Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Department of Economic Affairs (DEA), Ministry of Finance, Government of India, notifies Scheme for Financial Support for Project Development Expenses of PPP Projects – India Infrastructure Project Development Fund Scheme (IIPDF Scheme) 

• DEA is laying great thrust on improving the quality and pace of infrastructure development in the country by encouraging private sector participation in the infrastructure sector. 
• The DEA has been actively engaged in developing the appropriate policy framework for private investment in infrastructure development. 
• Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are being encouraged to bring private capital and efficiency in execution and operation of infrastructure projects.
• DEA has come out with Scheme for Financial Support for Project Development Expenses of PPP Projects – ‘IIPDF Scheme’ (India Infrastructure Project Development Fund Scheme) for providing necessary support to the PSAs, both in the Central and State Governments, by extending financial assistance in meeting the cost of transaction advisors and consultants engaged in the development of PPP projects.
• It is a Central Sector Scheme.
• Funding under IIPDF Scheme is in addition to the already operational Scheme for Financial Support to PPPs in Infrastructure (Viability Gap Funding Scheme).
• Through the VGF scheme infrastructure projects undertaken through PPP mode that are economically justified but commercially unviable are supported.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Representatives from the world’s nations meet in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, on Nov. 6-18 to flesh out the rules of a new global climate pact. Decades of climate talks have spawned a host of acronyms and jargon. 

GLASGOW PACT

• Reached at the 2021 U.N. climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, the Glasgow Pact marked the first time a U.N. climate agreement mentioned the goal of reducing fossil fuel use. 
• The pact marked a breakthrough in efforts to resolve rules guiding the international trade of carbon markets to offset emissions. 
• With time running out for steep emissions cuts, the pact also urges nations to come up with more ambitious climate plans

PARIS AGREEMENT

• Successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the international climate treaty that expired in 2020. 
• Agreed in December 2015, the Paris Agreement aims to limit the rise in the average global surface temperature. 
• To do this, countries that signed the accord set national pledges to reduce humanity’s effect on the climate that are meant to become more ambitious over time.

GREENHOUSE GASES

• The carbon dioxide (CO2) emitted by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, diesel, gasoline or petrol, kerosene and natural gas is the main “greenhouse gas” responsible for warming the Earth’s atmosphere. 
• But there are others such as methane, which is produced by cows and waste dumps, that are much more potent than CO2 but much shorter-lived in the atmosphere.

1.5 DEGREES

• The Paris accord legally bound its signatories collectively to limit greenhouse gas emissions to keep the temperature rise “well below” 2.0 degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) this century. 
• But the countries also promised to “pursue efforts” to keep the rise below 1.5C (2.7F), which scientists say would help to avert some of the most catastrophic effects.
• Soberingly, the world has already heated up by just over 1C since the start of the Industrial Revolution. 
• Even if all the pledges made so far are delivered, it is still on track for an average rise of 2.7C this century.

COP27

• The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the supreme body of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), made up of representatives from each country that signed the Paris Agreement and which meets every year. 
• COP27, the 27th annual meeting, is being held under an Egyptian presidency in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.

NATIONALLY DETERMINED CONTRIBUTIONS

• NDCs are the pledges that each country makes to reduce its emissions and adapt to climate change from 2020 onward. 
• Countries have to update and expand their NDCs every five years. All signatories have submitted new pledges for Glasgow. 

‘JUST TRANSITION’

• The term used to describe a shift to a low-carbon economy that keeps the social and economic disruption of moving away from fossil fuels to a minimum while maximising the benefits for workers, communities and consumers.

CLIMATE FINANCE

• Richer countries agreed in 2009 to contribute $100 billion together each year by 2020 to help poorer countries adapt their economies and lessen the impact of rising seas, or more severe and frequent storms and droughts. 
• In 2015 they agreed to extend this goal through to 2025, but the target has yet to be met. 
• To put things in perspective, a U.S. Energy Department official estimated that the United States alone needs to invest $1 trillion a year to meet its new climate targets.

CBDR

• The principle of “common but differentiated responsibilities” (CBDR), was enshrined in the Kyoto accord. 
• It says that developed countries, which produced more emissions in the past as they built their economies, should take the lead in fighting climate change. 
• The issue is always one of the most thorny in climate talks.
• The Paris Agreement sought to bind major rapidly developing economies such as China and Brazil into the global effort to cut emissions, adding the words “in light of different national circumstances”. 
• It does not, however, require them to make any immediate pledges to cut their emissions.

‘LOSS AND DAMAGE’

• Although richer countries have agreed to provide them with funding to address the impact of climate change, poorer countries continue to press for an agreed basis to assess liability for the losses and damage caused by climate change, and calculate compensation.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The recent fires themselves have spewed some 150 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere.

Finding

• Global warming is responsible for bigger and bigger fires in Siberia, and in the decades ahead they could release huge amounts of carbon now trapped in the soil.
• In 2019 and 2020, fires in this remote part of the world destroyed a surface area equivalent to nearly half of that which burned in the previous 40 years.
• These recent fires themselves have spewed some 150 million tonnes of carbon into the atmosphere, the scientists estimate, contributing to global warming in what researchers call a feedback loop.
• The area above the Arctic circle heats up four times faster than the rest of the planet and “it is this climate amplification which causes abnormal fire activity,”
• Researchers concentrated on an area five and a half times the size of France and with satellite pictures observed the surface area burned each year from 1982 to 2020.
• In 2020, fire charred more than 2.5 million hectares (6.2 million acres) of land and released, in CO2 equivalent, as much as that emitted by Spain in one year, the scientists concluded.
• That year, summer in Siberia was on average three times hotter than it was in 1980. The Russian city of Verkhoyansk hit 38 degrees Celsius in summer, a record for the Arctic.

Polar Amplification

• Polar amplification happens when changes to the earth’s atmosphere lead to a larger difference in temperature near the north and south poles than to the rest of the world.
• This phenomenon is measured against the average temperature change of the planet.
• These changes are more pronounced at the northern latitudes and are known as the Arctic amplification.
• It occurs when the atmosphere’s net radiation balance is affected by an increase in greenhouse gases (GHGs) .

Reasons for Polar Amplification

• The ice-albedo feedback, lapse rate feedback, water vapour feedback (Change in Water Vapour amplify or weaken temperature range) and ocean heat transport are the primary causes.
• Sea ice and snow have high albedo (measure of reflectivity of the surface), implying that they are capable of reflecting most of the solar radiation as opposed to water and land.
• As the sea ice melts, the oceans surrounding poles will be more capable of absorbing solar radiation, thereby driving the amplification.
• The lapse rate or the rate at which the temperature drops with elevation decreases with warming.

The consequences of Arctic Warming/ Polar Amplification

• Glacial retreat
• Thinning of Ice Sheet
• Rise in Sea Level
• Impact on Biodiversity: The warming of the poles and the seas in the region, the acidification of water, changes in the salinity levels, is impacting biodiversity, including the marine species and the dependent species.
• Thawing of Permafrost: it releases carbon and methane which are among the major greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.
• Experts fear that the thaw and the melt will also release the long-dormant bacteria and viruses that were trapped in the permafrost and can potentially give rise to diseases.
• The best-known example of this is the permafrost thaw leading to an anthrax outbreak in Siberia in 2016, where nearly 2,00,000 reindeer succumbed.

Source of Permafrost

• Arctic soils store huge amounts of organic carbon, much of it in peatlands. This is often frozen or marshy, but climate warming thaws and dries peatland soil, making large Arctic fires more likely.
• Fire damages frozen soil called permafrost, which releases even more carbon. In some cases, it has been trapped in ice for centuries or more. This means that carbon sinks are transformed into sources of carbon.
• An elevated amount of CO2 was released in 2020 but things “could be even more catastrophic than that in the future,” said the report.
• Higher temperatures have a variety of effects: more water vapor in the atmosphere, which causes more storms and thus more fire-sparking lightning. And vegetation grows more, providing more fuel for fire, but it also breathes more, which dries things out.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Maharashtra has been ranked first, along with Punjab and Kerala, in the Performance Grading Index (PGI) report for the academic year 2020-21. 

• The state has a total score of 928/1000, elevating it to the top position from the eighth rank it had last year.

School Education Performance Index

• The Education Ministry released the latest edition of the Performance Grading Index, which is a new index that measures the performance of states and union territories on a uniform scale to analyse the transformational change in the field of school education.
• There are five parameters on which performances are graded –
• Learning outcome, 
• Access, 
• Equity, 
• Infrastructure facilities 
• Governance process.
• The PGI report is generated through existing Management Information System platforms such as Unified District Information System for Education (UDISE), National Achievement Survey (NAS) and Mid Day Meal (MDM), from where information is gathered.
• The infrastructure facilities domain includes measures such as providing safe infrastructure, working toilets, clean drinking water, clean and attractive spaces, electricity, computing devices, internet, libraries, and sports and recreational resources, among others.
• Indicators like availability of digital facilities, timely availability of textbooks and uniforms — which are critical inputs for better performance of students — are also measured in this domain.
• In the governance process domain, which aims to capture the performance of all states/UTs through indicators such as making use of IT instead of human interface.

Performance of Maharashtra

• Maharashtra has been ranked first, along with Punjab and Kerala.
• The state has a total score of 928/1000, elevating it to the top position from the eighth rank it had last year.
• Maharashtra has shown considerable improvement in domains such as infrastructure facilities and governance processes.
• MH’s score in infrastructure domain jumped to 143/150 from 126/150 in the year 2019-20.
• MH’s score in governance process domain, jumped to 340/360 from only 299/360 last year.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The horns of rhinoceroses may have become smaller over time due to the impact of hunting, according to a recent study which used an interesting research approach—analysing artwork and photographs of the animal spanning more than five centuries.

• The study, published in the latest edition of People and Nature by the British Ecological Society, relied on a repository of images maintained by the Netherlands-based Rhino Research Center (RRC).

Key Findings 

• Found evidence for declining horn length over time across species, perhaps related to selective pressure of hunting, and indicating a utility for image-based approaches in understanding societal perceptions of large vertebrates and trait evolution.
• Rhinos have long been hunted for their horns, which are highly valued in some cultures. 
• The five surviving rhino species are still threatened by habitat loss and hunting. 
•  The study found that the rate of decline in horn length was highest in the critically-endangered Sumatran rhino and lowest in the white rhino of Africa, which is the most commonly found species both in the wild and in captivity.
• This observation follows patterns seen in other animals, such as tusk size in elephants and horn length in wild sheep, which have been driven down by directional selection due to trophy hunting.
• During the age of European imperialism (between the 16th and 20th centuries), rhinos were commonly portrayed as hunting trophies, but since the mid-20th century, they have been increasingly portrayed in a conservation context, reflecting a change in emphasis from a more to less consumptive relationship between humans and rhinos.
• The Indian rhino featured more in early artwork, but the number of images of other species, particularly white rhinos, has increased since the mid-19th century.

 Rhinos

• Rhinos have long been hunted for their horns, which are highly valued in some cultures.
• The five surviving rhino species (Black and White African rhino, Asian rhino species – greater one horned, Sumatran and Javan rhinos) are still threatened by habitat loss and hunting.

IUCN Status

• Greater one horned Rhino: Vulnerable
• Sumatran Rhino: Critically Endangered
• Javan Rhino: Vulnerable
• Black African Rhino: Critically Endangered
• White African Rhino: Near Threatened
• Also known as Indian rhino, it is the largest of the rhino species.
• India is home to the largest number of Greater One-Horned Rhinoceros in the world.
• At present, there are about 2,600 Indian rhinos in India, with more than 90% of the population concentrated in Assam’s Kaziranga National Park.

Habitat:

• The species is restricted to small habitats in Indo-Nepal terai and northern West Bengal and Assam.
• In India, rhinos are mainly found in
• Kaziranga NP, Pobitora WLS, Orang NP, Manas NP in Assam,
• Jaldapara NP and Gorumara NP in West Bengal
• Dudhwa TR in Uttar Pradesh.

Threats:

• Poaching for the horns
• Habitat loss
• Population density
• Decreasing Genetic diversity

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Dolphins have started coming back to the Ganga river with improvement in the quality of its water through the Namami Gange programme.

• The completion of 23 projects under the ambitious programme started in 2014. 
• The State has successfully stopped flowing of more than 460 MLD of sewage into the Ganga in the State.
• Dolphins have also been seen breeding in Brijghat, Narora, Kanpur, Mirzapur and Varanasi, which is likely to increase their number further in the coming days. 
• At present, the population of dolphins in Ganga in Uttar Pradesh is estimated to be around 600. 
• There has been a lot of improvement in dissolved oxygen (DO), biochemical demand (BOD) and fecal coliform (FC) parameters as well, the assessment of river water quality carried out during the period 2014-2022 at 20 locations in Uttar Pradesh reveals. 
• The test found that pH (how acidic the water was) at 20 locations met the water quality criteria for bathing, while DO, BOD and FC improved at 16, 14 and 18 out of 20 locations, respectively.

Namami Gange Programme:

• The Programme was launched in 2014. It is an Integrated Conservation Mission under the Ministry of Jal Shakti.
• To achieve effective abatement of pollution, conservation and rejuvenation of the National River(Ganga).
• Chacha Chaudhary is the declared Mascot.

Main Pillars of the Programme:

• Sewerage Treatment Infrastructure,
• River-Surface Cleaning,
• Afforestation,
• Industrial Effluent Monitoring,
• River-Front Development,
• Biodiversity
• Public Awareness among others.

National Mission for Clean Ganga(NMCG): 

• It is the implementing agency of the Namami Gange Programme at the national level.
• It is a statutory authority. It is established under the National Council for River Ganga (Rejuvenation, Protection and Management) Act, 2016.
• Projects under the programme: 

• Sewerage infrastructure works for pollution abatement is under execution on 13 tributaries of river Ganga. 
• These include Yamuna, Kosi, Saryu, Ramganga, Kali(West), Kali (East), Gomti, Kharkari, Burhi Gandak, Banka, Damodar, Rispana-Bindal and Chambal.

Need of the Programme

• Rising in the Himalayas and flowing to the Bay of Bengal, the river traverses a course of more than 2,500 km through the plains of north and eastern India.
• The Ganga basin – which also extends into parts of Nepal, China and Bangladesh – accounts for 26 per cent of India’s landmass.
• The Ganga also serves as one of India’s holiest rivers whose cultural and spiritual significance transcends the boundaries of the basin.
• Rapidly increasing population, rising standards of living and exponential growth of industrialization and urbanization have exposed water resources to various forms of degradation.
• The deterioration in the water quality of Ganga impacts the people immediately.
• Major components of the project will be Wetland inventory and assessment, Wetland management planning, Wetland’s monitoring, and Capacity development and outreach.
• Aims at creating a knowledge base and capacities for effective management of floodplain wetlands in the 12 Ganga districts in Bihar to ensure sustained provision of wetlands ecosystem services and securing biodiversity habitats.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

India conducted the first successful flight test of the Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor missile capable of neutralising long-range missiles and aircraft.

• The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) conducted a successful maiden flight-test of phase-II Ballistic Missile Defence (BMD) interceptor AD-1 missile with a large kill altitude bracket from the APJ Abdul Kalam Island off the coast of Odisha.

 AD-1 Missile

• The AD-1 (Air Defence) is a long-range interceptor missile designed for both low exo-atmospheric and endo-atmospheric interception of long-range ballistic missiles as well as aircraft. 
• The missile is propelled by a two-stage solid motor and equipped with an indigenously developed advanced control system and a navigation and guidance algorithm to precisely guide the vehicle to the targets that move at very high speeds.
• It is a unique type of interceptor with advanced technologies available with a very few nations in the world and it will further strengthen the country’s BMD capability to the next level.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) has notified amendments to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 (IT Rules, 2021).

What are the IT Rules, 2021?

• World over, governments are grappling with the issue of regulating social media intermediaries (SMIs). 
• Given the multitudinous nature of the problem — the centrality of SMIs in shaping public discourse, 
• The impact of their governance on the right to freedom of speech and expression.
• The magnitude of information they host and the constant technological innovations that impact their governance. 
• It is important for governments to update their regulatory framework to face emergent challenges. 
• In a bid to keep up with these issues, India in 2021, replaced its decade old regulations on SMIs with the IT Rules, 2021 that were primarily aimed at placing obligations on SMIs to ensure an open, safe and trusted internet.

Need to amend the IT Rules, 2021

• As per the press note accompanying the draft amendments in June 2022, the stated objectives of the amendments were three-fold. 
• First, there was a need to ensure that the interests and constitutional rights of netizens are not being contravened by big tech platforms, 
• Second, to strengthen the grievance redressal framework in the Rules.
• Third, that compliance with these should not impact early stage Indian start-ups. 
• This translated into a set of proposed amendments that can be broadly classified into two categories. 
• The first category involved placing additional obligations on the SMIs to ensure better protection of user interests while the second category involved the institution of an appellate mechanism for grievance redressal.

Additional obligations placed on the SMIs

• To ensure that its users are in compliance with the relevant rules of the platform.
• The “rules and regulations, privacy policy and user agreement” are available in all languages listed in the eighth schedule of the Constitution.
• To “make reasonable” efforts to prevent prohibited content being hosted on its platform and to police and moderate content.
• To “respect all the rights accorded to the citizens under the Constitution, including in the articles 14, 19 and 21”.
• To remove information or a communication link in relation to the six prohibited categories of content as and when a complaint arises within 72 hours to contain the spread of the content.
• To “take all reasonable measures to ensure accessibility of its services to users along with reasonable expectation of due diligence, privacy and transparency” and to strengthen inclusion in the SMI ecosystem such as allowing for participation by persons with disabilities and diverse linguistic backgrounds.

Concerns

• SMIs are unclear of the extent of measures they are now expected to undertake and users are apprehensive that the increased power of the SMIs would allow them to trample on freedom of speech and expression.
• The wide interpretation to which this obligation is open to by different courts, could translate to disparate duties on the SMIs. Frequent alterations to design and practices of the platform, that may result from a case-to-case based application of this obligation, could result in heavy compliance costs for them.
• First, as evidenced by the transparency reports of SMIs, such as Facebook and Twitter, there is no common understanding of what is meant by resolution of the complaint.
• For example, Facebook records only mention the number of reports where “appropriate tools” have been provided. These “appropriate tools” could just mean the automated replies pointing out the tools available on the platform that have been sent to the complainants.
• Twitter records outline the number of URLs against which action has been taken after the receipt of a complaint.
• The number of user complaints continue to be quite low when compared to the content against which the platform acts proactively or is obligated to remove due to governmental or court orders.
• This may be because users are either not aware of this facility or find it futile to approach the platform for complaint resolutions or in case where action has been taken, there is no way to assess whether the complainant has been satisfied with the resolution of the complaint.
• Moreover, the extant framework does not provide for any recourse if the complainant is dissatisfied with the grievance officer’s order.
• Possibly, the only course available to the complainant is to challenge the order under the writ jurisdiction of the High Courts or Supreme Court. This is not efficacious given that it can be a resource and time intensive process.
• Prior to the IT Rules, 2021, platforms followed their own mechanisms and timelines for resolving user complaints.

Grievance Appellate Committees (GAC)

• The IT Rules uniformed this by mandating that all social media platforms should have a grievance officer who would acknowledge the receipt of a complaint within 24 hours and dispose it within 15 days.
• The committee is styled as a three-member council out of which one member will be a government officer (holding the post ex officio) while the other two members will be independent representatives.
• Users can file a complaint against the order of the grievance officer within 30 days.
• Importantly, the GAC is required to adopt an online dispute resolution mechanism which will make it more accessible to the users.
• Interestingly, it is unclear whether the user have to approach the grievance appellate committee before approaching the court as the institution of the GAC would not bar the user from approaching the court directly against the order of the grievance officer.
• While this makes the in-house grievance redressal more accountable and appellate mechanism more accessible to users, appointments being made by the central government could lead to apprehensions of bias in content moderation.
• Further, the IT Rules, 2021 do not provide any explicit power to the GAC to enforce its orders.
• Lastly, if users can approach both the courts and the GAC parallelly, it could lead to conflicting decisions often undermining the impartiality and merit of one institution or the other.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) has proposed a single income tax return (ITR) form for all taxpayers. A draft form has been released, to which all stakeholders can provide inputs up to December 15.

Kinds of ITR forms

There are seven kinds of ITR forms, which are used by different categories of taxpayers. They are as follows:

• ITR Form 1, called ‘Sahaj’, is for small and medium taxpayers. Sahaj forms can be filed by individuals who have an income up to Rs 50 lakh, with earnings from salary, one house property/ other sources (interest etc).
• ITR-2 is filed by people with income from residential property.
• * ITR-3 is intended for people who have income as profits from business/ profession
• ITR-4 (Sugam) is, like ITR-1 (Sahaj), a simple forms, and can be filed by individuals, Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) and firms with total income up to Rs 50 lakh from business and profession.
• ITR-5 and 6 are for limited liability partnerships (LLPs) and businesses respectively.
• ITR-7 is filed by trusts and non-profit organisations.

What is the change that has been proposed?

• According to the proposal, all taxpayers, barring trusts and non-profit organisations (ITR-7), will be able to use a common ITR form, which will include a separate head for disclosure of income from virtual digital assets.
• “The proposed draft ITR…proposes to introduce a common ITR by merging all the existing returns of income except ITR-7.

Rationale Behind the Proposal

• The proposed draft ITR takes a relook at the return filing system in tandem with international best practices. 
• The draft form aims to make it easier to file returns, and to considerably reduce the time taken for the job by individuals and non-business-type taxpayers.
• The taxpayers will not be required to see the schedules that do not apply to them. 
• It intends the smart design of schedules in a user-friendly manner with a better arrangement, logical flow, and increased scope of pre-filling. 
• It will also facilitate the proper reconciliation of third-party data available with the Income-Tax department vis-à-vis the data to be reported in the ITR to reduce the compliance burden on the taxpayers.
• The proposed ITR form would be customised for taxpayers with applicable schedules, based on certain questions answered by them.
• Once the common ITR form is notified, after taking into account the inputs received from stakeholders, the online utility will be released by the Income Tax department. 
• In such a utility, a customised ITR containing only the applicable questions and schedules will be available to the taxpayer.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

HARIT Aaykar initiative by Income Tax Department for increasing greenery and creating micro forests.

• The Income Tax Department participated enthusiastically in the Government of India’s month-long Special Campaign for Swachhata which ends on 31st October, 2022. 
• This day (31st October) marks the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and is also observed as the National Unity Day.

About 

• The HARIT Aaykar (Hariyali Achievement Resolution by Income Tax) initiative. Under this initiative, the Department resolves to increase the green cover by planting trees and creating micro-forests in and around Income Tax Department’s buildings and other public areas.
• Under the HARIT Aaykar initiative, the first of such micro-forests has been inaugurated.