THE POLITY AND GOVERNANCE

EXPLAINED: WHEN CAN A RAJYA SABHA VOTE BE REJECTED?

THE CONTEXT: Recently elections for 57 Rajya Sabha seats across 15 states are being held. With as many as 41 candidates having already been declared elected unopposed, the contest is on for 16 seats in four states — Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Haryana and Karnataka.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Members of the Rajya Sabha are elected through single transferable votes via an open ballot. Members of a state’s Legislative Assembly vote in the Rajya Sabha elections in what is called proportional representation with the single transferable vote (STV) system. Each MLA’s vote is counted only once.
• The commission turned to Article 324 of the Constitution, which gives the panel unprecedented powers to hold free-and-fair polls in situations not covered by the Representation of People’s Act, the law governing the election process in India.

How can votes be rejected in an open ballot system?

• Open ballot voting applies in elections to Council of States only. Every political party which has MLAs can appoint an authorised agent to verify whom its members have voted for.
• In 2016, Randeep Surjewala’s vote was rejected after he showed it to another MLA instead of his party’s authorised agent. Surjewala was an MLA in the 2016 Rajya Sabha elections in Haryana.

Can an authorised agent represent two parties simultaneously?

The spirit behind Rule 39AA of the Conduct of Elections Rules, 1961 is that MLAs belonging to a political party shall show their ballot papers (after marking their vote) to the authorised agent of that party only and not to the authorised agent of other parties. As such, the same person cannot be appointed as the authorised agent of more than one party.

Can votes be rejected if a ballot paper is marked with another pen?

On the ballot paper, an MLA has to mark his or her choice of candidates by ranking them and they also have to use a special pen provided by the EC. If they use any other pen, or if their ballot papers remain incomplete, the vote would be regarded as invalid.

 

THE ENVIRONMENT, ECOLOGY AND CLIMATE CHANGE

RHINO REINTRODUCTION A HIT IN ASSAM RESERVE

THE CONTEXT: According to the 14th Assam rhino estimation census, the one-horned rhinos of western Assam’s Manas National Park, bordering Bhutan, are expected to have a high life expectancy and significant growth in population.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Manas, a UNESCO World Heritage Site and a tiger reserve, had about 100 resident rhinos prior to 1990, but a prolonged ethnopolitical conflict thereafter took a heavy toll with extremist groups known to have traded the horns of the herbivores for weapons.
• A rhino reintroduction programme under the Indian Rhino Vision 2020 was started in 2006. This entailed the translocation of rhinos from Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary besides orphans hand-reared at the Centre for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Conservation at Kaziranga.

 

VALUE ADDITION:

INDIAN RHINO VISION 2020 (IRV 2020)

• Launched in 2005.
• The initiative is led by the Forest Department, Government of Assam, in partnership with WWF India, the International Rhino Foundation.
• The goal of IRV2020 was to increase the rhino population in Assam to 3,000by, establishing populations in new areas.
• Rhinos are now found in four Protected Areas in Assam: Pabitora Wildlife Reserve, Rajiv Gandhi Orang National Park, Kaziranga National Park, and Manas National Park.

ONE-HORNED RHINOS:

• Only the Great One-Horned Rhino is found in India.
• Also known as the Indian Rhino, it is the largest of the rhino species.
• It is identified by a single black horn and grey-brown hide with skin folds.
• They primarily graze, with a diet consisting almost entirely of grasses as well as leaves, branches of shrubs and trees, fruit, and aquatic plants.
• Conservation status:

• IUCN Red List: Vulnerable.
• CITES Appendix I
• Wildlife Protection Act, 1972: Schedule I.

The Greater One-Horned Rhino is one among the five different species of Rhino. The other four are:

1. Black Rhino: Smaller of the two African species. (IUCN: Critically Endangered)
2. White Rhino: Recently, researchers have created an embryo of the northern white Rhino by using In-vitro Fertilization (IVF) process. (ICUN: Near Threatened)
3. Javan Rhino: Critically endangered in IUCN Red List.
4. Sumatran Rhino: Recently gone extinct in Malaysia, but Critically Endangered in IUCN Red List.

Kaziranga National Park: It was declared as a National Park in 1974. It has been declared a tiger reserve since 2007. It has a total tiger reserve area of 1,030 sq km with a core area of 430 sq. km. It was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1985 It is recognized as an Important Bird Area by BirdLife International. The National Highway 37 passes through the parking area. The park also has more than 250 seasonal water bodies, besides the Diphlu River running through it.

 

 

70 ELEPHANTS DIED IN KARNATAKA IN 2021

THE CONTEXT: According to the forest officials, Karnataka, which harbours around 6,000 elephants in the wild as per the 2017 census, has lost 70 of them due to various reasons in 2021.

THE EXPLANATION:

• 15 were attributed to unnatural causes, including 10 due to electrocution. One elephant was killed in a train accident, another was shot, and one elephant died due to injuries caused by snares while the cause of death was not ascertained in one case. The remaining were classified as death due to natural causes.
• While the deaths due to natural causes are not reckoned to be worrying given the elephant population range in the State, the deaths due to electrocution alone underline the prevailing human-elephant conflict in the State.
• According to the officials, as far as 15 unnatural deaths are concerned 10 are due to electrocution, and even here one cannot infer that the elephants were targeted because the illegally powered fences installed by the farmers were meant to prevent wild boars though elephants do die in the process. But very few were intended to kill elephants.

Value Addition:

Elephants

There are three subspecies of Asian elephants – the Indian, Sumatran and Sri Lankan. The Indian has the widest range and accounts for the majority of the remaining elephants on the continent.

• IUCN Red List of threatened species status- African elephants are listed as “vulnerable” and Asian elephants as “endangered”.
• Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) status-  Appendix I. Appendix I lists species that are the most endangered among CITES-listed animals and plants. They are threatened with extinction and CITES prohibits international trade in specimens of these species except when the purpose of the import is not commercial, for instance for scientific research.

UPSC PRELIMS 2020 Q. With reference to Indian elephants, consider the following statements: 1. The leader of an elephant group is a female. 2. The maximum gestation period can be 22 months. 3. An elephant can normally go on calving till the age of 40 years only. 4. Among the States in India, the highest elephant population is in Kerala. Which of the statements given above is/are correct? a)1 and 2 only b)2 and 4 only c)3 only d)1, 3 and 4 only   Answer: A Explanation: Elephants live in small family groups led by old females (cows) and Gestation is the longest of any mammal (18–22 months). So, statements 1 and 2 are correct. According to the report, released by the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change on August 12, Karnataka has the highest number of elephants (6,049), followed by Assam (5,719) and Kerala (3,054). So, statements 3 and 4 are not correct.  Therefore, the correct answer is (a).

Conservation Efforts

Project Elephant was launched by the Government of India in the year 1992 as a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.

• Establishment of elephant reserves and adoption of the “World Elephant Day” (August 12) to help conserve and protect elephants in India and improve their welfare.
• ‘Gaj Yatra’ is a nationwide awareness campaign to celebrate elephants and highlight the necessity of securing elephant corridors.
• The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI), had come out with a publication on the right of passage in 101 elephant corridors of the country in 2017, stressed the need for greater surveillance and protection of elephant corridors.
• The Monitoring the Killing of Elephants (MIKE) programme launched in 2003 is an international collaboration that tracks trends in information related to the illegal killing of elephants from across Africa and Asia, to monitor the effectiveness of field conservation efforts.

THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

EXPLAINED: TESTOSTERONE DEFICIENCY AND THE SAFETY OF REPLACEMENT THERAPY

THE CONTEXT: According to the new study in Lancet, Health Longevity looks at the short- to medium-term safety of testosterone treatment. Analysis of data from more than 3,400 patients with hypogonadism from 17 clinical trials found little evidence that testosterone treatment increases the risk of cardiovascular events such as arrhythmia, heart attack, and stroke, in the short to medium term.

THE EXPLANATION:

• Hypogonadism is a condition caused by the deficiency of the male sex hormone, testosterone.
• Testosterone replacement therapy is the standard treatment for hypogonadism, which can cause sexual dysfunction, weakening of bones and muscles, and reduced quality of life. Risk factors include ageing (as testosterone levels decline with age), obesity and diabetes.
• Despite being widely used, the cardiovascular safety of testosterone treatment had so far remained unclear due to inconsistent findings. Most previous clinical studies relied on aggregate data, rather than individual participant data and have not published details of individual adverse events.
• According to the scientist, prescribing of testosterone for hypogonadism is increasing globally, but conflicting messages about its safety may have led to many patients not receiving the treatment. Ongoing studies should help to determine the longer-term safety of testosterone but, in the meantime, our results provide much-needed reassurance about its short-to-medium-term safety.

THE MISCELLANEOUS

IISC, BENGALURU TOP INDIAN UNIVERSITY

THE CONTEXT: According to the QS World University Rankings, 2023, The Indian Institute of Science, Bengaluru (IISc) is the new national leader in the which also shows that all Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) improved their standing.

THE EXPLANATION:

• The latest edition of QS World University Rankings features 41 Indian universities, of which 12 improved their positions, 12 remained stable, 10 declined and seven are new entries.
• The IISc ranks 155th globally and is the global leader in the citations per faculty (CpF) indicator, which QS uses to evaluate the impact of the research produced by universities. It is the fastest-rising South Asian university among the top-200 universities in the QS rankings, having climbed 31 places year on year.
• The IIT Bombay, which was the top Indian university in the QS World University Rankings of the previous edition, is the second-best Indian institution this time and climbed five places globally to reach the 172 ranks.
• The third best Indian university is the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi (IITD), followed by IIT Madras and IIT Kanpur.
• The IISc is the world’s top research university, achieving a perfect score of 100/100 for CpF.
• The IIT in Guwahati and Roorkee and the University of Madras are also among the global top-50 research institutions. However, Indian universities struggle with teaching capacity and internationalisation. Thirty of India’s 41 ranked universities have suffered declines in the faculty-student ratio indicator with only four recording improvements.
• Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham is the best-performing local institution for the proportion of international faculty ranking 411 globally and the Amity University is the national leader for the proportion of international students, ranking 542 globally.

                    THE PRELIMS PRACTICE QUESTIONS

QUESTION FOR 10TH JUNE 2022

Q1. Which of the following are critically endangered species of Rhino according to the IUCN Red Data Book?

1. Greater one-horned rhino
2. Sumatran Rhino
3. Javan Rhino

Select the correct answer using the code given below:

1. a) 1 and 2 only
2. b) 2 and 3 only
3. c) 1 and 3 only
4. d) 1, 2 and 3

ANSWER FOR 9^TH JUNE 2022

Q1. Answer: D

Explanation:

• During each cropping season, the government announces minimum support prices for 23 crops. Simply put, the MSP for a crop is the price at which the government is supposed to procure/buy that crop from farmers if the market price falls below it.
• As such, MSPs provide a floor for market prices and ensure that farmers receive a certain “minimum” remuneration so that their costs of cultivation (and some profit) can be recovered.
• The MSPs serve one more policy purpose. Using them, the government incentivises the production of certain crops, thus ensuring that India does not run out of staple food grains.
• The MSPs are announced by the Union government and as such, it is the government’s decision. But the government largely bases its decision on the recommendations of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Prices (CACP).
• MSPs have no statutory backing — a farmer cannot demand MSP as a matter of right

 

Q2. Answer: D

Explanation:

Crops covered by MSPs include:

1. 7 types of cereals (paddy, wheat, maize, bajra, jowar, ragi and barley),
2. 5 types of pulses (chana, arhar/tur, urad, moong and masur),
3. 7 oilseeds (rapeseed-mustard, groundnut, soyabean, sunflower, sesamum, safflower, nigerseed),
4. 4 commercial crops (cotton, sugarcane, copra, raw jute)

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