Context

• The war in Ukraine has brought to the fore the plight of Indian students, many of them pursuing medicine.
• Amidst the turmoil, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, at a webinar on the Union Budget announcements on the health sector, stated that many young Indians were going to “small countries of the world for medical education” and, therefore, the private sector should be encouraged, along with cooperation from States, to set up more medical collegesand hospitals locally so that such aspirants remain in India.

State of the medical education in India

• The dynamics of India’s medical education system are complex.
• The most sought-after international destinations like U.S., the U.K. are too expensive for most Indians.
• In the last few decades, Russia, China and Ukraine, with their historical commitment to public health care have been able to offer more affordable, yet quality, education.
• India’s huge population still continues to be predominantly rural, but most of the trained medical doctors, paramedics and nurses gravitate towards cities for well-known reasons.
• The very nature of medical education, an empirical field, requires significant infrastructure — land, equipment, and trained faculty at the post graduate level — all of which are in short supply and uneven in their spread.
• Without correcting these deficiencies, India cannot expect to dramatically increase the availability of medical personnel. The Government needs to make health care the centrepiece of its economic rebuilding.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Russian participation in the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), an international network for banks that facilitates seamless money transactions throughout the world, is being considered by the United States, Europe, and many other western countries.
• Because it has the ability to prevent Russia from obtaining foreign payments, this might be the most severe economic penalty imposed on the country in response to its military actions in Ukraine.

 About SWIFT

• SWIFT is a messaging network that is used by banks and financial institutions all over the world to send information relevant to financial transactions in a timely and error-free manner.
• The SWIFT network, which is based in Belgium, connects more than 11,000 banking and securities organisations in more than 200 nations and jurisdictions.
• Each participant on the platform is issued a unique eight-digit SWIFT number or a bank identity code, which is different from the other participants (BIC).
• If a person in New York with a Citibank account wants to send money to someone in London with an HSBC account, the payee would have to submit to his bank the account number of the London-based beneficiary as well as the eight-digit SWIFT code of the latter’s bank in order for the transaction to be processed.
• After then, Citi would send a SWIFT communication to HSBC. Once that has been received and authorised, the funds will be sent to the appropriate account. SWIFT is only a messaging platform that does not retain any securities or money; it is not a financial institution. It allows for standardised and dependable communication, which makes the transaction easier to complete.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Urbanisation is an inevitable process of development that has the potential to provide privileged social and economic advantages, including better education, health, housing and employment opportunities.
• Though only half the world’s population lives in urban areas with the ability to generate 80% of the Global Gross Domestic Product (GDP),urbanisation has a good capacity and rich potential to improve well-being in societies.
• Rising Urban population-As the UN World Cities report highlights, we expect the present population of urban areas to increase from 55% to 68% by 2050. The urban population of Indian cities is projected to reach near 60% from 31% (2011) by 2050.
  • By 2030, India will have seven megacities which will include Ahmedabad and Hyderabad apart from New Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Bengaluru.

Benefits of green spaces

• Green spaces in cities and towns besides providing various ecosystem services and public health benefits also offer services of psychological relaxation, stress reduction, physical activities and reduction of climate-related vagaries such as pollution, heat waves, etc.
• Almost 70% of all greenhouse emissions is generated from an urban built environment. The ever-increasing pace of urbanisation is going to make this condition worse in the years ahead. Astudy shows  trees in megacities may save nearly $500 million per year in services including environmental protection making urban environments cleaner, more affordable and more pleasant places to live in.
• Urban green spaces have become essential for city planners and managers to mitigate negative environmental consequences and ensure a delicate balance between development and the environment.
• Ensuring environmental sustainability is one of the three interlinked principles of theNew Urban Agenda adopted at the United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in 2016. The importance of green space has also been highlighted in Self Development Goal 11 dealing with sustainable cities and communities to make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• In an effort to spur national and regional action to deliver the United Nation’s 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through transforming food systems, the UN Food Systems Summit called for action by governments in five areas:
  • nourish all people;
  • boost nature-based solutions;
  • advance equitable livelihoods,
  • decent work and empowered communities; build resilience to vulnerabilities, shocks and stresses; and
  • accelerate the means of implementation.
• Such a transformation in the Indian context would involve enhancing interfaces between the spheres of science, society and policy, focusing on sustainability, resource efficiency and circularity.

Mix of science and policy

• India’s Green Revolution in the 1960s, enabling food security and addressing widespread hunger and poverty, was achieved not only through science and technology and the development of improved high-yielding varieties of rice and wheat but also through policy measures and development of institutional structure.
• It included a vast agricultural research and technology transfer system at the national, regional, State and local levels.
• Although India is now self-sufficient in food grains production in the macro sense, it has about a quarter of the world’s food insecure people, a pointer to the amount of food necessary to allow all income groups to reach the caloric target (2,400 kcal in rural and 2,100 kcal in the urban set-up).
  • Nutrition indicators have marginally improved over the years. However, macro- and micronutrient malnutrition is widespread, with 18.7% of women and 16.2% of men unable to access enough food to meet basic nutritional needs, and over 32% of children below five years still underweight as per the recently released fifth National Family Health Survey (2019-2021) phase 2 compendium.
• India is ranked 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index, 2021.
• Not surprisingly, widespread concerns about poverty, malnutrition and the need for a second Green Revolution are being made in tandem.
• The country faces the dual challenge of achieving nutrition security, as well as addressing declining land productivity, land degradation and loss of ecological services with change in land use.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• A full-scale invasion of Ukraine was initiated by Russian forces. The Russian activities have been extensively denounced, and they pose a number of issues about whether or not they violated international law.
• Background- The annexation of Crimea by Russia in 2014, following the overthrow of Victor Yanukovych from his position as President, marked the beginning of a massive military escalation in the ties between Russia and Ukraine. The annexation of Crimea by Russia was greeted with the implementation of sanctions by the international community. Russia, on the other hand, is still in control of Crimea, and its operations since 2014 have been focused on fomenting separatists in Ukraine’s eastern regions.
• In January 2021, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appealed to the United States to let the country to become a member of NATO, prompting Russia to begin mobilising soldiers along the country’s eastern border. Tensions grew rapidly after Russia asked that NATO cease its military activity in eastern Europe and Ukraine in December 2021, which was followed by a Russian hack on the Ukrainian government website.
• It was on February 22^nd that Russia recognised the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Luhansk republics in eastern Ukraine’s Donbass area, and it dispatched Russian soldiers to these regions. Finally, Russia started a full-scale invasion of Ukraine .
• The Russian activities have been extensively denounced, and they pose a number of issues about whether international law has been violated.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• In her budget speech, Finance Minister Nirmala Sithraman reaffirmed the Centre’s commitment to natural, chemical-free, organic and zero-budget farming.
• While the FM talked of promoting natural or chemical-free farming across the country, especially in a corridor in the Gangetic basin, no specific allocations have been made to the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.
• In fact, currently-operational schemes such as the Paramparagat Krishi Vikas Yojana and the National Project on Organic Farming did not find any mention in the budget.
• The Rashtriya Krishi Vikas Yojana, which has received a 4.2-times (year-on-year) larger allocation of Rs 10,433 crore, will earmark some funds for the on-ground implementation of chemical-free farming.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MEITY) presented a policy proposal named “Draft India Data Accessibility & Use Policy, 2022” on February 21, 2022, which was endorsed by the Cabinet. The initiative intends to “fundamentally change India’s ability to exploit public sector data,” according to the government.
• Proposals contained in the Draft Data Accessibility Policy have come under scrutiny since they would allow the government to licence and sell publicly available data to the commercial sector, which would be a first in the world.

Why has the Draft Data Accessibility Policy been proposed?

• It is expected that the creation of citizen data would expand rapidly over the next decade, becoming the cornerstone of India’s $5 trillion-dollar digital economy in the long run. It is primarily commercial in nature, which is consistent with the rationale of the National Economic Survey, 2019, which at Chapter 4 noted the commercial benefits of government data exploitation, notably, “The private sector may be granted access to select databases for commercial use.,” and “The private sector may be granted access to select databases for commercial use.” As a result, it is only reasonable to tax the private sector for the use of this data, given that it has the potential to derive enormous benefits from it.” Its goal is to maximise the economic value of the data that has been created.
• There is also a lack of openness, as seen by the absence of a consultation document or the revelation of the list of stakeholders who have been consulted, which according to a public notification by MEITY includes “academics, industry, and the government.”

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• After a fast tracked three month negotiation between India and UAE, both countries on February 18 signed an FTA pact, during a virtual summit.
• India and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) inked a trade pact, Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) during a virtual summit led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan.
• India has been part of global trade organisations like the WTO but this latest trade pact is unique and has broader implications.

Details of pact

• The Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement is a bilateral trade pact that will cover over a period of time 90% of India’s exports.
  • This will include leather, processed agriculture and dairy products, handicrafts, gems and jewellery, furniture, pharmaceuticals, food and beverages, engineering products and nearly the entire spectrum of items produced by the Indian economy.
  • Apart from the goods sector, it will also include the services sector. Indian officials said that they expect the services sector to boom by $15 billion in the coming five years.
• The deal has strong anti-dumping measures integrated into it which will prevent any country from dumping its products into the Indian market by using the route of the UAE.
• The document has very strong rules of origin clauses that will disallow any country to export goods to India taking advantage of relaxed tariff on the Indian side.
  • India wants 40% value addition into a product from a third country before it could be exported to India through UAE.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Non fungible tokens (NFTs) have, thanks to their ability to assign value to everything from art to music to a simple selfie, taken the world by storm.
• The sales of NFTs surged $25 billion in 2021 as the crypto asset exploded in popularity, fuelled by the rising interest of celebrities and tech evangelists, according to market data tracker DappRadar data analytics.

What are NFTs?

• Anything that can be converted into a digital form can be an NFT. Everything from your drawings, photos, videos, GIF, music, in-game items, selfies, and even a tweet can be turned into an NFT, which can then be traded online using cryptocurrency.
• NFTs are unique from other digital forms as they are backed by Blockchain technology.
  • Blockchain is a distributed ledger where all transactions are recorded. All the transactions are transparent and can be seen by anyone and cannot be changed or modified once recorded.
• NFTs are gaining massive popularity now because they are becoming an increasingly popular way to showcase and sell your digital artwork.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The recent publication of The Lancet’s global burden of bacterial antimicrobial resistance — an elaborate and studied estimate validated by using counterfactual analysis for the first time — comes at a time when the world, weary with battling COVID-19, seems to have lost steam to mount a robust AMR policy.
• But the report makes it clear that no slacking can be allowed on this front any longer; it estimated that 4.95 million deaths were associated with bacterial AMR in 2019 alone.
• It also identified the pathogens and pathogen-drug combinations that cause such resistance.

Bacterial Antimicrobial Resistance

• Bacterial AMR occurs when the drugs used to treat infections become less effective, as a result of the pathogens becoming resistant to the drugs.
• This happens due to
  • indiscriminate use of antibiotics,
  • availability of antibiotics over the counter,
  • poor hygiene and sanitation,
  • antimicrobial use in the farming and poultry industry,
  • lack of vaccines and newer antibiotics, and
  • poor infection control practices in hospitals.
• While data on exact number of deaths might not have been available, there was no doubt about the alarming nature of associated mortality and morbidity. And yet, few nations have a policy to counter this pernicious problem.