Daily Prelims Notes 11 October 2022

October 11, 2022
Posted by: OptimizeIAS Team
Category: DPN

Daily Prelims Notes

11 October 2022

Table Of Contents

Subject: Economy

Context: The Nobel Prize for Economics 2022 has been awarded to Ben Bernanke, Douglas Diamond and Philip Dybvig for their role in research related to how banks function.

Contribution-

Role of banks in the economy, particularly during financial crises–why we have banks, how to make them less vulnerable in crises and how bank collapses exacerbate financial crises.
Ben S Bernanke:
- Through statistical analysis and historical source research, Bernanke demonstrated how failing banks played a decisive role in the global depression of the 1930s, the worst economic crisis in modern history.
- It added the importance of well-functioning bank regulation.
Douglas W Diamond and Philip H Dybvi:
- They developed theoretical models explaining why banks exist, how their role in society makes them vulnerable to rumours about their impending collapse, and how society can lessen this vulnerability.

Nobel Prize for Economics:

Established: Unlike the other Nobel prizes, the economics award wasn’t established in the will of Alfred Nobel but by the Swedish central bank in his memory in 1968.
- This prize was started in the year 1968 by the donation from the central bank of Sweden called “SverigesRiksbank” to the Nobel Foundation in order to commemorate the 300th anniversary of the central bank.
The Nobel peace prize in Economics is officially titled as “SverigesRiksbank Prize in Economic Sciences” in Memory of Alfred Nobel”.

Prize money-The Nobel prize consists of a gold medal, a diploma and a cheque for 10 million Swedish kronor–roughly accounts for Rs 8.33 crore.

2. Graded Response Action Plan or GRAP

Subject: Environment

Context: According to a recent report, 18 of the 20 cities with the most severe increase in fine particle pollutants called PM 2.5 between 2010 and 2019 were in India.

The action plan against Delhi’s air pollution-

A rigorous challenge of air pollution in Delhi and the National Capital Region (NCR) has come into force after a sudden dip in air quality in the capital and its neighbouring areas.

How did GRAP come into being?

The Central Pollution Control Board submitted a list of measures to address different levels of air pollution to the Supreme Court in January 2016.
These measures coalesced into GRAP — a set of anti-air pollution measures which are to be followed in Delhi and its vicinity according to the severity of the situation.
The GRAP was approved by the SC after modifications and notified by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on January 12, 2017.
The Centre set up the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Regionand Adjoining Areas.
This powerful body, which coordinates with other States to plan and execute strategies to prevent and control air pollution in the NCR, has been enforcing GRAP since 2021.
Under the revised action plan, restrictions on polluting activities will be dependent on Air Quality Index (AQI) rather than PM2.5 and PM10 concentration.

How will the action plan function?

The GRAP for Delhi-NCR is divided into four stages of air quality–

Stage one for “poor” AQI ranging between 201 and 300,
Stage two for “very poor” AQI of 301-400,
Stage three for “severe” AQI of 401-450
Stage four for “severe plus” AQI more than

In stage one, a ban on construction and demolition activities at specific sites will be implemented.
- Also, agencies should ensure that all solid waste is lifted from dedicated dump sites, and none is dumped on open land.
- Heavy fines are to be imposed for openly burning municipal solid waste and biomass.
- Roads will be mechanically cleaned and water sprinkled from time to time.
- The ban on firecrackers should be followed as per the directions of respective courts.

In stage two,mechanised sweeping of roads will be done daily, while water will be sprinkled using dust suppressants at least on alternate days.
- Authorities would need to ensure an uninterrupted power supply to discourage the use of generators.
At stage three, the frequency of cleaning roads intensifies. Water would be sprinkled daily before peak traffic hours.
- Authorities will levy different rates on public transport services to encourage off- peak travel.
- A strict ban will be enforced on all construction activities, except ongoing construction of railway, metro, airport and hospital projects.
- The State government will be empowered to impose restrictions on BS-III petrol and BS-IV diesellight motor vehicles (LMVs).
During stage four, when the air quality rises to dangerous levels, entry of all trucks, except those carrying essential commodities, will be restricted.
- Four wheeler diesel LMVs would also be banned except those used for essential or emergency services.
- All construction and demolition activities would have to be stopped.
- The respective governments could, meanwhile, take a call on allowing public, municipal and private offices to work on 50% strength.
- Additional emergency measures like closing schools, non emergency commercial activities and plying of vehicles on an odd-even basis may also be enforced.

Do citizens have a role?

Along with instructions for authorities, the GRAP also includes a graded advisory for the public.
The measures include properly tuning engines of their vehicles, ensuring accurate air pressure in tyres and updating PUC (pollution under control) certificates.

3. What is greenwashing?

Subject: Environment

Greenwashing refers to “the practice of making products, activities, or policies seem more environmentally friendly or less environmentally damaging than they actually are.”
Essentially, it consists of two behaviours –

Suppress negative information regarding a product/activity/policy’s environmental performance;
Expose positive information about the environmental performance.

The term is commonly used to refer to deceptive marketing and advertising tactics used by some corporate industries to deceive stakeholders into believing that a particular product is environmentally friendly.

How did the term ‘greenwashing’ emerge?

‘Greenwashing’ is a play on the word ‘whitewashing’ which means misleading people with the use of facts, half-truths, and fiction to conceal realities.
Environmentalist Jay Westerveld is credited with coining the term ‘greenwashing’ in 1986 in a term paper on multiculturalism.
In 1999, ‘greenwashing’ was officially included in the Oxford English Dictionary.

How is greenwashing done?

In 2007, the advertising consultancy, TerraChoice Marketing, described what it called the “seven sins of greenwashing” or types of misleading sustainability claims.

Hidden trade-off– where a company claims that a product is ‘green’ based on extremely narrow attributes without attention to other important environmental issues.

For example, Paper is preferable to plastic because it is biodegradable, but there might be a few other environmental concerns in paper-making such as greenhouse gas emissions and the use of toxic chemicals for bleaching

Claim is of“no proof”– where a company’s claims cannot be easily verified or are unsupported by reliable third-party certifications.

For example, if a product is labelled ‘environmentally more preferable’.

“Vagueness” is another type of claim made to mislead customers using poor or broad definitions.

For example, ‘all-natural’ is not necessarily ‘eco-friendly’ since environmental poisons such as formaldehyde, arsenic, mercury, or uranium are ‘all-natural’ but toxic in nature.
In another example, a package containing a product may be labelled ‘recyclable’ without clear reference to whether the packaging or the product is recyclable.

“Worshiping false labels” where claims through words or images are made to give the impression of a third-party endorsement although none exists.

The list also includes “irrelevance” and “lesser of the two evils” as two separate types of greenwashing.

Irrelevant claims are those that may be technically true, but unimportant or unhelpful to consumers seeking environmentally preferable products.
For example, a product that is labelled as ‘has 50% more recycled content than before’ may now have 3% recycled material, as compared to the 2% it had before.

“Lesser of the two evils” is a type of claim that may be true within the product category but distracts consumers from the greater environmental impact of those products as a whole.

For example promotion of natural gas as a ‘cleaner fuel’ than coal, although the costs of extracting natural gas through methods such as fracking are hugely damaging to the environment.

“Fibbing” is another “sin” of greenwashing, where the claims are simply false.

American politician Ed Gillespie later added three more types of claims to this list – suggestive pictures, best in class, and gobbledygook.

“Suggestive pictures” is where images are used to imply a green impact when in fact none exists.

An example of this would be an image of plants/flowers emerging from the exhaust pipe of a vehicle.

Claims in the“best in class” category, declare that the brand is slightly more eco-friendly than the rest of the industry, even though the industry itself is highly unsustainable.

This is very similar to the “lesser of two evils” type of claims.

“Gobbledygook” refers to a strategy where a brand uses jargon to confuse consumers.

For example, ‘locally grown/organic’ food products may still be produced in ways that harm the environment and degrade the soil.

Who is guilty of greenwashing?

As per an anonymous survey conducted for Google Cloud, roughly two-thirds of CEOs from U.S.-based companies question their companies’ sustainability initiatives.
Most global companies including international giants such as Nestle, Unilever, Amazon, Ikea, and Coca Cola have been accused of greenwashing.
Apart from ‘solutions to plastic pollution’, ‘reduction in carbon emissions’ is another topic commonly used for greenwashing – one that automobile and oil companies are famous for.
In a well-known case of greenwashing, Volkswagen admitted in 2015 that it cheated on emissions tests by installing devices in its cars that could recognise when emissions tests were being conducted.
The latest comprehensive report on the climate claims made by oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell, and BP, states that most of their claims are greenwashing.
In addition, seized internal emails have revealed that these companies’ public commitments to net carbon zero goals are meant to be ‘green’ eyewash.

And it’s not just industries–

Governments have also been accused of greenwashing when the COP26 was accused of being a ‘greenwashing event’ as climate activists argued that the current systems of carbon offsetting were just tactics being used by polluters to avoid real emissions cuts.

How is greenwashing harmful and what can be done about it?

One of the major motives of greenwashing is to create public confusion and manipulate public opinion to sway consumer markets.
For example- Malaysian Palm Oil Council claimed palm oil to be eco-friendly, but in reality it is associated with deforestation, loss of rainforest species and habitats, pollution from burning to clear land, and destruction of flood buffer zones along the rivers.

Way forward–

Strong social accountability and a tripartite system, consisting of an organisation, a regulatory authority, and a third party (made up of stakeholders, civil society members, NGOs, etc.) have been suggested as ways to curb greenwashing.

4. How China Beat Extreme Poverty; And What Lessons It Holds For India

Subject: Economy

Context–

According to the latest World Bank report on global poverty,India has the most number of poor people (5.6 crores).
The report found that the number of Indians living in extreme poverty— surviving on less than Rs 46 a day — increased by 56 million (5.6 crores) in 2020.
Further, it states that close to 600 million Indians survive on less than Rs 84 a day.
China, comparable in population size, alleviated poverty at historically unprecedented speed and scale between 1978 and 2018.

What is extreme poverty? How is it defined?

The World Bank (WB): Anyone living on less than $2.15 a day is considered to be living in extreme poverty. About 648 million people globally were in this situation in 2019.
The very first international poverty line — a dollar a day — was constructed in 1990 using the 1985 prices.
It was then raised to $1.08 a day in 1993, $1.25 a day in 2005 and $1.90 a day in 2011. The $2.15 one is based on 2017 prices.

What did China achieve?

The World Bank found that between 1978 and 2018,China’s poverty head-count dropped from 770million to 5.5 million people.
It means that on average, for 40 years on the trot, every year China pulled 19 million people out of extreme poverty.
In doing so, it accounted for almost 75 per cent of the global drop in the number of people living in extreme poverty in this period.
In 2021, China declared that it has eradicated extreme poverty according to the national poverty threshold, lifting 765 million people since 1978, and that it has built a “moderately prosperous society in all respects”.

How did China do it?

China’s poverty reduction success relied on mainly on two pillars-

The first pillar was rapid economic growth, supported by broad- based economic transformation.

Reforms began in the agricultural sector, where poor people could benefit directly from improvements in productivity associated with the introduction of market incentives.
The development of low-skilled,labour intensive industries provided a source of employment for workers released from agriculture.
Urbanisation helped migrants take advantage of the new opportunities in the cities, and migrant transfers boosted incomes of their relatives remaining in the villages.
Public investment in infrastructure improved living conditions in rural areas but also connected them with urban and export markets.

The second pillar was government policies to alleviate poverty, which initially targeted areas disadvantaged by geography and a lack of economic opportunities, but subsequently focused on poor households irrespective of location.

A component of these policies was social protection policies for poor households, including programmes in social assistance, insurance, and welfare.

Other factors-

China’s size necessitated decentralised implementation arrangements, with significant scope for local experimentation and a high degree of competition among local governments.
China also benefited from favourable conditions at the time of opening up, such as a relatively high level of human capital endowments.
In 1949,7 percent of those aged 15–64 had completed primary school in China.
Massive investment in education and expansion of health care since the 1950s resulted in real achievements: in 1978, the infant mortality rate was 52 per 1,000 births, less than half of the average in China’s income group; life expectancy at birth at 66 years far exceeded that of other developing countries; the primary school enrollment rate was 96 per cent; and the secondary school enrollment rate was 49.9 percent.

5. Mental health in India

Subject: Governance

Context: On Monday, world observed as World Mental Health Day.

Concept:

Mental health problems were already a major contributor to the burden of illness in India before the pandemic, with a third of all female and a quarter of all male suicide deaths in the world occurring in this country
Poor awareness about symptoms of mental illness, myths & stigma related to it, lack of knowledge on the treatment availability & potential benefits of seeking treatment are important causes for the high treatment gap

National Mental Health Programme (NMHP) in 1982

To ensure the availability and accessibility of minimum mental healthcare for all in the foreseeable future, particularly to the most vulnerable and underprivileged sections of the population;
To encourage the application of mental health knowledge in general healthcare and in social development; and
To promote community participation in the mental health service development and to stimulate efforts towards self-help in the community.

Mental Healthcare Act, 2017:

The Act seeks to ensure rights of the person with mental illness to receive care and to live a life with dignity. The key features of the Act are:

Rights of Persons with Mental Illness: Right to Access to Healthcare, Right to live with dignity, Right to Confidentiality
The Act empowers person with mental illness to make an advance directive that states how he/she wants to be treated for the illness and who his/her nominated representative shall be.
The Act mandates the government to set up Central Mental Health Authority at national-level and State Mental Health Authority in every State.
A mentally ill person shall not be subjected to electro-convulsive therapy without the use of muscle relaxants and anaesthesia. Further, electroconvulsive therapy cannot be used on minors
Decriminalization of Suicide

6. India gets 4th set of Swiss bank account details of its nationals

Subject: Economy

Context:India has received the fourth set of Swiss bank account details of its nationals and organisations as part of the annual automatic exchange of information(AEOI)

Black money in the form of undisclosed foreign income and assets comes under the purview of this law

About Tax Havens:

A tax haven is a jurisdiction with very low “effective” rates of taxation for foreign investors.
In some traditional definitions, a tax haven also offers financial secrecy.
- However, while countries with high levels of secrecy but also high rates of taxation, most notably the United States and Germany in the Financial Secrecy Index (“FSI”) rankings, can be featured in some tax haven lists, they are not universally considered as tax havens.
A list of some of the most popular tax haven countries includes: Andorra, the Bahamas, Belize, Bermuda, the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, the Channel Islands, the Cook Islands, The Island of Jersey, Hong Kong, The Isle of Man, Mauritius, Lichtenstein, Monaco, Panama, St. Kitts, and Nevis.
Some notable authors on tax havens describe them as “captured states”. The term is particularly used for smaller tax havens, with examples being Antigua, the Seychelles, and Jersey.
Worldwide there is not a comprehensively defined standard for the classification of a tax haven country. However, there are several regulatory bodies that monitor tax haven countries, including the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
Characteristics of tax haven countries generally include:
- no or low income taxes,
- minimal reporting of information,
- lack of transparency obligations,
- lack of local presence requirements, and
- marketing of tax haven vehicles.

7. UN Charter

Subject :International Relations

Context:

UN reform is a long drawn process which encompasses five key issues:
- Categories of membership.
- Question of the veto held by the five permanent members,
- Regional representation,
- The size of an enlarged Council and its working methods.
- The Security Council-General Assembly relationship.

Principles on which United Nation works:

The United Nations act in accordance with the following principles.
- Article 2(1): All member states are sovereign and equal.
- Article 2(2): All are pledged to fulfill their obligations under the Charter in good faith.
- Article 2(3): All are pledged to settle their international disputes by peaceful means and without endangering international peace, security and justice.
- Article 2(4): They are to refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against any other state.
- Article 2(5): They are to give the UN assistance in any action it takes in accordance with the Charter.
- Article 2(6): Organization shall ensure that states not members of UN shall act as far according to principles to maintain international peace.
- Article 2(7): The United Nations shall not intervene in matters which are essentially domestic ones of any state except when it is acting to enforce international peace

What is UN Charter:-

The Charter of the United Nations is the founding document of the United Nations.
It was signed on 26 June 1945, in San Francisco, at the conclusion of the United Nations Conference on International Organization, and came into force on 24 October 1945.
The UN Charter codifies the major principles of international relations, from sovereign equality of States to the prohibition of the use of force in international relations.
It has been amended five times since 1945.

How The UN Charter can be reformed:

According to Article 108 of the Charter,amendments must be adopted by two thirds of the members of the General Assembly and ratified by two thirds of the members of the United Nations, including all the permanent members of the Security Council.

History of Charter amendment:

The Charter has been amended five times.

1965:-Articles 23 was amended to enlarge the Security Council from 11 to 15 members
1965 – Article 27 was amended to increase the required number of Security Council votes from 7 to 9
1965–Article 61 was amended to enlarge the Economic and Social Council from 18 to 27 members
1968– Article 109 was amended to change the requirements for a General Conference of Member States for reviewing the Charter

1973– Article 61 was amended again to further enlarge the Economic and Social Council from 27 to 54 members

8. Major cities of Ukraine

Subject: International Relations

Context: New bombing

Kyiv: It is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine and seventh most populous in Europe.It lies in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. It is located on the border of the Polesia woodland ecological zone, a part of the European mixed woods area, and the East European forest steppe biome. It is the only city that has double jurisdiction. The Head of City State Administration i.e the city’s governor is appointed by the president of Ukraine, while the Head of the City Council i.e the mayor of Kyiv is elected by local popular vote.

Kharkiv:-It is the second-largest city and municipality in Ukraine.It is located in the northeast of the country.It is the administrative centre of Kharkiv Oblast and of the surrounding Kharkiv Raion. It is a major cultural, scientific, educational, transport and industrial centre of Ukraine.It is located at the banks of the Kharkiv, Lopan, and Udy rivers, which further flow into the Seversky Donets watershed in the north-eastern region of Ukraine.

Donetsk:-It is the fifth-largest city of Ukraine and is situated in the eastern part of Ukraine on the Kalmius River in Donetsk Oblast. It is an industrial hub.

Odesa:-It is the third most populous city and municipality in Ukraine and a major seaport and transport hub located in the south-west of the country, on the northwestern shore of the Black Sea. It is a warm-water port. The city of Odesa hosts both the Port of Odesa and Port Pivdennyi, a significant oil terminal situated in the city’s suburbs.

Dnipro:-It is the fourth-largest city of Ukraine. It is located in the eastern part of Ukraine, southeast of Kyiv on the Dnieper River.

Zaporizhzhya:-It is a city in southeast Ukraine, situated on the banks of the Dnieper river. There are many small rivers in the city, which enter the Dnieper like Sukha and MokraMoskovka, Kushuhum, and VerkhniaKhortytsia. It has the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant which is the largest nuclear power station in Europe.

Lviv: It is the sixth-largest city in Ukraine situated in the western part around 70 kilometers from the border with Poland. It is situated on the edge of the Roztochia Upland. It is one of the main cultural centres of Ukraine.

Mykolaiv:-It is situated in southern Ukraine and is located on the Southern Bug River with access to the Black Sea.The city is one of the main shipbuilding centers of the Black Sea.

Sebastopol:-It is the largest city in Crimea and a major port on the Black Sea.It is located at the southwestern tip of the Crimean peninsula in a headland known as Heracles peninsula.

Luhansk:-It is the easternmost province of Ukraine.The region is located in the valley of theSiversky Donets river.All of the oblast is under the occupation of Russia, which claims the oblast as the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), a self-declared state turned Russian federal subject.

Chernihiv:-It is a city situated in the northern part of Ukraine on the Desna River.

Sumy:- It is situated in the northeastern Ukraine on the banks of the Psel River.

Kherson:-It is a port city of Ukraine situated on the Black Sea and on the Dnieper River.

Chernobyl: It is a partially abandoned city in the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, situated in the VyshhorodRaion of northern Kyiv Oblast. The city is famous for the Chernobyl disaster that occurred on 26 April 1986 at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant,

Mariupol:- It is a city on the north coast of the Sea of Azov at the mouth of the Kalmius river, in the Pryazovia region of Ukraine. It was the tenth-largest city in Ukraine and the second-largest in Donetsk Oblast before the Russian invasion.