Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: State Development Loans
Mains level: Paper 3- Centre needs to help states to tide over the uncertain year
Context
The states are borrowing less than expected in the first quarter of FY 2021-22 despite the negative impact of state-level restrictions, amidst the second Covid wave, on economic activity.
An overview of borrowing by States
- In 2020-21, the gross amount raised through state development loans (SDLs) or bonds had jumped to Rs 8 trillion, up from Rs 6.3 trillion in the previous year.
- The increase was a fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic on state finances.
- In the first quarter of the current financial year i.e. 2021-22, gross issuances of bonds stood at Rs 1.4 trillion.
- This amount is 14 per cent lower than the bonds issued last year (Rs 1.7 trillion).
- This is also around 20 per cent lower than what states had initially indicated they would borrow (Rs 1.8 trillion) through the indicative calendar of market borrowings released by the RBI.
- As a result, state bond issuances have undershot expectations in the first quarter.
Factor’s responsible for lower state borrowing
- Lower state borrowings were a consequence of three major factors.
- First, an additional tax devolution of Rs 450 billion from the Centre in late March.
- This amount was in excess of the Rs 5.5 trillion tax devolution that had been included in the revised estimates for 2020-21.
- Second, record-high GST collections in April which doubled to Rs 1.3 trillion in the first quarter of this year, up from Rs 0.6 trillion in the same period last year.
- Third, receipt of substantial grants from the Centre adding up to Rs 436 billion in April-May related to the recommendations of the Fifteenth Finance Commission.
Factors that could influence the borrowing pattern in the next three quarters
- First, the varying pace of unlocking and the consequent economic revival in states from June onwards may crucially affect state borrowings in the second quarter.
- A faster ramp-up of vaccine administration may help some states, reducing the need to borrow.
- Second, the eventual calendar for raising back-to-back loans by the GoI to compensate states for the loss in their GST revenues could also result in a change in the states’ borrowing schedule.
- Third, the quantum, and timing of tax devolution will also play a role.
Why timing of the Central tax devolution matters for States
- Central tax devolution forms a quarter of states’ combined revenue receipts.
- This revenue stream has contracted by 15 per cent in the first two months of the year, falling to Rs 392 billion each in April-May this year, from Rs 460 billion last year.
- If the Centre continues to devolve to states this amount till February 2022, then a massive Rs 2.4 trillion (36 per cent of the budgeted amount) will be left for devolution in March 2022 — assuming that the devolution for the full year is not revised below the budgeted level.
- From the states’ point of view, this would be rather inefficient from a cash flow perspective.
Conclusion
An early step-up in tax devolution by the central government may provide comfort to the states to accelerate expenditure during another uncertain year, without borrowings being pushed up in the next two quarters.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UAPA
Mains level: Paper 2- Misuse of UAPA and role of judiciary
Context
Father Stan Swamy passed away at a private hospital in Mumbai on July 5. Fr. Swamy was arrested by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA).
How Supreme Court judgment leaves the scope for misuse of UAPA
- The Supreme Court’s April 2019 decision in National Investigation Agency vs Zahoor Ahmad Shah Watali on the interpretation of the UAPA has affected all downstream decisions involving the statute.
- This decision has created a new doctrine.
- According to the decision, in considering bail applications under the UAPA, courts must presume every allegation made in the First Information Report to be correct.
- Further, bail can now be obtained only if the accused produces material to contradict the prosecution.
- In other words, the burden rests on the accused to disprove the allegations, which is virtually impossible in most cases.
- The decision has essentially excluded the admissibility of evidence at the stage of bail.
- By doing so, it has effectively excluded the Evidence Act itself, which arguably makes the decision unconstitutional.
- Due to the Supreme Court judgment, High Courts have their hands tied, and must perforce refuse bail, as disproving the case is virtually impossible.
- The Delhi High Court recently granted bail to three young activists arrested under UAPA in a conspiracy relating to the 2020 riots in Delhi.
- The Supreme Court reportedly expressed surprise and gave the direction that the decision will “not to be treated as precedent by any court” to give similar reliefs.
Misuse of the UAPA
- With such high barriers of proof, it is now impossible for an accused to obtain bail, and is in fact a convenient tool to put a person behind bars indefinitely.
- This is being abused by the government, police and prosecution liberally: now, all dissenters are routinely implicated under charges of sedition or criminal conspiracy and under the UAPA.
- In multiple instances, evidence is untenable, sometimes even arguably planted, and generally weak overall.
- But as a consequence of UAPA being applied, the accused cannot even get bail.
Way forward
- If we want to prevent the misuse, the decision in the Watali case must be urgently reversed or diluted, otherwise, we run the risk of personal liberties being compromised very easily.
Conclusion
The provision of the act leaves the scope for misuse and therefore judiciary and legislature need to take steps to provide safeguards to prevent the misuse.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: One nation, one ration card scheme
Mains level: Paper 2- Guidelines for providing relief to migrant workers
Context
The Supreme Court on June 29 pronounced its judgment in the migrant labourers case. The case was initiated last year after the national lockdown was announced on March 24.
Guidelines laid down by the Supreme Court
- Two of the most important components to protect the migrants during this time were the food and travel arrangements insisted on by the court.
- In the orders pronounced in May this year, it laid down that dry ration be provided to migrants who want to return to their homes.
- Further, the court said that identity proof should not be insisted upon by the governments since the labourers might not be able to furnish it.
- Secondly, the court called upon the State governments to arrange transportation for workers who need to return to their homes.
- The Supreme Court fixed July 31 as the deadline for the States to implement the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme.
- Apart from dry ration, the top court also directed the State governments to run community kitchens for migrant workers.
- In the order passed on June 29, the court affirmed the Right to Food under Article 21 of the Constitution.
- In furtherance of this, the court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants.
- The top court recognised the need for direct cash benefit transfer to workers in the unorganised sector.
- But it did not issue any guidelines for the same.
Challenges
- The Supreme Court has given a purposive declaration in the case but the bulk of the judgment seems declaratory rather than mandatory.
- Under the ‘One nation One Ration Card’ scheme, the States are to complete the registration of migrant workers in order to provide dry ration to them.
- But it is unlikely that a standardised system can be developed within the deadline prescribed by the court.
- There are administrative problems in running community kitchens for migrant workers.
- First, migrant workers keep moving in search of employment and it is difficult to cover them all under the scheme.
- Second, many States do not have the necessary infrastructure to run and maintain community kitchens on such a large scale.
- The court asked the States to formulate their own schemes and issue food grains to migrants, but there are no normative data that would allow the States to identify eligible migrants.
Conclusion
In order to efficaciously implement the orders of the court, the State governments need to work with the Centre closely. It is imperative to ensure that government machinery works to its full potential and robust systems are developed to withstand the challenges of the looming third covid wave.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Harit Dhara
Mains level: Methane pollution
An Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) institute has developed an anti-methanogenic feed supplement ‘Harit Dhara’.
Harit Dhara
- Harit Dhara is prepared using condensed and hydrolysable tannin-rich plant-based sources abundantly available in the country.
- It changes the composition of the volatile fatty acids that are the end-products of rumen fermentation (along with hydrogen and CO2).
- It roughly costs Rs 6/kg and it is to be fed only to animals aged above three months having fully functional rumen.
- When given to bovines and sheep, it not only cuts down their methane emissions by 17-20%.
- It also results in higher milk production and body weight gain.
Why it is significant?
- Belching cattle, buffaloes, sheep and goats in India emit an estimated 9.25 million tonnes (mt) to 14.2 mt of methane annually, out of a global total of 90 mt-plus from livestock.
- And given methane’s global warming potential – 25 times of carbon dioxide (CO2) over 100 years, making it a more potent greenhouse gas – that’s cause for concern.
- An average lactating cow or buffalo in India emits around 200 litres of methane per day, while it is 85-95 litres for young growing heifers and 20-25 litres for adult sheep.
- Feeding Harit Dhara can reduce these by a fifth.
How is methane produced by the cattles?
- Methane is produced by animals having rumen, the first of their four stomachs where the plant material they eat – cellulose, fibre, starch and sugars – gets fermented or broken down by microorganisms prior to further digestion and nutrient absorption.
- Carbohydrate fermentation leads to the production of CO2 and hydrogen.
- These are used as substrate by archaea – microbes in the rumen with structure similar to bacteria – to produce methane, which the animals then expel through burping.
- Harit Dhara acts by decreasing the population of protozoa microbes in the rumen, responsible for hydrogen production and making it available to the archaea for reduction of CO2 to methane.
- Tropical plants containing tannins – bitter and astringent chemical compounds – are known to suppress or remove protozoa from the rumen.
Need for India
- The 2019 Livestock Census showed India’s cattle population at 193.46 million, along with 109.85 million buffaloes, 148.88 million goats and 74.26 million sheep.
- Being largely fed on agricultural residues – wheat/paddy straw and maize, sorghum or bajra stover – ruminants in India tend to produce 50-100% higher methane than their industrialized country counterparts.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Consider the following:
- Carbon monoxide
- Methane
- Ozone
- Sulphur dioxide
Which of the above are released into atmosphere due to the burning of crop/biomass residue?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2, 3 and 4 only
(c) 1 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Back2Basics: CO2 equivalents
- Each greenhouse gas (GHG) has a different global warming potential (GWP) and persists for a different length of time in the atmosphere.
- The three main greenhouse gases (along with water vapour) and their 100-year global warming potential (GWP) compared to carbon dioxide are:
1 x – carbon dioxide (CO2)
25 x – methane (CH4) – I.e. Releasing 1 kg of CH4into the atmosphere is about equivalent to releasing 25 kg of CO2
298 x – nitrous oxide (N2O)
- Water vapour is not considered to be a cause of man-made global warming because it does not persist in the atmosphere for more than a few days.
- There are other greenhouse gases which have far greater global warming potential (GWP) but are much less prevalent. These are sulphur hexafluoride (SF6), hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), and perfluorocarbons (PFCs).
- There are a wide variety of uses for SF6, HFCs, and PFCs but they have been most commonly used as refrigerants and for fire suppression.
- Many of these compounds also have a depleting effect on ozone in the upper atmosphere.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Aurora, Hope Mission
Mains level: Study of Mars
The UAE’s Hope spacecraft, which is orbiting Mars since February this year, has captured images of glowing atmospheric lights in the Red Planet’s night sky, known as discrete auroras.
What causes an Aurora on Earth?
- Auroras are caused when charged particles ejected from the Sun’s surface — called the solar wind — enter the Earth’s atmosphere.
- These particles are harmful, and our planet is protected by the geomagnetic field, which preserves life by shielding us from the solar wind.
- However, at the north and south poles, some of these solar wind particles are able to continuously stream down, and interact with different gases in the atmosphere to cause a display of light in the night sky.
- This display, known as an aurora, is seen from the Earth’s high latitude regions (called the auroral oval), and is active all year round.
Where are they observed on Earth?
- In the northern part of our globe, the polar lights are called aurora borealis or Northern Lights and are seen from the US (Alaska), Canada, Iceland, Greenland, Norway, Sweden and Finland.
- In the south, they are called aurora australis or southern lights and are visible from high latitudes in Antarctica, Chile, Argentina, New Zealand and Australia.
So, how are Martian auroras different?
- Unlike auroras on Earth, which are seen only near the north and south poles, discrete auroras on Mars are seen all around the planet at night time.
- Unlike Earth, which has a strong magnetic field, the Martian magnetic field has largely died out.
- This is because the molten iron at the interior of the planet– which produces magnetism– has cooled.
- However, the Martian crust, which hardened billions of years ago when the magnetic field still existed, retains some magnetism.
- So, in contrast with Earth, which acts like one single bar magnet, magnetism on Mars is unevenly distributed, with fields strewn across the planet and differing in direction and strength.
- These disjointed fields channel the solar wind to different parts of the Martian atmosphere, creating “discrete” auroras over the entire surface of the planet as charged particles interact with atoms and molecules in the sky– as they do on Earth.
Why is it important to study them?
- Studying Martian auroras is important for scientists, for it can offer clues as to why the Red Planet lost its magnetic field and thick atmosphere– among the essential requirements for sustaining life.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Which region of Mars has a densely packed river deposit indicating this planet had water 3.5 billion years ago?
(a) Aeolis Dorsa
(b) Tharsis
(c) Olympus Mons
(d) Hellas
Back2Basics:
Hope Orbiter
- The Hope Probe, the Arab world’s first mission to Mars, took off from Earth in July last year, and has been orbiting the Red Planet since February.
- The primary objective of the mission is to study Martian weather dynamics.
- By correlating the lower atmosphere and upper atmosphere conditions, the probe will look into how weather changes the escape of hydrogen and oxygen into space.
- By measuring how much hydrogen and oxygen is spilling into space, scientists will be able to look into why Mars lost so much of its early atmosphere and liquid water.
- It is expected to create the first complete portrait of the planet’s atmosphere.
- With the information gathered during the mission, scientists will have a better understanding of the climate dynamics of different layers of Mars’ atmosphere.
Mars
- Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun and the second-smallest planet in the Solar System, being larger than only Mercury.
- In English, Mars carries the name of the Roman god of war and is often referred to as the “Red Planet”.
- The latter refers to the effect of the iron oxide prevalent on Mars’s surface, which gives it a reddish appearance distinctive among the astronomical bodies visible to the naked eye.
- Mars is a terrestrial planet with a thin atmosphere, with surface features reminiscent of the impact craters of the Moon and the valleys, deserts and polar ice caps of Earth.
- The days and seasons are comparable to those of Earth, because the rotational period, as well as the tilt of the rotational axis relative to the ecliptic plane, is similar.
- Mars is the site of Olympus Mons, the largest volcano and highest known mountain on any planet in the Solar System, and of Valles Marineris, one of the largest canyons in the Solar System.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pegasus
Mains level: Whatsapp snooping
An online database about the use of the spyware Pegasus was recently launched by the Forensic Architecture, Amnesty International and the Citizen Lab to document attacks against human rights defenders.
What is Pegasus?
- Last year, one of the biggest stories that broke into cyberspace was WhatsApp’s reports that 1,400 of its users were hacked by Pegasus, a spyware tool from Israeli firm NSO Group.
- All spyware do what the name suggests — they spy on people through their phones.
- Pegasus works by sending an exploit link, and if the target user clicks on the link, the malware or the code that allows the surveillance is installed on the user’s phone.
- A presumably newer version of the malware does not even require a target user to click a link.
- Once Pegasus is installed, the attacker has complete access to the target user’s phone.
Why is Pegasus dangerous?
- What makes Pegasus really dangerous is that it spares no aspect of a person’s identity. It makes older techniques of spying seem relatively harmless.
- It can intercept every call and SMS, read every email and monitor each messaging app.
- Pegasus can also control the phone’s camera and microphone and has access to the device’s location data.
- The app advertises that it can carry out “file retrieval”, which means it could access any document that a target might have stored on their phone.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bhalia Wheat
Mains level: Popularity of GI goods
In a major boost to wheat exports, the first shipment of Geographical Indication (GI) certified Bhalia variety of wheat was exported today to Kenya and Sri Lanka from Gujarat.
Bhalia Wheat
- The GI certified wheat has high protein content and is sweet in taste.
- The crop is grown mostly across Bhal region of Gujarat which includes Ahmadabad, Anand, Kheda, Bhavanagar, Surendranagar, Bharuch districts.
- The unique characteristic of the wheat variety is that grown in the rainfed condition without irrigation and cultivated in around two lakh hectares of agricultural land in Gujarat.
- The Bhalia variety of wheat received GI certification in July, 2011.
- The registered proprietor of GI certification is Anand Agricultural University, Gujarat.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Which of the following has/have been accorded ‘Geographical Indication’ status?
- Banaras Brocades and Sarees
- Rajasthani Daal-Bati-Churma
- Tirupathi Laddu
Select the correct answer using the code given below:
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 and 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1, 2 and 3
Back2Basics: Geographical Indication (GI)
- The World Intellectual Property Organization defines a GI as “a sign used on products that have a specific geographical origin and possess qualities or a reputation that are due to that origin”.
- GIs are typically used for agricultural products, foodstuffs, handicrafts, industrial products, wines and spirit drinks.
- Internationally, GIs are covered as an element of intellectual property rights under the Paris Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property.
- They have also covered under the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Agreement.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Authorised Economic Operators
Mains level: Not Much
Central Board of Indirect Taxes & Customs (CBIC) has inaugurated the online filing of Authorised Economic Operators (AEO) T2 and T3 applications.
Who are Authorised Economic Operators?
- The AEO concept is one of the main building blocks within the WCO SAFE Framework of Standards (SAFE).
- The latter is part of the future international Customs model set out to support secure trade.
- The growth of global trade and increasing security threats to the international movement of goods have forced customs administrations to shift their focus more and more to securing the international trade flow and away from the traditional task of collecting customs duties.
- Recognizing these developments, the World Customs Organization, drafted the WCO Framework of Standards to Secure and Facilitate global trade (SAFE).
- In the framework, several standards are included that can assist Customs administrations in meeting these new challenges.
- Developing an Authorized Economic Operator programme is a core part of SAFE.
AEOs in India
- AEO is a voluntary programme.
- It enables Indian Customs to enhance and streamline cargo security through close cooperation with the principal stakeholders of the international supply chain viz. importers, exporters, logistics providers, custodians or terminal operators, customs brokers and warehouse operators.
Back2Basics: World Customs Organization (WCO)
- WCO is an intergovernmental organization headquartered in Brussels, Belgium.
- The WCO is noted for its work in areas covering international trade facilitation, customs enforcement activities, combating counterfeiting in support of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR), drugs enforcement, illegal weapons trading, integrity promotion, and delivering the sustainable capacity building to assist with customs reforms and modernization.
- The WCO represents 179 Customs administrations that collectively process approximately 98% of world trade.
- As the global centre of Customs expertise, the WCO has the tools and expertise to assist implementation of all legal, policy, procedural, technological, and human resource aspects related to trade facilitation.
- The WCO maintains the international Harmonized System (HS) goods nomenclature and administers the technical aspects of the World Trade Organization (WTO) Agreements on Customs Valuation and Rules of Origin.
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