Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Nominated members in Rajya Sabha
Mains level: Functioning of Rajya Sabha
Olympic sprinter PT Usha and music composer Ilaiyaraaja among others have been nominated to the Rajya Sabha in the category of eminent persons nominated by the President.
Nominated Members in RS
- Twelve members are nominated to the RS by the President of India for six-year term.
- This is for their contributions towards arts, literature, sciences, and social services.
- This right has been bestowed upon the President according to the Fourth Schedule under Articles 4(1) and 80(2) of the Constitution of India.
Normal composition
- The present strength is 245 members of whom 233 are representatives of the states and UTs and 12 are nominated by the President.
- The Rajya Sabha is not subject to dissolution; one-third of its members retire every second year.
Constitutional provisions for nominated members
- 80(1)(a) of Constitution of India makes provision for the nomination of 12 members to the Rajya Sabha by the President of India in accordance with provisions of Arts.80(3).
- 80(3) says that the persons to be nominated as members must be possessing special knowledge or practical experience in respect of such matters as the following namely: Literature, science, art and social service.
Powers and privileges of such members
- A nominated member enjoys all the powers and privileges and immunities available to an elected Member of Parliament.
- They take part in the proceedings of the House as any other member.
- Nominated members are however not entitled to vote in an election of the President of India.
- They however have rights to vote in the vice presidential election.
- As per Article 99 of the Constitution, a nominated member is allowed six months’ time should he join a political party.
Try this PYQ:
Consider the following statements:
- The Chairman and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha are not the members of that House.
- While the nominated members of the two Houses of the Parliament have no voting right in the presidential election, they have the right to vote in the election of the Vice President.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Post your answers here.
Also read:
[Sansad TV] Perspective – Rajya Sabha: The Upper House
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: EU Taxonomy
Mains level: Not Much
Activists have been widely criticizing the EU’s sustainable finance taxonomy as a “greenwashing” exercise that puts the European Union’s climate change targets at risk.
What is the EU Taxonomy?
- The EU taxonomy is a complex system to classify which parts of the economy may be marketed as sustainable investments.
- It includes economic activities, as well as detailed environmental criteria that each economic activity must meet to earn a green label.
Why in news now?
- Rules for most sectors came into effect this year, covering investments including steel plants, electric cars and building renovations.
- The rules for gas and nuclear energy, however, have been long delayed amid intense lobbying from governments who disagree on whether the fuels help fight climate change.
What does it say about gas and nuclear energy?
- The European Parliament supported that proposal in a vote paving the way for it to become law and apply from 2023.
- Under the proposal, for a gas-fuelled power plant to be deemed green, it must emit no more than 270 grams of CO2 equivalent per kilowatt hour, or have average emissions of 550g CO2e/kW over 20 years.
- It must also commit to switch to low-carbon gases by 2035.
- Gas and nuclear power plants are classed as transitional activities.
What’s the taxonomy for?
- The taxonomy does not ban investments in activities not labelled “green”, but it limits which ones companies and investors can claim are climate-friendly.
- The EU’s goal to eliminate its net emissions by 2050 will require huge investments, much of it private funding.
- The rules also aim to stamp out green-washing, where organisations exaggerate their environmental credentials, among so-called eco-friendly investment products.
Who does it apply to?
- Providers of financial products – including pension providers – in the EU must disclose which investments comply with the taxonomy’s climate criteria.
- For each investment, fund or portfolio, they must disclose what share of underlying investments comply with the rules.
- Large companies and listed firms must also disclose what share of their turnover and capital expenditure complies.
- That means polluting companies can get recognition for making green investments.
- For example, if an oil company invested in a wind farm, it could label that expenditure as green.
What makes a “green” investment?
The rules classify three types of green investments.
- First, those that substantially contribute to green goals, for example, wind power farms.
- Second, those that enable other green activities, for example, facilities that can store renewable electricity or hydrogen.
- Third, transitional activities that cannot be made fully sustainable, but which have emissions below industry average and do not lock in polluting assets or crowd out greener alternatives.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Issues with misleading advertisement
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) recently issued guidelines to prevent false or misleading advertisements.
Guidelines on Prevention of Misleading Advertisements and Endorsements for Misleading Advertisements, 2022: Key takeaways
(1) Conditions for non-misleading and valid advertisement
An advertisement shall be considered to be valid and not misleading:
- If it contains truthful and honest representation;
- Does not mislead consumers by exaggerating the accuracy,
- Scientific validity or practical usefulness or capability or performance or service of the goods or product;
- Does not present rights conferred on consumers by any law as a distinctive feature of advertiser’s offer.
(2) Bait Advertisement
- A bait advertisement shall not seek to entice consumers to purchase goods, products or services without a reasonable prospect of selling such advertised goods, products or services at the price offered.
- The advertiser shall ensure that there is an adequate supply of goods, products or services to meet foreseeable demand generated by such advertisement.
(3) Prohibition of surrogate advertising
- No surrogate advertisement or indirect advertisement shall be made for goods or services whose advertising is otherwise prohibited or restricted by law.
- No circumventing of such prohibition or restriction and portraying it to be an advertisement for other goods or services shall be allowed.
(4) Free claims advertisements
- A free claims advertisement shall not describe any goods, product or service to be ‘free’, ‘without charge’ or use such other terms if the consumer has to pay anything other than the unavoidable costs.
- Seller must make clear the extent of commitment that a consumer shall make to take advantage of a free offer.
(5) Children targeted advertisements
- An advertisement that addresses or targets or uses children shall not condone, encourage, inspire or unreasonably emulate behaviour that could be dangerous for children or take advantage of children’s inexperience, credulity or sense of loyalty.
(6) Limitations on Celebrity Endorsers
- The government has tightened norms for endorsers, including celebrities and sportspersons.
- They are now required to make material connection disclosures and undertake due diligence while doing advertisements.
- Endorsements must reflect the honest opinions, belief or experience of the endorsers.
- The endorsers have to make material connection disclosures and failing to do so will attract penalty under the Consumer Protection Act (CPA).
- Material disclosures mean any relationship that materially affects the weight or credibility of any endorsement which a reasonable consumer would not expect.
- Violation of these guidelines will attract a penalty of ₹10 lakh for the first offence and ₹50 lakh for the subsequent offence, under the CPA.
(7) ASCI rules
- The latest guidelines will also apply to government advertisements.
- Moreover, the advertising guidelines for self-regulation issued by the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) will also be in place in a parallel manner.
Back2Basics:
Explained: Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA)
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NFSA
Mains level: Food and nutrition security of India
Odisha has topped the list of 34 states and Union territories (UTs) in the first-ever NFSA State Ranking Index. Ladakh was ranked last on the index.
NFSA State Ranking Index
- The GoI has come up with a first-ever state ranking index to capture the implementation of the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) under the National Food Security Act (NFSA).
- The states and UTs were ranked for 2022 on the basis of three parameters:
- NFSA coverage, rightful targeting and implementation of all provisions under the Act
- The delivery platform while considering the allocation of food grains, their movement and last-mile delivery to fair price shops
- Nutrition initiatives of the department
Why need such index?
- NFSA is a crucial policy instrument to ensure food security. It covers nearly 800 million people.
- However, NFSA’s implementation through TPDS has not been uniform in the country.
- While some states and Union territories lead, others are yet to pick up in terms of coverage, beneficiary satisfaction, digitisation and overall system efficiency.
- The index has been developed to create an environment of competition, cooperation and learning among states while addressing matters of food security and hunger.
Back2Basics: National Food Security (NFS) Act
- The NFS Act, 2013 aims to provide subsidized food grains to approximately two-thirds of India’s 1.2 billion people.
- It converts into legal entitlements for existing food security programs of the GoI.
- It includes the Midday Meal Scheme, Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme and the Public Distribution System (PDS).
- Further, the NFSA 2013 recognizes maternity entitlements.
- The Midday Meal Scheme and the ICDS are universal in nature whereas the PDS will reach about two-thirds of the population (75% in rural areas and 50% in urban areas).
- Pregnant women, lactating mothers, and certain categories of children are eligible for daily free cereals.
Key provisions of NFSA
- The NFSA provides a legal right to persons belonging to “eligible households” to receive foodgrains at a subsidised price.
- It includes rice at Rs 3/kg, wheat at Rs 2/kg and coarse grain at Rs 1/kg — under the Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS). These are called central issue prices (CIPs).
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https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/governance/odisha-tops-first-ever-nfsa-state-ranking-index-83549
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Floods in Assam
Context
This year’s floods in Assam have been merciless. In many parts of the state, both rural and urban, shoals of water drove people from their homes and forced many of them to seek shelter for their livestock.
Understanding the reasons for massive flood in Assam this year
- The Bay has a major influence on the monsoon in Northeast India.
- Two coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomena, one from the distant Pacific, La Niña and another in the tropical Indian Ocean, a negative dipole condition, combined to create high rainfall in the Bay of Bengal.
- To add to that, a warmer atmosphere because of climate change can hold more moisture leading to intense bouts of rain.
- Apart from embankment failures, a number of unofficial and media reports suggest that the devastation in the floodplains is also a consequence of the way the dams and reservoirs are operated.
- This indicates that environmental factors unique to each locality are responsible for the floods.
- The flooding pattern is usually repeated year-to-year. However, at times, this pattern is disturbed — this year for example.
- The incidence of such megafloods depends on several variables like unusually high rainfall and the failure of critical embankments.
Role of floods in the making of the floodplain environment and ecology
- Rejuvenation of ecosystem: Floods cause disruption and damage but they also generate a bounty of fish and rejuvenate flood-plain ecosystems all along the Brahmaputra, including in the Kaziranga.
- Landscape: This landscape has been shaped over millions of years with the help of an active monsoonal environment and mighty rivers that carry sediments weathered from the still-rising Himalaya.
- Every year, the Brahmaputra and its tributaries — which are at the centre of Assam’s environment — transport billions of tonnes of sediment, mainly from the Eastern Himalaya, making the landscape volatile.
- Flooding helps release waters to surrounding land and distribute sediments and nutrients across the floodplains and wetlands.
How human presence has influenced floodplains
- As the human footprint intensified on the floodplains, the landscape was increasingly “developed and engineered”.
- The engineered and planned landscape has affected the floodplains in two ways: It has undermined their ability to store and absorb water and reduced their capacity to transport sediment.
- Urban floods: This year’s floods took an especially worrying proportion in several urban areas.
- Guwahati has historically been a lowland and the city has been uniquely shaped by three hills that accumulate water during the monsoon.
- Its northern side faces one of the most turbulent rivers in the world.
- However, extensive swamps, channels and their tributaries worked in tandem to make the place habitable.
- A transformation, however, took place in the 20th century, especially in the later decades, when these natural features were forced to disappear.
- From an estimated 11,000 people in 1901, the city now is home to close to 1.1 million people.
- Such a population increase is bound to have several footfalls and not all of them could have been prevented.
- What has hit the city hardest is the disappearance of some of its critical environmental features.
Way forward
- Human interventions such as dams to “tame” rivers and “stabilise” hydrologically dynamic landscapes and riverscapes should be based on guidelines that account for the environmental conditions in Northeast India, especially the fragile geology, changing rainfall patterns, high seismicity and the risk of landslides.
- Resilience of people: The rapid transformation in rainfall characteristics and flooding patterns demand building people’s resilience.
- Reconsider projects: Construction projects that impede the movement of water and sediment across the floodplain must be reconsidered.
- Use of technology: At the same time, climate-imposed exigencies demand new paradigms of early-warning and response systems and securing livelihoods and economies.
Conclusion
Floods have played a key role in Assam’s ecology. But increasing human footprint has affected the ability of flood plains to absorb water and transport sediment.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Indian aviation sector- challenges and opportunities
What is the issue?
Policymakers ought to recognise the country’s untapped potential and work towards dismantling the many hurdles.
What is the significance of aviation sector?
India is the world’s third-largest market in aviation sector.
- Aviation is integral to equitable economic growth, for a country to be globally competitive and to change the situation of poverty and unemployment.
- Passenger airlines and air cargo overcome geography and connect remote areas that are alienated from the mainstream.
- They can drive investment deep into the country, giving people access to markets.
- They also boost tourism, which is the largest employment generator in the unorganised sector.
What is the status of aviation sector in India?
- Pre-economic reform period– India had only two airlines – Air India and Indian Airlines.
- Post 1991 reforms– The reforms that opened up the aviation sector in 1991 and ended the licence raj and the monopoly of Indian Airlines and Air India changed the sector.
- Numerous private sector airlines were given the licence to fly, but Jet Airways and Sahara, survived, resulting in cartelisation.
- The concept of low cost airlines in India took shape in 2003 which overcame the cost barrier.
- Sadly, Indian aviation has become ‘the sick man of India’.
What are the barriers in Indian aviation sector?
- Per capita consumption of air tickets – The number of Indians who buy air tickets in 2019 is 140 million of which 35 million to 40 million frequent flyers form the bulk of ticket buyers.
- It translates to less than 4% of the population who can afford air travel, placing India just alongside some poorer African countries, in terms of the per capita consumption of air tickets.
- Factors affecting the growth of aviation sector– The growth of aviation has been affected by
- Choking regulations
- Tough entry barriers for new entrants
- High fuel prices on account of sky high taxes
- Inefficient public sector airports that pave the way for monopoly airports
- Frequent and knee-jerk changes point to the absence of a long-term visionary strategic policy for the entire gamut of sectors in aviation.
How efficient are government schemes in the development of the airline sector?
- Boosting entrepreneurship- Start-up India initiative was started with the objective of supporting entrepreneurs, building a robust startup ecosystem and transforming India into a country of job creators.
- Regional connectivity– Ude Desh Ka Aam Naagrik (UDAN) scheme aims to connect small and medium cities with big cities through air service.
- Low cost airlines– UDAN plans to connect the underserved airports to key airports through flights that will cost Rs 2,500 for per hour flight.
- Comprehensive development– The National Civil Aviation Policy 2016 aims to take flying to the masses and covers 22 areas of the Civil Aviation sector.
What reforms are needed?
- Reforms in all sectors– It is critical to understand that for passenger airlines to grow, there have to be reforms in all areas of aviation – air cargo, airports, aviation fuel taxes and Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO).
- Updated laws– India’s Aircraft Act, 1934 and Aircraft Rules, 1937 need to be updated to keep pace with modern technology in aerospace, increasing costs to the industry and ultimately affecting passenger growth.
- Overhaul DGCA – India’s statutory regulatory authority, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA), needs to be modernised, well-staffed, motivated and incentivized.
- Need for aviation professionals– There need to be aviation professionals in charge rather than the ubiquitous bureaucrat from the Indian Administrative Service.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: BRI
Mains level: Chinese BRI and its progress
China has felt a need to re-visit the various projects under the BRI in different South Asian countries.
Why in news?
- At the recently concluded summit of G-7 leaders in Germany, US and his allies unveiled their $600 billion plan called the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Intelligence.
- This is being seen as a counter to China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), valued at a trillion U.S. dollars by some experts.
What is China’s Belt and Road Initiative?
- In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping, during his visits to Kazakhstan and Indonesia, expressed his vision to build a Silk Road Economic Belt and a 21st Century Maritime Silk Road.
- He then aimed to break the “bottleneck” in Asian connectivity. This vision led to the birth of the BRI.
- The initiative envisioned a Chinese-led investment of over $1 trillion in partner countries by 2025.
- More than 60 countries have now joined BRI agreements with China, with infrastructure projects under the initiative being planned or under construction in Asia, Africa, Europe, and Latin America.
How does BRI work?
- To finance BRI projects, China offers huge loans at commercial interest rates that countries have to pay within a fixed number of years.
- The west has accused China of debt-trapping by extending “predatory loans” that force countries to cede key assets to China.
- However, research indicates that low and middle-income countries are often the ones to approach China after not being able to secure loans from elsewhere.
- In recent years, the BRI seems to have experienced a slowing down as annual Chinese lending to countries slimmed from its peak of $125 billion in 2015 to around $50 to 55 billion in 2021.
What have been the BRI’s investments in Pakistan?
- On his 2015 visit to Pakistan, Xi unveiled the BRI’s flagship project and its biggest one in a single country — the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).
- The CPEC envisioned multiple projects involving energy, transport and communication systems.
- At the centre of the CPEC was the $700 million development of the city of Gwadar into a smart port city that would become the “Singapore of Pakistan”.
- Other major projects are the orange line metro, coal power plants to tackle energy shortages and the Main Line 1 rail project from Peshawar to Karachi.
Pace of progress in Pakistan
- Multiple reports have shown that shipping activities at the Gwadar Port is almost negligible so far, with only some trade to Afghanistan.
- Gwadar residents have also protested against the large security force deployed to protect Chinese nationals involved in projects.
- Chinese nations has also became the target of multiple deadly attacks by Baloch freedom fighters.
- Coal plants were set up and managed by Chinese firms to improve the power situation in Pakistan.
- Chinese power firms closing down their operations as the latter did not pay dues worth 300 billion in Pakistani rupees (approximately $1.5 billion).
What about Sri Lanka?
- In Sri Lanka, multiple infrastructure projects that were being financed by China came under the fold of the BRI after it was launched in 2013.
- In 2021, Colombo ejected India and Japan out of a deal to develop the East Container Terminal at the Colombo port and got China to take up the project.
- Some BRI projects in Sri Lanka have been described as white elephants — such as the Hambantota port.
- The port had always been secondary to the busy Colombo port until the latter ran out of capacity.
- Other key projects under BRI include the development of the Colombo International Container Terminal, the Central Expressway and the Hambantota International Airport among others.
Projects in Afghanistan
- Afghanistan has not comprehensively been brought into the BRI, despite a MoU being signed with China in 2016.
- China had promised investments worth $100 million in Afghanistan which is small in comparison to what it shelled out in other South Asian countries.
- The projects have not materialised so far and uncertainties have deepened after the Taliban takeover last year.
Projects in Maldives
- Situated in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Maldives comprises two hundred islands, and both India and China have strategic interests there.
- One of the most prominent BRI projects undertaken in the Maldives is the two km long China-Maldives Friendship Bridge — a $200 million four lane bridge.
- Most of China’s investment in the Maldives happened under former President Abdullah Yameen, seen as pro-China.
Projects in Bangladesh
- Bangladesh, which joined the BRI in 2016, has been promised the second-highest investment (about $40 billion) in South Asia after Pakistan.
- It has been able to benefit from the BRI while maintaining diplomatic and strategic ties with both India and China.
- It has managed to not upset India by getting India to build infrastructure projects similar to BRI in the country.
- BRI projects include Friendship Bridges, special economic zones, the $689.35 million-Karnaphuli River tunnel project, upgradation of the Chittagong port, and a rail line between the port and China’s Yunnan province.
- However, multiple projects have been delayed owing to the slow release of funds by China.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Critical Minerals
Mains level: Read the attached story
India and Australia have decided to strengthen their partnership in the field of projects and supply chains for critical minerals.
What is the news?
- Australia has confirmed that it would commit A$5.8 million to the three-year India-Australia Critical Minerals Investment Partnership”.
What are Critical Minerals?
- Critical minerals are elements that are the building blocks of essential modern-day technologies, and are at risk of supply chain disruptions.
- These minerals are now used everywhere from making mobile phones, computers to batteries, electric vehicles and green technologies like solar panels and wind turbines.
- Based on their individual needs and strategic considerations, different countries create their own lists.
- However, such lists mostly include graphite, lithium, cobalt, rare earths and silicon which is a key mineral for making computer chips, solar panels and batteries.
- Aerospace, communications and defence industries also rely on several such minerals as they are used in manufacturing fighter jets, drones, radio sets and other critical equipment.
Why is this resource critical?
- As countries around the world scale up their transition towards clean energy and digital economy, these critical resources are key to the ecosystem that fuels this change.
- Any supply shock can severely imperil the economy and strategic autonomy of a country over-dependent on others to procure critical minerals.
- But these supply risks exist due to rare availability, growing demand and complex processing value chain.
- Many times the complex supply chain can be disrupted by hostile regimes, or due to politically unstable regions.
- They are critical as the world is fast shifting from a fossil fuel-intensive to a mineral-intensive energy system.
What is China ‘threat’?
- China is the world’s largest producer of 16 critical minerals.
- China alone is responsible for some 70% and 60% of global production of cobalt and rare earth elements, respectively, in 2019.
- The level of concentration is even higher for processing operations, where China has a strong presence across the board.
- China’s share of refining is around 35% for nickel, 50-70% for lithium and cobalt, and nearly 90% for rare earth elements.
- It also controls cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo, from where 70% of this mineral is sourced.
- In 2010, China suspended rare earth exports to Japan for two months over a territorial dispute.
What are countries around the world doing about it?
- US has shifted its focus on expanding domestic mining, production, processing, and recycling of critical minerals and materials.
- India has set up KABIL or the Khanij Bidesh India Limited to ensure mineral security of the nation.
- Australia’s Critical Minerals Facilitation Office (CMFO) and KABIL had recently signed an MoU aimed at ensuring reliable supply of critical minerals to India.
- The UK has unveiled its new Critical Minerals Intelligence Centre to study the future demand for and supply of these minerals.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986
Mains level: Not Much
The Union Environment Ministry proposes to soften the provisions of the EP Act (EPA) by replacing a clause that provides for imprisoning violators with one that only requires them to pay a fine.
Environment Protection Act (EPA), 1986
- EP Act was passed under Article 253 of the Constitution, which empowers the Centre to enact laws to give effect to international agreements signed by the country.
- The purpose of the Act is to implement the decisions of the UN Conference on the Human Environment.
- They relate to the protection and improvement of the human environment and the prevention of hazards to human beings, other living creatures, plants and property.
- It was enacted in 1986 on the backdrop of Bhopal Gas Tragedy.
- The Act was last amended in 1991.
Why this Act?
- The Act is an “umbrella” legislation that has provided a framework for the environmental regulation regime in India.
- It covers all major industrial and infrastructure activities and prohibits and regulates specific activities in coastal areas and eco-sensitive areas.
- The Act also provides for coordination of the activities of various central and state authorities established under other environment-related laws, such as the Water Act and the Air Act.
Key provisions
- The Environment (Protection) Rules lay down procedures for setting standards of emission or discharge of environmental pollutants.
- The objective of Hazardous Waste (Management and Handling) Rules, 1989 is to control the generation, collection, treatment, import, storage, and handling of hazardous waste.
- The Manufacture, Storage, and Import of Hazardous Rules define the terms used in this context, and sets up an authority to inspect, once a year.
- The Cells Rules,1989 were introduced with a view to protect the environment, nature, and health in connection with the application of gene technology and micro-organisms.
Try this PYQ:
Q. Consider the following statements:
The Environment Protection Act, 1986 empowers the Government of India to
- State the requirement of public participation in the process of environmental protection, and the Procedure and manner in which it sought.
- Lay down the standards for emission or discharge of environmental pollutants from various sources.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 only
(b) 2 only
(c) Both 1 and 2
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Post your answers here.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: PMI
Mains level: Not Much
India’s services firms saw growth in new business and output accelerate to a 11-year high in June, as per the survey-based S&P Global India Services Purchasing Managers Index (PMI).
What is the news?
- The index rose to 59.2 last month, from 58.9 in May, signalling a strengthening in demand across the services sector, which had borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI)
- PMI is an indicator of business activity — both in the manufacturing and services sectors.
- It is a survey-based measure that asks the respondents about changes in their perception of some key business variables from the month before.
- It is calculated separately for the manufacturing and services sectors and then a composite index is constructed.
- The PMI is compiled by IHS Markit based on responses to questionnaires sent to purchasing managers in a panel of around 400 manufacturers.
How is the PMI derived?
- The PMI is derived from a series of qualitative questions.
- Executives from a reasonably big sample, running into hundreds of firms, are asked whether key indicators such as output, new orders, business expectations and employment were stronger than the month before and are asked to rate them.
How does one read the PMI?
- A figure above 50 denotes expansion in business activity. Anything below 50 denotes contraction.
- Higher the difference from this mid-point greater the expansion or contraction. The rate of expansion can also be judged by comparing the PMI with that of the previous month data.
- If the figure is higher than the previous month’s then the economy is expanding at a faster rate.
- If it is lower than the previous month then it is growing at a lower rate.
What are its implications for the economy?
- The PMI is usually released at the start of the month, much before most of the official data on industrial output, manufacturing and GDP growth becomes available.
- It is, therefore, considered a good leading indicator of economic activity.
- Economists consider the manufacturing growth measured by the PMI as a good indicator of industrial output, for which official statistics are released later.
- Central banks of many countries also use the index to help make decisions on interest rates.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Quarks
Mains level: Not Much
The Large Hadron Collider beauty (LHCb) experiment has observed three never-before-seen particles.
What is the discovery?
- CERN was investigating the slight differences between matter and antimatter by studying a type of particle called the “beauty quark”, or “b quark”.
- The three “exotic” additions — a new kind of “pentaquark” and the first-ever pair of “tetraquarks” — to the growing list of new hadrons were found.
- This discovery will help physicists better understand how quarks bind together into these composite particles.
What are Quarks?
- Quarks are elementary particles that come in six “flavours”: up, down, charm, strange, top, and bottom.
- They usually combine together in groups of twos and threes to form hadrons such as the protons and neutrons that make up atomic nuclei.
- But they can also combine into four-quark and five-quark particles, called tetraquarks and pentaquarks.
- These exotic hadrons were predicted by theorists about six decades ago — around the same time as conventional hadrons — but they have been observed by LHCb and other experiments only in the past 20 years.
What about tetraquarks and pentaquarks?
- Most exotic hadrons discovered in the past two decades are tetraquarks or pentaquarks.
- They contain a charm quark and a charm antiquark — with the remaining two or three quarks being an up, down or strange quark or their antiquarks.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Fields Medal
Mains level: NA
Ukrainian mathematician Maryna Viazovska was named as one of four recipients of the prestigious Fields Medal, which is often described as the Nobel Prize in mathematics.
What is Fields Medal?
- The Fields Medal is awarded by the International Mathematical Union (IMU), an international non-governmental and non-profit scientific organisation.
- It is awarded every four years to one or more mathematicians under the age of 40 in recognition of “outstanding mathematical achievement for existing work and for the promise of future achievement”.
- The winners are announced at the International Congress of Mathematicians (ICM), which was supposed to be held in Russia this year, but was moved to Helsinki.
Belongings of the award
- The honour carries a physical medal of 14K gold, 63.5 mm in diameter and weighing 169 g, and with a unit price of approximately 5,500 Canadian dollars.
- There is also a cash award of CAD 15,000.
- The obverse of the medal is embossed with the head of Archimedes facing right, and some Latin quotes.
History of the Medal
- According to the IMU website, the 1924 ICM in Toronto adopted a resolution that at each conference, two gold medals would be awarded to recognise outstanding mathematical achievement.
- The Canadian mathematician Prof J C Fields, who was secretary of the 1924 Congress, later donated funds to establish the medals, which were named in his honour.
- In 1966, it was agreed that, in light of the great expansion of mathematical research, up to four medals could be awarded at each Congress.
Indian-origin winners
- Among the more than 60 mathematicians who have been awarded the Fields Medal since 1936, there are two of Indian origin.
- Akshay Venkatesh of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton, won in 2018, the last time the honour was announced.
- Manjul Bhargava of the Department of Mathematics at Princeton University was awarded in 2014.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: National Nutrition Mission
Mains level: Paper 2- Need for direct nutrition intervention
Context
More than seven decades after independence, India still suffers from the public health issues such as child malnutrition attributing to 68.2% of under-five child mortality.
What is malnutrition?
- Malnutrition refers to deficiencies, excesses or imbalances in a person’s intake of energy and/or nutrients.
- The term malnutrition covers 2 broad groups of conditions.
- One is ‘undernutrition’—which includes stunting (low height for age), wasting (low weight for height), underweight (low weight for age) and micronutrient deficiencies or insufficiencies (a lack of important vitamins and minerals).
- The other is overweight, obesity and diet-related non-communicable diseases (such as heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and cancer).
Marginal improvement on Stunting and Wasting
- The National Family Health Survey (NFHS-5) has shown marginal improvement in different nutrition indicators, indicating that the pace of progress is slow.
- This is despite declining rates of poverty, increased self-sufficiency in food production, and the implementation of a range of government programmes.
- Children in several States are more undernourished now than they were five years ago.
- Increased stunting in some states: Stunting is defined as low height-for-age.
- While there was some reduction in stunting rates (35.5% from 38.4% in NFHS-4) 13 States or Union Territories have seen an increase in stunted children since NFHS-4.
- This includes Gujarat, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala.
- Wasting remains stagnant: Wasting is defined as low weight-for-height.
- Malnutrition trends across NFHS surveys show that wasting, the most visible and life-threatening form of malnutrition, has either risen or has remained stagnant over the years.
National Nutrition Mission (NNM): Focus on essential nutrition interventions
- Government appears determined to set it right — with an aggressive push to the National Nutrition Mission (NNM), rebranding it the Prime Minister’s Overarching Scheme for Holistic Nutrition, or POSHAN.
- Window of opportunity: The Ministry of Women and Child (MWCD) continues to be the nodal Ministry implementing the NNM with a vision to align different ministries to work in tandem on the “window of opportunity” of the first 1,000 days in life (270 days of pregnancy and 730 days; 0-24 months).
- POSHAN Abhiyaan (now referred as POSHAN 2.0) rightly places a special emphasis on selected high impact essential nutrition interventions, combined with nutrition-sensitive interventions, which indirectly impact mother, infant and young child nutrition, such as improving coverage of maternal-child health services, enhancing women empowerment, availability, and access to improved water, sanitation, and hygiene and enhancing homestead food production for a diversified diet.
Key findings of NHFS-5 data
- Data from the National Family Health Survey (NFHS)-5 2019-21, as compared to NFHS-4 2015-16, reveals a substantial improvement in a period of four to five years in several proxy indicators of women’s empowerment.
- No progress on nutritional intervention: Alarmingly, during this period, the country has not progressed well in terms of direct nutrition interventions.
- Preconception nutrition, maternal nutrition, and appropriate infant and child feeding remain to be effectively addressed.
- India has 20% to 30% undernutrition even in the first six months of life when exclusive breastfeeding is the only nourishment required.
- Neither maternal nutrition care interventions nor infant and young child feeding practices have shown the desired improvement.
Suggestions
- Child undernutrition in the first three months remains high. Creating awareness on EBF, promoting the technique of appropriate holding, latching and manually emptying the breast are crucial for the optimal transfer of breast milk to a baby.
- Complementary feeding: NFHS-5 also confirms a gap in another nutrition intervention — complementary feeding practices, i.e., complementing semi-solid feeding with continuation of breast milk from six months onwards.
- The fact that 20% of children in higher socio- economic groups are also stunted indicates poor knowledge in food selection and feeding practices and a child’s ability to swallow mashed feed.
- Creating awareness: So, creating awareness at the right time with the right tools and techniques regarding special care in the first 1,000 days deserves very high priority.
- Revisit nodal system for nutrition program: There is a need to revisit the nodal system for nutrition programme existing since 1975, the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) under the Ministry of Women and Child and examine whether it is the right system for reaching mother-child in the first 1000 days of life.
- Alternative way to distribute ICDS supplies: There is also a need to explore whether there is an alternative way to distribute the ICDS supplied supplementary nutrition as Take- Home Ration packets through the Public Distribution (PDS) and free the anganwadi workers of the ICDS to undertake timely counselling on appropriate maternal and child feeding practices.
Conclusion
It is time to think out of the box, and overcome systemic flaws and our dependence on the antiquated system of the 1970s that is slowing down the processes.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- \Multilateral engagement vs. bilateral engagement
Context
At a time when the world is trying to grapple with the impact of unprecedented problems which arose in the first two decades of the 21st century, the various intergovernmental organisations and groupings, which are undergoing fundamental changes, may not be fertile places for building peace.
Contradiction in the BRICS
- The 14th virtual BRICS summit hosted by China (June 23-24) was a clear attempt by China to hijack the grouping, going by a blueprint it has prepared for the new world order.
- Not a political grouping: BRICS was not meant to be a political grouping when the acronym, BRIC, was coined by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O’Neill in 2001.
- Economic grouping: Seeing the possibility of developing a non-western global economic system, China welcomed the idea of BRICS as the nucleus of a new economic grouping and invested energy and resources in building it.
- Two permanent members of the Security Council together with three aspirants to permanent membership underscored the contradictions in composition.
- No support for permanent membership: The fundamental question of support for the three countries to secure permanent membership was fossilised on China’s position that the role of the developing countries should be enhanced, implying that there shall be no expansion of the permanent membership of the Security Council.
- But the grouping focused on possibilities of cooperation among them by developing institutions such as the New Development Bank, the BRICS Contingent Reserve Arrangement and cooperation in certain sectors.
- India-China relations: The entire fragile framework of limited cooperation was shattered with the bloodshed at Galwan, when China unilaterally sought to alter the situation on the Line of Actual Control (LAC).
- China showed no enthusiasm to bring India into the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) even after India met the criteria of a liberalised economy.
- Expansion for friends: The way China brought in 13 like-minded countries through the back door for a high-level dialogue on global development smacked of unfair means to expand the group with their friends.
What was achieved by India at G7 meeting
- India’s presence at G7 meetings are not rare and Germany invited the India to attend the G7 summit in Bavaria.
- The G7 made its own statement on the Ukraine war on expected lines and India was only involved in other issues such as environment, energy, climate, food security, health, gender equality and democracy.
- Since it was a war summit, it did not produce any results on other major issues.
- Curtailing energy supplies from Russia would hurt Germany, France, Japan and others, but they could not get any exemption.
- India’s gain has been the opportunity it got to interact with world leaders, though it was tinged with the disappointment that India, as a Quad member, did not condemn Russia’s action in Ukraine.
Conclusion
Multilateral negotiations will be increasingly difficult in the present chaotic global situation. It is only by working bilaterally with potential allies that India can attain the status of a pole in the new world with steadfast friends and followers.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Poverty line
Mains level: Paper 3- Estimating poverty in India
Context
There has been an uproar about the working papers of the IMF and World Bank, reporting no or low poverty for India in the pandemic year or just before that.
About the IMF paper
- The paper by Roy and Weide (2022) for the World Bank explores the possibility of using CMIE (unemployment data) in poverty calculations after correcting for the unrepresentative character of its panel data by modifying the weightages of households for aggregation.
- These adjustments carried out to remove the non-convergence of the CMIE data with other macro statistics have resulted in a poverty figure of 12 per cent.
What does the poverty index measure or attempt to capture?
- Its construction involves complex calculations — to identify a poverty basket of consumption, working out price indices for updation of the poverty line and then applying it to the income or consumption of households for determining their poverty status.
- Absence of consumption expenditure: The computation becomes far more challenging in the absence of data on consumption expenditure as is the case in India and several developing countries.
- Intending to provide inputs for policy making, researchers have evolved ingenious methods of estimating the data, using past datasets and those that have not been designed to get robust expenditure estimates.
Background of poverty line in India
- A nine-member working group set up by the Planning Commission proposed the poverty line at Rs 20 per capita per month in the early Sixties, loosely ensuring the adequacy of minimum requirements.
- Poverty line based on calorie needs: Dandekar and Rath (1970) went into detail about minimum calorie needs, based on the average consumption pattern.
- Issues with calorie based poverty line: During the Eighties and Nineties, it was realised that this linkage is getting blurred due to changes in the consumption pattern, microenvironment for living, etc.
- Sukhatme argued that the emphasis on calories and nutrition is misplaced as the absorption of nutrients depends on physical health, particularly the presence or absence of gastrointestinal diseases.
- Water and sanitation facilities were noted as important in determining the poverty line.
- It was accepted that the state, through poverty interventions, cannot and should not try to guarantee adequate nutrition to people.
- Delinking the nutritional norms: The Tendulkar Committee formally announced delinking of nutritional norms from poverty in 2010.
Extrapolating the consumption expenditure on NSS 2011-12
- Bhalla, Virmani and Bhasin (2022) in their IMF Working Paper have developed a method of interpolation and extrapolation of the consumption expenditure of the NSS 2011-12 and building a series up to 2019-20.
- They use the growth rate of private final consumption expenditure (PFCE) but bring in the distributional changes by allowing household consumption to grow as per the nominal per capita income in each state.
- Takes into account rural-urban price difference: Rural-urban price differences are also introduced through separate poverty lines.
- The method is reasonable except that it assumes the distributions to remain unchanged both within the rural and urban segments in each state over 2014-20.
- Also, the growth rates of different commodities in the PFCE are significantly different and hence commodity-wise adjustments can be done to give higher weights to the items of consumption by the poor.
- Taking into account the role of state: The most significant contribution of the study is its bringing in the differential engagement of the state in the provisioning of the essentials to the poor into poverty calculations.
- This opens up the possibility of changes in the level of state engagement in poverty estimation, including free gas cylinders, etc.
Conclusion
People find the World Bank paper figures pegged at 12% more acceptable not because of the methodology but the magnitude. One does not know whether the poverty estimate would be a bit higher had the adjustments been carried out for a few other parameters and also at the state level.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Outer Spaces and its utility
Recently, the UK hosted the fourth summit for Space Sustainability in London in collaboration with the Secure World Foundation.
What does Sustainability in Outer Space mean?
- One of the hot issues when it comes to space sustainability is orbital crowding.
- With the emergence of large constellations and complex satellites, there is a risk of collisions and interference with radio frequencies.
- It poses a direct threat to the operations and safety of a mission and is likely to cause legal and insurance-related conflicts.
- Space debris is another prominent issue.
- After the completion of a mission, an ‘end-of-life protocol’ requires space objects to be moved to the graveyard orbit or to a low altitude.
- Other causes of concern are solar and magnetic storms which potentially damage communication systems.
- Such space weather threats need to be addressed along with the efforts to identify the terrestrial carbon footprint of outer space missions.
Why was a conference held in the UK?
- Long-term sustainability looks toward space research and development of technology to ensure the reuse and recycling of satellites at every stage.
- The UK plan proposes active debris removal and in-orbit servicing.
Policy measures so far
- As the outer space is considered a shared natural resource, the United Nations Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS) in 2019 adopted a set of 21 voluntary, non-binding guidelines.
- They aim to ensure the long-term sustainability of outer space activities.
What does the UK plan for space sustainability entail?
- The UK calls for an “Astro Carta” for space sustainability, based on the Artemis Accords model for sustainable space exploration.
- The UK Space Sustainability plan mentions four primary elements:
- To review the regulatory framework of the UK’s orbital activity
- To work with organisations such as the G-7 and the UN to emphasise international engagement on space sustainability
- To try and develop safety and quality-related metrics that quantify the sustainability of activities; and
- To induce additional funding of $6.1 million on active debris removal
- The UK also confirmed investments in its National Space Surveillance and Tracking Programme, which works on collision assessment services for UK-licenced satellite operators.
Where does India stand on space sustainability?
- India is well on its way to create a subsystem that addresses global sustainability questions.
- The headquarters of the Indian National Space Promotion and Authorisation Centre (In-SPACe) was formally inaugurated last month.
- One can expect an increased role of the private sector in India’s space activities.
- The ISRO has initiated ‘Project NETRA’ to monitor space debris.
- To provide in-orbit servicing, ISRO is developing a docking experiment called ‘SPADEX’.
- It looks at docking a satellite on an existing satellite, offering support in re-fuelling and other in-orbit services while enhancing the capability of a satellite.
Way forward
- Outer space in the 2020s can no longer be considered a ‘space race’ because of the cost, when compared to the beginning of this century.
- Today, any entity (government or private) with the necessary access to resources and technology can invest in outer space.
- Sustainable practices in outer space would directly help reduce orbital crowding and collision risk while nurturing future technologies.
- As the natural course of evolution, the Plan for Space Sustainability, which includes private industries, is a timely move.
- This would serve as a model for other space programmes.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: NA
Mains level: Unfair practices against consumer rights
The Central Consumer Protection Authority (CCPA) issued guidelines asking hotels and restaurants not to collect service charge from customers.
We often get to hear in news. Once a person had used a loo at a hotel in our national capital. She was charged ₹499 as a service charge in return of purchasing a water bottle!
What is the news?
- Under the guidelines, consumers can lodge complaints against hotels and restaurants by calling the number 1915.
- The CCPA has issued guidelines under Section 18 (2) (I) of The Consumer Protection Act, 2019.
- The CCPA was established in July 2020 to promote, protect, and enforce the rights of consumers as a class, and to investigate, prosecute, and punish violators.
What are the guidelines?
- The CCPA has issued five major guidelines regarding the levy of service charge by restaurants and hotels, which has for long been a contentious issue and has periodically triggered complaints from consumers.
- The guidelines say:
- No hotel or restaurant shall add service charge automatically or by default in the bill;
- Service charge shall not be collected from consumers by any other name;
- No hotel or restaurant shall force a consumer to pay service charge and shall clearly inform the consumer that service charge is voluntary, optional, and at the consumer’s discretion;
- No restriction on entry or provision of services based on collection of service charge shall be imposed on consumers; and
- Service charge shall not be collected by adding it along with the food bill and levying GST on the total amount.
What can a consumer do in case of a violation of these guidelines?
- The consumer has four options at different levels of escalation in case she spots the levy of service charge in her bill.
- First, she can make a request to the hotel or restaurant to remove the service charge from her bill.
- Second, she can lodge a complaint on the National Consumer Helpline (NCH), which works as an alternative dispute redressal mechanism at the pre-litigation level.
- The complaint can be lodged by making a call on the number 1915, or on the NCH mobile app.
- Third, the consumer can complain to the Consumer Commission, or through the edaakhil portal, http://www.edaakhil.nic.in.
- Fourth, she can submit a complaint to the District Collector of the concerned district for investigation and subsequent proceedings by the CCPA.
- A consumer can complain directly to the CCPA by sending an e-mail.
What are the components of a food bill?
- A restaurant bill in India comprises food charge (from the menu), with an addition of service charge (anywhere between 5 to 15 per cent) and a 5 per cent GST on this amount (IGST+SGST).
- This is for all kinds of standalone restaurants.
- In case a restaurant is located inside a hotel wherein room rate is upwards of Rs 7,500 (mostly in case of five-stars), the GST would be 18 per cent.
Nature of Service charge
- While the GST is a mandatory component as per law, the service charge is supposed to be optional.
- It is the equivalent of what is known as gratuity around the world, or tip, in casual parlance.
- Most restaurants decide the service charge on their own, and print it at the bottom of the menu with an asterisk.
What do the restaurants say?
- The levy of service charge by a restaurant is a matter of individual policy to decide if it is to be charged or not.
- There is no illegality in levying such a charge.
- Once the customer is made aware of such a charge in advance and then decides to place the order, it becomes an agreement between the parties, and is not an unfair trade practice.
- GST is also paid on the said charge to the Government.
Where does the fund go?
- Restaurants claim that a major chunk of the service charge thus collected goes to the staff, while the rest goes towards a welfare fund to help them out during good and bad times.
- It’s a default billing option, even as customers can choose not to pay it if they don’t want to.
- Of course, they are paid the salaries but the service charge works as an incentive for them.
- Restaurateurs also say that patrons can decide not to pay the charge and tip the server directly, but in this case, the backroom staff doesn’t get anything.
- A service charge ensures all staff members are rewarded evenly.
What is the issue then?
- The issue is that almost all restaurants have put service charge (fixed at their own accord) as a default billing option.
- And if a consumer is aware that it is not compulsory and wants it removed or wants to tip the server directly, the onus is on them to convince the management why they don’t want to pay it.
- The department says they received several complaints saying it leads to public embarrassment and spoils the dining experience since at the end of it, they either pay the charge quietly and exit the place feeling cheated, or have to try hard to get it removed.
- Also, there is no transparency as to where this charge goes.
- The officials also say that collecting service charge on their own and paying GST on it to the government doesn’t make it authorised.
Problems faced by customers
- It is this component which has come under dispute from time to time, with consumers arguing they are not bound to pay it.
- It also said that hotels and restaurants charging tips from customers without their express consent in the name of service charges amounts to unfair trade practice.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Single use plastics
Mains level: Need for plastic waste management
A ban on the use of single-use plastics that was notified by the Union Environment Ministry on August 2021 came into effect on July 1 this year.
What is the news?
- The national and State-level control rooms would be set up to check illegal manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of banned single use plastic items.
- The Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021, will also prohibit manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of plastic carry bags.
- This is for plastics having thickness less than 120 microns with effect from December 31, 2022.
What is Single-Use Plastic?
- The Centre defines it as an object made of plastic that is intended to be used “only once” before being disposed off or recycled.
- Single-use plastic items such as these had “low utility and high littering potential,” it noted.
What is now included in SUPs?
- For the purposes of the ban, there is a list of 21 items that come under the definition of single-use plastic including ear buds with plastic sticks, plastic sticks for balloons, plastic flags, candy sticks, ice-cream sticks, thermocol for decoration etc.
- It also includes plates, cups, glasses, cutlery such as forks, spoons, knives, straw, trays, wrapping or packing films around sweet boxes, invitation cards, and cigarette packets, plastic or PVC banners less than 100 microns, stirrers.
- These objects were listed by the Environment Ministry in August when it notified the Plastic Waste Management Amendment Rules, 2021.
How will the ban be implemented?
- So far 32 States/UTs have reportedly constituted a dedicated Task Force to eliminate the use of single-use plastics.
- Of these 14 states/UTs and 12 Central Ministries, as of March, had developed action plans describing how they would be enforcing this.
- A few States, for example Maharashtra, already have legislation banning the manufacture and storage of such plastic.
- But implementing it wasn’t always successful as there was regular supply from States where such bans were not in force.
- An all-India ban, it’s hoped, would make enforcement more effective.
Penal provisions
- According to the Environment Protection (EP) Act, violating the ban could invite “punitive action”.
- Manufacturers and distributors of single-use plastic goods were directed to have zero inventory by June 30.
- The EP Act says that violating the ban could invite a five-year imprisonment and a fine of upto ₹1 lakh, or both.
- If the violations are repeated, it could mean additional fines up to ₹5000 for each day.
- There are different penalties for companies, organisations, and government departments under the EP Act.
What is the history of the single use plastic ban in India?
- The Environment Ministry told the Rajya Sabha last July of its plan to phase out some categories of single use plastic by 2022.
- A draft outlining the manner in which the ban was to be implemented was issued in March and involved amending the PWM Rules, 2016.
- Before the amendments came into force, the Rules only prohibited the manufacture, import, stocking, distribution, sale and use of carry bags and plastic sheets less than 50 microns in thickness in the country.
- There is a ban on sachets using plastic material used for storing, packing or selling gutkha, tobacco and pan masala.
- Since October 2021, there is a ban on carry bags made of virgin or recycled plastic less than 75 microns as opposed to 50 microns under the earlier version of the rules.
Is there popular support for the ban?
- The All India Plastic Manufacturers Association has said that the ban would shutter 88,000 units in the plastic manufacturing business.
- These employ close to a million people and contribute to exports worth ₹25,000 crore.
- Fast Moving Consumer Goods companies (FMCG) would be severely affected by the the ban due to their dependence on plastic straws, plates.
- Their replacements, industry representatives say, are available but cost much more than their plastic alternatives.
- There is also limited capacity in India to provide biodegradable replacements.
What is the environmental damage from SUPs?
- Unlike thicker and denser plastic material, single-use plastic objects being light and flexible are less amenable to being recycled.
- While 99% of plastic is recycled, they constitute heavier plastics that are likely to be collected by ragpickers and plastic waste recyclers.
- Single use plastics do not provide an incentive enough for the effort needed to collect them and hence they lie around, leach their toxins into the soil and cause environmental damage in both land and sea.
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
Mains level: Not Much
The world’s most powerful particle collider, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), will begin smashing protons into each other at unprecedented levels of energy beginning July 5.
What is the LHC?
- The Large Hadron Collider is a giant, complex machine built to study particles that are the smallest known building blocks of all things.
- Structurally, it is a 27-km-long track-loop buried 100 metres underground on the Swiss-French border.
- In its operational state, it fires two beams of protons almost at the speed of light in opposite directions inside a ring of superconducting electromagnets.
- The LHC’s second run (Run 2) began in 2015 and lasted till 2018. The second season of data taking produced five times more data than Run 1.
- The third run will see 20 times more collisions as compared to Run 1.
How does it work?
- The magnetic field created by the superconducting electromagnets keeps the protons in a tight beam and guides them along the way as they travel through beam pipes and finally collide.
- Just prior to collision, another type of magnet is used to ‘squeeze’ the particles closer together to increase the chances of collisions.
- The particles are so tiny that the task of making them collide is akin to firing two needles 10 km apart with such precision that they meet halfway.
Extreme conditions involved
- Since the LHC’s powerful electromagnets carry almost as much current as a bolt of lightning, they must be kept chilled.
- The LHC uses a distribution system of liquid helium to keep its critical components ultracold at minus 271.3 degrees Celsius, which is colder than interstellar space.
- Given these requirements, it is not easy to warm up or cool down the gigantic machine.
What is the latest upgrade?
- Three years after it shut down for maintenance and upgrades, the collider was switched back on this April.
- This is the LHC’s third run, and it will operate round-the-clock for four years at unprecedented energy levels of 13 tera electron volts.
Note: A TeV is 100 billion, or 10-to-the-power-of-12, electon volts. An electron volt is the energy given to an electron by accelerating it through 1 volt of electric potential difference.
Targets this year
- It now aims to be delivering 1.6 billion proton-proton collisions per second.
- The last time, the proton beams will be narrowed to less than 10 microns — a human hair is around 70 microns thick — to increase the collision rate.
- ATLAS is the largest general purpose particle detector experiment at the LHC.
- The Compact Muon Solenoid (CMS) experiment is one of the largest international scientific collaborations in history, with the same goals as ATLAS, but which uses a different magnet-system design.
Previous runs & ‘God Particle’ discovery
- Ten years ago, in 2012, scientists at CERN had announced to the world the discovery of the Higgs boson or the ‘God Particle’ during the LHC’s first run.
- The discovery concluded the decades-long quest for the ‘force-carrying’ subatomic particle, and proved the existence of the Higgs mechanism, a theory put forth in the mid-sixties.
- This led to Peter Higgs and his collaborator François Englert being awarded the Nobel Prize for physics in 2013.
- The Higgs boson and its related energy field are believed to have played a vital role in the creation
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chenkurinji
Mains level: Not Much
This newscard is an excerpt from the original article published in The Hindu.
Chenkurinji
- Chenkurinji (Gluta travancorica) is a species endemic to the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve.
- Belonging to the Anacardiaceae family, the tree was once abundant in the hills on the southern parts of the Aryankavu Pass in Kerala’s Kollam district.
- The Shendurney Wildlife Sanctuary derives its name Chenkurinji (Gluta travancorica), a species endemic to the Agasthyamala Biosphere Reserve.
Why in news?
- It is very susceptible to climate change and the present condition of the species is quite bad with low regeneration performance.
- Though there are seemingly enough number of the tree, most are not productive, generating a negative trend in its population.
- The majority of the trees is old with poor flowering and fruiting rates.
- Though the flowering usually happens in January, of late, the species has reported a tendency to extend the process due to climate change.
Significance of Chenkurinji
- It is reported to have medicinal properties and is used to lower blood pressure and treat arthritis.
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