Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NATO
Mains level: Paper 2- Disruption in Central Asia and role of Russia
Context
Vladimir Putin, who annexed Crimea in 2014 has now mobilised some 100,000 troops on the Ukraine border.
How insecurity and history plays role in Russia’s actions
- Russia, the world’s largest country by land mass, lacks natural borders except the Arctic Ocean in the north and the Pacific in the far east.
- Its vast land borders stretch from northern Europe to Central and north east Asia.
- The country’s heartland that runs from St. Petersburg through Moscow to the Volga region lies on plains and is vulnerable to attacks.
- In the last two centuries, Russia saw two devastating invasions from the west — the 1812 attack by Napoleonic France and the 1941 attack by Nazi Germany.
- After the Second World War, Russia re-established its control over the rim land in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which it hoped would protect its heartland.
- But the disintegration of the Soviet Union threw its security calculations into disarray, deepening its historical insecurity.
NATO’s expansion after disintegration of the Soviet Union
- When the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia lost over three million square kilometres of sovereign territory.
- In the last months of the Soviet Union, the West promised that the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) would not “expand an inch to the east”.
- The United States and the United Kingdom repeated the pledge after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
- But despite the promises, NATO continued expansion.
- In March 1999, in the first enlargement since the end of the Cold War, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Poland (all were members of the Soviet-led Warsaw Pact) joined NATO.
- Five years later, seven more countries — including the three Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, all of which share borders with Russia — were taken into the alliance.
- Russia felt threatened but was not able to respond.
- But in 2008, when the U.S. promised membership to Georgia and Ukraine in the Bucharest summit, Russia, which was coming out of the post-Soviet retreat, responded forcefully.
How Russia see NATO expansion as threat to its dominance on Black Sea
- Turkey, Bulgaria and Romania, all Black Sea basin countries, are NATO members.
- Ukraine and Georgia are the other countries that share the Black Sea coast, besides Russia.
- Russia was already feeling squeezed on the Black Sea front, its gateway to the Mediterranean Sea.
- If Ukraine and Georgia also join NATO, Russia fears that its dominance over the Black Sea would come to an end.
- So, in 2008, Mr. Putin sent troops to Georgia over the separatist conflict in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
- In 2014, when the Kremlin-friendly regime of Ukraine was toppled by pro-western protesters, he moved to annex the Crimean peninsula, expanding Russia’s Black Sea coast, thereby protecting its fleet based in Sevastopol in Crimea.
Restoring the rim land
- In recent years, Mr. Putin has tried to turn every crisis in the former Soviet region into a geopolitical opportunity.
- South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the self-proclaimed republics that broke away from Georgia, are controlled by Russia-backed forces.
- In 2020, when protests erupted in Belarus after a controversial presidential election, Mr. Putin sent assistance to the country to restore order.
- In the same year, Russia sent thousands of “peacekeepers” to end the war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
- Earlier this year, Belarus leader Alexander Lukashenko, with Mr. Putin’s backing, manufactured a migrant crisis on the Polish border of the European Union.
- This month, when violent unrest broke out in Kazakhstan, the largest and wealthiest country in Central Asia, its leader turned to Russia for help.
How do geopolitical circumstances favour Russia?
- The U.S.’s ignominious withdrawal from Afghanistan has left the Central Asian republics deeper in the Russian embrace.
- Europe is very much dependent on Russian gas, which limits its response.
- For years, the West, the winner of the Cold War, discounted Mr. Putin.
- Having failed to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan, NATO is unlikely to pick a war with Russia over Ukraine.
Conclusion
By destabilising Georgia and Ukraine and re-establishing Russia’s hold in Belarus, Caucasus and Central Asia, Moscow has effectively stalled NATO’s further expansion into its backyard.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PLI scheme
Mains level: Paper 3- Lessons from the success of mobile manufacturing
Context
The mobile phones and room air conditioners (RAC) sectors in recent times have shown us the formulae for expansion of the manufacturing sector and growing exports.
How did India expand its mobile manufacturing base?
- We were one of the largest consumers of mobile phones in 2014.
- In 2014-15, our mobile phone imports exceeded $8 billion.
- Our electronics imports were threatening to exceed our oil imports.
- Steps taken by govt: The government took many steps like 100 per cent automatic FDI,
- levy of import duties to protect local manufacturers,
- the Phased Manufacturing Plan (PMP),
- manufacturing clusters (EMC 2.0) and
- the Production Linked Incentive (PLI) scheme.
- They have attracted investments, created lakhs of jobs, and have moved us from being a net importer to a net exporter.
- Our mobile phone manufacturing value has jumped more than eight times from Rs 0.27 trillion in 2013-14 to Rs 2.2 trillion in 2020-21.
- We have surpassed the US and South Korea to become the second-largest manufacturer globally.
Steps need to be taken
- Our mobile phone exports are primarily limited to feature phones and low-value smartphones.
- India must aim for a significant increase in exports from the current $4 billion.
- China exports $200 billion, and Vietnam exports $60 billion worth of mobile phones.
- The PLI scheme aims to achieve the same by allocating incentives of Rs 410 billion for the mobile phone category over the next five years.
- Low value addition: Our value addition in mobile phone manufacturing is currently limited to 15-20 per cent versus more than 40 per cent in China.
- The scheme for promoting the manufacturing of electronic components and semiconductors (SPECS) is a step in the right direction.
- We must focus on setting up a fabrication plant to manufacture semiconductor chips to facilitate complete vertical integration.
The Room AC sector story
- We imported RACs worth Rs 41 billion in 2017-18.
- The government initiated multiple measures such as the PMP scheme, banning the import of refrigerant-filled ACs, increasing the import duty on RACs and critical components, and the PLI scheme.
- From 2017-18, RAC imports have declined by 56 per cent to Rs 18 billion in 2020-21.
- Our import of RACs has shifted from China to an FTA country like Thailand, where import duty isn’t applicable.
- A judicious mix of protection (levy of import duty/banning of finished goods) and incentives (PMP, PLI scheme, 100 per cent FDI) has developed local manufacturing, created jobs, and turned a trade surplus.
Way forward
- We missed the manufacturing/export bus in the 1980s.
- We did excel in services like software to become back office to the world. With China+1 becoming a geopolitical imperative, it is an opportune time for us to expand the manufacturing sector and improve our export market share.
- To achieve our true potential we need close coordination and seamless working between central, state, and local governments, the rule of law, improvements in infrastructure, especially logistics and flexible labour laws.
Conclusion
Many of our peers are ahead of us in ease of doing business, but none of them has a large domestic market like us. The automobile and generic pharma sector in the past and the mobile phone/RAC sectors recently have shown that we know the formulae.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 73rd and 74th Constitutional amendment
Mains level: Paper 2- Strengthening local governments
Context
The “State Finances, Study of Budgets of 2021-22” report, correctly identify the role of the city governments in meeting the challenges the pandemic has thrown up, the report also points to the draining of resources.
What the RBI report says about the role of local governments
- The report highlights the frontline role played by the third-tier governments by implementing containment strategies, healthcare.
- Due to this, their finances have come under severe strain, forcing them to cut down expenditures and mobilise funding from various sources.
- Need for functional autonomy: The RBI further commented that the functional autonomy of civic bodies must increase and their governance structure strengthened.
- Empowering financially: This could happen by ‘empowering them financially through higher resource availability.
- The RBI did echo the recommendations of the 15th Finance Commission report on local bodies that emphasised city governance structures and financial empowerment.
- Limited coverage of property tax: The RBI report also highlights the limited coverage of property tax and its failure in shoring up municipal corporation revenues.
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) data show that India has the lowest property tax collection rate in the world — i.e., property tax to GDP ratio.
Issues faced by city governments
- During the pandemic, while leaders from the Prime Minister to Chief Ministers to District Magistrate were seen taking a call on disaster mitigation strategies, city mayors were found missing.
- The old approach of treating cities as adjuncts of State governments continues to dominate the policy paradigm.
- The general approach towards urban empowerment has remained piecemeal in India.
- The first intervention to understand ‘the urban’ (though there are references in the Five Year plans) and plan with a pan-Indian vision took place in the 1980s when the National Commission On Urbanisation was formed with Charles Correa as its chairperson.
- Another important intervention was in the first half of the 1990s with the Constitution 73rd and 74th Amendments.
- The latter refers to urban reforms — empowering urban local bodies to perform 18 functions listed in the 12th Schedule.
- However, there is no mention of financial empowerment.
- The only exception to the rule has been the people’s plan model of Kerala where 40% of the State’s plan budget was for local bodies (directly) with a transfer of important subjects such as planning, etc.
How to achieve functional autonomy for city government
- This should happen with three F’s: the transfer of ‘functions, finances and functionaries’ to city governments.
- There are nearly 5,000 statutory towns and an equal number of census towns in India.
- Nearly 35% of the population lives in urban centres.
- And, nearly two-thirds of the country’s GDP stems from cities and almost 90% of government revenue flows from urban centres.
- Before value-added tax and other centralised taxation systems, one of the major earnings of cities used to be from octroi.
- But this source of revenue collection was taken away by the State and the central governments.
- Instead, finance commissions recommended grants to urban local bodies based on a formula of demographic profile.
- In such a situation, it is difficult for the towns to sustain their ability to perform their bare minimum functions, especially with the latest Pay Commission recommendations.
- This has resulted in burdening people more with taxes and further privatisation/outsourcing of the services of the municipalities.
- The often-cited example is how cities in the Scandinavian countries manage their functions well — from city planning to mobility to waste management.
- But the truth is that a chunk of the income tax from citizens is given to city governments.
- A committee formed by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development to review the 74th constitutional amendment recommended that 10% of income tax collected from the cities was to be given back to them as a direct revenue grant from the central government.
Way forward
- 1] Cities must be treated as important centres of governance, where democratic decentralisation can bring in amazing results.
- There will be transparency and adequate participation of the people.
- 2] Cities should not be considered as entrepreneurship spaces where the sole driving force is to make them competitive to attract investments.
- 3] The resources required for quantitative and qualitative data must be immediately provided to the cities to ensure a disaster risk reduction plan keeping vulnerable communities in mind.
- 4] A piecemeal approach such as the concept of ‘smart cities’ must be shunned altogether.
- This approach further widens the gap between different sets of people.
- 5] Leadership in the cities must be elected for a term of five years.
- Likewise, the third F, i.e., functionaries, must be transferred to the cities with a permanent cadre.
Consider the question “The functional autonomy of civic bodies must be increased and their governance structure strengthened. This could happen by ‘empowering them financially through higher resource availability’. Comment.”
Conclusion
Thus, in this exercise by the RBI, the good part is that there has least been a mention of cities, with local bodies as important centres of governance.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NCSK
Mains level: Manual scavenging in India
The Union Cabinet has approved a three-year extension of the tenure of the National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK) that was set to end on March 31.
About National Commission for Safai Karamcharis
- The commission was set up in 1993 under the NCSK Act 1993 for a period of three years, which has been extended since then.
- The NCSK Act is however ceased to have effect from February 29, 2004.
- After that, the tenure of the NCSK has been extended as a non-statutory body from time to time through resolutions.
Why was NCSK set up?
- The commission helps in coming up with programmes for the welfare of sanitation workers.
- It also monitors the implementation of the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013.
- Till December 31, 2021, 58,098 manual scavengers had been identified.
Need for eliminating Manual Scavenging
- Undignified life (all the 6 Fundamental Rights are compromised, directly or indirectly).
- It directly perpetuates castism.
- Modern, Secular India has no place for such “professions”.
- It no way suits India’s rising global profile – ‘super power’ aspirations.
- Women are mostly disprivileged since most manual scavengers are dalit women.
What else needs to be done?
- Though the government has taken many steps for the upliftment of the safai karamcharis, the deprivation suffered by them in socio-economic and educational terms is still far from being eliminated.
- Although manual scavenging has been almost eradicated, sporadic instances of their deaths do occur.
Way forward
- There is a continued need to monitor the various interventions and initiatives of the government for welfare of safai Karamcharis.
- The govt must strive to achieve the goal of complete mechanization of sewer/septic tanks cleaning in the country and rehabilitation of manual scavengers.
Try this question from CSP 2016:
Q.’Rashtriya Garima Abhiyaan’ is a national campaign to:
(a) rehabilitate the homeless and destitute persons and provide them with suitable sources of livelihood
(b) release the sex workers from their practice and provide them with alternative sources of livelihood
(c) eradicate the practice of manual scavenging and rehabilitate the manual scavengers
(d) release the bonded labourers from their bondage and rehabilitate them
Post your answers here:
Also try this question from our AWE initiative:
Manual scavenging has been called as a worst surviving symbol of untouchability. Critically discuss the measures taken by Government to eradicate this practice? (250 W)
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Active Volcanoes in Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’
Mains level: Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’
The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano which massively erupted lies along the Pacific ‘Ring of fire’, and is just over 60 kilometers from the island nation of Tonga.
What is the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’?
- The Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ or Pacific rim, or the Circum-Pacific Belt, is an area along the Pacific Ocean that is characterized by active volcanoes and frequent earthquakes.
- Volcanic arcs and oceanic trenches partly encircling the Pacific Basin form the so-called Ring of Fire.
- It is home to about 75 per cent of the world’s volcanoes – more than 450 volcanoes.
- Also, about 90 per cent of the world’s earthquakes occur here.
Its spread
- Its length is over 40,000 kilometres and traces from New Zealand clockwise in an almost circular arc covering Tonga, Kermadec Islands, Indonesia.
- It is moving up to the Philippines, Japan, and stretching eastward to the Aleutian Islands, then southward along the western coast of North America and South America.
Seismic activity of the region
- The area is along several tectonic plates including the Pacific plate, Philippine Plate, Juan de Fuca plate, Cocos plate, Nazca plate, and North American plate.
- The movement of these plates or tectonic activity makes the area witness abundant earthquakes and tsunamis every year.
- Along much of the Ring, tectonic plates move towards each other creating subduction zones.
- One plate gets pushed down or is subducted by the other plate.
- This is a very slow process – a movement of just one or two inches per year.
- As this subduction happens, rocks melt, become magma and move to Earth’s surface and cause volcanic activity.
What has happened in recent eruption in Tonga?
- In the case of Tonga, the Pacific Plate was pushed down below the Indo-Australian Plate and Tonga plate, causing the molten rock to rise above and form the chain of volcanoes.
- Subduction zones are also where most of the violent earthquakes on the planet occur.
- The December 26, 2004 earthquake occurred along the subduction zone where the Indian Plate was subducted beneath the Burma plate.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nusantara
Mains level: NA
Indonesia passed a bill replacing its capital Jakarta with East Kalimantan, situated to the east of Borneo island. The new capital city of the country will be called Nusantara.
About Nusantara
- The New State Capital Law Bill has been drafted by a special committee set up by Widodo’s government and makes Nusantara, also called IKN, the capital of the Republic of Indonesia.
- The transfer of the status of Jakarta as Indonesia’s capital to Nusantara, where 256,142 hectares of land has been set aside for the project, will take place in the “first semester” of 2024.
- East Kalimantan, where the new capital will be, as per the bill is said to have a world-city vision.
- It will be designed and managed with the objective of becoming a sustainable city in the world.
Why is Indonesia changing its capital city?
- The new location is very strategic – it’s in the centre of Indonesia and close to urban areas.
- The burden Jakarta is holding right now is too heavy as the centre of governance, business, finance, trade and services.
- Jakarta is also infamous for being the worlds’ first sinking capital city due to rising sea levels.
- The city’s pollution levels are so bad that it has been ranking as one of the most polluted cities in the world for years.
- Another important reason to shift the capital from Java island to Borneo island has been the growing inequality – financial and otherwise.
Where is East Kalimantan?
- East Kalimantan is 2,300 kilometres from Jakarta on the eastern side of Borneo island, shared by Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.
- The new capital will be located in the North Penajam Paser and Kutai Kartanegara regions.
- East Kalimantan is an area with immense water resources and habitable terrain.
- East Kalimantan is rich in flora and fauna.
Why Nusantara?
- Nusantara is an old Javanese term that means ‘archipelago’.
- Nusantara has historical, sociological, and philosophical aspects attached to the name.
- The name would represent Indonesia as a whole and would show the potential of the nation.
What are the other countries that have changed capitals?
- Indonesia is not the first country to change its capital city.
- There has been a long list of countries that have changed their capitals for various reasons. Brazil changed its capital city from Rio De Janerio to Brasilia, a more centrally-located city, in 1960.
- In 1991, Nigeria hanged the country’s capital from Lagos to Abuja.
- Kazakhstan moved its capital city from Almaty, which is still its commercial centre, to Nur-Sultan in 1997.
- Myanmar changed its capital from Rangoon to Naypyidaw in 2005.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chintamani Padya Natakam
Mains level: Not Much
The Andhra Pradesh government has brought the curtains down on the popular Telugu play ‘Chintamani Padya Natakam’, which has enthralled people for almost 100 years.
Chintamani Padya Natakam
- It is a stage play penned by social reformer, writer and poet Kallakuri Narayana Rao about 100 years ago.
- In the play, the writer explains how people neglect their families by falling prey to certain social evils.
- It was aimed to create awareness on the Devadasi system and how the flesh trade was ruining many families at that particular period.
- Subbisetty, Chintamani, Bilvamangaludu, Bhavani Shankaram, and Srihari are some of the characters in the play.
Its performance
- The play is named after the main character, Chintamani, a woman born into a family involved in the flesh trade.
- The play focuses on how she attained salvation after repentance.
- Subbi Shetty, a character in the play, loses his wealth to Chintamani and his character is utilised in a way that engages the audience.
- Chintamani play is popular across the state. It has been performed at thousands of places.
- The play continues to engage the audience even today and has become a must stage play in villages during Dasara celebrations.
Why it got banned?
- Began as a social sermon, this play has been increasingly going vulgar.
- Subbi Shetty, who resembles a person of a transgender community, is used to portray the social group in a bad way.
- Obscene dialogues are added to the play in the name of creativity.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Swamp Deer
Mains level: NA
The population of the vulnerable eastern swamp deer, extinct elsewhere in South Asia, has dipped (from 907 in 2018 to 868 in 2020 ) in the Kaziranga National Park and Tiger Reserve.
Swamp Deer
- The swamp deer also called as barasingha is a deer species distributed in the Indian subcontinent.
- Populations in northern and central India are fragmented, and two isolated populations occur in southwestern Nepal.
- It has been locally extinct in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and its presence is uncertain in Bhutan.
- In Assamese, barasingha is called dolhorina; dol meaning swamp.
Note: Swamp deers do occur in the Kanha National Park of Madhya Pradesh, in two localities in Assam, and in only 6 localities in Uttar Pradesh.
Conservation status
- IUCN Red List: Endangered
- CITES: Appendix I
- Wildlife Protection Act of 1972: Schedule I
Try this PYQ:
Q. Consider the following fauna of India:
- Gharial
- Leatherback turtle
- Swamp deer
Which of the above is/are endangered?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 only
(c) 1, 2 and 3
(d) None
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Miss Kerala
Mains level: Illicit trade of exotic species
A section of aquarists and ornamental fish breeders are surprised that the Denison barb (Miss Kerala), a native freshwater fish species commonly found in parts of Karnataka and Kerala, has been included in Schedule I of the Wild Life Protection Act, 1982 (amendment bill).
Miss Kerala
- Miss Kerala is also known as Denison barb, red-line torpedo barb and roseline shark.
- Its scientific name is Sahyadria denisonii.
- The fish is featured with red and black stripes on its body.
- It is found in the States of Kerala and Karnataka.
- It has been listed on the IUCN Redlist as Vulnerable, in 2010.
- This species is known to inhabit fast-flowing hill streams and is often found in rocky pools with thick vegetation along river banks.
Why included in Schedule I of WPA?
- Ironically, its beauty is the biggest threat to its survival, as it is highly sought-after in the international aquarium trade, constituting 60 – 65% of the total live ornamental fish exported from India.
- Its numbers are also decreasing owing to habitat degradation due to deforestation, mining, agriculture, urban expansion and hydro-electric projects.
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