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2. Conserving Marine Resources
Reference News:-
Government of India has undertaken
several initiatives focusing on the
conservation of coastal and marine
resources through implementation of law
and continuous monitoring.
 The Wild Life Protection Act of India (1972) provides legal protection to many
marine animals. There are total of 31 major Marine Protected Areas in India
covering coastal areas that have been notified under Wildlife Protection Act, 1972.
 The National Committee on mangroves, wetlands and coral reefs constituted in
1993 advice the Government on relevant policies and programmes regarding
marine species.
 The Coastal Regulation Zone (CRZ) notification (1991 and later versions) prohibit
developmental activities and disposal of wastes in the fragile coastal ecosystems.
 The Biological Diversity Act of India, 2002 and the Biological Diversity Rules 2004,
and the guidelines thereof advise the Government on matters related to the
protection and conservation of biodiversity, sustainable use and equitable sharing
of its components, Intellectual Property Rights, etc.
 Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY): for sustainable and responsible
development of fisheries sector in India. Two of the key objectives of the scheme
are (a) harnessing of fisheries potential in a sustainable, responsible, inclusive and
equitable manner and (b) Robust fisheries management and regulatory framework.
 The Centre for Marine Living Resources and Ecology (CMLRE), an attached office of
Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES) is mandated with the management strategies
development for marine living resources through ecosystem monitoring and
modelling activities.
 Involvement of local communities is often seen as an integral part of preserving the
marine resources. CMLRE is implementing a national R&D programme on Marine
Living Resources (MLR) with an inbuilt component on Societal Services to support
the fisher folks of Lakshadweep Islands. The societal services initiative intends to
enhance the ornamental and baitfish stocks in the wild. Under the program, CMLRE
has organised a series of hands on trainings on “Marine ornamental fish breeding
and rearing at Lakshadweep Islands”.
 Under the Pradhan Mantri Matsya Sampada Yojana (PMMSY) scheme of
Department of Fisheries, there are provisions for encouraging sustainable marine
fisheries activities, development of fisheries management plans, development of
Integrated Modern Coastal Fishing Villages, promotion of Sagar Mitra, installation
of bio-toilets in fishing vessels, communication and tracking devices, livelihood

3. support during fish ban period to fisher families etc. for conservation of fisheries
resources.
SVAMITVA Scheme
Aim: To provide the ‘Record of Rights’ to
village household owners possessing houses in
inhabited areas in villages with issuance of
legal ownership rights (Property cards/Title
deeds).
 The plan is to survey all rural properties
using drones and prepare GIS based
maps for each village.
 Data related to property details will be owned by the State Revenue Department as
it has the authority to mutate the Right of Records (RoRs) and update the maps.
Hence, the State Revenue Department will be the owner/host of this data and
others will have a right to view.
 So far 29 States, including State of Uttar Pradesh, have signed MoU with SoI.
Implemented By:
 Ministry of Panchayati Raj
 Survey of India (SoI)
 State Revenue Department
 State Panchayati Raj Department
 National Informatics Centre
What is the benefit of issuing a SVAMITVA property card?
 Access Credit & Benefits: It will enable rural households to use their property as a
financial asset for taking loans and other financial benefits.
 Tax Collection: The database will help in determination of property tax, which
would accrue to the Gram Panchayats directly in states where they are empowered
to collect such taxes
 Enhances Liquidity of assets: The cards will help increase liquidity of land
parcels in the market and increase the financial credit availability to the village.
 Developmental Planning: The scheme will also pave the way for creation of
accurate land records for rural planning. All the property records and maps will be
available at Gram Panchayat, which will help in taxation of villages, construction
permits, elimination of encroachments, etc.

4. How are MPs’ questions allowed, disallowed?
Reference News:-
Congress Whip Jairam Ramesh has raised the
issue of Cabinet ministers not responding to
questions in the Rajya Sabha claiming it to be
first such incident in 70 years.
MPs’ right to question:
In both Houses, elected members enjoy the right to seek information from various
ministries and departments in the form of starred questions, unstarred questions, short
notice questions and questions to private members.
How are questions admitted?
 Usually, MPs’ questions form a long list, which then go through a rigorous process
of clearance.
 The admissibility of questions in Rajya Sabha is governed by Rules 47-50 of the
Rules of Procedure and Conduct of Business in the Council of States.
 Once a question that fulfils the conditions of admissibility is received, the
Secretariat sends it to the ministry concerned. Once the facts are received from the
ministry, the question is further examined for admissibility.
 A final list of questions is circulated to ministers, on the basis of which they frame
their answers.
What are starred, unstarred and other categories of questions?
STARRED QUESTION: The member desires an oral answer from the minister. Such a
question is distinguished by the MP with an asterisk. The answer can also be followed by
supplementary questions from members.
UNSTARRED QUESTION: The MP seeks a written answer, which is deemed to be laid on
the table of the House by the concerned minister.
SHORT NOTICE QUESTION: These are on an urgent matter of public importance, and an
oral answer is sought. A notice of less than 10 days is prescribed as the minimum period
for asking such a question.
QUESTION TO PRIVATE MEMBER: A question can be addressed to a private member
under Rule 40 of Lok Sabha’s Rules of Procedure, or under Rule 48 of Rajya Sabha’s Rules,
provided that the question deals with a subject relating to some Bill, resolution or other
matter for which that member is responsible.
What kind of questions can be asked?
 In Rajya Sabha, among various norms, the question “shall be pointed, specific and
confined to one issue only; it shall not bring in any name or statement not strictly
necessary to make the question intelligible; if it contains a statement the member
shall make himself responsible for the accuracy of the statement; it shall not

5. contain arguments, inferences, ironical expressions, imputations, epithets or
defamatory statements”.
 In Lok Sabha, questions that are not admitted include: those that are repetitive or
have been answered previously; and matters that are pending for judgment before
any court of law or under consideration before a Parliamentary Committee.
What are detention centres for foreigners?
Reference News:-
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) recently
informed the Rajya Sabha that it does not
maintain a centralised data on the total number
of detention centres in the country, as powers
have been delegated to the State governments
“to make necessary arrangements for detention
centres/camps as per their requirement.”
What are detention centres?
They are places designated to keep illegal migrants (people who have entered a country
without necessary documents) once they are detected by the authorities till the time
their nationality is confirmed and they are deported to the country of their origin.
 Detention centres were set up in Assam after the Union government authorized the
state to do so under the provisions of the Foreigners’ Act, 1946 and the
Foreigners Order, 1948.
Foreigners Act, 1946:
It replaced the Foreigners Act, 1940 conferring wide powers to deal with all foreigners.
The act empowered the government to take such steps as are necessary to prevent
illegal migrants including the use of force.
The concept of ‘burden of proof’ lies with the person, and not with the authorities.
 The act originally empowered the government to establish tribunals which
would have powers similar to those of a civil court.
 Amendments (2019) to the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order, 1964 empowered
even district magistrates in all States and Union Territories to set up tribunals to
decide whether a person staying illegally in India is a foreigner or not.
Who is a declared foreigner?
A declared foreigner, or DF, is a person marked by Foreigners’ Tribunal (FT) for
allegedly failing to prove their citizenship after the State police’s Border wing marks him
or her as an illegal immigrant.
 People adjudged non-citizens are sent to detention centres.

6.  Such people are tried after the Assam police’s Border wing serve them notice on
suspicion of being foreigners.
What is a Foreigners tribunal?
Foreigners’ Tribunals are quasi-judicial bodies established as per the Foreigners’
Tribunal Order, 1964 and the Foreigners’ Act, 1946.
Composition: Advocates not below the age of 35 years of age with at least 7 years of
practice (or) Retired Judicial Officers from the Assam Judicial Service (or) Retired IAS of
ACS Officers (not below the rank of Secretary/Addl. Secretary) having experience in
quasi-judicial works.
Who can setup these tribunals?
The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has amended the Foreigners (Tribunals) Order,
1964, and has empowered district magistrates in all States and Union Territories to
set up tribunals (quasi-judicial bodies) to decide whether a person staying illegally in
India is a foreigner or not.
 Earlier, the powers to constitute tribunals were vested only with the Centre.
Who can approach?
The amended order (Foreigners (Tribunal) Order, 2019) also empowers individuals to
approach the Tribunals.
 Earlier, only the State administration could move the Tribunal against a suspect.
Death Penalty:
Reference News:-
The Supreme Court has made the following suggestions on the applicability and
imposition of death Penalty in its recent judgment.
 The judgement came in the rape and murder of a seven-year-old. The court
commuted the death penalty of the convict to life imprisonment.
What has the Supreme Court said?
 Trial judges should not be swayed in favour of death penalty merely because of the
dreadful nature of the crime and its harmful impact on the society. They should
equally consider the mitigating factors in favour of life imprisonment.
 The judgment referred to the evolution of the principles of penology. Though
capital punishment serves as a deterrent and a “response to the society’s call for
appropriate punishment in appropriate cases”, the principles of penology have
“evolved to balance the other obligations of the society, i.e., of preserving the
human life, be it of accused, unless termination thereof is inevitable and is to serve
the other societal causes and collective conscience of society”.
How should the Courts decide on capital punishment impositions?

7. In the case of Bachan Singh (1980), the Supreme Court formulated a sentencing
framework to be followed for imposing death penalty.
 It required the weighing of aggravating and mitigating circumstances relating to
both the circumstances of the offence and the offender, to decide whether a person
should be sentenced to death or given life imprisonment.
 According to the Bachan Singh judgment, for a case to be eligible for the death
sentence, the aggravating circumstances must outweigh the mitigating
circumstances.
What is collective conscience?
Collective consciousness (sometimes collective conscience or conscious) is a fundamental
sociological concept that refers to the set of shared beliefs, ideas, attitudes, and
knowledge that are common to a social group or society.
Evolution of collective conscience:
‘Collective conscience of society’ as a ground to justify death penalty was first used by the
Supreme Court in the 1983 judgment of Machhi Singh v. State of Punjab. In that case,
the court held that when “collective conscience of society is shocked, it will expect the
holders of the judicial power centre to inflict death penalty”.
 It was, however, most famously used by the top court in its 2005 judgment in the
Parliament attack case in which it awarded capital punishment to convict,
Afzal Guru.
 Collective conscience found its most recent endorsement in the 2017 judgment of
the Supreme Court in the December 2012 Delhi gang rape case of Mukesh v.
State of NCT of Delhi.
Concerns:
Can the courts allow any kind of public outcry, sense of conscience, sentiment or feeling
to even remotely influence their decisions, especially when it is a case of the death
sentence? This is even more relevant in the times that we live in, when television and
social media bombard us, creating and determining opinion.
Need of the hour:
Our Constitution is based on the principle of justice for the most marginalised,
disfranchised, oppressed, unknown, unseen and ignored. This spirit demands that law
cannot rely on or be influenced by any delusionary sense or mood of the people. We need
in judges a liberal energy and the ability to be creative human beings.
Recommendations by law commission:
The Law Commission in 2015, headed by Justice A P Shah proposed to abolish capital
punishments. However, the commission had made the proposal only to non-terrorism
cases. According to the commission, India is one among few countries that still carry out

8. executions. The other countries that practice executions include Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia,
China. By the end of 2014, 98 countries had abolished death penalty.
UN peacekeepers:
Reference News:-
UN peacekeepers and troops of the
Democratic Republic of the Congo
(DRC) have increased patrols near the site
of last week’s deadly raid on internally
displaced persons (IDPs) in northeast Ituri
province.
What’s the issue?
The UN peacekeeping mission in the DRC, known by its French acronym
as MONUSCO, recently exchanged fire with members of the Cooperative for the
Development of Congo (CODECO) militia. The clash occurred during an operation to
cordon and search in the Uzi area of Ituri province.
 The Savo attack is the latest in a string of devastating raids by CODECO on sites
for displaced people in Ituri, where ethnic tensions between the Hema and the
Lendu communities have existed for years.
How are UN Peacekeeping operations funded?
 While decisions about establishing, maintaining or expanding a peacekeeping
operation are taken by the Security Council, the financing of UN
Peacekeeping operations is the collective responsibility of all UN Member
States.
 Every Member State is legally obligated to pay their respective share towards
peacekeeping. This is in accordance with the provisions of Article 17 of the
Charter of the United Nations.
The top 5 providers of assessed contributions to United Nations Peacekeeping
operations for 2020-2021 are:
1. United States.
2. China.
3. Japan.
4. Germany.
5. United Kingdom.
What is peacekeeping? It’s significance?
 United Nations Peacekeeping is a joint effort between the Department of Peace
Operations and the Department of Operational Support.

9.  Every peacekeeping mission is authorized by the Security Council.
Composition:
1. UN peacekeepers (often referred to as Blue Berets or Blue Helmets because of
their light blue berets or helmets) can include soldiers, police officers, and civilian
personnel.
2. Peacekeeping forces are contributed by member states on a voluntary basis.
3. Civilian staff of peace operations are international civil servants, recruited and
deployed by the UN Secretariat.
UN Peacekeeping is guided by three basic principles:
1. Consent of the parties.
2. Impartiality.
3. Non-use of force except in self-defence and defence of the mandate.
UNITE AWARE:
UNITE AWARE is a mobile tech platform developed by India to provide terrain-related
information to the UN peacekeepers so as to ensure their safety. It is being developed in
partnership with the UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations and the Department of
Operational Support. India has spent 1.64 million USD for this project.
International Court of Justice (ICJ):
Reference News:-
Delivering its judgement, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has awarded the DRC
$225 million for damage to persons, which includes loss of life, rape, recruitment of
child soldiers and displacement of civilians.
 Now, Uganda must pay the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) $325 million
in reparations related to the brutal conflict between the two nations from 1998 to
2003.
What’s the issue?
The DRC initially filed the case with the ICJ in June
1999, citing acts of armed aggression perpetrated by
Uganda on its territory “in flagrant violation of the
United Nations Charter and of the Charter of the
Organization of African Unity.”
 At the height of the war, more than nine
African countries were drawn into the fighting.
 The Court ruled in December 2005 that
Uganda had to make reparation to the DRC, but
the sides could not reach agreement.

10. About ICJ:
 ICJ was established in 1945 by the United Nations charter and started working in
April 1946.
 It is the principal judicial organ of the United Nations, situated at the Peace Palace
in The Hague (Netherlands).
 Unlike the six principal organs of the United Nations, it is the only one not located
in New York (USA).
 It settles legal disputes between States and gives advisory opinions in accordance
with international law, on legal questions referred to it by authorized United
Nations organs and specialized agencies.
Structure:
 The Court is composed of 15 judges, who are elected for terms of office of nine
years by the United Nations General Assembly and the Security Council. These
organs vote simultaneously but separately.
 In order to be elected, a candidate must receive an absolute majority of the votes in
both bodies.
 In order to ensure a measure of continuity, one third of the Court is elected every
three years and Judges are eligible for re-election.
 ICJ is assisted by a Registry, its administrative organ. Its official languages are
English and French.
The 15 judges of the Court are distributed in following regions:
1. Three from Africa.
2. Two from Latin America and Caribbean.
3. Three from Asia.
4. Five from Western Europe and other states.
5. Two from Eastern Europe.
Independence of judges:
Unlike other organs of international organizations, the Court is not composed of
representatives of governments. Members of the Court are independent judges whose
first task, before taking up their duties, is to make a solemn declaration in open court that
they will exercise their powers impartially and conscientiously.
Jurisdiction and Functioning:
 ICJ acts as a world court with two fold jurisdiction i.e. legal disputes between
States submitted to it by them (contentious cases) and requests for advisory
opinions on legal questions referred to it by United Nations organs and
specialized agencies (advisory proceedings).
 Only States which are members of the United Nations and which have become
parties to the Statute of the Court or which have accepted its jurisdiction under
certain conditions, are parties to contentious cases.

11.  The judgment is final, binding on the parties to a case and without appeal (at
the most it may be subject to interpretation or, upon the discovery of a new fact,
revision).
Farm loan waiver:
Reference News:-
The Congress manifesto for the UP polls promises waiver of farm loans within 10 days
of coming to power and a subquota for the most backward classes (MBCs) within the
other backward classes (OBC) quota to ensure maximum benefits, if voted to office Uttar
Pradesh.
Background:
To help the farm sector, state governments have time and again announced loan waiver
schemes. Back in 2008-09, the then UPA government at the Centre had announced a loan
waiver scheme for the entire country. States like Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and
others have announced similar schemes in the recent past.
Drawbacks of loan waivers:
 Firstly, it covers only a tiny fraction of farmers. The loan waiver as a concept
excludes most of the farm households in dire need of relief and includes some who
do not deserve such relief on economic grounds.
 Second, it provides only a partial relief to the indebted farmers as about half of
the institutional borrowing of a cultivator is for non-farm purposes.
 Third, in many cases, one household has multiple loanseither from different
sources or in the name of different family members, which entitles it to multiple
loan waiving.
 Fourth, loan waiving excludes agricultural labourerswho are even weaker than
cultivators in bearing the consequences of economic distress.
 Fifth, it severely erodes the credit culture, with dire long-run consequences to
the banking business.
 Sixth, the scheme is prone to serious exclusion and inclusion errors, as
evidenced by the Comptroller and Auditor General’s (CAG) findings in the
Agricultural Debt Waiver and Debt Relief Scheme, 2008.
 Lastly, schemes have serious implications for other developmental
expenditure, having a much larger multiplier effect on the economy.
What needs to be done?
Proper identification: For providing immediate relief to the needy farmers, a more
inclusive alternative approach is to identify the vulnerable farmers based on certain
criteria and give an equal amount as financial relief to the vulnerable and distressed
families.

12. Enhance non- farm income: The sustainable solution to indebtedness and agrarian
distress is to raise income from agricultural activities and enhance access to non-farm
sources of income. The low scale of farms necessitates that some cultivators move from
agriculture to non-farm jobs.
Improved technology, expansion of irrigation coverage, and crop
diversification towards high-value crops are appropriate measures for raising
productivity and farmers’ income. All these require more public funding and support.
Observations made by RBI:
As per RBI, loan waivers not only inhibit investment in the farm sector but put pressure
on the fiscal of states which undertake farm loan waiver.
 In every state election during the last five years, loan waiver promise made by one
political party or other. Also, loan waivers, as the RBI has repeatedly argued, vitiate
the credit culture, and stress the budgets of the waiving state or central
government.
Way ahead:
The magic wand of a waiver can offer temporary relief, but long-term solutions are
needed to solve farmer woes. There are many dimensions of the present agrarian crisis in
India. The search for a solution therefore needs to be comprehensive by taking into
consideration all the factors that contribute to the crisis. Furthermore, both short- and
long-term measures are required to address the numerous problems associated with the
agrarian crisis.
What are mRNA vaccines?
Reference News:-
Data from human trials of India’s first
homegrown mRNA COVID-19 vaccine are
likely to be presented to authorities for
evaluation by the end of the month, and
company officials are aiming to roll out the
product before April.
 The mRNA vaccine being developed by Pune-based Gennova Biopharmaceuticals
is currently in phase 2/3 trials to evaluate the safety, tolerability and
immunogenicity of the candidate vaccine in healthy subjects.
Background:
Globally, mRNA vaccines have been at the vanguard of inoculation programmes in the
United States and Europe because they exploit recent advances in molecular
biotechnology and are said to be quicker to manufacture than older, well-established
vaccine design principles.

13. What is this technology all about?
Messenger RNA or mRNA technology works by teaching our cells to recognize and protect
us against infectious diseases. One of the challenges with this new technology is that it
must be kept cold to maintain stability during transport and storage.
What are mRNA vaccines?
mRNA vaccines trick the body into producing some of the viral proteins itself.
 They work by using mRNA, or messenger RNA, which is the molecule that
essentially puts DNA instructions into action.
 Inside a cell, mRNA is used as a template to build a protein.
How it works?
1. To produce an mRNA vaccine, scientists produce a synthetic version of the mRNA
that a virus uses to build its infectious proteins.
2. This mRNA is delivered into the human body, whose cells read it as instructions to
build that viral protein, and therefore create some of the virus’s molecules
themselves.
3. These proteins are solitary, so they do not assemble to form a virus.
4. The immune system then detects these viral proteins and starts to produce a
defensive response to them.
Significance of mRNA vaccines:
There are two parts to our immune system: innate (the defences we’re born with)
and acquired (which we develop as we come into contact with pathogens).
 Classical vaccine molecules usually only work with the acquired immune system
and the innate immune system is activated by another ingredient, called
an adjuvant.
 Interestingly, mRNA in vaccines could also trigger the innate immune
system, providing an extra layer of defence without the need to add adjuvants.
Time to relook at the Privatisation Policy
Reference News:-
There is consensus among policymakers for privatisation of public sector undertakings
(PSUs), especially in neo-liberal world order, for its ability to grow faster.
What is the reality of Privatisation?
 Performance of Privatised Firms not guranteed: The gap in growth (and service)
between PSUs with autonomy and private firms is not significant.
o For example: Studies have shown that the famed British privatisation initiative of
British Airways, British Gas, and the Railways led to no systemic difference in
performance

14. o Evidence on performance after privatisation is even more mixed in developing
countries.
 Performance may be due to other factors: Growth post-privatisation is often due to
multiple factors (for example, better funding under a private promoter versus a starved
government budget, a better business cycle). Sometimes, the difference in a PSU’s
performance is simply government apathy.
 Low Realisation of Revenues: Privatisation as a revenue source has also offered paltry
return with actual receipts from disinvestment always significantly short of targets. For
example, in FY11, ₹22,846 crore was raised against a target of ₹40,000 crore; by FY20,
₹50,304 crore was raised against a target of ₹1 lakh crore.
o In total, between FY11 and FY21, about ₹5 lakh crore was raised (that is, about
33% of just FY22’s projected fiscal deficit of ₹15.06 lakh crore.)
 Outright Privatisation has not been yielding results in India. Aside Air India, a recently
held auction of about 21 oil and gas blocks had only three firms participating, of which
two were PSUs; 18 blocks ended up with just a single bid.
 Challenge of valuation – for example, about 65% of about 300 national highway
projects have been recording significant toll collection growth (>15%, since they have
been in operation); any valuations of such assets will need to ensure they capture
potential growth in toll revenue.
 Social consequences: PSUs have been significant generators of employment in the
past, with multiplier effects – there were about 348 CPSUs in existence in 2018, with a
total investment of ₹16.4 trillion and about 10.3 lakh employees in Central PSUs (in
2019). A push for privatisation is a push for mass layoffs, in a period of low job creation.
 Concentration of public assets in select private hands: In India, about 70% of all
profits generated in the corporate sector in FY20 were with just 20 firms (in
comparison, the situation in FY93 was about 15%). Across sectors oligopoly is
emerging. Such concentration, mixed with privatisation of public assets, is likely to lead
to higher usage fees (already being seeing in telecom) and inflation, coupled with a loss
of strategic control.
Are there any alternative models for Privatisation?
1. Maruti Model
 The government had a joint venture with the Suzuki Corporation, but ceded control,
despite Suzuki having only 26% shareholding. Exits from Maruti were conducted
in small tranches, ensuring a better valuation for the government
 Empirical evidence highlights that stake sales are considered a preferred route
(about 67% of all PSU sales in about 108 countries between 1977 and 2000 were
conducted via this route), as it gives time to ensure price discovery, allowing
improved performance to raise valuations over time.

15. 2. Corporatisation of PSUs under Holding Company
 In China, for the past few decades, growth has been led by corporatised PSUs, all of
them held under a holding company (SASAC), which promotes better governance,
appoints leadership and executes mergers and acquisitions.
 In Singapore, the Ministry of Finance focuses on policymaking, while Temasek (the
holding firm) is focused on corporatising and expanding its PSUs (for example,
Singtel, PSA, Singapore Power, Singapore Airlines) towards a global scale.
 A PSU with greater autonomy, with the government retaining control via a holding
firm, can also be subject to the right incentives.
Conclusion
The time has come to take a relook at privatisation. Simply pursuing this path, while utilising
such proceeds for loan write-offs or populist giveaways in the election cycle will not do. A
hunt for immediate revenue should not overshadow the long-term interest of the ordinary
Indian.