Daily Prelims Notes 26 January 2022

Daily Prelims Notes

26 January 2022

Table Of Contents

1. ‘National Priority’ status
2. Why Republic Day is celebrated?
3. Rights and Duties
4. Padma Awards
5. Chakma-Hajong
6. Burkina Faso
7. A portable non-invasive way to detect oral cancer
8. How FCRA works?
9. Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India
10. Securities Transaction Tax (STT)
11. Importance of fiscal consolidation
12. Strategic and Non-strategic Sectors
13. Gene-edited crops for food security
14. India’s elephant corridors

1. ‘National Priority’ status

Subject – Governance

Context – Healthcare sector seeks priority status

Concept –

• As the budget approaches, the healthcare sector is hoping for further increase in outlay for infrastructure, reduction in duties and GST to benefit the industry and the common people.
• Experts want the government to strengthen the digital ecosystem to speed up adoption of new technologies to foster telemedicine to extend reach.
• Healthcare should be accorded priority status so that the sector can derive benefit from the GST transition and providers and healthcare service delivery institutions can avail loans at lower rates and extended tenure.
• According priority sector status will help in the process of enabling the development of innovative long-term financing structures for healthcare providers apart from creating an attractive environment for domestic production of medical equipment, devices, and consumables while also catalysing research and development.

2. Why Republic Day is celebrated?

Subject – Polity

Context – 26^th January is celebrated as Republic Day

Concept –

• The Preamble to the Constitution declares that India is a ‘Republic’.
• The primary collective intent behind a republic is anti-monarchical. The Greeks defined monarchy as the ‘rule of one (mono)’, a form of government where one person rules and all others obey; one is sovereign, all others his subjects.
  • Monarchy entails surrender to the arbitrary power of another person, allowing whimsical intrusion in our choices, living at the mercy of the master. It breeds slavery.
• The English word ‘republic’ is derived from the Latin ‘Res publica’ — the public thing. This translates in the political domain into decision-making in the open, in full view of all.
  • A republic then is associated with what we today call the ‘public sphere’, an open space where people put forward claims about what is good for the community, what is in collective interest.
  • After discussing, debating and deliberating upon them, they reach decisions about which laws to have and what course of action to take.
  • A republic is ‘government by free and open discussion’.
• To have a republic is to have a free people. This is why Gandhi’s swaraj is an important republican idea.
• And also why the republican tradition emphasises the importance of citizenship. After all, to be a citizen is to belong to a political community where one can express oneself and act freely. Citizens alone have political liberty. Without it, we are mere subjects.
• For republic-lovers, political liberty means not unbridled freedom to do whatever one pleases (negative liberty), but to live by laws made by citizens themselves, that are a product of their own will, not the arbitrary will of others. This explains why republics have a constitution generated by a deliberative body of citizens which provides the basic law of the land, the fundamental framework of governance.

‘Republic’ and ‘democratic’

• In French republican tradition, the two terms are used interchangeably.
• The idea of the republic conveys that decisions shall be made not by a single individual but by citizens after due deliberation in an open forum. But this is consistent with a narrow criterion of who counts as a citizen.
• What the term ‘democratic’ brings to our Constitution is that citizenship be available to everyone, regardless of their wealth, education, gender, perceived social ranking, religion, race, or ideological beliefs. The word ‘democracy’ makes the republic inclusive. No one is excluded from citizenship.
• A republic must, at the very least, have perpetually vigilant citizens who act as watchdogs, monitor their representatives, and retain the right to contest any law or policy made on their behalf. By going beyond mere counting of heads, the term ‘republic’ brings free public discussion to our democratic constitution. It gives depth to our democracy.
  • It is mandatory that decisions taken by the representatives of the people be properly deliberated, remain open to scrutiny, and be publicly, legally contested even after they have been made.
• When the farmers came out on the streets to peacefully challenge the three farm laws made by the current government, they exercised not only their democratic rights but also exhibited the highest of republican virtues. It is to celebrate such political acts of citizens that we have the Republic Day.

3. Rights and Duties

Context: PM speech on rights and duties

Concepts:

Relationship between rights and duties

• Rights and duties are the two sides of the same coin. For every right, there is a corresponding duty. Rights flow only from duties well performed. Duty is an inalienable part of right. What is duty for one is another person’s right and respect human life and not to injure another person. If everyone performs his/her duty, everybody’s rights would be automatically protected.
• The universal declaration of human rights UDHR (Adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 10, 1948) declares in clause (1) of Article 29: “Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.”

In return for every right, the society expects the citizens to do certain things which are collectively known as duties. Some such important duties have been incorporated in the Indian Constitution also. The original Constitution enforced on 26th January, 1950 did not mention anything about the duties of the citizen. It was expected that the citizens of free India would perform their duties willingly. But things did not go as expected. Therefore, ten Fundamental Duties were added in Part-IVA of the Constitution under Article 51-A in the year 1976 through the 42nd Constitutional Amendment. Swaran Singh Committee had recommended for their inclusion. The list of duties is not exhaustive as it does not cover other important duties like casting vote, paying taxes, family planning and so on. In fact, duty to pay taxes was recommended by the Swaran Singh Committee.

However, whereas Fundamental Rights are justiciable, the Fundamental Duties are non-justiciable. It means that the violation of fundamental duties, i.e. the non-performance of these duties by citizens is not punishable

Here are the fundamental duties of citizens as enshrined in the Constitution of India:

(a) to abide by the Constitution and respect its ideals and institutions, the National Flag and the National Anthem;

(b) to cherish and follow the noble ideals which inspired our national struggle for freedom;

(c) to uphold and protect the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India;

(d) to defend the country and render national service when called upon to do so;

(e) to promote harmony and the spirit of common brotherhood amongst all the people of India transcending religious, linguistic, and regional or sectional diversities; to renounce practices derogatory to the dignity of women;

(f) to value and preserve the rich heritage of our composite culture;

g) to protect and improve the natural environment including forests, lakes, rivers, and wildlife, and to have compassion for living creatures;

(h) to develop the scientific temper, humanism, and the spirit of inquiry and reform;

(i) to safeguard public property and to abjure violence;

(j) to strive towards excellence in all spheres of individual and collective activity so that the nation constantly rises to higher levels of endeavour and achievement;

(k) who is a parent or guardian to provide opportunities for education to his child or, as the case may be, ward between the age of six and fourteen years.

4. Padma Awards

Subject – Governance

Context – General Bipin Rawat, India’s first Chief of Defence Staff who died in an air crash recently, and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, who headed the State during Babri Masjid demolition, were selected for Padma Vibushan posthumously on the eve of Republic Day

Concept –

• General BipinRawat, India’s first Chief of Defence Staff who died in an air crash recently, and former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Kalyan Singh, who headed the State during Babri Masjid demolition, were selected for Padma Vibushan posthumously on the eve of Republic Day.

To know about Padma Awards, please refer November 2021 DPN.

To know about Gallantry awards, please refer November 2021 DPN.

Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM)

• Param Vishisht Seva Medal (PVSM) is a military award of India.
• It was constituted in 1960 and since then till date, it is awarded in recognition to peace-time service of the most exceptional order and may be awarded posthumously.
• All ranks of the Indian Armed Forces including Territorial Army, Auxiliary and Reserve Forces, Nursing officers and other members of the Nursing services and other lawfully constituted Armed Forces are eligible for the award.

5. Chakma-Hajong

Subject – IR

Context – NHRC has done the right thing in directing the Ministry of Home Affairs and the Arunachal Pradesh government to submit an action taken report against the racial profiling and relocation of the Chakma and Hajong communities in the north-eastern State

Concept –

To know about Chakma-Hajong, please refer December 2021 DPN.

6. Burkina Faso

Subject – IR

Context – Coup in Burkina Faso

Concept –

7. A portable non-invasive way to detect oral cancer

Subject – Science and Tech

Context – Scientists from IIT Kharagpur have developed a portable, user-friendly, and non-invasive device for detecting oral cancer in resource-constrained clinical settings.

Concept –

• Scientists from IIT Kharagpur have developed a portable, user-friendly, and non-invasive device for detecting oral cancer in resource-constrained clinical settings.
• This is a low-cost, handheld imaging device to screen oral cancer and pre cancer based on measured change in blood flow rate of the tissue from thermal imaging and analytics.
• The blood perfusion imager, which combines a miniature far-infrared camera and a humidity sensor, are electronically controlled and interfaced with a combined physics-based and data-driven software engine.
• Cancer of the oral cavity remains one of the major causes of morbidity and mortality in socially-challenged and underserved communities. There is an 80 per cent chance on average of a five-year survival rate if diagnosed early; the survival rate drops to 65 per cent or less in more advanced stages of the disease.
• The technology is currently available for ready licensing to companies for commercial adaptation. It may be subjected to more extensive statutory field trials before clinical use, which could take about two years from now.
• The estimated cost per device is within $500.

8. How FCRA works?

Subject – Governance

Context – The Supreme Court on Tuesday asked 6,000-odd NGOs to go back to the government for redressal of their grievances on non-renewal of their Foreign Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA) registration

Concept –

• The FCRA was enacted during the Emergency in 1976 in an atmosphere of apprehension that foreign powers were interfering in India’s affairs by pumping in funds through independent organisations. These concerns had been expressed in Parliament as early as in 1969.
• The law sought to regulate foreign donations to individuals and associations so that they functioned “in a manner consistent with the values of a sovereign democratic republic”.
• An amended FCRA was enacted under the UPA government in 2010 to “consolidate the law” on utilisation of foreign funds, and “to prohibit” their use for “any activities detrimental to national interest”.
• The law was amended again by the current government in 2020, giving the government tighter control and scrutiny over the receipt and utilisation of foreign funds by NGOs.
• Broadly, the FCRA requires every person or NGO wishing to receive foreign donations to be registered under the Act, to open a bank account for the receipt of the foreign funds in State Bank of India, Delhi, and to utilise those funds only for the purpose for which they have been received and as stipulated in the Act.
• They are also required to file annual returns, and they must not transfer the funds to another NGO.
• The Act prohibits receipt of foreign funds by candidates for elections, journalists or newspaper and media broadcast companies, judges and government servants, members of legislature and political parties or their office-bearers, and organisations of a political nature.

How is FCRA registration granted?

• NGOs that want to receive foreign funds must apply online in a prescribed format with the required documentation. FCRA registrations are granted to individuals or associations that have definite cultural, economic, educational, religious, and social programmes.
• Following the application, the MHA makes inquiries through the Intelligence Bureau into the antecedents of the applicant, and accordingly processes the application.
• Under the FCRA, the applicant should not be fictitious or benami; and should not have been prosecuted or convicted for indulging in activities aimed at conversion through inducement or force, either directly or indirectly, from one religious faith to another.
• The applicant should also not have been prosecuted for or convicted of creating communal tension or disharmony; should not have been found guilty of diversion or misutilisation of funds; and should not be engaged or likely to be engaged in the propagation of sedition.
• The MHA is required to approve or reject the application within 90 days. In case of failure to process the application in the given time, the MHA is expected to inform the NGO of the reasons for the same.

For how long is approval granted?

• Once granted, FCRA registration is valid for five years. NGOs are expected to apply for renewal within six months of the date of expiry of registration. In case of failure to apply for renewal, the registration is deemed to have expired, and the NGO is no longer entitled to receive foreign funds or utilise its existing funds without permission from the ministry.
• According to the MHA, NGOs failing to apply before the due date can petition the ministry with cogent reasons within four months of the expiry of registration, following which their applications can be reconsidered.

On what basis is approval cancelled?

• The government reserves the right to cancel the FCRA registration of any NGO if it finds it to be in violation of the Act.
• Registration can be cancelled if an inquiry finds a false statement in the application; if the NGO is found to have violated any of the terms and conditions of the certificate or renewal; if it has not been engaged in any reasonable activity in its chosen field for the benefit of society for two consecutive years; or if it has become defunct.
• It can also be cancelled if “in the opinion of the Central Government, it is necessary in the public interest to cancel the certificate”, the FCRA says.
• Registrations are also cancelled when an audit finds irregularities in the finances of an NGO in terms of misutilisation of foreign funds.
• According to FCRA, no order of cancellation of certificate can be made unless the person or NGO concerned has been given a reasonable opportunity of being heard. Once the registration of an NGO is cancelled, it is not eligible for re-registration for three years.
• The ministry also has powers to suspend an NGO’s registration for 180 days pending inquiry, and can freeze its funds.
• All orders of the government can be challenged in the High Court.

9. Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India

Subject – History

Context – This year, Gujarat’s tableau will be special as it will commemorate a massacre of Bhil tribespeople in 1922 at the hands of British troops.

Concept –

• This year, Gujarat’s tableau will be special as it will commemorate a massacre of Bhil tribespeople in 1922 at the hands of British troops.
  • The massacre, dubbed ‘Gujarat’s Jallianwalla Bagh’, happened March 7, 1922.
  • Bhil residents of Pal Dadhvaav and Chitariya villages in what is today’s Sabarkantha district, gathered on the banks of the Her, a local river, to protest taxes imposed by the British.
  • The colonial government sent in the Mewar Bhil Corps. Its soldiers fired indiscriminately on the crowd of Bhil men, women and children. Some 1,200 Bhils perished in the massacre according to the colonial government’s own records.
• Tribal communities comprised 6 per cent of India’s population according to the 2011 Census. They are among the most marginalised people in the country today.

Important Anglo-tribal encounters in colonial India

• The first tribal revolt against the British was that of the Paharia leader, Tilka Manjhi. For 15 years, between 1770 and 1785, Manjhi organised armed resistance against the British East India Company in what are today’s Bihar, Jharkhand and West Bengal.
  • The region had come under the suzerainty of the Company after 1764, when it won the Battle of Buxar and with it, the Dewani rights or the right to collect revenue for the Mughal subahs of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha.
  • The Company’s entry made matters worse. In 1768 and 1769, when crops failed, officials increased the tax levy by 10 per cent instead of decreasing it. This triggered the Great Famine of Bengal in 1770, in the backdrop of which, Manjhi emerged.
  • Ultimately though, Manjhi was captured, tied to horses, dragged and hanged at Bhagalpur. But his revolt was only the beginning.
• That distaste burst forth in a series of revolts the most formidable of which was that of the Kol people.
  • Angered at their exploitation by the Company officials and non-tribal settlers, the Kols rose in revolt in Chota Nagpur in 1831.
  • Like the earlier rebellions, the Kol uprising too was suppressed and was over by 1833.
• These revolts were followed by one of the biggest uprisings to hit the Chota Nagpur plateau: The Santhal rebellion in 1855.
  • Having suffered atrocities at the hands of European officials, local moneylenders and zamindars, thousands of Santhals from the Rajmahal hills rose in revolt on June 30, 1855.
  • They wrought havoc across Jharkhand, south Bihar and West Bengal before the superior British war machine savagely put down the revolt.

Tribal groups in India’s North East

• The hills in India’s North East posed the biggest challenge for the British colonists. Whether it was the Nagas, Kukis, Lushais, Khasis or Garos, to name a few, these hill residents, for decades, bravely challenged the military might of the British colonialists.
• But the most shameful legacy of the Anglo-tribal encounter in south Asia is the term ‘Criminal Tribes’. The British branded a slew of groups including pastoralists, nomads, hill and forest dwellers and others who did not live a ‘settled life’ with the term in 1871.

10. Securities Transaction Tax (STT)

Subject – Economy

Context – STT collections already 57% higher than Budget Estimate for full FY22

Concept –

To know about Securities Transaction Tax (STT), please refer September 2021 DPN.

11. Importance of fiscal consolidation

Subject – Economy

Concept –

What is fiscal deficit?

• Fiscal deficit is the excess of total disbursements from the consolidated fund of India, excluding repayment of debt, over total receipts into the fund (excluding debt receipts) during a financial year.
• Simply put, it is the amount the government spent beyond its income and is measured as a percentage of the GDP.

Why is fiscal consolidation important for an emerging economy?

• Fiscal consolidation refers to the ways and means of narrowing the fiscal deficit. A government typically borrows to bridge the deficit. It will then have to allocate a part of its earnings to service the debt. The interest burden will increase as the debt increases.
• In the Budget for FY22, of the total government expenditure of over ₹34.83 lakh crore, more than 8.09 lakh crore (around 20 per cent) went towards interest payment.
• Debt is one liability that is difficult to defer and, at the end of day, the government struggles to find more resources not just for capital expenditure but also revenue expenditure. In the long run, uncontrolled fiscal deficit will hurt economic growth.

Is fiscal consolidation legally mandated in India?

• The seeds for fiscal consolidation were sown in 1994 by the then Finance Minister Manmohan Singh.
  • In his Budget speech for FY95, he highlighted the need for fiscal discipline and pronounced a policy to end monetising the deficit.
  • Till then the government was financing its deficit by creating money, through unlimited recourse to the Reserve Bank, by issuing ad hoc treasury bills. This weakened the Reserve Bank’s ability to direct effective monetary policy. Singh announced phasing out ad hoc treasury bills, after which the government would fund its deficit through market borrowings.
  • As open market borrowings piled up to fund the deficit, Yashwant Sinha, in his Budget speech for FY01, called for a strong institutional framework to ensure fiscal responsibility.
  • This resulted in the enactment of the ‘Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management (FRBM) Act, 2003’, which mandated limiting the fiscal deficit to 3 per cent of GDP.

How has India performed on this front?

• When FRBM was enacted, the idea was to limit the fiscal deficit under 3 per cent of GDP by the end of FY08. But that never happened.
• The fiscal deficit declined from 5.9 per cent in FY12 to 3.4 per cent in FY19. In FY20, it went up to 3.8 per cent. The following year, it was proposed at 3.5 per cent, but the pandemic struck and it surged to 9.5 per cent. Now, for the current year, it is estimated at 6.8 per cent and the government will seemingly work towards 4.5 per cent by FY26.
• A fiscal deficit of 3 per cent now appears to be a distant possibility. To ensure it was within the law, the government periodically amended the FRBM Act to reset the fiscal deficit target.

Is there a trade-off between fiscal consolidation and growth?

• It is debatable.
• Many economists have said that speedier economic growth depends on limiting the fiscal deficit. Their reasoning is that high fiscal deficit will increase borrowings and the interest burden would curtail the government’s ability to spend productively. Also, increased government borrowing will crowd out the private sector in the debt market, leading to higher interest rates, which will hurt growth.
• Other economists have argued that fiscal consolidation is not a fiscal compression mechanism, rather it is an expenditure switching mechanism. The original FRBM Act of 2003, they say, pushed for shifting the expenditure from revenue to capital, which will lay the foundation for higher growth. They argue that the FRBM Amendment Act of 2018 completely dilutes the original Act to become contractionary.

12. Strategic and Non-strategic Sectors

Subject – Economy

Context – Panel under NITI CEO to identify CPSEs in non-strategic sector for privatisation, closure

Concept –

Strategic Sector: Bare minimum presence of the public sector enterprises and remaining to be privatised or merged or subsidiarized with other CPSEs or closed.

Following 4 sectors to come under it:

• Atomic energy, Space and Defence
• Transport and Telecommunications
• Power, Petroleum, Coal and other minerals
• Banking, Insurance and financial services

Non- Strategic Sector: In this sector, CPSEs will be privatised, otherwise shall be closed.

To know about Disinvestment, please refer September 2021 DPN.

13. Gene-edited crops for food security

Subject – Environment

Context – China to allow gene-edited crops in push for food security

Concept –

• China has published trial rules for the approval of gene-edited plants, paving the way for faster improvements to crops as it seeks to bolster its food security.
• Gene editing — or altering the genes of a plant to change or improve its performance — is viewed by some scientists as less risky than genetically-modifying them, which involves transferring a foreign gene.
• Beijing also recently passed new regulations that set out a clear path for approval for genetically modified (GM)crops.
• But while it has deliberated for years whether to allow planting of GM crops to feed its people and livestock, it is ahead of some nations in outlining clear and relatively fast procedures for gene-edited crops.
• The technology’s precision makes it faster than conventional breeding or genetic modification, and also lowers the cost.
• Regulation is also less cumbersome in some countries, such as the United States, although the European Union is still reviewing how to regulate the technology.

14. India’s elephant corridors

Subject – Environment

Context – As instances of human-elephant conflict rise, the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has embarked on a massive project to identify and secure elephant corridors in the country.

Concept –

What are Elephant Corridors?

• Elephant corridors are narrow strips of land that connect two large habitats of elephants. Elephant corridors are crucial to reduce animal fatalities due to accidents and other reasons. So fragmentation of forests makes it all the more important to preserve migratory corridors.

Why protect elephant corridors?

• The movement of elephants is essential to ensure that their populations are genetically viable. It also helps to regenerate forests on which other species, including tigers, depend.
• Nearly 40% of elephant reserves are vulnerable, as they are not within protected parks and sanctuaries. Also, the migration corridors have no specific legal protection.
• Forests that have turned into farms and unchecked tourism are blocking animals’ paths. Animals are thus forced to seek alternative routes resulting in increased elephant-human conflict.

Additional Information : Keystone species

• Keystone species is a species whose addition to or loss from an ecosystem leads to major changes in abundance or occurrence of at least one other species. They are considered more important in determining the presence of many other species in that ecosystem.
• All top predators (Tiger, Lion, Crocodile, and Elephant) are considered as keystone species because it regulates all other animals’ population indirectly. Hence top predators are given much consideration in conservation.