[Mission 2023] INSIGHTS DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS + PIB SUMMARY 31 December 2022

GS Paper 2

Syllabus: Government policies and Intervention

Source: Live Mint

Context: After liberalizing the use of geospatial data under the draft geospatial data policy in February 2021, the Ministry of Science and Technology has notified the National Geospatial Policy, 2022.

About the policy:

“The National Geospatial Policy, 2022 is a citizen-centric policy that seeks to strengthen the geospatial sector to support national development, economic prosperity and a thriving information economy

• Aim: The 13-year guideline promote the country’s geospatial data industry and develops a national framework to use such data for improving citizen services, and more.
• Themes: The policy has divided 14 Geospatial Data Themes to support the development of commercial geospatial applications in various sectors e.g., disaster management, mining, forestry etc.
• Technology Infrastructure:
  • Geospatial Knowledge Infrastructure (GKI):
    • The government will establish an Integrated Data and Information Framework by 2030 (to develop GKI)
    • The government will also establish National Digital Twin (for high-resolution topographical survey and mapping by 2035)
  • Institutional Infrastructure:
    • Geospatial Data Promotion and Development Committee(‘GDPDC’) will be constituted for formulating and implementing guidelines, strategies, and programs for the promotion of activities related to the Geospatial sector.
    • Will put in place a legal framework (by 2025) that supports the liberalization of the geospatial sector, and democratization of data for enhanced commercialization with value-added services.

Significance of the policy:

• Increased Coverage: Government has opened its geospatial data and services offered by government agencies, academic and research institutions, private organizations, NGOs, and individuals.
• No prior approval required: Government has removed the requirement for prior approval, security clearance, or other restrictions on the management of geospatial data
  • Self-Certification will be sufficient for adherence to the guidance
• Freehand at Processing of geospatial data: Anyone can process the acquired geospatial data, build new applications and solutions using it and use it for profit (except for defence or security-related data)
• Multi-dimensional Applications: E.g., economy, sustainable national development initiatives, Agriculture etc.
• Focus on ‘local’ relevance: The Policy recognizes the importance of locally available and locally relevant Maps and Geospatial Data
• Promoting Start-ups:The Policy enables and supports innovation, creation and incubation of ideas and start-up initiatives in the Geospatial sector
• Support India’s ‘Blue Economy’: By 2035, the policy will include mapping of sub-surface infrastructure in major cities and towns across India, and the development of accurate bathymetric geospatial data (resources and economy of inland waters, and sea surface topography of shallow and deep seas)

Applications of Geospatial data (in the Agriculture and Allied sector):

• Drive private participation and competitiveness in Agritech
• Wider Adoption of Precision farming: Precision farming combines the power of artificial intelligence (AI), Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS), and Big Data.
• Wider Adoption of Locational data: While the global positioning system (GPS) locates precise crop locations, the global information system (GIS) stores this data.
  • This data later helps in Crop scouting, Soil sampling, Weed location, accurate planting, and harvesting.
• Better crop forecasting: The previous restriction on geospatial data had limited use of remote sensing data maps such as NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index).
  • 4 Rs approach to reduce nutrient losses from farming systems (the Right Product, at the rightrate, at the right time, and at the right place)
• Better implementation of Government schemes such as PM Fasal Bima Yojana and ‘Per Drop more Crop’: Geospatial data will assist the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) segment to understand the risk better and underwrite loans and insurance products.
• Increased Landholding size: Along with the SWAMITVA scheme, the geospatial data will help in the pooling of lands by farmers. This will drive wider adoption of Commercial and Precision Farming in India
• Allow development of ecosystem markets:
  • g., the GIS nitrogen trading tool is used to assess the effects of the implementation of conservation practices on reductions in nitrate leaching and GHG emissions that could be traded in air and water quality markets

Allied sectors

• Fisheries: better geospatial data will drive more targeted and deeper fishing opportunities, thus helping in the economic upliftment of fishermen
  • It will help bridge the infrastructure gap as envisaged under PM Matsay Sampada Yojana
• Dairy: Geospatial data can help in better grazing grounds for cattle and their management
• Minor Forest Produce: Tribal collection of MFP and marketing of their products can be advanced using geolocation data in deep forests
  • g., MoEF & CC is using LiDAR technology to map out water requirements within the forest
  • Ridge-to-valley approach: It seeks to detain, divert, store and use available rainwater using geospatial data

Insta Links

Geospatial data policy liberalized

Mains Link

Q. Democratizing geospatial data will enable the rise of new technologies & platforms that will drive efficiencies in agriculture and allied sectors. Discuss (15M)

Q. What is Geo-Spatial data? Comment upon the present Policy on Geospatial Data in the country while emphasizing the liberalization aspect (10M)

Prelims Link:

1. What is geospatial data?
2. Applications.
3. Policy on geospatial data.
4. Recent changes.

GS Paper 2

Syllabus: Mechanisms, Laws, Institutions and Bodies constituted for the Protection and Betterment of these Vulnerable Sections

Source: TH

Direction: The article covers the salient features of the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

Context: The National Commission for Women (NCW) has asked all states to ensure that coaching centres and educational institutes strictly enforce the Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013.

The Commission has also asked:

• To conduct awareness programmes on the Act among all stakeholders in order to ensure that cases of sexual harassment at work are reported responsibly and effectively.
• To ensure that these coaching centres are registered with the relevant authorities and a background check is conducted on those responsible for running the centres.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace Act, 2013:

 Background:

• The Vishakha Guidelines were issued by the Supreme Court (in Vishakha and others v. The State of Rajasthan 1997) with the primary goal of creating a framework for workplace sexual misconduct redress and grievance processes.
• The Act of 2013 was motivated by these guidelines.

About the Act of 2013:

Objective: Its goal is to safeguard women’s rights at work and make the workplace a safer place for them. It also serves as a platform for both avoiding and addressing problems.

Provisions of the Act:

• It is applicable to all sectors including organised and unorganised sectors.
• It defines a workplace as an extended space by covering any place visited by an employee during the course of his or her employment which would include transportation, etc.
• Internal Complaint Committee (ICC): Any corporation or organisation with more than 10 employees to establish an ICC to hear and address sexual harassment allegations.
• Local Complaint Committee in each district where there are less than 10 workers.
• Duties of employer: The employer must disclose the legal repercussions of engaging in sexual harassment-related activities, as well as the composition of the ICC.
• Penalties: If an employer fails to comply with the regulations, a penalty of Rs. 50000 may be imposed, and the licence may be revoked.

Procedure to be followed:

• An aggrieved female has 3 months (according to the SC, this can be extended) to make a written complaint with the ICC.
• Before initiating an investigation, the committee can try to resolve the matter through mediation.
• While directing the investigation (to be completed in 90 days), the Committee has the same authority as a civil court and works as per the Natural justice principles.

Loopholes and issues in the law:

• Not a gender-neutral law.
• Legislation is very vague in respect of the ICC constitution (includes only personnel from the company itself).
• Necessary steps against malicious complaints would discourage women from coming forward.

Conclusion: A law as revolutionary as Sexual Harassment of Women in the Workplace will have huge social implications, if public awareness, sensitivity and robust implementation are ensured.

Insta Links:

Prevention of sexual harassment or POSH Act

Mains Links:

Q. “Though women in post-Independent India have excelled in various fields, the social attitude towards women and the feminist movement has been patriarchal.” Apart from women’s education and women empowerment schemes, what interventions can help change this milieu?” (UPSC 2021)

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and Effects in Everyday Life

Source: TH

 Direction: The article tries to explain cloud computing, its significance for India and the way ahead to promote the cloud computing ecosystem in India.

Context: AWS or Amazon Web Services, one of India’s largest providers of cloud-based services, has provided start-up credits that allow aspirant startups to use a suite of services from computing, storage and hosting for free.

Background:

• India has the world’s third-largest startup Over the last 5 years, the number of registered startups in India has grown from 452 in 2016 to 84,012.
• While startups in India span a variety of industries from financial tech, gaming and health tech, several are based in the cloud – the servers and data storage accessible via the internet.
• Data-storage companies are offering a slew of incentives to draw and retain these cloud-based start-ups on their platforms.

What is cloud computing? It is the on-demand delivery of IT resources (computing power, storage, and databases) over the Internet with pay-as-you-go (pay for a service before you use it) pricing, from a cloud provider like AWS.

Who is using cloud computing? Organisations of every type, size, and industry are using the cloud for a wide variety of use cases. For example, video game makers are using the cloud to deliver online games to millions of players around the world.

Types of cloud computing: The three main types of cloud computing include Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), Platform as a Service (PaaS), and Software as a Service (SaaS).

Benefits of cloud computing:

• Agility: The cloud gives one easy access to a broad range of technologies so that one can innovate faster and build nearly anything that one can imagine.
• Elasticity: With cloud computing, one doesn’t have to over-provision resources upfront to handle peak levels of business activity in the future.
• Cost savings
• Deploy globally in minutes

Cloud services and their importance in India:

Potential: The cloud computing market in India is predicted to develop at a rate of 28.1% between now and 2027.

 Promoting e-governance:

• Cloud computing can further the motive of e-governance – service delivery, transparency, citizen awareness and grievance redressal, by providing a faster, easier and cost-effective platform that can be used by multiple government agencies.
• “GI Cloud” – ‘Meghraj’, by the Government of India to harness the benefits of cloud computing.
  • The focus of this initiative is to accelerate the delivery of e-services in the country while optimising ICT spending of the Government.

Promoting startup ecosystem:

• An increasing number of small and medium-sized businesses in India are rapidly shifting towards cloud computing which is emerging as the major driving factor for the marke
• As cloud services can simulate experiments on the cloud, run tests, and learn from failed attempts, it has helped “compress” the lifecycle of a startup, allowing them to become more innovative.
  • For example, HealthifyMe, which developed an app called ‘Vaccinate Me,’ allowed feature phones to book close to 50 million vaccination appointments.
• Cloud services are increasingly connecting to start-ups located in tier 2 and 3 cities providing training to even those with minimal education in cloud computing skills.

Conclusion: The way ahead lies in taking due care of security, interoperability, licensing, reducing the digital divide, etc, to promote the cloud computing ecosystem in India.

Insta Links: Cloud Computing

Mains Links:

Q. Discuss the advantage and security implications of cloud hosting of servers vis-a-vis in-house machine-based hosting for government businesses. (UPSC 2015)

Prelims Links

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Science and Technology- Developments and their Applications and Effects in Everyday Life

Source: IE

Direction: The article highlights new technological breakthroughs that await in 2023 and the opportunities and challenges they pose. The article also covers a study that points out the adverse impact of social media.

Context:

• Around the same time last year (December 2021), India was on the verge of a major technological shift – the transition to 5G.
• Because the year 2022 has only reinforced our reliance on technology, we will try to figure out what big tech breakthrough awaits us in 2023.

Trends to look out for in 2023:

More intelligent, more pervasive AI

• ChatGPT has shown the world that conversational artificial intelligence (AI) is an idea whose time has come.
• ChatGPT (Generative Pre-trained Transformer) is an OpenAI chatbot that was released in November 2022.
• It is based on top of OpenAI’s GPT-3.5 family of large language models and is customised using both guided and adaptive learning techniques.

Fig: Application of ChatGPT for classifying reviews

Time for post-social:

• As Facebook’s user base becomes older by the year, younger users are preferring new platforms like Discord, where conversations happen more in closed groups than in virtual town squares.
• The evolution of such platforms is already challenging traditional methods of monetising social media engagement.

Internet becoming more regional:

• As the Internet spreads to new users, especially in countries like India, it is also becoming more localised and multilingual.
• The English language internet appears to have peaked around the world, prompting companies like Google to focus more on the potential to serve smaller, regional languages.
• Provides an opportunity to test new technologies that can solve more localised problems and the one-size-fits-all features will be limited.

Metaverse:

• The Metaverse is defined as a spatial computing platform that offers digital experiences as an alternative to or replica of the real world.
• It also offers key civilizational aspects such as social interactions, currency, trade, economy, and property ownership – all built on the foundation of blockchain technology.
• Expect a more commercial version of the Metaverse to be accessible to regular users during the year. However, the big disruptor could be an affordable device (say, a smartphone) that logs users into the Metaverse easily.

Insta Links: Metaverse

Mains Links:

Q. COVID-19 pandemic has caused unprecedented devastation worldwide. However, technological advancements are being availed readily to win over the crisis. Give an account of how technology was sought to aid the management of the pandemic. (UPSC 2020)

GS Paper 4

Source: The Hindu

Context: The President of India, Smt Droupadi Murmu addressed the probationers of the 74th Batch of the Indian Police Service at the Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel National Police Academy, Hyderabad.

Policing is essential for maintaining law and order and the smooth functioning of society. The absence of a professional code of ethics creates a scenario where it is easy to be a moral opportunist and use unethical conduct as a means of career advancement.

President’s note:

• The police are the most visible organ of the government.
• The quality of their leadership would determine the effectiveness and morale of the force led by them. She advised them to keep in mind and demonstrate through action, the five fundamental attributes of Integrity, Impartiality, Courage, Competence and Sensitivity.
• Police officers are going to play the role of change agents in India’s achieving greater prosperity while ensuring sustainable development, especially inclusion.
• Nari Shakti has to play a major role in achieving the targets we have set for ourselves during the ‘Amrit Kaal’. A truly ‘Atmanirbhar Bharat’, pre-supposes ‘Atmanirbhar Nari’.

Why Police Ethics are different?

• Life and liberty are fundamental moral values. While making any moral decisions, the police have to consider a complex array of conditions. For any action taken by a person, they have to see the motivation and intentions of the action and its consequences. They have to do their jobs in accordance with the laws that are in place at that time,
• Police may be required to face danger or hostility in order to do their duty; police officers are likely to experience a range of emotions including fear, anger, suspicion, excitement, and boredom largely than people in other occupations. To act effectively as police, they must be able to respond to these emotions in the right way, which requires them to be emotionally intelligent.

Insta Links:

Indian Police and Ethics

Mains Link:

Q. Discuss some of the ethical issues surrounding a modern police job. (250 words)