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SC upholds SEBI probe, turns focus on Hindenburg’s ‘conduct’ (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
The Supreme Court trained the spotlight on the “conduct” of Hindenburg Research, directing the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) and investigating agencies of the Centre to probe and, if necessary, take “suitable action” if the losses suffered by Indian investors due to the short position taken by the U.S.-based firm in the Adani Group through U.S.-traded bonds and non-Indian traded derivative instruments involved any infraction of law.
The direction came in a 46-page judgment based on petitions claiming “precipitate decline” in investor wealth and volatility in the share market due to a fall in the share prices of the Adani Group following a report published by “activist short seller” Hindenburg Research on January 24, 2023.
The report had alleged that the Adani Group manipulated its share prices and failed to disclose transactions with related parties in violation of the regulations framed by the SEBI and securities’ laws.
However, even as it directed the SEBI and probe agencies to open an enquiry into Hindenburg and “other entities”, a three-judge Bench headed by Chief Justice of India D.Y. Chandrachud noted that the volatility in Adani stocks in the aftermath of the Hindenburg report had an impact only at an individual scale and did not result in market volatility.
Editorial
I-T searches, a form of extra-constitutional power (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
In August 2017, a nine-judge Bench of the Supreme Court of India, in Justice K.S. Puttaswamy vs Union of India, declared to rousing acclaim that the Constitution of India guaranteed to persons, a fundamental right to privacy.
It was widely believed that the verdict would help usher our civil rights jurisprudence into a new era, where our most cherished liberties are preserved and protected against arbitrary and whimsical governmental excesses.
The six separate judgments rendered in the case spoke through a common voice. The individual, the verdict affirmed, would be placed at the heart of our constitutional discourse and any state action impinging on our privacy, or indeed on any allied right, would be subject to the most piercing of scrutiny.
But much as the ruling infused life into the Constitution’s text, when it has come to interpreting our statutes, the meaning ascribed to our rights has remained unchanged.
The promised culture of justification — grounded in principles such as proportionality — is rarely on show. In its place, permeating the conversation is a culture of judicial deference, where our laws continue to be construed on lines that vest absolute authority in the executive.
Opinion
The dispute on India’s debt burden (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
Two recent observations by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) sparked reactions from the Indian Government. First, the IMF has raised concerns about the long-term sustainability of India’s debts.
Second, it reclassified India’s exchange rate regime, terming it a “stabilised arrangement” instead of “floating”. These emerged from the annual Article IV consultation report.
While the remark on the exchange rate can be viewed as comments on ‘excessive management’, the concerns on debt sustainability can be construed as a call for more prudent management of debt in the medium term.
The IMF, in the report, states that India’s government debt could be 100% of GDP under adverse circumstances by fiscal 2028.
According to them, “Long-term risks are high because considerable investment is required to reach India’s climate change mitigation targets and improve resilience to climate stresses and natural disasters.
This suggests that new and preferably concessional sources of financing are needed, as well as greater private sector investment and carbon pricing or equivalent mechanism.” The Finance Ministry refutes IMF projections as “a worst-case scenario and is not fait accompli”.
ULFA pact: an accord of safeguards? (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
Can a peace pact with a faction of an extremist organisation do what six years of agitation to drive out ‘Bangladeshis’ and a follow-up exercise to update the National Register of Citizens (NRC) could not? Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma believes it can while conveying a narrowing gap between the Assamese and Bengali communities through a formula to determine who qualifies as indigenous.
On December 29, 2023, the pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) signed a tripartite peace deal with the Centre and the Assam government.
Meanwhile, the hardline ULFA (Independent) faction headed by Paresh Baruah continues to wage war against the “Indian occupational forces” from its hideouts in Myanmar.
Mr. Sarma, however, has claimed the accord with ULFA has paved the way to ensure legislative and land rights for the Assamese people.
He said the pact has two major clauses – a commitment to following the principles applied for the 2023 delimitation exercise for future delimitation exercises in Assam and checking demographic changes by preventing people of one constituency from being registered as voters in another.
Text & Context
Why is upskilling necessary for the rural youth? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
At a group discussion held by Life Skills Collaborative, most of the rural youth when questioned about their aspirations for the future said they preferred staying in their village.
With the prevalent trend of urbanisation — the UN projects that almost 50% of the Indian population will be living in urban areas by 2047— it is crucial not to overlook those who choose to stay behind in villages.
Farming is the main source of rural livelihoods, with children from many rural families supplementing their family’s income by working on family-owned farms.
But the rural economy is experiencing a major occupational shift with more farmers quitting agriculture to join non-farming jobs, hinting at an agrarian crisis.
The National Sample Survey Office data recorded 34 million farmers leaving their farms and transitioning to other sectors such as construction during 2004-05 and 2011-12.
This highlights the need for not only making agriculture an aspiring vocation among rural youth, but also creating alternative employment opportunities.
Understanding the peace pact with ULFA (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)
The pro-talks faction of the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) signed a tripartite peace deal with the Centre and the Assam government on December 29, 2023.
The memorandum of settlement has several clauses for accelerating the State’s development and safeguarding the land and political rights of indigenous communities but a worry remains in the form of the anti-talks faction headed by Paresh Baruah.
The ULFA is a by-product of the anti-foreigners Assam Agitation that began in 1979 and ended with the signing of the Assam Accord in August 1985.
The fear that the Assamese and other indigenous communities would be pushed out of their own backyard by “illegal immigrants” (people from Bangladesh) one day had triggered the agitation.
While social organisations and students’ bodies chose the path of agitation, a group of radicals, including Arabinda Rajkhowa, Anup Chetia, and Paresh Baruah formed the ULFA on April 7, 1979, to launch an armed struggle with the objective of establishing a sovereign Assam.
The group took a decade to recruit and train its members in Myanmar, China, and Pakistan before striking with a series of abductions and executions.
The government responded in 1990 with an offensive codenamed Operation Bajrang and banned the ULFA. Assam was declared a disturbed area with the imposition of the Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act.
News
‘50% of cybercrime plaints originate in China, pockets of Cambodia and Myanmar’ (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Around 50% of cybercrime complaints received on the national cybercrime helpline every day have their origin in China and pockets of Cambodia and Myanmar, Rajesh Kumar, chief executive officer of the Indian Cyber Crime Coordination Centre (I4C), Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Addressing a press conference, he said that on average 5,000 cyber complaints are registered in the country every day.
From April 1, 2021-December 31, 2023, ₹10,319 crore had been lost to cyber fraud, he said. In 2023, around 15.5 lakh cybercrime complaints were received, up from 26,049 such complaints in 2019. In the past five years, 31 lakh cyber crime complaints were received and FIRs were filed in 66,000 cases.
Our estimate is that around 40-50% originate outside the country. When I say outside the country, the country that you mentioned, not the nation state, but the gangs that are operating from those countries are running these applications. We have pockets in Cambodia and Myanmar. We are seeing Chinese apps.
55% of patients were given antibiotics as a preventive measure, says survey (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
Over half of the almost 10,000 patients surveyed recently were given antibiotics to prevent infection, rather than to treat it, amid growing concerns about the rise in resistance to antibiotics, shows a Health Ministry survey.
As much as 94% of the patients surveyed were given antibiotics before the confirmation of a definitive medical diagnosis of the precise cause of infection.
Earlier this week, the Ministry released the results of the survey conducted by the National Centre for Disease Control (NCDC), mapping the patients treated for one to five days each at 20 tertiary-care institutes across 15 States and two Union Territories between November 2021 and April 2022.
Of the 11,588 admissions and 9,652 eligible patients, 72% were prescribed antibiotics. Of them, only 45% were prescribed antibiotics for therapeutic indications, meant to treat infection or disease.
SpaceX’s Falcon-9 to launch India’s GSAT-20; satellite to spread broadband coverage (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
NewSpace India Ltd. (NSIL), the commercial arm of the Indian Space Research Organisation, will launch GSAT-20 (renamed GSAT-N2), on board SpaceX’s Falcon-9 rocket during the second quarter of 2024.
The GSAT-20 is a high-throughput Ka-band satellite (HTS), which will be fully owned, operated and funded by the NSIL.
The agency said GSAT-20 offers Ka-Ka band HTS capacity with 32 beams having pan-India coverage, including the Andaman and Nicobar and Lakshadweep islands.
The satellite, weighing 4,700 kg, offers an HTS capacity of nearly 48 Gpbs and has been specifically designed to meet the demanding service needs of remote and unconnected regions.
As part of the space sector reforms announced by the Union government in June 2020, the NSIL was mandated to build, launch, own and operate satellites in “demand-driven mode” to meet service needs of the user.
As part of this, the NSIL successfully undertook its first demand-driven satellite mission, GSAT-24, in June 2022, and the capacity-board of the satellite was fully secured by Tata Play. GSAT-24 mission was fully funded by the NSIL. At present, the agency owns and operates 11 communication satellites in orbit.
Business
India Ratings raises GDP forecast to 6.7% (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
India Ratings and Research revised its GDP growth estimate for 2023-24 to 6.7% from an earlier projection of 6.2% citing strong second quarter growth, sustained government capex and the prospect of a new private capex cycle, even as it noted that consumption demand in the economy is not broad based.
Risks to global growth and merchandise trade volumes will continue to weigh on and restrict India’s GDP growth to 6.7% this year, said Sunil Kumar Sinha, principal economist at the rating firm.
Sustained real wage growth of households in the lower-income bracket is an imperative for a sustainable and broad-based recovery in consumption demand.
Science
From the moon to Europa, six space missions to be excited for in 2024 (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
The year 2023 proved to be an important one for space missions, with NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission returning a sample from an asteroid and India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission exploring the lunar South Pole region, and 2024 is shaping up to be another exciting year for space exploration.
Several new missions under NASA’s Artemis plan and Commercial Lunar Payload Services initiative will target the moon.
The latter half of the year will feature several exciting launches, with the launch of the Martian Moons eXploration mission in September, Europa Clipper and Hera in October and Artemis II and VIPER to the moon in November — if everything goes as planned.
NASA will launch Europa Clipper, which will explore one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Europa. Europa is slightly smaller than the earth’s moon, with a surface made of ice.
Beneath its icy shell, Europa likely harbours a saltwater ocean, which scientists expect contains over twice as much water as all the oceans here on Earth combined.
CO2 level in a planet’s atmosphere could indicate habitability (Page no. 18)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
New research shows that a lower amount of carbon dioxide gas in a planet’s atmosphere compared to that of its neighbours could hint at the presence of liquid water on that planet.
Researchers said that the drop in the carbon dioxide levels relative to the neighbouring planets implied a possible absorption of the gas by an ocean or isolation by biomass on a planetary scale.
While multiple studies have made attempts to identify planets lying in the habitable zones of the stars they orbit, the researchers said that until now there was no way of knowing whether they truly have liquid water.
The international team of researchers, led by the University of Birmingham in the U.K., and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the U.S., said that they had devised a new ‘habitability signature’ and that it was a “practical method for detecting habitability”.