UPPSC 2019 (Mains General Studies Paper-3)

Ans: Science and technology (S&T) capabilities are fundamental for social and economic progress of a nation. It is a key element in the rise of a nation.

> Programs based on S&T are critical components of foreign policy of a nation.

> Research in agriculture sector ensures food security of a nation.

> Similarly S&T helps in mitigation of natural disasters.

> Global power dynamics in the 21st century is guided by entirely new fields like ICT, Bio-technology, Nano-technology, artificial intelligence, etc.

> Defence capabilities are defined by economic might of a national which is directly proportional to its achievements in the field of Science and technology.

> Independence in energy is a major characteristics of a powerful nation. Example America, Russia. India should invest more in scientific research in energy sector, Ex. Solar energy, nuclear energy etc.

> Besides critical military technology plays a major role in ensuring national security.

Therefore the potential of Science and Technology as an engine of growth and development is endless.

Additional Notes: It was the research infrastructure in medicine and pharmaceuticals that enabled India to develop the indigenous vaccine of Covid-19 in a very short time span. India recently proved the hypersonic missile technology by launching a technology demonstrator. India’s ASAT mission 2019, proved India’s capabilities in Space.

To further promote Science and technology governments should invest more in quality education and skills training. Brain drain is a major challenge for India and government should put more efforts to retain its intellectual resource.

Ans: Black economy fuelled by rampant corruption provide resources for all the major internal security threats in India.

Pakistan has been flooding the country with counterfeit currency thereby funding terrorist activities in different parts of the country.

Organised crimes are rising due to corruption. Such criminal syndicates also funds radicalisation of youth and terrorist attacks.

Parallel economy run by the money gathered from corruption provides funds to extremists. Black money is easy source of illegal arms trade in India. Financial incentives lure unemployed youth towards antinational activities

in the name of particular religion or ideology.

Unrecorded cash transaction in e-commerce are also emerging means to supply resources to hostile elements in the country.

Corruption in the political and executive bureaucracy was major cause of violence in the Kashmir valley.

Therefore corruption which is largely unrecognized in context of internal security possess major threat to it and government need to take more punitive measures to stop the finance of anti-national elements.

Additional Notes: Many foreign funded NGO’S siphon off major chunk of their funds for hampering development projects and fuelling discontent among the local people. Example Amnesty international was recently sent out of India.

Ans: AFSPA; 1958, is declared in areas where armed forces are required to operate in aid to civil authorities. It grant special powers to the Indian Armed Forces in areas classified as “disturbed areas”. Security forces can arrest a person without warrant. Besides it provides security forces with legal immunity for their actions in disturbed areas.

It is argued that the AFSPA is a draconian law that gives enormous discretionary powers to the armed forces over a civilian population.

But it is imposed in extreme situations and on the plea of the local administration that it is unable to enforce the writ of the state.

However once the law and order is in place, the government appear reluctant to lift AFSPA. Eg. AFSPA has been in force in Meghalaya for the past 27 years though the state ceased to have any active insurgency years ago. While the armed forces and the government justify its need in order to combat militancy and insurgency, the Act has been associated with several human rights violations including fake encounters, rape, torture, abduction etc.

Additional Notes: recently government has lifted AFSPA from entire Meghalaya state and restricted its operation to parts of Arunachal Pradesh Meghalaya. Recently AFSPA was extended for six months in Assam and Nagaland.

Ans: Inclusive growth means a mass based, shared and pro-poor growth. The central idea of inclusive growth is sharing of fruits of socio-economic development with all sections of the society. Inclusive growth aims for elimination of the extreme forms of poverty and encourages participation of the people. Inclusive growth has become focus of policy makers in recent times. The eleventh five year plan of India gave special impetus on inclusive growth.

Besides inclusive growth has remained a recurring theme in the successive Union budget and Economic survey of India.

Inclusive growth helps in reduction of poverty and inequalities in many ways. Regions that lacks investment and infrastructure development are major poverty ridden areas. Access to equal opportunities like education, employment etc reduces poverty and inequalities. Besides skill building and employment generation by government reduces the vulnerability to extreme poverty. Other elements of inclusive growth like good governance, women empowerment, social security and access to essential services reduces the gap in per capita income and therefore reduces the regional and inter-personal inequalities.

Ans: The Green Revolution brought around much technological advancement for farmers. However it was the large and wealthy farmers who benefited most. The small and marginal farmers who acquired the stresses and burdens of the green revolution were largely affected by the negative consequences of green revolution.

Costly fertilizers, irrigation systems and mechanical equipment produced negative consequences for rural small-scale farmers.

Green Revolution has promoted monoculture which mostly benefitted large farmers.

Green Revolution induced farm mechanisation which created widespread unemployment among the rural agricultural labourers.

Green revolution fuelled soil erosion, ground water depletion and increased vulnerability to pests which severely affected the poor farmers. Most of the poor states like Bihar, Odisha, and Bengal largely remained untouched from Green revolution.

The green revolution made the rich richer and left the poor poorer which increased the inter-regional disparity.

Green revolution has done more harm than benefit to small and marginal farmers.

Ans: In India poverty is estimated on the basis of income or consumption levels

and if the income or consumption falls below a given minimum level, then the household is said to be Below the Poverty Line (BPL).

Poverty estimation in India is done by NITI Aayog’s task force, using the poverty line based on the data captured by the National Sample Survey Office. Since independence many programmes have been implemented by central and state governments to overcome the rural poverty. Some of the recent steps are:

> National Food Security Mission, 2007

> National Rural Livelihood Mission, 2011

> Pradhan Mantri Jan Dhan Yojana, 2014

> Pradhan Mantri Kaushal Vikas Yojana, 2015

> Saansad Aadarsh Gram Yojana (SAGY), 2014

> Pradhan Mantri Ujjwala Yojana (PMUY), 2016

> Poshan Abhiyan, 2018

> PM kisan Samman Nidhi,

> Ayushmaan Bharat Yojana, etc

Additional Notes: Tendulkar committee computed poverty lines for 200405 at a level that was equivalent, in Purchasing Power Parity (PPP) terms to * 33 per day.

The committee was set up in the backdrop of national outrage over the Planning Commission’s suggested poverty line of ₹22 a day for rural areas.

Ans: Industrial sickness can be defined as imbalance in the debt-equity ratio and distortion in the financial position of an enterprise. If the total revenue of an enterprise is equal to total cost, then it is forced to depend on the external sources for funds for its survival.

> Faulty initial planning and estimates.

> Labour and management problems.

> Incompetence on the parts of entrepreneurs.

> Unskilled labours to work with modern technology.

> Lack of modern machinery, technology.

> Major and sudden changes in government policies.

> Irregular supply of inputs/raw materials.

> Insufficient supply chain, infrastructure

Some of the remedies for industrial sickness could be:

> Government overtake of sick industries for a short period.

> Pumping in private investment via disinvestment or foreign collaboration.

> Ensure the availability of raw material.

> Building robust infrastructe for transport of goods.

> Ensuring regular power supply at an economic rate.

> Timely credit availability.

Ans: Energy crisis occur when the demand of energy exceeds the supply of energy. Causes of energy crisis may be from demand side or from supply side. India is the third largest oil consumer in the entire world importing over 80 percent of its oil requirements.

> Causes of energy crisis in India are:

> India has limited natural oil reserves and acquisition of oil reserves abroad needs huge investments.

> Coal extraction has suffered due to scams, regulation and environmental concerns.

> Over-consumption: Energy consumption in India, is three times more than developed countries for the same quantity production.

> Population explosion: over population has increases the energy demand significantly.

> Political instability in the Gulf and manipulation of prices disturbs oil supply.

> Poorly infrastructure for developing conventional and unconventional energy. India is still not self-sufficient in nuclear technology and needs foreign investment for establishing nuclear power plants.

> Overexploitation of fossil fuels has resulted in depletion of resources.

Ans: Biodiversity is the variety of life on earth. Biodiversity is defined as “the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine and other aquatic ecosystems”.

> Warm temperature and high humidity of tropical region are favourable for most of the species on earth.

> Tropical areas have more stable climate than temperate regions. High rainfall throughout the year and prolonged growing season results in higher plant biodiversity.

> Plant biodiversity ensures availability of plenty of food and paves way for higher faunal biodiversity.

> Tropical communities got more time to evolve and they have more specialization for adoptions.

> The tropical soil is the most fertile soil in the biosphere.

> Tropical areas receive more solar energy over the year than the temperate areas.

> Anthropogenic interference is relatively low in tropical regions because of limited industrialization that helps to preserve biodiversity.

Additional Notes: Biodiversity includes all organisms, species and populations, the genetic variation among these and their complexes assemblages of communities and ecosystems.

Majority of corals are found in tropical regions which host almost 25% of all ocean biodiversity.

Ans: Digital rights are explained as the human rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers and other electronic devices or communications networks.

Digital rights are related to the protection and realization of existing rights such as the right to privacy or freedom of expression in the context of new digital technologies especially the Internet.

The objective of digital rights is to ensure that access to internet is broadly available to all people across all strata of society. Also digital rights aims to prevent unreasonable restrictions over use of internet as a tool for realising one’s freedom of expression. It goes against censorship as is being done in some countries.

Internet access is recognized as a right by the laws of several countries including India. However there could be some reasonable restrictions over digital rights.

Ans: There is hardly any region in the world that has evaded the vulnerability of terror strikes. The modern trend in terrorism is the loosely organized, selffinanced, international networks of terrorists. The radical Islamist groups or groups using religion as a pretext pose a serious threat to world peace. Even after so much of blood-shed the international community has not succeeded in developing an accepted comprehensive definition of terrorism. Terrorism could be Ethno-National, Religious, ideology based or state sponsored. United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime helps in establishing strong cooperation among member states to facilitate the prosecution of terrorist cases transcending national borders.

Terrorists operating in one part of the world could raise their funds from other corner of the world. Therefore it becomes vital to cut the finances of such groups. Financial Action Task Force (FATF) is a good example of international collaboration to curb terrorism.

However there are certain countries who for their own geo-political interests help the terror sponsoring countries evade the regulations of international organisations.

For example China and Turkey are consistently helping Pakistan to evade the sanctions of UN and FATF. Terrorism knows no boundary and it has to be understood by all the responsible countries.

India is a major victim of terrorism and international community need to univocally support India’s domestic and global efforts to deal with terrorism. The transnational nature of terrorism makes it necessary to ensure effective and efficient international and regional cooperation to ensure world peace.

Ans: There is no proof that nuclear deterrence is an effective alternative to counter nuclear weapons, still it dominates the international relations.

Nuclear deterrence has become not just a purported defence strategy, but governments justified nuclear weapons themselves on the ground of deterrence. When America used nuclear weapons against Japan, it was the only power using nuclear weapons. If japan had possessed nuclear weapon at that time, No one can predict what would have been its retaliation.

Advocates of nuclear deterrence insist that third world war has been avoided,

because of nuclear deterrence. However there are compelling arguments suggesting that the US and the former Soviet Union avoided world war for several possible reasons.

There is no evidence that the Soviet leadership ever contemplated trying to conquer Western Europe and it was restrained by the West’s nuclear arsenal. In present era when more than one nation owns nuclear weapon, it has never been used. Therefore its credibility as a deterrence and the theory of “second strike” lacks sufficient substance in them.

Nevertheless it can be argued that smaller nations like Pakistan and North Korea did achieved some kind of security against powerful nations invading them, at least in theory.

Ans: Social Media in recent times has become synonymous with Social Networking sites. Social media carries many advantages with it however it also possess threat to Internal Security in various forms like Cyber terrorism, banking frauds, drug trafficking, terror funding etc.

Nevertheless social media if regulated and used justiciable could be a tool for strengthening national security. Social media connects the administrators and common man in an unprecedented manner.

Because of social media information dissemination has become so seamless that a minor activity in a remote corner of country could suddenly get the attention of bureaucracy.

Using social media Youths are targeted for propaganda spreading and incitement against state. However same platform could be used to promote social harmony and strengthening national security.

One of the fastest growing ways that Governments are using social media is as a warning or trend prevention tool. Many fake news have been countered by government in a quick time.

As a monitoring tool, the government is able to recognize the first signs of any hostile or potentially dangerous activity by collecting and analyzing messages in order to try to predict events that could be a danger to National Security.

Another important use of social media by the government is as an institutional communication tool. Social Media provides a medium that creates cohesion between federal agencies by increasing both communication and transparency.

Ans: Government of India is proceeding with the National industrial policy. The policy is different from its predececers in many respect. It aims to shift from a policy of continuity to radical and accelerated reforms for greater strategic engagement with the world.

A Task Force on Artificial Intelligence for India’s economic transformation has also been constituted to provide inputs for the new industrial policy. The new Industrial Policy aims to create new jobs over the next two decades, promote foreign technology transfer and attract $100 billion FDI annually. The new policy aims to make India a manufacturing hub. It subsumes the National Manufacturing Policy.

In brief the new policy strive to build the modern era industrial infrastructure with greater scope of foreign investments. It keeps into priority the competitiveness of the Indian products and aims to diversify India’s production capability in both qualitative and quantitative terms.

However there are certain concerns in realisation of India’s industrial goals. For example inadequate infrastructure, restrictive labour laws, slow technology adoption, low productivity and inadequate expenditure on R&D and Innovation. Therefore the focus areas of the policy would be manufacturing and MSME, technology and innovation, ease of doing business, infrastructure, investment. trade and fiscal policy, skills and employability. Therefore the new policy aims to Reform, Perform and Transform.

Ans: Inclusive growth is the new paradigm that is related essentially to equality and distributive justice. Growth inclusiveness has remained the prime agenda of India’s economic development policy.

India experimented with trickle down approach to development for achieving the objective of income redistribution and social justice. However it is still missing on ground with the current development efforts. According to the Multidimensional Poverty Index (MPI) 2018, India lifted over 270 million people out of poverty from 2005 to 2015. Still over 350 million Indians live in state of acute deprivation.

Agriculture sector that employs around 40 percent of the population, contributes a meagre 16 percent in the national GDP. Therefore investment in agriculture is essential for sustainable poverty reduction.

Indian planners targeted the removal of poverty and inequality as the fundamental element of our growth strategy. This inclusive growth model necessitates the social sector development.

However the social sector is not in very good shape. India still faces significant regional, social and gender disparities.

Therefore India must focus on essential coefficients of inclusive growth like labour and employment, rural development, food storage and warehousing etc. Indian government along with the state and local governments should accelerate its efforts in eradicating poverty and achieving sustainable development goals in order to ensure economic growth with equality and distributive justice.

Ans: Eradication of poverty and expansion of employment have been major concerns of policy makers in India. However, the problems of widespread unemployment and underemployment still persist in Uttar Pradesh. Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in the country remains at bottom in almost all development indicators including employment.

Though there has been a substantive shift of workers from agriculture sector, most of such opportunities are casual in nature and fetch low income. The economy of Uttar Pradesh lags behind in generating adequate quantity of good quality jobs. The incidence of distress induced migration has increased over the years, which could be checked only by improving employment opportunities in the state.

Besides inter-regional disparities in various indicators of development persist within Uttar Pradesh. The per capita income in the eastern region of the state is almost half of that in the western region.

Also there is a mismatch in the demand and supply of education and skills that are needed for overall employability of youth in the state.

The relatively poor educational and skill levels among educated youth are eroding their employability in the modern economic sector.

Therefore Uttar Pradesh government needs to rapidly expand the economy to generate more employment. Besides the educational qualifications and skills should match the requirement of the industry. Vocational training and consistent skill development initiatives could further address the problem of educated unemployment in Uttar Pradesh.

Additional Notes: According to a FICCI report, 2010 large number of educated job-seekers are unemployed because of insufficient exposure to practical aspects of education.

Ans: India is one of the largest producer food grains in the world despite that it houses the largest numbers of undernourished people in the world. There are multiple factors responsible for the food insecurity in India:

> Unavailability of food because of natural calamities like drought, flood etc.

> Poor purchasing power capacity because of low income.

> Gender bias in the distribution.

> Poor monitoring of nutritional programmes like Mid-day meal scheme etc.

> Distorted public distribution system.

> Lack of political will or ineffective efforts from the executive.

> Wide inter-regional disparity in production and poor inter-sector co-ordination.

India needs to adopt a multi-pronged approach to find solutions to the problem of food security. Some of the steps that need to be implemented are:

> Enhancing food storage technologies and increasing productivity in agricultural sector.

> Long term investment in conducting research on grain storage technologies.

> Scientific interventions to reduce the food wastage.

> Efforts should be made to find out the exact beneficiaries of food distribution programmes.

> Eliminate hoardings and fluctuations in prices of essential food items.

> Purchasing power capacity of rural and urban poor should be increased by creating employment.

> Inter-state movement of food crops should be augmented by removing restrictions.

> Assuring crop diversification by replacing rice, wheat monoculture with legumes, pulses and oil seeds.

> Create decentralized food banks in villages to check corruption. Greater participation of various stakeholders like Panchayati Raj Institutions, Self Help Groups (SHG) etc.

Ans: Despite of registering significant increase in total food grain production in last few decades, the farmers’ income in India have remained subdued. The nature of agricultural marketing laws in India and the infrastructure deficit in agricultural supply chains are major challenges in ensuring that agriculture remains a profitable venture for farmers.

Government has introduced major agriculture marketing reforms in last few years. For example the Model Agricultural Produce and Livestock Marketing Act, 2017, electronic national agriculture market (eNAM), Model Contract Farming Act, 2018 and Model Agriculture Land Leasing Act, 2016, seeks to address the major issues in agriculture marketing.

The recent reforms in agricultural marketing would bring a sea change in policy. The removal of restrictions under the Essential Commodities Act (ECA) would help attract private investment in agriculture and help farmers of cereals, pulses, oilseeds, onion and potato, who have been adversely affected by the policy regime.

Agriculture being a state subject, hinders the materialisation of reforms on the ground. Therefore, in order to make India’s farmer truly Atmanirbar, there is a need to follow the ethos of cooperative federalism.

Consistency in central policy, complementary reforms and a collaborative centre-state approach are necessary for effective agriculture marketing reforms.

Additional Notes: The two new agriculture bills introduced in 2020 are expected to enable inter-State trade and promote contract farming, thereby providing a large number of options to farmers.

Ans: Cloud computing is a medium for delivering hosted services over the internet. It is the pool of shared resources such as networks, servers, storage, applications, and services that can be provided to the consumer rather than the consumer managing them on their own which is costly and time-consuming. Internet is at the core of evolution of cloud computing. It is generally sold on demand. Users can have as much or as little of a service as they want at any given time. Cloud computing services are fully managed by the provider. It is data intensive and have the ability to function well even with large volume. Cloud computing services are divided into 3 categories:

> Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS)

> Platform as a Service (PaaS)

> Software as a Service (SaaS)

> It minimizes the IT requirements and physical storage, which helps small businesses, cut their business costs.

> Moving the business data to the cloud can make disaster recovery possible.

> It increases collaboration and flexibility as colleagues can sync and work on documents simultaneously.

> Cloud computing reduces a company’s carbon footprint by minimizing energy consumption and carbon emissions by more than 30%.

Ans: Transfer of technology is relatively new and more advance way of trade. Here importing country gets the critical technology from the exporter country so that it could produce the desired product itself in the future. For example in 1990s India purchased few units of fighter aircraft SU-30MKI from Russia and with “Transfer of Technology” produced the same aircraft indigenously in large numbers.

Developing countries do not possess all the desired technology. Therefore transfer of technology enables a country to access critical technologies which are otherwise difficult to develop indigenously.

Transfer of technology is a critical component for the success of Government of India’s Make in India initiative. There are multiple technologies in different fields like defence, nuclear energy, IT, agriculture which India is despirately working upon. However it takes huge resources and a longer time period to demonstrate such technologies. For example India is working on Kaveri engine for last 30 years, still it has not achieved success.

In this backdrop if India gets a transfer of intellectual property from a technologically advanced country like Israel, US or France, It significantly cuts the time and cost.

Transfer of Technology (ToT) is an important pillar in the Indo-Japanese agreement on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad high-speed train (HSR) project. Similarly India has entered into multiple agreements of Transfer of Technology with US, Israel, France etc.

• Follow on Facebook page – Click Here
• Google News join in – Click Here