UPSC Exam Comprehensive News Analysis Oct25

A. GS1 Related

B. GS2 Related

• The Centre has decided to set up skill development institutes on government land, in partnership with private players, across the country.
• The public-private partnership model will be adopted to set up the institutes — to be called the Indian Institutes of Skills — at select locations, based on demand and available infrastructure.
• The institutes are expected to help boost the global competitiveness of key industry sectors by providing high-quality skill training, applied research education and a direct and meaningful connection with the industry.
• It will also provide opportunity to aspiring youth across the country to have access to highly skilled training, and enhance the scope of accountability through its linkage with industry and global competitiveness across sectors.

Related Information – Initiatives under Skill India Mission

• Skill India Mission is an initiative of the Government of India, launched by the Prime Minister on the 16th of July 2015 with an aim to train over 40 crore people in India in different skills by 2022.
• It includes various initiatives of the government like “National Skill Development Mission”, “National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, 2015”, “Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)” and the “Skill Loan scheme”. The skill India mission tries to create a synergy between education, training and work in order to enable them to build a stronger India.

National Skill Development Mission

• The mission was launched for creating convergence across various sectors and different States in terms of activities relating to skill training.
• The mission would, along with consolidating & coordinating skilling efforts, expedite decision making across sectors to achieve quality skilling on a large scale.
• The scheme would be implemented through a streamlined institutional mechanism driven by Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE).

National Policy for Skill Development and Entrepreneurship 2015

• The policy intends to create a skilling ecosystem on a large scale.
• The objective of the policy is to meet the challenges of skilling at a large scale with quality and speed, enabling the individuals to realize their full potential through the life-long learning process where the competencies are garnered via instruments such as credit accumulations, credible certifications etc.
• This policy will link skills development to improved employability and productivity.

Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana (PMKVY)

• PMKVY is a flagship scheme of the Ministry of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship (MSDE). It was launched with an objective of enabling a large number of youth in India to take up skill training that is relevant to specific industry, which would help them in securing a better livelihood.
• The individuals with prior skills and learning experiences would also be certified under Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) component. The scheme caters monetary rewards to those individuals who have successfully completed the sanctioned training programmes.
• Sector specific skill councils such as Agriculture Sector Skill Council, Food Industry Capacity and Skill Initiative (FICSI), Health Sector Skill Council etc are established under the scheme.

Skill Loan Scheme

• The skill loan scheme was launched with an intent to support the youth willing to take up skill training programmes in the country. This Skill Loan Scheme replaced the earlier Indian Banks Association (IBA) Model Loan Scheme for Vocational Education and Training.
• Any Indian National taking admission in a course offered by Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), Polytechnics , school recognized by Central or State education Boards, college affiliated to recognized university, training partners affiliated to National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) Sector Skill Councils, State Skill Mission, State Skill Corporation can avail loan under the scheme. The repayment period under the scheme is 3 to 7 years.
• This scheme does not discriminate against women.

Context

• The Centre on Wednesday established a Group of Ministers to recommend measures to effectively implement the law against sexual harassment at the workplace and to strengthen the legal and institutional framework in response to the #MeToo campaign.
• Home Minister Rajnath Singh will head the GoM, which includes Minister for Road Transport and Highways Nitin Gadkari, Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman and Women and Child Development Minister Maneka Gandhi.
• The GoM will come up with a comprehensive plan within three months and devise ways to ensure its time-bound implementation, an official statement said.
• Minister of State for External Affairs M.J. Akbar had resigned recently after several journalists accused him of misconduct and harassment when they worked with him in different media organisations.

What is #MeToo movement?

• The Me Too movement (or #MeToo movement), with many local and international alternatives, is a movement against sexual harassment and sexual assault.
• #MeToo spread virally in October 2017 as a hashtag used on social media in an attempt to demonstrate the widespread prevalence of sexual assault and harassment, especially in the workplace.
• It followed soon after the sexual misconduct allegations against Harvey Weinstein.
• Tarana Burke, an American social activist and community organizer, began using the phrase “Me Too” as early as 2006, and the phrase was later popularized by American actress Alyssa Milano, on Twitter in 2017.
• Milano encouraged victims of sexual harassment to tweet about it and “give people a sense of the magnitude of the problem”.
• This was met with success that included but was not limited to high-profile posts from several American celebrities, including Gwyneth Paltrow, Ashley Judd, Jennifer Lawrence, and Uma Thurman.

C. GS3 Related

Context

• Thousands of borrowers servicing loans obtained from the State Bank of India (SBI) through their accounts in other banks are facing delay with regard to their EMI repayment getting debited, thus putting them at a risk of being penalised.
• At the heart of the muddle is a switch from Electronic Clearing System (ECS) to National Automated Clearing House (NACH) system, mandated for all banks by the National Payments Corporation of India.
• Though introduced two years ago, the SBI began its actual switch to the new system last month, at the end of two-year transition period.
• Meanwhile, National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI) has allowed use of ECS as well as NACH formats on two days of a week as a remedial measure. With this, State Bank of India is hopeful of resolving the issue by this month, the CGM said, assuring that all the penal charges, except those levied for insufficient funds in the account, would be returned.

What is NACH System?

• Millions of payments transactions are taking place in the banking system daily. These payments are done by the individuals, corporate and government; and clearing them will be a huge task. For convenience, the clearing of these payments should be done electronically.
• Such an electronic clearing system was developed by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI) and it is known as National Automated Clearing House (NACH).
• NACH is a web based platform to facilitate interbank, high volume, electronic transactions for Banks, Financial Institutions, Corporates and Government. It basically functions like an electronic clearing service available especially for banks.
• NACH was launched by the National Payment Corporation of India (NPCI). It is very useful to clear bulk and repetitive transactions that takes place among banks.
• NACH System is used for making bulk transactions towards distribution of subsidies, dividends, interest, salary, pension etc. and also for bulk transactions towards collection of payments pertaining to telephone, electricity, water, loans, investments in mutual funds, insurance premium etc.
• NACH has two wings – ECS Credit and ECS Debit. Similarly, local, regional, national ECSs are also operational.

Features of NACH

• NACH is a centralised system, with an aim to consolidate multiple Electronic Clearing Systems (ECS) running across the country. It provides a framework for standard and practices for clearing and removes local barriers for payments.
• NACH system covers the entire core banking enabled bank branches of the country irrespective of the location of the bank branch.
• Under NACH, the NPCI provides a single set of rules (operating and business), common across all the Participants, Service Providers and Users etc. NACH system also supports Financial Inclusion measures initiated by Government and different agencies.
• The NACH system helps member banks to design their own products besides addressing specific needs of the banks and corporates. It also has a Mandate Management System (MMS) and an online Dispute Management System (DMS) coupled with strong information exchange and MIS capabilities.
• NACH is a robust, secure and scalable platform to the participants with both transaction and file based transaction processing capabilities.
• NACH’s Aadhaar Payment Bridge (APB) System has been successfully channelizing Government subsidies and benefits (DBT) to the intended beneficiaries using the Aadhaar numbers. The APB System links the Government Departments and their sponsor banks on one side and beneficiary banks and beneficiary on the other hand.

National Payments Corporation of India

• National Payments Corporation of India is the umbrella organisation for all retail payment systems in India, with a vision to enable citizens of the country to have access to e-payment services at anyplace and anytime.
• Founded in 2008, NPCI is a not-for-profit organisation registered under section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956 (now Section 8 of Companies Act 2013).
• The organisation has been promoted by the country’s central bank, the Reserve Bank of India. It has successfully completed the development of a domestic card payment network called RuPay, reducing the dependency on international card schemes. NPCI is headquartered in Mumbai.
• National Payments Corporation of India is an initiative of the Reserve Bank of India and the Indian Banks’ Association.
• Its Immediate Payment Service (IMPS) has enabled India to become the leading country in the world in real time payments in the retail sector.
• Its other flagship products include National Financial Switch (NFS) and Cheque Truncation System (CTS). Its other products include Unified Payments Interface (UPI), RuPay Credit Card, National Electronic Toll Collection (NETC), National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) and Bharat Bill Payment System (BBPS). The aim of this product basket is to transform India into a cashless society.

Context

• The Supreme Court on Wednesday banned the sale and registration of motor vehicles conforming to the emission standard Bharat Stage-IV in the entire country from April 1, 2020.
• The top court said that pollution has reached an “alarming and critical” level all over India.

Bharat Emission Standards

• Bharat stage emission standards (BSES) are emission standards instituted by the Government of India to regulate the output of air pollutants from internal combustion engines and Spark-ignition engines equipment, including motor vehicles
• The standards and the timeline for implementation are set by the Central Pollution Control Board under the Ministry of Environment & Forests and climate change
• The standards, based on European regulations were first introduced in 2000
• Bharat Stage IV emission norms have been in place since April 2010 and it has been enforced for entire country since April 2017
• In 2016, the Indian government announced that the country would skip the BS-V norms altogether and adopt BS-VI norms by 2020
• While the norms help in bringing down pollution levels, it invariably results in increased vehicle cost due to the improved technology & higher fuel prices

Why BS VI?

• The pro-active approach from the Government of India has made the country leapfrog from the conventional BS-IV to directly adopt BS-VI emission norms as the next level for regulatory framework in India.
• The BS-VI emission standards are much more elaborate in their scope and integrate substantial changes to existing emission standards ensuring cleaner products to the consumer.
• Besides the more stringent limits on the gaseous emission components, the particulate matter (PM) limits have also been significantly reduced along with the introduction of particle number (PN) limits.

• After disappointing many for not being able to make it to the inaugural of the Vizag Fintech Festival, world’s first humanoid robot, Sophia, finally arrived in the city from Hong Kong on Wednesday.
• “The robot, which has been granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia, will speak at the festival on Thursday.

Know about Sophia

• Sophia was created by Hong Kong-based Hanson Robotics with the purpose of using such creations for the care of the elderly and crowd management at big events.
• Sophia had hit the headlines after it was granted citizenship by Saudi Arabia and the United Nations Development Programme appointed it as its Innovation Champion.
• The robot is equipped with voice recognition technology and facial reading. Cameras are fixed in its eyes along with computer algorithms to see. It is capable of showing over 50 facial expressions like a human being.

What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

• To make it simple – Artificial Intelligence is intelligence exhibited by machines.
• It is a branch of computer science which deals with creating computers or machines as intelligent as human beings.
• The term was coined in 1956 by John McCarthy at the Dartmouth conference, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
• It is a simulation of human intelligence processes such as learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions), and self-correction by machines, especially computer systems.
• Nowadays it has become an umbrella term which encompasses everything from robotic process automation to actual robotics.
• Recently it has become widely popular and gained prominence due to its multifaceted application ranging from healthcare to military devices.

D. GS4 Related

E. Editorials

Larger Background:

A Brief History of the CBI:

• The Central Bureau of Investigation traces its origin to the Special Police Establishment (SPE) which was set up in 1941 by the Government of India. The functions of the SPE then were to investigate cases of bribery and corruption in transactions with the War & Supply Deptt. Of India during World War II. Superintendence of the S.P.E. was vested with the War Department. Even after the end of the War, the need for a Central Government agency to investigate cases of bribery and corruption by Central Government employees was felt. The Delhi Special Police Establishment Act was therefore brought into force in 1946.
• This Act transferred the superintendence of the SPE to the Home Department and its functions were enlarged to cover all departments of the Govt. of India. The jurisdiction of the SPE extended to all the Union Territories and could be extended also to the States with the consent of the State Government concerned.
• The DSPE acquired its popular current name, Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), through a Home Ministry resolution dated 1.4.1963.
• Initially the offences that were notified by the Central Government related only to corruption by Central Govt. servants. In due course, with the setting up of a large number of public sector undertakings, the employees of these undertakings were also brought under CBI purview. Similarly, with the nationalisation of the banks in 1969, the Public Sector Banks and their employees also came within the ambit of the CBI.

The News:

• • In a recent surprise midnight move, the government divested Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) director Alok Verma and his deputy Rakesh Asthana of their powers. This was done just hours after Verma directed his No. 2 to go on leave.
  • The government intervened after days of intense feuding that threatened to sully the image of India’s premier investigative agency that is probing a series of high-profile corruption cases.
  • It is important to note that there has been a long-running feud between the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) top boss Alok Verma and Rakesh Asthana, the special director who is the No. 2 at CBI.
  • This long running feud has been marked by allegations and counter-allegations of corruption and interference in high-profile cases, filing of an FIR against Asthana and now the arrest of senior CBI officer associated with him. Below is a brief summary of the origin of the feud and the twists and turns it has taken.
  • In October 2017, Asthana, who is a Gujarat-cadre IPS officer, was elevated to the position of No. 2 at the CBI by a selection committee headed by Central Vigilance Commission (CVC).

• CBI head Verma had reportedly opposed Asthana’s elevation on the ground that he was being probed in a corruption case related to a Gujarat-based company Sterling Biotech.

• Verma had placed before the committee a confidential report on Sterling Biotech in which names of various government officials including Asthana were mentioned for allegedly receiving money from the company.
• However, it is important to note that Chief Vigilance Commissioner K V Chowdary said the decision was taken unanimously by members of the selection committee.
• Later, Common Cause, which is an NGO of advocate Prashant Bhushan, moved the Supreme Court against Asthana’s elevation but the court refused to quash Asthana’s elevation.

A Closer Look:

• Experts believe that at one level, what is going on in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) is a ‘turf war’, a battle of egos between two individuals at the helm.
• However, the unsavoury developments involving the CBI Director and its Special Director are reflective of a much deeper malaise. This is visible in the big rot at the very heart of the premier investigating agency.
• The fact that the CBI registered a First Information Report against its own Special Director is extraordinary.
• If the Director is justified in embarking on a high-profile probe into bribery charges against Mr. Asthana, it can only mean that corruption is pervasive, and that that even the second-in-command in the agency is not beyond it.
• While, on the other hand, if Mr. Asthana is shown to be wrongly implicated, and his own charges, which are set out in a complaint to the Central Vigilance Commission, that other CBI officers are interfering in ongoing probes are proved right, the situation will be no better.

Prior Precedents where the CBI was brought under a negative light:

• The Supreme Court held that the charges that Ranjit Sinha, when heading the agency, sought to help the accused in several cases and interfered in ongoing probes were ‘prima facie credible’; as a result, he was asked to keep away from the 2G telecom cases.
• Similarly, A.P. Singh, another director, was booked last year for alleged links with meat exporter Moin Qureshi.
• Thus, clearly, the existing procedure for the appointment of CBI Directors, which is made by a committee comprising the Prime Minister, the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition, has not stripped the office of controversy.

A Look at the Vineet Narain & Others vs. Union of India Case:

• • This particular case concerns the historic Hawala scandal in India, which uncovered possible bribery payments to several high-ranking Indian politicians and bureaucrats from a funding source linked to suspected terrorists.
  • Following news coverage of the scandal, members of the public were dismayed by the failure of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) to initiate investigations of the officials with the apparent intent to protect certain implicated individuals who were extremely influential in government and politics.  
  • This litigation was the result of public interest petitions filed on these matters with the Court pursuant to Article 32 of the Indian Constitution.
  • It is important to note that Article 32 of the Indian Constitution empowers the Supreme Court to issue directions for the enforcement of fundamental rights contained in the Constitution.
  • The Court agreed that the CBI had failed in its responsibility to investigate allegations of public corruption.  
  • Further, the Court laid down guidelines to ensure independence and autonomy of the CBI and ordered that the CBI be placed under the supervision of the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC), an independent governmental agency intended to be free from executive control or interference.  
  • This directive removed the CBI from the supervision of the Central Government thought to be partly responsible for the inertia that contributed to the CBI’s previous lack of urgency with respect to the investigation of high-ranking officials.

• The CVC was now responsible for ensuring that allegations of corruption against public officials were thoroughly investigated regardless of the identity of the accused and without interference from the Government.

Editorial Analysis:

• Experts believe that the recent abrupt replacement of Alok Verma as Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation, even though this was as an interim measure, can be interpreted as a  culmination of a series of murky events that would deeply embarrass the Centre.
• Unfortunately, what was perceived as an unseemly internal tussle among top officers of the premier investigating agency has morphed into a full-blown conflict between the Centre and Mr. Verma.
• Further, it is important to note that it is one thing if Mr. Verma had merely challenged the legality of his dismissal. But he more than hinted at interference in his functioning.
• The suggestion that the Centre’s action was meant to protect certain people has led to charges that he was removed because he was politically inconvenient.
• Critics have called out the specific action by the Centre appointing the new acting director, M. Nageswara Rao, who has transferred many officers investigating cases against Mr. Asthana. This has raised the question whether the government is adopting strong-arm tactics against Mr. Verma, despite his tenure and independence being protected by the law.
• As a matter of fact, the Central Vigilance Commission, in its order divesting Mr. Verma of his office, has said that since the atmosphere within the agency had become vitiated due to a factional feud, it had to intervene. It also charged Mr. Verma with not making available the records and files sought by the CVC in connection with a corruption complaint against him — an approach which it held was wilfully obstructionist.
• The unfortunate controversy has raised the important question of whether the statutory changes aimed at insulating the CBI Director’s office from political and administrative interference are adequate.

Security of Tenure:

• It is important to note that Section 4B of the Delhi Special Police Establishment Act assures the CBI Director of a two-year tenure and makes it clear that he cannot be transferred except by the high-power committee. Further, this high-power committee comprises of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the Chief Justice of India — that appointed the CBI Director.

• The Honourable Supreme Court will address the question whether the ‘interim measure’ amounts to unlawfully curtailing the Director’s tenure.
• The Honourable Supreme Court will also examine whether the CVC’s power of superintendence has been rightly invoked in the present case.

Concluding Remarks:

• It is important to note that there are immediate and arguably more serious dimensions to this crisis. And it revolves around how to repair the image of a CBI that has been covered by a nasty feud.
• Experts believe that the CBI labours under a dual image. This dual image is characterized by that of an independent agency in the perception of those disillusioned with the conduct of the jurisdiction police, and a ‘caged parrot’ or a handmaiden of the ruling party at the Centre in the eyes of the national Opposition.
• Further, the recent developments, in which Central agencies are seen as targeting those in Opposition parties, add to the latter perception and do not augur well for its credibility.
• To a large extent, the political leadership must bear the primary responsibility for such controversies.
• In conclusion, it is difficult to ignore the fact that Mr. Asthana’s appointment as Special Director was made despite Mr. Verma’s vehement objections about his suitability, something the CVC chose to overrule.
• Thus, in such circumstances, it is up to the CVC and the Centre to address the present crisis. A good place to start will be to take Mr. Asthana, whose name already figures in a case, temporarily out of the agency to ensure an impartial probe.

Category: INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

1. The long march (7,000 migrants from Central America; UNHCR)

Question 1. Which of the following are cited by the Economic Survey as main reasons for Delhi’s 
poor air quality?

Question 2. What is Twin Balance Sheet Syndrome?

Question 3. Panama disease, which is frequently in news, is related to: