Recently, the new Parliament was sworn in. In this scenario, the fundamental design of the Indian Constitution allows for the marginalisation of Parliament and the concentration of power in the hands of the dominating executive.

What are the Parliament's governing principles?

• The marginalisation of Parliament and the concentration of power in the hands of a powerful executive are made possible and encouraged by the Indian Constitution.
• Think about the different measures parliamentary democracies often adopt to prevent executive dominance or misuse. 
• In Parliament, the executive must hold a majority. This creates a room for disagreement inside the party and gives ruling party legislators who are not in the cabinet a crucial role in exercising a check on the executive.
• The Speaker, a neutral and impartial body, is supposed to represent the interests of Parliament against the executive. 
• Some parliamentary democracies practise bicameralism, which refers to the existence of a second "Upper House" that serves as a revising chamber and represents interests other than the brute majority's (in our case, the Rajya Sabha, which serves as a council of states).

Which of the features has been diluted or erased over the years in India?

• Increase in intra-party disagreement: The potential of intra-party disagreement within Parliament has been eliminated by the Constitution's Tenth Schedule, colloquially known as the "anti-defection law."
• Ironically, as recent events have plainly proven, the Tenth Schedule has failed to achieve its intended goal of curbing horse-trading and unprincipled floor-crossing.
• When the price is disqualification from Parliament, intra-party disagreement becomes significantly more difficult.

• Control of the executive on proceedings: The manner of proceedings in Parliament is under the complete control of the executive, with no real constitutional checks upon how that control is exercised.
• Role of acting speaker: Speakers acting in a blatantly partisan manner in order to advance the interests of the executive over the interests of the House.

• Speaker’s misclassification of Bills: When the executive wants to bypass the Upper House.
• The anti-defection law wipes out intra-party dissent. 
• The political Opposition’s scope for participation depends upon the discretion of the executive. 
• Partisan Speakers further ensure that the executive is insulated from public embarrassment at the hands of the Opposition, by controlling the debate. 
• Bypass the role of Upper House: In matter of Money Bills or the use of ordinance power.
• The quality of parliamentary deliberations has declined.

Through the New Sports Policy, the Uttar Pradesh government hopes to inspire aspiring athletes to pursue their aspirations while promoting and fostering a sports culture in the state.

What is the New Sports Policy 2023?

• The policy will give a variety of factors, including a player's physical fitness and training, extra attention.
• Additionally, a number of provisions have been implemented to encourage the creation of new institutions and link sports to educational institutions like private academies and colleges.
• It also specifies the establishment of a separate state sports authority.

Financial assistance to sports associations and academies

• The new strategy provides financial assistance to numerous sports associations and academies. It will aid academies and sporting organisation with minimal resources.
• With the government's financial backing, these associations and academies will be able to improve their infrastructure and training facilities, allowing them to produce more top athletes.
• The Uttar Pradesh government will also work with PPP (Public Private Partnership) to construct sports infrastructure facilities.
• The state will establish 14 centres of excellence, each centred on a certain sport.
• These are proposed to be established on a PPP basis.
• The new sports policy also provides coach information and a map of numerous athletic facilities.

Eklavya Sports Fund

• The government will also provide treatment to players provide funds from the Eklavya Sports Fund: Each registered player will receive a health insurance cover of up to Rs 5 lakh from the state government.

Players will receive training in three categories

• First category will include grassroots (ground level) players who need coaching at the initial level.
• Second category will focus on the development of players, with talented players being identified and given necessary training as part of an action plan to help them become future players.
• Third category is of elite-class players established players who represent the state in various sports. Such players will be motivated to perform better at national and international levels.

Role of Khelo India University Games 

• It also decided to frame a policy for the construction, operation, and management of stadiums, and open gyms in rural areas so that necessary facilities could be provided to promising players in the hinterland and help them win laurels for the state and country.

China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries.

• China is expanding its military outreach to Southeast Asian countries due to geopolitical competition and security interests.
• The PLA's global activities and influence campaigns are part of its reform process, and ASEAN has become a priority target for its military diplomacy.

What is the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) currently undertaking?

• Bilateral Military Exercise: The PLA and the Laotian People’s Armed Forces (LPAF) have recently concluded their bilateral military exercise, Friendship Shield 2023.
• The drills aim to foster interoperability to effectively “counter transnational armed criminal groups based in jungles and mountains.” 
• Threat: China’s threat perception of expanding the United States military engagement with countries in the Asia-Pacific region, especially those countries that China has disputes with in the South and East China Seas region.

India’s engagement with Southeast Asia:

• India's defence diplomacy has been greatly influenced by China's continued hostility in the area, especially in the South China Sea.
• India has increased cooperation with various Southeast Asian nations in recent years. To counterbalance China and strengthen their marine security, they are also eager to strengthen their security ties with India.
• India's increasing defence diplomacy footprint from the West to Southeast Asia is symbolised by the Milan exercise's growing participant count and the sophistication of the drills.

The Union Cabinet authorised the City Investments to Innovate, Integrate, and Sustain (CITIIS) 2.0 programme, which would encourage circular economy in 18 smart cities chosen through a competition.

• The total funding for the scheme Rs 1,760 crore will come from loans from French Development Agency (AFD) and Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau (KfW), a German development bank; and a grant of Rs 106 crore from the European Union.
• The programme starts this year and will run until 2027, with the support of the National Institute of Urban Affairs.
• Aiming: The programme envisages to support competitively selected projects promoting circular economy with focus on integrated waste management at the city level, climate-oriented reform actions at the state level, and institutional strengthening and knowledge dissemination at the National level.
• CITIIS: It was launched in 2018 by the Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs (MoHUA), AFD, the EU and the NIUA with a total outlay of Rs 933 crore. Twelve cities out of the 100 smart cities were selected for this program.
• CITIIS 2.0 will include financial and technical support for 18 cities to develop projects on climate resilience, with a focus on integrated waste management. In the second component, all states and UTs will be eligible for support to set up climate centres, creating state- and city-level climate data observatories and capacity-building for municipal staff.

What are the benefits with this program?

• According to Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs, the projects likely to be funded through the scheme would be -
• Collection and transportation of waste
• Including transfer stations
• Automated recovery facilities
• Bio-methanation plants
• Construction and demolition waste processing plants
• Sanitary landfills

What is Circular Economy?

• A circular economy entails markets that give incentives to reusing products, rather than scrapping them and then extracting new resources.
• In such an economy, all forms of waste, such as clothes, scrap metal and obsolete electronics, are returned to the economy or used more efficiently, according to the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

A recent research by the Union government revealed significant regional differences in the nation's high school academic stream choices.

Key highlights of the Report:

• The Union government's research found that there are significant regional differences in students' choices of high school academic streams across the nation, with Science being the most popular among students in most southern states and Arts receiving very few applicants.
• Gujarat, West Bengal, Punjab, Haryana, and Rajasthan were the top five states where Arts was the most popular choice in 2022.
• The PARAKH (Performance Assessment, Review and Analysis of Knowledge for Holistic Development) will examine the academics participation of the students.
• According to the study, the Commerce stream “has stagnated at the same level over the last one decade”, with around 14 per cent students (national average) pursuing the discipline in high school.

Why was this area chosen by the government for a study?

• The study's goal is to achieve assessment equivalence across various education boards, and it looked into a variety of other factors, including pass percentages and dropout rates.
• However, trends in academic stream selection are the most important, as metrics such as dropout rates can also be gleaned from other sources, such as the Unified District Information System for Education Plus (UDISE+), and pass percentages of several boards are publicly available.

India needs to catch up in the research and production of Graphene, which is the defining material of this age.

What is Graphene?

• Definition: Graphene is the world’s thinnest, strongest, and most conductive material of both electricity and heat.
• Conductivity: It conducts electricity better than copper.
• Strength: It is 200 times stronger than steel but six times lighter.
• Capability: It is almost perfectly transparent as it absorbs only 2% of light. It is impermeable to gases, even those as light as hydrogen and helium.
• Potential: It has the potential to revolutionise electricity, conductivity, energy generation, batteries, sensors and more.
• Also, when added to other materials, graphene even in small quantities produces composite materials with dramatically transformed qualities.

Uses:

• Graphene composites are used in aerospace, automotive, sports equipment and construction.
• It is used for high-performance batteries and super-capacitors, touchscreens, and conductive inks.
• Graphene-based sensors are used for environmental monitoring, healthcare and wearable devices.
• Graphene oxide membranes are used for water purification and desalination.
• Graphene-based masks were made during COVID.

Feature and Application:

• Graphene is important for defence and aerospace as well.
• Its exceptional strength makes it promising material for armour and ballistic protection.
• Graphene has the potential to absorb and dissipate electromagnetic waves, making it valuable for developing stealth coatings and materials that reduce radar signatures and electromagnetic interference.
• Graphene is highly sensitive to environmental changes, which makes it an excellent candidate for sensing chemical and biological agents, explosives, radiation, and other hazardous substances.
• The graphene-based materials can also protect us against chemical and biological attacks.
• Better energy storage and electronics properties make graphene attractive in defence and aerospace as well as in civil and commercial applications.

Production of Graphene:

• China and Brazil are global leaders in the commercial production of graphene.
• India produces about one-twentieth compared to China and one-third compared to Brazil.

India’s progress

• The Centre for Nano Science and Engineering at IISc Bangalore along with KAS Tech produced a graphene-based system several years ago.
• Tata Steel has succeeded in growing graphene (about 50 micrometers large domains) using annealing and extracting atomic carbon from steel surface.
• It has also mixed graphene with used plastic products to recycle them as new.
• India’s niche is going to be innovation using graphene. It figured out how graphene oxide-based wrappers loaded with preservatives can increase the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.
• The IIT Roorkee-incubated Log 9 has patented a technology for graphene-based ultracapacitors, and the IIT Kanpur-incubated RF Nanocomposites has developed EMI shielding and stealth technology using graphene-based nanotubes.