Context: Recently, Union Minister for Culture launched the National List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of India, which aims to raise awareness about various intangible cultural heritage elements from different states of India, at national and international level and ensure their protection. 
About the Initiative

• The National ICH List is an attempt to recognize the diversity of Indian culture embedded in its intangible heritage. It aims to raise awareness about the various intangible cultural heritage elements from different states of India.
• This initiative is also a part of the Vision 2024 of the Ministry of Culture.

Following UNESCO’s 2003 Convention for Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage, this list has been classified into five broad domains in which intangible cultural heritage is manifested:

• Oral traditions and expressions, including language as a vehicle of the intangible cultural heritage;
• Performing arts;
• Social practices, rituals and festive events;
• Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe;
• Traditional craftsmanship.

The present items in the list have been collated from the projects sanctioned under the scheme for ‘Safeguarding the Intangible Cultural Heritage and Diverse Cultural Traditions of India’ formulated by the Ministry of Culture in 2013.

• As of now the list has more than 100 elements, It also includes the 13 elements of India that have already been inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

About UNESCO’s List of Intangible Cultural Heritage

• This coveted list is made up of those intangible heritage elements that help demonstrate diversity of cultural heritage and raise awareness about its importance.
• The list was established in 2008 when Convention for Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage came into effect.
• It has two parts viz. Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity and List of Intangible Cultural Heritage in Need of urgent safeguarding.

From India the Intangible Cultural Heritages added into this list include:

• Tradition of Vedic chanting
• Ramlila, the traditional performance of the Ramayana
• Kutiyattam, Sanskrit theatre
• Ramman, religious festival and ritual theatre of the Garhwal Himalayas.
• Mudiyettu, ritual theatre and dance drama of Kerala
• Kalbelia folk songs and dances of Rajasthan
• Chhau dance
• Buddhist chanting of Ladakh: recitation of sacred Buddhist texts in the trans-Himalayan Ladakh region, Jammu and Kashmir.
• Sankirtana, ritual singing, drumming and dancing of Manipur
• Traditional brass and copper craft of utensil making among the Thatheras of Jandiala Guru, Punjab
• Yoga
• Nawrouz
• Kumbh Mela

Other items included in the list apart from the UNESCO
Context: Recently, Manipur’s tradition of making rice beer, the practice of tying turbans in Rajasthan and several different dances, forms of music and festivals from across the country were among the 106 items listed as intangible cultural heritage in a draft released by the Union Culture Ministry .

• Among the traditions seen across the country are the devotional music of Qawwali and the music of the oldest instrument in the country, the Veena. The Kumbh Mela and Ramlila traditions of different States have also been included. 
• The list includes the traditional folk festival of Pachoti in Assam, where the birth of a baby, particularly a male infant as the tradition “relates to the birth of Krishna”, is celebrated with relatives and neighbours. 
• The oral traditions of the transgender community called Kinnar Kanthgeet and compositions of Ameer Khusro are among the entries from Delhi. 
• Gujarat’s Patola silk textiles from Patan with its geometric and figurative patterns also made it to the list. The practice of tying a turban or safa across Rajasthan was a part of the list. 
• From Jammu and Kashmir, the Kalam Bhat or Qalambaft gharana of Sufiana music in Budgam district and from Ladakh, the Buddhist chanting across both Leh and Kargil districts were on the list of intangible cultural heritage. 
• The making of khor, a rice beer, by the Tangkhul community in Manipur as well as other crafts associated with it, like making gourd vessels and wicker baskets, were also on the list. 
• Kerala’s martial art form, Kalaripayuttu, and the practice of making designs at the entrance of homes and temples called kolam in Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh were also included in the list. 
• Different forms of shadow puppet theatre — Chamadyacha Bahulya in Maharashtra, Tolu Bommalatta in Andhra Pradesh, Togalu Gombeyatta in Karnataka, Tolu Bommalattam in Tamil Nadu, Tolpava Kuthu in Kerala and Ravanchhaya in Orissa — have also been included.

Context: Recently, the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has given its approval for fixation of Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) rates for Phosphatic And Potassic (P&K) Fertilizers for the year 2020-21.
About Nutrient Based Subsidy (NBS) Scheme

• The NBS Scheme for fertilizer was initiated in the year 2010 and is being implemented by the Department of Fertilizers.
• Government is making available fertilizers, Urea and 21 grades of P&K fertilizers to farmers at subsidized prices through fertilizer manufacturers/importers.
• The scheme allows the manufacturers, marketers, and importers to fix the MRP of the Phosphatic and Potash fertilizers at reasonable levels.
• The MRP will be decided considering the domestic and international prices of P&K fertilizers, inventory level in the country and the exchange rates.
• The NBS ensures that adequate quantity of P&K is made available to the farmers at a statutory Controlled Price.

About Fertiliser Pricing in India

• Under this, a fixed amount of subsidy decided on an annual basis is provided on each grade of subsidized Phosphatic and Potassic (P&K) fertilizers, except for Urea based on the nutrient content present in them.
• It is largely for secondary nutrients like N, P, S and K and micronutrients which are very important for crop growth and development.
• In India currently urea is the only controlled fertilizer and is sold at a statutory notified uniform sale price.

This MRP is decided considering 

• Domestic and international prices of P&K fertilizers
• Inventory level in the country 
• The exchange rates

About Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs

• It was chaired by the Prime Minister, CCEA lays down the priorities for public sector investment and considers specific proposals for investment of not less than specific levels as revised from time to time.
• It has a mandate to review economic trends on a continuous basis, as well as the problems and prospects, with a view to evolving a consistent and integrated economic policy framework for the country.
• It also directs and coordinates all policies and activities in the economic field including foreign investment that require policy decisions at the highest level.

Context: Recently, Union Agriculture Minister participated in an virtual meeting of G-20 Agriculture Ministers which was organised by the Saudi Presidency.

Key Points

• It  was organized through video conferencing by the Saudi Presidency to deliberate on the ways and means of ensuring continuity of the food supply value chain including livelihood of farmers.
• The meeting sought to address the issue of Covid-19 impacts on food security, safety and nutrition.
• No export restrictions or high taxes on food and agricultural products purchased by the World Food Programme (WFP) and other humanitarian agencies.
• The International Fund for Agricultural Development will help in technical assistance, and work to improve resilience in agriculture.
• The G20 AMIS (Agricultural Market Information System) will help coordinate policy responses.
• The G-20 nations resolved to have international cooperation in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic to avoid food wastages and losses, and maintain the continuity of the food supply value chain across borders.
• They also resolved to work together for food security and nutrition, share best practices and lessons learnt, promote research, responsible investments, innovations and reforms that will improve the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and food systems.

World Food Programme

• It is the food assistance branch of the United Nations, established in 1961.
• Aim:To eradicate hunger and malnutrition with the ultimate goal of eliminating the need for food aid itself.

International Fund for Agricultural Development

• Established in 1977, it is an international financial institution and a specialised agency of the United Nations. It works to address poverty and hunger in rural areas of developing countries

G20 AMIS (Agricultural Market Information System)

• It is an inter-agency platform to enhance food market transparency and encourage international policy coordination in times of crisis. It was established in 2011 at the request of G20 countries.

G20: It is an informal group of 19 countries and the European Union with representatives of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Context: Recently, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has organized the rupee’s Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) in relation to the currencies of 36 trading partner countries.
About Currency Exchange Rate

• An exchange rate is the value of one nation's currency versus the currency of another nation or economic zone.
• The currency exchange rate is one of the most important determinants of a country's relative level of economic health.
• Exchange rates play a vital role in a country's level of trade, which is critical to most every free market economy in the world.
• A higher-valued currency makes a country's imports less expensive and its exports more expensive in foreign markets.
• A lower-valued currency makes a country's imports more expensive and its exports less expensive in foreign markets.
• A higher exchange rate can be expected to worsen a country's balance of trade, while a lower exchange rate can be expected to improve it.

What are the measures to be looked at while considering Rupee exchange rate?

• The Reserve Bank of India tabulates the rupee’s Nominal Effective Exchange Rate (NEER) in relation to the currencies of 36 trading partner countries. This is a weighted index — i.e., countries with which India trades more are given a greater weight in the index.
• A decrease in this index denotes depreciation in rupee’s value; an increase reflects appreciation.
• There is one more measure that is even better at capturing the actual change.
• This is called the Real Effective Exchange Rate (REER).
• It is essentially an improvement over the NEER because it also takes into account the domestic inflation in the various economies.

Impact of Inflation on Exchange Rate

• Many factors affect the exchange rate between any two currencies ranging from the interest rates to political stability (less of either results in a weaker currency). Inflation is one of the most important factors.
• Illustration: Imagine that the Rupee-Dollar exchange rate was exactly 1 in the first year. This means that with Rs 100, one could buy something that was priced at $100 in the US. But suppose the Indian inflation is 20% and the US inflation is zero. Then, in the second year, an Indian would need Rs 120 to buy the same item priced at $100, and the rupee’s exchange rate would depreciate (reduce in value) to 1.20.

About Nominal effective exchange rate (NEER)

• It is an unadjusted weighted average rate at which one country’s currency exchanges for a basket of multiple foreign currencies. The nominal exchange rate is the amount of domestic currency needed to purchase foreign currency.
• If a domestic currency increases against a basket of other currencies inside a floating exchange rate regime, NEER is said to appreciate. If the domestic currency falls against the basket, the NEER depreciates.
• It only describes relative value; it cannot definitively show whether a currency is strong or gaining strength in real terms.
• It only describes whether a currency is weak or strong, or weakening or strengthening, compared to foreign currencies.

About Real effective exchange rate (REER) 

• It is the weighted average of a country’s currency in relation to an index or basket of other major currencies. The weights are determined by comparing the relative trade balance of a country’s currency against each country within the index.
• It is used to measure the value of a specific currency in relation to an average group of major currencies. 
• A country’s REER is an important measure when assessing its trade capabilities because it also takes into account the domestic inflation in the various economies.
• It can also be used to measure the equilibrium value of a country’s currency, identify the underlying factors of a country’s trade flow, and analyze the impact that other factors, such as competition and technological changes, have on a country and ultimately the trade-weighted index.

Context: According to the UN-ESCAP Report 2020,said that Developing countries in the Asia-Pacific need to increase their healthcare emergency spending by USD 880 million per year amid the coronavirus pandemic.

Key Points

• The COVID-19 pandemic is having far-reaching economic and social consequences for the Asia-Pacific region, with strong cross-border spillover effects through trade, tourism and financial linkages, according to the report by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).
• The UN regional arm has also batted for increase in spending on managing the COVID-19 pandemic and efforts towards decarbonization to tackle climate change.
• The UN-ESCAP’s Economic and Social Survey of Asia and the Pacific 2020 highlights the COVID-19 pandemic as the immediate risk to the region’s economic outlook, deepening the economic slowdown that was already underway.
• Although there are significant uncertainties surrounding the pandemic, the negative impacts are likely to be substantial.

Major Highlights of the Report
Health Emergency Spending

• As governments respond to the unprecedented health crisis and introduce economic stimulus packages, the report estimates that Asia-Pacific developing countries should increase health emergency spending by USD 880 million per year.

Regional Fund

• It also pointed towards the need for the developing countries in Asia-Pacific to consider establishing a regional fund to respond to future health emergencies.
• In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, policymakers should maintain accommodative macroeconomic policies to sustain the economic health of the region.

Fiscal And Monetary Policy

• Fiscal and monetary policies should be focused on supporting affected enterprises and households and preventing economic contagion.
• Fiscal spending can also play a significant role in enhancing the ability of health responders to monitor the spread of the pandemic, care for infected people and improve health emergency preparedness.

Rethinking Economic Development Strategy

• At the same time, countries should take the opportunity posed by these challenging times to rethink their economic development strategies towards a more inclusive, sustainable and planet-friendly economy.
• Countries in the region are not only going through a public health crisis but also a climate emergency, which is permanent and even more far-reaching and potentially more disastrous than the pandemic, the UN report warned.
• Policymakers should not lose sight of people and the planet. When it comes to designing economic stimulus packages, social inclusiveness and environmental sustainability must be built into every decision.
• The decades-long high economic growth in the region has been accompanied by growing inequality of income and opportunity, and detrimental impacts on the planet, which are endangering the well-being of present and future, the report revealed.

Transitioning Towards Sustainable Consumption

• “Unsustainable consumption and production patterns have substantially increased greenhouse gas emissions, exacerbating the vulnerability of the region to climate change. Additionally, USD 240 billion worth of annual subsidies continue to feed the region’s heavy dependence on fossil-fuels,” it added.
• The report called for a transition towards sustainable consumption and production, with cleaner production and less material-intensive lifestyles, supported by enabling policies.
• This would require all stakeholders, notably governments, businesses and consumers, to urgently align their own goals and actions with the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Strengthening Regional Cooperation

• The UN body also urged for strengthening of regional cooperation to raise the ambition to tackle climate emergency. Governments should scale up their efforts on climate-related standards, carbon pricing and implement sustainable consumption and production patterns at the regional level, UN-ESCAP said.

Context: The number of people facing acute food insecurity could nearly double this year to 265 million due to the economic fallout of COVID-19, according to the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP).
About Global Report on Food Crisis 2020

• This report was highlighted to show links between conflict and rising levels of acute food insecurity.
• 135 million people in 55 countries experienced acute food insecurity in 2019 nearly 60% of whom lived in conflict or instability.
• Yemen will see the world’s worst food and malnutrition crisis in 2020 as the number of acutely food-insecure people there is “expected to exceed 17 million”.
• The report is produced by the Global Network against Food Crises, an international alliance working to address the root causes of extreme hunger.
• An additional 130 million are on the edge of starvation prompted by Coronavirus. Added with 135 million, the number rises to 265 million in 2020.
• Reasons: The impact of lost tourism revenues, falling remittances, unemployment, under-employment, shutdown of many factories and travel and other restrictions linked to the coronavirus pandemic.

Measures

• Swift and unimpeded humanitarian access to vulnerable communities.
• To set up a network of logistics hubs to keep worldwide humanitarian supply chains moving.
• Strengthening food security systems.

India’s Step in Ensuring Food Security

• The Union Agriculture Minister participated in an Extraordinary virtual meeting of G-20 Agriculture Ministers to address the issue of Covid-19 impacts on food security, safety and nutrition.
• The G-20 Agriculture Ministers virtual meeting was organized through video conferencing by the Saudi Presidency.
• The G-20 nations resolved to have international cooperation in the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic, to avoid food wastages and losses, maintain the continuity of the food supply value chain across borders.
• They also resolved to work together for food security and nutrition, share best practices and lessons learnt, promote research, responsible investments, innovations and reforms that will improve the sustainability and resilience of agriculture and food systems.
• Agreed to develop science based international guidelines on stricter safety and hygienic measures for zoonosis control.
• The Government of India has exempted all agriculture operations during the lockdown period and ensured continued availability of essential agriculture produce and supply, while adhering to protocol of social distancing, health and hygiene.

Context: Recently, International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) released report titled 2020 Global Food Policy Report.

• In this it said Food insecurity, malnutrition and poverty may escalate, particularly among marginalised people in the developing world due to the rapid spread of coronavirus.
• IFPRI in the 2020 Global Food Policy Report said policymakers must focus on building a more resilient, climate-smart, inclusive and healthy food systems that can help people withstand these types of shocks.

About the Report

• Worldwide, more than 20 lakh people have been infected by coronavirus since its outbreak in China in December last year, while more than 1.6 lakh have died including over 50,000 in Europe and more than 35,000 in the US.
• In India, there are 18,500 confirmed cases with 550 deaths so far.
• Food systems provide opportunities to improve food and nutrition security, generate income, and drive inclusive economic growth, but even in prosperous times many people are deprived of these benefits.
• Greater inclusivity in food systems is not a panacea for this or any other crisis, but it is a critical part of strengthening our resilience.
• Times of crises also offer opportunities for change and it is essential that we act now so that everyone, especially the most vulnerable, can recover from the COVID-19 shock and be prepared to withstand future shocks.
• The report highlighted the central role that inclusive food systems play in meeting global goals to end poverty, hunger, malnutrition and offered recommendations for making food systems more inclusive for four marginalized groups – smallholders, women, youth, and conflict-affected people.
• The report observed that national food systems across the developing world are already transforming rapidly, creating challenges and opportunities to make them more inclusive to all these groups.
• Case studies of these transformations in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Nigeria, and Vietnam provide useful examples of the drivers and components of change, as well as the promising entry points for actions that can increase inclusion, it said.
• Approaches to food system transformation must be country specific, as each country’s food system is unique.
• Governments can foster these inclusive food systems by enacting laws, policies, and regulations that provide basic infrastructure, create the right market incentives, promote inclusive agribusiness models and leverage the potential of digital technology, the report said.
• Additionally, investments in human capital in areas such as secure land tenure rights, improved access to information, and stronger social protections can lower the barriers to participation that many marginalized groups face, it added.

About International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) 

• It is an international agricultural research center founded in the early 1970s to improve the understanding of national agricultural and food policies to promote the adoption of innovations in agricultural technology. 
• Additionally, IFPRI was meant to shed more light on the role of agricultural and rural development in the broader development pathway of a country.
• The mission of IFPRI is to provide research-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition.
• It carries out food policy research and disseminates it through hundreds of publications, bulletins, conferences, and other initiatives. 
• It was organized as a District of Columbia non-profit, non-stock corporation on March 5, 1975, and its first research bulletin was produced in February 1976.
• It has offices in several developing countries, including China, Ethiopia, and India, and has research staff working in many more countries around the world. 
• Most of the research takes place in developing countries in Central America, South America, Africa, and Asia.

Context: Recently, Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution says that only 15 States and UTs have utilised quota based on the 2011 Census for PDS beneficiaries.
Key Points

• Union Minister for Food and Public Distribution, while detailing the efforts of  distributing foodgrains across the country, blames State governments for the gap in enrolling beneficiaries under the Public Distribution System and failing to embrace the one nation, one ration card scheme. 
• Till now 1,404 rail rakes carrying 39.41 LMT food grains have been transported. Union Government has a stock of 588.9 lakh tonnes of foodgrains. And monthly we need 60 lakh tonnes. And there will be additional procurement now of the rabi crop that is being harvested.  
• Union Government has fixed wheat at ?21/kg and rice at ?22/ kg for the State governments to procure, which is far lower than the MSP rate. 
• The State governments are told to procure as much as they want. Even those who are conducting relief work can approach us and take the food grains from us. This includes the National Disaster Management Authority or State Disaster Management Authority. 
• As per 2011 census, 50% of urban population and 75% rural population have to be covered under Public Distribution System (PDS). As per the census, there should be 81,34,9400 beneficiaries. It is the State governments’ responsibility to enroll beneficiaries. 
• Only 15 States and UTs have utilised their quota. These include Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala, M.P., Maharashtra, Meghalaya, Punjab, Rajasthan, Uttarakhand, West Bengal, Lakshadweep and Ladakh. 
• But a few States that lag behind like Bihar can issue 14.5 lakh additional ration cards or Tamil Nadu could have had 7.36 lakh more ration cards and so on. 
• The Centre has not stopped the States from increasing the list of beneficiaries. They need to be held accountable for this lapse. 
• The one nation, one ration card system, which would have helped migrant workers get ration wherever they were stranded.
• This project would have helped: say a Bihari migrant who is working in Gujarat, could have availed PDS.  
• This is made possible by e-pos machines and hundred percentage linkage of ration cards with Aadhaar card. 
• So far, 12 States have embraced the project including Andhra Pradesh, Goa, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka, Kerala, MP, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Telangana and Tripura. U.P. and Bihar, have not so far installed e-pos machines in all the fair price shops. 

Context: Recently, the Parliamentary Committee on Labour in its report on the Industrial Relations Code, 2019, submitted its report, has recommended that “in case of natural calamities, payment of wages to the workers until the re-establishment of the industry may be unjustifiable”.
Background

• The Industrial Relations Code 2019 is an amalgamation of three laws i.e. Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, Trade Unions Act, 1926, and Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946.
• It was introduced in the Lok Sabha in November 2019 and referred to the Standing Committee on Labour in December 2019.
• With the ongoing lockdown, the draft report was circulated to the members on April 15 via e-mail and they were given eight days to respond and the final adopted report was accepted by the Speaker on 23rd April 2020.
• The Industrial Code makes it incumbent upon the employer to pay 50% wages to the workers/employees who are laid off due to shortage of power, coal, raw material etc., for 45 days.
• The Committee has, however, expressed reservations for payment of the prescribed percentage of wages to the workers in the event of closure of an establishment due to natural calamity.

Key recommendation of Committee

• In case of natural calamities like earthquake, flood, super cyclone etc. which often result in closure of establishments for a considerably longer period without the employer’s fault, payment of wages to the workers until the re-establishment of the industry may be unjustifiable
• The Committee has suggested that “clarity” be brought in so that employers “not responsible for closure or lay off, are not disadvantaged in case of such natural calamity of high intent”.
• The basic idea about our recommendations is that the industry should also not be forced when the situation is beyond their control.
• The law has to be reasonable. It is for the government to step in and extend a helping hand for the industries.

About Industrial Relations Code Bill, 2019

• The Industrial Relations Code 2019 (IR Code) is the third bill in a series of four being framed to amalgamate and rationalize more than 40 central laws governing labour affairs. It was introduced in the Lok Sabha on November 28, 2019.
• The Code provides for the recognition of trade unions, notice periods for strikes and lock-outs, standing orders, and resolution of industrial disputes. 
• It subsumes and replaces three labour laws: The Industrial Disputes Act, 1947; the Trade Unions Act, 1926; and the Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946. 

Important Aspects of The Bill

• The Bill provides a degree of flexibility in government approvals for the retrenchment of employees.
• It presents a legal framework for ushering in the concept of ‘fixed-term employment’ through contract workers on a pan-India basis.
• While companies currently hire contract workers through contractors, the fixed-term employment concept allows the companies to hire contract workers directly.
• It also allows for tweaking of the contract term based on the seasonality of the industry.
• During the contract tenure, the workers will be treated on par with regular workers.
• It helps the companies to hire and fire workers easily and also provides social security to contract workers.
• Contract workers will now be eligible for getting PF, gratuity, medical benefits, etc., similar to regular workers during their contract periods.
• By placing the concept in the central bill, the government is expecting that it will have a wider reach and states will follow suit.

Context: The Reserve Bank Of India (RBI) has decided to conduct simultaneous purchase and sale of government securities under Open Market Operations (OMO) for Rs 10,000 crore each on April 27, 2020 considering the current and evolving liquidity and market conditions.

• The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has announced simultaneous purchase and sale of government bonds in a bid to soften long-term yields.
• The central bank will buy Rs10,000 crore of bonds maturing between 2026 and 2030 and sell the same amount of T-bills.
• Such open market operations are known as ‘Operation Twist’.
• The move will also aid monetary transmission by prompting banks to pass on interest rate cut benefits to their customers.

About Operation Twist

• ‘Operation Twist’ is when the central bank uses the proceeds from sale of short-term securities to buy long-term government debt papers, leading to easing of interest rates on the long term papers.
• The name “Operation Twist” was given by the mainstream media due to the visual effect that the monetary policy action was expected to have on the shape of the yield curve.
• If we visualize a linear upward sloping yield curve, this monetary action effectively “twists” the ends of the yield curve, hence, the name Operation Twist.
• To put another way, the yield curve twists when short-term yields go up and long-term interest rates drop at the same time.
• This is expected to lead to a flattening of the yield curve. Long-end rates are expected to come off, while short-term rates could rise.

Impact of Operation Twist

• As the central bank buys long-term securities (bonds), their demand rises which in turn pushes up their prices.
• However, the bond yield comes down with an increase in prices (inverse relationship).
• Yield is the return an investor gets on his (bond) holding/investment.
• The interest rate in an economy is determined by yield. If yield is low, interest rates decrease.
• Thus, lower long-term interest rates mean people can avail long-term loans (such as buying houses, cars or financing projects) at lower rates.
• This will lead to a boost in consumption and spending in the economy which in turn will revive the growth.

About Open market operations

• Open market operations is the sale and purchase of government securities and treasury bills by RBI or the central bank of the country.
• The objective of OMO is to regulate the money supply in the economy.
• When the RBI wants to increase the money supply in the economy, it purchases the government securities from the market and it sells government securities to suck out liquidity from the system.
• RBI carries out the OMO through commercial banks and does not directly deal with the public.
• OMO is one of the tools that RBI uses to smoothen the liquidity conditions through the year and minimise its impact on the interest rate and inflation rate levels.

Context: Recently, the Indian economy’s slowdown during 2018 and 2019 is becoming much worse in 2020 with the spread of COVID-19 and the stalling of almost all economic activity. 

• Like most other central banks in the world, the Reserve Bank of India, too, has tried to cut interest rates to boost the economy. 
• However, unlike in the past, when the RBI used its repo rate as the main instrument to tweak the interest rates, today, it is the reverse repo rate that is effectively setting the benchmark.

Current Scenario

• The repo rate is the rate at which the RBI lends money to the banking system (or banks) for short durations. While the reverse repo rate is the rate at which banks can park their money with the RBI. 
• With both kinds of repo, which is short for repurchase agreement, transactions happen via bonds, one party sells bonds to the other with the promise to buy them back (or repurchase them) at a later specified date. 
• Under normal circumstances, that is when the economy is growing, the repo rate is the benchmark interest rate in the economy because it is the lowest rate of interest at which funds can be borrowed. 
• It forms the floor rate for all other interest rates in the economy — for instance, the interest rate consumers would have to pay on a car loan or the interest rate they will earn from a fixed deposit etc. 
• Over the last couple of years, India’s economic growth has decelerated sharply. This has happened for a variety of reasons and has essentially manifested in lower consumer demand. 

As such, the banking system is now flush with liquidity for two broad reasons: on the one hand, the RBI is cutting repo rates and other policy variables like the Cash Reserve Ratio to release additional and cheaper funds into the banking system so that banks could lend. 

• The excess liquidity in the banking system has meant that during March and the first half of April, banks have been using only the reverse repo (to park funds with the RBI) instead of the repo (to borrow funds). In other words, the reverse repo rate has become the most influential rate in the economy. 
• The idea is to make it less attractive for banks to do nothing with their funds because their doing so hurts the economy and starves the businesses that genuinely need funds. 
• It all depends on the revival of consumer demand in India. If the disruptions induced by the outbreak of novel coronavirus disease continue for a long time, consumer demand, which was already quite weak, is likely to stay muted and businesses would feel no need to borrow heavily to make fresh investments. 
• It is also important for banks to be confident about new loans not turning into NPAs, and adding to their already high levels of bad loans. Until banks feel confident about the prospects of an economic turnaround, cuts in reverse repo rates may have little impact.

This article may be utilized to understand various terms contained in the article. Questions will be asked on this terms but may not be on actual figures

Context: Recently, Reserve Bank of India governor announced TLTRO 2.0 of ?50,000 crore to ensure that different segments of financial markets such as A non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs) to get enough liquidity.

• States and UTs allowed to borrow more to manage COVID-19.  
• Reverse Repo rate reduced from 4.0% to 3.75%.  
• India is projected to turn around and grow at 7.4% in 2021-22. 

The RBI Governor said that the additional measures are aimed to: 

• maintain adequate liquidity in the system and its constituents in the face of COVID-19 related dislocations. 
• facilitate and incentivise bank credit flows. 
• ease financial stress, and 
• enable the normal functioning of markets. 

Key Points
Liquidity Management

1) Targeted Long-Term Operations (TLTRO) 2.0 

• A second set of targeted long-term repo operations (TLTRO 2.0) for an initial aggregate amount of Rs. 50,000 crore will be conducted. 
• This is being done to facilitate funds flow to small and mid-sized corporates, including NBFCs and MFIs. 
• The funds availed by banks under TLTRO 2.0 should be invested in investment grade bonds, commercial paper, and non-convertible debentures of non-banking financial companies (NBFCs), with at least 50 per cent of the total amount availed going to small and mid-sized NBFCs and micro finance institutions (MFIs). 

2) Refinancing Facilities for All India Financial Institutions 

• Special refinance facilities for a total amount of Rs. 50,000 crore will be provided to National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and the National Housing Bank (NHB) to enable them to meet sectoral credit needs.  
• This will comprise Rs. 25,000 crore to NABARD for refinancing regional rural banks (RRBs), cooperative banks and micro finance institutions (MFIs); Rs. 15,000 crore to SIDBI for on-lending / refinancing; and Rs. 10,000 crore to NHB for supporting housing finance companies (HFCs). 

3) Reduction of Reverse Repo Rate under Liquidity Adjustment Facility 

• Reverse repo rate has been reduced by 25 basis points from 4.0% to 3.75% with immediate effect, in order to encourage banks to deploy surplus funds in investments and loans in productive sectors of the economy. 

4) Raising Limit of Ways and Means Advances of states and Uts 

• Ways and Means Advances (WMAs) Limit of states and union territories has been increased by 60% over and above the limit as on March 31, 2020, in order to provide greater comfort to states for undertaking COVID-19 containment and mitigation efforts, and also to help them plan their market borrowing programmes better. 
• WMAs are temporary loan facilities provided by RBI to help governments tide over temporary mismatches in receipts and expenditure. The increased limit will be available till September 30, 2020. 

Regulatory Measures 

• In addition to the measures announced by RBI on March 27, 2020, the bank announced additional regulatory measures to lessen debtors’ burden in wake of the pandemic. 

5) Asset Classification 

• With respect to recognition of Non-Performing Assets (NPAs), the central bank has decided that the payment moratorium period, which lending institutions have been permitted to grant as per RBI’s announcement on March 27, 2020, will not be considered while classifying assets as NPAs. i.e., the moratorium period will be excluded while considering 90-day NPA norm for those accounts for which lending institutions decide to grant moratorium or deferment and which were standard as on March 1, 2020. This means that there will be an asset classification standstill for such accounts from March 1 - May 31, 2020.  
• NBFCs will have the flexibility under the prescribed accounting standards to provide such relief to their borrowers. 
• Simultaneously, banks have been asked to maintain higher provision of 10% on all accounts whose classification has been put on a standstill as above, so that banks maintain sufficient buffers. 

6) Extension of Resolution Timeline 

• Recognizing challenges to resolution of stressed assets or accounts which are or are likely to become NPAs, the period for implementation of resolution plan has been extended by 90 days.  
• Currently, scheduled commercial banks and other financial institutions are required to hold an additional provision of 20 per cent if a resolution plan has not been implemented within 210 days from the date of such default. 

7) Distribution of Dividend 

• It has been decided that scheduled commercial banks and cooperative banks shall not make any further dividend pay-outs from profits pertaining to FY 2019-20. 
• The decision will be reviewed based on the financial position of banks at the end of the second quarter of the financial year 2019-20.  
• This has been done in order to enable banks to conserve capital so that they can retain their capacity to support the economy and absorb losses in an environment of heightened uncertainty. 

8) Lowering of Liquidity Coverage Ratio requirement 

• To improve the liquidity position for individual institutions, Liquidity Coverage Ratio requirement for scheduled commercial banks has been brought down from 100% to 80% with immediate effect.  
• This will be gradually restored in two phases - 90% by October 1, 2020 and 100% by April 1, 2021. 

9) NBFC Loans to Commercial Real Estate Projects 

• The treatment available for loans to commercial real estate projects with respect to the date for commencement for commercial operations (DCCO) has been extended to NBFCs, in order to provide relief to both NBFCs and the real estate sector.  
• As per the current guidelines, DCCO in respect of loans to commercial real estate projects delayed due to reasons beyond the control of promoters can be extended by an additional one year, over and above the one-year extension permitted in normal course, without treating the same as restructuring. 
• Making an assessment of the current economic situation, the Governor informed that the macroeconomic and financial landscape has deteriorated, precipitously in some areas; but light still shines through bravely in some others. 
• According to IMF’s global growth projections, in 2020, the global economy is expected to plunge into the worst recession since the Great Depression, far worse than the Global Financial Crisis.  
• In this situation, India is among the handful of countries that is projected to cling on to positive growth (at 1.9%). He noted that this is the highest growth rate among the G-20 economies. 

Implications of these measures:

• Cutting reverse repo more than the repo, and thereby increase the gap between the two rates: On the one hand, the RBI is incentivising banks to borrow from it at low rates and lend it forward to businesses, yet, on the other, it is disincentivising them from coming back and parking these funds with the RBI.
• LTRO benefits: It provides more liquidity. More importantly, it also provides it targeted to those institutions that are most hit by the economic slowdown and, as such, most in need of funds to survive themselves and boost economic activity at the bottom of the pyramid (that is, the poorest customers).
• With reduced Liquidity Coverage Ratio(LCR) banks would have more cash to deal with.

About Targeted Long-term Repo Operations

• LTRO is a tool that lets banks borrow one to three-year funds from the RBI at the repo rate, by providing government securities with similar or higher tenure as collateral.
• It is called 'Targeted' LTRO as in this case, the RBI wants banks opting for funds under this option to be specifically invested in investment-grade bonds.
• The TLTRO was introduced by the RBI to help companies, including financial institutions, manage their cash flow issues in the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak.

Context: Recently, More than Rs36,659 crore has been transferred by using Direct Benefit Transfer (DBT) through Public Financial Management System (PFMS) in the Bank accounts of 16.01 crore beneficiaries during COVID 2019 lockdown.
Key Points

• The fund was released by the Controller General of Accounts (CGA) office, Department of Expenditure.
• Direct Benefit Transfer ensures that the cash benefit is directly credited into the account of the beneficiary, eliminates leakage and improves efficiency, the statement added.
• The afore said cash amount has been transferred by using robust digital payments technology PFMS (Public Financial Management System) for making DBT payments under Central Schemes (CS) /Centrally Sponsored Schemes (CSS) /CASP schemes .

About Public Financial Management System (PFMS)

• The Public Financial Management System (PFMS), earlier known as Central Plan Schemes Monitoring System (CPSMS), is a web-based online software application developed and implemented by the Office of Controller General of Accounts (CGA), Ministry of Finance.
• It was initially started during 2009 as a Central Sector Scheme of Planning Commission with the objective of tracking funds released under all Plan schemes of the Government of India, and real time reporting of expenditure at all levels of Programme implementation.
• Subsequently in the year 2013, the scope was enlarged to cover direct payment to beneficiaries under both Plan and non-Plan Schemes.
• In 2017, the Government scrapped the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure.
• The primary objective of PFMS is to facilitate a sound Public Financial Management System for the Government of India (GoI) by establishing an efficient fund flow system as well as a payment cum accounting network.
• At present, the ambit of PFMS coverage includes Central Sector and Centrally Sponsored Schemes as well as other expenditures including the Finance Commission Grants.
• It is integrated with the core banking system in the country.
• It provides various stakeholders with a real time, reliable and meaningful management information system and an effective decision support system, as part of the Digital India initiative of GoI.

Context: As per a World Bank Group report titled COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens, global remittances are projected to experience their sharpest decline in recent times 20%  owing to migrants losing jobs and wages because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Key Points

• According to the report, India’s remittances are projected to fall by about 23% in 2020.
• Globally remittances are projected to decline by about 20% in 2020.
• The projected fall is largely due to a fall in the wages and employment of migrant workers due to the recession caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
• The migrant workers are vulnerable to loss of employment and wages during an economic crisis in a host country.
• The sharp decline in crude prices will also hurt remittances from oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
• This will lead to loss of income for expatriate Indians working in the Gulf and elsewhere across the world.

About Remittance

• A remittance is money sent to another party, usually one in another country.
• The sender is typically an immigrant and the recipient a relative back home.
• Remittances represent one of the largest sources of income for people in low-income and developing nations. 
• It often exceeds the amount of direct investment and official development assistance.
• India is the world’s biggest recipient of remittances. Remittances bolsters India's foreign exchange reserves and helps fund its current account deficit.

Significance of fall in Remittances

• Higher remittances improve nutritional outcomes by increasing investments in higher education, a fall in these remittances puts these outcomes at risk.
• It also helps in maintaining key macroeconomic indicator i.e. CAD (Current Account Deficit).
• Remittances are a vital source of income for developing countries. 
• Remittances play a key role in lower and middle income countries in alleviating poverty besides aiding higher spending on education and lowering child labour in disadvantaged households.
• It helps families afford food, healthcare, and basic needs.

Way forward recommended

• Quick actions that make it easier to send and receive remittances can provide much-needed support to the lives of migrants and their families.These include treating remittance services as essential and making them more accessible to migrants. 

About World Bank

• The World Bank (WB) is an international organization which provides facilities related to “finance, advice and research to developing nations” in order to bolster their economic development.
• It provides loans and grants to the governments of poorer countries for the purpose of pursuing capital projects.
• It comprises two institutions: The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), and the International Development Association (IDA).
• The World Bank is a component of the World Bank Group.

The five development institutions of the World Bank are as follows,

• International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD): provides loans, credits, and grants.
• International Development Association (IDA): provides low- or no-interest loans to low-income countries.
• International Finance Corporation (IFC): provides investment, advice, and asset management to companies and governments.
• Multilateral Guarantee Agency (MIGA): insures lenders and investors against political risk such as war.
• International Centre for the Settlement of Investment Disputes (ICSID): settles investment-disputes between investors and countries.

Context: Recently, the Finance Minister of India opposed a general allocation of new Special Drawing Rights (SDR) by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) because it might not be effective in easing Covid-19 driven financial pressures.

• The Finance Minister was concerned that such a major liquidity injection could produce potentially costly side-effects if countries used the funds for irrelevant purposes.
• The new SDR allocation will provide all 189 members with new foreign exchange reserves with no conditions.
• In the current context of illiquidity and flights to cash, the efficacy of an SDR allocation is not certain, she said, adding that most countries rely on national reserves as a first line of defense.

Key Points

• The SDR is neither a currency nor a claim on the IMF. Rather, it is a potential claim on the freely usable currencies of IMF members. SDRs can be exchanged for these currencies.
• The SDR serves as the unit of account of the IMF and some other international organizations.
• The currency value of the SDR is determined by summing the values in U.S. dollars, based on market exchange rates, of a SDR basket of currencies.
• The SDR basket of currencies includes the U.S. dollar, Euro, Japanese yen, pound sterling and the Chinese renminbi (included in 2016).
• The SDR currency value is calculated daily (except on IMF holidays or whenever the IMF is closed for business) and the valuation basket is reviewed and adjusted every five years.
• Quota (the amount contributed to the IMF) of a country is denominated (expressed) in SDRs.
• Members’ voting power is related directly to their quotas.
• India's Foreign exchange reserves also incorporate SDR.

Review

• The SDR basket is reviewed every five years, or earlier if warranted, to ensure that the basket reflects the relative importance of currencies in the world’s trading and financial systems.
• The reviews cover the key elements of the SDR method of valuation, including criteria and indicators used in selecting SDR basket currencies and the initial currency weights used in determining the amounts (number of units) of each currency in the SDR basket.

Context: Recently, Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has marked Common Bio-Medical Waste Treatment Facilities (CBWTFs) as a key factor in the race to contain the coronavirus outbreak. 
Key Points

• According to the Bio-medical Waste Management Rules, 2016, a Common Bio-medical Waste Treatment and Disposal Facility (CBWTF) is a set up where biomedical waste generated from member health care facilities is imparted necessary treatment to reduce adverse effects that this waste may pose on human health and environment. 
• There were 154 CBMWTFs in 17 states and Union Territories, according to affidavits filed by their chief secretaries at the National Green Tribunal (NGT) between January and July last year. 
• The pollution control board estimates that there are over 1.87 lakh healthcare facilities in the country with 17.01 lakh beds that generate about 519 tonnes of bio-medical waste every day. 
• The NGT noted that even though 20 years had passed since the Supreme Court issued directions on dealing with solid waste management, no progress was made by states and that timelines set under the Municipal Solid Waste Rules, 2016, had expired. 

About Bio-Medical Waste

• According to Bio-medical Waste (Management and Handling) Rules of India "Any waste which is generated during the diagnosis, treatment or immunization of human beings or animals or in research activities pertaining thereto or in the production or testing of biologicals.

Bio-Medical waste consists of:

• Human anatomical waste like tissues, organs and body parts.
• Animal wastes generated during research from veterinary hospitals.
• Microbiology and biotechnology wastes.
• Waste sharps like hypodermic needles, syringes, scalpels and broken glass.
• Discarded medicines and cytotoxic drugs.
• Soiled waste such as dressing, bandages, plaster casts, material contaminated with blood, tubes and catheters.
• Liquid waste from any of the infected areas.
• Incineration ash and other chemical wastes.

About Bio-medical Waste Management Rules, 2016

• Bio-Medical Waste Management Rules 2016 is an improvement to 1998 rules and these new Rules are measures taken in the spirit of Clean India Mission.

Salient features

• The ambit of the rules has been expanded to include vaccination camps, blood donation camps, surgical camps or any other healthcare activity;
• Phase-out the use of chlorinated plastic bags, gloves and blood bags within two years;
• Pre-treatment of the laboratory waste, microbiological waste, blood samples and blood bags through sterilization on-site;
• Provide training to all its health care workers and immunize all health workers regularly;
• Establish a Bar-Code System for bags or containers containing bio-medical waste for disposal;
• Bio-medical waste has been classified in to 4 categories instead 10 to improve the segregation of waste at source;
• Procedure to get authorization simplified.
• Inclusion of emissions limits for Dioxin and furans;
• State Government to provide land for setting up common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facility;
• No occupier shall establish on-site treatment and disposal facility, if a service of is available at a distance of seventy-five kilometer.
• Operator of a common bio-medical waste treatment and disposal facility to ensure the timely collection of bio-medical waste from the HCFs

Context: In wake of Covid-19 the World Bank organizes a virtual workshop on “Contract Management during Emergency situations”. Project Management Unit of Jhelum Tawi Flood Recovery Project (JTFRP) which is executing  the $ US 250 Million Flood Recovery Project funded by the World Bank in the union territory of the Jammu and Kashmir participated?

Key Points

• The workshop was organized by World Bank in collaboration with All India Management Association (AIMA).

• The workshop focused on Project Management Unit of Jhelum & Tawi Flood Recovery Project which is implementing USD 250 Million Flood Recovery Project funded by World Bank in the union territory of J&K.

• The objective of the workshop was to educate participants about the likely adverse impact of COVID-19 pandemic on the implementation of the bank funded projects, its possible implications on contract management and to equip them with the various mitigations measures.

About Jhelum & Tawi Flood Recovery Project(JTFRP)

• The project started in the aftermath of the 2014 floods focuses on restoring critical infrastructure using international best practice on resilient infrastructure.

• The financial assistance is provided by World Bank.

• It envisages supporting recovery and increasing disaster resilience in project areas and increasing the capacity of the project implementing entity to respond promptly and effectively to crisis or emergency.

• Flood management works of Jhelum and its tributaries are also being undertaken through JTFRPs Project Management Unit of World Bank, for which various national and international firms had participated.

The project involves seven components which includes:

• Reconstruction and strengthening of critical infrastructure

• Reconstruction of roads and bridges

• Restoration of urban flood management infrastructure

• Restoration and strengthening of livelihoods

• Strengthening disaster risk management capacity

• Contingent Emergency Response

• Implementation Support

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Power released a revised draft of the Electricity Amendment Bill 2020 which seeks to amend Electricity Act 2003.
Issues

• In India, most electricity distribution companies are run by states and many are under financial stress despite many reforms brought in by the central government. 
• As of now under discom license, public-private partnership models like in Mumbai and Delhi are run by private companies like Adani and BSES.
• The govt. wants to ensure that renewable energy tariffs are not changed by the states after execution of contracts, and electricity regulatory commissions have more teeth to enforce power purchase agreements between projects and distribution companies (discom).
• The proposal comes after the new governments in Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra refused to honour power purchase agreements, leaving investors jittery.

About the draft 

• The draft provides that the Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority will have sole authority to adjudicate matters related to specific performance of contracts related to purchase or sale of power, between power generation companies and distribution companies.
• The Bill also provides that the Electricity Act would be applicable to the entire country, including the Union Territories of Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh.
• It also provides that the cross (power) border trade shall cover import or export of electricity from India and any other country. The transaction related to passage of electricity through India would be treated as transit between two other countries.
• The draft law provides for introduction of power distribution sub-licensee or franchisee, which would not require a separate licence from State commission and providing information about them would sufficient.
• For the renewable sector, the draft bill proposes to bring National Renewable Energy Policy and may bring in a minimum percentage of the purchase for the states from renewable sources
• It also provides additional roles to the National Load Desptach Centre that include scheduling and dispatch of power across the country in accordance with contracts.
• The Bill says that there would no schedule or despatch of electricity unless there is adequate security of payment as per the contract.
• The Bill enables State as well as Central power regulators to specify transmission charges under open access. Earlier, both functions were with the Central commission.
• It seeks privatisation of discoms (distribution companies) by way of sub-licensing & franchisees.
• It calls for the creation of an Electricity Contract Enforcement Authority (ECEA), proposes a National Renewable Energy Policy and mandates payment security as necessary for Scheduling of Electricity and facilitates cross border electricity trade. 
• According to the draft, state commissions will determine tariff for retail sale of electricity without any subsidy under Section 65 of the Act and the tariff should reflect the cost of supply of electricity and cross-subsidies to be reduced.
• It proposes that the ECEA would adjudicate on matters regarding performance of obligations under a contract related to sale, purchase or transmission of electricity. 
• It proposes to empower load dispatch centres to oversee the payment security mechanism before scheduling dispatch of electricity, and suggested a National Renewable Energy Policy for the promotion of generation of electricity from renewable sources.

Context: Recently, the Central government has allowed the conversion of surplus rice, available with the Food Corporation of India (FCI), to ethanol. The development comes at a time when loopholes in the Public Distribution System (PDS) are keeping people away from getting free or subsidised grains.

Key Points

• Ethanol produced from the excess rice will be used for utilisation in making alcohol-based hand sanitizers and blending in petrol. Ethanol is one of the most variable alternatives amongst biofuels.
• The National Biofuel Coordination Committee(NBCC) took the decision which will lead to utilisation of part of a huge stockpile of 30.57 million tonnes (MT) of rice which is almost 128% more than the buffer stock and strategic requirement norms.
• At present, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) has huge rice stock from previous years excluding the unmilled paddy lying with millers on behalf of FCI.
• Using surplus rice for ethanol will address the concern of about 750 million litres of grain-based distillery capacities lying idle, due to the lack of feedstock.
• The National Policy on Biofuels, 2018 allows conversion of surplus quantities of food grains to ethanol when there is a projected oversupply of food grains.

Criticism of this move

• This move has been criticised on the grounds that how can the government waste food stock for fuel when the considerable number of the population doesn’t have food and is suffering from malnutrition.
• In recent past, the government decided to give 5 kg wheat or rice and 1 kg of preferred pulses free of cost to 800 million people, under the National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA) in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.
• However, many poor people are unable to get the benefit out of it, due to loopholes in the PDS network. For example, a large chunk of ration card holders may not be eligible for the free grains, as they are not covered under the NFSA.
• The NFSA, based on the 2011 census, had not factored in the population increase in over nine years, leaving a huge number of people out of its ambit.

About Biofuels

• Any hydrocarbon fuel that is produced from an organic matter (living or once living material) in a short period of time (days, weeks, or even months) is considered a biofuel.

Biofuels may be solid, liquid or gaseous in nature.

• Solid: Wood, dried plant material, and manure
• Liquid: Bioethanol and Biodiesel
• Gaseous: Biogas
• These can be used to replace or can be used in addition to diesel, petrol or other fossil fuels for transport, stationary, portable and other applications. Also, they can be used to generate heat and electricity.
• Some of the main reasons for shifting to biofuels are the rising prices of oil, emission of the greenhouse gases from fossil fuels and the interest for obtaining fuel from agricultural crops for the benefit of farmers.

First generation biofuels:

• These are made from food sources such as sugar, starch, vegetable oil, or animal fats using conventional technology.
• Common first-generation biofuels include Bioalcohols, Biodiesel, Vegetable oil, Bioethers, Biogas.
• Though the process of conversion is easy, but use of food sources in the production of biofuels creates an imbalance in food economy, leading to increased food prices and hunger.

Second generation biofuels:

• These are produced from non-food crops or portions of food crops that are not edible and considered as wastes, e.g. stems, husks, wood chips, and fruit skins and peeling.
• Thermochemical reactions or biochemical conversion process is used for producing such fuels.
• Examples include cellulose ethanol, biodiesel.
• Though these fuels do not affect food economy, their production is quite complicated.
• Also, it is reported that these biofuels emit less greenhouse gases when compared to first generation biofuels.

Third generation biofuels:

• These are produced from micro-organisms like algae.
• Example- Butanol
• Micro-organisms like algae can be grown using land and water unsuitable for food production, therefore reducing the strain on already depleted water sources.
• One disadvantage is that fertilizers used in the production of such crops lead to environment pollution.

Fourth Generation Biofuels:

• In the production of these fuels, crops that are genetically engineered to take in high amounts of carbon are grown and harvested as biomass.
• The crops are then converted into fuel using second generation techniques.
• The fuel is pre-combusted and the carbon is captured. Then the carbon is geo-sequestered, meaning that the carbon is stored in depleted oil or gas fields or in unmineable coal seams.
• Some of these fuels are considered as carbon negative as their production pulls out carbon from environment.

About National Policy on Biofuel,2018
Goal: Achieve 20% blending of ethanol in petrol and 5% blending of biodiesel in diesel is proposed by 2030.
Keyfeatures
The Policy categorises biofuels as:

• “Basic Biofuels” – First Generation (1G) bioethanol & biodiesel
• “Advanced Biofuels” – Second Generation (2G) ethanol, Municipal Solid Waste (MSW) to drop-in fuels
• Third Generation (3G) biofuels, bio-CNG, butanol etc.
• The Policy expands the scope of raw material for ethanol production by allowing use of Sugarcane Juice, Sugar containing materials like Sugar Beet, Sweet Sorghum, Starch containing materials like Corn, Cassava, Damaged food grains like wheat, broken rice, Rotten Potatoes, unfit for human consumption for ethanol production.
• The Policy allows use of surplus food grains for production of ethanol for blending with petrol with the approval of National Biofuel Coordination Committee.
• Under the policy, a viability gap funding scheme for 2G ethanol Bio refineries of Rs.5000 crores in 6 years in addition to additional tax incentives, higher purchase price as compared to 1G biofuels will be provided
• The Policy encourages setting up of supply chain mechanisms for biodiesel production from non-edible oilseeds, Used Cooking Oil, short gestation crops.

Context: Reecently, the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) has urged states to set up renewable energy (RE) equipment manufacturing parks to meet domestic demand as well as make India a global production hub.
Key Points

• At a time when numerous international firms are looking to move their production base out of China in the wake of the coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak.
• The Ministry is seeing a fresh opportunity in setting up renewable energy (RE) equipment manufacturing parks to meet domestic demand as well as make India a global production hub.
• The ministry has also got in touch with trade commissioners and representatives of various countries and invited them to invest in this promising sector in India
• With this objective in view, Ministry has written to various State Governments and various Port Authorities to identify land parcels of 50-500 acres for setting up such Parks.  
• Tuticorin Port Trust, States of Madhya Pradesh and Odisha have already expressed their keen interest in setting up RE Manufacturing Parks. 
• These hubs will manufacture equipments like silicon ingots & wafers, solar cells & modules, wind equipments and ancillary items like back sheet, glass, steel frames, inverters, batteries etc. 
• At present, country has around 10 GW of Wind equipment manufacturing capacity.  
• In case of Solar Cells and Modules India imports about 85 % from abroad.   
• To incentivise domestic manufacturing, Government of India already announced provisions to enable levying of Basic Customs Duty on import of solar cells and modules. 
• It may be stated that in a time when many companies are planning to shift their manufacturing base from China, it is opportune time for India to bring policy changes for facilitating and catalysing manufacturing in India.  
• In tune with this, MNRE has set up RE Industry Facilitation & Promotion Board to facilitate investment in RE the sector.  
• The Ministry has also strengthened the clauses in Power Purchase Agreements(PPAs) to boost investor confidence.  
• The three Power and RE Sector NBFCs namely PFC, REC and IREDA have reduced their repayment charges to 2% for enhancing the fund availability for new projects in the sector.  
• More over, IREDA has brought out a new Scheme for project specific funding to promote RE manufacturing in India. 

About Power Purchase Agreements(PPAs) 

• A power purchase agreement (PPA) is a contract between two parties, one who generates electricity for the purpose (the seller) and one who is looking to purchase electricity (the buyer).
• It is the principal agreement that defines the revenue and credit quality of a generating project and is thus a key instrument of project finance.
• It defines all the commercial terms for the sale of electricity between the two parties, including when the project will begin commercial operation, schedule for delivery of electricity, penalties for under-delivery, payment terms, and termination.

About REC Limited, formerly Rural Electrification Corporation Limited, is a public Infrastructure Finance Company in India’s power sector. The company is a Public Sector Undertaking and finances and promotes rural electrification projects across India.

About Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA)

• IREDA is India’s leading financial institution dedicated to clean energy expansion. 
• Since its founding under MNRE in 1987, IREDA has financed the largest share of renewable energy projects in India.
• It is a Non-Banking Financial Institution under the administrative control of this Ministry for providing term loans for renewable energy and energy efficiency projects.
• It offers a credit enhancement guarantee scheme to support the issuance of bonds by wind and solar energy project developers. 
• By providing unconditional and irrevocable partial credit guarantees, IREDA aims to enhance the credit rating of bonds for renewable energy projects, thereby improving their marketability and liquidity, and attracting lower-cost and longer-term funding for project developers. 
• The amount raised by credit enhanced bonds shall only serve to repay existing debt partially or fully.
• IREDA’s long-term objective is to contribute to the development of a bond market for renewable energy projects in India.

Context:  Recently, Interstellar comet 2I/Borisov is providing a glimpse of another star system’s planetary building blocks, using new observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope.  
Background 

• Comets are condensed samples of gas, ice, and dust that form swirling in the disk around a star during the birth of its planets.

What is an interstellar comet?

• Comets are snowballs of ice, dust and frozen gas. When totally frozen (or “inactive”), they’re approximately the diameter of a small town, but when heated by the Sun their tails can extend for millions of miles.
• 2I/Borisov is about the length of nine football fields, or 0.61 miles (0.98 kilometers), making it relatively small. The new results on the comet’s composition are published in the journal Nature Astronomy. 
• All comets form in the primordial disk of material that encircles a young star, preserving remnants of a planetary system’s ancient past. 
• Comets from our own solar neighborhood reveal the history of materials, including water, that made Earth the planet we know today, as well as our other planetary neighbors. 
• An interstellar comet, on the other hand, is a chemical ambassador from an entirely different star system — containing a treasure trove of clues to worlds too far to reach with modern technology. 

Where did it come from? 

• A high carbon-monoxide-to-water ratio suggests that the comet has traveled from a very cold place — as cold as the area where Pluto is in relation to our Sun, called the Kuiper Belt. 
• The group using Hubble additionally theorizes 2I/Borisov may have originated around the most common type of star in the Milky Way: a red dwarf. 
• Red dwarfs are much smaller and dimmer than the Sun, so the planet-forming material around them would be colder than the building blocks of our solar system. 

About the key Findings

• Borisov is the first known comet to originate from a different star system than our own. Measurements find that it has an unusual abundance of carbon monoxide largely unlike comets belonging to our solar system. 
• Researchers say its unusual composition points to a likely birthplace of a carbon-rich circumstellar disk around a cool red dwarf class of star. These observations are a prime opportunity to sample the chemistry of the material in a primordial disk around another star. 
• Studying comets is important because astronomers are still trying to understand the role they play in the buildup of planets. 
• They can also redistribute organic material among young planets, and may have brought water to the early Earth. These activities are likely happening in other planetary systems, as demonstrated by Borisov’s makeup. 
• The team used Hubble’s unique ultraviolet sensitivity to spectroscopically detect carbon monoxide gas escaping from comet Borisov’s solid comet nucleus. 
• Hubble’s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observed the comet on four separate occasions, which allowed the researchers to see the object’s chemical composition change quickly, as different ice mixtures, including carbon monoxide, oxygen, and water, sublimated under the warmth of the Sun. 
• The Hubble astronomers were surprised to find that the interstellar comet’s coma, the gas cloud surrounding the nucleus, contains a high amount of carbon monoxide gas, at least 50% more abundant than water vapour.  
• Carbon monoxide ice is very volatile. It doesn’t take much sunlight to heat the ice and convert it to gas that escapes from a comet’s nucleus.  
• The Hubble measurements suggest that some carbon monoxide ice was locked inside the comet’s nucleus, revealed only when the Sun’s heat stripped away layers of water ice. 
• The researchers suggest that the comet may have been ejected from a carbon-rich disk of icy debris around a red dwarf star, the most common type of star in our Milky Way galaxy.

Context: Recently, the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has launched an 'online data pool' for combating and containing COVID-19.
About Online Data Pool

• It is a pool of doctors including AYUSH doctors, nurses and other health care professionals, volunteers from NYKs, NCC NSS, and PMGKVY, ex Servicemen etc. for use by the ground level administration at state, district or municipal levels.
• It contains state wise and district wise availability of the large pool of human resources from various groups alongwith contact details of the nodal officers.
• It is available for use by various authorities to prepare Crisis Management/Contingency Plans based on the available manpower, in coordination with nodal officers for each group.
• It can also be used to utilize the services of volunteers for enforcing social distancing at banks, ration shops, mandis and for providing help to elderly, divyangs and orphanages.
• It will also help States/UTs to move human resources from one location to the other for their utilization.
• It also provides on-site delivery of training material/modules through any device (mobile/laptop/desktop).

About High-Level Task Force on COVID-19

• It will be chaired by the Joint Secretary, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Shri Luv Aggarwal and co-chaired by Member, Niti Aayog and Principal Scientific Adviser to the Government of India.
• AYUSH, ICMR, Department of Science and Technology (DST), Department of Biotechnology (DBT), CSIR, DRDO, DG-Health Services and Drug Controller General of India are also members of the task force.
• Its aim is to enable COVID-19 related research by academia, industry and international community.
• It has made Department of Biotechnology (DBT) a central coordinating authority for vaccine development and their main work will be to identify a pathway for vaccine development.
• The clinical cohorts will be focusing on long term follow-up of people for better understanding of the disease and its management will be worked upon.
• The bio-specimens will also be collected which will form the basis for further trials of drugs and vaccines.

Context: The absence of a vaccine or therapeutic intervention against the disease has necessitated a long period of physical distancing and sanitary measures, will change the great Indian poll circus forever.

Key Points

• Digital campaigning may replace big rallies; handbills and pamphlets are likely to return .
• There seems to be no question whether big rallies of the past will be able to survive this disease. Without mass vaccination, organising big rallies would be a hazard. 
• More digital campaigning, and micro, man-to-man marking gaining ground. With the digital, a return of the print, that is, handbills and pamphlets which used to be distributed a lot in the past. 
• However, caution that the manner of campaigning and polling must reflect the changed reality. 

Polling issues 

• The campaign would have to shift to the digital sphere, but expressed more concern over the polling part of the electoral exercise. 
• The main question is never the technology, but the ways in which it can be subverted, and how to ensure the integrity of the process. 
• There are many ways of reaching out to the people, and the devise technology to ensure that proximity is not a factor in polling. 
• Our voters list is not updated, we were hoping that the new census exercise with its extensive use of technology would lead to a better set of data.
• To a large extent the connection between the voters list, Aadhaar number and mobile phones should be attempted. It stands at barely 30% now and needs to be extended. 

New trends in elections 

• It is no longer enough to play the identity card, it is a trend for many elections now that delivery on welfare and development matters a lot.  
• After the COVID-19 outbreak and the role of governments being assessed so closely, this trend will completely overshadow identity politics. 
• The next big election in India is the Assembly election in Bihar due in October-November.  
• If it takes place on time, it will be the precursor to just how a pandemic affects electoral democracy. 

Context: India has dropped to rank 142, two points below its 2019 rank, in the 2020 World Press Freedom Index. The annual press freedom list is produced by the campaign group Reporters Without Borders (RSF) which surveys the state of the media in 180 countries and territories.
Key Points of the Report

• RSF’s latest report attributes India’s rank to the government “tightening” its grip on the media, and pressuring it to “toe the Hindu nationalist government’s line”.
• Among other issues, it has listed coordinated social media hate campaigns against journalists reporting on issues that “annoy Hindutva followers”, criminal prosecutions to gag journalists critical of authorities and police violence against journalists.
• The report also suggests that India’s rank is heavily affected by the situation in Kashmir, where it has become “virtually impossible” for journalists to do their job.
• “With no murders of journalists in India in 2019, as against six in 2018, the security situation for the country’s media might seem, on the face of it, to have improved. However, there have been constant press freedom violations,” the group said.
• Among the nations with the top ranks are Scandinavian countries Norway, Finland and Denmark, while countries like North Korea (180), Vietnam (175) and Syria (174) were some of the lowest ranked. India ranked better than its neighbours Pakistan (145) and Bangladesh (151), but worse than Sri Lanka (127) and Nepal (112).
• Pakistan dropped three places from its 2019 ranks due to the influence of the military establishment under Prime Minister Imran Khan’s rule, which the report states “cannot stand independent journalism”.
• According to the report’s barometer, in the year 2020 so far, across the world, 10 journalists have been killed, 229 imprisoned and 116 citizen journalists imprisoned while one media assistant was killed and 14 media assistants imprisoned across the world.

Impact of Coronavirus pandemic

• The coronavirus pandemic may threaten press freedom and worsen the crises that reporters around the world are facing.
• The pandemic has already redefined norms. The pandemic has allowed governments to take advantage of the fact that politics are on hold, the public is stunned and protests are out of the question, in order to impose measures that would be impossible in normal times.
• United States and Brazil were becoming models of hostility toward the news media.
• China, Iran and Iraq are criticised for censoring coverage of the coronavirus outbreak.

About World Press Freedom Index

• It is published annually by Reporters Without Borders since 2002, the World Press Freedom Index measures the level of media freedom in 180 countries.
• It is based on an evaluation of media freedom that measures pluralism, media independence, the quality of the legal framework and the safety of journalists.
• It also includes indicators of the level of media freedom violations in each region.
• It is compiled by means of a questionnaire in 20 languages that is completed by experts all over the world. 
• This qualitative analysis is combined with quantitative data on abuses and acts of violence against journalists during the period evaluated.

Context: Recently, the Union Cabinet has approved promulgation of an Ordinance to amend the Epidemic Diseases Act, 1897 to protect healthcare service personnel and property including their living/working premises against violence during epidemics.
Background

• Members of healthcare services are targeted and attacked by miscreants, thereby obstructing them from doing their duties.
• They have become the most vulnerable victims as they have been perceived by some as carriers of the virus.
• This has led to cases of their stigmatization and ostracization and sometimes worse, acts of unwarranted violence and harassment.
• The recent ordinance is intended to ensure that during any situation akin to the current pandemic, there is zero tolerance to any form of violence against healthcare service personnel and damage to property.

Key Points

• The ordinance makes the acts of violence against the healthcare workers as cognizable and non-bailable offences.
• The ordinance also contains a provision of providing compensation for injury to healthcare service personnel or for causing damage or loss to the property.
• The investigation into the cases of attack on healthcare workers will be completed within 30 days and judgment will be pronounced within one year.
• The accused of the attack can attract a punishment ranging from 3 months to 5 years and a fine from 50 thousand rupees to 2 lakh rupees.
• Offences shall be investigated by an officer of the rank of Inspector.

About Epidemic Diseases Act,1897

• The Epidemic Diseases Act initially was passed in February 1897 in the wake of the outbreak of the bubonic plague in India (particularly in the Bombay presidency).
• It empowers state governments/UTs to take special measures and formulate regulations for containing the outbreak.
• It also empowers state to prescribe such temporary regulations to be observed by the public or by any person or class of persons as it shall deem necessary to prevent the outbreak of such disease or the spread thereof.
• The state may determine in what manner and by whom any expenses incurred (including compensation if any) shall be defrayed.
• It also provides penalties for disobeying any regulation or order made under the Act. These are according to section 188 of the Indian Penal Code (Disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant).
• It also gives legal protection to the implementing officers acting under the Act.

Context

In the several cases with potential significance, there was no effective hearing at the interim stages which created fait accompli. And which results in the status quo cementing itself.

The Sabarimala case and ‘balance of convenience’ principle

• Review petition pending: Millions of disciples have protested the Court’s 2018 verdict where gender equality was held to trump the tenets of the faith and rejoiced at the November 2019 order of the Chief Justice’s bench granting their cause a fresh lease of life.

• As things stand, their review petitions are kept pending until the questions of law are determined.

• Please to enter the temple declined: In December 2019, fervent pleas on behalf of certain women devotees to enter the temple were declined, although the 2018 verdict continued to hold the field.

• Why declining the plea for entry matters? This was justified by the Court on a “balance of convenience”, thereby laying down a new principle for not directing the implementation of its own judgement.

Pendency of Article 370 challenge case hearing

• Nine judge bench: This year it was decided to put together the nine-judge bench to hear the cases on an urgent basis.

• Kashmir case on the backburner: But with two judges from the ongoing Kashmir/Article 370 challenges also a part of the Sabarimala case, it would mean that the Kashmir issues would be put on the back burner in the middle of its hearing.

• This is despite the advocates representing the right of women’s entry stating that they had no objection to the Kashmir cases being heard first.

• Then, barely a day into the hearing, a strain of swine flu reached some of the members of the Bench, leading to a postponement of hearings till the middle of March.

• Now, with a fierce pandemic enveloping the globe, the case is adjourned indefinitely.

Criticism of administrative functioning of the SC

• Over the last few months, the Supreme Court has been besieged by criticism of its administrative functioning.

• Delay in the hearing of important cases: Cases that have customarily been heard with alacrity, like those concerning personal liberty, law and order and criminal investigation, have been posted after long intervals with the Government being granted the luxury of time to respond.

• No effective hearing in cases with immediacy: Where immediacy is pre-eminent so that fait accompli may not be created, as with the validity of the Kashmir notifications, the CAA and the electoral bonds, there have been no effective hearings at the interim stage.

• Thus, the status quo slowly cements itself.

Reason for problems in administrative functions of the SC

• Dual role played by the CJI: Since the early years of the judiciary, one person has been given the onerous dual charge of heading both the administrative and judicial functions of the court.

• As a result, apart from sitting every day, reading briefs, hearing arguments and delivering detailed judgements, the Chief Justice has to also act as the final authority for all service-related matters of the Court’s 2,500 employees, issue office orders to streamline the registry.

• The CJI also supervise measures for security and infrastructure, chair committees, correspond with and entertain judicial delegations, attend symposia, delegate subject matters among colleagues, constitute benches of varying strengths and interview candidates for the various courts.

• In the old days, when the burden of cases was modest, these tasks would not have been challenging.

• But in the present time, not only are they overwhelming, but they also bring in their wake a host of attacks on the person who occupies that high office.

Need for the Chief Executive Officer in the SC

• Administrative functioning of the SC: In all the administrative tasks, the Chief Justice is assisted by a team of registrars, who are headed by the secretary-general.

• As they are junior judicial officers, they neither have the training nor the complete independence to take steps towards course correction.

• The requirement of CEO: This is why the Supreme Court sorely requires a chief executive officer – an independent professional who is equipped with the day-to-day management of the Court and is not beholden to the judges in any way.

• How it will help? The CEO will be charged with the entire mission of running the Court so that the judges can concentrate on what they are trained and experienced to do – adjudicate.

• Operational autonomy: The CEO will, of course, have to be given adequate operational autonomy and be answerable to a committee of the Court, comprising judges and bar representatives, thereby providing for a professional process, much like in the corporate sphere.

• With this, the judges will at least be spared the charges that they have had to withstand over the last few years.

Conclusion

It is only for politicians to concern themselves with public opinion, not for judges. They are weaponised by the Constitution to serve the cause of justice, and in this, as per Article 144, all civil and judicial authorities are enjoined to cooperate. Just a few blows of the gavel to any misadventures would be sufficient to send the message loud and clear: That the Court offers no sanctuary to the executive knaves.

Context: Recently, a constitutional crisis has occurred in Maharashtra that threatens the position of incumbent Chief Minister.
Key Points

• The CM of Maharashtra, who took oath in November, will have to get elected to either of the houses of the state legislature before last week of May, as per Article 164(4) of the Constitution.
• The Maharashtra cabinet recommended Thackeray’s name to the Governor for one of the vacant posts in the Upper House after the EC deferred elections indefinitely.
• However, the Election Commission has already postponed Rajya Sabha polls, byelections and civic body elections in the wake of the pandemic.
• Governor’s quota: The state cabinet on April 9, 2020 recommended that the present Chief Minister be nominated to the Legislative Council from the Governor’s quota.
• Article 171 of the Constitution mandates the Governor to nominate members to the Legislative Council who have special knowledge or practical experience in literature, science, art, cooperative movement and social service.
• However, the Governor has not taken any decision yet, which has created trouble for Uddhav Thackeray’s CM post.
• Other legal issue: The other legal issue is related to Uddhav Thackeray’s nomination to the Legislative Council on the vacant seats.
• According to Section 151A of Representation of the People Act 1951, nomination to the post cannot be done if the remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is less than one year.
• Currently, there are two vacancies in Council whose terms will end on June 6, 2020. Therefore, the term of these two vacancies is less than one year.

Bypoll: The time limit for a bypoll to fill vacancies is six months from the date of occurrence of vacancy. Provided that nothing contained in this section shall apply if —

• The remainder of the term of a member in relation to a vacancy is less than one year; or
• The Election Commission in consultation with the Central Government certifies that it is difficult to hold the by-election within the said period.

Context: Given the magnitude of the challenge presented by the COVID-19 crisis, IFAD has launched a multi-donor COVID-19 Rural Poor Stimulus Facility (RPSF).
Key Poits

• It is a short-term strategy that feeds into IFAD’s longer-term development objectives.
• IFAD will initiate the Facility with US$40 million of seed funding from grant resources and expects to mobilize at least US$200 million from Member States and other donors to scale up support.
• The Facility will leverage the UN Secretary-General’s Response and Recovery Fund and the work of other multilateral partners to achieve food security for the millions of poor rural people in the most remote and vulnerable communities.

Significance of this facility

• This initiative aligns with the UN socio-economic response framework and complements IFAD’s broader COVID-19 response efforts.
• It seeks to improve the resilience of rural livelihoods in the context of the crisis by ensuring timely access to inputs, information, markets and liquidity.

The planned interventions fall into four main categories:

• Providing inputs and basic assets for productionof crops, livestock and fisheries.
• Facilitating access to markets to support small-scale farmers in selling their products in conditions where market functions are restricted.
• Targeting funds for rural financial services to ensure sufficient liquidity and to ease repayment requirements so as to maintain services, markets and jobs.
• Promoting the use of digital services to deliver key information on production, weather, finance and markets.

Objectives

• It aims to improve the food security and resilience of poor rural people by supporting production, market access and employment.
• The ultimate goal of the RPSF is to accelerate the recovery of poor and vulnerable rural people from the COVID-19 crisis.

Eligibility

• All IFAD-supported country programmes that are at risk of not achieving their development outcomes due to COVID-19 are eligible to receive funding from the RPSF.
• Preference will be given to countries with low institutional and financial capacity to respond to the crisis.
• Ceiling amounts for countries and projects will be determined by the total amount of financing available.

Context: In a report released this month, the World Bank has predicted a ‘dire’ situation for South Asia due to the economic impact of measures to counter the novel coronavirus pandemic.
Adverse Impacts of the World Bank’s Forecast

• The forecasted scenarios translate for South Asia into sharp declines in exports, disruptions in global value chains, deterioration of investment sentiment, reversal of capital flows, and reduced remittances.
• An extended lockdown for three months and a more partial lockdown in subsequent quarters would lead to a negative growth for the region, a contraction of 1%.

On Lockdown in India

• The lockdown is necessary, but not sufficient. It has to be complemented with food distribution, temporary work programmes and a system of testing and tracing, which is needed to reopen the economy.
• The temporary work programme could focus on food delivery, production of protective equipment, disinfection of public spaces and on the testing and tracing system.

Layoffs Abroad and Domestic Migrant Labour Crisis

• It is likely that migrant workers, especially in the Gulf countries, will return home, even if many are still stuck abroad at the moment. It is the consequence of the global recession and the sharp drop in oil prices.
• They will need to find work at home and will indeed compete with domestic migrant workers.
• That is why the government should create conditions under which the economy can be reopened and should play an active role in job creation.

Food Shortages and Tourism

• Food Shortage is one of the big concerns.
• Disruptions in the supply chain and panic buying can lead to price spikes. That, together with loss of income of many informal workers, can lead to food shortages for the most vulnerable.
• Releasing strategic reserves is one tool in the toolbox. Work programmes and food deliveries are other tools.
• Export bans will backfire as they will disrupt food supply chains in the region further.
• Tourism will not return to normal till effective vaccines become widely available. There will be demand for safe tourism.
• That might be an opportunity for Maldives that with its many atolls and high-end tourism has an opportunity to test tourists and keep them away from large crowds.
• There might be also more demand for digital services like remote learning or other remote services and for delivery of e-commerce sales. It is likely that more jobs outside the tourism industry can be created.

Context: Recently, the United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution, calling for global cooperation to ensure ‘equitable and fair’ access to medicines, vaccines and medical equipment for all nations to battle the Covid-19 pandemic.The UNGA resolution which was drafted by Mexico was adopted through consensus.

About the resolution

• Recognised the importance of international cooperation and effective multilateralism to ensure that all States have in place effective national protective measures, access to and flow of vital medical supplies, medicines and vaccines.
• Encourages member states to work in partnership with all relevant stakeholders to increase research and development funding for vaccines and medicines.
• Prevent any undue stockpiling of essential medical supplies.
• Called to bolster coordination with the private sector towards rapid development, manufacturing and distribution of diagnostics, antiviral medicines, personal protective equipment and vaccines, adhering to the objectives of efficacy, safety, equity, accessibility, and affordability.
• Earlier, the United Nations General Assembly had unanimously adopted a resolution, calling for intensified international cooperation to defeat the pandemic that is causing severe disruption to societies and economies.

About United Nations General Assembly 

• It is popularly known as the parliament of the world, where all the 193 UN member states are represented, the UNGA is the deliberative, policymaking and representative organ of the UN.
• Among the world’s 196 countries, 193 are UN member states and three nations- Palestine, the Vatican City and Taiwan are not a part of the international organization as their country status is not recognized globally due to political and religious reasons.

Roles and functions

• Takes a decision on important matters such as peace and security, discusses various global issues and budgetary matters.
• Decides on matters such as the admission of new members.
• Decisions are taken through a vote. Admission of new members and budgetary matters require a two-thirds majority, while the decision on other issues are taken by a simple majority.
• Each sovereign state gets one vote and the votes are not binding on the membership, except in budgetary matters.
• The Assembly has no binding votes or veto powers like the UN Security Council.
• The UNGA can express world opinion, promote international cooperation in various fields and make recommendations to the UNSC and elect the Security Council’s non-permanent members.

Context: Recently, Scientists at the Council of Scientific & Industrial Research — Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology (CSIR-IGIB) have developed a low-cost, paper-strip test named Feluda, which can detect the new coronavirus within an hour.
About the newly developed test

• The test, named Feluda after a fictional detective character created by Satyajit Ray, is expected to cost around Rs 500 against the RT-PCR test that costs Rs 4,500 in private labs.
• The test is based on a bacterial immune system protein called Cas9. 
• It uses cutting-edge gene-editing tool Crispr-Cas9 system. 
• The team has repurposed it for diagnosis of COVID-19 genetic material.
• This technology is not limited to COVID-19 and can work on any DNA-RNA or single mutations, disease mutations etc.
• Feluda is also an acronym for the scientific name of the test — Fncas9 Editor Linked Uniform Detection Assay.
• There are two other technologies developed by MIT and the University of California, Berkeley which also use Crispr systems, but different technology and proteins.

About CRISPR-Cas9

• CRISPR technology is basically a gene-editing technology that can be used for the purpose of altering genetic expression or changing the genome of an organism. The technology can be used for targeting specific stretches of an entire genetic code or editing the DNA at particular locations.
• CRISPR technology is a simple yet powerful tool for editing genomes. 
• It allows researchers to easily alter DNA sequences and modify gene function. 
• Its many potential applications include correcting genetic defects, treating and preventing the spread of diseases and improving crops. 
• However, its promise also raises ethical concerns.

Its Working

• CRISPR-Cas9 technology behaves like a cut-and-paste mechanism on DNA strands that contain genetic information.
• The specific location of the genetic codes that need to be changed, or “edited”, is identified on the DNA strand, and then, using the Cas9 protein, which acts like a pair of scissors, that location is cut off from the strand. A DNA strand, when broken, has a natural tendency to repair itself.
• Scientists intervene during this auto-repair process, supplying the desired sequence of genetic codes that binds itself with the broken DNA strand.

About The polyprotein strategy

• Upon infection, the entire RNA with its 33,000 bases is translated in one shot as a long tape of amino acid sequences. Since this long chain contains several proteins within it, it is called a “polyprotein” sequence.
• One needs to analyse this long chain, find the relevant proteins, isolate and study what each of them does in helping infection.
• This strategy allows the viral genome to be compact, and express the protein when the need arises.

How do drugs work and where India stands on developing a drug?

• We thus have a large set of proteins in the virus, against which a number of potential molecules and drugs can be tried to interfere and stop the production of these viral proteins.
• India is well versed with expertise in the area of organic and medicinal chemistry since the last 90 years and in manufacturing quality drug molecules, and exporting them for use at home and across the world since the 1970 patents act of India.
• Our expertise today, in both the public and private sector, includes not just synthesizing made-to-order molecules, but has added new methods involving computer modelling of target proteins from bacteria and viruses, homology modelling, drug design, repurposing of drugs, and other methods.
• The Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) has taken upon itself the express task of coming out with molecules and methods to counter the dreaded virus.

What is the difference between a virus and a bacterium?

• Bacteria are alive. Each bacterial cell has its own machinery to reproduce itself.
• Take a bacterial cell, and put it in a solution containing nutrients, it grows itself and multiplies in millions. The genes in the cells (genome, made up of DNA molecules, the information contained in which is transcribed as a message to the messenger molecules called RNA), and the message therein is translated into action molecules called proteins, which are the foot-soldiers that help the growth and multiplication of the bacterium.
• Coronaviruses do not have DNA as their genome, but RNA; in other words, they can only translate and not transcribe.
• Thus, they are ‘dead’, unable to renew and grow themselves; they need help. This they achieve by infecting ‘host cells’ which they bind to, and multiply by the millions.
• With no host cell to help, a virus is simply a dead storage box.

Context: According to a new study, Researchers have found that rising atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations will cause urban and indoor levels of the gas to increase, which may significantly reduce our basic decision-making ability and complex strategic thinking. 
Key Findings

• By the end of the century, people could be exposed to indoor CO2 levels up to 1400 parts per million--more than three times today's outdoor levels, and well beyond what humans have ever experienced. 
• Building ventilation typically modulates CO2 levels in buildings, but there are situations when there are too many people and not enough fresh air to dilute the CO2. 
• They also build up in poorly ventilated spaces over longer periods of time, such as overnight while sleeping in bedrooms. 
• Put simply, when we breathe air with high CO2 levels, the CO2 levels in our blood rise, reducing the amount of oxygen that reaches our brains. 
• Studies show that this can increase sleepiness and anxiety, and impair cognitive function. And outdoor CO2 in urban areas is higher than in pristine locations. 
• The CO2 concentrations in buildings are a result of both the gas that is otherwise in equilibrium with the outdoors, but also the CO2 generated by building occupants as they exhale. 
• For findings researchers developed a comprehensive approach that considers predicted future outdoor CO2 concentrations and the impact of localized urban emissions, a model of the relationship between indoor and outdoor CO2 levels and the impact on human cognition. 
• They found that if the outdoor CO2 concentrations do rise to 930 ppm, that would nudge the indoor concentrations to a harmful level of 1400 ppm. At this level, some studies have demonstrated compelling evidence for significant cognitive impairment.
• The cognitive impacts of rising CO2 levels represent what scientists call a "direct" effect of the gas' concentration, much like ocean acidification. 
• In both cases, elevated CO2 itself--not the subsequent warming it also causes--is what triggers harm.

Context: It is found that the coronavirus outbreak certainly comes from the animal world. However, it is said that humans are to be blamed for the pandemic.
Concerns

• “The emergence of zoonotic diseases is often associated with environmental changes or ecological disturbances, such as agricultural intensification and human settlement, or encroachments into forests and other habitats,” says a UNEP report.
• According to the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), 60% of human infectious diseases originate from animals.
• This figure climbs to 75% for “emerging” diseases such as Ebola, HIV, avian flu, Zika, or SARS, another type of coronavirus. The list goes on.
• It is human activity that enabled the virus to jump to people, and specialists are warning that if nothing changes, many other pandemics of this nature will follow.
• A key area of concern is deforestation to make way for agriculture and intensive livestock farming.
• In terms of endangered wildlife, a study by American researchers shows that those who share the most viruses with humans are precisely populations declining due to exploitation and loss of habitat.

Humans-led Changes in the Environment

• By altering land use–for settlement, agriculture, logging, extractive or other industries and their associated infrastructure–humans fragment and encroach into animal habitats.
• Destruction of natural buffer zones that would normally separate humans from animals, thus creating opportunities for pathogens to spill over from wild animals to people.
• Climate change­­ primarily the result of greenhouse gas emissions–exacerbates the situation. Changes in temperature, humidity and seasonality directly affect the survival of microbes in the environment.
• Proximity to different species through wet markets (live animal market) or consumption of wild animals can also facilitate animal to human transmission.
• Resistance to Drugs: One example of this is the emerging resistance of pathogens to antimicrobial drugs–such as antibiotics, antifungals, antiretrovirals and antimalarials–often resulting from the misuse of the drugs, either by people or in veterinary medicine.
• Domesticated animals are often a “bridge” between pathogens from the wild and humans.

Suggestions

• Addressing zoonotic disease emergence requires addressing its root cause–primarily, the impact of human activities on ecosystems.
• Ecosystems are inherently resilient and adaptable and, by supporting diverse species, they help to regulate diseases. The more biodiverse an ecosystem is, the more difficult it is for one pathogen to spread rapidly or dominate.
• There is a need to recognise the close relationships between human, animal and environmental health. It calls for collaborative, multisectoral, transdisciplinary and international efforts, as encapsulated by the One Health approach. At last, a strong will is necessary.

Context: Recently, the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme has been activated as a response to the Covid-19 pandemic.
About Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme

• It was launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare, in assistance with the World Bank, in 2004.
• It continued as the Integrated Disease Surveillance Programme (IDSP) during 12th Plan (2012–17) under the National Health Mission with a domestic budget.
• Under it, a Central Surveillance Unit (CSU) at Delhi, State Surveillance Units (SSU) at all State/Union Territories (UTs) headquarters and District Surveillance Units (DSU) at all Districts have been established.
• Its main objective is to strengthen/maintain decentralized laboratory based and IT enabled disease surveillance systems for epidemic prone diseases to monitor disease trends.
• To detect and respond to outbreaks in the early rising phase through trained Rapid Response Teams (RRTs).

About the Components of Programme

• The Integration and decentralization of surveillance activities through establishment of surveillance units at Centre, State and District level.
• The Human Resource Development is Training the State Surveillance Officers (SSOs), District Surveillance Officers (DSOs), RRT and other medical and paramedical staff on principles of disease surveillance.
• The use of Information Communication Technology for collection, collation, compilation, analysis and dissemination of data.By strengthening of public health laboratories and Inter Sectoral Coordination for zoonotic Diseases.

Significance

• The Data is collected on epidemic prone diseases on a weekly basis. Its weekly data gives information on the disease trends and seasonality of diseases.
• Its information is collected on three specified reporting formats, namely “S” (suspected cases), “P” (presumptive cases) and “L” (laboratory confirmed cases) filled by Health Workers, Clinicians and Laboratory staff respectively.
• Whenever there is a rising trend of illnesses in any area, it is investigated by the RRT to diagnose and control the outbreak.
• IDSP Portal: It is a one stop portal which has facilities for data entry, view reports, outbreak reporting, data analysis, training modules and resources related to disease surveillance.

Context: Recently, the drug Remdesivir has been under the spotlight as a possible treatment for critical cases of novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19). 

• Globally, it is one of the four possible lines of treatment being investigated in the Solidarity trials under the aegis of the World Health Organization (WHO).

About Ramdesivir 

• It is a drug with antiviral properties that was manufactured by US-based biotechnology company in 2014, to treat Ebola cases.
• It was also tried in patients of MERS and SARS, both caused by members of the coronavirus family, but experts said it did now show promising results back then.
• It is now being studied as a COVID-19 treatment.

Key Points

• While the drug is yet to get approval in any country to treat COVID-19, recent studies have claimed they have found promising results.
• It is a drug with antiviral properties that was manufactured by US-based biotechnology company in 2014, to treat Ebola cases. It was also tried in patients of MERS and SARS, both caused by members of the coronavirus family, but experts said it did now show promising results back then.
• Coronaviruses have a single-strand RNA as their genetic material. When the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV2 enters a human cell, an enzyme called RdRP helps the virus replicate.
• Remdesivir works by inhibiting the activity of RdRP. A small cohort study used remdesivir on 61 patients in USA, Canada, Europe and Japan. These patients were critically ill with low oxygen levels, and were administered remdesivir under manufacturer Gilead’s compassionate use programme.
• The study found clinical improvement in 68% of the cases, with their oxygen levels improving; 47% patients could be discharged after treatment, and more than 50% patients (17 of 30) no longer required mechanical ventilator support.
• The study found that clinical improvement was less frequent in patients on invasive ventilators or among elderly people. Seven patients died despite treatment with remdesivir.
• The study had no control arm, meaning another group of patients who were not administered the drug, to compare outcomes of treatment with and without remdesivir. Unless such trials are conducted, the effect of the drug remains a grey zone.
• The Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) has said it can consider using the drug if local manufacturers are willing to procure it. Remdesivir is currently not available in India.
• Hydroxychloroquine, an anti-malarial drug, is undergoing multiple trials to assess if it can be used to treat severe COVID-19 cases. It works by decreasing the acidity in parts of the cell where the virus is present, thereby inhibiting it.
• Ritonavir and lopinavir are two antiviral drugs used for treatment of HIV. These too work by inhibiting the virus’s RNA. Specifically, they target the enzyme that helps the virus split proteins.

Context: Recently, the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has approved the use of antiviral nano-coatings on anti-Covid-19 masks.
Key Points

• As part of Nano Mission Programme (NMP), the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has approved support for up-scaling an antiviral nano-coatings.
• The nano-coating material will be used as an appropriate material for producing anti-COVID-19 Triple Layer Medical masks and N-95 respirator in large quantities.
• Silver is known to have strong anti-microbial activity against bacteria, viruses & fungus and IIT-Delhi has developed N9 blue nanosilver at SMITA Research Lab under the nano mission project, and will be carrying out the upscaling work in association with two industrial partners Resil Chemicals Pvt Ltd. Bangalore and Nanoclean Global Pvt Ltd., New Delhi.
• The use of highly effective antimicrobial nanoparticles on PPEs is a useful application that will provide an extra layer of protection for the high risk settings, such as for the medical workers.
• The N9 blue nanosilver, which is a highly potent anti-microbial agent, will be further modified to form nano-complexes with Zinc compounds to achieve a synergistic effect.
• Further these nano-materials will be applied as coatings on facemasks and other PPEs to improve their ability to protect the wearer from accidental contamination from COVID-19 virus droplets.
• After the evaluation of shelf life of the coatings and their efficacy under different conditions such as temperature, humidity and time, the masks and PPEs will be prepared and provided to the medical workers for field trials.
• The use of highly effective antimicrobial nanoparticles on masks, PPEs, etc is a useful application providing an extra layer of protection for the high risk settings, such as for the medical workers.

About Nano Mission (Nano Science and Technology Mission – NSTM)

• In May 2007, Government of India, approved the launch of a Mission on Nano Science and Technology (Nano Mission) as an umbrella programme for capacity building. 
• The Department of Science and Technology was selected as the nodal agency for implementing the Nano Mission and mission was given an allocation of Rs. 1000 crore for 5 years.

In order to fulfil its following objectives:

• Basic Promotion of Nanotechnology
• Infrastructure Development
• Establishment of R&D in Nanoscience Applications
• Establishment of Development Centre for Nanosciences
• Human Development in Nanotechnology
• International Collaborations

India has been able to rank amongst the top 5 countries in the world for Scientific Publications in Nanoscience & Technology due to the efforts led by the Nano Mission.
The Nano Mission has established national dialogues to promote R&D in the development of standards for nanotechnology and for laying down a National Regulatory Framework Road-Map for Nanotechnology (NRFR-Nanotech).

Objectives of Nano-Mission

• Basic Research Promotion: Funding of basic research by individual scientists and/or groups of scientists and creation of centres of excellence.
• Infrastructure Development for Nano Science & Technology Research: Establishing a chain of shared facilities across the country with sophisticated equipment’s required for Nano research.
• Nano Applications and Technology Development Programmes: To catalyse Applications and Technology Development Programmes leading to products and devices.
• Human Resource Development: Effective education and training to researchers and professionals in diversified fields
• International Collaborations: Apart from exploratory visits of scientists, organization of joint workshops and conferences and joint research projects.

Context: Recently, Scientists at the Institute of Nano Science and Technology (INST), Mohali, an autonomous institute under the Department of Science & Technology, Govt. of India, have developed a stable material for pseudocapacitors or supercapacitors which store electrical energy by electron charge transfer.
About Organic Pseudo-capacitor

• Pseudo-capacitors are a type of super-capacitors which store electrical energy by electron charge transfer.
• The material can offer a low-cost scalable energy storage solution as an alternative to batteries.
• The team has developed the pseudocapacitive material, a hybrid xerogel structure (a solid formed from a gel by drying with unhindered shrinkage), for the very first time.
• The hybrid material was fabricated by the integration of a well-known organic molecule, dopamine onto a conductive matrix, like graphene.
• The pseudocapacitive material, an organic-inorganic hybrid xerogel, shows great promise as a low-cost and scalable energy storage solution for commercial applications.

Procedure of its formation

• The scientists invented the pseudocapacitive material through a unique two-step synthesis procedure that is tailored accordingly to take maximum structural advantages of the hybrid material.
• First, they followed a quintessential hydrothermal synthesis method for the anchoring of the redox moiety on the carbon support. However, they introduced a unique in situ electrochemical polymerization approach, in the second step of the synthesis, in an attempt to boost the overall storage capacity as well as cycling stability.
• As a proof of concept, to endorse the development of the self-supported smart electronics, the group fabricated an all-solid-state supercapacitor with this active material and a tandem configuration of the devices to serve as a power source to light up 1.7 Volt commercial LED bulbs.

Significance

• The novel synthesis approach, as well as the study of the mechanism of redox supercapacitors at the molecular level, will offer new insights into improving the long-standing issue of stability and inferior power output of pseudocapacitors.

About Supercapacitors

• Supercapacitors, also known as the Ultracapacitors, are high-capacity capacitor with a capacitance value much higher than other capacitors, but with lower voltage limits, that bridges the gap between electrolytic capacitors and rechargeable batteries.
• These typically stores 10 to 100 times more energy per unit volume or mass than electrolytic capacitors, can accept and deliver charge much faster than batteries, and tolerates many more charge and discharge cycles than rechargeable batteries.

Application of supercapacitors

• Supercapacitors are used in applications requiring many rapid charge/discharge cycles, rather than long term compact energy storage — in automobiles, buses, trains, cranes and elevators, where they are used for regenerative braking, short-term energy storage, or burst-mode power delivery.

Types of Supercapacitors

There are three types of supercapacitors based on storage principle:

• Double-layer capacitors (EDLCs) — with activated carbon electrodes or derivatives with much higher electrostatic double-layer capacitance than electrochemical pseudocapacitance.
• Pseudocapacitors — with transition metal oxide or conducting polymer electrodes with a high electrochemical pseudocapacitance.
• Hybrid capacitors — with asymmetric electrodes, one of which exhibits mostly electrostatic and the other mostly electrochemical capacitance, such as lithium-ion capacitors.

Context: Recently, Researchers from the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA), Bangalore, have conducted the first systematic study on the gamma-ray flux variability nature on different types of blazars.

• The research work based on characterizing the flux variability nature on month-like time scales in the high energy gamma-ray (100 MeV to 300 GeV) band for different types of blazars has been published in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
• IIA is an autonomous institute of the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.

Key Points

• Their study could provide clues to the processes happening close to the black hole, not visible through direct imaging. 
• At the center of most galaxies, there’s a massive black hole that can have mass of millions or even billions of Suns that accrete gas, dust, and stellar debris around it.  
• As these material falls towards the black hole, their gravitational energy gets converted to   light forming active galactic nuclei (AGN).   
• The results obtained from this particular piece of work will provide key inputs to the problem of finding the high energy gamma-ray production site in blazars.  
• Thus it will have direct relevance to the enhancement of the knowledge on blazars.  

About Blazars

• Blazars are the most luminous and energetic objects in the known universe were found to be emitters of gamma-rays in the 1990s.
• These are powerful sources of emission across the electromagnetic spectrum and are observed to be sources of high-energy gamma ray photons.
• It is only with the capability of Fermi Gamma-ray space telescope (launched in 2008) to scan the entire sky once in three hours one is able to probe the flux variability characteristics of blazars on a range of time scales.
• In July 2018, the IceCube Neutrino Observatory team traced a neutrino that hit its Antarctica-based detector in September 2017 to its point of origin in a blazar 3.7 billion light-years away. This was the first time that a neutrino detector was used to locate an object in space.

Origin of Blazars

• At the center of most galaxies, there’s a massive black hole that can have mass of millions or even billions of Suns that accrete gas, dust, and stellar debris around it.
• As these material falls towards the black hole, their gravitational energy gets converted to light forming Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN).
• A minority of AGN (~15%) emit collimated charged particles called jets travelling at speeds close to the speed of light.
• Blazars are AGN whose jets are aligned with the observer’s line of sight.
• Some blazars are thought to host binary black holes in them and could be potential targets for future gravitational-wave searches.

How this study will help the researchers?

• Bridging Gap: The knowledge on the flux variability nature in the high energy gamma-rays on a month like timescales is limited. The results of this work will thus fill the gap on the knowledge of the high energy flux variability nature of blazars.
• Locating Gamma Ray Emissions: One of the open problems in high energy astrophysics is to localize the site for the production of gamma-rays.
• Variability studies in the high energy gamma-ray band can help one to locate the high energy emission site and the high energy emission process.
• Exploration of Gamma Band of Electromagnetic Spectrum: Gamma-ray band is one of the bands of the electromagnetic spectrum on which there is limited knowledge on the flux variability of blazars.
• Thus, exploring this band of the electromagnetic spectrum will provide key inputs to constrain the high energy production site as well as the high energy emission processes. This is the key idea behind this work.
• The expertise of handling high energy data from celestial sources gained in this work will build capacity to interpret the gamma-ray data that will emerge from India's upcoming facility, the Major Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiment Telescope as well as from any X-ray missions by India in the future. 

About Major Atmospheric Cerenkov Experiment Telescope

• It is the India's largest and the world's highest gamma-ray telescope being established at Hanle, Ladakh.
• It is being built by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited (ECIL), Hyderabad for the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC).
• It is remotely operated and runs on Solar Power.
• It will help to explore the exciting energy range of the gamma-ray energy region in between satellites and the traditional Atmospheric Cerenkov experiments.
• The telescope is named after the Russian scientist Cerenkov who predicted that charged particles moving at high speeds in a medium, emit light.

Context: Recently, the researchers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have discovered hundreds of Lithium (Li) rich giant stars which indicate that lithium is being produced in the stars and accounts for its abundance in the interstellar (between stars) medium.

About Lithium-rich Giant Stars

• The research indicates that Lithium is being produced in the stars and accounts for its abundance in the interstellar medium.
• The researchers have also associated such Lithium enhancement with central Helium-burning stars, also known as red clump giants, thereby opening up new vistas in the evolution of the red giant stars.
• Lithium (Li) is one of the three primordial elements, apart from Hydrogen and Helium (He), which is produced in the big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) whose models predict primordial Li abundance.
• The present measurement of Lithium in the interstellar medium and very young stars is about 4 times more than the primordial value.
• The stars are considered as 'Lithium sinks'.
• The original Lithium, with which stars are born, only gets depleted over stars’ life-time as Li burns at relatively very low temperatures of about 2.5X106 K – a range which is easily encountered in stars.

Significance of this Discovery

• Researchers had discovered a number of super Li-rich giants which have Li quantity which is equal to or in some cases, more than 10 times the present value, A(Li) =3.2 dex ( measured in logarithmic scale relative to hydrogen).
• They showed for the first time that the Li enhancement in giants is associated only with central Helium-burning stars, which are also known as red clump giants.
• The discovery will help to eliminate many proposed theories such as planet engulfment or nucleosynthesis during the red giant evolution in which helium at the center is not burning.

About Big Bang Nucleosynthesis

• In physical cosmology, Big Bang nucleosynthesis (or primordial nucleosynthesis) refers to the production of nuclei other than H-1, the normal, light hydrogen, during the early phases of the universe, shortly after the Big Bang.
• It is believed to be responsible for the formation of hydrogen (H-1 or simply H), its isotope deuterium (H-2 or D), the helium isotopes He-3 and He-4, and the lithium isotope Li-7.
• Big Bang nucleosynthesis begins about one minute after the Big Bang, when the universe has cooled enough to form stable protons and neutrons, after baryogenesis.
• It is the leading explanation about how the universe began. At its simplest, it says that the universe started with a small singularity and then inflated over the next 13.8 billion years to the cosmos currently observed.
• The Universe's light-element abundance is another important criterion by which this theory is verified.
• It is now known that the elements observed in the Universe were created in either of two ways.
• Light elements (namely deuterium, helium, and lithium) were produced in the first few minutes of the Big Bang, while elements heavier than helium are thought to have their origins in the interiors of stars which formed much later in the history of the Universe.
• The theory predicts that roughly 25% the mass of the Universe consists of Helium. It also predicts about 0.01% deuterium, and even smaller quantities of lithium.

Context: With the pandemic forcing everyone to seriously consider e-learning tools and resources, now is a good time to assess its strengths and opportunities, and adapt to the new normal.
About SWOT analysis 

• It is a strategic planning technique used to help identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a situation.

Strengths

For the first time many teachers, parents and students have thought about the purpose of education and asked some useful question such as :

• Will ‘education’ be defined in a different way, in the future?
• Is there a need to learn differently?
• Should students’ knowledge and skills be assessed?
• Will online education be successful in India? How important is home learning? etc.

Weaknesses

• Lack of innovative thinking, inadequate infrastructure, untrained teachers, unequal accessibility, exam-centric assessment, and lack of learner autonomy.
• Recently, the Delhi government announced that it would conduct online classes for class XII students, but school teachers say that it is impractical since most students do not have access to the required facilities.
• Teachers working in government-aided and government schools in cities and towns and private schools in rural areas also do not have such facilities.  
• They may neither have the awareness of online tools such as Google Classroom available for such purposes, nor have the expertise to use them.

Opportunities

• The three main opportunities that we have are: i) our students who belong to Gen Z, ii) numerous web resources, and iii) enthusiastic teachers.
• Gen Z learners (born between 1997 and 2010) are born in the digital era and are familiar with computers, multimedia content and Internet-based activities from an early age.
• Now is the right time to move classes to a different platform, introduce e-learning and develop learner autonomy.
• The COVID-19 lockdown has enabled teachers to become creative. They can now create e-material such as YouTube videos and PPTs and share the links with their students and engage them during the lockdown period.

Threats

• India is far behind some developing countries where digital education is getting increased attention.
• In countries where e-learning is popular, students have access to various online resources such as Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs).
• India needs to take the threat of many developed and developing countries leading the way in online education seriously and promote it earnestly.

Context: The COVID-19 crisis has, for the first time, brought migration to the centre stage of public health and disaster response in India.
Migrants have drawn sharp attention in debates over public health and political economy for five reasons:
First: the numbers involved are very high.

• An estimate based on NSSO 64th Round and Census 2011 data suggest that there are approximately 2 million daily wage workers.
• The months of February and March are a lean season for rural-to-rural migration, yet the current figure of inter-State seasonal migrants stands at about 1.4 million.
• Further, in Delhi , where, 20% of Bihari migrants are working (0.28 to 0.3 million seasonal migrants) and even if half of them try to return home during a crisis, facilitating their journey can be a logistical improbability.

Second: India’s economy depends on the services of migrant workers.

• Sectors such as construction, garment manufacturing, mining, and agriculture would come to a standstill without them.
• One of the biggest challenges after the lockdown is lifted will be to bring back the migrants to kickstart these sectors.

Third: return migrants have no compensatory sources of livelihood.

• The poor States may find it difficult to sustain themselves without the remittances.
• This will not only cause demand side setbacks but also impact nutrition, health, education and the well-being of the older population.

Fourth, in the case of epidemics, the exodus of seasonal migrants creates apprehensions about the spread of the disease.

• Working from home or getting paid leave is largely a middle-class luxury. Daily-wage earners do not have the capacity to stay at a destination without work.
• Their families back home depend on their daily savings. A considerable number of workers live within the manufacturing units or at work sites. Any lockdown results in loss of their accommodation too.

Fifth, the pathetic working/living conditions of migrants defy the very idea of decent work and general security.

• Slums and slum-like colonies are breeding grounds of ailments and communicable diseases.
• People living in these areas simply cannot practise social distancing. Lack of sanitation, hygiene, safe drinking water, health services, social security measures, and affordable housing have resulted in a low quality of life.

Suggestions

• Repealing of the ISMW Act, 1979 and replacing it with a new Act, or by enlarging the scope of Unorganised Workers’ Social Security (UWSS) Act, 2008 to include legal entitlements, to define the migrant workman as a subset, to provide for contingencies of livelihood loss and to make the Act legally enforceable.
• Universalisation of registration and issuance of Aadhaar-based Unique Worker’s Identification Number (UWIN).
• Schemes like MGNREGA, Public Distribution Scheme (PDS) and Ujjwala need to be made portable and extensive.
• Geofencing of different benefits enabling a migrant worker to choose location-wise benefits.
• Preparing a comprehensive database of the migrant workers’ source and destination, demography, employment patterns and skill sets.
• It will help in skill development, providing social security benefits, planning for mass transit of migrant labour and preparing for any contingency plan in emergency situations.
• Empowering the Inter-State Council, set up under Article 263 of the Constitution to effectively and comprehensively deal with larger issues related to migrant workers.
• Migrant worker issues have complex Centre-State and inter-State dimensions.

Steps Taken by Government

• The UWSS Act, 2008: It provides for social security and welfare of unorganised workers.
• The UWSS Act defines unorganised workers as home-based worker, self-employed worker or wage worker in the unorganised sector.

It has two features:

• Registration of unorganised workers.
• Portable smart I-card with a UWIN.
• Pradhan Mantri Shram Yogi Maan-dhan Yojana: To ensure old age protection for unorganised workers.
• Atal Pension Yojana: It is a social security scheme launched under the National Pension System (NPS) and aims at providing a steady stream of income after the age of 60 to all citizens of India including the migrants and labourers.
• Pradhan Mantri Jeevan Jyoti Bima Yojana and Pradhan Mantri Suraksha Bima Yojana (under the Gram Swaraj Abhiyan): Both of the schemes provide for life insurance and accident insurance respectively to the migrants and labourers.
• Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (Ayushman Bharat): It aims at providing health cover to protect the migrants among others against the financial risk arising out of catastrophic health episodes.

Context: Recently, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) has criticised the Indian government for what it called “growing Islamophobia” in India.
Background

• A religious gathering of muslims (Tablighi Jamaat) was held in Delhi in March. The event was linked to many of the Covid-19 positive cases in India.
• After this most sections of the media, people on social media blamed the Tablighi jamaat and muslims for deliberately spreading the Covid-19 in India.

Stance of OIC

• OIC asked the government to take steps to protect Muslim minorities who are being “negatively profiled,” facing “discrimination and violence” amidst the Covid-19 crisis.
• It has asked the government to take urgent steps to stop the growing tide of Islamophobia (dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims) in India.
• OIC urged the government to protect the rights of its minority as per its obligations under international Human Rights law.

Earlier Criticism of USCIRF

• Earlier, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has also criticised India of “increased stigmatisation” of its muslim minorities.
• It criticized the government for the reports that Covid-19 patients were religiously segregated at a hospital in Ahmedabad.

About the OIC

• Formerly known as Organization of the Islamic Conference, OIC has membership of 57 states.
• It was established upon a decision of the historical summit which took place in Rabat, Morocco in 1969 following the criminal arson of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied Jerusalem.
• Its headquartered at Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. OIC has permanent delegations to United Nations and the European Union.
• Its objectives are to raise collective voice of the Muslim world and to ensure the safeguard and protect the interests of the Muslim world in the spirit of promoting international peace and harmony among various people of the world.
• It is the second-largest intergovernmental organisation in the world after the United Nations.
• While the 22 members of the Arab League are also part of the OIC, the organisation has several significant non-Arab member countries, including Turkey, Iran and Pakistan. It also has five observer members, including Russia and Thailand.
• The OIC holds an Islamic Summit once every three years.

About OIC and India

• India is not a member of the OIC. However, India was invited as a guest of honour at the 46th Session of the Council of Foreign Minister in 2019. 2019 is the 50th anniversary of OIC.
• This marked a high point in New Delhi’s often tensed relations with the OIC.
• However, in recent months, the OIC has repeatedly criticised the Indian government’s handling of the situation in Kashmir and attacks on Muslims.
• The external affairs ministry has rejected this criticism.

About U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF)

• It is a U.S. federal government commission created by the International Religious Freedom Act of 1998.
• Its Commissioners are appointed by the President and the leadership of both political parties in the Senate and the House of Representatives.
• It is an independent, bipartisan U.S. federal government commission, dedicated to defending the universal right to freedom of religion or belief abroad.
• It researches and monitors international religious freedom issues.
• The Commission is authorized to travel on fact-finding missions to other countries and hold public hearings.

Context: Recently, the Supreme Court held it unconstitutional to provide 100% reservation for tribal teachers in schools located in Scheduled Areas across the country.
Background

• The case stemmed from a legal challenge to a January 10, 2000 order issued by the erstwhile State of Andhra Pradesh Bench providing 100% reservation to the Scheduled Tribe candidates, out of whom 33.1/3% shall be women, for the post of teachers in schools located in the Scheduled Areas of the State.

Observations of Supreme Court

• It is an obnoxious idea that tribals only should teach the tribals. When there are other local residents, why they cannot teach is not understandable.
• The action defies logic and is arbitrary. Merit cannot be denied on the whole by providing reservation.
• Citizens have equal rights, and the total exclusion of others by creating an opportunity for one class is not contemplated by the founding fathers of the Constitution of India
• The court held that 100% reservation is discriminatory and impermissible. The opportunity of public employment is not the prerogative of few.
• A 100% reservation to the Scheduled Tribes has deprived Scheduled Castes and Other Backward Classes also of their due representation.
• The court referred to the judgment, which caps reservation at 50%.

What does the Indira Sawhney Judgement says?

• In the famous Mandal case (Indra Sawhney v. Union of India 1992), the scope and extent of Article 16(4), which provides for reservation of jobs in favour of backward classes, has been examined thoroughly by the Supreme Court.
• Though the Court has rejected the additional reservation of 10% for poorer sections of higher castes, it upheld the constitutional validity of 27% reservation for the OBCs with certain conditions, viz,
• The advanced sections among the OBCs (the creamy layer) should be excluded from the list of beneficiaries of reservation.
• No reservation in promotions; reservation should be confined to initial appointments only. Any existing reservation in promotions can continue for five years only (i.e., upto 1997).
• The total reserved quota should not exceed 50% except in some extraordinary situations. This rule should be applied every year.
• The ‘carry forward rule’ in case of unfilled (backlog) vacancies is valid. But it should not violate 50% rule.
• A permanent statutory body should be established to examine complaints of over-inclusion and under-inclusion in the list of OBCs.
• However, it is also to be noted that the Parliament has passed the 124th Constitution Amendment Bill (10% Quota Bill) to provide for 10% reservation for economically weaker sections (EWS) among the general category candidates in higher education and government employment in the year 2019.

Key Features of the 124th Constitution Amendment Act

• The act amended Articles 15 and 16of the constitution to provide for 10% reservation to economically weaker sections (EWS) among the general/unreserved category over and above the existing 49.5% quota in place for SC, ST, and OBCs.

It seeks to insert a separate clause in article 16 after clause (5) as follows:

• “Nothing in this article shall prevent the State from making any provision for the reservation of appointments or posts in favour of any economically weaker sections of citizens other than the classes mentioned in clause (4), in addition to the existing reservation and subject to a maximum of 10% of the posts in each category”
• It seeks 10% reservation for the economically weaker sections of society in higher educational institutions, private institutions (aided or unaided by the state) except minority educational institutions under Article 30.
• It also provides reservation in posts for initial appointment in services under the state.

Qualifying Criteria for 10% Quota

• All members of whose family together earn less than Rs. 8 lakh per annum.
• Have less than 5 acres of agricultural land.
• Do not possess a residential flat of area 1000 sq. ft. or larger.
• Do not possess a residential plot of area 100 yards or more in notified municipalities and 200 yards or more in areas other than notified municipalities.