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Front runner and Opposition candidate Mohamed Muizzu was elected President of the Maldives, as he beat the India-friendly incumbent Ibrahim Mohamed Solih in a closely fought contest. The result signals a likely shift in both domestic governance and foreign policy of the island nation.
Mr. Muizzu garnered about 54% of the vote, while Mr. Solih secured nearly 46%, according to the provisional results published by Male-based media.
Presidential election run-off saw a higher voter turnout of 86%, compared to the 79.85% recorded in the first round — the lowest seen in a Maldivian presidential election — that proved inconclusive.
The vote for change in the Maldives comes after a strong anti-incumbency sentiment against the Solih administration, and a concerted Opposition campaign.
It was led by his rival, former President and jailed leader Abdulla Yameen, demanding ‘India out’ of the country. President Solih came under sharp attack from the Opposition for his stated ‘India first’ policy.
News
Argentina, India sign social security agreement (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Argentina signed an agreement to ensure legal rights of professionals in each other’s domain that will assist in risk-free international mobility.
The Embassy of India in a statement said that the ‘Social Security Agreement’ is aimed at ensuring rights of the growing number of Indian nationals employed in various Indian and international concerns in Argentina as well as for Argentine nationals seeking employment in India.
The Social Security Agreement (SSA) between India and Argentina has created a legal framework which will enable professionals on both sides to claim old age and survivor’s pensions.
That apart, it also safeguards “permanent and total disability pension for employed persons as well as to legislations in Argentina concerning contributory benefits of the Social Security System”.
It also takes care of factors like “rent, subsidy and lump sum payments” as per national laws of both countries. India-Argentina trade ties have been expanding in recent years.
Army’s Project Udbhav to rediscover ‘Indic heritage of statecraft’ from ancient texts (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Indian Army has started an initiative, named Project Udbhav, to rediscover the “profound Indic heritage of statecraft and strategic thoughts” derived from ancient Indian texts of “statecraft, warcraft, diplomacy and grand strategy” in collaboration with the United Service Institution of India (USI), a defence think-tank.
In connection with this, USI will conduct a Military Heritage Festival on October 21 and 22, to acquaint “future thought leaders with the dynamics of comprehensive national security with special emphasis on India’s strategic culture, military heritage, education, modernisation of security forces and Atmanirbhar Bharat,” according to an Army statement.
The project endeavours to explore India’s rich historical narratives in the realms of statecraft and strategic thoughts.
It focuses on a broad spectrum including indigenous military systems, historical texts, regional texts and kingdoms, thematic studies, and intricate Kautilya Studies.
As part of this process, a panel on Friday discussed the “evolution of Indian military systems, war fighting and strategic thought”, exploring both current research in the field and the way forward.
The initiative stands testimony to the Army’s recognition of India’s age-old wisdom in statecraft, strategy, diplomacy, and warfare, the statement said, adding that Project Udbhav seeks to bridge the historical and the contemporary.
Chennai top node in tortoise trafficking network: study (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Chennai is the highest-ranked node in the tortoise and hard-shell turtle trafficking network, fuelling the global pet trade, a new study has found.
Mumbai, Kolkata, Bengaluru, Anantapur in Andhra Pradesh, Agra, and North 24 Parganas and Howrah in West Bengal also rank high, the study published in the September edition of Oryx, The International Journal of Conservation.
The study titled From pets to plates also found that the trafficking of soft-shell turtles for meat was predominantly domestic in nature, with the international trafficking of the reptile from or to India almost restricted to Bangladesh.
The most frequent trafficking links in the soft-shell turtle trafficking network were from Jaunpur in Uttar Pradesh to unspecified districts in West Bengal and from North 24 Parganas to unspecified districts in Bangladesh.
The authors of the study are Ramya Roopa Sengottuvel, Aristo Mendis, Nazneen Sultan, Shivira Shukla, Anirban Chaudhuri, and Uttara Mendiratta, all associated with the Counter Wildlife Trafficking Programme of the Wildlife Conservation Society-India.
World
Almost all ethnic Armenians flee from Nagorno-Karabakh (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The flood of refugees from Nagorno-Karabakh dwindled to a trickle on Saturday as Armenia said nearly the entire population of the breakaway territory had already fled after Azerbaijan seized back control. Border guards at the Kornidzor crossing into Armenia were waiting for a final few buses.
In the nearest town of Goris, hundreds of exhausted refugees waited amongst their baggage in the central square for the government to offer accommodation.
Azerbaijan’s lightning military takeover of the ethnic Armenian enclave last week sparked a sudden exodus that has rewritten the centuries-old ethnic makeup of the disputed region.
Armenia said on Saturday 1,00,417 people from an estimated population of 1,20,000 had fled since the breakaway region saw its decades-long fight against Azerbaijani rule end in sudden defeat.
Yerevan has accused Azerbaijan of conducting a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” to clear Nagorno-Karabakh of its Armenian population.
Science
Genes fuel antibiotic resistance in Yemen cholera epidemic (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Genes imparting resistance to multiple antibiotics emerged in the Vibrio cholerae bacterial strains responsible for the ongoing Yemen cholera epidemic around 2018, following changes in antibiotic treatment, according to a study published in Nature Microbiology.
These findings emphasise the importance of tracking pathogen genomes to monitor the emergence of multidrug-resistant strains that increase human morbidity and mortality.
The cholera outbreak in Yemen, which began in 2016, is the largest in modern history and antibiotic resistance has become widespread among V. cholerae bacteria since 2018.
Drug resistance in bacteria may develop and spread via spontaneous mutations or by the acquisition of resistance-conferring genes.
Florent Lassalle from the Wellcome Sanger Institute, Hinxton, the U.K. and others analysed 260 epidemicV.choleraegenomic DNA samples collected in Yemen between 2018 and 2019.
The authors report the presence of a new plasmid — a small, circular DNA molecule — inV.choleraefrom late 2018 to the bacterial strains behind the epidemic.
This plasmid introduced genes encoding resistance to multiple clinically used antibiotics, including macrolides (such as azithromycin).
The plasmid became widely spread and was found in all epidemic V.choleraesamples tested by 2019, coinciding with macrolide antibiotics being used to treat pregnant women and children with severe cholera.
The authors also found the multidrug-resistance plasmid in less pathogenic, endemic cholera strains, suggesting that epidemic and endemicV.choleraestrains might exchange plasmids and antibiotic-resistance capabilities.
Why BSL-3 lab for Nipah confirmation is unnecessary (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
On September 11, samples sent to Calicut Medical College for testing were confirmed as Nipah virus. But only on September 20, after 323 samples were tested for the virus, did ICMR permit Kerala to use Truenat for Nipah testing.
Even the belated permission came only after Kerala “strongly demanded” for Truenat during discussions with ICMR, Health Minister Veena George said during a press conference.
Truenat for Nipah virus testing was granted an emergency use authorisation (EAU) by the Indian regulator in September 2021 days after the third Nipah outbreak in Kerala.
The EAU was based on validation of the Truenat test to detect the virus and the Trueprep AUTO lysis buffer (to inactivate the virus) by NIV Pune in 2018 and 2019 in Kerala and external validation at an institute in Dhaka, Bangladesh.
As per a 2021 published paper, the sensitivity of Truenat was 97% and specificity was 100%.
Trueprep AUTO lysis buffer was found to be very effective in inactivating the Nipah virus. An April 2020 study at NIV found both the lysis buffer and the transport medium highly efficient at inactivating the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Despite the validation as a point-of-care test by NIV and an EUA granted in 2021, ICMR did not permit Kerala to use Truenat till September 2023.
With an EUA granted in 2021, States should have been free to use Truenat without any permission from ICMR, the scientist says.
FAQ
The concerns of using Aadhaar in welfare (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
On September 21, credit rating agency Moody’s Investor Service released a report, ‘Decentralised Finance and Digital Assets,’ which advocates for decentralised digital identity systems instead of centralised biometric systems like India’s Aadhaar.
Referring to “security and privacy vulnerabilities posed by centralised ID systems like Aadhaar”, the report states “the [Aadhaar] system faces hurdles, including the burden of establishing authorisation and concerns about biometric reliability.”
The government has strongly refuted these claims. Terming Aadhaar as “the most trusted digital ID in the world,” the government stated that “it is evident that the authors of the report are unaware that the seeding of Aadhaar in the MGNREGS database has been done without requiring the worker to authenticate using their biometrics, and that even payment to workers under the scheme is made by directly crediting money in their account and does not require the worker to authenticate using their biometrics.”
Is there a TB drugs shortage in India? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
TB drug shortage began last year when Rifampicin — a medicine used for treating drug-sensitive TB — was not available in many parts of India.
Since June this year, three important medicines used for treating drug-resistant TB — Linezolid, Clofazimine, and Cycloserine — too faced a stockout.
On September 26, a PIB press release said that some media reports alleging shortage of anti-TB drugs in India are “vague and ill-informed, without any specific information on the availability of anti-TB medicines in stock”.
But in the same release, it also said that “in rare situations, States were requested to procure few drugs locally for a limited period by utilising the budget under National Health Mission (NHM) so that individual patient care is not affected.”
On August 23, The Hindu reported the Tamil Nadu State TB Officer Asha Frederick saying that the Union government had “not supplied adequate doses of Rifampicin and some drugs used for treating people with multidrug-resistant TB (MDR-TB), and the States have been asked to procure the drugs themselves but no additional funding has been provided”. Several media reports quoting TB patients in different States facing drug shortage have also been published.
How important is the first asteroid sample? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
NASA’s asteroid-hunting spacecraft OSIRIS-REx — short for Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer — dropped a capsule containing a sample of rocks and dust that it had collected from the asteroid 101955 Bennu over the earth, which landed in the Utah desert.
Going ahead, scientists will catalogue the capsule’s contents, study its composition, and share pieces of it with their peers around the world.
Many believe that along with comets, carbon-rich asteroids like Bennu may have seeded the earth with primordial life as they smashed into the young planet more than four billion years ago.
Launched in 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft completed a series of complex manoeuvres to propel itself into orbit around Bennu two years later.
Mission controllers had to carefully choreograph this celestial waltz as Bennu’s frail gravity — so weak that it allows boulders to roll uphill on the asteroid — could barely keep OSIRIS-REx bound in an orbit just 2 km high.
The mission almost failed when the asteroid’s craggy surface rendered OSIRIS-REx’s height-measuring instrument useless.
Controllers were forced to send the probe on an intricate holding pattern around Bennu for almost two and a half years as they tried to find a different landing spot. They did this on October 20, 2020, and OSIRIS-REx landed there just long enough to scoop some rocks and dust.
To prevent the probe from sinking through the rubble-strewn surface, the probe’s touch-and-go Sample Acquisition Mechanism used a blast of nitrogen gas to avoid contaminating the debris flying everywhere, including into the spacecraft’s sample collection chamber.
After its successful swoop, OSIRIS-REx took off and gradually pulled away from the asteroid’s gravity before setting course for earth.
Profiles
Asia’s disputed water (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On September 25, the Philippines Coast Guard said it had removed barriers placed by Chinese vessels at the entrance to a lagoon off the Scarborough Shoal in the South China Sea, following the orders of President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. This came days after Chinese Coast Guard ships placed a 300-metre-long barrier to prevent the entry of boats from the Philippines, the latest in long-running tensions in the South China Sea.
The events of recent days have once again shone the spotlight on simmering tensions in the South China Sea and the wider ramifications of the dispute, which extend not only to the many claimants of the sea’s islands and waters but to all countries in the Indo-Pacific region, including India.
The South China Sea is a strategic body of water abutting the Western Pacific. To its north lie China and Taiwan. On the west is the Indo-Chinese peninsula, including the long Vietnamese coast, Thailand, Malaysia and Singapore; Indonesia and Brunei open up to the southern parts of the sea; and finally to the east is the Philippines, which refers to the waters off its coast as the West Philippine Sea.
As much as $3.37 trillion worth of trade passed through the South China Sea in 2016, estimated a report from the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).
The report said, citing the UN Conference on Trade and Development, that 80% of global trade by volume and 70% by value is transported by sea. Of the total volume, 60% passes through Asia, with the South China Sea “carrying an estimated one-third of global shipping”.
While a disruption in trade would certainly impact the world, China, the world’s second-largest economy, would likely face the biggest impact.
The CSIS report estimated that 64% of Chinese trade passes through the sea — the highest for any country. In contrast, 14% of U.S. trade passes through it.
Business
China’s economy stabilises, factory activity rebounds (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
China’s factory activity expanded for the first time in six months in September, an official survey showed on Saturday, adding to a run of indicators suggesting the world’s second-largest economy has begun to bottom out.
The purchasing managers’ index (PMI), based on a survey of major manufacturers, rose to 50.2 in September from 49.7, according to the National Bureau of Statistics, edging above the 50-point level demarcating contraction in activity from expansion.
The PMI, the first official statistics for September, adds to signs of stabilisation in the economy, which had sagged after an initial burst of momentum early in the year when China’s ultra-restrictive COVID-19 policies were lifted.
Preliminary signs of improvement had emerged in August, with factory output and retail sales growth accelerating while declines of exports and imports narrowed and deflationary pressures eased. Industrial profits jumped by a surprise 17.2% in August, reversing July’s 6.7% decline.