Targeting UPSC CSE

 renewed push to take forward military modernisation plans amid a number of territorial and maritime disputes. its second aircraft carrier, the Shandong , which was the first indigenous aircraft carrier. It is already been deployed in the Taiwan Straits and in the South China Sea, where tensions with the U.S. have flared and is likely to be combat ready next year. Shandong joined  Liaoning, a  retrofitted soviet era cruiser and commissioned in 2012. Two larger aircraft carriers are being built at the Jiangnan Shipyard near Shanghai, likely to be launched in 2021.

 Four separate surveys  migrant workers domestic workers, employment generated by professionals, transport sector. To be done from Mar-Oct 2021. the four labour Codes being implemented by the government would protect the workers’ interest and lead to increasing productivity. Labour Bureau had conducted the first of its kind Quarterly Employment Surveys of enterprises that would be relaunched in a new format soon.

 The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs, approved three infrastructure proposals estimated at  ₹7725 Crore for setting up greenfield industrial cities with connectivity to major transport corridors ( such as Eastern Western Freight corridors, Expressways and National Highways. The three projects, proposed by the Department of Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade, include  construction of various trunk infrastructure components for the Krishnapatnam Industrial Area in Andhra Pradesh , Tumakuru Industrial Area in Karnataka,   a multimodal logistics  hub (MMLH) and multimodal transport hub (MMTH) at Greater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.  CCEA approved ₹ 3,004.63crore project to enhance the facilities at Paradip Port , including the development of a Western dock to accommodate the larger cape size vessels the MMTH located  near the already existing railway station of Boraki will act as a transport hub with provisioning of rail and road.  It will h...

Cabinet approved modified scheme for interest subvention for Ethanol production, expanding scheme   to include grain based distilleries along with molasses based ones. It will encourage production using grains like barley, corn, maize, rice. It would boost production and distillation capacity to 1,000 crore litres and help in meeting the goal of 20% ethanol blending with petrol by 2030. The government would bear interest subvention for first five years including one year moratorium against the loan availed by project proponents from banks at 6% pa or 50% Rate of interest charged by bank , which ever is lower.

 As part of effort to boost Defence Export, Cabinet approved export of the indigenously developed and manufactured Akash short range Surface to Air Missile (SAM) system. The Akash missile has a  range of 25 km and can  engage multiple targets. Besides Akash, there was interest coming in for other major platforms such as the Coastal  Surveillance System, radars and air platforms.

 It was upgraded to Dibru Saikhowa National Park from Dibru Saikhowa Wildlife Sanctuary in 1999. It houses few wild horses.  It is  located in Dibrugarh and Tinsukia districts.  Dodhia and Lyka villages located inside Dibru-Saikhowa tiol Park have been inhabited by people mainly from the Mising community. It saw an blowout in OIL gas well in the vicinity, since 27 may 2020. Assam Chief Minister Sarbananda Sonowal has asked the State’s Forest and Revenue departments to p ermanently rehabilitate the indigenous forest dwellers of the Dibru Saikhowa National Park within January 31. The affected persons belong to Mising community.

 The opening of the missions will help expand India’s diplomatic footprint, deepen political relations, enable growth of bilateral trade, investment and economic engagements, facilitate stronger people to people contacts, bolster political outreach in multilateral fora and help garner support for the foreign  policy objectives.

 CrPC was amended in 2018 and the period of investigation was reduced from 90 to 60 days for all cases of rape. Andha pradesh's Disha Bill 2019: temporarily down. clause investigation to be completed within a week. Maharashtra's Shakti Act 2020 : investigation to be completed within 15 days the time of investigation depends on  the severity of the crime,  the number of accused persons and agencies involved.  It includes examination of the scene of crime by the investigating officer IO and forensic expert; recording the statement of the victim (by the IO and the judicial magistrate) and witnesses; medical examination of the victim (at a place where a female doctor is available) and accused persons; collecting documents relating to age from parents, local bodies and school (in case of child victim and delinquents); DNA findings of the forensic science lab (FSL); test identification parade of accused persons (if not initially named); seizing weapons of offence, arr...

 In a study of 120 unique variants reported in literature based on genome sequencing of the SARSCoV2 virus, the team found that 86 were genetic variants associated with immune escapes.  Of the 86 variants, nine had over 1% frequency in the respective countries. Variant N440K : frequency of 2.1% in India, Prevalence in A.P. Identified in UK, Denmark, Australia.an example of Homoplasy. found in healthcare worker, who was reinfected. N501Y : independently emerged in UK, then in South Africa. Made virus more transmissible.

Homoplasy is the ability of a mutation/variant to emerge independently in different genetic linkages. Ex. N440K variant of novel Corona Virus found in India, UK, Denmark, Australia.

Launched, Coordinated by Department of Biotechnology along with MoH&FW , ICMR, CSIR. A im is to monitor the genomic variations in the SARS-CoV-2 on a regular basis through a multi-laboratory network. It is c omprising 10 labs namely DBT-NIBMG Kalyani, DBT-ILS Bhubaneswar, ICMR-NIV Pune, DBT-NCCS Pune, CSIR-CCMB Hyderabad, DBT-CDFD Hyderabad, DBT-InSTEM/ NCBS Bengaluru, NIMHANS Bengaluru, CSIR-IGIB Delhi, and NCDC Delhi. the preliminary  study indicates that the variant is unlikely  to cause increased risk of reinfection,  the new variant might not spread wildly here  due to difficulty in finding susceptible persons since 40-50% of urban India particularly in Tier 1 & 2 cities and about 30% people across India would have already been infected. India has so far sequenced around 6300 genomes of this virus in contrast UK has nearly 157000 genome sequenced even when their cases are around quarter of cases in India. It will help in boosting  India's Defe...

 Catastrophic climate events including major bushfires in Australia, US. Tropical cyclones devastating floods in India, China, Nepal, Japan - washing miles of fertile soil, displacing livelihood ex. Bihar floods Climate Change Outbreaks of violence Persian gulf crisis deepens with killing of Iranian General & Iraqi Commander by US Drone attack in January. Assassination of Iranian Nuclear Scientist Bloody civil wars in Afghanistan, Armenian-Azerbaijan, Central African Republic of Congo, Syria, Iraq, and in Ethiopia between Ruling Government and TPLF ( Tigray People Liberation front) Rohingya Muslims fleeing their home in fear of ethnic cleansing, Wuhan Virus spread, COVID 19 and its mutants pandemic unplanned Lockdowns across world, Abrogation to special status of Jammu and Kashmir, and its bifurcation, Shaheen bagh Protest  against Indian Citizenship Amendment Act, mass protest in US against Racial killing by police amids pandemic, Farmers agitation amids pandemic at Delhi...

Whether the government should be using the taxpayers’ money to provide subsidies to the farming community in this country. 1. why have successive governments used the exchequer to provide farm subsidies. 2. How large is India’s spending on farm subsidies as compared to those of other countries having substantial interests in agriculture? In 1950 -51                    Seven decades later agriculture’s share in GDP                     45% below 16% the share of dependent workforce nearly 70% almost 50% Farmers consistly faced adverse terms of trade vis-a-vis non farmers. There is a lack of meaningful investment in agriculture which would not only ensures efficient use of resources but could be a crucial step to boost farm incomes. Total investment undertaken in country fell from 18% in 1950s to around 11% by 1980s. More recent data from 2014-15 to 2018 -2019 shows the avera...

December 20 : Nepal PM K.P. Sharma Oli’s decision to dissolve Parliament and call for elections. China:  a senior delegation of the Communist Party of China to Kathmandu within days of  Oli’s controversial decision.

  The  Narcotics Control Bureau   was set up as apex  drug  law enforcement agency with view to coordinate actions of various central/state agencies in the matters related with  drug  law in the country.   NCB under the Ministry of Home Affairs , Government of India.  The agency is tasked with combating drug trafficking and the use of illegal substances under the provisions of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act 1985. The National Policy on Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances is based on the Directive Principles, contained in Article 47 of the Indian Constitution, which direct the State to endeavour to bring about prohibition of the consumption, except for medicinal purposes, of intoxicating drugs injurious to health. India is a signatory to the single Convention on Narcotic Drugs 1961, as amended by the 1972 Protocol, the Conventions on Psychotropic Substances, 1971 and the United Nations Convention against Illicit Traffic...

 the creation of a special wing in the Odisha State police to deal with offences against women and children announced by CM.

 There are currently 16 different facial recognition tracking system FRT in active utilization across India for surveillance, security, or authentication of identity.  Another 17 are in possess of utilization for various government departments. There are no specific guidelines to regulate this potential invasive technology. In 2018, Delhi police became first law enforcement agency to use this in country. Police got permission to use the FRS by an order of the Delhi High Court for tracking missing children. AFRS, automatic facial recognition system is an ambitious pan India project under the Home Ministry which will be used by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) and various States’ law enforcement departments. The basis of the AFRS is a Cabinet note of 2009. Issue: legal experts say, it poses a huge threat to the fundamental rights to privacy and freedom of speech and expression because it does not satisfy the threshold the Supreme Court had set in its landmark pri...

 A function creep happens when someone uses information for a purpose that is not the original specific purpose.

 Four issues De-criminalisation of stubble burning Safeguarding Power subsidy Repeal of 3 farm market laws Legal Guarantee of MSP for farm produce Government agreed to not to penalise stubble burning and to safeguard power subsidies. Government should also take in consideration that : Subsidised power and lopsided incentive structures have built cropping patterns that are no longer sustainable.  Large sections of farmers meanwhile continue to languish in debt and fear.  Farmer concerns are not uniform across India. Reforms are necessary to ensure that India has a productive, sustainable and remunerative agriculture sector. The r eports of the National Commission on Farmers , chaired by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, and other government committees have suggested solutions.  The Centre must engage with the farmers, political parties and States on the economic and  environmental issues at stake.

  The rapid decline in growth rates (2018-19 and 2019-20) triggered the rise in unemployment, the pandemic made it worse and the unplanned lockdowns exacerbated the situation. 130 million persons lost their jobs or livelihoods. The abiding lesson of 2020 is that a nation will suffer if there is a decline in three measures — work, wealth and welfare. work is pleasurable, enhances esteem, earns rewards and determines one’s standing among peers and in the society-at-large. By last count, the unemployment rate in India was 8.7 % (CMIE, December 22, 2020) . In between, there are people who do not wish to join the work force and there are people who are home workers who are not counted as part of the work force.  If the GDP grows, wealth is enhanced, and the average share of a citizen in the pie (per capita income) is larger. A combination of unemployment and slow (or negative) growth will impact welfare.  Food, healthcare and social security are indeed important, but welfare g...

 Government Procures farm produce at MSP through Food Cooperation of India. FCI is mandated to procure any amount of  produce (notified by CACP), which meets the standard set by government, from the farmer. Issues with procurement: Financial Burden on Government: They incur loss during buying and selling at less cost combined with financial expenses of storage and transportation.  Food wastage. Reduced supply in market due to procurement, causing increase in food inflation which in turn effect customers. Human resource required to man and provide services in FCI godowns. Leakages during transportation from FCI Godowns and PDS outlets. How to deal with the losses when these government-procured stocks are unloaded in the market, as they will invariably incur losses. And if stocks keep piling up, as is the case with wheat and rice today, how do we correct this imbalance in demand and supply?  In that case, either limit the size of procurement or go for price deficiency ...

L aunched in June 2020 amid the  pandemic . It is a micro-credit facility that provides street vendors a collateral-free loan of Rs 10,000 with low rates of interest for a period of one year. the scheme – part of the AtmaNirbhar Bharat package – has received 31,64,367 applications from across the country (except from S ikkim, which is officially not taking part in it). Why Launched?   nationwide lockdown left daily wage workers and  street vendors  out of work.   In the long term , it aims at establishing a credit score for the vendors as well as creating a digital record of their socio-economic status , so that they can avail the Central government schemes later. The scheme also attempts to  formalise the informal sector of the economy and  provide them safety nets and  a means of availing loans in the future. This loan charges below 12% rate of interest, and creates a credit score of the vendors, so that if they repay the loan on ...

  Our farmers always want a higher price for their produce, but higher food prices can also bring pains to poor consumers. The art of policymaking is to balance the interest of producers and consumers within reasonable financial resources.  In such a charged environment, rationality often becomes victim to anger and hatred, which does not serve anyone’s purpose, including the farmers’ therefore it is required to look for corrections without repealing all together. A major study at ICRIER conducted with OECD showed that over the period 2000-01 to 2016-17, Indian agriculture was implicitly taxed to the tune of almost 14% of its value, primarily due to restrictive trade and marketing policies, ranging from export controls and stocking limits to the restrictive mandi system. The way to improve farmers’ price realisation, therefore, was to liberate agriculture from these various controls. This has been a long-standing demand of one of the tallest farmer leaders, the late Sharad Jos...

National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India Ltd. NAFED  was established on the auspicious day of Gandhi Jayanti on 2nd October 1958.HQ at New Delhi. NAFED is an apex organization of marketing cooperatives for agricultural produce in India.

I n all these years since the MSP was given birth to in 1965 through a newly-constituted Agricultural Prices Commission, now renamed as Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices and the Food Corporation of India (FCI), only 6 per cent of farmers and broadly, 6 per cent of the value of agri-produce has benefitted from this system.  NSSO's Situation Assessment survey, 70th round revealed in 2012-13 , Only 6% of farmers sold their produce at MSP, majority of them were from Punjab-Haryana Belt. after that there is no survey available. Asking for making MSP a statutory binding even on the private sector will turn out to be anti-farmer as much of the private trade will shun such a system, leading to chaos.  

 Recently in controversy because of printing of picture of  jailed underworld Don Chota Rajan and  gangster  Munna Bajarangi( shot dead in 2018 in Baghpat Jail) on Stamps. Under this scheme, any person may submit soft or hard copy of their photographs or any other image to get them printed on stamps at the cost of Rs 300 per Stamp Sheet. this initiative extends the service of issuing postal stamps to its customers on their birthdays, marriages, and anniversary etc.

 India's First Driverless Train - DMRC's Delhi Metro's Magenta Line Target: To Expand Metro services to 25 cities, presently 18, by 2025.

 One does not cut off one's head because of headache.

 It is not just about minimum support prices but also about the survival of the entire system of public  procurement and distribution of food grains which, despite its drawbacks, continues to provide a modicum of food security to vast numbers of our population. Threat from Northern industrial countries :   Northern industrial countries, namely the US, Canada, EU cannot produce the tropical and subtropical crops in high demand because of climatic reason while they have mountains of surplus grain and dairy product s , and they require export markets for these.  For over two decades, they have put relentless pressure on developing countries to give up their own public procurement systems , insisting that they should buy their food grains from advanced countries, while d iverting their food crop producing land to c ontract farming of export crops that these industrial countries want but cannot produce. Dozens of developing countries including Philippines(mid 1990s) an...

 Eleven Opposition parties, including Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) and the Pakistan Muslim LeagueNawaz (PMLN), have formed a grand alliance, the Pakistan Democratic Movement (PDM ), which has been staging protests for months against Prime Minister Imran Khan’s government (his party, the Pakistan Tehreek e Insaf).  At Larkana, the PPP’s Bilawal BhuttoZardari and the PMLN’s Maryam Nawaz Sharif gave Mr. Khan a January 31 ultimatum to quit and call fresh elections. If he does not do so, they have threatened to launch a “long march to Islamabad”, which could shut down the capital city and worsen the crisis.

 Challenges for containing virus spread Elections Mass Protests scaling up of long distance Travel Infection spreading at workplace and commercial centers careless people infringed other citizens’ right to life by ignoring the use of masks and social distancing, while various protocols had failed to stop the virus spreading “like wildfire" due to lack of implementation Negative Impacts of Covid: On Campus education suspended many senior citizens unable to access periodic health care Economy facing recession and job loss Loss of livelihood and increase in Hunger and Malnutrition Difficulty in institutional Delivery Mortality Increased Health Burden and increased Prejudice Education impacted Increase in Domestic Violence Discrimination against COVID Patient Psychological stress and Increased Depression may Increase in Child marriages  Decline in  demand for both consumption and capital goods Decline in supply of goods and stock pilling of goods in apprehension of a lockdown...

  Fly ash  is a fine powder that is a byproduct of burning pulverized  coal  in electric generation power plants.   Fly ash  is a pozzolan, a substance containing aluminous and siliceous material that forms cement in the presence of water.  When mixed with lime and water,  fly ash  forms a compound similar to Portland cement.

 The National Green Tribunal (NGT) has directed a Faridabad based thermal power plant to explore utilization of fly ash in cement plants and also directed the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to monitor whether covering of the ash dump meets scientific environmental norms. NGT chairperson : Justice Adarsh Kumar Goel Issues: Environmental degradation, Air pollution during transportation, Health Hazards Opportunity: Boost to Solar Power Plants, Utilization of Fly Ash in Cement plants can reduce environmental pressure

loan-sharking is  incurring debts and borrowing loans at exorbitant rates. 

  “Transport  Bubbles ” or “ Air Travel  Arrangements” are temporary arrangements between two countries aimed at restarting commercial passenger services when regular international  flights  are suspended as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. source: Transport bubbles

SeroSurvey or Sero Prevalence Studies estimates the share of population that test positive for the antibodies using serology tests.  Recently, ICMR conducted Sero studies indicate higher values which estimates about 1/3rd of Indian population has attained immunity against COVID 19 which in turn signifies that India may attain Herd Immunity soon.

 Pagri sambhal Jatta movement was a violent peasant movement in 1907. It was caused due to the farmers agitation against British Laws such as Doab Bari Act, Punjab Land Consolidation Act and Punjab Land Alienation Act.  There was a peasant Rally at Lyallpur (presently in Pakistan) organised by Bhagat Singh's Uncle Ajit Singh and others in which Pagri Sambhal Oo Jatta was sang (Song by Banke Dayal) as an anthem against the British oppression. Britishers constructed Upper bari Doab Channel in 1879 to draw water from Chenab river to Lyallpur and provided land to peasants, area which were earlier un-inhabited area was now allotted to peasants thus they became master of the land and denied land ownership rights to the peasants.