THE ASSAM TRIBUNE ANALYSIS
DATE - 28 JANUARY 2021
For Preliminary and Mains examination
As per new Pattern of APSC
(Also useful for UPSC and other State level government examinations)
Ans of MCQs of 26-01-2021
1. The National Voters’ Day is celebrated on 25 January
2. "Right to vote" can be placed in Legal right.
3. d
Explanation: Padma awards are given in three categories namely; Padma Vibhushan, Padma Bhushan and Padma Shree. Padma Shree is the third-highest Padma award in India. Worth to mention that Bharat Ratna is the highest civilian award in India.
4. a
Explanation: There is a maximum of 3 persons who can be awarded the Bharat Ratna Award in any particular year. In the year 2019, three persons namely; Pranab Mukherjee, Nanaji Deshmukh and Bhupen Hazarika received this prestigious civilian award.
5. b
Explanation: Padma Awards are announced every year. The winners of the Padma awards are selected on the basis of recommendations made by the Padma Awards Committee. These awards were instituted in 1954.
MCQs of 28-01-2021
Q1. Shagun’ is a flagship scheme of which Indian state/UT?
a) Gujarat
b) Maharashtra
c) Punjab
d) Madhya Pradesh
Q2. The World Health Organization (WHO) has collaborated with which company to distribute Covid vaccines under Covax alliance?
a) Pfizer
b) Roche
c) Merck
d) Johnson & Johnson
Q3. Mohammed Ishtaye, who was seen in the news recently, is the Prime Minister of which country?
a) Palestine
b) Israel
c) Peru
d) Argentina
Q4. The first Ahom Monarch to assume the Hindu title Swarganarayan’ was a) Siva Singha b) Pratap Singha c) Jaydhwaj Singha d) Suhungmung
Q5. Ahom-Mughal conflict ended with which battle? a) Battle of Saraighat b) Battle of Itakhuli
c) Battle of Bharali b) None of these
Q6. Discuss tension in between Saudi Arabia and Iran recent times and analyse its impact.
CONTENTS
1.UN panel: Yemen’s war being fuelled by economic profiteering (GS 2- International Relations)
EDITORIALS
1. Science gains with citizen’s participation ( GS 3 – Science )
2. Sports education ( GS 5 – Role of various Institution )
3. Prime Minister’s visit to Jerenga Pathar ( GS 5 – Polity and governance )
NEWS ARTICLES
UN panel: Yemen’s war being fuelled by economic profiteering
Economic profiteering is fueling the catastrophe in Yemen, where a six-year war has involved attacks on civilians, forced disappearances and other violations of human rights and international law, UN experts said in a new report.
The experts estimate Houthi rebels diverted at least USD 1.8 billion in 2019 that was supposed to go to the government to pay salaries and provide basic services to citizens.
And they said the government implemented a scheme to illegally divert to traders USD 423 million of Saudi money meant to buy rice and other commodities for the Yemeni people.
The report obtained on Tuesday by The Associated Press describes a deteriorating situation in Yemen, where the panel said the Houthis and the government “appear to be indifferent” to the devastating impact of the economy’s downfall on its people while continuing to divert the country’s economic and financial resources.
Six years of war between a US-backed Arab coalition supporting the internationally-recognised government and the Iranian-backed Houthi rebels have been catastrophic for Yemen, killing more than 112,000 people, creating the world’s worst humanitarian crisis, bringing the country to the brink of famine and wrecking infrastructure.
It began with the 2014 Houthi takeover of the north, where the majority of Yemenis live, which prompted a destructive air campaign by the Saudi-led coalition, aimed at restoring the government.
The panel said there is “an increasing body of evidence suggesting that individuals and entities” in Iran supply “significant volumes of weapons and components to the Houthis.”
The panel said the government lost strategic territory to both the Houthis and the Southern Transitional Council, a separatist group backed by the United Arab Emirates.
In December, the coalition announced a power-sharing Cabinet including southern separatists, part of a deal to end a power struggle between the former allies.
“The lack of a coherent strategy among anti-Houthi forces, demonstrated by infighting within them, and disagreements between their regional backers, has served to strengthen the Houthis,” the experts said.
The report said the Houthis perform government functions including collecting taxes and other state revenue, “a large portion of which is used to fund their war effort” – not to help the Yemeni people.
“The government of Yemen is, in some cases, engaging in money-laundering and corruption practices that adversely affect access to adequate food supplies for Yemenis, in violation of the right to food,” the panel said.
In the USD 423-million scheme that illegally transferred public money to traders, 48 per cent was received by a single-holding corporation, the Hayel Saeed Anam Group, the experts said.
EDITORIALS
Science gains with citizen’s participation
On a fine Christmas morning in North America in 1900, a group of 27 dedicated birders came together to do something unprecedented.
They were out to create a new Christmas tradition defying the customary Christmas ‘side hunt’, which involved hunting of feathered or furred quarry.
Inspired by Franklin M Chapman, an ornithologist from the then nascent Audubon Society, they proposed that instead of hunting, people should count the birds during the holidays and named this pursuit as the ‘Christmas bird census’.
On the very first day, 25 bird counts held across parts of North America by a group of 27 birders tallied around 90 species of birds. This unique quest, which had sprung from concerns over declining bird populations, continues today as a popular activity each year with tens of thousands of volunteers taking part throughout America.
The data collected by them has been utilized by Audubon researchers, conservation biologists, wildlife agencies and other interested individuals to study the long-term health and status of bird populations across North America, and even to understand how climate change could affect the ranges of 588 North American birds.
What started as a new holiday tradition now brings people closer to nature while providing a platform for scientific research using crowd-sourced data.
The Christmas bird count is one of the first initiatives among what is now popularly known as ‘Citizen Science’: any project or activity engaging the general public, including non-scientists, in scientific research.
Such citizen scientists can now actually contribute to science with their intellectual efforts, data gathering and knowledge, or by providing tools and resources. These projects can engulf a wide range of activities including scientific, inspirational, educational, social, economic, historic, environmental and even political.
The Christmas bird count, the Globe at Night database measuring impact of light pollution, and SeasonWatch from India are some of the many examples of citizen science projects.
The functioning of these activities comprise interactions between citizen scientists, which may be globally far-reaching or may even be limited to local scales.
These extensive degrees of interactions have led to such discoveries that might have not been achievable by a single scientist.
Hence, millions of people are contributing a myriad of research, thus serving as the eyes and ears to the scientific community.
Even though it might sound a little complicated at first, citizen science can be as simple as clicking pictures of mountains or even a small little butterfly.
In fact most citizen science projects are now available to people with just a few clicks on their phones, all one needs is an internet connection and, of course, the willingness to adopt a scientific temper.
Websites and phone apps like eBird, SeasonWatch, Zooniverse have made it possible for people to contribute personal observations about their surroundings, including bird counts, or data on the species diversity of a particular region on a daily basis, from wherever they are.
Citizen science projects have witnessed many success stories globally. For example, in 2017, a group of citizen scientists using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, led to the discovery of a system of at least five exoplanets.
Even in India, the concept of citizen science is now rapidly gaining recognition. Popular examples include projects such as SeasonWatch, which monitors phenology of plants, or biodiversity portals that document diversity of living organisms in our country.
The Assam Biodiversity portal, which is used to gather and share biodiversity information of Assam, is an example of the latter.
Recently, Vijay Anand Ismavel, a surgeon of Karimganj district, made a record by contributing 6,179 observations of different species of flora and fauna in this platform.
So why and how did citizen science gain such widespread popularity? Earlier, science conjured images of white lab coats, sterilized facilities, and sci-fi films, or at best, heavy textbooks with Latinized words, elaborate diagrams, and an earful of scientific jargon.
However, today science is not just a profession, it can also be a hobby and with the emergence of various citizen science projects, science is now visible and accessible to all.
Moreover, we live in an era where science is changing constantly, whereas the number of people involved in science is relatively small.
The participation of citizen scientists comes as a boon because they can gather larger amounts of data and over wider areas than any single professional scientist or group of academicians.
Further, as this field involves both amateurs and professionals, it has helped bridging this gap between science and society.
Gaining legitimacy for the copious amount of crowd-sourced data can, however, be challenging as there is a need to reduce errors and biases.
Scientists all over the world have hence come up with various measures to trust the citizen science data. One such measure is validation of collected data by experts.
In eBird, for example, a filtering system is used to cross-check every single species of bird reported in the portal. This is aided by a community of reviewers in each region who work with observers to validate records.
Biodiversity portals, eBird, and iNaturalist also enable observers to upload photographs, sounds or videos as evidence, which can be verified by a community of observers to attain research grade data that is contributed to global repositories such as the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF).
Citizen science is also beginning to have measurable or significant impacts. These include new discoveries, informing policy, and assessing conservation status of species.
For instance, the Status of Indian Birds report provides a record of about 10 million observations on the distribution range size of 867 Indian birds, and their trends in abundance in both the long term (over 25+ years) and currently (past 5 years).
These observations uploaded to eBird by more than 15,500 bird watchers have been useful in drawing conservation attention towards species that were earlier considered to be common and widespread.
Citizen science is a field that has amazing potential to abate the growing distrust of people in science. However, even though citizen science has already gained widespread recognition, it still has a long way to go.
We can certainly contribute towards accelerating this process by simply reviewing and curating data, or by designing projects that will motivate people to participate in more such endeavours.
Citizen science activities should also be considered for school and college curriculum in order to bring children a little closer to nature so that they can escape their world of virtual reality.
Sports education
With an academic programme in place now, the Sri Sri Aniruddhadeva Sports University at Chabua in Dibrugarh is likely to play an instrumental role in changing the sports scenario of the State.
The State which has hosted the National Games, the South Asian Games as well as several international sporting events, the establishment of the sports university is not only a major boost for Assam but for the entire north-eastern region.
The university is focused on education in the area of sport sciences, physical education and its allied areas.
The primary aim of this university is to prepare top tier sports scientists, physical educationists and sports coaches and high-class researchers in the area of sport psychology, exercise science, sport biomechanics, sport medicine, sport physiotherapy and health education, sport technology and sport analytics.
Although it is indeed a laudable initiative by the Government of Assam, but in a region where thousands of trained professionals in this field still remain jobless, generating employment opportunities could be a problem.
The Lakshmibai National Institute of Physical Education (LNIPE), North East Regional Centre located at Tepesia Sports Complex in Sonapur near Guwahati was established in 2009-10 and has been an integral part of the sporting ecosystem of the State.
Not only has it produced professionals who have gone on to make a mark in the industry but also as a sporting venue it has proved to be very beneficial.
The LNIPE was one of the venues of the 33rd National Games in 2007 and initially had an indoor stadium, velodrome, kho-kho and kabaddi ground and archery centre. The complex is built in an area of 274 bighas of land.
The institute is co-educational and fully residential with students being provided with hostel facilities.
At a very nascent stage, the new PG diploma course has been started in athletics and football at the Sri Sri Aniruddhadeva Sports University.
With classes for the university to be conducted at the Centre of Physical Education of Dibrugarh University, it is very essential that the newly-established University develops sporting infrastructure which can be used for hosting events as well.
The National Sports University in Manipur too will have the flexibility to open new schools/ departments in consonance with the advances and developments in sports science, sports medicine, and allied areas.
The university, once developed, will be the first one of its kind to promote sports education in the areas of sports sciences, sports technology, sports management, and sports coaching.
It will also function as the national training centre for selected sports disciplines by adopting the best international practices by signing MoUs with international universities.
The Ministry of Youth Affairs and Sports has already signed MoUs with the universities of Canberra and Victoria in April 2017.
The establishment of these sports universities definitely offer young sports enthusiasts of the region to pursue a career in sports.
Prime Minister’s visit to Jerenga Pathar
The Prime Minister’s visit to a State, immediately before the Assembly election, carries great political significance. Such visits also have many implications – economic, social, developmental and otherwise.
The Prime Minister, belonging to a political party, will quite naturally speak about his party’s performances through the State Government’s performances.
The visit of the PM Narendra Modi this time was also criticized by the disgruntled sections of the society speaking about the Government’s lackadaisical attitude to many burning issues of the State.
The people, by and large, had the expectations that the PM would speak on those unresolved issues. But Modi did not touch those issues that the people of the State are concerned with.
Jerenga Pathar, where Sati Joymati was tortured to cruel death by the then Ahom king Lora Roja and his sycophants, changed the history of the Ahom monarchy.
Gadadhar Singha became the king of Assam, followed by Rudra Singha who brought glory to Assam history.
With that historic background in mind, people expected some palliative words from Modi. But he was disturbed by a faulty address system, and he had to tell the organizers to take care of the same.
The meeting, well-organized by the State Government and the party in power, was meant for the distribution of land pattas to some indigenous people having no official land documents worth the name.
This matter is quite important, but for that matter the Deputy Commissioners of the districts could have been entrusted to do the needful.
This by itself means that the PM’s visit was primarily for electioneering, and secondarily for patta distribution.
But our expectations were different. The people of the State expected some words from the Prime Minister about the burning issues that the State is beset with.
Assam is reeling under many unpalatable situations. A peaceful and peace-loving State is moving towards diverse explosive situations, and the forthcoming Assembly election will prove to be a watershed not only for the party in power, but also for the people at large.
The State of Assam is demographically different from the other States of India. Besides, its geographical location is also quite mind-boggling.
This region is surrounded by foreign countries like Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Bhutan and China.
Assam is attached to India very feebly, only through a ‘chicken neck’.
Under the situation, Assam demands special attention from the Government. The visit of a Prime Minister, despite being underplayed by some of the dissatisfied political interest groups, was expected to bring in some strategic changes in the government’s work agenda for the overall and inclusive development of the state, covering all the racial sections of the society.
The burning issues of the State are getting thicker and unwieldy with every passing day. Besides, the Covid-19 has affected the social, educational and economic life of the people quite visibly.
The National Register of Citizens is still unresolved. The State has spent a stupendous amount, all for an unresolved NRC.
The names of many indigenous people of the State are yet to be included in the NRC. Besides, the names of many doubtful people are also reported to be in the register.
The arrangement for review of the grievances of the NRC-related objections are yet to be resolved by competent authorities. Procrastination will fatten the problem, and that is the reality about the situation.
The implementation of the Assam Accord has been taken up by the Government by constituting a high- level committee that submitted its report consensually, headed by a retired High Court judge.
The report is still in the coffers of the State Government, and the same has not reached the Central Home Ministry even after more than one year.
The Prime Minister in his speeches in 2016 assured the people of the State to open the closed industries. The Nagaon and Cachar paper mills are lying dead.
This has resulted in unemployment amongst the employed people, creating survival issues for those people. Other closed industries are also having the same fate.
Not a single industry is seen to have been revived or newly established. Unemployment has become a threatening demon. Add to that the unbearable rising prices of commodities of daily use.
The State is perennially affected by flood, leading to all sorts of deprivations to the people. Our peasants are losing their lands every year.
The result is known to all – we are having shortage of arable lands. Add to that the devastations of our homesteads destroyed by the flood and land erosion.
Have we ever been able to work out some permanent solution to these issues?
The international border with Bangladesh is still not sealed. Animal resources are being racketed to Bangladesh through unsealed borders by some unscrupulous people before the very eyes of the police.
No strict action is seen to have been taken by the police for mysterious reasons.
Assam is now under a process of deforestation, actuated by the land-grabbers and the money-makers at the cost of the State’s overall interests. Our forest resources are also exposed to land-grabbers and animal killers.
Because of deforestation and illegal land-grabbing, the survival of the animal resources of the State is also in a state of decay and degeneration.
The elephants and tigers are losing their livable space, and they are seen moving to the agricultural fields and villages in search of food. The CAA is opposed by the people, except by the ruling party members.
Take the example of Guwahati. This is a smart city without water, water for daily use by the taxpayers.
The water-centric projects for the city are lying paralysed for decades. We are forced to survive by spending huge money for purchasing water from private water traders.
All these problems have proved to be painful for the people of the State. People expected some palliative words from the Prime Minister this time on those burning issues.
But Modi had not spoken a single word on those issues. He simply presented some statistical data, officially prepared by the State Government.
This time the Prime Minister has chosen not to present any new package, perhaps having realized the fate of his earlier packages.
He must have made us understand that his visit was an official one, and not a political one.