Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Climate change negotiations
Mains level: Climate change negotiations, Climate Justice
Central Idea
- The UN General Assembly has asked the International Court of Justice to weigh in on whether countries can be sued under international law for failing to avert climate emergencies, reflecting the frustration of the international community with global climate agencies and the need for more effective climate action.
Background
- Resolution by Vanuatu: The resolution, sponsored by the small Pacific island nation of Vanuatu, was adopted unanimously, indicating global consensus on the climate crisis.
- Delay climate action: Frustration with the procedures of global climate agencies, particularly the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), stems from their deliberations often ending in compromises that delay climate action.
- ICJ’s decision carries moral weight: The Hague-based court’s opinion will not be binding but carries moral weight, potentially setting the stage for countries to incorporate climate justice in their legal frameworks.
- Contentious: Contentious jurisdiction refers to the ICJ’s authority to resolve legal disputes between consenting states. Decisions made under contentious jurisdiction are binding
- Advisory:
- Advisory jurisdiction allows the UN General Assembly (UNGA), the Security Council (SC), and other specialized bodies of the organization to request the ICJ’s opinion on a legal question.
- The ICJ’s advisory opinions are non-binding. However, they hold significant normative weight and serve to clarify international law on relevant issues.
- The ICJ’s advisory opinion on climate change can be useful in climate-related litigation at the national level.
Previous attempts to address climate change in non-environmental forums
- Global warming on agenda: Global warming has been part of the UN Security Council’s agenda since 2007, with the UNSC attempting to frame the issue from a security standpoint, rather than solely from developmental or environmental perspectives.
- Securitization of climate change: Developing countries, including India and China, have rightly resisted the securitization of climate change, arguing that it could lead to the imposition of sanctions and other coercive measures.
- Rights and justice: The use of rights and justice vocabulary has given the Vanuatu-sponsored proposal more traction and global support.
Rights and justice vocabulary and recent developments
- Climate justice: The Vanuatu-sponsored proposal emphasizes the importance of climate justice in addressing the issue.
- Right to reparations: Countries have started asserting their right to reparations after climate emergencies, such as Pakistan after the devastating floods in 2020 and the recent discussions on loss and damage during the COP26 conference in Glasgow.
- Rising climate litigation cases worldwide: The rise of climate litigation cases worldwide, where citizens and organizations sue governments and corporations for their failure to act on climate change, highlights the growing demand for climate justice.
Challenges in holding countries accountable
- Holding individual accountable: Holding individual countries or governments accountable for their climate inaction has been a major stumbling block at several climate meets.
- Compensation issue: The Paris Agreement contains a clause specifying that the pact does not involve or provide a basis for any liability or compensation, inserted under pressure from US diplomats.
- Adamant stance: American support for the UNGA resolution was reportedly reluctant, indicating that powerful countries might resist being held accountable for their climate inaction.
Conclusion
- The UNGA’s intervention should not detract from the task of reforming the UNFCCC. Institutions of the umbrella climate agency need to be more equity-sensitive and justice-oriented. Engaging with the ICJ could push it in that direction, but wealthier members of the UNFCCC must show more initiative. The growing demand for climate justice and the increasing number of climate litigation cases highlight the importance of addressing the issue in a just and equitable manner.
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: Vaikom Satyagraha
Mains level: Vaikom Movement, Periyar's significant role and legacy of the movement
Central Idea
- Vaikom is a town in Kerala, India, that became a symbol of social justice due to the temple entry movement launched in 1924, aiming to end the prohibition imposed on backward communities in using the roads around the Vaikom Mahadeva temple. The Kerala government has organized various cultural events to commemorate the movement and its significance in the state’s history. Tamil Nadu also observes the occasion, as announced by Chief Minister M.K. Stalin, recognizing the role of Tamil leaders like Periyar E.V. Ramasamy in the movement’s success.
All you need to know about Vaikom Satyagraha
- Objective:
- The primary goal was to end the prohibition on backward communities from using the roads surrounding the Vaikom Mahadeva temple, which symbolized the caste-based discrimination prevalent in society.
- The movement sought to create a more inclusive society where people from all castes could access public spaces and religious sites without discrimination.
- Leaders:
- Kerala:K. Madhavan, K.P. Kesava Menon, and George Joseph were prominent leaders from Kerala who initiated and guided the movement.
- Tamilnadu: Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, then president of the Tamil Nadu Congress, played a crucial role in sustaining the movement and leading it to success.
- Mahatma Gandhi: Mahatma Gandhi advised the movement leaders and helped in negotiating between the government, protesters, and orthodox Hindus.
- Significance:
- Social equality and justice: The Vaikom Satyagraha was a groundbreaking non-violent protest that fought for social equality and justice, challenging the caste system in India.
- Temple entry: The movement’s success paved the way for the temple entry proclamation of Kerala in 1936, which granted lower caste individuals the right to enter temples.
- Fight against caste barriers: The Vaikom Satyagraha remains a symbol of the fight against caste barriers in India and the struggle for social justice.
- Challenges and Hurdles:
- The movement faced repressive action from the government and the administration, with many protesters and leaders arrested during the course of the protest.
- Orthodox Hindu traditionalists organized counter rallies marked by violence, aiming to suppress the movement and maintain the status quo.
- Outcome and Legacy:
- The movement spanned 603 days, witnessing many significant events.
- The Travancore princely state government eventually granted access to three of the four streets around the Vaikom temple, signaling the end of the protest.
- The Vaikom Satyagraha continues to inspire the fight for equality and justice in India, serving as a reminder of the importance of challenging caste-based discrimination.
- Periyar E.V. Ramasamy played a significant role in leading the protest, earning him the title Vaikom Veerar (Hero of Vaikom).
- The movement was marked by day-to-day protests, arrests, inquiries, jail terms, and agitations.
- People from various communities participated in the movement, including the Akalis from Punjab, who traveled to Vaikom to supply food to the protesters.
Facts for prelims: Vaikom Satyagraha
| Aspect |
Details |
| Time Period |
March 30, 1924 – November 23, 1925 |
| Objective |
End caste-based discrimination; Allow backward communities access to roads around Vaikom Mahadeva temple |
| Key Leaders |
T.K. Madhavan, K.P. Kesava Menon, George Joseph, Periyar E.V. Ramasamy, Mahatma Gandhi |
| Significance |
Paved the way for temple entry proclamation of Kerala in 1936; Symbol of fight against caste barriers |
| Challenges and Hurdles |
Repressive action from government and administration; Opposition from orthodox Hindu traditionalists |
| Outcome and Legacy |
Access granted to three of the four streets around the Vaikom temple; Inspired continued fight for equality |
| Commemoration |
Cultural events organized by the Kerala government; Observations in Tamil Nadu to recognize Tamil leaders’ role |
Conclusion
- Vaikom is not just a name of a town but a symbol of social justice and the eradication of caste barriers. It is a significant part of the history of the social justice movement in India and continues to inspire the fight for equality and justice.
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: GPT and other such models, Go through the table
Mains level: AI generative models, advantages and concerns
Central Idea
- OpenAI’s GPT-4, the latest AI model, is creating shock waves around the world. It has incredible capabilities, but also raises ethical questions and concerns about its potential misuse.
Capabilities of GPT-4
- Enhanced abilities: GPT-4 is a considerable improvement over its predecessor, GPT-3.5, with enhanced conversational and creative abilities that allow it to understand and produce more meaningful and engaging content.
- Accept both text and image input: It can accept both text and image input simultaneously, which enables it to consider multiple inputs while generating responses, such as suggesting recipes based on an image of ingredients.
- Diverse potential: GPT-4’s impressive performance in various tests designed for humans, such as simulated bar examinations and advanced courses in multiple subjects, demonstrates its potential applications in diverse fields.
- Simple definition: ChatGPT is a chatbot built on a large-scale transformer-based language model that is trained on a diverse dataset of text and is capable of generating human-like responses to prompts.
- A human like language model: It is based on GPT-3.5, a language model that uses deep learning to produce human-like text.
- It is more engaging with details: However, while the older GPT-3 model only took text prompts and tried to continue on that with its own generated text, ChatGPT is more engaging. It’s much better at generating detailed text and can even come up with poems.
- Keeps the memory of the conversations: Another unique characteristic is memory. The bot can remember earlier comments in a conversation and recount them to the user.
- Human- like resemblance: A conversation with ChatGPT is like talking to a computer, a smart one, which appears to have some semblance of human-like intelligence.
Facts for Prelims: Other AI models
| Model Name |
Developer |
Key Features/Description |
| BERT |
Google |
Transformer-based, bidirectional, excels in question-answering, sentiment analysis, and NER |
| XLNet |
Google/CMU |
Combines BERT and autoregressive language modeling, improved performance in NLP benchmarks |
| T5 |
Google |
Transformer-based, multi-task learning framework, strong performance across NLP tasks |
| RoBERTa |
Facebook AI |
Optimized version of BERT, improved training strategies, top performance on NLP benchmarks |
| Megatron |
NVIDIA |
Designed for large-scale training, used for training GPT-like models with billions of parameters |
| CLIP |
OpenAI |
Learns from text and image data, bridges NLP and computer vision, zero-shot image classification |
Limitations and Concerns of GPT-4
- Factual inaccuracies: GPT-4, like its predecessor, is prone to factual inaccuracies, known as hallucinations, which can result in the generation of misleading or incorrect information.
- Not transparent: OpenAI has not been transparent about GPT-4’s inner workings, including its architecture, hardware, and training methods, citing safety and competitive reasons, which prevents critical scrutiny of the model.
- Biased data: The model has been trained on biased data from the internet, containing harmful biases and stereotypes, which may lead to harmful outputs that perpetuate these biases.
Potential Misuse
- Undermining human skills and knowledge in education: GPT-4’s capabilities pose a threat to examination systems as students may use the AI-generated text to complete their essays and assignments, undermining the assessment of their skills and knowledge.
- Potential to be misused as a propaganda and disinformation engine: The powerful language model has the potential to be misused as a propaganda and disinformation engine, spreading false or misleading information that can have far-reaching consequences.
Ethical and Environmental Implications
- Ethical use: The development of large language models like GPT-4 raises concerns about the ethical implications of their use, especially with regard to biases and the potential for misuse.
- Energy consumption: The environmental costs associated with training these models, such as energy consumption and carbon emissions, contribute to the ongoing debate about the sustainability of AI development.
Conclusion
- GPT-4 offers incredible advancements in AI, but it also raises important questions about the ethical implications and potential misuse of such powerful technology. Society must carefully weigh the benefits and drawbacks of building models that test the limits of what is possible and prioritize the development of responsible AI systems.
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: NLIP
Mains level: Adult literacy
Central idea: 22.7 lakh adults from 10 states and union territories in India became qualified as literate adults in 2022-23 by passing an assessment test conducted under New India Literacy Program (NLIP).
What is New India Literacy Program (NLIP)?
- The NLIP/ Nav Bharat Saksharta Abhiyan is aimed at providing literacy to non-literates in the age group of 15 years and above.
- The scheme is implemented for a period of five years from FYs 2022-23 to 2026-27.
- The scheme has five main components, which are as follows:
- Foundational Literacy and Numeracy,
- Critical Life Skills,
- Vocational Skills Development,
- Basic Education, and
- Continuing Education
Beneficiaries of the scheme
- The beneficiaries under the scheme are identified through a door-to-door survey on a mobile app by surveyors in the States/UTs.
- Non-literates can also avail the benefits of the scheme through direct registration from any place through a mobile app.
- The scheme is mainly based on volunteerism for teaching and learning.
- Volunteers can also register through a mobile app for this purpose.
Implementation of the scheme
- The scheme is based on technology and implemented predominantly through an online mode.
- The teaching-learning material and resources have been made available on the DIKSHA platform of NCERT and can be accessed through mobile apps.
- Furthermore, other modes like TV, Radio, Samajik Chetna Kendra, etc. are also to be used for the dissemination of Foundational Literacy and Numeracy.
Conclusion
- The New India Literacy Programme (NILP) is a crucial step towards making India a literate country.
- The scheme’s implementation through technology and the use of volunteers for teaching and learning will make it easier for non-literates to access education.
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: QCO
Mains level: Not Much
Central idea
- Quality Control Orders (QCO) have been issued for fibres like cotton, polyester, and viscose to control the import of sub-quality and cheaper items and to ensure that customers get quality products.
- The QCOs are made mandatory for some and yet to be finalized for others.
What is the move?
- The Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) will issue certificate to manufacturers of viscose staple fibre (VSF) who comply with its standards (IS17266: 2019).
- The hallmark is made mandatory.
Why are fibres covered under QCOs?
- The Indian textile and clothing industry consumes both indigenous and imported fibres and filaments.
- The imports are for different reasons, such as cost competitiveness, non-availability in the domestic market, or to meet a specified demand of the overseas buyer.
- The main aim of the QCO is to control the import of sub-quality and cheaper items and to ensure that customers get quality products.
Reasons behind
- India’s move to introduce a draft of Quality Control Orders (QCO) aims to curb a Chinese import surge and boost exports to western markets.
What challenges does the new mandate bring?
- Supply chain disruption: India imports annually 50,000 – 60,000 tonnes of viscose fibre and its variants such as Modal and Tencel LF from nearly 20 countries. In the case of polyester, almost 90,000 tonnes of polyester fibre and 1.25 lakh tonnes of POY (Polyester Partially Oriented Yarn) are imported annually.
- Unease of doing business: Getting the certificate from the BIS involves a cost and hence not all are interested in getting the certificate.
- Value chain disruption: The Indian textile manufacturers who are dependent on these suppliers for the raw material will have to either look at other suppliers or lose orders.
- Material shortage: Some varieties of fibres have special functional properties and separate HS (Harmonised Commodity Description and Coding System) code when imported. The textile industry imports just small quantities of such fibres, and restricting their availability will deny Indian consumers of niche products.
- Prospected price rise: Several textile units use lower-grade fibres that are generated from rejects and wastes and these are not covered under the QCO.
Textile industry’s expectation
- The industry is of the view that the import of speciality fibres that are used as blends with other fibres should be made available without restriction.
- Any overseas applicant for the BIS certificate should get it without delay after inspection.
Way forward
- Polyester-spun yarn mills in the MSME sector need capital support to set up labs to test products.
- The QCO should be implemented only after the ambiguities are cleared and the anomalies set right, says the industry.
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: Piezoelectric Effect
Mains level: Not Much
Central idea: Scientists have recently discovered evidence of the piezoelectric effect in liquids for the first time. This effect has only been observed in solids for the past 143 years. This new finding challenges the theory that describes this effect and opens doors to previously unanticipated applications in electronic and mechanical systems.
What is Piezoelectric Effect?
- The piezoelectric effect occurs when a body develops an electric current when it is squeezed.
- It has been observed in quartz crystals (SiO2), which are used in wristwatches, clocks, and various instruments that convert mechanical stress to a current.
Recent observation
- The piezoelectric effect was found in pure 1-butyl-3-methyl imidazolium bis(trifluoromethyl-sulfonyl)imide and 1-hexyl-3-methyl imidazolium bis(trifluoromethylsulfonyl)imide.
- Both of these liquids are ionic liquids, which means that they are made of ions instead of molecules, and were found at room temperature.
Why is the effect in liquids surprising?
- Liquids do not have an organized structure like solids, which is why the piezoelectric effect has only been expected in solids until now.
- However, the scientists found the effect in pure ionic liquids at room temperature, challenging the current understanding of the effect.
- The magnitude of the piezoelectric effect in the first liquid was 16 millivolt per newton (mV/N) and in the second, 17 mV/N, in both cases within a margin of 1 mV/N.
What is the strength of the effect?
- In the experiment, the scientists found that the strength of the piezoelectric effect in the two ionic liquids they tested was lower than that of quartz by a factor of 10.
- However, this is still a significant discovery since it opens the door to new applications.
Possible applications
- The discovery of the piezoelectric effect in liquids opens the door to previously inaccessible applications that have fewer environmental issues than many currently used piezoelectric materials.
- Additionally, these liquids displayed the inverse piezoelectric effect, which could be used to control how the liquids bend light passing through them by passing different currents through them, creating lenses with dynamic focusing abilities.
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: Rare Diseases
Mains level: Not Much
Central idea: The Centre has exempted all drugs and food for special medical purposes, imported for personal use, for the treatment of rare diseases listed under the National Policy for Rare Diseases 2021 from basic customs duty.
What are Rare Diseases?
- Rare diseases are those medical conditions that affect a small percentage of the population.
- In India, a disease is considered rare if it affects less than 1 in 2,000 people.
- These diseases are often genetic and are chronic, degenerative, and life-threatening.
- There are over 7,000 known rare diseases, and it is estimated that about 70 million people in India are affected by them.
- Many of these diseases do not have a cure, and the treatment can be expensive and difficult to access.
Need for duty exemption
- This decision has been taken to help reduce the burden of the cost of treatment for patients and families.
- The drugs and food required for the treatment of these rare diseases are often expensive and need to be imported.
- This exemption will result in substantial cost savings and provide much-needed relief to patients with rare diseases.
Key medicines under this exemption
- The central government has fully exempted Pembrolizumab (Keytruda), a drug used in the treatment of various types of cancer, from basic customs duty.
- Previously, the GST rate for Keytruda was cut to 5 per cent from 12 per cent in a meeting held in September 2021 by the GST Council.
- Life-saving drugs Zolgensma and Viltepso used in the treatment of spinal muscular atrophy were exempted from GST when imported for personal use.
How the new duty exemption works?
- The exemption has been granted by the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs (CBIC) by substituting “Drugs, Medicines or Food for Special Medical Purposes (FSMP)” instead of “drugs or medicines”.
- To avail of this exemption, the individual importer has to produce a certificate from the central or state director health services or district medical officer/civil surgeon of the district.
How are life-saving medicines taxed?
- Drugs/medicines generally attract basic customs duty of 10 per cent, while some categories of lifesaving drugs/vaccines attract a concessional rate of 5 per cent or nil.
- In its meeting in September 2021, the GST Council had reduced tax rates for several life-saving drugs.
Get an IAS/IPS ranker as your 1: 1 personal mentor for UPSC 2024
Attend Now