Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Canada’s inability to provide safety and security to Indian diplomats challenges the “most fundamental aspect” of the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said.
Mr. Jaishankar’s remarks at an event here came two days after Canada withdrew 41 of its diplomats from India and “paused” walk-in services at its consulates in Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Chandigarh, affecting Canadian visa facilities for Indians.
In the context of the withdrawal of Canadian diplomats from India, Canadian Foreign Minister Melanie Joly had accused New Delhi of violating the Vienna Convention.
A unilateral revocation of diplomatic privileges and immunities is contrary to international law, including the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations.
Her remarks were followed up by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who accused India of violating a “very basic principle of diplomacy”.
States
Tej now extremely severe cyclone over the Arabian Sea; yellow alert issued for eight districts in Kerala (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The very severe cyclone, Tej, that formed over the Arabian Sea on Sunday intensified into an extremely severe cyclone.
The cyclone, which is moving north-westwards, is likely to cross the Yemen coast close to Al Ghaidah in the early hours as a very severe cyclonic storm with wind speed of 125-135 kmph gusting to 150 kmph.
Kerala is likely to receive isolated heavy rainfall triggered by the weather systems over the Arabian Sea and the Bay of Bengal.
A yellow alert has been issued for eight districts from Kollam to Palakkad, warning of isolated heavy rains on Monday.
However, the typical northeast monsoon rain will be absent at least for the next few days in the State as the present weather system over the Bay of Bengal is likely to upset the flow of north-easterlies.
Editorial
The Court’s ‘no fundamental right to marry’ is wrong (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Contitution)
So we have it from the Supreme Court of India in Supriyo Chakraborty. There is no fundamental right to marry, it holds. On that account, the Court decided that same sex persons cannot marry. In my view this is a wrong decision.
However, to the credit of the Court, it directed, unanimously, that same sex couples have to be protected from any harassment.
The Court also passed directions to sensitise the authorities on this behalf and even directed the setting up of a committee to look into a number of issues. However, the flaw is fundamental which needs to be corrected, sooner than later.
To understand Supriyo Chakraborty, we need to contextualise it. In 2009, the Delhi High Court read down Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) in Naz Foundation (Naz).
That was set aside in Suresh Kumar Koushal by the Supreme Court in 2013, but ultimately upheld Naz in Navtej Singh Johar in 2018.
Section 377 IPC, a law made by the British, that criminalised sex between non-heterosexual couples was punishable with 10 years imprisonment.
Restoring the ecological health of the Himalayas (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The environmental devastation caused in the Himalayan States of Himachal Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Sikkim has reinvigorated the debate on the “carrying capacity’ of the regions.
The Supreme Court of India, in response to a petition filed by a retired Indian Police Service officer, has asked the Union government to suggest a way forward regarding the carrying capacity of the Indian Himalayan Region (IHR), which includes its towns and cities.
The Union government’s affidavit (filed by the Ministry of Environment) states that the Director of the G.B. Pant National Institute of Himalayan Environment should be the lead in assessing carrying capacity and that the carrying capacity of all 13 Himalayan States and Union Territories (UT) should be determined.
The affidavit adds that there can be a technical support group comprising nominees of the National Institute of Disaster Management, Bhopal; National Institute of Hydrology, Roorkee; Indian Institute of Remote Sensing, Dehradun; National Environmental Engineering Research Institute, Nagpur; Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology, Dehradun; Indian Council of Forestry Research and Education, Dehradun; Wildlife Institute of India, Dehradun; and School of Planning and Architecture.
Opinion
A massive intelligence failure in Israel (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
No words can be strong enough to condemn the massacres carried out in Israel by Hamas, the Gaza-based Palestinian terrorist organisation.
A humanitarian catastrophe is unfolding in the densely populated Gaza Strip as Israel, expectedly, responds with the full might of its armed forces.
The scale and complexity of the attack indicated that Hamas had been meticulously planning it for months. The cross-border incursion across the hi-tech fence separating southern Israel from Gaza began with rocket fire and involved the use of dinghies, bulldozers, motorcycles, paragliders, and drones bearing explosives.
Hamas fighters targeted civilian settlements and a military intelligence hub. Israel’s inability to detect signs of the impending assault and take preventive action represents a catastrophic intelligence failure. Like 9/11 in the U.S. and 26/11 in India, October 7, 2023 in Israel signifies the horrors of terrorism.
Text & Context
Have earnings grown post-pandemic? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Recent data from the Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS) of 2022-23 revealed a strengthening of the labour market, with unemployment rates falling and labour force participation rates (LFPRs) rising. Rural women’s LFPRs — for those aged 15 and above — rose from 19.7% in 2018-19 to 41.5% in 2022-23, a significant jump for a cohort that had long been on the margins of the labour market. These results were taken as examples of a robust post-pandemic recovery for the Indian economy.
Yet there are notes of caution. Much of the new employment generated for women has been in self-employment. There has been a rise in the proportion of women working as unpaid family helpers, with the share of rural working women in this form of employment rising from 37.9% to 43% between 2018-19 and 2022-23.
The share of women in regular wage work fell from 22% to 16%. Greater employment seemed to be coming at the cost of suitable working conditions, especially for women.
News
To curb evasion, EU report calls for 2% global wealth tax on billionaires (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Pointing out that tax evasion is enabling billionaires to enjoy effective tax rates equivalent to 0% to 0.5% of their wealth, the European Union Tax Observatory in its ‘Global Tax Evasion Report 2024’ has called for a global minimum tax on billionaires equal to 2% of their wealth.
This would both address evasion and “generate nearly $250 billion from less than 3,000 individuals”, the report stated.
The report justified the proposal by noting that while the number of taxpayers affected by it would be miniscule, the tax rate for them (2%) “would still be very modest” given that the wealth of billionaires has grown at 7% a year annually on average since 1995 (net of inflation).
Assessing the impact of international efforts made so far to curb tax evasion, the report highlighted the success of one measure — the automatic exchange of bank information — in reducing offshore tax evasion by a factor of three over the past 10 years.
The report observed that before this measure came into effect, “households owned the equivalent of 10% of world GDP in financial wealth in tax havens globally, the bulk of which was undeclared to tax authorities and belonged to high net worth individuals”.
Two experiments conducted by ISRO paved way for Gaganyaan test mission (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
There were two important forerunners to the success of the Test Vehicle Abort Mission (TV-D1) flight that the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) conducted.
During the test, an unmanned crew module was brought back safely to earth after launching it on a small rocket and simulating an emergency abort command. The test and its forerunners are the ISRO’s first major steps towards launching humans to orbit as part of its Gaganyaan mission.
The TV-D1 test was carried out smoothly, especially given that the ISRO had to overcome a glitch five seconds before lift-off at 8.45 a.m., when the ground computer, called the Automatic Launch Sequence, halted the lift-off. ISRO Chairman S. Somanath said it issued a “hold” when it detected a non-conformity “for allowing the engine to continue thrusting to further go.
This happened due to a monitoring anomaly in the system”. He added: “We could identify [the anomaly] very, very fast and correct it … It took us some time to refill the gases…”, after which the launch was rescheduled for 10 a.m.
Army to start phase out of Cheetah, Chetak from 2027; may induct LUH (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
The Army will start phasing out the first lot of vintage Cheetah and Chetak helicopters from 2027 on completion of their total technical life, as it looks to induct the indigenous light utility helicopters (LUHs) to replace them, according to defence sources.
The armed forces have been attempting to replace the Cheetah and Chetak helicopters for well over a decade.
In November 2021, the Defence Acquisition Council approved the procurement of 12 limited series production (LSP) variants of the LUH at a cost of around ₹1,500 crore, six each for the Army and the Air Force.
The choppers have been designed and developed by Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd. (HAL), but the project was delayed due to issues with the autopilot.
World
Manila, Beijing trade blame over collisions in disputed sea (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Beijing and Manila traded blame on Sunday for two collisions between Chinese vessels and Philippine boats on a resupply mission to Filipino troops on a remote outpost in the disputed South China Sea.
The incidents happened near Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, a hotly contested region where Beijing deploys ships to assert its claims over almost the entire sea.
A Philippine government task force said the “dangerous blocking manoeuvres of China Coast Guard vessel 5203 caused it to collide with the Armed Forces of the Philippines-contracted indigenous resupply boat” about 25 km from Second Thomas Shoal.
Science
How bat genomes provide insights into immunity and cancer (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Bats are extraordinary organisms in many ways. They are the only mammals on the earth that can maintain sustained flight.
They also have relatively long life-spans and are relatively more protected from a variety of diseases, including cancer. They also have a unique ability in echolocation, whereby they use sound to navigate and locate objects, freeing them from being constrained by the availability of light like humans are.
By population, bats make up 20% of all mammals. There are more than 1,400 species of bats today around the world; more than 60 are endangered and 170-odd are classified as vulnerable.
The bumblebee bat weighs only 2 grams whereas the flying foxes, which have a wingspan of 1.5 metres, weigh up to 1.6 kg.
Fluorescence: making animals glow (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Matter and radiation interact in a variety of ways. The sky is blue because air molecules scatter light, and they scatter light of shorter wavelengths more strongly.
Since blue light has the shortest wavelength (in the visible spectrum), it is scattered the most and the sky appears blue. This is called Rayleigh scattering. But clouds are white because of Mie scattering, which is due to light scattered by larger particles like water droplets.
Another form of interaction is fluorescence – when an object absorbs some light of higher energy (like blue colour) and releases it at lower energy (like red colour).
It usually happens when an electron absorbs a photon, or a particle of light, jumps to a higher energy level, before releasing that energy and jumping back down. In this process, the electron’s spin must not change. If its spin changes, the process is called phosphorescence.