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The confirmed death toll from the flash floods in Sikkim rose to 14 with 102 people, including 22 Army personnel, still missing after the glacier-fed Lhonak lake in north Sikkim triggered a flash flood in the Teesta river basin.
The floods have severely damaged the Chungthang dam that is the mainstay of a key hydropower project, the Teesta-3, situated along the Teesta river that courses through Sikkim, West Bengal and Bangladesh.
The State government has set up 26 relief camps in the four affected districts, the Sikkim State Disaster Management Authority said, with at least 1,025 people taking shelter in the eight relief camps in Gangtok district.
The flood destroyed 11 bridges in the State, with eight bridges getting washed away in Mangan district alone. Two bridges were destroyed in Namchi and one in Gangtok.
The National Highway-10, considered the lifeline of the State, sustained extensive damage at several places.
Norway’s Jon Fosse wins Nobel for literature (Page no. 1)
(Award)
Norway’s Jon Fosse, 64, whose plays are among the most widely staged of any contemporary playwright in the world, won the Nobel Prize in literature on Thursday.
The Swedish Academy said the writer was honoured “for his innovative plays and prose which give voice to the unsayable”.
Written in Norwegian Nynorsk language, Mr. Fosse’s oeuvre spans a variety of genres — plays, novels, poetry collections, essays, children’s books, and translations, the jury noted. His major works include Boathouse and Melancholy I and II.
I am overwhelmed and grateful. I see this as an award to the literature that first and foremost aims to be literature, without other considerations.
The chairman of the Nobel committee, Anders Olsson, told reporters that Mr. Fosse had come to be regarded as an innovator through his “ability to evoke... loss of orientation, and how this paradoxically can provide access to a deeper experience, close to divinity”.
Born among the fjords of western Norway, Mr. Fosse grew up in a family that followed a strict form of Lutheranism and rebelled by playing in a band and declaring himself an atheist. He ended up converting to Catholicism in 2013.
After studying literature, he made his debut in 1983 with the novel Red, Black, which moves back and forth in time and between perspectives.
His latest book, Septology, a semi-autobiographical magnum opus — seven parts spread across three volumes — runs to 1,250 pages without a single full stop. The third volume was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
Editorial
Defusing the ticking time bomb called diabetes (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
In June 2023, a study conducted by the Madras Diabetes Research Foundation in collaboration with the Indian Council of Medical Research and the Union Health Ministry revealed that 11.4% of India’s population or 10.13 crore people are living with diabetes and 15.3% of the population or an additional 13.6 crore people are pre-diabetic. It also found that 28.6% of the population would be considered to be obese as per the BMI measure.
According to the World Health Organization, a major reason for this is the consumption of unhealthy ultra-processed foods and beverages, which are aggressively marketed displacing traditional diets.
Such food includes carbonated drinks, instant cereals, chips, fruit-flavoured drinks, instant noodles, cookies, ice cream, bakery products, energy bars, sweetened yogurts, pizzas, processed meat products, and powdered infant formulas.
Scientific evidence shows that diets heavy with ultra-processed food and beverages or high in sugar, fat, and salt are risky and can lead to diabetes.
A 10% increase in the consumption of ultra-processed food a day is associated with a 15% higher risk of type-2 diabetes among adults.
When food is ultra-processed, its structure is destroyed and cosmetic additives, colours, and flavours are added. This makes people eat more, gain weight, and heightens the risk of diabetes and other chronic diseases.
Further, obesity and diabetes are key risk factors for heart disease and deaths. A study showed that those who had more than four servings of ultra-processed food a day were much more at risk of cardiovascular mortality than those who took less than two servings a day. An upward trend was found for all-cause mortality too.
Equality and identity (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
The significance of Bihar conducting a caste survey and publishing a caste-wise count of its population is quite immense. The survey, which had all the trappings of a census, complete with a two-stage process of house-listing followed by the eliciting of information from the households, has shown that 63% of Bihar’s 13 crore population belong to castes listed under the Extremely Backward Classes (EBC) and Other Backward Classes (OBC) categories.
The socio-economic profiles of the people have also been recorded, but are yet to be revealed. At the national level, it may give a boost to the political demand for a country-wide caste census and push the judicial discourse towards reconsidering the 50% legal ceiling on total reservation in education and government services.
In terms of party politics, it may open a new chapter in the traditional conflict between the BJP seeking to consolidate all sections of Hindus into one massive support base and other parties banking on different sections of the OBCs.
At a time when Hindutva is seen to have trumped parties that banked on OBC assertion, influential social groups may now sense an opportunity to leverage their size to get their interests advanced by the political class.
On the legal side, the numbers may be utilised to present the sort of ‘quantifiable data’ that the judiciary has been asking for to justify the levels of reservation obtaining in various States.
News
India looking to engage with the new Maldives govt. on all issues, says MEA (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India looks forward to engaging the new Maldives government on “all issues”, the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) said, responding to the Maldivian President-elect Mohamed Muizzu’s statement that Indian military personnel would be asked to leave the islands.
Indian High Commissioner to Male Munnu Mahawar met Mr. Muizzu, and handed over a letter from Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulating him on his electoral victory.
Our High Commissioner in Male called on the President-elect, and he had a good discussion on various aspects of our bilateral relationship including development cooperation.
MEA officials did not comment on who would be sent to represent New Delhi at Mr. Muizzu’s swearing-in ceremony. In an unprecedented gesture in 2018, Prime Minister Narendra Modi had attended President Ibu Solih’s inauguration ceremony in Male.
Last Saturday’s run-off election saw Mr. Muizzu, the former Mayor of Male, defeat incumbent Maldives President Mr. Solih by 19,000 votes, or an 8% margin. The results have been widely seen as an upset for India, that had close ties with the Solih administration.
Speaking at a public rally after the elections, Mr. Muizzu, who stood as the candidate for the PNC-PPM coalition that had campaigned on an “India Out” plank, had said that the “sovereignty” of the Maldives was most important.
“The people have decided and don’t want Indian troops to stay in the Maldives. Therefore, foreign soldiers cannot be here against our sentiments, against our will,’’ the President-elect was quoted as saying by Maldivian news outlets.
World
Bangladesh gets its first batch of uranium (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Bangladesh received the first uranium delivery for its Russian-backed nuclear plant, a project aimed at bolstering its overstretched energy grid but complicated by sanctions on Moscow.
Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has courted Russian ties with renewed vigour after Western criticism over her government’s rights record.
Moscow is bankrolling the $12.65-billion plant with a loan for 90% of its cost, with hopes it will alleviate the chronic blackouts plaguing the South Asian nation.
“Bangladesh is our long-term friend and partner,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a videoconference with Ms. Hasina to mark the handover.
Mr. Putin also pledged assistance for uranium supply, maintenance and management of spent fuel.
Construction on the nuclear plant at Rooppur, a village on the banks of the Ganges river 175 km west of the capital Dhaka, began in 2017. The first of its twin 1,200-megawatt units is slated to begin operations next year and both reactors should be fully online in 2025.
Business
Services PMI signals September boost (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s services sector activity gained momentum in September, with new orders rising at the second-fastest rate since June 2010, as per the S&P Global India Services Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI), which rose to 61 from 60.1 in August.
September’s reading, while lower than July’s 13-year high of 62.3, still indicated one of the strongest upticks in 13 years. With the input cost inflation slowing to one of the lowest levels since late 2010, services firms raised prices at the slowest pace in six months. Sentiment about year-ahead business prospects hit a nine-year high.
Additional staff were recruited to aid firms’ efforts to keep on top of current workloads and in anticipation of further growth in the coming months.
Growth in new international orders slowed to a three-month low, yet was one of the quickest since September 2014, the firm said, citing the PMI survey’s findings. Participants cited growth in demand from clients in Asia, Europe and North America.
The latest PMI results brought more positive news... with September seeing business activity and new work intakes rising to one of the greatest extents in over 13 years,” said Pollyanna De Lima, economics associate director at S&P Global Market Intelligence.
‘Sept. food inflation may have eased on cheaper tomato, LPG’ (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Retail food inflation may have eased in September, thanks to a reduction in tomato and LPG cylinder prices, even as onion prices rose further during the month, a CRISIL study on food plate costs suggested.
Retail inflation had dropped to 6.83% in August from a 15-month high of 7.44% in July, but food price inflation stood at about 10%. Official consumer price trends for September will be released next week.
The cost of a vegetarian thali in September fell 1% year-on-year (Y-o-Y) and 17% from August levels, while tomato prices declined around 62% from ₹102 per kilogram (kg) in August to ₹39 per kg.
The cost of a non-vegetarian thali declined at a slower pace of 9% from August due to a 2-3% estimated increase in the price of broiler, which accounts for more than 50% of the total thali cost, according to a monthly report from CRISIL Market Intelligence and Analytics. On a Y-o-Y basis, non-vegetarian thali costs were up 1%.
Cost of fuel, which accounts for 14% and 8% of total cost of vegetarian and non-vegetarian thalis, respectively, declined about 18% in September as the cost of a 14.2kg LPG cylinder fell to ₹903 from ₹1,103.
While onion prices rose about 12% between August and September, CRISIL analysts said a 31% decline in chili prices over the previous month offered some comfort.
Science
Preparing for the grey: elder mental health care comes into prominence (Page no. 24)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
There are more older people on the globe now than ever before in the history of humanity. In 2022, the number above 60 was 1.1 billion, comprising 13.9 % of the population.
By 2050, the number of older people is expected to increase to 2.1 billion, constituting 22 %. India is not far behind. It had 149 million older adults (10.5 %) in 2022, This figure will grow to 347 million (20.8 %) by 2050 according to projections. The bottom line is that many of us are living longer than our ancestors.
Despite this imminent crisis, we know little about healthy ageing and elders’ mental health. Even worse, we have many misconceptions and fears about ageing, especially mental health problems in older people, such as depression, anxiety, and dementia.
Getting old is a normal physiological process. For convenience, we can consider ageing in the physical, social, and psychological domains. It is important to remember that the issues in each domain interact with one another, within and outside the domains.
The physical aspects of ageing are apparent, for example, greying hair and decreasing muscle mass. However, there is considerable heterogeneity, with no two 70- or 80-year-olds being similar. We know of active, marathon-fit elders, while others, perhaps younger by a few years, are immobile. Also, different organs age differently, some faster than others, depending on genes, lifestyle, environment, and diseases.