Mains Factly (1-14) August 2022

ESSAY

• Environment
  • Another facile argument used by policymakers is that environment and ecological security are a luxury and cannot be prioritized ahead of human development. This argument is not only dated but dangerous. It starts with the deadly assumption that humans are separate from the environment. That, actually, is the root of the current problem. If development of the two had been considered on an equal footing it would have led to true sustainability.
• Democracy:
• In the Asian regional forum, The Chief Election commissioner of India said,” democracy and democratic institutions flourish when all groups of people are fully represented. No democracy can ever be meaningful and aspirational, unless it is Inclusive for all citizens, Accessible without fear or favour and Participative despite differential social, political, economic vulnerabilities”

GS-1

GEOGRAPHY

• Population
  • China is enduring an ongoing population implosion, which by 2050, will leave it with only 1.3 billion people, of whom 500 million will be past the age of 60. India’s population, by contrast, would have peaked at 1.7 billion, of whom only 330 million will be 60 years or older
• Water
  • Global consumption of water is doubling every 20 years. This consumption growth is more than twice the rate of human population growth.
• Wetlands :
  • As per the National Wetland Inventory & Assessment, 2011, Space Applications Centre- ISRO Ahmedabad identified approximately 2.0 lakhs water bodies/wetlands (>2.25 hectares) across the country covering an area of approximately 10 million ha
  • 64 wetlands/water bodies have been designated as Wetlands of International Importance, Ramsar sites, across the country under Ramsar Convention since 1981, covering total area of around 1.25 million Ha.
• Demographic Dividend

SOCIETY

• Senior Citizens
  • The projected population of Senior Citizens aged 60+ years of the country for 2026 (is expected to be 32 crore, as per the report of Technical Group on Population Projections constituted by the National Commission on Population. As per Census 2011, population of Senior Citizens (people aged 60 years and above) is 10.38 Crore in the country. As per Census 2011, the number of senior citizens suffering from any disability in their old age is approximately 5.18 percent of total population of senior citizens.
• Youth
  • Youth in the age group of 15-29 years increased from 26.6 percent in 1991 to 27.9 percent in 2016 and decreased to 27.2 percent of the population in 2021, which is expected to decrease to 22.7 by 2036. While the proportion of elderly population to the total population has increased from 6.8 percent in 1991 to 9.2 percent 2016 and is projected to reach 14.9 percent in 2036.
• Women:
  • There are 17,96,408 Nos of women owned Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs)
  • Women constitute nearly half of the employed fisheries’ workforce globally, with Indian fisherwomen population accounting to about 44% of the total fisher population.

GS-2

POLITY

• Electoral Bonds
  • Political donations to political parties through electoral bonds (EBs) have crossed the Rs 10,000-crore mark, since 2018 when the EB scheme was introduced
• Poverty
  • As many as 23-crore people are once again below the poverty line as defined by the Anoop Satpathy committee; earning less than Rs375 per day
• Judiciary
  • Over 59 lakh cases were pending in the 25 High Courts
  • The 4 women judges in the Supreme Court are against a sanctioned strength of 34 judges, and the 96 women judges in the High Courts are against a sanctioned strength of 1,108 judges.Out of the 96 women judges in the High Courts, Delhi and Madras HCs between them account for one-fourth, at 12 women judges each. Telangana has 9 women judges, Bombay has 8, and Calcutta and Punjab & Haryana have 7 each. Five HCs — Manipur, Meghalaya, Tripura, Patna, and Uttarakhand — do not have a single woman judge.
• CEC
  • The best practices implemented by certain states in previous elections like integration of road maps by Tamil Nadu, Chatbot by Goa, Learning Management System by Assam, special initiatives for Divyangs by Uttarakahnd, Meghdoot postcard for awareness in association with postal department, mobile app ANUBHAV for facilitating PwDs by West Bengal.
  • SVEEP strategy needs to engage with grassroot level with emphasis on analysis of low voter turn-out polling stations and focussed targeted interventions.
• CVC
  • CVC informed that the pendency of overall outstanding disciplinary matters which on an average as on December 2019 used to be around 5,000 at a given point of time has come down drastically in the range of 1,700 now due to cooperation of the authorities at different levels.

• RTI
  • According to the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI),across India, 99RTI activists have lost theirlives,180 assaulted and 187 were threatened since 2006.
  • Only 4% of the total RTI requests are frivolous.
  • As on June30, 2021, 2.56 lakh appeals were pending with 26 information commissions in the country. It will take six years and eight months to dispose of a matter in Odisha, as per the going rate, according to the Sarthak Nagrik Sangathan SNS report
  • The Gujarat Information Commission (GIC) has blacklisted and barred at least nine applicants from filing applications under the Right to Information (RTI) Act in the last two years, revealed an analysis by MahitiAdhikar Gujarat Pahel (MAGP), an NGO.
• Hate News
  • A total of130casesof “hate-news” were reported to social media platforms between the 2019 Lok Sabha election and the latest round of Assembly polls in five states held earlier this year.

GOVERNANCE

• Poverty
  • Data with the Union Ministry of Health and Family Welfare show that of the 27 million children born in the country in a year, 7.5 million have low-birth weight and 3.5 million are born preterm.
• Ghost Beneficiary
  • THE UNION government has found that 70 lakh beneficiaries under the National Food Security Act are “suspect” and has shared their data with states for “ground verification”
• Tribal Population
  • 11 crore tribal people(enumerated as Scheduled Tribes (ST) in the Census of India (2011) live in India.
  • They constitute 6% of India’s population, the second largest number of tribal people in any country in the world
• Tribal Health
  • Child malnutrition is 50% higher in tribal children:42% compared to 28% in others.
  • Malaria and tuberculosis are three to 11 times more common among the tribal people. Though the tribal people constitute only 8.6% of the national population, half of the total malaria deaths in India occur among them.
  • The is a 27% to 40% deficit in the number of such facilities, and 33% to 84% deficit in medical doctors in tribal areas

• Impact of govt schemes
  • Swatch Bharat programme: More than 10 crore Individual Household Latrines (IHHLs) were constructed under the Swatch Bharat programme and as a result, all the villages and States/UT had declared themselves ODF by 2nd October, 2019.
  • NamamiGange, the status of Ganga River’s DO (Median) has improved at 34 locations.
  • Jal Jeevan Mission, In last 35 months, 69 Crore rural households have been provided with tap water connection. 9.94Crore (52%) households are reported to have provision of tap water supply in their homes and 9.17 (48%) Crore are yet to be provided tap water supply

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

• Diaspora
  • Indian diaspora comprisingover18 million PIOs (persons of Indian origin) and 13millionNRIs is one of the largest overseas communities globally

GS-3

ECONOMY

• FACTS
  • According to National Family Health Survey (2019-21) almost all the households surveyed (93 per cent) owned a mobile phone, even as only 89.4 per cent had cots or mattresses, for instance
• Income Tax
  • 83 crore Income Tax returns filed till July 31, record 72.42 lakh on last day. (Tax base rising)
  • 31 lakh tax filers showed total income over ₹1 crore. The number of individuals whose total income was between ₹10 lakh to ₹1 crore climbed to 77 lakhs from nearly 73 lakhs.(INCREASING DIRECT TAX BASE)
• Agriculture
  • Overall, between 1993-94 and 2018-19, agriculture’s share in India’s workforce came down from 9% to 41.4%.
  • A study by ICRIER and the Syngenta Foundation found that the marginal returns in terms of number of people brought out of income poverty or higher agri-GDP growth are 5-10 times more if the public money is spent through investments in agri-R&D, or roads, or irrigation, etc., compared to if the same money is spent as subsidies on fertilisers, power or irrigation.
  • Research shows that every rupee spent on agricultural research and development, yields much better returns (11.2), compared to returns on every rupee spent on fertiliser subsidy (0.88), power subsidy (0.79), education (0.97) or on roads (1.10). Increasing R&D spending on agriculture is, therefore, not only a vital necessity for ensuring food security, but also important from the socio-economic point of view.
  • ICAR developed 187 mobiles apps on different farm and farmer related services during 2014-21. These ICAR apps are now integrated on one common platform called KISAAN.
  • The Farmer FIRST (Farm, Innovations, Resources, Science and Technology) initiative was launched during by ICAR for enhanced farmers-scientists interface to move beyond production and productivity.
  • A total of 1575 field crop varieties were released for different agricultural crops during 2014-21. During 2014-21, 43 crore agro-advisories were provided to farmers through mobiles.
  • Agriculture and the allied sector registered a growth of 3.6 per cent in 2020-21 and 3.9 per cent in 2021-22.
  • Fortification infrastructure: The number of rice mills having blending infrastructure for fortified rice was 2690 with cumulative blending capacity of around 67 LMT as on 15th August 2021, has now increased to more than 9000 rice mills

• Organic Food
  • Demand for organic food in India is likely to witness a 5 per cent CAGR (compound annual growth rate) over the next few years with the market size likely to top $2.6 billion by 2026
• Food Processing Sector
  • As per latest Annual Survey of Industries (ASI) 2018-19, the total output in food processing sector has been increased from 9,34,272.19 crore in 2014-15 to Rs.12,76,995.11 crore in 2018-19
• Pulses
  • The total production of pulses in India during 1950-51,which increased to 25.72milliontonnes during2020-21 In2020-21,MadhyaPradeshwas the top producer of pulses in the country with a production of 5.30milliontonnes (20.60per cent of the country’s total production).This was followed by Rajasthan(4.31milliontonnes)and Maharashtra (4.30milliontonnes).The yield of pulses per hectare during1950-51, which increased to 892 kg per hectare in 2020-2
• Economics of Animal Rearing
  • India has a livestock population of 1.6 billion, that in turn translates into a scenario where approximately 280 million farmers rely on the livestock and related industries for livelihood. From the perspective of trade, the dairy industry in the country is valued at $160 billion, while the meat industry is valued at $50 billion.
  • Statistics indicate that globally, we have witnessed around 9,580 instances of disease outbreaks from 2000 to 2010, of which 60% diseases were zoonotic in nature. Likewise, the incidences of disease outbreaks across the globe have been increasing at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 6%. In India, we see that annual outbreak of zoonotic diseases translates into an estimated annual loss of $12 billion to the economy
• PSU
  • The Comptroller and Auditor General of India has pulled up state-run PSU steel majors, SAIL and RINL, for various operational inconsistencies and inefficiencies leading to losses running into crores of rupees.
• Women Issues.
  • From 30.7 per cent in 2006, the proportion of working age women taking part in paid work dropped to 19.2 per cent in 2021, according to the World Bank. While 46 per cent of the women were part of the workforce on an average globally in 2021, the numbers were much higher in many countries. China, for instance, had 61 per cent of its women in workforce while the US had 55 per cent.
  • Women constitute nearly half of the employed fisheries’ workforce globally, with Indian fisherwomen population accounting to about 44% of the total fisher population
• E-Commerce
  • By 2030, the Indian e-commerce industry is anticipated to reach $400 billion, increasing at a 19 per cent CAGR

ENVIRONMENT

• Environment Facts
  • Nature globally provides services worth $44 trillion – over half the world’s total GDP (UNEP)
• Ethanol Blending
  • The production of ethanol in our country was only around 400 million liters
  • Due to the mixing of ethanol in petrol, in the last 7-8 years, about 50 thousand crore rupees of the country have been saved from going abroad. And about the same amount has gone to the farmers of our country because of ethanol blending.
  • There are more than 4.5 thousand CNG stations across the country and the figure of piped gas connections is touching 1 crore
• Green Hydrogen
  • The cost of green hydrogen is somewhere between $3.5 and $4.5 per kg and its cost is driven by the price of electrolysers and renewable energy. This cost needs to be brought down to $1 per kg to make it financially viable.
• E-Waste
  • The Ministry (MOEFCC)estimated 7.7 lakh tonnes of e-waste to have been generated in 2018- 19 and around one million tonnes in 2019-20 of which only a fifth (about 22% in both years) has been confirmed to be “dismantled and recycled”.
• Climate Change
  • Based on scientific studies and the recent climate assessment report of the Ministry of Earth Sciences, the tropical Indian Ocean is warming rapidly over the recent decades. The average basin-wide sea surface temperature (SST) is warming at a rate of 0.15 oC/decade during 1951-2015. During the same period, globally averaged SST warmed at a rate of ~0.11 oC. Owing to this rapid warming, the sea level in the Indian Ocean was observed to be rising at a rate of 1.06-1.75 mm/year during the last century (1874–2004) and ~3.3 mm/year in the recent decades (1993-2015), which is in a similar range of the global mean sea level rise
  • It has been estimated that the global economy could lose up to 18 per cent of GDP, and India could lose $6 trillion by 2050 if no climate action is taken. In India alone, more than 50 per cent of our largely rural workforce will be negatively affected by climate change.
• Carbon Emission
  • According to theUnited Nation Environment Programme (UNEP), if one billion people out of the global population of close to eight billion adopt eco-friendly behaviours in their daily lives, global carbon emissions could drop by approximately 20 per cent. Such ecofriendly behaviours include turning off ACs, heaters and lights when not in use, as this,for instance, can conserve up to 282 kilowatts of electricity per day. Avoiding food wastage can reduce an individual’s carbon footprint by 370 kg per year. Reducing one flight trip per year can reduce per capita carbon emissions by 700 to 2,800 kg
• Beach Debris
  • According to a 2017 study titled Prevalence of marine litter along the Indian beaches, the Odisha coast has the lowest (0.31 gram per square metre) quantity, and Goa coast (205.75 g / m2) the highest quantity of beach debris.
• Wildlife Population
  • Global wildlife populations have fallen an average of 68 per cent since 1970
• Human Animal Conflict
  • Asper the last counting 2017,India has 29,964 elephants. On an average, 500peoplearekilledannuallyby elephants and about 100 elephants are killed in retaliation.
  • ELEPHANT CASUALTIES as a result of unnatural or man-made causes have long been an issue in the country. The human toll is also considerable. According to data furnished by Yadav in Parliament during this Monsoon Session, 1,578 people have died in elephant attacks in the last three years. In the same period, 222 elephants have died from electrocution, 45 in train accidents, 29 from poaching and 11 due to poisoning
• Tiger Conservation
  • India is home to 52 Tiger Reserves covering approximately 75,000 Sq Km area in 18 States with approximately 75% population of the wild tiger at global level. India achieved the goal of doubling the tiger numbers in 2018 itself, four years in advance from the targeted year 2022.
  • So far 17 Tiger Reserves in the country have got CA|TS international accreditation and 2 Tiger Reserves have got International Tx2 Award.
• Greenhouse Gas Emissions
  • EPI projections indicate that just 4 countries—China, India, United States, and Russia—will account for over 50% of residual global greenhouse gas emissions in 2050 if current trends hold. A total of 24 countries—the “dirty two-dozen”—will be responsible for nearly 80% of 2050 emissions unless climate policies are strengthened and emissions trajectories change.
• India’s Updated Climate Target

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

GS-4

ETHICS

• Spirit of Service, Trust in Governance
  • In the last 75 years, Delhi Police has seen many historic events and changes in the country. You have successfully faced all big challenges. Because of their hard work, Delhi Police has earned the trust and respect of Delhi citizens. Their sacrifices for service and for the security of people is an inspiration for all- Delhi Police Commissioner.
• Ethics of competition, politics & ethics
  • “We are all working in our own ways (in politics).We are not enemies; we are rivals. We must work hard to outshine each other like competitors but not to run down each other (Ex Vice President, Naidu sir)
• Business Ethics & Philanthropy
  • Billionaire Mukesh Ambani for the second year in a row drew no salary from his flagship firm, Reliance Industries in the last fiscal as he voluntarily gave up remuneration in light of the pandemic hitting the business and economy. In its latest annual report, Reliance said Ambani’s remuneration for FY21 was “nil”.
• Probity
  • 5G auctions: transparent and well-executed.
• Value Inculcation through education
  • The National Curriculum Framework (NCF), 2005, developed by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) emphasizes on ethical development, inculcating the values, attitudes and skills such as human rights, justice, tolerance, co-operation, social responsibility, non-violence and respect for cultural diversity, etc. required for living in harmony with oneself and with others. The NCERT textbooks, developed on the basis of NCF, 2005, prescribe and integrate themes and examples related to moral conduct across the subject areas and across the various stages of school education in the syllabi and textbooks for classes I-XII.
  • University Grants Commission (UGC) has launched a policy framework- “MulyaPravah – Guidelines for Inculcation of Human values and Professional Ethics in Higher Educational Institutions”. It emphasizes that stakeholders of an institution, be they faculty, students, administrators or others, should be guided by the core values like integrity, dedication, trusteeship, sustainability, inclusiveness, commitment, respectfulness, harmony and belongingness.
  • The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 also provides for ethical reasoning, traditional Indian values and all basic human and Constitutional values such as seva, ahimsa, swachchhata, satya, nishkam karma, shanti, sacrifice, tolerance, diversity, pluralism, righteous conduct, gender sensitivity, respect for elders, respect for all peopleand their inherent capabilities regardless of background, etc
• More than a fortnight after the Bilari Sub-divisional Magistrate (SDM) was removed from his post following a complaint of a local businessman for allegedly threatening him by getting a portion of his building demolished when asked to clear dues, the state government has suspended the officer
• Anti-doping law will ensure highest standards of integrity while participating and preparing for sports competitions, domestically and internationally( doping is cheating and it causes unfairness, it causes short and long term harm for the health of athletes who receive doping, and it harms the society especially children and young adults who respect athletes as their role models and that doping is both unnatural and dehumanizing)
• The Madhya Pradesh police’s Economic Offences Wing (EOW), probing a disproportionate assets complaint, recovered more than Rs 85 lakh in cash from the Bhopal home of a state government clerk who consumed some liquid that was suspected to be poisonous during a search on Wednesday, an official said.
• The current generation will be the leaders of tomorrow and therefore we have to inculcate in them now a sense of duty and responsibility to realise the dreams and vision of India@100.
• Independence Day should not become another ritualistic celebration of our freedom struggle, rather it should become a site for critical introspection of our progress in fulfilling the values in Constitution which our Constitution makers – both women and men – aspired to achieve.
• Gandhi’ to evoke patriotism among TS students 40 years after its release. Gandhi movie shown to children, can be used for ways to instill patriotism in children. Also, Har ghartiranga campaign.( Patriotism is love for ones country )
• Mexican President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador is planning to submit a written proposal to the UN to create a commission, made up of three world leaders, including Prime Minister Narendra Modi, to promote a world truce for a period of five years (Peace is societal friendship and harmony in the absence of hostility and violence.)
• Farmers need financing with a human touch, not ruthless financing, says Home Minister Amit Shah ( kind, sympathetic way towards other people)