The Process of Electing India’s President 

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Context:

The tenure of the current President of India Ram Nath Kovind is set to end in July this year, which is also when the 16th Indian Presidential election will be held to elect his successor. The Assembly elections held in five States this year, and the changes in the National Democratic Alliance (NDA), are expected to alter the dynamic of votes in the upcoming presidential race.

Relevance:

GS II- Polity and Governance

Dimensions of the Article:

• How is the President elected?
• Qualifications for Election as President
• What is the value of each vote and how is it calculated?
• What is required to secure a victory?

How is the President elected?

• The Indian President is elected through an electoral college system, wherein the votes are cast by national and State-level lawmakers.
• The elections are conducted and overseen by the Election Commission (EC) of India.
• The President is elected not directly by the people but by members of electoral college consisting of:
  • The elected members of both the Houses of Parliament
  • The elected members of the legislative assemblies of the states
  • The elected members of the legislative assemblies of the Union Territories of Delhi and Puducherry.
• This means, in the upcoming polls, the number of electors will be 4,896 — 543 Lok Sabha MPs, 233 MPs of the Rajya Sabha, and 4,120 MLAs of all States, including the National Capital Territory (NCT) of Delhi and Union Territory of Puducherry.
• Before the voting, comes the nomination stage, where the candidate intending to stand in the election, files the nomination along with a signed list of 50 proposers and 50 seconders.
  • These proposers and seconders can be anyone from the total of 4,896 members of the electoral college from the State and national level.

Qualifications for Election as President

• He should be a citizen of India.
•  He should have completed 35 years of age.
• He should be qualified for election as a member of the Lok Sabha.
• He should not hold any office of profit under the Union government or any state government or any local authority or any other public authority. A sitting President or Vice-President of the Union, the Governor of any state and a minister of the Union or any state is not deemed to hold any office of profit and hence qualified as a presidential candidate.

What is the value of each vote and how is it calculated?

• A vote cast by each MP or MLA is not calculated as one vote.
• There is a larger vote value attached to it.
• The fixed value of each vote by an MP of the Rajya Sabha and the Lok Sabha is 708.
• Meanwhile, the vote value of each MLA differs from State to State based on a calculation that factors in its population vis-a-vis the number of members in its legislative Assembly.
• As per the Constitution (Eighty-fourth Amendment) Act 2001, currently, the population of States is taken from the figures of the 1971 Census.
• This will change when the figures of the Census taken after the year 2026 are published.
• The value of each MLA’s vote is determined by dividing the population of the State by the number of MLAs in its legislative Assembly, and the quotient achieved is further divided by 1000.
  • Uttar Pradesh for instance, has the highest vote value for each of its MLAs, at 208.
  • The value of one MLA’s vote in Maharashtra is 175, while that in Arunachal Pradesh is just 8.
  • The total votes of each Legislative Assembly are calculated by multiplying the vote value of each MLA by the number of MLAs.
• Finally, based on these values, the total number of votes of all Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha MPs would be 5,59,408 (776 MPs X 708), and the total votes of all MLAs from State Legislative Assemblies would come up to 5,49,495.
• Thus, the grand total vote value of the whole electoral college comes up to 10,98,903.

What is required to secure a victory?

• A nominated candidate does not secure victory based on a simple majority but through a system of bagging a specific quota of votes.
• While counting, the EC totals up all the valid votes cast by the electoral college through paper ballots and to win, the candidate must secure 50% of the total votes cast + 1.
  • Unlike general elections, where electors vote for a single party’s candidate, the voters of the electoral college write the names of candidates on the ballot paper in the order of preference.

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Midday Meal and Supplements

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Context:

From the next academic session, Karnataka is likely to become the 13th state to provide eggs under the midday meal scheme, which is among the largest initiatives in the world to enhance nutrition levels of school-going children through hot cooked meals.

Relevance:

GS II- Government Policies and Interventions

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About the PM POSHAN (Poshan Shakti Nirman) scheme (New MDM)
2. How the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme came to be?
3. Has the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme helped?
4. What is usually on the menu?
5. Do the Centre and states run the scheme jointly?
6. Criticism of MDM scheme and Implementation

About the PM POSHAN (Poshan Shakti Nirman) scheme (New MDM)

• The PM Poshan Shakti Nirman scheme aims to give a hot cooked meal to 11.8 crore government school students from Classes I to VIII.
• From FY 2022-23 it will also cover the 24 lakh children studying in balvatikas, the pre-primary section of government schools. The balvatikas offer one year of pre-school classes.
• The PM POSHAN scheme has been approved for the next five-year period until 2025-26, with a collective outlay of ₹1.31 lakh crore, including ₹31,733 crore as the share to be borne by the State governments.
• It has been rebranded to provide a new shape to the policy “to enhance the nutrition levels of schoolchildren”.
• It is expected to improve nutritional status, encourage education and learning and increase enrolments in government schools.
• The extension of mid-day meals to pre-primary students, who are to be incorporated into the formal education system, was a key recommendation of the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.
• However, there has been no progress on the NEP’s other recommendation to start offering breakfasts to school students.

How the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme came to be?

• Post-Independence, Tamil Nadu was the first state to introduce the MDM scheme in the 1960s.
• The Central scheme to provide meals to school children began in 1995, however, most states just limited themselves to providing dry rations.

Supreme Court Order: The Game Changer

• A Supreme Court order of 2001 provided for all states to introduce cooked meals.
• The Supreme Court order specified the states to provide “at least 300 calories and 8-12 grams of protein each day of school for a minimum of 200 days in a year”.

Supreme Court on MDM during Pandemic

• The SC alerted state governments “Non-supply of nutritional food to the children as well as lactating and nursing mothers may lead to large-scale malnourishment, particularly in rural and tribal areas.”
• Taking suo motu cognisance of the matter the Court asked states to ensure that “schemes for nutritional food for children are not adversely affected”.

Has the Mid-Day-Meal Scheme helped?

• Research has shown how hot, cooked food attracted students to schools and improved their nutritional status.
• MDM has been proven to attract children from disadvantaged sections (especially girls, Dalits and Adivasis) to school.
• Along with Improvement of regularity, educational and nutritional benefits, socialisation benefits and benefits to women are also highlighted.
• Hence, the main positives of this scheme are:
  • Avoiding classroom hunger.
  • Increased school enrolment and attendance.
  • Improved socialisation among castes.
  • Reducing malnutrition.
  • Empowering women through employment.

What is usually on the menu?

• The menu varies from one state or Union Territory to another.
• But the authorities need to ensure that the nutritional component of the meal made up of rice, pulses, vegetables, oil and fat provide at least 450 calories and 12 gm protein to children in primary grades.
• For upper primary children, the requirements are 700 calories and 20 gm protein.
• The variations are in the cases of additional items such as milk, eggs, chikki, or fruits that the states provide as supplementary nutrition, the expenses for which are borne by the state government.

Do the Centre and states run the scheme jointly?

• Under the rules, the allocation of Rs 4.97 per child per day (primary classes) and Rs 7.45 (upper primary) are shared in 60:40 ratio with states and UTs with a legislature, and 90:10 with the Northeastern states, Jammu and Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, while the Centre bears 100% of the costs in UTs without legislature.
• But the states and UTs that supplement the meals with additional items such as milk and eggs contribute more.
• Components such as payments to cooks and workers are also split in the same ratio between the Centre and states.
• However, the Centre bears the entire cost of foodgrains and their transportation, and also handles the expenditure on management, monitoring and evaluation of the scheme.

Criticism of MDM scheme and Implementation

• Despite the success of the program, child hunger as a problem persists in India, 42.5% of the children under 5 are underweight.
• Some simple health measures such as using iodised salt and getting vaccinations are uncommon in India.
• Many children don’t get enough to eat, which has far-reaching implications for the performance of the country as a whole.
• A 2005 study found that Caste based discrimination continued to occur in the serving of food.
• Media reports have also highlighted several implementation issues, including irregularity, corruption, hygiene, caste discrimination, etc.
• Poor food quality is a major concern, affecting the health of children (as many media reports show students falling sick dur to lapses in quality checking and control). There are provisions for regular social audit, field visits and inspections but these are seldom carried out.
• The schools do not function during holidays and vacations which deprives children of their one daily meal.

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Ancient Megalithic Jars

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Context:

The discovery of a number of megalithic stone jars in Assam’s Dima Hasao district has brought to focus possible links between India’s Northeast and Southeast Asia, dating back to the second millennium BC. According to a study in Asian Archaeology, the jars are a “unique archaeological phenomenon”. It calls for more research to understand the “likely cultural relationship” between Assam and Laos and Indonesia, the only two other sites where similar jars have been found.

Relevance:

GS-I: History, Art and Culture (Historical Evidences)

Dimensions of the Article:

1. Assam’s Megalithic jar
2. What is the significance of the Findings?
3. What is a Megalith?
4. Megaliths in India

Assam’s Megalithic jar

• The jars of Assam were first sighted in 1929 by British civil servants James Philip Mills and John Henry Hutton, who recorded their presence in six sites in Dima Hasao: Derebore (now Hojai Dobongling), Kobak, Kartong, Molongpa (now Melangpeuram), Ndunglo and Bolasan (now Nuchubunglo).
• These discoveries were followed up only in 2014, when a collaborative effort by researchers from the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) and Nagaland University under the Archaeological Survey of India (Guwahati circle) was undertaken.
• Two sites were discovered in 2016.
• Researchers documented three distinct jar shapes (bulbous top with conical end; biconcial; cylindrical) on spurs, hill slopes and ridge lines.

What is the significance of the Findings?

• While the jars are yet to be scientifically dated, the researchers said links could be drawn with the stone jars found in Laos and Indonesia.
• There are typological and morphological similarities between the jars found at all three sites.
• Dating done at the Laos site suggests that jars were positioned at the sites as early as the late second millennium BC.
• The other takeaway is the link to mortuary practices with human skeletal remains found inside and buried around the jars.
• In Indonesia, the function of the jars remains unconfirmed, although some scholars suggest a similar mortuary role.

What is a Megalith?

• A megalith is a large pre-historic stone that has been used to construct a structure or monument, either alone or together with other stones.
• Most extant megaliths were erected between the Neolithic period (although earlier Mesolithic examples are known) through the Chalcolithic period and into the Bronze Age.
• While “megalith” is often used to describe a single piece of stone, it also can be used to denote one or more rocks hewn in definite shapes for special purposes.
• It has been used to describe structures built by people from many parts of the world living in many different periods.

Megaliths in India

• Megaliths in India are dated before 3000 BC, with recent findings dated back to 5000 BC in southern India.
• Megaliths are found in almost all parts of southern India.
• There is also a broad time evolution with the megaliths in central India and the upper Indus valley where the oldest megaliths are found, while those in the east are of much later date.
• A large fraction of these is assumed to be associated with burial or post burial rituals, including memorials for those whose remains may or may not be available.
• The case-example is that of Brahmagiri, which was excavated in 1975 and helped establish the culture sequence in south Indian prehistory.
• However, there is another distinct class of megaliths that do not seem to be associated with burials.
• The burial sites are the sites with actual burial remains, such as dolmenoid cists (box-shaped stone burial chambers), cairn circles (stone circles with defined peripheries), and capstones (distinctive mushroom-shaped burial chambers found mainly in Kerala).
• Commemorative megaliths include memorial sites.
• In India, archaeologists trace the majority of the megaliths to the Iron Age (1500 BC to 500 BC), though some sites precede the Iron Age, extending up to 2000 BC.
• The majority of megalithic sites are found in Peninsular India, concentrated in the states of Maharashtra (mainly in Vidarbha), Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, and Telangana.

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No El Nino Expected This Year

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Context:

The southwest monsoon is likely to be “normal” in 2022, though rainfall in August, the second rainiest month, will likely be subdued, according to the private weather company Skymet.

Relevance:

GS-I: Geography (Climatology, Important Geophysical Phenomena), GS-III: Environment and Ecology (Environmental Pollution and Degradation, Impact of Climate Change)

Dimensions of the article:

1. La Niña
2. El Niño 

La Niña

• La Niña is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern.
• is a coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon that is the colder counterpart of El Niño, as part of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) climate pattern.
• During a period of La Niña, the sea surface temperature across the equatorial Eastern Central Pacific Ocean will be lower than normal by 3 to 5 °C (5.4 to 9 °F).
• An appearance of La Niña persists for at least five months.
• It has extensive effects on the weather across the globe, particularly in North America, even affecting the Atlantic and Pacific hurricane seasons, in which more tropical cyclones occur in the Atlantic basin due to low wind shear and warmer sea surface temperatures, while reducing tropical cyclogenesis in the Pacific Ocean.
• La Niña is a complex weather pattern that occurs every few years, as a result of variations in ocean temperatures in the Equatorial Pacific.
• It occurs as strong winds blow warm water at the ocean’s surface from South America across the Pacific Ocean towards Indonesia.
• As this warm water moves west, cold water from the deep sea rises to the surface near South America.
• As a result, it is considered to be the cold phase of the broader El Niño–Southern Oscillation weather pattern, as well as the opposite of El Niño weather pattern.
• La Niña impacts the global climate and disrupts normal weather patterns, which as a result can lead to intense storms in some places and droughts in others.

El Niño

• El Niño is the warm phase of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and is associated with a band of warm ocean water that develops in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific (between approximately the International Date Line and 120°W), including the area off the Pacific coast of South America.
• The ENSO is the cycle of warm and cold sea surface temperature (SST) of the tropical central and eastern Pacific Ocean.
• El Niño is accompanied by high air pressure in the western Pacific and low air pressure in the eastern Pacific.
• During the development of El Niño, rainfall develops between September–November.
• The cool phase of ENSO is La Niña, with SSTs in the eastern Pacific below average, and air pressure high in the eastern Pacific and low in the western Pacific.
• The ENSO cycle, including both El Niño and La Niña, causes global changes in temperature and rainfall.

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5G Vertical Engagement and Partnership Program

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Context:

The Department of Telecommunications (DoT) has invited Expression of Interest (EoI) for “5G Vertical Engagement and Partnership Program (VEPP)” initiative to build strong collaboration partnerships across 5G Use-case ecosystem stakeholders.

Relevance:

GS- III ( Science and Technology ) IT & Computers, Indigenization of Technology

Dimensions of the Article:

1. About 5G
2. About 5G VEPP

About 5G

• 5G is the next generation of mobile broadband that will eventually replace, or at least augment 4G LTE connection and it  offers exponentially faster download and upload speeds.
• 5G will deliver multi-Gbps peak rates, ultra-low latency, massive capacity, and a more uniform user experience.
• This is in contrast to 4G link speeds in averaging 6-7 Megabit per second (Mbps) in India as compared to 25 Mbps in advanced countries.

Application of 5G

• 5G will help in creating cyber-physical networks which not only interconnect people, but also interconnect and control machines, objects, and devices. It will deliver new levels of performance and efficiency that will empower new user experiences and connect new industries.
• It will act as an enabler for the Industrial Revolution 4.0 and is expected to form the backbone of emerging technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and machine to machine communications.
• 5G can also help make transport infrastructure more efficient by making it smart. It will enable vehicle-to-vehicle and vehicle-to-infrastructure communication, making driverless cars, among other things, a reality.
• Also, the primary applications of 5G will be the implementation of a sensor-embedded network that will allow real-time relay of information across fields such as manufacturing, consumer durables and agriculture.

About 5G VEPP

• It is an Initiative, where the DoT will “facilitate necessary approvals, regulatory clearances to enable use case prototyping, pilots, demos, trials at the user or vertical industry premises”.
• The DoT will facilitate access to experimental spectrum, access to testbeds and engagement with academia, other ministries for necessary regulatory policies and pilots wherever feasible.
• The technology stakeholders, which agree to be a part of the partnership will work to develop and deploy prototypes and pilots for 5G use cases as per the needs of the respective ministries or industry verticals to help accelerate commercial usage and adoption by enterprises.
• It will enable close collaboration between User verticals and 5G Tech stakeholders (Service providers, Solution providers & partner Original Equipment Manufacturers), which can trigger a multiplier effect to try & finetune 5G digital solutions in respective economic verticals.

Objectives:

• It seeks to build strong collaboration partnerships across 5G Use-case ecosystem stakeholders with velocity and with an exclusive emphasis to address User/Vertical Industry needs.