Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

South Korea’s new willingness to become a global pivotal state and play an active role in regional affairs is bound to create multiple opportunities for a multi-dimensional India- Korea partnership

• During the past five years, India and South Korea have experienced considerable divergence in their respective national objectives
• India and South Korea have faced serious blockades to their economic ties.
• Trade between the two countries was sluggish and there was no major inflow of South Korean investment into India.
• Thus South Korea’s new willingness to become a global pivotal state and play an active role in regional affairs is bound to create multiple opportunities for a multi-dimensional India- Korea partnership.

Converging Ideas

Correcting a China tilt

• South Korea’s strategic policy shift to correct its heavy tilt towards China is bound to bring new economic opportunities for both countries.
• Both nations will now be in a better position to understand and accommodate the other’s trade investments and supply chain needs.

Economic Co operation

• The emerging strategic alignment is creating a new convergence of capabilities and closer synergy in new areas of economic cooperation such as public health, green growth, digital connectivity, and trade, among others.
• In 2020, India and South Korea signed a Roadmap for Defence Industries Cooperation.
• With the strategic shift in South Korea’s defence orientation, new doors of cooperation for defence and security have emerged.

Indo-Pacific outlook

• India has evolved excellent strategic partnerships with Japan, Vietnam and Australia. Unfortunately, South Korea has not received the same level of attention from the Indian establishment.
• South Korea could be the fourth pillar in India’s Indo-Pacific strategy along with Japan, Australia, and Vietnam.
• This can bring about a paradigm shift in India’s position and influence in the region.

Way Forward

• The time has come for the Indian and South Korean bilateral partnership to be strategically scaled up at the political, diplomatic and security domain levels.
• With South Korea’s emergence as a leader in critical technologies, cybersecurity and cyber-capacity building, outer space and space situational awareness capabilities, South Korea can contribute immensely to enhance India’s foundational strengths in the Indo-Pacific.

India can help South Korea withstand Chinese pressure and North Korean threats. An independent, strong, and democratic South Korea can be a long-term partner with India that will add significant value to India’s Indo-Pacific strategy. This new partnership can have a long-term positive impact for both countries and the Indo-Pacific region. It is an opportunity that neither country can afford to miss.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Serum Institute of India (SII)’s vaccine Cervavac recently received the Drugs Controller General of India’s (DGCI) approval for market authorisation.

• Cervavac is India’s first quadrivalent human papillomavirus vaccine (qHPV) vaccine, and intended to protect women against cervical cancer.

Cervical cancer

• Cervical cancer is a common sexually transmitted infection.
• Long-lasting infection with certain types of HPV is the main cause of cervical cancer.
• Worldwide, cervical cancer is the second most common cancer type and the second most common cause of cancer death in women of reproductive age (15–44).
• India accounts for about a fifth of the global burden, with 23 lakh cases and around 67,000 deaths per year according to the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer
• It kills one woman every eight minutes in the country.
• Screening and vaccination are two powerful tools that are available for preventive cervical cancer.
• Still there is little awareness among women for prevention of this cancer and less than 10% of Indian women get screened.

Existing vaccines

• Two vaccines licensed globally are available in India — a quadrivalent vaccine (Gardasil, from Merck) and a bivalent vaccine (Cervarix, from GlaxoSmithKline).
• Although HPV vaccination was introduced in 2008, it has yet to be included in the national immunisation programme.

The new vaccine

• The vaccine is based on VLP (virus like particles), similar to the hepatitis B vaccine, and provides protection by generating antibodies against the HPV virus’s L1 protein.
• This will be a huge step to accelerate cervical cancer elimination in India and globally.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Global Gender Gap Index for 2022 was released by the World Economic Forum.

Global Gender Gap Index

• It benchmarks the current state and evolution of gender parity across four key dimensions
• Economic Participation and Opportunity,
• Educational Attainment,
• Health and Survival, and
• Political Empowerment
• On each of the four sub-indices as well as on the overall index the GGG index provides scores between 0 and 1, where 1 shows full gender parity and 0 is complete imparity.
• The cross-country comparisons aim to support the identification of the most effective policies to close gender gaps

Ranking

• Although no country achieved full gender parity, the top 10 economies closed at least 80% of their gender gaps, with Iceland (90.8%) leading the global ranking.
• Iceland is followed by Finland (86%, 2nd), Norway (84.5%, 3rd), New Zealand (84.1%, 4th), Sweden (82.2%, 5th), Rwanda (81.1%, 6th), Nicaragua (81%, 7th), Namibia (80.7%, 8th), Ireland (80.4%, 9th) and Germany (80.1%, 10th).
• India was ranked at 135 out of 146 countries

India’s Performance

• India has approximately 662 million (or 66.2 crore) women.
• In 2022, India’s overall score has improved from 0.625 (in 2021) to 0.629.
• India’s score of 0.629 is its seventh-highest score in the last 16 years.
• India ranked poorly among its neighbours and is behind Bangladesh (71), Nepal (96), Sri Lanka (110), Maldives (117) and Bhutan (126).
• Only Iran (143), Pakistan (145) and Afghanistan (146) perform worse than India in south Asia.

How India stands on different sub-indices:

Political Empowerment

• This includes metrics such as the percentage of women in Parliament, the percentage of women in ministerial positions etc.
• Of all the sub-indices, this is where India ranks the highest (48th out of 146).

Economic Participation and Opportunity

• This includes metrics such as the percentage of women who are part of the labour force, wage equality for similar work, earned income etc
• India ranks a lowly 143 out of the 146 countries in contention even though its score has improved over 2021 from 0.326 to 0.350.

Educational Attainment

• This sub-index includes metrics such as literacy rate and the enrolment rates in primary, secondary and tertiary education. Here India ranks 107th out of 146.

Health and Survival

• This includes two metrics: the sex ratio at birth and healthy life expectancy. In this metric, India is ranked the last (146) among all the countries.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India has achieved clean energy targets nine years ahead of schedule – stated the Union Power Ministry.

• India has installed 162 GW (1 GW is 1,000 MW) of renewable energy capacity, which is 41% of the 402 GW of electricity installed.
• India reached this target on November 2021.
• In 2015, India committed to ensuring that 40% of its energy would be from renewable sources by 2030 as part of its Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC).

New Target

• At the COP26 India is committed to achieving 500 GW of installed electricity capacity from non-fossil fuel sources by the year 2030.

Challenges in Achieving the Target:

Mobilization of the Necessary Finance:

• Gearing up the banking sector for arranging finances for larger deployment goals, exploring low-interest rate, long-term international funding, and developing a suitable mechanism for risk mitigation or sharing by addressing both technical and financial bottlenecks are major challenges.

Land Acquisition:

• Identification of land with Renewable Energy potential, its conversion, clearance from land ceiling Act, decision on land lease rent, clearance from revenue department, and other such clearances take time.
• State governments have to play a major role in acquisition of land for RE projects.

Creating Ecosystem:

• Creating an innovation and manufacturing ecosystem in the country.

Others:

• Integrating a larger share of renewable with the grid.
• Enabling supply of firm and dispatchable power from renewable.
• Enabling penetration of renewables in the so called hard to decarbonize sectors.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Social Justice Ministry slammed the aviation regulator, demands guidelines for licensing of transgender persons as pilots.

• The Directorate General of Civil Aviation’s (DGCA) denied commercial pilot license to a transgender candidate.
• The actions of the DGCA violates the provisions stated under The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019, as it ends up being discriminatory by denying/ terminating employment or occupation on the basis of gender of the person.

The Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) Act of 2019

Definition of a transgender person:

• The Bill defines a transgender person as one whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth.
• It includes trans-men and trans-women, persons with intersex variations, gender-queers, and persons with socio-cultural identities, such as kinnar and hijra

Prohibition against discrimination:

• The Bill prohibits the discrimination against a transgender person, including denial of service or unfair treatment in relation to:
• Education;
• Employment;
• Healthcare;
• Access to, or enjoyment of goods, facilities, opportunities available to the public;
• Right to movement;
• Right to reside, rent, or otherwise occupy property;
• Opportunity to hold public or private office; and
• Access to a government or private establishment in whose care or custody a transgender person is.

Right of residence:

• Every transgender person shall have a right to reside and be included in his household.

Employment:

• No government or private entity can discriminate against a transgender person in employment matters, including recruitment, and promotion.
• Every establishment is required to designate a person to be a complaint officer to deal with complaints in relation to the Act.

Education:

• Educational institutions funded or recognised by the relevant government shall provide inclusive education, sports and recreational facilities for transgender persons, without discrimination.

Health care:

• The government must take steps to provide health facilities to transgender persons including separate HIV surveillance centres, and sex reassignment surgeries.

Certificate of identity for a transgender person:

• A transgender person may make an application to the District Magistrate for a certificate of identity, indicating the gender as ‘transgender’.

Welfare measures by the government:

The Bill states that the relevant government will take measures to ensure the full inclusion and participation of transgender persons in society.

It must also take steps for their rescue and rehabilitation, vocational training and self-employment, etc.

National Council for Transgender persons (NCT):

• The Council will advise the central government as well as monitor the impact of policies, legislation and projects with respect to transgender persons.
• It will also redress the grievances of transgender persons.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Recently, the Supreme Court underlined that “there is a pressing need” for reform in the law related to bail and called on the government to consider framing a special legislation on the lines of the law in the United Kingdom.

What is the ruling about?

• A two-judge Bench of Supreme Court issued certain clarifications to an older judgment delivered in July 2021 on bail reform (Satender Kumar Antil vs CBI).
• Referring to the state of jails in the country, where over two-thirds lodged are undertrials, the Supreme Court underlined that arrest is a draconian measure that needs to be used sparingly.
• Of this category of prisoners, majority of them are poor and illiterate and also would include women.
• The court also linked the idea of indiscriminate arrests to magistrates ignoring the rule of “bail, not jail” to a colonial mindset.

What is the law on bail?

• The CrPC does not define the word bail but only categories offences under the Indian Penal Code as ‘bailable’ and ‘non-bailable’.
• The CrPC empowers magistrates to grant bail for bailable offences as a matter of right.
• Non-bailable offences are cognizable, which enables the police officer to arrest without a warrant.
• In such cases, a magistrate would determine if the accused is fit to be released on bail.

And what is the UK law?

• The Bail Act of the United Kingdom, 1976, prescribes the procedure for granting bail.
• A key feature is that one of the aims of the legislation is reducing the size of the inmate population.
• The law also has provisions for ensuring legal aid for defendants.
• The Act recognises a “general right” to be granted bail.
• For rejecting bail, the prosecution must show that grounds exist for believing the defendant on bail would not surrender to custody, would commit an offence while on bail, or would interfere with witnesses or otherwise obstruct the course of justice; unless the defendant must be detained for his own welfare or protection; or in other circumstances.

What has the Supreme Court held on reforms?

The court’s ruling is in the form of guidelines, and it also draws the line on certain procedural issues for the police and judiciary.

SEPARATE LAW FOR BAIL:

• The court underlined that the CrPC, despite amendments since Independence, largely retains its original structure as drafted by a colonial power over its subjects.
• The court made this point to signal that despite its rulings, structurally, the Code does not account for arrest as a fundamental liberty issue in itself.
• It also highlighted that magistrates do not necessarily exercise their discretionary powers uniformly.
• The court’s solution on this is the framing of a separate law that deals with the grant of bail.

INDISCRIMINATE ARRESTS:

• The court noted that the culture of too many arrests, especially for non-cognisable offences, is unwarranted.
• It emphasised that even for cognisable offences, arrest is not mandatory and must be “necessitated”.
• Such necessity is drawn to prevent the committing of any further offense, for a proper investigation, and to prevent him/her from either disappearing or tampering with the evidence.
• It held that lower courts must satisfy that these conditions are met and any non-compliance would entitle the accused for grant of bail.

BAIL APPLICATION:

• There need not be any insistence of a bail application while considering the application under certain Section of the Code.
• These sections relate to various stages of a trial where a magistrate can decide on release of an accused.
• The Supreme Court held that in these circumstances, magistrates must routinely consider granting bail, without insisting on a separate bail application.

DIRECTION TO STATES:

The SC also directed all state governments and Union Territories to facilitate standing orders to comply with the orders and avoid indiscriminate arrests.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Nord Stream 1, Germany’s main source of gas from Russia, was shut down on July 11 for 10 days of scheduled maintenance work.

• There are growing concerns in European countries that Russia would extend the temporary suspension of gas supplies in retaliation against the current sanctions leveled against Moscow.

What is Nord Stream 1?

• Nord Stream 1 is a 1,224 km underwater gas pipeline that runs from Vyborg in northwest Russia to Lubmin in northeastern Germany via the Baltic Sea.
• The pipeline is the primary route through which its gas enters Germany.
• It transports 55 billion cubic metres of gas a year, of which most goes directly to Germany, while the rest travels west and southwards through onshore links to other countries and into storage caverns.
• There have been growing concerns that there could be further restrictions to European gas supplies, well beyond the scheduled maintenance that has been imposed.
• European countries rely on Russian energy for their cold winters, but now believe that Russia could weaponize their dependency as a response to their sanction due to the conflict in Ukraine.

What are Europe’s alternative sources of energy?

• As an alternative source for energy, European countries have increasingly turned towards the US, from whom they purchase liquified natural gas (LNG) that comes via ships.
• Since ship delivered gas ends up being far more expensive, there are also attempts to get non-Russian pipeline gas from Norway and Azerbaijan.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Parliamentary Standing Committee on Law and Justice, has recommended substantial changes to the Mediation Bill, meant for institutionalisation of mediation and establishment of the Mediation Council of India.

Key Features of Mediation Bill, 2021

Pre-litigation mediation:

• Parties must attempt to settle civil or commercial disputes by mediation before approaching any court or certain tribunals.
• Even if they fail to reach a settlement through pre-litigation mediation, the court or tribunal may at any stage refer the parties to mediation if they request for the same.

Disputes not fit for mediation:

The Bill contains a list of disputes which are not fit for mediation.  These include disputes:

• Relating to claims against minors or persons of unsound mind,
• Involving criminal prosecution, and
• Affecting the rights of third parties.
• The central government may amend this list.

Applicability:

The Bill will apply to mediations conducted in India:

• Involving only domestic parties,
• Involving at least one foreign party and relating to a commercial dispute (i.e., international mediation), and
• If the mediation agreement states that mediation will be as per this Bill.

If the central or state government is a party, the Bill will apply to:

• Commercial disputes, and other disputes as notified.

Mediation process:

• Mediation proceedings will be confidential, and must be completed within 180 days (may be extended by 180 days by the parties).
• A party may withdraw from mediation after two sessions.
• Court annexed mediation must be conducted as per the rules framed by the Supreme Court or High Courts.

Mediators:

Mediators may be appointed by:

• The parties by agreement, or
• A mediation service provider (an institution administering mediation).

Mediation Council of India:

• The central government will establish the Mediation Council of India.
• The Council will consist of a chairperson, two full-time members, three ex-officio members , and a part-time member from an industry body.

Functions of the Council include:

• Registration of mediators, and
• Recognising mediation service providers and mediation institutes

Mediated settlement agreement:

• Agreements resulting from mediation (other than community mediation) will be final, binding, and enforceable in the same manner as court judgments.
• They may be challenged on grounds of: (i) fraud, (ii) corruption, (iii) impersonation, or (iv) relating to disputes not fit for mediation.

Community mediation:

• Community mediation may be attempted to resolve disputes likely to affect the peace and harmony amongst residents of a locality.
• It will be conducted by a panel of three mediators (may include persons of standing in the community, and representatives of resident welfare associations).

Key Issues

• The Bill makes participation in pre-litigation mediation mandatory. Mediation is a voluntary dispute resolution process. On one hand, this could lead to more out of court settlements and reduce the pendency in courts.  On the other hand, mandating mediation goes against its voluntary nature.
• The moment any law is made on the subject it becomes the guiding force.
• The Bill proposes a clause giving the powers to court to make rules for ‘court annexed mediation’, which is unconstitutional.
• It also raises the question on the non-applicability of the provisions of the Bill to disputes/matters of non-commercial nature involving the Government and its agencies.
• The Mediation Council requires prior approval from the central government before issuing regulations related to its essential functions.
• It is not clear why such prior approval is required.
• This may also be questioned since the central government may be a party to mediations.
• The Bill applies to international mediations only if they are conducted in India.
• It does not provide for enforcement of settlement agreements resulting from international mediation conducted outside India.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

NASA has revealed some stunning images of the universe taken from its James Webb Space Telescope.

NASA Webb Space Telescope Images:

• The first image from the Webb has been shared from NASA’s Goddard Space Centre and is the same deep field image of SMACS 0723.
• Some of the cosmic objects in the image are pictured as they were 13.1 billion years ago.
• The second image is a spectrum of the gas giant planet WASP-96b, located nearly 1,150 light-years from Earth.
• This is the first spectrum of an exoplanet taken by Webb.
• It reveals wavelengths that haven’t been revealed before. The spectrum reveals tell-tale signatures of water vapour on the planet.

• The third image is a near-infrared image of the Southern Ring Nebula or the “Eight-burst Nebula,” a planetary Nebula surrounding a dying star.

• The fourth image is an enormous mosaic of Stephan’s Quintet and the largest image taken by Webb to date.
• The image shows the dramatic impact of huge shockwaves as one of the galaxies smashes through the cluster.
• It also shows a black hole in the Quintet at a detail never seen before.

• The last and final image released by NASA shows a star-forming region in the Carina Nebula called NGC 3324, and its “mountains” and “valleys” speckled with glittering stars.
• Captured in infrared for the first time by Webb, the new image shows previously invisible areas of star birth.

What is NASA’s James Webb Telescope?

• The telescope has been in the works for years.
• NASA led its development with the European Space Agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency.
• It was launched aboard a rocket on December 25, 2021, and is currently at a point in space known as the Sun-Earth L2 Lagrange point, approximately 1.5 million km beyond Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
• It is a giant leap forward in our quest to understand the Universe and our origins, as it will examine every phase of cosmic history: from the Big Bang to the formation of galaxies, stars, and planets to the evo

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The futility of the bail order granted by Supreme Court to Mohammed Zubair has bought the focus on Complete Justice as stipulated in Article 142 of Indian Constitution.

Article 142 – It stated that any decree or order passed by the Supreme Court to do complete justice was enforceable throughout the territory of India.

Powers and Challenges of Supreme Court

• The Supreme Court of India is regarded as the world’s most powerful top court, on account of its wide power of judicial review.
• It has the jurisdiction to issue writs under Article 32 of the Constitution.
• It also has the original jurisdiction under Article 131 of the Constitution.
• There is also wide appellate power under Articles 132, 133, 134 and 136 of the Constitution.
• It has the power to “make such order as is necessary for doing complete justice in any cause or matter pending before it”, as per Article 142 of the Constitution.
• Yet, the top court has shown itself to be helpless when issues of individual liberty have been placed before it on very many occasions.
• The jail jurisprudence of the executive effectively surpasses the Court’s bail jurisdiction.
• The executive is able to register multiple FIRs in different States of India so as to ensure that the dissident is not released from prison even if bail is granted in some of the cases.

Rule by Law

• The criminal justice system in tough times degenerates into rule by law that replaces rule of law.
• The law becomes an effective device in the hands of the Government for the purposes of a witch-hunt and this operates against the opponents of a regime.
• Rule by law indicates that decisions are forced upon a citizenry, while Rule of law is to control the unlimited exercise of the power by the supreme lawmaking authority of the land.
• A constitutional court should be able to evolve a mechanism of its own to preserve the democratic foundation of the country by intervening in the incremental process of nation’s “deconstitutionalisation”.

Create Judicial Atmosphere

• Top court must act as a determined umpire who checks the executive’s excesses.
• The Supreme Court’s intervention in the Centre’s COVID-19 vaccine policy and the Pegasus episode illustrates this point.
• The need is to expand the latter approach and to create and perpetuate a democratic judicial atmosphere that supports the cause of freedom.
• The Indian Supreme Court is constitutionally equipped with the power to invoke its jurisdiction for the larger cause of liberty, even by deviating from the conventional technical route.
• The “complete justice” under Article 142 is meant to be used such scenarios
• In Delhi Development Authority vs Skipper Construction Company (1996), the top court said that the power under Article 142 should remain “undefined and uncatalogued, so that it remains elastic enough to be moulded to suit the given situation”.

Treating them as a class

• It is essential for the Supreme Court of India to treat political prisoners and dissenters facing multiple FIRs and undergoing unjustifiably long incarceration as a class.
• It needs jurisprudence at the normative level to tackle the technical arguments that create a false notion of rule of law
• The Court should immediately ensure that vindictive incarceration does not continue even for a day.

The present case is one that demonstrates the juridical deficits of today’s Supreme Court. It is, therefore, an imperative to evolve an effective jurisprudence of “complete justice” by focusing on personal liberty, and thus preserving the country’s democratic legacy.