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‘Maveli’ Frog

Researchers have found that the Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis), lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
FMCG Sector Growth to Slow Down

The growth of FMCG sector is set to slow down mainly because of insufficient income growth, low sentiment and liquidity crunch. And this may be due...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
RBI Raises Cap on Home Loan under PSL

RBI has raised eligibility cap on home loans for regional rural banks (RRB) and small finance banks (SFBL) to ₹35 lakh in metropolitan areas and...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
Status of Conservation of Tigers

According to data released by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), poaching and electrocution were behind tiger deaths reported in the...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
Self Driven Cars

Why in the news? Recently, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors said that Tesla Robotaxis, which will run without humans, will be ready by 2020. However, a...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
UN Report on Species Extinction

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has released the UN report on species extinction. It...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
Important Facts For Prelims (7th May 2019)

Honey Mission The Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) has distributed more than one lakh bee-boxes among farmers and unemployed youths...

07 May 2019 News Analysis
Policy Watch - Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems

National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems is a comprehensive mission which would address technology development, application...

07 May 2019 Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions
Climate Change and Development in India

This editorial is based on the article 'Parley: Is India doing enough to combat climate change?' which appeared in "The Hindu" on May 3rd, 2019....

06 May 2019 News Editorials
AMFI guidelines

The Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) has recently issued guidelines on how fund managers should write down debt and handle below...

06 May 2019 News Analysis
Factors preventing Financial Inclusion

Recently, Business Correspondents (BCs) and bankers have flagged some issues that are blocking financial inclusion in the country. Key...

06 May 2019 News Analysis
Class Action Lawsuits

The government is readying a scheme to provide financial assistance to minority investors filing class action lawsuits under the companies...

06 May 2019 News Analysis
Important Facts For Prelims (6th May 2019)

National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviews relief measures The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviewed relief measures in...

06 May 2019 News Analysis
TikTok App Ban Case

This editorial is based on the article 'Why the TikTok ban is worrying' which appeared in "The Hindustan Times" on 2nd May, 2019. The article talks...

04 May 2019 News Editorials
Sri Vedanta Desikan

Vice President released a postage stamp to commemorate the 750th birth anniversary of Sri Vedanta Desikan. Shri Vedanta Desikan is one of the...

04 May 2019 News Analysis
Theatre Command in India

According to report of Pentagon, China continues to rapidly modernise its war-fighting capabilities. In this context, Indian Armed forces lacks on...

04 May 2019 News Analysis
Detention of ‘Foreigners’ in Assam

Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) has expressed concerns over the apex court’s remark on the detention of ‘foreigners’...

04 May 2019 News Analysis
Important Facts For Prelims (4th May 2019)

Unnat Bharat Abhiyan Common Service Centre’s (CSC) e-Governance Services India Limited, under the Ministry of Electronics & IT, has tied...

04 May 2019 News Analysis
Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT)

The Supreme Court, dismissing a writ petition filed by Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI), upheld the...

04 May 2019 News Analysis
In Depth – Malaria Vaccine

Malaria has been one of the world's deadliest diseases. It kills more than 4,00,000 people a year worldwide and causes illness in millions of...

04 May 2019 Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions

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			'title' => '‘Maveli’ Frog',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>Researchers have found that the <strong>Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis),</strong> lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the surface for a single day in a year to breed and lays its eggs, and returns to the earth&rsquo;s deepest layers.<a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022280_image3.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022280_image3.jpg" width="309" height="172" style="float: right;" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The bloated frog is characterised by a protruding snout and powerful hind legs.</li>
<li><strong>Mahabali, or Maveli,</strong> was a mythological king who ruled over the region of Kerala. The frog is compared with the Maveli due to their similar characteristics thats why given the name <strong>"Maveli"</strong>.</li>
<li>It is listed as <strong>endangered</strong> on the red list of the <strong>International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)</strong>.</li>
<li>It could soon be designated as <strong>Kerala&rsquo;s state amphibian</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It&rsquo;s a unique species and <strong>endemic to this part of the southern Western Ghats</strong> and cannot be found anywhere else.</li>
<li>Discovered for the first time in 2003 in the jungles of Kerala, the species sparks feverish imagination among herpetologists worldwide for a number of reasons:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They believe that the species should be rightly called a <strong>'living fossil'</strong> as it&rsquo;s evolutionary roots suggest it could have <strong>shared space with dinosaurs</strong> going back almost 70 million years ago.</li>
<li>It was able to survive such a long period in time, points to its tenacity and could help scientists understand how it&rsquo;s population may have evolved and learned to overcome the challenges of shifting land masses.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Problems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The fragile <strong>Western Ghats,</strong> classified as a <strong>biodiversity hotspot</strong> and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to thousands of flora and fauna species that are not found anywhere else.</li>
<li><strong>Rapid deforestation</strong> and conversion of forest land into cropland and human settlements intruding deeper and deeper into animal habitats, the incidence of man-animal conflict especially with regards to elephants and tigers is increasing across the region.</li>
<li>Over 50 per cent of<strong> pink frog habitats</strong> lies outside the protected areas. The rampant construction of unauthorised check dams leads to submerging of the perennial breeding grounds of the frogs. Additionally, road networks lie close to their breeding grounds and hundreds of cases of road-kills go unreported every year</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conservation</h3>
<p>Efforts are made to pronounce the Purple frog as an <strong>'umbrella species'</strong> much like the tiger so that the habitat as well as other species, living in the same diversity, can be indirectly protected.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Umbrella Species</strong></p>
<p>Umbrella species are species that are selected for conservation-related decisions because the conservation and protection of these species indirectly affect the conservation and protection of other species within their ecosystem. Umbrella species help in the selection of potential reserve locations, as well as the determination of the composition of the reserve.</p>
</div>',
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		(int) 1 => [
			'title' => 'FMCG Sector Growth to Slow Down',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>The growth of FMCG sector is set to slow down mainly because of insufficient income growth, low sentiment and liquidity crunch. And this may be due to <strong>slowdown in rural demand, reduced farm incomes</strong> and <strong>low consumer confidence</strong>.</p>
<h3>FMCG sector in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) are the 4th largest sector in the Indian economy.</li>
<li>There are three main segments in the sector &ndash; <strong>food and beverages (19%), healthcare (31%) </strong>and<strong> household &amp; personal care (remaining 50%)</strong>.</li>
<li>Growing awareness, easier access and changing lifestyles have been the key growth drivers for the sector.</li>
<li>The urban segment is the largest contributor to the overall revenue generated by the FMCG sector in India.</li>
<li>However, in the last few years, the FMCG market has grown at a faster pace in rural India compared with urban India.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022207_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022207_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="634" height="260" caption="false" /></a></p>
<h3>Initiatives by Government in FMCG sector</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Approval of 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the cash and carry segment and in single-brand retail along with 51% FDI in multi-brand retail.</li>
<li>100% FDI allowed in food processing segment.</li>
<li>These initiatives will bolster employment and supply chains, and also provide high visibility for FMCG brands in organised retail markets, thereby leading to increased consumer</li>
<li>spending and encouraging more product launches.</li>
<li>Introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is beneficial for the FMCG industry. For instance, FMCG products such as soap, toothpaste and hair oil now come under 18% tax bracket against the previous 23-24% rate.</li>
</ul>',
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		(int) 2 => [
			'title' => 'RBI Raises Cap on Home Loan under PSL',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>RBI has raised eligibility cap on home loans for regional <strong>rural banks (RRB)</strong> and <strong>small finance banks (SFBL)</strong> to ₹35 lakh in metropolitan areas and ₹25 lakh in other centres. All such loans will be now classified by these banks as <strong>priority sector loans</strong>.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is done to bring SFBs and RRBs at a <strong>level playing field</strong> with other Scheduled Commercial Banks.</li>
<li><strong>The loan limit under PSL is revised:</strong> The family income of ₹3 lakh per annum for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and ₹6 lakh per annum for Low-Income Groups (LIG) is set, in alignment with the income criteria specified under the <strong>Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Priority Sector Lending</h3>
<p>It means those sectors which the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India consider as important for the development of the basic needs of the country and are to be given priority over other sectors. The banks are mandated to encourage the growth of such sectors with adequate and timely credit.</p>
<p>RBI guidelines for PSL for scheduled commercial banks:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>40% of the total net bank credit should go to priority sector advances.</li>
<li>10% of the priority sector advances or 10% of the total net bank credit, whichever is higher should go to weaker section.</li>
<li>18% of the total net bank credit should go to agricultural advances. Within the 18 target for agriculture, a target of 8 per cent of Adjusted Net Bank Credit (ANBC) or Credit&nbsp; Equivalent Amount of Off-Balance Sheet Exposure, whichever is higher is prescribed for Small and Marginal Farmers, to be achieved in a phased manner.</li>
<li>7.5 of ANBC or Credit Equivalent Amount of Off-Balance Sheet Exposure, whichever is higher should go to Micro enterprises.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Priority Sector includes the following categories:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Agriculture</li>
<li>Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises</li>
<li>Export Credit</li>
<li>Education</li>
<li>Housing</li>
<li>Social Infrastructure</li>
<li>Renewable Energy</li>
<li>Others</li>
</ul>',
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		],
		(int) 3 => [
			'title' => 'Status of Conservation of Tigers',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>According to data released by the <strong>National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),</strong> poaching and electrocution were behind tiger deaths reported in the country.</p>
<h3>Key highlights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Around 40% of India&rsquo;s estimated 2,226 tigers (2014 census) lives outside the core areas of tiger habitats. These tigers are vulnerable to poaching and come into conflict with humans.</li>
<li>The data shows a rise in tiger vulnerability with higher number of deaths reported in 2016 in comparison with previous years. According to the data, Madhya Pradesh (148) witnessed the highest number of deaths followed by Maharashtra (107), Karnataka (100) and Uttarakhand (82).</li>
<li>Poaching cases for illegal wildlife trade is however less but death from electrocution (mostly through fences) has been a major concern from 2016 onwards.</li>
<li>While 295 tigers died natural deaths (45% of the total), 36 were killed in road or rail accidents.</li>
<li>Conflict outside sanctuaries, national parks and bio reserves in several places is likely to increase further in the coming years.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Tiger Census in India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Every 4 years the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) conducts a tiger census across India.</li>
<li>The first was conducted in 2006, followed by 2010 and in 2014.</li>
<li>The Census (2014) had reported 2,226 tigers in the country, up from 1,706 in 2010.</li>
<li>The fourth tiger census (All India Tiger Estimation 2018-19) estimated to be released in May 2019.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Importance of Fourth Tiger Census 2018</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This 2018 tiger census uses more technology including a mobile app named <strong>&ldquo;MSTrIPES&rdquo;</strong> for the very first time to store information of the counting.</li>
<li>Another <strong>primary focus of the tiger census 2018 is to cover the northeast India that was not included in the previous census</strong>.</li>
<li>For the very first time three neighbouring countries <strong>Bhutan, Nepal</strong>&nbsp;and <strong>Bangladesh</strong> are helping in <strong>counting the number of tigers all across India,</strong> especially in the region with mutual borders.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong> <strong>M-STrIPES</strong> <em>(Monitoring System for Tigers - Intensive Protection and Ecological Status)</em> is an app based monitoring system, launched across Indian tiger reserves by the NTCA in 2010. The system would enable field managers to assist intensity and spatial coverage of patrols in a geographic information system (GIS) domain.</p>
</div>
<h3>Project Tiger and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Project Tiger was launched in 1973</strong> with 9 tiger reserves for conserving our national animal, the tiger. Currently, the <strong>Project Tiger coverage has increased to 50,</strong> spread out in 18 tiger range states.</li>
<li>The tiger reserves are constituted on a <strong>core/buffer strategy</strong>. The <strong>core areas have the legal status of a national park or a sanctuary, whereas the buffer or peripheral areas are a mix of forest and non-forest land, managed as a multiple use area</strong>.</li>
<li>It is an ongoing <strong>Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change providing central assistance to the tiger States</strong> for tiger conservation in designated tiger reserves.</li>
<li>The <strong>National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body</strong> of the Ministry, with an overarching supervisory/coordination role, performing functions as provided in the <strong>Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
<li>The NTCA was launched in 2005, following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force. It was given statutory status by 2006 amendment of <strong>Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Buffer Area</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Buffer area is the <strong>area peripheral to the critical tiger habitat or core area</strong> providing supplementary habitat for dispersing tigers, besides offering scope for co-existence of human activity.</li>
<li>The limits of the buffer/ peripheral areas are determined on the basis of scientific and objective criteria in consultation with the Gram Sabha and an Expert Committee constituted for the purpose.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Ex-situ and In-situ conservation methods</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Ex situ conservation</strong> is the conservation and maintenance of samples of living organisms <strong>outside their natural habitat</strong>. Maintenance of Gene Banks, Seed Banks etc. comes under this method of conservation.</li>
<li><strong>In situ conservation</strong> is conservation of species <strong>in their natural habitats</strong>. Maintenance of natural habitats in the form of wildlife sanctuaries, national parks etc. comes under this method of conservation.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
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		],
		(int) 4 => [
			'title' => 'Self Driven Cars',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>Why in the news?</h3>
<p>Recently, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors said that Tesla Robotaxis, which will run without humans, will be ready by 2020. However, a lawsuit has been initiated on 1st May by the family of a man killed by Tesla auto driven car last year, exposing limits of driver-less technology.</p>
<h3>What are driver-less cars?</h3>
<p>Self-driving vehicles are those vehicles in which human drivers are never required to take control to safely operate the vehicle. Also known as autonomous or &ldquo;driverless&rdquo; cars, they combine sensors and <strong>software to control, navigate, and drive the vehicle</strong>.</p>
<h3>How do they work?</h3>
<p>Most self-driving systems create and maintain an internal map of their surroundings, based on a wide array of sensors, like radar, laser beams, and infrared etc.</p>
<p>Software then processes those inputs, plots a path, and sends instructions to the vehicle&rsquo;s <strong>&ldquo;actuators,&rdquo;</strong> which control acceleration, braking, and steering.</p>
<p>Hard-coded rules, obstacle avoidance algorithms, predictive modelling, and <strong>&ldquo;smart&rdquo; object discrimination</strong> (i.e., knowing the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle) help the software follow traffic rules and navigate obstacles.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022057_Images2.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022057_Images2.jpg" width="741" height="470" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The second approach uses <strong>Lidar &mdash; a remote sensing method</strong> that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure variable distances and range &mdash; in addition to the traditional sensor suite of radar and camera systems. It requires more data-processing and computational power, but is more robust, especially in tight, traffic-heavy environments.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges &amp; variable distances. These light pulses&mdash;combined with other data recorded by the airborne system&mdash; generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics.</p>
<p>A LIDAR instrument principally consists of a laser, a scanner, and a specialized GPS receiver. Airplanes and helicopters are the most commonly used platforms for acquiring LIDAR data over broad areas.</p>
</div>
<h3>What are the benefits of self driverless car?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Safety:</strong> self-driving vehicles could, hypothetically, improve safety and reduce accidents&mdash;software could prove to be less error-prone than humans&mdash;but cyber security is still a chief concern.</li>
<li><strong>Equity:</strong> Self-driving technology could help mobilize individuals who are unable to drive themselves, such as the elderly or disabled and women.</li>
<li><strong>Environmental impacts:</strong> Accessible, affordable, and convenient self-driving cars could increase the total number of miles driven each year. If those vehicles are powered by fossil fuel, then transportation-related climate emissions could skyrocket. If, however, the vehicles are electrified&mdash;and paired with a clean electricity grid&mdash;then transportation emissions could drop.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Concerns</h3>
<p>Widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles could displace millions of workers employed as drivers, negatively impact public transportation funding, and perpetuate the current transportation system&rsquo;s injustices.</p>
<p>Technology can be trusted, unpredictability of humans cannot. In such a scenario, in a developing country where there is unplanned infrastructure and a scant regard for traffic rules, the feasibility of driverless cars is far-fetched.</p>',
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			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/self-driven-cars'
		],
		(int) 5 => [
			'title' => 'UN Report on Species Extinction',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/654English%20Website_Info.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022351_image4.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022351_image4.jpg" width="590" height="796" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" /></a><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/654English%20Website_Info.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has released the <strong>UN report on species extinction</strong>. It is estimated that up to 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are at risk of extinction within decades.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of the report</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The assessment is the most accurate and comprehensive review yet of the damage people are inflicting on the planet. And they warn that <strong>nature is declining at "unprecedented" rates</strong> and that the changes will put people at risk.</li>
<li>The report identified a <strong>range of risks,</strong> from the <strong>disappearance of insects</strong> vital for pollinating food crops, to the <strong>destruction of coral reefs</strong> that support fish populations that sustain coastal communities, or the <strong>loss of medicinal plants</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Decline of native species</strong> in most major land-based habitats by at least 20%, mostly since 1900.</li>
<li>It emphasizes that <strong>business and financial concerns are also threatened</strong>. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.</li>
<li><strong>Key global threats:</strong> human&rsquo;s <strong>use of land and sea resources, climate change, pollution</strong> and <strong>invasive species</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Ocean ecosystems degrading</strong> as temperatures rise towards 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. <strong>Loss of coral reefs</strong> to warming and acidifying oceans could cause a collapse in commercial and indigenous fisheries.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Some of the report's notable findings</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Damage extent:</strong> 75% of the land environment and 66% of the marine environment impacted due to anthropogenic activities.</li>
<li><strong>Loss of pollinators:</strong> Up to $577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss. Insect pollinators are unfortunately an excellent example of the problems caused by human activities."There's a newly coined phrase for insect declines &mdash; the <strong>'windshield effect&rsquo;</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Increased risk of floods and hurricanes</strong> because of loss of coastal habitats and protection.</li>
<li><strong>Pollution and waste</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.</li>
<li>300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other industrial waste are dumped into the world's water systems.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity and nature's contributions to people are our common heritage and humanity's most important life-supporting 'safety net.' But <strong>our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point</strong>.</li>
<li>Humans as both the cause of the threat and a target of its risks. As humanity demands ever more food, energy, housing and other resources, they say, it's also undermining its food security and long-term prospects.</li>
<li>The essential, <strong>interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller</strong> and increasingly frayed.</li>
<li>Profound economic and social changes would be needed to curb greenhouse gases quickly enough to avert the most devastating consequences of a warming world.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>IBPES</strong></p>
<p>The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body, established by member States in 2012.</p>
<p><strong>Objective of IPBES:</strong> Strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development.</p>
<p><strong>The windshield effect</strong></p>
<p>Also, the windscreen phenomenon is a term given to the anecdotal observation that people tend to find fewer insects smashed on the windscreens of their cars now compared to a decade or several decades ago. This effect has been ascribed to major global declines in insect abundance.</p>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/un-report-on-species-extinction'
		],
		(int) 6 => [
			'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (7th May 2019)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>Honey Mission</h3>
<p>The <strong>Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)</strong> has distributed more than one lakh bee-boxes among farmers and unemployed youths across the country in less than two years under its <strong>'Honey Mission' initiative</strong> to increase honey production and farmers&rsquo; income.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the Honey Mission, KVIC provides awareness, training and <strong>&lsquo;Bee Boxes&rsquo; along with Bee Colonies</strong> to the farmers.</li>
<li>The mission was launched in August 2017 in line with the<strong> &lsquo;Sweet Revolution&rsquo;</strong>. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The 'Sweet Revolution' was launched in 2016 <strong>to promote beekeeping and associated activities</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>According to the KVIC, the Mission has <strong>created more than 10,000 new jobs,</strong> besides creating around <strong>25,000 additional man-days</strong> through the fabrication of bee boxes and honey extractors.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>KVIC is a <strong>statutory body</strong> established under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act, 1956.</li>
<li>The KVIC is charged with the planning, promotion, organisation and implementation of programmes for the development of Khadi and other village industries in the rural areas in coordination with other agencies engaged in rural development wherever necessary.</li>
<li>It functions under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Fourth Scorpene class Submarine Vela launched</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-10th-september-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Scorpene-class submarine</strong></a> <strong>&ldquo;Vela&rdquo;,</strong> the <strong>fourth of six</strong> underwater warships being <strong>built in India with French collaboration,</strong> has been launched in Mumbai, with an aim to boost Indian capability to defend and secure the strategic sea lanes.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>INS Vela was first commissioned on August 31, 1973</strong> in the Indian Naval Service and continued to serve for 37 years. It was the <strong>country&rsquo;s oldest submarine when it was decommissioned</strong> on June 25, 2010.</li>
<li>A new Vela with modern machinery and technology to guard the seas, has been launched.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The State-owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) has entered into a contract for construction and transfer of technology for six Scorpene-class submarines with French collaborator Ms Naval Group (formerly DCNS).
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Before Vela, MDL launched <strong>Kalvari, Khanderi, Karanj submarines</strong>.</li>
<li>While <strong>Kalvari has been commissioned,</strong> the others are at various levels of trials and tests.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Varuna</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>'Varuna',</strong> the 17<sup>th</sup> edition of a joint exercise of navies of India and France, currently underway off the coast of Goa, is the largest ever joint exercise undertaken by the two navies yet.<br /><strong></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Significance and scope :</strong></p>
<p>It represents the strengthened maritime co-operation between India and France. With 11 of the two countries&rsquo; modern units, including the western fleet&rsquo;s Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya and French Navy&rsquo;s aircraft carrier FNS Charles De Guelle, the exercise will focus on interoperability between the two sides.</p>
<p><strong>About Varuna:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is an <strong>annual exercis</strong>e.</li>
<li>It is held in either the <strong>Indian Ocean or in the Mediterranean Sea</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>France is the Littoral State of the Indian Ocean through the French Overseas region of Reunion, Mayotte &amp; Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean.</p>
</div>
<p><strong>Other Joint exercises between and India and France:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Shakti:</strong> Army (Land)</li>
<li><strong>Garuda:</strong> Air force</li>
</ul>
<h3>GRIHA for Existing Day Schools</h3>
<p>Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council recently released a rating tool <strong>&lsquo;GRIHA for Existing Day Schools&rsquo;</strong> to evaluate the environmental performance of existing schools across India.</p>
<p><strong>Key highlights</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rating <strong>familiarises the students with the concepts of sustainability</strong> by involving them in evaluating the environmental impact of schools on the environment.</li>
<li>It will help students and teachers in establishing contact with nature and with each other using the approach of co-creation and understanding.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>GRIHA rating</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>GRIHA, or <strong>Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment,</strong> is the <strong>national rating system of India</strong> for any completed building construction.</li>
<li>GRIHA is recognised as India&rsquo;s own green building rating system in India&rsquo;s INDC submitted to UNFCCC</li>
<li>It was <strong>conceived by TERI</strong> and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.</li>
<li>The main objective of the rating system is to help design green buildings and, in turn, help evaluate the 'greenness' of the buildings.</li>
<li>It is an <strong>assessment tool to measure and rate a building&rsquo;s environmental performance</strong>.</li>
<li>The rating system is based on four parameters:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Site selection and planning</strong></li>
<li><strong>Conservation and efficient utilization of resources</strong></li>
<li><strong>Building operation and maintenance</strong></li>
<li><strong>Innovation points</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-7th-may-2019'
		],
		(int) 7 => [
			'title' => 'Policy Watch - Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems',
			'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
			'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bwkDFvYDs-w" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems</strong> is a comprehensive mission which would address technology development, application development, human resource development and entrepreneurship and start-up development in <strong>Cyber-Physical Systems</strong> and associated technologies.</p>
<p>Fifteen <strong>Technology Innovation Hubs (TIH)</strong>, six <strong>Application Innovation Hubs (AIH)</strong> and four <strong>Technology Translation Research Parks (TTRP)</strong> would be set up under the mission. It is being implemented by the <strong>Department of Science &amp; Technology</strong> at a total outlay of 3,660 crore rupees for a period of five years.</p>
<h3>Cyber-Physical Systems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Government normally likes to implement physical entities such as energy grids, transport sector, agriculture, health etc on the ground i.e. making such services accessible to the whole population. For this, there is a need of technology/ cyberspace.</li>
<li>Cyberspace includes technologies such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Artificial Intelligence, the sensors, the activators, the data science, the quantum technologies.</li>
<li><strong>Interacting with physical systems in the cyberspace is referred to as Cyber-Physical Systems.</strong></li>
<li>CPS and its associated technologies, today, are playing a <strong>transformative role</strong> in almost every field of human sphere. Therefore, <strong>government and industries</strong> in India are <strong>preparing themselves</strong> for adoption of these emerging and disruptive technologies <strong>in order to remain competitive, drive societal progress,</strong> generate employment, foster economic growth and to improve the <strong>overall quality of life and sustainability of the environment</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Drishti Input</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Cyber-physical systems <strong>integrate</strong> sensing, computation, control and networking into <strong>physical objects and infrastructure,</strong> connecting them to the Internet and to each other.</li>
<li>Few Potential applications: <strong>Driverless cars</strong> that communicate securely with each other <strong>on smart roads,</strong> Sensors in the home to <strong>detect changing health conditions,</strong> improving <strong>agricultural practices</strong> and enabling scientists to address issues arising out of climate change,etc.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Highlights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A strategic approach involving a suitable <strong>mix of Academic, Industry and Government</strong> is proposed to be adopted under the mission.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>TTRPs will connect to Academics, Industry, Central Ministries and State Government for developing technological solutions.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The mission would address the <strong>entire gamut of technology development,</strong> starting from research to the development of product.</li>
<li>The mission will help in <strong>preparing the young generation of India in futuristic technologies</strong>.</li>
<li>The research community in India do lot of research, in fact, India is third in the world in terms of publications but <strong>in terms of products, India</strong> <strong>lags behind;</strong> the <strong>mission</strong> addresses this particular segment in the <strong>form of translational research</strong>.</li>
<li>The research, its translation into a product and startup and entrepreneurship development for the same are one of the core segments of this mission.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Importance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will help in the <strong>development of cyber ecosystem</strong> in the country <strong>which would in turn help the government in spreading its national initiatives</strong> in sectors like health, education, energy, environment, agriculture etc. among the people.</li>
<li>India has lot of talent in the technology field (engineers, that too without jobs), the mission will help in <strong>channelizing that talent</strong> effectively. This is possible as mission focuses on creating an Entrepreneurship and Start-up Ecosystem that will create a number of technology driven job opportunities in CPS and allied areas.</li>
<li>It will make an ecosystem where researchers will do the job that feeds into the start-up or innovation system thus <strong>providing boost to ideas that get generated in laboratories</strong>.</li>
<li>The mission will help in making <strong>Indian entrepreneurs globally competitive</strong> with respect to emerging technologies.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Demographic Dividend</strong><br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Technologies like Artificial Intelligence may <strong>scale down a lot of jobs</strong> which are prevalent in the country.</li>
<li>This will make a lot of people unemployed, though some people may get jobs also.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Proper implementation of the program is a challenge</strong><br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Technology is progressing at a very fast pace, making them available to a common man is difficult.</li>
<li>Bringing government, industries and academicians together is another big challenge.</li>
<li>There are less instances when industries have actually lifted the technologies developed by the academic community.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Suggestions</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has to make sure that it makes <strong>optimal use of human resources</strong> in every field be it research, start-up or entrepreneurship. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Start-ups will provide job opportunities. By inculcating good training skills, India can effectively utilize its large human capacity.</li>
<li>Besides IITs and NITs, government needs to ensure that quality education is imparted in other higher educational institutes also.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Government</strong> can play only a role of <strong>facilitator,</strong> in reality, <strong>industries and academicians need to come together</strong> to build innovative services/products.</li>
<li><strong>For proper implementation,</strong> 25 hubs under the mission should be established in academic institutions and each hub should get a technology business partner as well as a representative from private industry. Also, these hubs should work as per the needs of the government, this will ensure <strong>collective working of industries, academicians and government in developing technological solutions</strong>.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/policy-watch-interdisciplinary-cyber-physical-systems'
		],
		(int) 8 => [
			'title' => 'Climate Change and Development in India',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/parley-is-india-doing-enough-to-combat-climate-change/article27013805.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Parley: Is India doing enough to combat climate change?'</a> which appeared in "The Hindu" on May 3rd, 2019. The article talks about how India should tackle the climate change problem at the larger level of discourse.</p>
</div>
<p>Climate change is certainly without argument the most serious global environmental crisis that we face. <em>It is not the only environmental problem,</em> but it is unique in its multi-scalar characteristic, from the global to the local. And, in many ways, it is arguably the most immediate of our problems.</p>
<p><strong>At one level, for many people climate change has become an existential problem,</strong> a problem that risks undermining the conditions for productive life and therefore a problem that does not override but certainly permeates all kinds of other issues. <strong>For many others, climate change is a distant problem that is overwhelmed by more immediate issues.</strong></p>
<h3>What made the news?</h3>
<p><strong>The Paris Agreement on climate change is set to become operational in 2020,</strong> and discussions on what developmental pathways can India pursue to align its social objectives and energy needs with its commitments made under the UN pact have begun. This is one such important discussion.</p>
<h3>The Short Gist</h3>
<p><strong>One cannot ignore the linkage between current issues and climate change.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In India, for instance, if we think about farmer distress it is likely to be made much worse by climate change, and if we think about challenges of water, it is being made much worse by the climate changing.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The global carbon system is interlocked</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>We are recognising that the global carbon system is an interlocked system.</li>
<li>So,<strong> we have to think about the global transition to low carbon systems and the resultant spillover effects,</strong> from changes in one economy to changes in another economy, changes in politics in one place to changes in politics in another place, etc.</li>
<li><strong>This makes important how we bring about the transition to a low carbon economy in India</strong> (because India is a large economy, market, second largest population and it can play an important role in being part of these positive spillover effects).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>If India has to decarbonise while meeting its development goals,</strong> what is important is that the new investments go in the direction of decarbonising, but only after taking into account possible synergies and trade-offs with other development objectives.</p>
<h3>Opinions from the editorial</h3>
<p><strong>Though India is not responsible for the stock of CO<sub>2</sub> in the atmosphere, we must do far more than we are doing today to call the developed countries to account.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><em>India contributes to only 6 or 7% of global emissions but we are one of the most vulnerable countries.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3>Adaptation &amp; Mitigation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>We need to start taking climate change more seriously, particularly on the adaptation side, because we really have a lot to be concerned about.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>And on the mitigation side, we have to be careful as we may not be fully exploring the scope of intersections between <em>'a low carbon agenda'</em> and <em>'a development agenda'</em>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>India still has huge development deficits and unfortunately, the intersection between erasing development deficits and genuine climate change adaptation has been very poorly explored and the entry point for this conversation should be development deficits.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>This is because &lsquo;development is the first line of defence against adaptation&rsquo;.</strong></li>
<li>And we have to understand what is development versus adaptation? How much mitigation do we need to do? How much is the overall burden of mitigation?</li>
<li>In adaptation, our focus should therefore be on understanding what our development deficits are.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li><strong>For example, to say that we need to improve, find a way for cleaner transportation, shouldn&rsquo;t actually lead to a conclusion that it should lead to more electric vehicles &ndash;</strong> the first priority has to be improved and more accessible public transport.</li>
<li><strong>We need to understand these development deficits from a multi objective point of view,</strong> in terms of economics and access, in terms of local pollutants like air pollutants, climate change and mitigation, and liveability of cities, we need this more multi-faceted and analytical framework.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>India can bring development gains and that also lead to mitigation benefits.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>For example, the way we design our cities:</strong> we want more sustainable cities, we want cities with less congestion, with more public transport because we want cities that are more liveable. Those kinds of cities will also automatically be low carbon cities.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Our foremost requirement is to hedge the future</h3>
<p><strong>The problem for India is hedging its future,</strong> not simply what we consume now or what we expect to gain in immediate terms. [<strong>Hedging:</strong><em> Any technique designed to reduce or eliminate financial risk; for example, taking two positions that will offset each other if prices change</em>]</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>What is it that we want as our long-term future and how much of it in terms of carbon space we need to hedge?</strong> Because this is an ongoing game, it is not a static number - <em>it changes over time -</em> we need to continually monitor and study it.</li>
<li><strong>Even though India&rsquo;s performance in NDC is good, we cannot respond with more commitments in our NDC until we see serious commitments at the international level.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>To Conclude</h3>
<p><em>We don&rsquo;t have the option in India of thinking about anything that is innocent of climate change anymore.</em></p>
<p><strong>We must recognise climate change as a global collective action problem.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>If one country is honourable in the extreme, and cuts its emissions to the bone, that is going to be of little use if the others do not follow suit. They will suffer the consequences of climate change despite the extent of their sacrifice or effort.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>We need to move climate change, global warming to the top of our foreign policy agenda.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This is a critical move we need to make and the sooner we do it, the greater is the benefit that we will draw from our own climate actions.</li>
<li><strong>And India will probably exceed the NDC pledges,</strong> because for reasons like urban congestion and air pollution, we will want to move in the direction of low carbon anyway, quite apart from climate change.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Would a carbon tax on conspicuous consumption bring about equity in access to energy?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Before we think of carbon purely in terms of consumption, we should also think of it in terms of production.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>For example, imagine privileging Kerala for not having so much emissions at all, and penalising Jharkhand, Dhanbad for too much emissions. That is not exactly fair.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Inequality in terms of consumption is therefore not really fair. <em>Is it consumption for production or is it consumption for personal use?</em> <strong>The two are not the same thing.</strong></li>
<li>The bulk of the problem is really &lsquo;consumption for other production&rsquo;, rather than &lsquo;consumption for personal use&rsquo;.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>We cannot take our current level of energy consumption in any way as a benchmark of what India needs for the future.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>This is because our per capita energy consumption levels are extremely low</strong> and not something compatible with the development and lifestyle that we wish for in India.</li>
<li><strong>The real dilemma is if we want to increase energy use at a time when globally we are trying shift to a low carbon system.</strong></li>
<li>At the same time, there is another big challenge - <em>providing jobs when automation and artificial intelligence are growing in power and capacity</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Therefore, India should not be thinking about climate change adaptation as a single technology transition.</strong> Instead, we should think about jobs, energy and pollution questions together. This is the best way forward.</p>
<h3>What makes this topic important for UPSC?</h3>
<p><strong>In 2017, GS III, UPSC asked the following question:</strong> <em>&ldquo;Climate Change is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change?&rdquo;</em></p>
<table border="1" style="width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; border-style: solid; background-color: #eedefc; border-color: #5b02a8;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 100%;">
<p><strong>Drishti Input:</strong></p>
<p>&ldquo;Though India contributes only 6 or 7% of global emissions yet it is one of the most vulnerable countries from climate change.&rdquo; Discuss.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></p>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/climate-change-and-development-in-india'
		],
		(int) 9 => [
			'title' => 'AMFI guidelines',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>The <strong>Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI)</strong> has recently issued guidelines on how fund managers should write down debt and handle below investment grade paper.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>AMFI has suggested lower provisioning for secured debt of infrastructure and real estate firms, hotels, hospitals and the contentious so-called loan against share or LAS paper.</li>
<li>It has requested the asset management companies (AMCs) to be proactive in applying the standard hair-cut matrix on sub-standard investment-grade debt securities without waiting for rating agencies to downgrade them.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>According to SEBI guidelines, any security which has a <strong>rating below BBB</strong>- is considered to be below investment grade.</li>
<li><strong>Haircut</strong> is mutual funds writing off the principal amount and the interest in case of a default.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>So far, every asset management company (AMC) and fund manager used to write down or decide on haircut on its own. These guidelines will bring about uniformity in the valuation of distressed securities across the industry.</li>
<li>AMCs fear that applying the standard haircut matrix would lead to heavy redemptions, which can potentially bring down the net asset value of their fund drastically.</li>
<li>These guidelines have come after a recent SEBI circular. The circular asked AMFI and the valuation agencies &ndash; Crisil and Icra Management Consulting Services Limited (IMaCS) -- to develop a valuation methodology for such investment grade paper.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>AMFI:&nbsp;</strong>AMFI,the association of SEBI registered mutual funds in India, was incorporated on August 22, 1995, as a non-profit organisation. It is dedicated to developing the Indian Mutual Fund Industry on professional, healthy and ethical lines and to enhance and maintain standards in all areas with a view to protecting and promoting the interests of mutual funds and their unit holders.</p>
<p><strong>Asset Management Company (AMC)</strong>: An asset management company (AMC) is a firm that invests pooled funds from clients, putting the capital to work through different investments including stocks, bonds, real estate, master limited partnerships, and more. Those that offer public mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are also known as investment companies or mutual fund companies.</p>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/amfi-guidelines'
		],
		(int) 10 => [
			'title' => 'Factors preventing Financial Inclusion',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>Recently, <strong>Business Correspondents (BCs) and bankers have flagged some issues that are blocking financial inclusion in the country.</strong></p>
<h3>Key points</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Aadhar enabled payment system <strong>(AePS) device subsidy, being offered by NABARD is not being availed by the banks</strong> and BCs cannot afford the same. This restricts access to Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) money to the citizens.</li>
<li>Jan Dhan accounts and accounts in rural areas are not being identified by the common IFSC code of centralised Core Banking System. Hence, any service to these accounts are violative of government intent and invite GST charges.</li>
<li><strong>Fee proposed by the government is not being paid to BC agents,</strong> thus making the work unviable for them.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Who are Business Correspondents?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Business Correspondents (BC), authorized by the Reserve Bank of India, <strong>are retail agents engaged by banks for providing banking services</strong> at locations &ndash;<strong> mostly remote areas</strong> &mdash; other than a bank branch or ATM.</li>
<li>BCs enable a bank to provide its limited range of banking services at low cost, thus promoting financial inclusion.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>AePS and DBT:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS) is a bank-led model which allows<strong> online interoperable financial inclusion transaction</strong> at PoS (MicroATM) through the Business correspondent of a bank using the<strong> Aadhaar authentication.</strong></li>
<li>The only inputs required for a customer to do a transaction under AePS are:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IIN (Identifying the Bank to which the customer is associated)</li>
<li>Aadhaar Number</li>
<li>Fingerprint captured during their enrollment</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The<strong> Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT)</strong> simply involves transferring the subsidy amount and other benefits (called transfers) directly to the beneficiaries&rsquo; bank accounts instead of providing it through government offices.</li>
<li>AePS helps targeted beneficiaries under DBT in receiving the subsidy amount.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> In September 2018, the Supreme Court set aside mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts, but allowed DBT-related Aadhar use.</p>
<h3></h3>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>BCs need to be properly incentivized and monitored by the banks.</strong> They should be provided with all such facilities and devices that they need.</li>
<li><strong>The government needs to make small savings affordable for banks.</strong></li>
<li>It is the need of the hour to <strong>educate the people,</strong> especially the target section about the available benefits like the one associated with RuPay cards.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/factors-preventing-financial-inclusion'
		],
		(int) 11 => [
			'title' => 'Class Action Lawsuits',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The government is readying a scheme to provide financial assistance to <strong>minority investors</strong> filing <strong>class action lawsuits</strong> under the companies law.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Under <strong>Section 245 of the Companies Act</strong>, investors can file a class action suit in case they feel the management or conduct of the affairs of a company is prejudicial to their interests.</li>
<li>The concept of class action suit provides an option for investors to seek remedy as a group, is well known in western countries. The lawsuit involves a plaintiff suing a defendant or multiple defendants on behalf of a group or a class.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Advantages</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is a way to further bolster measures to protect the interests of investors, and encourage investors to resort to class action suits.</li>
<li>It will provide financial assistance to minority investors to file class action by using the <strong>IEPF (Investor Education and Protection Fund).</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IEPF is managed by the IEPF Authority, which comes under the Ministry of corporate affairs.</li>
<li>IEPF is for promotion of investors awareness and protection of the interests of investors.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The push for class action suits also assumes significance against the backdrop of various instances of investors getting duped by illegal money pooling schemes as well as being impacted by corporate governance issues and fraudulent practices at some companies.</li>
<li>Minority investors are not well equipped to pursue a class action. There is provision for disgorgement also. Class action suit is an important way to empower minority shareholders who are the worst sufferers.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Auditors, credit rating agencies, everybody would be liable to a class action. Among others, if statutory auditors have been callous and negligent, endorsing falsified statements, the investors can certainly proceed against them with a class action.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>IEPF Authority</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is formed for administration of Investor Education and Protection Fund Government</li>
<li>India has on 7th September 2016 established Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority under the provisions of section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.</li>
<li>The Authority is entrusted with the responsibility of administration of the Investor Education Protection Fund (IEPF), make refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits/debentures etc. to investors and to promote awareness among investors.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The IEPF is to be utilized for</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The refund in respect of unclaimed dividends, matured deposits, matured debentures, the application money due for refund and interest.</li>
<li>Promotion of investors&rsquo; education, awareness and protection</li>
<li>Distribution of any disgorged amount among eligible and identifiable applicants for shares or debentures, shareholders, debenture-holders or depositors who have&nbsp;suffered losses due to wrong actions by any person, in accordance with the orders made by the Court.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/class-action-lawsuits'
		],
		(int) 12 => [
			'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (6th May 2019)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviews relief measures</h3>
<p><span></span></p>
<p><span>The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviewed relief measures in the cyclone FANI affected areas of Odisha, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh with the States and Central Ministries/Agencies concerned.</span></p>
<p><strong>About NCMC</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Government of India, for effective implementation of relief measures in the wake of natural calamities, sets up&nbsp;a&nbsp;<strong>Standing National Crisis Management Committee</strong> with Cabinet Secretary as Chairman&nbsp;and Secretaries of all the concerned Ministries /Departments as well as other organizations, to meet the exigencies of such crisis. The committee has previously met during Cyclone Ockhi, Kerala floods etc.</li>
<li>The NCMC gives direction to the Crisis Management Group as deemed necessary.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Crisis Management Group (CMG):</strong> The group deals with matters relating to relief in the wake of major natural calamities. The group consists of Relief Commissioner (Chairman) and other nodal officers from various concerned Ministries. Its functions are to review:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>contingency plans formulated by various Ministries, Departments and Organizations in their respective sectors.</li>
<li>measures required for dealing with a natural disaster.</li>
<li>coordinate the activities of the Central Ministries and the State Governments in relation to disaster preparedness and relief.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>India-UK Naval Cooperation</h3>
<p>India and the United Kingdom are in talks to build a new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier along the lines of UK&rsquo;s HMS Queen Elizabeth as a part of India&rsquo;s &lsquo;Make in India&rsquo; programme.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Navy intends to buy detailed plan of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, a 65,000-tonne warship, and build a new version called INS Vishal in 2022.</li>
<li>The design for UK aircraft carriers is owned by the British and French aerospace giants BAE and Thales.</li>
<li>The design would be modified to meet Indian Navy and local industry requirements.</li>
<li>For India, a new naval carrier would serve alongside INS Vikramaditya &mdash; bought from Russia in 2004 &mdash; and the currently under-construction INS Vikrant which could strengthen &lsquo;blue water&rsquo; capability of Indian navy.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong> A &lsquo;blue-water navy&rsquo; is a maritime force capable of operating in the deep waters of the open oceans. The term is more colloquial than doctrinal and most sea-going states differ on its specifics. Broadly, however, most navies agree that a blue-water navy is capable of prolonged and sustained operations across the open oceans, and has a capacity to project &ldquo;credible power&rdquo; in the distant seas.</p>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The INS Vikramaditya, the Indian Navy's only in-service aircraft carrier, was a former Russian ship that was commissioned into service in 2013.</li>
<li>Prior to the INS Vikramaditya, both of the Indian Navy's previous aircraft carriers&mdash;the Vikrant and Viraat&mdash;were ships that were formerly in service with the Royal Navy of Britain.</li>
<li>INS Viraat was decommissioned two years ago, to be converted into Maritime Museum.</li>
<li>INS Vikrant, also known as Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 (IAC-1), is the India&rsquo;s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (currently being built at the Cochin Shipyard Limited) which will be delivered to the Indian Navy by 2021.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Scientists Complete Genetic Sequencing of Chickpea</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Recently, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and other research institutions across the world successfully completed the sequencing of 429 chickpea lines from 45 countries.</li>
<li>In 2011, scientists successfully sequenced the genome or most of the genetic make-up of the arhar (pigeon pea plant).</li>
<li>In the context of the growing global population and threats posed by climate change there is a need to generate new varieties of chickpea (an important crop with high nutrient value) with better traits including heat, drought, pests and disease resistance, higher yield and productivity.</li>
<li>The research helps understand domestication and post-domestication divergence of chickpea.</li>
<li>It will enable breeders in developing improved climate-change ready varieties that will contribute significantly to increase in productivity and sustainability of agricultural development in developing countries.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>What is Genome Sequencing?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Each plant cell contains the genome: a linear string of DNA base pairs (bp), which ultimately dictates that a corn seed will grow to become a corn plant, for instance, and not a banana or soybean plant.</li>
<li>Determining the order of DNA bases, or sequencing, allows researchers to decode the first layer of genome features such as protein-coding genes, repetitive areas called &ldquo;repeats,&rdquo; and the elements that regulate how genes are expressed in cells. Together, all of these features provide the genetic instructions that make each plant species unique.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>ICRISAT is an international organization which conducts agricultural research for rural development.</li>
<li>It was founded in 1972 by a consortium of organisations. Its charter was signed by the FAO and the UNDP.</li>
<li>It is headquartered in Telangana, India and with several regional centers and research stations in other countries.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568029497_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568029497_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="258" height="1595" caption="false" /></a></h3>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-6th-may-2019'
		],
		(int) 13 => [
			'title' => 'TikTok App Ban Case',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p><em><strong>This editorial is based on the article '<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/why-the-tiktok-ban-is-worrying/story-9Q7Gpv9t1Uxavd8hYJnjDO.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why the TikTok ban is worrying</a>' which appeared in "The Hindustan Times" on 2nd May, 2019. The article talks about why we need to debate and discuss the TikTok ban.</strong></em></p>
</div>
<p>Any kind of &lsquo;ban&rsquo; on social media, books or movies etc. should trigger a debate and discussion on its necessity and legality. The recent ban on TikTok and its subsequent withdrawal requires a similar debate. Here we should keep in mind India&rsquo;s social system which is very different from countries like the UK or USA where freedom of speech is held supreme. In contrast, our Constitution provides us with freedoms but also gives us its limitations and Indian citizens are bound to act within these limitations.<br /><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">What made the news?</span></h3>
<p><b>The Madras High Court had issued an interim ban on TikTok after it found that the platform hosted pornographic content</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Court mentioned that it was worried about the content affecting children and until a conclusion was reached, the Court issued a temporary ban on the app. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">In response, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued an order to Google and Apple to remove the app from the official app stores. The government followed the court's order.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When the matter was raised before the Supreme Court, it carried out a hearing on April 22 where it asked the Madras High Court to take a decision on the interim ban till April 24. The Supreme Court said that the ban would stay lifted if the High Court didn't take any decision. Additionally, the Supreme Court didn't pass any judgement on the matter.</span></p>
<p><b>Finally, the Madras High Court removed the interim ban as the bench stated that it was only interested in protecting children from cybercriminals. While the interim ban has been removed from the app, the case is still undergoing.</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The Court has only removed the interim ban for the time being. If the case demands, the app may be banned once again.</span></p>
<p><b>TikTok claimed that it complies with local laws and ensures that it doesn&rsquo;t promote objectionable and illegal content on its platform</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">TikTok said it removed six million videos that violated TikTok&rsquo;s Community Guidelines.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It also says that their moderation team is based in over 20 countries and regions including India, and covers 15 major Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and more.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>In March 2019, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Twitter, Share-Chat and ByteDance (owner of TikTok) agreed to India&rsquo;s &lsquo;first voluntary code&rsquo; on taking down &lsquo;problematic content&rsquo; and to bring &lsquo;transparency in political advertising&rsquo;</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Short Gist</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">TikTok is a two-sided platform with users and advertisers as the two sides. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It derives its revenues from advertisements and other in-app purchases by the user, although the use of the app itself requires no payment. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><b>Although the user pays nothing for downloading and using the app, in such cases they themselves become the product by virtue of surrendering their data and their eyeballs for advertisements</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The key would therefore be to regulate this transaction (between advertisers and users) to ensure that TikTok has the right incentives to build safeguards and innovate.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><b>The Court gave three directions while passing its ban order</b></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The first direction </span><b>prohibits the download of the application;</b></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The second </span><b>prohibits the televised telecast of videos created through the app;</b></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The third directs a r</span><b>esponse from the Union Governmen</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">t on it&rsquo;s position to legislate a statute analogous to the </span><a href="http://www.coppa.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Children Online Privacy Protection Act </b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">(COPPA) enacted by the United States, to prevent children from becoming cyber/online victims.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><b>The Internet &amp; Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said content moderation on user-generated content platforms has been a problem about which the platforms themselves are keenly aware and have taken effective measures in recent months to curb the excesses</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It also pointed out that social media platforms in the country have adopted the Code of Ethics with the Election Commission.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Content moderation on user-generated platforms is an industry-wide challenge that social-media companies take very seriously</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and are constantly addressing with ever-improving mechanisms along with enhanced safety features such as increased privacy settings, in-app reporting, comments filter, content filter for younger users, in-app access to Community Guidelines, online safety resources and more.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Various Opinions</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Any "arbitrary" ban on social media platforms and intermediaries could </span><b>impede foreign direct investment </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">and affect </span><b>expansion of the digital India</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> initiative, the industry body of Internet and mobile device companies. </span></p>
<p><b>Legal experts who expect scrutiny over digital platforms to only increase say that such regulations must focus on removing illegal content as against removing the app completely</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">&lsquo;There is definitely more talk worldwide about regulating digital platforms and making them more accountable, however, it is important to keep in mind that they are not liable legally for actions of their users&rsquo;.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Section 79 of the Indian Information Technology Act, 2000 exempts intermediaries from liability for obscene and illegal content, as long as they do not play any part in creation of content</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Such bans dilute or even to some extent negate the </span><b>safe harbour provisions (Sec 79, IT Act 2000)</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> currently contained in the IT Act and its Rules, and make it impossible for companies to operate in the country. Especially affected would be the social media platforms which allow citizens to express themselves freely.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to the IAMAI, dilution of the Safe Harbour protection available to intermediaries/social media platforms undermines the steady growth of India's digital economy and especially impacts the thriving startup ecosystem in the country.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Researchers examining cases at the intersection of internet freedom and privacy are of the view that the recent debates around the accountability of intermediaries like TikTok, PUBG, Facebook and Instagram have been occasioned by spread of inappropriate content on these platforms</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Because the content could be obscene in many instances, the intermediaries are being brought under the purview (of the law) now. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is, however, not regulated by any legislation currently. </span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">To Conclude</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Social media, content and gaming apps are grappling for a way to deal with heightened regulatory scrutiny as courts worldover step in to stem the flood of objectionable content on these platforms. India being one of the world&rsquo;s fastest-growing internet market is witnessing nothing different.</span></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><b>Two examples of regulation</b></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Australia passed a law that will make social media companies liable for fines up to 10% of profits or the arrest of its executives and jail terms of up to three years, if companies fail to remove &ldquo;abhorrent violent material&rdquo; from their platforms. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Singapore has drafted a law that could make internet and social media companies pay fines of up to S$1 million and jail of up to six years for officials who do not comply in removing fake news on their platforms. It also mandates those who spread fake news to file a correction online.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As India debates the contours of a proposed data law and awaits clarity on amendments to intermediary guidelines for technology platforms, those concerned about the potentially harmful effects of certain content on these apps are turning to the courts for redressal. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The courts are filling a vacuum and there will be a vacuum until new laws are finalised.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/justice-bn-srikrishna-committee-submits-data-protection-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>The proposed data protection law drafted by Justice BN Srikrishna Committee</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> has prohibited technology companies from profiling, tracking, behavioural monitoring or advertising directed at children. The draft also proposed parental consent to sign up for apps.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the other hand, voicing concerns against outright bans, the </span><a href="https://internetfreedom.in" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Internet Freedom Foundation</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (IFF), </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">an Indian digital liberties organisation is</span><b> arguing against outright bans on applications</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> saying that banning &ldquo;provide no resolve&rdquo; and that Courts should &ldquo;consider alternative measures&rdquo;. IFF has also requested MeitY to adopt a &ldquo;rights respecting stand against app bans, commence a transparent consultation process and activate the defunct Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee, which was tasked with providing subject matter expertise to the government on issues related to the use of technology&rdquo;. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">IFF has observed that despite citizen concerns over digital freedom, governments worldwide are moving towards greater regulatory control over content platforms and companies such as Facebook, Google-owned YouTube as well as Chinese apps such as TikTok and Bigo Live will face even more regulatory scrutiny in future.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">What makes this topic important for UPSC? </span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the 2017 GS I paper, the following question was asked: &ldquo;The growth of cities as I.T. hubs has opened up new avenues of employment but has also created new problems. Substantiate this statement with examples.&rdquo;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To answer this question properly, aspirants will have to not only display a great level of understanding of the issue but also cite examples drawn from everyday life. This therefore requires a holistic approach at understanding technology and the socio-economic issues associated with it. The topic we have discussed today also needs a holistic understanding and therefore extending reading. We have covered certain topics of interest on the website which can be found by searching for </span><a href="/search/social%20media" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Social Media (You may click here to find these articles)</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> - please go through these articles once to improve your understanding of the social media related issues.</span></p>
<table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #f3facd; border-color: #8fa800; border-style: solid;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 899px;"><strong>Drishti Input<br /></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />"The growth of social media has opened up new avenues of expression but has also created new social problems. Substantiate this statement with examples." [250 Words]</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/tiktok-app-ban-case'
		],
		(int) 14 => [
			'title' => 'Sri Vedanta Desikan',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030844_image2.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030844_image2.jpg" width="165" height="244" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Vice President released a <strong>postage stamp</strong> to commemorate the<strong> 750th birth anniversary</strong> of <strong>Sri Vedanta Desikan</strong>.</li>
<li>Shri Vedanta Desikan is one of the most prominent preceptors in the <strong>Sri Vaishnava tradition</strong> and one of the most effulgent luminaries of South India.</li>
<li>He followed the philosophy of Ramanuja&rsquo;s Vishishtadvaita.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>VishishtAdvaita literally means Advaita with uniqueness; qualifications, it is a non-dualistic school of Vedanta philosophy.</li>
<li>It is<strong> non-dualism</strong> of the qualified whole, in which Brahman alone exists, but is characterized by multiplicity. It can be described as qualified monism or qualified non-dualism or attributive monism.</li>
<li>It is a school of Vedanta philosophy which belief in all diversity subsuming to an underlying unity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>He was celebrated as <strong>&lsquo;sarva-tantra-svatantra&rsquo;</strong> master of all arts and crafts; awarded the title<strong> &lsquo;kavi tarkika-kesari&rsquo;</strong>&nbsp;the lion amongst poets and logicians; and glorified as <strong>&lsquo;ramanuja-daya-patram&rsquo;</strong> the recipient of Ramanuja&rsquo;s blessings.</li>
<li>He had authored brilliant poems, prose, drama, epics, commentaries, scientific texts and philosophical treatises in Sanskrit, Tamil, Prakrit and Manipravalam.</li>
<li>Much more than a spiritual teacher, he was a multi-faceted personality-- a scientist, a logician, a mathematician, a literary genius, a linguist, a military strategist and much more.</li>
<li>His philosophy was based on inclusion, where anyone irrespective of caste and creed could join the Sri Vaishnava fold.</li>
<li>He mastered the Vedas, the Vedangas, the <strong>4000 Divya Prabhanda</strong>(collection of 4,000 Tamil verses) and all the existing schools of Indian philosophy such as <strong>Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Purva Mimamsa, Yoga and Sankhya</strong> by the age of twenty.</li>
<li>He also expressed his genius in the field of arts and sciences through other works such as:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Aahaara Niyamam</strong> that detailed how different food items help in maintaining a healthy mind and a disease-free life.</li>
<li><strong>Subhashita Neevi</strong> contains a fund of moral and ethical advice which is relevant and practical.</li>
<li><strong>Silpartha-saram</strong>-a treatise on sculpture.</li>
<li><strong>Bhugola-nirnayam</strong>-a research text on geography.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/sri-vedanta-desikan'
		],
		(int) 15 => [
			'title' => 'Theatre Command in India',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>According to report of Pentagon, China continues to rapidly modernise its war-fighting capabilities. In this context, Indian Armed forces lacks on various front for a coordinated approach to tackle China threat.</p>
<p>China frontier is handled by Western Theatre command, which handles entire 4057-km of line of actual control. However, the problem of disjointedness still prevails in Indian army.</p>
<p>In such a scenario, creation of unified theatre command is needed for India.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Andaman and Nicobar Command</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is the only integrated theatre command in India, formed in 2001 after the Kargil war.</li>
<li>It is a very small command, with limited resources, and there has been a demand to revert the control of command permanently to the Navy.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p></p>
<p><strong>What is a Theatre command?</strong></p>
<p>A theatre command is an organisational structure designed to control all military assets in a theatre of war to achieve military effects.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A joint command is called a &lsquo;theatre command&rsquo; in military parlance (of army, air force and navy).</li>
<li>It places the resources of all forces at the command of a senior military commander.</li>
<li>For example a &lsquo;theatre command&rsquo; in the East will integrate components of the IAF and the Army, and also have component of the Navy integrated with it.</li>
<li>At present, the only joint command is learnt to be in Andaman and Nicobar islands.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Views in favour of Integration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The integrated <strong>theatre commander will not be answerable to individual Services,</strong> and will be free to train, equip and exercise his command to make it a cohesive fighting force capable of achieving designated goals.</li>
<li>The <strong>logistic resources</strong> required to support its operations will also be placed at the disposal of the theatre commander so that it does not have to look for anything when operations are ongoing.</li>
<li>This is in <strong>contrast to the model of service-specific commands</strong> which India currently has, wherein the Army, Air Force and Navy all have their own commands all over the country. In case of war, each Service Chief is expected to control the operations of his Service through individual commands, while they operate jointly.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Views against Integration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>There has been no occasion, during actual warfare, when the three services have not operated with commendable cooperation.</li>
<li>Faraway lands war and medium to high intensity wars are a distant possibility.</li>
<li>With increased communication network , interaction between three organization is easy, they can come on board , can planning without much consideration of spatial distance, so there is no need for new organisation.</li>
<li>Domain knowledge of the integrated force commander is likely to be limited in respect of the other two Services components under his command, thereby limiting his ability to employ them in the most suitable manner and at the appropriate time</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges posed by present structure</h3>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>The structural problem with current structure</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>None of the present 17 commands is co-located at the same station, nor are their areas of operational responsibility contiguous.</li>
<li>In addition, there are 2 tri-service commands <strong>Strategic Forces Command (SFC)</strong> and <strong>Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC),</strong> which is headed by rotation by officers from the 3 Services.</li>
<li>The <strong>SFC (Strategic Forces Command),</strong> looks after the delivery and operational control of the country&rsquo;s nuclear assets. It was created in 2003, but because it has no specific geographic responsibility and a designated role, it is <strong>not an integrated theatre command but an integrated functional command</strong>.</li>
<li>There has been a demand for <strong>other integrated functional commands, such as the cyber, aerospace and Special Operations commands,</strong> but the government is yet to approve any.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Other problems</strong></p>
<table border="1" style="height: 302px; width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #c3e2fa; border-color: #0068b8;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 81px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 81px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Lack of coordination among the three services</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 81px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is perhaps the only major military that does not have a CDS-type post.</li>
<li>This has created problems for the integration of the three services and also on other issues like joint training and planning.</li>
<li>Under the current structure, the three service chiefs are protective of their turfs and perpetuate a single-service approach to training, planning and operations.</li>
<li>The service chiefs are used to almost complete autonomy, leading to unnecessary duplication, wasteful expenditure and a single-service mindset.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 48px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 48px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Chief of staff committee not very effective</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 48px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The COSC as an experiment has not worked very well. It is driven by single-Service requirements and perceptions.</li>
<li>Chairman of COSC lacks executive authority over Services other than his own Service.</li>
<li>The COSC works primarily by consensus and finds it extremely difficult to agree on hard decisions that are binding on all the Services.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 78px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 78px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Requirement for battle preparedness</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 78px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>During war, the fate of an entire campaign can hinge on a single decision.</li>
<li>Such a decision can only be made by a specially selected defence chief and not by a committee like the COSC that operates on the principle of the least common denominator.</li>
<li>In the newly emerging scenarios, with threat perceptions ever changing the possibility of an unsymmetrical or lightning strike assault remains high.</li>
<li>It would be outside the capabilities of any single service to respond effectively to such a diverse array of threats. It&rsquo;s in such conditions that the calls for a CDS assume further significance.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 31px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 31px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Need for unified expert advice from military</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 31px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The need for single point military advice for India's civilian political masters cannot be over emphasized.</li>
<li>The political leadership would be in a dilemma if the three service chiefs offer separate opinions regarding a military campaign or another strategy.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 64px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 64px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Civilian bureaucracy acting as interface</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 64px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In the present structure, the military has limited access to the political leadership.</li>
<li>The Defence Secretary and the National Security Adviser act as the interface between the Service Chiefs and the Cabinet Committee of Security or the National Security Council.</li>
<li>However, these two posts are often manned by persons belonging to generalist services like IAS or IFS.</li>
<li>This intermediate link often deprives the government of specific military opinion on important matters.</li>
<li>This also leads to turf battles between the civilian bureaucracy and the forces within the Ministry of Defence.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Opinion of Three Services on This Proposal</strong></p>
<p><strong>ARMY &ndash; In favour:</strong> It is time to move away from a service specific approach to operations towards a system which avoids duplication, ensures optimum utilisation of available resources.</p>
<p><strong>AIR FORCE &ndash; strongly opposed</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It doesn&rsquo;t have enough resources &mdash; fighter squadrons, mid-air refuellers and AWACS &mdash; to allocate them dedicatedly to different theatre commanders.</li>
<li>It believes that India is not geographically large enough to be divided into different theatres, as resources from one theatre can easily be moved to another theatre</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>NAVY-more nuanced, it too is not in favour of implementing the proposal currently</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The current model of control by the Navy Headquarters ideally suited for its strategic role.</li>
<li>There are also underlying fears about the smaller Services losing their autonomy and importance.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Recommendation by various committees</h3>
<p>Kargil Review Committee, Shekatkar Committee have lamented on compartmentalised planning against external and internal threats with some &lsquo;jointness&rsquo; envisaged at the highest levels. According to these committees, this leads to a disjointed and fragmented execution at the operational and lower levels, leading to a lack of synergy within the battle space. To eliminate this, institution and operalization is necessary.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Changing dynamics of national security which, now encompasses cyber, automation and such new challenges, cannot be solved by a disjointed general and MoD labyrinth but rather a clear and robust structure that should quickly respond to emergent situation.</p>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/theatre-command-in-india'
		],
		(int) 16 => [
			'title' => 'Detention of ‘Foreigners’ in Assam',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative <strong>(CHRI) has expressed concerns over the apex court&rsquo;s remark</strong> on the detention of &lsquo;foreigners&rsquo; in Assam.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>As per the body, the remark defies India&rsquo;s constitutional and international obligations.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The concern is in reference to Chief Justice of India&rsquo;s admonition of Assam Chief Secretary for proposing a methodology for the release of a handful of foreign prisoners who have been in detention beyond their term of sentence for illegal entry. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The bench referred that <strong>Assam has only 900 detainees despite lakhs of illegal foreigners being identified</strong>. Most of them have already intermingled with the local population.</li>
<li>The CJI said that the stand of the Government of India and the State of Assam should be that <strong>foreigner detenues should be deported as soon as possible</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>CHRI has argued that <strong>detainees languish in jail in inhumane conditions, in violation of their human rights, referring to Article 21 of the Constitution</strong> that says that no person in India can be deprived of her/his right to life and liberty without due process.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>International law lays down that <strong>deportations can take place only with the consent of the country of origin</strong> and India has no such agreement with Bangladesh. Also, Bangladesh has consistently refused to accept that its citizens migrate in large numbers to India.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Currently, the <a href="/to-the-points/Paper2/to-the-point-paper-2-national-register-of-citizens-nrc" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>National Register of Citizens (NRC)</strong></a> exercise is going on in Assam.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-partisan, <strong>international non-governmental organisation, headquartered in New Delhi,</strong> working for the practical realisation of human rights across the Commonwealth.</li>
<li>The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 53 independent and equal sovereign states.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>It is <strong>one of the world&rsquo;s oldest political associations of states</strong>. Its roots go back to the British Empire when some countries were ruled directly or indirectly by Britain. Some of these countries became self-governing while retaining Britain&rsquo;s monarch as Head of State. They formed the British Commonwealth of Nations.</li>
<li><strong>In 1949, the Commonwealth came into being.</strong> Since then, independent countries from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific have joined the Commonwealth.</li>
<li><strong>Membership today is based on free and equal voluntary cooperation.</strong> The last two countries to join the Commonwealth - <strong>Rwanda and Mozambique</strong> - have no historical ties to the British Empire.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/detention-of-foreigners-in-assam'
		],
		(int) 17 => [
			'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (4th May 2019)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>Unnat Bharat Abhiyan</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Common Service Centre&rsquo;s <strong>(CSC) e-Governance Services India Limited,</strong> under the Ministry of Electronics &amp; IT, has <strong>tied up</strong> with <strong>IIT-Kanpur</strong> to upscale <strong>&lsquo;Unnat Bharat Abhiyan&rsquo;</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IIT-Kanpur has brought together <strong>15 leading higher education institutions</strong> from Uttar Pradesh to work with CSC for the development of villages under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan scheme.</li>
<li>These institutions will <strong>adopt gram panchayats</strong> and equip them with all citizen centric services through CSCs.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&lsquo;Unnat Bharat Abhiyan&rsquo; is an <strong>initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)</strong>. Its <strong><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-03rd-october-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2.0</a></strong> version was launched in the year <strong>2018</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It aims to create a <strong>vibrant relationship between the society and the higher educational institutions,</strong> with the latter providing the <strong>knowledge and technology support to improve livelihoods in rural areas</strong> and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and private organizations in the society.</li>
<li>It covers two major domains for holistic development of villages &ndash; <strong>human development and material (economic) development</strong> - in an integrated way.</li>
<li><strong>Institutes</strong> through their faculty and students <strong>carry out studies of living conditions</strong> in the adopted villages, <strong>assess</strong> the local problems and needs and thus accordingly <strong>prepare a workable action plan</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030672_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030672_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" width="535" height="469" /></a></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Common Service Centres (CSCs)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The CSC is a strategic cornerstone of the <strong>National e-Governance Plan (NeGP),</strong> approved by the Government in <strong>May 2006,</strong> as part of its commitment in the <strong>National Common Minimum Programme</strong> to introduce e-governance on a massive scale.</li>
<li>The objective of CSCs is to provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services, in the areas of e-governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services.</li>
<li>A highlight of the CSCs is that it offers <strong>web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas,</strong> including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser <strong>(PSA)</strong> to the Government of India and the <strong>IIT Delhi</strong> have signed a Memorandum of Understanding <strong>(MoU)</strong> for setting up a <strong>Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies</strong> for implementation of sustainable, scientific and technological solutions for waste management.</li>
<li>The <strong>long-term goal</strong> is to create <strong>circular economic models for waste management,</strong> by leveraging <strong>big data analytics</strong> and <strong>frontier technologies</strong> to streamline waste in India.</li>
<li>The overall outcomes would involve treating waste and generating different forms of energy, thereby <strong>making India a waste free nation, with zero greenhouse gas emission</strong> and no health hazard.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has had a Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) since 1999. <strong>Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was the first PSA from 1999-2001</strong> and Dr. R. Chidambaram from 2001-2018. Professor K. Vijay Raghavan succeeded Dr. Chidambaram on 3<sup>rd</sup> April 2018.</li>
<li>The Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) is an overarching Council that facilitates the PSA&rsquo;s Office to assess the status in specific science and technology domains, comprehend challenges in hand, formulate specific interventions, develop a futuristic roadmap and advise the Prime Minister accordingly.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-4th-may-2019'
		],
		(int) 18 => [
			'title' => 'Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Supreme Court, dismissing a writ petition filed by Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI), upheld the constitutional validity of <strong>Section 23</strong> of the <strong>PCPNDT Act, 1994</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Section 23</strong> of the Act, provides for penalties for anomalies in paperwork/record keeping/clerical errors regarding the provisions of the Act.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>It was aggrieved in the writ petition that Section 23, what they term as <strong>'clerical errors'</strong>, is treated on the same footing as the actual offence of sex determination.</li>
<li>SC in its judgement opined that:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Non-maintenance of records is not merely a technical or procedural lapse in the context of sex determination, it is the most significant piece of evidence for identifying the accused.</li>
<li>Any dilution of the provisions of the Act or the rules would only defeat the purpose of the Act to prevent female foeticide, and relegate the right to life of a girl child under <strong>Article 21</strong> of the Constitution, to a mere formality.</li>
<li>If a detailed record is not maintained then the violations can never be detected. It will defeat the purpose of the whole act.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/reproductive-and-sexual-rights-of-women-in-india" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT) Act</strong></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The act was enacted in 1994 and amended in 2003 and is an important tool for addressing sex-selective eliminations.</li>
<li><strong>Objectives:</strong> The main purpose of enacting the act is to ban the use of sex selection techniques before or after conception and prevent the misuse of a prenatal diagnostic technique for sex-selective abortion.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/pre-conception-and-pre-natal-diagnostic-techniques-pcpndt'
		],
		(int) 19 => [
			'title' => 'In Depth – Malaria Vaccine',
			'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
			'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h6_pvrcWE4Y" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Malaria has been one of the world's deadliest diseases. It kills more than 4,00,000 people a year worldwide and causes illness in millions of others.</p>
<p>In the past two decades, existing interventions have reduced the malaria burden. And <strong>India,</strong> too, has made good progress in malaria control. <strong>The disease burden has declined by 59%.</strong> The fight against the disease got another shot in the arm when the <strong>world&rsquo;s first malarial vaccine got launched in Malawi</strong>.</p>
<p>A large scale pilot project, that has been called the world&rsquo;s first malaria vaccine, to give partial protection to children has begun in Malawi. The vaccine called RTS,S will be <strong>available to everyone under the age of two</strong>. After the rollout in Malawi, vaccination will begin in Ghana and Kenya. Approximately, 3,60,000 children will get the vaccine annually. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the effort could immunize more than one million children by the year 2023.</p>
<h3>Malaria Vaccine</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Known</strong> by its lab initials <strong>as RTS,S</strong> but <strong>branded as Mosquirix,</strong> the vaccine has passed lengthy scientific trials that found it to be safe and <strong>reducing the risk of malaria by nearly 40%,</strong> the best ever recorded.</li>
<li>It was <strong>developed by GlaxoSmithKline</strong> (GSK) company and <strong>approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2015</strong>.</li>
<li>The RTS,S vaccine trains the immune system to attack the malaria parasite (<strong>Plasmodium (P.) falciparum,</strong> the most deadly species of the malaria parasite) which is spread by mosquito bites.</li>
<li>This vaccine took 30 years to be developed. The <strong>efficiency</strong> of the RTS,S vaccine was <strong>established in a phase 3 clinical trial that concluded in 2014</strong>.</li>
<li>The vaccine only prevents four in ten malarial cases and <strong>must be given as four injections over 18 months</strong>.</li>
<li>WHO wants the <strong>vaccine to be used alongside</strong> other preventive measures such as treated <strong>bednets, insecticides, repellents and anti malarial drugs</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Malawi</strong> is first of the three countries chosen for the pilot program to roll out the vaccine. Soon, <strong>Ghana</strong> and <strong>Kenya</strong> will join in as part of a large scale pilot program backed by the WHO.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>These three countries were selected for the rollout because their <strong>malaria rates are high</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <strong>vaccine is not registered in India</strong>. Before registration, the trial is must. Also, so far, no vaccine has been tried in India against Malaria.</li>
</ul>
<h3>World Malaria Report, 2018</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>70% of malaria cases</strong> in the world are concentrated in <strong>India and 10 African countries</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The <strong>ten African countries</strong> reported an <strong>increase</strong> in cases of <strong>malaria in 2017</strong> compared to 2016.</li>
<li>Nigeria, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed the highest rise. In contrast, <strong>India reported 30 lakh fewer cases in the same period</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Children aged under 5 years accounted for 61% of all malaria deaths worldwide.</strong> The highest number of deaths- 19% was recorded in Nigeria.</li>
<li><strong>Expenditure on Malaria has remained more or less stable since 2010.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In 2017, like the previous years, <strong>America was the largest international source of malaria financing</strong> contributing 120 crore dollars.</li>
<li>In 2015, it was decided by the World Health Assembly that by 2030, malaria has to be completely eliminated in at least 35 countries. In order to achieve this goal, annual expenditure on programmes related to malaria must be increased by 660 crore dollars by 2020.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Globally, <strong>the scope of malaria eradication has increased</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>There were no cases of malaria in China and El Salvador in 2017.</li>
<li><strong>WHO declared Paraguay a malaria free country in 2018.</strong></li>
<li>Algeria, Argentina and Uzbekistan have requested the WHO to declare them malaria free.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Malaria Cases in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>With 9.5 million malaria cases, <strong>India reported almost 3 million fewer malaria cases in 2017</strong> or a 24% decrease over the previous year.</li>
<li>India&rsquo;s reduction- the sharpest within a year, means that the country accounts for just <strong>4% of the world&rsquo;s total malaria cases</strong> and is no longer among the world&rsquo;s top three countries in terms of number of cases.</li>
<li>Nearly half of all malaria cases were reported from Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and parts of West Bengal which have a sizeable tribal population living in the remote rural areas.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India&rsquo;s Missions Against Malaria</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In <strong>1953,</strong> government launched the <strong>National Malaria Control Program</strong> with the focus on indoor residual spraying of DDT. Within five years, the program helped to dramatically reduce the annual incidence of malaria.</li>
<li><strong>The National Malaria Eradication Program was launched in 1958</strong> which further reduced the number of malaria cases and also eliminated deaths from the disease.</li>
<li>After 1967, mosquito&rsquo;s resistance to insecticides and anti malarial drugs led to a resurgence of the disease countrywide.</li>
<li>In order to combat malaria in high transmission areas of the country, an <strong>enhanced Malaria Control Project was launched with the World Bank&rsquo;s help in 1997</strong>.</li>
<li>In 2003, <strong>malaria control was integrated with other vector borne diseases</strong> under the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP).</li>
<li>In 2005, the Government also launched the <strong>National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)</strong> to control vector-borne diseases including malaria.</li>
<li>In 2017, India launched its 5-year <strong>National Strategic Plan for Malaria Elimination</strong> that shifted focus from Malaria control to elimination and provided a roadmap to end malaria in 571 districts out of India&rsquo;s 678 districts by 2022.</li>
<li>Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has recently established <strong>&lsquo;Malaria Elimination Research Alliance-India (MERA-India)</strong> which is a conglomeration of partners working on malaria control.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Malaria</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Predominantly found in the tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, South America as well as Asia, malaria is a life threatening <strong>mosquito borne blood disease caused by plasmodium parasites</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The parasites spread through the <strong>bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Four types of malaria parasites can infect humans:</strong> Plasmodium Vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. falciparum.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium Vivax are the most common types that infect humans.</li>
<li>Plasmodium falciparum causes a more severe form of the disease leading to higher risk of death.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>When an infected mosquito bites a person, the parasite is released into the bloodstream, it then travels to the liver where it matures.</li>
<li>After some days, mature parasites start infecting the red blood cells. Within 48 to 72 hours, the parasites inside the red blood cells multiply causing infected cells to burst open.</li>
<li>Malaria signs and symptoms typically begin within a few weeks after being bitten by an infected mosquito. However, some types of malaria parasites can lie dormant in body for upto a year.</li>
<li><strong>It is preventable as well as curable.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Symptoms</strong></p>
<p>Malaria symptoms typically develop within 10 days to four weeks following the infection. Common symptoms of malaria include:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Shaking chills that can range from moderate to severe high fever.</li>
<li>Sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.</li>
<li>Diarrhoea, Anaemia, muscle pain and convulsions.</li>
<li>Severe plasmodium falciparum infection can lead to coma, permanent brain failure and even death.</li>
<li>Some people who have malaria experience cycle of malaria attacks.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Such attacks start with shivering and chills followed by a high fever, sweating and return to a normal temperature.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Treatment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Treatment of malaria aims at eliminating the plasmodium parasite from the bloodstream through medication. Chemotherapy is an option.</li>
<li>Those without symptoms may be treated for the infection to reduce the risk of disease transmission in surrounding population.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Prevention</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Vector control</strong> is the main way to prevent and reduce malaria transmission.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>If coverage of vector control interventions within a specific area is high enough then a measure of protection is needed to be conferred across the community.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Most malaria carrying mosquitoes bite at night, so <strong>insecticide treated mosquito nets</strong> can be a life saving barrier.</li>
<li>Doses of antimalarials during pregnancy can protect both mother and child.</li>
<li>Getting rid of pools of stagnant water, clearing bushes from around the houses and planting lemon grass can all reduce the number of mosquitoes nearby.</li>
<li><strong>Health education,</strong> an important aspect for preventing malaria and malaria deaths, is needed for improving people&rsquo;s understanding of the disease which includes awareness of the symptoms, treatments and preventive steps.</li>
</ul>
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	(int) 0 => [
		'title' => '‘Maveli’ Frog',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>Researchers have found that the <strong>Purple frog (Nasikabatrachus sahyadrensis),</strong> lives almost its entire life in underground tunnels, comes out to the surface for a single day in a year to breed and lays its eggs, and returns to the earth&rsquo;s deepest layers.<a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022280_image3.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022280_image3.jpg" width="309" height="172" style="float: right;" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The bloated frog is characterised by a protruding snout and powerful hind legs.</li>
<li><strong>Mahabali, or Maveli,</strong> was a mythological king who ruled over the region of Kerala. The frog is compared with the Maveli due to their similar characteristics thats why given the name <strong>"Maveli"</strong>.</li>
<li>It is listed as <strong>endangered</strong> on the red list of the <strong>International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)</strong>.</li>
<li>It could soon be designated as <strong>Kerala&rsquo;s state amphibian</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It&rsquo;s a unique species and <strong>endemic to this part of the southern Western Ghats</strong> and cannot be found anywhere else.</li>
<li>Discovered for the first time in 2003 in the jungles of Kerala, the species sparks feverish imagination among herpetologists worldwide for a number of reasons:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They believe that the species should be rightly called a <strong>'living fossil'</strong> as it&rsquo;s evolutionary roots suggest it could have <strong>shared space with dinosaurs</strong> going back almost 70 million years ago.</li>
<li>It was able to survive such a long period in time, points to its tenacity and could help scientists understand how it&rsquo;s population may have evolved and learned to overcome the challenges of shifting land masses.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Problems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The fragile <strong>Western Ghats,</strong> classified as a <strong>biodiversity hotspot</strong> and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, is home to thousands of flora and fauna species that are not found anywhere else.</li>
<li><strong>Rapid deforestation</strong> and conversion of forest land into cropland and human settlements intruding deeper and deeper into animal habitats, the incidence of man-animal conflict especially with regards to elephants and tigers is increasing across the region.</li>
<li>Over 50 per cent of<strong> pink frog habitats</strong> lies outside the protected areas. The rampant construction of unauthorised check dams leads to submerging of the perennial breeding grounds of the frogs. Additionally, road networks lie close to their breeding grounds and hundreds of cases of road-kills go unreported every year</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conservation</h3>
<p>Efforts are made to pronounce the Purple frog as an <strong>'umbrella species'</strong> much like the tiger so that the habitat as well as other species, living in the same diversity, can be indirectly protected.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Umbrella Species</strong></p>
<p>Umbrella species are species that are selected for conservation-related decisions because the conservation and protection of these species indirectly affect the conservation and protection of other species within their ecosystem. Umbrella species help in the selection of potential reserve locations, as well as the determination of the composition of the reserve.</p>
</div>',
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	(int) 1 => [
		'title' => 'FMCG Sector Growth to Slow Down',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>The growth of FMCG sector is set to slow down mainly because of insufficient income growth, low sentiment and liquidity crunch. And this may be due to <strong>slowdown in rural demand, reduced farm incomes</strong> and <strong>low consumer confidence</strong>.</p>
<h3>FMCG sector in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) are the 4th largest sector in the Indian economy.</li>
<li>There are three main segments in the sector &ndash; <strong>food and beverages (19%), healthcare (31%) </strong>and<strong> household &amp; personal care (remaining 50%)</strong>.</li>
<li>Growing awareness, easier access and changing lifestyles have been the key growth drivers for the sector.</li>
<li>The urban segment is the largest contributor to the overall revenue generated by the FMCG sector in India.</li>
<li>However, in the last few years, the FMCG market has grown at a faster pace in rural India compared with urban India.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022207_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022207_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="634" height="260" caption="false" /></a></p>
<h3>Initiatives by Government in FMCG sector</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Approval of 100% Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in the cash and carry segment and in single-brand retail along with 51% FDI in multi-brand retail.</li>
<li>100% FDI allowed in food processing segment.</li>
<li>These initiatives will bolster employment and supply chains, and also provide high visibility for FMCG brands in organised retail markets, thereby leading to increased consumer</li>
<li>spending and encouraging more product launches.</li>
<li>Introduction of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) is beneficial for the FMCG industry. For instance, FMCG products such as soap, toothpaste and hair oil now come under 18% tax bracket against the previous 23-24% rate.</li>
</ul>',
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		'title' => 'RBI Raises Cap on Home Loan under PSL',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>RBI has raised eligibility cap on home loans for regional <strong>rural banks (RRB)</strong> and <strong>small finance banks (SFBL)</strong> to ₹35 lakh in metropolitan areas and ₹25 lakh in other centres. All such loans will be now classified by these banks as <strong>priority sector loans</strong>.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is done to bring SFBs and RRBs at a <strong>level playing field</strong> with other Scheduled Commercial Banks.</li>
<li><strong>The loan limit under PSL is revised:</strong> The family income of ₹3 lakh per annum for Economically Weaker Sections (EWS) and ₹6 lakh per annum for Low-Income Groups (LIG) is set, in alignment with the income criteria specified under the <strong>Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Priority Sector Lending</h3>
<p>It means those sectors which the Government of India and Reserve Bank of India consider as important for the development of the basic needs of the country and are to be given priority over other sectors. The banks are mandated to encourage the growth of such sectors with adequate and timely credit.</p>
<p>RBI guidelines for PSL for scheduled commercial banks:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>40% of the total net bank credit should go to priority sector advances.</li>
<li>10% of the priority sector advances or 10% of the total net bank credit, whichever is higher should go to weaker section.</li>
<li>18% of the total net bank credit should go to agricultural advances. Within the 18 target for agriculture, a target of 8 per cent of Adjusted Net Bank Credit (ANBC) or Credit&nbsp; Equivalent Amount of Off-Balance Sheet Exposure, whichever is higher is prescribed for Small and Marginal Farmers, to be achieved in a phased manner.</li>
<li>7.5 of ANBC or Credit Equivalent Amount of Off-Balance Sheet Exposure, whichever is higher should go to Micro enterprises.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Priority Sector includes the following categories:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Agriculture</li>
<li>Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises</li>
<li>Export Credit</li>
<li>Education</li>
<li>Housing</li>
<li>Social Infrastructure</li>
<li>Renewable Energy</li>
<li>Others</li>
</ul>',
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	(int) 3 => [
		'title' => 'Status of Conservation of Tigers',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>According to data released by the <strong>National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA),</strong> poaching and electrocution were behind tiger deaths reported in the country.</p>
<h3>Key highlights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Around 40% of India&rsquo;s estimated 2,226 tigers (2014 census) lives outside the core areas of tiger habitats. These tigers are vulnerable to poaching and come into conflict with humans.</li>
<li>The data shows a rise in tiger vulnerability with higher number of deaths reported in 2016 in comparison with previous years. According to the data, Madhya Pradesh (148) witnessed the highest number of deaths followed by Maharashtra (107), Karnataka (100) and Uttarakhand (82).</li>
<li>Poaching cases for illegal wildlife trade is however less but death from electrocution (mostly through fences) has been a major concern from 2016 onwards.</li>
<li>While 295 tigers died natural deaths (45% of the total), 36 were killed in road or rail accidents.</li>
<li>Conflict outside sanctuaries, national parks and bio reserves in several places is likely to increase further in the coming years.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Tiger Census in India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Every 4 years the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) conducts a tiger census across India.</li>
<li>The first was conducted in 2006, followed by 2010 and in 2014.</li>
<li>The Census (2014) had reported 2,226 tigers in the country, up from 1,706 in 2010.</li>
<li>The fourth tiger census (All India Tiger Estimation 2018-19) estimated to be released in May 2019.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Importance of Fourth Tiger Census 2018</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This 2018 tiger census uses more technology including a mobile app named <strong>&ldquo;MSTrIPES&rdquo;</strong> for the very first time to store information of the counting.</li>
<li>Another <strong>primary focus of the tiger census 2018 is to cover the northeast India that was not included in the previous census</strong>.</li>
<li>For the very first time three neighbouring countries <strong>Bhutan, Nepal</strong>&nbsp;and <strong>Bangladesh</strong> are helping in <strong>counting the number of tigers all across India,</strong> especially in the region with mutual borders.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong> <strong>M-STrIPES</strong> <em>(Monitoring System for Tigers - Intensive Protection and Ecological Status)</em> is an app based monitoring system, launched across Indian tiger reserves by the NTCA in 2010. The system would enable field managers to assist intensity and spatial coverage of patrols in a geographic information system (GIS) domain.</p>
</div>
<h3>Project Tiger and National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Project Tiger was launched in 1973</strong> with 9 tiger reserves for conserving our national animal, the tiger. Currently, the <strong>Project Tiger coverage has increased to 50,</strong> spread out in 18 tiger range states.</li>
<li>The tiger reserves are constituted on a <strong>core/buffer strategy</strong>. The <strong>core areas have the legal status of a national park or a sanctuary, whereas the buffer or peripheral areas are a mix of forest and non-forest land, managed as a multiple use area</strong>.</li>
<li>It is an ongoing <strong>Centrally Sponsored Scheme of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change providing central assistance to the tiger States</strong> for tiger conservation in designated tiger reserves.</li>
<li>The <strong>National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) is a statutory body</strong> of the Ministry, with an overarching supervisory/coordination role, performing functions as provided in the <strong>Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
<li>The NTCA was launched in 2005, following the recommendations of the Tiger Task Force. It was given statutory status by 2006 amendment of <strong>Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Buffer Area</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Buffer area is the <strong>area peripheral to the critical tiger habitat or core area</strong> providing supplementary habitat for dispersing tigers, besides offering scope for co-existence of human activity.</li>
<li>The limits of the buffer/ peripheral areas are determined on the basis of scientific and objective criteria in consultation with the Gram Sabha and an Expert Committee constituted for the purpose.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Ex-situ and In-situ conservation methods</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Ex situ conservation</strong> is the conservation and maintenance of samples of living organisms <strong>outside their natural habitat</strong>. Maintenance of Gene Banks, Seed Banks etc. comes under this method of conservation.</li>
<li><strong>In situ conservation</strong> is conservation of species <strong>in their natural habitats</strong>. Maintenance of natural habitats in the form of wildlife sanctuaries, national parks etc. comes under this method of conservation.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
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	(int) 4 => [
		'title' => 'Self Driven Cars',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>Why in the news?</h3>
<p>Recently, Elon Musk of Tesla Motors said that Tesla Robotaxis, which will run without humans, will be ready by 2020. However, a lawsuit has been initiated on 1st May by the family of a man killed by Tesla auto driven car last year, exposing limits of driver-less technology.</p>
<h3>What are driver-less cars?</h3>
<p>Self-driving vehicles are those vehicles in which human drivers are never required to take control to safely operate the vehicle. Also known as autonomous or &ldquo;driverless&rdquo; cars, they combine sensors and <strong>software to control, navigate, and drive the vehicle</strong>.</p>
<h3>How do they work?</h3>
<p>Most self-driving systems create and maintain an internal map of their surroundings, based on a wide array of sensors, like radar, laser beams, and infrared etc.</p>
<p>Software then processes those inputs, plots a path, and sends instructions to the vehicle&rsquo;s <strong>&ldquo;actuators,&rdquo;</strong> which control acceleration, braking, and steering.</p>
<p>Hard-coded rules, obstacle avoidance algorithms, predictive modelling, and <strong>&ldquo;smart&rdquo; object discrimination</strong> (i.e., knowing the difference between a bicycle and a motorcycle) help the software follow traffic rules and navigate obstacles.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022057_Images2.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022057_Images2.jpg" width="741" height="470" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The second approach uses <strong>Lidar &mdash; a remote sensing method</strong> that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure variable distances and range &mdash; in addition to the traditional sensor suite of radar and camera systems. It requires more data-processing and computational power, but is more robust, especially in tight, traffic-heavy environments.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>LIDAR, which stands for Light Detection and Ranging, is a remote sensing method that uses light in the form of a pulsed laser to measure ranges &amp; variable distances. These light pulses&mdash;combined with other data recorded by the airborne system&mdash; generate precise, three-dimensional information about the shape of the Earth and its surface characteristics.</p>
<p>A LIDAR instrument principally consists of a laser, a scanner, and a specialized GPS receiver. Airplanes and helicopters are the most commonly used platforms for acquiring LIDAR data over broad areas.</p>
</div>
<h3>What are the benefits of self driverless car?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Safety:</strong> self-driving vehicles could, hypothetically, improve safety and reduce accidents&mdash;software could prove to be less error-prone than humans&mdash;but cyber security is still a chief concern.</li>
<li><strong>Equity:</strong> Self-driving technology could help mobilize individuals who are unable to drive themselves, such as the elderly or disabled and women.</li>
<li><strong>Environmental impacts:</strong> Accessible, affordable, and convenient self-driving cars could increase the total number of miles driven each year. If those vehicles are powered by fossil fuel, then transportation-related climate emissions could skyrocket. If, however, the vehicles are electrified&mdash;and paired with a clean electricity grid&mdash;then transportation emissions could drop.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Concerns</h3>
<p>Widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles could displace millions of workers employed as drivers, negatively impact public transportation funding, and perpetuate the current transportation system&rsquo;s injustices.</p>
<p>Technology can be trusted, unpredictability of humans cannot. In such a scenario, in a developing country where there is unplanned infrastructure and a scant regard for traffic rules, the feasibility of driverless cars is far-fetched.</p>',
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	(int) 5 => [
		'title' => 'UN Report on Species Extinction',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/654English%20Website_Info.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022351_image4.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568022351_image4.jpg" width="590" height="796" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" /></a><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/654English%20Website_Info.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has released the <strong>UN report on species extinction</strong>. It is estimated that up to 1 million of the estimated 8 million plant and animal species on Earth are at risk of extinction within decades.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of the report</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The assessment is the most accurate and comprehensive review yet of the damage people are inflicting on the planet. And they warn that <strong>nature is declining at "unprecedented" rates</strong> and that the changes will put people at risk.</li>
<li>The report identified a <strong>range of risks,</strong> from the <strong>disappearance of insects</strong> vital for pollinating food crops, to the <strong>destruction of coral reefs</strong> that support fish populations that sustain coastal communities, or the <strong>loss of medicinal plants</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Decline of native species</strong> in most major land-based habitats by at least 20%, mostly since 1900.</li>
<li>It emphasizes that <strong>business and financial concerns are also threatened</strong>. We are eroding the very foundations of our economies, livelihoods, food security, health and quality of life worldwide.</li>
<li><strong>Key global threats:</strong> human&rsquo;s <strong>use of land and sea resources, climate change, pollution</strong> and <strong>invasive species</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Ocean ecosystems degrading</strong> as temperatures rise towards 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels. <strong>Loss of coral reefs</strong> to warming and acidifying oceans could cause a collapse in commercial and indigenous fisheries.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Some of the report's notable findings</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Damage extent:</strong> 75% of the land environment and 66% of the marine environment impacted due to anthropogenic activities.</li>
<li><strong>Loss of pollinators:</strong> Up to $577 billion in annual global crops are at risk from pollinator loss. Insect pollinators are unfortunately an excellent example of the problems caused by human activities."There's a newly coined phrase for insect declines &mdash; the <strong>'windshield effect&rsquo;</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Increased risk of floods and hurricanes</strong> because of loss of coastal habitats and protection.</li>
<li><strong>Pollution and waste</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980.</li>
<li>300-400 million tons of heavy metals, solvents, toxic sludge and other industrial waste are dumped into the world's water systems.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity and nature's contributions to people are our common heritage and humanity's most important life-supporting 'safety net.' But <strong>our safety net is stretched almost to breaking point</strong>.</li>
<li>Humans as both the cause of the threat and a target of its risks. As humanity demands ever more food, energy, housing and other resources, they say, it's also undermining its food security and long-term prospects.</li>
<li>The essential, <strong>interconnected web of life on Earth is getting smaller</strong> and increasingly frayed.</li>
<li>Profound economic and social changes would be needed to curb greenhouse gases quickly enough to avert the most devastating consequences of a warming world.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>IBPES</strong></p>
<p>The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is an independent intergovernmental body, established by member States in 2012.</p>
<p><strong>Objective of IPBES:</strong> Strengthen the science-policy interface for biodiversity and ecosystem services for the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity, long-term human well-being and sustainable development.</p>
<p><strong>The windshield effect</strong></p>
<p>Also, the windscreen phenomenon is a term given to the anecdotal observation that people tend to find fewer insects smashed on the windscreens of their cars now compared to a decade or several decades ago. This effect has been ascribed to major global declines in insect abundance.</p>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/un-report-on-species-extinction'
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (7th May 2019)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>Honey Mission</h3>
<p>The <strong>Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)</strong> has distributed more than one lakh bee-boxes among farmers and unemployed youths across the country in less than two years under its <strong>'Honey Mission' initiative</strong> to increase honey production and farmers&rsquo; income.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the Honey Mission, KVIC provides awareness, training and <strong>&lsquo;Bee Boxes&rsquo; along with Bee Colonies</strong> to the farmers.</li>
<li>The mission was launched in August 2017 in line with the<strong> &lsquo;Sweet Revolution&rsquo;</strong>. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The 'Sweet Revolution' was launched in 2016 <strong>to promote beekeeping and associated activities</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>According to the KVIC, the Mission has <strong>created more than 10,000 new jobs,</strong> besides creating around <strong>25,000 additional man-days</strong> through the fabrication of bee boxes and honey extractors.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>KVIC is a <strong>statutory body</strong> established under the Khadi and Village Industries Commission Act, 1956.</li>
<li>The KVIC is charged with the planning, promotion, organisation and implementation of programmes for the development of Khadi and other village industries in the rural areas in coordination with other agencies engaged in rural development wherever necessary.</li>
<li>It functions under the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Fourth Scorpene class Submarine Vela launched</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-10th-september-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Scorpene-class submarine</strong></a> <strong>&ldquo;Vela&rdquo;,</strong> the <strong>fourth of six</strong> underwater warships being <strong>built in India with French collaboration,</strong> has been launched in Mumbai, with an aim to boost Indian capability to defend and secure the strategic sea lanes.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>INS Vela was first commissioned on August 31, 1973</strong> in the Indian Naval Service and continued to serve for 37 years. It was the <strong>country&rsquo;s oldest submarine when it was decommissioned</strong> on June 25, 2010.</li>
<li>A new Vela with modern machinery and technology to guard the seas, has been launched.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The State-owned Mazagon Dock Shipbuilders Limited (MDL) has entered into a contract for construction and transfer of technology for six Scorpene-class submarines with French collaborator Ms Naval Group (formerly DCNS).
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Before Vela, MDL launched <strong>Kalvari, Khanderi, Karanj submarines</strong>.</li>
<li>While <strong>Kalvari has been commissioned,</strong> the others are at various levels of trials and tests.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Varuna</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>'Varuna',</strong> the 17<sup>th</sup> edition of a joint exercise of navies of India and France, currently underway off the coast of Goa, is the largest ever joint exercise undertaken by the two navies yet.<br /><strong></strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Significance and scope :</strong></p>
<p>It represents the strengthened maritime co-operation between India and France. With 11 of the two countries&rsquo; modern units, including the western fleet&rsquo;s Aircraft Carrier INS Vikramaditya and French Navy&rsquo;s aircraft carrier FNS Charles De Guelle, the exercise will focus on interoperability between the two sides.</p>
<p><strong>About Varuna:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is an <strong>annual exercis</strong>e.</li>
<li>It is held in either the <strong>Indian Ocean or in the Mediterranean Sea</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>France is the Littoral State of the Indian Ocean through the French Overseas region of Reunion, Mayotte &amp; Scattered Islands in the Indian Ocean.</p>
</div>
<p><strong>Other Joint exercises between and India and France:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Shakti:</strong> Army (Land)</li>
<li><strong>Garuda:</strong> Air force</li>
</ul>
<h3>GRIHA for Existing Day Schools</h3>
<p>Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment (GRIHA) Council recently released a rating tool <strong>&lsquo;GRIHA for Existing Day Schools&rsquo;</strong> to evaluate the environmental performance of existing schools across India.</p>
<p><strong>Key highlights</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rating <strong>familiarises the students with the concepts of sustainability</strong> by involving them in evaluating the environmental impact of schools on the environment.</li>
<li>It will help students and teachers in establishing contact with nature and with each other using the approach of co-creation and understanding.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>GRIHA rating</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>GRIHA, or <strong>Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment,</strong> is the <strong>national rating system of India</strong> for any completed building construction.</li>
<li>GRIHA is recognised as India&rsquo;s own green building rating system in India&rsquo;s INDC submitted to UNFCCC</li>
<li>It was <strong>conceived by TERI</strong> and developed jointly with the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.</li>
<li>The main objective of the rating system is to help design green buildings and, in turn, help evaluate the 'greenness' of the buildings.</li>
<li>It is an <strong>assessment tool to measure and rate a building&rsquo;s environmental performance</strong>.</li>
<li>The rating system is based on four parameters:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Site selection and planning</strong></li>
<li><strong>Conservation and efficient utilization of resources</strong></li>
<li><strong>Building operation and maintenance</strong></li>
<li><strong>Innovation points</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-7th-may-2019'
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'title' => 'Policy Watch - Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems',
		'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
		'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bwkDFvYDs-w" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p><strong>National Mission on Interdisciplinary Cyber-Physical Systems</strong> is a comprehensive mission which would address technology development, application development, human resource development and entrepreneurship and start-up development in <strong>Cyber-Physical Systems</strong> and associated technologies.</p>
<p>Fifteen <strong>Technology Innovation Hubs (TIH)</strong>, six <strong>Application Innovation Hubs (AIH)</strong> and four <strong>Technology Translation Research Parks (TTRP)</strong> would be set up under the mission. It is being implemented by the <strong>Department of Science &amp; Technology</strong> at a total outlay of 3,660 crore rupees for a period of five years.</p>
<h3>Cyber-Physical Systems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Government normally likes to implement physical entities such as energy grids, transport sector, agriculture, health etc on the ground i.e. making such services accessible to the whole population. For this, there is a need of technology/ cyberspace.</li>
<li>Cyberspace includes technologies such as Information and Communication Technology (ICT), Artificial Intelligence, the sensors, the activators, the data science, the quantum technologies.</li>
<li><strong>Interacting with physical systems in the cyberspace is referred to as Cyber-Physical Systems.</strong></li>
<li>CPS and its associated technologies, today, are playing a <strong>transformative role</strong> in almost every field of human sphere. Therefore, <strong>government and industries</strong> in India are <strong>preparing themselves</strong> for adoption of these emerging and disruptive technologies <strong>in order to remain competitive, drive societal progress,</strong> generate employment, foster economic growth and to improve the <strong>overall quality of life and sustainability of the environment</strong>.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Drishti Input</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Cyber-physical systems <strong>integrate</strong> sensing, computation, control and networking into <strong>physical objects and infrastructure,</strong> connecting them to the Internet and to each other.</li>
<li>Few Potential applications: <strong>Driverless cars</strong> that communicate securely with each other <strong>on smart roads,</strong> Sensors in the home to <strong>detect changing health conditions,</strong> improving <strong>agricultural practices</strong> and enabling scientists to address issues arising out of climate change,etc.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Highlights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A strategic approach involving a suitable <strong>mix of Academic, Industry and Government</strong> is proposed to be adopted under the mission.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>TTRPs will connect to Academics, Industry, Central Ministries and State Government for developing technological solutions.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The mission would address the <strong>entire gamut of technology development,</strong> starting from research to the development of product.</li>
<li>The mission will help in <strong>preparing the young generation of India in futuristic technologies</strong>.</li>
<li>The research community in India do lot of research, in fact, India is third in the world in terms of publications but <strong>in terms of products, India</strong> <strong>lags behind;</strong> the <strong>mission</strong> addresses this particular segment in the <strong>form of translational research</strong>.</li>
<li>The research, its translation into a product and startup and entrepreneurship development for the same are one of the core segments of this mission.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Importance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will help in the <strong>development of cyber ecosystem</strong> in the country <strong>which would in turn help the government in spreading its national initiatives</strong> in sectors like health, education, energy, environment, agriculture etc. among the people.</li>
<li>India has lot of talent in the technology field (engineers, that too without jobs), the mission will help in <strong>channelizing that talent</strong> effectively. This is possible as mission focuses on creating an Entrepreneurship and Start-up Ecosystem that will create a number of technology driven job opportunities in CPS and allied areas.</li>
<li>It will make an ecosystem where researchers will do the job that feeds into the start-up or innovation system thus <strong>providing boost to ideas that get generated in laboratories</strong>.</li>
<li>The mission will help in making <strong>Indian entrepreneurs globally competitive</strong> with respect to emerging technologies.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Demographic Dividend</strong><br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Technologies like Artificial Intelligence may <strong>scale down a lot of jobs</strong> which are prevalent in the country.</li>
<li>This will make a lot of people unemployed, though some people may get jobs also.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Proper implementation of the program is a challenge</strong><br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Technology is progressing at a very fast pace, making them available to a common man is difficult.</li>
<li>Bringing government, industries and academicians together is another big challenge.</li>
<li>There are less instances when industries have actually lifted the technologies developed by the academic community.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Suggestions</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has to make sure that it makes <strong>optimal use of human resources</strong> in every field be it research, start-up or entrepreneurship. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Start-ups will provide job opportunities. By inculcating good training skills, India can effectively utilize its large human capacity.</li>
<li>Besides IITs and NITs, government needs to ensure that quality education is imparted in other higher educational institutes also.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Government</strong> can play only a role of <strong>facilitator,</strong> in reality, <strong>industries and academicians need to come together</strong> to build innovative services/products.</li>
<li><strong>For proper implementation,</strong> 25 hubs under the mission should be established in academic institutions and each hub should get a technology business partner as well as a representative from private industry. Also, these hubs should work as per the needs of the government, this will ensure <strong>collective working of industries, academicians and government in developing technological solutions</strong>.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/policy-watch-interdisciplinary-cyber-physical-systems'
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'title' => 'Climate Change and Development in India',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/parley-is-india-doing-enough-to-combat-climate-change/article27013805.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Parley: Is India doing enough to combat climate change?'</a> which appeared in "The Hindu" on May 3rd, 2019. The article talks about how India should tackle the climate change problem at the larger level of discourse.</p>
</div>
<p>Climate change is certainly without argument the most serious global environmental crisis that we face. <em>It is not the only environmental problem,</em> but it is unique in its multi-scalar characteristic, from the global to the local. And, in many ways, it is arguably the most immediate of our problems.</p>
<p><strong>At one level, for many people climate change has become an existential problem,</strong> a problem that risks undermining the conditions for productive life and therefore a problem that does not override but certainly permeates all kinds of other issues. <strong>For many others, climate change is a distant problem that is overwhelmed by more immediate issues.</strong></p>
<h3>What made the news?</h3>
<p><strong>The Paris Agreement on climate change is set to become operational in 2020,</strong> and discussions on what developmental pathways can India pursue to align its social objectives and energy needs with its commitments made under the UN pact have begun. This is one such important discussion.</p>
<h3>The Short Gist</h3>
<p><strong>One cannot ignore the linkage between current issues and climate change.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In India, for instance, if we think about farmer distress it is likely to be made much worse by climate change, and if we think about challenges of water, it is being made much worse by the climate changing.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The global carbon system is interlocked</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>We are recognising that the global carbon system is an interlocked system.</li>
<li>So,<strong> we have to think about the global transition to low carbon systems and the resultant spillover effects,</strong> from changes in one economy to changes in another economy, changes in politics in one place to changes in politics in another place, etc.</li>
<li><strong>This makes important how we bring about the transition to a low carbon economy in India</strong> (because India is a large economy, market, second largest population and it can play an important role in being part of these positive spillover effects).</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>If India has to decarbonise while meeting its development goals,</strong> what is important is that the new investments go in the direction of decarbonising, but only after taking into account possible synergies and trade-offs with other development objectives.</p>
<h3>Opinions from the editorial</h3>
<p><strong>Though India is not responsible for the stock of CO<sub>2</sub> in the atmosphere, we must do far more than we are doing today to call the developed countries to account.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><em>India contributes to only 6 or 7% of global emissions but we are one of the most vulnerable countries.</em></li>
</ul>
<h3>Adaptation &amp; Mitigation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>We need to start taking climate change more seriously, particularly on the adaptation side, because we really have a lot to be concerned about.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>And on the mitigation side, we have to be careful as we may not be fully exploring the scope of intersections between <em>'a low carbon agenda'</em> and <em>'a development agenda'</em>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>India still has huge development deficits and unfortunately, the intersection between erasing development deficits and genuine climate change adaptation has been very poorly explored and the entry point for this conversation should be development deficits.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>This is because &lsquo;development is the first line of defence against adaptation&rsquo;.</strong></li>
<li>And we have to understand what is development versus adaptation? How much mitigation do we need to do? How much is the overall burden of mitigation?</li>
<li>In adaptation, our focus should therefore be on understanding what our development deficits are.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li><strong>For example, to say that we need to improve, find a way for cleaner transportation, shouldn&rsquo;t actually lead to a conclusion that it should lead to more electric vehicles &ndash;</strong> the first priority has to be improved and more accessible public transport.</li>
<li><strong>We need to understand these development deficits from a multi objective point of view,</strong> in terms of economics and access, in terms of local pollutants like air pollutants, climate change and mitigation, and liveability of cities, we need this more multi-faceted and analytical framework.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>India can bring development gains and that also lead to mitigation benefits.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>For example, the way we design our cities:</strong> we want more sustainable cities, we want cities with less congestion, with more public transport because we want cities that are more liveable. Those kinds of cities will also automatically be low carbon cities.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Our foremost requirement is to hedge the future</h3>
<p><strong>The problem for India is hedging its future,</strong> not simply what we consume now or what we expect to gain in immediate terms. [<strong>Hedging:</strong><em> Any technique designed to reduce or eliminate financial risk; for example, taking two positions that will offset each other if prices change</em>]</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>What is it that we want as our long-term future and how much of it in terms of carbon space we need to hedge?</strong> Because this is an ongoing game, it is not a static number - <em>it changes over time -</em> we need to continually monitor and study it.</li>
<li><strong>Even though India&rsquo;s performance in NDC is good, we cannot respond with more commitments in our NDC until we see serious commitments at the international level.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>To Conclude</h3>
<p><em>We don&rsquo;t have the option in India of thinking about anything that is innocent of climate change anymore.</em></p>
<p><strong>We must recognise climate change as a global collective action problem.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>If one country is honourable in the extreme, and cuts its emissions to the bone, that is going to be of little use if the others do not follow suit. They will suffer the consequences of climate change despite the extent of their sacrifice or effort.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>We need to move climate change, global warming to the top of our foreign policy agenda.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This is a critical move we need to make and the sooner we do it, the greater is the benefit that we will draw from our own climate actions.</li>
<li><strong>And India will probably exceed the NDC pledges,</strong> because for reasons like urban congestion and air pollution, we will want to move in the direction of low carbon anyway, quite apart from climate change.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Would a carbon tax on conspicuous consumption bring about equity in access to energy?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Before we think of carbon purely in terms of consumption, we should also think of it in terms of production.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>For example, imagine privileging Kerala for not having so much emissions at all, and penalising Jharkhand, Dhanbad for too much emissions. That is not exactly fair.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Inequality in terms of consumption is therefore not really fair. <em>Is it consumption for production or is it consumption for personal use?</em> <strong>The two are not the same thing.</strong></li>
<li>The bulk of the problem is really &lsquo;consumption for other production&rsquo;, rather than &lsquo;consumption for personal use&rsquo;.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>We cannot take our current level of energy consumption in any way as a benchmark of what India needs for the future.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>This is because our per capita energy consumption levels are extremely low</strong> and not something compatible with the development and lifestyle that we wish for in India.</li>
<li><strong>The real dilemma is if we want to increase energy use at a time when globally we are trying shift to a low carbon system.</strong></li>
<li>At the same time, there is another big challenge - <em>providing jobs when automation and artificial intelligence are growing in power and capacity</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Therefore, India should not be thinking about climate change adaptation as a single technology transition.</strong> Instead, we should think about jobs, energy and pollution questions together. This is the best way forward.</p>
<h3>What makes this topic important for UPSC?</h3>
<p><strong>In 2017, GS III, UPSC asked the following question:</strong> <em>&ldquo;Climate Change is a global problem. How India will be affected by climate change? How Himalayan and coastal states of India will be affected by climate change?&rdquo;</em></p>
<table border="1" style="width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; border-style: solid; background-color: #eedefc; border-color: #5b02a8;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 100%;">
<p><strong>Drishti Input:</strong></p>
<p>&ldquo;Though India contributes only 6 or 7% of global emissions yet it is one of the most vulnerable countries from climate change.&rdquo; Discuss.</p>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p></p>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/climate-change-and-development-in-india'
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'title' => 'AMFI guidelines',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>The <strong>Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI)</strong> has recently issued guidelines on how fund managers should write down debt and handle below investment grade paper.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>AMFI has suggested lower provisioning for secured debt of infrastructure and real estate firms, hotels, hospitals and the contentious so-called loan against share or LAS paper.</li>
<li>It has requested the asset management companies (AMCs) to be proactive in applying the standard hair-cut matrix on sub-standard investment-grade debt securities without waiting for rating agencies to downgrade them.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>According to SEBI guidelines, any security which has a <strong>rating below BBB</strong>- is considered to be below investment grade.</li>
<li><strong>Haircut</strong> is mutual funds writing off the principal amount and the interest in case of a default.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>So far, every asset management company (AMC) and fund manager used to write down or decide on haircut on its own. These guidelines will bring about uniformity in the valuation of distressed securities across the industry.</li>
<li>AMCs fear that applying the standard haircut matrix would lead to heavy redemptions, which can potentially bring down the net asset value of their fund drastically.</li>
<li>These guidelines have come after a recent SEBI circular. The circular asked AMFI and the valuation agencies &ndash; Crisil and Icra Management Consulting Services Limited (IMaCS) -- to develop a valuation methodology for such investment grade paper.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>AMFI:&nbsp;</strong>AMFI,the association of SEBI registered mutual funds in India, was incorporated on August 22, 1995, as a non-profit organisation. It is dedicated to developing the Indian Mutual Fund Industry on professional, healthy and ethical lines and to enhance and maintain standards in all areas with a view to protecting and promoting the interests of mutual funds and their unit holders.</p>
<p><strong>Asset Management Company (AMC)</strong>: An asset management company (AMC) is a firm that invests pooled funds from clients, putting the capital to work through different investments including stocks, bonds, real estate, master limited partnerships, and more. Those that offer public mutual funds or exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are also known as investment companies or mutual fund companies.</p>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/amfi-guidelines'
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'title' => 'Factors preventing Financial Inclusion',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>Recently, <strong>Business Correspondents (BCs) and bankers have flagged some issues that are blocking financial inclusion in the country.</strong></p>
<h3>Key points</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Aadhar enabled payment system <strong>(AePS) device subsidy, being offered by NABARD is not being availed by the banks</strong> and BCs cannot afford the same. This restricts access to Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) money to the citizens.</li>
<li>Jan Dhan accounts and accounts in rural areas are not being identified by the common IFSC code of centralised Core Banking System. Hence, any service to these accounts are violative of government intent and invite GST charges.</li>
<li><strong>Fee proposed by the government is not being paid to BC agents,</strong> thus making the work unviable for them.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Who are Business Correspondents?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Business Correspondents (BC), authorized by the Reserve Bank of India, <strong>are retail agents engaged by banks for providing banking services</strong> at locations &ndash;<strong> mostly remote areas</strong> &mdash; other than a bank branch or ATM.</li>
<li>BCs enable a bank to provide its limited range of banking services at low cost, thus promoting financial inclusion.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>AePS and DBT:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Aadhaar enabled Payment System (AePS) is a bank-led model which allows<strong> online interoperable financial inclusion transaction</strong> at PoS (MicroATM) through the Business correspondent of a bank using the<strong> Aadhaar authentication.</strong></li>
<li>The only inputs required for a customer to do a transaction under AePS are:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IIN (Identifying the Bank to which the customer is associated)</li>
<li>Aadhaar Number</li>
<li>Fingerprint captured during their enrollment</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The<strong> Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT)</strong> simply involves transferring the subsidy amount and other benefits (called transfers) directly to the beneficiaries&rsquo; bank accounts instead of providing it through government offices.</li>
<li>AePS helps targeted beneficiaries under DBT in receiving the subsidy amount.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>NOTE:</strong> In September 2018, the Supreme Court set aside mandatory linking of Aadhaar with bank accounts, but allowed DBT-related Aadhar use.</p>
<h3></h3>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>BCs need to be properly incentivized and monitored by the banks.</strong> They should be provided with all such facilities and devices that they need.</li>
<li><strong>The government needs to make small savings affordable for banks.</strong></li>
<li>It is the need of the hour to <strong>educate the people,</strong> especially the target section about the available benefits like the one associated with RuPay cards.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/factors-preventing-financial-inclusion'
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'title' => 'Class Action Lawsuits',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The government is readying a scheme to provide financial assistance to <strong>minority investors</strong> filing <strong>class action lawsuits</strong> under the companies law.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Under <strong>Section 245 of the Companies Act</strong>, investors can file a class action suit in case they feel the management or conduct of the affairs of a company is prejudicial to their interests.</li>
<li>The concept of class action suit provides an option for investors to seek remedy as a group, is well known in western countries. The lawsuit involves a plaintiff suing a defendant or multiple defendants on behalf of a group or a class.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Advantages</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is a way to further bolster measures to protect the interests of investors, and encourage investors to resort to class action suits.</li>
<li>It will provide financial assistance to minority investors to file class action by using the <strong>IEPF (Investor Education and Protection Fund).</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IEPF is managed by the IEPF Authority, which comes under the Ministry of corporate affairs.</li>
<li>IEPF is for promotion of investors awareness and protection of the interests of investors.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The push for class action suits also assumes significance against the backdrop of various instances of investors getting duped by illegal money pooling schemes as well as being impacted by corporate governance issues and fraudulent practices at some companies.</li>
<li>Minority investors are not well equipped to pursue a class action. There is provision for disgorgement also. Class action suit is an important way to empower minority shareholders who are the worst sufferers.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Auditors, credit rating agencies, everybody would be liable to a class action. Among others, if statutory auditors have been callous and negligent, endorsing falsified statements, the investors can certainly proceed against them with a class action.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>IEPF Authority</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is formed for administration of Investor Education and Protection Fund Government</li>
<li>India has on 7th September 2016 established Investor Education and Protection Fund Authority under the provisions of section 125 of the Companies Act, 2013.</li>
<li>The Authority is entrusted with the responsibility of administration of the Investor Education Protection Fund (IEPF), make refunds of shares, unclaimed dividends, matured deposits/debentures etc. to investors and to promote awareness among investors.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>The IEPF is to be utilized for</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The refund in respect of unclaimed dividends, matured deposits, matured debentures, the application money due for refund and interest.</li>
<li>Promotion of investors&rsquo; education, awareness and protection</li>
<li>Distribution of any disgorged amount among eligible and identifiable applicants for shares or debentures, shareholders, debenture-holders or depositors who have&nbsp;suffered losses due to wrong actions by any person, in accordance with the orders made by the Court.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
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		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/class-action-lawsuits'
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (6th May 2019)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviews relief measures</h3>
<p><span></span></p>
<p><span>The National Crisis Management Committee (NCMC) reviewed relief measures in the cyclone FANI affected areas of Odisha, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh with the States and Central Ministries/Agencies concerned.</span></p>
<p><strong>About NCMC</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Government of India, for effective implementation of relief measures in the wake of natural calamities, sets up&nbsp;a&nbsp;<strong>Standing National Crisis Management Committee</strong> with Cabinet Secretary as Chairman&nbsp;and Secretaries of all the concerned Ministries /Departments as well as other organizations, to meet the exigencies of such crisis. The committee has previously met during Cyclone Ockhi, Kerala floods etc.</li>
<li>The NCMC gives direction to the Crisis Management Group as deemed necessary.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Crisis Management Group (CMG):</strong> The group deals with matters relating to relief in the wake of major natural calamities. The group consists of Relief Commissioner (Chairman) and other nodal officers from various concerned Ministries. Its functions are to review:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>contingency plans formulated by various Ministries, Departments and Organizations in their respective sectors.</li>
<li>measures required for dealing with a natural disaster.</li>
<li>coordinate the activities of the Central Ministries and the State Governments in relation to disaster preparedness and relief.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>India-UK Naval Cooperation</h3>
<p>India and the United Kingdom are in talks to build a new state-of-the-art aircraft carrier along the lines of UK&rsquo;s HMS Queen Elizabeth as a part of India&rsquo;s &lsquo;Make in India&rsquo; programme.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Navy intends to buy detailed plan of the HMS Queen Elizabeth, a 65,000-tonne warship, and build a new version called INS Vishal in 2022.</li>
<li>The design for UK aircraft carriers is owned by the British and French aerospace giants BAE and Thales.</li>
<li>The design would be modified to meet Indian Navy and local industry requirements.</li>
<li>For India, a new naval carrier would serve alongside INS Vikramaditya &mdash; bought from Russia in 2004 &mdash; and the currently under-construction INS Vikrant which could strengthen &lsquo;blue water&rsquo; capability of Indian navy.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong> A &lsquo;blue-water navy&rsquo; is a maritime force capable of operating in the deep waters of the open oceans. The term is more colloquial than doctrinal and most sea-going states differ on its specifics. Broadly, however, most navies agree that a blue-water navy is capable of prolonged and sustained operations across the open oceans, and has a capacity to project &ldquo;credible power&rdquo; in the distant seas.</p>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The INS Vikramaditya, the Indian Navy's only in-service aircraft carrier, was a former Russian ship that was commissioned into service in 2013.</li>
<li>Prior to the INS Vikramaditya, both of the Indian Navy's previous aircraft carriers&mdash;the Vikrant and Viraat&mdash;were ships that were formerly in service with the Royal Navy of Britain.</li>
<li>INS Viraat was decommissioned two years ago, to be converted into Maritime Museum.</li>
<li>INS Vikrant, also known as Indigenous Aircraft Carrier 1 (IAC-1), is the India&rsquo;s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (currently being built at the Cochin Shipyard Limited) which will be delivered to the Indian Navy by 2021.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Scientists Complete Genetic Sequencing of Chickpea</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Recently, International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) and other research institutions across the world successfully completed the sequencing of 429 chickpea lines from 45 countries.</li>
<li>In 2011, scientists successfully sequenced the genome or most of the genetic make-up of the arhar (pigeon pea plant).</li>
<li>In the context of the growing global population and threats posed by climate change there is a need to generate new varieties of chickpea (an important crop with high nutrient value) with better traits including heat, drought, pests and disease resistance, higher yield and productivity.</li>
<li>The research helps understand domestication and post-domestication divergence of chickpea.</li>
<li>It will enable breeders in developing improved climate-change ready varieties that will contribute significantly to increase in productivity and sustainability of agricultural development in developing countries.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>What is Genome Sequencing?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Each plant cell contains the genome: a linear string of DNA base pairs (bp), which ultimately dictates that a corn seed will grow to become a corn plant, for instance, and not a banana or soybean plant.</li>
<li>Determining the order of DNA bases, or sequencing, allows researchers to decode the first layer of genome features such as protein-coding genes, repetitive areas called &ldquo;repeats,&rdquo; and the elements that regulate how genes are expressed in cells. Together, all of these features provide the genetic instructions that make each plant species unique.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>ICRISAT is an international organization which conducts agricultural research for rural development.</li>
<li>It was founded in 1972 by a consortium of organisations. Its charter was signed by the FAO and the UNDP.</li>
<li>It is headquartered in Telangana, India and with several regional centers and research stations in other countries.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568029497_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568029497_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" width="258" height="1595" caption="false" /></a></h3>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-6th-may-2019'
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'title' => 'TikTok App Ban Case',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p><em><strong>This editorial is based on the article '<a href="https://www.hindustantimes.com/analysis/why-the-tiktok-ban-is-worrying/story-9Q7Gpv9t1Uxavd8hYJnjDO.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Why the TikTok ban is worrying</a>' which appeared in "The Hindustan Times" on 2nd May, 2019. The article talks about why we need to debate and discuss the TikTok ban.</strong></em></p>
</div>
<p>Any kind of &lsquo;ban&rsquo; on social media, books or movies etc. should trigger a debate and discussion on its necessity and legality. The recent ban on TikTok and its subsequent withdrawal requires a similar debate. Here we should keep in mind India&rsquo;s social system which is very different from countries like the UK or USA where freedom of speech is held supreme. In contrast, our Constitution provides us with freedoms but also gives us its limitations and Indian citizens are bound to act within these limitations.<br /><span style="font-weight: 400;"></span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">What made the news?</span></h3>
<p><b>The Madras High Court had issued an interim ban on TikTok after it found that the platform hosted pornographic content</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Court mentioned that it was worried about the content affecting children and until a conclusion was reached, the Court issued a temporary ban on the app. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">In response, Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) issued an order to Google and Apple to remove the app from the official app stores. The government followed the court's order.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">When the matter was raised before the Supreme Court, it carried out a hearing on April 22 where it asked the Madras High Court to take a decision on the interim ban till April 24. The Supreme Court said that the ban would stay lifted if the High Court didn't take any decision. Additionally, the Supreme Court didn't pass any judgement on the matter.</span></p>
<p><b>Finally, the Madras High Court removed the interim ban as the bench stated that it was only interested in protecting children from cybercriminals. While the interim ban has been removed from the app, the case is still undergoing.</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> The Court has only removed the interim ban for the time being. If the case demands, the app may be banned once again.</span></p>
<p><b>TikTok claimed that it complies with local laws and ensures that it doesn&rsquo;t promote objectionable and illegal content on its platform</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">TikTok said it removed six million videos that violated TikTok&rsquo;s Community Guidelines.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It also says that their moderation team is based in over 20 countries and regions including India, and covers 15 major Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Bengali, Gujarati and more.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>In March 2019, Facebook, WhatsApp, Google, Twitter, Share-Chat and ByteDance (owner of TikTok) agreed to India&rsquo;s &lsquo;first voluntary code&rsquo; on taking down &lsquo;problematic content&rsquo; and to bring &lsquo;transparency in political advertising&rsquo;</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">The Short Gist</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">TikTok is a two-sided platform with users and advertisers as the two sides. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It derives its revenues from advertisements and other in-app purchases by the user, although the use of the app itself requires no payment. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><b>Although the user pays nothing for downloading and using the app, in such cases they themselves become the product by virtue of surrendering their data and their eyeballs for advertisements</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The key would therefore be to regulate this transaction (between advertisers and users) to ensure that TikTok has the right incentives to build safeguards and innovate.</span></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><b>The Court gave three directions while passing its ban order</b></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The first direction </span><b>prohibits the download of the application;</b></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The second </span><b>prohibits the televised telecast of videos created through the app;</b></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The third directs a r</span><b>esponse from the Union Governmen</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">t on it&rsquo;s position to legislate a statute analogous to the </span><a href="http://www.coppa.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Children Online Privacy Protection Act </b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;">(COPPA) enacted by the United States, to prevent children from becoming cyber/online victims.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><b>The Internet &amp; Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) said content moderation on user-generated content platforms has been a problem about which the platforms themselves are keenly aware and have taken effective measures in recent months to curb the excesses</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">It also pointed out that social media platforms in the country have adopted the Code of Ethics with the Election Commission.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Content moderation on user-generated platforms is an industry-wide challenge that social-media companies take very seriously</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">, and are constantly addressing with ever-improving mechanisms along with enhanced safety features such as increased privacy settings, in-app reporting, comments filter, content filter for younger users, in-app access to Community Guidelines, online safety resources and more.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Various Opinions</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Any "arbitrary" ban on social media platforms and intermediaries could </span><b>impede foreign direct investment </b><span style="font-weight: 400;">and affect </span><b>expansion of the digital India</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> initiative, the industry body of Internet and mobile device companies. </span></p>
<p><b>Legal experts who expect scrutiny over digital platforms to only increase say that such regulations must focus on removing illegal content as against removing the app completely</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">&lsquo;There is definitely more talk worldwide about regulating digital platforms and making them more accountable, however, it is important to keep in mind that they are not liable legally for actions of their users&rsquo;.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Section 79 of the Indian Information Technology Act, 2000 exempts intermediaries from liability for obscene and illegal content, as long as they do not play any part in creation of content</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Such bans dilute or even to some extent negate the </span><b>safe harbour provisions (Sec 79, IT Act 2000)</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> currently contained in the IT Act and its Rules, and make it impossible for companies to operate in the country. Especially affected would be the social media platforms which allow citizens to express themselves freely.</span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">According to the IAMAI, dilution of the Safe Harbour protection available to intermediaries/social media platforms undermines the steady growth of India's digital economy and especially impacts the thriving startup ecosystem in the country.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><b>Researchers examining cases at the intersection of internet freedom and privacy are of the view that the recent debates around the accountability of intermediaries like TikTok, PUBG, Facebook and Instagram have been occasioned by spread of inappropriate content on these platforms</b><span style="font-weight: 400;">. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Because the content could be obscene in many instances, the intermediaries are being brought under the purview (of the law) now. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">This is, however, not regulated by any legislation currently. </span></li>
</ul>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">To Conclude</span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Social media, content and gaming apps are grappling for a way to deal with heightened regulatory scrutiny as courts worldover step in to stem the flood of objectionable content on these platforms. India being one of the world&rsquo;s fastest-growing internet market is witnessing nothing different.</span></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><b>Two examples of regulation</b></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Australia passed a law that will make social media companies liable for fines up to 10% of profits or the arrest of its executives and jail terms of up to three years, if companies fail to remove &ldquo;abhorrent violent material&rdquo; from their platforms. </span></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">Singapore has drafted a law that could make internet and social media companies pay fines of up to S$1 million and jail of up to six years for officials who do not comply in removing fake news on their platforms. It also mandates those who spread fake news to file a correction online.</span></li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">As India debates the contours of a proposed data law and awaits clarity on amendments to intermediary guidelines for technology platforms, those concerned about the potentially harmful effects of certain content on these apps are turning to the courts for redressal. </span></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style="font-weight: 400;">The courts are filling a vacuum and there will be a vacuum until new laws are finalised.</span></li>
</ul>
<p><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/justice-bn-srikrishna-committee-submits-data-protection-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>The proposed data protection law drafted by Justice BN Srikrishna Committee</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> has prohibited technology companies from profiling, tracking, behavioural monitoring or advertising directed at children. The draft also proposed parental consent to sign up for apps.&nbsp;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">On the other hand, voicing concerns against outright bans, the </span><a href="https://internetfreedom.in" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Internet Freedom Foundation</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> (IFF), </span><span style="font-weight: 400;">an Indian digital liberties organisation is</span><b> arguing against outright bans on applications</b><span style="font-weight: 400;"> saying that banning &ldquo;provide no resolve&rdquo; and that Courts should &ldquo;consider alternative measures&rdquo;. IFF has also requested MeitY to adopt a &ldquo;rights respecting stand against app bans, commence a transparent consultation process and activate the defunct Cyber Regulations Advisory Committee, which was tasked with providing subject matter expertise to the government on issues related to the use of technology&rdquo;. </span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">IFF has observed that despite citizen concerns over digital freedom, governments worldwide are moving towards greater regulatory control over content platforms and companies such as Facebook, Google-owned YouTube as well as Chinese apps such as TikTok and Bigo Live will face even more regulatory scrutiny in future.</span></p>
<h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">What makes this topic important for UPSC? </span></h3>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In the 2017 GS I paper, the following question was asked: &ldquo;The growth of cities as I.T. hubs has opened up new avenues of employment but has also created new problems. Substantiate this statement with examples.&rdquo;</span></p>
<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">To answer this question properly, aspirants will have to not only display a great level of understanding of the issue but also cite examples drawn from everyday life. This therefore requires a holistic approach at understanding technology and the socio-economic issues associated with it. The topic we have discussed today also needs a holistic understanding and therefore extending reading. We have covered certain topics of interest on the website which can be found by searching for </span><a href="/search/social%20media" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><b>Social Media (You may click here to find these articles)</b></a><span style="font-weight: 400;"> - please go through these articles once to improve your understanding of the social media related issues.</span></p>
<table border="1" style="border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #f3facd; border-color: #8fa800; border-style: solid;">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td style="width: 899px;"><strong>Drishti Input<br /></strong><span style="font-weight: 400;"><br />"The growth of social media has opened up new avenues of expression but has also created new social problems. Substantiate this statement with examples." [250 Words]</span></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>',
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	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'title' => 'Sri Vedanta Desikan',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030844_image2.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030844_image2.jpg" width="165" height="244" caption="false" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Vice President released a <strong>postage stamp</strong> to commemorate the<strong> 750th birth anniversary</strong> of <strong>Sri Vedanta Desikan</strong>.</li>
<li>Shri Vedanta Desikan is one of the most prominent preceptors in the <strong>Sri Vaishnava tradition</strong> and one of the most effulgent luminaries of South India.</li>
<li>He followed the philosophy of Ramanuja&rsquo;s Vishishtadvaita.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>VishishtAdvaita literally means Advaita with uniqueness; qualifications, it is a non-dualistic school of Vedanta philosophy.</li>
<li>It is<strong> non-dualism</strong> of the qualified whole, in which Brahman alone exists, but is characterized by multiplicity. It can be described as qualified monism or qualified non-dualism or attributive monism.</li>
<li>It is a school of Vedanta philosophy which belief in all diversity subsuming to an underlying unity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>He was celebrated as <strong>&lsquo;sarva-tantra-svatantra&rsquo;</strong> master of all arts and crafts; awarded the title<strong> &lsquo;kavi tarkika-kesari&rsquo;</strong>&nbsp;the lion amongst poets and logicians; and glorified as <strong>&lsquo;ramanuja-daya-patram&rsquo;</strong> the recipient of Ramanuja&rsquo;s blessings.</li>
<li>He had authored brilliant poems, prose, drama, epics, commentaries, scientific texts and philosophical treatises in Sanskrit, Tamil, Prakrit and Manipravalam.</li>
<li>Much more than a spiritual teacher, he was a multi-faceted personality-- a scientist, a logician, a mathematician, a literary genius, a linguist, a military strategist and much more.</li>
<li>His philosophy was based on inclusion, where anyone irrespective of caste and creed could join the Sri Vaishnava fold.</li>
<li>He mastered the Vedas, the Vedangas, the <strong>4000 Divya Prabhanda</strong>(collection of 4,000 Tamil verses) and all the existing schools of Indian philosophy such as <strong>Nyaya, Vaisheshika, Purva Mimamsa, Yoga and Sankhya</strong> by the age of twenty.</li>
<li>He also expressed his genius in the field of arts and sciences through other works such as:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Aahaara Niyamam</strong> that detailed how different food items help in maintaining a healthy mind and a disease-free life.</li>
<li><strong>Subhashita Neevi</strong> contains a fund of moral and ethical advice which is relevant and practical.</li>
<li><strong>Silpartha-saram</strong>-a treatise on sculpture.</li>
<li><strong>Bhugola-nirnayam</strong>-a research text on geography.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>',
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	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'title' => 'Theatre Command in India',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>According to report of Pentagon, China continues to rapidly modernise its war-fighting capabilities. In this context, Indian Armed forces lacks on various front for a coordinated approach to tackle China threat.</p>
<p>China frontier is handled by Western Theatre command, which handles entire 4057-km of line of actual control. However, the problem of disjointedness still prevails in Indian army.</p>
<p>In such a scenario, creation of unified theatre command is needed for India.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Andaman and Nicobar Command</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is the only integrated theatre command in India, formed in 2001 after the Kargil war.</li>
<li>It is a very small command, with limited resources, and there has been a demand to revert the control of command permanently to the Navy.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p></p>
<p><strong>What is a Theatre command?</strong></p>
<p>A theatre command is an organisational structure designed to control all military assets in a theatre of war to achieve military effects.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A joint command is called a &lsquo;theatre command&rsquo; in military parlance (of army, air force and navy).</li>
<li>It places the resources of all forces at the command of a senior military commander.</li>
<li>For example a &lsquo;theatre command&rsquo; in the East will integrate components of the IAF and the Army, and also have component of the Navy integrated with it.</li>
<li>At present, the only joint command is learnt to be in Andaman and Nicobar islands.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Views in favour of Integration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The integrated <strong>theatre commander will not be answerable to individual Services,</strong> and will be free to train, equip and exercise his command to make it a cohesive fighting force capable of achieving designated goals.</li>
<li>The <strong>logistic resources</strong> required to support its operations will also be placed at the disposal of the theatre commander so that it does not have to look for anything when operations are ongoing.</li>
<li>This is in <strong>contrast to the model of service-specific commands</strong> which India currently has, wherein the Army, Air Force and Navy all have their own commands all over the country. In case of war, each Service Chief is expected to control the operations of his Service through individual commands, while they operate jointly.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Views against Integration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>There has been no occasion, during actual warfare, when the three services have not operated with commendable cooperation.</li>
<li>Faraway lands war and medium to high intensity wars are a distant possibility.</li>
<li>With increased communication network , interaction between three organization is easy, they can come on board , can planning without much consideration of spatial distance, so there is no need for new organisation.</li>
<li>Domain knowledge of the integrated force commander is likely to be limited in respect of the other two Services components under his command, thereby limiting his ability to employ them in the most suitable manner and at the appropriate time</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges posed by present structure</h3>
<p></p>
<p style="text-align: left;"><strong>The structural problem with current structure</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>None of the present 17 commands is co-located at the same station, nor are their areas of operational responsibility contiguous.</li>
<li>In addition, there are 2 tri-service commands <strong>Strategic Forces Command (SFC)</strong> and <strong>Andaman and Nicobar Command (ANC),</strong> which is headed by rotation by officers from the 3 Services.</li>
<li>The <strong>SFC (Strategic Forces Command),</strong> looks after the delivery and operational control of the country&rsquo;s nuclear assets. It was created in 2003, but because it has no specific geographic responsibility and a designated role, it is <strong>not an integrated theatre command but an integrated functional command</strong>.</li>
<li>There has been a demand for <strong>other integrated functional commands, such as the cyber, aerospace and Special Operations commands,</strong> but the government is yet to approve any.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Other problems</strong></p>
<table border="1" style="height: 302px; width: 100%; border-collapse: collapse; background-color: #c3e2fa; border-color: #0068b8;">
<tbody>
<tr style="height: 81px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 81px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Lack of coordination among the three services</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 81px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is perhaps the only major military that does not have a CDS-type post.</li>
<li>This has created problems for the integration of the three services and also on other issues like joint training and planning.</li>
<li>Under the current structure, the three service chiefs are protective of their turfs and perpetuate a single-service approach to training, planning and operations.</li>
<li>The service chiefs are used to almost complete autonomy, leading to unnecessary duplication, wasteful expenditure and a single-service mindset.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 48px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 48px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Chief of staff committee not very effective</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 48px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The COSC as an experiment has not worked very well. It is driven by single-Service requirements and perceptions.</li>
<li>Chairman of COSC lacks executive authority over Services other than his own Service.</li>
<li>The COSC works primarily by consensus and finds it extremely difficult to agree on hard decisions that are binding on all the Services.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 78px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 78px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Requirement for battle preparedness</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 78px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>During war, the fate of an entire campaign can hinge on a single decision.</li>
<li>Such a decision can only be made by a specially selected defence chief and not by a committee like the COSC that operates on the principle of the least common denominator.</li>
<li>In the newly emerging scenarios, with threat perceptions ever changing the possibility of an unsymmetrical or lightning strike assault remains high.</li>
<li>It would be outside the capabilities of any single service to respond effectively to such a diverse array of threats. It&rsquo;s in such conditions that the calls for a CDS assume further significance.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 31px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 31px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Need for unified expert advice from military</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 31px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The need for single point military advice for India's civilian political masters cannot be over emphasized.</li>
<li>The political leadership would be in a dilemma if the three service chiefs offer separate opinions regarding a military campaign or another strategy.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr style="height: 64px;">
<td style="width: 18.8146%; height: 64px; vertical-align: top;"><strong>Civilian bureaucracy acting as interface</strong></td>
<td style="width: 81.1854%; height: 64px; vertical-align: top;">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In the present structure, the military has limited access to the political leadership.</li>
<li>The Defence Secretary and the National Security Adviser act as the interface between the Service Chiefs and the Cabinet Committee of Security or the National Security Council.</li>
<li>However, these two posts are often manned by persons belonging to generalist services like IAS or IFS.</li>
<li>This intermediate link often deprives the government of specific military opinion on important matters.</li>
<li>This also leads to turf battles between the civilian bureaucracy and the forces within the Ministry of Defence.</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Opinion of Three Services on This Proposal</strong></p>
<p><strong>ARMY &ndash; In favour:</strong> It is time to move away from a service specific approach to operations towards a system which avoids duplication, ensures optimum utilisation of available resources.</p>
<p><strong>AIR FORCE &ndash; strongly opposed</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It doesn&rsquo;t have enough resources &mdash; fighter squadrons, mid-air refuellers and AWACS &mdash; to allocate them dedicatedly to different theatre commanders.</li>
<li>It believes that India is not geographically large enough to be divided into different theatres, as resources from one theatre can easily be moved to another theatre</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>NAVY-more nuanced, it too is not in favour of implementing the proposal currently</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The current model of control by the Navy Headquarters ideally suited for its strategic role.</li>
<li>There are also underlying fears about the smaller Services losing their autonomy and importance.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Recommendation by various committees</h3>
<p>Kargil Review Committee, Shekatkar Committee have lamented on compartmentalised planning against external and internal threats with some &lsquo;jointness&rsquo; envisaged at the highest levels. According to these committees, this leads to a disjointed and fragmented execution at the operational and lower levels, leading to a lack of synergy within the battle space. To eliminate this, institution and operalization is necessary.</p>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<p>Changing dynamics of national security which, now encompasses cyber, automation and such new challenges, cannot be solved by a disjointed general and MoD labyrinth but rather a clear and robust structure that should quickly respond to emergent situation.</p>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/theatre-command-in-india'
	],
	(int) 16 => [
		'title' => 'Detention of ‘Foreigners’ in Assam',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative <strong>(CHRI) has expressed concerns over the apex court&rsquo;s remark</strong> on the detention of &lsquo;foreigners&rsquo; in Assam.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>As per the body, the remark defies India&rsquo;s constitutional and international obligations.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The concern is in reference to Chief Justice of India&rsquo;s admonition of Assam Chief Secretary for proposing a methodology for the release of a handful of foreign prisoners who have been in detention beyond their term of sentence for illegal entry. <br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The bench referred that <strong>Assam has only 900 detainees despite lakhs of illegal foreigners being identified</strong>. Most of them have already intermingled with the local population.</li>
<li>The CJI said that the stand of the Government of India and the State of Assam should be that <strong>foreigner detenues should be deported as soon as possible</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>CHRI has argued that <strong>detainees languish in jail in inhumane conditions, in violation of their human rights, referring to Article 21 of the Constitution</strong> that says that no person in India can be deprived of her/his right to life and liberty without due process.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>International law lays down that <strong>deportations can take place only with the consent of the country of origin</strong> and India has no such agreement with Bangladesh. Also, Bangladesh has consistently refused to accept that its citizens migrate in large numbers to India.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Currently, the <a href="/to-the-points/Paper2/to-the-point-paper-2-national-register-of-citizens-nrc" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>National Register of Citizens (NRC)</strong></a> exercise is going on in Assam.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) is an independent, non-partisan, <strong>international non-governmental organisation, headquartered in New Delhi,</strong> working for the practical realisation of human rights across the Commonwealth.</li>
<li>The Commonwealth is a voluntary association of 53 independent and equal sovereign states.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>It is <strong>one of the world&rsquo;s oldest political associations of states</strong>. Its roots go back to the British Empire when some countries were ruled directly or indirectly by Britain. Some of these countries became self-governing while retaining Britain&rsquo;s monarch as Head of State. They formed the British Commonwealth of Nations.</li>
<li><strong>In 1949, the Commonwealth came into being.</strong> Since then, independent countries from Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe and the Pacific have joined the Commonwealth.</li>
<li><strong>Membership today is based on free and equal voluntary cooperation.</strong> The last two countries to join the Commonwealth - <strong>Rwanda and Mozambique</strong> - have no historical ties to the British Empire.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/detention-of-foreigners-in-assam'
	],
	(int) 17 => [
		'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (4th May 2019)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>Unnat Bharat Abhiyan</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Common Service Centre&rsquo;s <strong>(CSC) e-Governance Services India Limited,</strong> under the Ministry of Electronics &amp; IT, has <strong>tied up</strong> with <strong>IIT-Kanpur</strong> to upscale <strong>&lsquo;Unnat Bharat Abhiyan&rsquo;</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>IIT-Kanpur has brought together <strong>15 leading higher education institutions</strong> from Uttar Pradesh to work with CSC for the development of villages under the Unnat Bharat Abhiyan scheme.</li>
<li>These institutions will <strong>adopt gram panchayats</strong> and equip them with all citizen centric services through CSCs.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>&lsquo;Unnat Bharat Abhiyan&rsquo; is an <strong>initiative of the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)</strong>. Its <strong><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-03rd-october-2018" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2.0</a></strong> version was launched in the year <strong>2018</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It aims to create a <strong>vibrant relationship between the society and the higher educational institutions,</strong> with the latter providing the <strong>knowledge and technology support to improve livelihoods in rural areas</strong> and to upgrade the capabilities of both the public and private organizations in the society.</li>
<li>It covers two major domains for holistic development of villages &ndash; <strong>human development and material (economic) development</strong> - in an integrated way.</li>
<li><strong>Institutes</strong> through their faculty and students <strong>carry out studies of living conditions</strong> in the adopted villages, <strong>assess</strong> the local problems and needs and thus accordingly <strong>prepare a workable action plan</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030672_image1.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1568030672_image1.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" caption="false" width="535" height="469" /></a></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Common Service Centres (CSCs)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The CSC is a strategic cornerstone of the <strong>National e-Governance Plan (NeGP),</strong> approved by the Government in <strong>May 2006,</strong> as part of its commitment in the <strong>National Common Minimum Programme</strong> to introduce e-governance on a massive scale.</li>
<li>The objective of CSCs is to provide high quality and cost-effective video, voice and data content and services, in the areas of e-governance, education, health, telemedicine, entertainment as well as other private services.</li>
<li>A highlight of the CSCs is that it offers <strong>web-enabled e-governance services in rural areas,</strong> including application forms, certificates, and utility payments such as electricity, telephone and water bills.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser <strong>(PSA)</strong> to the Government of India and the <strong>IIT Delhi</strong> have signed a Memorandum of Understanding <strong>(MoU)</strong> for setting up a <strong>Centre of Excellence for Waste to Wealth Technologies</strong> for implementation of sustainable, scientific and technological solutions for waste management.</li>
<li>The <strong>long-term goal</strong> is to create <strong>circular economic models for waste management,</strong> by leveraging <strong>big data analytics</strong> and <strong>frontier technologies</strong> to streamline waste in India.</li>
<li>The overall outcomes would involve treating waste and generating different forms of energy, thereby <strong>making India a waste free nation, with zero greenhouse gas emission</strong> and no health hazard.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Office of the Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) to the Government of India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has had a Principal Scientific Adviser (PSA) since 1999. <strong>Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam was the first PSA from 1999-2001</strong> and Dr. R. Chidambaram from 2001-2018. Professor K. Vijay Raghavan succeeded Dr. Chidambaram on 3<sup>rd</sup> April 2018.</li>
<li>The Prime Minister's Science, Technology and Innovation Advisory Council (PM-STIAC) is an overarching Council that facilitates the PSA&rsquo;s Office to assess the status in specific science and technology domains, comprehend challenges in hand, formulate specific interventions, develop a futuristic roadmap and advise the Prime Minister accordingly.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-4th-may-2019'
	],
	(int) 18 => [
		'title' => 'Pre-Conception and Pre-natal Diagnostic Techniques (PCPNDT)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Supreme Court, dismissing a writ petition filed by Federation of Obstetrics and Gynecological Societies of India (FOGSI), upheld the constitutional validity of <strong>Section 23</strong> of the <strong>PCPNDT Act, 1994</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Section 23</strong> of the Act, provides for penalties for anomalies in paperwork/record keeping/clerical errors regarding the provisions of the Act.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>It was aggrieved in the writ petition that Section 23, what they term as <strong>'clerical errors'</strong>, is treated on the same footing as the actual offence of sex determination.</li>
<li>SC in its judgement opined that:<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Non-maintenance of records is not merely a technical or procedural lapse in the context of sex determination, it is the most significant piece of evidence for identifying the accused.</li>
<li>Any dilution of the provisions of the Act or the rules would only defeat the purpose of the Act to prevent female foeticide, and relegate the right to life of a girl child under <strong>Article 21</strong> of the Constitution, to a mere formality.</li>
<li>If a detailed record is not maintained then the violations can never be detected. It will defeat the purpose of the whole act.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/reproductive-and-sexual-rights-of-women-in-india" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Pre-Natal Diagnostic Techniques (Prohibition of Sex Selection) Act (PCPNDT) Act</strong></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The act was enacted in 1994 and amended in 2003 and is an important tool for addressing sex-selective eliminations.</li>
<li><strong>Objectives:</strong> The main purpose of enacting the act is to ban the use of sex selection techniques before or after conception and prevent the misuse of a prenatal diagnostic technique for sex-selective abortion.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/pre-conception-and-pre-natal-diagnostic-techniques-pcpndt'
	],
	(int) 19 => [
		'title' => 'In Depth – Malaria Vaccine',
		'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
		'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/h6_pvrcWE4Y" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>Malaria has been one of the world's deadliest diseases. It kills more than 4,00,000 people a year worldwide and causes illness in millions of others.</p>
<p>In the past two decades, existing interventions have reduced the malaria burden. And <strong>India,</strong> too, has made good progress in malaria control. <strong>The disease burden has declined by 59%.</strong> The fight against the disease got another shot in the arm when the <strong>world&rsquo;s first malarial vaccine got launched in Malawi</strong>.</p>
<p>A large scale pilot project, that has been called the world&rsquo;s first malaria vaccine, to give partial protection to children has begun in Malawi. The vaccine called RTS,S will be <strong>available to everyone under the age of two</strong>. After the rollout in Malawi, vaccination will begin in Ghana and Kenya. Approximately, 3,60,000 children will get the vaccine annually. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the effort could immunize more than one million children by the year 2023.</p>
<h3>Malaria Vaccine</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Known</strong> by its lab initials <strong>as RTS,S</strong> but <strong>branded as Mosquirix,</strong> the vaccine has passed lengthy scientific trials that found it to be safe and <strong>reducing the risk of malaria by nearly 40%,</strong> the best ever recorded.</li>
<li>It was <strong>developed by GlaxoSmithKline</strong> (GSK) company and <strong>approved by the European Medicines Agency in 2015</strong>.</li>
<li>The RTS,S vaccine trains the immune system to attack the malaria parasite (<strong>Plasmodium (P.) falciparum,</strong> the most deadly species of the malaria parasite) which is spread by mosquito bites.</li>
<li>This vaccine took 30 years to be developed. The <strong>efficiency</strong> of the RTS,S vaccine was <strong>established in a phase 3 clinical trial that concluded in 2014</strong>.</li>
<li>The vaccine only prevents four in ten malarial cases and <strong>must be given as four injections over 18 months</strong>.</li>
<li>WHO wants the <strong>vaccine to be used alongside</strong> other preventive measures such as treated <strong>bednets, insecticides, repellents and anti malarial drugs</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Malawi</strong> is first of the three countries chosen for the pilot program to roll out the vaccine. Soon, <strong>Ghana</strong> and <strong>Kenya</strong> will join in as part of a large scale pilot program backed by the WHO.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>These three countries were selected for the rollout because their <strong>malaria rates are high</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The <strong>vaccine is not registered in India</strong>. Before registration, the trial is must. Also, so far, no vaccine has been tried in India against Malaria.</li>
</ul>
<h3>World Malaria Report, 2018</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>70% of malaria cases</strong> in the world are concentrated in <strong>India and 10 African countries</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The <strong>ten African countries</strong> reported an <strong>increase</strong> in cases of <strong>malaria in 2017</strong> compared to 2016.</li>
<li>Nigeria, Madagascar and the Democratic Republic of the Congo showed the highest rise. In contrast, <strong>India reported 30 lakh fewer cases in the same period</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Children aged under 5 years accounted for 61% of all malaria deaths worldwide.</strong> The highest number of deaths- 19% was recorded in Nigeria.</li>
<li><strong>Expenditure on Malaria has remained more or less stable since 2010.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In 2017, like the previous years, <strong>America was the largest international source of malaria financing</strong> contributing 120 crore dollars.</li>
<li>In 2015, it was decided by the World Health Assembly that by 2030, malaria has to be completely eliminated in at least 35 countries. In order to achieve this goal, annual expenditure on programmes related to malaria must be increased by 660 crore dollars by 2020.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Globally, <strong>the scope of malaria eradication has increased</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>There were no cases of malaria in China and El Salvador in 2017.</li>
<li><strong>WHO declared Paraguay a malaria free country in 2018.</strong></li>
<li>Algeria, Argentina and Uzbekistan have requested the WHO to declare them malaria free.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Malaria Cases in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>With 9.5 million malaria cases, <strong>India reported almost 3 million fewer malaria cases in 2017</strong> or a 24% decrease over the previous year.</li>
<li>India&rsquo;s reduction- the sharpest within a year, means that the country accounts for just <strong>4% of the world&rsquo;s total malaria cases</strong> and is no longer among the world&rsquo;s top three countries in terms of number of cases.</li>
<li>Nearly half of all malaria cases were reported from Odisha, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh and parts of West Bengal which have a sizeable tribal population living in the remote rural areas.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India&rsquo;s Missions Against Malaria</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In <strong>1953,</strong> government launched the <strong>National Malaria Control Program</strong> with the focus on indoor residual spraying of DDT. Within five years, the program helped to dramatically reduce the annual incidence of malaria.</li>
<li><strong>The National Malaria Eradication Program was launched in 1958</strong> which further reduced the number of malaria cases and also eliminated deaths from the disease.</li>
<li>After 1967, mosquito&rsquo;s resistance to insecticides and anti malarial drugs led to a resurgence of the disease countrywide.</li>
<li>In order to combat malaria in high transmission areas of the country, an <strong>enhanced Malaria Control Project was launched with the World Bank&rsquo;s help in 1997</strong>.</li>
<li>In 2003, <strong>malaria control was integrated with other vector borne diseases</strong> under the National Vector Borne Disease Control Programme (NVBDCP).</li>
<li>In 2005, the Government also launched the <strong>National Rural Health Mission (NRHM)</strong> to control vector-borne diseases including malaria.</li>
<li>In 2017, India launched its 5-year <strong>National Strategic Plan for Malaria Elimination</strong> that shifted focus from Malaria control to elimination and provided a roadmap to end malaria in 571 districts out of India&rsquo;s 678 districts by 2022.</li>
<li>Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has recently established <strong>&lsquo;Malaria Elimination Research Alliance-India (MERA-India)</strong> which is a conglomeration of partners working on malaria control.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Malaria</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Predominantly found in the tropical and subtropical areas of Africa, South America as well as Asia, malaria is a life threatening <strong>mosquito borne blood disease caused by plasmodium parasites</strong>.
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The parasites spread through the <strong>bites of infected female Anopheles mosquitoes</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Four types of malaria parasites can infect humans:</strong> Plasmodium Vivax, P. ovale, P. malariae and P. falciparum.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Plasmodium falciparum and Plasmodium Vivax are the most common types that infect humans.</li>
<li>Plasmodium falciparum causes a more severe form of the disease leading to higher risk of death.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>When an infected mosquito bites a person, the parasite is released into the bloodstream, it then travels to the liver where it matures.</li>
<li>After some days, mature parasites start infecting the red blood cells. Within 48 to 72 hours, the parasites inside the red blood cells multiply causing infected cells to burst open.</li>
<li>Malaria signs and symptoms typically begin within a few weeks after being bitten by an infected mosquito. However, some types of malaria parasites can lie dormant in body for upto a year.</li>
<li><strong>It is preventable as well as curable.</strong></li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Symptoms</strong></p>
<p>Malaria symptoms typically develop within 10 days to four weeks following the infection. Common symptoms of malaria include:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Shaking chills that can range from moderate to severe high fever.</li>
<li>Sweating, headache, nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.</li>
<li>Diarrhoea, Anaemia, muscle pain and convulsions.</li>
<li>Severe plasmodium falciparum infection can lead to coma, permanent brain failure and even death.</li>
<li>Some people who have malaria experience cycle of malaria attacks.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Such attacks start with shivering and chills followed by a high fever, sweating and return to a normal temperature.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Treatment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Treatment of malaria aims at eliminating the plasmodium parasite from the bloodstream through medication. Chemotherapy is an option.</li>
<li>Those without symptoms may be treated for the infection to reduce the risk of disease transmission in surrounding population.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Prevention</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Vector control</strong> is the main way to prevent and reduce malaria transmission.<br />
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>If coverage of vector control interventions within a specific area is high enough then a measure of protection is needed to be conferred across the community.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Most malaria carrying mosquitoes bite at night, so <strong>insecticide treated mosquito nets</strong> can be a life saving barrier.</li>
<li>Doses of antimalarials during pregnancy can protect both mother and child.</li>
<li>Getting rid of pools of stagnant water, clearing bushes from around the houses and planting lemon grass can all reduce the number of mosquitoes nearby.</li>
<li><strong>Health education,</strong> an important aspect for preventing malaria and malaria deaths, is needed for improving people&rsquo;s understanding of the disease which includes awareness of the symptoms, treatments and preventive steps.</li>
</ul>
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	'extraOptions' => [],
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}
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$search = 'class'
$totalPages = (float) 277
$title = 'Search'
$lastyear = (int) 2018
$year = '2021'
$i = (int) 2017
$selected = ''
$m = (int) 13
$month = 'December'

include - ROOT/plugins/Drishti/src/Template/Element/rightsection.ctp, line 100
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1196
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1157
Cake\View\View::_renderElement() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1554
Cake\View\View::element() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 668
include - ROOT/plugins/Drishti/src/Template/Element/articlebox.ctp, line 5
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1196
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1157
Cake\View\View::_renderElement() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1554
Cake\View\View::element() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 668
include - ROOT/plugins/Drishti/src/Template/Search/index.ctp, line 85
Cake\View\View::_evaluate() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1196
Cake\View\View::_render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 1157
Cake\View\View::render() - CORE/src/View/View.php, line 765
Cake\Controller\Controller::render() - CORE/src/Controller/Controller.php, line 623
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::_invoke() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 125
Cake\Http\ActionDispatcher::dispatch() - CORE/src/Http/ActionDispatcher.php, line 93

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