Daily Mains Practice Questions 09-03-2023

KEY POINTS

·        The Government of India has made unprecedented efforts to build border infrastructure.

·        The Home Affairs Ministry has also reportedly held meetings with public representatives of villages from various border States.

·        India’s tremendous tourism potential in its border States remains largely untapped due to the remoteness of locations and the difficulty of access.

·        The area around Pangong Lake and Chushul is a delight for photographers and birdwatchers. In the Changthang wildlife sanctuary, there are wetlands and a thriving population of the Kiang, a wild ass.

·        Lhari Peak is sacred to both Hindus and Buddhists. The Demchok area is home to several hot springs that are popular for naturopathy cures.

·        In the central sector, Mana Pass in Chamoli, Uttarakhand, is one of the highest vehicle-accessible passes in the world. Mana village is steeped in mythology as the gateway to heaven.

·        In the eastern sector, the Bum La Pass in Arunachal Pradesh is already a well-established tourism hub. There is scope to bring in more tourists all the way up to Zero Point, the site of border personnel meetings with China.

·        While the vast tourism potential of India’s border areas need to be tapped, it is equally important to ensure that tourism projects are implemented after conducting feasibility studies.

KEY POINTS

·        As India’s energy transition progresses, some future implications of the movement towards a grid increasingly powered by solar, wind and storage have attracted analysis and commentary.

·        The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has outlined regulatory, financial and policy steps India can take to establish a viable renewable energy recycling industry.

·        IEEFA welcomes the announcement late last year of the new E-Waste (Management) Rules, which place obligations on solar manufacturers and producers to officially register projected waste and stockpiles and identify recyclers.

·        In reality, only a small fraction of the panels represented in the figure are currently entering the waste stream. But renewable energy’s penetration of India’s power grid will ultimately see panels failing or reaching obsolescence in appreciable numbers.

·        Silica-rich overburden can replace other sources, such as sand mined from rivers, although such use represents only a tiny proportion of the total.

·        Nevertheless, this still leaves vast quantities dumped on the periphery of mines, sometimes polluting waterways with high metal content in leachates or affecting farm productivity.

·        Coal-fired power remains an overwhelmingly larger creator of far less well-controlled and generally more damaging waste, which renewable energy has the potential to limit, reduce and ultimately eliminate.

KEY POINTS

·        Indian banks continue to be a male bastion, despite a slew of gender-inclusion initiatives by the government.

·        From 2006-07 to 2020–21, the proportion of total female employees in the banking sector has barely increased.

·        In all scheduled commercial banks (SCBs), the proportion of total female employees to total employees over the 15-year period, rose only by 9.1 percentage points.

·        Another point of concern is that Indian banks are yet to understand the significance of gender inclusion at the top level.

·        But there is still a glass ceiling that prevents women from assuming leadership positions in Indian banks; no Indian bank at present has a woman CEO and, according to a report, only 13 women occupy board positions (in 12 PSBs), representing 10.66 per cent of 122 directors.

·        Even this was possible due to the legal compulsion of having one woman on the board as per Section 49 of the Indian Companies Act, 2013.

·        The country has a pool of talented, dedicated and responsible women at all levels of the banking sector, who require proper nurturing through appropriate mentoring and friendly HR policies.

·        Federal Bank and HDFC Bank, for instance, have made a beginning by unfurling diversity and inclusion agendas. Other banks should follow suit so as to join hands with the Nari Shakti Movement of the government.

Q.1

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