GS II Topic: Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models, successes, limitations, and potential; citizens charters, transparency & accountability and institutional and other measures.
e-Pashuhaat
The portal was launched on the occasion of birth anniversary of the father of India’s White Revolution Verghese Kurien and National Milk Day to connect farmers with breeders- State, Central, Co-operative, Milk Federations, and private agencies
- It will provide, certified picture of animals, its parents information, breeding, volume of milk given by bovine animal information.
- Besides, it will provide information related to animal fodder varieties, its volume and price.
- It will have real time authentic certified information on availability of germplasm.
- It will facilitate farmers to purchase advanced breed of bovine animals at a reasonable price as per as their requirements.
Significance
- It will act as a single authentic organised market for animals.
- The portal will play important role in increasing income of framers from animal rearing for achieving the goal of doubling farmers’ income by 2022.
- It establishes links between ‘farmer to farmer’ and ‘farmer to institutes’. Thus, it minimises the involvement of middlemen.
- It will create a comparative Farm Network that will facilitate farmers to exchange local knowledge and resources.
India has the largest bovine population in the world. It accounts for 14% of world cattle population, while share for buffalo alone is 53% of which 79% of the cattle are indigenous and 21% are crossbred and exotic varieties. The Indigenous bovine breeds are sturdy and are endowed with quality of heat tolerance, resistance to diseases. They have ability to thrive under extreme climatic conditions and survive with low inputs. However, most of the indigenous are suited for draught animal power as they have low genetic potential for milk production. Rashtriya Gokul Mission’ launched in December 2014 aims at addressing this issue.
Modern RFID Access Control System Introduced at Paradip Port
Paradip Port is the first among all Major Ports to have successfully implemented the RFID Access Control System for controlling and tracking the entry and exit of vehicular as well as human traffic into and out of its prohibited area. The implementation of the system was done as per the directives of the Ministry of Shipping.
Benefits:
- The new RFID system is inherently accompanied with enhanced Maritime Security features.
- Faster and efficient movement of traffic across the gates leading to reduction in congestion, simplified online payment procedure, availability of real-time information on number of different types of vehicles, equipment, port user personnel inside the prohibited area, availability of entry and exit details of a particular person, vehicle inclusive of the gate no. instantly through which the traffic moved, are some of the added advantages of the new system.
- Retrieval of data pertaining to the entire period of time is also another advantage of the system.
What is RFID tagging?
RFID tagging is an ID system that uses small radio frequency identification devices for identification and tracking purposes. An RFID tagging system includes the tag itself, a read/write device, and a host system application for data collection, processing, and transmission.
An RFID tag (sometimes called an RFID transponder) consists of a
- Chip- it hold the information about the physical object to which the chip is attached,
- An antenna- transmits information to reader (e.g. wire house, store shelf etc) through radio waves.
- Memory
RFID tags that contain their own power source are known as active tags. Those without a power source are known as passive tags. A passive tag is briefly activated by the radio frequency (RF) scan of the reader.
GS II Topic: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora.
WHO settles India, EU medicine dispute issue
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has dropped the term ‘counterfeit’ and retained ‘falsified’ to describe medicines of inferior quality.. It settles longstanding India, EU medicine dispute and battle about labelling of drugs. It is considered as a significant victory for the global access to medicines campaign.
What is the issue?
- The above mentioned terms were used interchangeably to confiscate Indian made cheap generic drugs exported to other countries by showing that they were in violation of Intellectual Property Rights (IPR).
- It was also alleged that big pharmaceutical companies were using term ‘counterfeit’ to describe generic medicines and disrupting trade of generic medicines especially from India.
- Even the European Union Free Trade Agreement (EU FTA) was derailed after affordable, safe-to-use generic drugs made in India were confiscated as ‘illegal’ and ‘counterfeit.’
- Between 2008 and 2009, nearly 20 shipments of generic drugs were detained while in transit from India to several developing countries via Europe.
What were the concerns?
Under the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) — the definition of counterfeit was clearly targeted at one particular area. It clearly mentioned that it is wilful infringement of trademark on a commercial scale. However in reality, campaigns and legislation against counterfeit drugs often have nothing to do with concerns about drug quality. The major European and US pharmaceutical companies used these rules for vested interest by limiting competition from generic drugs. They were using increased enforcement of IP laws as a tool to clamp down on the legitimate trade in high-quality generic medicines between developing countries.
Significance of WHO decision
- The adopted definition will use falsified and drops the word counterfeit. The term falsified is much more in line with public health concerns regarding medicines.
- It makes false claims about what they contain or where they are from, that represent a genuine problem. It clarifies that the term ‘counterfeit’ will now be used by member States with respect to protection of IPR.
- Settles a long-standing battle about labelling of drugs as for far too long, genuine generic medicines have been labelled as counterfeit.
- Removes confusion on the much needed attention from the substandard medicines — which is a bigger public health problem for developing countries.
GS III Topic- Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.
Australia’s Great Barrief Reef sees largest coral die-off ever
As per a recently conducted study, a mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef this year killed more corals than ever before. The 2,300-kilometre Great barrier reef in Australia is the world’s biggest.
- Most of the losses in 2016 have occurred in the northern, most-pristine part of the Great Barrier Reef.
- The reef suffered its most severe bleaching in recorded history, due to warming sea temperatures during March and April, with the northern third bearing the brunt.
- Environmentalists have called for Australia to abandon coal mining to help prevent further bleaching disasters.
- Scientists estimate the northern region, which teems with marine life, will take at least 10-15 years to regain lost corals.
About the Great Barrier Reef
- It is the biggest coral reef system in the world composed of over 2,900 individual reefs. It is roughly equal to the size of Italy, Japan.
- It was recorded as a World Heritage site in 1981.
- The reef is located in the Coral Sea, north east of Australia and covers an area of approximately 348,000 sq km.
- It is credited as the world’s biggest single structure made by living organisms and is visible from the outer space
GS III Topic: Disaster and disaster management.
ISRO drones help map disasters in north-east
The Shillong-based North-Eastern Space Applications Centre (NE-SAC) of the Indian Space Research Organisation has tested unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to assess several regional problems, ranging from measuring diseased paddy fields to damage caused by frequent landslides in the north eastern region of the country.
- NE-SAC has taken the initiative for design and assembling of UAVs for various applications. UAVs can perform efficient surveys for disaster-prone or physically inaccessible areas, quick damage assessment of landslides, floods and earthquakes and enable timely relief measures.
- NE-SAC mapped the area affected by landslides along Meghalaya’s life line, NH40. It gave the extent of damage caused to pest-infested paddy fields in Naramari village of Assam.
- Drone-based studies are new and currently confined to few north-eastern States. Data from ISRO’s remote sensing satellites are generally combined with ground-based details. Use of drones cuts much leg work that ground surveyors must take up.
About NESAC:
NE-SAC, located at Umiam (near Shillong), Meghalaya, is a joint initiative of DOS and North Eastern Council to provide developmental support to the North Eastern region using space science and technology.
- The NE centre was started in the year 2000 to provide Space technology-based communication and technology support to the region.
- The centre has the mandate to develop high technology infrastructure support to enable NE states to adopt space technology inputs for their development.
- At present, NE-SAC is providing developmental support by undertaking specific application projects using remote sensing, GIS, satellite communication and conducting space science research
GS II Topic: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources, issues relating to poverty and hunger.
Son has no legal right in parents’ house, can stay at their mercy: HC
In a significant move, the Delhi High Court has ruled that a son cannot claim a right to live in the self-acquired house of his parents and can do so only at their mercy.
Important observations made by the court:
- A son can reside in a self-acquired property of his parents so long as they desire and cannot claim a legal right to stay there, irrespective of his marital status.
- Merely because the parents have allowed him to live in the house when their relations were cordial does not mean they have to bear his burden throughout life.
Background:
The High Court was hearing an appeal against a lower court’s order asking a man and his wife to vacate the first floor of his parents’ property in Delhi.
GS II Topic: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary Ministries and Departments of the Government; pressure groups and formal/informal associations and their role in the Polity.
Even nil vacancies won’t cut backlog: Report
A study ordered by the Supreme Court shows that more judges in the High Courts, or even filling all the vacancies in them, does not necessarily end pendency. The study was conducted by the National Court Management Systems Committee (NCMSC).
The two-year study was commissioned by the court through an order dated August 20, 2014 while hearing Imtiyaz Ahmad versus State of Uttar Pradesh.
- The court had directed the committee to study the recommendations made by the Law Commission of India on pendency and the relation between backlog and judges’ strength.
Highlights of the study:
- The study notes that not a single High Court has been able to eliminate backlog even when vacancies are non-existent or very low (say zero to 20%).
- The study also questions Chief Justice Thakur’s recent observation that 70,000 judges are required to clear pendency.
- The committee says blindly increasing judicial strength with the sole aim to hike the rate of disposal of cases and avoid backlog was skewed logic. In fact, it said, avoiding backlog seems to be the “central and sole objective” of having more judges in the High Courts.
- According to the study, the current method of calculating judges’ strength in High Courts is not scientific or robust, nor has it produced desired results of pendency resolution.
- The report calls for a long-term scientific method to assess the number of judges required in a court. It said judges’ strength should be augmented after calculating the judicial hours required to hear and dispose of cases on the basis of their individual nature and complexity.
Background:
Effective judicial strength has not expanded adequately to meet the rising inflow of cases in the country. In the last five years, the number of new cases filed in the High Courts of India has increased by 24% and pendency by 32%. Yet, effective judge strength has increased only by 8.5%.
Only 49 judges have been added to the effective strength of High Courts in five years in the whole country to deal with 3.72 lakh additional new cases — this means an average of 7,591 cases per new judge — and 7.2 lakh additional pendency at the rate of 14,693 cases per new judge.
Sex Ratio at Birth at decline in India: CRS data
According new data from Civil Registration System ( CRS) released by the Office of the Registrar General of India, Sex Ratio at Birth (SRB) continues to worsen in India. The SRB has declined to 887 in 2014 from 898 in 2013. The ratio has been declining since 2011 when the figure was 909.
- Highest SRB has been reported in Lakshadweep (1043), followed by Andaman and Nicobar Islands (1031) and Arunachal Pradesh (993).
- Lowest SRB has been reported in Manipur (684), Rajasthan (799) and Tamil Nadu (834).
- BIRTH REGISTRATION-The level of registration of births with CRS has been improving. In 2014, it is estimated that 88.8% births were registered, up from 85.6 % in 2013. 16 States/UTs recorded all births. 14 out of 20 major States crossed the 90% level of registration of births in 2014. The new date show that the majority of births in 2014 occurred in an institution i.e. government or private hospital.
- Institutional delivery accounted for 72% of all births. Another 14.1% births were attended by physicians/nurse/midwife. However, around 3.8% of the cases were still attended by an untrained midwife. While 38.7% of the total registered deaths had occurred in institution, 23.3% did not receive any medical attention at the time of death. Only about 8.0% of the deceased received medical attention from qualified allopathic professional.
Facts for Prelims
India hosts golden jubilee celebrations of UNCITRAL in New Delhi
India hosted the golden jubilee (50th anniversary) celebrations of United Nations Commission on International Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in New Delhi.
- UNCITRAL was established by the UN General Assembly (UNGA) in 1966 to promote the progressive unification and harmonisation of international trade law.
- It is the core legal body of the UN system in the field of international trade law. It specialises in reforms in commercial law worldwide for a period of over 40 years.
- India is a founding member of UNCITRAL. India is only one of eight countries which have been a member of UNCITRAL since its inception.
- IT has a membership of 60 States selected from among States Members of the UN. In 2015, India was re-elected for a term of six years (2016-2022).
- Out of total 60 members, 14 are Asian states, 14 are African, 10 Latin American & Caribbean states, 8 Eastern European and 14 Western European and other States.
- These member states are selected to ensure the representation of various geographic, principal economic and legal systems of the world.
National Milk Day:
- November 26 was observed as National Milk Day across the country Day to mark the birth anniversary of Father of the White Revolution Dr. Verghese Kurien.
- The first NMD was observed on 26 November 2014 by all Indian diary sector majors including National Dairy Development Board, Indian Dairy Association along with state level milk federations.
- Verghese Kurien had dedicated his entire life for a cooperative movement which boosted the production of milk in India. Dr Kurien was an Indian social entrepreneur known as the ‘Father of the White Revolution’ for launching Operation flood — the world’s largest agricultural development programme.
- Known as the ‘milkman of India’, Dr Kurien was the founder-Chairman of the National Dairy Development Board (NDDB) from 1965 to 1998, Gujarat Co-operative Milk Marketing Federation Ltd (GCMMF) from 1973 to 2006 and the Institute of Rural Management (IRMA) from 1979 to 2006, which are owned and managed by farmers and run by professionals.
- India ranks first in milk production, accounting for 18.5 % of world production, achieving an annual output of 146.3 million tonnes during 2014-15
- The per capita availability of milk in India has increased from 176 grams per day in 1990-91 to 322 grams per day by 2014-15. It is more than the world average of 294 grams per day during 2013.
PM Narendra Modi launches Indian Police at Your Call mobile app
Minister Narendra Modi recently had launched the ‘Indian Police at Your Call’ mobile app at a national police conference held in Hyderabad. The app is a GIS Map based interface for the citizens to locate police stations near to their current location so that they can easily reach the police station in case of emergency.
- The app was developed by Nation Information Centre (NIC).
- It was launched as part of the Digital India initiative aimed at the safety and security of the citizen anytime anywhere.
- The app provides the names of the police stations, distance from the place where you are and how much time it will take to reach police station one wants to go to.
- It provides the police station number, number of control room and also the SP office number. However, no mobile phones numbers are provided.
- It also promotes facility to “Tap to Call” any of these police stations and know the route and road distance to reach there.
Akodara becomes India’s first Digital Village
- Akodara village in Sabarkantha district of Gujarat has earned the coveted tag of becoming India’s first digital village in India.
- All transactions in the village are carried out through digital modes like SMS, net-banking or debit cards.
- The village was adopted by ICICI Bank under its Digital Village Project in 2015 and made cashless by adopting digital technology.
- All households in village have savings account in local ICICI Bank branch.
- The bank has provided training to villagers to embrace digital technology to reduce dependence on cash. The village has almost 100% financial literacy rate and all mobile banking is done in Hindi, English and Gujarati languages.
- The villagers’ most important transactions selling agri-produce at the local market or mandi or selling milk at the co-operative society have been made cashless.
- It has primary, secondary and higher secondary schools equipped with smart boards, computers and tablets.
Recent Posts
The United Nations has shaped so much of global co-operation and regulation that we wouldn’t recognise our world today without the UN’s pervasive role in it. So many small details of our lives – such as postage and copyright laws – are subject to international co-operation nurtured by the UN.
In its 75th year, however, the UN is in a difficult moment as the world faces climate crisis, a global pandemic, great power competition, trade wars, economic depression and a wider breakdown in international co-operation.
Still, the UN has faced tough times before – over many decades during the Cold War, the Security Council was crippled by deep tensions between the US and the Soviet Union. The UN is not as sidelined or divided today as it was then. However, as the relationship between China and the US sours, the achievements of global co-operation are being eroded.
The way in which people speak about the UN often implies a level of coherence and bureaucratic independence that the UN rarely possesses. A failure of the UN is normally better understood as a failure of international co-operation.
We see this recently in the UN’s inability to deal with crises from the ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, to civil conflict in Syria, and the failure of the Security Council to adopt a COVID-19 resolution calling for ceasefires in conflict zones and a co-operative international response to the pandemic.
The UN administration is not primarily to blame for these failures; rather, the problem is the great powers – in the case of COVID-19, China and the US – refusing to co-operate.
Where states fail to agree, the UN is powerless to act.
Marking the 75th anniversary of the official formation of the UN, when 50 founding nations signed the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, we look at some of its key triumphs and resounding failures.
Five successes
1. Peacekeeping
The United Nations was created with the goal of being a collective security organisation. The UN Charter establishes that the use of force is only lawful either in self-defence or if authorised by the UN Security Council. The Security Council’s five permanent members, being China, US, UK, Russia and France, can veto any such resolution.
The UN’s consistent role in seeking to manage conflict is one of its greatest successes.
A key component of this role is peacekeeping. The UN under its second secretary-general, the Swedish statesman Dag Hammarskjöld – who was posthumously awarded the Nobel Peace prize after he died in a suspicious plane crash – created the concept of peacekeeping. Hammarskjöld was responding to the 1956 Suez Crisis, in which the US opposed the invasion of Egypt by its allies Israel, France and the UK.
UN peacekeeping missions involve the use of impartial and armed UN forces, drawn from member states, to stabilise fragile situations. “The essence of peacekeeping is the use of soldiers as a catalyst for peace rather than as the instruments of war,” said then UN Secretary-General Javier Pérez de Cuéllar, when the forces won the 1988 Nobel Peace Prize following missions in conflict zones in the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Central America and Europe.
However, peacekeeping also counts among the UN’s major failures.
2. Law of the Sea
Negotiated between 1973 and 1982, the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) set up the current international law of the seas. It defines states’ rights and creates concepts such as exclusive economic zones, as well as procedures for the settling of disputes, new arrangements for governing deep sea bed mining, and importantly, new provisions for the protection of marine resources and ocean conservation.
Mostly, countries have abided by the convention. There are various disputes that China has over the East and South China Seas which present a conflict between power and law, in that although UNCLOS creates mechanisms for resolving disputes, a powerful state isn’t necessarily going to submit to those mechanisms.
Secondly, on the conservation front, although UNCLOS is a huge step forward, it has failed to adequately protect oceans that are outside any state’s control. Ocean ecosystems have been dramatically transformed through overfishing. This is an ecological catastrophe that UNCLOS has slowed, but failed to address comprehensively.
3. Decolonisation
The idea of racial equality and of a people’s right to self-determination was discussed in the wake of World War I and rejected. After World War II, however, those principles were endorsed within the UN system, and the Trusteeship Council, which monitored the process of decolonisation, was one of the initial bodies of the UN.
Although many national independence movements only won liberation through bloody conflicts, the UN has overseen a process of decolonisation that has transformed international politics. In 1945, around one third of the world’s population lived under colonial rule. Today, there are less than 2 million people living in colonies.
When it comes to the world’s First Nations, however, the UN generally has done little to address their concerns, aside from the non-binding UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples of 2007.
4. Human rights
The Human Rights Declaration of 1948 for the first time set out fundamental human rights to be universally protected, recognising that the “inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world”.
Since 1948, 10 human rights treaties have been adopted – including conventions on the rights of children and migrant workers, and against torture and discrimination based on gender and race – each monitored by its own committee of independent experts.
The language of human rights has created a new framework for thinking about the relationship between the individual, the state and the international system. Although some people would prefer that political movements focus on ‘liberation’ rather than ‘rights’, the idea of human rights has made the individual person a focus of national and international attention.
5. Free trade
Depending on your politics, you might view the World Trade Organisation as a huge success, or a huge failure.
The WTO creates a near-binding system of international trade law with a clear and efficient dispute resolution process.
The majority Australian consensus is that the WTO is a success because it has been good for Australian famers especially, through its winding back of subsidies and tariffs.
However, the WTO enabled an era of globalisation which is now politically controversial.
Recently, the US has sought to disrupt the system. In addition to the trade war with China, the Trump Administration has also refused to appoint tribunal members to the WTO’s Appellate Body, so it has crippled the dispute resolution process. Of course, the Trump Administration is not the first to take issue with China’s trade strategies, which include subsidises for ‘State Owned Enterprises’ and demands that foreign firms transfer intellectual property in exchange for market access.
The existence of the UN has created a forum where nations can discuss new problems, and climate change is one of them. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) was set up in 1988 to assess climate science and provide policymakers with assessments and options. In 1992, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change created a permanent forum for negotiations.
However, despite an international scientific body in the IPCC, and 165 signatory nations to the climate treaty, global greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase.
Under the Paris Agreement, even if every country meets its greenhouse gas emission targets we are still on track for ‘dangerous warming’. Yet, no major country is even on track to meet its targets; while emissions will probably decline this year as a result of COVID-19, atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases will still increase.
This illustrates a core conundrum of the UN in that it opens the possibility of global cooperation, but is unable to constrain states from pursuing their narrowly conceived self-interests. Deep co-operation remains challenging.
Five failures of the UN
1. Peacekeeping
During the Bosnian War, Dutch peacekeeping forces stationed in the town of Srebrenica, declared a ‘safe area’ by the UN in 1993, failed in 1995 to stop the massacre of more than 8000 Muslim men and boys by Bosnian Serb forces. This is one of the most widely discussed examples of the failures of international peacekeeping operations.
On the massacre’s 10th anniversary, then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan wrote that the UN had “made serious errors of judgement, rooted in a philosophy of impartiality”, contributing to a mass murder that would “haunt our history forever”.
If you look at some of the other infamous failures of peacekeeping missions – in places such as Rwanda, Somalia and Angola – it is the limited powers given to peacekeeping operations that have resulted in those failures.
2. The invasion of Iraq
The invasion of Iraq by the US in 2003, which was unlawful and without Security Council authorisation, reflects the fact that the UN is has very limited capacity to constrain the actions of great powers.
The Security Council designers created the veto power so that any of the five permanent members could reject a Council resolution, so in that way it is programmed to fail when a great power really wants to do something that the international community generally condemns.
In the case of the Iraq invasion, the US didn’t veto a resolution, but rather sought authorisation that it did not get. The UN, if you go by the idea of collective security, should have responded by defending Iraq against this unlawful use of force.
The invasion proved a humanitarian disaster with the loss of more than 400,000 lives, and many believe that it led to the emergence of the terrorist Islamic State.
3. Refugee crises
The UN brokered the 1951 Refugee Convention to address the plight of people displaced in Europe due to World War II; years later, the 1967 Protocol removed time and geographical restrictions so that the Convention can now apply universally (although many countries in Asia have refused to sign it, owing in part to its Eurocentric origins).
Despite these treaties, and the work of the UN High Commission for Refugees, there is somewhere between 30 and 40 million refugees, many of them, such as many Palestinians, living for decades outside their homelands. This is in addition to more than 40 million people displaced within their own countries.
While for a long time refugee numbers were reducing, in recent years, particularly driven by the Syrian conflict, there have been increases in the number of people being displaced.
During the COVID-19 crisis, boatloads of Rohingya refugees were turned away by port after port. This tragedy has echoes of pre-World War II when ships of Jewish refugees fleeing Nazi Germany were refused entry by multiple countries.
And as a catastrophe of a different kind looms, there is no international framework in place for responding to people who will be displaced by rising seas and other effects of climate change.
4. Conflicts without end
Across the world, there is a shopping list of unresolved civil conflicts and disputed territories.
Palestine and Kashmir are two of the longest-running failures of the UN to resolve disputed lands. More recent, ongoing conflicts include the civil wars in Syria and Yemen.
The common denominator of unresolved conflicts is either division among the great powers, or a lack of international interest due to the geopolitical stakes not being sufficiently high. For instance, the inaction during the Rwandan civil war in the 1990s was not due to a division among great powers, but rather a lack of political will to engage.
In Syria, by contrast, Russia and the US have opposing interests and back opposing sides: Russia backs the government of the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, whereas the US does not.
5. Acting like it’s 1945
The UN is increasingly out of step with the reality of geopolitics today.
The permanent members of the Security Council reflect the division of power internationally at the end of World War II. The continuing exclusion of Germany, Japan, and rising powers such as India and Indonesia, reflects the failure to reflect the changing balance of power.
Also, bodies such as the IMF and the World Bank, which are part of the UN system, continue to be dominated by the West. In response, China has created potential rival institutions such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank.
Western domination of UN institutions undermines their credibility. However, a more fundamental problem is that institutions designed in 1945 are a poor fit with the systemic global challenges – of which climate change is foremost – that we face today.