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India’s retail inflation accelerated to 7.41% in September from 7% in August, with food price inflation surging sharply from 7.62% in August to 8.6% in September, the National Statistical Office (NSO).
At 7.41%, September’s retail inflation level is the highest since April this year, when price rise had hit a nearly eight-year high of 7.79%. This is the ninth month in a row, when inflation has stayed above the Reserve Bank of India’s upper tolerance threshold of 6%.
The country’s rural inflation also picked up further steam from 7.15% in August to reach 7.56% in September, while urban consumers also experienced a resurgence in price rise at 7.27% from 6.72% a month ago.
Urban consumers also faced a higher surge in food inflation during September, at 8.65%, from 7.55% a month ago. For Rural India, the uptick was only slightly less pronounced, with food prices rising 8.53%, compared to 7.6% in August.
The pace of price rise for cereals increased to 11.53%, with rural India facing nearly 12% inflation in this segment in September, up sharply from 9.6% in August and nearly doubling from the 6.9% level in July.
Similarly, vegetable inflation has also virtually doubled over two months, from 10.9% in July to 18.05% in September, with urban consumers facing a sharper 20.05% rise.
Inflation in clothing and footwear, which has been over 8% since December 2021, crossed the 10% mark to reach 10.17% in September, with rural India facing a higher inflation rate of 10.41% and footwear prices surging at 12.3%.
Fuel and light inflation too stayed above the 10% mark for the fourth consecutive month at 10.4% in September, while manufactured goods again clocked more than 7% inflation.
Industrial output contracted 0.8% in August from the minor 2.2% growth recorded in July, with both manufacturing and mining sectors reporting lower outputs than a year ago. Overall industrial production levels were also 2.3% lower than in July 2022.
Manufacturing output saw a decline of 0.7% from August 2021 levels and was 1.48% lower than July 2022, while the mining sector dropped 3.9% from a year ago and 0.95% below July levels.
Electricity generation was the only sector to clock an uptick, with a 1.4% rise this August from a year ago and a 1.3% growth over July 2022. However, August’s electricity output index is the second lowest since April 2022.
States
Tamil Nadu notifies India’s first slender loris sanctuary (Page no. 5)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In a first in the country, Tamil Nadu government notified Kaduvur slender loris sanctuary covering 11,806 hectares in Karur and Dindigul districts.
Slender lorises, which are small nocturnal mammals are arboreal in nature as they spend most of their life on trees. The species acts as a biological predator of pests in agricultural crops and benefits farmers.
Listed as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Slender Loris has a wide range of ecological roles to play in the terrestrial ecosystem.
The survival of the species depends on its habitat improvement, conservation efforts and mitigation of threats, said SupriyaSahu, additional chief secretary, Environment, Climate Change and Forests, in a statement.
Realising the need for immediate conservation of this species, the State government identified forest areas measuring 11,800 hectares in Karur and Dindigul districts as important habitats.
The Kadavur slender loris sanctuary is to cover Vedasandur, Dindigul East and Natham taluks in Dindigul district and Kadavur taluk in Karur district.
Earlier in April, an announcement on the establishment of India’s first wildlife sanctuary for slender loris in the State was made in the Legislative Assembly.
Subsequently, the government notified 'Kadavur slender loris sanctuary' under Section 26 (A)(1)(b) of Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972.
Projections show that there are close to 14,000 Slender Lorises in the Dindigul and Karur forest divisions alone, which seems to be the source and core population for various patches of the animal sighted across the State.
A total of ₹5 crore has been earmarked for the Dindigul and Karur forest reserves to establish the sanctuary and its management until 2026.
Welcoming the establishment of the sanctuary, N. Arunsankar, an environmentalist from Oddanchatram, said the mammal would now be able to live in peace without hurtful human intervention. Trespassing of people would be minimised, people who capture the poor animal for commercial purposes would be clipped.
In December 2021, the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court directed the Principal Chief Conservator of Forests/Chief Wildlife Warden to take steps to conduct a study on the habitats and distribution of slender loris in the Ayyalur forests in Dindigul district, the Kadavur Hills in Karur district and in Tiruchi district.
It also directed the authorities to conduct a census of slender loris in these areas. Once the enumeration is done, the authorities can declare the habitats a ‘sanctuary’, the court said, disposing of a public interest litigation petition.
Editorial
The Court and the problem with its collegium (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Once again the collegium of the Supreme Court of India is in the news, and once again for the wrong reasons. This time, it is because of the difficulty that its five judges have in getting together for one meeting.
The Chief Justice of India, Justice U.U. Lalit, assumed office on August 27, 2022. He has a short tenure and demits office on November 8, 2022. Nevertheless, he tries to set a scorching pace.
He constitutes as many as five Constitution Benches to hear extremely important matters which his predecessors put on the back burner. The CJI also takes it upon himself to fill six vacancies in the apex court.
He sets in motion the procedure contemplated for the collegium of the Supreme Court which is enshrined in the Memorandum of Procedure of 1999.
A meeting was held on September 26 at which all the five members of the collegium were present. They decided affirmatively on one candidate, Justice DipankarDatta, now Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court.
There are several other names under consideration for the remaining slots, and these include four Chief Justices of High Courts and one lawyer practising in the Supreme Court. This is deferred to September 30.
However, the meeting on September 30 is not held because Justice D.Y. Chandrachud, the seniormostpuisne judge and in line to be the next CJI, sits in court till 9.30 p.m.
Since the meeting cannot be held as scheduled, the CJI tries to obtain approval by circulation. Two judges accord approval but Justice Chandrachud and Justice Nazeer withhold approval.
Apparently they do not object to the names but object to the procedure of circulation. In the meantime there is a letter from the Law Minister asking the CJI’s view on the appointment of his successor.
With that the curtain is brought down on the proposed appointments. For some reason no one can fathom, the CJI’s collegium becomes a lame duck during his last month, while his court retains every power till the last minute of his last day in office.
If this was any other body conducting business for selecting the highest officers for the organisation, those in charge would face both questions and flak. Simply put, since the matter is of obvious importance, why could not five people who work in the same building meet the next day, or the day after, to conclude the business? If meeting in person was so difficult, surely we are all used to online conduct of business.
The court itself has been quite proficient in conducting judicial work online for many months after COVID-19 struck us. If any of the names are not good enough, why not say so in circulation?If they were good enough, then why not just make the appointments by following any procedure feasible, whether personal meeting, circulation or online meeting? If business has to be done, then there appears to be no good reason why it did not get done.
Winter is coming (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, International Institutions /Economy)
The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest World Economic Outlook report, has retained global growth hopes for 2022 at 3.2%, and lowered next year’s projection to 2.7% from 2.9%.
The year 2023 will feel like a recession for many people in the world, the Fund has cautioned, as ‘the worst is yet to come’ amid tighter monetary policies to curb stubbornly high inflation and a spiralling energy and food crisis.
While it retained India’s 2023-24 growth estimate at 6.1%, the IMF slashed this year’s forecast to 6.8%, from 7.4% in July.
This is the second significant estimate after the World Bank’s 6.5% assessment that pegs India’s GDP rise below 7%, which the Reserve Bank of India and North Block mandarins are expecting this year.
The downgrade is attributed to ‘weaker than expected outturn’ in the second quarter and subdued external demand. The slowing growth in tax collections, industrial output and exports, back this prognosis.
The road ahead — rendered tortuous by the lingering Russia-Ukraine conflict, a slowdown in China and what the IMF has eloquently termed a ‘cost of living crisis’ — is not much travelled on.
The risk of monetary, fiscal or financial policy miscalibration has risen sharply amid high uncertainty and growing fragilities, the Fund has emphasised.
After likely losing the tag to Saudi Arabia this year, the IMF expects India to become the fastest growing major economy in the world again next year.
But private forecasters such as Nomura believe policy makers’ optimism about 2023-24 prospects may be misplaced as the global downturns’ ripple effects may be underestimated, and growth could well slip to 5.2%.
Either way, relative prosperity compared to the world alone will not suffice. India needs to not only grow significantly faster than its faltering pre-pandemic trajectory but also deliver better quality growth that is inclusive and meets the aspirations of millions of its youth who constitute its demographic dividend.
The country has only a small window now to cash in on this sweet spot. Moreover, given India’s low per capita income, the sustained surge in prices has hit most households’ spending capacity, and could even cramp their ability to invest in the next generation’s education.
Opinion
We need a forest-led COP27 (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
In September, a study published in the journal Science said earth may have already passed through five dangerous tipping points due to the 1.1°C of global heating caused by humanity to date.
Calls for developing and transferring technologies to support action on climate change have become louder worldwide. Technology has become a survival strategy for our species, but the degree of techno-determinism that exists in the strategy to reverse climate change is alarming. Technology alone is unprepared to deal with the challenge, which requires a societal overhaul and a zero emission strategy.
History is on the side of technological innovation. Norman Borlaug, for instance, ushered in the Green Revolution, which fed billions of people and increased yields. But we may need a few million climate Borlaugs to tackle the problems staring at us.
COP26 at Glasgow also fuelled technological optimism. There was an observation that every technological solution discussed at COP26 depends on just three resources: nelectricity (non-emitting electricity generated by hydropower, renewables or nuclear fission), carbon capture and storage (CCS) or biomass. The total demand for those resources required by the plans discussed at COP26 cannot be met by 2050.
We currently have 4kWh/day of nelectricity per person. But the COP26 plans require 32 (range 16-48). We currently have 6kg of CCS per person per year, but the COP26 plans require 3,600 (range 1,400-5,700).
We eat 100kg plant-based food per person each year, but producing enough bio-kerosene to fly at today’s levels requires 200kg of additional harvest. There is no possibility that our supplies of these will be near the levels required by the plans discussed at COP26.
In 2003, Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution found that the world would need a nuclear plant’s worth of clean-energy capacity every day between 2000 and 2050 to avoid catastrophic climate change.
In 2018, MIT Technology Review reported that at the given rate, the world will take nearly 400 years to transform the energy system.
Tech-centric mitigation conversations leave forest economies and subjects such as conservation and forests, which are the best carbon removal instruments, to the ideological fringes of climate conversation.
Climate action requires the same amount of investment in conservation as we see in shiny new technology transfers.
While there was the deforestation-ending climate commitment at COP26, the nature of the pledge was vague. Countries may easily attempt to achieve their ‘net zero deforestation goals’ through monoculture farming.
But this won’t be of much help: scientists, in a commentary in Nature, have stated that naturally preserved forests are 40% more effective than planted ones.
Our climate crisis is intertwined with other complex issues. This means that we must insist on multi-pronged, interconnected climate solutions. Forests shine here too.
Unfilled vacancies, stagnant workforce delay RTI replies (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
Data show that the number of information officers and first appellate authorities in the Central government has remained stagnant in the last few years. In contrast, the new Right to Information (RTI) applications filed as well as pending applications are increasing every year.
Worryingly, the Central Information Commission and State Information Commissions, the final recourse in matters concerning RTI, also face manpower shortage. As a result, appeals and complaints are piling up.
The RTI Act is implemented using a three-level structure. At the first level is the Central Assistant Public Information Officer/Central Public Information Officer (CAPIO/CPIO).
Once an RTI query reaches the CAPIO/CPIO, they are expected to reply within 30 days. If the reply is not satisfactory or does not arrive on time, a first appeal can be made to the First Appellate Authority (FAA).
If the FAA does not answer or if its answer is not satisfactory, the Central Information and State Information Commissions can be approached.
A report released in October by the SatarkNagrikSangathan, titled ‘Report Card on the Performance of Information Commissions in India, 2021-22’, states that the number of appeals and complaints pending before the Central and State Information Commissions as of June 30, 2022 was 3,14,323.
The figure is based on data gathered from 26 Information Commissions obtained through 145 RTI applications.
Maharashtra leads the list with nearly 1 lakh appeals and complaints pending followed by Uttar Pradesh (44,482) and Karnataka (30,358). Data were not available for Tamil Nadu’s State Information Commission. The Commissions in Jharkhand and Tripura were defunct.
Using the backlog data and the monthly disposal rate, the SatarkNagrikSangathan calculated the time it would take for an appeal/complaint filed on July 1, 2022 to be disposed of by the Central and State Information Commissions.
The Sangathan assumed that appeals and complaints would be disposed of in a chronological order. The chart shows that it would take the West Bengal State Information Commission 24 years and 3 months to dispose of a complaint filed on July 1, 2022.
A similar analysis in Odisha and Maharashtra showed that it would take five years. Only Meghalaya and Mizoram showed no waiting time (not plotted on the tree map). Tamil Nadu, Jharkhand and Tripura could not be plotted for reasons mentioned above.
This data pertains to the first level of the RTI process involving CAPIO/CPIO. As can be observed, both the figures are rising at a rapid pace, while the new filings came down a bit during the pandemic year.
Text & Context (World Insight)
China’s “wolf warrior” era (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
“Defend every inch of our land!”, reads a sign in Beijing’s Military Museum, which, to mark the Chinese military’s 95th anniversary, opened a sprawling exhibit earlier this year.
Divided into four sections, the exhibition went deep into the past of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), unique among militaries in serving not a state but a single political party.
The largest sections were devoted to the contributions of Mao in building a revolutionary army, and to the current leader, Xi Jinping, for building a “strong country” (“qiangguo”).
The corner of the exhibition where the sign has been displayed showcases stones from the Karakoram mountains along the India-China border as well as images from the June 2020 Galwan Valley clash, declaring that the Chinese military will do everything “to protect sovereignty”.
As Mr. Xi completes a decade in office and begins an unprecedented third term at the Communist Party’s 20th Party Congress which begins on October 16, “qiangguo” has become the short but sharp phrase of choice that sums up his view of China’s place in the world. Past maxims of China’s “peaceful rise” and “biding time, hiding brightness” have been given a quiet burial.
The thrust of Mr. Xi’s argument is that China’s time has come. At the party’s previous congress in 2017, he declared China was “moving to the centre stage of the world”.
His other favourite maxim is to declare that “the West was declining and the East was rising” in what he has repeatedly called a world witnessing “changes unseen in a century”.
At this turning point, Mr. Xi has emphasised not only opportunities for China — taking the “centre stage” — but peril that lurks in every corner in a global order, that he has often described as being in turmoil, even chaos.
Mr. Xi presents the Communist Party under his leadership as China’s defence against this “chaos” and as leading what he calls the country’s “great rejuvenation”.
This inherent contradiction in Mr. Xi’s worldview — of a world that is simultaneously China’s to lead and one that is apparently full of external threats — has arguably, more than any other factor, shaped China’s diplomacy in the past decade.
China’s foreign policy appears to be caught between, on the one hand, presenting itself as the saviour of the UN-centred world order and globalisation — building, as Mr. Xi has christened, “a community of shared destiny” — and on the other, pursuing China’s core interests ever more aggressively, dubbed the ‘wolf warrior’ approach after a Chinese action hero, regardless of the consequences, from the mountains of Ladakh and the South China Sea to most recently, the waters around Taiwan.
Text & Context
The grandeur of the Chola Empire, one of the longest ruling dynasties in South India (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 1, History)
Our history books offer little to read about ancient Tamil kingdoms such as the Cholas which are much in discussion now.
With Mani Ratnam’sPonniyinSelvan I, based on Kalki’s wonderful creation of a world of the Cholas, mesmerising audiences, there is a renewed interest in knowing more about one of the oldest and longest ruling dynasties in the history of Southern India spreading over four centuries.
When monumental eras like the Cholas are missing from the pages of history, the best option to know more about the ancient civilisation is to read from the available literature that talk of the valour and conquests of these kings of yore, their trade links and wealth, styles of administration, art and architecture, and cuisine and skills of the period.
The monumental relics left behind; the majestic bronzes and 1,00,000 inscriptions and temples which are characteristic of the times, are for the eyes to feast on. All recent archaeological discoveries and interpretations are also a great way to explore.
There is an interesting mix of Tamil and English books and novels by scholars and modern writers on the Dravidian kingdom. A unanimous choice of historians is The Cholas (spelt The Colas) by Prof K. A. Nilakanta Sastri.
This account of the social, political and cultural history of the Chola dynasty from 850 to 1279 AD from Vijalaya Aditya I to Rajendra III, up to the end of the dynasty, is considered a pioneering work in South Indian History.
The first edition of the book was published in two volumes, in 1935 and 1937 and even after decades the book remains in demand given the fabulous narrative of the Chozhan Empire.
The author relies on references made to the Chola kings in Tamil Sangam literature such as Pattinappalai and Puranaanooru, brought to print by U.V. SwaminathaAyyar.
He bases his research on inscriptions from the Archaeological Survey of India, the Mahavamsa (which tells the history of Sri Lanka), Periplus of the Erythraean Sea and other notes by Chinese and Arabian travellers to India.
News
No more indictment under Section 66A of IT Act: Supreme Court (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Supreme Court ordered States and their police forces to stop prosecuting free speech on social media under Section 66A of the Information Technology Act which was declared unconstitutional by the court in a judgment seven years ago.
The court found it both “distressing” and “terrible” that the police had continued to pick out people and prosecute them under the draconian Section regardless of the fact that the highest court in the country had struck down the law as “vague” and “chilling”.
A Bench led by Chief Justice of India U.U. Lalit directed “all Directors General of Police as well as Home Secretaries of the States and competent officers in Union Territories to instruct their entire police force in their respective States/Union Territories not to register any complaint of crime with respect to alleged violation of Section 66A”.
However, the court clarified that this direction would apply only to a charge under Section 66A and not extend to other offences in a case.
The court, in order to make sure that no trace of doubt was left that Section 66A had been wiped off the statute book, directed that law books should contain a short note that the provision was struck down by the Supreme Court as violative of the Constitution.
In March 2015, the Supreme Court had found the police powers of Section 66A too wide with scant respect for individual liberty and free expression on the Internet.
“Section 66A is cast so widely that virtually any opinion on any subject would be covered by it, as any serious opinion dissenting with the mores of the day would be caught within its net.
Such is the reach of the Section and if it is to withstand the test of constitutionality, the chilling effect on free speech would be total,” Justice (now retired) Rohinton F. Nariman had written in his 2015 judgment for the court.
The judgment had come on the basis of a petition filed by law student Shreya Singhal, who had highlighted cases of young people being arrested and charged under the ambiguous provision for their social media posts.
Section 66A had prescribed three years' imprisonment if a social media message caused "annoyance" or was found "grossly offensive". The Supreme Court had concluded the provision to be vague and worded arbitrarily.
Cooperative Act amendments cleared (Page no. 13)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
The Union Cabinet on Wednesday approved amendments to the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act to bring transparency in the sector and reform the electoral process.
The Union Cabinet has approved the Multi-State Cooperative Societies (Amendment) Bill, 2022, which seeks to amend the Multi-State Cooperative Societies Act, 2002, Information and Broadcasting Minister Anurag Thakur told reporters in New Delhi after the Cabinet meeting.
He said the amendments have been brought in to improve the ease of doing business.The Bill will incorporate the provisions of the 97th Constitutional Amendment.
The amendments have been introduced to improve governance, reform the electoral process, strengthen monitoring mechanisms and enhance transparency and accountability.
The Bill also seeks to improve the composition of board and ensure financial discipline, besides enabling the raising of funds in the multi-state cooperative societies.
To make the governance of multi-state cooperative societies more democratic, transparent and accountable, the bill has provisions for setting up of Cooperative Election Authority, Cooperative Information Officer and Cooperative Ombudsman.
A day to explore bear necessities (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The first World Sloth Bear Day was observed on Wednesday to generate awareness and strengthen conservation efforts around the unique bear species endemic to the Indian subcontinent.
Classified as`Vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List, sloth bears are endemic to the Indian sub-continent and 90% of the species population is found in India.
A proposal for observing the World Sloth Bear Day was mooted by Wildlife SOS India, an organisation involved in sloth bear conservation and protection for over two decades and the IUCN-Species Survival Commission sloth bear expert team accepted the proposal and declared the day to be celebrated worldwide.
On Wednesday, the officials of the Ministry of Environment, Forests and Climate Change and the Central Zoo Authority (CZA) along with other stakeholders, participated in an event at Agra to observe the day.
Member secretary of the CZA Sanjay Kumar Shukla presented a letter of support for World Sloth Bear Day on behalf of the CZA and urged every zoo in India and around the world to celebrate the day for further conservation and protection of this Indian species of bear.
Sloth bears are identified by their very distinct long, shaggy dark brown or black fur, distinct white V-shaped chest patch and four-inch long ivory-coloured curved claws used for digging out termites and ants from rock-hard mounds.
Listed under Schedule I of The (Wildlife Protection) Act of India, 1972 the species has the same level of protection as tigers, rhinos and elephants.
A press statement issued by Wildlife SOS on Wednesday stated that the organisation rescued and rehabilitated over hundreds of “performing dancing bears, thereby resolving a 400-year-old barbaric tradition (of dancing bears) while also providing alternative livelihoods to the nomadic Kalandar community members “.
For a long time sloth bears were exploited as dancing bears. Though the practice has been banned there are still a few cases of rescue,” Mr. Dharaiya said. He explained that sloth bears were omnivorous and survived on termites, ants and other social insects and fruits.
“They cannot eat meat and by foraging on fruits are the biggest seed dispersals. Sloth bears are found in all parts of the country except Jammu and Kashmir and northeastern States.
Over the past few years there has been a rise of incidents of human sloth bear conflict in States like Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra among other states.