Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: SECI
Mains level: Paper 3- Challenges facing discoms
Context
The power sector in India is at an inflection point. Three developments are triggering a shift across the power chain, generation and distribution in particular, and are in the process deepening existing faultlines, and exacerbating the distress.
Three changes driving the shift in power sector
1) Central government’s approach towards distribution segment
- Till recently, the Centre had preferred to incentivise states, nudging them to address the issue that lies at the heart of the power sector’s woes — turning around the operational performance and financial position.
- However, despite multiple attempts, not much has changed.
- But over the past few months, the Centre appears to have changed tack.
- The Centre no longer appears content to simply nudge states into acting.
- This change in stance is evident from enforcing the tripartite agreement to recover the dues owed to power producers like NTPC by discoms in Jharkhand, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka to now regulating coal supplies to states where power generating companies have been delaying payments.
2) Covid impact on government finances and ability to support discoms
- Notwithstanding buoyant tax revenues this year, Covid has wreaked havoc on government finances.
- The general government debt stands at 90 per cent of GDP.
- Add to this demands for greater welfare spending, uncertainty over state government finances once the five year GST compensation period ends next year, and the limits to which states can continue to support discoms will increasingly be tested.
- To what extent accounting jugglery can be used once again to clean up discom debt is debatable.
- After all, even the liquidity facility arranged by the Centre to help discoms pay off their obligations will have to be paid back.
3) Loss of monopoly and shift towards renwable
- Until now, consumers had little recourse to alternate sources of supply.
- Consequently, discoms, which are essentially geographical monopolies, were able to charge higher tariffs from commercial and industrial consumers to cross-subsidise agricultural and low-income households.
- But the situation appears to be changing.
- Migration of high tariff paying consumers through open access and investments in captive power plants is gaining traction, driven in large part by the emergence of solar as an alternative at seemingly competitive tariffs.
- This reduced reliance of high tariff paying consumers on discoms will only exacerbate their already precarious financial position.
- The pace at which this transition is occurring will only accelerate in the coming years.
- On the supply side, at the global and the national level, there is a push towards cleaner fuel, solar in particular.
- Flowing from this — though with debatable relevance given the current levels of per capita emissions — is the domestic policy thrust towards renewables.
- Solar, in particular, benefits from both explicit and implicit subsidies — land at concessional rate, exemption from interstate transmission charges, discounted wheeling charges, cross-subsidies for open access, SECI taking on counterparty risk, and others.
- It also enjoys “Must Run” status.
- On the demand side, at current tariffs, solar is emerging as an attractive alternative for the high tariff paying commercial and industrial consumers.
- On their part, discoms are trying to salvage a losing situation.
- To stem the flow of high paying customers, some have begun levying an additional surcharge on whoever opts for open access to lower the cost differential.
- Others are shifting from net metering to gross metering — essentially charging consumers higher tariffs — above particular consumption levels.
Conclusion
Continuously subsidising discoms for their AT&C losses (operational inefficiencies), and for not supplying power at commensurate tariffs to low-income households and agricultural customers (for political considerations) will become fiscally untenable.
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: COP26
Mains level: Paper 3- India needs climate laws
Context
The United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26, from October 31 to November 12, 2021), at Glasgow, Scotland is important as it will call for practical implementation of the 2015 Paris Accord, setting the rules for the Accord.
Indian proposals
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced, on November 1 at Glasgow, a ‘Panchamrit solution’ which aims at reducing fossil fuel dependence and carbon intensity.
- This also includes ramping up India’s renewable energy share to 50% by 2030.
- Union Minister of Environment, Forest and Climate Change Bhupender Yadav has reasserted the call for the promised $100 billion a year as support (from the developed world to the developing world).
- But as we consider new energy pathways, we must also consider the question of climate hazard, nature-based solutions and national accountability.
- This is the right time for India to mull setting up a climate law while staying true to its goals of climate justice, carbon space and environmental protection.
Why India needs climate law
- There are a few reasons for this.
- Existing laws not adequate: Our existing laws are not adequate to deal with climate change.
- We have for example the Environment (Protection) Act (EPA), 1986, the Air (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1981 and Water (Prevention and Control of Pollution) Act, 1974.
- Yet, climate is not exactly water or air.
- The Environment (Protection) Act is grossly inadequate to deal with violations on climate. Clause 24 of the Act, “Effect of Other Laws”, states that if an offence is committed under the EPA or any other law, the person will be punished under the other law (for example, Code of Criminal Procedure).
- This makes the EPA subordinate to every other law.
- There is a need to integrate climate action: Integration includes adaptation and mitigation — and monitoring progress.
- Comprehensive climate action is not just technological such as changing energy sources or carbon intensity, but also nature-based such as emphasising restoration of ecosystems.
- India’s situation is unique: Climate action cannot come by furthering sharpening divides or exacerbating poverty, and this includes our stated renewable energy goals.
- The 500 Gigawatt by 2030 goal for renewable can put critically endangered grassland and desert birds such as the Great Indian Bustard at risk, as they die on collision with wires in the desert.
Suggestions on climate law
- A climate law could consider two aspects.
- Commission on climate change: Creating an institution that monitors action plans for climate change.
- A ‘Commission on Climate Change’ could be set up, with the power and the authority to issue directions, and oversee implementation of plans and programmes on climate.
- The Commission could have quasi-judicial powers with powers of a civil court to ensure that its directions are followed in letter and spirit.
- System of liability and accountability: We need a system of liability and accountability at short-, medium- and long-term levels as we face hazards.
- This also means having a legally enforceable National Climate Change Plan that goes beyond just policy guidelines.
- A Climate Commission could ideally prevent gross negligence in fragile areas and fix accountability if it arises.
Conclusion
We have an urgent moral imperative to tackle climate change and reduce its worst impacts. But we also should Indianise the process by bringing in a just and effective law — with guts, a spine, a heart, and, most importantly, teeth.
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: Marrakesh Agreement
Mains level: Paper 3- MC12
Context
The World Trade Organization (WTO)’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) is being convened in Geneva, Switzerland at the end of this month.
Ministerial Conferences
- The topmost decision-making body of the WTO is the Ministerial Conference, which usually meets every two years. It brings together all members of the WTO, all of which are countries or customs unions.
- The Ministerial Conference can take decisions on all matters under any of the multilateral trade agreements
The task ahead for MC12
- Recent WTO estimates show that global trade volumes could expand by almost 11% in 2021, and by nearly 5% in 2022, and could stabilise at a level higher than the pre-COVID-19 trend.
- The MC12 needs to consider how in these good times for trade, the economically weaker countries “can secure a share in the growth in international trade commensurate with the needs of their economic development’, an objective that is mandated by the Marrakesh Agreement Establishing the World Trade Organization.
- Some of the areas are currently witnessing intense negotiations, these include adoption of WTO rules on electronic commerce, investment facilitation, and fisheries subsidies.
Following issues will form the basis of MC12 discussions
1) IPR waiver for Covid-19 related technologies
- Pharmaceutical companies have used monopoly rights granted by their IPRs to deny developing countries access to technologies and know-how, thus undermining the possibility of production of vaccines in these countries.
- To remedy this situation, India and South Africa had tabled a proposal in the WTO in October 2020, for waiving enforcement of several forms of IPRs on “health products and technologies including diagnostics, therapeutics, vaccines, medical devices.
- This proposal, supported by nearly two-thirds of the organisation’s membership, was opposed by the developed countries batting for their corporates.
- The unfortunate reality of the current discussions is that an outcome supporting affordable access to COVID-19 vaccines and medicines looks distant.
2) Fisheries subsidies
- Discussions on fisheries subsidies have been hanging fire for a long time, there is considerable push for an early conclusion of an agreement to rein in these subsidies.
- The current drafts on this issue do not provide the wherewithal to rein in large-scale commercial fishing.
- Large scale commercial fishing is depleting fish stocks the world over, and at the same time, are threatening the livelihoods of small fishermen in countries such as India.
3) E-commerce
- Discussions on e-commerce are being held in the WTO since 1998, wherein WTO members agreed to “continue their practice of not imposing customs duties on electronic transmissions”.
- The more substantive outcome was the decision to “establish a comprehensive work programme” taking into “account the economic, financial, and development needs of developing countries”.
- However, in 2021, a key focus of the 1998 e-commerce work programme, namely “development needs of developing countries”, is entirely missing from the text document that is the basis for the current negotiations.
- On the negotiating table are issues relating to the liberalisation of the goods and services trade, and of course guarantee for free flow of data across international boundaries, all aimed at facilitating expansion of businesses of e-commerce firms.
- In fact, the decision on a moratorium on the imposition of import duties agreed to in 1998 has become the basis for a push towards comprehensive trade liberalisation — a perfectly logical way forward, given that the sole objective of the negotiations on e-commerce is to facilitate expansion of e-commerce firms.
4) Investment facilitation
- Inclusion of substantive provisions on investment in the WTO has been one of the more divisive issues.
- In 2001, the Doha Ministerial Declaration had included a work programme on investment, but developing countries were opposed to its continuation because the discussions were geared to expanding the rights of foreign investors through a multilateral agreement on investment.
- An investment facilitation has reintroduced the old agenda of concluding such an investment agreement.
Issues with the negotiations
- The negotiations on e-commerce and investment facilitation are being conducted not by a mandate given by the entire membership of the WTO in a transparent manner.
- Instead, these negotiations owe their origins to the so-called “Joint Statement Initiatives” (JSI) in which a section of the membership has developed the agenda with a view to producing agreements in the WTO.
- This entire process is “detrimental to the very existence of a rule-based multilateral trading system under the WTO”, as India and South Africa have forcefully argued in a submission against the JSIs early this year.
Conclusion
Current favourable tidings provide an ideal setting for the Trade Ministers from the WTO member-states to revisit trade rules and to agree on a work programme for the organisation, which can help maintain the momentum in trade growth.
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: Adi Shankaracharya, Advaita Vedanta Philisophy
Mains level: Indian Schools of Philosophy
PM has unveiled a 12-foot statue of Adi Shankaracharya at Kedarnath, where the acharya is believed to have attained samadhi at the age of 32 in the ninth century.
Adi Shankaracharya (788-820 AD)
- Adi Shankaracharya was an Indian philosopher and theologian whose works had a strong impact on the doctrine of Advaita Vedanta.
- He founded mathas, which are believed to have helped in the historical development, revival and propagation of his philosophy.
- The story recounted today has been reconstructed from multiple Shankaravijayas (Conquests of Shankara) written over the centuries.
Birth and death
- He is said to have been born in Kaladi village on the bank of the Periyar, the largest river in Kerala.
- He is believed to have attained samadhi at Kedarnath; however, Kanchi and Thrissur are also talked about as places where Adi Shankara spent his last days.
His literary works
- Adi Shankara is generally identified as the author of 116 works.
- Among them the celebrated commentaries (bhashyas) on 10 Upanishads, the Brahmasutra and the Gita, and poetic works including Vivekachudamani, Maneesha Panchakam, and Saundaryalahiri.
- He composed the Kanakadhara Stotram, following which there was a rain of golden amlas, which brought prosperity to the household.
- It has also been claimed that Adi Shankara composed texts like Shankarasmrithi, which seeks to establish the social supremacy of Nambuthiri Brahmins.
- His great standing is derived from his commentaries of the prasthanatrayi (Upanishads, Brahmasutra and Gita), where he explains his understanding of Advaita Vedanta.
His philosophy: Advaita Vedanta
- Advaita Vedanta articulates a philosophical position of radical nondualism, a revisionary worldview which it derives from the ancient Upanishadic texts.
- According to this, the Upanishads reveal a fundamental principle of nonduality termed ‘brahman’, which is the reality of all things.
- Advaitins understand brahman as transcending individuality and empirical plurality.
- They seek to establish that the essential core of one’s self (atman) is brahman. It is pure non-intentional consciousness.
- It is one without a second, nondual, infinite existence, and numerically identical with brahman.
- This effort entails tying a metaphysics of brahman to a philosophy of consciousness.
Do you know?
There are six major schools of Vedic philosophy—Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Samkhya, Yoga, Mīmāṃsā and Vedanta, and five major heterodox (sramanic) schools—Jain, Buddhist, Ajivika, Ajñana, and Charvaka.
Shankara’s contested legacy
- Custodians of the caste system cite from Shankara’s commentaries to justify the unequal and unjust social order.
- It is argued that the Advaita Vedanta borrowed the categories of Buddhist thinkers and called him the Prachhanna Buddha (Buddha in disguise).
- Sri Narayana Guru offered a radical reading of Advaita Vedanta to dismantle the theory and praxis of caste.
His political appropriation
- His works transcends the political boundaries of his time.
- The mathas are believed to have established in Sringeri, Dwaraka, Puri, and Joshimath for the spread of Advaita Vedanta.
- They are seen as custodians of Hinduism, and Shankara’s digvijaya (conquest) often interpreted as a near nationalistic project where faith, philosophy and geography are yoked together to imagine a Hindu India.
Try 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.
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: InvITs
Mains level: Not Much
The National Highway Authority of India’s first infrastructure investment trust has raised more than Rs 5,000 crore, informed the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways of India.
What are InvITs?
- InvITs are like a mutual fund, which enables direct investment of small amounts of money from possible individual/institutional investors in infrastructure to earn a small portion of the income as return.
- They work like mutual funds or real estate investment trusts (REITs) in features.
- They can be treated as the modified version of REITs designed to suit the specific circumstances of the infrastructure sector.
How are they notified in India?
- SEBI notified the Sebi (Infrastructure Investment Trusts) Regulations, 2014 on September 26, 2014, providing for registration and regulation of InvITs in India.
- The objective of InvITs is to facilitate investment in the infrastructure sector.
Their structure
- InvITS are like mutual funds in structure. InvITs can be established as a trust and registered with Sebi.
- An InvIT consists of four elements:
- Trustee: He inspects the performance of an InvIT is certified by Sebi and he cannot be an associate of the sponsor or manager.
- Sponsor(s): They are people who promote and refer to any organisation or a corporate entity with a capital of Rs 100 crore, which establishes the InvIT and is designated as such at the time of the application made to SEBI, and in case of PPP projects, base developer.
- Investment Manager: It is an entity or limited liability partnership (LLP) or organisation that supervises assets and investments of the InvIT and guarantees activities of the InvIT.
- Project Manager: It is the person who acts as the project manager and whose duty is to attain the execution of the project and in case of PPP projects.
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: Uranium enrichment
Mains level: Not Much
Iran’s atomic agency has said that its stockpile of 20% enriched uranium has reached over 210 kilograms, the latest defiant move ahead of upcoming nuclear talks with the West.
What is Uranium Enrichment?
- It is a process that is necessary to create an effective nuclear fuel out of mined uranium.
- It involves increasing the percentage of uranium-235 which undergoes fission with thermal neutrons.
- Nuclear fuel is mined from naturally occurring uranium ore deposits and then isolated through chemical reactions and separation processes.
- These chemical processes used to separate the uranium from the ore are not to be confused with the physical and chemical processes used to enrich the uranium.
Why is enrichment carried out?
- Uranium found in nature consists largely of two isotopes, U-235 and U-238.
- Natural uranium contains 0.7% of the U-235 isotope.
- The remaining 99.3% is mostly the U-238 isotope which does not contribute directly to the fission process (though it does so indirectly by the formation of fissile isotopes of plutonium).
- The production of energy in nuclear reactors is from the ‘fission’ or splitting of the U-235 atoms since it is the main fissile isotope of uranium.
- Naturally occurring uranium does not have a high enough concentration of Uranium-235 at only about 0.72% with the remainder being Uranium-238.
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