Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• On international women’s day, there is a need to emphasize on role of women in the economy.

Benefits of women participation

• With women participation in the workforce, economies grow faster.
• When women are empowered, the battle to eradicate poverty is more fruitful.
• Studies conducted in various nations have proven that there is a direct correlation between greater gender diversity and higher GDPs.

If women are not empowered, the nation’s economy loses.

• A recent study by the World Bank found that countries lose $160 trillion in wealth due to the differences in lifetime earnings between men and women.
• Women’s participation in the workforce in India is still among the lowest in the world at 19.9 per cent (according to World Bank’s data of 2020).
• Only 7 per cent of the leadership positions in corporate India are occupied by women.
• Right from boardroom representation to entry-level roles, India is striving hard to ensure a balance in gender diversity.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Odisha’s Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik has written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, requesting the Centre to direct the National Medical Commission (NMC) to ensure uninterrupted education for medical students who have been evacuated from Ukraine.
• He has requested him to enable their admission to Indian medical colleges.
  • There is a partial precedent in the post-Partition “transfers” provided to refugee medical students who migrated from medical colleges located in the newly-created Pakistan.
• The plight of 18,000 Indian medical students trapped in Ukraine’s war zones has led to widespread concerns. While efforts are being made for their evacuation and early return to India, several questions arise. Why did they need to go to Ukraine to study? What will happen to their interrupted education? What are the alternatives available to them on their return to India?

Medical education scenario in India

• The number of seats available for medical education in India is far less than the number of aspirants who leave school with the dream of becoming doctors.
• Of the 6 million students who appeared in the National Eligibility cum Entrance Test (NEET) in 2021, only 88,120 made it into the 562 medical colleges in the country.
• Others had to enrol in non-medical courses in India or seek admission to foreign medical colleges. While the number of medical colleges has now increased to 596 (with 89,875 seats), the entry barrier is still high.
• China, Russia, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, the Philippines and Kazakhstan are among the countries where Indian students pursue their dreams to become doctors.
• On return, they need to pass a qualifying examination before they are permitted to intern in the institutions recognised by the Medical Council of India (MCI) — its functions have been taken over by the recently-constituted NMC.
• The task of conducting this screening test was assigned to the National Board of Examinations (NBE). The passing rates were disappointingly low (mostly below 20 per cent), for several reasons–
  • Training standards varied widely across foreign institutions.
  • The language of instruction was not English.
  • The curriculum in foreign colleges differed in several respects from that taught in India. A student training in Russia or Ukraine is unlikely to learn much about kala-azar or malaria.
• The screening examination in India used to cover the vast syllabus encompassing the entire gamut of medical education.. So, foreign medical graduates started taking coaching classes. That spawned another industry.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• Covid-19 pandemic has brought to the fore the growing role of women in strengthening the political and civic life of democracy in South Asia.
• At the global level, much has already been written about the superior performance of women leaders, such as Jacinda Ardern (New Zealand), Tsai-Ing Wen (Taiwan), Sanna Marin (Finland) and KK Shailaja (Kerala), in handling the pandemic.
• Likewise, the highly effective contributions of local-level panchayat sarpanches and health officials has been documented.

However more systemic and ground-level realities of women are fraught with various contradictions, contestations, and quiet calamities.

Democracy and women

• For a proper appraisal of the relations between gender and democracy, we ought to examine the links between violence, representation, and the political participation of women.
• Historically, one of the peculiar paradoxes of South Asian democracy has been the continued presence of strong women leaders at the executive centre coupled with a generally appalling condition of women in society at large.
  • Example-South Asia has had the largest number of women heads of state — including Sirimavo Bandaranaike, Chandrika Kumaratunga, Indira Gandhi, Khaleda Zia, Sheikh Hasina, and Benazir Bhutto — of any region in the world till recently.
  • However, this seemingly empowering image is disproved when we take a broader view of the electoral representation and social condition of women in the region. While women have played very visible and important roles at the higher echelons of power and at the grassroots level in social movements, they have been under-represented in political parties as officials and as members of key decision-making bodies.
• In electoral representation, India, for instance, has fallen several places in the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s global ranking of women’s parliamentary presence, from 117 after the 2014 election to 143 as of January 2020. India is currently behind Pakistan (106), Bangladesh (98) and Nepal (43) and ahead of Sri Lanka (182).

Context

• The global financial crime watchdog Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in its latest plenary meeting, decided to retain Pakistan on its terror financing ‘grey list’, asking the neighbouring country to expeditiously address the remaining deficiencies in its financial system.
• It has also added UAE to the list this time, which has promised to take “robust” actions in countering terror financing and money laundering.

About FATF

• The Financial Action Task Force is an international watchdog for financial crimes such as money laundering and terror financing.
• As per the official definition, it is an inter-governmental body that sets international standards that aim to prevent these illegal activities and the harm they cause to society.
• Origin
  • The FATF was established at the G7 Summit of 1989 in Paris, over concerns of the member countries about growing money laundering activities. The heads of G7 countries and the president of the European Commission brought together a Task Force after addressing loopholes in the global financial system.
  • Later, in the aftermath of the 9/11 terror attack on the United States, FATF also added terror financing as a main focus area. This was broadened in 2012, to include restricting the funding of weapons of mass destruction.
• The FATF currently has 39 members. The decision making body of the FATF is known as its plenary, which meets thrice a year. Its meetings are attended by 206 countries of the global network, including members, and observer organisations, such as the World Bank, some offices of the United Nations and regional development banks.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• One aspect in 2022 Union Budget that hasn’t been talked about as much is the importance given in the budget to digital public infrastructure (DPI) — the idea that cross-sectoral “digital rails” like ID, payments and data exchanges when combined with open interconnected data systems in sectors like health, education and social protection, can transform service delivery.

Developments in India

• India is seen as a global trendsetter in the DPI movement, having set up multiple large-scale DPIs like Aadhaar, UPI and sector-specific platforms like DIGIT for eGovernance and DIKSHA for education.
  • These have helped push the frontier of public service delivery.
• This year’s budget adds to the growing discourse on DPIs by making four key announcements:
  • In health, an open platform with digital registries, a unique health identity and a robust consent framework;
  • in skilling, a Digital Ecosystem for Skilling and Livelihood (DESH-Stack) to help citizens upskill through online training;
  • a Unified Logistics Interface Platform (ULIP) to streamline movement of goods across modes of transport; and
  • for travel, an “open source” mobility stack for facilitating seamless travel of passengers.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• According to the latest report from the V-Dem Institute at Sweden’s University of Gothenburg, the level of democracy enjoyed by the average global citizen in 2021 is down to 1989 levels, with the democratic gains of the post-Cold War period eroding rapidly in the last few years.
• The study, titled ‘Democracy Report 2022: Autocratisation Changing Nature?’ states that more than twice as many countries (32) are undergoing autocratisation as are witnessing democratisation (15). Noting that India is one of the top ten ‘autocratisers’ in the world, the V-Dem (Varieties of Democracy) report classifies India as an autocracy (‘electoral autocracy’) rather than a democracy, ranking it 93rd on the liberal democracy index, out of 179 countries.

V-Dem report’s methodology

• V-Dem uses aggregate expert judgments to produce estimates of critical concepts.
• It gathers data from a pool of over 3,700 country experts who provide judgments on different concepts and cases.
• Leveraging the diverse opinions, the V-Dem’s measurement model algorithmically estimates both the degree to which an expert is reliable relative to other experts, and the degree to which their perception differs from other experts to come up with the most accurate values for every parameter.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context

• As Russia continues its military campaign in Ukraine, the Western economies and their allies have adopted punitive measures, including the imposition of crippling sanctions, in order to effectively paralyse the Russian economy and its citizens.
• As a result of interruptions in the global supply chain, the shipping industry is projected to be particularly hard hit, with delays and shipping prices expected to rise.

 Impact on maritime trade so far in Ukraine

• When the war began, some 15 seaports in Ukraine were forced to close their doors. The loading and unloading of freight has been suspended.
• Approximately 140 ships that were berthed in Ukrainian ports at the time of the conflict have remained in the ports ever since. So yet, no attack has been launched on any of the ports or the ships that are berthed in them.
• Two ships were assaulted while in port, prompting traders to steer clear of the Black Sea as a shipping route for their vessels. For mariners, the safest location to be in the event of an accident is always the ship, which is equipped with electricity, food, and the ability to produce water. According to Sanjay Prashar, managing director of VR Maritime Services, although bunkers at ports have been found for the purpose of safely lodging seafarers, ship crews have not yet left their vessels.
• One of the company’s ships has become trapped in a port in Ukraine. Some of the stranded ships at Ukrainian ports had crews from India on board, according to reports. Aside from a few isolated strikes, ports and nuclear power plants have not been subjected to significant warfare or attack as strategic assets. So far, the Russian Army and Air Force have been active in the conflict, with just a modest naval operation at Kerch serving as an exception, according to Pritam Banerjee, a logistics specialist.
• Port cities like as Mariupol have been assaulted from the land, but the Ukrainian people have held firm and resisted the invasion. As a result, the Ukrainian president has warned that Russian warships are preparing to strike the Odessa port. This would represent a significant escalation in the war.
• There will be a direct threat to all commerce ships in the area. As a direct result of the war, insurance rates for ships operating in the Black Sea will increase.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• Recently, a dissident memberof the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) has said that the central bank’s accommodative policy stance “carries with it the risk of falling behind the curve in future because the stance limits the MPC’s freedom of action in ensuing meetings”.
• The MPC fixes the benchmark interest rate — or the base or reference rate that is used to set other interest rates — in India.
  • An accommodative stance indicates a willingness on the part of the central bank to expand money supply and cut interest rates.

Monetary policy

• The primary objective of the RBI’s monetary policy is to maintain price stability while keeping in mind the objective of growth.
• Price stability is a necessary precondition to sustainable growth.
• In May 2016, the RBI Act was amended to provide a legislative mandate to the central bank to operate the country’s monetary policy framework. The framework, according to the RBI website, “aims at setting the policy (repo) rate based on an assessment of the current and evolving macroeconomic situation; and modulation of liquidity conditions to anchor money market rates at or around the repo rate.
  • Repo rate changes transmit through the money market to the entire the financial system, which, in turn, influences aggregate demand – a key determinant of inflation and growth.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• The IPCC, a body of almost 270 experts from 67 countries, brought together by the United Nations, gave a bleak assessment of the future of our planet and species.
• In its sixth assessment report, titled ‘Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability’, the IPCC discusses the increasing extreme heat, rising oceans, melting glaciers, falling agricultural productivity, resultant food shortages and increase in diseases like dengue and zika.
• Antonio Guterres, the United Nations Secretary General, describes the IPCC report as being “an atlas of human suffering and a damning indictment of failed climate leadership.” He added, “With fact upon fact, this report reveals how people, and the planet are get-ting clobbered by climate change”.

Situation in India

• In India,we are living in the future that the IPCC predicts. Our cities are experiencing more frequent extreme heat waves.
• In Delhi, the AQI for winter months averages between 300-500, akin to smoking one to two packs of cigarettes every day. Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata are in the list of the top 15 most polluted cities of the world, as per the Switzerland-based climate change group IQAir.
• The IPCC warns that should our planet get warmer than 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial times (we are at 1.1 degrees at present), then there will be irreversible impact on “ecosystems with low resilience” such as polar, mountain and coastal ecosystems “impacted by glacier melt, and higher sea level rise”.
  • This will cause devastation to “infrastructure in low-lying coastal settlements, associated livelihoods and even erosion of cultural and spiritual values.”
• The increased heat will lead to an increase in diseases like diabetes, circulatory and respiratory conditions, as well as mental health challenges.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context

• A worsening of the worldwide chip scarcity situation is being caused by the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine.
• Previously, it had been expected that the chip scarcity would last until at least the year 2023.
• The forecast was based on the pandemic’s impact on a component that has become critical to the operation of the vast majority of the electronic devices we use on a daily basis.
• It is expected that the global semiconductor market will grow by 8.8 percent to USD 601 billion in 2017, driven by double-digit growth in the sensors and logic category; in addition, with the recent trends in electric mobility, automotive safety, and the Internet of Things (IoT), the demand for semiconductors will only increase going forward.

What caused the Shortage Crisis to erupt?

• Increased sales of laptop computers as a result of lockdowns reached levels not seen in a decade.
• As office work migrated out of the office, home networking equipment, cameras, and monitors were in high demand, and laptops were in high demand for a short period of time while schools were out.
• As a result of the mandatory stay-at-home laws, numerous people have turned to console gaming.
• These devices, which are in great demand, are based on a thumbnail-sized semiconductor piece (or parts at times), and may execute a variety of operations on a single device. Manufacturers create them on 200mm or 300mm wafers, depending on the application. These are then further divided into little pieces.
• While bigger diameter wafers are more expensive and are mostly utilised for high-end equipment, the gadgets that were in high demand required smaller diameter wafers to be manufactured.