{"id":9383,"date":"2017-10-06T13:25:37","date_gmt":"2017-10-06T07:55:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=9383"},"modified":"2017-11-02T11:20:35","modified_gmt":"2017-11-02T05:50:35","slug":"answers-mains-marathon-upsc-mains-current-affairs-questions-october-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answers-mains-marathon-upsc-mains-current-affairs-questions-october-5\/","title":{"rendered":"Answers: Mains Marathon \u2013 UPSC Mains Current Affairs Questions \u2013 October 5"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/mains-marathon\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Archives<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Q.1 Recently, the NITI Aayog released the Action Agenda for the government, a roadmap for reforming various sectors of the economy including agriculture. What are the major challenges that Indian agriculture is facing? \u00a0What are the reasons for not achieving the desired results in this sector?What measures were suggested by Niti Aayog? (GS 3).<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ans:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Recently, the NITI Aayog released the Action Agenda for the government, a roadmap for reforming various sectors of the economy including agriculture.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">NITI Aayog\u2019s Action Agenda forms a part of larger Vision Document which spans a seven year strategy and a 15 years vision till fiscal year 2031-32.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><b> Reasons for not achieving the desired results:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The policy of minimum support prices (MSP) has not improved profitability of cultivation in the last few years.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Farmers\u2019 returns have done down in the case of most crops.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The situation is worse for producers of basic vegetables like potatoes, onions and tomatoes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prices of these crops during the harvest time plunged to about Rs 2 per kg in the last season while the consumers were still paying Rs 15 to Rs 20 per kg.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Attempts to reform the <\/span><b>Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee (APMC) markets on the lines of the model act of 2003<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, and now through the <\/span><b>Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Act, 2017<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, have not achieved much success.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The <\/span><b>e-NAM scheme,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> which is supposed to create an all India market, in order to ensure better prices to farmers, has not succeeded in its endeavour so far.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Inter-mandi and inter-state transactions are very rare<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>The Action plan set the following objectives to be achieved:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The \u00a0Action agenda set the<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Target of doubling farmers&#8217; income by 2022.<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> \u00a0<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It will address the problems of increasing suicides &amp; distress of the farmers<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Increasing productivity of land and water<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reforming agri-markets on the lines of e-NAM<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Reforming tenancy laws<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Relief measures during natural disasters<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Shift to high value commodities: horticulture, animal husbandry, fisheries.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Q2 What is the impact of Surgical strikes on India-Pakistan relations? Have the surgical strikes helped the country\u2019s overall national security environment? Discuss. GS 2<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ans:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It has been one year since the special forces of the Indian Army carried out surgical strikes to destroy terror Launchpad in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The surgical strike from India was a point that the Line of Control is not a line that cannot be breached.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><strong>Impact on India-Pakistan relations after the strikes:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is important to take stock at this point on how India-Pakistan bilateral relations and the regional security situation have evolved over the past year since the strikes.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The future direction of the foremost regional forum, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), remains unclear after India dropped out of the 2016 Islamabad summit in the wake of the Uri terror attack.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The regional security situation remains, because of confused American policies in South Asia, continuing turmoil in Afghanistan, heightening India-China rivalry, and the India-Pakistan hostility.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From a regional stability point of view, the surgical strikes do not seem to have had much of an adverse impact.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The fact that Pakistan neither acknowledged the attacks nor responded in kind shows that the general deterrence between the South Asian nuclear rivals remains intact.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is easy to talk about nuclear use and threaten nuclear retaliation, as Pakistan has been doing for long. It is, however, not easy to translate such talk into action. In that sense, the surgical strikes have called Pakistan\u2019s nuclear bluff. And that certainly is good news for regional stability.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">But such higher-level stability seems to have come with heightened lower-level instability and that is the bad news.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Have the surgical strikes helped the country\u2019s overall national security environment?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">There are two reasons why the strategy of punishment may not have worked. For one, a strategy of punishment requires consistency and commitment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The momentum achieved by the surgical strikes was not followed up (despite several attacks thereafter), nor was the government committed to its declared determination to respond firmly to terror strikes, thereby lacking in both consistency and commitment.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Second, and more importantly, Pakistan\u2019s responses thereafter of supporting insurgency in Kashmir, aiding infiltration across the border, and allegedly supporting attacks on the Indian army convoys and bases continued without much reaction from New Delhi.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This has led to a visible lack of credibility on New Delhi\u2019s part which makes one wonder whether, bereft of domestic political use, there was any strategic planning behind the September operation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Surgical strikes may have been a tactical victory for New Delhi, but its strategic value is far from settled.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Q.3 What is cyber security? Why do we need to regulate cyberspace?Why is the need of \u201cdomestic procurement \u201cbeing emphasized? GS 3<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Ans:<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Meaning:<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cybersecurity is the body of technologies, processes and practices designed to protect networks, computers, programs and data from attack, damage or unauthorized access. In a computing context, security includes both cybersecurity and physical security.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Currently, almost 70 categories of cybersecurity products have been identified. These include products used for data loss prevention, security analytics, big data analytics, web security, antivirus, mobile payments, mobile data protection, cloud security, spam free email solutions, among others<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong>Need to regulate cyberspace:<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">T<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">here has been a rapid increase in the use of the online environment where millions of users have access to internet resources and are providing contents on a daily basis.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The use of internet particularly for the distribution of obscene, indecent and pornographic content. The use of internet for child pornography and child sexual abuse and the relative ease with which the same may be accessed calls for strict regulation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The increasing business transaction from tangible assets to intangible assets like Intellectual Property has converted Cyberspace from being a mere info space into important commercial space. The attempt to extend and then protect intellectual property rights online will drive much of the regulatory agenda and produce many technical methods of enforcement.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The major area of concern where some sort of regulation is desirable is data protection and data privacy so that industry, public administrators, netizens, and academics can have confidence as on-line user.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Internet has emerged as the \u2018media of the people\u2019 as the internet spreads fast there were changes in the press environment that was centered on mass media. Unlike as in the established press, there is no editor in the Internet. People themselves produce and circulate what they want to say and this direct way of communication on internet has caused many social debates. Therefore the future of Cyberspace content demands the reconciliation of the two views of freedom of expression and concern for community standards.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Another concern is that, money laundering, be \u2018serious crime\u2019 becomes much simpler through the use of net. The person may use a name and an electronic address, but there are no mechanisms to<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">prove the association of a person with an identity so that a person can be restricted to a single identity or identity can be restricted to a single person. Therefore Cyberspace needs to be regulated to curb this phenomenon.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>WHY IS THE NEED OF \u201cDOMESTIC PROCUREMENT\u201d BEING EMPHASIZED?<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With a view to promoting domestic technology and preventing data theft by foreign entities, the government will soon announce a policy that accords preference in official procurement to \u2018Made in India\u2019 antivirus and cybersecurity solutions.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) has issued a draft notification which states \u201cpreference shall be provided by all procuring entities to domestically manufactured\/ produced cybersecurity products.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The possibility of foreign vendors retaining some backdoor access and the risk of a third party gaining access was a key factor spurring the policy, said an official, who did not wish to be named. \u201cSo, you have to have your own solutions.\u201d<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Archives\u00a0 Q.1 Recently, the NITI Aayog released the Action Agenda for the government, a roadmap for reforming various sectors of the economy including agriculture. What are the major challenges that Indian agriculture is facing? \u00a0What are the reasons for not achieving the desired results in this sector?What measures were suggested by Niti Aayog? (GS 3).&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/answers-mains-marathon-upsc-mains-current-affairs-questions-october-5\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Answers: Mains Marathon \u2013 UPSC Mains Current Affairs Questions \u2013 October 5<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":2292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9383","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mains-marathon-answers","category-public","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/06\/pen-paper-laptop.jpg?fit=1000%2C500&ssl=1","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704957501},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}