28 Mar 2018: UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis

A. GS1 Related

Nothing here for today!!!

B. GS2 Related

• The government has accepted a recommendation of the parliamentary standing committee on the National Medical Commission Bill and has decided not to make bridge course, which allows AYUSH doctors to practice modern medicine through a short-term course, mandatory.
• The contentious issues of the Bill are being addressed in the amended version. Doctor bodies have objected to introduction of the bridge course, a licentiate examination for MBBS students before they are registered to practice and low representation of elected doctors, in the Bill.
• The parliamentary panel has suggested that decision on introducing bridge course should be left to states and instead of a separate exit exam, MBBS final year exam, which can be conducted by state governments, can double as licentiate examination. Instead of 25 members—there should be 29 members in the commission and the increased number of members should be that of elected doctors from the states.
• Indian Medical Association rejected the panel’s recommendations.

• Coming down heavily on crimes committed in the name of honour, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the choice of consenting adults to love and marry as a part of their fundamental rights.
• The apex court said, “Honour killing guillotines individual liberty, freedom of choice and one’s own perception of choice.”

Issues guidelines

• It issued a set of guidelines for authorities to safeguard young couples under threat for marrying outside their caste or religion. It ridiculed the “elevated sense of honour” of elders, the collective and khap panchayats who rain horror on couples for choosing to marry outside their caste, clan or religion.
• It termed the elders, presiding over murder in broad daylight, as “patriarchal monarchs” who believe they are the descendants of Caesar or Louis XIV.
• The court compared honour killing to some of the harsh punishments prescribed in the Code of Hammurabi dating back to 1750 BC.
• The court held that the consent of the family, community or clan is not necessary.
• In a strongly worded condemnation of khap panchayats, which gang up against young couples to force their presence and dictate punishments, Chief Justice Misra said khaps feel their duty is sanctified and their action of punishing the hapless victims is inviolable.
• Women are treated by the khaps as servile persons who have no desire for autonomy. Their families are either silent spectators or active participants in their torture. Masculine dominance becomes the sole governing factor of perceptive honour.
• These “feudalistic” entities have no compunction in committing crimes. The police turn a blind eye and the administration hardly questions them.
• To highlight the terror inflicted on women, the Supreme Court gave a list of actions which trigger honour-based crimes.
• They include loss of virginity outside marriage; unapproved relationships; refusing an arranged marriage; asking for divorce; demanding custody of children after divorce; causing scandal or gossip in the community; and even falling victim to rape.

C. GS3 Related

• Telecom secretary Aruna Sundararajan said that India will be all set to roll-out a new policy for high-speed 5G connectivity by June this year.
• 5G was very important in aiding India’s large-scale “digitisation and digitalisation” efforts.The government is working with all stakeholders.  A high-level forum on 5G which includes global experts, industry experts, IITs, IISc, has already commenced work and done a fair amount of deliberation. By June, India will have full roadmap ready on this.
• The forum is currently deliberating on the vision, goals, and the details of the 5G roadmap, while also looking at several other related areas of spectrum policy, regulatory regime and pilot programmes.
• While India lagged behind in the implementation of the earlier generations of mobile and data networks like 2G, 3G and 4G technology, Sundararajan stated that it does not want to get similarly left behind in 5G and, in fact, would like to push the global momentum around 5G through design capabilities, innovation and ability to build affordable solutions.

 Background

 What is 5G?

• 5G networks are the next generation of mobile internet connectivity, offering faster speeds and more reliable connections on smartphones and other devices than ever before.
• Combining cutting-edge network technology and the very latest research, 5G should offer connections that are multitudes faster than current connections, with average download speeds of around 1GBps expected to soon be the norm.
• The networks will help power a huge rise in Internet of Things technology, providing the infrastructure needed to carry huge amounts of data, allowing for a smarter and more connected world.
• With development well underway, 5G networks are expected to launch across the world by 2020, working alongside existing 3G and 4G technology to provide speedier connections that stay online no matter where you are.

• China’s first experimental space lab is expected to fall back to Earth between March 31 and April 4 and should burn up in the atmosphere, space authorities said.
• Tiangong-1 has officially stopped sending data and entered its final phase of life on March 16, a statement issued on Monday by the China Manned Space Engineering Office said.
• The Tiangong is orbiting at an average height of about 216.2 km, the announcement noted, but did not disclose any re-entry location.
• It is impossible to name the exact re-entry location at this stage, a Chinese aerospace expert told state-run Global Times.
• The approximate re-entry location cannot be decided until the last two hours before it starts to fall based on international precedents, he said.
• The lab will likely enter the atmosphere between March 31 and April 4, according to Beijing Aerospace Control Centre and other agency estimates. The China Manned Space website will supply daily updates.
• Launched in September 2011, Tiangong-1 had a design life of two years.It successfully docked with the Shenzhou-8, Shenzhou-9 and Shenzhou-10 spacecraft and undertook a series of experiments. It completed its main missions following Shenzhou-10’s return in June 2013.

• A group of scientists developed a sun shield that they hope can help prevent coral bleaching, which spread across the Great Barrier Reef in Australia in 2016 and 2017, the Great Barrier Reef Foundation (GBRF) reported on Tuesday.
• The sun shield is made from an ultra-thin biodegradable film that is 50,000 times thinner than a human hair and contains calcium carbonate, the same ingredient corals use to make their hard skeletons, Efe news quoted GBRF as saying.
• The film is designed to sit on the surface of the water above the corals, rather than directly on the corals, to provide an effective barrier against the sun.
• Funded by The Tiffany & Co. Foundation, the project is still in its initial stage and has been tested in a small-scale research trial, but the team managed to prove that this film can reduce sunlight by up to 30 per cent without causing any damage to corals.
• Scientists tested the effectiveness of the one molecule thick film on seven different coral species in simulated coral bleaching event conditions at the AIMS National Sea Simulator.
• The project was also designed to explore new ways to reduce the impact of coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, the world’s largest coral reef system.
• It’s important to note that this is not intended to be a solution that can be applied over the whole 348,000 square km of Great Barrier Reef – that would never be practical. But it could be deployed on a smaller, local level to protect high value or high-risk areas of reef.
• According to the Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, unprecedented coral bleaching in 2016 and 2017 damaged areas of about 1,500 km of the Great Barrier Reef, two-thirds of the total.
• The health of the Great Barrier Reef, a UNESCO World Heritage site and home to some 400 types of coral, 1,500 species of fish and 4,000 varieties of molluscs, began to deteriorate during the 1990s as a result of the double impact of warming seawater and increased acidity due to greater presence of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

• The rupee tumbled after the US Federal Reserve demonstrated in May 2013 that it would soon start to reduce fiscal extension
• India was then tottered with an exaggerated conversion standard, lacking remote trade holds, a record current record shortfall, runaway swelling, and a gigantic financial shortage
• This set India in ‘Delicate Five’ gathering alongside Brazil, Turkey, South Africa and Indonesia
• India is presently not delicate but rather still helpless

Three main risks to economic stability right now

1. Interest rate normalization in the US

• Quantitative fixing would send US security yields shooting up
• US financial fixing, for the most part, lessens capital streams into developing markets
• The Indian current record shortage has additionally started to enlarge
• However, RBI has record remote trade holds worked during a few time of intercession in the cash market to shield the rupee on the off chance that there is a keep running on the Indian money

2. Headwinds from China’s slowing growth

• The clampdown on smoke and the move towards clean vitality is hampering the Chinese assembling segment
• The upsurge in maker value expansion that supported the benefits of state-claimed ventures a year ago is decaying
• Nations presented to a China development log jam (through fares) may confront a gigantic blow
• Fares from India to China and Hong Kong constitute around 10% of the aggregate Indian fares, so India may not see an intense effect in spite of the sputtering of China’s development motors

3. Escalating trade war

• Retaliatory moves by enormous nations could hurt the fares of nations that take an interest in the advanced arrangement of worldwide esteem chains
• The US represents just around 10% of India’s steel and aluminum sends out, which confines the material effect of such a levy on India’s exchange.

Four stresses for the Indian economy

1. Widening CAD
2. Banking crisis
3. Increasing foreign liabilities
4. Political risks

• The Indian economy is by all accounts better put to manage worldwide stuns than it was in July 2013
• There might be no motivation to freeze however policymakers should remain wary.

Category: EDUCATION

• The Union Cabinet’s choice as of late to proceed with the RUSA as well as give it due significance forecasts well for the arrangement of advanced education in India
• The RUSA is a Centrally supported plan propelled in 2013 to give vital financing to qualified State higher instructive organizations
• Around 94% of understudies of advanced education think about in 369 State colleges
• Be that as it may, the critical piece of financing essentially coordinated towards beginning more IITs, IIMs, and Central colleges
• Today around 150 Centrally-financed foundations (under 6% of understudies think about in them) — corner nearly the whole subsidizing by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD)
• To exacerbate the situation, a venture by State governments(towards state-supported establishments) has been likewise decreasing every year as advanced education is a low-need zone

Importance of the RUSA

• The RUSA was propelled to address the above basic concerns
• The plan is to a great extent in view of the restrictive arrival of assets connected to changes in the key territories of administration, getting the hang of showing results, contacting the unreached and framework bolster
• Not at all like different plans which are foisted on State governments in a one-estimate fits-all way, under RUSA, States and organizations need to give an endeavor communicating their eagerness to change and consenting to meet the States’ offer of the cost
• RUSA is a procedure driven plan. Its outline and conceptualization were concluded through broad counsels with every single key partner, particularly State governments
• Preliminary stipends were discharged to States to have the required frameworks, forms, and the specialized help set up
• Notwithstanding being intentional, all States with the exception of a Union Territory (Lakshadweep) is a piece of RUSA
• Funding for the RUSA for the current year, Rs. 1,300 crore has been provided
• Governance reform is central to the scheme
• State Higher Education Councils (SHECs) which have famous scholastics, industrialists, and different specialists have been made
• These gatherings will assume significant parts from a scholarly and expert perspective, in the detailing of medium-and long haul State point of view designs
• RUSA can turn out to be a genuine distinct advantage for advanced education in the nation
• It has not just reprioritized the nation’s needs, from subsidizing only a couple of head foundations to contacting establishments at the base of the pyramid, yet has likewise changed the way controllers need to work
• Be that as it may, its litmus test will be in how fair-mindedly the plan is controlled by the MHRD and how much State governments permit the SHEC to work
• Relinquishing the administrative stranglehold over colleges is connected to this.

Nothing here for today!!!

Question 1. Consider the following statements about Google Street View:

1. It displays panoramic views of public spaces where the images captured by Google’s moving vehicles, adding a layer of depth and reality to the maps.
2. The application allows users to explore places around the world through 360 degree panoramic street level imagery and view public area.

Which of the statements are correct?

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. None of the above

See

H. UPSC Mains Practice Questions