Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Relative backwardness
Context
On October 29, the Supreme Court issued notice on an appeal of the Kerala government against a High Court order directing it to award the scholarships by the proportion of minorities in the overall population of the State. This case will be significant for constitutional law.
Background
- The Kerala government passed an executive order in 2015 prescribing that minority communities will be entitled to scholarships.
- Of the scholarships, 80% were distributed to Muslim students.
- In Justine Pallivathukkal v. State of Kerala (2021), the Kerala High Court set aside this order holding that all minorities must be treated alike.
- The government argued that its policy was based on the findings of the Sachar Committee report and the Kerala Padana report on the disadvantages faced by Muslims.
- It pointed out that Muslims were far behind Christians, Dalits and Adivasis in college enrolment, just as they are in employment and land ownership.
Justification
- The different kinds of backwardness of a community must be considered while awarding scholarship schemes.
- Any other scheme defeats the purpose of offering scholarships to students from minority communities.
- The High Court prohibited an allocation sensitive to social realities by adopting a form of blind equality approach.
- It is important, therefore, that the Supreme Court corrects the error of the High Court.
- The High Court’s reasoning suggests that access to the benefits of affirmative action must follow an approach which is blind to the relative backwardness of different communities.
Conclusion
Even when we identify disadvantaged castes or communities, we need to remember the forms of inequality and hierarchy among them. The logic of the High Court’s judgment forbids this.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Opportunities and challenges presented by net-zero approach
Context
India joined the other G20 countries in making a “net-zero” commitment, setting 2070 as its target year.
Why was it important to sign up for net-zero?
- India’s topography — its 7,000 km-long coastline, the Himalayan glaciers in the north, and its rich forest areas which house natural resources like coal and iron ore — make the country uniquely vulnerable to climate change.
- An IMF study suggests that if emissions continue to rise this century, India’s real GDP per capita could fall by 10 per cent by 2100.
- India’s traditional position has been that since its per capita energy use is only a third of the global average, and it needs to continue to grow to fight poverty, costly energy reduction targets should not be applied to it.
Opportunities presented by India’s net-zero approach
- It could give a clear signal of India’s intentions and provide better access to international technology, funding and markets.
- We estimate that 60 per cent of India’s capital stock — factories and buildings that will exist in 2040 — is yet to be built.
- The country can potentially leapfrog into new green technology, rather than being overburdened with “re-fitting” obligations.
- If India can now transition to green growth, it could create a more responsible and sustainable economy.
- If India’s exports achieve a “green stamp”, they may find better market access, especially if the world imposes a carbon tax on exports.
- Around 2-2.5 million additional jobs can be created in the renewables sector by 2050, taking the total number of people employed there to over 3 million.
Challenges
- The finances of power distribution companies need to be improved to fund the grid upgrades necessary for scaling up renewables.
- India needs a coordinated institutional framework that can help overcome multiple levels of complexity like federalism, fiscal constraints and bureaucracy.
- The energy investment requirement will be high, rising from about $70-80 billion per year now to $160 billion per year.
- While the private sector will be required to fund much of this, the government can play a pivotal role, especially in the early days.
- The transition years will be bumpy.
- Inflation could be volatile till renewables reached their full potential.
Conclusion
India is on the right track but needs to redouble its efforts to remove the obstacles.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Project Sampoorna
Mains level: Innovative measures against malnutrition
Project Sampoorna’s success in reducing child malnutrition is a model that can be easily implemented anywhere.
What is Project Sampoorna?
- Project Sampoorna has been implemented in the Bongaigaon district of Assam.
- It aims to target Severe Acute Malnutrition (SAM) and Moderate Acute Malnutrition (MAM).
- It was launched to target the mothers of SAM/ MAM children with the tagline being ‘Empowered Mothers, Healthy Children’.
- It was based on the success of the community-based COVID-19 management model (Project Mili Juli).
Key features of the project
- Under this project, the mother of a healthy child of an Anganwadi Centre was paired with the target mother and they would be Buddy Mothers.
- They were usually neighbours and shared similar socioeconomic backgrounds.
- They were given diet charts to indicate the daily food intake of their children and would have discussions on all Tuesdays at the Anganwadi centres.
- 100 millilitres of milk and an egg on alternate days for the children for the first 3 months were provided so that their mothers could stabilise themselves in the newly found jobs.
- Children who had not improved were checked and treated by doctors under the Rashtriya Bal Swasthya Karyakram (RBSK).
Success of the project
- This project has prevented at least 1,200 children from becoming malnourished over the last year.
- National Nutrition Mission and the State government recognised this project in the ‘Innovation Category’.
- The mothers were enrolled in Self Help Groups (SHGs) under the National Rural Livelihoods Mission (NRLM) and were thus working.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Global Drug Policy Index
Mains level: Not Much
The first-ever Global Drug Policy Index was recently inaugurated.
Global Drug Policy Index
- It is released by the Harm Reduction Consortium, ranks Norway, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK and Australia as the five leading countries on humane and health-driven drug policies.
- It is a data-driven global analysis of drug policies and their implementation.
- It is composed of 75 indicators running across five broad dimensions of drug policy:
- Criminal justice
- Extreme responses
- Health and harm reduction
- Access to internationally controlled medicines and
- Development
Highlights of the 2021 ranking
- The five lowest-ranking countries are Brazil, Uganda, Indonesia, Kenya, and Mexico.
- Norway, despite topping the Index, only managed a score of 74/100.
- And the median score across all 30 countries and dimensions is just 48/100.
India’s performance
- India’s rank is 18 out of 30 countries
- It has an overall score of 46/100.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: LEADS Index
Mains level: Not Much
The Logistics Ease Across Different States (LEADS) 2021 Index Rankings has been recently released.
About LEADS
- The LEADS index was launched in 2018 by the Commerce and Industry Ministry and Deloitte.
- It ranks states on the score of their logistics services and efficiency that are indicative of economic growth.
- States are ranked based on quality and capacity of key infrastructure such as road, rail and warehousing as well as on operational ease of logistics.
Highlights of the 2021 report
- India’s logistics costs account for 13-14 per cent of GDP, compared to 7-8 per cent in developed countries.
- Gujarat, Haryana and Punjab have emerged as the top performers in the LEADS 2021 index respectively.
- West Bengal, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Goa, Bihar, Himachal Pradesh and Assam were ranked 15th, 16th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st respectively.
- North Eastern States, and J&K and Ladakh have been considered a separate group for LEADS rankings.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI)
Mains level: Not Much
The 17th edition of the Climate Change Performance Index (CCPI) 2021 was released recently.
It’s a very rare feat that India has performed so better in any climate-related index. We can use this data to highlight India’s dedicated efforts for Paris Agreement.
About CCPI
- The CCPI is an independent monitoring tool for tracking countries’ climate protection performance. It has been published annually since 2005.
- It is compiled by Germanwatch, the New Climate Institute, and the Climate Action Network.
- It evaluates 57 countries and the European Union, which together generate 90%+ of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Parameters of the index
- The CCPI looks at four categories, with 14 indicators: Greenhouse Gas Emissions (40% of the overall score), Renewable Energy (20%), Energy Use (20%), and Climate Policy (20%).
- The CCPI’s unique climate policy section evaluates countries’ progress in implementing policies working towards achieving the Paris Agreement goals.
Highlights of the 2021 report
- The first three ranks of the overall rankings were kept empty because no country had performed well enough in all index categories to achieve an overall very high rating.
- The 2021 report places Sweden on top, while countries such as Morocco and the UK are also ranked high.
- The bottom-ranked country, the United States, therefore, was placed at 61.
Low performers
- Iran and Russia are ranked the lowest in this category.
- Overall, Australia, South Korea and Russia are among the lowest performing countries along with Kazakhstan and Saudi Arabia.
- China is ranked 33 overall and has an overall rating of “low”.
India’s performance
- In the overall rankings, India is at number 10 with a score of 63.98.
- It is a high performer except in the renewable energy category, in which it is ranked “medium”.
- The report says that India is benefiting from its relatively low per-capita emissions.
- In terms of greenhouse gas emissions, Sweden, Egypt, Chile and the UK are in the top 7. India is ranked 12.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Leonid Meteor Shower
Mains level: Not Much
The annual Leonid’s Meteor Shower has begun.
Try this question from CSP 2014:
Q.What is a coma, in the content of astronomy?
(a) Bright half of material on the comet
(b) Long tail of dust
(c) Two asteroids orbiting each other
(d) Two planets orbiting each other
Post your answers here.
What is Leonid Meteor Shower?
- Meteor showers are named after the constellation they appear to be coming from.
- The Leonids originate from the constellation Leo the Lion– the groups of stars that form a lion’s mane.
- They emerge from the comet Tempel-Tuttle, which requires 33 years to revolve once around the Sun.
- These meteors are bright and among the fastest moving– travelling at speeds of 71 km per second.
- During this year’s showers, peaks of around 10 to 15 meteors are expected to be seen every hour.
- The Leonid showers include fireballs– bright and large meteors than can last longer than average meteors, and “earthgazers”– meteors which appear close to the horizon with colourful and long tails.
What is a meteor shower?
- On its journey around the Sun, the Earth passes through large swathes of cosmic debris.
- The debris is essentially the remnants of comets — great frigid chunks of matter that leave behind dirty trails of rocks and ice that linger long after the comets themselves have passed.
- As the Earth wades through this cloud of comet waste, the bits of debris create what appears from the ground to be a fireworks display in the sky — known as a meteor shower.
- Several meteor showers can be seen around the year. According to NASA, over 30 meteor showers occur annually and are observable from the Earth.
Back2Basics:
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Froth Formation
Mains level: Not Much
The visuals of devotees taking a dip in the froth-filled waters of the Yamuna River sent chills down the spine of the residents of Delhi.
What is Froth Formation?
- This is a phenomenon that takes place on many lakes and streams.
- Foam bubbles are produced when organic matter decomposes.
- These foam-producing molecules have one end that repels water and another that attracts water and they work to reduce the surface tension on the surface of the water.
- These foam bubbles are lighter than water, so they float on the surface as a thin film that gradually accumulates.
What causes the froth?
- The presence of phosphates and surfactants in untreated sewage from Delhi, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh is a major reason behind frothing.
- While these two components comprise of 1 per cent, the remaining 99 percent is air and water.
What are the sources of pollution that cause foam formation?
- Untreated sewage may contain soap-detergent particles.
- The other sources are industrial effluents, organic matter from decomposing vegetation, and the presence of filamentous bacteria.
- The pollution from the sugar and paper industries in Uttar Pradesh also causes pollution in the Yamuna.
What are its health hazards?
- Short-term exposure can lead to skin irritation and allergies.
- If ingested, these chemicals may cause gastrointestinal problems and diseases like typhoid.
- Long-term exposure to heavy metals in industrial pollutants can cause neurological issues and hormonal imbalances.
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