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India is putting in place a major operation to evacuate its citizens who wish to return from conflict-hit Israel. Announcing the initiative, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said special chartered flights are being arranged.
This will be the second evacuation this year, after Operation Kaveri that brought back several thousand Indian citizens from conflict-torn Sudan in April-May.
Launching Operation Ajay to facilitate the return from Israel of our citizens whowish to return. Special charter flights and other arrangements being put in place. Fully committed to the safety and well-being of our nationals abroad.
The Indian Embassy in Tel Aviv stated that it has emailed the first lot of registered Indian citizens for the special flight that is expected to take off for India. Messages to other registered people will follow for subsequent flights.
The announcement has come days after Air India suspended its service in the Delhi-Tel Aviv route as Hamas carried out a crippling attack on Israel last Saturday.
‘Mastermind’ of Pathankot attack killed in Pakistan (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorist Shahid Latif, believed to be the mastermind of the 2016 attack on an Indian Air Force base in Pathankot, was gunned down by unidentified assailants in a mosque in Sialkot district of Pakistan.
Latif, alias Bilal, a designated terrorist under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act, is learnt to have been shot dead along with two of his associates by three gunmen.
He had infiltrated into the Kashmir Valley in 1993 and was arrested a year later. He was in Jammu jail with Masood Azhar, founder of the JeM, till 2010, officials said. He was deported to Pakistan in 2010 after his release.
This is the biggest blow to JeM on Pakistan soil. Seven IAF personnel were killed when four JeM terrorists sneaked into the Air Force Station in 2016.
Editorial
UN Security Council reform is a song in a loop (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
More than three decades after the debate first started over fundamental reforms at the United Nations (UN), the issue appears to have resurfaced at the ongoing General Assembly session of the world body.
President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan of Türkiye was blunt: “The Security Council has ceased to be the guarantor of world security and has become a battleground for the political strategies of only five countries.”
Even the UN’s Secretary-General, António Guterres, issued a stern warning: “The world has changed. Our institutions have not.
We cannot effectively address problems as they are if institutions do not reflect the world as it is. Instead of solving problems, they risk becoming part of the problem.”
It could not have been put more bluntly, but we have heard this song before. Politically, it is untenable that the five permanent members (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) enjoy their position, and the privilege of a veto over any Council resolution or decision, merely by virtue of having won a war 76 years ago. In the case of China, the word ‘won’ needs to be placed within inverted commas.
I was serving at the UN when then-Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared that Security Council reform must be accomplished in time for the 50th anniversary of the world organisation in 1995.
But even as the urgent rhetoric continues to be spoken, the organisation has missed not only the 50th anniversary of the UN, but even the 60th, the 70th and now the 75th. Left to their own devices, member-states will be arguing the merits of the case well past the UN’s centenary.
‘Modi-nomics’ fails to buck the trend (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
There has been intense focus on India’s growth performance of late. First, on the occasion of the Delhi meetings of the G-20, the government announced that it was the world’s fastest growing major economy.
It was met with a challenge from an independent economist on the grounds that the government had relied on the income method to estimate GDP, and that were the expenditure method to be used instead the observed growth rate would be lower.
The Finance Ministry responded that the Government of India had been consistent in using GDP estimated by the income method throughout.
However, it may be noted that the contestation had been over economic performance in a single quarter, namely the first quarter of the current financial year.
Soon after this exchange, Arvind Subramanian and Josh Felman investigated whether India’s growth rate is accelerating or decelerating after the COVID-19 year of 2020-21.
They concluded (in a media article, September 14) that “after a strong recovery there has been a significant ebbing of dynamism over the last three quarters”.
The former Chief Economic Adviser and his co-author may well be right, but both the government and those challenging its narrative are focused on very short phases of growth. This can result in mistaking the cycle — a temporary fluctuation — for the trend, which is the long-term tendency.
Opinion
Women’s quota — rhetoric and reality (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
The celebration of the passing of the Women’s Reservation Bill by both Houses of Parliament glosses over certain realities about this conditional legislation.
The conduct of a census in the country followed by a delimitation of constituencies based on this census are the conditions for this legislation to take effect.
Once it is accepted that reservation for women in legislative bodies is a progressive measure, there is no legal or political justification to prolong its implementation.
Speaking in the Lok Sabha, Home Minister Amit Shah justified these conditions saying that there could be legal challenges against the legislation if it is passed without relying on criteria fixed by way of a process of delimitation.
No doubt, a legislation should be based on a solid foundation, and have valid reasons for existence.
In the case of the Women’s Reservation Law, the reality is that about half of the population are women and they are under-represented in Parliament and State legislative bodies.
Reports show that, of the maximum allowed 550 seats in the Lok Sabha, only 82, i.e., 15% are represented by women, and out of the 250 members in the Rajya Sabha, only 31, i.e., 12% are women.
The Global Gender Gap Report places this in a macroscopic context by showing that India ranks 141 out of 185 in its list.
Text & Context
The events before and after Operation Polo in Hyderabad post-Independence (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Partition of India and Pakistan is a dark chapter in the history of humanity that led to the death, displacement and destruction of property of millions of people.
A much more complex story, albeit on a smaller scale, unfolded in the princely kingdom of Hyderabad. Ruled by Nizam Osman Ali Khan who was as whimsical and unpredictable as they come, the kingdom had 81.17% Hindus and a 12.83% Muslim population according to the 1941 Census.
When India became free on August 15, 1947, Hyderabad remained independent. Rather, it tried to stay independent citing the communal bonhomie, size of the kingdom and its infrastructure.
But it was not to be. Beginning on September 13, 1948, at 4.30 a.m. the Indian Army attacked from four frontiers and made short work of the kingdom’s armed forces.
The events leading up to what was called Operation Polo and its aftermath is still being researched, investigated and written about.
The newest book to join this corpus is Afsar Mohammed’s Remaking History — 1948 Police Action and the Muslims of Hyderabad, published by Cambridge University Press in 2023.
Afsar’s book looks at the events of ‘Police Action’ through the prism of fiction and non-fiction mostly in Telugu and Urdu languages. Juxtaposed with oral histories collected over the past decade, Afsar tries to show how people dealt with the trauma and change in the social fabric.
Traumatic events are pushed out of memory. This is also true of Operation Polo, where the ruling class of Muslims and Hindu upper caste elite suddenly found themselves to be equal citizens.
This sense of loss is captured in the title Hyderabad — After the Fall, edited by Omar Khalidi. The book published in 1988 in the U.S. has essays, eye-witness accounts and also the first extract from the secret report commissioned by Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru into the post-merger violence in Hyderabad.
The violence led to the killing of around 30,000 to 40,000 people, according to this report. It makes for a grim read.
News
India, China agree to continue ‘dialogue and negotiations’ (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and China held the 20th round of corps commander-level talks at the Chushul-Moldo border meeting point on the Indian side over the past two days, but failed to make any headway to end the stand-off along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) in eastern Ladakh.
The two sides agreed to maintain the momentum of “dialogue and negotiations” while also committing to “maintain” peace and tranquillity on the ground, the External Affairs Ministry said.
The two sides exchanged views in a frank, open and constructive manner for an early and mutually acceptable resolution of the remaining issues along the LAC in the western sector, in accordance with the guidance provided by the national leadership of the two countries, and building on the progress made in the last round of corps commanders’ meeting held on August 13-14, 2023.
The two sides also committed to maintain peace and tranquillity on the ground in the border areas in the interim, it added. At the 19th round of talks, which came before the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation virtual summit and ahead of the G-20 Summit hosted by New Delhi, there were high expectations of a breakthrough on the stalemate at Depsang Plains and Demchok in eastern Ladakh. Following the talks between the Corps Commanders, several rounds of Major General-level talks were held.
SC divided on woman’s right to end 26-week pregnancy (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
A Division Bench of two women judges of the Supreme Court were split in their opinions about the decision of a married woman to abort her 26-week pregnancy and the Centre’s resolve to save the “unborn child”.
Unable to reach common ground, Justices Hima Kohli and B.V. Nagarathna finally referred the case to the Chief Justice of India to form a three-judge Bench.
The woman, a mother of two and her younger child still a one-year-old infant, was firm in her affidavit that she wanted to medically terminate the pregnancy.
She told the Bench that she was taking medication for her mental condition and was not in a position to take care of a third child. The woman was present in court along with her husband.
Additional Solicitor General for the Union government, Aishwarya Bhati, however said the woman has no “absolute right of autonomy to exercise her reproductive rights in a way that would take away the rights of her unborn child”.
Ms. Bhati referred to the Medical Termination of Pregnancy (Amendment) Act of 2021, which extended the deadline for abortion in “exceptional circumstances” to 24 weeks.
She said these circumstances allowed medical termination only if it was necessary to save the life of the mother or in case of a fatal deformity detected in the foetus.
Once there is a viable baby, the relief cannot be one-sided. Unless she wants to keep the child, her right to bodily autonomy or integrity cannot be beyond the Act. Her fundamental right to choice can be curtailed by the Parliament,” Ms. Bhati argued.
However, the Union returned to the Supreme Court with an application which said that one of the expert doctors on the medical board had emailed Ms. Bhati on October 10 against the abortion, saying the child should be given a chance to survive.
3.21 lakh appeals pending with Information Commissions: report (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Governanace)
More than three lakh appeals and complaints are pending in 27 State Information Commissions across the country and the backlog has been steadily increasing, according to a new report.
Of the 3,21,537 pending appeals, the maximum number was reported in Maharashtra (1,15,524) followed by Karnataka (41,047). Tamil Nadu declined to provide the information.
The ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2022-23’ said that the 2019 assessment had found that as of March 31 that year, a total of 2,18,347 appeals/complaints were pending in the 26 Information Commissions from which data was obtained, which climbed to 2,86,325 as of June 30, 2021 and then crossed three lakh as of June 30, 2022.
Four Information Commissions — Jharkhand, Telangana, Mizoram and Tripura — are defunct as no new Information Commissioners were appointed upon incumbents demitting office. Six Information Commissions are currently headless — the Central Information Commission, and the State Information Commissions of Manipur, Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Bihar, and Punjab.
The report has been compiled based on the performance of Information Commissions across the country, and on information accessed under the Right to Information (RTI) Act by the Satark Nagrik Sangathan (SNS), a cititzens’ group working to promote transparency and accountability in governance.
October 12, 2023 marks 18 years of implementation of the RTI Act in India.
World
Israel forms emergency govt. for duration of war (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
As Israel kept bombing Hamas targets in the Gaza Strip, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a political rival announced an emergency government for the duration of the conflict.
The veteran right-wing leader was joined by the centrist Benny Gantz, a former Defence Minister, in the government and war Cabinet as both put aside bitter political divisions that have roiled the country and sparked mass protests.
Their joint announcement came after Israeli soldiers sweeping battle-torn southern towns said they had found 1,200 victims five days after the Islamist militants’ onslaught, the worst attack in Israel’s 75-year history.
Gaza officials reported more than 1,000 people killed in Israel’s withering campaign of air and artillery strikes on the crowded Palestinian enclave.
Israel has massed forces, tanks and other heavy armour around Gaza in its retaliatory operation against what Mr. Netanyahu labelled “an attack whose savagery... we have not seen since the Holocaust”.
Amid the crisis that has been labelled “Israel’s 9/11”, Mr. Netanyahu struck the political deal with Mr. Gantz and pledged to freeze for now his government’s flashpoint judicial overhaul plan that has sparked mass protests.
India likely to skip China’s BRI summit (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India is likely to skip China’s third summit marking President Xi Jinping’s signature Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), which, Beijing announced on Wednesday, will be held on October 17 in the Chinese capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin is expected to attend the Belt and Road Forum (BRF) in Beijing, with the Russian leader also present at the previous two summits in 2017 and 2019. Sri Lankan President Ranil Wickremesinghe is also likely to attend, Sri Lankan media reported, among several leaders from countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Indonesian President Joko Widodo is also expected, according to reports.
India did not attend the summits in 2017 and 2019, having raised concerns about the BRI, particularly over the flagship China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project which runs through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
As the BRI marks 10 years, China has this week pushed back against criticism of the plan, particularly with regard to projects leaving countries with debt.
Beijing, at the same time, appears to be rethinking how it goes forward with the BRI, and scaling back on investments. Reports last week, citing the minutes of a meeting between China and Pakistan, said Beijing had turned down requests for new projects there reportedly due to security concerns in Pakistan, which have not abated more than a decade into CPEC.