Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: New York Convention
Mains level: Not Much
Cairn Energy has filed a case in a U.S. district court to enforce a $1.2 billion arbitration award it won in a tax dispute against India. Cairn aims to enforce the award under international arbitration rules, commonly called the New York Convention.
New York Convention
- The Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards is commonly known as the New York Convention.
- It was adopted by a UN diplomatic conference on 10 June 1958 and entered into force on 7 June 1959.
- It requires courts of contracting states to give effect to private agreements to arbitrate and to recognize and enforce arbitration awards made in other contracting states.
- Widely considered the foundational instrument for international arbitration, it applies to arbitrations that are not considered domestic awards in the state where recognition and enforcement are sought.
What was the case?
- The Indian government has lost an international arbitration case to energy giant Cairn Plc over the retrospective levy of taxes and has been asked to pay damages worth $1.2 billion to the UK firm.
- The Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague has maintained that the Cairn tax issue is not a tax dispute but a tax-related investment dispute and, hence, it falls under its jurisdiction.
- India’s demand in past taxes, it said, was in breach of fair treatment under the UK-India Bilateral Investment Treaty.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MBT Arjun
Mains level: India's artillery capability
PM has recently handed over the indigenously developed Arjun Main Battle Tank (MK-1A) to the Indian Army.
Q.Discuss India’s preparedness for high-altitude warfare.
Arjun Main Battle Tank
- The Arjun Main Battle Tank project was initiated by DRDO in 1972 with the Combat Vehicles Research and Development Establishment (CVRDE) as its lead laboratory.
- The objective was to create a “state-of-the-art tank with superior firepower, high mobility, and excellent protection”.
- During the development, the CVRDE achieved breakthroughs in the engine, transmission, hydro-pneumatic suspension, hull and turret as well as the gun control system.
- Mass production began in 1996 at the Indian Ordnance Factory’s production facility in Avadi, Tamil Nadu.
Features of the Arjun tank
- The Arjun tanks stand out for their ‘Fin Stabilised Armour Piercing Discarding Sabot (FSAPDS)’ ammunition and 120-mm calibre rifled gun.
- It also has a computer-controlled integrated fire control system with a stabilised sighting that works in all lighting conditions.
- The secondary weapons include a co-axial 7.62-mm machine gun for anti-personnel and a 12.7-mm machine gun for anti-aircraft and ground targets.
How is Mk-1A different?
- The Mk-1A version has 14 major upgrades on the earlier version.
- It is also supposed to have missile firing capability as per the design, but this feature will be added later as final testing of the capability is still on.
- However, the biggest achievement with the latest version is 54.3 per cent indigenous content against the 41 per cent in the earlier model.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mahabahu-Brahmaputra
Mains level: Infrastructure in NE
PM will launch the ‘Mahabahu-Brahmaputra’, lay the foundation stone of Dhubri Phulbari Bridge and perform Bhumi Pujan for construction of Majuli Bridge Assam.
Click here to read all North-East related news.
Mahabahu-Brahmaputra
- The program is aimed at providing seamless connectivity to the Eastern parts of India and includes various development activities for the people living around River Brahmaputra and River Barak.
- It will consist of the Ro-Pax vessel operations between Neamati-Majuli Island, North Guwahati-South Guwahati and Dhubri-Hatsingimari.
- The Ro-Pax services will help in reducing the travel time by providing connectivity between banks and thus reducing the distance to be travelled by road.
- PANI (Portal for Asset and Navigation Information) will act as a one-stop solution for providing information about river navigation and infrastructure.
Dhubri Phulbari Bridge
- PMwill lay the foundation stone for the four-lane bridge over the Brahmaputra between Dhubri (on North Bank) and Phulbari (on South Bank).
- The proposed Bridge will be located on NH-127B, originating from Srirampur on NH-27 (East-West Corridor), and terminating at Nongstoin on NH-106 in the State of Meghalaya.
- It will connect Dhubri in Assam to Phulbari, Tura, Rongram and Rongjeng in Meghalaya.
- It will reduce the distance of 205 Km to be travelled by Road to 19 Km, which is the total length of the bridge.
Majuli Bridge
- PM will perform Bhumi Pujan for the two-lane Bridge on the Brahmaputra between Majuli (North Bank) and Jorhat (South Bank).
- The bridge will be located on NH-715K and will connect Neematighat (on Jorhat side) and Kamalabari (on Majuli side).
- The Construction of the bridge has been a long demand of the people of Majuli who for generations have been dependent on the ferry services to connect with the mainland of Assam.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ISDS
Mains level: Paper 3- Termination of BITs and its implications for India
The article examine the termination of agreement for the development of East Container Terminal by Sri Lanka in the context of unilateral termination of bilateral investment treaties by India.
Context
- Recently, Sri Lanka terminated 2019 agreement with India and Japan that aimed to jointly develop the strategic East Container Terminal (ECT) at the Colombo port.
- Apart from analysing the diplomatic fallout of this problematic decision for India-Sri Lanka ties, the issue also needs to be looked at through the prism of the India-Sri Lanka bilateral investment treaty (BIT).
India-Sri Lanka BIT and its termination
- In 1997, India and Sri Lanka signed a BIT to promote and protect foreign investment in each other’s territories.
- It empowers individual foreign investors to directly sue the host state before an international tribunal if the investor believes that the host state has breached its treaty obligations.
- This is known as investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS).
- Article 3(2) of this treaty provides that investments and returns of investors of each country shall, at all times, be accorded fair and equitable treatment (FET) in the other country’s territory.
- The normative content of the FET provision has been fleshed out by scores of ISDS tribunals in the last two decades.
- The tribunals have persistently held that an important component of the FET provision is that the host state should protect the legitimate expectations of foreign investors.
- In a case known as International Thunderbird Gaming Corporation v Mexico, it was held that the concept of legitimate expectations relates to a situation where the host state’s conduct creates reasonable and justifiable expectations on the part of an investor (or investment) to act in reliance on said conduct, such that a failure to honour those expectations could cause the investor (or investment) to suffer damages.
- Sri Lanka, by signing the agreement to jointly develop the ECT at the Colombo port, created such expectations on the part of Indian investors.
- However, the twist in the tale is that India unilaterally terminated the India-Sri Lanka BIT on March 22, 2017.
- This termination was part of the mass repudiation of BITs that India undertook in 2017 as a result of several ISDS claims being brought against it.
- In cases of such unilateral termination, survival clauses in BITs assume significance because they ensure that foreign investment continues to receive protection during the survival period.
- But, in the case of the investment in developing the ECT at the Colombo port, this survival clause will be inconsequential, since the agreement was signed in 2019, i.e., after India unilaterally terminated the BIT.
Important lessons
- As a consequence of the onslaught of ISDS claims in the last few years, India has developed a protectionist approach towards BITs.
- However, an important attribute that perhaps has not received much attention is that BITs are reciprocal.
- BITs do not empower merely foreign investors to sue India, but also authorise Indian investors to make use of BITs to safeguard their investment in turbulent foreign markets.
- Accordingly, given India’s emergence as an exporter, and not just an importer of capital, the government should revisit its stand on BITs.
Consider the question “Examine the implications of unilateral termination of bilateral investment treaties(BITs) by India.”
Conlcusion
India needs to adopt a balanced approach towards BITs with an effective ISDS provision. This will facilitate Indian investors in defending their investment under international law should a country, like Sri Lanka, renege on an agreement.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vivad se Vishwas scheme
Mains level: Paper 3- Measures adopted for increasing transparency and compliance in taxation.
Article explains the measures adopted in the Budget 2021-22 for increasing compliance and transparency.
Maintaining the status quo
- COVID-19 has upset fiscal maths around the world.
- It is in this context that the Union budget assumed significance this year.
- The expectations of tax breaks were rife on the presumption that this could boost economic activity.
- Whereas others called for a tax on stock market gains.
- Unyielding to such requests, the budget was based on a pragmatic approach to maintain the status quo.
Why higher tax rates would not help much
- Nearly 60 per cent of corporate taxes are paid by the 0.06 per cent of the companies belonging to the top income bracket.
- On the other hand, among individual taxpayers, only 0.17 per cent report taxable incomes above Rs 25 lakh.
- Therefore, higher taxes would either yield little revenue or adversely affect economic activity.
Need to shift focus to compliance and greater transparency
- For increasing compliance and transparency, significant proposals have been made:
- 1) Limited the window for reopening the case to 3 years.
- 2) The introduction of the requirement for an assessment officer to provide facts on the basis of which he/she re-assesses.
- 3) The faceless Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT).
- By making the process of assessment faceless the major causes for litigation are addressed.
- The limited window of re-opening cases for small taxpayers and due consideration of risk management strategy and the CAG’s observations in carrying out such assessments marks an improvement in the process.
Dispute resolution mechanism with better interface
- The Vivad se Vishwas scheme was launched in 2020 to address piling litigation and it is reported that collections under this scheme have been Rs 85,000 crore for 1,10,000 taxpayers.
- This is a small fraction as compared to the Rs 4.34 lakh crore in corporate taxes and Rs 4.49 lakh crore in income taxes that are locked in dispute.
- Therefore, a dispute resolution mechanism that allows for better interface between the taxpayer and the department may, in fact, be relatively beneficial.
Consider the question “Examine the reasons for small tax base in India. Examine the measures adopted in the Budget 2021-22 for increasing compliance and transparency.”
Conclusion
The budget estimates suggest that corporate tax and income tax collections are expected to increase by 22 per cent. With an expected growth rate of 14 per cent in nominal GDP, the remaining gains in taxes are presumably expected from higher compliance or realisation of taxes due. Whether this will pan out remains to be seen.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- How governments are dealing with the dominance of social media
The article discusses the issue of growing influence of social media companies and response of the governments.
Issues with the growing influence of social media companies
- In the US the last two general elections in 2016 and 2020 have seen strong charges of political manipulation by social media companies.
- But influence of social media companies is not limited ot elections, it envelops a range of domestic and international issues.
- These issuesincludes: the concentration of economic power, individual rights against the state as well as the corporation, disinformation, the rise of digital geopolitics, and global digital governance.
How governments are responding
- Democratic forces need to consult each other and collaborate in developing new norms for managing the digital world.
- In the US, both the left and right are demanding that digital behemoths like Amazon, Google, Facebook and Twitter are brought under greater control if not broken up.
- Last December, the European Commission proposed new rules to promote competition and fairness in digital markets.
- The EU is likely to approve a Digital Markets Act next year.
- Australia has decreed that Google must work out an arrangement with Australian newspapers to pay for the use of their content.
- The current digital giants, however, are not easily amenable to political attack.
- They are bigger than the biggest we have known.
3 Issues with business practices of social media companies
- Governments are now questioning the sharp business practices of the tech giants especially labour rights, taxes and politics.
- While the tech giants have created a lot of new wealth, some of them have sharply squeezed the labour.
- In California, trade unions are battling against the success of Uber and Lyft to turn employees into “contract workers” to deny them multiple benefits.
- Digital giants have been aggressive tax evaders.
- On the political front recently,Twitter and Facebook shut down President Donald Trump’s accounts.
- European leaders raised important questions about social media’s actions against Trump.
Way forward
- Answer to deal with social media on political front lies in laying down a clear set of obligations and responsibilities for the digital giants.
- This move will help in building digital sovereignty.
- The world’s democracies must get together to discuss global digital governance.
Consider the question “What are the challenges posed by the growing influence of social media companies in the democratic countries?”
Conclusion
As governments push back against big tech, a new challenge presents itself — reining in the growing power of the state in the digital age. The answer lies in democracies modernising their laws to protect freedoms in the era of technological transformation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Geospatial data
Mains level: Benefits of the liberalized scheme
In sweeping changes to the country’s mapping policy, the government has announced liberalisation of norms governing the acquisition and production of geospatial data.
Q.What do you mean by Geo-Spatial Data? What are its economic and strategic significance?
What is the news?
- The Ministry of Science and Technology has released new guidelines for the Geo-spatial sector in India.
- It deregulated the existing protocol and liberalizes the sector to a more competitive field.
What is a Geo-Spatial Data?
- Geospatial data is data about objects, events, or phenomena that have a location on the surface of the earth.
- The location may be static in the short-term, like the location of a road, an earthquake event, malnutrition among children, or dynamic like a moving vehicle or pedestrian, the spread of an infectious disease.
- Geospatial data combines location information, attribute information, and often also temporal information or the time at which the location and attributes exist.
- Geo-spatial data usually involves information of public interest such as roads, localities, rail lines, water bodies, and public amenities.
- The past decade has seen an increase in the use of geospatial data in daily life with various apps such as food delivery apps like Swiggy or Zomato, e-commerce like Amazon or even weather apps.
What is the present policy on geospatial data?
- There are strict restrictions on the collection, storage, use, sale, dissemination of geo-spatial data and mapping under the current regime.
- The policy had not been renewed in decades and has been driven by internal as well as external security concerns.
- Private companies need to navigate a system of permissions from different departments of the government as well as the defence and Home Ministries, to be able to collect, create or disseminate geospatial data.
Why has the government deregulated geospatial data?
- This system of acquiring licenses or permission, and the red tape involved, can take months, delaying projects, especially those that are in mission mode – for both Indian companies as well as government agencies.
- The deregulation eliminates the requirement of permissions as well as scrutiny, even for security concerns.
- Indian companies now can self-attest, conforming to government guidelines without actually having to be monitored by a government agency- these guidelines, therefore, place a great deal of trust in Indian entities.
- There is also a huge lack of data in the country which impedes planning for infrastructure, development and businesses which are data-based.
- The mapping of the entire country that too with high accuracy, by the Indian government alone could take decades.
- The government, therefore, felt an urgent need to incentivise the geospatial sector for Indian companies and increased investment from private players in the sector.
- Large amounts of geospatial data are also available on global platforms, which makes the regulation of data that is freely available in other countries, untenable.
What next?
- While for decades, geospatial data has been a priority for strategic reasons and for internal and external security concerns.
- This priority has seen a shift in the past 15 years – geospatial data has now become imperative for the government in planning for infrastructure, development, social development as well as the economy.
- More and more sectors such as agriculture, environment protection, power, water, transportation, communication, health (tracking of diseases, patients, hospitals etc) are relying heavily on this data.
- There has also been a global push for open access to geospatial as it affects the lives of ordinary citizens.
Expected impacts
- By liberalizing the system, the government will ensure more players in the field, the competitiveness of Indian companies in the global market, and more accurate data available to both the government to formulate plans and administer, but also for individual Indians.
- Startups and businesses can now also use this data in setting up their concerns, especially in the sector of e-commerce or geospatial based apps – which in turn will increase employment in these sectors.
- Indian companies will be able to develop indigenous apps, for example, an Indian version of Google maps.
- There is also likely to be an increase in public-private partnerships with the opening of this sector with data collection companies working with the Indian government on various sectoral projects.
- The government also expects an increase in investment in the geospatial sector by companies, and also an increase in export of data to foreign companies and countries, which in turn will boost the economy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Impact of fuel prices on inflation
Mains level: Global oil price dynamics
Diesel and petrol prices have hit record highs across the country.
Govt explanation
- The government reasons that global crude oil prices have risen by more than 50 per cent to over $63.3 per barrel since October, forcing oil retailers to increase pump prices.
- That, however, is only partly true.
- Indian consumers are already paying much higher than what they were paying last January, even though crude prices are yet to reach levels of early last year.
Note: Petrol and diesel do not come under the purview of goods and services tax (GST).
Fuel price dynamics in India
- Retail petrol and diesel prices are in theory decontrolled — or linked to global crude oil prices.
- It means that if crude prices fall retails prices should come down too, and vice versa.
- But this does not happen in practice, largely because oil price decontrol is a one-way street in India.
- When global crude oil prices fall and prices slide, the government slaps fresh taxes and levies to ensure that it rakes in extra revenues.
- The consumer should have ideally benefited by way of lower pump prices, is forced to either shell out what she’s already paying or spend even more for every litre of fuel.
- The main beneficiary in this subversion of price decontrol is the government.
Why crude oil prices are rising now?
- Prices collapsed in April 2020 after the pandemic spread around the world, and demand fell away.
- But as economies have reduced travel restrictions and factory output has picked up, global demand has improved, and prices have been recovering.
- The controlled production of crude amid rising demand has been another key factor in boosting oil prices, with Saudi Arabia voluntarily cutting its daily output.
What is the impact of taxes on retail prices of auto fuels?
- The central government hiked the central excise duty on petrol to Rs 32.98 per litre during the course of last year from Rs 19.98 per litre at the beginning of 2020.
- It increased the excise duty on diesel to Rs 31.83 per litre from Rs 15.83 over the same period to boost revenues as economic activity fell due to the pandemic.
- A number of states have also hiked sales tax on petrol and diesel to shore up their revenues.
How much tax do we pay now?
Currently, state and central taxes amount to around 180 per cent of the base price of petrol and 141 per cent of the base price of diesel in Delhi.
How will these hikes impact inflation?
- Experts note that the impact of rising fuel inflation has been counterbalanced by declining food inflation, but that consumers with greater expenditure on travel are feeling the pinch of higher prices.
- Rising fuel inflation may pinch consumers who have to travel further for work and have access to affordable cereals etc.
- The urban population would be more impacted by rising fuel prices than the rural population — however, a weak monsoon may lead to rural India being hit as farmers are forced to rely more on diesel-powered irrigation.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Dickinsonia, Bhimbetka
Mains level: Geological time scale
Bhimbetka, which has yielded a fossil of Dickinsonia dating back about 550 million years, is the first time the particular fossilized organism has been recorded in India.
Why does this fossil matter?
- It dates back to an era regarded as the precursor to the explosion of life on earth during the Cambrian period.
- Thus it puts India firmly on the map for studies of the Ediacaran era along with Australia and Russia.
Here’s what makes the discovery a global milestone:
(a) Ediacaran Period
- The finding gives lead about the earliest living species during a period of the earth’s history known as the Ediacaran, named after the Ediacara Hills in South Australia.
- This is the period in Earth’s history when Dickinsonia and several multicellular organisms existed.
- It was approximately 635 million years ago (Ma) and 541 Ma, with the living creatures of the era, called vendobionts.
Now take this opportunity to revise the Geological time scale from your NCERTs. Try differentiating between different era, periods and epoch.
(b) India’s Proximity to Australia
- Studies of the rock characteristics in and around Bhimbetka show that they share several characteristics with rocks in Australia.
- Dickinsonia fossils from India were found by the scientists to be identical to the Rawnsley Quartzite in South Australia.
- This provides evidence of their age and the proximity of the two landmasses in Gondwanaland in that era.
- The evidence however did not support reconstructions adjusted for the polar wander phenomenon [which involves motion of continents over geologic time and its impacts].
Use of Zircon dating
- The age of fossil rock is determined using Zircon isotopes.
- Zircon dating of the youngest Maihar sandstone in Madhya Pradesh puts its age at 548 Ma.
- The lower Bhander group in the Son and Chambal valleys yielded an isotope-derived age for limestones ranging from 978 Ma to 1073 Ma, situating it in the older Tonian period.
- The Ediacaran period was the precursor to the Cambrian (about 541 Ma to 485.4 Ma) when the earth witnessed an explosion of life forms and much of which makes up modern animal life today.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sandes
Mains level: Secured instant messaging
The National Informatics Centre (NIC) has launched an instant messaging platform called Sandes on the lines of WhatsApp. Open initially only to government officers, it has now been released for the common public as well.
Features of Sandes Platform
- The instant messaging app, called Sandes, has an interface similar to many other apps currently available in the market.
- Like WhatsApp, the new NIC platform can be used for all kinds of communications by anyone with a mobile number or email id.
- Although there is no option to transfer the chat history between two platforms, the chats on government instant messaging systems or GIMS can be backed up to a users’ email.
- It also offers features such as group making, broadcast message, message forwarding and emojis.
- Further, as an additional safety feature, it allows a user to mark a message as confidential, which will allow the recipient to be made aware the message should not be shared with others.
Why need such instant messaging platform?
- Following the nationwide lockdown, the government felt the need to build a platform to ensure secure communication between its employees as they worked from home.
- The idea for a secure communication network dedicated exclusively to government employees has been in the works for the past four years.
- In August 2020, the NIC released the first version of the app, which said that the app could be used by both central and state government officials for intra and inter-organisation communication.
- The app was initially launched for Android users and then the service was extended to iOS users.
Limitations of the app
- The limitation, however, is that the app does not allow the user to change their email id or registered phone number.
- The user will have to re-register as a new user in case they wish to change their registered email id or phone number on the app.
Do you remember?
[Burning Issue] WhatsApp Snooping
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: MapmyIndia, Various tools of ISRO
Mains level: Geospatial data and its utilization
The ISRO has joined hands with MapmyIndia to combine their geospatial expertise and build holistic solutions by leveraging their geoportals.
Note various geo-spatial solutions of ISRO mentioned in the newscard.
What is the Project?
- It combines the power of MapmyIndia’s digital maps and technologies with ISRO’s catalogue of satellite imagery and earth observation data.
- Indian users would not be dependent on foreign organisations for maps, navigation and geospatial services, and leverage made-in-India solutions instead.
Various components
The collaboration will enable them to jointly identify and build holistic geospatial solutions utilising the ISRO’s earth observation datasets such as-
- IRNSS (Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System) called NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation, is India’s own navigation system, developed by ISRO.
- Bhuvan is the national geo-portal developed and hosted by ISRO comprising geospatial data, services and tools for analysis.
- VEDAS (Visualization of Earth observation Data and Archival System) is an online geo-processing platform using an optical, microwave, thermal and hyperspectral EO data covering applications particularly meant for academia, research and problem solving, according to ISRO.
- MOSDAC (Meteorological and Oceanographic Satellite Data Archival Centre)is a data repository for all the meteorological missions of ISRO and deals with weather-related information, oceanography and tropical water cycles.
About MapmyIndia
- MapmyIndia is an Indian technology company that builds digital map data, telematics services, location-based SaaS (Software as a service) and GIS AI services.
- The company was founded in 1992 and is headquartered at New Delhi with regional offices in Mumbai and Bengaluru and smaller offices across India.
- Its map covers all 7.5 lakh villages, 7500+ cities at street and building-level, connected by all 63 lakh kilometres of road network pan India and within cities, in total providing maps for an unparalleled 3+ crore places across India.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Giant Leatherback Turtle
Mains level: Not Much
Proposals for tourism and port development in the Andaman and Nicobar (A&N) Islands has left conservationists worried over the fate of some of the most important nesting populations of the Giant Leatherback turtle.
What is the news?
- There is concern that at least three key nesting beaches — two on Little Andaman Island and one on Great Nicobar Island — are under threat due to mega “development” plans announced in recent months.
- These include NITI Aayog’s ambitious tourism vision for Little Andaman and the proposal for a mega-shipment port at Galathea Bay on Great Nicobar Island.
Giant Leatherback Turtle
IUCN status: Vulnerable
- The largest of the seven species of sea turtles on the planet and also the most long-ranging, Leatherbacks are found in all oceans except the Arctic and the Antarctic.
- Within the Indian Ocean, they nest only in Indonesia, Sri Lanka and the A&N Islands.
- They are also listed in Schedule I of India’s Wildlife Protection Act, 1972, according it the highest legal protection.
- The population in A&N Islands is among the most important colonies of the Leatherback globally.
About Galathea Bay
- The Galathea Bay is adjacent to Galathea National Park in Great Nicobar Island.
- It was earlier proposed as a wildlife sanctuary in 1997 for the protection of turtles and was also the site of a long-term monitoring programme.
- The monitoring was stopped after the tsunami devastation of 2004, but it provided the first systematic evidence of numbers and importance of these beaches.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Finance Commission and its recommendations
Mains level: Paper 2- Fifteenth Finance Commission report and federalism
The article analyses the recommendations of fifteenth Finance Commission and their implications for the federalism in India.
Major recommendations accepted by the government
- Report of the fifteenth Finance Commission (XVFC) was laid before the Parliament.
- The finance minister announced the acceptance of its recommendation of retaining the share of states in central taxes at 42 per cent.
- She also stated that on its recommendation revenue deficit grants of Rs 1.18 lakh crore to the states have been provided for in the budget.
- Some of the recommendations, however, have far-reaching implications on government finances, both of the Centre and the states.
- Keeping in view the extant strategic requirements for national defence in a global context, XVFC has, in its approach, recalibrated the relative shares of the Union and the states in gross revenues receipts.
Issues with the recalibration for national defence
- Recalibration enables the Union to set aside resources for special funding on defence.
- The states have been made to pay Rs 7,000 crore to bridge [the] Centre’s gap between projected budgetary requirements and budget allocation for defence and internal security defence.
- But this is an expenditure that the Centre is obliged to fund.
- For the first time, a finance commission has carved out resources meant for distributable statutory grants and dipped into the states’ revenue share, as against the tax share, in order to finance the Centre’s exclusive expenditure obligation.
- What has been done is not in line with the system envisaged in the Constitution.
- This move will eventually put the fiscal federal system under systemic strain.
- In operational terms, too, this move is a significant departure.
- So far, the Centre has been used to pre-empting resources from the kitty to be distributed among the states but only to finance expenditures in areas earmarked for states.
- This was done through the centrally-sponsored schemes, but at least the states’ money was being used in the states, even if on a discretionary rather than a criteria basis.
- Now, with this move of earmarking and financing of funds for sectors, it is the states’ money that is being used to finance the Centre’s expenditure.
- This is certainly not cooperative federalism.
Changes in horizontal distribution: More weightage to efficiency and performance
- In horizontal distribution, the criteria used by successive finance commissions for devolving taxes across states have always been linked to need — based on equity, tempered by efficiency.
- From 92.5 per cent of funds to a state being devolved based on need and equity, the XVFC has reduced these two components to 75 per cent.
- The remaining 25 per cent are to be devolved on considerations of efficiency and performance.
- This is the lowest weightage for equity, making the XVFC transfers potentially the least progressive ever.
Structural changes not taken into account
- The Finance Commission has not even made any serious effort to review the existing scheme of transfers in light of the changed federal landscape.
- The existing criteria for the devolution have evolved in, and for, a production-based tax system.
- The XVFC should have reformulated the distributional criteria for a consumption-based tax system [GST].
- The structural change from production to consumption will make a significant difference to distribution as well as the need, nature and distribution of equalising grants.
- This is the same manner in which the revenue deficit grants have been carried forward.
- Ideally, the “gap-filling” approach should have been redesigned in light of the compensation law providing a minimum-guaranteed revenue of 14 per cent to every state.
Consider the question “For the first time, a finance commission has carved out resources meant for distributable statutory grants and dipped into the states’ revenue share, as against the tax share, in order to finance the Centre’s exclusive expenditure obligation. What are the issues with this move?”
Conclusion
The Fifteenth Finance Commission report is not aligned with the new landscape of federalism and does not address the key issues.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Agri-marketing reforms and water accounting to solve the problems of agriculture
China and Israel offer two important lessons for India to transform its agriculture: agri-market reforms and water accounting.
Lessons from Israel and China
- India, China and Israel — started off their new political journey in late 1940s, but today China’s per capita income in dollar terms is almost five times that of India, and Israel’s almost 20 times higher than India.
- China produces three times more agri-output than India from a smaller arable area.
- China started off its economic reforms in 1978 by taking up agriculture first.
- It dismantled its commune system of land holdings and liberated agri-markets that allowed farmers to get much higher prices.
- As a result, in 1978-84, farmers’ incomes in China increased by almost 14 per cent per annum, more than doubling in six years.
- Israel cultivates high-value crops for exports (citrus fruits, dates, olives) by using every drop of water and recycling urban waste water for agriculture, by de-salinisation of sea waters.
- Water accounting in Israel is something exemplary.
Need for agri-reform in India
- The average holding size in China was just 0.9 ha in 2016-18, smaller than India’s 1.08 ha in 2015-16.
- So there is no doubt that small holders can do wonders, if they are given the right incentives, good infrastructure and research support, and the right institutional framework to operate.
- In India, the 1991 reforms did not include agriculture.
- Indian agri-food policies remained more consumer-oriented with a view to protect the poor.
- Export controls, stocking limits on traders, movement restrictions, etc all continued at the hint of any price rise.
- The net result of all this was farmers’ incomes remained low and so did those of landless agri-labourers.
Way forward
- India needs to change its policy framework from being subsidy-led to investment-driven, from being consumer-oriented to producer-oriented, and from being supply-oriented to demand-driven by linking farms with factories and foreign markets, and, finally, from being business as usual to an innovations-centred system.
- Until India breaks away from the policy of free power for agriculture, there would be no incentive for farmers to save water.
- In a state like Punjab where almost 80 per cent of blocks are over-exploited or critical, meaning the withdrawal of water is much more than the recharge.
- Highly subsidised urea and open-ended procurement have become a deadly cocktail that are eating away the natural wealth of Punjab.
- Out-of-box thinking is needed to break this regressive cycle for a brighter future for Punjab, for our own children.
Consider the question “What are the implications of subsidy oriented policies for Indian agriculture.”
Conclusion
Lessons from China and Israel suggest that India need reform in agri-food policies and water accounting to address several issues plaguing agriculture.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Interstate boundary disputes in India
Andhra Pradesh recently held panchayat elections in three villages in the Kotia cluster, which is at the centre of a dispute between Andhra Pradesh and Odisha.
Do you know?
Sukma district of Chhattisgarh borders with Odisha (Malkangiri district), Telangana (Bhadradri Kothagudem district) and Andhra Pradesh (East Godavari district).
You got it right. Thers’ a junction. AP and Telangana , both borders with Chhattisgarh.
Andhra-Odisha Boundary Dispute
- Prior to April 1, 1936, villages under Kotia panchayat were part of Jeypore Estate.
- In the Constitution of Orrisa Order, 1936, published in the Gazette of India on March 19 that year, the GoI demarcated Odisha from the erstwhile Madras Presidency.
- In 1942, the Madras government contested the boundary and ordered re-demarcation of the two states.
- When the state of Andhra Pradesh was created in 1955, the villages were not surveyed by the state government either.
Details of the villages
- These villages, with a population of nearly 5,000, are located on a remote hilltop on the inter-state border and are inhabited by Kondh tribals.
- The region, once a Maoist hotbed which still reports sporadic incidents of violence, is also rich in mineral resources like gold, platinum, manganese, bauxite, graphite and limestone.
What is the judicial reaction?
- In the early 1980s, Odisha filed a case in the Supreme Court demanding right and possession of jurisdiction over the 21 villages.
- In 2006 the court ruled that disputes belonging to the state boundaries are not within the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court.
- The matter can only be resolved by Parliament and passed a permanent injunction on the disputed area.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not Much
Mains level: Migration trends in India
This newscard presents data on India’s internal migration considering the mass exodus which was visible during the lockdowns.
The displacement of people during the imposition of lockdown has been described as the second-largest since the Partition of the country.
Also read:
[Burning Issue] Migrant workers amid COVID-19 outbreak
India’s internal migration
(1) Number of migrants
- As of 2020, India has an estimated 600 million migrants. Roughly half of India is living in a place where it wasn’t born.
- It would be roughly double the size of the fourth-largest nation on the planet — the United States.
(2) Nature of migration
- The bulk of the internal migration in India is within one district itself. An estimated 400 million Indians “migrate” within the district they live in.
- The next 140 million migrate from one district to another but within the same state.
- And only about 60 million — that is, just 10% of all internal migrants — move from one state to another.
(3) Type of Migration
- There are other misconceptions as well. Typically, it is thought that most migration happens when people from rural areas move to urban areas.
- That is incorrect. The most dominant form of migration is from rural to rural areas.
- Only about 20% of the total migration (600 million) is from rural to urban areas.
- In fact, 20% of the total migration is from one urban area to another urban area.
- As such, urban migration (rural to urban as well as urban to urban) accounts for 40% of the total migration.
(4) Comparison with other countries
- India’s proportion of internal migrants (as a percentage of the overall population) is much lower than some of the comparable countries such as Russia, China, South Africa and Brazil.
- All have much higher urbanisation ratios, which is a proxy for migration level.
- In other words, as India adopts a strategy of rapid urbanisation, levels of internal migration will increase further.
Impact of COVID
The reality of a migrant worker’s existence is much more complicated than those sharply defined numbers.
Not all migrants were equally affected
- The worst-hit were a class of migrants that felt under the group “vulnerable circular migrants”.
- These are people who are “vulnerable” because of their weak position in the job market and “circular” migrants because even though they work in urban settings, they continue to have a foothold in the rural areas.
- Such migrants work in construction sites or small factories or as rickshaw pullers in the city but when such employment avenues dwindle, they go back to their rural setting.
- In other words, they are part of the informal economy outside agriculture.
“Data insufficient”
- The truth is that even now all the estimates mentioned above are individual estimates.
- The official data — be it the Census or the National Sample Survey — is more than a decade old.
- In fact, Census 2011 migration data was made publicly available only in 2019.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mechanophotonics, Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)
Mains level: Not Much
Crystals are normally rigid, stiff structures, but researchers from the University of Hyderabad have shown how crystals can be sliced and even bent using atomic force microscopy. They have named this technique as “mechanophotonics”.
The newscard discusses an out of the box technology which if brought to reality in practical use, can create immense disruptions in the technology market.
Manipulating light through crystals
- Manipulating them with precision and control comes in very useful in the field of nanophotonics, a qualitative, emerging field.
- The aim is to go beyond electronics and build-up circuits driven entirely by photons (light).
If the technique can be successfully developed, this can achieve an unprecedented level of miniaturisation and pave the way to all-optical-technology such as pliable, wearable devices operated by light entirely.
What Indian researchers have achieved?
: Bending light path
- Light, when left to itself moves along straight paths, so it is crucial to develop materials and technology that can cause its path to bend along what is required in the circuits.
- This is like using fibre optics, but at the nanoscale level using organic crystals.
- The Hyderabad group has demonstrated how such crystals can be lifted, bent moved, transferred and sliced using atomic force microscopy.
: How?
- Researchers add a crucial piece to the jigsaw puzzle of building an “organic photonic integrated circuit” or OPIC.
- Generally, millimetre- to centimetre-long crystals were bent using hand-held tweezers.
- This method lacks precision and control. Also, the crystals used were larger than what was required for miniaturisation.
- The atomic force microscopy (AFM) cantilever tip could be used to lift a crystal, as crystals tend to stick to the tip due to tip–crystal attractive forces.
- Thus they demonstrated the real waveguiding character of the crystal lifted with a cantilever tip.
In 2014, for the first time, the group led by Rajadurai Chandrasekar of the Functional Molecular Nano/Micro Solids Laboratory in University of Hyderabad demonstrated that tiny crystals could be lifted and moved with precision and control using atomic force microscopy.
What is Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM)?
- AFMs are a type of electron microscope used for the observation at an atomic level.
- It is commonly used in nanotechnology.
- The AFM works by employing an ultra-fine needle attached to a beam.
- The tip of the needle runs over the ridges and valleys in the material being imaged, “feeling” the surface.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: nORF
Mains level: Not Much
A team from the University of Cambridge set out to find whether new genes emerge in the genome of living organisms and if they do, how they do so. They have now catalogued 1,94,000 novel regions.
Genes/Genomes/DNA/RNA is all-time favourite of UPSC. You can easily find 1-2 questions every year since 2017 in Prelims.
Novel genomic regions
- The ‘novel’ genomic regions cannot be defined by our current ‘definition’ of a gene.
- Hence, researchers call these novel regions – novel Open Reading Frames or as nORFs.
- Researchers found that the mutations in nORFs do have physiological consequences and a majority of mutations that are often annotated as benign have to be re-interpreted.
What novel did the researchers find?
- nORF regions were uniquely present in the cancer tissues and not present in the control tissue.
- They found that some nORF disruptions strongly correlated with the survival of patients.
- nORFs proteins can form structures, can undergo biochemical regulation like known proteins and be targeted by drugs in case they are disrupted in diseases.
- The researchers also identified these nORFs in Plasmodium falciparum, the parasite which causes the deadliest form of malaria.
Connected to disease
- The research found that these regions are also broadly involved in diseases.
- The nORFs were seen as dysregulated in 22 cancer types.
- Dysregulated is a term which means that they could either be mutated, upregulated, or downregulated, or they could be uniquely present.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Malwares
Mains level: Cyber attacks and the treats posed to national security
This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in The Hindu.
Try this question from CSP 2018:
Q.The terms ‘WannaCry, Petya, Eternal Blue’ sometimes mentioned news recently are related to
(a) Exoplanets
(b) Crypto currency
(c) Cyber attacks
(d) Mini satellites
What is NetWire?
- NetWire, which first surfaced in 2012, is a well-known malware.
- It is also one of the most active ones around.
- It is a remote access Trojan, or RAT, which gives control of the infected system to an attacker. Such malware can log keystrokes and compromise passwords.
Threats posed
- This malware essentially does two things:
- One is data exfiltration, which means stealing data. Most anti-virus software is equipped to prevent this.
- The other involves infiltrating a system, and this has proven to be far more challenging for anti-virus software.
- NetWire is described as an off-the-shelf malware, while something like Pegasus, which used a bug in WhatsApp to infiltrate users’ phones in 2019, is custom-made and sold to nations.
Back2Basics: Classification of malicious softwares
Viruses
- A computer virus is a type of malware that propagates by inserting a copy of itself into and becoming part of another program.
- It spreads from one computer to another, leaving infections as it travels.
- Viruses can range in severity from causing mildly annoying effects to damaging data or software and causing denial-of-service (DoS) conditions.
- Almost all viruses are attached to an executable file, which means the virus may exist on a system but will not be active or able to spread until a user runs or opens the malicious host file or program.
- When the host code (alternative word for a computer program) is executed, the viral code is executed as well.
Ransomware
- Ransomware is a type of malicious software that threatens to publish the victim’s data or perpetually block access to it unless a ransom is paid.
- While some simple ransomware may lock the system in a way that is not difficult for a knowledgeable person to reverse, more advanced malware uses a technique called cryptoviral extortion.
- This encrypts the victim’s files, making them inaccessible, and demands a ransom payment to decrypt them.
Worms
- Computer worms are similar to viruses in that they replicate functional copies of themselves and can cause the same type of damage.
- In contrast to viruses, which require the spreading of an infected host file, worms are standalone software and do not require a host program or human help to propagate.
- To spread, worms either exploit the vulnerability on the target system or use some kind of social engineering to trick users into executing them.
- A worm enters a computer through a vulnerability in the system and takes advantage of file-transport or information-transport features on the system, allowing it to travel unaided.
- More advanced worms leverage encryption, wipers, and ransomware technologies to harm their targets.
Trojans
- A Trojan is a harmful piece of software that looks legitimate.
- After it is activated, it can achieve any number of attacks on the host, from irritating the user (popping up windows or changing desktops) to damaging the host (deleting files, stealing data, or activating and spreading other malware, such as viruses).
- Trojans are also known to create backdoors to give malicious users access to the system.
- Unlike viruses and worms, Trojans do not reproduce by infecting other files nor do they self-replicate.
- Trojans must spread through user interaction such as opening an email attachment or downloading and running a file from the Internet.
Bots
- “Bot” is derived from the word “robot” and is an automated process that interacts with other network services.
- Bots often automate tasks and provide information or services that would otherwise be conducted by a human being.
- A typical use of bots is to gather information, such as web crawlers, or interact automatically with Instant Messaging (IM), Internet Relay Chat (IRC), or other web interfaces.
- They may also be used to interact dynamically with websites.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Mandarin Duck, Dibru Saikhowa NP
Mains level: Not Much
A rare Mandarin duck was observed floating in the Maguri-Motapung beel (or wetland) in Assam’s Tinsukia district for over a week is spectacular.
Mandarin duck
IUCN status: Least Concerned
- Considered the most beautiful duck in the world, the Mandarin duck, or the (Aix galericulata) was first identified by Swedish botanist, physician and zoologist Carl Linnaeus in 1758.
- The eBird website, a platform that documents birds world over, describes it as a “small-exotic looking bird” native to East Asia.
- It’s very beautiful, with majestic colours and can be spotted from a distance.
Its habitat and breeding
- The migratory duck breeds in Russia, Korea, Japan and northeastern parts of China. It now has established populations in Western Europe and America too.
- In 2018, when a Mandarin duck was spotted in a pond in New York City’s Central Park, it created a flutter among local residents.
- It was recorded in 1902 in Dibru River in the Rongagora area in Tinsukia.
About Maguri beel
- The Maguri Motapung wetland is an Important Bird Area as declared by the Bombay Natural History Society.
- It is located close to the Dibru Saikhowa National Park in Upper Assam.
- The entire ecosystem is very important as it is home to at least 304 bird species, including a number of endemic ones like Black-breasted parrotbill and Marsh babbler.
- In May 2020, the beel was adversely affected by a blowout and fire at an Oil India Limited-owned gas well.
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