Prelims Specific Questions:-

1) Which of the following is/are correctly matched?

1. Pratas Islands – Taiwan
2. Cinque Islands – India
3. Bora Bora – Indonesia

Select the correct answer from the codes given below:

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

2) Consider the following statements regarding the National Emergency (Article 352):

1. President proclaims a national emergency only after receiving a written recommendation from the cabinet.
2. President can declare a national emergency only on the actual occurrence of war or external aggression.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct? 

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

3) Which of the following is also known as the Strasbourg court?

1. European Court of Human Rights
2. International Criminal Court
3. Permanent court of settlement
4. International Military tribunal

Prelims specific News Items :-

1) What is NIPUN Bharat Mission?

Launched by: Department of School Education and Literacy, Ministry of Education

Full Form: National Initiative for Proficiency in Reading with Understanding and Numeracy, (NIPUN) Bharat Mission.

Aim: To achieve the goal of universal proficiency in foundational literacy and numeracy for every child by grade 3, as envisaged by National Education Policy 2020.

Implementation: NIPUN Bharat will be implemented by the Department of School Education and Literacy.

Mechanism: A five-tier implementation mechanism will be set up at the national- state- district- block- school level in all states and UTs for the mission.

Funding: No additional funding is being allocated for the mission. Instead, money is being allocated from the Samagra Shiksha scheme, which saw a 20% drop in its budget in 2021.

Significance: Foundational literacy and numeracy is one of the goals under the National Education Policy 2020.

Initially, the policy had included a 2025 deadline to achieve this goal. But the target has been extended to 2026-27, given that COVID-19 has already disrupted two academic years.

2) PM launches PM Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission

The Prime Minister has launched the Pradhan Mantri Ayushman Bharat Health Infrastructure Mission also known as Pradhan Mantri Atmanirbhar Swasth Bharat Yojana (PMASBY)

Objectives of the Scheme :

• To strengthen the critical healthcare network from village to block to the district to the regional and national level in the next 4-5 years.
• To develop health systems and institutions at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels and prepare them to respond effectively to pandemics and disasters.
• To establish an IT-enabled disease surveillance system through a network of surveillance laboratories at block, district, regional and national levels.

What are the key components of the Scheme?

There are three significant aspects of the programme:

1. First Aspect: Creation of elaborate facilities for diagnostics and treatment.
2. Second Aspect: Related to the diagnosis of disease. This will involve the development of testing infrastructure. All 730 districts of the country will get integrated public health labs and 3,000 blocks will get public health units.
3. Third Aspect: Expansion of existing research institutions to study pandemics. The existing 80 viral diagnostic and research labs will be strengthened, four new National Institutes of Virology and a National Institute for One Health are being established.

What is the need for this scheme?

According to the 2020 Index report by Oxfam India, India’s health budget is the fourth lowest in the world. Neighbouring countries Pakistan, Nepal and Bangladesh spent more than India on health.

Moreover, India’s healthcare infrastructure is also deplorable. According to government data, India has 1.4 beds per 1,000 people, 1 doctor per 1,445 people, and 1.7 nurses per 1,000 people. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), India ranks 184 out of 191 countries in health spending.

Hence, this scheme has been launched to improve an entire ecosystem of services from treatment to critical research.

3) What is Green Day Ahead Market (GDAM)?

GDAM is a marketplace that will enable electricity generation and distribution companies to buy or sell renewable energy through open access on a day-ahead basis.

How will GDAM operate?

• Green Day-ahead market will operate in an integrated way with the conventional day-ahead market.
• The Exchanges will offer the market participants to submit bids together for both conventional and renewable energy through the separate bidding windows.
• The clearance will take place in a sequential manner – renewable energy bids will be cleared first in accordance with the must-run status of the renewables, followed by the conventional segment.

4) Supreme Court to pass orders on pleas in Pegasus case

A Supreme Court Bench led by Chief Justice of India N.V. Ramana is scheduled to pronounce its decision in pleas to form an independent committee to probe reports that the government used Israel-based Pegasus software to spy on citizens.

About Pegasus:

• It is a type of malicious software or malware classified as a spyware.
• It is designed to gain access to devices, without the knowledge of users, and gather personal information and relay it back to whoever it is that is using the software to spy.
• Pegasus has been developed by the Israeli firm NSO Group that was set up in 2010.

5) Updated NPR form retains contentious questions

NPR :- The National Population Register (NPR) is a Register of usual residents of the country.

It includes names of all those who have resided in the country for more than 6 months or have planned to live in the country for 6 months.

Past NPR :- The data for National Population Register was collected in 2010 along with the house-listing phase of Census of India 2011. The updation of this data was done during 2015 by conducting door to door survey.

The responsibility of conducting the decennial Census rests with the Office of the Registrar General and Census Commissioner, India under Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India.

 The Census Act was enacted in 1948 to provide for the scheme of conducting population census with duties and responsibilities of census officers.

Updated NPR form appears to retain contentious questions –

The latest form of the National Population Register (NPR) appears to have retained contentious questions such as “mother tongue, place of birth of father and mother and last place of residence”, according to a document compiled by a committee under the Registrar-General of India and shared with the District Census officers.

According to the Annexure: “National Population Register 2020”, the respondent will have to specify the “name of State and district” if the place of birth of father and mother is in India and mention the country’s name if not born here.

The form will collect details on 14 parameters of all family members. The subheads include passport number, relationship to head of the family, whether divorced/ widowed or separated, mother tongue, if non-worker, cultivator, labourer, government employee, daily wage earner among others. The form also has a column on Aadhaar, mobile phone, voter ID and driver’s licence number, which are to be provided if available with the respondent.

Section 15 of the Census Act, 1948, all individual level information collected in Census are confidential and “only aggregated data are released at various administrative levels.”

The Home Ministry said earlier that data collected under NPR are shared with States and used by Central government for various welfare schemes at individual level.

6) Srinagar students booked under UAPA

The J&K police on Tuesday lodged two First Information Reports (FIRs) under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act (UAPA) a day after multiple videos allegedly showed students of two medical colleges in Srinagar celebrating the Pakistan cricket team’s victory over India in the T20 World Cup.

What is UAPA Law –

• Originally enacted in 1967, the UAPA was amended to be modelled as an anti-terror law in 2004 and 2008.
• In August 2019, Parliament cleared the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Amendment Bill, 2019 to designate individuals as terrorists on certain grounds provided in the Act.
• In order to deal with the terrorism related crimes, it deviates from ordinary legal procedures and creates an exceptional regime where constitutional safeguards of the accused are curtailed.

7) Framework to manage drone traffic notified –

The Ministry of Civil Aviation has notified a traffic management policy framework for drones, which envisages private, third-party service providers for ensuring safe operations.

Under the framework, these Unmanned Traffic Management Service Providers (UTMSP) will extend automated, algorithm-driven software services instead of voice communication as in the traditional Air Traffic Management (ATM) systems. They will primarily be responsible for segregating and separating a drone from other drones and manned aircraft in the airspace below 1,000 feet in the country.

Law enforcement and security agencies will also have access to some information in the UTM ecosystem on a need-to-know basis.

The policy also allows UTMSPs to levy a service fee on users, a small portion of which will also be shared with the Airports Authority of India.

8) India needs to bolster its health infrastructure: Jin

India should strike a balance between ramping up physical infrastructure and the social infrastructure such as healthcare systems, Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) president Jin Liqun said.

AIIB president said that the multilateral lender would look to fund both social as well as climate-resilient infrastructure in India in the coming years.

The AIIB will align its operations with the goals of the Paris Agreement to cope with climate change by July 2023, and expects to finance infrastructure projects to mitigate and adapt to climate change worth $50 billion by 2030,

What is AIIB?

• Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is a multilateral development bank with a mission to improve social and economic outcomes in Asia and beyond.
• The Parties (57 founding members) to agreement comprise the Membership of the Bank.
• It is headquartered in Beijing.
• It commenced operations in January 2016.
• Aim: By investing in sustainable infrastructure and other productive sectors today, it aims to connect people, services and markets that over time will impact the lives of billions and build a better future.
• Membership:There are more than 100 members now. Fourteen of the G-20 nations are AIIB members including France, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom.
• Voting Rights: China is the largest shareholder with 26.61 % voting shares in the bank followed by India (7.6%), Russia (6.01%) and Germany (4.2 %).
• The regional members hold 75% of the total voting power in the Bank.

 Editorials of the day

Editorial 1 – Why India shouldn’t sign on to net zero

Basic theme of the article – India should not declare deadline for net zero for carbon neutral.

Why India should not declare deadline for net zero carbon emission ?–

1. Per capita carbon emission of India is very less i.e. half of the world average. Even after declaring net zero that will not contribute much to the target to reduce global temperature i.e. 1.5 degree Celsius according to Paris agreement.
2. Developed countries has set deadline of carbon neutral is very far i.e. 2050. Up to the deadline proposed the target will be crossed already. The top three emitters of the world — China, the U.S. and the European Union — even after taking account of their net zero commitments and their enhanced emission reduction commitments for 2030, will emit more than 500 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide before net zero.
3. Developed countries have not kept their promise of giving $100 B fund to developing countries with the advanced technology. Developed countries not following CBDR Formula.

What is CBDR –  

Common but differentiated responsibilities (CBDR), principle of international environmental law establishing that all states are responsible for addressing global environmental destruction yet not equally responsible. CBDR was formalized in international law at the 1992 United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) in Rio de Janeiro.

4. India is still in developing state where maximum of development and production based on coal. We don’t have much and sufficient alternative to produce electricity other than coal or thermal power plants.

What India Must Do –

1. India should go ahead for the target of generating 450 GW by renewable energy sources.
2. Efforts to promote and use the Electrical Vehicles.
3. India should demand for the technology transfer and funding to generate electricity from developed countries.

What author says – India should continue generating carbon emit below fair share of credit. Along with this World must act before 2030 not 2050. Deadline 2050 will be very late to achieve targets of Paris Agreement.