Important topics and their relevance in UPSC CSE exam for March 8, 2024. If you missed the March 7, 2024 UPSC CSE exam key from the Indian Express, read it here

THE WORLD

Sweden officially joins NATO, ending decades of post-WWII neutrality

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- Sweden joined NATO in Washington on Thursday, two years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine forced it to rethink its national security policy and conclude that support for the alliance was the Scandinavian nation’s best guarantee of safety.

• Map Work-Sweden, Scandinavian and Nordic countries

• “Long era of nonalignment is coming to a close as Sweden joins NATO”-Discuss

• Why does Sweden want to join NATO?

• What will Sweden bring to NATO?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Know the historical background and current Status

• What is Article 5 of NATO’s founding treaty (Collective Security)?

• What is Article 4 of NATO’s Founding Treaty?

• North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)-Know the historical background and current Status

• What are the origins of NATO?

• For NATO, the accessions of Sweden and Finland – which shares a 1,340 km border with Russia – are the most significant additions in decades-How?

• How Sweden will benefit from the alliance’s common defence guarantee?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????As Sweden joins NATO, it bids farewell to more than two centuries of neutrality

EXPLAINED

India to manufacture Penicillin G again: why it was stopped

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-India will start manufacturing the common antibiotic Penicillin G later this year, three decades after the country’s last plant shut down, Union health minister Mansukh Mandaviya announced last week.

• What is Penicillin G?

• Why did penicillin manufacturing stop in India?

• Why did it take so long to restart?

• What has been the impact of PLI schemes?

• What is the production linked incentive scheme?

• Why is the production linked scheme needed?

• Which sectors currently have the PLI scheme?

• For Your Information-Penicillin G, just like many other APIs that India manufactured, was phased out of production because of subsidy-driven cheaper Chinese products flooding the market. The last plant to stop production of the antibiotic was of Torrent Pharma in Ahmedabad. “There were at least five companies, including Torrent, which manufactured Penicillin G in the country in the 90s. But the prices of the Chinese products were so low that the Indian manufacturers went out of business. The huge plants had to be sold for scrap,” said an industry expert on condition of anonymity.

Another industry expert, CM Gulhati, said: “There were nearly 2,000 API manufacturers in India in the early 90s. But there were nearly 10,000 units that manufactured formulations. And, for them, the cheaper Chinese products made more sense, especially at a time when the country’s economy was opening up and customs rules were relaxed. The Drug Prices Control Order — which capped prices of essential medicines — also ensured that more companies went for cheaper imported products.” Citing the example of paracetamol, he said India used to sell it for around Rs 800 per kg at the time, but China brought the prices down to nearly Rs 400 per kg, making it unviable for Indian manufacturers. He added: “Now, there are only a couple of hundred API manufacturers in the country. And, many of them produce it for their own products and not for sale.” The production of Penicillin will be restarted by mid-2024 by Hyderabad-based Aurobindo pharma. One, the need wasn’t felt. “While the industry and government were aware of the decline in production of APIs in India, as cheaper alternatives were available in the globalised world, there wasn’t much focus on restarting production within the country. The supply chain disruption caused during the pandemic was a wake-up call that we needed to be self-reliant,” said Dr Viranchi Shah, president of Indian Drug Manufacturers Association. This led to the government launching the PLI scheme to support manufacturing within the country.

Two, there are huge initial costs. “Manufacturing an API, especially a fermented one like Penicillin G, is cost-intensive. There is huge capital expenditure involved in setting up a factory, with the company being able to break even only after a couple of years,” said the first expert.

Third, China is already a well-established supplier. “Our neighbour has scaled up manufacturing several-folds in the last three decades. Competing with the prices would require investments in bigger facilities,” said Shah. The first expert and Shah both agree that there has been a decline in imports of APIs since the launch of the PLI scheme. “There has been a decline in the imports of APIs. Take the example of paracetamol — before the pandemic, we were importing two-thirds of the API needed, now that volume has halved,” said Shah.

The other expert, however, added: “We still import 90% of our API for antibiotics and nearly 70% of all APIs. It will take time for API manufacturing to pick up.” The scheme envisages a support of 20% for first four years, 15% for fifth year, and 5% for sixth year on eligible sales of fermentation-based bulk drugs such as antibiotics, enzymes, and hormones such as insulin. These are more difficult to manufacture, with fermentation used to cultivate micro-organisms for the synthesis of the drugs. For chemically synthesised drugs, the incentive will be at the rate of 10% for six years on eligible sales.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????For producing key drug ingredients, Govt plans to revive old pharma units

WHY KERALA DECLARED MAN-ANIMAL CONFLICT A STATE-SPECIFIC DISASTER

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change

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

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Amid repeated deaths from animal attacks and rising anger over them, Kerala on Wednesday (March 6) declared man-animal conflict as a state-specific disaster, becoming the first state in the country to do so.

• Rising human-animal conflict in Kerala-Know in brief

• How Kerala is addressing the issue?

• Why Kerala declared man-animal conflict as a state-specific disaster?

• So what changes now?

• For Your Information-At present, managing man-animal conflict is the responsibility of the forest department, which acts as per the Wild Life Protection Act. Once the issue is declared a state-specific disaster, the onus to deal with it shifts to the state disaster management authority, which, powered by the Disaster Management Act, can take quicker and more decisive action. At the state level, the Chief Minister is the ex officio chairman of the body, and several departments, including the forest department, are stakeholders. In the districts, the district disaster management authority is headed by the district collector, who is also the executive magistrate.

Once an issue is declared a state-specific disaster or a national disaster, the disaster management authority can take quick decisions and actions overriding all other norms. Also, district collectors can directly intervene in their capacity as the chairman of the district disaster body.

In the past few weeks, every time a life has been lost to man-animal conflict, there has been a mounting chorus to tranquilise/capture/kill the animals responsible.

At present, the chief wildlife warden — there is only one such post in the state — is the only authority to take a call on a wild animal wreaking havoc in human settlement. Also, in the past, there have been cases where the decision to tranquilise a killer animal, such as a wild elephant, has been questioned in court.

Once the issue is under the disaster management authority, it can take actions overriding other norms, including those under the Wildlife Protection Act.

As per section 71 of the Disaster Management Act, no court (except the Supreme Court or a High Court) shall have jurisdiction to entertain any suit or proceeding in respect of anything done by relevant authorities in pursuance of any power conferred by this Act. Section 72 of the Act says that the provisions of this Act will have an overriding effect on any other law during the specific period that a disaster has been declared.

• What is human-animal conflict in India?

• What are the major causes of human-animal conflict in India?

• What are the major causes of human-Elephant conflict in India?

• What present data on Elephants in India says?

• Human-animal conflict is the biggest challenge in India and Animal adoption scheme will be icebreaker-discuss

• What are the three types of elephants?

• Is the Asian elephant related to the African elephant?

• What is difference between Asian elephant and African elephant?

• Do you Know-Elephants have defined social structures. Herds of elephants are matriarchies, with the oldest female leading the way. They consist of female family members of any age and male offspring. Pubescent male elephants leave their herds and generally operate in bachelor male herds. Older males are often solitary.

• Have you heard of Project Elephant?

• Map Work-Elephant reserves in India

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Understanding Kerala’s man-elephant conflict

????Kerala declares man-animal conflict as state-specific disaster; govt to form multi-level panels to tackle instances

Previous Year prelims Questions Based on Similar theme:

????With reference to Indian elephants, consider the following statements: 1. The leader of an elephant group is female. 2. The maximum gestation period can be 22 months. 3. An elephant can normally go on calving till the age of 40 years only. 4. Among the States in India, the highest elephant population is in Kerala.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (Please refer GS1 2020 for complete question) ????With reference to Indian laws about wildlife protection, consider the following statements: 1. Wild animals are the sole property of the government. 2. When a wild animal is declared protected, such animal is entitled for equal protection whether it is found in protected areas or outside. 3. Apprehension of a protected wild animal becoming a danger to human life is sufficient ground for its capture or killing. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? (Please refer GS1 2022 for complete question)

El Niño and the monsoon

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian and World Geography

Mains Examination: General Studies I: Important Geophysical phenomena such as earthquakes, Tsunami, Volcanic activity, cyclone etc., geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps) and in flora and fauna and the effects of such changes.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Earlier this month, the India Meteorological Department (IMD) predicted a hot summer this year, with above-normal temperatures and an above-normal number of heatwave days from March to May. On Tuesday, the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), a specialised agency of the UN, said in a media release that the 2023-24 El Niño, one of the five strongest on record, has peaked and is gradually weakening — but it will continue to impact climate around the world in the coming months.

• What is El Nino?

• Why is called El Nino?

• What is El Nino effect in India?

• How has the ongoing El Niño event played out?

• For Your Information- El Niño refers to the abnormal warming of sea surface waters in the equatorial Pacific Ocean. El Niño episodes emerge naturally during autumn-summer in the northern hemisphere, typically once every 2-7 years. It peaks during winter (October-February) before weakening in the subsequent summer, making it a phenomenon that typically lasts for between 9 and 12 months. Occasionally, El Niño will last up to two years in a row.

El Niño episodes affect the global weather, lead to an increase in temperatures and large-scale dryness and droughts, and disrupt normal rainfall patterns globally. Large parts of East Africa have experienced multiple failed rainy seasons in recent years, in part due to El Niño conditions.

After the last episode in 2015-16, El Niño conditions emerged for the first time in June last year — and average temperatures breached new records across most parts of the world in every subsequent month. As the El Niño peaked between November 2023 and January 2024, recorded sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean touched 2 degrees Celsius above the 1991-2020 normal, the WMO said. The 2023-24 El Niño played a significant role in 2023 ending as the warmest year ever recorded.

The intensity of an El Niño event is measured by the temperature values recorded over the sea along the equatorial Pacific Ocean. One of the key indicators of the sea surface temperatures is the Oceanic Niño Indices (ONI) values (in degree Celsius). Data from the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) show that after peaking at 2 degree Celsius during November-January, the ONI value has started to decline. The timing of the fall in ONI is important because it suggests that the El Niño will not extend into another year.

• What does the peaking and weakening of El Niño mean?

• What are the implications for India and the southwest monsoon?

• What is the heat forecast for India for 2024?

• How is the Indian summer monsoon likely to be in 2024?

• What is the arrival and departure of monsoon?

• What is the all India monthly and seasonal rainfall?

• What do we mean by long period average (LPA) of rainfall?

• What is large excess, excess, normal, deficient, large deficient rainfall?

• What is meant by the “onset of the monsoon”?

• What are these conditions, which determine the onset of monsoon?

• Do You Know-The development of El Nino conditions in the eastern and central Pacific Ocean is expected to begin having an impact on the Indian monsoon. In general, El Nino tends to suppress monsoon rainfall over India. “Currently, weak El Nino conditions are prevailing over the equatorial Pacific region.

The latest climate models indicate that the El Nino conditions are likely to intensify further and continue up to early next year,” IMD said. The high quantity of rainfall recorded in July was also the result of very large number of extreme rainfall events. The IMD said the 205 incidents of extremely heavy rainfall was the highest in the last five years. Also, many more stations recorded such incidents than in previous years.

• During El Niño, trade winds weaken or stronger than usual?

• What is Indian Ocean Dipole?

• India Meteorological Department (IMD)-About, Role and Objectives

• Do You Know-El Nino and La Nina are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide. Episodes of El Nino and La Nina typically last 9-12 months, but can sometimes last for years. El Nino and La Nina events occur every two to seven years, on average, but they don’t occur on a regular schedule, say experts. Generally, El Nino occurs more frequently than La Nina. According to the latest forecast by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), a transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral will occur mostly during the February-April 2023 season.

Climate models are predicting a potential return to El Niño by May-July, which coincides with the summer monsoon that spans from June- September. The occurrence of three consecutive La Niña in the Northern Hemisphere is a relatively rare phenomenon and is known as the ‘triple dip’ La Niña. The latest triple dip La Nina occurred between 2021-23.

• El Niño and La Niña events are not mirror images of each other. They differ in length and strength-How

• How El Nino Impacts-Know Sector and region wise

• What is Inter Tropical Convergence Zone?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????El Niño and the monsoon

FRONT PAGE

In big AI push, Rs 10,000-cr plan for computing capacity gets Govt nod

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-The Union Cabinet Thursday approved the India AI Mission with an outlay of Rs 10,372 crore for the next five years, under which the government will allocate funds towards subsidising private companies looking to set up AI compute capacity in the country and also allocate seed funding for AI start-ups, and create a framework for curating non-personal data, among other things.

• What is India artificial intelligence (AI) Mission?

• What are the key highlights of GOI’s ambitious artificial intelligence (AI) Mission?

• Do You Know-Under the India AI Mission, the government will look to establish a computing capacity of more than 10,000 GPUs and also help develop foundational models with a capacity of more than 100 billion parameters trained on datasets covering major Indian languages for priority sectors like healthcare, agriculture, and governance. AI Curation Units (ACUs) will also be developed in 50-line ministries. The proposal also includes the establishment of an AI marketplace designed to offer AI as a service and pre-trained models to those working on AI applications.

The implementation of this AI compute infrastructure will be done through a public-private partnership model with 50 per cent viability gap funding. If the compute prices come down, the private entity will have to add more compute capacity within the same budgeted amount to meet increased demand. Of the total outlay, Rs 4,564 crore has been earmarked for building computing infrastructure.

“Basically, there will be a tender inviting companies to set up data centres. When a company applies for, let’s say a centre which may cost Rs 10,000 crore, they can seek a viability gap funding from the government for a certain amount of that,” a senior government official said.

During the infrastructure’s setup, a priority will be placed on selecting the most advanced GPUs. However, it is worth noting that Nvidia’s A100 chip – considered to be the most cutting edge for AI applications – costs around $10,000, meaning that a data centre of 10,000 such GPUs could cost at least $100 million (roughly Rs 8,000 crore).

Computing capacity, or compute, is among the most important elements of building a large AI system apart from algorithmic innovation and datasets. It is also one of the most difficult elements to procure for smaller businesses looking to train and build such AI systems.

The government will also finance deeptech start-ups at various levels of growth, as per the Cabinet approval. Of the total outlay, roughly Rs 2,000 crore has been earmarked towards this. The government will also set up the IndiaAI Innovation Research Centre which will undertake the development and deployment of large foundational models, with a focus on indigenous large multimodel Models and domain-specific foundational models. Close to Rs 2,000 crore has been earmarked for this centre. An IndiaAI Datasets Platform will also be set up as part of the programme which will look at leveraging the quality, access, and use of non-personal datasets for AI innovation. The platform will be tasked with hosting identified “high-quality” AI ready datasets.

• Why AI regulation is needed?

• If Regulated then what should be the limit?

• If regulated, then what are the risks associated with regulating AI?

• What has been India’s Response to demands for AI Regulation?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????India is building its own ‘sovereign AI’. What does it mean?

THE EDITORIAL PAGE

The bias that must go

Syllabus:

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

Main Examination: General Studies I: Social empowerment

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-Maja Daruwala Writes: Justice requires that it is not women who must twist and turn to be more like men to be able to ‘fit into’ institutions. Mono-cultural male dominant institutional sub-cultures must acknowledge that they will always be sub-par when they are gender imbalanced

• “The latest India Justice Report (IJR) points out that the gender gap remains wide in each of the subsystems that make up the justice delivery system — police, judiciary, prisons, legal aid, and human rights commissions”-Discuss

• How many women judges are there in Supreme Court of India?

• What is the Status of Women in the Indian judicial System?

• What causes the low representation of women in the Indian judicial system?

• Why do we need women judges?

• “Numbers count and the poor representation of women in the justice system signals embedded institutional bias”-Comment

• “Despite women’s increased engagement in public life, they remain significantly underrepresented in decision-making positions especially in judiciary”-Comment

• “In order to attain gender equality, more female judges should be appointed”-do you agree?

• Know some facts- In most European countries, there are more women than men professional judges or magistrates; however, women represent 41 per cent of the judges in national supreme courts and only 25 per cent of court presidents. (United Nations)

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????This Women’s Day, let’s talk about masculinity

ECONOMY

India-Asean FTA review: Thailand flags rules of origin

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-After pushing back against India’s food security programme at the recently concluded WTO’s 13th Ministerial Conference in Abu Dhabi, Thailand is learnt to have objected to India’s custom regulations that New Delhi implemented in 2020, a government official said. The regulation, CAROTAR, is aimed at strictly verifying the rules of origin under the free trade agreements (FTAs) to guard against misuse of benefits.

• Why Thailand objected to India’s custom regulations that New Delhi implemented in 2020?

• What are Thailand’s concerns?

• What is Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules (CAROTAR)?

• For Your Information-Thailand’s objection was flagged during the ongoing India-ASEAN FTA review where India is trying to boost exports to Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries and bridge the ballooning trade gap. India-ASEAN trade gap in FY23 surged to $43.57 billion in favour of bloc countries, growing sharply by over 40 per cent compared to $25.75 billion in FY22.

Trade experts said that the India-Asean trade gap has been rising as several multinational companies are increasing investments in ASEAN nations as part of their China-plus-one policy. Moreover, the production-linked incentive (PLI) schemes have also increased demand for intermediate products that are being sourced from Asean countries. However, Thailand’s objection also comes in the backdrop of growing Chinese influence in the country with China becoming the largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI) during the last calendar year followed by Singapore and the US. Beijing and Bangkok have also expanded defense cooperation during the last decade.

“Our trade deficit has gone up with ASEAN countries. India had sought the review of the India-ASEAN FTA and we are looking for better market access and they are also looking to fast track trade facilitation. Because of CAROTAR – Customs (Administration of Rules of Origin under Trade Agreements) Rules – their exports are affected. Thailand has especially objected during the review meeting,” a government official said on condition of anonymity. “They are also looking to increase coverage of tariff elimination. And we are also looking for liberal Product Specific Rules (PSRs) in electronics, chemicals and textiles. Besides, we are looking to streamline non-tariffs barriers that have been a concern for our exporters,” the official added.

In trade parlance, PSRs determine the circumstances in which goods imported from a member, that have components or inputs from a non-member, are still eligible for preferential tariff treatment. PSR rules are negotiated to simplify the use of FTA as India’s utilisation rate of ASEAN FTA has remained weak over the years.

• What is ASEAN?

• What is India’s link with ASEAN?

• Map Work-ASEAN

• For Your Information-On 8 August 1967, five leaders – the Foreign Ministers of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand – came together in Bangkok, according to the website of ASEAN. Thailand was brokering some disputes among Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines, and it eventually led to the signing of a document. “The five Foreign Ministers who signed it – Adam Malik of Indonesia, Narciso R. Ramos of the Philippines, Tun Abdul Razak of Malaysia, S. Rajaratnam of Singapore, and Thanat Khoman of Thailand – would subsequently be hailed as the Founding Fathers of probably the most successful inter-governmental organisation in the developing world today. And the document that they signed would be known as the ASEAN Declaration,” the website added.

Over the next few decades, five other countries joined them – Brunei Darussalam, Lao PDR, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam. They have an anthem, a flag and biannual summits (twice a year) with a rotating chairmanship. An example of the focus on unity, its official motto is “One Vision, One Identity, One Community”.

The ASEAN Declaration signed by the five leaders conveyed the aspiration to further regional cooperation. These were about cooperation in the economic, social, cultural, technical, educational and other fields, and in the promotion of regional peace and stability and adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter. It stipulated that the Association would be open for participation by all States in the Southeast Asian region subscribing to its aims, principles and purposes. Its major pillars that help lay out a blueprint for cooperation are Political-Security Community (APSC), Economic Community (AEC) and Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC).

ASEAN is central to India’s Act East policy, which focuses on the extended neighbourhood in the Asia-Pacific region. The policy was originally conceived as an economic initiative but has gained political, strategic and cultural dimensions including the establishment of institutional mechanisms for dialogue and cooperation.

India is part of the ASEAN Plus Six grouping, which includes China, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia as well. In 2010, a Free Trade Agreement was also signed and entered into force between India and ASEAN. While India was part of negotiations to join the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) in 2020, it ultimately decided not to do so. However, in the past eight years, trade has grown in terms of value, barring the pandemic years of 2020 and 2021.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

????Amid ‘crises’, Delhi, ASEAN to focus on food security, growth

For any queries and feedback, contact priya.shukla@indianexpress.com The Indian Express UPSC Key is now on Telegram. Click here to join our channel and stay updated with the latest Updates.