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India’s eight core sectors’ output growth moderated to 12.7% in June from 18.1% in May, with all sectors except crude oil registering an uptick in production.
Coal, Cement, Electricity and refinery products rose 15% or more, compared to June 2021 output levels, while natural gas (1.2%), steel (3.3%) and fertilisers (8.2%) grew at a milder pace.
Crude oil output dropped 1.7% from a year ago, returning to contractionary territory after recording the first uptick in several months this May.
The Commerce and Industry Ministry also revised the index of eight core industries for the months of March and May. March core sectors' growth was pared to 4.8% from 4.9% estimated earlier, while May's output growth from these sectors was revised higher at 19.3% from the previous estimate of 18.1%.
While June marks the second successive month of double-digit growth in core sectors, which constitute about 40% of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), overall core output shrank 4.08% compared to the previous month.
Cement and fertilisers were the only sectors to record a sequential month-on-month growth in output in June of 6.9% and 0.32%, respectively.
Compared to pre-COVID levels, the core sectors reported an 8% growth in June with a healthy performance of all the sectors except steel and crude oil, said Aditi Nayar, chief economist at ICRA.
The disaggregated trends are exceedingly mixed, she said, ranging from a contraction in crude oil to a robust expansion of 31% in coal.
The broad-based moderation in the growth rate to 12.7% from 19.3% in May, she attributed to the ‘normalising base’ effects from 2021 amid the second COVID-19 wave.
New warning on all tobacco products soon (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Ministry of Health and Family Welfare has notified new sets of specified health warnings for all tobacco product packages by making an amendment in the Cigarettes and other Tobacco Products (Packaging and Labelling) Rules, 2008, dated July 21, 2022. The amended Rules will be applicable from December 1 of this year.
The new set of specified health warnings shall be for a period of twelve months following its commencement. The soft or printable version of the specified health warnings in 19 languages are available on the websites.
It added that all tobacco products manufactured or imported or packaged on or after December 1, 2022 shall display a new image with the textual health warning ‘Tobacco causes painful death’.
Also those manufactured or imported or packaged on or after December 1, 2023 shall display an image (second) with the textual health warning ‘Tobacco Users die younger.
Tobacco products manufactured or imported or packaged on or after December 1, 2022 shall display a new image with the textual health warning ‘Tobacco causes painful death’.
Tobacco products manufactured or imported or packaged on or after December 1, 2022 shall display a new image with the textual health warning ‘Tobacco causes painful death’.
Any person engaged directly or indirectly in the manufacture, production, supply, import or distribution of cigarettes or any tobacco products shall ensure that all tobacco product packages shall have the specified health warnings exactly as prescribed.
Violation is a punishable offence with imprisonment or fine as prescribed in Section 20 of the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act, 2003.
Six pleas challenge Places of Worship Act (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
The Supreme Court frowned upon more and more petitions being filed, challenging the Places of Worship Act. A Bench led by Justice D.Y. Chandrachud gave six new petitioners liberty to intervene in a case, in which the apex court had already sought the government's response last year.
In March 2021, the top court had issued a formal notice to Union Ministries of Home, Law and Culture on a petition filed by advocate Ashwini Kumar Upadhyay against the various provisions of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act of 1991.
The 1991 Act mandates that the identity of a religious place of worship as it had existed in August 15, 1947 should not be changed.
However, Mr. Upadhyay had argued that the cut-off date was "arbitrary and irrational". He said the Act, by fixing a retrospective cut-off date (August 15, 1947), illegally barred Hindus, Jains, Buddhists and Sikhs from approaching courts to "re-claim" their places of worship which were "invaded" and "encroached" upon by "fundamentalist barbaric invaders".
Mr. Upadhyay said: "The Act declared that character of places of worship-pilgrimage shall be maintained as it was on August 15, 1947 and no suit or proceeding shall lie in court in respect of disputes against encroachment done by fundamentalist barbaric invaders and law breakers and such proceeding shall stand abated."
He challenged Sections 2, 3, and 4 of the Act, which deals with the bar on legal claims that were against the principles of secularism.
City
Decide on sex-selective surgery ban (Page no. 2)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The Delhi High Court has granted the Delhi government eight weeks to arrive at a decision on a set of recommendations to ban sex-selective surgeries on intersex babies and children, except in life-threatening situations.
A bench of Chief Justice Satish Chandra Sharma and Justice Subramonium Prasad disposed of a petition filed by NGO Srishti Madurai Educational Trust appealing for an order directing the Delhi government to implement recommendations issued by the Delhi Commission for the Protection of Child Rights.
The petition also appealed for a writ or order declaring a ban on “medically unnecessary” sex-selective surgeries on intersex infants and children; and a writ or order to direct the Delhi government to frame a detailed policy or guidelines specifying the conditions when medical surgery on intersex infants can be performed.
The term ‘intersex’ refers to people who are born with both male and female sex characteristics.
In January 2021, the DCPCR had made this recommendation to the Delhi government after receiving a plea which stated that in many instances, intersex people are treated as disabled and approached through a medical lens, ‘reducing’ them to an ‘impairment’ which leads to them being subjected to medical interventions which can lead to long-term impairments.
The plea by Dr Satendra Singh, Air Cmde (Dr) Sanjay Sharma and Dr Aqsa Sheikh had also stated that these surgeries are mostly conducted without prior and fully informed consent.
As part of its recommendations, the commission had also advised that the health department include people who are intersex “or from a similar marginalised background” to be a formal part of a committee to look into the matter.
The commission had sought responses from the Delhi Medical Council, the Delhi Department of Health and Family Welfare, the Delhi Department of Social Welfare and various organisations and experts before its recommendations.
The Delhi Medical Council had stated that “the differences of sex development/intersex are human rights issues as it pertains to bodily integrity and autonomy, and further states that surgical interventions and gender-related medical interventions should be delayed until the patient can provide meaningful informed consent/assent to these interventions.
Editorial
We need to protect whistle blowers (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
“Words, words, words” was Hamlet’s reply to Polonius’ question, “What do you read, my lord?” That is what our Right to Information (RTI) Act, 2005, is being reduced to.
The Centre for Law and Democracy classifies it among the top five laws in the world. The RTI empowers us to participate in the policymaking process, by providing access to information relating to the functioning of all public authorities.
Ordinary citizens have used the law to make public authorities accountable and transparent in their functioning. In fact, the law has been used extensively by a cross section of citizens including activists, lawyers, bureaucrats, researchers, journalists and most importantly, ordinary folk.
They all have been asking simple questions and pursuing answers on the use of public funds, and unearthing corruption of all kinds from the Panchayat level right up to Parliament.
The widespread understanding and use of the RTI is a shining example of a participatory democracy in spite of our current realities.
Unfortunately, the dangerous underside of the RTI is manifesting itself through violent reactions from entrenched interests and powerful lobbies. Since the implementation of the Act, some 100 RTI activists across the country have been killed and several are harassed on a daily basis.
This is a reality of one of the strongest laws for democratic accountability that we must systematically address through strong legal and institutional safeguards.
Bihar is turning out to be one of the most dangerous States for RTI activists despite being one of the earliest promoters of the law. The State ranks first in the number of deaths of RTI users. As many as 20 RTI users have lost their lives since 2010 in different districts across Bihar.
In 2018, six RTI users were killed for seeking information related to the functioning of public programmes and institutions.
These brutal murders have not only raised an urgent question of the protection of people engaging with the system to seek accountability, but also of the state’s responsibility to provide legal assistance, time-bound grievance redressal, compensation, and dignified access to justice to the families of those killed.
One-man rule (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
With over 94% voters backing a new Constitution that would see the return of a strong presidency, Tunisia’s brief experiment with post-revolutionary parliamentary democracy has come to an end.
President Kais Saied, who sacked the elected government of Prime Minister Hichem Mechichi and suspended Parliament last year (which he later dissolved), has been pushing for constitutional changes that would institutionalise his one-man rule.
Over the past year, Mr. Saied has ruled the country through decrees, awarding himself more powers. He has fired many judges, seized independent institutions such as the election commission and sidelined political parties, including the Ennahda, the Islamist party which had the most number of elected representatives in the dissolved Parliament.
With the new Constitution, which awards him ultimate authority to form governments, name Ministers, appoint judges and even present laws, Mr. Saied is set to rule Tunisia with unchecked powers.
Tunisia was the shining example for a peaceful transition to democracy from dictatorship after the Arab Spring protests rocked many countries in West Asia and North Africa.
While the rest witnessed foreign interventions, counter-revolutions or widespread chaos, Tunisia got a new Constitution and multiparty governments.
But Mr. Saied, who also claims to represent the spirit of the 2011 revolution, has effectively taken the North African country back to absolute presidency, which could slip into constitutional authoritarianism.
When Mr. Saied, a former law professor with no political experience, was elected President in 2019, not many had expected him to rewrite the country’s destiny in such a short span of time.
When Tunisia fell into political instability amid a worsening economic and COVID-triggered healthcare crisis, Mr. Saied found an opportunity to expand his authority.
He blamed the country’s parliamentary system and the infighting among the political class for the problems Tunisia faced. His move to suspend parliamentary democracy was relatively popular at that time.
But Tunisia has seen little progress under Mr. Saied’s direct rule. His popularity has fallen from 82% last summer to 59% in April this year.
OPED
Token prohibition takes a toll in Gujarat (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Jigar Dungrani, all of 27, has done alright in life so far. He owns more than 60 acres of farmland. He hails from a political family — his father, Dharmesh, heads the Barwala taluka unit of the Congress, mother Ranjanben is the leader of Opposition in the taluka panchayat.
The young Patel himself is the sarpanch of Rojid village, 126 km away from Ahmedabad, on the highway to Bhavnagar. But Dungrani is going around with an incensed look these days.
Rojid, a settlement of 3,500odd people, is among the villages dotting Botad and Ahmedabad districts where an avoidable tragedy is unfolding.
Twelve people have died here after drinking countrymade liquor or hooch laced with chemicals on the evening of July 25; the overall toll in halfadozen villages of rural Ahmedabad and Botad districts is 45 dead and counting; over 75 are still battling for their lives in various hospitals in Ahmedabad and Bhavnagar.
In March this year, in a letter to the local police, Dungrani had warned about the easy access to liquor in the village. “I had repeatedly made representations to the police and revenue authorities about bootleggers having a free run of the village,” he said.
Every time, the police would conduct a raid on bootleggers or local breweries. “It’s like a fixed match between the cops and the bootleggers.
On paper, the police would claim Rojid village is peopled by teetotallers but in reality, take a round in the evening and you would come across at least 50 persons completely drunk and roaming the village streets,” he said.
Rojid village, with a doubledigit death toll, presents a picture of allpervading grief and despair. Rajubhai Virgama, 50, is sitting with a bunch of people in his house, mourning the death of his younger brother Dinesh.
The deceased, a daily wager who used to work in the village farms owned by Patels or Patidars, the dominant caste in the village, has left behind a twoandahalfyearold boy. Dinesh’s wife left for another man when the boy was barely a year old.
News
Modi unveils India’s first global bullion exchange (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday launched the India International Bullion Exchange (IIBX), India’s first International Bullion Exchange, and NSE IFSC-SGX Connect at Gandhinagar’s GIFT city, an international financial services hub set up by the Gujarat government outside the State capital.
India is the world’s second biggest consumer of gold and the move to set up the IIBX is seen as India’s effort to bring transparency to the market for the precious metal.
Moreover, setting up of IIBX could lead to standard gold pricing in the country and make it easier for small bullion dealers and jewellers to trade in the precious metal.
India is a leading importer of the metal and imported 1,069 tonnes of gold in 2021, up from 430 tonnes a year ago. The yellow metal is tightly regulated in the country and currently only nominated banks and agencies approved by the Reserve Bank Of India can import gold and sell to dealers and jewellers across the country.
While launching the new exchange and laying foundation stone for new projects in GIFT city, his pet project, the PM said that India is among the biggest economies in the world and is now joining the league of global financial centres like the United States, the United Kingdom and Singapore.
The PM laid the foundation stone of the headquarters building of the International Financial Services Centres Authority (IFSCA), the country’s first and only IFSC in line with those in UAE, Singapore and Hong Kong.
Today in the 21 st century, finance and technology are linked to each other. And when it comes to technology, in science and software, India has an edge and experience. Today, India alone has 40% share in real-time digital payments all over the world.
India is one of the world’s leading economies and will become even bigger going forward; we should build institutions that can cater to our present and future roles.
In his address, he said the IFSCA will become an enabler and support innovation and also become a catalyst for growth opportunities in the financial services sector in the country.
The IFSCA works as a unified authority for the development and regulation of financial products, financial services and financial institutions at the IFSC at GIFT city in Gandhinagar.
Jaishankar pushes for Chabahar port (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
India welcomed the expansion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to include Iran next year, as External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar shared a table with Foreign Ministers of China Wang Yi, Pakistan Bilawal Bhutto, Russia Sergey Lavrov and central Asian countries at the ministerial meeting in Tashkent.
While India pushed for Chabahar port to be a conduit for trade to central Asia, Pakistan's Foreign Minister promoted the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor for trans-regional trade, including in a meeting with Taliban-appointed Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi.
Mr. Jaishankar held bilateral talks with his counterparts from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, but no meetings with Mr. Bhutto, Mr. Wang or Mr. Muttaqi, who was also in Tashkent for a special SCO reach out, were announced.
Although the MEA release made no mention of it, the Russian embassy in Delhi tweeted that Mr. Jaishankar also held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Mr. Lavrov while in Tashkent, where it said they discussed bilateral ties and regional and international problems.
Reiterated India’s position on Afghanistan and highlighted our humanitarian support: wheat, medicines, vaccines and clothing," Mr. Jaishankar said after the meetings, adding that he had underlined the potential for Iran's Chabahar for the "SCO's economic future".
The External Affairs Minister said he had also raised the problems of the energy crisis and food crisis arising from the "Ukraine conflict", making no mention of Russia's role in the conflict, as well as from the COVID pandemic, which, he said, must be "urgently addressed".
The response required includes resilient and diversified supply chains as well as reformed multilateralism," Mr. Jaishankar said, adding that "zero tolerance" for terrorism was a must.
He said India, which would take over the SCO Presidency next year, would "give the fullest support for the success of the Samarkand Summit", indicating Prime Minister Narendra Modi would attend the summit on September 15-16.
If all the SCO leaders attend the summit in person, it will be the first time Mr. Modi will come face to face with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as well as Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif. India will also host all the SCO leaders next year.
Boon for leaf plates, bowl makers in Himachal after ban of single-use plastic (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
The nation-wide ban on single-use plastic has come as a boon for local folks, especially women in villages of the hill State of Himachal Pradesh, who are involved in making traditional leaf plates and bowls as the demand for these eco-friendly products is currently on the rise and fetching them improved returns.
To aid the makers of leaf plates and bowls, the Himachal Pradesh Forest Department in collaboration with Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) is motivating community groups to prepare leaf plates and bowls using machines instead of doing it manually in order to meet the increasing demand for leaf plates. The ban of single use plastic items has been in place since July 1.
Under a project titled ‘Improvement of Himachal Pradesh Forest Ecosystems Management and Livelihoods’, the department is also ensuring that there’s no shortfall in the supply of quality leaves, by planting specific species such as ‘ Bauhinia vahlii’ in the forest adjoining to villages of trained community groups.
Under the project, each community group of average 15 people is being provided a capital cost of ₹1,29,000 for setting up the plate-making machine that makes 1,000 plates daily.
Machine installation has reduced the drudgery of women in the manual making of these leaf items and improved their production capacity.
So far, we have developed around 484 such self-help groups. In June this year, the community groups at Beindhar and Kangu villages in Mandi district prepared 8,000 leaf plates and 4,000 leaf bowls and earned ₹38,000 in one month in comparison to an average of ₹8,000, which is what a group of similar number of people used to earn monthly.
Manas reserve has 2.4 tigresses for every tiger (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Manas Tiger Reserve in Assam has 2.4 tigresses for every tiger, the annual wildlife monitoring results of the trans-boundary wildlife preserve has revealed.
According to the latest camera trapping assessment stipulated by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA), the 2,837.31 sq. km reserve with a critical tiger habitat area of 536.22 sq. km has 52 adult tigers along with eight cubs.
This is an increase of eight adults and four cubs over 2021, the results released by Pramod Boro, the Chief Executive Member of the Bodoland Territorial Region on Global Tiger Day showed.
The assessment said 29 tigers were “repeated” from 2021 while 23 new tigers were reported. The gender of 27 tigers could be properly ascertained – eight of them males and 19 females, giving a sex ratio of 1:2.4, which is “positively skewed towards females from the ecological point of view”, a statement from NTCA said.
The Manas Tiger Reserve authorities had set up 381 camera trap stations with support from conservation partners World Wide Fund for Nature-India, Wildlife Trust of India and Aaranyak.
Mr. Boro also released the results of the population estimate of all other major species found in the reserve, claimed to have been done for the first time in a holistic manner by the tiger reserve’s frontline staff through distance sampling.
Forest guards and foresters deployed in different anti-poaching camps in Manas collected data on line transects from the backs of elephants using an Android-based digital platform. The information collected was analysed at the Field Directorate of Manas and validated by the NTCA’s Tiger Cell in Dehradun’s Wildlife Institute of India, officials said.
This analysis, which will form a baseline for all future assessments, showed Manas has an estimated 3,220 hog deer, 2,613 elephants, 1,656 wild buffaloes, 1,174 gaurs or Indian bison and 804 sambhars.
The Manas Tiger Reserve is contiguous with the 1,000 sq. km Royal Manas National Park in Bhutan.
World
Euro zone inflation hits another high (Page no. 11)
(GS Paper 2, International Relation)
Euro zone inflation rose to another record high in July and its peak could still be months away, keeping pressure on the European Central Bank to opt for another big interest rate increase in September.
Consumer price growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro currency accelerated to 8.9% in July from 8.6% a month earlier, far above expectations for 8.6% and well clear of the ECB's 2% target, data from Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency.
Inflation was initially driven by post-pandemic supply bottlenecks but more recently the fall-out of Russia's war in Ukraine has been the main culprit as it has pushed up energy, metals and food prices.
While high energy prices remain a major inflationary factor, processed food and services prices have also surged, suggesting that inflation is becoming increasingly broad.
Fearing that price growth is spiralling out of control, the ECB raised rates by 50 basis points this month, breaking its own guidance for a smaller move, and promised further rate hikes to prevent the onset of a hard-to-break wage-price spiral.
But inflation is also a dilemma for the bank. Sky high food and energy costs deplete savings and ultimately slow growth, possibly pushing the bloc into recession, in the worst case.
Indeed, Germany, the euro zone's biggest economy, stagnated in the second quarter before what could be a difficult third quarter. The U.S. economy meanwhile unexpectedly contracted in the second quarter.
Still, the ECB has made clear that inflation fears trump growth concerns, suggesting that policymakers are willing to lift rates even if that hurts growth, as inflation is now at risk of getting embedded.
Indeed, underlying inflation, which strips out volatile food and fuel prices, accelerated to 5.0% from 4.6%, more than twice the ECB's 2% target. An even narrower measure, which excludes alcohol and tobacco, meanwhile rose to 4.0% from 3.7%.
Supporting arguments for persistent price pressures, the labour market has never been tighter in the two-decade history of the euro zone.