[Mission 2023] INSIGHTS DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS + PIB SUMMARY 20 December 2022

GS Paper 2

Syllabus: Issues Relating to Development and Management of Social Sector/Services relating to Education

Source: Economic Times, Indian Express

Context: Following the pandemic, attendance of students in Jharkhand schools dropped to 58 per cent at the upper primary level and 68 per cent at the primary level, according to a survey ‘Gloom in the Classroom: The Schooling Crisis in Jharkhand’ conducted by Gyan Vigyan Samiti Jharkhand.

The report, prepared by economist Jean Dreze and researcher Paran Amitava slammed “decades of state apathy” towards education in the state and said it was “both a mistake and an injustice”.

Key findings of the report:

• The survey showed that underprivileged and tribal children were left abandoned by the Education Department.
• Out of the 138 schools surveyed for the report, 20 per cent had a single teacher.
• At 55 per cent, para-teachers (teachers who are not qualified to teach) accounted for the majority of teachers at the primary level in these schools. At the upper-primary level, the figure was 37 per cent.
• Not one of the schools surveyed had a functional toilet, electricity, or water supply.
• Around 66 per cent of the primary schools had no boundary wall, 64 per cent did not have a playground and 37 per cent had no library books.
• The majority of the teachers said that the school did not have adequate funds for the midday meals

Issues prevailing in the Education sector:

• Inadequate government Funding: The country spent 3% of its total GDP on education in 2018-19 according to the Economic Survey.
• Pandemic impact
• Digital Divide
• Quality of Education: Only 16% of children in Class 1 can read the text at the prescribed level, while almost 40% cannot even recognize letters.
• Lack of infrastructure
• Inadequate teachers and their training
• Huge dropout numbers

Way Forward

• Experiential Learning Approach
• Implementation of National Education Policy
• Education-Employment Corridor
• Reducing the Language Barrier

Some Government Initiatives Related to Educational Reforms:

• Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan
• Mid-Day Meal Scheme
• Beti Bachao Beti Padhao
• PM SHRI Schools

Insta Links:

Initiatives to boost Education Sector

Mains Link: UPSC 2016

Q. Professor Amartya Sen has advocated important reforms in the realms of primary education and primary health care. What are your suggestions to improve their status and performance?

Prelims Link: UPSC 2012

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Environment and Conservation

Source: DTE

 Direction: The article discusses key areas agreed upon at COP 15, concerns and India’s stance on the GBF.

 Context: Will biodiversity see a ‘Paris moment,’ remains a question, as the COP15 to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Montreal, Canada, ended with limited success.

Background:

• At COP 15, the members were supposed to provide political direction and momentum to the final stages of the negotiations on the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF).
  • Once agreed unanimously by all 195 countries under the CBD, the GBF will be signed as a worldwide accord to implement concrete measures under 23 set targets by 2030.
  • Targets that are not recognized by one or more nations will be excluded from the Framework.
• GBF is a new draft of the UN CBD to lead actions worldwide through 2030, to avoid biodiversity loss and preserve the environment.
• Its suggested goals include lowering pesticide use by at least two-thirds and eliminating the most harmful subsidies, such as those for fisheries and agriculture.
• The GBF’s 30×30 objective is to safeguard at least 30% of the earth, particularly places of importance – land and water – for biodiversity, by 2030.

Some of the key areas agreed upon at the COP15: 

Conservation, protection and restoration:

• Delegates committed to protecting 30% of land and 30% of coastal and marine areas by 2030, fulfilling the deal’s highest-profile goal, known as 30-by-30.
• This will prevent species losses and bring them close to zero by 2030.

Money for nature:

• Signatories aim to ensure $200 billion per year is channelled to conservation initiatives, from public and private sources.
• Wealthier countries should contribute at least $20 billion of this every year by 2025, and at least $30 billion a year by 2030.

Big companies report impacts on biodiversity:

• The parties agreed to large companies and financial institutions being subject to requirements to make disclosures regarding their operations, to promote biodiversity, reduce the risks posed by/to businesses and encourage sustainable production.

Harmful subsidies: Countries committed to identifying subsidies that deplete biodiversity by 2025, and then eliminate, phase out or reform them.

Pollution and pesticides:

• The final language focuses on the risks associated with pesticides and highly hazardous chemicals and will focus on reducing the negative impacts of pollution to levels that are not considered harmful to nature.

Monitoring and reporting progress:

• All the agreed aims will be supported by methods to monitor progress in the future, in a bid to prevent this agreement from meeting the same fate as the Aichi targets of 2010.
• National action plans will be set and reviewed, following a similar format used for GHG emissions under U.N-led efforts to curb climate change.

Concerns:

• The text provides no quantifiable target.
• On pesticides, the text missed highlighting the reduction target and other forms of pest management.
• Some observers objected to the lack of a deadline for countries to submit national plans.
• According to civil society groups, GBF is turning out to be a “Global Biodiversity Fraud” or a “Global Biodiversity Funeral.”

India’s stance on the GBF:

• The GBF should be framed in terms of science and equity.
• The notion of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities (CBDR-RC) must also apply to biodiversity.
• The necessary assistance to vulnerable groups cannot be considered subsidies and may be rationalised.
• A quantifiable worldwide pesticide reduction target is unnecessary and should be left up to individual governments to determine.
• Without sufficient scientific evidence, the stated numerical target for coping with the impacts of invasive alien species on native biodiversity is not possible.

Conclusion:

• Nature-based solutions to global warming and other environmental concerns will not be effective until developed countries take decisive action to meet their historical and current responsibilities.
• Sustainable use and access and benefit sharing are vital to promoting biodiversity, complementing the efforts to conserve, protect and restore.

Insta Links:

UNCCD Conference of Parties (COP 15)

Mains Links:

Q. Describe the major outcomes of the 26th session of the Conference of the Parties (COP) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). What are the commitments made by India at this conference? (UPSC 2021)

Prelims Links: (UPSC 2020)

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Environment and Conservation

Source: TH 

Direction: The article tries to explain carbon markets, their types, significance and challenges to carbon markets. For details about the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, kindly visit this page.

 Context: The Parliament passed the Energy Conservation (Amendment) Bill, 2022, declining the Opposition’s demands to send it for scrutiny to a parliamentary committee amid concerns expressed by members over carbon markets.

Background:

• The Bill amends the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, to empower the Government to establish carbon markets in India and specify a carbon credit trading scheme.
• In order to keep global warming within 2°C, global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions need to be reduced by 25 to 50% by 2030.
• Nearly 170 countries have submitted their nationally determined contributions (NDCs are targeting to achieve net-zero emissions) under the 2015 Paris Agreement, which have to be updated every 5 years.
• In order to meet their NDCs, one mitigation strategy is becoming popular with several countries – carbon markets. The Paris Agreement provides for the use of international carbon markets (yet to kick off) by countries to fulfil their NDCs.
• In the past, developing countries, particularly India, China and Brazil, gained significantly from a similar carbon market under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of the Kyoto Protocol, 1997.

What are carbon markets?

• They are essentially a tool for putting a price on carbon emissions and establishing trading systems where carbon credits or allowances can be bought and sold.
• A carbon credit is a kind of tradable permit that equals (as per the UN) one tonne of carbon dioxide removed, reduced or sequestered from the atmosphere.
• Carbon allowances or caps are determined by countries or governments according to their emission reduction targets.

Types of carbon markets:

• Voluntary markets: These markets are those in which emitters (corporations, private individuals, etc) buy carbon credits to offset the emission of one tonne of CO2 or equivalent GHGs.
  • Such carbon credits are created by activities which reduce CO2 from the air, such as afforestation.
• Compliance markets (cap and trade): These are set up by policies (means officially regulated) at the national, regional, and/or international levels.
  • Entities in this sector are issued annual allowances or permits by governments equal to the emissions they can generate.
  • If companies produce emissions beyond the capped amount, they have to purchase additional permits, either through official auctions or from companies which emit below the limit.
  • Through this kind of carbon trading, companies can decide if it is more cost-efficient to employ clean energy technologies or to purchase additional allowances.
  • Today, compliance markets are most popular in the EU and China launched the world’s largest emission trading system (ETS) in 2021.

Significance of these markets: They may –

• Promote the reduction of energy use
• Encourage the shift to cleaner fuels
• Reduce the cost of implementing NDCs (WB – By $250 billion by 2030)

Challenges to carbon markets:

• Double counting of GHG reductions
• Quality and authenticity of climate projects that generate credits
• Poor market transparency
• There are also concerns about greenwashing – companies may buy credits to offset their carbon footprints rather than reducing overall emissions or investing in clean technologies.

Conclusion: For carbon markets to be successful, emission reductions and removals must be real and aligned with the country’s NDCs and there must be transparency in the institutional and financial infrastructure for carbon market transactions.

Insta Links:

Bill to amend energy conservation act introduced in RS

Mains Links:

Q. “Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy is the sine qua non to achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)”. Comment on the progress made in India in this regard. (UPSC 2018)

GS Paper 4

Syllabus: Moral Thinkers

Source: Deccan Herald, The Hindu

Context: There have been many studies on Dr B.R. Ambedkar’s conceptualization of democracy, predominantly explained through the lens of social, political, and economic philosophies.

• Ambedkar’s last work, The Buddha and His Dhamma shed light on how he understood democracy as a concept that affected every aspect of human life; it was essentially a way of life.
• Ambedkar’s moral principles were rooted in Buddhist philosophies, he was also critical of extreme individualism that was a possible outcome of Buddhism, as such characteristics failed to engage in activism that challenged social order. Thus, he believed that there needed to be a balance between individualism and fraternity for a harmonious society.
• Ambedkar gave utmost importance to practicality. For him, concepts and theories needed to be tested as they were supposed to be practised in society. He used rationality and critical reasoning to analyze any subject matter, because he believed that a subject must first pass the test of rationality, failing which, it must be rejected, altered, or modified.

Types of morality according to Ambedkar:

Ambedkar divides morality into social morality and constitutional morality.

• Social morality was built through interaction and such interaction was based on the mutual recognition of human beings.
• Social morality was based on equality among human beings and a recognition of respect.
• Constitutional morality for Ambedkar was a prerequisite to maintaining a system of democracy in a country. 

Ambedkar’s concept of moral democracy must also be studied through the lenses of particularism (a political theory where one group promotes its own interests without regard to the interests of larger groups) and universality (a theory that some ideas have universal application or applicability).

Ethics perspective of morality:

Humans tend to rate themselves more highly than other people not just on factors like intelligence and friendliness, but also ironically, on modesty.

This is the “self-enhancement effect”, and it holds true for several parameters.

• Believing ourselves to be more moral than other people is problematic for more than one reason — the first, and most obvious, is that it is irrational to believe so, and can cause us to look down upon people who act differently than we do, either due to circumstance or by choice.
• Second, and perhaps even more troubling, is that believing oneself to be morally superior leads to a phenomenon known as moral licensing. This is when somebody acts morally and then relaxes their moral standards and allows themselves to act unethically in other circumstances.
• This moral licensing plays out in our lives in small ways every day. I might feel less guilty indulging in a big serving of chocolate cake post-dinner if I ate a salad for lunch. I might also feel justified liberally using environmentally unfriendly paper towels to clean my kitchen simply because I drive an electric car.

Insta Links:

Morality and Sources of Morality

Mains Link: UPSC 2019

Q. What is meant by the term ‘constitutional morality’? How does one uphold constitutional morality?