UPSC Daily Current Affairs- September 05, 2022 | Current Affairs & Hindu Analysis: Daily, Weekly & Monthly PDF Download

GS-II

Context

5 September is teacher’s day. Teachers’ Day or Shikshak Divas marks the birthday of the country’s first Vice President (1952–1962) who went on to become the second President of India (1962-1967), a scholar, philosopher, Bharat Ratna awardee, a highly-respected teacher and prolific statesman – Dr. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan.

What are the issue with teachers?

• Less attractive career: It seems that teaching the young is no longer an attractive profession because systemic conditions are so discouraging. It points towards the reforms that education now requires.
• Diversion from teaching: Teaching children is not regarded as a serious profession. Non-teaching duties are routinely assigned, and now the digital regime has washed away the few traces of professional autonomy even in the best of private schools.
• Bureaucratic over vigilance: So deep is official suspicion of their integrity that many states have installed CCTV cameras in classrooms. That is not the only form of insult teacher’s face. They have little power to assert their professional dignity in the face of bureaucratic or managerial authority.
• Marginalisation by coaching institutes: The Indian school teacher now faces new social and economic forces. Coaching institutions have marginalised the secondary-level science teacher. All over the country, children are allowed to bunk school to attend NEET and JEE coaching classes. Science and math teachers were, in any case, aware that their pedagogic effectiveness would be measured by an unreformed examination system.
• Reliability issue due to internet overuse: Social Science teachers are coping with a different kind of challenge to justify their knowledge and interpretation. Children’s access to the internet exposes them to a wilderness of socio-political ideas and information. It is not easy for social science teachers to convince children that they are more reliable than a YouTube video or a WhatsApp message.

How to address these challenges

• Supporting teacher control over curriculum and instruction: Classical top-down school leadership needs to be re-examined, and teachers must be recognized as professionals who have expertise to make good learning decisions for their students.
• Establish adequate pay scales and financial incentives: Compensation systems signal what skills and attributes are valued and what kinds of contributions are rewarded.
• Establish and conduct personnel evaluation systems: Teachers need regular feedback and accurate information on job expectations.
• Provide adequate planning time for teachers: While all teachers work under tremendous time constraints, experienced teachers generally are able to complete their planning more quickly. For new teachers, adequate planning time can allay feelings of being overwhelmed.
• Provide a structure for team planning and teaching: Teachers often report feeling isolated in their classrooms. Team planning and teaching can be an important step in retaining a high quality teaching force.

Conclusion

• Since the teacher is the pivot of the entire educational system and is the main catalytic agent for introducing desirable changes in the teaching learning process, all attempts need be made for motivating teachers to become innovative and creative. 
• It goes without saying that a self-motivated and really industrious teacher can utilise his own resources to keep themselves abreast of new knowledge and skills.

India-South Africa Bilateral Meeting

Context

Recently, India and South Africa agreed to develop institutional mechanisms for tie-ups between Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) & Skill Institutions.

Why are the Key Highlights of the Meeting?

• About
  • The bilateral meeting was held in Bali, Indonesia.
  • It was decided to develop institutional mechanisms for educational tie-ups.
  • Also, it was agreed to set up a Joint Working Group on Education between the two countries.
• Significance
  • This would further extend the cooperation that already exists and also to realise the full potential of bilateral cooperation in education.
  • Introduction of National Education Policy (NEP) has already paved the way for the internationalisation of Indian education. India and South Africa relations are close and friendly and are rooted in shared values and interests.
    • Institutional mechanisms for educational tie-ups would strengthen the academic & skill development partnerships and bilateral education cooperation.
    • Further, it will be helpful in mutual recognition of skill qualifications & capacity building in skill development.

What should be the Way Forward for Both Countries?

• Academic collaboration and student exchange programmes should be commenced in the field of Sanskrit language, Philosophy, Ayurveda and Yoga.
  • This will pave the way for broadening the understanding of Hinduism and the shared spiritual, cultural & economic ties.
• Arrangements for the collaborations in skilling sector must be made.
  • It will encourage tourism preneurship, help build capacities in emerging areas of travel, tourism, hospitality & business and boost people-to-people linkages.

Context

Bangladesh PM Sheikh Hasina’s four-day visit to India to boost bilateral ties.

Trade between two

• CEPA: Trade will be a focal point during Ms. Hasina’s visit as the two countries gear up to sign a Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement.
• Bangladesh dependency: Bangladesh imports critical industrial raw material from India on which its exports are reliant.
• Leveraging Indian support: Bangladesh also could improve several manufacturing industries by leveraging Indian expertise in service sectors.

Connectivity

• IMT highway: Bangladesh has expressed its interest in joining the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway project.
• Waterway: India-Bangladesh bilateral waterway trade will get boosted as India can now use the Mongla and Chittagong ports.
• Logistics: India’s Northeast and Bangladesh is important for bilateral cooperation. Currently, three express trains and international bus services operate between Indian and Bangladesh.

Regional geopolitics

• Chinese influence: Chinese inroads into the neighbourhood have been a cause of worry for India. China has been actively pursuing bilateral ties with Bangladesh. Bangladesh had successfully approached China for a mega project to enhance Teesta river water flow.
• Strategic location: From the perspective of India’s Northeast, Bangladesh is India’s most strategic neighbour, whom New Delhi cannot ever afford to ignore.
• Cooperation needed: India’s dream of ‘Act East Policy’ can only be materialized with the helping hands of Dhaka.
• Gateway to northeast: The bridge ‘Maitri Setu’ has been built over the Feni River which flows between the Indian boundary in Tripura State and Bangladesh. It is set to become the ‘Gateway of North East’ with access to Chittagong Port of Bangladesh, which is just 80 kms from Sabroom.

Way forward

• The future will present itself with an abundance of opportunities to help the two countries to reach a new plane of bilateral relations higher than ever before.
• Both nations should play their diplomatic cards with more maturity and pragmatism, keeping the regional aspirations and nuances of both countries in mind.
• A judicious aggregation of regional expectations on both sides of the border will help in achieving their mutual national objectives.
• To make the recent gains irreversible, both countries need to continue working on the three Cs — cooperation, collaboration, and consolidation.

Conclusion
For India it will take more than cosy relations with one particular government to have long-term stable relations with its most trusted friend in the neighbourhood.

Context

According to the latest Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) report by World Health Organisation (WHO) and United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund(UNICEF), about half of the world’s healthcare facilities lack basic hygiene services, putting 3.85 billion people at an increased risk of infections. 

• The report was released during World Water Week held in Stockholm, Sweden.

What are the Key Highlights of the Report?

• Lack of Basic Hygiene: About half of the world’s healthcare facilities lack basic hygiene services, putting 3.85 billion people at an increased risk of infections.
  • These facilities do not provide patients with water, soap, or alcohol-based hand rubs.
  • Only 51% of healthcare facilities met the requirements for basic hygiene services.
  • Some 68% of them provided facilities for handwashing with water and soap at restrooms and 65% had such amenities at points of care.
    • Furthermore, just one in 11 medical facilities worldwide has both.
• Lethal for Vulnerable Population: Hospitals and clinics without safe water and basic hygiene and sanitation services are a potential death trap for pregnant mothers, newborns and children.
• Rise of Various Diseases: Every year, a whopping 670,000 newborns lose their lives to sepsis.
  • Sepsis is a potentially life-threatening condition that occurs when the body’s response to an infection damages its own tissues.
• Increased Disease Transmission
  • Unhygienic hands and environment significantly influence disease transmission in healthcare facilities and the emergence of antibiotic resistance.
  • Only 53% of healthcare institutions in the least developed countries have access to a safe water supply.
    • The proportion for eastern and south-eastern Asia is 90%, with hospitals performing better than smaller healthcare facilities.
    • Some 11% of the rural and 3% of urban healthcare institutions lacked access to water.

What is the Importance of Hygiene Facilities?

• Hygiene facilities and practices in health care settings are non-negotiable.
• Their improvement is essential to pandemic recovery, prevention and preparedness.
• Promoting access to handwashing with water and soap and cleaning is essential for providing high-quality health care, especially for safe deliveries.

How Could the Issue be tackled?

As the coverage of WASH facilities is still uneven across different regions and income groupings.

• There is a need for countries to implement their 2019 World Health Assembly commitment to strengthen water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) services in health care facilities.

What are the Indian Government Initiatives related to Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH)?

• Present Status:
  • Urban Centers Bear the Brunt: Nationally, 910 million citizens do not have access to proper sanitation.
    • Despite urban centers housing the majority of India’s population, urban sanitation is underfunded.
• Initiatives
  • Swachh Bharat’s Toilet Access and Job Creation
    • It aims to reduce open defecation in India. Between 2018 and 2019, 93% of households had access to toilets, a noticeable jump from 77% in the previous year.
    • The construction of the sanitation infrastructure is responsible for employing more than 2 million full-time workers.
• Water in Rural Communities: Between 2017 and 2018, India’s national water mission expanded to become the National Rural Drinking Water Mission (NRDWM).
  • While other programs and departments address sanitation in urban centers, NRDWM cares for the rural regions of India.
  • One goal is the institution of piped water supplies to rural households.
• iJal Safe Water Stations: The Safe Water Network, a nonprofit organization created by Paul Newman, has reached communities through its iJal water stations.
  • The locally owned stations provide access to clean, quality water in communities where water security is scarce.
• WASH Allies: USAID and UNICEF work in cooperation with the Government of India.
  • As of September 2020, USAID reported recent achievements, including greater access to safe drinking water, more household toilets and a decrease in public defecation.

Context

As per National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) reports

• Assam recorded the most number of Sedition cases in the country in the last eight years.

What are the Findings of the NCRB?

• Out of 475 sedition cases registered in the country between 2014 and 2021, Assam accounted for 69 cases (14.52%).
• After Assam, the most number of such cases were reported from Haryana (42 cases), followed by Jharkhand (40), Karnataka (38), Andhra Pradesh (32) and Jammu and Kashmir (29).
  • These six states accounted for 250 cases — more than half the number of total sedition cases recorded in the country — in the eight-year period.
• 76 sedition cases were registered across the country in 2021, a marginal increase from the 73 registered in 2020.
• States and UTs that did not register even one sedition case in that period were Meghalaya, Mizoram, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Chandigarh, Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu, and Puducherry.

What is Sedition Law?

Sedition Law Today

• Section 124A IPC
  • It defines sedition as an offence committed when "any person by words, either spoken or written, or by signs, or by visible representation, or otherwise, brings or attempts to bring into hatred or contempt, or excites or attempts to excite disaffection towards the government established by law in India".
  • Disaffection includes disloyalty and all feelings of enmity. However, comments without exciting or attempting to excite hatred, contempt or disaffection, will not constitute an offence under this section.
• Punishment for the Offense of Sedition
  • It is a non-bailable offence. Punishment under Section 124A ranges from imprisonment up to three years to a life term, to which a fine may be added.
  • A person charged under this law is barred from a government job.
    • They have to live without their passport and must appear in court at all times as and when required.

What are the Significance and Issues with the Sedition Law?

• Significance
  • Reasonable Restrictions: The constitution of India prescribes reasonable restrictions (under Article 19(2)) that can always be imposed on this right (Freedom of Speech and Expression) in order to ensure its responsible exercise and to ensure that it is equally available to all citizens.
  • Maintaining Unity & Integrity: Sedition law helps the government in combating anti-national, secessionist and terrorist elements.
  • Maintaining Stability of State: It helps in protecting the elected government from attempts to overthrow the government with violence and illegal means. The continued existence of the government established by law is an essential condition of the stability of the State.
• Issues
• Relic of Colonial Era
  • Colonial administrators used sedition to lock up people who criticised the British policies.
  • Stalwarts of the freedom movement such as Lokmanya Tilak, Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Bhagat Singh, etc., were convicted for their “seditious” speeches, writings and activities under British rule.
  • Thus, rampant use of the sedition law recalls the colonial era.
• Stand of Constituent Assembly
  • The Constituent Assembly did not agree to include sedition in the Constitution. The members felt it would curtail freedom of speech and expression.
  • They argued that the sedition law can be turned into a weapon to suppress people’s legitimate and constitutionally guaranteed right to protest.
• Disregarding Supreme Court’s Judgement
  • Supreme Court in Kedar Nath Singh vs State of Bihar case 1962, limited application of sedition to “acts involving intention or tendency to create disorder, or disturbance of law and order, or incitement to violence”.
  • Thus, invoking sedition charges against academicians, lawyers, socio-political activists and students is in disregard of the Supreme Court’s order.
• Repressing Democratic Values: Increasingly, India is being described as an elected autocracy primarily because of the callous and calculated use of sedition law.

Way Forward

• Section 124A of the IPC has its utility in combating anti-national, secessionist and terrorist elements. However, dissent and criticism of the government are essential ingredients of robust public debate in a vibrant democracy. They should not be constructed as sedition.
• The higher judiciary should use its supervisory powers to sensitize the magistracy and police to the constitutional provisions protecting free speech.
• The definition of sedition should be narrowed down, to include only the issues pertaining to the territorial integrity of India as well as the sovereignty of the country.
• Civil society must take the lead to raise awareness about the arbitrary use of Sedition law.

GS-III

Context

The Prime Minister has called for “Energy Atmanirbharta” by 2040.

• Atmanirbharta translates literally to self-reliance.

What is the main purpose of Atmanirbhar Bharat?

• The aim is to make the country and its citizens independent and self-reliant in all senses. 
• Five pillars of Aatma Nirbhar Bharat are – Economy, Infrastructure, System, Vibrant Demography and Demand.

How to achieve energy self-reliance?

• Definitional clarity: Atmanirbharta translates literally to self-reliance. Many interpret it to mean self-sufficiency. That should not be our goal. Energy self-sufficiency is infeasible and uneconomic. A better statement of intent would be “strategic autonomy”.
• Affordable access to fuel: Our policy must continue to emphasise affordable and secure access to oil and gas. Part of this objective could be met by intensifying domestic exploration.
• Prioritise access to the building blocks of green energy: The sine qua non for realising this forecast will be cost-competitive access to minerals/components (copper, cobalt, lithium, semiconductor chips etc) required to build EVs, solar panels, wind turbines and batteries.
• Infrastructure development: We must expand our strategic petroleum reserves to cover at least 30 days of consumption and upgrade the transmission grid and battery storage systems to scale up renewables and smoothen its supplies. We will need to develop innovative financing mechanisms to fund green infrastructure. It should be emphasised that all such investments will get impaired if state discoms are financially insolvent.
• Green incentives: The government’s production-linked incentive scheme (PLI) offers benefits for investment in green energy.
• Demand conservation and efficiency: Energy usage norms must be standardised and tightened. Legislation should be contemplated to ensure compliance.
• Energy diplomacy: Our diplomats should add the arrows of energy diplomacy to their quiver. This is because of our dependence on the international energy supply chains. Success in navigating the cross-currents of economic and geopolitical uncertainties will rest greatly on skilful diplomacy.
• Holistic governance: The current siloed structures of energy governance are suboptimal. A root and branch administrative overall is required. Institutions should be created to facilitate integrated energy planning and implementation.

Case study for value addition

• Costa Rica lasted 300 consecutive days on renewable energy alone. Costa Rica set the record in 2017 for most consecutive days with renewable energy. 
• The previous record for this feat was in 2015 when Costa Rica lasted 299 consecutive days on pure, clean energy.

Challenges ahead

• Anti-nuclear public sentiment: The Fukushima-Daiichi accident resulted in growing concern over the safety of nuclear plants in India .The construction of a nuclear plant in Kudankulam, Tamil Nadu, brought the issue directly into the public domain in 2012.
• Management autonomy: Power sector is dominated by public sector companies or PSUs (owned by the central and state government). Some parts of the energy sector have made very little progress in attracting private investment since 2007.
• Pricing: is the key to ensure the commercial viability of business entities and to attract investment into each fuel sector.
• Rigid tariff setting mechanism: Theoretically,  prices should be supervised and adjusted in a timely manner and adequately by independent regulators to reflect changing costs. However, in India, regulators including CERC and SERCs operate in a very rigid way due to political considerations. This jeopardises the operational profitability of companies.

Conclusion
We need leadership that can reconcile temporal differences and balance the short-term pressures of elections with the longer-term imperatives of sustainability in energy security which calls for bold and pragmatic decision making by the leadership.

Context

Recently, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has successfully tested the Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (IAD) technology that could aid cost-effective recovery of spent rocket stages and safely land payloads on other planets.

What is IAD?

• About
  • The IAD is designed, developed and successfully test-flown by ISRO's Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre (VSSC).
  • The IAD was successfully test flown in Rohini-300 (RH300 Mk II) sounding rocket from Thumba Equatorial Rocket Launching Station.
    • Rohini sounding rockets are routinely used for flight demonstration of new technologies being developed by ISRO as well as by scientists from India and abroad.
  • The IAD serves to decelerate an object plunging down through the atmosphere.
  • The IAD was initially folded and kept inside the payload bay of the rocket. At around 84 km altitude, the IAD was inflated and it descended through the atmosphere with the payload part of a sounding rocket.
  • The IAD has systematically reduced the velocity of the payload through aerodynamic drag and followed the predicted trajectory.
    • The force on an object that resists its motion through a fluid is called drag. When the fluid is a gas like air, it is called aerodynamic drag or air resistance.
• Significance: The IAD has huge potential in a variety of space applications like recovery of spent stages of rocket, for landing payloads on to Mars or Venus and in making space habitat for human space flight missions.

Context

Recently, India became the world’s fifth largest economy by overtaking the United Kingdom. Now, the United States, China, Japan, and Germany are the only nations with economies larger than India's.

• The real Gross Domestic product (GDP) growth of 6-6.5% in a world full of uncertainties is the new normal and India is set to be the third largest economy by 2029.

What are the Key Highlights of this Achievement?

• New Milestone: Moving past one of the biggest economies in the world, especially one that ruled over the Indian sub-continent for two centuries, is a major milestone.
• Size of Economy: The size of the Indian economy in ‘nominal’ cash terms in the quarter through March, 2022 was USD 854.7 billion while for UK was USD 816 billion.
• Comparison with United Kingdom:
  • Population Size: As of 2022, India has a population of 1.41 billion while the UK’s population is 68.5 million.
• GDP Per capita 
  • GDP per capita provides a more realistic comparison of income levels because it divides a country’s GDP by the population of that country.
  • The per capita income in India remains very low, India is ranked 122 out of 190 countries in terms of per capita income in 2021.
• Poverty
  • The low per capita incomes often point to high levels of poverty.
  • At the start of the 19^th century, the UK’s share in extreme poverty was considerably higher than India’s.
    • However, the relative positions have reversed even though India has made giant strides in curbing poverty.
• Health 
  • The Universal Health Coverage (UHC) Index is measured on a scale from 0 (worst) to 100 (best) based on the average coverage of essential services including reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health, infectious diseases, non-communicable diseases and service capacity and access.
  • While faster economic growth and the government’s policy focus on healthcare schemes since 2005 have made a distinct improvement for India, there is still a long way to go.
• Human development Index
  • The end goal of higher GDP and faster economic growth is to have better human development parameters.
  • According to HDI (2019), the UK score is 0.932 and India’s score is 0.645 which is comparatively far behind the UK.
    • Despite its secular improvement, India might still take a decade to be where the UK was in 1980.
• Present outlook: The dramatic shift has been driven by India's rapid economic growth over the past 25 years as well as downslides in the value of the pound over the last 12 months.
  • The right policy perspective and realignment in global geopolitics could further, also lead to an upward revision in its estimates for India.

What are the Issues Related to Indian Economy?

• Slowing Exports and Rising Imports: The slowing growth of the manufacturing sector at 4.8% is an area of worry.
  • Also, imports being higher than exports is a matter of concern.
• Unpredictable Weather: There is an uneven monsoon that is likely to weigh upon agriculture growth and rural demand.
• Rising Inflation: There has been continuous rise in inflation about 6% for seven straight months.
  • The Indian economy faces headwinds from higher energy and commodity prices that are likely to weigh on consumer demand and companies' investment plans.