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After an alleged data leak of COVID vaccination beneficiaries, including several politicians, the Union Health Ministry on Monday said such reports were “without any basis and mischievous in nature”. The CoWIN portal was completely safe with adequate safeguards for data privacy, it maintained.
Among those whose personal details were allegedly leaked are CoWIN chairman Ram Sewak Sarma (ID submitted for vaccination), senior BJP leader Meenakshi Lekhi and Congress general secretary K.C. Venugopal (location at which they got vaccinated), and Kerala Health Minister Veena George (the mode of registration).
As per reports, the data breach is possible if the mobile number of a person is entered — details such as the identification number of the document submitted (Aadhaar, passport, PAN and so forth), gender, date of birth, and the centre where the vaccine was administered, are provided as reply in an instant by the messenger bot in question.
These details could be accessed even if the Aadhaar number was entered instead of the phone number. The passport numbers of those who had updated the CoWIN portal for travel abroad were also leaked.
Union Minister of State for Electronics, and Information Technology, clarified that the data being accessed by the bot from a threat actor database seems to have been populated with previously breached data.
States
ISRO, Norway and the ‘Svalbard mission’ (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
A Rohini RH-300 Mk-II sounding rocket rose to the skies from Svalbard, Norway, operationalising a new rocket launching range there.
The solid propellant-powered rocket was shipped from India for the launch, while four senior hands of the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) were specially flown to Norway to make sure everything went off all right.
The resolve to deepen space sector ties between India and Norway following Norwegian Ambassador Hans Jacob Frydenlund’s visit to the ISRO headquarters last week offers an occasion to recall this challenging mission which took place 26 years ago at Ny-Alesund, Svalbard.
The RH-300 Mk-II was given a new name by the NSC (Norwegian Space Centre): Isbjorn-1, which translates literally as ‘Polar Bear-I.
On the technical side, the Norway mission presented unique challenges for ISRO. The Rohini rockets had till then flown only in the tropical hot and humid conditions in India.
The Svalbard archipelago, on the other hand, sits in the Arctic Ocean and temperatures were on the extremely low side,” says Mr. Dathan, who was managing the solid propellant plant at VSSC back then. (Mr. Dathan later became Director, VSSC. He is presently Mentor (Science) to Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan).
ISRO had shipped the RH-300 Mk-II to Norway after qualifying it for arctic weather conditions. Renamed Isbjorn-1, it lifted off at 11:07 p.m. IST on November 20, 1997.
The rocket, unfortunately, did not achieve the predicted height, rising only up to 71 km. The reason was a strange one. To keep the ambient temperature at 18 degrees celsius, it was kept covered with a velostat shroud.
The idea was that it would pierce through the cover during launch. Instead, the rocket dragged it along, and the increased drag resulted in a lower altitude.
Editorial
Wrestlers’ protest and the shrinking space for dissent (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Public protests have long served as a catalyst for social and policy change in India, allowing individuals, classes and communities to voice their grievances and advocate for their rights. Over the past few years, protests have risen with bewildering rapidity.
Protests had opened up space for a new era of social activism in the decade that the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government was in power.
The Bharatiya Janata Party-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government too has faced considerable opposition from a range of groups but has treated it very differently from previous governments.
In December 2012, people around the world watched as thousands took to the streets in the Central Vista of New Delhi following the brutal gang rape of a 23-year-old physiotherapy student (Nirbhaya).
The protests became so intense and the public outrage was so great that the UPA government was compelled to address issues of sexual violence at the policy level, through the introduction of the new Criminal Law (Amendment) Act 2013 to bring stricter punishments and broaden the scope of offences.
Fast forward to May 2023. Medal-winning wrestlers, who have brought honour to the country, have been on the streets for nearly four months to demand the arrest of the Wrestling Federation of India (WFI) chief and Kaiserganj Member of Parliament (MP), Brij Bhushan Sharan Singh, of the BJP, who they have accused of sexually harassing women wrestlers and a minor.
But the authorities did not respond for weeks. It took the Supreme Court of India’s intervention for Delhi Police to file two first information reports (FIRs).
E-education platforms, their Generative AI chapter (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Education)
Salman Khan flourished even at the peak of the world economic crisis of 2008. The Khan Academy’s online education videos attracted thousands of learners that year.
It has gone from strength to strength since then. Khan’s not-for-profit enterprise is funded by the likes of the Gates Foundation, Google and Elon Musk.
Today, the academy has 130 million learners from across the world, ranging from school-goers to graduate-level learners. Such is the enduring popularity of online education.
As the world recovered from its economic setback by 2011, a new genre of online courses titled ‘Massive Open Online Courses’ (MOOCs) made their entry, driven by reputed institutions of learning.
Though MOOCS have been around since 2008, their institutional origins can be traced to three free online courses offered by Stanford University in 2011.
Peter Norvig, Sebastian Thrun, Jennifer Widom and Andrew Ng conducted these courses. Buoyed by the large turnout of learners for these ‘pilot’ courses, Thrun launched his online education outfit, ‘Udacity’, in late 2011 as a for-profit company.
A year later, Andrew Ng and Daphne Koller followed suit with their venture ‘Coursera’, which was also registered as a ‘for-profit’ company.
Not to be left behind, MIT and Harvard joined forces to create ‘edX’ in May 2012, as a non-profit MOOCS Company. Anant Agarwal, the visionary founder of edX, is widely credited with open sourcing and internationalising the company’s ‘open edX tech stack’.
Although edX was acquired by the for-profit EdTech company, ‘2U’, in November 2021, the company continues to follow ‘non-profit considerations when it comes to servicing its open-source stack.
Opinion
Same-sex marriage: Morality vs equality (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
Just a few days before the Supreme Court of India commenced hearings on the same-sex marriage issue, one of the world’s leading philosophers, Michael Sandel, was in India to take part in a media group’s conclave.
Introduced as a “rockstar” during the event and prodded to make comments on banal local politics, the significance of his ideas for deeper moral questions facing Indian society remained lost on most.
For example, while arguments based on the various strands of liberalism were being marshalled before the Supreme Court, Sandel’s critique of contemporary liberalism should also have been part of the repertoire for consideration.
This critique highlights a difficulty in any attempt to sort out the issue of same-sex marriage within a liberal framework of individual rights.
For, if the Court were to adjudicate on the right to marry it would have to break its neutrality on moral questions about the desirability of marriage, what fits into the institution and what it means to people- a neutrality mandated by its jurisprudence on equal concern for all irrespective of social or personal morality.
In fact the idea of constitutional morality has been used by the Supreme Court in many cases to maintain neutrality on moral issues.
Following this neutrality would mean the Court should stop at ensuring that people’s legal rights are protected just like how it held that those in live-in relationships are entitled to legal protection irrespective of the societies’ moral view on such relationships.
Explainer
Will a hike in MSP help farmers? (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Last week, the Centre announced the Minimum Support Price (MSP) for this year’s summer (kharif) season crops, hiking prices between 5-10% from last season, “to ensure remunerative prices to growers for their produce and to encourage crop diversification.”
A section of farmer representatives have expressed unhappiness over what they term as a ‘meagre’ hike in the MSP, defeating the government’s intent of securing a “remunerative price”.
On the other hand, agriculture domain experts believe that an increase in the MSP may give a slight respite to growers, but argue that in the absence of any dependable or assured market mechanism of procurement-purchase for crops on the MSP in most parts of the country, the purpose of encouraging “crop diversification” gets defeated.
The MSP, which is a part of the government’s agricultural price policy, is the price at which the government offers to procure farmers’ produce during the season.
It works as a tool to stabilise production and to control consumer prices, yet farmers across the country have been facing problems of selling their produce at the MSP.
Delays in establishing procurement centres, exploitation at the hands of commission agents, who most of the time buy the produce from farmers below the MSP, and a lack of awareness about the MSP among a large section of farmers, are some of the challenges growers have been facing for years now. Against this background, farmers have been demanding a ‘legal status’ to the MSP.
The government, including the Centre and States, ought to come up with a system to set up an ‘assured market mechanism,’ point out farmers. The MSP has little meaning unless farmers’ produce is procured/purchased at the assured price.
News
China could have as many ICBMs as U.S. or Russia by turn of decade: think tank (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
China increased its nuclear arsenal to 410 warheads in January 2023 from 350 in January 2022, the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) said in its annual report on Monday.
Depending on how it decides to structure its forces, China could potentially have at least as many intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) as either the U.S. or Russia by the turn of the decade.
China has started a significant expansion of its nuclear arsenal. It is increasingly difficult to square this trend with China’s declared aim of having only the minimum nuclear forces needed to maintain its national security.
India and Pakistan also expanded their nuclear arsenal. Both countries introduced and continued to develop new types of nuclear delivery system in 2022, the report noted.
While Pakistan remains the main focus of India’s nuclear deterrent, India appears to be placing growing emphasis on longer-range weapons, including those capable of reaching targets across China.
According to SIPRI estimates, India’s arsenal grew to 164 warheads in 2023 from 160 in 2022 and that of Pakistan from 165 to 170.
Of the total global inventory of 12, 512 warheads in January 2023, about 9,576 were in military stockpiles for potential use — 86 more than in January 2022.
Russia and the U.S. together possessed almost 90% of all nuclear weapons. The size of their respective nuclear arsenal (useable warheads) seemed to have remained relatively stable in 2022, although transparency regarding nuclear forces declined in both countries in the wake of Ukraine war.
Business
India, UAE target $100 bn in non-oil trade by 2030 (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India and the UAE set a target to increase the non-oil trade from the current $48 billion to $100 billion by 2030.
The goal to achieve $100 billion in non-oil trade was set during the first meeting of the Joint Committee of India-UAE Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA).
We have a mutually agreed (for a) target of $100 billion in bilateral trade by 2030. The target of $100 billion will not include the oil trade. It was also agreed to set up certain sub-committees and councils.
In the meeting, it was also decided to set up a new sub-committee to handle issues related to services trade. Mr. Goyal said an India-UAE CEPA council will be set up to further facilitate the implementation of the agreement.