8 May 2024, The Hindu
Kerala on alert as man dies of West Nile fever
Page 5
GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- The Kerala government on May 7 issued an alert in the State against West Nile fever, a mosquito-borne viral infection, after one death and around eight cases were reported from Kozhikode, Malappuram and Thrissur districts in recent days.
- According to official sources, the death of a 79-year-old man from Vadanappally in Thrissur on May 3 has been attributed to the infection.
- Five cases have so far been reported in Kozhikode. There are two suspected cases in Malappuram too.
Rules for a new dawn for the Indian legal industry
Page 6
Prelims syllabus: Current events of national and international importance
- India’s tryst with globalisation began in 1991, when the country liberalised its economy.
- Since then, few sectors have remained as insulated from global practices as the Indian legal industry.
- At one level, this is understandable given the suitability of Indian qualified lawyers, or advocates, for applying Indian laws in accord with the country’s socio-economic values.
- However, as India increasingly becomes a leading hub for cross-border commerce, the globalisation of the Indian legal industry becomes inevitable.
- After years of consultations, the Bar Council of India has also embraced this reality.
Plastic solution
Page 6
GS 3: Environmental pollution and degradation
- The Global Plastics Treaty, an ambitious initiative involving at least 175 United Nations member nations to eliminate the use of plastics, concluded its fourth round of negotiations recently.
- The goal is to finalise a legal document by the end of 2024 with timelines by when countries must agree to curb plastic production, eliminate its uses that create wastage, ban certain chemicals used in its production and set targets for recycling. Unfortunately, an agreement is not in sight.
- There is yet another round of negotiations scheduled in Busan, South Korea this November. The primary hurdles are economic.
- Oil producing and refining countries such as Saudi Arabia, the United States, Russia, India and Iran are reluctant about hard deadlines to eliminate plastic production.
An inheritance tax will help reduce inequality
Page 7
GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- Aremark by Chairman of Indian Overseas Congress Sam Pitroda on implementing an inheritance tax as a tool of wealth redistribution has sparked massive debates.
- In this article, we present rationale on why high inequality is harmful, and advocate for progressive taxes as a mechanism to reduce inequality.
- Primarily, we underscore the need to take a view of citizenship where the poor and the rich can participate equally in democratic decision-making.
- However, in an unequal society, a handful of dominant individuals can wield a disproportionate amount of power through control of resources.
- This will likely lead to a few wealthy elites dictating the socioeconomic and political decisions aimed to benefit them at the cost of the majority.
- The recent electoral bonds scam bears witness to this. The citizenship of wealthy elites would then carry more weight than the majority of the country.
- This is ethically hazardous.
The Kotak Mahindra Bank controversy
Page 8
Prelims syllabus: Economic and Social Development – Sustainable Development, Poverty, Inclusion, Demographics, Social Sector initiatives, etc.
- The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on April 24 barred Kotak Mahindra Bank (KMB) from onboarding new customers on its online and mobile banking channels, and issuing fresh credit cards.
- It would however be allowed to provide these services to its existing customers.
- The RBI stated the actions were necessitated because of deficiencies observed in the private lender’s IT systems and controls commensurate to its growth.
- KMB’s CEO Ashok Vaswani stated recently the bank was in continuous dialogue with RBI to attain the desired compliance outcomes.
What high-temperature maps get wrong about heatwaves
Page 9
Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Heatwaves arrive like clockwork over many regions of the world and are getting even more attention due to the upward trends in many regions in terms of their duration, frequency, intensity, and scale.
- They arrive at more or less expected times of the year because they are directly related to the natural seasonal arrival of spring.
- This pattern is called the climate. Most people see heat waves on the horizon as March rolls in over the Indian subcontinent.
- This is why the old adage says climate is what you expect and the weather is what you get; and herein lies the challenge of accurately predicting heatwaves at a hyperlocal scale to save lives.
- Fortunately, India is getting better at predicting extremes and managing the resulting disasters.
Advertisers should submit self-declarations before promoting products: SC
Page 10
GS 2: Structure, organisation and functioning of the Executive and the Judiciary
- The Supreme Court on Tuesday directed that advertisers should submit self-declarations that they are not misrepresenting or making false claims about products before promoting them in the media.
- The Bench of Justices Hima Kohli and Ahsanuddin Amanullah passed the order to protect consumers from being trapped by misleading advertisements.
Civilised society will not glorify violence, India tells Canada
Page 10
GS 2: International Relations- Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting the Indian interests
- India on Tuesday slammed Canada for allowing a float that depicted objectionable imageries and effigies.
- This comes in the backdrop of continued exchanges between Canada and India over allegations that Indian agents were involved in the assassination of Hardeep Singh Nijjar in Surrey, British Columbia, in June 2023.
- “Celebration and glorification of violence should not be a part of any civilised society.
- Democratic countries which respect the rule of law should not allow intimidation by radical elements in the name of freedom of expression,” official spokesperson of the Ministry of External Affairs, Randhir Jaiswal said in response to media queries.
The unseen effects of climate change on mental health
Page 18
Prelims syllabus: General issues on Environmental Ecology, Biodiversity and Climate Change
- The mercury is soaring across India, with many places reporting unusually high temperature readings.
- It may not be possible to link each heat event to climate change, but we know climate change is bringing such anomalies to more areas, and with greater intensity.
- We also know climate change is disproportionately affecting society’s most vulnerable members, including those with physical ailments, the elderly, the poor, and the socially and economically marginalised.
- And we also know climate change has become the basis of a slew of psychological afflictions of its own, including eco-anxiety, eco-paralysis, and solastalgia (a form of emotional or existential distress rendered by environmental changes), together with seeding general concerns in communities worldwide about their livelihoods, future, the future of their children, and their culture.
