[Mission 2023] INSIGHTS DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS + PIB SUMMARY 7 February 2023

GS1/GS3

Syllabus: Disaster Management

Source: The Hindu, Indian Express

 Context: Three earthquakes measuring — 7.8, 7.6, and 6.0 — magnitude on the Richter scale have devastated Turkey and Syria, while impacting regions as far away as Cyprus, Lebanon, Israel, and Egypt.

Turkey has announced a Level 4 alert calling for international aid; U.S., European Union, Russia, and Azerbaijan have reportedly dispatched aid.

 Why is Turkey prone to Earthquakes?

• In the region of Turkey, Syria, and Jordan, tectonics are dominated by complex interactions between the African, Arabian, and Eurasian tectonic plates, and the Anatolian tectonic block.
• Other factors:
  • Red Sea Rift, the spreading centre between the African and Arabian plates;
  • Dead Sea Transform, a major strike-slip fault that also accommodates Africa-Arabia relative motions;
  • North Anatolia Fault, a right-lateral strike-slip structure in northern Turkey accommodating much of the translational motion of the Anatolia block westwards with respect to Eurasia and Africa;
  • Cyprian Arc, a convergent boundary between the African plate and the Anatolia block.

What are aftershocks and why do they occur?

• Aftershocks are a sequence of earthquakes that happen after a larger main shock on a fault. They occur near the fault zone where the main shock rupture occurred and are part of the “readjustment process” after the main slip on the fault.
• While they become less frequent with time, they can continue for days, weeks, months, or even years for a very large main shock.

Insta Links:

Earthquakes in India

Mains Link:

Q. Discuss about the vulnerability of India to earthquake-related hazards. Give examples including the salient features of major disasters caused by earthquakes in different parts of India during the last three decades. – UPSC 2021

Q. The frequency of earthquakes appears to have increased in the Indian subcontinent. However, India’s preparedness for mitigating its impact has significant gaps. Discuss various aspects. – UPSC 2015

Prelim Links

GS Paper 1

Syllabus: Population and Associated Issues

Source: TH

 Direction:  This is from ‘The Hindu Podcast’, it discusses the advantages and disadvantages of India becoming the world’s most populous nation in 2023.

Context: 2023 is set to be a landmark year for India’s population trajectory, as the country is predicted to overtake China to become the world’s most populous nation.

Background:

• According to the UN World Population Prospects 2022, India is projected to overtake China as the world’s most populous country in
• India’s population stands at 412 billion in 2022 and is projected to have a population of 1.668 billion in 2050.
• India is expected to reach 1,428.6 million in 2023. On the other hand, China’s population fell to 1,411.8 million in 2022 (from 1,412.6 million in 2021).

Implications for India:

Way ahead:

• India must shift its lens from ‘population control’ to ‘population development’.
• For this, India must frame policies and strategies to effectively unleash the full potential of its young people.

Conclusion: India is not fully utilizing its demographic dividend, which refers to the economic advantage of having a large working-age population. To fully reap the benefits, India must create high-quality jobs and equip its young, skilled workforce to fill them.

Insta Links:

China’s population drops for the first time in 60 years: How this happened, road ahead

The Population Paradox

GS Paper 2

 Syllabus: Constitutional and Statutory bodies

Source: TH, TH

Context: Data from the Ministry of Tribal Affairs (MoTA) revealed that the National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST) is currently functioning with less than 50% of its sanctioned strength

Issues with the staffing in the commission:

• The sanctioned strength of the ST panel is one Chairperson+ one Vice-Chairperson+ three Members= total of Five members (two among V-C and Members must be from the ST community and one member must be a woman).
  • However, currently, it just has a Chairperson (Harsh Chouhan) and one Member (Ananta Nayak) with all other positions, including that of the mandatory ST Member, vacant for the last three years
• Posts under Group A, B and C: Against total sanctioned posts of 124; 70 posts are vacant
  • Among the group A posts: Sanctioned posts of one Superintendent of Police, one Law Officer and one Accounts Officer are vacant since 2004.
    • While Group A posts in the NCST are filled by the Ministry, Groups B and C posts are the NCST’s responsibility
  • The recruitment rules for the posts are yet to be framed
• Posts of Research Officers, Investigators and Directors are vacant
• Lack of applicants: The Ministry claimed that the eligibility bar was set too high for the entry of applicants

Other concerns:

• Fewer meetings: In the financial year 2021-22, it has met only four times.
• High rate of pendency of cases: Its rate of pendency of resolution of complaints and cases that it receives is also close to 50%

About NCST:

NCST is a constitutional body set up by amending Article 338 and by inserting a new article 338A in the Constitution (89th Constitution Amendment Act, 2003) in 2004.

Erstwhile National Commission for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes was replaced by two separate Commissions namely:

• The National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC)
• The National Commission for Scheduled Tribes (NCST)

For Composition, power, and Reporting: Click on this link

For the process of inclusion or exclusion from the Scheduled Tribes list: Click on this link

About Scheduled Tribes:

Schedule tribes are termed “backward tribes” living in the “Excluded” and “Partially Excluded” areas (as per Census-1931).

• Article 366of the Constitution only provides a process to define Scheduled Tribes: Tribal communities as are deemed under Article 342
• 342(1): The President may specify the tribe as Scheduled Tribe in relation to that State or Union Territory.
• Among the 700 tribes notified, the largest number of tribal communities (62) are found in Odisha and no Tribe was identified in Haryana, Punjab, Chandigarh, Delhi, and Pondicherry.

Few Related Committees

• Lokur Committee (1965): It set the criteria for defining Schedule Tribes
• Bhuria Commission (2002-2004): It focused on issues such as the 5th Schedule to tribal land, forests, health and education, the working of Panchayats and the status of tribal women.
• Xaxa Committee (2013): To study 5 critical issues related to tribal communities: (1) livelihood and employment, (2) education, (3) health, (4) involuntary displacement and migration, (5) and legal and constitutional matters.

Initiatives taken:

Eklavya Model Schools, TRIFED, Pradhan Mantri Van Dhan Yojana

Development of PVTGs, Pradhan Mantri PVTG Development Mission (announced in the recent budget) (check yesterday’s CA FFP)

Insta Links

NCST

Mains Links

Q. What are the two major legal initiatives by the State since Independence addressing discrimination against Scheduled Tribes (STs)? (UPSC 2017)

Prelims Links:

GS Paper 2

Syllabus: Health and related issues

Source: IE

 Direction: The article highlights the drug menace in India, its impact and steps taken by the government of India.

Context: In 2022, Kerala saw a high increase in cases involving drugs, liquor, and prohibited tobacco items, suggesting that drugs have become a new problem for the state.

Background:

• Data show that the police registered 26,629 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in 2022 – a jump of over 300% when compared to 2016.
• While there was a fall in the quantity of ganja seized in 2022 over the previous year, seizures of heroin, charas and hashish have gone up.
• Bengaluru and Goa remain major hubs from where the drugs are sourced and cannabis is the main drug used by teenagers.
• The steady rise in drug-related cases in Kerala is a factor of both strict enforcement and raids and easier access to contraband.
• Youngsters are now aware of the availability of synthetic/recreational drugs (MDMA and LSD). There is also peer pressure to explore these drugs.

Scale of the Drug Addiction problem in India:

• The UNODC’s World Drug Report 2022 estimates that around 284 million people use drugs worldwide.
• The report also claims India is one of the world’s single-largest opiate markets and most addicts are between the age group of 15 and 35 and many are unemployed.
• More than 60% of all illicit drugs seized in India are from Punjab.

Impact on individual, economy, society and national security:

• Drug addiction poses a high risk of unintentional injuries, accidents, domestic violence incidents, medical problems and death.
• Impacts on Mental Health: Drug dependence leads to low self-esteem, and hopelessness and can lead to criminal activities/law and order challenges and even suicidal tendencies.
• Drug abusers’ economic potential gets severely impacted. For example, they fail to become part of the workforce.
• Money earned from the illegal drug trade is used to aid terrorist organisations, which threatens the defence and security of many countries.

Measures taken by the government:

• The NDPS Act, 1985: Under the act, the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) was constituted in 1986 with the prime responsibility of fighting drug trafficking and drug abuse.
• Nasha Mukt Bharat Abhiyaan (NMBA): In 2020, the Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment launched NMBA in 272 most vulnerable districts of India to address the problem.
• The MoSJ&E has begun the implementation of a National Action Plan for Drug Demand Reduction (NAPDDR) for 2018-2025.
• The government constituted the Narco-Coordination Centre (NCORD) in 2016.
• The government has constituted a fund called the “National Fund for Control of Drug Abuse” to meet the expenditure incurred in combating illicit traffic in Narcotic Drugs, rehabilitating addicts, educating the public against drug abuse, etc.

Best Practice: 

The Portuguese model:

• In 2001, Portugal became the first country in the world to decriminalise the possession and use of all illegal drugs.
• Instead of sending people to court for drug possession, its model focuses on education, treatment and harm reduction.

Operation “Gear Box” was started by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) to combat the smuggling of heroin by detecting the hidden drugs in the gearboxes.

Insta Links:

• The ‘war on drugs’
• Spurious Drug Menace

 Mains Links:

Q. India’s proximity to two of the world’s biggest illicit opium-growing states has enhanced her internal security concerns. Explain the linkages between drug trafficking and other illicit activities such as gunrunning, money laundering and human trafficking. What countermeasures should be taken to prevent the same? (UPSC 2018)

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation

Source: DTE

 Direction: The article highlights that groundwater in the Ganga basin has been declining. The article includes a best practice (infographics) of groundwater conservation in India.

Context:

• According to new estimates, groundwater storage levels have been declining by 2.6 centimetres per year in the Ganga basin.
• The impacts were more pronounced in Rajasthan, Haryana and Delhi, with average storage declines of roughly 14 cm/year, 1, 7.5 cm/year and 7.2 cm year−1, respectively.

Background:

• A recent Central Groundwater Board yearbook, which monitors groundwater levels four times a year, found that the water levels in 2021-2022 rose compared to the 2011-2020 average.
• The Brahmaputra basin, which was not a part of the study, shows more groundwater level reduction than the Ganga and Indus basins.

Findings of the study:

• The Ganga Basin’s aquifers are one of the largest reservoirs of groundwater in the world.
• Researchers used three different methods to study long-term groundwater storage across six states.
  • Data between 1996 and 2017 from the Central Groundwater Board.
  • Data from the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) – satellites launched in 2002 to assess Earth’s water reservoirs over land, ice and ocean.
  • A model to study groundwater dynamics and storage
• All three analyses depicted that groundwater in the Ganga basin is declining. The new study included western Delhi, Haryana and Rajasthan under the Ganga basin.
• Rajasthan, whose groundwater reserves contribute about 90% of the drinking water and 60% of the irrigation, is showing an improvement in groundwater levels in the recent past.

Impacted Regions:

• Agriculturally intensive regions and urban areas (like Delhi and Agra) took the biggest hit.
• Delhi and Haryana have high groundwater abstraction rates (Groundwater abstraction refers to the process of removing water from underground aquifers for various purposes such as irrigation, drinking water supply, industrial use, or for recharging depleted aquifers.)

Reasons highlighted by the WMO’s – first State of Global Water Resources 2021:

• The worsening impact of climate change/global warming – more water flowing in the river channels due to glacial melt, however, total water storage declined in 2021.
• Over-abstraction of groundwater for irrigation.

Insta Links:

• UN Groundwater Summit 2022 to help raise awareness on aquifer protection, sustainable use
• Dynamic Ground Water Resource Assessment 2022 Report

Mains Links:

Q. What are the salient features of the Jal Shakti Abhiyan launched by the Government of India for water conservation and water security? (UPSC 2020)

GS Paper 4

 Syllabus: Ethics/ Science and Technology

Source: TH

Context:  Recently several users of ElevenLabs (“speech synthesis” and “voice cloning” service provider) made voice deepfakes of celebrities like Emma Watson, Joe Rogan, and Ben Shapiro.

• Those deepfake audios made racist, abusive, and violent comments without consent.

Ethical concerns related to the use of voice deepfakes:

• Deception: Using false or misleading audio recordings
• Privacy invasion: Making deepfake voices to impersonate others without their consent
• Damage to reputation and credibility
• Lack of regulation: Currently no law regulates it
• Impact on public trust: It may lead to misinformation.
• Discriminatory uses: It can be used to create fake recordings of marginalized communities, amplifying harmful stereotypes and perpetuating discrimination.

Other Concerns:

• Cases of defrauding users:g. In 2020, a manager from a bank in the U.A.E., received a phone call from someone he believed was a company director to transfer $35 million.
• Identity Theft: Morgan Neville’s documentary film on the well-known late chef Anthony Bourdain used voice-cloning software to make Bourdain say words he never spoke. This sparked criticism.
• Phone scams
• Posting fake videos on social media platforms: To blackmail the target

To know about what countries are doing and what should be the solution for deepfakes: Refer to our last month’s article on deepfakes

Insta Links:

Countering Deepfakes

Mains Links:

Q. Use of the internet and social media by non-state actors for subversive activities is a major security concern. How have these been misused in the recent past? Suggest effective guidelines to curb the above threat. (UPSC 2016)