Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: india pakistan relation
Pakistan’s Finance Minister has stated that the government may consider importing vegetables and other edible items from India following the destruction of standing crops due to the massive floods in the region.
Why in news?
- This statement comes after three years when Islamabad downgraded trade ties with New Delhi over the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir in 2019.
- The fundamentalist country sees ties with India as against the spirit of religion and betrayal to the so-called Kashmir cause.
A U-turn by Pakistan
- Pakistan’s double U-turn on resuming trade with India highlights the internal differences within the country.
- There are huge differences between business and political communities, and the emphasis on politics over economy and trade.
- It also signifies Pakistan cabinet’s grandstanding, linking normalisation of ties with India to Jammu and Kashmir.
What is the news?
- Pakistan has sought to import only three items from India, namely cotton, yarn and sugar.
- It has no consensus on resuming bilateral trade completely.
- This is based on Pakistan’s immediate economic needs and not designed as a political confidence-building measure to normalise relations with India.
What changed Pakistan’s mind?
(1) Decline of Textile sector
- For the textile and sugar industries in Pakistan, importing from India is imperative, practical and is the most economic.
- Yarn, cotton cloth, knitwear, bedwear and readymade garments form the core of Pakistan’s textile basket in the export sector.
- By February 2020, there was a steep decline in the textile sector due to disruptions in supply and domestic production.
- This is definitely due to dumping of cheap Chinese goods.
- When compared to the last fiscal year (2019-20), there has been a 30% decline (2020-21) in cotton production.
Do you know?
Pakistan is the fifth-largest exporter of cotton globally, and the cotton-related products (raw and value-added) earn close to half of the country’s foreign exchange.
(2) Crisis in the sugar industry
- When compared to cotton, the sugar industry’s problem stem from different issues — the availability for local consumption and the steep price increase.
- The sugar industry has prioritised exports over local distribution.
- Increased government subsidy and a few related administrative decisions resulted in the sugar industry attempting to make a considerable profit by exporting it.
- As a result, importing sugar from India would be cheaper for the consumer market in Pakistan.
In a nutshell
- Clearly, the crises in cotton and sugar industries played a role in the ECC’s decision to import cotton, yarn and sugar from India.
- It would not only be cheaper but also help Pakistan’s exports.
- This is also imperative for Pakistan to earn foreign exchange.
Why all these have made headlines these days?
- Pakistan is closer to bankruptcy like any other Chinese vassal state.
- The second takeaway from the two U-turns — is the supremacy of politics over trade and economy, even if the latter is beneficial to the importing country.
- For the cabinet, the interests of its own business community and its export potential have become secondary.
- However, Pakistan need not be singled out; this is a curse in South Asia, where politics play supreme over trade and economy.
- The meagre percentage of intra-South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) trade and the success (or the failure) of SAARC engaging in bilateral or regional trade would underline the above.
- Trade is unlikely to triumph over politics in South Asia; especially in India-Pakistan relations.
The Kashmir link
- The third takeaway is the emphasis on Jammu and Kashmir by Pakistan to make any meaningful start in bilateral relations.
- This goes against what it has been telling the rest of the world that India should begin dialogue with Pakistan.
- Recently, both Pakistan’s PM and the Chief of Army Staff, Qamar Javed Bajwa, were on record stating the need to build peace in the region.
- Bajwa even talked about “burying the past” and moving forward.
- There were also reports that Pakistan agreeing to re-establish the ceasefire along the Line of Control (LoC) was a part of this new strategy.
Conclusion
- The latest statement by Pakistan’s cabinet that unless India revokes the 2019 decision in Jammu and Kashmir, there would be no forward movement.
- This position also hints at Pakistan’s precondition to engage with India.
- Pakistan has been saying that the onus is on India to normalise the process.
- Perhaps, it is New Delhi’s turn to tell Islamabad that it is willing, but without any preconditions, and start with trade.
- It may even allow New Delhi to inform Pakistan’s stakeholders about who is willing to trade and who is reluctant.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: particulars of artemis mission
Mains level: NA
NASA’s Artemis 1 mission has sought unexpected delay due to fuel leakages issue.
What is the Artemis I Mission?
- NASA’s Artemis mission is touted as the next generation of lunar exploration, and is named after the twin sister of Apollo from Greek mythology.
- Artemis is also the goddess of the moon.
- Artemis I is the first of NASA’s deep space exploration systems.
- It is an uncrewed space mission where the spacecraft will launch on SLS — the most powerful rocket in the world — and travel 2,80,000 miles from the earth for over four to six weeks during the course of the mission.
- The Orion spacecraft is going to remain in space without docking to a space station, longer than any ship for astronauts has ever done before.
- The SLS rocket has been designed for space missions beyond the low-earth orbit and can carry crew or cargo to the moon and beyond.
Key objectives of the mission
- With the Artemis Mission, NASA aims to land humans on the moon by 2024, and it also plans to land the first woman and first person of colour on the moon.
- With this mission, NASA aims to contribute to scientific discovery and economic benefits and inspire a new generation of explorers.
- NASA will establish an Artemis Base Camp on the surface and a gateway in the lunar orbit to aid exploration by robots and astronauts.
- The gateway is a critical component of NASA’s sustainable lunar operations and will serve as a multi-purpose outpost orbiting the moon.
Other agencies involved
- Other space agencies are also involved in the Artemis programme.
- The Canadian Space Agency has committed to providing advanced robotics for the gateway.
- The European Space Agency will provide the International Habitat and the ESPRIT module, which will deliver additional communications capabilities among other things.
- The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency plans to contribute habitation components and logistics resupply.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: jurisprudence of bail
What is Bail?
- Bail is the conditional release of a defendant with the promise to appear in court when required.
- The term also means the security that is deposited in order to secure the release of the accused.
Types of Bail in India
- Depending upon the sage of the criminal matter, there are commonly three types of bail in India:
- Regular bail: A regular bail is generally granted to a person who has been arrested or is in police custody. A bail application can be filed for the regular bail under section 437 and 439 of CrPC.
- Interim bail: This type of bail is granted for a short period of time and it is granted before the hearing for the grant of regular bail or anticipatory bail.
- Anticipatory bail: Anticipatory bail is granted under section 438 of CrPC either by session court or High Court. An application for the grant of anticipatory bail can be filed by the person who discerns that he may be arrested by the police for a non-bailable offense.
Conditions for Grant of Bail in Bailable Offences
- Section 436 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973, lays down that a person accused of a bailable offense under IPC can be granted bail if:
- There are sufficient reasons to believe that the accused has not committed the offence.
- There is sufficient reason to conduct a further inquiry in the matter.
- The person is not accused of any offence punishable with death, life imprisonment or imprisonment up to 10 years.
Conditions for Grant of Bail in Non-Bailable Offences
- Section 437 of Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 lays down that the accused does not have the right to apply for bail in non-bailable offences.
- It is discretion of the court to grant bail in case of non-bailable offences if:
- The accused is a woman or a child, bail can be granted in a non-bailable offence.
- There is a lack of evidence then bail in non-Bailable offenses can be granted.
- There is a delay in lodging FIR by the complainant, bail may be granted.
- The accused is gravely sick.
What is the recent ruling about?
- The Supreme Court underlined that arrest is a draconian measure that needs to be used sparingly.
- The ruling is essentially a reiteration of several crucial principles of criminal procedure.
Why bail needs reform?
- Huge pendency of undertrials: Referring to the state of jails in the country, where over two-thirds lodged are undertrials,
- Indiscriminate arrests: Of this category of prisoners, majority may not even be required to be arrested despite registration of a cognizable offense, being charged with offenses punishable for seven years or less.
- Disadvantageous for some sections: They are not only poor and illiterate but also would include women. Thus, there is a culture of offense being inherited by many of them.
- Colonial legacy: Theoretically, the court also linked the idea of indiscriminate arrests to magistrates ignoring the rule of “bail, not jail” to a colonial mindset.
What is the law on bail?
- The CrPC does not define the word bail but only categories offences under the Indian Penal Code as ‘bailable’ and ‘non-bailable’.
- The CrPC empowers magistrates to grant bail for bailable offences as a matter of right.
- This would involve release on furnishing a bail bond, without or without security.
And what is the UK law?
- The Bail Act of the United Kingdom, 1976, prescribes the procedure for granting bail.
- A key feature is that one of the aims of the legislation is “reducing the size of the inmate population”.
- The law also has provisions for ensuring legal aid for defendants.
- The Act recognises a “general right” to be granted bail.
What has the Supreme Court held on reforms?
The court’s ruling is in the form of guidelines, and it also draws the line on certain procedural issues for the police and judiciary:
- Separate law on Bail: The court underlined that the CrPC, despite amendments since Independence, largely retains its original structure as drafted by a colonial power over its subjects.
- Uniform exercise of discretionary powers: It also highlighted that magistrates do not necessarily
- Avoid indiscriminate arrests: The SC also directed all state governments and Union Territories to facilitate standing orders to comply with the orders and avoid indiscriminate arrests.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: FRBM act
Mains level: Fiscal health of states
Context
- The Central government’s alarm has been on the mounting debt burden and the deteriorating fiscal situation in some States due to diversion in fiscal prudence.
- As both the Union government and States are expected to work closely in a co-operative federal structure, frictions arising out of these exchanges might have repercussions on both resource sharing and expenditure prioritisation.
What is India’s fiscal federalism?
- Fiscal federalism refers to the financial relations between the country’s federal government system and other units of government.
- It refers to how federal, state, and local governments share funding and administrative responsibilities within our federal system.
Three issues in India’s fiscal federalism
- First: are a set of issues related to Goods and Services Tax (GST) such as the rate structure, inclusion and exclusion of commodities, revenue sharing from GST and associated compensation.
- Second: State-level expenditure patterns especially related to the welfare schemes of States.
- Third: the conception and the implementation of central schemes.
Meaning of fiscal prudence
- Fiscal prudence is defined as the ability of a government to sustain smooth monetary operation and long-standing fiscal condition.
Where should state government spend the borrowed money?
- Fundamental infrastructure: Ideally, governments should use borrowed money to invest in physical and social infrastructure that will generate higher growth, and thereby higher revenues in the future so that the debt pays for itself.
- Targeted expenditure only: On the other hand, if governments spend the loan money on populist giveaways that generate no additional revenue, the growing debt burden will eventually implode.
Why there is a need for Fiscal Council?
- Institutionalizing fiscal practices: With a complex polity and manifold development challenges, India need institutional mechanisms for fiscal prudence.
- Transparency: An independent fiscal council can bring about much needed transparency and accountability in fiscal processes across the federal polity.
- Fiscal prudence: International experience suggests that a fiscal council improves the quality of debate on public finance, and that, in turn, helps build public opinion favourable to fiscal discipline.
- Fiscal consolidation is defined as concrete policies aimed at reducing government deficits and debt accumulation.
Why fiscal consolidation is needed?
- Fiscal expansion financed through debt and the resultant debt accumulation have important impacts on the economy both in the short run as well as in the long run.
How to achieve fiscal consolidation?
- Better targeting of government subsidies and extending Direct Benefit Transfer scheme for more subsidies
- Improved tax revenue realization For this, increasing efficiency of tax administration by reducing tax avoidance, eliminating tax evasion, enhancing tax compliance etc. are to be made.
- Enhancing tax GDP ratio by widening the tax base and minimizing tax concessions and exemptions also improves tax revenues.
Suggestions
- Amend FRBM Act for complete disclosure: First, the FRBM Acts of the Centre as well as States need to be amended to enforce a more complete disclosure of the liabilities on their exchequers.
- Centre should impose conditionalities: Under the Constitution, States are required to take the Centre’s permission when they borrow. The Centre should not hesitate to impose conditionalities on wayward States when it accords such permission.
- Use of financial emergency provision: There is a provision in the Constitution of India which allows the President to declare a financial emergency in any State if s/he is satisfied that financial stability is threatened.
- Course correction by the Centre: The Centre itself has not been a beacon of virtue when it comes to fiscal responsibility and transparency. It should complete that task in order to command the moral authority to enforce good fiscal behaviour on the part of States.
Conclusion
- Fiscal correction at the State level is important. While there exists a need for raising additional resources at the sub-national levels, expenditure prioritisation has to be carried out diligently. The Centre, too, on its part needs to demonstrate commitment to fiscal discipline by sticking to announced fiscal glide path to ensure the sustainability of a frictionless cooperative federal structure.
Mains question
Q. Why Fiscal correction at the State level is important? Why fiscal consolidation is needed? Write in context frictionless cooperative fiscal federal structure.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: article 51 a
Mains level: scientific literacy
Context
- India has not produced any Nobel Prize winner in science in the last 85 years — largely because of the lack of a scientific environment in the country.
What is scientific temper?
- Jawaharlal Nehru coined the term ‘scientific temper’; he defines it as an attitude of logical and rational thinking. An individual is considered to have scientific temper if she employs the scientific method when making decisions.
Why it is important?
- Scientific temper is very important for bringing forth a progressive society. It is free from superstitions. Irrational practices in developing the nation are in all aspects like political, economic and social.
Its components
- The vital parts of scientific temper are discussion, argument, and analysis. Various elements like fairness, equality, and democracy. The most important characteristic of a scientific temper is: – untiring search for truth with an open mind and spirit of inquiry.
Constitutional mandate of scientific temper
- In 1976, the Government of India reemphasised its commitment to cultivate scientific temper through a constitutional amendment (Article 51A).
- Article 51A in the 42nd Amendment of the Constitution in 1976 says “It shall be the duty of every citizen of Indian to develop the scientific temper, humanism and the spirit of enquiry and reform.”
Importance of scientific temper in nation building
- Formation of public policy: Scientific temperament can become a part of the policy formation and plan through analyzing the performance of our nations, especially all the hardships and shortfalls that occurred in the past years.
- Self -Reliance: There is a relationship between scientific temperament and becoming self-reliant. Our country is becoming self-reliant with the available technology and industrial infrastructure.
- Quality education: It will help the children to assimilate the knowledge acquired through the practical observations in a scientific framework; thus, laying down a basis for the growth of a scientific perspective in the children.
Challenges before scientific temper
- Political unwillingness: Most of the policymakers and the politicians to increase their vote banks include the stagnant ideologies and beliefs of the people in their public policies, and the government tends to give away in the popular public opinion rather than try to improve their thinking by including a more scientific approach to the various societal problems.
- Prevalent orthodoxy: In India, people still have an orthodox ideology and will not adhere to the scientifically obtained solutions.
- Low budget: Even after seventy years of independence, Indian Scientists are working on tight budgets, and they don’t have resources like other nations for conducting scientific research.
- Pseudoscience: Pseudoscience is everywhere, whether in denying the science of climate change or the evolution theory that explains the secret of diversity that we see around us.
Value addition / case study / Innovation
An IIT Kanpur alumni Mr.Arvind Gupta tries to inculcate a spirit of inquiry among children through toys made from inexpensive everyday items.
What can be done?
- Directional efforts: Activities focused on school children can be undertaken like nature walks, visit to museums etc. ‘Science Express’, a collaborative effort of Ministry of railways and Ministry of Environment & Forests & Climate Change, is a progressive step because it provides a platform that can expose children and common people in far-flung areas of the country to scientific aspects of our everday life.
- Policy initiatives: Children’s Science Congress organized by National Council for Science & Technology Communication (NCSTC) is a good way to encourage scientific temper in children.
- Public initiative: Civil Society organizations like, Kerala Sastra Sahitya Parishad (KSSP) and Delhi Science Forum, which are People’s Science Movement, can also go a long way in boosting scientific temper amongst the community.
- From Sensationalism to Sensible Science Journalism:The media must monitor the content to discourage and limit superstition and blind belief.
- Scientific journalism: Science communicators do the critical job of bridging the gap between science, society, and policymakers. Science journalism should be promoted at the university level. Science agencies should fund science communication activities in their domains.
- From Exclusive to Inclusive Science: Inequitable participation concerning gender and social diversity must be eliminated. The ‘open source science’ or ‘open science’ movement includes, at the core, open access, open data, open-source, and available standards that offer unfettered dissemination of scientific discourse.
- Open science: Government has a significant role in facilitating open science and promoting and preserving a free-thinking, open-minded society.
Conclusion
- Let’s hope that someday all cultures free themselves from the shackles of blind faith with science likely to play a major hand in this endeavour. Unto a similar goal, we should celebrate India’s constitutional provision for the scientific temper and vigorously safeguard it.
Mains question
Q. The shrinking space for scientific temper in India today is worrisome for some reasons. Do you think so? Identify these reasons and suggest way forward for scientific future of India.
Discuss the importance of scientific temper, what kind of public culture is needed to advance it? 10 Marks
Q.4 Explain why superstitious beliefs and practices abound in India. In this context, discuss the importance of inculcating scientific temper to remove superstitions. (10 Marks)
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Community forest rights
Mains level: Tribal welfare
Context
- There is a surge in demand by forest communities to not only access the resources of their habitat, but also to establish their ownership over forests as forest rights act in not meeting its objective.
What is the news?
- Residents of 18 villages in Chhattisgarh’s Udanti Sitanadi Tiger Reserve blocked the busy National Highway 130C.
What tribal people say?
- “We need forest resources for survival. Being a tiger reserve, we already lead a life with many restrictions. There is no power supply, access to grazing lands is non-existent and we cannot undertake construction works,” says Arjun Nayak of Nagesh, one of the 18 villages in Gariaband district.
- The Forest Rights Act (FRA), 2006 recognizes the rights of the forest dwelling tribal communities and other traditional forest dwellers to forest resources, on which these communities were dependent for a variety of needs, including livelihood, habitation and other socio-cultural needs.
- It aimed to protect the marginalised socio-economic class of citizens and balance the right to environment with their right to life and livelihood.
What are individual rights under FRA act?
- The Act encompasses Rights of Self-cultivation and Habitationwhich are usually regarded as Individual rights.
- Community Rights as Grazing, Fishing and access to Water bodies in forests, Habitat Rights for PVTGs, Traditional Seasonal Resource access of Nomadic and Pastoral community, access to biodiversity, community right to intellectual property and traditional knowledge, recognition of traditional customary rights and right to protect, regenerate or conserve or manage any community forest resource for sustainable use.
Case study / Value addition
Chargaon village, Dhamtari district, Chhattisgarh
Migration has drastically reduced due to economic benefits after getting CFRR. Success in improving quality of tendu leaves with better management practices, increasing income.
Issues with Forest rights act
- Non responsive states: The forest rights claims of these tribes and forest-dwellers are mostly rejected by the States.
- Improper claims: Being poor and illiterate, living in remote areas, they do not know the appropriate procedure for filing claims.
- Low awareness: The gram sabhas, which initiate the verification of their claims, are low on awareness of how to deal with them.
Why are forest rights important for tribals?
- Justice: Aimed at undoing the “historic injustice” meted out to forest-dependent communities due to curtailment of their customary rights over forests, the FRA came into force in 2008.
- Livelihood: It is important as it recognises the community’s right to use, manage and conserve forest resources, and to legally hold forest land that these communities have used for cultivation and residence.
- Conservation: It also underlines the integral role that forest dwellers play in the sustainability of forests and in the conservation of biodiversity.
Conclusion
Despite the contentious and debatable nature of this law, the importance and necessity of the FRA, 2006 can not be negated completely. The law assumes even more significant importance when the country is a developing economy and is full-fledged following the path of capitalism, thus making it even more substantial to provide a redressal mechanism for vulnerable and marginalised communities and groups, such as the Adivasis and the other similar tribes, from the necessary evil of development and infrastructural growth while also safeguarding their traditions, heritage and identity that forms an important part of the nation’s cultural diversity as well.
Mains question
Q. There is a surge in demand by forest communities to not only access the resources of their habitat, but also to establish their ownership over forests. In this context analyse the issues with working of FRA 2006.
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