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The Supreme Court said authorities need to be “conscious that no incitement to violence and hate speech are permissible”.
It said this while ordering the Maharashtra and Chhattisgarh police and the local authorities to keep a close eye on public events planned by the Hindu Janajagruti Samiti at Yavatmal and by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLA T. Raja Singh at Raipur for seven days starting from January 19.
A Bench of Justices Sanjiv Khanna and Dipankar Datta directed the District Magistrates and Superintendents of Police at the two places to look into the allegations of repeated instances of hate speech against the Samiti and Mr. Singh.
The Bench was hearing a plea filed by Shaheen Abdulla, represented by senior advocate Kapil Sibal and advocate Nizam Pasha, urging the court to direct both States to withdraw permissions granted for the events.
Editorial
A search for deterrence in the Red Sea (Page no. 8)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
Houthi rebels based in Yemen, in response to Israeli attacks and the bombing of Gaza, have been attacking merchant shipping using the Red Sea route.
With attacks that began in mid-November, the Houthis, using drones and anti-ship ballistic missiles (ASBMS), have tried to board or boarded ships. There has even been an instance of the hijacking of the Galaxy Leader, using a helicopter.
The various methods and choice of weaponry are an indication of the type of assets available to the rebels and the type of training they are receiving.
The United States had removed the Houthis from its terror listing even though Saudi Arabia had warned of the danger of Houthi attacks. But in a new development, the U.S., from mid-February, “will consider the Houthis a specially designated global terrorist” group, which could block its access to the global financial system, among other measures.
Opinion
Rural girls want to be engineer, doctors but choose arts (Page no. 9)
(GS paper 1, Social Issues)
Girls and boys in rural India are almost equally aspiring to become doctors or engineers. In fact, the number of girls aspiring to get into these professions is marginally higher than boys, according to the recently released survey data published by the Annual Status of Education Report (ASER).
Their roles reverse when it comes to choosing a stream for higher studies. In grade XI and higher, more boys end up studying Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) courses; in contrast, more women choose arts and humanities, the data shows.
Overall, 18.2% of girls and 16.7% of boys aspired to become doctors or engineers. Among boys, 36.3% ended up choosing STEM courses, while only 28% of girls did so.
The conclusions are based on ASER’s survey among rural students aged 14-18 in 28 districts conducted last September-November.
Text & Context
Where do China-Taiwan relations stand? (Page no. 10)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
On January 13, Taiwan concluded its democratic elections. Lai Ching-te of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), who was the Vice President under Tsai Ing-wen, whom China has called the “troublemaker”, is the newly elected President of Taiwan.
This is a third term for the DPP, with the win being perceived as a major blow to China. However, within days of the results, Nauru, a small island nation, has announced that it is shifting its relations from Taipei to Beijing.
Nauru’s decision is very much on expected lines. A number of countries have shifted their diplomatic relations from Taipei to Beijing during the previous Taiwan President, Tsai Ing-wen’s term in office. Beijing has followed a pattern of luring smaller nations with the promise of financial investment and infrastructure development.
Since Ms. Tsai and DPP came to power in 2016, the diplomatic space for Taiwan has consistently reduced. Today, just 11 countries recognise Taiwan while in 2016, this number stood at 22.
The DPP is perceived as a pro-independence party and thus the pressure from Beijing and the pace at which Taiwan has been losing allies is increasing. This is also because Taiwan is unable to match China’s deep pockets.
News
Rainfall rising in over half of India’s sub-districts, says four-decade study (Page no. 14)
(GS paper 1, Geography)
Rainfall is increasing in more than half of India’s 4,400-odd tehsils or sub-districts, says a granular analysis of changes in the Indian monsoon, conducted for the first time at the tehsil level. While 55% of tehsils have seen a rise in rainfall, about 11% have experienced a fall.
Worryingly, the decrease occurred largely during the critical southwest monsoon. In fact, of the tehsils experiencing lower rainfall, about 68% saw reduced rainfall in all the monsoon months from June to September, while 87% showed a decline during the initial monsoon months of June and July, which are crucial for the sowing of kharif crops.
Most of these tehsils are in the Indo-Gangetic plains — which contribute to more than half of India’s agricultural production — as well as in northeastern India and the Indian Himalayan region.
The study — authored by Shravan Prabhu and Vishwas Chitale of the Council on Energy, Environment and Water (CEEW), a research and policy think tank — analyses high-resolution meteorological data spanning four decades, from 1982 to 2022, which has been recorded by the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
Over half of youth in ASER survey struggle with basic maths (Page no. 14)
(GS paper 2, Education)
The Annual Status of Education Report (ASER), titled “Beyond Basics”, was released here on Wednesday. It involved a survey by the civil society organisation Pratham among rural students aged 14 to 18.
The household survey, conducted in 28 districts across 26 States, assessed the foundational reading and arithmetic abilities of 34,745 students. It discussed the activities students are engaged in, their basic and applied reading and maths abilities and digital awareness and skills.
Overall, 86.8% of 14- to 18-year-olds are enrolled in an educational institution. There are small gender gaps in enrolment, but notable differences are visible by age. The percentage of youth not enrolled is 3.9% for 14-year-old youth and is 32.6% for 18-year-olds.
Most of the people in this age group were enrolled in the Arts/Humanities stream. In Class 11 or higher, more than half are enrolled in the Arts/Humanities stream (55.7%) and girls are less likely to be enrolled in the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics stream (28.1%) than boys (36.3%), it said.
World
Why did Iran carry out strikes in Iraq, Syria and Pakistan? (Page no. 15)
(GS paper 2, International Relation)
On December 15, 2023, a police station in Rask in Iran’s Sistan Baluchestan province, roughly 60 km from the Pakistani border, came under attack. At least 11 Iranian security personnel were killed in the attack, which was claimed by the Jaish al-Adl (the Army of Justice).
On December 25, Brigadier General Sayyed Razi Mousavi, a senior adviser to Iran’s elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), was killed in an air strike in a southern suburb of Damascus. Tehran immediately blamed Israel for the strike and the latter neither confirmed nor denied its role.
On January 3, 2024, a memorial event for Gen. Qassem Soleimani, the Quds Force commander who was assassinated by the U.S. in January 2020, in Kerman in southeastern Iran was hit by twin blasts, killing at least 94 people.
The Islamic State-Khorasan, the Afghanistan-based branch of the Islamic State terrorist group, claimed responsibility for the attack.
All these attacks took place after the Gaza war between Israel and Hamas broke out on October 7, and Iran-backed militias in the region started attacking U.S. and Israeli troops as well as commercial vessels.
As a regional crisis was spreading, Iran seemed vulnerable to growing security challenges. And the pressure on the Mullahs was building up.
Business
Q3 growth may slip below 6%: ICRA (Page no. 16)
(GS paper 3, Economy)
Real GDP growth may have slowed to under 6% in the October to December 2023 quarter from 7.6% in the second quarter (Q2) of 2023-24, citing a sequential softening in a majority of high-frequency indicators.
The firm’s economists also referred to the slump in the Centre’s capital expenditure in Q3, with October and November seeing an 8.8% dip year-on-year, and their expectations of “little-to-no” growth in the Gross Value Added (GVA) by the Agriculture sector, in their rationale for the growth downtick in the last quarter.
The sharp fall in kharif crop output and weak progress of rabi sowing for some crops would hurt the farm sector GVA.
ICRA remains apprehensive of the sustenance in the growth momentum in Q3. We project the GDP growth to slow down to below 6% in Q3 FY2024 from 7.6% in Q2, substantially lower than the Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC)forecast of 6.5% for that quarter,” they wrote in a report on business activity, which pointed to December’s economic activity growing at a six-month low pace of 8.1%.
Science
Ancient DNA reveals origins of multiple sclerosis (Page no. 20)
(GS paper 3, Science and Technology)
DNA obtained from the bones and teeth of ancient Europeans who lived up to 34,000 years ago is providing insight into the origin of the often-disabling neurological disease called multiple sclerosis (MS) — finding that genetic variants that now increase its risk once served to protect people from animal-borne diseases.
The findings stemmed from research involving ancient DNA sequenced from 1,664 people from various sites across Western Europe and Asia.
These ancient genomes were then compared with modern DNA from the U.K. Biobank, comprising about 410,000 self-identified “white-British” people, and more than 24,000 others born outside the U.K., to discern changes over time.
One striking discovery related to MS, a chronic disease of the brain and spinal cord that is considered an autoimmune disorder in which the body mistakenly attacks itself.
The researchers identified a migration event about 5,000 years ago, at the start of the Bronze Age, when livestock herders called the Yamnaya people moved into Western Europe from an area that includes modern Ukraine and southern Russia.