18 Feb 2022: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS 1 Related
B. GS 2 Related
GOVERNANCE
1. SC lifts stay on Haryana quota for private jobs
C. GS 3 Related
SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY
1. A miracle cure against HIV
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
INFRASTRUCTURE
1. India has still to get a good grip on road safety
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. The India- UAE free trade Agreement: To bond beyond oil
F. Prelims Facts
1. Milan Exercise 2022
2. Indian Neutrino Observatory (INO)
3. India’s first water taxi service
G. Tidbits
1. Singapore PM’s speech uncalled for, says India
2. India again backs diplomacy at UNSC
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

A. GS 1 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

B. GS 2 Related

Category: GOVERNANCE

1. SC lifts stay on Haryana quota for private jobs

Syllabus: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Mains: Issues related to Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act.

Context

The Supreme Court squashed a Punjab and Haryana High Court order staying Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act.

Haryana State Employment of Local Candidates Act

• Is a controversial State Act which provides 75% reservation for locals in private sector jobs paying less than ₹30,000 a month.
• An employer faces a fine of ₹10,000 to ₹2 lakh for violation of the Act.

Industries’ concerns

• It is said that the Act would impact 48,000 registered companies.
• Reservation in the private sector has not been mentioned in the Constitution.
• The law impacts employment as well as livelihood for many as there were no empirical studies that justify the act.
• The implementation of the law would have implications not only in Haryana but across India as States might be encouraged to draft similar laws.

Supreme Court’s view

• The Supreme Court Bench set aside the stay order of the High Court on the ground that it did not give “sufficient reasons”.
• The Bench observed that every law passed by the legislature was presumed to be legal.
• An order of stay on the implementation by a court of law should be reasoned.
• The SC requested the High Court to decide on the writ petition filed by industrialists within four weeks.
• The Supreme Court ordered the State government not to take any “coercive steps” against employers violating the Act.

To know more about the Act refer to CNA dated 11 Feb 2022.

C. GS 3 Related

Category: SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

1. A miracle cure against HIV

Syllabus: Science and Technology – developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Prelims: Facts about anti-retroviral therapy (ART) and HIV infections

Mains: Stem cell therapy for HIV

Context

A U.S. patient has become the first woman and the third person to date to be cured of HIV after receiving a stem cell transplant from a donor.

Background

• At a Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections in the United States, researchers described the case of a 60-year-old woman who was diagnosed with an HIV infection in 2013. She was also later diagnosed with leukaemia in 2017.
• She received embryonic stem cells from a donor with a rare mutation that naturally blocks HIV from infecting cells. She was also given adult stem cells, from a relative.
• The adult stem cells boosted the immunity and possibly helped the embryonic stem cells fully integrate with the lady’s immune system.
• After 14 months, doctors report that the woman has no sign of HIV in her blood and also has no detectable antibodies to the virus.

Prevalence of HIV/AIDS in India

• In 2019, HIV prevalence among adult males (15–49 years) was estimated at 0.24% and among females at 0.20% of the population.
• As of 2019, there were 23.48 lakh Indians with HIV.
  • Maharashtra had the maximum at 3.96 lakh followed by Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka.
• As per the India HIV Estimation 2019 report, the estimated adult HIV prevalence is on a downward trend and stabilizing in India since the epidemic’s peak in 2000.
• India’s National Aids Control Organisation says that anti-retroviral treatment (ART) therapy is “freely available” to all those who require it that could be availed at dedicated centres across the country.

Anti-retroviral therapy (ART)

• The treatment for HIV is called anti-retroviral therapy (ART). ART involves taking a combination of HIV medicines every day.
• ART consists of tenofovir, emtricitabine and raltegravir.
• ART effectively suppresses replication, if taken at the right time and thus restores the immune system and halts the onset and progression of the disease as well as reduces chances of getting opportunistic infections.
• The main goal of HIV treatment is to reduce a patient’s viral load to an undetectable level. An undetectable viral load means that the level of HIV in the blood is too low to be detected by a viral load test.

Read more on HIV and India in the link.

Previous cases of HIV recovery

• Only two people have reportedly been cured of HIV.
• Till now both the recoveries have relied on bone marrow transplants from donors who carried CCR5 delta 32 mutations, that naturally make one immune to an HIV infection.
• The previous transplants involved adult stem cells and these cells from the bone marrow replaced their immune system.
• The body’s natural tendency is to reject foreign stem cells and hence both donors suffered side effects called graft-versus-host disease and developed severe illnesses throughout their HIV remission.

Concerns with the new stem-cell therapy

• The woman was discharged from the hospital within 17 days of the transplant and did not develop graft-versus-host disease. However, it remains to be studied if the lady will further develop any side effects.
• Stem cell therapy is a complex exercise and is not accessible to most HIV patients.
• This therapy requires stem cells from a rare group of individuals with beneficial mutations.

Way forward

• Anti-retroviral therapy (ART) has been successful in ensuring that proper treatment has resulted in better life spans comparable to those without HIV. Hence it needs to be made accessible across the world.
• A vaccine for HIV or a permanent drug that eliminates the virus is yet to be made available and would be the long-sought ‘cure’ for HIV.

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

E. Editorials

Category: INFRASTRUCTURE

1. India has still to get a good grip on road safety

Syllabus: Roads

Mains: Initiatives of the government to reduce the number of road accidents and fatalities.

Context: The urgency to ensure the safety of the roads in the country and the required joint efforts of the central and the state governments to make the roads accident resilient have been discussed in the article.

An Overview of the Situation:

• Road accidents and fatalities have been a major concern across the globe including India.
• There is an emerging need to develop road infrastructure and introduce policies to reduce the number of deaths that occur due to road accidents.
• It is estimated that globally 3500 people die on roads every day which accounts for preventable deaths and injuries involving children and young people worldwide.
• The United Nations General Assembly had expressed its responsiveness towards the alarming scenario with respect to unsafe roads and its implications by adopting the Global Action Plan for the Decade of Action for Road Safety in 2010.
• The Global Action Plan aimed to reduce the number of road accidents by the year 2020.
• In August 2020, the UNGA adopted a resolution for the betterment of global road safety and declared 2021-2030 as the Decade of Action for Road Safety.
• This sets an ambitious target of reducing 50% of road traffic deaths and injuries by 2030 achieving SDG–6.
• The Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways, the Government of India, in alignment with the targets and objectives of the global action plan, declared to reduce 50% of the road accidents by 2025 and bring down the number of deaths due to road accidents to zero by 2030.
• The data put forth by the Ministry of Road, Transport and Highways and NCRB show that there is a reduction of road accidents in 2020.
• The number of deaths per 100 accidents reported an increase from 26.9 in 2001 to 28.63 in 2011 followed by an increase to 37.54 in 2020.

The major Concern:

• Despite a number of interventions, awareness campaigns regarding road safety and setting up targets to reduce road accidents, there is a significant challenge to mitigate the fatality rate which has been increasing with time.
• The Motor Vehicles (Amendment) act 2019 that incorporated provisions of penalty for violation of traffic rules, has not been implemented uniformly in all states. The proper implementation of the act is necessary to achieve the target of a 50% reduction of road accidents.
• Insufficient manpower to enforce the traffic rules in many parts of the country adds to the increased volume of traffic.
• There is an inadequacy of funds to rectify the black spots on the road that are prone to accidents and to undertake traffic calming measures.

Way towards safer and sustainable roads:

• The government has been actively involved in adopting measures to enhance the safety of roads.
• However, better enforcement of traffic laws is a need of essence to curb the deaths emerging from road accidents.
• The State and the Centre are recommended to work in collaboration and coordination in order to strengthen the road infrastructure, smooth allocation of funds to rectify the black spots and step towards the ambitious targets of road safety in a pragmatic way.

  Read more about Road Safety in Perspective, Sansad TV.

F. Prelims Facts

1. Milan Exercise 2022

Syllabus: Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate

Prelims: Facts about Milan Exercise

Context

Milan 2022 would be held in Visakhapatnam from February 26 to March 4, 2022.

Milan Excercise

• Milan is a Multilateral Naval Exercise hosted by India.
• The biennial multilateral naval exercise was started by the Indian Navy in 1995 at the Andaman and Nicobar Command.
• Milan 2022 is the 11th edition of the event and would be held under the aegis of Eastern Naval Command.

To read more about Milan Exercise click the link.

G. Tidbits

1. Singapore PM’s speech uncalled for, says India

• Singapore Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong criticized the decline of “Nehru’s India” to a state with almost half the Indian MPs facing “criminal charges”.
• The comments by the Singapore Prime Minister have led to a controversy between the two countries.
• The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) of India summoned Singapore’s High Commissioner to India, post the comments. Officials say that Mr. Lee’s comments were “uncalled for” and “unacceptable”.
• It is believed that Mr. Lee was referring to a 2019 report by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), which found that 233 or 43% of members who won the elections in 2019 faced criminal charges.
• However, government sources said it was not expected that a foreign head of government would cite this information, that pertains to India’s domestic politics, in a prepared Parliament speech.

H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to the Normandy Format:

1. The diplomatic grouping was created in January 2022 with the aim of finding a peaceful resolution to the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.
2. It is an informal forum that was set up by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
3. It takes its name from the Normandy landings in the second world war.

Which of the given statement/s is/are INCORRECT?

1. 1 only
2. 1 and 3 only
3. 2 only
4. None of the above

CHECK ANSWERS:-

Answer: a

Explanation:

• Statement 1 is incorrect. The Normandy Format is a diplomatic grouping created in June 2014 to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict in Ukraine due to Russia’s military aggression.
• Statement 2 is correct. It is an informal forum that was set up by France, Germany, Russia and Ukraine.
• Statement 3 is correct. It takes its name from the Normandy landings in the Second World War.

Q2. Which among the following is/are Earth Observation Satellites?

1. Bhaskara-I
2. INSAT-3D
3. SARAL
4. SCATSAT-1
5. Megha-Tropiques

Options:

1. 2, 4 and 5 only
2. 1, 2 and 5 only
3. 3 and 4 only
4. 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5

CHECK ANSWERS:-

Answer: d

Explanation:

• All the satellites mentioned are Earth Observation Satellites. Hence option d is correct.
• Earth Observing Satellite (EOS) is a satellite that through space sends signals to Earth and monitors the changes which occur on the Earth’s surface.
• These satellites can only be used for non-military purposes and mainly for environmental benefits.

Q3. Falkland Islands, recently in news, are located in?

1. South China Sea
2. Indian Ocean
3. South Pacific Ocean
4. South Atlantic Ocean

CHECK ANSWERS:-

Answer: d

Explanation:

Image source: World Atlas

Q4. Which of the following are correctly matched?

Diseases	Vector
1. Malaria	Anopheles mosquito
2. Yellow Fever	Aedes aegypti mosquito
3. Japanese Encephalitis	Culex mosquito

Options:

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

CHECK ANSWERS:-

Answer: d

Explanation:

• All the options are correctly matched. Hence option d is correct.

Q5. What is the aim of the programme ‘Unnat Bharat Abhiyan’? (UPSC CSE 2017)

1. Achieving 100% literacy by promoting collaboration between voluntary organizations and government’s education system and local communities.
2. Connecting institutions of higher education with local communities to address development challenges through appropriate technologies.
3. Strengthening India’s scientific research institutions in order to make India a scientific and technological power.
4. Developing human capital by allocating special funds for health care and education of rural and urban poor, and organizing skill development programmes and vocational training for them.

CHECK ANSWERS:-

Answer: b

Explanation:

• Option b is correct.
• The Unnat Bharat Abhiyan launched by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD) aims to connect institutions of higher education, including Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), National Institutes of Technology (NITs) and Indian Institutes of Science Education & Research (IISERs) etc. with local communities to address the development challenges through appropriate technologies.

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Discuss the potential of India – UAE bilateral relations beyond the trade in Oil. (250 words; 15 marks)[GS-2, International Relations)
2. Loss of lives by road accidents in India is one of the highest in the world. What are the causes behind it? Also, suggest ways to ensure better road safety in the country. (250 words; 15 marks)[GS-3, Infrastructure]