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Editorial
Approximately 1,192 days since January 30, 2020, when COVID-19 was announced as a ‘public health emergency of international concern’, the World Health Organization, on May 5, 2023, declared that COVID-19 was no longer a public health emergency of international concern.
In simpler terms, COVID-19 has acquired the status of other endemic diseases. India, arguably, reached the COVID-19 endemic stage a year ago.
Even so, there have been ‘knee-jerk’ and unscientific responses to spikes in COVID-19 cases in India, the most recent example being the response in March-April 2023, when there was an uptick in viral flu and SARS-CoV-2 cases, which led to the closure of schools in some Indian cities and States.
In instances where schools were not closed, their managements made mask wearing a mandatory condition for children to attend classes. This, in some instances, happened without a formal government directive, indicating implicit endorsement.
In April-May 2021, there was a COVID-19 misinformation blitzkrieg: that a ‘third wave in India would affect children’. Since then, there has been a tragic tale — of children being deprived of schooling and learning, and repeatedly being asked to mask-up.
Two years later, in April 2023, school closure and making masks mandatory for schoolchildren had their origin in nearly identical challenges of actions not being supported by scientific evidence, misinformation, and social media influencers (not necessarily subject experts) shaping the public discourse, which was again not effectively addressed by governments.
In late April 2023, the not-for-profit Foundation for People-Centric Health Systems, which is based in Delhi, analysed the trends and stance of influencers and experts on social media platforms and in newspaper reports on the COVID-19 linked mask enforcement for schoolchildren.
Those based out of India were analysed into three sub-groups: trained or practising public health experts and epidemiologists (including those with a medical degree); other medical doctors (excluding those already in first group) and super-specialists such as hepatologists, cardiologists/cardiac surgeons and endocrinologists; and everyone else including media personalities, parents and those affiliated with schools. The fourth group was of those who had had an opinion about India but living abroad, irrespective of their education.
More than a story (Page 6)
(GS Paper 1, Indian Society)
The demand for a ban on The Kerala Story, a film apparently based on the instances of a few women joining the Islamic State, is ill-conceived.
It is to the credit of the Supreme Court and the High Courts of Kerala and Madras that they did not yield to the clamour for proscribing the movie.
It garnered adverse publicity because of a teaser that made an exaggerated claim that 32,000 girls have gone missing in Kerala, presumably to join the terrorist group.
However, the film-makers have agreed to withdraw the teaser and carry a disclaimer that the film’s content is fictional.
The film’s more notable feature is that it has been denounced as undisguised propaganda.
Those seeking the ban accuse its makers of trying to stoke communal passions and the projecting of a fake narrative against Muslims. However, even if that is true, any ban on the film will be counter-productive.
Bans can be overturned by courts, and they tend to evoke curiosity about the film and often end up making more people form opinions on its content.
In effect, it enhances the propaganda value, and furthers the ulterior motive, if any. It is now legally settled that once a film has been certified by the statutory authority, there is really no case to ban one.
Laws pertaining to public order indeed empower the police and local authorities to stop a film’s screening, but it will be perilous to do so every time a group demands a ban.
Opinion
Will the greenback still be green? (Page 7)
GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
As China, India, and Russia dabble in trade using partner currencies for payment instead of the U.S. dollar, various media are rife with speculation about the demise of the dollar as world reserve currency. How much truth is there to this claim? Not much.
The status of the U.S. dollar as a preferred currency for international trade and as a reserve currency has not been a result of any purposeful policy or an international agreement.
The rise of the dollar as the world currency closely aligns with the rise of the U.S. as one of the world’s strongest economies with a deep financial system and a stable government.
This is not to say there were no competitors. Starting with the Great Britain Pound to the emergence of the euro as the currency of the European Union, the position of the dollar has been challenged from time to time. However, the dollar seems to continue its dominance uninterrupted.
According to reports from the International Monetary Fund, the dollar’s share of foreign exchange reserves has fallen over time from 80% in the 1970s to about 60% in 2022.
The euro has made up for about 20% of the remaining 40% room created by this fall. Smaller currencies such as the Australian and Canadian dollars, Swedish krona, and South Korean won have claimed their share in the portfolios of various countries’ foreign exchange reserves making up most of the remaining gap of 20%, with Chinese currency taking up the rest.
China runs a closed capital account, which explains why it still does not feature as a prominent choice in which to maintain reserves.
Most of the Renminbi reserves that are held outside China are by Russia. In fact, both these countries accumulate the currency of the other as foreign exchange reserves.
From that point of view, a trading arrangement between China and Russia makes more sense. However, even though India’s biggest supplier of oil is Russia followed by Saudi Arabia and Iraq, its biggest trading partner is still the U.S., according to recent data. Moreover, Russia’s importance as an oil supplier is a result of the deep discounts offered by its oil suppliers to Indian refiners.
Improve technology to detect IEDs (Page 7)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Ten jawans and a civilian driver, who were returning in a van following an anti-Maoist operation, were killed in a blast caused by an Improvised Explosive Device (IED) in Chhattisgarh’s Dantewada on April 26. The IED was planted beneath a metalled road. The was so forceful, it created a huge crater on the road.
Though this attack, which according to the State police had been carried out by the proscribed Communist Party of India (Maoist), is under investigation, the larger issues of the use of IEDs and of tackling such devices must be seriously addressed at different levels — the government, industry, the Maoists, and the security forces — despite the government’s claim that the base of the Maoists has shrunk and violence has decreased.
IEDs are among the most potent tools deployed by the Maoists. Even a small formation of the Maoists can cause huge damage to the security forces by using an IED. Therefore, the recent theft of about 7,000 detonators by suspected Maoists from West Singhbum, Jharkhand, is alarming.
The technical equipment used by the security forces to detect IEDs has its limitations. If the quantity of metal in the IED is low or the IED is planted deep under the road, mine detectors may fail to find it.
Though hundreds of IEDs are detected and diffused every year, the search party could always miss a few due to technical reasons.
Ground-penetrating radar, which can detect recent disturbances in the soil subsurface, has also not proved successful because it is susceptible to generating false alarms.
As not much research and development has been undertaken in this field, the Central government and industry must join hands to improve technology to detect IEDs.
Also, the details printed on boxes containing detonators are not sufficient to trace the source of the detonators and punish the guilty. The Central government must, therefore, amend rules and make the manufacturers accountable for unique identification of detonators.
Most women who got divorced were pushed towards it (Page 7)
(GS Paper 1, Indian Society)
Supreme Court said that in cases of a marriage being “wrecked beyond hope of salvage,” the cooling-off period of six to 18 months would only “breed misery and pain.”
It held that its extraordinary discretion under Article 142 of the Constitution can be used to provide justice for couples trapped in bitter marriages.
This judgment may help ease the suffering of Indian women who wish to be divorced. Data show that a higher share of divorced/separated Indian women endured emotional, physical and sexual harassment from their most recent husband than currently married women.
A higher share of divorced/separated women also experienced restrictions on their mobility and had a limited say in their spending decisions during their marriage compared to currently married women.
A higher share of divorced women had faced suspicion from their (then) husbands during marriage. These conclusions are based on the National Family Health Survey-5.
Explainer
India’s first national water-body census (Page 8)
(GS Paper 3: Environment)
The findings of the first-ever water body census, conducted by the Ministry of Jal Shakti, was published recently.
India is facing a water crisis with groundwater decline, biodiversity loss, and climate change increasing the frequency of floods and droughts.
In this context, water bodies are important. They buffer against climate variability, holding flood waters for use in dry periods.
They contribute to food and water security as well as livelihoods by recharging groundwater and providing water for irrigation and livestock. They also have cultural and ecological significance.
However, water bodies are increasingly under threat from pollution, encroachment, urbanisation, and drying. If they are to be conserved and managed effectively, we need action plans which require baseline data.
As water bodies are managed by different agencies from State to local to private entities, the data must be uniform and easily accessible.
To actually manage water bodies, we need contextual and traditional knowledge of communities which are to be integrated with formal data.
While data on reservoirs and rivers has been available on the India Water Resources Information System (WRIS) for the last few years, there has been no data on smaller water bodies that are the lifeline of rural India and critical cultural, flood-control and recreational spaces in cities.
The massive effort expended in the first-ever water body census was much needed. The census’s objective was to develop a national database with information on the size, purpose, ownership, status, and conditions of water bodies. It covered all natural and human-made units bounded on all sides for storing water, irrespective of condition or use.
A software for data entry and a mobile app for capturing the location and visual of the water bodies were developed, and data-processing workshops were conducted to train the surveyors in all States and Union territories.
The census was built on existing and publicly available satellite-derived datasets. These datasets are extremely rich, allowing citizens to hone in on a specific village and download the historical time series data on each water body.
What is Bluesky, the latest micro-blogging platform in the market? (Page 9)
(GS Ppaer 3, Science and Technology)
Since Elon Musk’s takeover, Twitter has been constantly in the news. The social media company’s workforce has dropped from nearly 8,000 to around 1,000. Alongside the drop, technical glitches and outages have increased. Separately, as the blue tick verification and API access become paid features, several users are searching for alternative social media platforms.
Though the decentralised Mastodon emerged as an early contender, Bluesky has come to the fore as a potential claimant to Twitter’s throne.
Bluesky is a micro-blogging platform and social website built on the AT Protocol (Authenticated Transport Protocol). Bluesky might be classified as a Twitter competitor due to its founding team but it is different in terms of its structure, as it is meant to form part of a decentralised ecosystem.
Users of apps built on the AT Protocol would be able to move between platforms without losing their followers, media, work, and data. This account portability, as the feature is called, is a major part of the AT Protocol’s structure.
Bluesky says its founding mission is to “develop and drive large-scale adoption of technologies for open and decentralised public conversation.”
The CEO of Bluesky is Jay Graber, a software engineer with a background in cryptocurrency. Bluesky was launched in 2019 by former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who chose Ms. Graber to lead the project.
Twitter and Bluesky were meant to eventually connect and work with each other, but the companies ended their service agreement last year.
Not anytime soon. Bluesky is currently in private beta, meaning that only a select group has been allowed to join via invite codes.
Others interested in trying it out can add themselves to a waitlist. Regular Bluesky members are also given a new invite code at periodic intervals that they can share with new applicants they deem trustworthy.
Bluesky said it had more than 50,000 users at the end of April but maintained that it would distribute invites at its own discretion to maintain the integrity of the platform.
Based on this announcement, it is unlikely that Bluesky will replace Twitter any time soon, as it continues to grow its membership at a highly controlled rate.
News
Govt. mulls over all-woman marching contingents, bands for R-Day parade (Page 10)
(GS Paper 1, Indian Society)
The Centre is looking to have all-woman marching and band contingents, tableaux, and other performances at the Republic Day Parade, 2024 on Kartavya Path. An Office Memorandum issued on March 1 in this regard has since undergone several changes but effort is on to have contingents with mostly women participants.
However, this has raised several questions within the military fraternity as it is not clear how infantry and armoured regiments of the Army will be able to have all-woman marching contingents as neither division has women — be it as officers or in the ranks.
The decision was made in February at the de-brief session on RDP, 2023, chaired by Defence Secretary Giridhar Aramane and attended by members of the Ministry of Defence (MoD), services and other Ministries and departments.
After the detailed deliberations, it has been decided that the Republic Day 2024 will be having only women participants in the contingents (marching and band), tableaux and other performances during the Parade at Kartavya Path.
Therefore, all the participating Ministries, departments, organisations and agencies are requested to start the preparation accordingly right away, it stated, adding that progress in this regard may be apprised to MoD time to time.
Since the original memo, there have been several deliberations on the issue and the government effort is to have predominantly women contingents, a defence source said, adding that discussions are still on.
A copy of the memo went viral on social media over the past few days and has had several veterans expressing apprehensions over the proposal.
Women officers had been part of RD parades in the past and had led contingents, while women Agniveeer, undergoing training, were part of the Naval contingent for the first time this year. The services do not have women in the soldier ranks, barring a small number of women Military Police in the Army.
ISRO to start online training programme for college students (Page 12)
(GS Paper 3, General awareness)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has announced a new introductory-level online training programme called space science and technology awareness training (START).
START is aimed at postgraduate and final-year undergraduate students of physical sciences and technology.
The programme will cover various domains of space science, including astronomy and astrophysics, heliophysics and sun-earth interaction, instrumentation and aeronomy. It will be delivered by scientists from Indian academia and ISRO centres.
“The START programme is part of the ISRO’s efforts to enable Indian students to become professionals in space science and technology, as the organisation’s space science exploration programme continues to expand into new domains,” the ISRO said.
The programme is intended to give them an overview of the different facets of the field, research opportunities and career options, it said.
The ISRO’s National Remote Sensing Centre (NRSC) has also announced two short courses — remote sensing data acquisition and remote sensing data processing.
The courses are scheduled to be held from August 21 to September 1 and October 9 to 20 respectively, at NRSC’s Earth Station at Shadnagar near Hyderabad.