23 August 2024, The Hindu
Tripura dam didn’t cause Bangladesh floods: MEA
Page 1
GS 3: Disaster and disaster management
- The Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) on Thursday denied that floods in eastern districts of Bangladesh were caused due to the opening of the Dumbur dam in Tripura.
- The clarification comes after protesters in Bangladesh blamed India for floods in eastern districts, triggering security threats for the Indian High Commission in Dhaka.
- Later in the day, Indian High Commissioner to Bangladesh Pranay Verma met Chief Adviser to the interim government of Bangladesh, Mohammad Yunus, in Dhaka and expressed “concern” about the heightened security threats to the Indian mission and personnel based there.
- “We have seen concerns being expressed in Bangladesh that the current situation of flood in districts on the eastern borders of Bangladesh has been caused by opening of the Dumbur dam upstream of the Gumti river in Tripura.
- This is factually not correct,” the MEA said in a statement.
‘No problem can be solved on battlefield, loss of innocent lives biggest challenge’
Page 1
GS 2: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests, Indian diaspora
- The ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia are a pressing concern for the global community and the loss of innocent lives in any crisis has become the biggest challenge for the entire humanity, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Thursday (August 22, 2024) as India and Poland announced the elevation of ties to a strategic partnership.
- Towards this they agreed to formulate and execute a five-year action plan that will guide bilateral collaboration in the years 2024-2028 across several areas.
- “This is India’s firm belief that no problem can be solved on the battlefield. In any crisis, the loss of lives of innocent people has become the biggest challenge for the whole of humanity.
- We support dialogue and diplomacy for the early restoration of peace and stability,” Mr. Modi said in remarks after the bilateral meeting with his Polish counterpart Donald Tusk. “For this, India, along with its friendly countries, is ready to provide all possible support.”
Raj Niwas slams AAP govt. over ‘ill-planned’ health projects; AAP blames LG
Page 2
GS 2: issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- The Delhi government “deliberately” initiated 24 hospital projects from 2019-21 without proper planning and with the “sole aim of awarding works to contractors”, Raj Niwas officials said on Thursday.
- An official said the issue came to the fore during a recent presentation made by the Delhi Health Department before Lieutenant-Governor V.K. Saxena about the projects that are running behind schedule and marred by “financial mismanagement”.
Even after Kolkata horror, State-run hospitals remain a treacherous terrain for women doctors
Page 4
GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health
- Every day, Dr. Swati Sagar, a dental surgeon at a community health centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Dhaulana, makes sure she leaves work before the sun sets so she can reach her home, almost 40 km away in Noida, safe and sound.
- In Dhaulana, located in Hapur district, closed shops and empty roads after 7 p.m. are a common sight.
- The centre itself is located on an isolated patch of land surrounded by green fields that stretch as far as the eye can see. Nobody ventures out of their homes come darkness.
Assam govt. tables Bill to repeal 89-yeard old Muslim marriage law
Page 5
GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- The Assam government on Thursday (August 22, 2024) introduced a Bill to repeal an 89-year-old law on the registration of Muslim marriages and divorces, stating that it has a “scope of misuse” to allow child marriage.
- Revenue and Disaster Management Minister Jogen Mohan tabled The Assam Repealing Bill, 2024, in the 126-member House to abolish The Assam Moslem Marriages and Divorces Registration Act of 1935.
- It was introduced a day after the State Cabinet approved the draft law regulating the registration of Muslim marriages apart from two others seeking to protect heritage sites and tribal lands.
IIA finds a novel way to explore the sun’s secrets by studying solar magnetic field
Page 6
Prelims: General Science
- Astronomers at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) have found a new way to probe deeper into the sun’s secrets by studying the magnetic field at different layers of the solar atmosphere.
- The astronomers have done this using data from IIA’s Kodaikanal Tower Tunnel Telescope.
- According to the Department of Science and Technology, the solar atmosphere is composed of various layers interconnected through magnetic fields.
- The magnetic field acts as a conduit to transfer energy and mass from the inner layers to the outer layers, commonly known as the coronal heating problem and is also the prime driver of solar wind.
- To understand the physical mechanisms behind these processes, measurements of magnetic fields at different heights of the solar atmosphere are important.
Kerala Upa Lok Ayukta goes on leave; functioning of panel affected
Page 6
GS 2: Separation of powers between various organs dispute redressal mechanisms and institutions
- Kerala Upa Lok Ayukta Harun-Ul-Rashid has gone on leave ahead of his resignation from the post, leaving the anti-corruption panel handicapped.
- The development came close to the swearing-in of N. Anilkumar, a former judge of the Kerala High Court, as the new Lok Ayukta on Wednesday. Mr. Rashid, who has applied for 45-day leave, left for Kochi in the evening.
Building on favourable change in the 2024 waqf Bill
Page 10
GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- The Waqf Bill 2024, or the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, has been referred to a Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) as the Narendra Modi government’s own allies were not keen to get it passed immediately. Opposition parties were also critical of the Bill.
- Some of their concerns are genuine as changes such as abolition of waqf by a user, and the granting of excess powers to the District Magistrate would lower the protection to waqf properties.
- Though there is hardly anything worthwhile in the Bill to effectively deal with the problem of the illegal encroachment of waqf properties, there are still some positive features such as a digitisation of waqfs and the inclusion of women and non-Muslims in waqf boards.
- Similarly, on the contentious issue of family waqf, the proposed reforms should be welcomed.
- Let us try to understand the rationale of the family waqf, how the colonial judiciary had responded to this unique kind of waqf, and the changes that have been made in the Muslim world.
The Kursk gambit, Ukrainian tactics and battle realities
Page 10
GS 2: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests
- The Ukrainians surprised Russia by launching an audacious attack into the Kursk region of the Russian Federation that also led to the capture of several hundred Russian soldiers.
- This bold, yet risky, gambit by the Volodymyr Zelenskyy-led regime, to employ thousands of its best fighting units to mount an incursion into Russian territory, was also a fitting one.
- Kyiv has been at the receiving end of Russia’s ongoing offensive inside Ukraine, which shows no sign of weakening despite Ukrainian territorial gains in Kursk.
- Russian forces are also poised to capture the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk in the Eastern Donetsk region in Ukraine. Pokrovsk is a vital logistics hub that gives Ukrainian forces considerable defensive strength, but it is currently under siege from rapidly advancing Russian forces.
- Ukrainian forces are now being ordered to withdraw from Pokrovsk, allowing Russian forces to make not just a significant breakthrough but also pave the way for them to capture the whole of the Donetsk region.
Intriguing silence
Page 10
Prelims: General Science
- The case of acute flaccid paralysis, likely due to polio, in a child from Tikrikilla in Meghalaya, and in the media spotlight, was reported by the State government on August 14.
- In April 2022, a case of vaccine-derived poliovirus was detected from an environmental sample collected in Kolkata.
- After genetic sequencing, it was considered likely to be immunodeficiency-related vaccine-derived poliovirus (iVDPV), excreted by an immune-deficient individual.
- In the Meghalaya incident, even after the government confirmed the case, there is still no official report on whether it is vaccine-derived and not caused by wild poliovirus.
- With the global eradication of the wild poliovirus (WPV) type 2 in 2015 and the WPV type 3 in 2019, respectively, and no WPV type 1 found in environment samples in India for years, it is highly unlikely that it is due to the WPV type 1 unless it has been imported into India.
- As of August 13, Afghanistan and Pakistan have reported 14 WPV type 1 cases this year.
- If vaccine-derived, there is again no official confirmation on whether it is iVDPV or from circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus (cVDPV).
Do we need a Central law for protection of healthcare professionals?
Page 11
GS 2: Issues relating to development and management of Social Sector/Services relating to Health
A look at ongoing Indian space missions
Page 12
GS 3: Awareness in the fields of Space
- After a busy 2023, things have been quiet at Sriharikota, India’s spaceport.
- But silence at the spaceport does not imply that India’s space programme itself has been dormant.
- A lot has been happening since the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) successfully landed the lander of its Chandrayaan 3 mission, Vikram, on the surface of the moon.
- Prime Minister Narendra Modi has declared this date, August 23, India’s National Space Day.
Modi’s Ukraine visit likely to explore deeper ties in defence manufacturing
Page 14
GS 2: Effect of policies and politics of developed and developing countries on India’s interests
- The symbolism and balancing act aside, Prime Minster Narendra Modi’s visit to Ukraine, the first by an Indian Prime Minister, will focus on cooperation in defence, with India operating a large inventory of military equipment of both Russian and Ukrainian origin.
- In the three years since the war in Ukraine, India has seen supplies and spares held up for some time and has attempted to diversify and reduce dependence by turning to domestic companies as well as seeking alternate vendor base in other countries.
EC to deploy over 400 observers for J&K, Haryana Assembly elections
Page 15
GS 2: Elections
- The Election Commission on Thursday said that it would deploy over 400 observers for the Assembly elections in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.
- It has asked the observers to stay vigilant against false narratives and be accessible to all political parties and voters.
- Around 200 general observers, 100 police observers and as many expenditure observers are being deployed in Jammu and Kashmir and Haryana.
- These include senior officers drawn from IAS, IPS officers as well as officers from Indian Revenue Service and few other Central Services.
NDMA to monitor 189 high-risk glacial lakes to prevent disasters
Page 16
GS 1: Important Geophysical phenomena
- Following disasters inflicted by overflowing glacial lakes in the Himalayas, the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has finalised a list of 189 “high-risk” glacial lakes for mitigation measures to reduce the risk emanating from them.
- Some of the proposed steps include constituting teams to investigate these lakes and attempt “lake-lowering measures”, which are done to buffer against any overflow, and mitigating potential damage in downstream States.
Centre, States discuss new mechanism for gathering crop data
Page 16
GS 3: Major crops-cropping patterns in various parts of the country
- Ahead of the nationwide implementation of the Digital General Crop Estimation Survey (DGCES), the Centre has convened a national conference with the States to discuss the improvement in crop production statistics in New Delhi on Thursday (August 22, 2024).
- The new initiative, according to the Centre, aims to enhance the accuracy, reliability and transparency of agricultural statistics — which will help in policy formulation, trade decisions and agricultural planning.
Shift in inflation goal can trip economic prospects: Patra
Page 17
GS 3: Indian Economy and issues relating to planning, mobilization, of resources, growth, development and employment
- The Monetary Policy Committee’s (MPC) steadfast approach to align inflation durably to the 4% target guided its decision to hold on to the policy rates, the minutes of the MPC meeting released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday showed.
- “The wedge between headline and food inflation has been widening, and stalling the alignment of the former with the target,” MPC member & Deputy Governor Michael Debabrata Patra said.
