InstaLinks : help you think beyond the issue but relevant to the issue from UPSC prelims and Mains exam point of view. These linkages provided in this ‘hint’ format help you frame possible questions in your mind that might arise(or an examiner might imagine) from each current event. InstaLinks also connect every issue to their static or theoretical background. This helps you study a topic holistically and add new dimensions to every current event to help you think analytically
1. There are no poor people, only people in poor places
Content for Mains Enrichment (Ethics/Essay)
1. Why didn’t Gandhi ever win the Nobel Prize for Peace?
2. Denmark in the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar
2. Panel to study the status of Dalits post-conversion
3. Procedure for appointment of the CJI
5. Agri-credit societies to be set up in all panchayats,
6. GJ: Modhera- first solar-powered village
8. SIPRI study on self-reliance in defence production
Syllabus: Significance of Agriculture Sector in Economy, Employment & Unemployment in India.
Directions: This is taken from the editorial section of Indian Express. Go through it once, you can use it for value addition.
Context: Recently Chile rejected a draft utopian constitution — giving free housing, a number of rights and freebies that would have led to huge government debt.
In this context, what is needed is not freebies and guaranteed employment but better wages. And wages will not rise without balanced targeting of policy-induced price distortions.
State governments must sustainably create high-paying jobs by raising the productivity of five places i.e. states, cities, sectors, firms, and skills where the country’s wage differentials reflect massive productivity differences.
Other reforms needed for the Indian economy are:
Q. Do you think there should be a law to ensure minimum wages applicable to all employees across that country including sector-specific minimum wages for industrial workers? Comment (15M)
Danish Football Association (DBU) wants to minimise activity in Qatar as part of protests against Qatar’s poor human rights record :
A 2021 Amnesty report that said thousands of migrant workers (mostly from India, Pakistan and Nepal) in Qatar were still being exploited while working in the construction of stadiums and other World Cup-related infrastructure.
Context: The first week of October is said to mark the 200th anniversary of the completion of the Basilica of Our Lady of Graces. It was constructed in 1822 by Begum Samru, a woman of humble origins that came to be popularly known as the only Catholic queen of India.
Begum Samru (1750s – 1836) was a figure that defied any fixed identity. She was a Muslim who converted to Catholicism, a nautch-girl (dancing girl) who became a warrior and an aristocrat, and was described by her contemporaries as dressing more like a man than a woman, sporting a dark turban and ever-puffing away at a hookah.
Direction: This is a continuation of the 6th Oct article on the same issue.
Context: The government has set up a 3 member commission headed by former CJI K.G Balakrishnan to study the possibility of according SC status to Dalits who have converted to religions other than Buddhism and Sikhism.
The law in the present form:
Why are Dalit Christians excluded?
The First Backward Classes Commission (Kalekar Commission) observed that discrimination on the basis of caste exists even after members of such a caste have converted to another religion.
Context: The government has formally asked CJI U U Lalit, who is to retire shortly, to name his successor.
How is the CJI chosen?
Context: RBI will soon commence limited pilot launches of e-rupee, or central bank digital currency (CBDC), for specific use cases.
e-rupee is akin to sovereign paper currency but in digital form, exchangeable at par with the existing currency and will be accepted as a medium of payment, legal tender and a safe store of value.
Benefits of CBDC: Bring a cultural shift towards virtual currency by reducing currency handling costs, universal access, easier Cross-Border Payments, and greater financial Inclusion.
Challenges: There are privacy Concerns (RBI may hold data on the individual use of user transactions), the digital divide, low financial literacy, Faster obsolescence of technology, etc.
Context: The co-operation ministry is working on a plan to set up multi-purpose PACS in panchayats over the next five years in order to promote various cooperative activities at the grassroots level.
Primary Agricultural Credit Society (PACS): It is a village-level institution that works directly with rural residents. It encourages agriculturists to save, accepts deposits from them, makes loans to deserving borrowers, and collects repayments.
Q. Consider the following statements: (UPSC CSE 2020)
1. In terms of short-term credit delivery to the agriculture sector, District Central Cooperative Banks (DCCBs) deliver more credit in comparison of Scheduled Commercial Banks are Regional Rural Banks
2. One of the most important functions of DCCBs is to provide funds to the Primary Agricultural Credit Societies.
Which of the statements given above is/are correct?
Context: PM will declare Modhera in Mehsana (Gujarat) as the country’s first round-the-clock solar-powered village
During the day time, the village will get solar power and at night, it will be powered by BESS (Battery Energy Storage System).
Modhera is known for Sun Temple. It was built after 1026-27 CE during the reign of Bhima I of the Chaulukya dynasty.
Context: Ladakh government along with the IIA (Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA)) and India’s Scientific Ministries is laying the groundwork to have Hanle declared as an International Dark Sky Reserve by the International Dark-Sky Association.
A dark-sky reserve is an area, usually surrounding a park or observatory, that restricts artificial light pollution. The purpose of the dark-sky movement is generally to promote astronomy and avoid interference during astronomical observations.
The International Dark Sky Association is a U.S.-based non-profit that designates places as International Dark Sky Places, Parks, Sanctuaries and Reserves, depending on the criteria they meet.
Context: India ranks fourth among 12 Indo-Pacific nations in self-reliant arms production capabilities, according to a study released this month by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
SIPRI (est. In 1966) is an independent international institute dedicated to research into conflict, armaments, arms control and disarmament.
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