Umbrella Academy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

📌 UPSC PRELIMS 2022 GS PAPER 1 DISCUSSION

📅. JUNE 12th ( SUNDAY)

⏰ 5 PM

🔗 Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5889822075?pwd=aTNKbkdKUGFsR0Q0eExrMWpud3dFZz09

Meeting ID: 588 982 2075
Passcode: 4783774847

Class will start at 5 PM

Umbrella Academy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

📌 UPSC PRELIMS 2022 GS PAPER 1 DISCUSSION

📅. JUNE 12th ( SUNDAY)

⏰ 5 PM

🔗 Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5889822075?pwd=aTNKbkdKUGFsR0Q0eExrMWpud3dFZz09

Meeting ID: 588 982 2075
Passcode: 4783774847

Class will start at 5 PM

Umbrella Academy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

📌Topic: UPSC MAINS MENTORSHIP 2022 Class 1

🗓DATE : 20TH JUNE. (MONDAY)

⏰ TIME: 7 PM

🔗Join Zoom Meeting 👇
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5889822075?pwd=Q2pFRzBlMWlMdFNVbGFES1dwcUZlZz09

Meeting ID: 588 982 2075
Passcode: 0000000000

Umbrella Academy is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.

📌Topic: UPSC MAINS MENTORSHIP 2022 Class 2

🗓DATE : 21TH JUNE. (TUESDAY)

⏰ TIME: 8 AM

🔗Join Zoom Meeting 👇
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/5889822075?pwd=Q2pFRzBlMWlMdFNVbGFES1dwcUZlZz09

Meeting ID: 588 982 2075
Passcode: 0000000000

🅾Expert committee on Tribal Health.

📌Findings

1⃣ half of India’s tribal population, nearly five and a half crore, live outside the Scheduled Areas

2⃣ percentage of excess of under-five morality among STs compared to others has widened.

3⃣ child malnutrition is 50% higher in tribal children: 42% compared to 28% in others.

4⃣ malaria and tuberculosis are three to 11 times more common among the tribal people.

5⃣ non-communicable diseases leading to cancer and suicide, are increasing.

6⃣ there is a 27% to 40% deficit in the number of Primary health facilities, and 33% to 84% deficit in medical doctors in tribal areas

7⃣ there is hardly any participation of the tribal people – designing, planning or delivering health care to them

8⃣ Tribal Sub-Plan (TSP) No accounts or accountability exist

✅ Road Map

➡️ National Tribal Health plan

➡️ Address Health care and governance gap

➡️ Allocation of more funds

Conclusion: National Tribal Health mission can be the path to a peaceful health revolution

🅾Draft notification of the Ecologically Sensitive Areas (ESA) in the Western Ghats.

📍What are Ecologically Sensitive Areas?

✅ As per the National Wildlife Action Plan (2002-2016), Eco-Sensitive Areas (ESAs) are regions located within 10 km of protected areas such as national parks and wildlife sanctuaries. ESAs are notified and regulated by the MoEFCC under the Environment Protection Act, 1986.

📍What were the recommendations of the Kasturirangan Committee?

✅ identified an area of 59,940 sq. km of natural landscape of W Gs as ecologically sensitive

✅Classify 37% of WGs as Eco sensitive

✅ recommended a blanket ban on mining, quarrying, red category industries and thermal power projects

📍Draft Notification

✅ the Centre has notified an area of 56,825 sq km spread across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Goa, Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu, classifying 37% of Western Ghats region under ESA.

✅ complete ban on mining, quarrying and sand mining in the ESA

✅ no new thermal power projects or expansion of the existing plants, and red category industries

✅ Construction projects with 20,000 sq m and above prohibited

✅orange/white’ category industries will be allowed only after ensuring strict compliance

✅ All existing healthcare establishments can continue in ESA. No restriction on establishment of PHCs

✅no restrictions on repair or extension or renovation of existing residential houses

✅ A Decision Support and Monitoring Centre for Western Ghats will be established

✅ post-clearance monitoring of projects

✅State Governments have to prepare an annual ‘State of Health Report’ of Western Ghats region

📍Concerns

✅The ESA recommended by the Kerala government was spread over an area of 9,993.7 sq.km, in contrast to the 13,108 sq km recommended by the Kasturirangan panel report.

✅ Karnataka govt -Draft will adversely impact local residents and their livelihood. will “hinder” development activities in the region.

✅ no scientific survey was undertaken to arrive at the quantum of ESA in the Western Ghats

✅ Lead to displacement.

✅planters oppose -Plantations are also included based on an aerial survey

✅Environmentalists have criticised the double standards of the politicians. (safeguarding their vested interests )

📍Way forward

✅ Scientific survey

✅take all stakeholders into consideration including PVTGs, Planters etc

✅ Create awareness about the Draft.

📍Conclusion
Convince state governments about the need for the new regulations in the context of flood, landslips and the recent spate of low-intensity tremors in the region which serve as a daily reminder of the inescapable climate crisis.

🅾 Critically examine the outcome of WTO's 12th Ministerial conference

The Ministerial Conference is the WTO’s top decision-making body and usually meets every two years. All members of the WTO are involved in the MC and they can take decisions on all matters covered under any multilateral trade agreements.

The WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference was held in Geneva

key takeaways and challenges

1⃣ Curtailing harmful fishing subsidies : curb ‘harmful’ subsidies on illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing for the next four years, to better protect global fish stocks.

India and other developing countries won few concessions. Subsidies can be provided to small-scale artisanal fishing

Critics argued that this agreement would only restrict and not eradicate subsidies on illegal fishing.

2⃣. Global Food Security : Members agreed to a binding decision to exempt food purchased by the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) for humanitarian purposes, from any export restrictions.

Avoid bans on food exports in light of the global food shortages and rising prices caused by the war between Ukraine and Russia

However, India’s key demand to allow it to export food from its public stockholdings to other countries was postponed to next meeting

3⃣ E-commerce transactions : India has asked the WTO to review the extension of the moratorium on custom duties on e-commerce transactions, which include digitally-traded goods and services.

WTO members had first agreed to not impose custom duties on electronic transmissions in 1998, when the internet was still relatively new. The moratorium has been periodically extended since then.

4⃣Covid-19 vaccine production : WTO members agreed to temporarily waive intellectual property patents on Covid-19 vaccines without the consent of the patent holder for 5 years

It was criticized by advocacy groups for being narrow in scope, as it did not cover all medical tools like diagnostics and treatments.

The current agreement is a watered down version of the original proposal made by India and South Africa in 2020.


▶️Way forward

Need to build consensus on Permanent solution for Public stock holding

E-commerce moratorium shall end which would help many developing countries including India

Revival of the dispute resolution mechanism. appellate body positions shall be filled with out any delay.

WTO reforms discussions must focus on strengthening its fundamental principles, preserving Special and Differential Treatment (S&DT) including consensus-based decision making, non-discrimination, special and differential treatment

India believes that the reform process and its outcomes should not alter, or in any manner affect, Members’ rights and obligations under the WTO Agreements

India believes in a transparent and inclusive multilateral trading system

📌⚠️Concern over ‘freebies’ in Indian politics.⚠️

🅾Introduction: Recently Prime Minister has opened that 'Revari culture’, where votes are sought by promising ‘freebies’ is dangerous and harmful to the development of the country.

Chief Justice of India remarked that ‘freebies’ were a serious issue and the need to control the announcement of ‘freebies’ by political parties during election campaigns.

🅾What are freebies?

freebies’ not only include the free distribution of what may be considered ‘club goods’ such as televisions or bicycles but also welfare schemes such as free electricity and water.

However, can welfare measures be called Freebies?

🅾Concern over ‘freebies’ in Indian politics.

✅The basic argument is that these are a waste of resources and place a burden on already stressed fiscal resources

✅It is difficult to distinguish between freebies and welfare measures

✅specially harmful are subsidies that distort prices

✅few freebies impact environment - water table falling in Punjab due to free electricity,

✅N.K. Singh, the chairperson of the 15th Finance Commission, warned about how the race to provide freebies to voters could be a “quick path to fiscal disaster"

✅freebies could be harmful for the long-term economic growth

✅Freebies do not really support production and productivity.

✅At least five States are going to see fiscal pressure.

✅Freebies led to a decline in tax resources as well. As they are not spent on productive activities,

🅾Argument in support of freebies

✅Freebies may have ripple effects Electricity as a freebie -can provide clean fuel in the house, keep you warm, help a child study, etc. So, there are all kinds of ripple effects

✅Distribution of truck for SCs- may be a freebie for someone who is privileged, but it may be something that enhances the future earnings of a poor person.

✅Welfare schemes cannot be termed as freebies. Infact there is a need to spend more resources on welfare schemes

✅Fiscal crises happen not because of the fiscal deficit of any particular year, but due to the public debt stock that is accumulating over a period of time.

🅾Way forward

✅You cannot have a blanket policy — for instance, say that you will give free electricity for all.

✅need to identify the policies that have a long-term impact

✅there is a need to identify the beneficiary sets.

✅Increase tax revenues by introducing wealth tax, estate tax, inheritance tax, etc

✅Any public policy intervention that doesn’t support medium-term to long-term production and productivity may be termed as a freebie

✅there is a need for conditional grants to improve spending on important welfare measures.

✅ Review implicit subsidies, which are mostly non-merit subsidies across sectors

🅾Conclusion: It is high time we started talking about public expenditure efficiency in this country and ensure medium-term debt sustainability. the need of the our is to balance welfare spending and our fiscal concerns.

⚠️⚠️‘Barbell Strategy, Safety Nets & Agile Response’⚠️⚠️

🛑Barbell strategy combines a bouquet of safety-nets to cushion the impact on vulnerable sections of society/business, with a flexible policy response based on a Bayesian updating of information.
👉 This is a common strategy used in financial markets to deal with extreme uncertainty by combining two seemingly disparate legs.

🛑 The Agile approach is a well-established intellectual framework that is increasingly used in fields like project management and technology development.

🛑In an uncertain environment, the Agile framework responds by assessing outcomes in short iterations and constantly adjusting incrementally.

🛑The flexibility of Agile improves responsiveness and aids evolution, but it does not attempt to predict future outcomes.

🛑This is why the other leg of the Barbell strategy is also needed. It cushions for unpredictable negative outcomes by providing safety nets.

🛑This explains why the Government’s initial measures in 2020-21 were mostly about making food available to the poor, providing emergency liquidity support for MSMEs and holding the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code in abeyance.

🛑Once these were in place, the Government made its way forward by regularly announcing packages targeted at specific challenges.

⚠️⚠️How these strategies helped India's COVID Response? ⚠️⚠️

🛑 The Economic Survey illustrates the use of Agile approach by Indian policymakers when they chose to calibrate fiscal stimulus based on continuous feedback loop provided by High Frequency Indicators (HFIs) to ensure safety nets and conserve limited resources for when the economy will be ready to absorb.

🛑As the economy unlocked and activity gradually revived, the HFIs imparted quick learning to the policy makers on early signals of demand recovery and sectors enduring stress, thereby prompting calibrated fiscal injections, wherever needed.

🛑As economic recovery started gaining momentum, Government responded by injecting significant demand stimulus through infrastructure investment that has now gone on to take centre-stage in boosting economic activity.

🛑The Survey contrasts India’s response with the Keynesian response of providing large fiscal stimulus upfront that many countries opted for.

⚠️Legacies of Stockholm Conference (50 years) ⚠️

🛑 The recognition of the “need for a strong scientific foundation for global environmental policymaking,” reflected in the UN Environment Programme’s (UNEP) mandate to monitor, track, and record environmental data, which led to the establishment of two major science-policy bodies – the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES)

🛑The establishment of key principles of international environmental law: the precautionary principle; the principle of additionality; and the polluter-pays principle

🛑The recognition of the importance of stakeholder engagement

🛑The “enduring search for solutions to reconcile economic development and environmental management.”


⚠️Main outcomes from Stockholm+50 Conference (Ten actionable recommendations) ⚠️

🛑Place human well-being at the center of a healthy planet and prosperity for all

🛑Recognize and implement the right to a clean, healthy, and sustainable environment

🛑Adopt system-wide change in the way our current economic system works to contribute to a healthy planet

🛑Strengthen national implementation of existing commitments for a healthy planet;

🛑Align public and private financial flows with environmental, climate, and sustainable development commitments

🛑Accelerate system-wide transformations of high-impact sectors, such as food, energy, water, buildings and construction, manufacturing, and mobility;

🛑Rebuild relationships of trust for strengthened cooperation and solidarity, through, inter alia, enabling the meaningful participation of all relevant stakeholders, including youth, women, rural communities, Indigenous Peoples, interfaith groups, and local communities, in policy formulation and implementation at the national and international levels;

🛑Reinforce and reinvigorate the multilateral system, including by ensuring “a fair and effective multilateralism” and strengthening environmental rule of law;

🛑Recognize intergenerational responsibility as a cornerstone of sound policymaking

🛑Take forward the Stockholm+50 outcomes, through reinforcing and reenergizing the ongoing international processes, including a post-2020 global biodiversity framework, an implementing agreement for the protection of marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction (BBNJ), and the development of a new plastics treaty.

🅾 Cloudbursts

🅾 Mains 2022 Essay Question Paper