What to read in The Hindu

Can promises of ‘irrational’ poll freebies be curbed, SC asks govt. (Page no. 1) (GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

The Supreme Court on July 26 orally asked the Centre to find out from the Finance Commission whether there is a way to curb political parties from promising and distributing "irrational freebies" during election campaigns.

A Bench led by Chief Justice of India N. V. Ramana flagged the issue as "serious" and asked for means to control the promise of "freebies" to entice votes.

The court did not receive a clear-cut answer from Additional Solicitor General K. M. Nataraj on the Centre's position. The Election Commission of India (ECI), on the other hand, chose a hands-off approach, as was evident from their affidavit which said "whether such policies are financially viable or its adverse effect on the economic health of the State is a question that has to be considered and decided by the voters of the State.

The senior lawyer came forward and said freebies was a "serious issue" and had to be tackled at the level of the States. He said it would be unfair to put the liability on the Centre. He suggested tapping into the expertise of the Finance Commission.

The Finance Commission is an independent body. The Commission, while making allocations to the States, can take into account the debts of each individual States and examine whether offers of freebies would be viable for them.

The Bench promptly turned Mr. Nataraj and asked him to explore this avenue and get instructions from the government. The hearing came on a writ petition filed by BJP leader and lawyer, Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay, who had argued that the offer and distribution of "irrational freebies" amounted to bribery and unduly influencing voters. It vitiated free and fair elections in the country.

Mr. Upadhyay claimed that States in total had debts of over ₹70 lakh crore. He suggested that the Law Commission of India should be asked to examine the statutes to control the giving away of unreasonable freebies.

States

Karnataka HC notice to Centre on Twitter plea challenging ‘blocking’ (Page no. 4)

(GS Paper 3, Internal Security)

The High Court of Karnataka ordered issue of notice to the Central Government on a petition filed by micro-blogging platform Twitter challenging the legality of a series of ‘blocking orders’ issued by authorities under provisions of the Information Technology Act, 2000, either to block Twitter accounts or identified content of the accounts.

On July 26, the petition came up for hearing before a bench of Justice Krishna S. Dixit, who adjourned further hearing till August 25 while allowing Twitter to submit, in a sealed cover, copies of the ‘blocking orders’, which are treated as confidential documents as per the law.

The designated officer of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) had issued several ‘blocking orders’ since February 2021 asking Twitter to block tweets or accounts.

Senior Advocate Mukul Rohatgi, appearing for Twitter, has said that the blocking orders are contrary to the right to freedom of expression and the entire business of the company will come to an end due to the nature of a blocking order.

The counsel for the Central Government said that the Solicitor General of India, who will argue on behalf of the government, is infected with COVID-19, and he requires at least 15 days to recover from the infection.

Hence, the bench adjourned the hearing while accepting August 25 as the date for hearing the petition, on Mr. Rohatgi’s request.

The petition was filed after the designated officer of the MeitY, following a series of meeting with the Compliance Officer of Twitter on the issues raised on correctness of several ‘blocking orders’, issued a notice on June 27, 2022 informing that penal action would be initiated against Twitter for not complying with the ‘blocking orders’.

Twitter, which has complied with the ‘blocking orders’ under protest, has contended in the petition that the ‘blocking orders’ are manifestly arbitrary, procedurally and substantially not in consonance with Section 69A of the IT Act, 2000.

The ‘blocking orders’ are also contrary to the procedures and safeguards prescribed in the Information Technology (Procedures and Safeguards for Blocking of Access to Information by Public) Rules, 2009, the petitioner claims.

Rare flight of Antarctic’s Light-mantled Albatross to T.N. coast intrigues researchers (Page no. 4)

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

Rameswaram and adjoining islets of the Gulf of Mannar Marine National Park on the Adam’s Bridge (Ram Setu) are known for their unique marine ecosystem.

But the region grabbed the attention of international researchers as Asia’s first sighting of Light-mantled Albatross  (Phoebetria palpebrate), a species native to the Antarctic seas, was recorded here.

The sighting, ‘First Asian record of Light-mantled Albatross  Phoebetria palpebrata (Foster, 1785) from Rameswaram Island, Tamil Nadu, India’, has been published in the Journal of Threatened Taxa, and researchers are looking for more insights into what is regarded as a surprising transcontinental tour of the Antarctic seabird.

The record from the Palk Bay side of Rameswaram island is significant, and it throws up new challenges to researchers once these Antarctic birds migrate to Asia.

This finding also directs researchers to look for bird migration away from the well-known and established routes and sites. The location where the Albatross was spotted is part of the Palk Bay and near the Gulf of Mannar, an ‘Important Bird Area’ on India’s southeast coast, he adds.

It was an unexpected sighting and we initially believed it to be a Slender-billed Gull. We didn’t think then that this would be the first sighting of the bird in Asia.

As the nearest recorded site of the bird is around 5,000 km away from Rameswaram, the researchers feel a change in atmospheric pressure could have been among the reasons for the Albatross to land on an Indian shore.

Of late, changes in the wind pattern triggered by global warming are bringing strange birds to our region. A lot of changes are happening in the wind pattern owing to the increase in atmospheric temperature.

Birds like albatross, that are known to be on the move, use the wind and save their energy during flights. Even slight changes in the temperature can cause drastic changes in the wind pattern and birds could land in far-away places that are not familiar to them.

Editorial

 Whose GDP is it anyway? (Page no. 6)

(GS Paper 3, Economy)

In a few weeks, a quarterly ritual will play out in India. The Government will release the first quarter’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth numbers with some chest-thumping about how India is among the fastest-growing economies in the world.

Opposition parties will hold press conferences on the same day to counter such bombast with facts, rhetoric and nitpicking.

But the real question is: what is the significance and impact of GDP growth for the common person? The answer: very little.

It is safe to say that the average person’s primary and perhaps sole concern about the economy is the income they can earn.

It is well documented that for several years, the single most important demand of people in India is jobs, specifically, a high-quality formal sector job that ensures dignity of work, good income and job security.

 It is then apparent that GDP growth matters to the average Indian only if it can generate good quality jobs and incomes for them.

Using data of ‘employment in public and organised private sectors’ published by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), we can calculate that in the decade between 1980 and 1990, every one percentage point of GDP growth (nominal) generated roughly two lakh new jobs in the formal sector.

That is, if India’s GDP grew by 14% every year in the 1980s, it can be said that it created roughly 28 lakh new formal jobs.

In the subsequent decade from 1990 to 2000, every one percentage point of GDP growth yielded roughly one lakh new formal sector jobs, half of the previous decade.

In the next decade between 2000 and 2010, one percentage point of GDP growth generated only 52,000 new jobs. The RBI stopped publishing this data from 2011-12, but one can safely infer using proxy data that in the 2010-2020 decade, the number of new jobs generated for every percentage of GDP growth fell even further.

OPED

A path to global connectivity (Page no. 7)

(GS Paper 3, Science and Technology)

As terrestrial 5G mobile networks are being rolled out across countries, there is a renewed interest in integrating Non-Terrestrial Networks, the primary one being the low latency Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellite networks (SatNets), as a complement to terrestrial networks.

Towards this, Starlink, operated by the Elon Musk-owned SpaceX, and OneWeb, promoted by Bharti Global, have launched about 2,500 and 648 LEO satellites respectively at an altitude of about 1,200 km with the objective of promoting global broadband connectivity.

There are other players such as Reliance Jio in a joint venture with Luxembourg-based SES and Amazon’s Project Kuiper.

There are primarily three main use cases for integrating LEO SatNets with terrestrial 5G networks: (i) service continuity to provide seamless transition between terrestrial networks and SatNets in case of public safety, disaster management and emergency situations; (ii) service ubiquity to provide 5G services in unserved and underserved areas of the world, thereby bridging the digital divide; (iii) service scalability that utilises the unique capabilities of SatNets in multicasting and broadcasting similar content over a large geographical area. The LEO SatNets can provide service not only to stationary but also to in-motion users.

Satellites and terrestrial networks have always been considered two independent ecosystems, and their standardisation efforts have proceeded independent of each other.

In view of the above advantages, standard-setting organisations such as the Third Generation Partnership project (3GPP), comprising telcos and equipment manufacturers around the world, started integrating SatNets in the standardisation process.

As an extension to terrestrial networks, satellites were first mentioned in a deployment scenario of 5G in 3GPP Release 14. This was to provide 5G communication services for areas where terrestrial coverage was not available and also to support services that could be accessed more efficiently through satellite systems, such as broadcasting services and delay-tolerant services.

Interestingly, wireless communications through LEO satellites over long distances is proven to be 1.47 times faster than communication over the same distance through terrestrial optic fibre.

It is this advantage along with global coverage that provide a strong use case for LEO SatNets to complement terrestrial optic fibre networks.

News

19 Rajya Sabha members suspended in one go (Page no. 11)

(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)

Nineteen Members of Parliament (MPs) were on Tuesday suspended from attending Rajya Sabha session for the remainder of the week for disrupting the House proceedings and demanding a discussion on price rise and a rollback of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) on daily essentials.

The suspended MPs are seven from Trinamool Congress (TMC), six from Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK), three from Telangana Rashtra Samiti (TRS) and two from Communist Party of India (Marxist) and one from Communist Party of India (CPI). 

Later, the House was adjourned for the day as the Chair appealed the suspended MPs to withdraw from the House, but they continued to remain in the well of the House.

This is the highest number of single batch suspension and follows the suspension of four Congress MPs in Lok Sabha on Monday for the rest of the monsoon session.

In November last year, 12 MPs from Opposition parties were suspended for the entire winter session in Rajya Sabha.

Sushmita Dev, Mausam Noor, Shanta Chhetri, Dola Sen, Santanu Sen, Abir Ranjan Biswas and Nadiumal Haque of the TMC were suspended.

DMK’s M Mohamed Abdulla, Kanimozhi NVN Somu, M Shanmugam, S Kalyanasundaram, R Girirajan and N R Elango were also suspended. B Lingaiah Yadav, Ravichandra Vaddiraju and Damodar Rao Divakonda (TRS), V Sivadasan and A A Rahim (CPI-M) and Sandosh Kumar (CPI) were the other leaders.

Minister of State (MoS) for Parliamentary Affairs V. Muraleedharan moved a motion to suspend 10 MPs in the Rajya Sabha. When it was adopted by a voice vote, Deputy Chairman Harivansh Narayan Singh read out the names of 19 members who have been suspended for the rest of the week.

In the morning, the Upper House paid tributes to the soldiers killed during the Kargil war. As soon as papers were laid on the table of the House, Opposition MPs stormed to the Well of the House demanding a rollback of the GST on certain essential goods. Rajya Sabha Chairman M. Venkaiah Naidu, without even taking up the notices before him, adjourned the House till 12 p.m.

India adds five more Ramsar sites (Page no. 12)

(GS Paper 3, Environment)

India has added five more Ramsar sites, or wetlands that are of international importance, bringing the number of such sites to 54, Environment Minister Bhupendra Yadav. Delighted to inform that 5 more Indian wetlands have got Ramsar recognition as wetlands of international importance.

These are the Karikili Bird Sanctuary, Pallikaranai Marsh Reserve Forest and Pichavaram Mangrove in Tamil Nadu, the Sakhya Sagar in Madhya Pradesh and Pala Wetland in Mizoram.

India’s Ramsar wetlands are spread over 11,000 sq km — around 10% of the total wetland area in the country — across 18 States.

No other South Asian country has as many sites though this has much to do with India’s geographical breadth and tropical diversity. The United Kingdom (175) and Mexico (142) — smaller countries than India — have the maximum Ramsar sites whereas Bolivia spans the largest area with 148,000 sq km under the Convention protection.

Being designated a Ramsar site does not necessarily invite extra international funds but that States — and the Centre — must ensure that these tracts of land are conserved and spared from man-made encroachment.

Acquiring this label also helps with a locale’s tourism potential and its international visibility. Until 1981, India had 41 Ramsar sites though the last decade has seen the sharpest rise —13 — in designating new sites.

Wetlands, according to the Environment Ministry, are an “area of marsh, fen, peatland or water; whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres, but does not include river channels, paddy fields, human-made water bodies/ tanks specifically constructed for drinking water purposes and structures specifically constructed for aquaculture, salt production, recreation and irrigation purposes.

To be Ramsar site, however, it must meet at least one of nine criteria as defined by the Ramsar Convention of 1961, such as supporting vulnerable, endangered, or critically endangered species or threatened ecological communities or, if it regularly supports 20,000 or more waterbirds or, is an important source of food for fishes, spawning ground, nursery and/or migration path on which fish stocks are dependent upon.

Third parties joining CPEC is inherently illegal: India (Page no. 12)

(GS Paper 2, International Relations)

Days after China and Pakistan held a meeting to bring other countries into the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), India said that efforts to broaden CPEC's scope are "inherently illegal".

"We have seen reports on encouraging a proposed participation of third countries in so called CPEC projects. Any such actions by any party directly infringe on India's sovereignty and territorial integrity.

India firmly and consistently opposes projects in the so-called CPEC, which are in Indian territory that has been illegally occupied by Pakistan.

The Joint Working Group of International Cooperation and Coordination under CPEC met on July 21, when the Pakistani and Chinese officials discussed bringing in a third county into the fold.

CPEC consists of a number of infrastructure projects that are under construction across Pakistan and is aimed at connecting China overland with the Gulf countries by cutting through the Himalayan range in Gilgit Baltistan and the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. Soon after coming to power in Afghanistan last year, the Taliban leadership had expressed desire to join the infrastructure project.

Mr. Bagchi reminded Taliban and similar potential third parties of the problems associated with the CPEC, saying, "Such activities are inherently illegal, illegitimate and unacceptable, and will be treated accordingly by India."

The Chinese activities in the PoK and Gilgit Baltistan, too, have been in focus because of the upcoming G20 summit in 2023, which will be celebrated by India through a series of events across the country.

Officials here have not yet clarified if some of these events would be held in Jammu and Kashmir. Chinese State media had earlier this month joined Pakistan in opposing India hosting G20-related events in Kashmir.

Mr. Bagchi's comment on Tuesday is part of a series of similar remarks from India in the past few days, highlighting the importance of PoK in the Indian scheme of things.

Defence Minister Rajnath Singh referred to the Sharda temple in PoK on Sunday and said the region is an "integral" part of India.

Business

IMF cuts outlook for global growth, flags recession risk (Page no. 14)

(GS Paper 2, International Relations)

The International Monetary Fund cut global growth forecasts again on July 26, warning that downside risks from high inflation and the Ukraine war were materializing and could push the world economy to the brink of recession if left unchecked.

Global real GDP growth will slow to 3.2% in 2022 from a forecast of 3.6% issued in April, the IMF said in an update of its World Economic Outlook. It added that world GDP actually contracted in the second quarter due to downturns in China and Russia.

The Fund cut its 2023 growth forecast to 2.9% from the April estimate of 3.6%, citing the impact of tighter monetary policy.

World growth had rebounded in 2021 to 6.1% after the COVID-19 pandemic crushed global output in 2020 with a 3.1% contraction.

The Fund said its latest forecasts were "extraordinarily uncertain" and subject to downside risks from Russia's war in Ukraine spiking energy and food prices higher.

This would exacerbate inflation and embed longer-term inflationary expectations that would prompt further monetary policy tightening.

Under a "plausible" alternative scenario that includes a complete cut-off of Russian gas supplies to Europe by year-end and a further 30% drop in Russian oil exports, the IMF said global growth would slow to 2.6% in 2022 and 2% in 2023, with growth virtually zero in Europe and the United States next year.

Global growth has fallen below 2% only five times since 1970, the IMF said, including the 2020 COVID-19 recession.

The IMF said it now expects the 2022 inflation rate in advanced economies to reach 6.6%, up from 5.7% in the April forecasts, adding that it would remain elevated for longer than previously anticipated. Inflation in emerging market and developing countries is now expected to reach 9.5% in 2022, up from 8.7% in April.