UPSC Daily Current Affairs- April 20, 2022 PDF Download

GS-I

Context

Asia’s youngest nation, East Timor, also known as Timor Leste, holds the second and final round of its presidential election.

About East Timor

• The territory was colonized by Portugal in the 18th century and remained under is control until 1975. 
• When the Portuguese withdrew, troops from Indonesia invaded and annexed East Timor as its 27th province. 
• A long and bloody struggle for independence ensued, during which at least 100,000 people died. 
• The East Timorese voted for independence in a 1999 U.N.-supervised referendum, but that unleashed even more violence until peace-keeping forces were allowed to enter. 
• The country was officially recognized by the United Nations in 2002. 
• East Timor has applied to be a member of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). It currently holds observer status.

Its geography

• East Timor comprises the eastern half of Timor Island, the western half of which is part of Indonesia. 
• It spans a 15,000 square km (5,792 square mile) land area – slightly smaller than Israel – and it’s 1.3 million people are predominantly Roman Catholic.

Politics and economy

• In nearly 20 years since independence, East Timor’s presidential and parliamentary elections have been dominated by many of the same faces. 
• Its revolutionary have run for and held various positions of power and continue to feature prominently in the running of the country. 
• East Timor depends on revenues from its offshore oil and gas reserves which account for 90% of its gross domestic product. 
• Its main revenue stream, the Bayu Undan gas field, is set to dry up by 2023 and the country is now planning to collaborate with companies like Australia’s Santos to turn it into carbon capture facilities.

Context

Stunning aurora glow was recently observed above Iceland after a ‘dead’ sunspot erupted.

About Aurora

An Aurora is a display of light in the sky predominantly seen in the high latitude regions (Arctic and Antarctic). It is also known as a Polar light.

Types
There are two types- the aurora borealis and aurora australis – often called the northern lights and southern lights.

Where do they occur?
They commonly occur at high northern and southern latitudes, less frequent at mid-latitudes, and seldom seen near the equator.

Colors
While usually a milky greenish color, auroras can also show red, blue, violet, pink, and white. These colors appear in a variety of continuously changing shapes.

Science behind their occurrence

• Auroras are a spectacular sign that our planet is electrically connected to the Sun. These light shows are provoked by energy from the Sun and fueled by electrically charged particles trapped in Earth’s magnetic field. 
• The typical aurora is caused by collisions between fast-moving electrons from space with the oxygen and nitrogen in Earth’s upper atmosphere. 
• The electrons—which come from the Earth’s magnetosphere, the region of space controlled by Earth’s magnetic field —transfer their energy to the oxygen and nitrogen atoms and molecules, making them “excited”. 
• As the gases return to their normal state, they emit photons, small bursts of energy in the form of light. 
• When a large number of electrons come from the magnetosphere to bombard the atmosphere, the oxygen and nitrogen can emit enough light for the eye to detect, giving us beautiful auroral displays.

Where do they originate?
They origin at altitudes of 100 to more than 400 km.

Why do auroras come in different colors and shapes?

• The color of the aurora depends on which gas — oxygen or nitrogen — is being excited by the electrons, and on how excited it becomes. The color also depends upon how fast the electrons are moving, or how much energy they have at the time of their collisions. 
• High energy electrons cause oxygen to emit green light (the most familiar color of the aurora), while low energy electrons cause a red light. Nitrogen generally gives off a blue light. 
• The blending of these colors can also lead to purples, pinks, and whites. The oxygen and nitrogen also emit ultraviolet light, which can be detected by special cameras on satellites.

Effects

• Auroras affect communication lines, radio lines and power lines. 
• It should also be noted here that the Sun’s energy, in the form of solar wind, is behind the whole process.

GS-II

Context

Progress in settling border disputes, removal of AFSPA herald positive changes in the region.

Significant development for restoring normalcy in the region

• Efforts to address the issues of the Northeast have been moving according to a strategic plan which is premised on three objectives —
  • Ending all disputes.
  • Ushering in economic progress and taking the region’s contribution to GDP back to its pre-Independence levels,
  • making efforts to maintain and preserve the region’s languages, dialects, dance, music, food, and culture and make it attractive for the whole country. 
• In this regard, two recent developments are significant: 
  • On March 29, the Assam and Meghalaya chief ministers signed an agreement to resolve the five-decade-old border dispute. 
  • The Union home ministry (MHA) decided to reduce the disturbed areas under the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act (AFSPA) in Assam, Nagaland and Manipur after decades.

Progress on the border disputes

• As part of the strategy, existing issues of both interstate border disputes and insurgency have been closely studied and negotiated and a few agreements have been signed. 
• Assam, with the maximum border disputes in the region, got into a proactive border dialogue. 
• The dialogues on the state’s border disputes with Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram are continuing at a steady pace. 
• After the violent flare-ups witnessed last year at the Assam-Mizoram border, today there are regular engagements to maintain peace and work out a permanent solution. 
• The model of Assam’s engagement with Meghalaya, is a good one to emulate — the two chief ministers, after two rounds of talks in August last year, constituted three committees each under cabinet ministers in their states to go into the complex boundary issues.

Significance of notification on AFSPA

• Peace has been witnessed in most places across Assam, and even in Nagaland and Manipur talks with various groups for a permanent solution had resulted in a cessation of violence. 
• The NLFT Tripura Agreement (August 2019), the Bru Agreement (January 2020), the Bodo Peace Accord (January 2020) and the Karbi Anglong Agreement (September 2021) have actually resulted in about 7,000 militants surrendering their arms. 
• Removal of DAN: So the demand for the removal of the disturbed areas notification (DAN) was very much justified. 
• DAN has been in force in the whole of Assam since 1990, in all of Manipur (except the Imphal Municipality area) since 2004 and in the whole of Nagaland since 1995. 
• With the removal of the DAN tag, AFSPA has been removed with effect from April 1 this year completely from 23 districts and partially from one district of Assam, from 15 police station areas of six districts of Manipur and from 15 police station areas in seven districts in Nagaland. 
• DAN is currently applicable in only three districts and in two police station areas in one other district of Arunachal Pradesh. 
• AFSPA was completely removed from Tripura in 2015 and Meghalaya in 2018, respectively.

Conclusion
The efforts by the Union government to make the northeastern region the main pillar of the Act East policy have been useful in bringing a sense of political stability that is very crucial for optimal economic development and capacity enhancement in the region.

Context

Recently, the Ministry of Civil Aviation released the draft Protection and Enforcement of Interests in Aircraft Objects Bill, 2022. 

• The proposed law will help international aircraft leasing companies to repossess and transfer planes out of India in case of a financial dispute with an Indian airline at a time many regional airlines have been refused planes for rent. 
• The proposed legislation comes more than 14 years after India acceded to Cape Town Convention.

What are the Key Points of Draft Legislation?

• About: The Bill implements the provisions of the Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment and Protocol on Matters Specific to Aircraft Equipment which was adopted at a conference in Cape Town in 2001. 
  • India acceded to the two instruments in 2008. 
  • These provide default remedies for the creditor and create a legal regime for disputes. 
• Need: The draft legislation is necessary because several Indian laws such as the Companies Act, 2013 and the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 are in conflict with the Cape Town Convention and Protocol. 
  • International leasing companies faced challenges in repossessing and exporting aircraft when Jet Airways shut down in 2019 and failed to pay its aircraft rentals. 
  • Also, the Indian entities have suffered as international financial institutions demand implementation legislation. 
• Objective: The proposed law provides remedies such as repossession of an aircraft object, or its sale or lease or collection of income from its use as well as de-registration and export of planes. 
  • It also suggests remedies pending final adjudication of a claim as well as safeguards a creditor's claim during insolvency proceedings against its Indian buyer.

Context

India could end up facing a Sri Lanka-type economic crisis if it doesn’t stop the “culture of freebies” and subsidies in sectors like agriculture, NITI Aayog member Ramesh Chand has warned.

About Freebie

• The term Freebies is not new; rather it is a prevalent culture in Indian politics (in the name of socialism). 
• The political parties are always trying to outdo each other in luring the Indian voters with assorted freebies. 
• From free water to free smartphones the Indian politicians promise everything to attract prospective voters in favour. 
• This trend has gained more momentum in the recent times with the political parties being innovative in their offerings as the ‘traditional free water and electricity’ is no longer sufficient as election goodies.

Why are such policies popular among the public?

• Failure of economic policies: The answer lies in the utter failure of our economic policies to create decent livelihood for a vast majority of Indians. 
• Quest for decent livelihood: The already low income had to be reoriented towards spending a disproportionately higher amount on education and health, from which, the state increasingly withdrew. 
• Prevailing unemployment: Employment surveys have shown that employment growth initially slowed down from the 1990s, and then has turned negative over the past few years. 
• Increased cost of living: Real income growth of the marginal sections has actually slowed down since 1991 reforms. 
• Increased consumerism: The poor today also spend on things which appear to be luxuries; cellphones and data-packs are two such examples which are shown as signs of India’s increased affluence. 
• Necessity: For migrant workers, the mobile phone helps them keep in touch with their families back home, or do a quick video-call to see how their infant is learning to sit up or crawl.

Impact of such policies

• Never ending trail: The continuity of freebies is another major disadvantage as parties keep on coming up with lucrative offers to lure more number of votes to minimize the risk of losing in the elections. 
• Burden on exchequer: People forget that such benefits are been given at the cost of exchequer and from the tax paid. 
• Ultimate loss of poors: The politicians and middlemen wipe away the benefits and the poor have to suffer as they are deprived from their share of benefits which was to be achieved out of the money. 
• Inflationary practice: Such distribution freebie commodity largely disrupts demand-supply dynamics. 
• Lethargy in population: Freebies actually have the tendency to turn the nation’s population into: Lethargy and devoid of entrepreneurship. 
• Money becomes only remedy: Everyone at the slightest sign of distress starts demanding some kind of freebies from the Govt. 
• Popular politics: This is psychology driving sections of the population expecting and the government promptly responds with immediate monetary relief or compensation.

Arguments in favour

• Social investment: Aid to the poor is seen as a wasteful expenditure. But low interest rates for corporates to get cheap loans or the ‘sop’ of cutting corporate taxes are never criticized. 
• Socialistic policy: This attitude comes from decades of operating within the dominant discourse of market capitalism. 
• Election manifesto: Proponents of such policies would argue that poll promises are essential for voters to know what the party would do if it comes to power and have the chance to weigh options. 
• Welfare: Economists opine that as long as any State has the capacity and ability to finance freebies then its fine; if not then freebies are the burden on economy. 
• Other wasteful expenditure: When the Centre gives incentives like free land to big companies and announce multi-year tax holidays, questions are not asked as to where the money will come from.

Conclusion 

• There is nothing wrong in having a policy-led elaborate social security programme that seeks to help the poor get out of poverty. 
• But such a programme needs well thought out preparation and cannot be conjured up just before an election.

Context

• The Collegium of judges is the Indian Supreme Court’s invention. 
• It does not figure in the Constitution, which says judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts are appointed by the President and speaks of a process of consultation. 
• In effect, it is a system under which judges are appointed by an institution comprising judges. 
• After some judges were superseded in the appointment of the CJI in the 1970s, and attempts made subsequently to effect a mass transfer of High Court judges across the country. 
• Hence there was a perception that the independence of the judiciary was under threat. This resulted in a series of cases over the years.

Evolution: The Judges Cases

• First Judges Case (1981) ruled that the “consultation” with the CJI in the matter of appointments must be full and effective. 
• However, it rejected the idea that the CJI’s opinion, albeit carrying great weight, should have primacy. 
• Second Judges Case (1993) introduced the Collegium system, holding that “consultation” really meant “concurrence”. 
• It added that it was not the CJI’s individual opinion, but an institutional opinion formed in consultation with the two senior-most judges in the Supreme Court. 
• Third Judges Case (1998): On a Presidential Reference for its opinion, the Supreme Court, in the Third Judges Case (1998) expanded the Collegium to a five-member body, comprising the CJI and four of his senior-most colleagues.

The procedure followed by the Collegium

• Appointment of CJI 
  • The President of India appoints the CJI and the other SC judges. 
  • As far as the CJI is concerned, the outgoing CJI recommends his successor. 
  • In practice, it has been strictly by seniority ever since the supersession controversy of the 1970s. 
  • The Union Law Minister forwards the recommendation to the PM who, in turn, advises the President. 
• Other SC Judges 
  • For other judges of the top court, the proposal is initiated by the CJI. 
  • The CJI consults the rest of the Collegium members, as well as the senior-most judge of the court hailing from the High Court to which the recommended person belongs. 
  • The consultees must record their opinions in writing and it should form part of the file. 
  • The Collegium sends the recommendation to the Law Minister, who forwards it to the Prime Minister to advise the President. 
• For High Courts 
  • The CJs of High Courts are appointed as per the policy of having Chief Justices from outside the respective States. The Collegium takes the call on the elevation. 
  • High Court judges are recommended by a Collegium comprising the CJI and two senior-most judges. 
  • The proposal, however, is initiated by the Chief Justice of the High Court concerned in consultation with two senior-most colleagues. 
  • The recommendation is sent to the Chief Minister, who advises the Governor to send the proposal to the Union Law Minister.

GS-III

Context

With over a dozen jute mills closed in West Bengal and thousands of workers out of job, the Indian Jute Mill Association (IJMA), an association of manufacturers, have approached the Centre seeking intervention so that prices of raw jute are revised and the mills resume operation. The crisis in the mills has caused a job loss for 60,000 workers.

About Jute

• Jute requires a warm and humid climate with temperature between 24° C to 37° C. 
• Jute is largely grown in the delta shared by West Bengal and southwest Bangladesh, and in parts of Assam, Meghalaya and Tripura in the period between February/March and May/June, before the monsoon. 
• West Bengal is considered the hub of India’s jute industry, valued around Rs 10,000 crore, and in 2016 the state housed 70 of the 93 mills in India. 
• The long, soft, shiny bast fibre is used to produce bags, hessians, twines, ropes, mats and several other textile blends. 
• Fully biodegradable and recyclable. 
• A hectare of jute plants consumes about 15 tonnes of carbon dioxide and releases 11 tonnes of oxygen. 
• Cultivating jute in crop rotations enriches the fertility of the soil for the next crop. 
• Jute also does not generate toxic gases when burnt, Constant rain or water-logging is harmful. 
• The new gray alluvial soil of good depth, receiving salt from annual floods, is best for jute. 
• The jute plant’s fibres lie beneath the bark and surrounded the woody central part of the stem. 
• To extract the fibres from the stem, the process is carried out in the following stages:
  

Jute and India

• Known as the golden fibre, jute was once the most important industry in India after cotton. 
• By the 1910s, Calcutta Mills had become the world’s largest jute producer, employing more than 300,000 people. 
• Bengal soon established a monopoly on the jute industry, after the golen fibre found military use in the Crimean War, and later the First World War. 
• The jute industry in India received its first major blow when Bengal was divided into West Bengal and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh). 
• After the partition, 75 percent of the jute-growing land went to East Pakistan, while all the mills remained in India, mostly in West Bengal.

Context

• The government has received proposals from five companies for setting up the electronic chip and display manufacturing plants with an investment of ₹1.53 lakh crore under the Semicon India Programme. 
• India will consume semiconductors of around $70-80 billion to manufacture electronics products worth $300 billion by 2026 as envisaged in the government’s vision document.

India Semiconductor Mission

• India Semiconductor Mission (ISM) has been setup to formulate and drive India’s long term strategies for developing semiconductors and display manufacturing facilities and semiconductor design ecosystem. 
• Will enable a multi-fold growth of Indian semiconductor design industry by providing requisite support in the form of Electronic Design Automation (EDA) tools, foundry services and other suitable mechanisms for early-stage startups. 
• It will also promote and facilitate indigenous Intellectual Property (IP) generation and encourage, enable and incentivize Transfer of Technologies (ToT). 
• ISM will also enable collaborations and partnership programs with national and international agencies, industries and institutions for catalyzing collaborative research, commercialization and skill development.
  

Significance of the Sector

• Semiconductor chips are integral parts of the power train, chassis, safety systems, advanced driver assistance systems, and other parts of automobiles. 
• They are used more in passenger vehicles compared to commercial vehicles or two-wheelers. 
• The move to electric vehicles has led to increased demand of chips. 
• For example, a Ford Focus typically uses roughly 300 chips, whereas one of Ford’s new electric vehicles can have up to 3,000 chips With supply of semiconductor chips slowing down, the production in automobile sector is also adversely impacted.