Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: International energy market, decarbonatization and Challenges in front of India
Context
- India marches ahead carrying the same challenge projected as last year that it will have to navigate the choppy waters of a volatile petroleum market without straying from the green path towards clean energy. Energy security cannot be achieved by focusing only on the supply and distribution side of the equation. The demand conservation and efficiency sides are equally important.
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- Fragmented energy market: the energy market has fragmented and energy nationalism is the driving force behind policy.
- Restricted markets for Russia: Irrespective of how and when the Ukraine conflict ends, Russia will not be allowed access to the western markets for as long as President Putin is at the helm of the affairs. One fallout is the tightening energy embrace between Russia and China.
- Declining western orbit and increasing non-aligned approach: Three, OPEC plus one which is, in effect, Saudi Arabia plus Russia has stepped outside the Western orbit. Saudi Arabia has made clear it intends to pursue a Saudi first, non-aligned approach to international relations including with the US.
- Emergence of new energy centres: The new centres of energy power are emergent around countries that have a large share of the metals, minerals and components required for clean energy. China is currently the dominant power.
What should India do against this backdrop?
- Government must increase productivity of existing sources: Discounted Russian crude is an opportunistic panacea. It does not provide a sustainable cover to meet our requirements. To secure such a cover, government must increase the productivity of our existing producing fields; additional resources should be allocated for accessing relevant enhanced oil recovery technologies.
- Secure long- term supply relationship with Saudi Arabia and Iran: Further, it should leverage the country’s market potential to secure a long-term supply relationship with Saudi Arabia and an equity partnership with Iran.
- Enhance the strategic petroleum reserves: It should enhance the strategic petroleum reserves to cover at least 30 days of consumption and remove the sword of Damocles that the CBI/CVC/CAG wield over the heads of the public sector petroleum companies so that their traders can, without fear, take advantage of market volatility.
- Expediate gas pipeline grid: The construction of a pan-India national gas pipeline grid should be expedited.
Analysis: Phasing out coal and the energy transition in India
- Coal one of the major sources of energy in India: Coal will remain the bulwark of India’s energy system for decades. It is no doubt the dirtiest of fuels, but it remains amongst, if not the cheapest, source of energy. Plus hundreds of thousands depend on the coal ecosystem for their livelihood.
- Phasing out is not yet a near possibility: The option of phasing out coal whilst environmentally compelling is not yet a macroeconomic or social possibility.
- Need a balance: In the interim, the government has to find an energy transition route that balances livelihoods and pushes forward the green agenda.
- Steps to be taken: Some small, politically feasible steps in that direction would include increased R&D expenditure for coal gasification and carbon capture and sequestration technologies; setting a carbon tax; the establishment of regulatory and monitoring mechanisms for measuring carbon emissions from industry; the closure of inefficient and old plants and a decision not to approve any new ones.
- Determining competitiveness: In parallel, it would help if Niti Aayog were to pull together a group of economists and energy experts to determine the competitiveness of coal versus solar on a full-cost basis
Other possible measures
- Upgrading the transmission grid: Allocation of funds for upgradation of the transmission grid network to render it resilient enough to absorb clean electrons on an intermittent basis. The sun does not shine at night and the wind does not blow all the time. In parallel, the underlying structural issues currently impeding the scaling up of renewables must be addressed.
- Repairing the balance sheets of discoms through various regulatory reforms: In parallel, the repair of the balance sheets of state distribution companies (discoms), easing the procedures for the acquisition of land and the removal of regulatory and contract uncertainties are most important.
- Building up the domestic chip industry: It will take decades to harness our indigenous resources of the metals and minerals critical for clean energy and build up a domestic chip industry. In the interim, diplomats should secure diversified sources of supply to reduce the country’s vulnerability.
- Developing and commercializing 3G clean energy technologies: Finally, the creation of an enabling ecosystem for developing and commercializing third-generation clean energy technologies like hydrogen, biofuels and modular nuclear reactors. Nuclear, in particular, should be pushed.
Conclusion
- India is not responsible for global warming, but it will be amongst the worst affected. Millions live around its coastline. Their livelihoods will be undermined by rising sea levels. Millions will also be affected by melting glaciers and extremes of temperatures. So irrespective of who is to blame, India has to stay on the path of decarbonization. It cannot afford to develop first and clean up later.
Mains question
Q. What is the current situation of international energy market? What are the measures that India should take in the time of global uncertainty of energy market.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: E- waste and gender justice
Context
- According to the Global E-waste Monitor 2020, out of the total 56.3 million tonnes of discarded e-waste products generated in 2019, only 17.4 percent was officially recorded as being collected and recycled. The rest end up in landfills, in scrap trade markets or are recycled by the informal markets.
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E-waste in India
- Third largest contributor: India is the third largest contributor to this great wall of waste after China and the United States (US) with a whopping 1,014,961.21 tonnes generated in 2019-2020, out of which only 22.7 percent was collected, recycled or disposed of.
- More than 12 million workers: For the 12.9 million women working in the informal waste sector, Waste Electric and Electronic Equipment (WEEE’s) are lifelines as it contains valuable recyclable metals notwithstanding the detrimental effects it can have on health and the environment.
E-waste and Burden on women
- Less women in value chain: Inequalities are particularly pronounced in this largely gender-neutral sector across the value chain which is heightened by the barriers in decision-making roles.
- Negligible percent of women: With reliable data hard to come by from this sector recent reports indicate that an estimated 0.1 percent of waste pickers account for India’s urban workforce with women populating the lower tiers in this economy as collectors and crude separators at landfill sites.
- Men at skilled position: Men unsurprisingly dominate the entire spectrum of skilled positions as managers, machinery operators, truck drivers, scrap dealers, repair workers and recycling traders.
- Women mostly from poor background: Workers in this ‘grey sector’ are some of the most marginalised, poverty-stricken, uneducated people from vulnerable backgrounds with little social or financial security. They remain unprotected at their workplaces, and often are victims of sexual abuse with no bargaining power in selling their goods. All of these factors then act upon their exclusion as cities begin to formalise the waste sector to effectively control discarded goods.
E-waste Impact on Health
- Incineration and leaching: Open incineration and acid leeching often used by informal workers are directly impacting the environment and posing serious health risks, especially to child and maternal health, fertility, lungs, kidney and overall well-being.
- Occupational health hazards: In India, many of these unskilled workers who come from vulnerable and marginalised are oblivious to the fact that that what they know as ‘black plastics’ have far reached occupational health hazards especially when incinerated to extract copper and other precious metals for their market value.
- Exposures to children: This ‘tsunami of e-waste rolling out of the world’, as described in an international forum on chemical treaties, poses several health hazards for women in this sector as they are left exposed to residual toxics elements mostly in their own households and often the presence of children.
- Constant contact with organic pollutants: According to a recent WHO report, a staggering 18 million children, some as young as five, often work alongside their families at e-waste dumpsites every year in low- and middle-income countries. Heavy metals such as lead, as well as persistent organic pollutants (POPs), like dioxins, and flame retardants (PBDEs) released into the environment, have also added to air, soil, and water pollution.
- India’s E-waste (Management) Rules, 2016: Released by the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC) flagged e-waste classification, extended producer responsibility (EPR), collection targets, and restrictions on imports of e-wastes containing hazardous substances.
- Amendment to Rules: The amended Electronic Waste Management Draft Rules 2022, expected to come into effect by early next year has also emphasised on improving end-of-life waste throughout the circular economy.
- Lack of clear guidelines: These progressive measures, however, lack clear guidelines on the role of informal recyclers and have particularly blind sighted the role of women creating a lacuna in equitable growth.
- The Beijing Platform of Action: It is worth mentioning that The Beijing Platform of Action clearly maintains that a properly designed e-waste processing system can meet both economic and environmental goals to improve the status of women in the informal economy. Sculpting this blueprint in a variegated social and cultural milieu can perhaps play out to examine best practices and success stories around the world.
How to make E-waste sector more gender inclusive
- Ownership of supply chain: The social stigma attached to this sector progressively manifests in discrimination and loss of dignity. Women lack ownership at the end of the value chain as business owners of material processing units nor have access to capital for starting business ventures.
- Separate policy for ground workers: Educating the un-educated takes more than simply designing training modules, skill development and generating awareness about e-waste should be tailored to run at ground-zero where workers operate without disrupting their daily work schedules.
- Gendered data collection: All of these factors compounded by the severe lack of gender-disaggregated data necessitate earmarked gender budgeting to shape an inclusive e-waste management system.
Conclusion
- The concept of the 3R’s, Reduce, Reuse, recycle as envisaged under Mission LiFE will have to invest in women as drivers of a responsible waste management economy, recognising their critical role to minimise the quantum of waste with the ultimate objective of zero waste.
Mains Question
Q. Analyze the gender inequality in the E-waste sector? What are the ways to make e-waste sector more gender Inclusive?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Indian economic growth prospect and challenges
Context
- The new year begins on a slightly more optimistic note for India. Global crude and food prices are down, the rupee has stabilised at 82-83 to the dollar after dropping from 74.5 levels at the start of 2022, even as official foreign exchange reserves have recovered. However, there are challenges to the economic growth of India which needs an immediate attention and action.
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The current scenario and the optimism around Indian economy
- Global crude and food prices: Global crude and food prices are roughly 38 per cent and 15 per cent down respectively from their highs in March, following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
- Stabilised rupee: The rupee has stabilised at 82-83 to the dollar after dropping from 74.5 levels at the start of 2022
- FOREX recovered: even as official foreign exchange reserves, which had plunged to $524.5 billion on October 21 from a year-ago peak of $642 billion, have since recovered to $562.8 billion.
- Environmental conditions are good for Rabi crops: With the prospects for the upcoming rabi crop looking good, as there is favourable soil moisture conditions, timely onset of winter and improved fertiliser availability on the back of declining international prices one can expect consumer inflation to ease further.
What is inflation?
- Inflation is an increase in the level of prices of the goods and services that households buy. It is measured as the rate of change of those prices. Typically, prices rise over time, but prices can also fall (a situation called deflation).
- Challenge is more on growth than on Inflation: The challenge for India this year is likely to be more on the growth than on the inflation front.
- It seems, Chinese’s authoritarian policies making India a favourable investment destination: On paper, the world’s disillusionment with China (more specifically, the authoritarian policies of Xi Jinping, both at home and beyond) and its diminishing economic prospects, worsened by a looming demographic crisis, should be making India every investor’s favourite destination.
- On paper government efforts are honest to attract investment: The present government’s focus on improving the country’s physical as well as digital infrastructure plus schemes such as production-linked incentive to attract investments in specific sectors, from solar photovoltaic modules and drones to specialty steels ought to have given added impetus to this process.
- But on the ground, neither domestic nor foreign companies are really investing: The biggest drag on investment during the last decade was over-leveraged corporates and bad loans-saddled banks.
- Deepening global slowdown is a major challenge to the economic growth: That twin balance sheet problem has more or less resolved itself. Today’s problem has mainly to do with strained government and household balance sheets. That, coupled with a deepening global slowdown constricting export demand, could have a bearing on India’s economic growth.
What is Current Account Deficit (CAD)?
- A current account is a key component of balance of payments, which is the account of transactions or exchanges made between entities in a country and the rest of the world.
- This includes a nation’s net trade in products and services, its net earnings on cross border investments including interest and dividends, and its net transfer payments such as remittances and foreign aid.
- A CAD arises when the value of goods and services imported exceeds the value of exports, while the trade balance refers to the net balance of export and import of goods or merchandise trade.
What should the government do?
- Refrain from fiscal stimulus and maintain macroeconomic stability: It should certainly refrain from any fiscal stimulus to kick-start investment or drive growth. Far from stimulus, what the country needs is macroeconomic stability and policy certainty.
- Managing current account deficit: The current fiscal deficit and public debt levels are far too high to allow any new populist schemes in the name of putting money in people’s hands or sharp tax cuts to supposedly revive investor sentiment. Large government deficits will invariably spill over into current account deficits. The latter number, at 4.4 per cent of GDP in July-September, was the highest for any quarter since October-December 2012 and the prelude to the last so-called taper tantrum-induced balance of payments crisis.
- Must prioritize fiscal consolidation: The coming budget must prioritize fiscal consolidation. This will enable the RBI to also pause interest rate hikes and further monetary tightening, which is probably not the best thing for an economy already facing multiple growth headwinds.
Conclusion
- India’s challenge has shifted from inflation management to facilitating growth in 2023. Policy stability and credibility should be the mantra that will ultimately work for India.
Mains question
Q. It is said that the new year 2023 is starting on a slightly more optimistic note for the Indian economy. In this background, discuss the challenges facing India’s economy and what the government should do?
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Cryptocurrency
Mains level: Issues with Cryptocurrency
The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) will launch an outreach programme soon to create awareness of cryptocurrencies.
What is Cryptocurrency?
- A cryptocurrency is a digital asset stored on computerised databases.
- These digital coins are recorded in digital ledgers using strong cryptography to keep them secure.
- The ledgers are distributed globally, and each transaction made using cryptocurrencies are codified as blocks.
- And multiple blocks linking each other forms a blockchain on the distributed ledger.
- There are estimated to be more than 47 million cryptocurrency users around the world.
- These cryptocurrencies are created through a process called mining.
Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF)
- The Investor Education and Protection Fund (IEPF) is managed by the IEPF Authority, which was set up in 2016 under the provisions of Section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.
- The Authority is entrusted with promoting awareness among investors, makes refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits and debentures and so on to rightful claimants.
- As for investment education, the idea is to reach out to household investors, housewives and professionals alike in rural and urban areas and teach them the basics.
- Focus areas include primary and secondary capital markets, various saving instruments, the instruments for investment, making investors aware of dubious Ponzi and chit fund schemes and existing grievance redressal mechanisms, among other things.
- Until the end of October, it had conducted more than 65,000 awareness programmes covering 30 lakh citizens.
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Why is there a concern about cryptocurrency?
- RBI caution: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has recommended framing legislation on the sector. It is of the view that cryptocurrencies should be prohibited.
- Fiscal stability at stake: The crypto dilemma stems from concerns about the unregulated currency having a destabilising effect on the monetary and fiscal stability of a country.
- Involved in unlawful activities: Further, crypto exchanges in India are being investigated for their alleged involvement in unlawful practices such as drug trafficking, money laundering, violating foreign exchange legislation and evasion of GST.
- High volatility: Cryptocurrency investing can be a complex and risky endeavour as the category is extremely volatile and works round the clock.
Will an outreach programme help?
- Regulation is must: Apart from the outreach programme, there has to be a regulatory mechanism for the crypto sector.
- Messaging has to be right: If the government takes a heavy-handed approach and starts saying things like virtual currency is not legal in India that will not be entirely true.
Present regulation in India
- RBI has banned banks and other regulated entities from supporting crypto transactions.
- The Government has confirmed that expenditure incurred in mining cryptocurrency is considered capital expenditure and not a cost of acquisition.
- Cryptocurrency and Regulation of Official Digital Currency Bill, 2021 was introduced by the Centre.
Way forward
- Crypto assets are borderless and therefore, any legislation (for regulation or for banning) would require international collaboration to prevent regulatory arbitrage.
- The collaboration must entail an evaluation of risks and benefits and the evolution of common taxonomy and standards.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Battle of Bhima Koregaon
Mains level: Not Much
The 205th anniversary of the Bhima-Koregaon battle was recently celebrated in all harmony at the Ranstambh (victory pillar) in Perne village in Pune.
Battle of Bhima-Koregaon
- The 1818 battle of Bhima-Koregaon, one of the last battles of the Third Anglo-Maratha War culminated in the Peshwa’s defeat.
- It was fought on 1 January 1818 between the British East India Company (BEIC) and the Peshwa faction of the Maratha Confederacy, at Koregaon at the banks of River Bhima.
- A 28,000-strong force led by Peshwa Baji Rao II while on their way to attack the company-held Pune were unexpectedly met by an 800-strong Company force of which 500 belonged to the Dalit community.
- The battle was part of the Third Anglo Maratha war, a series of battles that culminated in the defeat of the Peshwa rule and subsequent rule of the BEIC in nearly all of Western, Central, and Southern India.
Role of Mahar Community
- Back in the seventeenth century, the community was particularly valued by the ruler Shivaji, under whom Maratha caste identities were far more fluid.
- The value of the Mahars for military recruitment under Shivaji was noted by the social reformer Jyotirao Phule.
- The Mahars were not only beneficiaries of the attempt at caste unity under Shivaji but were in fact valued for their martial skills, bravery, and loyalty.
Mahars during Maratha Empire
- The position occupied by the Mahars under Shivaji, however, was short-lived and under later Peshwa rulers, their status deteriorated.
- The Peshwas were infamous for their Brahmin orthodoxy and their persecution of the untouchables.
- The Mahars were forbidden to move about in public spaces and punished atrociously for disrespecting caste regulations.
- Stories of Peshwa atrocities against the Mahars suggest that they were made to tie brooms behind their backs to wipe out their footprints and pots on their necks to collect their spit.
Why is the battle significant?
- The battle resulted in losses to the Maratha Empire, then under Peshwa rule, and control over most of western, central, and southern India by the British East India Company.
- The battle has been seen as a symbol of Dalit pride because a large number of soldiers in the Company forces were the Mahar Dalits, the same oppressed community to which Babasaheb Ambedkar belonged.
- After centuries of inhumane treatment, this battle was the first time that Mahars had been included in a battle in which they won.
Dr. Ambedkar’s association
- It was Babasaheb Ambedkar’s visit to the site on January 1, 1927, that revitalized the memory of the battle for the Dalit community.
- He led to its commemoration in the form of a victory pillar, besides creating the discourse of Dalit valor against Peshwa ‘oppression’ of Dalits.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Madan Mohan Malviya
Mains level: Not Much
An archive on the principal founder of the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), ‘Mahamana’ Madan Mohan Malaviya was recently unveiled.
Who was Madan Mohan Malaviya?
- Malaviya was born on 25th December, 1861 in Allahabad.
- He was a great Indian educationist and freedom fighter, distinguished from others for his significant role in Indian independence and his support of Hindu nationalism.
- At the Banaras Hindu University (BHU), which he founded in 1916, he served as Vice-Chancellor from 1919 to 1938.
- The University has around 12,000 students all across the field such as the arts, sciences, engineering and technology.
Political affiliations
- Malaviya rose up the ranks, and became president four times — in 1909 (Lahore), in 1918 (Delhi), in 1930 (Delhi), and in 1932 (Calcutta).
- He was part of the Congress for almost 50 years.
- He was one of the early leaders of the Hindu Mahasabha, and helped found it in 1906.
- He was a social reformer and a successful legislator, serving as a member of the Imperial Legislative Council for 11 years (1909–20).
- In the freedom struggle, he was midway between the Liberals and the Nationalists, the Moderates and the Extremists, as the followers of Gokhale and Tilak were respectively called.
- In 1930, when Mahatma Gandhi launched the Salt Satyagraha and the Civil Disobedience Movement, he participated in it and courted arrest.
Literary associations
- He remained the Hindustan Times’ Chairman from 1924 to 1946.
- He was involved with magazines including the-
- Hindi language weekly, the Abhyudaya (1907)
- English-language daily the Leader of Allahabad (1909) and
- Hindi dailies Aaj
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Boson, Satyendranath Bose
Mains level: Not Much
Born on January 1, 1894, Bose collaborated with Einstein to develop what we now know as the Bose-Einstein statistics. We take a look at the Indian physicist’s illustrious legacy and stellar achievements.
Satyendra Nath Bose
- Born on January 1, 1894, Bose grew up and studied in Kolkata, where he solidified his position as an exemplary academician.
- His father, an accountant in the Executive Engineering Department of the East Indian Railways, gave him an arithmetic problem to solve every day before going to work, encouraging Bose’s interest in mathematics.
- By the age of 15, he began pursuing a Bachelor of Science degree at the Presidency College, and later finished his MSc in Mixed Mathematics in 1915.
Career as researchers
- These were tough times for Indian researchers as World War I had broken out and, European scientific journals came to India quite infrequently.
- Not only this, most of the research papers weren’t available in English and both Bose and Saha had to learn scientific terms in German and French languages to read published works.
- However, the new skill came in handy for them in 1919, when they published English translations of Albert Einstein’s special and general relativity papers.
- Two years later, Bose was appointed to the position of Reader in Physics at the University of Dhaka. It was here that he made his most significant contributions to physics.
Association with Einstein
- Bose wrote a letter to Albert Einstein in 1924 about his breakthrough in quantum mechanics.
- He claimed that he had derived Planck’s law for black body radiation (which refers to the spectrum of light emitted by any hot object) without any reference to classical electrodynamics.
- Impressed by Bose’s findings, Einstein not only arranged for the publication of the paper but also translated it into German.
- This recognition catapulted Bose to fame and glory.
Breakthrough in the invention of Boson
- He went on to work with Einstein and together they developed what is now known as the Bose-Einstein statistics.
- Today, in honour of his legacy, any particle that obeys the Bose-Einstein statistics is called a boson.
- On his 129th birth anniversary, we take a look at the Indian physicist’s illustrious legacy and stellar achievements.
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