Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CDRI
Mains level: Paper 2- Afghanistan issue
Context
Over the past few weeks, there has been much talk about India’s diplomatic stakes being threatened by the changing political scenario in Afghanistan.
India’s role in Afghanistan’s development
- India is currently the fifth-largest donor in Afghanistan.
- India’s total development assistance over the years has been worth over $3 billion.
- Soft and hard measures: India’s development cooperation with Afghanistan has encompassed both soft and hard measures.
- Soft measures have helped build goodwill and greater people-to-people contact and has involved measures focusing on health, education, capacity development and food security, among others.
- Many projects have been community-driven, thus helping engage a large section of people in development efforts.
- Hard infrastructure examples include the parliament building which was inaugurated in 2015, financing the Delaram-Zaranj Highway as well as the 42 MW Salma Dam in Herat province.
- India had also engaged in triangular cooperation under the US umbrella, cooperating with USAID on various programmes.
- This includes Afghan Women’s Empowerment Programme, a collaboration between USAID and the Self-Employed Women’s Association (SEWA) for providing vocational education for Afghan women.
How India’s approach differed from other donors?
- Demand-driven approach: India follows a demand-driven approach, which implies that the sectors for investment are chosen by the recipient government.
- Not condition based: although its aid is extended as a soft means to gain strategic leverage, it comes without political conditions.
- In PPP terms, the value of the Indian rupee is often underestimated, meaning that the Indian rupee would be able to buy substantially more goods and services at adjusted exchange rates.
- For example, a study by the Stimson Centre found out that even though Indian aid in 2015-16 totalled $1.36 billion, in PPP terms it could be pegged at over $5 billion.
Way forward
- Adapt programs to new reality: At the Afghanistan Conference in Geneva in 2020, India announced several development projects.
- New political developments in Afghanistan are unlikely to lead to a complete disconnect with India and its established socio-economic role.
- However, India may need to adapt its programmes to new realities.
- Diversify portfolio: There is still an infrastructure deficit in Afghanistan and a need for rebuilding and reconstruction.
- As far as development cooperation is concerned, however, India needs to further diversify its portfolios.
- Resilient Afghanistan to climate change: India can do much to build a more resilient Afghanistan with respect to climate change and disaster risk reduction with it spearheading global campaigns like CDRI.
Conclusion
India needs to establish itself as a neutral entity that is keen on the development of the region but ready to work with all parties concerned.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Land reforms
Context
The farmers’ agitation in India has attracted worldwide attention and support.
Story of land reforms in India
- Being a state subject, various states implemented reforms with varying degrees of effectiveness and equity.
- Objectives: The objectives were the same: Abolition of feudal landlordism, conferment of ownership on tenants, fixing land ceilings, distribution of surplus land, increasing agricultural productivity and production, etc.
- However, owing to manipulations in land records, much surplus land was not available for distribution among the landless tillers.
- Less than one per cent of the total land in the country was declared as surplus.
- The relevant criteria for land entitlement should have been employment and main source of income.
Change in social structure after land reforms
- The ex-tenants, after getting land made use of several programmes —Green Revolution technology, bank nationalisation and priority sector lending, urbanisation and expanding urban markets.
- They cornered a disproportionate share of various subsidies.
- The tenant-turned-capitalist farmers formed political parties, which produced strong state-level leaders, who controlled state-level planning, fiscal policies and politics.
- In place of a strong Centre and weak states, came a weak Centre and strong states.
- Rich farmers have formed strong power blocs, with unquestioned clout and bargaining power, not only in north-western India but also in states like Maharashtra.
Need for agrarian reforms
- Farmers are seeking legal safeguards against market fluctuations, especially against any downward pressure on agricultural prices.
- While they welcome every rise in prices, they demand legal protection against price falls, a legitimate stance.
- Even as agricultural prosperity must be promoted,it should not be just shared between farmers (especially rich ones) and urban consumers, but by all.
- Farm workers, in particular, must benefit from it.
Reforms for farmworkers
- Agricultural land should be pooled and equally distributed among farm households.
- Non-farm households should not be permitted to hold farmland.
- Land reforms should be a central subject; while agriculture can remain a state subject.
- Such a programme will empower and enrich marginalised and excluded individuals and social groups.
- It should be the kernel of a justiciable universal property right that must form an integral/inalienable part of Article 21 (Right to Life) of the Constitution.
Conclusion
The right to life is hollow without a right to livelihood. Through an effective land reforms programme, let’s build a prosperous India based on equity and justice.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cost of capital
Mains level: Paper 3- Asset monetisation and challenges in it
Context
The government has announced an ambitious programme of asset monetisation. It hopes to earn ₹6 trillion in revenues over a four-year period.
About Asset monetisation
- Unlike in privatisation, no sale of government assets is involved.
- The government parts with its assets — such as roads, coal mines — for a specified period of time in exchange for a lump sum payment.
- Asset monetisation will happen mainly in three sectors: roads, railways and power.
- Other assets to be monetised include: airports, ports, telecom, stadiums and power transmission.
- Two important statements have been made about the asset monetisation programme.
- The focus will be on under-utilised assets.
- Monetisation will happen through public-private partnerships (PPP) and Investment Trusts.
Challenges
1) Investors would prefer property utilised assets over underutilised assets
- Suppose an asset is not being used adequately because it has not been properly developed or marketed well enough.
- A private party may judge that it can put the assets to better use.
- It will pay the government a price equal to the present value of cash flows at the current level of utilisation.
- This is a win-win situation for the government and the private player.
- The government gets a ‘fair’ value for its assets.
- The private player gets its return on investment.
- Increase in efficiency: The economy benefits from an increase in efficiency.
- Monetising under-utilised assets thus has much to commend it.
- However, in case of an asset that is being properly utilised, the private player has little incentive to invest and improve efficiency.
- It simply needs to operate the assets as they are.
- The private player may value the cash flows assuming a normal rate of growth.
- The cost of capital for a private player is higher than for a public authority.
- The higher cost of capital for the private player could offset the benefit of any reduction in operating costs.
- The government earns badly needed revenues but these could be less than what it might earn if it continued to operate the assets itself.
- There is no improvement in efficiency.
- The benefits to the economy are likely to be greater where under-utilised assets are monetised.
- However, private players will prefer well-utilised assets to assets that are under-utilised.
- That is because, in the former, cash flows and returns are more certain.
2) Valuation challenges
- It is very difficult to get the valuation right over a long-term horizon, say, 30 years.
- For a road or highway, growth in traffic would also depend on factors other than the growth of the economy.
- . If the rate of growth of traffic turns out to be higher than assessed by the government in valuing the asset, the private operator will reap windfall gains.
- Alternatively, if the winning bidder pays what turns out to be a steep price for the asset, it will raise the toll price steeply.
- The consumer ends up bearing the cost.
- It could be argued that a competitive auction process will address these issues and fetch the government the right price while yielding efficiency gains.
- But that assumes, among other things, that there will be a large number of bidders for the many assets that will be monetised.
3) Life of the returned asset may not be long
- There is no incentive for the private player to invest in the asset towards the end of the tenure of monetisation.
- The life of the asset, when it is returned to the government, may not be long.
- In that event, asset monetisation virtually amounts to sale.
- Monetisation through the PPP route is thus fraught with problems.
Way forward: InvIT route
- Infrastructure Investment Trusts (InvIT) are mutual fund-like vehicles in which investors can subscribe to units that give dividends.
- Monetisable assets will be transferred to InvITs.
- The sponsor of the Trust is required to hold a minimum prescribed proportion of the total units issued.
- InvITs offer a portfolio of assets, so investors get the benefit of diversification.
- In the InvIT route to monetisation, the public authority continues to own the rights to a significant portion of the cash flows and to operate the assets.
- So, the issues that arise with transfer of assets to a private party — such as incorrect valuation or an increase in price to the consumer — are less of a problem.
Key takeaways
- Low cost of capital for public authority: In general, due to the low cost of capital for public authority, the economy is best served when public authorities develop infrastructure and monetise these.
- InvIT route: Monetisation through InvITs is likely to prove less of a problem than the PPP route.
- Monetise under utilised assets: We are better off monetising under-utilised assets than assets that are well utilised.
- Monitoring authority should be set up: To ensure proper execution, there is a case for independent monitoring of the process.
- The government may set up an Asset Monetisation Monitoring Authority staffed by competent professionals.
Consider the question “How asset monetisation is different from privatisation? What are the challenges in asset monetisation? Suggest the ways forward.”
Conclusion
Government must pay attention to the challenges in asset monetisation and use it in the proper way to increase the efficiency in the economy.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 21
Mains level: Right to be Forgotten
The Delhi High Court upheld the view that the “Right to Privacy” includes the “Right to be Forgotten” and the “Right to be Left Alone”.
Right to be Forgotten in India
- The Right to be Forgotten falls under the purview of an individual’s right to privacy, which is governed by the Personal Data Protection Bill that is yet to be passed by Parliament.
- In 2017, the Right to Privacy was declared a fundamental right by the Supreme Court in its landmark verdict.
- The court said at the time that “the right to privacy is protected as an intrinsic part of the right to life and personal liberty under Article 21 and as a part of the freedoms guaranteed by Part III of the Constitution”.
What was the recent case?
- The TV celebrity had moved Delhi High Court with the plea that orders be issued to Google and relevant entities to facilitate the removal of posts, videos, articles and any information related to incidents that he was involved.
- His plea cited that his presence on the internet is a source of “utmost psychological pain” to him.
Legal issues
- India does not have a law yet on right to be forgotten.
- In the meantime, the Information Technology Rules, 2011 — which is the current regime governing digital data — does not have any provisions relating to the right to be forgotten.
- The Personal Data Protection (PDP) Bill was tabled in Parliament in 2019 and is being examined by a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
Key features of PDP Bill
- Personal Data: Section 20 of the PDP Bill says that a ‘data principal’ — or the person who generates the data or to whom the information pertains — can rightfully ask a ‘data fiduciary’, which is any entity that stores or processes such data, to “restrict or prevent the continuing disclosure of his personal data” in specific circumstances.
- Purpose of data: To seek the erasure of data, it is necessary to establish that it “has served the purpose for which it was collected or is no longer necessary for the purpose; was made with the consent of the data principal.
- Right to be forgotten: The Bill says that the right to be forgotten can be enforced only on an order of an adjudicating officer following an application filed by the data principal.
- Contravention with Free Speech: However, the decision on whether the right to be forgotten can be granted with respect to any data will depend on whether it contravenes “the right to freedom of speech and expression and the right to information of any other citizen”.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CSR Expenditure rules
Mains level: CSR
The Ministry of Corporate Affairs has clarified that companies have to ensure that funds transferred to implementing agencies are actually utilized for them to be counted towards mandatory CSR expenditure.
What is Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR)?
- CSR is a type of business self-regulation that aims to contribute to the societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in or supporting volunteering or ethically-oriented practices.
- It rests on the ideology of “give and take” i.e. to take scarce resources from the environment for running a business, and in turn to contribute towards economic, social, and environmental development.
CSR in India
- India is the first country in the world to make corporate social responsibility (CSR) mandatory, following an amendment to the Companies Act, 2013 in April 2014.
- Businesses can invest their profits in areas such as education, poverty, gender equality, and hunger as part of any CSR compliance.
All companies with a net worth of Rs 500 crore or more, a turnover of Rs 1,000 crore or more, or net profit of Rs 5 crore or more, are required to spend 2 per cent of their average profits of the previous three years on CSR activities every year.
What is the recent clarification?
- The MCA has clarified that excess Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) expenditure prior to FY21 cannot be set off against future CSR expenditure requirements.
- Corporate donations to government schemes cannot be counted as CSR.
- The ministry has also clarified that companies have to ensure that funds transferred to implementing agencies are actually utilized for them to be counted towards mandatory CSR expenditure.
Impact of the move
- This clarification may impact donations to state government schemes which are often done for the sake of managing relationships with the government.
Earlier changes
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bharat series (BH-series)
Mains level: Not Much
The Ministry of Road Transport & Highways has rolled out a new series for vehicles registration ‘BH’ to avoid re-registration of vehicles while moving to another state.
Bharat series (BH-series)
- There was a procedure of re-registration of a vehicle while moving to another state.
- A vehicle bearing BH registration mark shall not require assignment of a new registration mark when the owner of the vehicle shifts from one State to another.
- Format of Bharat series (BH-series) Registration Mark –
Registration Mark Format:
- YY BH #### XX
- YY – Year of first registration
- BH- Code for Bharat Series
- ####- 0000 to 9999 (randomized)
- XX- Alphabets (AA to ZZ)
Why such move?
- Station relocation occurs with both Government and private sector employees.
- Such movements create a sense of unease in the minds of such employees with regard to transfer of registration from the parent state to another state.
- Under section 47 of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, a person is allowed to keep the vehicle for not more than 12 months in any state other than the state where the vehicle is registered.
Who can get this BH series?
- BH-series will be available on voluntary basis to Defense personnel, employees of Central Government/ State Government/ Central/ State PSUs and private sector companies/organizations.
- The motor vehicle tax will be levied for two years or in multiple of two.
- This scheme will facilitate free movement of personal vehicles across States/UTs of India upon relocation to a new State/UT.
- After completion of the fourteenth year, the motor vehicle tax shall be levied annually which shall be half of the amount which was charged earlier for that vehicle.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pantanal Wetlands
Mains level: Not Much
Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands is facing a severe crisis due to wildfires and climate change.
Pantanal Wetlands
- The Pantanal is a natural region encompassing the world’s largest tropical wetland area, and the world’s largest flooded grasslands.
- It is located mostly within the Brazilian and extends to some portions of Bolivia and Paraguay.
- It sprawls over an area estimated at between 140,000 and 195,000 square kilometer.
- Roughly 80% of the Pantanal floodplains are submerged during the rainy seasons, nurturing a biologically diverse collection of aquatic plants and helping to support a dense array of animal species.
Risks faced
- Unlike the Amazon rainforest, vegetation in the Pantanal has evolved to coexist with fire — many plant species there require the heat from fires to germinate.
- Often caused by lightning strikes, those natural fires spring up at the end of the dry season, but the surrounding floodplains prevent them from spreading.
- What’s different now is the drought, contributing further to the unusually dry conditions and exacerbating the fire risk.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Deeper Beel
Mains level: Wetland conservation
The Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change has notified the eco-sensitive zone of the Deepar Beel Wildlife Sanctuary on the south-western edge of Guwahati.
Deepar Beel
- Deepar Beel is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Assam and the State’s only Ramsar site besides being an Important Bird Area.
- It is located to the south-west of Guwahati city, in Kamrup Metropolitan district.
- It is a permanent freshwater lake, in a former channel of the Brahmaputra River, to the south of the main river.
- It is also called a wetland under the Ramsar Convention which has listed the lake in November 2002, as a Ramsar Site for undertaking conservation measures on the basis of its biological and environmental importance.
Major threats
- Deepar Beel has long been used as a sponge for Guwahati’s sewage via a couple of streams.
- The wetland has also suffered from seepage of toxins from a garbage dump at Boragaon adjoining it.
- It has for decades been threatened by a railway track — set to be doubled and electrified — on its southern rim, a garbage dump, and encroachment from human habitation and commercial units.
- The water has become toxic and it has lost many of its aquatic plants that elephants would feed on.
UPSC 2022 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Species mentioned
Mains level: Not Much
India has added 557 new species to its fauna reveals Animal Discoveries 2020, a document published recently by the Zoological Survey of India (ZSI).
Major species discovered
The number of faunal species in India has climbed to 1,02,718 species. Among the new species, some interesting species discovered in 2020 are:
- Trimeresurus salazar, a new species of green pit viper discovered from Arunachal Pradesh;
- Lycodon deccanensis, the Deccan wolf snake discovered from Karnataka; and
- Sphaerotheca Bengaluru, a new species of burrowing frog named after the city of Bengaluru.
- Xyrias anjaalai, a new deep-water species of snake eel from Kerala;
- Glyptothorax giudikyensis, a new species of catfish from Manipur; and
- Clyster galateansis, a new species of scarab beetles from the Great Nicobar Biosphere.
Visitor species
- Myotis cf. frater, a bat species earlier known from China, Taiwan and Russia, has been reported for the first time from Uttarakhand in India
- Zoothera citrina gibsonhilli, an orange-headed thrush earlier known from southern Myanmar to south Thailand (central Malay peninsula) was reported for the first time from India based on a collection made from the Narcondam island in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Significance
- The ZSI publication shows that India is a mega biodiverse country, rich in biodiversity, with 23.39% of its geographical area under forest and tree cover.
- India is positioned 8th in mega biodiversity countries in the world with 0.46 BioD index which is calculated by its percentage of species in each group relative to the total global number of species in each group.
About Zoological Survey of India
- The ZSI was set up by British zoologist Thomas Nelson Annandale, in 1916.
- It is the premier taxonomic research organization in India.
- It was established to promote surveys, exploration and research leading to advancement of our knowledge of various aspects of the exceptionally rich animal life of India.
- The ZSI had its genesis as the Zoological Section of the Indian Museum at Calcutta in 1875.
- Since its inception, the ZSI has been documenting the diversity and distribution of the fauna of India towards carrying out its mandate of conducting exploration-cum-taxonomic-research programmes.
- The ZSI has published an extremely large amount of information on all animal taxa, from Protozoa to Mammalia.
Try answering this PYQ:
Q.With reference to India’s Biodiversity, Ceylon frogmouth, Coppersmith barbet, Gray-chinned minivet and White-throated redstart are: (CSP 2020)
(a) Birds
(b) Primates
(c) Reptiles
(d) Amphibians
Post your answers here
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now