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Editorial
The Madras High Court’s judgment, on September 29, 2023, upholding the human rights of the people of Vachathi in Tamil Nadu is remarkable — as a constitutional court, it unmasked and recognised that coordinated and large-scale repression by uniformed forces cannot take place without orders from or complicity at the top levels of the government.
The court said, “In order to safeguard the actual smugglers and the big-shots, the revenue officers, police officials and also the forest officials, with the help of the then Government, played a big stage drama (sic), in which the innocent tribal women got affected.”
In the context of the large-scale violence we see today by law enforcement agents on the common man, the decision assumes importance.
The repression of the anti-Sterlite protests, the student protests in Jawaharlal Nehru University and elsewhere, the bulldozer raj in Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, the repression against tribals and the violence in Manipur are but a few instances.
The villagers of Vachathi have created history and the court verdict is testament to their resolve. it is an assertion of their dignity.
This is among the rarest cases in the annals of legal history where all 215 accused (the survivors of the 269 accused), government and law enforcement personnel stand convicted en masse of offences under The Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989 and the Indian Penal Code. Rigorous imprisonment ranging from one to 10 years with fine has also been imposed.
The trouble with a Nobel for mRNA COVID vaccines (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The 2023 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine has been awarded to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman for developing the mRNA vaccine technology that became the foundation for history’s fastest vaccine development programme during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The prizes acknowledge work that has created benefits “for all mankind”, but if we had to be stricter about holding scientific accomplishments up to this standard, the subset of mRNA vaccines used during the COVID-19 pandemic may not meet it.
Yet, Dr. Karikó and Dr. Weissman, and others, deserved to win the prize for their scientific accomplishments. Instead, their triumph tells us something important about the world in which science happens and what “for all mankind” should really mean.
Dr. Kariko and Dr. Weissman began working together on the mRNA platform at the University of Pennsylvania in the late 1990s. The University licensed its patents to mRNA RiboTherapeutics, which sublicensed them to CellScript, which sublicensed them to Moderna and BioNTech for $75 million each.
Dr. Karikó joined BioNTech as senior vice-president in 2013, and the company enlisted Pfizer to develop its mRNA vaccine for COVID-19 in 2020.
Much of the knowledge that underpins most new drugs and vaccines is unearthed at the expense of governments and public funds.
This part of drug development is more risky and protracted, when scientists identify potential biomolecular targets within the body on which a drug could act in order to manage a particular disease, followed by identifying suitable chemical candidates. The cost and time estimates of this phase are $1billion-$2.5 billion and several decades, respectively.
Opinion
Using AI for audit techniques (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), Girish Chandra Murmu, who is the chair for the Supreme Audit Institutions (SAIs) of the G20, warned that absolute dependence on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for auditing purposes may lead to inaccurate findings, and emphasised ethics as the cornerstone of responsible AI.
The CAG conducts financial audits, compliance audits, and performance audits. The auditing challenges of AI include ensuring transparency, objectivity, fairness, and avoiding bias.
Responsible AI must be ethical and inclusive. Only ethical AI can add credibility, trust, and scalability to the CAG audit.
Data sets must be complete, gathered on time, accurate, available, and relevant. If integrity of the data fields is not ensured, we will have inaccurate audit findings.
The AI auditor must be extra-vigilant about the risk of inherent AI data bias if data are taken from unauthorised sources like social media, where data manipulation and fabrication are common.
In June, the European Parliament approved the EU AI Act, the first of its kind in the world. The Act ensures that generative AI tools such as ChatGPT will be placed under greater restrictions and scrutiny.
Developers will have to submit their systems for review and approval before releasing them commercially. Parliament also prohibited real-time biometric surveillance from all public settings and “social scoring” systems.
Text & Context
The shutdown of the Afghan embassy (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On September 30, a statement carrying the seal of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan announced the closure of the Embassy of Afghanistan in Delhi.
The announcement had been anticipated for a while, especially after a report which stated that a letter had been sent from the mission to the Ministry of External Affairs informing it of the impending closure.
In its official communication, the Embassy of Afghanistan blamed multiple factors including lack of cooperation from the Government of India and a lack of resources to operate any further.
Furthermore, the embassy has urged the Indian government to fly the flag of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan over embassy premises. It has also asked New Delhi to hand over the mission to a “legitimate government” of Afghanistan sometime in the future.
The embassy represented the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan that was deposed through a military campaign by the Taliban on August 15, 2021.
The Taliban fighters who quickly took over all the major cities and infrastructure of the country, as the U.S. forces carried out a messy withdrawal, were not recognised by India as de facto rulers.
With the displacement of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, the embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi had begun to work as a “stateless mission” as it did not represent the current rulers of Kabul, that is the Taliban, with whom India has no diplomatic relationship.
In effect, the embassy of Afghanistan was performing a ceremonial or a symbolic role, helping out Afghan citizens and travellers in India deal with the difficulties they have been facing because of the lack of diplomatic relations between the two countries.
The mission had stopped representing an active state since August 2021 and was working as a coordinating agency. Moreover, the ambassador of the previous regime of President Ashraf Ghani, Farid Mamundzay, left India and has not been seen for over three months.
How has Nagorno-Karabakh standoff ended? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
On September 20, Azerbaijan claimed full control over the contentious Nagorno-Karabakh region after local forces, mostly Armenians, agreed to disarm and disband.
Hundreds of local Armenians fled the area overnight, fearing ethnic cleansing by Azerbaijan. While the disputed region is home to a majority population of ethnic Armenians and an Azeri minority, it is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan.
A fresh round of violence broke out in September when Azerbaijan launched an attack against ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh. The fighting lasted one day, and a ceasefire was announced a day later.
In a statement, U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that the Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke with the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and expressed “deep concern for the ethnic Armenian population” in the disputed region.
Nagorno-Karabakh is located within the international borders of Azerbaijan. It is in the South Caucasus region between eastern Europe and western Asia, spanning the southern part of the Caucasus mountains that roughly includes modern-day Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia.
The conflict between Azeris and Armenians goes back a century, when the Ottomans attacked the South Caucasus during World War I with the help of Azeris.
They targeted ethnic Armenians during this attack, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia descended into a full-blown war in 1920. This war incorporated the region into the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic.
News
Toilet use declining in rural India since 2018-19: WB paper (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 1, Social Issues)
A departmental working paper by the World Bank on the progress of the Swacch Bharat Mission-Gramin (SBM-G) has now found that despite “breathtaking” gains made by the programme to bring toilet access to rural India since 2014-15, when it began, there has been a clear trend of regular toilet use declining in rural India from 2018-19, with the largest drop being seen among Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe socio-economic groups.
These findings come amid concerns over the government’s claims that practices such as open defecation and manual scavenging no longer continue in India solely based on the fact that toilet access had improved after the building of over 100 million toilets.
The paper, by researchers at the World Bank and a faculty member of economics at Yale University, reconciles varied data points on toilet access and usage from the National Family Health Surveys (NFHS), National Sample Surveys (NSS) and National Annual Rural Sanitation Survey (NARSS) and the SBM-G’s own information system.
The paper also said that most low-income States were among the best performers in terms of their overall increase in regular use of toilets and that the performance of richer States was mixed.
ICMR project to accelerate cancer screening measures, treatment at district level (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
With only a few districts across India being able to effectively implement cancer screening measures in accordance with Health Ministry norms, the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) is gearing up to bring in remedial measures.
It has invited Expressions of Interest on the implementation of research to accelerate cancer screening, early diagnosis, and treatment.
The Council noted cancer poses a significant and pressing public health challenge in India, which currently ranks third in cancer incidence after China and the United States.
According to Global Cancer Observatory projections, however, India is expected to witness a substantial 57.5% increase in cancer cases between 2020 and 2040.
In the long run, the Council is looking at improving the coverage and quality of cancer screening through the existing healthcare system using accepted and validated methods.
It plans to engage non-specialist physicians and other health care workers within a supportive healthcare system for the screening of cancer as well as pre-cancerous conditions.
The Council also wants to ensure that all those who test positive are linked to facilities for early diagnosis and treatment. The involvement of local communities is key to encourage the target population to undergo screening for early diagnosis and treatment.
World
Xi applauds Muizzu, vows to deepen ties with Maldives (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Chinese President Xi Jinping pledged to deepen bilateral ties with the Maldives as he congratulated President-elect Mohamed Muizzu, whose party campaigned for forging close ties with Beijing.
In his message, Mr. Xi said that China and the Maldives enjoy a long history of friendly exchanges. Mr. Xi, who visited Maldives in 2014 and announced several Chinese investments under China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) which subsequently evoked criticism of being “debt traps” by the country’s Opposition parties, said the two countries are not only friends of sincere trust and mutual assistance but also partners of joint development.
He said he attaches great importance to the development of bilateral relations and stands ready to work with Mr. Muizzu to carry forward the traditional friendship, deepen practical cooperation and push for new progress in the future-oriented, all-round friendly and cooperative partnership between the two countries.
Trio wins Nobel Prize in physics for finding a way to ‘see’ electrons (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
France’s Pierre Agostini, Hungarian-Austrian Ferenc Krausz and French-Swedish Anne L’Huillier won the Nobel Prize in physics on Tuesday for research using ultra-quick light flashes that enable the study of electrons inside atoms and molecules.
Their technique employs pulses measured in attoseconds, a unit so short that there are as many in one second as there have been seconds since the universe’s birth over 13 billion years ago.
The laureates’ research has made it possible to examine moves or changes so rapid that they were previously impossible to follow, with potential applications in both electronics and medical diagnostics.
The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences likened the process to how the flapping wings of a humming bird turn into a blur for the human eye, but can be slowed and examined using high-speed photography.
We can now open the door to the world of electrons. Attosecond physics gives us the opportunity to understand mechanisms that are governed by electrons.
In 1987, Ms. L’Huillier “discovered that many different overtones of light arose when she transmitted infrared laser light through a noble gas.
In the early 2000s, Mr. Agostini and Mr. Krausz worked on experiments that made it possible to isolate light pulses that lasted only a few hundred attoseconds.
Mr. Agostini is a professor at Ohio State University in the U.S., while Mr. Krausz is a director at the Max Planck Institute in Germany.
Armenia votes to join the ICC, straining ties with ally Russia (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Armenia’s Parliament voted to join the International Criminal Court, a move that further strains the country’s ties with its old ally Russia after the court issued an arrest warrant for President Vladimir Putin over events in Ukraine.
Moscow last month called Yerevan’s effort to join the ICC an “unfriendly step,” and the Russian Foreign Ministry summoned Armenia’s Ambassador.
Countries that have signed and ratified the Rome Statute that created the ICC are bound to arrest Mr. Putin, who was indicted for war crimes connected to the deportation of children from Ukraine, if he sets foot on their soil.
Armenia later sought to assure Russia that Mr. Putin would not be arrested if he entered the country. Still, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called decision “incorrect,” saying it will raise “additional questions” in Moscow, even though Armenia is “our ally, a friendly state, our partner, and a lot unites us with the brotherly Armenian people.”
Asked if Mr. Putin would have to refrain from travelling to Armenia, he added: “Of course, we wouldn’t want the President to have to ever, for whatever reason, refuse a visit to Armenia.” A diplomatic solution is needed and will be discussed with Yerevan, he said.
Armenian officials have argued the move has nothing to do with Russia and was prompted by what they call Azerbaijan’s aggression against the country.
Business
Manufacturing PMI slips to 5-mo. Low (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s manufacturing activity eased to a five-month low in September with new orders slowing down, as per the seasonally adjusted S&P Global India Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which slid to 57.5 from 58.6 in August. A reading of 50 on the survey-based index reflects no change in activity levels.
While input cost inflation slowed to the lowest in more than three years, firms raised output charges at a sharper pace than the long-run average which could hurt sales prospects going forward.
Manufacturers cited higher labour costs combined with upbeat business confidence and buoyant demand, as the rationale for the price increases in September.
Growth of new export orders softened from August’s nine month high, but remained sharp,” S&P Global Market Intelligence said in a note. “Firms noted new business gains from clients in Asia, Europe, North America and the Middle East.
Factories’ output rose at the slowest pace in five months, but was still above the long-term average and firms exuded the highest optimism about business prospects a year ahead so far in 2023.
This spurred a pick-up in hiring growth over August levels at a pace that S&P Global reckoned was strong by historical standards.
World Bank keeps India FY24 growth forecast at 6.3% on waning demand (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The World Bank on Tuesday retained India’s growth forecast at 6.3% for the year 2023-24 saying the expected moderation was due to challenging external conditions and waning pent-up demand.
The World Bank had in April too projected 6.3% GDP growth for 2023-24. India recorded 7.2% growth in 2022-23. According to the RBI’s latest forecast, the economy would grow at 6.5% in 2023-24.
In its latest India Development Update, the Bank noted that service sector activity was expected to remain strong with a growth of 7.4% and investment growth was also projected to remain robust at 8.9%.
The Bank said despite significant global challenges, India was one of the fastest-growing major economies in 2022-23 at 7.2%. India’s growth rate was the second-highest among G20 countries and almost twice the average for emerging market economies.
According to the World Bank’s Country Director in India Auguste Tano Kouame, for India to become a high-income country, one of the critical aspects required would be a higher female labour force participation rate.
The average level of female labour force participation rate for emerging market economies is about 50% and it is 25% for India.