Brief of newspaper articles for the day bearing
relevance to Civil Services preparation
- GS PAPER 2
- GS PAPER 3
- The coast isn’t clear for India’s nuclear power quest {Energy}
- India can ratify ILO protocol on child labour: Dattatreya {International Organizations}
GS PAPER 2
[1] Funds meant for SCs underutilised, finds panel.
Context:
- National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC) monitoring body has found that while “many States have generally allocated funds to the Scheduled Caste Sub-Plan (SCSP) on a par with the Scheduled Castes (SC) population of the States, but the actual expenditures under SCSP is between 2% and 8% of allocation in most States except West Bengal, Karnataka and Telangana.” The data has been given by state government to NCSC to monitor.
Analysis:
- The data submitted by the State government covered the 2012-13 to 2015-16 years.As per the Commission “The unspent SCSP fund is often re-appropriated,” the Commission says.
- The analysis of the data by NCSC officials,brings out the fact that the expenditure done for large general population schemes (which are not SC specific) is also counted under SCSP expenditure, which defeats the entire purpose of having SCSP.
[2] Apex court refuses plea for Governor’s rule in J&K.
Context
Supreme Court refused a plea for imposition of Governor’s rule in Jammu & Kashmir.
Analysis
Supreme court said that the situation in J&K is a difficult one and such situations can change very few hours and thus, can not be judicially managed.
The Supreme Court bench asked Solicitor-General Ranjit Kumar, acting on behalf of the Centre, to file a status report on the difficulties faced by people due to the violence and imposition of curfew in the State
[3] Centre not in favour of abolishing death penalty: Rijiju.
Context
Government announced in Rajya Sabha that it is not in the favour of abolishing death penalty in the country.
Analysis
- The reason cited for not being in such a favour is that the conditions prevalent in the country at this time do not call for such a move.
- Also, it was cited in Rajya Sabha that several provisions in the Constitution such as Articles 72, 134 and 161 for commuting of death sentence.
- Also, Supreme Court has made it clear that it should be used in “exceptional circumstances” and as an “unavoidable alternative”.
- These remedies along with remedies such as moving to the Supreme Court in case the death penalty provided by district court is held by High Court and approaching the President/Governor against the order of SC, provide a good check against the misuse of capital punishment.
[4] With thrust on innovation, scheme to INSPIRE young scientists to be renamed.
Context:
The Department of Science and Technology (DST) is reconstructing a programme, created to engage children early on to science and research, and changing it to reflect a thrust on technology and giving the “innovation cycle” exposure to children. The INSPIRE Awards (Innovation in Science Pursuit for Inspired Research) will now be called as MANAK (Million Minds Augmenting National Aspirations and Knowledge) from this year onwards.
Analysis:
- Inspire is a National Programme implemented by the Ministry for attraction of talent amongst students to study science and pursue career with research. It was launched in 2008 and implementation started in 2009-10.
- INSPIRE Programme covers students in the age group 10-32 years, and has five components: INSPIRE Award (for 10-15 age group), INSPIRE Internship at a science camp with opportunity for interaction with global science leaders (for 16-17 age group), INSPIRE Scholarship for Higher Education (SHE) @ Rs 80000/ per year for continuing education at B.Sc. and M.Sc. levels (for 17-22 age group), INSPIRE Fellowship for doctoral research (for 22-27 age group) and INSPIRE faculty for assured career opportunity (for 27-32 age group).
- The Inspire awards component consists of selecting 100,000 school students with the best science ideas. They are selected from one million ideas coming from across the country with school principals and headmasters recommending two students from each school and passing them on to the DST/NIF by respective district authorities.
- Each of these 100,000 will be given Rs. 5,000 each to build a model or prototype that showcases a practical use of technology or science.These projects are displayed at exhibitions at the zonal, district, state and finally at the national level.
- As per its website, around 13.85 lakh students have been funded. This, according to officials, is a “reformulation” of the existing programme and reflects a thrust on original ideas, which aim to use technology to solve problems, rather than merely display a clever idea for an exhibition.
- This year, 60 of the best ideas would be worked upon by professional engineers and designers and taken up for potential commercial development with intellectual property rights for the children.
- DST will also employ the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) — the Gujarat-based organisation that specialises in scouting for rural innovators — to eliminate the recycled ideas and to ensure that the originals ones emerge. The NIF will have number of people to assess this, leading to the re-incarnation of INSPIRE.
GS PAPER 3
[1] The coast isn’t clear for India’s nuclear power quest.
Proposed Nuclear power plants have long been the center of controversy, another addition to this list is Kovvada village of Andhra Pradesh, where government has planned strings of nuclear power plants under the 2008 India-US Civil Nuclear Agreement in 2008.
Basic facts
Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) is planning to install six nuclear reactors, each generating 1,594 megawatts (MW), or 9,564 MW of power overall in this coastal region of Andhra Pradesh.
A cluster of both U.S. and Russian nuclear power plants have been proposed along the coastline that will generate 30,000 MW by 2031.
Why area has become nuclear favorite?
State’s huge requirement of power as it shifts gear from agriculture to industrialization has led the state government to welcome the proposal for building nuclear power plants in the area.
Second factor is ready availability of government land.
And there is virtually no resistance from the people unlike other areas like Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Maharashtra and even Gujarat.
Steps taken in the process of acquisition:-
Government is planning to acquire around 2000 acres of land, which is partly fertile and partly fallow. Acquisition will be affecting and displacing about 3,000 families.
In the process, Andhra Pradesh government has declared a ban on land registration.
It means nobody can buy or sell land, or use it as collateral to raise loans either for health emergencies or marriages.
While NPCIL is being moderate in the process. It has deposited the first tranche of Rs.359 crore of the Rs.1,000 crore it has earmarked as relief and rehabilitation (R&R) package.
What are the criticisms facing the project?
There are many gaping holes in partial survey of private land by the Revenue Department officials, many farmers alleging under-measurement to reduce compensation amounts.
There are concerns that a significant amount of plantation land will be lost in the process.
No scientific criteria were adopted in site selection. Four fault lines run through the region. A Fukushima-like disaster cannot be ruled out.
Any earthquake like incident can lead to a serious tragedy. Exposure to radioactivity could lead to genetic disorders and cancer.
Kovvada and its surrounding villages have a good number of people within the “exclusion” zone. In the “emergency” zone up to 16 km, there are 66 villages. In the next “sterilised” zone up to 5 km where no development should take place, there are 42 villages.
Even , the immediate vicinity of the nuclear plant up to 1.5 km from the project site have a good number of people within.
Another important issue is the Indian Civil Nuclear Liability law having a low liability cap. The liability for Kovvada is put at Rs.1,300 crore for a plant which is expected to cost around Rs.4 lakh crore.
Project viability
Telangana-based voluntary organisation Human Rights Forum, warns India that GE-Hitachi and Westinghouse nuclear reactors are neither cost-effective nor power-efficient and that they have a huge risk factor.
The first units of the six nuclear reactors in Kovvada will not produce electricity for the grid before 2031.
According to some estimates, tariffs for electricity from Kovvada will be very high, with first-year tariffs in the range of Rs.19.80 to Rs.32.77 per kilowatt hour.
[2] India can ratify ILO protocol on child labour: Dattatreya.
Introduction
Parliament has recently passed Child Labour (Prohibition and Regulation) Amendment Bill, 2016, which has paved the way for India to ratify two International Labour Organisation (ILO) Conventions, 182 and 138.
Why parliament could not ratify conventions earlier?
Earlier these conventions could not be ratified because India had not banned all the occupations for children below 14 years of age.
Now as the amendment has been passed by parliament, India can go ahead with the ratification of ILO convention.
Conventions
ILO convention 138 says minimum age for employment should not be less than the age of completion of compulsory schooling which is 14 years of age in India’s case.
The ILO Convention 182 calls for the need to formulate legislation for prohibition and elimination of the worst forms of child labour.
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