The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 13 December 2022

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

• Indian and Chinese soldiers suffered “minor injuries” in a face-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in the Tawang sector of Arunachal Pradesh on December 9, the Army said on Monday evening.
• The Hinduhad earlier in the day reported the clash that occurred at Yangtse. Around 20 Indian soldiers and a much higher number on the Chinese side were injured, multiple sources had said.
• “On December 9, 2022, People’s Liberation Army (PLA) troops contacted the LAC in the Tawang sector, which was contested by own troops in a firm and resolute manner. This face-off led to minor injuries to a few personnel from both sides,” the Army said in a statement after reports of the incident. “Both sides immediately disengaged from the area.”

What is the Wholesale Price Index?

• It measures the changes in the prices of goods sold and traded in bulk by wholesale businesses to other businesses.
• Published by the Office of Economic Adviser, Ministry of Commerce and Industry.
• It is the most widely used inflation indicator in India.
• Major criticism for this index is that the general public does not buy products at wholesale price.
• The base year of All-India WPI has been revised from 2004-05 to 2011-12 in 2017.

What is the Consumer Price Index?

• It measures price changes from the perspective of a retail buyer. It is released by the National Statistical Office (NSO).
• The CPI calculates the difference in the price of commodities and services such as food, medical care, education, electronics etc, which Indian consumers buy for use.
• The CPI has several sub-groups including food and beverages, fuel and light, housing and clothing, bedding and footwear.
• Four types of CPI are as follows:
  • CPI for Industrial Workers (IW).
  • CPI for Agricultural Labourer (AL).
  • CPI for Rural Labourer (RL).
  • CPI (Rural/Urban/Combined).
  • Of these, the first three are compiled by the Labour Bureau in the Ministry of Labour and Employment. Fourth is compiled by the NSO in the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation.
• Base Year for CPI is 2012.
  • Recently, the Ministry of Labour and Employment released the new series of Consumer Price Index for Industrial Worker (CPI-IW) with base year 2016.
• The Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) uses CPI data to control inflation. In April 2014, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) had adopted the CPI as its key measure of inflation.
• A failure to examine and interpret public health problems from a population perspective is leading to ineffective and unsustainable solutions as far as complex public health problems are concerned. This is obvious for problems such as undernutrition, for which individualist solutions such as micronutrient supplementation and food fortification have been proposed as solutions in lieu of sustainable approaches such as a strengthening of the Public Distribution System, supplementary nutrition programmes, and the health services.
• Similar is the case with chronic disease control, wherein early diagnosis and treatment is the most popular solution, with little scope for solutions that can modify health behaviours (through organised community action). There is a strong tendency in public health to prioritise individual-oriented interventions over societal oriented population-based approaches, also known as individualism in public health.
• Two of the most recent public health programmes of the Government bear testimony to this: as a nationwide publicly-funded insurance scheme, the Pradhan Mantri Jan Arogya Yojana (PMJAY) falls under Ayushman Bharat. It is the largest health insurance scheme in the country covering hospitalisation expenses for a family for ₹5 lakh a year.
• Data from the National Sample Survey Organisation (75th round) show that on an average, only 3% of the total population in India had an episode of hospitalisation in a year (from 1% for Assam to 4% for Goa and 10% for Kerala — the need also a function of availability).
• The proportion hovers around 3%-5% across most Indian States. Ideally, the Government needs to ensure health-care facilities to only 3%-5% of the population to cover all the hospitalisation needs of a population. This is population-based health-care planning.
• All forms of individualistic approaches in public health need to be resisted to safeguard its original principles of practice, viz. population, prevention, and social justice.
• The Indian anti-trust body, the Competition Commission of India (CCI)’s move, in October, to impose a penalty of ₹1,337.76 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position in the android mobile device ecosystem, has forced us, once again, to rethink the market power of Big Tech companies. When India established the CCI under the Indian Competition Act 2002, it was to protect and promote competition in markets, and prevent practices that hinder competition.
• As their market dominance increased rather exponentially, the European Union, the United States, and even Australia realised their market-distorting abilities and moved to transform their competition law. The EU’s Digital Market Act and “gatekeepers” who will enforce rules and regulations ex-ante to foresee anti-competitive practices is an example.
• Predatory pricing entails the lowering of prices that forces other firms to be out competed. Amazon and Flipkart were accused of deep discounting and creating in-house brands to compete with local sellers.
• With India now on the cusp of a digital transformation, it is essential that the country has a level-playing field to ensure a fair opportunity for new-age start-ups and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises. The Competition Act of 2000, was largely constituted to deal with the physical marketplace.
  • Competition Commission of India (CCI) is a statutory body of the Government of India responsible for enforcing the Competition Act, 2002, it was duly constituted in March 2009.
  • The Monopolies and Restrictive Trade Practices Act, 1969 (MRTP Act) was repealed and replaced by the Competition Act, 2002, on the recommendations of the Raghavan committee.
• Composition:
  • The Commission consists of one Chairperson and six Members who shall be appointed by the Central Government.
  • The commission is a quasi-judicial body which gives opinions to statutory authorities and also deals with other cases. The Chairperson and other Members shall be whole-time Members.
• That Cyclone Mandous, which had its landfall near Mamallapuram, near Chennai, in the early hours of Saturday, did not cause much damage has come as a huge relief to the people of Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh.
• The authorities, i.e., the State government and the Meteorological department, should continuously work to improve their ways of functioning, making use of technology, and helping people to be ready to face a natural disaster of this nature or even of greater strength.
• Ideally, the official machinery should set a goal of ensuring no loss to life. Such a task would not be impossible, given the availability of resources, both hardware and software, and empirical data on cyclones and severe cyclones crossing the coast of Tamil Nadu.
• Storms of this type are called hurricanes in the North Atlantic and eastern Pacific and typhoons in SouthEast Asia and China. They are called tropical cyclones in the southwest Pacific and Indian Ocean region and Willy-willies in north-western Australia.
• Storms rotate counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere and clockwise in the southern hemisphere.
• The conditions favourable for the formation and intensification of tropical storms are:
  • Large sea surface with temperature higher than 27°C.
  • Presence of the Coriolis force.
  • Small variations in the vertical wind speed.
  • A pre-existing weak low- pressure area or low-level-cyclonic circulation.
  • Upper divergence above the sea level system.
• A report by the Pew Research Center on social hostilities distressingly ranks India first. On several indices, our democratic deficit impels an urgent introspection, even as we celebrate the resilience of our elective processes.
• A polity captive to the pull of sectarian mass mobilisation and an economy in which the top 10% hold 77% of the nation’s wealth do not sit well with the foundational principles of an egalitarian democracy.
• Politics that thrives on persecution of adversaries in an abuse of the state’s coercive processes negates the essence of justice, just as the Opposition’s compulsive disdain for every action of the government regardless of its intrinsic merit has weakened its credibility as a countervailing democratic force.
• The uninterrupted ramping up of executive power has unsettled institutional power equations designed to ensure a dispersal of power as the first principle of constitutional democracy.
• A major confrontation is on between the Union government and the Supreme Court. The current conflict has two triggers. One is the government’s repeated public criticism of the Collegium system on the ground that it is “opaque”. The other concerns a ping-pong battle between the Collegium and the government over the names being recommended for appointment in constitutional courts.
• The Centre argues that the Collegiums, both at the Supreme Court and High Court levels, are delaying judicial appointments and that the NJAC was a good law thwarted by the court.
• The Supreme Court said that the Collegium system is the law as it exists now. The government has kept Collegium recommendations pending for no apparent reason. The court has accused the government of not appointing persons who are not “palatable” to it.
• According to government data presented in the Lok Sabha on December 9, women representation in Parliament and most States legislatures is below 15% with 19 Assemblies having less than 10% women lawmakers.
• Importantly, female leaders also bring something quite different to the table. In particular, they perform significantly better than men in implementing policies that promote the interests of women.
• This was demonstrated in another study conducted by Nobel Laureate Esther Duflo and co-author Raghabendra Chattopadhyay, who used the system of mandated reservations of pradhans in gram panchayats to test the effectiveness of female leadership. Their study was made possible by the 1993 amendment of the Indian Constitution, which mandated that all States had to reserve one-third of all positions of pradhan for women.
• Independent India can rightly be proud of its achievement in so far as women’s suffrage is concerned. Women were allowed to vote from 1950 onwards and so could participate on an equal footing with men from the first general election of 1951-52.
• Factors of production are resources that are thought to be the basic building blocks of production in any economy. Land, labour, and capital are widely considered to be the three main factors of production. These are absolutely necessary for the production of any good or service.
• More recently, entrepreneurship is also considered by many to be the fourth factor of production. It is believed to be the most crucial factor of production that brings together the other three factors.
• The ownership of the factors of production has been a matter of intense debate among thinkers belonging to different schools of economic thought. Marxist economists, have long argued that the factors of production need to be collectively owned by the state. Marxists believe that private ownership of the factors of production lead to the exploitation of labour and the mismanagement of scarce resources.
• They argue that state planners can overcome both these problems by framing a proper collective economic plan.
• Economists from free market schools of thought, however, strongly believe in the private ownership of all factors of production because of the incentives it offers to resource owners.

Q) ‘‘GHAR Portal’ recently in news was launched by

1. Niti Aayog
2. Habitat for Humanity India
3. National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR)
4. Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs

हाल ही में सुर्ख़ियों में रहा ‘घर पोर्टल’ किसके द्वारा लॉन्च किया गया?

1. नीति आयोग
2. हैबिटेट फॉर ह्यूमैनिटी इंडिया
3. राष्ट्रीय बाल अधिकार संरक्षण आयोग (एनसीपीसीआर)
4. आवास और शहरी मामलों का मंत्रालय

Explanation :

Recently National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR), has developed and launched GHAR Portal.

About:

• The portal – “GHAR – Go Home and Re-Unite” will be a platform for information on children from every district to smoothen the process of their repatriation and restoration.

Salient features of the portal

1. Digital tracking and monitoring of children who are in the Juvenile Justice system and have to be repatriated to another Country/State/District.
2. Digital transfer of cases of children to the concerned Juvenile Justice Board/Child Welfare Committee of the State. It will help in speedy repatriation of children.
3. Where there is a requirement of a translator/interpreter/expert, request will be made to the concerned State Government.
4. Child Welfare Committees and District Child Protection Officers can ensure proper restoration and rehabilitation of children by digitally monitoring the progress of the case of the child.
5. A checklist format will be provided in the forms so that the children who are being hard to repatriate or children who are not getting their entitled compensation or other monetary benefits can be identified.
6. List of Government implemented schemes will be provided, so that at the time of restoration the Child Welfare Committees can link the child with the schemes to strengthen the family and ensure that child remains with his/her family.

Q) With reference to PM SVANidhi scheme, consider the following statements:

1. It was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs
2. National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD) is the implementation agency.

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

पीएम स्वनिधि योजना के संदर्भ में निम्नलिखित कथनों पर विचार कीजिये:

1. इसे आवास और शहरी मामलों के मंत्रालय द्वारा लॉन्च किया गया था
2. राष्ट्रीय कृषि और ग्रामीण विकास बैंक (नाबार्ड) कार्यान्वयन एजेंसी है।

उपरोक्त कथनों में से कौन-सा/से सही है/हैं?

1. केवल 1
2. केवल 2
3. 1 और 2 दोनों
4. न तो 1 और न ही 2

Explanation :
The government has also introduced third loan of upto Rs 50,000 in addition to first and second loans of Rs 10,000 and Rs 20,000, respectively.

• PM SVANidhi was launched by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs on June 01, 2020 for providing affordable Working Capital loan to street vendors to resume their livelihoods that have been adversely affected due to Covid-19 lockdown.
• Scheme Benefits
  • Vendors can avail a working capital loan of up to Rs. 10,000, which is repayable in monthly instalments in the tenure of one year.
  • On timely/ early repayment of the loan, an interest subsidy @ 7% per annum will be credited to the bank accounts of beneficiaries through Direct Benefit Transfer on quarterly basis.
  • There will be no penalty on early repayment of loan.
  • The scheme promotes digital transactions through cash back incentives up to an amount of Rs. 100 per month.
  • The vendors can avail the facility of escalation of the credit limit on timely/ early repayment of loan.
• Implementation agency: Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI)

Q) ‘System of Air Quality and Weather Forecasting And Research’ (SAFAR) is an initiative

1. Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change
2. Ministry of Earth Sciences
3. NITI Aayog
4. National Disaster Management Authority

‘सिस्टम ऑफ़ एयर क्वालिटी एंड वेदर फोरकास्टिंग एंड रिसर्च’ (SAFAR) एक पहल है

1. पर्यावरण, वन और जलवायु परिवर्तन मंत्रालय
2. पृथ्वी विज्ञान मंत्रालय
3. नीति आयोग
4. राष्ट्रीय आपदा प्रबंधन प्राधिकरण

Explanation:

• It is an initiative of the Union Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) launched in 2010 (for Delhi) for greater metropolitan cities to provide –
  • Location-specific information on air quality in near real-time and
  • It’s forecast 1-3 days in advance.
    • It is developed by the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology, Pune, and is operationalised by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
    • SAFAR framework considers almost all pollutant levels – PM10, 1, 2.5, CO, NOx, SO2, Volatile Organic Compounds, etc., to compile the Air Quality Index (AQI).
    • It promotes public awareness by educating the public, encouraging self-mitigation, and assisting policymakers in developing mitigation policies.

Q) Consider the following statements regarding Exit polls.

1. An exit poll is same as opinion poll, which asks voters which political party they are supporting after they have cast their votes in an election.
2. Currently, exit polls can’t be telecast from before voting begins till the last phase concludes.

Which of the above statements is/are Incorrect?

1. 1 only
2. 2 only
3. Both 1 and 2
4. Neither 1 nor 2

एग्जिट पोल के संबंध में निम्नलिखित कथनों पर विचार करें।

1. एग्जिट पोल ओपिनियन पोल के समान होता है, जो मतदाताओं से पूछता है कि चुनाव में वोट डालने के बाद वे किस राजनीतिक दल का समर्थन कर रहे हैं।
2. वर्तमान में मतदान शुरू होने से पहले अंतिम चरण के समाप्त होने तक एग्जिट पोल का प्रसारण नहीं किया जा सकता है।

उपरोक्त में से कौन सा/से कथन गलत है/हैं?

1. केवल 1
2. केवल 2
3. 1 और 2 दोनों
4. न तो 1 और न ही 2

• An exit poll asks voters which political party they are supporting after they have cast their votes in an election. In this, it differs from an opinion poll, which is held before the elections.
• Today, exit polls in India are conducted by a number of organisations, often in tie-ups with media organisations. The surveys can be conducted face to face or online.
• Currently, exit polls can’t be telecast from before voting begins till the last phase concludes.

Q) Consider the following statements about International Labour Organization (ILO):

1. It was founded in 1919 under the League of Nations.
2. It is the first and oldest specialized agency of the UN.
3. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland.

Which of the statements given above is/are correct?

1. 1 and 2 only
2. 2 and 3 only
3. 1 and 3 only
4. 1, 2 and 3

अंतर्राष्ट्रीय श्रम संगठन (ILO) के बारे में निम्नलिखित कथनों पर विचार करें:

1. इसकी स्थापना 1919 में राष्ट्र संघ के तहत की गई थी।
2. यह संयुक्त राष्ट्र की पहली और सबसे पुरानी विशिष्ट एजेंसी है।
3. इसका मुख्यालय जिनेवा, स्विट्जरलैंड में है।

ऊपर दिए गए कथनों में से कौन सा/से सही है/हैं?

1. केवल 1 और 2
2. केवल 2 और 3
3. केवल 1 और 3
4. 1, 2 और 3

Explanation:

• The International Labour Organization (ILO) is a United Nations agency whose mandate is to advance social and economic justice by setting international labour standards.
• Founded in October 1919 under the League of Nations, it is the first and oldest specialised agency of the UN. The ILO has 187 member states: 186 out of 193 UN member states plus the Cook Islands. It is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, with around 40 field offices around the world.

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