Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Two days after Deepavali, the air quality of Delhi improved further by about 10% on Wednesday compared to a day earlier, according to Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) data. The air quality is expected to further improve during the next two days.
Meanwhile, the Delhi government conducted inspections at 6,868 construction sites as part of an “anti-dust campaign” to control air pollution.
Notices or challans were issued to 253 people and ₹32.4 lakh was imposed as fine for violating dust control norms.
At least 586 teams have been formed under the anti-dust campaign, including 33 teams of the Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC).
Teams have been instructed to constantly inspect sites and maintain vigil. It is necessary to follow all 14 anti-dust norms on construction sites, otherwise strict action will be taken against violators.
Opinion
Despite crackdown, pollution spikes sharply in south and west (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
State governments across India announced various degrees of restrictions on bursting crackers this Deepavali. While the measures seem to have worked to an extent in eastern India and parts of the north, cities in the south and west reported record pollution levels on DeepavaliPollution during Deepavali spikes due to firecrackers. In 2016, the Chest Research Foundation of India, Pune, conducted a series of experiments on firecrackers to determine the quantum of PM 2.5 particles emitted.
For instance, the snake tablet produced a peak PM 2.5 level of 64,500 µg/m3 (micrograms per cubic metre). PM 2.5 is particulate matter that has a diameter equal to or less than 2.5 microns.
The Tamil Nadu, Punjab and Karnataka governments announced a two-hour window to burst crackers. In West Bengal and Haryana, only green crackers could be sold.
In Delhi, there was a complete ban on crackers. There were similar measures in other States. Graph 2 shows the PM 2.5 levels in µg/m3 recorded every hour between January 1, 2018 and October 25, 2022, in a measuring station across select cities. Each dot corresponds to the average PM 2.5 level in an hour. The higher the dot, the more the pollution. Deepavali days in the past five years are highlighted.
The restrictions in place combined with the effects of Cyclone Sitrang ensured that the PM2.5 levels did not cross 50 µg/m3 in any of the measuring stations inKolkata. It stayed below India's 24-hour PM 2.5 limit of 60 ug/m3 during Deepavali hours.
While no other State recorded such a drastic drop in pollution this Deepavali, there was a general decline in the eastern and northern parts Lucknow and Noida recorded the smallest Deepavali-day pollution spike in the last five years AnandVihar in Delhi saw a significant spike, but the level of pollution stayed below the levels seen in the last four years during Deepavali in Amritsar and Gurugram, alarming levels of PM 2.5 pollution levels were recorded, but they did not reach the peak recorded in previous years:
On the other hand, in Andhra Pradesh's capital Amaravati, at 10 pm on October 24, the PM 2.5 level peaked at 793 pg/m3-the highest for any hour since the 2018 Deepavali spike Bengaluru's Silk Board station peaked at 633 µg/m3-the highest in the last five years.
Sanathnagar station in Hyderabad peaked at 731 ug/m3-the highest since 2019 Chennai's Velachery station peaked at 694 µg/m3-the highest for any Deepavali day since 2018.
States
Bird flu confirmed in Haripad, thousands of ducks dead (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Health)
The Alappuzha district was put on alert on Thursday after an outbreak of bird flu was confirmed at Kunnumma South (ward 10) in Thakazhygrama panchayat.
District Collector A. Alexander said the presence of H5N1 subtype of the Influenza A virus was reported in ducks.
Joseph Cherian, a duck farmer from Purakkad who was raising around 13,500 ducks close to the outer bund of a paddy field in Thakazhy, with an eye on the Christmas festive season, lost more than 10,000 birds in the past two weeks.
Following the mass death of ducks, the Animal Husbandry Department (AHD) last week sent samples of dead birds to the National Institute of High-Security Animal Disease (NIHSAD), Bhopal for analyses, which tested positive for avian influenza.
Mr. Alexander, who chaired a meeting to take stock of the situation, said that measures had been initiated to check the spread of the disease.
AHD officials said that between 8,000 and 10,000 ducks belonging to five farmers within a 1-km radius of the infected area were culled by rapid response teams as part of the containment measures. The carcasses of the culled birds were disposed of as per the standard operating procedure.
The District Collector has issued an order banning movement and sale of duck, chicken quail, and other domestic birds, their egg, meat and waste (manure) in 12 local bodies (within 9 km radius of the hotspot) of Champakulam, Nedumudi, Muttar, Edathua, Veeyapuram, Karuvatta, Thrikkunnappuzha, Thakazhy, Purakkad, Ambalappuzha South, Ambalappuzha North, and Haripad municipality.
Besides, the place in ward 10 of Thakazhygrama panchayat where the disease was confirmed has been declared a containment zone. The movement of people and vehicles to and from the place has been banned.
Mr. Alexander directed the assistant conservator of forests to monitor migratory birds for avian influenza.
Apart from Thakazhy, duck mortality has also been reported from Nedumudi in Alappuzha, Vechoor and Kallara in the Kottayam district in recent days. The AHD has sent samples from these places for analyses but is yet to receive the test results.
It is the second time in less than a year bird was confirmed in the region. Earlier this year, avian flu caused by the H5N8 strain of the Influenza A virus was detected from six places in Kuttanad at Nedumudi, Thakazhy, Pallippad, Karuvatta, and Kainakary in Alappuzha district and Neendoor in Kottayam district.
No policy for handloom sector in the country: KTR (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Telangana RashtraSamithi (TRS) working president and Minister K.T. Rama Rao accused the Centre of not having any policy for handloom sector. He said that the Centre was cancelling the boards that would benefit weavers and instead imposed 5% GST on handloom sector.
“Handlooms sector in India is next to farming sector which would offer employment for lakhs of people. The cotton crop is being grown in large chunk of land across the nation.
We can leap forward if the Centre offers some encouragement. Instead, the Centre has been imposing restrictions and making the weavers’ sector worst hit,” said Mr. Rama Rao.
The TRS working president has been addressing a gathering after admitting former Rajya Sabha member and BJP leader Rapolu Ananda Bhaskar into the party along with others.
“China has been producing 34% of the fabric in the world. Countries like Bangladesh and Sri Lanka are better placed than India in handloom sector.
Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao and myself several times wrote letters to the Centre asking for encouraging handloom and power-loom sectors in the state. I had met every effort before the budget seeking financial assistance but of no use.
They have not offered any assistance to Kakatiya Mega Textile Park at Warangal stating that there was no policy to extend assistance for such big size parks,” said Mr. Rama Rao and recalled how the Centre had cancelled eight schemes in the last eight years.
Informing that the government had recently introduced NetannakuBima on the lines of RytuBima covering about 80,000 weavers in handloom and power loom sector, the TRS working president said that Mr. AnandBhaskar came forward to work along with TRS across the nation.
Editorial
The job and the man (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, International Relations)
At a time when ethnonationalist and majoritarian far-right parties are on the ascent in many democracies across the world, the rise of Rishi Sunak, a man of colour and a practising Hindu, to the premiership of the predominantly white, Christian U.K., has great symbolic value.
While his election as Britain’s first non-white Prime Minister points to the readiness of Conservative MPs to look beyond the racial and religious barriers for a solution to the crisis both party and country are in, his victory was particularly welcomed by sections in India, who see some historical fulfilment in a man of Indian origin ruling over India’s former colonial rulers.
But the power of symbolism is limited when it is tested with the hard realities of the day. In fact, the very circumstances that led to his rise should themselves serve as a warning for the new leader.
He is the fifth Prime Minister since the Tories’ victory in the 2010 general elections, and the third in the last two months. Liz Truss, his immediate predecessor, had also promised to revive the economy but exited in seven weeks amid a hostile market reaction to her policy measures and an open revolt among the Tory MPs.
When the Conservatives won an outright victory in the 2019 elections under Boris Johnson, not many expected Mr. Sunak, a former hedge fund manager, to end up as the party leader in three years.
And yet, he is now in 10 Downing Street, presiding over a party that is at war with itself and an economy that has an estimated budget deficit of $45 billion and is headed towards recession.
The country is also struggling with a cost-of-living crisis, with inflation hovering around 10%. But he does not have any magic bullet to offer.
As the budget deficit remains high and markets are edgy, he is likely to announce cost-cutting measures, but for Britons who are already grappling with high inflation, that would be bad news.
And as Russia’s Ukraine war is not expected to wind down any time soon, the energy crisis and inflationary pressure will stay.
An unkind hike (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
The Government recently increased the returns on a handful of small savings instruments for the ongoing October to December quarter by 0.1 to 0.3 percentage points.
Popular investment avenues for the middle class such as the Public Provident Fund (PPF) and the National Savings Certificate were left out.
On paper, the returns on these instruments are to be reset on a market-determined basis, with a spread of 0 to 100 basis points (one basis point equals 0.01%) over the yields on government securities with comparable maturities.
That this has not been adhered to is evident even at a cursory glance, given the long pause between rate changes. Following interest rate hikes this year to curb inflation, government securities’ yields have been shooting up.
This month, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) said that interest rates offered on various schemes in the current quarter are 44 to 77 basis points below the formula-implied rates.
The PPF, for instance, should have been earning 7.72% this quarter instead of the 7.1% accruing now. It is noteworthy that the central bank, which usually publishes the formula-based small savings rates every month or two, had not spelt them out from May to September, although it did note in August that the spread between current rates and the formula-based rates had turned ‘negative for most’ schemes.
For households that have been grappling with 6%-plus inflation since January, punctuated by a few months of 7%-plus price rise, these meagre hikes are far from enough to lift sentiment.
Bear in mind that this was the first change in these schemes’ rates in 27 months — after a sharp cut in the range of 0.5 and 1.4 percentage points across schemes introduced in April 2020.
That political considerations still determine the trajectory of small savers’ nest-egg sizes can be gauged by the few recent occasions when rates were changed, or rolled back.
The last time rates were hiked was in January 2019, just ahead of the Lok Sabha election. In March 2021, the Government had announced further cuts ranging from 0.4% to 1.1%, but withdrew the decision overnight, citing an ‘oversight’ amid a poll campaign for five States.
Making sense of an outreach to Pasmanda Muslims (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
There has been a considerable churn within the Indian Muslim community in response to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s appeal to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to make an outreach to deprived minority groups such as Pasmanda Muslims, especially in Uttar Pradesh.
The BJP president, J.P. Nadda, has directed party cadres to organise programmes for Pasmanda Muslims to accord them sneh (affection) and samman (respect).
Sceptics see it as an electoral tactic to fragment the social unity of Muslims and ameliorate the vote base of the BJP. However, considering that the BJP has triumphed in the past two general elections and multiple State elections without the electoral support of Muslims, this narrative seems off the mark.
Whatever may be the motivation, it does signal an inflection point in the outlook of the BJP vis-à-vis India’s largest minority — as a first serious attempt by the BJP to locate Muslims in its arc.
This development has spotlighted the identity of Pasmanda Muslims and issues related to social justice and stratification within the Muslim community.
It is true that the caste system, as has traditionally existed among the Hindus, is not acknowledged under Islam. Yet, it has been assimilated in the cultural life of Muslims owing to their centuries’ old coexistence with Hindus.
The distinctiveness of Indian Muslims lies in their ‘lived reality’, having more socio-cultural affinity with Hindus than with Muslims in foreign lands.
The Indian Muslim community can be stratified along three lines — Ashrafs (elite class), Ajlaf (backward class) and Arzal (most backward class).
According to estimates, Ashrafs constitute 15%-20% of the Muslim population. Pasmanda, literally meaning ‘those left out’ or ‘marginalised’, is a collective expression for Ajlaf and Arzal — who constitute the remaining 80%-85%.
The norm of hereditary occupational specialisation, as a feature of the Indian caste system, is mirrored in the occupational profile of Pasmanda Muslims — barbers, weavers, potters, faqirs, bidi workers, etc.
They are predominantly low-wage workers employed in the unorganised sector marked by pitiful work conditions. So, ‘Pasmanda’ is not a caste but a class which is representative of backward and subjugated castes within the Muslim community.
Opinion
Andhra Pradesh’s freebies conundrum (Page no. 9)
(GS Paper 2, Indian Polity)
In the debate raging over ‘freebies’, Andhra Pradesh’s case presents a paradox. Chief Minister Y. S. Jagan Mohan Reddy makes frequent visits to New Delhi and meets Prime Minister Narendra Modi with a long wish-list of financial demands. His last such meeting saw these demands cross ₹1 lakh crore.
But when he returns to Amaravati, Mr. Reddy doles out freebies and his government claims that it is fulfilling all the Navaratnalu (nine gems) promises which Mr. Reddy made before the 2019 Assembly elections.
His government claims that it has transferred ₹1.65 lakh crore as Navaratnalu, most of them direct benefit transfers, to people over the last three years, despite challenges such as the Centre pruning the State’s share of central taxes.
While seeking the Centre’s help, Mr. Reddy’s government was so upset with the Supreme Court’s scrutiny of freebies in a case that it decided to implead itself.
Apparently, it was worried that its voter-targeted apple cart would be upset in the 2024 Assembly elections if the Supreme Court passed any adverse order.
In his impleading affidavit, YSRCP General Secretary and Rajya Sabha MP V. Vijayasai Reddy argued that these freebies should be treated as “social investment”.
He expressed surprise over the way the two flagship welfare programmes of the State government — AmmaVodi (in which ₹15,000 is given a year to encourage mothers to send their children to school) and YSR RythuBharosa (in which ₹13,500 per annum in three installments is given to a farmer) — were treated as freebies.
How has the State been sustaining these freebies for three years given the impact of COVID-19 on the economy? Unsurprisingly, all these schemes are driven by loans raised from multiple sources.
The government has often adopted off-budget and ingenious methods, even side-stepping the Centre’s Net Borrowing Ceiling and Fiscal Responsibility and Budget Management norms.
The State does not have many options as its own resources are grossly inadequate. The State’s latest budget makes things clearer. The government presented the 2022-23 budget with an expenditure of ₹2.56 lakh crore and a revenue deficit of ₹17,036 crore.
The State’s revenue receipts, including an open market loan of ₹55,000 crore, was estimated at ₹1,91,225 crore though there was a shortfall of ₹22,923 crore in income going by the revised estimates for 2021-22.
For freebies, the government earmarked ₹48,802 crore. The budget projected total public debt to go up to ₹4,39,394 crore in 2022-23, up from ₹3,90,70 crore as per the revised estimates for 2021-22.
Explainer
The FM’s call for industrial investment (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, Indian Economy)
Last month, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman asked captains of industry what was holding them back from investing in manufacturing. She likened industry to Lord Hanuman from the Ramayana by stating that industry did not realise its own strength and that it should forge ahead with confidence. She said, “This is the time for India… We cannot miss the bus”.
Clearly, the Finance Minister did not see investments happening at a pace she would have liked. In the hope of revitalising private investment, the government had in September 2019 cut the tax rate for domestic companies from 30% to 22% if they stopped availing of any other tax SOP (standard operating procedure).
NiranjanRajadhyaksha, CEO of Artha Global, says that Indian private sector investment has been weak for almost a decade now. “If we look at drivers of economic growth right now, there are amber lights flashing.
The export story will be under threat because of the global slowdown, the government’s ability to support domestic demand would also be limited as the fiscal deficit comes down. Because of the K-shaped recovery, private consumption is only concentrated in some parts of the income pyramid.”
Let’s look at some indicators over the past few months; generally, changes in numbers are with respect to year-earlier figures, but when we have been through something as sudden and life-changing as a pandemic for at least two years, it is useful to see how figures from quarter to quarter or month to month have changed.
This gives us an idea of how well or poorly we are recovering. In the GDP figures for the quarter ended June, gross fixed capital formation (GFCF) at 2011-12 prices rose 9.6% to ₹12.77 lakh crore, from ₹11.66 lakh crore in Q1 of FY20, which was the pre-pandemic period.
This is in context of the overall GDP growth of 2.8% to ₹36.85 lakh crore in Q1 FY23 from ₹35.85 lakh crore in Q1 of FY20. Manufacturing GVA (gross value added) also rose 6.5% to ₹6,05,104 in Q1 FY23 from ₹5,68,104 in Q1, FY20.
However, when one observes manufacturing growth from the immediately preceding quarter April-June vs January-March, we see that the sector has suffered a 10.5% contraction.
While private final consumption expenditure, an essential pillar of our economy, climbed 26% year-on-year for the June quarter, the ₹22.08 lakh crore of private spending in April-June 2022 was a significant ₹54,000 crore, or 2.4%, less than that spent in the preceding quarter. And GFCF, which is viewed as a proxy for private investment, shrank quarter-on-quarter by 6.8%.
News
Panel studying child marriage Bill gets time to file report (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
With discussions on the controversial ‘The Prohibition of Child Marriage (Amendment) Bill, 2021’ still pending, Rajya Sabha Chairman JagdeepDhankar has given third extension to Parliamentary Panel on Education, Women, Children, Youth and Sports which is studying the Bill.
The Bill was first referred to the Parliamentary Standing Committee in December 2021. The panel has got an extension of three-months.
The committee so far has spoken to a host of stakeholders including NGOs working on gender issues as also religious bodies who had expressed reservations about the law.
The panel was to submit its report by the last monsoon session of the Parliament but couldn’t do so because its chairperson Vinay Sahasrabudhe retired and his replacement was not found.
Though according to sources, the discussions are still going on and it is nowhere close to the closing stage. Trinamool MP and committee member Sushmita Dev had pressed for deliberations with all women MPs from both Houses on the subject.
Congress MP T.N. Prathapan had asked for the panel to travel across the country to take into account the views of both urban and rural populations.
GEAC gives its nod for commercial cultivation of GM mustard yet again (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Science & Technology)
The Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) that functions under the Union Environment Ministry has yet again cleared the proposal for commercial cultivation of genetically modified (GM) mustard.
Though the GEAC had cleared the proposal in 2017, the Ministry had vetoed it and suggested the GEAC to hold more studies on the GM crop.
The GEAC had gone through the details submitted by the applicant, Centre for Genetic Manipulation of Crop Plants (CGMCP), and gave necessary approvals for the cultivation of GM mustard. This will be the second GM crop after GM cotton that can be commercially cultivated in the country now.
A GEAC meeting held on October 18 allowed the environmental release of two varieties of genetically engineered mustard, so that it can be used for developing new parental lines and hybrids under the supervision of the Indian Council of Agriculture Research (ICAR).
The environmental release of mustard hybrid Dhara Mustard Hybrid (DMH-11) for its seed production and testing as per existing ICAR guidelines and other extant rules/regulations prior to commercial release.
Considering the application of the CGMCP, the GEAC also set certain conditions for the clearance. It includes that the approval is for a limited period of four years and is renewable for two years at a time based on compliance report. External experts will visit the growing sites of the crop at least once during each season.
The applicant should also develop and deposit the DNA fingerprints of the approved varieties to the ICAR.
Activists questioned the decision of the GEAC. KavithaKuruganti of the Coalition for a GM-Free India warned the Centre against any such approval. She reminded Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav that he himself had written against GM crops earlier.
ISRO to boost NavIC, widen user base of location system (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Science & Technology)
The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is working on a series of improvements to the NavIC, or India’s equivalent of the Global Positioning System (GPS), so that more people are motivated to install it and use it.
Plans are also afoot to make its reach global rather than circumscribe it to India and a limited territory around it, said S. Somanath, Chairman, ISRO on the sidelines of the India Space Congress.
NavIC (Navigation with Indian Constellation), or the Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS), is a constellation of seven satellites that is akin to the American GPS, the European Galileo and the Russian GLONASS, and can be used to track location. The first of these satellites (IRNSS-1A) were launched in 2013 and the latest in 2018.
Though available for use in mainland India as well as a range of 1,500 km around it, it isn’t in wide regular use in India primarily because mobile phones haven’t been made compatible to process its signals.
The Indian government has been pressing manufacturers to add compatibility and has set a deadline of January 2023 but media reports suggest this is unlikely before 2025.
A major forthcoming change, Mr. Somanath told to add the L1 band into NavIC. This bandwidth is part of the GPS and is the most usedfor civilian navigational use.
Currently NavIC is only compatible with the L5 and S bands and hasn’t easily penetrated into the civilian sector. We are therefore getting ready with L1 band satellites now.
The other major step would be to increase the “safety” of the signals. “There’s Long Code and Short Code. Currently (NavIC) only provides short code.
This has to become Long Code for the use of the strategic sector. This prevents the signal from being breached. This had been part of the original scheme for NavIC but less work has gone into it so far. We are now asking the government to allow us to do all this,” he added. “Unless we do this, the user base will not widen.”
There are five more satellites in the offing to replace defunct NavIC satellites that would be launched in the coming months.
However, to make NavIC truly “global” like GPS, more satellites would need to be placed in an orbit closer to earth than the current constellation, said Mr. Somanath. “Right now, NavIC’s reach is only 1,500 km beyond Indian territory. But for our ships and airplanes travelling beyond that we’d need satellites in Medium Earth Orbit.
World
Countries far off track from their climate vows, says UN (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
International climate pledges remain far off track to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C, according to a UN report released on Wednesday, less than two weeks ahead of high-stakes negotiations to tackle global warming.
The combined climate pledges of more than 190 nations that signed up to the 2015 Paris climate deal put Earth on track to warm around 2.5°C compared to pre-industrial levels by the century's end.
With the planet already battered by climate-enhanced heatwaves, storms and floods after just 1.2°C of warming, experts say the world is still failing to act with sufficient urgency to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
We are still nowhere near the scale and pace of emission reductions required to put us on track toward a 1.5°C world.To keep this goal alive, national governments need to strengthen their climate action plans now and implement them in the next eight years.
The UN's climate experts have said emissions compared to 2010 levels need to fall 45% by 2030 in order to meet the Paris deal's more ambitious goal.
In this latest report, the UN said that current commitments from governments around the world will in fact increase emissions by 10.6% by 2030, from 2010. This was a slight improvement from a similar analysis a year ago.
When nations met in Glasgow last year for a previous round of climate negotiations, they agreed to speed up their climate pledges to cut carbon pollution this decade and increase financial flows to vulnerable developing nations.
But only 24 countries, of 193, had updated their plans at the time of the report, which Mr. Stiell said was "disappointing".
"Government decisions and actions must reflect the level of urgency, the gravity of the threats we are facing, and the shortness of the time we have remaining to avoid the devastating consequences of runaway climate change," he said.
He called on governments to revisit and strengthen their carbon-cutting plans in line with the Paris temperature goals before the UN climate meeting, which will be held from November 6 to November 18 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt.
Nations are meeting in the shadow of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and cascading global crises of hunger, energy prices and living costs, exacerbated by extreme weather.
Research by the World Resources Institute suggests that the world needs to curb emissions six times faster by 2030 than the current trajectory to meet the 1.5°C warming cap.