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For the first time in about 11 years, the government released the broad findings of the All India Household Consumption Expenditure Survey carried out between August 2022 and July 2023.
The Household Consumer Expenditure Survey (HCES) is usually conducted by the National Statistical Office (NSO) every five years.
However, findings of the last survey, conducted in 2017-18 soon after the demonetisation of high-value currency notes and the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax (GST), were never released after the government cited “data quality” issues.
As per the latest survey, the average monthly per capita consumer expenditure (MPCE) in Indian households rose by 33.5% since 2011-12 in urban households to ₹3,510, with rural India’s MPCE seeing a 40.42% increase over the same period to hit ₹2,008.
News
Three new criminal laws to come into force on July 1 (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The three new criminal laws that were passed by Parliament in 2023 will come into effect from July 1, according to a notification by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).
Section 106(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which provides for punishment of “0-10 years” in “hit-and-run” cases, has been put on hold. Earlier, transporters and drivers across the country struck work to protest the particular provision.
The Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita and the Bharatiya Sakshya Adhiniyam that will replace the Indian Penal Code, 1860; Code of Criminal Procedure, 1898; and the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, respectively, received President Droupadi Murmu’s assent on December 25, 2023.
Centre to examine Ladakh’s demand for constitutional safeguards (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Constitution)
The Union government has agreed to examine how the provisions of the Sixth Schedule of the Constitution can be implemented in Ladakh’s context, according to an understanding reached between civil society leaders and Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) officials.
In the next meeting, legal and constitutional experts will come together to discuss the legality and the context of granting Statehood to Ladakh and its inclusion under the Sixth Schedule.
The Sixth Schedule under Article 244 of the Constitution protects tribal populations, allowing for the creation of autonomous development councils which can frame laws on land, public health, and agriculture. As of now, 10 autonomous councils exist in Assam, Meghalaya, Tripura, and Mizoram.
On Saturday, members of the Leh Apex Body (LAB) and Kargil Democratic Alliance (KDA) in Ladakh met MHA officials for a third round of meetings.
The LAB and KDA are demanding Statehood and the inclusion of Ladakh in the Sixth Schedule thus giving it a tribal status, job reservations for residents, and a
World
Kyiv hosts Western leaders on second war anniversary (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed Western leaders to Kyiv on Saturday to mark the second anniversary of Russia’s full-scale invasion, as Ukrainian forces run low on ammunition and weaponry and foreign aid hangs in the balance.
Mr. Zelenskyy posted a video from the Hostomel airfield together with Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni, Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, as well as the European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.
Two years ago, here, we met enemy landing forces with fire; two years later, we meet our friends and our partners here.
The Western leaders arrived shortly after a Russian drone attack struck a residential building in the southern city of Odesa, killing at least one person. Three women also sustained severe burns in the attack on Friday evening.
Science
Kerala takes a pioneering step to curb antimicrobial resistance (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
In 2011, the Indian government introduced the H1 rule to prohibit the over-the-counter (OTC) sales of antibiotics without a prescription, responding to the growing concern over antimicrobial resistance (AMR).
However, due to the healthcare system’s heterogeneity across the country, the implementation of this rule faced significant challenges.
In 2013, following the Chennai Declaration document and initiative by medical societies in India, the Indian government modified the rule to limit the OTC restriction to second and third-line antibiotics, allowing the sale of first-line antibiotics without a prescription.
This modification was aimed to ensure that life-saving antibiotics remained accessible to the public, especially in remote areas of the country where doctors might not be readily available.
Despite a decade passing since the rule’s announcement, no State government had adopted it until Kerala recently initiated Operation AMRITH (Antimicrobial Resistance Intervention for Total Health).
This programme enforces the original H1 rule, mandating a doctor’s prescription for acquiring any class of antibiotics.
Prehistoric case of Edwards syndrome found for the first time (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)
Researchers have reported chromosomal disorders discovered from prehistoric skeletal remains, dating up to approximately 5,500 years old — including six cases of Down syndrome and one case of Edwards syndrome.
According to the authors of a paper published in the journalNatureCommunications, the findings may represent the first time Edwards syndrome has been identified from historic or prehistoric remains.
Individuals with chromosomal trisomy carry three copies of a chromosome in their cells, instead of two. Trisomy of chromosomes number 21 or 18 results in Down syndrome and Edwards syndrome, respectively.
There have only been a few documented cases of Down syndrome in ancient individuals, largely owing to difficulties in identifying genetic disorders without modern techniques for analysing ancient DNA samples. How certain ancient societies were affected by and responded to genetic disorders remains elusive.
Dr.Adam Rohrlach from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany and others screened almost 10,000 genomes from ancient human skeletal remains from either Ireland, Bulgaria, Greece, Spain or Finland for chromosomal trisomies and identified six cases of Down syndrome and one case of Edwards syndrome.
These individuals, mostly died either before or shortly after birth. Some of the cases were particularly ancient; two were from as far back as the Bronze Age (about 2,700 BCE) and one from the Neolithic period (about 3,500 BCE).
FAQ
The Global South’s stand on Israel’s war in Gaza (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Israel’s war in Gaza in retaliation for the October 7 terror attacks by Hamas took centre-stage at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) this week again, as the UN General Assembly raised the question of illegal Israeli settlements in the court.
The hearings sparked a further divide between Western countries, many of whom sought to defend Israel’s bombardment of Gaza as the “right to self-defence”, and were ranged against Global South countries, most of whom had supported South Africa’s bid to have the ICJ try Israel for “war-crimes” for its actions. The latest hearings opened in the backdrop of a major rift between Brazil and Israel.
The current hearings of the ICJ at the Peace Palace in The Hague (The Netherlands) are not a consequence of the Israel-Hamas conflict of the past few months, but pre-date them.
In December 2022, the UN General Assembly had asked the court for an “advisory opinion” on two specific questions pertaining to Israeli actions in the past: first, what are the “legal consequences” for Israel over its policy of “occupations, settlement and annexation” of Palestinian territories since the 1967 war, and attempts to change the demographic status of Jerusalem, and second, what legal consequences arise for all other states and the United Nations over Israel’s “discriminatory” policies towards Palestinians.
What is the SC’s interim order on the Forest Act? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Supreme Court ordered the government to continue following the all-encompassing “dictionary meaning” of forest as upheld in a 1996 Supreme Court decision in the T.N. Godavarman Thirumulpad case till a final verdict is handed out on a petition challenging the amended Forest Conservation Act of 2023.
The court has also asked the government to make public, by April, a consolidated record of land deemed as forest by States and Union Territories.
The Forest Conservation Act, which came into force in 1980, was conceived to stop the razing of forests. An estimated four million hectares of forest land had been diverted from 1951-75 and once the Act came into force, the average annual rate of diversion dropped to about 22,000 hectares — or about a tenth — going by figures cited by the Centre to a parliamentary panel to demonstrate the effectiveness of the legislation.
Is the Ukraine war changing world order? (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Russia’s war in Ukraine has entered its third year. What many thought on February 24, 2022 would be a swift Russian military operation against its smaller neighbour has turned out to be the largest land war in Europe since the end of the Second World War.
The war has pushed Russia to turn towards Asia and the Global South in general, while the West continues to support Ukraine in its bid to push back and weaken Russia. A vast majority of countries, including India, remain neutral as the violence continues.
There’s now a consensus among defence experts — as well as reports from leaked western intelligence assessments — that President Vladimir Putin made a grave strategic miscalculation when he ordered the invasion of Europe’s second largest country (after Russia), also a close ally of NATO, with less than 2,00,000 troops.
Mr. Putin probably expected a quick victory, like he did in Georgia in 2008 and Crimea in 2014. But as the Russian war machine got stuck in Ukraine, the West moved in with military assistance, training and international mercenaries.
Business
Engineering exports may turn positive for 2023-24 despite weak demand: EEPC (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
Engineering goods exporters, who have had a difficult year thanks to weak global demand, are still hopeful of ending 2023-24 in the black, with shipments to 13 major markets growing in January.
Exports of engineering goods, which have accounted for a quarter of India’s merchandise exports in recent years, rose for the second straight month in January, albeit at a slower pace of 4.2% compared to 9.8% in December.
Cumulative exports so far this year now stand at $88.1 billion, just 0.2% below the $88.27 billion recorded between April 2022 and January 2023.
Last month, the value of shipments to about a dozen major markets clocked significant growth, including the United States (6%), China (15.1%), Russia (30.8%) and the UAE (3.8%).
The major drivers for the growth were iron and steel products, copper products and electric machinery, with demand from South Asia and Europe also propping up volumes.