Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Lessons from the past for the success of NBFID
The article explains the factors that resulted in the failure of several financial institutions created by the government.
Establishment of Development Finance Institution
- As promised in the Budget, the Lok Sabha recently passed The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NBFID) Bill, 2021.
- The Bill seeks to establish a development finance institution (DFI) to fund infrastructure.
Providing finance to NBFID
- The government will initially own 100% of the proposed NBFID’s ₹20,000-crore share capital.
- The government’s stake will be reduced later to 26%.
- The government will also support NBFID in raising cheap, long-term finance.
- Apart from the initial share capital, the government will also provide a ₹5,000-crore grant at the end of its first financial year, presumably to defray initial costs.
- The government has also committed to guarantee NBFID’s borrowings and bond issuances in the domestic and overseas markets.
- In addition, the government will underwrite NBFID’s foreign exchange hedging costs.
Concerns and lessons from the past
- Studying the performance of IL&FS Ltd and IDFC Ltd, two infrastructure financing institutions, set up in the public sector, will be instructive.
- IL&FS had borrowed short-term loans to finance long-term infrastructure assets.
- Sustaining this became difficult when a slowing economy and political interference forced infrastructure borrowers to stop repaying loans.
- Also, it had grown unwieldy, was mismanaged, and escaped scrutiny for too long by handing out plum postings to select bureaucrats.
- Similarly, 1996 budget speech announced the setting up of IDFC to address the lack of long-term infrastructure financing.
- In 2004, interference by the bureaucrats to tackle slow growth of loan led to the resignation of several senior executives in IDFC.
- IDFC, created originally to finance infrastructure projects, has since then wound down its project finance book.
- 2021-22 Budget speech also mentioned the creation of another institution that will acquire the banking sector’s stressed assets.
- On the similar lines, Industrial Reconstruction Corporation of India was create in 1971.
- Mandated with nursing sick and weak companies, it collapsed under this onerous burden.
- The institution was eventually shut down in 2012.
Consider the question “Examine the role the National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development will play in the infrastructure development in the country. Also, examine the factors that led to the failure of development finance institutions in the past.”
Conclusion
The short lesson is this: Fix the distorted demand side before increasing supply. Any number of institutions can be launched, but cannot be expected to work miracles in a corroded system.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Vulnerabilities in global trade
The recent closure of the Suez Canal highlights the inherent flaw in the global supply chains. Choking of one of the many such points leads to disruption in the global trade.
Points of vulnerability
- Suez Canal was blocked this week by a container ship named Ever Given when a gust of wind moved the ship out of the course and grounded it.
- Egypt has expanded parts of the canal to enable two-way traffic and accommodate larger carriers.
- The Ever Given ship went off course and got stuck in a part of the waterway that’s still narrow.
- But it’s also a reminder that even an advanced civilization like ours has points of acute vulnerability.
Avoiding single points of failures
- Systems designers strive to avoid these single points of failure, so that transport, energy and communication networks are able to withstand attacks or unexpected calamities.
- Technological advances and globalization were also supposed to make us less susceptible to this type of problem.
- The internet, for example, was conceived as a decentralized system that’s pretty difficult to break, as was Bitcoin.
- But global infrastructure, defined broadly, still has a surprising number of pinch points.
- These can be difficult to remedy, as creating back-up options is expensive and counteracts economies of scale.
- In some cases, the problem is even getting worse:
- Industries are becoming more concentrated due to corporate takeovers.
- Big chunks of our lives are now mediated by a just handful of technology companies.
- The governments are now more cognizant of the political and economic power held by those who control choke points.
How canal can disrupt the global trade
- The Panama Canal, the Suez Canal and the Strait of Hormuz are places where container ships and oil tankers are forced to navigate narrow passages.
- The alternative is a long detour or more expensive air freight.
- For decades these waterways have been recognized as areas of huge strategic importance and as being susceptible to military or terror attacks.
- Various back-up routes have been mooted but most haven’t materialized.
Vulnerabilities in economic sphere
- In seeking to rid itself of one pinch point — pipelines that traverse Ukraine provides gas to Europ — Germany has created another: the twin Nord Stream gas pipelines that connect Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea.
- The U.S. worries these will weaken eastern Europe and increase Germany’s dependence on Russia.
- In the realm of finance, trillions of dollars of financial instruments are tied to the London interbank offered rate.
- This rate was easy to manipulate until they were exposed in the years following the 2008 financial crisis.
- Libor is now being replaced.
- Similarly, Europe has long relied on the Swift payments system and the U.S. dollar, but that dependence came into question in 2018 as it disagreed with the U.S. over Iran sanctions.
- In technology, people have warned for years that the U.S. needs a back-up for the Global Positioning System.
- The system can be spoofed or otherwise disrupted.
- Semiconductors are where the clearest pinch points are emerging.
- A global computer chip shortage during Covid has forced auto manufacturers to tear up production plans.
- Very few companies are able to produce the most advanced chips, due to the technical challenges and vast cost of constructing foundries.
- The most important of these, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co., is based on an island that’s under constant threat of invasion by Beijing.
- ASML Holding NV of the Netherlands has a monopoly on the machines needed to fabricate the best chips.
- Now China’s inability to buy the most cutting edge gear from ASML is holding back its own semiconductor ambitions.
Way forward
- None of these choke-point problems are easy to resolve.
- Not only are there geopolitical ambitions at work here but there are also usually trade-offs between building greater resilience and efficiency.
- But because redundancy offers protection and is therefore a public good, there’s an argument that governments should play a role in providing it.
- Antitrust polies can be used to challenge monopolies and foster more competition.
Consider the question “What are the threat emanating from the various forms of choke points to the global trade? Suggest the ways to deal with it.”
Conclusion
Having a back-up is a good idea. We learn that when the roof falls in, or when a ship called the Ever Given snarls up the Suez Canal.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Using technology to use water sustainably in agriculture
The article examine the use of water for sugarcane and rice cultivation in India and its impact.
Water availability and usage in India
- As per the Central Water Commission’s reassessment of water availability, India receives a mean annual precipitation of about 3,880 billion cubic meters (BCM) but utilises only 699 BCM (18 percent) of this; the rest is lost to evaporation and other factors.
- The demand for water is likely to be 843 BCM in 2025 and 1,180 BCM by 2050.
- As per the UN’s report on Sustainable Development Goal-6 (SDG-6) on “Clean water and sanitation for all by 2030”, India achieved only 56.6 per cent of the target by 2019.
- Further, as per the Niti Aayog’s Composite Water Management Index (2019), 75 per cent households in India do not have access to drinking water on their premises.
- India ranks 120th amongst 122 countries in the water quality index.
- India is identified as a water-stressed country with its per capita water availability declining from 5,178 cubic metre (m3)/year in 1951 to 1,544 m3 in 2011 — this is likely to go down further to 1,140 cubic metre by 2050.
How free or highly subsidised electricity skews water use pattern
- Despite decades of large public and private investments in irrigation, only about half of India’s gross cropped area:198 million hectares is irrigated.
- Groundwater contributes about 64 per cent, canals 23 per cent, tanks 2 per cent and other sources 11 per cent to irrigation.
- This results primarily from incentive policy of free or highly subsidised power, particularly in the country’s north-west, the site of the erstwhile Green Revolution.
- Overexploitation of groundwater has made this region amongst the three highest water risk hotspots.
- Overall, about 1,592 blocks in 256 districts in India are either critical or overexploited.
Need to focus on rice and sugarcane
- Agriculture uses about 78 per cent of fresh water resources.
- As per a NABARD-ICRIER study on Water Productivity Mapping, these crops alone consume almost 60 per cent of India’s irrigation water.
- We need a paradigm shift to increase land productivity measured as tonnes per hectare (t/ha), and to maximise applied irrigation productivity measured as kilogrammes, or Rs, per cubic metre of water (kg/m3).
- Figure 1 shows applied irrigation water productivity against land productivity for rice and sugarcane in important growing states.
- Note that while Punjab scores high on land productivity of rice, it is at the bottom with respect to applied irrigation water productivity.
- In the case of sugarcane, irrigation water productivity in Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Maharashtra and Tamil Nadu is only 1/3rd of that in Bihar and UP (Figure 2).
- There is, thus, a need to realign cropping patterns based on per unit of applied irrigation water productivity.
Use of technology
- There are technologies to produce the same output of rice and sugarcane with almost half the irrigation water.
- Jain Irrigation, for instance, has set up drip irrigation pilots for paddy and sugarcane.
- The results of these pilots indicate while it takes 3,065 litres of water to produce 1 kg of paddy grain (yield level 7.75 t/ha) under traditional flood irrigation, under drip, it can be reduced to just 842 litres.
- The benefit cost ratio of drip with fertigation in case of sugarcane in Karnataka is observed to be 2.64.
- An extension to this is the “Family Drip System” innovated by Israel-based — Netafim.
- The company has also launched its largest demonstration project in Asia at Ramthal, Karnataka.
- Technologies like Direct Seeded Rice (DSR) and System of Rice Intensification (SRI) can also save 25-30 per cent of water compared to traditional flood irrigation.
Need for right pricing policies
- Technological solutions cannot make much headway unless pricing policies of agri-inputs are put on the right track and farmers are incentivised for saving water.
- The Punjab government, along with the World Bank and J-PAL, has started some pilots with an innovative policy of “Paani Bachao Paise Kamao” to encourage rational use of water among farmers.
Consider the question “Examine the impact of rice and sugarcane cultivation on the groundwater table in India. How technological solutions can help use water more sustainably for agriculture?”
Conclusion
Overall, it seems it is time to switch from the highly subsidised price policy of water/power (and even fertilisers) to direct income support on a per hectare basis, and investment policies that help with newer technologies and innovations.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Taliban Peace Deal
Mains level: Restoration of democracy in Afghanistan
As the May 1 deadline for pulling out all American troops from Afghanistan nears, US President Joe Biden faces some difficult decisions.
Key tasks for the US before they exit
- The U.S. could abide by the promise made in the U.S.-Taliban agreement signed in February 2020 to withdraw the last of the around 2,500 American Marines stationed in Afghanistan.
- However, Mr Biden has said it would be tough given the levels of violence there.
- The US could negotiate with the Taliban for an extension of the agreement, offering other incentives like the release of more prisoners and the delisting of sanctioned Taliban terrorists.
- The other option is to scrap the 2020 agreement and back the Ashraf Ghani government to continue towards a negotiated settlement, even as US troops remain in Afghanistan to stabilize the security situation.
What is the US likely to do?
- The US exit plan is still underway and that no decision on the length of stay or troop numbers have been made to this point, cleared the US Secy of Defence.
- No U.S. troops have been targeted by Taliban militants in the past year, but violence against Afghan civilians, particularly women, journalists, students and activists has gone up manifold despite the peace agreement.
- More than 3,000 civilians were killed in 2020.
- The US has shown some impatience with the Ghani government as well, believing that it is dragging its feet on intra-Afghan negotiations that began last year in Doha but have stalled for the moment.
Plans for Ashraf Ghani
- A US plan proposes that Mr Ghani step up negotiations with the Taliban for “power-sharing”, discuss principles of future governance and step aside eventually for a “more inclusive” or interim government. The
- The tone of the letter seems to make it clear that the US is not in favour of completely scrapping the 2020 agreement.
- Therefore, it is most likely to pursue the option of negotiating for an extension of the agreement, according to experts, as it builds other dialogue platforms.
Try this question from our AWE Initiative:
What is President Ghani’s plan?
- Ghani has proposed his own peace plan.
- It would involve a full ceasefire, inviting the Taliban to participate in early elections in Afghanistan, and then for Mr Ghani to hand over power to the elected government.
- He also said no regional talks could be successful if they did not include India, which is a development partner and a stakeholder.
Where does India stand?
- India’s position has been to back an “Afghan-owned, Afghan-led, Afghan-controlled” peace process, backing the elected government in Kabul, and it has not yet held talks with the Taliban directly.
- As a result, its option remains to stand with the Ghani government and support the constitution that guarantees a democratic process and rights of women and minorities, over any plans the Taliban might have if they come to power.
- At the same time, India has not foreclosed on the option of talking to the Taliban if it does join the government in Afghanistan.
- India too has made it clear that it seeks to be an integral part of the process, as the outcomes will have a deep impact on India’s security matrix as well.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: ULPIN Scheme
Mains level: Land records management in India
The Centre plans to roll out the Unique Land Parcel Identification Number (ULPIN) Scheme.
ULPIN Scheme
- The ULPIN scheme has been launched in ten States this year and will be rolled out across the country by March 2022, the Department of Land Resources told the Standing Committee on Rural Development.
- It would allot a 14-digit identification number to every plot of land in the country within a year’s time.
- It will subsequently integrate its land records database with revenue court records and bank records, as well as Aadhaar numbers on a voluntary basis.
- The scheme will enhance the service deliveries to the citizen of the country and will also function as inputs to the schemes of the other sectors like Agriculture, Finance Disaster Management etc.
“Aadhaar number” for Land
- Officials described it as “the Aadhaar for land”, a number that would uniquely identify every surveyed parcel of land and prevent land fraud, especially in the hinterlands of rural India, where land records are outdated and often disputed.
- The identification will be based on the longitude and latitude coordinates of the land parcel and is dependent on detailed surveys and geo-referenced cadastral maps, according to a presentation the Department made to States in September 2020.
- This is the next step in the Digital India Land Records Modernization Programme (DILRMP), which began in 2008 and has been extended several times as its scope grew.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- Aadhaar card can be used as proof of citizenship or domicile.
- Once issued, the Aadhaar number cannot be deactivated or omitted by the Issuing Authority.
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
A cost-effective approach
- Linking Aadhaar with land records through ULPIN would cost ₹3 per record while seeding and authentication of landowner Aadhaar data would cost ₹5 each.
- It added that the integration of the Aadhaar numbers with the land record database would be done on a voluntary basis.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Polling agent, ECI
Mains level: Free and fair elections
The Election Commission’s recent decision to change the rules for appointing polling agents has sparked off a debate in West Bengal.
Who is a Polling Agent?
- A polling agent is a person appointed as a representative of a political party as it is not possible for a candidate to be physically present at every polling booth on the day of the elections.
- Therefore, the Election Commission allows a candidate to appoint a polling agent who keeps an eye on the voting process.
What is his/her role?
- As per the EC’s rules, a polling agent should be familiar with the rules and procedures to conduct elections using EVMs and VVPATs, and with the working of these machines.
- Towards this end, a polling agent attends the demonstrations arranged by the Returning Officer, where the functioning and operation of these machines are explained.
How were they appointed earlier?
- As per the earlier practice, polling agents had to be voters of the same polling stations or at least the neighbouring polling stations of the booth where she has been posted at.
Try this PYQ from CSP 2017:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- The Election Commission of India is a five member body.
- Union Ministry of Home Affairs decides the election schedule for the conduct of both general elections and bye-elections.
- Election Commission resolves the disputes relating to splits/mergers of recognized political parties.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 2 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 3 only
Answer: D
What does the new rule say?
- The ECI, revising the rule, has allowed a party to nominate a polling agent for any booth within the assembly segment where the person is an electorate of.
- So, any voter from within an Assembly constituency can be a polling agent of any booth within that constituency.
Issues with the rule
- The political parties are opposing the change in rules, calling it “arbitrary, motivated and biased”.
- They have also written to the Election Commission seeking withdrawal of the order.
What is the EC’s stand?
- The poll body has defended the change in a rule saying that the new norms have been formulated so that every political party gets to appoint polling agents.
- It is difficult to convince people to sit at the booths amid the Covid-19 pandemic.
Back2Basics: Election Commission of India (ECI)
- ECI is an autonomous and permanent constitutional authority responsible for administering election processes in India at national and state level.
- The body administers elections to the Lok Sabha, Rajya Sabha, State Legislative Assemblies, State Legislative Councils and the offices of the President and Vice President of the country.
- It operates under the authority of the Constitution per Article 324 and subsequently enacted the Representation of the People Act.
- The commission has the powers under the Constitution, to act in an appropriate manner when the enacted laws make insufficient provisions to deal with a given situation in the conduct of an election.
- Being a constitutional authority, Election Commission is amongst the few institutions which function with both autonomy and freedom, along with the country’s higher judiciary, the UPSC and the CAG.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Sabarmati River
Mains level: Riverfront development and its economic potential
The Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation, in its draft budget for 2021-22, has set aside Rs 1050 crore for the Sabarmati River Front Development phase 2, work on which is to begin soon.
Rs 1050 crore fund! See how rich even the Municipal Corporations in India are!
Sabarmati Riverfront Development Project
- The SRDP is an environmental improvement, social uplift and urban rejuvenation project that will renew Ahmedabad.
- The project is being developed by the Sabarmati Riverfront Development Corporation Ltd. (SRFDCL), a company wholly owned by the Ahmedabad Municipal Corporation.
- The project will reclaim approximately 200 hectares of land from the riverbed.
- To reclaim the land, protect low lying developments from floods, and prevent erosion of the river banks, retaining walls have been built on both sides of the river.
- Since Sabarmati is a seasonal river, water is channelled into the river from the Narmada canal, which intersects the river upstream from Ahmedabad and is retained in the river using the Vasna Barrage which is located downstream.
Significance of the project
- The reclaimed land will make Ahmadabad’s riverfront, a public asset.
- The project will provide Ahmedabad with 11.5 km long pedestrian promenades at the water’s edge along both the banks of the river.
- In addition, many new public facilities will be built on the reclaimed land: cultural centres, museums, sports facilities, trade fair grounds and open-air markets.
- A small portion of the reclaimed land will be sold for private commercial and residential developments.
- The project has won Prime Minister’s National Award for Excellence in Urban Planning and Design in the year of 2003.
Also, revise the concept of Water Divide from your NCERTS or refer to this link: https://www.ncert.nic.in/ncerts/l/iess103.pdf
Back2Basics: Sabarmati River
- Sabarmati is one of the major west-flowing rivers in India. Being a rain-fed river it runs dry most of the year.
- It originates in the Aravalli Range of the Udaipur District of Rajasthan and meets the Gulf of Khambhat of the Arabian Sea after travelling 371 km in a south-westerly direction across Rajasthan and Gujarat.
- 48 km of the river length is in Rajasthan, while 323 km is in Gujarat.
- There are several reservoirs on Sabarmati and its tributaries. The Dharoi dam is located on the main river. Hathmati dam, Harnav dam and Guhai dam are located on the tributaries.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Lehman Crisis
Mains level: Not Much
The fire sale of about $20 billion of Archegos assets, comprising Chinese and US stocks, has sent jitters in the global financial markets, raising worries that the event could be a possible “Lehman moment”.
What is the Lehman Crisis?
- The bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on September 15, 2008, was the climax of the subprime mortgage crisis.
- After the financial services firm was notified of a pending credit downgrade due to its heavy position in subprime mortgages, the Federal Reserve summoned several banks to negotiate to finance for its reorganization.
- These discussions failed, and Lehman filed a petition that remains the largest bankruptcy filing in US history, involving more than US$600 billion in assets.
Note: The subprime mortgage crisis occurred when the real estate market collapsed and homeowners defaulted on their loans.
What defines the moment?
- It signalled a limit to the government’s ability to manage the crisis and prompted a general financial panic.
- Money market mutual funds, a key source of credit, saw mass withdrawal demands to avoid losses, and the interbank lending market tightened, threatening banks with imminent failure.
- The government and the Federal Reserve system responded with several emergency measures to contain the panic.
Other terminologies:
Margin Call
- Typically, a margin call occurs when the value of an investor’s margin account falls below the broker’s required amount during a market correction or sell-off.
- As the margin account contains securities bought with borrowed money, a margin call occurs when lenders demand that an investor deposit additional money or securities into the account so that it is brought up to the minimum value.
- A margin call is usually an indicator that the securities held in the margin account have decreased in value.
- When a margin call occurs, the investor must choose to either deposit more money in the account or sell some of the assets held in their account.
- If the investor fails to pay up the margin amount, the lender will resort to the sale of assets lying in the investor’s account.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: LHCb experiments and its findings
Mains level: Formation of the universe and the Big Bang
The LHCb experiment at CERN (European Council for Nuclear Research) has announced the results of their latest analysis of data.
LHCb Experiment: An easy explanation
- LHCb is an experiment set up to explore what happened after the Big Bang that allowed the matter to survive and build the Universe we inhabit today.
- Fourteen billion years ago, the Universe began with a bang.
- Crammed within an infinitely small space, energy coalesced to form equal quantities of matter and antimatter.
- But as the Universe cooled and expanded, its composition changed.
- Just one second after the Big Bang, antimatter had all but disappeared, leaving the matter to form everything that we see around us — from the stars and galaxies to the Earth and all life that it supports.
What is the new finding?
- CERN scientists are excited enough to reveal that if the anomaly they had detected was confirmed.
- Because, if confirmed, it would require a new physical process, such as the existence of new fundamental particles or interactions.
What is this excitement all about?
It is necessary to delve into the world of elementary particles to understand this.
(1) Particle zoo
Until now it is believed that the electron, muon and tauon and their antiparticles, though they differ in mass, behave similarly in particle interactions.
- Broadly speaking, elementary particles are classified into the particles called baryons – which include protons, neutrons and their antiparticles the antiprotons etc.
- The “middle mass” particles, roughly speaking, are called the mesons and they include members such as the K and B particles.
- We then have the leptons, which include the electron and its cousins the muon and tau particles and the anti-particles.
- At a still smaller scale, there are tiny particles called quarks and gluons.
- There are six flavours of quarks: up, down, truth, beauty, charm and strange. They too have antiquarks associated with them.
In this particle zoo, while the baryons are made up of combinations of three quarks, the mesons contain two quarks, more accurately a quark and antiquark pair, and the leptons are truly fundamental and are thought to be indivisible.
Do you know?
Higgs Boson is called the god particle.
(2) Colliding particle beams
By interactions here, is meant the following:
- If a huge particle accelerator such as the LHC were to accelerate beams of hadrons (such as protons) to very high speeds, a fraction of that of light, and then cause them to collide.
- Basically, smash through the repulsive nuclear forces and shatter them, the hadrons would break up into constituents which would recombine to form short-lived particles, which would decay into stabler states.
- Roughly speaking, during this process, they are imaged in a huge multistorey detector and the number of specific processes and particles are counted.
(3) Lepton universality principle
- One such process that was measured was the decay of a meson B (which contained the beauty quark) into K-meson (which contains the strange quark) and a muon-antimuon pair, and this was compared with the decay of B into K and an electron-antielectron pair.
- The expectation is that the ratio of the strengths of these two sets of interactions would be just one.
- This is because the muons are not essentially different from the electrons as per the Standard Model, the presently accepted theoretical model of all elementary particle interactions.
- This is called the lepton universality principle.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Red algae
Mains level: Seaweeds and their significance
Two new species of seaweed have been discovered by a group of marine biologists from the Central University of Punjab, Bathinda.
What are the species?
- Named Hypnea indica (after India) and Hypnea bullata (because of the blisterlike marks on its body – bullate), the seaweeds are part of the genus Hypnea or red seaweeds.
- They grow in the intertidal regions of the coast, namely the area that is submerged during the high tide and exposed during low tides.
Do you know?
Red Algae have great ecological importance. They form a vital part of the food chain and are also involved in producing about 40 to 60 per cent of the total global oxygen for both terrestrial habitat and other aquatic habitats.
Details of the genus
- The genus Hypnea consists of calcareous, erect, branched red seaweeds.
- While Hypnea indica was discovered Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, and Somnath Pathan and Sivrajpur in Gujarat, Hypnea bullata was discovered from Kanyakumari and Diu island of Daman and Diu.
- There are 61 species of which 10 were reported in India.
Significance for the food industry
- Species of Hypnea contain the biomolecule carrageenan, which is widely used in the food industry.
- As the two species have been found on the west and south-east coasts of India, it suggests good prospects for their cultivation which can be put to good use economically.
- The extensive calcareous deposit on the body that has been observed also provides room for thought.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Ex Desert Flag
Mains level: NA
Exercise Desert Flag –VI has successfully culminated with the de-induction of the Indian contingent from the UAE.
Ex Desert Flag
- It is an annual multi-lateral large force employment exercise hosted by UAE.
- The sixth edition of the exercise was conducted at Air Force Base Al Dhafra, UAE.
- IAF participated in the exercise for the first time, fielding Su-30MKI fighter aircraft.
- Six countries; UAE, USA, France, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain apart from India participated with aerial assets. Jordan, Greece, Qatar, Egypt and South Korea participated as observer forces.
Objective of the exercise
- The aim for the participating crew and specialist observers was to expose them to operational environment in scenarios requiring multinational forces working together.
- A multinational exercise in UAE with friendly forces afforded a unique opportunity to gain valuable learning to all the participating forces.
Must read:
[Prelims Spotlight] Defence Exercises
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From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Space weather preparedness
The article suggests the need for space weather preparedness to protect the satellite constellations in the future.
Satellite constellations
- By 2030, the global space industry could add almost 50,000 new commercial satellites to the existing 5,000.
- These would include earth-observation satellites selling commercial imagery, telecom orbiters providing 5G and next-in-line 6G data services, and meteorological ones selling weather-forecasts and datasets.
- The increasing dependence of the digital economy on satellite constellations is spurring investment in this area.
Risks involved
- The most important threat to the constellation of satellites will be the collisions between satellites.
- Such collision could result in massive free-floating space debris.
- A 2020 Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report estimates that protecting satellites from space debris could cost 5-10% more per space mission.
- Another threat to satellite constellations is that of extreme space weather events, and this cannot be addressed by space and digital players alone.
- It demands the attention of governments.
Improving space weather forecasting ability
- Last October, the US Congress passed an Act that directs civilian and military agencies to reinforce national space weather forecasting abilities.
- China transferred its meteorological, hydrological and space weather command from the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) general staff department to the PLA strategic support force, the latter being its new branch for cyber, space and e-warfare.
Lessons for India
- India’s economy is expected to become increasingly dependent on space- and ground-based commercial, civilian and military assets.
- These will be vulnerable to extreme space weather events.
- India is progressing with its capital-intensive planetary exploration and human space-flight projects.
- we must deploy across-the-board space-weather monitoring, forecasting and response systems designed to safeguard deep-space assets and protect our gaganauts.
- Consequently, it is imperative for the government to develop and adopt space weather forecasts before initiating outer space activities.
- India, therefore, needs legislation like America’s to issues cross-ministerial directions.
- The Indian scientific community operates numerous ground-based ‘sun observing’ telescopes across India, and is well connected with its international peers.
- In the coming months India is expected to launch Aditya-L1, a space-based solar observatory, with assistance from the Indian Space Research Organisation.
- The data generated by it will be crucial for India’s space weather monitoring ambitions.
- But without a national policy backed by legislation, the scientific community would find it difficult to meet the strategic demands of the conjoined space and digital economies.
Consider the question “The increasing dependence of the digital economy on satellite constellations is spurring investment in this area. But it is not risk-free. In light of this, examine the risks involved and suggest the measures to deal with the risks.”
Conclusion
The enactment of a space weather law could help the country protect its digital and telecom systems that extend to outer space from destructive solar storms and intense solar and galactic radiation whiplashes.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Election of the Deputy Speaker of the Lok Sabha
Mains level: Paper 2- Deterioration in functioning of the Parliament and way forward
The article highlight the deterioration in the function of Parliament and its implications.
Declining seating of houses of Parliament
- The current Budget session of Parliament ended on Thursday, two weeks ahead of the original plan.
- This follows the trend of the last few sessions:
- The Budget session of 2020 was curtailed ahead of the lockdown.
- A short 18-day monsoon session ended after 10 days as several Members of Parliament and Parliament staff got affected by COVID-19.
- The winter session was cancelled.
- As a result, the fiscal year 2020-21 saw the Lok Sabha sitting for 34 days (and the Rajya Sabha for 33), the lowest ever.
- This has implications for the proper legislative scrutiny of proposed legislation as well as government functioning and finances.
- There is no reason why Parliament could not adopt remote working and technological solutions, as several other countries did.
Passage of important bills without scrutiny
- During this session, 13 Bills were introduced, and not even one of them was referred to a parliamentary committee for examination.
- The Government of National Capital Territory of Delhi (Amendment) Bill, 2021 was passed by the Parliament.
- This bill shifts governance from the legislature and the Chief Minister to the Lieutenant Governor.
- The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2021, amends the Mines and Minerals Act, 1957 to remove end-use restrictions on mines and ease conditions for captive mines.
- This Bill was passed by both Houses within a week.
- The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) Bill, 2021 — to create a new government infrastructure finance institution and permit private ones in this sector was passed within three days of introduction.
- The Insurance (Amendment) Bill, 2021 which increases FDI in insurance companies from 49% to 74% also took just a week between introduction and passing by both Houses.
- In all, 13 Bills were introduced in this session, and eight of them were passed within the session.
- This quick work should be read as a sign of abdication by Parliament of its duty to scrutinise Bills, rather than as a sign of efficiency.
- Also, the percentage of Bills referred to committees declined from 60% and 71% in the 14th Lok Sabha (2004-09) and the 15th Lok Sabha, respectively, to 27% in the 16th Lok Sabha and just 11% in the current one.
Money Bill classification issue
- The Finance Bills, over the last few years, have contained several unconnected items such as restructuring of tribunals, introduction of electoral bonds, and amendments to the foreign contribution act.
- Some of the earlier Acts, including the Aadhaar Act and Finance Act, have been referred to a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court.
- It would be useful if the Court can give a clear interpretation of the definition of Money Bills and provide guide rails within which Bills have to stay to be termed as such.
Passage of Budget without discussion
- The Constitution requires the Lok Sabha to approve the expenditure Budget of each department and Ministry.
- The Lok Sabha had listed the budget of just five Ministries for detailed discussion and discussed only three of these; 76% of the total Budget was approved without any discussion.
- This behaviour was in line with the trend of the last 15 years.
No Deputy Speaker
- Article 93 of the Constitution states that “… The House of the People shall, as soon as may be, choose two members of the House to be respectively Speaker and Deputy Speaker….”
- A striking feature of the current Lok Sabha is the absence of a Deputy Speaker.
- By the time of the next session of Parliament, two years would have elapsed without the election of a Deputy Speaker.
Way forward
- In order to fulfil its constitutional mandate, it is imperative that Parliament functions effectively.
- This will require making and following processes:
- 1) Creating a system of research support to Members of Parliament.
- 2) Providing sufficient time for MPs to examine issues.
- 3 )Requiring that all Bills and budgets are examined by committees and public feedback is taken.
Consider the question “Parliament as a representative body is expected to examine all legislative proposals, understand their nuances and implications and decide on the appropriate way forward. Yet, more and more Bills are passed without enough deliberations. What are the implications of it? Suggest the measures to deal with it.”
Conclusion
In sum, Parliament needs to ensure sufficient scrutiny over the proposals and actions of the government.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Teesta River
Mains level: Teesta dispute
PM while on his tour of Bangladesh assured his best to ink the long-awaited deal over the Teesta and other common rivers. On at least two occasions—2011 and 2017—Bangladesh and India came close to signing a deal on the Teesta.
Teesta River
- Teesta River is a 315 km long river that rises in the eastern Himalayas, flows through the Indian states of Sikkim and West Bengal through Bangladesh and enters the Bay of Bengal.
- It is a tributary of the Brahmaputra (known as Jamuna in Bangladesh), flowing through India and Bangladesh.
- It originates in the Himalayas near Chunthang, Sikkim and flows to the south through West Bengal before entering Bangladesh.
- Originally, it continued southward to empty directly into the Padma River but around 1787 the river changed its course to flow eastward to join the Jamuna river.
- The Teesta Barrage dam helps to provide irrigation for the plains between the upper Padma and the Jamuna.
What is the dispute about?
- The point of contention between India and Bangladesh is mainly the lean season flow in the Teesta draining into Bangladesh.
- The river covers nearly the entire floodplains of Sikkim while draining 2,800 sq km of Bangladesh, governing the lives of hundreds of thousands of people.
- For West Bengal, Teesta is equally important, considered the lifeline of half-a-dozen districts in North Bengal.
- Bangladesh has sought an “equitable” distribution of Teesta waters from India, on the lines of the Ganga Water Treaty of 1996, but to no avail.
- The failure to ink a deal had its fallout on the country’s politics, putting the ruling party of PM Sheikh Hasina in a spot.
The hydrological linkages between India and Bangladesh are a product of geography and a matter of shared history. Discuss this statement in line with the Teesta water sharing dispute.
The deal
- Following a half-hearted deal in 1983, when a nearly equal division of water was proposed, the countries hit a roadblock. The transient agreement could not be implemented.
- Talks resumed after the Awami League returned to power in 2008 and the former Indian PM Manmohan Singh visited Dhaka in 2011.
- In 2015, PM Modi’s visit to Dhaka generated more ebullient lines: deliberations were underway involving all the stakeholders to conclude the agreement as soon as possible.
Issues from the Indian side
- It remains an unfinished project and one of the key stakeholders — West Bengal CM is yet to endorse the deal.
- Her objection is connected to “global warming. Many of the glaciers on the Teesta basin have retreated.
- The importance of the flow and the seasonal variation of this river is felt during the lean season (from October to April/May) as the average flow is about 500 million cubic metres (MCM) per month.
- The CM opposed an arrangement in 2011, by which India would get 42.5% and Bangladesh 37.5% of the water during the lean season, and the plan was shelved.
Why does it matter?
- India witnessed a surge in the insurgency in the northeast during the rule of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) from 2001 to 2005.
- Bangladesh allegedly sheltered insurgents engaged in anti-India activities, and nearly all the Home Ministry-level talks ended without agreement, and India had to increase the security budget for the northeast.
- In a couple of years of assuming office in 2008, the Awami League targeted insurgent camps and handed over the rebels to India.
- As India’s security establishment heaved a sigh of relief, the relationship improved on multiple fronts.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Concurrent List
Mains level: India's healthcare
Health should be shifted to the Concurrent list under the Constitution, and a developmental finance institution (DFI) dedicated to healthcare investments set up, Fifteenth Finance Commission Chairman N.K. Singh has said.
Other key recommendations
- Bringing health into the Concurrent list would give the Centre greater flexibility to enact regulatory changes and reinforce the obligation of all stakeholders towards providing better healthcare.
- He has urged the government spending to enhance expenditure on health to 2.5% of GDP by 2025.
- He said primary healthcare should be a fundamental commitment of all States in particular and should be allocated at least two-thirds of such spending.
The Concurrent List or List-III (of Seventh Schedule) is a list of 52 items (though the last subjects are numbered 47) given in the Seventh Schedule to the Constitution of India.
What is the Seventh Schedule?
- This Schedule of the Indian Constitution deals with the division of powers between the Union government and State governments.
- It defines and specifies the allocation of powers and functions between Union & States. It contains three lists; i.e. 1) Union List, 2) State List and 3) Concurrent List.
The Union List
- It is a list of 98 (Originally 97) numbered items as provided in the Seventh Schedule.
- The Union Government or Parliament of India has exclusive power to legislate on matters relating to these items.
The State List
- It is a list of 59 (Originally 66) items.
- The respective state governments have exclusive power to legislate on matters relating to these items.
The Concurrent List
- There are 52 (Originally 47) items currently in the list.
- This includes items which are under the joint domain of the Union as well as the respective States.
Must read
[Burning Issue] India’s Ailing Health Sector and Coronavirus
Healthcare in India
- The Indian Constitution has incorporated the responsibility of the state in ensuring basic nutrition, basic standard of living, public health, protection of workers, special provisions for disabled persons, and other health standards, which were described under Articles 39, 41, 42, and 47 in the DPSP.
- Article 21 of the Constitution of India provides for the right to life and personal liberty and is a fundamental right.
- Public Health comes under the state list.
- India’s expenditure on healthcare has shot up substantially in the past few years; it is still very low in comparison to the peer nations (at approx. 1.28% of GDP).
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Chilika Lake
Mains level: Ramsar wetlands in India
The Chilika Lake in Odisha, Asia’s largest brackish water lake, was once part of the Bay of Bengal, a study by the marine archaeology department of the National Institute of Oceanography (NIO), Goa, has found.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Consider the following statements:
- In India, the Himalayas are spread over five States only.
- Western Ghats are spread over five States only.
- Pulicat Lake is spread over two States only.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 only
(c) 2 and 3 only
(d) 1 and 3 only
Chilika Lake
- Chilika Lake is a brackish water lagoon, spread over the Puri, Khurda and Ganjam districts of Odisha.
- It is located at the mouth of the Daya River, flowing into the Bay of Bengal, covering an area of over 1,100 km2.
- It is the largest coastal lagoon in India and the largest brackish water lagoon in the world after The New Caledonian barrier reef.
- It has been listed Ramsar Site as well as a tentative UNESCO World Heritage site.
Its formation
- The process of the formation of the Chilika might have begun in the latter part of the Pleistocene epoch, around 20,000 years ago.
- India’s peninsular river Mahanadi carried a heavy load of silt and dumped part of it at its delta.
- As the sediment-laden river met the Bay of Bengal, sand bars were formed near its mouth.
- These created a backflow of the seawater into the sluggish fresh water at the estuary, resulting in the huge brackish water lake.
- Marine archaeological studies on the Odisha coast clearly show that the Chilika once acted as a safe harbour for cargo ships bound for Southeast Asia and other parts of the world.
Historical accounts on Chilika
The lake has been a useful centre for maritime activities since the third millennium before the Common Era (CE).
- Greek geographer Claudius Ptolemy (150 CE) described Palur as an important port of Kalinga and referred to it as ‘Paloura’.
- This port was situated close to the ‘point of departure’ located outside the southern tip of the lake at Kantiagarh, from where ships used to sail directly for Southeast Asia.
- Stone anchors and hero stones from Manikapatna, Palur and the adjoining onshore regions of the Chilika suggest that the present brackish water lagoon was in fact a part of the Bay of Bengal.
- Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang (7th century CE) recorded ‘Che-li-ta-lo-Ching’ as a flourishing port.
- This port was located at Chhatargarh on the banks of the Chilika.
- The Brahmanda Purana (10th century CE approximately) says the Chilika was an important centre of trade and commerce, with ships sailing to Java, Malaya and Ceylon.
- The famous Sanskrit poet Kalidas called the king of Kalinga ‘Madhodhipati’ or ‘Lord of the Ocean’.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Genetics and climate change
Mains level: Impacts of climate change on plant dynamics
Changing climate has transformed the time spring unfolds in front of us.
Early bud-break
- Bud-break — which is when trees leaf out — has undergone a change.
- Several trees initiate bud-break too early or too late, which affects the harvest.
- Spring, for example, arrived earlier than usual in Kashmir this year due to higher temperatures in February and March.
- Gul-tour, a spring-flowering herb started blooming in mid-February in Kashmir. Its yellow flowers would usually blossom in March, heralding Spring.
Try this PYQ:
Q.Other than resistance to pests, what are the prospects for which genetically engineered plants have been created?
- To enable them to withstand drought
- To increase the nutritive value of the produce
- To enable them to grow and do photosynthesis in spaceships and space stations
- To increase their shelf life
Select the correct answer using the code given below
(a) 1 and 2 only
(b) 3 and 4 only
(c) 1, 2 and 4 only
(d) 1, 2, 3 and 4
Answer: (d)
What causes early bud-break?
- This is why understanding the genetics of bud-break helps scientists modify or select crop varieties that can be more resilient to the climate threat.
- The properties of transcription factors are genes that regulate other genes by binding to deoxyribonucleic acid and giving activation instructions.
- It helps scientists determine what other genes might be involved in a process such as a bud-break.
EBB genes
- Researchers of the study had earlier identified transcription factors for early bud-break 1 (EBB1) and short vegetative phase (SVL), which directly interact to control bud-break.
- EBB1 is a positive regulator of bud-break, whereas SVL is a negative regulator of bud-break.
- Now, the research team has identified and characterized the early bud-break 3 (EBB3) gene.
Identified mechanism of Bud-break
- EBB3 is a temperature-responsive, positive regulator of bud-break that provides a direct link to activation of the cell cycle during bud-break.
- EBB3 provides a direct link through the signalling pathway for how these cells divide.
- The analysis reveals how particular genes activate through the season or in response to specific environmental factors.
Significance of the study
- New approaches for accelerated tree adaptation to climate change helps ensure bud-break happens at the right time each spring.
- Using their understanding of the genetic pathways that control bud-break, scientists hope to genetically modify crops to adapt to warmer winters and unpredictable frosts.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 3- Whether or not India should consider net zero emission target by 2050?
There are several issues with the adoption of net zero-emission targets. One of the most important being the lack of equity. This article deals with this issue.
About net-zero emission targets
- The “net zero” idea is inspired by an IPCC report that calls for global net emissions – GHG emissions minus removal of GHGs through various means to reach zero by mid-century.
- This builds on a clause in the Paris Climate Agreement, calling for a balance between sources and sinks of emissions by the second half of the century.
- It is worth underscoring that none of this implies that each country has to reach net-zero by 2050.
- Net-zero announcements signals a progressive direction of travel and has the apparent merit of presenting a simple and singular benchmark for assessing the performance of a country.
3 Issues with net zero targets
- First, it potentially allows countries to keep emitting today while relying on yet-to-be-developed and costly technologies to absorb emissions tomorrow.
- Second, its focus on long-term targets displaces attention from meaningful short-term actions that are credible and accountable.
- Third., it calls into question concerns of equity and fairness.
Balancing the concerns of developing and developed countries
- The Paris Agreement, while urging global peaking as soon as possible, explicitly recognises that peaking will take longer for developing countries.
- The Paris Agreement calls for achieving balance in developing and developed nation “on the basis of equity” and in the context of “sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty”.
- Therefore, the Paris Agreement does not advocate uptake of net-zero targets across developed and developing countries, as currently being advocated by many countries.
- Rather, the emphasis in the agreement on equity, sustainable development and poverty eradication suggests a thoughtful balancing of responsibilities between developed and developing countries.
Factors India should consider before taking zero-emission target
- Our first nationally determined contribution (NDC) submitted under the Paris Agreement has been rated by observers as compatible with a 2 degrees Celsius trajectory.
- We are ahead of schedule in meeting our contribution.
- Now, India will need to decide whether to join a growing number of countries (over 120 at last count) that have pledged to reach “net zero” emissions by 2050.
- But it is not clear that enhancing mitigation action can definitively deliver net-zero emissions by 2050, given that our emissions are still rising, and our development needs are considerable.
- There is a possibility that a not fully thought-through mid-century net-zero target would compromise sustainable development.
- Moreover, such a major shift in our negotiating position will have implications for the future, including our ability to leverage additional finance and technology to help shift to low-carbon development pathways.
- Our 2 degrees Celsius compatible NDC, bolstered by the Prime Minister’s announcement in 2019 that we would achieve 450 GW of renewables by 2030, could be strengthened.
- Building on this track record suggests an alternate and equally, if not more, compelling, way to indicate climate ambition in the future than uncritically taking on a net-zero target.
Way forward
- We would benefit from taking stock of our actions and focusing on near-term transitions.
- This will allow us to meet and even over-comply with our 2030 target while also ensuring concomitant developmental benefits, such as developing a vibrant renewable industry.
- We can start putting in place the policies and institutions necessary to move us in the right direction for the longer-term and also better understand the implications of net-zero scenarios before making a net-zero pledge.
- It would also be in India’s interest to link any future pledge to the achievement of near-term action by industrialised countries.
- That would be fair and consistent with the principles of the UNFCCC.
Consider the question “Growing number of countries have been setting net-zero emission target. In light of this, examine the issues India should consider before setting itself the net zero emission targets.”
Conclusion
India, like others, have a responsibility to the international community, we also have a responsibility to our citizens to be deliberate and thoughtful about a decision as consequential as India’s climate pledge.
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Not much
Mains level: Paper 2- India-Bangladesh relations in 50 years
The article highlights the areas of cooperations and issues between the India and Bangladesh as it celebrates the golden jubilee of its independence from Pakistan.
New era of cooperation
- In the last decade, India-Bangladesh relations have warmed up, entering a new era of cooperation.
- These ties have moved beyond historical and cultural ties to become more assimilated in the areas of trade, connectivity, energy, and defence.
- Bangladesh and India have achieved the rare feat of solving their border issues peacefully by ratifying the historic Land Boundary Agreement in 2015.
- The Bangladesh government led by Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has uprooted anti-India insurgency elements from its borders.
Bilateral trade and tourism
- Bangladesh today is India’s biggest trading partner in South Asia with exports to Bangladesh in FY 2018-19 at $9.21 billion and imports at $1.04 billion.
- India has offered duty free access to multiple Bangladeshi products.
- While India has given duty-free access to a number of Bangladeshi goods, its physical enormity precludes circumstances that could have Bangladesh enhance the quantum of exports.
- Trade could be more balanced if non-tariff barriers from the Indian side could be removed.
- Bangladeshis make up a large portion of tourists in India with one in every five tourists being a Bangladeshi.
- Bangladesh accounts for more than 35% of India’s international medical patients and contributes more than 50% of India’s revenue from medical tourism.
Cooperation on development
- India extended three lines of credit to Bangladesh in recent years amounting to $8 billion for the construction of roads, railways, bridges, and ports.
- However, in eight years until 2019, only 51% of the first $800 million line of credit has been utilised.
- Barely any amount from the next two lines of credit worth $6.5 billion has been mobilised.
- This has been mostly due to red-tapism from India’s end, and slow project implementation on Bangladesh’s end.
Connectivity
- Connectivity between the two countries has greatly improved.
- A direct bus service between Kolkata and Agartala runs a route distance of 500 km, as compared to the 1,650 km if it ran through the Chicken’s Neck to remain within India.
- There are three passenger and freight railway services running between the two countries, with two more routes on their way to be restored.
- The inauguration of the Chilahati-Haldibari railway link has been a significant move in enhancing connectivity between the countries.
- Recently, a 1.9 kilometre long bridge, the Maitri Setu, was inaugurated connecting Sabroom in India with Ramgarh in Bangladesh.
- Bangladesh allows the shipment of goods from its various ports.
- This allows landlocked Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura to access open water routes through the Chattogram and Mongla ports.
Issues
- Despite the remarkable progress, the unresolved Teesta water sharing issue looms large.
- While smuggling needs to be dealt with firmly, it is not acceptable for Bangladeshis that rather than apprehending people trying to make an illegal entry into India, the BSF has been shooting them.
- Indian government’s proposal to implement the National Register of Citizens across the whole of India reflects poorly on India-Bangladesh relations.
Way forward
- India-Bangladesh relations have been gaining positive momentum over the last decade.
- As the larger country, the onus is on India to be generous enough to let the water flow and ensure that people are not killed on the border for cattle.
Consider the question “As Bangladesh celebrates the golden jubilee of its independence, it is also time for celebrating the enduring Indo-Bangladesh ties despite hiccups that have sometimes disturbed the waters. In light of this, examine the areas of cooperation and issues between the two countries.“
Conclusion
To make the recent gains irreversible, both countries need to continue working on the three Cs — cooperation, collaboration, and consolidation
Source:
https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/remove-the-wedges-in-india-bangladesh-ties/article34163863.ece
https://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/india-bangladesh-relations-narendra-modi-visit-7245361/
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Note4Students
From UPSC perspective, the following things are important :
Prelims level: Electoral bonds
Mains level: Paper 2- Issues with electoral bond scheme
The article highlights the constitutional objections to the electoral bond scheme.
Context
- The Supreme Court, after a brief hearing on March 24, reserved orders on the question of whether or not to stay the electoral bond scheme, ahead of the upcoming State elections.
Issues
1) Against democracy
- When citizens cast their votes they have the right to do so on the basis of full and complete information.
- And there is no piece of information more important than the knowledge of who funds political parties.
- The Indian Supreme Court has long held — and rightly so — that the “right to know”, especially in the context of elections, is an integral part of the right to freedom of expression under the Indian Constitution.
- By keeping this knowledge from citizens and voters, the electoral bonds scheme violates fundamental tenets of our democracy.
2) Aids role of money in influencing politics
- It is equally important that if a democracy is to thrive, the role of money in influencing politics ought to be limited.
- In many advanced countries, for example, elections are funded publicly.
- The purpose of this is to guarantee a somewhat level playing field, so that elections are a battle of ideas and not money.
- The electoral bonds scheme, however, removes all pre-existing limits on political donations, and effectively allows well-resourced corporations to buy politicians by paying immense sums of money.
3) Creates asymmetry in donation
- Electoral bonds allow receiving limitless donation and that too asymmetrically.
- Since the donations are routed through the State Bank of India, it is possible for the government to find out who is donating to which party, but not for the political opposition to know.
- This, in turn, means that every donor is aware that the central government can trace their donations back to them.
- Statistics bear this out: a vast majority of the immensely vast sums donated through multiple electoral cycles over the last three years, have gone to the ruling party.
Issues with the government’s defence
- The government has attempted to justify the electoral bonds scheme by arguing that its purpose is to prevent the flow of black money into elections.
- It is entirely unclear what preventing black money has to do with donor anonymity, making donations limitless, and leaving citizens in the dark.
- Indeed, as the electoral bonds scheme allows even foreign donations to political parties.
- With this the prospects of institutional corruption including by foreign sources increases with the electoral bonds scheme, instead of decreasing.
Constitutional objections
- The objections to the electoral bonds scheme, highlighted above, are not objections rooted in political morality, or in public policy, they are constitutional objections.
- The right to know has long been enshrined as a part of the right to freedom of expression.
- Uncapping political donations and introducing a structural bias into the form of the donations violate both the guarantee of equality before law, as well as being manifestly arbitrary.
Judiciary must act
- Governments derive their legitimacy from elections.
- However, for just that reason the process that leads up to the formation of the government should be policed with particular vigilance.
- In other words, the electoral legitimacy of the government is questionable if the electoral process has become questionable.
- The courts is the only independent body that can adequately umpire and enforce the ground rules of democracy.
Consider the question “How electoral bond scheme can play role in preventing black money in elections? What are the issues with the electoral bond scheme?
Conclusion
The government should take into account the distorting effect of the electoral bonds scheme and take measures to remove the provisions in the scheme that leaves the scope for its misuse.
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