GS-3 for UPSC IAS 2024

 General Studies-III:Technology, Economic Development, Bio diversity, Environment, Security and Disaster Management.

1) Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization of resources, growth, development and employment.

2) Inclusive growth and issues arising from it.

3) Government Budgeting.

4) Major crops cropping patterns in various parts of the country, different types of irrigation and irrigation systems, storage, transport and marketing of agricultural produce and issues and related constraints; e-technology in the aid of farmers.

5) Issues related to direct and indirect farm subsidies and minimum support prices; Public Distribution System- objectives, functioning, limitations, revamping; issues of buffer stocks and food security; Technology missions; economics of animal-rearing.

6) Food processing and related industries in India- scope and significance, location, upstream and downstream requirements, supply chain management.

7) Land reforms in India.

8) Effects of liberalization on the economy, changes in industrial policy and their effects on industrial growth.

9) Infrastructure: Energy, Ports, Roads, Airports, Railways etc.

10) Investment models.

11) Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

12) Achievements of Indians in science & technology; indigenization of technology and developing new technology.

13) Awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and issues relating to intellectual property rights.

14) Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation, environmental impact assessment.

15) Disaster and disaster management.

16) Linkages between development and spread of extremism.

17) Role of external state and non-state actors in creating challenges to internal security.

18) Challenges to internal security through communication networks, role of media and social networking sites in internal security challenges, basics of cyber security; money-laundering and its prevention.

19) Security challenges and their management in border areas; linkages of organized crime with terrorism.

20) Various Security forces and agencies and their mandate.

Current Affairs:

Circular Migration 

• Circular migration is a repetitive form of migration wherein people move to another place (the destination country) and back (country of origin) according to the availability of employment. 
• This effectively means that instead of migrating permanently or temporarily (moving for a period of time to complete any contract-based labour) to another location, people move to different locations for a brief period of time when work is available. 
• It is a phenomenon mostly among low-income groups who migrate to avail of seasonally available jobs in another country, city, place etc.

The definition

• Circular migration became quite popular in the 60s and 70s with the advent of globalisation and development. 
• Increased access to modern forms of transport and communication, social networks and the growth of multinational corporations have aided the advent of circular migration. 
• However, only recently has the phenomenon been given its due as the seasonal movement of migrants was not properly documented or was boxed along with short-term or temporary migration. 
• Yet, how exactly is circular migration different from other forms of migration?

According to Philippe Fargues, 

• migration can defined as circular if it meets the following criteria — there is a temporary residence in the destination location , there is the possibility of multiple entries into the destination country, there is freedom of movement between the country of origin and the country of destination during the period of residence, there is a legal right to stay in the destination country, there is protection of migrants’ rights, and if there is a healthy demand for temporary labour in the destination country.
• But still some doubts remain. How many times does a migrant have to move between countries to be called a circular migrant? 
• As per the report on measuring circular migration by the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Task Force, one is called a circular migrant if you have completed at least ‘two loops’ between two countries. 
• For example: Consider country A and B. If you move from A to B and back to A, then you are a return migrant. You had some work, you finished it and now you are back. If you move from A to B to A and then again to B, you have completed two loops between two countries and can be considered a circular migrant. This means you have travelled between your destination and origin country at least two times.
• This can become more complicated if more than two countries are involved. Consider one more country C. If you move from A to B then back to A and then to C and back to A, you would be a circular migrant as per country A (as you completed two loops) but not for countries B and C. They might classify you as a temporary, short-term or return migrant.

In short, if your primary destination is the country of origin and if you move periodically between two countries for purposes of economic advancement such as employment, business etc., you can be considered a circular migrant.

As public policy

• With the increasing fluid movement of people, policy around migration is one of the biggest debates in the world. The movement of citizens from the Global South to the West in search of more employment opportunities or a better standard of living creates brain drain for their origin countries and competition for the citizens of the destination countries. 
• Similarly, the flow of people moving from rural areas to more urban areas of the same country, results in the breakdown of infrastructure and agrarian stagnation. Therefore, migration of any kind has become a policy hazard.
• However, circular migration is now seen as the best way forward, as needs of development and individual economic advancement can be balanced out. 
• It is seen as a balanced migration method which looks at migration not only from the point of view of the receiving country but also of the sending nation. 
• For the country of origin, migration, especially international migration, is beneficial due to the flow of remittances which will boost and aid the domestic economy. 
• The flow of foreign capital will enhance the economy ensuring more infrastructure, more jobs and by association, a better standard of living. However, large-scale transnational migration will also lead to brain drain, wherein the most talented people of your country will use their intellect and innovation for the advancement of another country.
• From the perspective of the host countries, especially those of the West, a lesser population and a higher access to education has resulted in a large dearth of low-income low-skill jobs which migrants have been able to fill. 
• However, the influx of migrants have caused a wide range of anxieties and cultural conflicts in the host populations with most of them now calling for restrictions and outright ban on migration.

Circular migration aims to quell all these fears. 

• The negative effects of brain drain will reduce and a sort of brain circulation will be encouraged, wherein the individual can use his talents in both countries and still contribute to remittances. 
• Most importantly as Ronald Skeldon puts it in his paper, ‘Managing migration for development: is circular migration the answer?’, “circular migration offers a way out to the governments of destination countries as migrants will circulate back to their home areas. 
• Labour can be introduced to undertake essential functions but it will not remain and become a permanent part of the population.” 
• This way, he says, circular migration can be “sold” to the populations of the host countries with the claim that these labourers will eventually go home.

Circular migration within India

• In India, internal migration, which is migration within a particular country or State, has almost always been circular. 
• With the advent of jobs in the manufacturing, construction and services sector, there has been a huge flow of migrants from rural areas to urban cities. 
• Between 2004–2005 and 2011–2012, the construction sector witnessed one of the largest net increases in employment for all workers, specifically for rural males. 
• This has led to rural populations and their economy dwindling and urban spaces, while booming, witnessing infrastructural collapse as they are unable to properly house incoming populations.
• In India, the uneven development post-liberalisation, has led to a lot of inter-State migration, with States like West Bengal, Odisha and Bihar having some of the highest rates of out-migration. 
• Initially, while most of the migration was to Delhi, nowadays it has increased to southern States as well. 
• Case Study: Sudipta Sarkar and Deepak. K. Mishra take a closer look at the circular migration of rural males of West Bengal in a 2020 paper published in Sage Journals. They state that most of the rural migrants were occupied in agricultural jobs in their origin States; and when they migrated a majority of them were engaged in low-skill jobs. The positive outcomes of such inter-State migration include increased access to higher paying jobs when compared to origin States (as per Sarkar and Mishra, a daily wage labourer in West Bengal gets ₹150-180 per day, while in Kerala they would get somewhere between ₹260-380), better household welfare due to remittances, ease of mobility etc. Some reports have even stated how women get more autonomy and decision-making power in the family due to the absence of men who migrate.
• However, in such migration, especially to southern States where the language barrier is a big obstacle, rural circular migrants are often at the mercy of middlemen or brokers. 
• They are made to work in unhygienic and unsafe conditions with little to no protective equipment. 
• They are routinely exploited and suffer significant ‘unfreedoms’ in host States. Additionally, indigenous wage groups and unions resent these migrants as they are seen as taking away their jobs by agreeing to work for lower wages. 
• The study also says that this kind of migration is merely subsistence migration — it’s the bare minimum. 
• The migrants are able to barely provide for themselves and their families, with no scope for further asset creation or savings. 
• There is also a certain precarity associated with these jobs as they are seasonal and often irregular. 
• A lack of jobs in the host States means that they will either have to go back home or look for work in other urban cities. 
• This precarity was on clear display during the pandemic in 2020 when migrants en-masse started walking back to their home towns when a lockdown was announced.

Case Study: At the end of the day, as Amrita Dutta in her paper, ‘Circular Migration and Precarity: Perspectives from Rural Bihar’, says “in destination areas, rural or urban, circular migrants remain at the margins of physical, social, cultural, and political spaces.” It is high time that States start actively formulating policy to understand the extent of circular migration. While some States like Kerala have announced health insurance schemes for migrant workers (Awaz Health scheme), there needs to be more effort to ensure migrants rights. The precarity of workers needs to be addressed and there should be more efforts to integrate them in the destination States.

Topic: Climate Change

Keeping tabs on carbon with an accounting system

The climate ‘polycrisis’ — a term made popular by Adam Tooze — refers to the interconnected and compounding crises related to climate change that are affecting the planet not just in a few sectors but across several sectors and domains. It encompasses the physical impacts of climate change (rising temperatures, sea-level rise, and extreme weather events) and the social, economic, and political challenges that arise from these impacts. In India, one can see the interconnections between seemingly different sectors such as energy, infrastructure, health, migration and food production that are being impacted by climate change.

Recognising the complexity and interconnectedness of the climate polycrisis, it is crucial in developing a holistic approach that takes into account the diverse perspectives and priorities of different stakeholders, while ensuring resilience, equity, and justice. While it seems easier to pursue our response to climate change in a sectoral fashion, the very nature of a polycrisis means that tweaking one corner of the climate challenge leads to unexpected consequences elsewhere.

Instead, we need a deep transformation — one that lays the foundation of a new economy that is sensitive to the planet. Just as digital infrastructure enables new startups and public services, we need to imagine ‘carbon infrastructure’ that creates opportunities for a flourishing future carbon regime that takes the flows of carbon into account in the formulation of policy at every level: household, panchayat, district, State and country.

Measurement as the first step

The first step is measurement, for whatever cannot be measured cannot be accounted for. We need to measure carbon emissions from that of individual citizens to that of the nation as a whole, including all that is in the flow. Once we have a measurement system in place, we can build an accounting system that helps us balance our carbon books.

We are all familiar with financial balance sheets, with their sources and their applications. What if the same thing is done for carbon? Existing carbon accounting methodologies such as those championed by Karthik Ramanna at Oxford are already capable of tracking carbon balance sheets at the corporate level.

A national carbon accounting (NCA) system is both an evolutionary and a revolutionary generalisation of these ideas. It will bring the entire nation, starting from individuals and households, under one carbon accounting framework. This will be a paradigmatic change in the way we look at all human and non-human “activities” in the world. This is necessary if we intend to truly internalise carbon reduction goals of the country and the world.

Just imagine a world in which we file carbon tax returns alongside our income tax returns, or maybe only the carbon tax returns. Take a moment to consider the revolution in public finance that will be triggered when carbon is recognised, captured, valued, accounted for and taxed.

Carbon accounting

Public finance is the primary mechanism of development. Governments apportion funds for different developmental activities, each competing with the others for the exchequer’s purse. The revenue to fund the public exchequer comes from taxes, and that, in turn, requires that individual entities — businesses, households — keep an account of inflows and outflows of money. ‘Money accounting’ is an integrated system, all the way from the spending of individuals to the Reserve Bank of India that helps us keep track of the circulation of money within the system. The keeping of accounts makes money visible and makes public finance possible.

In contrast, the stocks and flows of carbon are not tracked at a granular level anywhere in the world. As a result, there is no possibility for a progressive carbon tax that penalises large buyers of petrol more than the average consumer. A progressive carbon tax requires us to keep track of the inflows and outflows of carbon, i.e., national carbon accounting. Carbon accounting is a way for companies to keep track of the carbon they are producing, removing, storing and offsetting. It helps companies keep carbon books alongside their financial books.

An NCA will bring the concept of carbon books to the nation and will make it mandatory for businesses and individuals to declare/report their carbon inflows and outflows. It will make the circulation of carbon visible, and just as with financial accounting, other goods and services can be ‘financed’ using carbon surpluses, especially if there is convertibility between the carbon accounts and the rupee accounts. Once we have an NCA, we will be able to set targets, make predictions about future emission reductions and track our progress against those goals.

We can speculate about a future national carbon budget that helps us re-imagine the entire economy, including new technologies and new forms of collective action. Instead of the single goal of increasing economic GDP in money terms, as we already do, there will be a parallel goal of a carbon GDP which countries will try to reduce.

As a polysolution

An NCA will not only help India meet its commitment to becoming net zero by 2070 but also help it and other countries (if adopted globally) create new livelihoods and new forms of organising its economy and society. Everyone understands GDP growth and, more recently, alternative measures such as Gross National Happiness. By making transparent the carbon footprint of human activities, we open up the possibilities of a new form of public discourse and an alignment between development and ecological sustainability. In short, an NCA is a polysolution to a polycrisis.

Science and Technology 

Prelims Perspective:

05/10/2023:

Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 2023

• The 2023 Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to 
• Alexei Ekimov, 
• Louis Brus, and 
• Moungi Bawendi 
• for their work on quantum dots — very small crystals with peculiar properties that have found application in a variety of fields, from new-age LED screens to quantum computers.
• “Quantum dots are … bringing the greatest benefit to humankind, and we have just begun to explore their potential". 
• “Quantum dots can contribute to flexible electronics, miniscule sensors, slimmer solar cells, and perhaps encrypted quantum communication.”

• Quantum dots are crystals just a few nanometres wide, holding only a few thousand atoms. To compare, a single grain of sand can hold around a sextillion atoms. 

  When some light is shined on a quantum dot, it will absorb and re-emit it at a different frequency, or colour — just like some atoms. Uniquely, the colour depends on the size of the dot: the smaller the dot, the bluer the colour of the re-emitted light. 

• This relationship between size and colour is the result of electrons in the atoms jumping from a lower to a higher energy level, before jumping back. The gap between these levels depends on the size of the dot.

• The electrons in the dot’s atoms are very close to each other, with little wiggle room. At this nanoscale, the effects of quantum mechanics are more apparent.