Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Privilege Motion
Mains level: Breach of Privilege
A spokesperson of the non-ruling political party has said that he will move a privilege motion against the Health Minister for misleading Parliament that no deaths were reported specifically because of shortage of oxygen.
Breach of Privilege
- Parliamentary privilege refers to the right and immunity enjoyed by legislatures, in which legislators are granted protection against civil or criminal liability for actions done or statements made in the course of their legislative duties.
- The powers, privileges and immunities of either House of the Indian Parliament and of its Members and committees are laid down in Article 105 of the Constitution.
- Article 194 deals with the powers, privileges and immunities of the State Legislatures, their Members and their committees.
What is a privilege motion?
- Parliamentary privileges are certain rights and immunities enjoyed by members of Parliament, individually and collectively, so that they can “effectively discharge their functions”.
- When any of these rights and immunities are disregarded, the offence is called a breach of privilege and is punishable under law of Parliament.
- A notice is moved in the form of a motion by any member of either House against those being held guilty of breach of privilege.
- Each House also claims the right to punish as contempt actions which, while not breach of any specific privilege, are offences against its authority and dignity.
What are the rules governing privilege?
- Rule No 222 in Chapter 20 of the Lok Sabha Rule Book and correspondingly Rule 187 in Chapter 16 of the Rajya Sabha rulebook govern privilege.
- It says that a member may, with the consent of the Speaker or the Chairperson, raise a question involving a breach of privilege either of a member or of the House or of a committee thereof.
- The rules however mandate that any notice should be relating to an incident of recent occurrence and should need the intervention of the House.
- Notices have to be given before 10 am to the Speaker or the Chairperson.
What is the role of the Speaker/Rajya Sabha Chair?
- The Speaker/RS chairperson is the first level of scrutiny of a privilege motion.
- The Speaker/Chair can decide on the privilege motion himself or herself or refer it to the privileges committee of Parliament.
- If the Speaker/Chair gives consent under Rule 222, the member concerned is given an opportunity to make a short statement.
What is the privileges committee?
- In the Lok Sabha, the Speaker nominates a committee of privileges consisting of 15 members as per respective party strengths.
- A report is then presented to the House for its consideration. The Speaker may permit a half-hour debate while considering the report.
- The Speaker may then pass final orders or direct that the report be tabled before the House.
- A resolution may then be moved relating to the breach of privilege that has to be unanimously passed.
- In the Rajya Sabha, the deputy chairperson heads the committee of privileges, which consists of 10 members.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.With reference to the Parliament of India, which of the following Parliamentary Committees scrutinizes and reports to the House whether the powers to make regulations, rules, sub-rules, by-laws etc. conferred by the constitution of delegated by the Parliament are being properly exercised by the Executive within the scope of such delegation?
(a) Committee on Government Assurances
(b) Committee on Subordinate Legislation
(c) Rules Committee
(d) Business Advisory Committee
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Monkey B Virus
Mains level: Zoonotic Diseases
China has reported the first human death case with the Monkey B virus (BV).
What is Monkey B virus?
- The virus, initially isolated in 1932, is an alphaherpesvirus enzootic in macaques of the genus Macaca.
- B virus is the only identified old-world-monkey herpes virus that displays severe pathogenicity in humans.
Answer this question from our AWE initiative:
There is been an increase in occurance of zoonotic human infectious diseases are zoonotic . Give reasons for this. Also suggest ways to contain and decrease the frequency of such events.(250 Words)
How is it transmitted?
- The infection can be transmitted via direct contact and exchange of bodily secretions of monkeys and has a fatality rate of 70 per cent to 80 per cent.
- According to the Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, Macaque monkeys commonly have this virus, and it can be found in their saliva, feces, urine, or brain or spinal cord tissue.
- The virus may also be found in cells coming from an infected monkey in a lab. B virus can survive for hours on surfaces, particularly when moist.
When can a human get infected with B virus?
- Humans can get infected if they are bitten or scratched by an infected monkey.
Symptoms
- Symptoms typically start within one month of being exposed to B virus but could appear in as little as three to seven days.
- The first indications of B virus infection are typically flu-like symptoms such as fever and chills, muscle ache, fatigue and headache.
- Following this, a person may develop small blisters in the wound or area on the body that came in contact with the monkey.
- Some other symptoms of the infection include shortness of breath, nausea and vomiting, abdominal pain and hiccups.
- As the disease progresses, the virus spreads to and causes inflammation (swelling) of the brain and spinal cord, leading to neurologic and inflammatory symptoms.
Is there a vaccine against B virus?
- Currently, there are no vaccines that can protect against B virus infection.
Who are at higher risk for infection?
- The virus might pose a potential threat to laboratory workers, veterinarians, and others who may be exposed to monkeys or their specimens.
- To date, only one case has been documented of an infected person spreading the B virus to another person.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: One District One Focus Product
Mains level: Not Much
ODOFP programme
- The ODOFP programme cover products of agriculture and allied sectors for 728 districts of the country.
- The products have been identified from agricultural, horticultural, animal, poultry, milk, fisheries, aquaculture, marine sectors across the country.
- These identified products will be supported under the PM-FME scheme of the Ministry of Food Processing Industries, which provides incentives to promoters and micro-enterprises
- This scheme is being implemented for a period of five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
- The scheme adopts One District One Product (ODOP) approach to reap the benefits of scale in terms of procurement of inputs, availing common services and marketing of products.
About ODOP
- The ODOP scheme aims to identify one product per district based on the potential and strength of a district and national priorities.
- A cluster for that product will be developed in the district and market linkage will be provided for that.
- It is operationally merged with the ‘Districts as Export Hub’ initiative implemented by the Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT), Department of Commerce.
- Under the initial phase of the ODOP programme, 106 Products have been identified from 103 districts across 27 States.
Back2Basics: PMFME Scheme
- A centrally sponsored scheme that aims to enhance the competitiveness of existing individual micro-enterprises in the unorganized segment of the food processing industry.
- It aims to enhance the competitiveness of existing individual micro-enterprises in the unorganized segment of the food processing industry and promote formalization of the sector,
- It further aims to promote formalization of the sector and provide support to Farmer Producer Organizations, Self Help Groups, and Producers Cooperatives along their entire value chain.
- The scheme envisions directly assist the 2,00,000 micro food processing units in providing financial, technical, and business support for the up-gradation of existing micro food processing enterprises.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 19 and 21
Mains level: Paper 3- Issues with surveillance by the government
Context
The ‘Pegasus Project’ report says that over “300 verified Indian mobile telephone numbers, including those used by ministers, opposition leaders, journalists, the legal community, businessmen, government officials, scientists, rights activists and others”, were targeted using spyware made by the Israeli firm, NSO Group.
Threat to press freedom
- Revelations highlight a disturbing trend with regard to the use of hacking software against dissidents and adversaries.
- A significant number of Indians reportedly affected by Pegasus are journalists.
- This is not surprising since the World Press Freedom Index produced by Reporters Without Borders has ranked India 142 out of 180 countries in 2021.
- The press requires (and in democracies is afforded) greater protections on speech and privacy.
- Privacy and free speech are what enable good reporting.
- This has been recognised in Supreme Court decisions.
- In the absence of privacy, the safety of journalists, especially those whose work criticises the government, and the personal safety of their sources is jeopardised.
- Such a lack of privacy, therefore, creates an aura of distrust around these journalists and effectively buries their credibility.
Issues with the legal provision
- Provisions of law under the Indian Telegraph Act of 1885 and the Information Technology (IT) Act of 2000 are used by the government for its interception and monitoring activities.
- While the provisions of the Telegraph Act relate to telephone conversations, the IT Act relates to all communications undertaken using a computer resource.
- Both provisions are problematic and offer the government total opacity in respect of its interception and monitoring activities.
- Section 69 of the IT Act and the Interception Rules of 2009 are even more opaque than the Telegraph Act, and offer even weaker protections to the surveilled.
- No provision, however, allows the government to hack the phones of any individual since the hacking of computer resources, including mobile phones and apps, is a criminal offence under the IT Act.
Issues with surveillance system
- Surveillance itself, whether under a provision of law or without it, is a gross violation of the fundamental rights of citizens.
- Violation of freedom of speech: The very existence of a surveillance system impacts the right to privacy and the exercise of freedom of speech and personal liberty under Articles 19 and 21 of the Constitution, respectively.
- It prevents people from reading and exchanging unorthodox, controversial or provocative ideas.
- No scope for judicial scrutiny: There is also no scope for an individual subjected to surveillance to approach a court of law prior to or during or subsequent to acts of surveillance since the system itself is covert.
- No oversight: In the absence of parliamentary or judicial oversight, electronic surveillance gives the executive the power to influence both the subject of surveillance and all classes of individuals, resulting in a chilling effect on free speech.
- Against separation of power: Constitutional functionaries such as a sitting judge of the Supreme Court have reportedly been surveilled under Pegasus.
- Vesting such disproportionate power with one wing of the government threatens the separation of powers of the government.
- The existing provisions are insufficient to protect against the spread of authoritarianism since they allow the executive to exercise a disproportionate amount of power.
Way forward
- There needs to be oversight from another branch of the government.
- Judicial oversight: Only the judiciary can be competent to decide whether specific instances of surveillance are proportionate, whether less onerous alternatives are available, and to balance the necessity of the government’s objectives with the rights of the impacted individuals.
- Surveillance reforms: Not only are existing protections weak but the proposed legislation related to the personal data protection of Indian citizens fails to consider surveillance while also providing wide exemptions to government authorities.
- Surveillance reform is the need of the hour in India.
Consider the question “Discuss the threats posed by the use of surveillance systems by the government. Suggest the measures to deal with these threats.”
Conclusion
The only solution to the problem of spyware is immediate and far-reaching surveillance reform.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Limits on China's role in Afghanistan
Context
Amid the gloom that has enveloped Afghanistan, one hope for many countries has been China’s potential role in stabilising it.
Factors that call for China to play role in Afghanistan
- Scope for India-China cooperation: In the past, even India thought that Afghanistan would be a natural area for India and China to work together.
- But little came out of the understanding after the Wuhan summit in 2018.
- Northern neighbours: Afghanistan’s northern neighbours, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan all have expanding political and economic ties with China but have traditionally relied on Russia for their security.
- They might support a larger role for Beijing in Afghanistan in partnership with Russia.
- Iran, Kabul’s western neighbour, also has deepening ties with China.
- Bilateral cooperation with the U.S.: Washington, now locked in an escalating confrontation with Beijing, sees Afghanistan as a potential area of bilateral cooperation.
- Role of Pakistan: Beijing is indeed critical in Pakistan’s plans for Afghanistan.
- Afghan leaders have also been eager to draw China’s BRI into their plans for economic modernisation.
- China was also important for Kabul’s political calculus in limiting Pakistan’s quest for dominance.
Two challenges in China playing role in stabilising Afghanistan
1) Caution in Chinese policy
- The first relates to the deep sources of caution in Chinese policy.
- Neither the prospect of mining Afghanistan’s natural resources nor the vanity of being the newest superpower will compel China to rush into the Afghan vacuum.
- China has deep concerns about Taliban’s ideology and its potential role in fomenting instability in its restive Muslim-majority province, Xinjiang.
- Beijing cannot depend on its special relationship with the Pakistan army to ensure the security of China’s frontiers as well as its investments in Afghanistan.
- The growing attacks on CPEC projects in Pakistan, underline the difficulty of pursuing economic development amid endemic violence.
2) Priorities of Taliban
- The second set of problems relate to the priorities of Taliban.
- It remains to be seen whether the economic development of Afghanistan is a top priority for the Taliban or not.
- Also, is it open to let in foreign capital and all the baggage that comes with it?
- More fundamentally, there is no clarity on the role of economic modernisation in Taliban’s fierce insistence on the creation of an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan.
Conclusion
It is against this backdrop that the chances of China playing a major role in stabilising Afghanistan remain slim.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Conjugal rights
The Supreme Court is expected to begin hearing a fresh challenge to the provision allowing restitution of conjugal rights under Hindu personal laws.
What is the provision under challenge?
- Section 9 of the Hindu Marriage Act, 1955, which deals with restitution of conjugal rights.
What are conjugal rights?
- Conjugal rights are rights created by marriage, i.e. the right of the husband or the wife to the society of the other spouse.
- The law recognizes these rights— both in personal laws dealing with marriage, divorce etc and in criminal law requiring payment of maintenance and alimony to a spouse.
- The concept of restitution of conjugal rights is codified in Hindu personal law now, but has colonial origins and has genesis in ecclesiastical law.
- Similar provisions exist in Muslim personal law as well as the Divorce Act, 1869, which governs Christian family law.
- Incidentally, in 1970, the United Kingdom repealed the law on restitution of conjugal rights.
How can a case under Section 9 be filed?
- If a spouse refuses cohabitation, the other spouse can move the family court seeking a decree for cohabitation.
- If the order of the court is not complied with, the court can attach property.
- However, the decision can be appealed before a High Court and the Supreme Court.
- Normally, when a spouse files for divorce unilaterally, the other spouse files for restitution of conjugal rights if he or she is not in agreement with the divorce.
- The provision is seen to be an intervention through legislation to strike a conciliatory note between sparring spouses.
Why has the law being challenged?
- The law is being challenged now on the main grounds that is violative of the fundamental right to privacy.
- The plea argues that court-mandated restitution of conjugal rights amounted to a “coercive action” on the part of the state, which violates one’s sexual and decisional autonomy, and right to privacy and dignity.
- In 2019, a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court recognised the right to privacy as a fundamental right.
- The verdict in the privacy case set the stage for potential challenges to several laws such as the criminalization of homosexuality, marital rape, restitution of conjugal rights, the two-finger test in rape investigations.
Question over gender-neutrality
- Although the law is ex-facie (‘on the face if it’) gender-neutral since it allows both wife and husband to seek restitution of conjugal rights, the provision disproportionately affects women.
- Women are often called back to marital homes under the provision and given that marital rape is not a crime, leaves them susceptible to such coerced cohabitation.
- It will also be argued whether the state can have such a compelling interest in protecting the institution of marriage that it allows legislation to enforce the cohabitation of spouses.
What has the court said about the law earlier?
Supreme Court:
- In 1984, the Supreme Court had upheld Section 9 holding that the provision “serves a social purpose as an aid to the prevention of break-up of marriage”.
- Leading up to the Supreme Court intervention, two High Courts — those of Andhra Pradesh and Delhi — had ruled differently on the issue.
AP High Court:
- In 1983, AP High Court had for the first time struck down the provision and declared it null and void. It cited the right to privacy among other reasons.
- The court also held that in “a matter so intimately concerned the wife or the husband the parties are better left alone without state interference”.
- The court had, most importantly, also recognised that compelling “sexual cohabitation” would be of “grave consequences for women”.
Delhi High Court:
- In the same year, a single-judge Bench of the Delhi High Court took a diametrically opposite view of the law and upheld the provision.
- From the definitions of cohabitation and consortium, it appears that sexual intercourse is one of the elements that go to make up the marriage.
- But it is not the summum bonum (the ultimate aim). As if marriage consists of nothing else except sex.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Bad Banks
Mains level: Asset reconstruction
The Government has launched a Bad Bank with all the regulatory approvals in place.
What is a Bad Bank?
- A bad bank conveys the impression that it will function as a bank but has bad assets to start with.
- Technically, it is an asset reconstruction company (ARC) or an asset management company that takes over the bad loans of commercial banks, manages them and finally recovers the money over a period of time.
- Such a bank is not involved in lending and taking deposits, but helps commercial banks clean up their balance sheets and resolve bad loans.
- The takeover of bad loans is normally below the book value of the loan and the bad bank tries to recover as much as possible subsequently.
Global examples of Bad Bank
- US-based BNY Mellon Bank created the first bad bank in 1988, after which the concept has been implemented in other countries including Sweden, Finland, France and Germany.
- However, resolution agencies or ARCs set up as banks, which originate or guarantee to lend, have ended up turning into reckless lenders in some countries.
Do we need a bad bank?
- The idea gained currency during Rajan’s tenure as RBI Governor.
- The RBI had then initiated an asset quality review (AQR) of banks and found that several banks had suppressed or hidden bad loans to show a healthy balance sheet.
- However, the idea remained on paper amid lack of consensus on the efficacy of such an institution.
- ARCs have not made any impact in resolving bad loans due to many procedural issues.
What is the stand of the RBI and government?
- While the RBI did not show much enthusiasm about a bad bank all these years, there are signs that it can look at the idea now.
- Experts, however, argue that it would be better to limit the objective of these asset management companies to the orderly resolution of stressed assets, followed by a graceful exit.
Good about the bad banks
- The problem of NPAs continues in the banking sector, especially among the weaker banks.
- The bad bank concept is in some ways similar to an ARC but is funded by the government initially, with banks and other investors co-investing in due course.
- The presence of the government is seen as a means to speed up the clean-up process.
- Many other countries had set up institutional mechanisms such as the Troubled Asset Relief Programme (TARP) in the US to deal with a problem of stress in the financial system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Near-Earth Asteroid Scout
Mains level: Study of asteroids
Last week, NASA announced that its new spacecraft, named NEA Scout, has completed all required tests and has been safely tucked inside the Space Launch System (SLS) rocket.
For landing on Moon
- NEA Scout is one of several payloads that will hitch a ride on Artemis I, which is expected to be launched in November.
- Artemis I will be an uncrewed test-flight of the Orion spacecraft and SLS rocket.
- Under the Artemis programme, NASA has aimed to land the first woman on the Moon in 2024 and also establish sustainable lunar exploration programs by 2030.
What is NEA Scout?
- Near-Earth Asteroid Scout, or NEA Scout, is a small spacecraft, about the size of a big shoebox. Its main mission is to fly by and collect data from a near-Earth asteroid.
- It will also be America’s first interplanetary mission using special solar sail propulsion.
- This type of propulsion is especially useful for small, lightweight spacecraft that cannot carry large amounts of conventional rocket propellant.
- NEA Scout will use stainless steel alloy booms and deploy an aluminium-coated sail measuring 925 square feet.
- The large-area sail will generate thrust by reflecting sunlight.
- Energetic particles of sunlight bounce off the solar sail to give it a gentle, yet constant push.
How will it study the asteroid?
- NEA Scout is equipped with special cameras and can take pictures ranging from 50 cm/pixels to 10 cm/pixels.
- It can also process the image and reduce the file sizes before sending them to the earth-based Deep Space Network via its medium-gain antenna.
- The spacecraft will take about two years to cruise to the asteroid and will be about 93 million miles away from Earth during the asteroid encounter.
Why should we study near-Earth asteroids?
- Despite their size, some of these small asteroids could pose a threat to Earth.
- Understanding their properties could help us develop strategies for reducing the potential damage caused in the event of an impact.
- Scientists will use this data to determine what is required to reduce risk, increase effectiveness, and improve the design and operations of robotic and human space exploration.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Our planetary system
Mains level: Not Much
Researchers have developed a model showing that the density, mass and iron content of a Mercury’s core is influenced by its distance from the Sun’s magnetic field.
About Mercury
- Mercury is the first and the smallest planet in our solar system.
- It is also the closest planet to Earth.
- Like the other three terrestrial planets, Mercury contains a core surrounded by a mantle and a crust.
- But unlike any other planet, Mercury’s core makes up a larger portion of the planet.
- MESSENGER was a NASA robotic space probe that orbited the planet Mercury between 2011 and 2015, studying Mercury’s chemical composition, geology, and magnetic field.
- It was the analysis from the MESSENGER mission that tells: Mercury’s core is solid.
Mystery over the core
- It has long been known that Mercury’s core composition is made of liquid metal.
- The core itself is about 3,600 km across. Surrounding that is a 600 km thick mantle.
- And around that is the crust, which is believed to be 100-200 km thick.
- The crust is known to have narrow ridges that extend for hundreds of kilometres.
- This large core has long been one of the most intriguing mysteries about Mercury.
Why does Mercury have a large core?
- A new study reveals that the sun’s magnetism is the reason.
- The sun’s magnetic field influences the density, mass, and iron content of Mercury’s core.
- The four inner planets of our solar system—Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars—are made up of different proportions of metal and rock.
- A gradient in which the metal content in the core drops off as the planets get farther from the sun.
- The researchers explain how this happened by showing that the sun’s magnetic field controlled the distribution of raw materials in the early forming solar system.
What are the key propositions?
- During the early formation of the solar system, when a swirling dust storm and gas encircled the sun, iron’s grain was drawn toward the centre by the sun’s magnetic field.
- At the time of planet formation from clumps of that dust and gas, planets nearer to the sun consolidated more iron into their centres than those farther away.
- Scientists also found that the density and proportion of iron in the planet’s core correlate with the strength of the magnetic field around the sun during planetary formation.
- Existing models on planetary formation were used to determine the speed at which gas and dust were pulled into the centre of our solar system during its formation.
- The magnetic field that the sun would have generated as it burst into being and calculated how that magnetic field would draw iron through the dust and gas cloud.
Cooling led solidification
- As the early solar system began to cool, dust and gas that were not drawn into the sun started to clump together.
- The clumps closer to the sun would have been exposed to a stronger magnetic field and thus would contain more iron than those farther away from the sun.
- As the clumps coalesced and cooled into spinning planets, gravitational forces drew the iron into their core.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Article 21
Mains level: Paper 2- Addressing the issue of undertrials
Context
After the death of Stan Swamy, questions about the conditions of jails and treatment of the incarcerated have been raised anew.
Issue of deaths of prisoners
- The NCRB data reports the death of over 1,800 prisoners in the year 2018. An estimated 70 percent of prison inmates are undertrials.
- Despite constitutional provisions like Article 21, which says, no person shall be denied life or liberty except by the due process of law, the number of undertrials is increasing.
How prisoners are subjected to additional torture
- Overcrowding, delayed medical attention, unhygienic conditions and malnutrition exist in all Indian prisons.
- It is the responsibility of the State and the judiciary to ensure that they are only deprived of their liberty and are not exposed to any additional torture in the form of medical deprivation, unhygienic conditions, bad or inadequate food, etc.
- Yet, thousands are dying every year and the prison authorities are not made accountable.
Way forward
- Acts of extreme neglect that could result in the death of inmates should be acknowledged as extrajudicial torture and made an offense.
- The SC in Sunil Batra (I) v. Delhi Administration (1978), held that “the humane thread of jail jurisprudence that runs right through is that no prison authority enjoys amnesty for unconstitutionality”.
- ARC Recommendations on Prison Reforms: The Union and State Governments should work out, fund and implement at the
earliest, modernization and reforms of the Prison System as recommended by the All India Committee on Jail Reforms (1980-83).
b. The attendant legislative measures should also be expedited.
c. Rules regarding Parole and Remission need to be reviewed.
- Infrastructure: Prisoner Information System, Biometric Identification, facilities for pregnant women, up-gradation of hospitals, etc is needed.
- Strengthening the Open Prison System.
Conclusion
The government needs to take urgent measures to address the issue of additional torture in various forms and the death of prisoners.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Ministry for Cooperation
Mains level: Paper 3- Performance of cooperative movement
Context
Two weeks ago, the government created a new Ministry for Cooperation. India is, perhaps, the first country to have such a ministry. The Ministry can play an important role in the transformation of cooperatives in the country.
How 1991 economic reforms benefited agriculture
- On July 24, 1991, India decided to unshackle the spirit of private sector entrepreneurship through the move to de-license industry and reduce tariffs on a host of commodities.
- Trade policy changes improved the terms of trade for agriculture and benefitted millions of farmers.
- Agri-exports increased, but this led to higher domestic prices.
The success story of dairy sector in India
- In 1991, Manmohan Singh, then finance minister wanted to delicense the dairy sector as well, but there was stiff opposition from Verghese Kurien.
- It was after 10 years in 2002 that the dairy sector was fully de-licensed.
- The competition between cooperatives and corporate dairy players has benefitted millions of farmers around the country.
- With the entry of the private sector, the growth of the dairy sector accelerated at double the speed.
- Today, both procure roughly the same quantities and growth in the organised private sector is faster than in cooperatives.
Performance of cooperative movement in India
- India’s experience with the cooperative movement has produced mixed results — few successes and many failures.
- There are cooperatives in the financial sector, be it rural or urban.
- But the performance of these agencies when measured in terms of their share in overall credit, achievements in technology upgradation, keeping NPAs low or curbing fraudulent deals has been poor to average.
- Sugar cooperatives of Maharashtra initially touted as exemplars of the movement, are in the doldrums now.
- Many are being sold to the private sector.
Performance of cooperatives in dairy sector
1) Amul
- The performance of the cooperative champion, Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) — with its poster brand, Amul — has been most successful.
- During Operation Flood, it received a lot of capital at highly concessional terms.
- But its success is also the result of professionalism, business and, therefore, keeping politics away.
- But despite the grand success of Gujarat’s milk cooperatives in Gujarat, the model did not spread to other states as successfully.
2) Karnataka Milk Federation
- In its eagerness to please milk farmers, the Karnataka Milk Federation (KMF), which sells its products under the brand name of Nandini, gives them Rs 5 to Rs 6 extra per litre.
- This subsidy, given by the state government, cost the exchequer Rs 1,260 crore till 2019-20.
- KMF procures a lot of milk and then dumps it at lower prices in the market for consumers.
- This depresses prices in adjoining states like Maharashtra, affecting the fortunes of Maharashtra milk farmers.
- If Maharashtra and Karnataka were two different countries, Maharashtra would be challenging Karnataka at the WTO.
Way forward
- The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards ironing out distortions in state price policies due to subsidization such as in Maharastra and Karnatak milk prices.
- Cooperatives desperately need technological upgradation.
- The Ministry of Cooperation can give them soft loans for innovation and technology upgradation.
- But such loans should also be extended to the private sector to ensure a level playing field.
- The Ministry of Cooperation needs to ensure the least political interference in the operation of cooperatives.
Conclusion
The new Ministry of Cooperation can work towards bringing in professionalism in cooperatives and make them more competitive.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Unemployment in India
PM has yet again underscored the importance of a skilled workforce for achieving the goal of becoming Atma-nirbhar Bharat. India still continues to be a country that faces one of the highest shortages of skilled workforce.
Unemployment vs Skills
- On one hand, companies in India face an acute shortage of skilled manpower and, on the other, India has millions of educated unemployed.
- The data for this chart is for the January to April 2021 period, when the overall unemployment rate in the country was 6.83%.
- In comparison, those with graduation (or even higher degrees) face almost three times the unemployment level.
- At over 19% unemployment rate, one in every five Indians who graduate (or even better) is unemployed.
What explains this contradiction?
- The lack of skill is definitely the only answer.
What is Skilling?
- National Council of Applied Economic Research, 2018 — aptly titled “No time to lose”.
- This report explains that there are three types of skills.
- Cognitive skills: basic skills of literacy and numeracy, applied knowledge and problem-solving aptitudes, and higher cognitive skills such as experimentation, reasoning, and creativity.
- Technical and vocational skills: physical and mental ability to perform specific tasks using tools and methods in any occupation.
- Social and behavioral skills include working, communicating, and listening to others.
- Different levels of these three types of skills can be combined to further classify skills into foundational, employability, and entrepreneurial skills.
What is the scale of the skilling challenge facing India?
According to the 2018 report by NCAER, India had about 468 million people in its workforce.
- Informal sector: Around 92% of them were in the informal sector.
- Illiteracy: Around 31% were illiterate, only 13% had primary education, and only 6% were college graduates.
- No vocational training: Further, only about 2% of the workforce had formal vocational training, and only 9% had non-formal vocational training.
- Out of more than 5 lakh final year bachelors students aged 18–29 who were surveyed, around 54% were found to be “unemployable”.
Opportunities for India
- India has entered a demographic sweet spot that will continue for another two to three-decade.
- There is a great opportunity for India to improve both its social and economic outcomes if a higher number of workers are productively employed.
What is at stake?
- If the skilling issue is not resolved, India risks forfeiting its so-called “demographic dividend”.
- But whether this will turn into a demographic dividend or not will depend entirely on how many of those in the working-age bracket are working and becoming prosperous.
- If they are not in well-paying jobs, the economy would not have the resources to take care of itself since with each passing year, the proportion of dependents will continue to rise after 2040.
- To put it simply, to attain its rightful place and realize its aspirations, India must become rich before it gets old.
The skilling paradox
- Indians have excelled in technical expertise at the global level — be it medicine or engineering. Then what explains India’s domestic skilling paradox?
- A big part of the trouble is the starting condition. Over 90% of India’s workforce is in the informal sector.
India is trapped in a vicious cycle:
- Greater workforce informality leads to lower incentives to acquire new skills. Faced with inadequately skilled workers, businesses often choose to replace labor with machinery.
- That’s because “skilled labor and technology are complementary, but unskilled labor and technology are substitutes”.
- This, in turn, leads to still fewer formal jobs.
What can be done to break this cycle?
- A distinct disadvantage with India’s approach towards skilling has been to ignore and match the demands of the market.
- For the most part, skills have been provided in a top-down fashion.
- Given the way market demands fluctuate — for instance, how the Covid pandemic has upended supply chains — skilling efforts must try to anticipate the needs of the market.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013
Mains level: Read the attached story
More than two years after the Lokpal came into being, the Centre is yet to appoint a director of inquiry for conducting a preliminary inquiry into graft complaints sent by the anti-corruption ombudsman.
Who is ‘Director of Inquiry’?
- According to the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, there shall be a director of inquiry, not below the rank of Joint Secretary to the GoI.
- He/ She shall be appointed by the Central government for conducting preliminary inquiries referred to the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) by the Lokpal.
About the Lokpal
- The Lokpal, the apex body to inquire and investigate graft complaints against public functionaries, came into being with the appointment of its chairperson and members in March 2019.
- In March 2019, former SC judge Justice Pinaki Chandra Ghose was selected as the first head of the Lokpal.
Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013
- The Lokpal Act 2013 is anti-corruption legislation that seeks to provide for the establishment of the institution of Lokpal.
- It seeks to inquire into allegations of corruption against certain important public functionaries including the PM, cabinet ministers, MPs, Group A officials of the Central Government etc.
- The Bill was introduced in the parliament following massive public protests led by anti-corruption crusader Anna Hazare and his associates.
- The Bill is one of the most widely discussed and debated Bills in India in recent times.
Its history
- The term Lokpal was coined in 1963 by Laxmi Mall Singhvi, a member of parliament during a parliamentary debate about grievance mechanisms.
- The Administrative Reforms Commission (ARC) headed by Morarji Desai submitted an interim report on “Problems of Redressal of Citizen’s Grievances” in 1966.
- In this report, ARC recommended the creation of two special authorities designated as ‘Lokpal’ and ‘Lokayukta’ for redress of citizens’ grievances.
- Maharashtra was the first state to introduce Lokayukta through The Maharashtra Lokayukta and Upa-Lokayuktas Act in 1971.
Also read:
Explained: How Lokpal will form, function
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Need for data localization
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has banned Mastercard from issuing new debit and credit cards to customers in India.
Why such a ban?
- According to the RBI, the US card issuer has failed to comply with the local data storage rules announced by the central bank in 2018.
What is the RBI’s data localization policy?
- In 2018, the RBI had issued a circular ordering card companies such as Visa, Mastercard, and American Express to store all Indian customer data locally.
- This was aimed for the regulator to have “unfettered supervisory access”.
Why such a policy by RBI?
- The reason offered by the RBI was that local storage of consumer data is necessary to protect the privacy of Indian users and also to address national security concerns.
Issues with the policy
- Privacy: Customer privacy and national security are genuine concerns that need to be taken seriously.
- Protectionism: However, data localization rules may sound too stringent and they could simply be used by governments as tools of economic protectionism.
- Security: For instance, it may not be strictly necessary for data to be stored locally to remain protected.
- Formal international laws to govern the storage of digital information across borders may be sufficient to deal with these concerns.
- Discrimination: Governments, however, may still mandate data localization in order to favour local companies over foreign ones.
Implications of the move
- Indian banks that are currently enrolled in the Mastercard network are expected to make alternative arrangements with other card companies.
- The RBI’s data localization policy, as it burdens foreign card companies, may end up favouring domestic card issuers like RuPay, which in turn can lead to reduced competition.
- Mastercard owns about one-third of the market share in India, and the RBI’s ban is likely to significantly benefit its competitors.
- This could mean higher costs and lower quality services for customers.
Conclusion
- In today’s digital economy data have turned out to be a valuable commodity, which companies, as well as governments, have tried to gain control over.
- With no clear rules on who owns customer data and to what extent, conflicts over data ownership are likely to continue for some time.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Moon wobble
Mains level: Moon wobble and climate change
US coastlines will face increasing flooding in the mid-2030s due to a regular lunar cycle called the wobble effect that will magnify rising sea levels caused by climate change.
What is the Moon Wobble?
- The moon wobble is nothing but a regular swaying in the moon’s orbit.
- It was first documented way back in 1728.
- This wobble takes over an 18.6-year period to complete and continues in a cyclic fashion.
How does this wobble occur?
- High tides on this planet are caused mostly by the pull of the moon’s gravity on a spinning Earth. On most beaches, you would see two high tides every 24 hours.
- The moon also revolves around the Earth about once a month, and that orbit is a little bit tilted.
- moon’s orbital plane around the Earth is at an approximate 5-degree incline to the Earth’s orbital plane around the sun.
- Because of that, the path of the moon’s orbit seems to fluctuate over time, completing a full cycle — sometimes referred to as a nodal cycle — every 18.6 years.
- At certain points along the cycle, the moon’s gravitational pull comes from such an angle that it yanks one of the day’s two high tides a little bit higher, at the expense of the other.
- This does not mean that the moon itself is wobbling, nor that its gravity is necessarily pulling at our oceans any more or less than usual.
What impact does this wobble have on Earth?
- Influences the ebb and flow of tides: The moon wobbles impacts the gravitational pull of the moon, and therefore, indirectly influences the ebb and flow of tides here on the Earth.
- One half of the 18.6-year cycle suppresses the tides, which means that the high tides get lower, while the low tides get higher than normal.
- Once this cycle completes, the situation flips—in the subsequent cycle, the tides are amplified, with high tides getting higher and low tides, lower.
- The lunar cycle is expected to shift again by mid-2030, and in the coming phase, the tides will amplify once again.
Moon wobble and climate change
- The upcoming changes in the lunar cycle will pose a serious threat, as the amplified high tides coupled with the rising sea levels will make the risk of flooding far greater across all coastal regions of the globe.
- The study predicts that the high tide-associated floods—also known as nuisance floods or sunny day floods—may occur in clusters that could last for months or even for longer periods!
- This surge will be closely associated with the position of the Moon, Earth and the Sun.
- When the Moon and Earth line up in specific ways with each other and the Sun, the resulting gravitational pull and the ocean’s corresponding response may leave city-dwellers coping with floods every day or two.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Great Barrier Reef
Mains level: Coral Reefs and their significance
Chinese official has said that political tensions between Beijing and Australia were not behind a UNESCO recommendation to place the Great Barrier Reef on its endangered list.
Great Barrier Reef
- The Great Barrier Reef is the world’s largest coral reef system composed of over 2,900 individual reefs and 900 islands.
- It is stretched for over 2,300 kilometres over an area of approximately 344,400 square kilometres.
- The reef is located in the Coral Sea, off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
- It was world heritage listed in 1981 by UNESCO as the most extensive and spectacular coral reef ecosystem on the planet.
Importance of Corals
Coral reefs are some of the most diverse and valuable ecosystems on Earth.
- They support more species per unit area than any other marine environment, including about 4,000 species of fish, 800 species of hard corals and hundreds of other species.
- This biodiversity is considered key to finding new medicines for the 21st century.
- Medical use: Many drugs are now being developed from coral reef animals and plants as possible cures for cancer, arthritis, human bacterial infections, viruses, and other diseases.
- Fisheries: Healthy coral reefs support commercial and subsistence fisheries as well as jobs and businesses through tourism and recreation.
- Local economies receive billions of dollars from visitors to reefs through diving tours, recreational fishing trips, hotels, restaurants, and other businesses based near reef ecosystems.
- Coral reef structures also buffer shorelines against 97 per cent of the energy from waves, storms, and floods, helping to prevent loss of life, property damage, and erosion.
Answer this PYQ in the comment box:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- Most of the world’s coral reefs are in tropical waters.
- More than one-third of the world’s coral reefs are located in the territories of Australia, Indonesia and the Philippines.
- Coral reefs host far more number of animal phyla than those hosted by tropical rainforests.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 only
(c) 1 and 3 only
(d) 1 and 3 only
Back2Basisc: Coral Reef
- Coral reefs are built by and made up of thousands of tiny animals—coral “polyps”—that are related to anemones and jellyfish.
- Polyps are shallow-water organisms that have a soft body covered by a calcareous skeleton. The polyps extract calcium salts from seawater to form these hard skeletons.
- The polyps live in colonies fastened to the rocky seafloor.
- The tubular skeletons grow upwards and outwards as a cemented calcareous rocky mass collectively called corals.
- When the coral polyps die, they shed their skeleton on which new polyps grow.
- The cycle is repeated for millions of years leading to the accumulation of layers of corals shallow rock created by these depositions is called a reef.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Pegasus
Mains level: Whatsapp snooping
Telephone numbers of some noted Indian journalists were successfully snooped upon by an unidentified agency using Pegasus software.
Pegasus Spyware
- All spyware do what the name suggests — they spy on people through their phones.
- Pegasus works by sending an exploit link, and if the target user clicks on the link, the malware or the code that allows the surveillance is installed on the user’s phone.
- A presumably newer version of the malware does not even require a target user to click a link.
- Once Pegasus is installed, the attacker has complete access to the target user’s phone.
- The first reports on Pegasus’s spyware operations emerged in 2016, when Ahmed Mansoor, a human rights activist in the UAE, was targeted with an SMS link on his iPhone 6.
What is the new threat?
- Pegasus has evolved from its earlier spear-phishing methods using text links or messages to ‘zero-click’ attacks which do not require any action from the phone’s user.
- This had made what was without a doubt the most powerful spyware out there, more potent and almost impossible to detect or stop.
How do zero-click attacks work?
- A zero-click attack helps spyware like Pegasus gain control over a device without human interaction or human error.
- Zero-click attacks are hard to detect given their nature and hence even harder to prevent.
- Detection becomes even harder in encrypted environments where there is no visibility on the data packets being sent or received.
- Most of these attacks exploit software that receive data even before it can determine whether what is coming in is trustworthy or not, like an email client.
Answer this PYQ 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
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Look at three decades of economic reforms
Context
This month marks the 30th anniversary of the economic reforms launched by our then finance minister Manmohan Singh in his budget speech of 24 July 1991.
After and before reform comparison
- The average annual growth over the past three decades has been 5.8% per annum.
- It is slightly higher than 5.6% in the decade before 1991.
- Clearly, our growth acceleration was not sustained, despite a pick-up in the pace of reforms.
- However, on a long-term comparison, the economy did better than its 4.1% average of the first 40 years of independence.
- But if we compare our first four decades with the pre-1947 phase, and on that score, we saw a massive growth improvement.
Impact of reforms
- Their biggest contribution was a change in India’s economic paradigm.
- Every government after 1991 has embraced the philosophy of liberalization and privatization that those reforms initiated and has tried to outdo the previous regimes on that.
- Still, 30 years on, the situation for most of our population remains unchanged.
- The reforms created a class of rich entrepreneurs and a small but vocal middle class in urban areas.
- But it also contributed to widening inequality, which has worsened after 1991 and is now at its worst level since 1947 on almost all dimensions.
- The widening of disparities also occurred between urban and rural areas, between laggard states and developed ones.
- Disparities have increased even further in terms of access to health and education and several other human- development indicators.
- On most of these, be it education, health, women’s workforce participation and hunger, we remain at the bottom of any global chart of comparison.
- The logic of reforms meant that expenditure on welfare and investment in human development were not a policy priority.
- The situation is no different on employment, with data suggesting an absolute decline on this count and a historic rise in unemployment rates.
- An official consumption survey that was not accepted about two years ago by the Centre had shown, a decline in real consumption and a rise in poverty.
- Rising informalization and contractualization of the country’s workforce has been a factor in the worsening of most workers’ working conditions.
Why reforms failed to deliver
- In many ways, they are no different from our pre-reform economic policies, all of which were supply- side responses.
- The reforms attempted to use the private sector for the task through a liberalized regulatory framework and business-friendly fiscal and monetary policies.
- But an absence of concern for distributional inequities and aggregate-demand management has continued as the defining feature of our economic policymaking.
- The consequences of supply-side- biased reforms will show up in a further worsening of income distribution and eventually slow growth down.
Conclusion
Things have taken a turn for the worse with the pandemic. The problem this time is not like the 1991 crisis. What is needed at this point is a fundamental shift in the way economic policy is designed, keeping people and workers at the centre of the exercise.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Recommendation 202
Mains level: Paper 2- Social security for migrant labour
Context
The migrants’ crisis after the two covid waves compelled policy-makers to make certain provisions for them in the schemes announced for the assistance of the poor.
Supreme Court judgement on the issue
- On June 29, the Supreme Court finally delivered its judgment on the plight of migrant labour.
- The judgement was notable for two main reasons.
- First, it recognised that there was the large-scale exclusion of migrant workers and other informal workers from existing schemes due to the lack of their registration and outdated eligibility lists.
- It noted that no benefits will be denied to migrant workers for want of an Aadhaar card and that food assistance will be provided for migrants who were not covered by the National Food Security Act.
- Second, it connected informal workers and migrant workers, both of whom experience exclusion, and mandated that the portal for registration of all informal/migrant workers should be fully operational before July 31.
Advantages of providing social protection
- Investment in social protection is not charity, it is an investment in workers’ productivity and in equitable growth.
- Providing social protection is, as the UN mooted in 2009 when it spelt out the social protection floor (SPF) initiative after the global financial crisis, the surest way out of a crisis by boosting demand at the bottom of the pyramid.
- The report of the Advisory Committee of the ILO, in which India was represented by its labour secretary, provides a strong rationale for instituting a universal SPF during economic crises.
- As a result, all constituents of the ILO adopted Recommendation 202 on social protection floors at the International Labour Conference in 2012.
Inadequate provisions by government
- The Unorganised Workers’ Social Security Act, was approved by Parliament in December 2008.
- But it lacks the mandatory elements of the NCEUS’s proposals and included neither a National Minimum Social Security Package, nor the provision for mandatory registration.
- Estimates show that the central government’s expenditure on all major social protection programmes declined from 1.96 per cent of GDP in 2008-09 to 1.6 per cent in 2013-14 and to only 1.28 per cent in 2019-20.
Way forward
- The National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganised Sector (NCEUS) had pointed out that the circular migrant workers were a disadvantaged segment among informal workers.
- Comprehensive law: The NCEUS had advocated a comprehensive law for the protection of the rights of all informal workers, including migrants, home workers, and domestic workers.
- Universal registration: NCEUS had also recommended a universal registration mechanism based on self-declaration, with the issuance of a smart social security card, and a National Minimum Social Security Package.
- Guaranteed social security/social protection: We need the provision of a minimum level of guaranteed social security/social protection for all informal workers and their households within a definite time frame.
- More public spending: Guaranteed social protection would involve a clear framework and a commitment to greater public resources being spent on social protection as a large class of workers in India do not have an identifiable employer and a contributory social insurance framework will not work for them.
- Recommendation 202: Government should embrace ILO’s Recommendation 202 and work towards these in a time-bound manner.
Conclusion
To end the silent, painful, and enduring crisis for the workers, as well as the crisis for the economy, the government must urgently recognise the right to social security, embedded both in the Indian Constitution and international covenants.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BIT
Mains level: Paper 2- State sovereignty
Context
Last year, an arbitration tribunal indicted India for breaching its obligations by imposing taxes retrospectively on Cairn. As a result, Cairn Energy has been attempting to seize Indian assets in several jurisdictions to recover $1.7 billion due from India.
How asset seizure order affects India?
- This episode projects India as an unfriendly country for investors at a time when it wishes to project itself as a prime destination for foreign investment.
- This episode puts India in the league of countries like Pakistan, Congo, Venezuela, Russia and Argentina, who have been part of attachment proceedings overseas due to their failure to comply with international arbitral awards.
- Fighting cases will consume an enormous amount of time, money, and resources, in addition to attracting bad press internationally.
Understanding the doctrine of state immunity
- State immunity is a well-recognised doctrine in international law.
- It safeguards a state and its property against the jurisdiction of another country’s domestic courts.
- Despite the universal acceptance of this doctrine, there is no international legal instrument in force administering its implementation.
- Attempts are underway to create binding international law on the application of the rules of state immunity such as the United Nations Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property (UNSCI).
- However, this convention is yet to be ratified by 30 countries — the minimum number required to bring it in force, as per Article 30(1) of UNSCI.
- India has signed the convention, but not ratified it.
- The doctrine of state immunity has progressed from absolute immunity to restrictive immunity in which immunity is only for the sovereign functions of the state.
Can India invoke state immunity?
- Most prominent jurisdictions follow the concept of restrictive immunity.
- State immunity can be invoked to resist the seizure of sovereign assets, but not commercial properties.
- In the context of the execution of the investment treaty arbitration awards, properties serving commercial functions are available for seizure.
- In the case of India, the most popular commercial property that foreign investors would target for attachment are the global assets of India’s public sector undertakings such as Air India.
Way forward
- If India wishes to continue the case, it needs to carefully study the laws on state immunity in different jurisdictions where attachment proceedings are likely to come up.
- A better option would be to admit that amending the tax law retrospectively was a mistake and comply with the international ruling.
Conclusion
At the time when India seeks to project itself as an attractive investment destination, such cases could be a setback. India needs to avoid such disputes in the future.
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