trainee4's blog

Data Protection - Technology and Privacy : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Data Protection - Technology and Privacy : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

News:  

A global data analytics company Cambridge Analytica was involved in the data breach regarding the Facebook user’s details . This was used to build psychological profiles of more than 50 million individuals during US presidential elections. Data of more than 5 lakh Indian citizens was also compromised.

What are the implications

  1. Individual users are increasingly viewed as legitimate targets for mining personal and metadata. As elsewhere, data mined from Indian users of social media analysed in bulk can provide an intimate psychological profile including ideological preferences that together help campaign managers target communications and forecast voter behaviour.
  2. Risks to the very health of democracy stem from the dominance of social media platforms, which not only deliver personalised content to users, but in many cases privilege content based on engagement rather than quality. This limits users’ access to information, which in turn leads to political polarisation and the spread of fake news.
  3. Monopoly nature of certain big tech giants can further compound the concerns.
  4. This can threaten the very fabric of democracy through foreign interference in domestic elections as is alleged to be happened in USA.

Challenges with data protection in India

  1. Data centers of the major tech giants are situated outside India and hence outside the ambit of Indian jurisdiction.
  2. India lacks a dedicated institutional and legislative infrastructure to tackle such issues.

Buy Printed Complete Study Materials for UPSC IAS PRELIMS Exam

Online Crash Course for UPSC PRE Exam

(VIDEO) Taxing Fuel - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) Taxing Fuel - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: Taxing Fuel - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : Arvind Virmani, Former Chief Economic Advisor, GoI; Sushil Chandra Tripathi, Former Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas; A.K. Bhattacharya, Editorial Director, Business Standard; Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) Yaatra ka Yash (यात्रा का यश) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

(VIDEO)Yaatra ka Yash (यात्रा का यश) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: Yaatra ka Yash (यात्रा का यश) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel :

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

Sugarcane Sector Woes and Rangarajan committee : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Sugarcane Sector Woes and Rangarajan committee : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

News:

The sugar industry is reiterating its demand to the Centre for production subsidy to sustain sugarcane payments to farmers and to support exports

What are the problems in Sugarcane sector?

  1. Low yield of sugarcane

  2. Short crushing season

  3. Low rate of recovery

  4. High cost of production

  5. Improper utilization of byproducts like bagassee  and molasses

  6. Small size of mills and obsolete machinery

  7. Levy Sugar : Sugar mills are required to surrender a proportion of production at the prices lower than that of market price

  8. Government restrictions: APMC’s which mandate that the growers can only sell the produce to the designated nearest Mandi

  9. Cane pricing issue:  Centre announces FRP- fair and remunerative price, states can also intervene through state administered price

  10. Trade policy for sugar is often meddled with and government frequently places import and export restrictions to manage prices.

  11. Present issue of low prices and accumulation of sugarcane price arrears

Buy Printed Complete Study Materials for UPSC IAS PRELIMS Exam

Online Crash Course for UPSC PRE Exam

Call to action: on India's air pollution crisis : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Call to action: on India's air pollution crisis : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Why in News?

  • Latest report released by WHO highlights the issue of widespread air pollution in urban India as well as deficient air quality monitoring.

About the Report

  • The report, which summarised 2016 data for 4,300 cities, ranks 14 Indian cities among the 20 most polluted ones globally. 

Poor Monitoring in Indian Cities

  • Kanpur, Faridabad and several other pollution-choked cities have only one PM 2.5 monitoring station each, while Delhi has several. 
  • Out of the 5,000 odd cities and towns in India, monitoring is being done in only 307 cities moreover, most of this is manual monitoring that reports data with considerable time lag.
  • WHO researchers get around this problem by using alternative data sources such as satellite remote sensing and chemical transport models, along with ground-monitoring stations. 

Buy Printed Complete Study Materials for UPSC IAS PRELIMS Exam

Online Crash Course for UPSC PRE Exam

(VIDEO) India Electrified - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) India Electrified - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: India Electrified - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : Anil Razdan, Former Secretary, Ministry of Power; Arun Kumar Verma, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Power; Subhomoy Bhattacharya, Consulting Editor, Business Standard; Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) Commonwealth Shikhar Summit (राष्ट्रमंडल शिखर सम्मेलन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

(VIDEO) Commonwealth Shikhar Summit (राष्ट्रमंडल शिखर सम्मेलन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: Commonwealth Shikhar Summit (राष्ट्रमंडल शिखर सम्मेलन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel Name :  Sushant Sareen (Specialist international affairs)

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

Wisdom at Wuhan - On the Modi-Xi meeting : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Wisdom at Wuhan - On the Modi-Xi meeting : Important Topics for UPSC Exams

Why in News?

  • An ‘informal’ summit meeting (with no predefined agenda) between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping in Wuhan was recently concluded. 

Significance of the Summit

  • India-China relations have been under great stress in recent year and the 2017 military standoff at the Doklam tri-junction and the war of words that followed vitiated a relationship that was already reeling under a great deal of pressure. 
  • Summit was a much-needed one and will help in bringing the bilateral relations between the two Asian giants back on track and Wuhan was about the desire to return to the negotiating table, not about negotiating anything specific. 
  • India’s neighbourhood policy is in doldrums, India-Pakistan relationship nowhere normal and at the same time unsuccessful China Policy will prove to be the complete failure of Neighbourhood policy. 
  • It was informal, so no documentary significance was required for any agreement of great significance and thus Wuhan was chosen as a place for the summit to take place otherwise it would have been Beijing or Shanghai in case of Formal Meeting. 

Timeline of the events

  • After the Doklam standoff, in December 2017, the two Foreign Ministers met in New Delhi followed by a meeting between China’s then state councilor Yang Jiechi and Mr. Modi’s National Security Adviser, Ajit Doval, again in New Delhi. 
  • In February 2018, Foreign Secretary Vijay Gokhale visited China. 
  • The Wuhan summit was preceded by the visits of Foreign Minister Sushma Swaraj and Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman to China for Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) meetings.

Buy Printed Complete Study Materials for UPSC IAS PRELIMS Exam

Online Crash Course for UPSC PRE Exam

(VIDEO) Representation in Judiciary - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) Representation in Judiciary - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: Representation in Judiciary - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : M.Afzal Wani, Chairman, Law Department, I.P. University; Diksha Sanyal, Research Fellow, Vidhi Centre For Legal Policy ; Madhavi Divan, Senior Advocate, Supreme Court; Siddharth, Advocate on Record, Supreme Court; Henri Tiphagne, Director, People's Watch Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) India-UK bilateral relation (भारत-ब्रिटेन द्विपक्षीय संबंध) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

(VIDEO) India-UK bilateral relation (भारत-ब्रिटेन द्विपक्षीय संबंध) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: India-UK bilateral relation (भारत-ब्रिटेन द्विपक्षीय संबंध) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel Name :  Dr. Pankaj Jha (Specialist international affairs); Prativimbh Sharma (Studio, Anchor), 

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

(Cut Off) UPSC Civil Services Mains-2017

(Cut Off) UPSC Civil Services Mains-2017

Civil Services Examination, 2017 – minimum qualifying marks

In the Civil Services Examination 2017, the minimum qualifying standards/marks secured by the last recommended candidate in various categories at various stages are as under:-  

Exam

General

OBC

SC

ST

PH‐1

PH‐2

PH‐3

CS(Main)#

809 

770 

756

749

734

745

578

CS(Final)

1006

968

944

939

923

948

830

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

*Cut off marks on the basis of GS Paper-I only. GS Paper-II was of qualifying nature with 33% marks as per Rule-15 of Civil Services Examination, 2017.

# Subject to 10% marks in each of the seven competitive papers i.e. Essay, GS-I, GS-II, GS-III, GS-IV, Optional-I and Optional-II. 

Click Here for Official Cut-Off

Printed Study Material for IAS Exam (UPSC) (Combo)

(VIDEO) The South Korea Summit - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) The South Korea Summit - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: The South Korea Summit - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : Ajay Lele, Research Fellow, Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses ; Meera Shankar, Former Ambassador ; Sandip Kumar Mishra, Associate Professor, Centre for East Asian Studies, JNU ; Sheel Kant Sharma, Former Ambassador; Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) Indo-Nordic Shikhar Summit (भारत-नार्डिक शिखर सम्मलेन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

(VIDEO) Indo-Nordic Shikhar Summit (भारत-नार्डिक शिखर सम्मलेन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: Indo-Nordic Shikhar Summit (भारत-नार्डिक शिखर सम्मलेन) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel Name :  

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

(VIDEO) Glamour World: The Dark Side - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) Glamour World: The Dark Side - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: Glamour World: The Dark Side - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : Anna M M Vetticad, Author and Senior Journalist; Shyam Benegal, Film Director; Sonalika Sahay, Fashion Model; Moon Moon Singh, Actress; Rana Siddiqui Zaman, Film Critic Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) Syria Problem And World Crisis (सीरिया समस्या और विश्व संकट) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Syria Problem And World Crisis (सीरिया समस्या और विश्व संकट) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: Syria problem and world crisis (सीरिया समस्या और विश्व संकट) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel Name :  Prativimbh Sharma (Studio, Anchor)

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP)

Founded as a result of the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in June 1972 and has its headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya. 

Major Programmes:

  • Billion Tree Campaign
  • Clean up the World
  • Earth Hour
  • Pain for the planet
  • Seal the Deal
  • TUNZA
  • APELL

Functions of UNEP

  • developing international environmental conventions, 
  • promoting environmental science and information 
  • working on the development and implementation of policy with national governments, regional institutions in conjunction with environmental Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) 
  • funding and implementing environment related development projects
  • formulation of guidelines and treaties on issues such as the international trade in potentially harmful chemicals, transboundary air pollution, and contamination of international waterways.

Buy Printed Complete Study Materials for UPSC IAS PRELIMS Exam

Online Crash Course for UPSC PRE Exam

(VIDEO) India-China: Mending Ties - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

(VIDEO) India-China: Mending Ties - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate

Topic of Discussion: India-China: Mending Ties - Rajya Sabha TV Big Picture Debate
Expert Panel Name : Ashok Sajjanhar, Former Diplomat ; Srikanth Kondapalli, Professor, Chinese Studies, JNU ; Ram Upendra Das, Head, Centre for Regional Trade; Frank Rausan Pereira (Anchor)

Courtesy: Rajya Sabha TV

<< Go Back to Main Page

(VIDEO) Commonwealth Games Big Sports Brightness (राष्ट्रमंडल खेल बड़ी खेलों की चमक) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

(VIDEO) Commonwealth Games Big Sports Brightness (राष्ट्रमंडल खेल बड़ी खेलों की चमक) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Topic of Discussion: Commonwealth Games Big Sports Brightness (राष्ट्रमंडल खेल बड़ी खेलों की चमक) - Lok Sabha TV Insight Discussion

Expert Panel Name :  Prakaram Singh Sekhawat (Studio, Anchor)

Courtesy: Lok Sabha TV

Pages

Subscribe to RSS - trainee4's blog