DIKSHA IAS FEB 18 CURRENT AFFAIRS

 PRELIMS IMP

Asia Environmental Enforcement Award-2020

Prelims – Environment

1. The Wildlife Crime Control Bureau (WCCB) has received the Asia Environmental Enforcement Award-2020.

2. It is awarded by the United Nations Environment Programme.

3. This is the second award in three years by WCCB.

4. WCCB has been awarded this year under the Innovation category. Earlier, the Bureau had received the award in 2018 under the same category.

Source: AIR

International Solar Alliance

Prelims – Environment

1. The International Solar Alliance (ISA) plans to launch the World Solar Bank (WSB) at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Glasgow.

2. A development that will support India’s attempt to secure leadership in the climate arena.

3. The ISA is the first treaty-based international government organization headquartered in India.

4. This development is significant as the green finance because the priority themes of COP- 26 as the US re-joining the Paris climate accord.

5. The ISA was co-founded by India at the 2015 climate change conference in Paris.

Source: Live Mint

Software Defined Radio

Prelims – Science and Technology

1. Communication is vital and critical to all military operations.

2. Radios are to be replaced by indigenously developed Software Defined Radio (SDR) for communications in military operations.

3. SDR have enhanced data transmission capability, enhanced voice clarity and accuracy in noisy environments.

4. It supports multiple waveforms, greater system security and better communication survivability in a clear and secure mode.

5. The development is in sync with the “Aatmanirbhar Bharat” policy leading to “Self Reliance” in advanced communication systems.

Source: PIB

Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge

Prelims – Economy

1. The Smart Cities Mission announced 25 cities for the ‘Nurturing Neighbourhoods Challenge’ cohort.

2. The Challenge is a 3-year initiative aimed at supporting early childhood-friendly neighbourhoods under the government’s Smart Cities Mission.

3. The challenge focuses on the importance of neighbourhood-level interventions and engaging cities to shape healthier urban environments for early childhood.

4. This approach is aligned with the strategy of the Smart Cities Mission to promote inclusive, people-oriented development.

Source: PIB

Data for Corporate Governance

Prelims – Economy

1. The Ministry of Corporate Affairs to use outside agencies to mine the vast trove of data available from corporate filings.

2. It aims to detect trends of businesses managing their affairs that might need regulators measures.

Data on Critical Areas of Corporate Governance includes:

1. Performance and profitability of companies,

2. Utility of funds raised from public,

3. The debt structure and corporate leverage,

4. Ease of doing business, bankruptcy and fraud.

Insights from it will also be used for making policies that drive “faster, sustainable and inclusive growth."

Source: Live Mint

Hydrogen Vehicles

Mains -GS3- Environment, Prelims – Science and Technology

The 2021-22 Budget has announced a National Hydrogen Mission.

Who have initiated Hydrogen projects in India?

Public Sector Enterprises have initiated Hydrogen Projects, some of them are –

1. In 2020, Delhi became the first Indian city to operate buses running on hydrogen spiked compressed natural gas (H-CNG) in a pilot project.

2. H-CNG has 18 per cent hydrogen in CNG directly from natural gas, without resorting to conventional blending. A new technology developed by Indian Oil Corp.

3. NTPC Ltd is operating a pilot to run 10 hydrogen fuel cell-based electric vehicles in Leh and Delhi.

4. NTCP is also considering setting up a green hydrogen production facility in Andhra Pradesh.

5. IOC is also planning to set up a dedicated unit to produce hydrogen to run buses at its R&D centre in Faridabad.

6. The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways proposed rules to include safety evaluation standards for hydrogen fuel cell-based vehicles.

How hydrogen is processed?

1. Hydrogen is the most common element in nature but not found freely.

2. Hydrogen exists only combined with other elements and has to be extracted from naturally occurring compounds like water.

3. Although hydrogen is a clean molecule, the process of extracting it is energy-intensive.

4. The sources and processes by which hydrogen is produced, are categorised by colour tabs.

Colour Tab

Produced from

Description

Grey hydrogen

Fossil fuels

Currently, this constitutes the bulk of the hydrogen is produced.

Blue hydrogen

Fossil fuels

Generated from fossil fuels with carbon capture and storage options.

Green hydrogen

Renewable power

Electricity generated from renewable energy is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

What are the advantages of Green Hydrogen?

1. It is a clean-burning molecule, which can de-carbonise a range of sectors including iron and steel, chemicals, and transportation.

2. Renewable energy that cannot be stored or used by the grid can be channelled to produce hydrogen.

Why Hydrogen is advantageous over Electric Vehicles for India?

1. National Hydrogen Mission aims to produce Green Hydrogen.

2. India’s electricity grid is predominantly coal-based and will continue to be, thus negating collateral benefits from a large-scale EV push.

3. Hydrogen vehicles are more effective in long-haul trucking and other hard-to-electrify sectors such as shipping and long-haul air travel.

4. Using heavy batteries in these applications would be counterproductive, especially for countries such as India.

How hydrogen fuel cells work?

1. Hydrogen is an energy carrier, not a source of energy. So, hydrogen fuel must be transformed into electricity by a device called a fuel cell.

2. Inside each individual fuel cell, hydrogen is drawn from an onboard pressurised tank and made to react with a catalyst, usually made from platinum.

3. As the hydrogen passes through the catalyst, it is stripped of its electrons, which are forced to move along an external circuit, producing an electrical current.

4. This current is used by the electric motor to power the vehicle, with the only byproduct being water vapour with the near-zero carbon footprint.

5. Since fuel cell vehicles use electricity to run, they are considered electric vehicles.

6. Hydrogen is about two to three times as efficient as burning petrol because an electric chemical reaction is much more efficient than combustion.

Where lies the issues?

1. Fuel cell vehicles refuel in a similar way to conventional cars, but here safety is a major concern as Hydrogen must be pressurised and stored in a cryogenic tank.

2. Scaling up the technology and achieving critical mass is the big challenge.

3. However, with more vehicles, more supporting infrastructure can lower costs. India’s proposed mission is seen as a step in that direction.

Source: The Indian Express

Poor State of the Indian State

Mains -GS2- Polity, Mains -GS3- Economic Development

1. Lockdowns imposed to protect better-off Indians severely affected the livelihood of many.

2. Inability to protect poorer citizens is not a failure of the governments but a weakness of the system.

Pillars of Strong State

Strong states are founded on three pillars

a. Building the stated with support from the people,

b. Strong administrative machinery to provide stability and deliver public services,

c. Managerial ability to shape and implement change.

Support of the People

1. Strong state builders bind people around a shared identity - ethnic, racial, or religious- and not by legal constitutions.

2. Such leaders gain the trust of people and the liberty to even change constitutional structures.

3. They emerge as dictators loved by the people.

4. But India can’t be united by a shared identity due to the diversity in race, religion and caste divisions within religion.

5. It can be united only around the modern inclusive idea of India, as laid in the Constitution.

6. Forcing a majoritarian identity by the government divides India and weakens the state.

Role of Indian Bureaucracy

1. Professional civil services have played in the formation of strong states, in Han China, the Ottoman Empire, France, and Japan.

2. India inherited the civil services system from Britain.

3. It needs to be reformed as it was designed to provide stability, compliance with rules, and not equipped to shape change.

4. Simultaneous management of both change and stability is necessary for the evolution of good states and societies.

Great Debate

1. While unmanaged change can cause chaos, too little change would strengthen the established system.

2. This dilemma in the 18th century French and American revolutions gave rise to the Right and Left in politics.

3. Stability versus change for good governance evolved into capitalism versus socialism and markets versus governments in the 20th century.

4. Later, capitalism and markets were positioned as prime movers of economic growth and socialists and governments as retarders of progress.

5. Capitalists were tasked as ‘wealth creators’ and governments were degraded as ‘redistributors’.

6. Idea of the creation of wealth before redistribution led to less government and more freedom for large private players.

7. So, public services such as health and education are handed over to private enterprises.

Economics and Society

1. The logic of economics and society are different.

2. Privatisation of government fits when utility-maximizing and model of rational are in the political realm while politics is an extension of economics.

3. When the public servants think like a private-sector manager rather than socialists, then the ideology of private is good and the public is bad.

Focus

1. The state must perform primarily for its poorest citizens for economic growth to be equitable and sustainable, and not for investors in corporations.

2. Leaders of states must ensure that all citizens have opportunities to work and earn while ensuring all citizens have good health and education.

3. The ideology of private rather than the public has moral consequences. The purposes of a private enterprise and the state are different.

4. Private sector managers serve the interests of owners of corporations whereas public servants’ mission is to build their nations and states.

Inclusive Development

1. Pandemic has revealed the inability of the Indian state to protect its poorest citizens.

2. Along with GDP, economic justice, environmental sustainability, and improvement in the dignity of all citizens must be measured.

3. These measures must improve much faster as the present ‘top up the top’ model of economic growth is not trickling down.

4. India must build a strong and good state. This requires

a. Political leaders to unite all Indians into one India irrespective of their identity

b. Cadres of good public managers to build and run services for all citizens equitably and

c. Business leaders acting as both creators of wealth and opportunities for Indians.

Political leaders, administrators, and business leaders must work together, with a shared vision, to build an Indian state that is good for all citizens, especially the poorest.

Source: The Hindu

15th Finance Commission

Mains -GS2- Polity, Mains -GS3- Economic Development

1. The Fifteenth Finance Commission’s (FFC) Terms of Reference evoked concerns from some states due to

a. Mandate for the use of population data from census 2011 instead of 1971,

b. Creation of non-lapsable defence fund, and

c. Use of certain parameters for performance incentives.

2. It was the first Commission to in times of a global pandemic that had slowed down economic growth and made the assessment of revenues difficult.

Vertical Distribution

1. The Commission recommended vertical devolution of 41%.

2. 1% adjustment making due to the changed status of the Ladakh, Jammu, and Kashmir.

Horizontal Distribution

1. The commission tried to balance the principles of expenditure needs, equity, and efficiency viz.

a. Need Criterion: Population (15%), area (15%), and forest and ecology (10%) represented the ‘need’ criterion.

b. Equity Criterion: Income distance’ (45%) represented the ‘equity’ criterion.

c. Efficiency Criterion: Tax and fiscal efforts (2.5%) and demographic performance (12.5%).

2. Demographic performance criterion inserted to ensure states are not penalised for demographic management and human development.

3. The Commission maintained the stability and predictability of resources to states while remained progressive to achieve the equity objective.

Grants-in-aid:

1. Grants-in-aid which fell into five broad categories:

a. Revenue deficit grants,

b. Grants for local governments,

c. Grants for disaster management,

d. Sector-specific grants and

e. State-specific grants.

2. Grants tend to be targeted, focusing on the specific sectors they are designed for.

3. Some of these grants have been linked with performance-based criteria to promote these sectors while enhancing transparency and accountability.

4. The Commission recommended grants about 6.74% of gross revenue receipts to states.

Revenue Deficit Grants

5. It also recommended a 50% higher revenue deficit grant than Fourteenth Finance Commission to 17 states from 11 states.

6. The revenue deficit grants account for cost disabilities and fiscal capabilities of states, that are not fully addressed by the horizontal devolution formula.

Grants for Local Bodies

1. The Commission has recommended a 52% increase in the grants for local bodies than corresponding grants.

2. These grants derive their basis from the 73rd and 74th constitutional amendment Acts and empower the local governments.

3. Efficient and smooth functioning and accountability of local bodies has been plagued by

a. Absence of timely recommendations of State Finance Commissions,

b. Lack of readily accessible accounts and its auditing and

c. Inadequate revenue mobilisation especially for municipalities.

4. Previous finance commissions’ attention to these issues has limited success.

5. The FFC has imposed these as entry-level conditions for availing local bodies’ grants.

6. These grants also focus on priorities of sanitation, solid-waste management, and improvement of air quality, particularly in the million-plus population cities.

7. Further, health grants have been channelised through local bodies for achieving the goal of universal healthcare coverage.

Disaster Risk Fund

1. The Commission recommended for setting up of ‘mitigation funds’ at both the national and state levels in line with the provisions of the Disaster Management Act.

2. This fund should be used at local-level and community-based interventions to reduce risk and promote environment-friendly settlements and livelihood practices.

Conclusion

1. FFC also recommended the development of incubation centers, new measures for enhancing resource mobilisation while focusing on streamlining the extra-budgetary borrowings.

2. The objective of the FFC was to fulfill the mandate of allocating revenues and also to put in place and reinforce the structures, habits, and building blocks to increase our adaptability to a more sustainable global trajectory for human development.

The Commission’s recommendations will go a long way in strengthening the pillars of fiscal federalism in the country.

Source: The Indian Express

Focus on Coaches

Mains -GS2- International Relations

1. India has been unable to compete in sports other than cricket.

2. Despite a huge population, it has produced very few world-class sportspersons.

3. India can get better at sports if it gives greater priority to spending on coaches than to infrastructure such as stadiums.

World-Class Facilities in India

1. Many world-class facilities have been built recently, for example, Delhi in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games.

2. The government has established training centers under the Sports Authority of India for top athletes.

Need for Coach

1. Countries that do well at the Olympics have strong systems to develop coaches. These systems are still very poor in India.

2. Indian coaches find it tough to achieve even the lowest international qualifications.

3. For example, trainee coaches educated at the National Institute of Sports often fail the basic Level 1 coaching course in international athletics.

4. So, foreign coaches are preferred due to the perception that they know better, even in fields such as badminton that have many successful Indian coaches.

5. Indian coaches are paid much less than foreign coaches while foreign coaches get paid six times that or more. So, many Indians don’t aspire to enter coaching.

Developing better Indian coaches helps them get better salaries and makes coaching a more lucrative prospect for others.

Source: Live Mint

Union Budget

Mains -GS3- Economic Development

1. The privatisation of public sector enterprises (PSEs) announced in the Union Budget for 2021-22 is a good idea but coming at the wrong time.

2. It may end up dampening growth prospects by crowding out fresh investments.

3. Privatisation is best done when the economy is booming but not in an economic slump.

Crowd out Investments

1. Investors buying a PSE would drop other investment plans which effectively drive investments to existing assets instead of creating new assets.

2. It brings the economic system down, so it should have done when the economy recovers.

3. Government considers disinvestment as an essential source of finance, but it can crowd out current investment in creating new capacities that hold up growth thus government revenues.

Funding bad banks

1. As per the global experience, the bad banks would work well when they are entirely financed by the government.

2. In the private sector, the banks themselves would fund the bad banks thus eroding the funds available for the industry’s current demand.

In economics “a good idea implemented at the wrong time is a bad idea”.

Source: The Hindu


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