UPSC Key—21st November, 2023: Tantalum, Emissions Gap Report 2023 and Law of Averages

THE WORLD

Philippines invites neighbours to frame S China sea conduct rules

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance

Mains Examination: General Studies II: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s Interest

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-The Philippines has approached neighbours such as Malaysia and Vietnam to discuss a separate code of conduct regarding the South China Sea, its president said on Monday, citing limited progress towards striking a broader regional pact with China. Relations between the two have grown more tense under President Ferdinand Marcos Jr, who has increasingly complained about China’s “aggressive” behaviour while rekindling strong ties with the Philippines’ sole treaty ally, the United States.

• Map Work-South China Sea Locate and Scarborough Shoal

• What is the dispute between the Philippines and China over the South China Sea?

• Why are countries interested in these waters?

• Do You Know– China claims sovereignty over nearly all of the South China Sea, including the Second Thomas Shoal, based on historical records dating to the Xia dynasty, nearly 4,000 years ago.
Beijing has illustrated its claim to the critical maritime area – a key sea transport route – with a vague, U-shaped “nine-dash line” that cuts into the exclusive economic zones, or EEZs, of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan and Vietnam. China’s growing presence in the South China Sea began decades ago. Beijing seized the Paracel Islands from Vietnam in 1974 and took control of Mischief Reef in the Spratly Islands from the Philippines in 1995. But a tribunal at The Hague, based on a suit brought by the Philippines, ruled in 2016 that China had no “historic title” over the waters of the South China Sea and that its nine-dash line and historic claims were superseded by the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.
Beijing has ignored the ruling, however. The South China Sea is a major shipping route. The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development estimates that over 21% of global trade, amounting to $3.37 trillion, transited through these waters in 2016. It is also home to rich fishing grounds that provide for the livelihoods of millions of people across the region. More than half of the world’s fishing vessels operate in this area. Although largely uninhabited, the Paracels and the Spratlys may have reserves of natural resources around them. There has been little detailed exploration of the area, so estimates are largely extrapolated from the mineral wealth of neighbouring areas.
Experts say China wants control of the South China Sea to dominate a major trade through which most of its imported oil flows. Control of the sea lane would allow China to potentially disrupt, or threaten to disrupt, cargo shipments travelling to and from all countries in East and Southeast Asia.
China could also deny foreign military forces, particularly the United States’, access to the maritime region. Additionally, the South China Sea may contain massive oil and natural gas reserves beneath its seafloor. Sovereignty over the region could also give China a level of energy security and independence far beyond what it currently possesses. Since The Hague ruling, China has turned seven of the reefs it controls in the disputed waters into missile-protected military bases.

• What is the nine-dash line?

• What is the Scarborough Shoal issue?

• What’s the importance of the South China Sea?

• How can the dispute be resolved?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Explained: What’s behind diplomatic tensions in the South China Sea?

FRONT PAGE

What was TN Governor doing for 3 yrs: SC on pending Bills

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Mains Examination: 

• General Studies II: Appointment to various Constitutional posts, powers, functions and responsibilities of various Constitutional Bodies.

• General Studies II: Functions and responsibilities of the Union and the States, issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure, devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-IN STRONG remarks, the Supreme Court on Monday asked why the Tamil Nadu Governor had acted on some Bills sent for his assent only after the matter had reached the court. Saying that the Bills had been pending since January 2020, it asked: “What was the Governor doing for three years?”

• What exactly Supreme Court said?

• Tamil Nadu Governor R N Ravi on returned 10 pending Bills to the state government-What are the options available with the Government?

• The DMK-led government has called a special Assembly session-What next?

• What is the current conflict between the governor and the government in Tamil Nadu?

• “The standoff between the Tamil Nadu government and R N Ravi highlights a significant constitutional dilemma about the role and powers of the Governor”-Elaborate

• Why the state government would approach the Supreme Court?

• What is the standard legislative procedure in state legislature?

• How Bills are passed in state assembly?

• What is role of governor in legislative procedure in state legislature?

• What does the Constitution say about the Governor’s role in giving assent to Bills?

• Every bill, after it is passed by the assembly or by both the Houses in case of a bicameral legislature, is presented to the governor for his assent. There are four alternatives before the governor-what are they?

• If the governor gives his assent to the bill, then what happens with the bill?

• If the governor withholds his assent to the bill, then what happens?

• Can the Governor withholds the Bills indefinitely?

• Do You Know-While Article 163 of the Constitution deals with the powers of the Governor generally, Article 200 specifically deals with the issue of granting assent to Bills. Both the provisions are read together to determine the contours of the power the Governor holds on this issue.
When a Bill passed by the legislature of a state is presented to the Governor, the Governor has four options: (1) grant assent to the Bill; (2) withhold assent to the Bills; (3) return the Bills for reconsideration; or (4) reserve the Bill for the consideration of the President.
Article 200 reads: “When a Bill has been passed by the Legislative Assembly of a State or, in the case of a State having a Legislative Council, has been passed by both Houses of the Legislature of the State, it shall be presented to the Governor and the Governor shall declare either that he assents to the Bill or that he withholds assent therefrom or that he reserves the Bill for the consideration of the President.”
However, the Article has a key proviso. It says that the Governor “may, as soon as possible” return Bills other than money Bills, with a message requesting that the House reconsider it in parts or in whole. However, once the Legislative House reconsiders the Bill and sends it to the Governor once again, the Governor “shall not withhold assent therefrom”.
The tug-of-war between the government and the Governor in the Opposition-ruled states essentially lies in the wordplay in the proviso. The proviso says the Governor must return the Bill “as soon as possible” but does not prescribe a specific timeframe. Raj Bhavans have exploited this ambiguity to sit on Bills indefinitely without returning them to the state legislature.

• Can a Governor in practice actually sit on a Bill forever?

• What is happening in Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Kerela?

• What is the argument of the states in the Supreme Court?

• For Your Information-Apart from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Telangana, and Punjab too, have sought the intervention of the Supreme Court on the issue.
Kerala in its plea has argued that three Bills have been pending with Governor Arif Mohammad Khan for more than two years, and three Bills for more than a year. A PIL on this issue in the Kerala High Court had made the state government a respondent, but the HC refused to intervene, prompting the state to move the SC. Telangana has argued that more than 10 key Bills are pending with Governor Tamilisai Soundararajan and that seven of those Bills were passed by the Assembly and sent for the Governor’s assent in September 2022. Tamil Nadu has argued that the Governor by not “signing remission orders, day to day files, appointment orders, approving recruitment orders, granting approval to prosecute Ministers, MLAs involved in corruption including transfer of investigation to CBI by Supreme Court, Bills passed by Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly” is bringing the entire administration to a halt and “creating adversarial attitude by not cooperating with the State administration”.

• What can the Supreme Court do now?

• Do You Know-Several aspects dealing with the Governor’s powers — such as the role in recommending President’s Rule, inviting the party with a majority to form the government, or during a trust vote — have been litigated extensively, and there is now settled law on these aspects.
The SC has now been called upon to decide a new aspect — whether it can fix a timeline for Governors to give assent to Bills, which amounts to deciding whether it can prescribe limits to an office exercising constitutional powers.
In the past, the court has reluctantly fixed timelines for the Speaker’s office to decide disqualification cases.
A Governor cannot be made a party before the Supreme Court. Generally, therefore, the court issues notice to the Secretary of the Governor in such disputes.

• Various attempts were made to understand the role of the governor to strengthening centre-state relations-Can you name those committees and their recommendations?

• Administrative Reforms Commission of 1968, the Rajamanar Committee of 1969, the Sarkaria commission of 1988 and
Punchhi Commission-What were their recommendations in the context of role of Governor?

• The Sarkaria Commission, set up in 1983 to look into Centre-state relations, proposed certain points for the selection of Governors-Know them in detail

• What Punchhi Committee, constituted in 2007 on Centre-state relations said on selection the Governor?

• The Punchhi Committee recommended deleting the “Doctrine of Pleasure” from the Constitution-What is “Doctrine of Pleasure”?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Governor’s role in passing Bills

📍Reining in the governor

📍The 360° UPSC Debate | Does India really need state Governors?

IIT-Ropar researchers discover rare metal in Sutlej

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-A team of researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Ropar has detected the presence of tantalum, a rare metal used in manufacturing of electronic components, in the Sutlej river sand in Punjab. The discovery was made by a team headed by Dr Resmi Sebastian, assistant professor at the institute’s Civil Engineering Department. The researchers were working on an unrelated project when they stumbled upon the metal in samples collected from the Sutlej basin, Dr Sebastian told The Indian Express.

• What is tantalum?

• Do You Know-Tantalum is a rare metal with the atomic number 73 — the number of protons found in one atom of the element. It’s grey, heavy, very hard, and one of the most corrosion-resistant metals in use today. It possesses high corrosion resistance because when exposed to air, it forms an oxide layer that is extremely difficult to remove, even when it interacts with strong and hot acid environments.
When pure, tantalum is ductile, meaning it can be stretched, pulled, or drawn into a thin wire or thread without breaking. Moreover, it “is almost completely immune to chemical attack at temperatures below 150°C, and is attacked only by hydrofluoric acid, acidic solutions containing the fluoride ion, and free sulphur trioxide,” according to the US Department of Energy.
Notably, tantalum also has an extremely high melting point, exceeded only by tungsten and rhenium.

• When was tantalum first discovered?

• How did tantalum get its name?

• What are the uses of tantalum?

• For Your Information-Tantalum is most prominently used in the electronics sector. The capacitors made from tantalum are capable of storing more electricity in smaller sizes without much leakage than any other type of capacitor. This makes them ideal for use in portable electronic devices such as smartphones, laptops, and digital cameras.
As tantalum has a high melting point, it is frequently used as a substitute for platinum, which is more expensive. The rare metal is also used to make components for chemical plants, nuclear power plants, aeroplanes and missiles. Tantalum does not react with bodily fluids and is used to make surgical equipment and implants, like artificial joints, according to the US Department of Energy.
“A composite consisting of tantalum carbide (TaC) and graphite is one of the hardest materials known and is used on the cutting edges of high-speed machine tools,” it added.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍What is tantalum, the rare metal found in Sutlej?

Don’t pick & choose, sends wrong signal: SC to Govt on judges’ selection, transfers

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Indian Polity and Governance-Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies II: Structure, organization and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-REITERATING ITS displeasure over what it termed as a “pick and choose” practice adopted by the Centre in clearing the Collegium’s recommendations for appointment and transfer of High Court (HC) judges, the Supreme Court said on Monday that this “sends a very wrong signal”.

• Why Supreme Court termed as a “pick and choose” practice adopted by the Centre in clearing the Collegium’s recommendations for appointment and transfer of High Court (HC) judges?

• The judges of a high court are appointed by whom?

• A person to be appointed as a judge of a high court, should have certain qualifications-what are those?

• What is the role of the government in the decision-making process for the shortlisting of judges?

• What is your understanding about the collegium system?

• What is the issue of conflict between Judiciary and Executive with respect to the appointment of Judges?

• Executive Vs Judiciary for appointment of judges in higher judiciary-Know in detail

• What does the Collegium consider while making the recommendation?

• National Judicial Appointments Commission (NJAC) Act 2014-Know the key highlights

• Supreme Court on NJAC Act 2014 (99th Constitutional Amendment Act)-know in detail

• First Judges Case (1982), Second Judges Case (1993) and Third Judges Case (1998)-Know in detail

• What was the Supreme court’s ruling in the Second Judges case (1993), with respect to the appointment of a judge?

• Third Judges case (1998) and Supreme Court’s ruling in case of the appointment-What was the Supreme Court’s ruling?

• The National Judicial Appointments Commission Act of 2014 and the Collegium System-Compare and Contrast

• The Constitution has made certain provisions to safeguard and ensure the independent and impartial functioning of a Judges-Know in detail

• A person appointed as a judge of a high court, has to make and subscribe an oath before whom?

• A judge of a high court can be removed from his office by an order of the Governor-True or False?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Recommending HC Chief Justices a shorter process when incumbents retire, longer when elevated to SC

EXPRESS NETWORK

1.5° Celsius threshold breached on 86 days this year: UN report

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story-As many as 86 days this year so far have already breached the 1.5 degree Celsius temperature threshold, as global greenhouse gas emissions scaled a record high in 2022, a new UN report stated on Monday.

• Emissions Gap Report 2023-What are the key takeaways?

• What is the emissions gap report?

• Do You Know-The report noted that with current climate policies of countries, the world was set to become warmer by at least 3 degree Celsius by the end of the century.
The world, together, emitted 57.4 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2022, a 1.2 per cent increase over the previous year and higher than the previous record achieved in 2019, according to the Emissions Gap Report, an annual publication by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) ahead of the year-ending climate change conference.
The Covid pandemic had caused a dip in global emissions in 2020, due to the abrupt shock to economic activities, but the 2021 emissions had climbed back almost to the 2019 levels.
The emissions of China and the United States, the world’s two biggest emitters, also rose in 2022, as did that of India, the third largest emitter. But the European Union, Russia and Brazil saw emissions go down a bit.
The report said that even if all the climate actions as per the current promises made by the countries were carried out with the highest ambition, global emissions in 2030 would still be at least 19 billion tonnes of CO2 equivalent higher than the level required to keep global warming within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times (the average of annual temperatures in the 1850-1900 period).
To meet this gap, global emissions would need to drop by at least 8.7 per cent every year from 2024 (instead of the 1.2 per cent rise that happened in 2022), the report said. It said the failure of the world to take early action on climate had brought it into a situation where meeting the 1.5 degree Celsius target looks extremely difficult. Even the Covid19 disruption resulted in only a 4.7 per cent drop in emissions between 2019 and 2020.
It is the long-term temperature rise that is supposed to be kept within 1.5 degree Celsius from pre-industrial times. Daily, weekly, monthly or even annual averages are expected to breach this limit, but there is still hope to pull it back.
“As highlighted in the Emissions Gap Report 2019, the underlying data from the (earlier Emission Gap) reports reveal that had serious climate action been initiated in 2010, the annual emission reductions necessary to achieve emission levels consistent with the below 2°C and 1.5°C scenarios by 2030 would have been only 0.7 per cent and 3.3 per cent on average, respectively,” it said.
“The lack of stringent emission reductions means that the required emission cuts from now to 2030 have increased significantly. To reach emission levels consistent with a below 2°C pathway in 2030, the cuts required per year are now 5.3 per cent from 2024, reaching 8.7 per cent per year on average for the 1.5°C pathway,” it said.
The impacts of inaction are already evident with the year 2023 all set to emerge as the hottest ever, overtaking the previous record of 2016. Almost every month of the year has set one or the other temperature record, with September emerging as the hottest month ever. The report noted that on 86 occasions this year, the daily mean temperature had exceeded the average of pre-industrial times by more than 1.5 degree Celsius. According to an assessment by the World Meteorological Organisation, one of the next four years is almost certain to breach the 1.5 degree Celsius threshold for the annual average as well.
The goal of the 2015 Paris Agreement is to ensure that long-term annual average temperatures do not go beyond a 2 degree Celsius increase, compared to the pre-industrial averages, and preferably be contained within 1.5 degree Celsius rise.

• Global patterns of inequality as per Emissions Gap Report 2023-what is that?

• The Emissions Gap Report 2023 highlights four fundamental areas where political action is required to mitigate global warming-Know in detail

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Emissions Gap Report 2023

EXPLAINED

Why ‘law of averages’ can’t explain India’s World Cup loss

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies IV: Ethics and Human Interface

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- As the Indian cricket team’s unprecedented dominant run came to a tame end on Sunday evening, many commentators — followers and detractors alike — blamed the result on the “law of averages”. In fact, as India approached the last few matches in the league stage, many had claimed that it may be a good thing if India lost a match at that stage instead of entering the knock-outs (which involved just two matches — the semi-final and the final) undefeated.

• What do you understand by “law of averages”?

• Did India lose the finals because of the law of averages?

• What explains the deep popular belief in the “law of averages”?

• For Your Information-While there is no such thing as the law of averages, the popular belief reflects one of the fundamental laws of statistics, albeit applied incorrectly. It is called the law of large numbers.
The formal definition of this law will most certainly put lay readers to sleep and as such, it is better understood from a real life example.
When Winston Churchill was asked if he had it all to do over, would he change anything, he replied as follows: “Yes, I wish I had played the black instead of the red at Cannes and Monte Carlo.”
Churchill was possibly alluding to an iconic incident that took place in a casino in Monte Carlo on August 18, 1913. It so happened that for several successive turns of the Roulette table, the ball repeatedly landed on “black”. To be sure, the ball could either land on a black spot or a red one. In other words, there was a fifty percent chance of the ball landing on red.
With each passing turn, gamblers around the table grew more restless and certain in equal measure, believing that the ball would land on red at the next spin. As they saw the ball land on black yet another time, they increased their stakes, guided presumably by the non-existent law of averages.
It seemed fairly reasonable to assume that the ball was due to land on red.
In the end, the ball landed on black for a record 26 times in succession. According to Darrell Huff, author of “How to take a chance”, if a player had bet one louis (about $4 at that time) when the run started and pyramided for precisely the length of the run on black, they could have taken away $268 million — a mind-boggling amount of money in 1913. But this also provides a sense of the scale of losses that gamblers racked up that day in Monte Carlo.
It is for this reason that the so-called “law of averages” is more popularly referred to as the Gambler’s Fallacy or Gambler’s Ruin in statistics.

• What is the Gambler’s Fallacy?

• Why isn’t there a guarantee that the ball will land on red after it has landed on black for 20 times on the trot?

• Why India lost and why it shouldn’t have?

• Law of averages and ethics-connect the dots

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍‘The House Always Wins’, but it wins big online: A behavioural perspective to online gambling

In building Himalayan tunnels, support and monitoring key, say experts

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change – that do not require subject specialization.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Disaster and disaster management.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- Were adequate support structures provided to prop up weak rock, and was the excavation process sufficiently monitored — experts say these are key questions to look into in the tunnel collapse in Uttarkashi, where 41 workers remain trapped since Diwali morning. The under-construction Silkyara-Barkot tunnel on the Yamunotri National Highway in Uttarakhand Uttarkashi district collapsed at dawn on November 12.

• What could have caused a part of the tunnel to cave in?

• What are the ways in which tunnels are excavated in rock?

• Does the method of excavation depend on the type of terrain?

• Is the Himalayan region too fragile to tunnel through?

• What is the key aspect of building a tunnel?

• “Tunnel construction in the Himalayas, the collapse of weak rock mass is common”-Elaborate

• What is the zone of sheering?

• How is a shear boundary formed?

• For Your Information-Shantanu Sarkar, who retired as chief scientist from CBRI Roorkee, and heads the expert committee, told The Indian Express: “We need data to see why it happened. We will have to see whether any measures were taken — there was a shear zone, but they seem to have already crossed it. They had already placed some primary lining and moved ahead. It is not that they have only excavated to the point where the tunnel collapsed. So, we don’t know why this has happened.
“Identification of the weak zone happens during geological mapping before excavation. These zones are visible at the top, and accordingly they design. The question is whether they took the right protection measures. Periodic monitoring is also very important, since there is always a possibility of geological surprise,” he said.
Shear zones, Sarkar said, are commonly encountered.
“Geologically, there are faults or weak/ shear zones, where there is stress accumulation. Material along the shear zone is loose, pulverised. When a tunnel is excavated or a road is being built in the mountains, you’re destabilising the slope — so, that needs to be studied and protection measures need to be designed and taken. It’s not about avoiding the zone, but taking protection measures and strengthening it using steel ribs, rock bolts, or shotcrete. It needs to be seen if the contractor was following this, and whether it was being monitored. Monitoring should be done periodically with instrumentation and sensors, so that if there is any displacement, it can be recorded,” he said.

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Expert Explains: What led to the Uttarakhand tunnel collapse — and how it could have been avoided

📍The 360° UPSC Debate| Himalayan States: Environmental concerns vs development

For any queries and feedback, contact priya.shukla@indianexpress.com
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