9 September 2024, The Hindu
Odisha braces for heavy rain as depression forms in Bay
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GS 1: Important Geophysical phenomena
- The India Meteorological Department on Sunday said the well-marked low-pressure area in the Bay of Bengal has turned into a depression and Odisha is likely to receive heavy rain for the next three days.
- The Odisha government has put 16 districts on high alert.
Govt. dissolves panel on statistics, surveys amid delayed Census
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GS 2: Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation
- The Union Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation has quietly dissolved the 14-member Standing Committee on Statistics (SCoS) headed by eminent economist and former chief statistician of the country Pronab Sen, allegedly after its members questioned the delay in conducting the census.
- The reason it is being dismantled, according to an email sent to the members by Geeta Singh Rathore, Director-General of the Ministry’s National Sample Survey Office (NSSO), is that the committee’s work overlapped with that of the recently formed Steering Committee for National Sample Surveys. A copy of her email is with The Hindu.
Ukraine keen on India joining the Swiss peace process, says envoy
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GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests
- As the government essays a possible role for India in peace-making in the Russia-Ukraine conflict, Ukraine’s Government is keen for New Delhi to sign on to the Swiss Peace Summit document, which would entail reversing India’s previous decision in June to disassociate from it.
- Speaking to The Hindu, Ukraine’s Ambassador to India Oleksandr Polishchuk said that Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had proposed a retrospective move by India to join the peace process ahead of plans for a second Peace Summit in October or November this year, and that Ukraine had more “ambition” than for India to play “post office” between the leaders .
Delhi to oppose GST on online payments below ₹2,000: Atishi
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GS 2: Issues and challenges pertaining to the federal structure
- The Delhi government will oppose the Centre’s proposal to impose a tax on payment aggregators for online transactions below ₹2,000 in value at the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council meeting as the move is likely to hit small businesses and consumers, said Finance Minister Atishi on Sunday.
- Ms. Atishi’s remarks come a day ahead of the crucial 54th GST Council meeting, where the proposal to impose an 18% GST on payment aggregators for facilitating online transactions of small value might come up for discussion, among a host of other issues.
The vulnerability of live-in couples
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GS 1: Social empowerment
- In 2022, investigations began into the disappearance of a 26-year-old woman, Shraddha Walkar. Her murder, allegedly committed by by her live-in partner, ignited a media trial. Sections of the media obtained her social media conversations, and financial and travel details, from the police and her friends to retrace her key life decisions. The case, framed as violence within an inter-faith live-in relationship, failed to provoke debates on violations of personal data as a breach of the individual’s privacy. The trial made the crime a precautionary tale against deviating from conventional social norms.
- Recent surveys show that arranged marriages are the norm in India. The choices of the youth are shaped by societal pressures and the lack of legal protection available to interfaith couples and those in live-in relationships. Shraddha’s case reinforced this sensibility behind relationships.
How changes in the level of Arctic sea ice can change monsoon patterns in India
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GS 1: Important Geophysical phenomena, geographical features and their location-changes in critical geographical features (including water-bodies and ice-caps
Parliamentary committees likely to be set up by Sept. 20
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GS 2: Parliament and State legislatures—structure, functioning
- Department-related Standing Committees of Parliament are likely to be finalised by September 20 as Parliamentary Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju reached out to various parties on Sunday (September 8, 2024), said an informed source.
- The Opposition is unlikely to get an opportunity to head the Standing Committee on Ministry of Home Affairs as its numbers in the Rajya Sabha have dropped.
India, U.S. agree to swap turns, Biden to host Quad Summit in home State
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GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests
- India and the United States have “swapped” hosting the Quad Summit so as to allow U.S. President Joseph Biden to hold the Summit with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida from his hometown of Delaware, said sources, confirming that the summit will be held later this month in the United States rather than India.
- India would host the Quad Summit in 2025, they said, which indicated the new U.S. President, Donald Trump or Kamala Harris would visit India next year.
Centre to rank working women’s hostels on safety
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GS 1: Role of women and women’s organization
- The Centre is all set to launch a ranking system for working women’s hostels across the country based on certain parameters, mostly relating to their security. The move assumes significance amid cases of violence against women, including the rape and murder of a doctor in Kolkata which has led to widespread calls for safe working conditions for women.
- The rankings, to be made available on a website, would be a one-stop portal of all working women hostels in the country, a senior official with the Ministry of Women and Child Development (WCD) told The Hindu. The move was aimed at ensuring better female work force participation, especially in urban areas, he added.
India’s military diplomacy in top gear with back-to-back exercises
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GS 2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests
- In the last few months, India’s military diplomacy is at a hectic pace with back-to-back military exercises from countries far and wide for all three Services. India-U.S. bilateral Army exercise Yudh Abhyas is set to commence at the Mahajan field firing ranges in Rajasthan on Monday (September 9, 2024). Not far away, Phase-II of the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) largest multilateral exercise Tarang Shakti is underway at Jodhpur with eight countries, including India participating with aircraft and 17 countries as observers.
- The iconic A-10 Thunderbird close air support aircraft are flying over Indian air space for the first time as the U.S. has deployed them for the exercise along with F-16 jets. The countries deploying aircraft include Australia, Greece, Japan, Singapore, Sri Lanka, UAE and the U.S., Bangladesh, which was scheduled to deploy a C-130 transport aircraft, has dropped out in the backdrop of recent domestic developments.
Bangladesh-India relations should be based on equity and fairness: Yunus
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GS 2: India and its neighborhood- relations
- Interim government's Chief Adviser Muhammad Yunus on Sunday (September 8, 2024) said that Bangladesh wants to maintain good relations with India while asserting that it should be based on equity and fairness.
- Mr. Yunus, 84, made the remarks while responding to a question at a meeting with students who had participated in the student-people revolution that ousted Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina last month, state-run BSS news agency reported.
Mice study claims to have found long COVID’s ‘real’ perpetrator
Page II Science
Prelims: General science
- In scientific circles, the SARS-CoV-2 virus is well-known as a vasculopathic agent: a damager of blood vessels.
- The dominant respiratory symptoms associated with COVID-19 are largely due to clotting and inflammation in the blood vessels of the lungs (rather than the direct involvement of the airways). Its more severe complications, including neurological ones like stroke, are rooted in vasculopathy as well.
