Whatsapp 93125-11015 For Details
Manufacturing and mining output contracted year-on-year in the July-September quarter, dragging Gross Value Added growth to a slower-than-expected 5.6%, which together with high inflation and weak exports combined to slow overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth to a 6.3% pace, as per estimates released by the National Statistical Office.
At a little over ₹75 lakh crore, India’s GDP in the first half of 2022-23 was 5.7% larger than the comparable pre-COVID level. The April to June quarter of this fiscal had witnessed GDP growth of 13.5%, with GVA expanding 12.7%.While growth in agriculture GVA quickened to 4.6% in the second quarter, from 4.5% in the preceding three months, manufacturing and mining GVA contracted 4.3% and 2.8%, respectively, in Q2 compared with a year earlier.
For the first half of 2022-23, the Indian economy recorded 9.7% growth in GDP, compared with 13.7% in the same period last year, while GVA rose 9%, compared with its 12.8% surge.
Chief Economic Adviser V. AnanthaNageswaran said the data confirms that the economy’s recovery from the pandemic continues and is on track to clock between 6.8% to 7% real GDP growth this year.
Among GVA components, the sharpest growth in Q2 was reported by the contact-intensive trade, hotels, transport, communication and services related to broadcasting segment which surged 14.7%.
India U.S. exercise near LAC irks China (Page no. 1)
(GS Paper 3, Defence)
China seeks to “prevent” tensions along the Line of Actual Control (LAC) from pushing India “to partner more closely” with the U.S. and has warned American officials “to not interfere” with its relationship with India, the U.S. Department of Defence said in its latest report.
Separately, Beijing said it had expressed concern to New Delhi over the India-U.S. joint military exercise YudhAbhyas being held in Uttarakhand, about 100 km from the LAC.
Among the key takeaways, the report said that over the course of 2021, and as seen in 2022, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) increasingly turned to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) as “an instrument of statecraft in support of its national strategy and global ambitions”, while also highlighting that the PLA had “adopted more dangerous, coercive and aggressive actions” in the Indo-Pacific region.
Throughout the stand-off, PRC [People’s Republic of China] officials sought to downplay the severity of the crisis, emphasising Beijing’s intent to preserve border stability and prevent the stand-off from harming other areas of its bilateral relationship with India.
It added that beginning in May 2020, Chinese and Indian forces faced off in clashes with rocks, batons, and clubs wrapped in barbed wire at multiple locations along the LAC.
Differing perceptions of border demarcations along the LAC combined with recent infrastructure construction, led to multiple unarmed clashes, an ongoing stand-off, and military build-ups on both sides of the India-China border.
Further, referring to the violent Galwan clash of June 2020, which resulted in the death of 20 Indian soldiers and at least four Chinese personnel, the most violent clash between the two countries in 45 years, the report said the Western Theatre Command conducted large-scale mobilisation and deployment of PLA forces along the LAC.
Editorial
An Indian recipe to quell micronutrient malnutrition (Page no. 6)
(GS Paper 2, Issues related to poverty and hunger
When it comes to nutrition, or more specifically micronutrient malnutrition, there is an urgent need to address the maladies that poor nutrition can inflict on the masses, especially given the diverse populations in India.
Malnutrition exacerbates the magnitude of the public health crises we face, and is India’s most serious challenge and concern. As in National Family Health Survey-5 data, every second Indian woman is anaemic, every third child is stunted and malnourished, and every fifth child is wasted.
According to an FAO Food Security Report for 2021, India ranks 101 out of 116 countries in the Global Hunger Index 2021, with a 15.3% undernourished population, the highest proportion of stunted children (30%), and wasted children (17.3%).
The picture the Global Nutrition Report 2021 paints is cause for concern, noting that stunting among children in India is significantly higher than the Asian average of 21.8%.
Since the 1920s, developed countries and high-income countries have successfully tackled the issue of malnutrition through food fortification.
Of late, the low-and middle-income countries, such as India, have pursued food fortification as one of the strategies to tackle micronutrient malnutrition.
Put simply, food fortification is the process of adding nutrients to food. For instance, rice and wheat are fortified with iron, folic acid and vitamin B 12, and salt fortified with iron and iodine. Iodised salt has been in use for the past few decades.
Pilot projects on the distribution of fortified rice have been taken up in select States, including Maharashtra (Gadchiroli district) as part of a targeted Public Distribution programme for the masses.
Opinion
Towards a robust triumvirate (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Constitutional Bodies)
Afive-judge Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court is examining a bunch of petitions recommending reforms in the process of appointment of members of the Election Commission.
Their hearings have come not a moment too soon. It is hoped that the Bench will also examine electoral reforms suggested to governments by successive Election Commissions over the last two decades or so.
A list of over 20 reform proposals was compiled in 2004. More proposals were added to the list over time and are pending with government.
These range from strengthening the Commission’s inherent structure to handling the misuse of muscle and money power during elections, which violate the Model Code of Conduct.
This article deals with two issues. The first, under consideration, is whether Election Commissioners should be selected by the executive or by a collegium. The idea of a collegium is not new.
The Dinesh Goswami Committee in 1990 suggested that the Chief Election Commissioner be appointed by the President (read: executive) in consultation with the Chief Justice of India and the Leader of the Opposition (and in case the Leader of the Opposition was not available, then consultation be held with the leader the largest opposition group in the Lok Sabha).
It said this process should have statutory backing. Importantly, it applied the same criteria to the appointments of Election Commissioners, along with consultation with the Chief Election Commissioner.
The National Commission to Review the Working of the Constitution, under Justice M.N. Venkatachaliah, said that the Chief Election Commissioner and other Election Commissioners should be appointed on the recommendation of a body comprising the Prime Minister, the Leaders of the Opposition in the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha, the Speaker of the Lok Sabha and the Deputy Chairman of the Rajya Sabha.
The 255th Report of the Law Commission, chaired by Justice A.P. Shah, said the appointment of all the Election Commissioners should be made by the President in consultation with a three-member collegium consisting of the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition of the Lok Sabha (or the leader of the largest opposition party in the Lok Sabha), and the Chief Justice of India.
Explainer
The Assam Meghalaya border firing (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Polity and Governance)
A bid by the Assam police and forest personnel to catch alleged timber smugglers from Meghalaya led to the killing of six people at a place claimed by each State to be within its territory.
Apart from heightening tensions along a stretch of the interstate boundary, the incident sparked protests and stray cases of violence in Meghalaya’s capital Shillong and a temporary suspension of vehicular movement between the two States. It also led to a delay in the process of resolving the Assam-Meghalaya boundary dispute.
Assam Chief Minister HimantaBiswaSarma agreed with his Meghalaya counterpart Conrad K. Sangma that the firing at about 3 am on November 22 was unprovoked.
But the Assam government has insisted the incident had nothing to do with the boundary dispute and was the fallout of its crusade against the smuggling of timber by miscreants who operate on either side of the undefined sections of the 884.9 km boundary between the two States.
But the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), taking note of a memorandum by Mr. Sangma, attributed the firing to the border dispute, “a larger issue pending for long”.
Had the dispute been settled, such type of incidents would have been averted, the commission said on November 29. The commission further said the incident allegedly happened after the detention of a timber-laden truck, chased by the Assam police and forest personnel, at Mukroh village.
The villagers became agitated upon the entry of Assam police and forest personnel and surrounded them, leading to the firing. Five villagers and an Assam Forest guard were killed.
What seemed to be a local incident from far became fodder for pressure groups in poll-bound Meghalaya to rail against the Sangma-led coalition government for failing to protect border residents.
Are ransomware attacks increasing in India? (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 3, Cyber Security)
On November 23, e-services at the All-India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) were crippled by what is being suspected to be a ransomware attack.
The Delhi Police’s Intelligence Fusion & Strategic Operations have registered a case and launched investigations to identify the perpetrators, while cyber security experts are employing software tools for data recovery. They have been able to retrieve a significant number of files.
However, pending sanitisation of the entire network and its nodes, all hospital services are currently being executed manually. AIIMS has a Local Area Network comprising more than 6,500 computers supporting the institute, its hospital, centres and other departments.
While a probe is underway to determine if essential safety protocols were in place, measures are being taken to thwart any such attack in the future.
Ransomware is a type of malicious software, used by cyber criminals, to infect a computer system by blocking access to the stored data by encrypting the files. A ransom is then demanded from the owner in exchange for the decryption key.
While it is not yet clear as to how exactly the AIIMS computer systems were targeted, the malware may usually be injected remotely by tricking the user into downloading it upon clicking an ostensibly safe web link sent via email or other means, including hacking.
It can spread throughout the network by exploiting existing vulnerabilities. Ransomware attacks can also be accompanied by theft of sensitive data for other sinister motives.
News
Why constitutional validity of J&K Reorganisation Act clause went unchallenged: SC (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, Government Policies and Interventions)
The Supreme Court quizzed petitioners about the reason for not challenging the constitutional validity of a specific provision in the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act which confers the Delimitation Commission with the power to “carry out” the re-adjustment of constituencies in the Union Territory formed after the abrogation of Article 370 in the erstwhile State.
A Bench of Justices Sanjay Kishan Kaul and A.S. Oka said the petition filed by Srinagar residents, Haji Abdul Gani Khan and Mohammad Ayub Mattoo, was limited to a challenge of the notification issued by the Centre in March 2020 establishing the Jammu and Kashmir Delimitation Commission and a second one in March 2021 extending its term for the purpose of conducting delimitation only for Jammu and Kashmir.
Justice Oka said the notifications drew their power specifically from Section 62(2) of the 2019 Act. Section 62(2) provides for the readjustment of constituencies to be carried out by the Delimitation Commission.
The court asked why the petitioners without challenging the source of the government’s notifications, that is Section 62(2), had confined their challenge solely to the notifications.
The petitioners, represented by senior advocate Ravi Shankar Jandhyala and advocates Sriram Parakkat and M.S. Vishnu Shankar, argued that only the Election Commission of India (ECI), under Section 60 of the 2019 Act, was empowered to conduct the delimitation exercise.
They further argued before the Bench that Article 170 of the Constitution barred delimitation exercise on the basis of the 2011 census. It had to either happen on the basis of 2001 census or await “the first census after the year 2026”.
The petitioners alleged that Sections 60 and 61 of the 2019 Act, which defined the role of the ECI in the process of delimitation of constituencies, were in contradiction to Section 62.
SC worried over the effect of GM crops on the livelihood of women farm labourers (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Biotechnology)
The Supreme Court expressed concern about the plight of thousands of women agricultural labourers in rural areas, traditionally engaged in de-weeding, who will be part of the human cost if the government permits the commercial cultivation of herbicide-tolerant crops such as GM mustard in India.
Justice Dinesh Maheshwari, the lead judge on the Bench, agreed that women were an integral part of the Indian agricultural landscape, from paddy fields to tea estates, across the country.
Senior advocate Sanjay Parikh, for a petitioner, said the widespread use of herbicide-tolerant crops would encourage farmers to spray chemical weed-killers, leaving toxic chemical residue in large amounts on the crops.
The Supreme Court's own Technical Expert Committee [TEC] had said that these GM crops were not meant for agriculture in the Indian context. They may be suitable in the western context where there are large farms, but not here.
Advocate Prashant Bhushan, for activist Aruna Rodrigues, submitted that India has 5,477 varieties of mustard, which would be at risk.
He argued that the regulatory system under the Genetic Engineering Appraisal Committee (GEAC) which cleared the environmental release of Dhara Mustard Hybrid-11 (DMH-11), a genetically-engineered variant of mustard, was "horrendous" and riddled with conflict of interest.
Mr. Bhushan said the Department of Biotechnology had funded DMH 11 and then was part of the regulatory mechanism. The environmental release of the hybrid mustard variety was cleared despite warnings from the parliamentary committee and the Supreme Court's Technical Expert Committee report calling for its ban. Besides, the government had not placed the biosafety dossier on the GM crop in the public domain.
SC seeks Centre’s response on evolving a programme to protect Great Indian Bustard (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
The Supreme Court on Wednesday sought the government's response about evolving a 'Project Great Indian Bustard' conservation programme like the 'Project Tiger' to bring attention to the peril faced by the critically endangered bird species.
'Project Tiger' is touted by the government as one of the most successful conservation programmes for a single species in the world.
The court is hearing a series of petitions highlighting the numerous deaths of Great Indian Bustards due to power transmission lines crisscrossing their habitat in Gujarat and Rajasthan.
In its order, the Special Bench, also comprising Justices A.S. Bopanna and V. Ramasubramanian, directed the Chief Secretaries of Gujarat and Rajasthan to undertake and complete a comprehensive exercise within four weeks to find out the total length of the transmission lines in question and the number of bird diverters required in the priority areas of the birds' habitats..
The court was not however, for the time being, ready to agree with the Centre's plea to expand its expert committee formed in April 2022 to study the problem.
The government wanted the court to allow the Additional Secretary of the Renewable Energy Ministry and the Chief Operating Officer of the Central Transmission Utility of India Limited (CTUIL) to join the committee as domain experts on transmission lines.
Instead, the Bench said the expert committee was free to consult the CTUIL officer for his expert opinion for now. The court asked the government to also tap institutional experts on electricity transmission and connected study areas from the IITs.
The court sought a report on the steps taken for the tendering process and installation of bird diverters. It said the bird diverters should comply with the quality norms laid down by the expert committee on consultation with the CTUIL officer.
160-200 mn Indians could be exposed to lethal heat waves annually: World Bank report (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 3, Environment)
From 2030 onwards, more than 160 to 200 million people could be exposed to a lethal heat wave in India every year, and around 34 million Indians will face job losses due to heat stress-related productivity decline.
By 2037, the demand for cooling is likely to be eight times more than current levels, the World Bank has said in a report.
In this scenario, it is imperative for India to deploy alternative and innovative energy efficient technologies for keeping spaces cool.
According to the report, “Climate Investment Opportunities in India’s Cooling Sector”, this could open an investment opportunity of $1.6 trillion by 2040 besides reducing greenhouse gas emissions significantly and creating 3.7 million jobs.
With the demand for cooling shooting up, there will be a demand for a new air-conditioner every 15 seconds, the report said, leading to an expected rise of 435% in annual greenhouse gas emissions over the next two decades.
Thus, there is a need to shift to a more energy-efficient pathway which could lead to a substantial reduction in expected CO2 levels.
The report proposes a roadmap to support New Delhi’s India Cooling Action Plan (ICAP) 2019, through new investments in three major sectors: building construction, cold chains and refrigerants.
Adopting climate-responsive cooling techniques as a norm in both private and government-funded constructions can ensure that those at the bottom of the economic ladder are not disproportionately affected by rising temperatures.
The report suggests that India’s affordable housing program for the poor, the Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana (PMAY), can adopt such changes on scale.
It also proposed enacting a policy for district cooling which could lead to the consumption of 20-30% less power than the most efficient conventional cooling solutions.
District cooling technologies generate chilled water in a central plant which is then distributed to multiple buildings via underground insulated pipes. T
his brings down the cost for providing cooling to individual buildings. Apart from this, guidelines for implementation of local and city-wide urban cooling measures such as cool-roofs should also be considered.
Business
New digital lending norms kick in today (Page no. 14)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The Reserve Bank’s modified guidelines on digital lending that seek to protect customers from exorbitant interest rates by certain entities and also check unethical loan recovery practices will come into effect from Thursday.
Under the new norms, all loan disbursals and repayments are required to be executed only between the bank accounts of borrower and the regulated entities (like banks and NBFCs) without any pass-through/ pool account of the Lending Service Providers (LSPs).
Also, "any fees, charges, etc, payable to LSPs in the credit intermediation process shall be paid directly by RE and not by the borrower", the Reserve Bank said in a press release while conveying the regulatory stance.
Executive Chairman of Andromeda Loans, V. Swaminathan, said, that since digital loans and online repayments have gained more prominence post-pandemic, the need of the hour is competent systems and processes that would further strengthen data privacy and security of confidential information shared between customers and regulated entities.
While the cost of compliance may be significant for businesses that haven’t revamped their core business models, we need to trust the central bank as it tackles government issues and consumer complaints related to digital lending platforms, such as the deployment of arbitrary collection strategies.
While issuing the guidelines in August, the RBI had said the instructions are applicable to the 'existing customers availing fresh loans' and to 'new customers getting onboarded'.
Anil Pinapala, CEO and Founder, Vivifi Finances said the RBI has standardised the cost disclosures with a uniform Key Fact Statement (KFS) that details an all-in APR (Annual Percentage Rate), which factors in all the fees and interest that are being charged to the customers, empowering them with the ability to compare this rate across banks and NBFCs.