Important topics and their relevance in UPSC CSE exam for January 3, 2024. If you missed the January 2, 2024 UPSC CSE exam key from the Indian Express, read it here

FRONT PAGE

Govt ready with rules for CAA, set to be notified before LS polls announcement

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies II: Indian Constitution—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Rules for the Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA), the Bill for which was cleared by Parliament in December 2019, will be notified much before the announcement of the Lok Sabha elections, sources in the government said Tuesday.

• Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)-Know in detail

• What are the issues and challenges with Citizenship (Amendment) Act (CAA)?

• For Your Information-The Bill, which sought to fast-track Indian citizenship to Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians — but not Muslims — who migrated to India owing to religious persecution in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh, was passed by Lok Sabha on December 9, 2019, and Rajya Sabha two days later. It received the President’s assent on December 12, 2019. Soon after the passage of the law, widespread protests broke out across the country. The rules for implementation of the Act were never notified and the government sought repeated extensions for framing the rules.

Multiple reasons have been attributed to the government delaying the implementation of one of the most polarising pieces of legislation brought by the Modi government. One of the prime reasons is the vociferous opposition faced by the CAA in several states including Assam and Tripura. The protests in Assam were fuelled by fears that the legislation would permanently alter the demographics of the state. The CAA is seen in Assam as a violation of the 1985 Assam Accord which allows foreign migrants who came to Assam after January 1, 1966 but before March 25, 1971 to seek citizenship. The cut-off date for citizenship to be extended under the CAA is December 31, 2014. The protests didn’t remain confined to the North-East, but spread to other parts of the country. A clutch of petitions, including by the Indian Union Muslim League, are before the Supreme Court, challenging the constitutional validity of the CAA.

• Who are ‘Citizens’?

• Who is a citizen in India’s constitutional scheme? What are various principles/kinds of citizenship?

• How did Partition and the large-scale migration from territories that became part of Pakistan impact citizenship?

• Citizens and Aliens-compare and contrast in terms of civil and political rights

• What are those rights and privileges that the Constitution of India confers on the citizens of India and denies the same to aliens?

• The Citizenship Act of 1955 prescribes five ways of acquiring citizenship-Know them in detail

• The Citizenship Act, 1955, prescribes three ways of losing citizenship-What are they?

• What is Section 6A of citizenship Act?

• What are the questions surrounding Section 6A?

• What does NRC mean?

• What is NPR?

• NRC, NPR and CAA-know the difference

• Is NPR connected to NRC?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Explained: Why NPR isn’t NRC, and yet

????Explained: What NRC+CAA means to you

????Explained: What is Citizenship Amendment Act?

Another eye in sky, on ground: India is now part of world’s largest radio telescope project

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Even as ISRO Monday launched a unique observatory to study X-rays and black holes in deep space and the stage is being set to construct the third node of the LIGO in Maharashtra, scientists in India will now also be part of the international mega-science project, the Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO), that will function as the world’s largest radio telescope.

• The Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO)-know the features

• India and Square Kilometre Array Observatory (SKAO)-connect the dots

• For Your Information-The SKAO is not a single telescope but an array of thousands of antennas, to be installed in remote radio-quiet locations in South Africa and Australia, that will operate as one large unit meant to observe and study celestial phenomena. India, through the Pune-based National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) and some other institutions, has been involved in the development of SKA since its inception in the 1990s. Considering the multinational collaboration, SKAO was established as an intergovernmental organisation in 2021 following years of negotiation in which India, too, participated. Countries have to sign, and ratify, the SKAO convention to formally become members.

The Government’s approval for joining the project, with a financial sanction of Rs 1,250 crore, is the first step towards the ratification. The approval, which the Department of Atomic Energy announced in its 2023 year-ending note, comes weeks after India gave its go-ahead to construct the third node of the US-based Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) in Hingoli district of Maharashtra.

Gravitational wave research is one of most promising fields for scientific discovery. The first detection of gravitational waves by the two existing LIGO detectors in the US won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2017. The SKA will also search for gravitational waves but is meant to study a range of phenomena being able to peer much deeper into the universe — more than 3,000 trillion km — to study galaxies and stars in greater detail. These are aimed at advancing the scope of astronomical observations for improving the overall understanding of the universe and its evolution. India’s main contribution to the SKA is in the development, and operation, of the Telescope Manager element, the “neural network” or the software that will make the telescope work.

NCRA, a unit of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, which operates India’s largest network of radio telescopes called the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT) near Pune, led an international team from nine institutions and seven countries to develop the software. It is the success of building and operating GMRT that landed NCRA this responsibility with the SKA. GMRT is the world’s largest and most sensitive radio telescope operating within the 110-1,460 MegaHertz frequency range. This unique telescope has, so far, yielded remarkable scientific results after studying pulsars, supernovae, quasars, galaxies and its observation time has always remained oversubscribed. In 2021, GMRT became only the third in India to be recognised with the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Milestone facility. Back then, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had called this recognition as a rare feat earned by NCRA. Modi had hailed the contributions made by the astronomers towards deepening scientific understanding of the universe using GMRT.

In June last year, GMRT was among the six top radio telescopes used to enable the detection of the nano-hertz gravitational waves for the first time. The SKA-India consortium comprises engineers and scientists from over 20 national-level research institutions which include: NCRA; Aryabhatta Institute of Observational Sciences; Inter University Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, IIT-Kharagpur; IISER, Mohali and Thiruvananthapuram; TIFR; Raman Research Institute; Indian Institute of Science and Physical Research Laboratory. Some of the countries taking part in building the SKA include the UK, Australia, South Africa, Canada, China, France, India, Italy and Germany.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????The SKA Observatory

THE EDITORIAL PAGE

Voting with their visas

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian and World Geography-Physical, Social, Economic Geography of India and the World.

Mains Examination: General Studies I: Effects of globalization on Indian society.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Sanjaya Baru writes: There is a sense that only those who pay money or are well-connected get government jobs, lamented the man from Mehsana speaking to a journalist tracking the recent news of the flight of 303 Indians to Nicaragua. “There are no well-paying private jobs. So it is better to be in some menial job in Canada or the US and earn well than stay here in India and struggle forever.”

• “The out-migration of the poor, the professionals and the wealthy has increased exponentially this past decade”-Why?

• Who are migrants?

• What data on migration says?

• Human Migration-know in detail

• How the International Organization for Migration (The UN) defines a migrant?

• What is the difference between inter and intra migration?

• What are the Push and Pull factors of migration?

• Migration-know its significance

• Migration-What are the challenges?

• What does the term “domestic migrant” mean

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Explain Speaking: Ultra-rich individuals are projected to keep leaving India in 2023. Why do the rich migrate from a country?

EXPRESS NETWORK

Govt plans to end Free Movement Regime along international border with Myanmar

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: India and its neighbourhood- relations

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-The Free Movement Regime (FMR), which allows people residing on either side of the India-Myanmar border to venture 16 km into each other’s territory without visa, will end soon, sources in the government said.

• What is Free Movement Regime?

• What is a Smart Fencing System?

• Why Smart Fencing System along the India-Myanmar Border?

• Do You Know-The border between India and Myanmar runs for 1,643 km in the four states of Mizoram, Manipur, Nagaland, and Arunachal Pradesh. The FMR is a mutually agreed arrangement between the two countries that allows tribes living along the border to travel up to 16 km inside the other country without a visa. Under the FMR, every member of the hill tribes, who is either a citizen of India or a citizen of Myanmar and who is resident of any area within 16 km on either side of the border can cross over on production of a border pass with one-year validity and can stay up to two weeks. The FMR was implemented in 2018 as part of the Narendra Modi government’s Act East policy at a time when diplomatic relations between India and Myanmar were on the upswing. In fact, the FMR was to be put in place in 2017 itself, but was deferred due to the Rohingya refugee crisis that erupted that August.

The border between India and Myanmar was demarcated by the British in 1826, without seeking the opinion of the people living in the region. The border effectively divided people of the same ethnicity and culture into two nations without their consent. The current IMB reflects the line the British drew. People in the region have strong ethnic and familial ties across the border. In Manipur’s Moreh region, there are villages where some homes are in Myanmar. In Nagaland’s Mon district, the border actually passes through the house of the chief of Longwa village, splitting his home into two.

Apart from facilitating people-to-people contact, the FMR was supposed to provide impetus to local trade and business. The region has a long history of trans-border commerce through customs and border haats. Given the low-income economy, such exchanges are vital for the sustenance of local livelihoods. For border people in Myanmar too, Indian towns are closer for business, education, and healthcare than those in their own country.

• Why is the FMR being discussed critically?

• Is there a problem of drug trafficking or terrorism related to the FMR?

• So should the FMR be removed?

• Know India-Myanmar bilateral relations in detail

• Why is Myanmar important for India?

• Since coup in Myanmar, How India has taken diplomatic approach on Myanmar?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????The ‘free movement regime’ along the India-Myanmar border, and why it has complicated the volatile situation in Manipur

ECONOMY

Inoperative accounts: How will RBI’s revised guidelines benefit customers?

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has revised guidelines for classifying accounts and deposits as inoperative accounts and unclaimed deposits by banks. As per the norms, account holders can reactivate their inoperative accounts/ unclaimed deposits by submitting know your customer (KYC) documents afresh at all branches, including non-home branches, of banks in which they have an account.

• What is an inoperative account?

• What are unclaimed deposits?

• What do the revised RBI guidelines say?

• Which account can be classified as inoperative?

• Which accounts cannot be classified as inoperative accounts?

• How can an inoperative account be reactivated?

• Do You Know-The RBI has asked banks to undertake at least an annual review in respect of accounts, where there are no customer induced transactions for more than a year. In cases where there is no explicit mandate to renew the term deposit, banks need to review such accounts if the customers have not withdrawn the proceeds after maturity or transferred these to their savings/current account in order to prevent such deposits from becoming unclaimed.

Banks should communicate to the account or deposit holders through letters or email or SMS that there has been no operation in their accounts in the last one year. The alert messages should invariably mention that the account would become ‘inoperative’ if no operations are carried out during the next one year and, the account holder would be required to submit KYC documents afresh for reactivating the account in such case.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????RBI proposed easing of norms for dividend payout by banks

EXPLAINED

America’s climate failures

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialization.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-When the Loss and Damage Fund was opened for capitalisation at the recently concluded COP28 climate meeting in Dubai, hosts UAE promised US$ 100 million, as did Germany. France and Italy committed about US$ 110 million each. United Kingdom promised about US$ 60 million. In contrast, all that the United States could muster was US$ 17.3 million. Even Ireland, Denmark and Norway put in more money into the fund.

• What is the loss and damage concept in climate deal?

• “The demand for loss and damage finance is quite old, but it has faced strong resistance from the rich and developed countries”-Why?

• What are the major climate change agreements?

• What is climate change ‘Loss and Damage’?

• How is climate change causing loss and damage?

• What is the extent of loss and damage?

• So why “climate disasters” and “climate negotiations” are much talked terms?

• How does the Paris Agreement address the loss and damage associated with climate change?

• What is the meaning of climate finance?

• What is the financial mechanism? What are the other funds?

• In accordance with the principle of “common but differentiated responsibility and respective capabilities” set out in the Convention, developed country Parties are to provide financial resources to assist developing country Parties in implementing the objectives of the UNFCCC- discuss the objective behind this step?

• What is the Standing Committee on Finance? What is the long-term finance process?

• Green finance and climate finance-Compare

• “As the country with the largest share of historical emissions, and the world’s biggest economy, the United States carries a greater burden than any other nation in taking climate actions”-Comment

• US and Historical Responsibility-Connect the dots

• Do You Know-Despite China emitting much more in the last 15 years, the United States continues to have the largest share of historical emissions, accounting for more than 20 per cent of all carbon dioxide emissions since 1850. Around the early 1990s, when the first international rules on climate change were emerging, US accounted for more than 30 per cent of historical emissions till that time.

Broadly in line with the polluters’ pay principle, developed and industrialised countries with the maximum share of historical emissions at that time were asked to take the lead in reducing emissions. That group of about 40 countries came be known as Annex-I countries because they were listed in Annexure-I of UNFCCC. The 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the precursor to the Paris Agreement, had assigned specific emission reduction targets to each of these countries. But since the US never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, it was not bound by those targets. And it did nothing to reduce its emissions voluntarily.

A recent assessment by UNFCCC shows that by 2020, when the Kyoto Protocol came to an end, the Annex-I countries, as a group, had reduced their net greenhouse gas emissions by about 25 per cent from 1990 levels. The contribution of the United States in this was next to nothing. Its emissions came down by just 0.4 per cent during this period, that too after including the effect of Covid pandemic. In 2019, US emissions were about 6 per cent higher than in 1990. The US still maintains that it has met its 2020 emission targets. That is because it had pegged its target — 17 per cent reduction by 2020 — to a 2005 baseline, unlike most other Annex-I countries that use a 1990 baseline. So, the United States let its emissions grow by about 15 per cent between 1994 and 2004, and then made some reductions from that peak to claim victory. Had it not been for the Covid-induced drop in 2020, the annual emissions of the United States in 2021, the last year for which official data is available, would have been well over 1990 levels, as it indeed was in 2019. This year’s Emissions Gap Report, an annual publication of the UN Environment Programme, showed that the US emissions were estimated to be about 1.6 per cent higher in 2022 than the previous year.

• What is Green Climate Fund (GCF)?

• For Your Information-GCF is the main financial instrument of the Paris Agreement geared towards raising funds to help developing countries carry out their climate actions. It had raised about US$ 10 billion for its first four-year cycle of funding climate projects. In Dubai, it was raising money for the next four-year cycle. The US had promised US$ 3 billion for the first round of capitalisation as well but delivered only US$ 2 billion.

But GCF handles a very small fraction of the money that is required for climate actions, estimated to be a few trillions of dollars every year. It was the United States that, way back in 2009, had come up with a US$ 100 billion per year figure to be mobilised by the developed countries from 2020 onwards. That target has never been achieved though developed countries claim that it was reached in 2022. Developing countries complain of double-counting, repurposing and greenwashing.

A major concern has been the lack of money for adaptation activities. In Glasgow, countries had decided to double the financial flows to adaptation, but a recent Adaptation Gap Report showed that far from doubling, the money meant for adaptation had seen a year-on-year decline. The United States was among the countries that ensured that no separate financial provisions were included in the decision on Global Goal on Adaptation that was reached in Dubai this year.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Fight against climate change

DESIGNATED TERRORIST

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Gangster Goldy Brar, the mastermind behind the murder of Punjabi singer Sidhu Moosewala, was declared a designated terrorist by the Centre under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) on Monday (January 1).

Amendments introduced in 2019 brought in provisions by which the Centre can declare individuals — not only organisations — as designated terrorists.

• Who is a “terrorist”?

• How are individuals declared terrorists?

• What happens when an individual is declared a terrorist?

• For Your Information-The words “terror” or “terrorist” are not defined, but the UAPA Bill in Section 15 defines a “terrorist act” as any act committed with intent to threaten or likely to threaten the unity, integrity, security, economic security, or sovereignty of India or with intent to strike terror or likely to strike terror in the people or any section of the people in India or in any foreign country. The original Act dealt with “unlawful” acts related to secession; anti-terror provisions were introduced in 2004.

The Bill seeks to empower the central government to designate an individual a “terrorist” if they are found committing, preparing for, promoting, or involved in an act of terror. A similar provision already exists in Part 4 and 6 of the legislation for organisations that can be designated as a “terrorist organisation”. Home Minister Amit Shah, during a debate on the Bill in Lok Sabha, stressed on the need to designate individuals as terrorists to root out terrorism. The central government may designate an individual as a terrorist through a notification in the official gazette, and add his name to the schedule supplemented to the UAPA Bill. The government is not required to give an individual an opportunity to be heard before such a designation.

At present, in line with the legal presumption of an individual being innocent until proven guilty, an individual who is convicted in a terror case is legally referred to as a terrorist, while those suspected of being involved in terrorist activities are referred to as terror accused. The Bill does not clarify the standard of proof required to establish that an individual is involved or is likely to be involved in terrorist activities.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Explained: What are the UAPA amendments? When is an individual designated a ‘terrorist’?

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