InstaLinks : help you think beyond the issue but relevant to the issue from UPSC prelims and Mains exam point of view. These linkages provided in this ‘hint’ format help you frame possible questions in your mind that might arise(or an examiner might imagine) from each current event. InstaLinks also connect every issue to their static or theoretical background. This helps you study a topic holistically and add new dimensions to every current event to help you think analytically
Table of Contents:
GS Paper 2:
1. The politics of the madrasa survey
2. Why the Election Commission’s strategy to name and shame voters won’t help
GS Paper 3:
1. One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026)
2. A new lease of LIFE for climate action
Content for Mains Enrichment
1. The dreaded “Monday”
Facts for Prelims:
1. Lothal, ‘oldest dock in the world’, to get heritage complex
2. Swadesh Darshan 2
3. Nihonshu
4. Mission Schools of Excellence
5. Diversity vs hate speech
6. UNSC 1267
7. National Credit Framework (NCrF)
8. HC takes tough stand on illegal coal mining
9. WISER
10. Vulture
11. Mapping
The politics of the madrasa survey
GS paper 1 & 2
Syllabus: Government policies and interventions
Direction: This has been taken from the Editorial. You may go through it once.
Context: The Uttar Pradesh government’s decision to undertake a survey of unrecognized madrasas has raised serious concerns over the fate of these institutions .
The reason given for the survey: Check the availability of basic facilities for the students .
- There are 16,513 recognised Madrassas in UP. The State government is providing financial assistance to 560 Islamic seminaries. However, so far, the UP government has no record of unrecognised Madrassas.
Views about madrasas in the general public:
- Muslims are economically backward because most of them are educated in madrasas .
- Sometimes, Madrasas are nurseries of radical Islam
- War on Terror(after 9/11)was formulated based on this argument .
Sachar Committee Report (2006):
- Only 3% of Muslim children of school-going age go to madrasas at the national level
- Draw a distinction between madrasas and maktabs: Maktabs are neighbourhood schools, often attached to mosques.
- Share of Muslims who attend madrasas and maktabs: It is not more than 6 .3 %, the report said.
- Muslims are aspirational: Report’s most crucial observation.
- Muslim parents are eager to see their children enrolled in modern education institutions but fail to do to their poor financial condition.
Recommendation by the report;
- Scholarships should be given to Muslim students so that they don’t drop out of school.
Madrasas history:
- They emerged mainly to save Muslim identity in the face of growing colonial interventions: which they suspected might impose Christian values on Muslims
- Resisted partition: Deoband took a political stand and fiercely resisted Partition.
Way forward:
While there are issues concerning madrasas and modernity, concerning patriarchy and child rights(raised by the Sachar Committee). To have any state intervention inspired by Islamophobic views will only help deepen majoritarianism.
Constitutional Rights to Muslims:
Article 25 says “all persons are equally entitled to freedom of conscience and the right to freely profess, practice, and propagate religion subject to public order, morality and health.”
Article 26 says that all denominations can manage their own affairs in matters of religion.
Madrassas are established under Article 30 of the Constitution, which gives minorities the right to establish and run their educational institutions.
Insta Links:
Review of the implementation of recommendations of Sachar committee report
Mains Links:
Q. What are the challenges to our cultural practices in the name of secularism? (UPSC 2019)
Why the Election Commission’s strategy to name and shame voters won’t help
GS Paper II
Syllabus : Constitutional bodies (powers, functions and responsibilities)
Source: Indian Express
Directions: This Article has been taken from the Indian Express . Go through it once, you can use it for value addition .
Context: Election Commission had signed MoUs with over 1,000 corporate houses undertaking to monitor the “electoral participation of their workforce” and publish on their websites and notice boards those who do not vote .
Cause of concern:
- These developments raise serious issues surrounding voters’ rights, compulsory voting, the secrecy of voting and debates around privacy and coercion .
Probable reasons behind lower voting:
- Migrant workers are not registered as voters at their place of work
- Out of conviction or for ideological reasons some people don’t vote .
- More importantly, there are millions of daily wage workers, and many homeless and ill.
How the above developments Violates the law of the land?
- Section 79 D of the Representation of People Act, 1951 defines “electoral right” to mean the right of a person to… vote or refrain from vote at an election”.
- The law completely enables, but does not force, citizens to vote.
- Section135B of the Representation of People Act, 1951, grants a paid holiday to every person employed in any business, trade, industrial undertaking or any other establishment.
- Employers at best can cut the wages of those who take leave but don’t go to vote.
- Article 14: Protection of the elector’s identity and affording secrecy is integral to free and fair elections and an arbitrary distinction between a voter who casts and a voter who does not cast his vote is violative of Article 14.
- Supreme court judgements: The Supreme Court, in PUCL vs Union of India, 2013, (popularly known as the NOTA judgment) has held that abstention from voting and negative voting is protected as freedom of expression — a fundamental right (Article 19).
How to enhance Voter participation:
- Systematic voter education, amply demonstrated by the ECI in elections in all the states and Union territories since 2010 when a voter education division was set up. This soon evolved into its SVEEP programme.
- In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the 67 . 3 per cent turnout beat all previous records. Many states have reached close to 90 per cent turnout and above.
- Motivation and facilitation: rather than compulsion, are the best ways to address the issue, has been clearly vindicated by ECI.
- Involving institutional participation: such schools and colleges to take the registration facility to the doorstep by introducing voter clubs, campus ambassadors and youth icons and placing drop boxes in colleges for new applications.
- Employers have been encouraged to create similar facilities in their offices.
- Strictly enforcing the law: Employers are legally obliged to close their establishments on poll day, but this is seldom enforced.
- Instead, employers are asked to allow the employees a couple of hours off to enable them to go and vote.
Insta Links
Prelims link
- About Election commission
- Difference between RPA 1951 and 1950.
- About SVEEP
- Model code of Conduct
Mains Links:
Q. Discuss the role of the election commission of India in light of the evolution of the Model Code of Conduct. (UPSC MAINS 2022)
Q. What is SVEEP initiative of Election Commission of India? What are other ECI initiatives for Free and Fair Elections? Discuss.
One Health Joint Plan of Action (2022-2026)
GS Paper 3
Syllabus: Environment Conservation
Source: DTE
Direction: ‘One Health’, ‘One Water’ are important concepts. Do keep a note on it.
Context: FAO, UNEP, WHO and World Organization for Animal Health have together launched One Health joint plan of action to address health threats to humans, plants and the environment .
One Health is an approach calling for “the collaborative efforts of multiple disciplines working locally, nationally, and globally, to attain optimal health for people, animals and our environment”, as defined by the One Health Initiative Task Force
Action Plan :
- Enhance capacities to strengthen the health system
- Reduce risk from zoonotic epidemics and pandemics .
- Control and eliminate zoonotic, neglected tropical and vector-borne diseases
- Assess, manage and communicate effectively food safety risks
- Curb Antimicrobial Resistance ( termed as ‘silent pandemic’)
- Environment and health Policies must be integrated into One Health
Need for One Health:
- Human health cannot be considered in isolation– It depends highly on the quality of the environment in which people live: for people to be healthy, they need healthy environments.
- Increasing temperatures are supporting range expansion for disease vectors, with the resulting spread of vector-borne diseases expected in humans and animals.
- Temperature-related mortality alone is expected to rise to rival current levels of obesity- and diet-related illness.
- COVID-19 and intersections with the climate-health crisis
- Growing water and food insecurity and safety hazards
What more needs to be done?
- Mainstream health into climate change and biodiversity agendas and fund health programs within the UNFCCC.
- Integrate health impact assessment in all development project appraisals
- Assess and quantify the health co-benefits of proposed environmental investments (e.g. REDD+)
- Increase application of existing climate and health forecasting tools and early warning systems for human and animal health (such as those promoted by the WMO-WHO joint office)
Conclusion:
The ecosystem-based approach to Healthcare exists at the interface between the health of humans, animals, and ecosystems and recognizes the inextricable linkages between the health of all species and their environments. A basic tenet held is that health and well-being cannot be sustained on a resource-depleted, polluted, and socially unstable planet.
Insta Links:
Mains Links:
Q. What do you understand by the ‘one health approach’? Examine its role in preventing the outbreak of various infections. (250 words)
A new lease of LIFE for climate action
GS Paper III
Syllabus : Envrionmental pollution and degradation
Source : The Hindu
Directions: This Article has been taken from the Hindu. Although the article was long we are providing only important points here
Context: The United Nations Chief Antonio Guterres is on a three-day visit to India, during which he will attend an event relating to the Mission LiFE with Prime Minister Narendra Modi
Current threats the world is facing
- Triple planetary crisis of climate change, pollution and biodiversity loss
- Global warming: Nine of the warmest years on record have come in the past decade alone.
- This year’s record-breaking heat waves, floods, droughts, and other extreme forms of weather have forced us to face these increasingly devastating impacts
- Climate change is a disruption multiplier in a disrupted world, rolling back progress across the global Sustainable Development Goals
- Ukraine’s war fuels devastating energy, food, and cost-of-living crisis
Stepes taken to deal with the crisis
- The Paris Agreement and the COP26 summit in Glasgow represent urgently, collective steps countries are taking to limit emissions.
- Commitments we have now will not keep warming below the 1 . 5 °C target that gives us the best chance of averting catastrophe.
- Lack of consumer participation: As governments and industry carry the lion’s share of responsibility for responding to the crisis, we as consumers play a large role in driving unsustainable production methods.
Life mission:
The Lifestyle for Environment (LiFE) campaign was launched by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at COP26 in Glasgow in 2021. The prime minister called upon global leaders to join the movement for safeguarding the environment by adopting environment-friendly lifestyle.
- It recognises small individual actions can tip the balance in the planet’s favour.
- But we need guiding frameworks, information sharing and the scale of a global movement.
- It recognises that accountability is relative to contribution.
- Emissions across the poorest half of the world’s population combined still fall short of even 1% of the wealthiest.
- Differentiated approaches: Each ‘Pro Planet’ stakeholder is nudged according to differentiated approaches.
- Mindful choices cultivated by LIFE animate this spirit — actions such as saving energy at home; cycling and using public transport instead of driving etc. and leveraging our position as customers and employees to demand climate-friendly choices
- Nudging: Many of the goals of LIFE can be achieved by deploying ‘nudges’, gentle persuasion techniques to encourage positive behaviour
- The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) employs proven nudging techniques such as discouraging food waste by offering smaller plates in cafeterias; encouraging recycling by making bin lids eye-catching
- According to the UNEP, more than two-thirds of greenhouse gas emissions can be attributed to household consumption and lifestyles — thus it requires widespread adoption of greener consumption habits.
India’s track record
- India has a proven track record of translating the aspirations of national missions into whole-of-society efforts
- For instance, the success of the Swachh Bharat Mission, which mobilised individuals and communities across socio-economic strata to become drivers of collective good health and sanitation
- From the Panchamrit targets announced by Modi at COP26, to support the International Solar Alliance, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure and South-South cooperation platforms etc
Onus on the developed world
- The average carbon footprint of a person in a high-income country is more than 80 times higher than that of a person in a least-developed country.
- It is common sense and only fair to call on the developed world to shoulder a proportionate share of this transition.
- In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, “the world has enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.”
Conclusion:
India is an excellent place to start. With over 1.3 billion people, if we achieve a true Jan Andolan here, the momentum generated will be enormous. As India leads, we see the world increasingly follow.
Insta Links
Prelims link
- Paris Agreement
- COP 26
- Panchamrit targets of India
- International solar alliances
- CDRI
Mains Links:
Q. Write a note on Life mission and how it will help reduce global carbon emissions.
Content for Mains Enrichment
The dreaded “Monday”
Source: Indian Express
Direction: You can simply mention this example in norms, attitude, regarding work culture, Ethics etc.
Context: The Guinness world records have officially named Monday as the worst day of the week through a tweet.
If you have a mundane nine-to-five job, then the chances of you hating Mondays are pretty high, especially after a fun-filled weekend. With a majority of people in a holiday mood with no deadlines to meet on Sunday, it is hard for them to get back into a work-mode groove at sharp 9 am the very next day.
Facts for Prelims
Lothal, ‘oldest dock in the world’, to get heritage complex
Source: Indian Express
Context: Prime Minister Narendra Modi reviewed the construction of the National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC) site at Gujarat’s Lothal via video conferencing.
About Lothal:
Lothal was one of the southernmost sites of the Indus Valley civilization, located in the Bhāl region of what is now the state of Gujarat. The port city is believed to have been built in 2,200 BC. Lothal was a thriving trade Centre in ancient times, with its trade of beads, gems and ornaments reaching West Asia and Africa.
The National Institute of Oceanography in Goa discovered marine microfossils and salt, gypsum crystals at the site, indicating that seawater once filled the structure and it was definitely a dockyard.
Lothal was nominated in April 2014 as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and its application is pending on the tentative list of UNESCO.
National Maritime Heritage Complex (NMHC):
The project began in March 2022, and will have several innovative features such as Lothal mini-recreation, which will recreate Harappan architecture and lifestyle through immersive technology; besides four theme parks – Memorial theme park, Maritime and Navy theme park, Climate theme park, and Adventure and Amusement theme park.
It will also house the world’s tallest lighthouse museum, 14 galleries highlighting India’s maritime heritage starting from the Harappan time till today, as well as a coastal states pavilion displaying the diverse maritime heritage of Indian states and UTs.
Nihonshu
Source: The Hindu
Context: Japanese Embassy has applied for a GI tag for Nihonshu (an alcoholic beverage from rice).
GI tag is part of WTO’s TRIPS and under the Paris convention. India enacted the Geographical Indicators of Goods (registration and protection) act, 1999.
Fig: Types of Nihonshu
Swadesh Darshan 2
Source: The Hindu
Context: The government is planning to launch Swadesh darshan scheme 2.0 with chosen destinations from 15 States.
Swadesh Darshan scheme:
- It was launched by the Centre in 2014-15 for the integrated development of theme-based tourist circuits.
- Implementing body: Ministry of Tourism provides financial assistance to respective state governments and UTs.
- Features:
- The scheme is 100% centrally funded for the project components undertaken for public funding.
- A National Steering Committee (NSC) have been constituted with the Minister in charge of M/O Tourism as Chairman, to steer the mission objectives and vision of the scheme.
- Funding of individual projects will vary from state to state and will be finalised on the basis of detailed project reports prepared by PMC (Programme Management Consultant).
- Some of the prominent circuits launched under this were the Buddhist tourist circle, Ambedkar Tourist Circle and the North-East Tourist Circle.
Swadesh Darshan scheme 2.0: From December, the revamped scheme would be launched.
- Objectives :
- To develop theme-based tourist circuits in the country.
- Seeks to enhance the contribution of tourism to local economies.
- to increase private sector investment in tourism and hospitality and
Do you Know?
o According to the tourism ministry, domestic tourist visits in 2021 were around 677 million and in 2022 (data available to date) 572 million.
o Out of the 76 projects sanctioned under the Swadesh darshan scheme 1.0, 52 have been completed.
o According to the third Tourism Satellite Account, the contribution of tourism to the employment of the country is around 15%
o The total jobs generated by tourism are around 80mn (8 crore)
Mission Schools of Excellence
Context: The Prime Minister launched Mission Schools of Excellence at Trimandir, Adalaj, Gujarat.
Key Highlights:
- Infrastructure: The Mission will help strengthen education infrastructure in Gujarat by setting up:
- New classrooms
- Smart classrooms
- Computer labs
- Overall upgradation of the infrastructure of schools.
- 50 thousand new classrooms along with more than one lakh smart classrooms are going to be built .
- 5G internet: It will help in making the best content, pedagogy and teacher available to everyone, including in remote areas.
Gunotsav:
- A festival focussing on the quality of education.
- In this aptitude, the skills and abilities of the students were evaluated and proper solutions were suggested.
- A more advanced technology-based version of the ‘Gunotsav’ is functioning in Vidiya Sameeksha Kendra in Gujarat.
Diversity vs hate speech
Context: The U.N. Secretary-General urged Indians to condemn hate speech and strong pitch for the protection of human rights and pluralism in India.
Key Highlights:
- India has a responsibility to shape global human rights.
- Protect and promote the rights of all individuals, including members of minority communities.
How to enrich Indian diversity?
- practising the values of Gandhi
- Securing and upholding the rights and dignity of all people, especially the most vulnerable
- Inclusion: Taking concrete action for inclusion
- Multiculturalism: Recognising the enormous value and contributions of multicultural, multi-religious and multi-ethnic societies
- Hate speech: Condemning hate speech unequivocally
Suggestions by UN Secretary-General for India:
- Peace: India should continue to speak up for peace
- Leadership: Expand its global leadership
- SDGs: Align its development and its foreign policy with the SDGs and the Paris Agreement
- Global crisis: Find innovative solutions to today’s global crises.
Diversity: It means collective differences, that is, differences which mark off one group of people from another.
- These differences may be of any sort: biological, religious, linguistic etc.
- Diversity means a variety of races, religions, languages, castes and cultures.
Hate speech: Words whose intent is to create hatred towards a particular group, that group may be a community, religion or race.
Laws for hate speech in India:
- Sections 153A and 153B of the IPC: Punishes acts that cause enmity and hatred between two groups.
- Section 295A of the IPC: Deals with punishing acts which deliberately or with malicious intention outrage the religious feelings of a class of persons.
- Sections 505(1) and 505(2): Make the publication and circulation of content which may cause ill will or hatred between different groups an offence.
UNSC 1267
Context: China blocked proposals by India and the United States to designate Pakistan-based terrorists on the UN Security Council’s 1267 list of terror entities.
Key Highlights:
- The listings for LeT founder Hafiz Saeed’s son Talha Saeed and Shahid Mehmood(Lashkar e Taiba (LeT) were made by India and the US jointly.
- Both are designated terrorists in India by the Home Ministry’s “UAPA” terror list and in the US Treasury’s list.
- Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC): India will host all members of the Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTC) of the UNSC, including China in Mumbai next week.
Reason given by China for holding:
- Inadequate information.
- Need some time to study these specific cases
Options India have:
- Build international consensus on cross-border terrorism: The UNSC terror listings have been one such route.
- Use platform of different international organizations: As India has pursued with Financial Action Task Force, where Pakistan was placed on a “grey list.
UNSC 1267 committee: It comprises all permanent and non-permanent members of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). The 1267 list of terrorists is a global list, with a UNSC stamp.
Procedure of Listing:
- Any member state can submit a proposal for listing an individual, group, or entity.
- The proposal must include acts or activities indicating the proposed individual/group/entity had participated “in the financing, planning, facilitating, preparing, or perpetrating of acts or activities” linked to “ISIL, Al-Qaida or any cell, affiliate, splinter group or derivative thereof”.
- Decisions on listing and delisting are adopted by consensus.
- Any member of the Committee may also put a “technical hold” on the proposal and ask for more information from the proposing member state.
National Credit Framework (NCrF)
Source: PIB
Context: Recently union minister of Education has launched a draft National Credit Framework for public consultations.
What is National Credit Framework
- It is an umbrella framework for skilling, re-skilling, up-skilling, accreditation and evaluation encompassing people in educational and skilling institutions and the workforce.
- It proposes to seamlessly integrate the credits earned through school education, higher education and vocational and skill education by encompassing the National Higher Education Qualification Framework (NHEQF), National Skills Qualification Framework (NSQF) and National School Education Qualification Framework (NSEQF).
- It also supports educational acceleration for students with gifted learning abilities and
- recognition of prior learning for the workforce that has acquired knowledge and skills informally through the traditional family inheritance, work experience or other methods.
Proposed Benefits:
HC takes tough stand on illegal coal mining
Source: The Hindu
Context: The High Court of Meghalaya has directed the State government to ensure “not an ounce of illegally-mined coal” is allowed to be transported in trucks or other vehicles.
- The NGT (National Green Tribunal, 2014) and the Supreme Court orders have been in place since 2016.
Coal mining in North-East
- Sixth schedule: Meghalaya is a tribal state where the 6th Schedule applies, all land is privately owned, and hence coal mining is done by private parties.
- The schedule does not explicitly refer to mining.
- Coal deposits: The sizable coal deposits in the state, mostly in the Jaintia Hills, occur in horizontal seams only a few feet high that run through the hills which is why rat-hole mining is practised instead of open cast mining.
- Cheaper labour: Most of the labour (including children) comes from Nepal, the poorer areas of Assam, and Bangladesh.
What is Rathole mining: it involves digging of very small tunnels, usually only 3-4 feet high, where workers (often children) enter and extract coal.
Why the ban:
- River pollution: Rathole mining has poisoned three rivers in the Jaintia hills: the Myntdu, Lunar and Lukha.
- Water pollution: Acid mine drainage from abandoned mines was a major cause for water pollution.
- Child Labour and Trafficking: Majority of the workers involved in ‘rat-hole’ mining are children because of their small anatomy that fits small mine tunnels.
- Health concerns: causes various diseases like fibrosis, pneumoconiosis and silicosis in workers as well as locals.
- Environmental concerns: loss of biodiversity and agricultural farmlands
WISER
Source: PIB
Context: Researchers were awarded under WISER (Women Involvement in Science and Engineering Research) programme, launched under Indo-German Science and Technology Centre (IGSTC)
Aim: It aims to build scientific capacity and support women researchers in India and Germany for R&D and industry projects. The programme is open to all areas of STEM.
Tamil Nadu launches mission to save critically endangered vultures
Source: The Hindu
Context: Acting on the centre’s National conservation plans for vultures 2020-25, Tamil Nadu Government formed a State-level Committee to set up an institutional framework for the effective conservation of vultures.
Vultures:
- Vulture fatalities were earlier reported after the species was exposed to the drug Diclofenac .
- Nature’s scavengers: Vultures play an extremely important role as nature’s scavengers, keeping the environment clean.
- They even eat bones. Even if it consumes anthrax [contaminated] carcass, it won’t get affected.
Vultures found in India
- In India, nine species of vultures are found, out of which four are under critically endangered lists of IUCN.
Mapping:
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