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India has become the fourth country to successfully land on the moon as the Chandrayaan-3’s lander module, with the rover in its belly, successfully made a soft landing on the lunar surface.
Precisely at 6.03 p.m., the lander touched the lunar surface and there were euphoric celebrations at the Mission Operations Complex (MOX) at ISRO Telemetry, Tracking, and Command Network (ISTRAC), Bengaluru, as India joined an elite list of countries — the U.S., Russia and China — to achieve this feat. India has also become the first nation to touch down on the polar region of the moon.
The velocity was less than 2 metres per second, this gives us a lot of confidence that the health of lander is very good to carry out all the planned experiments, including the Pragyan rover coming out. We are looking for exciting 14 days from now.
The ISRO said a communication link was established between the lander and MOX-ISTRAC, Bengaluru. It also shared images taken by the lander’s horizontal velocity camera during the descent.
We are in favour of BRICS expansion: PM (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
India welcomes the expansion of the BRICS grouping through a consensus-based approach, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said in Johannesburg. Current BRICS members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
At the plenary session of the 15th BRICS summit in the historic South African city, Mr. Modi urged member States to take advantage of India’s digital solutions and to work for the welfare of the Global South.
Editorial
Needed, a well-crafted social security net for all (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Around 53% of all of the salaried workforce does not have any social security benefits in India, according to the Periodic Labour Force Survey Annual Report 2021-22, and which has been cited in the media.
In effect, this means that such employees have no access to a provident fund, pension, and health care and disability insurance.
Another conclusion is that just 1.9% of the poorest 20% quintile of India’s workforce has access to any benefits. Meanwhile, gig workers, or approximately 1.3% of India’s active labour force, rarely have access to any social security benefit. India’s social security system is also ranked poorly; Mercer CFS ranked it at 40 out of 43 countries in 2021.
India’s policymakers have largely ignored social security. While policies are often announced, budgetary allocation has always been limited and utilisation even less so.
In FY11, the National Social Security Fund was set up for unorganised sector workers, with an initial allocation of just ₹1,000 crore to support schemes for weavers, rickshaw pullers and bidi workers to name a few.
The amount was a pittance when compared to a requirement of over ₹22,841 crore — as estimated by the Centre for Budget and Governance Accountability.
A Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) audit on the scheme in FY17 identified ₹1,927 crore (the entire amount accumulated since inception) had just not been utilised.
Consequently, select social security schemes have been left moribund. Take the National Social Assistance Programme that was set up in the 1990s, with a focus on old-age poor individuals with no able-bodied earners in their household, who were eligible to earn a monthly pension of ₹75.
Contribution by the Centre to old-age pension schemes has stagnated at ₹200 a month since 2006, i.e., below the minimum wage per day.
On the moon, over the moon (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
At 5.40 p.m. on August 23, the Chandrayaan-3 lander was a 1.7-tonne hunk of metal, plastic, and glass speeding in an orbit some 30 km above the moon.
But in the next 23 minutes, it had made history by slowing down, righting itself, and — guided by a suite of sensors and actuators — gently descending to the moon’s surface.
As it touched down shortly after 6 p.m., people gathered at the various Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) centres, and across India were jubilant. India is only the fourth country in history to have soft-landed a spacecraft on the moon, and the first to have done so in the moon’s South Polar region.
The feat illustrated a simple fact of complex space flight missions: by virtue of their enormous hunger for resources but at the same time capacity for caprice, succeeding at them is indistinguishable from a triumph of human will.
That is why they are capable of galvanising people — as Chandrayaan-3 has now done for India. The immediate implication of the Chandrayaan-3 lander now sitting on the moon is that ISRO took away the right lessons from the failure of the preceding mission, Chandrayaan-2.
In September 2019, as the Chandrayaan-2 lander was 2.1 km above the lunar surface, ISRO lost contact. Based on data transmitted by the lander until then and that from other sources, including the Chandrayaan-2 orbiter, ISRO pieced together the distal causes of the lander’s premature demise.
Experts at ISRO then modified 21 subsystems to give rise to the upgraded Chandrayaan-3 lander. The latter is particularly distinguished by the redundancies built into it: if one component or process had failed, another would likely have taken over.
The U.K.-India relationship is alive with opportunity (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
It is fantastic to see India, the world’s largest democracy, take the global stage as host of the G-20, a vital forum for fostering international cooperation.
The United Kingdom has long held the belief in trade as a force for growth and prosperity. It is why we advocate for free and fair trade at the World Trade Organization and why we are taking advantage of our newly recovered powers to forge trade deals with booming economies such as India.
Collaboration on issues such as global value chains resilience and digitalisation of trade documents is key to harnessing the true value of global trade.
As India’s middle class grows to a quarter of a billion middle class consumers by 2050, any improvements on our current trading relationship could be a huge boost for U.K. businesses.
It is no secret that the U.K. and India share a thriving trading relationship, which was worth £36 billion in 2022.
New figures from the U.K.’s Department for Business and Trade reveal that India retained its position as the U.K.’s second largest source of investment projects in the last financial year, with 118 new projects creating 8,384 new jobs across the U.K.
And, importantly, our trade and investment relationship goes both ways. In fact, as India’s sixth largest investor, between April 2000 and March 2023, the U.K. has invested $34 billion in India in foreign direct investment. U.K. companies are also creating jobs and growth opportunities.
There are 618 U.K. companies in India with a combined turnover of around $50 billion employing about 466,640 people directly as of 2021.
Opinion
Can AI be ethical and moral? (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Increasingly, machines and Artificial Intelligence (AI) are assisting humans in decision-making, particularly in governance. Several countries are introducing AI regulations.
Government agencies and policymakers are leveraging AI-powered tools to analyse complex patterns, forecast future scenarios, and provide more informed recommendations.
However, the adoption of AI in decision-making is not without its potential pitfalls. The biases inherent in AI, often a reflection of the biases in the data they are trained on or the perspectives of their developers, can lead to skewed or unjust outcomes and represent a significant challenge in the integration of AI into governance. Biases in AI warrant a whole other article.
Immanuel Kant’s ethical philosophy emphasises autonomy, rationality, and the moral duty of individuals. Applying Kantian ethics to the use of AI in decision-making within governance could lead to serious concerns.
If decisions that were once the purview of humans are delegated to algorithms, it could threaten the capacity for moral reasoning. The person or institution using AI could be considered to be abdicating their moral responsibility.
This argument finds echoes in Isaac Asimov’s ‘Three Laws of Robotics’. The laws were designed to govern robotic behaviour, aiming for ethical actions, but within Asimov’s fictional world, the laws lead to unexpected and often paradoxical outcomes.
The attempts to codify ethics into rules, whether for robots or complex AI-driven governmental decision-making, reveal the inherent challenges in translating human moral complexity into algorithmic form.
The intertwining of Kant’s insistence on rational moral agency with Asimov’s fictional exploration of coded ethics illustrates the ethical challenges in delegating human functions to artificial entities.
Explainer
Implementing a car safety programme (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways has rolled out an indigenous star-rating system for crash testing cars under which vehicles will be assigned between one to five stars indicating their safety in a collision. Called the Bharat New Car Assessment Programme (NCAP), the rating system will be voluntary and will come into effect from October 1, 2023.
Under the Bharat NCAP, cars voluntarily nominated by automobile manufacturers will be crash tested as per protocols laid down in the soon-to-be-published Automotive Industry Standard 197.
The programme is applicable to passenger vehicles with not more than eight seats in addition to the driver’s seat with gross vehicle weight not exceeding 3,500 kgs. Only the base model of a particular variant will be tested.
Cars will be assigned a rating between one star to five stars after being evaluated on three parameters — adult occupant protection, child occupant protection and safety assist technologies present in the car.
The first two parameters will be calculated with the help of three different kinds of tests, which include a frontal offset test where a vehicle is driven at 64 kmph and with 40% overlap into a deformable barrier which represents the oncoming vehicle, which replicates a crash between two cars of the same weight.
Other tests are the side impact test at 50 kmph and the pole-side impact test (where a car is crashed into a rigid pole sideways) at 29 kmph.
News
Will retain special status of northeast States: Centre to SC (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court accepted the Centre’s assurance that it does not intend to “touch” the special constitutional provisions protecting the interests of the people of the northeastern States.
The issue came up for debate before a Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, which is hearing the challenge to the dilution of Article 370 in Jammu and Kashmir.
Petitioners raised apprehensions that tinkering with the “periphery” of the country can have severe implications, such as the months of ethnic violence seen in Manipur.
He referred to how Article 371 of the Constitution guarantees protection of cultural and economic interests, as well as ensures the rule of law, for the people of 12 States, including Sikkim, Mizoram, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Nagaland, and Manipur.
Article 370 was a temporary provision in the Constitution… We must understand the difference between a temporary provision and a special provision like Article 371 with regard to other States, including the northeast.
The Centre has no intention to touch any part [of the Constitution] which gives special provisions to the northeast and other regions.
Modi, Xi likely to attend East Asia Summit, ASEAN meetings in Jakarta (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Close on the heels of the BRICS summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chinese President Xi Jinping could come face-to-face again, if both leaders decide to attend the East Asian Summit (EAS) and other meetings with the ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) bloc of countries in Indonesia in September.
According to sources, Mr. Modi is now considering plans to fly to Jakarta for a very short visit on September 6, and return to India on September 7 just prior to the G-20 summit, which begins on September 9.
Earlier, officials had said the Prime Minister’s schedule before the G-20 summit was making it difficult for him to attend the meetings in Jakarta as Mr. Modi needs to return to Delhi in time for the arrival of leaders for the G-20 summit.
After the possibility of a rescheduling of the EAS and ASEAN-India Summit, however, so that both are completed by the afternoon of September 7, it is understood that the Prime Minister’s Office is likely to accept the invitation.
Mr. Modi’s visit to Jakarta will be seen as an affirmation of India’s ties with the ASEAN grouping, and underline “ASEAN centrality” as the basis for India’s Indo-Pacific policy.
In addition, the trip will denote a special gesture to Indonesia, which is a member of the “G-20 Troika” at present, and helping India with negotiations for a G-20 joint declaration.
Mr. Modi’s decision to skip the ASEAN-India Summit and EAS held in Cambodia in November 2022 was met with considerable disappointment as it marked the milestone 30th anniversary of ASEAN-India Dialogue Relations, where ties were raised to a Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. The ASEAN-India summit in September is expected to give a boost to talks over reviewing the Free Trade Agreement (FTA).
While Chinese President Xi Jinping’s attendance at the G-20 is not yet confirmed, sources said he may now attend the East Asia Summit this year.
India welcomes consensus-based approach to expand BRICS: PM (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
India welcomes the expansion of the BRICS grouping through a consensus-based approach, Prime Minister Narendra Modi declared in Johannesburg.
Addressing the plenary session of the 15th BRICS Summit in the historic South African city, he urged member states to take advantage of India’s digital solutions and to work for the welfare of the Global South.
The current BRICS members are Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, whose names make up the group’s acronym.
125 countries participated in the Global South Summit that we organised this January. We have proposed that the African Union should be made a member of the G-20.
I am confident that all BRICS partners will support these ideas. India fully supports the idea of expansion of the membership of the BRICS and welcomes a consensus-based process.
The plenary session was also attended by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and the host, South African President Cyril Ramaphosa, alongside other delegates.
Russian President Vladimir Putin participated in the summit virtually, with the physical leadership for the Russian delegation being provided by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
When the leaders posed together for a “family photograph”, Mr. Ramaphosa held hands with Mr. Modi and Mr. Lavrov on his left and Mr. Xi and Mr. Lula da Silva to his right.
Data from several years missing from RTI portal (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Right to Information activists noticed that the records of their previous applications have disappeared in the hundreds from the RTIOnline portal, which allows citizens to file for access to public information from the Union government.
It viewed and verified samples of applications from two RTI activists, one of whom has had their entire account purged of information from before 2022.
The Department of Personnel and Training, which administers the portal and disseminates training and standards for how government officials must handle RTI applications, did not respond to a query from The Hindu on the missing data.
Chandra Shekhar Gaur, an RTI activist from Madhya Pradesh, said that there was a mismatch of several hundreds in his account. Two accounts used by The Hindu are also missing several years worth of applications and responses.
The RTIOnline portal allows citizens to pay ₹10 through many digital payment options to file an RTI application, a facility that is far more convenient than the other typical method of mailing an application through post with a postal cheque, which must be purchased and stamped beforehand. The portal is maintained by the National Informatics Centre (NIC).
The scale of the deletion on the portal may be staggering. According to data obtained, the RTIOnline portal has processed over 58.3 lakh applications from 2013, when it was launched, to 2022. The number of applications filed has been growing steadily, with over 12.6 lakh applications filed in 2022.
Astra air-to-air missile test-fired from Tejas in ‘textbook launch’ (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
An Astra indigenous beyond-visual-range air-to-air missile was successfully test-fired from the light combat aircraft (LCA), Tejas, off the coast of Goa.
The Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal V. R. Chaudhari, reviewed the status of the LCA programme at the Air Headquarters.
The missile release was successfully carried out from the aircraft at an altitude of about 20,000 ft. All the objectives of the test were met and it was a perfect textbook launch.
The test launch was monitored by the Test Director and scientists of the Aeronautical Development Agency, the Defence Research and Development Organisation, and Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd., along with officials from the Centre for Military Airworthiness and Certification and the Directorate General of Aeronautical Quality Assurance. Astra is meant to be used to engage and destroy highly manoeuvring supersonic targets.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh said the launch would significantly enhance the combat prowess of Tejas and reduce the dependence on imported weapons.
On the Air chief’s review of the LCA programme which saw senior functionaries from the Ministry of Defence, DRDO, HAL and ADA, the IAF said in a statement, “During the review, it was brought out that all contracted fighter variants of the LCA Mk-1 had been delivered to the IAF.
Business
Sugar industry demands roadmap on ethanol sourcing (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The government should come out with a clear roadmap on ethanol sourcing from the sugar industry, said Aditya Jhunjhunwala, President of the Indian Sugar Mills Association.
“We (the sugar industry) need to double capacity to produce 750 crore litres. We need to put up more plants and that requires capex. We need a clear road map and the prices should be based on FRP, inflation, sugar prices etc.
Niti Aayog envisages requirement of 1,400 crore litres of ethanol to achieve 20% blending by 2025-2026. In the current ethanol year, almost 550 crore litres of ethanol have been produced of which 450 crore litres came from the sugar industry.
The sugar industry sees a need to invest almost ₹17,500 crore and expects a reasonable return on investment to create additional ethanol capacity. For this, it needs to know the pricing roadmap.