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A first-of-its-kind school for imparting lessons on humanity and societal happiness will take root in the Bodoland Territorial Region (BTR) of Assam at the dawn of 2024.
The foundation of the International School of Peace and Happiness is scheduled to be laid in the first week of January at Bijni in Chirang district of western Assam, one of five in the BTR.
The project would be initiated after a year of planning by the Bodoland Territorial Council (BTC), which administers the BTR.
Conflicts of the kind Manipur has been experiencing are heart-wrenching for the region. The areas now under BTR went through a similar phase over 50 years of movement (for Statehood).
The BTR areas have had a history of extremism resulting in ethnic conflicts, especially between the Bodos, the largest plains tribe in the northeast, and migrant Muslims, and between the Bodos and Adivasis.
Hundreds were killed and more than 500,000 people were displaced in major communal clashes in 1993, 2008, and 2012.
News
India and Oman in talks to sign an economic partnership agreement (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India and Oman are on track to sign a comprehensive economic partnership agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced. Welcoming Sultan Haitham bin Tarik the ruler of Oman to his first state visit to India, Mr. Modi said that the presence of a large number of Indians in Oman is a living example of the healthy relation between the two countries.
Our proximity is not just geographical and indeed reflects in our thousands of years’ old trade and cultural links. This also reflects in the way, we always give priority to each other.
In a briefing after the official meeting, Foreign Secretary Vinay Mohan Kwatra said that this is the first state visit to India by an Omani ruler in 26 years.
Sultan Haitham bin Tarik took charge in 2020 after the death of Sultan Qaboos, who was known for his friendly attitude to India.
World
Myanmar ethnic minority fighters seize town from military (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Ethnic minority fighters battling Myanmar’s junta they seized a trading hub in Shan state, days after China said it had mediated a temporary ceasefire.
Clashes have raged across Myanmar’s northern Shan state since the Arakan Army (AA), the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA) launched a joint offensive late October.
The three allied groups — known as the Three Brotherhood Alliance — say they have captured military positions and border hubs vital for trade with China, posing what analysts say is the biggest military challenge to the junta since it seized power in 2021.
On Thursday, Beijing announced a temporary ceasefire between the alliance and the Myanmar military. There have been peaceful spells in MNDAA-held areas, but clashes have continued in areas controlled by the TNLA and the AA.
Taiwan to receive $300 million worth equipment from U.S. (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
The U.S. State Department has approved a $300 million sale of equipment to help maintain Taiwan’s tactical information systems, the Pentagon said on Friday, the latest U.S. assistance for the island’s defences.
The U.S. is bound by law to provide Chinese-claimed Taiwan with the means to defend itself and arms sales are a frequent source of tension between Washington and Beijing.
The Pentagon’s Defence Security Cooperation Agency said the sale was for follow-on life cycle support to maintain Taiwan’s Command, Control, Communications, and Computers, or C4, capabilities.
The support would improve Taiwan’s capability to “meet current and future threats by enhancing operational readiness” and maintain existing C4 capabilities that provide secure flow of tactical information, it added.
Science
Additional organic molecules found in Enceladus’s plume (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology
Molecules including methanol, ethane, and oxygen are present in gaseous plumes emitted from Saturn’s moon Enceladus, a re-analysis of data from the Cassini mission suggests.
The findings are published in Nature Astronomy.
The Cassini spacecraft first discovered large plumes of material escaping into space from Enceladus’s southern hemisphere in 2005.
These plumes appear to be coming from a subsurface ocean through fissures in the moon’s icy surface. Analyses of data from Cassini’s Ion and Neutral Mass Spectrometer (INMS) collected during flybys in 2011 and 2012 determined the presence of water, carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, and molecular hydrogen in the samples.
CT scans associated with increased risk of blood cancers (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Ever since physicians started using computed tomography (CT) for medical imaging, its use grew rapidly. The benefits of CT imaging in clinically needed cases are well known.
However, its potential for increased cancer risks and relatively high cumulative doses from multiple scans have raised concerns among the medical and scientific community.
Sensitive sections such as children, adolescents and young adults are vulnerableand technologists must use appropriate protocols for them while they undergo CT scans.
Radiation doses at moderate (over 100mGy) to high (over 1Gy) values are known to cause haematological malignancies (blood cancers) in both children and adultsand other cancers.
However, there has been uncertainty about risk at low doses(less than 100mGy) that are typically associated with diagnostic CT examinations. Arecent study (Nature Medicine, 9 November 2023) suggests that even low doses of radiation have a small probability of causing blood cancer.
FAQ
How will Article 370 verdict impact federalism? (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
On December 11, the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the power of the President to abrogate Article 370 of the Constitution, which in August 2019 led to the reorganisation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) into two Union Territories and denuded it of its special privileges.
It reasoned that Article 370 was only a ‘temporary provision’ to ease the accession of the then princely State to the Union at a time of internal strife and war.
In the lead judgment, Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud, writing for himself, Justices B.R. Gavai and Surya Kant, pointed out that J&K had divested itself of “any element of sovereignty” after the execution of the Instrument of Accession to the Union in October 1947.
Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and Sanjiv Khanna concurred in their opinions. Constitutional experts say the observations in the verdict will have a lasting impact on federalism, which is recognised as a basic feature of our Constitution.
Is the world closer to phasing out fossil fuel? (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The 28th edition of the Conference of Parties (COP) concluded in Dubai this week with 198 signatory countries agreeing that the world must “transition” away from fossil fuels in a “just, orderly and equitable manner” to achieve net zero by 2050.
Far from it. The Dubai Consensus, as this agreement is called, is significant only because this is the first time since 1995, when the first ever COP was held in Berlin, that there is a formal acknowledgement that emissions from fossil fuels are the main culprit driving global warming.
So far, all agreements have only spoken of the need to stem “greenhouse gas emissions.” This is despite it being common knowledge that three-fourth of such emissions and 90% of carbon dioxide are the result of burning coal, oil and gas.
It was only in the 26th edition of the COP, in Glasgow in 2021, that countries agreed to tackle coal — the fossil fuel with the biggest global-warming footprint — by agreeing to “phase down” its use.
It’s important to keep in mind here that “phase down” and “phase out” have no meaning on their own because they do not refer to any specific year by which the use of these fuels must terminate.
Why has Hungary blocked EU aid to Ukraine? (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
At a meeting this week, leaders of the European Union (EU) agreed to start negotiations for Ukraine’s accession to the EU. Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who had vowed to oppose this move, allowed the decision to go through. But he blocked the EU’s €50 billion aid package for Ukraine.
Prime Minister Orban, a rightwing leader, is a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin. In April 2022, after his re-election, he named Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky as one of the “opponents” he had to overcome.
He believes that the regime in Ukraine is beset by corruption, and that the country is not yet ready for EU membership.
He believes Ukraine should first serve as a strategic partner of the EU for some time before membership talks can begin.
He has been opposed to the financial package on the grounds that a non-EU member should not be getting such huge funds at a time when Hungary, an EU member-state, has been denied funds that were specifically allocated for it.
Profiles
Junta down not out (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
In a world and time where absolute rule by a military junta in a country is considered an anachronism, the Tatmadaw, or the military in Myanmar, seeks to maintain such a regime after gaining absolute power through a coup in February 2021.
But the backlash against the coup has arguably been the severest that the Tatmadaw has faced in six decades of dominance in Myanmar post-independence.
The current iteration of the junta goes by the appellation State Administration Council (SAC), which organised the third major coup in the country’s independent history to oust the elected civilian National League for Democracy (NLD)-led government.
To tackle the agitations that followed the coup, the military reverted to its oft-used tactics of repression even as the NLD and other pro-democracy activists went on to form a National Unity Government (NUG) in exile.
Business
Textile sector distress damps wages, sparks worker exodus (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The challenges over the past year at India’s textile and apparel sector, the country’s second-largest employer with almost 45 million direct jobs, have exposed the vulnerabilities of its workers and the fragile ecosystem they operate in.
The slowdown in the sector has kept wages flat, deprived workers of traditional incentives, pushing arguably lakhs of them into hunting for jobs elsewhere.
While the degree of the impact varies within the sector based on the unit’s size, the kinds of textiles they deal with (handloom, power loom, manmade fabric, etc,), there is no comprehensive study indicating the level of stress in the post COVID-19 years.
Electrical posts, factory gates, or tree trunks that used to sport ‘tailors wanted’/‘workers wanted’ boards at Tiruppur, known as India’s ‘t-shirt town’, now stand bare.
A sweeper at one of the garment factories in the city who took home ₹15,000 as bonus last year received less than a third (₹4,500) this year.