Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A section of environmentalists have flagged irregularities in the draft Environmental Impact Assessment report for a proposed chemical plant in Telangana’s Nalgonda district.

• The project uses outdated technology to produce sodium dichromate from chromite ore, while disguising itself as a sodium saccharin unit.
• Sodium dichromate is a hazardous chemical. It is corrosive to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract. Exposure to the substance may cause affect kidney and liver.
• The company abandoned 100,000 tonnes of chromite ore processing residue, which continuously leached hexavalent chromium through a stream joining the Krishna.
• The substance is very toxic to aquatic organisms. It may cause long-term effects on the marine environment. It is strongly advised not to let the chemicals enter the environment.

Sodium Chromate

• Sodium chromate is the inorganic compound with the formula Na2CrO4.
• It exists as a yellow hygroscopic solid, which can form tetra-, hexa-, and decahydrates.
• It is an intermediate in the extraction of chromium from its ores.
• Sodium chromate is
• It is obtained on a vast scale by roasting chromium ores in air in the presence of sodium carbonate
• The compound is also corrosive and exposure may produce severe eye damage or blindness.
• Human exposure further encompasses impaired fertility, heritable genetic damage and harm to unborn children.

Sodium Dichromate

• Sodium chromate converts to sodium dichromate when treated with acids.
• Sodium dichromate is a hazardous chemical.
• It is corrosive to the eyes, skin and respiratory tract.
• Exposure to the substance may cause affect kidney and liver.
• Even a brief exposure to the substance can damage tissues.
• Repeated or prolonged inhalation may cause nasal ulceration. This may result in perforation of the nasal septum.
• The substance is very toxic to aquatic organisms.
• It may cause long-term effects on the marine environment.

Uses of Sodium Chromate

• Production of chromium from its ores.
• Used as a corrosion inhibitor in the petroleum industry.
• A dyeing auxiliary in the textile industry.
• A diagnostic pharmaceutical in determining red blood cell volume.
• In organic chemistry, sodium chromate is used as an oxidant, converting primary alcohols to carboxylic acids and secondary alcohols to ketones.
• Sodium chromate is a strong oxidizer.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

On October 5, Mission Jai Bhim and The Buddhist Society of India organised a public meeting in Delhi to commemorate Buddhist Conversion Day. 

• Every year Dussehra is also celebrated as Ashoka Vijaya Dashami to commemorate Buddhist Conversion day. 
• On October 14, 1956, B. R. Ambedkar along with more than half a million followers had embraced Buddhism in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

Navayana Buddhism

• On October 13, 1935, Ambedkar, as president of the ‘Yeola Conversion Conference’ near Nasik, announced his decision to renounce Hinduism, as a path to contest the Hindu caste order. 
• He asked the assembled members from the depressed castes to abandon struggles such as the temple-entry agitations and advised them to leave Hinduism entirely and embrace another religion.
• Ambedkar embraced Buddhism in a grand ceremony at Nagpur’s Deekshabhoomi, where more than five lakh followers had assembled to follow his decision. 
• Under the presence of monk Chandramani, Ambedkar and his wife took the Buddhist vows. 
• He then recited the three jewels (Trisharan), five precepts (Panchsheel), pronounced the self-crafted 22 vows for the assembled people and renounced Hinduism. 
• The event is marked as the renaissance of Buddhism in India. 
• In the post-event deliberation, Ambedkar called his version of Buddhism Navayana (followers are called neo-Buddhists), differentiating it with the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Buddhism. 
• Every year in October, lakhs of people assemble at Nagpur’s Deekshabhoomi to pay homage to Ambedkar and to celebrate the historic day.
• Navayana Buddhism differs with the Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions of Buddhism.

The 22 vows are divided into three major sections.

• First part – to refuse to worship the Hindu pantheon or to follow Hindu religious dogmas
• Second – it challenges the authority of the Brahmin priest
• Third –promises to follow Buddhist principles.

Demographic status of neo-Buddhists in India

• The Buddhist population is a mere 0.70%, of which 87% are neo-Buddhists.
• Further, a large majority of it (around 80%) reside in Maharashtra (5.8% of the total population).
• However, it is mainly the Mahar caste that primarily converted to Buddhism. Some other converted communities include the Matang castes and some sections of Maratha castes.
• The rest are traditional Buddhists and are scattered mainly in north-eastern States like Sikkim, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Tripura, etc.
• There has been a decline in the growth rate of Buddhists in India in recent years.
• The neo-Buddhists of Maharashtra have established numerous viharas and meditation centres.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Indian space economy is set to reach $13 billion by 2025, according to a joint report prepared by EY and the Indian Space Association (ISpA), an apex industry association of space and satellite companies in the country.

Important Points of the Report

• The space launch segment would grow fastest at a CAGR of 13% spurred by growing private participation, latest technology adoption and low cost of launch services.
• Satellite services and application segment would form the largest share of the space economy accounting for 36% of the space economy by 2025.
• There are over 100 space tech start-ups in the country and investments in space tech start-ups increased 196% y-o-y in 2021.
• On the country’s satellite manufacturing opportunity, it said in 2020 it was $2.1 billion and this would reach $3.2 billion by 2025.
• By 2025, satellite manufacturing would be the second fastest-growing segment in the Indian space economy. 
• Space parks that are coming up across the country would give a fillip to companies operating across the space value chain, especially manufacturing.
• With the rapidly growing space ecosystem, India is all prepared to grow to $13 billion by 2025. 
• India looks forward to the New Space Policy, the private industry’s role is set to create a revolution in the current value chain of the Indian space economy,

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences for 2022 was awarded to three American economists: Ben S Bernanke, Douglas W Diamond and Philip H Dybvi.

About Research

• Modern banking research clarifies why we have banks, how to make them less vulnerable in crises and how bank collapses exacerbate financial crises. 
• The foundations of this research were laid by Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig in the early 1980s. 
• Their analyses have been of great practical importance in regulating financial markets and dealing with financial crises.
• The laureates’ insights have played an important role in ensuring crises such as covid pandemic did not develop into new depressions with devastating consequences for society.

Ben S Bernanke

• Bernanke demonstrated how failing banks played a decisive role in the global depression of the 1930s. The collapse of the banking system explains why the downturn was not only deep, but also long-lasting.
• It added the importance of well-functioning bank regulation.
• Conflict: savers want instant access to their money in case of unexpected outlays, while businesses and homeowners need to know they will not be forced to repay their loans prematurely. This creates the fundamental problem of volatility in banks and vulnerability to shocks such as in case of bank runs.
• For example, when people were unable to withdraw their money from a few rural banks in China earlier this year, they witnessed bank runs. A bank run may happen where many savers try to withdraw their money at once, which can lead to a bank’s collapse.
• Interestingly, Bernanke was the head of the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, when the 2008 crisis hit, and was able to “put knowledge from research into policy,”

Douglas W Diamond and Philip H Dybvi

• Both Diamond and Dybvig worked together to develop theoretical models explaining why banks exist, how their role in society makes them vulnerable to rumours about their impending collapse, and how society can lessen this vulnerability.
• The model captures the central mechanisms of banking, as well as its weaknesses. 
• It is based upon households saving some of their income, as well as needing to be able to withdraw their money when they wish. 
• That this does not happen at the same time for every household allows for money to be invested into projects that need financing.
• They argue, therefore, that banks emerge as natural intermediaries that help ease liquidity.
• But with massive financial crises that have been witnessed in history, particularly in the US, it is often discussed how banks need to be more careful about assessing the loans they give out, or how bailing out banks in crisis might turn out to be.

Miscellaneous

• A bank run may happen where many savers try to withdraw their money at once, which can lead to a bank’s collapse. For example, when people were unable to withdraw their money from a few rural banks in China earlier this year, they witnessed bank runs.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Tiger T-104 was put down by the forest department of Bihar in the Valmiki Tiger Reserve in West Champaran district of the state according to protocol laid down by National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) for man-eater tigers.

• The tiger in question was a three-year-old male, who had killed 10 people in the district. It was shot dead on the orders of the Chief Wildlife Warden (CWW) of Bihar.  
• Four years ago, Avni or T1, the man-eating tigress of Yavatmal district in Maharashtra, had been similarly eliminated after she mauled 13 people to death.
• The elimination of the tiger has raised eyebrows since the animal is listed under Schedule 1 of the Wild Life (Protection) Act, 1972 (WLPA). 
• But the NTCA has laid down Standing Operating Procedures (SoP) for declaring tigers and leopards as ‘man-eaters’, if they pose threats to human lives.

Valmiki Tiger Reserve 

• It forms the eastern most limit of the Himalayan Terai forests in India and is the only tiger reserve of Bihar. 
• Situated in the Gangetic Plains bio-geographic zone of the country, the forest has combination of bhabar and terai tracts. 
• Valmiki Tiger Reserve lies in the north-western (mostly in the West Champaran) district of Bihar.
• The pristine forest and wilderness of VTR is an excellent example of Himalayan Terai landscape.
• The VTR forest area covers 901.07 sq km, out of which Wildlife Sanctuary is 880.78 sq km. and National Park is about 335.64 sq. km.
• VTR is one of the eleven Level 1 Tiger Conservation Units (TCU) in the Indian sub- continent, where long term survival of Tigers (Panthera tigris) is possible.
• The Reserve has also been designated as Important Bird Area (IBA) by the Indian Bird Conservation Network.

Wildlife Protection Act (WPA) 1972

• In India, wildlife conservation and protection are maintained under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
• The Act is a product of the times when environmental jurisprudence was rapidly developing in India with due credit to judicial activism.
• The current Act is comprehensive and protects all kinds of animals – amphibians to birds, mammals, and reptiles and specified plants that cannot be destroyed and damaged without the approval of the government.
• It provides for the appointment of wildlife advisory Board, Wildlife warden, their powers, duties etc.

Institutions

• The Act provides for setting up of National Parks, Wildlife Sanctuaries etc.
• The constitution of Central Zoo Authority.
• The Act also provides the constitution of Indian Board of Wildlife (IBWL)
• It also sets up the National Tiger Conservation Authority.
• Hunting and poaching are prohibited under the Act with exceptions such as special permission may be granted by CWW for purposes like education, scientific research, etc.
• Constitution of the National Board for Wildlife with the PM as its chairperson.
• 6 schedules include protection to both animals and plants including Vermin (specified in Schedule five)
• Recognition of Protected Areas (PAs) such as Wildlife Sanctuaries and National Parks.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The concept of an everything app, often referred to as a “super app,” is massively popular in Asia and tech companies across the world have tried to replicate it.

What is a Super App?

• A super app, or what Musk refers to as an “everything app,” has been described as the Swiss army knife of mobile apps, offering a suite of services for users such as messaging, social networking, peer-to-peer payments and e-commerce shopping.
• These mega apps are widely used in Asia because mobile is the main form of access to the internet for many people in the region.
• Chinese super app WeChat has more than 1 billion monthly users, according to one estimate, and is a ubiquitous part of daily life in China. Users can hail a car or taxi, send money to friends and family or make payments at stores. 
• Elon Musk saw an opportunity to create such an app by adding more tools and services to Twitter.
• Musk said he wanted Twitter to grow from its 237 million users to “at least a billion.”
• On the contrary, any other app in general will be specialising in one of these services or categories such as Uber for cabs, Swiggy for food and grocery delivery, and Netflix for movies and content.
• These Super apps are strongly aligned with emerging market governments because of their role in shrinking the grey economy.

Have other U.S tech companies tried this?

• Yes, Snapchat parent Snap Inc. previously introduced peer-to-peer payments called Snapcash, but ended the feature in 2018. 
• It also made a push into mobile gaming and recently ended that venture as part of cost-cutting plans.
• Meta Platform Inc.’s Facebook and Instagram have also tried to expand beyond social networking and messaging into e-commerce.

India’s Position

• Amazon in India, lets you pay utility bills, book travel, order food, groceries and so on.
• Paytm has been offering a multitude of services, including bill payments, ticket booking, gaming, investments and more.
• Reliance Jio’s intents offering a suite of services within its app. The app will have groceries, medicines, content, fashion and so on.
• Flipkart’s Phonepay too has been partnering with several other companies like Ola, Swiggy, MakeMyTrip, IRCTC to name a few to enable services across categories through Phonepay Switch platform.
• Tata Digital’s Tata Neu latest offering has brought together some of the top brands within their respective categories with a smoother and better user interface.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Nobel Peace Prize for 2022, awarded to a jailed Belarus civil rights activist, and a rights organisation each in Russia and Ukraine.

Ales Bialiatski

• He is a Belarus civil rights activist who promotes democracy and peaceful development in his country.
• Ales Bialiatski, who is in jail since 2021, is a vocal critic of Putin’s ally, President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus. 
• In 1995, Bialiatski founded the Belarus human rights group Viasna (Spring) which, according to a fund-raising page on patreon.com, “defends human rights, promotes human rights and exposes violations”.
• Belarus’s support to Russia – offered country’s territory to Russian troops for launching attacks into Ukraine and its soldiers are said to have fought alongside Russian troops.

Center for Civil Liberties, Ukraine

• The Center was founded in Kyiv in 2007 with the aim of advancing human rights and democracy in Ukraine. 
• The Center has actively advocated that Ukraine become affiliated with the International Criminal Court.
• Since Russia’s invasion in February 2022, the Center has engaged in efforts to identify and document Russian war crimes against the Ukrainian civilian population in collaboration with international partners.

Memorial group of Russia

• Memorial was established by human rights activists in the former Soviet Union during the Gorbachev years of glasnost and perestroika, and among its founders were 1975 Nobel Peace Prize laureate Andrei Sakharov and Russian mathematician Svetlana Gannushkina.
• Its objective was to record atrocities committed during the communist regime, especially under Joseph Stalin. 
• After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Memorial grew to become the largest human rights organisation in Russia. 
• It established a centre to document victims of the Stalinist era, and compiled information on political oppression and human rights violations in Russia. 
• Memorial, the most authoritative source of information on political prisoners in Russian detention facilities, also leads efforts to combat militarism and promote human rights.
• During the Chechen wars, Memorial gathered and verified information on abuses and war crimes by Russian and pro-Russian forces. 
• In 2009, the head of Memorial’s branch in Chechnya, Natalia Estemirova, was killed because of this work. 
• The organisation was stamped as a “foreign agent” early on, and in December 2021, the Supreme Court ruled that it must be liquidated and the documentation centre shut permanently.

Significance

• The Peace Prize winners represent civil society in their home countries.
• They have for many years promoted the right to criticise power and protect the fundamental rights of citizens.
• They have made an outstanding effort to document war crimes, human rights abuses and the abuse of power
• Together they demonstrate the significance of civil society for peace and democracy.
• This year’s winners have revitalised and honoured Alfred Nobel’s vision of peace and fraternity between nations — a vision most needed in the world today.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India ranks fourth among 12 Indo-Pacific nations in self-reliant arms production capabilities, according to a study released this month by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), a widely respected independent resource on global security. China tops the list, Japan is second, South Korea is in third place, and Pakistan is at number 8.

The study, which measures self-reliance until 2020, is based on three indicators of self reliance in each country:

• Arms procurement — imports, licensed and domestic production as a proportion of the government’s total procurement of major conventional arms.
• Arms industry — the study presents the five largest arms companies in each country, where data are available, ranked by sales of arms and military services in 2020 to both domestic and export customers.
• Uncrewed maritime vehicles, the sea equivalent of drones — covering both uncrewed surface vehicles (USVs) and uncrewed underwater vehicles (UUVs), meant to provide a qualitative understanding of how countries are engaging domestic research institutes and firms to produce such cutting edge systems.

Indian Companies & Suppliers

• Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd, Indian Ordnance Factories, Bharat Electronics, Mazagaon Docks and Cochin Shipyard are among the major Indian arms servicing companies.
• Ashok Leyland, one of the largest suppliers of trucks to the Indian Army, is the only company ranked in the top 50 in the Indo-Pacific.

Aatmanirbhar in defence production:

Make-I Category:

• Under the Defence Acquisition Procedure 2020, ‘Make’ Category aims to achieve self-reliance by involving greater participation of Indian industry.
• Projects involving design and development of equipment, systems, major platforms or upgrades thereof by the industry can be taken up under this category.

Financial Support:

The Ministry of Defence will provide financial support up to 70% of the total cost of prototype development.

Make-II Category:

It is funded by industry with assured procurement. The following platform has been listed – Anti-jamming Systems for Multiple Platforms.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

‘Vyommitra’, the humanoid designed and developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to fly aboard unmanned test missions ahead of the Gaganyaan human space-flight mission, is undergoing pre-flight ground tests at the ISRO Inertial Systems Unit (IISU).

About Vyommitra

• IISU was responsible for the design, development, and integration of the robot, while sister ISRO centre Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC) at Thumba here developed its fingers.
• Vyommitra is a female-looking spacefaring humanoid robot being developed by the Indian Space Research Organisation to function on-board the Gaganyaan, a crewed orbital spacecraft.
• A humanoid is basically a robot with the appearance of a human being.
• ISRO’s Vyommitra (vyoma = space, mitra = friend) is also being called a half-humanoid since she will only have a head, two hands and a torso, and will not have lower limbs. Like any robot, a humanoid’s functions are determined by the computer systems to which it is connected.
• ‘Vyommitra’, the humanoid designed and developed by the ISRO to fly aboard unmanned test missions ahead of the Gaganyaan human space-flight mission, is undergoing pre-flight ground tests.
• IISU has successfully integrated it with a computer ‘brain’ which enables it to ‘read’ control panels aboard the unmanned test flights and communicate with the ISRO ground stations.
• The AI-enabled robot, which can withstand vibrations and shock during the flight, has been designed to resemble a human with facial expressions and speech and sight capabilities.

ISRO developing a humanoid

• ISRO plans to send a human into space for the first time by 2022.
• It is racing against time to develop a crew module and rocket systems that will ensure the safe travel and return of the Indian astronaut.
• Other countries that have successfully launched humans into space did so after having used animals for conducting tests of their rockets and crew recovery systems.
• ISRO will use the humanoid to test the efficacy of its GSLV Mk III rocket to transport a human to space and back.
• The humanoid is under development at a robotics laboratory at the Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre.
• Once flown into space, ISRO’s half-humanoid will be able to test systems in the crew module meant for the survival and safe travel of the first Indian astronaut in 2022.

Activities of Vyommitra

• The activities that Vyommitra will be able to perform, once fully developed for the unmanned flight, will include:
• procedures to use equipment on board the spacecraft’s crew module such as safety mechanisms and switches,
• receiving and acting on commands sent from ground stations
• attaining launch and orbital postures,
• responding to the environment,
• generating warnings,
• replacing carbon dioxide canisters,
• operating switches,
• monitoring of the crew module,
• receiving voice commands,
• responding via speech (bilingual).
• Vyommitra will also report back to Earth on the changes occurring in the crew module during the spaceflight and return, such as heat radiation levels, to enable ISRO to understand the safety levels required in the crew module that will eventually fly a human being.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels (NOPEC) bill, which passed a Senate committee 17-4 on May 5, is intended to protect U.S. consumers and businesses from engineered oil spikes.

What is the NOPEC bill?

• The bipartisan NOPEC bill would tweak U.S. antitrust law to revoke the sovereign immunity that has protected OPEC+ members and their national oil companies from lawsuits. 
• If signed into law, the U.S. attorney general would gain the option to sue the oil cartel or its members, such as Saudi Arabia, in federal court.
• It is unclear exactly how a federal court could enforce judicial antitrust decisions against a foreign nation. 
• The United States could also face criticism for its attempts to manipulate markets by, for example, its planned release of 165 million barrels of oil from the emergency oil reserve between May and November.
• But several attempts to pass NOPEC over more than two decades have long worried OPEC’s de facto leader Saudi Arabia, leading Riyadh to lobby hard every time a version of the bill has come up.
• With the Senate Judiciary Committee passing the bill in May, it needs to pass the full Senate and House and be signed by the president to become law. 
• ClearView Energy Partners, a nonpartisan research group, said NOPEC, if introduced to the Senate floor, would likely get the 60 votes needed to pass the 100-member chamber.

Concerns about the bill

• One industry concern is that NOPEC legislation could ultimately lead to overproduction by OPEC, bringing prices so low that U.S. energy companies have difficulty boosting output.
• Saudi Arabia and other OPEC countries have some of the world’s cheapest and easiest reserves to produce.
• A wave of oil from OPEC producers, even at a time of concerns about Russian supply could chill U.S. drillers, some of which are already reluctant to boost output despite the cut.
• Some analysts have said that NOPEC could lead to unintended blowback, including the possibility that other countries could take similar action on the United States for withholding agricultural output to support domestic farming, for example.
• OPEC nations could also strike back in other ways.

• In 2019, for example, Saudi Arabia threatened to sell its oil in currencies other than the dollar if Washington passed a version of the NOPEC bill.
• Doing so would undermine the dollar’s status as the world’s main reserve currency, reduce Washington’s clout in global trade, and weaken its ability to enforce sanctions on nation-states.

• The kingdom could also decide to buy at least some weapons from countries other than the United States, hitting a lucrative business for U.S. defense contractors.
• The kingdom and other oil producers could limit U.S. investments in their countries or simply raise their prices for oil sold into the United States – undermining the basic aim of the bill.