13 Feb 2020: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

13 Feb 2020 CNA:- Download PDF Here

TABLE OF CONTENTS

A. GS 1 Related
B. GS 2 Related
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Pak. jails Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed for terror financing
2. India amends tax pact with Sri Lanka
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Tripura tribal laws to be codified
2. High Court dismisses petition seeking voting rights for prisoners
3. Rajasthan seeks higher Central assistance for water scheme
C. GS 3 Related
AGRICULTURE
1. Bill to regulate pesticide business gets green light
D. GS 4 Related
E. Editorials
POLITY AND GOVERNANCE
1. Riding on data for mobility
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Birds of a feather: On Trump-Modi chemistry
ECONOMY
1. Nutrition and the Budget’s fine print
F. Tidbits
1. Kerala imposes Rs.13 price cap on bottled water
2. Rohingya can’t be kept in jail after serving term: HC
3. MLAs with criminal cases have nearly doubled from 2015: ADR
4. Ethnic products a big hit among Amazon shoppers
5. Kerala to ready coastal zone management plan
6. 139 poll bonds sold before Delhi election
7. WHO to decide on emergency status of Ebola in DR Congo
G. Prelims Facts
1. Yaravirus
H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

A. GS 1 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

B. GS 2 Related

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Pak. jails Jamaat-ud-Dawa chief Hafiz Saeed for terror financing

Context:

• Hafiz Saeed, head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) and the alleged mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, has been sentenced to jail in Pakistan for five-and-a-half years on terror finance charges.
• He was found guilty of “being part of a banned terrorist outfit” and for “having illegal property” by an anti-terrorism court (ATC) in Lahore.

Details:

• Saeed is the founder of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), the charitable arm of the LeT group. Both the JuD and LeT are banned organisations under Pakistani anti-terrorism law.
• He is a UN-designated terrorist.
• He has a $10 million bounty on his head by the U.S. government.
• The sentencing comes days ahead of a crucial meeting of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF).
  • FATF is an intergovernmental organisation combating money laundering and terror financing.
  • FATF has put Pakistan on its grey list.
  • FATF will be issuing a decision on whether Pakistan has taken sufficient steps to avoid being “blacklisted”, a designation that would come as a blow to the nation’s struggling economy.
  • An FATF blacklisting would put in place barriers that would serve to isolate Pakistan’s economy from the international banking system, introducing stricter checks and safeguards on transactions involving the country.

First conviction since 2008:

• This is the first time that Saeed has been formally convicted of an offence since the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
• LeT is accused of operating with impunity from Pakistani soil to attack Indian security and government targets in Kashmir.
• India accuses Pakistan of supporting armed groups like LeT and Jaish-e-Muhammad that attack Indian targets in Kashmir.
• Pakistan denies the charges, saying it has been acting against all armed groups operating on its soil.

2. India amends tax pact with Sri Lanka

Context:

The double taxation avoidance agreement between India and Sri Lanka has been amended.

Details:

• The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has approved the Signing and Ratification of the Protocol amending the Agreement between India and Sri Lanka for the avoidance of double taxation and the prevention of fiscal evasion with respect to taxes on income.
• The amendment was made to the India-Sri Lanka Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) of 2013 and the new changes would enable the government to blunt tax evasion.
• Updation of the preamble text and inclusion of Principal Purpose Test, a general anti-abuse provision in the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) will result in curbing tax planning strategies that exploit gaps and mismatches in tax rules.
• The existing DTAA was signed on January 22, 2013 and became effective on October 22, 2013.
• India and Sri Lanka are members of the inclusive framework and are required to implement the minimum standards under G-20 OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) BEPS (Base Erosion and Profit Shifting) action reports in respect of their DTAAs with inclusive framework countries.
• Minimum standards under BEPS Action 6 can be met through the Multilateral Convention to implement tax treaty-related measures to prevent base erosion and profit shifting Multilateral Instrument (MLI) or through bilateral agreement.
• India is a signatory to the MLI. However, Sri Lanka is not a signatory to the MLI as of now.
• Therefore, the amendment of the India-Sri Lanka DTAA bilaterally is required to update the preamble and also to insert Principal Purpose Test (PPT) provisions to meet the minimum standards on treaty abuse under Action 6 of G-20 OECD BEPS project.

For more on this, check PIB dated 12 Feb 2020.
Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Tripura tribal laws to be codified

Context:

• The Tripura Tribal Areas Autonomous District Council (TTAADC) has passed resolutions to codify the customary laws of three tribal clans.

Details:

• The Council introduced separate bills to adopt the law of the Mizo, Kaipeng and Malsom communities to address their long-standing demands.
• Several clans have been approaching the TTAADC to codify their respective customary law.

Codifying customary laws of the tribes:

• Move to codify all customary laws of all the tribes began in 1995. But the TTAADC could codify only the customary laws of the second largest tribal group of the State – Jamatia— which has a four hundred years-long tradition of practicing certain laws through their highest body called Jamatia Hoda.
• The Jamatia customary laws were codified through legislation in the TTAADC in 2017.
• The Jamatia Customary Law passed by the TTAADC deals with almost all aspects of the society, including inheritance of property, marriage and divorce, et al.
• It also included some harsh provisions, making the drinking of liquor by minor a punishable offence.

2. High Court dismisses petition seeking voting rights for prisoners

What’s in News?

The Delhi High Court has rejected a petition seeking voting rights for prisoners noting that the right to cast vote was neither a fundamental right nor a common law right and was only provided by a statute.

Background:

• The three law students contended in their plea that a blanket ban on the prisoners’ right to vote was a violation of the spirit and soul enshrined in the Constitution and the basic principle of equality.
• They challenged the constitutionality of Section 62(5) of the RP Act, which deprives prisoners of their right to vote.

Details:

• The Bench remarked that the facility was provided under the law and it can be taken away by law as held by the Supreme Court.
• The Bench noted the right to vote provided under the statute — Representation of the People Act — was subject to restrictions imposed by the law, which does not allow prisoners to cast vote from jails.
• Earlier, the Election Commission of India (ECI) had informed the High Court that prisoners do not have voting rights under the Representation of People Act.

3. Rajasthan seeks higher Central assistance for water scheme

Context:

• The state government of Rajasthan has sought changes in the norms for Central assistance for the Jal Jeevan Mission (JJM),
• The State, which has only 1.01% of the country’s surface water, has been trying hard to supply drinking water to geographically difficult areas and expects more assistance from the Centre to achieve the targets of JJM.

Jal Jeevan Mission:

• It envisages supply of 55 litres of water per person per day to every rural household by 2024, in order to reduce the financial burden on the States.
• The flagship Central scheme at present stipulates the share in a 50:50 ratio.

Read more about Jal Jeevan Mission.

Details:

• Rajasthan, where only 12% of households are currently getting piped water supply, has formulated new action plans for implementing JJM by rejuvenating the sources of water to provide connections to about 98 lakh households.
• The JJM is being implemented under the State Water and Sanitation Mission, which is already functional, and different sources, including rainwater harvesting, have been tapped.
• The Union Ministry of Jal Shakti is holding discussions with all the States in five phases for their action plans under the JJM.
• It is believed that, unless the steps are taken to increase surface water, the dark zones would expand across the State.

C. GS 3 Related

Category: AGRICULTURE

1. Bill to regulate pesticide business gets green light

Context:

The Union Cabinet has approved the Pesticides Management Bill, 2020.

Details:

• The pesticide business was regulated by 1968 rules, which had become age-old and needed immediate rewriting.
• In February 2018, the Centre released a draft of the pesticides Bill that aimed to replace the existing Insecticides Act of 1968.
• As per the new bill, farmers would also be empowered to get all information as the data would be in open source and in all languages.
• The government claims that the bill will regulate the business of pesticides and compensate farmers in case of losses from the use of spurious agrochemicals.
• A key proposal in the 2018 version was to raise penalties on the sale of prohibited or spurious pesticides to 50 lakh and up to five years’ imprisonment, from the current Rs. 2,000 and up to three years’ imprisonment.
• It is unclear if these provisions have been retained in the latest version of the bill cleared by the Union Cabinet.

D. GS 4 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

E. Editorials

Category: POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

1. Riding on data for mobility

e-governance

E-governance and its significance

Introduction

• The development and advancement of digital technologies have revolutionized the governance approach. The technological change has made interactions between humans and machines, and among citizens, governments and businesses, seamless and efficient.
• Today, e-governance enables and empowers citizens to directly engage with the state, thereby eliminating barriers in the delivery of public services.
• This article speaks about how data can be used to deliver public services efficiently and can be used as a strategic asset in all aspects of policy planning, service delivery and operations of the government.

Let us take the example of the Transport sector where Data-based governance is expected to provide a solution to the ever-growing threat of congestion to urban economies.

Loss due to Congestion

• Congestion caused an estimated loss of $87 billion to the U.S. economy and $24 billion to the four metro cities in India in 2018.
• Given the limited land resources available, the key to solving congestion lies in improving the efficiency of existing transportation systems.

How can we collect Data?

• Data can be collected from multiple sources such as CCTV cameras, automatic traffic counters, map services, and transportation service providers.

Results from Global studies

• A study by Transport for London, the local body responsible for transport in and around the U.K. capital, estimates that its open data initiative on sharing of real-time transit data has helped add £130 million a year to London’s economy by improving productivity and efficiency.
• In China, an artificial intelligence-based traffic management platform developed by Alibaba has helped improve average speeds by 15%.

Examples

Hyderabad Open Transit Data

Hyderabad has become the first city in the country to make available its transport data for public use.

• It publishes datasets on bus stops, bus routes, metro routes, metro stations, schedules, fares, and frequency of public transit services.
• The objective is to empower start-ups and developers to create useful mobility applications. Using the datasets, app developers could integrate the transit data with Google’s own transit feed, thus giving a further boost to the public transport services.
  • It will come in handy for creating innovative tools for the public.
  • Such applications can help save time for drivers and passengers every day using real-time intelligent monitoring of the vehicles, thereby improving customer experience.

Memorandum of Understanding signed (MoU) between the Telangana Government and Ola Mobility Institute

The MoU will support the efforts of Telangana Govt. towards strengthening the traffic infrastructure in the city. This partnership will see Ola share intelligent insights that enable the Government to implement smart solutions to enhance the mobility experience in the city.

• Under this collaboration, Ola has developed a tool, Ola City Sense, to provide data-based insights that can monitor the quality of Hyderabad’s roads and identify bad quality patches.
• This data will be provided to respective state government departments who monitor road conditions. The data is provided on a dashboard and updated every 2-3 weeks to capture the nature of potholes/roads.

Advantages of Data based Governance

• The information given is useful not only for carrying out road repairs, but it also helps officials take initiatives to improve road safety, monitor quality of construction, and study the role of bad roads in causing congestion.
• The dashboard will help city officials plan the pre-monsoon repair work and budget for repairs.
• An efficient transportation system would help ease congestion, reduce travel time and cost, and provide greater convenience.
• It helps in analyzing data from multiple sources, which assists in better decision making for the Government thereby reducing project cost in the future.

Conclusion

• Governments, therefore, should make their departments data-centric by institutionalizing data collection, building technology platforms and helping the departments develop capacity to handle the insights generated from the data.
• Such interventions, however, also need to address genuine concerns around data security and privacy.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. Birds of a feather: On Trump-Modi chemistry

Context

• President Donald Trump is set to make his maiden visit to India on February 24-25.
• This article speaks about the bonhomie between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and US President Donald Trump.

Instances of Friendliness

• President Donald Trump met Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the first time in 2017 at the White House.
  • Trump said the friendship between the United States and India is built on shared values, including our shared commitment to democracy.
• The camaraderie was on full display at the Howdy, Modi! event in Houston.
• They were also seen clasping hands at the G-20 in Japan and at the G-7 in France.

What can be anticipated?

• There could be a limited trade deal — pegged at $10-billion.
• Prospects look brighter still on defence cooperation.
  • India is reportedly moving toward approving a $2.6-billion deal for 24 Lockheed Martin-built MH-60 Seahawk helicopters.
  • An agreement to buy a $1.867-billion integrated air defence weapons system is also on the cards.
• Trump in all likelihood could take up the Kashmir issue and speak about Article 370. He may probably speak about him mediating between India and Pakistan on the issue of Kashmir.
  • Pakistan is also strategically important for the USA at this juncture, as the USA is planning to withdraw from Afghanistan which means Pakistan’s support is a must.

Concerns

• India has traditionally stayed away from the internal politics of other countries but the call ‘Ab ki baar, Trump sarkar’ in “Howdy, Modi” event was seen as a tacit endorsement for Trump in the run-up to the 2020 US polls.
  • If the November 2020 presidential election puts a Democrat in the White House, it could potentially impact some of India’s plans.
  • Even if Mr. Trump wins a second term, deepening Congressional opposition to India-friendly White House policies could endanger bilateral prospects.

Category: ECONOMY

1. Nutrition and the Budget’s fine print

Introduction

• In the 2019 Global Hunger Index, India ranked 102nd out of 117 countries. With a score of 30.3, India suffers from a level of hunger that is “serious “.
• With many people in India suffering from malnutrition, the budget speech had references to Govt. schemes POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission with efforts to track the status of 10 crore households.
• Public provisioning for nutrition is important given the persistently high levels of malnutrition in India.

Plan and allocation

There are multiple dimensions of malnutrition that include calorific deficiency, protein hunger and micronutrient deficiency.

1. First is calorific deficiency:

• The Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) scheme provides a package of services including supplementary nutrition, nutrition and health education, health check-ups and referral services addressing children, pregnant and lactating mothers and adolescent girls, key groups to address community malnutrition, and which also tackle calorific deficiency and beyond.
  • For 2019-20, the allotment was ₹27,584.37 crore but revised estimates are ₹24,954.50 crore, which points to an underutilisation of resources.
  • The allocation for 2020 is marginally higher, but clearly, the emphasis needs to be on implementation.
• Another pathway to address hunger is the Mid-Day Meal Scheme, to enhance the nutrition of schoolchildren.
  • Here too, the issue is not with allocation but with expenditure.
  • The 2019-20 Budget allocation was ₹11,000 crores and revised estimates are only ₹9,912 crores.

2. The second is protein hunger:

• Pulses are a major contributor to address protein hunger.
• However, a scheme for State and Union Territories that aims to reach pulses into welfare schemes (Mid-Day Meal, Public Distribution System, ICDS) has revised estimates standing at just ₹370 crores against ₹800 crores allocation in the 2019-20 Budget.

3. Next is Micronutrient Deficiency.

• Micronutrients are dietary components, often referred to as vitamins and minerals, which, although only required by the body in small amounts, are vital to development.
• The Horticulture Mission can be one of the ways to address micronutrient deficiency effectively, but here too implementation is low.
• In 2018-19, the Government of India launched a National Millet Mission which included renaming millets as “nutri-cereals”, also launched a Year of Millets in 2018-19 to promote nutritious cereals in a campaign mode across the country.
  • This could have been further emphasised in the Budget as well as in the National Food Security Mission (NFSM) which includes millets.
  • As millets have the potential to address micronutrient deficiencies, the momentum given to these cereals needs to be sustained.

Concerns

• When it comes to POSHAN Abhiyaan, the National Nutrition Mission, about 72% of total expenditure goes into “Information and Communication Technology enabled Real Time Monitoring for development and setting up Common Application Software and expenditure on components under behavioral change”
• This means that the focus of the bulk of the funding has been on technology, whereas, actually, it is a convergence that is crucial to address nutrition.

So how can we bring about better nutrition in India?

• Focus on nutrition-related interventions, beyond digitization;
• Intensify the convergence component of POSHAN Abhiyaan, using the platform to bring all departments in one place to address nutrition;
• Promotion of youth schemes to be directed to nutrition-agriculture link activities in rural areas;
• Give explicit emphasis and fund allocation to agriculture-nutrition linked schemes;
• Ensure early disbursement of funds and optimum utilization of schemes linked to nutrition.

Conclusion

• The Economic Survey notes that “Food is not just an end in itself but also an essential ingredient in the growth of human capital and therefore important for national wealth creation”.
• Malnutrition affects cognitive ability, workforce days and health, causes health issues like stunted growth, diabetes and heart disease impacting as much as 16% of GDP (World Food Programme and World Bank).
• Nutrition goes beyond just food, with economic, health, water sanitation, gender perspectives and social norms contributing to better nutrition. This is why the implementation of multiple schemes can contribute to better nutrition.
• An inadequate diet can also lead to a person having a deficiency of one, or more, vitamins, minerals, or other essential substances. Therefore better allocation of finances and effective implementation of the nutrition schemes will build a healthier and wealthier nation.

F. Tidbits

1. Kerala imposes Rs.13 price cap on bottled water

• Bottled drinking water has come under a price cap in Kerala, with the State making it an essential commodity and fixing a ceiling of Rs. 13 per litre.
• Including bottled water in the list of essential commodities has enabled price control.
• The government had also decided to make BIS standards mandatory for all brands of bottled water. This would force unauthorised manufacturers to shut shop.

2. Rohingya can’t be kept in jail after serving term: HC

What’s in News?

• An organisation had filed a habeas corpus petition to produce the arrested Rohingya refugees.
• The petition said the refugees, who were arrested in 2016, completed their jail term in the summer of 2018. However, even nearly two years after the completion of their term, the four refugees were still lodged in the Dum Dum Correctional Home.

Details:

• The Calcutta High Court has said that, once Rohingya refugees complete their jail term after being caught as illegal immigrants, they cannot be kept in prison.
• The refugees will have to be taken to a safe place, said the lawyer of four Rohingya petitioners who completed their jail term in 2018.

Read more about the Rohingya Issue.

3. MLAs with criminal cases have nearly doubled from 2015: ADR

• According to an analysis by the Association for Democratic Reforms (ADR), 43 out of the 70 newly-elected MLAs in the seventh Delhi Assembly elections, or 61%, have declared criminal cases.
• The number of MLAs who declared serious criminal cases, including crimes against women, murder, assault and corruption, has jumped from 14, or 20% of the total, in 2015, to 37, or 53%, in the newly-elected Assembly.

4. Ethnic products a big hit among Amazon shoppers

• Amazon has been witnessing a crowd of online shoppers for ethnic products ever since ‘Gadhika’ products were launched on the e-commerce platform by the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribe Development Department of Kerala.
• Gadhika products — natural forest produce and eco-friendly handicraft made from bamboo, coconut and coconut shell, and ornaments, food products, clothes, Wayanad turmeric, honey, pickles, puttu kutti, etc. — have been hand-crafted by artisans and others belonging to various tribes and the Scheduled Castes.
• The acceptance for the tribal products was also visible at the tribal festival Gadhika held in Kannur.
• The government has decided to give Rs. 50,000 to each entrepreneur as a grant to increase the production and improve quality.

5. Kerala to ready coastal zone management plan

• A high-level meeting chaired by the Chief Minister of Kerala decided to prepare the Kerala State Coastal Zone Management Plan in a time-bound manner under the revised guidelines issued by the Centre in January 2019.
• The National Centre for Earth Science Studies (NCESS), Thiruvananthapuram, has been entrusted with the preparation of the plan.
• The meeting decided to make technical expertise and other facilities available for the NCESS to complete the plan before March 31, 2020.
• It also resolved to seek legal opinion before filing a reply to the Supreme Court directive to submit a comprehensive list of CRZ violations in Kerala.

6. 139 poll bonds sold before Delhi election

What’s in News?

In the run-up to the Delhi Assembly election, 139 electoral bonds worth Rs. 81.67 crore were sold by various branches of the SBI, according to the response to an RTI query.

• The electoral bonds scheme has been criticised by the Opposition parties and civil society groups for a lack of transparency in political funding, as the donor remains anonymous.
• So far, a sum of 6,210 crores has been donated through this method since the scheme began.

Read more about Electoral Bonds.

7. WHO to decide on emergency status of Ebola in DR Congo

What’s in News?

UN health agency experts would meet to decide whether the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo should still be considered a global health emergency, following a sharp decline in reported cases.

• The World Health Organization in July 2019 declared it a “public health emergency of international concern” — a designation that gives the WHO greater powers to restrict travel and boost funding.
• The outbreak was first identified in August 2018 and has since killed more than 2,300 people in eastern DR Congo.
• For the epidemic to be declared over, there have to be no new cases reported for 42 days — double the incubation period.
• The decision is ultimately up to the WHO’s Emergency Committee that meets every three months once an emergency has been declared.

G. Prelims Facts

1. Yaravirus

• It is named after Yara – or Iara, a water-queen figure in Brazilian mythology.
• The virus was discovered from Lake Pampulha, an artificial lake in the Brazilian city of Belo Horizonte.
• Scientists have identified a virus whose genome seems to be almost entirely new to science, populated by unfamiliar genes that have never before been documented in viral research.
  • They found that most of them had never been seen in any other viruses.
• The Yaravirus infects amoeba.
  • In other viruses that affect amoeba, the researchers say that there are some similarities in their characteristics that are missing in the Yaravirus.

Inference

• The amount of unknown proteins composing the Yaravirus particles reflects the variability existing in the viral world and how much potential of new viral genomes are still to be discovered.

H. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions

Q1. Consider the following statements:

1. Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is an inter-governmental body established on the initiative of the G20.
2. Pakistan is a member of the FATF and had earlier been placed on the FATF black list.
3. Grey Listing by FATF invites economic sanctions from various international agencies including the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the like.

Which of the given statement/s is/are incorrect?

a. 1 only
b. 1 and 2 only
c. 2 only
d. 1, 2 and 3

Q2. Consider the following statements with respect to Base Erosion and Profit 
Shifting (BEPS):

1. BEPS refers to corporate tax planning strategies used by multinationals to shift profits from one jurisdiction to another.
2. The BEPS Project is a project by the International Monetary Fund to set up an international framework to combat tax avoidance by multinational enterprises using BEPS tools.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?

a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2

Q3. Which of the following items are included under the Essential Commodities 
Act of 1955?

1. Drugs
2. Pulses and edible oils
3. Petroleum and Petroleum products
4. Fertilisers

Choose the correct option:

a. 2 only
b. 2 and 4 only
c. 2, 3 and 4 only
d. 1, 2, 3 and 4

Q4. Consider the following statements with respect to “Yara Virus”:

1. The virus was discovered from Lake Pampulha in Brazil.
2. Yaravirus does not infect human cells but infects amoeba.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?

a. 1 only
b. 2 only
c. Both 1 and 2
d. Neither 1 nor 2

Q5. Consider the following statements with respect to Integrated Child 
Development Services (ICDS):

1. ICDS provides primary healthcare to children less than 6 years of age and their mothers.
2. Under the programme, Supplementary Nutrition (SNP) is given to the children (6 months – 6 years) and pregnant women but not lactating mothers.
3. Among the objectives of ICDS is to reduce the incidence of mortality, morbidity, malnutrition and school dropout.

Which of the given statement/s is/are correct?

a. 1 only
b. 1 and 3 only
c. 1 and 2 only
d. 1, 2 and 3

I. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. Explain how digital technologies have the potential to deliver a revolutionary impact on the public transport sector. (10 Marks, 150 Words).
2. Malnutrition is a complex and multi-dimensional issue that will require convergence of all Nutrition related schemes and coming together of multiple stakeholders. Discuss. (15 Marks, 250 Words).

Read previous CNA.

13 Feb 2020 CNA:- Download PDF Here