19 September 2024

MAINS DAILY QUESTIONS & MODEL ANSWERS

Q1. What role do planetary boundaries play in a world that is getting warmer all the time?

GS II – Geography related issues

Introduction:

• Simply said, planetary boundaries are the ranges of conditions within which mankind will be able to endure, advance, and flourish for many centuries. The safe operating limit for survival is created by nine limitations. The goal was to establish boundaries between what humans could and could not cross while putting Earth’s systems’ resilience and stability first. According to the experts, if these boundaries are breached, it will result in abrupt or permanent planetary changes that will have a significant impact.

The following borders and their regulating factors:

• Integrity of the biosphere: The condition of ecosystems and the pace of species extinction.
• Climate change is caused by changes in atmospheric CO2 concentration and radiative forcing, which is a measurement of the energy balance between solar energy that reaches Earth and the thermal energy that the planet loses.
• Novel entities are substances like plastic, concrete, synthetic chemicals, gene-modified organisms, and other things that would not exist on Earth if humans were not on it.
• Stratospheric ozone depletion is caused by human-made chemical emissions that break down ozone molecules.
• Freshwater change: This includes a look at how humans have affected blue water, which is found in lakes, rivers, and reservoirs, and green water, which is found in the soil and is used by plants and soil microbes.
• Monitoring different anthropogenic emissions-derived aerosols that have an impact on both global and local atmospheric circulation as well as cloud formation.
• Ocean acidification is the long-term decrease in the pH of the ocean.
• Changes in land use, particularly the conversion of tropical forests to farming, are referred to as “land system changes.”
• Changes in the naturally occurring cycles of the nutrients nitrogen and phosphorus, which are crucial for plant growth, are examples of biogeochemical flux.

Planetary boundaries have importance:

• Making decisions: These boundaries enable decision-makers to recognise environmental hazards on a global scale and to take numerous scales of action.
• Environmental boundaries enable the assessment of interconnections between many domains and provide a complete and cross-cutting view of planetary dangers, in addition to informing the general public.
• Defining a “safe operating space” within which human societies can develop and flourish, these boundaries serve to direct human evolution by educating individuals about the continually changing global environment.
• Reducing risk: Adhering to these restrictions would significantly lower the chance that human actions would unintentionally push the Earth system into a substantially less hospitable condition.
• The idea of “planetary boundaries” has a significant impact on the SDGs since it is based on the idea that society and economic activity should be compatible with the biosphere.
• Impact on the global community: It aids in drawing attention to the need for limiting human impact on the environment in order to maintain and safeguard the circumstances on Earth that support the development of advanced human societies.
• Impact on Corporate Activities: The idea of planetary boundaries is starting to gain traction among many of the major corporations in the world. They begin concentrating on the idea of thinking about how to make sure that business operations may be carried out sustainably within the constraints of the larger environment.
• According to a recent study, human activity has caused most of the planetary boundaries to be crossed. It emphasises that a localised focus on climate change is insufficient. An urgent objective is the creation of Earth system models that faithfully represent interactions between borders, particularly in relation to climate and biosphere integrity.

Q2. The Union government’s annual food subsidy budget has gotten unreasonably huge. What measures can be implemented to strike a balance between food and farm subsidies while maintaining economic responsibility?

GS II – Government Policies and Interventions

Introduction:

• The Economic Survey 2020-21 raised the concern of an expanding food subsidy bill, which it stated “is becoming unmanageably large.” The survey also indicated at an increase in the Central Issue Price (CIP), which has remained at??2 per kilogramme for wheat?3 per kg for rice for many years, even though the NFSA anticipated a price change after three years as early as 2013. For the current fiscal year, the government allocated Rs 1,15,570 crore for food subsidies.

Challenges in raising prices and decreasing the food subsidy:

• Dual challenge: It would not be necessary to purchase wheat and rice, which would negatively impact farmers, if DBT (direct benefit transfer) were fully operational to plug leaks in the PDS system.
• Future cost per unit is expected to increase as the Food Corporation of India purchases, transports, stores, and distributes each kilogramme of wheat or rice at a subsidised rate. The Center’s yearly subsidy bill is anticipated to be around? in the future.2.5 billion crore. Additionally, States are taking more food grains out of the central pool as part of various programmes.
• High Debt on FCI: To pay for food subsidies, the Food Corporation of India (FCI) borrowed money from the National Small Savings Fund (NSSF). This debt was combined with the subsidy amount in recent budgets. This was in the neighbourhood of?1.65 billion crores to?2,210,000 crore.
• There is a significant disparity in the retail issue prices, which range from zero in States like Karnataka and West Bengal for holders of Priority Households (PHH) and Antyodaya Anna Yojana (AAY) ration cards,?For both categories of recipients, one in Odisha?3 and ?A government document states that all categories in Tamil Nadu are free of charge, as opposed to 2 in Bihar for the two categories.
• Finances of the state: If the CIPs for rice and wheat were raised without a matching increase in the issue prices set by the State governments, the burden on the States would only increase.
• It is believed that political pressures will prevent the Centre and the States from raising prices.
• Approximately 36 crore people, or 29.5% of the population, were estimated by the Rangarajan group to be living below the poverty line (BPL) in 2011. There is therefore limited room to cut the coverage further than this point.

Actions needed to make the system better:

• Reducing coverage: In January 2015, a formal committee recommended reducing the amount of protection provided by the law from the current 67% to somewhere around 40%.
• Increasing CIP: The Economic Survey’s recommendation that the CIP should be reviewed must be taken seriously in light of inflation.
• Aadhaar leakage plugging: In 2015, the Food Corporation of India’s Committee on Restructuring had also suggested using Aadhaar to stop PDS leakages and linking it to inflation.  The Committee calculated that the government’s food subsidy expenditure would decrease by more than Rs 30,000 crore if DBT were implemented.
• Give-up campaign: A “give-up” option, similar to the one used in the case of cooking gas cylinders, can be made available to all ration cardholders drawing food grains.
• Multiple slab system: A slab system should be used in place of the current flat rate system. Other beneficiaries can be forced to pay a little bit more for a larger quantity of food grains, with the exception of the poor.
• The Centre and the States may determine the rates at which certain beneficiaries must be charged through discussions.
• Diversification of procurement: To be covered under different NFSA provisions, such as the Mid-day meal programme, the government must diversify its procurement to include pulses and coarse grains.

Conclusion:  

• Not only will a revised, need-based PDS help reduce the subsidy price, but it will also make leaks less likely. Reducing reliance on the procurement system itself should be important in this regard, and the recently introduced agricultural legislation would be essential for this. To establish the groundwork for further reforms, it is imperative that the political obstacles to such reforms be removed as soon as feasible.