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The Union government plans to draw up a “benchmark framework” to assess students at the secondary and higher secondary level to bring about “uniformity” across state and central boards which currently follow different standards of evaluation, leading to wide disparities in scores.
Over the last few months, the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) has held a series of meetings with the representatives of state boards and State Councils of Educational Research and Training (SCERTs) to arrive at a common understanding to implement the plan, as part of which a new assessment regulator is being set up.
The proposed regulator, PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development), which will act as a constituent unit of the NCERT, will also be tasked with holding periodic learning outcome tests like the National Achievement Survey (NAS) and State Achievement Surveys.
The benchmark assessment framework will seek to put an end to the emphasis on rote learning, as envisaged by the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020. PARAKH, the proposed implementing agency, is also part of the NEP proposal.
It is learnt that during the discussions, most states endorsed the NEP proposal to hold board exams twice a year, including one for helping students improve their scores.
States are also on board regarding a proposal to offer two types of papers on mathematics — a standard exam, and another to test higher level competency.
It will help reduce the fear of maths among students and encourage learning. We also used the meetings as a sounding board on the NEP proposals to have two sets of question papers for most subjects – one with MCQs (multiple choice questions), and the other descriptive. The response was encouraging,” said a Ministry of Education official.
Earlier this month, the Centre invited bids to establish PARAKH, which it said, will be “setting norms, standards and guidelines for student assessment and evaluation for all recognised school boards of India, encouraging and helping school boards to shift their assessment patterns towards meeting the skill requirements of the 21st century”.
The ministry official said PARAKH will help tackle the problem of students of some state boards being at a disadvantage during college admissions as compared to their peers in CBSE schools. It will develop and implement “technical standards for the design, conduct, analysis and reporting” of tests at all levels of school education.
Express Network
Jaishankar: State of border will determine state of India-China (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said that the state of the border will determine the state of the India-China relationship.
He also said that for ties to return to a positive trajectory and remain sustainable, they must be based on the three mutuals — mutual sensitivity, mutual respect, and mutual interest.
His comments came at the launch of the Asia Society Policy Institute, which was attended by former Australian PM Kevin Rudd.
In an oblique reference to China, “We can reasonably expect Asia to continue rising because the economic and demographic trends point in that direction. How divided it would be depends on how well or badly its fissures are managed.
And this, in turn, would demand adherence to laws, norms and rules. For a start, sovereignty and territorial integrity will have to be respected. Initiatives that impact the region must be consultative, not unilateral.”
Connectivity, in particular, should be transparent, viable and market-based. Similarly, development agendas also need to be broad-based and reflect the global consensus, rather than just individual national objectives.
Contributing to the well-being of the global commons and providing global goods can also make a big difference. And not least, agreements and judgements must be scrupulously adhered to, not regarded as matters of convenience.
Jaishankar said that much of the future of Asia depends on how the relations between India and China develop in the foreseeable future.
Their current status is, of course, well known to all of you. I can only reiterate that the state of the border will determine the state of the relationship,” as the border standoff between India and China has been ongoing for more than two years and three months.
Asia’s prospects and challenges are today very much dependent on the developments in the Indo-Pacific. In fact, the concept itself is a reflection of divided Asia, as some have a vested interest in keeping the region less cohesive and interactive.
That the global commons and the international community are better served by collaborative endeavours like the Quad apparently leaves them cold.
La Ninã conditions enter 3rd year, 6th time since 1950 (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
In what may be termed as an uncommon phenomenon, La Ninã conditions prevailing over the equatorial Pacific Ocean since September 2020 has entered the third year.
There are only six instances of La Ninã lasting for more than two years since 1950s , data with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) show.
La Ninã is when the sea surface temperatures (SSTs) along the central and equatorial Pacific Ocean are colder than normal, which, experts say, favour the Indian summer monsoon.
However, La Niña years are also infamous for frequent and intense hurricanes and cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Bengal.
In June this year, the World Meteorological Organisation had termed the persisting La Niña conditions as ‘stubborn’.
This year, India has received 740.3mm rainfall, which was quantitatively 7 per cent above the seasonal average till August 30. Out of the 36 states/Union Territories, 30 have received rainfall categorised as ‘normal’ or ‘excess’ or ‘large excess’.
By mid-August, meteorologists at Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM), the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USA, and India’s Monsoon Mission Climate Forecast System (MMCFS) confirmed that the La Ninã conditions are here to stay till the end of 2022.
This was in contrast to the forecasts issued by these multiple agencies in April this year that La Ninã will dissipate by August.
From remaining at the La Niña ‘watch’ status, two of BoM’s latest Climate Driver bulletins issued this month upgraded it to La Niña ‘alert’ status. In June this year, the World Meteorological Organisation had termed the persisting La Niña conditions as ‘stubborn’.
The continuing La Niña is abnormal but a good sign for the Indian monsoon. It may be good for India but not for some other countries,” M Rajeevan, former secretary, Ministry of Earth Sciences (MoES).
La Niña years are infamous for frequent and intense hurricanes and cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean and the Bay of Bengal. La Niña favours a higher rate of cyclone formation in the Bay of Bengal.
Kerala Assembly passes Lokayukta amendment Bill, Opposition boycotts(Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Amid a boycott by the Congress-led United Democratic Front, the Kerala Assembly on Tuesday passed the Kerala LokAyukta (Amendment) Bill, 2022, a legislation that limits the powers of the state’s anti-corruption watchdog.
Calling it a “black day” in the history of the Assembly, Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan said the UDF did not want to witness the government “killing” the anti-corruption agency using its majority in the House.
The highlight of the amendment is the change in a section in the existing Act — the Kerala LokAyukta Act, 1999 — which requires a public servant to vacate office if directed by the Lokayukta.
The CPI(M)-led government has diluted the binding aspect of the Lokayukta order, allowing the competent authority to now either reject or accept the ombudsman’s report.
The amendment Bill has also made the Legislative Assembly the competent authority to review an indicting report against the Chief Minister.
If a Lokayukta report indicts a Cabinet minister, the Bill vests the reviewing authority in the Chief Minister. And in the case of legislators, the competent authority will be the House Speaker.
Further, the Bill allows for retired High Court judges to be appointed Lokayukta. Under the existing Act, the anti-graft ombudsman should have held the office of judge in the Supreme Court or the Chief Justice of a High Court.
Announcing a boycott of the House proceedings, Satheesansaid: “The opposition cannot support the attempt made by the government to eliminate and weaken an anti-corruption agency. We are registering our stern opposition against passage of this bill…we will fight it tooth and nail.”
The controversial Bill was introduced in the Assembly on August 23, days after Governor Arif Mohammed Khan refused to renew the ordinance brought by the PinarayiVijayan-led Left Democratic Front government in January.
The Bill was, on the same day, referred to a Subject Committee, which recommended two amendments to the original Act. The changes were not part of the Bill when it was presented in the House last week.
The Bill will become an Act after the Governor gives consent for it. Khan has earlier said he will not support “any illegal step” of the state government.
Idea Page
Spyware from nowhere (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The Pegasus project was a collaborative effort embarked upon by 17 international media organisations, unearthing a list of 50,000-plus phone numbers worldwide that were said to have been targeted by the spyware.
The spyware maker, NSO Group, claimed that Pegasus was sold only to law enforcement and intelligence services of nation states for combating terrorism and crime.
While countries like France, Germany, Poland, and Hungary admitted to its purchase, the US denied buying the software after its demonstration to the FBI.
Out of the stack of 50,000, 300 phone numbers belonged to Indian subscribers including journalists, politicians, NGOs, etc. In October 2021, the Supreme Court ordered an inquiry on whether Pegasus was used by the government.
The SC hearing on the report last week led to disbelief, acrimony and trading of charges between the Opposition and the ruling party.
If the report of the technical committee appointed by the SC to investigate the Pegasus affair were to be taken at face value, one may conclude that the spyware episode is a figment of the collective imagination of several hundred cyber-security researchers and technology companies like Apple, Google, Meta, Trend Micro, Proof Point etc., who have been misinformed to invest billions of dollars in hardening their systems to fix vulnerabilities that do not exist.
It might also seem that some of these technology companies (Apple and Meta, for example) have committed perjury in the US courts, by publishing factually incorrect statements about the Zero-Click iMessage and WhatsApp vulnerabilities. Further, it might also seem that several foreign governments and their intelligence services were inveigled into believing the technical indicators published by the researchers and technology companies, which led to their conclusion that there was indeed a Pegasus infection on the devices examined by them.
There are hence only two ways to look at the report of the technical committee: It is either ground-breaking or completely wrong.
We don’t know which of these is true because it is kept under a sealed cover by the SC under the excuse that if put out in the public domain, it might result in the creation of more dangerous malware.
As the methodology, process, and tools used by the committee to arrive at its conclusions are now deemed to be a state secret, we have to use analogies and other approaches to understand the report.
Teacher at large(Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Professor Abhijit Sen, economist and former faculty at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning (CESP) in Jawaharlal Nehru University passed away on August 29 due to a sudden heart attack. Primarily a teacher, he was also involved in policy-making in various roles for more than a decade — as a member of the Planning Commission (2004-14), the 14th finance commission and chairperson of the Commission for Agricultural Costs and Price (CACP), among several other positions that he held during his almost two decades of involvement with policy making.
But even during his leave of absence to advise the government on policy issues, he continued teaching and supervising research scholars at CESP throughout the three decades that he was associated with the centre.
He remained a quintessential teacher-at-large for several students at JNU and elsewhere, bureaucrats, journalists, activists and anyone else who was willing to learn.
It was not unusual for him to pick up a marker/chalk and start teaching in formal meetings or during informal get-togethers.
Sen was primarily an agricultural economist, starting from his seminal PhD thesis submitted at Cambridge University on the ‘Agrarian Constraint to Economic Development’.
His basic proposition that agricultural problems remain the primary constraint to growth, based on a careful analysis of the post-Independence economic growth of the first three decades, remains relevant even today.
His thesis argued that the root of the agrarian problem lies in the structure of Indian agriculture and increasing input intensity or institutional mechanisms such as share-cropping are unlikely to take care of the problems of surplus labour and poverty in agriculture.
The nature of the agriculture problem is unlikely to be resolved without state intervention given the existing agrarian structure. For Sen, the resolution of the agrarian problem was not just key to overall growth but also necessary to take care of the problem of mass poverty.
Sen’s understanding of Indian agricultural problems based on his subsequent work on agriculture only confirmed his belief in the necessity of state intervention, something that he tried during his stint at the CACP and later through the High-Level Committee on Long Term Grain Policy, 2001.
He argued for remunerative prices to farmers along with universalising the Public Distribution System (PDS), a belief he held and argued for during the debate on the National Food Security Act (2013).
As a member of the Planning Commission, he argued for expanding the coverage of the PDS under the NFSA to make it near-universal, if not fully universal.
Explained Page
Nuclear plant in war zone(Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
For most of this month, the global attention on the war in Ukraine has remained nervously focused on Zaporizhzhia, an important town in the country’s southeast that houses the largest nuclear power plant in Europe.
The Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station has been under Russian control since early March, but an escalation of the conflict in the town this month, including shelling and mortar attacks, some of which damaged parts of the nuclear station, has raised the spectre of nuclear disaster.
Russia and Ukraine have been accusing each other of attempting to damage the nuclear plant in ‘false flag’ operations. The plant continues to be operated by its Ukrainian staff, with Russian soldiers standing guard.
A team of officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) arrived in Ukraine to assess the condition of the plant, after Russia agreed to their visit.
Ukraine has four nuclear power stations comprising 15 reactors. The plant at Zaporizhzhia has six reactors, which can together produce about 5,700 MW of electricity.
Nuclear energy caters to about half of Ukraine’s power demand. Russian forces attacked the plant on the night of March 3, early in the invasion, and took control of it relatively easily.
While sporadic fighting continued over the following months, the situation escalated dangerously in August with increased shelling, which the Russians and Ukrainians blamed on each other.
Buildings inside the nuclear complex were hit, though no significant damage has been reported. Radiation levels around the site have been stable, meaning there has been no leakage.
However, the situation is extremely volatile. This is the first time that a nuclear installation has been caught in a military conflict, that too one that is in operation.
In mid-August, the last remaining external power supply line to the complex was disrupted due to the fighting, and the station had to fall back on emergency generators.
Nuclear plants have to depend on external electricity for a variety of needs, including the operation of water pumping systems to keep the reactors cool.
That line was restored, but for a few hours, it brought the world on the brink of a major nuclear disaster. As the fighting continues, the possibility of something going horribly wrong remains open.
A team of experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency was in Kyiv on Tuesday, en route to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant.
Indian Navy’s ensign(Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi will unveil the new naval ensign (flag) for the Indian Navy in Kochi on September 2 on the sidelines of the commissioning of India’s first indigenous aircraft carrier INS Vikrant at Cochin Shipyard Limited.
Explained here is the significance of having a new naval ensign and what the old ensign which bears the Saint George’s Cross signifies.
The new naval ensign which the PM will unveil in Kochi will replace the present ensign that carries the Saint George’s Cross with the Tricolour in the canton (top left corner of flag).
This ensign is essentially a successor to the pre-Independence ensign of the Indian Navy which had the red George’s Cross on a white background with the Union Jack of the United Kingdom on the top left corner. The design of the new ensign has not yet been made public.
The present ensign carries the Saint George’s Cross with the Tricolour in the canton (top left corner of flag).
After Independence, on August 15, 1947, the Indian defence forces continued with the British colonial flags and badges and it was only on Jan 26, 1950 that a changeover to Indianised pattern was made.
The Navy crest and flag were changed but the only difference made to the flag was that the Union Jack was replaced with the Tricolour, and the George’s Cross was retained.
The pre-Independence ensign had the red George’s Cross on a white background with the Union Jack of the United Kingdom on the top left corner. (Wikimedia Commons)
A change in the naval ensign was made in 2001 when the George’s Cross was replaced with the naval crest in the middle of the white flag while the Tricolour retained its place on the top left corner.
There had been a long pending demand for a change in the naval ensign with the original suggestion for change having come from Vice Admiral VEC Barboza who retired from the Navy as the Flag Officer Commanding-in-Chief Western Naval Command.
However, in 2004, the ensign was again changed back to the Red George’s Cross as there were complaints that the new flag was indistinguishable because the blue of the Navy crest merged with the skies and the sea.
A change was made in the flag and the red George’s Cross now had the state emblem derived from the Lion capital of Ashoka in the middle.
In 2014, yet another change was made when the words ‘Satyamev Jayate’ were included on the flag below the Ashoka emblem in Devanagri script.
Economy
Need 8-8.5 %growth to be higher income nation by 2047:Debroy(Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
A 7-7.5 per cent real economic growth can make India an upper-middle income country by 2047, but the growth rate needs to accelerate to 8-8.5 per cent to make the country a higher income nation, BibekDebroy, Chairman, Economic Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM).
Even if you have relatively conservative real rates of growth of 7-7.5 per cent, we will get to a per capita income of about $10,000 by 2047,” he said, at the release of ‘The Competitiveness Roadmap for India@100’.
The question to ask is what does one need to do to get from the $10,000 per capita income to $12,000, which will make India a higher income country.
What does one need to do to get from the rate of growth of 7-7.5 per cent to something like 8-8.5 cent? There are different ways to slice this, some of which have been attempted in this report.”
Following the growth of recent years, India is now a lower-middle income country with average prosperity levels at $2,000 ($7,150 at purchasing power parity).
The report, jointly published by the EAC-PM and the Institute for Competitiveness, suggests essential areas of action, including improving labour productivity and enhancing labourmobilisation, boosting the creation of competitive job opportunities, and improving policy implementation through greater coordination.