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

You cannot Step Twice in the Same River

• Life is as vibrant and fast-paced as the water in the river. Life moves with the passage of time, and as time passes, we get older. Experiences, situations, ideas, and people all change throughout time. Nothing in life is constant. Anything that is lost once is gone forever. If you are moving with emotion, sadness, desire, and sorrow, it represents the presence of life. Dynamism reflects that if something is over the probability of its repetition is not easy. 
• The characteristics of dynamism exist with the river also. If we observe the life of an individual it changes from one phase to another phase and the previous phase cannot be revisited. A Baby is born in a protected and cared environment and grows toward its adolescent phase. During this period, a youngster began learning little to moderate things that he retained for the rest of his life. He will not need to learn it again, nor will he learn it. 
• As life moves from one phase to another phase life is getting enriched by different experiences. These experiences transform an individual from an immature individual to a mature individual. Once an individual lost its immaturity and became mature, he will never again be an immature person in its entire life. That is why it is stated that once something is gone from life, it is gone forever. An adult transform into an older one and in the end, it ultimately leads to the end of life. Individual is born then he cannot take birth again, He will become an adult once in life. 
• He will be older only once in life and he will die only once. Once you say something to anyone you can apologize but you cannot take back your words. Once you have taken any unethical action you can rectify it in your next action but previous unethical action which you did cannot be rectified or reverted back. Once you have shown your affection and love to someone you cannot show the same second time. 
• Next time the affection and love you show will be the next one not the previous one because the instance or point of that moment passed away. During the study once you crossed one barrier that will not come again for the first time. Whenever it will come again it will be the second or third.
• India became a free nation on the 15^th of August 1947 and this day is the first Independence Day of India. Every year we celebrate Independence Day but it will never be the first one because the first celebration of independence has passed on date 15^th August 1947. Same thing happened with the Republic Day of India which was celebrated on the 26^th of January 1950. 
• Life is full of challenges and associated with the several kinds of events which come once in life and are lost forever so considering these aspects, life reveals the secrets that an individual should live in the present and focus on what he is doing at a particular point of moment. Because the future depends on the decision and action taken in the present.
• We are all evolving on a personal level, and we live in a constantly changing environment. Our power to shape the course of our life and future occurrences is quite restricted. It is nearly difficult to glimpse the depths of the big river of life if we stay on the surface.
• We frequently miss how we are part of the ever-changing universe around us because we can clearly see it. Life is always changing its course, reminding people to be attentive and observant, to live in the present moment. People desire to be happy and seek reasons for happiness. Inspiration might be passive awareness, but more often than not, it is enlightened wisdom that is required for permanent happiness. 
• Nietzsche observes that once we achieve a long-desired goal, we find "how foolish and empty it is." Socrates famously said that the unexamined life is not worth living. A philosophy of life must include at least two components: metaphysics and ethics. A metaphysics is an explanation of how the universe works. An ethical account is a description of how we should live in the world.
• For instance, Buddhists follow the eightfold path: Right View (actions have consequences, death is not the end, etc.), Right Intention (adopting a life that follows the eightfold path), Right Speech (no lying, no rude speech, etc.), Right Conduct (refraining from killing sentient beings), Right Livelihood (making one’s living in an ethical manner), Right Effort (preventing the arising of unwholesome states), Right Mindfulness (being mindful of Buddhist teachings), Right Samadhi (practicing meditation). 
• These are the teachings of the Buddha which he realized during the course of enlightenment. Buddha reveals the secrets of enlightenment through its preaching. During its enlightenment, Buddha recognized that a person cannot step twice in the same river, implying that something that has passed from life cannot be revisited later in life.
• Life teaches us the lesson which no book or teacher can teach us, so it is our responsibility to take the lesson from our mistakes and try to not repeat it in the future. Whatever we lost in the past by doing mistakes cannot be recovered but we can rectify it in our future course of action. Buddha teaches that suffering of an individual lies in his thought process.
• An individual either lives in the past or in the future, making it difficult for him to focus on the present. Buddha teaches that a person should live in the present moment. If an individual lives in the present, he will utilize the time in a more efficient way. Such a person will never regret the loss of time because he fully utilizes his time and There will be nothing for which he wants to return to that moment.

Forests are the Best-Case Studies for Economic Excellence

The ecosystem of India's forests has a lot to teach the nation's economy. An ecosystem includes both the economy and the forest. While the economy is a man-made system with the flow of money, supply chain, and distribution, the forest is a natural ecosystem with fundamental functions like energy flow and food web.

Necessity of Resilience and Flow

• The ecology must have energy flow in order to survive. The economy is built on the flow of money. Both in the forest ecosystem and economy one element is related to other elements. The economy as a whole suffers when one sector flounders. As the flow of money in the economy climbs, inflation rises as well. An ecosystem's main quality is resilience. The more resilient an ecosystem is, the further it will grow. The capacity of an ecosystem to survive in an ecological disturbance while preserving its fundamental cycles of food and energy is the resilience of the ecosystem. The more diverse the economy and forest, the more stable it will be.
• Economic resilience expands to include three key characteristics in the context of economic development: the capacity to swiftly bounce back from shocks, to absorb shocks, and to completely avoid shocks. A supply chain in an economy is a network of companies and individuals involved in the production and distribution of goods and services. Producers, vendors, warehouses, shipping firms, distribution hubs, and merchants are all included. Product creation, marketing, operations, distribution, financing, and customer support are some of its core responsibilities. 
• In ecology, productivity refers to the speed at which an ecosystem produces biomass. It is often referred to as the energy that plants store during photosynthesis. By subtracting the energy lost via respiration from gross primary production, net primary productivity is calculated. The economy's Net Domestic Production (NDP) is derived by subtracting depreciation from its Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Diversity in Economy

• A more diverse ecosystem is a more stable ecosystem because a more diverse ecosystem provides availability of more food chains which culminates into the food web. A food web provides more stability to an ecosystem. A diversified economy has several options to sustain its supply chain and demand. Diversification of the economy is a critical aspect in economic growth, and it encompasses broadening a country's production and trading infrastructure. 
• The world's poorest nations have the most concentrated economic structures, owing to the fact that many of them are small or geographically isolated, landlocked, and/or primarily reliant on primary agriculture or resources. This raises concerns about sensitivity to sector-specific shocks, such as weather-related disasters in agriculture or rapid price shocks in minerals. The Indian economy is highly diversified by the virtue of its different economic sectors. The manufacturing sector is regarded as the backbone of economic progress. 
• Industrial growth is a prerequisite for eliminating unemployment and poverty in our country. It also attempted to reduce regional inequities by building enterprises in tribal and underserved regions. The services sector accounts for more than half of India's GDP. In India, the services sector has received most of the FDI. 
• The largest, fastest growing, and most productive sector in India is the service sector. It continued to rank among the top ten trading nations for commercial services in 2019. Agriculture is critical to the Indian economy. Agriculture supports more than 70% of rural households. 
• Agriculture is a significant sector of the Indian economy, accounting for around 17% of total GDP. About 58% of the population is employed in the agricultural sector. Tribal economy is a key element for classifying Scheduled Tribes in India. The dominant economic activity of the tribes is hunting, fishing, food gathering, shifting cultivation, Sedentary cultivation and animal husbandry.

Mutual Symbiosis

• In a biological ecosystem, symbiosis fosters reciprocal dependence of one species of flora or fauna on other species of flora and fauna. Both species coexist in harmony with one another and in accordance with the needs of others. Industrial symbiosis is the economic process through which the byproducts or wastes of one industry or industrial process are utilized as raw materials for another. 
• This concept fosters the development of a circular economy and allows for the more sustainable usage of materials. The objective of industrial symbiosis is to create a network of linked systems that function similarly to biological ecosystems in that materials and energy are continually recycled without waste.
• A forest ecosystem has two basic components which are known as biotic and abiotic components. Interaction of the biotic and abiotic components of the forest is a main feature of the forest ecosystem for its survival. Macroeconomy and Microeconomy are the two fundamental parts of an economy. Both parts of the economy used to interact with each other and support the economy to survive and proliferate.

Invasion by Other Economies

• When items are sold overseas at a lower price than they would be sold domestically, after deducting variances for shipping costs, tariffs, and other cost considerations, this practice is known as "dumping". This practice of dumping by foreign nations impacted the domestic industries negatively. 
• Low price products are dumped in foreign nations just to get an edge over the foreign nations market. This practice negatively impacted the domestic economy as in biological ecosystems invasive or alien species of flora or fauna impacted negatively to the endemic species. An invasive species is secreting such chemicals which can destroy the entire population of the pre-existing species. 
• Invasive species are acting like predators in an ecosystem. Dumping of low-price products is also acting like a predator for the native economy. Predatory pricing is the practice of a company purposely lowering prices to drive away rivals. By removing the rivals, the business is getting one step closer to a monopoly, a privileged position of market domination.

Technology

• The traditional role of chemistry in converting resources into products that, in many cases, created waste and harmed the environment is giving way to a new role in developing new methods for resource recovery and recycling processes for the efficient use of resources and utilization of waste materials as green resources. 
• The solution to issues with the economic system or the forest ecology is technology. Without technological advancement, it is difficult to predict how quickly the economy will grow. Without technical development, we would not be able to maintain our forests or control pollution. With the help of high-quality seed varieties brought about by technological innovation, India saw a "green revolution" that finally sparked economic growth and allowed the country to become self-sufficient in terms of agricultural production.
• The methods used to protect the economy and the forest should be equal. In essence, sustainable development promotes justice in economic growth and environmental conservation, and it is urgently needed on both a national and global scale. The preservation of natural resources and the control of economic woes are crucial for the existence of the human species. 
• The continual flow of energy and money supply is a vital necessity. The solution to issues relating to both the economy and the ecosystem is technology. Both the economy and the forest are necessary for human life. Forest and economy both elements complement one another, and numerous of their elements coexist and are kept in balance with one another.

Less social, More media

• Socialization is the lifetime process of acquiring and disseminating norms, conventions, and ideas. The use of social media has now become so important for the new generation that it has become an addiction that is difficult to recognize, so in this contrast, the older generation feels a sense of satisfaction and contentment at having been born in an era when something other than technology defined the social and recreational lives of the children of that time.
• We are attempting to become more socialized through media, yet the media is expanding, and individuals are essentially being trapped within a room. The younger generation is entirely relied on social media. Social media is basically the primary source of getting information in the present scenario while in the 90’s newspapers were the primary source of information. Reading the newspaper is a habit that our parents have instilled in us. 
• The primary source of reliable news was regarded as newspapers and television news. Doordarshan was the most famous and reliable TV channel in the 90’s, compared to the 24-hour news networks of today, which lack any meaningful content and are occupied with playing outside in the real world. Social media is basically an outcome of technological advancements.
• Every technological advancement brings advantages along with disappointments. It is on the awareness of the users how advantages can be maximized, and disadvantages minimized. 90’s is the time when there was no Internet and single-screen theaters were common. So, circumstances at that point were not conducive for the growth of social media. Rotary landline phones were found in every home feature, phones were considered a luxury, and our identity was determined by what we did in the real world. 
• The 90’s generation often feel an awkward generation gap with younger generations. Social media created a virtual word which runs parallel to the real word. In contrast if we talk about socialization then there are two kinds of socialization that exist the one is real socialization and other is the virtual socialization. Technological innovation brought with itself the heat of change. A person who is able to adopt the stream of change will survive and advanced in future.
• We molded ourself with change in time and time advanced with technology. We also adapted to ourself with changing technology and evolving social media life. Simple landline advanced in to cellular phones and it gives way to multimedia phones which ultimately culminated in to proliferation of smart phones. The origin of smart phones has given way to social media advancement.
• Impact of social media we can observe in every sphere of life. Social media is used by the people for popularity. Ministers, Bureaucrats and several higher ranked government officials are proactively using social sites and social media to popularize their works and trying to establish themself as highly efficient professionals who are working more efficiently as an administrator to resolve the suffering of others. While the main purpose of using social media to popularize himself as an efficient administrator because it will be beneficial for them as per future is concern.
• Billions of people are now creating and sharing massive amounts of data with one another. This gives people a sense of being associated instead of feeling lonely. When you consider developing a social media strategy for your company, the following platforms are likely to spring to mind: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube etc.
  “You are what you share”  _ Charles Leadbeater
• Civil services aspirants who lost their last UPSC attempt due to Covid-19 pandemic protested for extra UPSC attempts. They asserted that they would put pressure on the government for fulfillment of their demands. For this purpose, they started a campaign for extra UPSC attempts through several social media platforms such as Facebook and twitter. Social media is working as the people’s voice. It makes people's voices loud and clear.
• Social media is the most promising medium in human history from the Stone Age to the Metal Age is currently in the Digital age. Mass mobilization to the spread of false news is highly influenced by the news available on social media. In a few cases, the situation deteriorated, which ultimately culminated in the loss of life.
• In response to a recent exchange of aggressive religious social media remarks, two people beheaded a 40-year-old man in broad daylight at his tailoring store in a market in Rajasthan's Udaipur city. This incidence basically reveals that human beings are becoming inhuman day by day and have no guilt of being involved in anti-social activity.
• Social media usage, on the other hand, can have a detrimental impact on youngsters by distracting them, interrupting their sleep, and exposing them to bullying, rumor spreading, inaccurate views of other people's lives, and peer pressure.
• The views on social media held by peoples of 90’s and the younger generations are different. The younger generation see them as a way of life; however, people from the 90’s simply view them as a way to switch things up and meet with close friends sometimes. Social media has a big impact on people's everyday lives, self-esteem, daily activities, and even, to a considerable extent, job decisions. 
• Younger generations' brains have been influenced by social media in such a manner that being successful YouTubers, Tik-Tokers, and Instagram influencers seems to be the aspiration of many of them. They take satisfaction in choosing to become these because of their cheap popularity and quick recognition.
• A few years back an online game known as "Blue Whale challenge" which was basically a 50-day online "suicide game" for kids. The challenge was alleged to have resulted in a number of deaths throughout the world.
• Social media is basically promoting socialization but in the closed room. People are feeling that they bring social revolution through societal change by proactively working on social media. Hard reality is entirely different from reality exit on social media platforms. Revolution needs ground work which is not possible only through social media. Any social media campaign will only be fruitful till it is not backed up by the groundwork. The new generation does not want to take the pain of groundwork because it needs real effort.
• The use of social media more than certain limits invites social media addiction. Addiction of anything compelled individuals for self-harm. So now the time has come to take a break and introspect on the hours which we used to spend on social media. A break from social media is required for relaxation and introspection.
• We should take a break from social media, and try to feel and understand how people live their lives when there were no social media platforms. We should try to comprehend how time flies when there are no social media platforms. People back then were far more mentally stable and didn't experience the irritation that social media is known for nowadays. People were dealing with real practical challenges because they were mentally more stable and healthier. 
• We should give up being creative for a few hours or even a day to detox since we have many other great ways to keep ourself engaged outside of the workplace. If social media is cut off from their lives, even for a short while, youngsters and adults in their twenties could experience anxiety. It is a characteristic of being addicted to social media.
• On evening walks, we regularly see young men and women dancing and using a camera mounted on a tripod stand to record short videos to upload to Facebook or Instagram. We suppose it is reasonable for us to limit ourself to one or two social media networks in order to save time, which we can then commit to improving our health or performing other creative work that will benefit us. Almost eight to ten hours a day are typically spent on smartphones by most individuals. Most people use their smartphones for nearly eight to 10 hours a day.
• Millennials are drawn to sign up for any new or well-liked social networking platform. This is because they frequently use the virtual world to incorrectly define their real-world personalities, resulting in them living in an illusory reality. 
• Someone younger than us has opened their eyes in an era of social media, cellphones, and multiplexes, and their vision of the world, identity, and opinions have been significantly influenced by it, resulting in views that are dramatically different from those of someone 10 years older than them. The new generation is proactively socializing to themselves through social media rather than real physical socialization. They know a lot of information about the events happening in the entire world but they are not aware of the suffering of their neighbors.