MONTHLY NEWS DIARY - Sosin Classes

MONTHLY NEWS DIARY NOVEMBER-2020

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H.NO. 1-10-196 (New No. 177), Street no. 1, Ashok Nagar X roads, Hyderabad, Telangana 500020.

MONTHLY NEWS DIARY (MnD)

(FOR UPSC – PRELIMS & MAINS)

NOVEMBER -2020

This MnD aims to provide news analysis of monthly

events in Question and Answers Format

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INDEX

ESSAY PAPER

1. BECA and the India-US ties ……………………………………………………………..........03

2. India’s National Educational Policy ……………………….……………………….……….05

3. Hunger and mid-day meal program in India…………………………………………….08

4. Platform workers ……………………………………………………………………………..….…11

5. Ferula asafoetida ……………………………………………………………………………………13

6. Fortified rice …………………………………………………………………………………………..15

7. Fundamentals of economy affecting human rights ……………………………...…17

8. Illegal occupations of China and Pakistan ……………………………………………….19

9. Distributing vaccination of COVID-19………………………………………………………21

10. Change ‘G’ in GDP from ‘Gross’ to ‘Green’……............................................22

11. US presidential change affecting India’s foreign policy ……........................24

12. Right to work in market economy...............................................................27

13. Major trade bloc RCEP................................................................................29

GS 1

➢ WORLD HISTORY

1. The Lady of Bietikow …………………………………………………………………………..…31

➢ GOVERNENCE

1. The concept of ‘star-campaigner’……………………………………………………………33

SOCIAL ISSUES:

1. Health insurance policies in developing countries…………………………….……34

2. Farm law bills………………………………………………………………………………….…..…36

3. Vaccination to child pneumonia and diarrhoea………………………………………37

4. Sex ratio of states………………………………………………………………………………..…38

5. PPP in health sector……………………………………………………………………………..…39

6. Role of Trade unions i.r.t labour law reforms ……………………………….………..40

7. Shadow of Undernutrition………………………………………………………………………42




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GS 2

➢ INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Armenia- Azerbaijan conflict ……………………………………………………………….……43

2. Provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan……………………………………………………..…….45

3. Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifaa…………………………………………………………46

4. China’s new railroad up to Arunachal border……………………………………………48

5. Track 1.5 dialogue …………………………………………………………………..……………….49

6. Ethiopian govt. and Tigray rebels………………………………………………………………50

7. Bhutan`s border village – a disputed territory……………………………………..……52

GS3

➢ TECHNOLOGY

1. D614G mutation in coronavirus……………………………………………………..…………54

2. EOS-01 and its important pandemic struck India…………………………….……..…55

3. Sputnik V vaccine……………………………………………….………………………….…………56

➢ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. Bangladesh and Vietnam’s export success ……………………………………………...57

2. Government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0………………………………………59

3. FDI ceiling on video platforms……………………………………………………………….…60

4. Corporate entry into banking system………………………………………………….……61

5. Labour intensive sectors……………………………………………………………………….…62

6. Atmanirbhar China………………………………………………………..…………………………63

➢ BIODIVERSITY

1. International refuse and world’s trash dump…..65

2. ‘Sea sparkle’………………………………………………………………………………………………65

3. New Species of gecko………………………………………………………………..…………..…66

➢ DISASTER MANAGEMENT

1. Air pollution and cold combination for COVID spread…………………………….…67

2. Cyclone Nivar……………………………………………………………………………………………69




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ESSAY

1. What is BECA and How will the signing of BECA deepen military ties between India and the U.S.?

News:

On October 27, India and the U.S. signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) during the third 2+2 dialogue of defence and foreign ministers of the two countries. This is the fourth and the last of the foundational agreements that both countries have concluded, starting with:

1. GSOMIA (General Security of Military Information Agreement) in 2002, 2. LEMOA (Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement) in 2016, 3. COMCASA (Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement) in 2018, and

now 4. BECA (Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement).

Foundational agreements:

• The United States enters into what are called ‘foundational or enabling agreements’ with its defence partners. These agreements govern the nature and scope of U.S. defence partnerships. Partners enhance the capabilities of the U.S. military in distant places through sharing information, platforms and logistics.

• The U.S. sells military equipment to other countries with strict control over their deployment and use. For instance, consider the B777-300ER aircraft that India bought from Boeing recently for the use of VVIPs. The sale of advanced communication and security systems on the aircraft — which are not commercially available — is made seamless by foundational agreements.

• The U.S. has signed these foundational agreements with at least 100 countries, which mostly follow a standard text. Country-specific changes were made in India’s case in all four foundational agreements.

What do these agreements do?

• The General Security of Military Information Agreement or GSOMIA, and its extension, the Information Security Annex (ISA) signed in 2019, allow military technology cooperation for the sharing of classified information between governments and companies in both countries.

• The LEMOA enables logistics support, say refuelling of planes or ships, supply of spare parts or maintenance to each other. For instance, U.S. Navy’s P8 aircraft landed in Port Blair last month for refuelling, under LEMOA. Even in the absence of this agreement, such cooperation can and has taken place between India and the U.S., but the agreement makes it seamless, and the accounting easier.

• The COMCASA allows Indian forces to procure advanced, secure communication equipment from the U.S. Such equipment was earlier denied for U.S. origin platforms such as C-17, C-130, and commercial systems were used in their place. Only after COMCASA was signed were the encrypted systems provided to India.




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• The BECA enables exchange of geospatial information. Akin to a GPS that enables navigation, such exchange of geospatial information enhances the accuracy of a missile or the utility of a drone.

The strategic importance of these agreements:

• Since the Civil Nuclear Agreement of 2005, the India-U.S. defence cooperation has been advancing at a rapid pace. The U.S. has relaxed restrictions on technology trade in India’s favour considerably, and India is designated a ‘Major Defence Partner’.

• Foundational agreements deepen defence cooperation, in trade and operation. India and the U.S. are also part of a broader shared vision for the Indo-Pacific region, where both countries, along with Japan and Australia, are increasing their military cooperation. U.S.-built platforms used by partner countries can talk to one another and share operational information.

Challenges:

• Tying itself too closely with the U.S. may limit India’s choices. The evolution of technology makes it inevitable that all military platforms will be integrated and networked in the future.

• The U.S. is very particular about the integrity of its networks, and pressure could mount on India to remain firmly in its camp.

• The U.S. is particularly irked by India’s continuing defence cooperation with Russia. India will be taking the delivery of Russian S-400 missile defence system next year, ignoring American objections. The U.S. could respond with sanctions.

• At any rate, it will not be possible to integrate Russian and American platforms, and this could throw up new challenges of military planning for India.

• Almost certainly in the circumstances, India can hardly hope to count on Russia as a strategic ally. This, at a time, when Russia-China relations have vastly expanded and a strategic congruence exists between the two countries. This is one relationship which India will need to handle with skill and dexterity, as it would be a tragedy if India-Russia relations were to deteriorate at a time when the world is in a state of disorder.

• Too close an identification with the U.S. at this juncture may not, however, be in India’s interest. China-India relations have never been easy. Since 1988, India has pursued, despite occasional problems, a policy which put a premium on an avoidance of conflicts with China.

• Even after Doklam in 2017, India saw virtue in the Wuhan and Mamallapuram discourses, to maintain better relations. This will now become increasingly problematic as India gravitates towards the U.S. sphere of influence.

• Even as the U.S. makes no secret of its intentions to contain and check Chinese ambitions, India’s willingness to sign foundational military agreements with the U.S., to obtain high grade intelligence and other sensitive information, would suggest that India has made its choice, which can only exacerbate already deteriorating China-India relations.

• India, again, will need to try and square the circle when it comes to its membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), considering its new relationship with the U.S. Reconciling its present fondness for the U.S., with its full membership




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of the SCO, which has China and Russia as its main protagonists — and was conceived as an anti-NATO entity — will test India’s diplomatic skills.

• Likewise, even though India currently has a detached outlook, vis-à-vis the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), and has increasingly distanced itself from the African and Latin American group in terms of policy prescriptions, matters could get aggravated, following India’s new alliance patterns. It would be a rude awakening for India, if it is seen as no longer a stellar member of NAM.

• The moot question, say experts, is whether India could ramp up its defence cooperation with the U.S. without ending up as its ally.

2. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the

world”. Evaluate India’s National Educational Policy. For education to fulfil its social role, it must respond to the specific milieu in which the young are growing up. India has sufficient experience of attempts made from the national level to influence systemic realities on the ground. There is a considerable history of strong recommendations made by national commissions and of provincial recalcitrance. States have their own social worlds to deal with, and they often prefer to carry on with the ways they became familiar with in colonial days. A prime example is the continuation of intermediate or junior colleges in several States more than half a century after the Kothari Commission gave its much acclaimed report.

History:

• Historically, the system of education evolved in the provinces. One hundred years ago, the Central Advisory Board of Education was created to co-ordinate regional responses to common issues. The ‘advisory’ character of this administrative mechanism meant that the Board served mainly as a discussion forum.

• The Constitution, in its original draft, treated the States as the appropriate sphere for dealing with education. But unlike some other federal countries, India chose to have a Ministry of Education at the Centre.

• Its role was not merely decorative or confined to coordination among differing State perspectives and practices; rather, the Centre was expected to articulate aims and standards, or to pave the road to nation-building and development. Soon after independence, a more substantial sphere of the Centre’s activities in education emerged in the shape of advanced institutions in professional fields.

• Thus, concurrency was already a reality before the 1976 amendment formally included it in the Constitution. A decade later, when the national policy was drafted under a youthful leader, it emphasised national concerns and perspective without specifically referring to provincial practices that indicated strong divergence.

• Throughout the 1990s, those in charge of education remained hesitant to explain publicly how exactly liberalisation would apply to this traditionally public responsibility. The rapidly expanding and globalising urban middle class had already begun to secede from the public system, posing the awkward question of why education cannot be sold if there are willing buyers. Systemic chaos grew, leaving the policy behind.




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Three systems of institutes

• India now has three systems. To call them sectors would be an understatement. There is a Central system, running an exam board that has an all-India reach through affiliation with English-medium private schools catering to regional elites. Two school chains run by the Centre are part of this system.

• The Central system also includes advanced professional institutes and universities that have access to greater per capita funding than what their counterparts run by the States can afford. These latter ones belong to the second system which also features provincial secondary boards affiliating schools teaching in State languages.

• The third system is based on purely private investment. Internationally accredited school boards and globally connected private universities are part of this third system. These institutions represent a new level of freedom from state norms.

• An explicit attempt was made under the Right to Education (RTE) Act to bridge the first two systems. The RTE is a parliamentary law, providing a set of standards for elementary education and a call to private schools to provide for social justice via the quota route. In higher education, such an attempt to balance private autonomy with an obligation to provide social justice is yet to be made in any palpable sense. The recent attempt made by Tamil Nadu to create a modest quota in NEET for students who attended government schools, points towards an endemic problem exacerbated by centralisation.

• India announced its National Education Policy (NEP) on July 29 this year. The policy aims at overhauling the educational system in the country and making “India a global knowledge superpower”, with a new system that is aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Development Goal-4 (SDG 4). It also emphasises universal access to schools for all children, raising the Gross Enrolment Ratio (GER), and ending the spiralling dropout rate in India.




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The many claims in NEP 2020

• The academic community is still debating and weighing the pros and cons of the NEP. However, one of the key disappointments is that the real problem plaguing the educational system in the country and the higher education system, the erosion of academic freedom, is being discussed by nobody.

• India has scored considerably low in the international Academic Freedom Index (AFI) with a score of 0.352, which is closely followed by Saudi Arabia (0.278) and Libya (0.238). In the last five years, the AFI of India has dipped by 0.1 points. Surprisingly, countries like Malaysia (0.582), Pakistan (0.554), Brazil (0.466), Somalia (0.436) and Ukraine (0.422) have scored better than India. Uruguay and Portugal top the AFI, with scores of 0.971 each, followed closely by Latvia (0.964) and Germany (0.960).

• The NEP 2020 claims that it is based on principles of creativity and critical thinking and envisions an education system that is free from political or external interference. For instance, the policy states that faculty will be given the “freedom to design their own curricular and pedagogical approaches within the approved framework, including textbook and reading material selections, assignments and assessments”.

Rent-seeking culture

• The AFI used eight components to evaluate the scores: freedom to research and teach, freedom of academic exchange and dissemination, institutional autonomy, campus integrity, freedom of academic and cultural expression, constitutional protection of academic freedom, international legal commitment to academic freedom under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, and existence of universities.

• India has not fared well in components like institutional autonomy, campus integrity, freedom of academic and cultural expression and constitutional protection of academic freedom. Most universities in the country are subjected to unsolicited interference from governments in both academic and non-academic issues.

• It is common knowledge by now that a majority of appointments, especially to top-ranking posts like that of vice-chancellors, pro vice-chancellors and registrars, have been highly politicised.

• Such political appointments not only choke academic and creative freedom, but also lead to corrupt practices, including those in licensing and accreditation, thus promoting unhealthy favouritism and nepotism in staff appointments and student admissions. This reflects a ‘rent-seeking culture’ within the academic community.

Social vision

• The new policy document underestimates the problem of reconciling the three systems. The architect of many of our national-level institutions, the late J.P. Naik, used to say that we must ask what kind of human being and society we want before we draft a policy in education.

• Apart from that philosophical question, we also need a systemic vision: both for recovery from institutional decay and for future progress. Functional uniformity is unlikely to offer any real solution. That is what the new policy seems to favour.

• In higher education, it proposes nationally codified and administered measures to oversee institutional transformation across State capitals and district towns.




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The assumption is that old structures will melt like wax under the heat of an empowered vision.

• At the school level too, the new policy proposes a post-RTE structural shift, ignoring the fact that the RTE itself has not yet been fully implemented. It is useful to recall that the RTE was drafted with prolonged involvement with the States, not mere consultation. The consensus for such a law was no less difficult to create than the formulation of its content.

• A vital role was played by the highest judiciary in pushing the polity towards recognising children’s right to be at school rather than at work. This was a historic social turn towards greater parity between sharply unequal strata. It might not have been accomplished if the Centre had not played an assertive role.

• Further progress of this role called for continued financial support for the implementation of RTE and policy guidance for the proper use of this support so that regional disparities diminish.

3. Explore in detail the intricate relationship between the hunger and mid-day meal program in India, with an emphasis on the current scenario?

Definition:

• The Mid-day Meal Scheme is a school meal programme of the Government of India designed to better the nutritional standing of school-age children nationwide.

• The programme supplies free lunches on working days for children in primary and upper primary classes in government, government aided, local body, Education

Guarantee Scheme, and alternate innovative education centres, Madarsa and Maqtabs supported under Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, and National Child Labour Project schools run by the ministry of labour. Serving 120,000,000 children in over 1,265,000 schools and Education Guarantee Scheme centres, it is the largest of its kind in the world.

• The Global Hunger Index (GHI) is a tool designed to comprehensively measure and track hunger at global, regional, and national levels. GHI scores are calculated each year to assess progress and setbacks in combating hunger.

Hunger is usually understood to refer to the distress associated with a lack of sufficient

calories. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) defines food

deprivation, or undernourishment, as the consumption of too few calories to provide the

minimum amount of dietary energy that each individual requires to live a healthy and

productive life, given that person’s sex, age, stature, and physical activity level.




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Background:

• The report of The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020, released by the Food and Agriculture Organization in partnership with other UN organisations, painted a worrying picture. A real-time monitoring tool estimated that as of April 2020, the peak of school closures, 369 million children globally were losing out on school meals, a bulk of whom were in India.

• The largest school-feeding programme in the world, that has undoubtedly played an extremely significant role in increasing nutrition and learning among school going children, has been one of the casualties of the COVID-19 pandemic. As many as 116 million is the number of children we are looking at when we consider the indefinite school closure in India.

In the current scenario:

• The recent Global Hunger Index (GHI) report for 2020 ranks India at 94 out of 107 countries and in the category ‘serious’, behind our neighbours Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

• The index is a combination of indicators of undernutrition in the population and wasting, stunting, and mortality in children below five years of age. We are already




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far out in terms of achieving the ‘Zero Hunger’ goal, and in the absence of urgent measures to address the problem, the situation will only worsen.

• A report by the International Labour Organization and the UNICEF, on COVID-19 and child labour, cautions that unless school services and social security are universally strengthened, there is a risk that some children may not even return to schools when they reopen.

• This is approximately one-third of the nutritional requirement of the child, with all school-going children from classes I to VIII in government and government-aided schools being eligible.

• However, many research reports, and even the Joint Review Mission of MDMS, 2015-16 noted that many children reach school on an empty stomach, making the school’s mid-day meal a major source of nutrition for children, particularly those from vulnerable communities.

• In orders in March and April 2020, in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic and closure of schools, the Government of India announced that the usual hot-cooked mid-day meal or an equivalent food security allowance/dry ration would be provided to all eligible school-going children even during vacation, to ensure that their immunity and nutrition is not compromised. Nearly three months into this decision, States were still struggling to implement this.

• According to the Food Corporation of India’s (FCI) food grain bulletin, the offtake of grains under MDMS from FCI during April and May, 2020 was 221.312 thousand tonnes. This was 60 thousand tonnes, or 22%, lower than the corresponding offtake during April and May, 2019 (281.932 thousand tonnes).

• There were 23 States and Union Territories that reported a decline in the grain offtake from FCI in April-May 2020, compared with corresponding months in 2019. The State of Bihar, for instance, which lifted 44.585 thousand tonnes in April and May 2019, had no offtake during these two months in 2020.

• Data and media reports indicate that dry ration distributions in lieu of school meals are irregular. The other worrying angle is the fact that there are reports of children engaging in labour to supplement the fall in family incomes in vulnerable households. Serving hot meals, at the children’s homes or even at the centre, may have challenges in the present scenario. Even States like Tamil Nadu, with a relatively good infrastructure for the MDMS, are unable to serve the mandated ‘hot cooked meal’ during the lockdown.

A way forward:

• Local smallholder farmers’ involvement in school feeding is suggested by experts, such as Basanta Kumar Kar, who has been at the helm of many nutrition initiatives. He suggests a livelihood model that links local small holder farmers with the mid-day meal system for the supply of cereals, vegetables, and eggs, while meeting protein and hidden hunger needs, which could diversify production and farming systems, transform rural livelihoods and the local economy, and fulfill the ‘Atmanirbhar Poshan’ (nutritional self-sufficiency) agenda.

A mid-day meal in India should provide 450 Kcal of energy, a minimum of 12 grams of

proteins, including adequate quantities of micronutrients like iron, folic acid, Vitamin-A,

etc., according to the mid-day meal scheme (MDMS) guidelines.




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• The COVID-19 crisis has also brought home the need for such decentralised models and local supply chains.

• There are also new initiatives such as the School Nutrition (Kitchen) Garden under MDMS to provide fresh vegetables for mid-day meals. Besides ensuring these are functional, hot meals can be provided to eligible children with a plan to prepare and distribute the meal in the school mid-day meal centre.

• This is similar to free urban canteens or community kitchens for the elderly and others in distress in States like Odisha. Also, adequate awareness about of the availability of the scheme is needed. Thirdly, locally produced vegetables and fruits may be added to the MDMS, also providing an income to local farmers.

• Besides, distribution of eggs where feasible (and where a State provision is already there) can be carried out. Most of all, the missed mid-day meal entitlement for April may be provided to children as dry ration with retrospective effect.

• Across the country and the world, innovative learning methods are being adopted to ensure children’s education outcomes. With continuing uncertainty regarding the reopening of schools, innovation is similarly required to ensure that not just food, but nutrition is delivered regularly to millions of children.

4. What is a plat form work and to which extent does Indian labour laws secure future of platform workers? Definition:

• The Code on Social Security Bill, 2020, for the first time in Indian law, attempted to define ‘platform work’ outside of the traditional employment category.

• It says: “Platform work means a work arrangement outside of a traditional employer-employee relationship in which organisations or individuals use an online platform to access other organisations or individuals to solve specific problems or to provide specific services or any such other activities which may be notified by the Central Government, in exchange for payment.”

• While the long overdue move to recognise platform work has been made, the Code has drawn criticism from platform workers’ associations for failing to delineate it from gig work and unorganised work.

• A categorical clarification could ensure that social security measures are provided to workers without compromising the touted qualities of platform work: flexibility and a sense of ownership.

• Adjudications and emerging amendments to labour laws in Ontario and California have shown a move towards granting employee status to platform workers, thus guaranteeing minimum wage and welfare benefits. This is the view propagated by international agencies in the EU, including the European Trade Union.

Background:

• Labour falls under the Concurrent List of the Constitution. Recently, the Parliament passed three labour codes — on industrial relations; occupational safety, health and working conditions; and social security — proposing to simplify the country’s archaic labour laws and give impetus to economic activity without compromising with the workers’ benefits.




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• These labour codes can have a transformative impact on labour relations in India. Along with the ‘Code on Wages Act- 2019’, these can significantly ease the conduct of business by amalgamating a plethora of Central and State laws on labour.

Flexibility of the platform

• While platform work promises workers flexibility and ownership over delivery of work, they are still largely dictated by mechanisms of control wired by the algorithm. This affects pricing per unit of work, allocation of work, and hours.

• Additionally, entry into on-demand platform work like ride sharing and food delivery are dependent on existing access to vehicular assets. The average Indian worker on a ride-sharing platform has limited access to such capital.

• Thus, to enter the platform economy, workers rely on intensive loan schemes, often facilitated by platform aggregator companies. This results in dependence on platform companies, driven by financial obligations, thus rendering flexibility and ownership moot in the short- to middle-term investment cycle.

• However, contrasting evidence suggests that for specific categories of workers with basic access to capital, the flexibility of the platform is a significant attraction. Smallholder agrarian labour migrants with access to vehicular assets and capital hailing from peri-urban areas rely on the low barrier of entry and flexibility of platform work to accumulate wealth that they invest back into farm work.

• The Code states the provision of basic welfare measures as a joint responsibility of the Central government, platform aggregators, and workers. However, it does not state which stakeholder is responsible for delivering what quantum of welfare.

• To mitigate operational breakdowns in providing welfare services, a tripartite effort by the State, companies, and workers to identify where workers fall on the spectrum of flexibility and dependence on platform companies is critical.

Role of platform workers:

• Platform workers were responsible for delivery of essential services during the pandemic at great personal risk to themselves. They have also been responsible for keeping platform companies afloat despite the pandemic-induced financial crisis.

• This has cemented their role as public infrastructures who also sustain demand-driven aggregators. The dependence of companies on platform workers merits a jointly assumed responsibility by public and private institutions to deliver welfare measures.

Way forward:

• A way forward for platform workers is through a socio-legal acknowledgement of the heterogeneity of work in the gig economy, and the ascription of joint accountability

to the State and platform companies for the delivery of social services.

A gig economy is a free market system in which temporary positions are common and

organizations hire independent workers for short-term commitments. Gig workers are

independent contractors, online platform workers, contract firm workers, on-call workers and

temporary workers. Gig workers enter into formal agreements with on-demand companies to

provide services to the company's clients.




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5. What is Ferula asafoetida? Explain the reason it is news lately? Description:

• Asafoetida is the dried latex (gum oleoresin) exuded from the rhizome or tap root of several species of Ferula, perennial herbs growing 1 to 1.5 m (3.3 to 4.9 ft) tall. They are part of the celery family, Umbelliferae.

• The species are native to the deserts of Iran and mountains of Afghanistan where substantial amounts are grown. The common modern name for the plant in Iran and Afghanistan is (in Persian) badian, meaning 'that of gas or wind', due to its use to relieve stomach gas.

• An integral part of Indian cuisine and natural medicine, asafoetida is extracted from the fleshy roots of the perennial ferula (part of the celery family) as an oleo-gum resin.

• Despite its popularity, its pungent smell has earned asafoetida less than flattering monikers such as ‘devil’s dung’ or ‘food of the devils’ in the West. India, though, has more prosaic names, such as hing in Hindi and perungayam in Tamil. And given its ubiquity as a standalone element or a component of spice mixtures, it is among the most valuable commodities being traded in the country today.

• Even though it is used extensively in vegetarian cooking (especially by communities that do not consume onion and garlic due to religious reasons), asafoetida turns up in surprising places, such as Worcestershire sauce and even some fine perfumes.

• Not many people know that the plant behind the spice, which gives a zing to Indian vegetarian dishes, besides being a go-to home remedy for digestion problems, had never been grown in India, until the October 15 effort announced by CSIR-IHBT.

• There was an excitement amongst food trend watchers recently when scientists from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) — Institute of Himalayan Bioresource Technology (IHBT) based in Palampur, Himachal Pradesh, announced that they had planted 800 saplings of Ferula asafoetida in the cold desert region of Lahaul and Spiti.




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Indigenous growth

• The IHBT plantation drive, held under the aegis of the State Department of Agriculture, Himachal Pradesh, hopes to make India reduce its reliance on imported raw stock.

• Cold desert areas of India such as Lahaul and Spiti, Ladakh, parts of Uttarakhand and Arunachal Pradesh are suitable for cultivation of ferula. In inclement weather conditions, it is known to go dormant.

• “The country imports about 1,540 tonnes of raw asafoetida annually from Afghanistan, Iran and Uzbekistan and spends approximately ₹942 crore per year on it. It is important for India to become self-sufficient in hing production,” says Sanjay Kumar, Director, CSIR-IHBT, Palampur, in an email interview.

• Dr Kumar, who planted the first ferula seedling on October 15 in a field in Kwaring village of Lahaul valley, led a team comprising fellow scientists Ashok Kumar, Ramesh and Sanatsujat Singh in the trial project.

• The Institute raised the plants at the Centre for High Altitude Biology (CeHAB — a research centre of CSIR-IHBT) in Ribling, Lahaul and Spiti. Seeds officially imported from Iran in 2018 were used for the project, under the supervision of National Bureau of Plant Genetic Resources (NBPGR).

• It will take approximately five years for the project to bear fruit (or rather, resin).

Spice profile

• For the majority of Indians, the spice is an essential part of the kitchen cabinet, irrespective of its country of origin. Asafoetida is bitter in taste and hot in effect, and can also be used to enhance flavours in roasted meat dishes.

• Hing kabuli sufaid (milky white asafoetida) and hing lal (red asafoetida) are the two types of resin available in the market. The white or pale variety is water soluble, whereas the dark or black variety is oil soluble.




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• Asafoetida is often used as an instant remedy for heartburn, indigestion, constipation and reflux. According to Ayurveda, it has the ability to balance all the three doshas

• It is best to keep asafoetida sealed in an airtight container.

6. Is fortified rice an answer to the question of under nutrition. Explain? Background:

• As one of the world’s most widely consumed foods, rice plays a significant role in many diets around the globe. In low income countries, it can make up to 70% of an individual’s calorie intake.

• Though it is a great source of energy, it is a poor source of micronutrients and has a low overall nutritional value beyond carbohydrates and protein. This is because the milling process that produces white rice removes the fat, as well as the more nutrient-rich bran layers.

• Vitamin and mineral deficiencies are also an issue outside of low-income countries, affecting most regions worldwide at varying levels. While malnutrition is often associated with those not consuming enough calories, the lack of essential vitamins and minerals in ample or high calorie diets is a prominent issue, known as ‘hidden hunger’.

• Parboiled rice, brown rice and bio-fortified rice (for example high-zinc rice) are more nutritious compared to white rice in one or a few essential micronutrients. This is due to different paddy processing or utilizing more nutritious rice varieties.

• The focus, now is on post-harvest rice fortification – the addition of several essential vitamins, minerals and potentially other nutrients to make any rice variety more nutritious post-harvest and after paddy processing.

Fortification: There are different methods to make rice more nutritious post-harvest:




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1. Dusting – this is where rice kernels are dusted with a micronutrient powder, relying on an electrostatic force to bind the dry powder to the surface of the grain. Fortified rice produced by dusting cannot be washed or cooked in excess of water.

2. Coating – a method that involves the use of a fortificant mix and ingredients such as wax or gum to ‘fix’ the micronutrient layer being sprayed onto rice. The produced fortified kernels are blended with regular rice, typically at 0.5 – 2% ratio.

3. Hot or warm extrusion – hot extrusion is considered the most robust method of rice fortification, supported by extensive evidence base to have a positive impact on micronutrient deficiencies. Broken rice grains are ground into rice flour, then mixed with water and the required nutrients to produce a dough. The fortified dough is then passed through an extruder to produce the fortified kernels, which are then blended with regular rice typically at 0.5-2% ratio. The temperature at which the extrusion takes place determines if we speak of hot or warm extrusion and has an influence on the rice starch gelatinization and thus firmness of the produced fortified kernels.

The most common method used is an extrusion process. Currently, there are only 15,000 tonnes of these kernels available per year in the country.

• Rice fortification is currently compulsory in six countries: Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Panama, Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands and the Philippines. It is also mandatory in six states in the US.

• In a bid to combat chronic anaemia and undernutrition, the government is planning to distribute fortified rice through the Integrated Child Development Services and Mid-Day Meal schemes across the country from next year, with a special focus on 112 aspirational districts, according to a statement from the Food Ministry.

• Children in anganwadis and government schools could soon be eating rice infused with iron, folic acid and vitamin B-12.

• However, an existing pilot scheme to distribute fortified rice through the Public Distribution System in 15 districts has only been implemented in five districts so far, although more than half the project duration is over.




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• The Food Corporation of India has now been asked to come up with a comprehensive plan to scale up the annual supply of fortified rice from the current 15,000 tonnes to at least 1.3 lakh tonnes.

Implementation:

• The Centrally sponsored pilot scheme was approved in February 2019 and allocated a total budget outlay of ₹174.6 crore for a three-year period from 2019-20. However, only five States — Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu and Chhattisgarh — have started distribution of fortified rice in their identified pilot districts.

• The remaining 10 States have only now identified their respective districts, and will soon start distribution, but less than one-and-a-half years remain in the scheme period.

7. How do the fundamentals of economy may or may not affect human rights? Discuss. Background:

India has an incomes crisis: incomes of people in the lower half of the pyramid are too low. The solutions economists propose are: free up markets, improve productivity, and apply technology. These fundamentals of economics must be re-examined when applied to human work.

Three solutions

• Economists say markets should be freed up for agricultural products so that farmers can get higher prices; and freed up for labour to attract investments. Without adequate incomes, people cannot be a good market for businesses. In fact, it is the inadequate growth of incomes that has caused a slump in investments. Ironically, the purpose of freeing up markets for labour is to reduce the burden of wage costs on investors just when wages and the size of markets must be increased.

• Human rights must prevail over economic considerations. Good markets enable smooth transactions between buyers and sellers of commodities. However, humans are not commodities, like agricultural produce and minerals are. Humans must not be put up for sale to the highest bidders which was the practice in slave markets.

• Improvement of ‘productivity’ is key to economic progress. Productivity is a ratio of an input in the denominator and an output in the numerator. The larger the output that is produced with a unit of input, the higher the productivity of the system. Economists generally use labour productivity as a universal measure of the productivity of an economy. The number of people in the system (the country/the economy) is the denominator, and the gross domestic product the people produce is the numerator. Companies also measure their productivity similarly, by dividing the total output of the enterprise by the numbers of workers employed.

• Companies can apply two broad strategies for improving their productivity. They can take the managerially more difficult route of increasing the total output of the factory while maintaining the number of workers. This may require adding more machines and technology to supplement the capacity of workers to increase total output. This is a good strategy for capital-rich enterprises and countries.




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• Alternatively, employers can enhance their workers’ skills and create a culture of continuous improvement in the factory, whereby workers and managers cooperate to improve the capability of their system, and squeeze more output from limited capital resources.

• This is the strategy of ‘total quality management’, with which Japanese companies reduced their costs and improved the quality of their products in the 1960s and 1970s, becoming the most competitive enterprises in the world. The Japanese companies had lifetime employment contracts with their workers. They invested in their workers; and the workers — the companies’ ‘appreciating assets’ — grew their capabilities as well as contributed to the improvement of the total productivity of their enterprises.

• Humans are the only ‘appreciating assets’ an enterprise has. They can improve their own abilities. The values of machines and buildings depreciate over time. Whereas human beings develop when they are treated with respect, and are provided with environments to learn.

• The lazy management strategy for improving productivity is to reduce the denominator, i.e. the number of workers. Hire them when times are good, and fire them when the company cannot compete any more. Governments of countries cannot apply the ‘hire and fire’ strategy to improve a nation’s productivity that companies can. A company can fire people it is not able to use productively any more. They are off the company’s accounts. The company’s owners hope someone else will take care of them. Such ‘used and discarded workers’ are no longer their responsibility.

• However, if a country is not productive, in terms of GDP per unit of population, its government does not have the luxury of firing citizens. Where will they go? Who will take care of them? In desperation, they may try to migrate to other countries, which are reluctant to have them because they will have to provide them with productive jobs when there are not enough jobs for their own citizens.

The social contract

• A good job implies a contract between workers and society. Workers provide the economy with the products and services it needs. In return, society and the economy must create conditions whereby workers are treated with dignity and can earn adequate incomes. Good jobs require good contracts between workers and their employers. Therefore, the government, to discharge its responsibility to create a good society for all citizens, and not only for investors, must regulate contracts between those who engage people to do work for their enterprises, even in the gig economy.

• The economist Dani Rodrik, an authority on industrial policy and international trade, advocates reforms that will induce firms to employ more numbers of less skilled workers. He says, to increase productivity of firms, “too often they [governments] subsidise labour-replacing, capital-intensive technologies, rather than pushing innovation in socially more beneficial directions to augment rather than replace less skilled workers.”

• A turbo-charged, financial globalisation has made life very easy for migrant capital, while making the lives of migrant workers more precarious. The power to fix the




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rules of the game has become concentrated with wealthy investors and large multinational corporations.

• The rules do not favour workers and tiny enterprises because they have too little power. Large enterprises employ fewer people within their own organisations; therefore, labour unions have lost their traditional support bases. The power balance must shift. Small enterprises and workers must combine into larger associations, in new forms, using technology, to tilt reforms towards their needs and their rights.

8. Illegal occupations of China and Pakistan in the Indian territory of Kashmir

has been a bone of contention since long. Discuss? Background:

• Following the abrogation of Article 370 and reorganisation of the Indian State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), a China-Pakistan tandem has emerged to internationalise the issue, including in the UN Security Council.

• Pakistan has feigned solidarity with the people of Kashmir and continues to train and fund separatists and terrorists.

• The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), the global watchdog that monitors terror financing, has retained Pakistan on its ‘Grey List’ for a good reason. China’s support for Pakistan is motivated by a desire to perpetuate its own territorial grab in the trans-Karakoram Shaksgam Tract of Kashmir.

• China treats the J&K issue as a “bilateral dispute left over from history” to be resolved between India and Pakistan. It ignores Pakistan’s agenda of integrating Gilgit-Baltistan as its fifth province.

• Yet, China has the temerity to question the establishment of the Union Territory of Ladakh and to term it a ‘unilateral’ attempt to change “the status quo in the Kashmir region”. China has no locus standi to comment on India’s internal affairs since the erstwhile princely State of J&K acceded to India through the Instrument of Accession on October 26, 1947.

The Shaksgam issue:




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• The Shaksgam valley in the trans-Karakoram tract, part of PoK, was handed over on a platter by Pakistan to China through an illegal border agreement on March 2, 1963. However, the continuing Chinese occupation of Kashmir’s territory does not find adequate mention in the contemporary discourse surrounding this issue.

• China occupies 5,180 square kilometres in the Shaksgam Valley in addition to approximately 38,000 square kilometres in Aksai Chin. China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) runs through parts of Indian territory under their respective occupation. History of the issue:

• China exploited the ‘Great Game’ between British India and Russia in the late 19th century. It pitched territorial claims far beyond the traditional frontiers of Xinjiang. It gradually crept into areas in the Taghdumbash Pamirs and the Karakorams, well south of its frontier along the Kun Lun mountains.

• While the British and the Russians were busy creating buffer zones along the frontiers of Xinjiang and Tibet, China was systematically stepping into the void. By the 1890s, China had started asserting its presence in the valleys between the Kun Lun and the main Karakoram range. The British eroded the traditional frontiers of the Maharaja of Kashmir in the region around Shahidullah and also those of his vassal, the Mir of Hunza. After the Mir’s defeat in 1869 at the hands of the joint forces of the Maharaja and the British, the Chinese tried to co-opt him in their scheme while giving him refuge and exchanging gifts with him.

• By 1891, the Chinese had quietly moved south of the Kun Lun range to consolidate their presence at Shahidullah, which earlier marked the furthest outpost of the princely state of J&K. They then moved further south to Suget, and thereafter, showed up at the Karakoram Pass.

• In 1936, the Mir of Hunza was asked by the British to abandon his rights in the Taghdumbash Pamirs as well as in the Raskam valley, but the Shaksgam valley to the south-west of Raskam and the Aghil range remained with the Mir of Hunza. This remained the traditional frontier of British India until independence, inherited by India following J&K’s accession in 1947.

The Pakistan connection

• It is this border that was blatantly compromised by Pakistan in its so-called agreement with China on March 2, 1963. By giving in to China’s expansionist designs and spurious claims to a boundary along the Karakoram range, Pakistan not only compromised India’s traditional frontier along the Kun Lun range to the north-west of the Karakoram Pass, but also enabled China to extrapolate a claim line eastwards along the Karakoram range in Ladakh.

• This collusion allowed China to claim the whole of Aksai Chin in which it had no historical presence. After the Partition of the Indian subcontinent, from 1953, Chinese troops actively started transgressing the frontier in eastern Hunza. In October 1959, they rustled some livestock from the area, prompting an angry response from Pakistan that it was determined to defend its frontiers.

• However, President Ayub Khan, spotting an opportunity in the rapidly deteriorating India-China ties in the late 1950s, decided, instead, to pander to the Chinese.




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Pakistan deliberately chose to downgrade the historical claims of the Mir of Hunza and eventually signed away the Shaksgam valley to China in 1963.

China – Pakistan connect

• The provisional nature of the territorial settlement between China and Pakistan is evident in Article 6 of the 1963 agreement, which clearly states that “the two Parties have agreed that after the settlement of the Kashmir dispute between Pakistan and India, the sovereign authority concerned will reopen negotiations with the Government of the People’s Republic of China, on the boundary as described in Article Two of the present Agreement, so as to sign a formal Boundary Treaty to replace the present agreement”.

• In effect, this agreement has established China as a party to the dispute. It has a vested interest in legitimising its illegitimate gains in the trans-Karakoram tract.

The anniversary of the Instrument of Accession, on October 26, is a reminder of China’s illegal territorial occupation.

9. Explain the challenges in distributing vaccination of COVID-19, once it is out for distribution? Background:

• The government recently said it will procure the vaccine and distribute it under a special COVID-19 immunisation programme to four categories of people, free-of-charge. The priority groups named are healthcare professionals including doctors, nurses and ASHA workers, a second category that includes frontline workers including police and armed forces, the third category of those aged above 50 and finally those below 50 years of age with co-morbidities.

Challenges

• All of those sounds like a simple rank-ordering, but it is not. Hard choices may need to be made. For example, when there is insufficient supply to offer vaccines to all who would otherwise qualify, which group will be prioritised?

• Deciding whom to vaccinate first may be dictated by the characteristics of the vaccines that become initially available, such as the ones that are more effective in the younger population than in older people. Should we then not vaccinate the elderly? Is there a bar below which vaccines should not be used in a particular group? As soon as we move beyond the big picture characterisation of initial priority groups, there are more questions for discussion than clear answers.

• The Ebola vaccine, too, requires the same kind of cold storage. This kind of storage was difficult to establish in West Africa, but was managed on the scale needed for Ebola — which is in the hundred thousand doses range.

• Attempts are being made to modify the vaccines and increase their stability to suit the storage conditions that already exist in many parts of the world. But they are unlikely to become available in the first-generation vaccines.

But a bigger challenge comes in the form of keeping the vaccines at ultralow temperatures during

distribution. Most of the COVID-19 vaccines, the RNA vaccines in particular, that are in the

advanced stage of Phase-3 trials require –70 degrees C to –80 degree C cold-chain.




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Infrastructure needed

• In India we have never had this kind of storage requirement and building the infrastructure for ultracold storage requires considerable resources, because you need not just the freezers, but also uninterrupted power supply.

• It may need to decide whether vaccines that require this form of storage should be used only in cities where such facilities can be built. It may make sense to even think about bringing people to the vaccine, instead of taking the vaccine to people in some settings.

• Hence, the decision to use a COVID-19 vaccine will need to take into consideration logistics and infrastructure needed to distribute and deliver vaccines, which goes beyond financial resources to purchase vaccines.

• The Oxford vaccine does not require ultracold temperatures, and hence, the existing system used in the routine immunisation programme may be able to handle the vaccines.

• The next biggest challenge might be in vaccinating people with two doses four weeks apart during the pandemic. Most of the vaccines at advanced stages of Phase-3 trial use two doses of the vaccine to achieve best results.

• Although oral vaccines are much easier to deliver than injectable vaccines, the logistics of storage, transport and delivery are similar.

• While the national immunisation programme is limited to vaccinating children, COVID-19 vaccination will be across age groups, including older people. It remains to be seen how well the lessons learnt from the national immunisation programme can be replicated for other age groups.

• With vaccines seen as one sure way to end the pandemic if 60-70% of the population is vaccinated, the question of making the vaccines available for free gains importance. But that does not rule out the possibility of selling them when vaccines become available in plenty even while they are available for free.

Buying vaccines

• There is a possibility of the government allowing companies to purchase vaccines to maintain business continuity. Probably, other groups that might be willing to pay for vaccines might also become eligible to buy vaccines.

• Any vaccines being diverted at a time when supply is limited deprives priority groups, so perhaps another way to think about this, is that certain types of vaccines that are unsuitable for public programmes in India because of expense or cold chain requirements, might be opened up for purchase by companies, organisations and individuals as a premium product. All this is ethically contentious, and needs discussion. There are no easy decisions or choices.

10. COVID-19 presents an opportunity to change ‘G’ in GDP from ‘Gross’ to ‘Green’. Explain? Introduction: History is divided into two periods: Before the Common Era or BCE and Common Era or CE. But given our experience this year, BCE could well stand for Before the COVID-19 Epidemic and CE for the COVID-19 Epidemic. To say that 2020 has been cataclysmic is to state the obvious and actually make an understatement.




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Our lives have been turned upside down. The COVID-19 crisis and its aftermath can be seen either as a longish pause on the button of economic growth or as an opportunity for reset, recalibration and rethink.

Ecological disequilibrium

• COVID-19 is undoubtedly a public health catastrophe and certainly calls for enhanced investments in research and development that impinges directly on public health. But more fundamentally, the pandemic reflects fundamental ecological disequilibrium.

• Evidence has accumulated that loss of biodiversity and ever-increasing human incursions into the natural world have contributed heavily to the outbreak and spread of epidemic diseases.

• Understanding the three Es — Evolution, Ecology and the Environment — will be key to identifying potential pandemics. COVID-19 also reinforces the need to pay far greater attention to the biosciences that underpin agriculture, health and the environment that are going to be profoundly impacted by the current pandemic.

• There is also now robust scientific evidence to show, for instance, how air pollution exacerbates the impacts of COVID-19. Public health science and environmental science are two sides of the same coin.

• In fact, environmental problems — such as air pollution, water pollution, chemical contamination, deforestation, waste generation and accumulation, land degradation and excessive use of pesticides — all have profound public health consequences both in terms of morbidity and mortality and hence demand urgent actions.

• The traditional ‘grow now, pay later’ model is not only unsustainable in the medium- to long-term but also dangerous to public health in the short term.

• A recent report of the Ministry of Earth Sciences called ‘Assessment of climate change over the Indian region’ is an excellent and up-to-date analysis that deserves wider debate and discussion. It also points to the need for making our future science and technology strategy in different areas anchored in an understanding of the impacts of climate change caused by continued emissions of greenhouse gases. This scientific understanding is essential for what may be a solution at one point of time but becomes a problem at another point and may even become a threat in a different context.

• Take the example of HFCs, or hydrofluorocarbons, that were at one time seen as the panacea to fix the depletion of the ozone layer. The depletion of the ozone layer has been fixed more or less, but HFCs are a potent threat from a climate change perspective since their global warming potential is a thousand times that of carbon dioxide.

The world example:

• In September 2018, the American State of California — the world’s fifth largest economy in itself — was the first to commit itself to carbon neutrality. The aim was to achieve this by 2045. In December 2019, a few weeks before the world became aware of the COVID-19 catastrophe, the European Union followed California’s example but with the year 2050 in mind.

• In September 2020, China stunned the world by declaring its goal of carbon neutrality by 2060. And just a few weeks ago, Japan and South Korea joined the club by announcing their intention to do so by 2050, like the EU.




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• India too has to begin thinking very seriously about its level of ambition in this regard, especially since this will have public health consequences as well. We cannot always hide behind the fact that our per capita emissions will continue to be low — that is obvious given the continued increase in the denominator.

• At the Paris climate change conference in December 2015, we committed to having 40% of our electricity-generating capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2030.

Goal of carbon neutrality

• India will become a $5 trillion economy in a few years. That is an arithmetical inevitability. Carbon neutrality, on the other hand, is a far bolder and worthwhile goal, the attainment of which has to be consciously engineered.

• It will involve massive scientific invention and technological innovation especially when it comes to removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere.

• Every solution being put forward these days, the most recent of which is what we refer to as geo-engineering, is riddled with complications that are not easy to resolve.

• Renewables are an integral part of the solutions we seek but they have to be seen as more than just devices: they open up avenues for re-architecturing systems as a whole. This has happened, for instance, in the German electricity sector over the past decade and a half.

Opportunity

• The post-COVID-19 world is an opportunity for us to switch gears and make a radical departure from the past to make economic growth ecologically sustainable.

• Much of the infrastructure we need for the future is still to be put in place — one estimate widely quoted that something like 70% of the infrastructure required in India by the year 2050 is waiting to be established.

• GDP growth must, without doubt, revive and get back to a steady 7%-8% growth path. However, in this post-COVID-19 world, we should make efforts to ensure that the ‘G’ in GDP is not ‘Gross’ but ‘Green’. In fact, some years back, Sir Partha Dasgupta, Professor at Cambridge University and one of the world’s greatest environmental economists, had prepared a fairly detailed framework for this.

India can and should show to the world how the measurement of economic growth

can take place while taking into account both ecological pluses and minuses

11. How do the changed Presidency in US affect India’s foreign policy? Explain. Background:

• The Saudis and Mr. Netanyahu (who had good relations with Mr. Trump) cannot be sure what policy President-elect Joe Biden will adopt on the questions of West Asia peace plans and the nuclear deal with Iran — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — which President Barack Obama negotiated when Mr. Biden was the Vice-President.

• For India, there are two foreign policy issues which are of great concern and interest — China and Iran in that order. For the world, the equation between the United States and China may be the relationship of the greatest consequence.




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• For India, the most consequential relationship is not with the U.S. — as is sometimes claimed — but one with China. What happens in greater West Asia will always remain of concern to us since we have a huge stake in that region, but those interests will not be affected one way or the other by who lives in the White House.

Quad dynamics and China

• In the Trump years, India got into a pretty close embrace with the U.S. It signed all the ‘foundational’ agreements with America and bought billions of dollars’ worth of military hardware from them. India resisted converting the Quad into a primarily military or strategic grouping, (what China perceives it to be) and is in fact aimed solely at containing China. The Quad is an anti-China coalition. How far it can be successful in containing the Dragon remains to be seen.

• The outgoing U.S. Secretary of State and his deputy were quite candid in declaring that: India needed America as an ally and that the Quad will have to be formalised in future. In other words, the Quad will have to be institutionalised and expanded by adding additional members such as Taiwan and South Korea.

• As the External Affairs Minister has stated, India will not join any military alliance. That might remain the case in form, but given the fact that all the other three, and perhaps five or six in future, are already in strategic alliance with one another and with the U.S., it is highly likely that India too will be forced to agree to some form of military alliance at a future date.

The Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (QSD, also known as the Quad) is an informal

strategic forum between the United States, Japan, Australia and India that is maintained

by semi-regular summits, information exchanges and military drills between member

countries. The diplomatic and military arrangement was widely viewed as a response to

increased Chinese[a] economic and military power, and the Chinese government

responded to the Quad by issuing formal diplomatic protests to its members.




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• The satellite imagery which the U.S. may provide in terms of the latest agreement concluded with the U.S. (the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement (BECA) for Geo-Spatial Cooperation) might be useful but it does not negate the premise that no external power would want to get involved on our side in case of major hostilities with China. On the other hand, if there is a major skirmish or worse in the South China Sea, the other members of the Quad will expect us to join them in fighting China, in an area far removed from our shores.

• If Mr. Biden adopts a more conciliatory approach towards China, we may find ourselves in a difficult situation. Since the U.S., under whatever presidency, will strictly follow its interests and may stage a somersault, we will be left alone in our confrontation with China. It is generally agreed that the U.S. has always needed an external enemy to keep its foreign policy focused, but that has not been the case so far with us.

• In any case, we have the ‘other’ in the shape of Pakistan. (Mr. G. Parthasarathi, a very influential adviser to Mrs. Indira Gandhi once told me that it is good for India to always have some tension with Pakistan.) Do we need another ‘other’ in the shape of China?

• We do not want China to be permanently hostile to us; it will absorb huge resources, human and material. Invoking foreign threats with tough rhetoric might help domestically, but not always and not for long. The strong rhetoric employed in relation to China will need to be tempered. Public opinion which has been worked up against China may make it difficult to do so immediately but the government is efficient in managing and moulding public opinion.

Handling Iran

• As for Iran — the other issue where Mr. Biden’s policy will be of great interest to us — it may be difficult for Mr. Biden to quickly reverse Mr. Trump’s adventurist policy towards Iran.

• It may not be possible, given the domestic compulsions, to readopt JCPOA in its original form, but he will surely, if slowly, engage Tehran in talks and negotiations through Oman or some other intermediary, to reduce tensions in the region. We should hope that he will not maintain the harsh unilateral sanctions that Mr. Trump imposed on Iran.

We may be able to buy Iranian oil, and sell our pharma and other goods to that country. The government may also feel less constrained in investing openly in oil and

The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) known commonly as the Iran nuclear

deal or Iran deal, is an agreement on the Iranian nuclear program reached in Vienna on

14 July 2015, between Iran and the P5+1 (the five permanent members of the United

Nations Security Council—China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States—plus

Germany) together with the European Union.

On 8 May 2018, Trump announced United States withdrawal from JCPOA. Following the

U.S.'s withdrawal, the EU enacted an updated blocking statute on 7 August 2018 to nullify

US sanctions on countries trading with Iran. In November 2018 U.S. sanctions came back

into effect intended to force Iran to dramatically alter its policies, including its support for

militant groups in the region and its development of ballistic missiles.




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other infra projects in Iran, including the rail project in which Indian Railways Construction Ltd has been interested.

The government need not feel disappointed at Mr. Trump’s defeat. After all, he too was not all that sentimental about India; he did threaten us with ‘consequences’ if we did not give hydroxychloroquine pills to America.

12. Is the right to work relevant as a concept any more given that most countries have embraced the market economy? As economies around the world struggle to recover from the double whammy of a pandemic and a lockdown, unemployment is soaring. In India, the land of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA), the promise of jobs and the politics of unemployment have a long history. Can a citizen demand work as a right, and is it the state’s responsibility to provide employment?

Legal status of the right to work internationally and in India:

• The right to work was a big topic of discussion after World War II, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights includes the right to work in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. In India, we don’t have a constitutional right to work. But what we do have is MGNREGA. This is a step in the direction of a right to work, but it is a statutory right. Under MGNREGA, a person can hold the state accountable for not fulfilling the right by demanding an unemployment allowance. But if the law is amended or withdrawn, the right vanishes.

• India has been seeing a declining jobs-to-GDP ratio, and mostly jobless growth, with labour also subject to the laws of the market.

• It is precisely under these circumstances that this right becomes important. The term ‘right to work’ is often used in the context of unemployment or lack of availability of work. But there is also another sense of it, which is the right to earn livelihood without any obstruction.

• In both these senses, what we have seen in the past few decades is that the path of development not only does not create adequate employment opportunities, it also actively dispossesses or displaces people from their means of livelihood.

• For a labour-abundant country like India, it does not make sense to encourage capital-intensive methods of production. It made sense in the countries in which these techniques of production evolved since they were labour-scarce. But more and more automation in a country like India is likely to lead to jobless growth. Such fundamental questions about our growth strategy need further deliberation.

How to make the right to work, work:

• One approach is Decentralised Urban Employment and Training, or DUET, which has been around for some time. The idea here, like with MGNREGA, is to create new employment opportunities so that those who are unemployed may be gainfully employed and earn a dignified living.

• This dignity is supposed to come from work conditions, such as being paid a fair wage and having regulated work hours, and also from the social value of the work that people do — useful things such as repairing school buildings, cleaning parks, and so on.




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• For DUET, urban local bodies can issue job vouchers to certified public institutions such as schools and universities for pre-approved tasks. These institutions can only use the vouchers to hire labour for pre-defined tasks — e.g. painting school buildings, repairing broken furniture, and so on. A whole range of skills can be accommodated. So this is a workable agenda, but to make it workable, we need not only political will, but also fiscal resources.

• The right to work is not only about lack of adequate work but also the profound lack of public goods and assets, in urban India generally. It is the state’s responsibility to provide these public goods, and this imperative can be combined with an employment creation programme just like MGNREGA does in rural areas.

• In MGNREGA too, the asset creation part is often under-emphasised, and it would be good to bring both these things together through an urban employment guarantee. Interestingly, three States — Odisha, Jharkhand and Himachal Pradesh — have launched something along these lines in the wake of COVID-19.

• There are bits of these policies that could be used if we wanted to try it out on a national scale. Together with MGNREGA, an Urban Employment Guarantee can be a very important piece of the puzzle, on the way to ensuring the right to work.

• To be sure, for all these things which the state is supposed to do, it should generate its own employment. But at the same time, it’s also supposed to safeguard people’s employment. That includes everything, from ensuring that street vendors have vending zones, and fish workers are protected, to ensuring that farmers have viable incomes — all of this comes broadly under the right to livelihood or right to work. One small part of this can be an employment guarantee, but by no means is it the only thing.

Thai example:

• In this context, people often cite the example of Thailand, which has a universal basic healthcare system that is labour-intensive. It solves two problems at the same time: it builds social infrastructure, and creates jobs.

• It is incumbent on the state to provide basic services such as health, education and housing, and in providing them, employment is generated. There may be some disagreement on whether it is the state itself that should provide, or if there should be room for private provisioning. Either way, spending on these things should be expanded.

Protection of rights at work:

• Over the decades, there has been a dilution of worker rights in India. A key point that is often lost in public debate is that, to the extent that protective labour laws exist/existed in India, they apply to a minuscule sliver of the labour force, say, people in permanent government jobs.

• For the rest, there is very little legal protection, very poor awareness of the protections that exist, and weak implementation. Yet, the mainstream narrative is that all labour in India is pampered. The labour codes that have just come into being are likely to further this process of weakening the position of labour in the Indian market.

A way forward:




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• An effective employment guarantee programme can be an excellent solution to the structural weakness of labour. So, given the constraints in state capacity when it comes to enforcing labour laws, tightening the labour market is a great way to ensure that workers are treated well.

• That is how a good employment guarantee programme would function as far as the rights ‘in work’ are concerned. If the state steps in and significantly reduces the surplus labour, particularly in the casual market, it automatically creates the conditions for better treatment of workers.

• A poster from the World War II period says ‘eight hours of work, eight hours of leisure, and eight hours of rest’. That was the original demand. Perhaps the correct way to view this is that if you guarantee a good eight hours of work, then automatically you are guaranteed that the rest is for you to enjoy your life, or the fruits of your labour.

• The right to work essentially plays into capitalism and the work ethic — the right to work is the right to be exploited by capital. And that is a perfectly fair point of view. If you are really looking at the future of humanity, then one cannot take a narrow perspective. Work should be fulfilling, work should be creative, and work has to be put in its place, which is hopefully a very small place.

13. Discuss the pros and cons of India joining the major trade bloc RCEP?

• The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), a mega trade bloc comprising 15 countries led by China, said India would have to write expressing “intention” to join the organisation to restart negotiations for membership.

• “The RCEP signatory states will commence negotiations with India at any time after the signing of the RCEP Agreement once India submits a request in writing of its intention to accede to the RCEP Agreement to the depository of the RCEP Agreement, taking into consideration the latest status of India’s participation in the RCEP negotiations and any new development thereafter,” declared the RCEP, which comprises the 10 ASEAN members and Australia, China, Japan, South Korea and New Zealand.




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• The China-backed group is expected to represent at least 30% of the global GDP and will emerge as the largest free trade agreement in the world. The mega trade bloc is a landmark initiative, which is expected to boost commerce among the member-countries spread across the Asia-Pacific region.

India’s hesitation:

• Prime Minister Narendra Modi addressed the ASEAN Summit on November 12 and highlighted the necessity for peace and stability in the region but maintained silence regarding RCEP, indicating India’s difficulty in welcoming the China-backed grouping.

• India’s ties with China in recent months have been disturbed by the military tension in eastern Ladakh along the LAC. In the meantime, India has also held maritime exercise with Japan, Australia and the United States for the “Quad”, interpreted as an anti-China move. However, these moves did not influence Japanese and Australian plans regarding RCEP.

• India did not return to the negotiations despite request from the RCEP members, who have discussed the trade pact for nearly eight years.

• Experts are interpreting the beginning of RCEP as a major development that will help China and trade in Asia-Pacific region in the post-COVID-19 scenario.

‘Leverage for China’

• The agreement means a lot for China as it will give it access to Japanese and South Korean markets in a big way, as the three countries haven’t yet agreed on their FTA.

• The fact that this happened, despite the pandemic, is certainly leverage for China, and shows the idea of decoupling from China is not a substantive issue in a regional sense.

• Sri Lanka’s growing emphasis on tapping the emerging Asian market would make the China-led Regional Cooperation Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement seem an ideal forum to build trade ties in the region. But given the island nation’s current economic challenges and India’s decision to opt out of the grouping, the road is far from easy for Sri Lanka, according to economists.

‘Eroded trust’

• In his comments at the ministerial-level discussion of the 15th East Asia Summit, Mr. Jaishankar obliquely referred to China and said “actions and incidents” in the important maritime region eroded trust and suggested the need to adhere to the rules-based international system. He also maintained the need for “respecting territorial integrity and sovereignty” — an obvious reference to tension at the LAC and Chinese activities in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.

• It is understood that staying out of RCEP may interfere with India’s bilateral trading with the RCEP member-countries.

A way forward:

• However, 12 months down the road, India’s opting out appears far more debatable in terms of its economic rationale. With global trade and the economy foundering on the shoals of the COVID-19 pandemic, especially as new infections in Europe and the U.S. prompt fresh restrictions there, the pre-eminence of the east Asian and Pacific countries including China, South Korea, Vietnam, Australia and New Zealand serving as a bulwark in containing the pandemic and re-energising economic activity can hardly be understated.




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• Add to this the heightened tariff uncertainty generated by the deadlocked Brexit negotiations between Britain and the E.U., and it becomes evident that India may have missed a vital opportunity.

• Given that the RCEP members now account for about 30% of the global GDP and a third of the world’s population, the signatory states were emphatic that the timing of the accord presents a unique opportunity to support their economic recovery, inclusive development and job creation even as it helps strengthen regional supply chains.

• Interestingly, among the ASEAN signatories are several relatively far smaller economies including Vietnam and the Philippines, which not only continue to have their share of disputes with Beijing but also suffer significant trade imbalances with Asia’s largest economy.

• That these and other larger nations in the grouping have chosen to bury their geopolitical differences with China in order to prioritise what they collectively see as a mutually beneficial trading compact that would benefit their economies over the longer term is the clearest testament to economic realism trumping nationalist politics. Also, the summary of the final agreement shows that the pact does cover and attempt to address issues that India had flagged including rules of origin, trade in services, movement of persons and, crucially, remedies and safeguards.

• Acknowledging India’s economic heft and value as a market, the RCEP members have not only left the door open should New Delhi reconsider its stance but have also waived a key 18-month cooling period for interested applicants. It would be in India’s interest to dispassionately review its position and embrace openness rather than protectionism.

GS-1

WORLD HISTORY:

1) The recently discovered skeleton of the pre historic era throws light into

food habits of that era. Explain?

• German researchers are piecing together the life of a prehistoric woman who died more than 5,000 years ago in the Neolithic period, after her skeleton was found when excavating for wind turbines.

• The “Lady of Bietikow,” as she has been named, was found near a village of the same name in northeastern Germany's Uckermark region.

• Investigations have shown that she was between 30 and 45 years old and died more than 5,000 years ago.

• That means that she lived during the same period as Oetzi the Iceman, the stunningly preserved corpse found by tourists in the Alps in the 1990s.

• “You can compare Oetzi and the Lady of Bietikow in terms of age,” said Philipp Roskoschinski, one of the two archaeologists who made the discovery.

• All that is left of the skeleton are bones and some fragments of clothing.

• The woman, who was probably 30 to 45 years old, was buried within a settlement. She was buried in the so-called crouched position, one of the oldest known forms of burial, with knees bent and arms folded towards the chest, the head pointing east and facing north. No grave goods were found in the grave.




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• It was during the Neolithic period that humans first introduced grains into their diet, since they could be stored more easily than meat and could also be used as a means of payment, according to anthropologist Bettina Jungklaus.

• However, this led to a deterioration in people's general health. This can be seen in the state of the Lady of Bietikow's teeth, which are severely eroded and missing completely in some places, Jungklaus said.

• Normally there is enamel on the surface of the teeth. But here it is heavily worn, chewed off.

• This allowed to draw conclusions about her diet: it was probably very rich in fibre,

very hard. There are certain grains that cause the teeth to wear out easily.

• It remains unclear whether the condition of the Lady of Bietikow’s teeth indicates an illness or even the cause of her death.




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GS-2

GOVERNANCE:

1) In the wake of Assembly by-elections in Madhya Pradesh, the concept of ‘star-campaigner’ gained attention. Discuss?

Background:

• Since political parties appoint star campaigners, the Election Commission has issued guidelines in the Model Code of Conduct regulating poll campaign by them.

• A ‘recognised’ party declared as such by the Election Commission -- can nominate a maximum of 40 star campaigners.

• An unrecognised political party can nominate a maximum of 20 star campaigners.

• They are nominated by the concerned political parties specifying their constituencies and duration of the status.

• For an individual candidate to get a relief from campaign expenditure, the star campaigner has to limit oneself to general campaigning for the party.

• The MCC guidelines say when a prime minister or a former prime minister is star campaigner, the expenditure incurred on security including on the bullet-proof vehicles will be borne by the government and will not be added to the election expenses of the party or the individual candidate.

• If she/he shares stage with a candidate, the entire campaign cost except expenditure incurred on travelling will added to the candidate’s election expenses. This applies even if the star campaigner seeks vote for the candidate taking his or her name.

• The star status ensures that some leaders can charter helicopters and travel extensively to cover more territory and constituencies without breaching any individual candidate’s spending limit.

News:

• The Supreme Court’s stay on the revocation of the status of former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Kamal Nath as a ‘star campaigner’ for the Congress brings to the fore the power of the Election Commission of India and its role in ensuring a clean campaign.

• Chief Justice S.A. Bobde appeared convinced that the ECI has no such power, and ordered a stay on its order. Mr. Nath earned the ECI’s rebuke after a distasteful personal remark about a BJP woman candidate while campaigning for a by-election to the Madhya Pradesh Assembly recently.

Constitutional provisions:

• The Commission’s order dated October 30 said it was revoking his status as a leader of a political party (star campaigner). Section 77 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951, which relates to a candidate’s election expenditure, does leave it to the political party itself to decide who its “leaders” are and allows every party to submit a list of such ‘star campaigners’ to the election authorities.

A star campaigner is a celebrity vote seeker in an election for a party. This person can be a politician

or even a film star. There is no law governing who can or cannot be made a star campaigner.




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• The ECI has cited the clause in the MCC that bars candidates from resorting to “criticism of all aspects of the private life, not connected with the public activities” of other leaders and party workers. Even though the model code is not statutory, it has been generally recognised that the election watchdog should have some means of enforcing its norms.

SOCIAL ISSUES:

1. With the prevalence of the pandemic, discuss the role of health insurance policies in developing countries like India?

The Indian health insurance industry has seen a major revamp, resulting in health insurance policies becoming far more customer-centric than earlier. Over the last few months, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (IRDAI) has announced several modifications to health insurance norms, a process initiated keeping in mind the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. These changes have now come into force both for new and existing policies.

Impact of standardisation

• The implementation of the new guidelines has had a positive impact on customers. Standardisation of the policy wordings for inclusions, exclusions, waiting periods and most importantly, the terms and conditions, have made health insurance easier for customers to understand and choose a suitable plan.

• Standardisation is a great initiative by the regulatory body as it would help customers gain better clarity on what the insurer is covering under the plan they wish to buy. Moreover, the move would bring about uniformity and promote transparency in health insurance plans, which was earlier a major concern for consumers.

• The inclusion of consultations over telemedicine in policies that cover consultations under OPD is another major milestone as, during tough times such as today when everyone is trying to avoid stepping out of the house unnecessarily, tele-consultations have become prevalent.




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• With revamped products already available in the market, out-of-pocket expenses of customers are also going down as the insurance firms are now not allowed to recover any expenses towards proportionate deductions other than the defined associated medical expenses.

• And for customers worried that standardisation would result in an increase in premiums, the regulator has decided to cap the impact of the changes on premiums.

Key changes

• In an attempt to ensure that policyholders get the best available healthcare facilities and treatment across India, the IRDAI has mandated that customers are eligible for all modern treatment methods through a health policy. Under the revamped products, modern procedures shall be covered either as an inpatient or as part of domiciliary hospitalisation or day care treatment in a hospital.

• Some prominent procedures for which you can now take treatment for include deep brain stimulation, robotic surgeries, uterine artery embolisation and HIFU, oral chemotherapy and stem cell therapy.

• As per the guidelines issued by the regulator, going forward, insurers will not be allowed to recover any expenses towards proportionate deductions other than the defined associated medical expenses from the customers. Expenses that would now not be a part of the associate medical expenses category include the cost of pharmacy, cost of implants and medical devices and cost of diagnostics.

• Also, insurance firms have been directed not to apply proportionate deductions in respect of hospitals that do not follow differential billing based on the room category.

• Going forward, the definition of pre-existing diseases (PED) has also been modified as per the needs of the customers.

• As per the issued guidelines, any disease or ailment that is diagnosed by a physician 48 months before the issuance of the health cover will be classified under PED. This means that all ailments will be covered under a health insurance cover by serving a waiting period of maximum 48 months.

• Moreover, the IRDAI has even mandated that insurers must only include permanent exclusions after due consent of the customers.

• The regulator has given customers the provision of paying the premium in easy monthly instalments. This provision, for now, is only available for people who are buying a fresh cover.

• Apart from this, policyholders can now even avail of treatment for mental illness under their cover. As per the guidelines on covering mental illness under health cover, insurers cannot deny coverage to policyholders who have used opioids or anti-depressants in the past.

• Also, insurance companies cannot deny coverage to people with a proven history of clinical depression, personality or neurodegenerative disorders, sociopathy and psychopathy. While inpatient hospitalisation for mental disorders will be covered under the regular plans, outpatient counselling or therapy will be covered under the OPD benefit.




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2. Discuss in detail the dissent over the farm law bills introduced by the central

government with examples. Background:

• Amidst protest from opposition and a section of farmer's organisations, the

Monsoon Session of the Lok Sabha passed three agricultural bills.

• They are: The Farmers’ Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation),

the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement of Price Assurance and Farm

Services and the Essential Commodities (Amendment) Act.

• The government has said these reforms will accelerate growth in the sector through

private sector investment in building infrastructure and supply chains for farm

produce in national and global markets.

• They are intended to help small farmers who don’t have means to either bargain for

their produce to get a better price or invest in technology to improve the

productivity of farms.

• The bill on Agri market seeks to allow farmers to sell their produce outside APMC

'mandis' to whoever they want. Farmers will get better prices through competition

and cost-cutting on transportation.

Dissent:

• Farmers in Punjab and other parts are protesting against these reforms. Badal, too,

tendered her resignation after the Bills were passed. Opposition parties, including

TMC, Congress, DMK and BSP, opposed the agriculture sector reform bills, saying

they were against the interests of small and marginal farmers.

Rajasthan example:

• The Rajasthan Assembly passed three Bills to stop the applicability of the Centre’s

new farm laws in the State through amendments that make the Central Acts

ineffective in certain respects.




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• The Bills were passed by voice vote after a nine-hour debate, in which the treasury

and opposition benches exchanged barbs.

• Rajasthan has become the second Congress-ruled State after Punjab to formally

reject the farm Acts.

• The Opposition BJP staged a walkout before the Bills were put to vote, saying the

State government did not have the powers under the Constitution to bring in such

legislation.

Three Bills

• The three Bills, pertaining to the State amendments to the Central statutes, were the Farmers Produce Trade and Commerce (Promotion and Facilitation) (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020, the Farmers (Empowerment and Protection) Agreement on Price Assurance and Farm Services (Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020, and the Essential Commodities (Special Provisions and Rajasthan Amendment) Bill, 2020.

‘Will affect PDS’

• It is believed that, the bills enforced without any change, would also adversely affect the public distribution system (PDS), as the commodities like rice and wheat would not be available for procurement.

3. Discuss India’s success in vaccination program to prevent child pneumonia

and diarrhoea?

• India has made significant progress in its vaccination coverage to prevent child pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths, according to the latest annual Pneumonia and Diarrhoea Progress Report released by the International Vaccine Access Centre (IVAC).

• This year’s report card finds that although overall the world’s health systems are falling short of ensuring that children have access to prevention and treatment services, India has achieved the global target of 90% coverage for three of the five vaccines whose coverage is monitored in the report.

• These vaccines are Diphtheria, Pertussis and Tetanus (DPT) vaccine, Measles-containing-vaccine first dose, Haemophilus influenzae type B, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV), and rotavirus vaccine.

• While India’s coverage of rotavirus vaccine increased by 18 percentage points (35% rotavirus coverage in 2018 expanded to 53% in 2019), coverage against pneumococcal pneumonia increased by 9 percentage points (6% PCV coverage in 2018 expanded to 15% in 2019).




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100-day agenda

• In 2019, India completed the “100-day agenda” — an unprecedented national scale-up of rotavirus vaccine. This landmark vaccine expansion will help protect 26 million children born each year against life-threatening cases of rotavirus diarrhoea, stated the report.

• The report tracked progress by analysing 10 indicators from the latest available data on how countries are delivering key interventions — including breastfeeding, immunisation, care-seeking and antibiotics, oral rehydration solution (ORS), and zinc supplementation — shown to prevent pneumonia and diarrhoea deaths. Of the 15 focus countries included in the report, India is one of just four countries that exceeded targets for exclusive breastfeeding.

• However, nearly every country included in the report lagged in access to treatments against pneumonia and diarrhoea. India failed to reach all four targets for treatment, the report stated, adding that the treatment for diarrhoea had the lowest coverage, with only 51% of children receiving ORS and 20% getting zinc.

• “Although there was progress in India in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic threatens the hard-won gains because of disruptions caused in routine health services like immunisation and access to medical oxygen, the report stated.

4. Sex ratio of states

• Arunachal Pradesh recorded the best sex ratio in the country, while Manipur

recorded the worst, according to the 2018 report on “Vital statistics of India based on the Civil Registration System” published by the Registrar-General of India.

• Sex ratio at birth is the number of females born per 1,000 males.

• Arunachal Pradesh recorded 1,084 females born per thousand males, followed by Nagaland (965) Mizoram (964), Kerala (963) and Karnataka (957). The worst was reported in Manipur (757), Lakshadweep (839) and Daman & Diu (877), Punjab (896) and Gujarat (897).




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• Delhi recorded a sex ratio of 929, Haryana 914 and Jammu and Kashmir 952.

• The ratio was determined on the basis of data provided by 30 States and Union Territories as the “requisite information from six States namely Bihar, Jharkhand, Maharashtra, Sikkim, Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal is not available”, the report said.

• The number of registered births increased to 2.33 crore in 2018 from 2.21 crore registered births the previous year. “The level of registration of births has increased to 89.3% in 2018 from 81.3% in 2009,” the report said.

• The prescribed time limit for registration of birth or death is 21 days. Some States, however, register the births and deaths even after a year.

• The birth or death certificate is issued free of charge by the Registrar concerned if reported within 21 days. If reported within 21-30 days, it can be registered on payment of the prescribed fee. If the duration is more than 30 days but within a year, it can be registered with the written permission of the prescribed authority and on production of an affidavit made before a notary public or any other officer authorised by the State government and on payment of a fee.

• “Births and deaths reported after one year of occurrence shall be registered only on an order of the Magistrate of the First Class after verifying the correctness and on payment of the prescribed fee,” the report said.

5. Discuss the idea of PPP in health sector.

• The 15th Finance Commission has mooted a greater role for public private partnerships to ramp up health infrastructure and scale up public spending on health from 0.95% of the GDP to 2.5% by 2024.

• While public outlays should focus on primary health care at the panchayat and municipality levels, private players should be relied on for specialty healthcare, hinting that the commission has recommended steps to fix the skewed availability of healthcare across India as poorer States have the worst facilities.




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• “The total spending of around 0.95% of GDP is not adequate both in relation to our peer groups, and in relation to the commitments under the National Health Policy of 2017. There is no doubt that public spending, both by the Centre and the States, need to go up very significantly. And the endeavour must be to raise public spending from 0.95% of GDP to 2.5% of GDP by 2024.

• While India does not have adequate health infrastructure, the picture is “exceedingly skewed” among the States with the poorest of them having the worst health infrastructure.

• Doctors in many States were engaged on a contract basis and there is need to improve their working conditions.

• To achieve better healthcare parameters, public private partnerships must be considered “in a holistic way” instead of the current situation where the government only turned to the private sector in times of emergency.

• For that, a working relationship is needed and this relationship can be built only if, first and foremost, the trust deficit that exists [between industry and government] now is bridged. Private sector investment in health has an exceedingly important role to play.

6. With labour law reforms set to change industrial relations, what is the role of trade unions in the big picture? Ten central trade unions (CTUs) have called for a nation-wide strike on November 26, 2020 to condemn what they consider to be the anti-people, and anti-labour economic policies of the government. This follows strikes in the coal and defence sectors protesting privatisation and the corporatisation policies of the government.

Reason for dissent:

• With the introduction of economic reforms concretely since 1991, employers and the global financial institutions have been lobbying for labour market and structural reforms. The reform processes gained momentum since 2015 and the National Democratic Alliance government has enacted four Labour Codes in the last two years.

• The Codes do extend some labour rights such as universal minimum wage, statutory recognition of trade unions, formalisation of employment contracts, and social security to gig and platform economy workers.

• However, they also afford substantial flexibility to the employers in terms of easy hire and fire, freedom to hire contract labour and unregulated fixed-term-employment, etc. The Codes have also considerably redefined the concept and practice of labour inspection system by diluting it.

• The Codes and state retrenchment in the industrial sector and fiscal conservatism — especially in the context of higher levels of unemployment — along with stubborn inflation have created tremendous insecurity among workers.

• Migrant and informal workers underwent woeful experiences during the COVID-19 period, and trade unions as well as commentators perceive that the state has not provided adequate relief to workers.




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Six options:

• The central government and several State governments had chosen the COVID-19 crisis-ridden period as an “opportune time” to enact labour law reforms having far-reaching adverse consequences for labour rights and structural reforms.

• The central government, as per trade unions, did not conduct an effective and sustaining social dialogue, though it held a few symbolic parleys with them. At the State level, social dialogue institutions are largely absent or weak. The last Indian Labour Conference, a tripartite social dialogue body, was held in 2015. The government has dismissed social dialogue as being ineffectual and even frustrating.

• The Central trade unions, including the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh-affiliated trade union, the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, have made numerous representations to the government on their demands and suggestions not only relating to labour market reforms but also on tackling of COVID-19 crises.

• Trade unions contend that many of their suggestions have not been incorporated in the Codes and the COVID-19 relief measures.

• The whole political exercise of the passage of the Farm Bills and the three Labour Codes during the COVID-19 period smacks of “un-democracy” as Parliament did not witness “healthy discussions”.

Seeking assistance

• The judiciary seems to be the only source of hope in these times of “institutional corrosion”. Though the Supreme Court of India did not respond quickly to provide relief to migrant workers, it has struck down the Gujarat government’s amendment of the Factories Act. Unions must shed their judicio-phobia and approach it provided they have strong legal grounds to challenge reforms introduced by Central or State governments.

• Trade unions, out of their patriotic mindset, do not use extensively the complaints mechanism created by the International Labour Organization for fear of washing dirty linen in the global spaces; but they did seek ILO intervention recently. But the ILO’s intervention in May 2020 only provided a temporary respite to trade unions as the government did what it has been doing.

• So, trade unions are left with the only option — of demonstrative “industrial action” followed by sustained protest actions. It is in this context, that the central trade unions have these demands:

✓ Direct cash transfer of ₹7,500 per month for all non-income tax-paying families; ✓ 10 kg free ration per person per month to all the needy; ✓ Expansion of MGNREGA to provide 200 days of work in a year in rural areas at

enhanced wages; ✓ Extension of employment guarantees to urban areas; ✓ Withdrawal of all anti-farmer laws and anti-worker labour codes; ✓ A halt to privatisation;

In such a context, trade unions have six options to confront or soften these

measures — viz. social dialogue, political lobbying, political confrontation through

Opposition parties, legal action by approaching the judiciary, seek the

International Labour Organization’s intervention, and direct industrial action.




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✓ Protection of government employment; ✓ Restoration of old pension schemes, etc.

• The demands reflect disappointment and even hurt and anger experienced by the working class not only during the time of COVID-19 but also for events of the last three decades.

• The Codes are set to rule the industrial relations system for long unless the government changes. This strike, as an individual event alone, is a signal to the larger society of the concerns of workers.

• Hence, it is legitimate but such action alone will not change the Codes. Trade unions must explore other avenues such as seeking the ILO’s intervention, judicial action and social dialogue.

• There is no alternative to social dialogue in a pluralistic democracy which all the parties in the industrial relations system must make effective use of and make suitable amendments to the Codes to aid both ease of doing business and promote labour rights. This strike is a reminder of this potential, positive reconstruction of laws.

7. India is still lurking in the shadow of Undernutrition. Give a statistical analysis?

Global reports:

• Two recent reports — the annual report on “The State of Food Security and Nutrition in the World 2020” by the Food and Agricultural Organization of the United Nations and the 2020 Hunger report, “Better Nutrition, Better Tomorrow” by the Bread for the World Institute document staggering facts about Indian food insecurity and malnutrition.

• Using two globally recognised indicators, namely, the Prevalence of Undernourishment (PoU) and the Prevalence of Moderate or Severe Food Insecurity (PMSFI), these two reports indicate India to be one of the most food-insecure countries, with the highest rates of stunting and wasting among other South Asian countries.

• The PoU measures the percentage of people who are consuming insufficient calories than their required minimum dietary energy requirement, while the PMSFI identifies the percentage of people who live in households that are severely or moderately food insecure.

• The reduction in poverty has been substantial going by official estimates available till 2011-12. However, malnutrition has not declined as much as the decline has occurred in terms of poverty. On the contrary, the reduction is found to be much lower than in neighbouring China, Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh.

• Except China, these are countries which had somewhat similar levels of PoU in and around the year 2000. In terms of percentages, the PoU has declined 24.7% between 2001 and 2018 for India; other data are China (76.4%), Nepal (74%), Pakistan (42%), Afghanistan (37.4%) and Bangladesh (18.9%). It must be noted that the decline in China is way higher than that of India, even though it had started with lower levels of PoU in 2000.

• In contrast, Afghanistan (47.8%) that started with a higher base than India (18.6%) had experienced higher rates of decline. Of note is the fact that, economically, while




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Afghanistan is relatively much poorer and has gone through several prolonged conflicts in last two decades, it has been more successful in reducing malnutrition than India.

• Further, Pakistan and Nepal which had almost similar (slightly higher to be precise) levels of PoU in the initial years, have also successfully reduced malnourishment at a rate that is much faster than India. Therefore, irrespective of the base level of PoU, most of these countries have done better than India on this dimension.

• These findings also get substantiated through Food Insecurity Experience Scale survey which covers almost 90% of the world’s population. Because it is not allowed to be conducted in India, direct estimates are not available.

• Instead, three-year moving average figures are given separately for the whole of South Asia and South Asia, excluding India. A difference between these two would roughly give us a sense about the extent and broad direction of the prevalence of food insecurity here.

• Our estimates indicate that between 2014-16, about 29.1% of the total population was food insecure, which rose up to 32.9% in 2017-19. In terms of absolute number, about 375 million of the total population was moderately or severely food insecure in 2014, which went to about 450 million in 2019.

Access to adequate food

• Despite the National Food Security Act – 2013 ensuring every citizen “access to adequate quantity of quality food at affordable prices”, two crucial elements that still got left out are the non-inclusion of nutritious food items such as pulses and exclusion of potential beneficiaries. Because of this, there is little to disagree that the current COVID-19 pandemic would make the situation worse in general, more so for vulnerable groups.

• In fact, the recently initiated “Hunger Watch” by the Right to Food Campaign presents a very grim situation, with close to one out of every three respondents reporting low food consumption and massive compromise on food quality. Though States have temporarily expanded their coverage in the wake of the crisis, the problem of malnutrition is likely to deepen in the coming years with rising unemployment and the deep economic slump.

• Hence, a major shift in policy has to encompass the immediate universalisation of the Public Distribution System which should definitely not be temporary in nature, along with the distribution of quality food items and innovative interventions such as the setting up of community kitchens among other things.

• This year’s Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the United Nations World Food Programme, which should bring some of the focus back on these pressing issues of undernourishment and hunger in India. The need of the hour remains the right utilisation and expansion of existing programmes to ensure that we arrest at least some part of this burgeoning malnutrition in the country.

GS 2

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS:

1. What is the role of Russia in the Armenia- Azerbaijan conflict? Will Russia take a diplomatic route in the ongoing conflict?




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Armenia’s leader, Nikol Pashinian, urged Russia to consider providing security assistance to end more than a month of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh, and both sides in the hostilities accused each other of breaking a mutual pledge not to target residential areas hours after it was mad.

Background:

• Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but has been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a war there ended in 1994. The latest outburst of hostilities began Sept. 27 and left hundreds — perhaps thousands — dead, marking the worst escalation of fighting since the war’s end.

• Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has insisted that Azerbaijan has the right to reclaim its territory by force after three decades of fruitless international mediation. He said that Armenia must pledge to withdraw from Nagorno-Karabakh as a condition for a lasting truce.

The Conflict – Russia’s role:

• The fighting represents the biggest escalation in decades in a long conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the separatist territory.

• Russia brokered a ceasefire two weeks into the conflict, but it didn’t hold.

• As Azerbaijani troops pushed farther into Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian asked Russian President Vladimir Putin to quickly discuss possible security aid to Armenia.

• Russia, which has a military base in Armenia and has signed a pact obliging it to protect its ally in case of foreign aggression, faces a delicate balancing act, of trying to also maintain good ties with Azerbaijan and avoid a showdown with Turkey.

• Mr. Pashinian’s request puts Russia in a precarious position — joining the fighting would be fraught with unpredictable consequences and risk an open conflict with Turkey.

• President Vladimir Putin said the security guarantee is for Armenia, not for the

Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. But Russia was apparently concerned about the

rapid change in the status quo and the more assertive security role Turkey was

playing in its backyard.




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• But By the third week of October, Russia established small military outposts along the Armenian border, apparently to prevent the conflict being spilling into mainland Armenia and also to send a message to Baku.

• In the same week, Russia conducted a massive air strike in Syria’s Idlib against Turkish-backed militants, killing dozens of them, which is seen as Moscow’s warning to Turkey. Mr. Putin accepted Azerbaijan’s victory (as the ceasefire allows Azeri troops to take control of the territories they have seized) but prevented a total defeat of Armenia.

• Under pressure from a decisive Moscow, both sides agreed to cease the operations.

Truce:

• According to the ceasefire, Armenia agreed to withdraw its troops from much of the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh. The core of the enclave with ethnic Armenians and Stepanakert as its capital would remain outside the control of Azerbaijan.

• As the broker of the truce, Russia would send some 2,000 peacekeepers to the region, who would patrol between the Azeri troops and Nagorno-Karabakh, including the Lachin corridor, which connects the enclave with Armenia.

• In sum, Azerbaijan gained territories, but not the whole of Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia lost territories it controlled since the 1990s but avoided a total defeat as much of Nagorno-Karabakh would remain independent of Azeri control. And Russia gained a bigger foothold in the region with its troops being deployed within Azerbaijan.

2. Explain India’s stand on Pakistan’s attempt to accord provincial status to Gilgit-Baltistan? Background: Gilgit-Baltistan formerly known as the Northern Areas, is a region administered by Pakistan as an administrative territory, and constituting the northern portion of the larger Kashmir region which has been the subject of a dispute between India and Pakistan since 1947.

Boundaries:

It is the northernmost territory administered by Pakistan. It borders Azad Kashmir to the south, the province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to the west, the Wakhan Corridor of Afghanistan to the north, the Xinjiang region of China, to the east and northeast, and the Indian-administered union territories Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh to the southeast.




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Geography and Demography:

• Gilgit-Baltistan covers an area of over 72,971 km2 and is highly mountainous. It had an estimated population of 1.249 million in 2013 (estimated as 1.8 million in 2015.

• Its capital city is Gilgit (population 216,760 est). Gilgit-Baltistan is home to five of the "eight-thousanders" and more than fifty peaks above 7,000 metres (23,000 ft). Three of the world's longest glaciers outside the polar regions are found in Gilgit-Baltistan.

News:

• India slammed Pakistan for its attempt to accord provincial status to the “so-called Gilgit-Baltistan”, saying it is intended to camouflage the “illegal” occupation of the region by Islamabad.

• Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) spokesperson Anurag Srivastava said India “firmly rejects” the attempt by Pakistan to bring material changes to a part of Indian territory which is under Islamabad’s “illegal and forcible occupation” and asked the neighbouring country to immediately vacate such areas.

• He said the Government of Pakistan had no locus standi on territories “illegally and forcibly” occupied by it and that the latest move would not be able to hide the “grave” human rights violations in these Pakistan-occupied territories.

• Pakistan has announced holding elections for the legislative assembly of Gilgit-Baltistan later this month.

• In a ruling earlier this year, the Pakistan Supreme Court allowed Islamabad to amend a 2018 administrative order to conduct general elections in the region. The Gilgit-Baltistan Order of 2018 provided for administrative changes, including authorising the Prime Minister of Pakistan to legislate on an array of subjects.

• Following the verdict, India issued a demarche to a senior Pakistani diplomat here and lodged a strong protest over the apex court ruling.

• The polls were to be held on August 18, but they were postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic.

3. Who is Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifaa and why is he in news recently? News:




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• Bahrain’s Prince Khalifa bin Salman al-Khalifa, the world’s longest-serving Prime Minister who had held the post since Independence in 1971, died at the age of 84, the state media announced.

• Prince Khalifa was a controversial figure during his five decades in office — and deeply unpopular with the Sunni-ruled kingdom’s Shia population.

• When Shia-led protesters occupied Manama’s Pearl Square for a month in 2011, before being driven out by Saudi-backed security forces, their main demand was for the prince to step down.

Quashing opposition

• He played a key role in Bahrain’s political and economic affairs, including setting the stage for a referendum that put paid to the Shah of Iran’s claims to the tiny Gulf archipelago.

• But the Prime Minister, who was accused by dissidents of opposing reforms and cracking down on activists, adopted a lower profile in recent years as his age advanced and as Crown Prince Salman played a more prominent role.

• Prince Khalifa died at the Mayo Clinic Hospital in the United States, the official Bahrain News Agency said.

• The country will hold a week of official mourning, during which flags will be flown at half-mast. Government Ministries and departments will be closed for three days. Gulf leaders paid tribute, hailing the veteran leader’s long career “that has shaped Bahrain’s recent history”, according to Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al-Maktoum.




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4. How does the China’s new railroad up to Arunachal border affects Tibetan

region? Explain.

• China has begun work on a strategically significant railway line — its second major rail link to Tibet — that will link Sichuan province with Nyingchi, which lies near the border with India’s Arunachal Pradesh.

• Underlining the special importance that the Chinese government has placed on the project, President Xi Jinping officially “gave the instruction” to being work on the project and called it “a major step in safeguarding national unity and a significant move in promoting economic and social development of the western region”.

• The importance of the project, Chinese experts said, is two-fold. Like the Qinghai-Tibet railway line, which in 2006 connected Lhasa to the hinterland, this will be the second such route linking the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) to the hinterland.

• Secondly, it will run right up to Nyingchi near the border with India, which it will link to both Lhasa and Chengdu, the provincial capital of Sichuan. The entire line will run from Chengdu to Lhasa, connecting the two capitals of TAR and Sichuan and cutting the journey from 48 hours to 13 hours.

• If a scenario of a crisis happens at the border, the railway can act as a ‘fast track’ for the delivery of strategic materials.

• It is also of great significance in safeguarding national unity and consolidating border stability.

• The 435-km section from Nyingchi-Lhasa segment has been under construction since 2015, and will be finished by the end of next year. State media reported as much as 75% of this section consists of 120 bridges and 47 tunnels, with a designated speed of 160 km/h.

• This includes a 525 metre-long bridge across the Yarlung Zangbo river, as the Brahmaputra is called in Tibet, which has been built at a height of 3,350 metres. The official Xinhua news agency said this makes it the world's highest concrete-filled steel tube arch railway bridge.




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5. How the Track 1.5 Dialogue is an opportunity for a greater India-Canada convergence? Explain in detail Indo-Canadian ties in this regard? News:

• On November 17, the third round of India-Canada Track 1.5 Dialogue, comprising senior diplomats, officials and independent experts, addressed by Canadian Foreign Minister François-Philippe Champagne and India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar on a virtual platform.

• The Ministers deliberated on and define the role of India and Canada in the post-COVID-19 world.

• This promising interaction represents a major, deliberate endeavour to boost the bilateral relationship, helping it to cope with challenges of the third decade of the 21st century.

• It demonstrates how far the two governments have progressed in just two years, following the setback caused by the differences over the Khalistan issue that surfaced both before and during Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s week-long visit to India in February 2018.

• And this dialogue creates a template for a judicious merger of government to government (G2G) diplomacy with public diplomacy, and the maturing role of think tanks in the conduct of foreign policy today.

Think tanks as the pivot

• The 1.5 Track Dialogue has been piloted since February 2018 by two think tanks — Gateway House: Indian Council on Global Relations and Canada’s Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI). Their deep three-year-long has encouraged the governments to focus on the immediate opportunities available in investment, technology and geopolitical rearrangements.

• The real turning point came at the dialogue’s second round, held in Mumbai in November 2019, a month after the parliamentary elections in Canada resulted in Mr. Trudeau’s return to power, albeit with a reduced number of Members of Parliament for his party. The new government in Ottawa preferred to be more cautious on sensitive bilateral issues, and more receptive to New Delhi’s view that the larger geopolitical shifts justified a closer convergence of national perspectives.

• Mr. Jaishankar’s visit to Canada in December 2019 initiated a new phase, consolidating mutual understanding. It laid the ground for more frequent interactions this year, including two virtual meetings between the Prime Ministers and four meetings between the trade ministers conducted digitally.

Tensions in China-Canada ties

• Common challenges of the COVID-19 era accelerated the momentum. Canada’s travails with China, starting with the arrest of Meng Wanzhou, Huawei’s chief financial officer in Canada in December 2018 and the ‘hostage diplomacy’ practised by Beijing which arrested two Canadian nationals, has caused huge stress in Canada-China relations, turning Canadian public opinion against China.

• This opened the door to a closer relationship with India, with Canadian sympathy for India’s summer of troubles with China’s aggressive intrusions across the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh since April 2020.




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• In this backdrop, developments concerning the Indo-Pacific — escalating discontent against Beijing’s aggressive behaviour, strengthening of the Quad and the growing interest of France, Netherlands and Germany to be active players in the region — are of immense relevance to Ottawa. The forthcoming dialogue can deepen the India-Canada convergence on this issue.

Many strong points

• The other major focal point will be the economic and technological cooperation between the two countries.

• Foreign policy observers highlight the importance of recent positive trends, as below: Canada-India merchandise trade exceeded C$10 billion in 2019; Canada’s cumulative investment, including foreign direct investment and by Canadian pension funds, is a substantive C$55 billion, according to diplomatic sources.

• Addressing virtually the ‘Invest India’ conference in Canada on October 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi pointed out that mature Canadian investors have been present in India for many years and assured them that no barriers would come in their way.

• Indian students are increasingly being educated in Canada, and a quarter million of them spent an estimated $5 billion in tuition fees and other expenses last year, a solid contribution to the Canadian economy.

• Of 330,000 new immigrants accepted by Canada last year, 85,000 i.e. nearly 25%, were from India. The Indian diaspora in Canada is now 1.6 million-strong, representing over 4% of the country’s total population. Like their brethren to the south, they are increasingly mainstreamed in Canadian politics.

• The principal areas of bilateral cooperation are best defined by five Es: Economy, Energy, Education, Entertainment and Empowerment of women. In particular, the digital domain holds immense potential, given Canada’s proven assets in technology — especially its large investment in Artificial Intelligence, innovation and capital resources, and India’s IT achievements, expanding digital payment architecture and policy modernisation.

Divided by geographical distance but united through clear common interests and shared values, India and Canada will begin their steady journey of progress, this time with a laser-like focus on common goals as well.

6. What’s behind the conflict between Ethiopian govt. and Tigray rebels? What is the role of PM Abiy in the ongoing conflcit? News: Ethiopia’s Nobel Prize winning Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed started a military operation in the rebellious Tigray region earlier this month. Mr. Abiy has said it would be a limited campaign focusing on the Tigray People’s Liberation Front (TPLF), the militia-cum-political party that runs the northern region. However, almost two weeks into the conflict, Ethiopia risks falling into an ethnic civil war with regional implications.




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Background:

• The TPLF (Tigray People's Liberation Front) was founded in 1975 as a resistance army of the Tigrayan people against the military dictatorship, which was called the Derg. The leftist Derg, which was established in 1974, would change its title in 1987 but practically remained in power till it was ousted by the armed rebels in 1991.

• The TPLF played a crucial role in ousting the junta and they were welcomed as national heroes in 1991. TPLF leader Meles Zenawi took over as the interim President in 1991 and became the first elected Prime Minister in 1995. He is largely seen as the architect of the country’s ethno-federal system and remained in power till 2012.

• But over the years, the government led by the Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front (EPRDF), a coalition put together by Mr. Zenawi, was accused of being increasingly authoritarian and there were frequent mass protests in the regions.

• Though the EPRDF contains regional political parties such as the Amhara Democratic Party, the Oromo Democratic Party and the Southern Ethiopian People’s Democratic Movement, the TPLF remained the dominant political force.

• In 2018, the EPRDF chose Mr. Abiy, a former military intelligence officer, to lead the government amid growing protests and a political deadlock.

PM Abiy’s role:

• Though the EPRDF provided a stable rule with high economic growth for 17 years, there was mounting criticism against the country’s ethno-federal arrangement. The Tigray people make up roughly 6% of the population, while the Oromos have a 34% share and the Amharas 27%. While the TPLF controlled the levers of power through the EPRDF, the Oromos alleged marginalisation.

• As Prime Minister, Mr. Abiy took a host of steps to cut the outsized influence of the TPLF in the government. He purged TPLF functionaries from key government posts, released political prisoners (jailed by the TPLF-led government) and promised freer media. He reached out to Eritrea, a sworn enemy of the TPLF, which shares a long border with the Tigray region.




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• Mr. Abiy, the country’s first Oromo leader, claimed that his actions are not driven by ethnic calculations but rather aimed at addressing the historic power imbalance in the country and making peace with the neighbours. But the TPLF saw his moves as hostile.

The conflict:

• The tensions were building up for a while. When Mr. Abiy formed a new political coalition, the Prosperity Party, all constituents of the EPRDF, except the TPLF, joined the new platform.

• The TPLF saw the formation of a new party as an attempt by Mr. Abiy to consolidate more power in hands. The party’s leadership shifted from Addis Ababa to Mekele, the Tigray regional capital.

• In August, when Mr. Abiy’s government decided to postpone parliamentary elections, citing COVID-19, the TPLF openly challenged the decision. They accused the Prime Minister of power grab and went ahead holding elections in the region in defiance of the federal government.

• Then on November 3, TPLF militants attacked a federal military command in the Tigray region and captured military hardware and equipment, prompting Mr. Abiy to declare the military operation.

Geopolitical angle:

• Mr. Abiy’s outreach to Eritrea had outraged the TPLF, which had fought a prolonged war with the Eritrean government along the Tigray border. The TPLF now accuses Eritrea of backing Mr. Abiy’s offensive. The rebels fired rockets into Eritrea from Tigray, threatening a wider regional war in the Horn of Africa. Tigray rebels also fired rockets into the neighbouring Amhara region.

• Even if Mr. Abiy is serious about keeping the operation short, it could spill out of control, given the underlying complexities of the conflict. The TPLF’s old guard cut their teeth in the resistance against the Derg and they have thousands of fighters under their command. Also, the Tigray region shares a border with Sudan. The TPLF enjoyed good relations with Sudan’s ousted dictator Omar Bashir.

• Sudan has a border dispute with Ethiopia. If Sudan’s new rulers (the transition government includes civilian and military leaders) keep the old links with the TPLF active and the border open for the rebels, the conflict could go on. If it does, it could derail Mr. Abiy’s reform agenda at home as well as the diplomatic agenda abroad.

7. Bhutan`s border village – a disputed territory • Chinese media claimed that a new border village built by China near Bhutan was on

Chinese territory, but released images of the village show its location on territory disputed by the two countries.

• The Global Times confirmed that the village of Pangda had been newly built and residents moved there in September. An image released by the newspaper placed the village in disputed territory, a couple of kilometres inside what Bhutan sees as its territory.

• However, Bhutan’s officials denied the village was on their territory.

• According to open records, authorities in Yadong county of Southwest China’s Tibet Autonomous Region confirmed that 27 households with 124 people voluntarily




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moved from Shangdui village of Duina prefecture of Yadong county to Pangda village in September 2020, adding the village was 35 km away from the county.

• Chinese media reported there were 27 households, and the village was covered by asphalt roads and “has a public square, village committee, health room, police room, kindergarten, supermarket, and plastic runway”.

• China has in the past sought to bolster its territorial claims in disputed areas by

building civilian settlements there, as on disputed South China Sea islands.

• According to China’s maps, the village is within China’s territory, but China’s border

extends further south beyond where India and Bhutan say the border runs.

• The area is east of the India-Bhutan-China trijunction on the Doklam plateau, which

was the site of a 72-day stand-off in 2017 triggered by China’s road-building up to

where it sees its border.

• India moved in to stop the road, which was built a few hundred metres east of India’s border, saying China had entered Bhutanese territory and was unilaterally pushing the tri-junction further south.

• The new village is located farther east, away from the tri-junction.




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• Chinese experts blamed India for the unsettled China-Bhutan border and stalled negotiations.

GS-3

TECHNOLOGY:

1. Define mutation. What is the D614G mutation in coronavirus? Definition:

• A mutation is a change that occurs in our DNA sequence, either due to mistakes when the DNA is copied or as the result of environmental factors such as UV light and cigarette smoke.

• While novel coronavirus is undergoing many mutations, one particular mutation called D614G, according to a study, has become the dominant variant in the global COVID-19 pandemic.

D614G mutation:

• When the virus enters an individual’s body, it aims at creating copies of itself. When it makes an error in this copying process, we get a mutation.

• In this case, the virus replaced the aspartic acid (D) in the 614th position of the amino acid with glycine (G). Hence the mutation is called the D614G. This mutated form of the virus was first identified in China and then in Europe. Later it spread to other countries like the U.S. and Canada and was eventually reported in India.

• The D614G mutation is situated in the spike protein of the virus. “You can think of the spike protein as a massive ‘trimer’ assembly with three protein chains. Each protein chain has two sub-units (S1 and S2). The sub-unit S1 is the one that attaches to the host cells — Human ACE2 receptor”

• “The S2 sub-unit mediates the fusion of the viral and human membranes. The D614G mutation is present in the sub-unit S1 of the protein and is also close to the S2 sub-unit. Therefore, it has an impact on the human cell’s interactions with both S1 and S2.”




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• “In simple words, this particular mutation aids the virus in attaching more efficiently with the ACE2 receptor in the human host, thereby making it more successful in entering a human body than its predecessors,”.

• To provide a clear picture of how transmissible this particular mutation of the virus has become over time, a paper in the journal Cell says that the mutation was found in 10% of 997 global genome sequences before March 1, 67% of sequences between March 1 and March 31 and 78% of the sequences between April 1 and May 18.

The effects of the mutation:

• Not only did the D614G show increased infectivity but it also displayed greater ability at attaching itself to the cell walls inside an individual’s nose and throat, increasing the viral load.

• The patients seem to be exhibiting variable reactions to it depending upon their genetic constitution, age, exposure to other diseases etc. Researchers are still pondering over the effects of this mutation.

• A study (a preprint posted on bioRxiv) — which collected SARS-CoV-2-positive samples from the various States like Delhi, Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra and Uttar Pradesh among others — reveals that the D614G was one of the most prevalent spike mutations even during the initial phase of the pandemic.

• Since then, D614G mutation’s ‘relative abundance’ has increased over time to 70% and above, in most States except Delhi, reports another pre-print in BioRxiv after analysing samples from 10 Indian States.

Impact of mutation on vaccine research:

• A paper in the journal, Nature, after conducting experiments on hamsters, concluded that this particular mutation may not reduce the ability of vaccines in clinical trials to protect against COVID-19 and that the therapeutic antibodies should be tested against the circulating variant of the virus before clinical development.

• “There is a need for extreme caution with premature inferences on mutations and their effects without supporting experimental evidence. This could result in a media frenzy and potentially undermine public confidence in vaccines,”.

2. What is EOS-01? How is it important for the pandemic struck India? • India successfully launched its latest earth observation satellite EOS-01 and nine

international customer spacecraft on board a Polar rocket from the spaceport here on Saturday, in its first mission this year amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The Indian Space Research Organisation’s (ISRO) workhorse Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV-C49) injected EOS-01, intended for applications in agriculture, forestry and disaster management support, and other satellites, one by one in orbit, around 20 minutes after lift-off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre (SDSC), about 110 km from Chennai, at 3.12 p.m.

• This is ISRO’s first mission in 2020 after the COVID-19 pandemic induced lockdown disturbed 10 missions planned by the agency.




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• EOS-01 is an X-band, synthetic-aperture radar (SAR) based all weather Earth imaging satellite built by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) for tasks pertaining to forestry, agricultural and disaster management.

• It is a part of India's RISAT series of SAR imaging spacecraft and would be third satellite in the series including RISAT-2B, RISAT-2BR1 with 120° phasing. EOS-01 has been developed at the cost of roughly ₹125 crore.

• The nine customer satellites are from the United States (4), Lithuania (1) and Luxembourg (4).

• ISRO Chairman K. Sivan described the mission as a “success” and termed it “unusual” for ISRO as a rocket launch cannot happen like “work from home” and all engineers and technicians had to travel from different centres and work together at Sriharikota for rocket launches.

3. How efficient is Sputnik V vaccine? Is it safe to give Sputnik V for mass

vaccination? News:

• Russia’s Sputnik V vaccine has proven to be “92% efficacious” among a group of volunteers who are part of Phase 3 trials to test the vaccine, the Russian Health Ministry said in a statement.

• The results were based on an analysis of 20 participants in the trial who were confirmed COVID-19 positive. The trials consist of 20,000 people who got one dose of the vaccine, and 16,000 who got two, 14 days apart. The efficacy percentage means that when cases were split among the placebo group and vaccinated group, 92% of those who were vaccinated were safe.

• This is close to the efficacy percentage claimed by Pfizer that said its RNA vaccine was 90% efficacious, though that relied on a larger COVID-19-positive volunteer set of 94.

• The Russian trials are ongoing in multiple countries, and a Phase 2/3 trial that tests for a immune reaction in a limited number of people is going on in India too.




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Hyderabad-based Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories is a partner of the Russian organisation, Gamaleya Research Foundation, that has developed Sputnik V.

Production up

“The publication of the interim results of the post-registration clinical trials that convincingly demonstrate Sputnik V vaccine’s efficacy gives way to mass vaccination in Russia against COVID-19 in the coming weeks. Thanks to the production scale-up at new manufacturing sites, Sputnik V vaccine will soon be available for a wider population. This will break the current trend and lead to an eventual decrease in COVID-19 infection rates.

Not evaluated

• While the interim vaccine efficacy numbers are in same range as trial data reported by biotechnology and pharma companies such as Pfizer-BioNTech (95%), Moderna (94.5%) and Oxford-AstraZeneca (with an efficacy of 70%), Sputnik V appears, so far, to have relatively lower protectivity.

• For instance, according to the clinical trial protocol, there were three volunteers who got the vaccine for every one who got the placebo. Of the 14,095 who were inoculated with the actual Sputnik V vaccine, eight later tested positive and of the smaller placebo group, of 4,699 nearly four times as many — 31 — tested positive. From this, is derived the efficacy rate of 91%. This also translates to 1:4 protectiveness odds.

• By comparison, of the 95 cases Moderna analysed, 90 were observed in the placebo group versus 5 in the mRNA-1273 group — that is a 1:18 ratio.

• Of the 170 cases of COVID-19, as specified in the Pfizer-BioNTech study protocol, 162 cases were observed in the placebo group versus eight in those vaccinated — a 1:20 ratio. The Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine, being tested by the Serum Institute of India, relied on 131 positives but a break-up of placebo and vaccinated volunteers was not available.

• “Sputnik V relies on only 39 cases and that is too low a number for an efficacy evaluation. That said this is an interim result — like the others — and we should wait for the full data. The positive side is that like the other vaccine candidates, this too is successfully attacking the spike protein and hence shows protection.

• Because Sputnik V has emergency authorisation from medical authorities in Russia, it had also been administered to a section of the population such as doctors and medical workers. “Apart from the trial participants, the effects of vaccination were also observed in 10,000 volunteers representing medics and other high-risk groups under the civil use of the vaccine out of clinical trials also confirmed the vaccine’s efficacy rate of over 90 percent,” it added.

• There were no “unexpected adverse events” among those in the trial.

➢ ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

1. While Bangladesh has become the second largest apparel exporter after

China, Vietnam’s exports have grown by about 240% in the past eight years.

What can India learn from Bangladesh and Vietnam’s success stories?




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Vietnam model:

Over a decade or so, large brands such as Samsung, Canon, Foxconn, H&M, Nike, Adidas, and IKEA have flocked to Vietnam to manufacture their products. Last year, Vietnam received investments exceeding $16 billion. As a result, Vietnam’s exports rose from $83.5 billion in 2010 to $279 billion in 2019.

Bangladesh model:

• In Bangladesh, large export of apparels to the EU and the U.S. make the most of the country’s export story. The EU allows the import of apparel and other products from least developed countries (LDCs) like Bangladesh duty-free. Sadly, Bangladesh may not have this facility in four to seven years as its per capita income rises and it loses the LDC status. Bangladesh is working smartly to diversify its export basket. India, as a good neighbour, accepts all Bangladesh products duty-free (except alcohol and tobacco).

• Vietnam and Bangladesh have gained enormously from trade. Trade has created wealth and employment and lifted millions above the poverty level in less than two decades.

Key takeaways:

• The key learning from Bangladesh is the need to support large firms for a quick turnover. Large firms are better positioned to invest in brand building, meeting quality requirements, and marketing. Small firms begin as suppliers to large firms and eventually grow.

• Vietnam has changed domestic rules to meet the needs of investors. Yet, most of Vietnam’s exports happen in five sectors.

• In contrast, India’s exports are more diversified. The Economic Complexity Index (ECI), which ranks a country based on how diversified and complex its manufacturing export basket is, illustrates this point. The ECI rank for China is 32, India 43, Vietnam

PROS CONS

An open trade policy, a less inexpensive workforce, and generous incentives to foreign firms contributed to Vietnam’s success. Vietnam pursues an open trade policy mainly through Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) which ensure that its important trading partners like the U.S., the EU, China, Japan, South Korea and India do not charge import duties on products made in Vietnam. Vietnam’s domestic market is open to the partners’ products. For example, 99% of EU products will soon enter Vietnam duty-free.

Vietnam has agreed to change its domestic laws to make the country attractive to investors. Foreign firms can compete for local businesses. For example, EU firms can open shops, enter the retail trade, and bid for both government and private sector tenders. They can take part in electricity, real estate, hospital, defence, and railways projects. This model may not be good for India as it offers no protection to farmers or local producers from imports. Vietnam being a single-party state can ignore domestic voices.




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79, and Bangladesh 127. India, unlike Vietnam, has a developed domestic and capital market.

• To further promote manufacturing and investment, India could set up sectoral industrial zones with pre-approved factory spaces. A firm should walk in to start operations in a few weeks. There should be no need to search for land or obtain many approvals.

• The quick build-up of exports in Vietnam resulted from large MNC investments. But most of its electronics exports are just the final assembly of goods produced elsewhere. In such cases, national exports look large, but the net dollar gain is small. China also faces this issue.

Focus on organic economic growth

• Should a country promote trade at the expense of other sectors? To understand this, let’s look at the export to GDP ratio (EGR). Vietnam’s EGR is 107%. Such high dependence on exports brings dollars but also makes a country vulnerable to global economic uncertainty. The EGR of large economies/exporting countries is a much smaller number. The U.S.’s EGR is 11.7%, Japan’s is 18.5%, India’s is 18.7%. Even for China, with all its trade problems, the EGR is 18.4%.

• Most such countries, including India, follow an open trade policy, sign balanced FTAs, restrict unfair imports, and have a healthy mix of domestic champions and MNCs. While export remains a priority, it is not pursued at the expense of other sectors of the economy.

• The focus is on organic economic growth through innovation and competitiveness. With reforms promoting innovation and lowering the cost of doing business, India is poised to attract the best investments and integrate further with the global economy.

2. Explain how the Government’s Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 helps in economic revival amidst the recession?




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• Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced a fresh set of relief and stimulus measures for the economy worth ₹1.19 lakh crore, including a scheme to boost re-employment chances of formal sector employees who lost their jobs amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

• The measures, announced a day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said the country had entered into a technical recession in the first half of 2020-21, include a ₹65,000 crore additional outlay for providing fertilizer subsidies to farmers.

• Ms. Sitharaman said the economy’s rebound as per recent indicators was not just driven by pent-up demand but reflected strong economic growth.

• The measures under the Atmanirbhar Bharat Abhiyan 3.0 included the production-linked incentive scheme for 10 sectors with a proposed expenditure of ₹1.46 lakh crore over five years.

• The other measures add up to a proposed outgo of ₹1,19,100 crore. Experts pegged the fiscal cost of the announcement at about 1.2% of the GDP, if the PLI scheme was included. However, according to the Ministry a total of 15% of GDP has been given so far as part of the stimulus.. The Central government on its own has provided 9% of GDP as stimulus.”

• Ms. Sitharaman allocated ₹900 crore for research and development towards the COVID-19 vaccine, and said the government was ready to provide for the actual cost of the vaccine and the logistics for its distribution.

• To spur rural employment, an additional ₹10,000 crore has been provided for spending through the MGNREGS and PM’s rural roads scheme. Effectively, this takes the total allocations for MGNREGA in the year close to ₹1.1 lakh crore, with Ms. Sitharaman stating that ₹73,504 crore had already been spent to generate 251 crore person days of employment.

• To boost formal sector employment, a new Atmanirbhar Rozgar Yojana has been launched, under which the government will bear the entire Employees’ Provident Fund (EPF) contributions for two years of all new employees hired between October 1, 2020 and June 30, 2021, in firms with fewer than 1,000 employees.

3. FDI ceiling on Video streaming platforms • Four days after it brought video streaming platforms such as Netflix under its

jurisdiction, the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting on Monday issued a detailed notification asking digital news portals to comply with the 26% cap on Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) sanctioned last year.




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• The notification reiterates the Cabinet decision of August last year, imposing a 26% cap on FDI under government route for uploading/streaming of news and current affairs through digital media.

• The only major departure is that now even the companies with investment below the 26% cap have to intimate the Ministry about the shareholding pattern along with the “names and addresses of its directors/shareholders”. These details have to be submitted within a month.

• The firms which have more than 26% of FDI have been instructed to take steps to bring down the figure before October 15, 2021.

4. The idea of corporate entry into banking system drew criticism from several quarters. Elaborate.

News:

• Recently, an RBI panel had proposed that large corporates may be permitted to promote banks, as well as raising the cap on promoters’ stake in private sector banks to 26%, from 15% at present.

• S&P Global Ratings expressed scepticism over allowing corporate ownership in banks given India’s weak corporate governance amid large corporate defaults over the past few years.

Background:

• The idea of allowing corporate houses into banking is by no means novel. In February 2013, the RBI had issued guidelines that permitted corporate and industrial houses to apply for a banking licence. Some houses applied, although a few withdrew their applications subsequently. No corporate was ultimately given a bank licence. Only two entities qualified for a licence, IDFC and Bandhan Financial Services.

• The RBI maintained that it was open to letting in corporates. However, none of the applicants had met ‘fit and proper’ criteria.

• In 2014, the RBI restored the long-standing prohibition on the entry of corporate houses into banking. The Committee headed by then RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan had set its face against the entry of corporate houses into banking.

Risks involved:

• “Corporate ownership of banks raises the risk of intergroup lending, diversion of funds, and reputational exposure. Also, the risk of contagion from corporate defaults to the financial sector increases significantly,” the ratings agency said.

• Corporate houses can easily turn banks into a source of funds for their own businesses. In addition, they can ensure that funds are directed to their cronies. They can use banks to provide finance to customers and suppliers of their businesses. Adding a bank to a corporate house thus means an increase in concentration of economic power.

• In addition, the RBI would face challenges in supervising non-financial sector entities, and supervisory resources could be further strained at a time when the health of India’s financial sector was weak, it added.

A way forward:




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• An Internal Working Group of RBI believes that before corporate houses are allowed to enter banking, the RBI must be equipped with a legal framework to deal with interconnected lending and a mechanism to effectively supervise conglomerates that venture into banking.

• It is naive to suppose that any legal framework and supervisory mechanism will be adequate to deal with the risks of interconnected lending in the Indian context.

• Under the present policy, NBFCs with a successful track record of 10 years are allowed to convert themselves into banks. The Internal Working Group believes that NBFCs owned by corporate houses should be eligible for such conversion. This promises to be an easier route for the entry of corporate houses into banking.

5. Exports and labour intensive sectors form a symbiotic relationship. Explain?

Background:

• India’s economy contracted by 23.9% in the first quarter of 2020-21. According to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), the Indian economy will further contract by 10% in the July-September quarter. This is technically defined as a recession by economists. India is in an economic recession for the first time in its independent history.

• Thousands of people lost their jobs due to the slowing economy in 2018-19 and 2019-20. Unemployment had reached a 45-year high. Then, in March 2020, COVID-19 struck India and a total national lockdown was announced.

• By one estimate, more than 2 crore people lost their jobs during the lockdown. They included all kinds of jobs — regular salaried, non-contractual, casual, daily wage, and self-employment. When jobs were lost, incomes were lost too. Millions of people found that they did not have a roof over their heads or money to feed their families.

• The single biggest challenge confronting India today is jobs. When people are poor, hungry and desperate, any job will be a blessing.

• The job that requires hard, manual work and pays the lowest daily wage is the work provided under the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) scheme. During the seven-month lockdown period, there were 11 crore people who asked for work under MGNREGA.

• That is 20 times more than the total number of persons employed by all the companies listed on the stock exchange. The only meaningful conversation about the economy that we ought to have is how to recover the jobs that were lost and create new well-paying jobs.

• Let us suppose that the government makes available ₹10 lakh as a loan to four companies for capital investment. The first company, a steel manufacturing company, will create one new job with this amount. The second, an automobile manufacturer, will create three new jobs. The third, a producer of leather goods, will create 70 new jobs. And the fourth, an apparel and garment maker, will create 240 new jobs including 80 for women (Economic Survey 2016-17).

Labour intensive sectors:

• Large numbers of good quality jobs can be created only in sectors that are labour intensive, and where India has a comparative advantage, such as apparel, leather goods, value-added agriculture and so on.




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• These job-creating sectors depend not only on the domestic market but, significantly, on export markets. More than one-half of the leather goods and one-third of the apparel produced in India are exported to other countries.

• India, therefore, needs to find more export markets, nurture them, and sustain them amid intense global competition. Merchandise exports also create supporting jobs in warehousing, transport, stevedoring, container stations, shipping, ship chandling, ports and export financing. It is therefore very important to encourage and incentivise exports to be able to create many new jobs in the country.

• According to a research, it is shown that during the period since 1995, India did exceptionally well not only in exports of services such as information technology but also in the exports of manufactured goods and other merchandise.

• India was the third fastest growing exporter of manufactured goods in this period with 12% annual growth, after Vietnam and China.

Exports

• Most manufacturing today has a long supply chain that cuts across many countries. To be able to export goods, India must import raw materials or equipment or technology from other countries in the supply chain.

• Hence, we must re-learn to engage with other countries and negotiate favourable trade agreements through the bilateral and multilateral routes. Otherwise, countries bound by trade agreements among themselves will shut the doors on India’s exports.

• Besides, it is common sense that no country will allow import of Indian goods and services unless that country is able to export its goods and services to India on reasonable and fair terms. The art of survival in a fiercely competitive world is engagement and negotiation.

• Exports are one of the main engines to revive economic growth and create many new jobs. To revive exports, India needs greater and frictionless access to global markets. Protectionism will take us back several decades. Wisdom lies in learning from the past, being smart and resilient in the present and securing our prosperity in the future.

6. China is looking forward to its own version of Atmanirbhar China. Explain in detail?

Background:

• Self-reliance isn’t only the flavour of the moment in India, but increasingly the phrase of choice in China, where a leadership, chastened by the impact of COVID-19, a trade war with the U.S., and a reassessment by many countries of their dependence on Chinese supply-chains, is making an accelerated push to reframe the nature of China’s engagement with the world.

• At the heart of this push, as President Xi Jinping outlined in an essay published in the November edition of the Communist Party’s official journal, is an aim to essentially make China less reliant on the world and to make the world more reliant on China.

• Doing so, in Mr. Xi’s view, is particularly important when it comes to what he described as “trump card” technologies that can be decisive in a conflict.




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‘Dual circulation’

• “Dual circulation” is the name that Beijing has given this approach favoured by Mr. Xi, of boosting the domestic economy (or internal circulation) while recalibrating China’s external relations (the other circulation) — an anodyne term that blurs the increasing importance of self-reliance in Beijing’s outlook today.

• According to Chinese President, “the strategy of domestic demand expansion” should be China’s priority, and “building a complete internal demand system bears on China’s long-term development and long-term peace and stability”.

• The second pillar of this strategy, was to “optimise and stabilise production chains and supply chains.

• In order to safeguard China’s industrial security and national security, the country must focus on building production chains and supply chains that are independently controllable, secure and reliable, and strive for important products and supply channels to all have at least one alternative source.

• In sectors such as high-speed rail, electric power equipment, new energy, and communications equipment China needed to preserve its advantages.

• China “must tighten international production chains’ dependence on China” with the aim of “forming powerful countermeasures and deterrent capabilities”. T

• his would give China leverage should countries threaten to limit access to key technologies, as the U.S. has done with semiconductors.

• The idea is for China to “rely more on the domestic market”.

Self-reliant:

• That, however, is not how India and many of China’s biggest trading partners see it, instead viewing a push that will increasingly prioritise self-sufficiency.

• The key difference with India’s own “self-reliant” emphasis is that China is at the same time embracing new trading arrangements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), from which India withdrew last year, and the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the other big regional trading bloc that succeeded the TPP after America’s withdrawal, which Mr. Xi has expressed interest in joining.

• Trading agreements, in Beijing’s view, will open new markets and help increase trade dependencies on China overseas.

• China is already the biggest trading partner for many of the RCEP’s members, even while China is moving to erect ever higher non-tariff barriers for foreign firms, particularly in sensitive sectors all the while positioning itself as a defender of globalisation.

• In fact, agreements like the RCEP failing to adequately address this contradiction was one key reason why India ultimately withdrew from the negotiations, receiving no assurances of a level playing field, even as it was asked to open up its economy.

BIODIVERSITY:

1. What is International refuse? Explain, with example Asian countries’ stance

as the world’s trash dump?

Definition:




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The global waste trade is the international trade of waste between countries for further treatment, disposal, or recycling. Toxic or hazardous wastes are often imported by developing countries from developed countries.

Background:

• Current international trade flows of waste follow a pattern of waste being produced in the Global North and being exported to and disposed of in the Global South. Multiple factors affect which countries produce waste and at what magnitude, including geographic location, degree of industrialization, and level of integration into the global economy.

• Current supporters of global waste trade argue that importing waste is an economic transaction which can benefit countries with little to offer the global economy. Countries which do not have the production capacity to manufacture high quality products can import waste to stimulate their economy.

Sri Lankan example:

• Sri Lanka has started shipping 242 containers of hazardous waste, including body parts from mortuaries, back to Britain after a two-year court battle by an environment watchdog, officials said on Saturday.

• Several Asian countries have in recent years been pushing back against an onslaught of international refuse from wealthier nations and have started turning back the unwanted shipments of garbage as they battle against being used as the world’s trash dump.

2. How do ‘Sea sparkle’ affect marine food chain? • The bloom of Noctiluca Scintillans, commonly known as “sea sparkle” that the

Karnataka coast has been witnessing recently, has displaced microscopic algae called diatoms, which form the basis of the marine food chain.

• This has deprived food for the planktivorous fish, scientists from the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), Mangaluru, have said.




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• The bioluminescent Noctiluca Scintillans also brightened the sea water during night. The toxic blooms of N. Scintillans were linked to massive fish and marine invertebrate kills. Though the species does not produce a toxin, it was found to accumulate toxic levels of ammonia, which is then excreted into the surrounding waters, possibly acting as the killing agent in blooms.

• The ammonia makes N. Scintillans unpalatable for most creatures. Only jellyfish and salps were known to prey on it. N. Scintillans grazes on other micro-organisms such as larvae, fish eggs, and diatoms. But the unicellular phytoplankton that live inside it can photosynthesise, turning sunlight into energy. They help their host cell survive even when food was scarce. Thus, N. Scintillans acts as both a plant and an animal.

• Field studies by the CMFRI in the Arabian Sea off the Karnataka coast since a decade showed widespread blooms of the green dinoflagellate, N. Scintillans. Blooms were witnessed on September 8 this year while in September 2018 too such bioluminescence was witnessed along the Someshwara beach in Dakshina Kannada and Mattu in Udupi. This year, however, the intensity and vastness of the bloom close to the shore was observed by many.

Plankton bloom Plankton bloom was reported when the density of plankton would be more than 1,00,000 cells per m3. Bioluminescence was the production and emission of light by a living organism and occurs due to a chemical reaction, involving a light-emitting molecule and an enzyme, called luciferin and luciferase.

3. New species of gecko found in the Eastern Ghats • A new species of lizard, the smallest known Indian gekkonid, has been discovered in

the Eastern Ghats. Studies show that the species belonged to the genus Cnemaspis.

• In India, 45 diverse species of Cnemaspis have been found, of which 34 are from the Western Ghats.




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• The newly discovered dwarf gecko - Cnemaspis avasabinae is the twelfth species to be discovered outside the Western Ghats and also the first species reported from the Velikonda Range in Andhra Pradesh.

• This discovery suggests that the genus may be even more widely distributed than previously thought.

• The team gave it a common name – Sabin’s Nellore dwarf gecko.

• The new species was sighted in a dry evergreen forest among the rocks beneath a small stream at a height of less than 200 metres above sea level and measured less than 2.9 cm (snout to vent length).

• The dorsal colour of the head, body and tail of the reptile is grey-pink with six pairs of dark brown patches.

Absence of Femoral pores

• The most interesting find was that the males of the species lacked femoral pores. Generally, most variants of lizards have femoral pores in both the sexes, and the secretions from these pores play a role in communication.

• Lacking femoral pores doesn’t mean that a male gecko is not adequately supplied with chemical means of communication. It may also be possible that geckos are able to release pheromones to attract or communicate with possible mates, even if there are no pores.

• Pores may be especially useful for lizards that maintain a home range or territory and use them to mark this – to keep away other males even more than to attract females.

Cnemaspis also have good vision, so visual signalling may play a part in mate

attraction in these geckos

DISASTER MANAGEMENT:

1. Air pollution and cold make a deadly combination for COVID spread. Explain

with examples?




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• Doctors in the National Capital Region have warned that high levels of air pollution, exhausted medical staff and stressed health infrastructure is making COVID-appropriate behaviour a “must” to contain the spread.

• Delhi, along with three other northern States Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan, is among the 10 States/Union Territories which have reported 76% of the new COVID-19 cases.

Most fatalities during winter

• Delhi (104), Punjab (23), Uttar Pradesh (21) and Haryana (19) are also among the 10 States reporting 80% of the COVID-19 deaths recently, as per data released by the Union Health Ministry.

• Doctors said that due to low temperatures and increased air pollution, particulate matter remains suspended in the air for a longer period and this increases the transmissibility of the novel coronavirus, making people more vulnerable to the disease.

• The second mechanism linking increased COVID-cases and mortality due to air pollution is that exposure to polluted air is known to cause inflammation and cellular damage, making it easy for the virus or any other pathogenic microbe to invade our lungs.

• The seasonal north Indian winter smog is here and poor quality air causes inflammation in the lungs, making people more vulnerable to breathing-related ailments.

• Many people encounter acute exacerbations of their asthma and COPDs. This year the situation is compounded by the ongoing COVID pandemic.




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2. What is Cyclone Nivar? Discuss the disaster preparedness strategies adopted

by the Government in this regard. News:

• Recently, the tropical cyclone Nivar has made landfall along the Tamil Nadu-Puducherry coast.

• It is the fourth cyclone that has taken shape in the North Indian Ocean region this year. The first three cyclones were Cyclone Gati (made landfall in Somalia in November), Cyclone Amphan (eastern India witnessed it in May), and Cyclone Nisarga (in Maharashtra).

• Nivar will be the second cyclone to hit Tamil Nadu in two years after Cyclone Gaja in 2018.

• The storm has been named Cyclone Nivar, based on the guidelines of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO). Nivara has been selected from the list of names given by Iran.

Tropical Cyclone:

• A tropical cyclone is an intense circular storm that originates over warm tropical oceans and is characterized by low atmospheric pressure, high winds, and heavy rain.

• A characteristic feature of tropical cyclones is the eye, a central region of clear skies, warm temperatures, and low atmospheric pressure.

• Storms of this type are called hurricanes in the North Atlantic and eastern Pacific and typhoons in SouthEast Asia and China. They are called tropical cyclones in the southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean region and Willy-willies in north-western Australia.

• Storms rotate anticlockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.

Disaster preparedness:




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• The National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) has readied 22 teams — 12 in Tamil Nadu, three in Puducherry and seven in Andhra Pradesh — to handle emergency operations.

• Cyclone Nivar raised fears of another epic disaster for millions of coastal residents in the south, but its passage overland near Puducherry early on November 26 was less destructive than anticipated.

• The reported loss of at least three lives is a relatively low toll for such a large-scale weather system, although property and agriculture have suffered considerable damage from the fierce winds and massive volume of rain it dumped in Tamil Nadu and Puducherry.

• Citizens and the government were fearful of a deluge that could be a repeat of the 2015 flood — which killed a few hundred people — and they overcame COVID-19 fatigue to prepare for the worst. There was also a welcome emphasis on periodic alerts and warnings.

• The IMD has been getting better at forecasting slow-moving, linear tropical cyclones in the Bay of Bengal, and multiple satellites now provide cyclone data. The deployment of over two dozen NDRF teams and disaster management equipment along the coast reassured civic agencies.

• The aftermath now presents an opportunity to make a full assessment not just for distribution of relief but also to understand the impacts of extreme monsoon weather.


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