Daily Prelims Notes 22 July 2022

July 22, 2022
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Daily Prelims Notes

22 July 2022

Table Of Contents

1. Food security for migrant workers

Subject: Polity

Section: Fundamental Rights

The Supreme Court on Thursday told the Centre and the State governments that no citizen should die of hunger, and food should reach the homes of every migrant worker
States that right to food was a fundamental right under Article 21 of the Constitution.
The Court told the state that no citizen should die of hunger

Way out:

Extensive data need to culled out from the e-shram portal, where 27.95 crore workers have registered, to see how many own a ration card. Those without cards should be provided rations either through the National Food Security Act or through some other scheme

e-shram portal

The government aims to register 38 crore unorganised workers, such as construction labourers, migrant workforce, street vendors and domestic workers, among others.
The workers will be issued an e-Shram card containing a 12 digit unique number, which, going ahead will help in including them in social security schemes.
The registration of workers on the portal will be coordinated by the Labour Ministry, state governments, trade unions and CSCs.
A national toll free number — 14434 — will also be launched to assist and address the queries of workers seeking registration on the portal.
A worker can register on the portal using his/her Aadhaar card number and bank account details, apart from filling other necessary details like date of birth, home town, mobile number and social category.

2. Women have right to safe abortion: SC

Subject : Polity

Section: Fundamental right

Context: The Supreme Court recently held in an order that denying an unmarried woman the right to a safe abortion violates her personal autonomy and freedom.

Concept :

The law could not be used to quench “notions of social morality” and unduly interfere in their personal autonomy and bodily integrity.
The court noted that an amendment to the Act in 2021 had substituted the term ‘husband’ with ‘partner’, a clear signal that the law covered unmarried women within its ambit.
A woman’s right to reproductive choice is an inseparable part of her personal liberty under Article 21 of Constitution. She has a sacrosanct right to bodily integrity. There is no doubt that a woman’s right to make reproductive choices is also a dimension of ‘personal liberty’

Constitution Article:

Article 21 : Protection of life and personal liberty.
- No person shall be deprived of his life or personal liberty except according to procedure established by law.

Important SC cases on interpretation of Article 21:

AK Gopalan Case (1950): Until the 1950s, Article 21 had a bit of a narrow scope. In this case, the SC held that the expression ‘procedure established by law’, the Constitution has embodied the British concept of personal liberty rather than the American ‘due process’.
Maneka Gandhi vs. Union of India Case (1978): This case overturned the Gopalan case Here, the SC said that Articles 19 and 21 are not watertight compartments. The idea of personal liberty in Article 21 has a wide scope including many rights, some of which are embodied under Article 19, thus giving them ‘additional protection’. The court also held that a law that comes under Article 21 must satisfy the requirements under Article 19 as well. That means any procedure under law for the deprivation of life or liberty of a person must not be unfair, unreasonable or arbitrary.
Olga Tellis vs. Bombay Municipal Corporation (1985): This case reiterated the stand taken earlier that any procedure that would deprive a person’s fundamental rights should conform to the norms of fair play and justice.

The Court gave a list of rights that Article 21 covers based on earlier judgments. Some of them are:

Right to privacy
Right to go abroad
Right to shelter
Right against solitary confinement
Right to social justice and economic empowerment
Right against handcuffing
Right against custodial death
Right against delayed execution
Doctors’ assistance
Right against public hanging
Protection of cultural heritage
Right to pollution-free water and air
Right of every child to a full development
Right to health and medical aid
Right to education
Protection of under-trials

3. Govt: No proposal to increase SC, HC judges’ retirement age

Subject :Polity

Section: Judiciary

Context: Recently Attorney General had stressed that the need to increase the retirement age of Judges.

Why increase retirement age?

Huge pendency of cases

Concept :

The idea of increasing the age of retirement for judges has been mooted for decades as a solution for dealing with mounting pendency of cases and judicial vacancies.
According to Article 124(2) of the Constitution, the age of retirement for Supreme Court judges is 65.
As per Article 217(1) of the Constitution, High Court judges retire at 62. Initially, the retirement age of High Court judges was 60, which was later in 1963 increased to 62 through the 114th constitutional amendment.
Article 124(7) of the Constitution bars judges of the Supreme Court from practicing before any forum,
while for High Court judges, an amendment was brought in 1956 to allow practice before the Supreme Court and High Courts other than the one they served in under Article 220
In 1974, the 58th report of the Law Commission recommended bringing parity between age of retirement of judges of High Court and Supreme Court.
In 2002, Justice Venkatachaliah Report – the report of National Commission to review the working of the Constitution – also recommended that the age of retirement should be increased for judges of High Courts and Supreme Court to 65 and 68, respectively.

4. Transmission Protection Instrument

Subject : Economy

Section : External Sector

The European Central Bank has lifted its record-low minus 0.5% deposit rate to zero, first rate hike in 11 years. It has further ended its eight-year experiment with negative interest rates, by increasing the main refinancing rate to 0.50%.

As ECB rates rise, borrowing costs increase disproportionately for countries like Italy, Spain or Portugal as investors demand a bigger premium to hold their debt. To tackle this The ECB has approved a new bond purchase scheme called Transmission Protection Instrument.

Concept:

Transmission Protection Instrument:

Approved by the Governing Council of the ECB
Beneficiary- Eurozone ( out of 19 more indebted nations)
- The eurozone (EZ) is a monetary union of 19 member states of the European Union (EU).
- They have adopted the euro (€) as their primary currency and sole legal tender.
It will ensure that the monetary policy stance is transmitted smoothly across all euro area countries.
It is a bond purchase scheme intended to cap the rise in Eurozone’s borrowing costs and limit their financial fragmentation.
Under it Euro system will make secondary market purchases of securities issued in jurisdictions experiencing deterioration in financing conditions not warranted by country-specific fundamentals, to counter risks to the transmission mechanism to the extent necessary.
- The monetary authority of the euro zone is the Euro system.

The scale of TPI purchases depends on the severity of the risks facing policy transmission and done in both ex-post and ex-ante sense.
Purchase parameters
- TPI purchases would be focused on public sector securities (marketable debt securities issued by central and regional governments as well as agencies, as defined by the ECB) with a remaining maturity of between one and ten years. Purchases of private sector securities could be considered, if appropriate.
Criteria
- compliance with the EU fiscal framework
- absence of severe macroeconomic imbalances
- fiscal sustainability
- sound and sustainable macroeconomic policies

Purchases would be terminated either upon a durable improvement in transmission, or based on an assessment that persistent tensions are due to country fundamentals.

5. Micronesia- the remote Pacific islands that have finally succumbed to a Covid outbreak

Subject : Geography

Section: Mapping

The Federated States of Micronesia, a small island country in the Pacific that is home to around 110,000 people, is one of the latest places on Earth to experience an outbreak of Covid-19, after two and a half years of successfully protecting itself from the virus.

Micronesia’s geography

Located in the Western Pacific, in the Micronesia sub-region of Oceania, the Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) consists of four island states, Yap, Chuuk, Kosrae and Pohnpei (where the capital Palikir is located), all in the Caroline Islands. Also known as the Carolines, it is a scattered archipelago of small islands that are divided between Micronesia and the Republic of Palau.
The Federated States of Micronesia shares its sea borders with other small island nations and territories in the Micronesia region like Guam, the Republic of Marshall Islands, Palau, Kiribati, and the Mariana Islands. Its larger neighbouring states — separated by large swathes of the Pacific Ocean — include the Philippines in the west, Hawaii in the east, Papua New Guinea and Australia to the south, Japan to the north.

6. Migratory monarch butterflies officially declared ‘endangered’

Subject: Environment

Section: Biodiversity

Context: The migratory monarch butterfly, a sub-species of the monarch butterfly that travels around 4,000 kilometres across America each year, has been classified ‘endangered’ in the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species July 21, 2022.

Content:

Monarchs, the most recognisable species of butterfly, are important pollinators and provide various ecosystem services such as maintaining the global food web.
These butterflies follow a unique lifestyle: They traverse the length and breadth of the American continent twice a year, feasting on nectar from a variety of flora. But they breed in only one particular plant — the milkweeds. The monarch larvae feed on this species on hatching.
Most of these butterflies’ winter in the California coast and forests in central Mexico. A smaller population of the species is also found in countries like Australia, Hawaii and India.
Their population in the continent has declined 23-72 per cent over the last decade.
The number of the western monarchs, which live west of the Rocky Mountains, reduced 99.9 per cent, falling to only 1,914 butterflies in 2021 from 10 million in the 1980s. The population of the eastern monarchs that migrate from eastern United States and Canada — the bigger group — also shrunk 84 per cent from 1996-2014.

Reasons for extinction:

Deforestation- for agriculture and urban development
Legal and illegal Logging
Habitat Destruction- Removal of breeding ground by farmers (milkweed)
In the 2000s, glyphosate, a weedicide, was widely used in farms which killed much of the milkweed
- Climate Change- making storms, droughts and catastrophic wildfires more intense and disrupting flowering cycles.

What is a Red list?

Established in 1964, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species has evolved to become the world’s most comprehensive information source on the global extinction risk status of animal, fungus and plant species.
The IUCN Red List is a critical indicator of the health of the world’s biodiversity. The IUCN Red List is used by government agencies, wildlife departments, conservation-related non-governmental organisations (NGOs).
According to the list, biodiversity is declining. Currently, there are more than 1,47,500 species on The IUCN Red List, with more than 41,000 species threatened with extinction, including 41% of amphibians, 37% of sharks and rays, 34% of conifers, 33% of reef building corals, 27% of mammals and 13% of birds.

7. Climate Change alters plants’ functional traits

Subject: Environment

Section: Climate Change

Context: ‘PhenObs’ — an open network of researchers, citizens, scientists and students studying botanist gardens across the Northern Hemisphere (studied 212 plant species across five botanical gardens in Germany) published the report in New Phytologist June 28.

Content:

Phenology is the study of growing, leafing, flowering, fruiting and senescence (deterioration) stages in a plant’s life cycle.
Phenology is one of the key indicators for observing the biological impacts of climate change.
Scientists have measured traits like plant height, leaf area, carbon and nitrogen content, dry-matter content and seed mass.

Findings of the Research:

Scientists have found:

Shorter plants are growing, leafing and executing other biological changes earlier than their conventional duration.
- have a higher probability of leafing out
- need less time to reach flowering height than taller plants
Over 85 per cent of plant species found in temperate ecosystems are herbaceous.
Leaf area played a crucial role in displaying functional traits.
- Plants with large leaves leafed out later. But deterioration due to ageing and cell degradation occurred earlier in species with larger leaves.
They are even more vulnerable to drought conditions or temperature changes.
They were found to change their flowering or fruiting time and pre-pone it to outcompete the smaller species.
- However, smaller and thicker leaves seem to be more resistant to drought stress and less sensitive to drop in temperatures.
Leaf senescence can be triggered by drought during summers or decreasing temperatures in autumn.
Early stages of initial growth in a plant and leaf unfolding during later stages depended on each other.
With current Climate change scenarios, plant species are seen advancing their phenology earlier in the year.
- This likely has an influence on functional characteristics of plants.
- This will affect competitive hierarchies — an ordered ranking from competitive dominant to competitive subordinate species — with consequences in global biodiversity.

8. What are tetrapods and did their removal cause ‘unusual vibrations’ along Mumbai’s Marine Drive?

Subject : Environment

Section: Climate change

Context: Residents of two buildings on Marine Drive, the iconic 3 km promenade in south Mumbai, complained of ‘unusual vibrations” during high tide over the past weekend. It was result of the relocation of tetrapods as part of the ongoing Coastal Road Project.

What are tetrapods?

Tetra pod in Greek means four legged. These are four legged concrete structures that are placed along coastlines to prevent erosion and water damage.
It was first used in France in the late 1940s to protect the shore from the sea.
They are typically placed together to form an interlocking but porous barrier that dissipates the power of waves and currents.
These are large structures, sometimes weighing up to 10 tonnes, and interlocked tetra pods act as a barrier that remains stable against the rocks when buffeted by waves.
Tetrapods, each weighing about 2 tonnes, were placed along Marine Drive in the late 1990s to break and dissipate waves and maintain the reclaimed shoreline in South Mumbai.

Why were the tetrapods removed from the Marine Drive area?

They were temporarily removed to help carry out reclamation for the ongoing Coastal Road Project (10.58 km of coastal road from Princess Street in Marine Drive to the Worli end of the Bandra Worli Sea link. There are over 6000 terapods along Marine drive alone.

9. The Kali Bein and its significance for Sikhs

Subject :Geography

Section: Mapping

Context: Punjab Chief Minister admitted to Delhi’s Apollo Hospital, days after he had drunk a glass of water directly from the Kali Bein, a holy rivulet in Sultanpur Lodhi

What is the Kali Bein?

The 165 km rivulet starts from Hoshiarpur, runs across four districts and meets the confluence of the rivers Beas and Sutlej in Kapurthala.
Waste water from around the villages as well as industrial waste used to flow into the rivulet via a drain, turning its water black, hence the name Kali Bein (black rivulet).

Significance of Kali Bein to Sikhs:

It is great significance to Sikh religion and history, because the first Guru, Nanak Dev, is said to have got enlightenment here.
When Guru Nanak Dev was staying at Sultanpur Lodhi with his sister BebeNanki, he would bathe in the Kali Bein.
He is said to have disappeared into the waters one day, before emerging on the third day. The first thing he recited was the ‘Mool Mantra’ of the Sikh religion.

10. Europe heatwave: a number of reasons, climate change most worrying

Subject :Geography

Section: Climatology

Context: Some places in Britain Tuesday recorded temperatures above 40°C, the first time any place in the United Kingdom breached this mark

Factors causing European Heat Wave:

On the global scale, climate change has been driving the temperatures upwards, which, in general, is evident across the world.
Local factors: a low pressure system over the European region has been found to be attracting hot air from northern Africa. An unusual warming in the Arctic Ocean is also said to be playing a role.
A slow moving high pressure area has been transporting hot air from North Africa over western and parts of central Europe.
The hot air is moving northwards, first affecting Portugal, Spain, France and UK.
This kind of local events are often short lived and their impacts dissipate over a few days.
The introduction of moister air from the Atlantic is triggering the risk of thunderstorms and heavy showers for parts of the UK.
The worrying part is the rise in temperatures due to global warming.

Concept:

Heat Wave:

The World Meteorological Organization defines it as five or more consecutive days during which the daily maximum temperature surpasses the average maximum temperature by 5 °C (9 °F) or more.

The India Meteorological Department requires that temperatures increase 5–6 °C (9–10.8 °F) or more above the normal temperature

WMO:

The World Meteorological Organization(WMO) is a specialized agency of the United Nations responsible for promoting international cooperation on atmospheric science, climatology, hydrology and geophysics
The WMO is made up of 193 countries and territories, and facilitates the “free and unrestricted” exchange of data, information, and research between the respective meteorological and hydrological institutions of its members

Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, the WMO is governed by the World Meteorological Congress, composed of member states, which meets every four years to set policies and priorities

11. 19th century painting of Raja Serfoji, son stolen from Thanjavur Saraswathi Mahal traced to U.S. museum

Subject : History

Section: Art and Culture

Maharaja Serfoji II was the scion of the Bhosle dynasty, ruled over the dominions of the Maratha principality of Thanjavur from 1798-1832
Thanjavur became a casualty of Lord Dalhousie’s infamous ‘Doctrine of Lapse’, and it got absorbed into British-ruled Indian provinces.

Doctrine of lapse

The Doctrine of Lapse was an annexation policy followed widely by Lord Dalhousie when he was India’s Governor-General from 1848 to 1856.
According to this, any princely state under the direct or indirect (as a vassal) control of the East India Company where the ruler did not have a legal male heir would be annexed by the company
As per this, any adopted son of the Indian ruler could not be proclaimed as heir to the kingdom. This challenged the Indian ruler’s long-held authority to appoint an heir of their choice.

States annexed under this doctrine

Satara, Jaitpur, Sambalpur, Baghat, Udaipur, Jhansi, Nagpur, Awadh

12. India has opened up the highly regulated sector of producing and processing opium to private players

Subject : Geography

Section :

Bajaj Healthcare has become the first company to win tenders for producing concentrated poppy straw that is used to derive alkaloids that are the active pharmaceutical ingredient in pain medication and cough syrups

Since when has opium been grown in India?

India has been growing poppy at least since the 15th century, as per historical records. The British East India Company assumed monopoly on the cultivation of poppy when the Mughal Empire was on the decline, and the entire trade was brought under government control by 1873.
After India gained independence, the cultivation and trade of opium passed on to the Indian government, with the activity being controlled by The Opium Act, 1857, The Opium Act, 1878, and The Dangerous Drugs Act, 1930. At present, the cultivation and processing of poppy and opium is controlled by the provisions of The Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and Rules.

What is the process of growing and processing opium in India?

Due to the potential for illicit trade and risk of addiction, the cultivation of opium poppy is strictly regulated in the country, with the crops being allowed to be sown only in tracts of land notified by the central government in 22 districts in the states of Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan.
The cultivation of opium poppy is strictly monitored — the government uses satellite images to check for illicit cultivation. Once the crop is ready, they have a formula on how much the yield should be. This entire quantity is then bought by the government and processed in its own factories

What is opium used for?

Opium is a natural substance obtained from poppy seeds and its derivatives are mainly used for pain management. “The extracts from opium poppy such as morphine are potent painkillers and are mainly prescribed to cancer patients. The opium product codeine is helpful in cough suppression.
It is used illicitly for smoking, drinking, or even eating as pills. The addictive properties of opium are the reason that the cultivation of poppy is highly regulated around the world. Only 12 countries including India allow its cultivation legally for medicinal use.