The global animal feed market is undergoing marked changes that are likely to accelerate this decade. The pattern of global consumption is evolving towards a higher share of animal products in diets. So, higher quantities of crops will be used as feed in the animal husbandry sector.

India’s animal husbandry sector

• Animal husbandry is the management and care of farm animals by humans for profit, in which genetic qualities and behavior, considered to be advantageous to humans, are further developed.
• Livestock plays an important role in the Indian economy.
• A large number of farmers are depends on Animal Husbandry for their livelihood.
• It supports the livelihood of almost 55% of the rural population.
  • As per the Economic Survey-2021, the contribution of Livestock in total agriculture and allied sector Gross Value Added (at Constant Prices) has increased from 24.32% (2014-15) to 28.63% (2018-19).
• In addition to supplying milk, meat, eggs,wool and hides, animals, mainly bullocks, are the major source of power for both farmers and dryers.
• India is the highest livestock owner of the world. According to Livestock Census 2020, total milch cattle population was up by 10.5 per cent to 74.6 million in 2019.
• India is the world’s largest producer of milk and third largest in egg production.
• The annual average growth rate of animal husbandry, diary and fisheries in five years till 2020 was 8.6 per cent.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

• Recently, the Ministry for Environment, Forests and Climate Change (MoEFCC) published proposed amendments to the Forest Conservation Act, 1980, easing diversion of forests and exempting certain categories of development from the need to take clearance from the Ministry. 

More in News

• The Ministry has invited feedback from state governments and the general public within 15 days. 
• After examining the feedback, it will draw up a draft amendment, followed by the second round of public consultation before an amendment Bill is finally drawn up and tabled in Parliament.

Need of Amendment

• It has been amended only once before, in 1988. 
• The current definition of forests has locked land across the country; even private owners cannot utilise their own property for non-forestry purposes. 
• Under the Act, any diversion of any forest land for any purpose, including assignment of leases, needs prior approval of the Centre.
• In 1996, ruling in T N GodavarmanThirumulpad v Union of India, the Supreme Court had expanded the definition and scope of forest land to include all areas recorded as forest in any government record, irrespective of ownership, recognition and classification. 
• Previously, the Act had applied largely to reserve forests and national parks. 
• The court also expanded the definition of forests to encompass the “dictionary meaning of forests”, which would mean that a forested patch would automatically become a “deemed forest” even if it is not notified as protected, and irrespective of ownership. 
• The order was also interpreted to presume that the Act is applicable over plantations in non-forest land.

Proposed amendments

• The Ministry has proposed that all land acquired by the Railways and Roads Ministries prior to 1980 be exempted from the Act. 
• These lands had been acquired for expansion, but subsequently forests have grown in these areas, and the government is no longer able to use the land for expansion. 
  • If the amendment is brought in, these Ministries will no longer need clearance for their projects, nor pay compensatory levies to build there.
• For individuals whose lands fall within a state-specific Private Forests Act or come within the dictionary meaning of forest as specified in the 1996 Supreme Court order, the government proposes to allow “construction of structures for bona fide purposes’’ including residential units up to 250 sq m as a one-time relaxation.
• Defence projects near international borders will be exempted from forest clearance.
• Oil and natural gas extraction from forested lands will be permitted, but only if technologies such as Extended Reach Drilling are used.
• The Ministry has proposed doing away with levies for non-forestry purposes during the renewal of a lease, saying the double levy at the time of awarding of the lease and the renewal is “not rational”.
• Strip plantations alongside roads that would fall under the Act will be exempted.

Significance

• It has proposed making forest laws more stringent for notified forests, making offences non-bailable with increased penalties including imprisonment of up to one year.
• It has disallowed any kind of diversion in certain forests.
• It has attempted to define and identify forests once and for all — something that has been often ambiguous.

Concerns

• Activists and opposition leaders say the relaxation of forest rules will facilitate corporate ownership and the disappearance of large tracts of forests.
• About the exemption of forests on private land, even former forest officials said many forests will disappear. For instance, 4% of land in Uttarakhand falls under private forests.
• Another concern is citing tribals and forest-dwelling communities — an issue the amendments do not address.
• Environmentalists say exemption for Roads and Railways on forest land acquired prior to 1980 will be detrimental to forests as well as wildlife – especially elephants, tigers and leopards.
• Environmentalists say a one-time exemption for private residences on the private forests will lead to fragmentation of forests and open areas such as the Aravalli mountains to real estate.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

1. Events coinciding with the jubilee of India’s Independence draw attention to the federal structure of India’s Constitution, which is a democratic imperative of multicultural India, where the constituent units of the sovereign states are based on language, against competing identities such as caste, tribe or religion.
2. This built-in structural potential for conflict within and among the units, and that between them and the sovereign state, need imaginative federal craftsmanship and sensitive political management.
3. With universal adult suffrage and free institutions of justice and governance, it is nearly impossible to polarise its wide-ranging diversity within any single divisive identity, despite its operational flaws, the democratic structure and national integrity are dialectically interlinked.
4. But its operational fault lines are increasingly denting liberal institutions, undermining the federal democratic structure as recent events have underscored.

Some fault lines happened in recent times:

1. First, the tempestuous Parliament session, where the RajyaSabha Chairperson broke down (in August 2021), unable to conduct proceedings despite the use of marshals; yet, the House passed a record number of Bills amidst a record number of adjournments.
2. Second, cross-border police firing by one constituent State against another, inflicting fatalities, which also resulted in retaliatory action in the form of an embargo on goods trade and travel links with its land-locked neighbour.
3. The Union Law Minister (while in Opposition) said that Legislative disruptions are ‘legitimate democratic right, and duty’, justifying the current debate and discussion.
4. Indian federalism needs institutional amendment to be democratically federal:
5. But India’s federal structure is constitutionally hamstrung by deficits on all these counts, and operationally impaired by the institutional dents in the overall democratic process.
6. Structural conflicts– All India Services, including the State cadres. The role of Governors: appointed by the Centre, a political patronage.
7. Thus, most of India’s federal conflicts are structural, reinforced by operational abuses.
8. Yet, there is no federal chamber to politically resolve such conflicts.
9. The RajyaSabha indirectly represents the States whose legislators elect it; this House is a major source of political and financial patronage for all political parties, at the cost of the people of the State they “represent”.
10. The RajyaSabha is not empowered to neutralise the demographic weight of the populous States with larger representation in the popular chamber; it cannot veto its legislations, unlike the U.S. Senate. It can only delay, which explains the disruptions.
11. Joint sessions of LokSabha and RajyaSabha do not appear as successful as expected.

Many deficits that hampering Federalism:

1. Democratic federalism presupposes institutions to ensure equality between and among the units and the Centre so that they coordinate with each other, and are subordinate to the sovereign constitution and their disputes adjudicated by an independent judiciary with impeccable professional and moral credibility.
2. The Indian Constitution itself has been amended 105 times in 70 years compared with 27 times in over 250 years in the United States.
3. With ‘nation-building” as priority, the constitutional division of power and resources remains heavily skewed in favour of the Centre;
4. Along with “Residual”, “Concurrent” and “Implied” powers, it compromises on the elementary federal principle of equality among them, operationally reinforced by extra-constitutional accretion.
5. While the judiciary is empowered to adjudicate on their conflicts, with higher judicial appointments (41% lying vacant), promotion and transfers becoming a central prerogative, their operations are becoming increasingly controversial.
6. India’s bicameral legislature, without ensuring a Federal Chamber, lives up to the usual criticism: “when the second chamber agrees with the first, it is superfluous, when it disagrees, it is pernicious”.
7. The critical instruments of national governance have been either assigned or appropriated by the Centre, with the States left with politically controversial subjects such as law and order and land reforms.
8. The RajyaSabha indirectly represents the States whose legislators elect it, but continue even after the electors are outvoted or dismissed;
9. With no residential qualification, RajyaSabha House is a major source of political and financial patronage for all political parties, at the cost of the people of the State they “represent”.
10. Thus, most of India’s federal conflicts are structural, reinforced by operational abuses.

Federalism: A Universal View:

1. Prior to scrutinizing the nature of the Indian constitution, it is exceedingly essential to appreciate the meaning and quintessence of Federalism.
2. Federalism is one of the most significant factors of modern constitutionalism.
3. It is established all over the world perhaps, as the only form of political organization suited to communities with diversified pattern of objectives, interests and traditions, who seek to join together in the pursuit of common objectives and interests and the cultivation of common tradition.
4. The basic objective of federalism is unity in diversity, devolution in authority and decentralization in administration.
5. The basic condition of federalism is plurality; its fundamental tendency is harmonization and its regulative principle is solidarity.
6. According to Daniel J. Elazara, – Federal system provides a so as to allow each to maintain its fundamental political integrity.
7. Federalism or Federal Structure is a complex governmental mechanism of a country that seeks to establish a balance between the forces working in favour of concentration of power in the centre and those urging disposal of it in a number of units.
8. A federation is a political contrivance to reconcile national unity with state rights. Its originality lies in the fact that power at once is, concentrated as well as divided.

According to the new study, even if humanity beats the odds and caps global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, seas will rise for centuries to come and swamp cities currently home to half-a-billion people.

Key Highlights of the Environmental Research Letters 

• In a world that heats up another half-degree above that benchmark, an additional 200 million of today’s urban dwellers would regularly find themselves knee-deep in sea water and more vulnerable to devastating storm surges.
• Worst hit in any scenario will be Asia, which accounts for nine of the 10 mega-cities at highest risk.
  • Land home to more than half the populations of Bangladesh and Vietnam fall below the long-term high tide line, in a world with even a 2 degrees Celsius rise.
  • Built-up areas in China, India and Indonesia would also face devastation.
• Most projections for sea level rise run to the end of the century.
• But oceans will continue to swell for hundreds of years beyond 2100 (fed by melting ice sheets, heat trapped in the ocean and the dynamics of warming water) no matter how aggressively greenhouse gas emissions are drawn down.

Context:

State-owned distribution utilities (discoms) continue to be in fragile financial health. In its budget 2021-22, the Union government had announced the launch of a “reforms-based and results-linked” scheme for the distribution sector with the objective of improving the financial health and operational efficiency of discoms.

• The meaning of DISCOM is “Distribution Company (In India)”.
• These companies are not generating electricity themselves, rather purchasing it from someone else and just supplying it to the final consumers.

Challenges for discoms

Their precarious financial position is due to the high level of aggregate technical and commercial (AT&C) losses, the levy of inadequate tariffs when compared to the cost of power supply, and insufficient subsidy support from state governments.

• Their overall debt burden, despite the implementation of the UDAY scheme, is estimated to increase to around Rs 6 lakh crore in the ongoing financial year.
• Their annual cash losses are estimated to be about Rs 45,000-50,000 crore (excluding UDAY grants and regulatory income).
• The highly subsidised nature of power tariffs towards agriculture and certain sections of residential consumers: The overall subsidy dependence is likely to be roughly Rs 1.30 lakh crore this year at the all-India level.

Context:

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently launched the Indian Space Association (ISpA), an industry body consisting of various stakeholders of the Indian space domain.

About the Indian Space Association (ISpA)

• Significance
  • Governments and government agencies collaborated to explore newer planets and galaxies in search of life forms that exist outside Earth.
  • In the recent past, private sector companies such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin have taken the lead in spaceflight, promising to start tourist flights to space.
  • Though India too has made significant strides in space exploration over time, state-run ISRO has been at the centre and front of this progress.
  • Several private sector companies, however, have shown an interest in India’s space domain, with space-based communication networks coming to the fore.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 2

Context:

Recently, the U.S. Pacific Commander warned that China could invade Taiwan within the next six years as part of its strategy of displacing U.S. power in Asia. 

• If the rising confrontation between the United States and China erupts into a clash of arms, the likely arena may well be the Taiwan Strait. 

Historical background

• The Guomindang (KMT) forces under Chiang Kai-shek lost the 1945-49 civil war to the CCP forces under Mao Zedong. 
• Chiang retreated to the island of Taiwan and set up a regime that claimed authority over the whole of China and pledged to recover the mainland eventually.
• The CCP in turn pledged to reclaim Taiwan and achieve the final reunification of China. 
• Taiwan could not be occupied militarily by the newly established People’s Republic of China (PRC) as it became a military ally of the United States during the Korean War of 1950-53. 
• This phase came to an end with the 
  • U.S. recognising the PRC as the legitimate government of China in 1979, 
  • ending its official relationship with Taiwan and 
  • abrogating its mutual defence treaty with the island.

China-Taiwan relations

• Taiwan is the unfinished business of China’s liberation under the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1949. 
• Taiwan (Republic of China) calls itself a democratic, self-ruled country, however, according to the “One China” policy, Beijing considers Taiwan a province of Mainland China.
  • One China Policy refers to the view that there is only one state called China despite the existence of two governments that claim to be China. 
  • As a policy it means that countries seeking diplomatic relations with China should sever the ties with the ‘Republic of China’ – Taiwan – and vice versa.
• China has promised a high degree of autonomy to the island under the “one country two systems” formula first applied to Hong Kong after its reversion to Chinese sovereignty in 1997. 
  • According to this formula, Hong Kong would retain its free market system and its political and judicial institutions and processes for a period of 50 years, thus enabling an extended and gradual transition. 
  • The same was promised to Taiwan, but with the added assurance that it could also retain its armed forces during the transition period.

Economic links between China and Taiwan:

• Between 1991 and 2020, the stock of Taiwanese capital invested in China reached U.S. $188.5 billion and bilateral trade in 2019 was U.S. $150 billion, about 15% of Taiwan’s GDP.
• By contrast the stock of Chinese capital invested in Taiwan is barely U.S. $2.4 billion although investments through Hong Kong may be considerable.
• China hopes that the considerable economic benefits that Taiwan business and industry enjoy would weaken opposition to unification. 
• China is capable of inflicting acute economic pain on Taiwan through coercive policies if the island demands independence.

Current tensions between Taiwan and China

• China, is committed to pursuing peaceful unification but retains the right to use force to achieve the objective. 
• The PRC has pursued a typical carrot and stick policy to achieve the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland. 
• The ruling Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) in Taiwan favours independence from China.
  • Ever since the DPP under Tsai Ing-wen won the presidential elections in 2016, China has resorted to a series of hostile actions against the island, which include economic pressures and military threats. 
  • The prospects for peaceful unification have diminished. 
  • Sentiment in Taiwan in favour of independent status has increased. 
• The escalating military threats against Taiwan, through daily violations of its air defence identification zone (ADIZ) and aggressive naval manoeuvres in the Taiwan Strait, are aimed at stopping any move towards independence and its closer military relationship with the U.S.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

The UK is set to host the 26th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (CoP26) in Glasgow from October 31 to November 12 with a view to accelerating action towards the Paris Agreement’s goals. 

• India said that the focus should be on climate finance and the transfer of green technologies at a low cost.
• But the fact that 22 of the 30 most polluted cities in the world are in India is a major cause of concern. Delhi is the world’s most polluted capital as per the World Air Quality Report, 2020.

Concerns for India

• According to the Global Carbon Atlas, India ranks third in total greenhouse gas emissions by emitting annually around 2.6 billion tonnes (Bt) CO2eq, preceded by China (10 Bt CO2eq) and the United States (5.4 Bt CO2eq), and followed by Russia (1.7Bt) and Japan (1.2 Bt). 
• Per capita emissions: Of these top five absolute emitters, the US has the highest per capita emissions (15.24 tonnes), followed by Russia (11.12 tonnes). 
  • India’s per capita emissions is just 1.8 tonnes, significantly lower than the world average of 4.4 tonnes per capita. 
• Emissions per unit of GDP: China ranks first with 0.486 kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP, which is very close to Russia at 0.411 kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP. 
  • India is slightly above the world average of 0.26 (kg per 2017 PPP $ of GDP) at 0.27 kg, while the USA is at 0.25, and Japan at 0.21. 
• India ranked seventh on the list of countries most affected due to extreme weather events, incurring losses of $69 billion (in PPP) in 2019 (Germanwatch, 2021). 
  • In our Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs) submitted in 2016, India committed to “reduce emission intensity of its GDP by 33 to 35 per cent by 2030 from 2005 level.”
• Sector-wise global emissions show that electricity and heat production and agriculture, forestry and other land use make up 50 per cent of the emissions. 
• Sector wise emissions in India: The largest chunk (44 per cent) belongs to the energy sector, followed by the manufacturing and construction sector (18 per cent), and agriculture, forestry and land use sectors (14 per cent), with the remaining being shared by the transport, industrial processes and waste sectors. 
  • The share of agriculture in total emissions has gradually declined from 28 per cent in 1994 to 14 per cent in 2016. 
  • However, in absolute terms, emissions from agriculture have increased to about 650 Mt CO2 in 2018, which is similar to China’s emissions from agriculture.
• Agricultural emissions in India are primarily from the livestock sector (54.6 per cent) in the form of methane emissions due to enteric fermentation and the use of nitrogenous fertilisers in agricultural soils (19 per cent) which emit nitrous oxides; 
  • Rice cultivation (17.5 per cent) in anaerobic conditions accounts for a major portion of agricultural emissions followed by livestock management (6.9 per cent) and burning of crop residues (2.1 per cent). 
  • The winter months in Delhi become a challenge as stubble burning in adjoining states and low wind speeds take the AQI beyond 300 on average, while the safe limit is below 50.
  • Agricultural soils are the largest single source of nitrous oxide (N2O) emissions in the national inventory. 
  • Almost 70 per cent of the granular fertilisers that are thrown over plants are polluting the environment and leaching into the groundwater while polluting the same. 

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

The Monetary Policy Committee of the Reserve Bank of India maintained the status quo in the policy rates as also in the policy stance in its fourth bi-monthly meeting this fiscal. 

Key points

• There was agreement on the part of all members to hold the repo and reverse repo rates unchanged at 4 per cent and 3.35 per cent.
  • Repo rate is the rate at which the Central Bank grants loans to commercial banks against government securities. Reverse repo rate is the interest offered by RBI to banks that deposit funds with them.
  • The purpose of keeping an asymmetric gap between the reverse repo rate and repo rate is to make it relatively unattractive for banks to passively deposit funds with the RBI and instead, to use these funds for lending to productive sectors of the economy.
• There were expectations that the RBI would go for normalisation of the extra-loose monetary and liquidity policies being pursued since the onset of the pandemic in March last year. 
  • Monetary policy normalisation means monetary tightening. 
  • Normalisation means removal of excess liquidity that was injected by the RBI with a view to supporting ‘a speedy and durable economic recovery’. 

Concerns with excess liquidity in market:

• The surplus liquidity in the banking system witnessed a three-fold increase from a daily average of ₹3 lakh crore in March, 2020 to ₹9 lakh crore in September, 2021 and further to ₹9.5 lakh crore in the first few days of October. 
  • As per the estimation made by the RBI in this regard, the extra liquidity amounts to more than ₹13.0 lakh crore — about 25 per cent of the country’s GDP.
• Higher inflation: The risk of delaying normalisation for too long would be the prospects of higher inflation. A view was expressed by a member of the MPC that monetary accommodation appears to be stimulating asset price inflation to a greater extent than it is mitigating the distress in the economy.

RBI’s dilemma

• One, at this stage of the Covid-19 pandemic, whether continuation of extra-loose monetary and liquidity policies would result in more macroeconomic benefits than costs.
• Two, given the fact that the actual CPI inflation at above 5 per cent has been consistently exceeding the 4 per cent target, will the MPC not be diluting its mandate by prioritising growth over inflation? 
• The country’s GDP is still below the pre-pandemic level and, hence, there is significant slack in resource utilisation in the economy which needs to be reduced expeditiously to spur growth. 
  • Ample liquidity infusion and significant interventions in the forex and G-Sec markets are necessary to ensure not only their orderly functioning but also to guide price discovery in them. 
• The dominant view appears to interpret the MPC’s (4 +/-2) per cent inflation targeting framework to mean that in the current exceptional and pandemic-ravaged time, the effective target should be 6 per cent and not 4 per cent. 
• There seems to be a lack of clarity on the precise meaning and implications of the +/-2 per cent band around 4 per cent.

Syllabus: General Studies Paper 3

Context:

Recently two significant documents relating to the Indian agriculture sector were released.

• The first is a consultation paper on the India Digital Ecosystem of Agriculture (IDEA) from the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers’ Welfare(MoA&FW) and the second on Indian Agriculture: Ripe for Disruption from a private organisation, Bain and Company.

Salient features of papers:

• IDEA paper: It talks about a digital revolution in the agriculture sectorand predicts a revolutionary investment growth in agri-logistics, offtake, and agri-input delivery by 2025.
  • Every segment of present-day life including agriculture is data-hungry.
  • The MoA&FW report describes creating data to fuel the growth.
  • The farmer and the improvement of farmers’ livelihood is proposed to happen through tight integration of agri-tech innovation and the agriculture industry ecosystem to farming and food systems.
  • The IDEA principles explicitly talk about openness of data, which means open to businesses and farmers, indicating the kind of integration it aims at.
  • Value-added innovative services by agri-tech industriesand start-ups are an integral part of the IDEA architecture.
• The Bain reportis a data-based prediction on agri-business scenarios, anchored to the agricultural set-up at present and predicting its future trajectories in another 20 years.
  • It includes targeting the production of alternative proteins, and food cell-based food/ingredients and initiating ocean farming, etc.
  • The report has a ‘today forward– future back approach’and predicts a drastic investment opportunity development by 2025.
  • The agriculture sector (currently worth $370 billion), is estimated to receive an additional $35 billion investment.
  • The twoenabling conditions for such investment opportunities are the changes in the regulatory framework, especially recent changes in the Farm Acts and digital disruption.
  • There are benefits from huge investments into the agri-ecosystem which include doubling farmers’ income
  • The report has convincingly demonstrated the business opportunity available in supply chains between farm to Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC) mandiand mandi to the customer, which can be realised with the support of digital disruption and the latest agriculture reforms.

Govt. initiatives for digitisation of agriculture

AgriStack

• AgriStack will create “a unified platform for farmers to provide them end to end services across the agriculture food value chain,” amid a broader push to digitise data in India, from land titles to medical records.
• Tech firm Microsoft will run a pilot for the agriculture ministry’s AgriStack in 100 villages in six Indian states.

Objectives: It aims to “develop 

• Farmer interface for smart and well-organised agriculture” aimed at improving efficiency and reducing waste.
• Each farmer will have a unique digital identificationthat contains personal details, information about the land they farm, as well as production and financial details.
• Each ID will be linked to the individual’s digital national ID Aadhaar.
• Linking market places: It aims to integrate all digital marketplaces for agriculture commodities and inputs, thereby providing single log in access to farmers to these marketplaces and access to financial assistance.
• Database creationfrom particularly three schemes: PM-KISAN (Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi), Soil Health Card and PM Fasal Bima Yojna (crop insurance scheme).
  • The data from these three schemes will be compiled and compared with land records data.
  • If there is a mismatch, it will be shared with the local authorities for validation and field survey.
  • The field data received from local authorities will be updated with the compiled data to create “clean, unique, standardised, verified data for AgriStack”.