Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Cyber warfare threats and challenges
Context
After 100 days of Ukraine crisis, Russia is yet to achieve what can be termed as a decisive victory in any sector of the current conflict.
Reasons for the lacklustre performance of Russia
- Several reasons have been adduced by experts in the West for the lacklustre performance of the Russian army.
- Lack of motivation: There is a lack of motivation and the poor morale of the Russian forces sent to Ukraine.
- Outdated weaponry: Russian weaponry being outdated and ineffective to fight an informationalised war under modern conditions.
- Leadership issue: Russian commanders have also proved inept in devising plans and taking appropriate decisions in battlefield conditions against a determined enemy.
Important role of cyber warfare
- Given that cyber is often touted as the Fifth Dimension of warfare, it may be worthwhile to examine whether this indeed is the first major conflict in which ‘cyber’ is playing a crucial role, allowing a weaker nation with cyber capabilities to use it to its advantage.
- A former Chief of the National Security Agency of the U.S., in his memoirs had said that although cyberspace is a man-made domain, it had become critical to military operations on land, sea, air and in space.
- A former U.S. Secretary of Defence a few years ago,, even talked of a possible ‘cyber Pearl Harbour to paralyze nations and create a profound sense of vulnerability’.
- The Russian military oligarchy is indeed among the world leaders in digital disruption and cyber-methodology.
- One could have reasonably presumed that even before the conflict commenced, Russia would have swamped Ukraine with an avalanche of digital attacks.
- Ukraine, for its part, has its own digital army, including a corps of digital weapons.
Limits of cyber warfare
- There are several publicised instances earlier, of alleged Russian operatives waging a cyberwar against Ukraine.
- Both sides now possess and use malware such as data-wipers which have proved highly effective.
- On the day the Russian invasion of Ukraine began, Russian cyber units are believed to have successfully deployed destructive malware against several Ukrainian military targets.
- A series of distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks against Ukrainian banking and defence websites occurred simultaneously.
- As far as the conduct of the war is concerned, the string of small-scale cyberattacks cannot be said to have had any material impact on the conduct or outcome of the conflict.
- Hence, the cardinal question is why given that Ukraine has put up such a heroic defence — and to a considerable extent stalled the Russian offensive — Russia has not embarked on a massive all-out cyber-offensive.
- If that be the case, then much of the speculation that cyberattacks in the event of a war provide a perpetrator the capability to enact another ‘Pearl Harbour’ seems highly unrealistic.
Conclusion
It is very likely, and possibly a fact, that there are major difficulties in planning and executing massive cyberattacks on a short timeline to ensure higher efficacy of kinetic attacks.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Agnipath scheme
Context
Recently, the Agnipath scheme for recruitment of short-term contracted soldiers was announced.
About Agnipath Scheme
- This will be the only form of recruitment of soldiers into the three defence services from now.
- The scheme aims at strengthening national security and for providing an opportunity to the youth to serve in the armed forces.
- Recruits under the scheme will be known as ‘Agniveers’.
- After completing the four-year service, they can apply for regular employment in the armed forces.
- They may be given priority over others for various jobs in other government departments.
- The move is expected to decrease the average age profile of armed forces personnel from the current 32 to 24-26 years over a period of time.
Benefits of the Agnipath Scheme
- Lower the average age: The average age in the forces is 32 years today, which will go down to 26 in six to seven years, the scheme envisions.
- Youthful armed forces will allow them to be easily trained for new technologies.
- Employment opportunities: It will increase employment opportunities and because of the skills and experience acquired during the four-year service such soldiers will get employment in various fields.
- High-skilled workforce: The scheme will also lead to the availability of a higher-skilled workforce to the economy which will be helpful in productivity gain and overall GDP growth
Financial constraints and challenges
- Directing funds towards modernisation: It has been argued that the savings in the pensions bill — which will show up on the books only after a couple of decades — would be directed towards the modernisation of defence forces.
- The armed forces do not have that kind of time available to them to postpone their already long-delayed modernisation.
- Shortage: The Indian Air Force is already down to 30 squadrons of fighter jets against the 42 squadrons it needs, and the Indian Navy is at 130 ships when its vision was to be a 200-ship navy; the Indian Army is already short of 1,00,000 soldiers.
- Instead of expanding the economy to support the military, the Government has resorted to shrinking the military.
Issues with the short-term recruitment
- No theoretical modelling: As the short-term recruitment policy has neither been theoretically modelled nor tried out as a pilot project, the exact consequences of the move will only be known as they play out.
- Adverse effect on professional capabilities: But its adverse effect on the professional capabilities of the armed forces is certain.
- It starts with the very high turnover of young soldiers, the increase in training capacities and infrastructure and the augmentation of the administrative setup for greater recruitment, release, and retention of soldiers.
- An armed forces boasting of a poor teeth-to-tail ratio is further increasing the tail.
- Impact on operational capabilities: The tooth-to-tail ratio (T3R), in military jargon, is the amount of military personnel it takes to supply and support (“tail”) each combat soldier (“tooth”).
- The Indian Air Force and the Indian Navy employ their airmen and sailors in very specialised roles, which require technical skills, and a high degree of training and experience.
- Because the short-term contractual soldier model (the Agniveer scheme) is going to take a few years to fully play out at an organisational level, the actual degradation of operational capability will only be known then.
- Class-based recruitment abolished: In the Agnipath proposal, the class-based recruitment has been replaced with an all-India all-class recruitment.
- It will strike at the core of the organisational management, leadership structures and operating philosophy of the Indian Army.
- Even though the soldiers in the Indian Army are professionally trained, they also draw their motivation from their social identity — where each soldier cares for his reputation among the peers in his caste group or his village or his social setting.
- To replace that with a pure professional identity of a soldier will bring its own challenges in a tradition-bound army.
- Training challenges: There will be major problems in training, integrating and deploying soldiers with different levels of experience and motivations.
- An organisation which depends on trust, camaraderie and esprit de corps could end up grappling with rivalries and jealousies amongst winners and losers, especially in their final year of contract.
- Legal challenges: Even though the Government has kept the contract at four years to deny the Agniveer gratuity and is not counting the contractual period towards regular service, these provisions are bound to be challenged legally.
- Over time, this will lead to the salary and pension budget creeping back up again.
- Political imbalance: The Agnipath scheme also does away with the idea of a State-wise quota for recruitment into the Army, based on the Recruitable Male Population of that State which was implemented from 1966.
- This prevented an imbalanced army.
- Academic research shows that the high level of ethnic imbalance has been associated with severe problems of democracy and an increased likelihood of civil war.
- Impact on motivation: A short-term contractual soldier, without earning pension, will be seen as doing jobs after his military service that are not seen to be commensurate in status and prestige with the profession of honour.
- Impact on motivation: It will reduce the motivation of those joining on short-term contracts while diminishing the “honour” of a profession which places extraordinary demands on young men.
- Social unrest: There are numerous examples of demobilised soldiers leading to increased violence against minorities.
- This could happen in India as the youth who are not given regular recruitment after four year’s service would turn to violence.
Conclusion
The Government’s yearning for financial savings runs the risk of reducing the honour of a profession, the stability of a society and the safety of a country.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Enemy Property
Mains level: Not Much
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has registered some cases on allegations that huge losses to the exchequer was caused by leasing out prime-value land under the Custodian of Enemy Property for India (CEPI) on forged documents.
Why in news?
- Hectares of commercial land located in Uttar Pradesh were leased out at nominal rates in favour of the lessees through manipulation.
What is “Enemy Property”?
- In the wake of the India-Pakistan wars of 1965 and 1971, there was the migration of people from India to Pakistan.
- Under the Defence of India Rules framed under The Defence of India Act, 1962, the Government of India took over the properties and companies of those who took Pakistani nationality.
- These “enemy properties” were vested by the central government in the Custodian of Enemy Property for India.
- The same was done for property left behind by those who went to China after the 1962 Sino-Indian war.
- The Tashkent Declaration of January 10, 1966 included a clause that said India and Pakistan would discuss the return of the property and assets taken over by either side in connection with the conflict.
- However, the Government of Pakistan disposed of all such properties in their country in the year 1971 itself.
Dealing with enemy property
- The Enemy Property Act, enacted in 1968, provided for the continuous vesting of enemy property in the Custodian of Enemy Property for India (CEPI).
- The central government, through the Custodian, is in possession of enemy properties spread across many states in the country.
- Some movable properties too, are categorised as enemy properties.
- In 2017, Parliament passed The Enemy Property (Amendment and Validation) Bill, 2016, which amended The Enemy Property Act, 1968, and The Public Premises (Eviction of Unauthorised Occupants) Act, 1971.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Making the Parliament inclusive
Context
Due to systemic issues, Parliament continues to alienate women. The number of women representatives is still considerably small, but even more subtly, Parliament as a workspace continues to be built exclusively for men.
Women’s participation in the initial years
- In 1952, when the Indian Republic held its first Parliamentary session, there were 39 strong, intelligent, and passionate women as its member.
- Leading in the world in inclusiveness: At a time when women formed only 1.7% of the total members of the United States Congress and 1.1% of the Parliament of the United Kingdom, India was leading the way in the fight towards more inclusive world democracies with 5.5% women representation.
- Women played an important role in India’s struggle for independence and that contribution was reflected in their presence in the parliament.
- What happened in 1952 was a highly progressive step, but 70 years hence, it seems we have strayed from that path.
Electoral representation of women in India: Current scenario
- 14.6 per cent in current Lock Sabha: In India, women currently make up 14.6 per cent of MPs (78 MPs) in the Lok Sabha, which is a historic high.
- Although the percentage is modest, it is remarkable because women barely made up 9 per cent of the overall candidates in 2019.
- In electoral representation, has fallen several places in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women’s parliamentary presence, from 117 after the 2014 election to 143 as of January 2020.
- In terms of electoral quotas, there were two outstanding exceptions in the 2019 general elections.
- Voluntary parliamentary quota: West Bengal under Mamata Banerjee and Odisha under Naveen Patnaik opted for voluntary parliamentary quotas, fielding 40 per cent and 33 per cent women candidates, respectively.
- Women reservation bill: The bill to reserve 33 per cent seats for women in Parliament and state legislatures was passed in the Rajya Sabha in 2010, but it was never introduced in the Lok Sabha.
- India ranks a dismal 146th in women’s representation in the national Parliament.
- At the turn of the century, it ranked 66th.
- The decline has come because progress has been piecemeal — several other countries have improved their share of women in Parliament far more rapidly.
Struggle for inclusivity
- Despite a good start in the past, our struggle with inclusivity has not eased.
- Due to systemic issues, Parliament continues to alienate women.
- The number of women representatives is still considerably small, but even more subtly, Parliament as a workspace continues to be built exclusively for men.
Lack of inclusivity in the Parliament
- Absence of gender-neutral language: A closer look at our parliamentary discourse and communication reveals a concerning and disconcerting absence of gender-neutral language.
- After 75 years of Independence, Parliament often refers to women in leadership positions as Chairmen and party men.
- In the Rajya Sabha, the Rules of Procedure continue to refer to the Vice-President of India as the ex-officio Chairman, stemming from the lack of gender-neutral language in the Constitution of India.
- The alarming degree of usage of masculine pronouns assumes a power structure biased towards men.
- Lack of gender-neutral Acts: The issue further extends to law-making.
- In the last decade, there have hardly been any gender-neutral Acts.
- Acts have made references to women not as leaders or professionals (such as policemen), but usually as victims of crimes.
- The root of such instances lies with a gender-conforming Constitution.
- In its present state, the Constitution reinforces historical stereotypes that women and transgender people cannot be in leadership positions, such as the President and the Vice-President of India.
- This represents the failure of the many Union Governments which did not take the initiative of amending it.
- In the past, amendments have been brought about to make documents gender neutral.
- In 2014, under the leadership of the then Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Meira Kumar, the Rules of Procedure of the Lok Sabha were made entirely gender neutral.
Way forward
- Correcting the language: Internationally, even mature democracies that legalised universal suffrage after India, such as Canada (1960 for Aboriginal women), Australia (1962 for Indigenous women), and the United States (1965 for women of African-American descent), have now taken concrete measures towards gender-inclusive legislation and communication..
- Amendments: India can and must begin with an amendment to the Constitution and the entire reservoir of laws.
- Focus on the deeper issues of aspiration: Once the language is corrected, the entire country, including Parliament, can focus on the deeper issues of the aspirations and growth of its woman workforce.
- Women staff in Parliament: Women are not adequately represented in Parliament staff,.
- We need a single, transparent appointment and promotion process for women staff in Parliament.
- We need to make sure that their professional growth is not being hindered by other issues such as harassment and domestic responsibilities.
Conclusion
In the 21st century, when people of all genders are leading the world with compassion, strength and ambitions, the Indian Parliament needs to reflect on its standing.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP)
Mains level: Not Much
The PM has hoped to extend the Aspirational District Programme (ADP) to block and city levels.
Aspirational Districts Programme (ADP)
- Launched in January 2018, the ‘Transformation of Aspirational Districts’ initiative aims to remove this heterogeneity through a mass movement to quickly and effectively transform these districts.
- The broad contours of the program are Convergence (of Central & State Schemes), Collaboration (of Central, State level ‘Prabhari’ Officers & District Collectors), and Competition among districts driven by a spirit of mass Movement.
- With States as the main drivers, this program will focus on the strength of each district, identify low-hanging fruits for immediate improvement, measure progress, and rank districts.
Behind the name
- PM then negated the idea of naming any scheme based on their backwardness.
- Rather the name ‘Aspirational’ presents a more affirmative action-based execution of the scheme.
Selection of districts
- A total of 117 Aspirational districts have been identified by NITI Aayog based upon composite indicators.
- The objective of the program is to monitor the real-time progress of aspirational districts based on 49 indicators (81 data points) from the 5 identified thematic areas.
Weightage has been accorded to these districts as below:
- Health & Nutrition (30%)
- Education (30%)
- Agriculture & Water Resources (20%)
- Financial Inclusion & Skill Development (10%)
- Basic Infrastructure (10%)
Strategy of the ADP
The core Strategy of the program may be summarized as follows.
- Making development a mass movement in these districts
- Identify low hanging fruits and the strength of each district, to act as a catalyst
- for development.
- Measure progress and rank districts to spur a sense of competition.
- Districts shall aspire to become State’s best to Nation’s best.
Features of the ADP
- It has transformed into a Jan Andolan.
- The ADP is different in trying to monitor the improvement of these districts through real-time data tracking.
- The programme seeks to develop convergence between selected existing central and state government programmes.
- District performance in the public domain and experience building of the district bureaucracy is another notable feature.
- The programme is targeted, not towards any single group of beneficiaries, but rather towards the population of the district as a whole.
What makes this program special?
The program reflects what has become of the development project in India under neoliberalism, especially after the end of planning.
- Long overdue sectors have been given more emphasis.
- It is not a tailor-made program with one-size-fit strategy. More onus has been laid on the districts. It has a district-intervention strategy.
- It works on the principle of SWOT (strength, weakness, opportunity and threats) model and comparison with national best parameters for effective resource management.
- It is the most reviewed programme by the Prime Minister.
- A general idea behind the idea is that a good work never goes un-noticed. It is duly appreciated on social media as well as by the officials.
Programmatic Strengths
- A key strength of the ADP is the collection of baseline data and follow-ups at regular intervals.
- Sustaining this effort would create a robust compilation of statistics for use by both researchers and policy-makers.
- In doing this, the government also brings much-needed attention to human development and a willingness to meet the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
- Incremental progress being made in the chosen districts as reflected in the rankings.
- The programme also claims to be “non-partisan and unbiased” and geared towards all-India growth.
- The selection of districts indeed suggests that the programme has not favored any bias either regional, political or any other.
- The programme seeks convergence of central and state schemes anchored around specific activities.
Issues with the programme
- Using the case of Bihar, they argue that the programmes selection of districts itself is problematic.
- In fact, it actually excludes the most backward districts because per capita income, the most basic measure of development, has not been considered.
- There seems to be some ambiguity around the issue of whether the programme is concerned only with improved access or also with the quality of service provided.
- The indicators used are not defined relationally, rather they are static human development indicators that do not see people mired in dynamic social relations.
- It is also accused that the state is not making any new or focused public investment (except for possible use of Flexi-funds) into these districts, on the other hand, it is moralizing about their inability to improve (through rankings).
- The programme is carrying the burden of proving the government’s “developmental” work without addressing any of the fundamental issues around achieving equitable development.
- Yet, the NITI Aayog justifies the overall approach as capitalizing on “low-hanging fruit.”
Way forward
- The program has been able to make difference in the lives of citizens of India, in education, health, nutrition, financial inclusion, skill development and this has made a difference to some most backward and most geographically far-flung districts of the nation.
- ADP is ‘aligned to the principle of “leave no one behind—the vital core of the SDGs. Political commitment at the highest level has resulted in the rapid success of the program the report said.
- UNDP has recommended revising a few indicators that are slightly close to reaching their saturation or met by most districts like ‘electrification of households’ as an indicator of basic infrastructure.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Inter-State Council
Mains level: Not Much
Tamil Nadu CM M K Stalin wrote to PM asking that at least three meetings of the Inter-State Council should be held every year to “strengthen the spirit of cooperative federalism”.
What is the news?
- TN CM suggested that bills of national importance should be placed before the Council before being tabled in Parliament.
- He said this was because there is no “effective and interactive communication” between the states and the Centre on issues of common interest.
What is the Inter-State Council?
- The Inter-State Council is a mechanism that was constituted “to support Centre-State and Inter-State coordination and cooperation in India”.
- It was established under Article 263 of the Constitution, which states that the President may constitute such a body if a need is felt for it.
- The Council is basically meant to serve as a forum for discussions among various state governments.
Its establishment
- In 1988, the Sarkaria Commission suggested the Council should exist as a permanent body, and in 1990 it came into existence through a Presidential Order.
Functions of the Inter-State Council
- The main functions of the Council are:
- Inquiring into and advising on disputes between states
- Investigating and discussing subjects in which two states or states and the Union have a common interest
- Making recommendations for the better coordination of policy and action
Its composition
- The Prime Minister is the chairman of the Council, whose members include the Chief Ministers of all states and UTs with legislative assemblies, and Administrators of other UTs.
- Six Ministers of Cabinet rank in the Centre’s Council of Ministers, nominated by the Prime Minister, are also its members.
- Its procedure states that the council should meet at least three times a year.
What issues has TN CM raised?
- The leader has flagged the lack of regular meetings.
- The Council has met only once in the last six years — and that there has been no meeting since July 2016.
- Since its constitution in 1990, the body has met only 11 times,
Recent development: Reconstitution of the Council
- The CM appreciated the reconstitution of the Council, carried out last month.
- The body will now have 10 Union Ministers as permanent invitees, and the standing committee of the Council has been reconstituted with Home Minister Amit Shah as Chairman.
- Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and the Chief Ministers of Maharashtra, UP, and Gujarat are some of the other standing committee members.
Why did TN raise this issue?
- Many CM frequently disagreed with the central government’s policies on matters of taxation, on the medical examination NEET, and often talked about the rights of states.
- What could be settled amicably among the executive branches is often taken to the doorsteps of the judicial branch.
Role of TN in the Council’s formation
Tamil Nadu has long advocated the need for a Council.
- In 1969, late leader M Karunanidhi, spoke about setting up an expert committee to study Centre-state relations.
- Months later, his government appointed a committee headed by P V Rajamannar, a former Madras High Court Chief Justice, which submitted a report in 1971.
- It then recommended “the Inter-State Council should be constituted immediately”.
What happened in the last meeting of the Inter State Council?
- In 2016, the meeting included consideration of the Punchhi Commission’s recommendations on Centre-State Relations that were published in 2010.
- At the time, M Karunanidhi had criticised then CM J Jayalalithaa for not personally attending the meeting.
- The meeting saw detailed discussion on the recommendations.
- States asked for maintaining the federal structure amid growing “centralisation”.
- Imposition of Article 356 of the Constitution, which deals with the imposition of President’s Rule in states, was a matter of concern.
- Bihar Chief Minister demanded that the post of Governor should be abolished!
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FATF
Mains level: Terror financing and money laundering
Pakistan got a reprieve from the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) as it announced that the country could be removed from the “grey list” after a visit by a fact-finding team.
What is the news?
- FATF noted Pakistan’s constructive claims of actions to curb terror funding.
- It would formally be taken off the “grey list” in October.
- China is working relentlessly to get Pakistan off FATF ‘grey list’.
India’s stance
- New Delhi has been sceptical of Pakistan’s commitment to completely end terror safe havens in the country.
- Infiltration in J&K continues and small arms and IEDs are being habitually pushed across the LoC.
What is the FATF?
- The FATF is an international watchdog for financial crimes such as money laundering and terror financing.
- It was established at the G7 Summit of 1989 in Paris to address loopholes in the global financial system after member countries raised concerns about growing money laundering activities.
- In the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack on the US, FATF also added terror financing as a main focus area.
- This was later broadened to include restricting the funding of weapons of mass destruction.
- The FATF currently has 39 members.
Working of FATF
- The decision-making body of the FATF, known as its plenary, meets thrice a year.
- Its meetings are attended by 206 countries of the global network.
- It includes members, and observer organisations, such as the World Bank, some offices of the UN, and regional development banks.
Functions of FATF
- The FATF sets standards or recommendations for countries to achieve in order to plug the holes in their financial systems and make them less vulnerable to illegal financial activities.
- It conducts regular peer-reviewed evaluations called Mutual Evaluations (ME) of countries to check their performance on standards prescribed by it.
- The reviews are carried out by FATF and FATF-Style Regional Bodies (FSRBs), which then release Mutual Evaluation Reports (MERs).
- For the countries that don’t perform well on certain standards, time-bound action plans are drawn up.
- Recommendations for countries range from assessing risks of crimes to setting up legislative, investigative and judicial mechanisms to pursue cases of money laundering and terror funding.
What are the Black List and the Grey List?
- The words ‘grey’ and ‘black’ list do not exist in the official FATF lexicon.
- They however designate countries that need to work on complying with FATF directives and those who are non-compliant.
- Black List: The blacklist, now called the “Call for action” was the common shorthand description for the FATF list of “Non-Cooperative Countries or Territories” (NCCTs).
- Grey List: Countries that are considered safe haven for supporting terror funding and money laundering are put in the FATF grey list. This inclusion serves as a warning to the country that it may enter the blacklist.
Consequences of being:
(1) In the grey list:
- Economic sanctions from IMF, World Bank, ADB
- Problem in getting loans from IMF, World Bank, ADB and other countries
- Reduction in international trade
- International boycott
(2) In the black list:
- High-risk jurisdictions subject to call for action
- Countries have considerable deficiencies in their AML/CFT (anti-money laundering and counter terrorist financing) regimens
- Enhanced due diligence
- Members are told to apply counter-measures such as sanctions on the listed countries
Note: Currently, North Korea and Iran are on the black list.
Pakistan and FATF
- Pakistan, which continues to remain on the “grey list” of FATF, had earlier been given the deadline till the June to ensure compliance with the 27-point action plan against terror funding networks.
- It has been under the FATF’s scanner since June 2018, when it was put on the Grey List for terror financing and money laundering risks.
- FATF and its partners such as the Asia Pacific Group (APG) are reviewing Pakistan’s processes, systems, and weaknesses on the basis of a standard matrix for anti-money laundering (AML) and combating the financing of terrorism (CFT) regime.
Why is Pakistan on the grey list?
- Pakistan has found itself on the grey list frequently since 2008, for weaknesses in fighting terror financing and money laundering.
- It never addressed concerns on the front of terror financing investigations and prosecutions targeting senior leaders and commanders of UN-designated terrorist groups.
- However, now steps had been taken in this direction such as the sentencing of terror outfit chief Hafiz Saeed, prosecution of Masood Azhar and seizure of their properties.
- India meanwhile, a member of FATF, suspects the efficacy and permanence of Pakistani actions.
How FATF impacts Pakistan?
- The FATF grey list made it more difficult for Pakistan to get financial aid from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), World Bank, Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the European Union (EU).
- This will further create an economic crisis for Pakistan which is already struggling to control its financial position.
- Bearing the cost of global politics the impact of FATF grey-listing on Pakistan’s economy has claimed that FATF’s decision has led to a loss of USD 38 billion for Pakistan so far.
Steps taken by Pakistan
- Pakistan is currently banking on its potential exclusion from the grey list to help improve the status of tough negotiations with the International Monetary Fund to get bailout money.
- Pakistan is now making a high-level political commitment to the FATF and APG to address its strategic AML/CFT deficiencies.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now
Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IS 17693: 2022
Mains level: NA
Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), the National Standards Body of India, has developed an Indian Standard, IS 17693: 2022 for ‘non-electric cooling cabinet made of clay’.
IS 17693: 2022
- BIS standard specifies the construction and performance requirements of a cooling cabinet made out of clay, which operates on the principle of evaporative cooling.
- These cabinets may be used to store perishable foodstuff without the need of electricity.
- This standard helps BIS in fulfilling 6 out of 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) like No poverty, Zero hunger, Gender equality, Affordable and clean energy, Industry, innovation, and infrastructure, and Responsible consumption and production.
Why such move?
- Named as ‘Mitticool refrigerator’, Mansukh Bhai Prajapati from Gujarat is the innovator behind the refrigerator which projects an eco-friendly technology.
- It is a natural refrigerator made primarily from clay to store vegetables, fruits, milk, and also for cooling water.
- It provides natural coolness to foodstuffs stored in it without requiring any electricity.
- Fruits, vegetables, and milk can be stored reasonably fresh without deteriorating their quality.
Back2Basics: Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS)
- BIS is the National Standards Body of India working under the aegis of the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution.
- It is established by the Bureau of Indian Standards Act, 1986 which came into effect on 23 December 1986.
- The organization was formerly the Indian Standards Institution (ISI), set up under the Resolution of the Department of Industries and Supplies in September 1946.
- The ISI was registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860.
- A new Bureau of Indian standard (BIS) Act 2016 has been brought into force with effect from 12 October 2017.
- The Act establishes the Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) as the National Standards Body of India.
UPSC 2023 countdown has begun! Get your personal guidance plan now! (Click here)
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now