Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

India and Pakistan have begun another round of the Permanent Indus Commission  meeting that is held annually under Indus Water Treaty (IWT) 1960.

• The Indus talks have survived the freeze in ties as both countries see it as mandatory under the IWT.
• Under the provisions of the treaty, the two sides are required to meet at least once every year, alternately in India and Pakistan.
• The last meeting, held on March 23-24, 2021 in New Delhi.

About Indus Water Treaty 

• It is a Water-Distribution Treaty, signed in Karachi on 1960, between India (Pm Jawahar Lal Nehru) and Pakistan (President Ayub Khan), brokered by the World Bank.

How is the Indus water share between India and Pakistan?

• Under the provisions of the Indus Waters Treaty, signed between India and Pakistan in 1960, all the waters of the eastern rivers — the Sutlej, Beas, and Ravi — amounting to around 33 MAF (million acre-feet) annually is allocated to India for unrestricted use.
• The waters of western rivers — Indus, Jhelum, and Chenab — amounting to around 135 MAF annually are largely for Pakistan.

The right to generate hydroelectricity:

Under the Treaty, India has been given the right to generate hydroelectricity through a run of the river projects on the western rivers subject to specific criteria for design and operation.

• It also gives the right to Pakistan to raise concerns on the design of Indian hydroelectric projects on western rivers.

Permanent Indus Commission: 

• The Permanent Indus Commission is a bilateral commission of officials from India and Pakistan, created to implement and manage goals of the Indus Waters Treaty, 1960.
• The Commission according to the treaty must meet regularly at least once a year, alternately in India and Pakistan.

The functions of the Commission are:

• To study and report to the two Governments on any problem relating to the development on the waters of the rivers.
• To solve disputes arising over water sharing.
• To arrange technical visits to projects’ sites and critical river head works.
• To undertake, once in every five years, a general tour of inspection of the Rivers for ascertaining the facts.
• To take necessary steps for the implementation of the provisions of the treaty.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India will release cheetahs from South Africa and Namibia into the wild at Kuno Palpur in Sheopur district of Madhya Pradesh, possibly by the end of this year.

• To begin with, there will be 12 cheetahs from South Africa and eight from Namibia. More would follow in subsequent years.

Cheetah Reintroduction Project

The project to translocate cheetahs from Africa to India is being implemented by the environment ministry with the help of the Wildlife Institute of India.

• The Supreme Court had appointed an expert panel, which approved Kuno Palpur as the possible location for cheetah relocation.

What is reintroduction and why reintroduce Cheetah now?

• ‘Reintroduction’ of a species means releasing it in an area where it is capable of surviving.
• Reintroduction of large carnivores have increasingly been recognised as a strategy to conserve threatened species and restore ecosystem functions.
• The cheetah is the only large carnivore that has been extirpated, mainly by over-hunting in India in historical times.
• India now has the economic ability to consider restoring its lost natural heritage for ethical as well as ecological reasons.

About Cheetah

• The cheetah, Acinonyx Jubatus, is one of the oldest of the big cat species, with ancestors that can be traced back more than five million years to the Miocene era.
• The cheetah is also the world’s fastest land mammal.
• African Cheetah is listed as vulnerable in IUCN red listed species.
• The country’s last spotted feline died in Chhattisgarh in 1947. Later, the cheetah — which is the fastest land animal — was declared extinct in India in 1952.
• The Asiatic cheetah is classified as a “critically endangered” species by the IUCN Red List, and is believed to survive only in Iran.

Reasons for extinction:

• The reasons for extinction can all be traced to man’s interference. Problems like human-wildlife conflict, loss of habitat and loss of prey, and illegal trafficking, have decimated their numbers.
• The advent of climate change and growing human populations have only made these problems worse.
• With less available land for wildlife, species that require vast home range like the cheetah are placed in competition with other animals and humans, all fighting over less space.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

• The West Nile Virus is a mosquito-borne, single-stranded RNA virus
• It is a member of the flavivirus genus and belongs to the Japanese encephalitis antigenic complex of the family Flaviviridae.
• WNV is commonly found in Africa, Europe, the Middle East, North America and West Asia

Detection of WNV:

• WNV was first isolated in a woman in the West Nile district of Uganda in 1937.
• It was identified in birds in the Nile delta region in 1953. Before 1997, WNV was not considered pathogenic for birds.
• WNV outbreak sites are found along major bird migratory routes.
• Human infections attributable to WNV have been reported in many countries for over 50 years.

Transmission:

• WNV is an infectious disease spread by infected mosquitoes.
• It spreads from birds to humans with the bite of an infected Culex mosquito. It can lead to a fatal neurological disease in humans.
• Mosquitoes become infected when they feed on infected birds, which circulate the virus in their blood for a few days. The virus eventually gets into the mosquito’s salivary glands. During later blood meals (when mosquitoes bite), the virus may be injected into humans and animals, where it can multiply and possibly cause illness
• WNV can also spread through blood transfusion, from an infected mother to her child, or through exposure to the virus in laboratories.
• To date, no human-to-human transmission of WNV through casual contact has been documented

Symptoms:

• The disease is asymptomatic in 80% of the infected people
• The symptoms include a fever, headache, body aches, skin rash, and swollen lymph glands. They can last a few days to several weeks, and usually go away on their own.
• If West Nile virus enters the brain, it can be life-threatening.
• It may cause inflammation of the brain, called encephalitis, or inflammation of the tissue that surrounds the brain and spinal cord, called meningitis.

Treatment:

• There are no specific vaccines or treatments for human WNV disease.
• The best way to avoid WNV is to prevent mosquito bites.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A group of non-governmental organisations has written to Prime Minister urging him to “proactively engage” with a draught proposal at the World Trade Organization-TRIPS in Geneva to waive intellectual property rights governing COVID vaccines, drugs, and diagnostics, which are mostly controlled by companies in the West.

What’s the issue?

In October 2020, at the WTO’s Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) Council, India and South Africa proposed that the WTO do away with certain provisions of the TRIPS Agreement for the duration of the pandemic to facilitate access to technologies necessary for the production of vaccines and medicines. 

Challenges Ahead

A small group of WTO members are “discussing suggestions” to exclude drug manufacturers in India and China — two major, global suppliers of medicine — from prospective waivers to IPR obligations that result from the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) which WTO members are committed to uphold.

• Also, Manufacturers want to “limit” any benefits of the waiver only to African countries, and not pave the way for Indian manufacturers who, with their large production capacities, would easily undercut Western competitors.

Why is there an opposition to the waiver? What are the arguments against it?

Waiving of intellectual property rights will neither lead to increased production of vaccines or increased deployment nor practical solutions to fight the virus of COVID-19 vaccines since IP is not the barrier.

Waiving of intellectual property rights could also impact patient safety by opening doors for counterfeit vaccines to enter the supply chain.

Need of the hour:

Our top most priority should be to address the supply side constraints, including IP barriers, to augment the manufacturing of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics, essential for treatment, prevention and control of the ongoing pandemic.

What does the intellectual property waiver for Covid-19 vaccines mean?

The IP waiver might open up space for production of Covid vaccines with emergency use authorisations (EUA) — such as those developed by Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax, Johnson & Johnson and Bharat Biotech — on a larger scale in middle-income countries.

• Most production is currently concentrated in high-income countries; production by middle-income countries has been happening through licensing or technology transfer agreements.

What are patents and IP rights?

A patent represents a powerful intellectual property right, and is an exclusive monopoly granted by a government to an inventor for a limited, pre-specified time. It provides an enforceable legal right to prevent others from copying the invention.

Patents can be either process patents or product patents:

1. A product patent ensures that the rights to the final product is protected, and anyone other than the patent holder can be restrained from manufacturing it during a specified period, even if they were to use a different process.
2. A process patent enables any person other than the patent holder to manufacture the patented product by modifying certain processes in the manufacturing exercise.

Patent regime in India:

India moved from product patenting to process patenting in the 1970s, which enabled India to become a significant producer of generic drugs at global scale, and allowed companies like Cipla to provide Africa with anti-HIV drugs in the 1990s.

• But due to obligations arising out of the TRIPS Agreement, India had to amend the Patents Act in 2005, and switch to a product patents regime across the pharma, chemicals, and biotech sectors.

What is the TRIPS Agreement?

The TRIPS agreement was negotiated in 1995 at the WTO, it requires all its signatory countries to enact domestic law.

• It guarantees minimum standards of IP protection. Such legal consistency enables innovators to monetise their intellectual property in multiple countries.
• In 2001, the WTO signed the Doha Declaration, which clarified that in a public health emergency, governments could compel companies to license their patents to manufacturers, even if they did not think the offered price was acceptable.
• This provision, commonly referred to as “compulsory licensing”, was already built into the TRIPS Agreement and the Doha declaration only clarified its usage.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

At the recent Quad Summit held at Tokyo, Prime Minister of India carried with him gifts for leaders of the US, Australia and Japan showcasing India’s rich cultural heritage and art forms.

Sanjhi Art form:

Sanjhi panel gifted to US President Joe Biden is based on the theme of Thakurani Ghat (It is one of the most famous ghats on the banks of the holy river of Yamuna in Gokul).

• This art form originated out of the cult of Krishna.
• It involves creating stencils based on incidents from the life of the deity and then hand-cutting these on thin sheets of paper using scissors.
• Sanjhi was popularised in the 15th and 16th centuries by the Vaishnava temples and was practiced by Brahmin priests.

Gond art painting for Australian PM Anthony Albanese:

The gift depicts a popular motif in Gond art — the Tree of Life, with intricate patterns and lines that are a trademark of Gond art. Gond art is practised by the Gond community in Madhya Pradesh.

• It is often traced to Jangarh Shyam, who in the 1970s and ’80s began drawing the largely oral myths and legends of the tribe onto the walls of homes in the village of Patangarh.

Rogan painting:

Prime Minister of India gifted the Japanese PM a hand-carved deep brown wooden box with a gold and white Rogan painting on a green cloth as its central motif.

Rogan is a form of cloth painting that is considered to be more than four centuries old and is primarily practised in Kutch district of Gujarat.

• The word ‘Rogan’ comes from Persian, meaning varnish or oil.
• The craft uses paint made from boiled oil and vegetable dyes.
• Usually, only half the fabric is painted and it is folded to create a mirror image.
• Originally only men used to practice the art form. Now several women in Gujarat also pursue it.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Radio electronics refers to a broad range of technologies that can transmit, receive and process wireless signals. While these technologies can utilize electromagnetic spectrum that goes all the way up to 300GHz, the lower frequencies of this spectrum are particularly attractive.

• Lower frequency signals can travel longer distances and penetrate obstacles with lesser attenuation.
• Electronic components (amplifiers, transmitters, receivers) operating at lower frequencies are also easier to design and manufacture.
• Consequently, much of the bandwidth in the lower frequencies of this spectrum has already been allocated for several applications (mobile communications currently use the spectrum from 800MHz to 2.5 GHz).

New spectrum for 3GHz

• With the increasing demand for mobile services, the currently allocated spectrum is proving inadequate.
• At the simplest level, 5G represents the allocation of new spectrum to increase capacity.
• Since most of the spectrum at lower frequencies is already being utilised — much of this new spectrum is being allocated at higher frequencies.
• The first deployments in India will be around 3GHz, but will expand to 25 GHz and beyond.

While operating at higher frequencies has some fundamental challenges, it offers some unique opportunities as well

• As 5G services evolve to occupy higher frequencies, it will significantly increase the bandwidth available for mobile services.
• However, at these frequencies the design of the transmitting and receiving equipment becomes more complex.
• Signal attenuation also increases. So, the coverage area of each cell tower will decrease which will require the towers to be more closely spaced.
• At higher frequencies it becomes easier to direct a signal in specific direction.
• So, signals transmitted from a cell tower can be more precisely directed at a specific user
• Intuitively, this enhanced directivity results in less interference between signals meant for different users which directly translate to increased capacity.
• Since much of the 5G infrastructure is being built from ground up, there is a chance to redesign the technology to make it more suitable for the evolving communication needs of the future.
• 5G places special emphasis on low latency, energy efficiency and standardization – Low delays between transmission and reception of messages are extremely critical to avoid accidents. For instance, Self-driving cars is an illustrative example
• As 5G rolls out, over the next several years the volume of data is expected to exponentially increase. To ensure that there isn’t a corresponding increase in the energy usage, 5G places a lot of importance on energy efficiency
• Greater attention to standardisation is another important aspect of 5G enable the rapid deployment of 5G infrastructure there is an industry-wide effort to standardise interaction between components.

Thus, while operating at higher frequencies has some fundamental challenges, it offers some unique opportunities as well.

Way forward

• There should be lot of research in both industry and academia centred around 5G.
• Convergence of positioning, sensing and communication – traditionally, positioning, sensing and communication have been seen as separate technologies (for e.g., GPS is used for positioning, and radar for sensing). However, all three technologies involve transmission and reception of radio signals — hence it is possible for positioning and sensing to piggy back on 5G infrastructure that is primarily meant for communication.
• There should be research around cost and energy efficient electronic devices that can transmit and receive high frequency signals. This involves delving into the fundamental physics of semiconductor technologies and is expected to lay the foundation for the growth of wireless technology into higher frequency bands.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

First developed in Madagascar in the 1980s by Father Henri, and since then several countries in the world have been practising it, including India.

• Involves cultivating rice with as much organic manure as possible, starting with young seedlings planted singly at wider spacing in a square pattern; and with intermittent irrigation that keeps the soil moist but not inundated, and frequent inter cultivation with weeder that actively aerates the soil.

Benefits of SRI

• Higher yields – Both grain and straw; Increase in income security for farmers
• Reduced duration (by 10 days)
• Lesser chemical inputs
• Less water requirement
• Systemic regulation of climate, soil and water
• Reduction in Methane evolution
• Less chaffy grain %
• Grain weight increased without change in grain size
• Reduced vulnerability & risks
• Improved farm health
• Higher head rice recovery
• Withstand cyclonic gales
• Cold tolerance
• Soil & water health improves through biological activity (reduction in nitrogen)
• Public health improvement with improvement in food security

Limitations with SRI

• If unchecked, greater weed growth will cause a substantial loss of yield.
• Higher labour costs in the initial years – needs 50% more man-days for transplanting and weeding.
• Difficulties in acquiring the necessary skills.
• Not suitable when no irrigation source is available.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A new species of old-world monkey recorded from Arunachal Pradesh has been named after a strategic mountain pass at 13,700 ft above sea level.

The Sela macaque was geographically separated from the Arunachal macaque ((Macaca munzala) of Tawang district) by Sela, the Eastern Himalayan pass at 13,700 ft (phylogenetic analysis revealed).

• Acted as a barrier by restricting the migration of individuals of these two species for approximately two million years.
• Protection Status: Not yet included in the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 of India.
• Potential threats: Hunting by locals for consumption and habitat degradation due to urbanization and infrastructure development.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 1

First Indian language book to win the International Booker Prize: Author Geetanjali Shree’s translated Hindi novel, Tomb of Sand

• The 2018 novel titled ‘Ret Samadhi’ was translated by Daisy Rockwell and published as ‘Tomb of Sand’ in 2021.

The Booker Prize Award

• One of the best-known literary awards for fiction writing in English, including both novels and collections of short stories.
• First awarded in 1969
• Criteria: Must be written in English and published in the UK and Ireland
• International Booker Prize: Awarded annually for a single book, written in another language and translated into English. The £50,000 prize money is divided equally between the author and translator each year.

Many Indian-origin writers have won the Booker in the past, such as

• Arundhati Roy (‘The God of Small Things’)
• Salman Rushdie (‘Midnight’s Children’)
• Kiran Desai (‘The Inheritance of Loss’)
• Aravind Adiga (‘The White Tiger’)
• Shree is the first Indian to win an international prize