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Tomato prices may be cooling from recent highs, but pulses could play the next spoilsport in the battle against inflation, with a below-par monsoon in August dragging down the sown area for pulses in the kharif season by almost 10% from a year ago.
While a 37% surge in vegetable prices had fired up retail inflation to a 15-month high of 7.4% in July, prices of pulses have also risen sharply in recent months, speeding to 13.3% in July from 10.6% in June.
Economists reckon prices of pulses such as tur dal and moong dal, which surged 34.1% and 9.1%, respectively, in July, would likely spiral further.
This is because the total sown area for dals — 114.9 lakh hectares as on August 18 — is unlikely to improve much amid deficient rainfall towards the end of the sowing season.
Sown area for cereals and rice, which was lagging behind last year’s levels till a few weeks ago, have now inched up to grow 1.6% and 4.3%, respectively, and could help moderate their price rise in the coming months. However, pulses sowing has not staged such a recovery and has, in fact, got worse over the past week.
After second de-boost, Chandrayaan-3 on glide path to moon (Page no.1)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The lander module of Chandrayaan-3, the third lunar mission of India, is expected to touch down on the surface of the moon around 6.04 p.m. on Wednesday, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said.
The powered descent of the lander module with the rover in its belly is expected to commence at 5.45 p.m., it said.
The space agency completed the second and final de-boosting (slowing down) of the module in the early hours of Sunday.
“Chandrayaan-3 Mission: The second and final deboosting operation has successfully reduced the LM [lander module] orbit to 25 km x 134 km,” ISRO posted on X.
It added that the module would now undergo internal checks and await sunrise at the designated landing site.
Announcing the time of the landing, the agency said the event would be broadcast live from 5.27 p.m. on Wednesday.
Editorial
Criminal law Bills renaming is needless meddling (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Three new Bills were tabled in Parliament recently. This article is not about the content of these Bills (the controversies on that will play out) but their names: the Indian Penal Code is now replaced by Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Code of Criminal Procedure by Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Indian Evidence Act by the Bharatiya Sakshya Bill. That these are names unfamiliar to, and unpronounceable by, more than half the country’s citizens and an overwhelming majority of its legal practitioners, makes these Bills fail the first test of acceptability.
Moreover, Article 348 of the Constitution states that the authoritative texts of all Acts passed by Parliament or State legislatures shall be in the English Language.
The body of these new Bills is in the English language, but the title of the Bills being in Hindi goes against the embargo placed by the Article.
The issue of language was hotly contested and debated in the Constituent Assembly and led to the adoption of various provisions in the Constitution as well as the Official Languages Act.
The legal regime in place provides that English shall remain an official language until resolutions for the discontinuance of English as an official language are adopted by State Legislatures and by Parliament. That is a dim prospect when we aim to be a strong player in a globalised world.
Opinion
Crafting safe Generative AI systems (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Generative AI revolution is upon us and will potentially unleash a wave of technical and social change. Large Language Models (LLMs) alone are predicted to add $2.6 trillion-$4.4 trillion annually to the global economy.
As one example of their potential impact, consider the ongoing pilot of Jugalbandi Chatbot in rural India (powered by ChatGPT).
Jugalbandi promises to serve as a universal translator, accepting queries in local languages, retrieving answers from English-language sources, and presenting them back to users in their native language.
This service alone can democratise access to information and improve the economic well-being of millions of people. And this is only one of hundreds of new services which are being developed.
However, alongside positive developments, this AI revolution also brings risks. Most pressingly, AI powered tools are enabling bad actors to create artificial entities that are indistinguishable from humans online (via speech, text, and video).
Bad actors can misrepresent themselves or others and potentially launch a barrage of variations on old harms such as misinformation and disinformation, security hacks, fraud, hate speech, shaming, etc.
In the U.S., an AI generated image of the Pentagon burning spooked equity markets. Fake Twitter and Instagram users promulgating strong political views have been reposted millions of times, contributing to polarised politics online.
Cloned AI voices have been used to circumvent bank customer authentication measures. An individual in Belgium was allegedly driven to suicide with his conversations with an LLM.
And recent elections in Turkey were marred by AI generated deepfakes. Over one billion voters will head to polls across the U.S., India, the EU, the U.K., and Indonesia in the next two years, and the risk of bad actors harnessing Generative AI for misinformation and election influence is steadily growing.
Why Shimla is crumbling (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Rains have recently wreaked havoc in Himachal Pradesh, particularly Shimla. Heavy precipitation in the Summer Hill area of the State capital resulted in flash floods and the collapse of a temple which claimed over 15 lives.
A landslide led to the destruction of many buildings in Krishnanagar area and left two dead. Landslides around Shimla have damaged roads and brought life to a standstill.
This is not unprecedented. The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report states that the coastal areas and the Himalayas are poised to experience a rise in extreme climate events and a shift in rainfall patterns.
Consequently, the developmental strategies for the Himalayan region should prioritise climate resilience instead of solely pursuing unguided infrastructure expansion.
Regrettably, in Shimla, infrastructure development has not been climate smart. An analysis of several incidents reveals a pattern. In Summer Hill, the temple was constructed within a gorge.
This was also the location of a water supply system for Totu, a suburb of Shimla. In Krishnanagar, houses were erected atop water bauris (natural water springs).
When structures come up in areas closely linked to a water source, they become susceptible to disasters. There are around 25 major springs and over 100 water bauris in Shimla.
Explainer
The Katchatheevu controversy (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On August 18, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. K. Stalin revived the debate over Katchatheevu, an uninhabited and barren 285 acre islet about 14 nautical miles off Rameswaram.
He reiterated the demand for retrieval of the islet from Sri Lanka, which will, according to him, put a permanent end to the problems of fishermen of the State.
Addressing a fishermen’s conference in Mandapam of Ramanathapuram district, he pointed out that following his letters to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, fishermen arrested by the Sri Lankan authorities, were released but the boats and fish nets, essential to the livelihoods of the fishermen, had not been returned.
Last month, ahead of the visit of Sri Lanka’s President to New Delhi, the Chief Minister urged Mr. Modi to raise the issue with the dignitary.
During June 26-28, 1974, the then Prime Ministers of India and Sri Lanka, Indira Gandhi and Sirim R.D. Bandaranaike, signed an agreement to demarcate the boundary between the two countries in the historic waters from Palk Strait to Adam’s Bridge.
A joint statement issued on June 28, 1974, stated that a boundary had been defined “in conformity with the historical evidence, legal international principles and precedents.” It also pointed out that “this boundary falls one mile off the
What is RBI’s new pilot for frictionless credit? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
On August 17, the RBI commenced a pilot programme endeavouring to evaluate the feasibility and functionality of the ‘Public Tech Platform for Frictionless Credit’.
The suggested platform would strive to “enable delivery of frictionless credit by facilitating seamless flow of required digital information to lenders.”
Digital delivery of credit (delivering credit/loans though digital means) or any loan is preceded by a process of scrutiny known as credit appraisal.
The process attempts to evaluate and accordingly predict the prospective borrowers’ ability for repayment of credit/loan and adhering to the credit agreement.
This pre-disbursal process is particularly important for banks since it would in turn determine their interest income and impact on the balance sheet.
The central banking regulator has observed that the data required for the process rests with different entities like central and state governments, account aggregators, banks, credit information companies, and digital identity authorities.
Thus, being in separate systems, it creates “hindrances in frictionless and timely delivery of rule-based lending,” the regulator notes.
This new platform would bring all of it together in a single place. To facilitate “frictionless” and “timely delivery” of loans, the central banking regulator had instituted a pilot project for the digitalisation of Kisan Credit Card (KCC) loans, of less than ₹1.6 lakh, in September 2022.
News
Move to appoint new Chief Justice for Manipur High Court suffers delay (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The appointment of a Delhi High Court judge, Justice Siddharth Mridul, as the Chief Justice of the Manipur High Court, remains in limbo six weeks after the Supreme Court Collegium proposed his name on July 5. The Manipur High Court is, at present, functioning under Acting Chief Justice M.V. Muralidharan.
The office of the Chief Justice had fallen vacant in February 2023, following the elevation of Justice P.V. Sanjay Kumar to the Supreme Court.
Within days of the Collegium recommending Justice Mridul, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud had in open court, while hearing petitions concerning the ethnic violence which has rocked the State, said that a regular Chief Justice would be appointed soon to the High Court.
Justice Mridul’s file had been sent by the Centre to the Manipur government for consent. However, nothing further was heard of it in the public domain.
Payment crisis leads to uncertainty over Russia defence deals (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Major defence deals with Russia, especially the S-400 deal, which have already seen delays due to the war in Ukraine, continue to face uncertainty with no clarity on the revised schedule as efforts to resolve the payment crisis have not fructified so far.
Currently, payments of around $3 billion are held up and the central banks are working to resolve this, two official sources independently said.
Three of the five S-400 regiments contracted under a $5.43-billion deal in 2018 have been delivered, but the other two are delayed and there is no clarity on the revised schedule, multiple sources confirmed.
While the two sides have been trying to settle payments through a rupee-rouble arrangement, it has failed to solve the crisis due to the huge trade imbalance and rupees accumulating on the Russian side.
The delivery of the two Krivak or Talwar-class stealth frigates under construction for the Indian Navy in Russia are further delayed and now expected to be delivered by May and October 2024, according to Alexey Rakhmanov, Director-General of United Shipbuilding Corporation of Russia.
Acknowledging that payment has been an issue on two other frigates under construction at Goa Shipyard Ltd. (GSL) under the same deal, he said the delivery schedule will be fixed according to the payment schedule.
As per the original schedule, GSL was scheduled to deliver the first ship in 2026 and the second one six months later.
1,400 tonnes of onions sent to markets, 3 lakh tonnes added to buffer stock: govt. (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Centre enhanced the buffer stock of onion from three lakh tonnes to five lakh tonnes on Sunday. The National Cooperative Consumers’ Federation of India (NCCF) will sell the produce at ₹25 a kg from Monday. The Centre, on Saturday, imposed a 40% duty on export of onions.
The measures taken by the government such as procurement for the buffer, targeted release of stocks and imposition of export duty will benefit farmers and consumers by assuring remunerative prices to onion farmers while ensuring continuous availability to consumers at affordable prices.
The department termed the move to enhance the stocks as unprecedented, and said it has directed the NCCF and the National Agricultural Cooperative Marketing Federation of India (NAFED) to procure one lakh tonne each to achieve the additional procurement target alongside calibrated sale of the procured stocks in major consumption centres.
World
Luna 25, Russia’s first lunar mission in 47 years, crashes into the moon (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Russia’s Luna 25 spacecraft crashed into the moon after it spun into an uncontrolled orbit, the country’s Roscosmos space agency said on August 20.
The pilotless spacecraft was aiming to land in the South Pole area of the moon, an area where scientists believe there could be important reserves of frozen water and precious elements. It had been expected to land on August 21.
However, Roscosmos said it lost contact with Luna 25 on August 19 after the spacecraft ran into difficulties and reported an “abnormal situation”.
“The apparatus moved into an unpredictable orbit and ceased to exist as a result of a collision with the surface of the moon,” read a statement from the agency. It said a special commission was looking into why the moonshot failed.
India’s Chandrayaan 3 mission, launched on July 14, is also hoping to land in the moon’s South Pole area. Its lander’s powered descent is expected to begin on August 23 evening.