18 Oct 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

18 Oct 2020 CNA:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. GS 1 Related
B. GS 2 Related
NUTRITION
1. ‘76% of rural Indians can’t afford nutritious diet’
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. A work-in-progress campaign for rights
C. GS 3 Related
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1. How global warming might affect food security
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Jagan vs. judges
ECONOMY
1. Reinventing auctions for the real world
F. Tidbits
1. Dr.Reddy’s gets nod for Sputnik V trials
2. IISER Pune uses smell to identify asymptomatic cases
G. Prelims Facts
1. A ‘Zero Rajdhani’ skirts Guwahati, cuts travel short
2. New Superconductor
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

A. GS 1 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

B. GS 2 Related

Category: NUTRITION

1. ‘76% of rural Indians can’t afford nutritious diet’

Context:

• The recently published paper, titled “Affordability of nutritious diets in rural India”, by an economist of the International Food Policy Research Institute.

Details:

Methodology of the study:

• The study used the wages of unskilled workers, and dietary items such as dairy, fruit and dark green leafy vegetables as the reference baseline for the study.
  • Unskilled workers account for a larger proportion of the total workers in the rural areas. The industrial workers are in a much smaller proportion.
  • The National Institute for Nutrition’s guidelines for a nutritionally adequate diet call for adult women to eat 330 gm of cereals and 75 gm of pulses a day, along with 300 gm of dairy, 100 gm of fruit, and 300 gm of vegetables, which should include at least 100 gm of dark green leafy vegetables.
• The study used the latest available food price and wage information from the National Sample Survey’s 2011 dataset.
• Selecting the cheapest options from actual Indian diets the study calculated that a day’s meals would cost ₹45 for a women and ₹51 for an adult man.

Salient observations:

• As per the benchmarks of the study, even if a person spent all his/her income on food, 63.3% of the rural population or more than 52 crore Indians would still not be able to afford a nutritious meal.
• If a person sets aside just a third of his/her income for non-food expenses, in such a scenario around 76% of rural Indians would not be able to afford the recommended diet.
• On indicators that simply measure calorie intake, India performs relatively better, but this metric does not account for the nutrition value of those calories, which provides a more comprehensive view of the nutrition quality.

Concerns:

• Notably, the study does not account for the meals of non-earning members of a household, such as children or older adults implying that a larger number would be facing the issue of non-affordability of nutritious diet in rural areas.
• The observations made in the study go against the observations made in the recent Economic Survey. This year’s Economic Survey’s ‘Thalinomics’, had noted that the affordability of meals had increased in India.
• The findings seem to reiterate the fact that India performs abysmally on many nutrition indicators even while the country claims to have achieved food security.
  • The recently released Global Hunger Index showed that India has the world’s highest prevalence of child wasting, reflecting acute under-nutrition.

For more information on this topic refer to: CNA 17^th Oct 2020.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. A work-in-progress campaign for rights

Context:

• The recent elections to the UN Human Rights Council for the (2021-23) term.

For more information on this development refer to: CNA 15^th Oct 2020.

Background:

UN Human Rights Council:

• The UNHRC is a United Nations body whose mission is to promote and protect human rights across the world.
  • Apart from the UNHRC, the UN has also set up a number of treaty-based organisations to monitor compliance with human rights standards and international human rights treaties such as the Human Rights Committee and the Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
• The UNHRC was reconstituted from its predecessor organisation, the UN Commission on Human Rights to help overcome the “credibility deficit” of the previous organisation.
• The UNHRC is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Functions:

• The UNHRC passes non-binding resolutions on human rights issues through a periodic review of all 193 UN member states called the Universal Periodic Review (UPR), besides overseeing expert investigation of violations in specific countries (Special Procedures).
  • Human rights breaches that are investigated by the UNHRC relate to themes such as freedom of association and assembly, freedom of expression, freedom of belief and religion, women’s rights, LGBT rights and the rights of racial and ethnic minorities.

Structure and membership:

• The council has representatives drawn from the General Assembly.
• The UNHRC has 47 members serving at any time with elections held to fill up seats every year, based on allocations to regions across the world to ensure geographical representation.
• Each elected member serves for a term of three years. Countries are disallowed from occupying a seat for more than two consecutive terms.

Major interventions by the UNHRC:

• Countries such as Israel, Syria, Iran, North Korea, Myanmar, Sudan, Cambodia, Belarus, Burundi and Eritrea have been investigated and strongly condemned by the UNHRC for violating various human rights.
• The UNHRC in June 2020, ordered a report on “systematic racism” against people of African descent following the murder of the African-American George Floyd in the U.S.

Positive aspects of the UNHRC:

Primary human rights body:

• The council serves as a central structure in the global human rights architecture.

Fairly representative body:

• The UNHRC’s structure and election procedure via a “one state, one vote” principle has allowed the organisation to be fairly representative without special privileges for the more developed Western countries. This sets it apart from other multilateral institutions such as the IMF or the World Bank.

Improved functioning:

• The mechanism of Universal Periodic Review (UPR) gives some degree of power to the UNHRC. The UPR is basically a national report from the state under review which also includes a summary of information from civil society actors.
• This unique arrangement of representation, review and collaboration (with civil society groups over and above nation-states) has certainly improved the functioning of the UNHRC in comparison with its predecessor Commission.

Challenges:

• The UNHRC is having to face the following external challenges and internal contradictions in its global fight for human rights.

Internal contradictions:

Human rights record of member nations:

• Countries like Saudi Arabia have succeeded in earning representation twice (2014-16, followed by 2017-2019) despite a known reputation for several human rights violations, like the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi and the detention of several women rights’ activists, among others.
• The human rights record of the member-states such as China and Russia in the council has also not been in line with the aims and mission of the UNHRC, which has led to critics questioning its relevance.
  • For example, the one-party systems of China and Cuba that have a controversial record on freedom of expression or the anti-gay policies of Russia.

Differing stand on the concept of human rights:

• Despite the continued participation of several western countries in the UNHRC, they continue to harbour misgivings on the understanding of Human rights.
• There has always been an inherent tension between countries from the West that promote an individualist notion of human rights that lays emphasis on political and civic rights and those from the developing world who lay greater emphasis on socio-economic and cultural rights. While, other rising powers such as Brazil and India have committed to hold states to account for human rights issues.

External challenges:

Non-participation of powerful nations:

• Powerful countries such as the U.S. have refused to participate in the UNHRC.

Non-compliance:

• Non-compliance has been a serious issue with respect to the UNHRC’s functioning.
  • For example, in 2015, Sri Lanka had provided commitments to the council to promote reconciliation, accountability and human rights, following the end of the civil war in 2009. However, in 2020, the newly elected government withdrew the country from these commitments.

Worsening human rights condition:

• There seems to be an unfolding of a human rights crisis in much of the developing world, and back-sliding in some of the world’s major democracies. Human rights violations seem to have become too commonplace in all parts of the world.

Conclusion:

• Despite the improvement over its predecessor organization, the UNHRC has still many challenges to overcome. The UNHCR is still a work in progress.

C. GS 3 Related

Category: SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

1. How global warming might affect food security

Context:

• The article analyzes the impact of global warming on the plant growth and subsequently on the food security of humans.

Background:

Global warming:

• Between the year 1870 (the first industrial revolution) and 2020, the carbon dioxide ( CO2) levels have increased from 280 ppm to 400 ppm mainly attributable to the increased fossil fuel burning (oil, natural gas, coal). Also, emissions of methane and nitrogen dioxide have also increased.
• Given the greenhouse warming effect of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen dioxide, the global temperature has risen by almost 2 degrees Celsius.

Click here to read more about Climate Change in India.

Mixed impact on plants:

• The rise in CO2 levels has both positive and negative effects on the plants.

Positive effect:

• The higher temperature is found to aid in the photosynthesis of plants, making them grow more.
• The higher temperature would help expand agricultural activity to even the sub-polar regions, would help expand the agricultural growing season in some areas.
• The higher concentration of carbon dioxide is also found to lead to an effect known as carbon fertilization.
  • The Carbon fertilization effect is the increased rate of photosynthesis in plants that results from increased levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  • However, it has to be noted that the Carbon fertilization varies depending on the plant species, the temperature, and the availability of water and nutrients.
    • The C4 plant varieties have been found to thrive under increased carbon dioxide levels and temperatures. It was found that there was improved heat tolerance, and suppressed heat-induced damages in such varieties. Examples of C4 species are the economically important crops corn or maize, sugarcane, sorghum and millets, as well as the switchgrass which has been utilized as a source of biofuel.

Negative effects:

• Some studies have pointed out that the higher temperatures during the ‘growing season’ in the tropics and sub-tropic regions will greatly affect plant growth and crop productivity.
• The higher temperature is found to restrict the plant’s ability to absorb nitrogen, thus restricting crop growth.

Study by ICRISAT:

• One study by the Hyderabad Centre of the international agency ICRISAT (International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics) on the impact of different concentration of CO2 levels on the growth and yield of chickpea found a noted increase in the root and shoot (plant height) lengths with higher CO2 levels leading to higher growth rates.
• However, the number of nodules in the roots (where nitrogen-fixing bacteria live) decreased at high CO2 levels.
• The decrease in chlorophyll synthesis hastened leaves turning yellow and plant ageing (senescence).
• Notably, the above impacts were different for different species of the legumes.

Way forward:

• Given the possible impact of CO2 level and its heating effect on food security there is an urgent need for the following steps.

Better understanding of the plant’s response:

• There is a need for more laboratory experiments to study the impact of increased temperatures and CO2 levels on plant growth and yields. These studies must concentrate on plant varieties like beans and legumes (plant meat) and food grains (C3 variety plants), which would have a more direct impact on human food security.
  • The difference between the C4 plants and the C3 plants is the way in which photosynthesis is done in the plants. The difference occurs due to different metabolic pathways in the two varieties, mainly involved in sugar/starch metabolism, chlorophyll and secondary metabolite biosynthesis.

Evidence-based planning for climate change risks:

• The understanding of the different metabolic pathways in different plants could lead to a better understanding of the molecules or agents that can promote or inhibit specific pathways.
• These findings can help identify plant varieties that are best suited for the given local conditions.

Use of biotechnology:

• Biotechnology and the recent advances made in this field like CRISPR-Cas9 can allow us to genetically modify the plants in order to ensure adequate growth and yields of the plants even in an increased temperature and CO2 level scenario.

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

Q1. Which of the following statement/s is/are correct with respect to 
Carbon fertilization effect?

Q2. Which of the following statement/s is/are incorrect with respect to the 
UN Human Rights Council?

Q3. Which of the following statement/s is/are correct with respect to superconductivity?

Q4. Which of the following statement/s is/are correct with respect to Sir Syed Ahmed Khan?

18 Oct 2020 CNA:- Download PDF Here