Mains Examination: Common Research-II: Impact of insurance policies and politics of developed and growing nations on India’s pursuits, Indian diaspora.
What’s the continuing story: Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, proprietor of Tesla, X and SpaceX, and a key ally of US President-elect Donald Trump, waded into the talk round hiring H-1B visa-holders and mentioned he “will go to struggle” on the problem and requested right-wingers to “take an enormous step again”.
Key Factors to Ponder:
• What’s the historical past of India-US relations?
• What are the areas of cooperation between India and the US?
• How have India-US defence relations developed?
• What are the important thing developments in India-US relations within the numerous sectors?
• What’s the distinction between a visa and a passport?
• What’s the H-1B visa program?
• How does the H-1B visa program impression expert migration from India to the USA?
• What vital coverage adjustments have occurred lately relating to the H-1B visa?
• How does the H-1B visa program have an effect on diplomatic and commerce relations between India and the USA?
Key Takeaways:
• The H-1B programme permits companies within the US to make use of expert overseas nationals. Whereas the discourse on immigration within the US normally centres round unlawful entrants through the US-Mexico border, authorized methods such because the H-1B program have additionally come below intense scrutiny over the previous week by the far proper within the US.
• In fiscal yr 2023, of the two.65 lakh H-1B visas issued by the US, 72 per cent went to Indian nationals. Throughout the identical interval, high 4 Indian IT majors with a presence within the US, viz., Infosys, TCS, HCL, and Wipro, obtained approval for round 20,000 workers to work on H-1B visa, as per the newest US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS) knowledge.
• Immigration was an vital political hot-button challenge within the 2024 US presidential elections, the place Trump had promised to close down unlawful immigration on the southern border and begin a mass deportation effort. Nonetheless, the present debate focuses on authorized immigrants.
• Expertise corporations say H-1B visas for expert employees, utilized by software program engineers and others within the business, are essential for hard-to-fill positions. However critics have mentioned they undercut US residents who may take these jobs. Some on the fitting have referred to as for the programme to be eradicated, not expanded.
Do You Know:
• The H-1B visa programme permits US employers to rent immigrant employees in specialty occupations that require “a excessive stage of ability” and “a minimum of a bachelor’s diploma”, in keeping with the US Division of Labour. The H-1B visa will be issued for a most of six years at a stretch.
• “The intent of the H-1B provisions is to assist employers who can’t in any other case acquire wanted enterprise abilities and talents from the US workforce by authorising the short-term employment of certified people who are usually not in any other case authorised to work in the USA,” the division’s web site says.
• The H-1B visa is successful particularly amongst Indians. Information from the US authorities exhibits that Indians make up a major majority of H-1B visa-holders — within the fiscal yr 2023, Indians accounted for 72.3% (2.79 lakh of a complete of three.86 lakh) H-1B visa holders, in keeping with the US Citizenship and Immigration Providers (USCIS). Chinese language immigrants got here a distant second, holding 11.7% of the full H-1B visas H-1B visas.
• The sheer dominance of Indian H-1B visa holders, a majority of whom work in computer-related occupations, has invited criticism from anti-immigration voices similar to Lippincot — they see Indians within the context of well-paying software program engineering jobs in the identical mild as they see Mexicans in relation to poorly paid guide labour.
Different Vital Articles Protecting the identical subject:
📍What’s the contribution of Indian Individuals to US society and financial system?
📍Defined: Debate on expert immigration, inexperienced playing cards & H-1B visas in US
UPSC Prelims Apply Query Protecting related theme:
(1) As regards to the H-1B visa program, think about the next statements:
1. It permits American employers to rent non-immigrant employees in specialty occupations that require a excessive stage of abilities.
2. There isn’t any capping within the complete variety of new H-1B visas.
3. Within the fiscal yr 2023, Indians accounted for greater than half of the full H-1B approvals.
Which of the statements given above is/are right?
(a) 2 and three solely
(b) 1 solely
(c) 1 and three solely
(d) 3 solely
Earlier yr UPSC Mains Query Protecting related theme:
Indian diaspora has a decisive function to play within the politics and financial system of America and European International locations.’ Remark with examples (UPSC CSE 2020)
ECONOMY
All states/UTs anticipated to finish draft labour code guidelines by March
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Present occasions of nationwide significance and social improvement
Mains Examination: Common Research-II, III: Indian Economic system and points regarding planning, mobilisation, of sources, development, improvement and employment, Authorities insurance policies and interventions
What’s the continuing story: All 36 states and Union territories (UTs) are anticipated to finish “harmonisation and pre-publication” of draft guidelines below the 4 labour codes by March 31, 2025, a launch by the Labour Ministry mentioned on Saturday.
Key Factors to Ponder:
• What are Indian labour legal guidelines?
• Labour legal guidelines fall below which record of the Seventh schedule of the Indian Structure?
• What are the important thing options of the 4 Labour Codes launched by the Authorities of India?
• What’s the significance of the Labour Codes in selling Ease of Doing Enterprise in India?
• What are the challenges related to the implementation of Labour Codes?
• How do the Labour Codes tackle points associated to gig and platform employees in India?
• What are the advantages of labour codes?
Key Takeaways:
• Up to now, barring 5 states and UTs, all others have pre-published the principles, setting the stage for the much-awaited rollout of the 4 codes — Code on Wages, Code on Social Safety, Code on Industrial Relations, and Code on Occupational Well being & Security — by subsequent yr. The Labour Ministry has been constantly working for harmonisation of guidelines below the 4 codes throughout the states, mentioned the discharge.
• Labour legal guidelines fall below the concurrent record of the Structure. Therefore, each the Centre and states are empowered to make guidelines. However within the occasion of a battle between state and central legal guidelines, central laws usually takes priority, except the state’s legislation has obtained presidential assent.
• The 4 labour codes are a considered mixture of reforms geared toward easing labour market rigidities, and reinforcing employees’ rights and welfare.
• As many as 44 labour associated Acts have been consolidated into the 4 codes in 2019-2020 with the target of reinforcing commerce and funding, facilitating ease of doing enterprise and easing compliance.
• A number of minor offences have been decriminalised through the codes, whereas ability improvement and dispute decision have been accorded due precedence. In the meantime, the ministry is also working in the direction of improvement of a framework for social safety protection to gig and platform employees, mentioned the discharge.
• Intensive stakeholder consultations have been performed with aggregators, data companions, platform employee organisations, and state/UTs this yr to make sure a complete understanding of the Social Safety Code, 2020, and to develop collaborative approaches for a social safety framework tailor-made to gig and platform employees, it mentioned.
Do You Know:
• Since labour issues fall below the Concurrent Listing, each Parliament and state legislature maintain the authority to enact related legal guidelines. Earlier than the introduction of the New Labour Code, the central authorities recognized over 40 central legal guidelines and greater than 100 state legal guidelines addressing numerous labour points.
• The Second Nationwide Fee on Labour (2002) really helpful reforms to consolidate these present legal guidelines into 4 predominant labour codes, that are nonetheless awaiting implementation: the Code on Wages (2019), the Code on Social Safety (2020), the Industrial Relations Code (2020), and the Occupational Security, Well being, and Working Circumstances Code (2020).
• These new codes prioritise essential points similar to employee security, truthful wages, and social safety. For instance, the Occupational Security, Well being, and Working Circumstances Code establishes complete well being and security requirements for employers.
Different Vital Articles Protecting the identical subject:
📍Defined: What labour legislation adjustments by states imply
📍How Ambedkar reformed labour legal guidelines in India
Earlier yr UPSC Prelims Query Protecting related theme:
(2) Contemplate the next statements: (UPSC CSE 2017)
1. The Factories Act, 1881 was handed with a view to repair the wages of business employees and to permit the employees to kind commerce unions.
2. N.M. Lokhande was a pioneer in organizing the labour motion in British India.
Which of the above statements is/are right?
(a) 1 solely
(b) 2 solely
(c) Each 1 and a couple of
(d) Neither 1 nor 2
Earlier yr UPSC Mains Query Protecting related theme:
“Success of ‘Make in India’ programme is dependent upon the success of ‘Ability India’ programme and radical labour reforms.” Talk about with logical arguments. (UPSC CSE 2015)
West Bengal & Rajasthan new migrant vacation spot hotspots; Uttar Pradesh tops
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Present occasions of nationwide significance and social improvement, Financial Geography of India.
Mains Examination: Common Research-I, II, III: Results of globalization on Indian society, Indian Economic system and points regarding planning, mobilisation, of sources, development, improvement and employment, Authorities insurance policies and interventions
What’s the continuing story: West Bengal and Rajasthan are the brand new centres of migrants motion from throughout the nation and have discovered place within the record of high 5 states the place most numbers of basic or second class passengers travelled to by the Indian Railways, exhibits the newest working paper of the Financial Advisory Council to the Prime Minister (EAC-PM) on migration traits.
Key Factors to Ponder:
• Who’re migrants?
• What knowledge on migration says?
• Human Migration-know intimately
• What’s the distinction between inter and intra migration?
• What are the Push and Pull components of migration?
• What’s the significance of migration?
• What are the challenges related to the migration?
• What does the time period “home migrant” imply?
Key Takeaways:
• Different three states within the high 5 are Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Madhya Pradesh. In keeping with the evaluation of information from the Indian Railways on unreserved tickets of non-suburban passengers (150+ kms journey), the council has concluded that whereas many of the states confirmed discount within the passenger headed to them from exterior, probably because of an total discount in migration, West Bengal, Rajasthan and Karnataka are the states that confirmed the utmost quantity of development in proportion share of the arrival passengers.
• In comparison with 2012 knowledge, Andhra Pradesh and Bihar are actually ranked a notch decrease. Titled as “400 Million Goals!”, the PM advisory physique in its report mentioned that the general variety of migrants within the nation has diminished by 11.78 per cent as in comparison with the 2011 census.
• The paper hypothesised that improved financial alternatives in smaller cities are among the many causes for the slowing migration in India.
• Aside from ticket bookings knowledge from Indian Railway Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) for yr 2023 and 2012, EAC-PM used cell phone subscribers’ roaming knowledge and district stage banking knowledge on remittances to provide you with the determine of 40.20 crore migrant, as of 2023, within the nation. The entire variety of migrants in Census 2011 have been 45.57 crore.
• In keeping with its evaluation, Gujarat, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Karnataka and Telangana are the foremost origin states for arrivals into Maharashtra. Equally, for Delhi, the foremost origin states are Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Rajasthan, Haryana and Madhya Pradesh.
Do You Know:
• Migration is seen as an vital and important livelihood technique for rural households within the growing world. In India, inside migration or home migration – the motion of individuals inside a rustic’s borders – performs a vital function in shaping each city and rural economies.
• Inner migration will be understood and measured by way of sorts or streams of motion. The kinds of inside migration will be intra-district or throughout the district, intra-state or throughout the state, and inter-state. The streams of inside migration will be rural-rural, rural-urban, urban-rural, and urban-urban.
• It’s tough to exactly calculate the amount of migration, particularly due to the casual nature of the Indian financial system. The Census of India gives helpful knowledge on understanding everlasting motion and, to some extent, semi-permanent migration. The Census defines two kinds of migrants in India – migration by fatherland and migration by final residence.
• A migrant by start is an individual who’s enumerated in a Census at a distinct place than the place they have been born. A migrant by the final residence is one who resides at a spot totally different from the place of enumeration repeatedly for a minimum of six months previous to the migration.
Different Vital Articles Protecting the identical subject:
📍Migration in India is slowing, diminished by 11.78 % in 2023: PM advisory physique report
📍 How you can facilitate safer and extra productive migration patterns
Earlier yr UPSC Mains Query Protecting related theme:
Talk about the adjustments within the traits of labour migration inside and outdoors India within the final 4 many years. (UPSC CSE 2015)
As tech corporations look to translate the promise of AI in 2025, 3 clear templates emerge
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Present occasions of nationwide and worldwide significance.
Mains Examination: Common Research III: Consciousness within the fields of IT, House, Computer systems, robotics, nano-technology, bio-technology and points regarding mental property rights.
What’s the continuing story: If the yr 2024 began with the promise of generational AI, 2025 could possibly be extra about testing out the use circumstances of a few of these AI instruments. And discovering solutions to the quintessential query of monetising AI. Going ahead, there could possibly be three board templates for essentially the most compelling use circumstances but.
Key Factors to Ponder:
• What’s synthetic intelligence (AI)?
• What are the areas of AI utility?
• Is there any authorized framework for AI regulation globally and nationally?
• What are the advantages of AI?
• What are the moral challenges posed by means of Generative AI (GenAI)?
• What are the challenges related to the AI?
• How is Synthetic Slender Intelligence (ANI) totally different from Synthetic Common Intelligence (AGI).
• Learn in regards to the India synthetic intelligence (AI) Mission?
Key Takeaways:
• One, is that this clear deal with AI brokers — synthetic intelligence instruments that may deal with multi step chores like onboarding shoppers, approving bills and never simply routing, however really responding to customer-service requests, all with minimal human intervention.
• Second, if monetising AI is an enormous query, San Francisco-based Perplexity AI has some solutions. In November, Perplexity – a conversational ‘reply engine’ that makes use of giant language fashions (LLMs) to reply queries utilizing sources from the net and citing hyperlinks throughout the textual content response – launched a user-focused purchasing hub in a bid to beef up its platform because it makes an attempt to tackle Google’s dominance within the search engine house.
• Third, is a doubling down on bettering the AI interface by the phase leaders – a handful of corporations similar to OpenAI, Google, Meta, xAI and Anthropic which have converged on the high of the present era of LLM fashions.
• Google too has a pitch on this phase, with the promise to launch Gemini 2.0, its most succesful mannequin that it says is constructed for the ‘new agentic period’. With new advances in multimodality — like native picture and audio output — and native software use, Google mentioned the brand new launch “will allow us to construct new AI brokers that deliver us nearer to our imaginative and prescient of a common assistant”.
• All this comes at a time when many of the phase leaders really feel that the progress on AI goes to get tougher, with the low hanging fruit gone and the curve on the hill getting steeper in 2025. The foundational fashions are more likely to get higher at reasoning, evaluating a sequence of actions extra reliably in a extra agentic manner, Google CEO Sundar Pichai mentioned in a dialog at a New York Occasions occasion earlier this month.
Do You Know:
• Synthetic Intelligence (AI) is the flexibility of machines, particularly computer systems, to carry out duties that sometimes require human intelligence. These duties embrace issues like understanding language, recognising patterns, fixing issues, and making choices.
• Primarily, AI permits machines to assume and study from expertise, identical to people do, however typically at a a lot sooner tempo with entry to huge quantities of information.
• AI will be labeled into two sorts: Synthetic Slender Intelligence (ANI) also referred to as weak AI and Synthetic Common Intelligence (AGI) additionally known as sturdy AI.
• ANI is designed for particular duties and excels inside a slender area. Examples embrace digital assistants like Siri, advice programs on platforms like Netflix, and picture recognition software program. ANI programs are extremely specialised and can’t switch their experience to unrelated duties.
• In distinction, AGI goals to copy human cognitive skills, enabling it to carry out any mental activity a human can do. AGI would possess basic reasoning abilities, perceive context, and adapt to new conditions throughout numerous domains. It might be able to autonomous studying and problem-solving with out requiring task-specific programming.
• Machine Studying (ML) and Deep Studying (DL) are subsets of AI however differ in complexity and capabilities. ML includes coaching algorithms to study from knowledge and make predictions and sometimes requires guide function extraction.
• DL, a subset of ML, makes use of neural networks with many layers (therefore “deep”) to routinely study options from giant datasets. Whereas ML works effectively with smaller datasets, DL requires huge quantities of information and computational energy.
Different Vital Articles Protecting the identical subject:
📍What’s Synthetic Intelligence, how is it revolutionising healthcare
📍What’s Generative AI, the know-how behind OpenAI’s ChatGPT?
Earlier yr UPSC Prelims Query Protecting related theme:
(3) With the current state of improvement, Synthetic Intelligence can successfully do which of the next? (UPSC CSE 2020)
1. Carry down electrical energy consumption in industrial items
2. Create significant brief tales and songs
3. Illness analysis
4. Textual content-to-Speech Conversion
5. Wi-fi transmission {of electrical} power
Choose the proper reply utilizing the code given beneath:
(a) 1, 2, 3 and 5 solely
(b) 1, 3 and 4 solely
(c) 2, 4 and 5 solely
(d) 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5
(4) Contemplate the next statements with regard to the Bletchley Park Declaration:
1. The declaration was signed by 28 nations.
2. Frontier AI is outlined as extremely succesful basis generative AI fashions that might possess harmful capabilities that may pose extreme dangers to public security.
3. The USA, China, Japan, the UK, France, and India are usually not signatories to the declaration.
How lots of the statements given above is/are right?
(a) Just one
(b) Solely two
(c) All three
(d) None
Earlier yr UPSC Prelims/Mains Query Protecting related theme:
Introduce the idea of Synthetic Intelligence (AI). How does Al assist medical analysis? Do you understand any risk to privateness of the person in using Al in healthcare? (UPSC CSE 2023)
THE WORLD
Taliban forces hit again at Pakistan days after airstrikes inside Afghanistan
Syllabus:
Preliminary Examination: Present occasions of nationwide and worldwide significance
Mains Examination: Common Research-II: India and its neighbourhood- relations, Impact of insurance policies and politics of developed and growing nations on India’s pursuits.
What’s the continuing story: Afghan Taliban forces focused “a number of factors” in neighbouring Pakistan, Afghanistan’s defence ministry mentioned on Saturday, days after Pakistani plane carried out aerial bombardment inside Afghanistan.
Key Factors to Ponder:
• What’s the Durand Line?
• Why has the Durand Line been some extent of rivalry between Afghanistan and Pakistan?
• How does the strained relationship between Afghanistan and Pakistan impression regional stability in South Asia?
• What challenges come up in managing borders in mountainous and tribal areas, such because the Afghanistan-Pakistan boundary?
• How has the legacy of colonial borders influenced modern-day interstate relations in South Asia?
• How has the Taliban’s governance in Afghanistan influenced its diplomatic method towards Pakistan and regional disputes?
• What are the important thing options and implications of the Line of Management (LoC) between India and Pakistan?
• What’s the McMahon Line? How does it contribute to the border dispute between India and China?
• Map work: Verify India’s worldwide borders (Refer Atlas)
Key Takeaways:
• The assertion from the Defence Ministry didn’t specify Pakistan however mentioned the strikes have been performed “past the ‘hypothetical line’” – an expression utilized by Afghan authorities to seek advice from a border with Pakistan that they’ve lengthy disputed.
• Afghanistan has for many years rejected the border, referred to as the Durand Line, drawn by British colonial authorities within the nineteenth century by the mountainous and sometimes lawless tribal belt between what’s now Afghanistan and Pakistan.
• Afghan authorities warned on Wednesday they’d retaliate after the Pakistani bombardment, which they mentioned had killed civilians. Islamabad mentioned it had focused hideouts of Islamist militants alongside the border.
• The neighbours have a strained relationship, with Pakistan saying that a number of militant assaults which have occurred in its nation have been launched from Afghan soil – a cost the Afghan Taliban denies.
Do You Know:
• The border that divides India and Pakistan known as the Radcliffe line because it was drawn up by the Boundary Fee headed by Cyril Radcliffe.
• The Durand Line was demarcated because the border between British India and Afghanistan in 1893 and with partition in 1947 grew to become the border of the newly created Pakistan with Afghanistan.
• The McMahon Line was drawn up in British India on the Simla Convention that lasted from October 1913 to July 1914. It separates Tibet from Assam and was named after the chief British negotiator Sir Henry McMahon. The McMahon Line grew to become the idea of the Sino-India Warfare of October-November 1962.
Different Vital Articles Protecting the identical subject:
📍Defined: Pakistan’s Taliban drawback, on both facet of Afghanistan border
📍Defined: In India-China border dispute, strategic significance of Scorching Springs, Gogra Submit
UPSC Prelims Apply Query Protecting related theme:
(5) Contemplate the next pairs:
1. Durand Line: Afghanistan-China Border
2. McMahon Line: India-China Border
3. Radcliffe line: India-Pakistan Border
Which of the pairs given above is/are right?
(a) 1 and three solely
(b) 1 solely
(c) 2 and three solely
(d) 2 solely
In your queries and recommendations write at roshni.yadav@indianexpress.com
The Indian Specific UPSC Necessities brings to you the December challenge of its month-to-month journal. Click on Right here to learn. Share your views and recommendations within the remark field or at manas.srivastava@indianexpress.com
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