InstaLinks :  help you think beyond the issue but relevant to the issue from UPSC prelims and Mains exam point of view. These linkages provided in this ‘hint’ format help you frame possible questions in your mind that might arise(or an examiner might imagine) from each current event. InstaLinks also connect every issue to their static or theoretical background. This helps you study a topic holistically and add new dimensions to every current event to help you think analytically

3. Not centres of learning yet

1. Explained: How should public sector banks be privatized?

Content for Mains Enrichment (Ethics/Essay)

3. Legal Aid Defense Counsel System (LADCS)

4. MoU for smooth movement of seafarers

5. New norms to ease doing business

10. International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA)

Syllabus: Government Policies and Interventions

Direction: A few recommendations can be incorporated into your Mains notes. It is an important scheme. Do know basic facts about it.

Context: Parliamentary Standing Committee on Rural Development and Panchayati Raj’ released an action taken report on MGNREGA. The government has accepted 26 of the 33 recommendations made.

Suggestions by the Panel and action taken

It guarantees “the right to work”, by legally providing at least 100 days of wage employment in rural India.

Discuss the key features and significance of MGNREGA.

Link it with what are the roles of Gram Sabha, Gram Panchayat, States, State Food Commission, and Centre, who conducts the social audit.

Syllabus: Government Policies and Interventions

Source: The Hindu, The New Indian Express

Directions: Just know the issue. No need to take notes.

Context: Recent controversy around, now scrapped, Delhi Excise Policy

Understanding the issue: Delhi government introduced a new “New Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22” last year, in order to ensure the complete withdrawal of the government from the liquor business and handing over licences to the private sector.

Initially, it did help the government increase revenue by 27 per cent to Rs 8,900 crores and removal of the dominance of the liquor mafia.

However, issue with the Policy:

The controversy around Mr Sisodia: He holds the excise portfolio, and is under the lens for allegedly providing “undue financial favours” to liquor licensees.

Q. The New Delhi Excise Policy 2021-22, sought to ensure optimum revenue for the State government. Critically analyze.

An excise or excise tax (sometimes called an excise duty) is a type of tax charged on goods produced within the country (as opposed to customs duties, charged on goods from outside the country). It is a tax on the production or sale of a good.

Syllabus: Issues related to the development of the social sector

Directions: This is an editorial article. Government Programmes such as ICDS, and Swachh Bharat are important. Always have a few points ready for them.

 Context: Anganwadi system, part of the Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) serves over 30 million children in the age group of 3-6 in 1.3 million centres across the country.

 Issue of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS):

Q. The concept of Mid Day Meal (MDM) scheme is almost a century old in India with early beginnings in the Madras Presidency in pre-independent India. The scheme has again been given impetus in most states in the last two decades. Critically examine its twin objectives, latest mandates and success.(UPSC 2013)

Which of the following is/are beneficiaries under ICDS(Anganwadi services)?

Select the correct answer using the codes given below:

All three are beneficiaries under ICDS

Direction: This is an editorial explained article. We had already discussed this issue in detail in last month’s article.  This article will add only unique points left out. Just note a few important points on nationalization (not every point should be noted down)

Context: In the Union Budget 2021-22, the government announced its decision to privatise two public sector banks.

A recent paper by Poonam Gupta of NCAER and Arvind Panagariya argues that “the government should move as rapidly as politically feasible”. Meaning privatizing all except the State Bank of India.

Why Privatize?  (As per the study)

Private ownership alone does not automatically generate economic gains in developing economies’ and a more cautious and nuanced evaluation of privatization is required.

Q. What were the factors that led to the nationalisation of banks? Examine its impact on economic development and job creation. (15M)

Consider the following statements: (UPSC 2019)

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

Both statement 2 and 3 are incorrect. Coal is allotted in auction and India still imports coals (especially coking coal)

The basic aim of Lead Bank Scheme is that ( UPSC 2012)

(a) big banks should try to open offices in each district

(b) there should be stiff competition among the various nationalized banks

(c) individual banks should adopt particular districts for intensive development

(d) all the banks should make intensive efforts to mobilize deposits

The Lead Bank Scheme, introduced in the year 1969, envisages the assignment of lead roles to individual banks for the districts allotted to them.

Direction: Keep a rough note on women in various fields such as women in defence, women in the judiciary, women in parliament, women in the social sector, women freedom fighters, women revolutionaries, and so on. For this article, no need to remember data, just know the trend and a few schemes related to women.

Context: As per the Department of Science and Technology data, the number of women scientists has gone up in over the past two decades.

Some famous names: Tessy Thomas, Soumya Swaminathan, Gagandeep Kang, N Kalaiselvi, and Annapurni Subramaniam.

While policies and leadership roles are excellent incentive models, the further benefit could come from a system of mentoring and availability of funds, especially for those who want to get back into the workforce after a hiatus.

Link it with women’s contribution in various fields and challenges they face e.g., last year UPSC asked Qn on Women in the judiciary.

Q. Counting more women in science and applied technologies is dire for the progress of society. Discuss. (15M)

Link it with various schemes for women.

“We must consider the time and the place, and the character of the receiver, which is the weights in the scale, which cause our gifts to be well or ill received.” – Seneca

Philanthropy can be defined as an act or gift done or made for humanitarian purposes.

In pre-independent India, Mahatma Gandhi encouraged businessmen to contribute their wealth for the betterment of society. Industrialists like Jamnalal Bajaj and G.D. Birla supported Mahatma Gandhi’s initiatives during the freedom movement while pursuing their own philanthropic interests.

America: Carnegie-Rockefeller era of philanthropy.

The way forward for philanthropy in India:

Context: As part of a pilot project, the Ashramshalas, residential schools covered under the Tribal Development Project Office, in Nandurbar taluka in Maharashtra, have been experimenting with a unique way to learn.

The pilot, called ‘Vedh Project’, is based on the novel concept of heutagogy, a student-centred instructional strategy. 

Here, teachers are facilitators, who, instead of following the fixed pattern of facing the class and conducting lessons, set challenges for students and encourage them to learn their curricula by developing innovative methods on their own, in the form of group activities.

Direction: Just go though once.

 Context: Speaker Om Birla will unveil a statue of the freedom fighter and agricultural scientist during his visit to Mexico.

Pandurang Khankhoje (1883-1967) was a Maharashtra-born freedom fighter and agriculturalist.

Directions: Cloudburst has been in the news continuously, so try to understand this concept.

 Context: Over 20 people have been killed in the destruction caused by cloudbursts and flash floods in different parts of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand recently.

A cloudburst is a localised but intense rainfall activity. Short spells of very heavy rainfall over a small geographical area can cause widespread destruction, especially in hilly regions where this phenomenon is the most common.

A cloudburst has a very specific definition: Rainfall of 10 cm or more in an hour over a roughly 10 km x 10-km area is classified as a cloudburst event.

Cloudbursts are not uncommon events, particularly during the monsoon months. Most of these happen in the Himalayan states where the local topology, wind systems, and temperature gradients between the lower and upper atmosphere facilitate the occurrence of such events.

Specific cloudburst events cannot be forecast. No forecast ever mentions a possibility of a cloudburst. But there are warnings for heavy to very heavy rainfall events, and these are routinely forecast four to five days in advance.

While the overall amount of rainfall in India has not changed substantially, an increasing proportion of the rainfall is happening in a short span of time. This kind of pattern, attributed to climate change, does suggest that cloudburst events might also be on the rise.

Direction: Know the basics of NALSA and its programme, and how it helps attain the constitutional promise of free legal aid (Article 39A)

 Context: NALSA has launched LADCS with full-time legal aid lawyers in 365 district legal services authorities across India.

LADC is a NALSA-funded project to provide free legal aid (in line with the Public defender system) to accused persons to defend themselves in criminal trials.

NALSA has been constituted under the Legal Services Authorities Act, 1987, to provide free legal services to weaker sections of society.

‘Nyaya Deep’ is the official newsletter of NALSA.

Composition: Chief Justice of India shall be the Patron-in-Chief, Second senior-most judge of the Supreme Court of India is the Executive-Chairman.

Issues remaining: Number of cases with NALSA especially on the criminal side is only about 10-12% (while the rest of the marginalized population was engaging in private counsel at exorbitant cost)

Context: India and Iran signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on recognition of Certificates of Competency in Unlimited Voyages to help seafarers from both countries as per the provisions of the International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers (1978).

A seafarer voyage means an uninterrupted period when the sailor carries out his assigned duties or performs work assigned on board a ship

International Convention on Standards of Training, Certification and Watchkeeping for Seafarers(STCW) 1978 convention:

Direction: Go through it once.

Context: Loan defaulters and entities under probe need NOC to invest overseas

Aim: The new norms for Indian investors are aimed at making it easier for domestic corporates to invest abroad while making it tougher for loan defaulters and others being probed by investigative agencies and regulators to shift funds out of the country.

Context: ONGC stated drilling its first well at Puga (Ladakh) to generate electricity using geothermal power to reduce the dependence of Ladakh on diesel-run generators.

Puga hot spring area, located at the junction of the Indian and Tibetan plates along the Indus Suture Zone, has the greatest potential for the near-term development of geothermal energy in the Indian subcontinent

Context: A recent study published in Environment Science and Technology has found that rainwater from many places across the globe is contaminated with “per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances,” (PFAs), which are called “forever chemicals” because of their tendency to stick around in the atmosphere, rainwater and soil for long periods of time.

According to the US Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), PFAs are man-made chemicals used to make nonstick cookware, water-repellent clothing, stain-resistant fabrics, cosmetics, firefighting forms and many other products that resist grease, water and oil.

Context: Concerted effort by countries like the United States, Japan, Korea, Taiwan and Mexico for decades to check overfishing, has reaped results. The biomass of the Pacific Bluefin Tuna has increased and is second-highest in recorded history.

The Pacific bluefin tuna (Thunnus Orientalis) is a predatory species of tuna found widely in the northern Pacific Ocean, but it is migratory and also recorded as a visitor to the south Pacific.

Direction: Go through it once. No need to make a note.

Context: A new infection dubbed tomato flu, or tomato fever, has been detected in India mostly among children younger than five, according to a report in the Lancet Respiratory Journal.

India was placed jointly in the third position along with Singapore, behind Iran’s official team (5 golds) and guest team (4 golds, 1 silver).

209 students from 37 main and 06 guest teams participated in this year’s IOAA. This year’s competition was originally scheduled to be held in Kyiv, Ukraine; it was shifted to Kutaisi, Georgia in March 2022 due to the war in Ukraine.

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