19 Jun 2018: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related
B. GS2 Related
INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS
1. Arab group wants India on board in Yemen
2. India, Italy agree to revitalise bilateral ties
3. Road map laid for India-U.S. meet
GOVERNANCE
1. Govt. to set up fifth national data centre
C. GS3 Related
ECONOMY
1. RBI alters ‘relative’ definition to check outward remittances
D. GS4 Related
E. Editorials
POLITY & GOVERNANCE
1. Knee-jerk Justice for POSCO Act
2. Water for thought : Water governance in the country
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY
1. In the liver’s secrets, new hope for medicine
F. Tidbits
1. Mills cut sugar exports as local prices rally
2. ‘GSTN lacuna hits refunds to exporters’
3. Demand uptick will spur double digit growth in Q4
4. Jaitley against cut in tax on fuels
5. Flood warning: govt. teams up with Google
6. Children ‘capture’ wildlife with camera traps
7. Fast patrol vessel ‘Rani Rashmoni’ commissioned
G. UPSC Prelims Practice Questions
H. UPSC Mains Practice Questions 

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

• The Arab coalition which is fighting to secure the strategic Yemeni port of Hodeidah will be reaching out to India for its support.
• A formal discussion regarding this would be held during the visit of the Foreign Minister of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) next week.
• The Arab coalition had sourced large quantity of relief material from India to help the Yemeni population.
• The envoy’s request for support from India, for the Arab coalition’s Yemen campaign has added a broader context to the upcoming visit by the Foreign Minister and leading royal of the UAE, Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, who is expected to hold bilateral meetings in Delhi.

Arab coalition

• Alarmed by the rise of a group they believed to be backed militarily by regional Shia power Iran, Saudi Arabia and eight other mostly Sunni Arab states began an air campaign aimed at restoring Mr Hadi’s government.
• The coalition received logistical and intelligence support from the US, UK and France.
• The conflict between the Houthis and the government is also seen as part of a regional power struggle between Shia-ruled Iran and Sunni-ruled Saudi Arabia.
• Yemen is strategically important because it sits on the Bab al-Mandab strait, a narrow waterway linking the Red Sea with the Gulf of Aden, through which much of the world’s oil shipments pass.

Hodeida

• Hodeida is considered a lifeline for the Yemen’s war-ravaged population.
• From the 90 per cent of food, fuel, and medicines imported in Yemen, 70 per cent of that enters through Hodeida.
• Around two-thirds of the country’s population of 27 million relies on aid and 8.4 million are already at risk of starving.

Houthi rebels

• Yemen’s port of Hodeida is under the control of the Houthi rebels since 2015 who are believed to be drawing support from Iran.
• Recapturing the port of Hodeida will deprive the Houthis of access to the Red Sea, possibly ending the virtual stalemate between the rebels and the government.
• The Houthis control parts of northern Yemen, including Hodeida and the Yemeni capital, while the government controls much of the south.
• The Arab coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and the UAE, claims that the Iranian military has used the port to supply the Houthis with weapons and ammunition.
• The Arab coalition also includes non-Arab partners and they have remained open to granting a role to India to support in diplomacy for peace in the Gulf.

Significance for India

• The operation at Hodeidah would secure the energy lanes of India with the Gulf.
• The operation at Hodeidah is ongoing and its main target is to fight terrorism that is a common enemy of both India and the UAE.
• Therefore, support from India will be appreciated, especially in view of UAE’s exceptional strategic relationship with India.
• The operation will force the rebels in Yemen to sit down for a negotiated settlement of the conflict that has caused a major humanitarian disaster in Yemen.
• The Houthis have been supporting pirates in the western Indian Ocean region.
• The campaign will ultimately help Indian maritime goals as the Houthis used the port for facilitating the piracy network in the western Indian Ocean region that is vital for India’s energy security.

Final phase

• The military campaign on the port of Hodeidah is reportedly in the final phase as the Houthi militia members are retreating.
• The UN Security Council voted against an immediate end to hostilities in the port, even as India has maintained a studied silence on the conflict.

Diplomatic support

• The UAE is not yet offering a military role to India in the ongoing operation.
• India can help by extending diplomatic support to the Hodeidah operation on the international platforms.
• The campaign is in accordance with the resolutions of the UN and invitation from the legitimate government of Yemen.

• India and Italy agreed to boost cooperation in counter-terrorism and cybersecurity as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj met the top Italian leadership and discussed steps to revitalise bilateral ties.
• Their discussions focussed on forging bilateral cooperation across sectors.
• It was the first major political exchange between the two countries after Mr. Conte assumed charge.
• They exchanged views on regional and global issues of mutual interest.
• Recognising the need to sustain the momentum generated by the visit of former Italian Prime Minister [Paolo] Gentiloni to India in October 2017, the Ministers emphasised the importance of promoting regular high-level contacts and bilateral dialogue mechanisms.
• To augment collaboration in areas of mutual benefit, the Ministers agreed to hold the next meeting of the Joint Commission for Economic Cooperation (JCEC) in India later this year.
• They also welcomed Italy’s participation as a partner country at the Tech Summit in India in November 2018 which would boost cooperation in technology and innovation.
• The year also marks the 70th year of establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries.

• Indian and U.S. experts began a three-day consultation to find meeting points in bilateral relations in preparation for the first-ever meeting of the Ministers for External Affairs and Defence with their U.S. counterparts next month.
• The July meeting in Washington DC between Sushma Swaraj and Nirmala Sitharaman and their U.S. counterparts, called the two-plus-two discussions, is expected to further cement the India-U.S. engagements.
• Among the key focus areas of the meeting is finding a breakthrough in concluding the Communications Compatibility and Security Agreement (COMCASA), one of the four foundational agreements that helps the U.S. to intensify its defence cooperation with a partner nation.

Recent symbolism

• Indications emerging from the U.S. side is that they are keen to stress the importance given to India in its Indo-Pacific strategy.
• The U.S. Pacific Command (PACOM) was recently renamed Indo-Pacific Command (INDOPACOM), symbolic of the significance U.S. attaches to India in the region.

Background

• Apart from the foundational agreements, the U.S. is also keen on a broad-based intelligence-sharing agreement with India as the two countries have vastly expanded their counter-terror cooperation.
• In this context, the fourth foundational agreement, Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement for Geo-spatial Cooperation (BECA), will be significant.
• COMCASA and BECA are the two foundational agreements that India is yet to sign.
• It has already signed the General Security Of Military Information Agreement (GSOMIA) and the Logistics Exchange Memorandum of Agreement (LEMOA).
• The most significant of them is LEMOA, which gives both nations access to each other’s military facilities. But it does not make it automatic or obligatory.
• The U.S. has been engaging India since 2002 on the foundational agreements, but successive governments have been wary of giving in to the U.S. demands.

Sale of drones

• The COMCASA will facilitate transfer of encrypted communications systems.
• The agreements are a key requirement by Washington for sharing h-tech military hardware, especially armed drones which the U.S. is willing to supply to India.
• Sale of armed drones is high on the agenda of the 2+2 dialogue.
• New Delhi has shed its traditional reluctance and has been open to COMCASA, with both sides holding several rounds of discussions in recent times.
• There have been widespread expectations that a broad understanding could be reached ahead of the 2+2 dialogue.
• However, India had concerns on some of the clauses and the language, which both sides would attempt to address in the discussions.
• As part of improving high tech cooperation, India and the U.S. announced the ambitious Defence Technology and Trade Initiative and India was designated a major defence partner. But it has not made any progress.

• The Centre will set up the country’s biggest data centre in Bhopal with a capacity to host five lakh virtual servers.
• The data centre, which will take about two years to come up, will be set up by the National Informatics Centre (NIC), under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY).
• This will be the fifth National Data Centre after the ones at Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Hyderabad and Pune.
• These National Data Centres host government websites, services and applications.

BPO Scheme

• The government has planned to expand its BPO promotion scheme to one lakh seats from the current 48,000 seats.
• Under the initiative, which had an outlay of ₹493 crore, 91 BPOs had been set up in small towns and rural areas till now.
• The India BPO Promotion Scheme (IBPS)was envisaged under Digital India Programme.

Salient Features

• Financial Support: Up to 50% of expenditure incurred on BPO/ITES operations towards capital expenditure (CAPEX) and/or operational expenditure (OPEX) on admissible items, subject to an upper ceiling of Rs. 1 Lakh/Seat.
• Special incentives toward employment of women & specially enabled persons.
• Incentive for generating employment beyond target & wider dispersal within state including rural areas.
• Encouragement for local entrepreneurs.
• Special consideration for Hilly states of HP, J&K and UK.
• This scheme has potential to create employment opportunities of around 1.5 lakh direct jobs considering three shift operations. It may also create good number of indirect jobs.

C. GS3 Related

• Concerned over funds sent abroad under the ‘maintenance of close relative’ category of the Liberalised Remittance Scheme (LRS), the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has narrowed the definition of relatives to check the flow of funds.
• Hence, funds under the ‘maintenance of close relative’ category can be sent only to immediate relatives such as parents, spouses, children and their spouses.
• This has been brought about by defining ‘relatives’ under the Companies Act, 2013 instead of the same act of 1956.

Concerns

• Outward remittances under maintenance of close relatives shot up to almost $3 billion in 2017-18 from a mere $174 million in 2013-14.
• In fact, funds sent under this category have more than doubled since 2015-16.
• It is possible that the facility [maintenance of relatives] under the Liberalised Remittances Scheme is used for commercial purposes which is not its objective.

The new system

• RBI has introduced a system for daily reporting of individual transactions under the LRS by banks.
• This enables banks to view remittances already made by an individual during the fiscal, thus improving monitoring and ensuring compliance.
• Since the system uses the Permanent Account Number of the remitter to aggregate remitter-wise data, the central bank has made furnishing of PAN mandatory for such transactions.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

What is POCSO Act?

• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) 2012 was formulated in order to effectively address sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children.
• The Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 received the President’s assent on 19th June 2012 and was notified in the Gazette of India on 20th June, 2012.
• For POCSO Act to effectively protect children, it should go beyond death penalty.

Why in news?

• In April, India made world news with the introduction of the death penalty for child rapists.
• It is unfortunate how it takes tragic incidents such as the rape of minors to remind us that the laws of the country need serious reconsideration.
• The last time a major overhaul in the rape law was thought of was as a consequence of the Delhi 2012 rape and murder case. Before that, the Vishaka incident was a catalyst for the law on sexual harassment.

Arguments against the Act

• The ineffectiveness of reactionary lawmaking can be seen in the recently proposed amendments in the Criminal Law and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO), 2012, that were a result of the Unnao and the Kathua cases which shook the country’s conscience.

The new reforms proposed to the POCSO Act

• The new reforms that have been proposed to the Indian Penal Code, which shall further apply to the POCSO are: One, if a person rapes a minor girl below the age of 12 years then the punishment shall be rigorous imprisonment of at least 20 years which, shall be extendable to life imprisonment or death.
• Previously the punishment for the same was rigorous imprisonment for at 10 years or life imprisonment, along with fine. Two, if a person rapes a girl who is below 16 years, then the punishment is rigorous imprisonment of at least 20 years, extendable to life imprisonment. The punishment for this as per the 2013 criminal amendment is rigorous imprisonment, not less than 10 years and which may extend to life imprisonment.
• The ordinance has suggested a few more changes, such as time-bound investigations, appeals and prior sanction from the courts for prosecution of government servants.
• However, the main change it suggests is in introducing the death penalty for the rape of a minor below the age of 12.

What steps has to be taken?

• A major provision in the POCSO is that of setting up a Special Juvenile Police unit in-charge of investigating cases of child abuse. This was conceived of as a protection against the police intimidating children, either intentionally or unintentionally.
• Yet, no mention of a special juvenile police unit can be found in many cases. Similarly, with various provisions for the security and the care of the victim under the POCSO — such as the statement of a child should be taken at the residence of a child or a place where he or she is comfortable, by a lady police officer — there’s massive oversight when it comes to enforcement.
• In the Kathua case, for instance, the name of the victim was highlighted and essentially advertised on all the media channels even though this is strictly prohibited both under the POCSO Act as well as the IPC under section 228 A.

Challenges

• The prospect of harsh punishments, such as the death penalty, can, in fact, be a threat to the victim. NCRB data reveals that in more than 96 per cent of child sex abuse cases, the perpetrator is a close relative or a member of the family.
• This is why children often find it difficult to confess. Parents often try to resolve matters of abuse themselves due to the stigma that is associated with such crimes. Harsher punishments for the perpetrator can quickly become harsher threats for the victim, as the accused may go to any extent to protect themselves. Worried for their own safety, children may choose not to provide testimony.

Conclusion

• For the POCSO Act to be effective in protecting children who are sexually abused, it should go beyond relying on the death penalty as a deterrent. It should focus on stricter enforcement of protections for the abused children, punish half-hearted investigations, do away with intimidating procedures and improve the overall sluggishness in the legal system.
• Justice is more than a punitive, knee-jerk reaction to the perpetrator of injustice. The child abuse law as it stands has multiple problems, mostly stemming from its focus on the abuser. It’s important to look at the systemic failures that allow child abuse to happen, prevent children who are abused from speaking up. Punishment alone is not a complete solution by any means.

Why in news?

• A new Niti Aayog report should occasion reflection and reform of systems of water governance in the country.
• In recent years, there has been a growing awareness in policy circles of the over-exploitation of the country’s water resources.

About Issues?

• The Atlas of India’s Aquifer Systems, released by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB) in 2012, highlighted the falling levels of groundwater in the country.
• Four years later, the Mihir Shah Committee argued that there is little “understanding of river systems or their interconnections with the health of catchment areas or groundwater”.
• Now, a Niti Aayog report, Composite Water Management Index, released last week, flags factoids which show how grim the situation is: Seventy per cent of the water resources in the country is polluted, 75 per cent households do not have drinking water and more than 600 million people in the country face high to extreme water distress.

Analysis

• The report should occasion debate on a major policy omission in independent India. Since 1947, more than 4,000 major and medium-sized dams have been constructed in the country, about 250 billion cubic metres of groundwater is extracted annually, but very little attention has been paid to the health of aquifer systems.
• Since 1971, the CGWB has mounted an aggressive search for groundwater without always recognising the limits posed by the country’s geology: Hard rock aquifers constitute nearly 65 percent of India’s overall aquifer surface area.
• These aquifers have poor permeability that constrains their recharge by rainfall. In other words, the water in these aquifers is likely to dry out with continuous exploitation. Falling water tables render these underground storage systems vulnerable to pollutants. Last week, a Duke University study revealed uranium contamination in aquifers in 16 Indian states.

Way forward

• The Mihir Shah Committee had pointed out that “focus of water policy in independent India had been on augmenting supplies with little attention being paid to the demand-side management of water”.
• This policy direction played a major role in meeting the imperatives of food security, but as the Shah Committee pointed out, there has been little emphasis on institutional innovations in the water sector.
• That is why returns to public investments in the country’s water infrastructure have been poor. The Shah Committee had talked of a paradigm shift in the country’s water governance: From a predominantly engineer-centred approach of the CWGB to one involving hydrologists, geologists, agronomists, and ecologists.
• Two years after the committee submitted its report, there has been little action on its recommendations. The report needs to be pulled out of the shelves, especially after the grim figures thrown up by Niti Aayog’s survey.

The functions of Liver?

• With the help of vitamin K, the liver produces proteins that are important in blood clotting. It is also one of the organs that break down old or damaged blood cells. The liver plays a central role in all metabolic processes in the body. In fat metabolism the liver cells break down fats and produce energy.
• The research: The mechanism through which the liver regulates fat secretion into the bloodstream.
• One of the several important functions performed by the liver is maintenance of an optimum level of fat in the human body.

Characteristics of Fats

• Fats are energy-rich carbon compounds found in edible oily substances, and are a rich source of nutrients.
• After one eats, the fat in the food is absorbed in fatty tissues present in different parts of the body (e.g. hips). During this time, the energy comes from other easily broken-down ingredients of food like carbohydrates and glucose.
• In the absence of food for a long time, the fat is summoned for providing energy. These are first transported from fatty tissue to the liver, from where they enter the bloodstream at a controlled rate for distribution in the rest of the body.

Consequences

• An imbalance in the secretion of fat can lead to a variety of problems. Too much fat results in common diseases like diabetes or obesity. On the other hand, less than optimum secretion leads to an excess accumulation of fat in the liver, a condition known as fatty liver.
• In the liver itself, the amount of fat stored varies with time. Relatively small amounts of fat make their way to the liver when food intake is happening at regular intervals. When intake does not happen for a long time, for example during night, this fat is summoned by brain signals to be processed and sent to the liver.
• Therefore, a far greater amount of fat goes into the liver in the absence of food intake for long hours, leading to massive increase of fat in liver.

 Analysis by Researchers

• During normal functioning, the liver secretes a controlled amount of fat, irrespective of the quantity it stores inside, so that the balance is always maintained. Scientists do not fully understand the mechanism that enables such control. New research by a team led by Roop Mallik in the Department of Biological Sciences at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, with collaborators from IISER Pune and IISc Bangalore, has now come up with fresh insights on this.
• The team’s experiments have shown how this fat is transported from within hepatocytes, the cells of the liver, to the outer boundary of these cells, from where it is secreted outside into the bloodstream.
• Their findings have been published in the US journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This new insight not only helps understand the mechanism but also opens up the possibility of an outside intervention to keep the secretion of fat in balance.
• Mallik’s laboratory at TIFR works on special kind of proteins called motor proteins, whose job is to transport material from one place to another inside cells.
• The researchers performed their experiments on rats to observe that micron-sized balls of fat were deposited inside the hepatocytes.
• In the ‘fed state’, that is when food intake was normal, about 10 to 20 balls of fat were seen in each cell. In the ‘fast state’, when the organism was without food for some time, this number could go up to hundreds in each cell.
• A particular kind of motor protein found inside the liver, called kinesin, was seen transporting these fat balls from inside the hepatocyte to the outer boundary of the cell, from where the fat was being secreted outside.
• The researchers noticed that when the organism was in the ‘fed state’, that is, when there were only between 10-20 fat balls in the hepatocytes, the transportation happened very efficiently. In the ‘fast state’, the rate of transportation fell significantly for the greater number of fat balls, so that overall rate of secretion of fat remained more or less constant.
• In the ‘fast state’, the motor protein kinesin was seen not to be binding to the fat balls as efficiently as it was doing in the ‘fed state’.
• The scientists noticed that the ability of the kinesin protein to bind to the fat balls was being facilitated by insulin, the hormone. Insulin levels go up with food intake. This corresponds to a more efficient binding of kinesin protein with the fat balls in hepatocytes in the liver.
• During food intervals, the insulin levels go down and so does the ability of kinesin to bind with the fat balls.

Conclusion

• The researchers’ findings could have important implications for maintaining fat balance inside human body and possibly in the treatment of obesity or diabetes.
• It opens up the possibility of delivering a drug-like molecule that mimics kinesin and binds with fat balls, thereby denying kinesin this opportunity. This can reduce the secretion of fat into the bloodstream. Scientists say such options could be explored in the future.

F. Tidbits

• India is likely to export around 500,000 tonnes or just a quarter of the volume mandated by the government for overseas sales in the 2017-18 season amid higher prices at home.
• Lower shipments from the world’s second-biggest sugar producer could support global prices but would increase India’s opening stocks for the next marketing season when output is expected to surge to a record.
• Mills are not interested in exports as they are getting higher prices in the local market.
• Sugar is being sold at around Rs.31,000 per tonne in India, while exporters are getting less than Rs.21,000 per tonne, dealers said.
• Local sugar prices have jumped 20% in a month amid government measures to help loss-making mills and cane growers who make up a key voting bloc.

• West Bengal Finance Minister Amit Mitra said that exporters were awaiting refunds to the tune of Rs.25,000 crore, which have been stuck due to the inability of the GST Network (GSTN).
• The GSTN auto-verifies refund claims, but it is unable to do so, and therefore, manual verification is relied upon that leads to huge pile-up of applications and impacts working capital of the exporters.

• The economy could grow in double digits by the fourth quarter of the current fiscal in view of the uptick in demand.
• The government had taken several steps to promote the ease of doing business.

• Reducing taxes on fuel could push India towards unmanageable debt, according to Union Minister Arun Jaitley.
• Increased tax compliance could reduce the country’s dependence on the revenue earned from taxes on fuel.
• The economy and the markets reward structural reforms, fiscal prudence and macro-economic stability.
• He also pointed out that States charged ad valorem taxes on oil, and so, if oil prices rise, the States earned more.
• On employment, he said several job-creating sectors such as construction, infrastructure and rural projects had started growing strongly.

• With the monsoon under way, Union Water Resources Ministry has teamed up with Google to generate flood warnings.
• If there are signs of an imminent flood, a Google Maps user will be able to see what regions are likely to see water logging first and if their neighbourhood is under threat.
• Currently, the Central Water Commission (CWC) warns of floods based on the rising water levels in reservoirs and if these are nearing a dam’s ‘danger marks.’
• Last year, it began a trial programme to give 3-day flood forecasts.
• The India Meteorological Department now provides inputs to the CWC on whether heavy rainfall is likely and if this could translate into large amounts of rain water overflowing from river banks or catchments.
• Google will provide a visualisation. Via Google Maps, the user will now be able to see water levels build up in a region.
• CWC and Google will share technical expertise in the fields of artificial intelligence, machine learning, geospatial mapping and analysis of hydrological observation data to improve flood prediction systems, provide location-targeted, actionable flood warnings and Google Earth Engine will help visualise and improve flood management and initiate a cultural project to build online exhibitions on the rivers of India.

Save money

• An experimental version of the exercise will likely begin this monsoon and will be offered free of cost as part of the company’s Corporate Social Responsibility.
• The collaborative arrangement is likely to result in savings of crores of rupees.

• The project, aimed at grass-roots conservation through collection of scientific information by children, is implemented by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), in collaboration with Sahyadri Nisarga Mitra (SNM).
• Camera traps are being used to document wild animals.

Camera Trapping

• Camera trapping is the use of remotely activated cameras (a.k.a trail cameras or camera trap) to document wild animals for research, hunting, wildlife viewing and security.
• The technique has been used since the beginning of the 20th century and is gaining popularity, primarily because these tools provide scientists with the ability to address ecologically-difficult questions about when and where most terrestrial species are found across space and time.
• The data collected through these efforts are vouchers of species presence or absence at a given time and location and are available for review by multiple scientists and stored in digital libraries which are curated much like a museum.
• Trail cameras are also a great tool to inspire conservation awareness and facilitate environmental education.

• It is a Fast patrol vessel which will be based in Visakhapatnam.
• It was the last of the five Fast Patrol Vessel (FPV) project of Indian Coast Guard.
• So far four such ships such as ICGS Rani Abbakka, ICGS Rani Avanti Bai, ICGS Rani Durgavati and ICGS Rani Gaidinliu, have been commissioned and are in active service at various locations on the eastern seaboard.
• The FPV was indigenously built by Hindustan Shipyard.

Features

• The FPVs are equipped with advanced sensors and state-of-the-art equipment and are designed to perform multifarious tasks such as surveillance, interdiction, search and rescue, anti-smuggling and anti-poaching, operations.
• The 51 mtr ship is propelled by three MTU 4000 series diesel engines of 2720 capacity each, coupled with Rolls Royce Kamewa jets.
• The patrol vessel is fitted with an advanced Global Maritime Distress and Safety System (GMDSS), to carry out search and rescue operations.
• Other features include Integrated Bridge System (IBS), Machinery Control System, Infra-red Communication System and the armament includes one CRN 91 Naval Gun along with its fire control system.

G. Practice Questions for UPSC Prelims Exam

Question 1. Which of the following features of the Constitution have been borrowed from the 
Government of India Act of 1935?

Question 2. Which of the following is/are the characteristics of the Federal System?

Question 3. Which of the following bodies of India have a quasi-judicial function?

Question 4. Choose the correct reasons for the decline of Portuguese power in India over time.

H. UPSC Mains Practice Questions

1. In the wake of increasing instances of Fluorosis across the states in India, throw light on the importance of water conservation and suggest measures to tackle the issue of water scarcity and related problems.

Also, check previous Daily News Analysis