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The UN Security Council has called for “extended humanitarian pauses” in the Gaza Strip, the first time it has broken its silence since the latest round of the bloody conflict between Israel and Hamas started last month. Israel, however, indicated that such a “pause” would not be possible till the hostages held by Hamas are released.
The resolution, prepared by Malta and adopted with 12 votes in favour, “calls for urgent and extended humanitarian pauses and corridors throughout the Gaza Strip for a sufficient number of days” to allow aid to reach civilians. The U.S., the U.K. and Russia abstained.
The text raises the question of how many days would be considered sufficient. A previous version of the draft seen by AFP called for an initial pause of five consecutive days within 24 hours of the adoption of the resolution.
T.N. Assembly to readopt Bills that Governor returned (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
A special session of the Tamil Nadu Legislative Assembly has been convened on Saturday to readopt certain Bills returned to the government by Governor R.N. Ravi.
Though there is no clarity on the number of Bills returned by the Governor, sources indicated that most of them pertained to a proposal to amend the statutes of various universities to enable replacing the Governor with the Chief Minister as their Chancellor.
The Governor had for long kept pending several Bills that were adopted by the Assembly without taking decisions on them. I learn that he has returned several Bills.
They [the State government] have requested for calling a session so as to [re]adopt them,” Mr. Appavu told presspersons in Tiruvannamalai.
Accompanied by Deputy Speaker K. Pitchandi and Assembly Secretary K. Srinivasan, Mr. Appavu said the State government would decide on the Bills that have to be readopted when the session begins on Saturday.
He pointed out that if a Bill adopted by the House and returned by the Governor is sent to him after readopting it, the Governor must act on it.
Editorial
Challenging the Electoral Bond Scheme (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Economy)
Political parties in India have traditionally been averse to any sort of public scrutiny of the sources and applications of their funds.
The astronomical sums needed to finance their processes and operations cannot be raised from party cadres and altruistic donors. These can only come from Big Business, and as a quid pro quo.
Civil society has been campaigning for long to empower the voter by improving her access to background information on the candidates in the electoral fray, and to bring about greater transparency in the obscure domain of political funding.
In this, the instrument of public interest litigation (PIL) has been deployed to good effect. The campaign is premised on the citizen’s democratic right to information, which is integral to the fundamental right to speech and expression under the Constitution.
Opinion
Should elections be state funded? (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
A Constitution Bench headed by the Chief Justice of India, D.Y. Chandrachud, recently reserved its judgment on petitions challenging the validity of the electoral bonds scheme.
The proceedings focused on arguments pertaining to the voters’ right to information vis-a-vis the right to confidentiality of donors.
Transparency in election funding has become the central issue here.
First, calling it state funding of elections is a misnomer. It should be called public funding of elections. I say this because in India, we unfortunately have a notion that whatever the state does is free.
If there is such funding, it will be public money that the state will be giving for elections. So, if we call it public funding of elections, my sense is that people will feel that it is their money, which is the truth.
Text & Context
On the sub-categorisation within castes (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
In an election rally in Telangana, Prime Minister Narendra Modi promised to look into the sub-categorisation of Scheduled Castes (SCs) to identify and help the most backward among them — a move that has been read as an attempt by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to woo the Madiga community.
The Madigas are the most populous of all SC communities in the State but have claimed that their share of representation was being taken up by another SC community, the Malas.
In the last two decades, multiple States like Punjab, Bihar, and Tamil Nadu have tried to bring in reservation laws at the State level in a bid to sub-categorise SCs and decide on a separate quantum of reservation for these subcategories within the umbrella of Scheduled Castes. However, all plans are held up in courts as the Supreme Court forms its larger Constitution Bench to decide the matter.
How was the first vaccine for chikungunya approved? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
On November 9, the world’s first vaccine for chikungunya was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in the U.S.
The vaccine has been developed by European vaccine manufacturer Valneva and will be available under the brand Ixchiq, and has been approved for administration in people who are 18 years or older, and are at increased risk of exposure to the virus.
It was approved using the Accelerated Approval pathway, which allows the FDA to clear certain products for serious or life-threatening conditions based on evidence of a product’s effectiveness that is likely to provide clinical benefit.
Chikungunya, is characterised by severe joint pain and impaired mobility, and comes with fever. It is a viral infection (CHIKV) transmitted primarily by the Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes and has been described as “an emerging global health threat.”
World
Israel signals expanding offensive in Gaza’s south (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Israeli forces dropped leaflets warning Palestinians to flee parts of southern Gaza, residents said, signalling a possible expansion of their offensive to areas where hundreds of thousands of people who heeded earlier evacuation orders are crowded into U.N.-run shelters and family homes.
Meanwhile, soldiers continued searching Shifa Hospital in the north, in a raid that began early on Wednesday. They displayed guns they say were found hidden in one building, but have yet to release any evidence of the Hamas command centre that Israel has said is concealed beneath the complex. Hamas and staff at the hospital, Gaza’s largest, deny the allegations.
Broadening operations to the south — where Israel already carries out daily air raids — threatens to worsen an already severe humanitarian crisis in the besieged territory.
Over 1.5 million people have been internally displaced in Gaza, with most having fled to the south, where food, water and electricity are increasingly scarce. It’s not clear where else they could go, as Egypt refuses to allow a mass transfer onto its soil.
Business
Food prices pose risk to aligning inflation to 4% target: RBI officials (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The only risk to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI’s) “resolve to align headline inflation with the target of 4% is food inflation”, with high frequency data showing the prices of several food items already firming up this month, central bank officials wrote in an article in the November edition of the RBI Bulletin.
Several constituent prices are already firming up – onions; tomatoes; cereals; pulses; and sugar – with the potential to disrupt the gains made in the last two months.
Accordingly, in the RBI, we are bracing up for upticks in the readings for November and December. Observing that inflation readings of about 5% and 4.9% in September and October, respectively, had provided a “welcome relief from the average of 6.7% in 2022-23 and 7.1% in July-August 2023,” they cautioned that the economy was, however, not out of the woods yet” on inflation.
‘Trade deficit to narrow from Oct. peak, but still exceed H1 average of $20 bn.’ (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India’s goods import bill and trade deficit are likely to moderate this month from October’s record highs, but the trade balance is likely to stay adverse in the coming months on account of higher prices for key imports like oil and gold, weaker demand for exports and continuing curbs on wheat and rice.
Imports jumped 20.2% from September’s levels to hit $65.03 billion last month, led by oil imports surging to a seven-month high of $17.7 billion, gold imports rising 95.4% and silver almost 125%. With exports of $33.6 billion, this resulted in an all-time high deficit of $31.5 billion.
October’s deficit is sharply above the $20 billion average deficit recorded in April-September 2023 as both imports and exports lost momentum from a year ago.
With oil prices, which had crossed $93 a barrel in September, easing a bit last month, taking the lag time in redrawing oil contracts, and some of the festive import demand cooling into account, QuantEco and Nomura expect November’s trade gap to narrow.