Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Tauktae and Yaas
Mains level: Paper 3- Need for long term mitigation measures to deal with the cyclones
Context
The severe cyclones, Tauktae and Yaas, battered India earlier this year. With a rise in the frequency of devastating cyclones, India needs to look at long-term mitigation measures.
India’s vulnerability
- The Indian coastline is around 7,500 km; there are 96 coastal districts (which touch the coast or are close to it), with 262 million people exposed to cyclones and tsunamis.
- The World Bank and the United Nations (2010) estimate that around 200 million city residents would be exposed to storms and earthquakes by 2050 in India.
- Between 1891 and 2020, out of the 313 cyclones crossing India’s eastern and western coasts, the west coast experienced 31 cyclones, while 282 cyclones crossed the east coast.
- Among the natural disasters, cyclones constituted the second most frequent phenomena that occurred in 15% of India’s total natural disasters over 1999-2020.
- According to the Global Climate Risk Index report 2021, India ranks the seventh worst-hit country globally in 2019 due to the frequent occurrence of extreme weather-related events.
- Increase in frequency: According to India Meteorological Department (IMD), 2013 data frequency of cyclones in the coastal States accounting increased by 7%.
- Factor’s responsible: Increasing sea surface temperatures in the northern Indian Ocean and the geo-climatic conditions in India are the factors responsible for the increase in frequency.
Economic cost
- Between 1999 and 2020, cyclones inflicted substantial damage to public and private properties, amounting to an increase in losses from $2,990 million to $14,920 million in the absence of long-term mitigation measures.
- India lost around 2% of GDP and 15% of total revenue over 1999-2020.
- Between 1999-2020, around 12,388 people were killed, and the damage was estimated at $32,615 million.
- Cyclones are the second most expensive in terms of the costs incurred in damage, accounting for 29% of the total disaster-related damages after floods (62%).
- In addition, they are the third most lethal disaster in India after earthquakes (42%) and floods (33%).
Odisha model
- In the aftermath of the 1999 super cyclone, the Government of Odisha took up various cyclone mitigation measures.
- These included installing a disaster warning system in the coastal districts, and construction of evacuation shelters in cyclone-prone districts.
- Other steps were the setting up of the Odisha State Disaster Management Authority (OSDMA), conducting regular cabinet meetings for disaster preparedness, and building the Odisha Disaster Rapid Action Force (ODRAF).
Way forward
- Still, Odisha’s disaster management model is inadequate to minimise the economic losses that result from cyclones.
- Therefore, the Government of India should adopt a few measures to minimise disaster damage and fatalities.
- Improve warning system: It is imperative to improve the cyclone warning system and revamp disaster preparedness measures.
- Increase cover under shelterbelt plantation: The Government must widen the cover under shelterbelt plantations and help regenerate mangroves in coastal regions to lessen the impact of cyclones.
- In addition, adopting cost-effective, long-term mitigation measures, including building cyclone-resilient infrastructure such as constructing storm surge-resilient embankments, canals and improving river connectivity to prevent waterlogging in low-lying areas are important.
- Disaster resilient power infrastructure: installing disaster-resilient power infrastructure in the coastal districts, providing concrete houses to poor and vulnerable households, and creating massive community awareness campaigns are essential.
- Coordination between Centre-State: Healthy coordination between the Centre and the States concerned is essential to collectively design disaster mitigation measures.
- Collective mitigation effort by the Centre and States that can help reduce the fiscal burden of States and also be effective in minimising disaster deaths.
Conclusion
Long term mitigation measures are essential to minimise the impact of the disasters such as cyclones.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cities in Afghanistan
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of Taliban control over Afghanistan
Context
Notwithstanding the current triumphalism in Pakistan at “overthrowing” the US-backed order in Kabul and “pushing” India out of Afghanistan, India can afford to step back and signal that it can wait.
Uncertainties about the future
Two interconnected political negotiations unfolding are likely to determine Afghanistan’s immediate future.
1) Setting up political order
- One is focused on building a new political order within Afghanistan.
- More than a week after President Ghani fled Kabul, there is no government, let alone an inclusive and internationally acceptable one, in sight.
- Before Pakistan can get the Taliban to share power with other groups, it has to facilitate an acceptable accommodation between different factions of the Taliban.
- Then there is the problem of including the non-Taliban formations in the new government.
2) Gaining international recognition
- The international community has set some broad conditions for the recognition of the Taliban-led government.
- Besides an inclusive government at home, the world wants to see respect for human rights, especially women’s rights, ending support for international terrorism, and stopping opium production.
- Pakistan will hope to get some of its traditional friends like China and Turkey or new partners like Russia to break the current international consensus.
- Pakistan and the Taliban, however, know Chinese and Russian support is welcome but not enough.
- They need an understanding of the US and its allies to gain political legitimacy as well as sustained international economic assistance.
- The West, too, needs the Taliban to facilitate the evacuation of its citizens from Kabul and, sooner rather than later, deliver humanitarian assistance.
How India differs from Pakistan in its approach towards Afghanistan?
- India has never been in strategic competition with Pakistan in Afghanistan. India’s lack of direct geographic access to Afghanistan has ensured that.
- Both their strategies have roots in the 19th-century policies of the Raj.
- Forward policy: The Pakistan Army’s quest for strategic depth in Afghanistan harks back to the “forward policy” school that sought to actively control the territories beyond the Indus.
- The forward policy seeks political dominance over Afghanistan in the name of a “friendly government” in Kabul.
- Masterly inactivity: India, in contrast, stayed with a rival school in the Raj that called for “masterly inactivity” — a prudent approach to the badlands beyond the Indus.
- India’s strategy seeks to strengthen Kabul’s autonomy vis-à-vis Rawalpindi and facilitate Afghanistan’s economic modernisation.
- The Afghan values that India supports — nationalism, sovereignty, and autonomy — will endure in Kabul, irrespective of the nature of the regime.
Consider the question “What are the implications of the return of Taliban in Afghanistan for India? What should be India’s approach in dealing with the Taliban controlled Afghanistan?”
Conclusion
Strategic patience coupled with political empathy for Afghan people, and an active engagement will continue to keep India relevant in Kabul’s internal and external evolution.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Right to Protest
Mains level: Reasonable restrictions on Fundamental Rights
The Supreme Court took a nuanced stand saying farmers have the right to protest but the agitation should not hinder traffic or public movement.
Right to Protest
- When a group, community, or even a person goes up to protest, it is usually to showcase their disapproval or demur against any action, policy, statement, etc of state or government or any organization.
- Mostly the flow of protest is driven through political waves that also demonstrate the collective organization of people to make the government or state address their issues and take steps to overcome them.
- In India, 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.
Constitutional Backing
- Article 19(1) states that All citizens shall have the right:
(a) to freedom of speech and expression;
(b) to assemble peaceably and without arms;
(c) to form associations or unions;
(d) to move freely throughout the territory of India;
(e) to reside and settle in any part of the territory of India; and
(f) omitted
(g) to practice any profession, or to carry on any occupation, trade or business
Reasonable restrictions on Protest
- Article 51A makes it a fundamental duty for every person to safeguard public property and to avoid violence during the protests and resorting to violence during public protests results in infringement of key fundamental duty of citizens.
- Article 19(1)(b) states about the right to assemble peaceably and without arms. Thereby, the right to peaceful protest is bestowed to Indian citizens by our Constitution.
- Article 19(2) imposes a restriction on a person to prevent him from making a defamatory statement which defames the reputation of another person.
- Article 19(3): The reasonable restrictions are imposed in the interests of the sovereignty & integrity of India, the security of the State, friendly relations with foreign States, public order, decency or morality or in relation to contempt of court, defamation, or incitement to an offense.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Smog Tower
Mains level: Air quality issue in New Delhi
Ahead of its infamous smog season, Delhi has got a ‘smog tower’, a technological aid to help combat air pollution.
What are Smog Towers?
- Smog towers are structures designed to work as large-scale air purifiers. They are fitted with multiple layers of air filters and fans at the base to suck the air.
- After the polluted air enters the smog tower, it is purified by the multiple layers before being re-circulated into the atmosphere.
Structure of the Delhi smog tower
- The structure is 24 m high, about as much as an 8-storey building — an 18-metre concrete tower, topped by a 6-metre-high canopy. At its base are 40 fans, 10 on each side.
- Each fan can discharge 25 cubic metres per second of air, adding up to 1,000 cubic metres per second for the tower as a whole. Inside the tower in two layers are 5,000 filters.
- The filters and fans have been imported from the United States.
How does it work?
- The tower uses a ‘downdraft air cleaning system’ developed by the University of Minnesota.
- Polluted air is sucked in at a height of 24 m, and filtered air is released at the bottom of the tower, at a height of about 10 m from the ground.
- When the fans at the bottom of the tower operate, the negative pressure created sucks in air from the top.
- The ‘macro’ layer in the filter traps particles of 10 microns and larger, while the ‘micro’ layer filters smaller particles of around 0.3 microns.
- The downdraft method is different from the system used in China, where a tower uses an ‘updraft’ system — air is sucked in from near the ground, and is propelled upwards by heating and convection.
- Filtered air is released at the top of the tower.
Likely impact
- Computational fluid dynamics modelling suggests the tower could have an impact on the air quality up to 1 km from the tower.
- The actual impact will also determine how the tower functions under different weather conditions, and how levels of PM2.5 vary with the flow of air.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bhuvan Yuktdhara Portal
Mains level: MGNREGA
A new portal under Bhuvan “Yuktdhara” has been released to facilitate planning of new MGNREGA assets using Remote Sensing and GIS based information.
Bhuvan Yuktdhara Portal
- Yuktdhara is a geospatial planning portal meant for facilitating Gram Panchayat level planning of MGNREGA activities across India.
- Portal integrates a wide variety of spatial information contents to enable a holistic approach towards planning using open-source GIS tool.
- Subsequent to pan Indian initiative of geo-tagging assets created under Mahatma Gandhi NREGA, harnessing the strength of GIS for identifying upcoming activities and their locations was a natural corollary.
Features of the portal
- The current level of integration under Yuktdhara, as part of Bhuvan, incorporates multi-temporal IRS satellite data of better than 3M detail in natural color, digital terrain, thematic layers as wed as locations of MGNREGA works and watershed management assets.
- The interface currently has a Gram Panchayat-specific logo to address planning as well as approval mechanisms intended to ensure the evaluation and acceptance of proposed activities.
- This will be enhanced for other levels of users gradually.
- Access for other Gram Panchayat will be facilitated at the earliest, by addressing the case multiple logins created for geotagging and moderation.
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Back2Basics: MGNREG Scheme
- The MGNREGA stands for Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act of 2005.
- This is labour law and social security measure that aims to guarantee the ‘Right to Work’.
- The act was first proposed in 1991 by P.V. Narasimha Rao.
The objectives of the MGNREGA are:
- To enhance the livelihood security of the rural poor by generating wage employment opportunities.
- To create a rural asset base that would enhance productive ways of employment, augment and sustain a rural household income.
Features of the program
- MGNREGA is unique in not only ensuring at least 100 days of employment to the willing unskilled workers, but also in ensuring an enforceable commitment on the implementing machinery i.e., the State Governments, and providing a bargaining power to the labourers.
- The failure of provision for employment within 15 days of the receipt of job application from a prospective household will result in the payment of unemployment allowance to the job seekers.
- Employment is to be provided within 5 km of an applicant’s residence, and minimum wages are to be paid.
- Thus, employment under MGNREGA is a legal entitlement.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sree Narayana Guru
Mains level: SNDP Movement
The Prime Minister has paid tributes to Sree Narayana Guru on his Jayanti.
Sree Narayana Guru (1856-1928)
- Narayana Guru was a philosopher, spiritual leader and social reformer in India.
- He led a reform movement against the injustice in the caste-ridden society of Kerala in order to promote spiritual enlightenment and social equality.
His legacy:
Temple Entry
- He was in the forefront of the movement for universal temple entry and against the societal ills like the social discrimination of untouchables.
- He gave the famous slogan “One Caste, One Religion, One God for All”.
- In 1888, he built a temple dedicated to Lord Shiva at Aruvippuram which was against the caste-based restrictions of the time.
- In one temple he consecrated at Kalavancode, he kept mirrors instead of idols. This symbolised his message that the divine was within each individual.
Untouchability
- The social protest of Vaikom Satyagraha (1924-25) was an agitation by the lower caste against untouchability in Hindu society of Travancore.
- He taught equality but felt the inequalities should not be exploited to carry out conversions and therefore generate strife in society.
Philosophy
- Sree Narayana Guru became one of the greatest proponents and re-evaluators of Advaita Vedanta, the principle of non-duality put forward by Adi Shankara.
Answer this PYQ:
Q.Which one of the following pairs does not form part of the six systems of Indian Philosophy?
(a) Mimamsa and Vedanta
(b) Nyaya and Vaisheshika
(c) Lokayata and Kapalika
(d) Sankhya and Yoga
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Indira Point
Mains level: NA
The Swarnim Vijay Varsh Victory Flame was taken to Indira Point, the southernmost tip of the country on August 22, 2021, as part of its voyage to the Nicobar Group of Islands.
Indira Point
- Indira Point is the southernmost point of Indian Territory.
- It is a village in the Nicobar district at Great Nicobar Island of Andaman and Nicobar Islands in India.
- Rondo Island, Indonesia’s northernmost island in Sabang district of Aceh province of Sumatra, lies 163 km south of Little Andaman Island and 145 km or 80 nautical miles from Indira point.
- The point was formerly known as Pygmalion Point and Parsons Point. It was renamed in honour of Indira Gandhi during mid-1980s.
- Galathea National Park and Lighthouse are the major attractions here.
India and Indonesia are upgrading the deep sea port Sabang under the strategic military and economic collaboration to protect the channel between Great Nicobar Island and Rondo Island which is 612 km or 330 nautical miles from Indira Point.
What is Swarnim Vijay Varsh?
- It marks the 50th anniversary of the 1971 India-Pakistan war.
- Vijay Diwas is celebrated every year on December 16 to mark India`s triumph in liberating Bangladesh.
- The journey of the Victory Flame is taken from north to south corners of India.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Parliamentary Committees
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with legislative process
Context
The recent Monsoon Session of Parliament is proof that the speed of passing laws trumps their rigorous scrutiny in our legislative process.
Issues with lawmaking process in India
1) Avoiding pre-legislative scrutiny
- In our parliamentary system, a majority of laws originate from the government.
- Each ministry decides the path its legislative proposals will take from ideation to enactment.
- For example, last year, the Shipping Ministry requested public feedback on the two bills — Marine Aids and Inland Vessels.
- This mechanism enables the strengthening of the legal proposal through stakeholder inputs before being brought to Parliament.
- However, ministries expedite their bills by not putting them through a similar pre-legislative scrutiny process.
2) Misuse of Ordinance route
- Over the years, successive governments have exploited the spirit of this constitutional provision.
- Governments have promulgated an ordinance a few days before a parliamentary session, cut a session short to issue one, and pushed a law that is not urgent through the ordinance route.
- But the executive sometimes fails to follow through on the legislative urgency.
- Bringing in law through the ordinance route also bypasses parliamentary scrutiny.
- But parliamentary committees rarely scrutinise bills to replace ordinances because this may take time and defeat the issuing of the ordinance.
- Over the last few years, bills like GST, Consumer Protection, Insolvency and Bankruptcy, Labour Codes, Surrogacy, and DNA Technology have benefited from parliamentary committees’ scrutiny.
- Their closed-door technical deliberations, inputs from ministry officials, subject-matter experts, and ordinary citizens have strengthened government bills.
3) Delay in rule framing
- Unnecessary urgency in getting laws passed by Parliament does not result in their immediate implementation.
- For the law to work on the ground, the government is supposed to frame rules.
- Last year the Cabinet Secretary twice requested the personal intervention of secretaries heading the Union ministries to frame regulations for bringing into force the laws made by Parliament.
- Before the Monsoon Session, he wrote a follow-up letter on similar lines to his colleagues.
Implication of fast-tracking the law-making
- Difficulty in achieving desired outcomes: Hurriedly-made and inadequately-scrutinised laws hardly ever achieve their desired outcomes.
- Wastage of time of legislature: Enacting statutes without proper scrutiny also wastes the legislature’s time when the government approaches Parliament to amend such laws.
- Loss of opportunity: But the unmeasurable cost of a poorly-made law is in the loss of opportunity to an entire nation that has to comply with it.
Way forward
- The government must ensure that it identifies the gaps in our legal system proactively.
- All its bills should go through pre-legislative scrutiny before being brought to Parliament.
- The legislature, on its part, should conduct in-depth scrutiny of government bills.
- Mandatory scrutiny of bills by parliamentary committees should become the rule and not the exception.
Conclusion
India is in urgent need of course correction in its legislating process. What we need is a robust law-making process.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Asset Monetization
Mains level: National Monetization Pipeline (NMP)
The Union Finance Minister has launched the National Monetization Pipeline for the brownfield infrastructure assets.
What is Asset Monetization?
- Asset Monetization involves the creation of new sources of revenue by unlocking of the value of hitherto unutilized or underutilized public assets.
- Internationally, it is recognized that public assets are a significant resource for all economies.
- Many public sector assets are sub-optimally utilized and could be appropriately monetized to create greater financial leverage and value for the companies and of the equity that the government has invested in them.
- This helps in the accurate estimation of public assets which would help in the better financial management of government/public resources over time.
National Monetization Pipeline (NMP)
- The NMP comprises a four-year pipeline of the Central Government’s brownfield infrastructure assets.
- It will serve as a medium-term roadmap for the Asset Monetization initiative of the government, apart from providing visibility for the investors.
- Incidentally, the 2021-22 Union Budget, laid a lot of emphasis on Asset Monetization as a means to raise innovative and alternative financing for infrastructure.
- It has to be noted that the government views asset monetization as a strategy for the augmentation and maintenance of infrastructure, and not just a funding mechanism.
What is the plan?
- NMP is envisaged to serve as a medium-term roadmap for identifying potential monetization-ready projects, across various infrastructure sectors.
- It estimates aggregate monetization potential of Rs 6.0 lakh crores through core assets of the Central Government, over a four-year period, from FY 2022 to FY 2025.
Objectives of the program
- NMP aims for universal access to high-quality and affordable infrastructure to the common citizen of India.
- Asset monetization, based on the philosophy of Creation through Monetization, is aimed at tapping private sector investment for new infrastructure creation.
- This is necessary for creating employment opportunities, thereby enabling high economic growth and seamlessly integrating the rural and semi-urban areas for overall public welfare.
- The strategic objective of the programme is to unlock the value of investments in brownfield public sector assets by tapping institutional and long-term patient capital.
Framework
The framework for core asset monetization has three key imperatives:
- The pipeline has been prepared based on inputs and consultations from respective line ministries and departments, along with the assessment of total asset base available therein.
- Monetization through disinvestment and monetization of non-core assets have not been included in the NMP.
- Further, currently, only assets of central government line ministries and CPSEs in infrastructure sectors have been included.
- Process of coordination and collation of asset pipeline from states is currently ongoing and the same is envisaged to be included in due course.
Estimated Potential
- The aggregate asset pipeline under NMP over the four-year period, FY 2022-2025, is indicatively valued at Rs 6.0 lakh crore.
- The estimated value corresponds to ~14% of the proposed outlay for Centre under NIP (Rs 43 lakh crore). This includes more than 12-line ministries and more than 20 asset classes.
- The sectors included are roads, ports, airports, railways, warehousing, gas & product pipeline, power generation and transmission, mining, telecom, stadium, hospitality and housing.
- The top 5 sectors (by estimated value) capture ~83% of the aggregate pipeline value. These top 5 sectors include: Roads (27%) followed by Railways (25%), Power (15%), oil & gas pipelines (8%) and Telecom (6%).
Implementation & Monitoring Mechanism
- As an overall strategy, significant share of the asset base will remain with the government.
- The programme is envisaged to be supported through necessary policy and regulatory interventions by the Government in order to ensure an efficient and effective process of asset monetisation.
- These will include streamlining operational modalities, encouraging investor participation and facilitating commercial efficiency, among others.
- Real time monitoring will be undertaken through the a separate dashboard.
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