05 Nov 2018: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

• China backed Pakistan for trying to resolve “outstanding issues” with India through dialogue, and appeared to support Islamabad on two other key topics — the expansion of the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) and counterterrorism.

• China stated that it appreciated Pakistan’s quest for peace through dialogue, cooperation and negotiation, on the basis of mutual respect and equality, and supports Pakistan’s efforts for improvement of Pakistan-India relations and for settlement of outstanding disputes between the two countries.
• Pakistan supported active participation of China at the platform of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC).

• Though China is an observer at SAARC, New Delhi is unlikely to countenance a more active Beijing role in the South Asian grouping.
• The statement also veered closer to Pakistan’s position on counterterrorism and NSG, whose subtext was apparent — a UN designation of Masood Azhar, head of the Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad as an international terrorist, and India’s entry into an expanded NSG.
• The two countries also said they were not yet ready to join a global counter-terror treaty, pointing out that a “consensus” should be forged on the text of the Comprehensive Convention on International Terrorism (CCIT) first.

• A sculpture in honour of Indian soldiers who fought during the First World War was unveiled in the town of Smethwick in the West Midlands region of England.
• Guru Nanak Gurdwara Smethwick had commissioned the Lions of the Great War monument, which depicts a turbaned Sikh soldier, to honour the sacrifices made by millions of South Asian service personnel of all faiths who fought for Britain in the world wars and other conflicts as part of the British Indian Army.
• The 10-foot bronze statue was unveiled in Smethwick High Street to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War in November 1918, also referred to as the Great War.
• The monument was part of a collaboration between the gurdwara and the local Sandwell Council.

• A penalty of over ₹83 lakh was imposed on violators on Sunday by the teams deployed to monitor implementation of measures to combat pollution in Delhi -NCR under the ‘Clean Air Campaign’, the Central Pollution Control Board said.
• The highest number of complaints were related to illegal construction and demolition activities.
• An aggressive ten-day-long ‘Clean Air Campaign’ from November 1 to 10 has been launched by Union Environment Minister Harsh Vardhan to monitor and report polluting activities as well as to ensure quick action.
• These teams are visiting different parts of Delhi and adjacent towns of Faridabad, Gurugram, Ghaziabad and Noida.
• Based on 368 complaints, a total fine of ₹83,55,000 was imposed just on Sunday by 52 teams in the national capital, said the Central Pollution Control Board. (CPCB)
• A total of 52 complaints were received through social media and e-mail while 316 complaints were received through the ‘Sameer app’ that has been developed by the CPCB.
• Around 43 teams visited sites of 248 complaints in Delhi while two teams attended to 11 complaints in Gurgaon.

• There should not be any permanent exclusions in policy wordings for any specific disease, panel tells insurance regulator.
• All health conditions arising after the inception of a health insurance policy should be covered and cannot be permanently excluded, a committee has recommended to the insurance regulator.
• This is among the key recommendations of a committee appointed to look into standardisation of exclusions under health insurance policies.
• The panel has submitted its report to the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India.

• It has said that all health conditions acquired after policy inception, other than those that are not covered under the policy contract (such as infertility and maternity), should be covered under the policy and cannot be permanently excluded.
• Thus, exclusion of diseases contracted after taking the policy such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, AIDs/HIV infection, morbid obesity, etc., cannot be permitted, the panel recommended.
• Exclusions for specific disease conditions are incorporated as permanent exclusions in the policy wordings. This result in many claims becoming not payable for diseases being contracted even after the policy has been incepted.
• Specific cases were highlighted where claims were repudiated when the policy has been in force for 6-7 years for conditions such as Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, etc.
• The working group, as part of its methodology, met various stakeholders of the health insurance industry including representatives of health insurers, general insurers, life insurers, insurance brokers, third-party administrators, agents, Ministry officials, NGOs, consumer activists, medical experts and reinsurers, and collected their views.
• In addition, the working group also studied the practices in other countries as well as Indian laws, regulations and regulatory guidelines that could have an impact on health insurance products.
• The recommendations of the working group are largely based on the interactions with stakeholders and are in the context of the prevailing laws and regulations.
• The panel recommended that there should not be any permanent exclusions in the policy wordings for any specific disease condition(s), whether they are degenerative, physiological, or chronic in nature.
• It has initially recommended a list of 17 conditions (including epilepsy, heart ailment congenital, heart disease and valvular heart disease, chronic liver diseases, loss of hearing, HIV & AIDS, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s) for which insurers can incorporate permanent exclusions if they are pre-existing at the time of underwriting.
• As developments in healthcare were dynamic, there was a need to regularly review the list of permanent exclusions allowed at the time of underwriting, the report said.
• Insurers must be allowed to incorporate permanent exclusions with due consent of the proposer, which will allow a wider section of the population who have serious pre-existing diseases including persons with disabilities to be insured under health insurance.
• The permanent exclusion would be specific for conditions which are listed, and this list may be reviewed on a yearly basis by the committee that may be set up by the regulator.

• India battles the first-ever significant zika virus outbreak in the country, with more than 150 cases reported from Rajasthan in the last few weeks.
• Strains of the virus have also been found in the States of Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.
• Zika is an infection caused by mosquito bite and there is no vaccine available yet.

What is zika fever?

• It’s a disease caused by Zika virus that’s transmitted primarily through the bite of several species of Aedes mosquitoes.
• Aedes is a genus of mosquitoes originally found in tropical and subtropical zones, but now found on all continents except Antarctica. Zika belongs to a family of flaviviruses.
• Besides Zika, the falvivirus genus includes the West Nile virus, dengue virus, tick-borne encephalitis virus, and yellow fever virus.

What are the symptoms?

• Symptoms of Zika are similar to other illnesses spread through mosquito bites, such as dengue and chikungunya.
• The majority of people infected with Zika virus are asymptomatic or show mild symptoms.
• The symptoms include fever, rash, conjunctivitis, muscle and joint pain, and headache. They usually last for two to seven days.

When was zika virus first discovered?

• Zika virus was first discovered in monkeys in Uganda in 1947. It was later identified in humans in 1952 in Uganda and the United Republic of Tanzania, according to the World Health Organisation (WHO).
• The first recorded outbreak of Zika virus disease was reported from the Island of Yap (Federated States of Micronesia) in 2007, where the virus affected more than a hundred people. A major outbreak was recorded in French Polynesia (a set of islands in the South Pacific Ocean, an overseas territory of France) in 2013. It affected more than 30,000 people.
• The next larger outbreak was reported from Brazil in 2015. Outbreaks and evidence of transmission soon appeared throughout the Americas, Africa and Asia.
• A total of 86 countries have reported Zika infection, according to the WHO.
• In India, the first confirmed Zika case occurred in 2016 in Gujarat.

Why is it dangerous?

• Zika virus disease is dangerous because it has been linked to deadlier conditions such as Guillain-Barré Syndrome and microcephaly.
• Zika infection may trigger Guillain-Barré Syndrome, a rare neurological disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the nerves, sometimes resulting in paralysis.
• And a zika infection during pregnancy can cause microcephaly and other congenital abnormalities in the developing foetus and newborn.

How does it spread?

• Zika virus is primarily transmitted by the bite of an infected mosquito from the Aedes genus, mainly Aedes aegypti. Aedes mosquitoes usually bite during the day.
• Zika virus is also transmitted from mother to the foetus during pregnancy, through sexual contact, transfusion of blood, and organ transplantation.

What should you do to prevent a zika infection?

1. There is no vaccine to prevent Zika. The best way to prevent Zika virus infection is to protect yourself from mosquito bites.
2. Sleep under mosquito nets
3. Wear clothes that cover as much of the body as possible
4. Use physical barriers such as window screens to prevent mosquitoes from entering the house
5. Apply mosquito repellents
6. Aedes mosquitoes breed in small pools of water.
7. Eliminate such breeding sites – close water storage containers, remove stagnant water, and clean up trash and used tyres.

• A recent U.S. study claiming that radio-frequency radiation emitted by cell phones causes cancer in rats does not apply to humans, according to experts.
• There is clear evidence that male rats exposed to high levels of radio frequency radiation (RFR) like that used in cell phones developed cancerous heart tumours, the study had concluded.
• The $30 million study by the U.S. National Toxicology Program (NTP) that took 10 years to complete also showed some evidence of tumours in the brain and adrenal gland of exposed male rats.
• Following the report, some NGOs and scientists propose that the WHO’s Inter Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) must upgrade the present Group 2B (possible human carcinogen) classification of RF radiation to Group1 (human carcinogen).
• But specialist agencies have asserted that the finding does not apply to humans.
• The International Commission on Non Ionizing Radiation Protection (ICNIRP), the panel whose recommendations are followed by majority of nations and agencies such as the WHO, published a note categorically stating the study does not provide any actionable input to change the currently existing safety guidelines for RFR.
• It may be mentioned here that India’s safety guidelines for RFR are only 10% of the ICNIRP values.
• The U.S. Federal Communication’s Commission, the standard setting body in this field follows the advice of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) Center for Devices and Radiological Health.
• FDA has strongly criticised the conclusions of the USNTP study and restated that the current safety guidelines are adequately safe and there is no need to revise them.

C. GS3 Related

• An artificial intelligence (AI) programme used to recognise faces on Facebook can also identify galaxies in deep space.
• The AI bot named ClaRAN scans images taken by radio telescopes, said researchers from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR) in Australia.
• Its job is to spot radio galaxies – galaxies that emit powerful radio jets from supermassive black holes at their centres.
• Black holes are found at the centre of most, if not all, galaxies.
• These supermassive black holes occasionally burp out jets that can be seen with a radio telescope.
• Over time, the jets can stretch a long way from their host galaxies, making it difficult for traditional computer programmes to figure out where the galaxy is.
• ClaRAN grew out of an open source version of Microsoft and Facebook’s object detection software.
• Wong said the programme was completely overhauled and trained to recognise galaxies instead of people.
• If ClaRAN reduces the number of sources that require visual classification down to one per cent, this means more time for our citizen scientists to spend looking at new types of galaxies.
• A highly-accurate catalogue produced by Radio Galaxy Zoo volunteers was used to train ClaRAN how to spot where the jets originate.
• ClaRAN is an example of a new paradigm called ‘programming 2.0’
• All you do is set up a huge neural network, give it a tonne of data, and let it figure out how to adjust its internal connections in order to generate the expected outcome.

• Plastic waste is toxic and non-biodegradable. Such waste often ends up in oceans and landfills, affecting marine life and causing problems such as groundwater contamination and land scarcity.
• Scientists have developed a way to convert plastic bottle waste into flexible and durable aerogels that could be used for heat and sound insulation in buildings, oil spill cleaning, and as a lightweight lining for firefighter coats and masks.
• Globally, the annual consumption of plastic bottles has been rising steadily, and it is expected to exceed half a trillion tonnes per year by 2021.
• Plastic bottle waste is one of the most common type of plastic waste and has detrimental effects on the environment.
• Plastic bottles are commonly made from polyethylene terephthalate (PET), which is the most recycled plastic in the world.
• Our team has developed a simple, cost-effective and green method to convert plastic bottle waste into PET aerogels for many exciting uses.
• One plastic bottle can be recycled to produce an A4-sized PET aerogel sheet. The fabrication technology is also easily scalable for mass production. In this way, we can help cut down the harmful environmental damage caused by plastic waste.
• The PET aerogels developed are soft, flexible, durable, extremely light and easy to handle.

• A plan to create the world’s largest marine sanctuary in Antarctic waters was shot down when a key conservation summit failed to reach a consensus, with decrying a lack of scientific foresight.
• Member states of the organisation tasked with overseeing the sustainable exploitation of the Southern Ocean failed at an annual meeting to agree over the a 1.8 million sq km maritime protection zone.
• The proposed sanctuary — some five times the size of Germany — would ban fishing in a vast area in the Weddell sea, protecting key species including seals, penguins and whales.
• Consensus is needed from all 24 members of the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR) and the European Union.

• This was a historic opportunity to create the largest protected area on the earth in the Antarctic: safeguarding wildlife, tackling climate change and improving the health of our global oceans.

Significance of Antarctica

• Antarctica is home to penguins, seals, toothfish, whales and huge numbers of krill, a staple food for many species.
• They are considered critical for scientists to study how marine ecosystems function and to understand the impacts of climate change on the ocean.
• Plans were set out in 2009 to establish a series of marine protected area (MPAs) in the Southern Ocean allowing marine life to migrate between areas for breeding and foraging, but it has been slow going.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

What is the context?

• The gunning down of five Bengali men in Bisonimukh-Kherbari, near Tinsukia in Upper Assam, on November 1.
• It is not an isolated act of violence or even another of the periodic eruptions against non-Assamese people in the State.
• The killings symptomise and deepen the fault lines between the Assamese and Bengali communities because of the ongoing exercise to update the National Register of Citizens as well as the Centre’s plan to secure parliamentary passage for the Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2016.

What is the reason for the divide in Assam?

• At the heart of the schism is the fate of those eventually left out by the updated NRC. Four million didn’t make it to the final draft published in July, and while the final numbers will be known only when the elaborate process of claims, objections and verification draws to a close, there are certain known knowns at this point already.

How is politics influence the people?

• The ‘illegal’ Muslim immigrant, unfortunately, has few speaking on her behalf. But her Hindu counterpart is the battleground, with ethnic Assamese nativist groups advocating an even-handed approach while the ruling BJP governments in Delhi and Dispur are keen to cast the protective cover of the Citizenship Bill on grounds of persecution in her country of origin.
• Groups claiming to represent Assamese and Bengali interests have observed shutdowns and counter-shutdowns.
• And while a party with a core ethnic Assamese kernel such as the Asom Gana Parishad could unequivocally oppose absorbing ‘illegal’ Bengali Hindu immigrants, those with a broader vote base have had to hedge through innovative strategies.
• These include speaking in different voices (the Congress in the Assamese-dominated Brahmaputra and Bengali-dominated Barak valleys) or arguing that the burden of absorption is not only Assam’s to bear (the BJP). The politics ensuing over this has left the State polarised.
• The shrill rhetoric has spilled over to civil society, with calls for a separate State emanating from the Barak valley, and stray instances of Bengali speakers being harassed in Lower Assam towns, including Guwahati.
• Thursday’s tragedy should serve as a grim warning to the powers that be of potentially darker times ahead if the surcharged rhetoric is left unchecked.
• While the ULFA (Independent) denies responsibility, investigations thus far suggest it was the group’s handiwork. It had earlier claimed responsibility for a low-intensity bomb blast in Guwahati on October 13, saying it was a warning to those who support the Citizenship Bill.
• Meanwhile, on Thursday too, the Supreme Court Bench that is monitoring the NRC exercise signalled an accommodative stance by agreeing to allow the use of five more documents by those left out of the NRC final draft.
• That spirit of accommodation, towards long-time residents, of whatever religion or ethnicity, needs to permeate the political leadership and civil society in Assam now.

Category: ECONOMY

1. Challenge to the Reserve Bank of India’s reserve(s)

Question 1. Consider the following statements about NSG:

Question 2. Consider the following statements about South Asian Association for Regional 
Cooperation (SAARC):

Question 3. Consider the following statements: