10 MAY 2023

Topic 1: Yuva Pratibha

Context: MyGov, in collaboration with Ministry of Culture, launches ‘YUVA PRATIBHA – Singing Talent Hunt.

Key details:

• Aim:
  • To promote Indian music at the grassroots level on a national scale by identifying and recognising the new and young talent in various singing genres.
• Genres:
  • Folk Songs
  • Patriotic Songs
  • Contemporary Songs
• Eligibility:
  • The contest is open to all Indian citizens.
• Reward & Recognition:
  • 1^st Winner: INR. 1,50,000/- + Trophy + Certificate
  • 2^nd Winner: INR. 1,00,000/- + Trophy + Certificate
  • 3^rd Winner: INR. 50,000/- + Trophy + Certificate
• 12 Contestants will be rewarded with a Cash Prize of INR. 10,000/- each
• Mentorship: Top 3 Winners will be mentored for a period of 1 month with a mentorship stipend. 

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Topic 2: United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific

Context: Most countries in Asia and the Pacific are inadequately prepared to manage the rising challenges of extreme weather events and natural disasters, according to a new study by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Key details:

• Lack of data:
  • Countries in the region lack the necessary data as well as means to support adaptation and mitigation efforts.
  • In the absence of decisive action, climate change will remain a leading cause of poverty and inequality across the region.
• Changing temperatures and weather phenomenon:
  • Over the past 60 years, temperatures in the region have increased faster than the global mean.
  • Extreme, unpredictable weather events and natural hazards have become more frequent and intense.
  • Tropical cyclones, heatwaves, floods and droughts have brought immense loss of life and displacement, damaging people’s health and pushing millions into poverty. 
  • Of the 10 countries most affected by these disasters, six are in the region.
• Impact on development:
  • Climate change and climate-induced disasters are increasingly threatening development in Asia and the Pacific. 
  • They have been exacerbating the underlying drivers of poverty and societal inequalities by disproportionately burdening poor and marginalised groups.
  • The Asia-Pacific region accounts for more than half of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.
  • It is one of the most rapidly developing regions of the world, with a significant proportion of the global population.
  • The region is also home to most of the world’s low-lying cities and vulnerable small island states.
• High costs of losses:
  • The costs of climate change are already too high.
  • The annual average losses from natural and biological hazards in Asia and the Pacific are approximately $780 billion.
  • Under a moderate climate change scenario, these losses are expected to increase to $1.1 trillion and, under the worst-case scenario, to $1.4 trillion.
• Insufficient financing:
  • The current financing on this front is insufficient to meet the region’s requirements for investment in climate action or to contain global warming at 1.5°C.
  • With only seven years left to 2030, the target year for SDG, scaling up the available finance and increasing climate action ambition is important.

Way forward:

• Climate-proofing energy systems.
  • Hydropower, which holds the largest share of the region’s installed renewable energy capacity, has become increasingly unreliable.
  • The transport sector, primarily powered by oil, should be shifted to a low-carbon pathway.
    • This can be achieved by reducing transport distance through integrated land use, planning, shifting to sustainable transport modes with low-carbon or net-zero-carbon emissions, as well as improving vehicle and fuel efficiency.
• Integrate climate considerations into regional trade agreements:
  • Trade must be climate-smart.
  • 85 per cent of the regional trade agreements signed since 2005 to which at least one Asia-Pacific economy is party contained climate-related provisions.
  • The private sector must be encouraged to work towards a low-carbon pathway and sustainability should be ingrained into business operations.

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Topic 3: Farmer Producer organisations

Context: India developed the concept of farmer producer organisations (FPO) in early 2000s to help small farmers gain economies of scale and improve their market standing by negotiating collectively.

What are FPOs?

• It is a collective of farmers (and non-farmers) who are the primary producers of a product (an agricultural produce or a manufactured product).
• It is an organisation of farmer-producers that provide support to small farmers with end-to-end services covering almost all aspects of cultivation from inputs, technical services to processing and marketing.
• FPOs can be a registered company (farmer producer company or FPC) or a cooperative, among others.
• In 2019, the Government of India launched a scheme, Formation and Promotion of 10,000 Farmer Produce Organisations, to form and promote 10,000 new FPOs in the country by 2024, with a budgetary provision of Rs 6,865 crore.
  • Under this scheme, the formation and Promotion of FPOs is to be done through nine implementing agencies, such as:
    • Small Farmers Agri-Business Consortium (SFAC),
    • National Cooperative Development Corporation (NCDC) and
    • National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD).
  • Implementing agencies will engage cluster-based business organisations (CBBOs), introduced under the scheme, to aggregate, register and provide professional hand-holding support to FPOs for a period of five years.
  • CBBOs will be the platform for an end-to-end knowledge for all issues related to FPO promotion.
  • Any legal entity registered in India and in existence for past three years is eligible to be a CBBO.
  • The agency should have a minimum average turnover / utilisation of funds of at least Rs 2 crore for the plains and Rs 1 crore for Himalayan and northeastern region during the past three years, with a positive net worth.

Challenges faced by FPOs

• Business plan and scaling opportunities
  • The business plan helps the FPOs to diversify and scale up their business activities in a well-planned manner.
  • Currently, majority of the FPOs lack such business plan, and therefore they limit their activity to merely bulk buying and selling of the inputs and/or farm produce
• Difficulties in marketing of the produce
  • FPOs are being recognized on various platforms for procurement by private companies.
  • Private companies find FPOs as a better source for procurement of vegetables and high value crops which helps them cut down the procurement cost and ensure quality to a greater extent.
  • But the practice is limited to few FPOs.
  • However, for long-term sustainability of the FPOs, there is a need of strong market linkage for the farm produce or its value-added products.

• Ownership and controls
  • It has also been observed that many FPOs have been formed by few progressive farmers or rural households.
  • It becomes difficult for such persons to maintain balance between personal interest and the interest of the farmer-members.
  • They also hesitate in handing over the charge of management to democratically elected person within the FPO.
  • This conflict leads to poor governance structure of the FPOs, and over time other members loose interest in participating in the business of the FPOs. 
• Poor capitalization and funding scope
  • There is a provision of funding support under various government schemes to the FPOs promoted by NABARD and/or SFAC.
  • However, such financial assistance is not available to all the FPOs, particularly outside the ambit of NABARD/SFAC.
  • Due to lack of any collateral assets with the FPOs, financial institutions are hesitant to finance the FPOs, unless the latter is well-capitalized.

Way forward:

• The above issues such as working capital, marketing, infrastructure have to be addressed while scaling up FPOs.
• Banks must have structured products for lending to FPOs.
• They have to be linked with input companies, technical service providers, marketing/processing companies, retailers etc.
• They need a lot of data on markets and prices and other information and competency in information technology.
• FPOs can be used to augment the size of the land by focusing on grouping contiguous tracts of land as far as possible — they should not be a mere grouping of individuals.
• Women farmers also can be encouraged to group cultivate for getting better returns.
•  FPOs can also encourage consolidation of holdings.

Conclusion:

• FPO seems to be an important institutional mechanism to organise small and marginal farmers.
• Aggregation can overcome the constraint of small size.
• The FPOs have to be encouraged by policy makers and other stakeholders apart from scaling up throughout the country to benefit particularly the small holders.
• While small farmers gain greater bargaining power through FPOs in relation to the purchase of inputs, obtaining credit and selling the produce, the fundamental problem of the small size of holdings giving only a limited income is not resolved.
• While incomes will rise because of the benefits flowing from FPOs, they may not still be adequate to give a reasonable income to small and marginal farmers – this issue has to be handled separately.

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Topic 4: Persona non grata

Context: China declared a Canadian diplomat in Shanghai as persona non grata.

What is persona non grata?

• Persona non grata is a Latin phrase which means “unwelcome person.”
• In diplomacy, it refers to a diplomat or foreign person whose entering or remaining in a certain country has been prohibited by that country.
• The designation received diplomatic meaning at the 1961 Vienna Convention for Diplomatic Relations.
  • The treaty mentions that a country can declare any member of a diplomatic staff persona non grata at any time and without having to explain its decision.
  • Soon after the declaration, the person concerned usually returns to their home nation.
  • In case they fail to do so within a reasonable period, the country may refuse to recognise the person concerned as a member of the mission.
  • The article also says that a person can be declared persona non grata even before arriving in a country.
• The imposition of persona non grata designation isn’t just limited to diplomats.
  • Hollywood actor Brad Pitt was declared persona non grata by China though the ban was lifted in 2014.
  • Donald Trump, much before becoming US President, was also labelled as persona non grata by Panama City’s Municipal Council.

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Topic 5: Enforcement Directorate

Context: The SC reserved its judgment on a batch of petitions challenging the third extension given to Director of Enforcement.

About ED:

• The Directorate of Enforcement is a multi-disciplinary organization mandated with investigation of offence of money laundering and violations of foreign exchange laws.
• The statutory functions of the Directorate include enforcement of following Acts:
  • The Prevention of Money Laundering Act, 2002 (PMLA):
• It is a criminal law enacted to prevent money laundering and to provide for confiscation of property derived from, or involved in, money-laundering and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto.
• ED has been given the responsibility to enforce the provisions of the PMLA by:
  • conducting investigation to trace the assets derived from proceeds of crime,
  • to provisionally attach the property and
  • to ensure prosecution of the offenders and confiscation of the property by the Special court.
  • The Foreign Exchange Management Act, 1999 (FEMA):
    • It is a civil law enacted to consolidate and amend the laws to facilitate external trade and payments and to promote the orderly development and maintenance of foreign exchange market in India.
    • ED has been given the responsibility to conduct investigation into suspected contraventions of foreign exchange laws and regulations, to adjudicate and impose penalties on those adjudged to have contravened the law.
  • The Fugitive Economic Offenders Act, 2018 (FEOA):
    • This law was enacted to deter economic offenders from evading the process of Indian law by remaining outside the jurisdiction of Indian courts.
    • It is a law whereby Directorate is mandated to attach the properties of the fugitive economic offenders who have escaped from the India warranting arrest and provide for the confiscation of their properties to the Central Government.

At what stage does the ED step in when a crime is committed?

• Whenever any offence is registered by a local police station, which has generated proceeds of crime over and above ₹1 crore, the investigating police officer forwards the details to the ED.
• Alternately, if the offence comes under the knowledge of the Central agency, they can then call for the First Information Report (FIR) or the chargesheet if it has been filed directly by police officials.

Other roles and functions of the ED

• The ED carries out search (property) and seizure (money/documents) after it has decided that the money has been laundered, under the PMLA.
• the ED can also directly carry out search and seizure without calling the person for questioning.
  • It is not necessary to summon the person first and then start with the search and seizure.
• If the person is arrested, the ED gets 60 days to file the chargesheet as the punishment under PMLA doesn’t go beyond seven years.
• If no one is arrested and only the property is attached, then the prosecution complaint along with attachment order is to be submitted before the adjudicating authority within 60 days.

Can the ED investigate cases of money laundering retrospectively?

• If an ill-gotten property is acquired before the year 2005 (when the law was brought in) and disposed off, then there is no case under PMLA.
• But if proceeds of the crime were possessed before 2005, kept in cold storage, and used after 2005 by buying properties, the money is still black and the person is liable to be prosecuted under PMLA.
• Under the Act a person shall be guilty of the offence of money-laundering, if such person is involved in:
  • concealment;
  • possession;
  • acquisition; use; or
  • projecting as untainted property; or
  • claiming as untainted property in any manner.

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Topic 6: Common uniforms at higher ranks of the Army

Context: A decision has been taken at the recent Army Commanders Conference that all officers of the rank of Brigadier and above — Major Generals, Lieutenant Generals, and General — will wear common uniform items irrespective of their regimental or corps affiliation.

Key details:

• All officers of the rank of Brigadier, Maj General, Lt General, and General will now wear berets (caps) of the same colour, common badges of rank, a common belt buckle, and a common pattern of shoes.
• What they cannot wear?
  • They will no longer wear regimental lanyards (cords) on their shoulders.
  • They will also not wear any shoulder flashes like ‘Special Forces’, ‘Arunachal Scouts’, ‘Dogra Scouts’, etc.
  • Thus, there will be no item of uniform that will identify them as belonging to a particular Regiment or Corps.

Present position:

• As of now, all officers from the rank of Lieutenant to General wear uniform accoutrements (additional items of dress or equipment) as per their regimental or corps affiliation.
  • Infantry officers and Military Intelligence officers wear dark green berets;
  • Armoured corps officers wear black berets;
  • Artillery, Engineers, Signals, Air Defence, EME, ASC, AOC, AMC, and some minor corps officers wear dark blue berets;
  • Parachute Regiment officers wear maroon berets; and
  • Army Aviation Corps officers wear grey berets.

Need for change:

• Regimental service in the Army ends at the rank of Colonel for most officers who rise further.
• Thus, all uniform affiliations with that particular Regiment or Corps must also end at that rank, so that any regimental parochialism that may exist is not promoted to the higher ranks.
• Since appointments at higher ranks can often mean commanding troops of mixed regimental lineage, it is only appropriate that the senior officers commanding these troops should present themselves in a neutral uniform rather than a regimental one.

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Topic 7: International Maternal Newborn Health Conference

Context: India leads a list of 10 countries that together account for 60 per cent of global maternal deaths, stillbirths and newborn deaths, and 51 per cent of live births globally, a report released by the United Nations has said.

Key findings:

• The latest published estimate in the progress tracking report by the WHO, UNICEF, and the UNFPA was launched at the ongoing ‘International Maternal Newborn Health Conference’ (IMNHC 2023).
  • The four-day conference is being hosted by the Government of South Africa and AlignMNH — a global initiative funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in collaboration with the United States Agency for International Development (USAID).
• Sub-Saharan Africa and Central and Southern Asia are the regions experiencing the largest number of deaths.
• According to the first-ever joint Every Newborn action Plan (ENAP) and Ending Preventable Maternal Mortality (EPMM) progress tracking report, the global progress in reducing deaths of pregnant women, mothers and babies has flatlined for eight years due to decreasing investments in maternal and newborn health.
• Causes of the slow progress:
  • The coronavirus pandemic has created setbacks to providing them with the health care they need
  • Global challenges posed by climate change, conflicts and other emergencies
  • Cost of living increases within countries
  • Funding shortfalls and underinvestment in primary health care can devastate survival prospects.

What needs to be done?

• We need to focus on the quality of care and data as well.
• To increase survival rates, women and babies must have quality and affordable healthcare before, during and after childbirth, as well as access to family planning services.
• More skilled and motivated health workers, especially midwives, are needed alongside essential medicines and supplies, safe water, and reliable electricity.
• Interventions should especially target the poorest women and those in vulnerable situations who are most likely to miss out on lifesaving care, including through critical subnational planning and investments.