General Studies – II
International Relations
1) India should not be opposed to joining the investment facilitation agreement negotiations due to investor-state dispute settlement claims. Discuss (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
General Studies – III
Agriculture
2) Do you think that the India’s dairy sector needs a structural shift in various aspects? Comment (200 Words)
Refer - Business Line
S & T
3) Assess the various significance of setting up of Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO) in the country. (200 Words)
Refer - The Hindu
Enrich the answer from other sources, if the question demands.
IAS Parliament 2 years
KEY POINTS
· Although the World Trade Organization (WTO) is in a moribund condition, there is prolific activity taking place in one area of rule-making: investment facilitation agreement (IFA).
· Agreement will be very different from investment protection agreements such as bilateral investment treaties (BITs) that allow foreign investors to bring claims against the host state for alleged treaty breaches.
· Presumably, one of the reasons India is not a party to IFA negotiations is the apprehension that foreign investors could use a future IFA to bring claims under the existing BITs.
· Older investment treaties rarely elucidate the meaning of the FET provision, which, in turn, allows ISDS tribunals to supply its normative content.
· For the ISDS tribunal, the IFA is just another international law instrument that must be interpreted and applied in accordance with the context of the relevant BIT.
· Countries can overcome this problem by amending their respective BITs to exclude the IFA from its scope.
· The possibility of an audacious ISDS tribunal interpreting provisions broadly can never be ruled out.
· But this cannot be a basis to oppose international lawmaking, in the same way that a hypothetical likelihood of a national court interpreting the law wrongly cannot be the reason to cease domestic lawmaking.
KEY POINTS
· According to ICAR scientists, fodder and feed account for 70 per cent of the cost of milk.
· Fodder development does not find much of a place in animal husbandry budgets.
· For a sector that supports more than 80 million farmers, and one that can provide a livelihood to many more small and marginal farmers (120 million of them, with plots too small for viable farming)
· It is worth investing in policies to address embedded supply constraints. Dairy products demand is growing rapidly with rising population, incomes, urbanisation and changing diets.
· As the 2022-23 Annual Report of the Ministry of Animal Husbandry and Dairying has pointed out, the private dairy sector has responded, having “surpassed the combined capacity of the dairy cooperatives and government dairies in the past 20 years”.
· This time, private players have wrested some market share from cooperatives by offering higher prices in a buoyant market.
· But for sustainable dairy development, it is important that producers, most of whom are poor, are spared price volatility they deserve price assurance of some sort.
· Private players should be nudged to invest in supply chains in this capital intensive business.
· Cooperatives revolutionised dairying, but due to a variety of factors their success has not gone beyond Gujarat and Karnataka.
KEY POINTS
· The Union Cabinet’s approval to set up a gravitational-wave detection facility in Maharashtra, a Rs 2,600 crore project, is one that will consist of a detector called the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO).
· A third detector is being built in India as part of the LIGO-India collaboration in order to improve the detectors’ collective ability to pinpoint sources of gravitational waves in the sky.
· The starting requirement here is the timely release of funds for construction, followed by issuing the allocated resources without delay.
· LIGO-India can demonstrate an ability to reckon intelligently with Indian society’s relationship with science, using the opportunities that Big Science affords.
· India has had a contested relationship with such projects, including, recently, the Challakere Science City and the stalled India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO).
· A similar criticism has trailed experimental Big Science undertakings, including the INO, in the economically developing world.
· This is the second opportunity LIGO-India has, amplified by the context of the present moment: to build a facility that contributes to the communities from which it requires sustenance and knowledge.
· Engage in good faith on concerns about access to land and other resources, and conduct public outreach on a par with the international LIGO Scientific Collaboration.
