Students’ Speak: Top GD/PI topics to study for XAT 2020

By: Rakesh Kumar Sahoo

Nowadays, every selection process or competitive exam has a GD session to understand the knowledge base of the aspirants. Be it CAT, XAT or any banking exam, all conduct a GD session to compare the knowledge of the competitors regarding the environmental knowledge.

Every single thing changes in a drastic manner. In order to keep up the speed, every student should know what is happening around them. They must have a brief knowledge of environmental happenings around them. Below I am suggesting some of the recent GD topics that can help you to know more about the recent news.

Instead of selling such high performing public sector undertakings (PSUs), should we not be selling the loss-making ones?

The government is planning to sell PSUs such as Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL), which is a profit-making Navaratna PSU. Before going into the subject, you need to understand what a PSU is. PSUs are the public companies in which the Government has a majority stake, 51 percent or more. So, the government is involved in the decision-making of those companies. There are a lot of banks and other industries in which the Government has more than 51 percent and the companies are running in loss. Instead of selling profit-making companies, the government should plan to sell loss-making companies.

Another viewpoint is petrol, which is the main source of energy for many processes. If in the future, there will be any war then we do not have proper stock of petroleum. Therefore, if the government sells BPCL then it can be a national security issue also.

The USA has 600 billion barrels of petrol in stock, China has 400 billion barrels, South Korea has 146 billion barrels whereas India has only 39.1 billion barrels. India has the world’s second-largest population but, in terms of savings, India has only 39.1 billion barrels.

In the future, if there is any problem then we must have enough resources to stand for at least three months. So, the government should rethink the decision.

         A patently unconstitutional piece of legislation: Attempt towards a Hindu Rashtra.

• Proposed Citizenship Amendment Bill, 2019, (CAB) that seeks to amend certain provisions of the 1955 Act, subjected to severe judicial scrutiny.
• The government’s obstinacy in going ahead with it, despite opposition in Parliament, as well as from enlightened sections, is unfortunate.
• Bill chooses to open its citizenship door to non-Muslims from three nations with a Muslim majority — Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
• The ostensible reason: An opportunity to members of minority communities from these countries who had entered India prior to December 31, 2014, to apply for citizenship through naturalisation.
• The residential requirement for this category for naturalisation is reduced from 11 years to five.
• The Bill carefully avoids the words ‘persecuted minorities’, but the Statement of Objects and Reasons says, “many persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities have faced persecution on grounds of religions”, in these three countries.
• Further, it refers to Home Ministry notifications in 2015-2016 through which it had exempted these undocumented migrants from the adverse penal consequences under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, and the Foreigners’ Act, 1946. The CAB creates a category of people on the basis of their religion.
• A key argument against the CAB is that it will not extend to those persecuted in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, from where Rohingya Muslims and Tamils are staying in the country as refugees.
• Further, it fails to allow Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims, who also face persecution, to apply for citizenship.

         Citizenship law amendment goes against non-discriminatory norms in the Constitution. Explain.

• The Citizenship (Amendment) Bill, 2019 (CAB), is brazenly discriminatory and it is only a matter of time before its constitutionality is subjected to severe judicial scrutiny.
• The government’s obstinacy in going ahead with it, despite opposition in Parliament, as well as from enlightened sections, is unfortunate.
• Bill chooses to open its citizenship door to non-Muslims from three nations with a Muslim majority, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
• The ostensible reason: An opportunity to members of minority communities from these countries who had entered India prior to December 31, 2014, to apply for citizenship through naturalisation.
• The residential requirement for this category for naturalisation is reduced from 11 years to five.
• The Bill carefully avoids the words ‘persecuted minorities’, but the Statement of Objects and Reasons says “many persons belonging to Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain, Parsi and Christian communities have faced persecution on grounds of religions” in these three countries.
• Further, it refers to Home Ministry notifications in 2015-2016 through which it had exempted these undocumented migrants from the adverse penal consequences under the Passport (Entry into India) Act, 1920, and the Foreigners’ Act, 1946.
• The CAB creates a category of people on the basis of their religion
• A key argument against the CAB is that it will not extend to those persecuted in Myanmar and Sri Lanka, from where Rohingya Muslims and Tamils are staying in the country as refugees.
• Further, it fails to allow Shia and Ahmadiyya Muslims, who also face persecution, to apply for citizenship.
• The exemption from the application of the CAB’s provisions in tribal areas in Assam, Meghalaya, Mizoram and Tripura, and the Inner Line Permit areas in Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Mizoram, with Manipur to be added soon
• The central feature of the equal protection of the law envisaged in Article 14 is that the basis for classifying a group for a particular kind of treatment should bear a rational nexus with the overall objective.
• It would be a sad day for the republic if legislation that challenges its founding principles of equality and secularism is allowed to be passed.

         The ends of justice are not served by wanton killing and retributive blood lust, India must follow constitutional morality.

• Last Friday, the country was rudely awakened to the news of the deaths, in an encounter early in the morning, of the four accused in the rape and murder of the young veterinarian in Hyderabad — an incident, which happened on Wednesday, triggering an angry response across the country with demands for speedy justice.
• Some politicians demanded the public lynching of rapists. In moments such as this, families react with deep anger and grief. Most times this is exhibited through a demand for instantaneous retribution.
• For several affected families, death is the only answer to rape. It is also a fact that this is not a universal view.

         Taking stock of the anti-AIDS fight

• The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), adopted by the member countries of the United Nations in 2015, set a target of ending the epidemics of AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria by 2030 (SDG 3.3).
• The key indicator chosen to track progress in achieving the target for HIVAIDS is “the number of new HIV infections per 1,000 uninfected population, by sex, age and key populations”
• In the terminology of HIV prevention and control, the phrase “key populations” refers to men who have sex with men; people who use injected drugs; people in prisons and other closed settings; sex workers and their clients, and transgender persons.
• In order to infuse energy and urgency into global efforts to combat HIV/AIDS and complement the prevention target set by the SDGs, an ambitious treatment target was also adopted through UNAIDS, the lead UN agency that coordinates the battle against HIV.
• The “90-90-90” target stated that by 2020, 90% of those living with HIV will know their HIV status, 90% of all people with diagnosed HIV infection will receive sustained anti-retroviral therapy and 90% of all people on such therapy will have viral suppression.
• The gaps in detection, initiation of drug therapy and effective viral control were to be bridged to reduce infectivity, severe morbidity and deaths from undetected and inadequately treated persons already infected with HIV, even as prevention of new infections was targeted by SDG 3.3.

         Retributive justice

• Security forces must be trained to desist from panic responses while dealing with extremists It will be hard for security forces in Chhattisgarh to live down the assertion by the Justice V K Agarwal judicial inquiry commission that no evidence existed to support the claim that the 17 people who died in the “encounter” on the night of June 28-29, 2012, in three villages in Bijapur and Sukma districts were “Naxalites”.
• In the official narration, two teams led by a DIG marched into the forests to outflank subversives in a meeting only to be surprised by gunfire.
• And when the light of day penetrated the fog of battle, 17 Naxalites lay dead, and six uniformed personnel hurt.
• But the commission found no evidence of a gunfight and held that firing had been one-sided beginning to end.
• The findings are a chilling and sordid catalog of how truth can be subverted and buried by the very officers who are supposed to enforce the law.
• Though the commission findings make it clear that the entire operation was all about poor intelligence, inadequate training, lack of communication, and hasty reaction.
• Postmortem reports showed injuries on 10 of those killed were on their backs, not consistent with claims the firing had been in self-defense.
• Instead, the nature and location of the injuries suggested they were fired upon while fleeing, and in no position to pose a threat.

         Have electoral bonds made a bad system worse?

• An electoral bond can be bought by any Indian citizen or company incorporated in India from select branches of State Bank of India.
• The bonds are payable to the bearer on demand and are free of interest.
• The electoral bonds were introduced on January 29, 2018, by the Narendra Modi-led NDA government under a notification of Electoral Bond Scheme 2018.
• The bonds will be issued in multiples of Rs 1,000, Rs 10,000, Rs 100,000 and Rs 1 crore (the range of a bond is between Rs 1,000 to Rs 1 crore).
• A donor with a KYC-compliant account valid only for fifteen days.
• The electoral bonds are available for purchase for 10 days at the beginning of every quarter. The first 10 days of January, April, July and October.
• Any party that is registered under section 29A of the Representation of the Peoples Act, 1951 and has secured at least one percent of the votes polled in the most recent General elections or Assembly elections is eligible to receive electoral bonds.

         Another quota question.

• Supreme Court needs to decide whether ‘creamy layer’ norms can be extended to SCs.
• The time may have come for an authoritative pronouncement on the question of whether the concept of ‘creamy layer’ ought to be applied to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes. The Union government has called upon the Supreme Court to form a seven-judge Bench to reconsider the formulation in M. Nagaraj vs Union of India (2006) that it should be applied to the SC and ST communities.
• This verdict was a reality check to the concept of reservation.
• Creamy layer is a term used in Indian politics to refer to the relatively forward and better-educated members of the Other Backward Classes (OBCs), who are not eligible for government-sponsored educational and professional benefit programs.
• These were ‘quantifiable data’ to show the backwardness of a community, the inadequacy of its representation in service, and the lack of adverse impact on “the overall efficiency of administration”.
• However, it ruled that Nagaraj was wrong to require a demonstration of backwardness for the Scheduled Castes and Tribes, as it was directly contrary to the nine-judge Bench judgment in Indra Sawhney (1992), which had laid down that there is no need for a test of backwardness for SC/STs, as “they indubitably fall within the expression ‘backward class of citizens.”
• It is curious that Jarnail Singh accepted the presumption of the backwardness of Scheduled Castes and Tribes, but favored applying the ‘means test’ to exclude from the purview of SC/ST reservation those who had achieved some level of economic advancement.

         Structural policies needed for 7-plus percentage growth.

• The world has predicted India’s growth on around 8-9% whereas the recent growth of the Indian economy is only 4.5% and data says that the percentage will go down.
• Whether the policies are the reason behind the reduction in growth rate.
• The winning party being the promoter of Hindutwa is a problem.
• Does India need changes in its structural policy to get to its past growth rate?
• How can India can gain its growth rate?
• What is the impact of demonetization on the growth rate?
• Does inflation have any relation with the reduction of growth rate?

         While war can be won in a defined and short span, winning the peace and healing people is an extended process that takes decades. Explain.

• The visit last week of Sri Lanka’s new President Gotabaya Rajapaksa to India and his extended talks with Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Rajapaksa is aware of the problems the relationship interlinked and complicated people’s histories.
• In comments to The Hindu, he made it clear that he wants consistency and constant communication to avoid the problems of the past.
• In the last decade, these have included India’s concerns about the Tamil-majority North and East; the welcoming of Chinese investment for major projects including the Hambantota port and Colombo harbor; military engagement; and unhappiness over the slow pace of clearance for Indian projects.
• In the hour-long conversation the two leaders had, it seemed apparent that there was some clarity on all issues and a will to build a new future.
• There was also a recognition that after working together closely against the LTTE, there were new threats, especially in the wake of the Easter Day bombings by an Islamic State-affiliated group that has Indian links.
• India’s announcement of $50-million in aid along with an additional $400-million in development aid is proof of that.
• India’s and Sri Lanka’s security is “indivisible” Modi said, indicating the need for more high-level contacts.
• Rajapaksa accepted Modi’s invitation to make his first presidential visit abroad to New Delhi and has invited the Indian leader to be the first State guest he welcomes to Colombo.

About the Author: 

Rakesh Kumar Sahoo is a student at Pondicherry Central University. He is pursuing MBA and has completed his graduation in B.Sc with specialisation in Chemistry. He can speak English, Odia, Hindi, Sanskrit and German. His interests are in photography, astrophysics, technology and space.