Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

The cowin portal came under criticism due to the absence of a privacy policy.

Health data management policy:

The national health authority (NHA) has released the health data management policy of the national digital health mission (NDHM) in the public domain for comments and feedback.

The policy seeks to develop a national health information system, by facilitating the creation of unique health identification (UHID) for individuals and healthcare providers; and the collection, storage, processing and sharing of personal health information, as electronic health records (EHRS).

Every individual’s UHID is linked to his or her EHR. While digitisation enables seamless and efficient exchange of information, it also entails significant risks to privacy, confidentiality and security of personal health data.

The policy purports to mitigate these risks, through two guiding principles: “security and privacy by design” and individual autonomy over personal health data.

Syllabus– General Studies 3 (Economy)

Context

Speaking on the occasion of the World Youth Skills Day (15th July) recently, PM yet again underscored the importance of a skilled workforce for achieving the goal of becoming Atmanirbhar Bharat.

• In today’s world, only those individuals and countries would grow which are skilled.
• The PM referred to the schemes and programmes run by his administration (such as the Skill India Mission and the ‘Going Online As Leaders’ (or Goal) etc);
  • To argue that India had laid the foundation for improving the level of skill among the youth.

Issues:

• India continues to be a country that faces one of the highest shortages of skilled workforce.
• The massive unemployment in India is one that worsens with educational attainment.
• According to the data for Jan to Apr 2021, the overall unemployment rate in the country was 6.83%. 
  • In comparison, those with graduation (or even higher degrees) face almost three-times the unemployment level is on 19.3 per cent unemployment rate.
  • At over 19% unemployment rate, one in every five Indian who graduate (or even better) is unemployed. 
  • It is almost as if the economy penalises you for getting educated.
• Companies in India face an acute shortage of skilled manpower and, on the other, India has millions of educated unemployed.

Syllabus– General Studies 1(Geography)

Context

According to a study published recently, the wobble phenomenon is expected to lead to more flooding here on Earth in the middle of the next decade.

About Wobble:

• It is a regular oscillation that humans have known about for centuries and it is one of many factors that can either exacerbate rising sea levels or counteract them, alongside other variables like weather and geography.
• The study shows that-
  • Our oceans are rising because of climate change.
  • Rising temperatures caused by greenhouse gas emissions are not the only cause of higher flood risks, and the report explored the interplay of many variables that push and pull at ocean levels.

Syllabus– General Studies 1 (Society)

Context

• Trafficking is a pernicious offence, one that societies and governments must have zero tolerance for, and yet, handling the offence of trafficking needs precision, not a sledgehammer.
• The draft Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021 seems to be lacking in nuance, even if well intentioned to stamp out exploitative trafficking.

The Trafficking in Persons (Prevention, Care and Rehabilitation) Bill, 2021

• It extends to all citizens inside as well as outside India,
  • Persons on any ship or aircraft registered in India wherever it may be or carrying Indian citizens wherever they may be,
  • A foreign national or a stateless person who has his or her residence in India at the time of commission of offence under this Act, and
    • The law will apply to every offence of trafficking in persons with cross-border implications.

Syllabus– General Studies 2 (Polity)

Context

Recently the Supreme Court termed continued use of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act, 2000 by law enforcement agencies of various states as “a shocking state of affairs” and sought a response from the Centre.

• It was repealed almost six years ago.
• The Centre has now written to states, asking them not to register cases under the repealed provision and withdraw any such case that may have been filed.

In 2015, the apex court struck down the law in the landmark case Shreya Singhal v. Union of India, calling it “open-ended and unconstitutionally vague”, and thus expanded the contours of free speech to the Internet.

What is Section 66A do?

• Introduced by the UPA government in 2008, the amendment to the IT Act, 2000, gave the government power to arrest and imprison an individual for allegedly “offensive and menacing” online posts, and was passed without discussion in Parliament.
• Section 66A empowered police to make arrests over what policemen, in terms of their subjective discretion, could construe as “offensive” or “menacing” or for the purposes of causing annoyance, inconvenience, etc.
• It prescribed the punishment for sending messages through a computer or any other communication device like a mobile phone or a tablet, and a conviction could fetch a maximum of three years in jail.

Syllabus: General studies paper 3 (Economics)

Context:

The provisional estimates of annual national income (2020-21), released on may 31 by the national statistical office, did not have any surprises, but for one, that is, there is nothing encouraging in the numbers.

India’s gross domestic product (gdp) contracted 7.3% in 2020-21, as per provisional national income estimates released by the national statistical office, marginally better than the 8% contraction in the economy projected earlier.

Reasons for contraction of gdp:

• The contractionin trade (-18.2%), construction (-8.6%), mining (-8.5%) and manufacturing (-7.2%) is a matter of concern as these sectors account for the bulk of low-skilled jobs.
• The magnitude of contraction in the economy and the policy responses towards it raises an important issue, that is, the question of growth prospects for the next year.
• The agriculture sectorcontinued its impressive growth performance, reiterating that it still remains as the vital sector of the economy, especially at times of crisis.
• The manufacturing sector continued its subdued growth performance, failing to emerge as the growth driver, with production interruptions due to localised lockdowns to be blamed.

Rising unemployment rate:

• Contextualising the current growth rates in terms of some other macroeconomic data would provide us a better perspective on growth recovery.
• The unemployment data released by the centre for monitoring indian economy (cmie)which says, in may 2021, india’s labour participation rate at 40 per cent was the same as it was in april 2021.
• The unemployment rate shot up to 11.9 per cent from 8 per cent in april.
• A stable labour participation ratecombined with a higher unemployment rate implies a loss of jobs and a fall in the employment rate.

Syllabus– General Studies 1 (Geography)/ 3 (Environment)

Context

The Amazon forests in South America, which are the largest tropical forests in the world, have started emitting carbon dioxide (CO₂) instead of absorbing carbon emissions.

• According to a recent study, a significant amount of deforestation in eastern and southeastern Brazil has turned the forest into a source of CO­₂ that has the ability to warm the planet.
• Not only the Amazon rainforests, some forests in Southeast Asia have also turned into carbon sources in the last few years as a result of formation of plantations and fires.

The Amazon Basin

• The Amazon basin is huge with an area covering over 6 million square kilometres, it is nearly twice the size of India.
• The Amazon rainforests cover about 80 per cent of the basin and as per NASA’s Earth observatory, they are home to nearly a fifth of the world’s land species and is also home to about 30 million people including hundreds of indigenous groups and several isolated tribes.
• The basin produces about 20 per cent of the world’s flow of freshwater into the oceans.

Recent trends

• Over the last few years, the forest has been under threat due to deforestation and burning. In 2019, fires in the Amazon were visible from space.
• Forest fires, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE), have doubled since 2013.
• One reason that they happen is when farmers burn their land to clear it for the next crop. An editorial published in the journal Science Advances in 2019 noted that “the precious Amazon is teetering on the edge of functional destruction and, with it, so are we”.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, which comprises about two-thirds of the area of the rainforest, started in the 1970s and 1980s when large-scale forest conversion for cattle ranching and soy cultivation began. NASA’s Earth Observatory notes that state policies that encourage economic development, such as railway and road expansion projects have led to “unintentional deforestation” in the Amazon and Central America.

Key Findings of the study:

• Over the years as fossil-fuel emissions across the world have increased, the Amazon forests have absorbed CO2 from the atmosphere, helping to moderate the global climate.
• But researchers are not saying that because of significant levels of deforestation (over the course of 40 years) there has been a long-term decrease in rainfall and increase in temperatures during the dry season.
  • Because of these reasons the eastern Amazon forests are no longer carbon sinks.
  • Whereas the more intact and wetter forests in the central and western parts are neither carbon sinks nor are they emitters.

Syllabus– General Studies 1 (Geography)

Human Aspects – Population distribution, Urban Population, Internal Migration.

Context

On World Population Day (11 July), the government of Uttar Pradesh released a “Population Policy” in which it stated its intention to bring the gross fertility rate in the State down from the existing 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026.

• To achieve this, the government says it will consider the enactment of a new piece of legislation.

Objectives-

The new policy aims to

• decrease the Total Fertility Rate from 2.7 to 2.1 by 2026 and 1.7 by 2030;
• increase Modern Contraceptive Prevalence Rate from 31.7 to 45 by 2026 and 52 by 2030;
• increase male methods of contraception use from 10.8 to 15.1 by 2026 and 16.4 by 2030;
• decrease Maternal Mortality Rate from 197 to 150 to 98 and Infant Mortality Rate from 43 to 32 to 22 and Under 5 Infant Mortality Rate from 47 to 35 to 25.

Under the proposed bill a two-child norm will be implemented and promoted.

Incentives

• • 3% increase in the employer’s contribution fund under national pension,
  • Two additional increments during the entire service,
  • Subsidy towards the purchase of plot or house site or building a house,
  • Preference to the single child in admission in all education institutions,
  • A couple living below the poverty line that has only one child and undergoes voluntary sterilisation shall be eligible for payment of a one-time ₹80,000 if the single child is a boy and ₹1 lakh if it is a girl.

Disincentives-

• A person who will have more than two children after the law comes to force would be debarred from several benefits such as
  • government sponsored welfare schemes,

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3 ( Science and Technology)

Context:

Recently, British businessman richard branson beat rival jeff bezos to reach the edge of space, giving space tourism an official kick-start.

Background:

• Part of the crew, sirisha bandla, a 34-year-old aeronautical engineer, recently became the third indian-origin woman to space.
• Bandla, who was born in guntur, andhra pradesh, and brought up in houston, texas
• She joined sir richard branson, the company’s billionaire founder, and five others on board virgin galactic’s spaceshiptwo unityto make a journey to the edge of space from new mexico.
• Her flight role will be researcher experience, according to her profile on virgin galactic.
• She will become the third indian-origin woman to fly into space after kalpana chawla and sunita williams.

More in news:

• The experts and space enthusiasts are in doubt whether the height to which virgin galactic’s spaceshiptwo unitytravelled can be termed ‘space’.
• The most widely accepted boundary of space is known as the kármán line, 100km above mean sea level.
  • But the united states uses 80km as the cutoff point.
  • Branson’s virgin galactic flight reached a height of 86