and over 23 lakh energy efficient fans have also been distributed at an affordable price under this programme.
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