10 May 2019

1.      EC cancels vote cast by CRPF jawan:He had allegedly posted photos of his vote on social media

• The office of the Chief Electoral Officer has directed the Deputy Commissioner of Mandya district, who is also the District Electoral Officer, to cancel the vote cast by a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan on the grounds of violating secrecy of voting during the Lok Sabha elections.
• The act of violating secrecy of vote was widely circulated on social media.

2.      SC frowns on foreigners’ tribunals plan

·         Court questions Assam government, favours release of inmates after ensuring steps to monitor them

• The Supreme Court on Thursday questioned a proposal by the Assam government to quickly open 1,000 foreigners’ tribunals all over the northeastern State to try suspected illegal immigrants.
• A Bench led by Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi said it looked like the State government had hatched the plan without bothering to conduct a “basic study” of how to implement it. This, especially when the deadline for publishing the final National Register of Citizens (NRC) is looming large.
• A 1,000 tribunals means a 1,000 judicial officers to preside over them. Where will you find them overnight? How many advocates above the age of 35 years would be willing to join? Should the government not have foreseen this situation, considering the fact that the final NRC for the State would be published by July 31? Do we judges have to tell you everything?” .

3.      Navy joins exercises in South China Sea:Takes part in group sailing with U.S., Japan, Philippines

• The ships undertook various exercises en route which included formation manoeuvring, under way replenishment runs, cross-deck flying and exchange of sea riders.
• The group sail exercise showcased India’s commitment to operating with like-minded nations to ensure safe maritime environment through enhanced interoperability.
• China, which claims a major part of the SCS, has disputes with most of its maritime neighbours.
• In China, the ships took part in the International Fleet Review (IFR) as part of the 70th anniversary celebrations of the People’s Liberation Army (Navy). They later took part in the Phase I of the maritime security field training exercise under the aegis of the ASEAN Defence Ministers’ Meeting Plus (ADMM-Plus) from May 1 to 3 off South Korea.

 

9 may 2019

4. BMRCL for an integrated commuting network in city:Draft transit-oriented development policy released

• The Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd. (BMRCL) has come out with a draft transit policy for the city, where it envisages an integrated commuting network — where people travelling on a bus or train can get down at their stop and walk to their destination.
• If walking is not an option, they should be able to hop onto a feeder service or transit network without an endless wait.
• Such a system will make the city more liveable and resilient.
• The draft policy stated that to achieve this, the draft Revised Master Plan 2031 must be reoriented to the principles of transit-oriented development (TOD).
• The new policy defines TOD as development of concentrated nodes of moderate to high mixed land use density within five to ten minutes of walking distance from mass transit stations which are well integrated with pedestrian, bicycle, feeder, and transit networks.
• The BMRCL proposes developing neighbourhoods to have better access to mass-transit points, be it metro, bus or suburban rail.
• transit-oriented development is not a new concept.
• The model was applied in Mumbai in the core city areas when the suburban rail network was being built. This is a sound idea as it is aimed at providing better access to transit centres. It is feasible if it’s planned and executed well.

5. Iran says it will not honour nuclear curbs

• Iran had stopped respecting limits on its nuclear activities agreed under a 2015 deal with major powers until they find a way to bypass renewed U.S. sanctions.
• The announcement came as Washington stepped up its rhetoric against Tehran, accusing it of planning “imminent” attacks and deploying an aircraft carrier strike group with nuclear-capable B-52 bombers to the region.

6.      Tracing food that’s not off the shelf

·         Most customers of rent-a-farm initiative are those who want their children to get familiar with

7.      ‘Revive BMLTA to implement projects’:It can play the role of a unified metropolitan transport authority.

·         The BMRCL proposes developing neighbourhoods to have better access to mass-transit points, be it metro, bus or suburban rail.

• By 2031, the population of Bangalore Metropolitan Region is expected to more than double from 9.1 million in 2011 to 20.3 million. The city is expanding at the rate of 39 sq. km a year in peripheral areas, which are not served by good road networks and other infrastructure.
• There is a need to increase the public transport share from the current 48% to 70% and enhance accessibility and mobility of people which is a pre-requisite for more liveable and resilient city. In this regard, huge investments are being made to expand the mass transit systems — metro rail and commuter rail in Bengaluru.
• To ensure effective implementation of projects under the TOD, the draft policy talks about reviving the Bangalore Metropolitan Land Transport Authority (BMLTA) and empowering it through a comprehensive Act, financial assistance, and staff support so that it can play the role of a unified metropolitan transport authority (UMTA).
• Though the BMLTA exists, it remains inactive. It was created in 2007, but failed to live up to its goals.
• The draft transport policy proposes that the BMLTA come out with policy formation, project preparations and approvals, strategic planning and programming, funding and others to oversee the implementation of projects under TOD.
• The policy also states that the BMLTA shall come out with recommendations on regulating private vehicles through appropriate policies.
• The policy lists different options for financing projects under the TOD, such as levying 5% cess on the market value of land or property on the landlord or property owner under the Karnataka Town and Country Planning Act.
• This can be credited to the proposed metro infrastructure fund. The fund shall be shared by BMRCL, BWSSB and BDA at 65%, 20% and 15% respectively.
• Other financing sources include allowing BMRCL to issue TDRs in lieu of compensation for land acquisition for metro projects and discouraging private vehicles by levying more cess on registration.

8.      Biodiversity assessments must be factored into all economic activity

• The overwhelming message from the global assessment report of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) is that human beings have so rapaciously exploited nature, and that species belonging to a quarter of all studied animal and plant groups on earth are gravely threatened.
• If the world continues to pursue the current model of economic growth without factoring in environmental costs, one million species could go extinct, many in a matter of decades.
• Catastrophic erosion of ecosystems is being driven by unsustainable use of land and water, direct harvesting of species, climate change, pollution and release of alien plants and animals in new habitats. While ecosystem losses have accelerated over the past five decades universally, there is particular worry over the devastation occurring in tropical areas, which are endowed with greater biodiversity than others; only a quarter of the land worldwide now retains its ecological and evolutionary integrity, largely spared of human impact.
• Nature provides ecosystem services, but these are often not included in productivity estimates: they are vital for food production, for clean air and water, provision of fuel for millions, absorption of carbon in the atmosphere, and climate moderation.
• The result of such skewed policies, as the IPBES estimates, is that the global rate of species extinction is at least tens to hundreds of times higher today than the average rate over the past 10 million years, and it is accelerating alarmingly.
• Ecological economists have for years pointed to the extreme harm that humanity as a whole is courting by modifying terrestrial, marine and freshwater ecosystems to suit immediate needs, such as raising agricultural and food output and extracting materials that aid ever-increasing consumption.
• Expanding agriculture by cutting down forests has raised food volumes, and mining feeds many industries, but these have severely affected other functions such as water availability, pollination, maintenance of wild variants of domesticated plants and climate regulation.
• Losses from pollution are usually not factored into claims of economic progress made by countries, but as the IPBES assessment points out, marine plastic pollution has increased tenfold since 1980, affecting at least 267 species, including 86% of marine turtles, 44% of seabirds and 43% of marine mammals.
• At the same time, about 9% of 6,190 domesticated breeds of mammals used for food and agriculture had gone extinct by 2016, and another 1,000 may disappear permanently. Viewed against a shrinking base of wild varieties of farmed plants and animals, all countries have cause for alarm. They are rapidly emptying their genetic resource kit.
• Reversing course is a dire necessity to stave off disaster. This can be done by incorporating biodiversity impacts into all economic activity, recognising that irreparably breaking the web of life will impoverish and endanger people everywhere.

9.      A wake-up call on proprietary seeds:How India can shift its agriculture from a high-yield ideal to a high-value one

·         “Where farmers could be using genetically distinctive seeds adapted to local conditions, they are adapting local conditions to use genetically standardised seeds, to ruinous effect.”

• When the news broke that PepsiCo was suing small farmers in India for growing a potato variety that is used in its Lay’s chips, popular sympathies immediately went, of course, to the farmers.
• National and international pressure swiftly mounted, and in short order a humbled PepsiCo backtracked, announcing its withdrawal of the lawsuit. There was global schadenfreude at Goliath’s PR disaster and, in India, pride at being on the side of the righteous Davids.
• What should not be a source of pride, however, is the fact that so many small farmers are, like the ones targeted by PepsiCo, reliant, directly or indirectly, on proprietary seeds.
• Typically these seeds are grown in high input (fertilizer-pesticide-irrigation) environments that, over time, erode local biodiversity.
• Between the expense of buying these seeds and inputs, and the loss of the skills and social relationships needed to do otherwise (through the saving and exchange of seeds of indigenous varieties), small-scale farming looks set to continue on its downward spiral of lower income, status and dignity.
• No one can blame farmers for thinking that proprietary seeds are better.
• Since the days of the Green Revolution, agricultural extension officers — the field representatives of agricultural modernity — have taught farmers to buy ever-higher-yielding seeds.
• Taking this science-and-industry-know-best stance on seed quality a little further, efforts have been ongoing, albeit unsuccessfully due to pressures from farmers and NGOs, to pass a new seed law in India permitting the sale of certified seeds only.
• In the current Indian law regulating intellectual property rights in seeds, the Plant Variety Protection law, this same official preference for the proprietary takes a different form.
• The law permits farmers not only to save and resow (multiply) seeds, but also to sell them to other farmers, no matter what the original source of the seeds is.
• This broad permission (called farmers’ privilege) is considered indispensable for so-called seed sovereignty, which has become synonymous with permitting farmers to save, sow, multiply and use proprietary seeds, as well as proprietary vegetative propagation materials such as what are used for the cultivation of potatoes.
• Despite the shift away from seed replacement to the right to save seeds, the emphasis remains on proprietary seeds that have narrow, uniform and non-variable genetic builds. Where farmers could be using genetically distinctive seeds adapted to local conditions and farming traditions, they are instead adapting local conditions and traditions in order to use genetically standardised seeds, to ruinous effect.
• It is time for a paradigm shift. To get a sense of what can be done, it may be useful to take a peep into recent regulatory efforts in Europe. The EU Regulation on Organic Production and Labelling of Organic Products, adopted in 2018, for the first time permits and encourages, inter alia, the use and marketing for organic agriculture, of “plant reproductive material of organic heterogenous material” without having to comply with most of the arduous registration and certification requirements under various EU laws.
• Heterogenous materials, unlike current proprietary seeds, need not be uniform or stable. Indeed, the regulation clearly acknowledges based on “Research in the Union on plant reproductive material that does not fulfil the variety definition... that there could be benefits of using such diverse material… to reduce the spread of diseases, to improve resilience and to increase biodiversity.”
• Accordingly, the regulation removes the legal bar on marketing of “heterogenous materials” and encourages its sale for organic agriculture, thus clearing the way to much more expansive use of indigenous varieties.
• Once the delegated acts under the EU regulation are formulated, they will support the creation of markets, especially markets and marketplaces facilitating trade of heterogenous seeds, including by small farmers who are currently the most active in maintaining and improving such seeds in situ.
• Indeed, multimillion-Euro research and innovation projects being invited and funded by the EU already aim to make this diversity a more integral part of farming in Europe. And here they are talking only of the diversity within Europe.

Minimise harm, maximise gain

• How can a biodiversity-rich nation like India shift its agriculture from a high-yield ideal to a high-value one, where the ‘values’ include striving to minimise environmental harm while maximising nutritional gains and farmer welfare?
• First, small farmers must be educated and encouraged with proper incentive structures, to engage with agriculture that conserves and improves traditional/desi (heterogenous) seeds in situ, rather than with “improved”, proprietary varieties.
• Currently, in the garb of protecting this diversity against biopiracy, India is preventing its effective use, management and monetisation for the benefit of its farmers.
• Second, an immutable record-keeping system, perhaps blockchain or DLT, is needed to break the link between the profitable and the proprietary.
• Such a system would allow India and its rural communities to keep proper track of where and how their seeds/propagation materials and the genetic resources contained therein are being transferred and traded.
• It would also ensure, through smart-contract facilitated micropayments, that monetary returns come in from users and buyers of these seeds, from around the globe.
• These monetary returns would effectively incentivise continuous cultivation and improvement of indigenous seeds on the one hand, and ensure sustainable growth of agriculture and of rural communities on the other.
• Third, and as a key pre-requisite to the execution of the first two plans, India’s invaluable traditional ecological knowledge systems need to be revived and made a part of mainstream agricultural research, education and extension services.
• Know-how contained in ancient Indian treatises like the Vrikshayurveda and the Krishi Parashar falls within the scope of what international conventions such as the Convention on Biological Diversity refer to as ‘indigenous and traditional technologies’.
• The revival of these technologies is central to promoting sustainable ‘high value’ agriculture, not least because of the growing global demand for organic and Ayurvedic products.
• The withdrawal of the lawsuit by PepsiCo may be a welcome relief to several farmers who can neither afford to defend themselves in court, nor to abandon the cultivation of proprietary varieties.
• It must, however, be a wake-up call to the government and policymakers who need to do much more to secure sustainable rural societies, protect soil health and promote seed sovereignty for the economic development of Indian farmers and of the entire nation.

10. A true strategic partnership between India and the U.S. remains elusive

• The U.S.’s decision to not extend Iran sanctions waivers, including the one provided to India, has notable implications for India-U.S. relations, given the importance of New Delhi’s energy relationship with Tehran.
• It comes on the heels of many other deleterious developments for bilateral ties including the U.S.’s decision to withdraw GSP benefits for Indian exports (in retaliation for Indian tariffs that the U.S. deemed to be prohibitively high) and the Trump administration’s discontent deepening over India’s policies on e-commerce, intellectual property rights and data localisation.
• These India-U.S. trade and economic tensions aren’t new; the non-security dimension of the relationship has long lagged behind the fast-growing defence side.
• Still, the complaints and perceived grievances, especially from the U.S., have seemingly intensified in the Trump era.
• Both sides have played down these differences and offered reassuring data points: India will scale up oil imports from other top producers; the GSP withdrawal will have minimal impact on India’s economy; the two capitals are working actively on high levels, most recently through the U.S.-India CEO Forum and the India-U.S. Commercial Dialogue, to ease tensions; and above all the strength of the bilateral relationship can easily withstand all these headaches.
• A full-fledged strategic partnership, which both countries endorse, will be difficult to achieve amid such multiple and long-standing disconnects on the trade and economic side.
• Indeed, if bilateral ties are largely driven by technology transfers, arms sales, joint exercises, and foundational agreements on defence, this amounts to a deep but one-sided security relationship, and not a robust and multifaceted strategic partnership.
• Recent joint statements have dwelt on the potential for cooperation on initiatives ranging from clean energy to innovation. And despite the problems, bilateral trade in goods and services has increased over the last decade.

11.  Section 56-D of the Conduct of Election Rules allows scrutiny of VVPAT slips in case of disputes

• Though the Supreme Court and the Election Commission have not agreed to the Opposition parties’ demand for 50% random physical verification of the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM) results with Voter-Verified Paper Audit Trail (VVPAT) slips, they can still take recourse to Section 56-D of the Conduct of Election Rules to request for slip counting.
• Section 56-C of the Rules provides for the procedure of vote counting. In case a candidate or election agent disputes the announced results of any polling station(s), they can seek scrutiny of VVPAT slips under the Section.
• The provision states that after the entries made in the result sheet are announced, any candidate or in his absence, his election agent or any of his counting agents may apply in writing to the returning officer to count the printed paper slips in the drop box of the printer in respect of any polling station or polling stations.
• On such application being made, the returning officer shall, subject to such general or special guidelines, as may be issued by the Election Commission, decide the matter and may allow the application in whole or in part or may reject in whole, if it appears to him to be frivolous or unreasonable.

Slip count prevails

• The returning officer’s decision has to be in writing and must contain the reasons for accepting or rejecting the request.
• In case the officer allows the counting of slips, either whole or in part, he has to do the counting according to EC directions.
• If any discrepancy between the votes displayed on the control unit and the counting of the paper slips is detected, the slip count prevails and accordingly, the results are amended and announced after following the set procedures.
• There have been 16 such instances of slip counting since 2017. In all cases, it was a 100% match of EVM results and VVPAT slips.
• The court had earlier directed that the physical counting of slips be increased from one to five randomly selected EVMs in each Assembly segment or constituency.

May 8,2019

12. Screen addiction: WHO calls for limited exposure in children

• It says those aged 2-5 should not spend over an hour daily facing a digital screen
• Screen addiction is a growing public health concern and even children aged under five don’t seem to be spared. Parents find it easier to keep their children engaged with a screen or device while feeding them or when they are busy with work. As a result, screen addiction is becoming common from early childhood.
• This, coupled with inadequate sleep time and sedentary behaviour, is paving the way for childhood obesity and associated diseases later in life.
• Recognising the need to check this, the World Health Organisation (WHO) recently issued guidelines stating that children under five must spend less time watching screens or being restrained in prams and seats. It also said they should get better quality sleep and spend more time on active play.
• A WHO panel of experts assessed the effects of inadequate sleep, time spent watching screens, and being restrained in chairs and prams on children. They also reviewed evidence around the benefits of increased activity.
• Improving physical activity, reducing sedentary time, and ensuring quality sleep will improve the physical and mental health of children and will help prevent childhood obesity and associated diseases, the document stated.
• Paediatricians in India, who endorsed the guidelines, said if healthy physical activity and good sleep habits are established early in life, it will help in shaping healthy habits through childhood, adolescence and adulthood.

13.  Rain-rich coastal Karnataka witnesses severe water scarcity : The water level in Baje dam across the Swarna has fallen.

• Despite receiving excess rainfall during the monsoon, coastal Karnataka — where water scarcity was unheard of till recently — is facing severe water scarcity for the past two months with surface water bodies running dry and groundwater depleting to record-low levels.
• Dakshina Kannada and Udupi districts had received above normal rain in the last monsoon, while Uttara Kannada had faced a shortfall of 586.1 mm from the normal.
• The coastal region received below normal rainfall post-monsoon (180.4 mm as against 263 mm) and during January-May (36.6 mm as against 50.3 mm).
• Fresh water flow has stopped in all major rivers in the coast, including Netravathi, Phalguni, Swarna, Chakra, Varahi, Sharavathi, Aghanashini and Kali at present.
• Groundwater level is 30-40 m deep in Mangaluru taluk and 20-30 m in Belthangady taluk while it is between 10-20 m in other taluks of the region as of March. In fact, Belthangady taluk on the foothills of the Western Ghats from where Netravathi flows down, used to be rich in groundwater.
• With water level reaching the dead-storage level at Baje dam across the Swarna, the main source of water for Udupi, the city municipality has decided to provide water once a week to residents by dividing the city into six zones.
• With storage enough for about a fortnight at Thumbe vented dam across Netravathi, Mangaluru City Corporation has resorted to water rationing. The problem has worsened owing to the near absence of summer showers.
• Multiple reasons, including depleted forest cover, particularly in the Western Ghats, and a very high temporal variation in rainfall are the reasons for the situation.
• Though the total quantum of rainfall was very high, there was a skew in the initial period and later there was drastic reduction with almost no rains in August and September 2018.
• Western Ghats play a crucial role in bringing rains and facilitating gradual percolation of rainwater into the ground. However, drastic depletion of forest cover by different projects has affected rainfall pattern and percolation.
• The rainwater immediately gushed into the Arabian Sea instead of gradually percolating into the gerund and getting released to the river system slowly.

14. Surveillance wars in space:Mission Shakti is a giant leap for India, but only a small step in the world of counterspace

• India’s Anti-Satellite Missile (ASAT) test on March 27.
• Critics have not stopped worrying about the potential harm that floating debris may cause to other satellites around that band in the sky. Years after Russia, the U.S., and China (referred to here as the Big Three) made a mark in this area, India too has shown that it can hit back at enemies attacking from space.
• Military experts say that possessing the highly difficult capability to conduct such a test is important and essential for ensuring national security in space.
• Mission Shakti, as it is called, has earned India a place in an exclusive club of ‘space defenders’. However, a peek into counterspace, the world where such dangerous space activities are practised covertly by the Big Three, shows that while Mission Shakti is a giant leap for India, it is only a small step in that world.
• The new measure of space supremacy lurks in counterspace now, and not so much in planetary excursions and astronauts’ outings. This is why the Big Three have been relentlessly pursuing for decades activities that enable them to rule space militarily, for offence or defence purposes.
• In times of war, the intent could even be to capture or disable a rival’s space assets in orbit.
• Some say that the U.S. and Russia have always had some counterspace capabilities in their over 60-year-old space race.
• Loud concerns have been raised over rendezvous and proximity operations (RPO) in space.
• In an RPO event, one country sends a satellite that clandestinely sits next to one of its own (or another country’s) orbiting satellites.
• The motive could be to inspect and assess the target’s nature, eavesdrop on it, or even subvert its functions. The fear is that in extreme cases, the target may even be ‘abducted’ or taken control of. India is not there — for now.
• Satellites of each of the Big Three has been caught loitering in orbit at different times, and the victims have cried foul.
• In September 2018, French Defence Minister was reported to have charged that Russian satellite Luch-Olymp was lurking too close to — and spying on — a Franco-Italian military communications satellite, Athena-Fidus, in 2017.
• The U.S. has reportedly had its share of RPOs and other acts.
• Countries are also honing non-kinetic, electronics and cyber-based methods to prevent satellites of other countries from spying on their regions. Cyber attacks can destroy, steal or distort other satellites or ground stations. The attacker gains control of the space asset.

15. Belt and Road 2.0:

 

• Six years after it was unveiled, China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) assumes another avatar. In its initial form, it was all things to all people, a catch-all for China’s international engagement. But in fact it had multiple, layered objectives.
• The first concerned domestic economics: exporting surplus industrial capacity and cash reserves overseas to keep China’s economy humming, its industrial output flowing, and its employment levels high.
• The second concerned domestic politics: a signature foreign initiative to associate with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
• The third concerned security: stabilising Western provinces and the Eurasian hinterland.
• The fourth concerned strategy: leveraging China’s new-found economic heft for political objectives in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and creating new standards and institutions in a bid to challenge U.S. leadership.
• But Beijing may have moved too soon and too quickly. As the second Belt and Road Forum (BRF) concludes, a paradox has become apparent at the heart of its ambitious initiative.
• On the one hand, there has been a strong backlash. The economic viability of Chinese projects is now viewed with considerable scrutiny.
• In capitals around the world, the port of Hambantota in Sri Lanka is being described as a warning sign.
• The BRI’s sustainability is called further into question as Chinese debt, especially that held by state-owned enterprises, mounts.
• Additionally, security concerns have begun to predominate as far afield as in the European Union, the South Pacific and Canada. The role of China’s state in its business dealings is being deliberated openly. China’s military base at Djibouti has injected an overtly military element to its external engagement. And political pushback to Beijing is also discernible, whether in Zambia, the Maldives or Brazil.
• Yet, despite these obvious deficiencies, the allure of the BRI remains strong.
• Many countries still see China as an attractive alternative to slow-moving democratic bureaucracies and tedious lending institutions.
• There are also political motivations at play: a minor agreement on the BRI is a useful tool for Italy’s Eurosceptic government to send a strong political message to the EU.
• Chinese overseas financial flows have slowed since 2017, and the focus has shifted away from massive infrastructure projects to realms such as digital technology.
• For India, which boycotted the BRF for the second time on grounds of both sovereignty (the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor traverses Pakistan-occupied Kashmir) and unsustainability (particularly in the Indian Ocean), it means continuing to monitor China’s international engagement closely.

16.  ‘India has overly restrictive market barriers’:Tariff and non-tariff barriers, multiple regulations putting foreign firms at disadvantage

·         Too much: India’s average applied tariff rate of 13.8% is highest of any major economy

• While the U.S. is India’s largest export destination, India is only the 13th largest for the U.S. due to overly restrictive market access barriers
• India is already the world’s third largest economy, and by 2030, it will become the world’s largest consumer market because of the rapid growth of the middle class.
• These include both tariff and non-tariff barriers, as well as multiple practices and regulations that disadvantage foreign companies
• India’s average applied tariff rate of 13.8%, and that remains the highest of any major world economy.
• It has, for example, a 60% tariff on automobiles; it has a 50% on motorcycles; and 150% on alcoholic beverages
• data-localisation restrictions that actually weaken data security and increase the cost of doing business.
• Other obstacles include price controls on medical devices and pharmaceuticals, and restrictive tariffs on electronics and telecommunications products.

 

07 May 2019

17.  Unlike the rest of the world, India is stridently moving away from community-involved conservation models

• In February this year, one of the world’s 17 megadiverse countries issued a court order which stood to evict more than a million forest-dwelling people from their homes.
• More damningly, India, a state that supports about 8% of global species diversity and over 100 million forest-dwellers, did not even put up a legal defence before its top court.
• Although this order was subsequently stayed, though temporarily, it provides valuable insights into India’s conservation objectives and approaches.
• Given the country’s size and biodiversity-richness, a decision of this nature has consequences for global natural heritage.
• Involving communities living in and around natural resource-rich areas in the management and use of these resources is an effective tool of conservation that has been recognised across the world.
• This was affirmed by the 1980 World Conservation Strategy of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), and the Earth Summit’s 1992 Statement of Forest Principles and the Convention on Biological Diversity.
• Further fillip came from the IUCN’s Policy Statement on Sustainable Use of Wild Living Resources in 2000, and the Convention on Biological Diversity’s 2004 Addis Ababa Principles and Guidelines for the Sustainable Use of Biodiversity.
• India’s conservation legislation is separated into those that protect forests and its produce, and those that target wildlife conservation. Both the Indian Forest Act, 1927 and the Wildlife Protection Act, 1972 create different types and grades of protected areas, and contain provisions to restrict or outlaw local use of natural resources and landscapes.
• From the 1980s, there were a number of policies that mirrored the global shift towards inclusive conservation, such as the 1988 National Forest Policy, the 1992 National Conservation Strategy, the National Environment Policy of 2006 and the 2007 Biosphere Reserves Guidelines.
• While these people-friendly policy statements made their way into India’s conservation docket, its earlier exclusionary conservation legislation continued to stay in place.
• Potentially, in an attempt to bridge this divide, the 1990 Joint Forest Management Guidelines (JFM) created community institutions for co-management, in collaboration with the forest bureaucracy.
• Although it initially registered some success stories in certain parts of the country, JFM committees are widely critiqued as being bureaucracy-heavy, with little real devolution of powers to local communities.
• A dramatic shift in the Indian conservation paradigm came in 2006 through the Forest Rights Act that went beyond sanctioning local usage, to conferring rights to local communities over forest land and produce.
• The Ministry of Tribal Affairs was mandated with operationalising the Act, while conservation remained under the domain of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change.
• Given a hostile bureaucratic environment, the legislation faltered, except in certain pockets. Despite its limited realisation, the Forest Rights Act succeeded in raising the hackles of those within the forest bureaucracy and wildlife organisations, who challenged its constitutionality before the Supreme Court.
• India’s conservation policies and legislation over the years reveal a dichotomy of intent and action. Certain progressive policy documents are put in place checking off India’s international commitments.
• However, a wholly different picture emerges during the course of its operation on the ground. If there was any uncertainty regarding India’s stand on inclusive conservation, the past three years reveal that even the pretence of community involvement has largely been done away with.
• The Third National Wildlife Action Plan, introduced in 2017, with the stated intent of complying with international commitments, is categorically of the view that locals hinder conservation. Where communities are to be involved, it distinctly avoids the attribution of rights and instead frames usage within a bureaucracy-controlled format.
• In 2018, there was a Draft National Forest Policy that emphasised the protected area model of conservation that leaves little room for communities.
• The Supreme Court’s order in early 2019, currently held in abeyance, mandated the eviction of those forest-dwellers whose claims under the Forest Rights Act have been rejected, in disregard of the bureaucratic violations, lapses and technical constraints that have played a part in such rejections.
• In March 2019, a comprehensive overhaul of the Indian Forest Act was proposed. This amendment introduces provisions for extinguishing rights granted under the Forest Rights Act. Further, it grants the forest bureaucracy unprecedented powers to enter and search the premises of forest-dwellers on suspicion, arrest without warrant and use firearms to meet conservation goals.
• State authority that is usually reserved to tackle terrorism, insurgency and organised crime is now to be deployed to safeguard biodiversity. An amendment to the Wildlife Protection Act is reportedly in the offing.
• India’s conservation policies in recent years leave no doubt as to the model of conservation the country is intent on pursuing. While other countries are recognising the value of community-involved conservation models, India is stridently and steadfastly moving in the opposite direction.

18. 1 million species at risk of extinction: UN

• Industrial farming, fishing are factors that threaten to end existence of many species, says report
• Relentless pursuit of economic growth, twinned with the impact of climate change, has put an ”unprecedented” one million species at risk of extinction.
• Only a wide-ranging transformation of the global economic and financial system could pull ecosystems that are vital to the future of human communities worldwide back from the brink of collapse, concluded the report, which was endorsed by 130 countries, including the U.S., Russia and China.
• Climate change caused by burning the coal, oil and gas produced by the fossil fuel industry is exacerbating the losses.
• Combining wide-ranging disciplines to measure how the loss of the natural world affects human societies, the report identified a range of risks, from the disappearance of insects vital for pollinating food crops, to the destruction of coral reefs that support fish populations that sustain coastal communities, or the loss of medicinal plants. The report found that the average abundance of native species in most major land-based habitats has fallen by at least 20%, mostly since 1900.
• The threatened list includes more than 40% of amphibian species, almost 33% of reef-forming corals, and more than a third of all marine mammals. The picture was less clear for insect pecies, but a tentative estimate suggests 10% are at risk of extinction.

 

06 May 2019

19.  Sand extraction near fish sanctuary halted tentatively:impact of extraction on Chibbalagudde sanctuary

• The Department of Mines and Geology has passed an order to tentatively halt sand extraction from the Tunga in the vicinity of the Chibbalagudde fish sanctuary in Tirthahalli taluk.
• The 3-km stretch of the Tunga river near Chibbalagudde in Tirthahalli taluk hosts 27 varieties of fishes and has been declared as a fish sanctuary by the State government.
• The department had sanctioned permission recently for sand extraction from the Tunga bank in Dabbanagadde village located a few metres away from Chibbalagudde.
• Environmentalists had expressed apprehension that sand extraction here would loosen the river bank and alter the course of the river owing to which the fish in Chibbalagudde might migrate to other places or they might cease to exist.

20.  Maharashtra to be second State to get ICJS

·         System to be a common platform for agencies to share data on prisoners

• Maharashtra is set to become the second State to implement the Central government’s Interoperable Criminal Justice System (ICJS), which will act as a common platform for all government agencies to share data about prisoners across the State.
• Only Warangal in Andhra Pradesh has implemented ICJS, which integrates the existing software from the police and prison department along with that of the courts.
• The aim is to share relevant data with all government agencies so that the police can keep a tab on which prisoners are let off when.

21. Doctors appearing in ads for hospital may face action

• The Medical Council of India (MCI) took punitive action against a group of doctors, who were featured prominently in an advertisement of the hospital they were then working in, by removing their names from the Indian Medical Register/State Medical Register for 15 days.
• The MCI took this action because doctors promoting themselves through advertisements with photographs is a violation of the Indian Medical Council (Professional Conduct, Etiquette and Ethics) Regulations, 2002.
• Section 6.1 of the Code of Ethics states that “...a physician shall not make use of him/her (or his/her name) as subject of any form or manner of advertising or publicity through any mode either alone or in conjunction with others ... as to invite attention to him or to his professional position, skill, qualification ...”

22.  Surviving Fani: global example

·         The Odisha government has shown by example how to manage a natural disaster

• Cyclone Fani has left a trail of destruction across a large part of coastal Odisha, but its management has emerged as a global example of how timely weather alerts, preparedness and informed public participation can dramatically reduce loss of life.
• The toll from the extremely severe cyclonic storm on May 3 stood, at last count, at 34 deaths.
• In terms of material losses, several districts were battered, houses flattened and electricity and telecommunications infrastructure destroyed, but the relatively low mortality shows a dramatic transformation from the loss of over 10,000 lives in 1999 when super cyclone 05B struck. Odisha then worked to upgrade its preparedness, which was tested when very severe cyclonic storm Phailin struck in 2013.
• It was able to bring down the number of deaths to 44 then, in spite of a wide arc of destruction: 13 million people were hit and half a million houses destroyed. The Odisha government and the Centre now have the task of rebuilding infrastructure.
• They should use the opportunity to upgrade technology, achieve cost efficiencies and build resilience to extreme weather, all of which can minimise future losses. Given the vulnerability of Odisha and Andhra Pradesh to cyclones, the frequency and intensity of which may be influenced by a changing climate, the Centre should press for global environmental funding under the UN framework to help in the rebuilding. Both States have received funding from the World Bank in cyclone risk mitigation efforts since 2011.
• The priority in Odisha is to restore electricity and telecommunications, which will require massive manpower. This should be treated as a national mission. Public health interventions are paramount to avoid disease outbreaks.
• The State government has been able to restore some physical movement by opening up highways and district roads; the Centre has relieved tension among students by postponing the National Eligibility-cum-Entrance Test in Odisha.
• Overall, there is a sense of relief that in the midst of a national election the toll was effectively contained. Looking ahead, India must prepare for many more intense and frequent cyclones along the coastal States.
• Preparedness has to focus on building resilience and strengthening adaptation. This can be achieved through better-designed houses and cyclone shelters, good early warning systems, periodic drills and financial risk reduction through insurance.
• Early weather warnings hold the key to better management, and during the Fani episode the India Meteorological Department played a crucial role.
• Its commendable performance has been recognised by the UN as well.

23.  At the WTO mini-ministerial meet, developing countries must make a case for stable and transparent multilateral trade

• India will host the second mini-ministerial meet of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), on May 13-14, 2019.
• To discuss the interests of developing and least developed countries in global trade, this informal meet will also focus on the accusation by the U.S. that these economies benefit from exemptions meant for the poorer nations.
• Overall, it could be a preparatory meeting to set a common agenda at the 12th Ministerial Conference, scheduled for June 2020 at Astana, Kazakhstan.
• The 11th Ministerial Conference (Buenos Aires, December 2017) collapsed despite efforts by 164 WTO members to evolve a consensus on several issues.
• The U.S. has refused a reduction in subsidies and also pulled back on its commitment to find a perennial solution to public stockholding — an issue central to developing and less developed countries. In fact, the deadlock left many trade analysts wondering whether this was the beginning of the end for the WTO.
• Despite the earlier outcomes of the ministerial meetings, the Delhi meet has created some hope of it being a platform to resuscitate the WTO. The issues under discussion will relate to protectionist measures, digital trade, fisheries, subsidies, environmental goods, standardisation and implementation of sanitary and phytosanitary measures, and other matters ripe for negotiation and agreement, mainly investment facilitation.
• From a plurilateral approach toward multilateralism, members may also ensure the sanctity and ‘drivability’ of the WTO. It is, therefore, indispensable to bring mutual accord, mainly on the timelines, to implement policies as an outcome of talks.
• It may be useful to recollect that the WTO replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) as an international organisation mainly to overcome tussles over trade interests.
• The economies of the developing and less developed world (with little bargaining power) were unable to gain market access in most of the developed economies (which were influential in negotiations), especially when it came to agricultural commodities.
• The deadlock on the issue of agricultural trade negotiations, first in the late 1980s and then in 2017.
• The disagreements between developed countries (the European Union and the U.S.) and developing countries (Malaysia, Brazil and India) to discipline the farm regime in their favour continue, thereby threatening the WTO’s comprehensive development agenda.
• The support through subsidies tends to bring distortions in commodity prices.
• The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development estimates the quantum of subsidies by developed nations to vary from $300 to $325 billion annually, which is much higher than that estimated for developing countries. This has become a bone of contention in trade talks as farm lobbies in the U.S., Europe and Japan have steadily exercised political clout to influence officials and lawmakers to continue giving subsidies to farmers.
• Another point of concern is that developed countries design and implement stringent non-tariff measures (NTMs) which exacerbate the problems faced by poor countries that are willing to export. NTMs significantly add to the cost of trading.
• However, the costs of acquiescence with many NTMs are asymmetrical across exporters because compliance depends on production facilities, technical know-how and infrastructure — factors that are usually inadequate in developing economies. These countries are, therefore, unable to compete in international markets and hardly gain from sectors with comparative advantage such as agriculture, textiles and apparels.
• Developing countries are willing to break the deadlock on these issues and are preparing a common ground to jolt the mandate of the global trade body.
• India, in particular, seeks amendment of laws on unilateral action by members on trade issues and a resolution of the WTO’s dispute settlement system.
• The expectation is that the meeting may lead to policy guidance on issues such as global norms to protect traditional knowledge from patenting by corporates, protection through subsidies, e-commerce, food security and continuation of special and differential treatment to poor economies.
• Importantly, if the interests of developing and less developed countries are not addressed, ceteris paribus, jargon, convoluted negotiations and dictums will become trivial now and in the future.
• For example, the 10th Ministerial Conference (Nairobi, December 2015) laid emphasis on agriculture trade. But it was a setback to most agrarian economies, including India and in Africa, when developed countries directly challenged their models of food security designed for the poor.
• The outcome eloquently showed the constraints of a ‘multilateral negotiation system where the need for agreement and not compromise prevails and allows any member, no matter how small, to block any progress on all issues. In what has become an increasingly politicised environment, members with wide and divergent interests have simply halted the process and refused to negotiate in good faith across a spectrum of issues’.
• There was a similar outcome at Buenos Aires in 2017. Developed nations created alliances to prepare the ground to push nascent issues such as investment facilitation, rules for e-commerce, gender equality and subsidy on fisheries, while most developing nations were unable to fulfil or implement rudimentary dictums.
• For instance, e-commerce has been a key agenda following the second ministerial conference, in Geneva in 1998.
• It was agreed to ‘establish a work programme to examine global e-commerce, with a focus on the relationship between e-commerce and existing agreements. It generated a sizeable debate on the fringes of the conference as many accredited NGOs opposed it and raised concerns that it was a push by dominant global players. The underlying fear was it might allow unfettered access to data, which could then be processed and exploited for profit’ by developed nations, mainly the U.S.
• The WTO needs to be sustained as countries need an international platform to formulate trade rules and bring convergence on divergent matters.

24. ‘No guarantee that bank privatisation will be a panacea’:‘We need to recognise that ownership is just one contributor to governance, and look at pragmatic ways to improve governance across the board’

• The banking system is overburdened with non-performing loans. Much of the problem lies in public sector banks, but private sector banks like ICICI and Axis Bank have not been immune.
• Some of the malaise comes from a general need to improve governance, transparency and incentives in the system.
• However, the difficulties in even some private banks suggest that ‘simple’ solutions like privatising all public sector banks may be no panacea.

At any rate, banking reforms should tackle four broad areas:

1. Clean up banks by reviving projects that can be revived after restructuring debt.
2. Improve governance and management at public sector banks.