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India and China, announced that their armies have begun to disengage from Patrolling Point-15 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area of Eastern Ladakh, marking a step forward to end the standoff ongoing since May 2020.
The move comes ahead of next week’s Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Uzbekistan, which both Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping are attending.
Neither side has so far confirmed if the two leaders would hold bilateral talks on the sidelines of the summit, who haven’t spoken since a November 2019 meeting during the BRICS Summit in Brasilia and the beginning of the standoff in April 2020.
On September 08, 2022, according to the consensus reached in the 16th round of India China Corps Commander Level Meeting, the Indian and Chinese troops in the area of Gogra-Hotsprings (PP-15) have begun to disengage in a coordinated and planned way, which is conducive to the peace and tranquility in the border areas.
The consensus was reached at the Corps Commander level and the ground commanders on both sides have worked out the modalities which are now being implemented, a defence official said, The disengagement began today morning and is underway, the official said adding further details on the modalities are awaited.
The 16th round of talks was held on July 17, 2022, at the Chushul border personnel meeting point on the Indian side.As per the understanding reached earlier on disengagement, a buffer zone is to be created at the friction points once troops are withdrawn by both sides and new patrolling norms are to be worked out after complete disengagement and de-escalation.
Since the stand-off began in May 2020, the two sides have so far held 16 rounds of talks with disengagement undertaken from both sides of Pangong Tso in February 2021, and from PP-17 in the Gogra-Hotsprings area in August, in addition to Galwan in 2020 after the violent clash.
The friction points that remain now are Demchok and Depsang, which China has constantly refused to accept, maintaining that they are not a part of the current stand-off. India will continue to press for complete disengagement and de-escalation from all friction areas and the Corps Commander level talks will continue, officials stated.
Earlier, both sides had undertaken partial disengagement from PP15 and 17A in July 2020 after disengagement from PP14 in Galwan, but the process was stalled after the aggressive actions on the South Bank of Pangong Tso in August 2020.
India ranks 132 in HDI as score drops (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Growth and Development)
India ranks 132 out of 191 countries in the Human Development Index (HDI) 2021, after registering a decline in its score over two consecutive years for the first time in three decades.
The drop is in line with the global trend since the outbreak of COVID-19 during which 90% of the countries have fallen backward in human development.
The Index is part of the Human Development Report 2021-2022 released by the United Nations Development Programme.
The HDI measures average achievement of a country in three basic dimensions of human development — a long and healthy life, education and a decent standard of living.<SU>It is calculated using four indicators — life expectancy at birth, mean years of schooling, expected years of schooling, and the Gross National Income (GNI) per capita.
The world over, nine out of 10 countries have slipped in their human development performance due to multiple crises such as COVID-19, the war in Ukraine and environmental challenges, indicating that human development globally has stalled for the first time in 32 years.
Ranking of countries over different years is not comparable. A large contributor to the HDI’s recent decline is a global drop in life expectancy, down from 72.8 years in 2019 to 71.4 years in 2021.
India’s HDI score of 0.633 places it in the medium human development category, lower than its value of 0.645 in 2018,<SU>indicating a reversal in progress.
Like global trends, in India’s case, the drop in HDI from 0.645 in 2018 to 0.633 in 2021 can be attributed to falling life expectancy at birth — 70.7 years to 67.2 years.
India’s expected years of schooling stand at 11.9 years, and the mean years of schooling are at 6.7 years. The GNI per capita level is $6,590.
The COVID-19 pandemic has also exacerbated gender inequality, which increased 6.7% globally.India has, however, shown a slight improvement in its Gender Inequality Index value in the latest report as compared to the 2020 index (0.490 vs 0.493), after gender inequality worsened between 2019 and 2020 (0.486 vs 0.493).
The index measures inequality in achievement between women and men in three dimensions — reproductive health, empowerment and the labour market.
The report notes that the uncertainty due to multiple global crises has fuelled support for polarisation in many parts of the world which is detrimental for democratic freedom and human rights.
Supreme Court fixes three key questions for examining EWS quota (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A Constitution Bench led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit on September 8, 2022 finalised three cardinal issues for examining whether the 103rd Constitutional Amendment, which provides 10% quota to economically weaker sections (EWS) of the society in government jobs and educational institutions, violates the Basic Structure of the Constitution.
The five-judge Bench, also comprising Justices S. Ravindra Bhat, Dinesh Maheshwari, S.B. Pardiwala and Bela Trivedi, will start hearing the arguments from September 13.
The court will examine whether the amendment breaches the Basic Structure by permitting the state to make special provisions, including reservation, based on economic criteria.
Whether it violates the Basic Structure by allowing the state to make special provisions in relation to admissions to private unaided institutions, and lastly, whether the Basic Structure is trampled upon by the constitutional amendment by excluding SEBC/OBC/SC/ST communities from the scope of the EWS quota.
Chief Justice Lalit said the three questions of law would form the foundation of the court’s examination and lawyers could expand on them while arguing.
Legal scholar and advocate G. Mohan Gopal compared the case to a watershed moment similar to the ADM Jabalpur (habeas corpus) case.
We are crossing a Rubicon and it is the ADM Jabalpur of social justice as it restores the theory that one is privileged by being born in upper class and that being born in the lower classes is a disability.
Senior advocate P. Wilson pointed out that the court ought to examine whether the EWS quota was in violation of the rule of equality and non-discrimination, and if the move to grant reservation to forward castes (EWS or otherwise) was simply impermissible.
Senior advocate Gopal Sankaranarayanan, who had prepared the draft issues for the court which were circulated among the lawyers in the previous hearing, said nearly 55 issues were suggested by various parties, but an effort was made to trim the questions of law for consideration.
Mr. Venugopal said the question of creamy layer does not come in the economically weaker sections (EWS) quota as it was meant to give quota benefits to the poorest of the poor.
The challenge to the 103rd Constitutional Amendment was referred to a five-judge Bench in August 2020.The three-judge Bench, which had referred the case to the larger Bench, had refused to stay the implementation of the amendment.
Rajpath, a symbol of slavery, erased: PM (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Rajpath, which was a “symbol of slavery”, has been erased forever, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said, while inaugurating the redeveloped two kilometre stretch from India Gate till RashtrapatiBhavan that was renamed Kartavya Path.
Mr. Modi also unveiled a statue of Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose under the canopy at India Gate that during British rule had a statue of King George V.
Addressing the gathering in front of India Gate, Mr. Modi said: “Today, we are filling the picture of tomorrow with new colours, leaving behind the past. Today, this new aura is visible everywhere, it is the aura of confidence of new India.
Kingsway, that is, Rajpath, the symbol of slavery, has become a matter of history from today and has been erased forever.
Today, a new history has been created in the form of ‘Kartavya Path’. I congratulate all the countrymen for their freedom from yet another identity of slavery, in this AmritKaal of Independence.
Known as Kingsway before Independence and Rajpath since 1947, the stretch was renamed as Kartavya Path or “duty road” by the New Delhi Municipal Council.
The stretch from India Gate tillRashtrapatiBhavan has been closed to the public since January 2021 for redevelopment works as a part of the larger Central Vista revamp. The ₹477 crore project became the first of the Central Vista projects to be completed and opened to the public with the inauguration.
Speaking about the the 28-feet granite statue of Bose, Mr. Modi said: “At the time of slavery, there was a statue of the representative of the British Raj. Today, the country has also brought to life a modern, strong India by establishing the statue of Netaji at the same place.
Mr. Modi said “Subhasbabu” was proud of India’s heritage, while wanting to make India modern. He said if India had followed his path after Independence, the country would have been at great heights today.
But unfortunately, this great hero of ours was forgotten after Independence. His ideas, even the symbols associated with them, were ignored.
Today when the Rajpath ceases to exist and has become a Kartavya Path; today when the statue of Netaji has replaced the mark of the statue of George V, then this is not the first example of the abandonment of slavery mentality.
This is neither the beginning nor the end. It is a continuous journey of determination till the goal of freedom of mind and spirit is achieved.
Before inaugurating the stretch, Mr. Modi interacted with workers who had been associated with the project and invited them to attend the Republic Day Parade next year as his special guests.
Spotlight
The fatal lure of instant loan apps (Page no. 4)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
“Mummy, I am leaving.” This is how Amit Yadav, 35, a mechanic from Madhya Pradesh’s Indore, concluded his note on August 23 before adding the words “ek fakir insaan (a bankrupt person)” below his name and signature.
The police said Yadav died by suicide after poisoning his wife Tina, 30, daughter Yana, 3, and son Divyansh, 1, as he was unable to repay a loan of ₹40,000 he had taken five months ago from several digital lending apps. Yadav, in his note, said he was taking the extreme step to “protect his honour”.
On July 19, firefighter Y. Sudhakar, 33, took his own life by jumping in front of a train in Telangana, leaving behind his wife Sirisha, a homemaker, and 22-month-old daughter Ispita.
Kumar, Sudhakar’s brother, says their relatives and friends had been receiving lewd messages about Sirisha from an unknown number over the non-payment of a loan of ₹5,000 taken using the Golden Rupee app. Kumar says recovery agents continued to harass them seeking more money even after they had repaid the loan.
Yadav and Sudhakar were among the several Indians trapped in a spiral of debt who ended their lives over the past two years owing to harassment by loan recovery agents of unregulated digital lending apps that are mostly linked to entities based in China.
The apps offering quick loans without much documentation or collateral to unsuspecting borrowers mushroomed in the country during the COVID-19 pandemic. It became a popular option for borrowing money, especially for cash-strapped families and people facing joblessness.
However, their high interest rates, short repayment windows, coercive recovery methods and misuse of personal information have prompted the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Central probe agencies to crack down on the entities that run these loan apps and the payment gateways and crypto exchanges used by them to transfer overseas the money extracted from borrowers.
On August 2, Sujeet Kumar, Rajya Sabha member from the Biju Janata Dal, raised concerns in Parliament over “dubious digital loan apps with links to China and backed by Chinese entities lending unscrupulous loans in violation of RBI guidelines”.
He said Odisha alone had seen 1.5 lakh downloads of these apps and asked if the country’s regulatory framework was adequate enough to tackle the threat posed by them.
In response, Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said the Central government had taken cognisance of such cases where digital loan apps “originating from one particular country” were being misused to harass citizens and extort money. She added that the Union Ministries of Finance, Corporate Affairs, Electronics and Information Technology, and Home were working together to take action against such apps.
States
Odisha govt. Cancels shrimp culture leases inside Bhitarkanika (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Odisha government has cancelled leases granted to two aquaculture companies for shrimp culture over a sprawling area inside BhitarkanikaWildife Sanctuary, which is famous for crocodile conservation and thick mangrove forests.
Following the cancellation of leases issued by Director of Fisheries, the LokAyukta, Odisha, has decided not to proceed further on the case.
The RTI activist Ranjan Kumar Das, who was petitioner in the case, had died under mysterious circumstances days after filing the case with the LokAyukta.
Lease of Banapada cluster for shrimp culture was granted in favour of Odisha Aqua Traders and Marine Exporters Private Limited in December, 2016.
It was alleged in the petition, authorities in Fisheries and Animal Resource Development awarded the lease for shrimp culture ignoring the eco-sensitive nature of the land. The petitioner had also alleged kickback in granting of the lease.
In response to show cause notice, the Director of Fisheries had submitted a compliance report which says the two firms could not carry out culture during the first year (2017) and started culture operation in the second year (from the year 2018).
The starting of culture, operation by Odisha Aqua Traders and Marine Exporters PrivateLimited was in violation of Clause-(g) and (h) of the Lease Agreement, for which the Director of Fisheries served a show cause notice for cancellation of lease.
The show cause notice was challenged by the two companies in Orissa High Court ,” says LokAyukta in its order. The Orissa HC had directed the companies to file detailed reply and the Director of Fisheries was asked to take a decision in accordance of law.
As per decision of Director of Fisheries, the area leased out to the two firms was coming under Bhitarkanika Wildlife Sanctuary after rationalisation of boundary in February 2020 and moreover two lessees had started shrimp culture in violation of lease accord.
After cancellation of leases, the firms were asked to take back assets created in leased area. Citing the cancellation order, the LokAyukta felt no need to proceed further on the complaint.
The petitioner had, however, flagged instances of many irregularities stating that no public hearing was conducted before granting of lease and there was no permission obtained from Ministry of Forest and Environment and Climate Change, Coastal Aquaculture Authority, Chennai.
Editorial
The outline of an essential global pandemic treaty (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
COVID-19 would count as being among some of the most severe pandemics the world has seen in the last 100 years. An estimated 18 million people may have died from COVID-19, according various credible estimates, a scale of loss not seen since the Second World War.
Further, with over 120 million people pushed into extreme poverty, and a massive global recession, no single government or institution has been able to address this emergency single-handedly. This has given us a larger perspective of how nobody is safe until everybody is safe.
Health-care systems have been stretched beyond their capacity and gross health inequity has been observed in the distribution of vaccines, diagnostics, and therapeutics across the world.
Now, with the World Health Organization (WHO) having declared the monkeypox outbreak as a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) with over 32,000 cases from over 80 countries (August 2022), the world faces the risk of another health crisis.
While high-income economies are still recovering from the after-effects, the socioeconomic consequences of the novel coronavirus pandemic are irreversible in low and low middle-income countries.
The monopolies held by pharma majors such as Pfizer, BioNTech, and Moderna created at least nine new billionaires since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic and made over $1,000 a second in profits, even as fewer of their vaccines reached people in low-income countries.
As of March 2022, only 3% of people in low-income countries had been vaccinated with at least one dose, compared to 60.18% in high-income countries.
The international target to vaccinate 70% of the world’s population against COVID-19 by mid-2022 was missed because poorer countries were at the “back of the queue” when vaccines were rolled out.
Even six to eight weeks after the PHEIC declaration, countries, except for Asia, did not take the requisite precautions.
Similarly, when world leaders pledged €7.4 billion ($8.07 billion) in a digital fundraiser for developing a coronavirus vaccine and treatments, the United States did not send any representative.
Thus, inequality has also been prolonging the course of the pandemic. And, it is in this backdrop that the creation of a Global Pandemic Treaty was proposed at the Special Session of the World Health Assembly (WHASS). The underlying logic was that as global governance had failed during the pandemic, we needed political commitment to mitigate future challenges.
OPED
Should the mother tongue or English be the medium of instruction? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
Over the years, there has been a raging debate over the need for children to have their mother tongue as the medium of instruction in schools.
While educationists have emphasised the importance of learning in the mother tongue to enhance a child’s learning and overcome glaring inequities, there has been an equally steady demand for English-medium schools in several States.
In a discussion moderated by S. Poorvaja, V. Vasanthi Devi, an educationist and former Vice-Chancellor of the ManonmaniamSundaranar University in Tamil Nadu, and Anita Rampal, Professor and former Dean, Faculty of Education, Delhi University, explain why and how the language policy can be reoriented. Edited excerpts:
The National Education Policy (NEP), 2020 says the home language, mother tongue, local language, or regional language wherever possible should be the medium of instruction until at least Grade 5, but preferably till Grade 8.
The only component of the NEP I approve of is this meek suggestion that the mother tongue of the child should be the medium of learning. I call it meek because there seems to be no will to enforce it.
This is in the context of the NEP’s overall philosophy of the privatisation of education and marketisation with no regulatory control to the state.
I think there is an almost-complete consensus among educationists, linguistic experts and psychologists that the mother tongue, or the language of the region where the child lives, is the only appropriate language of learning for the child.
A child can be taught any number of languages, particularly later in life, but the medium of learning should be the mother tongue. A number of classrooms today are stalked by the curse of incomprehension.
There are a growing number of schools, mostly private, that teach in English. Government schools too in States like Tamil Nadu, unable to bear the pressure from parents and to stop students from migrating to private schools, are switching to English medium.
I have been saying for a long time that we don’t have a language policy. We take ad hoc decisions. The three-language formula also doesn’t look too much at the pedagogical aspects. It’s important to have a well understood, pedagogically considered language policy.
News
U.S. to refit Pak. F16s; India silent (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
India maintained a studied silence a day after the United States announced a $450 million package to refit Pakistan’s large F-16 aircraft fleet with the latest technological advances.
The announcement from the US State Department came in the backdrop of intersessional talks that the Indian and American senior officials including Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Donald Lu held on September 7, 2022.
The Ministry of External Affairs is yet to clarify if Mr Lu and his team had informed the Indian side about the announcement from the Biden administration that will add considerable lethality to Pakistan Air Force which poses the biggest challenge for India from west and northwest.
The proposed sale will continue the sustainment of Pakistan’s F-16 fleet, which greatly improves Pakistan’s ability to support counterterrorism operations through its robust air-to-ground capability.
Pakistan will have no difficulty absorbing these articles and services into its armed forces,” stated the announcement from the State Department about the package to Pakistan.
The F16 fleet of Pakistan was last seen in action against Indian fighter aircraft that indulged in dogfights over Kashmir in the aftermath of February 27 2019 Balakote strike by India.
Pakistan first received the F-16 aircraft package from the Ronald Reagan administration in the 1980s despite heavy objection from the Government of India which cautioned that the aircraft would be used against Indian targets.
Indian objection was based on the findings that Pakistan would arm the F-16s with nuclear weapons that it had procured in a clandestine manner. President Reagan however cleared the sale despite opposition from certain members of the US Congress and CIA’s counter proliferation wing.
In 1990, U.S. cancelled the delivery of nearly 30 F-16 aircraft to Pakistan after the Pressler Amendment came into effect.
The nuclear tests by India and Pakistan in 1998, further confirmed the Indian concerns about the danger posed by nuclear-armed F-16 aircraft in Pakistan’s air force.
The U.S. has repeatedly used the strategic aircraft as a tool in its diplomatic relation with Pakistan. In 2001, following the al Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center in New York, the US had released a package of $3 billion to refit and supply new F-16 aircraft to Pakistan.
With nearly 2000 miles as its range of operation, the F-16 has obvious usage against Pakistan’s primary military rival - India.
39 exotic animals seized in Assam (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Assam Police seized 39 exotic animals from two Delhi-registered SUVs that travelled from the Mizoram-Myanmar border and were bound for Siliguri in northern West Bengal.
This was the biggest seizure of smuggled exotic animals in Assam. Two joeys or baby wallabies, 19 chimpanzees and monkeys, 13 small turtles, three large tortoises and two exotic birds were seized.
The Rangiya Police intercepted the vehicles following a tip-off and arrested two people after finding the rare animals packed in cages.
The two said they travelled from the Mizoram-Myanmar border and were heading for Siliguri for delivering the consignment.
Sunnydeo Chaudhary, the Divisional Forest Officer of North Kamrup division, said the two arrested persons — identified as Raghu from Theni district and Karthik from Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu — were being interrogated for information about others involved in the animal-trafficking trade.
The animals have been taken to the Assam State Zoo where their health condition would be assessed and the species identified.
Assam forest officials said Myanmar, despite the civil war, has been the source of most exotic animals smuggled into Northeast India and elsewhere in the country with northern West Bengal becoming a hub of this illegal trade.
There seems to be a craze for keeping exotic animals as pets, which is fuelling the animal trafficking racket. But the biggest worry is that these animals, unlike those exchanged by zoos, come in without health screening, thus posing the risk of spreading diseases.
Business
‘Monetary tools alone can’t tame inflation’ (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
In a barely veiled signal to Mint Street, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that monetary policy tools like interest rate increases deployed by several central banks would not suffice to cool inflation and suggested that the Reserve Bank of India need not synchronise its actions ‘as much’ with its counterparts in developed countries.
While monetary policy as a solution for containing inflation had been considered ‘sacrosanct’, the minister indicated that growth needed attention too, while countries that had been exponents of the monetary policy theory that only increasing interest rates could rein in inflation, had been totally ineffective in managing price rise, Ms. Sitharaman said.
Why does one country in that network have a 79% [inflation] and why [does] some country, which is the fountainhead of such theory, have the highest inflation in 40 years,” she asked rhetorically. “Why would other members of that clique of nations also [be looking] at 8%-9% [inflation].
India’s experience in handling inflation showed that many different factors needed attention and while the central bank and its instruments like interest rates form a ‘very critical part of it’, they could not be the only one, the minister observed.
For instance in India, if you were to leave the policy makers and talk to people on the ground, they would say, particularly in the situation we are in now, where economic growth would have to be unfettered.
“The Reserve Bank (of India) will have to synchronise somewhat, may not be as much synchronised as the other western developed countries would do. I am not prescribing or giving a forward direction to the RBI, let me be careful here,” she said at an ICRIER meet on ‘Taming Inflation’.
But it is the truth that India’s solution to handling the economy, part of which is handling inflation also, is an exercise where the fiscal and monetary policy have to work together.
It can’t be singularly left to monetary policy which has proved totally ineffective in many countries whose structure, whose economy’s profile forms the basis of monetary policy theory to rivet everything on interest rate and say that’s the one and only potent tool to manage inflation.
India’s inflation management is an exercise of so many different activities, majority of which are outside the monetary policy in today’s circumstances,” Ms. Sitharaman said, stressing that such an assertion from a country’s Finance Minister would have been considered ‘sacrilegious’ earlier.
My experience says, if you are able to equally attend to several other factors, for which I give credit to all governments earlier, because they also kept evolving the way the supply side is managed, how the bulk of the population get all the necessary goods at an affordable price.
Digital lending rules meant to end regulatory arbitrage: Rao (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank of India’s digital lending rules have been designed to end regulatory arbitrage and protect customers, RBI Deputy Governor M. Rajeshwar Rao said.
The Working Group on Digital Lending delved deeper into the concerns arising out of digital lending ecosystem. The recently announced regulatory framework for digital lending encapsulates RBI’s approach of customer-first regulations.
The framework is designed to strike a balance between the need for an innovative and inclusive system while at the same time ensuring that regulatory arbitrage is not exploited to the detriment of customer interest.
Mr. Rao said another underlying theme of the regulatory framework was that the onus of complying with the regulatory guidelines rested with the regulated entities.
They will have to ensure that the loan service facilitators and digital lending apps with which they have outsourcing tie-ups function within the regulatory ecosystem, not just in letter but also in spirit.
Mr. Rao said the deepening and widening of financial inclusion would drive growth in “financialisation” of savings in India.
Mr. Rao said one specific area where digital lending had the potential to be a catalyst for economic growth was cash-flow based lending to MSMEs.
He said the challenge for the regulator in a fast-developing economy like India was to keep pace with market innovations and strive to strike a balance between ensuring safety without stifling innovation, which was “never an easy task.”The entities will have to ensure that the loan facilitators function within the ecosystem.