13 May 2019: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

Context:

Odisha Chief Minister has demanded special category status from the Centre for his disaster-prone State, saying it faces natural calamities almost every year.

Details:

• In his first interview since Cyclone Fani ravaged the coastal districts killing 41 people, he said a special category status was the need of the hour due to the massive loss to infrastructure which may stall growth of the State.
• The demand was raised stating that the assistance that the state gets from the Centre is mostly for temporary restoration of infrastructure. And a lot has to be spent from State’s own funds to work for the long-term.
• In the last five years we had Phailin, Hudhud, Titli and now Fani. In addition to this, the state experiences massive floods.

Current scenario in the state:

• Fani has left the Power infrastructure completely destroyed, especially in Puri and parts of Khurda districts where we complete re-electrification is necessary.
• Lakhs of houses have been destroyed.
• Serious damage has been caused to tree cover and plantation crops.

Special Category status:

• States which are granted special category status enjoy several benefits. These include

1. preferential treatment in getting central funds
2. concession on excise duty to attract industries to the state
3. a significant 30% of the Centre’s gross budget also goes special category states
4. These states can avail the benefit of debt-swapping and debt relief schemes
5. In the case of Centrally Sponsored Schemes and external aid, Special Category States get it in the ratio of 90% as grant, and 10% as loans. Other states, however, get 30% of their funds as grants
6. Special Category States also get tax breaks to attract investment

• A Special Category Status catalyses the inflow of private investments and generates employment and additional revenue for the state. Besides, the State can create more welfare-based schemes from the new savings since the Center bears 90% of the expenditure on all Centrally Sponsored Schemes. Further, more grants from the Center helps in building state infrastructure and social-sector projects.
• The Constitution of India does not include any provision for the categorization of any state as a Special Category Status state.
• However, in the past, Central Planned Assistance were given to certain states on the ground that they are historically disadvantaged in comparison to others.

Criteria for Special Category Status:

The erstwhile Planning Commission body, the National Development Council (NDC), granted Special Category Status to states based on a number of features, which included:

1. Hilly and difficult terrain
2. Low population density
3. Presence of a sizeable tribal population
4. Strategic location along international borders
5. Economic and infrastructural backwardness
6. Non-viable nature of state finances

Jammu and Kashmir was the first state to get Special Category Status and another 10 states were added over the years, with Uttarakhand being the last in 2010.

Context:

As the water situation steadily worsens in the arid Marathwada region, districts in water-abundant western Maharashtra, too, are feeling the lash of the drought.

Details:

• Rising mercury levels have resulted in the rapid depletion of water stocks in the 22 dams which are part of the Bhima river basin in western Maharashtraand are the potable water lifelines of Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad.
• At least five of these dams have 0% water stock currently, while the collective stock in seven other dams is less than 10% of their capacity. The remaining 10 have a collective reserve stock of a little over 20% .
• Authorities said more than 750 tankers were deployed to provide relief to the worst-afflicted districts in the Pune division which include Solapur, Mangalwedha, Satara and Maan.
• The situation in Solapur is grave as Ujjani dam currently has a water level of -34.98% (dead water stock).
• The groundwater table has plummeted sharply in several villages in the district as in other parts of rural Marathwada.

Droughts:

• The term ‘Drought’ in simple words is the absence of water for a long period of time, at a place where it is considered abnormal as compared to its usual conditions.
• The distribution of water on the earth’s surface is not even. Some places have lots of fresh water e.g. rivers, lakes, lagoons, ponds etc.  and they are continuously replenished by rainfall and water from underground.
• If a region that has had lots of rainfall, goes for a couple of weeks without rains, and people, animals and plants begin to experience dryness, it can be called a drought.
• Drought can be defined as a relatively long time where there is not enough water than there usually is, as a result of dry weather, to support human, animal and plant life.
• Droughts become an issue only when it begins to affect water supply for irrigation, municipal, industrial, energy, and ecosystem function.
• Severe droughts can have serious consequences.

Types of droughts:

1. Meteorological drought:

Meteorological drought is the general lack of moisture in the weather such as lack of precipitation, and the play of other weather conditions such as dry winds, high temperatures and so on.

2. Agricultural drought:

This drought happens when atmospheric moisture is reduced to an extent that soil moisture is affected. This affects crops, animals and also evapotranspiration.

3. Hydrological drought:

Occurs when there is a deficiency in the surface and groundwater supply in a region, often due to less precipitation, unrestrained reliance on surface water for farming, energy and other needs.

4. Socioeconomic drought:

This is when the supply of some goods and services like food, drinking water and energy are diminished or threatened by changes in hydrological and meteorological conditions. Sometimes it is even made worse by growing populations and excessive demands of such goods, to the point that it creates stress on the little water available. It takes a very long time for this kind of drought to get into full gear, and a long time to recover from it. 

C. GS3 Related

Context:

Picking up valuable lessons from the Cyclone Ockhi disaster and the 2018 floods, the Kerala State Disaster Management Authority (KSDMA) has updated standard operating procedures (SOP) and adopted new protocols for disaster management in the State.

Details:

• The State government has approved KSDMA’s updated ‘Orange book of disaster management — Kerala — SOP and emergency support functions plan’ and a new, separate document, ‘Monsoon preparedness and emergency response plan.’

The revision is meant to enhance the capacity of government departments to handle emergencies effectively.

• Named so for its orange-coloured outer cover, the orange book was earlier known as the ‘Handbook on disaster management — Volume 2, emergency operations centres and emergency support functions plan.’ It describes incidence response mechanisms to be adopted at the State, district and taluk level.
• Containing information on emergency response assets available across the State, the orange book explains the SOP for rainfall, flood, cyclone, tsunami, high waves (swell waves, storm surges, ‘kallakadal’), landslip, petrochemical accidents and even mishaps caused by space debris (meteorites, falling spacecraft parts, etc.).

Monsoon preparedness and emergency response plan:

• On the other hand, the ‘Monsoon preparedness and emergency response plan’ is season-specific.
• It is meant to be strictly complied with by government departments, central agencies and district disaster management authorities during the south-west and north-east monsoon seasons (June to December).
• Earlier, directives on monsoon preparedness were issued in the form of government circulars.
• According to KSDMA, no single document spelt out the roles and responsibilities of individual government departments.
• The new document, published in Malayalam, lists the roles of the State emergency operations centre, central agencies, district disaster management authorities, and 29 departments.
• It was said that this plan would be updated every year after receiving the first Long Range Forecast of the India Meteorological Department.

Context:

The Japanese Journal of Botany has published as a “new record for the flora in India” in its latest issue called Lecanorchis taiwaniana.

Details:

• An Assam forest officer’s chance discovery has given India one of its smallest orchids in terms of size and duration of bloom to be recorded botanically.
• The parasitic bloom, found by forest officer is a variant of a Japanese orchid.
• It is a mycoheterotroph, one of two types of parasitic plants that have abandoned photosynthesis.
• It bears 90% similarity with the taiwaniana species named after Taiwan.
• It derives its energy and nutrients from fungus, hence could be of herbal importance.
• Lecanorchis taiwaniana adds to the orchid wealth of northeast India, which has 800 of some 1,300 species in the country.
• About 300 species are found in the Western Ghats and 200 in the northwestern Himalayas.

Context:

Senior advocate Prashant Bhushan has sent a legal notice to Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan asking for a freeze on all genetically modified organisms, including field trials. Though growing Bt brinjal is illegal in India, the letter comes in the aftermath of activist groups recently proffering evidence of Bt Brinjal, a GM crop, being grown in a farmer’s field in Haryana.

Issue:

• In 2010 the government placed an indefinite ban on commercial release of Bt brinjal, developed by Mahyco, and called for more independent scientific studies to establish its biosafety as India is a centre of diversity for brinjal, both domesticated as well as wild.
• A lab report, prepared by a private biotechnology firm, that confirmed the presence of the Bt-derived protein in brinjal samples from Fatehabad, Haryana, in April. This confirms the allegations that  Bt brinjal, is being cultivated illegally in Haryana.
• It is clearly a failure of the government agencies concerned that illegal Bt brinjal is being cultivated in the country.

Bt Brinjal:

• Mahyco, an Indian seed company based in Jalna, Maharashtra, has developed the Bt brinjal.
• The genetically modified brinjal is a suite of transgenic brinjals (also known as an eggplant or aubergine) created by inserting a crystal protein gene (Cry1Ac) from the soil bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis into the genome of various brinjal cultivars.
• The insertion of the gene, along with other genetic elements such as promoters, terminators and an antibiotic resistance marker gene into the brinjal plant is accomplished using Agrobacterium-mediated genetic transformation.
• The Bt brinjal has been developed to give resistance against lepidopteron insects, in particular the Brinjal Fruit and Shoot Borer (Leucinodes orbonalis)(FSB).
• Upon ingestion of the Bt toxin, the insect’s digestive processes are disrupted, ultimately resulting in its death.
• It will reduce the farmers’ dependence on pesticides and enable higher yields.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Context:

The brutal attacks on Easter Sunday in Sri Lanka, for which the Islamic State (IS) claimed responsibility, have reignited discussion on the global ‘War on Terror’. Scholars and officials across the world are studying the links of the bombers to the IS’s former ‘Caliphate’ in Syria, where at least two of the bombers are believed to have travelled, and several leaders have now called for a greater focus on the global dimensions of the counter-terrorism effort.

Issue:

The attacks in Sri Lanka underline the many cracks in the concept of a global ‘War on Terror’, and raise questions on what it has achieved in the time since the idea developed.

War on Terror:

• The War on Terror, also known as the Global War on Terrorism, is an international military campaign that was launched by the United States government.
• The term was coined by former U.S. President George W. Bush after the September 11 attacks in 2001.
• First, the original mission that the War on Terror was named for is floundering.
  • Not only has the coalition of about 60 countries that sent troops and offered logistical support for ‘Operation Enduring Freedom’ failed to end terrorism in Afghanistan, it appears it is preparing to hand the country back to the oppressive Taliban regime that it defeated in December 2001.
  • Besides, there is no guarantee that the terror groups living in safe havens in Pakistan will not also have the run of Afghanistan once the coalition pulls out.
  • The war in Afghanistan was only one of the many coalitions the U.S. led in the name of the War on Terror: 46 nations joined the ‘coalition of the willing’ to defeat Saddam Hussein in Iraq in 2003, and 19 were a part of the coalition that ousted Muammar Qaddafi from power in Libya in 2011.
  • The U.S. and allied countries were sidetracked by the ‘Arab Spring’ in 2011, which led them to bolster anti-Bashar al-Assad groups in Syria.
  • This eventually paved the way for the IS to establish a ‘Caliphate’ in territories in Syria and Iraq.
  • The next coalition was formed to fight the terror of the IS.
  • The number of global terror attacks (maintained in a Global Terrorism Database by the University of Maryland of events from 1970 to 2018) per year went up from 1,000 in 2004 to 17,000 in 2014.
  • It is clear that the countries in question — Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and Iraq — are far from free of the spectre of terrorism.
  • Despite the defeat of the ‘Caliphate’ territorially, the IS or its franchises are appearing in new parts of the world. Sri Lanka is the latest on that list.
• Rather than helping fight pan-Islamist terror groups, the War on Terror appears to help the IS and al-Qaeda more.
• It gives them a footprint far bigger than their actual abilities.
• This helps them recruit and radicalise Muslim youth from around the globe, and allows them to own terrorists around the world as their own, as IS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi did in a rare video posted shortly after the Easter Sunday attacks.
• The narrative they build of a “fight for Islam” is equally false.
• According to the Global Terrorism Database of the 81 terror attacks in which more than 100 were killed (high casualty) since 2001, more than 70 were carried out in Islamic or Muslim-majority countries.
• In a specific search of high casualty terror attacks on religious institutions since 2001, 18 of the top 20 were by Islamist groups on mosques.
• The War on Terror thus appears to be a concept peddled mostly by pan-Islamist groups and propagated most often by extremists of other religions as a motive for terror attacks, such as the 2011 Utoya island attack in Norway or the New Zealand attacks this year.
• Governments in countries affected by terrorism must not subscribe to this narrative blindly.

Srilanka’s Example:

• In Sri Lanka the reason the members of the National Thowheed Jamaath (NTJ) were successful in their diabolical plot had as much to do with the fact that intelligence inputs given by India were ignored as it did with the fact that since the defeat of the LTTE.
• Sri Lankan authorities had let their guard down and ignored growing internal fault lines.
• As a result, despite complaints about the speeches that suspected mastermind Mohamed Zahran Hashim made as a preacher of a mosque in Sri Lanka’s Eastern province, he went unchallenged.
• Police and intelligence agencies also failed to keep a stern eye on other NTJ bombers who were IS returnees, despite the fact that only about 32 Sri Lankans in all are believed to have travelled to IS territory.

Approaches to fighting terror:

• It is necessary for countries fighting terrorism to learn more closely from their differences, rather than try to generalise from experience.
• It would be wrong to compare European states like the U.K., France and Belgium, where hundreds of immigrant Muslims have enlisted for the IS to South Asian states like India, where Muslim populations are indigenous and only a few dozen are believed to have left for Syria.
  • Indian officials have also claimed a higher success in deradicalising IS returnees, because they have enlisted whole families, neighbourhoods and local Maulvis in their efforts.
  • In Bangladesh too, after the 2016 attack on the Holey Artisan Bakery, government advertisements asked mothers to check on their children’s activities.
• This acknowledgement that radicalised terrorists are a part of a community is in stark contrast to the current debate in many European countries that are refusing to take IS returnees and their families back.
• Similarly, several Central Asian states propagate a much more hard-line approach on counter-radicalisation, by banning beards and hijabs, while China’s re-education internment camps in Xinjiang have raised questions about human rights.
• The success or failure of each of these approaches must be studied before deciding their applicability elsewhere.

Way forward:

• The world community must address contradictions in the War on Terror.
• For 20 years, the world has failed to agree on a common definition of terrorism at the United Nations. This has held up the passage of the Indian-sponsored proposal for a Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism.
• Despite the fact that Jaish-e-Mohammad chief Masood Azhar has been targeting Indians incessantly for years, it is question of concern why China allowed his UN Security Council designation as a global terrorist only after mentions of his attacks in India were removed.
• Questions must be asked as to why the U.S. is focused on billing Iran the “world’s biggest state sponsor of terrorism”, while states like Saudi Arabia and Pakistan that have funded and sheltered Islamist terror groups are still treated as “frontline allies” on terror.
• And why, despite all their resources and expertise, the alliance of the U.S., the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand that share global intelligence was unable to see the impending threat in Sri Lanka.

Unless the world is truly united on the issue and resolves such contradictions, the global War on Terror will only be as strong as its weakest link.

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Substantive equality

Q1) Consider the following statements with respect to UTTAM App:

Q2) Consider the following statements:

Q3) Consider the following statements with respect to Nandankanan Zoological Park:

Q4) Consider the following statements with respect to Suez Canal: