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Pankaj Sharma, 50, moved to Canada in 2019. He followed his wife, Pooja Tandon, an IT professional who was offered a role there. In 2022, they applied for permanent residency that will make them eligible for citizenship after five years, on fulfilling certain conditions.
The primary reason to move was professional, but after coming here, we realised that our daughter was at a stage in her life that we could not change her education system too often, so we applied for permanent residency and got it.
He said his daughter, who often fell sick in Delhi due to air pollution, has not complained of chest infection since they moved to Canada.
In 2022, over 2.25 lakh Indians renounced Indian citizenship, the highest since 2011, according to data from the Ministry of External Affairs.
The data reflect how Indians, especially high net-worth individuals (HNIs), are moving westward in search of better opportunities, healthcare, quality of life, and education, among other factors.
HNIs are those who have wealth of over $1 million or ₹8.2 crore. According to the Henley Global Citizens Report, there were3.47 lakh HNIs in India in December 2021.
Of these, 1.49 lakh HNIs were found in just nine cities: Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Pune, Chennai, Gurugram, and Ahmedabad.
Industry representatives say there has been a surge in requests for residence-through-investment programmes, especially the U.S. EB-5 visa, Portugal Golden Visa, Australian Global Talent Independent Visa, Malta Permanent Residency Programme, and Greece Residence by Investment Programme.
States
Fighting seismic threats in Kashmir the Mughal style (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 1, History)
Disturbing images from Turkey that show mountains of rubble piled up on the streets two weeks after the devastating earthquake, have reminded denizens of Srinagar that the city is on the National Centre for Seismology’s Zone-V, meaning it is at a very high risk for earthquakes.
One way of saving lives in case of a natural calamity is to reconnect with older methods of architecture and construction.
Uroosi, a Mughal-era home architectural element, is one such. Uroosis are wooden shutters used as partition walls within homes, instead of concrete walls.
Ehtisham Qalander, who runs a 39-year-old company called SQ that has been reviving waning techniques and craft in wood, sees the dreadful scenes from Turkey as an opportunity to alter the way of building in Kashmir.
He hopes that people will go back to the traditional ways of home construction in the Valley. In the past year, he has constructed eight Uroosis and is raising awareness of its value on social media.
Most indigenous techniques and elements of construction in Kashmir had greater utility than luxury. Uroosi is one such, where wooden shutters could be rolled up to make one room, or rolled down from hanging grooves in ceiling chambers, to partition the space into separate areas.
Uroosi work includes octagonal and decagonal ornamental pillars too. Jalali House is a landmark in Srinagar that has this architectural element.
The rolling down of planks with intricate carving is as mesmerizing as a bride’s appearance during weddings, who graduated from the Indian Institute of Technology, Roorkee, with a degree in polymer science and engineering.
His company is seeing an increasing number of projects, especially on the third and ground floor, as these are areas where people assemble. Those who commission them appreciate both its ornamental and practical value.The only difference is that earlier it was deodar pine wood that was used extensively and now it’s walnut.
Chandrayaan 3 lander successfully completes key test (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Space)
The Chandrayaan-3 lander has successfully completed the crucial EMI-EMC (electro-magnetic interference/ electro-magnetic compatibility) test at the U.R. Rao Satellite Centre here.
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said that the lander for the Chandrayaan-3 mission underwent the test during January 31-February 2.
According to the agency, the EMI-EMC test is conducted to ensure the functionality of the satellite subsystems in the space environment and their compatibility with the expected electromagnetic levels.
Chandrayaan-3, India’s third moon mission, is slated to be launched later this year from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre at Sriharikota.
Selfie With Daughter’ to focus on sex workers in G20 countries (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
The “Selfie With Daughter”, a social media campaign, has “sex workers” as its theme for the current year to put the spotlight on issues of this community among the participating countries of the G-20 summit scheduled to be held in India later this year.
The campaign was launched by Haryana’s Bibipur village sarpanch Sunil Jaglan in 2015.
Mr. Jaglan, a two-time Rashtriya Gaurav Gram Sabha Puraskar winner, said there were around 1,100 red light areas in India. “The number of sex workers ran into several lakh and this figure became manifold for the G-20 countries.
But several pressing issues of this large community, including health, education for their children, and identity cards, remained unaddressed.
It was a phone call from a sex worker from Nagpur, seeking my attention to their plight, that I got to know about their issues and decided to focus on them for the campaign this year.
Editorial
The curious case of the disqualification of a politician (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The instance where the Kerala High Court, in January this year, suspended the verdict passed by the Kavaratti District and Sessions Court (in an attempt to murder case) in which the then sitting Member of Parliament (MP) of Lakshadweep and Nationalist Congress Party leader Mohammed Faizal P.P. was sentenced to 10 years in jail, has raised an interesting question on his disqualification.
The issue is on whether disqualification for conviction is final or whether it can be revoked. This issue can arise whenever a legislator is disqualified.
This is not very rare — Samajwadi Party Member of the Assembly Abdullah Azam Khan was disqualified from the Uttar Pradesh legislature just a week ago.
The facts are as follows. Mr. Faizal was convicted by the Kavaratti sessions court on January 11 for attempt to murder, and sentenced to 10 years imprisonment.
On January 13, the Lok Sabha announced that he was disqualified as an MP with effect from the date of conviction. On January 18, the Election Commission of India (ECI) fixed February 27 as the date for by-election to that constituency, with the formal notification to be issued on January 31.
Mr. Faizal appealed to the Kerala High Court for a stay on his conviction and sentence, which the High Court suspended on January 25.
The High Court said that the consequence of not suspending the conviction is drastic not just for Mr. Faizal but also for the nation.
The cost of a parliamentary election would have to be borne by the nation and developmental activities in Lakshadweep will also stop for a few weeks.
The elected candidate will have just 15 months to function till the end of the term of the current Lok Sabha. Given these exceptional and irreversible consequences, it suspended his conviction until disposal of the appeal.
Mr. Faizal challenged the ECI’s announcement in the Supreme Court of India. On January 30, the ECI said it was deferring the election.
Text &Context
The SC on sealed cover jurisprudence (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud firmly refused the ‘suggestions’ offered by the government in a sealed cover on the formation of a proposed committee to enquire into the Hindenburg report on the Adani Group.
This signals the Supreme Court’s acute awareness of how ‘sealed cover jurisprudence’ has begun to threaten the very credibility of the judicial institution.
The decision of the three-judge Bench led by the CJI to keep the government’s sealed cover at a distance and do “its own thinking”, made it evident that the dialogue on sealed covers was no longer an academic discourse on how to balance the right to know and the need to protect national security.
The “routine” handing over of sealed covers in court by the state, the contents of which are unknown to the other parties, often fighting for life and personal liberty, is eroding public confidence in the ‘open court’ principle of justice administration.
The petitioners are unable to defend themselves, not knowing what they are supposed to defend against. Passing on materials in a sealed cover to the court compels judges to accept the state’s version, that too, in cases in which the government’s narrative is under challenge.
The origins of sealed cover jurisprudence can be traced to service or administrative cases. Official service records and promotion assessments of individual personnel were received in sealed cover in order to avoid harm to the reputation of officers.
The court continues to receive confidential documents in sexual assault cases to protect the identity of survivors. However, recent times have seen the government produce myriad documents, ranging from status reports to ‘notes’, alleged evidence collected during investigation into terror and money-laundering cases. Even court-appointed committee reports, as in the BCCI case, have been accepted in sealed covers.
Sealed cover documents have been received by the apex court in cases such as the Rafale jets’ purchase deal, Assam National Register of Citizens case, Ayodhya title dispute, Gujarat Police ‘fake’ encounter case, Narendra Modi biopic release case, in the sexual harassment case concerning then Chief Justice Ranjan Gogoi, the electoral bonds case, Bhima Koregaon case and the anticipatory bail plea for former union finance minister P. Chidambaram. In these cases, sealed cover had risen to the status of ‘due procedure’.
How is India addressing sickle cell anaemia? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Sickle cell anaemia (SCA), a genetic blood disorder, found mention in the Budget this year. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman said that the government will work in “mission mode” to eliminate the condition by 2047.
India is the second-worst affected country in terms of predicted births with SCA — i.e. chances of being born with the condition.
Haemoglobin which is tasked with carrying oxygen to all parts of the body, has four protein subunits — two alpha and two beta. In some people, mutations in the gene that creates the beta subunits impact the shape of the blood cell and distorts it to look like a sickle.
A round red blood cell can move easily through blood vessels because of its shape but sickle red blood cells end up slowing, and even blocking, the blood flow.
Moreover, sickle cells die early, resulting in a shortage of red blood cells that deprive the body of oxygen. These obstructions and shortages may cause chronic anaemia, pain, fatigue, acute chest syndrome, stroke, and a host of other serious health complications. Without treatment, quality of life is compromised and severe cases can become fatal in the initial years of life.
Research and screening programmes have found that the prevalence of haemoglobinopathies — disorders of the blood — is more common among tribal populations than non-tribal communities in India.
Research has shown that SCA is prevalent in communities residing in areas where malaria is endemic. Around the middle 1940s, doctors found that those with sickle red blood cells were more likely to survive malaria.
Those with the trait in some African countries were found to be potentially resistant to lethal forms of malaria and had a survival advantage.
The sickle cell trait thus gave an evolutionary advantage, offering immunity to some people during malaria epidemics. In India, States and UTs with tribal populations contribute a significant malaria case load.
Additionally, the documented prevalence of SCA is higher in communities that practice endogamy, as the chances of having two parents with sickle cell trait is higher.
Text & context
Measuring an electron’s magnetic moment with extreme accuracy (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
X. Fan, T.G. Myers, B.A.D. Sukra, and G. Gabrielse, ‘Measurement of the Electron Magnetic Moment’, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 071801, 13 February 2023
In an astonishing feat of metrology, physicists recently reported measuring the electron’s magnetic moment with a precision of 0.13 parts per trillion (ppt).
The resulting measurement is 2.2 times more accurate than the previous best, recorded 14 years ago. More importantly, it’s the most precise test so far of a theory that has both comforted and baffled physicists — the Standard Model of particle physics — and therein lies the rub.
The Standard Model (SM) is the theory that describes the properties of all subatomic particles, classifies them into different groups, and determines how they’re affected by three of the four fundamental forces of nature: strong-nuclear force, weak-nuclear force, and electromagnetic force (it can’t explain gravity).
In the 1960s, physicists used SM to predict the existence of a particle called the Higgs boson, which was finally discovered in 2012.
Similarly, the SM has allowed physicists to successfully predict the existence and properties of dozens of particles and is considered to be one of the most successful theories in the history of physics.
However, it still can’t explain why the universe has more matter than antimatter, what dark matter is, or what dark energy is. In one strategy to crack these still-open questions, physicists have tested different SM predictions to higher and higher limits and checked whether the predictions agree with the observations.
So far, they have all agreed.
The SM’s most precise prediction is of the electron’s magnetic moment. Physically, the magnetic moment describes how willing an electron is to align itself in the direction of a magnetic field.
Mathematically, it’s equal to –/B. Here, (pronounced mew) is the electron’s magnetic moment (measured in amperes sq.metres) and B is a physical constant called the Bohr magneton. Together,-/B is a dimensionless number.
News
India plans to export solar power: official (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Energy)
By 2026, Indian industry will be able to manufacture every year solar modules that can generate 100 gigawatts of power, and help the country be a net exporter of solar power.
This will significantly aid India’s target of installing 500 GW of electricity capacity from non-fossil sources by 2030, Bhupinder Bhalla, Secretary, Ministry for New and Renewable Energy.
India was to have installed 175 GW of renewable energy — from solar, wind, biomass and small hydropower sources — by December 2022, but has only installed 122 GW. Of this, solar power was to have been 100 GW, though only 62 GW has been installed.
A key bottleneck has been the cost of solar modules (or panels). While India has traditionally relied on Chinese-made components such as polysilicone wafers, necessary to make modules, higher customs duty on them (to make equivalent Indian-manufactured components more competitive) has shrunk supply.
We will need about 30-40 GW for our domestic purposes annually and the rest can be used for export. The incentive schemes that are in place are designed to encourage the manufacturers of wafers.
We have never had polysilicone manufacturing in India and this is the first time we will be making ingots and wafers in India. This is necessary for the future health of the solar ecosystem in India.
Apart from module prices, land acquisition has been a major challenge for solar power manufacturers. Despite the Centre commissioning 57 large solar parks with a capacity of 40 GW in recent years, only 10 GW has been operationalised.
Installing a megawatt of solar power requires on average four acres of land. So various developers face challenges in acquiring land and that is one reason for the delay. Some projects have been cancelled, for lack of progress, but we expect 40 GW to be fully commissioned in the next two years.