Daily Current Affairs

Rotterdam Convention: International trade of 2 hazardous pesticides recommended for ‘prior informed consent’

Why in news?

• International trade of two new hazardous pesticides;Iprodione and Terbufoshas been recommended for “prior informed consent” (PIC) procedure under Rotterdam convention. The chemicals are dangerous for humans and aquatic animals. 

 

Details:

• The PIC procedure is a mechanism for formally obtaining and disseminating the decisions of importing parties on their willingness to receive future shipments of hazardous chemicals.
• The recommendations were made by the Chemical Review Committee at the 18th meeting of the Rotterdam Convention’s Chemical Review Committee (CRC 18) held at Rome, Italy.

 

Iprodione&Terbufos:

• In India, the use of these chemicals was permitted by the 2015 AnupamVerma committee report.  The country is among the largest exporters of Terbufos.
• Iprodione, a fungicide used on vines, fruits, trees and vegetables, has been classified as carcinogenic and toxic for reproduction.
• Terbufos is a soil insecticide used commonly on sorghum, maize, beet and potatoes. It has also been found to pose risk to aquatic organisms due to its toxicity.
• Both the pesticides, which are used in agriculture, are known for their harmful impacts on human health and the environment. 

 

Annex III to the Rotterdam Convention:

• The 17th meeting of the chemical review committee (CRC 17) had recommended these two pesticides for listing in Annex III to the Rotterdam Convention and had decided to prepare the decision guidance documents after that. 
• Annex III includes pesticides and industrial chemicals that have been banned or severely restricted for health or environmental reasons by two or more parties. 
• After being included under Annex III of the Rotterdam Convention, the chemicals are subject to the prior informed consent (PIC) procedure.
• The list will include 54 chemicals after Ipridione and Terbufosare added to it.
• The two chemicals have been included in the PIC procedure as “pesticides” based on the decision guidance documents approved by the chemical review committee.  

 

Ban by EU and Mozambique:

• Iprodione was listed under ‘PIC procedure’ on the basis of the final regulatory actions to ban its use, notified by the European Union and Mozambique. 
• Terbufos was listed on the basis of the final regulatory actions to ban its use, notified by Canada and Mozambique. It is extremely hazardous for human health, according to the World Health Organization. 
• Iprodionewas used for control of fungal diseases in carrots and lettuce in the EU. It was banned in the region in March 2018. 
• In the EU, Iprodionewas considered very toxic to aquatic life with long lasting effects and suspected of causing cancer. In the US and Australia too, it was suspected of causing cancer.
• In Mozambique, Iprodionewas used as fungicide in vines, fruit trees and vegetables. Terbufoswas used as insecticide on maize, sorghum, potato and beans. 
• Both were banned by Mozambique in March 2014, as recommended by the National Directorate of Agrarian Services (the pesticide registration authority) in a report.
• In Canada, Terbufoswas used as an insecticide and nematicide on canola, corn, mustard, rutabaga and sugar beet. It was prohibited from August 1, 2012 to protect the environment.

 

Recommendation for more pesticides:

• CRC 18 has also recommended two pesticides, paraquat and methyl bromide to be listed in Annex III.

 

Pitching India as a signature destination

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

 

Why in news?

• World Tourism Day 2022 is observed on 27 September globally.
• This day is celebrated every year to focus on promoting tourism in various parts of the world. It was initiated by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

 

Theme:

• The theme of World Tourism Day 2022 is ‘Rethinking Tourism’.

 

The Dharamshala Declaration:

• Recently, the Dhauladhar ranges in the Himalayas were the setting for a gathering of State Tourism Ministers, a first-of-its-kind meeting to discuss, debate and deliberate on modes and mechanisms to develop tourism in India.
• The Ministers brainstormed for three days, co-developing ‘The Dharamshala Declaration’ by drawing inspiration from Prime Minister’s ‘Whole of Government’ approach, which enables the breaking down of silos and encouraging synergies across various government corridors.
• ‘The Dharamshala Declaration’ aims to recogniseIndia’s role in contributing towards global tourism as well as focusing on recovery by also promoting domestic tourism which has been overlooked for long.
• In his Independence Day speech in 2019, Prime Minister urged every Indian who could afford to travel, to visit at least 15 locations in India by 2022 and discover the country. However, COVID-19 made this vision a challenge.

Tourism Clubs:

• The Union Tourism and Culture Minister called on states to start work on “a war footing” by establishing tourism clubs.
• The proposal is to work on making Yuva Tourism clubs at district and mandal levels.
• Private players can also be involved in special cases, besides utilisation of the PM Gati Shakti initiative.

Strategy:

• In the declaration, the Tourism Ministry has come up with a strategy and action plan to encourage more Indians to travel domestically and explore India’s natural, cultural, and spiritual beauty while simultaneously reaching the goal of an ‘Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat’ (interaction and mutual understanding).
• In parallel, the Ministry has also been working with the Ministry of External Affairs to identify 20 Indian missions abroad with the highest tourist footfalls to India and build country-specific strategies to attract foreign tourists.

 

Rethinking and reimagining tourism:

• Tourism has been one of the sectors severely affected by COVID-19. 
• The Government of India’s Emergency Credit Line Guarantee Scheme was recently enhanced by ₹50,000 crore, from ₹4.5 lakh crore to ₹5 lakh crore to benefit enterprises in hospitality and related sectors such as hotels and restaurants, marriage halls, travel agents, tour operators, adventure and heritage facilities.
• The pandemic has also given the time to reset and rethink the way forward for tourism in India.

 

Draft National Tourism Policy 2022:

• The Ministry of Tourism, after wide-ranging consultations, has prepared a draft National Tourism Policy 2022, which aims at improving the framework conditions for tourism development in the country, supporting tourism industries, strengthening tourism support functions and developing tourism sub-sectors.
• The guiding principles include promoting sustainable, responsible and inclusive tourism in line with civilisational ethos. The National Green Tourism Mission aims at institutionalising this approach.
• The National Tourism policy also aims to give impetus to digitalisation, innovation and technology through the National Digital Tourism Mission and skilling through the Tourism and Hospitality Sector Skill Mission.
• The policy also gives a special impetus to private sector participation through public-private-partnerships (PPP). After 2002, this has been the first such attempt to bring forth a transformative tourism policy.

 

Potential during the G20 presidency:

• The country has an opportunity to position itself as a major tourism destination during India’s presidency of the G20 (December 2022- November 2023).
• India’s age-old dictum of ‘AtithiDevo Bhava’ will come to the fore as it welcomes delegates from the 20 countries/European Union.
• Delegates include personnel from the central banks and finance ministries of the G20 countries, close to 15 working groups ranging from anti-corruption and agriculture to health, culture and tourism and foreign ministers, and other ministerial meetings. All these tracks would mean that India will be hosting close to 200 meetings.
• Even as the final list of cities is being finalised based on a set of transparent criteria such as conference infrastructure, accommodation availability, rankings in Swachh Bharat and other parameters, close to 35 cities with this potential have already been identified.
• The Ministry of Tourism also plans to work with other Ministries to bring in necessary interventions such as visa reforms, ease of travel, traveller-friendly and improved immigration facilities at airports.

 

The goals& Way Forward:

• Over the past few months, all the major tourism indices such as domestic air passenger traffic, hotel occupancy and tourist footfalls have shown signs of recovery and are going back to pre-pandemic levels.
• By mid-2024, India would be at pre-pandemic levels, with achieving $150 billion as GDP contribution from tourism and $30 billion in foreign exchange earnings with 15 million foreign tourist arrivals.
• By 2030, India is estimated to grow at 7%-9% compounded annual growth rate and we expect the enabling policy framework to bring in $250 billion in GDP contribution from tourism, 140 million jobs in the tourism sector and $56 billion in foreign exchange earnings with more than 25 million foreign arrivals.
• The Tourism Ministry is committed to delivering on these goals to ensure the positioning of India as one of the world’s best tourism destinations by 2047.
• World Tourism Day, therefore, is an appropriate day to renew this pledge.

 

Indias EV policy

(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)

 

Context:

• The electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem has been under intense scrutiny over the last several months. Despite various problems and challenges it is a certainty that EV’s are the future.
• Accordingly India’s EV policy and regulatory framework is evolving.

 

FAME I& FAME II:

• In April 2015, India launched the Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of Electric Vehicles (FAME) scheme, when EVs were considered an emerging technology. Under this scheme, a variety of measures were enabled to promote the adoption and growth of hybrid and electric vehicles in India. The first phase of FAME ran for four years, until 2019.
• The next iteration (FAME II) has evolved, and ensured key economic incentives for EV manufacturers and consumers, such as concessions on customs duty, reduction of GST, waiver of road tax, etc., to further accelerate EV adoption.

New business models:

• Another important aspect is that India’s progressive EV policy is combined with a policy push on ‘Digital India’ that has enabled new business models to come into being; for example: e-mobility as a service (e-maas) adopted for e-buses in urban India.
• As with any new technology, the policies, regulations, standards, etc. will need to be tweaked from time to time, and this is happening in the EV ecosystem as well. Evidence now shows the rapidly-growing population of EVs of all types in India.

 

Key Indicators of Progress:

• Over the last three years, more than 500,000 EVs were registered in India, while the government intends to have EV sales penetration of 70 percent for commercial vehicles, 30 percent for private cars, 40 percent for buses, and 80 percent for two and three-wheelers by 2030. This is in line with the goal to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2070.
• It must be borne in mind that EV technology is also evolving, and ‘Green Hydrogen’ shall also play a key role in heavy vehicles becoming EVs. India’s policy approach in the EV domain, while being an early starter, has sufficient flexibility to be aligned with future technologies as well.
• e-FAST India (Electric Freight Accelerator for Sustainable Transport), the new platform launched on September 8 by NITI Aayog, shall enable scalable EV adoption in freight transportation.

 

New Approaches:

• While FAME and FAME II have created a solid framework and e-FAST is expected to be catalyst, one can expect a much higher penetration level of EVs in India. This will need new approaches in several policy areas:

 

Skilled Human Resources: 

• At one level it is important that the syllabi and laboratory facilities for students and retraining of teachers across the technical education sector are upgraded, and enabled expeditiously.
• At another level, well-structured reskillingprogrammes need to be implemented across in the automobile aftermarket domain. Policy formulation and intervention is hence the need of the hour.

 

PLI Policy:

• The PLI Policy that has been initiated to promote domestic production capabilities of EV components may need further modifications going forward to ensure alignment with technology changes such as battery chemistries, next-gen EV motors and power electronics, etc.
• The PLI policies coupled with growing demand have resulted in industrial companies, Indian as well as foreign, investing across India to create robust domestic manufacturing capabilities across the entire EV component sector — battery cells, packs, motors, controllers, etc., whereas the semiconductors still represent a severe constraint as there is no domestic production visibility just yet.

 

EV Financing: 

• EV Financing is a sector that needs fresh thinking since the resale value of EVs will also be related to the ability to reuse EV batteries as well as their recycling. India requires a new policy on EV financing.

 

Safety compliance:

• India’s early formulation and rolling out of EV policies has enabled and accelerated the adoption of EVs by citizens for their personal mobility as well as in public transportation in urban India. However, the recent occurrences of EV-related fire incidents served as a wake up call.
• The authorities and EV manufacturers have reacted quickly to take corrective and preventive measures. New standards and revised safety compliance requirements for battery packs have been announced at the beginning of September. This should ensure minimising or eliminating EV-related fire incidents.

 

Way Forward:

• The creation of a robust domestic manufacturing and supply chain of EV components with the right technologies and performance capabilities can enable India to emerge as a global EV component manufacturing hub as an attractive and competitive alternative to China and, thus, boost exports from India to various countries.
• Since there is a worldwide transition to an EV-led ecosystem, the question of how efficiently can India turn its early-mover developments to its advantage is what needs to be answered, and the opportunity presented needs to be capitalised at the earliest.

 

Excommunication within DawoodiBohras

(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)

 

Why in news?

• Recently, the Supreme Court said it will examine whether the excommunication of the Dawoodi Bohra community’s members can be continued.
• According to the Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act, 1949, which first sought to prevent excommunication, the practice was defined as the “expulsion of a person from any community of which he is a member, depriving him of rights and privileges which are legally enforceable by a suit of civil nature”.
• This act was later repealed, and a legal challenge has been posed to the practice.

 

Who are DawoodiBohras?

• The DawoodiBohras are members of the Muslim community’s Shia sect. Their leader is known as the Al-Dai-Al-Mutlaq.
• For over 400 years, the leader has been based out of India, including the current and the 53rd leader, His Holiness DrSyednaMufaddal Saifuddin. According to the members, around 1 million members of the community are spread across the world.
• The leader of the community is recognised by the members as having the right to excommunicate its members. In practice, being excommunicated includes not being allowed to access a mosque belonging to the community or a burial dedicated to the community.
• Among those who have faced excommunication in the past were people who contested the headship of the leaders.

 

The Bombay Prevention of Excommunication Act, 1949:

• The Act was enacted on November 1, 1949, to stop the practice of excommunication prevalent in certain communities, as it led to the deprivation of legitimate rights and privileges of its members and in “keeping with the spirit of changing times and in public interest”.
• The excommunication of any community member was made invalid, “notwithstanding anything contained in law, custom, usage” for the time being in force.
• After the act was enacted, one of the members of the Dawoodi Bohra community filed a suit in 1949, saying certain orders passed by their leader were illegal because of the act.
• Other cases also came before various courts and a petition was filed before the SC by the leader, challenging the constitutionality of the act.

 

The legal challenge:

• The 51st leader of the community, SardarSyednaTaher Saifuddin Saheb, challenged the constitutional validity of the act in 1962, stating it violated fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution under Article 25 (Freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion) and Article 26 (Freedom to manage religious affairs).
• It was submitted that the power of excommunication was part of the management of community affairs in matters of religion, and depriving the Dai of the right and making its exercise a penal offence, “struck at the very life of the denomination and rendered it impotent to protect itself against dissidents and schismatics”.
• The result of excommunication properly and legally effected involves exclusion from the exercise of religious rights in places under the trusteeship of the Dai-ul-Mustlaq”. The practice was claimed to be essential.
• Respondents to the petition said that Quran does not permit excommunication and that it went against the spirit of Islam, and the right to regulate religious communities does not include the right to excommunicate.
• The SC held in 1962 held that the Dai’s position is an essential part of the community and the power to excommunicate is to enforce discipline and preserve the denomination, not to punish.

 

What’s next?

• The court said that it would consider whether the practice protected by the 1962 constitutional bench order can continue.
• It was submitted that in Maharashtra, the state has enacted the Maharashtra Protection of People from Social Boycott (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act of 2016, which prohibits the social boycott of a person or a group of persons, and terms it a violation of fundamental rights.
• The act describes a social boycott as “inhuman” and defines 16 types of social boycott – including preventing members of a community from having access to facilities including community halls, and burial grounds, among others.