The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 18 April 2023

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis for UPSC

The Hindu Newspaper Analysis 17 April 2023

• The Centre told the Supreme Court on Monday that the demand for legal recognition of same-sex marriage is merely a voicing of “urban elitist views” for the purpose of social acceptance.
• The court should not try judicially to create a “new social institution” by endorsing same-sex marriages. The judges should leave the task to Parliament, the people would decide whether such a “marriage of a different kind” is socially and religiously acceptable or not, the Centre said in an affidavit filed on the eve of the hearing of the same-sex marriage case before a Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud.
• “Creation or recognition of a new social institution cannot be claimed as a matter of right/choice, much less a fundamental right,” the Centre said. The right to personal autonomy does not include a right for the recognition of same-sex marriage.

 The Hindu Editorial Today

• For the third time in recent years, China’s Ministry of Civil Affairs, on April 2, made a provocative move by releasing new names for 11 places in Arunachal Pradesh under the fig leaf of standardising geographical names in “Zangnan” (a phoney term invented by Beijing to claim that Arunachal Pradesh is “South Tibet”).
• In 2020, China gave names to 80 geographical features in the Paracels and Spratlys in the South China Sea, where China is embroiled in maritime disputes with several states.
• In 2020, China gave names to 80 geographical features in the Paracels and Spratlys in the South China Sea, where China is embroiled in maritime disputes with several states.
• Arunachal Pradesh, formerly known as the North-East Frontier Agency (NEFA), is home to various tribes that have historically been a part of India’s civilisational heritage. Most of its populace has been historically oriented towards the Assam plains. The tribes there were in regular contact with the Ahom power in Assam, including for the grant of rights to levy the Posha from the plains people in the adjacent areas.
• While some tribes, such as the Monpas, have professed Buddhism, others follow animistic practices. Some tribes practise a form of Vaishnavism. The Mahabharata, the Ramayana, the Kalika Purana, the Vishnu Purana, the Yogini Purana, and Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa have references that give a clear indication of the inclusion of these tribal tracts in the collective consciousness and cultural moorings of ancient India.

• The fact is that campuses have become large and impersonal spaces. Family support is dwindling as there are more nuclear families now with working parents who are unable to provide the kind of parenting and mentoring that joint families provide. Individualism is all pervasive in society.
• Consequently, early signs of emotional distress go unnoticed, unrecognised, and unaddressed. Generally, institutions are in denial mode and prefer to hush things up.
• In institutions of higher education the system is such that there is hardly any free and fair communication between students, their seniors, teachers, and the administration. A ‘home away from home’ kind of an experience eludes students. Classroom interactions are confined to academics, with recurrent exhortations to students to be committed, dedicated and hard working, adding to the stress emotionally distressed students are already under.
• Most campus suicides are attributed to academic pressure, family circumstances, personal reasons, different kinds of stress, financial distress, caste-based discrimination, and many different forms of harassment.
• In comparison, universities in the United States have dedicated counselling centres with a range of psychological services such as evaluation, counselling, consultation, and therapies — individual and group.
• They are accredited by the International Accreditation of Counseling Services (IACS) and are manned by licensed psychologists, psychiatrists, clinical therapists, mental health workers and social workers.

• Around 350 million Indians were exposed to strong heat stress between April and May 2022. Between 1990 and 2019, summer temperatures on average rose by 0.5-0.9°C across districts in Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Rajasthan; about 54% of India’s districts have also seen a similar rise in winter temperatures.
• Between 2021 and 2050, it is expected that the maximum temperature will rise by 2-3.5°C in 100 districts and by 1.5– 2°C in around 455 districts.
• Our cities are beset with the urban heat island effect, with temperatures 4-12°C higher than rural outlying areas.
• Rising temperatures have also led to increasingly unliveable cities. For labourers doing heavy work, heat exposure leads to a loss of 162 hours per year, as per one study. A rise in temperatures directly impacts labour productivity. About 50% of India’s workforce is estimated to be exposed to heat during their working hours. This includes marginal farmers, labourers at construction sites and street vendors parlaying their produce on the streets; increasingly, even gig economy workers are affected.
• Greening could help mitigate part of the problem. Ideally, for every urban citizen in India, we should have at least seven trees in the urban landscape. However, many urban localities even in leafy Delhi fall short.
• We need to reduce the urban heat island effect. This will require a push for greater usage of permeable materials in civic infrastructure and residential construction and enhancing natural landscapes in urban areas.
• Urban layouts such as brick jalis for ventilation and terracotta tiles to allow hot air to escape, and curbs on anthropogenic heat emissions from vehicles, factories, etc. may be considered.

• Jamnagar in Gujarat is the top exporting district in India. It formed about 24% of India’s exports in value terms in FY23 (till January). Surat in Gujarat and Mumbai Suburban in Maharashtra feature second and third by a distance, forming only about 4.5% of the country’s exports in the period.
• The other districts in the top 10 are Dakshina Kannada (Karnataka), Devbhumi Dwarka, Bharuch and Kachchh (Gujarat), Mumbai (Maharashtra), Kancheepuram (Tamil Nadu) and Gautam Buddha Nagar (Uttar Pradesh).
• Jamnagar’s dominance can be attributed to the fact that it formed a lion’s share of India’s surging petroleum exports, while Kancheepuram’s most exported commodity was smartphones.
• For instance, Kamrup, Assam’s top exporting district, exported tea the most; Gautam Buddha Nagar in Uttar Pradesh exported smartphones the most; Raipur in Chhattisgarh exported parboiled rice the most; and Mumbai Suburban in Maharashtra exported diamond the most.

• Bangladesh and Russia have agreed to use yuan to settle payment for a nuclear plant Moscow is building in the South Asian country, a Bangladesh government official said on Monday.
• Bangladesh is constructing the first of two nuclear power plants in collaboration with Russia’s state-owned atomic company Rosatom in a $12.65 billion project, 90% of which is financed through a Russian loan repayable within 28 years, with a 10-year grace period. “Russia wanted us to make payment in rouble but that’s not possible for us. So we have agreed to pay in Chinese yuan,” said Uttam Kumar Karmaker, a senior official in the Bangladesh Economic Relations Division.

• SpaceX on Monday postponed the first test flight of Starship, the most powerful rocket ever built, designed to send astronauts to the moon and Mars and beyond.
• The U.S. space agency NASA has picked the Starship spacecraft to ferry astronauts to the moon in late 2025 — a mission known as Artemis III — for the first time since the Apollo programme ended in 1972.
• Starship consists of a 50-metre-tall spacecraft designed to carry crew and cargo that sits atop a 230-foot-tall first-stage Super Heavy booster rocket.
• NASA will take astronauts to lunar orbit itself in November 2024 using its own heavy rocket called the Space Launch System (SLS), which has been in development for more than a decade.
• Starship is both bigger and more powerful than SLS.
• It generates 17 million pounds of thrust, more than twice that of the Saturn V rockets used to send Apollo astronauts to the Moon.

Q) The First Five-year Plan mainly focused on the development of

1. Heavy industries
2. Consumer goods
3. Primary sector
4. Vocational education

प्रथम पंचवर्षीय योजना मुख्य रूप से किसके विकास पर केंद्रित थी

1. भारी उद्योग
2. उपभोक्ता सामान
3. प्राथमिक क्षेत्र
4. व्यावसायिक शिक्षा

The First Five-year Plan was launched in 1951 which mainly focused in the development of the primary sector.

The motto of first five years plan was ‘ Development of agriculture’ and the aim was to solve different problems that formed due to the partition of the nation, second world war. Rebuilding the country after independence was the vision of this plan.

Q) Consider the following Environmental conventions.

1. Basel Convention : Persistent Organic Pollutants.
2. Rotterdam Convention : Prior Informed Consent Procedure for certain hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in international trade.
3. Stockholm Convention : Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal.

Which of the above pairs is/are correctly matched?

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

निम्नलिखित पर्यावरण सम्मेलनों पर विचार करें।

1. बेसल कन्वेंशन : स्थायी जैविक प्रदूषक।
2. रॉटरडैम कन्वेंशन: अंतर्राष्ट्रीय व्यापार में कुछ खतरनाक रसायनों और कीटनाशकों के लिए पूर्व सूचित सहमति प्रक्रिया।
3. स्टॉकहोम अभिसमयः खतरनाक अपशिष्टों के सीमापारीय संचलन और उनके निपटान पर नियंत्रण।

उपरोक्त युग्मों में से कौन-सा/से सही सुमेलित है/हैं?

1. केवल 2
2. 1, 2
3. 2, 3
4. 1, 2, 3

The Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions are multilateral environmental agreements, which share the common objective of protecting human health and the environment from hazardous chemicals and wastes.

(B) Basel Convention:

• The Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal was created to protect people and the environment from the negative effects of the inappropriate management of hazardous wastes worldwide. It is the most comprehensive global treaty dealing with hazardous waste materials throughout their lifecycles, from production and transport to final use and disposal.

(R) Rotterdam Convention:

• The Rotterdam Convention on the Prior Informed Consent Procedure for certain hazardous Chemicals and Pesticides in international trade provides Parties with a first line of defence against hazardous chemicals. It promotes international efforts to protect human health and the environment as well as enabling countries to decide if they want to import hazardous chemicals and pesticides listed in the Convention.

(S) Stockholm Convention:

• The Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants is a global treaty to protect human health and the environment from highly dangerous, long-lasting chemicals by restricting and ultimately eliminating their production, use, trade, release and storage.

Q) Consider the following statements regarding

1. The UNFCCC was adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit.
2. The UNFCCC established a framework for action to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.

Which of the above statements is/are correct?

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

निम्नलिखित कथनों पर विचार करें

1. UNFCCC को 1992 में रियो अर्थ समिट में अपनाया गया था।
2. UNFCCC ने पृथ्वी के वायुमंडल में ग्रीनहाउस गैसों की सांद्रता को स्थिर करने के लिए कार्रवाई के लिए एक रूपरेखा की स्थापना की।

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

• The UNFCCC was adopted in 1992 at the Rio Earth Summit, which marked the beginning of the international community’s first concerted effort to confront the problem of climate change.
• Known also as the Rio Convention, the UNFCCC established a framework for action to stabilise concentrations of greenhouse gases in the earth’s atmosphere.
• The UNFCCC entered into force in 1994, and nearly all of the world’s nations—a total of 197 (as of 2020)—have ratified.
• The framework sets non-binding limits on greenhouse gas emissions for individual countries and contains no enforcement mechanisms.

Q) Lower Arun Hydroelectric Project, recently seen in the news, is located in which one of the following countries?

1. Bangladesh
2. Bhutan
3. Sri Lanka
4. Nepal

हाल ही में खबरों में रही लोअर अरुण जलविद्युत परियोजना, निम्नलिखित में से किस देश में स्थित है?

1. बांग्लादेश
2. भूटान
3. श्रीलंका
4. नेपाल

About Lower Arun Hydroelectric Project:

• It is a 679MW hydropower project.
• It is a run-of-river project planned on Arun River (a tributary of the Koshi River), Nepal.
• The project will be built under the build, own, operate and transfer (BOOT) model.
• The project is being developed by Investment Board Nepal and SJVN.
• This is the second project awarded to SJVN in Nepal, the first one being the 900 MW Arun 3 Hydro Electric Project in Sankhuwasabha District.

Q) India’s first Underwater Metro, is located in which city?

1. Chennai
2. Kolkata
3. Hyderabad
4. Mumbai

भारत का पहला अंडरवाटर मेट्रो किस शहर में स्थित है?

1. चेन्नई
2. कोलकाता
3. हैदराबाद
4. मुंबई

Explanation :

India’s first underwater metro recently conducted it’s trial run under the Hooghly river, Kolkata.

About India’s first Underwater Metro:

• It is a part of Kolkata Metro’s East-West  Corridor.
• It passes under the Hooghly River in the city’s northeast, with the tunnel 13 meter below the riverbed and 33 meter below ground level.
• Total length of the tunnel: 520 meter
• It forms part of the 4.8 kms underground section from Howrah Maidan to Esplanade stations.
• Once this stretch is open then Howrah will be the deepest Metro station (33 meters below the surface) in the country.
• The metro is expected to cover the 520-meter stretch under Hooghly river in 45 seconds.
• The tunnel will have exists for emergencies like earthquakes.

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