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Cyclone Michaung has intensified in its move across the southwest Bay of Bengal and is likely to make landfall on the Andhra Pradesh coast between Nellore and Machilipatnam as a severe cyclonic storm, with maximum sustained wind speeds of 90 kmph to 100 kmph, gusting to 110 kmph, the India Meteorological Department (IMD).
A red alert has been issued in parts of Tamil Nadu’s Chennai, Tiruvallur, Kancheepuram, and Chengalpattu districts, which are expected to be lashed by a heavy downpour over the next two days.
Extremely heavy rainfall is also expected in parts of coastal A.P., Yanam, and Rayalaseema, and a storm surge of more than a metre above the tide is likely to inundate the State’s southern coastal districts at the time of landfall.
Editorial
India, disability inclusion and the power of ‘by’ (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Social Justice)
Disability as an identity and entity exists at the intersection of multiple vulnerabilities — social, economic and gender — with each facet requiring careful consideration when conceptualising action for equity.
Globally, 1.3 billion people (which is equivalent to nearly the entire population of India) live with some form of disability. Of them, 80% live in developing countries; further, 70% of them live in rural areas.
Current systems are designed for persons without disabilities and end up being exclusionary to people with disabilities, resulting in them experiencing higher instances of poverty, lack of access to education and opportunities, informality and other forms of social and economic discrimination.
According to the English dictionary, “For” is often used when a person is receiving something and “By” is to “identify the agent performing an action”.
This difference is crucial when it comes to disability inclusion, as the approach is completely different if it is “by” persons with disabilities being a part of the process and not “for” them, without them in the process.
Text & Context
On re-criminalising adultery (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
Last month, the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Home Affairs, examining the three new criminal law Bills set to replace the Indian Penal Code (IPC), Code of Criminal Procedure (CrPC), and the Indian Evidence Act, recommended the criminalisation of adultery on gender-neutral lines.
This comes after a five-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court unanimously decriminalised adultery in 2018 on several grounds including discrimination.
The Committee reasoned that adultery be criminalised in a gender-neutral manner on the ground that it is crucial to safeguard the sanctity of the institution of marriage.
Opposition MPs have refuted this claim by underscoring that it is “outdated to raise marriage to the level of a sacrament” and that the state has no business entering into the private lives of couples.
The Committee suggested that adultery be reinstated as a criminal offence, but be made gender-neutral, thereby making both men and women equally culpable under the law.
The Committee also said that the revoked Section 497 of the IPC “only penalised the married man, and reduced the married woman to be a property of her husband.”
World
India agreed to withdraw troops from Male, says Muizzu after meeting Modi (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India has agreed to the request by the new Maldives government to withdraw about 75 Indian military personnel stationed on the islands to work on humanitarian operations, Maldives President Mohammad Muizzu claimed on Sunday.
The statement comes two days after he met Prime Minister Narendra Modi on the sidelines of the COP-28 Climate Summit in Dubai.
The move, raised by Mr. Muizzu during his “India Out” election campaign, will come as a disappointment for New Delhi, which has been urging the Maldives to look at the utility of Indian personnel on the island nation in the “proper perspective”.
The Indian government has assured the people of Maldives that it will respect their decision regarding the withdrawal of Indian troops from Maldives.
Government sources countered Mr. Muizzu’s claim, saying talks were still “ongoing”, and that the “core group” announced after the Modi-Muizzu meet would look into all aspects of whether the 75 Indian naval personnel should stay or not.
135 Chinese boats spotted near reef off Philippines (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The Philippines said on Sunday more than 135 Chinese vessels were “swarming” a reef off its coast, describing the boats’ growing presence as “alarming”.
The Chinese boats were “dispersed and scattered” within the boomerang-shaped Whitsun Reef, which the Philippines calls Julian Felipe Reef, around 320 km west of Palawan Island. Whitsun Reef is more than 1,000 km from the nearest major Chinese landmass of Hainan Island.
The Philippines said it counted 111 “Chinese maritime militia vessels” (CMM) on November 13. When the coast guard deployed two patrol boats to the area on Saturday the number had increased to “more than 135”.
No response was made to the radio challenges issued by the PCG (Philippine Coast Guard) to the CMM vessels which is now estimated to have grown to more than 135 vessels dispersed and scattered within Julian Felipe Reef.
Science
The transformative benefits of population-level genome sequencing (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
In the last decade, genomics has undergone a revolutionary shift with the advent of technologies that have significantly improved throughput and reduced the cost of whole-genome sequencing, giving rise to population-scale genome-sequencing programmes – where scientists decipher the complete genetic makeup of large populations, offering unprecedented insights into the intricate view and tapestry of human diversity.
This week, the UK announced the completion of half a million whole-genome sequences, almost 0.7% of its population.
Such data-sets are transformative, with far-reaching implications for both immediate and long-term advancements in the biological sciences.
An early effort to use large-scale population genetic studies was initiated in Iceland by deCODE genomics in 1996, with most of the Icelandic population enrolling for genetic studies in around a decade’s time.
The initiative, along with the democratisation of sequencing technologies, provided the initial impetus for programmes that wished to use population-scale genomic data for precision medicine and public health.
Methane: More potent, less persistent (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
Methane is an organic compound. Its molecule consists of carbon and four hydrogen atoms (CH4). It’s in the news of late because of its character as a potent climate pollutant.
While climate talks have by and large focused on carbon and carbon dioxide emissions, there is increasing acknowledgement among the world’s leaders as well as philanthropists of methane’s effects on global warming.
At the ongoing COP-28 climate talks in the United Arab Emirates, for example, a group of well-endowed philanthropic bodies, including the Sequoia Climate Foundation and the Bezos Earth Fund, announced that they would collectively invest $450 million in solutions to tackle methane emissions.
Methane has a greater global warming potential (GWP) than carbon dioxide. The GWP is a measure of the warming caused by a substance relative to that due to the same mass of carbon dioxide; the GWP100 measures this over a century at a time.
If carbon dioxide has a GWP100 of 1, methane is 28, nitrous oxide is 265, and sulphur hexafluoride is 23,500. However, while carbon dioxide lasts for several decades at a time in the atmosphere before breaking down, methane breaks down in a matter of years.
That is, it’s a short-lived climate pollutant. Its sources include cattle-farming, landfills, wastewater treatment facilities, rice cultivation, and some industrial processes.