Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The ICMR-Vector Control Research Centre (VCRC), Puducherry, has filed patent applications for two of its unique products — an artificial diet and feeding device for mosquitoes reared in laboratory — with the Indian Patent Office recently.

• The team has also planned to approach to patent it at global level.
• The two products allow efficient and cost-effective mass-rearing of mosquitoes in laboratory as it is important to keep these mosquitoes healthy to investigate basic facets of their biology and to study vector-borne disease and measures to control it.
• It is quite challenging to keep regular supply of blood from blood banks and to obtain animal ethical clearance to ensure regular supply of blood for rearing mosquitoes for research purposes
• Hence the Institute have zeroed in on four artificial diets for feeding.
• These four diets prepared for female mosquitoes are like a baby formula food and has all the essential nutrients, which are present in the blood.
• These diets would attract hungry female mosquitoes to accept the meal, taste it like blood, produce healthy and viable eggs which should hatch like normal eggs, form healthy useful for laboratory research and mass production whenever necessary.
• It was very difficult to maintain the feed temperature to the optimum level of 37 C, which is human body temperature, by usual water circulation or by using the melted wax.
• Hence a device with controlled temperature was invented, a prototype made and also evaluated for mosquito feeding capability. This could easily replace the conventional hot water circulator-based feeding device

Significance

• These products are commercially viable and technically sound and has great potential in rearing mosquitoes for research purposes and also for the mass production of mosquitoes for their control based on sterile insect technology, population replacement, or population reduction study and Wolbachia endosymbiont bacteria-based control operations.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

Atapuerca Foundation in Spain dug up an ancient jawbone that could help understand Europe’s earliest human civilisation

• The surprise find, which could be about 1.4 million years old, could also give vital clues to the evolution of the human face over the millennia
• The fossilised fragment of an upper jaw and cheekbone was found near caves in the Atapuerca Mountains in northern Spain’s Burgos province, the site of other ancient remains.

General Studies Paper 2

The states are being on boarded for real-time project coordination and collective decision-making in Pm Gati Shakti scheme.

• With the states being on boarded aim is to reduce the time taken to plan and award a project by at least a third.
• Recently, at the meeting chaired by Prime Minister and state chief secretaries, all state governments are learnt to have agreed to support the project.
• The focus is on reducing the time taken to award a project — starting from preparation of a detailed project report (DPR) till the project is assigned.
• While the process usually takes about 16-18 months, it is estimated that it could take just five-six months under the Gati Shakti scheme if a coordinated, real-time approach is implemented. 

PM Gati Shakti

• PM Gati Shakti plan envisages a centralised portal to unite the infrastructural initiatives planned and initiated by as many as 16 central ministries and departments.
• GatiShakti targets to cut logistic costs, increase cargo handling capacity and reduce the turnaround time.
• It is a campaign to lend more speed (Gati) and power (Shakti) to projects by connecting all concerned departments on one platform.
• This way, the infrastructure schemes of various ministries and state governments will be designed and executed with a common vision.

Pillars of Gati Shakti:

Comprehensiveness:

• It will include all the existing and planned initiatives of various Ministries and Departments with one centralized portal.
• Each and every Department will now have visibility of each other’s activities providing critical data while planning & execution of projects in a comprehensive manner.

Prioritization:

• Through this, different Departments will be able to prioritize their projects through cross-—sectoral interactions.

Optimization:

• The National Master Plan will assist different ministries in planning for projects after identification of critical gaps.
• For the transportation of the goods from one place to another, the plan will help in selecting the most optimum route in terms of time and cost.

Synchronization:

• PM GatiShakti will help in synchronizing the activities of each department, as well as of different layers of governance, in a holistic manner by ensuring coordination of work between them.

Analytical:

• The plan will provide the entire data at one place with GIS based spatial planning and analytical tools having 200+ layers, enabling better visibility to the executing agency.

Dynamic:

• All Ministries and Departments will now be able to visualize, review and monitor the progress of cross-sectoral projects, through the GIS platform, as the satellite imagery will give on-ground progress periodically and progress of the projects will be updated on a regular basis on the portal.
• It will help in identifying the vital interventions for enhancing and updating the master plan.

General Studies Paper 3

Delayed payments for small firms stifle economic growth

Delayed Payments

• Delayed payments to suppliers who are often MSMEs is a norm set by buyers who are often big companies and public sector units.
• One estimates suggest that payments worth Rs 6.3-10.7 lakh crore were delayed to MSMEs during 2020-21 with the average days for the delays for micro, small and medium enterprises estimated to be 194, 68 and 46 days respectively.

Foregoing business opportunities due to lack of liquidity

• For every day that a payment is delayed, there is an erosion of value. It locks in capital that could have been deployed gainfully.
• The fact that this is a problem largely faced by cash-strapped and credit-starved MSMEs, makes the erosion of value even more acute.
• Micro and small enterprises borrow at comparatively higher costs and often operate in very competitive environments, surviving on razor-thin margins.
• Foregoing business opportunities due to lack of liquidity is not just detrimental to the specific firm or enterprise but is a deterrent to the overall growth of MSMEs.

Other types of costs incurred

• The other types of costs incurred by such supplier firms include the time spent and the personnel costs employed to recover payments as well as the business forgone due to disrupted cash flows.

The issue needs to be addressed at multiple levels.

Intervention from the government

• This kind of intervention should aim at changing the business culture and thereby strengthening all enterprises across the supply chain.
• On this front, the MSME 2006 Act and the SAMADHAN platform are both steps in the right direction, but there are gaps.
• There are close to one lakh complaints at present on the portal, amounting to Rs 25,000 crore.
• But the disposal rate is low, suggesting that the mechanism is not backed by the necessary wherewithal to address the issues.
• Also regulatory interventions are needed to shift the onus of timely payments onto the buyer firms.
• On the supply chain financing and in-time credit – Market-based solutions lead to efficiency gains and maintain amicable supplier-buyer relations while easing cash flows for MSMEs.
• Strengthening associations and credit practices of MSMEs – entrepreneurs learn to develop a unique value proposition for their services over time, to quicken this, MSMEs need to coalesce and work towards gaining sustainable credit terms.

The problem of delayed payments is a systematic one. It gives buyers an advantage that the economy cannot afford. On the other hand, small businesses and supplier firms have to work with a rising cost of capital due to delays and uncertainty in terms of planning business cycles.

If this issue is not addressed now, it will only add to the burden on the MSMEs, working against the smaller supplier firms and crippling economic activity for the vast majority of entrepreneurs in the country.

General Studies Paper 2

The FSIB has asked the Indian Banks’ Association (IBA) to appoint an institution or firm to design and deliver a leadership development programme for PSU banks (PSBs).

• Recently, Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) stated it will select top officials of banks via a grooming process under a leadership development programme.
• The programme aims to groom business leaders of the PSBs who should be ready to assume top management and board level positions in PSBs and to drive long-term sustainable business in a competitive market place
• The firm which will design and execute the programme will be selected by the IBA through a bidding process.
• The objective is to develop future generation of leaders who are digitally savvy, strategic thinkers with capability to build highly collaborative teams and create a customer centric organisation that thrives in a very dynamic competitive environment.
• The programme will up-skill around 75 participants in the senior management.
• The proposed firm should have capability to design and deliver a training programme for senior officers of PSU banks that can be delivered through three modes — online as e-learning modules, online through live webinars, meetings and through in-person mode.

Financial Services Institutions Bureau

• Recently, Cabinet Appointments Committee (ACC) has passed a government resolution to establish the Financial Services Institutions Bureau (FSIB) in place of the Banks Board Bureau (BBB).
• The Financial Services Institutions Bureau will select the chiefs of public sector banks and insurance companies.
• The FSIB will have the clear mandate to issue guidelines and select general managers and directors of state-run non-life insurers, general insurers and Financial Institutions.
• FSIB will be the single entity for making recommendations for appointments of WTD (Whole-time Director) and NEC (Non-executive Chairman) in Public Sector Banks, India Private Limited company and Financial Institutions.
• The ACC has approved the appointment of Bhanu Pratap Sharma as Initial chairperson of FSIB for two years. He was the former Chairman of BBB.

Banks Board Bureau (BBB)

• The government, in 2016, approved the constitution of the BBB to make recommendations for appointment of whole-time directors as well as non-executive chairpersons of Public Sector Banks (PSBs) and state-owned financial institutions.
• It was an autonomous recommendation body.

Issues

• Delhi High Court had struck down the BBB’s power to select directors of Public Sector Undertaking, general insurance companies
• Delhi High Court in 2020 ruled that the BBB couldn’t select the general managers and directors of state-run general insurers, as it was not a competent body.

General Studies Paper 3

A report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) was released.

• The IPBES Assessment Report on the Sustainable Use of Wild Species has been carried out over four years.

Key findings

• A report has found that with the accelerating global biodiversity crisis, a million species of plants and animals are facing extinction.
• Humans depend on 50,000 wild species for various things, including food, energy, medicine, material and other purposes, directly depend on 10,000 species for food and that over-exploitation is one of the main reasons for biodiversity degradation.
• People all over the world directly use about 7,500 species of wild fish and aquatic invertebrates, 31,100 wild plants, of which 7,400 species are trees, 1,500 species of fungi, 1,700 species of wild terrestrial invertebrates and 7,500 species of wild amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.
• Wild plants, algae and fungi provide food, nutritional diversity and income for an estimated one in five people around the world, in particular women, children, landless farmers and others in vulnerable situations.
• Approximately 4 billion people, or one-third of the global population, rely on fuel wood for cooking and an estimated 880 million people globally log firewood or produce charcoal, particularly in developing countries.
• Globally, wild tree species provide two thirds of industrial roundwood and half of all wood consumed for energy.
• Small-scale fisheries support over 90% of the 120 million people and about half of the people involved in small-scale fisheries are women.
• The report finds that 34% of marine wildlife is overfished.

• Over-exploitation has been identified as the main threat to wild species in marine ecosystems and the second greatest threat to those in terrestrial and freshwater ecosystems.
• Unsustainable fishing is the main cause for the increased extinction risk of sharks and rays over the past half century.
• Unsustainable hunting has been identified as a threat for 1,341 wild mammal species, including 669 species that were assessed as threatened.
• An estimated 12% of wild tree species are threatened by unsustainable logging and unsustainable gathering is one of the main threats for several plant groups, notably cacti, cycads, and orchids as well as other plants and fungi harvested for medicinal purposes.
• Unsustainable harvest contributes towards elevated extinction risk for 28-29% of near-threatened and threatened species from 10 taxonomic groups assessed on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.

General Studies Paper 3

In fight against climate change and its impact, Forest landscape restoration has gained focus.

• According to the IUCN, deforestation and forest degradation contribute around 12% of global greenhouse gas emissions.
• Typically, governments have relied on afforestation and reforestation as a means of establishing trees on non-treed land.
• These strategies have now evolved. The focus is now on forest landscape restoration — the process of regaining ecological functionality and improving human welfare across deforested or degraded forest landscapes.

Forest landscape restoration

• Forest landscape restoration seeks to involve communities in the process of designing and executing mutually advantageous interventions for the upgradation of landscapes.
• Nearly two billion hectares of degraded land in the world (and 140 million hectares in India) have scope for potential restoration as forest land.

Crucial Aspect

• A crucial aspect of this process is to ensure the diversity of the species while planting trees.
• Natural forests with diverse native tree species are more efficient in sequestering carbon than monoculture tree plantations.
• Planting diverse species is also healthier for local communities and their livelihoods

Importance of forest

• Forests are integral in regulating ecosystems, influencing the carbon cycle and mitigating the effects of climate change.
• Annually, forests absorb roughly 2.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide. This absorption includes nearly 33% of the carbon dioxide released from burning fossil fuels.
• Millions of lives and livelihoods are intertwined with our forests.
• Forests are a boon for local communities and their livelihoods by functioning as a resource base for goods and services.
• Forest ecosystems enrich soil fertility and water availability, enhancing agricultural productivity, and in turn the rural economy.
• Tree planting prevents erosion and stems flooding.
• Sustainable forest crops reduce food insecurity and empower women, allowing them to gain access to more nutritional diets and new income streams.
• Agroforestry lessens rural-to-urban migration and contributes to an increase in resources and household income.

India and Programmes

• India joined the Bonn Challenge in 2015, pledging to restore 26 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2030.
• An additional carbon sink of 5 billion-3 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent through forest and tree cover is to be created by 2030 as announced recently.
• Government programmes includes Compensatory Afforestation, the National Afforestation Programme, the National Mission for a Green India (Green India Mission), the Nagar Van scheme and the Forest Fire Prevention and Management Scheme to name a few.
• There is a spotlight on youth via the Green Skill Development Programme for youth who aspire to attain employment in the environment and forest sectors.
• However, forest restoration in India faces hurdles in terms of the identification of areas for restoration, a lack of importance accorded to research and scientific strategies in tree planting, stakeholders’ conflicts of interest, and financing.

What is the right way to undertake tree plantation drives?

• Forest landscape restoration must be implemented proactively, bolstering landscapes and forest ecosystems to be durable and adjustable in the face of future challenges and societal needs.
• It also needs the involvement and the alignment of a host of stakeholders including the community, champions, government and landowners.
• Vulnerable forest-dependent communities should be factored in, and any effort should be tailored to the local socio-economic context and landscape history of a region.

General Studies Paper 3

India’s defence exports for 2021-22 were estimated at ₹13,000 crore, the highest ever.

• The United States was a major buyer, as also nations in Southeast Asia, West Asia and Africa.
• The private sector accounted for 70% of the exports, while public sector firms accounted for the rest.
• Earlier, the private sector used to account for 90% but now the share of defence public sector units had gone up.
• While India’s defence imports from the U.S. have gone up significantly in recent years, Indian companies have been increasingly becoming part of the supply chains of U.S. defence companies.
• In January, India signed a $374.96-million deal with the Philippines, its single biggest defence export order, for the supply of three batteries of shore-based anti-ship variant of the Brahmos supersonic cruise missile.

Issues Retarding Defence Exports

• Excess reliance on Public Sector: India has four companies (Indian ordnance factories, Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), Bharat Electronics Limited (BEL) and Bharat Dynamics Limited (BDL)) among the top 100 biggest arms producers of the world.
• Policy delays: In the past few years, the government has approved over 200 defence acquisition worth Rs 4 trillion, but most are still in relatively early stages of processing.
• Lack of Critical Technologies: Poor design capability in critical technologies, inadequate investment in R&D and the inability to manufacture major subsystems and components hamper the indigenous manufacturing.
• Long gestation: The creation of a manufacturing base is capital and technology-intensive and has a long gestation period. By that time newer technologies make products outdated.
• Unease in doing business: An issue related to stringent labour laws, compliance burden and lack of skills, affects the development of indigenous manufacturing in defence.
• Multiple jurisdictions: Overlapping jurisdiction of the Ministry of Defence and Ministry of Industrial Promotion impair India’s capability of defence manufacturing.
• Lack of quality: The higher indigenization in few cases is largely attributed to the low-end technology.
• Lack of R&D: A lip service to technology funding by making token allocations is an adequate commentary on our lack of seriousness in the area of Research and Development.
• Lack of skills: There is a lack of engineering and research capability in our institutions.

Steps taken by the Centre to boost defence production

• Licensing Relaxation: Measures announced to boost exports since 2014 include simplified defence industrial licensing, relaxation of export controls and grant of no-objection certificates.
• Lines of Credit: Specific incentives introduced under the foreign trade policy has facilitated Lines of Credit for countries to import defence product.
• Indigenization Lists: On the domestic front, to boost indigenous manufacturing, the Government had issued two positive indigenization lists consisting of 209 items that cannot be imported.
• Budgetary Allocation: In addition, a percentage of the capital outlay of the defence budget has been reserved for procurement from domestic industry.

There is a need to create an environment for greater participation of private industry, a stable macro-economic and political environment, and a transparent business environment which encourages fair competition

General Studies Paper 2

Ministry of Women and Child Development issues Guidelines for Mission Vatsalya Scheme

About the Scheme

• The MW&CD is implementing a Centrally Sponsored Scheme “Mission Vatsalya” erstwhile Child Protection Services (CPS) Scheme, since 2009-10 for the welfare and rehabilitation of children.

The objective of Mission Vatsalya is to secure a healthy and happy childhood for each and every child in India.

Components under Mission Vatsalya include–

• Improve functioning of statutory bodies;
• Strengthen service delivery structures;
• Upscale institutional care/services;
• Encourage non-institutional community-based care;
• emergency outreach services;
• Training and capacity building.

Guidelines

• The guidelines detail the process by which funds will be disbursed to states under various heads by defining institutionalised arrangements.
• Funds to states will be approved through the Mission Vatsalya Project Approval Board (PAB), which will be chaired by the WCD Secretary, who will scrutinise and approve annual plans and financial proposals received from states and UTs for release of grants.
• Secretaries of the departments of Home Affairs, Social Justice and Empowerment, Panchayati Raj, Rural Development, Housing and Urban Affairs, Labour, Youth Affairs and Sports, Department of School Affairs and Literacy, and the Niti Aayog CEO, will be PAB members.
• It will be implemented as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme in partnership with state governments and UT administrations, with a fund-sharing pattern in a 60:40 ratio.
• For the eight states in the Northeast — as well as Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and the UT of Jammu and Kashmir — the Centre and state/UT’s share will be 90:10.
• The Centre will cover the whole cost in UTs without a legislature.
• At state level, there will be a committee headed by the Chief Secretary to monitor, review and promote convergence in the implementation of the scheme.
• There will also be a district-level committee.
• The guidelines state that Mission Vatsalya will support State Adoption Resource Agencies (SARA), which will support the Central Adoption Resource Authority (CARA) in promoting in-country adoption and regulating inter-country adoption.
• SARA shall coordinate, monitor and develop the work related to non-institutional care, including adoption in the state.
• The Mission envisages setting up cradle baby reception centres in at least one specialised adoption agency in a district.
• Mission Vatsalya will execute a 24×7 helpline service for children, as defined under JJ Act, 2015.
• Separate children’s homes based on gender (including separate homes for transgender children) and age will be established for children in need of care, as well as for special needs children.
• States/UTs have also been directed to focus on special needs children in child care institutions, who are unable to attend school with physical or mental disabilities
• Financial support has also been prescribed for vulnerable children living with extended families or in foster care, supporting their education, nutrition and health needs.
• After-care has been provided for, for children leaving a child care institution on completion of 18 years, who will now be provided with financial support to facilitate the child’s re-integration into the mainstream of society.
• This support could also include finances to set up businesses.
• Under the guidelines, state governments are required to take up the exercise to grade each child care institution (CCI) at fixed intervals.
• The grading will be done based on infrastructure, quality of services, well being of children, especially in terms of health and education, restoration and rehabilitation of children, etc.

General Studies Paper 1

India has been elected as a member of the Intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) for the 2022-2026 cycle.

• India has served as a member of the ICH Committee twice — from 2006 to 2010 and from 2014 to 2018.

Intergovernmental Committee

• The Intergovernmental Committee of the 2003 Convention consists of 24 members and is elected in the General Assembly of the Convention
• States Members to the Committee are elected for a term of four years.
• The core functions of the Intergovernmental Committee include promoting the objectives of the Convention, providing guidance on best practices, and making recommendations on measures for the safeguarding of intangible cultural heritage.
• The Committee also examines requests submitted by States Parties for the inscription of intangible heritage on the Lists as well as proposals for programmes and projects.
• Some of the priority areas that India will focus upon include fostering community participation, strengthening international cooperation through intangible heritage, promoting academic research on intangible cultural heritage, and aligning the work of the Convention with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
• India ratified the 2003 Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage in September 2005.
• With 14 inscriptions on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, India also ranks high in the listing of intangible cultural heritage.
• After the inscription of Durga Puja in 2021, India submitted the nomination for Garba of Gujarat to be discussed in 2023.