[Mission 2023] INSIGHTS DAILY CURRENT AFFAIRS + PIB SUMMARY 10 March 2023

GS Paper 2

Syllabus: Social Justice (Issues related to women)

Source: TH

Context: A recent analysis (in The Lancet) has concluded that India is not on-target to achieve 19 of the 33 SDGs indicators.

Background:

• The SDGs were adopted by the UN in 2015 with a vision to achieve a better and more sustainable future for all.
• India is one of the signatory countries that has committed to achieving these goals by 2030.

Achievements: The 5 indicators with the highest number of districts that have met the target area –

• Adolescent pregnancy
• Multidimensional poverty
• Electricity access
• Bank accounts
• Improved sanitation
• Full vaccination
• Internet use
• Skilled birth attendants

The critical off-target indicators:

• Access to basic services
• Wasting and overweight children
• Anaemia
• Child marriage
• Domestic violence
• Tobacco use
• Modern contraceptive use

Worst performer: More than 75% of the 707 districts analysed were off-target, concentrated in the States of MP, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Bihar, and Odisha

Focus areas of 2023 International Women’s Day (March 8):

• The 2023 IWD was commemorated under the theme “DigitALL: Innovation and technology for gender equality”.
• However, women’s lack of access to technology and digital tools makes them less likely to be a part of the wider domains of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields.
• Globally, 18% of girls in higher-level education are pursuing STEM studies, compared with 35% of boys.

Case of India – The gender gap in STEM:

• According to the All India Survey of Higher Education (2020-2021), in UG, PG, MPhil and PhD engineering programmes, 71% of enrolled students were males and 29% were females.
• But of all students enrolled in science courses at UG, PG, MPhil and PhD levels, women at 53% of enrolment outnumbered men.

Why does the gap exist?

• Presence of existing resources such as mentors and programmes offering scholarships
• General societal attitudes on women’s education
• Gender bias in curricula. In India, more than 50% of illustrations in math and science textbooks show boys and only 6% show illustrations of girls.

Recent initiatives/achievements by/of the GoI:

• To mark the IWD 2023, the Union Ministry of Science & Technology announced an exclusive women’s portal for research grants and funds under CSIR-ASPIRE.
• 68% of 2 crore PM Awas-Gramin beneficiaries are women and over 23 crore MUDRA loans have been granted to women beneficiaries.
• For the first time, sex ratio in India has improved to 1,020 women per 1,000 men (NFHS-5).
• Permanent Commission for Women in the Armed Forces. Over 10,000 Women Officers are currently serving in the Armed Forces, the majority in the Medical Services.
• Group Captain Shaliza Dhami – the first woman officer to command a missile squadron in the Western sector facing Pakistan.

Insta Links:

Different faces of the Indian women’s movement

Mains Links:

Discuss the desirability of greater representation to women in the higher judiciary to ensure diversity, equity and inclusiveness. (UPSC 2021)

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc

Source: TH

Context: The Union Budget 2023 has doubled the PM Gati Shakti National Master Plan to States to ₹10,000 crores, and has announced an outlay of ₹2.4 lakh crore for the Indian Railways.

Why is the increased adoption of the railways crucial?

• The Railways → pan-India network → offers an efficient and economic mode of logistics movement → enabling a coordinated and integrated logistics system.
• To improve India’s logistics competitiveness.
  • In 2020-21, coal constituted 44% of the total freight movement of 1.2 billion tonnes, followed by iron ore (13%), cement, food grains, fertilisers, etc.
  • Transportation of non-bulk commodities accounts for a very small share of the rail freight movement.

Challenges faced by Indian railways:

• The national transporter faces several infrastructural, operational and connectivity challenges, in turn leading to a shift of freight traffic to roads (65%).
• The effect is an increased burden on roads, congestion, pollution, and resultant logistics cost escalations (nearly twice the rail cost).
• An increase in containerised traffic (for non-bulk commodities) over the last decade.
• The absence of integrated first and last-mile connectivity by rail increases the chances of damage due to multiple handling and also increases the inventory holding cost.

Global examples:

• Globally, railway systems are heavily investing in advanced rail infrastructure for quick and low-cost container movement.
• For example, China uses special trains to carry containers that connect significant ports to the inland.

Role to be played by the PM Gati Shakti:

• It provides the right platform to address the infrastructural challenges that have hampered the movement of freight by rail.
• Target – Increasing the share of the railways in freight movement from 27% to 45% (from 1.2 to 3.3 billion tonnes) by 2030.

Way ahead to achieve the targets of rail freight movement:

• Continuous monitoring of existing projects (like PM Gati Shakti) along with identification of new priority areas.
• Improve infrastructure that is backed by adequate policy tools and also encourage private participation.
• For example, the upcoming Dedicated Freight Corridors and multimodal logistics parks will ease the oversaturated line capacity and improve the train timings.
• Establishing a special entity under the railways to handle intermodal logistics will help in addressing the first and last-mile issues faced by the railways.

Conclusion: An integrated logistics infrastructure with first and last-mile connectivity is essential to make rail movement competitive with roads, and facilitate exports by rail to neighbouring countries such as Nepal and Bangladesh.

GS Paper 3

Source: DTE

Context:  A new study published in the journal Nature Communications has warned of the potential consequences of gene editing technology, which is still not fully understood.

Key findings:

• Using Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats (CRISPR) to delete harmful disease-causing mutations could create more problems
  • CRISPR could lead to extensive gene copying from one parent to another, potentially increasing the risk of diseases
• The extent of the DNA damage induced by CRISPR and how cells respond to it is still not fully known
• The technology used to test gene-edited embryos could reduce the accuracy of genetic testing, leading to the misdiagnosis of embryos.
• The researchers concluded that such limitations must be addressed before gene editing technology can be used.

Previously, a Chinese scientist who announced the birth of gene-edited twins in 2018, had used CRISPR to make the embryos resistant to the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

About Gene-editing:

Genome editing (also called gene editing) is a group of technologies that allow genetic material to be added, removed, or altered at particular locations in the genome.

• Three technology mostly used for gene-editing are CRISPR-associated protein 9 (Cas9), transcription activator-like effector nucleases (TALENs), and zinc-finger nucleases (ZFNs).

Insta Links

10 years of CRISPR Gene editing

Mains Links

Discuss the CRISPR gene-editing technology and the concerns raised by it. (250 words)

Prelims Links

GS Paper 3

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

Source: TH

Context: AI can traditionally be divided into Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI).

AGI and ANI: The difference lies in their scope of intelligence and their ability to generalise knowledge across different contexts.

Advantages of AI:

• Disruptive technology creates new jobs and skill sets by creating demand for expertise in machine learning, data science and natural language processing.
• It will transform industries by creating new opportunities for growth and innovation.
• In industries like healthcare, AI can optimise transportation networks, develop new materials, and even simplify manufacturing processes.

Threats: ChatGPT/similar solutions are proficient at automating routine and repetitive tasks (data entry, customer service) which could perhaps replace low-skill level workers.

Conclusion: The impact of AI on jobs and industries is likely to be uneven. Hence, significant investment in education and training programs and proactive policies is the need of the hour.

Insta Links:

What are hallucinating chatbots?

GS Paper 3

Syllabus: Environment, Conservation

Source: TH

Context: Since September 2022, India has translocated eight African cheetahs from Namibia and 12 from South Africa.

Background:

• This is part of a long-term conservation plan to re-introduce the wild cat into the country after it became extinct in the 1950s, primarily due to hunting.
• The aim is to build a self-sustaining population, centred at MP’s Kuno National Park, which will also contribute to the global survival of the cheetah as a species.

What are Grasslands?

Grasslands (e.g. prairies or savannas) are biomes characterized by vast expanses of grasses and a few scattered trees. They are found in regions where there is not enough rain to support forests but where there is enough rainfall to prevent the land from becoming a desert.

• Grasslands are typically located in the interior regions of continents, away from the moderating influence of oceans.
• Approximately 24 per centof total vegetation cover is grassland in India

Can the cheetahs help India’s grasslands?

Conclusion: African cheetah is a species which has never been to India. Yet, its very introduction will enable India ‘if not wholly but in some measure’ revive its magnificent grasslands.

Inta Links:

Cheetah project to bring in 12 big cats from South Africa