01 July 2019: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Nagaland to initiate its own version of NRC from July 10

Context:

A report has revealed that people look at free legal aid as the last option.

NALSA:

• Article 39A of the Constitution of India provides for free legal aid to the poor and weaker sections of the society and ensures justice for all.
• Article 14 and 22(1) of the constitution also make it obligatory for the State to ensure equality before law and a legal system which promotes justice on the basis of equal opportunity to all,
• In 1987, the Legal Services Authorities (LSA) Act was enacted to give free and competent legal services to the poor.
• The Act paved the way for the constitution of National Legal Service Authority (NALSA) and other legal service institutions at the State, district and taluka level.
• The NALSA has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987 to monitor and evaluate implementation of legal services available under the Act.

Background

• Last year, Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) had come out with a report stating that India’s per capita lawyer ratio is better than most countries in the world.
  • There are about 1.8 million lawyers in India which mean there is one lawyer for every 736 people.
  • It had also stated there are 61,593 panel lawyers in the country, which translates to just one legal aid lawyer per 18,609 population or five legal aid lawyers per 1,00,000 population.
• Free legal services under LSA Act are available to a person belonging to Schedule Tribe and Schedule Caste, woman, child, victim of human trafficking, differently abled person, industrial workman, and person in custody in a protective home and the poor.
• According to the statistics provided by NALSA, about 8.22 lakh people across India benefited through legal aid services from April 2017 to June 2018.

Details:

• First-of-its-kind pan-India research by a Professor of National Law University, Delhi (NLUD) has found that people don’t have faith over the services of legal aid counsel (LAC) under the free legal aid services due to a variety of factors.
• Though the services offered by LAC are absolutely free, a majority of potential beneficiaries are disinclined towards the option of availing these services.
• The study demonstrated that beneficiaries opt for free legal aid service due to the dearth of resources to engage a private lawyer.
• They would never have approached for the legal aid services if they had resources to engage private legal practitioners,” the study found. 22.6% of the beneficiaries responded that they won’t opt for free legal aid services for the second time.
• The study also found that 60% of women, who were aware of the free legal aid services, chose to opt for private legal practitioner because they could have better control over their lawyer. In addition, they had no faith over the quality of services.
• 30% of beneficiaries claimed their LAC often demand money before or after every court hearing.

Way forward:

• Currently, the engagement of LAC is usually on an ad-hoc basis. Around 45% of the regulators opined that making them full time will definitely improve the level of commitment.
• The study recommended that making honorarium for a legal aided case at par with private cases, will compel LAC to not withdraw or desert aided cases in middle.
• The selection process must ensure selection and empanelment of committed lawyers.

Context:

The World Health Organisation has launched its first guidelines on self-care interventions for health.

What are Self-care interventions?

• According to WHO, Self-care means the ability of individuals, families and communities to promote health, prevent disease, maintain health, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a health-care provider.
• Self-care interventions bring health services to people. SELF-CARE REQUIRES:

(1) Acknowledging people as active participants in informed health decision-making (2) A holistic approach to health and well-being across the life course

(3) Respecting human rights, ethical considerations and gender equality

(4) Quality, evidence-based products and interventions

• Self care is a new approach to primary healthcare
• Access to self-care inverventions improve people’s autonomy. Self-care can be accessed through: Health facilities; Pharmacy; Primary care and community service; Caregivers; Shops; Digital platforms and mobile technologies; Family, friends and communities
• Self-care interventions are a complementary approach to health care that forms an important part of the health system. Self care is also a means for people who are negatively affected by gender, political, cultural and power dynamics including those who are forcibly displaced, to have access to sexual and reproductive health services, as many people are unable to make decisions around sexuality and reproduction.
• Promoting a safe and supportive enabling environment in which they can access and use health interventions when and where they choose to, improves autonomy and helps improve the health and well-being of these vulnerable and marginalized people.

Details:

• In response to an estimate that by 2035 the world will face a shortage of nearly 13 million healthcare workers and the fact that currently at least 400 million people worldwide lack access to the most essential health services, WHO has launched the guidelines for Self-care interventions.
• First volume of the guidelines focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights. Self-sampling for human papillomavirus (HPV) and sexually transmitted infections, self-injectable contraceptives, home-based ovulation predictor kits, human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) self-testing and self-management of medical abortion have been included.

Conclusion:

• The guidelines do not replace high-quality health services.
• These self-care interventions represent a significant push towards new and greater self-efficacy, autonomy and engagement in health for self-carers and caregivers.
• The guidelines, will be expanded to include other self-care interventions, including for prevention and treatment of non-communicable diseases.

Context:

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un and US President Donald Trump agreed at their meeting to push forward dialogue for making a new breakthrough in the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.

Background:

• North Korea has pursued nuclear and missile programmes for years in defiance of U.N. Security Council resolutions, and easing tensions with North Korea is one of the U.S. president’s top foreign policy priorities.
• Trump and Kim met for the first time in Singapore in June last year, and agreed to improve relations and work towards the denuclearisation of the Korean peninsula.
• But the second summit in Hanoi broke down after the two sides failed to narrow differences between a US demand for North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons and a North Korean demand for sanctions relief.

Details:

• Trump became the first sitting US president to set foot in North Korea. He met Kim in the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between the two Koreas and agreed to resume stalled nuclear talks.
• The DMZ was set up after the 1950-53 Korean War ended in an armistice, not a truce, leaving North Korea and the United States still technically at war.
• While North Korea has not recently tested a long-range missile that could reach the U.S., last month it fired off a series of short-range missiles. Trump has brushed off the significance of those tests, even as his own national security adviser said that they violated U.N. Security Council resolutions.
• The meeting, initiated by a tweet by Trump displayed the rapport between the two, but analysts opine that they are no closer to narrowing the gap between their positions since they walked away from their summit in February in Vietnam.

C. GS3 Related

Category: ECONOMY

1. From baby steps to giant strides, GST gains momentum

Context:

An 82-member special protection force trained to combat poachers and understand animal behaviour has been deployed in the Kaziranga National Park (KNP).

Background:

• The rhino is killed for its horn which is considered by some people in the South East Asian countries as an aphrodisiac for both males and females.
• The horn, often smuggled through some neighbouring states of Assam, could fetch over Rs.1 crore in the international black market.
• Over the past 19 years, over 200 rhinos have been killed by the poachers in Assam, mostly in the Kaziranga National Park.

Details:

• Special Rhino Protection Force (SRPF)  is basically a tiger protection force named after the rhino since the threat of poaching is more for the one-horned herbivore.
• Their job profile includes protecting the Tiger since Kaziranga is also a tiger reserve.
• The Assam government would be paying the salaries of the SRPF members and the amount would be reimbursed by the National Tiger Conservation Authority, which recommended setting up of the special force.

Kaziranga National Park:

• Kaziranga National Park is a national park in the state of Assam.
• The sanctuary hosts two-thirds of the world’s great one-horned rhinoceroses.
• The greater One horned Rhinos are native to Indian Subcontinent and are listed as Vulnerable in IUCN Red List.
• Kaziranga National Park has been declared a World Heritage Site for its unique natural environment.

Context:

Japanese fishermen have set sail to hunt whales commercially for the first time in more than three decades, following Tokyo’s controversial decision to withdraw from the International Whaling Commission (IWC).

Background:

• Introduced by the IWC in 1986 to protect the world’s last remaining whales, the ban on commercial whaling allowed Japan an annual whale quota for “scientific reasons.”
• Even after the International Court of Justice in 2014 declared the killing of whales in the name of science illegal, Japan continued whaling.
• Travelling as far as the North Atlantic or even to the Antarctic, home to the world’s largest populations of whales, Japanese fleets killed about 500 whales last year.
• Japan announced last year that it was leaving the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and would resume commercial whaling.
• The decision had sparked global condemnation and fears for the worlds whales.

Details:

• With the resumption of commercial whaling, Japanese boats will not be allowed to venture further than 200 miles (321km) off the country’s Pacific coast. But some environmentalists are still concerned because of the low whale stocks in Japan’s coastal waters.
• The hunt will be confined to Japan’s exclusive economic zone.
• Japan has long maintained that eating whale is an important part of its culture and that most species are not endangered.
• Domestic consumption of whale meat was around 200,000 tons a year in the 1960s, when it was an important source of protein in the postwar years, but has slumped to less than 5,000 tons annually in recent years, according to government data.

Conclusion:

• Some conservationists say the resumption of commercial whaling will likely lead to fewer whales being killed amid the shrinking demand for its meat as the government won’t be allowed to fish far beyond its waters.
• By leaving the industry to survive at the whim of market forces, Shinzo Abe has in fact initiated the end of Japanese whaling, according the director of marine conservation for the International Fund for Animal Welfare.
• It is seen by many as a face-saving way out of whaling, the beginning of the end of Japanese whaling.

International Whaling Commission:

• IWC is an international body set up under International Convention for the Regulation of Whaling (ICRW).
• IWC aims at providing for proper conservation of whale stocks and facilitate the orderly development of the whaling industry.
• ICRW governs the commercial, scientific, and aboriginal subsistence whaling practices of fifty-nine member nations.
• It was signed in Washington, D.C., United States, in 1946.

Context:

Nuclear energy is fast becoming an idea whose time has passed, at least in India. And there is something that is waiting to take its place.

Details:

• Though the highly harmful source i.e, Nuclear Energy is regarded as saviour on certain counts, India has a better option under the seas.
• India’s 6,780 MW of nuclear power plants contribute to less than 3% of the country’s electricity generation, which will come down as other sources will generate more.
• Perhaps India lost its nuclear game in 1970, when it refused to sign – even if with the best of reasons – the Non Proliferation Treaty, which left the country to bootstrap itself into nuclear energy.

Three-stage programme

• In the 1950s, the legendary physicist Dr. Homi Bhabha gave the country a roadmap for the development of nuclear energy.
• In the now-famous ‘three-stage nuclear programme’, the roadmap laid out what needs to be done to eventually use the country’s almost inexhaustible Thorium resources.
• The first stage would see the creation of a fleet of ‘pressurised heavy water reactors’, which use scarce Uranium to produce some Plutonium.
• The second stage would see the setting up of several ‘fast breeder reactors’ (FBRs). These FBRs would use a mixture of Plutonium and the reprocessed ‘spent Uranium from the first stage, to produce energy and more Plutonium (hence ‘breeder’), because the Uranium would transmute into Plutonium.
• Alongside, the reactors would convert some of the Thorium into Uranium-233, which can also be used to produce energy.
• After 3-4 decades of operation, the FBRs would have produced enough Plutonium for use in the ‘third stage’. In this stage, Uranium-233 would be used in specially-designed reactors to produce energy and convert more Thorium into Uranium-233.

Concerns:

• Seventy years down the line, India is still stuck in the first stage.
• For the second stage, fast breeder reactors are needed.
• A Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor (PFBR) of 500 MW capacity, construction of which began way back in 2004, is yet to come on stream.
• The problem is about handling liquid Sodium, used as a coolant.
• If Sodium comes in contact with water it will explode; and the PFBR is being built on the humid coast of Tamil Nadu.
• The PFBR has always been a project that would go on stream next year.
• The PFBR has to come online, then more FBRs would need to be built, they should then operate for 30-40 years, and only then would begin the coveted ‘Thorium cycle’!
• The 6,700 MW of plants under construction would, some day, add to the existing nuclear capacity of 6,780 MW.
• The government has sanctioned another 9,000 MW and there is no knowing when work on them will begin.
• These are the home-grown plants.
• Thanks to the famous 2005 ‘Indo-U.S. nuclear deal’, there are plans for more projects with imported reactors, but a 2010 Indian ‘nuclear liability’ legislation has scared the foreigners away.
• With all this, it is difficult to see India’s nuclear capacity going beyond 20,000 MW over the next two decades.

Is nuclear energy worth it all?

• There have been three arguments in favour of nuclear energy: clean, cheap and can provide electricity 24×7 (base load).
• Clean it is, assuming that the ticklish issue of putting away the highly harmful spent fuel is taken care of.
• However, it is no longer cheap. Nuclear power is pricing itself out of the market. A nuclear power plant takes a decade to come up, and it is hard to predict where the cost will end up when it begins generation of electricity.
• Nuclear plants can provide the ‘base load’ — they give a steady stream of electricity day and night, just like coal or gas plants.
• Wind and solar power plants produce energy much cheaper, but their power supply is irregular.
• With gas not available and coal on its way out due to reasons of cost and global warming concerns, nuclear is sometimes regarded as the saviour.

Shift to Ocean Energy:

• The Oceans are throbbing with energy. There are at least several sources of energy in the seas.
  • One is the bobbing motion of the waters, or ocean swells —a flat surface can be placed on the waters, with a mechanical arm attached to it, and it becomes a pump that can be used to drive water or compressed air through a turbine to produce electricity.
  • Another way is to tap into tides, which flow during one part of the day and ebb in another. Electricity can be generated by channelling the tide and place a series of turbines in its path.
  • One more way is to keep turbines on the sea bed at places where there is a current — a river within the sea.
  • Yet another way is to get the waves dash against pistons in, say, a pipe, so as to compress air at the other end.
• All these methods have been tried in pilot plants in several parts of the world—Brazil, Denmark, U.K., Korea.
• There are only two commercial plants in the world—in France and Korea—but then ocean energy has engaged the world’s attention.
• India’s Gujarat State Power Corporation had a tie-up with U.K.’s Atlantic Resources for a 50 MW tidal project in the Gulf of Kutch, but the project was given up after they discovered they could sell the electricity only at ₹13 a kWhr.

Way forward:

• When technology improves and scale-effect kicks-in, ocean energy will look real friendly.
• Initially, ocean energy would also need to be incentivised, as solar was.
• Also, wind and solar now stand on their own legs and those subsidies could now be shifted to ocean energy.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Context:

The 2019 G20  Summit, the fourteenth meeting of the G20 recently concluded in Osaka, Japan.

G 20:

• The G20 is an international forum for the governments and central bank governors from 19 countries and the European Union (EU).
• Founded in 1999 with the aim to discuss policy pertaining to the promotion of international financial stability.
• Membership of the G20 consists of 19 individual countries plus the European Union.
• The G20 economies account for around 90% of the gross world product (GWP), 85% of the world’s nominal GDP, 80% of world trade, two-thirds of the world population, and approximately half of the world land area.
• India is a member of G20.

Details:

• As a forum, the G-20 is often watched more closely for the meetings the event affords on its sidelines, than for substantive outcomes.
• The countries that make up the G-20 have pressing issues it wishes to discuss with other members on bilateral, plurilateral and multilateral levels.
  • Prime Minister Narendra Modi used the occasion of the G-20 summit at Osaka for as many as 20 such meetings, including nine bilaterals, eight pull-aside engagements, and of the Russia-India-China, Japan-U.S.-India and Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa groupings.
  • The most anticipated were President Donald Trump’s meetings with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping and Mr. Modi, given the escalation in trade tensions.
  • Both ended on a cordial note, but with no breakthrough or “big deals”.
• The Indian and U.S. Commerce Ministers will sit down again, as they have on at least three occasions in the past year, to try to resolve the impasse over trade issues, and the U.S. and China have called a halt to raising tariffs until they resolve issues.
• Both come as a relief to India, given the impact of those tensions on the national and global economies.

Issues discussed:

• Several Indian concerns were raised at the G-20 deliberations, including the need for cooperation on dealing with serious economic offenders and fugitives, as well as climate change funding, which found its way into the final declaration.
• India sent a tough message by refusing to attend the digital economy summit pushed by Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, as his plan for “data free flow with trust”, included in the G-20 declaration, runs counter to the Reserve Bank of India’s proposed data localisation guidelines.
• The U.S. wrote in a counter to the paragraph praising the Paris accord, while trade protectionism was not mentioned in the document.
• On issues such as ocean pollution management, gender equality and concerted efforts to fight corruption, the G-20 found consensus more easily.

Conclusion:

• With Saudi Arabia hosting the next G-20 in 2020, followed by Italy in 2021, all eyes will soon turn to the agenda India plans to highlight when it holds the G-20 summit in 2022.
• Many global challenges, such as climate change and its impact, the balance between the needs for speed and national security with 5G networks being introduced, as well as technology-driven terrorism, will become even more critical for the grouping, and the government must articulate its line.
• India should lead the exercise in making the G-20 more effective in dealing with some of the inequities in its system.
• The G-20 is an important platform to discuss pressing issues.
• It must be ensured that it is not detracted from its original purpose of promoting sustainable growth and financial stability by grandstanding by one or two members.

Category: EDUCATION

1. It’s time to act, not do more research – On transformation of Higher Education in India

Q1. Betla National Park is located in:

Q2. Consider the following statements:

Q3. Consider the following statements:

Q4. Consider the following statements: