09 Sep 2019: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

Context:

A recent publication by the Anthropological Survey of India (AnSI) throws more light on the alleged killing of American national John Allen Chau by the Sentinelese on the North Sentinel Island of Andaman and Nicobar islands, and also the ways of one of the most isolated tribes in the world.

Background:

• On November 14 2018, American national John Allen Chau left Port Blair and reached the North Sentinel Island at night.
• He spent the entire day of November 15 with the Sentinelese and on the night when he met the fishermen who had transported him to the island, he gave them the dairy in which he had recorded his experience of the day.
• Some bits of Mr. Chau’s diary, written in illegible handwriting, are in the public domain.
• It not only records his experiences with the Sentinelese, but also contains some sketches he had done of their huts.
• Chau was eventually killed by the Sentinelese.

Who are Sentinelese?

• The Sentinelese, a negrito tribe who live on the North Sentinel Island of the Andamans, have not faced incursions and remain hostile to outsiders.
• The inhabitants are connected to the Jarawa on the basis of physical, as well as linguistic similarities, researchers say.
• Based on carbon dating of kitchen middens by the Anthropological Survey of India, Sentinelese presence was confirmed in the islands to 2,000 years ago.
• Genome studies indicate that the Andaman tribes could have been on the islands even 30,000 years ago.

How are they protected?

• The Govt. of India issued the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation, 1956 to declare the traditional areas occupied by the tribes as reserves, and prohibited entry of all persons except those with authorisation.
• Photographing or filming the tribe members is also an offence.
• The rules were amended later to enhance penalties.
• But restricted area permits have been relaxed for some islands.

Have they made contact?

• The Sentinelese have been fiercely hostile to outside contact.
• But in 1991 they accepted some coconuts from a team of Indian anthropologists and administrators.
• Some researchers argue that the Sentinelese have been mostly left alone even from colonial times, unlike other tribes such as the Onges, Jarawas and Great Andamanese, because the land they occupy has little commercial attraction.

How many are there?

• From 1901 to 1921 they were estimated to be 117 people.
• In 1931, the number dropped to 50, a figure used for the 1961 Census too.
• In 1991 their headcount was put at 23. Census 2001 counted 39 inhabitants.

Details:

• Titled The Sentinelese of the North Sentinel Island: A reprisal of Tribal Scenario in an Andaman Island in context of Killing of an American Preacher,the paper published in the journal of AnSI discusses in detail the “mission” of the American national, the possibility of retrieval of the dead body and also the charge of murder which the police in the Andamans have pressed against unknown tribal members of Sentinelese Community.
• Chau’s journal is an extremely important anthropological document as he is the only person to have spent an entire day on the island, and to have seen the tribesmen from very close proximity.
• Chau’s death was not the first of its kind in North Sentinel Island.
  • In March 1896, three convicts escaped from Andamans and drifted to the North Sentinel Island where they tried to escape in a raft made of bamboo. While two of them drowned, the third person was speared to death by the tribal people.
  • The second incident took place in January 2006, when two fishermen, were reportedly killed by the Sentinelese when the latter were illegally collecting mud crabs in the protected area.
  • The publication states that there were attempts to reach out to the Sentinelese in the 1970s, which turned out to be futile.
  • On one occasion the contact party had released some pigs on the island, in the hope that the tribesmen would accept them. However, the pigs were immediately killed and buried in the sand.
• The chain of incidents, including the latest, clearly shows Sentinelese attitude towards the outsiders, that the so-called ‘ civilized’ are no more welcome to their island.
• Another interesting aspect that the paper looks into is the repeal of the Restricted Area Permit (RAP) in August 2018, when the Home Ministry dropped the restrictions for visiting the 29 inhabited Islands, including the North Sentinel Island.

Way forward:

• The paper emphasises on the “Hands off, Eyes on” approach of the administration towards the Sentinelese.
• It is recommended that circumnavigation of the island should be carried out to keep a vigil to ward off and report on any attempt by outsiders to stray into the territory.
• It is opined that it is important, to make systematic observations of the Sentinelese and their territory from a distance.
• A rigorous conscientisation programme among the fishermen of Wandoor, Chidiyatapur and Port Blain areas is also essential.

Context:

Acute malnutrition among Saharia tribes is continuing to take away lives.

Saharia Tribes:

• Saharias are a particularly vulnerable tribal group.
• The Saharia are an ethnic group in the state of Madhya Pradesh, India.
• They are also found in Baran district of Rajasthan.
• The tribe members believe in Folk Hinduism’s gods and goddess that they worship.
• The Sahariya tribe health is very poor. There is a prevalence of malnutrition and pulmonary tuberculosis.

Details:

• Acute malnutrition among Saharia tribes is continuing to take away lives, due to crushing poverty, delayed breastfeeding, premature pregnancies and seasonal migrations.
• India, in the 2018 Global Hunger Index, ranked an abysmal 103 out of 119 countries, consistently showing a downward trend on wasting and undernourishment parameters.
• There is prevalence of superstitious beliefs among the tribe, such as a newborn has to be fed jaggery syrup or honey, as the first milk is impure because it is extracted from breasts after nine long months.
• According to the National Family Health Survey 2014-2015, just 43.2% of children under three were breastfed within the first hour of their birth in rural parts of Sheopur district.
• Seasonal migration also affects children, especially girls, as parents mostly take them along with them to fields where they are neglected, wander under the sun, don’t get food, and contract diseases easily during the monsoon.
• An Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) study revealed that, among Saharias, TB prevalence is an alarming 1,995 per 1,00,000 persons.
• RNTCP-DOTS programme is working effectively to change this condition.
• It is opined that higher incidence of tuberculosis among Saharias is linked to the high malnutrition level among them and vice versa.

Context:

President Donald Trump has announced that he has cancelled a secret meeting at Camp David with Taliban leaders and the president of Afghanistan and has called off months-long negotiations that had appeared to be nearing a peace agreement.

What was this deal, and how had it been negotiated?

• While no details of the draft agreement had been made public, the US Special Envoy Zalmay Khalilzad had told the Afghan media organisation TOLO that the two sides had reached an agreement “in principle” that the United States would withdraw some 5,000 troops within 135 days or five months starting from the signing of the agreement.
• The top US diplomat, an Afghan American, who led the talks which began in January 2019, had said, however, that President Trump would still have to sign off on the agreement.
• The draft agreement, which was reached after nine rounds of talks between Khalilzad and the Taliban in Doha, Qatar, was for the US troops to withdraw from five bases in Afghanistan in this period.
• No timeline was finalised for the US to pull out its 14,000 troops in Afghanistan, but a period of 14 months had been mentioned in the past.
• Trump himself had said at one point that some 8,000 troops would remain.
• In return, the Taliban were said to have committed to not allow “enemies of the US” namely Daesh/ISIS and Al Qaeda — to set up base in Afghanistan.
• The Taliban were also said by some to have agreed to not attack the withdrawing American troops.

Details:

• American diplomats have been talking with Taliban representatives for months seeking to agree to a plan to withdraw thousands of American troops in exchange for security guarantees by the Taliban.
• The recent announcement has plunged into crisis what had appeared to be a done deal, and appeared to acknowledge that the planned full withdrawal from America’s 18-year-old.
• Almost 4,000 Afghan civilians were killed or wounded in the first half of 2019 in the war against militant groups, including a big increase in the number of casualties caused by government and foreign forces, according to the United Nations
• It had been expected at one point that the US would get the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire. But that did not work out.
• Finally, the only real expectation was for a reduction in violence in some parts of Afghanistan.
• India feared US bid could plunge Afghanistan back into a civil war and enable Pakistan to move jihadis towards India.
• The deal was seen in New Delhi as a withdrawal agreement rather than a peace deal.
• This sentiment was echoed by many in the region — the Afghan government itself and almost all of the Central Asian republics.
• It is opined that India’s decision to strip Article 370 in J&K, while always on the Modi government’s agenda, was triggered by the prospect of increased regional instability once the Pakistan-Taliban-US deal came into being.
• The US attempt to whitewash the Taliban as it headed for the exit would do two things —
  • Plunge Afghanistan back into a civil war and
  • Enable Pakistan to move its jihadis towards India, particularly Kashmir.
• Indian government also feared that a post Soviet situation could return to Afghanistan, and spill over into Kashmir.
• That the impending “peace” deal was in trouble was clear when US secretary of state Mike Pompeo declared he would not sign it, despite saying in June that September 1, 2019 was a deadline.

What happens now?

• Since January 2019, there has been a steady spike in attacks as the Taliban have leveraged violence to buttress their bargaining position, and tried to take control of as much territory as they could before the agreement with the US was finalised.
• President Ashraf Ghani’s government was not included in the US-Taliban talks. This was the Taliban precondition for the talks. The Taliban consider the elected Afghan government a “puppet” or “proxy” of the US.
• But even at that time, it was unclear if the Taliban had committed to participate in those talks as part of their agreement with Khalilzad, the special U.S. envoy for peace in Afghanistan.
• A full peace agreement to end more than 18 years of war would depend on “intra-Afghan” talks involving officials and civil society leaders as well as further agreement on issues including the remainder of the roughly 14,000-strong U.S. forces as well as thousands of other NATO troops.
• Now, with even the deal with the US cancelling the peace talks, all bets are off.

C. GS3 Related

Category: ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

1. Nilgiri tahr’s population up by 27% in three years

Context:

There has been a huge increase in Chinese deep-sea fishing trawlers in the southern Indian Ocean far from the Chinese coast which has raised concerns in the government and the security establishment.

Details:

• In the last four years, on an average at least 500 Chinese trawlers were present in the region and around 32,250 incidents per year were recorded.
• The trawlers were, however, not in India’s Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) but beyond.
• This includes trawlers from China, Hong Kong and Taiwan.
• There were 1,100 occurrences near Somalia and 1,500 occurrences near the Coast of Oman.
• Occurrences are recordings of the Automatic Identification System (AIS) aboard trawlers and ships recorded when they are activated.
• A trawler can be recorded multiple times based on its AIS signature.
  • The maritime movements in the region are tracked at the Navy’s Information Management and Analysis Centre (IMAC) at Gurugram, which is the single-point centre interlinking all the coastal radar chains and other inputs along the coastline.
  • The AIS information comprises name, MMSI number, position, course, speed, last port visited, destination and so on.
  • This information can be picked up through various AIS sensors including coastal AIS chains and satellite based receivers.
• Chinese trawlers have institutional backing and have processing facilities with them which are sold in the vicinity.
• While India has good inland fishing, the ocean fishing capacity is way below capacity.
• There have been recommendations for the need to boost domestic deep-sea fishing.

Way forward:

• To address the issue, the National Maritime Domain Awareness initiative aims to integrate fishing, ports, customs so that the database is available to everyone.
• Currently, the States have their databases. As part of this evolving mechanism, the National Committee for Strengthening Maritime and Coastal Security is scheduled to meet to discuss the implementation.
• There has been a national effort to install AIS systems on ships under 20m for which a pilot study has been carried out.
• AIS works through satellite and the ISRO has already delivered 1000 transponders for trails in Gujarat and Tamil Nadu.

Exclusive Economic Zone:

• An Exclusive Economic Zone or EEZ is a zone in the sea approved by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea.
• Over this zone, a nation-state has exclusive special rights for exploring and using the marine resources.
• This right is also extended to the production of energy from wind and water.
• It extends from the baseline to two hundred nautical miles from the coast of the concerned country.
• In colloquial practice, the term can also contain the continental shelf.
• Generally, a state’s exclusive right extends up to 200 nautical miles but there are exceptions to this rule such as whenever exclusive economic zones overlap, i.e., the baselines of the state coasts are under 400 nautical miles apart.
• The continental shelf or the territorial sea over 200 nautical miles is not included in this term.
• In a territorial sea, the state has complete sovereignty or authority over it.
• But in case of EEZ, a “sovereign right” is conferred to the state’s rights below sea waters. The surface waters are international waters.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Concerns:

• Over 25 years after the 73rd and 74th constitutional very little and actual progress has been made.
• Local governments remain hamstrung and ineffective; mere agents to do the bidding of higher-level governments.

73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments:

• 73rd and 74th Constitutional Amendments were passed by Parliament in December, 1992.
• Through these amendments local self-governance was introduced in rural and urban India.
• It was meant to provide constitutionalsanction to establish “democracy at the grassroots level as it is at the state level or national level”.
• Establishment of panchayats and municipalities as elected local governments, devolving a range of powers and responsibilities, made them accountable to the people for their implementation.

Details:

• The Constitution mandates that panchayats and municipalities shall be elected every five years and enjoins States to devolve functions and responsibilities to them through law.
• Given diverse habitation patterns, political and social history, it makes sense to mandate States to assign functions to local governments.
• A study for the Fourteenth Finance Commission by the Centre for Policy Research, shows that all States have formally devolved powers with respect to five core functions of water supply, sanitation, roads and communication, streetlight provision and the management of community assets to the gram panchayats.

Issues:

• Democracy has not been enhanced in spite of about 32 lakh peoples’ representatives being elected to them every five years, with great expectation and fanfare.
• Devolution, envisioned by the Constitution, is not mere delegation. It implies that precisely defined governance functions are formally assigned by law to local governments, backed by adequate transfer of a basket of financial grants and tax handles, and they are given staff so that they have the necessary wherewithal to carry out their responsibilities.
• Above all, local governments are to report primarily to their voters, and not so much to higher level departments. Yet, none of this has happened.
• The constraint lies in the design of funding streams that transfer money to local governments.
  • The volume of money set apart for them is inadequate to meet their basic requirements.
  • Much of the money given is inflexible; even in the case of untied grants mandated by the Union and State Finance Commissions, their use is constrained through the imposition of several conditions.
  • There is little investment in enabling and strengthening local governments to raise their own taxes and user charges.
• Local governments do not have the staff to perform even basic tasks. As most staff are hired by higher level departments and placed with local governments on deputation, they do not feel responsible to the latter; they function as part of a vertically integrated departmental system.
• In violation of the constitutional mandate of five-yearly elections to local governments, States have often postponed them.
  • In 2005, a Supreme Court constitutional bench held that under no circumstances can such postponements be allowed.
  • Supreme Court rejected alibis for election postponement, such as delays in determining the seat reservation matrix, or fresh delimitation of local government boundaries.
  • Yet, in Tamil Nadu, panchayat elections have not been held for over two years now, resulting in the State losing finance commission grants from the Union government.
• The current Union government has further centralised service delivery by using technology, and panchayats are nothing more than front offices for several Union government programmes.
• The ‘Smart City’ programme does not devolve its funds to the municipalities; States have been forced to constitute ‘special purpose vehicles’ to ring fence these grants lest they are tainted by mixing them up with municipality budgets.

Corruption in panchayats and municipalities:

• Criminal elements and contractors are attracted to local government elections, tempted by the large sums of money now flowing to them. They win elections through bribing voters and striking deals with different groups.
• A market chain of corruption operates, involving a partnership between elected representatives and officials at all levels.
• Yet, there is no evidence to show that corruption has increased due to decentralisation.

Way forward:

• The gram sabhas and wards committees in urban areas have to be revitalised.
• Cosmetic reforms of the gram sabha by videography of their meetings, does little for democracy. Consultations with the grama sabha could be organised through smaller discussions where everybody can really participate.
• Even new systems of Short Message Services, or social media groups could be used for facilitating discussions between members of a grama sabha.
• Local government organisational structures have to be strengthened. Panchayats are burdened with a huge amount of work that other departments thrust on them, without being compensated for the extra administrative costs.
• Local governments must be enabled to hold State departments accountable and to provide quality, corruption free service to them, through service-level agreements.
• Local governments are reluctant to collect property taxes and user charges fully. The connection between tax payment and higher accountability is well known. These lessons must not be ignored.

Conclusion:

India’s efforts in decentralisation represent one of the largest experiments in deepening democracy. Decentralisation is always a messy form of democracy, but it is far better than the operation of criminal politicians at the higher level who appropriate huge sums of tax-payer money, without any of us having a clue. Life must be given to this structure, through the practice of a robust democratic culture. It is important for us to hold our local governments to account.

2. An arbitrary transfer, a graceful resignation

Q1. Consider the following statements with respect to “Sentinelese” tribes :

Q2. Nilgiri Tahr is the state animal of:

Q3. Consider the following statements:

Q4. Consider the following statements: