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No clinical trials in India for new drugs

Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has allowed waivers on conducting trials for new drugs in India in case the drug is approved and...

26 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Another Look At Fiscal Transfers

(This editorial is based on the article 'Another Look At Fiscal Transfers' which appeared in ‘The Hindu’ on 25th March, 2019. The...

25 Mar 2019 News Editorials
Regionalism In India

25 Mar 2019 Paper 1
Olive Ridley Turtles

Olive Ridley turtles have not yet arrived for mass nesting at Odisha’s Rushikulya rookery and Devi river mouth. The reasons are not fully...

25 Mar 2019 News Analysis
FinTech Conclave 2019

FinTech Conclave-2019 to be inaugurated by Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in New Delhi on 25th March, 2019. The conclave, whose objective...

25 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Regionalism In India

About Regionalism is the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose by people within a specific geographical region, united by its...

25 Mar 2019 Paper 1
RBI Deferred Ind AS Implementation by Banks

RBI has again deferred the implementation of the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) by banks as the requisite legislative amendments are still...

23 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Disinvestment Exceeds Target

For the second year in a row, the government has exceeded the disinvestment target of Rs 80,000 crore set for the Financial Year 2019, which...

23 Mar 2019 News Analysis
US Recognition to Golan Heights as Israel’s Territory

U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that the US may recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights. The U.S. will be the first country...

23 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Important Facts For Prelims (23rd March 2019)

LIMA 2019 The Indian Air Force is going to participate in Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA) 2019. Langkawi International Maritime...

23 Mar 2019 News Analysis
PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest' Litigations

(This editorial is based on the article ‘PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest' Litigations’ which appeared in ‘The...

23 Mar 2019 News Editorials
Lancet: Building a Tuberculosis Free World

The Lancet Commission on tuberculosis has published report ‘building a tuberculosis-free world’. It is based on modelling for three...

23 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Akula Class – Attack Submarine

India has planned to lease out one more Akula Class nuclear powered submarine from Russia. According to reports, both the countries have signed a...

23 Mar 2019 Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions
Statistical Institutions of India

(The editorial is based on the article “A short history of data” which appeared in The Hindu for 21st March 2019. In this editorial,...

22 Mar 2019 News Editorials
Water on Asteroid Bennu

Recent, observations by NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer) spacecraft has...

22 Mar 2019 News Analysis
UN World Happiness Report- 2019

The Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations released the World Happiness Report on March 20, which was designated as the...

22 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Important Facts For Prelims (22nd March 2019)

Super Worm Equinox Moon The last supermoon of the year has coincided with the Spring Equinox. The phenomenon is generally known as ‘Super...

22 Mar 2019 News Analysis
Electric Vehicles (EVs)

Why in News Recently Union Cabinet approved setting up of a ‘National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage' to promote...

22 Mar 2019 Paper 3
On The Learning Curve

(This editorial is based on the article 'On The Learning Curve' which appeared in ‘The Hindu’ on 20th March, 2019. The article talks...

20 Mar 2019 News Editorials
Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher by WWF

Chapter 1- Why Biodiversity matters? The importance of nature in our lives Humans have evolved, grown and thrived, in nature. Modern human...

20 Mar 2019 Summary of Important Reports

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			'title' => 'No clinical trials in India for new drugs ',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has allowed waivers on conducting trials for new drugs in India in case the drug is approved and marketed in countries specified by &mdash; the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Regulation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>New drugs approved for use in select developed markets will be automatically allowed in India provided global trials included Indian patients.</li>
<li>This waiver would <strong>also extend to drugs</strong> that receive these marketing approvals even <strong>while a trial is underway in India</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Data generated(clinical trial) outside the country will be acceptable</strong>.</li>
<li>Providing post-trial access of the drugs to the patients that require it have been defined for the first time.</li>
<li>It removed a clause in the clinical trials that mandated the sponsor (the entity initiating the trial) to pay 60% of compensation upfront in case of death or permanent disability of a patient.</li>
<li>Now companies will pay the total amount once it is proven that the injury occurred because of the trial.</li>
<li>Compensations in cases of death and permanent disability, or &ldquo;other&rdquo; injuries to a trial participant will be decided by Drug Controller General of India(DCGI).</li>
<li>It removed regulations on tests conducted on animals in case of drugs approved and marketed for more than two years in well-regulated overseas drug markets.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of New Rules</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will<strong> end the unnecessary repetition of trials</strong> and speed up the availability of new drugs in the country.</li>
<li>It will <strong>lower the cost of drugs</strong>.</li>
<li>It will improve the ease of doing business for drug makers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Criticism of new regulations</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is a country of <strong>vast ethnic diversity</strong> and most of the trials are done in the West. There is need of bridging trials for ethnically diverse populations to check drug suitability population.</li>
<li>Waiver should be only for drugs required<strong> urgently for national emergency</strong>.</li>
<li>Proving injury due to the trial is problematic and it is prone to manipulation.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The CDSCO is the Central Drug Authority for discharging functions assigned to the Central Government under the <strong>Drugs and Cosmetics Act</strong>.</li>
<li>Major Functions:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Regulatory control over the import of drugs, <strong>approval of new drugs and clinical trials</strong>.</li>
<li>Approval of certain licences as Central Licence Approving Authority</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Drug Controller General of India(DCGI)</strong></li>
<li>DCGI is responsible for <strong>approval of licences of specified categories of drugs</strong> such as blood and blood products, IV fluids, vaccines and sera in India.</li>
<li>It comes under the Ministry of Health &amp; Family Welfare.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
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		],
		(int) 1 => [
			'title' => 'Another Look At Fiscal Transfers',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/another-look-at-fiscal-transfers/article26626986.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Another Look At Fiscal Transfers'</a> which appeared in &lsquo;The Hindu&rsquo; on 25th March, 2019. The article talks about the fiscal relationship shared by state and the centre and the challenges associated with it.)</p>
</div>
<p>Federalism is not an alien concept in political lexicon of nations and is relatively an old concept. It is a system of government in which entities such as states or provinces share power with a national government.</p>
<p>It is well known that the efficiency of a government depends on its structure; in large countries like ours federal structure can efficiently meet the requirements of people from different regions as preferences vary across regions and can best be addressed through local leadership.</p>
<p>However, after Independence several compulsions led to a scheme of federalism in which the Centre assumed greater importance. The process of centralisation in economic sphere has resulted in reduced fiscal autonomy for states.</p>
<p>Economic planning at a nation-wide level has resulted in the vertical fiscal imbalance between the federation and the provinces.</p>
<h3>Breaking The Term: Fiscal Federalism</h3>
<p>Fiscal federalism can best be understood as the economic counterpart to political federalism. It is concerned with assigning functions to different levels of government, and providing appropriate fiscal instruments for carrying out these functions.</p>
<p>It is generally believed that the Central government should provide national public goods that render services to the entire population while sub-national governments are expected to provide goods and services whose consumption is limited to their own jurisdictions.</p>
<p>Governments often find it difficult to determine the specific fiscal instruments that enable the different levels of government to carry out their functions.</p>
<p>However Indian Constitution lays down the functions as well as taxing powers of the Centre and States providing clarity in financial relations shared by state and the centre.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Centre State Financial Relations</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Constitution has made elaborate provisions, relating to the distribution of taxes as well as non-tax revenues and the power of borrowing, supplemented by provisions for grants-in-aid by the Union to the States.</li>
<li>Article 268 to 293 deals with the provisions of financial relations between Centre and States.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Constitution divides the taxing powers between the Centre and the States as follows:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Parliament has exclusive power to levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the Union List,</li>
<li>The state legislature has exclusive power to levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the State List,</li>
<li>Both can levy taxes on the subjects enumerated in Concurrent List whereas residuary power of taxation lies with Parliament only.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Evolution of Fiscal Relationship</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>In India, substantial sources of revenue remains with the centre and major expenditure obligations lies with the states, creating vertical fiscal imbalance between the federation and the provinces.</strong></li>
<li>This economic relationship can best be attributed to colonial legacy of centralisation under the British. The imperial government had all the powers related to revenue and ordered discontinuation of the assignment of expenditure and revenue functions to the provinces. It was in this situation that the provinces had to give away a portion of their surplus to the imperial government to finance the deficits of the latter.</li>
<li>A clear delineation of powers between the centre and the provinces was attempted through the Government of India Act, 1935. It had a substantial centralising tilt with discretionary powers for the governor general and governors, and the retaining of major revenue sources with the imperial government.</li>
<li>Later, when the Constitution was framed under extraordinary circumstances after partition, most of the fiscal provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935, found a place in it without any changes. This is the basic reason for the strong centralising trends in Indian polity, including in the fiscal division of powers and intergovernmental fiscal transfers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Tussle Between The State and The Centre</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Overtime, the non-shareable revenue of centre such as surcharges and cesses has increased which has made states demanding for more fiscal powers and share of all taxes collected by the centre from time to time.</strong></li>
<li>With respect to their own tax revenue, states have substantially lost the power to fix tax rates of items, de facto after value added tax (VAT) was implemented on intra-state trade of goods, and de jure when goods and services tax (GST) got introduced.</li>
<li>On the expenditure side, rise in the share of conditional and tied grants that essentially deal with items in the state list of the seventh schedule of the Constitution has restricted the freedom of the states in spending according to their priorities that takes into account the local specifications.</li>
<li>Challenges also arise from <strong>Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM)</strong> acts, which lay down uniform targets across states ignoring the different fiscal needs.</li>
<li>In short, the domain of the states, which should be given due autonomy in so far as their constitutional assignment is concerned; it is being restricted in more than one way.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Recent Developments</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Central governments have tried to address these issues of vertical and horizontal imbalances through various Finance Commissions, taking into account the prevailing set of circumstances.</li>
<li>The Fourteenth Finance Commission has broken new ground in terms of allocation of resources. It has recommended increasing the share of tax devolution to 42% of the divisible pool.</li>
<li>It does not necessarily affect the overall transfers but only enhances the share of unconditional transfers as it looks to address the increasing central encroachment in states through conditional and centrally sponsored schemes.</li>
<li>Increased allocation in unconditional transfers however suffers from two challenges; firstly the total transfers that need to be made to the states, secondly who will be suggesting all the transfers.</li>
<li>Replacement of Planning Commission (entrusted to allocate resources to states) with NITI Aayog, which is simply a think-tank with no powers of resource allocation makes the process all the more difficult.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Harmonising The Relation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The proportion of shareable taxes that go to the States should be fixed at the desired level. The shareable tax pool must also include cesses and surcharges as these have sharply increased in recent years.</li>
<li>Another possible route can be to follow the practice in the U.S. and Canada: of allowing the States to levy tax on personal income, with some limitations, which is as of now collected by Centre.</li>
<li>Any reform aimed at rationalising the sharing of taxes between state and centre should also address issues related to horizontal distribution and should take into consideration the question of equity amongst states as states often feel &lsquo;cheated&rsquo; because of the overuse of the equity criterion.</li>
</ul>
<p><em><strong>It is time that the nation arrived at an appropriate solution giving effect to fiscal federalism so that the provincial aspirations are taken care of, meanwhile extending the provincial autonomy that our constitution talks about.</strong></em></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>To correct the horizontal fiscal imbalance between the States and bring more equity, Finance Commission undertakes few steps while horizontally distributing revenue.</p>
<p>The criteria used by the Finance Commissions can be broadly grouped under:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Factors reflecting needs, such as population and income measured either as distance from the highest income or as inverse.</li>
<li>Cost disability indicators, such as area and infrastructure distance.</li>
<li>Fiscal efficiency indicators, such as tax effort and fiscal discipline.</li>
</ul>
<p>While the weightage assigned to population has declined considerably, weightage assigned to income distance and efficiency factors has increased considerably in recent years.</p>
</div>',
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		],
		(int) 2 => [
			'title' => 'Regionalism In India',
			'catname' => 'Paper 1',
			'desc' => '<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/324Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/324Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>',
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			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/mind-map/gs-paper1/regionalism-in-india-upsc-mindmap'
		],
		(int) 3 => [
			'title' => 'Olive Ridley Turtles',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>Olive Ridley turtles have not yet arrived for mass nesting at Odisha&rsquo;s Rushikulya rookery and Devi river mouth.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The reasons are not fully understood yet. Although it is held that climatic parameters, as well as beach conditions, decide mass nesting at a coast.</li>
<li>However, Mass nesting has already occurred at the Gahirmatha coast (Bhitarkanika National Park) of the Odisha. Mass nesting of Olive Ridleys can occur up to any time till the end of April.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Rushikulya River</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district of Odisha.</li>
<li>The Rushikulya River is one of the major rivers in the state of Odisha and covers entire catchment area in the districts of Kandhamal and Ganjam district of Odisha</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Devi River</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Devi river is one of the principal distributaries of Mahanadhi. It flows through Jagatsinghpur district and Puri district across Odisha state in India and joins the Bay of Bengal.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Olive Ridley</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles</strong> found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.</li>
<li>They are best known for their unique mass nesting called <strong>Arribada</strong>, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.</li>
<li>The species is listed as<strong> Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List</strong>, <strong>Appendix 1 in CITES</strong>, and <strong>Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
<li>Olive-ridleys<strong> face serious threats</strong> across their migratory route, habitat and nesting beaches, due to human activities such as<strong> unfriendly turtle fishing practices, development, and exploitation of nesting beaches for ports, and tourist centers.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Bhitarkanika National Park</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Bhitarkanika National Park is one of Odisha&rsquo;s finest biodiversity hotspots and is famous for its <strong>mangroves, migratory birds, turtles, estuarine crocodiles, and countless creeks.</strong></li>
<li>The wetland is represented by 3 Protected Areas, <strong>the Bhitarkanika National Park, the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary.</strong></li>
<li>Bhitarkanika is located in the estuary of<strong> Brahmani, Baitarani, Dhamra, and Mahanadi river systems.</strong></li>
<li>It is said to house 70% of the country&rsquo;s estuarine or saltwater crocodiles, conservation of which was started way back in 1975.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
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		],
		(int) 4 => [
			'title' => 'FinTech Conclave 2019',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p><strong>FinTech Conclave-2019</strong> to be inaugurated by <strong>Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)</strong> in New Delhi on <strong>25<sup>th</sup> March, 2019.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The conclave, whose objective is to <strong>shape India&rsquo;s continued ascendancy in Financial Technology (FinTech)</strong>, build the narrative for future strategy and policy efforts, and to deliberate steps for comprehensive financial inclusion is <strong>organised by the NITI Aayog.</strong></li>
<li>The Reserve Bank of India has categorised these <strong>financial technology (or fintech) companies as peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Peer to Peer lending, also known as <strong>P2P Lending</strong>, is a financial innovation which <strong>connects verified borrowers</strong> seeking unsecured personal loans <strong>with investors looking to earn higher returns</strong> on their investments.</li>
<li>P2P lending service providers have been in business in India since early 2014. However, it was in <strong>September 2017,</strong> RBI notified that these will be <strong>registered as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs)</strong> and subsequently came out with <strong>guidelines for P2P lending.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Background</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is one of the<strong> fastest growing FinTech markets globally</strong> and industry research has projected that USD 1 Trillion or 60% of retail and SME credit, will be digitally disbursed by 2029.</li>
<li>The Indian FinTech ecosystem is the <strong>third largest in the globe,</strong> attracting nearly USD 6 billion in investments since 2014.</li>
<li>The Indian FinTech industry is creating cutting edge intellectual property assets in advanced risk management and artificial intelligence that will propel India forward in the global digital economy while simultaneously enabling paperless access to finance for every Indian.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Fintech Sector</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Fintech (Financial technology) describes an emerging financial services sector.</li>
<li>Originally, the term referred to computer technology applied to the back office of banks or trading firms, and now the term has <strong>expanded to include any technological innovation in the financial sector</strong> including innovations in financial literacy and education, retail banking, investment and even crypto-currencies like bitcoin.</li>
<li><strong>Potential benefits of FinTech</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Efficiency</strong> improvements,</li>
<li><strong>Risk reduction</strong> and <strong>greater financial inclusion.</strong></li>
<li>They can <strong>address the unmet demand from Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs),</strong> as well as consumers, for credit.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>E.g.: According to the <strong>India Fintech Report 2019,</strong> the traditional ways of banking approve only 25-40% of the loan applications.</li>
<li>However, with access to more data for credit scoring such as transaction behaviour, app-based data, location information, social data and others, these new lending models can increase this threshold by additional 10&ndash;15%.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>With tech-enabled underwriting, FinTechs can provide <strong>tailor-made loans</strong> to various merchants as per their industry segments ranging from food and beverage, apparel, salon, petrol pumps, automobile dealers etc. with quick turnaround times to meet their urgent funding needs</li>
<li>The rural population (which is new to credit) can benefit from this since the urban population is likely to leverage fintech lending services to avoid heavy documentation.</li>
<li><strong>Challenges</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Difficulty of <strong>regulating an evolving technology,</strong></li>
<li>Monitoring activity <strong>outside the regulated sector.</strong></li>
<li>Since, there is no connect with customer as the application is completely processed online there is <strong>higher risks of non-performing assets (NPAs).</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Few countries have taken a variety of regulatory and supervisory initiatives such as <strong>regulatory sandboxes, innovation hubs, innovation incubators or accelerators, etc.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Regulatory Sandbox</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A regulatory sandbox is an <strong>entity hosted by the regulators that enables temporary, limited-scale testing</strong> of a new product that may involve some regulatory ambiguity.</li>
<li>It allows businesses to <strong>test innovative products, services, business models and delivery mechanisms</strong> in the real market, with real consumers.</li>
<li>Inside this <strong>controlled environment,</strong> regulators relax applicable laws or deploy new ones specific to the applications being tested and then observe how the software functions in the new framework.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The MSME lending landscape is evolving and is set to be disrupted by digital lenders, backed by <strong>continuous thrust by Government of India towards digitisation through demonetisation, Unified Payments Interface launch, and the introduction of GST.</strong></li>
<li>Moreover, it is estimated that by 2023, MSME digital lending has the <strong>potential to increase between 10 and 15 fold creating immense opportunity for both traditional lenders and digital start-ups.</strong> Therefore, the initiatives like FinTech conclave is in right direction which aims to evolve future strategy.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/fintech-conclave-2019'
		],
		(int) 5 => [
			'title' => 'Regionalism In India',
			'catname' => 'Paper 1',
			'desc' => '<h3>About</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Regionalism is the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose by people within a specific geographical region, united by its unique language, culture, language, etc.</li>
<li>In a positive sense, it encourages people to develop a sense of brotherhood and oneness which seeks to protect the interests of a particular region and promotes the welfare and development of the state and its people.</li>
<li>In the negative sense, it implies excessive attachment to one&rsquo;s region which is a great threat to the unity and integrity of the country.</li>
<li>In the Indian context generally, the term 'regionalism' has been used in the negative sense.</li>
</ul>
<h3>History of Regional Movements in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The roots of regional consciousness in India can be found in the colonial policies.</li>
<li>Differential attitudes and treatment by the British towards princely states and those of the presidencies developed regionalist tendencies among them.</li>
<li>British exploitative economic policies completely neglected some regions, giving way to economic disparities and regional imbalances.</li>
<li>On the other side, the Indian national movement furthered a pluralistic idea of India.</li>
<li>The history of regional movements in India can be traced back to the 1940s Dravida Movement or the Non-Brahmin movement that started in the present day Tamil Nadu.</li>
<li>Later, the movement was resulted into the demand of a separate and independent Tamil state.</li>
<li>This, in turn, led to several other parties like the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) springing up in the Andhra region, with the demands of separate statehood.</li>
<li>The decades of 1950s and 1960s witnessed intense mass mobilisation, often taking on a violent character for the demands of statehood.</li>
<li>In 1954, the revolt for the separate state of Andhra for Telugu - speaking people spearheaded by Potti Sri Ramulu and his eventual death triggered the wave of political regionalism in India with many princely states and other states making a demand for a separate state.</li>
<li>This resulted in formation of the States Reorganisation Committee (headed by Faisal Ali) which recommended re-organisation of Indian states on linguistic lines, thus reinforcing the regionalist tendencies.</li>
<li>With the enactment of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, linguistic states became a reality.</li>
<li>During 1970s and 1980s, owing to the intensification of tribal insurgency for separation and statehood, the Union government passed the North-eastern States Reorganisation Act, 1971.</li>
<li>It upgraded the Union Territories of Manipur and Tripura, and the Sub-State of Meghalaya to full statehood, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh (then Tribal Districts) to Union Territories which became states in 1986.</li>
<li>The decade of 2000s, witnessed vigorous movements for the creation of separate states due to a rising sense of regional deprivation.</li>
<li>It resulted in the formation of the three new states &ndash; Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand out of Bihar and Uttarakhand out of Uttar Pradesh.</li>
<li>The latest addition to this is the state of Telangana created by the division of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Types of Regional Movements</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong> Secessionism</strong> is a form of regionalism that involves militant and fundamentalist groups advocating a separation from India on the basis of ethnicity or any other factor.</li>
<li>Isac Muivah&rsquo;s National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the Islamic fundamentalist groups in J&amp;K, ULFA in Assam are examples of such an extreme dimension of regionalism.</li>
<li><strong>Separatism</strong> is a demand for separate statehood within the Indian Union.</li>
<li>Many times, linguistic or ethnic minorities within the states come together and unite against the majority community in that state.</li>
<li>This kind of sub-regionalism was validated by the State Reorganisation Act of 1956. The most recent examples include the formation of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana.</li>
<li>Meanwhile, there have been many demands including the creation of Bodoland for the Bodo-speakers in Assam; Gorkhaland for ethnic Gorkha (Nepali) people in West Bengal; a Bundelkhand state (covering part of Madhya Pradesh and part of Uttar Pradesh) for promoting the development of the region.</li>
<li><strong>Demand for Full Statehood,</strong> the union territories have been forwarding such demands like the NCT of Delhi.</li>
<li>Most of such demands have already been accepted. In 1971, Himachal Pradesh got the status of a full state and thereafter Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh (former NEFA) and Sikkim got full statehoods</li>
<li><strong>The Demand for Autonomy,</strong> since 1960&rsquo;s, with the emergence of regional parties, the demand for state autonomy has been gaining more and more strength due to the central political interferences.</li>
<li>In Tamil Nadu the DMK, in Punjab the Akali Dal, in Andhra Pradesh the Telgu Desham, in Assam the Assam Gana Parishad, the National conference in J&amp;K and in West Bengal the Forward Bloc have been continuously demanding a larger share of powers for the states.</li>
<li><strong>Demand for Regional Autonomy within a State,</strong> in some of the states, people belonging to various regions have been demanding recognition of their regional identities.</li>
<li>The genesis of such demands lies in the regional imbalances resulting from inefficient planning for instance in J &amp; K, the Ladakhis are demanding a regional status.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Reasons behind Growth of Regionalism in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Historical and geographical isolation</li>
<li>Lop-sided development</li>
<li>Continuous neglect of a region</li>
<li>Insider-outsider complex that nurturers nativism and son-of-the-soil ideology</li>
<li>Internal colonialism, i.e., despite being rich in natural resources some regions remain economically underdeveloped.</li>
<li>The reasons being either ill-conceived top-down approach or survival of one region at the cost of the other region. Chhota Nagpur plateau is an example of this type of underdevelopment.</li>
<li>Political vested interests can accentuate and exploit regional loyalties.</li>
<li>Reaction to an imposed ideology that can make its appearance as a reaction against the perceived imposition of a particular ideology, language or cultural pattern on all people and groups.</li>
<li>Linguistic aspirations that have remained a formidable basis of regionalism.</li>
<li>Expression of ethnicity.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Impact of Regionalism on Indian Polity</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rise of regional parties.</li>
<li>Re-focus on regional issues.</li>
<li>Regionalist tendencies often stir inter-state hostility as its spillover effect.</li>
<li>Regional movements often result in violent agitations, disturbs not only the law and order situation but also have negative implications on the economy of the state as well as the nation.</li>
<li>Regionalism sometimes undercuts the national interest by being a hurdle in international diplomacy.</li>
<li>For instance- the opposition of regional/state parties of Tamil against the stand of the central government had a direct implication on the relation of India with Sri Lanka.</li>
<li>The disagreement of political leadership in West Bengal with the central government over the Land Boundary Agreement and Teesta River Water sharing treaty with Bangladesh resulted in increased tensions between the two nations.</li>
<li>Regionalism can become a shield for militancy, extremism to create an internal security threat. Kashmir militancy is an example of this type of regionalism.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Regionalism vs. Nationalism</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Nationalism is a sense of belonging to one nation, a feeling one shares with all the citizens of the country regardless of their caste, creed, culture, religion or region.</li>
<li>This association with a nation is the primary mode of identification for a person and every nation encourages its citizens to take pride in being its citizen.</li>
<li>However, when people begin identifying more strongly with their region than with their nation, it is alleged that nationalism is undercut by a sense of regionalism.</li>
<li>While a nation tries to establish harmony between all its citizens by uniting them through a constitution, national symbols, and songs, regionalism glorifies the heritage of only one particular region and of one culture.</li>
<li>This leads to the formation of multiple communities within one nation and restricts the efforts of national integration.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Is regionalism a threat to national unity and integrity?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Parochial regionalism poses a threat to the sovereignty of the nation.</li>
<li>The anti-migrant or anti-Bihari stance of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) which opposes the employment and residence of non-Maharashtrian people in the state of Maharashtra is a prime example of negative regionalism.</li>
<li>Regionalism beyond a point can lead to secessionism, such as strong regionalism in Punjab ultimately resulted in the growth of Khalistani terrorism.</li>
<li>Regionalism often promotes Vote- Bank politics, thereby weakens the national integration.</li>
<li>Regionalism can weaken the time tested fabric of 'Unity in Diversity', if promoted in an ultra manner.</li>
<li>Positive regionalism promotes a sense of pride in connecting to one&rsquo;s roots and culture.</li>
<li>It has been noticed that often regional movements have helped the art and culture of many neglected regions to flourish by increasing their exposure through local emphasis.</li>
<li>Therefore, in principle, regionalism need not be regarded as an unhealthy or anti-national phenomenon, unless it takes a militant, aggressive turn to encourage the growth of secessionist tendencies.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Constitutional Safeguards Against Separatist Tendencies</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Constitution provides various institutional arrangements to resolve such problem, including the threats posed by violent regionalism.</li>
<li>The provisions of the fifth and sixth schedules of the Indian constitution have been applied by the government with intended objectives of constraining ethnic separatism and tribal alienation in different regions, particularly in the North-east.</li>
<li>Also institutionally, the government has become more receptive to the creation of an autonomous regional council or district council for the people of ethnic enclaves.</li>
<li>The state language policy has been fine tuned to accommodate the claims of various dialect or language groups. This has been done by:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>By including the major languages in the eighth schedule, and</li>
<li>Granting official recognition to culturally significant languages of the state as the language of education and official transaction.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All these policies have a significant impact on integrating the diverse regional communities within the mould and measures of Indian nationalism.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Unity in Diversity ethos needs to be preserved for the pluralistic character of the Indian nation state.</li>
<li>The accommodation of multiple aspirations of a diverse population is necessary.</li>
<li>Formation of the NITI Aayog has been a positive step to enhance co-operative federalism by fostering the involvement of the State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach.</li>
<li>While a number of steps such as the launch of centrally sponsored schemes, incentives to private players for development in backward states have been taken by the government for inclusive development, there is a greater need for their effective implementation.</li>
<li>There is a need to increase the level of social expenditure by the states on education, health, and sanitation which are the core for human resource development.</li>
<li>Introducing a system of national education that would help people to overcome regional feelings and develop an attachment towards the nation can act as a long-term solution to the problem of sub-nationalism.</li>
<li>While the National Integration Council was set up in 1961, there is a need to utilise its potential more effectively.</li>
<li>Schemes like "Ek Bharat-Shreshtha Bharat" have been launched by the GOI to celebrate unity in diversity culture of the nation and to strengthen sentiment for National Unity between the citizens of states, is a welcomed step.</li>
<li>National unity is not impaired if the people of a region have genuine pride in their language and culture.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/595Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/595Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/paper1/regionalism-in-india-upsc'
		],
		(int) 6 => [
			'title' => ' RBI Deferred Ind AS Implementation by Banks',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>RBI has again deferred the implementation of the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) by banks as the requisite legislative amendments are still under consideration.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>In 2006, <a href="/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-national-institutions/icai-nfra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ICAI</a> initiated the process of shifting towards the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The reason behind this step was to increase the acceptability and transparency of the financial statements of the Indian corporates on the global platform.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>For making the proper shift, Accounting Standards Board (ASB) of ICAI formulated <g class="gr_ gr_37 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="37" data-gr-id="37">the Ind</g> AS in line with the IFRS.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>In 2015, MCA notified Companies (Indian Accounting Standard) Rules 2015, which listed out the applicability and adoption of Ind AS.</strong></li>
<li>As per <g class="gr_ gr_42 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="42" data-gr-id="42">initial</g> plan, MCA was to implement Ind AS for banks, insurance companies and <a href="/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/the-big-picture-what-ails-nbfcs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBFCs</a> from 1 April 2018 onwards but in April 2018,<a href="/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-national-institutions/important-institutions-national-institution-reserve-bank-of-india" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> RBI</a> deferred the implementation of Indian Accounting Standards by one year for banks.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>On March 22, 2019, RBI again deferred the implementation of Ind AS by banks till further notice.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>The reason cited is that certain legislative amendments to the Third Schedule to the Banking Regulation Act 1949 are under consideration of the government.</strong></li>
<li>It is expected that these amendments will help in making the current format of financial statements compatible with the requirements under Ind AS.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Ind AS</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) <strong>are set of accounting standards that govern the accounting and recording of financial transactions as well as the presentation of statements such as profit and loss account and balance sheet of a company.</strong></li>
<li>The standards were formulated by the<strong> Accounting Standards Board (ASB), which was constituted as a body in the year 1977.</strong> ASB is a committee under ICAI which consists of representatives from <g class="gr_ gr_45 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="45" data-gr-id="45">government</g> department, academicians, other professional bodies viz. ICAI, representatives from ASSOCHAM, CII, FICCI, etc.</li>
<li>The Ind AS are named and numbered in the same way as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>IFRS</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are accounting standards that have been <strong>issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) with the objective of providing a common accounting language to increase transparency in the presentation of financial information.</strong></li>
<li><strong>IASB is an independent body that was formed in 2001</strong> for establishing the IFRS. It succeeded the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), which was earlier given the responsibility of establishing the international accounting standards. It is based in London.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/rbi-deferred-ind-as-implementation-by-banks'
		],
		(int) 7 => [
			'title' => 'Disinvestment Exceeds Target',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>For the <strong>second year in a row</strong>, the government has&nbsp;<strong>exceeded the disinvestment target of Rs 80,000</strong> crore set for the <strong>Financial Year 2019,</strong> which ends in March.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Against a goal of ₹80,000 crore in FY19,  divestments have touched ₹85,000 crore with <strong>completion of the acquisition of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) by Power Finance Corporation (PFC) for Rs 14,500 crore.</strong></li>
<li>Apart from Power Finance Corporation acquiring government&rsquo;s stake in Rural Electrification Corporation, <strong>launch of several tranches of <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-13th-march-2019-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE)</a>,</strong> and <strong>PSUs buying back their own shares</strong> were among the measures deployed by the government to achieve its target of stake sales.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The <strong>largest chunk of disinvestment c</strong>ame from several tranches of <strong>ETFs launched by the government.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>second biggest chunk</strong> of Rs 14,500 crore was raised through <strong>Power Finance Corporation</strong> acquiring government&rsquo;s 52.63% stake in REC.</li>
<li>In the last fiscal year, the government had <strong>used the same strategy</strong> to meet its disinvestment target as ONGC bought the entire stake of government in HPCL for a total of around Rs 37,000 crore.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Meeting the disinvestment target for the current fiscal year was crucial because of the <strong>uncertainty in revenue collection from direct taxes as well as from the goods and services tax (GST).</strong></li>
<li>This will enable the government to <strong>achieve the revised fiscal deficit target of 3.4%</strong> of gross domestic product (GDP).
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The budgeted fiscal deficit target was 3.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) at the beginning of 2018-19 and was later <strong>revised to 3.4% of gross domestic product in the interim budget,</strong> mainly because of an expectation of higher payout because of the direct income scheme for farmers.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Disinvestment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Disinvestment means <strong>selling of assets</strong>. In the case of Public Sector Undertakings, disinvestment means <strong>Government selling/ diluting its stake (share) in PSUs in which it has a majority holding.</strong></li>
<li>Disinvestment is carried out a<strong>s a budgetary exercise,</strong> under which the government announces yearly targets for disinvestment for selected PSUs.</li>
<li>Recently, in April 2016, the <strong>Department of Disinvestment (under Ministry of Finance)&nbsp;</strong>was renamed as<strong> Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM).</strong></li>
<li>The mandate of the Department is as follows:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>All matters relating to the<strong> management of Central Government investments in equity</strong> including disinvestment of equity in Central Public Sector Undertakings.</li>
<li>All matters relating to the sale of Central Government equity through offer for sale or private placement or any other mode in the erstwhile Central Public Sector Undertakings.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/disinvestment-exceeds-target'
		],
		(int) 8 => [
			'title' => 'US Recognition to Golan Heights as Israel’s Territory',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that the <strong>US may recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>U.S. will be the first country</strong> to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan and marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy.</li>
<li>The<strong> Golan Heights were captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967</strong> conflict and <strong>annexed in 1981 &mdash; a move not recognized internationally.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>US Stand &amp; Israel's Response</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The U.S. has said that <strong>Israel could not give up the Golan Heights as doing so would endanger Israel&rsquo;s very existence.</strong></li>
<li>Israel has welcomed the US stand.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other countries Response</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>Syrian government said the Golan was an &ldquo;indivisible&rdquo; part of Syrian territory</strong> and recovering it &ldquo;via all means guaranteed by international law is still a priority&rdquo;.</li>
<li><strong>Russia, Iran, and Turkey have condemned the US statement as illegal and unacceptable</strong> and said that the decisions will lead to a crisis in the region.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Impact of Withdrawal</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The formal recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan <strong>doesn't change anything on the ground.</strong> <strong>Israel already has a considerable military presence in the region.</strong></li>
<li>It is <strong>not immediately clear how the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Golan might be affected</strong> by the U.S. move.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Golan Heights</strong></p>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577338094_image43.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577338094_image43.png" style="float: right;" width="340" caption="false" /></strong></a></h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Golan Heights is a<strong> rocky plateau with an area of 1,800km&sup2; on the border between Israel and Syria</strong> in south-western Syria.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Dispute</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>I<strong>srael occupied the Golan Heights, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War.</strong> An armistice line was established and the region came under Israeli military control.</li>
<li><strong>Syria tried to retake the Golan Heights during the 1973 Middle East war.</strong> Syria was defeated in its attempt.</li>
<li>Both countries <strong>signed an armistice in 1974 and a UN observer force has been in place</strong> on the ceasefire line since 1974.</li>
<li><strong>In 1981, Israel permanently acquired the territory of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem</strong> in moves never recognized by most countries.</li>
<li>The international community regards as disputed territory occupied by Israel whose status should be determined by negotiations between Israel and Syria.</li>
<li>Attempts by the international community to bring Israel and Syria for negotiations have failed.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>International Recognition of Golan Heights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>European Union</strong> said its position on the status of the Golan Heights was unchanged and it did not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area.</li>
<li>The <strong>Arab League</strong>, which suspended Syria in 2011 after the start of its civil war has said the move is &ldquo;completely beyond international law&rdquo;.</li>
<li><strong>Egypt</strong>, which made peace with Israel in 1979, said it still considers the Golan as occupied Syrian territory.</li>
<li><strong>India</strong> has also not recognized Golan heights as Israel territory and has called for the return of Golan Heights to Syria.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Importance of Golan Heights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Golan Heights<strong> give Israel an excellent point for monitoring Syrian movements.</strong> The topography provides a natural buffer against any military adventure from Syria.</li>
<li>The area is also a <strong>key source of water for an arid region. Rainwater from the Golan's catchment feeds into the Jordan River.</strong> The area provides a third of Israel's water supply.</li>
<li>The<strong> land is fertile, and the volcanic soil is used to cultivate vineyards and orchards and raise cattle.</strong> The Golan is also home to Israel's only ski resort.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/us-recognition-to-golan-heights-as-israel-s-territory'
		],
		(int) 9 => [
			'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (23rd March 2019)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>LIMA 2019</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The<strong> Indian Air Force</strong> is going to participate in <strong>Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA) 2019.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA-2019)</strong> is planned in Langkawi, Malaysia from 26 March 2019 to 30 March 2019.</li>
<li>Indian Air Force is participating in the <strong>Maritime Aero Expo for the first time,</strong> during which it will showcase its<strong> indigenously developed LCA Tejas fighter aircraft.</strong></li>
<li>Participation of IAF in LIMA-2019 will provide an opportunity to air-warriors to interact with their Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) counterparts and foster a close relationship between the two services.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cyclone Trevor &amp; Veronica</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Two <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/cyclone-daye" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>cyclonic storms</strong></a>, named <strong>Trevor and Veronica</strong>, are expected to make landfall into<strong> Australia&rsquo;s coasts.</strong></li>
<li>Trevor is expected to make landfall in northeast Australia while Veronica will hit northwest Australia.</li>
<li>Trevor and Veronica are no different from the<strong><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/cyclone-titli" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> hurricanes or cyclones </a>except</strong> that they <strong>spin clockwise instead of counterclockwise.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In the <strong>Northern Hemisphere</strong> the direction of the <strong>cyclone is counterclockwise</strong>, and in the <strong>Southern Hemisphere, it is clockwise.</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</strong> is observed on <strong>21<sup>st</sup> March every year.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>theme for 2019</strong> is<strong> Mitigating and countering rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>History of the Day</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>UN General Assembly on 26 October 1966</strong> proclaimed <strong>21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</strong> to be commemorated annually.</li>
<li>On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws".</li>
<li>Proclaiming the Day in 1966 which signifies the struggle to end the policy of apartheid in South Africa.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Navroz</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Navroz is<strong> New Year celebrations on March 21 every year for Parsis, followers of Zoroastrianism and various sects of Muslim, both Shias and Sunnis.</strong></li>
<li>In 1079 AD, a <strong>Persian (Iranian) king named Jalaluddin Malekshah introduced the Navroz (New Year)</strong> festival to generate revenue and collect taxes from people.</li>
<li>It was observed on <strong>March 21 to mark the beginning of spring and the day of equinox.</strong></li>
<li>It is inscribed in the list of <strong>UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of India</strong>. In India it is known as <strong>Jamshed Navroz.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Intangible Cultural Heritage of India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Kumbh Mela, Yoga, Traditional brass and copper craft of utensils among thatheras of Punjab, Sankirtana (ritual singing, dancing and drumming of Manipur), Buddhist chanting of Ladakh, Chhau Dance, Kalbelia (folk song and dance of Rajasthan), Kutiyattam (a Sanskrit theatre of Kerala), Tradition of Vedic Chanting, Ramlila, <strong>Novruz (Persian New Year)</strong>, Ramman(religious festival and ritual theatre of the Garhwal Himalayas), Mudiyettu (ritual theatre and dance drama of Kerala).</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-23rd-march-2019'
		],
		(int) 10 => [
			'title' => 'PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest' Litigations',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-gavel-on-the-duds/301330" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&lsquo;PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest</a>' Litigations&rsquo; which appeared in &lsquo;The Outlook&rsquo; on 19th <g class="gr_ gr_91 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="91" data-gr-id="91">March,</g> 2019. The article talks about the nature of PILs and the change it has undergone over a period of time.)</p>
</div>
<p><em>Almost exactly 40 years ago, in <g class="gr_ gr_93 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="93" data-gr-id="93">March,</g> 1979, Kapila Hingorani made history by filing and securing the release of nearly 40,000 <g class="gr_ gr_92 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del" id="92" data-gr-id="92">under trials</g> languishing in the jails of Bihar&rsquo;s Patna and Muzzafarpur, in the &lsquo;Hussainara Khatoon&rsquo; case.</em></p>
<p><em>The &lsquo;Hussainara Khatoon&rsquo; case established a new paradigm in the Indian justice system, which until 1979 was accessible to only those personally affected by the law or <g class="gr_ gr_88 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace" id="88" data-gr-id="88">facing</g> penal action.</em></p>
<p><em>The court allowed Hingorani to pursue a case in which she had no personal locus <g class="gr_ gr_86 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="86" data-gr-id="86">standi</g> making Public Interest Litigations (PILs) a permanent fixture in Indian jurisprudence. Ever <g class="gr_ gr_85 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="85" data-gr-id="85">since,</g> PILs has become the champion of the underprivileged and those wronged by the system. </em></p>
<h3>Public Interest Litigation</h3>
<p>Public interest litigation uses the law to advance human rights and equality, or raise issues of broad public concern. It helps advance the cause of minority or disadvantaged groups or individuals.</p>
<p>Public interest cases can arise from both public and private law matters concerning various rules and regulations that govern the exercise of power by public bodies and even when a public body is not involved such as employment law or family law.</p>
<p>It has most ideally and commonly been used to challenge the decisions of public authorities by judicial review to review the lawfulness of a decision or action, or a failure to act, by a public body.</p>
<p>PILs have been responsible for landmark verdicts that have outlawed instant triple talaq, identified privacy as a fundamental right, opened the doors of the Sabarimala temple in Kerala and Mumbai&rsquo;s Haji Ali shrine to women, <g class="gr_ gr_71 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="71" data-gr-id="71">legalised</g> consensual homosexual relations and made passive euthanasia permissible etc.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<h3>Procedures to File A PIL In The Court</h3>
<p>Any citizen of India can approach the court for public case (upon the interest of public) by filing a petition:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the Supreme Court, under Article 32 of the Constitution</li>
<li>Under the High Court, under Article 226 of the Constitution</li>
<li>Under Court of Magistrate under Section 133 of CrPC</li>
</ul>
<p>At present, a court can treat a letter as a writ petition and take action upon it. In such cases, the court has to be satisfied that the writ petition complies with the following;</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Where the letter is addressed by the aggrieved person</li>
<li>A public-spirited individual</li>
<li>A social action group for the enforcement of legal or constitutional rights to any person who, upon poverty or disability, are not able to approach the court for redress.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>From Public to Publicity</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>PIL was introduced in Indian jurisprudence to help raise the cause of social justice. Unfortunately, it has instead become a tool for people to use these as either to gain publicity or for political agenda.</li>
<li>PILs these days are being used as a means to further bigotry and communal hate in the name of public interest. Filling of flippant cases has resulted in the erosion of the sanctity of the PIL system, which has been responsible for some of the most progressive verdicts delivered by various courts.</li>
<li>In the absence of any robust mechanism to filter genuine pleas from frivolous pleas known as &ldquo;<g class="gr_ gr_75 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="75" data-gr-id="75">publicity</g> interest&rdquo; or &ldquo;political interest&rdquo; litigations, irrational petitions have soared in great numbers. The courts place the onus of curbing the menace on litigants&rsquo; moral conscience.</li>
<li>Frivolous filing of PILs has not only resulted in <g class="gr_ gr_100 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="100" data-gr-id="100">added</g> burden on judiciary but has significantly led to trust erosion in the entire exercise, even if a frivolous plea is eventually dismissed, the judges have to spend a lot of time in going through the prayer and, on most occasions, hearing the petitioner.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Present System of Checks</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the present system, only judges have the power to decide if a petition should be admitted or dismissed while the job of the Registry (of the SC or of any high court) is to ensure that technical requirements of filing a petition have been fulfilled by the litigant.</li>
<li>Petition gets listed for admission irrespective of its merit, eating away the court&rsquo;s time that could otherwise be <g class="gr_ gr_68 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="68" data-gr-id="68">utilised</g> to hear the massive backlog of cases.</li>
<li><g class="gr_ gr_70 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins doubleReplace replaceWithoutSep" id="70" data-gr-id="70">Total</g> number of cases pending before the SC, as on December 1 last year, stood at 56,994. The National Judicial Data Grid puts the total number of cases pending before various high courts, as on March 17, at a whopping 42.89 lakh.</li>
</ul>
<h3>The Desired Steps</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>There is a need for an effective deterrent to prevent such frivolous cases, especially those that blatantly violate the Constitution, from being filed. Judiciary needs to be more proactive in dealing with those who file cases purely to gain publicity.</li>
<li>A litigant who takes liberties with the truth or with the procedures of the court should be left in no doubt about the consequences to follow. All the courts should impose exemplary cost against petitioners who try to choke the judicial system with absurd PILs mocking both the basic law of justice as well as the secular fabric of the nation.</li>
<li>The court cannot abdicate its responsibility (of deciding whether a case deserves to be heard) in <g class="gr_ gr_87 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="87" data-gr-id="87">favour</g> of the Registry as it is within the powers of the court, and <g class="gr_ gr_84 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="84" data-gr-id="84">its</g> Chief Justice, to lay down broad guidelines for the Registry to follow while deciding what kind of cases deserve to be listed</li>
<li>The Registry should be empowered to at least check the credentials of the person filing a PIL and those who have a prior record of filing such cases should be warned of the consequences.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In the 40 years since its inception as a course for judicial remedy, the PIL system has emerged as a potent tool for ensuring transparency in governance and enabler of social justice.</li>
<li>Litigations such as those demanding deportation of Indian Muslims to Pakistan strikes at the very core of the purpose that a PIL is supposed to serve&mdash;public interest, necessitating timely and stern actions against the &lsquo;Lousy Litigants&rsquo; to make evident the deterrent cost of publicity.</li>
<li>Public Interest Litigation is a weapon which should be used with great care and circumspection and the Judiciary needs to be extremely careful so that ugly private malice, vested interest is not seen lurking behind the beautiful veil of public interest.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/pils-from-public-interest-to-publicity-interest-litigations'
		],
		(int) 11 => [
			'title' => 'Lancet: Building a Tuberculosis Free World',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>The Lancet Commission on tuberculosis has published report &lsquo;building a tuberculosis-free world&rsquo;.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is <strong>based on modelling for three high-burden countries(India, Indonesia, &amp; China)</strong>.</li>
<li>It compared with 2015 data, and estimated 57% reduction in incidence and 72% reduction in mortality will been seen only by 2045.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Background</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>According to World Health Organisation (WHO) <strong>10 million new tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported globally in 2017</strong>, out of which 2.74 million were from India.</li>
<li>It shows a marginal reduction from 2.79 million in 2016.</li>
<li>The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include ending the TB epidemic by 2030 under Goal 3.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Lancet&rsquo;s Findings on India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>India&rsquo;s goal to end the epidemic by 2025&nbsp;</strong>(five years ahead of the UN SDG) is<strong> too &ldquo;ambitious"</strong>, &ldquo;unrealistic", and, therefore, unattainable. As it requires high quality of care to every person from diagnosis to treatment.</li>
<li>TB incidence in the country being 204 cases per 1,00,000 in 2017.</li>
<li>10% of individuals with TB die or self-cure before presenting for care.</li>
<li>Patient delay before the first presentation for care is 4.1 months.</li>
<li>The proportion of people with TB completing treatment is 85%.</li>
<li>India has the <strong>highest number of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases</strong> in the world. the majority of cases due to direct transmission.</li>
<li>The early diagnosis and prompt initiation of effective treatment should be high priority to curb MDR-TB transmission.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Recommendations</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Integration of TB services with the primary health system</strong> will lead to early diagnosis and help cut the transmission cycle.</li>
<li>Strengthening the <strong>care cascade</strong>(visualising problems with the implementation of &lsquo;treatment as prevention&rsquo;) could reduce cumulative TB incidence by 38% in the case of India.</li>
<li>India has to adopt <strong>measures to prevent TB on a population level to eliminate</strong> the disease in the coming decades.</li>
<li>India needs improvement in diagnosis and treatment for drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB.</li>
<li>It suggests that lives of eight million (28%) people with TB can be saved over the next 30 years if tests are subsidised and patients are supported to complete the treatment.</li>
<li>This would <strong>cost an extra $290 million each year</strong>, which is significantly less than India&rsquo;s $32 billion losses associated with TB mortality each year.</li>
<li>India should scale up access to TB services for all those seeking them, optimise engagement of private sector providers and guarantee universal access to drug susceptibility testing and second line TB drugs.</li>
<li>National TB control programme is encouraging, there is political will and the programme mentions all the correct initiatives to bring the disease under control. Accountability is vital component.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India and Tuberculosis</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has the highest TB burden in the world.<strong> In 2018, 2.15 million TB case were reported</strong> , which is 16% more the 2017.</li>
<li>Private sector has reported 0.54 million cases, which is 35% increase compared with 2017.</li>
<li>National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination (2017&ndash;25) has called for increase in private TB reporting to two million patients per year by 2020.</li>
<li>Government of India has said that New tools resulting from greater tuberculosis research and development (R&amp;D) are essential to prevent those projected economic losses.</li>
<li>With at least 30 per cent of India&rsquo;s population infected with tuberculosis. Thus it needs accurate point-of-care diagnostics for detecting tuberculosis infection and effective person-centred treatment.</li>
<li>Government of India has said that close coordination between the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and research-oriented pharmaceutical companies, is necessary to reach targets against tuberculosis.</li>
<li>Instead of waiting for people with TB to reach diagnostic centres for testing, India has now<strong> undertaken case-ﬁnding campaigns</strong>.</li>
<li>It acknowledges that high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred during TB treatment keeps people in poverty for seven years after completing treatment.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Lancet</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general <strong>British medical journal</strong>.</li>
<li>It is among the world's oldest, most prestigious, and best known general medical journals.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Tuberculosis</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria (<strong>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</strong>) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable.</li>
<li>TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air.</li>
<li>Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of TB <strong>caused by bacteria that do not respond to first-line anti-TB drugs</strong>. MDR-TB is treatable and curable by using second-line drugs.</li>
<li>Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is a more serious form of MDR-TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to the most effective second-line anti-TB drugs, <strong>often leaving patients without any further treatment options</strong>.</li>
<li>In 2017, the 30 high TB burden countries accounted for 87% of new TB cases. Eight countries account for two thirds of the total, with India leading the count, followed by, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa.</li>
<li>WHO End TB Strategy, adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2014, is a blueprint for countries to end the TB epidemic by driving down TB deaths, incidence and eliminating catastrophic costs.</li>
<li><strong>World TB Day is observed on 24 March</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/lancet-building-a-tuberculosis-free-world'
		],
		(int) 12 => [
			'title' => 'Akula Class – Attack Submarine',
			'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
			'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qELdZLk5dek" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>India has planned to lease out one more Akula Class nuclear powered submarine from Russia. According to reports, both the countries have signed a deal for this, worth almost 3 Billion US dollars. This new attack submarine will <strong>replace Indian Navy's INS Chakra 2</strong> whose lease is expiring in the year 2022.</p>
<p>Submarine is a warship with a streamlined hull designed to operate completely submerged in the sea for long periods, equipped with a periscope and typically armed with torpedoes or missiles.</p>
<h3>Types</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Conventional Submarines:</strong> These are the ones which are powered by electric motors and batteries.<br /><strong>E.g. Project-75 Class Submarines</strong></li>
<li><strong>Nuclear Powered Ballistic Submarines:</strong> These are powered by nuclear fuel, thereby capable of operating underwater for longer durations. Primary role of such submarines is to provide strategic deterrence.<br /><strong>E.g. INS Arihant</strong></li>
<li><strong>Nuclear Powered and Armed Submarines (SSN):</strong> These marines have unlimited endurance and high speeds and are armed with cruise missiles and heavyweight torpedoes, thus complementing carrier battle groups.<br /><strong>E.g. Akula Class Submarines.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>Akula Class Submarines</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Akula Class Submarine uses a nuclear reactor for propulsion, allowing it to remain underwater for an extended period of time which makes its detection impossible.</li>
<li>This class of Submarine can be used for multiple tasks like hunting enemy submarines, intelligence surveillance etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Benefits</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will help India in training Arihant and Arihant-class cruise on SSN submarines.</li>
<li>It can be deployed at important focal points in Indian Ocean and thus India will be able to enjoy strategic dynamic of the region. Also, the submarine will have a deterrent impact.</li>
<li>Induction of this SSN will make India an Indian Ocean Power with full spectrum of operational capabilities.</li>
<li>The submarine will act as a supreme board for India&rsquo;s indigenous SSN development program as it will provide clues on submarine designs, nuclear submarine operation and maintenance etc.</li>
<li>It is also the symbol of deep Indo-Russia relations as no two other countries in the world have exchanged any nuclear element in defence armament yet.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India-Russia Defence Trade</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Since the year 1988, Russia has been supplying India with nuclear powered submarines. INS Chakra 1 was inducted into Indian Navy in the year 1998.</li>
<li>INS Chakra 2 was inducted into Indian Navy in the year 2012.</li>
<li>Akula Class Submarine will get inducted by the year 2024.</li>
<li>India and Russia has also come into a joint venture for production of 200 Kamov lightweight multi-role military helicopters for India. The deal for the same was inked in 2015.</li>
<li>India has recently signed agreements with Russia on S-400 air defence missiles and AK 203 Rifles. This India has done, despite the risk of invoking sanctions under <strong>Countering America&rsquo;s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA)</strong>.</li>
<li>These trade deals are important for Indo-Russian ties due to Russia&rsquo;s growing interest in the geo-politics of Indo-Pacific Region.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Choke points in Indian Ocean need to be controlled through submarines, for maintaining influence in the region.</li>
<li><strong>India needs a very rapid submarine building program</strong> to protect its interests in International Waters, especially between the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.</li>
<li>More SSNs are required for the deployment at the Indian Ocean in the wake of Chinese ships patrolling the ocean. This is also necessary to deter competitors of India in the International Waters.</li>
<li>Besides building submarines, <strong>India needs to build surveillance capabilities</strong> so that it can exactly detect location of submarines of other countries in the Indian Ocean.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>The new Akula Submarine will definitely provide boost to Indian Navy operational capabilities but India needs to build its own such submarines, considering the cost of lease. Also, it needs to provide a push to its present submarine programmes, especially &lsquo;Project-75&rsquo;.</em></p>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/akula-class-attack-submarine'
		],
		(int) 13 => [
			'title' => 'Statistical Institutions of India',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<p><em>(The editorial is based on the article &ldquo;<a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-short-history-of-data/article26593687.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A short history of data</a>&rdquo; which appeared in The Hindu for 21st March 2019. In this editorial, we&rsquo;ll see how Indian national statistics and the organisations that administer them have helped shape data collection methods across the globe.</em>)</p>
<p><strong>Over the past two months, Indian national statistics and the organisations that administer them have faced a volley of criticism.</strong> In January, two independent members of the National Statistical Commission resigned in protest, over alleged suppression of economic data by the government.</p>
<p><strong>More recently, amidst growing scepticism regarding India&rsquo;s official statistics, more than a hundred scholars comprising economists and social scientists released a statement decrying the fall in standards of institutional independence, suggesting political interference as the cause.</strong></p>
<p>Kaushik Basu, a former chief economist of the World Bank, also recently bemoaned the declining credibility of India&rsquo;s official statistics.</p>
<p><strong>While declining data quality has been an issue for a while, concern over institutional independence is new. What several of these criticisms refer is the fact that India&rsquo;s national statistics were once internationally renowned among economists and policy professionals for their reliability.</strong></p>
<p><strong>In the decades following World War II, India had reason to be proud not only of the institutional independence of national statistical bodies but also &mdash; uniquely among developing countries &mdash; of a pioneering history of independent data collection and publication.</strong><strong></strong></p>
<h3>Pioneering History of India&rsquo;s Statistical Enterprise</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The growth of India&rsquo;s vast national statistical infrastructure dates back to its first decade as an independent country. The birth of a new nation led to an explosion of national statistics, based on the need to plan the economy through Five Year Plans.</li>
<li>These years would see the establishment of the office of the Statistical Adviser to the Government, bi-annual National Sample Surveys (NSS), the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), and National Income Committees (that made the estimates similar to GDP measurements).</li>
<li><strong>The moving spirit behind these developments was Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, whom Jawaharlal Nehru described as the &ldquo;presiding genius of statistics in India,&rdquo; and the institute that he had founded in Calcutta in 1931, the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).</strong></li>
<li>Mahalanobis was also involved in the discussions that led to the establishment of the UN Statistical Commission in New York, a body that he would be voted Chairperson of several times during the 1950s. (As a pioneer in the emerging field of large-scale sample surveys, he would also be the force behind creating the UN Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling in 1947, co-authoring the textbook on the subject in 1950).</li>
<li>On the eve of World War II, it had become apparent, both to the colonial government and the Indian National Congress, that any concerted postwar developmental effort would require fine-grained statistical information on the national economy.</li>
<li>Nehru, Chairman of the Congress&rsquo;s National Planning Committee, called attention in 1938 to the &ldquo;fact of the absence of accurate data and statistics.&rdquo;. Even a decade later, he would admit, &ldquo;we have no data,&rdquo; as a result of which, &ldquo;we function largely in the dark.&rdquo;</li>
<li>While the British colonial government had made efforts to collect statistics on the subcontinent from the early 19th century, these were provincially organised and geared towards trade and administration.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Successes of Indian Statistical Endeavours</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The results of the National Sample Survey offered high-definition snapshots of the country&rsquo;s material life &mdash; casting light on cost of living, crop estimates, household consumption, industry, trade, and land holding patterns.</li>
<li><strong>&ldquo;No country, developed, under-developed or over-developed, has such a wealth of information about its people as India.&rdquo; - Edwards Deming (American statistician).</strong></li>
<li><strong>Singaporean statistician Y.P. Seng observed that by comparison that China had &ldquo;no genuine statistics&rdquo; and so India&rsquo;s example of using surveys would &ldquo;serve as a guide and an example worthy of imitating&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The Planning Commission, beginning in 1962, used the data the National Sample Survey generated by its household surveys to craft the country&rsquo;s poverty line. </strong><br /><strong>India was a frontrunner in this regard: the United States developed its own poverty line three years later.</strong></li>
<li><strong>With their combined influence on the UN Statistical Commission and the UN Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling, the Indian Statistical Institute and the National Sample Survey continue to have a lasting impact on estimating poverty across the developing world.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Methods pioneered by the National Sample Survey have become the norm for household surveys across the globe.</strong> For example, the Living Standard Measurement Study surveys conducted in several countries by the World Bank can trace their lineage back to the work of Indian statisticians associated with the Indian Statistical Institute and the National Sample Survey.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>This distinguished history, which India can claim with pride, makes the recent undermining of the credibility of our statistical output especially regrettable.</strong></li>
<li>We can, however, ensure that when we look back on <g class="gr_ gr_66 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace" id="66" data-gr-id="66">this several years</g> from now, it represents an anomaly rather than a lasting, irreparable loss of institutional credibility.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/statistical-institutions-india-upsc-gktoday-data-national-statistical-commission-mahalanobis-indian-statistical-institute'
		],
		(int) 14 => [
			'title' => 'Water on Asteroid Bennu',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>Recent, observations by <strong>NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer)&nbsp;</strong>spacecraft has found that the asteroid Bennu has lots of accessible water.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>OSIRIS-REx mission had arrived at asteroid Bennu after a two-year journey in December 2018.</li>
<li>OSIRIS-REx was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 8, 2016.</li>
<li>The OSIRIS-REx mission is not the first to ever visit an asteroid and attempt a sample return &mdash; Japan has done<a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/hayabusa-2-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Hayabusa Mission)</a> it before and Europe (Rosetta Mission) has managed to land on a comet.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Rosetta Mission</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rosetta Mission was launched by the European Space Agency in 2004 to explore&nbsp;Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and to study the nucleus of the comet and its environment.</li>
<li>Rosetta was the first mission ever to orbit a comet&rsquo;s nucleus and land a probe on its surface. It was also the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it head towards the inner Solar System</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Mission</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Mission <strong>aims to study asteroid Bennu, collect a sample and return it to Earth in 2023.</strong></li>
<li>The mission will spend 2.5 years, mapping its surface and studying its composition.</li>
<li>In mid-2020, scientists will direct Osiris-Rex to drop down to the asteroid and grab at least 60g of regolith, or "topsoil".</li>
<li>This will be packed away in a sterile capsule to be returned to earth in 2023.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Mission Objective</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The OSIRIS-REx name is an acronym of the mission objectives, which are:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Origins:</strong> Return and analyze a pristine carbon-rich asteroid sample</li>
<li><strong>Spectral Interpretation:</strong> Provide ground truth or direct observations for telescopic data of the entire asteroid population</li>
<li><strong>Resource Identification:</strong> Map the chemistry and mineralogy of a primitive carbon-rich asteroid</li>
<li><strong>Security:</strong> Measure the effect of sunlight on the orbit of a small asteroid, known as the Yarkovsky effect. This effect is the slight push created when the asteroid absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat, could change the trajectory of asteroids.</li>
<li><strong>Regolith Explorer:</strong> Document the regolith (layer of loose, outer material) at the sampling site at scales down to the sub-centimeter</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of Mission</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Origins of the Solar System</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In order to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system.</li>
<li>As Earth formed, and afterward, objects like Bennu may have delivered the molecules of carbon and water to our planet. By studying Bennu, we can better understand how life originated on earth.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Protecting Earth</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Bennu is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids currently known to Earth. Bennu has a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of impacting earth during one of its close approaches to Earth in the late 22nd century.</li>
<li>Close observations by OSIRIS-REx will help get more information about Bennu's journey and help scientists working on safeguarding our planet against hazardous asteroids.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Mining, LaunchPad, and Future Explorations</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The recent discovery of water will help to explore the possibility of using asteroids as refueling stations for spacecraft on the way to deeper destinations in space.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>As water can be split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen which can be used as fuel in rockets.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Water could also be harvested for providing water to astronauts.</li>
<li>Asteroids contain a range of valuable minerals, there is a possibility of mining asteroids in the future.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>About Bennu</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The asteroid was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey on September 11, 1999.</li>
<li>It was originally named as 1999 RQ36.</li>
<li>The name Bennu comes from an Egyptian deity related to the Sun, often depicted as a gray heron.</li>
<li>Bennu is a 500-meter wide asteroid in an elliptical orbit around the sun. It is a carbonaceous asteroid composition including a large amount of carbon.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Why Bennu?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>It's close to Earth</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Bennu&rsquo;s orbit is close in proximity to Earth's, even crossing it. The asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth every 6 years.</li>
<li>It also circles the Sun nearly in the same plane as Earth, which makes it simple to launch the spacecraft out of Earth's plane and into Bennu's plane.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>It's the right size</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Small asteroids, with diameters of 200 meters or less, spin very fast. This rapid spinning makes it difficult for a spacecraft to match an asteroid's velocity and collect samples.</li>
<li>Bennu's size makes it approachable and makes landing possible.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/water-on-asteroid-bennu'
		],
		(int) 15 => [
			'title' => 'UN World Happiness Report- 2019',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<p>The<strong> Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations</strong> released the <strong>World Happiness Report on March 20</strong>, which was designated as the <strong>World Happiness Day by the UN General Assembly in 2012.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This is UN&rsquo;s <strong>seventh annual World Happiness Report</strong>, which ranks the world&rsquo;s 156 countries on<strong> &ldquo;how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li>The focus of report was- "<strong>Happiness and Community: how happiness has been changing over the past dozen years, and how information technology, governance and social norms influence communities"</strong></li>
<li>The report ranks countries on <strong>six key variables</strong> that support well-being:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Income,</li>
<li>Freedom to make life choices,</li>
<li>Trust,</li>
<li>Healthy life expectancy,</li>
<li>Social support and</li>
<li>Generosity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The happiness study ranks the countries of the world on the basis of<strong> questions from the Gallup World Poll.</strong> The results are then correlated with other factors, including GDP and social security.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Findings</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The overall world happiness has<strong> fallen over the past few years,</strong> which has mostly been fuelled by a sustained drop in India, which came in <strong>140<sup>th</sup> place this year (2019)</strong> compared with <strong>133<sup>rd</sup> in 2018.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>There has been an <strong>increase in negative emotions, including worry, sadness and anger.</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>India featured in the five countries that had the<strong> largest drop since 2008</strong> in the index, along with Yemen, Syria, Botswana and Venezuela.</li>
<li>The list is <strong>topped by Finland for the second year in a row</strong> followed by<strong> Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands.</strong></li>
<li>Among India's neighbouring countries, <strong>Pakistan is ranked 67<sup>th</sup>, Bangladesh 125th, Bhutan 95<sup>th</sup>, Sri Lanka 130<sup>th</sup> and China is placed at 93<sup>rd</sup>.</strong></li>
<li>People in war-torn <strong>South Sudan are the most unhappy</strong> with their lives, followed by <strong>Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152).</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN),<strong> launched in 2012</strong>, mobilizes global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical problem solving for the<a href="/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/in-depth-indias-sustainable-development-goals" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> <strong>Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</strong> </a>and the <a href="/to-the-points/paper3/cop24" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Paris Climate Agreement.</strong></a></li>
<li>It was established under the auspices of the <strong>United Nations Secretary-General.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>SDSN and the Bertelsmann Stiftung</strong> have been publishing the annual<strong> SDG Index &amp; Dashboards Global Report since 2016.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/un-world-happiness-report-2019'
		],
		(int) 16 => [
			'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (22nd March 2019)',
			'catname' => 'News Analysis',
			'desc' => '<h3>Super Worm Equinox Moon</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The<strong> last supermoon of the year has coincided with the Spring Equinox.</strong> The phenomenon is generally known as &lsquo;Super Worm Equinox Moon&rsquo;.</li>
<li><strong>The full moon of the March is the third supermoon of the year,</strong> following a <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-21st-january-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener">super blood wolf moon</a> on January 21<sup>st</sup> and a super snow moon on February 19<sup>th</sup>.</li>
<li><strong>The full moon is also known as the worm moon</strong> in some parts of the world. It is called so because, in cold climates, the ground begins to warm up at this point and earthworms appear.</li>
<li>When the moon is at its closest point to the earth, it is called &lsquo;perigee&rsquo; and when a full moon coincides with a perigee, it is called Supermoon.</li>
<li>The<strong> Equinox is the moment</strong> when the <strong>length of day and night become equal</strong> and the <strong>sun&rsquo;s rays fall directly on the earth&rsquo;s equator.</strong> The phenomenon happens <strong>twice a year&ndash; once as autumn equinox in September and the other in March as spring equinox or vernal equinox.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>LightSail2</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>LightSail 2</strong> is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing using a miniature CubeSat satellite.</li>
<li>It will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, US in April 2019.</li>
<li>LightSail 2 is the<strong> second of three satellites</strong> built to demonstrate the <strong>feasibility of powering a spacecraft using solar radiation.</strong></li>
<li>This mission is designed to see if LightSail can move into higher orbits around the Earth using <strong>only photons from the sun to push it along.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Solar Sailing</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Solar sails (also called light sails or photon sails) are a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577337435_image49.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577337435_image49.png" width="458" caption="false" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></h3>
</div>
<h3>Fall Armyworms</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>&lsquo;Fall armyworms&rsquo;</strong> are <strong>native to the Americas</strong> but they have been moving eastwards since 2016, sweeping across Africa, where they caused $1-3 billion in damage, before arriving in Asia.</li>
<li>The flying insects<strong> arrived in India</strong> in July and have since spread to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and China's Yunnan province.</li>
<li>Farming in several Asian countries is under threat from a type of crop-damaging insects that have munched their way from the Americas and across Africa</li>
<li>They <strong>feed mostly on maize, for which China is the world's second-largest producer,</strong> and can feed on several species of crops, including rice and sugarcane.</li>
<li>FAO meeting in Bangkok with officials from affected countries and experts for discussing ways to limit armyworm infestations amid a <strong>&ldquo;growing sense of alarm&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li>FAO is working with local authorities and training farmers to manage the pests by crushing egg masses and using biopesticides.</li>
<li>Chemical pesticides are an option but should be carefully considered due to environmental and health damages.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Food and Agriculture Organization is an <strong>agency of the United Nations</strong> that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.</li>
<li>FAO is also a source of knowledge and information and helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices, ensuring good nutrition and food security for all.</li>
<li><strong>Formation: 16 October 1945, in Quebec City, Canada</strong></li>
<li><strong>Headquarters: Rome, Italy</strong></li>
<li>Every year, <strong>World Food Day (Theme for 2018- Zero Hunger) is celebrated on October 16</strong> to commemorate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United Nations in the year 1945.</li>
<li>The <strong>Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-2) also aims to &ldquo;End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture&rdquo; by 2030.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-22nd-march-2019'
		],
		(int) 17 => [
			'title' => 'Electric Vehicles (EVs)',
			'catname' => 'Paper 3',
			'desc' => '<h3>Why in News</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Recently Union Cabinet approved setting up of a <strong>&lsquo;National Mission on Transformative Mobility</strong> <strong>and Battery Storage'</strong> to promote clean, connected, shared, sustainable and holistic mobility initiatives.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Electric Vehicles (EVs)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>An electric vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion.</li>
<li>An electric vehicle may be powered through self-contained battery, solar panels or an electric generator to convert fuel to electricity.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Need for EVs in India</h3>
<p><strong>Climate change</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Problem of rapid global temperature increase has created the need for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and the associated emissions.</li>
<li>India has committed to cutting its GHG emissions intensity by 33% to 35% percent below 2005 levels by 2030.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Rapid urbanization</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Economic development leads to rapid urbanization in emerging nations as rural populations move non-agricultural sectors in cities creating environmental problems.</li>
<li>According to a recent study by WHO, India is home to 14 out of 20 most polluted cities in the world. EVs will help in tackling this problem by reducing local concentrations of pollutants in cities.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Energy security</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India imports oil to cover over 80 percent of its transport fuel.</li>
<li>EVs can reduce dependence on imported crude oil promoting India&rsquo;s energy security.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Innovation </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will encourage cutting edge technology in India through adoption, adaptation, and research and development.</li>
<li>EVs manufacturing capacity will promote global scale and competitiveness.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Employment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Promotion of EVs will facilitate employment growth in a sun-rise sector.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Clean and Low carbon Energy</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The shift towards renewable energy sources has led to cost reduction from better electricity generating technologies. This has introduced the possibility of clean, low-carbon and inexpensive grids.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Cutting edge Battery Technology</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Advances in battery technology have led to higher energy densities, faster charging and reduced battery degradation from charging. Combined with the development of motors with higher rating and reliability, these improvements in battery chemistry have reduced costs and improved the performance and efficiency of electric vehicles.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges for EV Industry in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Lack of a stable policy for EV production:</strong> EV production is capital intensive sector requiring long term planning to break even and profit realization, uncertainty in government policies related to EV production discourages investment in the industry.</li>
<li><strong>Technological challenges:</strong> India is technologically deficient in the production of electronics that form the backbone of EV industry, such as batteries, semiconductors, controllers, etc.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of associated infrastructural support:</strong> The lack of clarity over AC versus DC charging stations, grid stability and range anxiety (fear that battery will soon run out of power) are other factors that hinder the growth of EV industry.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of availability of materials for domestic production:</strong> Battery is single most important component of EVs. India does not have any known reserve of lithium and cobalt which are required for battery production. India is dependent on countries like Japan and China for the import of lithium-ion batteries.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of skilled workers:</strong> EVs have higher servicing costs and higher levels of skills is needed for servicing. India lacks dedicated training courses for such skill development.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Government Initiatives</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Government has set a target of electric vehicles making up 30 % of new sales of cars and two-wheelers by 2030 from less than 1% today.</li>
<li>To build a sustainable EV ecosystem initiatives like &ndash; <strong>National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) and Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &amp;) Electric vehicles in India (FAME India)</strong> have been launched by India.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>NEMMP:</strong> It was launched in 2013 with an aim to achieve national fuel security by promoting hybrid and electric vehicles in the country. There is an ambitious target to achieve 6-7 million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles year on year from 2020 onwards.</li>
<li><strong>FAME:</strong> FAME India Scheme [Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &amp;) Electric Vehicles in India] was launched in 2015 with the objective to support hybrid/electric vehicles market development and manufacturing ecosystem. The scheme has 4 focus areas i.e. <strong>Technology Development, Demand Creation, Pilot Projects and Charging Infrastructure</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Organization like Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Department of Heavy Industry, Automotive Research Association of India are devising design and manufacturing standards of EVs, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSEs) &amp; charging infrastructure to smoothen the advent of in-house production of EVs.</li>
</ul>
<h3>FAME II</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Phase-II of FAME seeks to give a push to EVs in public transport and seeks to encourage adoption of EVs by way of <strong>market creation</strong> and <strong>demand aggregation</strong>.</li>
<li>It envisages the <strong>holistic growth of EV industry,</strong> including providing for charging infrastructure, research and development of EV technologies and push towards greater indigenization.</li>
<li><strong>Establishment of Charging stations</strong> are also proposed on major highways connecting major city clusters on both sides of the road at an interval of about 25 km each.</li>
<li>The scheme with total outlay of Rs 10,000 Crores over the period of three years will be implemented with effect from 1st April 2019.</li>
<li>FAME 2 will offer incentives to manufacturers, who invest in developing electric vehicles and its components, including lithium-ion batteries and electric motors.</li>
<li>The centre has asked states to frame their EV policy and provide additional fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to manufacturers and buyers.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>To promote clean, connected, shared, sustainable and holistic mobility initiatives.</li>
<li>The Mission will drive mobility solutions that will bring in significant benefits to the industry, economy and country.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Phased Manufacturing Programme </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Valid for 5 years till 2024 to support setting up of a few large-scale, export-competitive integrated batteries and cell-manufacturing Giga plants in India.</li>
<li>Creation of a PMP valid for 5 years till 2024 to <strong>localize production</strong> across the entire Electric Vehicles value chain.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Education curriculum and skill development plans should be upgraded to match the requirements of the sectors.</li>
<li>Stabilizing policy environment by working on tax incentives, non-fiscal incentives can address the uncertainty of demand helping the industry to achieve economies of scale.</li>
<li>EVs are rapidly growing sunrise sector which can give push to &lsquo;Make in India&rsquo;.</li>
<li>Signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with countries rich in materials like Lithium, rare earth materials etc. to deal with lack of availability of these materials.</li>
<li>Establishing the right coordination among three pillars of EV industry i.e. urban planning, transportation and power sectors will assist in systematic adoption of EVs.</li>
<li>Affordable, accessible, inclusive and safe mobility solutions are primary strategic levers for rapid economic development and improving &lsquo;Ease of Living&rsquo;.</li>
</ul>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/paper3/electric-vehicles-evs'
		],
		(int) 18 => [
			'title' => 'On The Learning Curve',
			'catname' => 'News Editorials',
			'desc' => '<div class="border-bg">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/on-the-learning-curve/article26583825.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'On The Learning Curve'</a> which appeared in &lsquo;The Hindu&rsquo; on 20th March, 2019. The article talks about the challenges faced by the educational sector and the ways in which education outcomes can be changed in India.)</p>
</div>
<p>Among the lakhs of employees on the payrolls of State governments in India, the education department, unarguably, has the largest share of employees. Besides frontline service providers (teachers), there are a number of other officials and administrators who form an important part of the educational set-up.</p>
<p>However India even after the concerted efforts in the 70 years of independence has not been able to reap out the desired result in the educational field which is affected by institutional problems.</p>
<h3>The Challenges Affecting India&rsquo;s Education Dynamic</h3>
<p>The blatant politicisation of academia has resulted in universities becoming monoliths of political correctness instead of spaces where diverse ideas and genuine contestation can flourish.</p>
<p>Education transformation programmes by States run the risk of falling flat, as they are often unaccompanied by a single transformation change road map and all stakeholders are not taken into consideration while formulating a policy.</p>
<p>The marginalisation of merit has had its own set of consequences where quest for excellence has given way to catering to the lowest common denominator and has bred nepotism in the education sector.</p>
<p>Quality remains a huge challenge in higher education in India. Very few Indian institutions feature in the top 200 world rankings.</p>
<p>Bulk of the enrolment in higher education is handled by state universities and their affiliated colleges. However, these state universities receive very small amounts of grants in comparison. Nearly 65% of the University Grants Commission (UGC) budget is utilised by the central universities and their colleges while state universities and their affiliated colleges get only the remaining 35%.</p>
<p>Education sector suffers from shortage of resources in form of teachers; professors etc. According to UGC, out of the total sanctioned teaching posts, 35% professor posts, 46% associate professor posts and 26% assistant professor posts are vacant.</p>
<p>At present, there is no mechanism for ensuring the accountability and performance of professors in universities and colleges. This is unlike foreign universities where the performance of college faculty is evaluated by their peers and students.</p>
<p>The education sector also suffers from lack of employable skills in students of technical education, has also been observed. Outdated curriculum results in a mismatch between education and job market requirements, dampens students&rsquo; creativity and hampers the development of their analytical abilities.</p>
<p>Accreditation of higher educational institutions needs to be at the core of the regulatory arrangement in higher education. Further, quality assurance agencies should guarantee basic minimum standards of technical education to meet the industry demand for quality manpower. The National Board of Accreditation should act as a catalyst towards quality enhancement and quality assurance of higher technical education.</p>
<h3>The Path To Universal Education</h3>
<p>Any effort to introduce education reforms must ensure that the incentives of all stakeholders are aligned throughout the system to ensure their participation.</p>
<p>Inducing competition among administrative units helps invigorate key stakeholders to work in synchronisation in order to achieve intended outcomes. Competition also makes abstract goals such as &lsquo;learning outcomes&rsquo; more real by defining exact &lsquo;actionable&rsquo; metrics on which improvement is desired.</p>
<p>Political commitment to improving the quality of education backed by strong review and monitoring mechanisms can spur meaningful activity in States.</p>
<p>Most importantly, there should be constant focus on recognising and disseminating best practices of States, which not only act as a reward for well-performing local administrations but also provides impetus to other districts to adopt similar measures.</p>
<p>Most of the state universities suffer from lack of funding and remain in need of resources and therefore mobilisation of funds in state universities should be explored through other means such as endowments, contributions from industry, alumni, etc.</p>
<p>System of performance audit of professors based on the feedback given by their students and colleagues should be set up. Other inputs like research papers, publications by teachers should be added in the performance audit in due course of time.</p>
<h3>Novel Steps Towards Realising The Dream</h3>
<p><strong>Saksham Scheme</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The scheme is a novel step taken by Haryana government.</li>
<li>State officials nominate their block for the &lsquo;Saksham Ghoshna&rsquo; once they are reasonably confident that their block has achieved the 80% target &mdash; as a result of remedial programmes, teacher training and internal assessments.</li>
<li>Self-nomination is then followed by rigorous rounds of third party assessments to vet their claims.</li>
<li>If a block is found to be 'Saksham', the block officials are recognised by no less than the Chief Minister.</li>
<li>When all blocks in a district are declared as &lsquo;Saksham&rsquo;, the entire district is also accorded 'Saksham' status.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>'School Education Quality Index' (SEQI)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>NITI Ayog has created a state-level<strong> &lsquo;School Education Quality Index&rsquo; (SEQI),</strong> which seeks to make improvements in learning outcomes a focal point of governance.</li>
<li>It gives scores to States based on their educational performance and puts this data out in the public domain.</li>
<li>The ranking not only encourages competition among States but also rewards and motivates other States to consistently improve.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<p>States need to induce competition and give a boost to put all key actors in education in the driver&rsquo;s seat to improve their learning levels. Right incentive structures for stakeholders lead to administrative efficiency, which then improves the quality of service delivery.</p>
<p>Improvement in learning outcomes remains an immediate goal for India to fulfil its aspirations of playing a greater role in the global economy and a systemic transformation is the best solution towards achieving it.</p>',
			'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
			'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/on-the-learning-curve'
		],
		(int) 19 => [
			'title' => 'Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher by WWF',
			'catname' => 'Summary of Important Reports',
			'desc' => '<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 1- Why Biodiversity matters?</h1>
<h3></h3>
<h3>The importance of nature in our lives</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Humans have evolved, grown and thrived, in nature. Modern human society needs the resources of nature to thrive. Perception that nature is &lsquo;nice to have&rsquo; and its protection is secondary to the more important tasks of increasing economic growth, creating jobs, enhancing the competitiveness of industry etc is inherently wrong.</li>
<li>However this perception is changing slowly, at global level companies and governments are now signaling their intention to adopt more integrated approaches.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Nature is of incalculable importance to our health, wealth, and security. </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Medical treatments have been inspired by wild species, from painkillers to treatments for heart conditions and from cancer cures to remedies for high blood pressure.</li>
<li>Being in natural areas improves our physical wellbeing, through encouraging outdoor exercise.</li>
<li>Our nutritional requirement rely one way or the other on natural system.</li>
<li>Nature is crucial in replenishing freshwater that underpins all the economic activity.</li>
<li>While it is sometimes easy to assume that water security is assured primarily via dams, reservoirs, treatment works and distribution networks, it is in the end nature that replenishes the freshwater that underpins all economic activity.</li>
<li>Nature will play an essential role in helping human societies cope with the inevitable consequences of rising global temperatures.</li>
<li>Wildlife is increasingly being used for <strong>bio-mimicry,</strong> engineers and designers use solutions honed by natural selection to meet challenges in the human world.</li>
</ul>
<h3>The importance of nature to the world&rsquo;s economies</h3>
<p>Nature is important as it supplies from raw material, water, food, medicines and energy, to the pollination of crops, formation of soils and protection from floods, storms and erosion.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The planet&rsquo;s natural systems provide a range of vital services that underpin production, trade, livelihoods and consumption in every country.</li>
<li>However nature should not only be looked as a supplier of raw materials but its social, cultural, spiritual and religious significance should also be recognized.</li>
<li>IPBES (intergovernmental science policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services) an organization established to assess the state of biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides to society in 2018.</li>
<li>According to the several assessments by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), culture plays the central role in defining all links between people and nature.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The IPBES Conceptual Framework &ndash; which underpins all its assessments and syntheses &ndash; calls this much broader notion <strong>Nature&rsquo;s Contribution to People (NCP)</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All our food, in the end, relies one way or another on natural systems, including the complex ecological relationships that enable soils to support plant growth.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>About 87% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals 8, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35% of global food production 9.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Globally it is estimated that nature approximately provides services worth 25 trillion dollars annually.</li>
<li>In every region, biodiversity and nature&rsquo;s capacity to contribute to people is being degraded, reduced and lost due to a number of common pressures &ndash;
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>habitat stress</li>
<li>overexploitation and unsustainable use of natural resources</li>
<li>air, land and water pollution</li>
<li>increasing numbers and impact of invasive alien species</li>
<li>and climate change</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>changing planetary conditions are increasingly linked to major socio-economic disruptions.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/433drishti_ias_image1.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/433drishti_ias_image1.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>The Great Acceleration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Great Acceleration is the unique ongoing event with exploding human population and economic growth driving unprecedented planetary change through the increased demand for energy, land and water.</li>
<li>This human being-induced change is being seen as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.</li>
<li>There has been an exponential rise in health, knowledge and standard-of-living improvements but all this has come at a huge cost to the stability of the natural systems.</li>
<li>The impact of Great Acceleration now interferes profoundly with Earth&rsquo;s atmosphere, ice sheets, ocean, forests, land and biodiversity.</li>
<li>Earth is losing biodiversity at a rate seen only during mass extinctions.</li>
<li>In the last 50 years, global average temperature has risen at 170 times the background rate 31. Ocean acidification may be occurring at a rate not seen in at least 300 million years.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 2 - The threats and pressures wiping out our world</h1>
<p><br /><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/683drishti_ias_image8.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/683drishti_ias_image8.png" width="769" height="651" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>Threats old and new</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The main drivers of biodiversity decline are <strong>overexploitation of species, agriculture and land conversion</strong>. The two factors are driven by spiraling human consumption.</li>
<li><strong>Invasive species</strong> are also a frequent threat, their spread relying heavily on trade-related activities such as shipping.</li>
<li><strong>Pollution and disturbance,</strong> for example through agricultural pollution, dams, fires and mining, are additional sources of pressure.</li>
<li><strong>Climate change</strong> is playing a growing role and is already beginning to have an effect at an ecosystem, species and even genetic level.</li>
<li>Since 1970s our <strong>Ecological Footprint &ndash; a measure of our consumption of natural resources &ndash;</strong> has increased by about 190.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Runaway Consumption </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The ability of ecosystems to renew themselves is called <strong>biocapacity</strong>.</li>
<li>Together <strong>biocapacity and ecological footprint</strong> provide an empirical basis for determining whether humanity is living within the means of our planet.</li>
<li>Biocapacity has increased by 27% due to changed technologies and land management practices.</li>
<li>However it has not kept pace with the human consumption which has increased 190% over the same period.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Ecological Footprint of Consumption</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Prior to the explosive population growth of the 20th century, humanity&rsquo;s rate of consumption was much smaller than the Earth&rsquo;s rate of renewal.</li>
<li>As a result, prevailing economic models are based on growth, very rarely taking resource limitations into account. But this simplification is no longer viable.</li>
<li>Ecological Footprint accounting tracks human demand on nature by quantifying the biologically productive area required to meet all these competing demands, including food, fiber, timber, accommodation of roads and buildings, and sequestration of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>The demand covers six area types</strong><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/342drishti_ias_image3.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/342drishti_ias_image3.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Integrating data to connect consumers to their impacts</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>To look deeper into production-related impacts on the environment, the mapping and monitoring of supply chains is crucial to identify and understand how global consumption drives environmental impacts.</li>
<li>Supply chains are the link between the driving forces of environmental change, like consumption activities, and the pressures these impose (such as land-use change), the state of the environment and the resulting impacts (for example, species loss).</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Facts and terms</strong></p>
<p><strong>European Commission&rsquo;s Copernicus Satellite Programme,</strong> provide unprecedented capabilities to monitor changes in land cover globally, and at high spatial and temporal resolution. For example, the two Sentinel-2 satellites, launched in 2015 and 2017, survey the entire Earth&rsquo;s land surface (bar the poles) every five days at a resolution of between 10m and 60m.</p>
<p><strong>Global Forest Watch</strong> is an online platform that provides near real-time information about how forests are changing around the world and includes capabilities for companies to assess impacts associated with the production of the commodities they include in their products.</p>
<p><strong>Rotterdam Effect:</strong> Some materials are imported into one country, and then processed or simply transferred from one ship to another, and then exported again. Known as the &lsquo;Rotterdam Effect&rsquo; after the busiest port in Europe, this can lead to errors in accurately linking goods to their true origin.</p>
<p><strong>Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) models</strong> offer one approach to approximating consumer dependence on direct and embedded materials. MRIO datasets describe spending between sectors and economies, and by final consumers.</p>
</div>
<h3>Choice and Change: The impacts of consumption</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The way our supply chains are structured, the materials they use, how these are extracted and manufactured, and the consumption choices we make have a myriad of impacts on the world around us. Using different datasets helps us to map these out and understand the consequences of our choices.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong></p>
<p>Supply chains are the link between the driving forces of environmental change, like consumption activities, and the pressures these impose (such as land-use change), the state of the environment and the resulting impacts (for example, species loss).</p>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Human activities associated with the production or harvesting of food, fiber and energy from terrestrial ecosystems have enormous impacts on biodiversity.</li>
<li>Different types of land use affect the balance between wild and domesticated species, the size and quality of habitats, and the non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems.</li>
<li><strong>Direct biodiversity loss</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Agriculture accounts for the lion&rsquo;s share of the conversion of forested land.</li>
<li>Decreases in forest area and forest quality both impact the plants and animals living within them.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Disruption of habitats</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The degree of forest fragmentation is a major threat to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision.</li>
<li>It is estimated that in 70% of the forest masses of the world, <strong>a forest edge</strong> can be found within a mean distance of less than 1 km.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Edge effects are changes in population or community structures that occur at the boundary of two or more habitats.</li>
<li>Areas with small habitat fragments exhibit especially pronounced edge effects that may extend throughout the range.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>This has huge implications for habitat structure and quality; forest recolonization and the disruption of corridors for wildlife dispersal; forest microclimate and hydrology</li>
<li>Fragmentation can also make forests more accessible to people, increasing the pressure on forest resources.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Pollution and degradation of the environment</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Excessive use of synthetic agricultural inputs such as pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and fertilizers are associated with declines in soil and aquatic biodiversity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Disruption of ecosystem functions</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Ecosystems such as forests play an important role in reducing disaster risks, mitigating some of the most acute effects of climate change.</li>
<li>When such natural infrastructures are lost, people exposed to natural hazards such as floods, storms and landslides tend to migrate and settle in new areas resulting in further pressure on nature and biodiversity loss.</li>
<li>Pesticide use results in critical reductions in pollinator numbers and performance reducing agricultural productivity.</li>
<li>About 87% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35% of global food production.</li>
<li>Human activities have important consequences for the abundance and/or richness of soil organisms, particularly through the negative impacts of land-use change and agricultural intensification.</li>
<li>Soil biodiversity is key to sustain food production as it detoxify polluted soils, suppress soil-borne diseases and contribute to the nutritional quality of food.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Land Degradation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Land degradation is the persistent reduction of the capacity of the land to support both biodiversity and human needs.</li>
<li>It includes the loss of soil; loss of habitat and hydrological function; deforestation; overgrazing and shrub encroachment and drainage and eutrophication in wetlands.</li>
<li>In March 2018, the IPBES released its latest Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment (LDRA), finding that only a quarter of land on Earth is substantively free of the impacts of human activities.</li>
<li>By 2050 this fraction is projected to decline to just a tenth. Wetlands are the most impacted category, having lost 87% of their extent in the modern era.</li>
<li>The immediate causes of land degradation are typically local but the key driver is the growing demand for ecosystem-derived products.</li>
<li>The consequences of land degradation are a complex interaction between degradation, poverty, conflict and the migration of people.</li>
<li>Loss of habitat is the key driver of declining terrestrial biodiversity worldwide, and land degradation is a big contributor to global climate change.</li>
</ul>
<p>Preventing degradation is much cheaper in the long run than permitting it, and then later paying for the impacts and restoration.</p>
<h3>Pollinators</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The majority of flowering plants are pollinated by insects and other animals.</li>
<li>Pollinators are a diverse group, including more than 20,000 species of bees, many other types of insects (e.g. flies, butterflies, moths, wasps and beetles) and even vertebrates such as some birds and bats.</li>
<li>More than 75% of the leading global food crops benefit from pollination. Some of these are key sources of human nutrition.</li>
<li>Changing land use due to agricultural intensification and urban expansion is one of a number of key drivers of pollinator loss.</li>
<li>Improving habitat diversity within the landscape, and the inclusion of non-agricultural habitats within land management plans, has been shown to ameliorate pollinator loss, boost pollinator numbers and improve ecosystem services.</li>
<li>The abundance, diversity and health of pollinators is also threatened by a number of other drivers such as changing climate, invasive species and emerging diseases and pathogens.</li>
<li>What&rsquo;s so special in the soil?</li>
<li>Soil biodiversity encompasses microorganisms (those only visible under microscopes, such as fungi and bacteria).</li>
<li>These organisms influence the physical structure and chemical composition of soils.</li>
<li>They are essential for enabling and regulating critical ecosystem processes such as carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, and the uptake of nutrients by plants.</li>
<li>They represent a storehouse for potential medical applications as well as new biological controls on pathogens and pests.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The recently published <strong>Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas mapped</strong> for the first time potential threats to soil biodiversity across the globe.</li>
<li>It generated a risk index combining eight potential stressors to soil organisms: <strong>loss of above-ground diversity, pollution and nutrient overloading, overgrazing, intensive agriculture, fire, soil erosion, desertification and climate change</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Valuing forests for people and nature</h3>
<p>Forests are among the richest ecosystems. Tropical, temperate and boreal forests cover nearly 30% of the Earth&rsquo;s land area, and yet they are home to more than 80% of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rate of forest area net loss has slowed due to reforestation and the establishment of new plantations, as well as policy and regulatory efforts to reduce forest conversion.</li>
<li>However it remains very high in tropical forests, particularly in some frontier areas in South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. They are cleared for agriculture, subsistence farming and urban growth.</li>
<li>Using proximity to forest edges as a way of measuring forests&rsquo; vulnerability shows that 60-70% of the world&rsquo;s forests are at risk from the negative effects of human activities, altered microclimate and invasive species.</li>
<li>The pressure on forests from both small- and large-scale agriculture is likely to continue in order to growing demand for fibre and fuel as well as for food.</li>
<li>While part of the increased food supply will originate from growing yields in existing agricultural lands, additional land will be needed.</li>
<li>This will further increase the pressure on tropical forests, thus continuing to threaten priority areas for biodiversity conservation, unless there is a fundamental shift in how forests are valued for the many benefits they provide.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>For example, in addition to providing habitats for animals and livelihoods for people, forests also offer watershed protection, prevent soil erosion and mitigate climate change.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Living Forests report series</h3>
<p>In a series of five <strong>Living Forests Reports,</strong> WWF highlighted areas of forest most vulnerable to deforestation between 2010 and 2030; the report identified 11 deforestation fronts.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Living Forests Report is part of an ongoing conversation with partners, policymakers, and businesses about how to protect, conserve, sustainably use, and govern the world&rsquo;s forests in the 21st century.</li>
<li>It is prepared by WWF.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>These are places where the largest concentrations of forest loss or severe degradation are projected to occur between 2010 and 2030 under business-as-usual scenarios and without interventions to prevent losses.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/397drishti_ias_image2.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/397drishti_ias_image2.png" width="992" height="318" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>Ocean habitats vital to humanity in steep decline</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rapid loss of some of the ocean&rsquo;s most productive and species rich habitats like coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses threatens the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people.</li>
<li><strong>Plastic pollution</strong> is also a growing global problem. <strong>Plastic debris</strong> has been detected in all major marine environments worldwide, from shorelines and surface waters down to the deepest parts of the ocean, even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.</li>
<li>Billions of people rely on healthy oceans to provide livelihoods, jobs and food and the range of goods and services that flow from coastal and marine environments. Nearly 200 million people depend on coral reefs to protect them from storm surges and waves.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Key habitats that underpin ocean health and productivity are in steep decline:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Coral reefs</strong> support more than a quarter of marine life but the world has already lost about half of its shallow water corals in only 30 years. If current trends continue, up to 90% of the world&rsquo;s coral reefs might be gone by mid-century.</li>
<li><strong>Tropical seas</strong> overheated by climate change have bleached, damaged and killed coral at unprecedented levels. Prolonged heat led to catastrophic die-off of fast-growing coral species and these were replaced by slower-growing groups that shelter fewer sea creatures.</li>
<li>Other threats to coral reefs include <strong>overfishing, selective fishing and destructive fishing practices,</strong> and <strong>pollution from runoff</strong> which sullies reef waters, compromising coral health.</li>
<li><strong>Mangroves</strong> are a key natural asset for many tropical and subtropical coastlines, providing livelihoods to many millions of coastal families and protecting them from violent storms and coastal erosion.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They sequester nearly five times more carbon than tropical forests and provide nurseries to innumerable juvenile fish species that grow to join wider ocean ecosystems.</li>
<li>Clearing for development as well as <strong>over-exploitation and aquaculture</strong> have contributed to a decline in the extent of mangroves by 30% to 50% over the past 50 years.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Seagrasses</strong> represent important coastal ecosystems that provide critical human benefits including habitat that supports commercial and subsistence fisheries, nutrient cycling, sediment stabilization, and globally significant sequestration of carbon.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They are threatened directly by <strong>destructive fishing practices, boat propellers, coastal engineering, cyclones, tsunamis and climate change, and indirectly by changes</strong> in water quality due to land run-off. Seagrasses have been disappearing at a rate of 110 km2 per year since 1980.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Plastics in the ocean</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Plastic marine debris ranges from microscopic pieces to larger waste items such as bags, cigarette filters, etc which are the most visible form of plastic pollution.</li>
<li>Plastic debris has been detected in all major marine environments worldwide, from shorelines and surface water down to the deepest parts of the ocean, even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench</li>
<li>Today 90% of the world&rsquo;s seabirds have fragments of plastic in their stomachs compared to only 5% in 1960.</li>
<li>Impacts were found to be greatest at the southern boundary of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a region thought to be relatively pristine.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Threats and pressures on our source of life</h3>
<p>Freshwater ecosystems contain disproportionately more species per unit area than marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Although they cover less than 1% of the Earth&rsquo;s surface, freshwater habitats are home to more than 10% of known animals and about one-third of all known vertebrate species</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater habitats such as lakes, rivers and wetlands are the source of life for all humans and command high economic value.</li>
<li>They are affected by factors such as <strong>habitat modification, fragmentation and destruction; invasive species; overfishing; pollution; forestry practices; disease; and climate change</strong>.</li>
<li>In many cases, these combined threats have led to catastrophic declines in freshwater biodiversity.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Globally, wetland extent is estimated to have declined by more than 50% since 1900.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>The importance of healthy freshwater ecosystems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater ecosystems are under increasing levels of threat and the trend for freshwater species is alarming.</li>
<li>Freshwater ecosystem health is defined by its water quality and quantity, connectivity to other parts of the system and landscape, habitat condition, and diversity of plant and animal species.</li>
<li>Eutrophication (an enrichment by or excess of nutrients to the water) and toxic pollution are major sources of water quality degradation.</li>
<li>Climate change is exacerbating existing stressors and causing changes in the timing, availability and temperature of waters, affecting the condition of freshwater habitats and the life history of freshwater species.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Connected, flowing rivers: critical for freshwater ecosystems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>River systems, their floodplains and deltas, are among the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems on the planet.</li>
<li>They provide the primary source of protein for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. For these economic and ecosystem benefits to be realized, rivers must retain key characteristics and processes.</li>
<li>When natural connectivity and flow are retained the river is called &lsquo;free-flowing&rsquo;.</li>
<li>Infrastructure development &ndash; especially dams &ndash; has caused a dramatic decline in the number of free flowing rivers.</li>
<li>Rivers can both be prevented by the construction of poorly planned dams and ensuring that any dams that are constructed are located and designed to mitigate environmental damage as much as possible.</li>
<li>River protection can also occur via various legal and policy mechanisms.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows,</strong> published in 2018, is a clarion call to governments and stakeholders to build on previous successes through widespread implementation of environmental flows through legislation and regulation, water management programmes and research, linked by partnership arrangements involving diverse stakeholders.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Threats through the lens of the Living Planet Index (LPI)</h3>
<p><strong>LPI &ndash; Threats to biodiversity </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Habitat loss and degradation</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This refers to the modification of the environment where a species lives, by complete removal, fragmentation or reduction in quality of key habitat. Common causes are unsustainable agriculture, logging, transportation, fragmentation of rivers and streams etc.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Species Overexploitation:</strong> There are both direct and indirect forms of overexploitation-
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Direct overexploitation refers to unsustainable hunting and poaching or harvesting.</li>
<li>Indirect overexploitation occurs when non-target species are killed unintentionally, for example as by-catch in fisheries.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Pollution</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Pollution can directly affect a species by making the environment unsuitable for its survival. It can also affect a species indirectly, by affecting food availability or reproductive performance.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Invasive species and disease</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Invasive species can compete with native species for space, food and other resources, can turn out to be a predator or spread diseases that were not previously present in the environment.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Climate change</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The effects of climate change on species are often indirect. Changes in temperature can confound the signals that trigger seasonal events such as migration and reproduction, causing these events to happen at the wrong time.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Threats to LPI populations around the world</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>All freshwater and terrestrial populations in the global LPI are assigned to one of <strong>five major biogeographic realms,</strong> regions characterized by distinct assemblages of species.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/347drishti_ias_image4.png" width="668" height="178" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This gives us a better understanding of how biodiversity is changing in different parts of the world and helps us to identify whether different local threat processes are driving these changes.</li>
</ul>
<p>Information about threats is available for just under a quarter &ndash; or 3,789 populations &ndash; in the global LPI. Each population can be associated with up to three different threats. Habitat degradation and loss is consistently the most reported threat in all realms; but there is some variation between realms and taxonomic groups.</p>
<h3>Planetary Boundaries</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Field studies, models, Earth observations and geological evidence have all been used to build an understanding of global change, the capacity of living organisms to adapt to change and the systemic risks when adaptation fails.</li>
<li>The Planetary Boundaries concept is an effort to use this Earth system perspective to provide information on human-driven changes. The concept suggests that the world&rsquo;s societies need to set limits on human-caused disturbances to tightly linked Earth system processes.</li>
<li>It is already a useful integrating framework for illustrating the risks of human interference with the Earth system through our patterns of consumption and production. It presents the idea of a safe zone for critical Earth system processes.</li>
<li>The Planetary Boundaries framework highlights nine critical issues where human activities are reducing the safe operating space:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Loss of biosphere integrity (the destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity)</li>
<li>Climate change</li>
<li>Ocean acidification</li>
<li>Land-system change</li>
<li>Unsustainable freshwater use</li>
<li>Perturbation of biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere)</li>
<li>Alteration of atmospheric aerosols,</li>
<li>Pollution by novel entities,</li>
<li>Stratospheric ozone depletion</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>People have already pushed at least four of these systems beyond the limit of a safe operating space-biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows and land-system change. Freshwater use has also passed beyond a safe threshold.</li>
<li>Biosphere integrity plays a critical role in determining the state of the Earth system, regulating its material flows, energy balance, climate, and responses to abrupt and gradual change. It not only interacts with the other planetary boundary categories, but also maintains the overall resilience of the Earth system.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/541drishti_ias_image5.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Our changing climate will impact the Earth system in many ways because climate influences the ways that ecosystems on land and below water function and interact with each other.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 3 - Biodiversity in a Changing World</h1>
<p></p>
<h3>Population Indicator: The Living Planet Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Living Planet Index (LPI) is an indicator of the state of global biodiversity and the health of our planet.</li>
<li>Published since 1998, it tracks the population abundance of thousands of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians around the world.</li>
<li>The species population data that is collected goes into a global index, as well as indices for more specific bio-geographic areas, referred to as realms, based upon distinct groupings of species.</li>
<li>The 2018 indices include data from 1970 to 2014.</li>
<li>The global index, calculated using available data for all species and regions, shows an overall decline of 60% in the population sizes of vertebrates between 1970 and 2014&ndash; in other words, an average drop of well over half in less than 50 years.</li>
<li>Living Planet Indices &ndash; whether the Global Index or those for a specific realm or species group &ndash; show the average rate of change over time across a set of species populations.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Realm Living Planet Indices</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Populations are in decline in all realms, but declines are especially pronounced in the three tropical realms. The LPI indicates that the Neotropical realm, covering South and Central America, and the Caribbean, has suffered the most dramatic decline at 89% loss compared to 1970. Nearctic and Palearctic populations are faring slightly better with declines of 23% and 31%.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Freshwater Living Planet Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater ecosystems provide habitat for around 1 in 10 known species of fishes, mollusks, reptiles, insects, plants and mammals despite covering less than 1% of the Earth&rsquo;s surface.</li>
<li>These ecosystems are strongly affected by habitat modification, fragmentation and destruction; invasive species; overfishing; pollution; forestry practices; disease; and climate change.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/368drishti_ias_image7.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/368drishti_ias_image7.png" width="519" height="380" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater LPI shows 83% decline, equivalent to 4% per year since 1970. The largest declines are seen in the Neotropics (-94%), the Indo-Pacific (-82%) and the Afrotropics (-75%), especially in reptiles and amphibians, and in fishes.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Different Biodiversity Indicators, Same Story</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity is often referred to as the &lsquo;web of life&rsquo;. It is the variety of all living things &ndash; plants, animals and micro-organisms &ndash; and the ecosystems of which they are a part.</li>
<li>It includes diversity within species and between species and can refer to any geographic scale &ndash; from a small study plot to the entire planet.</li>
<li>The biodiversity is shaped by natural processes and, increasingly, by the influence of humans.</li>
<li>Species and the natural systems around us, respond to human pressures and conservation interventions in a variety of ways and there is no single measure to capture all these changes.</li>
<li>Therefore different metrics and indicators are needed to understand biodiversity change as well as to track progress towards biodiversity targets and to devise effective conservation programs.</li>
</ul>
<p>To complement the population-based Living Planet Index and put the trends that it measures in a broader context, the report include an overview of three other biodiversity indicators: <strong>the Species Habitat Index, the IUCN Red List Index,</strong> and the <strong>Biodiversity Intactness Index</strong>.</p>
<h3>Distribution: the Species Habitat Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Species Habitat Index, is an aggregate measure of the extent of suitable habitat available for each species to help provide a richer picture of both past and projected future biodiversity change.</li>
<li>This index captures changes in species range and incorporates information about species habitat preferences, habitat fragmentation and climate change.</li>
<li>When used together, species distribution and habitat suitability models can estimate the combined impact of habitat loss and climate change on species, in both the past and the future.</li>
<li>The overall trends in the Species Habitat Index for mammals declined by 22% from 1970 to 2010, with the greatest declines in the Caribbean (&gt;60%).</li>
<li>Other regions with declines of more than 25% were Central America, North-East Asia and North Africa.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Extinction risk: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Information on life-history traits, population and distribution size and structure, and their change over time is used which is used by Red List assessors to classify species into one of eight categories.</li>
<li>Extinct, Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near Threatened, Least Concern or Data Deficient.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/954drishti_ias_image6.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/954drishti_ias_image6.png" width="679" height="315" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A Red List Index value of 1.0 equates to all species within a group qualifying as Least Concern. An index value of 0 equates to all species having gone Extinct.</li>
<li>Currently, the Red List Index is available for five taxonomic groups in which all species have been assessed at least twice: birds, mammals, amphibians, corals and cycads.</li>
<li>Current index values for all groups show declines, indicating that species are moving towards extinction more rapidly.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Composition: the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) estimates how much of a region&rsquo;s originally present biodiversity remains, relative to if the region were still covered with primary vegetation and facing minimal human pressures.</li>
<li>The Index ranges from 100&ndash;0% with 100 representing an undisturbed or pristine natural environment with little to no human footprint.</li>
<li>The most recent global estimates suggest that the BII fell from 81.6% in 1970 to 78.6% in 2014.</li>
<li>Models that focus on tropical and subtropical forest biomes, using finer-scale land-use data, suggest their BII is both lower and declining more rapidly &ndash; from 57.3% in 2001 to 54.9% in 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 4 - Aiming higher: what future do we want?</h1>
<h3>Bending the curve of biodiversity loss</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity has been described as the &lsquo;infrastructure&rsquo; that supports all life on Earth.</li>
<li>The natural systems and biochemical cycles that biological diversity generates allow the stable functioning of our atmosphere, oceans, forests, landscapes and waterways.</li>
<li>The global community in 1992 came together and collectively agreed on the importance of the natural world and their responsibility to protect it.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Aichi Targets</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Initiated - 1992 Rio Earth Summit</li>
<li>First global agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity</li>
<li>Came into force in 1993</li>
<li>The CBD sets overall goals and policies with general obligations; the responsibility for achieving these goals rests largely with countries themselves.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Long-term vision:</strong> &ldquo;By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.</p>
<p>To meet this vision the CBD, there are a set of five medium-term strategic goals with 20 targets &ndash; called the <strong>Aichi Targets</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Goal C - &ldquo;To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity&rdquo; and includes three targets.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Target 11 concerns the global coverage of protected areas</li>
<li>Target 12 is directed at the conservation of species</li>
<li>Target 13 concerns the conservation of genetic diversity of cultivated plants, farmed and domesticated animals, and their wild relatives</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>However, the continued decline in species shows that we have failed the natural world.</li>
<li>These changes are triggered by spiraling increase in our consumption which interferes profoundly with biodiversity and all the other natural systems.</li>
<li>Today world requires bold and well-defined goals and a credible set of actions to restore the abundance of nature to levels that enable both people and nature to thrive.</li>
<li>Without these changes it is impossible to achieve the targets of SDG 2030s which includes mitigating climate change, adapting to climate impacts, maintaining the quality of soil, air and water, and supporting a resilient basis for the food, fuel etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>A roadmap for 2020 to 2050</h3>
<p>There are three necessary steps in a roadmap for the post-2020 agenda:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Clearly specify the goal for biodiversity recovery,</li>
<li>Develop a set of measurable and relevant indicators of progress,</li>
<li>Agree a suite of actions that can collectively achieve the goal in the required timeframe.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Translate the aspirational vision to an ambitious goal</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Current goals of CBD aims at 2050 and are aspirational in nature but this vision is concrete and achievable enough to be the basis of the goal of a post-2020 agreement on biodiversity.</li>
<li>This will require a new set of targets that aim higher and are effective beyond 2020.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Identify ways to measure progress towards the goal</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Since the current targets were set, almost a decade ago, so the second step is to identify the best metrics to measure true progress towards the chosen goal.</li>
<li>Measuring progress towards biodiversity targets is very complicated. Biodiversity assessment requires multiple measures at different spatial scales and across different ecological dimensions.</li>
<li>There is a need for indicators that can track three key dimensions of biodiversity necessary for the vision and the goals described here, and in the CBD and SDG targets:-
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Changes in population abundance &ndash;Living Planet Index</li>
<li>Extinction rate on a global scale - Red List Index (RLI)</li>
<li>Changes to local biodiversity using indicators such as the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If they are to be used to support concrete global action, there is a need to improve taxonomic representativeness, integration and data coverage.</p>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">The Path Ahead</h1>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It has been established beyond doubt that humanity&rsquo;s survival depends on our natural systems yet we continue to destroy the health of nature at an alarming rate.</li>
<li>It is important that a new global deal for nature and people should be made &ndash; to bend the curve of biodiversity loss.</li>
<li>It is important to politically escalate political relevance of nature and galvanize a cohesive movement across state and non-state actors to drive change.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>A global deal for nature and people</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In 2017, scientists published a paper proposing a new &lsquo;Global Deal for Nature&rsquo; as a companion to the Paris Climate Agreement.</li>
<li>It talked about promoting increased habitat protection and restoration, national and eco-region scale conservation strategies, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples to protect their sovereign lands.</li>
<li>Such a deal is essential in addressing the decline in natural systems to achieving the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Imagining the future: Scenarios and leadership for the future we want</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>WWF is collaborating with a consortium of almost 40 universities, conservation organizations and intergovernmental organizations to launch the research initiative <strong>Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss</strong>.</li>
<li>The initiative will help in identifying potential win-win solutions for both nature and people.</li>
</ul>',
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		'title' => 'No clinical trials in India for new drugs ',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has allowed waivers on conducting trials for new drugs in India in case the drug is approved and marketed in countries specified by &mdash; the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO).</li>
</ul>
<h3>Regulation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>New drugs approved for use in select developed markets will be automatically allowed in India provided global trials included Indian patients.</li>
<li>This waiver would <strong>also extend to drugs</strong> that receive these marketing approvals even <strong>while a trial is underway in India</strong>.</li>
<li><strong>Data generated(clinical trial) outside the country will be acceptable</strong>.</li>
<li>Providing post-trial access of the drugs to the patients that require it have been defined for the first time.</li>
<li>It removed a clause in the clinical trials that mandated the sponsor (the entity initiating the trial) to pay 60% of compensation upfront in case of death or permanent disability of a patient.</li>
<li>Now companies will pay the total amount once it is proven that the injury occurred because of the trial.</li>
<li>Compensations in cases of death and permanent disability, or &ldquo;other&rdquo; injuries to a trial participant will be decided by Drug Controller General of India(DCGI).</li>
<li>It removed regulations on tests conducted on animals in case of drugs approved and marketed for more than two years in well-regulated overseas drug markets.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of New Rules</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will<strong> end the unnecessary repetition of trials</strong> and speed up the availability of new drugs in the country.</li>
<li>It will <strong>lower the cost of drugs</strong>.</li>
<li>It will improve the ease of doing business for drug makers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Criticism of new regulations</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is a country of <strong>vast ethnic diversity</strong> and most of the trials are done in the West. There is need of bridging trials for ethnically diverse populations to check drug suitability population.</li>
<li>Waiver should be only for drugs required<strong> urgently for national emergency</strong>.</li>
<li>Proving injury due to the trial is problematic and it is prone to manipulation.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation (CDSCO)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The CDSCO is the Central Drug Authority for discharging functions assigned to the Central Government under the <strong>Drugs and Cosmetics Act</strong>.</li>
<li>Major Functions:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Regulatory control over the import of drugs, <strong>approval of new drugs and clinical trials</strong>.</li>
<li>Approval of certain licences as Central Licence Approving Authority</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Drug Controller General of India(DCGI)</strong></li>
<li>DCGI is responsible for <strong>approval of licences of specified categories of drugs</strong> such as blood and blood products, IV fluids, vaccines and sera in India.</li>
<li>It comes under the Ministry of Health &amp; Family Welfare.</li>
</ul>
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	(int) 1 => [
		'title' => 'Another Look At Fiscal Transfers',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/another-look-at-fiscal-transfers/article26626986.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'Another Look At Fiscal Transfers'</a> which appeared in &lsquo;The Hindu&rsquo; on 25th March, 2019. The article talks about the fiscal relationship shared by state and the centre and the challenges associated with it.)</p>
</div>
<p>Federalism is not an alien concept in political lexicon of nations and is relatively an old concept. It is a system of government in which entities such as states or provinces share power with a national government.</p>
<p>It is well known that the efficiency of a government depends on its structure; in large countries like ours federal structure can efficiently meet the requirements of people from different regions as preferences vary across regions and can best be addressed through local leadership.</p>
<p>However, after Independence several compulsions led to a scheme of federalism in which the Centre assumed greater importance. The process of centralisation in economic sphere has resulted in reduced fiscal autonomy for states.</p>
<p>Economic planning at a nation-wide level has resulted in the vertical fiscal imbalance between the federation and the provinces.</p>
<h3>Breaking The Term: Fiscal Federalism</h3>
<p>Fiscal federalism can best be understood as the economic counterpart to political federalism. It is concerned with assigning functions to different levels of government, and providing appropriate fiscal instruments for carrying out these functions.</p>
<p>It is generally believed that the Central government should provide national public goods that render services to the entire population while sub-national governments are expected to provide goods and services whose consumption is limited to their own jurisdictions.</p>
<p>Governments often find it difficult to determine the specific fiscal instruments that enable the different levels of government to carry out their functions.</p>
<p>However Indian Constitution lays down the functions as well as taxing powers of the Centre and States providing clarity in financial relations shared by state and the centre.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Centre State Financial Relations</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Constitution has made elaborate provisions, relating to the distribution of taxes as well as non-tax revenues and the power of borrowing, supplemented by provisions for grants-in-aid by the Union to the States.</li>
<li>Article 268 to 293 deals with the provisions of financial relations between Centre and States.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Constitution divides the taxing powers between the Centre and the States as follows:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Parliament has exclusive power to levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the Union List,</li>
<li>The state legislature has exclusive power to levy taxes on subjects enumerated in the State List,</li>
<li>Both can levy taxes on the subjects enumerated in Concurrent List whereas residuary power of taxation lies with Parliament only.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Evolution of Fiscal Relationship</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>In India, substantial sources of revenue remains with the centre and major expenditure obligations lies with the states, creating vertical fiscal imbalance between the federation and the provinces.</strong></li>
<li>This economic relationship can best be attributed to colonial legacy of centralisation under the British. The imperial government had all the powers related to revenue and ordered discontinuation of the assignment of expenditure and revenue functions to the provinces. It was in this situation that the provinces had to give away a portion of their surplus to the imperial government to finance the deficits of the latter.</li>
<li>A clear delineation of powers between the centre and the provinces was attempted through the Government of India Act, 1935. It had a substantial centralising tilt with discretionary powers for the governor general and governors, and the retaining of major revenue sources with the imperial government.</li>
<li>Later, when the Constitution was framed under extraordinary circumstances after partition, most of the fiscal provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935, found a place in it without any changes. This is the basic reason for the strong centralising trends in Indian polity, including in the fiscal division of powers and intergovernmental fiscal transfers.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Tussle Between The State and The Centre</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Overtime, the non-shareable revenue of centre such as surcharges and cesses has increased which has made states demanding for more fiscal powers and share of all taxes collected by the centre from time to time.</strong></li>
<li>With respect to their own tax revenue, states have substantially lost the power to fix tax rates of items, de facto after value added tax (VAT) was implemented on intra-state trade of goods, and de jure when goods and services tax (GST) got introduced.</li>
<li>On the expenditure side, rise in the share of conditional and tied grants that essentially deal with items in the state list of the seventh schedule of the Constitution has restricted the freedom of the states in spending according to their priorities that takes into account the local specifications.</li>
<li>Challenges also arise from <strong>Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM)</strong> acts, which lay down uniform targets across states ignoring the different fiscal needs.</li>
<li>In short, the domain of the states, which should be given due autonomy in so far as their constitutional assignment is concerned; it is being restricted in more than one way.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Recent Developments</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Central governments have tried to address these issues of vertical and horizontal imbalances through various Finance Commissions, taking into account the prevailing set of circumstances.</li>
<li>The Fourteenth Finance Commission has broken new ground in terms of allocation of resources. It has recommended increasing the share of tax devolution to 42% of the divisible pool.</li>
<li>It does not necessarily affect the overall transfers but only enhances the share of unconditional transfers as it looks to address the increasing central encroachment in states through conditional and centrally sponsored schemes.</li>
<li>Increased allocation in unconditional transfers however suffers from two challenges; firstly the total transfers that need to be made to the states, secondly who will be suggesting all the transfers.</li>
<li>Replacement of Planning Commission (entrusted to allocate resources to states) with NITI Aayog, which is simply a think-tank with no powers of resource allocation makes the process all the more difficult.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Harmonising The Relation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The proportion of shareable taxes that go to the States should be fixed at the desired level. The shareable tax pool must also include cesses and surcharges as these have sharply increased in recent years.</li>
<li>Another possible route can be to follow the practice in the U.S. and Canada: of allowing the States to levy tax on personal income, with some limitations, which is as of now collected by Centre.</li>
<li>Any reform aimed at rationalising the sharing of taxes between state and centre should also address issues related to horizontal distribution and should take into consideration the question of equity amongst states as states often feel &lsquo;cheated&rsquo; because of the overuse of the equity criterion.</li>
</ul>
<p><em><strong>It is time that the nation arrived at an appropriate solution giving effect to fiscal federalism so that the provincial aspirations are taken care of, meanwhile extending the provincial autonomy that our constitution talks about.</strong></em></p>
<div class="border-bg">
<p>To correct the horizontal fiscal imbalance between the States and bring more equity, Finance Commission undertakes few steps while horizontally distributing revenue.</p>
<p>The criteria used by the Finance Commissions can be broadly grouped under:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Factors reflecting needs, such as population and income measured either as distance from the highest income or as inverse.</li>
<li>Cost disability indicators, such as area and infrastructure distance.</li>
<li>Fiscal efficiency indicators, such as tax effort and fiscal discipline.</li>
</ul>
<p>While the weightage assigned to population has declined considerably, weightage assigned to income distance and efficiency factors has increased considerably in recent years.</p>
</div>',
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		'title' => 'Regionalism In India',
		'catname' => 'Paper 1',
		'desc' => '<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/324Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.jpg" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/324Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.jpg" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>',
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	(int) 3 => [
		'title' => 'Olive Ridley Turtles',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>Olive Ridley turtles have not yet arrived for mass nesting at Odisha&rsquo;s Rushikulya rookery and Devi river mouth.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The reasons are not fully understood yet. Although it is held that climatic parameters, as well as beach conditions, decide mass nesting at a coast.</li>
<li>However, Mass nesting has already occurred at the Gahirmatha coast (Bhitarkanika National Park) of the Odisha. Mass nesting of Olive Ridleys can occur up to any time till the end of April.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Rushikulya River</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rushikulya rookery coast in Ganjam district of Odisha.</li>
<li>The Rushikulya River is one of the major rivers in the state of Odisha and covers entire catchment area in the districts of Kandhamal and Ganjam district of Odisha</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Devi River</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Devi river is one of the principal distributaries of Mahanadhi. It flows through Jagatsinghpur district and Puri district across Odisha state in India and joins the Bay of Bengal.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Olive Ridley</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>Olive ridley turtles are the smallest and most abundant of all sea turtles</strong> found in the world, inhabiting warm waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian oceans.</li>
<li>They are best known for their unique mass nesting called <strong>Arribada</strong>, where thousands of females come together on the same beach to lay eggs.</li>
<li>The species is listed as<strong> Vulnerable in the IUCN Red List</strong>, <strong>Appendix 1 in CITES</strong>, and <strong>Schedule 1 in Wildlife Protection Act, 1972</strong>.</li>
<li>Olive-ridleys<strong> face serious threats</strong> across their migratory route, habitat and nesting beaches, due to human activities such as<strong> unfriendly turtle fishing practices, development, and exploitation of nesting beaches for ports, and tourist centers.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Bhitarkanika National Park</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Bhitarkanika National Park is one of Odisha&rsquo;s finest biodiversity hotspots and is famous for its <strong>mangroves, migratory birds, turtles, estuarine crocodiles, and countless creeks.</strong></li>
<li>The wetland is represented by 3 Protected Areas, <strong>the Bhitarkanika National Park, the Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary and the Gahirmatha Marine Sanctuary.</strong></li>
<li>Bhitarkanika is located in the estuary of<strong> Brahmani, Baitarani, Dhamra, and Mahanadi river systems.</strong></li>
<li>It is said to house 70% of the country&rsquo;s estuarine or saltwater crocodiles, conservation of which was started way back in 1975.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/olive-ridley-turtles'
	],
	(int) 4 => [
		'title' => 'FinTech Conclave 2019',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p><strong>FinTech Conclave-2019</strong> to be inaugurated by <strong>Governor, Reserve Bank of India (RBI)</strong> in New Delhi on <strong>25<sup>th</sup> March, 2019.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The conclave, whose objective is to <strong>shape India&rsquo;s continued ascendancy in Financial Technology (FinTech)</strong>, build the narrative for future strategy and policy efforts, and to deliberate steps for comprehensive financial inclusion is <strong>organised by the NITI Aayog.</strong></li>
<li>The Reserve Bank of India has categorised these <strong>financial technology (or fintech) companies as peer-to-peer (P2P) lenders.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Lending</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Peer to Peer lending, also known as <strong>P2P Lending</strong>, is a financial innovation which <strong>connects verified borrowers</strong> seeking unsecured personal loans <strong>with investors looking to earn higher returns</strong> on their investments.</li>
<li>P2P lending service providers have been in business in India since early 2014. However, it was in <strong>September 2017,</strong> RBI notified that these will be <strong>registered as non-banking financial companies (NBFCs)</strong> and subsequently came out with <strong>guidelines for P2P lending.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Background</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India is one of the<strong> fastest growing FinTech markets globally</strong> and industry research has projected that USD 1 Trillion or 60% of retail and SME credit, will be digitally disbursed by 2029.</li>
<li>The Indian FinTech ecosystem is the <strong>third largest in the globe,</strong> attracting nearly USD 6 billion in investments since 2014.</li>
<li>The Indian FinTech industry is creating cutting edge intellectual property assets in advanced risk management and artificial intelligence that will propel India forward in the global digital economy while simultaneously enabling paperless access to finance for every Indian.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Fintech Sector</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Fintech (Financial technology) describes an emerging financial services sector.</li>
<li>Originally, the term referred to computer technology applied to the back office of banks or trading firms, and now the term has <strong>expanded to include any technological innovation in the financial sector</strong> including innovations in financial literacy and education, retail banking, investment and even crypto-currencies like bitcoin.</li>
<li><strong>Potential benefits of FinTech</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Efficiency</strong> improvements,</li>
<li><strong>Risk reduction</strong> and <strong>greater financial inclusion.</strong></li>
<li>They can <strong>address the unmet demand from Indian micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs),</strong> as well as consumers, for credit.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>E.g.: According to the <strong>India Fintech Report 2019,</strong> the traditional ways of banking approve only 25-40% of the loan applications.</li>
<li>However, with access to more data for credit scoring such as transaction behaviour, app-based data, location information, social data and others, these new lending models can increase this threshold by additional 10&ndash;15%.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>With tech-enabled underwriting, FinTechs can provide <strong>tailor-made loans</strong> to various merchants as per their industry segments ranging from food and beverage, apparel, salon, petrol pumps, automobile dealers etc. with quick turnaround times to meet their urgent funding needs</li>
<li>The rural population (which is new to credit) can benefit from this since the urban population is likely to leverage fintech lending services to avoid heavy documentation.</li>
<li><strong>Challenges</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Difficulty of <strong>regulating an evolving technology,</strong></li>
<li>Monitoring activity <strong>outside the regulated sector.</strong></li>
<li>Since, there is no connect with customer as the application is completely processed online there is <strong>higher risks of non-performing assets (NPAs).</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Few countries have taken a variety of regulatory and supervisory initiatives such as <strong>regulatory sandboxes, innovation hubs, innovation incubators or accelerators, etc.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Regulatory Sandbox</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A regulatory sandbox is an <strong>entity hosted by the regulators that enables temporary, limited-scale testing</strong> of a new product that may involve some regulatory ambiguity.</li>
<li>It allows businesses to <strong>test innovative products, services, business models and delivery mechanisms</strong> in the real market, with real consumers.</li>
<li>Inside this <strong>controlled environment,</strong> regulators relax applicable laws or deploy new ones specific to the applications being tested and then observe how the software functions in the new framework.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The MSME lending landscape is evolving and is set to be disrupted by digital lenders, backed by <strong>continuous thrust by Government of India towards digitisation through demonetisation, Unified Payments Interface launch, and the introduction of GST.</strong></li>
<li>Moreover, it is estimated that by 2023, MSME digital lending has the <strong>potential to increase between 10 and 15 fold creating immense opportunity for both traditional lenders and digital start-ups.</strong> Therefore, the initiatives like FinTech conclave is in right direction which aims to evolve future strategy.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/fintech-conclave-2019'
	],
	(int) 5 => [
		'title' => 'Regionalism In India',
		'catname' => 'Paper 1',
		'desc' => '<h3>About</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Regionalism is the expression of a common sense of identity and purpose by people within a specific geographical region, united by its unique language, culture, language, etc.</li>
<li>In a positive sense, it encourages people to develop a sense of brotherhood and oneness which seeks to protect the interests of a particular region and promotes the welfare and development of the state and its people.</li>
<li>In the negative sense, it implies excessive attachment to one&rsquo;s region which is a great threat to the unity and integrity of the country.</li>
<li>In the Indian context generally, the term 'regionalism' has been used in the negative sense.</li>
</ul>
<h3>History of Regional Movements in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The roots of regional consciousness in India can be found in the colonial policies.</li>
<li>Differential attitudes and treatment by the British towards princely states and those of the presidencies developed regionalist tendencies among them.</li>
<li>British exploitative economic policies completely neglected some regions, giving way to economic disparities and regional imbalances.</li>
<li>On the other side, the Indian national movement furthered a pluralistic idea of India.</li>
<li>The history of regional movements in India can be traced back to the 1940s Dravida Movement or the Non-Brahmin movement that started in the present day Tamil Nadu.</li>
<li>Later, the movement was resulted into the demand of a separate and independent Tamil state.</li>
<li>This, in turn, led to several other parties like the Telugu Desam Party (TDP) springing up in the Andhra region, with the demands of separate statehood.</li>
<li>The decades of 1950s and 1960s witnessed intense mass mobilisation, often taking on a violent character for the demands of statehood.</li>
<li>In 1954, the revolt for the separate state of Andhra for Telugu - speaking people spearheaded by Potti Sri Ramulu and his eventual death triggered the wave of political regionalism in India with many princely states and other states making a demand for a separate state.</li>
<li>This resulted in formation of the States Reorganisation Committee (headed by Faisal Ali) which recommended re-organisation of Indian states on linguistic lines, thus reinforcing the regionalist tendencies.</li>
<li>With the enactment of the States Reorganisation Act, 1956, linguistic states became a reality.</li>
<li>During 1970s and 1980s, owing to the intensification of tribal insurgency for separation and statehood, the Union government passed the North-eastern States Reorganisation Act, 1971.</li>
<li>It upgraded the Union Territories of Manipur and Tripura, and the Sub-State of Meghalaya to full statehood, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh (then Tribal Districts) to Union Territories which became states in 1986.</li>
<li>The decade of 2000s, witnessed vigorous movements for the creation of separate states due to a rising sense of regional deprivation.</li>
<li>It resulted in the formation of the three new states &ndash; Chhattisgarh out of Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand out of Bihar and Uttarakhand out of Uttar Pradesh.</li>
<li>The latest addition to this is the state of Telangana created by the division of Andhra Pradesh in 2014.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Types of Regional Movements</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong> Secessionism</strong> is a form of regionalism that involves militant and fundamentalist groups advocating a separation from India on the basis of ethnicity or any other factor.</li>
<li>Isac Muivah&rsquo;s National Socialist Council of Nagaland, the Islamic fundamentalist groups in J&amp;K, ULFA in Assam are examples of such an extreme dimension of regionalism.</li>
<li><strong>Separatism</strong> is a demand for separate statehood within the Indian Union.</li>
<li>Many times, linguistic or ethnic minorities within the states come together and unite against the majority community in that state.</li>
<li>This kind of sub-regionalism was validated by the State Reorganisation Act of 1956. The most recent examples include the formation of Uttarakhand, Jharkhand, Chhattisgarh, and Telangana.</li>
<li>Meanwhile, there have been many demands including the creation of Bodoland for the Bodo-speakers in Assam; Gorkhaland for ethnic Gorkha (Nepali) people in West Bengal; a Bundelkhand state (covering part of Madhya Pradesh and part of Uttar Pradesh) for promoting the development of the region.</li>
<li><strong>Demand for Full Statehood,</strong> the union territories have been forwarding such demands like the NCT of Delhi.</li>
<li>Most of such demands have already been accepted. In 1971, Himachal Pradesh got the status of a full state and thereafter Manipur, Tripura, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh (former NEFA) and Sikkim got full statehoods</li>
<li><strong>The Demand for Autonomy,</strong> since 1960&rsquo;s, with the emergence of regional parties, the demand for state autonomy has been gaining more and more strength due to the central political interferences.</li>
<li>In Tamil Nadu the DMK, in Punjab the Akali Dal, in Andhra Pradesh the Telgu Desham, in Assam the Assam Gana Parishad, the National conference in J&amp;K and in West Bengal the Forward Bloc have been continuously demanding a larger share of powers for the states.</li>
<li><strong>Demand for Regional Autonomy within a State,</strong> in some of the states, people belonging to various regions have been demanding recognition of their regional identities.</li>
<li>The genesis of such demands lies in the regional imbalances resulting from inefficient planning for instance in J &amp; K, the Ladakhis are demanding a regional status.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Reasons behind Growth of Regionalism in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Historical and geographical isolation</li>
<li>Lop-sided development</li>
<li>Continuous neglect of a region</li>
<li>Insider-outsider complex that nurturers nativism and son-of-the-soil ideology</li>
<li>Internal colonialism, i.e., despite being rich in natural resources some regions remain economically underdeveloped.</li>
<li>The reasons being either ill-conceived top-down approach or survival of one region at the cost of the other region. Chhota Nagpur plateau is an example of this type of underdevelopment.</li>
<li>Political vested interests can accentuate and exploit regional loyalties.</li>
<li>Reaction to an imposed ideology that can make its appearance as a reaction against the perceived imposition of a particular ideology, language or cultural pattern on all people and groups.</li>
<li>Linguistic aspirations that have remained a formidable basis of regionalism.</li>
<li>Expression of ethnicity.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Impact of Regionalism on Indian Polity</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rise of regional parties.</li>
<li>Re-focus on regional issues.</li>
<li>Regionalist tendencies often stir inter-state hostility as its spillover effect.</li>
<li>Regional movements often result in violent agitations, disturbs not only the law and order situation but also have negative implications on the economy of the state as well as the nation.</li>
<li>Regionalism sometimes undercuts the national interest by being a hurdle in international diplomacy.</li>
<li>For instance- the opposition of regional/state parties of Tamil against the stand of the central government had a direct implication on the relation of India with Sri Lanka.</li>
<li>The disagreement of political leadership in West Bengal with the central government over the Land Boundary Agreement and Teesta River Water sharing treaty with Bangladesh resulted in increased tensions between the two nations.</li>
<li>Regionalism can become a shield for militancy, extremism to create an internal security threat. Kashmir militancy is an example of this type of regionalism.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Regionalism vs. Nationalism</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Nationalism is a sense of belonging to one nation, a feeling one shares with all the citizens of the country regardless of their caste, creed, culture, religion or region.</li>
<li>This association with a nation is the primary mode of identification for a person and every nation encourages its citizens to take pride in being its citizen.</li>
<li>However, when people begin identifying more strongly with their region than with their nation, it is alleged that nationalism is undercut by a sense of regionalism.</li>
<li>While a nation tries to establish harmony between all its citizens by uniting them through a constitution, national symbols, and songs, regionalism glorifies the heritage of only one particular region and of one culture.</li>
<li>This leads to the formation of multiple communities within one nation and restricts the efforts of national integration.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Is regionalism a threat to national unity and integrity?</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Parochial regionalism poses a threat to the sovereignty of the nation.</li>
<li>The anti-migrant or anti-Bihari stance of the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) which opposes the employment and residence of non-Maharashtrian people in the state of Maharashtra is a prime example of negative regionalism.</li>
<li>Regionalism beyond a point can lead to secessionism, such as strong regionalism in Punjab ultimately resulted in the growth of Khalistani terrorism.</li>
<li>Regionalism often promotes Vote- Bank politics, thereby weakens the national integration.</li>
<li>Regionalism can weaken the time tested fabric of 'Unity in Diversity', if promoted in an ultra manner.</li>
<li>Positive regionalism promotes a sense of pride in connecting to one&rsquo;s roots and culture.</li>
<li>It has been noticed that often regional movements have helped the art and culture of many neglected regions to flourish by increasing their exposure through local emphasis.</li>
<li>Therefore, in principle, regionalism need not be regarded as an unhealthy or anti-national phenomenon, unless it takes a militant, aggressive turn to encourage the growth of secessionist tendencies.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Constitutional Safeguards Against Separatist Tendencies</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Constitution provides various institutional arrangements to resolve such problem, including the threats posed by violent regionalism.</li>
<li>The provisions of the fifth and sixth schedules of the Indian constitution have been applied by the government with intended objectives of constraining ethnic separatism and tribal alienation in different regions, particularly in the North-east.</li>
<li>Also institutionally, the government has become more receptive to the creation of an autonomous regional council or district council for the people of ethnic enclaves.</li>
<li>The state language policy has been fine tuned to accommodate the claims of various dialect or language groups. This has been done by:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>By including the major languages in the eighth schedule, and</li>
<li>Granting official recognition to culturally significant languages of the state as the language of education and official transaction.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All these policies have a significant impact on integrating the diverse regional communities within the mould and measures of Indian nationalism.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Unity in Diversity ethos needs to be preserved for the pluralistic character of the Indian nation state.</li>
<li>The accommodation of multiple aspirations of a diverse population is necessary.</li>
<li>Formation of the NITI Aayog has been a positive step to enhance co-operative federalism by fostering the involvement of the State Governments of India in the economic policy-making process using a bottom-up approach.</li>
<li>While a number of steps such as the launch of centrally sponsored schemes, incentives to private players for development in backward states have been taken by the government for inclusive development, there is a greater need for their effective implementation.</li>
<li>There is a need to increase the level of social expenditure by the states on education, health, and sanitation which are the core for human resource development.</li>
<li>Introducing a system of national education that would help people to overcome regional feelings and develop an attachment towards the nation can act as a long-term solution to the problem of sub-nationalism.</li>
<li>While the National Integration Council was set up in 1961, there is a need to utilise its potential more effectively.</li>
<li>Schemes like "Ek Bharat-Shreshtha Bharat" have been launched by the GOI to celebrate unity in diversity culture of the nation and to strengthen sentiment for National Unity between the citizens of states, is a welcomed step.</li>
<li>National unity is not impaired if the people of a region have genuine pride in their language and culture.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/595Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/595Drishti_ias_Regionalism-in-India.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/paper1/regionalism-in-india-upsc'
	],
	(int) 6 => [
		'title' => ' RBI Deferred Ind AS Implementation by Banks',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>RBI has again deferred the implementation of the Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) by banks as the requisite legislative amendments are still under consideration.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>In 2006, <a href="/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-national-institutions/icai-nfra" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ICAI</a> initiated the process of shifting towards the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The reason behind this step was to increase the acceptability and transparency of the financial statements of the Indian corporates on the global platform.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>For making the proper shift, Accounting Standards Board (ASB) of ICAI formulated <g class="gr_ gr_37 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="37" data-gr-id="37">the Ind</g> AS in line with the IFRS.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>In 2015, MCA notified Companies (Indian Accounting Standard) Rules 2015, which listed out the applicability and adoption of Ind AS.</strong></li>
<li>As per <g class="gr_ gr_42 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="42" data-gr-id="42">initial</g> plan, MCA was to implement Ind AS for banks, insurance companies and <a href="/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/the-big-picture-what-ails-nbfcs" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBFCs</a> from 1 April 2018 onwards but in April 2018,<a href="/important-institutions/drishti-specials-important-institutions-national-institutions/important-institutions-national-institution-reserve-bank-of-india" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> RBI</a> deferred the implementation of Indian Accounting Standards by one year for banks.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>On March 22, 2019, RBI again deferred the implementation of Ind AS by banks till further notice.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>The reason cited is that certain legislative amendments to the Third Schedule to the Banking Regulation Act 1949 are under consideration of the government.</strong></li>
<li>It is expected that these amendments will help in making the current format of financial statements compatible with the requirements under Ind AS.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Ind AS</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Indian Accounting Standards (Ind AS) <strong>are set of accounting standards that govern the accounting and recording of financial transactions as well as the presentation of statements such as profit and loss account and balance sheet of a company.</strong></li>
<li>The standards were formulated by the<strong> Accounting Standards Board (ASB), which was constituted as a body in the year 1977.</strong> ASB is a committee under ICAI which consists of representatives from <g class="gr_ gr_45 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="45" data-gr-id="45">government</g> department, academicians, other professional bodies viz. ICAI, representatives from ASSOCHAM, CII, FICCI, etc.</li>
<li>The Ind AS are named and numbered in the same way as the International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>IFRS</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) are accounting standards that have been <strong>issued by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB) with the objective of providing a common accounting language to increase transparency in the presentation of financial information.</strong></li>
<li><strong>IASB is an independent body that was formed in 2001</strong> for establishing the IFRS. It succeeded the International Accounting Standards Committee (IASC), which was earlier given the responsibility of establishing the international accounting standards. It is based in London.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/rbi-deferred-ind-as-implementation-by-banks'
	],
	(int) 7 => [
		'title' => 'Disinvestment Exceeds Target',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>For the <strong>second year in a row</strong>, the government has&nbsp;<strong>exceeded the disinvestment target of Rs 80,000</strong> crore set for the <strong>Financial Year 2019,</strong> which ends in March.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Against a goal of ₹80,000 crore in FY19,  divestments have touched ₹85,000 crore with <strong>completion of the acquisition of Rural Electrification Corporation (REC) by Power Finance Corporation (PFC) for Rs 14,500 crore.</strong></li>
<li>Apart from Power Finance Corporation acquiring government&rsquo;s stake in Rural Electrification Corporation, <strong>launch of several tranches of <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-13th-march-2019-" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Exchange Traded Fund (ETF) of Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSE)</a>,</strong> and <strong>PSUs buying back their own shares</strong> were among the measures deployed by the government to achieve its target of stake sales.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The <strong>largest chunk of disinvestment c</strong>ame from several tranches of <strong>ETFs launched by the government.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>second biggest chunk</strong> of Rs 14,500 crore was raised through <strong>Power Finance Corporation</strong> acquiring government&rsquo;s 52.63% stake in REC.</li>
<li>In the last fiscal year, the government had <strong>used the same strategy</strong> to meet its disinvestment target as ONGC bought the entire stake of government in HPCL for a total of around Rs 37,000 crore.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Meeting the disinvestment target for the current fiscal year was crucial because of the <strong>uncertainty in revenue collection from direct taxes as well as from the goods and services tax (GST).</strong></li>
<li>This will enable the government to <strong>achieve the revised fiscal deficit target of 3.4%</strong> of gross domestic product (GDP).
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The budgeted fiscal deficit target was 3.3% of gross domestic product (GDP) at the beginning of 2018-19 and was later <strong>revised to 3.4% of gross domestic product in the interim budget,</strong> mainly because of an expectation of higher payout because of the direct income scheme for farmers.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Disinvestment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Disinvestment means <strong>selling of assets</strong>. In the case of Public Sector Undertakings, disinvestment means <strong>Government selling/ diluting its stake (share) in PSUs in which it has a majority holding.</strong></li>
<li>Disinvestment is carried out a<strong>s a budgetary exercise,</strong> under which the government announces yearly targets for disinvestment for selected PSUs.</li>
<li>Recently, in April 2016, the <strong>Department of Disinvestment (under Ministry of Finance)&nbsp;</strong>was renamed as<strong> Department of Investment and Public Asset Management (DIPAM).</strong></li>
<li>The mandate of the Department is as follows:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>All matters relating to the<strong> management of Central Government investments in equity</strong> including disinvestment of equity in Central Public Sector Undertakings.</li>
<li>All matters relating to the sale of Central Government equity through offer for sale or private placement or any other mode in the erstwhile Central Public Sector Undertakings.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/disinvestment-exceeds-target'
	],
	(int) 8 => [
		'title' => 'US Recognition to Golan Heights as Israel’s Territory',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that the <strong>US may recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>U.S. will be the first country</strong> to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the Golan and marks a dramatic shift in U.S. policy.</li>
<li>The<strong> Golan Heights were captured by Israel from Syria in the 1967</strong> conflict and <strong>annexed in 1981 &mdash; a move not recognized internationally.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>US Stand &amp; Israel's Response</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The U.S. has said that <strong>Israel could not give up the Golan Heights as doing so would endanger Israel&rsquo;s very existence.</strong></li>
<li>Israel has welcomed the US stand.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Other countries Response</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>Syrian government said the Golan was an &ldquo;indivisible&rdquo; part of Syrian territory</strong> and recovering it &ldquo;via all means guaranteed by international law is still a priority&rdquo;.</li>
<li><strong>Russia, Iran, and Turkey have condemned the US statement as illegal and unacceptable</strong> and said that the decisions will lead to a crisis in the region.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Impact of Withdrawal</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The formal recognition of Israel's sovereignty over the Golan <strong>doesn't change anything on the ground.</strong> <strong>Israel already has a considerable military presence in the region.</strong></li>
<li>It is <strong>not immediately clear how the U.N. peacekeeping force in the Golan might be affected</strong> by the U.S. move.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Golan Heights</strong></p>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577338094_image43.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577338094_image43.png" style="float: right;" width="340" caption="false" /></strong></a></h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Golan Heights is a<strong> rocky plateau with an area of 1,800km&sup2; on the border between Israel and Syria</strong> in south-western Syria.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Dispute</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>I<strong>srael occupied the Golan Heights, West Bank, East Jerusalem, and the Gaza Strip in the 1967 Six-Day War.</strong> An armistice line was established and the region came under Israeli military control.</li>
<li><strong>Syria tried to retake the Golan Heights during the 1973 Middle East war.</strong> Syria was defeated in its attempt.</li>
<li>Both countries <strong>signed an armistice in 1974 and a UN observer force has been in place</strong> on the ceasefire line since 1974.</li>
<li><strong>In 1981, Israel permanently acquired the territory of the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem</strong> in moves never recognized by most countries.</li>
<li>The international community regards as disputed territory occupied by Israel whose status should be determined by negotiations between Israel and Syria.</li>
<li>Attempts by the international community to bring Israel and Syria for negotiations have failed.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>International Recognition of Golan Heights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>European Union</strong> said its position on the status of the Golan Heights was unchanged and it did not recognize Israeli sovereignty over the area.</li>
<li>The <strong>Arab League</strong>, which suspended Syria in 2011 after the start of its civil war has said the move is &ldquo;completely beyond international law&rdquo;.</li>
<li><strong>Egypt</strong>, which made peace with Israel in 1979, said it still considers the Golan as occupied Syrian territory.</li>
<li><strong>India</strong> has also not recognized Golan heights as Israel territory and has called for the return of Golan Heights to Syria.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Importance of Golan Heights</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Golan Heights<strong> give Israel an excellent point for monitoring Syrian movements.</strong> The topography provides a natural buffer against any military adventure from Syria.</li>
<li>The area is also a <strong>key source of water for an arid region. Rainwater from the Golan's catchment feeds into the Jordan River.</strong> The area provides a third of Israel's water supply.</li>
<li>The<strong> land is fertile, and the volcanic soil is used to cultivate vineyards and orchards and raise cattle.</strong> The Golan is also home to Israel's only ski resort.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/us-recognition-to-golan-heights-as-israel-s-territory'
	],
	(int) 9 => [
		'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (23rd March 2019)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>LIMA 2019</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The<strong> Indian Air Force</strong> is going to participate in <strong>Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA) 2019.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Langkawi International Maritime Aero Expo (LIMA-2019)</strong> is planned in Langkawi, Malaysia from 26 March 2019 to 30 March 2019.</li>
<li>Indian Air Force is participating in the <strong>Maritime Aero Expo for the first time,</strong> during which it will showcase its<strong> indigenously developed LCA Tejas fighter aircraft.</strong></li>
<li>Participation of IAF in LIMA-2019 will provide an opportunity to air-warriors to interact with their Royal Malaysian Air Force (RMAF) counterparts and foster a close relationship between the two services.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Cyclone Trevor &amp; Veronica</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Two <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/cyclone-daye" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>cyclonic storms</strong></a>, named <strong>Trevor and Veronica</strong>, are expected to make landfall into<strong> Australia&rsquo;s coasts.</strong></li>
<li>Trevor is expected to make landfall in northeast Australia while Veronica will hit northwest Australia.</li>
<li>Trevor and Veronica are no different from the<strong><a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/cyclone-titli" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> hurricanes or cyclones </a>except</strong> that they <strong>spin clockwise instead of counterclockwise.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In the <strong>Northern Hemisphere</strong> the direction of the <strong>cyclone is counterclockwise</strong>, and in the <strong>Southern Hemisphere, it is clockwise.</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</strong> is observed on <strong>21<sup>st</sup> March every year.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>theme for 2019</strong> is<strong> Mitigating and countering rising nationalist populism and extreme supremacist ideologies.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>History of the Day</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>UN General Assembly on 26 October 1966</strong> proclaimed <strong>21 March as the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination</strong> to be commemorated annually.</li>
<li>On that day, in 1960, police opened fire and killed 69 people at a peaceful demonstration in Sharpeville, South Africa, against the apartheid "pass laws".</li>
<li>Proclaiming the Day in 1966 which signifies the struggle to end the policy of apartheid in South Africa.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Navroz</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Navroz is<strong> New Year celebrations on March 21 every year for Parsis, followers of Zoroastrianism and various sects of Muslim, both Shias and Sunnis.</strong></li>
<li>In 1079 AD, a <strong>Persian (Iranian) king named Jalaluddin Malekshah introduced the Navroz (New Year)</strong> festival to generate revenue and collect taxes from people.</li>
<li>It was observed on <strong>March 21 to mark the beginning of spring and the day of equinox.</strong></li>
<li>It is inscribed in the list of <strong>UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity of India</strong>. In India it is known as <strong>Jamshed Navroz.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Intangible Cultural Heritage of India</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Kumbh Mela, Yoga, Traditional brass and copper craft of utensils among thatheras of Punjab, Sankirtana (ritual singing, dancing and drumming of Manipur), Buddhist chanting of Ladakh, Chhau Dance, Kalbelia (folk song and dance of Rajasthan), Kutiyattam (a Sanskrit theatre of Kerala), Tradition of Vedic Chanting, Ramlila, <strong>Novruz (Persian New Year)</strong>, Ramman(religious festival and ritual theatre of the Garhwal Himalayas), Mudiyettu (ritual theatre and dance drama of Kerala).</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-23rd-march-2019'
	],
	(int) 10 => [
		'title' => 'PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest' Litigations',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<div class="border">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.outlookindia.com/magazine/story/india-news-gavel-on-the-duds/301330" target="_blank" rel="noopener">&lsquo;PILs: From Public Interest to 'Publicity Interest</a>' Litigations&rsquo; which appeared in &lsquo;The Outlook&rsquo; on 19th <g class="gr_ gr_91 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="91" data-gr-id="91">March,</g> 2019. The article talks about the nature of PILs and the change it has undergone over a period of time.)</p>
</div>
<p><em>Almost exactly 40 years ago, in <g class="gr_ gr_93 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="93" data-gr-id="93">March,</g> 1979, Kapila Hingorani made history by filing and securing the release of nearly 40,000 <g class="gr_ gr_92 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling ins-del" id="92" data-gr-id="92">under trials</g> languishing in the jails of Bihar&rsquo;s Patna and Muzzafarpur, in the &lsquo;Hussainara Khatoon&rsquo; case.</em></p>
<p><em>The &lsquo;Hussainara Khatoon&rsquo; case established a new paradigm in the Indian justice system, which until 1979 was accessible to only those personally affected by the law or <g class="gr_ gr_88 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace" id="88" data-gr-id="88">facing</g> penal action.</em></p>
<p><em>The court allowed Hingorani to pursue a case in which she had no personal locus <g class="gr_ gr_86 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="86" data-gr-id="86">standi</g> making Public Interest Litigations (PILs) a permanent fixture in Indian jurisprudence. Ever <g class="gr_ gr_85 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="85" data-gr-id="85">since,</g> PILs has become the champion of the underprivileged and those wronged by the system. </em></p>
<h3>Public Interest Litigation</h3>
<p>Public interest litigation uses the law to advance human rights and equality, or raise issues of broad public concern. It helps advance the cause of minority or disadvantaged groups or individuals.</p>
<p>Public interest cases can arise from both public and private law matters concerning various rules and regulations that govern the exercise of power by public bodies and even when a public body is not involved such as employment law or family law.</p>
<p>It has most ideally and commonly been used to challenge the decisions of public authorities by judicial review to review the lawfulness of a decision or action, or a failure to act, by a public body.</p>
<p>PILs have been responsible for landmark verdicts that have outlawed instant triple talaq, identified privacy as a fundamental right, opened the doors of the Sabarimala temple in Kerala and Mumbai&rsquo;s Haji Ali shrine to women, <g class="gr_ gr_71 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="71" data-gr-id="71">legalised</g> consensual homosexual relations and made passive euthanasia permissible etc.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<h3>Procedures to File A PIL In The Court</h3>
<p>Any citizen of India can approach the court for public case (upon the interest of public) by filing a petition:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the Supreme Court, under Article 32 of the Constitution</li>
<li>Under the High Court, under Article 226 of the Constitution</li>
<li>Under Court of Magistrate under Section 133 of CrPC</li>
</ul>
<p>At present, a court can treat a letter as a writ petition and take action upon it. In such cases, the court has to be satisfied that the writ petition complies with the following;</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Where the letter is addressed by the aggrieved person</li>
<li>A public-spirited individual</li>
<li>A social action group for the enforcement of legal or constitutional rights to any person who, upon poverty or disability, are not able to approach the court for redress.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>From Public to Publicity</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>PIL was introduced in Indian jurisprudence to help raise the cause of social justice. Unfortunately, it has instead become a tool for people to use these as either to gain publicity or for political agenda.</li>
<li>PILs these days are being used as a means to further bigotry and communal hate in the name of public interest. Filling of flippant cases has resulted in the erosion of the sanctity of the PIL system, which has been responsible for some of the most progressive verdicts delivered by various courts.</li>
<li>In the absence of any robust mechanism to filter genuine pleas from frivolous pleas known as &ldquo;<g class="gr_ gr_75 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling" id="75" data-gr-id="75">publicity</g> interest&rdquo; or &ldquo;political interest&rdquo; litigations, irrational petitions have soared in great numbers. The courts place the onus of curbing the menace on litigants&rsquo; moral conscience.</li>
<li>Frivolous filing of PILs has not only resulted in <g class="gr_ gr_100 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins replaceWithoutSep" id="100" data-gr-id="100">added</g> burden on judiciary but has significantly led to trust erosion in the entire exercise, even if a frivolous plea is eventually dismissed, the judges have to spend a lot of time in going through the prayer and, on most occasions, hearing the petitioner.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Present System of Checks</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Under the present system, only judges have the power to decide if a petition should be admitted or dismissed while the job of the Registry (of the SC or of any high court) is to ensure that technical requirements of filing a petition have been fulfilled by the litigant.</li>
<li>Petition gets listed for admission irrespective of its merit, eating away the court&rsquo;s time that could otherwise be <g class="gr_ gr_68 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="68" data-gr-id="68">utilised</g> to hear the massive backlog of cases.</li>
<li><g class="gr_ gr_70 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar only-ins doubleReplace replaceWithoutSep" id="70" data-gr-id="70">Total</g> number of cases pending before the SC, as on December 1 last year, stood at 56,994. The National Judicial Data Grid puts the total number of cases pending before various high courts, as on March 17, at a whopping 42.89 lakh.</li>
</ul>
<h3>The Desired Steps</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>There is a need for an effective deterrent to prevent such frivolous cases, especially those that blatantly violate the Constitution, from being filed. Judiciary needs to be more proactive in dealing with those who file cases purely to gain publicity.</li>
<li>A litigant who takes liberties with the truth or with the procedures of the court should be left in no doubt about the consequences to follow. All the courts should impose exemplary cost against petitioners who try to choke the judicial system with absurd PILs mocking both the basic law of justice as well as the secular fabric of the nation.</li>
<li>The court cannot abdicate its responsibility (of deciding whether a case deserves to be heard) in <g class="gr_ gr_87 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="87" data-gr-id="87">favour</g> of the Registry as it is within the powers of the court, and <g class="gr_ gr_84 gr-alert gr_spell gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim ContextualSpelling multiReplace" id="84" data-gr-id="84">its</g> Chief Justice, to lay down broad guidelines for the Registry to follow while deciding what kind of cases deserve to be listed</li>
<li>The Registry should be empowered to at least check the credentials of the person filing a PIL and those who have a prior record of filing such cases should be warned of the consequences.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In the 40 years since its inception as a course for judicial remedy, the PIL system has emerged as a potent tool for ensuring transparency in governance and enabler of social justice.</li>
<li>Litigations such as those demanding deportation of Indian Muslims to Pakistan strikes at the very core of the purpose that a PIL is supposed to serve&mdash;public interest, necessitating timely and stern actions against the &lsquo;Lousy Litigants&rsquo; to make evident the deterrent cost of publicity.</li>
<li>Public Interest Litigation is a weapon which should be used with great care and circumspection and the Judiciary needs to be extremely careful so that ugly private malice, vested interest is not seen lurking behind the beautiful veil of public interest.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/pils-from-public-interest-to-publicity-interest-litigations'
	],
	(int) 11 => [
		'title' => 'Lancet: Building a Tuberculosis Free World',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>The Lancet Commission on tuberculosis has published report &lsquo;building a tuberculosis-free world&rsquo;.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It is <strong>based on modelling for three high-burden countries(India, Indonesia, &amp; China)</strong>.</li>
<li>It compared with 2015 data, and estimated 57% reduction in incidence and 72% reduction in mortality will been seen only by 2045.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Background</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>According to World Health Organisation (WHO) <strong>10 million new tuberculosis (TB) cases were reported globally in 2017</strong>, out of which 2.74 million were from India.</li>
<li>It shows a marginal reduction from 2.79 million in 2016.</li>
<li>The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) include ending the TB epidemic by 2030 under Goal 3.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Lancet&rsquo;s Findings on India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>India&rsquo;s goal to end the epidemic by 2025&nbsp;</strong>(five years ahead of the UN SDG) is<strong> too &ldquo;ambitious"</strong>, &ldquo;unrealistic", and, therefore, unattainable. As it requires high quality of care to every person from diagnosis to treatment.</li>
<li>TB incidence in the country being 204 cases per 1,00,000 in 2017.</li>
<li>10% of individuals with TB die or self-cure before presenting for care.</li>
<li>Patient delay before the first presentation for care is 4.1 months.</li>
<li>The proportion of people with TB completing treatment is 85%.</li>
<li>India has the <strong>highest number of multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB) cases</strong> in the world. the majority of cases due to direct transmission.</li>
<li>The early diagnosis and prompt initiation of effective treatment should be high priority to curb MDR-TB transmission.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Recommendations</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Integration of TB services with the primary health system</strong> will lead to early diagnosis and help cut the transmission cycle.</li>
<li>Strengthening the <strong>care cascade</strong>(visualising problems with the implementation of &lsquo;treatment as prevention&rsquo;) could reduce cumulative TB incidence by 38% in the case of India.</li>
<li>India has to adopt <strong>measures to prevent TB on a population level to eliminate</strong> the disease in the coming decades.</li>
<li>India needs improvement in diagnosis and treatment for drug-sensitive and drug-resistant TB.</li>
<li>It suggests that lives of eight million (28%) people with TB can be saved over the next 30 years if tests are subsidised and patients are supported to complete the treatment.</li>
<li>This would <strong>cost an extra $290 million each year</strong>, which is significantly less than India&rsquo;s $32 billion losses associated with TB mortality each year.</li>
<li>India should scale up access to TB services for all those seeking them, optimise engagement of private sector providers and guarantee universal access to drug susceptibility testing and second line TB drugs.</li>
<li>National TB control programme is encouraging, there is political will and the programme mentions all the correct initiatives to bring the disease under control. Accountability is vital component.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India and Tuberculosis</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India has the highest TB burden in the world.<strong> In 2018, 2.15 million TB case were reported</strong> , which is 16% more the 2017.</li>
<li>Private sector has reported 0.54 million cases, which is 35% increase compared with 2017.</li>
<li>National Strategic Plan for TB Elimination (2017&ndash;25) has called for increase in private TB reporting to two million patients per year by 2020.</li>
<li>Government of India has said that New tools resulting from greater tuberculosis research and development (R&amp;D) are essential to prevent those projected economic losses.</li>
<li>With at least 30 per cent of India&rsquo;s population infected with tuberculosis. Thus it needs accurate point-of-care diagnostics for detecting tuberculosis infection and effective person-centred treatment.</li>
<li>Government of India has said that close coordination between the Ministry of Science and Technology, Ministry of Health and research-oriented pharmaceutical companies, is necessary to reach targets against tuberculosis.</li>
<li>Instead of waiting for people with TB to reach diagnostic centres for testing, India has now<strong> undertaken case-ﬁnding campaigns</strong>.</li>
<li>It acknowledges that high out-of-pocket expenditure incurred during TB treatment keeps people in poverty for seven years after completing treatment.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Lancet</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Lancet is a weekly peer-reviewed general <strong>British medical journal</strong>.</li>
<li>It is among the world's oldest, most prestigious, and best known general medical journals.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Tuberculosis</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Tuberculosis (TB) is caused by bacteria (<strong>Mycobacterium tuberculosis</strong>) that most often affect the lungs. Tuberculosis is curable and preventable.</li>
<li>TB is spread from person to person through the air. When people with lung TB cough, sneeze or spit, they propel the TB germs into the air.</li>
<li>Multidrug-resistant tuberculosis (MDR-TB) is a form of TB <strong>caused by bacteria that do not respond to first-line anti-TB drugs</strong>. MDR-TB is treatable and curable by using second-line drugs.</li>
<li>Extensively drug-resistant TB (XDR-TB) is a more serious form of MDR-TB caused by bacteria that do not respond to the most effective second-line anti-TB drugs, <strong>often leaving patients without any further treatment options</strong>.</li>
<li>In 2017, the 30 high TB burden countries accounted for 87% of new TB cases. Eight countries account for two thirds of the total, with India leading the count, followed by, China, Indonesia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh and South Africa.</li>
<li>WHO End TB Strategy, adopted by the World Health Assembly in May 2014, is a blueprint for countries to end the TB epidemic by driving down TB deaths, incidence and eliminating catastrophic costs.</li>
<li><strong>World TB Day is observed on 24 March</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/lancet-building-a-tuberculosis-free-world'
	],
	(int) 12 => [
		'title' => 'Akula Class – Attack Submarine',
		'catname' => 'Lok Sabha & Rajya Sabha Discussions',
		'desc' => '<p style="text-align: center;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qELdZLk5dek" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></p>
<p>India has planned to lease out one more Akula Class nuclear powered submarine from Russia. According to reports, both the countries have signed a deal for this, worth almost 3 Billion US dollars. This new attack submarine will <strong>replace Indian Navy's INS Chakra 2</strong> whose lease is expiring in the year 2022.</p>
<p>Submarine is a warship with a streamlined hull designed to operate completely submerged in the sea for long periods, equipped with a periscope and typically armed with torpedoes or missiles.</p>
<h3>Types</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Conventional Submarines:</strong> These are the ones which are powered by electric motors and batteries.<br /><strong>E.g. Project-75 Class Submarines</strong></li>
<li><strong>Nuclear Powered Ballistic Submarines:</strong> These are powered by nuclear fuel, thereby capable of operating underwater for longer durations. Primary role of such submarines is to provide strategic deterrence.<br /><strong>E.g. INS Arihant</strong></li>
<li><strong>Nuclear Powered and Armed Submarines (SSN):</strong> These marines have unlimited endurance and high speeds and are armed with cruise missiles and heavyweight torpedoes, thus complementing carrier battle groups.<br /><strong>E.g. Akula Class Submarines.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>Akula Class Submarines</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Akula Class Submarine uses a nuclear reactor for propulsion, allowing it to remain underwater for an extended period of time which makes its detection impossible.</li>
<li>This class of Submarine can be used for multiple tasks like hunting enemy submarines, intelligence surveillance etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Benefits</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will help India in training Arihant and Arihant-class cruise on SSN submarines.</li>
<li>It can be deployed at important focal points in Indian Ocean and thus India will be able to enjoy strategic dynamic of the region. Also, the submarine will have a deterrent impact.</li>
<li>Induction of this SSN will make India an Indian Ocean Power with full spectrum of operational capabilities.</li>
<li>The submarine will act as a supreme board for India&rsquo;s indigenous SSN development program as it will provide clues on submarine designs, nuclear submarine operation and maintenance etc.</li>
<li>It is also the symbol of deep Indo-Russia relations as no two other countries in the world have exchanged any nuclear element in defence armament yet.</li>
</ul>
<h3>India-Russia Defence Trade</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Since the year 1988, Russia has been supplying India with nuclear powered submarines. INS Chakra 1 was inducted into Indian Navy in the year 1998.</li>
<li>INS Chakra 2 was inducted into Indian Navy in the year 2012.</li>
<li>Akula Class Submarine will get inducted by the year 2024.</li>
<li>India and Russia has also come into a joint venture for production of 200 Kamov lightweight multi-role military helicopters for India. The deal for the same was inked in 2015.</li>
<li>India has recently signed agreements with Russia on S-400 air defence missiles and AK 203 Rifles. This India has done, despite the risk of invoking sanctions under <strong>Countering America&rsquo;s Adversaries through Sanctions Act (CAATSA)</strong>.</li>
<li>These trade deals are important for Indo-Russian ties due to Russia&rsquo;s growing interest in the geo-politics of Indo-Pacific Region.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Choke points in Indian Ocean need to be controlled through submarines, for maintaining influence in the region.</li>
<li><strong>India needs a very rapid submarine building program</strong> to protect its interests in International Waters, especially between the Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Malacca.</li>
<li>More SSNs are required for the deployment at the Indian Ocean in the wake of Chinese ships patrolling the ocean. This is also necessary to deter competitors of India in the International Waters.</li>
<li>Besides building submarines, <strong>India needs to build surveillance capabilities</strong> so that it can exactly detect location of submarines of other countries in the Indian Ocean.</li>
</ul>
<p><em>The new Akula Submarine will definitely provide boost to Indian Navy operational capabilities but India needs to build its own such submarines, considering the cost of lease. Also, it needs to provide a push to its present submarine programmes, especially &lsquo;Project-75&rsquo;.</em></p>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/akula-class-attack-submarine'
	],
	(int) 13 => [
		'title' => 'Statistical Institutions of India',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<p><em>(The editorial is based on the article &ldquo;<a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/a-short-history-of-data/article26593687.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">A short history of data</a>&rdquo; which appeared in The Hindu for 21st March 2019. In this editorial, we&rsquo;ll see how Indian national statistics and the organisations that administer them have helped shape data collection methods across the globe.</em>)</p>
<p><strong>Over the past two months, Indian national statistics and the organisations that administer them have faced a volley of criticism.</strong> In January, two independent members of the National Statistical Commission resigned in protest, over alleged suppression of economic data by the government.</p>
<p><strong>More recently, amidst growing scepticism regarding India&rsquo;s official statistics, more than a hundred scholars comprising economists and social scientists released a statement decrying the fall in standards of institutional independence, suggesting political interference as the cause.</strong></p>
<p>Kaushik Basu, a former chief economist of the World Bank, also recently bemoaned the declining credibility of India&rsquo;s official statistics.</p>
<p><strong>While declining data quality has been an issue for a while, concern over institutional independence is new. What several of these criticisms refer is the fact that India&rsquo;s national statistics were once internationally renowned among economists and policy professionals for their reliability.</strong></p>
<p><strong>In the decades following World War II, India had reason to be proud not only of the institutional independence of national statistical bodies but also &mdash; uniquely among developing countries &mdash; of a pioneering history of independent data collection and publication.</strong><strong></strong></p>
<h3>Pioneering History of India&rsquo;s Statistical Enterprise</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The growth of India&rsquo;s vast national statistical infrastructure dates back to its first decade as an independent country. The birth of a new nation led to an explosion of national statistics, based on the need to plan the economy through Five Year Plans.</li>
<li>These years would see the establishment of the office of the Statistical Adviser to the Government, bi-annual National Sample Surveys (NSS), the Central Statistical Organisation (CSO), and National Income Committees (that made the estimates similar to GDP measurements).</li>
<li><strong>The moving spirit behind these developments was Prasanta Chandra Mahalanobis, whom Jawaharlal Nehru described as the &ldquo;presiding genius of statistics in India,&rdquo; and the institute that he had founded in Calcutta in 1931, the Indian Statistical Institute (ISI).</strong></li>
<li>Mahalanobis was also involved in the discussions that led to the establishment of the UN Statistical Commission in New York, a body that he would be voted Chairperson of several times during the 1950s. (As a pioneer in the emerging field of large-scale sample surveys, he would also be the force behind creating the UN Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling in 1947, co-authoring the textbook on the subject in 1950).</li>
<li>On the eve of World War II, it had become apparent, both to the colonial government and the Indian National Congress, that any concerted postwar developmental effort would require fine-grained statistical information on the national economy.</li>
<li>Nehru, Chairman of the Congress&rsquo;s National Planning Committee, called attention in 1938 to the &ldquo;fact of the absence of accurate data and statistics.&rdquo;. Even a decade later, he would admit, &ldquo;we have no data,&rdquo; as a result of which, &ldquo;we function largely in the dark.&rdquo;</li>
<li>While the British colonial government had made efforts to collect statistics on the subcontinent from the early 19th century, these were provincially organised and geared towards trade and administration.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Successes of Indian Statistical Endeavours</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The results of the National Sample Survey offered high-definition snapshots of the country&rsquo;s material life &mdash; casting light on cost of living, crop estimates, household consumption, industry, trade, and land holding patterns.</li>
<li><strong>&ldquo;No country, developed, under-developed or over-developed, has such a wealth of information about its people as India.&rdquo; - Edwards Deming (American statistician).</strong></li>
<li><strong>Singaporean statistician Y.P. Seng observed that by comparison that China had &ldquo;no genuine statistics&rdquo; and so India&rsquo;s example of using surveys would &ldquo;serve as a guide and an example worthy of imitating&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li><strong>The Planning Commission, beginning in 1962, used the data the National Sample Survey generated by its household surveys to craft the country&rsquo;s poverty line. </strong><br /><strong>India was a frontrunner in this regard: the United States developed its own poverty line three years later.</strong></li>
<li><strong>With their combined influence on the UN Statistical Commission and the UN Sub-Commission on Statistical Sampling, the Indian Statistical Institute and the National Sample Survey continue to have a lasting impact on estimating poverty across the developing world.</strong></li>
<li><strong>Methods pioneered by the National Sample Survey have become the norm for household surveys across the globe.</strong> For example, the Living Standard Measurement Study surveys conducted in several countries by the World Bank can trace their lineage back to the work of Indian statisticians associated with the Indian Statistical Institute and the National Sample Survey.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Conclusion</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>This distinguished history, which India can claim with pride, makes the recent undermining of the credibility of our statistical output especially regrettable.</strong></li>
<li>We can, however, ensure that when we look back on <g class="gr_ gr_66 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Grammar multiReplace" id="66" data-gr-id="66">this several years</g> from now, it represents an anomaly rather than a lasting, irreparable loss of institutional credibility.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/statistical-institutions-india-upsc-gktoday-data-national-statistical-commission-mahalanobis-indian-statistical-institute'
	],
	(int) 14 => [
		'title' => 'Water on Asteroid Bennu',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>Recent, observations by <strong>NASA's OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer)&nbsp;</strong>spacecraft has found that the asteroid Bennu has lots of accessible water.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>OSIRIS-REx mission had arrived at asteroid Bennu after a two-year journey in December 2018.</li>
<li>OSIRIS-REx was launched from Cape Canaveral, Florida on September 8, 2016.</li>
<li>The OSIRIS-REx mission is not the first to ever visit an asteroid and attempt a sample return &mdash; Japan has done<a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/hayabusa-2-1" target="_blank" rel="noopener">(Hayabusa Mission)</a> it before and Europe (Rosetta Mission) has managed to land on a comet.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Rosetta Mission</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Rosetta Mission was launched by the European Space Agency in 2004 to explore&nbsp;Comet 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and to study the nucleus of the comet and its environment.</li>
<li>Rosetta was the first mission ever to orbit a comet&rsquo;s nucleus and land a probe on its surface. It was also the first spacecraft to fly alongside a comet as it head towards the inner Solar System</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Mission</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Mission <strong>aims to study asteroid Bennu, collect a sample and return it to Earth in 2023.</strong></li>
<li>The mission will spend 2.5 years, mapping its surface and studying its composition.</li>
<li>In mid-2020, scientists will direct Osiris-Rex to drop down to the asteroid and grab at least 60g of regolith, or "topsoil".</li>
<li>This will be packed away in a sterile capsule to be returned to earth in 2023.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Mission Objective</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The OSIRIS-REx name is an acronym of the mission objectives, which are:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>Origins:</strong> Return and analyze a pristine carbon-rich asteroid sample</li>
<li><strong>Spectral Interpretation:</strong> Provide ground truth or direct observations for telescopic data of the entire asteroid population</li>
<li><strong>Resource Identification:</strong> Map the chemistry and mineralogy of a primitive carbon-rich asteroid</li>
<li><strong>Security:</strong> Measure the effect of sunlight on the orbit of a small asteroid, known as the Yarkovsky effect. This effect is the slight push created when the asteroid absorbs sunlight and re-emits that energy as heat, could change the trajectory of asteroids.</li>
<li><strong>Regolith Explorer:</strong> Document the regolith (layer of loose, outer material) at the sampling site at scales down to the sub-centimeter</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Significance of Mission</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Origins of the Solar System</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>In order to understand the origin and evolution of the solar system.</li>
<li>As Earth formed, and afterward, objects like Bennu may have delivered the molecules of carbon and water to our planet. By studying Bennu, we can better understand how life originated on earth.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Protecting Earth</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Bennu is one of the most potentially hazardous asteroids currently known to Earth. Bennu has a 1‐in‐2,700 chance of impacting earth during one of its close approaches to Earth in the late 22nd century.</li>
<li>Close observations by OSIRIS-REx will help get more information about Bennu's journey and help scientists working on safeguarding our planet against hazardous asteroids.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Mining, LaunchPad, and Future Explorations</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The recent discovery of water will help to explore the possibility of using asteroids as refueling stations for spacecraft on the way to deeper destinations in space.
<ul style="list-style-type: disc;">
<li>As water can be split into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen which can be used as fuel in rockets.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Water could also be harvested for providing water to astronauts.</li>
<li>Asteroids contain a range of valuable minerals, there is a possibility of mining asteroids in the future.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>About Bennu</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The asteroid was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey on September 11, 1999.</li>
<li>It was originally named as 1999 RQ36.</li>
<li>The name Bennu comes from an Egyptian deity related to the Sun, often depicted as a gray heron.</li>
<li>Bennu is a 500-meter wide asteroid in an elliptical orbit around the sun. It is a carbonaceous asteroid composition including a large amount of carbon.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Why Bennu?</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>It's close to Earth</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Bennu&rsquo;s orbit is close in proximity to Earth's, even crossing it. The asteroid makes its closest approach to Earth every 6 years.</li>
<li>It also circles the Sun nearly in the same plane as Earth, which makes it simple to launch the spacecraft out of Earth's plane and into Bennu's plane.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>It's the right size</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Small asteroids, with diameters of 200 meters or less, spin very fast. This rapid spinning makes it difficult for a spacecraft to match an asteroid's velocity and collect samples.</li>
<li>Bennu's size makes it approachable and makes landing possible.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/water-on-asteroid-bennu'
	],
	(int) 15 => [
		'title' => 'UN World Happiness Report- 2019',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<p>The<strong> Sustainable Development Solutions Network for the United Nations</strong> released the <strong>World Happiness Report on March 20</strong>, which was designated as the <strong>World Happiness Day by the UN General Assembly in 2012.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This is UN&rsquo;s <strong>seventh annual World Happiness Report</strong>, which ranks the world&rsquo;s 156 countries on<strong> &ldquo;how happy their citizens perceive themselves to be&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li>The focus of report was- "<strong>Happiness and Community: how happiness has been changing over the past dozen years, and how information technology, governance and social norms influence communities"</strong></li>
<li>The report ranks countries on <strong>six key variables</strong> that support well-being:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Income,</li>
<li>Freedom to make life choices,</li>
<li>Trust,</li>
<li>Healthy life expectancy,</li>
<li>Social support and</li>
<li>Generosity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>The happiness study ranks the countries of the world on the basis of<strong> questions from the Gallup World Poll.</strong> The results are then correlated with other factors, including GDP and social security.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Findings</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The overall world happiness has<strong> fallen over the past few years,</strong> which has mostly been fuelled by a sustained drop in India, which came in <strong>140<sup>th</sup> place this year (2019)</strong> compared with <strong>133<sup>rd</sup> in 2018.</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>There has been an <strong>increase in negative emotions, including worry, sadness and anger.</strong></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>India featured in the five countries that had the<strong> largest drop since 2008</strong> in the index, along with Yemen, Syria, Botswana and Venezuela.</li>
<li>The list is <strong>topped by Finland for the second year in a row</strong> followed by<strong> Denmark, Norway, Iceland and the Netherlands.</strong></li>
<li>Among India's neighbouring countries, <strong>Pakistan is ranked 67<sup>th</sup>, Bangladesh 125th, Bhutan 95<sup>th</sup>, Sri Lanka 130<sup>th</sup> and China is placed at 93<sup>rd</sup>.</strong></li>
<li>People in war-torn <strong>South Sudan are the most unhappy</strong> with their lives, followed by <strong>Central African Republic (155), Afghanistan (154), Tanzania (153) and Rwanda (152).</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN),<strong> launched in 2012</strong>, mobilizes global scientific and technological expertise to promote practical problem solving for the<a href="/loksabha-rajyasabha-discussions/in-depth-indias-sustainable-development-goals" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> <strong>Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)</strong> </a>and the <a href="/to-the-points/paper3/cop24" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><strong>Paris Climate Agreement.</strong></a></li>
<li>It was established under the auspices of the <strong>United Nations Secretary-General.</strong></li>
<li>The <strong>SDSN and the Bertelsmann Stiftung</strong> have been publishing the annual<strong> SDG Index &amp; Dashboards Global Report since 2016.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/un-world-happiness-report-2019'
	],
	(int) 16 => [
		'title' => 'Important Facts For Prelims (22nd March 2019)',
		'catname' => 'News Analysis',
		'desc' => '<h3>Super Worm Equinox Moon</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The<strong> last supermoon of the year has coincided with the Spring Equinox.</strong> The phenomenon is generally known as &lsquo;Super Worm Equinox Moon&rsquo;.</li>
<li><strong>The full moon of the March is the third supermoon of the year,</strong> following a <a href="/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-21st-january-2019" target="_blank" rel="noopener">super blood wolf moon</a> on January 21<sup>st</sup> and a super snow moon on February 19<sup>th</sup>.</li>
<li><strong>The full moon is also known as the worm moon</strong> in some parts of the world. It is called so because, in cold climates, the ground begins to warm up at this point and earthworms appear.</li>
<li>When the moon is at its closest point to the earth, it is called &lsquo;perigee&rsquo; and when a full moon coincides with a perigee, it is called Supermoon.</li>
<li>The<strong> Equinox is the moment</strong> when the <strong>length of day and night become equal</strong> and the <strong>sun&rsquo;s rays fall directly on the earth&rsquo;s equator.</strong> The phenomenon happens <strong>twice a year&ndash; once as autumn equinox in September and the other in March as spring equinox or vernal equinox.</strong></li>
</ul>
<h3>LightSail2</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The <strong>LightSail 2</strong> is a project to demonstrate controlled solar sailing using a miniature CubeSat satellite.</li>
<li>It will be launched from the Kennedy Space Center, Florida, US in April 2019.</li>
<li>LightSail 2 is the<strong> second of three satellites</strong> built to demonstrate the <strong>feasibility of powering a spacecraft using solar radiation.</strong></li>
<li>This mission is designed to see if LightSail can move into higher orbits around the Earth using <strong>only photons from the sun to push it along.</strong></li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Solar Sailing</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Solar sails (also called light sails or photon sails) are a proposed method of spacecraft propulsion using radiation pressure exerted by sunlight on large mirrors.</li>
</ul>
<h3><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577337435_image49.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/1577337435_image49.png" width="458" caption="false" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></h3>
</div>
<h3>Fall Armyworms</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>&lsquo;Fall armyworms&rsquo;</strong> are <strong>native to the Americas</strong> but they have been moving eastwards since 2016, sweeping across Africa, where they caused $1-3 billion in damage, before arriving in Asia.</li>
<li>The flying insects<strong> arrived in India</strong> in July and have since spread to Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand and China's Yunnan province.</li>
<li>Farming in several Asian countries is under threat from a type of crop-damaging insects that have munched their way from the Americas and across Africa</li>
<li>They <strong>feed mostly on maize, for which China is the world's second-largest producer,</strong> and can feed on several species of crops, including rice and sugarcane.</li>
<li>FAO meeting in Bangkok with officials from affected countries and experts for discussing ways to limit armyworm infestations amid a <strong>&ldquo;growing sense of alarm&rdquo;.</strong></li>
<li>FAO is working with local authorities and training farmers to manage the pests by crushing egg masses and using biopesticides.</li>
<li>Chemical pesticides are an option but should be carefully considered due to environmental and health damages.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Food and Agriculture Organization is an <strong>agency of the United Nations</strong> that leads international efforts to defeat hunger.</li>
<li>FAO is also a source of knowledge and information and helps developing countries and countries in transition modernize and improve agriculture, forestry and fisheries practices, ensuring good nutrition and food security for all.</li>
<li><strong>Formation: 16 October 1945, in Quebec City, Canada</strong></li>
<li><strong>Headquarters: Rome, Italy</strong></li>
<li>Every year, <strong>World Food Day (Theme for 2018- Zero Hunger) is celebrated on October 16</strong> to commemorate the founding of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of United Nations in the year 1945.</li>
<li>The <strong>Sustainable Development Goal (SDG-2) also aims to &ldquo;End hunger, achieve food security and improved nutrition and promote sustainable agriculture&rdquo; by 2030.</strong></li>
</ul>
</div>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-analysis/important-facts-for-prelims-22nd-march-2019'
	],
	(int) 17 => [
		'title' => 'Electric Vehicles (EVs)',
		'catname' => 'Paper 3',
		'desc' => '<h3>Why in News</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Recently Union Cabinet approved setting up of a <strong>&lsquo;National Mission on Transformative Mobility</strong> <strong>and Battery Storage'</strong> to promote clean, connected, shared, sustainable and holistic mobility initiatives.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Electric Vehicles (EVs)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>An electric vehicle, uses one or more electric motors or traction motors for propulsion.</li>
<li>An electric vehicle may be powered through self-contained battery, solar panels or an electric generator to convert fuel to electricity.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Need for EVs in India</h3>
<p><strong>Climate change</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Problem of rapid global temperature increase has created the need for a reduction in the use of fossil fuels and the associated emissions.</li>
<li>India has committed to cutting its GHG emissions intensity by 33% to 35% percent below 2005 levels by 2030.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Rapid urbanization</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Economic development leads to rapid urbanization in emerging nations as rural populations move non-agricultural sectors in cities creating environmental problems.</li>
<li>According to a recent study by WHO, India is home to 14 out of 20 most polluted cities in the world. EVs will help in tackling this problem by reducing local concentrations of pollutants in cities.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Energy security</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>India imports oil to cover over 80 percent of its transport fuel.</li>
<li>EVs can reduce dependence on imported crude oil promoting India&rsquo;s energy security.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Innovation </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It will encourage cutting edge technology in India through adoption, adaptation, and research and development.</li>
<li>EVs manufacturing capacity will promote global scale and competitiveness.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Employment</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Promotion of EVs will facilitate employment growth in a sun-rise sector.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Clean and Low carbon Energy</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The shift towards renewable energy sources has led to cost reduction from better electricity generating technologies. This has introduced the possibility of clean, low-carbon and inexpensive grids.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Cutting edge Battery Technology</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Advances in battery technology have led to higher energy densities, faster charging and reduced battery degradation from charging. Combined with the development of motors with higher rating and reliability, these improvements in battery chemistry have reduced costs and improved the performance and efficiency of electric vehicles.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Challenges for EV Industry in India</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Lack of a stable policy for EV production:</strong> EV production is capital intensive sector requiring long term planning to break even and profit realization, uncertainty in government policies related to EV production discourages investment in the industry.</li>
<li><strong>Technological challenges:</strong> India is technologically deficient in the production of electronics that form the backbone of EV industry, such as batteries, semiconductors, controllers, etc.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of associated infrastructural support:</strong> The lack of clarity over AC versus DC charging stations, grid stability and range anxiety (fear that battery will soon run out of power) are other factors that hinder the growth of EV industry.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of availability of materials for domestic production:</strong> Battery is single most important component of EVs. India does not have any known reserve of lithium and cobalt which are required for battery production. India is dependent on countries like Japan and China for the import of lithium-ion batteries.</li>
<li><strong>Lack of skilled workers:</strong> EVs have higher servicing costs and higher levels of skills is needed for servicing. India lacks dedicated training courses for such skill development.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Government Initiatives</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Government has set a target of electric vehicles making up 30 % of new sales of cars and two-wheelers by 2030 from less than 1% today.</li>
<li>To build a sustainable EV ecosystem initiatives like &ndash; <strong>National Electric Mobility Mission Plan (NEMMP) and Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &amp;) Electric vehicles in India (FAME India)</strong> have been launched by India.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>NEMMP:</strong> It was launched in 2013 with an aim to achieve national fuel security by promoting hybrid and electric vehicles in the country. There is an ambitious target to achieve 6-7 million sales of hybrid and electric vehicles year on year from 2020 onwards.</li>
<li><strong>FAME:</strong> FAME India Scheme [Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &amp;) Electric Vehicles in India] was launched in 2015 with the objective to support hybrid/electric vehicles market development and manufacturing ecosystem. The scheme has 4 focus areas i.e. <strong>Technology Development, Demand Creation, Pilot Projects and Charging Infrastructure</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Organization like Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS), Department of Heavy Industry, Automotive Research Association of India are devising design and manufacturing standards of EVs, Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSEs) &amp; charging infrastructure to smoothen the advent of in-house production of EVs.</li>
</ul>
<h3>FAME II</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Phase-II of FAME seeks to give a push to EVs in public transport and seeks to encourage adoption of EVs by way of <strong>market creation</strong> and <strong>demand aggregation</strong>.</li>
<li>It envisages the <strong>holistic growth of EV industry,</strong> including providing for charging infrastructure, research and development of EV technologies and push towards greater indigenization.</li>
<li><strong>Establishment of Charging stations</strong> are also proposed on major highways connecting major city clusters on both sides of the road at an interval of about 25 km each.</li>
<li>The scheme with total outlay of Rs 10,000 Crores over the period of three years will be implemented with effect from 1st April 2019.</li>
<li>FAME 2 will offer incentives to manufacturers, who invest in developing electric vehicles and its components, including lithium-ion batteries and electric motors.</li>
<li>The centre has asked states to frame their EV policy and provide additional fiscal and non-fiscal incentives to manufacturers and buyers.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>National Mission on Transformative Mobility and Battery Storage</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>To promote clean, connected, shared, sustainable and holistic mobility initiatives.</li>
<li>The Mission will drive mobility solutions that will bring in significant benefits to the industry, economy and country.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Phased Manufacturing Programme </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Valid for 5 years till 2024 to support setting up of a few large-scale, export-competitive integrated batteries and cell-manufacturing Giga plants in India.</li>
<li>Creation of a PMP valid for 5 years till 2024 to <strong>localize production</strong> across the entire Electric Vehicles value chain.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Education curriculum and skill development plans should be upgraded to match the requirements of the sectors.</li>
<li>Stabilizing policy environment by working on tax incentives, non-fiscal incentives can address the uncertainty of demand helping the industry to achieve economies of scale.</li>
<li>EVs are rapidly growing sunrise sector which can give push to &lsquo;Make in India&rsquo;.</li>
<li>Signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with countries rich in materials like Lithium, rare earth materials etc. to deal with lack of availability of these materials.</li>
<li>Establishing the right coordination among three pillars of EV industry i.e. urban planning, transportation and power sectors will assist in systematic adoption of EVs.</li>
<li>Affordable, accessible, inclusive and safe mobility solutions are primary strategic levers for rapid economic development and improving &lsquo;Ease of Living&rsquo;.</li>
</ul>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/to-the-points/paper3/electric-vehicles-evs'
	],
	(int) 18 => [
		'title' => 'On The Learning Curve',
		'catname' => 'News Editorials',
		'desc' => '<div class="border-bg">
<p>(This editorial is based on the article <a href="https://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/on-the-learning-curve/article26583825.ece" target="_blank" rel="noopener">'On The Learning Curve'</a> which appeared in &lsquo;The Hindu&rsquo; on 20th March, 2019. The article talks about the challenges faced by the educational sector and the ways in which education outcomes can be changed in India.)</p>
</div>
<p>Among the lakhs of employees on the payrolls of State governments in India, the education department, unarguably, has the largest share of employees. Besides frontline service providers (teachers), there are a number of other officials and administrators who form an important part of the educational set-up.</p>
<p>However India even after the concerted efforts in the 70 years of independence has not been able to reap out the desired result in the educational field which is affected by institutional problems.</p>
<h3>The Challenges Affecting India&rsquo;s Education Dynamic</h3>
<p>The blatant politicisation of academia has resulted in universities becoming monoliths of political correctness instead of spaces where diverse ideas and genuine contestation can flourish.</p>
<p>Education transformation programmes by States run the risk of falling flat, as they are often unaccompanied by a single transformation change road map and all stakeholders are not taken into consideration while formulating a policy.</p>
<p>The marginalisation of merit has had its own set of consequences where quest for excellence has given way to catering to the lowest common denominator and has bred nepotism in the education sector.</p>
<p>Quality remains a huge challenge in higher education in India. Very few Indian institutions feature in the top 200 world rankings.</p>
<p>Bulk of the enrolment in higher education is handled by state universities and their affiliated colleges. However, these state universities receive very small amounts of grants in comparison. Nearly 65% of the University Grants Commission (UGC) budget is utilised by the central universities and their colleges while state universities and their affiliated colleges get only the remaining 35%.</p>
<p>Education sector suffers from shortage of resources in form of teachers; professors etc. According to UGC, out of the total sanctioned teaching posts, 35% professor posts, 46% associate professor posts and 26% assistant professor posts are vacant.</p>
<p>At present, there is no mechanism for ensuring the accountability and performance of professors in universities and colleges. This is unlike foreign universities where the performance of college faculty is evaluated by their peers and students.</p>
<p>The education sector also suffers from lack of employable skills in students of technical education, has also been observed. Outdated curriculum results in a mismatch between education and job market requirements, dampens students&rsquo; creativity and hampers the development of their analytical abilities.</p>
<p>Accreditation of higher educational institutions needs to be at the core of the regulatory arrangement in higher education. Further, quality assurance agencies should guarantee basic minimum standards of technical education to meet the industry demand for quality manpower. The National Board of Accreditation should act as a catalyst towards quality enhancement and quality assurance of higher technical education.</p>
<h3>The Path To Universal Education</h3>
<p>Any effort to introduce education reforms must ensure that the incentives of all stakeholders are aligned throughout the system to ensure their participation.</p>
<p>Inducing competition among administrative units helps invigorate key stakeholders to work in synchronisation in order to achieve intended outcomes. Competition also makes abstract goals such as &lsquo;learning outcomes&rsquo; more real by defining exact &lsquo;actionable&rsquo; metrics on which improvement is desired.</p>
<p>Political commitment to improving the quality of education backed by strong review and monitoring mechanisms can spur meaningful activity in States.</p>
<p>Most importantly, there should be constant focus on recognising and disseminating best practices of States, which not only act as a reward for well-performing local administrations but also provides impetus to other districts to adopt similar measures.</p>
<p>Most of the state universities suffer from lack of funding and remain in need of resources and therefore mobilisation of funds in state universities should be explored through other means such as endowments, contributions from industry, alumni, etc.</p>
<p>System of performance audit of professors based on the feedback given by their students and colleagues should be set up. Other inputs like research papers, publications by teachers should be added in the performance audit in due course of time.</p>
<h3>Novel Steps Towards Realising The Dream</h3>
<p><strong>Saksham Scheme</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The scheme is a novel step taken by Haryana government.</li>
<li>State officials nominate their block for the &lsquo;Saksham Ghoshna&rsquo; once they are reasonably confident that their block has achieved the 80% target &mdash; as a result of remedial programmes, teacher training and internal assessments.</li>
<li>Self-nomination is then followed by rigorous rounds of third party assessments to vet their claims.</li>
<li>If a block is found to be 'Saksham', the block officials are recognised by no less than the Chief Minister.</li>
<li>When all blocks in a district are declared as &lsquo;Saksham&rsquo;, the entire district is also accorded 'Saksham' status.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>'School Education Quality Index' (SEQI)</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>NITI Ayog has created a state-level<strong> &lsquo;School Education Quality Index&rsquo; (SEQI),</strong> which seeks to make improvements in learning outcomes a focal point of governance.</li>
<li>It gives scores to States based on their educational performance and puts this data out in the public domain.</li>
<li>The ranking not only encourages competition among States but also rewards and motivates other States to consistently improve.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Way Forward</h3>
<p>States need to induce competition and give a boost to put all key actors in education in the driver&rsquo;s seat to improve their learning levels. Right incentive structures for stakeholders lead to administrative efficiency, which then improves the quality of service delivery.</p>
<p>Improvement in learning outcomes remains an immediate goal for India to fulfil its aspirations of playing a greater role in the global economy and a systemic transformation is the best solution towards achieving it.</p>',
		'postdate' => object(Cake\I18n\FrozenTime) {},
		'url' => 'https://www.drishtiias.com/daily-updates/daily-news-editorials/on-the-learning-curve'
	],
	(int) 19 => [
		'title' => 'Living Planet Report 2018: Aiming Higher by WWF',
		'catname' => 'Summary of Important Reports',
		'desc' => '<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 1- Why Biodiversity matters?</h1>
<h3></h3>
<h3>The importance of nature in our lives</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Humans have evolved, grown and thrived, in nature. Modern human society needs the resources of nature to thrive. Perception that nature is &lsquo;nice to have&rsquo; and its protection is secondary to the more important tasks of increasing economic growth, creating jobs, enhancing the competitiveness of industry etc is inherently wrong.</li>
<li>However this perception is changing slowly, at global level companies and governments are now signaling their intention to adopt more integrated approaches.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Nature is of incalculable importance to our health, wealth, and security. </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Medical treatments have been inspired by wild species, from painkillers to treatments for heart conditions and from cancer cures to remedies for high blood pressure.</li>
<li>Being in natural areas improves our physical wellbeing, through encouraging outdoor exercise.</li>
<li>Our nutritional requirement rely one way or the other on natural system.</li>
<li>Nature is crucial in replenishing freshwater that underpins all the economic activity.</li>
<li>While it is sometimes easy to assume that water security is assured primarily via dams, reservoirs, treatment works and distribution networks, it is in the end nature that replenishes the freshwater that underpins all economic activity.</li>
<li>Nature will play an essential role in helping human societies cope with the inevitable consequences of rising global temperatures.</li>
<li>Wildlife is increasingly being used for <strong>bio-mimicry,</strong> engineers and designers use solutions honed by natural selection to meet challenges in the human world.</li>
</ul>
<h3>The importance of nature to the world&rsquo;s economies</h3>
<p>Nature is important as it supplies from raw material, water, food, medicines and energy, to the pollination of crops, formation of soils and protection from floods, storms and erosion.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The planet&rsquo;s natural systems provide a range of vital services that underpin production, trade, livelihoods and consumption in every country.</li>
<li>However nature should not only be looked as a supplier of raw materials but its social, cultural, spiritual and religious significance should also be recognized.</li>
<li>IPBES (intergovernmental science policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services) an organization established to assess the state of biodiversity and the ecosystem services it provides to society in 2018.</li>
<li>According to the several assessments by the Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), culture plays the central role in defining all links between people and nature.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The IPBES Conceptual Framework &ndash; which underpins all its assessments and syntheses &ndash; calls this much broader notion <strong>Nature&rsquo;s Contribution to People (NCP)</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>All our food, in the end, relies one way or another on natural systems, including the complex ecological relationships that enable soils to support plant growth.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>About 87% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals 8, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35% of global food production 9.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>Globally it is estimated that nature approximately provides services worth 25 trillion dollars annually.</li>
<li>In every region, biodiversity and nature&rsquo;s capacity to contribute to people is being degraded, reduced and lost due to a number of common pressures &ndash;
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>habitat stress</li>
<li>overexploitation and unsustainable use of natural resources</li>
<li>air, land and water pollution</li>
<li>increasing numbers and impact of invasive alien species</li>
<li>and climate change</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>changing planetary conditions are increasingly linked to major socio-economic disruptions.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/433drishti_ias_image1.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/433drishti_ias_image1.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>The Great Acceleration</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Great Acceleration is the unique ongoing event with exploding human population and economic growth driving unprecedented planetary change through the increased demand for energy, land and water.</li>
<li>This human being-induced change is being seen as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.</li>
<li>There has been an exponential rise in health, knowledge and standard-of-living improvements but all this has come at a huge cost to the stability of the natural systems.</li>
<li>The impact of Great Acceleration now interferes profoundly with Earth&rsquo;s atmosphere, ice sheets, ocean, forests, land and biodiversity.</li>
<li>Earth is losing biodiversity at a rate seen only during mass extinctions.</li>
<li>In the last 50 years, global average temperature has risen at 170 times the background rate 31. Ocean acidification may be occurring at a rate not seen in at least 300 million years.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 2 - The threats and pressures wiping out our world</h1>
<p><br /><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/683drishti_ias_image8.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/683drishti_ias_image8.png" width="769" height="651" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>Threats old and new</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The main drivers of biodiversity decline are <strong>overexploitation of species, agriculture and land conversion</strong>. The two factors are driven by spiraling human consumption.</li>
<li><strong>Invasive species</strong> are also a frequent threat, their spread relying heavily on trade-related activities such as shipping.</li>
<li><strong>Pollution and disturbance,</strong> for example through agricultural pollution, dams, fires and mining, are additional sources of pressure.</li>
<li><strong>Climate change</strong> is playing a growing role and is already beginning to have an effect at an ecosystem, species and even genetic level.</li>
<li>Since 1970s our <strong>Ecological Footprint &ndash; a measure of our consumption of natural resources &ndash;</strong> has increased by about 190.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Runaway Consumption </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The ability of ecosystems to renew themselves is called <strong>biocapacity</strong>.</li>
<li>Together <strong>biocapacity and ecological footprint</strong> provide an empirical basis for determining whether humanity is living within the means of our planet.</li>
<li>Biocapacity has increased by 27% due to changed technologies and land management practices.</li>
<li>However it has not kept pace with the human consumption which has increased 190% over the same period.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Ecological Footprint of Consumption</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Prior to the explosive population growth of the 20th century, humanity&rsquo;s rate of consumption was much smaller than the Earth&rsquo;s rate of renewal.</li>
<li>As a result, prevailing economic models are based on growth, very rarely taking resource limitations into account. But this simplification is no longer viable.</li>
<li>Ecological Footprint accounting tracks human demand on nature by quantifying the biologically productive area required to meet all these competing demands, including food, fiber, timber, accommodation of roads and buildings, and sequestration of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel burning.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p><strong>The demand covers six area types</strong><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/342drishti_ias_image3.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/342drishti_ias_image3.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<p><strong>Integrating data to connect consumers to their impacts</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>To look deeper into production-related impacts on the environment, the mapping and monitoring of supply chains is crucial to identify and understand how global consumption drives environmental impacts.</li>
<li>Supply chains are the link between the driving forces of environmental change, like consumption activities, and the pressures these impose (such as land-use change), the state of the environment and the resulting impacts (for example, species loss).</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Facts and terms</strong></p>
<p><strong>European Commission&rsquo;s Copernicus Satellite Programme,</strong> provide unprecedented capabilities to monitor changes in land cover globally, and at high spatial and temporal resolution. For example, the two Sentinel-2 satellites, launched in 2015 and 2017, survey the entire Earth&rsquo;s land surface (bar the poles) every five days at a resolution of between 10m and 60m.</p>
<p><strong>Global Forest Watch</strong> is an online platform that provides near real-time information about how forests are changing around the world and includes capabilities for companies to assess impacts associated with the production of the commodities they include in their products.</p>
<p><strong>Rotterdam Effect:</strong> Some materials are imported into one country, and then processed or simply transferred from one ship to another, and then exported again. Known as the &lsquo;Rotterdam Effect&rsquo; after the busiest port in Europe, this can lead to errors in accurately linking goods to their true origin.</p>
<p><strong>Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) models</strong> offer one approach to approximating consumer dependence on direct and embedded materials. MRIO datasets describe spending between sectors and economies, and by final consumers.</p>
</div>
<h3>Choice and Change: The impacts of consumption</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The way our supply chains are structured, the materials they use, how these are extracted and manufactured, and the consumption choices we make have a myriad of impacts on the world around us. Using different datasets helps us to map these out and understand the consequences of our choices.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong></p>
<p>Supply chains are the link between the driving forces of environmental change, like consumption activities, and the pressures these impose (such as land-use change), the state of the environment and the resulting impacts (for example, species loss).</p>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Human activities associated with the production or harvesting of food, fiber and energy from terrestrial ecosystems have enormous impacts on biodiversity.</li>
<li>Different types of land use affect the balance between wild and domesticated species, the size and quality of habitats, and the non-living chemical and physical parts of the environment that affect living organisms and the functioning of ecosystems.</li>
<li><strong>Direct biodiversity loss</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Agriculture accounts for the lion&rsquo;s share of the conversion of forested land.</li>
<li>Decreases in forest area and forest quality both impact the plants and animals living within them.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Disruption of habitats</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>The degree of forest fragmentation is a major threat to biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision.</li>
<li>It is estimated that in 70% of the forest masses of the world, <strong>a forest edge</strong> can be found within a mean distance of less than 1 km.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Note:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Edge effects are changes in population or community structures that occur at the boundary of two or more habitats.</li>
<li>Areas with small habitat fragments exhibit especially pronounced edge effects that may extend throughout the range.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>This has huge implications for habitat structure and quality; forest recolonization and the disruption of corridors for wildlife dispersal; forest microclimate and hydrology</li>
<li>Fragmentation can also make forests more accessible to people, increasing the pressure on forest resources.</li>
</ul>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Pollution and degradation of the environment</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Excessive use of synthetic agricultural inputs such as pesticides, antibiotics, hormones and fertilizers are associated with declines in soil and aquatic biodiversity.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Disruption of ecosystem functions</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Ecosystems such as forests play an important role in reducing disaster risks, mitigating some of the most acute effects of climate change.</li>
<li>When such natural infrastructures are lost, people exposed to natural hazards such as floods, storms and landslides tend to migrate and settle in new areas resulting in further pressure on nature and biodiversity loss.</li>
<li>Pesticide use results in critical reductions in pollinator numbers and performance reducing agricultural productivity.</li>
<li>About 87% of all flowering plant species are pollinated by animals, and crops that are partially pollinated by animals account for 35% of global food production.</li>
<li>Human activities have important consequences for the abundance and/or richness of soil organisms, particularly through the negative impacts of land-use change and agricultural intensification.</li>
<li>Soil biodiversity is key to sustain food production as it detoxify polluted soils, suppress soil-borne diseases and contribute to the nutritional quality of food.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Land Degradation</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Land degradation is the persistent reduction of the capacity of the land to support both biodiversity and human needs.</li>
<li>It includes the loss of soil; loss of habitat and hydrological function; deforestation; overgrazing and shrub encroachment and drainage and eutrophication in wetlands.</li>
<li>In March 2018, the IPBES released its latest Land Degradation and Restoration Assessment (LDRA), finding that only a quarter of land on Earth is substantively free of the impacts of human activities.</li>
<li>By 2050 this fraction is projected to decline to just a tenth. Wetlands are the most impacted category, having lost 87% of their extent in the modern era.</li>
<li>The immediate causes of land degradation are typically local but the key driver is the growing demand for ecosystem-derived products.</li>
<li>The consequences of land degradation are a complex interaction between degradation, poverty, conflict and the migration of people.</li>
<li>Loss of habitat is the key driver of declining terrestrial biodiversity worldwide, and land degradation is a big contributor to global climate change.</li>
</ul>
<p>Preventing degradation is much cheaper in the long run than permitting it, and then later paying for the impacts and restoration.</p>
<h3>Pollinators</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The majority of flowering plants are pollinated by insects and other animals.</li>
<li>Pollinators are a diverse group, including more than 20,000 species of bees, many other types of insects (e.g. flies, butterflies, moths, wasps and beetles) and even vertebrates such as some birds and bats.</li>
<li>More than 75% of the leading global food crops benefit from pollination. Some of these are key sources of human nutrition.</li>
<li>Changing land use due to agricultural intensification and urban expansion is one of a number of key drivers of pollinator loss.</li>
<li>Improving habitat diversity within the landscape, and the inclusion of non-agricultural habitats within land management plans, has been shown to ameliorate pollinator loss, boost pollinator numbers and improve ecosystem services.</li>
<li>The abundance, diversity and health of pollinators is also threatened by a number of other drivers such as changing climate, invasive species and emerging diseases and pathogens.</li>
<li>What&rsquo;s so special in the soil?</li>
<li>Soil biodiversity encompasses microorganisms (those only visible under microscopes, such as fungi and bacteria).</li>
<li>These organisms influence the physical structure and chemical composition of soils.</li>
<li>They are essential for enabling and regulating critical ecosystem processes such as carbon sequestration, greenhouse gas emissions, and the uptake of nutrients by plants.</li>
<li>They represent a storehouse for potential medical applications as well as new biological controls on pathogens and pests.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The recently published <strong>Global Soil Biodiversity Atlas mapped</strong> for the first time potential threats to soil biodiversity across the globe.</li>
<li>It generated a risk index combining eight potential stressors to soil organisms: <strong>loss of above-ground diversity, pollution and nutrient overloading, overgrazing, intensive agriculture, fire, soil erosion, desertification and climate change</strong>.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<h3>Valuing forests for people and nature</h3>
<p>Forests are among the richest ecosystems. Tropical, temperate and boreal forests cover nearly 30% of the Earth&rsquo;s land area, and yet they are home to more than 80% of all terrestrial species of animals, plants and insects.</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rate of forest area net loss has slowed due to reforestation and the establishment of new plantations, as well as policy and regulatory efforts to reduce forest conversion.</li>
<li>However it remains very high in tropical forests, particularly in some frontier areas in South America, sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia. They are cleared for agriculture, subsistence farming and urban growth.</li>
<li>Using proximity to forest edges as a way of measuring forests&rsquo; vulnerability shows that 60-70% of the world&rsquo;s forests are at risk from the negative effects of human activities, altered microclimate and invasive species.</li>
<li>The pressure on forests from both small- and large-scale agriculture is likely to continue in order to growing demand for fibre and fuel as well as for food.</li>
<li>While part of the increased food supply will originate from growing yields in existing agricultural lands, additional land will be needed.</li>
<li>This will further increase the pressure on tropical forests, thus continuing to threaten priority areas for biodiversity conservation, unless there is a fundamental shift in how forests are valued for the many benefits they provide.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>For example, in addition to providing habitats for animals and livelihoods for people, forests also offer watershed protection, prevent soil erosion and mitigate climate change.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Living Forests report series</h3>
<p>In a series of five <strong>Living Forests Reports,</strong> WWF highlighted areas of forest most vulnerable to deforestation between 2010 and 2030; the report identified 11 deforestation fronts.</p>
<div class="border-bg">
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Living Forests Report is part of an ongoing conversation with partners, policymakers, and businesses about how to protect, conserve, sustainably use, and govern the world&rsquo;s forests in the 21st century.</li>
<li>It is prepared by WWF.</li>
</ul>
</div>
<p>These are places where the largest concentrations of forest loss or severe degradation are projected to occur between 2010 and 2030 under business-as-usual scenarios and without interventions to prevent losses.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/397drishti_ias_image2.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/397drishti_ias_image2.png" width="992" height="318" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<h3>Ocean habitats vital to humanity in steep decline</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The rapid loss of some of the ocean&rsquo;s most productive and species rich habitats like coral reefs, mangroves and seagrasses threatens the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people.</li>
<li><strong>Plastic pollution</strong> is also a growing global problem. <strong>Plastic debris</strong> has been detected in all major marine environments worldwide, from shorelines and surface waters down to the deepest parts of the ocean, even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench.</li>
<li>Billions of people rely on healthy oceans to provide livelihoods, jobs and food and the range of goods and services that flow from coastal and marine environments. Nearly 200 million people depend on coral reefs to protect them from storm surges and waves.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Key habitats that underpin ocean health and productivity are in steep decline:</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Coral reefs</strong> support more than a quarter of marine life but the world has already lost about half of its shallow water corals in only 30 years. If current trends continue, up to 90% of the world&rsquo;s coral reefs might be gone by mid-century.</li>
<li><strong>Tropical seas</strong> overheated by climate change have bleached, damaged and killed coral at unprecedented levels. Prolonged heat led to catastrophic die-off of fast-growing coral species and these were replaced by slower-growing groups that shelter fewer sea creatures.</li>
<li>Other threats to coral reefs include <strong>overfishing, selective fishing and destructive fishing practices,</strong> and <strong>pollution from runoff</strong> which sullies reef waters, compromising coral health.</li>
<li><strong>Mangroves</strong> are a key natural asset for many tropical and subtropical coastlines, providing livelihoods to many millions of coastal families and protecting them from violent storms and coastal erosion.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They sequester nearly five times more carbon than tropical forests and provide nurseries to innumerable juvenile fish species that grow to join wider ocean ecosystems.</li>
<li>Clearing for development as well as <strong>over-exploitation and aquaculture</strong> have contributed to a decline in the extent of mangroves by 30% to 50% over the past 50 years.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Seagrasses</strong> represent important coastal ecosystems that provide critical human benefits including habitat that supports commercial and subsistence fisheries, nutrient cycling, sediment stabilization, and globally significant sequestration of carbon.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>They are threatened directly by <strong>destructive fishing practices, boat propellers, coastal engineering, cyclones, tsunamis and climate change, and indirectly by changes</strong> in water quality due to land run-off. Seagrasses have been disappearing at a rate of 110 km2 per year since 1980.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Plastics in the ocean</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Plastic marine debris ranges from microscopic pieces to larger waste items such as bags, cigarette filters, etc which are the most visible form of plastic pollution.</li>
<li>Plastic debris has been detected in all major marine environments worldwide, from shorelines and surface water down to the deepest parts of the ocean, even at the bottom of the Mariana Trench</li>
<li>Today 90% of the world&rsquo;s seabirds have fragments of plastic in their stomachs compared to only 5% in 1960.</li>
<li>Impacts were found to be greatest at the southern boundary of the Indian, Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, a region thought to be relatively pristine.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Threats and pressures on our source of life</h3>
<p>Freshwater ecosystems contain disproportionately more species per unit area than marine and terrestrial ecosystems. Although they cover less than 1% of the Earth&rsquo;s surface, freshwater habitats are home to more than 10% of known animals and about one-third of all known vertebrate species</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater habitats such as lakes, rivers and wetlands are the source of life for all humans and command high economic value.</li>
<li>They are affected by factors such as <strong>habitat modification, fragmentation and destruction; invasive species; overfishing; pollution; forestry practices; disease; and climate change</strong>.</li>
<li>In many cases, these combined threats have led to catastrophic declines in freshwater biodiversity.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Globally, wetland extent is estimated to have declined by more than 50% since 1900.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>The importance of healthy freshwater ecosystems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater ecosystems are under increasing levels of threat and the trend for freshwater species is alarming.</li>
<li>Freshwater ecosystem health is defined by its water quality and quantity, connectivity to other parts of the system and landscape, habitat condition, and diversity of plant and animal species.</li>
<li>Eutrophication (an enrichment by or excess of nutrients to the water) and toxic pollution are major sources of water quality degradation.</li>
<li>Climate change is exacerbating existing stressors and causing changes in the timing, availability and temperature of waters, affecting the condition of freshwater habitats and the life history of freshwater species.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Connected, flowing rivers: critical for freshwater ecosystems</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>River systems, their floodplains and deltas, are among the most biologically diverse and productive ecosystems on the planet.</li>
<li>They provide the primary source of protein for hundreds of millions of people worldwide. For these economic and ecosystem benefits to be realized, rivers must retain key characteristics and processes.</li>
<li>When natural connectivity and flow are retained the river is called &lsquo;free-flowing&rsquo;.</li>
<li>Infrastructure development &ndash; especially dams &ndash; has caused a dramatic decline in the number of free flowing rivers.</li>
<li>Rivers can both be prevented by the construction of poorly planned dams and ensuring that any dams that are constructed are located and designed to mitigate environmental damage as much as possible.</li>
<li>River protection can also occur via various legal and policy mechanisms.
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li><strong>The Brisbane Declaration and Global Action Agenda on Environmental Flows,</strong> published in 2018, is a clarion call to governments and stakeholders to build on previous successes through widespread implementation of environmental flows through legislation and regulation, water management programmes and research, linked by partnership arrangements involving diverse stakeholders.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h3>Threats through the lens of the Living Planet Index (LPI)</h3>
<p><strong>LPI &ndash; Threats to biodiversity </strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li><strong>Habitat loss and degradation</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This refers to the modification of the environment where a species lives, by complete removal, fragmentation or reduction in quality of key habitat. Common causes are unsustainable agriculture, logging, transportation, fragmentation of rivers and streams etc.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Species Overexploitation:</strong> There are both direct and indirect forms of overexploitation-
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Direct overexploitation refers to unsustainable hunting and poaching or harvesting.</li>
<li>Indirect overexploitation occurs when non-target species are killed unintentionally, for example as by-catch in fisheries.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Pollution</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Pollution can directly affect a species by making the environment unsuitable for its survival. It can also affect a species indirectly, by affecting food availability or reproductive performance.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Invasive species and disease</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Invasive species can compete with native species for space, food and other resources, can turn out to be a predator or spread diseases that were not previously present in the environment.</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Climate change</strong>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The effects of climate change on species are often indirect. Changes in temperature can confound the signals that trigger seasonal events such as migration and reproduction, causing these events to happen at the wrong time.</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Threats to LPI populations around the world</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>All freshwater and terrestrial populations in the global LPI are assigned to one of <strong>five major biogeographic realms,</strong> regions characterized by distinct assemblages of species.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/347drishti_ias_image4.png" width="668" height="178" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>This gives us a better understanding of how biodiversity is changing in different parts of the world and helps us to identify whether different local threat processes are driving these changes.</li>
</ul>
<p>Information about threats is available for just under a quarter &ndash; or 3,789 populations &ndash; in the global LPI. Each population can be associated with up to three different threats. Habitat degradation and loss is consistently the most reported threat in all realms; but there is some variation between realms and taxonomic groups.</p>
<h3>Planetary Boundaries</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Field studies, models, Earth observations and geological evidence have all been used to build an understanding of global change, the capacity of living organisms to adapt to change and the systemic risks when adaptation fails.</li>
<li>The Planetary Boundaries concept is an effort to use this Earth system perspective to provide information on human-driven changes. The concept suggests that the world&rsquo;s societies need to set limits on human-caused disturbances to tightly linked Earth system processes.</li>
<li>It is already a useful integrating framework for illustrating the risks of human interference with the Earth system through our patterns of consumption and production. It presents the idea of a safe zone for critical Earth system processes.</li>
<li>The Planetary Boundaries framework highlights nine critical issues where human activities are reducing the safe operating space:
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Loss of biosphere integrity (the destruction of ecosystems and biodiversity)</li>
<li>Climate change</li>
<li>Ocean acidification</li>
<li>Land-system change</li>
<li>Unsustainable freshwater use</li>
<li>Perturbation of biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere)</li>
<li>Alteration of atmospheric aerosols,</li>
<li>Pollution by novel entities,</li>
<li>Stratospheric ozone depletion</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>People have already pushed at least four of these systems beyond the limit of a safe operating space-biosphere integrity, biogeochemical flows and land-system change. Freshwater use has also passed beyond a safe threshold.</li>
<li>Biosphere integrity plays a critical role in determining the state of the Earth system, regulating its material flows, energy balance, climate, and responses to abrupt and gradual change. It not only interacts with the other planetary boundary categories, but also maintains the overall resilience of the Earth system.</li>
</ul>
<p><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/541drishti_ias_image5.png" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Our changing climate will impact the Earth system in many ways because climate influences the ways that ecosystems on land and below water function and interact with each other.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 3 - Biodiversity in a Changing World</h1>
<p></p>
<h3>Population Indicator: The Living Planet Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Living Planet Index (LPI) is an indicator of the state of global biodiversity and the health of our planet.</li>
<li>Published since 1998, it tracks the population abundance of thousands of mammals, birds, fish, reptiles and amphibians around the world.</li>
<li>The species population data that is collected goes into a global index, as well as indices for more specific bio-geographic areas, referred to as realms, based upon distinct groupings of species.</li>
<li>The 2018 indices include data from 1970 to 2014.</li>
<li>The global index, calculated using available data for all species and regions, shows an overall decline of 60% in the population sizes of vertebrates between 1970 and 2014&ndash; in other words, an average drop of well over half in less than 50 years.</li>
<li>Living Planet Indices &ndash; whether the Global Index or those for a specific realm or species group &ndash; show the average rate of change over time across a set of species populations.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Realm Living Planet Indices</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Populations are in decline in all realms, but declines are especially pronounced in the three tropical realms. The LPI indicates that the Neotropical realm, covering South and Central America, and the Caribbean, has suffered the most dramatic decline at 89% loss compared to 1970. Nearctic and Palearctic populations are faring slightly better with declines of 23% and 31%.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Freshwater Living Planet Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater ecosystems provide habitat for around 1 in 10 known species of fishes, mollusks, reptiles, insects, plants and mammals despite covering less than 1% of the Earth&rsquo;s surface.</li>
<li>These ecosystems are strongly affected by habitat modification, fragmentation and destruction; invasive species; overfishing; pollution; forestry practices; disease; and climate change.</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/368drishti_ias_image7.png" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><img class="content-img" src="http://www.drishtiias.com/images/uploads/368drishti_ias_image7.png" width="519" height="380" style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" /></a></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Freshwater LPI shows 83% decline, equivalent to 4% per year since 1970. The largest declines are seen in the Neotropics (-94%), the Indo-Pacific (-82%) and the Afrotropics (-75%), especially in reptiles and amphibians, and in fishes.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Different Biodiversity Indicators, Same Story</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity is often referred to as the &lsquo;web of life&rsquo;. It is the variety of all living things &ndash; plants, animals and micro-organisms &ndash; and the ecosystems of which they are a part.</li>
<li>It includes diversity within species and between species and can refer to any geographic scale &ndash; from a small study plot to the entire planet.</li>
<li>The biodiversity is shaped by natural processes and, increasingly, by the influence of humans.</li>
<li>Species and the natural systems around us, respond to human pressures and conservation interventions in a variety of ways and there is no single measure to capture all these changes.</li>
<li>Therefore different metrics and indicators are needed to understand biodiversity change as well as to track progress towards biodiversity targets and to devise effective conservation programs.</li>
</ul>
<p>To complement the population-based Living Planet Index and put the trends that it measures in a broader context, the report include an overview of three other biodiversity indicators: <strong>the Species Habitat Index, the IUCN Red List Index,</strong> and the <strong>Biodiversity Intactness Index</strong>.</p>
<h3>Distribution: the Species Habitat Index</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Species Habitat Index, is an aggregate measure of the extent of suitable habitat available for each species to help provide a richer picture of both past and projected future biodiversity change.</li>
<li>This index captures changes in species range and incorporates information about species habitat preferences, habitat fragmentation and climate change.</li>
<li>When used together, species distribution and habitat suitability models can estimate the combined impact of habitat loss and climate change on species, in both the past and the future.</li>
<li>The overall trends in the Species Habitat Index for mammals declined by 22% from 1970 to 2010, with the greatest declines in the Caribbean (&gt;60%).</li>
<li>Other regions with declines of more than 25% were Central America, North-East Asia and North Africa.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Extinction risk: the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Information on life-history traits, population and distribution size and structure, and their change over time is used which is used by Red List assessors to classify species into one of eight categories.</li>
<li>Extinct, Extinct in the Wild, Critically Endangered, Endangered, Vulnerable, Near Threatened, Least Concern or Data Deficient.</li>
</ul>
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<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>A Red List Index value of 1.0 equates to all species within a group qualifying as Least Concern. An index value of 0 equates to all species having gone Extinct.</li>
<li>Currently, the Red List Index is available for five taxonomic groups in which all species have been assessed at least twice: birds, mammals, amphibians, corals and cycads.</li>
<li>Current index values for all groups show declines, indicating that species are moving towards extinction more rapidly.</li>
</ul>
<h3>Composition: the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) estimates how much of a region&rsquo;s originally present biodiversity remains, relative to if the region were still covered with primary vegetation and facing minimal human pressures.</li>
<li>The Index ranges from 100&ndash;0% with 100 representing an undisturbed or pristine natural environment with little to no human footprint.</li>
<li>The most recent global estimates suggest that the BII fell from 81.6% in 1970 to 78.6% in 2014.</li>
<li>Models that focus on tropical and subtropical forest biomes, using finer-scale land-use data, suggest their BII is both lower and declining more rapidly &ndash; from 57.3% in 2001 to 54.9% in 2012.</li>
</ul>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">Chapter 4 - Aiming higher: what future do we want?</h1>
<h3>Bending the curve of biodiversity loss</h3>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Biodiversity has been described as the &lsquo;infrastructure&rsquo; that supports all life on Earth.</li>
<li>The natural systems and biochemical cycles that biological diversity generates allow the stable functioning of our atmosphere, oceans, forests, landscapes and waterways.</li>
<li>The global community in 1992 came together and collectively agreed on the importance of the natural world and their responsibility to protect it.</li>
</ul>
<div class="border-bg">
<p><strong>The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the Aichi Targets</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Initiated - 1992 Rio Earth Summit</li>
<li>First global agreement on the conservation and sustainable use of biological diversity</li>
<li>Came into force in 1993</li>
<li>The CBD sets overall goals and policies with general obligations; the responsibility for achieving these goals rests largely with countries themselves.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Long-term vision:</strong> &ldquo;By 2050, biodiversity is valued, conserved, restored and wisely used, maintaining ecosystem services, sustaining a healthy planet and delivering benefits essential for all people.</p>
<p>To meet this vision the CBD, there are a set of five medium-term strategic goals with 20 targets &ndash; called the <strong>Aichi Targets</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>Goal C - &ldquo;To improve the status of biodiversity by safeguarding ecosystems, species and genetic diversity&rdquo; and includes three targets.</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Target 11 concerns the global coverage of protected areas</li>
<li>Target 12 is directed at the conservation of species</li>
<li>Target 13 concerns the conservation of genetic diversity of cultivated plants, farmed and domesticated animals, and their wild relatives</li>
</ul>
</div>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>However, the continued decline in species shows that we have failed the natural world.</li>
<li>These changes are triggered by spiraling increase in our consumption which interferes profoundly with biodiversity and all the other natural systems.</li>
<li>Today world requires bold and well-defined goals and a credible set of actions to restore the abundance of nature to levels that enable both people and nature to thrive.</li>
<li>Without these changes it is impossible to achieve the targets of SDG 2030s which includes mitigating climate change, adapting to climate impacts, maintaining the quality of soil, air and water, and supporting a resilient basis for the food, fuel etc.</li>
</ul>
<h3>A roadmap for 2020 to 2050</h3>
<p>There are three necessary steps in a roadmap for the post-2020 agenda:</p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Clearly specify the goal for biodiversity recovery,</li>
<li>Develop a set of measurable and relevant indicators of progress,</li>
<li>Agree a suite of actions that can collectively achieve the goal in the required timeframe.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Translate the aspirational vision to an ambitious goal</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Current goals of CBD aims at 2050 and are aspirational in nature but this vision is concrete and achievable enough to be the basis of the goal of a post-2020 agreement on biodiversity.</li>
<li>This will require a new set of targets that aim higher and are effective beyond 2020.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Identify ways to measure progress towards the goal</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>Since the current targets were set, almost a decade ago, so the second step is to identify the best metrics to measure true progress towards the chosen goal.</li>
<li>Measuring progress towards biodiversity targets is very complicated. Biodiversity assessment requires multiple measures at different spatial scales and across different ecological dimensions.</li>
<li>There is a need for indicators that can track three key dimensions of biodiversity necessary for the vision and the goals described here, and in the CBD and SDG targets:-
<ul style="list-style-type: circle;">
<li>Changes in population abundance &ndash;Living Planet Index</li>
<li>Extinction rate on a global scale - Red List Index (RLI)</li>
<li>Changes to local biodiversity using indicators such as the Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII)</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<p>If they are to be used to support concrete global action, there is a need to improve taxonomic representativeness, integration and data coverage.</p>
<p></p>
<h1 style="text-align: center;">The Path Ahead</h1>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>It has been established beyond doubt that humanity&rsquo;s survival depends on our natural systems yet we continue to destroy the health of nature at an alarming rate.</li>
<li>It is important that a new global deal for nature and people should be made &ndash; to bend the curve of biodiversity loss.</li>
<li>It is important to politically escalate political relevance of nature and galvanize a cohesive movement across state and non-state actors to drive change.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>A global deal for nature and people</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>In 2017, scientists published a paper proposing a new &lsquo;Global Deal for Nature&rsquo; as a companion to the Paris Climate Agreement.</li>
<li>It talked about promoting increased habitat protection and restoration, national and eco-region scale conservation strategies, and the empowerment of indigenous peoples to protect their sovereign lands.</li>
<li>Such a deal is essential in addressing the decline in natural systems to achieving the 2030 agenda for Sustainable Development and the Paris Agreement on Climate Change.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Imagining the future: Scenarios and leadership for the future we want</strong></p>
<ul style="list-style-type: square;">
<li>WWF is collaborating with a consortium of almost 40 universities, conservation organizations and intergovernmental organizations to launch the research initiative <strong>Bending the Curve of Biodiversity Loss</strong>.</li>
<li>The initiative will help in identifying potential win-win solutions for both nature and people.</li>
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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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