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Asserting that it was wrong to expect India to start reducing its coal capacities, Union Power Minister R K Singh said the country will continue to set up new coal-fired power plants to meet its growing electricity needs — making it clear the promised phase-down of coal will happen in terms of its declining share in the overall fuel mix and not as an absolute cut in existing capacities.
“As per the targets we have set for 2030, the fossil fuel capacity (in electricity generation) would come down from the current about 60 per cent to about 35 per cent. This is the phase-down.
If you are talking in absolute terms, the numbers (installed capacity of coal) will go up because our demand (for electricity) is going up (between now and 2030). In percentage terms (as share of overall production), it will come down.
At last year’s climate change conference in Glasgow, the final agreement had called on countries to “phase-down” their coal-based electricity generation because of large amounts of carbon dioxide emissions.
An earlier draft had mentioned “phase-out”, which India, backed by a few other countries, managed to get changed at the last minute.
The call for a coal “phase-down” has been reiterated in the agreement at this year’s climate meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. But none of the two agreements specify how the phase-down is to be executed, or by when.
About 58 per cent of India’s current electricity generation capacity of 407 GW is based on fossil fuels. Coal alone accounts for about 50 per cent of the total capacity.
India plans to ramp up its total generation capacity to 865 GW by 2032, according to the recently released draft National Electricity Plan. The share of coal in the fuel mix is expected to decline to just 29 per cent by that time.
But that would still mean about 40 GW of capacity addition in the next ten years. Gas is projected to contribute another 3 per cent.
Express Network
Govt may bring bill to allow NPR updation via birth and death database (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 3, Polity and Governance)
A Bill that proposes to allow the Registrar General of India to maintain a database on births and deaths and use that to update the National Population Register (NPR) will likely be introduced in the Winter Session of Parliament.
The draft of the Bill — which will amend the Registration of Birth and Deaths (RBD) Act, 1969 — was shared by the Ministry of Home Affairs in October last year for public comments and suggestions.
According to the proposed Bill, the data will also be used for updating electoral rolls, the Aadhar database, ration cards, passports and driving licenses.
The government intends to amend Section 3 of the RBD Act through an insertion of a Section 3A, which says: “The Registrar General, India shall maintain the database of registered births and deaths at national level, that may be used, with the approval of Central Government, to update Population Register prepared under the Citizenship Act, 1955; Electoral Registers or Electoral Rolls prepared under Representation of People Act, 1951; Aadhaar Database prepared under Aadhaar Act, 2016, Ration Card database prepared under National Food Security Act, 2013 (NFSA); Passport Database prepared under the Passport Act; and Driving Licence database under Motor Vehicles (Amendment) Act, 2019 and other databases at national level subject to proviso of Section 17 (1) of RBD Act, 1969.”
For this purpose, the draft Bill has also proposed an amendment in Section 4 to allow the Chief Registrar to take steps to maintain a unified database of civil registration records at state level, and integrate it with the database at the national level maintained by Registrar General of India.
Govt & Politics
Karnataka govt is seriously considering UCC implementation says Bommai (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Governance)
Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said his government is seriously considering implementation of the Uniform Civil Code (UCC) in the state to ensure equality.
Speaking to reporters in the state capital on the occasion of Indian Constitution Day, he said, his government was very seriously considering implementing the UCC as it was part of the main manifesto of the BJP at the national level. According to Bommai, the state government is looking at the various committees formed in different states to implement the UCC to study all aspects.
Addressing party workers on Friday, Bommai said serious discussions on the UCC are going on at the state and national level. “We have been talking about the UCC since the time of Deendayal Upadhyay.
There is a serious thought going on in the country about UCC at the national and state level. There is also an intention to implement it when the right time comes. We are also discussing how to do it in our state,” Bommai said.
ISRO places nine satellites in orbit one from Bhutan (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tech)
The India Space Research Organisation’s workhorse PSLV Saturday injected into multiple orbits nine satellites — including an Earth observation satellite as well as one jointly developed by India and Bhutan.
The PSLV-C54 rocket successfully placed the Earth Observation Satellite (Oceansat) and eight other customer satellites into sun-synchronous orbits, ISRO said.
Calling the mission “unique”, ISRO chief S Somanath said scientists have used two orbit change thrusters in the PSLV rocket to change orbits for the first time.
“I would like to share the happy news of the separation of the remaining eight satellites as expected into the new orbit which is lowered from original orbit of the EOS-06 satellite to perfection that is from 732 kms to 513 kms in a circular sun-synchronous orbit,” he told reporters here.
“PSLV-C54 in its fourth stage has done this orbital change for the very first time using two burn sequences,” he added.
He said among eight satellites, the India-Bhutan satellite was the last to separate.
“Before that, we had the Astrocast 1-4 from Spaceflight USA, and Thybolt 1 and 2 from Dhruvaspace and Anand satellite from PIXEL India Ltd. So, congratulations to all the satellite teams for having their satellites in perfect orbit. All the best to them,” he added.
Referring to the India-Bhutan satellite, Somanath said: “It is a very important milestone in the history of the joint collaboration of Indian and Bhutan scientists.”
Opinion
Of caste, privilege and quotas: A reality check (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Polity and Governance)
The 10 per cent reservation quota for economically weaker sections (EWS) within the general category introduced through the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, 2019, has passed the basic structure constitutional test through a split verdict of 3:2.
The court approved addressing poverty through reservations on a par with other foundations of historical disadvantage and representation.
Though relying on varying logic, the separate opinions, three concurring and two dissenting, approve purely economic-based reservations to achieve the constitutional vision of an egalitarian society and for “uplifting the poorest segments of society”.
The dissenting opinion of the two judges rightly points out the flaws in the design of the EWS quota, of it being discriminatory against SC/STs and OBCs. That is not, however, the only limitation.
There is a consensus across the separate opinions on what the amendment seeks to achieve — overcoming poverty. The opinions in the same breath conflate, however, poverty with other concepts of destitution, deprivation, economic deprivation, economic injustice, etc., while also failing to ask whether the current executive criterion devised to identify EWS is suitable in achieving the egalitarian goal. Here lies the contradiction in the court’s approach.
The mandate of the so-called EWS quota since its debut in the 1990s has been focused on providing reservations based on economic criteria to “non-beneficiaries of reservations” without explaining why only those in the general category face economic disadvantages, and why only their economic disadvantages are to be addressed.
The government followed this trend while constituting the ‘terms of reference’ of the Sinho Commission, on whose 2010 report the EWS amendment was enacted.
World
China holds first meeting with 19 nations in Indian Ocean region minus India (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
China held a meeting this week with 19 countries from the Indian Ocean region in which India was conspicuously absent.
The China International Development Cooperation Agency (CIDCA), an organisation connected with the Chinese Foreign Ministry held a meeting of the China-Indian Ocean Region Forum on Development Cooperation on November 21, in which 19 countries took part, according to a press release issued by the organisation.
The meeting was held in a hybrid manner under the theme of “Shared Development: Theory and Practice from the Perspective of the Blue Economy” in Kunming, Yunnan Province, it said.
Representatives of 19 countries, including Indonesia, Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Maldives, Nepal, Afghanistan, Iran, Oman, South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique, Tanzania, Seychelles, Madagascar, Mauritius, Djibouti, Australia and representatives of 3 international organisations were present, it said.
India was reportedly not invited, according to informed sources here.
Last year, China held a meeting with some South Asian countries on COVID-19 vaccine cooperation without the participation of India.
According to the official website of the organisation, he is the Secretary of the CPC (the ruling Communist Party of China) Leadership Group of CIDCA.
CIDCA’s official website said the aims of the organisation is to formulate strategic guidelines, plans and policies for foreign aid, coordinate and offer advice on major foreign aid issues, advance the country’s reforms in matters involving foreign aid, and identify major programmes, supervise and evaluate their implementation.
During his tour of Sri Lanka in January this year, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi proposed to establish a “forum on the development of Indian Ocean Island Countries.”
Economy
Fiscal challenges loom as job plan, subsidies drive up expense (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
With government expenditure surging beyond the budgeted levels on account of a rise in subsidies and the new recruitment drive, the Centre faces renewed challenges in meeting its fiscal deficit target of 6.4 per cent of the GDP for FY23.
While an upside in GDP calculations in nominal terms due to high inflation will likely help the fiscal arithmetic, additional levies in the form of windfall taxes and excise duties that were expected to potentially boost the government’s revenue kitty during the year are now expected to come in at lower than expected levels.
Though there is the cushion of incremental tax revenues, the government faces the prospect of walking a tightrope to manage its fiscal arithmetic as it simultaneously grapples with additional expenditure requirements of Rs 2.5-3 lakh crore, officials told The Indian Express.
Incremental expenditure include the provisioning being done for the recently announced recruitment drive for 10 lakh personnel and the stepping up in allocations for security and administrative preparations for the G20 summit to be held in India over the course of the next year.
Though overall tax revenues have been boosted by buoyant direct taxes and steady Goods and Services Tax (GST) collections, both customs and excise duties and other indirect tax levies on items outside of the GST regime are seen lagging behind, alongside windfall taxes on fuel.
While windfall taxes are expected to garner around Rs 30,000-35,000 crore this fiscal, revenues from excise duties and customs are expected to fall short by an estimated Rs 90,000 crore from the Budget target.