UPSC Key-July 20, 2022: Why you should read ‘Twiplomacy’ or ‘Violence’ or ‘Citizens and Aliens’ for UPSC CSE

Rupee falls below 80 against dollar, raises worries over imported inflation

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Mains Examination: General Studies III: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- Raising concerns over high imported inflation, the rupee Tuesday fell below the psychological level of 80 to 80.05 against the US dollar intra-day amid tightening monetary conditions and risk-off sentiments as well as persistent outflows from domestic markets.

• What is the rupee exchange rate?

• Why is the rupee down?

• Why are the rupee-dollar exchange rate and forex reserves falling?

• What will be the effect on the economy?

• What is Currency depreciation?

• What do you understand by Rupee depreciation?

• Appreciation vs Depreciation of Currency-Compare and Contrast

• What is Devaluation of Currency? Depreciation and Devaluation both are same?

• What are the reasons for Current Depreciation of Indian Rupee?

• What will be the impact, and will exporters benefit?

• How RBI has been intervening from time to time to contain the volatility in rupee?

• Should policymakers prevent the fall?

• What should policymakers do?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍What `80 to a dollar means

📍SBI chairman: Artificial intervention doesn’t work

📍Trusting the rupee

📍RUPEE@80

THE CITY

DSP killing puts illegal mining back in focus, Haryana plans steps to end menace for good

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. 

Main Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- A 57-year-old deputy superintendent of police (DSP) posted in Haryana’s Nuh district was run over by a dumper truck carrying stones during a raid to check illegal mining in Tauru on Tuesday afternoon, said officials.

• Can you recall similar case in Morena (Madhya Pradesh) where an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Narendra Kumar Singh, was killed by members of the mining mafia in 2012?

• The mining industry in India-Know in detail

• How illegal mining harms the country be it economically, politically and administratively -Brainstorm

• How environment is affected by the illegal mining?

• What are the challenges faced by a policer officer to control illegal mining?

• Illegal mining and Political Nexus-Do you agree with the same?

• Do you Know- According to a 2018 report by the Supreme Court-appointed Central Empowered Committee (CEC), illegal mining has destroyed 25% of the Aravalli range in Rajasthan since 1967-68.

• Supreme Court on illegal mining-Know in detail

• Map Work-Aravalli hills

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Aravallis broken beyond repair

EXPRESS NETWORK

Over 3.9 L Indians gave up citizenship in past 3 yrs to settle abroad: govt data

Syllabus:

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

Main Examination: General Studies II: Indian Constitution—historical underpinnings, evolution, features, amendments, significant provisions and basic structure.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- More than 3.9 lakh Indians have renounced their citizenship in the past three years, the government told the Parliament on Tuesday, with America emerging as the top choice among 103 countries where the emigrants settled.

• Who are ‘Citizens’?

• Citizens and Aliens-compare and contrast in terms of civil and political rights

• What are those rights and privileges that the Constitution of India confers on the citizens of India and denies the same to aliens?

• For Your Information-The Constitution deals with the citizenship from Articles 5 to 11 under Part II.

• The Citizenship Act of 1955 prescribes five ways of acquiring citizenship-Know them in detail

• The Citizenship Act, 1955, prescribes three ways of losing citizenship-What are they?

• Why do people renounce citizenship?

• Why do people choose certain specific countries when they leave India?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Explained: Why do people give up their Indian citizenship, and where do they go?

Govt in LS: No plan to bring down fisheries subsidies

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Economic and Social Development-Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector Initiatives, etc.

Main Examination: General Studies III: Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- Amid apprehension that there would be curbs on fishing subsidies following the WTO Geneva Package agreements, the Centre on Tuesday clarified in Lok Sabha that it has “no plan to bring down fisheries subsidies in the country.”

• Fishing Industry in India-Know present scenario of Indian fisheries

• Marine fisheries in India vs Inland fisheries in India-compare and contrast

• Do You Know-According to the Central Marine Fisheries Research Institute (CMFRI), as per Census 2016, the country’s marine fisherfolk population is 3.77 million, comprising approximately 0.90 million families. Nearly 67.3 per cent of these families were in the below poverty line (BPL) category.

• What is the WTO and the Ministerial Conference

• The WTO’s 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12)- Know the outcome of key trade initiatives

• Twelfth ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS)-Know in detail

• Why Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) is first-of-its-kind?

• Know the significance of the adoption of Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS)

• Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) and Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.6-connect the dots

• Agreement on Fisheries Subsidies (AFS) prohibits three kinds of subsidies. What are they?

• What is India’s demand on overcapacity and over-fishing (OCOF)?

• What Comprehensive Marine Fishing Policy of 2004 headed by Dr. B. MeenaKumari and the existing Guidelines for deep-sea Fishing in the Exclusive economic zones says about fisheries subsidies?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Dr. B. Meenakumari Committee Report on Fishing is Submitted

📍Explained: The key takeaways from the 12th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organization

Projects near LoC, those of strategic value won’t need green light

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: General issues on Environmental ecology, Bio-diversity and Climate Change

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

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- The Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change has notified amendment to the Environment Impact Assessment (EIA) Rules, exempting highway projects of strategic and defence importance, which are 100 km from the Line of Control, among other locations, from an environmental clearance before construction.

• What do you understand by the term ‘Environmental Impact Assessment’ (EIA)?

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and Environment Protection Act, 1986-How they are related with each other?

• Why Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is Important?

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and India-connect the Dots

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Rules Amendment, 2006-Key features

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) notification 2020-Key Highlights

• Environmental Impact Assessment-Achievements, Issues and Challenges

• Supreme court of India on Environment Impact Assessment (ex-post facto environmental clearance)

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍UPSC Ethics Simplified: What is Environmental Ethics?

📍Explained: Reading the draft Environment Impact Assessment norms, and finding the red flags

EXPRESS NETWORK

SC to hear woman’s plea to terminate 23-week pregnancy

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. 

Main Examination: General Studies II: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- The Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to hear an urgent plea by a 25-year-old woman seeking permission to terminate her 23-week pregnancy. The plea comes three days after the Delhi High Court refused to allow termination of the pregnancy.

• The Medical Termination of Pregnancy Act, 1971 and The new Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021-Compare and Contrast

• Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021-Know the key provisions

• What is ‘Gestation’?

• Significance and importance of Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021?

• Issues and Challenges associated with Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act 2021?

• The constitutional right of women to make reproductive choices in India-Know Supreme court of India’s verdict

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍UPSC ethics simplified: abortion rights vs ethics

EXPLAINED

Pythagorean geometry in Vedic-era texts, centuries before Pythagoras

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance. 

Main Examination: General Studies I: Indian culture will cover the salient aspects of Art Forms, literature and Architecture from ancient to modern times.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What’s the ongoing story- A position paper by the Karnataka government on the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020, uploaded recently, has revived discussion on something that has long been known to historians of mathematics.

• Did Pythagoras exist, and what is the theorem named after him?

• How do we know that Indian mathematicians from the Vedic period knew this?

• Did Indian mathematicians prove the equation?

• How did knowledge of the equation evolve?

• How relevant is the discussion on whether the Indians or Pythagoras knew the equation first?

• What do you understand by the term ‘Ethnocentrism’?

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Question Pythagoras theorem and trim ‘Eurocentric’ concepts, observes the position paper of Karnataka’s NEP 2020

THE IDEAS PAGE

Numbed by violence

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies IV: Emotional intelligence-concepts, and their utilities and application in administration and governance.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What is violence in ethics?

• Does Aristotle believe in violence?

• Why violence cannot be justified on any ground or in any situation?

• “When there is only a choice between cowardice and violence, I would advise violence,”- Why Mahatma Gandhi preferred violence to cowardice?

• “Violence has exposed itself in all spheres of human experience, in the form of abuse, threat, intimidation, instigation, manipulation, assault and killing”-Elaborate

• According to the author, “there is very little ambiguity about the “why” and “how” behind the violence”-What you have interpreted by this statement?

• “Violence is always evaluated hierarchically. The physical placed right on top of the pile”-Analyse this statement

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Finding Gandhi today

The art of Twitter diplomacy

Syllabus:

Preliminary Examination: Current events of national and international importance.

Main Examination: General Studies II: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests.

Key Points to Ponder:

• What is ‘Twitter Diplomacy or Twiplomacy’?

• According to authors of this article, the External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar mostly tweets frequently in languages other than English-what does this tell us about the current government’s outlook on foreign policy?

• “The government sees foreign policy as a tool with domestic political implications”-what have you understood by this statement?

• According to the authors, “The lessons we derive from the Indian case have universal implications”-What have you
understood by this statement?

• ‘Politicisation of foreign policy’-Know the merits and demerits

• Diplomacy over Twitter-Advantages and Disadvantages

Other Important Articles Covering the same topic:

📍Twitter Diplomacy: A Brief Analysis

 

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