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Hailing India-Russia relations as “very steady” and “very strong”, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar said that he was “confident” that the annual India-Russia leadership summit, which Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Russian President Vladimir Putin have skipped for two years, would be held in 2024.
We will be glad to see our friend, Mr. Prime Minister Modi in Russia, Mr. Putin told Mr. Jaishankar at a meeting in Moscow evening, official news agencies reported, adding that the Russian President discussed the situation in Ukraine in some detail with the Minister.
The meeting came after discussions with Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and Tuesday’s Inter-governmental Commission talks with Deputy Trade Minister Denis Manturovhi.
The meetings have yielded a number of agreements on trade, connectivity, nuclear energy, military technology, and arms supplies.
Editorial
Growth charts, WHO standards versus India crafted (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
High levels of child undernutrition have been a persistent problem in India. It is well recognised that the determinants of undernutrition are multiple, and include food intake, dietary diversity, health, sanitation, women’s status and the over-arching context of poverty.
The most common measures of childhood undernutrition are based on anthropometric standards such as height-for-age (stunting/chronic undernutrition) and weight-for-height (wasting/acute undernutrition).
Monitoring these is key to tracking progress in terms of actual outcomes. India, like most other countries, uses the globally accepted World Health Organization (WHO) Growth Standards to measure malnutrition.
However, there is an emergent debate on a number of issues related to the use of these growth standards in India, some of which are discussed below.
Opinion
Making health our top priority in 2024 (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The 2023 Navaratri festivities in Gujarat were overshadowed by the news that 10 people had purportedly died of heart attacks in a span of 24 hours.
What is even more disconcerting is that the victims ranged from a 13-year-old to middle-aged individuals, dispelling the myth that heart-related issues primarily afflict the elderly.
This alarming trend is not just confined to Gujarat; it is found across the nation, marking a paradigm shift in India’s disease burden.
While communicable diseases persist as a significant threat, non-communicable diseases (NCDs) such as cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, cancer, and chronic respiratory diseases have emerged as the predominant public health concern.
According to a World Health Organization (WHO) report titled ‘Invisible Numbers’, a staggering 66% of deaths in India in 2019 were attributed to NCDs.
The report also suggests that 22% of individuals aged 30 or older in India would succumb to NCDs before their 70th birthday, surpassing the global probability of 18%.
While the spectre of NCDs presents a challenge, the good news is it is never too late to invest in health. The fact is that NCD-led deaths are largely preventable, and the solution lies in the choices we make in our daily lives.
Text & Context
Will SLIM revolutionise lunar landings? (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Japan’s Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) spacecraft entered into orbit around the moon after a months-long journey, and ahead of its planned moon-landing attempt on January 19.
If the attempt succeeds, Japan will become only the fifth country to soft-land a robotic craft on the natural satellite, months after India succeeded with its Chandrayaan-3 mission in August. Perhaps more importantly, SLIM’s success or failure will also affect the upcoming Chandrayaan-4 mission.
SLIM is a spacecraft built and launched by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) on September 7, 2023, from the Tanegashima spaceport.
It weighed only 590 kg at launch, which is almost one-seventh of Chandrayaan-3, which weighed 3,900 kg at launch. Of course, the latter mission also carried a larger suite of instruments.
News
Centre hikes copra MSP by ₹250-₹300 per quintal for 2024 (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA), which met here on Wednesday, has decided to increase the minimum support price (MSP) for copra for 2024. The new MSP for milling copra will be ₹11,160 a quintal — an increase of ₹300 from the 2023 season.
The new MSP for ball copra will be ₹12,000 per quintal — an increase of ₹250 per quintal. The rate will be effective from next year. Briefing reporters after the meeting, Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Anurag Thakur said that though copra prices had fallen globally, the Narendra Modi government had decided to provide an MSP of at least 50% higher than the production cost.
Accordingly, the copra MSP has been increased by ₹250-₹300 per quintal for 2024 season. According to a government release, the new rates would ensure a margin of 51.84% for milling copra, and 63.26% for ball copra.
Grow local, eat local: Bengal farmers hold a celebration of indigenous seeds (Page no. 16)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Farmers from several districts of West Bengal organised an indigenous seed festival and took a pledge to conserve different varieties of native seeds. The festival, a one-of-its-kind, was held at Contai in Purba Medinipur earlier this month.
Hundreds of farmers from various districts brought indigenous varieties of paddy, pulses and vegetables, and exchanged traditional knowledge among themselves.
The festival was organised by ActionAid, an NGO, along with Kajla Janakalyan Samiti and Purba Medinipur Kisan Swaraj Samity.
This is a unique initiative where practising farmers exchanged their knowledge of indigenous seed varieties. ActionAid works in 22 States in India on the issue of climate resilience and sustainable farming. The seed festival was a step in that direction
Mr. Nayak said the initiative is part of the climate justice campaign launched by ActionAid across India. “Interface between farmers will help in building discourse between climate change and organic farming, and will help us understand and systematically expand the access and control over indigenous seeds,” he added.
World
War on Hamas to grind on for months: Israel military chief (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Israeli forces pounded central Gaza by land, sea and air on Wednesday and Palestinian authorities reported dozens more deaths in the 11-week-old conflict after Israel’s military chief said the war on Hamas would grind on for months.
Reflecting Israeli resolve to wipe out Hamas despite growing international calls for a ceasefire, Israel’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi said the fighting would last “many months” and there were no “magic solutions” or “shortcuts”.
The Gaza Health Ministry said Israeli forces had killed 195 Palestinians and wounded 325 in the past 24 hours, bringing the recorded toll to 21,110 killed and 55,243 wounded in Israeli attacks in the coastal territory since October 7.
A telecommunications outage in much of the enclave hit efforts to reach Palestinian casualties overnight but was gradually coming back online at mid-morning.
Business
Indian banks’ asset quality improved to decadal high: RBI (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Gross Non-Performing Assets (GNPA) ratio of Indian scheduled commercial banks (SCBs) consistently improved in the second quarter of FY24, sliding to a fresh decadal low, as per the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI’s) report titled ‘Trend and Progress of Banking in India’.
The improvement in asset quality, measured by GNPA ratios, that began in 2018-19 continued during 2022-23.
The GNPA ratio of SCBs fell to a decadal low of 3.9% at end-March 2023 and further to 3.2% at end-September 2023.
About 45% of the reduction in SCBs’ GNPAs during 2022-23 came from recoveries and upgradations.
The consolidated balance sheet of SCBs (excluding Regional Rural Banks) grew by 12.2% in 2022-23, the highest in nine years.
The main driver of this growth on the asset side was bank credit, which recorded its fastest pace of expansion in more than a decade.
Science
Scientists are using fruit flies to find clues to Huntington’s disease (Page no. 22)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Every month, the medical genetics clinic in the Nizam’s Institute of Medical Sciences, Hyderabad, sees three or four people with Huntington’s disease. The numbers might appear small, but in each case behind the individual lies a family devastated.
At first, Huntington’s disease patients have mild symptoms: forgetfulness, loss of balance, and clumsiness in performing simple tasks.
The symptoms begin between the ages of 30 and 50, by when the patient might also have had children. The condition progressively worsens.
The patient suffers mood swings, has difficulty in reasoning, shows abnormal and uncontrollable jerky movements, and experiences difficulty in speaking, swallowing, and walking.
The patient eventually dies, but not before raising the spectre that one or more of their children will suffer the same fate. There is no cure.
This is why understanding how Huntington’s disease progresses at the molecular level is important, so that it can reveal some mechanism that, if interrupted, can stop the disease in its tracks.