IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-01

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Crime against women increases in Hyderabad, overall crime rate dips

News

• The Hyderabad Police has recorded an overall reduction in crimes by 3 per cent in 2019, as compared to the previous year. As the number of rape cases recorded a decline by 16 per cent, crime against women, however, reported did not witness any significant change.

Crime against women

• In incidents of crime against women, a slight rise was seen in cases that were reported in 2019 with 2305 cases when compared to last year which recorded 2286 cases reported. Cases relating to outraging the modesty of a woman and dowry deaths saw a significant increase by 21 per cent and 11 per cent respectively.
• The Bharosa Centre recorded an increase in POCSO cases, from 305 cases in 2018 to 329 cases in 2019.
• The city police achieved a conviction rate of 42 per cent from 34 per cent in 2018.
• The police revealed that there are 3,21,938 CCTV cameras in the city, 60,683 of which were added in 2019. In 4,216 cases, the CCTV footage was key to the investigation.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-02

Explained: Significance of Iran, China, Russia holding joint naval drill in Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman

News

• Iran, China and Russia began a joint naval exercise in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Oman, in what is being seen as a response to recent US manoeuvers in the region.
• The four-day exercise has been launched from the port city of Chabahar in southeastern Iran. The Chabahar port, which is near Iran’s border with Pakistan, was built with Indian assistance and is operated by India.

Significance

• The Gulf of Oman, where the exercise is being held, is a critical waterway as it connects the Arabian Sea to the Strait of Hormuz, a 33-km wide passage which opens into the Persian Gulf located between energy producers Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Oman (the exclave of Musandam), and the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
• A fifth of the world’s oil passes through this waterway around 30% of all sea-borne crude oil globally.
• Since 2019, it has been a focal point of global tensions. In May and June, several international merchant vessels were attacked by unidentified assailants. The US blamed Iran for the attacks, a charge that Tehran denied. In July, Iran detained a British oil vessel, the Stena Impero, for two months, believed to be in retaliation for an Iranian oil carrier that British authorities detained at Gibraltar earlier in the same month.
• Tensions rapidly escalated in September, when the US accused Iran of carrying out drone attacks on oil fields in Saudi Arabia. The attacks had immediately reduced Saudi Arabia’s oil production by half (5% of global oil production), until the affected facilities returned to full capacity by the end of the month. Iran denied the allegations, and the responsibility was claimed by Yemen’s Houthi rebels.
• Since the attack, the US sent a number of its troops to the region, and provided Saudi Arabia with missile defence systems.
• Under President Trump, Washington last year withdrew from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal and reimposed sanctions on Tehran. The US has since pushed for Iranian energy sales to be cut off, crippling Iran’s economy.
• The three-nation drill is expected to further provoke Washington. A guided missile destroyer from China, and a frigate, tanker and rescue tug boat from Russia would be taking part. Moscow has called it an unprecedented exercise in naval cooperation and training.

Explained: Atal Bhujal Yojana — Why a scheme for groundwater

News

• Prime Minister launched the Atal Bhujal Yojana, or Atal Jal, a day after the Cabinet approved it.
• Atal Jal is a World Bank-funded, central scheme aimed at improving groundwater management. It was approved by the World Bank Board in June 2018.
• The idea first came up in 2015, in view of depleting groundwater resources. The government announced its intention to start a programme for management of groundwater resources in the Budget of 2016-17, with an estimated cost of about Rs 6,000 crore.

Scarcity of water in India

• India accounts for 16 per cent of the world’s population living in less than 2.5 per cent of the global area, and has just 4 per cent of the global water resources.
• According to the Central Water Commission (CWC), the estimated water resources potential of the country, which occurs as natural runoff in the rivers, is 1,999 billion cubic metres. Of this, the estimated utilisable resources are 1,122 billion cubic metres per year 690 BCM per year surface water and 432 BCM per year replenishable groundwater.
• With the population rising, demand for water will increase manifold in coming years. According to the CWC, per capita availability in the country will decrease from 1,434 cubic metres in 2025 to 1,219 cubic metres in 2050.
• By CWC benchmarks, a water-stressed condition happens when per capita availability is less than 1,700 cubic metres, and a water-scarcity condition when per capita availability falls below 1,000 cubic metres.
• Some river basins are facing a water-scarcity condition..

Groundwater situation in particular

• According to a report, the annual replenishable groundwater resources in India (2017) are 432 BCM, out of which 393 BCM is the annual “extractable” groundwater availability.
• Fifteen states account for about 90 per cent of the groundwater potential in the country.
• Uttar Pradesh accounts for 16.2 per cent, followed by Madhya Pradesh (8.4%), Maharashtra (7.3%), Bihar (7.3%), West Bengal (6.8%), Assam (6.6%), Punjab (5.5%) and Gujarat (5.2%). The current annual groundwater extraction is 249 BCM, the largest user being the irrigation sector.
• Compared to the decadal average for 2009-18, there has been a decline in the groundwater level in 61% of wells monitored by the Central Ground Water Board (CGWB.
• The CGWB has classified the country’s assessment units (blocks, taluks, mandals etc) into safe, semi-critical and over-exploited in terms of groundwater resources. The number of over-exploited units has increased to 1,186 in 2017, from 839 in 2004.

Atal Bhujal Yojana

• For now, the Atal Bhujal Yojana will be implemented in seven states- Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Rajasthan and UP over five years from 2020-21 to 2024-25.
• It is expected that it will benefit about 8,350 gram panchayats in 78 districts. According to Jal Shakti Ministry sources, if the scheme meets its objectives in water-stressed areas, it will be extended to other parts of the country.
• The focus will be on arresting the rate of decline of groundwater levels as well as water consumption. The scheme will seek to strengthen the institutional framework and bring about behavioural changes at community level for sustainable groundwater resource management. It envisages community-led Water Security Plans.
• There has been a Groundwater Management and Regulation scheme to manage the country’s groundwater resources since 2013. The new scheme is an updated and modified version. Concepts such as ‘Water User Associations’ and Water Budgeting will be introduced. Better performing districts and panchayats will get more funds.
• Of the Rs 6,000 crore, Rs 3,000 crore will be contributed by the World Bank as loan while the other half will be provided by the central government in the form of central assistance. All of it the World Bank component and central assistance will be given to the states as grants.

IASTODAY DAILY CAPSULES -General Studies-03

Explained: BrahMos missile’s latest upgrades

News

• Last week, the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) carried out two successful tests of the latest variant of the BrahMos missile, one from the land platform and the other from air. BrahMos, developed through a collaboration between India and Russia, is one of the most advanced weapons in India’s armoury.

The missile

• BrahMos is a cruise missile, meaning it can be guided towards a pre-determined land- or sea-based target. With a capability to attain speeds 2.8 times that of sound (Mach 2.8), BrahMos is classified as supersonic cruise missile. A newer version under development is aimed at flying at speeds greater than Mach 5. These are called hypersonic cruise missiles.
• Decreasing the reaction time of the enemy, higher speeds also substantially reduce the chances of the missile getting intercepted.
• An amalgam of the names of the rivers Brahmaputra and Moskva, BrahMos is being produced by BrahMos Aerospace, a joint venture company set up by DRDO and Mashinostroyenia of Russia in 1998.
• The first version of the BrahMos supersonic cruise missile was inducted into the Indian Navy in 2005, meant to be fired from INS Rajput.
• While the missile has been in India’s arsenal for long, it is continuously upgraded and updated with new hardware and software. This is what necessitates periodic tests of the missile.
• DRDO scientists said that in every such exercise of a specific variant of BrahMos, different parameters are put to test. Additional hardware and software systems are tested based on the inputs from the user, against more complex targets, and under different atmospheric conditions. The test results and observations are important for future analysis and further advancement.

Air-based test

• • One of the tests was carried out from air, using the Sukhoi-30 MKI fighter jets of the Indian Air Force as the base. The missile destroyed a target at sea. This was the third air-based test of the missile and marked the completion of the integration of BrahMos missile with the Sukhoi-30 MKI aircraft.
  • In November 2017, the Indian Air Force had become the first in the world to successfully air-launch a Mach 2.8 supersonic surface-attack missile of this category from a fighter jet. It had destroyed an at sea-target in the Bay of Bengal at that time.
  • This year, on May 22, an air-launch was tested again, this time against a land-based target in the Car Nicobar Islands region.
  • The BrahMos Air-Launched Cruise Missile (ALCM), has been a significant addition in IAF’s air combat capability from stand-off ranges.
  • Stand-off range missiles are ones that are launched at a distance sufficient to allow an attacking party to evade defensive fire expected from the target area.
  • Last test has again validated the ship attack capability of the ALCM. During the test, the missile was gravity-dropped from the fuselage of a Su-30 and the two-stage missile’s engine fired up. Subsequently, the missile propelled towards a target ship at the sea, destroying it with pinpoint accuracy.
  • The successful testing of air-platform of BrahMos has further strengthened the tactical cruise missile triad land, sea and air for India.

Amid low tax revenues, minority stake sales and privatisation set to dominate disinvestment agenda

News

• Even as the government pursued aggressive disinvestment in the last five years, this year was characterised by a clear shift towards privatisation of key state-owned companies, with the Centre planning to exit them fully along with transfer of management control.

Privatisation

• Going forward, privatisation along with minority stake sales will impart momentum to the disinvestment programme. This has become crucial in balancing the fiscal position of the government in the wake of slack in tax revenues.
• The government has cleared plans for complete sale of its equity in BPCL, Shipping Corporation of India Ltd and Air India, while approving majority stake sale in Container Corporation of India Ltd (CONCOR) along with transfer of management control.
• It has also given in-principle approval to pare down its stake in select central public sector enterprises (CPSEs) to below 51 per cent while retaining management control.
• Even as the execution of privatisation proposals may spill over to next year, the government exiting from non-core business has been seen as a key positive by industry.
• In this year’s Budget, the government has set a disinvestment target of Rs 1,05,000 crore compared with Rs 80,000 crore in 2018-19.
• Apart from IPOs and minority stake sales, privatisation will drive the disinvestment targets of the Centre. In BPCL, the government will sell its 53.29 per cent holding, and in Shipping Corporation of India the stake sale will be 63.75 per cent. In CONCOR, the government will sell 30.8 per cent out of its total stake of 54.8 per cent.
• The Centre wants to retain its 24 per cent stake in CONCOR given its importance in the railway sector, but will transfer entire management control to a private player since its remaining stake will be below the critical threshold of 26 per cent. As for the unlisted Air India, the government has decided to sell 100 per cent of its stake in the loss making state-owned carrier a move that could attract investor interest.
• Privatisation of these companies in near future could set a precedent for the Centre to exit other non-core areas as well as land and properties across the country.

RBI to buy, sell Rs 10,000 crore of G-Secs via OMOs on Monday

News

• As part of its ‘Operation Twist’, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced the simultaneous purchase and sale of long-tenor and short-tenor government securities (G-secs), respectively, worth Rs 10,000 crore each, which will take place on Monday.

Operation Twist’

• The open market operations (OMOs) to be conducted by the banking regulator will be the second in the series as was expected by market participants, who anticipate at least Rs 50,000 crore of OMOs.
• In the latest round of Operation Twist, which takes its name from the monetary policy tool used by the US Federal Reserve, the RBI is again targeting the 10-year benchmark bonds or the 6.45 per cent yielding notes maturing in 2029 by deciding to purchase Rs 10,000 crore of the papers thereby reducing their supply in the market.
• At the same time, the RBI is looking to sell short-dated securities maturing in 2020 worth Rs 10,000 crore.

Floods in north India killed over 1,900 people this year, displaced over 3 million: Report

News

• Floods in north India killed 1,900 people this year and forced more than three million out of their homes, according to a new report, which said these weather events reflected trends being driven by climate change.

Climate change

• The global report released said the extreme weather events, like cyclone Fani, led to damages of about USD10 billion and uprooted 10 million trees in the country.
• Cyclone Fani was the strongest storm to make landfall in India in over 20 years, hitting India and Bangladesh from May 2 to 4, 2019 with wind speeds up to 200 km/h and led to storm surges of 1.5 metre.
• It said the floods reflect trends that are being driven by climate change which makes extreme rainfall more common.
• One reason for this is that an atmosphere that is warmer can hold more water vapour. The world has so far heated about 1°C since preindustrial times and, around the world, heavy rainfall has increased.
• It said that in north India, rainstorms have become 50 per cent more common and 80 per cent longer.
• The trend of more unpredictable and extreme rainfall in India reflects what climate scientists predict will happen due to climate change, particularly if emissions do not fall. Another study found that monsoon rainfall will become more unpredictable, with variability increasing up to 50 per cent this century if emissions continue to rise.
• The report also said that besides displacing 3.4 million people, Cyclone Fani, which hit India and Bangladesh, uprooted more than 10 million trees in India.
• Cyclone Fani reflected the consequences of climate change in several ways, warmer ocean waters increased the energy available to it, allowing it to build strength, and warmer air temperatures allowed it to hold and then drop more water while sea-level rise increased the storm surge.

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