Oct 2nd, 2021, CNA:- Download PDF Here
TABLE OF CONTENTS
A. GS 1 Related B. GS 2 Related HEALTH 1. BP, cholesterol control key for Type 1 diabetics POLITY AND GOVERNANCE 1. CJI for forming special panels to probe ‘atrocities’ by police INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 1. Shringla begins four-day visit to Sri Lanka today 2. India, U.S. to set up working group on defence industrial security C. GS 3 Related D. GS 4 Related E. Editorials HISTORY 1. Reading Gandhi as a lesson of political maturity POLITY AND GOVERNANCE 1. No clean sweep SECURITY 1. Crime and the pandemic F. Prelims Facts 1. CP smog tower purifying 80% air: Rai G. Tidbits 1. Drones used to spread seed balls for reforestation H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions
A. GS 1 Related
Nothing here for today!!!
B. GS 2 Related
1. BP, cholesterol control key for Type 1 diabetics
Context:
According to a pan-India study of long-term survivors with Type-1 diabetes (T1D), good control of not only blood sugar but also blood pressure and cholesterol is essential for survival and a good quality of life among people with the condition.
Diabetes:
- Diabetes is a disease that affects how the body uses glucose. Glucose is a sugar which is the body’s main source of fuel.
- The body needs glucose to keep running. If someone has diabetes, he or she has trouble with a hormone which is called insulin.
- Insulin is made in the pancreas, and it lowers the level of glucose in the blood.
- Diabetes is a kind of metabolic ailment in which the body is incapable of producing insulin, leading to high blood glucose in the body leading to cardiovascular diseases, kidney ailments, eye problems, etc.
There are three main types of diabetes:
Type 1 diabetes:
- Type 1 diabetes used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes. It is usually caused by an auto-immune reaction where the body’s defence system attacks the cells that produce insulin.
- People with type 1 diabetes produce very little or no insulin.
- The disease may affect people of any age but usually develops in children or young adults.
- People with this form of diabetes need injections of insulin every day in order to control the levels of glucose in their blood.
Type 2 Diabetes:
- Type 2 diabetes used to be called non-insulin dependent diabetes or adult-onset diabetes, and accounts for at least 90% of all cases of diabetes.
- It is characterised by insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency, either or both of which may be present at the time diabetes is diagnosed.
- The diagnosis of type 2 diabetes can occur at any age.
- Type 2 diabetes may remain undetected for many years and the diagnosis is often made when a complication appears or a routine blood or urine glucose test is done.
- It is often, but not always, associated with overweight or obesity, which itself can cause insulin resistance and lead to high blood glucose levels.
Gestational diabetes:
- Gestational Diabetes (GDM) is a form of diabetes consisting of high blood glucose levels during pregnancy.
- It develops in one in 25 pregnancies worldwide and is associated with complications to both mother and baby.
- GDM usually disappears after pregnancy but women with GDM and their children are at an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life.
- Approximately half of women with a history of GDM go on to develop type 2 diabetes within five to ten years after delivery.
Note:
India is home to more than 95,000 children with T1D, reported to be the highest in the world, according to the 9th International Diabetes Federation Atlas. Given that life expectancy in India is in general lower, the subject definitely needs attention.
Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. CJI for forming special panels to probe ‘atrocities’ by police
Context:
Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana has expressed his strong reservations about the conduct of police officers and bureaucracy in the country.
Details:
- Chief Justice of India has said that he is in favour of forming standing committees headed by the Chief Justices of the High Courts to investigate complaints received from the common man of atrocities committed by the bureaucracy, especially police officers.
- Some police officers are in the spotlight for committing serious crimes.
- Recently, police officers in Gorakhpur, Uttar Pradesh, have been accused of causing the death of a businessman during a raid in a hotel.
- In Tamil Nadu, the CBI chargesheeted nine policemen for the custodial deaths of father-son duo P. Jayaraj and J. Benicks.
- There have been instances of district administration officers caught on video manhandling citizens during the lockdown.
- The Supreme Court had raised the issue of nexus between politicians in power and police officers.
- Also, earlier, the Supreme Court had orally referred to a disturbing trend, where police officials, who had sided with the party in power, are later targeted when another political dispensation comes to power.
Also read: Police reforms
Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Shringla begins four-day visit to Sri Lanka today
Context:
Foreign Secretary Harsh Shringla is in Colombo for a four-day visit to Sri Lanka.
Details:
- The visit of the Foreign Secretary will provide an opportunity to:
- review the bilateral ties
- review the progress of ongoing bilateral projects
- build on the ongoing cooperation to tackle COVID-related disruptions.
- The visit is being seen as an attempt to reset ties that have been under a strain over:
- The Sri Lankan decision to cancel an MoU with India and Japan for Colombo’s East Container Terminal.
Read more on this issue covered in the 3rd February 2021 Comprehensive News Analysis.
- Slow progress in a number of other proposals, including the Trincomalee oil farms, the Sampur power project (which is being converted to a solar project), and the development of the northern part of the island nation.
- In particular, India has been concerned by the perception that while Indian projects have taken inordinately long to be cleared, projects by China have been cleared even during the pandemic.
- Example: The Sri Lankan government’s Parliament vote to facilitate the $1.4 billion China-backed Colombo Port City development.
- The ruling Rajapaksa administration passed a Bill, titled ‘Colombo Port City Economic Commission’, in Parliament, outlining proposed laws for the $1.4 billion Port City being built on reclaimed land at Colombo’s seafront.
- It is touted by the government as an investment hub for foreign capital.
Agenda:
- Assessing progress on a number of infrastructure and energy projects, and Sri Lanka’s need for economic assistance will be at the top of the agenda.
- He is expected to raise concerns about the reconciliation process and promises of devolution of power to northern Sri Lanka, which have remained unfulfilled more than a decade after the end of the war on the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in 2009.
Also read: India – Sri Lanka relations.
2. India, U.S. to set up working group on defence industrial security
Context:
India and the United States have agreed in principle to establish a Indo-U.S. Industrial Security Joint Working Group.
Details:
- This was agreed during the Industrial Security Agreement summit held between the two sides.
- This group will meet periodically to align the policies and procedures expeditiously that will allow the defence industries to collaborate on cutting edge defence technologies.
- Under ISA, the US side is expected to help in providing the necessary framework which will be useful in pursuing the co-development and co-production in the defence production centre.
- Both countries recently decided to work on co-developing air-launched unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). This project is being done under the Defense Technology and Trade Initiative (DTTI).
C. GS 3 Related
Nothing here for today!!!
D. GS 4 Related
Nothing here for today!!!
E. Editorials
1. Reading Gandhi as a lesson of political maturity
The article talks about Gandhi’s appeal to conscientious politics and nobility of spirit that holds relevance in today’s world.
Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi:
- Mahatma Gandhi remains the most widely known political leader of modern India.
- His successful non-violent movement against British rule in India confirmed his stature as a major historical figure.
- His philosophical significance continues to inspire millions of people around the globe — to fight against inequality, injustice and historical wrongs.
- Gandhi stands relevant and meaningful for the contemporary world due to his political legacy.
How is Gandhi different from present-day politicians?
For Gandhi, politics, like spirituality, was a space to examine and experience Truth, which he considered not as a given process, but as an effort of re-evaluation and reformulation of reality.
Ethics in Politics:
- What distinguishes the Mahatma from all politicians in today’s world is his simplicity and honesty.
- Gandhi believed in no divorce between politics and ethics. Politics was essentially an ethical mode of conduct for him.
- His belief in the moral growth of humanity is a rarity in present-day politicians.
- In a world such as ours which suffers from an immaturity of politics and politicians, either in tyrannical situations such as Afghanistan, Myanmar, Syria, etc. or in democracies such as the United States, Spain, Poland, India, etc. reading Gandhi as a lesson of political maturity is important.
Gandhi’s Culture of Patience:
- As a practitioner of empathetic humanism and a pluralist thinker, Gandhi was an exemplar of a lifelong process of listening and learning.
- He played the role of an exemplar in prescribing “patience” as a means to understand and approach the other.
- The dialogical nature of Gandhi’s culture of patience finds its roots in the idea of epistemic humility as a necessary methodology in approaching and understanding other cultures and religions.
- Epistemic humility is an intellectual virtue.
- It is grounded in the realization that our knowledge is always provisional and incomplete and that it might require revision in light of new evidence.
- The entire Gandhian thought in the realm of religion and politics revolves around this concept of epistemic humility.
- That is why Gandhi had a profoundly ethical view of religions.
- There has never been a better time to practise the virtue of epistemic humility.
Swaraj:
- The capacity to engage constructively with conflicting values was an essential component of Mahatma Gandhi’s practical wisdom.
- Gandhi believed that all individuals irrespective of their religion, race and culture had the right to self-governance.
- Swaraj as a space of self-realisation was where the ethical and the political joined in the Gandhian political philosophy.
- On account of his overriding concern for the self-respect of individuals and nations, Gandhi joined the two notions of truth and non-violence to that of the term Swaraj.
A self-transcendence:
- Gandhi did not consider freedom as a mere political act, but he defined it primarily as an ethical enterprise.
- He applied the process of individual self-transcendence to the idea of civilisation, since he considered civilisation as an exercise of human maturity.
- He firmly believed that the anthropological and ethical origins of such a state of maturity resided in the spiritual capacity of human beings.
- He also underlined this move towards maturity as a process of learning to be responsible towards oneself and others.
- As a result, everything he did and wrote during his lifetime was an attempt to bring into the open his own journey of intellectual and political maturity.
- According to Gandhi, character-building was an art of developing a sense of autonomy and having authority over one’s self.
Gandhi, therefore, approached pragmatic politics as a form of character-building and not necessarily a struggle for getting elected or grasping power.
A continuing relevance:
Mahatma Gandhi argued, “Where there is egotism, we shall find incivility and arrogance. Where it is absent, we shall find a sense of self-respect together with civility… He who holds his self-respect dear acts towards everyone in a spirit of friendship, for he values others’ self-respect as much as he values his own. He sees himself in all and everyone else in himself, puts himself in line with others. The egotist keeps aloof from others and, believing himself superior to the rest of the world, he takes [it] upon himself to judge everyone and in the result enables the world to have the measure of his smallness.”
Despite all his shortcomings, Gandhi’s appeal to mature and conscientious politics and nobility of spirit continues to be a strong ethical response to the political issues and challenges of our time. That is why, Gandhi remains our contemporary, while he belongs to our future.
Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
Context:
The Prime Minister of India has announced the second phase of Swachh Bharat Mission-Urban (SBM-U) and the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT), with a fresh promise to make India’s cities clean.
This topic has been covered in Oct 1st, 2021 CNA.
Issues:
- The goal of scientific waste management and full sanitation that Mahatma Gandhi emphasised even a century ago remains largely aspirational today.
- It is evident from the recent regret of the Principal Economic Adviser on dirty, dysfunctional cities.
- According to him, urban India is unable to match cities in Vietnam that has a comparable per capita income.
- The current model of issuing mega contracts to big corporations has left segregation of waste at source a non-starter.
- On sanitation, the impressive claim of exceeding the targets for household, community and public toilets thus far conceals the reality that without water connections, many of them are unusable.
- He spoke about the lack of urban management capacities in India in spite of the Swachh Bharat programme enjoying tremendous support.
Swacch Bharat Mission (SBM) 2.0:
- SBM-U 2.0, with a ₹1.41-lakh crore outlay, aims to focus on garbage-free cities.
- It ventures into urban grey and black water management in places not covered by AMRUT.
- In its first phase, the Mission had an outstanding balance of ₹3,532 crore, since the total allocation was ₹14,622 crore while cumulative releases came to ₹11,090 crore.
Way Forward:
- India aims to address two main challenges through SBM 2.0.
- Being able to process 1.4 lakh tonnes of solid waste generated per day. (At present, only about 1 lakh tonnes is processed.)
- To transition to a circular economy that treats solid and liquid waste as a resource.
- Capability and governance play a major role in this regard.
- Raising community involvement in resource recovery calls for a partnership that gives a tangible incentive to households.
- Decentralised community-level operations could be considered for the segregation of waste.
- In the absence of a scaling up of operations, which can provide large-scale employment and the creation of matching facilities for material recovery, SBM-U 2.0 cannot keep pace with the tide of waste in a growing economy.
- State and municipal governments, which do the heavy lifting on waste and sanitation issues, should work to increase community ownership of the system.
- It is a long road to Open Defecation Free plus (ODF+) status for urban India, since that requires no recorded case of open defecation and for all public toilets to be maintained and functioning.
- The high ambition of achieving 100% tap water supply in about 4,700 urban local bodies and sewerage and septage in 500 AMRUT cities depends crucially on making at least good public rental housing accessible to millions of people.
The article talks about the nature and patterns of crimes that were registered in 2020, in the backdrop of COVID-19 induced lockdown.
Context:
National Crime Records Bureau recently released the ‘Crime in India’ annual report.
NCRB:
- The National Crime Records Bureau, abbreviated to NCRB, is an Indian government agency responsible for collecting and analyzing crime data as defined by the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Special and Local Laws (SLL).
- NCRB is headquartered in New Delhi and is part of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA), Government of India.
Crime in India Report:
- The first edition of ‘Crime in India’ pertains to the year 1953 and the latest edition of the report pertains to the year 2020.
- This is the oldest and the most prestigious publication brought out by NCRB.
- The data for the report is collected by State Crime Records Bureaux (SCRBx) from the District Crime Records Bureaux (DCRBx).
- Data on megacities are also collected.
The annual report, ‘Crime in India-2020’, needs to be carefully analysed before obtaining insights or making State-wise comparisons.
Economic and Cyber-crimes:
- The lockdown led to an overall fall in crime related to theft, burglary and dacoity.
- While there was a reduction in the registered number of economic offences (by 12% since 2019), cybercrimes recorded an increase of 11.8%.
- The increase in cybercrimes is cause for concern as this requires sharper law enforcement as seen even in highly developed societies.
Sedition:
- While cases related to sedition declined from 93 in 2019 to 73 in 2020, Manipur and Assam led with 15 and 12 cases each.
- Sedition has increasingly been used as a weapon to stifle dissent and this trend needs to be reversed urgently.
Violence against Women:
- There are significant variances in case registration across States and Union Territories, especially serious crimes pertaining to rape and violence against women.
- States/UTs such as Tamil Nadu with 1808.8, Kerala (1568.4) and Delhi (1309.6) recorded the highest crime rate (crimes per one lakh people) overall.
- The numbers are a reflection of better reporting and police registration of cases in these States and the capital city.
Mismatch between the NCW and NCRB:
- There was an 8.3% decline in registered cases of crimes against women in 2020 (of which the bulk of them, 30.2%, were of the category “Cruelty by husband or his relatives”).
- This number has to be assessed along with the fact that the year saw prolonged lockdowns during the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.
- This period coincided with a high number of complaints of domestic violence.
- The number of complaints received by the National Commission for Women registered a 10-year high as of June 2020.
- The seeming mismatch between the NCW and NCRB data must be studied and can only be explained by a lack of registration of cases in some States where crime reporting remains sluggish either due to a fear of doing so or a lackadaisical approach by law enforcement.
Conclusion:
- The lockdown had a bearing on the patterns of crimes that were registered in 2020.
- The sudden lockdown announced in March 2020 immediately prompted grave concerns around escalating rates of domestic violence.
- Restrictions on mobility and an inability for women to leave their homes and seek out safe havens led to anticipation that crimes against women would rise rather than fall.
- Since there were restrictions on socialising in-person, and teaching shifted online, there was a corresponding rise in time spent by children online, making them vulnerable to online abuse and exploitation.
F. Prelims Facts
1. CP smog tower purifying 80% air: Rai
This topic has been covered in Aug 20th, 2021 CNA.
G. Tidbits
1. Drones used to spread seed balls for reforestation
What’s in News?
A Hyderabad-based technology start-up has come up with the innovative idea of an aerial seeding campaign as a solution for the reforestation challenge.
- Marut Drones, which had earlier deployed drones successfully in agricultural operations and for delivery of vaccines, is using them for greening large swathes of denuded forest lands through its “Hara Bhara” initiative.
- The campaign with the first seedcopter— a drone with seed balls was deployed in Telangana.
- The seed balls contain a variety of seeds rolled within a ball of clay, together with organic manure and fertilizer. The balls, after being dispersed in a barren area, are expected to dissolve when it rains, and result in the germination of the seeds.
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
Q1. Which of the following statements about Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes is/are correct?
- There are no known prevention methods for Type 1 diabetes, while a healthy lifestyle can prevent Type 2 diabetes.
- In Type 1 diabetes the body is producing insulin but not enough of it or it does not use it efficiently, whereas in Type 2 it is no longer able to produce insulin.
Options:
- 1 only
- 2 only
- Both
- None
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: a
Explanation:
- There are no known prevention methods for Type 1 diabetes, while a healthy lifestyle can prevent Type 2 diabetes.
- Type 1 diabetes used to be called juvenile-onset diabetes. It is usually caused by an auto-immune reaction where the body’s defence system attacks the cells that produce insulin.
- People with type 1 diabetes produce very little or no insulin.
- People with this form of diabetes need injections of insulin every day in order to control the levels of glucose in their blood.
- Type 2 diabetes used to be called non-insulin dependent diabetes.
- It is characterised by insulin resistance and relative insulin deficiency, either or both of which may be present at the time diabetes is diagnosed.
Q2. With respect to Juvenile Justice Act (JJ Act), which of the following statements is/are incorrect?
- It mandates automatic termination of inquiries against a minor alleged to be in conflict with law in case of “petty offences” if the probe remains “inconclusive” even after four months, and a maximum extension of two months.
- “Petty Offences” include the offences for which the maximum punishment under the Indian Penal Code or any other law for the time being in force is imprisonment up to one year and “Serious Offences” include imprisonment between one to three years.
Options:
- 1 only
- 2 only
- Both
- None
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: b
Explanation:
- Juvenile Justice Act mandates automatic termination of inquiries against a minor alleged to be in conflict with law in case of “petty offences” if the probe remains “inconclusive” even after four months, and a maximum extension of two months.
- Various types of offences committed by children in conflict with law have been defined under the JJ Act, 2015 as follows:
- Petty offences: Petty offences include the offences for which the maximum punishment under the Indian Penal Code or any other law for the time being in force is imprisonment up to three years.
- Serious Offences: Serious offences include the offences for which the punishment under the Indian Penal Code or any other law for the time being in force is imprisonment between three to seven years.
- Heinous Offences: Heinous offences committed by children in conflict with law include the offences for which the minimum punishment under the Indian Penal Code or any other law for the time being in force is imprisonment for seven years or more.
Q3. Consider the following statements about National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC):
- It is India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter.
- It is a Navratna Company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Steel.
Which of the above statements is/are correct?
- 1 only
- 2 only
- Both
- None
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: c
Explanation:
- National Mineral Development Corporation is India’s largest iron ore producer and exporter.
- It is a Navratna Company under the administrative control of the Ministry of Steel.
- In 1958, it was established as an owned and operated public company by the Indian government.
- It also maintains the nation’s sole diamond mine at Patna in MP, with an annual output of one lakh carats.
Q4. Which of the following statements is/are correct?
- In India and the USA, both a citizen by birth as well as a naturalised citizen are eligible for the office of President.
- Citizenship is a matter dealt with by the Ministry of External Affairs in the Government of India.
Options:
- 1 only
- 2 only
- Both
- None
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: d
Explanation:
- In India, both a citizen by birth as well as a naturalised citizen are eligible for the office of President.
- In the USA, a naturalised citizen is not eligible for the office of President.
- Naturalization is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country.
- Citizenship is a matter dealt with by the Ministry of Home Affairs in the Government of India.
Q5. Bio Carbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes is managed by the
- Asian Development Bank
- International Monetary Fund
- United Nations Environment Programme
- World Bank
CHECK ANSWERS:-
Answer: d
Explanation:
- The BioCarbon Fund Initiative for Sustainable Forest Landscapes (ISFL) is a multilateral fund, supported by donor governments and managed by the World Bank.
- It collaborates with countries around the world to reduce emissions from the land sector through smarter land-use planning, policies, and practices.
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions
- What makes Gandhi so relevant and meaningful for our world is that his political legacy and his philosophical significance continue to inspire millions of people around the globe to fight against inequality, injustice and historical wrongs. Comment. (250 words; 15 marks)[GS-1, History]
- Transforming urban India calls for community-based moves towards a circular economy. Discuss. (250 words; 15 marks)[GS-2, Governance]
Read the previous CNA here.
Oct 2nd, 2021, CNA:- Download PDF Here
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