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Soon after a new Ministry to look after the cooperative sector was formed in 2021, the corridors of its old offices at KrishiBhavan in Delhi’s Central Secretariat were filled with thousands of letters and postcards.
Many of them handwritten, they had to be stuffed into gunny bags. All had the same request: a refund from the Sahara group, the business conglomerate mired in financial embezzlement, and currently being investigated by multiple agencies, including the Enforcement Directorate (ED), since 2008.
The group had raised ₹80,000 crore from 2.76 crore small-time investors across 26 States.
On July 18, the Union government set up the Central Registrar of Cooperative Societies (CRCS) portal — mocrefund.crcs.gov.in — for small investors in Sahara companies to get the maximum refund of ₹10,000 per investor, irrespective of the total amount invested.
The idea is to return at least ₹10,000 to everyone from a ₹5,000-crore corpus [from the corpus of the Sahara-SEBI Refund Account that the Supreme Court allowed the Ministry to access on March 29].
There are 2.76 crore investors and at this rate we need ₹27,000 crore. Some have invested ₹7,000 and others, lakhs of rupees,” said the official from the Ministry of Cooperation.
For the rest of the amount, the Ministry will approach the Supreme Court again. The Common Service Centres in villages and rural areas have been asked to help rural investors who do not have access to computers and scanners.
News
Turbulence hits UDAN scheme, 50% routes grounded(Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The government’s biggest claim to success in aviation since 2014 is building “74 airports in seven years”, as opposed to the same number built in the seven decades since Independence.
However, only 11 of these airports have actually been built from scratch, while 15 airports have fallen into disuse over this period, due to the collapse of almost half the routes launched under the regional connectivity scheme (RCS).
In the recent past, airport development has primarily been undertaken under the RCS, which was launched in 2017 to improve air connectivity for smaller cities, and to redevelop under-utilised airports.
This largely involved the revival of old airstrips that were either lying unused or were used sparsely. The government launched 479 routes to revive these airports, out of which 225 have since ceased operations.
Only 11 greenfield airports have become operational since May 2014, Minister of State for Civil Aviation V.K. Singh replied to a question in the Rajya Sabha on July 24.
These are the airports at Mopa in Goa, Shirdi and Sindhudurg in Maharashtra, Kalaburagi and Shivamogga in Karnataka, Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh, Orvakal (Kurnool) in Andhra Pradesh, Durgapur in West Bengal, Pakyong in Sikkim, Kannur in Kerala, and Donyi Polo in Arunachal Pradesh.
The figure of 74 new airports, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Civil Aviation Minister JyotiradityaScindia regularly raises, includes nine heliports and two waterdromes.
These two waterdromes, built for seaplanes between Gujarat’s Gandhinagar and the Statue of Unity in Kevadia, closed down soon after the Prime Minister launched them in October 2020, as SpiceJet discontinued its flights after a “change in technical requirements.
As many as 15 airports, including Sikkim’s only airport in Pakyong, and those in Punjab’s Adampur, Pathankot, and Ludhiana do not see any flights any more.
Facing the axe: new ‘forest’ definition makes large tracts vulnerable(Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The DongriaKondh tribe, one of the 13 particularly vulnerable tribal groups in Odisha, fought a historic winning battle to save its ecosystem from bauxite mining in the Niyamgiri hill range from 2004 to 2013. Now, the tribe may face another challenge to prevent diversion of community-owned forestland.
Experts working in the forestry sector have sounded an alarm around the proposals of the Forest Conservation (Amendment) Bill (FCA), 2023.
The Bill, after receiving the approval of the Joint Parliamentary Committee, was passed in the Lok Sabha in the ongoing Monsoon Session.
The new legislation may open a window for government agencies to divert land not classified as “forest” in government records for other purposes.
“One of the important amendments is altering the definition of ‘forest’ set by the Supreme Court in 1996. The amendment Bill proposes that the FCA, 2023 will be applicable only to the forest or plots that have been notified as ‘forest’ according to the Indian Forest Act, 1927; and plots or areas recorded as ‘forest’ in government records on or after October 25, 1980.
The proposal would have aided the London-headquartered Vedanta Group’s alumina facility at Lanjigarh in Kalahandi district. Kalahandi and Rayagada districts are where the tribe’s religious and cultural identity and traditional livelihood opportunities lie.
Most DongriaKondh tribespeople are not aware of this proposal and its implications,” said Lingaraj Azad, the convener of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti, which had spearheaded the movement against the mining proposal in Niyamgiri hills.
This showed that 95% of land was not classified as ‘forest’ in government records, though large tracts of forest could be found there.
The record of rights (RoR, a document containing all details about a piece of land) analysis shows that there are 3,634.54 acres of land in these 12 revenue villages.
India’s tiger population goes up, M.P. has most big cats(Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
India’s tiger population increased to 3,682 in 2022, up from 2,967 in 2018, show an estimate released on Saturday. This is an upward revision from April, when a minimum of 3,167 animals were estimated by the Wildlife Institute of India (WII), which coordinates the quadrennial tiger census.
This also indicates growth over the past decade — there were 2,226 tigers reported in 2014, up from 1,706 in 2010.
In 2022, the highest number of tigers, 785, were reported to be in Madhya Pradesh, followed by Karnataka (563), Uttarakhand (560), and Maharashtra (444). Nearly a quarter of the tigers were reportedly outside protected areas.
India’s tigers are largely concentrated in 53 dedicated tiger reserves spread across 75,796 square km, spanning about 2.3% of India’s total land area.
The reserves with the most number of tigers were the Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand, which reported 260 animals, followed by Bandipur (150), and Nagarhole (141), both in Karnataka.
Central India, the Shivalik Hills, and the Gangetic plains witnessed increases in tiger population, particularly in the States of Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, and Maharashtra.
Certain regions, such as the Western Ghats, experienced localised declines, needing targeted monitoring and conservation efforts. Some States, including Mizoram, Nagaland, Jharkhand, Goa, Chhattisgarh, and Arunachal Pradesh, have reported “disquieting trends” with smaller tiger populations, according to a press statement from the Ministry of Environment and Forests.
“In general, reserves that have applied good conservation practices, such as ensuring enough prey is available for tigers, have done well,” said Qamar Qureshi, a senior scientist at the WII who is closely associated with the tiger surveys.
Approximately 35% of the tiger reserves urgently required enhanced protection measures, habitat restoration, ungulate (deer, chital, blackbuck) augmentation, and subsequent tiger reintroduction, the Environment Ministry statement added.
The estimated number of 3,682 is an average figure for a population that likely ranges between 3,167 and 3,925. Tiger numbers are estimated based on the number of unique tigers captured on camera, plus an estimate of animals that may not have been photographed.
World
African Union, EU increase heat on Niger coup leaders(Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The African Union demanded Niger’s military “return to their barracks and restore constitutional authority” within 15 days as the EU intensified pressure on the coup leaders by suspending security cooperation with the jihadist-hit country.
General AbdourahamaneTiani, head of the Presidential Guard since 2011, appeared on state television to declare himself the troubled West African country’s new leader.
His forces have confined democratically elected President Mohamed Bazoum to his official residence in the capital Niamey, in a putsch Gen. Tiani presented as a response to “the degradation of the security situation” linked to jihadist bloodshed.
The African Union and the European Union joined the chorus of international condemnation of the power grab, the latest to strike the Sahel region.
Niger’s neighbours Mali and Burkina Faso have both undergone two military coups since 2020, fuelled by anger at a failure to quash long-running insurgencies by jihadists linked to the Islamic State group and al-Qaeda.
The AU’s Peace and Security Council “demands the military personnel to immediately and unconditionally return to their barracks and restore constitutional authority, within a maximum period of 15 days”, it said in a communique following a meeting on Friday on the coup.
Science
Plastic pollution widespread in water bodies across the world(Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Two papers published in Nature have found evidence for widespread plastic contamination of coral reefs and freshwater lakes.
The reef study finds that larger fragments (mostly debris from the fishing industry) make up most of the plastic found, and these macroplastics are especially abundant in deep reefs.
The assessment of freshwater lakes and reservoirs reveals that all assessed bodies of water were contaminated with microplastics.
Hudson Pinheiro from the California Academy of Sciences, San Francisco and colleagues surveyed global reefs for macroplastics (over 5 cm) and other debris in 84 shallow (less than 30 metres deep) and deep (30-150 metres) coral ecosystems at 25 locations across the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Ocean basins.
Debris was found in 77 of the 84 sites including in some of Earth’s most remote and near-pristine reefs, such as in uninhabited central Pacific atolls.
Macroplastics accounted for 88% of the debris found. Levels of macroplastics were highest in the deep reefs. In most surveyed areas, fishing vessels were identified as the main source of plastic, such as lines and discarded traps.
The findings contrast with the global pattern observed in other nearshore marine ecosystems, where macroplastic densities decrease with depth and are dominated by consumer items.
In the second study, Veronica Nava from the University of Milano-Bicocca, Milan, Italy and others sampled the surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs in 23 countries mainly concentrated in the Northern Hemisphere. They found microplastics (over 250 microns) in all sample sites.
They found plastic concentrations varying widely among lakes. In the most polluted lakes, plastic concentrations were found to “reach or even exceed those reported in the subtropical oceanic gyres, marine areas collecting large amounts of debris”.
TB, over 85% cure rate seen in modified BPaL regimen trial (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The interim results of a randomised phase-3/4 trial carried out in India to evaluate the safety and effectiveness of an all-oral, short-course treatment using just three drugs for people with pre-XDR TB or treatment intolerant/non-responsive MDR pulmonary TB appears promising.
The trial, which has enrolled 400 participants in all, began in October 2021 and is under way at eight sites across the country. The last of the 400 participants was enrolled in end-February 2023.
The trial uses just three drugs — bedaquiline, pretomanid and linezolid (BPaL) and the treatment lasts only for 26 weeks, in contrast to eight-nine tablets each day for 18 months in the case of conventional treatment for drug-resistant TB.
A pre-XDR TB patient on BPaL regimen will consume over 500 tablets over 26 weeks compared with over 4,300 tablets over 18 months with conventional treatment for drug-resistant TB.
The more the number of tablets a day and longer the treatment duration the lower will be the treatment adherence, thus resulting in poor outcomes.
This is where the BPaL regimen, which has been approved by WHO-but yet to be implemented in India, becomes superior. India is targeting to reduce TB incidence by 80% and TB deaths by 90% by 2025.
Nearly 70% of the 400 trial participants have so far completed the treatment and the cure rate is well above 85%,” says Dr. C Padmapriyadarsini, Director of the Chennai-based National Institute for Research in Tuberculosis (NIRT) and the trial coordinator.
In the case of the conventional treatment for DR-TB, the cure rate is 60-65% even when patients strictly adhere to the treatment regimen.
Most of the patients who have been enrolled in the trial had advanced TB at the time of enrolment. They had extensive disease affecting both their lungs.
Yet, the cure rate has been over 85%. This establishes the superiority of the BPaL short-course therapy,” she says. “The outcomes will become even better if pre-XDR patients are diagnosed early and put on treatment with the three-drug regimen.
Threat of dengue fever escalates globally(Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The recent surge in dengue cases globally, including in new regions has been alarming and poses significant global health challenges.
The WHO forecasts the possibility of record-level cases this year due to global warming favouring disease-transmitting mosquitoes.
Dengue fever, caused by the dengue virus (DENV), is a highly prevalent infectious disease estimated to be infecting over 400 million people each year as per the WHO. DENV is an RNA virus of the Flaviviridae family with four serotypes (DENV-1 to 4).
Infection with one serotype provides lifelong immunity to that type, but subsequent infections with different serotypes can lead to severe, life-threatening forms of the disease.
There is no specific antiviral treatment for dengue, so prevention relies on controlling mosquito populations and raising public awareness. Despite global efforts, dengue cases continue to rise, with millions reported annually worldwide.
Since the beginning of 2023, several regions in America have witnessed significant dengue outbreaks, reporting over two million cases till July, with Brazil, Peru, and Bolivia having recorded the highest number of cases this year.
Although cases have been reported across all subregions of the Americas, a majority of cases stem from the Southern Cone, encompassing countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay, and Paraguay.
Several countries in the Americas have reported a co-circulation of all four DENV serotypes, thus presenting several challenges for public health authorities in controlling and managing the outbreaks.
Changing climatic conditions in Europe, such as increased heat waves, floods, and prolonged hot summers, have created favorable environments for dengue-causing mosquito species.
The European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) has warned of an increase in DENV infections across the region. In 2022, Europe saw a significant rise in locally acquired dengue cases.
FAQ
Mapping India’s chip design ecosystem(Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
As part of the second phase of the design-linked incentive (DLI) scheme for the domestic semiconductor industry, the Indian government, according to media reports, is considering a proposal to pick an equity stake in domestic chip design-making companies.
The modalities and the timing of the policy are yet to be worked out, but senior government officials say the idea behind the scheme is to ensure a stable ecosystem alongside building a few “fabless companies”. (Fabless companies are entities that design chips but outsource the manufacturing.)
Any policy directed towards the semiconductor industry, be it manufacturing, or design, requires a long-term strategy as the sector is capital-intensive and involves sizeable costs in setting up fabrication units, upscaling manufacturing capabilities and equipment (such as thermal stimulators, sensors), and pushing research.
Moreover, returns from the investment are not immediate as setting up design and fabrication units involves long gestation periods.
Industry body NASSCOM says it takes up to 2-3 years before the first product is out and chip designing requires higher investment than a traditional aggregator company.
Further, as chipsets become smaller and functional requirements from them change, research and development become challenging. Lastly, supply chain disruptions, could dampen potential investor confidence in the sector.
India is an important destination for global semiconductor companies primarily because of its highly-skilled talent pool of semiconductor design engineers, who make up about 20% of the world’s workforce.
About 2,000 integrated circuits and chips are designed in India every year. Global players operating R&D in the country include Intel, Micron and Qualcomm.
Notwithstanding the thriving manpower, India owns a much smaller portion of the intellectual property (IP) relating to the designs.
Why has Israel plunged into a crisis?(Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On July 24, Israel’s governing coalition passed a critical part of its judicial overhaul plan in the Knesset that would curtail the Supreme Court’s oversight powers of government decisions.
The Bill was passed with 64 votes against zero in the 120-member Knesset with all Opposition members staging a walkout and thousands protesting outside Parliament. Israel has seen months of protests against the right-religious government’s plans to overhaul the judiciary.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu agreed in March to delay the voting of the Bills amid mass protests and then held several rounds of talks with the Opposition. But as the talks collapsed, the government went ahead with the voting.
The Knesset legislation abolishes the “reasonable doctrine”, which the top court has often employed to assess key government decisions and ministerial appointments.
Reasonableness is a legal standard used in several countries such as Australia, Canada and the U.K. by the top courts to assess the government’s decisions. In Israel, which does not have a written Constitution, courts cannot measure government decisions constitutionally but the reasonability doctrine has worked as a critical judicial check on executive decisions.
The court could determine whether a government decision or a ministerial appointment is sensible and fair and nullify it if needed.
For example, Mr. Netanyahu had to drop Aryeh Deri, leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas, as a Minister from his Cabinet earlier this year after the Supreme Court termed his appointment “highly unreasonable”.
Supporters of the government say the reasonability standard is too abstract and allows judicial overreach. Hence, they wanted to strike it down.
The original overhaul plan has different parts which together would strengthen the hands of the government over the courts.
One of them was the abolition of the reasonability doctrine. Mr. Netanyahu’s government also proposed to curtail judicial review over legislation and then empower Parliament to override court decisions with an absolute majority of 61 votes (out of 120).
Business
FM urges Japanese investors to expedite investment, back AI, renewable energy(Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman urged Japanese investors to expedite their plans for investment in the country and consider new areas such as hydrogen, AI and renewable energy, stressing their past outlays in India had yielded good outcomes without any friction with joint venture partners.
Noting that Japanese firms have been “prudent investors” involved with signature projects such as metros across prominent cities, the “bullet train” between Mumbai and Ahmedabad and other large infrastructure plans, Ms. Sitharaman said their investments were also directed in areas like health, education and agriculture.
As prudent investors, Japan takes its time to take a decision… you are prudent, but it does involve a lot of time. And I would look at it from your experience in the last 50-60 years in India, where you or your investments have not failed, your Indian partners have not failed you.
Stressing that India was in the midst of a 25-year “window” to attain developed country status by 2047, the Minister nudged investors to take quicker decisions to invest in new areas like generative AI, hydrogen, and renewable energy and semiconductors that are “identified as growth areas for India”.