07 Apr 2021: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

CNA 7th April 2021:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. GS 1 Related
B. GS 2 Related
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Justice Ramana will be next CJI
2. Vigilance officers to be transferred every 3 years
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Talks begin to revive Iran nuclear deal
C. GS 3 Related
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. The start of a more authoritarian era
ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY
1. Reworking net-zero for climate justice
SECURITY
1. Redefining combatants
F. Prelims Facts
1. NOTA: None of the Above
2. Anti-Defection Law
3. Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA)
G. Tidbits
1. Russia calls for inclusive solution to Afghan crisis
2. Ukraine urges NATO to speed up membership
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

2. Vigilance officers to be transferred every 3 years

Context:

The Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) has modified the guidelines pertaining to the transfer and posting of officials in the vigilance units of government organisations.

Details:

• In order to emphasise the importance of the issue and to ensure transparency, objectivity and uniformity in approach, the Commission has decided to modify its earlier guidelines.
• The CVC has restricted the tenure of officials in the vigilance units of government organisations to three years in one place.
• The tenure may be extended to three more years, albeit at a different place of posting.
• It reasoned that the undue long stay of an official in a vigilance department had the potential of developing vested interests, apart from giving rise to unnecessary complaints or allegations.

Note:

• In case someone has served at one place for over three years, his tenure at the next place would be curtailed to ensure that the combined tenure was limited to six years.
• Those having completed over five years at one place are to be shifted on a top priority basis.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Talks begin to revive Iran nuclear deal

Context:

Indirect talks aimed at reviving the 2015 nuclear deal will begin as Iran and world powers will meet to discuss how the United States would lift sanctions and Iran return to its obligations.

Details:

• Two expert-level groups have been given the task of marrying lists of sanctions that the U.S. could lift with nuclear obligations Iran should meet.

Read more on the issue of revival of Iran Nuclear Deal covered in 2^nd March 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis.

Category: ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. Reworking net-zero for climate justice

Issue:

• Global transformation is affecting the planet. However, there is no uniform transformation across the world.
• The global temperature increased sharply only after 1981 with little contribution from the developing countries.
  • Their industrialisation and urbanisation was yet to begin.

India’s Concern:

• When the Sustainable Development Agenda 2030 was adopted at the Paris Conference, the Prime Minister of India stressed a reframing of climate change to climate justice.
• He argued that just when countries such as India were becoming major industrial and middle-class nations, they should not pay the price for the pollution caused by the West.
• The Paris Agreement, explicitly recognises that peaking will take longer for such countries and is to be achieved in the context of sustainable development and efforts to eradicate poverty.
• This balance is now being upset for a common target and timetable.

Treaty’s inequity:

The pressure arises from the way the agenda has been set.

• First, inequity is built into the Climate Treaty.
  • Annual emissions make India the fourth largest emitter, even though climate is impacted by cumulative emissions, with India contributing a mere 3% compared with 26% for the United States and 13% for China.
  • According to the United Nations, while the richest 1% of the global population emits more than two times the emissions of the bottom 50%, India has just half its population in the middle class and per capita emissions are an eighth of those in the U.S. and less than a third of those of China.
• The diplomatic history of climate negotiations shows that longer-term goals without the strategy to achieve them solve a political problem and not the problem itself. Eg: As in the case of finance and technology transfer.
  • The current framework considers symptoms, emissions of carbon dioxide, and was forced onto developing countries to keep the discussion away from the causes of the problem – the earlier excessive use of energy for high levels of well-being.
• Models on which global policy recommendations for developing countries are based consider achieving ‘reasonable’, not ‘comparable’ levels of well-being to show that early capping of energy use will not affect their growth ignoring costs on the poor.
  • The rising prosperity of the world’s poor does not endanger the planet. The challenge is to change wasteful behaviour in the West.

Role of infrastructure:

• Infrastructure has a defining role because of the services it provides outside the market and the way it shapes demand distinct from production and consumption.
• The vaguely worded ‘net zero’ emissions, balancing emissions and removals, could be disastrous for development latecomers like India.
  • It fails to recognise that more than half the global cumulative emissions arose from infrastructure, essential for urban well-being.
• For developed countries, the peaking of emissions came some 20 years after infrastructure saturation levels were reached and net-zero emissions are being considered some two decades even later to take advantage of ageing populations and technology.
• Because of its young population and late development, much of the future emissions in India will come from infrastructure, buildings and industry, and the trajectory cannot be shifted to reach comparable levels of well-being with major economies.

Way Forward:

New framework:

• A global goal-shaping national strategy requires a new understanding.
• India must highlight unique national circumstances with respect to the food, energy and transportation systems that have to change.
  • Eg: consumption of meat contributes to a third of global emissions. Indians consume much less meat a year compared with European Union and the U.S.
• Transport emissions account for a quarter of global emissions, are the fastest-growing emissions worldwide and have surpassed emissions from the generation of electricity in the U.S., but are not on the global agenda.

Coal use:

• Coal accounts for a quarter of global energy use.
• Rising Asia uses three-quarters of it as coal drives industry and supports the renewable energy push into cities.
• India with abundant reserves and per-capita electricity use that is a tenth that of the U.S. is under pressure to stop using coal, even though the U.S. currently uses more coal.
• India wants to eliminate the use of oil instead with renewable energy and hydrogen as a fuel for electrification, whose acceleration requires international cooperation around technology development and transfer.

Conclusion:

• In the Paris Agreement, climate justice was downgraded to the preamble as a political, not policy, statement.
• There is a need for a reframing of the global concern in terms of sustainable development for countries with per capita emissions below the global average, in line with the Paris Agreement.
• The verifiable measure should be well-being within ecological limits.
• International cooperation should centre on sharing technology of electric vehicles and hydrogen as a fuel, as they are the most effective response to climate change.

Category: SECURITY

1. Redefining combatants

The article talks about how recent cyberattacks point to the need to rethink what constitutes a force and what a justified response can be.

Context:

• A report in The New York Times on the breakdown of the Mumbai power distribution system pointed a finger at Chinese cyber hackers.
• This gives rise to a few questions, as the definition of combat and combatants undergoes fast mutation.
  • Under what conditions, would a non-kinetic strike be considered an attack on the state?
  • Under international rules of self-defence, what response would be considered legal?
  • Would only a cyber counter-attack be justifiable or a kinetic response also be acceptable?
  • Would a pre-emptive strike be allowed?

Changing definitions:

• The universally accepted Lieber Code of 1863 defines a combatant. It says, soon as a man is armed by a sovereign and takes the soldier’s oath of fidelity, he is a belligerent; all others are non-combatants.
• The 1899 Hague Convention brings in further clarity of what constitutes a regular force.
  • The force should be commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates.
  • It must have a distinctive emblem recognisable at a distance.
  • It must carry arms openly.
  • It must conduct operations in accordance with laws and customs of war.

Need to redefine combatant:

• Those who conducted the (yet unproven) Mumbai ‘cyberattack’ or the 2007 attack on Estonia’s banking system did not meet any of the four conditions of being called combatants, but still wreaked havoc.
• A combatant needs to be redefined due to three reasons.
  • A cyber army need not be uniformed and may consist of civilians.
  • Cyber ‘warriors’ do not carry arms openly. Their arms are malicious software that is invisible.
  • And finally, the source of the attack could be a lone software nerd who does not have a leader and is up to dirty tricks for money, blackmail or simply some fun.

Issue:

• None of these meets the requirements of The Hague Convention but the actions of these non-combatants fall squarely in the realm of national security.
• This raises two very basic inquiries that need deliberation.
  • Would the nation employing civilians in computer network attacks not be in violation of the laws of war?
  • If these people are considered as combatants, would the target country have the right to respond in self-defence?
• A response would be reactive after the attacker has conducted his operation; hence, as a right of self-defence, would an act of pre-emption be in order?
  • This argument may appear far-fetched now but needs to be examined as India seems to have a new view on the concept of the right to self-defence.

Way Forward:

• Cyberattacks done by faceless persons who are non-combatants as per international law opens up an avenue that requires careful examination; cyberattacks may not kill directly but the downstream effects can cause great destruction.
• International actions against hackers have been generally limited to sanctioning of foreign nationals by target nations.
• In 2014, for the first time, a nation (the U.S.) initiated criminal actions against foreign nationals (five Chinese operatives of Unit 61398 of the People’s Liberation Army) for computer hacking and economic espionage.
• India seems to have made its intentions clear at the UN meet, but, if not regulated globally, it could lead to a wild-west situation.

2. Anti-Defection Law

What’s in News?

The Supreme Court has nudged the Goa Assembly Speaker to advance the date of his decision on the disqualification petitions filed against 10 former Congress MLAs who ‘merged’ with the BJP in 2019.

• The 10th Schedule of the Indian Constitution popularly referred to as the ‘Anti-Defection Law’ was inserted by the 52nd Amendment (1985) to the Constitution.
  • ‘Defection’ has been defined as, “To abandon a position or association, often to join an opposing group”.
• It is designed to prevent political defections prompted by the lure of office or material benefits or other like considerations.

Read more on Anti-Defection Law.

3. Commando Battalion for Resolute Action (COBRA)

• COBRA is a special operation unit of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) of India proficient in guerrilla tactics and jungle warfare.
  • It’s one of the few Indian Special Forces, that’s exclusively trained in guerrilla warfare.
• Originally established to counter the Naxalite problem, COBRA is deployed to address insurgent groups engaging in asymmetrical warfare.

2. Ukraine urges NATO to speed up membership

What’s in News?

Ukrainian President urged NATO to speed up the country’s membership in the alliance.

Details:

• There is an increase in clashes and Russian military movements on the border, which has raised fears of an escalation of the separatist conflict in eastern Ukraine.
• Ukrainian President asserted that NATO membership was the only way to end fighting with pro-Russia separatists.
• Ukraine has been trying to join NATO after cancelling its non-aligned status in 2014.
• Ukraine changed its constitution in 2019 to enshrine its aspiration for NATO membership. The move was met with criticism in Russia.

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to None Of The Above (NOTA):

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to Commando Battalion for Resolute 
Action (COBRA):

Q3. Consider the following statements with respect to Central Vigilance Commission:

Q4. Consider the following Reports and Organisations:

Read the previous CNA here.

CNA 7th April 2021:- Download PDF Here