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UPSC Civil Service Exam

Subject: Current Affairs (1 to 16 May 2017) Test No:


Time allowed: 3 Hours Maximum Marks: 212.5

Question Paper Specific Instructions

Please read each of the following instructions carefully before attempting questions:

There are FOURTEEN questions. All questions are compulsory.


The number of marks carried by a question/part is indicated.
Answers must be written in the medium authorized in the Admission Certificate which must be stated clearly on the
cover of this Question-cum-Answer (QCA) Booklet in the space provided. No marks will be given for answers written
in medium other than the authorized one.
Word limit in questions, if specified, should be adhered to.
Any page or portion of the page left blank in the Question-cum-Answer Booklet must be clearly struck off.

[These questions are part of A. A. SHAHs CURRENT AFFAIRS QUESTION BANK INITIATIVE uploaded on the
website www.aashah.com daily. You may refer the website for sources and content prepared to answer
each of these questions]

Date of Assignment:

Last Date for Submission:

All questions carry 12 1/2 marks. Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the
answer is more important than its length.

1. The Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 largely addresses consumer interests, but

some creases are still to be ironed out. Elaborate.

2. Small island nations threatened by rising sea levels require immediate remedies.

Elaborate.

3. 1. What is OBOR? Should India join the OBOR initiative? Clearly state your stand with

justification.

4. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.

5. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.

6. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.

7. The triple talaq case rests on the question whether personal law can be subject to the

Constitution at all. Elaborate.

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8. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative reflects global trends and a new paradigm which India can

support and shape. Comment.

9. Should we do away with capital punishment? Clearly state your stand with justification.

10. The Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation states, Every physician should prescribe drugs

with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a

rational prescription of drugs. Discuss the efficacy of this rule?

11. The high command reorganisation of defence forces in India (integrated command versus joint

command) needs to be carefully considered. Comment.

12. Triple Talaq has become a contentious issue presently before the Supreme Court. What is the

progressive way forward on the matter?

13. An internationally harmonized carbon tax is essential to address climate change. Discuss.

14. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the worlds largest publicly-funded health insurance

(PFHI) scheme, needs greater attention. Comment.

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1st MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS II : POLITY BILL/ACT

15. The Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act, 2016 largely addresses consumer interests, but
some creases are still to be ironed out. Elaborate.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/real-estate-act-reining-in-the-sharks/article18344256.ece

As one of the largest job creators, the real estate sector contributes almost 6% towards the GDP.
The much awaited Real Estate (Regulation & Development) Act is now in effect. The Ministry of
Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation recently notified 69 out of the 92 sections in total, which set
the ball rolling for States to formulate, within six months, rules and regulations as statutorily
mandated.

Reasons for Real Estate suffering:


Once 100% foreign direct investment was permitted in real estate, international money flooded
the market.
Builders/developers overstretched themselves and diverted funds while some began to cross-invest
in non-core activities.
In the race to announce the next mega project one came across, in many instances, real estate
companies embarking on projects without even consolidating land.

Key provisions of the Act :


1. The Acts preamble details the legislative intention which is to primarily protect the interests of
consumers and bring in efficiency and transparency in the sale/purchase of real estate.
2. The Act also attempts to establish an adjudicatory mechanism for the speedy redress of disputes.
Real Estate Regulatory Authoritys (RERA) and the Real Estate Appellate Tribunals are
expected to decide on complaints within an ambitious period of 60 days.
3. It places a requirement for developers to now register projects with RERA prior to any advertisement
and sale.
4. Developers are also expected to have all sanction plans approved and regulatory clearances in place
prior to commencement of sale.
5. Subsequent changes have to be approved by a majority of buyers and the regulator.
6. The Act again ambitiously stipulates an electronic system, maintained on the website of RERA, where
developers are expected to update on a quarterly basis the status of their projects, and submit regular
audits and architectural reports.

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7. Notably, non-registration of projects is a serious matter. If there is non-compliance, RERA has the
power to order up to three years imprisonment of the promoters of a project.
8. Importantly, it requires developers to maintain separate escrow accounts in relation to each project and
deposit 70% of the collections in such an account to ensure that funds collected are utilised only for the
specific project.
9. The Act also requires real estate brokers and agents to register themselves with the regulator.

Builder grievances
While consumer interests have been protected, developers find provisions of the Act to be
exceptionally burdensome on a sector already ailing from a paucity of funds and multiple regulatory
challenges.
1. The builder lobby has been demanding industry status for the real estate sector as it would
help in the availability of bank loans.
2. Real estate companies say that most delays are because of the failure of authorities to grant
approvals/sanctions on time.
3. While the Act addresses some of this, it does not deal with the concerns of developers regarding
force majeure (acts of god outside their control) which result in a shortage of labour or issues
on account of there not being a central repository of land titles/deeds.

Effective implementation needed:


Eventually the benefit of any statute is contingent on its effective implementation.
Since land is a State subject under the Constitution, even after the Centre enacts the legislation,
State governments will have to ratify them.
States will have to set up the Real Estate Regulatory Authoritys (RERA) and the Real Estate
Appellate Tribunals and have only a maximum of a year from the coming into effect of the Act to
do so.
Despite a model set of rules, only a few States have notified their rules.
The onus is now on States to formulate rules and establish the regulatory authorities on time.

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3rd MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III : ENVIRONMENT CLIMATE CHANGE

1. Small island nations threatened by rising sea levels require immediate remedies.
Elaborate.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/refuge-from-the-sinking-islands/article18358413.ece

The 52 low-lying vulnerable island nations sustain 62 million people and emit less than 1% of
global greenhouse gases (GHGs), yet are among the first victims of climate disruption.
Tuvalu is a small island nation in the South Pacific and home to about 10,000 people. It is likely
to be under water in less than 70 years.
Due to the rising sea level caused by global warming, other low-lying island nations such as Kiribati,
Fiji, Marshall Islands, Vanuatu, Micronesia and Nauru are destined to suffer the same fate.
These island nations require immediate remedies, including migration, compensation and
reduction in GHG emissions.

1. Migration:
More people are likely to migrate due to slow-onset processes of environmental degradation
such as inundation, desertification, soil erosion and changing coastlines than sudden-onset
events like storms and cyclones.
A sea level rise of 0.5 to 2 m could leave between 1.2 and 2.2 million people displaced from
the Caribbean Sea and the Indian and Pacific Oceans. This will set off domestic as well as
cross-border migration.
High sea levels have already resulted in displacement of people in several small island
nations.
The international community does not yet realise its responsibility to enable such migration. For
example, on request from Tuvalus Prime Minister, New Zealand agreed to allow a meagre
75 Tuvaluans to relocate annually to their country, a migration that should stretch over 140
years. Australia refused to make any offers when approached similarly.

2. Compensation:
There is a need for a wide range of varied remedies, mostly adaptive, such as coastal
protection, population consolidation, rainwater harvesting and storage, alternative methods
of growing fruits and vegetables, human resource development and research and
observation.
The cost of adaptation is bound to be exorbitant. The capital cost of sea level rise in the Caribbean
Community countries alone is estimated at $187 billion by 2080.

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The Pacific Possible programme of the World Bank predicts the cost of adaptation to be
$18,500 per person for Marshall Islands and $11,000 for Solomon Islands over a period of 30
years from 2012.
Legal analysts are considering the possibility of an international compensation commission
which could address the burden of adaptation expenses on the island nations through an
international fund.

3. Reduction in GHG emissions


With the policies in force today, GHG emissions are projected to grow by 50% by 2050.
Any amount of decrease in GHG emissions cannot save the islands from sinking, but a significant
decrease in emissions could delay the island nations from becoming uninhabitable, thereby
postponing the burden of accommodating mass migration.

A single-purpose forum
The only practical way to attain these remedies seems to be to reinvigorate political pressure and
negotiate globally to arrive at a forum that could deal with the issue.
The forum must enable negotiations regarding the legal status of migrants and develop adaptive
strategies in the destination country to guarantee and to protect dignity and cultural identity of
the displaced in the destination country.
The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (1992) obligates countries to provide
finance to resist global warming. By extending such existing obligations through political pressure and
diplomacy, the forum could ensure compensation to the island nations in the form of contributions
from party countries by managing a fund created in this regard.
Lastly, the forum would require a tribunal to assess the case presented by each island nation and to
decide whether help from the international community is required. The tribunal could then invoke
appropriate measures such as multilateral negotiations or directions that enable migration,
compensation and other remedies that could save the people of the sinking small island nations.

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4th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS II: BILATERAL INDIA - CHINA

1. What is OBOR? Should India join the OBOR initiative? Clearly state your stand with
justification.
(Repeat Question from 12 January 2017 Question Bank)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/Missing-the-Asian-tailwind/article17024081.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/chinas-one-belt-one-road-programme/article8179870.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/the-dragon-beckons/article18379037.ece

One Belt, One Road (abbreviated OBOR):


It is a development strategy and framework, proposed by Chinese paramount leader Xi
Jinping, unveiled in 2013, that focuses on connectivity and cooperation among countries
primarily between the People's Republic of China and the rest of Eurasia,
It consists of two main components, the land-based "Silk Road Economic Belt" (SREB) and
oceangoing "Maritime Silk Road" (MSR).
The strategy underlines China's push to take a bigger role in global affairs, and its need for
priority capacity cooperation in areas such as steel manufacturing.
Russia and the Central Asian countries are linking their infrastructure to Chinas OBOR, to
meet their long quest for a warm-water port.
Chinese investment is also attractive to Europe, Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar.
China is fast replacing global rules with connectivity, the OBOR, through infrastructure, new
institutions and integrated markets.
The massive investment has been welcomed, with prospects for shared prosperity.
United Nations Security Council resolution on security in Afghanistan includes reference to
regional development initiatives including Chinas Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
India alone in continental Asia does not support the OBOR, which spans more than 65
countries, three-quarters of known energy resources, envisages an investment of $4 trillion
and is estimated to cover two-thirds of the global population and GDP.

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Chinas intent under BRI/ OBOR
BRI is a rich mix of economic, developmental, strategic and geopolitical motives. It is also the most
ambitious global infrastructure project ever envisaged by one country.
Among Chinese objectives of the BRI/ OBOR are :
1. finding outlets for excess capacity of its manufacturing and construction industries,
2. increasing economic activity in its relatively underdeveloped western region,
3. creating alternative energy supply routes to the choke points of the Straits of Hormuz and
Malacca, through which almost all of Chinas maritime oil imports pass.
Political objectives include:
4. strengthening Chinas influence over swathes of Asia and Africa,
5. buttressing its ambitions to be a maritime power
6. developing financing structures parallel to (and eventually competing with) the Bretton
Woods system.
Connectivity and infrastructure development are unexceptionable objectives. Much of Asia lacks them
and the finances required to develop them.
China argues that connectivity provided by the BRI would enhance economic cooperation and promote
peace.

Concerns over OBOR


Analysts have highlighted a number of potential issues:
1. Chinese overcapacity may override host countries development priorities in project
selection;
2. political tensions between countries may prevail over considerations of economic benefit;
3. local elites may corner the spoils from new projects, thereby exacerbating social tensions; and
4. financing strategies may result in countries sleepwalking into a debt trap (the Hambantota
development projects in Sri Lanka provide a telling example).
Much will depend on how sensitive China is to international and local concerns on these counts.

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Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation (BRF)
It is being hosted by China in mid-May 2017.
The declared purpose is to review progress of the BRI, obtain perspectives of stakeholders and
plan new trajectories of cooperation.
China is working towards ensuring high-level global attendance at the BRF.
Whatever its other objectives, the principal role of the forum is to showcase international
endorsement of President Xis strategic vision of economic cooperation for peace.

Why China wants India to join OBOR?:


Chinas national goal is to double its 2010 GDP and per capita income by 2020 for which the OBOR is
considered essential.
China is keen that India join that initiative, providing the opportunity to reset relations.
China owes everything it has achieved to world trade; trade flourishes only when there is peace
and is, therefore, the first casualty of war.
Chinese economy took a sharp turn for the worse in 2012, it found a new, even more urgent,
reason: with its huge deficit in infrastructure and its still reasonably high growth rate, India was
the only country left that could absorb enough of Chinas output of machinery steel and cement
to substantially ease its crisis of overcapacity.

Indias objection:
Officially, India says it cannot endorse the BRI in its present form, since it includes the CPEC, which
runs through Indian territory under illegal Pakistani occupation (Gilgit-Baltistan).
Some analysts have argued for the more pragmatic approach of a partial endorsement: as the
initiative rolls out in various countries, India can engage with them (and with China) to promote
projects that would be of benefit.
However, Chinas argument, that India would be isolating itself by staying out, is a pressure
tactic: roads, ports and railways are public goods, which cannot be open to some and closed to
others, based on nationality.

Scope for give and take


The sovereignty issue needs to be addressed.
Would China be willing to declare that the CPEC is not a component of the BRI but a separate
bilateral China-Pakistan project?
Chinas Foreign Minister declared that the CPEC does not change Beijings stand on Jammu and
Kashmir.
A senior Chinese diplomat was more explicit, drawing attention to Article 6 of the 1963 China-
Pakistan boundary agreement (in which Pakistan ceded the Trans-Karakoram tract to
China), wherein the two sides agreed that after the J&K issue is resolved, China would
renegotiate the boundary with the relevant sovereign country.
Would China be willing to say the same today about the CPEC that once the status of Gilgit-
Baltistan is agreed bilaterally between India and Pakistan, China will renegotiate with the sovereign
authority the terms of transit of the corridor?

India needs to regain its glorious past:


There has been a tectonic shift in the global geopolitical economy, to which powers such as the U.S.,
China and Russia have responded. However, India is yet to formulate a worldview even as Asia, after
a gap of 260 years, is again set to become the centre of the world.
Till 1757, India was the richest country with its wealth based on textile export: India clothed the
world.
The choices we made enabled the British to secure the Diwani of Bengal.
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The loot oiled the Industrial Revolution (textile production), and brought about colonisation and
impoverishment.
In 1950, India was richer than China; now it is a fifth the size of the Chinese economy.
China will soon surpass the U.S. as the largest economy, and a young and digital India can
overtake China by 2050. How do we achieve our potential?
NITI Aayog has yet to develop a strategy laying out how India can become a $10- trillion economy by
2032.

Indias sphere of influence shrinking:


The Look East Policy enunciated in 1992 does not have much to show for it other than the sale
of coastal patrol craft to Vietnam.
In the west, Indias investment of $500 million in the Chabahar port, mooted some years ago, is
minuscule compared to Chinas investment of $46 billion in the China-Pakistan Economic
Corridor (CPEC) ending in Gwadar, a port just 100 miles away.
Despite investments in Afghanistan, political discussions there exclude us.
In South Asia, only Bhutan can still be considered to be in our sphere of influence.
India now finds itself increasingly isolated in continental Asia.

India should join OBOR:


The Modi-Xi joint statement in May 2015 recognised the two countries as two major poles in the
global architecture.
We should become a partner in the OBOR adding a Digital Sustainable Asia component, an
area where we have global leadership, shaping the infrastructure and markets around two nodes.
We should also see Pakistan-sponsored terrorism as a symptom of the domination of the military
with the OBOR leading to strengthening of democratic control.
Mr. Trumps policy shift considering a deal with China on trade as more important than security
concerns has important lessons for us; focus on GDP rather than the NSG, Masood Azhar and the
Cold War military logic of a two-front conventional war.
These problems will be resolved after we become a $5 trillion economy and the leverage it will
provide.
There are encouraging signs that we have begun to think strategically by balancing cross-border
terrorism with cross-border water flows and greater reliance on endogenous cybersecurity and
missiles.

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8th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III: DEFENCE

1. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece

The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.
The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.
Further, while acknowledging that the possibility of a conventional war under a nuclear over-hang
recedes with attendant political and international compulsions, the doctrine notes that training of
Special Operations Division for execution of precision tasks needs no reiteration.
Factoring in the escalation potential of a conflict due to such actions, it states: The possibility of sub-
conventional escalating to a conventional level would be dependent on multiple influences,
principally: politically-determined conflict claims; strategic conjuncture; operational circumstance;
international pressures and military readiness.
The doctrine also reiterates the basic tenets of the Indian nuclear doctrine, no-first use (NFU)
and minimum credible deterrence, contrary to recent calls to revise the NFU and speculation in
the West that India would resort to a first strike.
It adds that conflict will be determined or prevented through a process of credible deterrence,
coercive diplomacy and conclusively by punitive destruction, disruption and constraint in a
nuclear environment across the Spectrum of Conflict.
Special Forces units will be tasked to develop area specialisation in their intended operational
theatres to achieve an optimum effect.
Another important pronouncement under the National Military Objectives is: Enable required
degree of self-sufficiency in defence equipment and technology through indigenization to achieve
desired degree of technological independence by 2035.
The various objectives open up an entire gamut of capability addition and process optimisation for the
Indian military to be able to enforce it.

Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.

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Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of Defence
Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-service
theatre commands.

9th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III: DEFENCE

2. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
(Repeat Question from 8 May 2017 Question Bank)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/joint-doctrine-of-armed-forces-the-single-service-
syndrome/article18410953.ece

The Joint Doctrine, 2017 was released to the public (the first edition written in 2006 remains
classified).

Resistance to a joint command


The Joint Doctrine provides foundations for greater integration and interdependence, to
achieve higher inter-operability and compatibility within the Armed Forces.
The debate on jointness within the Indian military has been going on for almost sixty years.
As we now know Lord Mountbatten, the architect of Indias Higher Defence Organisation, was
keen to appoint a Chief of Defence and lobbied repeatedly for creation of a Joint Staff.
However, there was reluctance from Indias political and bureaucratic class that were fearful
of an empowered military.
Later, the services also resisted jointness as they privileged the autonomy afforded by the
single service approach.
It was only after the post-Kargil defence reforms in 2001 that an Integrated Defence Staff
(minus the post of the Chief of Defence Staff, or CDS) was established.
In addition, a Joint Command was established on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the
expectation that this experiment would lead to other geographically delineated joint commands.
Global militaries are increasing converging towards joint commands (President Xi Jinping being the
latest to force this on the Chinese military.

surgical strikes
The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.

12 | Page
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The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.

Special Operations Division


Further, while acknowledging that the possibility of a conventional war under a nuclear over-hang
recedes with attendant political and international compulsions, the doctrine notes that training of
Special Operations Division for execution of precision tasks needs no reiteration.
Factoring in the escalation potential of a conflict due to such actions, it states: The possibility of sub-
conventional escalating to a conventional level would be dependent on multiple influences,
principally: politically-determined conflict claims; strategic conjuncture; operational circumstance;
international pressures and military readiness.
Special Forces units will be tasked to develop area specialisation in their intended operational
theatres to achieve an optimum effect.

No-first use (NFU) and minimum credible deterrence,


The doctrine also reiterates the basic tenets of the Indian nuclear doctrine, no-first use (NFU)
and minimum credible deterrence, contrary to recent calls to revise the NFU and speculation in
the West that India would resort to a first strike.
It adds that conflict will be determined or prevented through a process of credible deterrence,
coercive diplomacy and conclusively by punitive destruction, disruption and constraint in a
nuclear environment across the Spectrum of Conflict.

Indigenization of defence equipment and technology


Another important pronouncement under the National Military Objectives is: Enable required
degree of self-sufficiency in defence equipment and technology through indigenization to achieve
desired degree of technological independence by 2035.
The various objectives open up an entire gamut of capability addition and process optimisation for the
Indian military to be able to enforce it.

Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.
Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-
service theatre commands.

13 | Page
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9th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III: DEFENCE

3. Discuss the major provisions enshrined in the Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017.
(Repeat Question from 8 May 2017 Question Bank)

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/decoding-the-doctrine/article18404994.ece
http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/joint-doctrine-of-armed-forces-the-single-service-
syndrome/article18410953.ece

The Joint Doctrine, 2017 was released to the public (the first edition written in 2006 remains
classified).

Resistance to a joint command


The Joint Doctrine provides foundations for greater integration and interdependence, to
achieve higher inter-operability and compatibility within the Armed Forces.
The debate on jointness within the Indian military has been going on for almost sixty years.
As we now know Lord Mountbatten, the architect of Indias Higher Defence Organisation, was
keen to appoint a Chief of Defence and lobbied repeatedly for creation of a Joint Staff.
However, there was reluctance from Indias political and bureaucratic class that were fearful
of an empowered military.
Later, the services also resisted jointness as they privileged the autonomy afforded by the
single service approach.
It was only after the post-Kargil defence reforms in 2001 that an Integrated Defence Staff
(minus the post of the Chief of Defence Staff, or CDS) was established.
In addition, a Joint Command was established on the Andaman and Nicobar Islands with the
expectation that this experiment would lead to other geographically delineated joint commands.
Global militaries are increasing converging towards joint commands (President Xi Jinping being the
latest to force this on the Chinese military.

surgical strikes
The Joint Doctrine of the Indian Armed Forces 2017, released in April, has formally embedded
surgical strikes as a part of sub-conventional operations meaning that from now on, they are
among a range of options at the militarys disposal to respond to terrorist attacks.
The more interesting aspect in the second such joint doctrine since 2006 is that the scope of surgical
strikes has been left open.
There is no mention of their employment being within the country or beyond its borders the
ambiguity is intended to send a message in the neighbourhood.

14 | Page
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Special Operations Division
Further, while acknowledging that the possibility of a conventional war under a nuclear over-hang
recedes with attendant political and international compulsions, the doctrine notes that training of
Special Operations Division for execution of precision tasks needs no reiteration.
Factoring in the escalation potential of a conflict due to such actions, it states: The possibility of sub-
conventional escalating to a conventional level would be dependent on multiple influences,
principally: politically-determined conflict claims; strategic conjuncture; operational circumstance;
international pressures and military readiness.
Special Forces units will be tasked to develop area specialisation in their intended operational
theatres to achieve an optimum effect.

No-first use (NFU) and minimum credible deterrence,


The doctrine also reiterates the basic tenets of the Indian nuclear doctrine, no-first use (NFU)
and minimum credible deterrence, contrary to recent calls to revise the NFU and speculation in
the West that India would resort to a first strike.
It adds that conflict will be determined or prevented through a process of credible deterrence,
coercive diplomacy and conclusively by punitive destruction, disruption and constraint in a
nuclear environment across the Spectrum of Conflict.

Indigenization of defence equipment and technology


Another important pronouncement under the National Military Objectives is: Enable required
degree of self-sufficiency in defence equipment and technology through indigenization to achieve
desired degree of technological independence by 2035.
The various objectives open up an entire gamut of capability addition and process optimisation for the
Indian military to be able to enforce it.

Reforms awaited:
Achieving these broad objectives requires seamless synergy between the three services, a far cry in the
present circumstances.
Some of the biggest policy decisions have been stuck endlessly appointment of a Chief of
Defence Staff (CDS), formation of cyber, space and Special Forces commands and carving out inter-
service theatre commands.

15 | Page
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11th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(2 Questions)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS II: POLITY JUDICIARY

1. The triple talaq case rests on the question whether personal law can be subject to the
Constitution at all. Elaborate.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/triple-talaq-and-the-constitution/article18420742.ece

The Supreme Court begins hearing arguments in Shayara Bano v. Union of India, which has
popularly come to be known as the triple talaq case.
This case, in which the constitutional validity of certain practices of Muslim personal law such as
triple talaq, polygamy, and nikah halala has been challenged, has created political controversy across
the spectrum.
The court will have to decide first whether to adjudicate the case in a narrow manner, which stops at
assessing the relationship between triple talaq and Muslim personal law, of whether to undertake a
broader approach, and ask whether personal law can be subject to the Constitution at all.

The narrow view


Proponents of the first view which include some of the interveners before the court invite the
judges to hold that triple talaq is invalid because it has no sanction in Muslim personal law.
In response to the AIMPLBs claim that the state has no right to interfere in the personal, religious
domain, they respond that the religious domain, properly understood, does not, and has never, allowed
for triple talaq.
They draw a distinction between instantaneous talaq, or talaq-i-bidat (where divorce is complete
when talaq is uttered three times in succession) with talaq ahasan, which requires a 90-day period
of abstinence after the pronouncement, and talaq hasan, which requires a one-month-long
abstinence gap between utterances. The latter two are part of Islamic personal law, but the first one
is not.
In fact, the Supreme Court itself, in a number of cases, has either doubted the validity of
instantaneous triple talaq, or gone so far as to say that it is not a part of Muslim personal law.

The broad view


Far from entering the thicket of personal laws, the court should simply ask whether a challenged
practice of personal law violates anyones fundamental rights.
In order to subject triple talaq as a claimed aspect of Muslim personal law to constitutional
norms, the court must first overrule a 1951 judgment of the Bombay High Court (subsequently
affirmed by the Supreme Court in another case) called State of Bombay v. Narasu Appa Mali. In
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that case, Justices Chagla and Gajendragadkar held that uncodified personal laws may not be
scrutinised for fundamental rights violations. They did so on the technical reasoning that Article 13
of the Constitution subjected only laws and laws in force to the scrutiny of fundamental rights, and
that personal laws are neither laws for this purpose, nor laws in force.
Beneath this technical reasoning, however, was a deeper assumption: a distinction between law, as
created by the state or its agencies through acts of legislation on the one hand, and personal law,
which had its source in the scriptures, and in non-state bodies for interpretation and enforcement, on
the other.

The choice
There is no doubt that triple talaq violates womens rights to equality and freedom, including freedom
within the marriage, and should be invalidated by the Supreme Court.
The larger question, however, is whether the court will stick to its old, narrow, colonial-influenced
jurisprudence, and strike down triple talaq while nonetheless upholding a body of law that answers not
the Constitution, but to dominant and powerful voices within separate communities; or will it, in 2017,
change course, and hold that no body of law (or rather, no body of prescriptions that carries all the
badges and incidents of law) can claim a higher source of authority than the Constitution of India?

GS II: BILATERAL INDIA-CHINA

2. Chinas Belt and Road Initiative reflects global trends and a new paradigm which India can
support and shape. Comment.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/navigating-the-new-silk-road/article18420757.ece

Will Prime Minister Narendra Modi surprise everyone and participate in Chinas Belt and Road
Forum for International Cooperation which begins on May 14?

Four point solution proposed by China


China has suggested
1. starting negotiations on a China India Treaty of Good Neighbours and Friendly Cooperation,
2. restarting negotiations on the China-India Free Trade Agreement,
3. striving for an early harvest on the border issue. (To repeat Nehrus outright rejection in 1960 of
Zhou Enlais proposal to settle the border dispute would be a historic mistake.)
4. actively exploring the feasibility of aligning Chinas One Belt One Road Initiative (OBOR)
and Indias Act East Policy.

With the long term in mind


Indias response should be based on its long-term interest and not short-term concerns. First, treat the
Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which already has contracts of over $1 trillion covering over 60
countries as enlarging areas of cooperation; and push for India as the southern node and a
Digital Asia.
India cannot be a $10 trillion economy by 2032 without integrating itself with the growing Asian
market and its supply, manufacturing and market networks.
As a continental power, China is knitting together the Asian market not only with roads, rail, ports and
fibre optics but also through currency exchange, standards, shifting of industry and common
approaches to intellectual property rights.
As the world economy is expected to triple by 2050, Asia will again have half of global wealth.

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Coordination between the major powers is emerging as the best way of global governance in a
multi-polar world. Despite their territorial dispute, strategic differences and military deployment in
the South China Sea, China and Japan have just agreed to strengthen financial cooperation.
The BRI seeks complementarities between a countries own development strategy and that of
others, though its goals have yet to be formalised, and India would lend a powerful voice to a
strategy and structure that ensures common goals will not be neglected.

12th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(2 Questions)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS II: POLITY JUDICIARY

1. Should we do away with capital punishment? Clearly state your stand with justification.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/should-we-do-away-with-capital-
punishment/article18429160.ece

For capital punishment:


While an entire nation celebrated when the Supreme Court upheld death penalty for Nirbhayas killers,
it has once again raised the age-old question of whether we truly need capital punishment
There are two main arguments for capital punishment:
1. it acts as a deterrent; and
2. it gives due justice to the aggrieved.
The crusaders against death penalty have often argued that there is no empirical data to confirm that
capital punishments act as a deterrent, but studies have shown that even though it may not have an
immediate effect, there is a long-term decrease in heinous crime. We should not ignore that the
Supreme Court has in its wisdom struck down the challenge to capital punishment in Deena v.
Union of India (1983).
The Supreme Court has laid down the scope of exercise of power to award death sentence and carved
the rule of rarest of the rare cases to justify the extreme penalty, death, in the landmark
judgment of Bachan Singh v. State of Punjab (1980), affirming the principle of life imprisonment
as the rule and death penalty as the exception.
When the crime is diabolical in nature and shocks the collective conscience of society, any mitigation
cannot survive and the crime has to be tested on the anvil of the rarest of the rare.

Against capital punishment:


As a society, can we look at murderers, rapists, paedophiles, genocidaires and ask ourselves the
tough question of how they got there?
The point is that there is a process of socialisation that contributes to an individuals thinking
that he can rape a woman, insert a rod into her and leave her on the street to die or that he can have
such intense hatred for people of other communities that they should be stripped, paraded, raped
and murdered.
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Our demands for justice have to be tempered by this reality.
Society then cannot demand to take the life of an individual when it has contributed to that
process and outcome.
As a society we find ourselves in a strange bind on the one hand seeking more violent and
harsher punishments for certain crimes and at the same time struggling with rampant impunity for
certain others. Justice is not served in either situation.
To tweak Martin Luther Kings words, the arc of the moral universe must bend towards a more
empathetic version of justice rather than a retributive one.

GS III: S&T

2. The Medical Council of India (MCI) regulation states, Every physician should prescribe drugs
with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she shall ensure that there is a
rational prescription of drugs. Discuss the efficacy of this rule?

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/whats-in-a-generic-name/article18429047.ece

The Medical Council of India (MCI) issued a circular on April 21, 2017 drawing attention to
clause 1.5 of its regulations regarding the professional conduct of doctors: Every physician
should prescribe drugs with generic names legibly and preferably in capital letters and he/she
shall ensure that there is a rational prescription of drugs.
Further, the circular said, For any doctor found violating clause 1.5 of Ethics Regulation, suitable
disciplinary action would be taken by the concerned SMC/MCI.
This has caused considerable unease among medical professionals.
It appears that the MCI has responded to the statement by the Prime Minister on April 17 that
the government intended to ensure that doctors prescribe medicines by generic names only.

Generic drugs:
Nearly all drugs have three types of names:
1. the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC),
2. the non-proprietary or generic, most commonly the International Non-proprietary Name (INN)
administered by the World Health Organisation (WHO),
3. the brand name.
Once patents have expired, companies other than the original manufacturer can produce and
sell the drug. This usually results in significant reduction in costs.
These off-patent drugs are called generics internationally.
The term generic has a different meaning in Indias pharma trade.
Medicines marketed exclusively with INN names are called generics or generic medicine.
The WHO advocates generic prescribing as part of an overall strategy to ensure rational medical
treatment and prescribing tailored to local conditions.

May prove ineffective:


Of the total domestic pharmaceutical formulations, a market of over 1 lakh crore, generic
medicines, as understood by the pharma trade, account for not more than 10%, or 10,000 crore.
Therefore, even if a doctor prescribes a drug by generic name, the patient will generally end up
buying a branded product.
It simply shifts the focus of promotional activities to the pharmacists. It is well known that
different companies offer different trade margins. There is the moral hazard that pharmacists will
dispense the brand which offers them the biggest margin. The current diktat by the MCI therefore will
not reduce prices for the consumer.
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Misinformed arguments:
Some commentators argue that brand names ensure quality and many doctors believe this. This
belief is ill-founded. The recent quality survey by the government found 26 of 32 samples from a
particular plant of a prominent multinational drug company to be not of standard quality
(NSQ).
Some argue that bioavailability and bioequivalence (BA and BE) of generics may not be equal to the
original brand.
In order for a new generic drug to be licensed, it has to be bioequivalent to the reference drug.
Bioavailability refers to the rate and extent to which the active ingredient of the drug present
becomes available at the site of action of the drug. It means that BA of the generic drug is similar to
that of the reference drug.
Of the approximately 800 useful drugs known to modern medicine, bioequivalence is really only
important for a few drugs with low solubility and high or low permeability, so the debate about BA
and BE is somewhat misinformed.

Issues unattended:
In India, there are a bewildering number of fixed-dose combinations (FDCs), the vast majority of
which have no therapeutic justification. These FDCs account for about 45% of the market (about
Rs.45,000 crore).
Successive governments have taken very few initiatives to reduce drug costs and promote
manufacture of only rational medicines.
The current method of price control legitimises margins of up to 4000% over the cost of the
product.

Way ahead:
The most effective way to maintain quality is to have periodic testing and stringent disincentives
for poor quality. The best insurance for good quality is good regulation.
The core issues are affordable access to medicines and their rational prescription and use. These
objectives require an enlarged list of essential and life-saving medicines under price control,
elimination of all irrational FDCs, no brands for drugs off patent, and briefer officially approved
names to make it easier for doctors to prescribe generics including the rational FDCs.

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15th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(1 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III: DEFENCE

1. The high command reorganisation of defence forces in India (integrated command versus joint
command) needs to be carefully considered. Comment.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/getting-the-model-right/article18452095.ece

If the three single service chiefs all agree on the need to have a Chairman or Chief of Defence, the
debate in India over further high command reorganisation (integrated command versus joint command)
poses tough questions for military theorists.
The issue of a Joint Doctrine for the Indian Armed Forces in April touches on this issue.
A clear division of responsibility between commanders has been widely regarded as a progressive
model that mitigates the critique of inter-service rivalry.
The seams and boundaries between commanders are always an area of weakness and
competition between commanders. Adversaries have been known to exploit these in the past.
Careful agreement about coordination between commanders is critical to avoid leaving a vacuum of
control in such areas.
If there are scarce military resources, centralised prioritisation is the key with subordinate commands
having ownership of the right assets to accomplish their mission.

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16th MAY 2017

QUESTION BANK
(3 Question)

Answer questions in NOT MORE than 200 words each. Content of the answer is more important
than its length.
Links are provided for reference. You can also use the Internet fruitfully to further enhance and strengthen your
answers.

GS III: POLITY JUDICIARY

1. Triple Talaq has become a contentious issue presently before the Supreme Court. What is the
progressive way forward on the matter?

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/lead/triple-talaq-not-fundamental-to-islam/article18459424.ece

Divorce in Islam
As per the Koran, only after four serious attempts at reconciliation (which includes arbitration) is a
Muslim husband permitted to utter the first divorce, which is followed by a three-month waiting period
called iddah.
If within iddah the marital dispute gets resolved, conjugal relations may be resumed without
undergoing the procedure of remarriage.
But after the expiry of iddah the husband can either re-contract the existing marriage on fresh and
mutually agreeable terms or irrevocably divorce his wife in the presence of two witnesses by
pronouncing the final talaq.
This is the only method of divorce mandated in the Koran.
Other forms such as talaq-e-bida, talaq-e-hasan, talaq-e-ahsan and talaq-e-tafweez are concepts of
Hanafi jurisprudence. They find no mention in the Koran.

Talaq-e-bida
Instant talaq (talaq-e-bida) has no basis in the Koran and, therefore, is not fundamental to
Islam.
Muslim theologians must understand that concepts not sanctified by the primary source of Muslim
law, the Koran, cannot be declared as essential parts of Islam irrespective of where they draw their
legitimacy from.
All sources of Islamic law, be it hadees, ijma or qiyas, are subservient to the Koran.
Thankfully, it was the Koranic procedure that the apex court endorsed in 2002 when in the Shamim
Ara v. State of U.P. case it invalidated talaq not preceded by arbitration or reconciliation attempts
between the husband and the wife.
It may be pointed out here that the pronouncement of three talaqs in one sitting does not constitute
even one divorce as held by the Ahl-e-Hadees sect.
In the Koranic view, first divorce becomes effectual only after the parties have gone through the
process of reconciliation and arbitration. Divorces uttered without exhausting these options have no
legal validity in Islam.

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The way forward
Given the reluctance of Muslim religious bodies in India to give up their sectarian conformism and
delegitimise talaq-e-bida, the Supreme Court will be well within its rights under Articles 141 and 142
of our Constitution to resort to, in consultation with progressive Islamic scholars, a neoteric
interpretation of the terms talaq and Shariat mentioned in section (2) of The Muslim Personal Law
(Shariat) Application Act, 1937, and lay down the procedure of divorce in accordance with the
egalitarian and gender-just principles of the Koran.
In pursuance of this, the Constitution Bench may, without putting the Muslim personal law to the test
of Article 13 (1), further clarify, elaborate and enlarge the scope of the Shamim Ara judgment and
make the Koranic procedure of divorce ratified in that ruling common to both men and women. This
would render the law gender-just by eliminating the need for khula, wherein Muslim women seeking
divorce are required to get the concurrence of their husbands or the qazi to get the marriage
dissolved.

GS III: ENVIRONMENT

2. An internationally harmonized carbon tax is essential to address climate change. Discuss.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/putting-a-global-price-on-carbon/article18459472.ece

Impact of climate change on economy


There is compelling evidence that climate change is the greatest and widest-ranging market failure
ever seen, and there is a large chance of a global average temperature rise exceeding 2C by the
end of this century.
It has also been established in various scientific studies that any such warming of the planet will lead
to increased natural calamities such as floods and cyclones, declined crop yields and ecological
degradation.
A large increase in global temperatures correlates with an average 5% loss in global GDP, with poor
countries suffering costs in excess of 10% of GDP.

Carbon tax as a mitigation policy


A global and immediate policy response is urgently required to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and
mitigate the effects of climate change.
A carbon tax aims to internalise the externality of climate change by setting a price on the
carbon content of energy consumed or greenhouse gas emitted in the production or consumption
of goods.
Carbon tax regimes will only be effective if harmonised internationally. Different country-wise
policies could lead to carbon leakages where energy-intensive businesses will most likely move
to less strict national regimes.

Advantages of harmonised carbon taxes


Harmonised carbon taxes hold advantages over quantitative limits imposed through government
control and regulation.
1. First, a carbon tax regime avoids the problems related to choosing a baseline. In a price approach, the
natural baseline is a zero carbon tax.
2. Second, a carbon tax policy will be better able to adapt to the element of uncertainty which pervades
the science of climate change.
3. Quantity limits on emissions are related to the stocks of greenhouse gas emissions, while the price
limits are related to the flow of emissions. From this uncertainty arises another complication of price
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volatility which is the third reason why a carbon tax policy is likely to cause less volatility in the prices
of carbon emissions.
4. Fourth, quantity limiting policies are often accompanied by administrative arbitrariness and corruption
through rent-seeking. This sends off negative signals to investors. In a price-based carbon tax, the
investor has an assured long-term regulation to adapt to and can weigh in the costs involved.
5. Fifth, the most contentious issue in any international negotiation on climate change mitigation either at
the level of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) or at the United Nations Framework Convention on
Climate Change has been the issue of equity between high-income and low-income countries. The
price-based approach in the form of carbon taxes makes it easier to implement such equity-based
international adjustments than the quantity-based approach.
6. Finally, the carbon tax will essentially be a Pigovian Tax which balances the marginal social costs
and benefits of additional emissions, thereby internalising the costs of environmental damage. It
can act as an incentive for consumers and producers to shift to more energy-efficient sources and
products.

Way ahead:
Some countries and regions such as the U.S. and the European Union already have fairly
successful carbon pricing regimes in place in the form of carbon taxes and emissions trading
schemes.
Some other countries have introduced general taxes on energy consumption instead of direct taxes on
carbon content.
The political consensus in favour of a direct carbon tax will be difficult to achieve in low- and
middle-income countries that have developmental priorities and lack the capacity to administer
such regimes.
A general tax on energy consumption combined with a technology-centric policy that promotes
entrepreneurs and investors who develop low-energy intensive products can be a good starting
point from where they can gradually move towards a direct carbon tax.
Another near-term approach can be a cap-and-tax which combines the strengths of both quantity
and price approaches. Cap-and-tax might also address the concerns of environmentalists that a price-
based approach does not impose hard constraints on emissions.

GS II: SOCIAL SCHEMES

7. Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY), the worlds largest publicly-funded health insurance
(PFHI) scheme, needs greater attention. Comment.

http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/the-public-in-public-health/article18459627.ece

Rashtriya Swasthya Bima Yojana (RSBY)


It is the worlds largest publicly-funded health insurance (PFHI) scheme.
Under the scheme, a Below Poverty Line (BPL) family of five is entitled to more than 700
treatments and procedures at government-set prices, for an annual enrolment fee of 30.

Issues involved:
Even nine years after its implementation, it has failed to cover a large number of targeted families
almost three-fifths of them.
Their exclusion has been due to factors like the prevalent discrimination against disadvantaged
groups; a lack of mandate on insurance companies to achieve higher enrolment rates; and an absence
of oversight by government agencies.

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True, there has been a substantial increase in hospitalisation rates. However, it is unclear if it has
enabled people to access the genuinely needed, and hitherto unaffordable, inpatient care.
Often, doctors and hospitals have colluded in performing unnecessary surgical procedures on
patients to claim insurance money.
For instance, hospitals have claimed reimbursements worth millions of rupees for conducting
hysterectomies on thousands of unsuspecting, poor women.
Indeed, in the absence of regulations and standards, perverse incentives are created for empanelled
hospitals to conduct surgeries.
Though it is a cashless scheme, many users are exploited by unscrupulous hospital staff.
The card is also of no real value if beneficiaries do not know how to use it.

Way ahead:
There is a need to bring the public back into the discourse on public health to highlight its present
culture.
The conversation needs to move beyond a top-down approach specifying budget allocation and
administrative and technical efficiency.

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