The Prayas ePathshala

Exams आसान है !

1 – Voting power in two states: GS II – Election related issues

Important information:

There are fourteen villages in the Parandoli and Anthapur gramme panchayats, nestled amid the barren hill country between Jivti taluk in Chandrapur district, Maharashtra, and Kerameri mandal in Kumuram Bheem Asifabad district, Telangana.
In this instance, around 5,000 people can vote in both Maharashtra and Telangana.
Dependent on the governments of Maharashtra and Telangana, both gramme panchayats and their constituents take part in nearly all elections on both sides.
The Scheduled Caste (SC) communities who speak Marathi make up the majority of the residents of these villages.
A border dispute that has not been settled led them to exercise their right to vote.
Muslims and members of the Lambada tribe make up the population.
The social assistance programmes offered by both States are utilised by the residents of the 14 communities.

These communities possess:

two centres for Anganwadis,
two facilities for primary healthcare,
two reservoirs for water, and
two schools administered by the two State governments, one in Telugu and one in Marathi.

An account of past separations:

The problem has its roots in the unresolved conflicts that emerged in 1956 during the linguistic restructuring of the States.
Tensions between the states increased as a result of this disagreement, especially after the Andhra Pradesh government opened polling places in these villages for the first time in the 1989 election.
On June 2, 2014, Telangana was divided from Andhra Pradesh.
When the Andhra Pradesh High Court decided that the villages should become a part of Telugu State in 1999, the situation became even more heated.
Maharashtra challenged this ruling in the Supreme Court, sparking a discussion regarding multiple voting that was not settled until elections were held in 2004 separately in the districts of Chandrapur, Maharashtra, and the combined Adilabad district, undivided A.P.

Source – The Hindu

2 – Madigas: GS I – Indian Culture

Important information:

For over thirty years, the Madigas have fought for their proportionate share within the SC reservation.
They make up over 60% of Telangana’s SC population.

About the Madigas:

A small minority of Madiga, a Telugu caste, resides in Tamil Nadu, while the most of them are in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, and Karnataka.

Work:

Historically, madigas have been connected to the tannery, leatherwork, and small handcraft industries.
The majority are labourers in agriculture today.
The Indian government classifies them as a Scheduled Caste.
In Tamil Nadu, the word “Arunthathiyar” was formally adopted in 2009 to refer to a group of communities that includes Adi Andhra, Madari, Madiga, Pagadai, Thoti, and Madari.
In coastal Andhra, most Madigas are Protestant Christians, but most of them still follow traditional practises in their villages in Rayalaseema and Telangana.

3 – Funds for active and passive equity: GS III – Economy related issues

Active funds: what are they?

When it comes to stock selection and determining whether to purchase, hold, or sell the underlying securities, the fund manager in an active fund is “Active.”
Professional fund managers are responsible for managing investments for this fund.
Diverse approaches and approaches are employed by active funds to construct and oversee the portfolio.
It is anticipated that they will outperform the benchmark index in terms of returns (alpha).
The strategy chosen will determine the risk and return in the fund.

Passive funds: what are they?

Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) and index funds, often known as passive funds, maintain a portfolio replication of a specified index or benchmark.
The fund manager chooses the stocks for a passive fund in a passive manner.
The benchmark index serves as the basis for all buy, hold, and sell decisions; the fund manager or dealer only needs to repeat this with the least amount of tracking error.

Passive versus active funds:

An active fund is appropriate for investors who want to benefit from the potential for alpha generation by fund managers.
Investors who wish to allocate precisely in line with the market index should consider using a passive fund.

Source – The Hindu

4 – Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation: GS II – International issues

About APEC:

Goal:

to take advantage of the Asia-Pacific region’s increasing connectivity and use regional economic integration to bring forth greater prosperity for its citizens.
Since trade and economic issues are the grouping’s main focus, the 21 members of APEC are referred to as “economies” rather than countries or member states.
Even though China claims Taiwan and Hong Kong are not autonomous entities but rather are portions of China, they attend APEC meetings as separate entities.
The economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) are distributed as follows:
the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Singapore, Thailand, Chinese Taipei (Taiwan), Australia, Brunei, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong (a part of China), China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, Canada, the United States, Mexico, Peru, and Chile.

APEC’s role:

The coalition has consistently supported economic liberalisation, trade tariff reduction, and free trade.
The main goal of APEC, as stated by its member economies in the Seoul Declaration of 1991, is to establish a liberalised free trade area centred around the Pacific Rim.
The 2.9 billion people living in APEC economies account for around 60% of the world GDP.

India and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation

India has not joined APEC yet.
India submitted a formal proposal to join APEC in 1991, expressing interest in doing so.
India’s geographic location, prospective economic scale, and level of trade connection with the Asia-Pacific region all played a role in the country’s proposal to join.
The statement pointed out that APEC has been operating under an unofficial membership expansion freeze for a number of years.

Source – The Hindu