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(The Gist of Science Reporter) What is Brain-Machine or Brain-Computer Interface? [JULY-2019]

What is Brain-Machine or Brain-Computer Interface?

• This is any technology that allows communication between the human or animal brain with an external technology.
• The signal is taken from the brain to an external technology or hardware and viceversa.In modern research, brain-machine interface has become useful in designing implants called neuroprosthetics that can improve brain activities and improve vision, hearing or other bodily functions.
• These are implants that supplant or supplement inputs and outputs of the nervous system. But
• now, BCI is being pursued to develop strong artificial intelligence like imitation of human intelligence.

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

The role of women in developing a knowledge economy(The Hindu)

Mains Paper 1:Society
Prelims level: Women
Mains level: Role of women and women's organization

Context:

• A rapidly growing India requires a highly skilled technical workforce that is crucial for developing a knowledge economy.
• Unfortunately, half the scientific potential of India—women in science—is squandered.
• Women make up only 14% of the 280,000 scientists, engineers, and technologists in research and development institutions across the country, according to a recent study.
• Today, fewer women apply for or hold key scientific positions as several barriers prevent them from progressing in their careers, in comparison with their male counterparts.

Assessment of the performance management for organisations:

• Performance assessment is now an integral part of an organization’s performance management systems, implemented as companies move away from the age-old concepts of training and skill development.
• Mentors often ..........................................

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Barriers for an women employee in workplace:

• Organizations often define success by the willingness of their employee to work for long hours and prioritize work over everything else—a “live to work" ideal, generally regarded as more masculine.
• When women feel selected or assessed on the basis of group membership rather than their work record and abilities, they experience gender discrimination.
• Women feel that an unempathetic culture is one of the most significant barriers to their advancement.
• A study highlighted that only 3% of women surveyed regarded family responsibilities as their most serious career obstacle, while 50% cited gender bias.
• Only 7% of female employees surveyed reported leaving the organization for family reasons, whereas 73% reported leaving because they saw limited opportunities.
• The quit rates for women were significantly lower in organizations that provided better training and promotion opportunities.

Barriers between balancing work and family life:

• An increase in the number of women with children who participate in the country’s paid workforce.
• An organization’s culture has a significant impact on those who work within it.
• Not many ..............................

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Way ahead:

• Science needs the best scientists, and a knowledge economy needs a gender-balanced workforce. This can only be attained by realizing the full potential of women.
• Apart from being wasteful and unjust, the under-representation of women in science threatens the goal of achieving excellence in the field.
• To tackle this, we must set an ambitious target of reaching out to 1 million young girls each year, and encourage them to take up science and make a difference.
• A national convention of women in science must be held annually, with a specific focus on discussing and building general awareness around the major challenges that women face.

Conclusion:

• We must mobilize all our resources, if India aims to be a $5 trillion economy.
• The gender imbalance in science and technology is a looming challenge and threatens to weaken our country’s competitive economic position.
• By addressing these concerns, we can empower and motivate more women to join scientific fields, unlock India’s full potential, and develop the country to become a knowledge economy.

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Food companies are watchful of adding nutrition (Mint)

Mains Paper 2:Health
Prelims level: Nutrition Index 2020
Mains level: Key findings of the Nutrition Index 2020

Context:

• After launching edible oils in different varieties (rice bran, soya, groundnut, cottonseed) as well as introducing rice, atta, besan and sooji, the ₹22,000 crore Adani Wilmer, which sells packaged foods under the Fortune brand, aims to add more nutrition to its staples.
• Its deputy chief executive officer Angshu Mallick talks of the opportunities he sees in the value-added commodities segment to attract the millennial consumers to its brand.
• Although the company is yet to take a call, Mallick said it could look at launching atta that doesn’t spike the sugar levels, brown rice and other fortified products.

Nutrition Index 2020:

• Recently, the Ahmedabad-based firm found a place in the India Spotlight Nutrition Index 2020, prepared by Access to Nutrition Initiative, a not-for-profit which ranks food and beverage firms based on their policies, practices and disclosures related to nutrition. In its second edition, Adani Wilmer ranked 11.
• The report, released last week, did not find the kind of coverage that the subject deserves considering that India is known for malnutrition on the one hand and obesity on the other.
• The idea .................................

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Key findings:

• Companies found to be fortifying their products according to standards set by food regulator Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) include Mother Dairy and Britannia. Others have joined FSSAI’s initiative to support the Eat Right Movement and pledged to reformulate their products.
• FSSAI launched .......................................

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Way forward:

• As Indian consumers move towards good-for-you products, which come with healthy ingredients such as fruit and nuts or fortified with proteins, vitamins and minerals, companies including the multinationals, home-grown fast-moving consumer goods makers and startups in the food space are voluntarily offering nutrient-rich foods and snacking options.

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The current state of cooperative federalism in India (Mint)

Mains Paper 2:Polity
Prelims level: Cooperative federalism
Mains level: Role of Cooperative federalism in India

Context:

• The ongoing budget season is the right time to carry out a realistic assessment. After the Union budget for 2020-21 was presented on 1 February, at least four state governments have released their budgets: Odisha, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh.

Background:

• Despite being a functional democracy for more than seven decades, India cannot ignore the role of the parties in power while reviewing the dynamics between various pillars of governance.
• A .....................................................

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State budgets cover these issues:

• The Odisha government follows a practice of presenting its budget in two parts, with the first part dedicated to agriculture and allied activities.
• To promote tourism, the Rajasthan government has proposed implementing a policy on the Ease of Travelling.
• The Uttar Pradesh government is in the process of establishing 21 new medical colleges and a medical university.
• The Tamil Nadu government is likely to launch a new industrial policy shortly that will provide incentives compatible with the goods and services tax regime to attract investors.

Reduced the transfer:

• Under the Union budget, the total estimated transfers to states from the Centre for the ongoing fiscal year have been reduced by around Rs.1.41 trillion.
• This is because of a decrease in the estimated transfers to states on account of their share in central taxes and centrally-sponsored schemes.
• The Congress-run Rajasthan government, in its budget, has blamed the Centre for economic mismanagement and the consequent reduction of the state’s share in central taxes by more than Rs.10,000 crore.
• It argues that while the Centre has several .....................................

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Way ahead:

• Unlike other states, this substantial reduction did not find mention in its budget speech, and was quietly slipped into one of the budget documents.
• Despite the transfers to states during the current fiscal year being revised to Rs.11.87 trillion under the Union budget, such transfers are estimated to increase by more than Rs.2 trillion to Rs.13.90 trillion in the next fiscal year, which is perhaps unrealistic.
• Unfortunately, states have accordingly projected a substantial increase in funds to be received from the Centre and have planned their expenditure on that basis. These may need to be trimmed in the future.

Conclusion:

• Politics has trumped economics and the greater good thus far in India’s story of cooperative federalism. This needs to be fixed before it is too late.
• Greater transparency and stakeholder participation in the budget-making process of the Centre as well as states could go a long way in this regard, as also institutionalized mechanisms for better Centre-state coordination.
• Above all, political parties need to rise above their electoral mindsets and act in favour of the country’s greater good for India to realize the true potential of cooperative federalism.

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Moving up in ‘ease of resolving insolvency’ (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Economy
Prelims level: Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code
Mains level: Highlights of the examination by Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code

Context:

• The World Bank conducts an annual examination of about 200 economies in terms of ease of doing business.
• The result of the examination India improved its overall ranking by 14 spots to 63 on the list, and earned a place among the world’s top 10 ‘improvers’ in ease of doing business, for the third consecutive year.
• In terms of ‘resolving insolvency’, which reflects ease of exit from business, India’s ranking improved by 56 places to 52 from 108 the previous year.

Highlights of the examination by IBC:

• The World Bank recognised that with the reorganisation procedure available, through the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 (IBC), companies have effective tools to restore financial viability, while creditors have better tools to successfully negotiate and have greater chances to realise the money.
• As a result, the overall recovery rate for creditors jumped from 26.5 cents on the dollar to 71.6 cents, and the time taken for resolving insolvency reduced significantly from 4.3 years to 1.6 years.
• India is now, by far, the best performer in South Asia on resolving insolvency and does better than the average for OECD high-income economies in terms of the recovery rate, time taken and cost of proceedings.

Insolvency framework:

• The World Bank measures the perception of stakeholders in respect of ‘resolving insolvency’ on two sets of indicators, namely, the strength of insolvency framework and the recovery rate.
• The strength of insolvency framework is a function of four indices relating to commencement of proceedings, management of firm’s assets, reorganisation proceedings and creditor participation.
• The World Bank considers it positive if an insolvency framework enables direct liquidation of a corporate debtor (CD).
• The IBC enabled the committee of creditors (CoC) to decide to liquidate a CD at any time.
• An amendment ..............................................

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Resolution plan for corporate debtor:

• The IBC envisages a resolution plan for reorganisation of a CD as a going concern.
• This gave the impression that the CD must continue to exist, post-resolution, limiting the possibilities of resolution.
• Though the contours of a resolution plan are left to the imagination of the market, the amendment of August 2019 makes it explicit that a resolution plan may provide for restructuring of the CD, including by way of merger, amalgamation and demerger.
• The recovery rate, as per the World Bank methodology, is a function of time, cost and outcome of insolvency proceedings.
• While reviving ailing firms, the resolution plans have returned about 200 per cent of liquidation value for creditors. This means that the creditors got 200 while they could have got at best 100 minus cost of liquidation, if these CDs were liquidated.
• The outcome should improve with the amendment in December 2019 that releases the CD from the liability arising from an offence committed under the erstwhile management prior to the commencement of the CIRP.

Speed of process:

• The Supreme Court attributed some delay in the law’s functioning in November 2019.
• However, several contentious issues have been settled by the Supreme Court in the last year, bringing in certainty of the process and predictability of outcomes.
• In July 2019, the Bench strength of the AA has been substantially enhanced.
• An amendment..............................

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Way forward:

• The work has begun in right earnest to add several value-added features to insolvency framework.
• These include cross-border insolvency, group insolvency, individual insolvency, valuation profession, market for distressed assets, automation of loan contracts, resolvability of companies, etc.
• The authorities remain committed to address deficiencies arising from implementation of the IBC, in sync with the emerging market realities.
• India’s performance in resolving insolvency should improve further, though the road to success will always remain under construction.

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Digital currency is back in the Indian market (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 3:Economy
Prelims level: Cryptocurrencies
Mains level: Regulating cryptocurrencies in an economy

Context:

• The Supreme Court is justified in striking down an April 6, 2018 circular of the Reserve Bank of India, which bans financial institutions from enabling deals in digital or cryptocurrencies.

Background:

• Since bitcoin, the first cryptocurrency that emerged on currency markets in 2009, governments, central banks and conservative finance managers have viewed the rise of digital currencies with suspicion.
• The debates around the past, present and future of cryptocurrencies as a financial asset class, and as an alternative to central bank-controlled currencies post the 2008-09 meltdown, were filled with an excess of apprehension.

Measures taken by the RBI:

• India, aiming to be a digital economy powerhouse by embracing emerging technologies and employing them to harness economic activity, has also embraced this sense of misgiving.
• The RBI has viewed trade in bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies with extreme suspicion, citing their alleged involvement in money laundering and drug trafficking, and has time and again advised investor communities and financial institutions to exercise caution.
• The RBI’s crypto deal ban of April 2018 has caused immense damage to a cluster of investors and entrepreneurs who, taking a cue from the global markets and their peers overseas, had invested precious monies into building financial products and solutions around cryptocurrencies.

Steps taken by the centre:

• In the February 2018 Budget, the then Finance Minister stated that the government did not consider cryptocurrencies as legal tender or coin and would take measures to eliminate their use in financing illegitimate activities.
• In mid-2019, ........................

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Way ahead:

• The SC has held that the RBI ban is in violation of the freedom to carry on trade guaranteed by Article 19(1)(g) of the Constitution, the crypto community can heave a sigh of relief.
• The SC ruling will have an impact on the draft crypto law in the making.
• Gartner forecasts that blockchain, the technology that powers cryptos, will generate $3.1 trillion in new business value by 2030. Cryptos themselves are a $800-billion market globally.
• The Indian crypto market was worth over $13 billion prior to the 2018 crackdown.
• The SC ruling should also be a wake-up call for the central bank and policy mavens.

Conclusion:

• A ‘when in doubt, cut it out’ approach cannot work well in addressing issues and products that are product of technological advancements.
• The best approach to adopt is one of cautious optimism and creative regulation.

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Move to expand ‘one nation one ration card’ will empower migrants, women (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Governance
Prelims level: one nation one ration card
Mains level: Reforms on public distribution system

Context:

• Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food and Public Distribution Ram Vilas Paswan said that 20 States will move to ‘one nation one ration card’ (ONORC) from June 1.
  Benefits from this move:
• The move ....................................

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Observations from the Economic Survey 2016-17:

• “The first-ever estimates of internal work-related migration using railways data for the period 2011-2016 indicate an annual average flow of close to 9 million people between the States.”
• It also points out that the “acceleration of migration ..................................

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Highlights the importance of this initiatives:

• However, it is important to get more granular data on migration to enhance the success of this initiative.
• Distress migration — a situation where entire families move — is not the norm.
• Seasonal migration of ......................................

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Way forward:

• In view of these glitches in the context of implementing ONORC, States should continue with community kitchen schemes as in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka.
• There can be no substitute to creating an empowered society to ensure that welfare programmes work.

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A disconnected pedagogy (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Education
Prelims level: National Curriculum
Mains level: Limitation in the national curriculum

Context:

• Should there be a National Curriculum? And if yes, what should be its guiding principles?
• Given our heroic times, we may perhaps demand that it should be “in the spirit of the Constitution, respect the idea of India and serve its people without discrimination”.

About national curriculum:

• It turns out that we already have a national curriculum. It is a fixed set of topics prescribed in all subjects — from physics to geography, and engineering to planning.
• It is taught in English at our elite MHRD institutions.
• It has not been .............................

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Engineering curriculum problems:

• We already know that the national engineering curriculum fails miserably in meeting regional needs.
• Engineering for Himachal Pradesh needs to be different from that in Maharashtra or Kerala.
• And it must address the needs of core industries, local enterprises, the provisioning of basic amenities such as water and energy.
• None of this is in our national curricula or practised at the IITs. Moreover, there is no mechanism for engineering colleges to work with their communities.

Curriculum for social sciences:

• At the BA level, it is divided into several disciplines — for instance, political science, sociology and economics. Since much of life in India is interdisciplinary.
• As a result, many activities such as preparing the balance sheet for a farmer, or analysing public transport needs, and development concerns such as drinking water or even city governance, are given a miss.

Economics curriculum:

• The UGC-NET curricula in economics has 10 units, the very last unit is Indian Economics.
• Unit 8 is on Growth and ,............................................

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Sociology curriculum:

• In sociology, we see that as with economics, there is no preamble nor a list of textbooks or case studies. Again, there are 10 units, and each unit is a list of about 30 topics.
• Unit 1 is “Sociological Theory” which is a breath-taking list of 22 thinkers from the West, starting from Durkheim, wending through Foucault and ending with Castells. We then have six Indian thinkers — the usual four, Gandhi, Ambedkar, G S Ghurye and M N Srinivas, and two others.
• Under “Social Institutions”, we have a list of timeless words such as culture, marriage, family and kinship.
• Peasant occurs two times, but there is no farmer. Here is a sample question: “Who uses the phrase ‘fetishisms of commodities’ while analysing social conditions?” followed by four names.

National curricula need to be followed every institution:

• Indeed, the training at our elite institutions, and consequently, in the national curricula, is not to empower ordinary students to probe their lived reality.
• Or to contribute professionally and .................................................

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Needed to be removal of the limitations in social science:

• The social science curriculum has the same structural limitations as engineering.
• The national curriculum today is antithetical to the idea of India as an organic union of intelligent people, diverse in their ways of life and their geography.
• It diminishes their intellectual capability and hinders their right to pursue their culture and improve their material conditions.
• That is the real reason why higher education has become a waste of money. As per the Constitution, higher education is the business of the states.
• The role of the Centre is circumscribed by items 62-66 of Schedule VII.
• Much of the conduct of MHRD and its institutions, and certainly competitive exams, is against the spirit of the Constitution.

Way forward:

• One-nation-one-curriculum certainly has some advantages in enabling mobility of some jobs, especially in the national bureaucracy and a multinational economy. But it is at the cost of the developmental needs of the states and the emergence of good jobs there.
• This asymmetry .....................................................

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Teaching the teacher (Indian Express)

Mains Paper 2: Education
Prelims level: Teacher Education Institutes
Mains level: Problems in Teacher Education Institutes

Context:

• Teachers remain at the heart of the issue, and translating schooling into learning is a critical challenge.
• The learning crisis is evident in the fact that almost half of the children in grade 5 in rural India cannot solve a simple two-digit subtraction problem, while 67 per cent of children in grade 8 in public schools score less than 50 per cent in competency-based assessments in mathematics.

Lacks of teachers in schools:

• India is dealing with a scenario of significant teacher vacancies, which are to the tune of almost 60-70 per cent in some states.
• There are over one lakh ........................................

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Lacks of quality teachers:

• TEIs generating a surplus supply of teachers, they are also producing poor-quality teachers.
• Besides it being reflected in the dismal state of learning across schools, the pass-percentage in central teacher eligibility tests that stipulate eligibility for appointments as teachers has not exceeded 25 per cent in recent years. This begs a pertinent question — how did we get here?
• The answers lie in the inadequacies of planning, regulation, policy and organisational structures.

Problems of the Teacher Education Institutes:

Lacks of planning:

• The National Council for Teacher Education (NCTE) and its four regional committees (north, south, east and west), established by statute, are responsible for teacher education in India.
• However, the Act assigns disproportionate power to the regional committees which grant programme affiliation while the Council has been rendered toothless.
• Perverted incentives, widespread corruption and commercialisation have resulted in a massive proliferation of sub-standard TEIs.
• The decade between 2004 and 2014 saw a five-fold increase in the number of programmes recognised by these regional committees.

Lacks of proper regulations:

• About 90 per cent of these institutes are privately owned and a mind-boggling majority of them are standalone institutes, running single programmes with as few as 50 students.
• Most of these TEIs are financially unviable, some function out of tiny rooms with duplicate addresses, and a few could even be selling degrees at a fixed price.
• These institutes function in isolation from the rest of the higher education system, and there is no system to assess and accredit them.
• There is no systemic sieve to ensure the entry of only motivated and meritorious individuals into the teacher education space.

Lacks of policies:

• This establishes a compelling case for radical reforms in the sector.
• Any reform initiative........................................

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Lacks of proper organizational structures:

• The National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC), responsible for quality-standards in higher education, has only covered 30 per cent of all institutes since its establishment back in 1994.
• Given the extensive landscape of the teacher education sector alone and current capacity constraints, it is necessary that multiple accreditation agencies be empaneled.
• A common accreditation framework should be designed through a consultative process including all relevant stakeholders to facilitate its wider acceptability.
• A transparent and credible system of accreditation could form the bedrock for weeding out substandard TEIs and propelling quality improvements in the rest.

Lacks of quality curriculum for teachers:

• Another core determinant of quality is the curriculum which must be regularly revamped and revised to ensure that our teacher education system is aligned to global standards.
• Ideally, given that teacher ...................................?

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Way ahead:

• The draft National Education Policy presents a ray of hope. Its vision to restore integrity and credibility to the teacher education system needs to be translated into effective action.
• India is .....................................................

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Rights or wrong?: On U.N. rights body move against CAA (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: Polity
Prelims level: U.N. rights body
Mains level: Implications of the U.N. rights body move on CAA

Context:

• The application on behalf of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, seeking to be heard as amicus curiae in the pending litigation in the Supreme Court against the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2019, is undoubtedly an unusual step.

What are the U.N. rights body’s requirement?

• As expected, the government sees it as unwarranted interference.
• It does appear that the move is unnecessary as the global human rights perspective that High Commissioner Michelle Bachelet Jeria hopes to present is most likely to be raised by some of the petitioners themselves.
• After all, most of the 140-.....................................................

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What the government will do?

• The Modi government may be unhappy with the U.N. rights body’s “overreach”, but it will have to be underscored that the CAA’s flawed structure and the aggressive manner in which it was initially linked with a post-implementation exercise to purge the country of illegal immigrants have contributed to the present situation.
• The political Opposition, sections of the legal fraternity, academicians and commentators have made a strong case that making religion a factor to include certain categories for a fast-tracked naturalisation process is violative of secular principles.
• The government’s stout defence of the CAA is that no current Indian citizen would be affected, and that it was meant to help persecuted minorities in countries where Islam was the state religion.

Conclusion:

• In addition to having to discharge the burden of proving that the CAA does not contravene the Constitution, the government would have to demonstrate that it is not in violation of provisions of the International .......................

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Dark tales in Andhra Pradesh’s IIT success story (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: National
Prelims level: Indian Institutes of Technology
Mains level: Major problems highlighted in corporate schools

Context:

• As the examination season rolls in, nearly 1.5 crore students in India prepare to sit for the board examinations. They are more fortunate than nearly half their cohorts, who will never get to that stage.
• Among the happiest students will be those who will get admission to the Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), and among the States, the largest number will be from Andhra Pradesh (AP).

Highlights the study of corporate schools:

• The State owes its distinction in producing the largest number of IIT entrants to two major chains of ‘corporate schools’, which focus on preparing students for the IIT, and failing that, other engineering colleges.
• These schools had initially .....................................

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A childhood lost:

• All the students in such schools lost the chance to be children, explore and grow, develop their special talents, and form their unique identity. But for those who did not get admission to engineering colleges, the loss was manifold.
• They got little support in the school, as the best teachers were deployed to teach the top-level students.
• The students in the bottom layer were pejoratively called ‘patrons’ by the management, as their parents paid high fees, while their chances of getting into an engineering college were negligible.

Corporate greed and state failure effects:

• Teachers at a government school said private school representatives came to the school in January, made lists of good students, contacted parents, and encouraged students to join.
• An individual who once ........................................

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In cahoots with government

• Government officials, teacher educators, and even panchayat representatives interviewed were aware that the educational practices of corporate schools were questionable, and that they fooled and exploited students and parents.
• However, regulating such schools was beyond the capacity of the government system.
• At inter-college, or..................................

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Way ahead:

• The corporate school management exercised considerable influence at the very top levels of government. They were reported to contribute funds during elections, and some had begun political careers themselves.
• Officials described .......................................

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Conclusion:

• This nasty tale of state collusion with uncaring profit-makers remains hidden as the faces of successful entrants of IITs stare at us from newspaper advertisements every year.

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(The Gist of PIB) Key Highlights of Economic Survey 2019-20

Key Highlights of Economic Survey 2019-20

• The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman presented the Economic Survey 2019-20 in the Parliament.

Key Highlights of the Economic Survey 2019-20 are as follows:

• The expenditure on social services (health, education and others) by the Centre and States as a proportion of GDP increased from 6.2 % in 2014-15 to 7.7 % in 2019-20 (BE).
• India’s ranking in Human Development Index improved to 129 in 2018 from 130 in 2017. With 1.34 % average annual HDI growth, India is among the fastest improving countries
• The share of regular wage/salaried employees has increased by 5 percentage points from 18 % in 2011-12 to 23 % in 2017-18.
• A significant jump of around 2.62 crore new jobs with 1.21 crore in rural areas and 1.39 crore in urban areas in this category.
• Total formal employment in the economy increased from 8 % in 2011-12 to 9.98 % in 2017-18.
• Gender disparity in India’s labour market widened due to decline in female labour force participation especially in rural areas. Around 60 % of the productive age (15-59) group engaged in full time domestic duties.
• About 76.7 % of the households in the rural areas and about 96 % in the urban areas had houses of pucca structure.
• A 10 Year Rural Sanitation Strategy (2019-2029) launched to focus on sustaining the sanitation behavior change and increasing access to solid and liquid waste management.

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(The Gist of PIB) Promoting Pro-Business Policy Critical for India to become a $5 trillion Economy

Promoting Pro-Business Policy Critical for India to become a $5 trillion Economy

• The Economic Survey 2019-20 says India’s aspiration to become a $5 trillion economy depends critically on promoting “pro-business” policy and weaning away from “pro-crony” policy.

Key highlights

• Survey says that India’s aspiration of becoming a $5 trillion economy depends critically on:
• Promoting ‘pro-business’ policy that unleashes the power of competitive markets to generate wealth.
• Weaning away from ‘pro-crony’ policy that may favour specific private interests, especially powerful incumbents.
• Viewed from the lens of the Stock market, creative destruction increased significantly post-liberalisation:
• Before liberalisation, a Sensex firm expected to stay in it for 60 years, which decreased to only 12 years after liberalisation.
• Every five years, one-third of Sensex firms are churned out, reflecting the continuous influx of new firms, products and technologies into the economy.
• Despite impressive progress in enabling competitive markets, pro-crony policies destroyed value in the economy:
• An equity index of connected firms significantly outperformed the market by 7 % a year from 2007 to 2010, reflecting abnormal profits extracted at common citizens’ expense.
• In contrast, the index underperforms the market by 7.5 % from 2011, reflecting inefficiency and value destruction inherent in such firms.
• Similarly, crony lending that led to wilful default, wherein promoters collectively siphoned off wealth from banks, led to losses that dwarf subsidies for rural development.

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(The Gist of PIB) National Technical Textiles Mission

National Technical Textiles Mission

• The Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs has announced a proposal to set up a National Technical Textiles Mission with a four-year implementation period from 2020-21 to 2023-24 at an estimated outlay of Rs. 1480 crore to position India as a global leader in Technical Textiles.

Key highlights:

• Technical textiles are material and products manufactured primarily for their technical properties and functional requirements rather than for aesthetic characteristics.
• The scope of use of technical textiles encompasses a wide range of applications such as agro-textiles, medical textiles, geo-textiles, protection-textiles, industrial-textiles, sports-textiles and many other usages.
• Use of technical textiles have benefits of increased productivity in agriculture, horticulture and aquaculture fields, better protection of military, para-military, police and security forces, stronger and sturdier transportation infrastructure for highways, railways, ports and airports and in improving hygiene and healthcare of general public. In India, technical textiles hold immense growth opportunities both for the industry as well as across various applications.
• In terms of the projections of the last baseline survey on technical textiles submitted in 2015, the market size in India for the year 2017-18 is projected as Rs 1,16,217 crore.
• Although, there is no projection in the last baseline study with regard to the projections for the 2020-21, taking into account the current trend of growth and various initiatives of the Government, domestic market size of the technical textiles is expected to cross Rs 2 lakh crores by the year 2020-21.

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

(The Gist of PIB) Beijing Declaration

Beijing Declaration

• To mark 25 years of the adoption of Beijing Platform for Action, Ministry of Women and Child Development (MWCD), organized a National Consultation on the Review of Beijing+25.

About:

• The 1995 Fourth World Conference on Women, held in Beijing, was one of the largest ever gatherings of the United Nations, and a critical turning point in the world’s focus on gender equality and the empowerment of women.
• The Beijing Declaration was a resolution adopted by the UN at the end of the Fourth World Conference on Women. The resolution adopted to promulgate a set of principles concerning the equality of men and women.
• 2020 marks the 25th anniversary of the Fourth World Conference on Women and adoption of the Beijing Declaration and Platform for Action (1995), (Beijing + 25).

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

(The Gist of PIB) Dividend Distribution Tax

Dividend Distribution Tax

• In order to increase the attractiveness of the Indian Equity Market, to provide relief to a large class of investors and to make India an attractive destination for investment, the Union Budget proposed to remove the Dividend Distribution Tax .

About:

• Currently, companies are required to pay DDT on the dividend paid to its shareholders at the rate of 15% plus applicable surcharge and cess in addition to the tax payable by the company on its profits.
• It has been argued, she added, that the system of levying DDT results in increase in tax burden for investors and specially those who are liable to pay tax less than the rate of DDT, if the dividend income is included in their income.
• Further, non-availability of credit of DDT to most of the foreign investors in their home country results in reduction of rate of return on equity capital for them.

Concessional tax rate for Electricity generation companies:

• In order to attract investment in the power sector, the Union Budget proposes to extend the concessional corporate tax rate of 15% to new domestic companies engaged in the generation of electricity.
• To give a boost to the manufacturing sector, a concessional corporate tax rate of 15% was introduced in September 2019 to the newly incorporated domestic manufacturing sector which start manufacturing by 31st March, 2023.

Concessional tax rate for Cooperatives:

• As a major concession and in order to bring parity between the cooperative societies and corporates, the Union Budget proposed to provide an option to cooperative societies to be taxed at 22% + 10% surcharge and 4% cess with no exemption/deductions. These cooperatives are currently taxed at a rate of 30% with surcharge and cess.
• The Finance Minister also proposed to exempt these cooperative societies from Alternate Minimum Tax (AMT) just like Companies which under the new tax regime are exempted from the Minimum Alternate Tax (MAT).

Affordable housing:

• For realisation of the goal of ‘Housing for All’ and affordable housing, an additional deduction of up to one lakh fifty thousand rupees for interest paid on loans taken for purchase of an affordable house was announced in last year’s budget. The deduction was allowed on housing loans sanctioned on or before 31st March, 2020.
• In order to ensure that more persons avail this benefit and to further incentivise the affordable housing, the Finance Minister proposed to extend the date of loan sanction, for availing this additional deduction by one more year.
• Referring to the tax holiday provided on profits earned by developers of Affordable Housing projects approved by 31st March, 2020, Smt Sitharaman proposed to extend the date of approval of affordable housing projects for availing this tax holiday by one more year.

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

(The Gist of PIB) Services Sector growth

Services Sector growth

• Services Sector accounted for about 55percent of the economy and Gross Value Added (GVA) growth, two- Thirds of total FDI inflows into India and about 38percent of the total exports.
• This was emphasized by the Economic Survey 2019-20, tabled in the Parliament today by the Union Minister for Finance and Corporate Affairs, Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman.
• The sector’s share now exceeds 50 per cent of the Gross State Value Added in 15 out of the 33 states and UTs, the Survey further noted.
• The Survey added that the services sector saw a 33 per cent jump in the gross FDI equity inflows during April – September 2019, touching US$ 17.58 billion.
• The Survey underscored that services exports have outperformed goods exports in the recent years, due to which India’s share in world’s commercial services exports has risen steadily over the past decade to reach 3.5 per cent in 2018, twice the share in world’s merchandise exports at 1.7 percent.

Highlighted key developments within some sub-sectors:

• Tourism Services: The sector is a major engine of growth, contributing to GDP, foreign exchange earnings and employment. However, growth in foreign exchange earnings slowed in 2018 and 2019, in line with global trends. But with the liberalization of the visa regime with the e-Visa scheme, available for 169 countries, foreign tourist arrivals to India on e-visas have increased from 4.45 lakh in 2015 to 23.69 lakh in 2018 and stood at 21.75 lakh in January-October 2019, recording nearly 21 per cent year-on-year growth.
• IT-BPM Services: The Indian IT-BPM Industry has been the flag-bearer of India’s exports for the past two decades, with industry size reaching about US$ 177 billion in March 2019. The sector contributes significantly to the economy via employment growth and value addition. A number of policy initiatives have been taken to drive innovation and technology adoption in the IT-BPM sector, including Start-up India, National Software Product Policy and removal of issues related to Angel Tax. The Indian start-up ecosystem has been progressing and is now the third largest in the world with 24 unicorns.
• Port and Shipping Services: The turnaround time of ships, which is a key indicator of efficiency of the ports sector, has been on a continuous decline, almost halving between 2010-11 and 2018-19, from 4.67 days to 2.48 days.
• Space Sector: India’s space programme has grown exponentially since its modest beginnings five decades ago, moving from simple mapping services to many more uses currently. Even though India’s spending is less compared to others, ISRO has launched around 5-7 satellites per year in recent years with almost no failures.

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

(The Gist of Science Reporter) MCQ on Poisonous Plants

 [FEBRUARY-2020]

MCQ on Poisonous Plants

1. Resembles a potato plant, the mature dark purple or black poisonous berries are called

a. Nightshade
b. Poison Sumac
c. Stinging Nettle
d. Starfish Poison berry

2. Eating these berries can be fatal; they look like wild grapes.

a. Water hemlock
b. Grape monsters
c. Poison oak
d. Canada moonseed

3. Don’t ever touch this one because all the plant parts are extremely poisonous, the plant is called:

a. Water hemlock
b. Poison oak
c. Stinging nettle
d. Chia pet

4. Three-parted, variable leaves look like Aegle marmelos (bel patra); it is commonly called

a. Water hemlock
b. Poison ivy
c. Poison maple
d. Poison oak

5. Small whitish-green flowers and berries are commonly called:

a. Canada moonseed
b. Stinging clover
c. Poison sumac
d. Poison oak

6. Cosmopolitan in distribution in the world particularly in moist and hilly areas, open woods, old fields and roadsides, grows as a tall plant sometimes in large colonies and is commonly called

a. Itchy Michelson
b. Poison Ivy
c. Poison Oak
d. Stinging Nettle

7. 10 paired leaflets with smooth edges in swampy areas, commonly called

a. Nightshade
b. Poison Ivy
c. Stinging Nettle
d. Poison Sumac

8. Which poisonous plant has a name like a part of an animal?

a. Dogweed
b. Horsetails
c. Foxgloves
d. All of the above

9. Which poisonous plant sounds like food but ponies won’t eat it?

a. Grasscook
b. Chickweed
c. Buttercup
d. All of the above

10. Which tree is common in gardens and cultivated grounds, with yellow dangly flowers?

a. Oak
b. Laburnum
c. Cherry
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

11. When is Foxglove most palatable?

a. Competition stage
b. Ceremony stage
c. Rosette stage
d. All of the above

12. Which seed can be addictive to ponies?

a. Acorn
b. Horse chestnut
c. Conker
d. All of the above

13. What kind of party would help rid your paddock of this poisonous plant?

a. House
b. Ragwort
c. Pool
d. All of the above

14. The hairs lining the seed pods contain serotonin and the protein mucuna causes severe itching when the pods are touched.

a. Mucuna
b. Abrus
c. Striga
d. All of the above

15. Commonly known as jequirity bean, rosary pea, or crab-eye seed; it is a herbaceous flowering plant.

a. Bombax ceiba
b. Abrus precatorius
c. Abrus pulchellus
d. All of the above

16. Nux is a widely distributed poisonous plant. Commonly called…

a. Strychnos nux vomica (Family: Loganiaceae)
b. Strychnos vomica (Family: Leguminosae)
c. Nux vomica strychnos (Family: Verbenaceae)
d. All of the above
e. None of the above

Answers:
1. (a) 2. (d) 3. (a) 4. (b) 5. (d) 6. (d) 7. (d) 8. (b)
9. (c) 10. (b) 11. (c) 12. (a) 13. (b) 14. (a) 15. (b) 16. (a)

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

(The Gist of Science Reporter) Cryptography

 [FEBRUARY-2020]

Cryptography

• Secured concern for diplomats, military and other officials over the ages. Even if it’s exact origin cannot be traced back communication has always been an area of precisely, its importance can surely be understood from the fact that even the greatest rulers like Julius Caesar had such a method for information exchange popularly named after him as Caesar Cipher.
• The process of securing information by manipulating it in such a way that makes it incomprehensible for people unaware of the secret is called cryptography. Cryptography is a combination of two Greek words, kryptos meaning secret and graphein meaning writing. So, in other words cryptography can also be called secret writing.
• The technique is mainly based on a set of steps to be followed in a sequential manner to achieve the incomprehensibility. These steps together constitute an algorithm. The algorithm takes a meaningful information known as plaintext and converts it into a gibberish data called ciphertext. Mostly this conversion might require an additional piece of secret information known as a key whose knowledge is essential for securing and revealing the information. This process is known as encryption and decryption respectively.
• Depending upon the period, cryptography can be broadly categorised as Classical cryptography and Modern Cryptography.

Classical Cryptography:

• Classical cryptography refers to the early form of the methodology which was mostly dependent on the rearrangement and the substitution of the letters in a way that the output could not be understood without the prior knowledge of the process.
• These forms of cryptography were very popular in ancient Egypt and Greece. The popular Caesar cipher is one of the oldest examples of the substitution cipher in which the letters of the plaintext were replaced by the letters in the alphabets starting from any specific place in the sequence.
  Example: Let us assume that we replace each letter in a given plaintext with a new letter obtained by moving three places from the current letter in the English alphabet to obtain the cipher text.

Modern Cryptography:

• Modern cryptography is primarily based on mathematical calculations that are easy enough to be carried out by a computer using a key but hard enough to be guessed in the absence of the same key. Claude E. Shannon is considered to be the father of this mathematical form of cryptography that led to the origin of the modern ciphers.
• Current cryptosystems work on the Kerckhoff’s principle which emphasises on exposing everything related to the cipher in the public domain (including the algorithm) except for the key. This means that the actual security of the data relies on the strength of the key used for encryption. Hence, for a modern cipher that is free from any design flaws, the length of the key used (in bits) will actually give an idea about the number of possible keys to be tried in order to break the security.
  For example, if the key length used by an algorithm is 8 bits then there would be 28 i.e. 256 possible key combinations that need to be tried in order to reveal the information using brute-force.

Symmetric Key algorithms:

• These are algorithms that use the same key for the encryption and the decryption process and hence require the key being shared among all the individuals who need to have access to the data. Since the secrecy completely depends on the key being used, any accidental disclosure of the same to non-authorised individuals might lead to compromise of the entire system.
• This problem of safe key exchange is the greatest challenge associated with this method making it suitable only for securing data for an individual or a small group of people when this approach is not associated with any other special protocol for information exchange.
• Example: DES, AES-128, AES-256, Blowfish, IDEA, Twofish, etc.

Asymmetric Key algorithms:

• These are algorithms that use a pair of keys for the encryption and decryption of the data – the keys are known as public key and private key, respectively. The private key is kept a secret with the owner and is used to decrypt the data encrypted with the public key made available to everyone in the public domain. Another use of this type of algorithm is for user authentication where the data encrypted with the private key can be decrypted with the public key to verify the fact that only the owner of the private key can encrypt the data.
• Since this type of algorithm doesn’t rely on a single key for security, it overcomes the limitation of the symmetric key algorithms and is used for information exchange on the internet as a part of various information exchange protocols. One of the major limitations of these algorithms as compared to symmetric algorithms is that they are computationally expensive hence using them frequently within a process is not easy.

Cryptographic Research in India:

• Cryptography along with information security being one of the hottest topics in the current times has made a huge impact within the Indian research fraternity as well. India with the motive of gaining excellence and promoting knowledge in this domain has set up some of the world’s best institutes like RC Bose Centre for Cryptology and Security at Kolkata.
• Organisations like Cryptology Research Society of India (CRSI) and Scientific Analysis Group (SAG) of the Defence Research & Development Organisation (DRDO) also do a lot of research in this field. The popular international cryptography conference called Indocrypt has been organised by CRSI every year since 2000 for the promotion of cryptography in India and abroad.
• Specialisation courses in cryptography and its associated fields are also offered at various IITs like IIT Kharagpur and IIT Madras for youngsters seeking a career in this domain.
• There is a need for official guidelines from the government on the standardization of the algorithms and cipher suites to be used to safeguard the personal data collected by the government and private entities from individuals so as to ensure a minimum level of standardised data security within the country. And of course, spreading awareness of the subject among the people is very essential to remain happy, healthy and safe in cyberspace.

Study Material for UPSC General Studies Pre Cum Mains

Germany’s far-right problem (The Hindu)

Mains Paper 2: International
Prelims level: Alternative for Deutschland
Mains level: Reasons behind the rising of far right problem in Germany

Context:

• The killing of nine people at two shisha lounges in Hanau, Germany, last week by a person suspected to have a far-right background has heightened concerns about the country’s right-wing extremism.
• The Hanau attacker had released a manifesto before the assault, targeting mainly those of Kurdish origin, which called for extermination of people in several West Asian countries.

Rise of far right problems:

• In recent years, Germany, like several other European countries, has seen twin far-right problems — growing street violence by extremists against minorities and immigrants and the rapid political rise ...........................

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How many far-right groups are there?

• Post-war Germany has been wary of nationalist politics and has shown zero tolerance to anti-Semitism and race-related crimes.
• The Nazi-era crimes are remembered in Germany and taught in schools. The public are banned from using Nazi slogans or symbols and there are laws against Holocaust denial.
• But despite this culture of atonement and strong legislation to prevent racist crimes, Germany has seen the resurgence of xenophobic groups, especially after the German reunification in 1990.
• In November 2011, German officials uncovered the National Socialist Underground (NSU), a neo-Nazi terrorist group, which had carried out decade-long underground activities, including a series ................................................

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Rising of the Alternative for Deutschland:

• The rise of the AfD, which broke with Germany’s post-war consensus on pluralism and multilateralism and took an overly German nationalist approach at all issues, from internal and external security to economic policy, has shaken up the political climate in the country.
• The AfD’s growth has coincided with a sharp jump in the number of far-right attacks in Germany.
• According to the BfV (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz), the domestic security agency of the federal government, there are 24,100 right-wing extremists in Germany, of which 12,700 are “violence-oriented”.
• The country has also .................................................

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What does the AfD want?

• The AfD was founded in 2013 by a group of conservative leaders, many of whom were part of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU).
• Their plan was to occupy the political vacuum created by the CDU’s shift towards the centre from the right under Ms. Merkel’s leadership.
• Initially the AfD was focused on its anti-euro agenda and staunchly opposed German taxpayer’s money being used to bail out debt-trapped countries in the euro zone, mainly Greece.
• After Ms. Merkel ...................................................

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Way ahead:

• If the AfD was seen as a political untouchable by the establishment parties till recently, that is also slowly changing.
• Earlier this month, in the eastern State of Thuringia, a liberal leader was elected premier with help from Ms. Merkel’s CDU and the AfD.
• It created national outrage and Ms. Merkel made a decisive intervention. Thuringia Premier Thomas Kemmerich quit after the controversy.
• The CDU’s leader and Ms. Merkel’s designated successor, Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, has also announced her resignation from the party leadership. But despite the uproar, the Thuringia episode is an example that the AfD is fast becoming a mainstream political party in Germany.
• With the AfD’s rise and its open embrace of racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric, the many sleeper neo-Nazi cells which were till now resisted by the post-war consensus feel emboldened. That consensus is now under attack.

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