General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The demolitions in Nuh are just the latest iteration of what has come to be called “bulldozer justice”. For more than a year, from Khargone in Madhya Pradesh to Khambhat in Gujarat, to Jahangirpuri in Delhi, to Nagaon in Assam, to many others, the demolition of homes as a form of frontier justice has become a standard feature of administration.

A fig-leaf of legitimacy that falls away

• In carrying out the demolitions, the state and its officials speak with a forked tongue.
• The public and official justification is that the demolitions are carried out in order to remove “illegal structures” or “encroachments”.
• Municipal laws that authorise the removal of unauthorised structures are invoked as the legal cover for such action. This is the justification the state sticks to when it is challenged in court.
• However, even as it does so, politicians, and at times, even officials of the administration, go on record to say that the purpose of the demolitions is to “teach a lesson” to alleged rioters.
• First, it is important to note that the state’s public justification fails on its own terms. Over the years, the courts have recognised that what we euphemistically refer to as “unauthorised structures” are often the dwelling places of economically marginalised and vulnerable people, who have been failed by the state in its obligation to provide shelter to all its citizens.
• Consequently, other than enforcing basic procedural requirements — such as adequate notice — courts have also insisted that before demolitions are carried out, the administration must conduct a survey to check whether the residents are eligible for rehabilitation schemes, and if so, complete their rehabilitation before any demolitions are done.
• Rehabilitation, in turn, does not simply mean picking up people from one part of the town and dumping them in another, but ensuring that there is no substantial disruption to their (already) precarious lives.
• The basic purpose is to ensure that the state does not simply make its own citizens homeless, and with no recourse. Doing so is a marker of an uncivilised society.
• It is obvious that the instant demolitions that we see do not comply with these procedural or substantive requirements.
• The state’s attempts to provide a fig-leaf of legitimacy to its demolitions, therefore, fall away at the slightest scrutiny.

A form of frontier justice

• But at the end of the day, everyone knows that what is happening is not a dispute over municipal law, zoning regulations, and “unauthorised” structures.
• It is clear that what is happening is state-sanctioned collective punishment, which is predominantly targeted against specific communities.
• Instead of engaging the machinery of law enforcement and justice — which is what states bound by the rule of law do — the state prefers to mete out a form of frontier justice, enforcing order through violence, and itself becoming the law-breaker.
• Bulldozer justice might satisfy the anger of people who have been caught up in riots, and who are accustomed to seeing the criminal justice system grind on for years without result.
• Indeed, whether it is extra-judicial killings or home demolitions, this is indeed the justification that is trotted out: that the courts are too slow, too prone to giving bail, and too indulgent in handing out acquittals.
• Bulldozer justice is a form of collective punishment, where punishment is not only meted out before guilt is proven, but along with the supposedly guilty individual, their innocent family members are also punished.
• Furthermore, punishment without guilt — punishment at the discretion of the state — violates the rule of law.
• The rule of law is all that stands between a marauding state and the basic safety of individuals.
• Abandoning the rule of law for frontier justice is the first step towards an authoritarian society where one’s safety, physical possessions, and even life and liberty, will be at the whims and fancies of state officials.

Way forward

• In this context, it falls to the courts to enforce the rule of law and the Constitution.
• Unfortunately, for more than a year, the courts have been silent; even the Supreme Court of India has, when faced with this situation, purported to accept the state’s justification of going after “unauthorised structures.”
• One hopes that it is the beginning of the judiciary reinforcing basic constitutional principles and values against state impunity.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• The National Statistical Office (NSO) has released the 2022-23 GDP fourth-quarter growth rate figures. Measured against fourth-quarter figures of the previous year, the data give a gloomier picture than what the media publications of the Press Information Bureau present.

The NSO Data conclusions

• According to NSO data, in the first COVID-19 pandemic quarter of 2020-21, i.e., April 1 to June 30, 2020, GDP growth rate was minus 23.8% when compared to GDP of the same period in 2019-20.
• Three conclusions based on NSO data since 2014-2015 are important for a reality check.
• First, the growth rate of GDP, since 2015-16 had been declining annually, and has fallen in the fourth quarter to what it was earlier, and sneeringly referred to by economists as “The Hindu Rate of Growth” — 3.5% growth rate in GDP.
• Second, it is essential to recognise that since 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s widely publicised “Vikas” in reality achieved the so-called “Hindu rate of growth” in GDP of what had been achieved in the period 1950-77 — the socialism period.
• Third, during the tenures of P.V. Narasimha Rao and Manmohan Singh, GDP growth rates rose for the first time to between 6% to 8% per year over a 15-year period, i.e., 1991-96 and 2004-2014 (with the usual cyclic ups and downs).

The alarming situation

• What is alarming today is the serious and continuous decline in GDP growth rates which began in 2016. And that decline continues even now.
• The growth rate of GDP has been consistently in decline since 2016.
• No policy structuring has been presented.

Steps to be taken

• By “structuring”, this writer means a clear implementation of what the economic objectives will be, and priorities that should be assigned to the various objectives.
• Thereafter, there ought to be a strategy on what should be incentivised and what should be deleted or discontinued.
• For example, in today’s dark economic condition, it is essential that personal income tax is abolished and Goods and Services Tax scrapped to incentivise investors and earners.
• Resources by the government should be mobilised through indirect taxes and also by liberal printing of currency notes and which is circulated by paying wages to the employment generated in extensive public works.
• The annual interest paid on fixed-term savings in bank accounts should be 9% or so to increase purchasing power of the middle classes. Interest rates on loans to small and medium industries should be no more than 6% of the loans to increase production of these sectors, and thus employment.
• India needs a new economic policy urgently. It needs to be a policy that is based on clear objectives, priorities, have a strategy to achieve targets, and spell out an intelligent and transparent resource mobilisation plan to finance policies.
• The market system is not a free-for-all or an ad hoc measure. It has a structure with rules for transactions.
• Market system capitalism works as the principal drivers are incentive and capital (whose use for innovation raises factory productivity and the growth rate of GDP).
• Deregulations should also not mean that we reject government intervention for safety nets, affirmative action, market failure and creating a level-playing field.
• Democratic institutions have to be empowered to guard against public disorder arising from rapid de-regulation — as it happened in Russia post-1991.

Way forward

• The trade-off between the public sector and de-regulation and the sale of loss-making units, increasing employment, through affirmative action, and easy access to social security and a safety net are essential to create a stake for the poor in the system.
• This creates a level-playing field in a competitive system, ensures transparency, accountability, and trusteeship (philanthropy), as well as corporate governance to legitimise profit-making smoothly which drives the market system.
• Such steps reduce monopolistic tendencies and help in the formation of a democratic and harmonious society.

General Studies Paper 3

 Context

• Recently, Monetary policy committee of the Reserve Bank of India has voted unanimously in its August meeting to keep the policy repo rate unchanged at 6.5 per cent.
• Alongside, the committee members voted 5-1 to keep the stance unchanged, focusing on the withdrawal of accommodation to ensure that “inflation progressively aligns with the target

Reason for maintaining the status quo of repo rate

• It will help in reaffirming the monetary policy objective of aligning inflation with the central bank’s target of 4 per cent Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation with the upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent and the lower tolerance limit of 2 per cent.
• However, considering that the requirement for a policy response at this juncture is curtailed due to a supply-side induced spurt in food inflation and a moderation in core inflation, it would seem that the MPC is likely to maintain status quo on rates in the near term.

What is the Inflation target?

• Under the Under Section 45ZA of RBI act1934, the Central Government, in consultation with the RBI, determines the inflation target in terms of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), once in five years and notifies it in the Official Gazette
• Under which Central Government notified in the Official Gazette 4 per cent Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation as the target for the period from August 5, 2016 to March 31, 2021 with the upper tolerance limit of 6 per cent and the lower tolerance limit of 2 per cent.
• On March 31, 2021, the Central Government retained the inflation target and the tolerance band for the next 5-year period – April 1, 2021 to March 31, 2026.
• Section 45ZB of the RBI Act provides for the constitution of a six-member Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) (which is headed by RBI governor) determine the policy rate required to achieve the inflation target.
• Therefore, Inflation target is set by central government and it is maintained by RBI through monetary policy tools.

However, The trajectory of inflation unpredictable.

• In its June policy, the RBI had projected it at 5.2 per cent in the second quarter. In its August meeting, it substantially revised its projection upwards to 6.2 per cent as prices of vegetables have soared in July and August.
• While this surge is likely to be temporary — the commentary from the RBI does suggest that the central bank believes that vegetable prices will correct in the near term there remains considerable ambiguity over food prices on account of uncertainty over the distribution of monsoon and impact of El Nino.
• During such periods, as the RBI Governor has underlined, “supply side interventions” can limit the “severity and duration of such shocks”
• Recently, Union food ministry announced that it was offloading 50 lakh metric tonnes of wheat in the open market in a phased manner. This could have a moderating influence on prices
• However, other factors, such as higher crude oil prices, also pose risks to the trajectory of inflation. The central bank has now revised upwards its full year inflation forecast to 5.4 per cent, from 5.1 per cent earlier.
• Alongside, it has also taken steps to absorb the surplus liquidity generated by the return of the Rs 2,000 notes to the banking system by imposing an incremental cash reserve ratio of 10 per cent.

It is necessary to maintain growth while controlling the inflation

• On the growth front, the RBI remains optimistic, expecting the economic momentum to continue.
• The central bank has retained its forecast for GDP growth this year at 6.5 per cent, even as external demand weakens and the cumulative rate hikes of 250 basis points are still working their way through the system.
• However, considering the uncertainty in the global economy, the central bank must remain vigilant on all fronts. While it has done well to look through this spurt in inflation, it must be cautious.
• As the governor’s statement also acknowledges, “frequent incidences of recurring food price shocks, however, pose a risk to anchoring of inflation expectations”.
• The future course of monetary policy will be influenced by how growth and inflation evolve over the coming quarters.

Conclusion

• Therefore, while consider the global economic situation and food-based inflation, the stand of Monetary policy committee to unchanged repo rate will help in controlling inflation along with maintaining the economic growth.

General Studies Paper 2

Context

• India’s official rhetoric on commitment to democracy in Myanmar is in contrast with its policy framed through the lens of its security concerns in north-east India and relations with China.

India and Myanmar

• As the land of Lord Buddha, India is a country of pilgrimage for the people of Myanmar.
• British era: Both India and Myanmar were part of British India during colonial rule until 1935.
• After independence, India and Myanmar established diplomatic relations and maintained close ties. India and Myanmar signed a Treaty of Friendship in 1951.
• In 2014, Myanmar became part of India’s “Neighborhood First” policy and its “Act East” policy.

Issues and challenges in India-Myanmar relations

• Coup by Military Junta: A recent coup by the military junta in Myanmar made it difficult for India to balance its strategic and economic interests with its commitment to democratic values and human rights.
• Weak trade relations: With a total bilateral trade of $2 billion, India’s economic engagement with Myanmar lags behind China. India’s withdrawal from Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership can further increase this trade gap.
• Rohingya issue: The migration of Rohingyas in India is causing issues of internal security and exploitation of national resources of India.
• Northeast insurgency: Myanmar-China border is the hotbed of local armed separatist groups operating in Myanmar soil and Indian groups, ranging from ULFA in Assam to the NSCN (IM) in Nagaland.
• Internal security: It is a major concern for India. The Indo-Myanmar border is porous and lightly policed, which is exploited by terrorist outfits and insurgent groups from the North Eastern part of India eg. supply of trained cadres, and arms trafficking.
• Free movement regime: The Free Movement Regime is being exploited by militants and cross-border criminals for the illegal transportation of weapons, contraband goods, and counterfeit Indian currency.
• Trust deficit: It has widened in India-Myanmar because of delays in the implementation of various projects.
• China has asserted itself through its soft power as well as through its trade and economic relations with Myanmar by taking up large infrastructure projects. Also, Myanmar is part of the Belt and Road Initiative initiated by China.

Indian policy towards Myanmar

• At the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the coup, India took a proactive approach by providing food and vaccine assistance.
• However, the plight of the Myanmarese people seems to have faded from memory, with accusations of instigating violence in Manipur replacing it.
• Communities along the border have already defied the Home Ministry by providing shelter to the refugees.
• Concerns over trafficking and drug smuggling in Myanmar led to India suspending the Free Movement Regime in September 2022.
• India’s External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar raised the issue of infrastructure projects and stability in border areas with his Myanmar counterpart on the sidelines of the Mekong Ganga Cooperation (MGC) meeting.
• India has also supported the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ ‘Five-Point Consensus’.
• However India’s official rhetoric on commitment to democracy in Myanmar is in contrast with its policy framed through the lens of its security concerns in north-east India and relations with China.

Way forward

• India’s policy options in Myanmar are challenging, but not limited.
• The relaxation of Ms. Suu Kyi’s prison sentence may provide an opportunity for India to engage with her and pro-democracy actors.
• Additionally, the government and media must avoid blanket securitisation and profiling of incoming refugees, many of whom have ties of kinship in India.
• This approach is essential to prevent further violence and foster an environment of care and compassion.

General Studies Paper 3

• India takes first step to remove animals from drug-testing

Introduction

• An amendment to the New Drugs and Clinical Trial Rules (2023), recently passed by the Government of India, aims at stopping the use of animals in research, especially in drug testing. The amendment authorises researchers to instead use non-animal and human-relevant methods, including technologies like 3D organoids, organs-on-chip, and advanced computational methods, to test the safety and efficacy of new drugs.

Current drug-development pipeline

• Every drug in the market goes through a long journey of tests, each designed to check whether it can treat the disease for which it was created and whether it has any unintended harmful effects.
• For a long time, the first step of this process has been to test the candidate molecule in at least two animal species: a rodent (mouse or rat) and a non-rodent, such as canines and primates.
• However, humans are more complex creatures, and biological processes and their responses often vary from person to person as well, based on factors such as age, sex, pre-existing diseases, genetics, diet, etc. – and a lab-bred animal species reared in controlled conditions may not fully capture the human response to a drug.
• This ‘mismatch’ between the two species is reflected in the famously high failure-rate of the drug development process.
• Despite increasing investment in the pharmaceutical sector, most drugs that cleared the animal-testing stage fail at the stage of human clinical trials, which come towards the end of the pipeline.

Alternative testing modes

• In the last few decades, several technologies have been developed using human cells or stem cells. These include millimetre-sized three-dimensional cellular structures that mimic specific organs of the body, called “organoids” or “mini-organs”.
• Another popular technology is the “organ-on-a-chip” which are AA-battery-sized chips lined with human cells connected to microchannels, to mimic blood flow inside the body.
• These systems capture several aspects of human physiology, including tissue-tissue interactions and physical and chemical signals inside the body.
• Researchers have also used additive manufacturing techniques for more than two decades.
• In 2003, researchers developed the first inkjet bioprinter by modifying a standard inkjet printer. Several innovations in the last decade now allow a 3D bioprinter to ‘print’ biological tissues using human cells and fluids as ‘bio-ink’.
• These systems promise to reshape drug-design and -development. Since they can be built using patient-specific cells, they can also be used to personalise drug-tests.

Developing the organ-on-a-chip system

• One problem is that developing an organ-on-a-chip system typically requires multidisciplinary knowledge.
• This means expertise in cell biology to recreate the cellular behaviour in the lab; materials science to find the right material to ensure that the chip does not interfere with biological processes; fluid dynamics to mimic blood flow inside the microchannels; electronics to integrate biosensors that can measure pH, oxygen etc.in the chip; engineering to design the chip; and pharmacology and toxicology to interpret action of the drugs in the chips.
• It’s a truly interdisciplinary endeavour and needs focused training and human-resource building, which is lacking in the country at present.

Way forward

• To manage the complexity of recreating human tissues and organs in the petri dish, researchers often minimise the number of components required to simulate the disease being investigated.
• It is important to bring out guidelines on the minimal quality criterion and standards for these systems.
• Also, the current guidelines on animal testing requirements must be re-evaluated and revised, considering newer developments in cell-based and gene-editing based therapeutics.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• The world’s quest to decarbonise itself is guided, among other things, by the UN Sustainable Development Goal 7: “to ensure access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”.

Challenges of decarbonisation

• The transition from coal-fired power generation to clean energy poses major challenges, and there is a widespread consensus among policymakers in several countries that solar and wind energy alone will not suffice to provide affordable energy for everyone.
• According to the International Energy Agency, the demand for critical minerals like lithium, nickel, cobalt, and rare earth elements, required for clean-energy production technologies, is likely to increase by up to 3.5 times by 2030.
• This jump poses several global challenges, including the large capital investments to develop new mines and processing facilities.
• The environmental and social impacts of developing several new mines and plants in China, Indonesia, Africa, and South America within a short time span, coupled with the fact that the top three mineral-producing and mineral-processing nations control 50-100% of the current global extraction and processing capacities, pose geopolitical and other risks.

The issues with nuclear power

• Nuclear power plants (NPPs) generate 10% of the world’s electricity and help it avoid 180 billion cubic metres of natural gas demand and 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 emissions every year.
• NPPs are efficient users of land and their grid integration costs are lower than those associated with variable renewable energy (VRE) sources because NPPs generate power 24×7 in all kinds of weather.
• Nuclear power also provides valuable co-benefits like high-skill jobs in technology, manufacturing, and operations.
• Conventional NPPs have generally suffered from time and cost overruns. As an alternative, several countries are developing small modular reactors (SMRs) — nuclear reactors with a maximum capacity of 300 MW — to complement conventional NPPs.
• SMRs can be installed in decommissioned thermal power plant sites by repurposing existing infrastructure, thus sparing the host country from having to acquire more land and/or displace people beyond the existing site boundary.

Advantages of SMRs

• SMRs are designed with a smaller core damage frequency and source term (a measure of radioactive contamination) compared to conventional NPPs.
• They also include enhanced seismic isolation for more safety.
• SMR designs are also simpler than those of conventional NPPs and include several passive safety features, resulting in a lower potential for the uncontrolled release of radioactive materials into the environment.
• The amount of spent nuclear fuel stored in an SMR project will also be lower than that in a conventional NPP.
• Studies have found that SMRs can be safely installed and operated at several brownfield sites that may not meet the more stringent zoning requirements for conventional NPPs.
• Accelerating the deployment of SMRs under international safeguards, by implementing a coal-to-nuclear transition at existing thermal power-plant sites, will take India closer to net-zero and improve energy security because uranium resources are not as concentrated as reserves of critical minerals.
• Since SMRs are mostly manufactured in a factory and assembled on site, the potential for time and cost overruns is also lower.
• Further, serial manufacture of SMRs can reduce costs by simplifying plant design to facilitate more efficient regulatory approvals and experiential learning with serial manufacturing.

Integration of SMRs  with the national grid

• India’s Central Electricity Authority (CEA) projects that the generation capacity of coal-based thermal power plants (TPPs) in India must be increased while enhancing the generation capacity of VRE sources.
• The CEA also projects that TPPs will provide more than half of the electricity generated in India by 2031-2032 while VRE sources and NPPs will contribute 35% and 4.4%, respectively.
• Since India has committed to become net-zero by 2070, the country’s nuclear power output needs a quantum jump.
• Since the large investments required for NPP expansion can’t come from the government alone, attracting investments from the private sector (in PPP mode) is important to decarbonise India’s energy sector.

Way forward

• The Atomic Energy Act will need to be amended to allow the private sector to set up SMRs.
• To ensure safety, security, and safeguards, control of nuclear fuel and radioactive waste must continue to lie with the Government of India.
• The government will also have to enact a law to create an independent, empowered regulatory board with the expertise and capacity to oversee every stage of the nuclear power generation cycle.
• The security around SMRs must remain under government control, while the Nuclear Power Corporation can operate privately-owned SMRs during the hand-holding process.
• Finally, the Department of Atomic Energy must improve the public perception of nuclear power in India by better disseminating comprehensive environmental and public health data of the civilian reactors, which are operating under international safeguards, in India.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2023 was passed in Parliament recently.

The Jan Vishwas Bill

• Introduced by Commerce and Industry Minister Piyush Goyal, the Bill aims at giving further boost to ease of living and ease of doing business.
• The Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2022 amends 42 laws, across multiple sectors, including agriculture, environment, and media and publication and health.
• The Bill converts several fines to penalties, meaning that court prosecution is not necessary to administer punishments. It also removes imprisonment as a punishment for many offences.
• Covered under the Jan Vishwas (Amendment of Provisions) Bill, 2023 are changes in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940, the Food Safety and Standards Act, 2006 and the Pharmacy Act, 1948.
• This has evoked heated debate about its pros and cons among health care activists, experts in the field of pharmacy and patient-welfare groups.
• Among these, the changes proposed to the Drugs and Cosmetics Act, 1940 have been the most contentious.
• The Act regulates the import, manufacture, distribution and sale of drugs and cosmetics in the country.
• Currently, the Act defines four categories of offences— adulterated drugs, spurious drugs, mislabelled drugs, and Not of Standard Quality drugs (NSQs) — and lays out degrees of punishment (a combination of prison time and fine) based on the degree of offence.

The pros and cons of the amendments

• The amendments have brought in sharp criticism from health activists.
• First, it allows manufacturers of Not of Standard Quality Drugs (NSQ) drugs to escape significant penalties despite the fact that these drugs can have an adverse effect on the patient.
• For example, drugs that lack the adequate active ingredient or fail to dissolve will not cure the disease it is meant to and that will result in a poor treatment outcome for the patient.
• Second, the Bill also reduces penalties for owners of pharmacies who violate the terms of their licence.
• The Indian pharmaceutical sector, manufacturing and pharmacies included, are already subject to extremely lax regulation as evidenced by the explosion of scandals recently across the world linked to ‘Made in India’ medicine.
• The government should be tightening the regulatory screws, not giving the industry a literal “get out of jail” pass.

Way forward

• The laws shouldn’t become a cost-to-operation component for companies but should install in them the greater sensibilities and responsibilities towards the society.
• India is the pharmacy of the world and we have to work towards ensuring that the best medicines are provided while reasonable benefits are offered to business.
• Rationalising laws, eliminating barriers and bolstering growth of businesses are important.

General Studies Paper 3

Introduction

• In a famous 1859 book, On the Origin of Species, the British naturalist Charles Darwin presented the world with the theory that life-forms evolved through natural selection .The anatomist Thomas Henry Huxley suggested that the birds of today could be the descendants of the extinct dinosaurs.

Evolution of dinosaurs

• The evolution of the skull of dinosaurs to birds has been one of the main focuses in dinosaur palaeontology for a long time.
• By focusing on the nose, this study helped us improve our understanding of the cranial evolution of dinosaurs to birds.
• In 1998, two fossils discovered in China provided paleontological evidence that modern birds had evolved from theropod dinosaurs.
• The 120-million-year-old fossils, of the species Protarchaeopteryx and Caudipteryx, depicted different stages in the evolution of birds from terrestrial, two-legged dinosaurs with feathers.
• The dinosaurs had slowly developed bird-like features, such as wings, wishbones, and feathers.
• Even today, scientists are not sure whether dinosaurs were warm-blooded or cold-blooded.
• The word ‘dinosaur’ comes from the Greek words ‘deinos’ and ‘sauros’, meaning “terrible lizard”, and lizards are ectotherms.
• On the other hand, dinosaurs are also related to birds, which are warm-blooded.
• The location of non-avian dinosaurs in the phylogenetic tree – a diagram depicting how different life-forms are related to each other by evolution – is somewhere between animals that depend on environmental conditions to regulate body temperature (e.g. lizards and crocodiles) and those that can regulate it on their own (e.g. birds and humans).

Ask the nose

• The nasal cavity of warm-blooded animals houses a complex scroll-like structure made of thin bony plates called the nasal, or respiratory, turbinate.
• Nasal turbinates are found only in warm-blooded creatures. They are responsible for regulating heat and moisture exchange during respiration.
• Because of their gelatinous composition, nasal turbinates rarely survive fossilisation.
• The team obtained computed tomography (CT) scans of 51 present-day species: 21 birds, eight mammals, four Crocodylia (crocodiles and alligators), three Testudines (turtles and tortoises), and 11 Lepidosauria (snakes, lizards, iguanas, etc.). The scan data was then used for 3D reconstruction of their nasal cavities.
• The team also digitally reconstructed a three-dimensional nasal cavity of a velociraptor (a type of theropod) based on fossils.
• Comparing these 3D scans, the researchers found that, relative to the size of their heads, warm-blooded animals had much larger nasal cavities than cold-blooded animals.

World of the dinosaurs

• The reconstruction and some analysis also shed light on a lesser-known physiological function of respiratory turbinates: brain-cooling.
• The study discovered that one of the primary functions of the respiratory turbinate and the bigger nasal cavity of [warm-blooded animals] is to cool their larger brains, not for whole-body metabolism.
• The researchers also found that the velociraptor had a smaller nasal cavity than that of modern birds, and that the theropod didn’t possess a fully developed cooling system that would be required for a brain that could ‘operate’ a warm-blooded animal.
• Birds and mammals on the other hand had large nasal cavities that in turn accommodated a well-developed respiratory turbinate, and that in turn cooled their brains efficiently.
• They also found that in the velociraptor, the maxilla had a significant influence on the shape of the nasal passage.
• Based on this, they have proposed that a great reduction of the maxilla on the theropod lineage resulted in the nasal cavity becoming an important apparatus for their thermal regulation strategy.

Conclusion

• Organisms do not evolve in a vacuum but in relation to their surrounding environment. The study of evolution of dinosaurs and the environment of the earth they walked on will be crucial in understanding the lineages that lead to each phylum or class in the Animal kingdom.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The Digital Personal Data Protection Bill 2023 makes the government less transparent to the people and ends up making them transparent to both the government and private interests.

The Bill

• Personal data bill will boost digital economy, says Nasscom.’ This industry response to the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Bill 2023 that was introduced in Parliament reveals the real purpose of the Bill — legalising data mining rather than safeguarding the right to privacy.
• The right to privacy was reaffirmed by a nine-judge Constitutional bench of the Supreme Court in 2017.
• The right to information provides us access to government documents to ensure transparency and accountability of the government.
• Enacted as a law, the Right to Information Act (RTI) 2005 has played a critical role in deepening democratic practices.
• The much-awaited DPDP Bill 2023 ends up undermining our right to information, without doing much to protect our right to privacy.

The issues of Rights

• In a crucial way, the two rights complement each other.
• Broadly speaking, the right to information seeks to make the government transparent to us, while the right to privacy is meant to protect us from government (and increasingly, private) intrusions into our lives.
• Yet, there are some tensions between the right to information and the right to privacy.
• However, the recently introduced DPDP Bill 2023 makes little attempt to deal with these hard questions. Instead, it makes the government less transparent to us while making us transparent to both the government and private interests.

Undermining the Right to Information

• The Right to Information Act 2005 anticipated some of these tensions and the consequent need to limit its own reach.
• Therefore, Section 8 of the RTI 2005 listed situations where “exemption from disclosure of information” would be granted.
• Section 8(1)(j) grants exemption from disclosure if the information which relates to personal information sought has no relationship to any public activity or interest, or which would cause unwarranted invasion of the privacy of the individual, unless a public information officer feels that larger public interest justifies disclosure.
• It set a high benchmark for exemption – information which cannot be denied to the Parliament or a State Legislature shall not be denied to any person.
• The DPDP Bill 2023 suggests replacing Section 8(1)(j) with just “information which relates to personal information”. This will undermine the RTI 2005.

Ignoring social, political and legal context

• The DPDP 2023 suffers from other shortcomings. For instance, the Data Protection Board, an oversight body will be under the boot of the government as the chairperson and members are to be appointed by the central government.
• The DPDP Bill 2023 attempts to pass off a lame-duck as a watchdog.
• In Europe, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) set a high standard for data protection. It has a strong watchdog that operates in a society with universal literacy, and high digital and financial literacy.
• Restricting data collection is not even being discussed in India.

Conclusion

• A weak board combined with the lack of universal literacy and poor digital and financial literacy, as well as an overburdened legal system, mean that the chances that citizens will be able to seek legal recourse when privacy harms are inflicted on them are slim.

General Studies Paper 3

Context

• On August 2, Parliament passed the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2023, in a bid to attract private sector investment in the exploration of critical and deep-seated minerals in the country.

About

• The Bill puts six minerals, including lithium — used in electric vehicle batteries and other energy storage solutions — into a list of “critical and strategic” minerals. The exploration and mining of these six minerals, previously classified as atomic minerals, were restricted to government-owned entities.

Import of India’s critical minerals

• The clean energy transitions of countries including India, seeking to meet their net-zero emission goals, are contingent on the availability of critical minerals such as lithium, which has also been called ‘white gold’, and others including cobalt, graphite, and rare earth elements (REEs).
• These are also crucial for the manufacture of semiconductors used in smart electronics; defence and aerospace equipment; telecommunication technologies and so on.
• The lack of availability of such minerals or the concentration of their extraction or processing in a few geographical locations leads to import dependency, supply chain vulnerabilities, and even disruption of their supplies.
• As per figures quoted by the Ministry, India is 100% import-dependent on countries including China, Russia, Australia, South Africa, and the U.S. for the supply of critical minerals like lithium, cobalt, nickel, niobium, beryllium, and tantalum.
• Also for deep-seated minerals like gold, silver, copper, zinc, lead, nickel, cobalt, platinum group elements (PGEs) and diamonds, which are difficult and expensive to explore and mine as compared to surficial or bulk minerals, India depends largely on imports.

Critical minerals exploration

• The primary step to discovering mineral resources and eventually finding economically viable reserves is mineral exploration, which comes in various stages before mining.
• The stages of exploration are divided as per the United Nations Framework for Classification of Resources into G4 (Reconnaissance), G3 (Prospecting), G2 (General Exploration), and G1 (Detailed Exploration).
• Notably, it is estimated that India has explored just 10% of its Obvious Geological Potential (OGP), less than 2% of which is mined and the country spends less than 1% of the global mineral exploration budget.
• Exploration requires techniques like aerial surveys, geological mapping, and geochemical analyses and is a highly specialised, time-intensive and monetarily risky operation with less than 1% of explored projects becoming commercially viable mines.

India’s mining policy

• The Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act (MMDR Act), 1957, the primary legislation governing mining in the country has been amended several times since its enactment including recently in 2015, 2020, and 2021.
• Later, private companies could also get Prospecting Licences (PL) or Mining Leases (ML), and could even apply for early-stage or greenfield exploration through Reconnaissance Permits (RPs).
• In 2015, the MMDR Act was amended to allow private companies to participate in government auctions for Mining Leases and Composite Licences (CLs).
• However, due to the Evidence of Mineral content (EMT) rule, only government-explored projects were auctioned, limiting private sector involvement.
• The amendment also permitted private firms to register as exploration agencies, with the National Mineral Exploration Trust (NMET) funding for G4 to G1 exploration, but private participation remained limited.

THE MINES and Minerals Bill 2023

• Firstly, the Bill omits at least six previously mentioned atomic minerals from a list of 12 which cannot be commercially mined.
• Being on the atomic minerals list, the exploration and mining of these six — lithium, beryllium, niobium, titanium, tantalum and zirconium, was previously reserved for government entities.
• Secondly, the Act prohibits pitting, trenching, drilling, and sub-surface excavation as part of reconnaissance, which included mapping and surveys. The Bill allows these prohibited activities.
• The Bill also proposes a new type of licence to encourage reconnaissance — level and or prospective stage exploration by the private sector.
• This exploration licence (EL), for a period of five years (extendable by two years), will be granted by the State government by way of competitive bidding.
• This licence will be issued for 29 minerals specified in the Seventh Schedule of the amended Act, which would include critical, strategic, and deep-seated minerals.

Way forward

• Privatization comes with risks of monopolization and black marketeering. Mining sector already prone to irregularities and corruption. Thus, the Government should design a mechanism to include safeguards.
• Nothing in the Bill ensures that mineral allocation will be prioritized for public sector companies. The Government must make provisions for allocation to public sector first and the remaining should be allocated to the private companies.