Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Vaccination
Mains level: NA
Almost everyone vaccinated for Covid-19 over the last 16 months will remember that he or she received a quick prick in the upper arm.
Why vaccines are generally administered into muscle?
- This is because most vaccines, including those for Covid-19, are most effective when administered through the intramuscular route into the upper arm muscle, known as the deltoid.
- There are several reasons, but the most important one is that the muscles have a rich blood supply network.
- This means whenever a vaccine carrying an antigen is injected into it, the muscle releases the antigen, which gets dispersed by the muscular vasculature, or the arrangement of blood vessels in the muscle.
- The antigen then gets picked up by a type of immune cells called dendritic cells, which function by showing antigens on their surface to other cells of the immune system.
- The dendritic cells carry the antigen through the lymphatic fluid to the lymph node.
Role of T Cells
- T Cells also called T lymphocyte, type of leukocyte (white blood cell) that is an essential part of the immune system.
- T cells are one of two primary types of lymphocytes—B cells being the second type—that determine the specificity of the immune response to antigens (foreign substances) in the body.
- Through the course of research over the years, it is understood that the lymph nodes have T cells and B cells — the body’s primary protector cells.
- Once this antigen gets flagged and is given to the T cells and B cells that is how we start developing an immune response against a particular virus.
- It could be any of the new viruses like SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, or the previous viruses which we have been running vaccination programs for.
Other options for vaccination
- Conversely, if the vaccine is administered into the subcutaneous fat tissue [between the skin and the muscle], which has a poor blood supply, absorption of the antigen vaccine is poor and therefore one may have failed immune response.
- Similarly, the additives which could be toxic, could cause a local reaction.
- The same thing could happen when the vaccine is administered intradermally (just below the outermost skin layer, the epidermis).
- Hence, the route chosen now for most vaccines is intramuscular.
- Also, compared to the skin or subcutaneous tissue, the muscles have fewer pain receptors, and so an intramuscular injection does not hurt as much as a subcutaneous or an intradermal injection.
But why the upper arm muscle in particular?
- In some vaccines, such as that for rabies, the immunogenicity — the ability of any cell or tissue to provoke an immune response — increases when it is administered in the arm.
- If administered in subcutaneous fat tissues located at the thigh or hips, these vaccines show a lower immunogenicity and thus there is a chance of vaccine failure.
Why not administer the vaccine directly into the vein?
- This is to ensure the ‘depot effect’, or release of medication slowly over time to enable longer effectiveness.
- When given intravenously, the vaccine is quickly absorbed into the circulation.
- The intramuscular method takes some time to absorb the vaccine.
- Wherever a vaccination programme is carried out, it is carried out for the masses.
- To deposit the vaccine, the easiest route would be the oral route (like the polio vaccine).
- However, for other vaccines that need to be administered intravenously or intramuscularly (enabling wider field-based administration), the intramuscular route is chosen from a public health perspective over the intravenous route.
Which vaccines are administered through other routes?
- One of the oldest vaccines that for smallpox, was given by scarification of the skin.
- However, with time, doctors realised there are better ways to vaccinate beneficiaries.
- These included the intradermal route, the subcutaneous route, the intramuscular route, oral, and nasal routes.
- There are only two exceptions that continue to be administered through the intradermal route.
- These are the vaccines for BCG (Bacillus Calmette–Guérin) and for tuberculosis because these two vaccines continue to work empirically well when administered through the intradermal route.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Madhavpur Mela
Mains level: Not Much
The Madhavpur Mela was recently inaugurated by the President of India.
In the entire country, there is no other fair which the President and host of Union Ministers and Chief Ministers of a number of states visit.
What is the Madhavpur Mela?
- The Mela is a religio-cultural fair taking place every year in Madhavpur, a village on the Porbandar coast, also known as Madhavpur Ghed.
- The village has temples of Madhavraiji, or Lord Krishna, and his consort Rukmini, believed to have been built in the 15th century.
- It is also known for its sandy sea beach, the turquoise waters of the Arabian Sea, a sea turtle hatchery and the Osho Ashram
- The fair begins on Ram Navami, Lord Rama’s birth anniversary falling on the ninth day of the month of Chaitra in the Hindu calendar, and culminates on Tryodashi, the 13th day of the month.
Mythology behind the fair
- The fair celebrates the marriage of Lord Krishna with Rukmini around 4,000 years ago, as per Hindu mythology.
- The fair begins on Ram Navami, Lord Rama’s birth anniversary falling on the ninth day of the month of Chaitra in the Hindu calendar, and culminates on Tryodashi, the 13th day of the month.
- According to mythology, Lord Krishna had established his kingdom in Dwarka near Porbandar.
- Rukmini, daughter of King Bhimak of the present-day Arunachal Pradesh, wanted to marry Krishna, while her brother wanted to marry her off to Shishupal, Krishna’s cousin.
- Therefore, Krishna abducted Rukmini, brought her to Gujarat and tied the knot with her at Madhavpur village.
- Today, to mark the wedding, marriage rituals go on for five days.
- They culminate with the idols of Lord Krishna and Rukmini being taken out in a procession through Madhavpur for ‘samaiya’, a ritual to welcome the bridegroom back home with his bride.
Significance of the fair
- The President observed that fairs and festivals have bonded the people of India for ages and that Madhavpur Mela also integrates Gujarat to the Northeast of India.
- This fair reflects that, despite our languages, dialects and lifestyles being different, Indians, since time immemorial, have been one culturally.
Do you know?
There is one such festival called ‘Pushkaram’ which is celebrated by the people of Tamil Nadu. Devotees from Tamil Nadu perform rituals at the banks of Brahmaputra River.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Gross Enrolment Ratio
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with CUET
Context
The introduction of the Common University Entrance Test (CUET) can be seen as a step in the direction of aligning India with international standards.
About CUET
- The UGC’s rationale for introducing the test is to address the disparity in the allocation of marks by different examination boards, and provide a “level playing field” to students from different sections of society and diverse regions.
- The CUET has been envisaged as a corrective.
- Of the 48 central universities, 45 seem to have the requirements to institute the test.
- The CUET is going to decide the fate of approximately 1.3 crore students for roughly 5.4 lakh undergraduate seats in 45 central universities.
Issues with the CUET
- Students to contend with two examinations: The marks obtained in the board examination will remain vital for admission to state and private universities as well as job applications.
- The students will now have to contend with two examinations.
- Impetus to coaching classes: Many educationists argue that the new examination is likely to give an impetus to coaching classes.
- Coaching and private tuition will flourish without much concern for quality in the preparation of the study material.
- Not all State Boards prescribe NCERT textbooks: The CUET syllabus will be based on NCERT (under the Ministry of Education) textbooks even though not all state boards prescribe these books.
- The coaching industry stands to take advantage of this situation and students will have a hard time navigating two sets of textbooks.
- The impact is likely to be harsher on disadvantaged sections of the society for whom access to higher education is seen as the only route to upward mobility.
Way forward
- The Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER) is constantly increasing for higher secondary education (51.4 per cent according to UDISE, 2019-20) and higher education (27.1 per cent to AISHE, 2019-20).
- The figures indicate that higher education has acquired a mass base in the country.
- This has important implications for a knowledge-based economy and society.
- Maintaining the momentum of GER would require more teachers, schools and higher education institutions of quality and slow down the rush for a few but highly sought after universities and colleges.
Conclusion
The new examination would put additional pressure on both students and teachers at a time when they are trying to overcome the exactions of the pandemic. It appears to diverge from the objective of the National Education Policy-2020 — equitable access to good quality higher education for all students.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Competition Commission of India
Mains level: Privacy as a metric of quality
Context
In February, Facebook stated that its revenue in 2022 is anticipated to reduce by $10 billion due to steps undertaken by Apple to enhance user privacy on its mobile operating system.
Move towards more privacy-preserving options
- Apple introduced AppTrackingTransparency feature that requires apps to request permission from users before tracking them across other apps and websites or sharing their information with and from third parties.
- Through this change, Apple effectively shut the door on “permissionless” internet tracking and has given consumers more control over how their data is used.
- Privacy experts have welcomed this move because it is predicted to enhance awareness and nudge other actors to move towards more privacy-preserving options, leading to a market for “Privacy Enhancing Technologies”.
- Google’s Privacy Sandbox project is a case in point, though it remains to be seen whether it will be truly privacy-preserving.
Big Tech dominance and issues related to it
- Privacy and acquisitions: One standout feature of the Big Tech dominance has been the non-price factors such as quality of service (QoS) in general and privacy and acquisitions in particular.
- Acquisitions to kill competition: Acquisitions by Big Tech are regular and eat up big bucks, not always to promote efficiency but to eliminate potential competition, described evocatively as “kill zone” by specialists.
- According to a report released by the Federal Trade Commission, between 2010 and 2019, Big Tech made 616 acquisitions.
- In the absence of a modern framework, competition law continues to rely on Bork’s theory of consumer welfare which postulated that the sole normative objective of antitrust should be to maximise consumer welfare, best pursued through promoting economic efficiency.
- Market structure thus became irrelevant and conduct became the sole criterion for judgement.
- Conduct now predominantly revolves around QoS which, like much else surrounding digital platforms, is pushing competition authorities to fortify their existing regulatory toolkits.
Privacy as a metric of quality
- Companies such as Apple and DuckDuckGo (with its slogan “the search engine that doesn’t track you”) are employing enhanced user privacy as a competitive metric.
- It has been shown that “websites which do not face strong competition are significantly more likely to ask for more personal information than other services provided for free”.
- In 2018, OECD accepted that privacy is a relevant dimension of quality despite the low quality that may be prevalent due to lack of market development.
- Regulators across the globe are recognising privacy as a serious metric of quality.
- For instance, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) in 2021 took suo moto cognisance of changes to WhatsApp’s “take-it” or “leave-it” privacy policy that made it mandatory for every user to share data with Facebook.
- In its prima facie order, the CCI inter alia observed that this amounts to degradation of privacy and therefore quality.
Way forward
- Privacy and competition have overlapping boundaries.
- If privacy becomes a competitive constraint, then companies will have the incentive to create privacy-preserving and enhancing technologies.
- Barriers for new entrants: On the other hand, care must be taken so that Big Tech, aka the gatekeepers in the EU’s Digital Markets Act, do not misuse privacy to create barriers for newer entrants.
- Restricting third-party tracking is not novel and other browsers such as Mozilla Firefox and Microsoft’s Edge have already done so.
- But Google, which owns 65 per cent of the global browser market, is different.
- By disabling third parties from tracking but continuing to use that data in its own ad tech stack, Google harms competition.
- The use of privacy as a tool for market development, therefore, has to tread this tightrope between enabling and stifling competition.
Conclusion
An approach that balances user autonomy, consumer protection, innovation, and market competition in digital markets is a real win-win and worth investing in.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: IRMS
Mains level: Paper 3- IRMS training
Context
A recent Gazette notification regarding the creation of the Indian Railway Management Service (IRMS) marks a paradigm shift in the management of one of the world’s largest rail networks.
About the merger and IRMS
- A nearly 8,000 strong cadre of the erstwhile eight services is now merged into one.
- Eight out of 10 Group-A Indian Railway services have been merged to create the IRMS.
- The merged services are: Indian Railway Traffic Service (IRTS), Indian Railway Personnel Service (IRPS), Indian Railway Accounts Service (IRAS), Indian Railway Service of Electrical Engineers (IRSEE), Indian Railway Service of Signal Engineers (IRSS), Indian Railway Service of Mechanical Engineers (IRSME), Indian Railway Service of Civil Engineers (IRSE) and Indian Railway Stores Service (IRSS).
- Aims of the restructuring: Besides removing silos, this restructuring also aims at rationalising the top-heavy bureaucracy of the Indian Railways.
Way forward: Training
- Training the future leaders of India’s public transporter in the rapidly evolving logistics sector of the country is the most important task ahead.
- The UPSC will recruit a few hundred IRMS officers each year from now, they will remain much less in number when compared to already serving officers for a long time to come.
- Training of the existing cadre of officers: The fact remains that even after the creation of the IRMS, the 8,000 strong (already serving) officers of the Indian Railways will need to work in coordination and not in silos, as they will be serving in the organisation for decades to come.
- This highlights the importance of training of the existing cadre of officers as they will have to deliver on the ambitious Gati-Shakti projects.
- The task of training such a dynamic talent pool assumes importance in view of India’s aspirations of becoming a $5 trillion economy.
- All this will require a massive revamp of the capacity building ecosystem of the Indian Railways.
- Redesign the training: The merger of services provides an opportunity to redesign the training for newly recruited IRMS officers to make them future-ready. Initial training along with mid-career training programmes may be reoriented.
- The IRMS training needs to be designed based on the competencies required for different leadership roles.
- Mission Karmayogi of the Government of India provides for competencies based postings of officers.
- The Integrated Government Online Training (iGOT) programme of the Government of India will be instrumental in shaping the career progression of IRMS officers.
Conclusion
Future IRMS officers should be ready to face the challenges of working in an organisation that is involved in round the clock and round the year operations, has substantial social obligations to meet and, at the same time, which must earn for itself.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: 2+2 Format
Mains level: Read the attached story
The fourth ‘2+2’ dialogue between India and the United States is underway in Washington DC.
2+2 talks between India and allies
- The 2+2 dialogue is a format of meeting of the foreign and defence ministers of India and its allies on strategic and security issues.
- A 2+2 ministerial dialogue enables the partners to better understand and appreciate each other’s strategic concerns and sensitivities taking into account political factors on both sides.
- This helps to build a stronger, more integrated strategic relationship in a rapidly changing global environment.
- India has 2+2 dialogues with four key strategic partners: US, Australia, Japan, and RUSSIA.
Inception of the idea
- The inaugural 2+2 dialogue with Australia was held in September 2021 when Jaishankar and Singh met with their counterparts Marise Payne and Peter Dutton in New Delhi.
- India held its first 2+2 dialogue with Russia in December last year, when Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu visited India.
- The first India-Japan talks in the 2+2 format were held on November 30, 2019 in New Delhi.
Dialogue with the US
- The US is India’s oldest and most important 2+2 talks partner.
- The first 2+2 dialogue between the two countries was held during the Trump Administration.
- It hosted then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and then-Secretary of Defence James Mattis and the late Sushma Swaraj and then Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman in New Delhi in September 2018.
- The second and third editions of the 2+2 dialogues were held in Washington DC and New Delhi in 2019 and 2020 respectively.
Defence and strategic agreements
- Over the years, the strategic bilateral relationship with its partners, including the dialogues held in the 2+2 format, have produced tangible and far-reaching results for India.
- India and the US have signed a troika of “foundational pacts” for deep military cooperation, beginning with the:
- Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA) in 2016
- Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA) after the first 2+2 dialogue in 2018, and
- Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) in 2020
Deterrents in ties ahead of the meet
- There is little doubt as to how beneficial this mechanism has been.
- On one side, the ‘two plus dialogue’ is expected to abate, if not resolve, highly problematic issues such as Chinese aggression.
- Even though there is a tonne of expectations from this mutual dialogue between the two countries, the dialogue is also the source of some worry.
- This time, the US is sceptical of India’s mammoth oil import from Russia.
- Another problematic pointer is India’s voluminous weaponry sanctions from Russia.
Why a 2+2 with Russia?
- Russia is one of those countries with which a 2+2 format talk “fits perfectly” in India’s foreign policy.
- India and Russia have shared a strategic relationship since October 2000, which later got upgraded to ‘Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership’ in December 2010.
- To be sure, the India-Russia 2+2 does have a particularly strong signalling component when seen against the backdrop of the S400 controversy.
- Holding the 2+2 talks with Russia is much needed. This gives out a strong message to the world that India sees everyone to be on the same level.
- This is visible messaging that India cannot be compelled to choose partners. India pursues an independent foreign policy serving its national and non-allied interests.
- Having a 2+2 with Russia also means that India is “not in anyone’s camp” and that bilateral ties between Moscow and New Delhi are “traditional and comprehensive”.
Way forward
- India and the US don’t set ‘red lines’ and are pushing for “an honest dialogue”, the ongoing 2+2 dialogue is an opportunity for both India and the US.
- The US also understands that India is one of the few countries that could leverage its relationship with Russia to bring the two warring parties to the negotiating table through a ceasefire and diplomatic resolution.
- For Delhi, it is a season for careful and adroit diplomacy.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: GST slabs, Inverted Duty Structure
Mains level: Issues with Inverted Duty Structure
India has long suffered the anomaly of imported raw material being taxed more than the finished product. Economists call it the inverted duty structure. A spate of free trade agreements (FTAs) in the past have not helped. Are the new ones any better?
What is the inverted duty structure?
- An inverted duty structure comes up in a situation where import duties on input goods are higher than on finished goods.
- In other words, the GST rate paid on purchases is more than the GST rate payable on sales.
Why is it a problem?
- When manufacturers cannot set off the taxes paid on raw materials against the tax on the final product, the excess tax paid on inputs gets built into the price of the product.
- This makes an Indian-made product more expensive than the imported finished product, affecting the competitiveness of Indian makers.
- The issue is acute in sectors like textiles and apparels.
- Correcting duty anomalies is key to attracting investments in manufacturing.
Will new FTAs worsen the problem?
- Looks unlikely. The FTAs under negotiations are structurally very different from those signed a decade ago.
- The FTAs signed in the early 2000s were with manufacturing hubs like the 10-nation ASEAN which includes the Philippines, Vietnam, South Korea, and Japan.
- Most of these countries directly compete with India in a host of manufacturing sectors including apparel, electronics, and engineering goods.
- They largely produced the same goods as India.
- By contrast, the new FTAs being signed by India are with countries like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) that share complementarities with India with respect to trade interests.
How is India addressing duty anomalies?
- India has been increasing import duties since 2014-15 to correct the inverted duty structure for non-FTA countries and the average tariff rose from 13.5% in 2014 to 15% in 2020.
- In fact, the last two budgets sought to correct it by removing duty exemptions and lowering the duty on raw materials.
How did the earlier FTAs impact India?
- In old FTAs, India agreed to lower or eliminate duties on finished goods. But import duty on raw materials remained high.
- That made it cheaper to import the final product than make them in India, hurting domestic manufacturers.
- This can be seen from the fact that the share of ASEAN in India’s total imports has grown from 8.2% in FY11 to 12% in FY21, while exports have stagnated at 10%.
- The share of South Korea rose from 2.83% in FY11 to 3.23% in FY21, while exports are up marginally from 1.5% to 1.6% during the same period.
And how are the new FTAs different?
- The UAE, for example, is a services, oil, and gold-led economy rather than a manufacturer. India benefits from duty-free access for mobile phones, which the UAE does not make.
- Australia, which signed a pact with India last week is again not a major manufacturing economy, but a services one with key interests in wines and minerals, pears, oranges, etc.
- Besides, this time around, the government is holding consultations with the industry during the FTA talks, doing a SWOT analysis to ensure FTAs benefit India’s exports.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Software licensing
Mains level: Read the attached story
This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in The Hindu.
Does software have copyright? Even more specifically, is the Internet free inspite of software copyright? Are software programming languages free of cost? How does copyright apply to software?
Software licensing
- A copyright gives a creator the legal right to own, distribute and profit from his or her creative work.
- There are different kinds of software licences that allow free use of software:
(1) Proprietary License
- There is proprietary software which is to be purchased as a one-time transaction or as yearly licences.
- A popular example is Microsoft Windows which is purchased along with the computer or Microsoft Office which typically has a yearly licence that has to be renewed upon payment.
(2) Creative Commons licence (CC)
- There is the Creative Commons licence (CC) which is public domain: any software or work that is in CC can be used and distributed free of cost.
- For example, Wikipedia is under CC and hence its contents can be used freely with the condition that attribution is made to Wikipedia (this is called ‘Creative Commons – Attribution-ShareAlike).
(3) Permissive Software licence
- Another form of free software licence is Permissive Software licence which is popular in the software developer community and in the commercial world.
- This licence allows free use and modification of software. There are further specific licences under this category, like the Apache licence and MIT licence.
(4) Apache licence
- The Apache licence is maintained by the Apache Software Foundation which is a non-profit entity.
- Many popular and powerful softwares like Spark (used in Big Data) have been developed under Apache licence.
- MIT licence is maintained by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and it covers hundreds of software packages including GitLab and Dot NET.
What are Open Software?
- All free and permissive software licences are similar to Free and Open Source Software (FOSS).
- This is a set of rules and free software brought under one umbrella in the 1980s by Richard Stallman, a famous computer scientist and activist.
- FOSS maintains its own licence, called GNU GPL (Gnu’s Not Unix General Public Licence) to govern and distribute free software but it comes with restrictions that its adoption and modification be for free use.
- In the software community, ‘open source’ means any of the above non-proprietary licences.
Who maintains open source softwares?
- Open source software packages are developed and maintained by programmers from around the world.
- Until the mid-1990s, the idea of the general public collaborating to create software for free seemed to be unrealistic and confined to small, elite communities.
- However, with the success of a free operating system like Linux (which is under GNU GPL licence), many were convinced that open source could create sophisticated solutions because of access to top programmers around the world.
Is the Internet free?
- To access and to create content on the internet, there are costs involved such as infrastructure costs like network cost and the cost to host and maintain the content.
- However, the core of the internet itself is free: it is free to use ideas like linking contents on the internet, transferring them with a network software protocol and adopting the associated standards like maintaining the website address (Uniform Resource Locator-URL).
Are programming languages free of cost?
- Until the 1980s, popular programming languages had a price but with the advent of Java in the 1990s and thanks to the initiatives of Richard Stallman and his Free Software Foundation in the 1980s, many languages, especially modern ones like Go or popular ones like Python are free.
- Java is somewhere in the middle where there are free implementations of the language that most software developers use but there are also paid implementations provided by Oracle.
- In general, the realisation in the software community is that a free language has widespread adoption and leads to the availability of an expert pool of programmers.
- The last two decades have seen a proliferation of open source software and the future is even more exciting.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: El-Nino, La-Nina
Mains level: ENSO impact on Indian Monsson
The southwest monsoon is likely to be “normal” in 2022, though rainfall in August, the second rainiest month, will likely be subdued, according to the private weather company Skymet.
El Nino and La Nina
- While El Niño (Spanish for ‘little boy’), the more common expression, is the abnormal surface warming observed along the eastern and central regions of the Pacific Ocean (the region between Peru and Papua New Guinea).
- The La Niña (Spanish for ‘little girl’) is an abnormal cooling of these surface waters.
- Together, the El Niño (Warm Phase) and La Niña (Cool Phase) phenomena are termed as El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO).
- These are large-scale ocean phenomena which influence the global weather — winds, temperature and rainfall. They have the ability to trigger extreme weather events like droughts, floods, hot and cold conditions, globally.
- Each cycle can last anywhere between 9 to 12 months, at times extendable to 18 months — and re-occur after every three to five years.
- Meteorologists record the sea surface temperatures for four different regions, known as Niño regions, along this equatorial belt.
- Depending on the temperatures, they forecast either as an El Niño, an ENSO neutral phase, or a La Niña.
Impact on India
- El Nino during winter causes warm conditions over the Indian subcontinent and during summer, it leads to dry conditions and deficient monsoon.
- Whereas La Nina results in better than normal monsoon in India.
- It has been established that Indian summer monsoon is a fully coupled land-atmosphere-ocean system and that it is linked to ocean temperature variability.
- In an agricultural country like India, the extreme departure from normal seasonal rainfall seriously affects the agricultural output and thus the economy of the country.
Try this PYQ:
Q. La Nina is suspected to have caused recent floods in Australia. How is La Nina different from El Nino?
- La Nina is characterized by unusually cold ocean temperature in equatorial Indian Ocean whereas El Nino is characterized by unusually warm ocean temperature in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.
- El Nino has an adverse effect on south-west monsoon of India, but La Nina has no effect on monsoon climate.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) Only 1
(b) Only 2
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Post your answers here.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nadabet, Seema Darshan Project
Mains level: Promoting Border Tourism
As part of the Seema Darshan project, Union Home Minister inaugurated an Indo-Pakistan border viewing point in Nadabet in Gujarat, around 188 km from Ahmedabad.
Where is Nadabet?
- Located in the Rann of Kutch region, Nadabet is also known as the ‘Wagah of Gujarat’.
- It is connected by a narrow bitumen road cutting across mudflats that get inundated during high-tide.
- The biggest attraction of the Seema Darshan Project is the access provided to civilians to view the fenced international border with Pakistan at ‘Zero Point’.
- This is guarded round the clock by the Border Security Force (BSF) in Banaskantha district of Gujarat.
- Pakistan is around 150 metres from the border pillar 960 at Nadabet.
- Though the BSF conducts a parade similar to the one held at Attari-Wagah border in Punjab every evening during sunset, there won’t be anyone present across the border on the Pakistani side.
What is the Seema Darshan Project?
- The Seema Darshan project is a joint initiative of the tourism department of the Gujarat state government and the BSF Gujarat Frontier.
- The focus is to develop border-tourism in the region which has a sparse population and even sparser vegetation.
- The project aims to boost tourism as well as restrict migration from the villages across the border to the Indian side.
Role of Nadabet in 1971 Indo-Pak War
- Nadabet played a key role in the 1971 Indo-Pakistan War.
- It was in this region that the BSF not only stalled the enemy trying to invade from the west, but also captured 15 enemy posts.
- During the war, the BSF had captured 1,038 square km of Pakistan territory in Nagarparkar and Diplo areas.
- The area was returned to Pakistan after the Shimla Agreement was signed.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Implications of Pakistan's internal crisis
Context
As Pakistan goes through a major political convulsion, India must resist the temptation to see the changes across our western frontiers through the narrow prism of bilateral relations.
Why Pakistan matters
- Pakistan is an important regional piece in the power play between the US, China and Russia.
- Given its location at the crossroads of the Subcontinent, Middle East, Eurasia, and China, Pakistan has always been a vital piece of real estate that was actively sought by contending geopolitical blocs.
- The internal and external have always been tightly linked in Pakistan.
- Today, Pakistan’s internal battles are tied to external geopolitical rivalry.
Two important factors in the political trajectory of Pakistan
- Any Indian strategy in dealing with the new government in Islamabad would depend on an assessment of Pakistan’s post-Imran political trajectory.
- Two important factors stand out.
- 1] First is the changing nature of civil military relations in Pakistan.
- It is part of a serious intra-elite struggle that transcends the well-known military dominance over Pakistan’s polity.
- One of the more interesting questions to come out of the current episode is whether the army’s famed internal coherence and unity of command might endure the crisis.
- 2] Second is the growing fragility of Pakistan’s polity triggered by the deepening economic crisis and sharpening social contradictions.
- There is no guarantee that the army’s ties with new civilian rulers will be smooth nor can we assume that the civilian coalition against Imran Khan will survive the many challenges ahead as it confronts difficult policy challenges on multiple fronts.
Geopolitical challenges of Pakistan
- Engaging India is unlikely to be a high priority for the new government in Islamabad.
- Today, Pakistan has many other things to worry about — reviving its flagging economic fortunes, stabilising the Durand Line with Afghanistan, and rebalancing its ties with the major actors in the Middle East, including Iran, UAE, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.
- Pakistan, which traditionally enjoyed good relations with the West as well as China, is finding it hard to maintain a balance in its great power relations.
- While the army and the new government are eager to restore ties with the US, Imran Khan has made it hard for them.
- Imran Khan’s repeated praise for India’s independent foreign policy was in essence a critique of the Pakistan army that has long steered Islamabad’s international relations.
Way forward
- Delhi should focus on the potential shifts in Pakistan’s strategic orientation triggered by the current crisis.
- The good news from Pakistan is that India is not part of the argument between the political classes or between Imran Khan and the “deep state” represented by the army.
Conclusion
An India that gets an accurate sense of Pakistan’s changing geopolitics will be able to better deal with Islamabad.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Liquidity Adjustment Framework
Mains level: Paper 3- Standing Deposit Facility
Context
The first bi-monthly meeting of the Reserve Bank of India’s Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) for the current financial year reaffirmed its focus on inflation management.
Towards the normalisation of monetary policy
- The MPC voted to keep the policy rate unchanged at 4 per cent and retained its accommodative stance.
- However, the wording was changed to “remain accommodative while focusing on withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that inflation remains within the target going forward, while supporting growth.”
- This statement sets the stage for a shift to a neutral stance in the next meeting and policy rate hikes in subsequent meetings.
- RBI has announced the withdrawal of some of the steps taken during the pandemic to support the economy.
- These will foster the normalisation of monetary policy.
Inflation challenge
- The central bank has acknowledged that the disruptions caused by the Russia-Ukraine crisis have upended their growth and inflation outlook.
- It has steeply revised its inflation projection from 4.5 per cent earlier to 5.7 per cent now for the current financial year.
- The projection is based on an average global crude oil price of $100 per barrel.
- The Food and Agriculture Organisation’s (FAO’s) Food Price Index, a gauge of global food prices, posted a record growth of 12.6 per cent from February.
Formalisation of Liquidity Adjustment Framework (LAF)
- The RBI has been managing liquidity infused into the system during the pandemic through the Variable Rate Reverse Repo Auctions (VRRR) to withdraw liquidity and Variable Rate Repo auctions to inject liquidity.
- RBI has now formalised the Liquidity Adjustment Framework (LAF).
- The LAF is a framework to absorb and inject liquidity into the banking system.
- The LAF is now a symmetric corridor with a width of 50 basis points.
- The policy repo rate is at the centre of the corridor, with the MSF 25 basis points above the policy rate and the SDF 25 basis points below the policy rate.
What is a Standing Deposit Facility
- The RBI has introduced the Standing Deposit Facility (SDF) as the lower bound of the LAF corridor to absorb liquidity.
- The idea of the SDF was first mooted by the Urjit Patel Committee report on the monetary policy framework.
- The RBI Act was amended through the Finance Act of 2018 to allow RBI to use this instrument.
- The SDF will be a facility available to banks to park their funds.
- The SDF will serve as the standing liquidity absorption facility at the lower end of the LAF corridor.
- At the upper end of the corridor is the Marginal Standing Facility (MSF) to inject liquidity.
- Through the SDF, the RBI can absorb liquidity without placing government securities as collateral, hence it will give greater flexibility to the central bank.
- The change also marks a shift away from reverse repo being the effective policy rate.
Key takeaways
- While on the face of it, there are no rate hikes, the shift from the reverse repo rate to the SDF signals a tightening of monetary policy.
- There is a 40 basis points increase in the floor rate.
- In the medium run, the call money rate would move towards the new LAF corridor, thus bringing orderly conditions in the money market.
- As RBI begins to normalise liquidity in a calibrated manner, its ability to manage bond yields will likely be limited.
- Yields on bonds are likely to inch up and remain above the 7 per cent mark.
- Going forward, the trade-off between managing inflation and the borrowing programme of the government will become challenging.
Conclusion
For now the RBI has rightly decided to place top priority on inflation management. This will help in maintaining the credibility of the inflation targeting framework.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: CARA
Mains level: Child Adoption
The Supreme Court has decided to examine a plea to simplify the legal process for the adoption of children in the country.
Why in news?
- The petition filed said that there were only 4,000 child adoptions annually though there were 3 crore orphan children in the country.
- The Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance (CARING) System ought to appoint trained “adoption preparers” who could help the prospective parents to complete the cumbersome paperwork required for adoption.
What is Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA)?
- CARA is an autonomous and statutory body of Ministry of Women and Child Development set up in 2015.
- It functions as the nodal body for the adoption of Indian children and is mandated to monitor and regulate in-country and inter-country adoptions.
- It is designated as the Central Authority to deal with inter-country adoptions in accordance with the provisions of the 1993 Hague Convention on Inter-country Adoption, ratified by India in 2003.
Why was CARA established?
- Some people are offering infants for instant adoption by stating how the children have lost their parents to pandemic.
- However, such adoptions are illegal.
- The Juvenile Justice (Care and Protection of Children) law was enacted in 2015.
- The Juvenile Justice Act is a secular law, all persons are free to adopt children under this law.
- The Juvenile Justice Rules of 2016 and the Adoption Regulations of 2017 followed to create the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA).
Adoption Process
- The eligibility of prospective adoptive parents living in India, duly registered on the Child Adoption Resource Information and Guidance System (CARINGS), irrespective of marital status and religion, is Procedure for adoption adjudged by specialised adoption agencies preparing home study reports.
- The specialized adoption agency then secures court orders approving the adoption.
- All non-resident persons approach authorized adoption agencies in their foreign country of residence for registration under CARINGS.
- Their eligibility is adjudged by authorised foreign adoption agencies through home study reports.
- CARA then issues a pre-adoption ‘no objection’ certificate for foster care, followed by a court adoption order.
- A final ‘no objection’ certificate from CARA or a conformity certificate under the adoption convention is mandatory for a passport and visa to leave India.
Harmonization created by CARA
- India has multiple adoption laws.
- Traditionally, the 1956 Hindu Adoption and Maintenance Act (HAMA), adoption, subject to the requirements and rigors of the Act, is available in India to Hindus, Buddhists, Jains, and Sikhs, and others subject to Hindu family law or custom.
- For others, the 1890 Guardians and Wards Act applies, but which provides only guardianship, not adoption, for those not subject to Hindu family law or custom.
- CARA primarily deals with the adoption of “orphaned, abandoned and surrendered” children through recognised adoption agencies.
- In 2018, CARA has allowed individuals in a live-in relationship to adopt children from and within India.
Preference Controversy
- As required by the 1993 Hague Convention, Article 4(b), children residing in India are always offered to Indian families before any foreigner.
- However, after taking office in 2014, PM Modi changed the law to put Non-Resident Indian (NRI) citizens and couples on par with Indians residing in India.
- From this point on, all adoptable children are offered to Indian families in order of seniority instead of distinguishing between resident and non-resident Indians.
Way forward
- CARA must conduct an outreach programme on social media, newspapers and TV, warning everyone not to entertain any illegal adoption offers under any circumstances whatsoever.
- The National and State Commissions for Protection of Child Rights must step up their roles as vigilantes.
- Social activists, NGOs and enlightened individuals must report all the incidents that come to their notice.
- Respective State Legal Services Authorities have the infrastructure and machinery to stamp out such unlawful practices brought to their attention.
- The media must publicise and shame all those involved in this disreputable occupation.
- At the same time, the police authorities need to be extra vigilant in apprehending criminals.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: WMD Bill
Mains level: WMD terrorism
Recently the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Amendment Bill, 2022 was passed in the Lok Sabha.
What is the WMD Bill?
- The Bill amends the WMD and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act, 2005 which prohibits the unlawful manufacture, transport, or transfer of WMD (chemical, biological and nuclear weapons) and their means of delivery.
- It is popularly referred to as the WMD Act.
- The recent amendment extends the scope of banned activities to include financing of already prohibited activities.
- The WMD and their Delivery Systems (Prohibition of Unlawful Activities) Act came into being in July 2005.
What was the purpose of the original WMD Act?
- Its primary objective was to provide an integrated and overarching legislation on prohibiting unlawful activities in relation to all three types of WMD, their delivery systems and related materials, equipment and technologies.
- It instituted penalties for contravention of these provisions such as imprisonment for a term not less than five years (extendable for life) as well as fines.
- The Act was passed to meet an international obligation enforced by the UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 1540 of 2004.
What is the UNSCR 1540?
- In April 2004 the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1540 to address the growing threat of non-state actors gaining access to WMD material, equipment or technology to undertake acts of terrorism.
- In order to address this challenge to international peace and security, UNSCR 1540 established binding obligations on all UN member states under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
- Nations were mandated to take and enforce effective measures against proliferation of WMD, their means of delivery and related materials to non-state actors.
- It was to punish the unlawful and unauthorised manufacture, acquisition, possession, development and transport of WMD became necessary.
UNSCR 1540 enforced three primary obligations upon nation states —
- To not provide any form of support to non-state actors seeking to acquire WMD, related materials, or their means of delivery;
- To adopt and enforce laws criminalising the possession and acquisition of such items by non-state actors;
- To adopt and enforce domestic controls over relevant materials, in order to prevent their proliferation.
What has the Amendment added to the existing Act?
- The Amendment expands the scope to include prohibition of financing of any activity related to WMD and their delivery systems.
- To prevent such financing, the Central government shall have the power to freeze, seize or attach funds, financial assets, or economic resources of suspected individuals (whether owned, held, or controlled directly or indirectly).
- It also prohibits persons from making finances or related services available for other persons indulging in such activity.
Why was this Amendment necessary?
- India echoes these developments for having made the Amendment necessary.
- Two specific gaps are being addressed-
- As the relevant organisations at the international level, such as the Financial Action Task Force have expanded the scope of targeted financial sanctions and India’s own legislation has been harmonised to align with international benchmarks.
- With advancements in technologies, new kinds of threats have emerged that were not sufficiently catered for in the existing legislation.
- These notably include developments in the field of drones or unauthorised work in biomedical labs that could maliciously be used for terrorist activity.
- Therefore, the Amendment keeps pace with evolving threats.
What more should India do?
- India’s responsible behaviour and actions on non-proliferation are well recognised.
- It has a strong statutory national export control system and is committed to preventing proliferation of WMD.
- This includes transit and trans-shipment controls, retransfer control, technology transfer controls, brokering controls and end-use based controls.
- Every time India takes additional steps to fulfil new obligations, it must showcase its legislative, regulatory and enforcement frameworks to the international community.
- It is also necessary that India keeps WMD security in international focus.
Setting up a precedence
- There is no room for complacency.
- Even countries which do not have WMD technology have to be sensitised to their role in the control framework to prevent weak links in the global control system.
- India can offer help to other countries on developing national legislation, institutions and regulatory framework through the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) or on bilateral basis.
Could the Amendment become troublesome to people on account of mistaken identity?
- In the discussion on the Bill in Parliament, some members expressed concern on whether the new legislation could make existing business entities or people in the specific sector susceptible to a case of mistaken identity.
- The External Affairs Minister, however, assured the House that such chances were minimal since identification of concerned individuals/entities would be based on a long list of specifics.
What is the international significance of these legislation?
- Preventing acts of terrorism that involve WMD or their delivery systems requires building a network of national and international measures in which all nation states are equally invested.
- Such actions are necessary to strengthen global enforcement of standards relating to the export of sensitive items and to prohibit even the financing of such activities.
Way forward
- Sharing of best practices on legislations and their implementation can enable harmonization of global WMD controls.
- India initially had reservations on enacting laws mandated by the UNSCR.
- This is not seen by India as an appropriate body for making such a demand.
- However, given the danger of WMD terrorism that India faces in view of the difficult neighbourhood that it inhabits, the country supported the Resolution and has fulfilled its requirements.
Conclusion
- It is in India’s interest to facilitate highest controls at the international level and adopt them at the domestic level.
- Having now updated its own legislation, India can demand the same of others, especially from those in its neighbourhood that have a history of proliferation and of supporting terrorist organisations.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Collegium system, NJAC
Mains level: Collegium system
The impression that “judges appoint judges” in India is wrong. It is the government which “finally appoints the judges in the name of the President of India, the head of our state”, Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana said in conversation with US Supreme Court judge.
What did the CJI say??
- There is an impression that in India judges appoint judges. It is a wrong impression.
- The appointment is done through a lengthy consultative process known as collegium system. Many stakeholders are consulted.
What is Collegium System?
- The Collegium of judges is the Indian Supreme Court’s invention.
- It does not figure in the Constitution, which says judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the President and speaks of a process of consultation.
- In effect, it is a system under which judges are appointed by an institution comprising judges.
- After some judges were superseded in the appointment of the CJI in the 1970s, and attempts made subsequently to effect a mass transfer of High Court judges across the country.
- Hence there was a perception that the independence of the judiciary was under threat. This resulted in a series of cases over the years.
Evolution: The Judges Cases
- First Judges Case (1981) ruled that the “consultation” with the CJI in the matter of appointments must be full and effective.
- However, it rejected the idea that the CJI’s opinion, albeit carrying great weight, should have primacy.
- Second Judges Case (1993) introduced the Collegium system, holding that “consultation” really meant “concurrence”.
- It added that it was not the CJI’s individual opinion, but an institutional opinion formed in consultation with the two senior-most judges in the Supreme Court.
- Third Judges Case (1998): On a Presidential Reference for its opinion, the Supreme Court, in the Third Judges Case (1998) expanded the Collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues.
The procedure followed by the Collegium
Appointment of CJI
- The President of India appoints the CJI and the other SC judges.
- As far as the CJI is concerned, the outgoing CJI recommends his successor.
- In practice, it has been strictly by seniority ever since the supersession controversy of the 1970s.
- The Union Law Minister forwards the recommendation to the PM who, in turn, advises the President.
Other SC Judges
- For other judges of the top court, the proposal is initiated by the CJI.
- The CJI consults the rest of the Collegium members, as well as the senior-most judge of the court hailing from the High Court to which the recommended person belongs.
- The consultees must record their opinions in writing and it should form part of the file.
- The Collegium sends the recommendation to the Law Minister, who forwards it to the Prime Minister to advise the President.
For High Courts
- The CJs of High Courts are appointed as per the policy of having Chief Justices from outside the respective States. The Collegium takes the call on the elevation.
- High Court judges are recommended by a Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges.
- The proposal, however, is initiated by the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned in consultation with two senior-most colleagues.
- The recommendation is sent to the Chief Minister, who advises the Governor to send the proposal to the Union Law Minister.
Does the Collegium recommend transfers too?
- Yes, the Collegium also recommends the transfer of Chief Justices and other judges.
- Article 222 of the Constitution provides for the transfer of a judge from one High Court to another.
- When a CJ is transferred, a replacement must also be simultaneously found for the High Court concerned. There can be an acting CJ in a High Court for not more than a month.
- In matters of transfers, the opinion of the CJI “is determinative”, and the consent of the judge concerned is not required.
- However, the CJI should take into account the views of the CJ of the High Court concerned and the views of one or more SC judges who are in a position to do so.
- All transfers must be made in the public interest, that is, “for the betterment of the administration of justice”.
Loopholes in the Collegium system
- Lack of Transparency: Opaqueness and a lack of transparency, and the scope for nepotism are cited often.
- Judges appointing Judge: The attempt made to replace it with a ‘National Judicial Appointments Commission’ was struck down by the court in 2015 on the ground that it posed a threat to the independence of the judiciary.
- Criteria: Some do not believe in full disclosure of reasons for transfers, as it may make lawyers in the destination court chary of the transferred judge.
Way ahead
- In respect of appointments, there has been an acknowledgment that the “zone of consideration” must be expanded to avoid criticism that many appointees hail from families of retired judges.
- The status of a proposed new memorandum of procedure, to infuse greater accountability, is also unclear.
- Even the majority opinions admitted the need for transparency, now Collegiums’ resolutions are now posted online, but reasons are not given.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Scheduled languages
Mains level: Hindi imposition row
Last week, Home Minister Amit Shah suggested that states should communicate with each other in Hindi rather than English, while stressing that Hindi should not be an alternative to local languages.
This again sparked the debate of “Hindi imposition”.
How widely is Hindi spoken in India?
- The 2011 linguistic census accounts for 121 mother tongues, including 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution.
- Hindi is the most widely spoken, with 52.8 crore individuals, or 43.6% of the population, declaring it as their mother tongue.
- The next highest is Bengali, mother tongue for 97 lakh (8%) — less than one-fifth of Hindi’s count (Chart 2).
- In terms of the number of people who know Hindi, the count crosses more than half the country.
- Nearly 13.9 crore (over 11%) reported Hindi as their second language, which makes it either the mother tongue or second language for nearly 55% of the population.
Has it always been this widespread?
- Hindi has been India’s predominant mother tongue over the decades, its share in the population rising in every succeeding census.
- In 1971, 37% Indians had reported Hindi as their mother tongue, a share that has grown over the next four censuses to 38.7%, 39.2%, 41% and 43.6% at last count (Chart 1).
- This begs the question as to which mother tongues have declined as Hindi’s share has risen.
- A number of mother tongues other than Hindi have faced a decline in terms of share, although the dip has been marginal in many cases.
- For example, Bengali’s share in the population declined by just 0.14 percentage points from 1971 (8.17%) to 2011 (8.03%).
- In comparison, Malayalam (1.12 percentage points) and Urdu (1.03 points) had higher declines among the mother tongues with at least 1 crore speakers in 2011.
- Punjabi’s share, on the other hand, rose from 2.57% to 2.74%.
- At the other end of the scale (among the 22 languages listed in the 8th Schedule of the Constitution) were Malayalam, whose numbers rose by under 59% in four decades, and Assamese, rising just over 71% (Chart 3).
What explains Hindi’s high numbers?
- One obvious explanation is that Hindi is the predominant language in some of India’s most populous states, including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Bihar.
- Another reason is that a number of languages are bracketed under Hindi by census enumerators.
- In 2011, there were 1,383 mother tongues reported by people, and hundreds were knocked out.
- These mother tongues were then grouped into languages.
- You will find that under Hindi, they have listed nearly 65 mother tongues.
- Among them is Bhojpuri, and 5 crore people have reported Bhojpuri as their mother tongue, but the census has decided that Bhojpuri is Hindi.
- If one were to knock out the other languages merged with Hindi, the total figure goes down to 38 crore.
And how widely is English spoken?
- Although English, alongside Hindi, is one of the two official languages of the central government, it is not among the 22 languages in the 8th Schedule; it is one of the 99 non-scheduled languages.
- In terms of mother tongue, India had just 2.6 lakh English speakers in 2011 — a tiny fraction of the 121 crore people counted in that census.
- That does not reflect the extent to which English is spoken.
- It was the second language of 8.3 crore respondents in 2011, second only to Hindi’s 13.9 crore.
- If third language is added, then English was spoken — as mother tongue, second language or third language — by over 10% of the population in 2011, behind only Hindi’s 57%.
- It is still not a scheduled language in India, when it should be.
Where is English most prevalent?
- As mother tongue, Maharashtra accounted for over 1 lakh of the 2.6 lakh English speakers.
- As second language, English is preferred over Hindi in parts of the Northeast.
- Among the 17.6 lakh with Manipuri (an 8th Schedule language) as their mother tongue in 2011, 4.8 lakh declared their second language as English, compared to 1.8 lakh for Hindi.
- Among the non-scheduled languages spoken in the Northeast, Khasi, predominant in Meghalaya, was the mother tongue of 14.3 lakh, of whom 2.4 lakh declared their second language as English, and 54,000 as Hindi.
- The trends were similar for Mizo, and for various languages spoken in Nagaland, including Ao, Angami and Rengma.
- Beyond the Northeastern languages, among 68 lakh with Kashmiri as their mother tongue, 2.8 lakh declared their second language as English, compared to 2.2 lakh who declared Hindi.
Back2Basics: Eighth Schedule to the Indian Constitution
- The Eighth Schedule lists the official languages of the Republic of India.
- At the time when the Constitution was enacted, inclusion in this list meant that the language was entitled to representation on the Official Languages Commission.
- This language would be one of the bases that would be drawn upon to enrich Hindi and English, the official languages of the Union.
- The list has since, however, acquired further significance.
- In addition, a candidate appearing in an examination conducted for public service is entitled to use any of these languages as the medium in which he or she answers the paper.
- As per Articles 344(1) and 351 of the Indian Constitution, the eighth schedule includes the recognition of the 22 languages.
‘Classical’ languages in India
Currently, six languages enjoy the ‘Classical’ status: Tamil (declared in 2004), Sanskrit (2005), Kannada (2008), Telugu (2008), Malayalam (2013), and Odia (2014).
How are they classified?
According to information provided by the Ministry of Culture in the Rajya Sabha in February 2014, the guidelines for declaring a language as ‘Classical’ are:
- High antiquity of its early texts/recorded history over a period of 1500-2000 years;
- A body of ancient literature/texts, which is considered a valuable heritage by generations of speakers;
- The literary tradition be original and not borrowed from another speech community;
- The classical language and literature being distinct from modern, there may also be a discontinuity between the classical language and its later forms o
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: State Energy and Climate Index
Mains level: Costs of cleaner energy alternatives
Gujarat has topped the list for larger States in the NITI Aayog’s State Energy and Climate Index–Round 1 that has ranked States and Union Territories (UTs) on certain parameters.
State Energy and Climate Index
- The States have been categorized based on size and geographical differences as larger and smaller States and UTs.
- The index is based on 2019-20 data.
- It ranks the states’ performance on 6 parameters, namely
- DISCOM’s Performance
- Access, Affordability and Reliability of Energy
- Clean Energy Initiatives
- Energy Efficiency
- Environmental Sustainability; and
- New Initiatives
- The parameters are further divided into 27 indicators. Based on the composite SECI Round I score.
- The states and UTs are categorized into three groups: Front Runners, Achievers, and Aspirants.
Performance by the states
- Gujarat, Kerala and Punjab have been ranked as the top three performers in the category of larger States, while Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh were the bottom three States.
- Goa emerged as the top performer in the smaller States category followed by Tripura and Manipur.
- Among UTs, Chandigarh, Delhi and Daman & Diu/Dadra & Nagar Haveli are the top performers.
- Punjab was the best performer in discom performance, while Kerala topped in access, affordability and reliability category.
- Haryana was the best performer in clean energy initiative among larger States and Tamil Nadu in the energy efficiency category.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Megalithic Burials in India
Mains level: Not Much
The discovery of a number of megalithic stone jars in Assam’s Dima Hasao district has brought to focus possible links between India’s Northeast and Southeast Asia, dating back to the second millennium BC.
What is the news?
- According to a study in Asian Archaeology, the jars are a “unique archaeological phenomenon”.
- It calls for more research to understand the “likely cultural relationship” between Assam and Laos and Indonesia, the only two other sites where similar jars have been found.
About the Megalithic Jars
- The jars of Assam were first sighted in 1929 by British civil servants James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton.
- They recorded their presence in six sites in Dima Hasao: Derebore (now Hojai Dobongling), Kobak, Kartong, Molongpa (now Melangpeuram), Ndunglo and Bolasan (now Nuchubunglo).
- More such sites were later discovered in 2016 and 2020.
- Researchers documented three distinct jar shapes (bulbous top with conical end; biconcial; cylindrical) on spurs, hill slopes and ridge lines.
Their significance
- While the jars are yet to be scientifically dated, the researchers said links could be drawn with the stone jars found in Laos and Indonesia.
- There are typological and morphological similarities between the jars found at all three sites.
- Dating done at the Laos site suggests that jars were positioned at the sites as early as the late second millennium BC.
- The other takeaway is the link to mortuary practices with human skeletal remains found inside and buried around the jars.
- In Indonesia, the function of the jars remains unconfirmed, although some scholars suggest a similar mortuary role.
Back2Basics: Megalithic Burials in India
- Megaliths were constructed either as burial sites or commemorative (non-sepulchral) memorials.
- The former are sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries) and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).
- The urn or the sarcophagus containing the mortal remains was usually made of terracotta.
- Non-sepulchral megaliths include memorial sites such as menhirs. (The line separating the two is a bit blurry, since remains have been discovered underneath otherwise non-sepulchral sites, and vice versa.)
- Taken together, these monuments lend these disparate peoples the common traits of what we know as megalithic culture, one which lasted from the Neolithic Stone Age to the early Historical Period (2500 BC to AD 200) across the world.
- In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC), though some sites precede the Iron Age, extending up to 2000 BC.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ILO
Mains level: Paper 2- Supporting care economy
Context
The importance of care work is now widely acknowledged and covered in various international commitments such as the SDGs. However, the investment in the care economy has not matched the pace.
Significance of care work
- Care work encompasses direct activities such as feeding a baby or nursing an ill partner, and indirect care activities such as cooking and cleaning’.
- Whether paid or unpaid, direct or indirect, care work is vital for human well-being and economies.
- Unpaid care work is linked to labour market inequalities, yet it has yet to receive adequate attention in policy formulation.
- Paid care workers, such as domestic workers and anganwadis in India, also struggle to access rights and entitlements as workers.
- Greater investment in care services can create an additional 300 million jobs globally, many of which will be for women.
- In turn this will help increase female labour force participation and advance Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 8.
- This year, to commemorate International Women’s Day, the ILO brought out its new report titled, ‘Care at work: Investing in care leave and services for a more gender-equal world of work’.
- The report highlights the importance of maternity, paternity, and special care leave, which help balance women’s and men’s work and family responsibilities throughout their lives.
Gaps in the current policies
- Bridging the gaps in current policies and service provisions to nurture childcare and elderly care services will deliver the benefits of child development, aging in dignity and independent living as the population grows older and also generate more and better employment opportunities, especially for women.
- Maternity leave: Maternity leave is a universal human and labour right.
- Yet, it remains unfulfilled across countries, leaving millions of workers with family responsibilities without adequate protection and support. India fares better than its peers in offering 26 weeks of maternity leave, against the ILO’s standard mandate of 14 weeks that exists in 120 countries.
- However, this coverage extends to only a tiny proportion of women workers in formal employment in India, where 89% of employed women are in informal employment (as given by ILOSTAT, or the ILO’s central portal to labour statistics).
- While paternity leave is recognised as an enabler for both mothers and fathers to better balance work and family responsibilities, it is not provided in many countries, including India.
- Access to quality and affordable care services such as childcare, elderly care and care for people with disabilities is a challenge workers with family responsibilities face globally.
- Limited implementation: While India has a long history of mandating the provision of crèches in factories and establishments, there is limited information on its actual implementation.
- Domestic workers, on whom Indian households are heavily reliant, also face challenges in accessing decent work.
- According to the Government’s 2019 estimates, 26 lakh of the 39 lakh domestic workers in India are female.
- Ensure decent work for domestic workers: While important developments have extended formal coverage to domestic workers in India, such as the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act and the minimum wage schedule in many States, more efforts are required to ensure decent work for them.
Way forward
- Increase spending: India spends less than 1% of its GDP on the care economy; increasing this percentage would unfurl a plethora of benefits for workers and the overall economy.
- Strategy: In consultation with employers’ and workers’ organisations and the relevant stakeholders, the Government needs to conceptualise a strategy and action plan for improved care policies, care service provisions and decent working conditions for care workers.
- 5R Framework: The ILO proposes a 5R framework for decent care work centred around achieving gender equality. The framework urges the Recognition, Reduction, and Redistribution of unpaid care work, promotes Rewarding care workers with more and decent work, and enables their Representation in social dialogue and collective bargaining.
Conclusion
A human-centred and inclusive recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic that benefits workers, employers, and the government, requires a more significant investment in and commitment to supporting the care economy, which cares for the society at large.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- Dealing with disinformation problem
Context
Social media platforms have adopted design choices that have led to a proliferation and mainstreaming of misinformation while allowing themselves to be weaponised by powerful vested interests for political and commercial benefit.
Problems created by social media and issues with response to it
- The consequent free flow of disinformation, hate and targeted intimidation has led to real-world harm and degradation of democracy in India: Mainstreamed anti-minority hate, polarised communities and sowed confusion have made it difficult to establish a shared foundation of truth.
- Political agenda: Organised misinformation (disinformation) has a political and/or commercial agenda.
- Apolitical and episodic discourse in India: The discourse in India has remained apolitical and episodic — focused on individual pieces of content and events, and generalised outrage against big tech instead of locating it in the larger political context or structural design issues.
- Problematic global discourse: The evolution of the global discourse on misinformation too has allowed itself to get mired in the details of content standards, enforcement, fact-checking, takedowns, de-platforming, etc.
- Moderating misinformation vs. safeguarding freedom of expression: Such framework lends itself to bitter partisan contest over individual pieces of content while allowing platforms to disingenuously conflate the discourse on moderating misinformation with safeguards for freedom of expression.
- The current system of content moderation is more a public relations exercise for platforms than being geared to stop the spread of disinformation.
Framework to combat disinformation
- Consider it as a political problem: The issue is as much about bad actors as individual pieces of content.
- Content distribution and moderation are interventions in the political process.
- Comprehensive transparency law: There is thus a need for a comprehensive transparency law to enforce relevant disclosures by social media platforms.
- Bipartisan political process for content moderation: Content moderation and allied functions such as standard setting, fact-checking and de-platforming must be embedded in the sovereign bipartisan political process if they are to have democratic legitimacy.
- Regulatory body should be grounded in democratic principles: Any regulatory body must be grounded in democratic principles — its own and of platforms.
- Three approaches to distribution that can be adopted by platforms: 1) Constrain distribution to organic reach (chronological feed);
- 2) take editorial responsibility for amplified content;
- 3) amplify only credible sources (irrespective of ideological affiliation).
- Review of content creator: The current approach to misinformation that relies on fact-checking a small subset of content in a vast ocean of unreviewed content is inadequate for the task and needs to be supplemented by a review of content creators itself.
Conclusion
Social media cannot be wished away. But its structure and manner of use are choices we must make as a polity after deliberation instead of accepting as them fait accompli or simply being overtaken by developments along the way.
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