Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: UNSC, FATF
Mains level: Terror financing and Measures to tackle
Context
- The spectre of terrorist violence looms large over the world. With the technological advancement terrorists, criminals, weapons and funds are also able to move across national boundaries easily. India is increasingly playing a leading role in curbing the terror financing.
What is Terror Financing?
- Terrorist financing encompasses the means and methods used by terrorist organizations to finance their activities.
- This money can come from legitimate sources, for example from profits from businesses and charitable organizations.
- However, terrorist groups can also get their funds from illegal activities such as trafficking in weapons, drugs or people, or kidnapping for ransom.
- Nations like Pakistan has stated policy of supporting cross-border terrorism in India through global funding.
What are the channels of free flow of funds?
- The global flow of funds has three traditional channels:
- Direct smuggling of cash: First, direct smuggling of cash through international borders.
- Use of Hawala: Second, the use of hawala networks.
- Banking Networks: Third, banking networks including SWIFT and other international channels.
- Use of new technologies: But now swift technological developments in areas of blockchain or cryptocurrencies which transcend national boundaries and international currency systems have emerged as a new channel for financing terrorist and other illegal activities.
What are the identified sources of funds used by Terrorist organizations?
- Legal financial activities: Terrorist organizations raise money through several sources like travel agencies, money changers, real estate, retail outlets, NGOs, charitable trusts and even from state sponsors.
- Sourced form Criminal activities: Terrorists also derive funding from a variety of criminal activities ranging in scale and sophistication from low-level crime to organized fraud or narcotics smuggling or illegal activities in failed states and other safe havens.
- For instance: Declassified files seized during the raid on Osama bin Laden’s Abbottabad hideout also revealed terror financing related documents.
What steps could be taken to uproot terror financing methods?
- Identifying the funding requirements: The first step in identifying and forestalling the flow of funds to terrorists is to understand the funding requirements of modern terrorist groups.
- Understanding the ideology: The costs associated not only with conducting terrorist attacks, but also with developing and maintaining a terrorist organisation and its ideology are significant. Funds are required to promote a militant ideology, pay operatives and their families, arrange for their travel, train new members, forge documents, pay bribes, acquire weapons and stage attacks.
- Tracing the methods of fund flow: Terrorists use a wide variety of methods to move money within and between organisations, including the financial sector, physical movement of cash by couriers, and movement of goods through the trade system. Charities and alternative remittance systems have also been used to disguise terrorist movement of funds.
- Monitoring the ambiguous financial intelligence: Only accurate and well linked financial intelligence can reveal the structure of terrorist groups and also the activities of individual terrorists. Of late, such financial intelligence from the private sector has also given significant clues to foil terrorist acts.
How India is leading the battle against terror financing?
- India’s continues efforts: Prime Minister Narendra Modi has in all his international speeches spoken at length on this. India’s efforts in taking this momentum forward need to be appreciated.
- India actively providing platform for various assemblies: Recently, the 90th Interpol General Assembly held in New Delhi, followed by a special session of UN Security Council’s Counter Terrorism in late October. In the third week of November, India will host another global conference focussed only on Countering Financing of Terrorism (CFT).
- CTC adopted Delhi Declaration: The Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) unanimously adopted the Delhi Declaration on countering the use of new and emerging technologies for terrorist purposes. The declaration aims to cover the main concerns surrounding the abuse of drones, social media platforms, and crowdfunding, and create guidelines that will help to tackle the growing issue.
- India will host ‘No Money for Terror’ Conference: The Ministry of Home Affairs will organise the Third Ministerial ‘No Money for Terror’ Conference. where participants from 75 countries expected to attend the conference. The conference that was first held In Paris in 2018, followed by Melbourne in 2019.
- Foundation of FATF: Financial Action Task Force (FATF) was formed in 1989 as a means of bringing order and implementing standards to the monetary system in the world with regard to terror finance and money laundering.
- Adopting the resolutions with time: It was the 2001 terrorist attacks that changed the way security agencies looked at terror financing. The UNSCR resolution 1267 in 1999 and UNSCR resolution 1373 in 2001 formed the bedrock of the financial sanctions’ regime for terrorist organisations and individuals.
- FATF’s Grey listing: One of the key reasons for Pakistan being placed on the FATF Grey List from 2018 to 2022 was its open defiance of those designations. Only after the FATF’s grey listing open terrorist activities stop and the terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan declined to some extent.
- UNSC sanctions and designations: It is pertinent to understand that the FATF has developed its entire paradigm around the word risk. It used the United Nations Security Council sanctions against terrorists and terrorist organizations to begin to evolve a complex body of documentation in order to assess technical compliance and effectiveness of countries in implementing those UN designations. Eight of the nine UN designated terrorists were arrested and convicted in a major testimony to the success of the UN sanctions regime.
Conclusion
- The UN Security Council has sought to increase efforts against terror financing. It is only through inclusive efforts that this complex issue can be addressed. India’s hosting of the “No money for terror” conference later this month should go a long way in focusing on the issue of state sponsored terror financing.
Mains Question
Q. With the technological advancement terrorists, criminals, weapons and funds are also able to move across national boundaries easily. Discuss what steps can be taken at national and international level to curb the menace of terror financing?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Plight of sanitation workers in India
“My head hangs in shame,” said the Chief Justice of Delhi High Court while condemning the Delhi Development Authority (DDA) for not paying ₹10 lakh each as compensation to the family of person who died after inhaling toxic gases inside a sewer.
Why such criticism by the Delhi HC?
- Cleaning of sewers and septic tanks has led to at least 351 deaths since 2017.
Manual sanitary works in India
- Manual scavenging is the practice of removing human excreta by hand from sewers or septic tanks.
- India banned the practice under the Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013 (PEMSR).
- The Act bans the use of any individual for manually cleaning, carrying, disposing of or otherwise handling in any manner, human excreta till its disposal.
- In 2013, the definition of manual scavengers was also broadened to include people employed to clean septic tanks, ditches, or railway tracks.
- The Act recognizes manual scavenging as a “dehumanizing practice,” and cites a need to “correct the historical injustice and indignity suffered by the manual scavengers.”
Why is it still prevalent in India?
- Low awareness: Manual scavenging is mostly done by the marginalized section of the society and they are generally not aware about their rights.
- Enforcement issues: The lack of enforcement of the Act and exploitation of unskilled labourers are the reasons why the practice is still prevalent in India.
- High cost of automated: The Mumbai civic body charges anywhere between Rs 20,000 and Rs 30,000 to clean septic tanks.
- Cheaper availability: The unskilled labourers, meanwhile, are much cheaper to hire and contractors illegally employ them at a daily wage of Rs 300-500.
- Caste dynamics: Caste hierarchy still exists and it reinforces the caste’s relation with occupation. Almost all the manual scavengers belong to lower castes.
Various policy initiatives
- Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (Amendment) Bill, 2020: It proposes to completely mechanise sewer cleaning, introduce ways for ‘on-site’ protection and provide compensation to manual scavengers in case of sewer deaths.
- Prohibition of Employment as Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation Act, 2013: Superseding the 1993 Act, the 2013 Act goes beyond prohibitions on dry latrines, and outlaws all manual excrement cleaning of insanitary latrines, open drains, or pits.
- Rashtriya Garima Abhiyan: It started national wide march “Maila Mukti Yatra” for total eradication of manual scavenging from 30th November 2012 from Bhopal.
- Prevention of Atrocities Act: In 1989, the Prevention of Atrocities Act became an integrated guard for sanitation workers since majority of the manual scavengers belonged to the Scheduled Caste.
- Compensation: As per the Prohibition of Employment of Manual Scavengers and their Rehabilitation (PEMSR) Act, 2013 and the Supreme Court’s decision in the Safai Karamchari Andolan vs Union of India case, a compensation of Rs 10 lakh is awarded to the victims family.
- National Commission for Safai Karamcharis (NCSK): It is currently a temporary non-statutory body that investigates the conditions of Safai Karamcharis (waste collectors) in India and makes recommendations to the Government.
Other initiatives for sanitation workers
- The ministry now has proper distinction between sanitation work and manual scavenging.
- The practice of manual scavenging no longer takes place in the country as all manual scavengers had been accounted for and enrolled into the rehabilitation scheme, said the ministry.
- The enumeration of sanitization workers is soon to be conducted across 500 AMRUT (Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation) cities, as a part of National Action Plan for Mechanised Sanitation Ecosystem (NAMASTE).
- The NAMASTE scheme aims to eradicate unsafe sewer and septic tank cleaning practices.
Way forward
- Regular surveys and social audits must be conducted against the involvement of manual scavengers by public and local authorities.
- There must be proper identification and capacity building of manual scavengers for alternate sources of livelihood.
- Creating awareness about the legal protection of manual scavengers is necessary.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Impact of climate change on human health
A recent report by Lancet, has traced in detail the intimate link between changing weather events and their impact on the health of people.
What is the news?
- The 2022 Lancet Countdown on Health and Climate Change: Health at the Mercy of Fossil Fuels points out that the world’s reliance on fossil fuels increases the risk of disease, food insecurity and other illnesses related to heat.
Impact of climate change on health
(1) Extreme Events
- Heatwaves: The Lancet report indicates that rapidly increasing temperatures exposed vulnerable populations (adults above 65 years old and children younger than 1) to 3.7 billion more heatwave days in 2021 than annually in 1986–2005.
- Shift in patterns: There is no doubt that events such as floods, droughts and recurrent cyclones are direct outcome of climate change.
(2) Impact on health
- Infectious diseases: The changing climate is affecting the spread of infectious disease, raising the risk of emerging diseases and co-epidemics. For instance, coastal waters are becoming more suited for the transmission of Vibrio pathogens.
- More vector borne diseases: The number of months suitable for malaria transmission has increased in the highland areas of the Americas and Africa.
- More lives loss: The WHO has predicted that between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 2,50,000 additional deaths per year, from malnutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress.
- Others: Low air quality, Rise in zoonotic diseases.
(3) Food security
- Crop loss: Higher temperatures threaten crop yields directly, with the growth season shortening for many cereal crops.
- Supply chain disruptions: Extreme weather events disrupt supply chains, thereby undermining food availability, access, stability, and utilisation.
- Malnutrition: The prevalence of undernourishment increased during the COVID-19 pandemic, and up to 161 million more people faced hunger in 2020 than in 2019.
Way forward
- Health-centred response: A health-centred response to the coexisting climate, energy, and cost-of-living crises provides an opportunity to deliver a healthy, low-carbon future.
- Realization of the problem: The governments’ commitment to assess and address the threats from climate change, are positive signs, the report stresses.
- Holistic approach: This is the way a health-centred response would work – it would reduce the likelihood of the most catastrophic climate change impacts, while improving energy security and creating an opportunity for economic recovery.
- Shift in dietary patterns: The report also calls for an accelerated transition to balanced and more plant-based diets, as that would help reduce emissions from red meat and milk production, and prevent diet-related deaths.
- Easing the healthcare: The report emphasizes reducing the strain on health-care providers, and leading to more robust health systems.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vostro and Nostro Accounts, SWIFT
Mains level: Rupee-Ruble Trade
Russian banks have been permitted by the RBI to open special Vostro accounts to pave the way for rupee-based export-import transactions.
Why such move?
- Logged out of SWIFT -the messaging service to facilitate and confirm cross-border payments – most Russian banks are looking for alternative ways.
- India and several other countries too want a way out so that trade can continue.
- India and Russia are now exploring to directly trade in rupee-ruble.
And this is where Nostro and Vostro may come into play.
What is a Vostro Account?
- A Vostro account is defined as an account that a correspondent bank holds on behalf of another bank.
- Vostro is a Latin word that means “your”, therefore, a vostro account implies that it is “your account”.
- An example of such an account would be HSBC vostro account is held by SBI in India.
Understanding a Vostro Account
- The banks are acting in a fiduciary relationship and they share a principal-agent relationship.
- The correspondent foreign bank is a financial intermediary in the transactions that they are involved in.
- The foreign bank acts as an agent that provides services such as executing wire transfers, performing foreign exchange, enabling deposits, enabling withdrawals, expediting international trade on behalf of the domestic bank.
- It is most used in settlement of foreign exchanges or foreign trade.
- No interest will be paid on the vostro account maintained, as per the directives that have been issued by the RBI in India.
- An overdraft facility can only be availed if it is specifically sanctioned.
Other related terms: Nostro and Loro Accounts
- Vostro and Nostro accounts are often confused to be the same.
- While in essence, it is the same account that is being spoken about, the perspective from which it is being seen matters.
- In a vostro account, it is the correspondent foreign bank point of view, whereas in a nostro account, it is the point of view of the domestic bank.
- Vostro accounts are maintained in the domestic currency whereas, nostro accounts in foreign currency.
- A Loro account is a current account that is maintained by one domestic bank for another domestic bank in the form of a third party account, unlike nostro and vostro which is bilateral correspondence.
Why is it used?
- This account serves as an economic way for small domestic banks to access the financial resources and services of a larger foreign bank.
- Enables one to offer international banking solutions to a customer without opening a bank branch in a foreign nation.
- It minimizes the time for transfer of funds.
- Closely monitored nostro accounts can be used for better reconciliation of statements.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Birsa Munda
Mains level: Not Much
On the occasion of the birth anniversary of tribal leader Birsa Munda, the Centre marked the second Janjatiya Gaurav Divas on November 15 to celebrate the contributions of tribal communities to Indian culture.
Who was Birsa Munda (1875-1900)?
- Birsa Munda was a tribal freedom fighter, religious leader, and folk hero who belonged to the Munda tribe.
- He spearheaded a tribal religious millenarian movement that arose in the Bengal Presidency (now Jharkhand) in the late 19th century, during the British Raj.
His legacy
(A) Birth and early childhood
- Born on November 15, 1875, Birsa spent much of his childhood moving from one village to another with his parents.
- He belonged to the Munda tribe in the Chhotanagpur Plateau area.
- He received his early education at Salga under the guidance of his teacher Jaipal Nag.
- On the recommendation of Jaipal Nag, Birsa converted to Christianity in order to join the German Mission school.
- He, however, opted out of the school after a few years.
(B) New faith ‘Birsait’ against religious conversion
- The impact of Christianity was felt in the way he came to relate to religion later.
- Having gained awareness of the British colonial ruler and the efforts of the missionaries to convert tribals to Christianity, Birsa started the faith of ‘Birsait’.
- Soon members of the Munda and Oraon community started joining the Birsait sect and it turned into a challenge to British conversion activities.
- The Mundas called him Dharati Aaba, the father of earth.
(C) The Ulgulan
- The Great Tumult or Ulgulan was a movement started by Birsa Munda against the exploitation and discrimination against tribals by the local authorities.
- Although the movement failed, it did result in the Chotanagpur Tenancy Act which forbade tribal lands passing to non-tribals, protecting their land rights for the foreseeable future.
(D) Death
- On March 3, 1900, Birsa Munda was arrested by the British police while he was sleeping with his tribal guerilla army at Jamkopai forest in Chakradharpur.
- He died in Ranchi jail on June 9, 1900, at the young age of 25.
(E) Creation of Jharkhand
- Birsa Munda’s achievements are known to be even more remarkable by virtue of the fact that he came to acquire them before he was 25.
- In recognition of his impact on the national movement, the state of Jharkhand was created on his birth anniversary in 2000.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2020
With reference to the history of India, “Ulgulan” or the Great Tumult is the description of which of the following event?
(a) The Revolt of 1857
(b) The Mappila Rebellion of 1921
(c) The Indigo Revolt of 1859-60
(d) Birsa Munda’s Revolt of 1899-1900
Post your answers here.
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