National Current Affairs – UPSC/KAS Exams- 15th February 2020

Future of Earth Report 2020

Topic: Environment and Ecology

In News: The Future of Earth, 2020 report was jointly released by the South Asia Future Earth Regional Office, Divecha Centre for Climate Change and the Indian Institute of Science.

More on the Topic:

• The report lists five global risks that have the potential to impact and amplify one another in ways that may cascade to create a global systemic crisis. They are:
• Failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation.
• Extreme weather events.
• Major biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse.
• Food crises.
• Water crises.

Key Findings:

• Interrelation of risk factors: Extreme heat waves can accelerate global warming by releasing large amounts of stored carbon from affected ecosystems, and at the same time intensify water crises and/or food scarcity.
• Biodiversity loss and it’s impact: The loss of biodiversity weakens the capacity of natural and agricultural systems to cope with climate extremes, increasing our vulnerability to food crises.
• The five years from 2014 to 2018 were the warmest recorded over land and ocean since 1880.

Concerns and Challenges ahead:

• Major assessments in last two years have all argued that time is running out to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
• This has inspired declarations of a climate crisis or climate emergency by the leaders of more than 700 cities, States and governments.
• Yet, during 2019, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached more than 415 ppm.
• 75% of our planet’s land area; about a quarter of species in assessed plant and animal groups are threatened.
• Strains on food production are expected to increase, as a result of climate change, biodiversity loss, and a global population on the rise.
• Right-wing populism, a breed of politics that exploits people’s fears during times of economic decline and growing inequality, and that focuses on nationalist tendencies to clamp down on borders and reject immigrants, is on the rise around the world. This often leads to a denial of climate change facts or impacts.

Way Ahead:

• New thinking about conservation is needed. The National Education Policy will address the question of environmental health and education at the school level.
• Awareness generation and decentralized action plan for saving the earth are the need of the hour.
• For any change to be worked out stronger political will is needed from the global leaders.

Source: Hindu

Criminalisation of Politics: SC Mandatory Laws

Topic: Polity and Governance

In News: Supreme Court delivered a Judgment on the contempt petitions regarding the criminalisation of politics in India and the non-compliance of the directions of Supreme Court in Public Interest Foundation and Ors. v. Union of India case.

More on the Topic:

• The SC observed that over the last four general elections, there has been an alarming increase in the incidence of criminals in politics.
• In 2004, 24% of the Members of Parliament had criminal cases pending against them; in 2009, that went up to 30%; in 2014 to 34%; and in 2019 as many as 43% of MPs had criminal cases pending against them.

The Court also issued the following directions in exercise of our constitutional powers under Articles 129 and 142 of the Constitution of India:

• It shall be mandatory for political parties [at the Central and State election level] to upload on their website detailed information regarding individuals with pending criminal cases (including the nature of the offences, and relevant particulars such as whether charges have been framed, the concerned Court, the case number etc.) who have been selected as candidates, along with the reasons for such selection, as also as to why other individuals without criminal antecedents could not be selected as candidates.
• The reasons as to selection shall be with reference to the qualifications, achievements and merit of the candidate concerned, and not mere “winnability” at the polls.
• This information shall also be published in:

(a)One local vernacular newspaper and one national newspaper;

(b)On the official social media platforms of the political party, including Facebook & Twitter.

• These details shall be published within 48 hours of the selection of the candidate or not less than two weeks before the first date for filing of nominations, whichever is earlier.
• The political party concerned shall then submit a report of compliance with these directions with the Election Commission within 72 hours of the selection of the said candidate.
• If a political party fails to submit such compliance report with the Election Commission it will lead to contempt of Court’s orders/directions.

Merits of the Judgement

• It is in line with a series of judgments aimed at preserving the purity of the election process. Example: Asset disclosure, NOTA option, Special courts for quick disposal of cases involving elected representatives
• It will enable Citizens to take informed choice while choosing her representative.
• Will lead to long term structural changes in electoral system.

Criticism of the Judgement:

• Judicial Overreach: An election is an issue to be decided between parties, candidates and the voters. The courts should have no say in the matter, except in particular cases where the Representation of the People Act is violated
• Threatens autonomy of Election System: By making them enforceable under Article 142 of the Constitution – failure to produce demanded documents risks attracting Contempt of Court – SC threatens to undermine the autonomy of the system of elections and elected legislature.
• Infringe on ECI: Candidates are already required to file their details in affidavits with the Election Commission. This order could infringe upon the role of the poll watchdog.
• Selection of candidates is subjective matter: The suitability of candidates is a subjective matter, and the justification required by the SC can only be an opinion, and not an objective fact, making the court’s order effectively unenforceable.

Need of the Hour:

• Judiciary should not be parallel legislature.
• Mere judicial directions alone cannot cleanse the system.
• It should begin internally from the political parties.

Model Mains Question: Critically analyse the Judicial interventions with respect to decriminalization of Politics.

Source: Hindu

NASA new Missions

Topic: Science and Technology

In News: NASA announced it has selected four Discovery Program investigations to develop concept studies for possible new missions.

More on the topic:

• DAVINCI+: Deep Atmosphere Venus Investigation of Noble gases, Chemistry, and Imaging Plus. This will analyse Venus’s atmosphere to understand how it was formed and evolved, and if it ever had an ocean. This will advance understanding of the formation of terrestrial planets.
• IVO: Io Volcano Observer is a proposal to explore Jupiter’s moon Io, which is extremely volcanically active. This will try to find out how tidal forces shape planetary bodies. The findings could further knowledge about the formation and evolution of rocky, terrestrial bodies and icy ocean worlds in the Solar System.
• TRIDENT: This aims to explore Neptune’s icy moon, Triton, so that scientists can understand the development of habitable worlds in the Solar System.
• VERITAS: Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy will aim to map Venus’s surface to find out why Venus developed so differently from Earth.

Source: Indian Express

Apiary on Wheels: Bee colonies

Topic: Government Schemes

In News: Union Minister of MSME flagged off ‘Apiary on Wheels’, a unique concept designed by KVIC for the easy upkeep and migration of Bee Boxes having live Bee colonies.

More on the Topic:

• Apiary on wheels is a holistic approach to address the challenges faced by the beekeepers. It is designed so as to reduce the labour and cost of maintaining and upkeeping Bee Boxes and live bee colonies across India.
• Apiary on Wheels is a platform which can carry 20 Bee Boxes from one place to another without any difficulty. Two large wheels on either side of the Apiary on Wheels and four separate compartments with independent doors, having five bee boxes each help the platform to remain intact without disturbing the live bee colonies.
• It is also connected with a solar panel system which automatically triggers a fan inside the compartment as soon as the temperature reaches 35-degree centigrade or above. The Apiary on Wheels also has sugar drips which helps to feed the bees in the summer season.
• The Apiary on Wheels is like an attachment which can be easily connected with a Tractor or a Trolley and may be pulled to any suitable destination.

· KVIC had launched Honey Mission in 2017 and has been training beekeepers, distributing Bee Boxes and helping rural, educated but unemployed youth to earn extra income through beekeeping activities, at their doorstep since them.

Source: The Hindu

Adjusted Gross Revenue (AGR)

Topic: Economy

In News: The Supreme Court condemned the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) for not taking any action or collecting a single rupee from telecom operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone Idea India (VIL) on their adjusted gross revenue (AGR) dues.

More on the Topic:

• To provide releief to telecom operators from the steep fixed license fee regime, the NDA government in 1999 gave an option to the licensees to switch to the revenue sharing fee model.
• Under this regime, the mobile telephone operators were required to share a percentage of their AGR with the government as annual license fee (LF) and spectrum usage charges (SUC)
• License agreements between the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the telecom companies help defining the gross revenues of the latter.
• AGR is then calculated after allowing for certain deductions spelt out in these license agreements. The LF and SUC were set at 8 per cent and between 3-5 per cent of AGR respectively.

The Dispute:

• The dispute between DoT and the mobile operators has been mainly on the definition of AGR. The DoT argued that AGR includes all revenues (before discounts) from both telecom and non-telecom services.
• The companies claimed that AGR should comprise just the revenue accrued from the core services and not dividend, interest income or profit on sale of any investment or fixed assets.
• In 2015, the TDSAT stayed the case in favour of telecom companies and held that AGR includes all receipts except capital receipts and revenue from non-core sources such as rent, profit on the sale of fixed assets, dividend, interest and miscellaneous.
• However, setting aside TDSAT’s order, Supreme Court in October 2019 upheld the definition of AGR as stipulated by the DoT.

Implications:

• Telecos: The SC order means that the telcos will have to immediately clear the pending AGR dues, whcih amount to nearly Rs 1.47 lakh crore.
• Some telcos face the prospect of shutting down business due to the trouble they undergo for not paying the AGR dues on time.
• Other than the telcos, non-telecom companies could also be facing huge payouts individually, which amount to total of Rs 3 lakh crore.
• Government: The payout by telecom and non-telecom companies is likely to lead to windfall gains for the central government.
• This payout could help the government to close some of the fiscal deficit gap for the current financial.
• At the same time, however, the government will be under pressure to ensure that the telecom market does not turn into a duopoly.
• It will also have to manage the payouts to be done by non-telecom companies as most of them, such as Oil India, Power Grid, Gail, and Delhi Metro Rail Corporation are public sector units.
• Customers: If Vodafone Idea exits, an Airtel-Jio duopoly may be created which could lead to bigger bills.
• It was the cutthroat competition of the sector, which made mobile telephony and Internet almost universally affordable.
• Lenders: The AGR issue has triggered panic in the banking industry, given that the telecom sector is highly leveraged.

Source: Hindu

Countervailing duty

Topic: Economy

In News: The office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) has taken off India from the list of developing and least-developed countries that are eligible to claim benefits for preferential treatment with respect to countervailing duties (CVDs) investigations.

More on the Topic:

• Along with India, USTR has also eliminated other countries including Brazil, Indonesia, Hong Kong, South Africa, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and Argentina from getting preferential treatment.
• The new lists consist of 36 developing countries and 44 least developed countries.
• The USA had come up with lists of countries classified as per their level of development to harmonize the USA preferential treatment laws with the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) Subsidies and Countervailing Measures (SCM) Agreement in 1998.
• Thus, the country with per capita GNI above $12,375 or Rs 8.82 lakh, the share of more than 0.5% to the world trade and membership to the above-mentioned organizations is considered as a developed country by USTR.

·  Countervailing duty (CVD) is an import tax imposed on certain goods in order to prevent dumping or counter export subsidies. · The preferential treatment with respect to CVDs investigations falls under the US’ Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) scheme. ·  Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) is an umbrella that comprises the bulk of preferential schemes granted by industrialized nations to developing countries.

Source: PIB