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Global rating major Moody’s Investors Service has flagged concerns about security and privacy vulnerabilities in centralised identification systems such as India’s Aadhaar programme.
The unique ID system often results in “service denials”, and using biometric technologies in humid conditions is unreliable.
The Aadhaar system enables access to public and private services, with verification through fingerprint or iris scans and alternatives such as one-time pass codes (OTPs).
However, it “faces hurdles, including the burden of establishing authorization and concerns about biometric reliability”, Moody’s said.
The Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) administers Aadhaar, aiming to integrate marginalized groups and expand welfare benefits access.
The system often results in service denials, and the reliability of biometric technologies, especially for manual laborers in hot, humid climates, is questionable.
States
Team from Telangana visits Buddhist caves in Sri Lanka (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 1, Culture)
A Buddhavanam team from Telangana visited the third century BC Buddhist rock cut caves at Mathale on the Colombo-Kandy route in Sri Lanka.
Mallepalli Laxmaiah, Special Officer, and E. Sivanagireddy, Buddhist expert consultant, visited the site where the teachings of Lord Buddha were scribbled for the first time on palm leaves.
Buddhavanam is a massive Buddhist heritage theme park developed by the Telangana government at Nagarjunasagar.
Mr. Laxmaiah said that the Buddha’s teachings called Tripitaka — Sutr, Vinaya and Abhidhamma pitakas — which were transmitted orally until that time, were written on palm leaves under the auspices of Sri Lankan king Devanampiya Tissa, a contemporary of King Ashoka. He said it was only after that did Buddhist literature came into being in India
Mr. Laxmaiah also said that Acharya Buddhaghosha, the famous Theravada Buddhist philosopher lived in these caves for some time and wrote Visuddhimagga.
He also appreciated the Mathale Buddha Vihara for running a school in the name of Acharya Buddhaghosha even today as a token of respect to his scholarship.
Mr. Sivanagi Reddy, Buddhist expert consultant of the Buddhavanam Project, and archaeologist, said the rock-cut caves, the monastery and antiquities recovered from the surrounding areas shows the Buddhist connection between the two Telugu States and Sri Lanka.
Later, Mr. Laxmaiah called on Venerable Gnanatilaka Mahathero, the Deputy Chief Monk of Mahavihara at Anuradhapura, and extended an invitation to him to visit Buddhavanam, a unique and largest Buddhist Heritage theme park in south-east Asia.
Editorial
Simultaneous polls — but only in a presidential system (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A fresh attempt is being made by the Narendra Modi government to veer towards one nation-one poll, which would mean that all State elections are held simultaneously with the general election to the Lok Sabha.
In order to kickstart this process, one would need to curtail the term of the Assemblies in several States, whose terms have not ended at the time the Lok Sabha election is to take place.
There is a deeper problem in implementing one nation-one poll. In the present parliamentary system of India’s democracy, at both the central and State levels, since the survival of the government is dependent on its enjoying the confidence of the majority of the house (majorities can change mid-term because of splits in parties, defections or even if some Members of Parliament/Members of the Legislative Assemblies from the ruling party refusing to support the government) the government can fall mid-term thus leading to mid-term elections.
However, in one nation-one poll you cannot have mid-term elections if the rest of the States and the Centre have to go to the polls together.
Therefore, the only option would be to either continue with a minority government headed by a Chief Minister/Prime Minister who has lost the confidence of the House or to impose President’s rule for the rest of the term.
In my view, both these options would be undemocratic as it would mean that the government rules the Centre/States without enjoying the confiden
An economic corridor, the Israel link and the geopolitics (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The 2023 summit of the G-20 under India’s presidency went exceptionally well given the group’s limited economic approach to the complex issues that the world faces, from climate change and underdevelopment, wealth concentration and poverty and, most critically for our times, falling democratic norms and principles of peace.
India’s remarkable success at the summit this year, in early September, was captured by the global press, except in China, for various outcomes such as the inclusion of the African Union in the G-20, a tangible offer of clean energy through a biofuel alliance, increasing substantial aid for Asia-Africa, an economic corridor that connects India, West Asia and Europe using an ambitious rail and shipping link, and the Delhi Declaration which was a joint statement of all the group.
The joint statement called the Delhi Declaration is newsworthy because of the fractured international order and power struggles between India and the United States with China or the U.S. with Russia.
Despite the absence of China’s President Xi Jinping and Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, India still got their agreement for the declaration which sums up the achievement. Substantially speaking, the statement is pareve (the Hebrew word for characterless things; read banal here) as it does not name Russia for aggression against Ukraine; but it does evoke the United Nations charter and principles of territorial sovereignty.
An Indian official revealed the recipe for this over-applauded collective statement: “India needed a text that had something for everyone, so that each member can go back with a win.”
Opinion
Taking India back to the drawing board (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Its political motivations aside, the Constitution (One Hundred and Twenty-Eighth Amendment) Bill, 2023, which promises 33% reservation for women in the Lok Sabha, and in the Legislative Assemblies of States and the National Capital Territory of Delhi, sheds the spotlight on another crucial aspect of representative democracy — the delimitation of electoral constituencies. The exercise of carving electoral constituencies and fixing their boundaries is referred to as delimitation.
Given their almost festive nature in India, elections are traditionally considered to be the primary site where democracy translates into action. Equally significant is the carving out of the boundaries of electoral constituencies, an issue that has implications for adequate representation of voters’ interests as well as the number of members from each State who find space in the Parliament.
Since the 1970s, there has been no change in the number of Lok Sabha seats. The Constitution (Forty-Second Amendment) Act, 1976 froze the delimitation of Lok Sabha constituencies as per the Census of 1971, up to the Census which was to be conducted in 2001.
However, in 2001, the day of reckoning was pushed further to 2026. This was done through an amendment to Article 82 by the Constitution (Eighty-Fourth Amendment) Act.
While the boundaries of electoral constituencies were redrawn in 2002, there was no change in the number of seats in the Lok Sabha. Only after 2026 will we consider changing the number of seats in the Lok Sabha.
Strictly speaking, the relevant numbers as to population (and its distribution) are expected to come from the 2031 Census, which will be the first census after 2026.
Text & Context
Fukushima N-wastewater controversy (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Last month, amid strong backlash from the public and neighbouring countries, Japan began the release of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea.
On April 13, 2021, Japan’s government announced plans to release over one million tonnes of contaminated water from the Fukushima nuclear plant into the sea over the next 30 years.
The wastewater is a byproduct of the catastrophic 2011 earthquake and tsunami, which disabled the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, leading to the release of radioactive materials.
After more than a decade of storing this wastewater, Japan says they are running out of storage space, and allege that the, now treated water is safe for release.
However, since the announcement in 2021, a sizeable fraction of the public, both domestic and foreign, have been speaking out against this decision, claiming that mixing radioactive materials in the sea poses major health risks, especially since these countries rely heavily on seafood.
The water is being treated by the Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO), Japan’s largest electric utility firm. Since 2011, TEPCO has been in charge of decommissioning the Fukushima Daiichi power plant, and managing the waste.
The water has been treated with multiple techniques, notably the Advanced Liquid Processing System (ALPS), which removes 62 types of radioactive materials.
How the rising influence of ethnic Indians causes frictions in India-Canada ties (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
During a pro-Khalistani parade on June 4 in Brampton, Canada, there was a tableau that depicted a lady clad in a white sari, who was bloodied, with two soldiers training their guns on her.
The board behind her read, “Revenge of attack on Shri Darbar Sahib”. The side of the float carried the words, “Never forget 1984”. Clearly, the tableau figures depicted were that of India’s former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and her assassins.
To commemorate nine years of Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s administration, the External Affairs Minister, S. Jaishankar, was asked about the Brampton tableau.
He chose not to refer directly to the offensive float though he indirectly indicated that it was “egregious”. Instead, he focused, as he put it, on the “bigger” issue — the space Canada gives “to separatists, to extremists, to people who advocate violence.”
Mr. Jaishankar did well to speak out, openly and forcefully, on Canada’s hypocritical approaches on human rights issues and its decades long disdain for the territorial integrity of India.
News
Defence Board discusses plan for second Vikrant-like carrier (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Defence Procurement Board (DPB) last week discussed the Navy’s proposal for acquiring a second Vikrant-like aircraft carrier, according to defence sources. However, the DPB is yet to clear the proposal.
Only after that will the proposal be put for final approval by the Defence Acquisition Council (DAC), headed by the Defence Minister.
The project, estimated to cost around ₹40,000 crore, will see some modifications and upgrades to the design of the country’s first Indigenous Aircraft Carrier (IAC) INS Vikrant, commissioned in September 2022, and will also be manufactured by Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL), another source stated.
The 262-metre-long, 62-metre-wide INS Vikrant, displacing 44,800 tonnes, is powered by four General Electric LM2500 engines, which give it a maximum speed of 28 knots and an endurance of 7,500 nautical miles.
The ship uses an aircraft-operation mode known as Short Take Off But Arrested Recovery (STOBAR) for which it is equipped with a ski-jump for launching aircraft, and a set of three “arrester wires” for their recovery onboard.
A vaccine wheel in U.P. to track newborn immunisation (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Dev Kumari, an accredited social health activist (ASHA) worker employed under the National Rural Health Mission (NRHM) in Budaun district, western Uttar Pradesh, is satisfied.
“At the peak of the second phase of Mission Indradhanush (September 11 to 16), I was able to perform my work efficiently,” she says, of the immunisation programme launched by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare in 2014, targeting children below five to bring them under the Universal Immunization Programme (UIP).
Contributing to her efficiency is an immunisation wheel, a job aid that helps frontline health workers calculate dates for childhood vaccinations. “The third phase will begin in October, and I hope to be as productive,” said Ms. Kumari, whose primary job is to be a health promoter at the village level.
The immunisation wheel, called a teekakaran chakra in Hindi, is a simple plastic-laminated cardboard construction developed and funded by the Clinton Foundation, under the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI).
It consists of two discs, placed one on top of the other, one bigger than the other, and attached with a rivet. The smaller one has details of the vaccines and arrows; the larger one has a calendar with days and months.
World
Refugees leave as Azerbaijan takes control of Karabakh (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 2, Relation)
Ethnic Armenian refugees began to leave Nagorno-Karabakh on Sunday for the first time since Azerbaijan launched an offensive designed to seize control of the breakaway territory and perhaps end a three-decade-old conflict.
This week’s lightning operation could mark a historic geopolitical shift, with Azerbaijan victorious over the separatists and Armenia now publicly distancing itself from its traditional ally Russia.
The Armenian Health Ministry said 23 ambulances were carrying seriously wounded citizens of Nagorno-Karabakh to the border, accompanied by medics and Red Cross workers. Crowds of angry relatives gathered on the Armenian side awaiting news.
As drama unfolded on the border, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan — himself a target of protests over Karabakh’s defeat — sought to deflect the blame onto long-standing ally Russia, signalling a breakdown in the countries’ security pact.
NASA’s first asteroid samples land on earth after release from spacecraft (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Tchnology)
NASA’s first asteroid samples fetched from deep space parachuted into the Utah desert on Sunday to cap a seven-year journey.
In a flyby of earth, the Osiris-Rex spacecraft released the sample capsule from one lakh kilometres out. The small capsule landed four hours later on a remote expanse of military land, as the mothership set off after another asteroid.
Scientists estimate the capsule holds at least a cup of rubble from the carbon-rich asteroid known as Bennu, but won’t know for sure until the container is opened. Some spilled and floated away when the spacecraft scooped up too much and rocks jammed the container’s lid during collection three years ago.
Japan, the only other country to bring back asteroid samples, gathered about a teaspoon in a pair of asteroid missions.
The pebbles and dust delivered on Sunday represent the biggest haul from beyond the moon.
Preserved building blocks from the dawn of our solar system 4.5 billion years ago, the samples will help scientists better understand how Earth and life formed.
Science
The story of how scientists found that our ancestors almost went extinct
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The human population on the earth exceeded eight billion people in November 2022, underscoring our species’ status as the dominant force on our planet, with our unparalleled cognitive abilities and technological prowess and ability to harness, engineer, and reshape the environment around us.
This dominance has also resulted in some catastrophic outcomes as we have expanded our footprint, resulting in habitat destruction, pollution, and climate change, pushing a number of species to the brink of extinction.
It is hard to imagine that we as a species, just as other animals and plants, could have also been pushed to the brink of extinction at multiple points in the entire history of evolution.
Think about a scenario where the whole human species is represented by a few members only, living in a very hostile natural environment where everyday existence is at the mercy of natural forces.
This small group, in addition to its extraordinary resilience and creative survival tactics, would have had the enormous responsibility of keeping the entire human species alive.
It’s quite possible that our ancestors could have experienced many such species-defining moments on their path to dominating the world as we know it today.
Galactic tides: Pushing and pulling the heavens
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Just as the earth’s oceans at their shores, the universe’s galaxies also experience tides, but on a much larger scale. Galactic tides are caused by gravitational forces within a galaxy, arising in the interactions between celestial objects such as stars and gas clouds. These tidal forces influence various aspects of a galaxy’s evolution.
They can reshape a galaxy structure by creating tidal tails and bridges, promoting star formation, and disrupting smaller star systems.
Over aeons, galactic tides also disrupt the orbits of stars, leading to long-term changes in galactic structure. Galactic tides also have a say in the ways in which proximate galaxies do and don’t interact.
In fact, researchers have observed the closest galaxy to the Milky Way, the colossal Andromeda, and found that tidal streams near its edges could be signatures of dwarf galaxies that were later devoured. The Andromeda galaxy is heading towards the Milky Way at 110 km/s and will collide in four billion years.
Galactic tides also affect the supermassive black holes at galaxy centres, leading to events that change the ways in which these cosmic beasts interact with nearby stars.
In astronomy, understanding galactic tides is crucial if we are to truly understand the complex dynamics and evolution of galaxies over cosmological time.