31 July 2024, The Hindu
‘Corporate policies must be flexible for both genders, should enable women advance in their careers’
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GS 1: Society: Role of women and women’s organisations
- Designing corporate policies that are gender-neutral like allowing parental leave for both men and women, introducing flexibility for both genders, will help in advancement of women’s careers, said Eva James, vice-president, Global Service Delivery and Global Hubs, Renault Nissan Technology and Business Centre India Private Ltd, at The Hindu’s Tamil Nadu Women’s Summit 2024 held at ITC Grand Chola Hotel in Chennai on Tuesday.
- Speaking on the topic ‘Women in IT: From Coding to Leading’, Ms. James quoted well-known corporate honcho Indira Nooyi’s statement that women’s biological and career clocks are in complete conflict with each other.
‘Youngsters can make a huge impact in the space sector’
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- At The Hindu’s Tamil Nadu Women Summit 2024 on Tuesday, July 30, Saraniya Periaswamy, Vehicle Director of Agnibaan SOrTeD, and K. Umamaheswari, Project Director of Mission-01 at Agnikul Cosmos, discussed the many challenges they faced during the recent launch of Agnibaan SOrTeD, the world’s first rocket with a single-piece 3D-printed engine.
- Ms. Periaswamy is renowned for her in-depth knowledge of the more than 8,000 components of the vehicle.
- “There was no bias at my workplace. I seized every opportunity that came my way, which made me flourish and attain the position of Vehicle Director.
- Every woman has the potential to achieve similar success,” she said during the ‘Breaking Barriers: Beyond the Sky’ segment.
A licence raj for digital content creators
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GS 3: General awareness in the fields of IT, Space, Computers, Robotics, Nanotechnology, bio-technology
- Two CSDS-Lokniti surveys provide insights into 642 million voters and 924 million broadband connections.
- These surveys covered thousands of respondents and highlight the growing importance of digital media beyond the metropolises.
- The post-poll survey shows that 29% of respondents consume political material every day on digital platforms, with 18% doing so occasionally.
- While this is less than television (42%), it surpasses newspapers (16.7%) and radio (6.9%).
- Respondents accessed WhatsApp (35.1%), YouTube (32.3%), Facebook (24.7%), Instagram (18.4%), and Twitter (6.5%) several times a day.
Duality — understanding Indian voter behavior
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Prelims syllabus: Indian Polity and Governance – Constitution, Political System, Panchayati Raj, Public Policy, Rights Issues, etc.
- As the results of the 18th Lok Sabha election were announced on June 4, 2024, they sent ripples across the political landscape.
- The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won 240 seats, but fell well below the majority mark in the Lok Sabha.
- Though the general election lacked the “criticality” of a power shift, it would be a mistake to overlook the Indian voter’s nuanced behaviour and the diversity of factors they consider when making electoral choices.
- This article examines such “diversity” through the lens of prudence and paradox inherent in electoral behaviour, drawing on data from the poll surveys conducted by the Lokniti-Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS).
- The article uses pre- and post-election surveys conducted by Lokniti, predominantly from 2024 but also includes data from 2014.
- By examining voters’ responses to diverse themes captured in the survey, it aims to reflect both the discerning and contradictory nature of voter decision-making, representing two different sides of a vibrant democracy.
Option or stratagem?
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GS 2: issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- The manner in which some Governors have been dealing with legislation passed by the State legislatures is a travesty of the Constitution.
- After the Supreme Court of India intervened in the case of Punjab and raised questions about the action or inaction of Governors in Tamil Nadu and Telangana, it was believed that incumbents in Raj Bhavans would end their deliberate inaction on Bills passed by the Assemblies.
- However, it appears that on finding that their supposed discretion to sit indefinitely on the Bills or withhold assent to them has been significantly curtailed, Governors have taken to the stratagem of sending Bills they disapprove of to the President for consideration.
- When the President refuses assent, based on the advice of the Union government, there is no recourse left for the State legislatures.
Impatience with jobs
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- One of the biggest pivots in this Budget speech has been a shift in the stance on employment and the sharply higher frequency of mentions it received.
- ‘Employment’ was the central theme of the Budget, that placed the Prime Minister’s package to facilitate jobs and skills on top of its list of soothing promises.
- The proposed ₹2 lakh crore package seeks to help 4.1 crore youth over five years with three employment linked-incentive schemes — two of which encourage hiring of fresh entrants in the job market for at least one year with subsidies, while a third attempts to incentivise companies to scale up hiring beyond their previous year’s worker count.
- To bridge the gap between skill sets and available job roles, a spruce-up of 1,000 industrial training institutes with courses designed in tandem with industry has been promised, along with an ambitious internship programme for a crore youth in 500 top companies.
The case for a Legal Advisory Council
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Prelims syllabus: Current events of national and international importance.
- The inability of the National Democratic Alliance to reach a comfortable electoral milestone could be attributable, in some measure, to its unfitting handling of legal issues.
- There is scope to review the process of legal consultancy to the government on legal matters.
- In this context, continuous, informed, and empirically valid legal inputs to the government from well-structured think tanks could be vital in clarifying the real intent of certain legislation.
- There is a case to be made for the establishment of a Legal Advisory Council (LAC) to the Prime Minister akin to the Economic Advisory Council (EAC).
The different armed groups of Myanmar
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GS 3: Security challenges and their management in border areas
- The Myanmar military’s coup d’état in 2021 has brought about a seismic shift in the country’s politics.
- The military leadership’s assumption that resistance to the coup would quickly dissipate proved to be a gross miscalculation.
- The removal of Aung San Suu Kyi and other civilian leaders from the political scene prompted sustained violent resistance.
- Unable to contain this, the military has resorted to indiscriminate use of force, which has dented whatever little legitimacy it had.
On the ethics of hunger strikes as a mode of protest
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GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health, Education, Human Resources
- “It is far easier to die of a police bullet or by going to the gallows then perishing away ‘iota by iota’ in a hunger strike,” freedom fighter Jatin Das is said to have told his fellow revolutionaries whilst in prison.
- His comment was made to dissuade those of a weaker constitution to refrain from engaging in a method of protest which was bound to take a heavy toll on their physical and mental being, and possibly much worse.
- People have undertaken arduous fasting to meet different ends, often for sacred reasons, since the earliest days of civilisation.
- However, we are less concerned with the spiritual askesis of the devotee than we are with the willful courting of hunger engaged in with the intent to inspire, dissuade, or pressurise others.
- Hunger strikes are a form of protest in our age, and depending on the condition of the prisoner involved, may be a last resort of resistance.
150% customs duty on lab chemicals alarms scientists
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilisation of resources, growth, development and employment.
- Three digits have thrown scientists across the country into a tizzy. Budget documents, made public earlier this week, show that the Basic Customs Duty on laboratory chemicals, a critical component of research, has been hiked to 150% from the existing 10%.
- Imported chemicals, reagents and enzymes come under the category of laboratory chemicals and are vital to experimental research across nearly every domain of scientific research. Most of them are niche products and can be expensive.
- The issue sparked outrage on social media with estimates by researchers that chemicals that usually cost ₹1,00,000 would now be bought for ₹2,50,000.
India’s open ecosystems facing an unusual threat: encroaching trees
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GS 3: Environment- Conservation
- Increasing tree cover is often seen as a positive outcome of biodiversity conservation, and a much-needed effort to combat climate change.
- What happens, then, if tree cover increases in areas that historically hosted a different habitat?
- In a study published on June 5 in the journal Global Change Biology, scientists of the Universities of Witwatersrand, Cape Town, and Oxford reported that more trees in open ecosystems like savannahs and grasslands have substantially reduced the number of native grassland birds.
- In the African Savannah in particular, the population of grassland birds has declined by more than 20%.
