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THE SOCIAL ISSUES

1. PM RELEASES 11TH INSTALLMENT OF PM-KISAN 10 CRORE FARMERS TO GET ₹ 2000

THE CONTEXT: Prime Minister released the 11th installment of the Pradhan Mantri Kisan Samman Nidhi (PM-Kisan) scheme in Shimla on Tuesday. Under the scheme, ₹6000 is given in three equal installments to all landholding farmer families. The Centre said it would distribute ₹21,000 crore among more than 10 crore beneficiary farmer families. Each beneficiary would get ₹2000 each in this installment.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Addressing the beneficiaries, the Prime Minister thanked the people for giving him the opportunity to serve them. He said the previous government considered corruption as an essential part of the system. He alleged that instead of fighting corruption, the then government succumbed to it and the money meant for needy people did not reach them.
• The Prime Minister maintained that vote bank politics had done a lot of damage to the country. “We are working to build a new India, not a vote bank,” he stressed. “100% empowerment means ending discrimination, eliminating recommendations, and ending appeasement. 100% empowerment means that every poor gets full benefits from government schemes,” he stated.
• The Prime Minister noted that the welfare schemes initiated by his government changed the meaning of government for people. “Now the government is working for the people. Be it PM housing schemes, scholarships, or pension schemes, with the help of technology, the scope of corruption has been minimized,” he said and asserted that the Centre was trying to give a permanent solution to the problems that were earlier assumed to be permanent. “The Direct Benefit of Transfer put an end to the injustice of pilferage and leakage by removing nine crore fake names from the benefits rolls”.
• The government started empowering the poor from day one. “We tried to reduce every single worry in his life. I can say with pride that almost every family of the country is benefitting from one or the other scheme.

THE POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

2. QUESTIONING THE SAFETY OF AADHAAR

THE CONTEXT: Two days after issuing an advisory asking people to refrain from sharing photocopies of their Aadhaar Card, the Unique Identification Development Authority of India (UIDAI) opted to withdraw the notification. It stated that the action was to avert any possibility of ‘misinterpretation’ of the (withdrawn) press release, asking people to exercise “normal prudence” in using/sharing their Aadhaar numbers.

THE EXPLANATION:

• The withdrawn notice had suggested holders use a masked Aadhaar card instead of the conventional photocopy, adding that the document must not be downloaded from a cybercafé or public computer and if done for some reason, must be permanently deleted from the system. ‘Masked Aadhaar veils the first eight digits of the twelve-digit ID with ‘XXXX’ characters. The notice informed that only entities possessing a ‘User Licence’ are permitted to seek Aadhaar for authentication purposes. Private entities like hotels or film halls cannot collect or keep copies of the identification document.
• In July 2018, Telecom Regulatory of India’s Chairman R.S. Sharma tweeted his Aadhaar number challenging users to “cause him any harm”. In response, users dug up his mobile number, PAN number, photographs, residential address and date of birth. It could not be ascertained if the PAN number was actually correct. UIDAI dismissed assertions of any data leak, arguing that most of the data was publicly available. It did however caution users from publicly sharing their Aadhaar numbers.
• The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 makes it clear that Aadhaar authentication is necessary for availing subsidies, benefits and services that are financed from the Consolidated Fund of India. In the absence of Aadhaar, the individual is to be offered an alternate and viable means of identification to ensure she/he is not deprived of the same.
• Separately, Aadhaar has been described as a preferred KYC (Know Your Customer) document but not mandatory for opening bank accounts, acquiring a new SIM or school admissions.
• The requesting entity would have to obtain the consent of the individual before collecting his/her identity and ensure that the information is only used for authentication purposes on the Central Identities Data Repository (CIDR). This centralized database contains all Aadhaar numbers and the holder’s corresponding demographic and biometric information. UIDAI responds to authentication queries with a ‘Yes’ or ‘No’.
• In some cases, basic KYC details (such as name, address, photograph, etc) accompany the verification answer ‘Yes’. The regulator does not receive or collect the holder’s bank, investment, or insurance details. Additionally, the Aadhaar Act forbids sharing Core Biometric Information (such as fingerprint, and iris scan, among other biometric attributes) for any purpose other than Aadhaar number generation and authentication.
• The Act makes it clear that confidentiality needs to be maintained and the authenticated information cannot be used for anything other than the specified purpose. More importantly, no Aadhaar number (or enclosed personal information) collected from the holder can be published, displayed, or posted publicly. Identity information or authentication records would only be liable to be produced pursuant to an order of the High Court or Supreme Court, or by someone of the Secretary rank or above in the interest of national security.
• The Aadhaar Data Vault is where all numbers collected by authentication agencies are centrally stored. Its objective is to provide a dedicated facility for the agencies to access details only on a need-to-know basis.
• Comptroller and Auditor General of India’s (CAG) latest report stipulated that UIDAI neither specified any encryption algorithm (as of October 2020) to secure the same nor a mechanism to illustrate that the entities were adhering to appropriate procedures. It relied solely on audit reports provided to them by the entities themselves. Further, UIDAI’s unstable record with biometric authentication has not helped it with de-duplication efforts, the process that ensures that each Aadhaar Number generated is unique.
• The CAG’s report stated that apart from the issue of multiple Aadhaars to the same resident, there have been instances of the same biometric data being accorded to multiple residents. As per UIDAI’s Tech Centre, nearly 4.75 lakh duplicate Aadhaar numbers were canceled as of November 2019. The regulator relies on Automated Biometric Identification Systems for taking corrective actions. The CAG concluded it was “not effective enough” in detecting the leakages and plugging them. Biometric authentications can be a cause of worry, especially for disabled and senior citizens with both the iris and fingerprints dilapidating.
• Though the UIDAI has assured that no one would be deprived of any benefits due to biometric authentication failures, the absence of an efficient technology could serve as the poignant premise for frauds to make use of their ‘databases’.
• Also, what essentially needs to be remembered is that UIDAI is dealing with the world’s second-most populous country. As of March 2021, it had generated 129.04 crore Aadhaar numbers which cover 94% of the projected population.
• The Aadhaar (Targeted Delivery of Financial and Other Subsidies Benefits and Services) Act, 2016 states that Aadhaar authentication is necessary for availing subsidies and services that are financed from the Consolidated Fund of India. However, confidentiality needs to be maintained and the authenticated information cannot be used for anything other than the specified purpose.
• The NPCI’s Aadhaar Payments Bridge (APB) and the Aadhaar Enabled Payment System (AEPS) facilitate direct benefit transfer (DBT) and allow individuals to use Aadhaar for payments. This requires bank accounts to be linked to Aadhaar.
• But more than 200 central and State government websites publicly displayed details of some Aadhaar beneficiaries such as their names and addresses. This means that this data could be potentially used to fraudulently link the rightful beneficiary’s Aadhaar with a distinct bank account, embezzling the beneficiary by impersonation.

THE INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

3. INDUS WATER TALKS HELD ON ‘CORDIAL’ TERMS: MEA

THE CONTEXT: Indian and Pakistani negotiators ended another round of talks as a part of the Indus Water Treaty on “cordial” terms,  describing the 118th meeting of the Permanent Indus Commission that took place in Delhi on May 30-31.

THE EXPLANATION:

• The MEA did not give any details on the issues that were on the agenda for discussion, including Pakistan’s request for flood-flow data sharing and objections to hydropower projects planned on “western rivers” in Jammu & Kashmir. However, it said that the annual report of the Commission for the previous year had been finalized and signed, indicating some consensus on the way forward on a number of issues that come up each year. A statement from Pakistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs also added that India had assured response to its objections.
• According to the Indus Water agreement, Commissioners meet twice each year, alternately in India and Pakistan, a practice that was put in abeyance between 2019-2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and scheduling issues.
• The talks have taken place regularly despite the two neighbors cutting off all trade and travel ties, and having pulled out High Commissioners in each other’s capitals. Since December 2015, the two countries have also not held any bilateral talks under the composite dialogue process (now called the comprehensive dialogue), and there have been no political meetings between the two governments. In September 2016, after the Uri terror attack in Jammu & Kashmir, Prime Minister Narendra Modi was quoted as telling a review meeting that “blood and water cannot flow together”, indicating a possible rupture in the water sharing talks.
• Subsequently, the government clarified that it had no intention of abrogating the treaty, but would seek to utilize waters allocated to India under the treaty more fully, setting up a special new committee to do so.
• The Indus talks, which followed just two months since the last round of the Permanent Indus Commission talks in Islamabad, also came a few weeks after another Pakistan delegation crossed over Wagah for multilateral talks on terrorism as part of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation’s Regional Anti Terror Structure, leading to some speculation that ties between New Delhi and Islamabad may ease on other issues as well, given a change in government in Pakistan in April, as well as security-level back-channel talks that have been ongoing for some years and are believed to have led to the military ceasefire agreement at the Line of Control last February.

THE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT

4. Q4 GDP GROWTH DECELERATES TO 4.1%

THE CONTEXT: India’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth slowed to a four-quarter low of 4.1% during the January-March period, from 5.4% in the preceding quarter, as manufacturing output shrank, provisional national income estimates released on Tuesday show. As a result, full-year growth came in at 8.7% — a tad lower than the 8.9% pace projected in February.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Gross Value-Added (GVA) in the economy is estimated to have grown 8.1% in 2021-22, slightly lower than the 8.3% projected by the National Statistical Office (NSO) earlier. The GDP had shrunk 6.6% in 2020-21, while the GVA had contracted 4.8% in the wake of the COVID-19 lockdowns.
• The Finance Ministry said the latest national income estimates ‘establish full economic recovery’ as real GDP in 2021-22 exceeded the pre-pandemic levels of 2019-20. On a quarter-to-quarter basis, it argued real GDP growth was 6.7% in the fourth quarter (Q4) of 2021-22, reflecting a ‘sustained growth momentum’ entering the current fiscal year.
• The contact-dependent and employment-intensive trade, hotels, transport, communication & services related to the broadcasting sector continued to languish below pre-pandemic levels, ending FY22 still 11.3% lower than 2019-20 GVA levels.
• Overall GVA growth slowed to 3.9% in the January-March 2022 quarter, from 4.7% in the preceding period. Worryingly, manufacturing sector output shrank 0.2% from a year earlier. This was the first contraction in factories’ output since the massive 31.5% fall in the first quarter of 2020-21 amid the strict national lockdowns.
• Economists pointed out that real GDP was only ‘a subdued’ 1.5% higher than pre-COVID levels and ascribed the lower than projected full-year growth to the effects of the Omicron variant of COVID-19, high commodity prices, and inflation as well as data corrections for the first half of the year.
• A downward revision in growth rates for the first two quarters of 2021-22 also affected the full year’s growth rate vis-à-vis the last estimates released on February 28. The 20.3% GDP growth estimated earlier for Q1 was pared to 20.1%, while the same number was revised to 8.4% from 8.5% for Q2.
• Chief Economic Advisor V. AnanthaNageswaran said the real GDP numbers were pretty much in line with earlier estimates, so it was difficult to make the argument that the growth rate was lower than anticipated earlier.
• For the full year, GVA from agriculture and the financial, real estate & professional services sectors, the only two sectors that grew in 2020-21, rose by 3% and 4.2% in 2021-22, compared with 3.3% and 2.2% in the previous year, respectively.
• Five major segments of economic activity recorded GVA growth of about 10% or more in the last fiscal, compared with sharp contractions in 2020-21, led by public administration, defense & other services whose GVA rose 12.6% from 5.5% a year earlier.
• GVA from mining and quarrying as well as construction, which had contracted 8.6% and 7.3% in 2020-21, bounced back to clock 11.5% growth in 2021-22. GVA from trade grew 11.1% from a steep 20.2% fall in 2020-21, while manufacturing GVA rose 9.9% from a 0.6% drop the previous year.
• The Finance Ministry highlighted that the investment rate in the economy rose to 33.6% in Q4, the highest since Q3 of 2019-20. Moreover, though the manufacturing sector shrank from a year earlier, it grew sequentially at 14.2% during Q4, it pointed out.
• Going forward, interest rate hikes would start impacting real GDP towards the end of this fiscal year, but growth could get a leg-up from ‘a strong bounce-back in contact-based services’.But headwinds from slower global growth and higher oil prices have tilted the risks downwards to our forecast of 7.3% for 2022-23.
• Managing the troika of growth, inflation and fiscal balance was the top challenge for India’s policymakers but emphasized that India was better off than several developed countries with respect to inflation as well as other global headwinds that threaten growth.
• Dismissing concerns of interest rate increases impacting growth,“In general, interest rates becoming normal may not necessarily be an anti-growth move if they are coming from a very low rate. The price of credit should reflect the demand for credit and the central bank’s confidence in raising rates reflects the belief that the recovery is taking root.

5. FAST GROWTH IS STILL ON, BUT INFLATION

THE CONTEXT: An anticipated slowdown in the last quarter still kept India on track to be the fastest-growing major economy in 2021-22.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Data released by the National Statistical Office (NSO) on the gross domestic product (GDP) on Tuesday showed growth slowing to 4.1% in January-March. But this did not significantly alter the full year’s number, which was revised to 8.7% from the projection of 8.9% in February.
• All demand components – consumption, investment, and exports – are now above pre-pandemic levels, although the picture is clouded by persistent NSE -0.55 % inflation, an interest rate upcycle, and a ballooning imported energy bill. Sectorally, agriculture growth moderated, and industry and services – except contact-sensitive sectors – have climbed out of the trough.
  The sequential slowdown in growth from 20.3% in the first quarter of 2021-22 through 8.5% in the second and 5.4% in the third, before reaching 4.1% in the last quarter, is expected to be reinforced as the low base effect of the prior year is withdrawn and fresh supply disruptions affect commodity, food and fuel prices. Manufacturing contracted in January-March, although it posted a smart recovery for the full year. Labour-soaking agriculture and construction saw a sequential acceleration. Government expenditure propped up services growth in the last quarter.
• India’s recovery from the pandemic is now complete in terms of national income accounts. The revival of capital formation could have sustained the growth trajectory if the external environment were benign, which it is not. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in April lowered its estimate of the current fiscal year’s GDP growth from 7.8% to 7.2%, and there is a likelihood of a further downward revision at its next review of monetary policy in June as it pushes the policy interest rate closer to its pre-pandemic level.
• A favorable monsoon alongside concerted fiscal intervention to stabilize retail inflation – which reached an eight-year high of 7.8% in April – could temper the monetary tightening that is expected to slow down the economy.

THE ENVIRONMENT AND ECOLOGY

6. 50 YEARS SINCE STOCKHOLM CONFERENCE: THE SUMMER LINGERS

THE CONTEXT: From June 5 to June 16, 1972, countries across the world shed a bit of their sovereignty. The aim was to create a common governance structure for the planet’s environment and natural resources.

THE EXPLANATION:

• The occasion was the United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, the first such worldwide convergence on the planetary environment, with the theme ‘Only One Earth’.
• When the participating 122 countries — 70 of them developing and poor countries — adopted the Stockholm Declaration on June 16, they essentially committed to 26 principles and an action plan that set in a multilateral environmental regime.
• One of the overarching principles was that sovereignty should be subject to not causing harm to the environment of other countries as well.
• This was the first globally subscribed document that recognized the “interconnections between development, poverty and the environment.”
• These principles were celebrated as a harbinger of “new behavior and responsibility which must govern their relationship in the environmental era”.
• To put it in another way, the planet’s environment and natural resources became a common resource with countries resetting their relationship with nature — from sovereignty over resources to shared responsibility for their sustainable uses.
• The three dimensions of this conference were: Countries agreeing not to “harm each other’s environment or the areas beyond national jurisdiction”; an action plan to study the threat to Earth’s environment, and the establishment of an international body called the UN Environment programme (UNEP) to bring in cooperation among countries.
• The Stockholm conference was historic, not just for being the first one on the planetary environment.
• Until 1972, no country had an environment ministry. Norwegian delegates returned from the conference to set up a ministry for the environment the host Sweden took a few more weeks to do so.
• India set up its ministry of environment and forest in 1985. The UN charter never had the environment as a domain to deal with. So, the first global conference on the environment happened when the environment was not a subject of importance for any country or global concern.
• In 1968, when Sweden first proposed the idea of the Stockholm conference (this is why it was referred to as the Swedish Initiative), cases of environmental degradation and hints of a meltdown of the planet’s atmospheric system had started making news.
• Acid rains were being reported; Rachel Carson’s now-famous book Silent Spring was just six-years-old but attained biblical status in terms of readership and impact on public consciousness. Species extinction made headlines, like that of the humpback whales and Bengal tigers; the mercury poisoning caused by methylmercury release into the Minamata Bay in Japan entered public discourse.
• In the UN General Assembly in 1968, for the first time climate change was discussed using emerging scientific evidence. Though it was still not believable, in 1965, the then US president Lyndon B Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee came out with the report, Restoring the Quality of Our Environment, which was definitive on the role of human-emitted carbon dioxide (CO2) to atmospheric warming
• The Stockholm conference indeed started the contemporary “environmental era”. In many ways, it made multilateral governance of planetary concerns mainstream. This led to more than 500 multilateral environmental agreements being adopted in the last 50 years.
• Most of today’s conventions related to planetary crises like the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the whole environmental regime being implemented through the UN system trace their origin to the Stockholm Declaration.
• Since that summer in Stockholm half a century ago, nobody has lived a normal month climate-wise. In April 2017, scientists from Climate Central, an international association of scientists and journalists reporting and researching climate change, released a stunning chart depicting a monthly temperature rise since 1880.

Stockholm 2022

• The world is all tuned in to the Stockholm+50, to be held in the same city in June, but with a vastly changed planet, notwithstanding the rooting of the multilateral environmental regime.
• On June 2-3, world leaders will not discuss how the past half-century was, but how the next 50 years would be treated with emergency actions. It is also aptly themed as “Stockholm+50: A healthy planet for the prosperity of all — our responsibility, our opportunity.”
• If the Stockholm conference could accord some time to all, the current one comes without a deadline, as time has already run out.
• Since the “environmental era” started, there are no signs of a restrain on our relationship with nature. UN data circulated to commemorate Stockholm+50 showed that trade has increased gone up 10 times, the global economy has grown five times and the world population has doubled.
• “Human development is largely fuelled by a tripling in the extraction of natural resources, food production, and energy production and consumption over the past 50 years,” says an advance draft copy of the document to be discussed at Stockholm+50.
• The UNEP’ Inclusive Wealth Report 2018 had said:

During 1990-to 2014, produced capital grew at an average annual rate of 3.8 percent, while health- and education-induced human capital grew at 2.1 percent. Meanwhile, natural capital decreased at an annual rate of 0.7 percent.

THE PRELIMS PRACTICE QUESTIONS

QUESTION FOR 1ST JUNE 2022

Q1. Which of the following statements about the PM-KISAN Scheme:

1. It provides a financial benefit of Rs 6000/- per year in three equal installments to only Small and Marginal Farmers (SMFs).
2. It is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
3. It is being implemented by the Ministry of Agriculture and Farmers Welfare.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

a) 1 and 2 only

b) 2 and 3 only

c) 3 only

d) 1, 2 and 3

ANSWER FOR THE 31^ST MAY

Answer: B

Explanation:

• PM CARES scheme for children orphaned by the COVID-19 pandemic covers all children who have lost both parents, the lone surviving parent or legal guardian or adoptive parent or parents, due to COVID-19 after March 11, 2020. The scheme has been extended till February 28, 2022. The scheme was earlier valid till December 31, 2021.
• To avail the scheme, a child should not have turned 18 on the date of death of his or her parents.
• Education aid: The scheme announced on May 29, 2021, provides gap funding for education and health and a monthly stipend from the age of 18 years, apart from a lump sum amount of ₹10 lakh when a beneficiary turns 23 years old.
• All children will be enrolled as a beneficiary under Ayushman Bharat Scheme (PM-JAY) with a health insurance cover of Rs. 5 lakhs.

Ministry of Women and Child Development shall be the nodal Ministry for the execution of the scheme at the central level. Department of Women and Child Development or Department of Social Justice in the State/UT Government, dealing with the Child Protection Services scheme in the State/UT shall be the nodal agency at the State level. The District Magistrates (DM) shall be the nodal authority at the District level for the execution of the scheme.