UPSC Daily Current Affairs- February 1, 2022 PDF Download

GS-I

Context

The Hoysala Temples of Belur, Halebid and Somnathapura in Karnataka have been finalized as India’s nomination for consideration as World Heritage for the year 2022-2023.

Sacred Ensembles of the Hoysalas

• The sacred ensembles of the Hoysalas are extraordinary expressions of spiritual purpose and vehicles of spiritual practice and attainment. 
• The sacred ensembles of the Hoysalas at Belur and Halebid are the finest, most exquisite, and most representative examples of the artistic genius and cultural accomplishments of the Hoysalas remaining today.

About Belur: Chennakeshava Temple Complex

• The Chennakeshava temple complex was at the center of the old walled town located on the banks of the Yagachi River. 
• The complex itself was walled in a rectangular campus with four rectilinear streets around it for ritual circumambulation of the deity. 
• Construction of the temple commenced in 1117 AD and took a 103 years to complete. 
• The temple was devoted to Vishnu. 
• The richly sculptured exterior of the temple narrate scenes from the life of Vishnu and his reincarnations and the epics, Ramayana, and Mahabharata. 
• However, some of the representations of Shiva are also included. 
• Consecrated on a sacred site, the temple has remained continuously worshipped since its establishment and remains until today as a site of pilgrimage for Vaishnavites.

About Halebid: Hoysaleshwara Temple

• At the zenith of the Hoysala empire, the capital was shifted from Belur to Halebid that was then known as Dorasamudhra. 
• The Hoysaleshwara temple at Halebidu is the most exemplary architectural ensemble of the Hoysalas extant today. 
• Built in 1121CE during the reign of the Hoysala King, Vishnuvardhana Hoysaleshwara. 
• The temple, dedicated to Shiva, was sponsored and built by wealthy citizens and merchants of Dorasamudra. 
• The temple is most well-known for the more than 240 wall sculptures that run all along the outer wall. 
• Halebid has a walled complex containing of three Jaina basadi (temples) of the Hoysala period as well as a stepped well.

About Somnathpur: Kesava Temple

• The Keshava temple at Somanathapura is another magnificent Hoysala monument, perhaps the last. 
• This is a breathtakingly beautiful Trikuta Temple dedicated to Lord Krishna in three forms – Janardhana, Keshava and Venugopala. Unfortunately, the main Keshava idol is missing, and the Janardhana and Venugopala idols are damaged. 
• Still this temple is worth a visit just to soak in the artistry and sheer talent of the sculptors who created this magnificent monument to the Divine.

Context

President Ram Nath Kovind quoted a couplet from Thirukkural while addressing the joint Houses of Parliament for Budget Session.

About Thirukkural

• The Tirukkuṟaḷ (meaning ‘sacred verses’), or shortly the Kural, is a classic Tamil language text consisting of 1,330 short couplets, or kurals, of seven words each.
• The text is divided into three books with aphoristic teachings on virtue (aram), wealth (porul) and love (inbam), respectively.
• Considered one of the greatest works ever written on ethics and morality, it is known for its universality and secular nature. 
• Three major parts of the book 
  • Aram: Book of Virtue (Dharma), dealing with moral values of an individual and essentials of yoga philosophy 
  • Porul: Book of Polity (Artha), dealing with socio-economic values, polity, society and administration 
  • Inbam: Book of Love (Kama), dealing with psychological values and love

What did the President quote?

• ‘Karka Kasadara Karpavai Kattrapin Nirka Atharku Thaka’ was the couplet chosen by him to reiterate the importance of the New Education Policy. 
• The couplet insists on thorough and flawless learning and adhering to what one has learnt.

Who authored it and when?

• Its authorship is traditionally attributed to Valluvar, also known in full as Thiruvalluvar. 
• The text has been dated variously from 300 BCE to 5th century CE. 
• The traditional accounts describe it as the last work of the third Sangam, but linguistic analysis suggests a later date of 450 to 500 CE and that it was composed after the Sangam period.

Cultural significance of Thirukkural

• The Kural is traditionally praised with epithets and alternative titles, including “the Tamil Veda” and “the Divine Book.” 
• Written on the foundations of ahimsa, it emphasizes non-violence and moral vegetarianism as virtues for an individual. 
• In addition, it highlights truthfulness, self-restraint, gratitude, hospitality, kindness, goodness, duty, giving, and so forth. 
• It covers a wide range of social and political topics such as king, ministers, taxes, justice, forts, war, greatness of army and soldier’s honor. 
• It emphasizes death sentence for the wicked, agriculture, education, abstinence from alcohol and intoxicants. 
• It also includes chapters on friendship, love, sexual unions, and domestic life.

Read these quotes and bookmark them. They can be used in essays:

• Nothing is impossible for those who act after wise counsel and careful thought. 
• Real kindness seeks no return. 
• The only gift is giving to the poor; All else is exchange. 
• Friendship with the wise gets better with time, as a good book gets better with age. 
• Worthless are those who injure others vengefully, while those who stoically endure are like stored gold. 
• Among a man’s many good possessions, A good command of speech has no equal. 
• Prosperity and ruin issue from the power of the tongue. 
• Therefore, guard yourself against thoughtless speech. 
• A fortress is of no use to cowards. 
• Even the ignorant may appear very worthy, If they keep silent before the learned.

GS-II

SeHAT Initiative

Context

The Ministry of Defence (MoD) has launched services for home delivery of medicines for veterans and serving military personnel services under an online medical consultation platform named Services e-Health Assistance and Teleconsultation (SeHAT).

About SeHAT Initiative

• It is the tri-services teleconsultation service of the MoD designed for all entitled personnel and their families. 
• As part of the Government’s commitment to Digital India and e-Governance, the Defence Minister launched SeHAT in May 2021. 
• It aims to provide healthcare services to patients in their homes. 
• SeHAT Stay Home OPD is based on the lines of eSanjeevani a similar free OPD service run by the MoHFW (Ministry of Health and Family Welfare) for all citizens. 
• SeHATOPD is a patient to doctor system where the patient can consult a doctor remotely through the internet.

Context

The African Union recently suspended Burkina Faso a week after the volatile country suffered its latest coup.

About African Union

• It is a continental union consisting of 55 countries of Africa. In 2017, the AU admitted Morocco as a member state. 
• The AU was announced in the Sirte Declaration in Sirte, Libya in 1999. 
• It was founded in 2001 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. 
• It was launched in 2002 in Durban, South Africa. 
• The AU’s secretariat, the African Union Commission, is based in Addis Ababa

Context

As India returns to a high growth path after a slowdown in the last decade, its geopolitical salience in the world will continue to rise.

India’s growth story

• Today, India’s GDP is $3.1 trillion and could cross, according to some estimates, $8 trillion by the end of this decade. 
• India’s total trade, which was about $38 billion in 1991-92, is expected to touch $1.3 trillion this year. 
• This is about 40 per cent of India’s GDP and underlines the fact that India is more deeply tied to the world than ever before. 
• But the GDP’s journey from three to eight trillion will not be a linear process; nor would it be easy to secure India’s interests amidst the deeper integration with the world. 
• That the world itself is in a geo-economic churn makes the transition a challenging one.

Geo-economic changes

• It was Edward Luttwak, the well-known American strategist, who triggered a global discourse on the idea of geoeconomics in a seminal article in 1990 amidst the end of the Cold War. 
• Using economic dominance for political gain: The rapid economic rise of China in the last three decades and Beijing’s success in leveraging its growing economic clout for political gain is widely seen as a classic example of geoeconomics. 
• Economic interdependence: Luttwak’s warning against illusions of economic interdependence and globalisation have been borne out by major changes in US-China relations in recent years. 
• The dramatic expansion of economic interdependence between China and America over the last four decades — what some called “Chimerica” — was the principal evidence for the thesis that geopolitics and ideology no longer mattered. 
• Chimerica was held up as an efficient economic fusion that underscored the virtues of economic globalisation. 
• However, economic nationalism has re-emerged in both countries today. 
• The US is also strengthening domestic research and industrial capabilities to compete more effectively with China. 
• It is not the US alone that is backtracking from globalisation. 
• China too has adopted the economic strategy of “dual circulation” that focuses on strengthening domestic capabilities and reducing exposure to external factors.

How geopolitical and geoeconomic changes are influencing India’s free trade policies

• At the end of 2019, India has walked out from the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) suggesting that the costs of joining a China-centred regional economic order are unacceptable. 
• After abandoning RCEP, Delhi has turned towards free trade agreements with countries like Australia, Britain, UAE, and Israel. 
• Deepening engagement with complementary economies: This must be seen as the beginning of a process of deepening India’s engagement with countries whose economies are complementary. 
• India is also arguing, much like the US and China, that no large country can simply abandon domestic manufacturing to other countries in the name of economic efficiency and globalisation. 
• India is now taking a number of initiatives to promote domestic manufacturing in a range of sectors under the banner of “Atmanirbhar Bharat”.

Conclusion

• India’s selective trade arrangements and the policies to promote domestic manufacturing have drawn much criticism. 
• While those arguments must continue, they must be related more closely to the structural changes in the international economic order.

Context

The statement made on January 3 by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (P5) is important.

Overview of the P5 statement

• This is a major statement. It is not a binding resolution and reiterates some of the core obligations of the NPT. 
• The P5 statement reaffirms that a “nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought” because of its “far-reaching consequences”. 
• The statement also expresses a commitment to the group’s Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) obligations and “to prevent the unauthorised or unintended use of nuclear weapons”. 
• Declaring that an arms race would benefit none and endanger all, the P5 have undertaken to:
  • work with all states to create a security environment more conducive to progress on disarmament with the ultimate goal of a world without nuclear weapons.
  • continue seeking bilateral and multilateral diplomatic approaches to avoid military confrontations, strengthen stability and predictability, increase mutual understanding and confidence”.
  • pursue “constructive dialogue with mutual respect and acknowledgement of each other’s security interests and concerns”.

Bold action on 6 measures

• Chart a path for nuclear disarmament: That member states should chart a path forward on nuclear disarmament. 
• Transparency and dialogue: They should agree to new measures of “transparency and dialogue”.
• Address nuclear crises: They should address the “simmering” nuclear crises in the Middle East and Asia.
• Strengthen global bodies: They should strengthen the existing global bodies that support non-proliferation, including the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). 
• Peaceful of nuclear technology: They should promote the peaceful use of nuclear technology.
• Elimination of nuclear weapons: They should remind “the world’s people that eliminating nuclear weapons is the only way to guarantee that they will never be used.

Peace education and right to peace

• Peace is necessary for rights, freedom, equality, and justice and for that reason, we need what Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. called “education in the obvious”— namely, peace education. 
• This is required at multiple levels, ranging across the planetary, global, supranational, regional, national, and local levels of social cognition and action. 
• UN Resolution 39/11 (November 12, 1984) proclaims that the peoples of our planet have a sacred right to peace and equally solemnly declares that the “preservation of the right of peoples to peace and the promotion of its implementation constitute a fundamental obligation of each State”. 
• The subsequent UN Resolution 53/243 B, declaring a programme of action for a culture of peace (1999) also owes a great deal to Gandhi’s legacy and mission.

Conclusion: The statement is politically significant given the unimaginable danger posed by the 13,000 nuclear weapons currently believed to be held by a handful of countries, and the growing spectre of loose nukes, which may be deployed by armed terrorist groups for nefarious purposes.

GS-III

Context

Recently, ‘Bomb cyclone’ hits eastern US, which triggers transport chaos, outages.

About Bomb Cyclone

• A bomb cyclone is a large, intense mid-latitude storm that has low pressure at its centre, weather fronts and an array of associated weather, from blizzards to severe thunderstorms to heavy precipitation. 
• Bomb cyclones put forecasters on high alert, because they can produce significant harmful impacts.

Reasons for the Formation

• This can happen when a cold air mass collides with a warm air mass, such as air over warm ocean waters. The formation of this rapidly strengthening weather system is a process called bombogenesis. 
• It occurs when a midlatitude cyclone rapidly intensifies, dropping at least 24 millibars over 24 hours. 
  • A millibar measures atmospheric pressure.

How does a Bomb Cyclone differ from a Hurricane?

• Hurricanes tend to form in tropical areas and are powered by warm seas. For this reason, they’re most common in summer or early fall, when seawater is warmest. 
• Bomb cyclones generally occur during colder months because cyclones occur due to cold and warm air meeting. During the summer, there’s generally not much cold air across the atmosphere; this means a bomb cyclone is much less likely to occur. 
• Hurricanes form in tropical waters, while bomb cyclones form over the northwestern Atlantic, northwestern Pacific and sometimes the Mediterranean Sea.

Reverse Repo Normalization

Context

In a recent report, State Bank of India has stated that the stage is set for a reverse repo normalization.

About Monetary Policy Normalization in India

• The Reserve Bank of India, keeps tweaking the total amount of money in the economy to ensure smooth functioning. 
• As such, when the RBI wants to boost economic activity it adopts a so-called “loose monetary policy”. 
• There are two parts to such a policy i.e., injecting more money (liquidity) into the economy and RBI also lowers the interest rate it charges banks when it lends money to them; this rate is called the repo rate. 
• The reverse of a loose monetary policy is a “tight monetary policy” and it involves the RBI raising interest rates and sucking liquidity out of the economy by selling bonds (and taking money out of the system). 
• When any central bank finds that a loose monetary policy has started becoming counterproductive (for example, when it leads to a higher inflation rate), the central bank “normalizes the policy” by tightening the monetary policy stance. 
• Under normal circumstances, that is when the economy is growing at a healthy pace, the repo rate becomes the benchmark interest rate in the economy. 
• However, the reverse repo had become the benchmark rate in India since the start of the Covid pandemic.

About Reverse Repo Normalization

• Reverse repo normalization means the reverse repo rates will go up. 
• Over the past few months, in the face of rising inflation, several central banks across the world have either increased interest rates or signalled that they would do so soon. 
• In India, too, it is expected that the RBI will raise the repo rate. 
• But before that, it is expected that the RBI will raise the reverse repo rate and reduce the gap between the two rates. 
• This process of normalization, which is aimed at curbing inflation, will not only reduce excess liquidity but also result in higher interest rates across the board in the Indian economy — thus reducing the demand for money among consumers (since it would make more sense to just keep the money in the bank) and making it costlier for businesses to borrow fresh loans.

Repo vs Reverse repo rate

• Repo rate is the rate at which the Central Bank grants loans to the commercial banks against government securities. 
• Reverse repo rate is the interest offered by RBI to banks who deposit funds with them.