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The Union government released ₹493.60 crore to Andhra Pradesh and ₹450 crore to Tamil Nadu in the wake of the damage inflicted by severe cyclonic storm Michaung this week.
Apart from this, the Centre approved another tranche of ₹561.29 crore for Chennai for flood mitigation efforts.
Making the announcement on X, Union Home Minister Amit Shah posted: “Chennai is facing major floods, the third such occurring in the last eight years. We are witnessing more instances of metropolitan cities receiving excessive rainfall, leading to sudden flooding.
Guided by a pro-active approach, Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modiji has approved the first urban flood mitigation project of ₹561.29 crore for ‘Integrated Urban Flood Management activities for Chennai Basin Project’ under the National Disaster Mitigation Fund (NDMF), which also includes Central assistance of ₹500 crore.
This mitigation project will help make Chennai flood-resilient. This is the first in a series of urban flood mitigation efforts.
Editorial
India’s growing neighbourhood dilemmas (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The proverbial Achilles heel of Indian foreign policy continues to be its neighbourhood. Contemporary Indian foreign policy has an ambitious vision — from being the leader of the global South, to be an arbiter in global geopolitical contestations, to making a serious claim to be a pole in world politics.
But South Asia is not only not keen to jump on the bandwagon of the India story, but it is also seemingly holding India back, albeit indirectly.
Neighbourhoods are difficult for any major power, but contemporary India is faced with an exceptionally hard one, complicated by a rising superpower in its neighbourhood, for the first time in its history.
In general, there are three types of dilemmas that India faces in the neighbourhood. One, the rise of politically anti-India regimes in South Asia such as the one in the Maldives where the new government is effectively asking Indians to pack up and leave.
While the Maldives is anti-India in an instrumental sense, a Khaleda Zia-led government in Dhaka, which goes to the elections early next year, could turn out to be ideologically anti-India.
The second type of dilemma India faces in the neighbourhood is structural, resulting from Beijing’s growing influence in South Asia.
Text & Context
Regulating deepfakes and AI in India (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Last month a video featuring actor Rashmika Mandanna went viral on social media, sparking a combination of shock and horror among netizens.
The seconds-long clip, which featured Mandanna’s likeness, was manipulated using deepfake technology. Deepfakes are digital media, video, audio, and images, edited and manipulated using Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Since they incorporate hyper-realistic digital falsification, they can potentially be used to damage reputations and undermine trust in democratic institutions.
This phenomenon has forayed into political messaging as well, a concern in the run-up to the general elections next year.
Back in 2020, in the first-ever use of AI-generated deepfakes in political campaigns, a series of videos of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Manoj Tiwari were circulated on multiple WhatsApp groups.
The videos showed Mr. Tiwari hurling allegations against his political opponent Arvind Kejriwal in English and Haryanvi, before Delhi elections.
In a similar incident, a doctored video of Madhya Pradesh Congress chief Kamal Nath recently went viral, creating confusion over the future of the State government’s Laadli Behna Scheme.
News
LS to take up Ethics panel report recommending Mahua’s expulsion (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The report of the Ethics Committee, recommending the expulsion of Trinamool Congress member Mahua Moitra in an alleged “cash-for-query” case, will be tabled in the Lok Sabha. The report was included on the Lok Sabha agenda, but it was not tabled.
The Speaker informed me that the Ethics Committee report along with a resolution will be tabled tomorrow, the Trinamool leader in the Lok Sabha, Sudip Bandyopadhyay, confirmed to presspersons.
“Then, I told the Speaker that you have to give us time to speak as every party of the INDIA bloc has opposed it and would want to speak.
All the major political parties including the Bharatiya Janata Party, the Congress, and the Trinamool have issued whips for its members to be present in the House.
Once tabled, the Lok Sabha Speaker takes up a resolution and gets the sense of the House and goes by the majority opinion.
SC asks Centre to give details of inflow of ‘illegal’ migrants (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court said there was a “feeling” that an “unlimited influx” of “illegal” migrants from Bangladesh not only changed demographics but also posed a burden on resources meant for Indian citizens.
On one hand, we do not have an open border through which anybody from Bangladesh can come and settle anywhere in India.
At the same time, if we do not take action to curb illegal migration, then it causes all these problems in India… The feeling in India that infrastructure is limited, education is limited, public hospitals are limited. We cannot allow an unlimited influx,” Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, heading a Constitution Bench.
The Bench is hearing a series of petitions by indigenous Assamese groups challenging Section 6A of the Citizenship Act, 1955.
The groups have argued that the special provision, brought in shortly after the signing of the Assam Accord in 1985, became a “beacon” for ‘illegal’ immigration into India to settle in Assam, gain Indian citizenship, deprive the local people of their political and economic rights and destroy the Assamese cultural identity.
Business
RBI’s MPC may rejig growth, inflation math (Page no. 19)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor Shaktikanta Das, who will outline the Monetary Policy Committee’s decisions, is expected to convey a continuation of the central bank’s hawkish stance with a pause on interest rates, but may reset growth and inflation projections for 2023-24 in view of the second quarter growth numbers and food inflation worries.
While retail inflation had eased to 4.87% in October, the rise in food prices remained sticky at 6.6% and may have risen further in November as prices of onions, tomatoes and pulses have hardened since.
The RBI had forecast an average inflation rate of 5.6% in the current quarter, based on which November and December may yet experience an almost 6% inflation rate.
World
EU tells China ‘differences’ must be addressed; Italy pulls out of BRI pact (Page no. 20)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
EU President Ursula von der Leyen told Chinese leader Xi Jinping that the bloc and its biggest trading partner must address their differences, in the first in-person EU-China summit in over four years.
Underlining Beijing’s challenges in getting Europe onside, news broke on the eve of the summit that Italy — the bloc’s third-largest economy — had withdrawn from its vast Belt and Road infrastructure initiative.
Meanwhile, China slammed what it called the “smearing” of its Belt and Road infrastructure project. China and the EU have ramped up diplomatic engagement this year in an attempt to repair ties.
In opening remarks, Ms. Von der Leyen, flanked by European Council President Charles Michel and EU foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell, told Mr. Xi “there are clear imbalances and differences that we must address”.
Science
Improved drug regimens for TB likely to reduce treatment time (Page no. 24)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
This November, at The Union World Conference on Lung Health 2023, there was much optimism, as it seemed that there were finally tools available to fast track work on multiple aspects of TB control.
Four, new improved drug regimens that could cut treatment time for drug resistant tuberculosis by up to two thirds, were the primary source of this optimism.
For nearly five decades, few advances have been rolled out in TB care. While TB does not yet have a viable vaccine that can render prevention possible, news of possible treatments that work, and specifically address the elephant in the room in TB care- duration of treatment- naturally gets spirits up.
It is the long duration of treatment, and subsequent drug toxicity that leads to patients being unable to tolerate the drugs, and also non-compliance with treatment schedules. This ultimately leads to drug resistant TB.
Echoing this optimism, Madhukar Pai, Global Health Associate Director, McGill International TB Centre, McGill University, Canada, said: “To me, the biggest progress in the recent past is the development of shorter regimens for all forms of TB, especially the 6 month all-oral treatments for drug-resistant TB. It is critical that all countries, especially India, scale up these 6 month shorter regimens for DR-TB.”