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Large numbers of Afghans crammed into trucks and buses in Pakistan, heading to the border to return home ahead of the expiration of a Pakistani government deadline for those who are in the country illegally to leave or face deportation.
The deadline is part of a new anti-migrant crackdown that targets all undocumented or unregistered foreigners, according to Islamabad. But it mostly affects Afghans, who make up the bulk of migrants in Pakistan.
The expulsion campaign has drawn widespread criticism from U.N. agencies, rights groups and the Taliban-led administration in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials warn that people who are in the country illegally face arrest and deportation after Oct. 31. U.N. agencies say there are more than 2 million undocumented Afghans in Pakistan, at least 600,000 of whom fled after the Taliban takeover in 2021.
Human Right Watch on Tuesday accused Pakistan of resorting to “threats, abuse, and detention to coerce Afghan asylum seekers without legal status” to return to Afghanistan.
The New York-based watchdog appealed for authorities to drop the deadline and work with the U.N. refugee agency to register those without papers.
Front Page
Poll bonds anonymous since Govt protecting the citizen’s right to privacy, SG tells SC (Page no. 3)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Solicitor General Tushar Mehta told the Supreme Court, which began hearing the constitutional challenge against the electoral bonds scheme, that political affiliation forms the “inner core of a person’s private life” which the State is protecting through the poll bonds.
Political self-expression, either through voting or donations to one’s preferred party or candidate lies at the heart of the zone of privacy which the government is constitutionally obligated to respect,” Mehta stated in a 123-page note submitted to the Court.
“It is submitted that given the sensitivity involved in expression of one’s political affiliation, there certainly lies a legitimate state interest in protecting the same and in providing reassurance to citizens that lawful expressions of such political affiliation would remain protected and the person concerned would have their privacy respected,” he stated.
Govt & Politics
PM launches My Bharat platform for youth (Page no. 7)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for Amrit Vatika and Amrit Mahotsav Memorial and launched the Mera Yuva Bharat (MY Bharat) platform, designed for the country’s youth, at an event marking the culmination of the “Meri Maati Mera Desh” campaign’s Amrit Kalash Yatra at Kartavya Path in New Delhi Tuesday, coinciding with the closing ceremony of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav.
Addressing the gathering, Modi recalled how the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav was initiated in March 2021, inspired by the Dandi March.
“Just as the Dandi March saw increasing participation from the people, the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav witnessed such massive public engagement that it created a new chapter in our history.”
Union Home Minister Amit Shah said, “Today, at the culmination of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, marks the beginning of Amrit-kaal.”
Express Network
Road accident up by 12% to4.6 lakh from last year 19 deaths / hour : Report (Page no. 8)
(GS Paper 2, Governance)
Delhi reported the highest number of road accident deaths among cities with a population of over a million people last year, according to a report released by the Union Road Transport and Highways Ministry.
Delhi recorded 5,652 accidents in 2022, up from 4,720 in 2021, the report said. As many as 1,461 people were killed in road accidents last year while 5,201 were injured.
The report showed that 10 cities with the most road accidents, including Delhi, Indore, Bengaluru, Jabalpur, Chennai, Jaipur, and Hyderabad, contributed to 46.37 per cent of the total accidents of 50 cities with over a million population.
The report stated that overspeeding was the main traffic violation associated with accidents, accident-related deaths and injuries in the 50 cities. “Overspeeding in the 50 million plus cities accounted for 67.6 per cent of the road accidents, 65.5 per cent of road accident deaths and 66.3 per cent of injuries,” said the report.
Editorial
In the interest of all (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 2, International Organisation)
The General Assembly of the United Nation adopted a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, allowing for the release of hostages and delivery of aid to Gaza.
In the past, the highest priority for Israel has been the return of their nationals from captivity. Even the return of dead bodies of their soldiers or civilians was extremely important for them.
Israel has scores of their soldiers and civilians in Hamas custody. Nevertheless, currently, its priority seems to be to “eliminate” Hamas.
Israel has absolutely refused to agree to any kind of cease-fire as it fears that Hamas will exploit the cease-fire to regroup, rearm and relaunch missiles and rockets into Israel.
Who can say that the Israeli apprehension is unjustified? As of now, Israel is launching fierce aerial bombardments, indiscriminately killing civilians, and destroying whatever infrastructure exists in Gaza, in the expectation that at some stage, the bombings would have inflicted so much damage, pummelled Hamas infrastructure such as tunnels and other platforms so thoroughly, reduced their morale so low, that the Israeli Defence Forces would hardly face any opposition.
Ideas Page
Where Alan turing started it (Page no. 10)
(GS Paper 3, International Relation)
The London summit this week on the safe use of Artificial Intelligence could be an important first step towards the global governance of a technology that offers much promise and unprecedented danger.
Convened by the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday and Thursday at Bletchley Park outside London, the summit will have the US Vice President Kamala Harris and several other world leaders in attendance.
Many top honchos of the technology companies are expected to join them. The participation has been limited to about 100 people to facilitate serious and intensive discussion.
Part of Sunak’s motivation, critics allege, is to shore up his standing as a global leader amid the certain prospects, as of now at least, that he will preside over the defeat of the Conservative Party in the next general elections.
Whatever his personal political interest might be, Sunak is certainly trying to claim a leadership role for Britain in the global governance of AI.
Express Network
Air quality: SC seeks response from 5 states (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 2, Judiciary)
Noting that efforts to reduce air pollution in the national capital were not reflecting on the ground, the Supreme Court Tuesday directed the Delhi, Punjab, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan governments to file affidavits listing the steps taken by them to prevent this.
A three-judge bench presided by Justice S K Kaul gave the states a week’s time to file their responses.
The bench, also comprising Justice Sudhanshu Dhulia and P K Mishra, said this after the Commission for Air Quality Management in National Capital Region and Adjoining Areas said in a status report that stubble burning in neighbouring states — which is one of the main reasons for air pollution in Delhi — had come down.
The report pointed out that “following frequent reviews and daily monitoring of the fire counts as per the Standard Protocol developed by ISRO for the Commission, the number of events of paddy stubble burning” had decreased “for the period between September 15 and October 24 during 2022 and 2023 respectively”.
Southern peninsular India sees 6th driest October in 123 years ; 60% less rainfall (Page no. 12)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The India Meteorological Department (IMD) said on Tuesday that southern peninsular India this year experienced the sixth driest October in 123 years.
This region – comprising Kerala, Mahe, south interior Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Karaikal, Puducherry, coastal Andhra Pradesh, Yanam and Rayalaseema – received only 74.9mm of rain in October, which was over 60 per cent below normal.
Southern peninsular India during October sees rainfall from both the retreating southwest monsoon and the incoming northeast monsoon. But this year, the region remained dry for nearly 25 days in October. Unlike the past few years, the southwest monsoon ended nearly on time after a 134-day season this year.
One of the major contributors to this poor rainfall was the timing of the northeast monsoon coinciding with other oceanic factors.
While the northeast monsoon onset date was realised on October 21, the active Bay of Bengal and cyclogenesis around the same time influenced the monsoon onset.
Explained
What a normal monsoon hide (Page no. 15)
(GS Paper 1, Geography)
The monsoon season this year ended with 94 per cent overall rainfall, making it the eighth year in succession that the seasonal rainfall has been broadly in the normal range. This makes it seem as though monsoon rainfall in the country has been remarkably consistent in recent years.
But that is far from being the case, as is evident from common experience too. There have been large variations in the distribution of rainfall, in spatial as well as temporal terms.
While some days produced very heavy rainfall, prolonged periods went extremely dry. Similarly, a majority of the districts received very little rainfall during most of the season. This rainfall variability only seems to be increasing, possibly because of climate change.
At the district level, rainfall has been highly erratic. During the four-month monsoon period, there have been very few instances of districts receiving normal daily rainfall.
A new analysis by Climate Trends, a research organisation, found that districts getting normal daily rainfall was an extremely rare occurrence.
Out of the nearly 85,000 district rain-days — 121 days of rainfall for each of the 718 districts — only 6 per cent were found to be normal.
Economy
Fiscal deficit widens to 39% of full year target in Apr – Sept (Page no. 17)
(GS Paper 3, Economy)
The central government has set itself a medium-term target of reducing the fiscal deficit to at most 4.5 percent of GDP by 2025-26.
The central government's fiscal deficit widened to Rs 7.02 lakh crore in April-September from Rs 6.43 lakh crore in April-August, data released by the Controller General of Accounts on October 31 showed.
At Rs 7.02 lakh crore, the fiscal deficit for the first half of the current financial year accounts for 39.3 percent of the full-year target of Rs 17.87 lakh crore.
The fiscal deficit for April-September 2022 was 37.3 percent of the target for 2022-23.
For the second month in a row, the Centre's fiscal deficit was lower compared to the year ago period, coming in at Rs 59,035 crore in September, down 25 percent year-on-year. This was aided by continued robust growth in tax collections.