Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

National Thermal Power Corporation Limited (NTPC Ltd) issued a renewed Biodiversity Policy 2022.

• It is an integral part of NTPC’s Environmental Policy and its objectives are aligned with environmental and sustainability policies.

Objectives of the Policy:

• To support all the professionals of the NTPC Group to help them contribute toward the achievement of the targets set in this field.
• To achieve a ’no net loss’ of biodiversity at all of its currently operating sites and ensure there is a net positive balance wherever applicable.
• To mainstream the concept of biodiversity across NTPC’s value chain and adopt a precautionary approach for sustainable management of biodiversity in all the decision-making processes.

Expected outcomes of the policy:

• Overall conservation will increase with participation from business/firm’s side.
• Better practices of conservation will be known and will yield better results.
• Grass root participation will make people feel more connected to the cause.

About NTPC

• NTPC Ltd. is a central Public Sector Undertaking (PSU) under the Ministry of Power.
• It is India’s largest energy conglomerate with roots planted way back in 1975 to accelerate power development in India.
• It became a Maharatna company in 2010.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Naga rebel group National Socialist Council of Nagaland (Isak-Muivah) or NSCN(IM) has stuck to its demands for a separate flag and a constitution in an indication that the deadlock in the peace talks with the central government, aimed at bringing an end to India’s oldest insurgency, is likely to continue.

Background

The process has been ongoing since mid-1997 when the NSCN (I-M) declared a ceasefire with the armed forces. Other groups began opting for talks in 2001. However, it has been put in a cold storage since the Framework Agreement was signed on August 3, 2015.

Naga Political Issue

Pre- Independence:

• The British annexed Assam in 1826, and in 1881, the Naga Hills too became part of British India. The first sign of Naga resistance was seen in the formation of the Naga Club in 1918, which told the Simon Commission in 1929 “to leave us alone to determine for ourselves as in ancient times”.
• In 1946 came the Naga National Council (NNC), which declared Nagaland an independent state on August 14, 1947.
• The NNC resolved to establish a “sovereign Naga state” and conducted a “referendum” in 1951, in which “99 per cent” supported an “independent” Nagaland.

Post- Independence:

• On March 22, 1952, the Naga Federal Government (NFG) and the Naga Federal Army (NFA) were formed. The Government of India sent in the Army to crush the insurgency and, in 1958, enacted Armed Forces (Special Power) Act (AFSPA).

Agreement in this regard:

• The NSCN (IM) entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Centre in 1997 and the two have been holding talks since then, while a conglomerate of seven different Naga national political groups (NNPGs) also got into separate talks with the Centre since 2017.
• The Centre signed a “framework agreement” with NSCN (IM) in 2015, and an “agreed position” with the NNPGs in 2017. However, the NSCN (IM)’s demand for a separate Naga flag and constitution has been a delaying factor in signing a final deal on the protracted Naga political issue.

The 2015 ‘agreement’:

After years of negotiations with successive governments, the NSCN(IM) had on August 3, 2015 signed a framework agreement with the BJP-led Centre.

The “agreement” was based on the idea of “shared sovereignty” for the Naga’s a community comprising more than 60 tribes (the exact number is unclear) spread across the Northeast and parts of neighbouring Myanmar.

• Shared sovereignty denotes sharing of administrative and legislative power between India and ‘Nagalim’.

Under this arrangement, the Naga Hoho, the apex body of all Naga tribes, would look after the welfare of all Naga-inhabited areas, irrespective of their integration with the proposed Nagalim.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The US is sending four HIMAR systems to Ukraine

• An artillery rocket is a weapon that is typically propelled by a solid-fuel motor and can carry a variety of warheads.
• In the 1970s, USA developed a new weapon called MLRS, for Multiple Launch Rocket System, designed for use in the event that Russian armored vehicles massed for World War III on the border of Western Europe.
• Pentagon developed the more advanced version of MLRS, a more easily transportable version called HIMARS, for High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, which is based on a wheeled truck that is much lighter.
• Unlike its predecessor, the M142 HIMARS truck carries only one pod of munitions, but it can move much faster on and off-road, and can be shipped on a C-130 cargo plane.
• US is sending four HIMAR systems to Ukraine.

The difference between a rocket and a missile

• Generally the word “rocket” is used in a military context to refer to relatively inexpensive unguided weapons powered by solid-fuel motors, while “missile” is generally shorthand for “guided missiles,” more expensive and complicated weapons that use movable fins to steer themselves to their targets and can fly much farther.
• The Pentagon has already sent short-range, inexpensive and unguided anti-tank weapons that are classified as rockets to Ukraine, like the AT-4, and the longer-range Javelin, which is a guided missile.
• But in more recent years the military has built weapons it calls “guided rockets” — like GMLRS — which are often older rocket designs upgraded to have guidance systems and movable fins on their nose to steer them.

How powerful are these rockets?

• Using the HIMARS and GMLRS together can offer an amount of firepower that is similar to an airstrike — all from a mobile platform.
• The upgrade in explosive power for the Ukrainian military will be profound.

Does Russia have anything similar?

• The Russian military has primarily used three types of unguided artillery rockets during the war in Ukraine.
• The largest, the 300 mm Smerch, can fire a guided rocket, which makes it more accurate, and has a range similar to the GMLRS

Do the U.S. rockets have other advantages?

• There’s one major advantage to the MLRS and HIMARS launchers: They can be fully reloaded within minutes.
• Both vehicles have a winch that allows them to lower an empty pod to the ground, pick up a new, loaded pod, and pull it into place. The Russian launchers must be manually loaded, tube by tube.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

The recent incident in the Texas school massacre, Gun Control Legislation in India came into news. 

Arms Act, 1959

• The Arms Act, 1959 governs matters related to acquisition, possession, manufacture, sale, transportation, import and export of arms and ammunition.
• It defines a specific class of ‘prohibited’ arms and ammunitions, restricts their use and prescribes penalties for contravention of its provisions.

Key Provisions

• Gun license applicants in India must be at least 21 years and not convicted of any offence involving violence, of ‘unsound mind’ or a threat to public safety and peace.
• Upon receiving an application, the licensing authority (i.e., the Home Ministry), asks the officer in-charge of the nearest police station to submit a report about the applicant after thorough vetting.
• It also enlists specific provisions on curtailing the use of licensed weapons to ensure social harmony.
• No entity is permitted to sell or transfer any firearm which does not bear the name of the maker, manufacturer’s number or any other visible or stamped identification mark.
• Any act of conversion (such as shortening the barrel of a firearm or converting an imitation firearm into a firearm) or unlawful import-export is punishable with an imprisonment term of seven years, which may extend to life imprisonment and be liable to monetary fines.

The Arms (Amendment) Act, 2019

• The Arms Act amended in 2019 reduces the number of firearms that an individual can procure from three to two.
• The Amended Act also increases the duration of the validity of a firearm license from three years to five years.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

A day after a ‘severe’ category thunderstorm hit the Delhi pavements and roads were strewn with tree branches and trunks that had snapped, and full-grown trees that were uprooted entirely.

• Poor root growth due to concretization could be a factor that caused trees to keel over
• Most trees have ‘feeder roots’ that are in the upper layers of the soil. These roots take nutrients and moisture, and have symbiotic fungi in and around them. But these roots cannot survive under concrete, since they need oxygen.
• If the space around trees is covered with concrete, there will be no life beneath the concrete
• An NGT order from 2013 states that concrete within a 1 metre radius of trees is to be removed. A notice was issued in 2019 by the forest department; informing all departments and civic agencies that concretisation of trees damages them and is an offence under the Delhi Preservation of Trees Act, 1994.
• Leaving 1 metre around the trees is not enough to have sustainable growth of avenue trees. They need to have good feeder roots that can spread to take in nutrients.

Deepor Beel

Assam’s Deepor Beel is perishing from concretisation and waste dumping. Deepor Beel has shrunk around 35 per cent in size since 1991.

What’s happening?

• Threatened habitats, littered lake
• A 24-hectare garbage dumping yard lies to the east of the lake in Boragaon. Birds and animals feed on rotten flesh and waste from the site, littering the waterbody and threatening their lives
• Huge mountains of solid waste are turning the picturesque lake into a stinking drain
• Concrete factories, houses and warehouses built illegally on the wetland damage the ecology.
• Rail track impacts wildlife
• A railway line passing through the bird sanctuary has also been posing a danger to the wildlife in and around the lake.
• At least 14 jumbos were killed crossing the railway track till 2014 between Rani Reserve Forest and Deepor Beel.
• Lost livelihoods
• The deterioration of the lake harmed the livelihoods of several hundred fishers who have depended on it for generations. The government has banned fishing in the core area of the lake.
• Discharge from a local oil refinery has been further polluting the water and inducing kerosene-like smell in the fish

Deepor Beel

• It is one of the largest freshwater lakes in Assam and the State’s only Ramsar site besides being an Important Bird Area by Birdlife International.
• It is located towards the southwest of Guwahati city, Assam and is the erstwhile water channel of River Brahmaputra.

Importance:

• It constitutes a unique habitat for aquatic flora and avian fauna.
• It has both biological and environmental importance besides being the only major storm-water storage basin for Guwahati city.
• It provides a means of livelihood for a number of local families.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

An all-party meeting held in Bihar has unanimously decided to start the caste based census very soon.

Background:

Bihar Legislature’s two resolutions demanding caste-based census had already been rejected by the Central Government because it would be a “divisive exercise”. The centre, however, said “States can hold caste census on their own”.

How have caste details been collected so far?

• While SC/ST details are collected as part of the census, details of other castes are not collected by the enumerators. The main method is by self-declaration to the enumerator.
• So far, backward classes commissions in various States have been conducting their own counts to ascertain the population of backward castes.

What kind of caste data is published in the Census? 

Every Census in independent India from 1951 to 2011 has published data on Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, but not on other castes. Before that, every Census until 1931 had data on caste.

What is SECC 2011?

The Socio-Economic Caste Census 2011 was a major exercise to obtain data about the socio-economic status of various communities.

• It had two components: a survey of the rural and urban households and ranking of these households based on pre-set parameters, and a caste census.
• However, only the details of the economic conditions of the people in rural and urban households were released. The caste data has not been released till now.

Difference between Census & SECC:

• The Census provides a portrait of the Indian population, while the SECC is a tool to identify beneficiaries of state support.
• Since the Census falls under the Census Act of 1948, all data are considered confidential, whereas all the personal information given in the SECC is open for use by Government departments to grant and/or restrict benefits to households.

Pros of caste census:

The precise number of the population of each caste would help tailor the reservation policy to ensure equitable representation of all of them.

 Concerns associated:

• There is a possibility that it will lead to heartburn among some sections and spawn demands for larger or separate quotas.
• It has been alleged that the mere act of labelling persons as belonging to a caste tends to perpetuate the system.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Recently Prime Minister of India officially inaugurated the country’s first liquid nano urea plant at Kalol, Gujarat

• This patented product is expected to not only substitute imported urea, but to also produce better results in farms.
• IFFCO commissioned the Kalol liquid nano urea plant, the country’s first, in August 2021.

Liquid Nano Urea

• It is essentially urea in the form of a nanoparticle.
• Urea is a chemical nitrogen fertiliser, white in colour, which artificially provides nitrogen, a major nutrient required by plants.
• The product has been developed by Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited (IFFCO) Nano Biotechnology Research Centre (NBRC) at Kalol.
• While conventional urea has an efficiency of about 25 per cent, the efficiency of liquid nano urea can be as high as 85-90 per cent.
• Conventional urea fails to have the desired impact on crops as it is often applied incorrectly, and the nitrogen in it is vaporised or lost as gas – A lot of nitrogen is also washed away during irrigation.
• Liquid nano urea is sprayed directly on the leaves and gets absorbed by the plant.
• Fertilisers in nano form provide a targeted supply of nutrients to crops, as they are absorbed by the stomata, pores found on the epidermis of leaves
• 2-4 ml of nano urea should be mixed a litre of water and sprayed on crop leaves at active growth stages
• Liquid nano urea contains 4 per cent total nitrogen (w/v) evenly dispersed in water. The size of a nano nitrogen particle varies from 20-50 nm.
• Liquid nano urea has a shelf life of a year, and farmers need not be worried about “caking” when it comes in contact with moisture

Indigenous Liquid Nano Urea vs Imported Urea

• The liquid nano urea produced by IFFCO comes in a half-litre bottle priced at Rs 240, and carries no burden of subsidy currently.
• By contrast, a farmer pays around Rs 300 for a 50-kg bag of heavily subsidised urea.
• The government’s fertilizer subsidy payout this financial year will be Rs 2 lakh crore, up 25 per cent from the Rs 1.6 lakh crore it paid last year.

Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Limited

• It is one of India’s biggest cooperative societies which is wholly owned by Indian Cooperatives.
• Founded in 1967 with just 57 cooperatives, today it is an amalgamation of over 36,000 Indian Cooperatives with diversified business interests ranging from General Insurance to Rural Telecom apart from its core business of manufacturing and selling fertilisers.

Objective:

• To enable Indian farmers to prosper through timely supply of reliable, high quality agricultural inputs and services in an environmentally sustainable manner and to undertake other activities to improve their welfare.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

The Centre has released the entire amount of Goods and Services Tax (GST) compensation payable to States up to May 31, 2022 by releasing an amount of ₹86,912 crore.

• This is being done to assist the States in managing their resources and ensuring that their programmes, especially the expenditure on capital, is carried out successfully during the financial year.

What is the GST compensation?

The Constitution (One Hundred and First Amendment) Act 2016, was the law which created the mechanism for levying a common nationwide Goods and Services Tax (GST).

While States would receive the SGST (State GST) component of the GST, and a share of the IGST (integrated GST), it was agreed that revenue shortfalls arising from the transition to the new indirect taxes regime would be made good from a pooled GST Compensation Fund.

How is the GST Compensation Funds  funded?

This corpus is funded through a compensation cess that is levied on so-called ‘demerit’ goods.

• The items are pan masala, cigarettes and tobacco products, aerated water, caffeinated beverages, coal and certain passenger motor vehicles.

Computation of the shortfall:

The computation of the shortfall is done annually by projecting a revenue assumption based on 14% compounded growth from the base year’s (2015-2016) revenue and calculating the difference between that figure and the actual GST collections in that year.

Can the deadline be extended? If so, how?

The deadline for GST compensation was set in the original legislation and so in order to extend it, the GST Compensation must first recommend it and the Union government must then move an amendment to the GST law allowing for a new date.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Exports can help Indian economy reach the $5-trillion target sooner than expected.

Status

• India’s exports surpassed the pre-pandemic level of $331 billion in FY 2018-19 and reaching $418 billion in FY 2021-22
• Total exports, including the services exports of around $240 billion, amount to more than $650 billion.
• Total merchandise trade, including imports of $610 billion, amounts to $1.28 trillion for FY 2021-22.

What the above Statistics indicate?

• The revival of exports has provided relief at a time when major components of aggregate demand such as consumption and investment had been slowing down.
• These milestones on the trade front are a sign of a rising India, which would certainly accelerate the growth
• If India sustain the momentum and capitalize on exports’ potential, this will help achieve the $-5 trillion economy goal sooner
• The trade achievements are a sign of growing confidence in the Indian economy

Reasons for this achievement

• The proactive policy schemes by the government — such as merchandise exports scheme, duty exemption scheme, export promotion capital goods, transport and marketing assistance scheme — have helped the export sector.
• Schemes like the gold card scheme and interest equalization scheme by RBI and the market access initiative by the export promotion councils are helpful

Export Potential of India

• Though achievements in trade are laudable, India still has much potential. For example, the annual growth rate of India’s exports between 2011 to 2020 is a little over 1 per cent compared to 3 per cent and 4.2 per cent, respectively, for China and Bangladesh.
• There is a huge difference in India’s exports potential and actual exports in many sectors, especially pharmaceuticals, gems and jewellery and chemicals.

Policy Reforms Needed

• India has to aggressively increase its participation in global value chains (GVCs) with its best endowment of working-age population and its strength in labour-intensive manufacturing
• As the Economic Survey (2019-20) suggests, “assemble in India”, particularly in network products, will increase India’s share in world exports to 6 per cent and create 80 million jobs.
• It is time to find out and research why MNCs are (re)locating to countries like Vietnam, Bangladesh and Mexico when India offers a big market and cheap manpower.
• State-level reforms in reducing red tape and complex laws including taxation will go a long way.

Institutional Reforms

• India also needs to work on institutions facilitating trade, processes for exports and imports and logistics that not only reduce trade and transaction costs but also ensure reliability and timely delivery, which is important to becoming part of GVCs.
• India’s rank in the logistics performance index is 44 while China’s rank is 26 and South Korea’s 25.
• The unit cost of a container of exports is significantly higher for India compared to China, South Korea and others, thereby reducing the price competitiveness of India’s exports.

Signing FTAs

• One way to reduce the complexities of trade and business is by signing free trade agreements.
• These not only reduce tariffs and give market access but bring down non-tariff barriers such as administrative fees, labelling requirements, anti-dumping duties etc

Focus on Service Exports

• As per the Ministry of Commerce (MoC), services exports are expected to reach the target of $1 trillion before the deadline of 2030.
• India has done well in IT and IES exports and it can accelerate services exports in other categories including travel and tourism and business, commercial and financial services

Capitalize on opportunities arising out of geopolitical conflicts

• India must utilize opportunities arising out of geo-political conflicts and the intention of the world to diversify its supply chain portfolio.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Israel signed a free trade deal with the United Arab Emirates its first with an Arab country, building on their U.S.-brokered normalisation of relations in 2020 i.e. Abraham Accords

• UAE-Israel trade will exceed $2 billion in 2022, rising to around $5 billion in five years, bolstered by collaboration in renewable, consumer goods, tourism and the life sciences sectors
• The UAE was the first Gulf country to normalise ties with Israel and only the third Arab nation to do so after Egypt and Jordan.
• The signing came two days after thousands of flag-waving Israelis marched through Jerusalem’s Old City during a nationalist procession marking Israel’s 1967 capture of east Jerusalem. Israel annexed east Jerusalem in 1980, a move never recognised by the international community. The UAE “strongly condemned” what it called Israel’s “storming” of Jerusalem’s Al Aqsa mosque compound, one of Islam’s holiest sites.

Abraham Accords

• Abraham Accords deal, sponsored by the US, was part of the country’s regional security agenda to counter Iran.
• As part of this security agenda — signed during the Trump administration — the US prioritised improving relations between Israel and the Gulf countries, something that the latter nations have been wary of because of the Israel-Palestine conflict.
• As part of the Abraham Accords, Israel agreed to stop further annexation of Palestinian territory.
• The accords were signed by the leaders of Bahrain, Israel and the UAE in September 2020.
• After Egypt in 1979 and Jordan is 1994, the UAE became the third Arab country to agree to formally normalize relations with Israel, as well as the first Persian Gulf country to do so.