5 August 2024, The Hindu
Kerala pushes for ‘national disaster’ tag for landslide
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GS 3: Disaster and disaster management
- The Kerala government has requested the Centre to declare the catastrophic landslide that devastated at least three villages in Vythiri taluk in the Wayanad district on July 30 a national disaster.
IRCTC plugs passenger data vulnerability on insurance site
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GS 3: Challenges to internal security through communication networks, basics of cyber security
- The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has addressed a critical vulnerability on its insurance portal that previously allowed unauthorised access to passengers’ travel details and enabled changes to nominee information in the insurance policy.
- Cybersecurity researcher Nilabh Rajpoot of Noida discovered the bug after booking train tickets on the IRCTC website and opting for travel insurance.
- He received a link via SMS that, upon entering the PNR and registered mobile number, opened the travel insurance policy provided by United India Insurance Co Ltd. The link included an option to update nominee details.
SC ruling today on Delhi L-G’s power to appoint aldermen
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GS 2: Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
Election overhang
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GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment
- Production in India’s eight core infrastructure sectors remained largely dampened by the impact of a slowdown in state spending on public works in June, when the general election ended in the early part of the month leading to the formation of a new government at the Centre.
- The heatwaves that had impacted a wide range of economic activity in the country’s northern and western parts in May, extended into June, adding to the overall slowdown in industrial production.
- Provisional data on the Index of Eight Core Industries (ICI) released by the Commerce and Industry Ministry on July 31 show output in five of the sectors suffered either sharp decelerations in growth or contracted from the year-earlier period, resulting in overall core sector growth slowing to a 20-month low of 4%.
- While the output of refinery products, which at 28% has the heaviest weight on the ICI, contracted year-on-year for the first time in five months, and shrank by 1.5%, electricity generation declined by 3.6% from May’s all-time high level.
The psychology of extravagance
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GS 3: Inclusive growth and issues arising from it
- If anything, the undignified display of wealth by a billionaire during and in the run-up to a recently held family wedding shows how vanity clouds the capacity of most Indian billionaires to recognise the stark contemporaneity of their folies de grandeur, inequality, and abject poverty.
- Economists Nitin Kumar Bharti, Lucas Chancel, Thomas Piketty, and Anmol Somanchi, in their March 2024 study titled “Income and Wealth Inequality in India, 1922-2023: The Rise of the Billionaire Raj”, inform us that in 2022-23, the top 1% income and wealth shares were 22.6% and 40.1%, respectively.
- In real terms, the top 1% possesses an average of ₹54 million in wealth (40 times the average Indian) while the bottom 50% and the middle 40% hold ₹0.17 million (0.1 times the national average) and ₹0.96 million (0.7 times the national average), respectively.
- If this was not stunning enough, the wealthiest 10,000 individuals (out of 920 million Indian adults) own an average of ₹22.6 billion in wealth which is a mind-boggling 16,763 times the average Indian.
Stalked by polio, Gaza faces another siege
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Prelims: General Science
- The United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs describes biological weapons as those that “disseminate disease-causing organisms or toxins to harm or kill humans, animals or plants”.
- War itself is a nasty thing during which humans, animals, and plants are killed en masse. We often contend today with the death of animals and plants in the context of climate change — mindful of the role of animals in maintaining ecosystem services and the carbon sequestration potential of plants — and know that the remains of incendiary explosives and building debris drive toxic effects, often entrenched enough for their effects to last for generations.
- This is separate from the large carbon footprints of armies in motion plus the operations required to equip them.
Balancing competition and sustainability for India
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GS 3: Conservation, environmental pollution and degradation
- Markets are the centre of the economy, evolving from the barter system to today’s digital marketplaces.
- The forces of supply and demand are primarily responsible for price determination and consumer preferences.
- Climate change disturbs the supply side of the market leading to a mismatch between supply and demand, which in turn impacts consumer demand and the overall economy.
- In 2023, the Securities and Exchange Board of India introduced a framework for reporting actions towards sustainability by corporates.
- The revised framework for the Business Responsibility and Sustainability Report requires companies to account for their value chain’s environmental impact, enhancing transparency, combating greenwashing, and ensuring that sustainability benefits permeate through the value chain.
What do scientists make of the Budget?
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GS: Government Budgeting
- The previous two terms of the Narendra Modi government saw the launch of some major national advanced technology missions, including for supercomputing, cyber-physical systems, and quantum technologies.
- These were coupled with initiatives to boost private sector participation with space and geospatial policies. India became the fourth to have a spacecraft’s lander touch down successfully on the moon.
- In parallel, there were concerns about the sidelining of basic research and stagnation in research funding as a percentage of the GDP. What then do leading scientists make of the new Budget in Modi’s third term?
New criminal laws are biggest reform of this century, says Home Minister
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- Home Minister Amit Shah on Sunday termed the three new criminal laws the biggest reform of the current century, saying these laws are embedded with the spirit of justice and have no provision of punishment, in fact, the objective is to give people justice.
- He was addressing a gathering here after launching e-evidence, Nyay Setu, Nyay Shruti and e-summon systems for implementation of new criminal laws that came into effect on July 1, besides inaugurating the 24x7 Manimajra water supply project.
Ladakh should be governed by Ladakhis: MP Mohmad Haneefa
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GS 2: Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- Five years after Ladakh was turned into a Union Territory without a Legislative Assembly, not a single recruitment for a gazetted position has been completed, Ladakh MP Mohmad Haneefa said, in an interview with The Hindu on Sunday.
- Mr. Haneefa, an Independent who defeated the Bharatiya Janata Party’s candidate in the Lok Sabha election, said that educated youth in the Union Territory have been hit the hardest over the last five years, as the Constitutional safeguards once provided under Article 370 and Article 35A no longer exist.
Human rights body calls for immediate announcement of Assembly election in J&K
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GS 2: Parliament and State legislatures
- The Forum for Human Rights in Jammu and Kashmir led by a group of concerned citizens has called for an immediate announcement of dates of Legislative Assembly elections in J&K much before the Supreme Court’s deadline of September 30, arguing that “that security should not be a consideration given that elections have been held in far worse security situations”.
- The Forum was formed after August 5, 2019, when the special status of J&K under Article 370 of the Constitution was revoked by the Parliament and the former State was divided into two Union Territories — J&K and Ladakh, the latter without an Assembly.
- Former Union Home Secretary G.K Pillai and Radha Kumar, former member, Group of Interlocutors for J&K, chair the Forum.
MGNREGS: States fall behind in paying unemployment aid
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GS 2: Devolution of powers and finances up to local levels and challenges therein.
- Going against one of the key objectives of the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act, only ₹90,000 was released by various States in 2023-24 as “unemployment allowance”, which is provided to workers in case of unmet work demand.
- The corresponding figure was ₹7.8 lakh in 2022-23.
- The ‘Economic Survey 2024’ tabled in the Parliament on July 22 pointed out that these figures are clearly deficient and do not reflect the correct picture in regard to unmet work demand.
- The survey noted that work was often unavailable for beneficiaries and that block-level functionaries may not register demand for work in real time.
- “Consequently, formal data showing MGNREGA work demand may not reflect the true demand and current rural economic distress,” it said.
SC asks banks to find MSME stress before accounts turn to NPA
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GS 3: Economic Development
- The Supreme Court has held that banks or creditors are required to identify the incipient stress in the account of the Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs), before their accounts turn into non-performing assets.
- A Bench headed by Justice Bela Trivedi pronounced the recent order in a batch of appeals filed by MSMEs, represented by advocate Mathews J. Nedumpara, focusing on a notification ‘Instructions for the Framework for Revival and Rehabilitation of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises’ issued on May 29, 2015 under Section 9 of the MSMED Act, revised by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) in March 2016 in exercise of the powers conferred by Section 21 and 35(A) of the Banking Regulation Act.
